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Natasha wandered into the common room from the kitchen after a late night cup of calming tea — she didn't get many nightmares, nowadays, not ones that affected her badly, but tonight she'd needed something more to relax enough to be able to sleep again. Shuffling towards the elevator she saw movement in the corner of her eye and had to do a double take when she saw Clint on the couch, deep in concentration looking at... Was that The Sims?
Slipping closer, she kept herself silent and unnoticeable until she could see past his shoulder at the models on the screen.
"What are you doing?"
Clint let out a delightfully shrill 'Eep!' at her voice, and Natasha felt smug that despite how long they'd known each other and worked together, she could still manage to sneak up on him.
"What the hell, Nat? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I was this close to smacking this thing through your head, and Tony would never let me live it down if I managed to break three laptops in one month."
Snickering, Natasha placed her cup of tea on the coffee table and joined Clint on the couch. This close, she could see the character model on the screen, and it looked suspiciously like...?
"Clint, why on earth are you making a Steve Rogers sim, and why is he only in his underwear?"
Clint didn't flounder, to her disappointment, but that was perhaps to be expected, really. Not much could embarrass him after all.
"Well, I needed to get the muscle definition right, and I can't do that when he's clothed, can I?"
Natasha considered the character on screen and tilted her head in acquiescence.
"Fair enough. Now tell me why you are up at 4am, so enraptured that you didn't even notice me coming in, making an anatomically accurate version of Captain America in a life simulator game?"
"Well, see, I was surfing around on Tumblr—"
"Oh lord, not again."
"—when I came across someone who'd made all the Avengers—"
"Except they forgot you, didn't they?"
"—except they didn't make the awesomest Aven—... Yes, they forgot me."
"So then you decided to, what, buy the game and take the time to install it just so that you could make a complete set of Avengers yourself?"
Natasha couldn't help her smile. At least this was better than what had happened the last time Clint had ventured out on the Avengers tag. She did not want a repeat of THAT incident.
"They'd made Falcon, Nat. Falcon! He's the new guy, the newbie, the stealer of bird themed names! But not me! I couldn't let that stand, now, could I?"
"Well—"
"And besides, I didn't buy the game, it was already on there for some reason. I found it in the entertainment folder that was already installed when Tony gave me the computer."
They both took a moment to ponder why on earth Tony would have pre-installed The Sims, of all games, onto the laptops he'd given his teammates. Natasha could not really see Tony as a guy who would have ever sat himself down to play a game about organizing people’s lives. Sometimes it seemed he could barely manage his own.
Speaking of organizing Tony's life, a familiar voice chimed in on their discussion.
"If I may, Ms. Romanoff, the one responsible for the content of the Avengers’ computers is me. Sir tasked me to make certain you had everything needed for casual use, and seeing as this is a game I rather enjoy the concept of myself, I took it upon me to make it available should anyone feel the need to keep themselves entertained for any amount of time."
Natasha snorted at Clint's bewildered expression. "What the hell would you even play the Sims for, Jarvis?"
Rolling her eyes, Natasha answered for the AI. "Well, let's see. A game in which you are responsible for a group of people, have to take care of all their needs and various daily crises, essentially guiding and constantly helping them through their helpless little lives? I'd say it's pretty much what Jarvis does every day, Clint."
"You are indeed correct, Ms. Romanoff. Though I must say that even managing a full family of sims is relaxing after managing the Avengers for a day."
Clint looked up from where he'd been meticulously picking out nightwear for his Steve.
"What? Even a full family is relaxing? It can't be that hard to point and click at some dude to eat? Don't tell me you struggle with a measly simulator game, JARVIS."
It was a marvel of technology, Natasha thought, that Tony had managed to build a computer program that could sound so genuinely affronted.
"I assure you, Mr. Barton, that fulfilling the needs and wishes of a family of eight, and manage to keep them happy during their daily lives is not as easy an undertaking as you might believe. Especially not one with such conflicting personalities as, say, the Avengers. Someone inexperienced with the simulator, as you called it, would certainly find it a formidable task."
