I have a lot of ideas for this, but I really don't want to make it that long. Maybe ten chapters? I don't know.

Like I said, since Black Widow isn't out yet at the moment I'm writing this (August 2020, thank you pandemic) I'll just skip a year and use all I have from the trailers to make up some scenes until we get to watch it.

Stay safe y'all.

TRIGGER WARNING: Small mention of suicidal thoughts.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters, I just use them as a way to cure the heartache that Endgame left in me.

"I am bound to you with a tie that we cannot break,

with a night that we can't replace.

I'm lost but found with you in a bed that we'll never make

It's a feeling we always chase."

—Another Place, Bastille.

It all could be worse, actually. She could be dead, but she wasn't.

Instead, she was walking through the dark streets of Apollo Bay, both hands inside her jacket to press the bullet wounds without looking suspicious, a smile on her face to hide the fact that she was about to pass out, and feeling a thin stream of blood running from her head down to her now red shirt.

It was in moments like those that she really wished to have her red hair back. Instead, she had long blonde hair, framing her face to hide the blood and how sunken her cheeks were. The blood would show up soon, so she sped up her pace.

In the middle of the night, the beautiful city looked peaceful, almost as if it was also sleeping. As soon as the sun began rising, she would be out of time, in plain sight and easy to spot.

Just a few more meters and she would be safe.

It was all Tony's fault, anyway. He's the one who started the damn shawarma tradition, and she couldn't help but smile and go inside a local to buy the damn food just to feel safe and like she was just coming back from another mission, nothing too fancy.

She gripped the paper bag like it was her whole life.

Natasha stopped by the side of the sea, admiring it. When was the last time she was this close to something she really loved? Probably about a year or so before, she thought.

All she longed for was to get the fucking bullets out of her body, shower, and sleep more than forty minutes.

There was a house on the end of the street, with a single light on.

I'll leave a light on so you know we'll be waiting for you, read the message she received five months ago. She gripped the phone inside her pocket and took it out, wincing when she brushed her side.

Tucking the paper bag under her armpit, she took out the chip with shaky hands. Still trying to keep a steady pace, she bent her flip phone with both her hands, breaking it.

The front lawn was mowed, and the roses looked well cared of. Bending over, choking on a wail of pain, she plucked a single red rose.

Chuckling, she took the shinny key that the hole revealed.

"Oh, Steve. What a romantic man you are." Sighing, she opened the door with one hand.

In the kitchen, a skinny figure welcomed her. Her cheeks were swollen, her eyes bloodshot, and her hands shook.

Natasha smiled sadly and raised the paper bag. She then left it on the table and extended her arms.

Gasping, Wanda hugged her tightly, not aware of her wounds. But that didn't matter, because they were together again, she kept her promise.

"That wasn't a fucking minute," Wanda whispered, gripping her. Her hair was now of a carrot red and longer, and it shone on the moonlight.

The stairs light turned on with a flicker, and a familiar man showed up.

Choking back the tears —that were there for both her pain and the emotion of reuniting with her friends—, Natasha let Wanda go and smiled at Steve.

"I brought dinner..." she scratched her nose and nodded towards the paper bag. "Or breakfast. Doesn't matter." Steve smiled brightly, and it made the whole pain disappear. Everything she went through, every single thing that broke both her heart and will to live, everything that Taskmaster, or Aleksei, even Yelena or her mother, none of that was there, it was just the two of them, together.

And the moment Steve basically threw himself onto her open arms, it felt like everything was worth it.

"God, Nat. I missed you so much," Steve muttered against her hair, "so fucking much. Don't you ever go away, again. Never."

"I won't," was all she could say, too shocked to say anything else.

"Are you always going to leave me out, or what?" Sam asked, rubbing his eyes. Reluctantly, she let Steve go and tried to walk towards Sam, but her legs threatened to betray her at that moment. Nonetheless, Sam jogged towards her and hugged her.

"Why is there blood on your neck, Nat? Are you okay?" she finally let her legs give in when Steve noticed, not having the energy to pretend that she was okay. Sam dragged her to the couch and removed her jacket, revealing the two holes on the red-stained shirt. Wanda ran upstairs and Sam applied pressure to her wounds. Steve cursed and went to the kitchen, coming back seconds later with a bottle of whiskey.

"Oh, great, a welcome party," Natasha said, smirking. Steve looked at her deadpan and she wiped the smile off her face.

