Well, here's my first RoWen fic! Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Special thanks for Yaushie/Yaushibee for proofreading it!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to the mangaka with god-like work ethic Hiro Mashima

Chapter 1

A New Friendship?

The guild was bustling with activity as usual with people coming and about, either clients dropping off a request or a member going out on a job. After a year's hiatus, Fairy Tail re-established itself and opened its doors for business once again. All of Magnolia cheered, and welcomed them with open arms. Business in Magnolia had slowed down ever since Fairy Tail shut its doors, so they were quite grateful to have them back. On the other hand though, Fairy Tail reopening for business also carried the risk of property damage for the town. Lots and lots of property damage. The guild itself was a tourist attraction for the town, so Magnolia's tourism sector saw a significant uptick in business once they reopened after a year's slump. All things considered, the town felt that the boom in business outweighed the property damage risk, so it was worth it to have them back.

After the whole Avatar business was done with, Natsu and his old team searched high and low for Makarov's hide. As soon as they found him, Natsu was literally hollering in the old man's ears to bring back the guild. He complied, on the condition that someone else be guild master. Naturally, they chose Laxus. But he declined as well, feeling he's not quite ready yet. Laxus gave Natsu a chance to beat him, and that if he lost, he would return as guild master. Unsurprisingly, Laxus squashed him flat in 5 seconds. Reaching a dead end, the others decided to turn to Blue Pegasus for help (much to Erza's resistance for fear of Ichiya).

Hibiki had apparently managed to upgrade his Archive magic to the Super Archive magic variant of Crawford's. After the Faces were destroyed, Hibiki took it upon himself to inspect them out of curiosity. Much to his shock, he discovered how they were connected through his mentor Crawford's Archive. Feeling responsible, Hibiki decided to hack into Crawford's Archive and make it his own so that no one would ever misuse it again. But to hack into such a massive swath of data and literally download them all into himself required a large amount of magic reserves. Sure enough, just as Hibiki started downloading them all, his body started breaking down. That is, until he unlocked his Second Origin. Apparently, downloading Crawford's Super Archive triggered his body to unlock it.

With Hibiki's help, they were able to track down the 5th Master; Gildarts Clive. Once they located him, they contacted the current Council Chairman Doranbolt. Doranbolt agreed to transport one of them to Gildarts' location. Naturally, Natsu took it upon himself to try convince Gildarts to come back. Gildarts naturally resisted, like Laxus did. Natsu being Natsu, challenged him to a fight.

The fight was clearly one sided for Natsu, with Gildarts going at Natsu with only 40% of his true power and the latter going all out, to the extent of using Dragon Force. Somewhere in the middle of the fight, Natsu spoke of how he wanted to bring back Lucy's smile and how he wanted to make up for leaving her so suddenly. At this moment, Gildarts let his guard down and he paid for it by having his face knocked down to the ground. After recovering, Gildarts let out a boisterous laugh and went off on a tangent about young love, which perplexed Natsu to no end. Gildarts then agreed to come back.

"On one condition, I'm merely going to be a placeholder for the next Master, Laxus. So he's going to be working right under me to get a handle of the job. No more than two years."

They both agreed.

And that was how Fairy Tail was reborn.

The scattered guild members came back as soon as it was announced for all of Fiore to know. While most of the members came back, a few of them declined to, such as Gajeel and Levy, who opted to stay on the council to keep an eye out for information on Zeref, because wherever Zeref goes, Acnologia is bound to be nearby. Natsu wasn't the only one who made an oath to take down Acnologia, the other Dragon Slayers had also done the same, which is why Gajeel made it his personal mission to gather as much info on him.

They both promised that once everything is said and done, they would return to the guild.

Many of the guild members rejoiced when they were coming back together. Even though they had disbanded, many believed that the guild would come back together. Romeo was one of them. Romeo wasn't surprised Natsu was the one who managed to gather everybody back.

Now that everything's settled down, it was time to go back to the old routine of completing jobs. After Fairy Tail disbanded, most of the jobs went to Sabertooth. Now that they were in business again, Fairy Tail has made it a point to get back their customers from Sabertooth. And that meant more jobs to outpace Sabertooth's influx of jobs.

