For the trope bingo square: rivals to lovers. Title and excerpt at beginning from B.J. Love's Evacuation Router. Not mine, no profit garnered. Mia's development is taken from articles on wee not even teenagers starting college. Common People is a song by Pulp. Thanks to A for beta help!
Down here, though
fear is a hurricane whirling everything you love
around you, around you, around you, and you
are made to list everything that you miss. This
you say. And this. And this, and this, and this too.
It's torture. This is a hurricaneing.
It's raining. It's some sort of awful torrential rain, straight out of a movie or tv show. That kind of symbolic rain that really means something or makes a love scene somehow more poignant. Tony rolls his eyes and tugs his hoodie further down on his face even though it's completely useless.
After way too much of Tony's time and what frankly feels like parts of his soul served up shredded and breaded, the Avengers are back as a group to help protect the whole damn useless world and everyone is legal and not an outlaw. So Tony is walking up to the damn compound to see how it's all going. He should have driven, he should have put on a suit. He's supposed to be smart. He's humming "you want to live like common people" as he reaches the main door.
"You're an idiot," Natasha says like she's saying the sky is blue as she opens the door before he enters his code.
He takes off his soaking wet hoodie and then sits down wetly on the nearest couch. "So how are things going?"
"You're not the boss of me," she says, lightly. "You're not the boss of anyone in this building."
"I just pay for everything," he says.
"Not anymore," she says. "Now your independent foundation pays for everything."
"I remember all the details, Natasha."
She drifts out of the room and comes back with dry clothes and a pair of sneakers. "These are yours anyway."
"Did you pack up all my things to leave on the doorstep and set on fire?" He stands up and starts stripping off his wet clothes.
Natasha just looks at him steadily. "Of course, we didn't. Tony Stark and Iron Man are still valued parts of the team."
"Really?" He smiles at that. She doesn't look away even though he's naked. He puts on the dry clothes. "That wasn't the impression that I got from our last round of negotiations."
Natasha sighs. She says, "Why are you here again?"
"Just wanted to check on the old haunt," Tony says. "Testing the waters, apparently, literally."
Sam Wilson and Pym's little pet Ant and more people come into the room and Natasha smiles and it's incredibly convivial for a group of people who hate him.
They probably don't all hate him, they just don't like him.
!
A week later, Natasha shows up out of nowhere in his house in Paris. He says, "That's just mean, it's mean for you to do to someone with a delicate heart to just show up."
"I wanted you to know," Natasha says, in her serious voice, "that I know about Pepper."
Tony glares at her. "Pepper Potts? My ex-girlfriend? I know about her, too."
"I know about the baby," Natasha says.
"Fuck off," he says, slamming his hand on the table and getting up. "How do you know? What leak do I have to plug now?"
"No leak," she says. "Calm down."
"If you know, there's a leak. If you know, then asking me to calm down is ridiculous." He paces. He checks his watch and then his messages to make sure there are no alarms from Pepper.
"Tony," Natasha says. "I know Pepper's pregnant. I know you're both hiding it and plan to keep hiding that you're having a child after you have a child and I think it's a good idea. I know because Nick Fury told me and he told me because he thought someone else should help you carry that burden." He rubs his forehead. She says, "I think you feel like we're somehow rivals for the Avengers' somehow, and I won. It's not true."
"Why would I feel that way?" He rubs his chest, tries to slow his heart.
"I don't know, because you're you," Natasha says. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"
"Girl," Tony says. "We've run a lot of tests." Then he sits back down at his desk. "I don't like you knowing about this."
"Because I'm so prone to gossip," Natasha says, nodding. "I get that."
Tony taps his fingers on the desktop, wishing he could work on something, anything.
Natasha says, "Is the break up part of the cover?"
Tony says, "I wish. No, we're actually broken up. Continue to be broken up. Even with the baby on the way. We're negotiating a lot of things, frankly. Every part of my life is a negotiation these days."
"Aren't you glad we can share?" She has an unbelievably gentle look in her eyes. It is unbelievable that she would be gentle with him.
