Author note: so this is the third chapter! It may take some time to update, because I'm having problems with my computer, so I have to use the family one. Thanks a lot for the reviews, I love feedbacks! Enjoy the reading!


Fifteen minutes later, Tessa was sitting on the floor beside Tony, checking his temperature and force-feeding him medicine.

"So, how is he?" asked Pepper.

"He'll be fine, he just needs to get some rest and take his medicine." she answered with a sigh. "I told you you guys would get sick."

"What do you want me to say, there's no one here who can really take care of us."

Tessa got up and stretched as she yawned. It was only three in the morning and she hadn't got much sleep because of the horror movie who played on the TV at midnight. She'd set herself to watch it, but kinda regretted it now.

"Wanna stay here for the rest of the night? You can't say you don't have sleeping clothes, I will lend you some." the redhead asked.

The brown woman had to stop and think about it for a moment. The idea of a bed seemed so nice right now... The idea of walking in New York at 3 am was not. She nodded, hoping she wouldn't regret this tomorrow. "But call me if his temperature goes up."

"Of course." Pepper gave her a sweet smile before leading Tessa to the guest room closest to her own and watched with amusement as her friend just dropped on the bed, rolled around to envelop herself in the covers and fell asleep like that.

"That went well." she mumbled to herself before heading back to her sick boyfriend.


Steve went to the kitchen, just coming back from his morning run with Sam, who had left for his own apartment. They were meeting later for lunch but in the meanwhile, he intended to do some training. That was, until he saw the stranger coming down to the kitchen too, looking awfully tired and curly hair sticking up everywhere. Although being slightly pudgy, she floated in a huge t-shirt who went to her knees. He frowned and looked a little more at the shirt. It seemed... to be the shirt he had put to the laundry a few days ago. He raised an eyebrow as he watched the woman make her way to the coffee machine and brew herself a cup, ignoring him completely. She yawned and almost feel asleep on the counter as she waited, but Steve gently shook her a little and she blinked confusely as she raised her head back up.

"Thanks..." she mumbled and took her cup of coffee before gulping it down completely. When she was done, her eyes brightened and she straightened her back while rubbing her eyes. Eyes who, once they fell on the smirking Captain America, widened to look like blue saucers. Slowly, she placed her cup back onto the counter without breaking eye-contact with him, and gulped.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice you. I was just so tired..." she mumbled the last part to herself, scracthing the back of her head. To Steve's bigger amusement, the woman didn't stay on her surprised state for long, taking a more casual pose and her muscles untensing.

"It's okay, pretty much everyone in here is like that." he said and got answered with a sweet smile.

"I guess they are, aren't they? Staying so late like this... it'll do bad things to your bodies."

"You say that, but you don't seem to be going to sleep much earlier." he said teasingly. Immediately, she shook her head.

"No, I'm here exactly because the Avengers go to sleep late and eat badly." he raised an eyebrow. "Tony got sick and Pepper called me for advice. I stayed up late because this stupid man got himself with a high fever who loved to go up and down for the whole night." she explained and he smiled.

"So you're not a one-night stand or a girlfriend I didn't hear about?"

She started laughing. "Oh, no! I'm Pepper's friend, and I happen to know better about sickness then she does. I'm Teresa." she offered her hand and he shook it.

"I'm Steve. But I think you already knew that."

"I did indeed."

"Yet you don't seem surprised." he teased and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, you're superheroes and all, but you're mostly dorky human beings who take bad care of themselves, as of what Pepper told me."

"Really, that bad?" she shot him an unimpressed look.

"I helped her buy you guys ten frozen pizzas."

He started laughing and raised his hands up. "Alright, I can't say I'm not guilty. But I'm not the worst, that would be..."

"Let me guess, Tony?"

He nodded. "That wasn't that hard of a guess, was it?"

She simply smiled and Pepper entered the kitchen at the same time, but stopped in her tracks as she saw the two smiling adults. She pointed at them and raised an eyebrow, looking at Tessa expectantly. "I'm not interrupting something, am I?"

Steve shook his head and opened the fridge. "No no, just a lecture about how we should eat and sleep better."

"Why am I not surprised? Tessa, I wanted to tell you he's better. His fever dropped a lot and he seems to be better."

"Don't let that fool you, you're not out of the woods yet until a few days still." Tessa approached her friend. "Well, I think I'll take my leave now, since I'm not needed here anymore." Pepper snorted in her mind and the brown woman gave a little wave at Steve. "It was nice meeting you, Steve."

He nodded and returned the wave. "It was nice meeting you too, Teresa."

The two woman went to the stairs and started going up until they heard a last call from Steve. "Nice shirt, by the way!"

Tessa stopped and opened her mouth, confused, but gave Pepper a glare as soon as she realized with the man meant. The redhead simply smiled and cheered inside her mind. Steve: check.


"So? Did you have fun at the date?"

"It was great. I got the chance to get him out of the Tower again, and we enjoyed the evening so much it ended with us coming back, having sex, and him not going back to the lab!"

She heard a laugh at the other end of the line and smiled too. "I'm happy you had fun. I hope you guys are able to do that again."

"I'm sure I'll find a way to do it." she looked at her nails, admiring her work, and noticed the people coming into the living room. She gave them a smile and the two men returned it.

"Anyway, Tessa. I wondered if you'd like to come by tonight? We could eat and watch a movie, something simple."

There was a silenve on the phone, until the woman finally sighed. "What are we eating?"

