look after you × winterwidow & oc

XII. what about the kid?

may 2018

Katya sat down at the top of one of the many stairs in the Avengers Compound, trying her best not to make a sound. From that spot and through the glass railing, she could see the small gathering downstairs. Steve, Rhodey, Tony sitting in a wheelchair, and looking more than terrible, Pepper by his side, Thor, and Rocket by the wall. There was also the blonde woman whose name she didn't get a chance to catch yet and the blue alien, also still nameless to Katya, all she gathered was that she was in space with Stark.

She still wasn't sure why she decided to come out of her room. She heard the earlier racket as the spaceship touched down, brought to Earth by the blonde, but then she watched from the window. Maybe it was the quiet that piqued her interest enough, and there she was, watching the remaining Avengers and some new friends focus on the table in the middle of the room, where the blue holograph displayed faces, one by one. Everyone they had lost, everyone they had failed. This wasn't supposed to end like this. Everything went wrong.

Stephen Strange. Katya didn't know him.

Samuel Wilson. She liked Sam, as much as she could for the small amount of knowledge about him she had.

Wanda Maximoff. She didn't really have an opinion about her. Knew her even less than Sam. Maybe there was a tiny grudge she couldn't quite let go of. Mama mentioned once that she and her twin brother volunteered for Hydra.

Peter Parker. He seemed nice, but all Katya knew was that Tony brought him to Berlin. He must've been around her age then. She glanced at Tony. He winced, hiding his face partially in his thin hand.

"World governments are in pieces" Rhodey informed.

Shuri. Over the two years, she and Katya grew really close, the princess becoming one of the closest friends she ever had.

T'Challa. She knew the king much less than she did his sister, but everytime she came across him, he was nothing but welcoming and incredibly kind. A great loss, for sure.

Nick Fury. It could surprise many, but Katya adored Nick. Ever since the first day, when he took her under his wing, after Maria Hill brought her to the States, as a terrified and brainwashed child, she liked him. And the feeling was mutual, even if it was almost impossible to get him to admit that.

"It looks like Thanos did exactly what he wanted to do," Steve said, crossing his arms. "He wiped out fifty percent of all living species."

Bucky Barnes

Natasha Romanoff

Katya grimaced, the all too familiar recently vice like feeling around her heart suddenly back. There was no way she could forget about it. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second since she looked her mom in the eyes for the last time. But every reminder, just as mere as hearing their names, made it all hurt even more, the memories coming back, as vivid as ever as if didn't happen three weeks ago but three minutes at best.

"What about the kid?" Tony asked suddenly.

"What?" Rhodey sent him a confused look, tilting his head. "You know Peter is... You were with him."

"No, I mean Romanoff's kid," he explained, this time getting a surprised expression from Rogers. "Katya, right? Is she-"

"Still here." Katya called out, before her brain processed what she's doing. Then there was eight pair of eyes staring straight at her. "Unfortunately."

She shrugged and stood up, disappearing into the hall, before anyone had a chance to react to her presence anyhow. She didn't know that Tony almost didn't recognize her but there wasn't anything weird about it. After all, she was a little kid the last time he saw her, now definitely more of a teen. And somehow, for a split second, he felt like he was looking at Natasha. Only with white hair. The resemblance was striking, even if it made no sense for him.