Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man 2, Thor, or the Avengers, along with the characters, the quotes, and everything else associated with Marvel.
Apologizing for any spelling/grammar mistakes beforehand.
Natasha called Potts' number the next morning. Stark hadn't returned last night, and she had regretted laying low in the hotel without checking in with him. Potts would be furious; and she was:
"Natalie! What's the meaning of this? No contact at all with these circumstances?"
"Ms. Potts, I-"
"Save it. Get over here now."
With a brittle tone Potts related to Natasha the address for a burger restaurant. She must have been embarrassed by the sheer absurdity of the location, hanging up on Natasha as soon as she was done.
The traffic around the hotel was no better than yesterday; it took Natasha half an hour just to escape the cars rimming a barrier around the Prix site. When she arrived, Potts was in her face before she even touched the restaurant's doors.
"Took you long enough." Potts yanked the door open for her.
The chilly atmosphere inside resonated Potts' attitude. Stark sprawled over one side of a booth, tossing fries into his mouth, and it took her three slaps on his thighs to get him to sit straight.
"I told you she'd come back," he said to Potts, pointing at Natasha.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts. I had-"
"Fry?" Stark shook a paper tray at her.
Natasha shook her head. Potts was watching the both of them, her disbelieving look snapping back and forth, her cheeks smouldering.
"Natalie, where were you?" She asked. "I sent Happy to look for you. I phoned you about thirty times a minute. I-"
"Oh, leave her alone, Pep." Stark groaned. "What did you want my P.A to do? Cheerlead for me? I mean that would've been nice, but I'd rather have her as my boxing-"
"We need to keep everyone together. I pay her good money for her job."
Stark ignored her. "You hungry?" He asked Natasha. "They've got really nice cold sandwiches here."
Potts sighed. "Tony, we need to leave."
"The milkshakes are good, too." He continued his offer.
"Tony! We have to go."
"Ok. But milkshake for my notary first."
"Fine, fine! I'll order. Now get out."
The three of them packed into Hogan's car. Stark rode shotgun, while the two others took the backseat. Natasha bit the straw on her drink cautiously. This was ridiculous, being stuck in a car with these folks, pressured into drinking a chocolate milkshake while they drove to the airport for the flight back to Malibu.
Once on the plane Potts retreated to a small, closed-off office to work. Hogan hogged the couch. Stark floated around the narrow rooms, alternating between talking to JARVIS and himself. Natasha plowed through the hundreds of e-mails in her inbox. Inquiries surrounding Stark and his company she could handle, but not ones for the actual incident, having missed the show herself. Potts walked past while Natasha was still on the first page of mail, told her to leave the messages for when they get home, and gave her time off for the duration of the flight.
Natasha spent the next few hours sucking on a cup of ice cubes and clicking through articles and news stories. Debates on social networks generated enough aggression for entire sites to collapse, and all pointed to the same question: Can Iron Man still protect us, and should the government confiscate his suits?
Natasha had no answer herself.
She closed the tabs and played internet Tetris.
Some time later, Stark slunk pass her and into the kitchen. Exceptionally quiet since they boarded the plane, the only words from him were a few half-hearted attempts at talking to Hogan and mumbling about cycles and ionizers under his breath. Not a word to her or Potts, knowing that he would be treated like the last speaker at a presentation that no one wanted to hear.
Cupboards slammed, plastic rustled, and a soft "find me a recipe" followed the clangor in the kitchen.
A constant string of curses and clanking chinaware dragged on for an hour. At some point a burnt smell so unpleasant invaded the air that Natasha couldn't help but block her nose with the side of her hand and breathe through her mouth. Stark sighed, spat a few colorful swears about kitchen appliances and stuck his head out the doorway.
"Hey, you. Lady."
"Yes, Mr. Stark?" She paused her game.
"Do you know how to cook? Can you help me?"
"I'm no good either, sorry."
"Oh, it's ok, I'll figure it out." He looked crestfallen.
"What are you making?" Natasha asked. What sort of problem could cooking pose for a man who toyed daily with active explosives and microscopic wiring? A rubber spatula?
"...Spaghetti..." Stark grimaced and held up a ladle of nondescript goo. The gunk dripped onto the floor.
"Well, why don't you try something easier?" She eyed the mess uneasily.
"Like?"
"I don't know, an omelet?" She shrugged.
Stark vanished. "Omelet recipe, JARVIS," he said.
The fridge opened and closed. "No cheese, JARVIS."
The chorus of smashing spoons and bowls resumed. Stark reappeared after a half hour. "Can you come look?" He asked, wringing his hands together.
