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 my love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: Well, this is actually coming to an end! I feel like I was a different person when I started writing this over two years ago and my understanding/interpretation of the characters was also somewhat different. But overall the idea remained the same and it's coming full circle now. This chapter is more bittersweet than my idea of a happy ending, so there will be an epilogue that's supposed to take place after Endgame/Lights Will Guide You Home to wrap up this journey.

Set during Endgame, on the night after they do all the planning and before the time heist.

To Build a Home

25. Family

The Avengers compound was filled with the sounds of so many people as it hasn't been in a long while. The whole team had spent the entire day strategizing and going over details for their mission tomorrow and as they were all winding down there were still more sounds than Natasha had grown accustomed to in the last few years. Still, the lull of conversations and various activities that flowed through the halls was something that calmed her down more than any silence could at the moment.

Thor kept going back to the kitchens to raid the fridge every half hour ─ sometimes for beer, other times for snacks. Bruce had tried keeping him out or at least disposing of the drinks and steering him towards food to avoid the massive hangover that would surely come in the morning at the rate the Asgardian was going ─ even if it was probably not as bad as the ones his human friends had to endure, at any rate. He'd still been pretty out of it for most of their earlier brainstorming and it would not be a good idea to get a repeat of that for the next day.

Half the time Rocket was there egging the god of thunder on until Rhodey had distracted the alien raccoon by steering him out to the hangar towards some inventions that Tony had brought along for some reason (probably to keep them out of Morgan's hands) and that were lying around, just itching to be pulled apart and put back together again, all while Rocket would point out just exactly what the genius inventor had done wrong and how his design could be improved upon.

Speaking of him, Tony was in his old room talking to Pepper on the phone and messing around with the helmet of his Iron Man suit, from what Natasha had heard as she walked past. Bruce had also retired to his quarters to call Betty and update her on their mission, and Scott Lang was in one of the guest rooms calling his daughter.

Just as she was thinking that all of them had some sort of family to reassure before they went off the next day to one more of their crazy adventures, she found Clint sitting on the edge of the bed in his room, cell phone held between his hands as he just stared down at the floor. He'd never really resided at the compound with the team, but he and his family always had designated quarters if they wished to visit and stay on for a few days. Tony had insisted on it.

"Did you call Bobbi and let her know what we're doing?" She asked, leaning against the threshold as she crossed her arms and observed him with a slight frown.

They'd hadn't really talked about all he'd gone through since the Decimation, his vigilante acts all over the globe and the time he'd been spending with Bobbi Morse on and off since she'd caught up to him a couple of years ago. But Natasha had only been able to reach him in Tokyo thanks to Bobbi, once she'd called and said they had an actual way to help out Clint and everyone else they'd lost five years ago.

He looked up from the phone in his hands back at her. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "She offered to join us, but I explained we have limited Pym particles and all the slots were filled. She's going up to SHIELD to see if she can help out there now."

"That's good," Natasha offered a small smile. She remembered how Bobbi had told her that Coulson had saved her life after she and Hunter were caught on a mission in Russia quite a few years ago on the promise that they would never work for the USA government again ─ but that was a lifetime ago now, the political climate was considerably different and the Russian Prime Minister that had been promised that was no longer alive, anyway. Bobbi was too good an agent to be kept out of the fight and SHIELD would be lucky to have her back.

The recurring theme of family kept running through her mind as she just stood there and enjoyed a moment of companionable silence with Clint. Even if it had been years since they'd last seen each other, some bonds were stronger than the passage of time and she felt relieved he was there with her now as they were actually on the cusp of doing something to reverse all the damage that had been inflicted on the world, but especially to the people in her life that she considered her family. She once held the belief that she'd had no place in the world and had no people of her own when in truth she now knew there were many that were part of her unique family. The Bartons, for sure; Yelena, Melina and even Alexei, in his own ridiculous way; Fury and Hill; Melinda May, Bobbi Morse and others in her network of spies; and everyone that was in that compound with her right now and all the ones they'd lost five years before.

"This is gonna work, Clint." She said after several minutes of silence, the words an echo of what she'd said years previously right before (after?) it had actually all come crashing down on them. A part of her wondered what had prompted her to say exactly the same thing right now, but it felt right somehow. It was a different feeling that was coursing through her, more hope and determination instead of denial and desperation. "I can feel it."

"I know." He answered simply with grim determination set in his face. It was a reassurance and a promise; he'd experienced a trip to the past first-hand and he knew exactly what this team was capable of once they set their minds to it. The plan had been worked and re-worked and they should be able to pull it off without a hitch. Hopefully.

