Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.
A.N.: I was so not planning on continuing this, but once again I just couldn't stop myself. It seemed only fair to give Natasha her side of the story. The first verse of the song was also surprisingly apt for Natasha throughout the movies and in Endgame.
Lights Will Guide You Home
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
-Coldplay, "Fix You"
"A long way from Budapest."
Natasha smiled then looked away to avoid Clint's eyes. She was glad he was excited with their trip into space and somewhat preoccupied with the ship's dashboard; even if Nebula had set the course straight to Vormir they were both pilots and it was hard to ignore the instinct they had whenever they were flying somewhere of keeping eyes open and taking note of any and all possible threats. Even with the Quinjets autopilot functions and stealth modes available to them, they never lost the habit. In their line of work, it paid to be extra cautious or the cost could be their lives.
Not that it mattered to her now, since Natasha Romanoff had basically embarked on a suicide mission.
Oh she was sure of that and she knew what she was doing. The moment she'd heard Nebula talking with all her gravitas about Vormir, calling it a dominion of death at the very center of celestial existence she'd felt a chill run down her spine and had looked up from her notepad as she thought about the resting place of the Soul Stone. Something about that place and the way she talked about it seemed graver than any of the other Infinity Stones and what they would need to do to obtain it. So when they'd been taking a break in strategizing and the boys had left to grab some food in the kitchen, she'd pulled the cyborg woman aside and asked her more details about this place and the Soul Stone.
"My father murdered my sister in Vormir, but he'd also mourned her," Nebula had said, her dark eyes pulling her in, like staring into the abyss. "He said he had to kill her. I suspect that was his price in order to get the Soul Stone."
"Can I ask you a favor?" Natasha had asked her quietly, furrowing the space between her eyebrows in thought. "Don't tell this to anyone else."
"Alright," the robotic woman agreed simply with a nod. "But Tony should know this already."
"It's okay, I can handle Tony," Natasha replied, her lips pressed into a serious line as she started formulating a plan in her head. If she kept his focus on the other Infinity Stones and on the mission, it might be possible that he would gloss over his memory of the implications needed to retrieve the Soul Stone. If she could keep him occupied with working with Steve then that would also be a welcomed distraction in her favor. She knew this would be just what they needed to finally mend their relationship for good, as well.
Natasha was a master manipulator, the Red Room had taught her well. So once she had figured out that there were three Infinity Stones in New York City in 2012 during the battle against Loki and the Chitauri and they'd started dividing up the teams to collect the Stones back in time, she'd just needed to make sure she and Clint were the ones going to Vormir. It pained her more than she could think, but it had to be Clint. Of the other members of the Avengers, he was the one she knew she could take down, if it came to that (and with his stubbornness, she had a feeling it would). As they were arranging to first go to Morag for the Power Stone and a separate team would need to take the ship to head to Vormir, she'd volunteered herself and Clint. Even though they didn't have experience roaming space, they were pilots and more than capable to handle a retrieval mission where there were supposedly no obstacles in their way, unlike all the other places where they were bound to run into other people and possible complications.
Nebula seemed to understand what was her goal, as she agreed to this proposition and said she should be the one retrieving the Power Stone in Morag, as it would be encased in a powerful field and only someone with her robotics augmentations should be able to handle that. Rhodey then volunteered to go with her, as his suit could also come in handy in this situation. After that, everyone else got sorted for their separate missions, fitting into their places like a glove.
She didn't really want to die, but if such a sacrifice really was needed to get it all back, to undo all the loss and the pain they'd had to live with for the past five years, then she should be the one to do it. She'd been on her mission of redemption, trying to get the red off her ledger ever since Clint had given her a second chance and she'd defected from the KGB to SHIELD. If this should be her final act, then she would gladly do it.
When she'd first started doing this job, she couldn't see herself trusting anyone other than Clint, and maybe Coulson and Fury. Truth and trust were not words she was accustomed to using. Her whole life had been about deception, manipulation, power and control. Tony had had a field day with her way back then.
"Boy, you're good. You're mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You just tear things a─yo-you're a triple impostor! I've never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?"
"Fallaces sunt rerum specias."