Natasha stood and leaned over just far enough to see what he had made. The yellowish pile on the plate succeeded in the general color of an omelet, except for a big burnt spot in one corner. The spinach and mushrooms looked like he had thrown them on the last minute, and liquid egg pooled on the bottom.
"I've seen better... And worse," Natasha commented. "You might want to cook it a bit longer though."
"Yeah, I know. I'll microwave it."
She raised an eyebrow.
Stark walked out with probably his worst creation to date a few minutes later. Potts, calloused to his questionable antics, handled it well. They pushed each other around with their usual banter before she asked something that jerked Natasha's attention from her game:
"Tony, what are you not telling me?" The hurt in Potts' voice protruded their otherwise drawling conversation.
A long, tense expanse of time passed before Stark replied, his syllables tensed:
"I don't want to go home at all. Let's cancel my birthday party and uh... We're in Europe. Let's go to Venice. Chipriani, remember? It's a great place to be healthy."
Be healthy? Now? The last time Natasha checked his concentration level earlier this morning, he had peaked to 78%.
"I-I don't think this is the right time, we're in a... kind of a mess," Potts said softly, the end of her sentence dissipating like steam.
"Yeah, well maybe that's why it's the best time."
6:43 PM. Stark, less than useless with the press, slipped downstairs to brood once they returned to the mansion, and the music he blasted in there boomed through the entire building. Potts carted out laptops and documents for her and Natasha. Stocked on beverages, they prepared for an evening of dry throats and tired, gritty eyes. A long screen set up on the wall before them reran yesterday's attack and streamed the news. Natasha took care to only take the slightest glance; she might have gotten over the initial shock of seeing Vanko after all these years, but that didn't mean she could sip her orange juice without chewing on the rim of the glass whenever he came up on the screen.
James Rhodes, a friend of Stark's, visited. He lingered by the corner of the room, watching the TV screen with Natasha and Potts, a frown overflowing on his face. Currents of disappointment spun up a hurricane inside that tense body leaning against the wall. Stark was going to get an earful.
After he had left, out of a sudden, Stark banged his shoes up the stairs to join the women. "It's 7:30. Where's my birthday party?"
Potts said a hurried good-bye to the interviewer on the phone and looked at him. "You said you wanted it canceled. It's two weeks early, anyway, can't we reschedule?"
"Uh, no?" He spread his arms.
"Tony, I'm wearing my vocal chords and fingers to dust here trying to fix the hole you've blown in the media, and you want to party? Do you care at all?"
"Of course I care. I want my party. That's why I'm standing here."
"You can't have it." Potts plastered her attention to her laptop.
Stark looked to Natasha. "You. What's your say on this?"
Natasha ignored him.
"Look, I want my party. If I don't get my party within an hour I'm blowing this place up."
"Tony!" Potts slammed her laptop shut.
"I'm not kidding. You know I'm not kidding. You know where and what the wirings around this place is for."
"Ok, ok! You're getting your stupid party." Potts gave in. "But I want no part in this." She turned to Natasha. "Natalie, fix the place up with Happy. Confirm the guest lists. Whatever. I'm going in my office. I don't want anyone knocking on my door."
In a whirlwind she clawed the papers and tablets on the table into a crumpled pile, crammed them in her arms, and stormed out of the room.
The guests began to pool in front of the main entrance around 9:00. Natasha waded neck-deep through a closet of Stark's tailored suits, under his instruction to bring out something nice for him. When she handed him her selections he gave a half-hearted nod and waved her off, but called her back as she was exiting.
"Get me a martini, Notary, real dirty. Whatever you've got. I don't give a damn anymore."
Familiar footsteps fell in line with hers as she walked to the bar. Where else did she expect Clint to be after yesterday? Natasha didn't bother with a greeting. Hours of quieting the press and Stark's mis-timed, almost mocking techno music from his basement lab had drained her mood.
"You want one?" She offered, shaking the vodka and vermouth concoction Stark ordered.
Clint nodded. His eyes whisked over the room, scrutinizing every entering guest.
"Quit looking at those bikini girls like they're serial killers."
"A man in an orange jumpsuit turned out to be a soviet convict yesterday, and you're telling me to chill?"
She disregarded that comment and handed him his martini. He downed it in two gulps.
"I need to see to Stark." She set a second martini glass and the rest of the liquor on a serving platter. "And, Clint? You're hooked to my comm, aren't you?"
"Well..."
"I don't gossip Red Room with Coulson."
Potts, despite her earlier vow to remain unseen throughout this unorthodox operation, poked outside to find Natasha. "There's a box of watches from a businessman in your office, Natalie, make sure Tony looks them over."
