![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladygrendelTitle: The Lion-Hearted Girl
Fandom: Marvel Earth-616 and Earth-3490
Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers, Natasha Stark, Jarvis (Steve/Tony preslash, established Steve/Natasha)
Spoilers: post-Siege
Warnings: bodyswap (Tony to Natasha and vice-versa), alien invasion, survivor guilt, loss of spouse and child, mentions of depression and alcoholism, language, sexual content
Chapter Four
>>>>>
Chapter Five
She heard Steve approaching but kept her eyes closed. Strange had been the one to teach her how to properly meditate while she had been pregnant, and it was still a great way to relieve stress when beating something to a pulp didn’t work or she didn’t have access to her workshop.
“Bad day at the office?”
He stopped a few feet short of where Natasha was sitting on the floor. Tension and exhaustion rolled off him in waves. This Steve wasn’t her husband, but it was still easy for her to read him like a book.
“Jarvis said you want to see Tony’s workshop.”
Ah, he wanted to skip right to the heart of the matter. Natasha knew that meant he wasn’t going to have any patience for bullshit, so in an attempt to earn his favor, she opened her eyes and decided to tell Steve the truth.
“I don’t want someone to give me a tour of it, like it’s some sort of museum. I want to use it to-”
“Absolutely not.”
He had on his stubborn, self-righteous face and no matter how much she loved Steve, that expression had always made her want to punch his pretty face. This version of her husband was no different.
“If you won’t let me work here, I know Reed would be more than happy to have me work with him at the Baxter Building,” said Natasha, nonchalant.
Just as she had predicted, a muscle in Steve’s jaw twitched as he attempted to find a way around this new obstacle. It was slowly becoming more and more clear that despite not being in a romantic relationship with Tony, he wanted to keep him, and by extension her, close.
“And what exactly would you be doing in the workshop?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I would work on building some new suits,” she answered sweetly, sensing victory.
“Why?”
“Why are you so suspicious?” she countered. “I’m going to let a telepath into my head for you; the least you can do is let me productively entertain myself in the meantime.”
“I called the X-Men today and was promised that Emma Frost will be here either tomorrow or the day after to-”
“No,” said Natasha flatly. “Anyone but her.”
“Look, I know she was a villain here for awhile – and maybe she was a villain in your universe, too – but she’s a good person now who’s trying to make up for her past mistakes.”
“I don’t care if she’s Mother fuckin’ Theresa incarnate,” she snarled, fighting the urge to flee from this conversation. “I’m not letting that bitch anywhere near my head again.”
Steve didn’t say anything, just stared at her, and it took Natasha a second to figure out what she had said. Without looking at his face, she got up and started to leave the training room. She was hot and sweaty, and all she wanted to do now was have a good cry in the shower. What possibly hurt the most was that Steve didn’t stop her.
>>>
“I think I made a mistake, Jarvis.”
Steve had missed dinner and was now helping the older man with cleaning the kitchen while a few of the other Avengers watched TV in the living room. Jarvis seemed to automatically know what he was referring to, but remained stoic.
“How so, sir?”
“I told Natasha she couldn’t use the workshop, and when I mentioned that Emma Frost was coming by, she shut down completely and left.” Steve stared at his reflection in the plate he had been scrubbing for the past five minutes and saw that his brow was furrowed. “I think they have a history, and not in a good way. She said that she wasn’t going to let Emma in her head again.”
“Perhaps you should wait until Professor Xavier is available,” suggested Jarvis. “Did she say why she wished to use the workshop?”
“She wants to build new Iron Man suits.”
“And would that really be such a bad thing? You told me yourself that she was Iron Woman in her world.”
“Natasha also told me that if I don’t let her use the workshop here she would go to the Baxter building,” Steve added reluctantly.
A subtle smiled appeared on Jarvis’s face. “I believe that was an attempt to make you jealous, sir.”
“Jealous?” he said, taken aback.
“Yes, sir. Women are very good at that.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” protested Steve. “Why would Natasha think that the idea of her working with Reed would make me jealous?”
“I honestly don’t know, but it worked, did it not?”
Steve chose to scowl at the sink instead of answering, but didn’t miss it when Jarvis’s lips twitched with amusement.
“You may want to talk to her now instead of waiting to resolve your differences tomorrow.”
He handed Jarvis the last plate, sighing, “You’re right. I’m sure we can compromise.”
“That’s the spirit, sir.”
