Lana sighed heavily, rubbing her forehead with a tense hand before shaking her head and returning her attention to the computer. She was sat on the bed, having returned from Williams not long before so she could get ready for the party with Natasha as agreed, only to be entirely distracted when she got an email saying that the shipping company they'd made an agreement with was backing out. Apparently, they hadn't realised how big of a task they'd agreed to and wanted more money, however, Lana couldn't help but suspect they'd purposely dragged out the time so she'd be more desperate and would have to agree to whatever price they offered.

Bucky entered the room, looking at the distracted girl on the bed and rolled his eyes. He was going to toss the bag of candy to her before noticing just how distracted she was.

"Hey. Got you some candy," he told, making her look up. Her hair was gathered behind her head and she was wearing her regular jeans and a sweater, clearly not prepared for the party.

"Oh, sweet!" she replied, catching the bag he tossed her way; "Get it? Because it's sweets?"

"I got it," Bucky replied, a tired smile on his lips as he grabbed his book and plummed his body on the couch.

"Because they're sweets and I said sweet," Lana continued, pulling open the plastic bag and eyeing the content curiously.

"Yes. Funny," Bucky complimented, opening the book in his lap.

"You suck," Lana stated, chewing on a gummy; "Why'd you get me sweets, anyway?"

"Because you haven't eaten since this morning," he replied dryly, turning an unread page in his book.

"You don't know that. Catch," she commanded, tossing Bucky a liquorice that he caught in the air, not removing his eyes from the book.

"Well, have you?" he challenged, tossing the liquorice into his mouth.

"You could've brought me actual food," Lana pointed out instead, not willing to admit how well Bucky actually knew her.

"But that you wouldn't have eaten," Bucky told; "I know how to trick you into eating. I'm not stupid."

"Debateable. Catch," she ordered, tossing a worm his way.

"Oh, shoot. We're out of green turtles," Lana realised, letting the bag fall back on the bed with a pout.

"You're saying the ocean's filled with purple turtles?" Bucky asked, looking up from his book.

"And you say I'm not funny," Lana muttered, typing on her computer.

"Just take one of the worms," he suggested with a shrug, turning his attention back to the words.

"Mh. I like the turtles better," Lana hummed in reply, her attention slowly returning to the work she had before her.

"But they're the same," Bucky pointed out, looking back up.

"No, they're not, turtles are turtles, worms are worms. Not the same," Lana informed with a shrug.

"They're both green," Bucky told her.

"So is grass and the Saudi Arabian flag. Doesn't mean they're the same," Lana pointed out, clicking send on her email.

"It's literally the same content poured into different moulds," Bucky argued, gesturing two moulds with his hands.

"Yeah, but the moulds are different and the shapes are different," Lana told, shutting down her computer.

"You can't taste shape," Bucky told her annoyed.

"No, and you can't taste colour either, but the green ones are still the best," she pointed out, putting the cap on her pen.

"That's because they're another taste," Bucky told, closing his book with a finger separating the page he'd reached.

"And these are another shape," Lana pointed out, getting off the bed.

"But the taste is the same," Bucky repeated, raising his voice to get his point across.

"It's about more than just taste, eating is an experience, you uncultured git," Lana shot back, crossing her arms above her chest and looking defiantly at Bucky.

"How does the shape change the experience?!" he yelled, getting up from the couch and tossing the book on it, suddenly not caring about which page he'd been on.

"Presentation is everything, James!" she yelled back. Bucky took a deep breath and blinked his eyes slowly before replying.

"You, doll, are the most unreasonable person I have ever met! How can you actually say they're different and mean it?!" he hissed, the calmness he'd tried to conjure not lasting as long as he'd planned for it to.

"What, just because I care what I eat and won't just eat some stupid worm?" Lana asked with a huff.

"You're eating candy! For lunch!" Bucky reminded her in a yell.

"Because you made me!" Lana yelled back.

"I didn't make you! I dangled a bag of candy in front of you and you basically swallowed it!"

