Chapter 1
Natasha had always loved being alone, but she hated being lonely.
In the Red Room, Madame B had set up one large single room to be shared by fifty girls. As the years went by, with the help of the stronger girls, the total number of girls was reduced to forty. Then thirty. When Natasha was six, she personally contributed to the reduction by killing the girl who slept on the bed next to her. It was her first time. It would not be her last.
When Natasha was eight, Madame B quickened the process. Every night a different girl was given an order to kill someone else. Every morning, there was one less girl.
Some of the girls avoided attempting to kill Natasha all together. Many attempted to kill her. All of them failed.
By the time she was nine, only ten girls including herself remained. Madame B let them all live, let them sleep in a big bedroom with forty empty beds, some still with bloodstains on the covers. Natasha had never been alone for more than two minutes in her entire life until her first mission when she was ten.
But she constantly felt lonely.
The first time she feels like she belongs somewhere is after Agent Barton – Clint, he insisted – decides not to kill her in Budapest and instead they hijack her mark’s car – whom she still managed to kill, by the way, because she may be going rogue and betraying the Red Room but she still has never failed a mission and doesn’t plan to make her last one an incompletion – and drive to the Buda Castle and watch the sky change from pitch black to different shades of red and orange, not unlike her natural hair that she hasn’t seen in months because this mission had required her to dye it dark brown.
By the time the sky is blue, the Red Room has declared Natalia Alianovna Romanova a traitor to the state, and orders for any associates of theirs to kill her on sight.
Many try. None succeed.
~
Even with half the universe gone and reduced to ash, Natasha doesn’t feel lonely.
She truly doesn’t. Steve sleeps at the compound most of the time, just down the hall from her suite, and she’s taken on a sort of leadership rule – if only Yelena could see you now, Talia – with people – and raccoons, no matter how many times he tries to deny it – all over the galaxy. She’s too busy to feel lonely. She’s not that selfish. Other people lost a lot more than she did.
Still, every time she opens her vanity drawer and sees the silver arrow necklace Clint and Laura had made for her for Christmas the year they saved New York from Loki – or Thanos, or the Chitauri; she doesn’t think about it too hard or else she gets a headache – her heart clenches in her chest and she feels the loneliness settle on her shoulders because the first people to ever ask her her favorite color – who the hell even cares about something so trivial – are dead or killing and—
There’s an unsettling large amount of crazed Thanos-supporters who somehow made it within fifty kilometers of Wakanda’s southern border. The ring from the call from Okoye snaps Natasha out of whatever dangerous trance she’s in. She can’t afford to lose it right now.
She can’t afford to lose it, ever.
~
“Tell them yourself,” she tells Clint, and she has never meant anything more in her life. She turns and sprints and falls. Damn those explosion arrows, and damn Stark for ever suggesting Clint needed them.
Clint gives her a quick triumphant look, the same one he would give her whenever he won in chess, and leaps over the edge.
Clint may be stronger, but she’s always been faster. And smarter, although Coulson would probably contest to that.
“Let me go,” she says, and why are her eyes watering? It really is okay. She’s been waiting for a moment like this for the last five years. She’s put in her time. It needs to be worth it, worth something, so that Laura and the kids didn’t disappear for nothing.
Clint has always been more stubborn than her. His grip tightens.
Some people move on. But not us.
See you in a minute.
She tells Clint that it’s okay – and is it? Will this even work? Will the rest of them get the other Stones? What if—
Too late to think about it. She’s falling, she’s falling, and then everything goes black.
~
Natasha had been kept prisoner enough times before to be able to tell how many days had passed, even without seeing any sunlight to indicate when it was daytime. It was a skill she prided herself on.
She had no idea how long it had been since she’d been here.
