it's been a *minute* I know! I'm so sorry!
to make up for the long wait, here's a longer one that's not as angsty as usual! 😉
enjoy!
"Tony, did you get those onions diced?"
"You said you needed the tomatoes."
"I said I needed the tomatoes and the onions," she corrects, throwing him a look over her shoulder.
He just rolls his eyes. "Alright, alright. Calm down."
"I can do them if-"
"No, no, I got them," he protests. She throws another look over her shoulder - this time with an arched eyebrow. "Back to your own task, Itsy Bitsy," he instructs, motioning for her to turn around with the knife he'd been using to dice the tomatoes.
"Tony-"
"I can handle the onions! Jeez. Will you relax about it already?"
"You would think you'd have learned that women- well, people, really, don't like to be told to re-"
"Okay, I get it, I get it. Can we drop it? You're embarrassing me in front of my wife."
Pepper smirks behind her wine glass. So they do remember that I'm here, she thinks as she takes a sip. Truthfully, she'd been enjoying watching the two of them cook together, even with the bickering. It was evident that they had spent a lot of time together over the years, and it warmed Pepper's heart to know that they'd had each other to lean on after giving their lives to save everyone else and leave most of their loved ones behind.
"I think we both know you do that fine on your own and have done for years."
Pepper hides her smile behind her glass but can't hide the chuckle from escaping.
"Okay, hang on," Tony says, whirling around to glare at her playfully, gesticulating with the knife again. "When did it become 'pick on Tony' day?"
"I thought everything was always about you?" Nat teased dryly with another glance over her shoulder.
With a glare and a grumble under his breath, Tony turns back to his own task of dicing vegetables. Then suddenly he turns around again to face Natasha, who's still focused on her task of browning some meat. "Okay, come on, we didn't have all those heart-to-heart talks just for you to-"
Pepper can't see Natasha's face, but she's certain that the woman had rolled her eyes. "Relax, Tony. I'll dice the onions. Go be a good host and refill your wife's glass," Natasha says without turning around.
"It's your house," he counters. "You're technically the host."
"And I'm delegating. It's the least you can do for stealing my food all these years," she quips with a quick smirk that she shoots him over her shoulder.
Tony sticks his tongue out at her in reply as he makes his way over to Pepper. Natasha chuckles at his antics as she steps over to snag the onions from where he had been working on the tomatoes.
His voice refocuses Pepper's attention on him. "You want some more white? Or do you want to try some red? It's Nat's favourite," he asks as he leans his forearms on the table in front of her. She can't get over how much younger he looks. Lack of responsibility for protecting the world takes years off a person, she thinks.
"Well, if it's Nat's favourite…" He leans in to press a quick kiss to her lips and she smiles as he does. God, how she's missed the simple little moments with him. It's funny how a simple little peck on the lips is enough to get her heart fluttering. In many ways, reuniting with him here in the afterlife had been like stepping right back into where they'd been before he'd died, and in other ways it was like the first few weeks of being in love - all consuming and sickly sweet.
"One red, coming up," he says with a wink, pushing up off the table.
"Is there anything I can do? I feel a bit bad just sitting here…" Pepper says as she eyes Natasha's laser focus on the pans on the stove in front of her.
"No, no," Natasha says, turning to smile at her. "Believe me, this is no trouble. Your husband is not a half bad sous-chef when he wants to be."
"You hear that, Pep? That's high praise from the Russian-"
"Tony," Pepper warns, assuming he'd been about to say something inappropriate. Natasha, for her part, just laughs. Pepper supposes she's well-used to his antics by now.
Tony slides a new glass of a deep red wine toward her and whisks away her now empty glass. She swirls it around and watches the liquid in the glass for a moment before she inhales. She'd never really been a huge fan of red wine, but damn did it smell good. She takes a sip and isn't disappointed. "This is really, really good," she appraises, a little surprised at just how much she likes it.
"I'm glad you like it," Nat says with a smile.
"Nat, you want a glass?" Tony asks.
"Mm, just a small one, please."
Pepper watches as he delivers one to her and holds up his own glass to tap gently with hers. Just as they've each taken a sip there's a knock at the door, and Pepper hops up off her chair. "I'll get it!" she says quickly, eager to contribute.
She heads to the door and opens it to find, as expected, Clint and Laura. "Hi," she greets.
"Good to see you, Pepper," Clint says with a nod and a warm smile.
