Okay, guys, quick author's note. I've never posted on here before, so this is my first go. I've got major I-WANNA-GOUGE-MY-EYES-OUT writer's block going on with my original fiction, and since there are numerous 'oddball' pairings that I just can't get enough of in the Marvel Universe, I thought I'd get this out there and hopefully get some other ideas jogging loose for my other work. Please be nice! I knocked this out in about two days, so if there's anything that doesn't make sense, it's probably because I've gone a little cross-eyed and if you'd like to point it out in a review, I'd love to fix it. I've set this post-AOU, but with a bit of an AU, so Ultron didn't really happen, there was no crazy machine, HYDRA was thwarted, and Tony, as acting SHIELD director (which is so implied, but never really confirmed in strict movie canon), was able to recruit Wanda as an agent. Regrettably, Pietro still died. Oh, and Bucky was found not long after the events in CA:WS and brought into the fold as well. So everything's a little jumbled. Hope it's still fun.

Obvious Note: I don't own anything Marvel. If I did, I'd be smart enough to invent some sort of machine that would allow me to jump straight in, where I could be Steve Rogers girlfriend and none of this fangirl nonsense would be necessary. Hope you enjoy!

This is established Steve/Natasha, with a healthy and adorable dose of Tony/Pepper thrown in, and other mentions.

Summary: Stuck as backup on an op that he really didn't want to be a part of, Steve has to come to grips with his plans not exactly coming along like he'd had in mind. But, as he's about to figure out, sometimes life is better that way.

Chapter One

Steve had to admit, after everything that had happened, he couldn't quite believe they were honestly doing this.

He also had to admit to being just the slightest bit annoyed.

Captain America: Angry would be the headline, with his splang-ly fist in the camera's face; he could see it now, could hear Tony giggling—giggling—and making some comment about good word choices.

That would annoy him too, but he'd be loathe to admit it, out loud anyway.

But still.

It'd been two years since the Battle of New York.

Sixteen months since Fury had partnered him with Natasha.

Fourteen months since he'd slogged up some rocky beach of the Potomac, unsure how he'd gotten there, but definitely certain it hadn't been by his own power, the Triskelion smoking behind him.

A year since he'd finally tracked him down—his best friend, his shadow, his savior.

Bucky.

Ten months since said savior had finally remembered who he was, nine months since SHIELD had finally determined he wasn't a threat.

And it had been a good, solid half a year since he'd realized that…maybe he was in love with the Black Widow.

Considering he'd been brought back from the dead, having been locked in a block of ice, she'd really given him the shock of his life when she'd smirked that smirk of hers and admitted that…maybe she'd fallen in love with him too.

He looked over at her in the passenger seat.

It had been one hell of a whirlwind since then.

Getting Bucky back up to SHIELD's training level, getting him back into the world, pulling him from the black clutches of the PTSD, and helping him integrate with the team.

They were like a well-oiled machine now.

But Sam was busy.

Steve was suspicious that he'd asked out Maria Hill, and he felt bolstered in that suspicion, given the sound he'd heard her make that very afternoon as Sam had left her office, holding the door for Steve, who'd just so happened to be on his way in: it was, unmistakably, a giggle.

A giggle.

Maria Hill. Had giggled.

Natasha had scoffed at him.

But he'd sworn it was a genuine, honest-to-God, girly giggle.

But he digressed.

Clint was also, of course, busy. Apparently the kids had some sort of New Year's pageant at school and Laura was determined they both finally go together, with no wars, or aliens, or catastrophes getting in the way, interspersed with endless questions in tiny voices.

Where's Daddy?

Is he coming? Is he coming to watch me dance?

Is Daddy saving the world again, Mom?

He'd snorted at the contorted expression on Laura's face at last weekend's double date.

It still felt strange to him, this secret that Clint kept: his family.

He got it, of course, and was perfectly willing to keep it quiet.

But still; that night, Tasha bringing him into the fold like that.

It was safe to say he'd felt pretty shell-shocked.

She'd laughed at him the entire way home as he blinked over the dashboard, not to mention his casual assumption they'd slept together at some point. She'd muttered something in Russian under her breath, and though he was working easily enough on other languages, he still wasn't sure just what it was.

But anyway. Clint was out too.

Bucky. He'd been an option.

