"Let me get this straight, Agent Romanoff. You've been undercover as the Personal Assistant to Tony Stark and Pepper Potts for ten months and the best you've got for me is that Tony Stark has an AI guard dog and he and Potts are particularly exceptional lovers?"
Sitting in a hotel room in Amman, the Capital City of Jordan, Natasha Romanoff raises an eyebrow at the screen, not intimidated in the slightest by Nick Fury's irritation or Phil Coulson ' s quiet disappointment. Their visages are transported halfway across the world from the Director of SHIELD's office in the Triskelion, and Natasha has just gotten done making her report to the two men.
Technically Natalie Rushman had taken the two week vacation mandated by Stark Industries to travel to Jordan for the chance to see Petra. In reality, Natasha still didn 't fully understand why she was here, save for that SHIELD had left a paper note in her apartment saying that this was where she was to come for her vacation.
After ten months of working under Stark and Potts, the last six of which had been as their personal plaything more than their personal assistant, Natasha had certainly gotten a feel for how the two operated. Unfortunately, she'd got distressingly little of what SHIELD actually wanted, save for the information about JARVIS and… well, the fact that the pair had ungodly stamina.
"You did tell me that you wanted me to take things slowly, Director. Once I discovered I was almost certainly being watched twenty-four-seven by an AI, I knew that I needed to be careful. Besides, the report on Stark and Potts' sexual capabilities should concern you very much. Especially given that new miracle drug that Stark Industries commercialized before I was sent in. PlusExtra."
Fury's brow furrows and he looks at something on his desk for a long moment in thought. Natasha doesn ' t bother insulting his intelligence by explaining it all directly. She lets him get there on his own. "… You think they have something stronger? Something more permanent? And that Stark has dosed him and Potts with it?"
Natasha inclines her head. That first night had been rather embarrassing for her. Afterwards, Tony and Pepper had been far more willing to enjoy her body by themselves. Whether it was Pepper ordering her to crawl under her desk or Tony bending her over his workbench and having her hand him tools while he multitasked fucking her from behind and doing science at the same time… they definitely weren't shy about it anymore.
However, any time it was all three of them… Natasha found she simply couldn't keep up. Once was a fluke. Twice might just be an anomaly. But three times or greater and that was usually enemy action. It had taken her time to figure it out, but ultimately it was staring her right in the face. Stark and Potts weren't entirely human. Or at the very least, they'd been Enhanced in some way. If it was just Stark, Natasha would assume that something had happened to him in the cave. Maybe he'd even been turned into some sort of sleeper agent by the Ten Rings and the destruction of their holdings in Afghanistan was just a smokescreen. But for Pepper to have just as much stamina spoke to something else. Something straight out of Stark's genius brain.
"I think it's a safe bet, sir. Unfortunately I couldn't confirm it. Not with JARVIS breathing down my neck every step of the way. Natalie Rushman has been a loyal, submissive employee for the last ten months, albeit a little bit curious and a whole lot adventurous. But she's not that curious and if I started looking into that sort of thing, my cover would be blown faster than I could blink."
Fury grunts as he leans back in his chair. Probably because he knows she's right. Natasha hadn't known going in how impossible of a task this would be. But she'd done the best she could with what she had. Frankly, getting this much without being burned in ten months was pretty damn good. "… We know about JARVIS, of course. Stark started building him shortly after his childhood butler, Edwin Jarvis, passed away. For a long time it was assumed that he was just a particularly advanced user interface taking care of Stark's Malibu Residence. But if what you say is true… it explains a lot. Upgrading JARVIS into a full-fledged AI after Afghanistan would certainly be something that a man like Stark would do in a fit of paranoia and out of a need to stay safe."
Here, Coulson leans forward.
" A sufficiently advanced AI would also be capable of covering up all sorts of activities, sir."
Fury's one visible eye widens almost imperceptibly at that, and Natasha watches the Director of SHIELD tense up in his seat.
"You're right. Shit, Coulson get our people on that right away. We used to have a backdoor into the Malibu Security in case we needed to pay Stark a home visit, but now I'm thinking that ' s woefully out of date. We need updated methods for taking down Stark and his AI, yesterday."
"Yes sir."
With one last nod to Natasha, Coulson disappears from view, leaving the office entirely. Once he's gone, Fury looks back to Natasha.
" Keep up the good work, Agent Romanoff. You ' ll be returning to SI to continue as Natalie Rushman after your two week vacation. In the meantime however… you feeling up to taking care of something else for me while you're in the region?"
Natasha has to hold back a snort. Of course they had a mission for her on her so-called vacation. And really, what was she going to do, say no? Even if she thought she had a choice, Natasha couldn't imagine lounging around for two weeks. While infiltrating Stark Industries wasn't exactly a walk in the park, it also wasn't exactly action packed either. She'd had to do an awful lot of extra work on the side just to keep her skills sharp.
"I'd be glad to, sir."
-x-X-x-
"Sir. You wished to be informed about any developments regarding Agent Romanoff's 'vacation'."
Raising an eyebrow, Tony looks up from his work.
"Yeah J? What is it? We already watched Nat deliver her report to Coulson and Fury together. Keeping an eye on Coulson and the SHIELD eggheads trying to work out countermeasures for you still right?" Tony had to admit, he was pleased with how everything was going regarding all of that. Natasha had played her part swimmingly, even if she didn ' t know it. SHIELD knew everything that he wanted them to know at this point in time and Tony wasn't really that worried at all. By feeding them breadcrumbs like JARVIS and the hints of Extremis, they were blind to everything else Tony was working on.
Besides, it wasn't like they were going to get an opportunity to truly strike at him and J anyways. Tony already had plans for defanging Fury and SHIELD in that regard before they could truly become a threat to him or any of his loved ones.
"Yes sir, they still do not realize that their assumptions are incorrect. I did not start life as a user interface who was turned into an Artificial Intelligence. I started life as an Artificial Intelligence who was masquerading as a user interface. They are still working under the mistaken belief that you have kept me limited in any meaningful way… likely from the numerous minor ways in which we have allowed Natasha Romanoff to circumvent and take advantage of my programming over the last several months."
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