This is a Romanogers A/U. In this fanfic, the events of Winter Soldier haven't taken place.
Chapter 1
The Avengers plus Pepper were eating dinner in Stark Tower together.
"Wow guys, I'm impressed," Natasha said to Tony and Clint. "You managed to cook dinner without burning us all to a crisp."
"It may or may not be ready-made lasagne," said Clint in an audible whisper to Tony. They sniggered like kids trying not to be caught by their teacher, at least until Tony started choking on a piece of said lasagne.
"So, who's cooking tomorrow?" asked Pepper, thumping Tony's back to dislodge the food from his throat. "What about you, Thor?"
"No way," said Clint. "Those bilgesnipe fillets were repeating on me for a week."
"I'll do it," Steve volunteered.
"Well, how about you, Natasha?" said Pepper. "You haven't cooked in a while."
"Sure," Natasha replied. Pepper was constantly trying to set her up with Steve, which would be annoying if she didn't want to go out with him, which she did. And, although Natasha didn't know it, Steve felt the same way towards her. But she thought that she was being stupid. She thought that he still had feelings for Sharon, his ex. But the truth was that, when he was going out with Sharon, Steve hadn't felt anything special, nothing like when Natasha was around. Therefore no lingering feelings for Sharon. But Natasha didn't know this, so she kept a lid on her emotions. Now they were paired together for cooking dinner for the first time since he and Sharon had broken up. This was going to be difficult, she thought. She had to distance herself from him.
Next evening, Steve was peeling potatoes and she was chopping carrots. Steve's attempts at conversation were brushed off. Natasha bit the inside of her cheeks to prevent herself from smiling at the jokes he told. She kept her eyes cold, her expression stony. Steve was confused, hurt.
When dinner was served, she sat as far as possible from Steve. She ate silently, and excused herself. She left the tower and drove off. She didn't have a destination, she was just trying to avoid Steve. Eventually she had to return, and he was waiting in the hall outside her floor.
"Natasha," he began.
"Fuck off," she snapped, pushing past him, slamming the door in his face.
Steve sat on the couch in Tony and Pepper's living room, between Bruce and Thor.
"Hey, uh, guys," he said. "What's up with Natasha?"
"Why?" asked Bruce. "What happened?"
"Well, all day she's been ignoring me, and just now I tried to talk to her and she told me to fuck off."
Everyone turned to face Clint and Pepper, who were each very close to Natasha.
"I dunno," said Clint. "She didn't say anything to me about it."
Pepper shrugged her shoulders.
"I can't think of anything I might've said or done to make her act like this," said Steve, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Pepper, would you talk to her?"
"Sure thing," said Pepper, rising from her seat. She headed off to Natasha's floor.
Sorry if the chapters are short, it's just that I typed this out on my phone first, then on the computer and it looked like a lot more on my phone.