The appearance of things can be deceptive, indeed. And for a long while that was still how she lived. Operationally speaking, working for SHIELD wasn't that different from the work she did before, but at least now she was doing something good with her skills. And then she'd started meeting these people. Letting people in meant that she would be vulnerable, so it really wasn't something she welcomed in her life. Being alive had been more important than that. And yet…
"The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people all the time. Neither am I."
"That's a tough way to live."
"It's a good way not to die, though."
"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."
"Yeah… Who do you want me to be?"
"How about a friend?"
Damn Steve Rogers and the way he'd carved his way into her life and her heart. After Clint, he'd been the first to crack that chink in her armor, asking her to be his friend and telling her he'd trust her with his life. This was Captain America! She'd been created and trained as the Black Widow to be the exact antithesis of him. He was good and trust and honesty personified. She… was not any of that. He was blue, she was red. Yet he'd extended her a hand in friendship and partnership and she would've been a fool not to take it. So she'd let him in and she would forever strive to be better and worthy of his trust.
She knew they'd had a connection there. The way Steve had looked at her at the cemetery, when she'd said she wasn't going with Fury but she also wouldn't stay with him, it had been… disconcerting. She'd let him in and would be his friend, like he'd asked, but she couldn't risk anything more. And with the end of SHIELD and the whole world knowing who she really was, she'd felt too vulnerable, too exposed.
"I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one."
"That might take a while."
"I'm counting on it."
She didn't want to know if Steve would see her differently once he found out her truths. Her past was bound to catch up to her somewhere down the line and it wasn't fair to him. So she'd kissed him goodbye and left him, at least for the moment.
"Be careful, Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread."
She'd said that about his search for Bucky, but she'd also been talking about something else. Something she wouldn't name and would never discuss with him, if she could avoid it. But it'd been a warning and a request, along with the previous one she'd said just moments before, asking him to call Sharon. She was nice, she would be good for him and he deserved to have a real shot at his new life, with someone who wasn't so complicated or a complete mess like her.
And that had been the start of everything. The fact that Fury had not so subtly told her that he hadn't trusted her after the attempt on his life back in DC also got her thinking she had some serious reevaluations to make on her life and how she did things. For as much as she hated to depend on others, she couldn't live an isolated life. The time she spent with Clint and Laura as she waited for that whole mess with HYDRA and her secrets plastered all over the web to blow over also showed her how wonderful it could be to have a family. Their kids were amazing and Clint had never looked more at home than at the ranch.
Even if she could never experience motherhood and a family in the traditional sense─
"In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you."
─she'd thought she could have something. When she'd started working with Bruce on the lullaby to help control the Hulk when he was needed on missions, she'd noticed the way he looked at her. She'd felt there was something there. He seemed to listen to her, even as the Hulk. She felt attracted to him and somehow getting closer to him hadn't seemed as intimidating and impossible. Bruce literally knew what it was like to have the world look at you in horror at what you'd done. He'd needed to run and hide and she'd wanted to run with it. This was her chance. They could go and they could be together and then, who knows? But then the sky had been falling down on them and Ultron had been so close to ending everything, how could she have turned her back on that?
"You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why?"
Clint had asked her that, the first time she'd decided to get involved in an impossible war that by all rights had nothing to do with them and was way out of their league.
"This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."
They'd been right talking that time, she was a spy, she'd never meant to get involved in any war. That should be left to someone else's hands, more capable hands. Hero's hands: Tony, Steve, Thor. But she had so much red, on her ledger, on her hands, and if she did this, if she could help out just a little…
"I had this dream. The kind that seems normal at the time. But when you wake…"
"What did you dream?"
"That I was an Avenger. That I was anything more than the assassin they made me."
And it had been a beautiful dream. More than a dream, it'd been her life. Once she stepped up and became an Avenger, she couldn't go back. This was her fight now. So she'd stayed and she'd fought and by choosing the Avengers she'd lost Bruce. It had hurt, knowing she'd hurt him by needing The Other Guy more than she'd wanted him, that he wouldn't come back for her and anything they could've had was long gone before it'd even started.
