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=NYC= Upper Floors - Stark Tower - Midtown
Glass, stone, and metal frame a space of wide views and clean lines. The style is strongly architectural and explicitly modern -- modern enough to be rustic with stacked wood by the fireplace and rough-hewn rock. A detached balcony paths around in wide overlook of the city to lead down to the helipad; above, the Iron Man landing pad leads to wide stairs that track past the bar into the main living space. The alcohol is both plentiful and expensive. A recessed seating area is centered on an open fireplace. Large windows (shatter-resistant, thank you, Loki) admit plentiful light. Stark's private workshop is one level below and reachable by an open staircase. The private quarters above are an exercise in indulgence with technology pushing at every feature.
Stark has acquired popcorn. It is air-popped and fresh, with real butter and real salt, rather than being a bag of burnt microwave badness. Smart money would go on Pepper making it, or finding an intern and making /them/ make it. Probably an intern, actually. Stark can be trusted to find the drinks, though, since he's grabbed a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of vodka to drop in the recessed seating area in the main living area of his floors in Stark Tower.
You'd never know it was daylight: the windows dim the incoming light to a proper theater environment. As he waits for Natasha, Stark works on an oversized tablet reviewing detector schematics. Every so often, he reaches over to get more popcorn. It's a big bowl. There are no screens, but holographic projectors are camoflaged in the furniture. Screens are so 2000.
Natasha lifts a mild brow as she enters, reaching to lift the bottle of vodka with a glance at Stark. "That bad, hm?" she inquires, swishing it a little. She's dressed appropriately for Stark Tower (actual appropriately, not Tony Stark appropriately) in neat dress slacks and a pale lavender blouse.
Since Stark is dressed in dark jeans which money ensures are both flattering and comfortable and a Stark Expo shirt that is so vintage it hurts -- yeah, she is probably more appropriate than he is. "Well. It's a little weird that I'm not sleeping with you and you want to watch this stuff, but actually I was thinking we could probably make a drinking game of it." Setting down the tablet, he reaches over to pick up and offer the bowl of popcorn to Natasha.
Natasha's brows twitch just a tiny bit higher before she settles the vodka down in favor of popcorn and lowers herself into a seat. "Not many people challenge me to a drinking game," she murmurs with a very dry note of amusement.
"I am a rare individual. My liver is my superpower." Stark flashes Natasha an easy smile. "Jarvis, queue up the audio from 8/8. Raw, please: don't filter or try to clean it up." With the tablet, he arranges internal videos from Amora's visit to the tower. The dates and times on the videos begin in the wee hours of Friday/Saturday and stretch to Saturday morning. "What do you want first?" he asks Natasha. "Some of it might be hard to hear, but I figure your paranoia will be happier if it hasn't been touched, even just to clean it up."
"I can always enhance and review later," Natasha allows. She rests the popcorn on her lap, untouched, and focuses her attention instead on the images in front of them. "Earliest you have. We'll work our way forward." She pauses, shooting a glance at Tony with a very slight lift of her brows. He's quite certain he wants to sit here with her and do this?
Stark queues up the audio from the benefit. There's a distant chatter and the sound is a bit muffled. He wasn't lying when he said it is raw -- or else he /faked it/. "SHIELD actually probably has some surveillance from the 8th. Coulson knew about it." He skips meeting her glance as he focuses on the tablet and adjusting the audio.
"You're Tony Stark," says a woman's voice quite suddenly. It is familiar to Natasha from having met Amora before. Her words are distinct, but somewhat distant.
When Stark's voice cuts in, it is notably louder: closer to the source. "I'm Tony Stark," says the recording.
The real Tony says, "So, drinking game?"
Natasha settles back, and there is a brief flicker of resignation in the flash of her eyes before she shifts the popcorn bowl to a coffee table and allows, "Drinking game."
