ON HOLD | Little Romanoff | Avengers Fanfiction

19. Bribery

"YES!" Amelia shrieked out, fist-pumping the air in excitement. Both Tony and Bruce looked at her confused. "I beat my best score," she explained.

"Impressive, kiddo. Keep it up!" Tony encouraged her before he looked at Bruce. "Doctor Banner, where are we at?" he questioned.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process," Bruce explained to the billionaire.

Tony looked over Bruce's shoulder. "If we bypass the mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops," he explained to the doctor.

Bruce blinked in surprise. "All I packed was a toothbrush," he mumbled.

Tony smiled at the doctor. "You know, you should come by STARK TOWERS sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land," he told him.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke-- Harlem," Bruce mumbled.

Amelia peered up from the cell phone. "Can I come to the lab soon, uncle Tony? I never got to try out your suit," she pouted.

"Uh, maybe not, kiddo. I think that your mama would kill me if I let you fly around in my suits," Tony explained as he grinned sheepishly. He wasn't afraid to admit that he was slightly afraid of Natasha.

"It was worth a shot," Amelia shrugged her shoulders before she looked back down at Tony's phone.

Tony couldn't help but laugh and ruffle the kids' hair. "Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension. No surprises," he muttered as he suddenly poked Banner with a miniature electrical prod just at the moment that Steve walked in, looking pissed at Tony.

"Ow!" Bruce complained.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed, pissed with Tony's sudden actions. "Are you nuts?" he questioned.

Tony moved to look closer at Bruce. "Nothing?" he questioned surprised. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" he continued to press for the answer.

Amelia poked her head up inquisitively. "What is weed? I want some," she told them.

"Stark!" Steve shouted in disbelief.

Tony physically face-palmed himself, completely forgetting that there was a literal 9-year-old child in the lab with them. "Kiddo, please don't repeat any of this conversation with your with mom or she will definitely be mad with me," he pleaded.

"Ten dollars or I blab," Amelia couldn't help but smirk.

Tony gasped and looked at the child shocked. "You're blackmailing me?" he questioned.

"Mama!" Amelia started to call out.

"Alright, fine, here," Tony reluctantly gave in and fished 10 dollars out of his pocket. "You're definitely Romanoff's kid," he muttered.

Amelia had a mischievous smile spread across her face. "Alright! Now I have earned 30 dollars," she said happily.

"30 dollars? What do you plan to buy with that?" Steve asked confused.

"More to the point, how did you earn 20 dollars?" Tony raised an eyebrow in question.

"A  lot of candy! I accidentally walked in on two agents," Amelia said as she shoved the 10-dollar bill into her pocket. "And I ended up bribing them in order for me to not spill the details," she added.

"Well, that's kind of impressive, I guess," Tony muttered and shook his head. "You really are your mother's daughter," he stated.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve questioned irked at Tony's actions.