What am I supposed to do, sit around and wait for you?
Thor was intrigued by the thought of Thanksgiving, which he'd never celebrated before, and made arrangements to stay. Sam and Wanda regretfully bowed out; they were committed to the official Avenger's celebration, which included appearing in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the dinner later on. Steve was glad to be spared that part. Bucky was pretty sure she didn't want him there and had invited him because it would be awkward not to, but accepted nonetheless. With Steve and Thor going and Sam and Wanda elsewhere, he'd be spending it alone if he didn't. And she'd invited Matt and Gina, too, mentioned that she'd invited her sister, who couldn't get the time off so soon after taking up her position at the hospital.
They'd been given a half-day on Wednesday; Ava was off like a shot afterward, but Bucky went to lunch with some coworkers, and was thus a little later coming home. He wanted to change and go for a run, ending up at the gym for some time with the heavy bag. He only trusted himself to box with Steve now; Thor didn't know how or he'd have roped him in. When he got home, he noted someone in a hoodie, examining the intercom system. There were no names on the buttons, just the apartment numbers, for safety and security. He ghosted closer.
"Do you need help?" he asked.
The figure whipped around so fast that the hood fell off, exposing red hair and familiar features he'd never thought he'd see again.
"James?"
Bucky actually staggered a step. "Natalia?" he whispered in disbelief, then they were hugging and speaking Russian. Natasha said that he should have gotten a text--there was going to be a get-together at the Avengers complex. He checked; it was there. They went to the garage where she laughed over his retro-inflected motorcycle, and they drove out to the complex. Steve, just getting out of class, wasn't far behind them, and they ended up staying overnight.
Barton and Professor Hulk had somehow talked Quill and Rocket--who had gone to Missouri to see Quill's family-- into borrowing the Benetar and going to Vormir. Barton had stopped to banter with the bitter guy with the gaunt red head but Professor Hulk had blown right past them and off the cliff. Shocked, Barton had leaned over and seen the Hulk at the bottom of the cliff, a dainty trickle of blood running away from the body. But just as the sacrifice had registered, he saw something stirring--and he woke up in the water with the Soul stone and Hulk, de-Bannered. Permanently, apparently. Banner had sacrificed himself, a life for a life. And Barton had given the stone to Hulk, who used it to bring back Natasha. Because of the nature of her sacrifice, she couldn't be UnSnapped; another life was needed to balance the scales. They left the stone on Vormir and came home. The Hulk was somewhat problematic, but as on Sakkar, had his own personality back and a much better range of self-control.
While the active Avengers left early the next morning in their costumes for the parade, the others, including Nick Fury and Maria Hill, woke to a late breakfast and caught up on their own stories. When the others got back, they had a decent Thanksgiving dinner and watched the football games, chatting and enjoying the reunion. "I gotta go," Bucky said around eight. "I have work tomorrow--" and his words hung, like the WiFi had just gone out.
"Buck?" Steve asked, yawning.
"We were supposed to have Thanksgiving dinner at Ava's today."
"Oh, shit," Steve said, sitting up straight.
"Language!" most of the people in the room chorused sternly.
"No, this friend in our building invited us to dinner," Steve said, horrified. Thor frowned.
"I had forgotten in the rejoicing of Natasha's return," he said. "Did none of us remember?"
Nope, it turned out. Bucky and Steve left hastily.
Ava was not at home, nor were Matt and Gina.
Steve and Bucky wrote apologies, sliding them under her door. There wasn't anything else they could do. The whole hall was still scented deliciously. Much better than the dinner that had been catered for the Avengers.
The next day, Bucky tried to apologize in person, but she had the weekly meetings with other project managers, updating their manager on progress and potential trouble spots, working through lunch which was brought in. In the afternoon, she was off site, looking at a new project she was being assigned.
