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The emergency meeting was over, and Natasha was happy with how it went.
As soon as they were done, Clint headed down to check on Tony, who hadn't been out of the lab since Pepper left. It was the right way to handle things, for reasons Natasha had very sensibly laid out during the meeting. Still, it was awkward for the rest of them – Natasha, Steve, Thor and Bruce – to be left standing around the living room of Avengers Tower. Then Bruce suggested making pancakes, and Natasha could have kissed him. She didn't, because she could imagine Bruce blushing and then hulking out, but she could have. It was nice to know she didn't have to handle all the human engineering around here by herself.
Making breakfast had, improbably, turned out to be the one activity that Bruce and Thor could conduct together in peace, and the sunny breakfast nook would give Steve a chance to relax enough to come out with what was really on his mind. Sure enough, Bruce got busy mixing a second batch of pancakes, while Thor stood over the skillet, staring down with his eagle eye to report when the ones currently cooking had bubbled enough to be turned. (Natasha had at one point convinced Thor that only a god had eyesight keen enough to ensure pancakes were cooked to perfection, and that this required standing perfectly still, which had cut down significantly on collisions and breakage caused by Asgardian overenthusiasm.)
This left Steve seated next to Natasha, letting out heavy sighs at periodic intervals. After the seventh sigh, Natasha decided he'd had enough time to think. She took a piece of cantaloupe from the plate that Bruce had meticulously chopped, popped it into her mouth, and raised an eyebrow at Steve.
"You were right," Steve said. "I know that you were."
"I like to hear that as often as possible, however self-evident it might appear. Was I right about anything in particular?"
"Barton was the right person to check in on Tony. I would have made a mess of it. You were right about that."
"I don't believe I said you would have made a mess of it. I said Tony would antagonize you even more than he normally does, because he's a proud idiot that doesn't want to show his weakness to his childhood hero. None of that is your fault."
"But you knew I wouldn't handle it well," Steve persisted. "He needs someone like Clint who can sit quietly and listen."
"He needs someone who can sit quietly," Natasha corrected. "Even after all this time, I'm never sure when Barton is listening. But he can sit there and not say anything with the best of them."
Steve shook his head. "If I was better at the team thing, I would know how to deal with him when he gets like this."
"Oh God." Bruce swooped in to set hot pancakes in front of Steve and then Natasha. "If you think you're bad at the team thing, there is absolutely no hope for me." He nodded toward Natasha. "You're right that I would have fucked it up, too."
"Disagree," said Natasha. "You would have done just fine with sad-sack Stark. But it would have been unfair to you. You hate to see your friends hurting, and once you got sucked into the emotional morass of our fearless leader's broken heart, you'd never have surfaced long enough to tend to your own emotional needs. Which, frankly speaking, are a matter of national security in a way even Tony Stark's are not."
"You might be overestimating me," Bruce answered. "Sometimes when Tony goes on too long, I just fall asleep."
"Only to keep yourself from getting in too deep," said Natasha. "You have to disengage emotionally as a defense mechanism."
Bruce still looked slightly unconvinced, when Thor's voice boomed from his place by the stovetop, "And I, as the Lady Natasha has proclaimed, am not the best to give advice for the brokenhearted." He repeated her words from the meeting as though they were high praise, then added, "Noble Comrade Bruce, come and observe the texture of this batter. I fear its viscosity may be insufficient."
Bruce rushed back to the stove before Thor could break anything, which left Steve giving a quiet, inquisitive look at Natasha. He took his time spreading butter and syrup on the pancake, then carefully chewed and swallowed before he said, "You explained what you think about me and Bruce, then. But I refuse to believe you're avoiding Tony because you're afraid he'll hit on you and make Barton jealous."
"Okay, well, I'm afraid he'll hit on me and I'll kick him in the face." There was nothing untrue about this. She had been around a despondent Tony before, and it was easy enough to see how this could go. But Steve kept looking at her, and she added, "Fine, I refuse to be the one who is good at feelings, especially because I'm the girl on the team."
"So what exactly do you call all this careful consideration of other people's feelings? "
"Human engineering. It's a key component of modern espionage, which. . .Captain Rogers, did you just roll your eyes at me?"
"Human engineering," he repeated. "Believe it or not, we had applied psychology in the forties. It didn't impress me much then, either."
"I've been right, so far, haven't I?"
Steve sighed again, almost ready to concede. He even tried a bite of his pancakes before adding, "I do feel bad about the whole situation though. I mean, how long have Tony and Pepper been together?"
Natasha did some math in her head, tried to remember what was public knowledge and what she had been privy to during her infiltration at Stark Industries, before concluding, "About a year maybe?"
Steve managed not to choke on his pancake, then washed it down with milk. "I didn't expect that. I just assumed they'd been together forever."
Natasha shook her head. "Nah. They've worked together for ages, but when I first met them Pepper was still swearing up and down that he drove her insane and she didn't know why she put up with him. So….not that different from dating him, I guess. But they haven't been a couple very long at all. I'm surprised you didn't know that."
Steve started to sound defensive. "I have a lot to catch up on. You can't blame me if I assume a few things. If I went around asking about everything that confused me --"
"You're right," Natasha said. "But for the record –" She leaned close across the table. "If you want a 101 level course on the relationships among this gang, just ask me."
"Oh?" Steve asked, and when she nodded, he said, "So what about you and Barton?"
"No way," Natasha laughed. "That's beyond 101." Steve sighed again, and Natasha felt sorry for him. "I said you could ask, I didn't say I would tell you."
Now he looked so frustrated that he might cry, if you could imagine Captain America crying, which actually Natasha sort of could –
She pushed her plate away abruptly and stood. "So I was thinking about going down to the gym to spar, do you want to join me?”
"Yes!" Steve said, and Natasha didn't think she had ever seen him look so relieved. To be honest, she was pretty happy herself. Fighting was fun; human engineering was exhausting.
Natasha even let him win a few rounds.