Winter is Coming: Natasha, Tony, Philip, and Clint

[om_black_widow]

Tony finds a surprise redhead in his kitchen. Philip and Clint intervene, and Tony and Philip get into it. It's probably not the best first meeting.

Once Clint and Philip had left her in the guest room, Natasha had immediately gone through every inch of the space. It wasn't that she didn't trust the boys, she just didn't trust anybody. Once satisfied that there was no government-issued surveillance gadgetry in the room, she had peeked her head outside of the door. No one seemed to be around, which Natasha had decided meant they wouldn't mind if she took a quick look around.

She considered it a safety measure. Just a way of checking all the exits. She wouldn't even give into the temptation to attempt to make her way into those areas with complicated locking mechanisms.

It took a good hour before she felt she knew the building well enough to be remotely safe. By the time she had reached the kitchen, Natasha was as comfortable with her surroundings as it was possible to be, under the circumstances.

The kitchen was large, impressive, and looked like every American home improvement show she had ever been shown. Natasha wondered if the whole place had been designed by those Property Brothers. She glanced around and, satisfied with her solitude, opened the refrigerator to dig around. No reason to let this sort of bounty go to waste. Chocolate cake! She decided to start there.

It had been a long couple of days of work, and Tony could at least recognize when he was near burnout. The fact that Steve had let him get away with it was testament to how important the project was, but it was pretty much finished now. Which meant shower, bed, and coffee. Possibly not in that order.

Actually going to his place seemed far and there was always the chance that Steve might be around to give him the disapproving face, so Tony adjusted himself to shuffle into the communal kitchen instead, barely paying attention to his surroundings as he frowned down at his phone. He was pretty sure he'd gotten a text from Coulson at...some point, and when his brain came online maybe he'd remember why that was setting off danger alarms.

Or, he could nearly run himself right into someone. A someone he very definitely did not recognize, once he looked away from the phone. Stranger. There was a stranger in his kitchen. "Uh," he said with a blink. "What?"

"I'm going to guess you're Anthony Stark," Natasha said, hopping up to sit on his kitchen counter. She recognized him, of course. "They said you own the place."

"Yes?" He said, still out of it enough to make it into something of a question. "Who're you and why are you here?"

"Natasha. Clint and Philip brought me here," she said, seeming unconcerned or even amused. Natasha wasn't truly at ease here, or anywhere. There was plenty out there to worry about. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy herself.

Tony digested that for a moment. Coulson could be trusted, but Coulson also had a very, very odd sense of humor. Who knew what kind of terrible influence Barton was on him. "Why?" He asked finally.

She shrugged. "They said it would be safe." Natasha picked up her fork to take a bite of cake. She wasn't just being flippant; it put the closest weapon in her hand. "Is it a problem?"

"Depends," he said, actual intelligence starting to filter back into his eyes. "Safe from what?"

"Foreign governments? Domestic government? Angry mercenaries?" Natasha suggested. Her tone didn't make it clear whether or not she should be taken seriously. She ate her bit of cake, which really was divine, and then quirked an eyebrow.

"No," Tony said sharply, going from barely coherent to laser pointer in less than a second. "You don't get to do that. If you're bringing shit down on my house, I get to know about it."

Her eyes narrowed, and her face went from possibly-teasing to serious in half of a second. "I just told you what the potential threats are."

Having been alerted by JARVIS, Philip had made his way down as fast as he could. This was exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid and by the sound of it, he was getting there none too soon. "It's fine, Stark," he said as he reached the kitchen door. "It's all set up, no one's beating down the door, I sent you a message that we were bringing someone on the way back. Which... I'm guessing you haven't seen."

So he was a little sparse on the details, like why he was a wreck currently.

Tony, mouth already open, spun to face the newcomer and the abruptly shut it again. He studied Phil for a long moment, well and truly awake now. "Coulson," he said finally, voice too even, "what the hell."

Natasha raised both her eyebrows at Philip, and left it to him to explain.

"I'm fine," Philip said. "Fine enough, I already got checked out," he said with a little wave of the cast. "The 'vacation' didn't go very well but we're all out in one piece. Natasha was part of a program that makes that clusterfuck that is Alpha Flight look like a kindergarden. My mother took care of the details, we're not in any danger here."

Clint strolled into the kitchen behind him, a pizza box in his free hand, the other in a sling. "Hey, and I thought Coulson looked like hell. Rockin' that living dead look, Stark."

Tony barely even responded to the comment, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them to take in every visible injury. "Answers," he said a bit shortly, "now."

Just in case Tony Stark wasn't as safe as the two boys had promised, Natasha took another dainty bite of her purloined chocolate cake.

Philip just sighed and found himself a seat. "Mom got wind of a program in Russia that was training mutant kids, like Canada but with more brainwashing and general nightmare fuel. Her people wanted to get them out, she brought us for reasons." He waved his uninjured hand a little at that, his mom's motivations were always murky at best and he couldn't have guessed at most of them. Besides, the whole prospective job thing was still under the radar as far as he knew.

"We got there, gave it a shot, it went poorly, though Barton convinced her to come with. We got out, got patched up, and Mom's people set things up for Natasha, she'll be starting at Xavier's in a couple days. So, no following, no trouble, as long as someone's not skywriting, 'Hey! We're right here!' We just thought giving her a couple days to adjust before the school was a good idea."

"Mm, cake," Clint murmured as he crossed to Natasha's side, dropping the pizza box on the counter next to her. Since Tony was in a mood, and not one that Clint recognized, except for the Times Square incident, he decided to let Coulson handle it, instead subtly putting himself between the girl and the annoyed billionaire. He wasn't ignoring Tony, really - was acutely aware of both him and the discussion - but had already become more than a little protective of their Russian friend. Beneath his breath, he pointed out, "You missed dinner."