“Here” was…she wasn’t exactly sure. It was a simple room built into rocks in a cave. There was no bed, no food, no other rooms – but Natasha had found she didn’t need them. She’d expected hunger to settle in after awhile, but it never came. She didn’t have to pee. She didn’t feel tired. She felt…
She’s not going to give the creepy red asshole the satisfaction of saying she felt peaceful. But if there had to be a word to describe it, that would be it.
A close second would be lonely.
She’s not sure how long she sits for. She’d expected her back to get sore and her legs to cramp up, but they never do. Scott had said five minutes for him in the Quantum Realm equated to five years outside. Are all her friends dead by now? Did the plan work?
God, she hopes so.
She never feels tired so she doesn’t sleep. She just sits in the room, waiting.
Waiting.
There’s a door to her right. She can’t see what it leads to, but the cynical part of her, the part that argued with Clint every time it seemed her ledger could never be wiped clean, doesn’t want to look. Doesn’t want to hope that there can be something out there.
She’d given Clint hope, back in Tokyo. All she can do is wish that it worked.
~
She’s resorted to singing to herself to pass the time. She may be able to survive here physically, but psychologically, it feels like it’s been months since she last saw Clint, and she’s bored out of her mind.
She recites the Emancipation Proclamation to herself, the first piece of American speech she’d ever read. Then she sings. Then she cries.
For the first time since she’s gotten here, she lays down, and sleeps.
~
She wakes up later. She looks at the door and considers going outside to see what’s there. She goes back to sleep.
~
She thinks she hears splashing later. She figures she just misses the taste of her favorite cherry cola. She rolls over and closes her eyes.
Too much sleep used to make her feel groggy. Now she can sleep as long as she wants to.
She figures she can do this for the rest of time.
~
Footsteps.
Even all the time – weeks? Months? Years? – she’s spent here don’t inhibit her instincts one bit. In a split second, she’s on her feet, hands in fists up by her chest, ready to fight.
They drop to her side when Tony Stark walks through the door.
“Agent Romanoff. You miss me?”
~
“I thought that’s what spies do, or have I watched too many Bond movies? Oh, Jesus, don’t tell me there’s no TV here, Pepper just got me hooked on Q—”
“Tony,” Natasha says through clenched teeth. God, she had missed the presence of another human being. Even on undercover, long-term ops, she at least got to communicate with people, albeit strangers. But Tony was dangerously close to making her wish she was alone again. “Slow down. I didn’t want to try going out the door because—”
Don’t give me hope.
I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you sooner.
“—I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” she admits, and they both ignore the way her voice cracks on the last two words.
Tony sits down, looking more contemplative than she’s ever seen him, including the time they had to come up with a solution to undo Tony’s creation that was supposed to protect the Earth. “Okay. I get that, I do. But I’m here now. So, if it turns out it’s nothing, then—”
“Then what?” Natasha interrupts coolly. Even now, when she has no idea where, or when, or what they are, she won’t give Tony the satisfaction of seeing her let her emotions take over.
Tony shakes his head. “Don’t do that shit, Nat.”
Her heart aches at being called Nat. When she was five, she never thought she’d be called anything other than Natalie or Widow. When she fell off the mountain on Vormir, she never thought she’d hear any of her nicknames again.
“I died, Tony. I gave my life for that damn stone. What if going out there reverses what happens?” She pauses, sitting down in front of him suddenly. She grabs his knee harshly. “What happened exactly? It worked, right? Everyone came back?”
Tony takes a shaky breath. He stares out the door for a long moment before looking down at his wedding ring on his hand. He twists it around a few times before closing his eyes.
Natasha waits. She has all day.
“It worked,” Tony finally says, and Natasha lets out a shakier breath mixed in with a relieved laugh. It worked. All her work over the last five years had been worth it. Her sacrifice had been worth it. Everyone who wasn’t there when they left to go time travel was back. Then why—
“But there were some…ah, technical difficulties, really not much to worry about, just some oversight on o—”
“Tony.”