He closes his eyes and leans as far back as he can in his chair.
Natasha says, "Did you want to talk to me about all your negotiations?"
"Not in the slightest," Tony says. "On the other hand, we decided not to tell Happy or Rhodey for now so I have no one to talk to."
"You could always call Nick," Natasha says.
"Pepper told him, not me," Tony says.
He complains to her about everything. They broke up, Pepper found out she was pregnant, between the two of them they could concoct about 2 million nightmare scenarios for Tony Stark's kid, and they decided to hide everything.
He rants to Natasha and he doesn't feel better about any of it.
!
He gets to be there when Pepper gives birth. Their baby girl is a real, living, breathing person with graspy hands and squeezed shut eyes. He spends three days off the grid helping Pepper change diapers and find times to sleep. "Maria Virginia Stark," he says to their girl. "You're adorable." She poops into her new diaper.
After three days he has to go back to being Tony Stark. When he gets back to his building, Natasha is there, "You're creepy," he says. "Honestly, it's off putting."
"8 pounds, 11 ounces, huh?"
"Yes," Tony says. He assumes he's smiling like an idiot. "You are really wired into the intel."
"When do you get to go back?"
"5 days from now, for 2 days. I do that for the next six months, then we figure out the rest from there," Tony says. "It won't be exactly 5 days every time or 2 days every time, but that's the basics."
"Sounds hard," Natasha says.
"Harder for Pepper," Tony says.
"Sure, but that doesn't make it less hard on you," Natasha says.
"Thanks for that, Dear Abby," Tony says. But he's exhausted and he only wants to be with his baby girl, his actual infant girl. He sits down next to her on the couch. "What do you get out of this?"
"Maybe I like you and consider you my friend," she says.
"Don't believe it," he says.
"That's a little insulting," she says.
"Want to look at polaroids before I burn them?"
"Yes, please," she says with an actual smile.
!
Mia, they both call her Mia. Pepper is slightly appalled that Mia at 3 months is already showing signs of genius. Tony only knows his own development from Obie bragging and he's never known if that was exaggerated. Probably, he thinks.
He had to go out in the suit and help out, and now he's out of the suit, aching everywhere. He checks his face to make sure he's not visibly bleeding or anything and then calls Pepper. "Hey, how are you? How's our girl?"
Pepper says, "We both like Sweden, I, for one, preferred Switzerland. You know, with some enhanced ability Spanx I might actually be able to go out and not have people tell I just had a baby."
"Mia probably didn't have much of an opinion of Switzerland, since she was pretty focused on the basics of being alive," he says.
Pepper has the baby on her lap. She doesn't actually look like either of them since she's basically just huge eyes and fat cheeks. He could look at her all day. "Hey, Mia," he says softly. Mia perks up and looks at the screen.
"Yeah, you recognize Dad," Pepper says.
They talk for another 20 minutes and they're saying goodbye when Natasha comes in. She smiles at Tony and sits down next to him, waving at Mia. "Thanks for intruding," he says.
"Intruding would have been coming in 5 minutes ago," she says. "That was quite a big mess today." She laughs.
"God, it really was, I can't believe I had to put on the damn suit," Tony says.
He puts his arm around her and then Natasha shifts faster than he thought she could. She's straddling his lap. They stare at each other for a few seconds before she kisses him. He kisses her, glides his hands down her back to hold her very lovely ass. She is all muscle which he finds is something he really likes right then.
He says, "Hey. So we're doing this?"
"The romance is just too much, Tony," she says. She pulls down his pants so his bruised bare ass is on his very expensive couch. He is already getting hard.
"I'm known for my wooing," he says.
The sex is incredibly satisfying. He likes it a little when Natasha makes him ache. She definitely likes his dick, and she wouldn't fake coming with him so he feels good about that.
!
Tony stays on the move so his days off when he sees Mia aren't quite so suspicious, and surprisingly, Natasha keeps showing up. She talks about her work and how little she trusts this new iteration of SHIELD and how Clint is so awesome and maybe someday little Nathaniel and baby Mia can play together.