Natasha had then thrown herself into her work, spending her days side by side with Steve once more, leading a new team. And without realizing she'd somehow built this family of lost souls around her. By losing what she'd thought she wanted she got exactly what she needed. She'd had Clint and Laura and their kids who called her Auntie Nat. She'd had Steve and Tony and Thor, when he'd come by. She'd had Wanda, who'd become like a friend, little sister and protege all rolled into one during that time. She'd had Sam, Vision, Rhodey and everyone else that had come together in this little band of heroes. They'd tried so damn hard to do good and to protect everyone, to keep everyone together, to keep the rest of the world safe.
Then mistakes were made, as they would, and the Accords had come. She'd tried like hell to keep her family together, to be the bridge between Tony and Steve and their different points of view and stubborn asses. And the tragic thing was, they were both right. They needed to be put in check, they'd needed oversight. But after learning HYDRA had been secretly leading SHIELD from the start they didn't exactly get any sense of security from a UN controlled panel. They could be used as weapons for the wrong people, and no one knew that better than Natasha Romanoff. But she also knew trust didn't come easily and it went both ways; the world didn't trust them anymore, so they needed to rebuild it. If they didn't sign the Accords, they wouldn't be permitted to act at all, and she had not a doubt in her mind that Secretary Ross would brand them criminals and throw them in jail if they tried to do so.
"Staying together is more important than how we stay together."
"What are we giving up to do it?"
Too many things had happened at the same time, and she couldn't keep them together. She'd tried, even if she knew she wouldn't be able to change his mind. Time and time again, she tried, but her family had still actually come to blows, Tony and Steve parting ways with their fists and tearing everything apart in their way. She'd faced off against Clint like it was just another day, yet she couldn't bring herself to go up against Steve─
"You're not gonna stop."
"You know I can't."
─he'd trusted her with his life all those years ago in DC. She was still bound to that, and deep down she knew he was right, so she let him go. Still she'd tried, with Tony as well─
"We played this wrong."
"Boy, it must be hard to shake the double-agent thing, huh. Sticks to the DNA."
"Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"
"T'Challa told Ross what you did, so they're coming for you."
"I'm not the one who needs to watch their back."
─but she'd found herself on the wrong side of the law and on the run once more. She tried to salvage what she could, finding Steve and breaking out their friends from prison. Those had been darker days, but it wasn't anything she wasn't accustomed to, either. They'd kept together with Sam and Wanda, recovering at least part of her family and doing whatever they could in their way to keep the world safe. A drug-lord here, a human trafficking ring there, a weapons smuggler or a terrorist cell elsewhere.
They'd spent two years like this until one day the phone that Steve carried with him everywhere was suddenly ringing. He'd never lost hope that one day Tony would call, so it was jarring to find Bruce Banner on the other end of the line even as they saw breaking news on TV that New York City had suffered from another alien attack and Iron Man was rumored to have vanished in a spaceship.
So they had suited up, saved Vision and Wanda and they barely had enough time to get everyone together after all that time when with a brutal battle and a snap of the fingers half her family was suddenly gone.
Half the world─no, half the universe was gone. She lost her friends, the only family she'd ever known in her entire life. Fury and Hill were gone, too, and while tracking them down she'd found a modified pager by their vehicle in Dallas, which led to the sudden appearance in their lives of one Carol Danvers. As she brought Tony back to them and seemed to infuse the team with renewed energy, Natasha kept on hoping they would still be able to reverse this nightmare and bring everyone back.
"This is gonna work, Steve."
"I know it will. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't."
It turned out they were both liars, as their plan didn't work. At all. All they had to show for it was the decapitated corpse of a mad titan who had wiped out half of the universe. They'd trudged back to Earth, broken and defeated, without any clue on how to carry on with their lives.
Natasha kept on Avenging, trying to keep the world from collapsing. She'd appointed herself the new Director of the Avengers Initiative and set up a command center coordinating efforts between their allies on Earth and in space. It was the only life she knew how to live anymore. She had to take all the guilt and the sadness she felt and try to make something good out of it.
