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Avengers - To Coerce with Force
Title: To Coerce with Force
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,200 words
Spoilers: Iron Man 2, The Avengers
Warnings: Tiny bit of violence (it's Natasha...)
Synopsis: Someone tries to use Natalie Rushman against Stark Industries. That goes about as well as can be expected.
Author's Notes: For the "extortion" square at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also at Archive of Our Own.
Natasha allowed herself a quiet little smile as she left the building. Lunch with Pepper had lingered until it was nearly time for supper back at the tower, and had been as entertaining as always. Pointed commentary on the certain habits of certain supposed heroes had flown by nearly as quickly as the tapas and margaritas, and she had left the erstwhile CEO of Stark Industries safely in her office, where her less than subtle tipsiness could be contained until she either drank enough coffee to sober up, or was ready for her driver to take her home.
For her part, Natasha was relaxed, but far from inebriated. This is why she saw the trap long before she sprung it, and mentally calculated each of the men's weaknesses before they even dared to lay a hand on her.
Under normal circumstances, she would have simply taken them down and moved on. Given that she had just abused her former persona of Ms. Natalie Rushman to sneak through security to drag Pepper away from her work, and was still dressed the part, she decided to let the situation play out, at least for long enough to ascertain what the men were after.
The three men towered over her and she pretended to both cower and look for escape routes even though she had already worked out her preferred strategy. As expected, the first pushed her into the second whilst the third stood around and tried to look menacing.
She was not impressed.
"Can I help you?" she asked, keeping her voice in the forced sort of calm that implied she was panicking on the inside.
The man behind her grabbed her arms to secure her in place and she resisted the urge to show him how ineffective his hold was. Instead, she flexed ever so slightly once and pretended to try to get away, noting the way he readjusted his grip just from that.
The man in front of her, who looked like something out of a bad tv movie with his neatly pressed suit and low tilted trilby, reached for the ID badge hanging at her side, oversized watch glinting in the low light of the garage, and grinned when he saw the security level. "Why yes, Ms. Rushman, I believe you can," he replied.
She did not roll her eyes, but it was only through long years of practice. Pure and simple corporate espionage. Boring.
She busied her mind with wondering if Stark knew she had kept the badge and why he had never cut off her access once he knew who she really was. Perhaps he trusted her as a friend and teammate now, who could access nearly everything from the tower anyway. Perhaps he had limited access to company-specific items that she simply had not tried yet. Or, and this is the one she was leaning towards, perhaps he had pushed it off as unimportant all together and moved on to the next thing in that busy little mind of his.
"You're relatively high up in the Stark hierarchy, are you not?" the third man asked. His accent betrayed him. Jersey, South side.
"Just a PA," she replied. Tony would argue that this meant "pain in the ass" while she worked there, or perhaps even now.
The first man scoffed. "Pretty high clearance for a PA," he said, tapping the little red line beneath her name. "Almost as though the person you assist is the big boss man himself."
Either a test, or their information was sorely outdated. Perhaps they thought Stark was in charge still, but Potts ran the day to day. "I work for a very nice lady by the name of Ms. Potts," she told them. She tried to remember to keep a tremble in her voice, hoped they wouldn't notice she could barely be bothered with any sort of physical shaking. "I only have access to what she lets me have. I don't know anything about any current projects and wouldn't understand anything they said anyway - it's all physics and programming and things way above my head," she insisted. It was a lie, of course. Pepper had hinted enough over lunch, and Tony had not even bothered to hide the information or minimize the screens when she had seen him just that morning.
"It's not information from you that we want, it's information from one of their servers, and you are going to get it for us," the man told her.
She sighed internally and counted down. Sure enough, the goon behind her shifted his grip again, this time to hold both wrists in one massive hand while the other grabbed the little finger of her left hand and pulled. She made herself gasp but was more impressed he had managed the fine line between threat and full dislocation. Maybe it was an accident.
"I don't have that kind of access," she told them. She tilted her head back, used her new vantage point to its fullest. The camera above her had a device attached, likely to loop the feed, and the one to her right had been turned roughly fifteen degrees to create the blind spot they were now using.
