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Antonia Stark was a 3-year-old little girl when she created her first circuit board, she was so happy and proud of it that she ran with her adorable baby feet to show her father her new toy. Howard was actually impressed, but not the good kind, unfortunately, more like the bitter, envious type of amazed, and in a fit of rage, he proceed to ban her from his lab. She learned what it meant to be strong and to not cry when weeks after that, her father submitted her to a number of different forms of torture training, most of which involved being handed hot or sharp objects to hold and not let go, not caring about her blood or her pain; even if the brat was born a girl, she was still a Stark so she had to be made of Iron. The young mistress was 4 when her mother showed her the power of ‘innocence'; the board members of Stark Industries didn’t even see it coming, but when Maria Stark got them to agree to let Toni become the youngest stockholder with only a soft voice, her eyelashes, and her well-played charm, it marked the moment when the little girl understood that strength and power can have many forms.Antonia was 6 when her mother and her aunt became her heroes, she wanted to be more like Maria and Peggy, and she decided that Antonia or Toni was too much of a male name for that (It wasn't a secret how much Howard Stark wanted an heir, not an heiress), so in secret, without letting her father know, she learned how to hack the registry and changed her first name to Natasha, Natasha Antonia Stark.Natasha was 10 when her parents and Jarvis died in a car accident. She cried, but only for her mother and her dear butler, by that point, and even if she was young, after so many 'training sessions' she understood that Howard was too much of a drunk and beating bastard to deserve her pain. She was 11 when she had to learn to be more mature, composed, and refined; a little lady. She allowed Obie to take control of SI under the condition that she'd spent time there learning about the business, so she could be ready when she turned her age of majority at 18; so with that, she had to learn how to divide her time between MIT, socialite life and SI, and if it weren’t because of Rhodey, aunt Peggy and aunt Angie, she would've probably collapsed.Natasha was 14 when she first had sex; at the time she thought she was in love with this Tiberius 'Ty' Stone kid, barely older than herself for 3 years, and he talked about 'how mature and cool she would be' and 'how it was practically the ultimate test of love she had for him', finally convincing the teen to share that special part of herself with him. The relationship disastrously ended when he broke her nose a month later during an argument, then, Rhodey proceeded to break both of his hands and Peggy made sure to destroy his life. The genius was 15 when she created JARVIS, she also met Pepper around that time and promptly decided that she would be her best female friend, which worked out pretty well since both of them started working on Stark Industries while the teen pursued her second Ph.D. As she continued to work at the company, Natasha assumed she had learned everything about her father's industry so far, the job was easy, she created new weapons and sell them to the US army without having to deal with boring board meetings to discuss logistics or any other stupid detail; she was really grateful to Obie for handling things there, she didn't realize she was wrong.Natasha was 17 when she was kidnapped by the Ten Rings. She was held in a cave along with Yinsen for 3 months, being constantly tortured until she agreed to recreate the stupid Jericho missile, she then turn their plan against them by escaping with Mark I and a piece of metal deep inside her chest. She couldn’t save Yinsen though, and she mourned him for months, finally creating a whole new research and development department in his honor: Clean energy.After seeing the Ten Rings’ lair full of her weapons (and being hit by one of them personally), Natasha Stark made the decision of closing the weapons division. She made the public announcement right after she let Rhodey know, he was mad at her, but he came around once she explained to him the reasons. The board wasn’t happy either and they try to use her underage to their advantage, but Natasha hadn’t forgotten her mother’s lesson, so she used her puppy eyes and feminine charm to make the most of her negotiation skills and her stubbornness to convince them. She was as sweet as she could to get them to listen and then she proceeded to explain the type of change she wanted to make in SI, that they didn’t want to be remembered as the greatest mass murderers in history, but as the ones who made a good change in the world. She talked with the passion and conviction that she had seen her aunt Peggy use before, and added that if by the end of the meeting they weren’t fully convinced, she asked them to give her three, no, two months to raise the stocks to a whole new level than ever and that if she couldn’t do it, they could go back to make weapons.Natasha worked hard day and night to accomplish that, she didn’t want to sleep anyway, the nightmares about water and her new arc reactor were present almost every time she closed her eyes. Following that change in SI, she devoted herself to creating Mark II, everything was a blur after that. She was almost 18 when she learned about Obadiah's betrayal in the worst way possible and it was purely in spite that she dragged herself to the lab to get her spare arc reactor and went after him.It was, surprisingly, the first time she followed an order and she didn’t tell anyone she was Iron-Man“I want to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative” the SHIELD director went to her one night after JARVIS allowed him access to the Malibu house and proceeded to explain his plan of bringing together a group of special people capable of fighting the wars they normal soldiers couldn't“Uncle Nick, as much as I like you, I don’t really trust your spies that much, and besides, I have a lot on my plate right now” the young CEO made a pause, avoiding mentioning that she would rather talk to aunt Peggy about it before making any decision “I can still be a consultant if you like”“I’ll send you an agent to help you with your work then” Nick said as he took his leave"And to spy on me?” Natasha smiled knowingly, Fury didn’t answer but the grin he threw her way was enoughHer name was also Natasha even if she went by Natalia at first, she was really beautiful and smart, so inevitably young Tasha became infatuated with her. The girl started being flirty and needy around her, trying to boost her charm and raise her appeal to the agent's unimpressed eyes. In retrospect, her life was actually really nice at this point, she could deal with her PTSD somewhat with the help of JARVIS, Rhodey, Pepper, and her aunt Peggy (even if she was in a retirement home) and SI, and Iron man kept her mind and schedule quite busy for things like stress either way. So she was, honestly kind of content with everything around her, and then she was dying... againShe turned 18 when she trashed her home by throwing a tantrum, granted, she was being childish and probably letting her mother and aunt Peggy down, but she was dying, and nobody knew! (her own disappointment in failing to find another element that could replace the palladium was enough without having to deal with the worry of her found family, thank you very much). Then she learned that if it weren't for Natalia, she would really have died. Despite everything, Tasha couldn't stop thinking about whether the spy saved her because of her or because of Iron Man... the doubts crowed her mind and refused to leave, especially after reading her report ‘Iron Man- Yes, Toni Stark- Not recommended’She was laying in her bed while Natasha was idly drawing little circles on her naked back when she asked her about it "Iron man as a suit is quite powerful so is needed in the field” the spy said while ghosting the young yet scarred skin with her lips “But you are so young котенок” when she called her kitten in Russian, the little Stark couldn't do more than blush “You didn’t tell anyone about your palladium poisoning and that’s not what a team does” Tasha shivered in pleasure at the kiss in her neck “And I certainly do not recommend you throwing your life away at the next danger” Tasha pouted but didn’t argue any forward, it was the only night she would ever get with the beautiful spy so she definitely wanted to make the most of it.A few years later, Tasha was 20, almost 21, looking like 17 when Agent (almost uncle) Coulson went to the newly Stark tower to ask for her help with a special Avengers mission, she agreed after some coercion from Pepper and Coulson (while internally fangirling about Captain America, recently defrosted, and Bruce Banner being in the team) and put herself to study Dr. Selvig's work.
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Steve Rogers, the super soldier from the 40s, Captain America, has been beating a punching bag since two hours ago when the nightmares started to be too much to endure. Each swing is like a memory trying to be repressed until he tears the bag open, Steve sighs, goes to get another bag, and starts the punches again. That's when Fury enters the gym, sticking out with his elegant black suit, he asks for his help in recovering the same weapon Howard Stark fished out from the ocean while looking for him: the Tesseract.Honestly, they should have let the damn thing there. He would go, of course, if the world needed him again he would gladly suit up, he just wished that the world could learn better from its mistakes instead of repeating them over and over again."Who took it from you?" he asks purely out of curiosity"He's called Loki, he's not from around here, there's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know" Fury says with just a hint of reverence "At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me" Steve answers while unraveling the tape off his hands and packing his stuff"Ten bucks says you're wrong" Fury smirks "There's a debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment" he adds looking at Captain America as he walks away.Sitting in the Quinjet, Steve holds a tablet watching the footage of his soon-to-be teammates, starting with the Hulk, an impressive scientist who made a terrible mistake."So this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?" he asks incredulously, he still remembers what that was like and briefly wonders why would other people want to recreate that"A lot of people were" Coulson answers "You were the world's first superhero, Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erksine's original formula" he explains "Really didn't go his way, did it?" Steve adds, disappointment in humankind's eternal quest for power coloring his voice "Not so much" Coulson agrees "When he is not that thing though, the guy's like a Stephen Hawking" Rogers looks at him in confusion "Ah, he is a really smart person" Coulson pauses before deciding to go all in "I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you officially, and I know of someone else who is going to be very happy to see you” Steve smiles sheepishly "it’s really, it’s just a... just a huge honor to have you on board on this operation"“Well... I hope I’m the man for the job” Steve is still getting used to having people who look up to him, he doesn't want to admit it but it feels like there's more pressure with all the expectationsWhen they land in the Helicarrier Steve gets introduced to Natasha Romanoff and Dr. Banner, for a first impression, he thinks Banner looks like a swell guy despite his initial wariness; he doesn't know what to make of Agent Romanoff though, as she looks very much like she could kill you in any way possible while being elegant about it, and he is not wrong. They are just walking along the runway when the spy gives both men a piece of advice"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute, it's going to get a little hard to breathe" she cryptically advises with a smug expression, then the Hellicarrier starts to raise from the water and they hurry to follow the Black Widow to the main control room, where there are a lot of agents working on their respective screens; Fury stands in the middle of the room, he gives the order to 'vanish' and just like that, they activate retro-reflecting planes, making the carrier invisible at sight. Reluctantly, Steve walks to Fury (who has the smuggest smile in the world) and pays up."So, where are you with the Tesseract?" Banner asks once he gets that he is not going to leave until S.H.I.E.L.D has it back "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet" Coulson answers "Cell phones, laptops... If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us""That's still not going to find them in time" Romanoff interrupts "You have to narrow your field" Banner steps in the conversation "How many spectrometers do you have access to?" at receiving no clear answer from Fury he turns to Coulson "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays, I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition, at least we could rule out a few places" and just like that, Steve's respect for Bruce Banner goes up to the roof A few hours after Romanoff showed Bruce to his new lab, Steve escapes from a really awkward conversation about Coulson's vintage Captain America cards collection when Sitwell informs them that Loki is in Germany, not exactly hiding. Rogers proceeds to suit up.Later, he arrives just in time to save an old man from whatever Loki wanted to do to him for speaking up against him"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing" the god stands still with a smirk in place"The soldier, a man out of time" Loki sees him with eyes full of scorn"I'm not the one who's out of time" Steve prepares himself for the attack as agent Romanoff flows the Quinjet and aims at Loki, threatening him."Loki, drop the weapon and stand down" The fight begins with the demigod sending a blast from his scepterCap throws his shield and hits him, the Asgardian uses his scepter against the vibranium shield and manages to get a hit to Steve's gut that sends him back for a second, before throwing it at him again, Loki swats it away, he tries to punch the god but he avoids the attacks and pushes Captain America down"Kneel" Loki hisses using the base of his scepter to push Rogers' head "Not today!" Steve answers and flips with an air kick, sending his opponent back, is at that moment when loud music overdrives the Quinjets speakers and sounds all over the battlefield"Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?” a distorted but clearly excited voice sounds on the comms. Both the Captain and Loki look up as Tash flies over in the Iron man suit and shoots Loki back to the ground before landing right in front of Captain America and taking out all the weaponry. Rogers had seen the armor in the tablet's footage but seeing it close like this... he has to admit that it looks actually really impressive. “Make your move reindeer games” there's something weird in the mechanical voice that Steve can't quite put a name to it. At the sight, the mischief god raises his hands in surrender “Good move”Rogers gets close to his fellow teammate and greets him with a little “Iron man” that makes Tasha feel giddy“Captain” she answers not letting her guard down around Loki.With the god secured in the Quinjet, all of them proceed to return to the Helicarrier, Tasha keeps her eyes on their prisoner the whole time and if she is internally bouncing for being next to her childhood hero, well only she and probably her dear Nat knows about it“I don’t like it” Steve whispers close to the helmet breaking her focus, Tasha suppresses a surprised yelp“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"“I don’t remember it being ever that easy, this guy packs a wallop” Natasha inwardly chuckle, but her genius and strategist mind already working a mile per hour“While I agree with you, I truly want to believe that is actually this easy” she looks at Captain America and grins inside the helmet “Still, you are pretty spry for a capsicle” Steve raises an eyebrow, normally he would get upset over the name calling, but despite the weird and clearly amused tone, he doesn’t hear the type of bite he would expect from any other person“I’ll take that as a compliment”“Yeah, you do that” he almost hears the smug smile on Iron man’s face. The Quinjet shakes as thunder roars around it, Steve notices Loki worryingly looking outside the window“What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” he jabs“I’m not overly fond of what follows” Seconds after, a tall, muscular blond enters the Quinjet, grabs Loki, and leaves as quickly as he appeared“Now there’s that guy” Iron man deadpans“Another Asgardian?” Romanoff sounds an equal measure of pissed and surprised“Think the guy’s friendly?” Steve can’t stop himself from asking out loud“Doesn’t matter, if he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract’s lost along with Barton and Selvig!” Tasha turns and gets ready to jump off the jet“Iron man wait! We need a plan of attack!” Steve stops him, or at least he tries“I have a plan... Attack!” she deadpans in all her 20ish glory, making the older man almost groan in exasperation at the simplicity of that answer, he grabs a parachute instead“I'd sit this one out Cap, those two come from legends, they’re practically gods” Natasha intervenes seeing Steve as he prepares to jump“There’s only one God ma’am. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that” he says before jumping from the jet.
