i'm a loose bolt (of a complete machine) | Iron Man | Tony-centric
masterpost
The question that tends to crop up most in conversations about Lord Anthony Stark is, of course, the predictable one. People might wonder about his genius or his reclusiveness or just what it is in him that means many gentleman his age have settled down but he never has, but it is easy enough to leave these things to conjecture, to fireside discussions over brandy.
No, the question most often used around Lord Stark’s name is: would you let your daughter marry him? And the answer is, unfailingly, no.
Well: would you?
Three.
Natasha ‘Natalia’ Romanoff.
Commander Fury carries Natasha’s life in his hands, and so when he tells her that the Lord Stark situation may be getting increasingly out of hand and he would like her to go and observe at closer quarters, her only option is to say ‘yes’.
(In fact, what she actually says is will I have to wear a petticoat, which somehow manages to make Fury laugh, but the agreement is obvious.)
“Are you going to have to marry him?” Agent Barton asks her while she is packing; Barton is supposed to be observing what appears to be an actual Norse God who tumbled out of the sky a week ago, but Barton’s sense of timing often seems to be set to an internal clock that doesn’t match anyone else’s. In any case, he’ll be where he needs to be when he needs to be there; Natasha learned that first hand, and has owed him a blood debt ever since.
“Your lack of imagination is terrible, Barton,” she tells him, and ignores the smear of his smile.
He tugs one of her curls. “I hear he likes redheads,” Barton remarks, and gets out of range before Natasha can hit him.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is a strange little secret organisation that Natasha frequently cannot remember being inducted into, one that deals with the pieces of the world that should be kept secret for, well, everyone’s sanity. Natasha was previously observing a scientist who inadvertently perfected a serum that turns him into a literal monster in times of great stress, which was something new even for her, and they have dozens of other people like this on file: scientists, people born with genetic quirks and others with miraculous abilities that must absolutely never be made public knowledge.
Lord Anthony Stark has been on file for as long as Natasha has been part of the agency, although classed as generally harmless. From the vague details she’s been given - she suspects her journey will entail a lot of reading - he’s a literal clockwork man, entirely metal and glass rather than flesh and blood. Natasha is not easily unnerved, given that her life to date has involved a number of things that make the most lurid of adventure novels look dull, but the idea of someone who she possibly couldn’t kill in an instant is… not reassuring, to say the least.
Natasha learned quickly not to always trust what Commander Fury says his motives are, because they rarely resemble anything similar to his actual motives, but her task, for the moment, is observation, and that she is good at. If Fury wants Stark’s technology, to - god help them - recruit him, or even have him killed… well, then Natasha will cross that bridge when she comes to it. For now, she just needs to find a way into Stark Mansion, whose security is imaginative and very possibly highly illegal, and which has a grand total of two inhabitants, both of whom are intelligent and suspicious. This isn’t to say that Natasha won’t be able to do it; just that it will take a little more effort than usual.
In fact, she’s rather looking forward to it.
-
The woman who opens the door is Miss Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts, Lord Stark’s… well, everything, if the files are to be believed. She is immaculately dressed, not a hair out of place, but her eyes speak volumes of exhaustion.
“May I help you?” she asks; polite but definitely not friendly.
The Natasha who has arrived in New York does not look very much like the one who left S.H.I.E.L.D’s headquarters three days ago; she spent a very dull evening in a hotel dyeing her hair brunette in a basin, and another few hours being refitted in the latest fashions of the city. She’s made some adjustments to the dresses, of course, but hidden ones, and is even putting up with a pair of utterly ridiculous shoes that she knows Barton would laugh at, if he could see them.
“I’m Natalie Rush,” she says calmly, smiling at Miss Potts from underneath the brim of an artfully tilted hat, “the agency sent me.”
She steps past Miss Potts with assurance, though her progress further inside the mansion is hindered by a waist-high robot that is standing just behind the door and clicking to itself in a slightly sinister fashion. They have rudimentary clockwork machines at S.H.I.E.L.D of course, but nothing like this one, which is holding out a little arm as though waiting to take her coat, while the other arm…
“Is that a gun?” Natasha asks interestedly, squatting down to examine it.
“It’s a precaution,” Miss Potts replies, entirely steady but a little weary around the edges, as though many things about Stark Mansion have added precautions. From the somewhat outdated plans that were included in Natasha’s reading material, she knows that that is true.
“Do you not get a lot of visitors?” she asks, feigning wide-eyed innocence while she runs fingertips along where the gun is welded to the robot’s arm, finding where one mechanism changes into another. A little crude, but certainly more than anyone else has ever managed with their own domestic robots.
“No,” Miss Potts replies, crisp, matter of fact, dismissive.
Natasha pushes herself to her feet and shrugs out of her coat; while the robot doesn’t lower its weapon, it does raise its free arm to take it.
“You don’t have an appointment,” Miss Potts reminds her, but she still doesn’t seem at all panicked by Natasha’s actions or presence in her home. Natasha likes her already; S.H.I.E.L.D’s information on her was sparse at best, a simple background file - she isn’t important, after all - and she’s finding her refreshingly lacking in hysterics. Natasha doesn’t have a lot of time for hysterics, though she supposes that enough time living with Lord Stark would burn away the ability to be bothered by minor disturbances.
“I don’t need one,” Natasha replies, “I’m from the agency.”
It’s an old trick, and Barton would probably tease her for being unimaginative, but Natasha likes using ruses she’s comfortable with.
“And what agency would this be?” Miss Potts asks, raising an eyebrow, though there’s an amused flicker to her lips.
Natasha smiles and says: “The agency. You are aware that all robotic devices in homes need to be examined, recorded and monitored by government agents, aren’t you?”