"When do we drink?" Stark speaks in the lulls of the recording, and pitches his voice in such a way that it is clear he is probably trying very hard not to talk over anything that Natasha might be interested in. He is /excrutiatingly/ well-behaved. "--do I do with that advantage?" asks Amora, and while nothing particular seems interesting in the audio, Stark sits up.
"That's about when she first tried to use her mojo on me, I think," he says, reaching for his glass. I guess he's drinking when Amora tries to use magic, then. "I'm not sure if I recognized her because of that or what." In the audio, Stark identifies her as the Enchantress. "She tried again. It felt like feedback sounds, if that makes sense. She looked cranky about it."
"It's your game," Natasha answers in a clearly distracted murmur. She leans forward, eyes narrowed on the image of Amora. Her head tips slightly toward Stark, indication that she's listening, even if she's not willing to break away from the visuals. She doesn't reply until there is some span of silence - say, that kiss - and then she looks briefly at Stark with a twist of her lips. "Didn't stay cranky."
Stark laughs around a sip: before, he smiles; after, he chuckles. His eyes contain the focus that the rest of his expression would deny. "Honey or vinegar, Romanoff. She wanted somethig from me, and she couldn't use her magic to get it."
Natasha gives Stark a tip of her head, allowing for the validity of the tactic without argument. "She does seem particularly dismayed about that bit." Her attention returns narrow-eyed to the screen. "So there must be something to your claim of immunity."
"Loki tried tapping me with his glowstick," says Stark, which may not have made it to any after-action report, what with him hopping in a car with Bruce and driving away to SCIENCE. "Wanted to turn me against the rest of us, when the Chitauri were coming through. Didn't work then, either." He taps two fingers on the arc reactor beneath his shirt. His lips twist with an expression that is difficult to read, in large part because it holds /so many things/.
From Natasha's fast head turn and the slight widening of her eyse, it /sure didn't/. She holds her gaze on Tony for several long seconds before she says very quietly, "Why didn't you tell us?"
The emotions resolve to a wary defensiveness made explicit in the way Stark presses his shoulders to the back of the couch. Stark looks determinedly at the display; his jaw tightens under Natasha's scrutiny. "Didn't have the time, then it didn't seem relevant. I didn't know why it didn't work -- still don't. I think it has something to do with this." He taps the reactor in his chest, and this time he does meet Natasha's gaze. His expression is all edges: prickly and /intensely/ self-protective. "The less interested SHIELD is in that, the happier I am. I don't want them to know."
"It is," Natasha says, spacing her words precisely. "Relevant. Very." Her gaze holds steady on Tony's, though it does not turn particularly accusatory or pointed. "You built us a clubhouse and installed lasers and biometrics and artificial intelligence, but you withhold information that could save lives. Or cost them."
"It is now," Stark agrees. "That's why I'm bring it up now. At the time, I liked to think we wouldn't be suffering a rash of evil mind-controlling evil Asgardians in the future." He rolls his shoulders back again and crosses his arms over his chest. It doesn't take much training to read /that/ body language. "I don't know why it works like this. I don't know if I can replicate that protection without carving a hole in your chest and filling it with metal -- but that's one of the things I've been working on."
"Loki's been free for nearly a month," Natasha says. She studies him, her gaze intent on his with little regard for the overt defensiveness he puts on display. After a moment she turns away with a brief nod. "Good. The more protection we have, the better." She tips her head toward the images and says, "Let's keep going."
Stark keeps his arms folded -- just in case. You never know who will suddenly hit you with a paralyizing agent and carve your heart out from your chest. There is not much more in that first night: the visit was short, the audio trails off, and then Stark is left tapping through more recent video to find the point Amora entered. "/This/ is the one that is going to take a while. Here." He passes the tablet off to her with controls locked down to a simple pause, rewind, fast forward plus the ability to select between the videos being displayed. "I don't know if you want to go over it all or what, so I'll let you play with that while Daddy does some work. Need anything else?"