The request board was full. Romeo had been spending some time for a while now checking the jobs that were available.

'Not this….' Glancing at one, he thought.

'Not that one either…..' He glanced at another.

'No way, too high.' And another one at a higher-paying job.

"Man, aren't there any jobs that I can take alone?" He groaned.

"Wassup, Romeo?" Max approached the request board, looking for a job as well.

"I'm trying to find a good paying job. One that lets me get a good fight in it. But they're either way too difficult or too cheap." He complained.

"Well, why don't you just go with someone else?" Max asked, while he kept his eyes on the requests.

"Can't. Dad's passed out with a massive hangover at home, Uncle Wakaba's out with Gildarts god knows where, Alzack and Bisca are out on a job too. Natsu-nii and Lucy-nee are babysitting Asuka again." He explained.

"Hmm…. What about Gray and Juvia?" Max suggested, glancing down at the younger mage.

"No offense. But I don't think I could stand Juvia-san's lovey-dovey act for a whole week." Romeo winced at the thought of it.

"Besides, I don't think I could work very well with Gray either, considering our magic being the opposite with each other."

"But Natsu works just fine with him." Max rebutted.

"Well yeah, but that's because they've been on missions together since they were little. So obviously, they know how to work together better than anyone else." Romeo reasoned.

While both of them were discussing potential teammates, they hadn't noticed that Wendy had also gone up to the request board to look for a job herself. It took a while for both of them to notice she was there.

"Oh, hey there Wendy." Max turned around to face the young Sky Dragon.

"Hi, Max-san, Romeo-kun." Wendy cheerfully greeted.

Romeo greeted with a wave, smiling.

"Um, excuse me. But what were you two talking about?" The meek Dragon Slayer politely asked.

"Oh, we were just talking about who Romeo should go with on his mission. Everybody's somewhere out on a job or busy with something else. So he's having a hard time figuring out which solo job he wants to choose."

"My only other option is to find a teammate who can go with me. But everybody else is busy." Romeo sighed.

"Ah, well I just got back from helping Grandee-ah, I mean, Porlyusica-san this morning. My rent is coming up soon, so I need to find a good paying job quickly." Even after Grandeeney passed away, it was still hard for Wendy to let go of the habit of calling the old medic by her real name. Strangely enough, Porlyusica didn't seem to mind, despite admonishing her repeatedly to not use that name. The guild members figured Porlyusica did have a soft spot for the young dragon, though she would never really admit it.

"Heh, you're starting to sound like Lucy-nee." Romeo teased the Sky Dragon.

"Haha, let's hope Natsu hasn't been too much of an influence on you, either. The last thing we need is another Dragon Slayer destroying cities." Max joined in on the teasing.

"Ahh~ geez, I'm not that bad…" The little dragon pouted. Romeo had to admit it was kind of cute seeing her flustered.

It was then the proverbial light bulb lit and gave Max an idea for Romeo's predicament. That, and on top of it, Romeo may just end up coming back home with more than just a bag of money in his hands.

"Hey, I think I found just the right person to be your teammate." Max smiled at the young fire mage.

"Yeah, who?" Romeo asked, with an eyebrow quirked wondering who Max had in mind.

"Why don't you go with Wendy?" He suggested. Both child mages were startled at Max's suggestion.

"What?" They both asked in unison.

"Wait, with Wendy? Why?" Romeo questioned the older mage's judgement. Wendy also looked up curiously at the sand mage, having the same question in her mind as well. They've never worked together before, so it made them wonder why Max thought they would be a perfect fit.

"Well first off, if you want a partner for a hunting mission of the sort, then you're going to need someone strong enough, right? Wendy here is one of our stronger mages. So if you need someone who can pull their own weight, she's the right person for the job. In fact, maybe you could learn and pick up something from each other. It'd be a good experience for you both, considering you're around the same age." Max explained to the younger mages.

Both child mages stared at each other.