Most of her friends that were still alive helped her, but Tony maintained he was truly done. Especially when they found out Pepper was pregnant, he built them a house in the country and said he would be a stay-at-home dad, taking care of their little girl while Pepper still ran Stark Industries and their many business interests, especially in clean energy, as it was something the world desperately needed in these times of crisis. He kept funding the Avengers, though, as an olive branch to her.
Clint had too much anger in him to be by her side. He'd lost Laura and the kids and part of his sanity with them. His own idea of helping the world seemed to be by wiping out dangerous people, the evil ones that had been left among the living, by any means necessary. They'd get reports of his vigilante acts all over the world, but it was hard to keep up with him. The few times they'd met in person she also had no idea how to appease his troubled soul.
And Steve… He'd tried to be there with her, by her side, the two of them running the Avengers once more. But after a while, he chose to move out of the compound, found himself a place in Brooklyn where he was trying to adjust to this new world, all over again. He started working at the VA, as Sam had done so many years before. He still visited her and helped her out with a mission here or there, if she would ask him, but she tried not to ask him too much. It didn't seem to be fair to ask him to sacrifice his life for a cause he didn't believe in anymore.
"You know, I'd offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already."
She'd smiled wanly at his efforts to cheer her up. Steve really wasn't much of a cook; in their days in hideout that was usually left for her or Sam. Natasha knew how to cook wonderfully, actually. Some of her undercover assignments had required it, way back in the day. She just didn't make the effort for any elaborate meals anymore. Some days a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was all she could muster now.
"Are you here to do your laundry?"
"And to see a friend."
She eased into joking with him, the two of them communicating in their own wavelength practically since they'd first met. She'd tease him and he would look at her with his concerned, soulful eyes. He had moved out a long time ago, but he still came every now and then, to check on her and keep her company. Sometimes, like that night, he'd talk about moving on.
"If I move on, who does this?"
"Maybe it doesn't need to be done."
It was hard, seeing him like this. Steve had always been the one she could count on to keep up the faith and the optimism. Even in their days after the Accords and being on the run, he'd always tried to fight the good fight, to do the right thing and keep the world spinning. She'd needed him by her side, so much, but she didn't want to keep him there if that wasn't what he wanted anymore. But to her there was no alternative. This was the only place for her.
"I used to have nothing. And then I got this. This job, this family. And I was─I was better because of it. And even though they're gone, I'm still trying to be better."
And then the world had tilted on its axis once more, a new hope coming into their lives along Scott Lang suddenly banging on the front gate. It had taken a while and convincing many of their broken friends dealing with varying degrees of reluctance to embark on this journey, but at last they'd come up with a plan that had seemed feasible enough. They were on their way to save the world once more.
"Five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends, we lost family, we lost part of ourselves. Today we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the Stones, get them back. One round-trip each, no mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we're gonna win. Whatever it takes. Good luck."
Natasha would never tell him this, but she secretly loved Steve's speeches. Most of the time, she would actually tease him about it, but hearing him say these words in his gravely Captain America voice once more, it had brought so much joy to her heart. Not so long ago, she'd thought she would never get to see him with this fire alive in his eyes once more, and now here he was.
"See you in a minute."
She hadn't meant her last words to him to be a lie, but she couldn't help herself, especially after his speech. And really, what was a minute for someone about to embark on a time-traveling mission to bring the world back to life? She'd never been religious, she was actually quite the atheist. But after running around with Steve for the past decade, she'd started to want to believe in an afterlife. And she hoped that wherever she might end up she would get the chance to see him again.
Then suddenly she was in Vormir with Clint, being told by a strangely familiar red skeletal face that in order to get the Soul Stone they had to lose what they loved in an everlasting exchange.
"A soul for a soul."
As she'd thought, Clint refused to believe this was the only way, but she'd already figured that out a long time ago. So she talked him through it, about how Thanos had come to this place with his daughter and left with the Soul Stone, but not with Gamora. It was the only way.
"Whatever it takes." She'd whispered, her eyes far away.
"Whatever it takes." He'd agreed, looking out at the cliff.
She couldn't hope he would make things any easy for her. She knew he'd be a stubborn ass and that he'd want to sacrifice himself for the cause. She couldn't let him go through with that.