"You don't want to keep me company all day, Mr. Stark?" Natasha answers with a clearly-feigned sulk. "I'm hurt."
"Some of us have companies to run and teams to protect," Stark says as he pulls to his feet. He collects the bottle of Scotch and then points. Only a few dozen steps away stands a workstation occupying a fair portion of the room which mostly seems to be smooth counters, a stool, and some kind of weird machine that probably makes things. "I'll be over there in case you have questions -- or want a live demonstration of technique."
"Ever the optimist," Natasha answers on a murmur. She spares a bare moment for the locked-down controls of her tablet, then starts the next scene with an expert flick of her fingers and a rapt gaze.
She will have to sit through a meal where little of interest is said -- a back and forth play of light wit and flirty banter where each party tries to steal answers from the other, met with equal walls -- before Natasha gets to the /good/ stuff, where by good we mean sex, and by sex we mean a lot of sex. As much as Stark would like to think otherwise, there isn't that much /interesting/ in the sex. He doesn't seem that bothered to have Natasha watching any of this, though. Stark continues his work just a few dozen feet away and makes no move to stop her as she watches. This probably takes a while.
Natasha does not at any point stop to take notes. She likewise resists the siren call of vodka, even when the sex starts, although it proves rather more effor than she cares to put in to suppress the amused smirk that creeps across her features. /Really/, Tony?
What, are you kidding? /Of course/. Every so often Stark mutters something to Jarvis as he works, and this continues through the revealing of the Amora sex tape. /Finally/, though -- /finally/ -- it is over, and things start picking up when Stark finishes tracing patterns on Amora's scene to tug her down to the workshop. Magic time! Her magic seems to require touch, and Stark stands as she makes a few ridiculous requests backed by magic which he completely fails to act on in any way. It is hard to tell that anything is going on in the raw video. As she watches, Jarvis offers Natasha the option of an enhanced version artificially colored to show when Amora attempts to use her magic.
Natasha waves Jarvis's offer away, though she does put in a request for a copy for future viewing. Her attention shifts between the two figures, and once or twice now she does actually stop to make a note of something. Her corner of the space, however, remains quiet.
The request is denied. Jarvis is apologetic about it, but firm. Stark and Amora have been in the workshop for some time when a third figure enters: Sif, interrupting. She doesn't go for a threesome when Stark suggests it.
Smart girl. No worries. Natasha will re-review magic-colored scenes in the strictly controlled protection of Tony Stark's bachelor tower if she must. She pauses for a moment to lift her voice and check, "You can tell when she's using her magic through some means other than observation?"
"I can tell when she uses it on me," Stark says. His tone is distracted and his words come with odd, hiccuping pauses before he finally gets to a place where he can stop and transfer his attention to Natasha. "And when I'm in my workshop, there are some distinct power signatures. Need to get that detection smaller, portable. You can't really see anything when she does it. No blue flare, like Loki's staff."
"Mind control isn't always flashy," Natasha says, her voice pitched low as her gaze fixes on the images in front of her. Her expression has settled into a focused frown, and she leans forward, as if the bits and pieces not visible on the screen will fall into place if she gets close enough.
"Nicer when it is. When you can tell when someone's controlled." Stark paces closer to Natasha and braces his hands on the back of the couch. "Nothing to give her away, though." He hesitates a moment, then says, "I've wondered if she got to Thor. Pretty sure it's just Thor being Thor, unfortunately."
"I'm still not convinced she hasn't gotten to you," Natasha answers him, pausing the video with a flick of her finger so that she can turn to look at Stark behind the couch.
"Well, I'm not convinced she hasn't gotten to you," Stark says with half a smile. "Besides, I have /data/ on my side."
"You don't understand half of what you think you do," Natasha says. Her voice remains quiet, but it gains a measure of firmness that's new. Something uncomfortable flickers in her eyes before she turns away. "None of us are convinced she hasn't gotten to any of us," she says, flipping the images back into motion. "That's the point."