Wanda came back with a first aid kit. Taking out his own jacket, Steve knelt down by her side, taking the kit from Wanda.

"Where's the lighter?" Steve asked, pulling up her hair to reveal a nasty cut on the back of her head. Sam disappeared from her vision field for two seconds and appeared again with said lighter between his hands.

"Steve?" she asked, her voice small. He stopped everything he was doing and gave her his full attention, something that burned in the pit of her stomach and spread like wildfire across her body. "Put me out."

"Nat..."

"Please. I can't... I don't want to feel it." She placed her hand on his without breaking the eye contact, reassuring. Not fully convinced, he placed his hand around her throat and pressed just enough until her whole vision turned black, and her body gave in.

/

Her hair stuck to her neck as the sweat beads ran across her whole body. Her lungs burned, and her arms were shaking with tiredness, the same way her legs shook thanks to the adrenaline. She bit her tongue to stop a yelp of pain as the flames tried to wrap themselves on her legs, and took her gun out, pointing it as best as she could with the double vision.

A man who had replicated every single one of her friends, and even her, walked towards her like it was a stroll in the park. He had a replica of Steve's shield, and that made her blood boil; without any clear thought, she fired one, two, maybe even five bullets, but they just ricocheted on the shield.

Then he threw it at her, and by some divine force, it stuck on the car door.

Natasha sat up instantly, gasping for air, taking her hands to her throat instinctively, scratching it to make sure that she was awake now, and not back there.

"Hey, it's okay, I got you, it's fine." Steve wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair from behind her, trying to calm her down. She could still smell the smoke, her burning flesh, the blood burning up, the sweat and gasoline mixing like one on the highway.

Natasha turned around as best as she could and hugged him back, inhaling his familiar scent.

They were on a mattress, situated on the floor, on the corner of a room. By their side, the bottle of whiskey, and more bandages; next to it, a notebook and a pencil.

Her torso was fully bandaged, and she had another shirt on, maybe borrowed from Wanda; her pants were also gone, a pair of sweatpants in their place; shoes, socks, jacket, everything else was gone too. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, and her neck felt stiff with another bandage and blood.

She resorted to playing with Steve's hair, which got considerably longer, to distract herself. The first thing she noticed about him was the beard, and she couldn't help but smile nostalgically at this.

"You left your beard on," Natasha muttered, tracing the outline of said beard with a finger. Steve chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "You remembered." It was three Christmas ago, when he found out that Bucky was still alive; he didn't shave for a week or so, deciding to waste all his free time by searching for more leads on his friend. All she did was suggest that the beard looked cool on him and took away the babyface.

"You remembered, too." Steve ran his hand through her long blonde hair. "I thought it was a wig and tried to take it off. Sorry." Natasha snorted and hit him playfully on the shoulder.

"I wanted something that lasted, that they couldn't take away from me." Steve nodded. "Can I shower here? I feel like I have a crust of blood," Natasha joked, trying to shoo away her feelings once more.

Steve stood up and gave her a hand to do the same, carefully placing his hand on her waist to help her walk. Out of the bedroom, and down the hall, was the bathroom.

"I'll wake Wanda so she can help you."

"No, thanks. I got this." She did not have it, but she wanted her friend to rest easy now that she was back. "You should go to sleep, too, I'm not going anywhere." She smiled softly, trying to convince him of doing something impossible.

"I won't sleep tonight, you know it." Steve smiled back at her and let her go. Her body felt like freezing at that exact moment. "Wait, I'll bring you clothes." Then he ran towards the same room they were before, like a child on Christmas morning.

The thought just made her laugh softly. He came back with his face and neck completely red.

"Thank you," Natasha muttered, taking the clothes.

"Uh, we all chose these, but Wanda chose... you know..." his face turned even redder and she laughed at how sweet and innocent he looked.

"I get it. I'll thank her in the morning," then, she closed the door.

There was a somewhat rusty shower, a toilet, a mirror, and a sink. That was it, and it was all she ever wanted. Leaving the clean clothes on the toilet, she began stripping down carefully.

The bandages were bloody, and she wondered how long it had been since she first crossed the main door. Biting her lip, she began to unwrap the bloody fabric, sighing in relief once they were out of her badly bruised body. She took a long look at herself in the mirror, checking every stitch to make sure that it wouldn't pop, every bruise to calculate how long they would take to heal, every scar that was forming.

