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He’s totally minding his own business, just sitting at the island bar in the kitchen, a jumble of wires spread out before him. Natasha is digging around in the refrigerator, looking for the left over souls of small children, Tony assumes. Because obviously that’s not where the vodka is.
There’s a sudden clanging, and Tony looks up on reflex. Natasha is standing there, stalk still, and on the ground by her feet is an extremely large syringe.
Tony’s entire body freezes up, and he’s pretty sure his heart would have given out if not for the arc reactor. That thing—it’s comically large, except not comically at all. And Natasha is just staring at him, eyes cold and unblinking.
Then, slowly, she drops down and picks it up. Just as slowly, she returns to her full height. All the while, she’s just staring at him. All his fight or flight instincts are screaming, and flight is really loud, but he can’t force his body to move away from the very immediate danger.
Natasha doesn’t blink as she makes her way back out of the kitchen, her eyes still locked on Tony as she moves backwards. As soon as she’s disappeared from sight, Tony is off like a rocket, running screaming for the gym. “STEVE!”
“You’re being ridiculous, Tony,” Steve says hours later as they get into their room to settle in for the night. Tony had gotten a running start and jumped onto the bed from a good couple of yards.
“Just check under the bed,” he demands, burrowing under the blankets.
“Tony, you are working towards forty-five years old,” Steve says patiently.
“I’m not asking you to look for imaginary monsters,” Tony snaps. “I’m asking you to look for very real and very crazy Russian spies. This should be right up your alley, Mr. America.”
Steve huffs and mutters something about sleeping through the Cold War, but with a longsuffering sigh, he drops down to lift up the bed skirt and check. “There’s nothing under there except for one of your armor briefcases and a few chip cans and—are those peanuts? We need to clean up a little bit down here.”
“OK, now the closet,” Tony requests.
“Tony—“
“She could be anywhere, Steve!”
Steve rolls his eyes but heads to the closet. “Are you sure you didn’t just hallucinate this? You’ve been working pretty hard lately and not sleeping nearly enough.”
“You weren’t there, Steve,” Tony cries. “You weren’t there for any of it, because you were too busy being a popsicle. She’ll just come after you with one of those things, for no good reason. Right at the neck!”
Not for the first time, Steve wonders why he chooses to put himself through this, especially when Tony then requests that he check the bathroom—“Tub and shower too!”—and on the ceiling—“Black Widow, Steve!”—and in the air vents.
“Tony,” he says slowly, speaking to the lump under the covers, “Natasha is not anywhere in the room. Can I please go to sleep now?”
Slowly, Tony peeks out from under the blanket. His dark eyes dart around to confirm Steve’s assessment of the safety of the room, and he seems to relax a little bit as he holds up the blanket for Steve to slide in up next to him. Tony kisses him, and Steve feels some of his irritation melting away. He can’t really get too put off by this sort of thing. After all, he knew how eccentric Tony was getting into this thing.
They settle back into the bed, and JARVIS turns off the lights. Steve is just drifting off when a voice suddenly says, “Stark.” They both jerk awake, and Natasha is standing beside the bed. She reaches out with a single extended finger and pokes Tony in the side of his neck. The sound Tony makes is inhuman, and Natasha runs from the room, leaving Tony to flail wildly as he flings a pillow around, frantically trying to fight off the spy who is no longer present.
Steve blinks groggily and wonders where in the hell Natasha even came from.