Stark rolls his eyes. He turns away to return to his work. "You don't know enough to say what I understand. You aren't smart enough to know what I know." His words carry an edge of resigned exasperation when he says, "That's too easy: men meddling in things which they don't understand, which they should better leave alone. Ignorance and fear, superstition. They've only ever held us back."
The images snap off, and Natasha's voice follows with a sudden, tight flare of anger. "I have never suggested that you should not study her. What she can do. What she cannot do. I have never held you back from the /risks/. But pretending they do not exist or that you fully understand their nature is foolish, and while I have had many opinions regarding you, /fool/ has never been one of them. Not until very recently."
Stark clears the displays between them so that he can look at Natasha. "People seem to think that just because I choose to something dangerous I must not know it is dangerous." He smiles; it's sharp. "Wrong. I'm well aware of the tech gap. I'm /plenty/ aware that I don't even know how big that gap is, or what fills it. I don't pretend the risks don't exist. I don't think I fully understand them. I just think it's /worth it anyway/ -- because our only other choice is even worse."
Natasha studies Tony in silence for several seconds, and whatever hard thing has found its way into her eyes does not leave. She does not smile, but there's something sharp in her expression anyway. "That's not the issue," she says. "You are so used to being up here in your tower that you have forgotten that you're not the only one who might reap the dangers of your risk. Or who can help protect against it. Or who understands the shades of it in ways you never can, because it /doesn't work on you/. You're ignoring your best assets, because they're less predictable than your tools and your own brain." Her lips twist upward in a dark hint of a smile. "Riskier."
Eyes narrowing, Stark argues, because he must: "That lecture -- the one about risking the rest of the team? I have to say it would carry more weight if I were the one dragging us into wars and feuds. What assets do you think I'm ignoring here? I've brought Banner in on it. I've tapped every Asgardian I can for more information. The rest of you just don't have the /tools/ to deal with this on the same level."
"And if she got through to you?" Natasha asks, voice lowering to quiet in the face of argument. "Or to Banner?" She stands, circling the couch to face him. "No. We aren't equipped to deal with it on the same level. We're equipped to deal with it on other levels."
"Then deal with it on other levels," says Stark. "I'm not stopping you."
Natasha watches Stark, her gaze level and dark, and remains silent for several long moments.
Stark pushes back with a gesture, as of clearing the air. He grants, wordlessly, that what he just said was not his most compelling argument. "If you have suggestions, I'll listen to them. Communication is obviously a concern. There's not a lot of concrete ideas in this, though. Just a lot of 'you're doing it wrong'. That's great. Thanks. Real helpful."
"Keep us in the loop, Tony," Natasha says. She stands unmoving in the face of Stark's gesture, one hand grasping her opposite elbow. "Not when you think it's relevant, not when one of us finds out and strikes you with lightening. When it happens. Always. If you're too busy to be fussed, have Jarvis do it. Keep us in the loop. Anything else is on us."
Irritation in the set of his features, Stark says, "I have a lot going on. When what happens, exactly? I have been trying to keep people in the loop. I've been working on facilitating communication. So unless you have something more concrete to say, I don't know what to tell you."
"You're smarter than that, Stark," Natasha says. She swings her arm free and turns away, circling back toward the couch. There's a moment or two of pause before she adds, "If you want to understand it, you should talk to Selvig." And then after a breath, more quietly, "Or Clint."
Stark shakes his head with an expression of unease. When she circles back, he releases a breath and pulls his diagrams out again from the corner that he shoved them. He says nothing.
The silence is broken by the resumed video. Natasha settles herself into the couch again and, finally, sneaks a handful of popcorn as she watches.
Leaving Natasha to study technique, Stark applies himself to his work: Magic Detectors. (SCIENCE.) When he breaks the silence, it is only to mutter to Jarvis again. He carries on as if alone.