“Okay,” he grumbles. He sighs sharply and squares his shoulders before looking her in the eyes, and it’s now that she realizes how tired he looks. There are light scars over his right cheek that definitely weren’t there when they’d all jumped into the Quantum Realm. “So, apparently, all of Nebula’s memories can be accessed in her mind. When she and Rhodey went to get the Power Stone in 2014, her 2014 self, who was still buddy-buddy with dear old dad, saw them trying to take it. They switched out Nebula’s, and 2014 Nebula came back with Rhodey and transported Thanos from 2014 to Earth.”
Natasha won’t let him see the panic on her face. She merely furrows her eyebrows and nods to indicate for him to continue.
“Before he came back, though, we put the Stones in a gauntlet—beautifully constructed by yours truly, I might add—and Banner put it on to snap—”
Natasha can’t help the intake of breath that comes from her. She and Bruce hadn’t ever rekindled their…relationship, if you could even label it that, but they had stayed close during the five years after the snap. She was the one who convinced him to stop being afraid of the Hulk and try and merge the two together, after all.
What if I say no?
I’ll persuade you.
“Cap, Lebowski, and I tussled with Thanos for a bit, fun stuff, really. Turns out Rogers can hold Thor’s hammer—and that’s not a euphemism, but saying it out loud, it really does sound like I meant…anyway, we were getting knocked down pretty badly when Dr. Strange did his wizard-magic thing, and suddenly everyone came through the portals to fight Thanos’ army that he brought.”
Natasha blinks a couple of times, processing it. The snap worked. Everyone was back. Before she can ask the most obvious question, although deep in her heart she already knows the answer, Tony continues rambling on. She guesses this is the first time he’s gotten to explain and process what actually happened.
“It was beautiful, really. All of the Wakandans, Thor’s Asgardian buddies, more wizards, even Pep came in with some armor I made for her anniversary, the kid was there…”
Tony trails off finally. He gives Natasha a watery smile. “And eventually there was only one way to stop him.”
Natasha nods slowly. People tended to have a very convergent view of Tony Stark—selfish, an egomaniac, careless, money-driven—and on most days she agreed with them. But they didn’t know the Tony she kenw—the one who was willing to fly a missile into space to save everyone, the only person she’d ever considered breaking cover—just slightly, like maybe admitting her real name wasn’t Natalie—for to give him a good birthday.
I’d do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with.
“You’re a good guy, Stark,” she tells him seriously. “I bet there’s already a new monument in New York commemorating you.”
“Malibu, too, I hope,” he quips, playfully nudging her shoulder. “I didn’t pay all those insane taxes for them to just erase my name. Oh, God, I hope Pep doesn’t sell the land I—”
Natasha smiles for the first time in what seems like years. She stands up and holds out a hand to Tony.
“Come on, Stark,” she says to his confused expression. “We’re a couple of martyrs. I think this place has got to have at least something for us out there.”
She briefly thinks about everything he left behind. A wife, a daughter, a home…and then she briefly thinks about all the times she’s given him reason not to trust her. Pretending to be Natalie Rushman, letting Steve and Bucky go in Germany…
She squashes those thoughts. She wiggles her hand.
He grabs it.
~
The sky outside is comprised of beautiful shades of orange, pink, and purple hues.
Natasha hates it.
She and Tony walk along the black-sanded beach in amiable silence until Tony stops.
“Morgan’s going to grow up without a father,” he chokes out, running his hand through his hair. “Shit. Shit! She’s going to know me just through stories from other people. God, Rhodey’s going to make me sound like such an asshole. Happy’s going to be in charge of Stark Industries finances…unless Pepper takes that under her wing, also…oh God, Natasha, Pepper…she’s going to live the rest of her life alone—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Natasha interrupts comfortingly, grabbing both of Tony’s shoulders. Her green eyes stare seriously into his brown ones until he calms down and gives her an embarrassed, grateful smile. Her lips quirk into a smirk. “We both know Pepper’s not living the rest of her life alone; she’ll find someone. She’s too hot to stay single.”