And with that said, Steve was promptly shooed from the kitchen. No one paid him any mind as he passed through the living room, although a small part of him wished for a distraction. He ended up at Tony’s bedroom door sooner than he would have liked and knocked, but didn’t get a reply.
“Natasha?”
Nothing. He hoped that she was simply in the shower and not ignoring him. Steve knocked again and waited there for a minute, feeling like a complete idiot, before turning away. Maybe he could convince Luke to hand over the remote so he could catch-up on Grey’s Anatomy or-
The door swung open and Steve was forcibly reminded that Natasha was a woman in a man’s body. She had a towel wrapped around her chest instead of her hips, which highlighted her lack of cleavage.
“Sorry, I was busy digging around the bathroom for a blow-dryer. I guess Tony just lets his hair dry naturally, huh?”
“Uh…”
“Did you want to talk to me about something?” she prompted helpfully.
“Right. Yes, I wanted to talk to you about the workshop.”
She leaned back against the doorframe and crossed her arms, poker face in place.
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’m the best person to show you around it since I hardly ever understood anything Tony did there, but I’ll be more than happy to do it,” said Steve, adding, “And you can use it however you see fit.”
Natasha stared at him for moment before releasing an unmanly noise and threw her arms around Steve’s neck. He briefly panicked, thinking she was going to kiss him again – something he had been doing a good job trying to forget – but it was only a very enthusiastic hug. When she let Steve go, the back of his shirt was wet from her arms, as well as the side of his face from her hair. He missed the contact almost immediately and couldn’t remember a time when Tony had ever done something quite like that.
“Wait right here, I’m going to go get dressed.”
He blinked. “What? Hang on-”
She had already shut the door and Steve sighed again. He knew that Jarvis had been right about talking to her, but it was really too late to be doing anything like visiting Tony’s workshop tonight. Natasha was back out in the hallway before he knew it, wearing a Cheshire grin that nearly stretched from ear to ear.
“Let’s get a move on then,” she said, slipping her arm through one of Steve’s.
Natasha didn’t wait for him to regain his equilibrium, preferring to drag him to the elevator. Unsurprisingly no one in the living room was paying attention again; several pairs of eyes were glued to the large flat screen Tony had bought shortly before the whole SHRA mess. Thankfully none of Osborn’s Avengers had destroyed it.
She impatiently bounced on the balls of her feet as they waited for the elevator, her grip on Steve’s arm borderline painful. He opened his mouth to tell her that tomorrow would be a better day for this when the elevator arrived and she was off again.
The ride down to the subbasement was silent. Natasha stared at the doors as if she could will the elevator to move faster. When they came to a stop and the doors slid open, she didn’t move an inch.
“Well, here we are,” said Steve unnecessarily.
She didn’t react, staying stiff as a board. It was like someone had cut off her power or something. He resorted to pulling Natasha out after him. The door to Tony’s armory was just as imposing as Steve had remembered it.
“You’ll have to open it,” she said finally. “I doubt he and I use the same codes.”
“Right.”
He hesitated for a moment, wondering if Tony had changed these codes after the SHRA. Just because he hadn’t changed Steve’s override codes for the armor didn’t mean anything. He typed in his old code and, to his surprise, the large door opened in response.
Natasha moved closer to his side, almost instinctively. He knew what to expect but hadn’t physically been behind this door since before the Avengers had split up. The armory was laid open for all to see and she gasped, slumping against his side in what was undeniably shock.
>>>
She couldn’t breathe. It was like her lungs had been paralyzed the instant she had seen what lay behind the massive door in the subbasement.
“Natasha?” asked Steve worriedly, but she didn’t hear him.
“Where are they? Where are my suits?”
This wasn’t possible. As soon as construction on Stark Tower had been completed in her world Natasha had installed a fully stocked armory in the subbasement. She’d had a feeling that Tony had done the same thing, and once Jarvis had confirmed that suspicion, all she had been able to think about were the Iron Man suits that were just waiting for her.
“Osborn took possession of them when he took over the Tower and SHIELD,” he said quietly. “I think all of the suits he got his hands on were placed on his helicarrier, so when it was destroyed…”
Natasha’s legs turned to jelly and she fell to her knees. Never had she imagined something like this happening. Whoever this Norman Osborn was, she wanted to squeeze his neck until his head popped off.