It’s not actually a lie, but with the general lack of progress in robotics after the initial boom when clockwork was first invented, it’s a law that has been allowed to lie forgotten.
Miss Potts should play poker; her expression doesn’t flicker in the slightest. “Of course I am,” she says.
“Then you’re also aware that you have at least one unregistered robot in this house?” Natasha continues, stroking fingers over what she thinks is the head of the little domestic robot. It clicks in response, though she has no idea if that’s good or bad or imminently explosive.
Miss Potts levels her with a frankly somewhat terrifying analytical expression; Natasha looks back without blinking, idly musing that she’d better get some shoes with higher heels if she’s going to be spending any long period of time around the surprisingly tall Miss Potts.
“And how long do you intend to stay, Miss Rush?” Miss Potts asks smoothly, her smile still too sharp at the edges.
“That depends on how many robots you have,” Natasha responds, mirroring Miss Potts’ smile.
There’s a crash from somewhere upstairs that splinters the moment, though neither of them jump at the noise; Natasha from practice, Miss Potts presumably from habit.
“Well, we’d better find you a room, then,” Miss Potts tells her, and heads towards the stairs, the robot clicking after her.
Natasha swallows down a triumphant smile and follows.
-
Lord Anthony Stark is sitting cross-legged on the floor of what is apparently his workshop, dark hair sticking up at odd angles from where he’s apparently been running his hands through it. He’s in his undershirt while tinkering with something on the floor in front of him that Natasha can’t see, and for a moment she simply stands and admires. She can see muscles shifting under his skin with an astonishing smoothness, none of the jerks of traditional clockwork. He isn’t breathing, of course, because he doesn’t yet know that he’s being observed, and he’s humming to himself in what sounds like an actual voice rather than the tinny, crackling synthesised sounds that the few speaking robots Natasha has encountered made.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there when she finally pulls herself together and raps her knuckles against the doorframe. Lord Stark jumps a little, twisting around to look at her.
“Miss Rush,” he says, drawing the sound out, lips drawing back to reveal sparkling white teeth and a smile that is surprisingly charming for all that Natasha knows there’s metal beneath the skin drawing it back to cause those dimples. “From the agency. An expensive European education, fluent in five different languages, and a short but prolific career as a model for several prominent photographers.”
Of course he checked up on her; Natasha would expect nothing less. Nothing he’s said is exactly wrong, though it’s not entirely true either. S.H.I.E.L.D have ensured that her cover is almost uncrackable, though, even to someone as clever and indefatigable as Anthony Stark.
“Well done,” she says smoothly, pushing herself upright from where she’s been lounging in the doorway and walking into the room.
“Impressive work on the security systems, by the way,” Stark says lightly, turning his attention back to whatever it is he’s working on. “Most people at least lose a finger breaking in here.”
Natasha’s actually never found a security system as illogical and dangerous as Stark’s - downright crazed might be the phrase that she uses in her report - but she’s methodical and experienced and she wasn’t going be defeated by something as ridiculous as Stark’s workshop door.
“You left it unlocked,” she replies, shrugging.
He twists around so she can see him arching an eyebrow at her, but all he says is: “Okay then.”
His every moment is graceful, silent, seamless. Natasha knows that he has been faking life for at least a dozen years - which was when S.H.I.E.L.D learned that he wasn’t actually as flesh and blood as he was implying - but there’s a difference between thinking that he could fool ordinary people and almost being fooled herself. Natasha isn’t particularly technically minded, but even so she wants to get close enough to poke, to look at the mechanisms that make Stark look so… real.
Natasha takes a few more steps into the workshop, glass crunching under her boots. There were no documents on Stark’s workspace, and she doesn’t know what she was expecting, but she’s not sure that it was this. There’s madness and genius scattered across all the tables, across the walls and floor, and that, more than Stark’s metal heart, unnerves her.
“Are you building another robot?” she asks, keeping the question light, almost inane.
Stark scoffs. “I don’t only build robots, you know,” he remarks.
Natasha does know; her handgun of choice was modified by Stark Industries only last year.
“I’m not here to catalogue what else you’re making,” she lies, pulling the nearest sheet of paper towards her with her fingertips; it’s covered in black dust that she thinks is gunpowder. Hopes is gunpowder. She frowns a little, and makes a mental note that Stark’s handwriting is going to take work.
“You’re missing the best parts,” Stark tells her, tone a little teasing, a little flirtatious. She’s not sure that he’s even consciously aware of doing it; Stark flirts like he breathes. Or would, if he actually breathed, and that thought catches her up short. Natasha has seen a lot of strange things over the years, both before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D and after, but she’s still accustomed to working with and around people who are, for better or worse, alive. Stark is something else, something she isn’t sure how to classify, and she thought it wouldn’t bother her but apparently it does, just a little.
“You could show them to me anyway,” she offers idly, flirtatious in return because she knows how to get results, always has.
Stark pushes himself to his feet; he’s shorter than she expected, and smudged with what looks like oil, and through his undershirt she can see the golden panel on his chest that serves a purpose that S.H.I.E.L.D want her to ascertain because they know that it isn’t the reason he’s given the public.
“Oh,” he says quietly, “after what you’ve just done to my security systems, I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”
He winks at her and then steps around her, announcing loudly: “Pepper usually makes sure there’s tea in my study around this time, come on.”
Stark doesn’t look back at her, but Natasha doesn’t push it, leaving the paper on the table where she found it, stepping around scattered cogs as she follows him out.
