The five years that followed after the horrendous events that transpired in Wakanda had changed the survivors in ways they never expected. To be fair, they never expected their families to die in the blink of an eye, for them to simply wither away like the ashes of burnt wood in a campfire, gone with the wind like they were never even there, to begin with. The change that Thanos brought with him to earth - and to the rest of the universe - had been inevitable, yet unacceptable. The man was simply too strong with the infinity stones to be defeated, but none of the surviving Avengers could come to terms with the fact that they lost. Thanos couldn't have been stopped, not even by the world's mightiest heroes, and to make matters even worse, half of them died in the process, leaving the leftover survivors agonizingly empty and desperately sad and in pain.
The remembrance statues built and placed all around the world did nothing to ease the pain, and Steve refused to visit Janie's, even though he knew its exact location. People left flowers for their loved ones like placing flowers on a grave. Steve doubted he would ever accept her death.
The snap hadn't shown kindness. It had taken away nice people, people with families who grieved their absence years after their deaths. Young people with lives ahead of them succumbed to eternal darkness. People with hearts of gold had perished, snatched out of the comfort of their own homes without any sort of warning. Life had ended for them in the blink of an eye. Witnessing grief in such quantities was a painful truth to all of those still around to experience it.
To say moving on was hard would be the understatement of the century, but most people eventually gave in to their urges to rebuild their lives around six months after the Snap. Of course, nobody would ever be the same again, but they didn't really have a choice. Life went on, even without their loved ones. The sun still rose every morning, and every night, the moon would shine, Thanos or no Thanos. Time didn't come to a complete halt just because millions of lives ended abruptly, even though it did feel that way for many.
Steve Rogers pretended to be fine. The burden of being Captain America still clung to his shoulders like wet clothing even when he was inevitably part of the reason why half the population had vanished off of the face of the earth and many people hated him for it. He voluntarily organized counseling sessions for those who wanted to talk about their feelings on Tuesday and Thursday evenings every week. His efforts towards opening the conversation allowed widows and orphans across New York to spill their guts to him during their darkest times. He listened when people cried on the linoleum floor of the abandoned middle school auditorium inside which the meetings were held, listened when they poured their hearts out to him, and even listened to their silence when they didn't want to talk at all.
But Steve Rogers himself kept his own sorrow inside in the presence of other people. He hid his emotions during the sessions, avoided questions that ventured into the topic of girlfriends - if he could even call her that at all - and kept quiet about his true feelings to the only Avenger he still contacted regularly; Natasha. He didn't need to tell her though. She knew.
Steve held himself together until he reached his tiny Brooklyn apartment at the end of the day when he eventually would sink down against the back of his front door with his hands gripping his hair until it lifted from his scalp.
In the shower, tears would spill from his eyes and mix with the water splashing onto him until they eventually trickled down the drain never to be seen by anyone. He'd hammer his fists against the marbled tiles that surrounded him while soap dripped down his heaving back and chest out of rage until one day, one of those tiles finally cracked under his strength and a shard of porcelain cut open the skin on his palm. The blood that trailed down the wall in a pattern that reminded him of how watercolor paints could draw swirled splashes on a fresh canvas caused his heart to drop, and when he saw the soapy suds that pooled at his feet turning a sickly shade of pale pink, he stopped beating up his bathroom. Natasha didn't ask why he wore a bandage around his hand when she brought him dinner the next day, and he definitely didn't tell her about the mirror he shattered into a million pieces the week before that. Just because she didn't actively assassinate people anymore, didn't mean she didn't still possess the observance of an assassin. Not a lot of things could go unnoticed by her.
Steve would lie awake in a bed too large for one person night after night, eyes strained on the pale moon that he could barely make out through the branches of the oak tree that stood in front of his bedroom window. Even when sometimes it would disappear behind a group of fluffy clouds would his eyes, still red and puffed from crying, were not close. It'd become a habit, wallowing in self-pity until the sun rose behind that damn tree and he would do it all again until the next night when he'd find himself lying there again.
When he did sleep, Steve would be plagued by nightmares that caused him to toss and turn in his slumber. Distorted images of Bucky crumbling into a million pieces onto the Wakandian soil as he begs for his life and Janie, his poor sweet Janie, crying out for Steve in the dark behind a mirror of smoke. Sometimes, she kills him in his dreams. More often, he kills her. The feeling of overbearing guilt doesn't subside when he wakes up in a cold sweat, panting heavily in the engulfing darkness of his bedroom.
On nights when he couldn't find sleep at all, he'd sit behind his tiny kitchen table in a chair far too squeaky and hard to be comfortable with and write letters while drinking lukewarm black coffee with too much sugar. Letters to all the people he would probably never see alive again. He'd write to his mother, asking her why he'd ever agreed to take the serum. He'd write to Bucky to tell him how much he was sorry for leaving him. He'd write to Janie, begging for forgiveness. Steve would write until his hands were sore until the ink in his pen would run out or bleed all over the paper.
He loathed himself for losing her, even though nobody could've stopped Thanos, including him. Never in his life had he pitied himself so much, even before the serum, when he could hardly lift a bottle of milk to save his life and he hated how much of a crybaby he'd become, but he couldn't stop the raging thoughts in his head and the constant pain in his heart, no matter what he did to try and avoid it.
Even Natasha tried to tell him it wasn't his fault, but he wouldn't listen. Granted, she never listened to him either, but neither of them stopped trying to convince the other person to let go of what happened. Steve refused to accept the fact that the Snap had been random, that there was no way he could've known Janie would be one of the people to vanish. That he couldn't have kept her from dying even if he traded in his own life or everyone else's life with it. In his mind, he was to blame for her death and nobody, not even Natasha could convince him otherwise.