=NYC= Upper Floors - Stark Tower - Midtown
Glass, stone, and metal frame a space of wide views and clean lines. The style is strongly architectural and explicitly modern -- modern enough to be rustic with stacked wood by the fireplace and rough-hewn rock. A detached balcony paths around in wide overlook of the city to lead down to the helipad; above, the Iron Man landing pad leads to wide stairs that track past the bar into the main living space. The alcohol is both plentiful and expensive. A recessed seating area is centered on an open fireplace. Large windows (shatter-resistant, thank you, Loki) admit plentiful light. Stark's private workshop is one level below and reachable by an open staircase. The private quarters above are an exercise in indulgence with technology pushing at every feature.
Stark has acquired popcorn. It is air-popped and fresh, with real butter and real salt, rather than being a bag of burnt microwave badness. Smart money would go on Pepper making it, or finding an intern and making /them/ make it. Probably an intern, actually. Stark can be trusted to find the drinks, though, since he's grabbed a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of vodka to drop in the recessed seating area in the main living area of his floors in Stark Tower.
You'd never know it was daylight: the windows dim the incoming light to a proper theater environment. As he waits for Natasha, Stark works on an oversized tablet reviewing detector schematics. Every so often, he reaches over to get more popcorn. It's a big bowl. There are no screens, but holographic projectors are camoflaged in the furniture. Screens are so 2000.
Natasha lifts a mild brow as she enters, reaching to lift the bottle of vodka with a glance at Stark. "That bad, hm?" she inquires, swishing it a little. She's dressed appropriately for Stark Tower (actual appropriately, not Tony Stark appropriately) in neat dress slacks and a pale lavender blouse.
Since Stark is dressed in dark jeans which money ensures are both flattering and comfortable and a Stark Expo shirt that is so vintage it hurts -- yeah, she is probably more appropriate than he is. "Well. It's a little weird that I'm not sleeping with you and you want to watch this stuff, but actually I was thinking we could probably make a drinking game of it." Setting down the tablet, he reaches over to pick up and offer the bowl of popcorn to Natasha.
Natasha's brows twitch just a tiny bit higher before she settles the vodka down in favor of popcorn and lowers herself into a seat. "Not many people challenge me to a drinking game," she murmurs with a very dry note of amusement.
"I am a rare individual. My liver is my superpower." Stark flashes Natasha an easy smile. "Jarvis, queue up the audio from 8/8. Raw, please: don't filter or try to clean it up." With the tablet, he arranges internal videos from Amora's visit to the tower. The dates and times on the videos begin in the wee hours of Friday/Saturday and stretch to Saturday morning. "What do you want first?" he asks Natasha. "Some of it might be hard to hear, but I figure your paranoia will be happier if it hasn't been touched, even just to clean it up."
"I can always enhance and review later," Natasha allows. She rests the popcorn on her lap, untouched, and focuses her attention instead on the images in front of them. "Earliest you have. We'll work our way forward." She pauses, shooting a glance at Tony with a very slight lift of her brows. He's quite certain he wants to sit here with her and do this?
Stark queues up the audio from the benefit. There's a distant chatter and the sound is a bit muffled. He wasn't lying when he said it is raw -- or else he /faked it/. "SHIELD actually probably has some surveillance from the 8th. Coulson knew about it." He skips meeting her glance as he focuses on the tablet and adjusting the audio.
"You're Tony Stark," says a woman's voice quite suddenly. It is familiar to Natasha from having met Amora before. Her words are distinct, but somewhat distant.
When Stark's voice cuts in, it is notably louder: closer to the source. "I'm Tony Stark," says the recording.
The real Tony says, "So, drinking game?"
Natasha settles back, and there is a brief flicker of resignation in the flash of her eyes before she shifts the popcorn bowl to a coffee table and allows, "Drinking game."