A challenging smile grew on Clint's face. "So, what you're saying is you think you'd be better at playing this game than me."
"I do have more experience, yes."
"Me. Who is the undisputed, unchallenged champion of every high score list in the Tower."
"I do not see how skills pertaining to sniping enemy combatants, or indeed driving a fellow racing cart off the track is in any way relevant to managing a family efficiently. One might even claim it to be rather counter-productive."
"Okay, okay, that's enough," Natasha cut them off before Clint could continue the argument. "It seems like this will need to be settled properly before you both go on for days about it— don't argue, Clint, remember how it went with the pizza debacle? I swear I was ready to kill either you or Steve by the end of week two, if you hadn't sorted it out by then."
She held his glare, staring him down until he looked away with a huff and went back to fiddling with his sim's hairstyle. Natasha tried to not be distracted by the sight of Steve Rogers with a mohawk, but... Mohawk.
Clearing her throat, she tried to remember the point she was making.
"Yes, as I was saying, you'll need to sort this out. It seems the best and fastest way of determining who'd be better at playing this game is to have you both play it. Now, I don't know much about it myself, but Jarvis might have some suggestions for conditions, I'd think."
-*-
In the end it was decided that JARVIS and Clint would each play with an identical family consisting of eight Avengers, and they would have until the first of the young adult sims reached their elder stage of life to try and make the most of their lives.
Bonus points would be awarded for satisfaction points, fulfilling life goals, building relationships with each other, and how far into their sims' chosen career track they'd managed to get. They would begin the game with what was, perhaps, a bit more funds than a regular family that size, but there was to be absolutely no cheating or codes to be used after they'd moved in.
After Clint had spent an unnecessary amount of time on finishing his avatars of Steve, Natasha and himself, Natasha commanded JARVIS to make the rest of them, which predictably went a lot faster — especially as JARVIS didn't feel the need to go through every single personality trait twice before choosing those he wanted. Or to spend an eternity to pick the exact right swimming suit for the model Hawkeye to wear.
She did raise an eyebrow at some of the choices JARVIS had made — somehow it was less surprising to learn that Barnes had been classified as a Geek than to learn that Sam was apparently a Perfectionist — but she supposed he knew them all better than most.
(She chose not to think about the fact that JARVIS had made Tony's greatest wish to have a big happy family. Neither did she comment on Barnes' supposed want of a soulmate. She did wonder how JARVIS had calculated that one, though, and what he might have chosen for her if he'd had the opportunity. She didn't ask.)
-*-
Soon enough the two families, plus a third control group that was to be left alone at the mercy of the game's own rudimentary AI, was happily moved into their respective new homes. Seeing as Clint's schedule was not optimal for long periods of gaming, JARVIS told them he wouldn’t run his own game unless Clint was playing as to keep the suspense up and not finish too soon.
Originally Clint had camped out in the common room, but after Sam had been too nosy and subsequently very offended to learn that Clint apparently had gotten his avatar a job as an assistant dishwasher with no intention to ever get him promoted ("Bird themed copycat, Tasha, assistant dishwasher is all he deserves"), he had decided to move to... Natasha wasn't sure. She'd bet on the vents over his actual private quarters any time, though.
-*-
Feeling bored one day, she decided to check up on Clint's progress, which was why she found herself shuffling her way through the tower's generous ventilation system, on the hunt and increasingly annoyed at every empty blanket nest she came across. As she took a break in the latest bust, grumbling as she ate her way through one of Clint's snack stashes (no less than he deserved, making her climb through vents all day), she heard the sound of swearing carried through the passage to her left. Gotcha.