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Tasha slams against the newcomer and both of them crash into the forest, well at least the Asgardian does, Tasha obviously lands with style keeping her distance from the other god who groans as he gets up“Do not touch me again!” he growls “Then don’t take my stuff” she answers through the helmet with her mechanical neutral voice “You have no idea what you’re dealing with" the girl can notice his grip on the hammer becoming tighter "Huh... Shakespeare in the park?" she sarcastically wonders, and then, just to be the little shit she is, adds "Doth Mother know you wear-eth her drapes?" in an obnoxious tone"This is beyond you, metal man. Loki will face Asgardian justice!” the growling is back, Tasha rolls her eyes “I’ll have you know that I, in fact, have a name, ‘sides, sure, he gives up the Cube and our friends and he’s all yours. Until then, stay out of our way... tourist” she adds while she walks away, she doesn’t give more than two steps before being shoved into a couple of trees by the damned hammer that hit her right in the arc reactor. Natasha actually grunts in pain at the scars pulling painfully; the damage is not only physical, but her armor also shows a small warning in the hub signal, and now she's just pissed “Okay... now it’s on”As Thor starts spinning his hammer, Iron Man repulses him back until he too hits a tree in a painfully looking way, she then repulses herself to him and kicks him in the chest, returning the favor; the hammer falls from his hand but Thor is quick to call it and with it, he summons the thunder before attacking Stark with it, she groans, very much blinded by the intensity of the light“Power at 400% capacity” JARVIS informs her“Well, how about that?” she tilts her head and smiles smugly before shooting her repulsors to the demigod, sending him back against another tree. The fight continues, this time on air as Natasha takes the guy flying and scraping his admittedly handsome face against a mountain. She probably shouldn't say anything out loud just to keep Rhodey's sanity (in case he ever found out), but she is actually enjoying this, right until the point when the god starts crushing her metal wrist, she is concerned for a second because her suit and also her wrist are suffering; inside her screen is full with warnings and sensors beeping, she aims her hand at the Asgardian and shoots, only to receive a headbutt for her troubles The hit is substantial enough that she gets sent back and also her armor gets a new dent. Tasha flies to the god, grabbing him by his sides and tossing him away, when Thor recovers they engaged in a classic fight, punching each other relentlessly, and before the guy can attack her with his stupid hammer again, she escapes flying to get him from behind, finally reaching a small stalemate. Iron man looks ready to pounce when the shield stops them both by ricocheting between them.“That’s enough!” Captain America storms to them “Look, I don’t know what you plan on doing here-”“I’ve come here to put an end to Loki’s schemes!” Thor interrupts”Then prove it! Put the hammer down” Steve patiently says. Natasha feels a wave of panic, worried about the super soldier, (that doesn’t have to do with the feeling of that weapon in her chest, shut up), and tries to stop it“Yeah, no! Bad call! He loves his hammer!” her warning gets cut short when she is hit by said hammer. The god raises Mjölnir against Capitan America“You want me to put the hammer down?” he hits the vibranium shield, provoking a massive shockwave that blows everything away. When Natasha stands up she looks at Steve and the shield in awe“Are we done here?” Cap deadpansNatasha is walking to the debriefing room, finally out of her suit when she hears the others speaking “Have care how you speak, Loki might be beyond reason, but he’s still an Asgardian and he is my brother” the god, Thor, says with a grave voice“He killed eighty people in two days” beautiful Nat adds, Tasha is really glad to see her again, low-key she wonders if the spy's going to be impressed with her growth“He’s adopted” the god concedes and Tasha has to suppress a laughter“I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?” she hears Dr. Banner ask and takes that as her entering cue“It’s a stabilizing agent,” she waltzes right into the room basking in the surprised looks “it means that the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D and it can stay open as long as Loki wants” she walks next to Thor and pats him in the arm “No hard feelings Point Break, you’ve got a mean swing” three pairs of wide eyes follow her walk to the center “Uh... raise the mizzenmast, ship the topsails” she says to the crew clearly having her fun, it certainly says something about the agents when no one even bats an eye. Romanoff hides an amused smile “That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn’t notice but we did” the genius looks awfully pleased with herself as she covers her eye and looks around “How in hell does uncle Nick even sees this?” she asks turning to the screens in front of her“He turns” Maria Hill answers with an entertained glint, she doesn’t notice when Tasha places a hacking device under one of the monitors“Well that sounds exhausting” she makes a mocking pout and continues with the business talk “The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily, the only major component he still needs is a power source... it would have to be a high energy density, something to kick start the cube”“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” Hill asks with a raised eyebrow, Tasha beams proudly at her“Last night actually, the packet, Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers? I read them all” she can't help the smug smile that appears on her face“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Steve asks, doing his best to keep up with the intel“He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier” Banner answers with a deep thinking expression, Tasha looks at him trying to not let her fangirl tendencies show, but still unable to suppress the excited glint in her eyes“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect” she takes a controlled step forward with her arms behind her, the perfect picture of a good girl “Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet” Tasha looks about a second to go to jump and squeal like a little kid, and, if agent Romanoff’s smirk is any indication, she is being pretty damn obvious“I’m glad I found someone who also speaks my English” she grins at Bruce who flushes slightly, he's definitely not used to the adoration and admiration look that he is receiving from the kid“Is that what just happened?” Steve’s voice shows a little bit of amazement and delight“Who is this child and what is she doing in such a serious and dangerous situation as this?” Thor asks looking also amazed but confused, Nat takes the trouble to explain“The kid...” she ignores the outrage squeal from her namesake and continues with a smirk in place “is Natasha Stark, genius, owner of Stark Industries, S.H.I.E.L.D consultant, and Iron man in her free time” there is a quiet gasp from Steve, how can that little girl be Iron man?Tasha pouts “I’ll let you all know that I’m definitely NOT a kid, I’m 20, completely an adult” she turns to Dr. Banner and proceeds to shake his hand, ignoring everyone else “It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner, your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. Also, I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster” she smiles sweetly at him, Bruce looks down sheepishly“Thanks, it's an honor to meet you as well” she beams at him, thinking how fun her next hours are going to be. Fury enters the room then, interrupting Tasha’s train of thought“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube, I was hoping you might join him” if Tasha’s face could reflect any more happiness at the thought of working with a scientist she deeply respects, she would have blind everyone in the room.“Let’s start with that stick of his, it may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon for comfort” Steve suggests“I don’t know about that yet, but it is powered by the cube, and I’d like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys” Fury narrows his eyes at the reminder“Monkeys? I do not understand” Thor looks puzzled“I do! I understood that reference!” Steve looks downright proud and Tasha has to ground herself so she doesn’t squeal again, Captain America looked so adorable that her fangirl-o-meter is going out of the roof, she rolls her eyes at her own thoughts, but with a fond smile set in place.“Shall we go to play, doctor?” she asks Bruce trying to remain professional“Let’s play some then” Bruce followed her lead with an amused expression
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To say that Steve Rogers is amazed by the little Stark kid would be an understatement; sure, he knew that Howard Stark had a daughter, but he didn’t expect her to be a genius or Iron man, or you know... too young to be both. She claims that she's 20, but she looks younger, like, way younger. Her face still holds child-like features, her hair is long and wavy, currently arranged in a messy but cute ponytail, also, she's tiny, like, 'barely reaching Steve’s chin' tiny. Yet what the artist finds to be the most endearing thing about the little genius are her eyes. They are huge and very expressive, they have a color that resembles chocolate, Steve wouldn’t mind losing himself in those. Especially when she beams at him as she did back in the debrief room, she's just so adorable, she provokes a protective streak within the soldier.But he doesn't have any furthest interest, because that would be completely inappropriate; it doesn't explain what's Steve doing outside the lab watching the two scientist work though. It's really a sight to behold, seeing the kid walk like she owns the place, moving her hands around holograms, walking to Bruce, and getting back. She is pure movement, fluid and easy, and Steve aches for a pencil and a sketchpad so badly. He doesn’t mean it, but his enhance hearing allows him to listen to the conversation, not that he understands half of what they are saying anyway“The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s reports on the Tesseract. But it’s gonna take weeks to process” Bruce low-key whines“Well, if we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops” she says without missing a beat while looking at a diagram“And all I packed was a toothbrush” Banner smiles looking at her“Not even toothpaste?” she returns smirking and the doctor finds himself laughing, the action is contagious and Steve smiles as well “You know, you should come to Stark Tower sometime, top ten floors, all R&D, you’d love it, it’s candy land” she eats a blueberry from a little bag “I don’t really have someone to play with anymore, it's no fun” she tilts her head and lets a bit of her puppy eyes to show, she really wants Bruce to spent time in her labs, she can almost see all the research and discoverments they could make, and when they get Selvig back it'll be more fun“Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem” at the sight of the girl’s cute eyes, Bruce looks away, he doesn’t know the full potential of that particular weapon yet, but he isn’t about to discover it“Aww come on! I promise a stress-free environment, no tension, no surprises” Tasha says but proceeds to poke Banner with a miniature electrical pod, which makes Steve’s heart stop for a second. If the Hulk were to come out so close to her... He walks in a bit more paled than before“Ow” is Bruce's only reaction“Nothing?” Tasha tilts her head once more, looking completely innocent as if she hadn’t risked her life just a second ago“Hey! What do you think you are doing?” Steve doesn’t raise his voice but he has a firm tone“Wow, you really have got a lid on it, haven’t you? What’s your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Weed?” she wiggles her eyebrows “Please tell me, I need some of it after board meetings on Mondays” she begs half joking (and half serious because board meetings are horrible, painful, and just plain awful)“Is everything a joke to you?” he asks rolling his eyes, ‘of course it is Rogers, she’s still a kid ' he thinks“Funny things are” she answers with a smile and the tip of her tongue showing“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny” you could’ve got hurt, he wants to add, instead he talks to Banner “No offense doctor”“No, it’s alright, I wouldn’t have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy little things” he says while looking at Tasha, her smile doesn’t disappear completely but it dims“You’re tiptoeing” she knows what's that like, after her parents' death and Afghanistan everyone used to do it all the time around her, treating her like she was something fragile and breakable, even the people she trusted the most did it sometimes. Tasha knows that's not a nice feeling and she doesn’t want to do the same with Bruce, now if she could say that to Captain America “You need to let loose sometimes you know? Stress is known as a potential cause of death these days” she explains all while looking at her STARKpad. Steve frowns at her, she looks up and seems to flinch at his expression “Look, if I really want to unleash him, I’ll put a repulsor in his face, this is nothing.” she looks at Steve’s eyes, and then looks away, a disappointed glint in her face “Is like you don’t trust him” that actually feels like a punch to the gut to the soldier, especially because is somehow true“Stark...” Bruce starts“Tasha” she quietly corrects“Tasha... the Captain isn’t wrong not trusting me, I can’t control it after all” Bruce also looks appalled by the little Stark's sudden sadness, she looks at him with a determined look“But that’s not true, you said so yourself, if you couldn’t control it you wouldn’t be here” she turns to Steve “SHIELD and everybody else should trust him more, way more than uncle Nick in any case” she adds rolling her eyesThe blond soldier raises an eyebrow“You call him uncle yet you don’t trust him?” Tasha sends him a look ‘really cap? ’ Steve scowls “You think Fury’s hiding something?”