Just something I had to let out after my frustrations with 'Black Widow' film.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel Cinematic Universe.
2014, Vormir
While returning to the past to return the Infinity Stones and also remembering Tony and Natasha, Steve reminisced about how far had he come. Maybe it was time for him to move forward. The only thing unfair of it was at what cost it had come, since he lost two of his closest friends, while getting other back.
Steve walked down the valley of the wretched world until he saw a cloaked figure in hood floating few feet above the ground approaching him.
"Hello, Steven. Son of Joseph."
Clint had told Steve that the Red Skull had become a hollow shell of Steve's enemy, but still, hearing the voice and seeing the disfigured face of Johann Schmidt under that hood was unnerving to say the least.
"It's been a long time, Schmidt." Steve said with a hint of venom in his voice.
"For me… it has been a lifetime. I know why you came." Schmidt said.
"To return the Soul Stone where it belongs and undo what was done. Was it worth it?" Steve said.
"You tell me…" Schmidt said.
"No. Not that. I've accepted that I could lose the people I love to win. I meant you. All those innocent people you killed, was it worth it? You can never get what you wanted." Steve said. It was poetic justice that the Red Skull was doomed to protect what he could never have.
"It matters not. Neither one of us are who we once were…. Aren't we, Captain?" Schmidt pointed out.
"I suppose not." Steve admitted. While seeing that face would never stop unnerving him, he could tell his enemy was long gone.
Steve approached the edge of the valley and looked down on where the sacrifices would fall to their deaths in exchange for the Soul Stone and all he could think of was how unfair it was that Natasha had chosen to sacrifice herself to save lives, while Thanos sacrificed his own daughter for his own ambition. Natasha was as close to a family as Steve could have and one of his best friends, asides from Bucky, Sam and Tony, who had also chosen to sacrifice himself to save them all.
"A soul… for a soul, Captain." Schmidt said.
A soul… for a soul… a cost Steve himself would have gladly paid to have her back. He jumped off the cliff with the Soul Stone in his hand and the next thing Steve knew…
…Steve was walking down some watery area where the sky was orange, instead of Vormir and then he faced his old friend.
"Steve?" Natasha asked and Steve could not believe his own eyes.
"Nat?" Steve asked.
"What are you doing here?" Natasha asked, confused as she neared him and eyed him and touched his cheek to be sure he was real. "Are you…"
"I don't know. But I need to know… why? Why did you do that?" Steve asked.
"You know why. Whatever it takes." Natasha said.
"Whatever it takes." Steve nodded.
"And Tony's gone. I know about all of it." Natasha added.
"I understand why he wanted to redeem himself but I'll walk through Heaven and Hell if I have to to bring you back. We still need you." Steve said.
"It can't be undone. It can't…" Natasha said.
"It is an exchange." Schmidt's voice echoed. "A soul for a soul. And a soul from the past should not have to pay the price which has been paid in the future already. Consider this my penance… Captain."
Next thing Steve and Natasha knew, they were surrounded by blinding white light.
2023, Stark Residence
"Going quantum in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" Bruce said and next thing they knew, the time machine platform pulsed with energy and they stared in disbelief to see Steve and…
"Nat?" Bruce asked.
"What…" Clint stared in disbelief.
Natasha looked around, smiling and amazed, like anytime she was happy and glad to see her friends, since to her it felt like a lifetime and to them, the grief from losing her after having a funeral for both Tony and her was still fresh.
"Hey…" Natasha said, on verge of tears as Clint and Bruce slowly approached her.
"Oh, my God… is it…" Clint trailed off, holding his best friend by her cheek.
"It's me, Clint. I guess Thanos was worse than Budapest, right?" Natasha asked.
That was all Clint needed to know for sure it was her and the floodgates opened as he hugged her with bear strength, sobbing. "Jesus, Nat, don't ever do this to us again!"
