Chapter 9
Nat didn’t have time for this. She’d been staring at her computer screen for the past hour, begging her mind to focus and read the status reports from different government agencies that had been sitting in her inbox since this morning. This was important — people still needed help, but it didn’t matter. Every time she stared at the words on the screen, her eyes glazed over.
It was all Sam’s fault. She couldn’t stop replaying the conversation they had earlier that day.
“I’m stopping by the house tonight,” he had called out as he walked into the weight room. “You wanna come with?”
She kept her eyes focused on a spot on the wall, kept lifting the weight in her hand. “Not tonight.”
“Nat.”
“I’m busy.”
“And I’m not?” He asked, and she’d finally turned toward him.
“I can’t leave Gamora,” she answered. “She tries to hide it, but I can tell she’s worried about the Guardians. And frankly, so am I. It’s been two weeks since we got back— they should be here by now.”
“You’ve been using that excuse since you got home.”
“It’s not an—“ she started, but she stopped herself. She could see him calling bullshit.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” He said. “A lot of stuff has changed around here, but that hasn’t.”
“I know,” she said softly. Yet she stayed silent, had let him walk away without saying a word. Again.
Now, hours later, she wondered whether she should have said something. She shook her head. She would talk to him. Eventually. When she found the right words to explain why she had spent the two weeks since coming home actively avoiding a five year old.
“I may be wrong,” a voice said from across the room, and Nat looked up to see Steve standing in the doorway, “but I think the screen has to be on before you can use that thing.”
She looked back at the computer, and saw that the screen had gone black. She sighed, running a hand through her hair.
Steve walked into the room, grabbing a chair and sitting across from her. She kept her eyes on the screen, still pitch black. Once her shock from first seeing his new appearance wore off, she’d found that she could hardly stand to look at him the way he was now — old, frail, weak. His skin was wrinkled and even though he tried to sit up straight, she could see the way his body hunched over, ever so slightly.
“Long day?” He asked her.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“The work never ends, does it? You save the world, and the world just fucks itself all up again.”
“Steve,” She said with the slightest smile, “you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“I’m never gonna live that one down, am I?”
“Not in this lifetime,” Nat laughed. She looked up, but Steve’s face had dropped slightly, his smile looking more sad than happy.
“Yeah,” He said, “I think I’m about done with this one, though.”
Nat looked away. The silence sat between them, uncomfortable and awkward.
“You never asked,” Steve said, “about what I did. Why I did it.”
“Haven’t had a lot of time for talking.”
“Oh, you want to talk about time?” He asked, and his voice set her on edge. He wasn’t angry, not exactly, but his words felt sharp, intense. Like there was an equally high chance he’d start screaming or burst into tears. Either way, her instincts braced for impact.
“I’ve lived for decades without you, Nat.”
“Steve, I—“
“No.” He said. The single word paralyzed her. Even though he spoke softly, his words resonated across the entire room. “I had to spend years knowing I’d never see you again. Bucky, Sam, Wanda — I knew I’d come back to them. But I could never come back to you. Every celebration, I knew I’d never get to tell you about it; every heartbreak, I knew I’d never get to confide in you about it. Every milestone — getting married, getting older, retiring — I went through every one thinking about how you’d never get to experience it. Every single one.”
“And now,” he continued, “by some miracle, you’re back, and you’re here, and you won’t talk to me. You can’t even look at me.”
“I’m sorry, she said, eyes still aimed down at her hands, “I shouldn’t have ignored you. I should have been better.”
“Why did you?” He asked, and there was no intensity in his voice, no power. It was just sad. That, more than anything else he said, broke her.
“Because it hurts.” This time she made sure to look him in the eye, to take in the old man that replaced the one she’d known, the one she’d loved like a brother. “I’ve been avoiding you because I couldn’t handle it.”
“Couldn’t handle what?”
“You. This. Everything. You don’t think it was hard for me too?” She asked, “I came back from the dead and found out you’d gone back in time and lived an entire life without us. After everything — from New York, to Hydra, to Sokovia and Thanos — you abandoned us. You abandoned me.”