“They’re gone? They’re all…”
Steve knelt down beside her and pulled her into a kind hug. It was nice, but it wasn’t exactly what she wanted right then. What she wanted was to see old Shellhead again.
“I think the only suits left are the ones Tony made for Pepper and Rhodey. The one he wore during the siege on Asgard is pretty beat-up, but I could get it for you if you want it.”
Get a hold of yourself, thought Natasha, giving herself a mental slap. This wasn’t the end of the world, for Christ’s sake – this was a new beginning.
“You can do that?” she asked, hating how weak and pathetic she sounded.
Steve’s smile was nearly blinding when he replied, “Of course. I am the original Captain America after all.”
They both laughed until they were breathless, and Natasha forgot about her war and armor, if only for a little while. He led her back to the elevator and they returned to the top of the Tower, which was now vacant. Steve started to walk her to her room but Natasha paused.
“Could you lend me your laptop?” She ran a hand through her hair – she hadn’t worn it this short since before Jim was born – and tried not to appear too tired. “I have some reading I need to do, as well as ordering materials so I can get to work as soon as possible.”
“Sure,” he said after some hesitation. “Let me just go get it for you.”
Steve quickly fetched it from his room and handed it over, adding, “Pepper picked it out for me. I think it has a few too many thingamajigs, but that’s just me. You’ll probably have better luck.”
The image of Steve scratching his head over technology had never failed to amuse Natasha because it was just too damn cute. She resisted the urge to kiss him and laughed instead.
“I remember trying to teach my Steve how to use PowerPoint once. Boy was that an experience I’ll never forget.”
“I’m sure,” said Steve dryly. “Well, good night.”
“Night.”
They stood there and stared awkwardly at each other until Steve turned and walked away towards his bedroom. Natasha forced herself to sit down on the couch as an alternative to trailing after him like a hopeful puppy looking for handouts. She had no right to this Steve, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might still be in a relationship with Sharon Carter. She didn’t have a problem with Sharon, but they certainly had never been more than acquaintances.
After booting up the laptop Natasha went directly to Google, and her mind went blank. What was she supposed to type in? There was so much she wanted to know about this world, maybe too much. If she really thought about it, everything came back to one subject and one subject only.
She typed in TONY STARK and hit search.
>>>>>
Chapter Six
Fandom: Marvel Earth-616 and Earth-3490
Characters/Pairings: Steve Rogers, Natasha Stark, Jarvis (Steve/Tony preslash, established Steve/Natasha)
Spoilers: post-Siege
Warnings: bodyswap (Tony to Natasha and vice-versa), alien invasion, survivor guilt, loss of spouse and child, mentions of depression and alcoholism, language, sexual content
Chapter Four
>>>>>
Chapter Five
She heard Steve approaching but kept her eyes closed. Strange had been the one to teach her how to properly meditate while she had been pregnant, and it was still a great way to relieve stress when beating something to a pulp didn’t work or she didn’t have access to her workshop.
“Bad day at the office?”
He stopped a few feet short of where Natasha was sitting on the floor. Tension and exhaustion rolled off him in waves. This Steve wasn’t her husband, but it was still easy for her to read him like a book.
“Jarvis said you want to see Tony’s workshop.”
Ah, he wanted to skip right to the heart of the matter. Natasha knew that meant he wasn’t going to have any patience for bullshit, so in an attempt to earn his favor, she opened her eyes and decided to tell Steve the truth.
“I don’t want someone to give me a tour of it, like it’s some sort of museum. I want to use it to-”
“Absolutely not.”
He had on his stubborn, self-righteous face and no matter how much she loved Steve, that expression had always made her want to punch his pretty face. This version of her husband was no different.
“If you won’t let me work here, I know Reed would be more than happy to have me work with him at the Baxter Building,” said Natasha, nonchalant.
Just as she had predicted, a muscle in Steve’s jaw twitched as he attempted to find a way around this new obstacle. It was slowly becoming more and more clear that despite not being in a romantic relationship with Tony, he wanted to keep him, and by extension her, close.
“And what exactly would you be doing in the workshop?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I would work on building some new suits,” she answered sweetly, sensing victory.
“Why?”
“Why are you so suspicious?” she countered. “I’m going to let a telepath into my head for you; the least you can do is let me productively entertain myself in the meantime.”
“I called the X-Men today and was promised that Emma Frost will be here either tomorrow or the day after to-”
“No,” said Natasha flatly. “Anyone but her.”