Then they have awesome sex and then Tony goes one way and Natasha goes the other. He almost certainly talks more than she does, but that's just a given.
Happy and Rhodey know about Mia now, in fact, Happy has decided to be Mia's Manny which is frightening on a number of levels. Tony says, "She's six months old now and she can identify numbers. She's this little genius baby, I swear."
Rhodey says, "I don't know early child development, is that impressive?"
"It's incredibly impressive," Tony says. "She's impressive like me. She's as smart as me, probably smarter."
"Pepper is her mother," Rhodey says.
"Exactly," Tony says. "Genius."
"Maybe you don't have to do this, Tony," Rhodey says. "Maybe there's a way you don't have to skulk around, Pepper doesn't have to hide, and you two can raise your child out in the open."
Tony shakes his head. "No, not worth the risk. It's not worth the risk. We are absolutely agreed on this."
"Maybe when Mia is old enough she can come up with a genius plan for herself," Rhodey says.
"I bet she will," Tony says, smiling. "I've still seen her more than my father ever did me."
"That's an exaggeration," Rhodey says.
!
He's been having sometimes wild, sometimes staid sex with Natasha for more than three months. He knows her body, places to avoid, the small soft places that make her sigh.
She tells him to shave or go with a beard because she says his facial hair irritates her. "I didn't do that for Pepper, why would I for you?"
"Did she actually ask?"
"No," he says.
"It's my thighs and my face and my breasts," Natasha says.
He decides on the beard.
Pepper says, "I like it," while he sits on the floor with Mia. Mia is staring at him intently. He's using an actual abacus to teach her some fun math. He's absolutely sure she's taking it in, he recognizes her expression as one he's seen on Pepper before.
"You like the beard," Tony says. "Did you want me to go with that while we were together?"
"I had so many other things I wanted to change higher on the list," she says, smiling. Then she isn't smiling. "Maybe it's for the best you're with someone who doesn't have a big long list."
"That wasn't our problem," he says, seriously. He stares at her until she nods. "I'm sorry, by the way. Sorry about the dating."
"You're sorry you're dating Natasha? Does she know?"
"Not at all sorry, not sure dating is the right word, but I mean that I can do this and you can't," he says.
"Maybe I'm fine not dating," she says.
"But if you're not, it sucks that this whole undercover mother things makes it harder for you," Tony says. The abacus has red and yellow shiny beads that Mia is now moving on her own. She might be multiplying. She might be playing with patterns. She lurches in her typical ungraceful lurchy way of moving.
"Why is my daughter in Captain America diapers? Come on, that's just mean," Tony says. He picks up Mia and holds her on his lap. He can admit the intrinsic visceral primal feeling he has holding his baby daughter. It's a kind of peace and a lot of urgency. He pulls down her MIT shirt over the offending diaper peeking out from her purple leggings.
"Happy bought them, I thought they were cute," Pepper says. "I can't believe someone licensed diapers."
"A foundation to pay for the Avengers needs diverse income sources," Tony says. "It definitely wasn't my idea."
!
Tony has his new soft beard rubbing against the soft sweaty underside of Natasha's lovely right breast. He finally says, "Do you want to come with me to the dinner in two weeks?"
"The charity," Natasha says, gasping a little. Tony is doing a thing with this glove he made that vibrates depending on the heartbeat of the person it's inside of. He's pretty happy with the results. Natasha says, "Pepper's charity dinner. You want me to go."
"With me," he says. He kisses her nipple. "I want you to go with me. As my date, in fact."
She silently comes around his fingers inside the glove and he stays inside her for another little bit until she actually groans. "I don't like being your test subject for these things, Tony," she says.
"You seemed to like that," Tony says.
She half rolls her eyes. "I'm just waiting for the one that electrocutes me."
"I would never make something like that," he says. "I'm offended. I always test on myself first anyway."
"Penis or prostate?" She sits up a little.
"Both if it works well. I'm just trying to make your life more pleasurable."
