Natasha had spent her whole life clinging to one thing. To a candle in the darkness that was her existence. She had held onto Bilbo and Gandolf and Thorin for so long she almost wasn’t sure what her life would be like without them. For a long time, she had felt like Middle Earth was real, and this world was fiction, a story parents would tell their children, nothing more. Then Clint took her in, and the world started to make a bit more sense with him and with the Avengers. But it wasn’t until a few months later that she really knew she could make it here. Still, when she and Clint were taking a walk through the city and she caught a glimpse of a metal arm, she had to check, despite knowing that there were plenty of other people in the world with metal arms. She grabbed Clint and pulled him with her as she ran through the crowd after the gleaming metal.
“Tasha, what’s going on?” He asked.
She just shook her head, her eyes alight as she chased a memory. Finally, they turned a corner and she saw him. Her heart nearly stopped, but she kept running. It felt like she was running backward through time, getting younger as she approached him. At some point, she had let go of Clint, who followed behind her more slowly.
She felt like she was ten years old again as she slowed and reached carefully out to him. “Soldat?” She whispered. Her fingertips rested lightly on his metal arm as he turned to look at her. He didn’t seem to recognize her, but that was okay. She recognized him. And now, she finally had a chance to repay him for all he had done for her. Slowly, she sank down against a wall, pulling him with her. She held his metal hand in hers as she began to talk.
“In a hole in the ground,” She began, “there lived a Hobbit.” As she spoke, she could see recognition dawing in his eyes. “Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing to sit down on or to eat: it was a Hobbit hole, and that meant comfort.”
It was quiet for a few seconds as the two of them stared at each other before the Soldat began to speak. “You’re alive? You-you got out? How? Are the others okay?”
Natasha shook her head slowly. “I-I think I’m the last one,” She admitted. “To be honest, I’m not even sure how I got out. I had been wiped so many times, I could barely even remember the story. I just knew I needed to find a hole. But no matter how many I dug, none of them were right.”
“You remembered?”
“We never forgot. I was the last one awake when you told it, so I remembered it best, and I was always the one they made tell it again when we were locked in our room. Once, they brought in a new class, and I told them too. I think that was the last we ever all worked together. We weren’t perfect, but we didn’t waste what you could give us. It was all we had. Thank you.”
After that, it was fairly easy to convince him to come back to the tower with them. He trusted Natasha, so if she said he could trust these people, he would. As they walked back, the Soldat told them what little he could remember about himself. Apparently, he had memorized the first few chapters of the Hobbit because his best friend was always sick, and it had been his favorite book. So he had read it to him, over and over, when he was trying to sleep, or when he was in too much pain to read it himself. And the day he had broken his programming to tell Natasha and her sisters? He was pretty sure it had been his best friend's birthday.
The more he talked, the more suspicious Natasha became. The way he described his friend, small and sickly, until one day something changed and became stronger, reminded her of Steve.
She was right, of course, and Steve’s face when she walked into the tower with Bucky Barnes trailing after her had been priceless.
It took some time, and a few trips to Wakanda, but eventually he was back to the Bucky that Steve knew and loved. And he may not have remembered everything from his time with the Red Room, but he remembered enough. He remembered that day. The horrible feeling of guilt as he was made to train innocent girls, to turn them into killing machines. He remembered making the decision to do his best to help them. He knew that he couldn’t get them out, the Room was too heavily guarded, but maybe, he could give them something to hold onto.
It was shortly after he got back from Wakanda that Natasha cornered Tony to ask a favor of him. She wanted tickets to the world premiere of The Hobbit, enough for all of the Avengers and Bucky to go. Tony agreed, on the condition that he could bring his new Spider-Kid with.
Natasha held onto Bucky on one side and Clint on the other as they walked past the replica of Bag End house to get into the theater. Her eyes were glowing, and she didn’t even care that people were taking pictures.
When they emerged three hours later, Tony’s kid was talking a mile a minute about how cool the effects were as Tony smiled indulgently, and Bucky and Steve discussed how no one they grew up with would ever believe this. Thor rambled about finding this wonderful new world and meeting its heroes as Bruce tried to explain fiction. Clint watched Natasha, making sure she was okay. And Natasha? She stepped out into the sunset, smiling. She looked up, and she waved.
“You would have loved it,” She whispered. Behind her, her family was talking and bickering happily, Clint having joined in trying to explain fiction to Thor when he saw Natasha was okay. In front of her was a beautiful sunset, and, if you looked closely, you could see twenty-eight women standing in a cluster, watching it go down. As the last of the light faded, so did they, until only one was left, standing alone in the shadow of a hobbit hole. With one last smile, she turned back to her family, laughing as she joined in the conversation.
“No, see, Thor…”
That meant Home.