InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I full-on Swazyed that mother!"

alwaysactive (alwaysactive) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-10-06 16:48:00

Entry tags:

gamewide plot, natasha romanoff (mcu), tony stark (mcu)

Who: Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark
What: One more child for Tony
Where: The Rogers-Stark household
When: October 6

She wasn't cold, it was the first thing Natasha had become aware of as she woke, it was unusual to wake not only not cold but warm with a thick blanket over her. Keeping her eyes closed Natalia kept her eyes closed and tried to assess her surroundings as best she could. She'd only just started training, but she knew she needed to be her best, or else there would be punishments. If things were different when she woke it was because things had changed and she was meant to figure it out.

But as she peeked open first one eye and then the other, Natalia wasn't sure what to make of the room. It was clear that it wasn't where she was supposed to be, but at the same time she knew it was her room. It didn't make sense, how could she be in her room and yet not at once. She pushed herself up rubbing at her eyes, like that might make it suddenly make sense, but it didn't seem like that was going to happen no matter how many times she blinked.

Bundling the blanket around herself, Natalia made her way to the door and pushed it open just enough to peer out into the hallway, moving carefully as she stepped out looking around the house that was safe, that word kept repeating over and over in her head, but she couldn't understand why she was here, or how she'd gotten here. Just ahead was a man, a friend her mind supplied, family, and though she didn't know how or why that was true she knew it was and decided to treat him as such.

"Dobroye utro," She said softly to get his attention, biting her lip hoping that she wasn't failing some test.

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allaboutego
2019-10-06 10:33 pm UTC (link)

It was official: Tony was in a house that had been taken over by tinier versions of his friends and family. If Steve had been slightly off-putting, and Gwen had been enough to melt his heart and then rebuilt it on love and adoration alone, Natasha was -- somewhere in the middle, maybe. Because of course she was just a tiny little thing too, complete with fluency in Russian.

Which Tony did not speak, even if he tended to be able to understand it decently enough. He really should have taken more time to learn foreign languages. The five or six he knew weren't holding up usefully anymore.

Why was he the only person in this household who was normal sized? Tony had a quickly passing thought that this might all be a lot easier if he was also tiny-sized and wandering around looking for an adult, as opposed to being the only adult to find.

But no. That wouldn't be good.

"Natasha," he said in greeting, and this shouldn't have been getting easier, but it was. "Morning. A weird one too, huh?" If nothing else, Natasha was and always had been practical.

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alwaysactive
2019-10-06 10:46 pm UTC (link)

English, that was a surprise. But not the strangest thing she'd ever encountered, so she took his lead as he greeted her. Natalia nodded carefully when he called the morning weird, that was an understatement, and she'd had a lot of weird mornings since she'd been taken from her father. But it was all to make her better, to make her stronger - at least that's what they said.

"Is the test over?" She asked him carefully. It was a treacherous sort of thing to ask about the tests, anything could be one, and asking could turn something that wasn't into one simply because she'd suggested it. She didn't think it was, this place didn't seem the right place for testing, and he didn't seem the right person for testing. Too quick to greet her and without any of the sternness that her other instructors often had when talking to her.

She shuffled closer to him, struggling to keep the blanket up as she moved, it was threatening to fall down and trip her as she moved, but she wasn't ready to let go of it - it felt a little like armor in a place like this. While the competing emotions making it difficult for her to really say what she wanted, "This isn't right, is it?" She asked him, because that much she was sure of. This wasn't where she was supposed to be, even though it felt safe she knew better.

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allaboutego
2019-10-07 09:57 pm UTC (link)

Oh. A small Natasha was probably a dangerous thing, Tony realized. Somewhere between too cute and probably deadly. And he didn't doubt she was on the skittish side. It wasn't going to be as easy as Gwen immediately hugging him and Steve nodding along thoughtfully.

And he probably wouldn't have believed it was her if it was.

"There's no test," he said, holding up his hands as if to wave the idea away. "That's not the kind of place this is, and I think you probably know that. It's not really right. I'm Tony, and we've been friends for a long time now."

