This was inspired by a tumblr post (you can find the link on my profile) about Natasha and her apparent affinity for hiding guns. It just screamed for me to write it, so here it is!

Thanks to QuirkyRevelations for being my beta.

I put the scenes in chronological order according to the movie timeline.

Avengers

It had been a week since the Battle of New York, and Tony still couldn't find his cell phone. Pepper kept telling him he was a multi-billionaire and could easily afford enough iPhones for every day of the year, but he'd just bought the thing and it was the principle of the matter, okay? He really wished he hadn't turned his phone off before the whole Loki debacle. Honestly, what had he been thinking? Berating himself for the hundredth time that week, Tony finally went downstairs and brought out a metal detector. Pepper laughed at him, but he was running out of ideas and if this thing didn't find his phone, then nothing would.

The trouble, of course, was that everything in the whole freaking tower was made out of metal. Who designed this crappy - oh yeah. Tony cast aside the metal detector and resorted to crawling around the floor to scour any holes, gaps, or corners he may have missed. Circling around the bar, he stopped in front of a potted fern he had never realized he had before. Probably because when he was in this area he was too drunk to notice much of anything, let a lone a half-foot plant poking out of a dingy gray clay pot. Tony reached his hand inside, and when he felt a cool piece of metal against his fingertips, he gasped. However, when his hand curled around the object and brought it out, he saw that he had a gun in his hand. Tony dropped the gun, and it clattered on the ground as he hurriedly crab-walked away from it.

"Pepper!" he called.

He could hear the clicking of her heels as she marched up the stairs and stood just behind him with a small, annoying smirk.

"You called?" she asked.

Tony looked up at her with narrowed eyes and pointed to the gun.

"Anything you wanna tell me, Peps?" he questioned.

Pepper raised her eyebrows and squatted down to pick up the gun. She traced her polished finger along the outline of the weapon and turned it around several times as her blue eyes scanned it. Finally, she stopped when she looked at the bottom of the handle.

"I know whose this is," she said with a smile.

"Whose?" asked Tony as he stood up.

Pepper held out the gun for Tony to see the initials carved into it. N.R.

"Romanoff," grumbled Tony.

"I'll call her and tell her we found it," Pepper said. "Can I borrow your phone?"

Tony rolled his eyes and walked behind the bar to get himself a drink.

"Oh, you're hilarious, Pep."

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

When Sam came home, he thought his house looked oddly normal after the previous few days of seeing helicarrier explosions, electronic face masks, and a man stand beside his own grave. He didn't think even the war had been this crazy. After shrugging off his jacket and kicking off his shoes, Sam padded to the bathroom, relishing the coolness of bathroom tile on his bare feet. When he was washing his hands, he noticed that someone had put a dirty towel into his laundry hamper. It had to have been either Steve or Natasha when they had come to his house seeking refuge. He wondered if he could sell it to a fan on eBay who would just die for a towel touched by the famous Captain America. Chuckling, he pulled the towel out, when he noticed something black and shiny partially hidden underneath the other clothes in the hamper. When Sam pulled it out, he saw it was a handgun.

As he marveled at it, Sam's cell phone rang, and soon he heard Natasha's low, dry voice tell him: "Hey, I just remembered I might have accidentally left you a little present in your hamper."

Noting her amazingly good timing, Sam smiled and held up the gun. "Well, Merry Christmas to me."

Steve had known for a long time that Natasha used his apartment whenever he wasn't around. He believed she meant for him to know, since there were so many things that alerted him to it. Dirty dishes stained with food he didn't remember eating. An empty orange juice container in the fridge. Cherry blossom perfume sprayed all over his workout gear. Missing items. Every time he bought a new book and read halfway through, it would go missing only to return a few days later with a smiley face on the front page. Currently, it was The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury, and he was ticked because he had borrowed that from the library and he would now have to pay a late fee.

Today when he came in after a workout at the gym, he discovered Natasha sitting at the head of the small dining table beside his kitchen. Her feet were propped up on the edge of the table as she leaned back so far in her chair it would have been considered precarious - for anyone else, at least. Seeing the wrinkle between his eyebrows, Natasha put down her feet and gestured to the plastic bag in front of her.

"Thai food," she said. "It's on the list, isn't it?" (1)

"Is this a peace offering for stealing my book?" Steve quipped as he set down his duffle bag.

