Chapter 3

The next day at the Avengers Tower, Tony was near finishing his machine. He kept running Natasha’s words through his mind. Fire made me who I am today. You can do it Tony. The machine, you have my permission.

He was in his lab hard at work. He was working on the control panel when he heard a small cough. He whirled around and saw her. She was just sitting on his desk, watching him work. She looked as if yesterday had never happened. She was back to her old self.

“Natasha! You scared the crap out of me! How the hell did you get down here? This room is secure.”

“Psssh, secure. You do know who you are talking to don’t you?” The red head was smirking at him. Her gaze flashed upward to the air vent.

“So that’s how you knew about the machine. Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony didn’t understand.

Natasha jumped off of the desk and walked over to where Tony was working. She picked up one of his tools and distractedly played with it. She leaned against the chair and then looked up at him. “When you said you didn’t trust me a few weeks ago, I knew that you really didn’t mean it. You were just frustrated and I get that. I snuck through the air vents to put those all over your Iron Man suit to get back at you.” She looked over to one of his work stations which was covered in Bob the Builder children’s stickers.

“When the hell did those get there?!” Tony didn’t know how he could have missed the 200 plus stickers covering one of his work stations.

“About an hour ago,” she said. “I didn’t want to waste them. Anyways, when I reached your lab, I noticed that you were trying to get into my case file. I was going to blow up your computer, but I stopped. I don’t know why, but I let you keep hacking. I guess some part of me wanted you to know. And then you just stopped. I saw you press delete. That right there told me that you really did trust me, and respected my wishes, well, kinda. Since then, I’ve watched you work every day on that stupid thing and I’ve heard you over and over struggling with yourself as to if this was the right thing to do.”

Tony smiled slyly at her. “Hey Ms. Stalker, you said to never crack your file to get to know you, you never said not to build a machine.”

“Very clever Tony. The truth is, I want you to know. Clint knows some, but I just can’t tell him everything. I can’t tell anyone everything. It hurts too much. But after what we went through yesterday, I think it’s time you all knew. So, let’s get started.”

Tony was left beaming. He couldn’t believe how this turned out. He had imagined over and over the countless ways she would kill him for asking her to use the machine. He never expected that this would happen.

“Great! So you want to know how it works?”

“I get the gist of it but yeah,” she said.

“Okay. We will both have to lie in these chairs and put these oh so fancy electrodes on. We will both be given an injection that puts us under into a deep sleep. When this here switch is flipped, the electrodes attached to you will transmit your memories from a certain point in your life into this machine. The machine will then send them to me and we will both be placed inside of your mind through the machine. It will be as if we are physically there, reliving the events. We will be able to talk to each other and walk around. This device here, will be attached to my wrist and will bring us to different places in time, inside of your mind.”

Natasha was looking thoughtful. “But what if something goes wrong and we can’t get out? What if it becomes too much and I want to leave?”

“Don’t worry, I have a switch on this device that will take us out of there.”

“How do you even know it is going to work? I mean, this is some pretty high tech stuff.”

“I don’t know that it will work.” Tony said.

“What the hell Tony! You build all of this based on the hunch that it might just work?”

“Ummm yep, pretty much.” Tony flinched as she lightly punched his shoulder. Well, it was light for her.

“Whatever, let’s just get started.”

The two got hard at work. Natasha worked on the main machine, fine tuning it to fit her mind so that the transfer will go smoothly. Tony worked on the electrode part. He hid the part that would attach to her head, because needles were involved. He would deal with telling her later.”

Tony and Natasha worked for two days straight, all withought leaving the lab. Food was sent down to them by a staff member. The two hadn’t slept because they were so close. Since they were so engrossed in their project, Clint, Bruce, and Thor hadn’t seen them and were worried that something could of happened. JARVIS told them that they were both in the lab but wouldn’t say anything else about what they were doing. They decided to find out.

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“Shhh, I think I hear something!” Clint and the other two Avengers had their ears pressed to the lab door trying to hear from their missing teammates.

“What does it sound like my friend? All I can hear is nothing.” Thor was trying his hardest to hear through the door but his ears weren’t as sensitive as Clint’s were.

“They are just talking. I can’t hear what they are saying though. I think they are working on something.”

Bruce could barely hear anything either. “What could they possibly be working on though? And together? That’s odd,” he said.

“Perhaps we could trick them into coming out? I saw something on the magic box once,” Thor said.

“The magic box?” Clint and Bruce said in unison. “The television you mean?” Bruce asked.

“Yes, that contraption. May I give it a shot my friends?”

They looked at each other and then shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt I guess.”

Bruce and Clint took a step back, waiting for Thor to do whatever he was going to do. What he did next took them by surprise.

He pressed his finger to the speaker that led to the lab and yelled, “Help us friends! There is trouble in the meadow! Little Johnny has fallen into a well!  We must go to his aid at once!”

Clint and Bruce exploded in laughter. They fell to the ground, holding on to their aching sides because of their uncontrollable laughter. Thor looked at them confused. From the lab, Tony and Natasha stopped working when they heard Thor’s voice over the speaker. They also started laughing and walked over to the door to see what shrieking noise was.

