91 A Day in Avengers Tower

Natasha woke up to an empty bed. The sheets beside her were already cool, a telltale sign that Harry had slipped out long before sunrise again. She blinked against the soft morning light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of their shared room in Avengers Tower. It was 5:00 a.m., according to the glowing digital clock on her nightstand.

She stretched lazily to ease the soreness from her regular late-night activities with Harry. There was a faint smell of herbs and incense lingering in the air. Harry must’ve left right after his morning meditation or whatever magical nonsense he did before most people even hit snooze.

Typical.

With a sigh and a yawn, Natasha rolled out of bed and grabbed a tank top, pulled her hair into a high ponytail, and headed for the gym.

She found Steve in the gym, already hammering into a punching bag like it had personally offended America.

“Morning, Captain,” Natasha called as she walked in.

“Romanoff,” Steve replied with a curt nod, not missing a beat as the bag swayed from another clean jab.

Natasha grabbed a yoga mat and rolled it out, giving him a sideways glance as she started her warm-up stretches. “You know, if you asked Kristen from Statistics out, she’d probably say yes.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t ask,” Steve said, landing a solid uppercut.

“Too shy, or too scared?” she asked, casually flipping into a plank.

“Too busy,” Steve grunted.

Natasha smirked. “Right. Forgot. America’s most eligible bachelor. Too busy saving the world to text back.”

He paused just long enough for her to know she’d scored a point, then resumed punching. “She deserves better than a guy with trust issues and a 70-year-old music taste.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You could read the phone book out loud, and half the building would swoon.”

Steve finally looked over, eyebrow raised. “They still print phone books?”

“You know what I mean, Rogers.”

There was a beat of silence as Natasha shifted into a lateral stretch.

“Oh, wait,” she said, snapping her fingers. “What about that girl from accounting, Laura?”

“Lillian,” Steve corrected. “Lip piercing, right?”

“Yeah. Kinda goth. Totally opposite your vibe, but that's what will make it more amazing.”

Steve gave her a look. “Nat, I was literally born before rock and roll. I’m not ready for… that.”

Natasha chuckled. “You fought Nazis. But a lip ring scares you?”

“Lip rings, oat milk… It’s a terrifying new world.”

For the next hour, they traded barbs between reps, with Natasha rattling off names of SHIELD agents like she was hosting The Bachelor: Super Soldier Edition. Steve deflected each one with increasing sarcasm and just a hint of colour in his cheeks. By the time they were both dripping sweat and catching their breath, Steve was almost smiling.

After her workout, Natasha hit the shower, letting the hot water wash away the ache in her muscles. She slipped into a pair of soft black joggers and a faded Coldplay t-shirt that Harry had gotten in one of their dates in London and padded into the communal kitchen of Avengers Tower.

The scent of coffee and toasted bread filled the air like a warm welcome. While Pepper Potts sat at the breakfast island, looking like she belonged in a tech CEO commercial, perfect posture, tablet in one hand, coffee in the other, and a bagel with a smear of cream cheese on the plate in front of her. Natasha clicked a photo and sent it to Filicia Hardy who was looking after Harry's Cafe in L.A.

“Morning,” Natasha greeted, making a beeline for the counter like it owed her rent.

“Good morning,” Pepper replied with a smile, not looking up from her report.

“When did you get in?” Natasha asked as she navigated the fridge, pulling out a banana, almond milk, and protein powder.

“Last night. Around midnight,” Pepper replied, still absorbed in her tablet. “Harry and I are heading to a fundraiser gala later tonight.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow as she tossed ingredients into the blender. “Ah, the one with the museum people? He mentioned something about awkward rich donors and overpriced shrimp cocktails.”

“That’s the one,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes.

“So,” Natasha said with a grin, “you think Harry will survive the fundraiser?”

Pepper smirked. “He’ll be fine. He’s charming, diplomatic, and most importantly, not Tony.” While adding. “If Harry ever gets truly bored at a gala, he might accidentally hex a snobbish millionaire, which always leads to some Looney-Toons level comedy.”

“The last one where a senator started kissing an ice-sculptor was hilarious,” Natasha remembered with a smirk. She poured her shake into a tall glass and took the seat next to Pepper, stretching out comfortably as she sipped. “He said Tony acts like he's allergic to anything that doesn't have a red carpet or a feature in Architectural Digest.”

“Oh, please,” Pepper said, setting her tablet down. “The parties Tony goes to now? Practically tea with the Queen compared to what he used to pull off.”

“Yeah?” Natasha smirked. “Like what?”

