728/E Pluribus Unum: On Broadway

E Pluribus Unum: On Broadway
Date of Scene:	24 March 2020
Location:	Times Square
Synopsis:	Natasha and Tony see the Avengers musical, Natasha fights Hydra, and somehow neither of those are the most important thing that happens ...
Cast of Characters:	Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff
Tinyplot:	E Pluribus Unum

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Tony Stark has posed:
The other Avengers had gone to see the musical about their (fictionalized) lives and, by all reports, had enjoyed it. One Avenger, however, had been conspicuously absent. He'd had more than few free tickets mailed to his office, but he'd kept putting it off in favor of the campaign and a whole slew of other things. 'Do I look like musical theater is my thing?' he'd told Pepper, when she asked about him for the hundredth time.

But things change. Namely his professional relationship with a certain Black Widow becoming more of a friendship - or something else, though he wasn't ready to bank on that being true just yet. So, he'd kind of blindsided her with the tickets, made the arrangements, and they'd stepped out to take in the show.

It was over now, and the press had managed to get wind that Tony was at the venue. Sure enough, when they're on their way out there's a crowd of photographers and journalists waiting in the foyer and on the street to shout questions to them. Their car and one of Tony's security detail waits on the curb and Tony does only minimal schmoozing with the press on the way past.

"It was pretty good," he tells them, jutting out his lower lip with a shrug, "I liked the songs about me. All that flying around from the ceiling on wires looks dangerous, though."

He pauses a moment and leans in close to Nat, smiling as a photo is napped. He's wearing that damn Black Widow t-shirt again, that is now starting to seem a little worn given how often he seems to have it on.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha comes out of the theater looking... english is inadequette describe it; when you're hopelessly amused to have seen an absolute mockery of your existance make an absurd amount of money in a song and dance rendition of one of the most dangerous incidents in American history.
    HELL of a dancer, though.
    Natasha's wearing thin black gloves and a grey coat as she leaves the theaters, sunglasses over her head and a stylish little hat on her head, because sometimes you have to rely on a look that screams spy so no one will notice you. "Well!" She says as she walks through the doors. "I can say- oh!" She winces when the first flash bulb goes off, then puts on a tight lipped smile. Yeah, she should have expected this. "Uhp, yup, yeah, okay..." she says as she and Tony move through the crowd, holding her hand out to block as many clear shots of her face as she can, and heaving a sigh once she's in the car.
    She's grinning, though, so that's a good sign.
    "*Pretty* good..." she agrees, perhaps not entirely sincerely, "I can appreciate how hard it is to dance and sing and fight at the same time with a shield throwing off your balance..." she grins bemusedly, "I had no idea poor Scarlet was in love with you, and Cap, *and* Thor, *and* Barton, *and* *Loki* all at the same time. That's... hoo." She shakes her head, "You super heroes are so complex."
    The shirt has not gone unnoticed. She tried not to smile. It didn't totally work out. Could do with some backups, though. "You should make a shirt for the poor thing."

Tony Stark has posed:
"I still think Scarlet should have ended up with me," Tony says, that broad grin on his face as he fishes his sunglasses from his blazer pocket and puts them on, "But, you know, I'm not a musical guy. I think they were just playing to the masses."

As they near the car, the broad-shouldered man in his dark suit that makes up part of Tony's security detail opens the door to the town car and mutters something into his sleeve. He doesn't look at either Tony nor Natasha, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark shades as he stares off - checking lines of sight, making sure things are secure.

"I could," he admits, "Though I'm kind of partial to this one, y'know?"

As they near the car, Tony doesn't climb in first but rather steps to the side and gestures of Natasha to go first. As he stands by the door he waves to the assembled crowd, letting them snap a few extra photographs of him as he does. The backseat itself is expansive and cozy, while the doors are thick enough to look like they must be armored, soundproofed, airtight and all manner of things.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha's lips press together for a moment at Tony's preferred ending, and then break into a grin, "No, but see, then that song wouldn't carry its tragic weight." She says, and approximates the actor's crooning voice, "For how can I give... a heart made of steel! How could I ask, so cruel a deaaaal- oh, thank you." She interrupts herself when Tony opens the door for her.
    She looks at the dark suited man pointedly for a minute.
    He's stressed. He's minding Tony Stark, for god's sake. There's a million reasons for him to be tense.
    A spy's mental wheels keep turning away regardless, and her vision subtly drifts back to him every so often, even as she plays along. "It's a good shirt. Evocative and stylish. Lets everyone know you're *dangerous*." She's in an unusually good mood. Turns out culteral travesties are a lot of fun with company.

Tony Stark has posed:
"Real dangerous," Tony mutters so only Natasha can hear, ducking down to get into the car after her. He keeps a respectful distance, looking out at the crowd as the security guard climbs in after him and sits on the bench seat facing back towards them. Once he's in he taps the opaque glass with his knuckles, shuts the doors, and the car pulls out into the Manhattan traffic.