"Try to get some rest," she said softly then as she pushed out of the threshold to continue her way down the hallway. She did want to talk more to him, but right now was not the time. They really should all get some rest before tomorrow and she supposed they would have time once they were on their journey in the past.

"Yeah, you too." He gave her a tiny smile, the first genuine one she could remember seeing in his face since he'd come back.

On her way down to her bedroom she stopped by Steve's room and found him standing by the window and staring out at the dark night. Whatever he could see out there she didn't know, but he must have seen her reflection in the glass because he turned around to face her then.

"Hey," he said with a small smile as she stood leaning by the door.

"Hey," she answered back with a slight frown. "Too anxious to sleep?"

"Nah, you know me," he said easily. "I only need a few hours to be fully rested. I'll get to it in a moment." He then looked around the room at large. "I'm surprised you kept the room as it was." When he'd moved out, he hadn't really taken much with him, preferring a clean slate and to start fresh in his new place. He still came by the compound often during all these years, but wasn't used to being in his old room and would instead generally hang out with Natasha in the common areas.

"Well, what was I supposed to do with it?" She said with a teasing smile. "Turn it into a gym or office? I already have those. Besides, I always said you would have a place here if you ever wanted to come back. It sure worked out better that way."

Despite her easy tone and the light banter in her voice, Steve frowned back at her as if deeply disturbed. Shaking his head a little, he said, "I never should have left you here by yourself. I'm sorry."

She just looked back at him for a moment then gave a half shrug with the shoulder that wasn't propped against the door jam. "We were all doing what we could to cope." She said with a deep sigh. "That's all in the past now. Let's focus on what we can do tomorrow."

"We're literally going into the past tomorrow." He replied with raised eyebrows, something of his serious tone being replaced with a little dry humor but he remained frowning a little. "Can't help but think about it. You say we're family and we all let you down." He gulped down some emotion she couldn't quite name and looked at the floor for a moment before looking back up at her. "I let you down."

"I don't blame you, Steve. I never did." She said, shaking her head a little, then she was the one looking down at her shoes for a moment. "I envied you actually. For stepping out and being able to do something else." She said, looking back up at him and shrugging a little despondently with a self-deprecating smile. "The truth is that I stayed because it's all I know how to do." She did have a very specialized skill set and still too much red on her ledger, after all. Half the universe's worth of it, really.

He was shaking his head before she'd even finished her sentence. "That's not true. You stayed because you're strong." He said, the conviction in his voice making it come out louder now, almost as if he were daring her to disagree and get into an argument, one that he would go all in to prove her wrong. "Stronger than any of us."

His words caused her to huff out a small laugh and she could see that was definitely not what he'd expected. "Pain only makes you stronger." She recited with a bittersweet smile, wondering if that was still true or if she'd been simply stuck. She didn't hold the monopoly on pain, everyone in there had suffered way too much of it, more than their collective lifetime's share of it. Seeing that Steve was still looking at her with confused eyes, she elaborated. "That's something my─ someone once taught me." She corrected herself, hesitant to use the term that had been on the tip of her tongue. Even if Melina was family, somehow Natasha still reserved the title of 'mother' to the unknown woman who had never stopped looking for her. "She was a Black Widow and raised me for a while when I was little. She was like family, too."

"What happened to her?" He asked with a frown, noticing her use of the past tense.

"Thanos." She said simply with a tilt of the head.

"Then tomorrow we'll make that right, too." He said gravely, nodding firmly back at her then a light seemed to come into his blue eyes before he said the next words. "I promise, Nat. When we come back, I'm not gonna let you do this on your own anymore."

"I should hope not." She said with a smirk, swallowing the lump suddenly forming in her throat and hoping Steve wouldn't notice it. "We're bringing half the world back to life all of a sudden, everything is bound to get on the brink of collapse once again and I expect everyone will have their hands full out there with readjusting, again."

"At least this time we'll be disrupting the world by making things right," he countered with a smile of his own.

"Yeah," she said with an answering smile. She hesitated for a moment as he stared back into her eyes, too many things going through her head, all the moments they'd lived through together getting jumbled up in her mind and she wanted to say something but she found that what Steve meant to her wasn't something she could actually put down into words. Then the moment passed and she suddenly felt exhausted from everything that had happened in the last few days and she thought she should probably go ahead and get some rest for their mission tomorrow. "Good night, Steve."

"'Night, Nat." He gave her one last soft smile and a reassuring nod as he watched her walk out towards her room.

Once in her bedroom, she set about her nightly routine, changing into a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt (that had probably been Clint's or Steve's, she wasn't sure at the moment) and washing up in the adjoined bathroom. Before laying down, she opened the sliding door out to the balcony that surrounded the level and welcomed in a small black cat.

