SHIELD had an extensive file on Natasha Romanoff. It cataloged her entire life, from birth to the present, and was being updated constantly. It was put together through painstaking research—agents retrieving documents from top-secret Soviet facilities, computer technicians hacking through endless amounts of firewalls, and data analysts sifting through the documents in a manner that left their eyes dry. This was supplemented by information volunteered by Natasha herself, given while she was imprisoned—or “secured” as Clint had tried to convince her. The file stated her birthday was August 2, 1984. At the age of eight, she was placed in the custody of the Soviet government and raised to be a child assassin. She was put through extreme psychological conditioning and thus forced to commit acts that may be deemed too awful to put on paper.
Unfortunately for SHIELD, very little of what was in the file was true.
Natasha Romanoff was in fact, born May 21, 1928. She was admitted into the “Black Widow Ops” Soviet program at the age of eight. On her eighteenth birthday, she was given a derivative of the super-soldier serum. She was shipped off to the Red Room program to further refine her combative skills. Among those who trained her was a man known only as the Winter Soldier. In 2008, she was taken into SHIELD’s custody and was subsequently recruited. On October 3, 2023, Natasha leaped from a cliff in Vormir, sacrificing herself to get the soul stone.
On October 4, 2023, Natasha got up and left Vormir.
Loneliness tasted like water soaking rusty nails. It smelled like blood encrusted on fingertips, and it looked—well, it looked like Natasha Romanoff staring at the destruction she found where the Avengers Compound had once stood.
Everything seemed too loud, half of the population and half of the animals having suddenly sprung back into existence. She thought it would sound more comforting, but in the end, noise was just noise.
It was over. Perhaps it wouldn’t have seemed so anti-climactic if she had been there for that final battle. But she had been lying on the bottom of a cliff, somewhere between life and death, and she couldn’t bring herself to regret that. The knowledge didn’t make it any easier to come back. And neither was knowledge action. She allowed herself one last look, then took a deep breath and got back in her car. She didn’t come back to rest; she had things to do. First, she needed to see a time machine by a lake.
The Avengers Compound only held ghosts for her. But Tony Stark’s cabin? That held the ghosts of the dead as well as the ghosts of the living. One of them she knew better than herself.
Loneliness also looked like Bucky Barnes staring at a bench by the lake.
“Five…”
“Get him back!”
“I’m trying!”
“Sam.” Without fully looking him in the eye, Bucky nudged him towards the bench.
“What…”
“Go to him.”
Sam stared at Bucky for a long moment. And then he nodded and walked up to Steve Rogers. Or, at least a Steve Rogers. There were too many versions of him running around for Bucky to keep track. (Or maybe it was only him who split Steve apart into more manageable pieces because if he didn’t then this would present him with a much bigger truth than he was willing to deal with.)
He reached under his shirt, grasped a metal chain, and pulled it over his head. Dog tags (Steve’s). He curled his palm into his fists, and then put them in his pocket.
“And here I thought Steve was the dramatic one.”
The chain fell from his hand. He trembled all over, and then slowly, one, two, breathe, he turned…
“Tashka,” He whispered. “I…I thought…”
“It’s going to take a lot more than that to kill me.” She grinned. “Just like I knew it was going to take a lot more than someone snapping their fingers to kill you, Yasha.” She grasped his hands and squeezed.
And then he broke.
He fell forward, and she easily caught him, her arms around his waist as he sobbed into the crook of her neck. “Talia,” He croaked out, and he squeezed her waist so hard it would bruise. (Only they knew why the bruise would last minutes at most).
“Yashenka.” She ran her fingers through his hair—clumped together and greasy. She began to gently work through the knots, more as a calming ministration than for the task itself. He just stood there, limp. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, but her voice caught in her throat. “I’m here. We’re here. We got out.”
Natasha could feel Bucky’s lips trembling against her collar. Words were on the tip of the tongue, but if he said it was real, and if it was real then those truths he believed to be basic, universal laws were no more, and that meant…”
“Yasha.” Natasha took a step back so she could cup his face. She didn’t look at the lake—didn’t look at the two men by the bench and the hulking giant, all too consumed in their tasks to have seen the world’s greatest spy—but she nodded all the same. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes?” At this, she did turn to the lake, and then to the time machine. “Just…” Her right hand lowered until it was gently pressed against his heart. “Just wait here. I think I need to announce my existence.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
This she had been mulling over ever since she had hitched a ride with a ragtag gang of guardians who had never heard the words I am inevitable. She came upon the decision that the truth—or some version of it—was the best. She did not, after all, know precisely how she had survived the fall and how Clint was able to get the stone. She squeezed his hand. “Enough.”
She drew him in one last time, squeezing him while they were still in their own universe.
Then she took a step back and walked over to Professor Hulk.
When he finally spotted Natasha, his knees buckled underneath him. His huge green palm slammed onto the side of the time machine, making the metal crinkle like paper. “Nat…”
He whispered, his voice so hoarse it sounded as though it might hurt.
“You boys didn’t do too well with the clean-up. I was hoping I would be able to miss that part.”
The ground shook as he ran towards her and then swept her up in a tight embrace. She looked like a doll in his arms. Bucky would laugh if he wasn’t already crying.
“I…I thought…”
“Bruce,” Natasha wheezed, “squeezing a little tight there.”
“Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry!” Bruce let Natasha down hysterically gently, just stopping himself from patting her on the head by her pointed stare. “I thought…how…”
Natasha just shrugged. “Trust me, I’m just as shocked as you are.”
“Natasha?” Sam let the shield drop from his hand, all but forgotten. “Natasha!”
“Hey Sam. Miss me?”