"You, too, Clint," she answers with a smile of her own. She hadn't spent much time with him in all the years she'd known him before Tony's death, but in the aftermath of the battle, even while grieving, he and Laura had shown up to volunteer with the organization Nat had set up for orphans during the Blip. The organization had pivoted slightly in the aftermath of everyone coming back to helping kids reunite with their parents and families and distributing aid to those in need after coming back to find their lives had changed dramatically, but it was still firmly following through on what Natasha had founded it on - a desire to help the kids.
"Nice to see you again," Laura says with a smile, referencing their impromptu afternoon get together a few weeks prior.
"And you," Pepper returns. "Please, come in. Nat and Tony are busy bickering in the kitchen."
"We are not bickering!" Tony calls out.
"Tony! I told you to keep stirring!"
"I rest my case," Pepper says while gesturing for them to come in.
"I heard that!" Tony adds loudly.
They make their way over to the kitchen so Laura and Clint can say hello, and Pepper watches as Nat greets each of them warmly. It's easy to see they are both family to Nat in the tight hugs and wide smiles they exchange. She wonders what their lives would have been like if Nat had lived. Would they have had family dinners like this one? Had they had them in the years before when Nat visited them?
"It smells amazing, Nat," Laura says while peering over and into the various pans on the stove. "You need any help?"
"No, no. Grab a drink and relax."
"I take it that means I'm off the hook too?" Clint ventures.
"Mm," Nat hums. "But only because I don't feel like letting you burn down my kitchen."
"One time! I burned pancakes one time and you never let me forget it."
"You never did pay me back for all those damages."
"Oh, whatever. Like you were gonna get your deposit back anyway with all those nicks in the wall."
"They were holes, and they were from your arrows."
"And your knives," he counters.
"Knives don't leave massive holes. Easily fixed."
"Not my fault you only became a freaking contractor after you died."
"You did renovations at the farm all the time. You couldn't have pitched in some time to help fix the damage in my place?"
He shrugs. "You never liked that place anyway."
"I would just like to point out that you're not lecturing them for bickering," Tony stage whispers to Pepper.
"Tony," Pepper says closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, "behave for once. Please."
"No deal," he says with a grin. "Where's the fun in that?"
"I'm telling you, she hit an apple mid-air with a throwing knife, five times in a row."
Pepper slides into the empty seat next to Tony. The cushions are exquisitely comfortable after a delicious dinner and equally amazing dessert, and she's convinced she may very well fall asleep right there on the back deck. "Nat did?" she guesses and Tony nods. "When was this?"
"Some time before Ultron," Tony offers with a shrug. "Don't remember exactly. What I do remember is being utterly terrified."
"I don't miss," Nat defends.
"Thought that was your schtick, Legolas," Tony says with a nod toward Clint.
"She's always been good with a throwing knife. Never could do much with a bow though."
"I just didn't want to hurt your feelings," she teases.
"Do you still shoot at all?" Pepper asks Clint, curious if he'd hung up his mantle the same way Tony had for Iron Man. She'd expected to see that Tony was displaying some form of Iron Man merchandise or parts of the suit, but aside from an admittedly quite tasteful poster in their house, to her surprise she's seen nothing of the sort. He seems to have put it away for good, even if he does still spend time tinkering, though now on various gadgets rather than a suit.
"Nah, no need to."
"Okay, well, yeah, but...you still got it?" Tony interjects.
"Tony," Pepper sighs because she knows that tone all too well.
"You know…that sort of sounds like a challenge," Clint says as he sits up a little straighter.
"Well, maybe that's 'cause it is."
"Oh, here we go. You see what I put up with for years?" Nat says to Laura and Pepper with a roll of her eyes. "All the time. Pissing contests left and right."
"Apples big enough for you to aim at?" Tony asks, ignoring the digs by Nat.
"Plenty big."
"Well then let's see what you got, Robin Hood."
"If you insist on doing this, do it down there," Nat says with a roll of her eyes as she points down toward some green space farther away from the house.
"And shoot away from the house," Laura adds.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go, Katniss."
"How many more archer references you got in your pocket?"
"Oh, don't worry there's plenty more, Princess Merida," Tony says as he and Clint make their way down to the spot Nat had pointed out, grabbing a box of apples and Clint's bow and arrows from where they had appeared next to a shed. Pepper was still very much getting used to that phenomenon - that the things you needed or wanted often just appeared.
"Thanks again for dinner, Nat. It was amazing," Pepper says, turning back to focus on Nat and Laura.
"I'm glad you liked it."
"I'm a little embarrassed I never knew you could cook when we were alive."