-
Having spent the majority of her life as an assassin or a spy - or, on a few occasions, an assassin and a spy - Natasha spends altogether too much time at parties. It hasn’t made her like them any more, though, and she sips a glass of too-sweet punch that she doesn’t want to drink and watches girls giggling behind fans. She’s lost sight of Stark, but Pepper Potts is still visible, talking to someone Natasha doesn’t recognise and mostly succeeding at not looking self-conscious in her gown.
She and Pepper have reached some kind of understanding without ever needing to discuss it, probably because Pepper seems to be very used to compromises. She’s got a dry sense of humour, is virtually unflappable, and mothers Stark in an annoyed fashion that’s rather sweet to watch; Natasha’s surprised herself by liking her, enjoying the interviews she’s pretending are for the robot agency files and not for S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Well, you look pretty.”
Natasha doesn’t even bother turning her head. “Of course I do.”
Barton laughs and she smiles at him, dressed in a suit that he doesn’t look entirely comfortable in.
“Aren’t you supposed to still be watching the Possible Norse God?” she asks quietly, passing him her unwanted punch.
“He’s in custody,” Barton shrugs. “I’ve been sent here.”
He hasn’t, and Natasha can see that immediately. “You weren’t on the invitations list for this party.”
Barton rolls his eyes. “I was trying to save you having to lie on your mission report.”
Natasha has, to date, lied on one hundred and thirty-four separate mission reports for Barton, but it’s sweet that he thinks he’s helping. Sweet and utterly ridiculous, of course.
“Did you think I needed back-up for a society party?” she asks in an undertone, while Barton finishes the punch for her.
“I’ve seen what you do to men who get a little over-friendly,” Barton reminds her, “I think I’d better fill your dance card for the night.”
“I don’t have a dance card,” Natasha replies, and Barton winks at her.
“Well, true, not anymore.”
It’s a long night, even with Barton making snide comments about the various dignitaries present and forcing her to dance with him every now and then. Natasha keeps an eye on Stark, who seems to be perfectly at ease here, jacket buttoned to hide the clockwork panel on his chest.
“Can he even get drunk?” Barton remarks, eyes on Stark.
“Well, he’s the only one who can tell us,” Natasha points out. “And being truthful doesn’t seem to be very high on his list of priorities.”
Stark is laughing, all bright eyes and glittering teeth, and for a moment Natasha sees what everyone else does, and it’s obvious why no one has noticed that Stark isn’t quite human, isn’t quite alive. No one’s looking for it, because there’s far too much to see already. Hiding in plain sight, or maybe he doesn’t even think of it as that. It’s hard to tell what he thinks, which is going to make the psychiatric evaluation Commander Fury will later ask Natasha to write somewhat problematic.
Barton has a warm, confident hand at her waist; he’s one of the only people Natasha actually trusts to touch her, which is something she could examine closer but doesn’t wish to. She lets him twirl her around the dance floor, and he’s certainly doing an admirable job of hiding the fact that she’s actually leading. Barton’s still watching Stark, though, something thoughtful in his ever-present smirk.
“Does Stark tick if you get close enough?” he supplies at last.
Natasha rolls her eyes, resisting the urge to press down on his instep with the heel of her shoe and then claim it on too much punch.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she says instead. “Do you want to go over and test that theory?”
“Maybe not,” Barton decides, in a tone of voice that implies that he’s going to expect Natasha try this out for him at some point. She decides to save that refusal for another day, though; it’s been a better evening than she expected, there’s no sense in ending it with unnecessary conflict.
She looks away from Stark for a moment to find that Pepper is watching him too, hair and clothing still immaculate even though it’s growing late, expression unreadable.
-
“Are you here to dismantle me?” Lord Stark asks.
Pepper drops her teacup.
Fuck, Natasha thinks, though she keeps her expression neutral. “Your heart device?” she asks, tipping her head to one side. “I understand that it’s keeping you alive, why would I want to take it apart?”
Stark rolls his eyes. “You’re good,” he says. “Not good enough, of course, but still, you had me going for a while.”
Pepper looks between the two of them, eyes wide, cheeks still flushed pale. “What’s happening?” she asks, voice tight but with controlled calm. Natasha is often fairly impressed with what living with Lord Stark has taught Pepper, has made second nature.
“I’m hoping not-actually-Natalie-Rush will be able to tell us,” Stark shrugs, picking his own teacup off the table and taking a sip, casual as if they’re simply discussing the weather.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Natasha tries. She’s not so much trying to talk herself out of this situation - although she could if she wanted to, and will explain this in her report later - as she is trying to ascertain what Stark thinks is happening so that she can lie accordingly.
One of Stark’s robots comes in, carrying a fresh pot of tea. The tension remains crackling in the room, but the little machine doesn’t notice, and Natasha finds herself watching it instead of Stark. Even his domestic creations are more expertly made than the machines S.H.I.E.L.D tries to use on a regular basis; Natasha can’t actually decide if they should be trying to appropriate Stark’s technology or whatever it is Fury is actually attempting to do. It’s entirely possible that they will all find themselves blown up within a month, though she’ll keep that opinion to herself because she knows that no one is interested in it.
“Nice try,” Stark shrugs, reaching for the teapot, “really, I actually thought about buying it for a while, but you know that I’m a far more sophisticated version of Dummy here.”
“Slightly more sophisticated,” Natasha replies, and Stark laughs, pouring another cup of tea and pushing it towards Pepper.
“Drink up, Pep, we should at least find out if I’m due imminent death.”
“Oh, you’ll be in for imminent death when we’ve dealt with this,” Pepper says, voice a little shivery. “You promised you’d tell me next time you ended up in a situation like this.”
“I thought about telling you,” Stark tries, but she doesn’t relent. “Anyway, not-actually-Natalie-Rush, are you here to dismantle me?”