“I—“
“And it made me realize that everything keeps changing,” she continued. “You’re old, something we weren’t sure would even be possible. Thor’s gone. Clint is divorced, and Wanda is traumatized again, and Time is coming to kill us, and Tony—“
She bit her lip, swallowed back the words that had almost escaped without her permission. She closed her eyes, tried to take a few deep breaths, before she continued. “You know I can’t even look at her?” She said, the words soft and sharp and nothing like she meant them to sound like. “A little girl, a kid who just lost her father, and I can’t even bring myself to be in the same room as her. What kind of person does that make me?”
Steve didn’t say anything, stared at her with something that almost resembled pity. Part of her ached to stop, to shut up and keep the words back inside where they belonged, but it was too late. She’d lost control, lost the ability to filter whatever was coming out of her mouth. She’d broken a dam, and now all she could do was watch as the flood destroyed everything.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “How could I possibly look that little girl in the eye and tell her that I’m the reason her father is dead? That it’s my fault he got himself into this mess? It’s my fault he had to be the hero, again, my fault he had to risk his life, again, my fault that we all got to spend more time with him than she ever will.”
“Nat, it isn’t—“
“I can’t look at myself in the mirror anymore.” She told him, although she looked at her hands instead of at his eyes. “Every time I see my reflection, I think ‘Who are you to be here? To be living this life when he isn’t? Who needs me the way she needs him? Who misses me the way Pepper misses him, the way Peter Parker misses him? The way everyone misses him?’ The world looks up to Tony. Who looks up to me that way?”
The questions lingered between them, caught in the silence of the moment. “If I could change it,” she said, when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything, “if I could switch places with him, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d throw myself off another cliff if it meant Morgan got her father back, if it meant she got to live a life with a dad who loves her.”
She hadn’t realized he’d moved until she felt his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, saw the tears falling down his face, and instinctively reached toward her own. She was almost surprised to feel the wetness on her cheek, but her body was overwhelmed, feeling too much and nothing at all at the same time, so the surprise barely registered.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry that you came back only to get the weight of the world thrown onto your shoulders. But Nat,” he said as he put his hands on the sides of her face, forcing her eyes to meet his. “What happened to Tony is not your fault.”
“I promised him nothing would change,” she whispered. “Everyone was supposed to make it back. We weren’t supposed to have to fight anymore.”
“You couldn’t have stopped that, even if you had come back from Vormir with Clint. He knew, I think, that it’d have to be him.”
“It isn’t fair. Nothing in our lives is ever fair. What do we have to do to get a break?”
“I wish I knew,” he said. They sat there, his arms on her shoulders, her head leaning back against his chest. Her mind felt empty, the space where she’d buried the words she’d just spilled as barren as Vormir. She felt simultaneously exhausted and energized, relieved and on edge, her body and mind full of contradictions.
“I didn’t think about what would come after,” she said after a while. Her voice was soft, her words lacking the energy they had earlier. “I didn’t prepare for this part, for a world that doesn’t make sense anymore, a world full of people on different timelines. I don’t know what to do.”
“Whatever has to be done, whatever problem has to be solved, I know you’ll figure it out. You always do.”
“I’m not as strong as you think I am,” she admitted, looking back at him hesitantly. Steve was one of the only people who would ever see this vulnerability she worked so hard to hide. She was glad to see that despite everything, she hadn’t lost that, hadn’t lost one of her few confidants.
“I know — you’re stronger.” He said, and she scoffed in response. “I’m serious, Nat. Do you know how much I look up to you? How much I respect you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” She said with a coy smile, one that got a smirk out of him and took some of the weight out of the room.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You have this way of handling whatever the world throws at you. Aliens and Artificial Intelligence and men from the ‘40’s,” he said the last one with a smile, “none of it ever phases you. Tony was one of the bravest men I ever knew, but you walked into almost every battle he did, and you didn’t have a suit of armor.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Bravery isn’t the same for anybody; doesn’t mean it isn’t still bravery.”
“I still mean what I said,” she told him. “He should be here. It isn’t right that he’s not.”
“Just because we miss him doesn’t mean we don’t need you, Nat. You might not have a kid or a spouse, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a family who loves you.”
