I still don't have time for a full novella, but here's a quick one-shot based on the teaser. I could probably be talked into making it a multi with weekly or bi-weekly updates if there's enough interest and my schedule allows. Angst-heavy with a touch of Steve/Natasha.
I still don't own the Avengers. This is just for fun.
Bone-weary and ready to drop, Natasha walked the quiet corridor from the Compound's hangar bay to her quarters. Three days of searching the streets of Hong Kong day and night, pausing only to eat or get a few hours of restless sleep, had completely done her in and confirmed her fears.
Laura, the first woman who had ever been a real friend to her, was gone. Her strong and brave little Cooper was no more. There would be no more tea parties or cuddling up for girl-talk with Lila and no more peekaboo with sweet little Cooper.
When the remaining Avengers had found the farmhouse empty on their return from Wakanda, she'd known deep down they'd been lost, just as she'd known in her gut Clint had somehow survived. After seeing a grainy image of a vigilante passing out his own form of justice on the streets of Hong Kong, it wasn't much of a leap to figure out it was Clint.
Natasha had quickly said her goodbyes to the others and taken a quinjet to retrieve her best friend. She just didn't expect to return alone, and she didn't expect to be this exhausted. Her heart ached, and it took tremendous effort to walk those final steps to her room with her legs ready to give way from the stress still coursing through her body.
Plopping her duffel bag on the dresser, she glanced at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes past noon, that explained why the building felt so empty. Bruce was probably locked away in the lab, as he had been every day for the past eleven since they'd returned. He had stayed locked in Shuri's empty lab for the first three days. How was it even possible that only two weeks had past since the snap?
Thor and his new sidekick, Rocket, had left before she took off for Hong Kong to see what they could learn elsewhere in the galaxy. Who knew when or if they return? Steve seemed to think they would be back, but Natasha wasn't convinced. This wasn't their planet. If they decided they were needed more elsewhere, why would they return?
Rhodey was probably stuck in some meeting. The remnants of the team agreed he was the one who should deal with the governments of the world. A few years ago, that job would have been shared by Steve and Tony, but Steve was still, at least technically, a fugitive, and Tony was listed as one of the many missing.
Steve's whereabouts were pretty easy to figure out. Almost immediately after the snap, support groups popped up everywhere with daily, sometimes even hourly, meetings where survivors could sit and talk through their emotions. Steve never missed the 12 PM session. Natasha knew he didn't actually go to get help. He went to torture himself for not stopping the evil madman from destroying so many lives. It wasn't healthy, but she couldn't exactly stop him. They were all grieving in their own ways.
Natasha unzipped her cat suit and let it fall to the floor. She didn't bother picking it up, something else she never would have done in the pre-Snap world. She drew herself a bath. Soaking in the tub was a luxury she hadn't allowed herself since long before the end of the world, and that's really what this was in her opinion.
Time was now divided into before the Snap and after the Snap. Post-Snap Earth was just a miserable apocalyptic existence where no one had any real direction. No one knew how to even begin re-establishing ordinary lives, because ordinary had turned to dust with half of all life.
Some infrastructure had managed to fall into place. FEMA had actually done a decent job in the States, a miracle considering the magnitude of this catastrophe. Wakanda walled themselves off as soon as the Avengers were in the air, but not before sending delegates to help around the world.
China seemed to be doing about as well as the U.S. at providing for people's basic needs. Europe was still struggling, and Natasha honestly didn't even want to know how Russia was faring. She didn't have much faith in her mother country's ability to protect their people long enough for them to come out of this devastating emotional fog and put their country back together.
Soaking eased her aching muscles so Natasha allowed herself to just stay in the tub until she was afraid she might drift off to sleep. Reluctantly, she pulled the plug and reached for a towel. She dried off slowly and wrapped the over-sized towel around her body, slightly irritated with herself for not grabbing her clothing. The bathroom was steamy and warm, but her room would be chilly.
Her green eyes locked on his blue ones as soon as she exited the bathroom. Steve was just standing there in her quarters, looking lost. There was a time when seeing her in a towel would have made him blush and avert his eyes, but apparently his old-school sensibilities were yet another victim of the Snap.
After what felt like forever, but was probably only a few seconds, Natasha opened her mouth to speak. "He's alive," she said softly.
"He didn't come back with you," Steve replied, and Natasha wasn't sure if he was guessing or if he'd looked at the footage of her alone in the cargo bay. She just shook her head. "He'll come home when he's ready," he said with so much authority that she almost believed him.
Steve didn't ask about Laura and the kids, and Natasha didn't offer any information. She was sure he knew she would have told him if they had survived. "He knows where we are," she replied.
Steve took a few steps in her direction and pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face. The warmth of the gesture broke something inside of her and the tears started to flow. Steve wrapped her into a warm hug and let her cry the tears she had been holding back since learning the fate of her family.
They just stood there until her tears subsided and her lack of clothing finally came to her remembrance. She pulled back, brushing the last few tears from her eyes, and pulled a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt from her dresser.
As she walked back to the bathroom, she looked over her shoulder at Steve. "Stay," she whispered.
He only nodded in response, and she quickly closed the door and dressed before returning to him. Steve was sitting on her bed. He stretched out his arms again and she immediately fell into them.
This seemed to be their new thing. They had been close for years. Being on the run together had only served to solidify their closeness, and, since the world fell apart, they depended on each other more than ever.
It was friendship, but somehow it was so much deeper. Natasha didn't know how to define what she and Steve had, and she really wasn't sure there was a reason to try. All she knew was that they gravitated to each other and calmed each other, and she knew he needed her every bit as much as she needed him.
It wasn't a romance. They weren't intimate in that way. Whatever this was, it was deeper than anything she had ever had with anyone else. Part of her wondered if there had ever been a relationship like theirs before in the history of time, and that same part of her almost hoped not. This thing they had was special.
"How was the meeting? Did you talk this time?" she finally asked, knowing he probably still hadn't said a word.
"Almost," Steve replied, "I wanted to say something to the idiot running the meeting so bad. He kept going on and on about how we were going to have to move on. That's not what these people want to hear, Nat. How can we move on from this? How can anyone move on from this?"
"There are some people who can move on from anything," Natasha replied. "Fury told me I was one of them. It wasn't long after I defected. I was struggling to figure out where I fit in at Shield. My past crimes, the things that happened in my childhood, it was all becoming too much. He told me to move on and leave the past in the past, and I did."
"So, you agree with the idiot," Steve replied. His tone wasn't accusatory. He didn't pull away from her. He just seemed to accept her answer. "I don't know how to do it. Can you show me how?"
"No, not this time. Some people, most people, need permission to move on with their lives or things are going to erupt even further into chaos. The government can't keep propping everyone up. Food and gas shortages are going to come really quickly if people don't get to a place where they can go back to somewhat normal lives and provide for themselves. But, Steve, we aren't most people. Some people can move on, but not us. We have to find a way to fix this."
Steve nodded in understanding. "But not us," he replied, placing a kiss on her forehead and laying back onto her bed, pulling her with him so she could rest.
"But not us," she repeated before snuggling into his chest and falling into a deep sleep.
Thoughts? Do I try to continue or is everyone content with a one shot?