Chapter 5
Nat slept for the entire ride home. An exhaustion unlike anything she’d ever felt before hit her as they took off, and by the time they’d left Vormir she could barely keep her eyes open. Leaving the planet reset something in her body, reminded it that it needed things like food and sleep to survive. Coming back to life, she thought as she drifted off, took a lot of energy, energy she didn’t have. She passed out, and for one of the only times in her life, slept peacefully.
It wasn’t until they landed on Earth that Nat woke up. She looked around, saw trees and grass and the sun outside, and nearly cried. Vormir had been desolate, with endless grey skies and dust and dirt covering every inch of the planet. From the mountains to the valleys it was lifeless, in every sense of the word; Earth, however, seemed to be teeming with life. Walking out of the ship, Carol and Gamora on her heels, she closed her eyes, taking a moment to breathe in the clean air. Everything felt brighter than she’d remembered. The sky was bluer, the grass greener, the clouds fluffier. And the noise -- birds chirping, wind whistling — provided a comfort that she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
Looking around, Nat found the field they stood in both familiar and unfamiliar, as if her body remembered it but her mind did not. She turned toward Carol. “Where’d we land?”
“Avengers HQ,” she said, “though it may look a little different. We had to redo it after Thanos.” Carol smiled. “Welcome home.”
Sure enough, Nat saw a building in the distance, completely unrecognizable except for the distinct “A” on the side. The building looked bigger, more welcoming. It looked comfortable but strange, uncanny in a way that she couldn’t describe.
“How’d you rebuild so fast? I thought you said that everything was destroyed after the battle.”
“Pepper,” Carol responded, and Nat kept her eyes glued on the building. “She kinda threw herself into the rebuilding efforts after the funeral. Didn’t let anyone take so much as a day off until it was finished. It helped that she had some of us who could fly, lift more than our weight. That Strange guy helped with manpower, too. Think he might have messed with time to help us work faster.”
Nat kept staring at the building. The more she stared at it, the more something about it unnerved her. It looked pristine, as if nothing happened. As if they hadn’t fought a war, as if Tony hadn’t given his life for them, as if she—
Nat took a breath, let the feelings and thoughts simmer back down, before turning toward Carol. “Do…” she started, hesitating slightly, “do they know we’re here?”
Nat and Gamora both looked at Carol as she nodded. “I sent a message out when we left, plus they probably heard the ship land.” Carol turned toward Gamora. “We tried to reach the Guardians. They were pretty far out — looking for you, ironically — but they’re on their way. Not sure how long it’ll take, though.”
“They’re looking for me?”
“2014 you. She dipped after the battle,” Carol specified. “No one has heard from her since. After Tony’s funeral, they left to go look for her. Haven’t heard anything yet, so we assume they haven’t had any luck.”
Gamora nodded, a seemingly stoic expression on her face. Nat wondered how she dealt with that, knowing that another version of herself roamed space. Nat had been able to process a lot of insane realizations — the existence of aliens, artificial intelligence, infinity stones — but this concept of an alternate reality existing within their own rattled her brain. No wonder Time was pissed.
The sound of wheels screeching caught their attention, and they all turned to see a car speeding down the road toward where they’d landed. Out of habit, Nat tensed, preparing herself for a fight. When the car pulled up, the driver jumped out before it even came to a stop.
Nat audibly gasped when she saw him. Clint, her heart screamed, and she couldn’t help but whisper his name. Clint. Time herself couldn’t have stopped her from running over to him, from nearly jumping into his arms. He held her as if she would be whisked away at any moment, as if his arms were the only thing keeping her tethered to this Earth. She held him with the same strength, the same desperation. She sighed, doing nothing to stop the tears streaming down her face. Home. Right here, in his arms, she was home.
“Natasha,” he whispered, her name a prayer out of his lips, a sigh of relief, a sound as natural as breathing. Eons could pass before Nat would ever get tired of hearing that sound.
He broke their embrace, moving his hands to the sides of her face. His eyes scanned her body, as if he was checking to make sure every inch of her had come back unharmed.