Natasha plunked the book next to the Thai food and grinned, causing Steve to shake his head. Steve opened the box in the plastic bag and revealed a mixture of orange noodles, shrimp, bean sprouts, and green onion with lime wedges and egg rolls on the side. He got a plate and began scooping out the food, while Natasha turned his TV and tuned into a show she called Doctor Who. From what he understood, that show had a lot to catch up on, so he sat on the end of his couch to watch. Natasha stretched out from the other end until her feet rested on his lap, which he ignored as he munched on his food.

"I saw you circled apartments in Brooklyn in the newspaper," she said.

Steve glanced at her, and then returned his attention to the television. "Yeah."

"So, is the place S.H.I.E.L.D. got you not good enough?" Natasha teased.

"I wanted to start fresh," said Steve. "Besides, it's been a little awkward walking by the nurse/neighbor turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent turned CIA agent."

"I told you to ask her out," Natasha admonished, as if that would have solved anything.

Steve decided against telling her that Sharon had already turned down a cup of coffee when he knew her as Kate, although perhaps that was the reason she said no.

"I appreciate the food and the matchmaking," said Steve, "but I need to know… Why are you really here?"

"Why would you assume I have an ulterior motive?"

Steve snapped his head to stare at her with a cocked eyebrow and a threat of a smile. Natasha rolled her bright green eyes while she grabbed an egg roll from his plate.

"All right, you got me," she said. "Hydra's on the move and the whole team needs to finish the work that we started."

"Avengers?"

"Assemble."

Steve scoffed and sat up straighter. He stopped when he realized his phone wasn't in his pocket, and he dug his hand between the couch cushions in search of it. Steve pulled out the first thing his fingers touched, which turned out to be none other than a small silver gun. He glared at Natasha.

"Really?" he said. "This thing could've shot my butt off."

"Oh relax, this one's not loaded," dismissed Natasha.

"This one? How many of them are there?"

"Enough to assure absolute preparation."

"I'm moving, Natasha, I can't leave weapons here for someone else to find."

"I'll get rid of them before you move."

Steve groaned and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"Geez, you really need to get some action, don't you?"

"Natasha!"

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Ultron. Boom! He's alive. Crash! And he's going to kill us all. Thud! Suddenly Bruce found himself behind Tony's bar and lying on top of Natasha as glass scattered around them like heavy rain. Despite the noise and the chaos, all he could notice was how warm she felt against him as he gripped tightly onto her. He apologized under his breath, and she pleaded for him not to turn green. Yeah, it would be a really bad time for The Other Guy to make a special guest appearance. Breathe in. He really should get off of her, shouldn't he? Breathe out. Bruce rolled away from Natasha, and he saw a flash of her red hair as she sat up and looked over the top of the bar. At the same time, Natasha grabbed a gun that was stuck to the bottom of the counter, suddenly making Bruce feel a thousand times more nervous. His mind flashed an image of her and him in Calcutta when he had purposely tried to scare her and a second later she held a gun, just like the one she had now, to his face. Does she hide one of those things everywhere she goes? Breathe, Bruce, breathe.

Is it wrong that watching her rain down bullets made him like her even more?

Natasha shifted in her chair as her eyes tracked the trail of a shooting star among the thousands of other white pinpoints in the night sky. She felt the bundle of blankets in her arms shift and looked down at the sleeping baby, whose round tummy rose and fell in sync with her own breath. Natasha bent down and pressed her lips to the baby's forehead, leaving behind a faint pink mark. No response from the child other than a quiet snore. Natasha smiled. There was always something therapeutic about watching someone sleep, but especially a baby who had yet to experience the stress and pain of the world. Someone turned on the porch light, which diminished the amount of stars Natasha could see but brightened the painted white wood of the floor and finely trimmed grass in front of her. Hearing heavy footfalls, Natasha knew that Clint was coming to join her on the porch.

"He's finally asleep," she told him. "Do you want to take him?"

"There's one thing I want to talk about before I do," replied Clint as he sat down beside her.

"Shoot."

"That's exactly what I want to discuss."

Natasha looked at Clint.

"I found your gun in the VCR in our bedroom," he informed.

"Oh, that," said Natasha. "It's been busted for years, I figured you wouldn't need it."

"Not the point, Nat. Who knows if one of my kids could've found it?"

"I bet they don't even know what a VCR is or how to use it. Besides, haven't you taught them not to play with guns?"

"Of course I have! But Nathaniel's not going to know that when he starts crawling around."

"Good point. I'm sorry."

"No guns inside the house from now on."

Natasha stared. "Wait, are you telling me you have no guns hidden in your house? At all?"

Clint shifted. "One. In my underwear drawer."

Natasha smacked Clint on the shoulder, but not for the reason he thought.