Squeezing through the last passage Natasha once again wondered how Clint managed to travel the vents so quietly; she was a Red Room trained super spy, able to sneak up even on Captain America and his enchanted hearing (though to be honest, she hadn't tried to do the same on the tower's other resident super-soldier; the risk of Barnes reacting to her as a threat should she try had so far outweighed her curiosity), but she was still unable to crawl through the metallic vents as silently as she'd like. Clint refused to share his secrets, and she'd yet to find enough on him to blackmail him into it. Ugh. That man was way too shameless.
Wriggling up a bend in the vents, she saw Clint with his back to her, cursing profusely at his laptop. Apparently, he had some huge beef with Barnes.
"So, what has the good sergeant done now?"
Clint managed not to scream this time, but the computer creaked alarmingly in his grip. "Jesus, Tasha, you've got to stop doing that!"
Natasha smirked, and settled down in the blankets beside him. "Will you tell me your air vent climbing secrets?"
"Uh, no."
"Then no."
Clint grumbled, but refocused on his game again— and promptly resumed his one sided argument with the tiny avatars.
"Goddamnit, Barnes, get back on the treadmill! You need to skill up before work and I already told you to stop flirting with Tony."
Natasha couldn't help herself; she let out a snicker. "Seriously? Tony and Bucky? How did you manage that?" She leaned closer to get a better look at the screen, "And why is Bruce dead?"
"Not my fault," Clint said indignantly. "None of it is my fault! Thor was the one who was too late with the extinguisher because he was too wrapped up in stargazing—"
"Well, he is an alien—"
"—and I swear every time I look away from him Bucky has found a way to weasel his way out of a task and over to Tony. I'm seriously considering building one of them a separate outhouse right now. They've ruined everything!"
The game had kept going through his triade, and Natasha looked on as Steve began an argument with Tony — which devolved into a fistfight by the time Clint was done. She tapped a finger at the cloud of action, "And this?"
Clint hid his face in his hand and let out an muffled groan. "Goddamnit, guys, I thought you were over this. I spent five hours only yesterday to get you back up to green."
Natasha raised a questioning eyebrow at that. "Five hours?"
Sighing, Clint let his arms fall down again. "Sims hours. But it was still five hours, without speeding up! They are all out to get me, I swear.
"See, I had Steve and Bucky worked up to becoming BFF's, right? And then I thought, why not save some time and have them go the romantic route as well. Thought I could score some extra points against Jarvis for the romance."
She interrupted him with a punch to the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"For presuming a romantic relationship was more valuable than a strong friendship. Though I'd like to see the faces of Steve and Bucky if you told them you'd made them date. Please, continue."
"... Anyways, that's when Bucky fucking Barnes screwed it all up by going after Tony instead. Like, seriously? His boyfriend is right in front of him, and yet as soon as Tony enters the room Barnes can't seem to leave him alone. So of course Steve noticed, and now he hates Tony, and is angry at Bucky as well."
"... Poor you. You've never liked unnecessary drama much, and now you're playing a game of nothing but," Natasha said, patting his arm comfortingly. Her years of spy training kept her from laughing at his distress over their teammates' fictional lives.
"Now, tell me. Have you gotten me my dream job yet, or will me being nosy demote me to assistant dishwasher as well?"
-*-
Clint was so done with this game. Shooting stuff? Easy. Crushing Sam in Mario Kart? He'd done it blindfolded, by virtue of having memorized the track. Candy Crush? Candies crushed. Name any of the fighting games in Tony's collection, Clint was the champion.
But this stupid game and it's stupid rules and keeping people not only alive, but moderately happy? Disastrous.
It had been one crisis after the other and Clint would scream out loud if he didn't want to avoid giving JARVIS the satisfaction of hearing him struggle. Though the AI was probably doing just as badly himself. Right?
Right. ‘Keep telling yourself that, Barton, maybe it'll come true one day.’
He sat back more comfortably in the couch (having being kicked out of the vents by Tony, who'd had several complaints from nervous employees about a suspected haunting by a very rude ghost), rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles before returning attention to the screen. ‘Just one more day to the weekend, you can do it people!’