"When do we drink?" Stark speaks in the lulls of the recording, and pitches his voice in such a way that it is clear he is probably trying very hard not to talk over anything that Natasha might be interested in. He is /excrutiatingly/ well-behaved. "--do I do with that advantage?" asks Amora, and while nothing particular seems interesting in the audio, Stark sits up.
"That's about when she first tried to use her mojo on me, I think," he says, reaching for his glass. I guess he's drinking when Amora tries to use magic, then. "I'm not sure if I recognized her because of that or what." In the audio, Stark identifies her as the Enchantress. "She tried again. It felt like feedback sounds, if that makes sense. She looked cranky about it."
"It's your game," Natasha answers in a clearly distracted murmur. She leans forward, eyes narrowed on the image of Amora. Her head tips slightly toward Stark, indication that she's listening, even if she's not willing to break away from the visuals. She doesn't reply until there is some span of silence - say, that kiss - and then she looks briefly at Stark with a twist of her lips. "Didn't stay cranky."
Stark laughs around a sip: before, he smiles; after, he chuckles. His eyes contain the focus that the rest of his expression would deny. "Honey or vinegar, Romanoff. She wanted somethig from me, and she couldn't use her magic to get it."
Natasha gives Stark a tip of her head, allowing for the validity of the tactic without argument. "She does seem particularly dismayed about that bit." Her attention returns narrow-eyed to the screen. "So there must be something to your claim of immunity."
"Loki tried tapping me with his glowstick," says Stark, which may not have made it to any after-action report, what with him hopping in a car with Bruce and driving away to SCIENCE. "Wanted to turn me against the rest of us, when the Chitauri were coming through. Didn't work then, either." He taps two fingers on the arc reactor beneath his shirt. His lips twist with an expression that is difficult to read, in large part because it holds /so many things/.
From Natasha's fast head turn and the slight widening of her eyse, it /sure didn't/. She holds her gaze on Tony for several long seconds before she says very quietly, "Why didn't you tell us?"
The emotions resolve to a wary defensiveness made explicit in the way Stark presses his shoulders to the back of the couch. Stark looks determinedly at the display; his jaw tightens under Natasha's scrutiny. "Didn't have the time, then it didn't seem relevant. I didn't know why it didn't work -- still don't. I think it has something to do with this." He taps the reactor in his chest, and this time he does meet Natasha's gaze. His expression is all edges: prickly and /intensely/ self-protective. "The less interested SHIELD is in that, the happier I am. I don't want them to know."
"It is," Natasha says, spacing her words precisely. "Relevant. Very." Her gaze holds steady on Tony's, though it does not turn particularly accusatory or pointed. "You built us a clubhouse and installed lasers and biometrics and artificial intelligence, but you withhold information that could save lives. Or cost them."
"It is now," Stark agrees. "That's why I'm bring it up now. At the time, I liked to think we wouldn't be suffering a rash of evil mind-controlling evil Asgardians in the future." He rolls his shoulders back again and crosses his arms over his chest. It doesn't take much training to read /that/ body language. "I don't know why it works like this. I don't know if I can replicate that protection without carving a hole in your chest and filling it with metal -- but that's one of the things I've been working on."
"Loki's been free for nearly a month," Natasha says. She studies him, her gaze intent on his with little regard for the overt defensiveness he puts on display. After a moment she turns away with a brief nod. "Good. The more protection we have, the better." She tips her head toward the images and says, "Let's keep going."
Stark keeps his arms folded -- just in case. You never know who will suddenly hit you with a paralyizing agent and carve your heart out from your chest. There is not much more in that first night: the visit was short, the audio trails off, and then Stark is left tapping through more recent video to find the point Amora entered. "/This/ is the one that is going to take a while. Here." He passes the tablet off to her with controls locked down to a simple pause, rewind, fast forward plus the ability to select between the videos being displayed. "I don't know if you want to go over it all or what, so I'll let you play with that while Daddy does some work. Need anything else?"