"Good performance," Tony says after a moment, turning in the seat to face Nat, "Them and you. Look at you smiling for the cameras. You know you're going to end up on TMZ or something, right?"

There's a pause, and then he reaches out to brush her hand on the seat with his own and his tone becomes a little warmer: "Thanks for coming."

Across from them, the guard continues to look agitated. Normally they're stoic, but he's tugging at his collar a little. More than once he checks his watch and ducks his head to peer out the tinted window at the traffic.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha moves her lips to the side, smiling as if it's an embarrassing situation that she's in good spirits about. "Well. You know. I went to 'beauty school'." She says, "Learned all about how to *dazzle* and delight the masses. So it's not so bad." She smirks a little, "No one will recognize me without the smile anyway, so~"
    Natasha notes Tony's hand. Her mind goes back to an overly drunken carb-filled night and a lot of conflicting advice and sentiment from a well meaning friend.
    Eh. Hell with it.
    Her slender hand moves to rest gently on top of his, tapping it once or twice as if testing the water, and she says, softly. "My pleasure."

Tony Stark has posed:
There's a moment where Tony seems almost startled to feel Natasha's hand on his own, and there's a furtive downward glance at it. But it's only a second, and there's no other show of nervousness on his behalf. He smiles at her, reaching up with his free hands to slide his sunglasses off his face and once more deposit them into his pocket.

"So," he begins, turning to face her a little more and even leaning in close, "I may have gotten reservations at Le Bernardin and I thought maybe ... "

His voice trails off, his head turns, for the third time in as many weeks he leans in to kiss her again ...

And there, on the opposite seat, the security guard's back straightens. His body tenses, and he reaches for the gun in his shoulder holster - drawing it swiftly to point it straight at Tony!

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    "Yeah...?" Natasha's voice is soft and curious about the idea, letting him draw close. Not moving this time, not blocking him. Letting him draw very near before she hears the click of an unfastned holster.
    "I'm so sorry."
    She murmurs those words very quickly before suddenly her hand is on her hat and hurls it into the 'guard's' face, aiming to disorient him as his gun arm extends, an instant before she lunges towards him.
    First thing's first: the gun. Rather than grab for the gun itself, she takes his hand and wrenches his wrist back and upward at an unnatural angle, trying to get the gun pointed relatively harmlessly at the ceiling.

Tony Stark has posed:
"What?"

Tony's words almost come out half-dazed. A second ago they'd been leaning towards one another, and now Nat was apologizing and lunging away. It takes him a moment to fully process what is happening - it's lucky the Black Widow is there.

"Hail Hydra!" cries the guard, reading to pull the trigger when Natasha moves his arm and the weapon is pointed up towards the ceiling. He winces in pain behind his glasses and the gun goes off with a crack, hitting the bulletproof window and ricocheting back into the cabin before embedding harmlessly in one of the seats.

Tony's eyes widen, and doing his best to help he plans both hands on the seat and savagely kicks at the gunman's knee, causing him to cry out in pain.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    With the gunman off balance, Natasha - seemingly unperturbed by the deafening gunshot in an enclosed space, nearly twists the guard's wrist completely around before yanking his thumb out of it's socket and then slamming her fist back into it to get him to drop the gun, which collapses on the floor beside her.
    With him disarmed, blye eyes blazing, Natasha takes hold of his arm in both hands, leaps a short distance off of the floor and plants both of her feet into his chest, using her leverage to slam his head up into the roof while her shoulders hit the floor. She kicks him twice in the face, and then *rolls* with that arm, adding another rotation to the mix and dragging him to the floor by his arm, where she plants her knee on his throat, picks up the gun, and points it at the Hydra agents head while putting her weight on him.
    This takes place in the space of about five or six seconds.

Tony Stark has posed:
Whoever the agent is, however he got into this position, he was not expecting to contend with Natasha - not by any stretch of the imagination. He has more than a little training by the way he moves with some of the blows, but they come too strong and fast for him to really do anything about. By the time Nat is done with him he's bleeding and barely conscious, the gun pressed roughly against his head. All he can do is groan in pain.

"Okay," Tony begins slowly, pointing at the man on the floor, "Just to be clear - you didn't plant him there to kill me if I got too fresh, right? Because I was pretty sure there was a whole vibe here." He gestures back and forth between himself and Nat.

The car itself swerves violently in the traffic, toppling Tony against one side of the seat with an 'oof!' It's obviously pulled over to the side of the road, and a moment later the driver throws open the passenger door with his own gun drawn.

