Who: Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers What: Checking out the Compound Where: The Avengers' Compound When: 26 March Rating/Warning: Low, probably some mild teasing
The compound wasn't a place that Natasha thought she'd ever see again. After all, on Vormir, she'd given up on seeing most everything ever again. Then arriving here, her world had once again shifted and she was making peace with those changes. But then....well, this happened.
She'd visited a few times already. It was strange to see things so pristine. It was definitely not from the time she last remembered it- it was cleaner. Newer. She would recon this might have been closer to the last time the Avengers were together...2016. A lifetime ago for a woman who'd gone on the run not long after that. Who took down the Red Room for the second time. Who fought aliens and then lived 5 years holding her broken family together.
But it still felt like coming home.
She'd quietly stepped through the halls, straight toward the hangar, where she'd indicated she would meet Steve. The Captain wasn't naive, exactly, but she wondered sometimes if he really thought through the long-term consequences of things he said and did. He was a good leader. A good man. He wanted to always do what was right, but Natasha's experience was that what was right was not always so clear.
She envied that about him. What it must be like to just know.
Shaking out of it, Natasha stepped through the doors and took it all in, feeling strangely at home again. Because this place was as close to home as she'd gotten in twenty years.