But then, snap of the fingers, that was out like a light, too.

Which left SHIELD's best spy team up for the job that Tony had ultimately blackmailed them into, sitting in Fury's refurbished—as if Steve had really thought it'd needed another's touch (he'd been wrong)—office. It was just all well and good that all the HYDRA tech they'd found—along with Loki's scepter (thank God) had been trashed, or he hated to think what Tony might've included as an art piece.

Even now, he was still a bit creeped out by the look on Tony's face that afternoon, staring into Wanda Maximoff's eyes, swearing up and down that it would all go, that he hadn't decided to blow their parent's home to shreds, and damn it to Hell if she thought she'd rather bitch and moan her whole life or kick some ass on his side of the playing field. Pietro made the wrong choice. She didn't.

He sort of felt like they'd side-stepped a huge can of worms right there, during that afternoon. He also figured that seeing her brother die in some stupid attempt at gaining the upper hand had sobered her up a bit.

Needless to say, she wasn't particularly crazy about their director yet, but she'd gained plenty of insight in the past few months of her training.

But their new director didn't take any crap, either, even as he gave it out.

Which left this.

He'd never have guessed that someone like Natasha could cave so quickly to two front row seats to Wicked in midtown, waved casually about in Stark's hand, but…

Here he was.

The backup.

He hated being backup.

He was a man of action and he was fidgety.

He hated sitting still, and he hated wondering what was happening, and where, and why the Hell couldn't he do this himself and get it going already.

And he hated listening to this stupid transponder.

And this was why he hated it, because here he sat…

Still trying to compute it all.

Over and over and over and over a—

"If you sigh anymore, Rogers, you're gonna fog up the glass and we'll be made."

He smirked. "They might just assume we're a couple horny teenagers making out after a hot date."

She snorted. "Cute, Rogers."

"Did I get the lingo right this time?"

Her snort became a soft laugh. "I'd be giving you hell if you hadn't."

He admired the gentle, amused curve of her crimson painted lips.

And sighed again, wincing as he caught himself.

She lowered her binoculars, her two-carat diamond ring flashing in the moonlight as she looked at him. "Rogers…You're breaking my focus here. I need you on point. Just because you don't need these…"

"Still can't believe you married me," he muttered instead.

She paused, her gaze softening—or, at least, he assumed, seeing as he couldn't see her much at all, super serum or no. God, wasn't it supposed to be brighter in the future?! "Yeah, well…" She shrugged softly. "Why wait?"

A done deal, she'd called it, shrugging and blanching as he'd suggested a more traditional wedding. He still wasn't sure why he'd done it. After all, traditional guy that he used to be, he really had been serious; he wasn't sure he was that guy anymore, the one that had gone into the ice.

Someone slightly different had come out.

Stupid question all the same; she was Black Widow, for God's sake.

"My no-nonsense wife," he murmured under his breath, knowing perfectly well she could hear him.

"I didn't hear you complaining that night in Abu Dhabi," she retorted.

He laughed, nodding. That had been a good night.

They'd been holed up, new partners, barely two assignments in, in some shabby hotel at two in the morning, bickering and hoping they were safe from the drug runners they'd run afoul of while hunting down one of Obadiah Stane's last buddies in the rogue arms market.

At least the place had had a nice mini bar.

The sex was so great.

Like a drink of water after a month in the desert.

Given, he'd been no pure little boy before he'd gone into the ice, though Natasha had treated him as such. Not for long. A half hour in and she'd shut right up.

"You seemed to have forgotten about that whole 'USO Tour' thing that I did, hm?" he'd teased as they'd lounged the next morning, waiting for Clint to radio the all-clear.

"I don't wanna hear about all your cheerleaders, Rogers," she'd said, smacking him on the shoulder, and Clint had radioed, chuckling that maybe next time, they turn off their coms before shacking up for the night.

A week later, he'd been force-fed the operative's family. At their farm house.

Seriously. He'd thought that he'd already had all the surprise he was capable of having.

But here they were, six months later, courthouse marriage and all, backup to Wanda, Wicked tickets tucked in his wallet, with their New Year's reservations ticking ever nearer.

"We have plenty of time, Rogers," she murmured from beside him, binoculars pressed again to her face. "Would you relax? I'm trying to work, here." But she was smirking again. "Anxious, are we?"

