Summary: No, there were no actual bombs, but the way the dinner table seemed to erupt at the announcement of Steve and Natasha's marriage was enough to make someone think there had been.

This was going to be the day. It had to be. If they didn't tell the team today, Natasha was pretty sure she'd never get around to actually telling them. Of course, they could always just drop the subject casually into a conversation, but she felt like their friends deserved a little better than just "Surprise! We're married!" in the middle of a mission brief or a dinner party. Then again, that was essentially what they were doing by inviting the team over for dinner, but at least they would be the ones.

"Do you think Tony will throw something at me or Sam first?" Steve asked, disrupting Natasha's very focused reading of the meatloaf recipe. She didn't jump, but her heart flipped a little in surprise, something Steve must have known if the smirk on his face was anything to go by.

"Why would he throw something at Sam?"

Natasha straightened her back, not having been aware that she'd hunched over the recipe in an attempt to understand it. Steve had found his mother's old meatloaf recipe and while Natasha was determined to make it perfectly, there were Gaelic words thrown in here and there that kept throwing her off.

Steve shrugged.

"Sam's not one to let it slide if he knows something Tony doesn't," Steve replied. Natasha hummed in agreement and smiled as Steve walked up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. "How's the cooking going?" he asked.

Natasha scowled at him and slide the recipe over so he could take care of it.

"Your mother wrote some of it in Gaelic and for the life of me, I can't figure it out," she told him. She turned to look up at him and his arm tightened around her slightly.

"Trade, then?" he asked. Natasha nodded and slipped away to finish setting the dining room table and clean up the rest of the house.

The Gaelic didn't seem to phase Steve (just like she'd figured) and by the time she'd finished cleaning and watering the dozens of plants Steve insisted they raise, the meatloaf was sliding into the oven to cook.

"Fifty minutes until the meatloaf is done and about forty five minutes before Stark shows up," Steve told her, stepping around the counter so he could wrap his arm around her again. He pressed a warm kiss to her lips then asked, "What do you suppose we do to kill the time?"

The way his lips moved from her mouth to her neck gave her a pretty good idea about what he wanted to do and Natasha was never one to deny her husband.

"I imagine you have something in mind," she murmured, leaning against him as he continued pressing kisses down her neck. He'd done it for years, but something about the way he kissed her or held her still made her knees wobble and her stomach flip.

"I might," Steve said, kissing his way back up her neck then pressing his lips firmly to hers. He kissed her breathless and just when Natasha was about to pull away for air, he pulled back and smirked. "You wouldn't happen to be free for the next thirty minutes, would you?"

With a grin, Natasha pulled his lips back down to hers and made sure he spent the next thirty minutes wisely.

* * *

Natasha was the one who answered the door when the Starks first arrived. Steve was getting ready to pull the meatloaf out of the oven and Natasha didn't really trust him to keep his hands to himself at the moment, so she'd slipped away to open the door and smile at Pepper and Tony.

"What's this? Rogers is in the kitchen and you two own plant children?" Tony asked the second he stepped into the house. Natasha rolled her eyes and stepped aside so Pepper could walk inside as well.

"You've been here before Tony," Pepper reminded him. Tony just shrugged and held out a plate of cookies to Natasha who just stared at him unamused.

"Fine," he said when she didn't take the plate. "I'll just go find the woman of the house."

He headed for the kitchen to give Steve the cookies while Natasha rolled her eyes and talked to Pepper instead.

It wasn't long before Sam and Bucky showed up followed by Wanda and Vision. Clint had called at some point to say he wouldn't be coming since Cooper had a baseball game, but Natasha had been too distracted by Sam fondling one of the plants to really care. Once Bruce arrived, carrying a small bouquet of flowers and apologizing for getting there late, Steve announced the food was on the table and everyone hurried to claim a seat.

Whether it was by luck or by disaster, Natasha found a seat right between Tony and Steve. Even with them talking to each other around her, she didn't see a problem with it until she attempted to reach past Tony for a bread roll and he grabbed her wrist abruptly.

"What is this?" he asked, pulling her head away from the bread so he could get a better look at her ring. It was the first time Natasha had actually worn it around the team so Tony's sudden interest wasn't a surprise, but it certainly wasn't the way they'd planned on telling everyone.

"It's a ring, Tony," Natasha said drily, stomping on his foot under the table so he would let her go. She grabbed her bread roll and glanced across the table and Sam and Bucky who were looking at her with wide eyes. "Oh, it was on purpose," she said irritated, glaring at the both of them. "Why else do you think we offered to host Sunday dinner?"

"What was on purpose? I'm still thinking about the ring, by the way," Tony said, hunching awkwardly so he could rub his foot. "Don't think breaking my pinky toe will make me forget."

"I didn't do it to make you forget the ring," Natasha replied, taking a bite of her bread. "I did it so you'd let me get my bread."

"So then what's the ring for?" Tony asked, straightening up so he could properly look at Natasha.

Natasha glanced to Steve who was making a point of eating rapidly. The dining room fell silent for a second before Steve realized Natasha was absolutely not going to let me get away without saying anything.

"I gave it to her," he said. Natasha scowled at him and Sam snorted.

"It's lovely, Steve," Pepper said, giving Tony a look that very clearly told him not to keep asking. He ignored it entirely.

"So you're married then?"

"Tony!" Pepper cried at the exact moment Natasha nodded and said, "Yes."

There was another second of silence before the table erupted in both congratulations and protests for not being invited. Steve continued to eat his food while Natasha broke her roll into pieces and ate them quietly, waiting for things to calm down.

"When did you get married?" Wanda asked after they had all gotten their initial reactions over with.

Natasha glanced at Steve and pursed her lips. They'd filed the paperwork only a year or two ago, but they'd had a small ceremony somewhere in Belarus after the fight in Germany. If Natasha had to choose an answer, she'd probably go with five years.

"You've been married five years and didn't think to tell us sooner?" Tony asked.

"We would have," Steve said, sounding only a tinge bitter, "But it's hard to do so when you're on the run from most of the world."

For the third time that meal, the room went silent. Everyone was much quieter and even though they'd long since made up after the Accords and both Steve and Tony were working hard to make them more agreeable, it was still a bit of a touchy subject.

"I think it's lovely that you two were able to get married," Pepper said, grabbing Tony's hand and squeezing it tightly before he could bite back. "Where did you do it?"

"Belarus," Natasha told her. She could tell Pepper wasn't familiar with the country, but she didn't particularly care to elaborate. After all, the ceremony had been—

"It was dreadful," Sam said, grinning at the memory of them standing in an ancient convent with Sam as the only officiator. "The roof caved in halfway through the ceremony and we were covered in rain and wood chips for a week."

"Sounds very memorable," Tony said sagely. Natasha narrowed her eyes at him, wondering what was going through his head. "On an unrelated note, we'll be hosting dinner next Sunday and Natasha dear, if you could wear white it would be splendid!"

"No," she said immediately. She didn't give Tony any more time to explain his evolving plan for next Sunday as she shoved the remainder of her bread roll in his mouth and grabbed another. "The ceremony was how it was an now that we've filed the paperwork, we don't need to think about it anymore." She stood up from the table and moved toward the kitchen as she said, "Now, who wants to try the cookies Tony brought and who wants the cake Vision made?"