“Well,” Natasha says, “no. That’s apparently bad manners.” When Stark smiles but doesn’t say anything else, she adds: “I’m here to observe you.”
This doesn’t seem to reassure Pepper, who’s still looking angry, but Stark just looks interested.
“So you can create copies of me?”
“I haven’t been told what the information’s for,” Natasha says, because there are some times when it just isn’t worth lying.
“You didn’t ask?” Pepper demands.
“I’m not in a position to ask,” Natasha shrugs. She looks to Stark. “What gave me away?”
“We’re both too curious,” Stark replies, something smug in his expression, something too sheepish. “And that law about robot registration hasn’t been used in a long time.”
Natasha narrows her eyes. “You knew that all along.”
Stark shrugs. “I wanted to know what you wanted,” he says simply. “It seemed easier to let you play it out.”
Pepper throws her hands up. “You have got to stop endangering us just because you’re bored.”
“I’m not sure that we are endangered,” Stark protests. “Not-actually-Natalie-Rush hasn’t done anything yet except poke around in my workshop and send some coded messages I’m sure I’ll crack any day now. Frankly, if you wanted to know anything you could just have asked.”
He reaches for a teaspoon on the table, digging the edge of the handle into his wrist, and before Natasha can blink or even ask what he’s doing he’s ripping back the edge of the skin of his arm. Natasha is no stranger to violence or to even the most gruesome of mutilation, but Stark’s casual tearing of his skin is something else entirely and her throat constricts involuntarily. There’s no blood, of course, and what’s revealed isn’t muscles and veins; instead, Natasha finds herself staring at Tony’s metal skeleton, tubes and cogs and bolts welded over it and keeping him moving, functioning.
She blinks twice, and then finds that she still has nothing to say.
“It’s going to take you hours to fix that,” Pepper points out mildly, in the voice of a woman who has seen far, far worse and decided to no longer let any of it bother her.
“That’s okay,” Stark replies levelly, meeting Natasha’s gaze and refusing to blink. “I get the feeling not-actually-Natalie-Rush’s story is a long one.”
Natasha considers the logistics of this investigation, and then remembers that everyone’s got a secret in this mansion, and she’s bargaining with more than usually has.
“It is,” she agrees at last.
- finis
It seems, of course, that what Lord Stark desires most - more than money, more than respect, more than a beautiful woman on his arm - is to be talked about. He’s bright and glittering, with his wicked smile and rumours of a dangerous past that should have rendered him dead only he was too clever to allow it to get the better of him. He’s dangerous, and nothing he’s done has ever faded into the background, ever gone without comment from his peers or from the newspapers.
He’s a man with secrets, though; he makes no secret of that fact, wears it with the same casual panache he wears his expensive suits. What those secrets actually are, though, remain closely-guarded, eternally shrouded in darkness.
Lord Anthony Stark wants attention, but he knows where to draw the line. There are some things it’s better not to know, after all.
Epilogue.
Lord Anthony ‘Tony’ Stark.
Natasha leaves on a wet Wednesday, leaving a Pepper who pretends she isn’t moping at the sudden lack of company and a stack of increasingly annoyed telegrams from Rhodey, who is away doing whatever it is Rhodey does when he isn’t here.
They are all annoyingly overprotective, for people Tony could potentially outlast.
That’s one of those questions he doesn’t consider, of course, because he’s already died and what he will do one day is simply cease to function. He’s aged himself over the years, putting careful thought into it as he stitches skin in the mirror to add the finest of lines to the corners of his eyes, the beginning of something he will never experience.
Some days, maudlin days, he thinks he keeps Pepper and Rhodey around only to remind him of what he should be, of what humanity is. He’s a monster of his father’s creation, and at night when he sleeps - he can still sleep, though it gets a little harder each time he does - the ticking is sometimes so deafening it frightens him. But those are bad days, and not every day is bad. Some of them are even good, when he actually looks at them.
Within a week of Natasha’s departure Pepper has somehow managed to inform Rhodey of the fact Tony put his existence at risk by allowing someone he knew was a spy to reside with them, to break into his workshop and examine him at close quarters, and didn’t bother to inform anybody of any of this, and Rhodey has sent home a number of frankly overexcited telegrams and a vehement intention to return home soon and yell at him.
Tony likes it when Rhodey yells. It means that he doesn’t hate him yet.
He spends the time working on Jarvis, who is going to speak if it takes Tony the next decade to achieve it; he’s already cleverer than all his other creations, and he took to chess like a duck to water, so speech cannot be much worse. Pepper just huffs out a sigh when she comes in to find Tony figuring out the logistics of slitting his own throat so he can see his vocal chords, which he takes to mean that he’s forgiven, for the moment.
The letter comes about ten days after Natasha left; it comes with the afternoon post, and the envelope is plain, with no stamp or address on it.
Pepper sits on the edge of one of his workbenches while Tony opens it, since there are currently no functioning chairs in his workshop, and she says nothing but she watches him with narrowed eyes.
The letterhead is printed with the insignia that belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D; Tony recognises it from the paperwork he uncovered while he was figuring out Natasha’s actual identity. It’s signed from Commander Nicholas Fury, who turned up in the majority of details Natasha actually decided to divulge.
“Well,” Tony muses aloud, “this will either be the best thing that’s ever happened to me or will get me killed.”
Pepper sighs in a not again way, but aloud all she says is: “It’s amazing how regularly you use that sentence.” She tips her head. “Have they offered you a job?”
“A consulting position,” Tony confirms.
“Are you going to take it?” Pepper asks.
“They apparently have gods and monsters,” Tony shrugs, “why wouldn’t I go?”