"You don't need full access; you only need to get to a computer linked with the man system," the man explained. She took that to mean they did not know how Stark segmented his files and resources, or that he was simply parroting what he himself had been told and did not even understand that much himself. He pulled out a miniature drive and waved it in front of her. "Just plug this into the USB port and walk away. Come back in an hour and return it to me."
"I- I can't do that!" she exclaimed.
And there it was, the push.
The first man leaned in close, hand now at her throat and slightly squeezing. The second man yanked on her little finger, this time nearly slipping it out of place. "You will, or you will lose that undoubtedly impressive typing speed of yours, as well as all of your sick time as you recuperate in St. John's with that boyfriend of yours."
Ah, Clint. So they had watched the last two, possibly three times he had dropped her off, which meant they had cased the place for at least two weeks. She had come and gone at odd hours and been seen with the CEO, which in their little minds meant she was Pepper's PA running various out of office errands as needed and not stopping by to get a friend drunk. She quietly wondered when she had gotten so complacent and predictable but, more importantly had been given a vital piece of information about her supposed adversaries.
They were amateurs that had not done their homework.
She made a mental checklist and came to the conclusion that she had everything she needed. She saw no need to continue the charade.
"Boyfriend?" she asked, playing the confused. "Do you mean that weird guy that's standing behind you?"
They fell for it, which was truly and utterly sad and said a lot about their training or lack thereof, but it did give her enough of an opening to wrench her hands free, crack heads with the guy in front of her, and kick the guy behind her in the balls. It took a disappointingly short time to fully subdue them after that.
A squeal of tires warned of the inevitable backup approaching. She ducked as the driver's window rolled down, exposing both his face and his gun. Two blades formerly secreted away on her person later and the tires rolled to shreds. That the idiot left the safety of the car to try to find her and the fact there was only the driver and no one else further cemented the idea that these were not professionals, or at least not professionals of her level, that she was dealing with. Another duck, a roll, a pistol turned on its owner and damaged mid-value Ralph Lauren suit coat later, and the final man was down for the count.
That was, of course, when Stark Security arrived.
"No, seriously, tell it again!" Clint demanded. Well, demand might not be the key word as he dissolved into a fit of laughter immediately after.
Natasha was not quite as amused. Though she found humor in the ridiculousness of the situation, it did point at a major security breach and the possibility of an actual threat. If then men that approached her today had done so to any other employee, the outcome could have been quite disastrous.
The team had gathered around what served as the kitchen table for a combination late dinner and debriefing. Well, the team sans Thor who had disappeared, likely back to Asgard and would regret being there for what he would undoubtedly see as her time of need as a fellow warrior. She had known better than to think she could get out of such a meeting, especially when Stark's own company was involved.
"My alias, Ms. Natalie Rushman, personal assistant to one Ms. Pepper Potts, was approached today while leaving the Stark Industries headquarters," she repeated.
"I thought you were done playing dress up," Tony said from across the table. He twirled what appeared to be an actual pen in his hands, tablet set neatly off to the side in testament to how seriously he took the current situation.
Natasha reminded herself that, technically, she had been in the guise of one of his employees, and appreciated his active concern. "The mission was completed, but I have found the persona to remain useful, especially when I wish to meet Pepper for lunch," she explained. She raised an eyebrow in challenge and added, "Also, no one revoked my access yet."
Tony shrugged, accepting it as his due. He also likely would not revoke it now that it had proved useful. He may, however, adjust the coding on it, which is something she would have to ask him about at a later time.
"What do you think they are after?" Steve asked, bringing them back to task.
"First guess? Pepper's pet project," Tony replied. He finally keyed something on the tablet and barely glanced up as he added, "Second guess is this is a trial run and they are looking to hack the system, which means they are both dumber and smarter than originally assessed. That thing is based upon JARVIS, and there's no way they would have succeeded."
It was a fair assumption, Natasha had to agree. They gave her a drive of their own to put the files on, and the thing was just as likely to give as it was to take. Tony had not tested it immediately, wanting a secure and unconnected system in case it keyed off a signal for the goons to track.
"You don't seemed overly concerned," Steve said, which was only partially a lie.
