What If Tony Stark Was The Villain

Part 12 - Suspicions

It was late in the afternoon, a day that seemed like any typical day. Tony was going through Bruce's notes and tests, trying to understand the formulas better when JARVIS popped up and brought him back to reality.

"Sir, someone's here to see you" the A.I. says.

"Tell them I'm busy" Tony replies under his breath.

"I think you don't want me to do that" JARVIS says and shows Tony a live image of Natasha waiting outside the door.

Tony's jaw drops instantly since he wasn't expecting her. They were supposed to meet a couple of nights before but she canceled unexpectedly because of S.H.I.E.L.D. business. She breathes out and raises her eyebrows while looking straight into the camera. She knows Tony has been informed of her arrival and she can guess he's looking at her right now.

"Let her in, of course" he says quickly.

It doesn't take long for her to find him downstairs in his lab. He spins his chair around and sees her as she walks closer, carefully looking around.

"Hi" he says, sounding surprised.

"Hi" she replies.

"Duty is over, I suppose?" he asks.

"I wouldn't call it my duty, more like something I want to do. I can't stop until I've caught Clint's killer" she admits and looks into his eyes intensely.

"Yes, I understand. Did you have any new leads? Is that why you canceled the other day?" he questions.

"I'm sorry for canceling, I wouldn't do it if I didn't actually need to" she replies, dodging his question about the leads.

He frowns a little as he finds her answer weird but he quickly gets over it.

"It's fine, I was very busy anyway" he says and points at the screen in front of him.

"What is all that?" Natasha asks.

"Bruce's new project. His way of getting rid of the Hulk once and for all" he explains.

Natasha creases her eyebrows and looks around the screens with more focus. She doesn't understand much. After all, the way Tony and Bruce communicate with science is way too advanced for everyone else.

"Is that safe?" she sounds worried.

"That's what we're figuring out" Tony shrugs.

Natasha focuses even more on everything in front of her eyes. She doesn't just look at the screen in front of her, she goes through every single one.

"Are you going to do that experiment on Bruce?" she asks.

"Probably, it looks like a promising idea" he replies, standing right behind her.

"Jesus Christ!" Natasha jumps after hearing his voice coming from so close to her.

He stood up form his seat earlier but she didn't hear him. He caught her really by surprise when he showed up behind her back.

"Did I scare you?" he chuckles.

"Yeah, I just didn't hear you, that's all" she clears her throat and takes a step back.

"Don't worry about it" he replies calmly.

"And Bruce trusts you to do that?" she asks carefully.

"Of course he does, why wouldn't he?" Tony frowns.

"No reason, I was just asking" she gulps.

Tony stretches his arm to reach her and pull her close to him but her reaction worries him. She unconsciously pulls back from him and avoids his touch, making him look into her eyes immediately.