"You just love to tinker," Natasha says. She looks at him with her inscrutable unreadable face.
"You're wondering if I did that with Pepper. The answer is not really, but mostly because I'm in a better place now, mentally, I probably should have," Tony says.
"I wasn't wondering that," she says and he believes her. "Everyone will recognize me. I have to work a lot harder now to go incognito."
"Fine," he says. "Whatever. I don't mind being linked with Black Widow in the press, but I understand you might be a little embarrassed to be linked with me. Though a lot of people still like me, frankly."
She shakes her head. "It's not about you. I'm getting used to being more public. You're very public."
"I was born that way," Tony says. "All my dad's fault. I'll pay for your dress."
"In that case, absolutely. Give me the credit card."
!
Tony picks Natasha up, and he eyes the burgundy or brown or something dress. "That looks pretty," he says. "And expensive."
She gets in the car and smiles at him. "It's couture."
When they get to the dinner, Pepper meets them at the entrance as the cameras go off. Pepper smiles at Natasha and says, "Christian Lacroix couture, wow."
"Vintage, which seems silly to say about something that's only 10 years old."
"So definitely expensive," Tony says. There are about 5000 cameras going off around them. Pepper looks fantastic as usual, she's wearing something minimalist and also incredibly expensive, he assumes.
"I had to have it altered," Natasha says, smiling up at Tony. "Very expensive. More than your suit, I think."
"Bespoke tailoring can be expensive," Tony says.
"Come inside," Pepper says. "I can't see from the flashes."
"So your thought is that if you have to go very public, it should be in an insanely pricey dress?" He holds Natasha's waist as they walk in because he always does that when they don't have cameras on them.
"That was exactly my thought," Natasha says. "Pepper looks great."
"She always does," Tony says. "As do you, just to note."
"I appreciate that," she says. Somehow things just sound sexier when Natasha says them and especially when her lovely breasts are on display like they are in her dress.
He sees Happy and lets go of her waist. "I'm gonna go do that thing."
"See you later," Natasha says.
Tony follows Happy through some elaborate rigmarole that brings to him another floor in another hotel and then, finally, to Mia in her crib. She looks up at him and says, "Hi da."
"Hi you," he says. He picks her up and she rests her head on his shoulder, her little fists tucked into her chest. "Are you sleepy? You can sleep, you know."
"Sleepy," she says.
"See, she's speaking in complete sentences at 7 months. She's a genius, Tony," Happy says.
"Happy thinks you're awesome," Tony says to Mia. "Which is very smart of him, because you're amazing."
She makes these little cooing baby noises that feel carved into his bones in a really good way. He puts her down in the crib in her sleep sack. "Night da," she says.
"Good night, Mia," Tony says. "I love you and I'll see you tomorrow morning." He leans over the crib and watches her sleep.
!
Tony runs his hand over the dress, the one that costs more than Tony's car in college which was very pricey, that Natasha has hanging in her closet. "You're supposed to store couture in drawers that are big enough to have it lie flat," Natasha says.
"I better get you one of those," Tony says. "In case you need to buy even more of these things. I assume you can't wear it twice."
"Exactly," Natasha says. She's naked on the bed in her room in the Avengers compound.
"Though I like this look," he says, turning to look at her. He gets on the bed next to her. "I feel like I'm being judged every time I come here. Like people don't approve, and by people I mean everyone except Vision."
"They never say anything to me," Natasha says.
"Of course not, they don't approve of me, they like you."
"I can't believe that's something you care about," Natasha says.
"That's the tone you use when you mean the exact opposite," Tony says. "I am not desperate for approval, thank you very much."
"But you do care," Natasha says. "Tomorrow morning we can go out in public where everyone likes you."
"That's very far from the truth," Tony says.
In the morning she does put on super tight jeans and a very cute sweater so they go to New York City. They have an expensive lunch at a new Russian restaurant. "So is the food authentic?"
"Of course not," she says. "But neither are my memories of Russia."
"Is that something, do you want to talk about that?"
