"Tony, is now really the best time to be having this discussion?" Steve hisses. "As I recall, it was your idea that I move out."
"That was the best thing for everyone," Tony reminds him.
"Says you," argues Steve stubbornly, as though they haven't had this argument a dozen times.
"Both Natasha and Emma agreed with me."
"I still maintain you three were overreacting."
"Hey, there is no way any of us were willing to share our floor with honeymooners. Uh-uh. No way. I don't need any more pain in my life."
"Overreacting," Steve huffs with an eyeroll.
"How is 104th floor life anyway?" Tony asks curiously.
"Not much different from 105th life, to be perfectly honest. And, before you ask again, yes, I'm sure Nat will be perfectly fine on the 103rd floor. Just no more night-time roof walks."
"How's the missus like it?" Tony probes.
Steve chuckles.
"Peggy's adaptable. But, let's say she certainly wasn't complaining when she moved in."
They turned at the sound of an irritated voice.
"Tony! Steve! Hurry Up!"
"I'm ready, Rhodey," Tony explains boldly. "It's Rogers who keeps rambling on."
Steve glares at him.
"Funny," he utters dryly. He straightens his jacket, then reaches out and claps a hand on Tony's shoulder, searching his eyes.
"You ready for this?" he asks.
"Not by half," Tony replies. Steve nods.
"Good. Me neither." He pats his shoulder comfortingly one more time, and they walk out of the room side by side.
Natasha
For twenty-five years they'd all walked side by side, day in and day out, and now it was all ending. This would be the last such walk the three of them took together like this, arm in arm, leaning on one another. They had faced lies and truths and pain and loss and happiness and tears and laughing so hard it hurt.
Natasha had spent twenty-five years with a dad who had always left his lab in time for supper and with a retired army captain who was as much a part of her family as they were his. She wore a locket containing a picture of a mother she had never known, feeling more beautiful than she ever had in her life as she held on equally to the two men who had raised her. The two men who had loved her unfailingly and had put her first in every aspect despite any of their own wants and needs her entire life.
And as she looks around, at Rhodey and Maria and their daughters, at Bruce and his best friend Betty and her husband Glenn, at Happy and Darcy, Sam and Wanda and their kids, at Janet and her husband Hank, at Emma and new her new Aunt Peggy, at Nick, and Kitty, and Thor and Loki who sat up obediently on their cushions, she knows she'd kept her mother's promise. With such a big family, her father and Steve would never be alone again, despite the fact that she was letting go of both of them. Or perhaps they were finally letting go of her.
Either way, when she takes her first steps away from them and reaches for Clint, she knows they would always be where they had always been. Behind her, together.
"Who gives this woman to be wed?"
"We do."