“There was this one in Dubai. He invited a DJ, three acrobats, and a camel into the suite. The camel made it to the second floor before security caught on.”

Natasha blinked. “At least now he’s not making the headlines of the Lifestyle Scandal Weekly anymore,” Natasha added between sips.

“Don’t remind me,” Pepper groaned. “I used to have a folder on my phone just to track damage control calls. ‘Pepper, did Tony really crash a Bugatti into a koi pond?’ Yes. Yes, he did. On purpose.”

“I’d ask why, but I know better,” Natasha replied.

They both laughed, sipping their drinks and trading battle stories of life with Tony Stark.

Once Natasha was done with breakfast, she wandered through the Avengers Tower’s leisure area in search of Harry. Instead, she found the dulcet tones of digital violence and Clint Barton trash-talking a Norse god.

Thor and Clint were sprawled out on the couch, PS4 controllers in hand, eyes locked on the massive screen as Injustice: Gods Among Us played out in a chaotic flurry of colour and lightning. Thor's brow was furrowed in deep concentration; Clint was already two rounds in and talking nonstop.

Clint was playing as Green Arrow. Thor had somehow picked Shazam.

“Okay, so this guy,” Clint said, nodding toward his on-screen character firing arrows across the screen, “is a genius archer with insane accuracy and quick wit. Total badass.”

Thor nodded solemnly.

“And your guy is... well, technically an ancient wizard turned teenage boy who yells 'SHAZAM' to summon the power of six mythological gods.”

Thor’s eyes lit up. “So, just like you and me!”

Clint paused mid-combo. “I am nothing like Green Arrow, thank you very much.”

“But you just said—” Thor tilted his head, confused. “He uses arrows. You use arrows. He is powered by gods. I am a god. It is a most perfect representation of our dynamic!”

Thor mashed a few buttons. Shazam screamed “SHAZAM!” and summoned a bolt of lightning that sent Green Arrow flying across the arena.

Thor pumped his fist. “Ha! A glorious strike from the heavens!”

Clint squinted at the screen. “Did you just win that round by accident?”

“I strategically summoned the storm at the precise moment of your overconfidence.”

“You were literally just mashing buttons!”

Thor grinned like a child discovering his first snow day. “And yet... victory is mine!”

From the doorway, Natasha leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the chaos unfold with mild amusement.

“You boys bonding over who gets to break more virtual furniture?” she called out.

“Let’s just play,” Clint groaned, ignoring Natasha.

Thor roared, “Have at thee, archer!” as his character lunged forward. Clint effortlessly dodged and countered with a brutal combo that knocked Thor halfway across the map.

“You're not going to visit Laura and the kids?” Natasha asked as she leaned against the doorframe.

“I just have the day off,” Clint replied, executing a stylish flip-kick. “Talked to them this morning, will call again before bedtime.”

Thor roared as he managed to land an X-Ray attack, shattering Green Arrow’s ribs in slow motion. “Victory nears!”

“Where are you headed next?” Natasha asked, smirking as Thor’s thumbs worked overtime in desperation.

“Still with Hill,” Clint said, not even blinking as he parried another attack. “Tailing Sitwell. He’s been shaking hands with a few senators lately. Project Insight’s wrapping up, so he's doing the schmooze circuit with what looks like Hydra agents.”

“Not keeping eyes on him today?”

“He spent the night in a brothel with a senator and enough bourbon to kill a moose,” Clint deadpanned. “Hill says he’s basically comatose. We’ve got surveillance in his apartment. If he so much as farts, we’ll know.”

“Charming,” Natasha replied dryly.

Thor landed a heavy blow that left Clint’s character on the brink of death. “At last! The tide turns!”

Clint narrowed his eyes. With one final flurry of moves, Green Arrow came back from the edge and knocked Shazam out cold.

Thor let out a tragic groan and slammed the controller onto the couch.

“What about you, Thor?” Natasha asked casually as she watched the thunder god get demolished again. “Weren’t you supposed to be in London with Jane?”

Thor sighed, his thumbs slamming the controller buttons with increasing desperation. “I was. But she said she was working on something important and didn’t want me ‘looming.’” He frowned. “She assured me she would summon me once she was finished.”

“So you got kicked out of the apartment,” Clint translated, snickering as he launched another combo. “Tough break, big guy.”

Thor growled as Green Arrow smacked Shazam off the screen. “She did not kick me out. She merely... requested solitude.”

Clint laughed. “That’s a polite eviction, my friend.”