Stark took the bait though, and met his gaze from across the table. "The intel? No, I'm not all that concerned. Basic corporate espionage like Natasha said really, and not even of the creative type. They haven't gotten anything and they won't get anything, so let's push that to the side for now." He spoke as though from long experience, and Natasha would not be surprised if this had happened far too many times before. Tony continued though, "It's the personal threats I don't like. Sloppy, and one of my people could have gotten hurt. We got lucky that they went for the undercover deadly assassin instead of, say, Janet the lunch lady. It's why the new ID cards will have panic buttons installed in the future."
"You expect this to happen again," Bruce guessed.
"It has, it will, yeah, whatever," Tony waved it off. "The key is to prevent anyone from actually getting hurt. No, wait, the key is twofold: prevent my people from actual physical damage and figuring out who was behind it this time so we can do a bit of behind the scenes finagling to get their stock to plummet. I've got JARVIS running facial recognition on what little the security feeds caught now so, if there is someone you've banked on other than me, you might want to sell your shares before the market closes tomorrow."
He typed away merrily, not at all concerned that he just listed at least four major federal laws he was both breaking and planning on breaking over the security and safety of his people. Perhaps more telling was the fact not a single person at the table tried to stop him or even raise a token protest.
"But we already know who it is," Natasha said. All eyes at the table turned to face her.
"We do?" Tony asked doubtingly. "Did I miss the part of the story where the big guy introduced himself as 'Hello my name is Guido and I work for...'?"
"HammerTech," she replied. Really, like they hadn't seen that coming. From the look on Stark's face, he had thought that was far too easy and obvious of an answer. She rolled her eyes and explained, "Poorly informed, poorly trained, more show than substance thugs from out of town offering a tech device to hack into a tech place?"
"Gotta admit, it does fit his MO," Tony conceded.
"Isn't he still in prison?" Steve interjected.
"When has that ever stopped a bad guy from trying a stupid plan?" Clint asked with a scoff. "I know for a fact that you have watched enough bad movies to know that by now 'cause I'm the one who got you to watch 'em."
"Do you have anything other than supposition, or is Tony just going to screw with Hammer's bankroll for fun?" Bruce asked. She knew he was not doubting her, he simply wanted all the facts and figures before they could act. She also knew Tony had begun the process of hacking Hammer's files, for no other reason than he finally had an excuse, flimsy as it may be at the moment.
She folded her hands in front of her, disappointed to discover one of her nails had been chipped somewhere along her adventures that day, though from the fight or the margaritas she couldn't say. "The drive they gave me was scrubbed clean, at least of any identifying logos," she admitted. "However, the device used on the video feed was one of Hammer's, as was the knockoff watch one of the men had for ten assumingly stellar years of service." There was definitely a bit of asphalt and blood under the nail, so she added dryly, "You owe me a manicure."
Tony's face was lit up as though she had given him Christmas, New Year's, and Easter early, with a side of the pony he always wanted for his birthday but never learned how to ride. "Hammer? Seriously? For real and not just pretend? Hot damn!" he exclaimed. "I love you, Natasha, seriously love, like more than anyone else. You are my new favorite, except for the times when Steve and Bruce are but, you know, right now, totally tops."
"Hey, what about me?" Clint protested. He flicked a piece of napkin he had been playing with across the table and it bounced harmlessly off of Tony's tablet.
"You're nobody's favorite, Barton, nobody's," Tony said, still gleefully verifying everything he could, at least four separate screens now floating before him. Natasha noted that a gift certificate for Pepper's preferred spa appeared on her own tablet without any acknowledgement of the gift.
Steve leaned over and whispered less than conspiringly, "I like you, Clint."
"Lies," Tony cut in. "He likes everyone and note he didn't say you're his favorite."
Natasha tucked her foot around the leg of Barton's chair and yanked him closer, nearly knocking him from said chair, solely so she could bump her shoulder against his.
"See, Nat likes me," Clint said with a mock huff. He turned to smile at her, but the expression quickly changed as he furrowed his brow at her and gestured to her previously neatly pressed skirt. "Is that blood on you?" he demanded.
