"Have you seen my-" Natasha started shouting as she walked down the hallway from the bedroom to the living room, before she saw Eleanor in a short pastel pink bodycon type dress, hair curled and tied up in a high ponytail, "Woah". It had been a while since they had gotten dressed up for an occasion, and so when Nat saw her girlfriend dressed up her mind emptied.

The younger woman smirked when she saw the state Natasha was in, "Jaw up Romanoff".

Nat snapped herself out of it and started walking towards her, "Yeah, yeah", she responded quietly. When she had reached her she started lightly rubbing Eleanor's arm, "Thought you were supposed to be keeping a low profile", she husked into her ear.

"Have you seen the women attending this thing? I will blend right in", Eleanor stated matter of factly.

"Mhm", Natasha mumbled, then gently pressed her lips onto Eleanor's briefly before remembering that she was looking for something, "My purse, have you seen my purse?".

"It's on the sofa".

"Thank youuu". Eleanor always seemed to know where Natasha carelessly throws her items when she is in a rush, she did have a couple of years of practice at this point.

Nat had to leave before Eleanor did, to help in getting the party ready, so the two bid farewell and Nat made her way over to Stark's mansion. Once there, she grabbed the box of watches that had been ordered for the occasion with Stark's requests seated in it. Box in hand, she got into character as she sauntered towards Stark's room.

Strutting in she said, "Do you know which watch you'd like to wear tonight Mr Stark?".

"I'll give them a look", he continued buttoning his shirt, so Natasha decided to start mixing a drink whilst waiting, gave her something to do and Stark usually likes to have a drink in hand.

"I should cancel the party tonight, huh?", he said whilst turning around to face her.

Drink in hand, she also turned, "Probably".

Tony started to walk towards her and so she followed suit and went towards him too.

"Yeah, cuz it's um...".

"Ill-timed", Nat finished for him.

"Right, sends the wrong message".

"Inappropriate", Nat stated, once again looking at him with doe eyes. Not exactly the way that she wanted to be looking at him but she's good at her job. She was enjoying being able to ruffle some feathers, however. Might as well have fun with it.

She handed the drink over to Tony who sipped it whilst looking at her, slightly flustered. "Is that dirty enough for you?", she asked in a flirty tone. Although Nat enjoyed ruffling some feathers with eye contact and other similar gestures, the straight-up flirting she wasn't all that keen on. Eleanor knew that Nat would have to do stuff like that during this assignment and didn't care, she trusted her, but Nat still couldn't help but feel slightly guilty.

This made Tony even more flustered, so he switched the topic back to the watches, "Uh, gold face, brown band. The Jaeger. I'll give that a look, bring them over here". So she did, walking over to the cabinet and grabbing the box, then giving them to a now seated Tony, before seating herself on the arm of his chair.

Noticing the bruise on his face was more prominent, she fixed it using some make-up. "I gotta say, it's hard to get a read on you, where are you from?", he asked her. Nat didn't want to be getting into details with Tony about where she was from, so she chose to deflect the question altogether.

"Legal".

"Can I ask you a question, hypothetically? Bit odd", he asked, causing Nat to give him a small smile back at him, urging him to continue. This time she was genuinely interested in what he had to say because it didn't sound like his regular sarcastic self that was going to be asking this question.

"If this was your last birthday party you were ever gonna have, how would you celebrate it?".

Big confirmation that he was ill. She gazed down at him, "I'd do whatever I wanted to, with whoever I wanted to do it with". Her real answer was 'with Eleanor', no questions asked, but she was undercover so turned her answer into a cryptic one. After she had answered Stark's question she stood and walked away to go and get into the dress she has for the party. Leaving Tony to stew in his own thoughts.

---

The party was now in full swing, Eleanor had arrived about 20 minutes in, and she was correct, her outfit was right on theme. She spent a while mingling, this wasn't her type of crowd so it was hard, but just like Nat, she was playing her role to perfection. Laughing along when appropriate, dancing whenever a drunk hand pulled her along with them. She managed to act convincingly drunk even though not even a drop of alcohol had passed her lips.

It was going well, but then Iron Man came out and started crashing around all over the place as the man underneath, was drunk. She cringed when he fell and crashed into some glass shelving. Not ideal when people want to take the suit away, she thought.

Then he started making his speech, Eleanor groaned internally, it was so gross, but everyone else laughed, so she did too. Man, this was hard sober.

Pepper went up onto the stage after this, "Does this guy know how to throw a party or what?", once again the crowd cheered, and so Eleanor followed suit.

"I love you", Tony said into the mic.

"Unbelievable! Thank you so much Tony we all thank you so much for a wonderful night, and we're gonna say goodnight now".

Hearing these words made Eleanor let out a breath of relief, she could leave and say that nothing really happened, less work for her. But then she saw something that piqued her attention and made her slightly nervous that she would in fact not be able to leave. She saw a hushed conversation occur between Tony and Pepper on the stage, instead of a breath of relief she let out a breath of annoyance.