"No," she says, smiling. "Thanks for asking."
They go to his favorite watch dealer. Natasha somehow rolls her eyes with her whole body and browses the jewelry. He puts on his Iron Man specs so he can really look at what he's being sold. Then he glances over at Natasha and Friday is loud in his ear, saying "Alarm, Incoming!"
Someone is shooting at Natasha through the window. He says something but mostly he lunges for her and gets her on the floor. The first bullet whizzes past her so close, he was too slow, and she's bleeding from the shoulder. The second bullet hits where they landed but by then Natasha has rolled them both across the floor so they're blocked by a display case. The third shot shatters the display case as Natasha rolls them back towards the back. He pushes her into the back room first and then goes himself. The last bullet goes through his thigh.
"They were after you," Natasha says, putting pressure on his leg.
"They were after you," Tony says, in a very articulate way before passing out.
!
"They were after the Black Widow," Vision says. Tony is sitting next to Natasha as the Avengers try to figure out what's happening. "The trajectory makes it crystal clear, unfortunately."
"Good thing you got out of there with only minor wounds," Wilson says.
"We can't get enough information from just one attack," Natasha says. "The question is do I go out casually or do we do something more planned?"
People who are not Tony register some concern about Natasha being a target. Tony has already made those objections.
All the planning is for naught because the next day when Natasha steps outside the building, there are more shots and only the grace of God and Vision keeping an eagle eye on her saves her.
"Fuck this," she says to Tony. "Take me somewhere safe."
He flies her in his stealth Starkjet to Barton's farm. They go inside at night with Barton himself on the porch with his bow scanning the the environs. "Thanks for not shooting me," Tony says as they go inside.
"Natasha would be upset," Barton says.
"Shut up, both of you," she says. She puts on a happy face for Barton's kids as they run to her. Tony reminds himself that it's only been two weeks since he saw Mia, Mia won't remember two weeks.
After the wife and kiddies are put to bed, Nat and Tony head to the dining room where there's yet another meeting of scary people who will kill for Natasha. There's Fury and Wilson again, Maria Hill and even Steve Rogers himself.
Tony keeps his eyes on Natasha. It seems like the safe play. She has perfect posture, she speaks confidently. She admits easily to the holes in her memory everyone at the table knows about. They start narrowing down the list. Wilson floats the idea someone just wants to hurt Tony, Tony and Natasha both agree that's ridiculous.
When they're done, Tony pushes back from the table and finds Barton. "Where am I sleeping?"
"In Nat's room, I assume," Barton says. "Oh, did you want me to point you towards it? Right, that one."
Tony sees Natasha talking quietly to Fury, him holding her shoulder. Tony goes to Nat's room before someone tries to talk to him.
He stares at the ceiling recreating in his head the last time he saw Mia. After ten minutes or so, Natasha comes in. He watches her take off her clothes and then get in the bed. He puts his arm around her and she surprisingly moves right into him. Her fists clench against his chest and she's practically burrowing into him. He says, "Hey."
"I love your romantic side," she says. He pretends her voice is steady.
At 5 am someone comes into the room. Tony pauses and looks before he uses his blaster hand, Natasha is already awake, he realizes, so the intruder can't be anyone too threatening. "Hey, Aunt Nat," says the little female moppet.
"Sweetie," Natasha says. She never talks to him like that. "Did you have a bad dream or something?"
"I just woke up and wanted to have breakfast with you," says the evil child monster.
"It's pretty early," Natasha says.
"Mom's up because Nathaniel's up."
Natasha says, "Okay, sure, but wait outside and close the door behind you."
They had sex last night, weirdly tender, not surprisingly quiet sex, but that means Natasha is only wearing a tank top. She actually gets out of bed. "Don't do it," Tony says. "You need sleep."
"You don't have to join me," she says. "Stay here, I'll come back after I eat."
She always looks so incredibly young when she's just woken up.
!
The plan is Natasha and Tony hide out at Barton's while everyone else goes hunting. So Tony gets to help out which consists of fixing every machine on the farm and while the female Barton kid watches him. He walks out to the middle of a field and sits down, finally taking out his phone.