“Okay first of all he was the one who taught me to never trust anyone, he said, and quote ‘never trust anyone Toni, not even the ones smaller than yourself, not even me’ so yeah, that’s a thing” she promptly ignores both of their curious glances over the Toni name “Secondly, he’s a spy, Captain, he’s The Spy, with honorifics and all, his secrets have secrets” she turns to look at Bruce “Are you going to tell me it doesn’t bug you that he called us until now and not before?”“You know... I uh... just want to finish my work here and...” Banner whispers trying to look anywhere else“Doctor?” Steve prompts, Bruce sighs and looks at them“'A warm light for all mankind’ that was Loki’s jab at Fury about the cube” “I heard it” the Captain nods, Bruce turns to Tasha“Well, I think that was meant for you, even if Barton didn’t tell Loki about it, it still was all over the news” the girl offers him a dry fruit in a moment of kinship, which Banner graciously accepts “The Stark Tower? That big ugly... building in New York?” Steve interrupts his rant at seeing the scowl on the kid’s face, it's more of a pout really, just when he thinks she can’t be more adorable...“Hey! Don’t insult Pepper’s baby” she glares at Steve “It’s not a nice thing to do after she worked so hard on that” Tasha whispers with indignation, Rogers feels horrible with himself as he watches the pained expression of the girl... which's half fake by the way; sure she's defending Pepper’s 12% fault in the design, but she also knows that not everyone likes it, hell, even Rhodey had mocked her at the time. But it's always fun to throw people who look down on her through a loop. As much as it stings having to do it to Captain America himself “I... sorry, you are right, it’s not nice and I apologized” Steve almost stutters, Natasha nods and gives him a little, more genuine smile. At least she can commend him for being the first time that someone doesn’t go out of their way with apologies, compliments and stuff, which she thinks is pretty good for a change“Apology noted and appreciated” she turns to Bruce again “You were saying?”“Well... It's powered by Stark Reactors, a self-sustaining energy source, that building will run itself for what? A year?” Bruce wonders, Tasha beams at them again“That’s just the prototype, we are kind of the only name in clean energy right now” She looks so proud, and not without reason, that Steve has to suppress a smile of his own, Banner nods“So why didn’t SHIELD bring her in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?” he questions“Hmmm I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all SHIELD’s secure files” she says zooming into another hologram. The soldier blinks for a beat“I’m sorry, did you say...?” Steve seems taken back by that, Tasha at least seems a bit embarrassed as she smiles sheepishly“JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge, in a few hours we’ll know every little secret SHIELD wanted to hide” Tasha holds out a bag of dry fruit “Blueberry?" Steve shakes his head and sighs“And you don’t want to be treated like a kid. That snooping Stark” Steve scowls with his patented look of disapproval “Tasha” she corrects again “And I would be offended if it was the case, biut it isn’t, uncle Nick has been bothering me about testing their security program, and it just happens that now is a good time as any” she grins again but now with a devilishly glint that has Steve’s heart beating harder for second“Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?” Banner’s voice brings his mind back“What I think is that Loki’s trying to wind us up. The man means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed, we have orders, we should follow them” Tasha scrunches her nose adorably“Following is not really my style” “And you’re all about style, aren’t you?” Steve can't stop his eyes from wandering through the petit body in front of him, he definitely doesn’t mean the flirty tone. Tasha still recognizes it and bits her lip subtly but enough to have Rogers' attention “Why, Captain, I’m glad you noticed my new under-armor suit” she spins for good measure and tilts her head while battering her lashes. Steve blushes a deep shade of red that she thinks it's adorable and makes her heart flutter, which prompts a grin on her face“J-just find the cube” he says before walking out of the lab. His blush doesn’t vanish until he is on the other side of the carrier
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Tasha watches Captain America leave the lab in his patented strut and low whistles“That’s the guy Howard and aunt Peggy never shut up about? Thank god they took him out of the ice” Bruce can see a faint blush along with a curious glint on the girl’s face and smiles a little as he turns to study another diagram“And he is not wrong about Loki, he does have the jump on us” Tasha seems to consider it for a second“He does... but what he also got is an ACME dynamite kit that's gonna blow up in his face and I’m gonna be there when it does” she grins and Bruce half smirks“And I’ll read all about it” she tilts her head again; the doctor quickly wonders if the action is on purpose all the time or if she does it unconsciously“Uh-huh, or, you know, you’ll be suiting up with the rest of us” she shrugs. Bruce scrunches up his nose in disagreement“Ah, you see, I don’t get a suit of armor, I’m exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare” he explains. Ah, she can relate to that“You know... I’ve got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart” she points at her arc reactor in her chest “This stops it, this little circle of light. It’s part of me now, not just armor, but without it, I would have never become Iron man, you know? it’s a.... a terrible privilege actually” Bruce sees for the first time a maturity that shouldn't be in a 20-year-old, not even a genius 20-year-old“But you can control it...” he quietly says, a little appalled by what he imagines the kid had to suffer so young“Well I had to learn how... otherwise I’ll be dead by now” she smiles self-deprecating and Bruce decides right then and there that he doesn’t like that look on her face“It’s still different” He tries to look at the screen, but Tasha slides it so he can see her“I’ve read all about your accident, that much gamma exposure should have killed you”“So you’re saying that the Hulk... the other guy... saved my life?” she nods slightly “That’s nice, it’s a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?” Bruce can’t stop the bitterness in his tone“Well, that’s something only you can answer, you can be just a regular genius scientist with accidental powers or a genius scientist/superhero” she sends him a knowingly half smile and gets back to work. Banner mimics her“Like you?” he asks absent-mindedly“Oh I’m no hero” she chuckles “Not yet anyway” Bruce sends her a curious glance but keeps workingHours later, she and Bruce are working on deciphering the workings of the scepter while waiting for their program to find the Tesseract when Fury storms inside the lab“What the hell are you doing Toni?” ' oops ' she thinks, uncle Nick only calls her that when he is either worried or pissed or both“Huh... I’ve kinda been wondering the same thing about you” she feigns innocence“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract”“We are, the model’s locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now, when we get a hit, we’ll have the location within half a mile” Bruce interjects“And you’ll get your cube back, no muss no fuss” she smiles brightly while looking at a collection of secret SHIELD files, then... “What’s phase 2?”Steve chooses that moment to enter the lab and drop a HYDRA rifle on the table, he looks pissed “Phase 2 is SHIELD using the cube to make weapons” he looks over to Tasha, who is very much impressed, and shrugs “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow to me”“Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this doesn't mean that we’re making-...” Tasha moves the screen and shows them plans of the weapons“You really shouldn’t try to lie to Captain America, uncle Nick, it’s not nice” she sounds innocent but a smug undertone says otherwise, Fury sends her a look“I was wrong, director. The world hasn’t changed a bit” Steve says solemn, making Tasha feel slightly bad for him, the guy fought and sacrificed a lot for the country... a country that apparently doesn't learn from their past mistakes Thor and Nat enter the lab then, with her eyes on Banner“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment doctor?” she asks for an answer, Bruce looks pissed“I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed” he looks at the Black Widow and confronts her "Did you know about this?“Loki’s manipulating you” she says ignoring Banner's question “And you’ve been doing what exactly?” he jabs“You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you” she deadpans. Tasha looks at them surprised, Nat flirted with Bruce? She sooo needed that story, ‘On second thought... maybe later’ she decides, sensing the tense atmosphere“Yes and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction"“Because of him” Fury points at Thor (like a kid accusing another to the teacher), who actually looks surprised and puzzled“Me?”“Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town, we learned that not only we are not alone but that we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned” Fury tells them as justification "My people want nothing but peace with your planet" Thor protests but Fury isn’t done“But you're not the only one out there, are you? You’re not the only threat either, the world’s filling with people who can’t be matched, that can't be controlled” he makes a point of looking around him (the god, the raging genius, the iron genius, the spy, and the super soldier)"Like you controlled the cube?" said Super soldier snaps at him, disappointment all over his frown “Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it in the first place. It’s a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war” Thor explains remaining civil"A higher form?" Steve asks half indignant, half wary “You forced our hand, we had to come up with something” Fury defends“Nuclear deterrent. Cause that always calms everything down” Tasha rolls her eyes“Remind me again how your fortune was made? You have no right to talk here about this” Nicks says and she and Steve, look outraged“Hey I've experienced the downside of mass destruction first-handed, I have the right to say whatever fuck I want” she protests at the same time that Steve defends her“If Stark still made weapons she would be neck deep in this, yet she isn’t!”“I thought humans were more evolved than this” Thor sighs and Fury looks personally attacked“Excuse me, did WE come to YOUR planet and blow stuff up?” From there on the discussion escalates further and it looks like the shit is about to hit the fan any second. The Avengers don’t even see the scepter glowing, and they definitely don’t notice how the attack outside the Hellicarrier begins"You speak of control, yet you court chaos" Thor accuses “It’s his M.O isn’t it? I mean what are we, a team? No, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos, we’re... we’re a time-bomb” Banner looks more and more frustrated with each second“Well then, you need to step away” Fury looks at him warningly“Why don’t we let the guy blow off some steam? I’d love to meet our other member” Tasha says with a grin, supporting herself on Roger's shoulder, Steve looks at her as if she had grown another head“You know damn well why! Now back off!” he doesn’t mean the harsh tone in his voice but he’s starting to feel very irritated with her for some reason, Tasha comes face to face with the Cap and tilts her head letting her hair fall over her shoulder“Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me” she leers, Steve has to fight a blush“You are just a kid! A girl in a big suit of armor, take that off and you are only a little child” He scowls, but his words lose some of the severity because of the furious blush on his face. Nat looks at both of them and raises an eyebrow, Banner partially ignored“You forgot genius, billionaire, and philanthropist” she grins and Steve's frustration grows until he finally snaps“I know people who are worth ten times you, I’ve seen the footage, you only fight for yourself, not the kind to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other crawl over, you are just an immature wannabe hero!” he doesn’t mean that (honest to god that he doesn't even think that, at all), but the words are out before he can stop them. The change in her expression is minimal, but still evident for Romanov and Fury who know her for a long time, for Bruce who has seen her real smile many times in the past hours and for Steve who also has seen her cute happy face before and is close enough to see the little contractions in her face muscles “I... don’t... I’m so-” His apology is interrupted by Tasha's cold remark“Well, at least I’m not a bully” she says with a blank expression that she shouldn’t know how to do, Steve flinches and she lets her guard down a little, the comment hurts, a lot, and it would have made a lot more damage knowing it came from her childhood hero if she weren't aware of her worth as a person, which she has Rodney, Pepper, Jarvis, Ana, her mom and aunt Peggy to thank for.Now, the environment is tense, and she knows something isn’t right; No matter what she believes, the man aunt Peggy loved and used to speak so highly of, wouldn’t say something so cruel like that. It looks like she is the only one that notices the strange atmosphere thought, with Thor insulting humans and Fury wanting to take Bruce somewhere else“Where? You rented my room” he bitterly says, a twinge of green swirling in his eyes"The cell was just in case..." Nick tries to explain"In case you needed to kill me" Banner finishes for him "But you can't. I know, I tried" everyone looks at him with wide eyes and he looks uncomfortable for a second "I got low" he says "I didn't see an end, so, I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out" he has an air of defiance as he tells his story, and both Natashas can't help but to feel impressed by it "So I moved on, I focused on helping other people, I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone at risk” he turns to Nat “You wanna know my secret agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?”