Picking up her pace, Natasha walked in on Stark, who stood staring into a hologram of his palladium levels. 89%. She took a long breath and set down the tray with the martini, then went to fetch the watches.
"Do you know which watch you'd like to wear tonight, Mr. Stark?" Natasha asked when she returned with the box.
Stark hastened to button up his shirt, but too late, Natasha had already caught the reflected angry black veins fanning out from his chest.
"I'll give them a look," he said.
Natasha set down the watches, reached for the platter she had left on the table, and swished the shaker of liquor before pouring the liquid into a glass.
"I should cancel the party now?" Stark asked.
So now he realized his rashness. "Probably," she said.
"Yeah... Cause it's um-"
"Ill-timed?" She interrupted and gave him his drink.
"Right, sends the wrong message."
"Inappropriate," Natasha chastised. Throwing a wild house party a day after the Europe disaster was no way to repair the quivering film of peace. They all knew it. Just that some of them didn't want to believe it.
Stark sipped his drink and held her gaze.
"Is that dirty enough for you?"
"Uh... gold faced with the brown band. The Jaeger." He ditched her question and sank onto an armchair. "I'll give that a look. Bring 'em over here."
Natasha fetched him the box of watches.
"I'll take that, why don't you-" Stark started, grabbing the box from her hands and attempting to usher her away, but stopped mid-sentence when she settled on an arm of his chair. Natasha glanced at the bruise under his left eye with mild amusement and produced a container of colored concealer. He'd show up with that on his face later? Not happening under her watch. Self-obsessed and careless or not, he'd grown on her. Never before had she been assigned to watch out for someone; to watch a target die not by her hand. The early birthday party made sense then. The donations. Throwing himself into the race. Detouring conversations with Potts whenever they steered just the slightest to a sensitive topic. There's people he'd miss and people who'd miss him, and none of them held a clue to what he's going through.
Natasha'd never seen a lonelier man than Tony Stark.
What about her? If her life span was calculated like his what would she do? Who would miss her? Who would she miss and care enough to hide like Stark did? He had planned to go out with a bang in the press, staying true to his reputation as a wreck-it-all till the end, probably knowing that Potts would take it better this way than if there had been nothing to distract her.
Who would care enough about her that they'd need a distraction when she's gone?
The memory of Clint's arms around her yesterday returned, warm against her back, and the same warmth sparked in her now though he was absent. "Maybe that's why it's the best time." Stark's words earlier today reeled back then, and she understood; understood it better than the slow, twisting pain that writhed inside her. Natasha held her breath and dabbed the makeup under Stark's eye.
"I gotta say, it's hard to get a read on you, where are you from?"
His question pulled her out of her trance, and she let go of her breath to answer him. "Legal."
Stark swallowed uncomfortably before raising another question.
"Can I ask you a question hypothetically? Bit odd."
Natasha closed the lid on the concealer and waited for him to continue.
"If... this was your last birthday party you're ever gonna have, how would you celebrate it?"
His question barely skimmed her thoughts. Anything hypothetical was the last thing she wanted to think about while her mind roamed beyond the room to Clint on the premises, listening in on her comm at this very moment. She gave an answer meant more for herself than Stark:
"I'd do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with."
And she was gone, her steps delirious against tile; heading outside Stark's room and outside the mansion; into her car and off through the looming, dark canopy of trees shading the road and to her hotel, flew to her room and locked herself in the bathroom. Natasha tossed her dress into a corner and stepped into the shower. The water scorched her skin. She stood with her hair dripping onto her face until her head stopped spinning, got out and threw on a new dress: shorter, with more breathing room for her skin, in a leopard print that she didn't care for.
When she opened the bathroom door with escaping clouds of steam, Clint was at her table, leafing through some papers he had found.
"Hey," she said. Surprise had drained out of her. What remained was barely responsive.
"You need to head back. Stark's gone wild and done blew up everything. Potts won't be able to keep him in line any longer, you might need to report this to Coulson."
Natasha held back a grimace. She was responsible, at least partly so, for feeding those reckless ideas into Stark. On the rare occasion that he asked someone what he should do, Natasha had given him the most unthinkable answer: to do whatever he wanted, and who knew what Stark wanted. Who knew what she wanted. What she didn't want was to return and see the wreckage she had unconsciously caused.
But of course, as Stark's PA, she had no choice. Into the car she went, with Clint beside her, and as they sped along the gritty road the wind soothed her guilt into a fitful rest, and she became aware of Clint's eyes on her.
"Did you mean what you said back there? With Stark?" He asked.
Natasha's nod was almost nonexistent, but she nodded nonetheless.