"I'm starting to think we mean different people here, Natasha."
"For the last five years, I've been trying to do one thing, get to right here. That's all it's been about: Bringing everybody back." Ever since their defeat, she'd been stuck in the same place, hoping against hope that there was some way to undo the unthinkable and that the world could be brought back. That her family would be well and alive and that especially Clint would get to see Laura and the kids again and regain that piece of his soul that had gone with them.
"Tell my family I love them."
"You tell them yourself."
They'd fought against each other for the right to sacrifice themselves for it all. She'd looked at him right in the eye as he jumped over the cliff, but she would not let him do this to her. She jumped after him, taking one of his grappling hooks connected to his gear and shooting it up, so that he was hanging by the side of the cliff.
"Damn you!"
"Let me go."
"No. Please, no."
"It's okay…"
"Please…"
Natasha smiled at him and pushed off the cliff, the momentum forcing Clint to lose the hold he'd had on her wrist. As she fell down to her certain death, she closed her eyes and thought of another time she'd contemplated her death. Surely, every time she went out on a mission she knew it could be her last, and over the past few years the battles they'd faced had become more and more ferocious. Still, she'd always counted on her abilities and on her friends to see them through to the end. Until now. And that one specific moment years before when she'd also been close to contemplating the end of her life came to mind then…
"Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock─"
"Not till everyone is safe."
"Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there."
"I'm not leaving this place with one civilian on it."
"I didn't say we should leave... There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"
It had been a beautiful view, yet Steve had only looked at her. Damn, she wished she'd told him…
Natasha opened her eyes, and realized she was standing in what looked like a corridor, some sort of walkway with dark paneled walls and floor, metal and clear glass railings around her. There was a crystalline layer of water on the floor, under her boots. Big floor to ceiling windows were to her left and outside a bright orange sky gave everything around her a hazy glow.
"Natasha?"
She heard his voice, and when she turned around she saw he was standing on what looked like the exit of where she was standing to another area, yet it just seemed to lead to a vast, empty space, stretching out infinitely into nothingness in that orange haze. As she looked at Bruce's face─his real face, not the face of the Hulk─she suddenly recognized where they were standing: On the walkway connecting several areas of the topmost floor of the Avengers compound, the place she'd called home for most of her recent life.
Natasha merely smiled quietly at him, forgoing any questions of where they were and what he was doing there with her. Somehow she seemed to understand they were inside the Soul Stone and that this would be her last glimpse of the world of the living. "Did you do it?"
Bruce swallowed hard, his eyes gleaming with emotion at seeing her again. "Yes."
Her smile became a little brighter then, and she closed her eyes, knowing everything would be alright with the world now and that she'd finally wiped the red off her ledger. "It's okay," she said, opening her brilliant green eyes to look at him once more. "Let me go."
Bruce seemed like he'd wanted to argue the matter, but before he could even open his mouth to say anything, he was suddenly gone, as if he'd never been there in the first place. Natasha continued to smile and she closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling that she'd finished her last mission.
Suddenly Natasha was aware that she could feel something. Almost as if mere moments before she hadn't had a true form, as if she'd only been energy and thought yet now she knew she had a physical body. As she became aware of that, she noticed she seemed to be lying down on a solid surface, with something like water surrounding her. Before she could open her eyes and even question what was happening, her thoughts were focused on something warm that was enclosing her left hand. It was something big and comforting, something she'd felt many times before. Something that made her heart flutter and that made her entire being feel safe. Someone's hand, she realized suddenly as that hand squeezed hers tenderly.
"Natasha! Oh my God, it worked. Nat!"
"What?" She heard his voice and she frowned in thought as she felt herself being pulled up to a sitting position. As she opened her eyes, Natasha suddenly found herself looking into the blue eyes and smiling face of Steve Rogers.
"Oh no, oh no," she said, growing alarmed as she couldn't find any reason why Steve should be where she was. She hoped he hadn't pulled out the sacrificing hero card once more. That had been her move, exactly so that she could keep everyone else safe. He was supposed to be safe! "What happened? Why are you here?"