Now it was her turn to wave him off. "Probably, but it's not mine," she shrugged. An order for dry cleaning appeared next to the spa certificate on her screen, as well as a gift certificate for one of Tony's preferred clothiers.
Clint narrowed his eyes, undoubtedly assessing her the way she assessed him when he returned from a less than planned mission. He must have liked what he saw as he let the matter drop. This was a good thing as, if he truly believed she had seriously injured herself taking down three half-wits and a driver, she would need to demonstrate otherwise in the gym later tonight. As it was, she was far more interested in leaning back with a bottle of Merlot and watching Tony destroy his nemesis's company, file by file.
"Oh, wow," Tony breathed as data flew by. "He didn't even try to cover his tracks, or he really is that much of an idiot which is totally a possibility."
"He's going to be a while, isn't he?" Bruce guessed. His tablet switched to data from his own lab and his own latest experiment, which Natasha took to mean he planned on staying until the final results of the night's little adventure were tabulated.
She nodded and pulled up the e-book she had been reading, willing to keep them company what with rather being the one to start it all. Steve, however, stood as if to leave, which was fine as he would not have much to do or say on the matter until the results came in and Hammer's company was going down in possibly literal flames.
He surprised her though, and asked, "Riesling or Merlot?"
She considered the matter for a moment before replying, "Merlot, it will go better with the brownies Clint will be making."
Steve smiled and nodded and left to go get the bottle for her while Clint stood and headed for the cupboards. "Double chocolate then?" he guessed.
"Might as well make a night of it," she agreed.
He turned back to his task and she turned back to hers, which had changed to answering a message from Pepper.
"The device blew up the fake server it was connected to. Is Tony laughing maniacally yet?"
She looked over to where the man in question was grinning gleefully, but had not yet reached mad scientist cackle. "Not yet," she replied. As an afterthought, she added, "But the night's still young."
She verified that Happy himself would be picking Pepper up that evening, and then settled back to enjoy the show. There were some lessons that must be learned the hard way in life. For the thugs Hammer hired, it was that no one lays a hand on anything Tony Stark holds dear, be it tech or friend. For herself, it was that she was now included in the latter, and she had the certificates to prove it.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,200 words
Spoilers: Iron Man 2, The Avengers
Warnings: Tiny bit of violence (it's Natasha...)
Synopsis: Someone tries to use Natalie Rushman against Stark Industries. That goes about as well as can be expected.
Author's Notes: For the "extortion" square at
hc_bingo.Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also at Archive of Our Own.
Natasha allowed herself a quiet little smile as she left the building. Lunch with Pepper had lingered until it was nearly time for supper back at the tower, and had been as entertaining as always. Pointed commentary on the certain habits of certain supposed heroes had flown by nearly as quickly as the tapas and margaritas, and she had left the erstwhile CEO of Stark Industries safely in her office, where her less than subtle tipsiness could be contained until she either drank enough coffee to sober up, or was ready for her driver to take her home.
For her part, Natasha was relaxed, but far from inebriated. This is why she saw the trap long before she sprung it, and mentally calculated each of the men's weaknesses before they even dared to lay a hand on her.
Under normal circumstances, she would have simply taken them down and moved on. Given that she had just abused her former persona of Ms. Natalie Rushman to sneak through security to drag Pepper away from her work, and was still dressed the part, she decided to let the situation play out, at least for long enough to ascertain what the men were after.
The three men towered over her and she pretended to both cower and look for escape routes even though she had already worked out her preferred strategy. As expected, the first pushed her into the second whilst the third stood around and tried to look menacing.
She was not impressed.
"Can I help you?" she asked, keeping her voice in the forced sort of calm that implied she was panicking on the inside.
The man behind her grabbed her arms to secure her in place and she resisted the urge to show him how ineffective his hold was. Instead, she flexed ever so slightly once and pretended to try to get away, noting the way he readjusted his grip just from that.
The man in front of her, who looked like something out of a bad tv movie with his neatly pressed suit and low tilted trilby, reached for the ID badge hanging at her side, oversized watch glinting in the low light of the garage, and grinned when he saw the security level. "Why yes, Ms. Rushman, I believe you can," he replied.
She did not roll her eyes, but it was only through long years of practice. Pure and simple corporate espionage. Boring.