“Doctor Banner... put down the scepter” Steve's voice rings in his ears and he sees Tasha looking at him with concern; Bruce notices a weight in his hands and soon realizes that he is holding Loki’s scepter that he doesn't remember picking. The tense moment is broken by a beep coming from the computer, the Doctor puts the weapon down and walks to the screen alongside Stark"Sorry kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all" he deadpans “We located the Tesseract” Tasha says plainly, she looks at the coordinates and adds “I can get there faster...” she starts saying before Thor interjects arguing that the Tesseract belongs to Asgard and only an Asgardian can control it, she rolls her eyes“You are not going alone” Steve says looking severe yet worried“Oh, I’m sorry, now you care? Hey, how about we suit up and race for it?” Tasha smiles at him again but it’s a strained one at best and a completely fake one at worst, Steve finds himself feeling awful over the fact that he put that expression on her face “I’m not afraid to beat an old man” she jabs“Stark...” Is that moment when the engine in the Hellicarrier explodes and everyone inside the lab is thrown in every direction, Steve helps Tasha, getting a sniff of her perfume and feeling the softness of her body, leaving him lightheaded for a minute. Natasha isn’t any better, getting to feel up close and personal 70 years of well-built muscles, a blush spreads on her face, rivalry momentarily forgotten; she feels a shyness she hasn’t felt since her years with Ty. “I’ll take your offer, put on the suit” the captain says as both leave the half-destroyed lab
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This is a mess, the Helicarrier is being attacked and all of them were fighting like little kids, and the only actual kid by age standards didn’t even intervene! Steve feels bad again remembering the blank expression on Stark’s face but pushes the feeling down for a while, there are some more urgent matters at the moment. Agent’s Hill voice sounds over the general comms“Turbine’s loose, mostly intact, but it’s impossible to get out there and made repairs while we are on the air, and if we lose one more engine, we’ll stop being up here” she resumes "Somebody's got to get outside and patch that engine" “Tasha you copy that?!” Fury's voice sounds strained“On it” it’s all her reply. She and Steve are walking through a debris-filled hall, she turns to him and says “Find engine three, I’ll meet you there” She walks into another room, most likely to get her armor. Steve leaves to suit up and find the damaged engine. When he gets there he sees that is, in fact, completely dead“Stark, I’m here!!” he says into their personal comms“Good, let’s see what we got” over the chunk that was ripped off the Hellicarrier, Steve can see the Iron man suit fly near the turbine, he's still amazed by it, which makes the guilt over what he said earlier grow. Tasha mutters under her breath some things he can’t understand, only making out the words ‘cooling system’, ‘dislodging’ and ‘debris’, then she turns to Steve, her mechanical voice ringing in his ear “I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position” Captain America jumps over the destroyed railing while she works, opens the control panel and promptly freezes ‘What the hell is this? ’ is the first thing that crosses his mind “What’s it looks like in there?” Tasha asks“I... uh... well it seems to run on some form of electricity” he answers dropping a little sarcasm in there, somewhat embarrassed that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he is looking“Well you are not wrong” Iron man voice sounds amused. She tells him what he should look out for and Steve checks everything all over again“The relays are intact, what’s our next move?” he can hear her sigh“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won’t re-engage without a jump, I'm gonna have to get in there and push” Steve's heart stops for a second“But if that thing gets up to speed, you’ll get shredded” he sounds a little breathless at the idea of Tasha being possibly hurt“That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage maglev and that could-”“In English please!”“Fine, see that red lever? It’ll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out, just trust me and wait for my word” she says while entering the turbine. Steve jumps next to the lever and waitsSoon enough a man appears and starts shooting at him and throwing him grenades, Steve jumps back to the other railing down with Loki’s goons. He starts taking them down, even going as far as to throw one of them off, but with one down, more men enter the room firing, he grabs a gun and starts shooting back at them. In the comms, he can hear Fury considerably shaken“Toni! We are losing altitude!”“Yeah, I’ve noticed, working on it” she sounds a little breathless, and Steve can only imagine that she is moving the rotors. Losing focus, Captain America slides off the railing, only managing to grab onto a loose cable at the very last minuteTasha continues to spin the engine, giving it her all, the rotors are propelling properly and fast, making the Hellicarrier level itself and not fall killing everyone“Cap! Hit the lever!” she calls, a desperate tone in her voice“I need a minute here!” Steve sounds out of breath as he climbs up the cable and reaches the railing“The Lever! NOW!” is all that Tasha can say before being caught in one of the rotors. The suit gets chewed up and she lets out a tiny but painful yelp. Steve pulls himself up and, evading a man shooting him, finally pulls down the lever, Natasha’s safety being the one thing that impulses him. In the corner of his eye, he can see the Iron man suit head his way, the last man standing fires at the armor and gets tackled by it. Tasha opens the face plate and rolls over, tired.“You okay?” Cap asks worriedly“Still in one piece apparently” she breaths harshly “Gotta check the suit though” Steve nods, flinching when seeing the damage to it“Hey, Stark...?”“Tasha...” she corrects and adds “After not letting me die in that turbine I think you can try to call me by my name” Steve internally agrees“Tasha...” the name leaves a sweet feeling in his mouth “I wanted to... apologize, for what I said before, I don’t know what... I just... It’s not true okay? You are great, a genius and a hero” he says fighting the blush that creeps in his neck for having a pair of big chocolate eyes looking at him intently“Well, thanks, but you were right on something though, I’m no hero, not yet, I still have a long way to go to be like aunt Peggy” her voice's barely a whisper, her eyes focused on the ceiling“Peggy? Peggy Carter?” she nods “You know Peggy Carter?” Steve’s eyes go wide, Tasha looks at him puzzled“Well yeah? I’m the daughter of Howard Stark remember? Of course, I would know her and all the Hollowing Commandos” her sweet smile returns to her face and Steve’s heart flutters “The weirdest uncles a little girl can have, but yeah” she tries to stand up and makes a pained expression when she does, the ever gentleman Steve Rogers helps her getting up and she smiles at him, gratefully “I must say though, you are too good looking to be as old and proper as they made out you to be” she smirks and Rogers can see the mischievous and flirty glint in her eyes, he feels his face warm, but he mimics her and grins“And you are pretty swell for a brat” that prompts a delighted laugh from Tasha“Alright old and hot stuff, let's see what else we can do to help” Steve feels happy and lightheaded at her wordsThey are getting to the hallway when Fury’s voice sounds again in the comms, an urgent tone to it that stops Tasha on her feet “I need paramedics in the containment cell NOW! Rogers, Stark if you copy, see me in the debriefing room as soon as possible, the situation here is... delicate”
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Everyone in the debriefing room has a look of numb shock on their faces, Tasha is out of her armor, her head resting in her hands and her mind running a mile per hour, she struggles to summarize all the variables after seeing the footage of the different battles“So... Thor is inside the containment cell somewhere down there, Bruce jumped off the Hellicarrier trying to play catch with a jet, I lost my chance to see the Hulk...” she pouts quietly “Loki escaped and Coulson...” her voice almost breaks at the last one“He is currently fighting for his life in what's left of the medical wing” Fury says while entering the room ‘Oh thank god ’ Tasha thinks. After seeing Loki stab him she couldn’t stop thinking about the worst-case scenario. Fury puts Coulson’s Captain America cards on the table next to Steve, a little bloody “These were in his jacket, you might want to sign that, for when he recovers” Tasha nods at the when, because (almost uncle) Phil dying is not an option“So... on the bright side we have Hawkeye back and nobody died, that’s great” Natasha stands from her seat and hugs herself, deep in thought, trying to avoid the little voice in her head saying ‘yet, nobody died yet '“We’re dead in the air up here, our communications, the location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing, I almost lost my one good eye... Maybe I had that coming” Fury waits for a beat, he sighs and continues “Yes we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract, I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Tasha knows about this, it was called The Avengers Initiative. An idea of bringing together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more, to see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil still believes in that, in heroes.”But Tasha can’t hear it now, she just can’t. She is worried sick and she can’t sit thinking how she just let down another member of her little and strange found family, so she walks out of the room, feeling Steve’s eyes burning her back, so what if she disappoints him too? She can’t do it, she can’t play hero when Coulson is potentially dying and Bruce is somewhere in the middle of the fucking United States. Pepper would be mad, and Rhodey as well, because she did something dangerous and reckless and she is hurt, her entire body hurts. And what can she do anyway? Go alone to punch Loki? No. She’ll just end like Phil. God, he is an idiot, why did he have to take on Loki alone? Why couldn’t he wait for reinforcements? Tasha swears to any god (including Thor) that if Coulson dies, she is going to find a way to revive him just to kill him herself.Her mind is running in circles, so because she can feel herself not thinking very clearly, she goes to the only place where she doesn’t have to worry about anything else (besides Rhodey’s side): Nat and Clint.Her story with the spies is a funny one: after the one-night-only deal she got with the red-head, Romanoff admitted that she saw Tasha as someone close to being a little sister and that she reminded the spy of herself when she was still in the red room, hence the indulging Stark in her lust. Toni was surprisingly good with that and her crush evolved into something platonic, more like the thing she had with Rhodes and Pepper. So, Tasha stopped seeing agent Romanoff when she left for her other missions, that’s why she was so surprised and pretty freaked out when, not long after her 19th birthday, a man dropped from her ceiling, injured and claiming to be with S.H.I.E.L.D and being an acquaintance of Nat.That man was Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye. Tasha helped him of course and even gave him new arrows in exchange for an explanation of why and how he managed to get inside the house.“Ventilation system” he said “you need more security in there” Natasha nodded with a raised eyebrow, quite impressed “As for the reason I’m here and not at S.H.I.E.L.D...” he shrugged “I’m undercover, but some thug shot me; if I go to S.H.I.E.L.D it could raise suspicions. Nat’s been talking highly about you, which is something pretty damn amazing in itself, so I wanted to check you out and I thought that this was as a good time as ever right?” he grinned while Tasha cleaned the wound, she awkwardly smiled back“Right... so... Agent Barton...”“Clint”“Clint, right... need anything else besides a couch to bleed out?” she asked with a tiny smirk which he mimicked“Food would be nice, and booze, lots of booze” Tasha laughed but conceded. Moments later both of them were very drunk, talking away every little thing that crossed their minds. By morning it was like they were friends for years.In that year and a half, Clint kept visiting her sometimes when he wasn’t very busy, since most of his missions were happening in New York anyway, he just took a suit on one floor of the developing tower, and Tasha was really okay with that, she liked the company. She went as far as to give him new arrows and upgrades on his bow, which he paid back with tips in security and even a bit of self-defense lessons.Soon enough, Barton looked at her like he would look at a little sister (or a little pet in his own words), he told her a few missions stories when she couldn't sleep due to nightmares, she told him about Afghanistan, and then both of them bonded over shitty childhoods and equally shitty parents as they shared copious amount of alcohol or just hot chocolate depending on the mood or subject of the night; on one memorable occasion, he recounted the time Nat scolded him for letting her drink so much, Tasha really laughed at that, imagining the intimidating Romanoff scowling at Clint just for let a 19-year-old drink her own alcohol, it was hilarious. They became close enough that Tasha knew about Laura and the kids and even if she hadn't met them personally, she sent them 5 years worth of Christmas and birthday presents one month.So yeah, she practically accepted the mission as soon as the name Barton was involved.This is why she's at their door, wondering for a bit if he would be happy to see her... if it's okay for her to invade their privacy. She knocks anyway, the anxiety to see that both he and Nat are unharmed is stronger than her doubts. Nat opens and lets her in, Clint is sitting in a small bed, he looks at her and tries to smile but he falls short, Tasha's heart breaks a little at the sight“How are you feeling birdie?” she asks kneeling in front of him“Like someone took my brain out and play with it...” he looks down and then back to her, Tasha nods, understanding that Clint doesn't want to elaborate“You are going to be alright” she pauses and then asks “How did you get him out?”“Cognitive recalibration it seems” he answers with the tiniest grin on his face looking at Nat, Tasha turns to her with a raised eyebrow“I hit him really hard in the head” she deadpans and Tasha snorts“Of course, I wouldn’t expect Black Widow to do any differently” she smirks, Clint laughs quietly, but soon enough his expression darkens again“How’s Phil?” Tasha can feel her own eyes cloud with worry“He... he is fighting... delicate, but... he is gonna get better, he ought to” she says, trying to convince herself more than the two spies in the room, she looks at Clint and sees his pained expression “Don’t.” Tasha warns him while putting her hand on his “Don’t do that to yourself, this was Loki’s doing, it’s magic and other stupid, senseless stuff” Clint nods“I must be lookin’ real low if a kid's trying to comfort me” he jabs, but his tone is fond and grateful, she sticks her tongue at him“I’m not a kid, old man” Tasha smiles and then assures him “We are going to get back at him, I promise, we’ll stop him”“We? That doesn’t sound like you, who is we anyway?”“Me and Nat if necessary, right Nat?” she turns to the Black Widow who is watching them from the doorframe“Damn right” the spy agrees while turning a knife that came out of god knows where in her hands“See?” Tasha grins satisfied with Nat's accomplice “This ain’t your fight Stark, you aren't a soldier and this is far too dangerous... what did Loki do to you that you want to stop him so badly?” Clint looks deep into her eyes and she has to avert them after a while“He made it personal, he attacked the ones I consider my family, and I’ve been compromised from the start” she admits in rapid succession (while they have a deep understanding of one another, and a close friendship, words like 'love' and 'family' are a bit of a sore topic for the three of them still. And Tasha being a Stark finds it difficult to express such sentiments, though, after almost losing two important people for her in less than a week plus all the recent all-nighters, her head-to-mouth filter is severely lacking at the moment), and stands up, hurrying to the door “So prepare yourselves to see me punch a god in the face” she says before exiting, of course, she doesn’t get too far before a feminine hand stops her“You do know I can see your insecurity from a mile away, don't you?" Tasha freezes, she knows; after Rhodey, Nat is the second person that can see her and call bullshit the moment she puts her barriers up, perks of knowing someone when they are dying she guesses "It's alright, you can do this котенок, we believe in you, and we are going to be with you all the way, we'll have your back” Tasha fights back the tears at the endearment and her words of support, she has always been weak to the shows of affection from the people she loves“I... I’ll try not to let you guys down” she walks away, breaking the contact with Romanoff’s hand“You couldn’t do it even if you tried it, мой котенок” is what Tasha doesn’t hear
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Steve finds her in the containment room. She is standing there, watching the bloody pattern without saying a word, she suddenly looks older than before, older than even her age. But that’s just an image, her youth is still there, hidden by worry and grief. The soldier doesn’t know what to say to her, he wants to comfort her at least, she seemed pretty shaken up by the whole deal earlier, and even if according to doctors Coulson has good chances of walking on his own feet, he knows the risks are still there, so he doesn't want to say anything that could lead to misperceptions and a false sense of security.“They say he will recover” Steve opts to say, Tasha doesn’t show any signs of listening to him other than nodding slightly “You two seem close” He adds trying to get her to open up, miraculously it works“I used to go to S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters when I was a kid.... an actual kid” she adds feeling Steve’s disbelief, a soft smile appearing on her features “Sometimes I’d be with uncle Nick, sometimes Phil would take care of me while Howard and uncle Nick worked” her eyes looks far away, lost in the memories “Then, after Afghanistan, he looked out for me, took care of Obediah’s death and the whole Iron man ordeal” she looks back at Steve “He really is a nice guy” her smile turns fond and she chuckles “When I was a girl we used to bond over who the biggest fan of Captain America was, it was really a sight to behold, just imagine a 30 something-year-old man passionately arguing why he was Captain’s America number 1 fan to a 5-year-old” she explains and starts laughing, which prompts an amused smile from Steve, he then remembers what Coulson told him earlier when they arrived at the Hellicarrier“So... you are the other person that was excited to meet me?” Tasha stops laughing and blushes deeply, Steve can’t stop himself from falling a little bit from that adorable vision“He said that huh? Yeah remember me to strangle him when he is better” she says with a smile but the worry in her eyes is quite obvious, so obvious that the question leaves his lips before he can contain it “Is this the first time you see a soldier fall?” he asks quietly, not wanting her to storm out as she did before in the debrief room, but he can relate, he saw Bucky fall, after all, the wound is still there; so he wants her to know that she's not alone, that she can share her pain with him, that he can understand. Tasha sends him an odd, angry look, not at all what he expected“We aren’t soldiers” she pauses, letting the wall carry her weight. Steve can see a deep hurt inside her eyes, faint, painful memories dancing in her mind that make her pale for a second before she recovers “We aren’t marching at S.H.I.E.L.D’s orders, and I recommend you not doing it” she almost snarls at the last part “And why’s that?” Steve stand defensively “S.H.I.E.L.D is stained, we all have blood in our hands, you, however, are different, you were at war before, but that’s not the case now, if you are clever you are going to walk away from all of this, and make yourself a better life, you deserve that much” her voice is almost a whisper, a rather angry whisper. Tasha looks at her hands for a split second, as if she expected to see the red substance there, his heart breaks a little bit, wondering, and not for the first time, just what happened to her? “I’m not walking away when my people need me” is what he says instead because he knows that this is neither the time nor place to ask her personal questions like that “So you are an idiot just like Phil” her eyes show exasperation and maybe just a tiny bit of despair, but Steve knows better than to comment on that “Why? For believing?” he scowls, he can't help it, even back in the 40's he hated it when someone badmouthed the men that were giving their lives in duty, even if he knows that Tasha isn't saying it with that intention “For taking on Loki alone” her eyes turn harsh, trying to hide the pain and the impotence “He was doing his job Tash” Cap tries to reason with her “He was out of his league, he should have waited, he should have...” her voice breaks, and stamps her fist against the wall. Steve can see the little tremors in her body and he is by her side in a second, reaching for her hand, soothing the scratches with gentle fingers“Sometimes there isn’t a way out, Tash” he takes her hand and kisses the little wounds there, Natasha sees him with a pained look. Steve really wants to take away all her suffering, she is a 20-year-old for god’s sake! she should be optimistic and full of hope for the future (even he was like that and he didn’t know whether he was going to live for the next day with all his diseases and with what they were living in times of war), she definitely shouldn’t have the tired look in her eyes, one Steve desperately wants to erase, he knows it isn’t his place though “You can talk to him after all is over, right now we’ve got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki only needs a power source, we can put over a list, check most likely places where he-”“He made it personal” she blurts looking at the blood pattern again, Steve barely contains a sigh“That’s not the point Tash...” he starts but stops once he sees her eyes grow sharp“That’s exactly the point. That’s Loki’s point, he hit us all right where we live... why?”“To tear us apart...” he concedes, Natasha dislodges herself from Steve’s hands and starts pacing, her mind racing“Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right?, That’s what he wants, he wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it... he wants an audience” she looks at him intently, her brain looking for the missing part of the mystery, Steve furrows his brow in concentration “Right, like what he did in Stuttgart” The mischief god could've fought them in any other place, or just kill innocents for the sake of it without so much show-making, but he didn't“Yeah, and that was just the preview, this is the opening night. And Loki... he is a full-tilt diva, I should know...” Steve raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on it “He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered in...” Steve can pinpoint the exact moment when all the puzzle pieces click together inside her brain. Tasha's eyes widen almost comically “Son of a bitch” is all she says, and storms out of the room, againAfter Stark actually explains to Steve where they have to go, he goes to the medical room where both spies rest, in full uniform now, to call them“Time to go” he says to the spy sitting in the chair working on a gun“Go where?” Nat asks raising an eyebrow, she knew Tasha would work fast to know where Loki was but she didn’t expect it to be this fast“I’ll tell you on the way, can you fly one of those jets?” Steve saw her being co-pilot, but he wonders if they would need a faster jet“I can” Barton says getting out of the restroom“You got a suit?” Cap looks at him, trusting Black’s widow nod confirming he is now on their side“Yeah”“Then suit up”“Ready to go?” Clint asks all the heroes in Quinjet "Where to?"“To New York" the soldier looks around him as Clint starts the jet "Isn’t Tasha coming with us?” Steve asks in a tiny hopeful voice, earning a weird look from the archer“Probably she is going to the tower first so she changes her suit for a fully functional one” he explains simply, not stopping his suspicious look, he even shares a glance with Nat who sits right in front of Steve, who inwardly cringes at the exchange“Clint, tell me when we are close to change your sit, I need to get my weapons ready” Steve can notice the meaningful undertone in that phrase, prompting a shiver to go down his spine, and with good reason, he notices, when she turns to him and while getting her already prepared gun out, she says “So... you seem to be quite worried about our favorite genius, you know, after what happened in the lab...” Steve gulps, the surviving part of his mind prays to God that they arrive in New York soon before Romanoff actually finds a way to kill a super-soldier
