Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man 2, Thor, or the Avengers, along with the characters, the quotes, and everything else associated with Marvel.
Yesterday.
Back to Malibu. Potts allowed no objections. Within an hour after the Expo attack she rounded everyone, Natasha included, into a jet and that was that. She's "had her suspicions" was her only response regarding Natasha's agent identity. After that it was back to boss-and-subordinate.
On the jet, Natasha sipped a scalding cup of tea, opened up Tetris on her laptop and played in the dark, her eyes stinging with the contrast of the bright, colorful screen. The quiet hum of the engine and the steam from the cup tickling her nose provided some of the most lavishing post-mission hours she'd ever had.
Stark padded into her compartment in fluffy slippers and watched her game from the doorway.
Natasha flicked her eyes down to the clock display, 3:27 a.m.
"Can't sleep?" He asked after a few minutes.
She ignored him and focused on her game.
"Do you always walk around like a human armory?"
"..."
"I'll take that as a yes. Say, that's a really high score. How long have you been playing?"
"..."
"Fine, I'll get to the point. I wanted to... to thank you..." He sounded like he was pulling chains out of his throat. "...for what you did for me and Rhodey back there."
Natasha paused her game. How often did one hear Tony Stark thank someone not once, but twice in a day?
"It wasn't much," she said.
"Yeah, I wish I can say that. You know how awful it is having your best friend attack you? I mean I know Rhodey wasn't in control at the time but that's not the point." He rubbed his eyes. "It's just... I never thought someone I love might try to kill me. You get me?"
She held the steaming cup under her nose. "No. Sorry."
He paused. Natasha took the chance to unpause her game and keep playing.
"Not to be rude or anything," Stark started. "But—"
"You are being rude."
"You. Are a hunk of ice. You know what? Someday shit like this should happen to you. We'll see if you can keep that face up."
"Uh-huh."
"Fifty bucks."
"No."
"C'mon, what can it hurt?"
"Every bone in your body."
"You know I can disable that laptop this second? It's not hard. JARVIS can erase all data and wipe you off the scoreboards."
"Fine! Now stop distracting me!"
The next morning in Malibu, Stark and Potts set alight an argument that rang through the mansion. One moment Potts chased Stark on some important matter that he was ignoring, the next he's wheeling on her. It was like they hurled an invisible ball between them, and when the ball bounced off they moved to a different location to continue their brawl. At last they settled onto a couch across from where Natasha worked, typing up her recruitment assessment on Stark for Fury.
"C'mon, Pep. Stark Tower. Brand new. What's not to love?" Stark whined.
"I don't think I should be allowing you to ruin anoth—"
"Ok, look at it this way. If we move, you can better supervise the Expo reparations."
Pepper laughed sarcastically. "I can supervise? I resigned, Tony."
"And you know what else I have in mind? I'm planning on this, uh..." Stark raised a hologram on the tablet in his hand. "...this new model of the arc reactor to power the building. 100% environmentally friendly."
Potts rotated the hologram with a flick of her wrist. "Why not just build one here?"
"Why build it here if we have a skyscraper in New York with my name on it? Think of the amount of people that's going to notice. You want something sweet for the press? You have it."
Natasha extended her paragraph on textbook narcissism in the report.
"The tower's not even finished yet." Potts shook her head.
"I can help with construction. Finish it even sooner. You can contribute if you want, whatever works for you."
She was silent for a while, thinking.
"You better be committed. I don't even know why I'm agreeing t—"
Stark cut her off with a big wet kiss. Potts pushed him away. "We have other people present," she reminded him and wiped her mouth.
"Fury's scum don't count."
"Shut your mouth." Potts turned to Natasha. "I'm sorry, you know how he is."
Natasha looked up and shrugged.
"Whoa whoa whoa. Now it's Natasha? Pepper I don't under—" The door clicked open. "JARVIS, you need to do better than that," he muttered and stood up.
"You." Fury pointed at him. "With me. Debriefing."
"Yeah, about that, I don't have time. I'm flying back to Manhat—"
"Fabulous. Take Agent Romanoff with you when you leave. Romanoff, you finished the file?"
"Almost, Director."
"Good. Now come along, Stark, I don't have all day." Fury raised his briefcase and started to walk out.
"What? I thought I'm done with her."
"She's just going to hitch a ride back to S.H.I.E.L.D Central."
Too stingy to spare her a jet. What else did she expect?
"It's perfectly fine, Director," Potts replied instead.