Seeing Thor’s mounting frustration and the way the poor controller was being crushed in his grip, Natasha walked over and gently pried it from his hands. “Here,” she said. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

Thor eagerly handed it over as his face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Bring glory to my champion, Lady Potter!”

“Oh, I will,” she replied, smirking.

What followed could only be described as a masterclass in humiliation. Natasha wiped the floor with Clint, flawless victory after flawless victory. She didn’t button mash. She didn’t flinch. She just knew the game, and Clint didn’t stand a chance.

“Come on!” Clint groaned, slumping back. “No way you’re this good. You’ve practised this. You’re cheating!”

“It’s called reflexes and strategy,” Natasha replied coolly as her character performed yet another flawless fatality. “You should try it sometime.”

Thor whooped with laughter. “Yes! Victory at last! I knew Shazam had greatness in him!”

“You weren’t even playing,” Clint muttered.

“Details,” Thor said, waving him off.

Clint tossed his controller on the couch and pointed accusingly at Natasha. “You’re never allowed to talk smack again.”

Natasha grinned. “Oh, I will. Nonstop. For days. And next time, try picking on someone your own size”

Bidding Thor and Clint her farewells, Natasha made her way down the corridors of the research wing, sidestepping a pair of interns struggling to carry a box of power converters. As she passed one of the glass-panelled labs, she caught sight of Dr. Erik Selvig unpacking books and equipment into his new corner office, looking surprisingly cheerful.

“Settling in okay, Doc?” she called through the open door.

Selvig smiled. “Feels like the university again. Only with more alien tech and far fewer ethics committees.”

She smirked and kept walking, heading toward the main lab.

Inside, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark stood in front of a holographic display of the Iron Legion, mid-discussion and completely absorbed in their work.

“I’m telling you, JARVIS can’t scale like that,” Bruce was saying, gesturing to a swarm of white and blue drone models rotating in midair. “Maybe a hundred, two hundred units at most. Past that, he’d start bottlenecking. Right now, perimeter defence is his ceiling.”

Tony crossed his arms, frowning at the projection. “Alright, so we build something new. Smarter. Stronger. A dedicated AI. Not just an assistant like JARVIS, instead a real command program.”

“You’re talking about actual artificial intelligence,” Bruce said, sounding less enthused and more alarmed. “Not just simulated learning. Full sentience. You realise that, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony said with a casual shrug. “Something like the Zerg hive mind from StarCraft. One brain, total control. All drones synced in real time. Efficient, tactical, beautiful.”

“Hey boys,” Natasha called out as she stepped into the lab, arms crossed. “I hope you’re not talking about creating a murder-bot army.”

Tony and Bruce froze.

Tony’s eyes darted to the screens, then back to Natasha. “Romanoff! Fancy seeing you here. Uh… how long have you been standing there?”

Bruce, visibly panicked, scrambled to minimize the holo-displays. “We were just... theory-crafting. Purely theoretical.”

Natasha slowly walked over like a teacher catching students cheating on a pop quiz. “Uh-huh. Because nothing says harmless theory like ‘hive-mind AI overlord.’”

Tony chuckled nervously. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“I was looking for Harry,” Natasha said, scanning the lab like she expected to find her boyfriend hiding under a desk. “Either of you seen him?”

“Nope! Not today,” Bruce replied a little too quickly, practically tripping over his words. “Definitely not here.”

Tony leaned against a console casually, too casually. “Maybe he’s in the library? Or the armoury?”

Natasha narrowed her eyes, lips pressed into a thin line. “You two better make damn sure that this AI of yours doesn’t go rogue. Because if it does, I will revoke your lab access and have you both demoted to janitorial duty.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Bruce cut in. “We promise. Scout’s honor.”

Tony nodded solemnly. “Cross my heart,” he added, drawing an invisible X over his chest like a sulky five-year-old.

Natasha rolled her eyes and turned on her heel. “I swear, it’s like babysitting toddlers with PhDs.”

As she left, Bruce leaned over to Tony and whispered, “We’re totally still working on it.”

“I know,” Tony whispered back, already pulling the files back up.

Unable to find Harry anywhere else in the tower, Natasha finally turned to the one source that always knew everything in this building.

“Jarvis,” she said as she walked through the hallway, “where’s Harry?”

“In the library, Miss Romanoff,” Jarvis replied smoothly. “He’s been there for approximately forty-two minutes.”

“Of course he has,” Natasha muttered with a fond smile.

