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It started not long after Pepper and Tony finally broke up. It had been a long time coming, and she knew that, inevitably, they would reach their breaking point. She was sick of staying up at night worrying he was going to get himself killed. She was sick of getting blood stains on her $400 dresses because he hadn’t been careful in battle. More than anything, though, she was just sick of falling asleep, knowing he was right beside her, awake and alert and haunted by the guilt and the horrors of his past battles. It wouldn’t be so bad if he would talk to her. That had been part of their agreement when this whole thing had first started. If Tony has trouble, he agrees to talk to her. It wasn’t that hard.
He never did, though. He hemmed and hawed, he told her he was all right, but at the end of the day he didn’t talk to her. He didn’t want to. As much as he insisted he wasn’t a soldier, somewhere along the way Tony Stark started viewing Pepper Potts as a civilian, and his side was no place for a civilian.
She sat in the corner at the Fourth of July barbeque, trying to dull the sting of their breakup-because who was she kidding, they’d both seen it coming from miles away-in expensive beer and one of those kosher hotdogs. That was around the time her favorite former personal assistant lounged next to her.
“I never thought I’d see the infamous Pepper Potts like that,” Natalie… Natasha hummed. Pepper snorted and took another swig of beer.
“There’s a lot of me that the public doesn’t get to see.”
Natasha’s lips quirked.
“I’d like to.”
--
Whatever was going on with her and Natasha, it wasn’t what Pepper had expected because Pepper hadn’t wanted another relationship like Tony. She hadn’t wanted a hero, or someone who was going to keep secrets… but Natasha was beautiful. And she was surprisingly giving when Pepper needed her to be, and rough in all the right ways. More than that, unlike with Tony, Pepper never worried. Natasha had been fighting longer than she could remember. She could take care of herself.
It started out with sex, and at first that was all Pepper needed. That pale, lithe body stretched out on her bed. The fan of red hair forming a halo. The give and take as two Type A personalities battled for dominance. With Tony, she had been fairly dependent on his mood. Usually, he was receptive to her wants and needs, but more often than she would prefer, she ended up coddling him like she always did. Natasha didn’t need any of that.
She wasn’t sure where it started, but suddenly she spent almost as much time in Natasha’s room in the tower as she did in her own apartment. And vice versa. At some point, she started thinking of them as ‘Pepper and Natasha’ rather than ‘Pepper Pots’ and ‘Natasha Romanov’.
--
Sometimes, Natasha called her ‘Ms. Potts’ in the privacy of their bedroom and sank down on the bed, her business blouse unbuttoned just low enough for Pepper to catch sight of the swell of black lace over her pale breast. Pepper wasn’t sure whether it was normal for a woman in her position to be this turned on by the demure little show Natasha put on, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t fantasized about this at least a little bit back when she was just Natalie Rushman, the very expensive lawsuit in waiting send over from Legal.
“Those payroll reports were disorganized, Ms. Rushman,” Pepper hummed, pushing Natasha slowly back on the bed. “I’m afraid I had to waste half an hour getting them in order again. It wasted a huge part of my day.”
“Oh no.”
“I’m afraid you did a very bad job. You’ll have to be reprimanded for that.”
She let her hands trail down Natasha’s shirt, down to her knees, before pushing them slowly apart.
“I promise I’ll do better next time,” Natasha mock-begged. “Please don’t report me.” She reached up to pop open yet another button on her blouse. “I’ll do anything.”
That was the first night Pepper didn’t think about Tony Stark.
--
Tony stared at them with some combination of shock, lust, and pride in Pepper for having nabbed an agent like Natasha.
Colonel Rhodes smirked and privately gave Pepper a thumbs up, but otherwise kept to himself.
Bruce smiled at them like they were some sort of sweet hallmark card, even though there was very little that was ‘sweet’ about them.
Phil didn’t have much of a reaction. He just reminded Natasha to fill out the necessary paperwork, and would Pepper please send over those defense reports at the end of the week?
Clint laughed. Actually laughed. Then asked Pepper if Natasha still bit. She did.
Thor didn’t catch on for a while. Surprisingly, he just shrugged and went on with his business. Apparently, on Asgard, hooking up with teammates or close work associates was pretty normal. At least, until Natasha later told her later that Thor had wanted to bear hug them in congratulations, but he was actually scared of Pepper. She wasn’t sure whether or not to be happy about that. She was certainly proud, if nothing else.
Steve, though, possibly had the best reaction. For a couple of weeks, whenever he saw them, he stammered and looked away, a flush rising to his cheeks. It took forever until he finally sheepishly wished them the best, but it was genuine, which she couldn’t help appreciating.
More than that, she appreciated the look on his face when she subtly grasped Natasha’s ass in front of him.
--
Natasha was a lot of things, but she wasn’t talkative. She never was, but Pepper came to learn that it wasn’t Natasha trying to keep secrets. She just wasn’t a chatty woman.