"To be fair, Laura and Clint were probably the only ones who knew. Even Phil didn't know."
"Why keep it a secret?"
Nat shrugs. "People at SHIELD made a lot of assumptions. Most of the time it was just easier to go along with those than correct them."
Pepper understood that. She'd sometimes allowed assumptions about herself to perpetuate to make her life as CEO easier.
"She was a godsend back in the day," Laura says fondly with a warm smile directed toward Nat. "Clint is hopeless in the kitchen, so it was always just me cooking. Then Nat comes around and she's not only offering to help, but eventually shooing me out of the kitchen and giving me the night off cooking altogether."
"You taught me more than a few recipes too, Laura. I owe a lot of my skill and repertoire to you."
Laura waves her off as she sips at her drink. "Stop being modest. This dinner and dessert are enough to confirm you were always better than I was," she says with a laugh.
"I've had time to hone my skills," Nat says. "Not exactly a fair comparison. "Besides, I still can't touch your apple pie. Believe me, I've tried."
"Suppose you should probably master that one if you're gonna keep teaching James," Laura says and Pepper spots a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she winks at Nat, "since he's a good ol' American boy and all."
"James?" Pepper interjects, unsure of who they're referencing.
"Steve's friend. Bucky," Laura explains and Pepper's brows rise in surprise. Bucky Barnes? "He asked her to teach him how to cook a while back, and they get together like, what, once a week now?"
Nat is glaring daggers at Laura, and Pepper can't help but smile as the previously seemingly unflappable Natasha Romanoff gets a bit agitated. Oh, there's definitely something there, Pepper thinks.
"And she teaches him how to cook a new dish. Frankly, I've been wondering if she's a terrible teacher, or if she's "teaching" him something else, beca-"
"Okay," Natasha interrupts quickly, "I think you've had enough fun, Laura."
"Mm, not even close, Nat. Now I have Pepper on my side too. So, wanna tell us exactly what you've been doing with James?"
"You're unbelievable."
"I bet that's what he says."
"Laura!"
Pepper can't help the laugh that bubbles out. Natasha's almost flustered reaction is a far cry from the usual composed expression and persona she typically sports. "I have to admit, I'm curious too, Natasha…" she adds. Perhaps it's fanning the flames a bit, but it wasn't often you got to flip the script on Natasha Romanoff.
Nat rolls her eyes. "Honestly, you two. What are we, in high school?"
"Nice deflection," Laura says with a wink before she sips at her drink.
Nat sighs. "We have a lot in common, alright? It's nice to have someone to talk to that understands the finer points of the aftermath of extensive psychological conditioning." Pepper can tell Nat had been aiming to fluster Laura with discomfort, but she is undaunted. Their silence seems to rattle Nat a bit though, as she continues. "Even if there were something going on, it wouldn't be any of your-"
"Me thinks thou doth protest too much," Laura interrupts.
"Oh god. This is the thanks I get for hosting a dinner, huh?"
"Oh, c'mon, Nat. I want details!" Laura declares.
"Is there something more going on between you two?" Pepper probes.
Nat turns her glare over to Pepper, but she can see it's half-hearted at best. "We're friends."
"Mmhmm. Friends," Laura teases.
"Yes, friends," she defends. "We have a lot in common, and Steve had been pushing us to get to know each other so it was kind of inevitable."
"To "get to know each other," huh?"
"Laura, I swear to god," Nat threatens.
"What's he like?" Pepper asks, wondering if she'll be at all forthcoming with details.
Nat takes a moment to scrutinize them both before responding. "He's got a good sense of humour-"
"Makes you laugh, check!"
"Laura, how much have you had to drink?" Nat asks with an eyebrow arched.
"I'm fine. Now go on," she says, gesturing her hand in emphasis.
"Pepper!" Tony interrupts as he approaches. "We need you!"
Pepper turns to face her husband with a slight frown. "Why? What did you do?"
"Okay, first, I resent that. Why do you assume I've done something?"
"Because you're you, Tony."
He tilts his head. "Okay, yeah, that's probably fair. But we need a referee."
"Oh lord," Pepper mutters. "In these shoes?! No, no. Absolutely not."
"Nat?" Tony says, shifting his attention.
"No," she says firmly. "I'm comfortable," she adds when he arches an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Mrs. Barton?" he offers sweetly.
"Call me Laura," she corrects as she puts her glass down and then accepts Tony's hand to help her stand. "Don't think this gets you out of answering my questions," she warns Natasha with a look. "I'll be back later."