The library was one of the quietest corners of the Avengers Tower. All dark wood shelves, soft lighting, and the faint scent of old books. As she stepped inside, she spotted Harry at one of the larger tables near the back, completely absorbed in a tome that looked like it had been written on papyrus. He had a fountain pen and notepad in one side, a mug of tea on the other, and that slight frown of concentration she found annoyingly endearing.

Silently, Natasha crept up behind him and wrapped her arms gently around his neck, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Hey, handsome,” she whispered. “What are you up to?”

“Reviewing the tome Yao gave me,” Harry replied without looking up.

“You find the cause of the corruption?” Natasha asked as she leaned her chin on his shoulder, watching the ancient text over his arm.

Harry sighed. “No. By the time the Masters of the Mystic Arts realised what was happening, the corruption had already spread too far. Dormammu kept it dormant, like a virus. Then, once it reached a critical mass, he triggered it all at once, causing an instant takeover.”

Natasha frowned. “They never stood a chance.”

Harry shook his head. “Not after they'd already become his zealots. According to this tome, it happened so fast, it was like flipping a switch. One moment they were people, the next… they weren’t. And with this being the only surviving account of that period in the magical community, there’s no way to know how bad it really got. Or who survived.”

“So, a dead end there, huh?” Natasha asked, nodding toward the tome.

Harry gave a tired shrug. “For now.”

“Oh, by the way,” she added casually, “Bruce and Tony are building a murder-bot.”

Harry blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me.” She let go of him and walked around to sit beside him. “They were discussing how JARVIS doesn’t have the processing power to handle the global-scale deployment of the Iron Legion. So naturally, their solution is to create a completely sentient artificial intelligence that can control the whole army on its own.”

Harry stared at her like she’d just said they were raising a baby basilisk in the basement. “And that’s your definition of a murder-bot?”

“I mean… yeah,” she said, gesturing vaguely. “We’re talking about creating a thinking, self-aware AI whose sole directive is to protect Earth. And I may not have a PhD in computer science, but I’ve read enough dossiers to know that most of Earth’s problems? Kind of our fault.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”

“Global warming? Us. Pollution? Us. Genocides, wars, the Holocaust, also us.”

Harry snorted despite himself.

“So what happens when this shiny new AI decides the best way to save the planet is to just… eliminate the root cause?” she finished, raising her eyebrows. “Spoiler alert: it’s us.”

Harry leaned back, arms crossed. “Okay, that’s horrifying?”

Natasha smirked. “I’m just saying, if I were a murder-bot with logic-based programming, that would be high on my red-flag list.”

Harry groaned softly and rubbed his temples, the mental image of a rogue AI apocalypse clearly already forming in his head. “Okay… how do I fix this before we end up with an actual murder-bot on our hands?”

Natasha leaned back in her chair, casually sipping from his mug. “That’s why I came here, to hand this nightmare off to you.”

“Please?” Harry gave her a hopeful look.

She raised an eyebrow, unmoved. “Checks and balances, maybe? Set up oversight, control protocols, basic accountability?”

Harry nodded slowly. Then, in a soft, way-too-innocent voice, he asked, “So… can you keep an eye on them? You’re probably the only person who understands their technobabble enough to spot a red flag and not let them distract you with shiny toys.”

Then he hit her with the look. Big green eyes. Slight pout.

Natasha squinted. “Don’t you dare do the puppy dog eyes.”

He intensified them.

She sighed, fighting a smile. “Fine. But you better make it worth my while.”

Harry instantly perked up and nodded enthusiastically. “Anything you want. Date night, foot rub, new knives, name it.”

Natasha smirked. “You’re going to regret saying that.” Harry smiled back, accepting her challenge.

“Oh, before I forget, Thor’s mashing buttons like he’s trying to summon Mjolnir. He’s this close to snapping the controller in half,” Natasha informed him casually.

Harry smirked. “Already took care of it. I charmed all the controllers to be indestructible. Let him mash away.”

Natasha snorted. “Smart.” ” Natasha said with a mischievous grin as she grabbed Harry by the arm. “Come on, let’s get a sparring session in before you leave for your fancy fundraiser.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, but there was no escaping the determined pull of Natasha. “You’re really going to drag me into the gym when I’m trying to escape a whole evening of charity events?”

“Yep,” she replied with a wink. “You owe me for keeping an eye on the tech bros. And besides, you could use a little exercise... I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

Harry chuckled and allowed himself to be pulled along, secretly looking forward to it. “Fine, fine. But when I win, you’re taking me out to the best diner in town. And no complaints.”

Natasha smirked. “Deal. But I don’t plan on letting you win.”