Thankfully, Tony laughs. Natasha gives a small smile at that, and when his laughter continues on, loud and free in wherever-the-fuck-they-are, she lets her stomach unclench and begins laughing, too.
Natasha thinks about all the news outlets that would have had a field day if they had seen Iron Man and the Black Widow hysterically laughing, leaning on each other, trying to catch their breath on a beach. She imagines the headlines in her mind. Black Widow: So She DOES Have a Heart!, Tony Stark: Living Life Without Pepper Potts by his Side?, Are Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff Okay?
Yes, Natasha thinks. We will be.
~
It’s some time later when they’ve found a smattering of tall, sturdy palm trees by the water. The sky hasn’t changed colors at all, which Natasha thinks will make it even more difficult than it already was to count how many days pass, but that’s something she’ll worry about later.
Tony adjusts himself, leaning against one of the palm trees, adjacent to Natasha. “You know,” he muses. “We didn’t get the Tesseract the first go around.”
Natasha tenses. He’d said the snap worked, that they got all the Stones—
“Calm down, calm down,” he quickly says before she can ask what he means. “Little, ah, oversight on our part, turns out we forgot how angry Hulk was in 2012. Made him take the stairs, he ran into me on the ground level, Tesseract slid away, Loki got it, Lang had to give 2012 me a little jump-start to distract Ross…this all sounds horrible now that I say it out loud, but Rogers and I went back to 1970 to get some more vials from Pym, so.”
His abrupt end to the story causes Natasha to sit up. “So?”
“And, I…met my dad,” Tony breathes, looking up at the sky. “Howard. He was…he was scared about me being born. Said he’d do anything for me.” He shakes his head. “What a damn liar.”
Natasha calculates him. She and Tony have never had a…comforting relationship. They’ve been protective of each other, sure, but they’ve never had intensely deep, emotional conversations, especially about their parents. Speaking of…
“Your father loved you,” she says simply, squeezing his hand. He manages to give her a grimace. She knows what that means; he wants her to change the subject, but he doesn’t want to ask. “The red floating guy who told me and Clint one of us needs to die to get the Soul Stone…he knew our parents. Knew Clint’s mother’s name, knew my father’s name.”
“I thought you didn’t know your parents,” Tony replies evenly, not sure what her reaction is about the information she’s just disclosed.
“I didn’t,” Natasha answers, smiling bitterly. She thinks back to Peggy Carter’s funeral, telling Steve something that won’t be found in any redacted government documents. She’d gone to Russia, stupidly, looking for her parents. What had she been expecting? An old, loving couple who would rejoice the homecoming of their precious дочь?
We have what we have when we have it.
Tony exhales slowly, blinking. “Wow. That’s…um…creepy? But also…isn’t that good? You know something you didn’t know before.”
Natasha shrugs. “He didn’t tell me much. Just that his name was Ivan.”
Tony tenses. Natasha narrows her eyes.
“If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him,” he mutters.
Natasha freezes. She’s heard that before. Somewhere, murky, in her mind, she knows this quote is sitting there…said by…
She stops thinking and lets instincts take over when they hear a rustling noise come from the bushes behind them. She lets her body do what it’s trained to do, flipping over Tony, holding her knife from her belt in front of her. She’s crouched down, ready to pounce on whoever would dare threaten them after they gave their lives for the damn world that hasn’t even told them where they are.
She’s also ready to run.
Tony staggers up, slower than her, but still on edge. He doesn’t have any armor on him, but she sees him out of the corner of her eye pick up a large rock from the ground and flex his arms. Good man.
A woman staggers out of the bushes. She has a crazed look in her eyes, the look Natasha recognizes of being alone for just slightly too long, but she looks strong, capable, and…angry. Natasha easily recognizes hidden anger.
The second thing she notices is that this woman’s skin is green.