Working Title : Loki & Annie

93 Nat Lays a Bug

J.A.R.V.I.S. interrupted Tony's calculations by turning the pounding music down, "Sir. Agent Romanoff is requesting admittance."

It took a few seconds for Tony to decipher the announcement as he paused his mental mathematics before glancing over at the wall of windows that lined the hallway. "Go ahead." His words were muttered as he mentally unpaused the verifications of his conclusions. 

Hearing the door unlock told Nat permission to enter Tony's sacred space had been granted so she pushed the door open and entered. She had observed Tony for at least a minute before requesting J.A.R.V.I.S. to ask if she could interrupt the engineer. She'd watched how he had stared straight ahead while sitting on a stool, the only sign he was awake was the rhythmic tapping of a screwdriver onto his palm. He was immersed in something that she had no desire to know the slightest information about.

Tony split his calculations from his focus,  setting it to run in the background while still making sure the numbers were flowing correctly.

The only sound in the lab was the nearly silent sound of the air filtration system and the soft sound of metal tapping flesh. Nat had no problem waiting so she leaned against the counter and folded her arms over her chest.

Despite having allowed Nat in Tony took a few minutes to wait to confirm he had been right, "J, go ahead and start fabrication of the component. Make it red."

"Of course, Sir. Should I add gold trim to this one?"

"Nah, let's not get carried away." Tony spun on the stool, "Romanoff. To what do we own the honor of your scary self?" His mouth smirked though it didn't touch his eyes.

A twitch of one side of her lips was Nat's only acknowledgment of his description of her, after all, he was right. "Our Asgardian ambassadors have decided to head out on their own." She noted his intensity despite the shallow expression.

Tony tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow, "Really." 

Nat studied Tony's face, he appeared thoughtful which she found curious since he liked to appear to know everything that happened in his Tower. Speaking of his Tower. "Fury received your paperwork."

An expression of innocent confusion came over Tony's face which was ruined by the gleeful twinkle in his eyes, "Paperwork?"

Rolling her eyes Nat played along, "Notice of termination of the lease? Eviction papers?"

"Oh yeah." He drew the words out, no longer hiding his satisfaction.

"Oh yeah." Nat studied the man, "What caused you to threaten him?"

Now a harder look appeared, Tony's eyes narrowed as he growled, "Threatened? Oh no, there's no threat here." The chuckle was one he didn't always let slip, a little darker than his usual ones. "I've told him what I would do if he kept thinking of my floors as his floors. I've allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. the run of several floors here despite my distrust of secret government organizations." The screwdriver stabbed in her direction, "I think I'm generous in letting you and Hawkboy get free room and board because you at least have a semi-legitimate reason to be here. But Fury keeps dumping people off here like I'm a damn hostel."

Nat raised an eyebrow, "The Asgardians?"

"The proverbial straw meeting the camel's back. I don't like visitors just showing up without a please or even a thankyou." Tony's eyebrows pulled together, "Plus I'm done with him trying to stick his spies in my house." He held up a hand and started snapping fingers up as he counted, "Before the Space Vikings were the two agents he sent to try and integrate into the Avengers which was just a dumb-ass plan. Then before they showed up it was the scientist who was supposed to help Bruce but instead was using his photographic memory to try and steal Bruce's lab notes." He stabbed a finger towards Nat, "And that's not counting the times' Fury has tried to slip past J.A.R.V.I.S.'s security, which is just rude. He got past me once and he thinks I'm going to let it happen again." Tony gave Nat an accusing look that she ignored while he shook his head and went back to tapping the screwdriver against his palm, "No one insults my AI and gets away with it."