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Natasha knew it was a bad idea before Tony had even opened his mouth. Tony had plenty bright ideas, but the look of glee on his face only spoke of trouble. Still, she and James showed up, because if nothing else, it was sure to be entertaining.
It took a while before everyone was present and quiet, but when they finally were, Tony turned down the lights and started his presentation. The screen behind him only had one word on it, Sokovia, but Tony had plenty more to fill in. He spend a full three minutes making his case with words like fundraising, public awareness, and press, before he opened the floor to the first round of questions.
James raised his arm.
“Yes, Barnes?” Tony said.
“No,” James said, looking like someone just pissed in his cornflakes.
“That’s not a question.” Tony frowned at him before he moved on and clicking a button to switch the single word on the screen out for several new ones: The Three Musketeers - The Stage Play.
James raised his arm again.
“If you’re going to say ‘no’ again you’ll have to wait till after I’m done with the presentation.”
James slowly took his arm down again.
The final slide was an image. Or to be precise an image of the musketeers with Steve’s, Sam’s, and James’s faces badly photoshopped onto the bodies of the three musketeers. Natasha’s face was equally badly photoshopped onto the body of a fourth, standing slightly to the right of the rest.
James raised his arm yet again. Tony glared at him.
Natasha leaned forward, faking an interested look, and raised her arm.
“Natasha,” Tony said looking relieved.
“I’m support this.”
“You do?” The surprise in his voice obvious.
“Oh, I meant James’s veto. Not the play.”
Tony was about to comment when Clint finally failed to keep his laughter quiet, he made hand gestures at the image and the people around the table, but was otherwise completely incomprehensible. Then Sam started to chuckle. Before long, half the table was laughing.
Natasha was mostly just glad that Wanda couldn’t be here today.
“Okay, let’s take a vote,” Steve said, stifling his laughter. “All in favor of doing this play.”
Tony’s arm shot up immediately, and Rhodes’ followed with a sigh. Clint technically raised his arm too, but since he was flat on the floor laughing, only his hand showed over the table.
“Think of all the good we could do with the kind of money that would collect,” Tony said.
“I’d rather donate my arm than do this play,” James said, deadpan. He folded his arms over his chest and continued with even less enthusiasm, “Oh, wait.”
Afterward, after the laughter had finally died down and the meeting wrapped up, Natasha looked at James. “I must admit, I would have loved seeing you as Aramis. I think you’d have done well on the stage.”
“Are you kidding me? I would have done more than well. I was the resident heartthrob for at least three weeks after I was in a play in high school. Just ask Steve.”
“And what would I have to do for a private show?”
He shot her a glance that not only spoke volumes, but would probably also have made said show NC-17 rated. They negotiated all the way back home and in the end Natasha got her private show. It had been a while since she’d read The Three Musketeers, but she was pretty sure that Aramis wasn’t usually nude and didn’t usually interact quite so much with the audience - she enjoyed it all the same.