"Well, if Wendy doesn't mind, I'm game." Romeo smiled at his partner-candidate, waiting for her answer.

"Of course, I'd be happy to join you Romeo-kun." Wendy quickly agreed to Max's proposition.

"Well, problem solved kiddos. Now I gotta go on this job." Max said as he took a request off the board before going back to his seat to finish his drink.

"So which job do you want, Wendy?" Romeo asked his new partner.

"Umm…. Let's see…" Wendy checked the requests to find a suitable job for them both and with enough pay to be split between them.

"Ah! This one!" Wendy grabbed a paper from the board.

The request seemed simple enough and quite rewarding:

RETRIEVE PRICELESS HEIRLOOM FROM

HAKOUBOU FOREST GUARDED BY MONSTERS!

REWARD: 300.000 JEWELS

SEE MAP FOR LOCATION AND CONTACT CLIENT!

Romeo whistled at the reward. If the reward was split even, then it would be 150.000 each. Not bad for extra money.

"Looks good. Guess having you as a partner comes with BIG perks after all." Romeo grinned and Wendy merely giggled a thanks in return.

"Come on. Let's go over to Mira and have her register it in the books." Romeo said, walking towards the bar. Wendy followed suit.

"Hey, Mira! Here's a job we're taking." Romeo called over to her, as he slapped the request on the counter. Mira walked over to the two young mages after serving up another drink to a member.

"So, just the two of you?" Mira smiled at both mages as she recorded the mission into the guild's logbook. Though Romeo could've sworn he saw something else flickering in her eyes for a moment...

"Yup! With both of us, it'll be a piece of cake!" The fire mage grinned confidently. "Right, Wendy?" He nodded to Wendy. The young dragon nodded eagerly as well.

"Ok, then! Have a safe trip, you two and good luck! Remember, don't hesitate to call for backup if you can't handle it." Mira bid them farewell as they went off to prepare for their mission.

"Hey, Mira put me down for this job too." Max said, handing in his job request as well.

"Sure thing." Mira obliged, as she recorded his mission.

"Oh yeah…. Put me down 5000 jewels on Romeo/Wendy while you're at it." Max quirked his eyebrow, grinning like someone who's about to win the jackpot.

"Well, that's a new one." Mira said as she filed Max's mission paper in a large binder and in turn, took out a book with "Mira's Couples Betting Pool" written in tiny letters on it. In it, she jotted down a new entry for a brand new couple: Romeo/Wendy.

"Hah, don't tell me you weren't about to put down their names on the list. I totally saw you with that look when you were registering their mission." Max accused.

"Ah, you all know me too well." Mira laughed and put the book away. "Well then, since you're the first ever to put this one down, you're going to be quite the rich man….. Sly." Mira gave a mischievous glance at the sand mage.

"Haha, yup that's the plan." Max grinned unashamedly. "Oh yeah, word to the wise: if you're going to let Levy in on this bet, make sure she keeps it from Gajeel, or at least make sure Master Warrod will be there to restrain him."

"Lord knows that guy would be here in a flash if he found out Wendy's dating someone, and then he'll take him all the way to Era and dump him in the torture and interrogation room." Max continued, as he would really pity the young man if Gajeel ever caught wind of their relationship.

"Right. I don't think we'll have to worry about Natsu either. Considering how close they are, I'm sure he'd support them both. Though he might give him a small warning just in case." Mira nodded in understanding.

"Well then, I'm off. See you soon." Max waved the barmaid goodbye.

"Okay! Good luck!" Mira replied.

Meanwhile...

"It's getting late, I think we should start moving out tomorrow bright and early to catch the first train." Romeo suggested to his partner.

"Sure, that sounds fine with me." Wendy agreed.

"Ok, 8 o'clock at the guild tomorrow then?"

"I'll be there."

"Sure, let's get plenty of rest for tomorrow. See ya!" Romeo dashed over to his house and waved her goodbye.

"Bye!"

Both mages went their separate ways home in high spirits for their mission. Little did they know their first mission together would change their relationship forever….

To Be Continued