Pepper answers on the first ring. "Is Natasha okay?"
"She's fine," Tony says, smiling at her. "Is it weird you care so much about my new girlfriend?"
"She's your new girlfriend, huh?" Pepper smiles. "We broke up more than a year ago, Tony. We tried really hard. I know it was real, you know it was real. And I knew her before, when she was pretending to be Natalie. I like her. And I know you didn't call for me."
She walks somewhere and then gives the phone to Mia. "Da, Dad," she says, squealing. "I miss you. Come here."
"As soon as I can, Mia," Tony says. "Hey, look around here -" he turns the phone around and gives her a panoramic view of the field. "It's a real farm. Where they grow food."
"Do they have chickens?"
"A few. They just have chickens for eggs," Tony says.
"Can I have one?"
"No," Pepper says, behind Mia. "You can not have a chicken."
"I don't think they want to give their chickens up," Tony says.
They talk for another ten minutes when Tony realizes someone is coming up behind him. He turns and it's Steve, of course. He says, "I love you, I gotta go."
Pepper says goodbye for him since Mia's response to goodbye at this age is to always burst into tears.
Tony says, "What?" He could not be more tired. He starts walking back to the farm.
"I assumed you were avoiding me but I thought, maybe we could actually talk," Steve says.
"Well, you've certainly trapped me now." Because he is determined to somehow have some moral high ground here, he adds, "Thank you for helping Natasha."
"I would do the same for you," Steve says.
"I'll bet," Tony says.
"I wanted to say I was sorry, I am sorry about how things felt out. I really appreciate that you made sure everyone was taken care of," Steve says.
"Whatever," Tony says.
"I feel like, for a first talk, this went well," Steve says.
"Sure," Tony says. "I assume you know who I was calling."
"Fury told me," Steve says.
"Of course," Tony says.
!
Natasha is super tense when she gets to bed, and he hugs her. "Any progress today?"
"You were in the same room," Natasha says.
"I don't really listen when Steve talks," Tony says.
"That's not true," she says, relaxing a little.
"I remember you once, this is going to seem completely off-topic. Dr. Cho and her cradle, she can maybe give you back what the Red Room took," he says.
"Make me not sterile?"
"I was going for a metaphor," Tony says. Natasha is tense again in his arms. "You don't have to use it, you don't have to go off and have babies at all. Maybe you never have babies. But instead of it being a loss, it's what you want."
"I always admire your timing," Natasha says.
"I had a whole conversation today, without mentioning you, with Dr. Cho because I thought of it in this afternoon," Tony says. "All of this is going to be over. Maybe even tomorrow. And I know this is something that make you feel broken which you aren't in the slightest."
"Thank you, I know that," Natasha says. She is relaxing again.
"I just thought, hey, whatever happens, wouldn't it be nice to know you could. If you ever wanted to, you could," Tony says.
"Thanks for thinking of me," she says. He's pretty sure she's sincere under the sarcasm.
!
It takes three days but finally, they catch the crazy after Natasha. Natasha gets to be the one who shoots him in the face as he tries to kill her one more time. She kisses Tony goodbye two hours later as he gets on a plane straight to Mia.
He gets a full week, for once. Mia wakes up at 5 am and 3 am and sometimes 1 am, and he grinds his teeth and craves a full night of sleep, and she is incredibly annoying and he wishes so hard he could do this every day of his life.
When Tony gets back to New York City, Natasha is asleep on his bed. Of course she wakes up the minute he sets foot two feet from the door. He watches her awareness come over her. He waves from the doorway. "Hey," he says.
"You're so eloquent," she says.
"I'm also pretty good at sex, according to you," he says.
"I appreciate that about you," she says. "God, you're irritating."
"People like me, though," he says.
"Even me," Natasha says. "Are you going to come in? Or stand in the doorway all night?"
"I happen to think it's a super nice view," Tony says. "Even you like me."
"Come over here, I'll show you," Natasha says.