Disclaimer: Marvel owns the Avengers and all affiliates. I just play in the sandbox.

A/N: I really wanted to write something for Steve Rogers/Natasha Stark, partly because I love Steve/Tony in all incarnations and also because I think the Earth 3490 universe is just a cool idea. In this fic you will find a little bit of everything. Some comic-verse, some movie-verse, some random whatever-my-brain-decides-to-do-any-given-day stuff. So, without further adieu, I hope you enjoy reading as much as I liked writing this.

From the day she was born, Natasha Stark was a fire burning through the world. Brash and loud with genius level intelligence, she built her first engine at the age of 6 and her first robot two years later. She graduated from MIT with honors at 17 and stepped in to take control of Stark Industries at 21. Several years after taking over as CEO she had been kidnapped by a group of terrorists and created the Iron Man armor to be used by a bodyguard after she escaped captivity. The exact details of her escape were classified. Iron Man eventually became a member of the Avengers and Natasha Stark was a consultant that gave them all a place to stay and built them all a variety of different tech.

Steve Rogers knew all these things and more. He had read her file until he could practically recite it from memory and he looked her up on something called the Internet to find more information. That search however had only served to further confuse him between the gossip, newspaper articles, and videos that didn't give him any way to separate fact from fiction.

Their first meeting had confused him possibly more than anything else.

When she walked into the room he was struck by her looks at first: the black curls that fell just below her shoulders and her eyes that were so much like Howard's that it caught him off guard. Those eyes had flicked over him when Agent Romanoff had introduced him as Captain Rogers, something sparking in their depths.

The way Ms. Stark spoke reminded him vaguely of Peggy. He heard the tone of a woman who had to work to command respect because she was a woman in a conventionally male position. When she had first walked in somehow he had ended up tripping over his words while trying to thank her for pulling him out of the ice. He accidentally called her a dame and her eyebrows shot up before she burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

Their first conversation was light, easy, and surprisingly fun, until Steve mentioned her father and watched as her dark eyes went blank and her smile became practiced and controlled. He wondered when and why she learned to smile that way. He hated it.

She left fairly soon after that and he worried that he had upset her. But, a few days later, a package arrived for him at SHIELD headquarters containing several pieces of Stark Tech and a note from Natasha herself promising that she would teach him how everything worked.

As the months passed, the Avengers were formed and Steve and Natasha clashed on several occasions. She hated following protocols and would consistently upgrade various tech without SHIELD approval including Clint's arrows and the Captain America uniform. She would also occasionally break into com-units during battles and give orders, although Steve had no idea how she always knew what was going on.

In spite of their arguments, they also became something like friends, at least as much as Natasha was friends with anyone. He would sit in her lab and sketch while she worked sometimes and they would talk. She taught him about computers and the internet as well as introducing him to 21st century television which he found fascinating (although not as much as Thor who was convinced that Star Wars was a documentary and there was someone inside the television set who changed the channels).

Steve also became friends with Iron Man, who, oddly enough, warned him away from Natasha. When he asked why, he was told that Natasha Stark was dangerous and unstable and that it would simply be better if he were to stay away from her. Iron Man provided Steve with detailed accounts of the Stark heir's self-destructive behavior, going so far as to say she was heartless enough that she used physical intimacy as a power play and nothing more.

Steve told Iron Man about how he would catch himself sketching her at random times of the day, how he didn't ever know what to say to her because she was so much more than her father but didn't seem to believe it. He talked about how he respected her abilities, admired her, sometimes wondered what it would be like to feel her lips on his, and yet he was confused because everything was different and new and he didn't know what he was feeling or if he even truly felt anything at all.

"Natasha Stark would rip your heart out, Cap," Iron Man said one night. "She probably wouldn't mean to, probably wouldn't even know she was doing it. But she would. Just trust me. You don't want to go there with her."

The end result of all these interactions was that after a year, two months, and sixteen days, Steve Rogers still had no idea what exactly to make of Natasha Stark. And then everything changed.

A/N: Review? As a general note, I don't know how many chapters this is going to be. Currently I have 3 more written and no real end in sight.