Author´s notes: Hello again, the second chapter is up! Thank you for the reviews, I made a slighty change on the first chapter when Steve is greeting Jarvis if you guys want to check it out, thanks again for the suggestion! More chapters comming soon!

So, like before, english is not my first language sorry for any mistakes in my writing. Enjoy it!

I don´t own any of the avengers or any marvel characters.

CHAPTER 2

Natasha Romanoff is walking around the tower with Tony Stark on the lead, he is talking nonstop about every detail of what is now their headquarters, and Steve is silently following them. She is very impressed with the Avengers Tower, it is very high-tech and modern, Tony even showed her the security system which is flawless, he really thought of everything. Tony Stark is a genius without a doubt, but she´ll never admit that to him, he is already too full of himself to get more compliments. So she only looks around and keeps her calm expression on her face all the time.

After the tour is finished, Tony, Steve and Natasha go to the common area of the tower, where the team gather occasionally. This place has a spacious living/dining area integrated with a big kitchen to the left and, of course, a bar to the right, all with expensive furniture and decoration. Going straight ahead, through double glass doors there is a huge balcony. As they enter the common room, they notice Bruce and Thor having breakfast sitting on stools at the kitchen island.

Thor notices them approaching and stands up as he sees that Natasha is with them: "Lady Natasha, you are most welcome!"

Bruce, who has his back at them, turns around as he hears the blonde God greet Natasha.

Natasha smiles at Thor, it is funny to see him in ordinary clothes, but he still looks good, like a model from a magazine. She says: "Thank you Thor, how are things in Asgard?"

Thor smiles back and replies: "Everything is well. We are at peace with the realms again."

Bruce stands up too and walks to Natasha extending his hand to her: "How was your trip back?"

Natasha shakes hands with Bruce who has a timid smile on his face: "It was long, but no one tried to kill me so, it was good." Bruce smiles increases a little by her remark.

Steve then realizes that Natasha probably didn´t eat much, airplane food is not that good and she wouldn´t waist time in a public coffee shop and risk being recognized, so he walks from behind her towards the kitchen saying: "Speaking of which, you must be hungry Natasha, let me cook you something. How do pancakes sounds?"

Natasha was about to reply but gets interrupted by Tony: "Wow Capsicle, you never offered to cook me anything, I´m hurt!

Bruce looks at Tony and says: "That´s because you´re not a beautiful lady assassin." Then he makes his way back to his meal.

Thor chuckles at the comment: "Ha! Well said my friend!" and sits back down to finish his meal too.

Tony sits beside Bruce and adds: "Point taken, but you know I´m hungry and tired, I was working on the lab all night to make improvements on the tower, it would be a nice way to thank me for all my hard work and hospitality, after all…."

Steve interrupts Tony, knowing he would start bragging: "Sure Tony, I´ll make you some pancakes too, whatever it takes to shut you up." He takes the egg carton from the refrigerator then glares at Tony.

Tony looks at Steve and decides to tease him a little bit more: "Okay…not as nicely offered as you did to the redhead, but since I know you have a crush on the spy, I forgive you!"

Steve loses track of what he was going to do, stops in the middle of the kitchen and stares at Tony Stark, wanting to knock him out for saying that and leaving him defenseless. He feels his face burning.

Tony just smirks when he sees that the soldier is blushing.

Natasha tries not to smile seeing how embarrassed Steve is: "Does he really have a crush on me?" she thinks. Putting her poker face on, like she is not affected by that thought, she makes her way to the kitchen: "Hey Tony, if you don´t shut up, you´ll have eggs on your head instead of your pancakes!" She grabs the egg carton from Steve´s hands and says to him: "I´ll help you."

Steve tries to avoid eye contact with Natasha because he knows it would only make him blush harder and says: "Thanks." He quickly turns to the cabinet to grab a bowl and tries to occupy his head with making the pancakes and not making a fool of himself by trying to deny what Tony said, because he is a bad liar, as Natasha once said.

Bruce and Thor are a little surprised, it is obvious that Tony has pushed a nerve on Steve with that comment because he didn´t even talk back. For the first time, they realize that Steve has feelings for Natasha. Tony, Bruce and Thor exchange glances, but no one says a word on the subject again.