"Hi kitty, here Liho," she cooed, petting her softly on the head and guiding her towards a set of bowls lining the wall next to the door that she had just filled out with fresh cat food and water.

"Ready for tomorrow?" A low voice asked her from just outside the door, a figure standing in the shadows.

"Yes," Natasha answered quietly as she crouched by the cat and petted her lightly as she ate her food. "Thank you for helping me set it up."

She saw Nebula nodding from the corner of her eyes, the cyborg just barely visible in the light spilling out of her room.

"I hope you know what you're walking into, Romanoff." Nebula said, something almost like concern seeping into her normally cold voice.

"I do." Natasha reassured her, looking up at her and standing up in one fluid motion. "I'll get the Soul Stone. I promise."

Natasha wasn't a hundred percent sure, but she knew there was an incredibly high chance that she wasn't coming back with the others after their trip to the past. Once she'd heard Nebula talking of Vormir, calling it a dominion of death and explaining how Thanos had killed her sister there, Natasha had realized that the fact that Thanos came back with the Soul Stone yet without Gamora was very significant. It was too much to be a coincidence and when she'd questioned Nebula further by herself, she learned that Thanos had claimed he had needed to kill Gamora in order to do what needed to be done. It left no doubt in their minds that somehow her death was related to obtaining the Soul Stone and it was possible something similar would be necessary in their trip to the past.

With that in mind, Natasha had swiftly manipulated everything to get her and Clint to go to Vormir by themselves and have everyone else occupied with the other Stones. Nebula had realized what she was doing and supported her move by adding her contributions to the discussion, claiming there shouldn't be any issues with the two of them going alone to that planet once she set the coordinates in the spaceship. Then everyone else had fallen into place like pieces completing a picture puzzle for the rest of the mission to retrieve the other Infinity Stones.

As Nebula left and Natasha settled in for the night, she laid in bed with Liho nestled comfortably between her legs. She'd realized early on that it would be a quick losing battle trying to keep the cat in her own bed by the floor for the whole night and had soon accepted her comforting, purring presence near her body while she slept. She'd never seen herself as the type to care for a pet, her brain classifying it as something that was part of a childhood that she'd never had ─ love was for children. But when she'd caught sight of the little black kitten soaking wet from the rain just outside her door one night around two years ago it hadn't taken her long before she was making room in her life for the little thing. Liho had become a comforting presence in her life and probably one of the main reasons she hadn't completely lost her mind in the last few years. She hoped Clint would take her in and that Laura would let the cat stay at their farm, if the worst came to pass.

She slept through a blessedly dreamless night and in the morning the whole team came together for the final preparations for their most impossible mission to date. She couldn't believe this moment had finally come. She'd never really given up because she didn't know what to do if she didn't do this, if she were no longer an Avenger. But she did lose hope along the way. Hope that they would somehow be able to undo the unthinkable, that they could somehow get back everyone that they'd lost five years ago, that everything could be made right again. Yet here the moment had come, just when she'd been at a downright low, nearly losing herself in all the pain and almost not seeing any way out.

"See you in a minute."

If asked, Natasha wouldn't have a ready answer as for why she'd chosen those words to be her last ones to Steve. It was the sort of light teasing they'd always exchanged since they had first become friends and it felt fitting ─ all of them would spend way more time than a minute at different places in their collective past, but the time that would pass in their present would be a minute in the actual clock.

Maybe she figured seeing him again after everything they'd been through would feel like a minute, if they ever got to see each other again, somewhere, somehow. She didn't really believe in an afterlife, growing up as an atheist and after everything she'd been through. But then she was probably about to sacrifice herself for something called the Soul Stone, so it was entirely possible there was a place where lost souls would get to meet again once they were out of this realm of existence.

If that were the case, she hoped she could see him again then.

A.N.: I maintain my stance that Natasha knew fully well the implications of what was needed to get the Soul Stone from the moment she paused in her note-taking when Nebula had spoken of Vormir. Maybe I give her too much credit, but it's just the sort of Natasha move to manipulate everyone into sending her and Clint to Vormir, otherwise they could've chosen Rocket and/or Nebula to go there for instance, as they were way more familiar with space in general and prepared for anything that could possible come up there.

Oh and Liho (meaning misfortune) features in some of the Black Widow comics as a stray she takes in begrudgingly but that becomes a nice companion and pet for Natasha. I thought it would be fitting if she did have someone keeping her company at the compound when everyone moved out and as a cat lady myself I thought this would be awesome.