“Yeah, but—“
“We need you the way Tony’s family needs him. Clint needs you that way. Wanda needs you that way. I need you that way.”
“But—“
“No. But nothing,” he said, his tone leaving no room for disagreement. “You do not get to decide that you don’t matter as much as he did just because you’re not a parent or a fucking Halloween costume. You have a family, Nat. You have friends who care about you, people who rely on you. Just because you haven’t married any of them yet doesn’t mean you’re worth less.”
“What do you mean, ‘haven’t married any of them yet?’”
“Natasha!” The door slammed open, and Gamora stormed into the room. Nat stood up on instinct, reaching for the tablet in the woman’s hand before she realized what she was doing.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Look.” She pointed to the screen, and Nat nearly dropped it when she figured out what she was looking at. There, in the top corner of the atmospheric radar, was a blip, quickly getting closer and closer to their location.
“It’s them. It has to be.” Gamora said.
“Either way, we’re about to have company.” Nat hit a button on the screen as they walked out of the room. An alarm went off across the base, the words “airship approaching” echoing throughout the halls. As the alarm went off, the other avengers began to congregate, everyone headed toward the landing strip outside.
“I’m trying to get ears on whoever’s coming in,” Rhodey said, typing on a tablet of his own.
“Do we know if it’s them?” Bucky asked, eyes darting back toward where she’d accidentally abandoned Steve. “Should we prepare for potential hostility?”
Nat nodded, letting the calm she felt before battles take over. “Head up onto the roof just in case. Call Sam too — if he’s on his way back, have him meet you there.”
He turned, heading back toward the staircase. Nat kept moving forward, Gamora and Rhodey on her heels. “They’re getting closer,” Gamora said, “definitely heading for this planet.”
They walked through the back doors, stepping onto the space behind the base, their makeshift landing strip. Before the doors could shut behind them, Wanda burst through. “Is it them?” She asked Gamora, completely ignoring Nat and Rhodey. The two women had formed a bond over their shared taste in movies, spending most of the free time during the past week with one another.
“Yes,” Gamora responded.
“Maybe,” Rhodey corrected.
“Hopefully,” Nat said, keeping her eyes on the screen in front of her. “Be ready for anything.”
“Got it!” Rhodey yelled, and an instant later the sound of static blasted out of his tablet speakers. Everyone winced.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s them, not me. Something’s messed up with their audio.”
“Let’s just listen — maybe it’ll clear up as they get closer.” Nat said, and all of them fell quiet. They waited. For two agonizing minutes, the only sound they could hear was static. It fluctuated in volume, but remained consistent in its lack of content.
Rhodey noticed it first, suddenly grabbing the tablet and adjusting audio levels. The static got louder, but then she heard it too, words coming and going, fragments of sentences hidden among the static.
“—not slowing down—“
“—would just give—“
“—idiots—“
“—sHIT SHIT SHIT—”
“—shut up and let me—“
“—not enjoyable, this is not—“
“—Damn it, Quill! Pull up!”
Gamora gasped, the last words coming in clearer than the mess that had come before. Nat looked at her, saw the tears in her eyes that she knew she’d do her best to stop from spilling onto her face.
“Something’s wrong,” Rhodey’s words got their attention instantly. “I can’t make contact.”
Nat looked back down at the screen. The dot kept getting bigger, closer, but it also kept moving faster. She stared up at the sky, saw a speck above them. “They’re not slowing down.”
The four of them looked down at the screen, and then back up. The ship looked like it was falling out of the sky rather than flying toward them, and it was getting closer by the second.
“They’re gonna crash,” Nat said, more to herself than to anyone else. She froze in disbelief. Wrong. Everything was wrong. This couldn’t be how it ended, with the Guardians crashing at Gamora’s feet, dying before they got to see her resurrection. It wasn’t fair.
“No,” Gamora whispered, eyes glued to the sky. It was all she could do, all any of them could do. She held her breath as the ship above them got bigger and bigger.
“We need to get back,” Rhodey said, but before he could move them the ship became engulfed in red. Nat heard a grunt, and turned toward her left. Wanda stood, knees bent, hands outstretched, Red entrails shooting toward the sky.