"Good. Stark?" Fury angled his good eye at Stark and beckoned him with a finger.
Stark groaned and followed him out.
Upon Potts' insistence, Natasha joined her and Stark for lunch on the plane. In the stuffy dining compartment Potts shouted instructions at Stark in the kitchen. "Bread's in the lower cabinet. No no—the one next to it. There's strawberry jam? Get rid of it. I don't want to see strawberry jam."
Once Stark came out with the sandwiches Potts turned her focus to Natasha.
"How do you like working for S.H.I.E.L.D?"
"Ok."
"How long?"
"Four years, five?"
"What did you do before that?"
"..." Natasha picked at the crust of her sandwich.
Stark ignored them and watched the TV screen on the wall on mute, flipping the channels around, until he paused at a picture of a rubbled town.
"New Mexico, huh? Isn't that where Coulson went?" He patted Potts' arm for attention and turned on the volume.
Natasha's eyes snapped up.
Puente Antiguo, NM Ravaged By Extraterrestrial Attack.
Wasn't that where Clint went?
She fumbled for her phone and dialed Coulson's number.
He didn't pick up.
She put her phone away and looked back at the T.V screen, but it had flashed on to the next news story. Extraterrestrial attack. That couldn't be a coincidence. S.H.I.E.L.D was a magnet for anomalies, and Coulson not picking up made her hand twitch more than the condition of that town.
"You think S.H.I.E.L.D was involved in that?" Potts asked carefully.
The Target commercial dog bounced around the screen. Natasha nodded. "They just keep quiet."
Potts ebbed into silence, choosing instead to go over the plans for the tower. Stark continued shuffling the channels. If only he would turn on the volume so Natasha could listen to something other than the thoughts in her head.
About an hour of National Geographic's silent giraffes and gazelles later her phone vibrated. She slipped it from her pocket and put it to her ear.
"I just sent Barton back to Central's medical department. Keep an eye on him."
"Does this have anything to do with what I saw on the news?"
"Most likely."
"What happened to Barton?"
"He was an idiot. Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner, we've had a lot of signal problems."
"Wait—"
He hung up.
She couldn't sit still.
"Stark, any chance of speeding up? I'm in a hurry."
"Why?"
"I have babysitting to do."
"Your babysitting terrifies me."
"Can you speed up or not?"
"No, I can't. I can get you a car once we land, though, if that helps."
The car Stark lended her was on its last drops of gas.
Of course, why didn't she see it coming? It was the perfect revenge, perfect comfort for a man with his pride toppled, starry-eyed to the agent with the code names: Notary; Hey You; Lady; Is Your Name Natalie? that lurked under his own roof, typing more than just business letters and contacting more than just corporation ran out. Stark doing charity for her? If she hadn't had her mind halfway on S.H.I.E.L.D she would have declined.
Rush Hour rammed into her schedule like a speeding train. Trapped in the crawling traffic for hours, by the time Natasha arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D's doors the evening had long beaten her to the race. Mood tainted and battered, she headed for the infirmary, stopping at each door until she found the name tag she was after.
Natasha cracked the door open and peeked in.
"What the hell did you do?"
Clint raised both his hands over his head, an entire arm's worth of IVs flapping as he did. "Sorry."
"Put your hands down." She dropped her backpack by the door and dragged a chair over to his bed, its legs scoring the floor with a screeeeech. "I heard you were being an idiot. I can tell."
"Yes, and you're angry. Usually that comes after concern."
A back brace cocooned his midsection, bunching up the shirt beneath. "What did you break?" She pointed at it, then swung her finger up to the bandages slinging over his shoulder and down his arm. "Are those acid burns or fire? Or some weird alien—"
"Fire. Just fire. Fine, alien fire but it's still fire. Spine's messed up, cracked my L2 and L3. Hair burnt off at the back." He dipped his head down to show her. Pink, blotchy skin spread from the top of his neck and up.
Natasha sank her hand into his hair. "Do you feel ok?"
"Yeah, fine."
"Good." She parked her chair up against the bed, pulled the pillow behind his back closer to her and mashed her face into it. Her neck would pay for this position tomorrow, but she didn't care. "Coulson said to keep an eye on you."
"Sleeping doesn't count."
Yet his hand weaved into her hair anyway, and she focused on the pressure on her scalp and couldn't keep her eyes shut, instead staring into the white linens. Even when his hand fell away and he fell asleep, she held still, and listened to his breaths for the rest of the night.