Pepper watches as they disappear down the hill toward where Clint is waiting. When Nat doesn't make any indication that she's going to continue her previous explanation, Pepper prompts her. "So, what do you two talk about while you cook?"
"Lots of stuff. Him and Steve from when they were young, me and Clint's time at SHIELD, books, movies, sometimes actually food."
A thought occurs to Pepper then as she remembers something Tony had told her once. "Didn't he try to kill you once?"
"Three times, actually."
"And you're okay with that?"
"It wasn't him. It was his conditioning. He couldn't help his actions. I know what that's like."
Pepper nods, knowing Natasha's defection to SHIELD had followed years of control by the Red Room. "Something for you to bond over then?"
"In some ways, I guess. We're both way past all that now though."
Pepper nods again. Then she pauses and decides to take a chance now that Laura and the guys are well out of earshot. "Is there anything going on between you two?" she repeats her earlier question.
Nat spins her wine glass by the stem for a moment before she responds. "I'm not looking for anything like that."
"Well," Pepper says as she leans back into the cushions, "maybe it found you anyway."
"It's complicated," she admits. "For both of us. We've moved on from a lot of stuff in our pasts but there are some things that aren't so easily put behind you, you know?"
"All relationships are complicated," Pepper says. "It's how you handle that complicated that makes it hard or easy."
"I suppose all that time with Tony taught you a thing or two?"
"Yeah, you could say that," Pepper replies with a chuckle. She watches Natasha idly slide her finger around the rim of her glass and then, maybe because she's a little drunk or maybe because they're both dead and what does she really have to lose, she decides to dive a little deeper. "Have you been in love before?"
The questions startles Natasha out of her reverie. "Romantically? I don't know," she admits. "It took a long time for anyone other than Clint or Phil to trust me being in a room alone with them," she says, tone a little dry as she smirks briefly at her half joke. "And sex had never been something for anything other than a mission, so I wasn't exactly motivated on that front either. I was a mess for a long time for anything other than mission readiness."
"But then?" Pepper prompts, mindful that this is probably a sensitive topic for her.
"There were a couple people, but they never lasted very long. I was...experimenting, I guess? Trying to figure out what I wanted from someone and if a relationship was something I could even do."
"They weren't serious?"
"Not really, no."
"Did you want them to be?"
She shakes her head. "Not at the time, no. I decided to focus on my work mostly, and Clint brought me home to the farm to visit. That was enough for me."
Pepper bobs her head once in understanding. "I won't pretend to understand everything you went through. But from my view, if this is something you might want, I think you should try, Nat. You deserve it."
"Maybe," she concedes with a small smile. Then she seems to sober up abruptly. "I'm not going to ask you to keep secrets from Tony, but he and James have a bit of bad blood-"
"I know," Pepper says. She and Tony had talked through what led to the breakup of the Avengers, specifically the animosity between him and Steve, and what had caused the rift between him and Nat.
"I don't want to lose his friendship," she insists. Pepper knows how important their friendship is to them both. They'd been here together for a long time before anyone else came around. "His friendship means more to me than-"
"I think he might surprise you, Nat. He understands it wasn't him doing it. He gets that it wasn't his fault. It took him a long time, but he gets that now."
"Maybe, but-"
"And I'm not sure you realize how important you are to him. After you didn't come back from your jump back in time, Tony called me. He was heartbroken, Nat. He was terrified that you'd given your life for nothing, and that they couldn't do it. He felt sick over the fact that he'd spent all that time angry with you when he could have been spending it with you as your friend instead." Pepper pauses to let Nat absorb her words before she continues. "He wants you to be happy, Nat. He really does."
"I'm not drunk enough for this," Natasha declares, and Pepper understands it's a way of dealing with the intensity of the moment. "Steve's never gonna let me hear the end of it if anything does happen, you know. I spent months trying to play matchmaker for him."
Pepper chuckles. "Well, that I can't help you with. And sorry to add salt in the wound, but it doesn't seem like Laura is going to let it go either."
"Yeah, probably not."
"Well, if you're gonna have to put up with that anyway, might as well make it worth your time…" Pepper says with a wink.
Nat groans. "Like I said, I'm not drunk enough for this."
so...did y'all enjoy the bickering? the teasing? seeing Nat maybe just a little flustered? the possibilities that have opened up?
do let me know! always cool to see what you think.
been busy writing for my various stories, this one included. as always if you have a thought for a future moment to cover, let me know! 😊
more to come...