"Mister Stark, come with me, sir!" he demands, not really waiting before he begins to bodily drag Tony from the car.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha doesn't look away from the Hydra agent as Tony speaks, though her eyes narrow as she starts to say "Tony, not n-" before the car stops suddenly and she's thrown into the wall with a grunt.
    Her head spins for a moment, and when she looks up, the Hydra agent is starting to move, and another man is pulling Tony out of the car.
    That man is not surprised or worried enough. To her snap judgement, which may look dangerously impulsive, but was thoroughly and harshly trained not to be, it's enough to make a call.
    Still holding the gun, she slams the butt of the pistol into the Hydra agent's face, and then reaches out to grab Tony's leg, slowing his impromptu slide out of the car long enough for her to roll and twist so that she lands seated on his stomach with her legs both shooting forward into the guard's chest to stagger him backwards.
    Without hesitating, without blinking, Natasha pulls the trigger three times, drawing a quarter circle across the guard's body that starts at the lower side of his ribs and ends in the center of his chest.
    Breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping theough her veins, Natasha keeps one hand pushing down on Tony's chest, as if to keep him from moving, as she glances from one Hydra agent to the other, before looking down at Tony. There is a split second where her face stays utterly and totally devoid of emotion, before concern just suddenly materializes in her eyes and the lines of her face, asking. "Are you all right?"

Tony Stark has posed:
"Who wouldn't be?" Tony asks, unable to keep that lopsided grin on his face as he looks up at Natasha from his new vantage point. That's a thing about Tony Stark. Two people just tried to murder him and he's still cracking jokes. He's either incredibly brave or he has the kind of mental illness doctors write whole textbooks about.

The car is pulled over into an alleyway, and the driver lays sprawled out on the ground by the door. It's easy to see from just a casual glance that he's dead, the bullets having done their deadly work. The man who first drew his gun is unconscious, and likely will be for some time judging by the bloody welt just below his hairline.

Tony reaches out, gingerly patting her on the thigh and glancing down at the hand pressed onto his chest.

"I'm okay, Nat," his voice more sincere now, "I'm okay."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    There is what seems like a very long moment of silence before Natasha shakes her head a little in charmed disbelief at Tony's behavior and finally says. "Okay." She begins to move off of him and repeats, "Okay."
    Natasha takes a short breath and slides off of Tony, putting her back to the chairs and sitting on the floor. "It's not safe here. Get out of the car. Don't step in the blood or look at his face." She says very quickly and matter of factly.
    The moment Tony leaves, Natasha steps out, and then sticks her upper body back inside. She picks up her purse, her glasses, the shoe she lost in the fraca, slings the purse over her shoulder, and then puts a bullet in the surviving Hydra agent's foot with a loud BANG.
    "Okay, let's go." She says, shoving her shoe back on, putting a hand to Tony's back, and guiding him away hurriedly while while fishing her phone out of her pocket with one hand.
    These Hydra guys are insane. If they rigged the car to explode as Plan C, she doesn't want to be here. If they DIDN'T she doesn't want that agent walking out of there.
     She holds the volume-up button on her phone for two seconds too long and speaks into it without even so much as waking it up to speed dial. "We need a pickup in the alleyway near my location. Code H. Repeat, Code H, proceed with caution." she says sharply, and then stuffs the phone back into her pocket.
    She looks to Tony. "Can you call a suit? Can a suit get here? Can you get *out* of here?"

Tony Stark has posed:
Before Tony can respond, there is the roar of repulsors from overhead. A suit in red and gold descends from the sky above them, hands held at either side to hold it steady. It descends quickly, dropping down behind Tony and obligingly the front of it folds away to leave a space for him to access it.

Rather than run to it, however, Tony pauses. He looks at Nat, looking her over quickly as though analyzing her for any injuries she may have sustained. He takes a step towards the suit, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth for a second and lifting a hand to run it through his hair.

"I'm not leaving you here," he insists - he may have seen her make quick work of those agents, but who knows what they'll send next. He moves to the suit, stepping into it and it clatters shut. The eyepieces illuminate blue, and he takes steps towards Natasha - reaching out a hand for her.

<Come on!>

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha quickly aims a gun up at that noise, but exhales sharply with relief when it's Tony's suit come to make him a few hundred times more durable.
    "Sure you are." She answers a bit breathlessly as he enters the suit. "Don't go to the penthouse, go the mansion; don't do that three point landing thing just get-" Tony extends his metal hand to her. "-inside." she finishes with a bit less oomph than she started with.
    She glances behind her, suddenly hyper aware of all the sounds of city traffic, any piece of which could be coming to kill them, then looks back at Tony's helmeted face.
    She seems to deflate a bit, conceding with a sigh: "This will be a first." she says, and takes his hand. She steps towards him and puts both her arms around his armored body, cringing slightly in anticipation of the lift. "Do it."