Steve ran into Gina at the mailboxes. Gina was quiet but one of the nicest people he knew, and she was positively chilly, looking balefully over the scarf she used to conceal the scars on her neck, jaw, and lower cheek. "You really missed out," she said in a clipped voice. "Ava made a huge dinner because she said you all eat a lot. Homemade dinner rolls that I'll never make, they take three risings, two types of pie and chocolate mousse, all sorts of vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, a small ham besides the turkey, because she didn't want anybody to go away still hungry." Her eyes slit. "It was fantastic. She's been taking cooking classes here and there, she's a terrific cook. She gave us a lot of leftovers, we helped her take the rest down to a homeless shelter. You guys are real pieces of work, you know that? You couldn't even be bothered to call to give whatever bullshit excuse you had."
"One of our friends literally just returned from the dead," Steve pointed out defensively as justification.
"And that's great for you all, I'm sure," Gina said, unimpressed. "But that seems to happen a lot with your bunch. Dead people who aren't actually dead for keeps. Ava is worth at minimum a text. You didn't ask her to do it, but she was working past midnight to get the baking done on Wednesday, she was up early on Thursday. Everything was lovely, and she was wearing a beautiful dress, she was a great hostess. It was the first time I know of that she's been able to entertain, and it meant a lot to her, that she could afford to have guests, a nice dinner. Better than nice. And you blew all that planning and preparation and saving off like it was nothing. Oh, right, you didn't know. Because you didn't show up." And she stomped up the stairs.
Oh, they'd really screwed up. Maybe he should have asked if they could bring Natasha with them. But it had also been really nice to have most of the old group together again.
"We should have come back anyway," Steve said to Bucky later. "She'd gone to all that effort. We could have gone out again, or... something."
"I know," Bucky said, rubbing his face. "Dammit. I was just so surprised to see Natalia again, I completely forgot. At one time Natalia was the only thing that made my life worth living at all." He sighed heavily. "I want--wanted to apologize to Ava after the holiday for shoving her away, ask her if she could give me a second chance. Damn it. I could not have screwed up more if I'd had a gun and a plan." They each went down once after dinner, but nobody answered when they knocked.
Saturday, Steve caught sight of her getting into a car with other women, and neither of them saw her come home. On Sunday, though, Steve got lucky and saw her in the lobby. She was coming home, pink-cheeked, worn ice skates with knotted laces over her shoulder, blades protected with guards. Her smile diminished when she saw him. She looked at him coolly, then went around him to the mailboxes. There was a sizeable amount of junk mail, more of the sales and catalogs for Christmas shopping, which she tipped into recycling, saving a couple of envelopes. She started for the stairs, stiffening when he caught her arm. He dropped it like it was on fire.
"I'm sorry. I was so thoughtless, we all were. Natasha Romanov showed up on Wednesday. She died to get one of the Infinity stones, that was supposed to be that, Bruce couldn't bring her back with the second Snap. And it's the first time the rest of us have been together since we finally beat Thanos."
"I get that," she said. "Old friends are precious. You guys saved the world." She actually didn't sound sarcastic, which was pretty surprising, all in all. "And I'm not anything special. You were rude, but you're not responsible for my feelings. It's just that I would have appreciated a text saying you'd had a better offer."
"It wasn't like that--" he started.
"It was exactly like that," she cut in over him. "Go step on a Lego, Steve." She opened her purse, checked around a little--it was a small purse--and extracted an envelope. "There's my rent." And she stomped up the stairs; it was habit for her after the years of not having a working elevator here.
"Damn," Sam said later that night was they talked over the phone. "Those things hurt, man. She's got a point, though."
"I know," Steve said morosely.
That encounter seemed to have addressed her view of the disaster; the next week when he encountered her, she didn't mention it and was nice enough, but seemed closed off to any questions beyond a casual inquiry as to how she was. Bucky was careful to keep life outside the office away from their work interactions, and had nothing to report there; she was still friendly and a good team leader. But she quietly froze him out too. It seemed like she always had plans--and the holiday party season was starting--and once when they ventured to her apartment to see if she'd like to get a bite somewhere, she held the door open enough to show them that she was already making dinner. There was no invitation to join her, and Bucky and Steve retreated.