"Because I was hungry! Which is why I wanted a green turtle!" Lana tried explaining, Bucky just clenching his fists.

"You are being an unreasonable idiot," he decided, turning his back to her and rushing out.

"And you are being a cretinous git!" She yelled after him before slamming the door.

"I'm glad you decided to dress up anyway, it gives us a chance to get to know each other a little," Natasha told, effortlessly zipping her black and white dress behind her back.

"And that's a chance I'm pleased to have," Lana told, smiling kindly at the assassin while holding up two dresses for Natasha to see, one black and one red.

"Mh. Both could work, it really depends on what you're going for," Natasha told with a slight grimace, looking over both dresses thoughtfully.

"I'm going for a little sexy but not inappropriately so. I wanna look good, but it is my dad's party after all," Lana pinpointed, looking at the two dresses herself.

"Black. It's hot, but it's more downlow hot, doesn't draw attention like the red one," Natasha decided, making Lana toss the hanger with the red dress attached to it on Natahas bed, taking the other one off its hanger.

"Downlow hot sounds like what I'm going for," she agreed as she turned her back to Natasha and took off her robe, pulling the black fabric over her body before turning back around, straightening the skirt of it, only to notice Natasha eyeing her curiously.

"What? Should I go with the other one?" Lana asked, looking at her dress worriedly.

"No, you look good, I just... Still can't quite wrap my head around you being Tony's daughter," Natasha admitted.

"That makes two of us. Three," Lana corrected herself with a humourless smile; "You knew he had a daughter though, didn't you?"

"'Course I did. Tony's not exactly subtle," she added with a quick lift of her eyebrows before turning to her mirror and grabbing a palette with red nuances for her eyeshadow.

"He told you about me?" Lana asked, trying to sound uninterested as she ran the brush through her hair. Natasha glanced at her through the mirror before turning her attention to the brush sweeping over her eyelids.

"I saw some magazines, headlines every so often," she said instead of replying, closing the eyeshadow and grabbing the liquid eyeliner.

"Ah," Lana realised, tossing the hairbrush on the bed.

"The biggest surprise wasn't exactly him having a daughter," Natasha told, turning around while putting the cap back on eyeliner, the black wings applied flawlessly and perfectly surrounding her eyes as desired; "More having you as his daughter."

"What do you mean?" Lana asked, replacing Natasha by the mirror and grabbing the eyeshadow she was planning to wear; a reddish colour that wouldn't have stood out too much had it not been for the slight shimmer of gold in it.

"Well, I'm not exactly surprised Tony managed to create a kid, the process of doing so does have a lot of his attention," Natasha explained.

"Ew, gross," Lana commented, scrunching up her nose in disgust.

"But I'm more surprised it's someone so reasonable," Natasha continued unaffected, ruffling her hair slightly to make sure the curls she'd created was as she pleased.

"Can you tell Bucky that you called me reasonable?" Lana asked, closing the eyeshadow and stepping to the side so Natasha could join her in front of the mirror.

"Earlier today he yelled at me for eating sweets," she told, opening the black eyeliner and bringing it to her right eye.

"He yelled at you for eating candy?" Natasha asked in disbelief, grabbing a bold lipstick before standing next to Lana, uncapping it and twisting it up.

"Yeah! Sweets he got me no less!" Lana insisted, grabbing the mascara.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to back up and give me a little more backstory here," Natasha told, running her pinky next to her lip to remove the slight smudge of lipstick that had been misplaced. Lana sighed heavily, grabbing her lipstick; A darker red that went well with the eyeshadow she'd chosen.

"Well, I was working, my friend and I started this business and it's been kind of hectic," Lana began.

"Yeah, I noticed," Natasha agreed, sitting down on her bed, done with her own looks,

"What?" Lana asked, furrowing her eyebrows as she applied the lipstick.

"I was curious as to where you and Bucky were spending all your time," Natasha explained it with a shrug; "I think it's pretty cool."

"Oh. Thanks," Lana replied, smiling slightly; "Have you by any chance spoken to my dad about it?"