He huffed. "I just don't wanna miss our reservations. And why is this taking so long? And—seriously—Tony is trusting this op to Wanda? They hate each other."

"Sensitive missions like this can take a long time to build up—trust me. I would know." She sent him a look he couldn't quite decipher. It was somewhere between sultry and guilty. He knew how she felt about her past in the Red Room. She didn't bring it up much—he'd discovered she needed about five shots of good quality vodka for that to happen, and he never pushed.

She'd been getting better; at first, he'd been thinking that they'd have to make whatever they had together work without him knowing her entire back story, which would have been lopsided, given that everyone on the planet knew his. But he'd been okay with it.

And then suddenly, on her birthday, he'd made dinner for her at home, made sure to track down her favorite brand of liquor to bring in a little fun—not that he could get drunk in the traditional sense—and he'd been ironically gifted with her personal history.

He'd also gotten tears. Lots of them. From Natasha Romanoff. She'd also let him hold her while she clearly felt her most vulnerable, bearing her soul with the expectation that pure Steve Rogers would reject her initial training as a ruthless KGB assassin. They'd been working on this—her physical vulnerabilities, letting him near in a less than sexually controlled way, when her body had always been her most prized possession, her weapon.

Needless to say, he'd felt like it was his own birthday. And she'd been much better ever since, more relaxed, more…real. Less cool distance, and more warmth, more, 'I married you because I love you and that makes me feel good' rather than 'scares the Hell out of me'.

He felt like the luckiest guy on the face of the earth.

He knew there was more, of course—a lot more—but he was comforted now in the knowledge that she'd get to it when she could, and not before.

And Steve Rogers was patient. He was Captain America, for God's sake. He could wait her out—as long as it took. He'd told her a long time ago that he was much more perceptive than she gave him credit for, that he'd lived through enough to have lived two lifetimes, and he had come out into the second one with more talent at reading other people than those same people often realized. Even her. Especially her. He'd told her that he'd been raised traditionally, that the ring on his hand meant forever, through the ups and downs, and the fights and the distance, and he didn't care how awful she thought she was—she could never be evil when she was capable of loving him.

He'd told her, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn't going anywhere.

Since then, she'd been gifting him with this slightly strange version of herself, one that he wasn't sure he'd met before, wasn't even sure Clint had met—and they'd been best friends.

She was just your average girl. The girl, of course, had been buried under layers and layers of pain and self-defense, hidden behind impossibly high walls—he thought of that ice sheet on that show she'd been saying they should finish, was it Game of Thrones?—but he'd scaled them, shield and all.

Again, lucky.

"Besides," she cut into his thoughts with her soft voice. "Tony knows the only way we're going to get the intel we need is if Wanda is able to crawl inside his head. Shmirkoff's no pushover. Again—I would know. We met once, when I was…" She drifted. "Younger. He's a snake." She grimaced. "You think it's ironic that Tony Stark gave me binoculars that aren't strong enough?" She dropped them into her lap.

He sighed, leaning back into the bucket seat. "He's been rushing back and forth for the past twenty minutes. It's obvious he's getting ready for company." He'd been watching the activity in the top floor penthouse since they'd pulled up, his serum-enhanced vision making it hard to ignore, really. "Just how long did it take him to swipe at Wanda's false escort profile again?"

"Just under forty-eight hours. Good thing we were able to access his browser history, or we might've been SOL and had to do this the hard way."

"You know I love the hard way," he snorted bitterly.

"Besides—" She poked him in the thigh. "—You still owe me dinner for that bet. You had three days, I had two."

He rolled his eyes. "I'd be making good on that right now if not for Stark. Doesn't he have plans with Pepper, anyway?"

"Knowing Pepper, her idea of a nice night is staying in and listening in on this."

He snorted again. "And what's Wanda offering this guy—the 'Girlfriend Experience'?"

She cocked a brow. "Would you know about it, Rogers? Or did you just like to play hooky with all your chorus girls and then ditch it back to your bunk on the warfront?" she teased, her hand landing on his knee.

He rolled his eyes again.

She chuckled, dropping it. "Yes, she is. And, why am I bothering with these when I have a human pair of binoculars sitting right next to me?"

