The Younger Agent - Natasha Romanoff x OC

Chapter 129 - Whales in the Hudson

2023 -

Thanos had left them with half a marriage for three years of their time during the snap. It had taken three years to find out how to comfortably live together again with so much grief, and so many levels of a lack of purpose between them. Throwing themselves into different purposes. Eleanor with the food shelter, and Natasha with continuing Avengers work. Eleanor resented the part of Natasha that wanted to work relentlessly in spite of her own health and wellbeing, and Natasha grew to resent the way that she felt Eleanor had buried her head in the sand when it came to trying to find any solution to getting people back. The answer they found had been to meet in the middle. Get Eleanor back to being an Avenger again, and get Natasha out of the compound again. It worked somewhat. It worked for the marriage, their relationship, their friendship. A team again. Their own team.

But even with so much love, a team of two can get lonely. The compound felt depressing. They had to pass living quarters of people who had died, of people who had left them. Eleanor loved Steve with her whole heart but she couldn't help but feel as though he had abandoned them. He was doing important work helping others, similar to how she had her own community outside that she helped. But he still left them. He seldom visited, even knowing that Natasha was trying her hardest to do something for the team. Eleanor couldn't forgive that. Not really. Not when she spotted Natasha eating cereal in the meeting rooms they used to work together in, looking at the empty seats before looking back down at her files. Not when she saw Natasha staring at the punching bags that she and Steve used to have competitions with. He might as well have been snapped too. That alongside Clint still being MIA, with huge suspicions of an assassination ring, after all these years, it was not a good combination.

Eleanor coped a little better with the emptiness of the place, but this was Natasha's first family, really. Her Russian family as a child had been a ploy, scripted, but in the Avengers people stuck around because they wanted to, not because it was their job to.

Natasha wouldn't leave though. Eleanor had suggested they try and find an apartment in the city, seeing as there was now an abundance of them, but she refused to leave. Stated it was their base of operations, and if anything happened that managed to get people back then this was where people would look for them. To combat the loneliness, after the marriage patchup they spent nearly every waking minute together. Either following through with leads on Natasha's work, having glorified conference calls with the others, helping out wherever they could, the food shelter, generally hanging out and working on hobbies, utilising the expansive outside area around the compound.

Outside of the shadows that had set over them, they still managed to have a nice little life together for the most part. Eleanor had taken up her own little hobby of more weightlifting though which she did alone, as alone time was still important. Both she and Nat were toned already from their line of work, but it had diminished over the years, and the lack of running around SHIELD HQ or taking down bad guys with the Avengers meant she had more time for a weekly regime and meals to bulk up. So, she'd piled a decent amount of muscle on. Natasha mocked her for having muscles which were only really useful for aesthetic whenever she still struggled with a pickle jar, though. However, despite the teasing Natasha was really not complaining about this new hobby.

At all.

After another late morning workout as she refused to wake up at the asscrack of dawn just to lift some heavy circles, Eleanor headed into the kitchen/living area to grab a snack before taking a shower. She hadn't expected to see one of the conference calls with Nebula, Rocket, Okoye, Danvers, and Rhodey on the hologram near the table, however. Must have been impromptu. As she headed to the fridge to grab a shake, she saw Natasha cutting up a peanut butter sandwich, one of her classic favourites. But today her face looked sad, and stressed. Common emotions etched onto her face which Eleanor wished she could just take away.