"I came to save you," he said simply, still smiling brightly at her.
"No, no, no," she protested rather vehemently, if somewhat inanely. "What did Clint do? I was supposed to be dead!" Oh what had her idiot best friend done now? Had she dreamed how she'd jumped down to her death or that swift conversation with Bruce in the Soul Stone? Had none of that happened?
"You were," Steve's seriously spoken words stopped her in her downward spiral of thoughts and he then rushed to explain things to her. "Nat, we did it. Thanks to you, we got all the Infinity Stones and we got everyone back and Thanos is gone. Now we just need to go back to our present."
"What? Are you serious? But then how─?" So many thoughts and questions were running through her mind, she didn't quite know which one to articulate first.
"I'll explain later, I don't think we have a lot of time left. Here, let me put in the new time coordinates," Steve said, reaching for her wrist and altering the data in her time-traveling GPS bracelet.
She'd still been watching him input the new time in her device, her mouth hanging slightly open just thinking that he was here with her when suddenly they were travelling through the quantum realm and emerging on top of what seemed like a newly built time machine in a wooded area. She barely had any time to look at her surroundings before Steve's arms were tightly wrapped around her.
"What the hell?!" She heard Sam exclaim, somewhere down below them and to her left.
"It worked," Steve laughed, holding her even closer to him as he lifted her up and twirled her around. "It really worked!"
As he released her and jumped down from the raised platform, Natasha noticed Bruce staring at her and Bucky and Sam looking with confusion from her to Tony and Vision, who had been lying on the ground next to the time machine.
"What the hell did you do?" Bruce asked then, dragging his eyes away from Natasha and looking down at Steve.
"I used the Soul Stone to bring them back," Steve explained, as Tony and Vision now stood beside him on the ground.
She was still fairly reeling, trying to take in her surroundings and listen to Steve's explanations and the others' exclamations at same time. She realized they were in the woods that surrounded the Avengers facility, yet looking over her shoulder she saw the place seemed to be under heavy reconstruction. What the hell had happened here?
Her attention was brought back to Steve once she heard him say he'd traded the Soul Stone for her. "You did all that without knowing if that wouldn't kill you in the process?" She asked him then, jumping down from the platform to stand next to him.
"The thought did cross my mind, but I didn't think too much about it." He admitted, looking down at her with a quiet smile.
She blinked up at him, feeling her mouth hanging slightly open once more. She felt something flutter and twist in her chest as she thought of what he'd done to bring all three of them back, but especially to bring her back. But before she could even think or say anything about that, Tony was up in Steve's face about the consequences of messing with time and they'd segued into a discussion of how Vision came to be there with them.
Once Vision had hugged Steve, they all seemed to realize just how amazing it was that they were all there and several more hugs abounded all around them.
"Oh I'm glad you're back," Tony said, the first one to pull her into a fierce hug, a move she hadn't been expecting just then.
"Right back at ya," she said, feeling a little breathless. She was still trying to understand everything that had happened, but from what she'd caught so far it looked like Tony had been just as dead as she was.
Sam then quickly summoned a Quinjet to take them over to Tony's country house, where they reunited with Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey and Happy. Afterwards, they sent out word to their friends of what had happened and several others joined in the impromptu reunion.
Natasha found herself engulfed by the Barton kids as soon as they touched down, and she looked at Clint with tears gleaming in her eyes. He held onto Laura as he swallowed hard and merely nodded at her for a moment. She smiled and nodded back at him. The kids disengaged from her as Laura approached and pulled her into a tight hug.
"Thank you," Laura whispered in her ear. "Clint told me what you did and why you did it. But you know, I don't think he's forgiven you yet."
"It's okay," Natasha replied evenly. "I can live with that."
"You'd better," Clint said, as he stepped up and enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug as soon as his wife let go of his best friend. "God, I missed you. And don't you ever try pulling something like that on me again."
"I missed you, too, you big idiot," she smirked affectionately at him, sidestepping his last phrase because truth be told if she ever had to make the same choice again, she would, in a heartbeat.
