My Achilles' Heel

Chapter Seven

Where do we go from here?

It has been a few weeks now since you last saw the fiery redhead and all throughout your recovery her words circled your mind. You wanted to talk to her but couldn't bring yourself to, and besides, you knew that there wouldn't be a sensible word out of your mouth. More comfortable on just looking at her and being around her presence, yet you wouldn't dare to admit it even if Fury keeps nagging you about it.

Natasha on the other hand had hoped she invited you to hang out with her before she left for an undercover mission, it would have helped instead of replaying your conversations in her head. She wished her mind would focus while she infiltrate the Stark Industries to conduct an evaluation on Tony Stark instead of thinking about words to see your familiar smile.

"Can I ask you a question? Hypothetically?" Tony said a slight uneasiness in his voice. Natasha stopped concealing the purple around his lower eye. "Bit odd,"

She just looked at him signaling him to continue, "If this was your last birthday party that you were gonna have, how would you celebrate it?" Tony asked squinting his eyes

Her mind thought of many ideas, mostly just spending time with people that made her feel like she was home, whatever home was, surprisingly you crossed her mind bringing a smile on her lips.

"I'll do whatever I want to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with," The smile never left her lips as she excused herself outside going to the bathroom where she gave updates to Fury.

Tony grabbed his phone and started dialing a number, "Oh, pick up,"

"I swear to god, Antonio," The voice warned, Tony knew that they were already rolling their eyes if he could see them. "I sent my apologies, and did you a favor, I really can't be there,"

"First of all it's my birthday, come on, drop the nickname, and second you're too late, Rhodes' on his way to fetch you," He said with a smug look, finishing his drink he got up and fixed his tie.

"What? I'm in DC, I'm five hours away!"

Tony glanced down to his watch as he cringed at the time, it was quarter to ten in the evening. "Huh, I'm the owner of a multi-billion dollar tech company,"

"And I'm busy and pissed," Now it was Tony's turn to roll his eyes, surprised to even have the patience to continue this conversation.

"Come on, what if this is the last birthday party I'm ever gonna have, don't you want to be here?"

"Of course, I wanna be ther-"

"Okay, great! dress to the nines Y/N, we're gonna have the time of our lives." He said ending the call before you could even respond.

You cringed at his words as you sighed in defeat, knowing Tony, Rhodes is probably on your doorstep by now. So you quickly saved the papers you were working on and exited your study, sending a quick text message to Fury that you'll probably skip meeting him for lunch tomorrow.

After a quick shower, you got into your walk-in closet and tried to pick out an outfit. Your doorbell rang snapping you out of your inner monologue, you jogged outside and towards your bed where one of your intercoms is, "Rhodey, is that you?"

"Unfortunately," He chuckled, you grabbed your phone and looked through the security cameras through it seeing Rhodey dressed in a black suit, you smiled and pressed a button to open the door to your apartment.

"I'll be out in a minute, make yourself comfortable," You said before making your way back to your walk-in closet. Settling for the red satin designer dress that molded the shape of your body, it was short stopping just right in your inner thighs.

You wanted to put more effort into the hair and make-up but not wanting to make Rhodey wait any longer, you settled with the basics and cat eyeliner. You tamed your wavy hair giving up because of the time before going out to the living room.

"We're out of luck, James," You said greeting him, he stood up from his seat smiling at you.

"But the chicks ain't with you looking like that," Your eyes rolled at him as he embraced you in a hug, his features softening giving you an empathetic look, "Tony is, you know how he is sometimes, I'm sorry if you're pulled from anything important,"

"It's okay, this party better make up for it," You smiled cheering away the slight worry in his features.

It felt like a second until you were just outside the billionaire's glasshouse at Malibu, you went in before Rhodey as he took a call in his car. You sighed, already feeling the uneasiness building up in your skin. You headed inside walking past people's stares as you went on to search for Tony.

Not even a minute walking into his crashed house, you already knew you needed to be drunk to handle Tony who's now messing around with the DJ. You stole a few drinks from the waiter handing them to everyone as you spotted Pepper looking at Tony from afar.

You squeezed your way through the crowd to get to her when someone grabbed your shoulder, you immediately turned to look around taking their hands off you. Your eyes met a familiar green ones as your mouth gaped open at the redhead.

"What are you doing here?" Natasha said confused just as you, her gaze fell down to the dress you were wearing and suddenly you were wishing the ground to swallow you right there.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking-"

"Finally! My best friend is here!" Tony cut your sentence speaking through the mic, the crowd cheering along with him as everybody's attention turned towards you. As much as you want to keep on staring at the masterpiece in front of you, Tony was making his way across the floor to the both of you, grinning like there's no tomorrow.

He finally reached both of you, his stare bouncing from you and Natasha. He swung his arms around your neck giving you a side hug and facing Natasha, "You just arrived and already going at it with my assistant,"

Your eyebrows furrowed at him then to Natasha, "Your assistant," You almost said it in question until you finally caught up with the situation. Although you couldn't figure out why you already have a feeling that this could be because of his recent public announcement that he is Iron Man.

Natasha offered the both of you a smile, "Right, she's great and she can speak so many languages, she's like Google translate, say something for us please, pleasee," Tony pleaded at Natasha as she smiled awkwardly. You shake your head wanting to get out of this conversation and his grip.

"мне нравится твое платье (I like your dress)," She said looking at you with a smirk, "Бьюсь об заклад, это даже лучше от вас (I bet it's even better off of you),"

Tony looked amused clearly proud at his so-called assistant. Waving his hands presenting her to you as you rolled your eyes at him.

"Was that Russian?" He asked her as she nodded. Tony's grin grew as you look at him with a faux approving look. 

"I'm impressed,"

The crowd was getting impatient, wanting to see Tony break more things as their pleas grew louder, he waved to Natasha before giving her a look of excitement. Tugging on your arms motioning you to come with him, so before you get separated from the redhead you turned to face her. A mischievous smile on your face as the words lowly past your lips, "спокойной ночи романофф (Have a good night, Romanoff),"