A/N: I'm overwhelmed at how stunning this chapter is. I'm so proud. I kinda wanted to wait it out, to keep them in that awkward stage where they are not sure if they hate or like each other for longer, but then I gave up. For those of you who are waiting for the Pepper/Natasha moments, you'll have to wait a while longer, I want to show their building relationship first.

Also, I'm looking for a beta for this, and I have no idea how to even go about that, so if someone could explain the process, that would be fantastic.

Warning for slight Tony/Steve later on, not only coz I love them, but because I have a friend who needs them.

First Part inspired by http : www . youtube watch?v=lowbqIf6FPY (removing the spaces) Which is conveniently Pepper/Natasha.

Enjoy!

The woman's eyes opened slowly, sleepy baby blue and blinking, "Natasha?"

The spy, stony faced as always, willed away the whimsical, foreign emotions that had welled up inside of her.

Crunch time.

"Hmm?" She acknowledged the unasked question, instead preferring to recline further into her seat.

Pepper blinked, scrubbing her eyes absently, mascara dust powdering the skin underneath her eyes a dark shade.

"How'd you get in? I told JARVIS to lock down this floor."

"Air vent. It's not like Stark's internal security is that fantastic, but I think that's partly because of the Hawk. None the less, it was no trouble to get in, especially for someone with my skill set."

"Right, international espionage, got it. Why are you here then?"

Natasha sighed, pushing her short hair back from her face, "Because we need to talk. You've been avoiding me, and I," she paused, and just breathed, tearing down a wall of pride that stopped her from admitting what she needed to convey to Pepper. "- I miss you Pepper. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing my job so well that it hurt you, I never meant that."

Pepper sat, and thought. She wasn't sure if it was that her brain was sleep addled, or that the woman had been invading her mind for the past week without relent, but Pepper didn't feel particularly angry. Just, relieved, and a tad hopeful. Natasha missed her, which meant that Natasha considered her a friend... which meant what? What was stopping her from rekindling that friendship? Herself, she knew that, she knew that her wounded pride would get in the way of her accepting the blessed possibility of having a friend.

Not just a work-friend. Not a Tony-friend, someone who was Tony's and by extension, and fear, her friend. No, Natasha could be a real friend, someone Pepper could lean on when she needed too. Pepper didn't have many of those friends. Just Tony, Rhodey and Happy, and JARVIS, but he was an AI so it kinda didn't count.

Natasha could be that. She could be another support, holding Pepper up when she couldn't do that herself. Hell, Pepper knew that the woman was that, she certainly couldn't have managed through those heartbreaking months when Tony was falling apart and she just didn't know what to do without the red-headed PA.

She caught Natasha's eyes, held them, and her pulse quickened, gazing into those bright, hazel eyes, goose-flesh rising across her arms, and suddenly, Natasha was beautiful, shining even, reclining in her armchair, short hair lit like fire from behind as the sun crept lazily through her drawn curtains. It took all of Pepper's will power not to gasp, and she was not blushing, so she filed that little piece of information away in things to worry over later.

"Natasha," simple, easy, and Pepper didn't have to fear the woman because she knew that even though she was probably the most dangerous thing in the apartment, Natasha was safe. Natasha was venerable, something Pepper has a hard time wrapping her mind around, but the sunlit angel in her room had put herself out there, for her, and came here, to her, and apologised for something that Pepper wasn't sure she needed to apologise for anymore. And it made Pepper's heart swell the way it did when Rhodey came home, and when Tony brought her new shiny things that she didn't understand, when his eyes crinkled at the corners and he grinned at her, happy to show off whatever he had created.

She breathed, stilling the turmoil within her, "I -I missed you too."

That was a start. Pepper gazed at the spy through her lashes, and silent, unspoken words passed between the two of them, that was enough, that would do, they could work from there, and a small smile graced Natasha's lips in acknowledgment, almost in reply of its twin that grew over Pepper's.

And it was enough, to have a friend, again, finally.

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Pepper couldn't shake the glow that emanated from within her.

Tony was the first to notice it, as he was talking to Steve across two cups of steaming black, bitter coffee. He blinked, actually blinked, pausing mid-sentence, and staring.

She just smiled lightly at him, shaking her head in a promise of later, reaching for a mug and setting the coffee-machine to espresso.

Steve just smiled at her, two cute dimples pressing into his skin, pleased to see her so relaxed, and it took everything in her not to coo at him, letting Tony be the mushy one as he pressed a chaste kiss to one, dark spots rising on Steve's cheeks as he admonished Tony for being so forward in front of a lady.

Tony just brushed it of casually with, "Pepper's hauled many of my one-night-stand's out of here, she's no blushing maiden," which made Steve's eye's glow with jealousy, and Pepper laughed as Tony was pulled down into a brutal kiss with a barely coherent, "Never again," muttered between their lips.

She tutted at all their shmoop, taking her coffee to the small balcony that adjoined the common-area of Avengers Tower, settling herself into one of the deck chairs, watching the horizon.

She should take the day off. Maybe two. No, two days without her, and Stark Industries would fall apart. A day then. Surely she deserved that, after all she did for the business, and she added that to her checklist, to see Tony after his current predicament was over.

Her thoughts turned back to Stark Industries, her work, her employees. For all intensive purposes, she was the CEO; Tony was more of a figurehead as such. Still, she needed his approval on the new- .

"You need to stop thinking so hard."

She jumped, unaware of another's presence, unsurprised to find Natasha sitting in the deck chair next to her, nursing her own cup of brown slop.

"Yeah."

So there they sat, gazing across the busy New York landscape, eyes glazed, each woman thinking far-away thoughts, until their coffee's had turned cold and Bruce began cooking lunch, thick spices tearing them away from their comfortable silence.