“Look, I know she was a villain here for awhile – and maybe she was a villain in your universe, too – but she’s a good person now who’s trying to make up for her past mistakes.”
“I don’t care if she’s Mother fuckin’ Theresa incarnate,” she snarled, fighting the urge to flee from this conversation. “I’m not letting that bitch anywhere near my head again.”
Steve didn’t say anything, just stared at her, and it took Natasha a second to figure out what she had said. Without looking at his face, she got up and started to leave the training room. She was hot and sweaty, and all she wanted to do now was have a good cry in the shower. What possibly hurt the most was that Steve didn’t stop her.
>>>
“I think I made a mistake, Jarvis.”
Steve had missed dinner and was now helping the older man with cleaning the kitchen while a few of the other Avengers watched TV in the living room. Jarvis seemed to automatically know what he was referring to, but remained stoic.
“How so, sir?”
“I told Natasha she couldn’t use the workshop, and when I mentioned that Emma Frost was coming by, she shut down completely and left.” Steve stared at his reflection in the plate he had been scrubbing for the past five minutes and saw that his brow was furrowed. “I think they have a history, and not in a good way. She said that she wasn’t going to let Emma in her head again.”
“Perhaps you should wait until Professor Xavier is available,” suggested Jarvis. “Did she say why she wished to use the workshop?”
“She wants to build new Iron Man suits.”
“And would that really be such a bad thing? You told me yourself that she was Iron Woman in her world.”
“Natasha also told me that if I don’t let her use the workshop here she would go to the Baxter building,” Steve added reluctantly.
A subtle smiled appeared on Jarvis’s face. “I believe that was an attempt to make you jealous, sir.”
“Jealous?” he said, taken aback.
“Yes, sir. Women are very good at that.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” protested Steve. “Why would Natasha think that the idea of her working with Reed would make me jealous?”
“I honestly don’t know, but it worked, did it not?”
Steve chose to scowl at the sink instead of answering, but didn’t miss it when Jarvis’s lips twitched with amusement.
“You may want to talk to her now instead of waiting to resolve your differences tomorrow.”
He handed Jarvis the last plate, sighing, “You’re right. I’m sure we can compromise.”
“That’s the spirit, sir.”
And with that said, Steve was promptly shooed from the kitchen. No one paid him any mind as he passed through the living room, although a small part of him wished for a distraction. He ended up at Tony’s bedroom door sooner than he would have liked and knocked, but didn’t get a reply.
“Natasha?”
Nothing. He hoped that she was simply in the shower and not ignoring him. Steve knocked again and waited there for a minute, feeling like a complete idiot, before turning away. Maybe he could convince Luke to hand over the remote so he could catch-up on Grey’s Anatomy or-
The door swung open and Steve was forcibly reminded that Natasha was a woman in a man’s body. She had a towel wrapped around her chest instead of her hips, which highlighted her lack of cleavage.
“Sorry, I was busy digging around the bathroom for a blow-dryer. I guess Tony just lets his hair dry naturally, huh?”
“Uh…”
“Did you want to talk to me about something?” she prompted helpfully.
“Right. Yes, I wanted to talk to you about the workshop.”
She leaned back against the doorframe and crossed her arms, poker face in place.
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’m the best person to show you around it since I hardly ever understood anything Tony did there, but I’ll be more than happy to do it,” said Steve, adding, “And you can use it however you see fit.”
Natasha stared at him for moment before releasing an unmanly noise and threw her arms around Steve’s neck. He briefly panicked, thinking she was going to kiss him again – something he had been doing a good job trying to forget – but it was only a very enthusiastic hug. When she let Steve go, the back of his shirt was wet from her arms, as well as the side of his face from her hair. He missed the contact almost immediately and couldn’t remember a time when Tony had ever done something quite like that.
“Wait right here, I’m going to go get dressed.”
He blinked. “What? Hang on-”
She had already shut the door and Steve sighed again. He knew that Jarvis had been right about talking to her, but it was really too late to be doing anything like visiting Tony’s workshop tonight. Natasha was back out in the hallway before he knew it, wearing a Cheshire grin that nearly stretched from ear to ear.
“Let’s get a move on then,” she said, slipping her arm through one of Steve’s.
Natasha didn’t wait for him to regain his equilibrium, preferring to drag him to the elevator. Unsurprisingly no one in the living room was paying attention again; several pairs of eyes were glued to the large flat screen Tony had bought shortly before the whole SHRA mess. Thankfully none of Osborn’s Avengers had destroyed it.
