Untangling a Future

Moving forward

Fourteen months on from Steve and Natasha's return to the compound after her complete and total demolition of the HYDRA base, life seemed to have returned to normal, or some version of it.

By now, a new way of living had settled in for everyone all around the world. Countries had sorted themselves out, reorganizing and rebuilding their governments. Jobs, homes, and land had been reconfigured to account for the change in demographics and population spread. Families had adjusted, and in some cases, begun anew.

At the Avengers upstate New York compound, Natasha, Steve, and Rhodey were still managing threats to international, and sometimes interstellar security. They managed a team of enhanced and highly-skilled individuals to assist on missions and report back on ongoing issues. And while it wasn't the Avengers team they'd grown to know and love, their new band of misfits were doing the job.

Without SHEILD, Fury, or another agency they trusted to work with, Natasha, Steve and Rhodey collected and processed intel on their own. And over time, each of them had fallen into their roles: Rhodey usually headed up missions that required diplomatic inquires, since he was still in pretty good standing with regard to the Sokovian Accords; Steve was taking on smaller missions, sometimes with Okoye or Natasha, handling issues that couldn't be dealt with publicly; and Natasha had begun to do more and more work heading up operations from the compound.

Though they were usually busy no matter the day of the week, when they had free time, they rotated days off.

On Rhodey's free days, he would visit Pepper, who was in the later days of her pregnancy. Though Tony still wouldn't take any visitors, she and Happy were still were quite involved in facilitating whatever the team needed and everyone was excited for the next generation of Stark's.

For Steve and Natasha, they tried to wait to take their free days together. By now, neither of them had anyone else, with all the rest of their friends and family either off the grid or passed away. Days off alone meant days spent in their rooms, roaming around aimlessly, or just coming back to work anyway. Spending their free time together meant holding each other accountable for taking true vacation time.

"Can you pass the blanket?"

Natasha and Steve were enjoying the nice weather by going on a long hike in the Catskills Mountains of New York on one of their days off,. They'd just found a nice and secluded overlook to set down after their three-hour trek, a spot that gave them a gorgeous view of the rolling hills and valleys beyond.

Steve handed Natasha the blanket out of the pack he had been carrying and she began to unfurl it on the ground, securing it at the corners with large rocks. Task completed, Natasha picked up her water bottle and gazed over the picturesque landscape.

"I think we picked an excellent spot." Natasha said with a decisive nod of the head. "Just excellent..."

As Steve plopped himself down on the blanket, he watched Natasha stand with her hands on her hips and smile approvingly. This wasn't a Natasha he would have expected to see just over a year prior, relaxed and enjoying her life. Really, he wasn't sure if he would ever seen this side of Natasha, perhaps all but forgotten after years of trauma. Though after all that had happened, she seemed to finally be finding peace.

And not all days were like this. Natasha still had terrible, terrible nightmares that visited her on occasion. She had bad days like any of them, where it seemed to be raining outside if only because that's how she felt. But having days like this, where the sun shone from within her and lit up the whole valley were worth treasuring after all she had lost. Steve admired that in her, as he sometimes struggled to find the same.