"Need help with your hair?" Natasha offered instead of replying, making Lana nod enthusiastically. Elegantly jumping up from the bed, Natasha went over to her and lightly pressed her down to sit on the chair, making the height easier for her to work with.

"No," she finally admitted, running her hands through Lana's hair; "I figured, since you hadn't told him yourself, you probably wouldn't want me to."

"How did you know that?" Lana asked, watching Natasha work through the mirror.

"Lana," Natasha replied, smiling slightly; "I'm a spy."

"That's weirdly easy to forget. You're so easy to be around and so regular until you suddenly reveal something you figured out without anyone even having any suspicions or what you can do," Lana told, looking at her hands in her lap.

"That's pretty much the point," Natasha reminded her.

"Right," Lana remembered; "How did you get into all that anyway?"

"It's a long story," Natasha told, finishing the complicated braid she had created in a gathering behind Lana's head.

"Alright. Maybe it's a bit of a heavy subject for light bonding, anyway. If you change your mind, feel like talking or something..." Lana mentioned, reminding herself not to bite her lip while wearing lipstick. Natasha's hands froze momentarily in the air before she grabbed a few hairpins.

"Thanks," she replied earnestly before clearing her throat; "Anyway, you and Bucky?"

"Right!" Lana remembered, happy to change the subject to something Natasha would enjoy more; "I've been working all day, and I hadn't had any lunch, so Bucky brought some food."

"That's sweet," Natasha interjected, pinning Lana's hair so it'd stay put.

"Yeah, it is. Anyway, he brought sweets, and then I said something about there not being any green turtles left, and he told me to eat another green one," Lana told, making Natasha frown.

"But that's not the same?" She claimed confused, reaching for the hairspray.

"Exactly! And it turned into this whole thing and he stormed off," Lana told with a slight scoff, letting Natasha spray her hair.

"You're done," she decided, laughing slightly as she stepped back. Lana turned her head to see the sides, impressed that the seemingly complicated hairdo had been finished in literal minutes.

"Thank you, I love it!" she told Natasha, who just smiled.

"Why did you laugh?" she asked instead.

"It's just kind of funny to see how angry you get each other," Natasha admitted with a smile, grabbing her shoes and sitting down on her bed.

"Bucky gets angry at everyone," Lana reminded her, grabbing her own shoes and sliding the first one on.

"Yes, but he doesn't really tend to forgive people after, that's the difference. You see how he is with your dad," Natasha added with a shrug, closing the claps on her heels.

"What happened between him and Tony anyway?" Lana asked, forgetting her shoes momentarily.

"I don't know the full story, something about them having a shared past or something," Natasha claimed with a careless shrug. Lana hummed in agreement, looking at her shoes again. When Natasha noticed that she and Bucky had been doing something and she didn't know what, she looked into it. This woman could not be satisfied without having every last answer, it was in every fibre of her being to be distrustful and to want the full truth, just as it was in every bone of hers to not give up the information without reason, and just like she hadn't told Tony about Lana's business, she knew this was probably her not telling Lana about Tony's business. For a second, Lana felt almost saddened by it, saddened that Natasha didn't care enough to get involved and tell her what she knew, but then she instantly felt even sadder when she realised the truth; that Natasha knew everything because she had to know everything, for the safety of herself and her friends, not because she wanted to. Not because she wanted to gossip, or because she was curious, but because it was a necessity, it was her job, and right now, Lana realised... She probably didn't want to work, she probably wanted to relax and hang out with one of the girls who could even slightly relate to her situation.

"But as I said, Bucky gets angry at everybody, and so far I haven't really seen him forgive anyone," Natasha continued with a shrug, Lana shaking the train of thoughts that had hit her away and instead continuing the casual conversation.

"He'd forgive Steve," she pointed out, slipping on the shoes.

"Yes, and you know how important Steve is to him. What does that say about how he sees you?" Natasha challenged, standing up.

"Maybe. I don't know," Lana claimed with a shrug, sitting back up as she finished putting on her black heels.

"Yes, you do," Natasha told her honestly; "Anyway, we should get down to the party!"