AN: Quarantine is killing me, but it's actually given me a load of time to write, so have a chapter. I have the next few completely written so updates should be pretty fast. Anyway, this chapter is kina short, but it's completely necessary for the plot.


"NATASHA!" Pepper yelled, knocking loudly on their hotel room door. It shocked both her and Steve out of sleep, darting upright instantly, with Steve smacking her in the face as his arms flung out to the side. She fell back onto the pillows, bringing her hand up to cradle her nose.

"Fucking hell Steve." She winced as she touched it. "Shit Nat. Here, let me look." He brushed her hand aside, gently poking and prodding at her nose. Frowning slightly, he pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. "It's not broken. I'm so sorry Tash."

He genuinely looked awful about the situation, so she smiled at him, ignoring the little flare of pain as she scrunched her nose up. "It's okay. No harm done." Pressing a chaste kiss to her lips, she snuggled back into her side, forgetting about their rude awakening.

"NATASHA!" Pepper's insistent voice rang out again, and Natasha was certain she'd woken up the entire floor. "I'M COMING! Alright, I'm coming." She yelled back, shoving the covers off her and sighing. "I'll see you later." She said, kissing him on the lips again before pulling on her dressing gown. She grabbed her dress and shoes from where they were hanging on the closet before kneeling back on the bed to give him one final kiss.

"Love you." He smiled, brushing his hand through her hair softly. "Love you too."


"Pepper Potts, I love you more than I can put into words. The amount you have to put up with on a daily basis, even before we were together, and you never complain. Ever. I'm so lucky to have someone like you, someone who I can share everything with. I think I've always loved you Pep, from that very first moment I met you, but that's nothing compared to how I feel about you now. You are my everything. We've already started our lives together, but I'm so ready to start this new chapter. I love you so much." Tony looked deeply in his fiancés eyes, his own so completely full of love and glistening slightly with tears. Pepper let out a soft laugh, dabbing under her eyes gently. "How am I supposed to follow that?"

"Okay, here goes. Tony, I know I don't have to stand up here and tell you how much I love you, because you already know. You are the craziest man I've ever met, and I wouldn't change you for anything. You make me complete in a way I didn't even know was possible before I met you. You're my everything too, and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Because my life without you in it just isn't worth living. I love you Tones."

Natasha tuned out of the rest of the ceremony, catching Steve's eyes and giving him a soft smile. He returned with a bright grin, and she had to stop herself from laughing. She wiped away a stray tear when Tony and Pepper kissed, because whilst the ceremony was beautiful, she couldn't escape the vision of herself standing up there with Steve, saying their own vows. She caught his eye once more, and he cocked his head in questioning, but she waved him off, giving him a small smirk. Besides, she was ready to party.


"So Pete. You got a girlfriend yet?" Steve asked, giving Peter a shit eating grin and handing him a beer. Yeah, he was underage, but this was a party on a private property and both May and Tony had said it was fine.

"Yeah, how's that girl? Uhhh, M something?" Natasha asked, even though they all knew she knew her name. She took her glass of wine from Steve as he settled back on his chair, laying his arm across the back of her chair.

"MJ." Peter mumbled, trying to make himself as small as possible. He was clearly allergic to awkward conversations. Natasha paid no notice to his change of posture, keeping him talking. "That's the one. How is she?"

"Not interested." He said sadly, taking a swig of beer to distract himself. Steve felt bad for him, because he was clearly infatuated with this girl.

"Awww, come on. You're Spiderman. Of course she's interested." He tried to reassure Peter, but he only chuckled slightly. "She doesn't know that. It would kinda defeat the point of a secret identity." He cocked his head to the side, looking exactly like Tony in that moment. Steve looked across to Natasha, and by the grin on her face, he knew she'd seen it to.

"You could go public." Natasha offered him a solution, but he only grinned at them, seemingly having overcome his brief sadness. "Nah, Mr Stark would kill me. Besides, it's kinda fun having two lives." Natasha smirked at Steve, fondly remembering the days of sneaking around at night trying to hide their relationship. He couldn't resist pressing a brief kiss to her temple, taking refuge in the fact that he could just do that now without worrying.

"You're an awesome kid Peter. You're smart and cool, she'd be lucky to have you." Peter scoffed at Steve's words. Clearly, he didn't agree. "Uh no. I'm nerdy and unpopular. She's lucky not to be dating me."

"Believe it or not I thought the same thing." Natasha said casually, causing Peter to cough slightly and look at her with wide eyes. "I mean, you didn't have to say it." He complained, his face that of a kicked puppy. She laughed at him, whacking him gently on the side of his head.