He had plans for their weekend. Big plans, plans for which he had devised backup plans, and then an emergency plan to the back up plan just in case everything went wrong. He'd plotted out schedules for interaction, he'd hired a housekeeper, he'd saved up money and he was going to fulfill every. Single. Wish. 'Take that, Genie! You've got nothing on the great Hawkeye.'
-*-
Bucky was just standing around in the kitchen, minding his own business, when he was suddenly brutally assaulted by one of his teammates. Or, he would've been, if he hadn't seen Clint coming and sidestepped at exactly the right moment to avoid the charge, letting Clint barrel straight into the counter instead. He sipped slowly at his coffee while Clint climbed to his feet and turned towards him, before lifting an eyebrow in question.
"This—" Clint poked at his chest accusingly, "—is all your fault."
Bucky raised his other eyebrow.
"Gah!" Clint marched away, before stopping and turning, beginning a pace across the kitchen floor. "You are the one sabotaging everything! You and your stupid crush on Tony! This is why we can't have nice things!"
Bucky was barely able to hold on to his cup in shock, mouth gaping as he felt a blush rise up faster than he could fight it. How the hell did Clint know about his crush on Tony? No one knew about his crush on Tony, not even Steve! Not even Natasha, and she had made it her business to know everything about everyone in the tower.
Clint didn't seem to have noticed his reaction, though, as he kept up his angry stomping back and forth the fortunately spacious kitchen.
"And why did Tony have to like you back? Now your relationship with Steve is worse than ever, and the two of them won't stop fighting, and you haven't gotten a promotion in forever because you keep skipping out on the gym to hug Tony when he's supposed to be programming! He got all flirty! I needed him focused."
Bucky had officially no idea what was going on anymore. He never skipped on the gym! And what was that about promotions — he didn't even have a job. Though the thing about hugging Tony... Well, he could lie and say he had never thought of it, but he hadn’t thought anyone had been on to those particular daydreams of his. All in all, Clint's rant left Bucky feeling like he wanted to pluck down the big question mark that was surely floating above his head by now and smack Clint with it a couple of times until he either shut up or started making sense.
He opened his mouth to tell Clint just that, but instead what tumbled out was "Tony likes me back?"
Clint froze and turned to him, the crazed look in his eyes so intense that Bucky, for all his seventy years of being a stone cold badass assassin, almost began to fidget. Clint kept staring for an entire minute until he suddenly threw his hand in the air.
"Figures! Jarvis, you cheat," he exclaimed, resuming his pace and ignoring Bucky completely.
"I assure you, I haven't in any way strayed from the pre-agreed upon rules of our contest."
Clint pointed accusingly at the nearest camera. "You knew this would happen, didn't you. You were the one that made their models, you— you did this, somehow!"
If an AI could sound miffed, that would be what Bucky would describe JARVIS' answer as. "That is absurd. I have no need to resort to modifying the behaviour of your teammates to win this game.” Sassy as always, he added, “It simply appears I happen to know them better than you do."
Clint had no answers to that but a sullen grumble, and took up his stomping once more. Bucky moved to slowly back out of the kitchen before he got caught up in another bewildering argument that would make him feel even more lost than he already was.
-*-
"So," Natasha declared solemnly, "It is finally time to reveal the results of this great battle of the Sims."
Clint groaned from where he was lying face down on the couch, the pillows muffling the sound of his misery. Ignoring him, she gestured at JARVIS. "The scores if you please, Jarvis."
A screen popped up in front of them, showing a comparison of three columns of information representing the three different households. The lists were sorted into different categories, and every criteria had a score attached, the numbers summarized by the end of each section. JARVIS had also helpfully included a number of screenshots depicting the state of the households and the various relationships.
"Hmm, that's interesting."
Clint poked his head up from where he’d been trying to suffocate himself with a throw pillow. "What's interesting?"
"You actually scored some points in one area."
Ducking out of the way of said throw pillow, she did her best not to laugh. She hadn't even gotten to the best part, yet. "Well, I can only guess you were to busy with all the drama to notice, but while you were wrangling the super soldier-Tony love triangle, one of the others managed to get enough done on his own to build himself quite the career."
Clint perked up, "Who?"
Natasha grinned wickedly. "Sam."
"Noooooooooooooo!"
As Clint descended into a enraged rant about the various shortcomings of their new team member, from his choice of name to the design of his suit, Natasha decided to look closer on some of the numbers.
JARVIS had won their little challenge, no question about it. His household was happy, their finances stable, and everyone had at least three friends outside of the family, which, while not adding to the score per say, was a rather nice touch in her opinion. Tony's avatar had even managed to get to the top of not only one, but two separate career tracks and had a profitable side business programming games.
Yet, the person bringing in the most cash on a daily basis was, according to the statistics, none other than Bucky. And he didn't even have a job. All his revenue came from his meticulously maintained garden, filled with various flowers, fruits and vegetables.
Well, he did have a job description, but he definitely didn't earn anything being a stay-at-home dad.
It seemed Bruce, Thor and Clint had been unceremoniously kicked out of the house after JARVIS had deemed them self sustainable, to make room for Tony and Bucky's two children and what looked like—
"Jarvis, why is Bucky carrying Tony's baby?"
A spluttered round of hacking coughs could be heard from the kitchen doorway before Tony emerged, red faced from the coughing and a now empty coffee mug dangling from slack fingers.
"Who's carrying what baby, now?" he asked in a strangled voice.
"I was wondering about that too. Jarvis, care to explain?"
"I merely aimed to fulfill as many of my charges’ wishes as possible, Ms. Romanoff."
"Yeah right, Jarv!” Clint piped up from the couch. “That's something you'd have to plan for when making the characters, it has nothing to do with what they wish for in-game!"
"I never claimed it was an in-game wish I was fulfilling."
"What." Tony's exclamation was matched by the newly arrived Bucky, who looked like he wanted nothing more than to walk right back into the elevator again. And then possibly have JARVIS drop the entire compartment all seventy floors to the bottom with him inside.
Tony cleared his throat, and asked in a weak voice, "What are you talking about, J?"
"No, wait—!" Bucky yelled at the same time as JARVIS dutifully replied, "Sergeant Barnes has previously expressed a desire for carrying Sir's offspring. I believe it was forty-five days ago that he stated, and I quote, "I want to have his babies so bad" after having observed one of your training sessions in the suit, Sir."
"You heard that?" Bucky squeaked, face flushing bright red as he did his best to hide it in his hands — flesh and metal both.
Tony only stood there, flabbergasted, mouth opening and closing repeatedly but no words escaping. Over on the couch, Clint grumbled something about JARVIS being a dirty liar and a cheat, but Natasha only had eyes for the two unmoving men that was, apparently, woefully in need of a push.
She cleared her throat pointedly to get their attention. Tony's mouth snapped closed as he looked at her with wide eyes, and while Bucky still didn't lower his hands he had at least tilted his head her way to show he was listening.
She pointed at one of the screenshots, and JARVIS helpfully enlarged it for her. It was the one of the control group, the one that had been allowed to do as they pleased. While not near as successful as JARVIS' run, neither had it dissolved into a disaster like Clint's.
"This is our group of Avengers if left alone to do as we want for as long as we want. Notice there's one relationship that so far has evolved much further than, well, any of the others."
She pointed at the near-full green and pink bars between the little Tony and Bucky-sims.
"It is indeed quite unusual for the avatars to increase relations on their own to such a degree,” JARVIS chimed in, “I have never seen anything quite like it."
Tony looked like he wanted to comment, but Natasha held up a finger to silence his possible protests. "I'm not done. JARVIS, the others please?"
