“Where’s Nat?”
~~~
“Hi, I’m Natasha,” she greeted you, her hand extended eagerly and her smile wide and bright. It was nothing like the Natasha Romanoff that Fury had prepared you for, and it only fed your intrigue that much more. “Welcome to the Avengers, (Y/N). Nick’s told us some pretty impressive things about you, and that means a lot coming from him.”
“Thanks, I’m excited to be here. He’s told me a fair amount about you too, although, the Avengers aren’t exactly a secret anymore.”
“No, I would suppose not,” she shrugged. Even the subtle movement and gentle smirk curling her lips was magnetic, and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring. You could only hope that she wasn’t catching on to it…or maybe you wanted her to. You weren’t exactly sure yet. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room. It’s between Steve’s and Sam’s, so I’ll just apologize now.”
“Why?”
“They get weird about girls. You’ll see soon enough.”
“Well, that’s fine,” you answered with a smile, “I’ll just clear the air with them right away. I’m not interested in anything they could have to offer, so it’s just entertainment for me to watch, really.”
“Hmm, okay…I knew there was something about you that I liked right away, (Y/N). Definitely need more of that around here. We girls have always been outnumbered.”
~~~
Gathered at the edge of the lake behind the compound, your team dressed in black and looking as destroyed as you felt, left you not in the camaraderie that a moment like this should bring; it left you feeling more alone than ever despite the multitude of arms that had held you over the last hour.
“She’s not coming back, okay?” Clint whispered, his voice cracked and dry. “It was supposed to be me.”
“What?” Thor joined in, looking to each teammate in confusion, tears barely beginning to dry on his swollen cheeks. “You’re all talking like she’s gone forever. We have the stones, so we can just go back and get her.”
“No, he said it was irreversible.”
“You’re speaking of things that you don’t understand-“
“Listen,” Clint argued, “I know this is way above my pay grade, okay, but that’s what the floating guy said. So why don’t you go and talk to him, alright? You go and let him tell you that, okay?”
A long, pained growl grew in Bruce’s chest, shaking the wooden planks beneath your feet as he picked up one of the benches, tearing it away from its foundation and throwing it across the length of the lake. It was the first sign of the Hulk you had known in the past, very much unlike the man that inhabited that skin now. “She’s not coming back,” he relented softly. “We have to make it worth it.”
Steve put his arm around you as you sat at his side, pulling your reluctant form closer, and you wondered if he were trying to console you or if he needed you to go along with it for his own good. Either way, you took the offer. “We will,” he said flatly, pressing a quick kiss against your hair before standing and walking towards the building without another word.
~~~
After so many years stuck between Steve and Sam, with a lack of rooms opening up for you to move, you had become a reluctant, completely tricked and coerced best friend of Steve’s. It’s not that he wasn’t close to Sam, or even to Nat, but you shared a common bond; your power that you brought to the team was your strength. In you he had first found a teammate who could hold their own against him in training and the perfect partner in battle, but it also gave you ample time to talk and get to know each other better. With the awkwardness gone once he had no worry about romantic entanglements it had just become a closeness and a completely different point of view from his male friends.
“Hey, you ready?” he asked, popping his head through your door eagerly. “Wow, (Y/N), you look great.”
“Thanks for sounding so surprised, jerk.”
“Come on, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” you sighed heavily, “I’m just nervous. It’s a first date sort of thing.”
Feeling like your tone gave him an opportunity, he fully entered the room and gently closed the door, slowly crossing your room to join you at the mirror. “You’re nervous? Why? It’s just Nat. You two have known each other for years.”
“Yeah, but not like this, Steve. This is so far beyond that. This is next level.”
“You’re a good match, doll. I see your influence on each other every day. I’ve known Nat for a lotta years now, and she finally seems really happy. That didn’t start until you showed up on our doorstep.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he nodded definitively. “This is Mr. Honesty you’re talking to.”
“You know, I’ve heard you say that for years too, and I still have a hard time believing it.”
~~~
“FRIDAY, do me a favor and execute the Barn Door Protocol.”
“Yes, Boss.”
The building around you shook slightly under the weight of the barriers lowering down over every window, another layer surrounding you as the group stood at the center of the lab with Bruce about to put on the gauntlet that Tony had just made. Each infinity stone glowed as if they knew the moment was about to happen, only making your nerves that much more on edge. One by one, the team around you prepared; Tony’s shield appeared in front of him as Clint stepped to share behind it, Scott and Rhodey covered their faces, Steve raised his shield and pulled you to stand with him, while Rocket took cover under a nearby table next to Rhodey.
“Everyone comes home,” Bruce mumbled softly to himself. He took a long breath and closed his eyes, allowing the gauntlet to form around his hand and held himself as best as he could as the energy of the stones began to course through him.
“Bruce!” you called out to him. “Banner, you okay? Talk to us!”
“Take it off!” Thor urged, stepping forward only to be held back by Steve, who looked equally ready to stop the whole thing.
“No,” Bruce yelled out, “I’m okay!”
As if in slow motion, his hand raised up into the air in front of him, and his fingers painfully curled, joining together to finally snap once more, to undo what the one before had taken away. As he dropped to the floor, completely exhausted and the skin of his arm burned from the power, Tony hurried to try to cool him while Scott moved to the entry way to get a look at what might be a renewed world beyond the windows as they opened again.
“Bruce, you’re okay,” you said as you watched. “Just stay still until Tony can get the gauntlet off.”
“Did it work?”
Clint was the only one to hear the buzz of his cell phone on a nearby table, and you weren’t sure if anyone had heard Scott say that that it looked like it really did work before the building came down around you, taking you and Steve together into the rubble. Your strength was barely enough to push the slab of concrete away before it crushed him, and for just a moment you caught yourself cursing your own power; you had missed your chance to join Natasha now that the world would never be the same for you, snapped back or otherwise.