Tony's house was soon filled with so many people and they were all laughing joyously and almost carelessly, retelling tales of the battle against Thanos, especially to Natasha and Vision, who'd missed the whole thing. She listened, enthralled, as Tony talked about Steve taking Thor's hammer and summoning lightning and Pepper telling how Wanda had almost single-handedly taken down Thanos on a moment there and Peter talking excitedly about meeting Carol Danvers and how she and the other battling ladies had banded together and taken down a great portion of Thanos's army all by themselves.
A while later, Natasha left the main group in the living room and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. They'd all been talking and laughing so much and for so many hours now that she felt quite parched. As she poured herself a glass and drank it down, she turned around and found herself face to face with Bruce.
"Hey," she said, smiling at him.
"Hey Nat," he said, also smiling slightly at her, though his smile seemed just a little pained. "Listen, I've been meaning to ask you… I'm not sure if you remember this. Hell, I'm not even sure if that really happened in the first place─"
"I remember," she said, cutting him off with a nod. "I remember talking to you, in the Soul Stone."
"So that's where we were?" He raised his eyebrows at her. "I wasn't sure that had really happened. I didn't even tell anyone. It was just after I'd reversed the Snap, and it was over so fast. I was looking at you and talking to you, then suddenly I was on the floor looking up at Tony and we were being attacked by Thanos."
"I know," she said, smiling up at him. "Thank you, for finding me and telling me then. I… I was really glad to know it had all worked out."
"Yeah," he said, swallowing hard as he paused for a moment. "Listen, I really tried. When I saw you, I wished and I tried so hard to get you back to life, but─"
"I know you did," she said, stepping up and placing a placating hand on his arm. "It's okay, Bruce." Natasha pulled him into a hug, smiling up at him and he tentatively placed his uninjured arm around her. Even though it'd been a long time since he'd grown into his new form, he still tried to be extra careful with his strength around others.
"I'm glad Cap figured things out and got you back," Bruce said, letting go of her and stepping back to give her some space.
"Yeah, me too," she smiled at that.
As he turned and rejoined the others at the living room, she stood for a moment looking around, searching for the face with those familiar blue eyes, but coming up empty. It had been a while now since she'd last seen Steve and she hadn't actually gotten to talking to him all that much since they'd arrived at the Stark estate.
"Hey, Sam," she called out to him as he joined her in the kitchen. "Have you seen Steve? I can't seem to find him."
"Yeah, he's at the back porch," Sam told her, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the direction he'd just come from. "We were just out getting some air and talking."
"Oh thanks," she said lightly, turning to go that way, then she narrowed her eyes at him at the smirk he was suddenly giving her. Sam merely raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, but she rolled her eyes at the wink he gave her before he turned and went towards the living room.
As she walked out to the back porch, Natasha found Steve sitting outside by the steps just as Sam had told her. "Hey, there you are. I've been looking all over for you." She joined him, sitting down next to him, hugging her knees up to her chest.
"Oh yeah?" He turned to her with a smile.
They hadn't had a chance to talk by themselves since they'd come out on top of the time machine so many hours before. The whole time she'd felt her eyes unconsciously following him, but sitting up close to him now she couldn't help but pause for a moment to take in his features. She'd thought she would never see him again. "I don't think I got to actually thank you yet, for what you did."
Still with a smile, he shook his head slightly at her. "You would've done the same thing," he said dismissively, just as she'd expected him to.
"Still," she insisted, shrugging her shoulders and reaching down to take his right hand in her left one. "Thank you, Steve."
She felt him squeeze her hand in response and a myriad of emotions seemed to course through her body in a mere few seconds. She remembered how his hand had felt in her when she'd woken up in Vormir, how she'd felt so safe by this simple contact. Her mind also seemed to flash to the last thought she'd had before dying, and to avoid thinking further of that, she laughed quietly and said, "I can't believe you managed to use two Infinity Stones on your own. And what's this I hear about you using Thor's hammer? I wonder what finally made you worthy." She raised an eyebrow as she teased him, easily falling back into familiar territory.
"I did it for you," Steve said, and she widened her eyes and felt her breath hitching in her throat at his words. "I did it all for you. When we were fighting Thanos, I just couldn't let him win while thinking you'd sacrificed yourself so that we could do this. I thought of you and then the hammer was just flying to my hand."