She busied her mind with wondering if Stark knew she had kept the badge and why he had never cut off her access once he knew who she really was. Perhaps he trusted her as a friend and teammate now, who could access nearly everything from the tower anyway. Perhaps he had limited access to company-specific items that she simply had not tried yet. Or, and this is the one she was leaning towards, perhaps he had pushed it off as unimportant all together and moved on to the next thing in that busy little mind of his.
"You're relatively high up in the Stark hierarchy, are you not?" the third man asked. His accent betrayed him. Jersey, South side.
"Just a PA," she replied. Tony would argue that this meant "pain in the ass" while she worked there, or perhaps even now.
The first man scoffed. "Pretty high clearance for a PA," he said, tapping the little red line beneath her name. "Almost as though the person you assist is the big boss man himself."
Either a test, or their information was sorely outdated. Perhaps they thought Stark was in charge still, but Potts ran the day to day. "I work for a very nice lady by the name of Ms. Potts," she told them. She tried to remember to keep a tremble in her voice, hoped they wouldn't notice she could barely be bothered with any sort of physical shaking. "I only have access to what she lets me have. I don't know anything about any current projects and wouldn't understand anything they said anyway - it's all physics and programming and things way above my head," she insisted. It was a lie, of course. Pepper had hinted enough over lunch, and Tony had not even bothered to hide the information or minimize the screens when she had seen him just that morning.
"It's not information from you that we want, it's information from one of their servers, and you are going to get it for us," the man told her.
She sighed internally and counted down. Sure enough, the goon behind her shifted his grip again, this time to hold both wrists in one massive hand while the other grabbed the little finger of her left hand and pulled. She made herself gasp but was more impressed he had managed the fine line between threat and full dislocation. Maybe it was an accident.
"I don't have that kind of access," she told them. She tilted her head back, used her new vantage point to its fullest. The camera above her had a device attached, likely to loop the feed, and the one to her right had been turned roughly fifteen degrees to create the blind spot they were now using.
"You don't need full access; you only need to get to a computer linked with the man system," the man explained. She took that to mean they did not know how Stark segmented his files and resources, or that he was simply parroting what he himself had been told and did not even understand that much himself. He pulled out a miniature drive and waved it in front of her. "Just plug this into the USB port and walk away. Come back in an hour and return it to me."
"I- I can't do that!" she exclaimed.
And there it was, the push.
The first man leaned in close, hand now at her throat and slightly squeezing. The second man yanked on her little finger, this time nearly slipping it out of place. "You will, or you will lose that undoubtedly impressive typing speed of yours, as well as all of your sick time as you recuperate in St. John's with that boyfriend of yours."
Ah, Clint. So they had watched the last two, possibly three times he had dropped her off, which meant they had cased the place for at least two weeks. She had come and gone at odd hours and been seen with the CEO, which in their little minds meant she was Pepper's PA running various out of office errands as needed and not stopping by to get a friend drunk. She quietly wondered when she had gotten so complacent and predictable but, more importantly had been given a vital piece of information about her supposed adversaries.
They were amateurs that had not done their homework.
She made a mental checklist and came to the conclusion that she had everything she needed. She saw no need to continue the charade.
"Boyfriend?" she asked, playing the confused. "Do you mean that weird guy that's standing behind you?"
They fell for it, which was truly and utterly sad and said a lot about their training or lack thereof, but it did give her enough of an opening to wrench her hands free, crack heads with the guy in front of her, and kick the guy behind her in the balls. It took a disappointingly short time to fully subdue them after that.
A squeal of tires warned of the inevitable backup approaching. She ducked as the driver's window rolled down, exposing both his face and his gun. Two blades formerly secreted away on her person later and the tires rolled to shreds. That the idiot left the safety of the car to try to find her and the fact there was only the driver and no one else further cemented the idea that these were not professionals, or at least not professionals of her level, that she was dealing with. Another duck, a roll, a pistol turned on its owner and damaged mid-value Ralph Lauren suit coat later, and the final man was down for the count.
That was, of course, when Stark Security arrived.
