#I ADORE natmaria

[dammit-stark]

oooh not that many people write natmaria! will you write 94 and natmaria

“Reasoning is not gonna work with them” - natmaria, 2k words (I got a little carried away with this one but can you blame me I love natmaria okay) - also available on ao3 here

There was something weird about bringing Maria to the Avengers facility that felt oddly similar to… introducing her to her parents. Which is ridiculous on multiple levels, just absolutely neurotic really. Such as the fact that Nat has never had real parents, as well as the fact that Maria is probably closer to being real family to her than the Avengers actually are. But Nat can’t explain it, she’s nervous.

At the very least, she’s about to introduce her girlfriend to her very capable group of overprotective, emotionally intense roommates. Nat feels secure in this anxiety. But Maria insists that being introduced to the rest of Nat’s team as her girlfriend- not just the chick who does all the research, and moves all the money around, and occasionally kicks some hydra ass- is an eventuality they should face sooner rather than later. Nat argues that no, who’s to say they can’t just never tell any of the Avengers and never have to deal with everybody else? Maria shuts that idea down almost immediately with the proposition of sleeping alone on the couch. Nat begrudgingly agrees to an introduction.

The ride up to the Avengers compound is pleasant enough. Nat drives the old red convertible and Maria controls the radio, their hands happily intertwined over the central console. It’s something they’ve done a million times before.

But then Nat turns left at a fork in the road and that ostentatious fucking A comes into view and Nat pulls her hand away from Maria, both hands tightening anxiously around the wheel.

“You sure you want to do this? There’s still time, Cap won’t have even noticed that I’m here yet, and Tony owes me one. I can turn around right now and it won’t matter.”

“Keep driving, Nat,” Maria tells her, watching her girlfriend out of the corner of her eye, “We’re doing this.”

Here’s the thing with Nat: she’s saved the world multiple times, she’s lost count of how many people she’s killed (though she remembers every name, every last face, she makes sure of it), she’s been a career assassin since before she reached puberty. But she’s never really done the ‘going steady’ thing, and so now that she has a girlfriend who loves her even with the assassin/killing stuff, she has to do some things she’s never done before (a list that in and of itself is incredibly short). Nat’s at a point in her

Nat pulls up to the big glass building and turns the car off, looks over at Maria with a dramatic sigh, “We have to do this?”

Maria laughs and gets out of the car, “Yes, Nat. Absolutely have to. Come on. We’re doing this.”

Maria reaches for Nat’s hand as Nat scans her ID and enters the facility. Friday’s familiar voice comes over the invisible intercoms, “Natasha Romanoff. Code name: black widow. ID number alpha-beta-three. What is the name and reason for your visitor?”

“Maria Hill,” Nat says, looking over at her girlfriend nervously. Maria squeezes her hand just a little tighter, “I have something to talk to the team about. Can you tell them all to meet me in the conference room or, no can we do the kitchen?”

There’s an infinitesimal pause before Friday answers, and if Friday wasn’t an AI, Nat would almost call it smug. Friday responds positively, “Welcome, Ms. Hill. I’ll let the rest of the team know that you would like to speak with them in the kitchen, m’am.”

“Thanks, Friday,” Nat pulls Maria down a long glass hallway to a modern kitchen area lined with extra-large appliances fit for super humans with extra-large metabolisms and a sturdy-looking wooden table with a dozen available seats for an entire team to sit at any given time.

Maria’s been to the Avengers facility before. Hell, Tony offered her her own space when he was building it. But most of what Maria does for the team is less super-heroing and more super-managing; it felt wrong to accept, like she was fooling herself. So she comes and makes camp in one of the conference rooms when she has to and spends the night at a hotel a mile down the road. But this is different. Here like this, it’s Nat’s home now. She spends her nights at this place and makes breakfast in this very kitchen, she pads around in socks and bare feet and does dishes and laundry. To Maria, the compound feels like an entirely different place today.

Tony and Steve, in true ‘team leaders’ fashion enter the kitchen first. Tony nurses a novelty Captain America ceramic coffee mug and Steve smiles down at something Tony had just said, their elbows bumping, and Maria is reminded once again of being thrown into an alternate universe en media res, that this is a home as well as an office, an intimate space.

Steve takes a seat at the opposite end of the table, smiling at Nat and Maria and nodding a silent hello while Tony makes a show of topping off his coffee and pouring a fresh cup for Steve.

“Good morning, ladies,” Tony practically sings as he delivers Steve a coffee cup of his own- this one branded with the lines of Iron Man’s helmet sketched onto it.

“Stark.” Nat snipes back, sounding uncannily to Maria’s ear like a sibling, somehow making a single word sound like a slit throat, “And what have you been up to?”

Steve blushes terribly, hides his face in his steaming mug while Tony just looks like the cat who ate the canary.

“Oh you know,” Tony replies cheekily, “Just working.”

Nat is obviously far from convinced, but then Wanda and Vision enter the room, ecstatic to see Nat, and Tony is cut off. Wanda presses a kiss to Nat’s cheek before sitting down next to Steve, Vision next to her. Then Sam enters, and Rhodey. Clint gets all theatrical about giving Maria an exaggerated hug, looking meaningfully in Nat’s direction before he takes his own seat. And suddenly everybody’s there and Nat’s faced with the terrifying realization that this is happening right now.

Despite the anxieties they both know she garners, Maria watches as Nat molds herself into this confident posture of hers, seemingly at ease with her legs crossed primly, shoulders pushing back into the back support of her chair.