"You don't want to keep me company all day, Mr. Stark?" Natasha answers with a clearly-feigned sulk. "I'm hurt."
"Some of us have companies to run and teams to protect," Stark says as he pulls to his feet. He collects the bottle of Scotch and then points. Only a few dozen steps away stands a workstation occupying a fair portion of the room which mostly seems to be smooth counters, a stool, and some kind of weird machine that probably makes things. "I'll be over there in case you have questions -- or want a live demonstration of technique."
"Ever the optimist," Natasha answers on a murmur. She spares a bare moment for the locked-down controls of her tablet, then starts the next scene with an expert flick of her fingers and a rapt gaze.
She will have to sit through a meal where little of interest is said -- a back and forth play of light wit and flirty banter where each party tries to steal answers from the other, met with equal walls -- before Natasha gets to the /good/ stuff, where by good we mean sex, and by sex we mean a lot of sex. As much as Stark would like to think otherwise, there isn't that much /interesting/ in the sex. He doesn't seem that bothered to have Natasha watching any of this, though. Stark continues his work just a few dozen feet away and makes no move to stop her as she watches. This probably takes a while.
Natasha does not at any point stop to take notes. She likewise resists the siren call of vodka, even when the sex starts, although it proves rather more effor than she cares to put in to suppress the amused smirk that creeps across her features. /Really/, Tony?
What, are you kidding? /Of course/. Every so often Stark mutters something to Jarvis as he works, and this continues through the revealing of the Amora sex tape. /Finally/, though -- /finally/ -- it is over, and things start picking up when Stark finishes tracing patterns on Amora's scene to tug her down to the workshop. Magic time! Her magic seems to require touch, and Stark stands as she makes a few ridiculous requests backed by magic which he completely fails to act on in any way. It is hard to tell that anything is going on in the raw video. As she watches, Jarvis offers Natasha the option of an enhanced version artificially colored to show when Amora attempts to use her magic.
Natasha waves Jarvis's offer away, though she does put in a request for a copy for future viewing. Her attention shifts between the two figures, and once or twice now she does actually stop to make a note of something. Her corner of the space, however, remains quiet.
The request is denied. Jarvis is apologetic about it, but firm. Stark and Amora have been in the workshop for some time when a third figure enters: Sif, interrupting. She doesn't go for a threesome when Stark suggests it.
Smart girl. No worries. Natasha will re-review magic-colored scenes in the strictly controlled protection of Tony Stark's bachelor tower if she must. She pauses for a moment to lift her voice and check, "You can tell when she's using her magic through some means other than observation?"
"I can tell when she uses it on me," Stark says. His tone is distracted and his words come with odd, hiccuping pauses before he finally gets to a place where he can stop and transfer his attention to Natasha. "And when I'm in my workshop, there are some distinct power signatures. Need to get that detection smaller, portable. You can't really see anything when she does it. No blue flare, like Loki's staff."
"Mind control isn't always flashy," Natasha says, her voice pitched low as her gaze fixes on the images in front of her. Her expression has settled into a focused frown, and she leans forward, as if the bits and pieces not visible on the screen will fall into place if she gets close enough.
"Nicer when it is. When you can tell when someone's controlled." Stark paces closer to Natasha and braces his hands on the back of the couch. "Nothing to give her away, though." He hesitates a moment, then says, "I've wondered if she got to Thor. Pretty sure it's just Thor being Thor, unfortunately."
"I'm still not convinced she hasn't gotten to you," Natasha answers him, pausing the video with a flick of her finger so that she can turn to look at Stark behind the couch.
"Well, I'm not convinced she hasn't gotten to you," Stark says with half a smile. "Besides, I have /data/ on my side."
"You don't understand half of what you think you do," Natasha says. Her voice remains quiet, but it gains a measure of firmness that's new. Something uncomfortable flickers in her eyes before she turns away. "None of us are convinced she hasn't gotten to any of us," she says, flipping the images back into motion. "That's the point."
