Work Text:
It’s the morning of Nat’s birthday, and Tony is in the living room of the penthouse putting the finishing touches on the wrapped box containing her gift. He gives a little shiver at the ambient temperature in the room.
“Jarvis, up the temperature by a few degrees.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tony sticks a blue bow to the box. “And around one this afternoon, ask Nat to come up here for a minute. Don’t tell her I know it’s her birthday.”
“Of course, sir. Shall I make up a reason?”
“Nah. Just tell her I need to see her. She’ll come.”
An hour later, Tony goes out to the bakery to pick up a special ordered box of Nat’s favourite salted caramel brownies. On his way back to the tower, he briefly hopes he's not making a mistake by doing something for Nat’s birthday, considering how adamantly she refused to tell anyone her birthdate. The team once bugged her about it for over an hour, but when they realized not even Clint knew, they gave it up as a lost cause. But the malware Tony used to hack into SHIELD brought back a lot more information than just their plans for the tesseract and the sceptre.
When he learned her birthdate, he of course respected her wishes by not sharing it with the team, even though he didn’t understand her motives. Who doesn’t like to celebrate their birthday? Maybe he can change her mind with this small offering of brownies and a gift, just the two of them. They don’t exactly spend much time together these days, when they’re not fighting to protect the earth. But in those brief moments when they are together for something other than battle, Natasha reminds Tony a little of himself, with her standoffish exterior that belies a desire for real friendship. They didn’t exactly start out their friendship on the right foot, but he likes to consider them friends now. Neither one of them grants many people that privilege.
Mushy-gushiness aside, though, Tony also just wants to see the look on her face when she realizes she can’t always fool him. Hey, if he’s still a little sore about getting duped by “Natalie Rushman from legal”, who can blame him?
He gets to the penthouse kitchen and puts the brownies in the fridge, when a wave of nausea suddenly washes over him, followed by another shiver.
“What the fuck?” Tony mutters to himself, leaning against the counter for support. “J?” he begins, not really wanting to ask. “It wasn’t just cold in here earlier, was it?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of checking your temperature, and you’ve got a fever of 100.3.”
Before Tony can answer, a sudden retch overtakes him. He makes a run for the nearest bathroom, barely making it in time to fall to his knees in front of the toilet and vomit up his breakfast into the bowl.
An hour later, after a brief respite on the living room couch, Tony is back on his knees in front of the toilet, shaking and sweating, bringing up the water he tried to drink a short while ago. Jarvis has informed him that his fever is up to 101.
He’s gasping for air after a particularly violent heave when he hears Nat’s calm, mildly amused voice in the doorway behind him.
“OK, not quite what I was expecting when Jarvis called me up. I’m no nurse, but I guess I could heat you up some Lipton soup or something…”
Tony doesn’t turn around, he’s too busy gagging over the bowl again. When he can take a breath, he sputters out, “I did not invite you over to nurse me. I meant to tell Jarvis to cancel.” Another heave, and then: “Ugh. It’s OK, you can go. Come back tomorrow.”
“As tempting as that is,” Nat says, grabbing a glass on the sink and filling it with water, “I just can’t walk away from such a hot mess in good conscience.” She hands the glass to Tony and quirks an eyebrow. “Unless this is a hangover. But even you wouldn’t be hungover at one in the afternoon.”
Tony takes the water glass and sits back against the bathtub to take a few sips. “Very funny. But the joke’s on you; I’m pretty sure it’s the stomach flu. If you don't get out of here, you’ll get a first-hand repeat performance by this time tomorrow.”
“Speaking of tomorrow, what did Jarvis call me up for, that I’m supposed to come back tomorrow for?” Nat’s face seems impassive, but the brief frown betrays her curiosity.
“Nothing,” Tony replies quickly. “It can wait.”
Nat still seems curious, but doesn’t press him.
Tony does a quick self-assessment and determines that he’s probably done puking for the time being. He moves to get up, and Nat is quickly at his side to help.
Tony weakly tries to object. “It’s OK, I’m good.”
“Shut up,” is all Nat says, draping Tony’s arm across her shoulders and hauling him to his feet. She’s surprisingly strong, and Tony smiles a little as he remembers how she bested Happy in the boxing ring the first time they met.