Instead, Steve Rogers had to live with the fact that for the second time in his life, he lost the woman he loved, and this time, she had taken both his mind and soul with her to the realm of the dead. A large, gaping, black hole had been punched through his chest, leaving nothing but complete emptiness that resonated deep inside of him in the place of his heart. The awful hollowness didn't leave him as time went on. They say time heals all wounds, but this one could never be fixed.
When Natasha approached him with the idea of bringing everybody back, he nearly laughed in her face. They'd already tried everything they could think of after it initially happened, and everyone who had made it out alive had left them since then to do their own thing.
"You know, I saw a pot of whales as I was coming in over the bridge by the Hudson," he said.
Natasha, leaning back in her chair with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes, frowned when Steve walked into the conference room after another session at the school downtown.
"In the Hudson?" She asked, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Fewer ships, cleaner water. It makes sense actually." He explained quickly.
"If you're about to tell me to look on the bright side of life, I'm going to hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich." She joked, smiling softly.
"Force of habit. If I don't continue to tell myself things will look up, I might as well give up now. Those people need me, Nat. One of them went on a date last week because I told him to go for it. It's good to see people catch a glimpse of happiness again." Steve sighed.
"I keep telling them to move on and grow," he continued, "and some do. But not us."
"If I move on, who does this?" She replied, eyes scanning the glass desk in front of her that was covered in torn sheets of paper and notebooks with broken spines.
"I used to have nothing. Then I had this family, this job... and even though they're gone, I'm still trying to be better. Come on Steve, don't you want her back?"
A single tear rolled down Steve's cheek, "I would give my life if it meant bringing her back, but we've done all we can do. We're stuck, Nat. Dead end."
But before Natasha could offer him a reply, the front gate's security camera lit up, and a voice filled the dimly lit conference room of the Avenger's facility through the surround sound speakers.
"Is anyone home?!"
Getting the team back together was easier than either Steve or Natasha could've ever expected after Scott Lang burst in through their front door with new information that could potentially offer them another chance. Neither of the two Avengers had ever considered quantum physics as a possible solution to their predicament, but then again, Steve knew jackshit about quantum physics and frankly, neither did Natasha. Even Tony, who initially refused to do as much as listen to their proposal of building a device similar to a time machine, joined them three days later, as did Bruce, who had fused his alter ego and himself together, creating an intelligent Hulk who for once, didn't want to constantly smash everything he came in contact with.
Clint was probably the hardest to track down out of all of them because he was traveling in South-East Asia doing work as a nomad bounty hunter with only one boss; whoever could transfer the most money to his bank account the fastest. He'd lost any care in the world after his entire family died, and fuck it, he wasn't afraid to admit killing felt good. Ethics hadn't gotten him anywhere and his new profession numbed the pain caused by the loss of his wife and kids, diverting his mind from seeing their little faces and hearing her sweet voice in his sleep. When Natasha finally found him surrounded by a group of dead ninjas though, it didn't take much for her to convince him to come back. She was still his best friend, and he would still do anything for her. He could tell how much she wanted to give it a shot and he still trusted her with his life.
Tony, Bruce, and Scott worked relentlessly for days on end on the technology that was supposed to allow all of them to travel back in time so they could take the infinity stones before Thanos could get a hold of them. It was an extremely difficult plan to execute, which is why Natasha spent day and night working out where each of the stones was located during which periods in time.
Even Nebula, Rhodey, Rocket, and eventually Thor joined them at the compound and after that, it didn't take long for them to figure out a plan of action. To say Thor looked like hell would've been an understatement, but nobody dared to comment on his new physique except Rhodey and Tony. The man was a mess. All of them were though, in their own respective way.
The teams were going to use Pym particles attached to the suits designed by Tony to travel back in time. Each member of the team was equipped with two particles, enough for one round trip per person. This meant that in order for their plan to work, all of them only had a single shot. One opportunity to get their hands on all the infinity stones, or the whole plan would go to shit and they could kiss all hope goodbye. Steve's heart hammered in his chest when he heard the words spoken out loud and beads of sweat rolled down his back out of fear.
The team applauded Natasha when she figured out three of the stones were in New York City at the same time. This newfound knowledge made everyone's task a little easier, but it, unfortunately, did not eliminate the possibility of failure. Even now, the entire team felt the weight of the world on their shoulders, but the possibility of undoing what Thanos had done brought along hope nobody had felt in five long years. Steve wanted nothing more than to accept the hopeful sensation that began to bubble inside the pit of his stomach, but the fear of losing for the second time prevented him from allowing himself to experience it for what it was and forced him to keep his reservations regarding the return of the dead.
After several days of deliberation and hearing the stories of everyone who had come into contact with at least one stone, the team had been divided as evenly as possible.
Steve, Bruce, Tony, and Scott would travel to New York for the time, space, and mind stones. Nebula and Rhodey would travel to Morag for the power stone and Clint and Natasha would take Vormir for the soul stone, while Thor and Rocket would travel to Asgard for the reality stone.
Six stones, three teams with one shot each. It wasn't too late for the Avengers to turn back time, to bring back the people they had lost once and for all, and all of them would do whatever it took to do so. Their plan simply had to work, because frankly, none of them knew what to do if it didn't.
Natasha and Steve offered each other one last nod before the world around all ten of them vanished into nothing. Only seconds later, only nine of them returned from the past.
Natasha Romanoff died on Vormir.