"Do it for me, Tony. Besides, she's nice to look at if nothing else, right?"
Instead, Pepper was the one playing the horndog. Tony holds back the grin as Natasha's eyes widen and she glances over at the new CEO of Stark Industries in surprise. While much of her reaction is part of her façade, Tony can see that there's some very real shock reinforcing the stupefied look on her pretty face.
Pepper gives her a wide grin and a wink that has Natasha playing her role perfectly… namely by ducking her head shyly and brushing some of her curls back behind her ear in what appears to be an unconscious bout of insecurity. Honestly, she's very, very good at what she does. Too bad for her, she' s in over her head.
Clapping his hands together, Tony brings the attention of both women back to himself. "I know! You still don't have a PA either, right Pep?"
Furrowing her brow, Pepper slowly shakes her head.
"Not yet… but Tony, if you're going to try to offload Natalie here onto me…"
For the briefest of moments, Natasha actually looks alarmed by that potential option. She covers it up well, but it's clear they've left her just enough off-balance so far that she can't quite stifle it. Tony almost wants to laugh. While she could still do some of her job from a position as Pepper's PA, she wouldn't be able to really get close to Tony like SHIELD obviously wanted her to. God, who knew teasing and toying with the spooks would be so much fun?
"No, no. I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting… we share her." Pepper raises an eyebrow at that, while Tony just grins.
"I've got J anyways, after all. I don't really need a flesh and blood PA these days, it's half of why I made you CEO in the first place. But let's do joint custody, shall we? She'll spend half her time with you and half her time with me."
Frowning, Pepper pretends to consider it for a long moment.
"Mm… I don't know. That's a lot to handle for just one person, Tony…"
Right on cue, Natasha steps forward, eyes wide and earnest, ruby red lips parting in a breathless manner.
"I assure you, I can handle the load, Ms. Potts."
Tony doesn't snort. He wants to, but he doesn't. 'I can handle the load' . Pfft, he bets she can. If nothing else, Natasha Romanoff is proving to be very… flexible. Having picked up on the fact that Pepper is the one most likely to be 'easily seduced' and no doubt having heard about the rumors surrounding Tony, Pepper, Maya, and now Helen… Natasha was going for broke.
Grinning wickedly, Tony claps his hands again.
"See? Natalia here is a go getter, Pep!"
Natasha turns to him at that, giving him a bright, sunny smile.
"It's Natalie, sir."
But Tony just waves her off.
"Natalie, sure." He ' d been tempted to ' mistakenly ' call her Natasha outright, but that probably would have been too soon. He'd mess up her name a few more times before 'accidentally' tossing out a Natasha just to see how she reacts, heh.
"Besides, if it doesn't work out, we'll go from there. Maybe she can become your full time PA after all and I'll just rely more heavily on J."
That gets stifled alarm from Natasha, who is now suddenly very motivated to make this 'shared custody' arrangement work. If he'd said nothing, or reversed it and said they'd just make her HIS full time PA if it didn't work out, then she would have been incentivized to start doing a mediocre job to try to make it seem like the work load was too much. But now… well, now she would have to put her all into making things work, lest she find herself cut off from him and the majority of what SHIELD wanted her to find out.
"Well… alright then. I suppose we can give it a try." Honestly, hats off to Pepper. The woman was one of the best actresses Tony had ever seen. Though it probably helped that she wasn't having to fake the hunger in her eyes as she regarded Natasha Romanoff and her beautiful body.
Grinning like the cat who caught the canary, Tony perks up.
"Wonderful! Then I'll leave her with you first and you send her over when you're done with her. Sound good, Pep?"
"Yes, yes. Sounds good."
As Tony turns and begins to walk out of the office, Natasha tries for a 'I'm looking forward to working under you!' tossed in his direction, but he just waves her off. Meanwhile, the last thing he hears from her thanks to enhanced hearing once he's out of the office and moving down the hall, is her moving over to Pepper's desk and the shifting of fabric as she pushes her arms together to accentuate her chest. "I'm at your disposal, Ms. Potts. Let me know how I can assist you… in any way you might wish it of me."
Tony snickers quietly to himself. Oh, they were going to have fun with 'Natalie Rushman'. That was for damn sure.
-x-X-x-
Natasha Romanoff almost felt like she was being punked. She' d been briefed ahead of this mission by Agent Phil Coulson, of course. The importance of this particular operation had been drilled into her by the man. As well, she'd been informed that Fury wanted her to take things slow, to avoid rocking the boat, and to do everything she could to maintain her cover above all else for as long as possible.
She'd been ready for a lot of things, or so she figured. Winding up in bed with Tony Stark was one of them. After all, she was going undercover as the man's personal assistant, and not only was he an infamous playboy, he was literally already dating his previous personal assistant. Seducing him, or even just allowing him to think he'd seduced her… that had made plenty of sense to Natasha as a viable first move.
Of course, she'd assumed it would take at least a few days before things would progress that far. She hadn ' t quite counted on Tony giving her a once over and then telling Pepper he didn't need her. Nor had she expected Pepper to be the one to be the most interested in her body. Though, by the end of their conversation, it was obvious that the rumors surrounding the two and Dr. Hansen and Dr. Cho were likely true. Tony had come back from Afghanistan changed… and part of that seemed to involve him and Pepper preying upon other women and drawing them into their shared bed for threesomes.
This too, wasn't exactly outside of Natasha's wheelhouse or realm of expertise, even if she would have preferred to be Stark's full time PA. But you worked with what you were given, so Natasha was happily doing exactly that. Only, once Tony had left and Natasha had made a pass at Pepper… the other red head had simply given her some busy work and left her to it! After the way the two of them had been talking, she'd half-expected to wind up under Pepper Potts'desk eating out the other woman within a few minutes of his departure!
Instead, Natasha found herself putting some miles onto her new high heels, walking the floors of Stark Industries and carrying out task after task for the admittedly brand new CEO of Stark Industries.
Just based off of her first interaction with Stark and Potts, Natasha got the impression that this mission was going to be even harder than she'd thought it would be. But that was alright. Natasha liked a challenge. And hey, she already had a lead to run down. This mysterious 'J' that Tony was talking about… who could that be? And could they be utilized in some way to get the information SHIELD wanted her to get?
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