The Avengers, Laura and her and Clint's children, Fury, Hill, Mack, Hunter, Bobbi and other former agents of SHIELD and Pepper and Happy gathered, happy to see Natasha back as they all hugged her.
Few days later
In Sharon's apartment in Washington, D.C., where she used to live next to Steve, she stirred as she felt the sunlight shine onto her face through the window and sniffed the smell of bacon and heard sizzling as she slowly came to and turned her head to see Steve making breakfast and preparing the plates on the table. She got up from the bed as the blanket fell off her naked body, while Steve heard footsteps and then the shower running from the bathroom and smiled, while Sharon relaxed as the warm water washed away the dirt, sweat and worry she had been carrying for years after the mess with the Accords and the Decimation as she took deep breaths to enjoy the shower, while rubbing the soap against her skin.
A few minutes later, Steve watched as Sharon came out from the bathroom, tying a robe around her waist and dropping the wet towel from her hair into a basket as they sat down across each other.
"So… what have you been up to after…" Steve trailed off, since he was aware that she had also become a victim of Decimation.
"Well… I still had to face charges for stealing governmental property and aiding fugitives but Fury got in contact with this blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen. He made a pretty solid defense and all charges were dropped, so right now I'm looking for a new job." Sharon said. "So, to what should we toast?" She asked as she poured herself and Steve some orange juice into glasses.
"To new beginning." Steve said as he raised his glass.
"To new beginning, then." Sharon said as they clinked their glasses and drank before kissing and then they picked the cutlery, about to eat their breakfast.
Elsewhere, in a countryside, Bucky and Natasha drove down the road as Natasha turned to Bucky.
"How many people have you tried to make amends with?" Natasha asked.
"Not enough." Bucky said with a haunted look.
"It may never be enough. It doesn't mean you should stop trying. There are no shortcuts to redemption and it isn't an easy path… but no matter how lost you are, you can always find a way. All you have to do is keep trying to look for it. And you don't have to do it alone. I'm with you until the end of the line." Natasha said and Bucky smiled at her. "Do you remember… us?"
"I remember all of it." Bucky admitted.
Natasha faced a new instructor, who was delivered by the Soviets. She had no idea who he was but according to her superiors, he was one of the best assassins the KGB ever knew, while she was recruited into the Black Widow program. It was a handsome man with long brown hair and looked worn out and had a titanium left arm with a red star on his shoulder. He looked young… but for some reason, Natasha felt like if he had lived lifetimes.
None of Natasha's 'sisters', not even Yelena, could best the instructor, but Natasha was able to hold on a bit longer than them, but still, she was no match for him, because he was faster than stronger than most people.
Usually, the instructor would beat her within few seconds but it was as if he didn't want to quit, as he smiled, actually liking Natasha. They kept exchanging blows and going back and forth, neither one of them wanting to beat the other, due to some inexplicable attraction they had developed over time until one of the handlers observed and the instructor was forced to pin Natasha down.
"Perhaps another time, Natalia?" The instructor asked in Russian.
"Who knows… if I will let my bedroom unlocked tonight." Natasha winked and the instructor smirked. They stared at each other briefly and for one instant were tempted to near each other and kiss, when they were interrupted and stopped.
"Excellent work, Soldier." The handler said in Russian as the instructor got up, saluting.
Later, Natasha was in the shower, rubbing the shampoo on her hair as the dirt went down the drain before she turned off the water and picked a towel to dry herself and wrapped it around her breasts to cover her naked body.
Natasha approached her closet, about to pick her night gown, when she whirled around and would have screamed, if the instructor had not covered her mouth with his metallic hand, as he pinned her to the wall. She had expected him to kill her but his eyes seemed… fond and kind… not cold, like earlier. He let go as they smiled at each other.
"What do you want?" Natasha asked.
"I've been thinking about you." The instructor said. "In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about you. If you don't want me here… tell me… and I will leave."