"No, seriously, tell it again!" Clint demanded. Well, demand might not be the key word as he dissolved into a fit of laughter immediately after.
Natasha was not quite as amused. Though she found humor in the ridiculousness of the situation, it did point at a major security breach and the possibility of an actual threat. If then men that approached her today had done so to any other employee, the outcome could have been quite disastrous.
The team had gathered around what served as the kitchen table for a combination late dinner and debriefing. Well, the team sans Thor who had disappeared, likely back to Asgard and would regret being there for what he would undoubtedly see as her time of need as a fellow warrior. She had known better than to think she could get out of such a meeting, especially when Stark's own company was involved.
"My alias, Ms. Natalie Rushman, personal assistant to one Ms. Pepper Potts, was approached today while leaving the Stark Industries headquarters," she repeated.
"I thought you were done playing dress up," Tony said from across the table. He twirled what appeared to be an actual pen in his hands, tablet set neatly off to the side in testament to how seriously he took the current situation.
Natasha reminded herself that, technically, she had been in the guise of one of his employees, and appreciated his active concern. "The mission was completed, but I have found the persona to remain useful, especially when I wish to meet Pepper for lunch," she explained. She raised an eyebrow in challenge and added, "Also, no one revoked my access yet."
Tony shrugged, accepting it as his due. He also likely would not revoke it now that it had proved useful. He may, however, adjust the coding on it, which is something she would have to ask him about at a later time.
"What do you think they are after?" Steve asked, bringing them back to task.
"First guess? Pepper's pet project," Tony replied. He finally keyed something on the tablet and barely glanced up as he added, "Second guess is this is a trial run and they are looking to hack the system, which means they are both dumber and smarter than originally assessed. That thing is based upon JARVIS, and there's no way they would have succeeded."
It was a fair assumption, Natasha had to agree. They gave her a drive of their own to put the files on, and the thing was just as likely to give as it was to take. Tony had not tested it immediately, wanting a secure and unconnected system in case it keyed off a signal for the goons to track.
"You don't seemed overly concerned," Steve said, which was only partially a lie.
Stark took the bait though, and met his gaze from across the table. "The intel? No, I'm not all that concerned. Basic corporate espionage like Natasha said really, and not even of the creative type. They haven't gotten anything and they won't get anything, so let's push that to the side for now." He spoke as though from long experience, and Natasha would not be surprised if this had happened far too many times before. Tony continued though, "It's the personal threats I don't like. Sloppy, and one of my people could have gotten hurt. We got lucky that they went for the undercover deadly assassin instead of, say, Janet the lunch lady. It's why the new ID cards will have panic buttons installed in the future."
"You expect this to happen again," Bruce guessed.
"It has, it will, yeah, whatever," Tony waved it off. "The key is to prevent anyone from actually getting hurt. No, wait, the key is twofold: prevent my people from actual physical damage and figuring out who was behind it this time so we can do a bit of behind the scenes finagling to get their stock to plummet. I've got JARVIS running facial recognition on what little the security feeds caught now so, if there is someone you've banked on other than me, you might want to sell your shares before the market closes tomorrow."
He typed away merrily, not at all concerned that he just listed at least four major federal laws he was both breaking and planning on breaking over the security and safety of his people. Perhaps more telling was the fact not a single person at the table tried to stop him or even raise a token protest.
"But we already know who it is," Natasha said. All eyes at the table turned to face her.
"We do?" Tony asked doubtingly. "Did I miss the part of the story where the big guy introduced himself as 'Hello my name is Guido and I work for...'?"
"HammerTech," she replied. Really, like they hadn't seen that coming. From the look on Stark's face, he had thought that was far too easy and obvious of an answer. She rolled her eyes and explained, "Poorly informed, poorly trained, more show than substance thugs from out of town offering a tech device to hack into a tech place?"
"Gotta admit, it does fit his MO," Tony conceded.
"Isn't he still in prison?" Steve interjected.
"When has that ever stopped a bad guy from trying a stupid plan?" Clint asked with a scoff. "I know for a fact that you have watched enough bad movies to know that by now 'cause I'm the one who got you to watch 'em."