The blanket was a bit much on a scale of one to cute, but it wasn't like anyone was going to take it away from her. "You want breakfast? I'm only allowed to make cereal and frozen waffles, just as a warning."

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alwaysactive
2019-10-07 11:51 pm UTC (link)

She pursed her lips a little when Tony told her that it wasn't a test, that this wasn't the kind of place with tests. That didn't seem right, even if she felt it was true as he said it. There were always tests that's what she'd been doing after all, training. But he said they were friends, for a long time. She was puzzled by it all but she kept that to herself, trying to figure it out without giving away that she was sorting things out herself.

Instead she just nodded in response to his assertion, "I'm Natalia." He already knew her but she thought maybe she should follow the rules of these kinds of things.

Breakfast though, that was important, she liked breakfast, and cereal or waffles was more of a choice than she normally got. "Will there be training today?" She asked before making her choice because she needed all the information to be able to get it right. But really she already knew what she wanted it was just a matter of not letting herself seem too eager.

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allaboutego
2019-10-08 12:33 am UTC (link)

"Natalia," Tony repeated, not completely surprised but -- maybe a little. "Not Natasha?" Well, that was the more Russian version, he supposed. Either way he just nodded in acceptance because you couldn't exactly argue with a kid about what her name was.

"Pop a squat, Natalia," he went on, gesturing to the table even as he went to rummage through the cupboards for the second time today. "There's no training. You can do whatever you want. Lucky Charms? Or eggos? I think there's blueberries, if you go in that direction." He paused, turning back around to look at her. "Unless you've got more questions." Which she might. Hell, so did he. But he hadn't gotten past feeding all one hundred of the children now in his house. Including his boyfriend who he couldn't currently think of as his boyfriend because he was thirteen and Tony's brain was noping out of that one at the moment. He'd mope about it later. Once he had some time to himself.

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alwaysactive
2019-10-08 05:52 am UTC (link)

She chewed on her lip when he asked about her name, she wasn't sure. They called her Natalia in training, but this wasn't that. And she liked it when people called her Natasha, her parents had - before. But no one else did now. But she thought maybe he did, he said he knew her after all.

She mulled it over as she moved toward the table, climbing up into one of the chairs pulling her blanket with her while he told her the options for breakfast. "I've never had eggos or Lucky Charms. Are they good?" He'd said cereal but she didn't think she knew what that meant really, at least not the way he said it - she'd expected something else, like the porridge they were served. She had too many questions really to know where to start with all of this. This was not where she was supposed to wake up, but it felt familiar, and she didn't know him and yet he was familiar too and there was breakfast. "Can I have the cereal?"

And after a beat. "You can call me Natasha." She decided she liked it better.

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allaboutego
2019-10-08 06:18 pm UTC (link)

She seemed to really be thinking about it, which was -- good probably. She was figuring things out a bit instead of just sticking to what she thought she knew and that couldn't be a bad thing. Tony had some research to be doing after this -- seeing how everyone else in town was coping. He doubted highly it was a one household thing. And he also doubted that every place had an adult that came with free cereal and a fridge full of food. They kept it pretty well stocked in here.

"Natasha it is," he agreed, setting a bowl, milk and a box of cereal in front of her. "It's sweet," he said in explanation, but figured he'd let her get it herself, offer up a little bit of trust.

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alwaysactive
2019-10-09 02:37 am UTC (link)

She was glad he let her pour her own cereal and milk, it was easier to trust it when she did it - though she knew that could be used against her too. But Tony was safe, he was a friend, even if she couldn't quite place how she knew him. She trusted him enough to trust that breakfast was safe too.

The brightly colored bits in the cereal fascinated her and she poured a bit more than was probably kosher for the size of her bowl but she didn't apologize for it and then added the milk before she was pulling it toward her and picking out one of the little bits that looked a little like a rainbow from the bowl and trying it first. Her eyes went wide, he'd said it was sweet but he didn't tell her it was candy, and she took a comically large bite. She never got anything like this for breakfast, so she was absolutely going to enjoy it.