After a quiet breakfast, they are all on the living area, Steve and Natasha are sitting next to each other on the end of the big gray couch, Steve has his arm resting on the back of the couch where Natasha is leaning, and Bruce is on the other end with his legs crossed. Tony is sitting on a black armchair with his feet up on the coffee table and, across that, Thor is sitting lazily on the other armchair. They are discussing with Natasha their past missions, mostly minor jobs, but all trying to clean up HYDRA path of destruction and salvage at was left of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony then asks Natasha: "What about you redhead, what were you doing all this time? Hiding on a beach somewhere, having cocktails and watching the sunset?"

Natasha gives him a half-smile: "I wish, Stark! I have been following leads to gather intel on HIDRA ops and facilities. I have spent some time in South America but then the lead got cold, so I went to Europe, but things got too hot when some old friends tried to get to me." Steve gives Natasha a worried glance; he knows that she is talking about KGB. She quickly meets his gaze, then looks back to the center of the room. She doesn´t want to talk about KGB so she continues: "So Fury thought it would be better if I took some time off and visited my friends in New York."

Tony looks at her with disbelieve, takes his feet off the coffee table and sits up straight: "Wait, wait…Fury has been talking to you? Where the hell is he? We only get Hill to deliver the details of our missions, not that I`m complaining, she is much better to look at then Fury."

Everybody is looking expectantly at Natasha when she says: "We only communicated through messages or over the phone, so I don´t know where Fury is. It was better that I didn´t know so I didn´t ask."

Bruce looks at Tony: "And that is why he didn´t contact us, Tony would probably ask."

Tony looks at Bruce and with sarcasm, he replies: "Ha ha, you are all about jokes today huh Doc!"

Bruce grins back at him and looks at Natasha who has a little smile on her face too, she then continues to break the ice stare Tony is giving Bruce: "But I do know that Clint is working with him too, doing the same thing that I was doing, somewhere in Asia"

Steve, felling a little jealous, says: "So, Barton and you were working together?"

Natasha turns to Steve: "No, you misunderstood me, we were doing the same type of mission, but in different parts of the world, I haven´t seen him in a long time, but the last time I talked to Fury, he said Clint was making progress. He was investigating the whereabouts of a HYDRA secret armory. That´s all I know."

They were all silent for a moment, inside their heads. Tony can't stay inside his head for too long so he speaks: "Okay, enough about missions!" He looks at Thor: "Hey God of Thunder, have you talked to you dad about lending me the Tesseract?"

Thor just glares at Tony.

Steve put his hands to his face: "Jesus, not that again…"

Thor then replies: "No, I have not talked to my father about that matter, mostly because I am sure he would deny your request, as I have before."

Natasha looks surprised and confused about the question that Tony just made to Thor: "Stark, what the hell do you want the Tesseract for?"

Bruce fixes his glasses up his nose and answers: "He wants to use its energy to generate a force field around the Avengers Tower."

Natasha replies angrily: "Like it had done with the device that happened to open up a portal to space sending an army of Chiutari to kill us all. Are you crazy Stark!"

Tony stands up and starts walking around explaining: "No my dear spy, I´m not crazy, I´m a genius. You see, if we could isolate the energy from the Tesseract and direct its force mainly to the particles of the field it would be a great defense mechanism for the tower, we would be untouchable. They could blow up New York City with a nuke, and the Avengers Tower would be the only thing standing! How cool is that?"

Natasha narrows her eyes: "I don´t see how blowing up NYC with a nuke is cool."

Steve stares at Tony and says: "Me neither."

"Well, you guys get the point! Right, Bruce?" Tony looks at Bruce for support, since Thor, Natasha and Steve seems to be against him.

Bruce takes a deep breath knowing what Tony is asking him to do, but he can´t support him because after his collateral effects of experimenting on gamma radiation, he has been very careful with messing around with the unknown: "Well, it could work in theory, but the power of the Tesseract is still unpredictable, so I don´t think it is wise to experiment on it, sorry Tony." He looks at Tony who has a hurt expression on his face.

Thor replies looking at Bruce: "Exactly, thank you Dr. Banner." He then looks at Tony: "And if the Tesseract falls in wrong hands again, I would never forgive myself."

Tony throws his hands up in the air, admitting his defeat: "Ah, you guys just keep taking the fun away of everything. Never mind then, forget I asked. Let´s just turn on the TV and see what is in the news, how boring is that…"

So they drop that subject and relax as they watched TV together.

PS: I am assuming that by now all the Avengers know that Fury is alive. But he is still hiding. Next chapter the Avengers will receive a mission and I´ll add some Natasha/Steve moments alone. Bye!