Pepper smiled evily. "Oh, I thought we could eat take-outs or something like that." At first, she had thought about cooking something, but she figured that if she said the opposite, Tessa woule immediately say...

"I'm bringing the ingredients. Do you have noodles at least?"

"Yeah, we bought some last week."

"I'm bringing the rest."

The redhead's smile widened. "See you tonight?"

"See you in an hour." They hung up the phone and Pepper turned around to see Steve and Sam talking on the couch, until Steve noticed she had stopped talking.

"Was that Teresa?"

"Yeah, she's coming for dinner. She decided to make something to eat."

"I wonder if I'll be able to steal some of it." he said with a grin and he went back to talking with his friend. She went up to her office, wondering.

'Maybe everyone will get to have some.'


"Jesus Christ! What is this godly thing I smell?" exclaimed Clint as he stepped into the kitchen. He immediately saw the two chatting woman, and noticed one of them was mixing something in a big cauldron. He approached from behind, taking advantage of the fact that they still hadn't noticed him, and carefully looked at what was being cooked. He smiled when he saw the white, creamy sauce and wanted to put a finger in it, when a hand slapped hiw own out of the way. He immediately backed off and looked up to see Teresa looking at him with her big blue eyes. She shook her head and sighed.

"First, you would boil yourself. Second, we're going to eat that, it's not sane to put your fingers in it." she used the same tone as if she scolded a child, which made Pepper smile. Clint simply whined and pouted.

"But I'm so hungry!"

"We're eating in five minutes. Why don't you go set the table in the meanwhile?" he shrugged and looked at Pepper.

"Who's at the Tower?"

"Thor left for Asgard, Natasha is on a mission, and I think that's pretty much it."

"So we're... six, assuming everyone eats."

"I'm pretty sure everyone is coming down."

He nodded and grabbed the plates and ustensils to place them in the dining room under Pepper's amused look. She glanced at Tessa, amazed and just how mom-like she had acted. The woman was concentrated on making her noddles boil and she didn't seem to have picked on the chemistry clearly already there between her and the residents of the Tower.

"Pep, you're staring."

"Am I? Sorry, I got lost in thought."

Tessa frowned slightly. "It seems to be happening often recently. Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, dont' worry, I'm fine."

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing."

The brown woman gave her a strange look and shook her head. "I know you, Virginia Potts. You are definitely planning something."

"Me? Nooo, never."

The curly-haired woman pointed a finger at her and smiled. "I will find out what it is. In the meanwhile, I'm done cooking. Help me serve."

Pepper held back a sigh of relief. She didn't want her friend to know about Plan T just yet. If she just downright asked her to move in, she'd get scared and back off. Tessa was many things, but she wasn't one to made decisions on a whim. Not thirty seconds after they sat the plates on the table, Steve, Bruce and Tony appeared in the kitchen. Clint was already munching happily on his noodles and didn't aknowledge them. Tony approached the two woman and Tessa ruffled his hair wildly.

"Why did you do that?" he protested.

"You feeling better? You better not get sick again."

"I won't, I learned my lesson." Both Tessa and Pepper raised an eyebrow as they looked at each other. Pepper scoffed and said "We'll see that."

He sat down beside Steve, who smiled at the brown-haired woman. "You're showing us how to eat?"

"I'm simply showing you that home-made meals are better then frozen pizzas." Clint approved her words, as he nodded fervently while eating.

"Well, I can't wait to see if that's true." He started eating too.

Bruce approached them shyly before sticking out his hand to Tessa. "Hi, I'n Bruce Banner."

She took out and smiled. "I'm Teresa Jones. Nice to meet you, Bruce. Come on, eat, it'll get cold."


"Okay, you were right. This must be one of the best things I've ever eaten."

"It's just some alfredo pasta..."

"Just? Just some alfredo pasta? I'm sorry, miss, but as an Avengers, I have to arrest you for cooking skills that could threaten the world."

"I'm not that good. Lots of chefs are better than me."

"I'm still arresting you and putting you under surveillance in the Tower. Your punishment shall be cooking for us."

Tessa started laughing loudly, soon accompanied by pretty much everyone in the room. They laughed until their sides hurt, and the one time Bruce managed to stop for a moment, he gasped "It's not even funny..." But seeing and hearing the woman laugh just made them want to laugh along. After a while, they managed to stop and Tessa gave a tiny slap on the back of Clint's head when she saw him try to leave the kitchen.

"You're not off-duty for complimenting my cooking. Get back to cleaning the dishes."

"Aww, dishes."

Pepper smiled at their antics. The evening had went exceptionally well, with the Avengers and Tessa talking and laughing throughout the dinner. The woman had even got them to wash the dishes and they've been bumping each other for a while, claiming a lack of space. Clint had started it on Tony, who unvoluntarily did it on Tessa, who did it in return, and Steve and Bruce were soon forced to join while Pepper escaped the fight by changing place to dry the plates.

She wondered if it following 'Plan T' was still a good idea. They seemed to do fine with bonding ny themselves, and Tessa already seemed in her place there. She decided to drop it. She silently took a picture of them and sneaked out of the kitchen unnoticed.

"Jarvis?"

"Yes, miss Potts?"

"Delete Plan T."

"Very well, but may I ask why?"

She smiled sweetly and glanced back at the group of people in the kitchen. "It is no longer needed."

"Very well, miss Potts."


Author note: so this is it, please tell me what you thought about it. I'll update as soon as I can. I'm really excited because I've got a bunch of new ideas for this, and you can give me some if you want to! I'll see you next chapter!