His eyes made their way back up to hers, and she couldn’t stop herself from mirroring the smile he wore. Tear streaks covered his face, as they likely did hers. She looked at him, really looked at him. His hair was starting to grow back, that god awful haircut nearly gone. The bags under his eyes had disappeared, the haunted expression she’d left him with replaced with one of joy. His whole face lit up, and it took every ounce of her self control to not kiss him that instant.
“Are you really here?” He asked softly, and she nodded, not trusting herself enough to speak. “How? I — I don’t understand — I saw you—“
Nat cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here. I’m okay.”
He took a moment to look at her before pulling her back into his arms. She let him, relaxing in a way she only did with him.
A thud next to her brought her eyes away from Clint. She turned to find Sam landing next to her, wings folding up. He stared at her, speechless for the first time since she’d met him all those years ago. She smiled and walked to him, wiping tears as she hugged him. She hadn’t realized how much she’d grown to expect him in her life until suddenly he was gone, until she’d been forced to spend five years without his constant camaraderie and support.
“Don’t pull shit like that again,” he said, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m serious,” he said, and she broke their hug to look up at him, to appreciate the sincerity in his eyes. “you’re the best of us, Nat. We can’t do this without you.”
She nodded, but before she could reply the sound of another car grabbed her attention. She looked around, saw the group that began to gather near the ship, some coming from the road while others came from the sky. Most faces she knew — Rhodey, stepping out of his armor, Okoye looking as if she’d walked straight off the battlefield, Wanda landing next to Sam, tears already in her eyes. Nat went to her first, letting the young girl collapse into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she cried, and Nat took a step back, watched the way Wanda sobbed so hard she could barely speak. “It wasn’t enough — I did it and it wasn’t enough.” For a second she was confused, but then she realized who was missing, who hadn’t come back. How could she have forgotten Vision, forgotten that he technically hadn’t died in the snap? How could she forget that for everyone who came back, it had only been a few months since the first battle? That Wanda had had no time to grieve before she’d likely been forced to fight again? She grabbed her again and held her as tight as she could, not having the words to comfort her but hoping the action would speak loud enough.
As she held her, she realized how many unfamiliar faces surrounded her. She saw Scott, but didn’t recognize the woman he held hands with. She noticed a woman with intricate braids making her way over to Carol, greeting her with a familiarity that suggested they’d known each other for some time. She noticed faces missing — Steve, Thor, Fury. Tony.
As if willed by her mind, she heard the familiar sound of a suit landing. For a moment her heart dared to hope, before she noticed the colors were all wrong, the build completely different from the classic Iron Man suit. The mask came off, and she somehow wasn’t surprised when Pepper walked over.
Nat embraced her, tears beginning to fill her eyes again. “I’m so sorry,” she told her. She’d never excelled at female friendships — or friendships in general — but in the years she’d known Pepper she’d always held a high amount of respect for her. She’d regretted the lack of time she spent around her, and around Morgan, after the snap. She’d been so caught up in her own grief, her own denial, her desire to fix everything, that it hurt to watch them move on. So she ignored them, busied herself with excuses and distractions in order to further her denial that everyone they’d lost were truly lost. All that time, valuable time she could have spent with Tony, with him and his family: wasted.
“It’s okay,” Pepper whispered, and Nat shook her head.
“No, it was never supposed to happen this way. He was supposed to be here, nothing from the present was supposed to change.”
“Hey,” she said, and Nat looked up to see tears starting to fill her eyes as well. “I always knew that Tony would never live a normal life. I got so much time with him, longer than I ever thought I would.” She wiped her tears, smiling as she said, “Besides, he’ll be happy to know that Morgan’s got another aunt who can remind her of all the stunts he pulled over the years.”
Nat smiled. “It would be an honor.”
They squeezed hands quickly, before Nat broke apart and turned around. Okoye came up to her, giving her shoulder a supportive squeeze. “It’s good to see you again,” she said, “The world is in much better hands with you here.”
“Yeah, no one else is responsible enough to run this shit,” Rhodey said, getting a laugh out of Nat as they hugged one another. She went down the rest of the line — Bucky, Bruce, Scott — before spotting an old man standing slightly away from the crowd. She stared at him, her instincts going wild with dejavu, but she couldn’t place him, couldn’t figure out why she felt like she knew him.