“Think you can make it to the living room without throwing up on the carpet?” Nat asks. “Vomit stain removal isn’t my strong suit. Now if it’s blood we’re talking about…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mutters. They make it to the living area without incident, and Nat gently deposits Tony onto the couch. She quickly returns to the bathroom for a moment and comes back with a wastebasket, Tony’s water glass, and some anti-nausea pills. She gives him the pills and water and sets the wastebasket by his feet before flopping down beside him.
Tony isn’t sure what to say. Nat can’t actually want to stay here and hang out with him in this condition, but she doesn’t seem in a hurry to leave. And the company is nice. He’d never admit it, but as much as he prefers solitude much of the time—tinkering in his workshop, or rocketing through the stratosphere in his suit just for fun—he really doesn’t like to be alone when he’s sick. It reminds him too much of when his father would banish him to a spare bedroom on the staff’s floor of their mansion when he got sick as a kid, so his father wouldn’t catch it and, god forbid, have to take a day off work for once. At least Jarvis would come by after his shift to sit with Tony awhile, entertaining him with funny stories from his own childhood.
Tony gives an involuntary shiver. His fever hasn’t gone down yet. Nat notices, and wordlessly reaches for a blanket draped over the armchair and tosses it toward Tony, then picks up the TV remote and turns on a Pixar movie. Toy Story 3 by the looks of it, Tony thinks as he covers himself with the fleece blanket and slouches down against the arm of the couch. An unusual choice for Nat; at the last team movie night, her vote was for The Road.
Since Nat seems pretty content to stick around, and Tony’s nausea is slowly getting better, he wonders whether he should go ahead and give her her gift today. But it will be a little awkward this way. He was planning to be waiting in the kitchen when she arrived, brownies and gift already sitting on the island so that they could do the talking for him. Now what should he say? Oh by the way, I figured out your birthday, and I know you don’t want the team to know, but I didn’t want the day to go by unacknowledged, so here’s your gift, now excuse me while I heave into this bucket.
Before he can decide whether to say anything, Nat picks up his nearly empty water glass and crosses the living area to the open kitchen. He assumes she’s going to refill it at the faucet, but instead, she asks, “Do you have Gatorade? That would be better than water,” and opens the fridge. Then she freezes, and Tony knows she’s looking at the box with her favourite bakery’s logo on it and “Nat” written on the top in Tony’s messy script.
“Ah, shit,” Tony mumbles. Well, that’s one way of surprising her. This day definitely isn’t going according to plan.
Nat doesn’t turn around. “How did you find out?” Her voice has more emotion in it than usual, but Tony doesn’t think any of it is irritation.
“I have my ways.” Tony tries to sound mischievous but he’s not sure it came through. His voice is a little hoarse from all the vomiting. “I haven’t told the team, if you’re worried about that. Though I still don’t know why it’s such a big secret. When I have a birthday, I—well, you’ve seen for yourself how I like to celebrate.”
Natasha comes back to the couch with the brownies and a bottle of Gatorade. She hands the drink to Tony, who struggles a bit to sit up so he can take a few careful sips. She puts the brownie box on the table without opening it, and stares at it for a while without speaking, though it looks like she wants to. Eventually, she does.
“After I was recruited, I wasn’t allowed to celebrate anything, much less my birthday. None of the recruits were. They told us, ‘birthdays, Christmas, presents, those things are for children.’ I may have only been eleven, but it didn’t take long before I forgot I was just a child. And now…I’ve gotten back so much of what I’ve lost, thanks to the team. Thanks to you.” Her eyes briefly flit to Tony’s before she continues. “I guess—” she shrugs, “It feels like asking for more at this point would just be…greedy. Like I’d be pushing my luck.”
Tony is silent for a few moments. Nat has never been so forthcoming about her past before, at least not with Tony. He feels a renewed rush of affection for his friend, as well as anger at everything she was forced to endure in the Red Room. He gives her a warm smile, which she returns.
“If that’s how you feel, then I guess I should take those brownies back, huh?” he says with a wink.
Nat grabs the box and cradles it in her lap protectively. “You’ll have to fight me for them.”
“You’d beat up a sick old man just for some brownies?”
Nat opens the box and looks inside. “For salted caramel brownies? I’d beat up the Hulk.” She picks one up and gives it a long, hungry look. “You’re in no condition to be eating these, anyway. Drink your electrolytes.” She takes a big bite.
Tony chuckles, but does take another small sip of his drink.
