Whatever It Takes

5.3

Year Two

The program has been a success. I spend a good chunk of my time traveling around the country, meeting with the Belova's Web centers and children. I see them placed into families, see them be loved again, and it is one of the greatest things I have ever accomplished.

When I am home, I notice Natasha sticking a little closer to me than she did before. I always hate leaving her, knowing she'll really be alone in the big compound, but I always make sure I'm never gone longer than a week. We still share a bed, still share the office in the main lounge, but it still feels as if we should be spending more time together. Like we're taking for granted the gift we've been given of staying. So many others didn't get that chance.

Carol returns once a month, the two of us always finding each other waiting under the covers at night. Natasha constantly gives me shit for it, but I don't mind her teasing. I'm being satisfied, I'm being allowed to forget just for a few hours when we're together. The pain replaced by pleasure. And sometimes a pleasurable pain.

Banner visited, or I should say, the Hulk visited. The two have merged now, forming a very green and very strong Bruce Banner. He talks and thinks just as he always had when he was in his human form, wears clothes he gets specially tailored for his new exterior. He explained he had been working on a way to join the two of them together for some time now, and after a year and a half of being exposed to gamma radiation, he pulled it off.

He remains a scientist, but now does photoshoots and covers for magazines. Those that are still publishing and working, that is. Many media outlets and television companies simply ceased production, finding it insensitive to keep pumping out the latest fad diet or the model's beach body.

Sports teams are no more. No one can find a reason for creating more rivalry. School trips who have reached out to Natasha and me about doing a tour of the compound have been turned down, the two of us not wanting to open our sad world to the youth. We know they're just trying to find a bright side, find a way for some sort of joy. Visiting the home of the Avengers is a great way to forget just for a moment, the world is in shambles. But Natasha and I just can't do it. We can't let them see their favorite protectors moping around, anti-depressants in our pockets, clutter scattered about.

We go so far as to put up an electric fence around the boundary of the compound. Reporters still operating and paparazzi want a shot of the two remaining Avengers. We don't need anyone bothering us, anyone berating us about what we're going to do next.

The Captain comes around every so often, telling us of the support groups he leads in Brooklyn. People who have had loved ones vanish, children gone, car crashes endured. He volunteers at shelters and soup kitchens, seeming to revert back to the poster child of war bonds and signing up for the front lines. I can almost see him striking the same smile as he hands someone a meal, the one on the old-timey fliers put up during the war, pointing at the viewer.

Natasha's hair has grown out, reaching just to her shoulders now. The line of her roots is the red it naturally is, giving her a skunk-like style. She won't let me touch it, as much as I offer to wash out the blonde or re-dye it, trim it or cut it. She's letting it go, and it worries me that she'll do the same for herself as she's doing for her hair.

And then there is a buzz at our front gate.

Looking to the monitors, she and I share confused looks with one another. Several large Suburbans and an armored vehicle wait in our drive, a smiling man with sunglasses staring into the security camera.

Natasha presses the button for comms. "What do you want?"

"Miss Romanoff. Miss Sidorov. My name is Tyler Hayward, I'm the acting director of an organization named S.W.O.R.D. Have you heard of it?"