“I took your advice,” the man said, “Got myself a life. A pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”
The air stopped flowing through her lungs. “Steve?” She asked, and even before he nodded she knew she was right, could see it in the way he carried himself, the way he looked at her, the way everyone else looked at him.
Nat shook her head. “I don’t understand. How? What did you do?”
“When I went to take the stones back, I made a pit stop. Decided to stay for a while. Follow up on a promise I made a while back.”
Part of Nat wanted to scream, wanted to chide him for being so reckless, for messing with Time even more than they already were, but when she went to speak, all she could see was how light he looked. He actually smiled now. He seemed relaxed, at ease in a way he’d never truly been in this lifetime. Nat just laughed. “I guess you really are a fossil now, old man.” She went over to hug him, and found that he was still surprisingly strong.
“Hilarious,” he replied, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“Oh, Steve,” she said, shaking her head as they broke apart, “Time is gonna be so pissed at you.” He looked at her, confused, and she turned to face the whole group. “I’ll give you the detailed rundown later, but the short version is that Time is a being, and She’s not too happy with the stunt we pulled.”
“Wait. Time is, like, a person?” Sam asked, and Nat nodded. She stepped back, getting a better vantage point to see everyone, and felt a hand clasp around hers. She looked to her left and saw Clint back at her side, and smiled up at him before answering the question.
“Well, not a person, exactly, but some sort of sentient being. More than just a concept.”
“Is She planning an attack?” Okoye asked, and Nat shrugged.
“Probably. Red Skull said She’s going to come for revenge.”
“When?”
“Who can say?” Nat answered. “Could be days from now; could be centuries.”
“It doesn’t matter when She comes,” Gamora said, and Nat felt bad for forgetting that she was here, that she didn’t know any of the people surrounding her. “We’ll never be able to fight her.”
“Then what do we do? How do we prepare?” Pepper asked.
“Honestly, I’m not sure there’s much we can do. She might just wait for humanity to become extinct, let someone or something else get rid of us for her.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Well,” Nat said, shrugging her shoulders, “then we better write one hell of an apology letter.”
“Is that how you’re here?” Clint asked, “because of Time?”
Nat shook her head. “When you guys returned the soul stone, it needed to restore the balance. The price no longer needed to be paid.”
“A soul for a soul,” he whispered, and turned to her with light in her eyes. “How did we not think of that?”
“Wait,” Steve asked, “how did I not see you when I brought the stone back?”
“We woke up at the bottom of the mountain. I’m not sure when, but it was probably after you left.”
“Wait, but how is she back?” Rhodey asked, pointing toward Gamora. “Thanos never brought the stone back.”
“Balance,” Gamora answered. “When you killed Thanos from the past, it created a timeline in which he never got the stone, which meant my soul was never given in payment.”
“But wouldn’t that change the whole future?” Scott asked.
“Red Skull said something about tangled Time webs,” Nat said, “but honestly, it’s probably best not to think about it too much. None of this really makes any sense.”
“Well, I think we might as well celebrate,” Scott said, “you know, before Time comes to kick our asses.”
Nat laughed, and everyone turned toward the building. She leaned into Clint’s shoulder, not letting go of his hand as they made their way back. After a moment, she turned around, saw Gamora hanging back. “Hey,” she said, catching the woman’s attention, “come inside. I’m sure they’d all love to meet you.”
“I don’t want to impose,” Gamora said. “These are your people. Your family.”
“They can be yours too, if you let them.” Nat squeezed Clint’s hand before turning back, grabbing Gamora’s and walking with her toward the rest of the crowd. “I consider you a friend too, Gamora, and friends don’t let friends stand outside alone waiting for a spaceship to come pick them up. Not when they could be enjoying the best thing Earth has to offer.”
“Peter always said music was the best thing about Terran.”
“The music’s alright,” Nat said, them whispered “but wait till you try the food.”
As if on cue, the woman’s stomach grumbled, and Nat lost it. She laughed, harder than she ever had, and before she knew it Gamora was giggling too. She made it back to where Clint was waiting, and with Gamora on one side of her and him on the other, she went to join her family.