There were some things the nebulous end of the world couldn’t fix. Like shattered trust and broken bonds.
Thanos had made his first move on Earth and the situation was as dire as it could have been. The threat was overwhelming, the options were few, and unless everyone could come together the future looked bleak. From within the confines of Wakanda’s borders, technologically advanced and beautiful as they were, Natasha could find nothing to lessen the blow of the losses they had already suffered.
What she did find, was Wanda in one of the palace gardens, sitting alone and sullen on a bench near a grove of drooping mango trees. She rolled one of the mangoes between her hands in distraction.
“Viz would say these mango trees are symbolic,” Wanda said dully at her arrival.
“Symbolic of what?” Natasha asked as she joined Wanda on the bench.
She sighed. “I don’t know. Probably something logical like Wakanda’s agriculture or fertility and hope for new life or something like that.”
Natasha frowned at the young woman. There was none of the usual life in Wanda. Ever since the mind stone was taken from Vision by Thanos, since Vision himself had gone missing not long after, and since the Avengers, both legitimate and otherwise, had regrouped for the first time in almost a year in Wakanda, Wanda had been a shell of herself.
Natasha carefully took the mango from Wanda’s limp grip and weighed it in her hand, noting the soft, malleable flesh. “Hope for new life,” She said under her breath, snorting cynically, “Hope has never been part of my job description.”
“Then what has?”
“Survival,” Natasha said simply, “At all costs. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
“Is that what you did before, with the Avengers? Just survived? I thought you tried to help people?”
“Sometimes you need to look at the big picture and find an exit strategy.”
Wanda frowned. “What do you mean?”
Natasha was pragmatic, the icy agent she’d been hardened into over a lifetime. “Even if we somehow get the mind stone back and find Vision and manage to reattach the stone to his forehead, there’s no guarantee that he’ll really come back. Trust me, it’s better not to get your hopes up,” She said, absently rubbing at the scar on her shoulder.
Wanda flinched away from Natasha. “How can you say that? Or even think it?” She asked, flabbergasted.
“I just want you to be prepared in case things don’t…”
“Don’t listen to Romanoff,” Another voice boomed from the edge of the garden. “Just because love’s a no-go for the Black Widow doesn’t mean the rest of us need to suffer for it.” Tony Stark sauntered toward their bench. Wanda’s hackles rose visibly and even Natasha couldn’t stop a flinch from his comment.
Tony’s attempt at snappishness was typical of him when he was defensive and nervous, so despite his sauntering toward them he was anything but confident. Tension oozed from him with every step, his fingers twitched, and his glossy sunglasses couldn’t hide the way his eyes failed to meet her or Wanda.
The tension only worsened as he moved closer, as did his fidgeting.
Natasha said, “I didn’t realize the Accords let you come. Or did you just manage to file the right paperwork?”
“Ha, ha,” Tony said, facetious. “And I didn’t realize Siberian ice literally ran through your veins. Far be it from me to try and melt Mother Russia’s favorite asset with actual humanity.”
Wanda stared between the two, unsure who to focus on.
Tony turned to Wanda. “Romanoff may be a stick in the frozen tundra when it comes to hope, but I know we’re gonna get Vision back. And…” He paused, for once not in dramatic effect but in actual nervousness, “…I’m hoping you can help me with something that might be able to find him.”
“Something?” Wanda asked, still skeptical.
“A tracking device,” Tony said. “There’s a chance, a tiny one, that Vision might be linked with the Stone, even if it’s not physically part of him right now. And you got your power from the mind stone in the first place, so I’m hoping there’s a connection we can use to find Vision. It’s a longshot but, what do you think?”
Wanda stared at Tony, who continued to fidget under her scrutiny. “Will it work?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” He admitted. “I hope it does. And hope’s all I’ve got right now.”
It was several tense moments before Wanda finally spoke. “Tony’s right,” She said, her eyes hard but aflame as she turned to Natasha. “Hope may be all we have, but right now it’s our job to hope.”
With a betrayed but scathing look to Natasha, Wanda left with Tony. Her head was held higher than before, and there was a new assuredness to her that was partly business and all battle.
Natasha hummed to herself, pleased. Once they were gone she turned her head only slightly and said, “I know you’re there.”
A moment later Barnes slid out from his hiding place behind the trees, still dressed in the hospital scrubs the doctors had given him. He telegraphed his movements as he neared her, keeping the bench between them.
“That was nice of you. Playing the bad guy for them,” Bucky said. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants.
Natasha shrugged and tried to hide a small smile. “The potential end of the world was only enough to get them in the same country. They needed it to be personal to actually work together.” She huffed in realization. “It’s New York and Coulson and Loki all over again.”
“Hope keeps them going. Making it personal gives them focus.” Bucky nodded in understanding, then frowned. “But survival… The others don’t understand it. Not really.” He finally lifted his gaze to look at her, cautious. “Not like we do.”
Natasha could only stare at him. Was he saying-? Could she dare hope that he remembered-?
“What happened before… It wasn’t your fault,” Barnes said. “You saw an exit and you got out. Even when that meant leaving me there. I’m glad you got out.”
“You- You remember that?” Natasha trembled. Memories from those final months before her defection flashed through her mind.
“Most of it,” Bucky admitted. “It’s all there, but it’s a fucking mess and I don’t know what goes where or when. But I know you’re in there. A lot. And I know I like that you’re there. That you were the one good thing in all of it.”
She must have been squeezing the mango in her hand too hard because it suddenly burst in her grip. The soft flesh and juice oozing, sticky, over her skin.
Bucky moved to kneel in front of her, and got so far as reaching out for her hands to help clean the fruit from them. But he pulled back at the last second.
In a flash of bravery that she would have no logical way of explaining later, Natasha reached out. Uncaring of the juices still sticking to her hands and uncaring of the consequences, she reached for his fingers, twining them through her own. Flesh and new metal.
Bucky stared between her and their linked hands, and dared to ask, “If we get through this, maybe you could fill in the blanks a bit? Help me put it all in order?” Bucky asked.
“I’d like that,” She said, tightening her fingers around his just a fraction.
Bucky’s face lit up. “Yeah?”
Natasha nodded slowly, a hint of a grin breaking through. “Yeah.”
It was like releasing a weight she hadn’t realized she still carried. A tension falling from her like snow off an evergreen after a storm. Just the knowledge that he remembered her, even a little, after years spent convinced those memories had been well and truly taken from him, was enough to lift Natasha’s spirits. But to know that he wanted to talk about them? To try and put them together again? It was enough to give her something that had been beaten out of her years earlier. Hope.
“I should, uh,” She gestured helplessly with her hands, still covered in bits of mango and still entangled in his hands.
Bucky’s eyes widened in realization before he let go, apologetic. “Right. Yeah. Washing up. I’ll just, I’ll see you in there?”
“Yeah.”
Bucky stood slowly and took his time walking away from the bench, Natasha watching him as he went. “Stark’s wrong, you know,” He said as he neared the edge of the garden.
“About what?”
“The ice thing. You melted the ice off of me with humanity once.” With that he let slip a small smile and walked inside.
Natasha looked down at the mango bits still covering her hands. She brought one hand to her mouth and ate a piece of the fruit that lingered there. “New life,” She whispered with an unexpected grin.
There would be a great many things for her and Bucky to talk about. Years to catch up on, years to reminisce over, and years to learn about each other all over again. But right now there was work to do, a job to finish. There were some things the potential end of the world couldn’t fix, but at the very least, it was proving to be a wonderful time to prioritize one’s hopes for the future.