"It's not always like this." She told him after a moment, not so much about the cereal but about that too - but more about their current situation, like this. "Is it going to be okay? Are we going to get in trouble?"

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allaboutego
2019-10-10 12:54 am UTC (link)

Yeah, Tony'd sort of thought she'd like doing her own thing. It wasn't failproof, but it was was more than just doing something for her. Having a choice felt important. He got that.

He rummaged through the fridge until he came up with some blueberries and then sat down at the table across from her to watch Natasha discover a new and exciting love for Lucky Charms. Where Gwen had been delighted but knowledgeable, this was apparently brand new for Natasha.

And honestly? It was sort of a delight. Even if everything was strange and not like it should have been, at least there was some joy to be gotten from this weird situation.

"You're not going to get in trouble," he assured. "And everything'll be fine. I'll make sure of it. You should probably just have some fun."

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alwaysactive
2019-10-10 08:45 pm UTC (link)

This kind of cereal was good, it was the kind of thing that Natasha could hardly believe was allowed, but they didn't seem to be back in her usual home so things must be different here. She liked this place better immediately. Both because she hadn't had to wake up so early, and because Tony was nice, and because the cereal too.

She had questions about it all still of course, she was still figuring it out, but she liked it and that was the important part. And she liked that Tony sat with her too, so she could keep asking him questions while she ate.

The most important was whether or not she'd be in trouble for this, but it seemed that wasn't going to be a problem, Tony was going to take care of it. And that was enough for her, she didn't need to know how exactly he was going to do that, she just trusted that he would.

"I can just play?" She asked, because that was something she never got to do, just playing because she wanted to. "Can I have more of this later?" She asked of the cereal too, all the important questions.

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allaboutego
2019-10-10 10:49 pm UTC (link)

He would take care of it. How, Tony wasn't really sure yet. He had to look at this like it was a temporary thing -- since so much seemed to be temporary in this place as it was. The only thing that ever seemed to stay was the disappearances -- and even that had questionable details behind it, considering Natasha was sitting here at his kitchen table to begin with. But he'd look into it. Into making sure every kid had food and wasn't getting yelled at or felt like they were alone and scared. Stuff like that. After that, once everyone was happy and healthy, he could try digging into science that would be unlikely to wield any real answers.

"I don't see why not. You look hard enough and you'll probably run into Steve or Clint," he said, although he didn't know if Clint was a kid. It stood to reason he was if he hadn't come banging on the door with a whole bag of what the fuck questions when Steve showed up on his doorstep earlier. "And yeah, you can have more cereal later. It's not going anywhere. Unless Gwen drops it."

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alwaysactive
2019-10-10 11:33 pm UTC (link)

She wasn't entirely sure she knew Clint, but Steve was familiar, he lived here she thought, but he wasn't here now, but maybe she could find him and they could play. Maybe something like hide and seek if they could get a couple more kids to play with them, she was really good at that.

Letting her feet swing back and forth a little beneath the table, Natasha was coming around to this sort of idea of just being able to exist in a place without training being a part of it all. Sure she might not trust everyone here, but she trusted Tony enough that it made it okay.

"Don't let Gwen drop it, okay?" She asked hopefully.

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allaboutego
2019-10-11 04:26 pm UTC (link)

She'd meet them all eventually, Tony figured. This whole Tony was only a few adults extra from going full Lord of the Flies, so there was no doubt in his mind there'd be a herd of little kids all banding together in the next few days to come up with the absolute best games.

Kids always tended to be less solitary than adults. Or, well, they were more social when they were allowed to be anyway. Tony himself hadn't been, but he hadn't grown up around other children, either.

It figured that the coveted cereal, all those hearts, stars, horseshoes and whatever the fuck else was in the box, was the most important thing to basically every kid who'd come across it. It was goddamned cute. Tony didn't know why he hadn't been taking pictures this entire time. "I'll do my best," he promised.

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