He smirked at the binoculars in her lap. "Been wondering that since we parked."

There was a faint click over the com link as all three lines connected on Tony's end. "The whole floor is clear, Maximoff," came his voice over the line.

God, it had felt like they'd been sitting her for hours and they were just now getting started?!

"Got it," came Wanda's heavily accented reply. "I'm going in."

"How'd Tony manage to clear the whole floor?" he muttered, leaning forward to check they were still on privacy mode, able to hear through the connection but not be heard.

Natasha smirked again. "Don't know. With Tony, I don't think I want to."

He laughed. "For a world class spy, you sure seem to like flying by the seat of your pants, Romanoff."

She gave him a coy look. "And I married The Man with A Plan. Aren't we a pair?"

He couldn't stop the happy grin from stretching his face.

"Don't screw this up, kid," Tony muttered, sounding distracted. "Pepper…" There was muffled noise over the link. "Pep, I just gotta finish this and then we can get the midnight celebrations, 'kay babe? God…you're a hands-y CEO."

They could hear Wanda trying not to laugh. "I'm past the front desk guard. Easy mark; he was already half asleep. And you might want to focus, Stark, in case I 'screw this up' and need you," she needled.

Tony sighed, loudly, through the speaker. "Real cute, kid."

"This isn't my first—how do you American's say it?—Rodeo."

"Just get your little Russian tush upstairs. I haven't got all night."

"Sokovia is not part of—" she started.

But Steve leaned forward, pressing a blinking red button. "Let's try to keep on point, okay, guys?" he suggested. "I haven't got all night either."

Natasha's hand was slowly massaging his knee, making him twitch.

"Let me know when you get the elevator. That access key I had JARVIS mock up should get you in like you own the place."

"Fancy condo," Steve muttered.

"Key accepted," Wanda said. "I'm going up."

"Just remember: anything you can get on any dealings with HYDRA," Tony reminded her.

"Stark. I'm not a child. Let me do my job," Wanda sighed.

Steve's serum-enhanced hearing picked up on the soft whirring of the elevator as it went up, heading for the top floor condo.

Inside, Shmirkoff was still rushing around, smoothing and straightening. His less-than-svelte figure was trailing slightly behind.

Natasha was still trying to watch through her blurry binoculars. "You'd never guess this guy hasn't been laid in a while."

"Just be careful," Steve prompted. "This guy's bad news. We've got solid intel that he was working with Strucker. It took the two of us two separate ops just to nail down the location of this condo. And I hate Russia."

How ironically appropriate, their wild goose chase finally ending with them finding that he kept a swank place in upper Manhattan.

"Yeah, and what else did you nail down on those ops, there, Captain Romanoff?"

"Very cute, Tony," Natasha cut in. "You're binoculars are garbage."

"Hey, I take that personally," he fired back, playful.

"And if you hate Russia, get in line," Wanda added. There was a soft ping as her elevator doors opened. "I'm going in. Everyone go dark. I don't want you bickering in my head while I'm trying to concentrate."

Tony muttered something unintelligible, and Pepper giggled before the com link went quiet, leaving them with just ears on Wanda's progress. Steve did the same, turning privacy mode back on.

"Settle in, Steve," Natasha murmured. "It'll be a few."

He blinked, looking over at her in surprise.

"What?" She opened the glove compartment and of the black SHIELD SUV and slid the binoculars in.

"You called me Steve," he said, sounding like an idiot.

She cocked a brow, coy. "Was there something else you wanted me to call you?" Her fingers trailed up his thigh.

"You never call me Steve during a mission."

She shrugged. "Privacy mode is on."

He smirked. "Oh, so I'm only your husband while no one else is listening, is that it, Romanoff?" he teased.

She leaned in, her fingers dancing further up his leg. "I dunno, Rogers, you wanna be my dirty little secret?"

He laughed, shaking his head, and glanced up at Shmirkoff's huge window. There was a gentle ring as the bell went off. The pudgy arms dealer stopped at a mirror by the door, smoothed his thinning crown of dark hair, and opened the door with a flourish.

Wanda stood in the doorway, a spidery smile in place and her darkly lined eyes flashing.

"Nikita?"

"Mr. Shmirkoff."

His eyes wandered away as he listened. "Won't you come in, my pretty?"