It’s reluctant, but after a moment, Pepper smiles.
&end;
The question that tends to crop up most in conversations about Lord Anthony Stark is, of course, the predictable one. People might wonder about his genius or his reclusiveness or just what it is in him that means many gentleman his age have settled down but he never has, but it is easy enough to leave these things to conjecture, to fireside discussions over brandy.
No, the question most often used around Lord Stark’s name is: would you let your daughter marry him? And the answer is, unfailingly, no.
Well: would you?
Three.
Natasha ‘Natalia’ Romanoff.
Commander Fury carries Natasha’s life in his hands, and so when he tells her that the Lord Stark situation may be getting increasingly out of hand and he would like her to go and observe at closer quarters, her only option is to say ‘yes’.
(In fact, what she actually says is will I have to wear a petticoat, which somehow manages to make Fury laugh, but the agreement is obvious.)
“Are you going to have to marry him?” Agent Barton asks her while she is packing; Barton is supposed to be observing what appears to be an actual Norse God who tumbled out of the sky a week ago, but Barton’s sense of timing often seems to be set to an internal clock that doesn’t match anyone else’s. In any case, he’ll be where he needs to be when he needs to be there; Natasha learned that first hand, and has owed him a blood debt ever since.
“Your lack of imagination is terrible, Barton,” she tells him, and ignores the smear of his smile.
He tugs one of her curls. “I hear he likes redheads,” Barton remarks, and gets out of range before Natasha can hit him.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is a strange little secret organisation that Natasha frequently cannot remember being inducted into, one that deals with the pieces of the world that should be kept secret for, well, everyone’s sanity. Natasha was previously observing a scientist who inadvertently perfected a serum that turns him into a literal monster in times of great stress, which was something new even for her, and they have dozens of other people like this on file: scientists, people born with genetic quirks and others with miraculous abilities that must absolutely never be made public knowledge.
Lord Anthony Stark has been on file for as long as Natasha has been part of the agency, although classed as generally harmless. From the vague details she’s been given - she suspects her journey will entail a lot of reading - he’s a literal clockwork man, entirely metal and glass rather than flesh and blood. Natasha is not easily unnerved, given that her life to date has involved a number of things that make the most lurid of adventure novels look dull, but the idea of someone who she possibly couldn’t kill in an instant is… not reassuring, to say the least.
Natasha learned quickly not to always trust what Commander Fury says his motives are, because they rarely resemble anything similar to his actual motives, but her task, for the moment, is observation, and that she is good at. If Fury wants Stark’s technology, to - god help them - recruit him, or even have him killed… well, then Natasha will cross that bridge when she comes to it. For now, she just needs to find a way into Stark Mansion, whose security is imaginative and very possibly highly illegal, and which has a grand total of two inhabitants, both of whom are intelligent and suspicious. This isn’t to say that Natasha won’t be able to do it; just that it will take a little more effort than usual.
In fact, she’s rather looking forward to it.
-
The woman who opens the door is Miss Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts, Lord Stark’s… well, everything, if the files are to be believed. She is immaculately dressed, not a hair out of place, but her eyes speak volumes of exhaustion.
“May I help you?” she asks; polite but definitely not friendly.
The Natasha who has arrived in New York does not look very much like the one who left S.H.I.E.L.D’s headquarters three days ago; she spent a very dull evening in a hotel dyeing her hair brunette in a basin, and another few hours being refitted in the latest fashions of the city. She’s made some adjustments to the dresses, of course, but hidden ones, and is even putting up with a pair of utterly ridiculous shoes that she knows Barton would laugh at, if he could see them.
“I’m Natalie Rush,” she says calmly, smiling at Miss Potts from underneath the brim of an artfully tilted hat, “the agency sent me.”
She steps past Miss Potts with assurance, though her progress further inside the mansion is hindered by a waist-high robot that is standing just behind the door and clicking to itself in a slightly sinister fashion. They have rudimentary clockwork machines at S.H.I.E.L.D of course, but nothing like this one, which is holding out a little arm as though waiting to take her coat, while the other arm…
“Is that a gun?” Natasha asks interestedly, squatting down to examine it.
“It’s a precaution,” Miss Potts replies, entirely steady but a little weary around the edges, as though many things about Stark Mansion have added precautions. From the somewhat outdated plans that were included in Natasha’s reading material, she knows that that is true.
“Do you not get a lot of visitors?” she asks, feigning wide-eyed innocence while she runs fingertips along where the gun is welded to the robot’s arm, finding where one mechanism changes into another. A little crude, but certainly more than anyone else has ever managed with their own domestic robots.
“No,” Miss Potts replies, crisp, matter of fact, dismissive.
Natasha pushes herself to her feet and shrugs out of her coat; while the robot doesn’t lower its weapon, it does raise its free arm to take it.
“You don’t have an appointment,” Miss Potts reminds her, but she still doesn’t seem at all panicked by Natasha’s actions or presence in her home. Natasha likes her already; S.H.I.E.L.D’s information on her was sparse at best, a simple background file - she isn’t important, after all - and she’s finding her refreshingly lacking in hysterics. Natasha doesn’t have a lot of time for hysterics, though she supposes that enough time living with Lord Stark would burn away the ability to be bothered by minor disturbances.
“I don’t need one,” Natasha replies, “I’m from the agency.”
It’s an old trick, and Barton would probably tease her for being unimaginative, but Natasha likes using ruses she’s comfortable with.
“And what agency would this be?” Miss Potts asks, raising an eyebrow, though there’s an amused flicker to her lips.
Natasha smiles and says: “The agency. You are aware that all robotic devices in homes need to be examined, recorded and monitored by government agents, aren’t you?”
