"You wanted to see me Pep?"
"Tony! Meet your new Personal Assistant, Natalie Rushman."
Had Tony made Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries years before he' d done so originally solely to give SHIELD an opportunity to put their hand right inside of his mouse trap? Yes. Yes he had. And they'd played right into his hands too, judging by the look of Natasha Romanoff as she turns to face him with a smile on her ruby red lips.
He and JARVIS hadn't been sure whether they'd go for it or not. It was, after all, a year and a half before she would have been sent to spy on him in the original timeline. Eighteen months in which Natasha had proven herself to SHIELD over the course of a dozen more missions then she had under her belt right now.
By the time she'd infiltrated his company for Fury the first time around, Natasha had already been Level Six and was well on her way to becoming Level Seven. Right now, Natasha had just managed to make it to Level Five, which allowed her some additional slack on her leash and meant SHIELD was willing to trust her on more solo missions.
Yet here she was. Even using the same cover identity as last time. Either it was an old cover Natasha had suggested repurposing, or SHIELD really was criminally unimaginative for a spy organization. As she takes a step towards him, raising a hand in greeting, Tony takes a moment to really soak in her visage.
The first thing Tony notices about the Natasha of this era is how young she looks. The stress of the next ten years hadn't been kind to anyone… not even the gorgeous femme fatale. Which was darkly amusing when you thought about it. All those years as a spy and assassin hadn't prematurely aged Natasha, but the moment she'd found herself as an Avenger, it had all been downhill from there. Right now, Natasha's hair is the longest he recalls seeing it, with lots of curls and a vibrancy that would be seeped out of it over the years to follow. She was beautiful of course … though frankly, Pepper gave her a run for her money these days, especially with the Extremis Super Soldier Serum bringing his beloved girlfriend ' s best qualities to the forefront.
Of course, he ' s still checking her out. Something that 'Natalie' notices and lets her smile widen over, batting her lashes at him now that she's turned away from Pepper so the other woman can't see her face.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stark."
Her hand is out for him to take hold of. No doubt it would be as soft as imaginable, no trace of the usual callouses that one would expect from someone in Natasha's line of work. Tony takes it with a wide grin of his own, playing right into her hands… or at least, letting her believe he is. "Charmed, Ms. Rushman."
The first time around, Natasha hadn't been inserted as his PA. SHIELD had been a bit more clandestine about things, and gotten her hired as a Stark Industries Notary Public. Basically, she'd brought paperwork to the bigwigs at the company to sign in her presence so that they could say it was all above work and she could notarize it on her end.
Kind of the perfect role for a spy, really. It allowed her to always have an excuse to be in a room where conversations might be happening that she wanted to be privy to, while also giving her access to all sorts of sensitive documents.
SHIELD hadn't gone that route this time however… but then to be fair to the spy organization, Tony and JARVIS hadn't really given them much choice. His beautiful artificial baby boy had been stonewalling SHIELD ' s attempts to slip in through the cracks left behind by Obadiah Stane's meddling for quite a while now. Their efforts to hack into Stark Servers, be they the company's or his personal ones, had all ended in failure.
Likewise, they had already tried to put a few agents into Stark Industries here and there, including an attempt at placing one as a Notary Public just like Natasha would have been in the future. None of it had worked.
So really, it was no wonder that they'd pulled out all the stops and sent a woman they were convinced would make Tony's head turn in all the right ways just as soon as they'd found out they had this opportunity.
Of course, that didn't mean Tony was going to make this EASY for Natasha. Letting go of her hand, he gives Pepper a confused smile.
" Thought I told you we could take it slow with the replacement search, Pep? I'm just the Chief Science Officer now. It's not like I really need a full time assistant anyways."
Pepper just shrugs, smiling a patient smile.
"You also agreed when I let you convince me to take this god awful job that I would be allowed to choose my replacement. She comes highly recommended, Tony."
Feigning suspicion is fun, Tony decides, even as he glances to Natasha for a moment before peering at Pepper questioningly.
"Highly recommended by whom, exactly?"
Rolling her eyes, Pepper lets out a soft sigh.
"You'll have read her file by the end of the day anyways, Tony. For now, all you need to know is that she comes highly recommended by me. Natalie here is the one I've chosen to be my replacement. And that means you have to at least give her a chance, alright?"
As they've been talking, Natasha has been looking between them, a cutely worried expression on her pretty face. Her lips lightly pursed and pouting, she was managing to look precisely like a young woman hoping to get one of the best jobs on the market WOULD look at finding out that her new boss might fire her before she could even begin.
At the same time though, Tony can tell that it's more than that. He can see a lot more this time around, and not just because of all of his foreknowledge.
See, the Super Soldier Serum didn't just make you physically stronger, faster, and healthier. It made you more of what you already were. In Tony's case, he was a genius. Now he was a genius on steroids. Extremis also helped a lot, enhancing his senses to the point where Natasha would have to be taking muscle relaxant drugs herself in order to hide her true feelings from him. Underneath the worry, Tony detects that Natasha is curious. She's probably wondering why Pepper is fighting for her so hard while Tony doesn't want her. After all, he'd read what SHIELD thought of him and his overall personality. While there'd been a recent addendum to his file about what might be a change from a playboy to a romantic, it wasn't being taken very seriously.
Put simply, Tony should be salivating all over Natasha's tight young body in that white blouse and hot pencil skirt right now. Instead…
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