“Natasha.” His voice cracked. She laid a hand on his shoulder before drawing him into herself until he was plastered against her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see an old man getting up from the bench. Sam was weeping into the crook of her neck, and she rubbed her hand up and down his back
.
The old man was hobbling over to them, leaning heavily on his cane. She turned to look at him fully, her eyes narrowing slightly and her lips tightening. The aggression was only apparent for a second, and then her face relaxed into something more neutral. Bucky was the only person who had noticed her second of hostility. For some reason, it had comforted him.
“Natasha.” Steve’s voice was full of wonder, and Natasha smiled in that way one smiles at a child when they are indulging them.
“Rogers.” Her voice was crisp, and she nodded at him. “Now you actually do look like a fossil.”
He blushed and looked shyly at the ground. “I got that life you were talking about.”
Natasha tipped her head to the side. “I’ve only been gone, what, a week?”
His eye brightened. “Wonders of time travel.”
She scrutinized him for a moment, with a gaze so piercing that his smile faltered. Then she smiled. Bucky noted that it wasn’t genuine. He wondered if Steve knew that. “I seem to recall being warned not to change anything we don’t have to.”
The shy smile was back—Bucky used to find it endearing. Now he hated it. “I never was one for rules.”
Natasha glanced over at Bucky. “No,” she said, her voice low. “I suppose not.”
“But, enough about me. How are you here? You were dead?”
“What can I say, you were very persuasive with Red Skull when you bargained for my life,” she replied dryly. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at her. “Kidding. Honestly, I have no idea. Just sort of woke up.” She paused for a moment and then nodded assertively. “Alright boys, break time’s over. I imagine bringing back half the population caused a few problems.” She glanced between Sam, Bucky, and Bruce, before finally holding Steve’s gaze. “Well, except for you. No offense, but I think what we’re planning on doing would probably break your back.” Then she turned around and walked back to Bucky, and she slung her arm around his shoulder. “Ready, Yashenka?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Bucky replied, grinning at her as he slung his own arm around her shoulder.
“Wait, hold on a minute--Yashenka? What is this, some nickname I’ve missed out on? And since when were you friends?”
“Since long before you knew she existed,” Bucky retorted. (Long before Sam had even been born, but he didn’t need to know that.”
“Buck, you didn’t tell me you knew her?” There was an underlying hint of reproach in Steve’s voice. It made Natasha’s blood boil.
“You don’t know all our secrets, Rogers.” She tipped her head to one side and smirked.
“Well are you going to share anything with us now? And how did this not come up Oh, I don’t know, when were dropping heliocarriers out of the sky?” Sam asked, still staring at Natasha and Bucky like they had grown antlers.
“You never asked,” She replied innocently.
“The guy ripped my wings off!”
Bucky scoffed. “Not my fault you decided to wear wings like some kid trying to fly after leaping off the garage roof.”
Sam didn’t think he had ever before seen Natasha grin like she was then. He clapped his hand over his heart and exaggerated a wounded expression. “Et tu, Brutus?”
“I might have defended you if you hadn’t gotten a toy bird.”
“Hey! Redwing is…” Whatever Sam was going to say was drowned out by Bucky’s laugh. He looked between Natasha and Bucky and scowled. “Why does it feel like my worst nightmare has come true?"
Natasha didn’t respond except to give Sam a devilish grin—the kind that crocodiles had before they devoured their prey whole.
“I still can’t believe this.” Steve put a little more weight on his cane as if he would buckle if it weren’t for its support.
“And I can’t believe you aged that poorly,” Natasha retorted. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I have to move Yasha into my apartment, because he doesn’t know how to cook. Seriously.”
“Hey, I cooked when I was in Wakanda! And I cooked back in the ’30s when Steve and I…” His voice cracked, but he set his jaw and kept talking, “…when Steve and I shared an apartment.”
“He did,” Steve said. There was a far-off quality to his voice, and Natasha’s gaze turned sharp again.
“No offense, Rogers, but I don’t think I can trust your judgment.” She linked hands with Bucky and squeezed. “Where are you staying these days?” She asked, nodding towards Steve with a rigidness in her movement.
Steve blushed. “Actually, I sort of…well I was hoping maybe I could stay with one of you. All of you. Where exactly are you guys staying?”
“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, the Avengers compound doesn’t exactly pass fire codes anymore,” Natasha replied drily. “We’re all still figuring things out.”
“Don’t worry old man, I’ve got a couch in my apartment with your name on it.” Sam clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “What do you say we go home?”
Steve didn’t say anything. Instead, he just stared at Bucky.
But Bucky was focused on Natasha, and for once in his life he allowed Steve to fade to his peripheral. “What about you, Tashka?”
Natasha smiled. “I’m going to find Yelena.”
“You have a lot of catching up to do.”
“We have a lot of catching up to do. Yelena wants to see you again. She wants to challenge you to a drinking competition. Vodka, obviously.”
Bucky looked almost affronted. “I can drink her under the table!”
“What you’re going to do is go broke after you spend all your money on alcohol.” She pulled him in a little tighter, and for a moment it was just the two of them. Sam took a step back and smiled. Gently, he laid a hand on Steve's arm to tug him away, but he wouldn’t budge. “What do you say Yasha? Home?”
“You just said we don’t have a home.”
“I said we don’t have a place to stay. Home is when we’re together with Yelena.”
“Sap.” He smiled warmly at her, and his gaze took a far-off expression. “We haven’t been home in a while, have we?”
She patted his arm. “Then let’s not waste any time.”
He smiled. Maybe he wasn’t Steve’s Bucky anymore, but he was and always would be Natasha’s Yasha. He decided that was more than enough.