“I gathered you all here today because Cap over there is always going on about team solidarity, or bonding or whatever. And so I thought it was important that you guys, as my team members, knew that Maria and I are engaged.”

Tony stands straight up, his chair pushed violently backward by his knees, immediately demands, “Engaged? Since when have you not been single, Romanoff? What the hell?”

Steve’s hand quickly raises to wrap softly around Tony’s forearm, a gentle, silent reminder to Tony not to be overly dramatic as Steve himself smiles at Nat and Maria, “What Tony means is congratulations. We’re very happy for you guys.”

“When’s the wedding, ladies?” Sam says, folding his hands together and looking equivocally smug.

Maria glances at Nat and answers, “We haven't set a date. We’re not really in that much of a rush.”

Clint leans back in his chair and adopts an expression eerily similar to Sam’s. He very poorly hides a snicker, and Maria gets the distinct impression that both he and Sam were up to something.

Neither Nat not Maria have the chance to prod the resident birdmen about their peculiar reactions because Steve sudden releases his grip on Tony’s forearm, face screwing up meaningfully and says, “Why not?”

At the same time, Tony demands, “Well who’s planning the wedding?”

Nat and Maria both shrug, seemingly at ease against the adjunct wedding-planning-related horror of two infamous heroes.

As highly skilled spies, it shouldn’t be as easy as it is for the two team leaders to con them into wedding planning after that. It’s like they went into shock and blacked out at the phrase who’s planning the wedding and they woke up two weeks later to Tony pressing four nearly identical bouquets of periwinkles at the two brides.

Steve’s on the phone behind Tony, pacing back and forth with a pencil behind his ear, talking in rapid Italian to some celebrity baker that neither of the actual brides involved in this wedding had ever so much as heard of.

Tony pushes the bouquets closer to Nat, “Come on just pick one.”

Maria points at the second one from the left, and Tony looks mildly disgusted, but nods anyway and leaves the brides to go steal Steve’s pencil from behind his ear and record Maria’s choice.

“You could tell the difference between those?”

Maria shakes her head, “Not even a little bit, but I figured it’d get rid of him faster if I just picked one.”

Nat smiles gratefully, “Good thinking.”

Maria sighs, leaning towards Nat with her voice low, “How in the world did we get here?”

“I believe started with somebody insisting that we tell the team about our relationship.”

“How could I have known they were insane?”

“Eight superheroes live in a remote training facility together. Of course we’re all insane.”

“I see you’re lumping yourself in with that group. Anything you want to tell me?”

“Oh sorry, I thought agreeing to marry you counted as insane.”

Maria elbows her in the side, arm moving to wrap around her waist, “It’s okay, I guess. I can be sane enough for the both of us.”

Nat feigns incredulity, “Oh, I never said you were sane,” She leans in to press a kiss to her fiancé’s lips,their breath mingling intimately, “You’re as crazy as the rest of us, Hill.”

The soft moment is broken by Tony cooing at them from the other side of the kitchen counter “Aw, now isn’t that just sweet.”

Steve smiles warmly at the pair of them from over Tony’s shoulder. Maria blushes minutely, but Nat just glares at them.

“I need you ladies to stay right there while I go and run the napkin samples,” Tony demands, and he sweeps dramatically out of the room, “I’ll be right back.”

Steve is distracted by the handwritten guest list when Maria leans back in toward Nat, “How in the world did Stark end up planning our wedding?”

“I honestly have no clue.”

“Do we even want any of this stuff? I don’t care about bouquets or any of this bullcrap.”

Nat shrugs, “There’s no reasoning with them. They’ve decided they’re gonna plan our wedding and now there’s nothing we can do to stop them. It’s how they work.”

“You know what would drive Stark absolutely insane beyond anything else?” Maria grins malevolently, whispers her plan in Nat’s ear.

Nat’s eyes glimmer, and she leans in to press a kiss to Maria’s lips, “I knew I agreed to marry you for a reason.”

Tony comes running back in the room then, going mad over the difference between eggshell and cream. Steve puts his hand over the speaker of his cell to ask if they’d prefer chocolate or vanilla. Nat gives a random answer. It doesn’t matter. What matters to her is that she and Maria love each other. That’s it. Nothing else matters. Maria nods along. They’re on the same page.

When Nat and Maria stride onto the compound Monday morning, Tony’s already in mad wedding planner mode. Steve hurriedly tells them that they have an appointment with the tailor in an hour. Tony’s saying about twenty different things at once.

“And then we have to meet with the florist. After the florist, we’re gonna visit the venue to approve the chairs. Then I’ll take you to this great place Pepper showed me and you can pick-“

“Hey, Tony?” Nat cuts him off. She’s got a shit-eating grin and one arm looped with Maria’s, “Wanna ses something cool?”

“I don’t have time to- what the fuck, Nat!”

Both brides show off their brand spanking new matching wedding rings, “Got married over the weekend, Stark.”

Steve nearly drops his phone, “Hey, uh, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

Maria smiles too, “Had a courthouse wedding. It was great. Clint and Sam were our witnesses. A federal judge signed the papers. We didn’t have to wear white.”

Tony’s face turns an alarming shade of red. It’s so bad that Steve has to grab his arm and ask him if he’s going to be okay. He can’t form coherent sentences, “I hate you both!” He manages as Steve drags him to his office to cool off.

Steve looks sheepishly back at them just before he closes the door, Tony already cursing violently from inside the room, “Hey, Maria?” Steve calls, one hand wrapped around the door, “Welcome to the family.”