It’s not actually a lie, but with the general lack of progress in robotics after the initial boom when clockwork was first invented, it’s a law that has been allowed to lie forgotten.
Miss Potts should play poker; her expression doesn’t flicker in the slightest. “Of course I am,” she says.
“Then you’re also aware that you have at least one unregistered robot in this house?” Natasha continues, stroking fingers over what she thinks is the head of the little domestic robot. It clicks in response, though she has no idea if that’s good or bad or imminently explosive.
Miss Potts levels her with a frankly somewhat terrifying analytical expression; Natasha looks back without blinking, idly musing that she’d better get some shoes with higher heels if she’s going to be spending any long period of time around the surprisingly tall Miss Potts.
“And how long do you intend to stay, Miss Rush?” Miss Potts asks smoothly, her smile still too sharp at the edges.
“That depends on how many robots you have,” Natasha responds, mirroring Miss Potts’ smile.
There’s a crash from somewhere upstairs that splinters the moment, though neither of them jump at the noise; Natasha from practice, Miss Potts presumably from habit.
“Well, we’d better find you a room, then,” Miss Potts tells her, and heads towards the stairs, the robot clicking after her.
Natasha swallows down a triumphant smile and follows.
-
Lord Anthony Stark is sitting cross-legged on the floor of what is apparently his workshop, dark hair sticking up at odd angles from where he’s apparently been running his hands through it. He’s in his undershirt while tinkering with something on the floor in front of him that Natasha can’t see, and for a moment she simply stands and admires. She can see muscles shifting under his skin with an astonishing smoothness, none of the jerks of traditional clockwork. He isn’t breathing, of course, because he doesn’t yet know that he’s being observed, and he’s humming to himself in what sounds like an actual voice rather than the tinny, crackling synthesised sounds that the few speaking robots Natasha has encountered made.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there when she finally pulls herself together and raps her knuckles against the doorframe. Lord Stark jumps a little, twisting around to look at her.
“Miss Rush,” he says, drawing the sound out, lips drawing back to reveal sparkling white teeth and a smile that is surprisingly charming for all that Natasha knows there’s metal beneath the skin drawing it back to cause those dimples. “From the agency. An expensive European education, fluent in five different languages, and a short but prolific career as a model for several prominent photographers.”
Of course he checked up on her; Natasha would expect nothing less. Nothing he’s said is exactly wrong, though it’s not entirely true either. S.H.I.E.L.D have ensured that her cover is almost uncrackable, though, even to someone as clever and indefatigable as Anthony Stark.
“Well done,” she says smoothly, pushing herself upright from where she’s been lounging in the doorway and walking into the room.
“Impressive work on the security systems, by the way,” Stark says lightly, turning his attention back to whatever it is he’s working on. “Most people at least lose a finger breaking in here.”
Natasha’s actually never found a security system as illogical and dangerous as Stark’s - downright crazed might be the phrase that she uses in her report - but she’s methodical and experienced and she wasn’t going be defeated by something as ridiculous as Stark’s workshop door.
“You left it unlocked,” she replies, shrugging.
He twists around so she can see him arching an eyebrow at her, but all he says is: “Okay then.”
His every moment is graceful, silent, seamless. Natasha knows that he has been faking life for at least a dozen years - which was when S.H.I.E.L.D learned that he wasn’t actually as flesh and blood as he was implying - but there’s a difference between thinking that he could fool ordinary people and almost being fooled herself. Natasha isn’t particularly technically minded, but even so she wants to get close enough to poke, to look at the mechanisms that make Stark look so… real.
Natasha takes a few more steps into the workshop, glass crunching under her boots. There were no documents on Stark’s workspace, and she doesn’t know what she was expecting, but she’s not sure that it was this. There’s madness and genius scattered across all the tables, across the walls and floor, and that, more than Stark’s metal heart, unnerves her.
“Are you building another robot?” she asks, keeping the question light, almost inane.
Stark scoffs. “I don’t only build robots, you know,” he remarks.
Natasha does know; her handgun of choice was modified by Stark Industries only last year.
“I’m not here to catalogue what else you’re making,” she lies, pulling the nearest sheet of paper towards her with her fingertips; it’s covered in black dust that she thinks is gunpowder. Hopes is gunpowder. She frowns a little, and makes a mental note that Stark’s handwriting is going to take work.
“You’re missing the best parts,” Stark tells her, tone a little teasing, a little flirtatious. She’s not sure that he’s even consciously aware of doing it; Stark flirts like he breathes. Or would, if he actually breathed, and that thought catches her up short. Natasha has seen a lot of strange things over the years, both before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D and after, but she’s still accustomed to working with and around people who are, for better or worse, alive. Stark is something else, something she isn’t sure how to classify, and she thought it wouldn’t bother her but apparently it does, just a little.
“You could show them to me anyway,” she offers idly, flirtatious in return because she knows how to get results, always has.
Stark pushes himself to his feet; he’s shorter than she expected, and smudged with what looks like oil, and through his undershirt she can see the golden panel on his chest that serves a purpose that S.H.I.E.L.D want her to ascertain because they know that it isn’t the reason he’s given the public.
“Oh,” he says quietly, “after what you’ve just done to my security systems, I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”
He winks at her and then steps around her, announcing loudly: “Pepper usually makes sure there’s tea in my study around this time, come on.”
Stark doesn’t look back at her, but Natasha doesn’t push it, leaving the paper on the table where she found it, stepping around scattered cogs as she follows him out.