She impatiently bounced on the balls of her feet as they waited for the elevator, her grip on Steve’s arm borderline painful. He opened his mouth to tell her that tomorrow would be a better day for this when the elevator arrived and she was off again.
The ride down to the subbasement was silent. Natasha stared at the doors as if she could will the elevator to move faster. When they came to a stop and the doors slid open, she didn’t move an inch.
“Well, here we are,” said Steve unnecessarily.
She didn’t react, staying stiff as a board. It was like someone had cut off her power or something. He resorted to pulling Natasha out after him. The door to Tony’s armory was just as imposing as Steve had remembered it.
“You’ll have to open it,” she said finally. “I doubt he and I use the same codes.”
“Right.”
He hesitated for a moment, wondering if Tony had changed these codes after the SHRA. Just because he hadn’t changed Steve’s override codes for the armor didn’t mean anything. He typed in his old code and, to his surprise, the large door opened in response.
Natasha moved closer to his side, almost instinctively. He knew what to expect but hadn’t physically been behind this door since before the Avengers had split up. The armory was laid open for all to see and she gasped, slumping against his side in what was undeniably shock.
>>>
She couldn’t breathe. It was like her lungs had been paralyzed the instant she had seen what lay behind the massive door in the subbasement.
“Natasha?” asked Steve worriedly, but she didn’t hear him.
“Where are they? Where are my suits?”
This wasn’t possible. As soon as construction on Stark Tower had been completed in her world Natasha had installed a fully stocked armory in the subbasement. She’d had a feeling that Tony had done the same thing, and once Jarvis had confirmed that suspicion, all she had been able to think about were the Iron Man suits that were just waiting for her.
“Osborn took possession of them when he took over the Tower and SHIELD,” he said quietly. “I think all of the suits he got his hands on were placed on his helicarrier, so when it was destroyed…”
Natasha’s legs turned to jelly and she fell to her knees. Never had she imagined something like this happening. Whoever this Norman Osborn was, she wanted to squeeze his neck until his head popped off.
“They’re gone? They’re all…”
Steve knelt down beside her and pulled her into a kind hug. It was nice, but it wasn’t exactly what she wanted right then. What she wanted was to see old Shellhead again.
“I think the only suits left are the ones Tony made for Pepper and Rhodey. The one he wore during the siege on Asgard is pretty beat-up, but I could get it for you if you want it.”
Get a hold of yourself, thought Natasha, giving herself a mental slap. This wasn’t the end of the world, for Christ’s sake – this was a new beginning.
“You can do that?” she asked, hating how weak and pathetic she sounded.
Steve’s smile was nearly blinding when he replied, “Of course. I am the original Captain America after all.”
They both laughed until they were breathless, and Natasha forgot about her war and armor, if only for a little while. He led her back to the elevator and they returned to the top of the Tower, which was now vacant. Steve started to walk her to her room but Natasha paused.
“Could you lend me your laptop?” She ran a hand through her hair – she hadn’t worn it this short since before Jim was born – and tried not to appear too tired. “I have some reading I need to do, as well as ordering materials so I can get to work as soon as possible.”
“Sure,” he said after some hesitation. “Let me just go get it for you.”
Steve quickly fetched it from his room and handed it over, adding, “Pepper picked it out for me. I think it has a few too many thingamajigs, but that’s just me. You’ll probably have better luck.”
The image of Steve scratching his head over technology had never failed to amuse Natasha because it was just too damn cute. She resisted the urge to kiss him and laughed instead.
“I remember trying to teach my Steve how to use PowerPoint once. Boy was that an experience I’ll never forget.”
“I’m sure,” said Steve dryly. “Well, good night.”
“Night.”
They stood there and stared awkwardly at each other until Steve turned and walked away towards his bedroom. Natasha forced herself to sit down on the couch as an alternative to trailing after him like a hopeful puppy looking for handouts. She had no right to this Steve, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might still be in a relationship with Sharon Carter. She didn’t have a problem with Sharon, but they certainly had never been more than acquaintances.
After booting up the laptop Natasha went directly to Google, and her mind went blank. What was she supposed to type in? There was so much she wanted to know about this world, maybe too much. If she really thought about it, everything came back to one subject and one subject only.
She typed in TONY STARK and hit search.
>>>>>
Chapter Six