No, Nat thought instinctively. Wanda was powerful, one of the strongest among them, but this? Stopping a crashing spaceship moments before it landed? By herself?
Gamora’s gasp brought Nat’s eyes back to the ship. It was slowing down.
“Ho-ly shit,” Rhodey said under his breath. The ship got closer, and Nat could see it more clearly, could notice the details that the radar didn’t find. For one, the ship was on fire. Flames completely covered the back half, and any part that wasn’t on fire looked like it had been used as a punching bag. Parts that Nat couldn’t begin to understand the purpose for hung off the bottom by a thread. It was as if someone had thrown it through a garbage disposal and then spit it back into space.
“We gotta back up,” Rhodey said, getting her attention. “This landing isn’t gonna be pretty.”
Nat looked toward the other women. Gamora kept her eyes on the ship, watching as it got closer and closer. If Nat had to guess, they had twenty seconds before impact.
She shifted her eyes toward Wanda. Her magical grip didn’t falter as the ship got closer. Nat knew the ship had to be speeding up the closer it got to them, but with Wanda’s help it kept a steady pace. Wanda herself, however, had shifted, falling onto her knees as her powers pulsed out of her and around the ship. Nat instinctively moved closer toward her.
“Get Gamora out of here,” she told Rhodey.
“What about you guys?”
“I'm not leaving her!”
“Nat!” A voice came over the com, blasting in her ear. “Heads up!” She looked up and saw Sam flying over her, his shield dropping from the sky.
Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion. Rhodey grabbed Gamora, throwing her beneath him as he turned on his suit. Sam’s shield fell right into her hands, as perfectly as if they’d practiced the move hundreds of times before. Nat grabbed it and lunged, throwing herself in front of Wanda as the red disappeared and the ship hit the ground.
Bits of metal and dirt went everywhere. A puff of smoke erupted around the ship, forcing Nat to squeeze her eyes shut. When the smoke settled, she stood up and saw that the ship had slid away from them, stopping yards away.
Nat got to her feet, brushing off dust and placing the shield on the ground beside her. She turned toward Wanda. She looked exhausted. She sat with her eyes closed, hand on her head, breathing heavily. Nat bent down, carefully placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Don’t get up too fast,” she told her, “you gotta take it easy.”
“Did they make it?” She groaned, eyes still shut.
Before Nat could answer, Sam landed with a thud next to them. “I got her,” he said, then reached for the shield, “and I got this. You go catch up with your girl.”
Nat looked at him confused. He motioned his head behind them, and she turned to see Gamora sprinting toward the ship. With a nod toward Sam, Nat took off after her.
The door to the ship shot off right as they reached it. Out of all the sounds Nat anticipated hearing, the last thing she expected was laughing.
“Quill! You should fly that poorly all the time!” A voice bellowed. The laughter got louder as someone stepped out of the ship. It was a man, or at least something close to one. His skin was grey — or maybe purple — and he was huge. Her body instantly told her to be afraid of him, even as he continued to chuckle to himself.
“Drax!” Gamora yelled, and the man’s face lit up as he saw her.
“Gamora!” He ran over, picked her up as if she weighed nothing. Drax, she made a mental note, thinking back to what little information Rocket and Nebula had provided them with. The stupidly brave one. No metaphors.
She heard indistinguishable yelling, and a man who looked distinctly human nearly fell out of the ship. Quill, she thought, idiot lover. Drax put her down, and Gamora ran straight into his arms. Nat watched with a smile as he held her. His arms shook slightly, his hand clutching the back of he head as if she’d disappear if he let go. His eyes were closed, but she could see the tears falling down his face. She couldn’t hear him, but she could see his lips moving, could see how he whispered into her ear over and over again: I love you.
“I’m sorry,” he said, loud enough for the group to hear, “we tried to rush here, but then we got caught in the middle of some turf war, and then some old enemies of mine may have tracked us down, and then—“
Gamora cut him off, grabbing the sides of his face and kissing him. The sight made Nat smile, made her entire body feel warm. It also made her wish Clint wasn’t out for the weekend with his kids, although she instinctively shoved that feeling back down.