"Pepper Potts. She's right. The party's over. Then again, the party was over for me, like, an hour and a half ago. The after-party starts in 15 minutes!".

"Christ almighty", Eleanor muttered under her breath, which was muffled by everyone's loud screaming again. He then proceeded to accidentally shatter a glass wall, making people duck and cover. This situation wasn't looking good, but then the crowd cheered, again, making Eleanor just look around in disbelief.

'This cannot get any worse', she thought as she turned around to walk away from the main crowd, but she was interrupted by glass shattering. Turning around again she saw Tony exploding glass bottles above the crowd. She gulped, "I was wrong".

Large shards of glass were flying everywhere and landing on people, so Eleanor went into the middle of the crowd once again and discreetly started pulling people backwards by the arm a few paces to get them a bit farther back from Tony and his exploding hands.

Nat was on the sidelines watching this all play out, once again, there was nothing that she could really do. She was keeping a beady eye on the crowd though, knowing that Eleanor was in there worried her due to the sheer amount of glass flying over them.

After a few minutes of what could only be described as pure chaos, someone in yet another Iron Man suit walked in, telling everyone to get out, to which everyone did, to the balcony.

Eleanor stayed inside, however, slipping into the room next door to be able to contact Coulson and let them know that an altercation is breaking out between 2 Iron Men suits with civilians in close proximity. Nat and Eleanor would need backup. Now.

Natasha watched as Eleanor snuck into the room next door. They both had earpieces in so that if something similar to the Vanko situation happened they would be able to easily contact each other, but it was agreed that they would only use it under those circumstances.

Eleanor had been standing in that room for the last few minutes trying to get ahold of Coulson. During this time she had been able to hear the 2 iron men fighting and blasting things. They needed SHIELD reinforcements, this was above their pay grade.

It had taken a few rings to get Coulson to answer, and when he finally did she quickly started trying to explain their situation, but she was quickly cut off when Tony and Rhodey suddenly came crashing upwards through the floor right next to where she was, luckily they didn't see her as they immediately pummeled each other into another room. However, they had barged in very close to where she was standing, so she was flown backwards and into a wall. Rubble and grey dust now covered a large part of her dress and hair.

Standing up, she tried to grab her phone and saw that it was broken. The next thing she thought to do is contact Nat and use her phone to reach Coulson again, but her earpiece was no longer in her ear, and there was no way she would find it among the mess that was in this room now. "Great, just great", she thought out loud, coughing due to some dust inhalation, and slowly making her way out of the room to go and find Natasha.

---

"Natalie!", Pepper marched over to Nat, who was also walking towards her.

"Miss Potts-".

"Don't Miss Potts me, I'm onto you. You know what? Ever since you came here-", then she suddenly screamed as just like with Eleanor, the iron men crash-landed into the room.

Nat immediately got into a fighting stance, before going back to a normal position when knowing it was safe. She then swiftly exited the room as they started fighting again, she needed to find Eleanor and talk to Fury immediately. This had gotten way out of control.

"El, where are you?", she spoke into her earpiece, and her anxiety levels immediately rose when she only heard static feedback. Was she hurt? "I'm not fucking around here where are you?", she spoke again, this time more frantically, speeding up her walking to try and find her.

Eleanor was slowly trying to make her way around the mansion to find Nat, it was proving difficult due to the size of the place. She turned the very same corner that Nat was speedwalking around and the two collided. Nat almost got thrown backwards by her own momentum but Eleanor grabbed her wrist and managed to pull her upright. Nat now had the opportunity to look Eleanor up and down and noticed the dust and chunks of floor stuck in her hair. Seeing this worried her but due to the high tensions she accidentally let this out as anger.

"Are you-", Eleanor breathlessly started but was cut off very fast.

"Why didn't you answer me?!", Nat exclaimed, with a very frustrated tone, her eyes piercing and her jaw tight.

"I'm sorry, I lost my earpiece when I was thrown back, think I got a dodgy one it fell out really easily", she moved her hand from Nat's wrist that she was still holding, and instead grabbed at her hand and squeezed to try and calm her.

Nat's expression immediately softened, and she cupped Eleanor's face with both hands, "Are you okay?".

"I'm fine, will just be a little sore tomorrow I think", she joked.

"Good, we gotta go", Nat said as she heard more fighting down the hall.

"Mhm, good plan", Eleanor muttered as she started being dragged towards the exit.

---

The two had to pull an all-nighter, as when Fury had gotten word of what had happened he immediately flew over to Miami with Coulson and some other Agents to discuss with the pair what had happened and the next steps they would be taking.

You know shit has hit the fan when the Director himself makes an appearance.

In the early hours of the morning, they had tracked Stark down to a local doughnut place, "Randy's Donuts". Fury and Natasha would be making their own appearances, whilst the rest of the Agents made their way over to Stark's mansion to unload the resources that they wanted him to work with. Nat was excited to be able to meet Tony as herself, meaning she would be able to drop the flirty front she had when at 'work' the next time she went in.