Tony Stark has posed:
It didn't seem like Tony was going to take no for an answer on evacuating Natasha along with him, and if she could see his face, she'd note the visible relief there when she agrees. He steps close to her, wrapping one armored arm around her middle and extending a leg to the side to give her purchase. He's done this a few times before, he's not too worried about dropping her ... HOMER is there to auto-pilot if need be.

<Hang on!> he urges her through the electronic reverberation of his voice modulator, making sure his grip is firm but not painful. There's a split second of them just standing there, the repulsors in his feet whining, and it seems like they're not going to go anywhere ...

Then they're rocketing upwards. They clear the buildings quickly, shooting up on a sharp trajectory until they're above even the tallest skyscrapers of Manhattan. They hover there for a moment, and Tony is visibly tempted to say something smart or make a joke. But a sudden appreciation for their situation hits him, and instead he does just what he was asked - rocketing them back down towards the Mansion.

They land shortly after; Tony loosens his grip and steps out of the suit himself as soon as Natasha is clear of it. It doesn't become immediately lifeless, instead beginning to walk stiffly across the lawn with its head focused on the gate and the wall.

"Nat," Tony begins, walking towards her once he's free of the armor, "I ... "

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    During that lingering moment of motionlesness, Natasha starts to say "Is it not wo-" she's interrupted with a sharp WHUHP as the two launch into the air.

The blast of wind alone is disorienting, watching the ground receed away below them, and then turn to sky as his body tilts forward, putting the city behind her lights up every part of her brain that's there to tell her that this is TERRIFYING and she should definitely stop!
    But it's... kind of amazing. Natasha may not have a healthy fear response anymore.
    She's visibly shaking a bit, though, when they land, staggering away a bit when he lets her go, and hunching forward slightly to catch her breath, her hands on her knees.
    When Tony steps out, he gets about that far into his sentence when Natasha grabs him by his jacket with both hands, pulls him close, and kisses him hard on the lips.
    It's sudden, intense, and ultimately brief as two or three seconds later, she pushes him back a step by the chest and points at the open Iron Man armor, breathlessly saying, "Back in the suit."

Tony Stark has posed:
Tony is stunned for one of those two seconds, so much so that his eyes are still open when Nat kisses him. Then they close, then his hand rests on her hip. He's just sort of processing in his mind what is actually happening when it's over and she's pushing him back towards the suit. HOMER seems to understand what's going on, as the suit comes off auto-pilot to walk back towards Tony and obligingly open up once more.

"I just - " Tony begins, taking a step towards it while still half-turned back to Nat, " - that - okay, but we're definitely talking about that. That wasn't a spur of the moment thing. That better not be a spur of the moment thing!"

But he does what he's asked, stepping back into the suit and disappearing behind its impassive veneer as it closes to seal him inside. He walks to stand at her side once inside, his voice reverberating through the speaker.

<- should get shot at more often, huh? What? HOMER, turn the external speaker off, for fu ->

There's a moment of silence, a slight jostle of his helmeted head, then he turns to face Nat again. The speaker crackling back on.

<Hi.>

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha finds a wall to lean against and... kinda has to catch her breath again a little bit. Her raises her eyebrows at Tony's unintended audio, and then hangs her head, shoulders shaking with a brief suppressed laugh before she slowly sighs as she straightens up against the wall. She turns her head to look at Tony and says. "... Hey." She smiles a bit awkwardly and says. "That was... impulsive of me, I apologise."

Tony Stark has posed:
<You should be impulsive more often, then,> Tony suggests, the gauntleted hand of the suit lifting up to give her a momentary thumbs up, <Nat, I'm not gonna pretend we haven't been dancing around that for week.>

In the suit, he walks over towards the wall and looks at her critically. Through the specialized optics of the helmet, he can run a quick biological scan. Enough to determine she's unhurt and otherwise healthy, which prompts a momentary sigh of relief from him.

<Which, I guess, is my way of saying those reservations at Le Bernardin are still - >

The sirens can be heard on the street outside, the authorities on their way. The problem with being a presidential candidate as opposed to just an Avenger? The police take a lot more interest when somebody takes a shot at you. He looks towards the gate, back towards Nat, then back to the gate, then Nat. Deciding.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha closes her eyes, "Oh, you... you noticed that too?" she says an attempt at aloof humor being sabotaged slightly by her breathless state. But now it's in the open. This was inevitable. It still makes her feel kinda stupid.
    She didn't turn down any dates, though. Her eyes watch him as he speaks, and she smiles a bit ruefully as he's struck with indecision.
    She pushes off of the wall and stands up straight, taking a deep breath. "... Le Bernardin's cancelled. I'm sorry. Nobody's letting you go anywhere where you put your name on a schedule for a little while." She looks down for a minute, and smiles tightly. She looks up at him, presses two fingers to her lips, and then presses those same two fingers to his helmet roughly where his mouth would be. "... Go be a hero. Keep that suit on until someone you recognize tells you to take it off." She smiles gently, "... We'll talk later."