“Hey!” A familiar voice called from inside the ship, “would you mind saving that shit for the bedroom? There are children present!”
“I am Groot.”
“I don’t care how quickly trees age — you act like a child, you’re getting treated like a child.”
Even though she knew what Groot was, Nat didn’t think anything could have possibly prepared her for when a living, breathing tree walked out of the ship, especially one that seemed to be scowling like a moody teenager.
Gamora laughed, and Nat decided she could get used to the tree if it meant she got to see Gamora this happy. Rocket and Groot embraced her together, and it was easily the weirdest thing she’d ever seen.
“NATASHA!” A voice roared, and Nat failed to hide her surprise when Thor walked out of the ship. Honestly, she’d been so focused on trying to make sure Gamora got to see Peter and Nebula again that she’d completely forgotten he was with the Guardians.
He engulfed her in a hug, and she smiled against his chest. He looked better, she thought, considering the last time she’d seen him he was neck deep in one of the worst depressive episodes she’d seen. His hair was braided again, and there was a lightness to the way he had walked over to her, something she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen in him.
“You look really good, Thor,” she said after they broke apart.
“You think so?” He said with a smile, “I’ve never gotten to live without the pressure of ruling Asgard before. I think I like it, just being part of a team, nothing else.”
“It suits you,” she responded. She heard a high-pitched voice, and turned to see a woman with antennae on her head beaming at Gamora. She almost laughed when she realized it barely even made it into the top five strangest things she’d ever seen.
Focused on Gamora and the bug woman (what did Rocket say her name was? Mantis?), she almost missed who came out of the ship last. Nat held her breath as Gamora walked toward her. The entire group seemed to quiet down, as if they all understood the gravity of the moment. Which, she thought to herself, they probably did.
“I’m sorry,” Nebula said, her voice quiet but strong, “I never should have asked you about the stone. I should have been better, should have known that he’d find a way to—“
Nebula went silent as Gamora threw her arms around her. She stood for a moment, frozen, before slowing raising her arms up to embrace her sister.
When Gamora broke apart, she put Nebula’s hands within her own. “Nothing that happened to me is your fault,” she told her. “I’m sorry for everything — for how I used to be, for how I’ve failed you. I’m so sorry, Nebula.”
“Yeah, well,” Nebula said, “I’m sorry for all the times I tried to kill you.”
“I can easily say that this is the weirdest family reunion I’ve ever seen.” Nat turned to see Rhodey walking up to them, smile on his face. He and Nebula nodded at one another, the closest thing to a sign of affection that Nat figured she’d give anyone besides Gamora.
A loud snapping sound interrupted the moment, and everyone turned to watch as the back half of the ship broke apart from the front half. “Umm,” Quill said, “do you guys mind if we crash here for a while? Maybe borrow a spare ship, if you’ve got one lying around?”
“Stay as long as you’d like,” Nat said, and Quill nodded in her direction. Leadership recognizing leadership, she thought.
“Hey, who do we have to thank for the landing assist?” Rocket asked. “You guys were behind all that red crap, right?”
Gamora gasped. “Wanda! Is she alright?” She turned frantically, but Nat stopped her.
“She’s fine — Sam’s with her.”
Gamora nodded, before turning back toward Quill. “My witch friend saved you. She also showed me Dirty Dancing, and it’s definitely not the best movie ever made. The Breakfast Club is.”
“You know what? I don’t even care about how wrong you are,” he said, beaming.
She smiled back at him, raising an eyebrow at him but barely containing her own laughter.
“Come!” Thor’s voice got everyone’s attention. “I call for a party in our honor! I’ll send for Valkyrie and Korg! They shall speak of tonight for eons and eons to come in New Asgard!”
Everyone started making their way inside. Nat noticed that Peter lingered back with Gamora, either keeping her hand in his or making sure he was never further than a few feet away. Nat couldn’t place where she’d seen it before, who the behavior reminded her of. It didn’t matter. Tonight wasn’t about her — this was Gamora’s night, and she’d be damned if she let anyone ruin it.