"Really?" she exclaimed. "That's the most obvious place ever to put something. You could have at least tried to be clever."

"Hey, it's in a secret compartment okay? And like the VCR is all that clever."

Natasha stood up and carefully handed Clint the baby, holding his head like he was made of glass.

"That VCR was level one hiding," she said as she started walking back inside. "You have no idea how clever I can be."

A few weeks later, Clint decided to redo the very porch he and Natasha had the conversation about guns inside his house. As soon as he replaced the wood on the front steps, which was beginning to wear down a bit, he would start repainting the whole porch. The hot sunlight made him almost blind with the sweat pouring down his face as he worked to wrench off the wood on the bottom step. When he finally succeeded, he mopped his forehead with the end of his dusty white shirt, looked down, and growled. Inside the step was a gun, fully loaded and almost brand new. He punched Natasha's number more forcefully than necessary on his phone and tapped his finger on the wood he'd pulled free as he waited for her to pick up.

"Hello?" she said.

"I'm going to come to your apartment in the middle of the night, steal all your expensive vodka, and bind you to your bed with a single roll of dental floss!"

"So you found it already, huh?"

"I said no guns in the house!"

Clint could just hear Natasha smirk at him.

"Clint, it wasn't inside the house. It was outside the house."

"Yeah, in the front porch."

"You and I understand the meaning of 'inside the house' very differently."

"I'll say we do. I will have my revenge for this, Natalia Alianovna Romanoff."

Thor had a general weakness for food, be it Midgardian or Asgardian, but dessert could completely subdue him. Jane was once able to bribe him into staying with her for an entire month by making her delicious raspberry tarts every day for breakfast. The very thought of them made his stomach growl. However, since he was in the Avengers Tower and not Jane's place, Thor had to settle for sneaking out one of the chocolate chip cookies Tony kept in the kitchen. The cookies were in an inconspicuous silver jar on the highest shelf, which few besides him could reach without a ladder. He took out a cookie and found no small satisfaction in hearing the crunch of chewing the treat in an otherwise silent kitchen. The others were playing poker in the living room, which meant that Thor had better hurry before his turn came around. Well, one more cookie wouldn't hurt. He dug around the jar again, but then his thick fingers brushed against something that was definitely not a cookie.

Thor's hand emerged with a gun, an odd Midgardian contraption that managed to pack a lot of punch into little pieces of metal. He had to admit that Midgardians could be pretty ingenious with their weapons. Most times. Someone, it sounded like Pepper, called Thor's name, but he stared at the gun for a few more moments before coming back to the poker game with the weapon pointed in the air. Everyone looked at him quizzically, everyone except Natasha, who held a cocktail drink to her smirking crimson lips. Thor walked straight to her and offered her the weapon handle-first.

"I believe this is yours, Lady Natasha," Thor said, after which there was a loud uproar from Clint, Tony, and Steve that nearly sent him reeling.

"The Widow strikes again!" cried Tony.

"She's been doing this to you, too?" asked Steve.

"Nat has a hoarding problem!" accused Clint.

"Guys, shut up," said Natasha. "Thank you, Thor."

"Where was it, Thor?" demanded Tony.

"Cookie jar," answered Thor, looking sheepish.

Sam laughed. "Very clever, Natasha."

"Thank you," said Natasha.

"That's it!" exclaimed Tony, who stood up to point a finger at Natasha. "We're going to put an end to this once and for all."

"What do you mean?" asked Wanda as her eyes flashed.

Wanda had been left out of the poker game because of her alleged use of mind-reading, which Tony accused her of when she beat him the first round. She hadn't, but either way she was in need of something to do besides drink lightweight beer.

"I propose a scavenger hunt right here, right now," announced Tony. "Whoever finds the most guns gets, uh, a thousand dollars for each one."

"Oh, good, I could use the money for a new Harley," said Steve.

Natasha snorted. "Well, good luck, boys."

Pepper rolled her eyes and stood up. "We're out of alcohol. Anyone willing to go on a beer run with me?"

"You don't want the chance to take money from your boyfriend?" asked Sam.

"Trust me, I have other ways to extort money out of him," said Pepper. "I'll leave it to you."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind accompanying you," said Sam, rising from his chair. "Have fun, all."

As soon as Pepper and Sam left, Tony turned to the others.

"All right, who's in?" he asked.

Steve, Clint, Thor, and Rhodey raised their hands. Wanda was about to do the same, but then she put her hand back on her lap.

"I have a feeling I'll be accused of cheating again if I do it," she said, glaring at Tony. "Natasha, would you be willing to play poker while they go?"