-
Having spent the majority of her life as an assassin or a spy - or, on a few occasions, an assassin and a spy - Natasha spends altogether too much time at parties. It hasn’t made her like them any more, though, and she sips a glass of too-sweet punch that she doesn’t want to drink and watches girls giggling behind fans. She’s lost sight of Stark, but Pepper Potts is still visible, talking to someone Natasha doesn’t recognise and mostly succeeding at not looking self-conscious in her gown.
She and Pepper have reached some kind of understanding without ever needing to discuss it, probably because Pepper seems to be very used to compromises. She’s got a dry sense of humour, is virtually unflappable, and mothers Stark in an annoyed fashion that’s rather sweet to watch; Natasha’s surprised herself by liking her, enjoying the interviews she’s pretending are for the robot agency files and not for S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Well, you look pretty.”
Natasha doesn’t even bother turning her head. “Of course I do.”
Barton laughs and she smiles at him, dressed in a suit that he doesn’t look entirely comfortable in.
“Aren’t you supposed to still be watching the Possible Norse God?” she asks quietly, passing him her unwanted punch.
“He’s in custody,” Barton shrugs. “I’ve been sent here.”
He hasn’t, and Natasha can see that immediately. “You weren’t on the invitations list for this party.”
Barton rolls his eyes. “I was trying to save you having to lie on your mission report.”
Natasha has, to date, lied on one hundred and thirty-four separate mission reports for Barton, but it’s sweet that he thinks he’s helping. Sweet and utterly ridiculous, of course.
“Did you think I needed back-up for a society party?” she asks in an undertone, while Barton finishes the punch for her.
“I’ve seen what you do to men who get a little over-friendly,” Barton reminds her, “I think I’d better fill your dance card for the night.”
“I don’t have a dance card,” Natasha replies, and Barton winks at her.
“Well, true, not anymore.”
It’s a long night, even with Barton making snide comments about the various dignitaries present and forcing her to dance with him every now and then. Natasha keeps an eye on Stark, who seems to be perfectly at ease here, jacket buttoned to hide the clockwork panel on his chest.
“Can he even get drunk?” Barton remarks, eyes on Stark.
“Well, he’s the only one who can tell us,” Natasha points out. “And being truthful doesn’t seem to be very high on his list of priorities.”
Stark is laughing, all bright eyes and glittering teeth, and for a moment Natasha sees what everyone else does, and it’s obvious why no one has noticed that Stark isn’t quite human, isn’t quite alive. No one’s looking for it, because there’s far too much to see already. Hiding in plain sight, or maybe he doesn’t even think of it as that. It’s hard to tell what he thinks, which is going to make the psychiatric evaluation Commander Fury will later ask Natasha to write somewhat problematic.
Barton has a warm, confident hand at her waist; he’s one of the only people Natasha actually trusts to touch her, which is something she could examine closer but doesn’t wish to. She lets him twirl her around the dance floor, and he’s certainly doing an admirable job of hiding the fact that she’s actually leading. Barton’s still watching Stark, though, something thoughtful in his ever-present smirk.
“Does Stark tick if you get close enough?” he supplies at last.
Natasha rolls her eyes, resisting the urge to press down on his instep with the heel of her shoe and then claim it on too much punch.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she says instead. “Do you want to go over and test that theory?”
“Maybe not,” Barton decides, in a tone of voice that implies that he’s going to expect Natasha try this out for him at some point. She decides to save that refusal for another day, though; it’s been a better evening than she expected, there’s no sense in ending it with unnecessary conflict.
She looks away from Stark for a moment to find that Pepper is watching him too, hair and clothing still immaculate even though it’s growing late, expression unreadable.
-
“Are you here to dismantle me?” Lord Stark asks.
Pepper drops her teacup.
Fuck, Natasha thinks, though she keeps her expression neutral. “Your heart device?” she asks, tipping her head to one side. “I understand that it’s keeping you alive, why would I want to take it apart?”
Stark rolls his eyes. “You’re good,” he says. “Not good enough, of course, but still, you had me going for a while.”
Pepper looks between the two of them, eyes wide, cheeks still flushed pale. “What’s happening?” she asks, voice tight but with controlled calm. Natasha is often fairly impressed with what living with Lord Stark has taught Pepper, has made second nature.
“I’m hoping not-actually-Natalie-Rush will be able to tell us,” Stark shrugs, picking his own teacup off the table and taking a sip, casual as if they’re simply discussing the weather.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Natasha tries. She’s not so much trying to talk herself out of this situation - although she could if she wanted to, and will explain this in her report later - as she is trying to ascertain what Stark thinks is happening so that she can lie accordingly.
One of Stark’s robots comes in, carrying a fresh pot of tea. The tension remains crackling in the room, but the little machine doesn’t notice, and Natasha finds herself watching it instead of Stark. Even his domestic creations are more expertly made than the machines S.H.I.E.L.D tries to use on a regular basis; Natasha can’t actually decide if they should be trying to appropriate Stark’s technology or whatever it is Fury is actually attempting to do. It’s entirely possible that they will all find themselves blown up within a month, though she’ll keep that opinion to herself because she knows that no one is interested in it.
“Nice try,” Stark shrugs, reaching for the teapot, “really, I actually thought about buying it for a while, but you know that I’m a far more sophisticated version of Dummy here.”
“Slightly more sophisticated,” Natasha replies, and Stark laughs, pouring another cup of tea and pushing it towards Pepper.
“Drink up, Pep, we should at least find out if I’m due imminent death.”
“Oh, you’ll be in for imminent death when we’ve dealt with this,” Pepper says, voice a little shivery. “You promised you’d tell me next time you ended up in a situation like this.”
“I thought about telling you,” Stark tries, but she doesn’t relent. “Anyway, not-actually-Natalie-Rush, are you here to dismantle me?”