When the door opened, they saw Bruce and Clint rolling on the floor and shrieking with laughter while a confused Thor looked at them. He was desperately trying to find out what made them laugh so hard. “What is it my friends? I saw it on the magic box and kind citizens came to the boy’s aid! A furry creature by the name of Lassie even helped. Please, what is so funny?”

“Give it up Thor, It is a human thing,” Tony said.

“My missing friends!! I apologize, there is no Johnny in the well, it was just a ruse to find out what you guys were doing. See, I told you it would work” Thor said to the men still laughing uncontrollably on the floor.

“Not for the reason you think big guy.” Natasha was laughing quietly as Clint and Bruce pulled themselves together.

Clint was stull chuckling when he faced Natasha and asked, “But seriously, what have you two been up to?”

Tony answered for her. “Come with me and we will show you. Is that okay Natasha?”

She nodded to him and they went into the lab.

“Thor,” said Tony with his back turned, “don’t touch anythi-“ CRASH. Tony whirled around to face him and saw that he had knocked over one of his prototype suits.

“I believe the word is ooops?” Thor said as he looked guiltily to Tony.

“Its fine, Thor, just don’t touch anything else,” he said annoyed.

The group made their way to the back of the lab where their machine was located. Tony then explained to them what it did and what it was for. The group kept looking to Natasha as Tony explained that it was to be used on her. She avoided their gazes and instead busied herself with the final touches. The machine was ready.

The rest of the boys expressed their concerns and commented on how she doesn’t have to go through with it, but Natasha shot down their concerns. After the arguing died down, the group left the lab to have dinner, and to get a good night’s rest before the big day. Tomorrow was the day Tony has been waiting for, and the day Natasha had been dreading.

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When morning came, the Avengers assembled themselves in the lab to help Tony and Natasha through the experience. Tony was busy explaining to Bruce parts of the machine so that he could help if something went wrong. He would also be monitoring their body signs. There was a TV attached to the machine so that the other Avengers could see what Natasha and Tony were experiencing. While Tony talked to Bruce, Thor and Clint were reassuring Natasha. Finally, the moment came.

Natasha layed back in her chair which was reclined to where she was lying flat. Tony busied himself with attaching the electrodes all over her body. She was dressed in short black cotton shorts and a matching sports bra. She had protested at first but it was necessary so that the electrodes were exposed and so that her clothing didn’t mess with the transfer. Tony on the other hand was dressed in a tank top and longer cotton athletic shorts since he wouldn’t have as many electrodes.

“Okay Natasha, we have two more electrodes,” he said. He pulled them out and that’s when she saw the needles protruding from them.

“Tony! You never said anything about needles!”

“What, are you afraid of needles too,” he said.

“Well no, but you still never said anything about them,” Natasha responded grudgingly.

Tony laughed at her and proceeded to place them. “Well suck it up buttercup because here we go.” He placed on needle into the side of her head, and the other was placed over her heart.

“See, that wasn’t so bad. And look,” he said as he held up two more needles, “these are for me and go exactly where yours go.”

Natasha smiled at that and relaxed her body. She was all set up. Tony then layed in his chair positioned the same as Natasha’s and was right beside her. Bruce helped Tony get his electrodes and needles put in and then powered up the machine. Tony attached the device to his wrist. Even though the device would be in the physical world, he would have access to it when he was linked to Natasha’s mind. He had used a rare element that he kept from when the aliens attacked and it worked perfectly in this situation. He then had Bruce inject Natasha with the sleep aid and he waited for her to go under. But she didn’t.

“Tash, that was a pretty powerful injection, you should have been knocked out.” He lay there confused.

“Oh yea, I forgot to tell you about my enhancers.”

“Enhancers?” he asked.

“Yes Tony, enhancers, just like Steve. Not really something I advertise. Just double the injection and I’ll be out.”

Bruce looked to Tony for conformation and Tony nodded. He gave more of the sleep aid to her and Tony watched as she drifted off. She grabbed his hand and Tony couldn’t help but worry. She looked so peaceful, for the moment.

Bruce then injected Tony with his sleep aid and he drifted off to sleep all the while thinking of why and how Natasha had enhancers. But it would also explain a lot of how she always recovered quickly and seemingly moved at lightning fast speed.

Bruce, Clint and Thor all watched as Bruce flipped a switch and then watched as their friends drifted off into the nightmare that would soon consume them.

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Tony woke up freezing. He was so cold but why? He opened his eyes and saw nothing but white. There was snow everywhere. The world was white; there was almost no color except for a small flame beside him. He saw Natasha standing beside him with her red hair blowing in the wind. She didn’t seem as cold as him.

“We made it?” he asked looking around. “Where are we? When are we?”

Natasha turned to him and said, “Stalingrad, 1935.”

“1935?! But that would put you in your seventies, almost eighties!”

She just smiled and said, “Enhancers, as well as countless other experiments. Welcome to the Soviet Union Tony.”

They had made it.