Sam and Wanda were sympathetic to a degree--everybody was glad that Natasha was back, but they kind of thought that Bucky and Steve got what they deserved. Sam had remembered to call his mom and talk to his family, so even the celebration didn't mean that he forgot everything else. Wanda didn't say much, but she was on Ava's side, understanding the work that goes into making holiday dinners and empathizing with being ghosted by the guests. Natasha said that while she was happy to see them, it had been rude to blow off the invitation. She was busy getting her life back; Clint returned money and the personal effects he still had, she had to get new identification, and she was weighing an offer to rejoin SHIELD.
She had run into Ava, returning home from a holiday party and dressed in a pretty holiday dress with a great perfume, and had expressed her regrets that Ava's Thanksgiving dinner had been negatively impacted by her return. Ava had been polite, but had shut her down completely when she tried to plead Bucky and Steve's case. "She said that while she understood that we were friends," Natasha told the men over drinks in Steve's apartment, gesturing among them, "that she and I were not, and she wasn't going to discuss it with me. And she wasn't rude, she was just stating her boundaries. Which I tried to push, me being me, but she patiently repeated it until I understood that she really wasn't interested in talking about it."
"That was probably a new experience," Steve teased her, and she swatted at him.
"Usually I can get some information out of almost anyone," she acknowledged. "I thought a moment about trying to seduce her, just to see if I could get her to crack, but she doesn't deserve that." Bucky's eyebrows rose. "Don't look at me like that. I don't like to lose, but enough damage has been done. People around the Avengers tend to get hurt."
"Not questioning your logic, Natalia," he said. "But what makes you think you could seduce her?"
"Most people aren't 0 or 6 or X on the Kinsey Scale," she shrugged. "If she's a 1, 2, or 3, I have some room to work. It wouldn't be a hardship, she's pretty, sexy in that dress, nice thick hair for tugging, smart. She's just got that something that makes me think she'd be good in bed. But as I said, she's got enough reason to think unkindly of us, and I'd rather not give her more just to satisfy my curiosity. Besides, she's your ex, and you work with her."
"I appreciate your forbearance," Bucky said dryly.
"Geeze, Nat," Steve said, blushing.
"I'm a spy," she said, shrugging. "Information is what I do. But not only would it be unkind to try to crack her, I don't think I could do it the easy and fun way. Duress would have to be applied, and I don't do that to friendlies."
"I think not," Bucky said, irritated. The conversation had taken a turn neither of the men were strictly comfortable with, and Bucky diverted the conversation into different channels. Natasha had accepted the offer to rejoin SHIELD, but as an analyst instead of an operative.
"Being dead wasn't bad, I don't remember anything, but given the second chance, I'd prefer not to spend it in the field. Fieldwork usually ends up hurting, but I'll miss the adrenaline rush, the thrill of the hunt," she said, and shrugged elegantly.
"Take up extreme sports," was Bucky's recommendation, which earned him a smile. They decided on a more sedate activity, a movie at a theater that brought refreshments to you rather than standing in line.
"Pretty swank," Steve judged, making Natasha smile. But Bucky remembered the days when they could just afford the cost of the tickets to a run-down theater, not the glamorous movie palaces, and not ones that were air-conditioned in the summer. The food turned out to be edible, not much more, but the novelty of being served while the picture was playing was enjoyable. The movie was full of car races and crashes and carefully staged fights; it was impossible for the three of them to snicker at the choreography or point out errors. They stopped the comments when they noticed the dirty looks, and kept the laughter down to chuckles. They had a lot of fun, but decided to come back sometime during the day, and wait til the picture had been open for a few weeks so the crowds would be much lighter and they could laugh and comment to their hearts' content.