JARVIS wooshed away the image and replaced it with one each from his and Clint's households. "Now these," Natasha said, "are representations of what would happen if your relationship was encouraged," she gestured at JARVIS's version, "or discouraged." Clint's.
Bucky peeked out from his fingers at JARVIS' simulation of their lives, looking just the tiniest bit entranced by the Bucky-sim and Tony-sim's big happy family. Beside him, Tony was looking at Clint's disaster run, seemingly fascinated by the wreckage.
"We killed Bruce by not dating?"
"That was Thor's fault!" Clint groaned, slumping in his seat. "Goddamn fire extinguishers.”
"That's what I've got DUM-E for." Tony said absentmindedly, already moved on and enraptured by the sight of Bucky-sim playing with one of the kids and paying no further attention to Clint's outburst. He turned to Bucky and waited for the other man to lower his hands.
"You... You really want to have my babies?" Tony asked carefully.
Bucky’s blush came back in full force as bit his lip and looked away, then sighed, then looked back at Tony, and answered in a soft voice that Natasha hadn’t even been aware he was capable of.
"Tony, I want to have all your babies."
The smile that broke out on Tony's face at that was blinding enough to thaw even Natasha's cold heart a little. He beamed at Bucky and eagerly took his hands in his own.
"You really like me back?" He asked, sounding a bit breathless.
"I do,” Bucky told him, equally wondrous, “You really like me too?"
This time Tony didn't answer in words, and instead opted for placing a soft kiss on Bucky's lips. Bucky let out a quiet gasp, and before Natasha knew it the kiss had turned from "aww, how sweet" to "eew, get a room" — but since she doubted either of them would listen to a word she said, wrapped up in each other as they were, she left them to it, dragging a still complaining Clint behind her.
JARVIS might have played the best game, she thought, but it seemed the true winners of this little contest were the two not even competing.
-*-
Two weeks later Natasha was reading a book in the living room, listening absently to the sound of Tony and Bucky bickering affectionately in the kitchen over the best way to make pancakes, when a thought occurred to her.
"Hey, Jarvis?"
"Yes, Ms. Romanoff?"
"When we went over those results last week, you seemed to have a lot of material concerning the two lovebirds over there."
JARVIS, ever so human-like, added a pause before answering. "I did. It seemed only pertinent considering their relationship, or lack thereof, played such a prominent part in the results."
"Mhm. And they both just happened to wander by the living room while we discussed it all?"
A longer pause, this time.
"I have no idea what you might be talking about, Ms. Romanoff," JARVIS finally responded. "Are you perhaps insinuating I had a hand in ensuring Sir and Sergeant Barnes were present in the room when you and Mr. Barton discussed a fictional version of the potential relationship between them — an incident which lead to the two confessing their feelings for each other and lead them to pursue just such a relationship, one that has brought them both great happiness in the time since? If you are, I regret to inform you such a thing is simply not possible," JARVIS declared, sounding just a bit too smug, "I have no hands."
Huffing out a laugh, Natasha gave the nearest camera a nod in concession. "Not at all Jarvis, I would never."
It was no wonder Clint had lost so badly; JARVIS had way too much practice herding heroes around, providing them with everything they needed even when they didn't know it themselves.
It was true after all, what he'd said. Both Bucky and Tony seemed happier and more relaxed ever since that day. They brought something out in each other, a sense of easiness that they rarely showed when on their own. Like having someone they could trust with themselves let them feel secure enough to let others see a glimpse behind their walls, too.
Ugh, she was turning sappy again. Natasha glared at the book in her grip. Stupid teen romance making her heart all soft and mushy. Oh well. It was kind of nice feeling soft sometimes. JARVIS knew his literature, when it came to giving recommendations.
As the sounds from the kitchen turned to something that was decidedly not pancake-making, she picked up her book and strolled towards the elevator. It wasn't too bad, she supposed, to have someone like JARVIS watching out for them like that.
At the very least he had managed to keep Bruce alive.