But then you heard her voice, in what had to be a hallucination born of terror, telling you that you were wrong, and that you knew that she would never let you give up just for her.
“Whatever it takes.”
~~~
“I told (Y/N) not all that long ago that I’d never seen Nat happier than after she joined the team, but tonight just made that all a lie,” Steve sighed, smiling like the idiot he just decided that he was. “Look at them, Tony. They’re looking at each other like none of us are even here.”
“Cap? You jealous?”
“Nah…well,” he conceded, “maybe a little.”
Tony took a long drink from his glass, finishing it quickly and setting it down on the bar top with a nod to the bartender for a refill. “You act like it’s never gonna happen you. You’re still young on the outside, and there’s plenty of time. Chicks really dig you, Cap, if you’d just put yourself out there.”
Steve watched you and Natasha dance together for a few seconds more, the music filling the room as your reception began to near its close. He had yet to get a dance with either of you, but he just couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the newlyweds and not feel guilty for killing such a perfect moment. “That might be the problem, Tony,” he spoke, the words spilling out without thought or intention. His expression showed it too when Tony looked back expectantly.
“Too shy, or too scared?”
“Um…uh…well…maybe…” Steve stammered, “maybe it’s not…it’s not the chicks that…that I’m after.”
“No shit,” Tony choked on his drink, spilling onto his shirt.
“Language.”
“Fuck that,” Tony answered, ignoring his newly refilled drink, “come on.” He grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him away from the group, but Steve’s feet were sluggish and uncertain about following.
“Where are we going?”
“I think you and I need to have a much longer discussion about this, Cap. Alone.”
On the far side of the room, you had taken your eyes off your new bride just long enough to see Steve and Tony leave, only to look around and notice that other members of your team were slowly beginning to make their way out as well.
“You look so beautiful,” she whispered, breaking your thought, “how did I get so damn lucky?”
“You’re one to talk, Romanoff. I think you’re stealing my lines.”
Taking your cue, she looked around the room and got the same feeling, that things were beginning to wind down there, but to her it re-energized her to finally get time alone with you again after a day filled with far too many people. “I think the party is just about over, don’t you? I don’t know where Steve and Tony ran off to, and Clint is practically asleep in the corner over there. What do you say? You wanna get outta here?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” you said softly, taking her face in your hands and kissing her once more. “Let’s go.”
But once you were upstairs, your eager attitude began to wane, and your old fears began to seep into the moment that was supposed to be nothing but pure joy. You had scars from years ago, when things weren’t as good in your life as they were now, and they haunted you from time to time; they had the knack of haunting you when you were happiest just like this moment here. You wanted to get your dress off after so many hours of wearing it, but Natasha was standing right behind you and you felt so vulnerable. It didn’t make sense to feel that way in front of her, but there it was anyway.
“(Y/N),” she said suddenly, noticing your hesitation, “I thought we were past that? This hasn’t bothered you in so long, so why now? Why today?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just never believed that we’d get here. That once you knew about me and what I did to myself back then, seeing them for yourself…you’d turn and run.”
“Never. You’re never getting rid of me, honey. Now that we’re legal, I think I’ve proven my point fairly succinctly.”
“True,” you agreed, glancing down at your new ring, “I feel like I’ve solidly trapped you.”
“Here, let me help.” Slightly awkwardly, mostly due to your own reaction, she released the long string of buttons that lined the back of your gown and slipped the straps away and off your shoulders. Your skin tingled and goose bumps rose as she surprised you with a kiss over each and every scar that she found along the way. “You love me, right?”
“Of course.”
“Scars and all?” she whispered. “Inside and out? I have my share.”
“Yes.”
“Then believe that I love you the same, okay? I don’t know what more I can do to make you understand. I’m here for life, (Y/N). Believe me.”
“I believe you, Nat. Always.”
~~~
The battle had been vicious, and there were a few moments when you thought that you really might lose again, and all that had been done to reverse the snap had been for nothing; that you had lost the love of your life for nothing.
But then it happened. The moment came that finally ended the terror, only to create an entirely new one.
“Tony?” Steve asked softly, kneeling in front of him. He removed his cowl so that his face was exposed, so that the final moment between them was as honest as it could be, and so that not a single emotion could be hidden away. There was no time for that now. “Tony, look at me.”
“Hey…Cap…” he struggled, forcing the weak smile through his agony, his body just about to finally give.
“We won, Tony. We won,” Steve said, his tears stinging and tightening his voice. “We’re gonna be okay. You can rest now.”
Thor put a gentle hand on your shoulder, standing next to you as you both looked on, understanding that Steve was feeling a similar pain to yours; maybe not as profound but only by virtue of time together. The two of you were best friends, sharing in another thing that would ultimately bring you even closer, though neither of you wanted it to be this way.
Once time had passed and the funeral for Tony had long since been over, only then did you feel like you could talk about it again. The team had gone several separate ways and the compound was still being cleared away. There was talk of rebuilding, but no one had shown any interest in it, and honestly, you had no idea if the Avengers even existed anymore. It’s core…it’s heart, was just gone now.
“I wish there was a way to tell her, so she’d know. That we won.”
“She knows,” Steve answered. “I’m sure they’re both watching us, talking about how we need to get these weepy looks off our faces. Neither of them would want us moping around, you know? I can practically hear them laughing at us right now.”
“Hmm, me too,” you agreed. “I think we’ll be hearing them for a long time, Cap. So, now what? What do we do from here?”
“The only thing we can do, (Y/N). We’re gonna have to take our own advice on this one. We need to move on.”