"No need." Natasha smiled as they kissed again and laid down on the bed, while the towel slipped off Natasha's body and she felt his hands on her arms, while she reached for the instructor's waist and lifted his shirt, while she moaned softly.
A blonde woman was walking a dog around a lodge before she noticed a car. Yelena Belova smiled as she noticed Natasha come out with the Winter Soldier, much to her shock. She was happy to see her old friend but seeing the Winter Soldier was a surprise for her.
"Hello, Yelena. It's been a while." Natasha said.
Don't get me started on how stupid it was of Steve to stay in the past with Peggy and abandoning his Avengers friends, especially when Peggy wasn't even a good love interest to begin with in TFA. As I said before in my not-so-friendly-to-Peggy fics, she was a terrible love interest for Steve in TFA. First of all, Steve had zero experience with women and yet Peggy kept sending mixed messages to him and stringing him along, if you consider her interactions with Howard and Steve misunderstands it as that they have something together, plus, it was out of line of Peggy to shoot at Steve, when he was testing the shield and Peggy was obviously taking out her frustrations, when she had caught him making out with Private Lorraine, when Peggy was in no position to be jealous, since Steve and Peggy were not in an established relationship and it's plot over logic that Peggy didn't get court-martialed, since there was no guarantee that the shield worked and if not Steve or Howard, Peggy could've hurt, if not killed, someone else. Plus, Hayley Atwell badmouthing Steve's other love interests do her no favors.
In Agent Carter series, while she was done better as a character, considering some of the shadier stuff the Allies were up to after World War II, such as Operation Paperclip, she's still far from a great character.
And while MCU seemed to tease more Steve/Natasha, considering their interactions and Chris's and Scarlett's chemistry, there was some foreboding and buildup to Steve/Sharon but all that went to crap in Endgame and Sharon was done so dirty in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier with the Power Broker twist. It's stupid that Sam, Bucky and everyone else got their names cleared and they could resume their lives, while Sharon was still on the run. The part with Steve and Sharon is drawn from my one-shot 'Never give up' and anyone wanna guess who was the lawyer, who defended Sharon and freed her? *winks*
And they also could've done Bucky/Natasha, considering the comics and Sebastian Stan himself said in a few interviews he wouldn't have minded to see them together and Scarlett Johansson hasn't opposed the idea either. Plus, considering the comics, I would have liked to see more of Bucky/Natasha, since first of all, Scarlett and Mark have no chemistry at all and the execution of the pairing in Age of Ultron was forced and came out of the sudden and one has to wonder what the hell were the writers, especially Whedon, thinking and the idea of Bucky trying to make amends with his past was interesting, so Natasha helps him out in this fic.
And frankly, I doubt that Natasha's "You could at least recognize me." in Civil War would be a reference to Bucky shooting her and considering that in comics Bucky trained Natasha and they also had been in a romantic relationship before his memory was wiped, it would make sense.
But… well, with better writing, considering that in comics, Natasha and Yelena were enemies turned reluctant friends, I think that after a properly done Black Widow film instead of what we got, they would be on good terms at the end, frankly, they should've done a solo Black Widow film after the first or second Avengers film instead of how it was handled. Yelena as a friend/sister figure to Nat was one thing but having parental figures, and Alexei and Melina of all people, was just plain stupid.
Plus, the way Gamora returned was stupid, with her being a version from the past, which also cheapens her death in Infinity War and Natasha's in Endgame and don't get me started on the disservice to Nat in Black Widow film, since, as I've said many times before, the fact that she had a surrogate family prior to the Avengers just cheapens her relationship with Clint and his family and her Avengers friends like Steve or Tony. So in this fic, after Endgame, 2014 Gamora caught up with the Guardians and Nebula and then returned to her timeline to join the Guardians there, which would've made sense and wouldn't cheapen her death in IW.
Please review and let me know if you have enjoyed this one-shot.
With regards
Bl4ckHunter