Chapter 14: Natalie Rushman

A/N: Natasha Romanoff enters the stage.

-x-X-x-

"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…

"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?

-x-X-x-

A/N: Natasha is officially playing cat and mouse with Tony and Pepper. But does she realize who is the cat and who is the mouse? Hmmm.

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