They’re silent for a few more moments before Tony speaks again. “This isn’t luck, you know.” He’s not good at this sharing-your-feelings shit, but he doesn’t want Nat to feel worried that she’ll lose what she’s found here. “You earned this. You belong here as much as any of us. You’re not going to lose that.”
Nat swallows her bite of brownie and gives Tony a slight smile, but it falters after a second and her eyes drop from his face. “You know,” she begins tentatively, “I redacted most of my report about you. Not long after I gave it to Fury. My conclusions were…” she takes a breath and looks him in the eye before finishing, “wrong.”
In fact, Tony didn’t know she’d redacted parts of her report, and he’s happy to hear it, but he wouldn’t have been upset if she hadn’t. Based on her observations of him at a time when he thought he was facing a slow, certain death, her conclusions weren’t that far off. He gives Nat a reassuring smile so she knows he’s not mad about all… that. “I was a mess.”
Nat doesn’t answer, but gives a little smile back before picking up a second brownie.
“Don’t eat them all at once. One vomiting Avenger is enough for one day.”
“I have a very strong stomach.”
“Well, save me one, or you won’t get your present.”
Nat pauses mid-chew. “The brownies aren’t the present?”
Tony bites his lip. After what Nat just told him about her childhood, he’s hoping he didn’t make a serious misjudgement in the birthday gift he chose for her. But he forges on. “Look in the end table.”
With slight suspicion, Nat turns around and opens the end table drawer, pulling out the small wrapped box. She immediately tears it open, looking much more childlike than Tony has ever seen her.
But when she opens the box and pulls out the ancient handheld Russian video game, she stares at it, speechless, and her eyes start to water. Tony’s panic is growing and he starts to think he’s made a horrible mistake.
“It’s a Nu, Pogodi game,” says Nat in awe.
“Yeah. I heard it was popular in Russia when you were a kid. I thought you’d probably owned one, or at least played it. I don’t know much about your background, except that you were recruited young. Sounds like you missed a lot of your childhood, so I thought, maybe, this…” He pauses because Nat hasn’t moved yet or taken her eyes off of the toy. “If you don’t like it, it’s alright. You don’t have to—”
Nat finally looks up, and her eyes are wet with tears. “I had one of these when I was little. Half the kids on my block did. We played with them on the front steps of my apartment building almost every day in the summer. Where did you find this?”
Tony releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. For a minute, he was worried that he had hurt Nat by reminding her of her childhood, but it seems it had the opposite effect. “There are a few available second-hand online. It works, if you wanna turn it on.”
Nat flips the switch on the side of the device and it comes to life with a short tune and a crude animation of a wolf on the tiny screen. She laughs when she hears it, even as a tear falls down her cheek. “There was this legend the older kids told us. That if you get a thousand points, it’ll play a cartoon of Volk and Zayats, the characters in the game. We believed them for a while. But eventually we figured out that it’s technically impossible to get a thousand points with how the game is designed. We were so disillusioned for a while after that we almost stopped playing. But we didn’t.”
Tony’s heart leaps at her words, because he hasn’t revealed the whole surprise to her yet.
“Yeah. I tried it out myself when it arrived. It’s a pretty crappy game.” He and Nat share a laugh at that. Tony continues: “So…I made some modifications. Try for a thousand points now and see what happens.”
Nat looks at him, wide-eyed, before leaning over and hugging him and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“My pleasure,” Tony says with a grin. Not being one for prolonged displays of sentimentality, he adds slyly, “But you’re definitely gonna get sick now, you know that, right?”
“Worth it,” Nat replies, eyes already back on the game.
Tony takes another sip of his Gatorade and slides over to watch Nat play. “So, will this be the first of many birthday celebrations from now on?”
“We’ll see,” says Nat noncommittally. “An understated affair like this, I could probably get used to.”
“Ha. No way. Just wait til you see the gala I’m throwing for your birthday next year.”
“Try it and I’ll murder you in your sleep and make it look like a heart attack.”
“I’m not worried. I have a whole year to convince you.”
He slouches down on the couch and makes himself comfortable. He’s starting to get drowsy now, thanks to the anti-nausea medication. The rhythmic sound of beeps and buzzes from the game are lulling him to sleep. Before he drifts off, he thinks he imagines Nat’s reply: “Maybe I’ll let you.”