"Didn't know there was going to be a dinner," she retorted quietly, eyes still on Philip and Stark.

It didn't take much to ignore the both of them, considering that all of Tony's considerable attention was firmly on Philip. "She brought you for reasons," Tony echoed, putting sarcastic emphasis on the last couple of words. "Somehow the entire whatever the fuck agency just couldn't handle a mission without a pair of teenagers?"

"Well, part of the idea was that they'd be more likely to listen to us that an bunch of adults," Philip said dryly. "Considering that the adults they knew were probably pretty terrible people."

Clint reached over to swipe a finger through the icing on Natasha's cake. "We got pizza. There's plenty for you too," he told her beneath his breath, but he'd turned his gaze on Coulson and Stark.

Natasha reached into the box to grab a slice of pizza while they watched Philip and Tony work out their differences. Still, she didn't release her grip on the fork. "Think they'll kill each other?" She asked Clint softly.

​"Right," Tony drawled out exaggeratedly, his skepticism practically a tangible presence. "I'm sure that's totally the reason."​

"Well, that is a big part of it," Philip said. He'd have shrugged but... too much pain for that. "Who else was she supposed to get, Tony? At least she knows she could work with me and nobody was expecting how deep the problems would run." He grimaced, as much for taking pressure off the bruises at the topic. "The ox that beat me up? It was like fighting Steve. When I went into his room he was cuffed to the bed for 'self discipline'."

"As if Stark could take Coulson without his suit," Clint muttered to the girl next to him. Still, he hadn't planned on the two of them getting into it quite like this. He sucked the chocolate off of his finger, his focus narrowing on Philip's body language, knowing he was exhausted and hurting. Pushing off of the counter, he finally raised his voice. "Look, okay, they're feeling Philip out. It's natural they'd want him - they've got his mom. He went because he wanted to save the kids. I went along for the ride to watch his back. The whole thing's sketchy and fucked up, but the point to take away from all this is that we saved someone from a shitty situation."

Natasha's eyebrows rose on her forehead, and she made no attempt to conceal it. Just like the Americans to think they were so different from Russia, but their intelligence agency, this SHIELD, had been testing children. No different from the Red Room. But, of course, they considered themselves above such things.

She shook her head a little. Americans. Natasha took a bite of her pizza, and watched the boys fight. Until violence was imminent, she suspected it would be better if she not get overly involved.

​ The look that Tony shot Clint was downright icy, but he shut his mouth on whatever he'd been about to say so fast there was an almost audible snap of his teeth. Of course Coulson was going to be toeing the party line, and anything Tony said was just going to make him dig in harder. Especially in front of an unknown quantity, and fuck them very much for bringing a potentially brainwashed assassin into his house without so much as a heads up. ​

"Of course," Tony said, suddenly utter languid about it, every inch the nonchalant billionaire. Just a spoiled rich kid throwing a tantrum, nothing to see here. "Wouldn't want to take anything away from you being useful after all." And Tony was going to be keeping a very close eye out for the next person this little agency decided they could use.

"For fuck's sake, Tony," Philip said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Mom's not a wicked witch in a candy house. If her boss wanted mutant kids, she'd have kept me instead of sending me to Xavier's. First shot at an interview doesn't mean I'm signing in blood. The plan was always for the kids to go to the school. We wouldn't have said yes if it wasn't. If, and I stress if, they'd have decided to sign on after high school and college or whatever, that's enough distance to make it a real choice.

He shot a glower at Stark then. "So I've been tracked for that kind of job since I was in high school. I'm not the only one at Xavier's with a messed up legacy and you know it."

Well, fuck. Clint thought, leaning back against the counter beside Natasha. The gloves were off. He kind of wished that he had a heat shield to hide behind. He'd never seen Tony like this, but he knew it was bad when Philip lost his cool.

​ And that was a low goddamn blow, but Tony just gave him a smile that was more a baring of teeth than an actual expression. "I'm not talking about the fucking kids and you know it." Honestly, the idea hadn't even occurred to him, and wasn't that terrifying. ​

"Then I'm pretty lost here, unless you're pissed because an agency is involved at all, or because Natasha's here. I'm pretty sure I told you I wasn't going to show up here again like I did last time, and I did not," Philip said with a growl. "There's no one chasing us, no trouble, Barton and I are fine and win for us. Unless you don't believe me."

Natasha finished her slice of pizza, and slid off the counter. This was...very informative. Instructive, even. There was more here to take away than she ever would have guessed: Stark had some kind of suit; there was a 'Steve' who had the strength of an 'ox' (which only solidified her suspicions regarding who Philip had encountered); both Philip and Clint trusted Stark (or didn't understand the concept of need-to-know, but Philip undoubtedly did); Stark had problems with governmental authority; and this Xavier's was going to be a mission in-and-of-itself.

She took another quick bite of cake, and weighed the merits of interjecting. She glanced over at Clint, and decided she could wait another moment.

Clint gave her a tiny jerk of his head. He wasn't exactly sure what Tony was talking about, but there wasn't an easy way to interrupt the two of them or sneak out (plus, he didn't want to leave Coulson).

"Fine," Tony said with a not particularly pleasant smile, and turned to head back towards the elevator. The fact that he'd completely forgotten the coffee he'd come to get spoke volumes. "Congratulations. I'll be downstairs."

If it hadn't been for the concussion, Philip would have been banging his head on the counter. Why did these conversations always go like this? At least with Natasha being there, he couldn't say anything about not dying again.

Which really... was probably for the best.

"Well...that went well," Natasha commented dryly.

Clint snorted softly, then headed for the fridge. "I'm gonna grab some more drinks to take upstairs. You guys go ahead."