For a moment, Natasha felt sick just watching herself, but she couldn't take her eyes away from her body.

Finally, she turned and opened the taps to let the water run. All she needed was a cold shower to feel like herself again.

She stepped inside and felt the water hit her body with a moderated force, almost massaging her sore muscles and washing away all the blood and sweat away from her.

All she wanted to do was stay under the water, feeling it drum against her skin, taking away all her worries and everything that happened in the last year, but she knew that it wouldn't help to ease any of her pain, that it wouldn't erase all the things she saw or the things she did.

So she closed her eyes and pretended that this whole scene was different. She would be coming home from a particularly difficult mission, and he would be waiting for her with a bottle of wine and that delicious lasagna he made; then, they would sit on the couch with more wine and would talk about her mission, and about how they missed each other. Finally, they would fall asleep on the couch, Steve's arms wrapped around her waist and Nat's hands on his chest, breathing at the same pace.

But that would just be real in another place.

After closing the taps, she stayed there for a couple of seconds, trying to make sense of anything that was going on. The year before she was signing some Accords, thinking that going by the law would be the only way to make things right, and now she was on the run, badly injured after one of her most difficult missions.

Natasha put on her new clothes and looked in the mirror again.

Steve's razor blade was there, on top of the sink, and she couldn't help but take it. Maybe, if she just moved it across her throat or her wrists it would all be over.

Instead, she took a strand of her hair and slid the razor across it, admiring the hair on her hand before cutting another strand, and another, until all her hair was shoulder length.

A soft knock kicked her out of her thoughts.

"I want to make sure that you're still alive," Steve said, "are you done? I need to put on new bandages."

Natasha opened the door, and Steve stared at her hair, in shock. It wasn't even, it wasn't even pretty, but she desperately wanted to be that Natasha she was before all the events that happened since Lagos.

"I'm sorry. I..." her eyes turned watery, and Steve wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to feel safe, protected from the world, and its ugly people.

"It's okay, it's okay." Steve muttered, trying to avoid her wounds. "I'll tell Wanda to cut it right when she wakes up." Natasha nodded and let Steve go so he could bandage her again.

The sun was already rising on the horizon, lighting up the house. Natasha sat down on the mattress and waited for Steve to sit by her side with the bandages.

"Uh, Steve? Sam said he needs your help to put the lights back on and something else." Wanda knocked at the same time she talked. Steve flashed Natasha an apologetic smile and looked at Wanda. "I'll put them on, this time I want to see what's inside my food," the man nodded and glanced at Natasha, who managed to smile at her before disappearing through the door.

Once Wanda was settled and Natasha had discarded her shirt, she smiled at the younger woman. Her eyes looked brighter, she had a small smile on her face and she even hummed a familiar tune while she dipped a cotton ball in alcohol.

"Is that... Daniel in the Den?" Natasha asked, impressed. Wanda nodded and pressed the cotton ball into one of her wounds, making the older woman hiss and bite the interior of her cheek to keep herself from screaming.

"Steve told me that it was your favorite, so I went to this café and searched it, and now I really like it." Wanda's smile grew wider as she talked, and Natasha couldn't stop herself from reaching up to caress Wanda's cheek.

"That's really sweet Wanda," she dropped her hand, "I'm really glad to be back."

"I'm glad you're back, too. Those two are like literal children." They both laughed and Wanda kept on cleaning her wounds.

"Did much change in the time I was gone?" Natasha asked as Wanda began wrapping her torso in bandages. Wanda shrugged and clipped the bandage in place.

"You've seen the physical; apart from that, not much." Wanda then moved to the cut on her neck. "Sam's been training like crazy, my mental stability went to shit, and Steve is still seeing that blondie, I think." Natasha's heart skipped a beat and all the color drained from her face.

"Sharon?" she asked. Wanda nodded and stood up.

"Come here, let's get your hair straight."

She walked almost in autopilot, trying to process that. She shouldn't be surprised, after all, since she was the one who set him up in the first place. But still, it hurt like hell just to think about Steve kissing another woman, wanting another that wasn't her, even if she knew that he never wanted her as anything more than a friend since the beginning.

She didn't even feel when Wanda sat her on a chair, or when she began cutting her hair.

Friend.

She groaned in pain and buried her face on her hands, frustrated.

In another place, she would have actually said how she felt that day in the goddamn car.