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Natasha Stark is a genius, a patient and strategic woman who doesn’t do anything by pure impulse (Rhodey calls bullshit) so it’s all in her plans when she flies firstly to her tower in New York, despite what everybody else would say about being dangerous with the possibility of Loki being there, she has to change her suit to a more functional, less turbine damaged armor, after all, so she is actually not doing something reckless and unnecessary (shut up Rhodes). And because all of her theories end up being true, or at least 99% of them, it’s not a surprise when she finds Selvig activating the device that’s holding the Tesseract“Miss, I took off the arc reactor but the device is already self-sustained” JARVIS tells her, not exactly the good news she was hoping for “Shut it down, Dr. Selvig” she warns her fellow brain-washed scientist“It’s too late! It can’t stop now. He wants to show us something! A new universe.” Selvig looks mad, probably a combination of Loki’s mental control and the usual scientific frenzy“Okay then...” she whispers, aims at the CMS, and fires, the energy from her boosters bounces, sending her and Selvig backward, she has to stabilize herself with her repulsors, yet the device remains unharmed“The barrier is pure energy. It’s unbreachable” JARVIS explains a second later“Yeah I noticed, but thanks for the warning buddy” Tasha replies in dry sarcasm “Okay... plan B”“Miss the MARK VII is not ready to be deployed”“Then skip the spinning rims, we’re on the clock here” Tasha lands and goes through the gauntlet that unsuits her. Loki is on the other side of the balcony, smiling at her, then proceeds to go into the penthouse, he strolls in, holding his scepter as Tasha casually walks down the steps towards her bar “Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity” Loki smugly says“Um... no, I’m planning to threaten you, actually” the god snorts“You should have left your armor on for that” his smirk is frustrating and Tasha has to remind herself to remain calm, over and over again“Yeah, it’s seen a bit of mileage and you’ve got the glow stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?” she asks reaching her shelf full of bottles“Stalling me won’t change anything” he huffs amused“No, no, no!, Threatening, I’m just being polite. No drink? Are you sure? I’m having one” she says serving herself a glass of whiskey“The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?” his entertained tone and smile irk Tasha a little too much and to stop herself from doing something stupid, like throwing the bottle of good, expensive alcohol to him, she drinks the entire glass, then, she serves herself another one“The Avengers” she simply says after knocking her first drink, Loki looks at her confused “It’s what we call ourselves, sort of like a team, ‘Earth’s mightiest heroes’ type of thing” she explains seemingly uninterested “Yes, I’ve met them, not so much of a threat though” he smirks unimpressed “Yeah, took us a while to get any traction I’ll give you that one” Tasha drinks half of the second glass and continues “But... let’s do a head count here: Your brother, the handsome and sparkly demigod; the dreamy super-soldier, a living legend who lives up to it; an amazing man with breathtaking anger-management issues; a couple of master assassins, a gorgeous genius, and you, big fella, you’ve managed to piss off every single one of us”“That was kind of the plan” Loki chuckles “Not a great plan, mind you. When the others come, and they will, then we’ll come for you” she finishes the rest of her drink and pulls out her brand-new bracelets“I have an army” Loki proudly says“We have a HULK” just because of that the god should be begging for mercy really, who actually expects to win against a Hulk? “I thought the beast had wandered off” his smile while talking like that about Bruce almost makes her snap, almost“You are missing the point” Tasha walks out of her bar “There’s no throne, no version of this where you come out on top. So maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you... Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it” Loki slowly walks up to her raising the scepter“I like you, you know? A fierce woman, you might be a good addition to the throne..." a little shiver runs down her spine at his words; it doesn't show "but before that, I can assure you, your friends won't even be having time for me, since they’ll be busy fighting you” Loki taps Tasha on her chest with his scepter making her flinch slightly, a ping sounds the moment the magic staff touches the reactor but nothing happens, Loki tries again but still the energy dissipates doing nothing. “Weird... it usually works” she smirks this time“Huh... probably I’m too good for you, also, performance issues you know? It’s completely normal for amateur...” Angry, Loki grabs Tasha by the neck and flings her across the room, and, wow that hurts “JARVIS? Anytime now if you please” her voice is strained after the hit, the god goes to her and grabs her by the throat again "Deploy!" “You will all fall before me” he hisses before throwing her out the window.Natasha freefalls down the tower, waiting until a red pod shoots out, it levels with her, laser signals the Colantotte bracelets on her wrists, and begins to transform into the new MARK VII suit. It latches onto her body and flies up just before hitting the ground, she reaches the penthouse window in seconds; Loki looks up at her, clearly upset over the fact that she didn't die.“And there’s one other person you pissed off! The son of Coul sends his regards” she deadpans and fires at Loki, sending him on his assIt’s in that moment when the device goes off and the Tesseract energy beams into the sky, forming a dark vortex that opens up letting the Chitauri army spill out in flying chariots, carrying energy rifles with bayonets on the end“Right... Army” Tasha flies up towards the portal launching miniature multiple rockets that take down several targets, a design similar to the Jericho but smaller, cuter and deadlier, however, all of her weapons are useless as thousands of Chitauri fly out, she then makes the call to fly down to the city to try and save as many as she can. The army blasts things as they go blowing up cars and buildings causing explosions to rip out all over the city. Soon enough, the Quinjet appears and starts shooting aliens ash Iron man is tailed by three Chitauri soldiers “Stark, we’re on your three, headed northeast” Black Widow’s voice sound in her comms system“What? Did you stop for drive-thru? Did you at least bring me something? What the hell took you so long?” she blasts another Chitauri, without even seeing it "And here I thought you'll be happy to see us" Clint butts into the comms, prompting a delighted laugh out of her "I'm wounded, let's go eat some pasta Nat, we are not wanted here" Tasha rolls her eyes, he's ridiculous"You are so dramatic sometimes Katniss, I swear" she chuckles "Besides you can't have any pasta without me birdbrain, you know the rules!" she says in mock dismay, the assassins can even see the grin in her voice"Pot, meet kettle" Nat sounds completely amused and Tasha can say with all security that she has missed this, not the battle, but spending time with her favorite spiesShe sends her repulsors at another bunch of Chitauri soldiers and grinning she adds “Swing up Park, I’m gonna lay ‘em out for you” she swoops down the street causing an alien to crash, then she puts the ones that are following her in view of the Quinjet to let Nat shoot them with the jet’s machine gun.“Miss, we have more incoming” JARVIS informs her ending just a tiny bit of her goofy mood, the things keep appearing and it's annoying “Ugh, fine” Tasha practically whines “let’s keep them occupied” she heads back to the portal to continue her attack. She hears a primal roar that makes her cringe, when she looks up she immediately regrets it. From the worm-hole, a fucking Chitauri Leviathan flies out carrying hundreds of soldiers“Iron Man are you seeing this?” Cap’s voice reaches her and she briefly wonders if he looks as amazed and horrified as he sounds “Seeing, still working on the believing. Where’s Bruce? Has he shown up yet?” she asks as she directs herself toward the huge monster, the thing's gonna destroy the city and she can't have that “Banner?” Steve asks confused, they don't even know where he is yet Tasha seems sure that he's going to appear soon“Yeah, I'll take that as he's not here yet, keep me posted 'kay? JARVIS, find me a soft post” she quietly flies behind and parallels with the Chitauri Leviathan'Let the fun begin'
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It's a good thing that Steve didn’t make another bet with Fury because he would have lost miserably upon seeing the darn monster that comes through the portal. The thing is huge, and practically surreal, without the heavy hitters like the Hulk or Thor it's going to be impossible for mere humans like them to take it down (Super-serum be damned); at least they had a genius on their side, surely she can come up with something smart to defeat it... speaking of which... 'What does she think she's doing? ' is the only thing that comes to his mind when he sees Iron man flying towards the Leviathan. He is not even going to try and pretend that he isn't worried sick for Tasha, leveling with that thing, bad enough is that she had to go and confront Loki all by herself in the first place, especially after she also called Coulson an idiot for doing so. 'Hey, Pot!' he thinks with fond exasperation He really would've preferred that she waited to go with them in the Quinjet at least (leaving him with Nat so she could stab metaphorical knives at him for what happened in the lab had nothing to do with that wish).Turning his attention back to the battle, Steve hurries to where Romanoff and Barton regrouped behind some abandoned cars"We've got civilians still trapped up here" the archer tells him, he looks down the bridge to the street and sees the people who try to flee from the hostile alien army shooting at them, “They're fish in a barrel down there” he can’t move a finger though since the Chitauri soldiers that landed near the Avengers start firing at them. Black Widow pulls both pistols out and fires“We got this, it’s good, go!” she assures him, Steve turns to Clint for confirmation “You think you can hold them off?”“Captain” Hawkeye pulls a trigger on his bow that chooses an arrow mechanically “It would be my genuine pleasure” he then shoots into a creature’s head, gaining a few seconds for Steve to jump down the bridge and race to the plaza, jumping over dozens of exploding cars. He can hear Tasha’s voice on the comms“Hey, doesn’t this looks like that story that you guys told me about? What was it...? ah! the one in Budapest?” “Told you” Nat smugly says at Clint’s groan“Yeah well... Nat and I remember Budapest very differently” is all he says before another explosion blows near“Guys... please stay focused” is all Steve adds noticing the increasing amount of bantering in the middle of the battle. He heads to a couple of police officers and jumps in the car in front of them “You need men in these buildings, there are people inside and they're going to be running right into the line of fire, you take them through the basements or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th” he orders without a second thought“Why the hell should I take orders from you?” the police sergeant snaps, but before Steve can say anything, an explosion comes behind him, the energy blast being blocked by his shield, then, two Chitauri soldiers attack and he fights them off with ease, he can hear the same sergeant say to the other officer “I need men in those buildings, lead the people down and away from the streets, We're going to set up a perimeter all the way down to 39th street"Steve rapidly goes back to his teammates to help, he uses his shield to hit oncoming Chitauri soldiers, it quickly becomes too much for them though, fortunately, after a few minutes several bolts of lightning strike down from the sky, channeling the blast, firing the electricity out of the aliens around them. They're blasted back in a massive shockwave, the Chitauri convulse and drop dead to the ground as Thor lands right beside them“What’s the story upstairs?” Steve turns to the newcomer“The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable” The god explains“Thor's right, we gotta deal with these guys for now” Tasha’s voice sounds over the comms, a roar can be heard at not so much distance immediately after, Steve's enhanced hearing catches a mutter under her breath "Well... we got his attention, what the hell was step two?" what in the nine realms did Tasha had to do to get that monster's attention? Steve decides right there and then that he doesn't want to know“How are we supposed to do this?” Black Widow breathlessly asks looking all over the half-destroyed buildings“As a team” it's Steve simple answer because they have to stop them, they have to defend New York, they have to save the Earth“I have unfinished business with Loki” Thor informs them“Yeah? Get in line” Clint deadpans while getting his arrows ready“Save it, Loki’s gonna keep this fight focused on us and that’s what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Tasha up top, she’s gonna need us-...” he interrupts his strategic plan when Bruce appears in a ridiculously small motorbike, he gets off and looks around the city“So... this all seems horrible” is the first thing the scientist says“I’ve seen worse” Nat adds without thinking“Sorry” Banner sheepishly apologizes“No... we could use a little worse” she rephrases “Tash? We got him” Steve says into the comms“Bruce?” her voice sounds excited even with the mechanical voice making him smile“Just like you said” Cap concedes“Nice! Tell him to suit up, I’m bringing the party to you guys” Steve can see her coming out from behind a building, the Chitauri Leviathan follows her impatiently“I... I don’t see how that’s a party” Nat stutters a little raising an unamused eyebrowIron Man swoops down the street, the monster following close, making a disaster of the few buildings still standing, Banner start walking to it“Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry”“That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry” Bruce’s body starts to swell, stretch, and get bigger and green. The Hulk smashes the Leviathan right in the nose, managing to flip the creature over 360, letting Tasha, who’s ready with her arm and a rocket out, shoot a soft spot. The Leviathan is blown away. Steve raises his shield to block the debris that falls on them, protecting Nat with the same movement, Tasha lands next to them. The Avengers Assemble as more Chitauri soldiers and Leviathans fly out of the portal“Guys....” Black widow calls in warning of the increasing enemies“Call it, Cap” Tasha’s certain and determined voice boost his own confidence, they can do this“Alright, listen up, until we can close that portal our priority is containment” his strategist's mind races to lay down a functional plan in less than a second “Hawkeye, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything, call out patterns and strays. Iron Man, you got the perimeter, anything gets more than three blocks out you turn it back or you turn it to ash”“Mind giving me a lift kiddo?” Clint turns to Tasha who smiles inside her helmet“Of course! Better clench up Legolas” the smirk is obvious even without seeing her face. He goes to her and passes an arm behind her neck so she can lift him with the armor“Thor, you’ve gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down, you’ve got the lightning, light the bastards up” the god does as told and flies with his hammer, Steve turns to Nat “You and me, we stay here on the ground keep the fighting here. And Hulk...” the green monster turns to him “Smash” Hulk smiles a magnificent grin and leaps soaring high into the nearest building.And with that, the true fight begins