"We're never gonna make our reservations, Tasha," he said.

"I'll take vodka," Wanda practically sneered, going for the cool approach. "If you've got anything decent."

Shmirkoff floundered, taking her coat and nodding.

"Steve, it's barely eight. Dinner's late for the holiday, our table won't move until midnight, and that's even if we miss our eleven-thirty call time." She slid her hand further up his leg. "What's got you so uptight, Captain?"

He growled a little in annoyance. "We fought for this night off, Tasha. I made reservations weeks ago so we could have a quiet holiday, kiss at midnight, all that stuff that I couldn't do in the war, and here we sit in a SHIELD truck, watching a Russian ex-pat be seduced. Not exactly the romantic night out I had planned.

She squeezed his thigh. "We had a nice Christmas. Didn't we?"

They had. A few gifts, breakfast together, a little dancing across the hardwood floor of his living room, and dinner with Clint and Laura, the stars brilliant over the farm house.

"Yeah, and then we topped it off with paperwork about that ridiculous op last month. Merry Christmas."

She sighed. "Steve…"

"I wanted this to be special, our first holiday together. And here we get roped into this at the last minute because everyone else happened to already have left for the night? You know Tony could've pulled strings, but instead he yanks my chain."

She squeezed again. "You know Tony only yanks your chain because you let him."

He rolled his eyes. "I know…"

She smirked. "It's how you know he cares."

In the momentary silence that followed, they could hear Wanda and Shmirkoff flirting, and it sounded like they'd already gotten to light petting.

"At least someone's getting lucky tonight," he mumbled.

She snorted. "Yeah, until he gets his head sifted through. Besides…" She'd reached the top of his thigh now, and he jerked. "The night's still young, regardless of what my old man of a husband seems to think."

He let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah, that old man keeps up with you, even if he is technically ninety-five. And he's not the only one who is." He threw his hands up. "This sort of thing is right up Bucky's alley."

Natasha chuckled. "Rogers, baby, you can't tell me that you think Sam and Hill are knocking boots on the sly, but you haven't noticed your best friend has gotten hot and heavy with Darcy?"

His jaw dropped open. "Darcy?!"

She nodded, wincing. "Darcy."

He held out his hand, waist high. "Darcy. Petite brunette Darcy? Jane's Darcy? Tiny hacker, team motivator, and general, all-around Tony babysitter and Thor wrangler? That Darcy?" Truthfully, he'd always thought she was adorable, in an, 'I've always wanted a little sister' sort of way.

She nodded again. "Same Darcy."

He slumped in his seat. "Huh. I missed that."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well, you and Bucky are close. Sometimes you miss things when you're standing too close."

He frowned, thinking back and trying to spot a hint in the past week of his interactions with the metal-armed soldier. "Is it serious? I mean, we've always talked about anything and everything and he hasn't said anything."

Another shrug. "You mention that you'd fallen in love with a super spy to him?"

He flushed. "…Felt too…personal."

"Exactly." She leaned forward, squinting up at the condo. He knew they'd given her a watered down version of some attempt at his own serum while she'd been in the Red Room, but it was nothing compared to Erskine's original formula, dancing permanently in his blood. "And I dunno if it's serious, but I can tell you that JARVIS pulled her out of our briefing early last week due to what he called a 'particularly bad episode in Sergeant Barnes' quarters' Just paraphrasing."

He slapped a hand to his forehead. "Ugh, the PTSD. She's helping him through his PTSD?"

She shrugged again. "Sounds serious."

He shook his head. "Jesus."

She patted his upper thigh. "That just leaves us, babe."

He snarled, but it was half-hearted now. If his best bud had found someone, he couldn't—wouldn't—complain, and Lord knew, poor Darcy had been wrenched in enough directions over the past few years, what with Thor's side of the story.

"Hey. We're still spending time together. Right?"

But his eyes had moved past her in favor of the movement through Shmirkoff's window over her shoulder.

"Rogers?"

He sat forward, listening hard.

"I'd show you the stars, Nikita!" he said, and Steve saw him push the French doors open with triumphant gusto, shivering at the thought of that blast of cold New York air.

"Steve?"

And, just like that, Shmirkoff's eyes dropped, finding their black SUV, parking lights low, two figures, just sitting, in the middle of the street.