“Well,” Natasha says, “no. That’s apparently bad manners.” When Stark smiles but doesn’t say anything else, she adds: “I’m here to observe you.”
This doesn’t seem to reassure Pepper, who’s still looking angry, but Stark just looks interested.
“So you can create copies of me?”
“I haven’t been told what the information’s for,” Natasha says, because there are some times when it just isn’t worth lying.
“You didn’t ask?” Pepper demands.
“I’m not in a position to ask,” Natasha shrugs. She looks to Stark. “What gave me away?”
“We’re both too curious,” Stark replies, something smug in his expression, something too sheepish. “And that law about robot registration hasn’t been used in a long time.”
Natasha narrows her eyes. “You knew that all along.”
Stark shrugs. “I wanted to know what you wanted,” he says simply. “It seemed easier to let you play it out.”
Pepper throws her hands up. “You have got to stop endangering us just because you’re bored.”
“I’m not sure that we are endangered,” Stark protests. “Not-actually-Natalie-Rush hasn’t done anything yet except poke around in my workshop and send some coded messages I’m sure I’ll crack any day now. Frankly, if you wanted to know anything you could just have asked.”
He reaches for a teaspoon on the table, digging the edge of the handle into his wrist, and before Natasha can blink or even ask what he’s doing he’s ripping back the edge of the skin of his arm. Natasha is no stranger to violence or to even the most gruesome of mutilation, but Stark’s casual tearing of his skin is something else entirely and her throat constricts involuntarily. There’s no blood, of course, and what’s revealed isn’t muscles and veins; instead, Natasha finds herself staring at Tony’s metal skeleton, tubes and cogs and bolts welded over it and keeping him moving, functioning.
She blinks twice, and then finds that she still has nothing to say.
“It’s going to take you hours to fix that,” Pepper points out mildly, in the voice of a woman who has seen far, far worse and decided to no longer let any of it bother her.
“That’s okay,” Stark replies levelly, meeting Natasha’s gaze and refusing to blink. “I get the feeling not-actually-Natalie-Rush’s story is a long one.”
Natasha considers the logistics of this investigation, and then remembers that everyone’s got a secret in this mansion, and she’s bargaining with more than usually has.
“It is,” she agrees at last.
- finis
It seems, of course, that what Lord Stark desires most - more than money, more than respect, more than a beautiful woman on his arm - is to be talked about. He’s bright and glittering, with his wicked smile and rumours of a dangerous past that should have rendered him dead only he was too clever to allow it to get the better of him. He’s dangerous, and nothing he’s done has ever faded into the background, ever gone without comment from his peers or from the newspapers.
He’s a man with secrets, though; he makes no secret of that fact, wears it with the same casual panache he wears his expensive suits. What those secrets actually are, though, remain closely-guarded, eternally shrouded in darkness.
Lord Anthony Stark wants attention, but he knows where to draw the line. There are some things it’s better not to know, after all.
Epilogue.
Lord Anthony ‘Tony’ Stark.
Natasha leaves on a wet Wednesday, leaving a Pepper who pretends she isn’t moping at the sudden lack of company and a stack of increasingly annoyed telegrams from Rhodey, who is away doing whatever it is Rhodey does when he isn’t here.
They are all annoyingly overprotective, for people Tony could potentially outlast.
That’s one of those questions he doesn’t consider, of course, because he’s already died and what he will do one day is simply cease to function. He’s aged himself over the years, putting careful thought into it as he stitches skin in the mirror to add the finest of lines to the corners of his eyes, the beginning of something he will never experience.
Some days, maudlin days, he thinks he keeps Pepper and Rhodey around only to remind him of what he should be, of what humanity is. He’s a monster of his father’s creation, and at night when he sleeps - he can still sleep, though it gets a little harder each time he does - the ticking is sometimes so deafening it frightens him. But those are bad days, and not every day is bad. Some of them are even good, when he actually looks at them.
Within a week of Natasha’s departure Pepper has somehow managed to inform Rhodey of the fact Tony put his existence at risk by allowing someone he knew was a spy to reside with them, to break into his workshop and examine him at close quarters, and didn’t bother to inform anybody of any of this, and Rhodey has sent home a number of frankly overexcited telegrams and a vehement intention to return home soon and yell at him.
Tony likes it when Rhodey yells. It means that he doesn’t hate him yet.
He spends the time working on Jarvis, who is going to speak if it takes Tony the next decade to achieve it; he’s already cleverer than all his other creations, and he took to chess like a duck to water, so speech cannot be much worse. Pepper just huffs out a sigh when she comes in to find Tony figuring out the logistics of slitting his own throat so he can see his vocal chords, which he takes to mean that he’s forgiven, for the moment.
The letter comes about ten days after Natasha left; it comes with the afternoon post, and the envelope is plain, with no stamp or address on it.
Pepper sits on the edge of one of his workbenches while Tony opens it, since there are currently no functioning chairs in his workshop, and she says nothing but she watches him with narrowed eyes.
The letterhead is printed with the insignia that belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D; Tony recognises it from the paperwork he uncovered while he was figuring out Natasha’s actual identity. It’s signed from Commander Nicholas Fury, who turned up in the majority of details Natasha actually decided to divulge.
“Well,” Tony muses aloud, “this will either be the best thing that’s ever happened to me or will get me killed.”
Pepper sighs in a not again way, but aloud all she says is: “It’s amazing how regularly you use that sentence.” She tips her head. “Have they offered you a job?”
“A consulting position,” Tony confirms.
“Are you going to take it?” Pepper asks.
“They apparently have gods and monsters,” Tony shrugs, “why wouldn’t I go?”
It’s reluctant, but after a moment, Pepper smiles.
&end;