"Idiot. I meant with Steve. I'm a Russian assassin turned spy. Why would Captain America want to date me?" She raised her eyebrow at Peter, and he only frowned in confusion. "You're a freaking badass Natasha. Why wouldn't Captain America want to date you?"

"Exactly." In that moment Peter realised he'd fallen into her trap. "I hate you guys."

"Hey Pete, Pepper says you owe her a dance." Tony came over to them, clasping Peter's shoulder. Peter let out a relieved sigh, getting up and quickly moving over to the dancefloor.

"This conversation's not over kid!" Natasha shouted as he skipped away. "Yes it is!" He grinned back at her, sticking out his tongue.

"What did you do to my kid?" Tony said in mock anger, though his constant smile made it hard to take him seriously as he sat down in Peter's vacated chair.

"Nothing. We just gave him some relationship advice." Steve grinned at Tony, who rolled his eyes at them. "You two are in no place to be giving out relationship advice."

"We are in a perfectly healthy relationship thank you." Natasha defended. She knew Tony wasn't insulting their relationship, but she couldn't blame him for doubting it. They still weren't particularly open about it, they just weren't those types of people.

"Yeah, one you decided to hide from all your friends for almost a year. Just saying." He raised his eyebrows at them, causing Steve to shrug his shoulders. "That's fair."

"Why did you keep it secret for so long?" Tony asked, causing them to exchange a look. They'd never really explained it to Tony, not really. "It wasn't intentional to keep it form you guys for so long. We didn't know who we were to each other, what we wanted to be, and it was just easier to do that without anyone knowing." She tried her best to explain their relationship, when in reality it was so uncomplicatedly simple. They just were. "We just never got around to telling everyone. It was never personal."

"I get you guys aren't used to having people who care about you, especially you Nat, but you know you can trust us. You don't need to keep things like that a secret." He smiled softly at them, and the couple couldn't help but smile back. It was nice to know just how much Tony cared, even though he never said it.

"We know, and in the future we won't. We're just both very private people." Steve explained, although he pressed a kiss to Natasha's forehead, trying to show that they didn't care about being open in front of their friends. Tony raised his eyebrows slightly, and was clearly trying to decide whether he should ask his next question. "So if you two were to get engaged, you would tell us?"

"We're not engaged Tony." Natasha laughed, shaking her head fondly. "But if we were, we would tell you."

"Now you've got an absolutely gorgeous wife and you're sat here with us instead of dancing with her." Natasha said, looking over to the dance floor as Jane and Thor whizzed around laughing at each other whilst Peter spun Pepper around excessively. "I better go save her from the spiderling."

Natasha pouted at Steve as Tony got up, gesturing to her empty glass. "Same as last time?" He asked, picking up the glass from the table. She nodded, smiling softly at him as he got up. Tony just looked amused at the whole situation.

"You're whipped man."

"Yeah, I know."


"Marriage looks good on him." Steve commented, letting his arm dangle over Natasha's shoulder as they watched Tony and Pepper laughing happily. The sun had started to set, leaving a soft glow over the garden where the copious amount of fairy lights had begun to light up.

"Reckon it'd look good on us?" Natasha asked quietly, resting her head on his shoulder. She didn't meet his gaze, not letting herself doubt her question.

"I think it would." He replied softly, pressing a kiss to her hair. She tilted her head to look at him, a small smile on her face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Despite all their conversations in the past, this was everything Steve needed to hear. The fact that she was the one who brought up marriage, because it hadn't escaped him that any time it had been brought up previously, he'd been the one to bring it up. He knew it was her way of saying that she was ready to seriously consider it as a possibility for their relationship. "I reckon we'd be a pretty fantastic married couple."

"We already argue like it." She joked, although a serious look quickly crossed her face. "D'you think it's too soon? To be thinking about this sort of stuff? I mean, Tony and Pepper have been dating for a long time and they only just got married."

"What works for them won't necessarily work for us. Besides, I don't think it matters how long we've been together. Because I'm fairly sure I loved you long before we even kissed." He didn't mean it to come out as soppy as it did, and he was temporarily worried she would run away, but her arm wrapping around his neck and pulling him into her, her lips touching his with a fiery passion. It took him a second to respond, shocked at the sudden movement.

"What was that for?" He asked when she pulled back, his voice slightly breathy. "I love you Steve." Was her only response, pressing another small kiss to the corner of his mouth. Her lips were quirked up into a smile when she pulled away, resting her head back on his shoulder.

"Come on. You promised me a dance."


AN: If you have any ideas that you desperately, or not so desperately want incorporated into this story, please let me know and I'll try to write them in. I hope you enjoyed, please follow, favourite and review. Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated.