The Eternal Avenger: Book Two

Chapter One: No Way Home

Soundtrack for this Chapter: All I Want, by Kodaline

(Natasha's POV):

I glanced around the ruined old Avenger's Compound one last time. Cleanup crews were working around the clock to dig through the rubble. They had uncovered some personal objects from the rooms that were the closest to the bottom of the building. Not a lot, for obvious reasons. I had walked my way around the gaping hole in the ground, remembering snippets of the battle, the sound of us against Thanos' forces. The mad dash to get the stones off of the field. When I landed near Clint, we had no idea what was in store for us as those black space dogs reappeared almost as soon as the glove was in our grasp. We ran like the wind and Clint pulled out every trick in the book to get us out of that pit. Then to have everything turn upside down when we realized that the Nebula that came back wasn't the Nebula that we knew or expected at all. The rest of the battle was a blur that I honestly didn't care too hard to try and remember. We won. The silence that broke across the field when Thanos' army began to vanish in front of us was horrifying, yet fulfilling as well. But then Tony was gone, and standing around this place now felt like standing in a tomb. I'm sure monuments to the Universe's heroes were not long from beginning construction. Bruce, Sam, and Bucky, were all working on creating a new platform in order to return the stones back from where they came from. I felt a pain in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat. Returning the Soul Stone wouldn't bring her back. I shook my head slightly. I couldn't think about that. As I traced the edges of the familiar campus where my family and I had made a home, I glanced over to the chain-link fence that was protecting visitors from falling into one of the many missel pits that were a result of Thanos' order to "reign fire." I smirked, thinking back to the look on the purple nightmare's face when face to face with Wanda. Maximoff was not someone that you pissed off and lived to tell the story. I was concerned about her, honestly. Losing Pietro in that car accident, losing Vision to Thanos not only once but twice in the span of only a few moments, once by her own hand, then coming back and realizing that Claray was gone as well – honestly the witch didn't look well. She had vanished shortly after the battle's immediate aftermath. She returned for Tony's memorial, of course, but no one seemed to know where she went after that.

I glanced back at the chain-link fence, and I couldn't stop the slightest smile from crossing my face. Tony's picture was plastered everywhere, candles, stuffed animals, candy, and various other 'gifts' littered the ground everywhere. And next to his picture, nowhere near as large, but apparently equally memorialized was my face. Most of the world believed that Natasha Romanoff had died in the final confrontation with Thanos, hit by engaging fire when moving the gauntlet. Given my past, and further still my recent reconnection with it, there were too many variables for me to simply retire. It wouldn't be safe. For now, I was headed to Barton's farm in Missouri. Spending time with Clint and the newly returned family members would be good for my soul, and if I knew Clint's children half as well as I thought I did, they would have five years' worth of accumulated energy that may be enough to take my mind off of the fact that the person I most wanted to see was the one that was out of reach. I climbed onto the back of my motorcycle without another look back, only to find someone blocking my path.

"You sure you want to do this?" Carol asked. She had immediately readopted her grunge look that she had told us about during her initial return to earth, her Nine Inch Nails shirt covered in dirt, her jeans ripped. I smiled at her slightly.

"I've got to try to live a life," I shrugged. "I've lived so many of them for so often, I don't really know what living a life for the sake of just living it feels like." She nodded, a slight smirk framing her mouth.

"We're going to miss you around here, Romanoff," she extended her hand. I shook it easily. She was still stiff from years of Kree indoctrination – we were working up to hugs.