"Do you have anything other than supposition, or is Tony just going to screw with Hammer's bankroll for fun?" Bruce asked. She knew he was not doubting her, he simply wanted all the facts and figures before they could act. She also knew Tony had begun the process of hacking Hammer's files, for no other reason than he finally had an excuse, flimsy as it may be at the moment.
She folded her hands in front of her, disappointed to discover one of her nails had been chipped somewhere along her adventures that day, though from the fight or the margaritas she couldn't say. "The drive they gave me was scrubbed clean, at least of any identifying logos," she admitted. "However, the device used on the video feed was one of Hammer's, as was the knockoff watch one of the men had for ten assumingly stellar years of service." There was definitely a bit of asphalt and blood under the nail, so she added dryly, "You owe me a manicure."
Tony's face was lit up as though she had given him Christmas, New Year's, and Easter early, with a side of the pony he always wanted for his birthday but never learned how to ride. "Hammer? Seriously? For real and not just pretend? Hot damn!" he exclaimed. "I love you, Natasha, seriously love, like more than anyone else. You are my new favorite, except for the times when Steve and Bruce are but, you know, right now, totally tops."
"Hey, what about me?" Clint protested. He flicked a piece of napkin he had been playing with across the table and it bounced harmlessly off of Tony's tablet.
"You're nobody's favorite, Barton, nobody's," Tony said, still gleefully verifying everything he could, at least four separate screens now floating before him. Natasha noted that a gift certificate for Pepper's preferred spa appeared on her own tablet without any acknowledgement of the gift.
Steve leaned over and whispered less than conspiringly, "I like you, Clint."
"Lies," Tony cut in. "He likes everyone and note he didn't say you're his favorite."
Natasha tucked her foot around the leg of Barton's chair and yanked him closer, nearly knocking him from said chair, solely so she could bump her shoulder against his.
"See, Nat likes me," Clint said with a mock huff. He turned to smile at her, but the expression quickly changed as he furrowed his brow at her and gestured to her previously neatly pressed skirt. "Is that blood on you?" he demanded.
Now it was her turn to wave him off. "Probably, but it's not mine," she shrugged. An order for dry cleaning appeared next to the spa certificate on her screen, as well as a gift certificate for one of Tony's preferred clothiers.
Clint narrowed his eyes, undoubtedly assessing her the way she assessed him when he returned from a less than planned mission. He must have liked what he saw as he let the matter drop. This was a good thing as, if he truly believed she had seriously injured herself taking down three half-wits and a driver, she would need to demonstrate otherwise in the gym later tonight. As it was, she was far more interested in leaning back with a bottle of Merlot and watching Tony destroy his nemesis's company, file by file.
"Oh, wow," Tony breathed as data flew by. "He didn't even try to cover his tracks, or he really is that much of an idiot which is totally a possibility."
"He's going to be a while, isn't he?" Bruce guessed. His tablet switched to data from his own lab and his own latest experiment, which Natasha took to mean he planned on staying until the final results of the night's little adventure were tabulated.
She nodded and pulled up the e-book she had been reading, willing to keep them company what with rather being the one to start it all. Steve, however, stood as if to leave, which was fine as he would not have much to do or say on the matter until the results came in and Hammer's company was going down in possibly literal flames.
He surprised her though, and asked, "Riesling or Merlot?"
She considered the matter for a moment before replying, "Merlot, it will go better with the brownies Clint will be making."
Steve smiled and nodded and left to go get the bottle for her while Clint stood and headed for the cupboards. "Double chocolate then?" he guessed.
"Might as well make a night of it," she agreed.
He turned back to his task and she turned back to hers, which had changed to answering a message from Pepper.
"The device blew up the fake server it was connected to. Is Tony laughing maniacally yet?"
She looked over to where the man in question was grinning gleefully, but had not yet reached mad scientist cackle. "Not yet," she replied. As an afterthought, she added, "But the night's still young."
She verified that Happy himself would be picking Pepper up that evening, and then settled back to enjoy the show. There were some lessons that must be learned the hard way in life. For the thugs Hammer hired, it was that no one lays a hand on anything Tony Stark holds dear, be it tech or friend. For herself, it was that she was now included in the latter, and she had the certificates to prove it.
End.
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