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The battle begins in earnest, Tasha is flying through the buildings, destroying the strays Clint points out and making the Leviathans follow her. With all the adrenaline, her senses intensify, she can hear the Hulk roar and jump from building to building, smashing aliens; she can hear the thunders Thor sends to the portal and the destruction it causes, killing and exploding both Chitauri soldiers and monsters. She can hear the others in the comms, deciding to leave them open to not waste time or movements on them“Tash, you got a lot of strays sniffing your tail” Clint's amused voice sounds over the others“Ugh, I'm just trying to keep them off the streets" she whines prompting a fond grin from the archer, it’s the first time they fight together and he is enjoying it immensely“Honestly, they can’t bank worth a damn, find a tight corner” he says while shooting at an alien behind him“I will roger that” she smiles bemusedly, following his suggestion, she leads the enemies towards tight corners in Hawkeye's view, who fires arrow upon arrow, burning and exploding the Chitauri riders, Iron man keeps leading the aliens under tunnels, through open parking garages until she looks back and there’s none left “Nice call” she drawls blasting more Chitauri in the ground with her repulsors “Hey, this is getting old, let's make a bet”“That sounds like fun, what kind of bet?” Clint follows, a rider bursting at his right“The one who kills more of these things wins” she answers with a childish tone“Sounds good, what's the prize?” the archer perches himself to survey the battlefield “How about...losers invite dinner?” she grins deviously“Is JARVIS going to make the count?” Nat butts in the conversation, already suspecting Stark's plan“Yes?” the young genius arches an eyebrow behind her mask as she fires two more beams “Then no, you’ll have the advantage of a more accurate countability” Romanoff answers and explains as she shoots the invaders“Good call Nat” Clint adds laughing, they can even see the pout on Tasha’s face“Not fair guys” she whines at the teasing“Can’t you all stay focused?” Steve's voice sounds exasperated but not angry so Tash counts that as a win “Don’t rile the kid up, she might do something stupid and reckless again” he teases, Tasha scoffs“I’m not a teenager Cap!” she says quite frustrated, ignoring the fact that she does, actually, makes stupid and reckless decisions most of the time, and proceeds to blast another rider “But whatever, enough of my very legal age, birdbrain, what else you’ve got for me?”“Well... Thor’s taking on a squadron down on 6th” “And he didn’t invite me” she says in mock offense but still flying to him“Guys, none of this is gonna mean a damn thing if we don’t close that portal” Nat sounds breathless a few minutes later“Our biggest guns couldn’t touch it” Steve interjects“Yeah, not even my repulsor could do anything to it” Tasha helpfully adds as she repulses multiple enemies at once“Well maybe it’s not about guns” Stark knows that Romanoff did something or pointed at something else because Steve says“You wanna get up there, you’re gonna need a ride”“Need any help my lovely deadly spider?” Stark's mechanical voice sounds in the comms as she finishes the group she had been fighting to move on to the next one “Don’t worry, I got a ride, I could use a boost, though” Natasha doesn’t have the slightest idea of what the spy is talking about“Are you sure about this?” Steve sounds uncertain“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun” Iron man is blasting aliens close when she sees Black Widow run at Captain America, and jump on Cap’s shield to grab onto a flying chariot, Stark is thoughtfully impressed with both of them; Nat cuts the turret shooter’s linkage to it, then jumps on the rider and sticks her knives into his nervous system, getting to bank over a building.Seeing as Nat has everything in control, Tasha only flies near and shoots any surrounding Chitauri riders that could potentially be a nuisance for her, she then makes her way down to land next to Captain America who is fighting more soldiers, she points her hand boosters at his shield, the energy coming off and Cap using it as a reflected beam that takes down nearby Chitauri. Tasha flies again with blossoming happiness in her chest, she never dreamt of fighting alongside her childhood hero (and newfound crush) she’s a little lightheaded, hence not noticing Clint taking down any riders near her, she does notice Hulk and Thor tearing apart one of the Leviathan though.“Captain, the bank on 42nd past Madison, they've cornered a lot of civilians in there” Hawkeye warns in the comms “I'm on it” he sounds breathless and the little genius can't help but worry, it's been a tough fight for all of them, but she forces herself to drown those scary feelings and turn to a more light comment “Be careful Cap, we don’t want your pretty face getting scrapped” the tone can't be anything else than flirting, he blushes despite Tasha not being able to see him but he still gives as he gets“That should be said to you, don’t hurt your little cute face” she can even see his grin“Why, captain, I'm flattered that you think little old me is cute” her blush is to be denied till her last breath“You are everything else but old kid, now stop trying to bed a national icon before you make me puke” of course Clint has to choose that moment to be a little bitch, so what if she does want to bed him? ‘I mean... it’s not like he is anything that's not bedding material ’ she thinks in the back of her mind “Shut it Hawkass” she definitely doesn’t pout, her friendly banter is short closed by an explosion in the direction of the bank, Tasha gets so startled she almost crashes into a building, god she hopes Steve is okay“Nat, what are you doing?” Barton's perplexed voice takes her out of her anxiety“Racing, isn’t obvious?” the sarcasm is so thick the genius doesn't know how Romanoff doesn't choke on it “Careful... your Stark is showing” is the sassy answer from the archer “Hey!” Tasha pouts, really, both assassins teaming up to bully her? Not cool at all“Uh... a little help?” she hears Nat say, she can’t see them, but she hopes that they are alright“I’ve got him” Clint’s voice is dripping venom so she knows that he’s looking at Loki, seconds later she hears another boom nearby and a maniacal grin appears on her helmet-covered face, thinking about the explosive arrows she gave him in their last meeting.Iron man flies next to one of the Chitauri Leviathan and aims her laser booster at it, it doesn’t even leave a scratch.“Miss, we will lose power before we penetrate that shell” JARVIS voice informs her, she takes a second to mentally apologize to Rhodey for making him lose the bet with Pepper about how much time would it take for her to do something incredibly dumb again and flies up ahead, facing the oncoming monster“JARVIS, you ever heard the tale of Jonah?”“I wouldn’t consider him a role model miss” the AI sounds completely unamused, and she holds a little chuckle as she flies toward the Chitauri Leviathan, unleashing every arsenal on the suit, the monster opens its mouth, Tasha takes the opportunity and flies in, shooting with everything she got as she passes through the Leviathan and burst out the other end, somehow making it collapse. Tasha rolls down the street, the wind knocked out of her, she tries to get up and run a diagnostic of the armor's integrity, since the hub seems to have taken a hit when a light beam sends her back in a painful way. She looks up at the overwhelming sight of a small band of Chitauri soldiers rushing toward her and starting to trash her suit. There are so many and it’s like is endless, her power is dropping and her body is both hurt and tired, she doesn’t know how much longer she's going to resist, and something tells her that the others are equally at their limit. A minute later, she has uncle Nick's upset voice in her personal comms“Toni, you hear me? We have a missile headed straight for the city” which promptly freezes her for a minute, a wave of panic runs through her body“How long?” she doesn’t know if the breathless question comes from the little shock over the news or over the Chitauri bashing her, 'fuck that hurt' she groans“Three minutes, max, the payload will wipe out Midtown-” the 'please be careful' remains unsaid as uncle Nick gets cut out from the network, she snarls “JARVIS! Put everything we got into the thrusters!” she shoots the soldiers attacking her “I just did” the AI answers concerned, Iron man leaves the streets, getting rid of the aliens on her, and flies into the sky. The World Security Council think that they can just blow Manhattan up for a few petty aliens? Well, they are wrong, this is her home, of all of them really, is where she met Clint, where Pepper and she made their clean energy dream come true, where she's planning to have her new Avengers team live with her for god's sake! So she isn’t having any of that, no bomb, no aliens, no nothing, she's sick of all this, and if she has to do something stupid and dangerous again then she’ll do it, to save her city and her found family fighting there, she’ll gladly do it “I can close it! Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down” Nat’s tired but determined voice reaches her, interrumpting her thoughts“Do it!” Cap orders“No, wait!” she almost yells“Stark, these things are still coming” 'Steve Steve Steve..... I told you to call me Tasha’ she thinks with hysterical fondness“I can’t believe I’m saying this, I got a nuke coming in and it’s gonna blow in less than a minute...” her heat sensors find the missile and she puts even more energy in her boots to catch it “And I know just where to put it” she can hear the sharp breath from her teammates, her friends, they are thinking the same thing she is. Tasha comes at the missile from behind, it speeds on but so does she, finally, she grabs it from behind gripping it tightly. With a mighty effort she wrenches the rocket off its course, steering it from behind, she accelerates quickly, flying straight up into the sky, toward the portal“Natasha Antonia Stark what the hell do you think you are doing?!” Clint shirks in the comms, she winces, not her best plan, granted; they were probably expecting her to only divert it into the sea and then blow it but this is better, this way, any stupid alien can see that the Earth is not to take lightly and to better back the fuck off“T-Tash... you... you don’t have to do this...” even Steve sounds chocked “This is a one-way trip, don't do this!” he begs and she feels nauseous for doing this to them“If I don’t go back in 15 seconds close the portal” she says with her cold, business-like voice, she can’t show weakness, no now, no when she is going to at least die in the glory of battle, and not by some mere kidnappers or stupid, over-rated palladium. A few chocked sounds ring in the comms“Miss, shall I call Mr. Rhodes or Ms. Potts?” JARVIS asks and she gulps. If she does make it out of this alive, they are going to kill her“Sure, might as well” Unfortunately they don’t answer, Rhodey in the middle of a military assault and Pepper in the plane, watching in shock at the destruction in New York.Iron man climbs higher and higher over the city, gaining speed until suddenly she flings herself through the portal cutting off all of her communications, back on Earth, everybody minus the Avengers cheers and Fury tries without success to call his, practically, niece.Up in the space, as the suit starts to freeze, Tasha looks in horror at a complete armada, the black space is filled with what must be ninety ships in a vague cluster, most of them hang still in the air, some, move swimmingly about; her mind seems to close on itself, all of this... should be theoretically impossible, these monsters shouldn’t exist, and even if they do, they shouldn’t be on Earth for starters. She lets go of the missile, and it whistles off into the blackness as she falls back down the portal’s opening, she sees with morbid satisfaction as the main ship implodes, causing the entire armada to burst into a supernova, creating a spectacular heavenly display, Tasha closes her eyes, her suit stops responding altogether and she’s running out of oxygen, she doesn’t want to die, not yet, not when she finally gets to have her live in order, not when she finally knows her hero, not when said hero looked at her with those perfect blue eyes and cute smile, not when she learned the joy of teasing and flirting the most handsome national icon... a little tear rolls down her cheek , ‘Welcome to earth motherfuckers ’ it’s the last thing she thinks before everything fades into black.