"Steve…" She heard herself whisper back at him, feeling tears prickling at her eyes as she struggled to maintain a semblance of control of her emotions. What was he saying? Was he implying that thinking of her had made him… worthy?
"And I couldn't see myself living in any version of a future without you in it, Nat. You're my partner," he kept on saying, barely pausing to give her time to process what he'd said before following up with more words that stole her breath away. He then swallowed hard, as he also seemed to struggle with his emotions.
"I know," she smiled at him, blinking her eyes rapidly to keep her tears at bay. She was trying to put some order in her thoughts and all the things she wanted to tell him when once more he beat her to the punch.
"I love you, you know? I think I'm in love with you," Steve said, looking deeply into her eyes. "I don't know when it happened. Maybe I've always been in love with you and I was just afraid to admit it."
Natasha stared back at him, completely thrown by his sudden declaration. In all of their years together, they'd never used the word love. They called each other friends and she knew they cared deeply for one another and she also knew that what she felt for him was different than what she felt for the rest of her friends. But she'd never dreamed he would be here actually telling her these words.
She decided to stop thinking and let go, her body taking over and reacting on its own, as she leaned closer to him, a memory of a different time and a different place when they'd done this before slipping into her mind before her lips captured his. He brought her closer to him, his hand pulling at her waist and suddenly she was nearly sitting on his lap, his other hand weaving gently through her hair as she bit down on his lower lip and opened her mouth to taste him and oh it felt like heaven. She felt herself getting lost and drunk in the feeling of Steve.
"Okay, wait," she reluctantly broke the kiss, keeping him close and pressing their foreheads together. "Let's not get carried away here. You literally just brought me back from the dead and all." She felt him nod against her as they took deep breaths. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes," he answered instantly. She frowned in thought at him, and he seemed to feel this as he pulled away to look her in the eye. "Nat, I was going to ask you out on a date before Scott showed up at the front door of the compound and we got into all that mess."
"You were?" She smiled at him, as she thought back to that conversation. How he'd talked about moving on and how they'd both needed to get a life. So that was what he'd been going on about?
"Yeah," he laughed a little in reply. "What would you have said?" He suddenly looked bashful and expectant as he asked her that.
"Depends," she couldn't help toying with him a little. "Where would you take me?"
"Anywhere you'd like," he answered her gamely with a bright smile. "I have a few places in mind, but I'm not sure any of them are open right now."
"You can take me some other time," she smiled at him, and she had not a doubt in her mind that he would love to take her out on dates. She had a feeling she'd love to let him take her out to all sorts of places as well. "Right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be."
That seemed to be all he needed to hear to capture her lips once more, the two of them getting wrapped up in each other's arms and reveling in the wonderful feelings coursing through them as they couldn't get enough of each other. "Actually, you could take me back to your place in Brooklyn," she murmured the words against his lips, as she thought the back porch of Tony Stark's home was probably not the best place for them to engage in some heavy making out.
"Humm, that's a good idea," Steve murmured his agreement against her lips. "It looks like you'll be out of a home for a while until the Avengers compound is reconstructed."
As they kissed each other senseless, she thought of how sitting here in Steve's arms and feeling so loved felt like a final piece of the puzzle coming into place. "Steve?" She said, her voice feeling small even to her own ears, but she wanted to be brave and tell him the actual words. "I love you, too."
His bright smile was all she'd needed in reply to that, a warm feeling spreading throughout her body like she'd finally found her place in the world.
A.N.: Thank you so much for all the reviews and the response I've gotten for this little story. I started this whole thing mostly to appease myself, yet I don't think I've ever felt prouder of anything I wrote down, and knowing so many people appreciate it as well has been quite the unparalleled joy. Endgame is still stirring so many feelings in me and I might write more things about this, but I'm still keeping the story marked as completed as it could stand just as it is. Oh and no one's going to be able to convince me that Nat didn't manipulate all of them so that she would be the one to sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone. She knew what she was doing the moment she set out for Vormir and the Soul Stone.
