{bucky barnes ff}
Noelle Dean has many struggles, the main one being that she was stuck in ice for seventy years and now has to live in a world without the people she loves. Becoming an Avenger seems to be the only way to keep her mind off her troub...
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16th October 2023 Avengers Facility
The whirring of the time machine stopped as everyone got their balance back and ended up back at the Avengers Facility, seemingly happy with what they had done. They had done the impossible and had managed not only to time travel but to time travel back to retrieve the stones that would bring all of their loved ones back from the dust. It was a big moment for the Avengers, who were more than ready to bring back everyone that they had lost and prove to the world that they were still the best heroes to keep around. They may have lost against Thanos the first time around but now they had the advantage and they were ready to save the world. Noelle was just glad to see that Steve and Tony had returned with their stone safely and were not stuck in some alternative universe because that would have been their worst nightmare; she had no idea where they had gone to retrieve the stone but at least they were back safely. "Did we get them all?" Tony asked, looking around at the others, who all seemed happy enough with the successful time heist.
"Are you telling me this actually worked?" Rhodey questioned, not believing for a second that the time heist would have worked but was now realising that they might have successfully saved the world.
At that moment, Clint dropped to his knees. He was the only one that hadn't seemed happy about returning to the compound and seemed to be stuck in his own thoughts, refusing to look at anyone or talk to them about what had happened on Vormir. Bruce realised that someone was missing from the team, and immediately worried about where she was. "Clint, where's Nat?" He didn't answer, not in words but with the expression that he looked up to Steve with, everyone understood what this meant. Natasha was gone. Noelle burst into tears and was quickly welcomed into an embrace by Thor, who had been slapped back into reality after speaking to his mother and now realised that things were more important than he realised. He held her as everyone mourned for their friend, wishing that things had worked out differently.
A small group of the Avengers that knew Natasha better than anyone else, decided to take a moment of air in the outhouse next to the lake. Everyone was in their own minds, thinking about what they should have said to Natasha when she was still around; wondering whether they should have switched teams so that this didn't happen. They knew that Thanos killed his daughter to get the stone, they should have put the pieces together and realised that not both Clint and Natasha would return home from the mission. Instead, they didn't think and went along with the main idea of saving the world, instead of saving their friend. Noelle couldn't believe that another person she cared about was gone, only this time, the Infinity Stones wouldn't be able to bring her back because she had died for the gauntlet to be finished. She had sacrificed her life for the lives of everyone else that disappeared and now it was up to the Avengers to make sure that she didn't die for nothing.
"Do we know if she had family?" Tony asked, looking around at the solemn faces of his friends, who were all sat on their own around the platform.
Steve nodded, looking across the lake as he spoke. "Yeah, us."
