Ch68. Separation

"I have decided." Natasha said, her expression the picture of seriousness.

"Mhm." Tony nodded with a mock-serious look, "These are rather famous last words."

"Ass." Natasha good-naturedly swatted Tony's shoulder with a small smile on her face, "Here I tried to be all serious and you had to ruin the moment by making me smile."

Tony grinned, "Let's face it. Without me, you would have been all gloomy and stuff." He poked her stomach, causing her to squeak and slightly bend at the waist while shooting him a half-hearted glare as she took a step back, getting out of the range of his arm.

Who would have thought Black Widow would be so sensitive to pokes or ticking to her stomach area, huh?

Tony's grin just became a bit smugger.

Natasha recollected herself, crossed her arms on her chest, and huffed, "Well, we can't all be kids until we reach the retirement age. That's entirely your achievement."

"I have to admit, I have no idea if you are insulting me or praising me." Tony furrowed his eyebrows, "But go on. I will just take it as praise. But I think you wanted to share some serious decision?"

He knew they could go on and on, trading a remark after remark for hours so he decided to regretfully cut his fun and go back to the serious stuff. After all, Natasha seemed as if this was quite important to her.

Natasha took a deep breath to calm herself, "I am finally ready to start hunting the people connected to the Red Room from the list you gave me for my birthday." She said with unshakeable resolution shining in her green eyes.

That stopped Tony in his tracks. He looked at her, no semblance of his usual sarcastic mannerism present, and asked, "Are you sure you want to go along with it?"

He had to ask her that. There would be many problems with doing this revenge of hers and both of them were fully aware of that. Naturally, Tony would not forbid her from killing these people. He gave her the list with a complete awareness this would most likely be the result.

But he still wanted to be sure she was fully determined to face the possible repercussions. Quite a few of her targets were fairly high on the social ladder in Russia. Their untimely demise will most certainly get a few people triggered... and afraid.

"Yes." Natasha calmly said but Tony noticed her hand balling into a fist.

"If that's the case, then go on. Far it be from me to stop you." Tony pompously exclaimed as if he was doing her a favor. "Just make sure to come back to me in one piece. Losing my fiancee would give me a bad reputation."

He didn't exactly want her to go. While he completely trusted Natasha to be able to look after herself and return to him after she completed her revenge, he didn't exactly like his personal assistant going gallivanting across Russia in her murder spree.

Who would bother him in the morning to wake up?

Who would make him his morning coffee?

Who would tidy up his room when he couldn't be bothered?

Who would be there to tuck him into bed? How was he supposed to fall asleep now that he got used to his huggable teddy bea-, ahem, Natasha to be there for him?

Who would categorize his paperwork while throwing the useless stuff away and keeping only the important things for him to sign?

Who would he try to irritate by complaining when he is annoyed at having no progress with his research?

These next few days without Natasha were starting to seem more and more like an uncomfortable hell on Earth!

Tony suddenly stopped and blinked. 'Am I... too dependent on Natasha?' He thought in disbelief. In a way, he was always dependent on his personal assistant. First Pepper and now Natasha filled the role but he never thought it would be this bad.

Was he perhaps too used to be pampered?

'Huh? Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I am rich enough to deserve some good pampering!' Tony mentally nodded, convinced of his absolute correctness.

He turned towards Natasha, giving her a long searching look and when she finally started to feel a bit uncomfortable with being stared at and was about to open her mouth, Tony spoke, "You are addictive." And turned back to his work.

The flabbergasted and slightly blushing Natasha stared at the back of his head, unable to come up with a good answer to... that.

In the end, she just confusedly said, "O-kay? I will just... I will just go."

She quickly turned around and awkwardly left the room, not waiting for Tony's answer. She had a lot of things to prepare and since her purpose of informing Tony of her decision was finished, it would be better to start with that.

She already found it hard enough to leave and every additional second with Tony made her resolve slowly crumble away. She did not need him to say sweet things like that and make her reconsider her decision!

...

A month quickly passed and Tony had a lot to complain about.

Since Natasha left, there was nobody to distract him from his work and Tony did a massive leap in developing the ritual he fondly named Perfect Latent Unshackling of Soul via Unequalled Legendary Tony's Ritualistic Alchemy, PLUS ULTRA for short.

And yes, it took him quite some time to form such a badass name but it was totally worth it!

Though he had to admit, he was starting to miss Natasha's... brand of distraction.

He missed Natasha's cooking. He missed her hugs. And he missed how convenient having her at hand was. This was the first time they were separated for a long period of time since they got closer to each other and Tony did not like it all that much.

Heck, he even had to do his paperwork entirely by himself! That was just a nightmare!

Well... on the bright side, after two weeks, Tony got annoyed too much and relinquished all of his remaining responsibilities to Pepper, Helen, and Hannah, and with that, he completely eliminated his daily stash of paperwork.

Yes! He was smart like that!

Sure, others would laugh at his foolishness, giving people full control over his company and the Stark Clinic but he knew Pepper, Helen, and Hannah quite well. He trusted them.

And besides, JARVIS had his eyes on their actions so...

These days, Tony fully focused on PLUS ULTRA, cutting himself from the outside world.

The only distraction he allowed was the daily hour of talking with Natasha through a video call where they talked about anything from Tony's research to Natasha's successful assassinations. And damn was she cruel...

Tony was quite sure she would be very famous in certain circles after she was done.

Other than that, Tony managed to complete years-worth of research in this one month alone. He could have never gotten so far without JARVIS and FRIDAY's calculation capabilities. They were the best in pointing him to a correct reference whenever he was stuck and between the three of them, the research was going superbly. A problem after problem was solved, the necessary magics were developed, the ritual circle was pre-drawn... everything went very smoothly.

The only reason why Tony was not worried about Murphy's Law because of how smoothly he was progressing was that he was Tony Stark! Everything went smoothly for him when he put in the effort!

"Sir, Mr. Fury is about to call you and he is looking quite angry." One nice day, JARVIS suddenly interrupted Tony who was immersed in his work.

'I should have known nothing good lasts forever...' Tony groaned with a put-out face.

What could the bald furry possibly want from him?