Stark rolls his eyes. He turns away to return to his work. "You don't know enough to say what I understand. You aren't smart enough to know what I know." His words carry an edge of resigned exasperation when he says, "That's too easy: men meddling in things which they don't understand, which they should better leave alone. Ignorance and fear, superstition. They've only ever held us back."
The images snap off, and Natasha's voice follows with a sudden, tight flare of anger. "I have never suggested that you should not study her. What she can do. What she cannot do. I have never held you back from the /risks/. But pretending they do not exist or that you fully understand their nature is foolish, and while I have had many opinions regarding you, /fool/ has never been one of them. Not until very recently."
Stark clears the displays between them so that he can look at Natasha. "People seem to think that just because I choose to something dangerous I must not know it is dangerous." He smiles; it's sharp. "Wrong. I'm well aware of the tech gap. I'm /plenty/ aware that I don't even know how big that gap is, or what fills it. I don't pretend the risks don't exist. I don't think I fully understand them. I just think it's /worth it anyway/ -- because our only other choice is even worse."
Natasha studies Tony in silence for several seconds, and whatever hard thing has found its way into her eyes does not leave. She does not smile, but there's something sharp in her expression anyway. "That's not the issue," she says. "You are so used to being up here in your tower that you have forgotten that you're not the only one who might reap the dangers of your risk. Or who can help protect against it. Or who understands the shades of it in ways you never can, because it /doesn't work on you/. You're ignoring your best assets, because they're less predictable than your tools and your own brain." Her lips twist upward in a dark hint of a smile. "Riskier."
Eyes narrowing, Stark argues, because he must: "That lecture -- the one about risking the rest of the team? I have to say it would carry more weight if I were the one dragging us into wars and feuds. What assets do you think I'm ignoring here? I've brought Banner in on it. I've tapped every Asgardian I can for more information. The rest of you just don't have the /tools/ to deal with this on the same level."
"And if she got through to you?" Natasha asks, voice lowering to quiet in the face of argument. "Or to Banner?" She stands, circling the couch to face him. "No. We aren't equipped to deal with it on the same level. We're equipped to deal with it on other levels."
"Then deal with it on other levels," says Stark. "I'm not stopping you."
Natasha watches Stark, her gaze level and dark, and remains silent for several long moments.
Stark pushes back with a gesture, as of clearing the air. He grants, wordlessly, that what he just said was not his most compelling argument. "If you have suggestions, I'll listen to them. Communication is obviously a concern. There's not a lot of concrete ideas in this, though. Just a lot of 'you're doing it wrong'. That's great. Thanks. Real helpful."
"Keep us in the loop, Tony," Natasha says. She stands unmoving in the face of Stark's gesture, one hand grasping her opposite elbow. "Not when you think it's relevant, not when one of us finds out and strikes you with lightening. When it happens. Always. If you're too busy to be fussed, have Jarvis do it. Keep us in the loop. Anything else is on us."
Irritation in the set of his features, Stark says, "I have a lot going on. When what happens, exactly? I have been trying to keep people in the loop. I've been working on facilitating communication. So unless you have something more concrete to say, I don't know what to tell you."
"You're smarter than that, Stark," Natasha says. She swings her arm free and turns away, circling back toward the couch. There's a moment or two of pause before she adds, "If you want to understand it, you should talk to Selvig." And then after a breath, more quietly, "Or Clint."
Stark shakes his head with an expression of unease. When she circles back, he releases a breath and pulls his diagrams out again from the corner that he shoved them. He says nothing.
The silence is broken by the resumed video. Natasha settles herself into the couch again and, finally, sneaks a handful of popcorn as she watches.
Leaving Natasha to study technique, Stark applies himself to his work: Magic Detectors. (SCIENCE.) When he breaks the silence, it is only to mutter to Jarvis again. He carries on as if alone.