Pepper found herself sharing all sorts of stories. Why she chose to pursue business. Her college years. What attracted her to Stark Industries. The first time strawberries, her favorite food, had turned on her and the years of allergic reactions since. She told Natasha about why she never visited her parents and why she loved classic art so much, how she learned to bake a soufflé but had never managed to master muffins. She told her about the first time she ever rode a horse and the last time she rode a motorcycle, when she’d first realized that a well cut suit on a woman was just as attractive as it was on a man.
Natasha listened to ever story without any sign of boredom. Maybe she was that good an actress, or maybe she was genuinely interested. Either way, if Pepper wanted to talk, Natasha listened. More than that, if it came down to it, Natasha could recite every detail back to her just to prove how intent her focus was.
It was nice to talk and know she was being listened to. Nice enough that Pepper could resign herself to the fact that Natasha wasn’t going to share quite as much.
Late in the night, though, Natasha curled up close to Pepper, wrapping one powerful arm around her waist.
“I didn’t try ice cream until I was twelve years old,” she murmured. “I only got to because my mark offered it to me and I couldn’t afford to blow my cover…”
--
Pepper started overlooking things. Natasha came home with a split lip, and Pepper kissed it better. Natasha disappeared for a few days without indicating where she was going, and Pepper just held her tongue and asked what restaurant Natasha wanted to go to when she returned.
Then Sao Paolo happened. Natasha came back with a broken leg, a minor concussion, and no explanation. Pepper didn’t talk to her for days.
--
Their first fight had been brutal. Lamps thrown at the wall, screaming until they were hoarse, end of the world brutal. It ended with Pepper collapsed on the floor, her shoulders shaking as she asked herself again and again why she kept doing this to herself.
At times like this, Tony knew the importance of leaving Pepper the hell alone, maybe retreating into his lab to blow off steam until Pepper was ready to talk or not talk.
Natasha didn’t do that, though. She stayed in the room, the anger seeping out of her until she was on her knees, her arms wrapped around Pepper’s shoulders.
--
“I thought you wanted this done.”
“I did.”
“Then why isn’t it?”
Pepper shifted, wrapping her arms tightly around Natasha’s middle.
“I guess I’m not as ready to end it as I thought I was.”
--
Natasha had been raised in the Red Room as an agent for the former Soviet Union. She was, in fact, sixty two years old. She looked good for her age.
Like many agents, she’d undergone experimental procedures to reproduce Steve’s supersoldier serum. In her case, it accelerated her healing process and elongated her lifespan, but that was about it. All her strength and skill and sheer physical ability was the result of years of discipline and training.
Her first love had been a man a little older than her. The perfect American spy, who’d gone in and out of cryo. He had amnesia, but he knew his name. James. Her first mission with him, she’d been fourteen and he’d turned her down. When she finally hit the point of maturity and her aging slowed, he stopped saying no. After Natasha defected, she’d never learned what happened to James.
Somewhere along the way, James had gone into cryo again and Natasha had married. But her husband had been killed by the KGB. She’d defected because of that, and didn’t dare speak his name.
There was a man named Ivan somewhere. He was as good as a father to Natasha, which was why nobody knew about him. Natasha was trying to keep him safe.
She’d loved Clint after he’d opted not to kill her and offered her a job with SHIELD. They didn’t work out, but Pepper recognized the look in her eye. She still had a torch for him, much like Pepper would always have a torch for Tony.
After that they got into smaller details. Natasha had been sterilized at the age of seven, which later proved to be a key factor in her skills in seducing her marks. She had grown up with almost nothing, which was why she had expensive tastes. She cheated at drinking games and chess, and took pride in doing so. She’d always wanted a pet but at this point she didn’t know how to take care of one. She adored Steve, and was probably the only person on the team who really understood what he was saying when he talked about the 40’s. She hated hospitals more than she could say. They reminded her of the red room. So did any level of sensory deprivation, or windowless rooms, or situations that robbed her of her power.
Pepper kissed her cheeks when they grew wet and absorbed all of this.
--
Natasha had fine tastes. Pepper attributed this to the fact that she’d spent most of her life in Soviet Russia, where she’d had nothing, so now she wanted everything. Sure, she’d wear jeans and tight shirts to work when formal uniforms weren’t necessary, but in private, with Pepper, Natasha dressed only in the best. Silks, satins, velvets, lace, and fur, sipping expensive vodka and curling up close, nuzzling Pepper’s neck to indicate just what it was she wanted to do that evening.
Pepper opened her closet one morning to realize that a good half of the space was taken up by those very silks, satins, velvets, lace, and fur. And, more likely than not, a good half of Natasha’s closet was now filled with cotton, linen, and smart suits.
--
“Come on,” Tony pleaded. “Peps, you’ve gotta give me some kind of hint. You can’t tease me with this.”
Pepper flipped through her folder and rolled her eyes.
“I’m not teasing you with anything, Tony.”
“Yes you are! Waltzing around with Agent Romanov on your arm. Just seeing you two is driving me crazy.”
“Then don’t look.”
--
Natasha called her Peps. She returned with Tasha.
Natasha called her Babochka. She called her sweetie.
Natasha called her Luba. Pepper looked it up, and she wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
--
“You might as well just move in,” Pepper suggested. Natasha’s lips twitched.
“I thought I already had.”
Pepper smiled. Well. There were worse places she could end up.