Fury got Stark down from sitting inside of the giant doughnut on top of the establishment, and went inside, starting off the conversation. After a few minutes, Nat walked in sporting her SHIELD uniform and made her way over to the table. "We've secured the perimeter but I don't think we should hold it off for much longer".

Tony stared at her, utterly confused, which she found quite funny, "Huh, you're... fired".

"That's not up to you", she smugly replied, before seating herself next to Fury.

"Tony, I want you to meet Agent Romanoff", Fury stated.

"Hi".

"I'm a SHIELD shadow, once we knew you were ill I was tasked to you by Director Fury", she deliberately said 'I' instead of 'we', not wanting Tony to know or pry about her private life if he asked who else was involved.

"I suggest you apologise". Nat stayed quiet, not wanting to accidentally set Tony off, besides, she didn't really have anything to say to the man, she was doing a job.

Fury jumped in, "You've been very busy, you made your girl your CEO, you're giving away all your stuff, you let your friend fly away with your suit! Now if I didn't know better-".

Tony interjected, "You don't know better. I didn't give it to him, he took it".

Nat smirked a little as Fury continued, this was going as well as she had expected. "Woah, woah, woah. He took it? You're Iron Man, and he just took it? The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass, and took your suit?", he turned to Nat, "Is that possible?".

"Well, according to Mr Stark's database security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorised usage", she stated calmly, the all-nighter was paying off, aside from the fact that she was tired.

Tony scoffed, "What do you want from me?".

"What do we want from you? Nuh uh uh, what do you want from me?", Fury exclaimed, Nat stood up to go and get the lithium dioxide, taking what Fury said as her cue to do so.

She went to the back room where she had placed the case with the item, opened it and picked up the metal syringe of lithium dioxide, and started swiftly walking back to the two men.

Fury saw her return out of the corner of his eye and clicked his fingers, "Hit him", so she proceeded to inject his neck.

Nat bent down and grabbed his jaw slightly and moved his face towards her, and then back, to make sure he was reacting well to the initial injection. He grunted and said, "Oh God, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?".

The dark lines running up Tony's neck started to quickly disappear. "Could you please not do anything awful for 5 seconds", he quietly said. "What did you just do to me?".

"What did we just do for you? That's lithium dioxide, it's gonna take the edge off. We're trying to get you back to work".

---

Meanwhile, Eleanor was still at Stark's place where she had been aiding in moving the never-ending boxes of materials. Once they had finished, she walked up to Coulson who was looking at the place slightly wide-eyed, "Looks like a bomb went off in here".

"Oh, you have no idea", she responded smirking. It had been a while since they had seen each other, so whilst waiting for when they were needed they engaged in some small talk, catching up with what the other had been up to.

They then made their way over to the balcony area after a few minutes, where Fury and Stark were having a 'friendly' conversation. They walked through at the same time as Nat did, entering from different directions. The two women sent soft smiles to each other, happy to be in each other's company again.

Coulson situated himself near Fury, whilst Eleanor and Nat stood a bit further back.

"Natasha will remain a floater at Stark with her cover intact, and you remember Agent Coulson, right?", Fury stated whilst getting his coat back on.

"Yeah".

Fury left but not before saying, "Oh, and Tony, remember, I got my eye on you", this almost made Eleanor laugh.

"We've disabled all communications, so no contact with the outside world, good luck", Nat said as the two of them started to walk away, leaving Stark to do his thing, excited to be able to go home and sleep, maybe watch a movie, but mostly just excited to sleep. But of course, they wouldn't be able to leave so easily.

Stark interjected, pointing at Eleanor, "Who's this?".

They both turned to look at him, a bit exasperated as they were so close to being able to leave, "I'm Agent Hughes, Mr Stark".

"You also been in on this little spying on me game?". She simply pursed her lips in response, making Tony slowly nod his head, "How come I've not seen you?". Natasha took a step forward and her jaw went tight, she wasn't enjoying this little interrogation.

"I've mainly been in the background, but I was at your party, had a great time by the way, except for when I got flung into a wall during your little boxing match", she said shooting a fake smile at the man. Tony looked her up and down smirking a little, like the sarcastic aura she was giving off.

Nat, however, had had enough, she grabbed Eleanor's wrist, "As I said, good luck", she said firmly before walking the two of them away.

---

Back at the apartment the two immediately got into comfy clothes and jumped into bed after being awake for a long time. Natasha got in first, opening her arms for Eleanor to slot in with her, to which she happily obliged.

"We need a vacation after this", Eleanor giggled.

Natasha hummed with her eyes closed and moved her head so that her chin was resting on the crown of Eleanor's head, "Yeah, that sounds nice".

"Where would you want to-".

"Honey, I love you, but if you don't go to sleep right now I will smother you with a pillow".

Eleanor just huffed in return, and snuggled in closer, both of them getting some much-needed rest.