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Steve watches helplessly as Tasha flies the missile through the sky with a growing feeling of dread, she is so young, she doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t want her to do this, he wants to keep seeing those beautiful chocolate eyes, that little energy she showed at the lab, he hasn’t even had the chance to draw her or get to know her better. A weight is clutching his heart, he has to blink back some tears as he continues to fight aliens next to Thor. Suddenly all the Chitauri soldiers and Leviathans keel over and begin to shake, then they die, just like that. She did it, Tasha saved them, Steve smiles just a little, hoping that this is a true victory and she comes soon to them."Come on kid" Clint whispers, praying to any high power that might be listeningThe Avengers look at the portal begging for their little genius to return, slowly, oh so slowly, Steve Rogers counts to 15, even to 20 seconds, Thor and himself see as the supernova threatens to pass through the hole, they have to stop it before it can cause damage to the city, they look at each other, neither keen to order it; in the end, Captain America makes the choice“Close it” he says quietly, biting his tongue to not call it off, her sacrifice would be pointless if they get killed by the radiation slipping through the black portal, he knows Romanoff follows his command as he sees the portal close quickly, he hears a choked noise and can only imagine it comes from Clint, but in all honesty, it could come from any of them.Then... a miracle, a small figure is hurled back from the once open and now closed portal, the armor plums to the Earth“Oh thank god” Steve breaths, he smiles, relief purring from every pore, relief that is cut short when he realizes that she is not flying.... she is falling, and falling and still falling down to imminent death, he trembles, the memory of Bucky fresh enough to terrify him, 'God, please not again...'“She’s not slowing down!” Thor starts swinging Mjölnir to get her when the Hulk snags Iron man out of the air, both of them crash and slide down a building to the street, where he then throws her off him. Steve and Thor hurry to their teammate, and the Norse god rips her helmet off. Her eyes are closed and she looks so still and pale that Steve starts to think the worst"Is she breathing?" Steve asks out loud as he comes closer, but he doesn't feel any air coming out of her, which horrifies him. Rogers tries to release the armor so he can give whatever little medical help he knows, but Iron man's suit is far more technological than what he has seen so far; he has no idea how to proceed 'What do I do?! What do I do?!'"Rogers!" Nat's voice grounds him for a second "Listen to me, this is important! Is the arc reactor glowing?" she asks in a demanding and urgent tone"The.... what?" Steve is breathless over the whole situation"The circular thing in her chest plate, IS. IT. GLOWING?" he looks, but there's nothing that looks remotely on"N-no... it's not" he stutters, not fulling grasping the seriousness of his answer"No..." her voice becomes barely a whisper "That... no! she isn't-" Steve freezes, a top spy like Romanoff doesn't act like that, not unless... Clint lets out a sob. But Steve... Steve's a soldier, he can't have another innocent youngster die on him, he just can't, he can't take it. He relies on Captain's America cool and collected mindset, but before he can do anything, like CPR, the Hulk roars in fury and pain, the noise startles Tasha alive, who takes a huge and panicky gasp“What the hell? What just happened?” she looks around frantic, her breathing barely beginning to stabilize and her arc reactor starting to shine “Oh- oh please tell me somebody kissed me” Cap almost blushes at that, almost. Instead, he laughs in utter alleviation and talks into the comms“She is back” he can hear the relieved sighs of Black widow and Hawkeye, then he turns to the kid, a dashingly smile on his face “We won” he breathes, Tasha closes her eyes for a second that makes Capitan America panic, he doesn’t want to see her like that ever again, she is a swell girl after all. When she opens them, the weight of the battle seems to be reflected in her gorgeous eyes“Alright, hey, alright. Fuck.... someone better tell Clint I totally won the bet! oh, my sweet Jesus” she looks a beat away from a full panic attack “Good job guys, let’s just... not come in tomorrow yeah? Let’s just take the day off. Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here, I don’t even know what it is but I wanna try it. For free, I want birdbrain to treat me shawarma” Steve looks at her fondly, she’s so ridiculous, and he is so, so happy that she is safe, so ridiculously glad that she is alive that’s not even funny.“We’re not finished yet” Thor interrupts her babble“Oh... but Shawarma date after?” she asks tentatively, Steve faintly blushes at the word date and Tasha together and the way that connection does things to his mind, but he just smiles and nods“Yeah Stark, shawarma date after” the grin Tasha sends his way is worth every bruise on his bodyBack in the seemingly destroyed Stark Tower, Loki crawls onto the stairs groaning at the pain, he looks like has seen better days, which’s probably true; he takes a few breaths and turns, sensing someone behind him. He finds the Avengers staring at him clearly pissed off, Hawkeye going as far as to aim an arrow right at his head“If it’s all the same to you... I’ll have that drink now”2 hours after, Sitwell finds the heroes in a little-destroyed Shawarma joint, eating but all in various degrees of shock and stress, the most obvious is Tasha, who hasn’t even touched her food, Steve's looking at her with worry written all over his face, though she doesn’t notice as she's staring at some point on the wall, all the implications that she died again, coming up to meet her. Oh her new trauma is going to be so fun, new nightmares, that’s for sure, she was actually getting tired of the ones with Afghanistan, and Obie and Palladium, sure she still has some with dear old Howard, but those are ancient history, the space invasion is the new black after all. Steve, of course, doesn't know about these thoughts, he can only see the blank stare on the young woman’s face as he is watching her intently resting his head on his fist. Tasha is taken out of her dazed state by a french fry that Nat throws at her, she looks around a little dizzy and confused but starts eating as soon as she lays eyes on her food. Steve keeps looking at the genius, trying to cope with the fact that someone so young had actually and actively risk her life to save all of them."What is it, agent Sitwell?" Clint asks without even looking back, he's also staring at Stark"Agents" he greets the heroes with a polite nod "Director Fury sends me to inform you that Special Agent Coulson is no longer in danger and he's going to be transferred to a special SHIELD hospital, the address' gonna be sent to you as soon as possible, also Director Fury asked me to tell you that you should lay low for a while, for the sake of your safety, just while the debate with the World Security Council ends" the only confirmation he receives is a general hum. But Steve can feel as if a weight is lifted from all of them A few days later, as the rubble starts to clear, everyone begins to help the reconstruction efforts (with Stark Industries ahead of anyone else), the Avengers assemble in a quiet park once again to send the two demigods back to their home“So... let’s see each other again... in better circumstances shall we?” Tasha says to Thor as he takes Loki with special cuffs complete with a mouth-piece, she thinks for a beat and speaks again "You know what? scratch that, you are always welcome in the Tower, Point break, come whenever you want, I'll have your floor ready" she smiles already making plans and blueprints in her head. Steve eyes her curiously"I feel quite honored lady Natasha, you can rest assured that whatever room you give me, is going to be deeply appreciated" the genius beams and blushes for an answer, Cap thinks it's adorable. Thor takes his brother and aligns the device that contains the Tesseract, which creates a portal and both gods disappear"So... what's that I hear about our floors in the Tower?" Clint back-hugs her, teasing her hair relentlessly, Tasha whines in protest"I told you before birdbrain!" she rolls her eyes in exasperation "I want to remodel the Tower and give it to you guys!" the young millionaire grins at the remaining Avengers "Just in case you need a place to live" she adds shyly "Of course we'll stay котенок, we need to stay close in case you do anything that stupid again" Nat says ruffling her hair as well. Tasha sulks "You are so not letting me live this down, aren't you?" she sighs wearily "Oh, you bet! And just you want 'till we tell both Pepper and Rhodey about this, assuming they don't know already, this is going to be soo fun, you are going to be in soo much trouble!" the archer teases her relentlessly"That's it! Clint! you are sleeping in the vents!" the tiny adorable genius pouts and Barton side-hugs her this time"Sweetheart, I was going to sleep there anyway" Tasha shoves him making him yelp, Nat only laughs quietly as they walk to their respective cars. Bruce is waiting next to a convertible with a nervous smile on his features, the genius dumps both spies and runs to him, she tilts her head and looks at him expectantly"I...." Bruce breaths and starts again "I was promised a tour in Candyland?" Tasha grins and beams and looks the happiest that Steve has seen her since he met her a few days back"Then hop up in" she says opening a door for him, Bruce sheepishly comply Steve goes to his motorbike when he hears an amused voice "Hey Spangles!" he looks to the sports car that drove next to him, a genius that looks far too young to be driving grins at him "Follow us, you have your designated suit as well!" "Then lead the way Shellhead" he answers before starting his bikeThe smirk on Tasha's face is more than enough to already make him feel at home already
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If there's one downside about being a super soldier is the enhanced hearing, normally he doesn't mind, but there are times such as these when he has light sleep yet he actually craves for some rest. Steve rolls in his bed, he wants to sleep, he really wants to, but his senses focus too much on other things like the sounds of the cars on the streets or of the air passing through the vents, and among those sounds, he can hear the quiet sobs of someone in the tower. Steve gets up, done with trying to relax, and exits the suit the genius gave to him earlier while the rest of the Tower is being remodeled, he follows the soft sound to the common room and finds a little silhouette on the sofa, he inhales sharply; Tasha is covering her face and if it wasn't because of his sensitive ears, he wouldn't even notice the tiny movements in her shoulders; it's a trait that no person, especially no young person like her, should have. Steve drags his feet on the carpet floor to the couch, aiming to cause enough noise for her to know that he's there but not too much as to startle her. He sits next to her, as close as he needs to feel her freeze for a second, he slowly puts his arms around her, hugging the little body of the genius, and starts humming a melody his mother used to sing to him in the nights where his asthma was bad back when he was a kid. They stay like that for almost an hour, yet Steve doesn't even feel the time passing until Tasha looks up at him and hugs him back, he feels his heart break just a little, he wants to take her pain away, because she is such a brave and kind person, she offered them a place to live for free for god's sake! and that's not even mentioning the whole almost dying to save the city.“Thank you Spangles, you are my hero” she whispers drying her cheeks and the rim of her eyes, Steve smiles at her, glad to be of help“It’s my pleasure to aid young ladies like yourself” he mocks a knight, going as far as to bow to her, she snorts and laughs“Yeah I saw that a while ago” she sends him a look he can’t decipher, he must've seemed confused 'cause she makes a motion and her AI starts the TV right in one of the many interviews the news did to the survivors of the alien invasion, there's a young woman who he thinks was at the bank when he saved it”What? That this was somehow their fault? Captain America saved my life, wherever any of them are, I wanna say thank you” On the screen, the words 'Avengers: friend or foes?' appeared under the woman's image before it cuts to more reports of the battle Tasha raises an eyebrow with a smug expression on her features, Steve looks at her sheepishly, he's definitely not used to fame“Should I be jealous?” she leers making him blush a deep shade of red“I... no, I... why would you?...” his babbles are interrupted by her delighted laugh“I’m teasing Steve, of course, you now are going to have your own fan club” there's a glint in her eyes he can't ignore “I do hope you are prepared for all the fangirls, though" she chuckles, he's at loss just imagining the nightmare that's going to be. It's not that he doesn't appreciate the people's gratitude and everything that comes with it, he does, but he just wants to help, he can live without the recognition that comes with it. "I was going to look at some of the footage of the battle with a good bottle of scotch if you want to stay” Natasha's ‘please stay ’ remains untold“Sure shellhead” Steve says biting his tongue to not protest about the alcohol, even if she looks like a kid she already is of legal age, or at least is going to be in a couple of months if Nat’s earlier teasing is anything to go by, and only she knows what she needs to get over her nightmare“You said that before... what does it mean?” she asks bringing two bottles and two glasses, she serves one to him and one to herself; Steve shrugs“You are a tin, I mean, your helmet is a tin can, kind of a shell really, so.... shellhead” that prompts a good laugh out of the young Stark“Well, you have wings on your cowl” she looks at him intently making Steve stay still for a second, just letting himself lose in those big brown eyes, she smirks smugly “Winghead!” it's Steve’s turn to laugh out loud “Alright winghead, J said there was something amusing in the footage of the Tower, let's see what is it...”She plays the records and they can see Loki, the god of mischief stand up at the Hulk, "Enough! All of you are beneath me! I'm a God, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied..." his rant stops short when the Hulk starts smashing him against the floor like a ragdoll. When the god's good as a pancake, he steps away muttering “Punny god”, and Tasha and Steve just about die laughingAfter spending a good hour reviewing the battle from different angles and points of view, they entertain themselves by exchanging tips of fighting, downing glass after glass. Steve, of course, can't get drunk, but the genius has a very high tolerance if she says so herself. At some point, their conversation diverges and Tasha starts telling him a few tales of 'Captain America's adventures' that her uncles told her when she was younger prompting Steve to either die of laughter or die of embarrassment, he changes some stories, other he confirms it "Yes I was really skinny and tiny before" and "No that was Dum Dum's doing! How could you believe it was me?!"It's almost three o'clock in the morning when Natasha Stark decides that she is drunk enough to ask the question that she had always wanted to ask but never dared to do so, with any of her uncles and aunt Peggy“What was Bucky like?” she whispers, fearful of touching a sour subject that could potentially make Steve hate her, instead, he shows her a warm yet pained smile “He was a great person, even when I had nothing I had Bucky, do you know what’s that like?” Tasha nods fondly and empties her glass number 'only God knows at this point'“When my parents and my butler Jarvis died I was left alone, aunt Peggy and aunt Angie were there for me of course, but...” she pauses, taking a sip from her newly served drink, and Steve makes a knowing sound “I had nothing, then I met Rhodey and with him I was able to get through a bunch of shit, he was there when I reached rock bottom and he helped me raise from it... he is my honey bear is what I'm saying, and I don’t know what I’ll do without him” she admits“It was almost the same with me and Bucky, he was with me when my mother died and he always took care of me when I was sick which was pretty much all the time. He was sarcastic yet charming" the time keeps moving as they keep drinking, Steve tells her more stories about them as kids and as teenagers, about how he got into fights more often than not and Bucky was the one who had to bail him out or defend his punk ass; about every time he tried to flirt only to fall so painfully flat that the brunette would smack his head in exasperation every time, he chuckles remembering that "The bastard always got all the ladies, even the ones he was trying to send my way, I'm sure you would've liked him" Tasha's pretty drunk at this point, three and a half bottle after, so she doesn't even try to stop herself from blurting "What kind of idiot woman wouldn't want you?" now, Steve knows she is ass drunk, he can see it in her red face and hear it in her slurred words, that knowledge doesn't keep him from blushing as he does though, Tasha's eyes are half closed as she smiles sweetly at him "Don't worry Captain, I'll always like you, you will always be my favorite" she mutters before she falls asleep on his shoulder.Steve can do little as Natasha arranges herself on top of the walking furnace called Super-Soldier, he sighs and drops an arm around her, well if he is going to be used as a pillow he is going to take full advantage of that and hug the little genius until her nightmares are gone The next morning they are found sleeping like that, Steve hugs Tasha and Tasha clings to Steve while being right on top of him, nobody says anything to the pair until it's breakfast time and they have to wake them up; Tasha has not quite the mother of hangovers, but one really close to it. Neither Nat nor Clint mentions the compromising situation they found them in, but if they took adorable pictures of a certain genius with a full-size national icon/cap bear, well only they and Bruce know.