Steve
Since Alexei and the "he was nice, and funny, but I don't think we're meant to be forever, you know?" date, there had been a few more. She and Matt Murdock had tried to make a go of it, but the fact they'd known each other since they were 5 made him feel too much like a friend and not at all like a boyfriend. Tony had gotten much better at handling Natasha's dating and social habits, and together with Steve they'd established ground rules on having a life as a teenager who occasionally went on a date but mostly used the Stark name to open doors with her friends.
She knows the rules well and is ready to repeat them anytime she feels (mostly) her dad or Uncle Steve need reassurance as she gets ready to leave:
She must be contactable at all times, no exception
At least one of them must meet any boy before a first date
If she's leaving the tower, she tells them where she's going and who she's going to be with
If she's staying in the tower, her door must remain unlocked at all times
Tony or Steve reserved the right to check her phone and messages at any time for any reason or no reason at all.
If she finds herself in over her head, even doing things she shouldn't be doing, she is to call Tony (who would be most apt to panic), and he or Steve would pick her up immediately, no questions asked.
Things had been going well with the rules in place. Tony had bought her a car last year, but often if he was available, she still asks Happy to drive her and her friends. Their dynamic is changing, but it somehow feels as though they are on the precipice of something big, and none of them can stop it or predict it, but they could weather it together.
Steve, along with owning a small gallery, also now owns his own studio, where he helps veterans struggling with PTSD through art. Sam, Maria, and Abigail Brand had come to him with the idea, and three years later he was becoming even more well-known in both military and artistic circles.
Tony and Janet were making arrangements to merge Stark Industries' prosthetic division with Frost Industries and Xavier Enterprises resources, and they had the potential be make some of the greatest medical advancements in the western world (the greatest advancements were being made by T'Challa's company Panther, Inc., but Tony had learned years ago not even he could compete with T'Challa's genius sister).
And Natasha, well, Natasha has her first official boyfriend. And neither Tony nor Steve were really happy about it.
Nick Fury is a cocky, serious, sarcastic teenage boy who exuded an air of mystery. Though always respectful and confident, he really irritates Tony, who has tried to joke with him a few times only to be met with hard stares and a piercing gaze. Steve can't pinpoint what makes him wary, since Nick seems to really admire and respect Natasha, and never talks down to her as one or two of her other dates had. And though Natasha thinks he is the best thing to ever happen to her, this is the first time it is the boy itself of whom Tony disapproves, rather than the situation.
The tension between Natasha and Tony is palpable these days. They trade the occasional sarcastic barb, but as of yet hadn't fully argued. Steve can feel the tension building in their once-peaceful home, and he waits for the day it would explode.
Natasha
When Natasha was young, she always imagined her mother as a beautiful princess who had magical fairy powers and used them to save everyone she met. In all the stories her dad would tell her, her mother was his own personal superhero. Her Uncle Steve used to say that's why she had to go away, so she could better watch over and protect Natasha and Tony from afar.
Perhaps her father always thought of her mother that way, which is why he reacts as badly as he does when she talks about her own love of her life.
"Nick thinks I should take a year off, travel a bit before going off to school," is how the argument begins.
She knows her dad doesn't fully trust Nick, but he has always been cordial to him. This news, however, is what finally breaks the brewing tension between them. Suddenly, her dad is telling her in no uncertain terms that that isn't an option, and the two have been arguing ever since.
"I just don't understand what the big deal is!" Natasha finally throws her arms up, frustrated.
"You used to make your own decisions about your life! Remember that?!" he responds, equally aggravated. "Now all of a sudden, he doesn't want you in school and you just- what, you're going to do whatever he says?! He doesn't even make you laugh, Natasha! You never laugh with him!" Tony shouts, and Uncle Steve, who had come in to run interference, freezes and gets a look in his eyes as though he has just realised something.
"I do so!" she shouts back, looking to Steve for back-up. She becomes absolutely enraged when he meets her eyes sadly and gives a small shake of his head. She stares between them, then crosses her arms over her chest as she's seen them do a million times, her own personal armour against a world that is falling apart.
Her dad sees this and sighs deeply, before he walks toward her, hands raised in a show of peace.
"Look, Kiddo. I want you to be happy, I do. And if you want to do something else after you graduate, that's fine. But, whatever it is, it can't be because a boy told you it's something you need to do. Especially this boy. He's- I don't know, Natasha, I just don't trust him. I think he's hiding something."
That does it. Her emotions burst inside her, and she realises her dad will never really understand.
"I hate you!" she yells as she backs away from him. She suddenly needs space from a father who doesn't know what it means to be in love with someone with imperfections and an uncle who always seems to side with her dad no matter what. She dodges her dad's outstretched arms and shoves past Uncle Steve, who tries to stop her as well when she grabs her phone and keys and stomps to the front door.
"I'm sorry he's not as perfect as Mom was, Dad, but Nick understands me in a way no one else does. And if you can't understand that, then I have nothing to say to you!" she slams the door open.
"Where do you think you are going?!" Tony demands angrily.
"Out!" she yells.
Steve
There have only been 3 times since Natasha was born that Steve thinks Tony seriously, seriously wishes he still drank:
when Pepper died
when Natasha was 7 and told him she hated him the first time and decided she wanted to run away from home (She ran all the way up to Rhodey's office and spent the day with him hiding under his desk while he helped her "figure out her plan," until it was almost suppertime and he reminded her Steve was making vegan lasagne and her daddy was probably going to try to add meat sauce when he wasn't looking but his Little Buddy wasn't there to distract Uncle Steve.)
today, when he realised that he'd spent so long putting Pepper on a pedestal for her daughter that Natasha would have a hard time imagining the flawed person her mother actually used to be.
Steve's staring at Tony, who's sitting on the sofa with his hands in his hair and lost in thought.
"Do you think I was wrong?" he asks suddenly.
"No," Steve sighs. "But I think she's young, thinks she's in love with someone she's dated all of 2 months, and won't know any better until she's 30."
"That when you knew better?" Tony asks with a grin.
"Well, I was raising a two-year-old at the time. I didn't know anything." He reminds with a laugh.
Tony nods, rubbing his chest. Steve understands how he feels. Whether they know she's speaking from anger or not, when their kid tells them she hates them, it's the most painful sensation there is.
"Wish I would have known then how easy we had it. When she ran, she always waited for me to catch up."
"No, you were always able to catch up, there's a difference." Steve says philosophically.
"Yeah, there is," he agrees. Loki comes over demanding attention, and Tony absently strokes his fur, lost in thought.
He begins tapping on his chest again with the hand not petting his cat, and then he looks up at Steve, a hesitant expression on his face.
"Listen, there's something the three of us need to discuss when she gets back. Something I should have told you two a while ago," he breathes out, and Steve tries to read the hesitancy on his face.
"Okay," Steve replies, curious. "Is it something I'll need to take Nat out for afterwards, or something I'll want to hit you for?"
"Hopefully, neither, but-"
Tony stops as his phone rings, lunging for it and answering immediately.
"Natasha?" Suddenly, he goes completely white, his voice carefully void of all emotion, and a cold ball of dread settles in Steve's stomach at the sound. "This is her father."
He tenses up at the look of terror on Tony's face, mentally preparing himself as he feels his adrenaline rush through his body.
"We'll be right there," Tony says tersely, standing and squeezing his fists together as tightly as his eyes before he turns to Steve and utters the most petrifying sentence Steve has ever heard in his life.
"Natasha's been in an accident."