"Gladly," answered Natasha.

While the men scattered, Natasha leaned forward and smiled at Wanda.

"For the record, I know you didn't read Tony's mind," whispered Natasha. "You're way too good for that."

Returning Natasha's smile, Wanda took a sip of her drink and began to deal.

Almost an hour later, the men re-assembled and tossed their piles onto the shiny black table next to where Natasha and Wanda were playing. Wanda eyed the guns, smiled, and stood up.

"I have to go to the ladies' room," she said. "Be right back."

"That took you guys long enough," said Natasha. "What's the count?"

"Got twelve," answered Rhodey.

Several of them snickered, and Rhodey glared.

"Nineteen," said Tony, crossing his arms and lifting his chin.

"Do not feel bad, sirrah," Thor told Rhodey. "I only have fourteen."

"Twenty-one," said Steve, raising an eyebrow at Tony.

A beat, and then everyone turned to Clint.

"Twenty-six, amateurs!" cried Clint.

Steve, Rhodey, Thor, and Tony groaned, but after their disappointment passed, they began shaking Clint's hand and patting him on the back. Their muttered congratulations ended, however, when they heard someone slow clapping. When they turned, they saw it was Natasha.

"Ninety-two total," said Natasha. "That's better than how I thought you'd do. You got almost half of them."

"Almost half?" said Steve.

"Man, she is good," said Rhodey.

Natasha stretched out leisurely across the couch, folding her hands behind her head and crossing her feet at the ankles.

"Oh, boys," she drawled. "So cocky, so naive..."

As she spoke, all eyes followed her right foot trailing up the length of her left calf, while she slowly let her hand drop down toward her black purse at the foot of the couch.

"For all your searching, you seem to have overlooked the most obvious places."

Their gaze only followed her foot for one moment, and when Natasha reached her other hand behind her back, Clint stepped forward shouting, "Watch out!" His cry came too late, for as soon as he spoke out, Natasha shot him in the chest with a bright blue projectile. At the same time, she fired at Steve with the same kind of projectile from the gun she had gotten from behind her back. Seeing Mjolnir heading rapidly toward her, Natasha ducked under its pathway and shot Thor in the stomach and Rhodey in the foot. While the two of them collapsed on the table, Tony jumped over him with an arc reactor in his hand and fired. Natasha flipped backward and over the couch, rolling along the ground while Tony called in the rest of his suit and continued to fire wherever he saw movement. By the time she stood back up and held out her weapon, all of his suit was on save for his mask. With no other choice, Natasha shot directly at Tony's forehand, and he valiantly tried to stand for a moment more, only to fall butt-first on his own pile of guns. Breathing heavily, Natasha hooked one gun onto her belt and held the other in front of her face to admire it.

"Thanks for the I.C.E.R.S., Agent May," she whispered to herself. (2)

In the next moment, Wanda came running with her eyes glowing red. She stopped in front of Clint and bent down to pick up his limp hand; veins of blue had crawled across his hand as well as his face. Natasha heard Pepper and Sam chatting as they walked up the steps towards where she stood, and she began strolling towards them. Before they reached the living room floor, she met them at the top of the steps and smiled sweetly at them.

"Before you freak out, you should now that they'll wake up in a little bit," she said.

"What did you do?" asked Sam, looking nervous.

Natasha grinned and brushed past them, with their eyes glaring at her small, slender form the whole time. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she turned around and returned their glare eye-to-eye.

"When they wake up, be sure to tell them: Never mess with the Black Widow."

(1) As seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve has a written list of things he needs to see/try/learn about. In the U.S. version, the list includes Thai food.

(2) Shout out to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Melinda May, who provided Natasha's now favorite weapon against the Avengers. It basically works as a knockout device, as you may have guessed.

It had been a while since I'd seen AoU, so my memory of Bruce's scene was originally a little foggy. Thankfully, my dad took me to see it again yesterday because he hadn't seen it yet, so I was able to make a few of the appropriate changes to the fic. I still might have gotten a few details wrong, but oh well. The scene came out pretty Brutasha-y, which was intended since it is canon, my personal shipping preferences aside. I'm sorry Bruce wasn't there for the scavenger hunt, but the Hulk did go off the radar at the end of AoU, so...

In case any of you are wondering, I didn't think Vision would fit in this kind of fic so that's why he's not there. He doesn't seem the type to care about earning money via a gun scavenger hunt.

Be sure to check out the poll on my profile about which Avenger you would date if you had the chance ;) Original Avengers are the only ones listed for simplicity's sake.