Chapter Text
“Natasha Romanoff deserves so much more than anything we can give her today,” Steve starts, looking out at the small group standing around him.
In a few hours, the riverbank will be teeming with friends and family and press holding a public ceremony in Tony’s name. But for now, it’s peaceful, a collection of all the people Natasha trusted most in the world.
“We’re here today to honor her sacrifice,” he continues, before his voice cracks and he stops. Bucky squeezes his hand, and Steve takes a deep, steadying breath. “Without which, most of us would not be standing here.”
His eyes, still surveying the crowd, fall on Clint. The entire team took Nat’s death hard, but none took it harder than Clint Barton. Standing to the side with little Nate in his arms, he’s torn apart. His eyes are glossy and unfocused, his jacket frumpy and wrinkled, his mohawk unstyled and droopy. Tears soak his cheeks; Steve can see that even from feet away.
Clint meets Steve’s eyes before dropping his gaze. Laura kisses his arm and holds on tightly to his sleeve, not yet aware just how close her husband came to being the one they were here to mourn. He’ll tell her eventually, all of it, the murders, the time travel, the cliff. But not right now. He can’t do anything right now. Not when Natasha should be the one standing here.
“We were her family,” Steve says, more in control of his voice, knowing he needs to be strong. If not for Clint, then for his kids. Cooper and Lila stand behind their parents, sullen-faced, holding hands, quietly trying to immortalize every last image they had of their adopted aunt, fighting to remember every single detail about her last visit home.
He looks at Fury, his normally stony expression softened, and Carol beside him, not unwelcome despite the short time she knew the group, knowing all too well the pain of a fallen friend. She gives Steve a nod.
He returns it solemnly, before bending down to pick up a basket of red roses, black roses and fresh chamomile flowers. “We don’t have her body to bury, but I was hoping we could each say a word or two and then send the flowers down the river,” he says, hesitating, waiting for the group consensus, which seems reluctant. But Bucky grabs the basket from him, taking out a red rose, and passes it on to Sam, who does the same.
“I’ll start,” Steve says, watching as the rest of the group slowly distributes the flowers. He holds the chamomile in the palm of his hand. “Natasha brought me into the world in a way no one else before her ever had. We’ve been through a lot together, on both sides of the law, off the grid and on, in hiding and not. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be alive without her, a few times over.”
He takes a breath, watching the flower basket reach the back. “She was the closest thing I had to family. Maybe we worked so well together because we both understood the haunting fear we’d never become more than the objects our governments made us into. Or maybe we were kindred spirits in our desire to leave our past fighting and wars behind us. I don’t know. But I do know that Natasha spent every waking moment making sure no one ever felt alone.”
“And not just me,” Steve continues, watching as Maria Hill takes a black rose from the basket and passes it on to Sharon Carter beside her. She’s the one person Steve took liberties from the list to invite, but he figured Natasha wouldn’t have minded. “So many families lost their children when the snap happened, and so many children lost their families, and Natasha spent the last five years connecting the dots between the two. She came from nothing, all those years ago. She built her family, built us, from nothing. And she helped build these families again, too.”
Steady for so long, Steve’s voice cracks again, and he has to look down, the tears starting to well in his eyes. “She never wanted anyone to be as lonely as she once was,” he manages to croak out, before quickly turning toward the river and bending down to send the flower forth.
“She was cool, real cool,” he hears Sam say behind him, and Steve wants to stand, but the energy has left his body. He stays kneeled instead, watching his little flower struggle to stay afloat in the water, listening.
“She was nothing but welcoming to me,” Sam continues. “And she had that rare ability to give no craps while also giving all of them, and she made you question what was really important in your life. She was tactical, and strong, and smart, and funny, and I’m going to miss her like hell.”
Sam joins Steve, kneeling beside him, letting go of his rose.
Bucky kneels, too, reaching for Steve’s hand, and the two drop his red rose into the water together, watching it float away as Bucky simply whispers, “Natalia, my ballerina.”
Steve squeezes his hand, and Bucky grips it back, not about to let go.
“It’s a much larger universe than any of us could have imagined,” Fury says, taking a moment to join them at the edge, ignoring his cracking knees as he bends down. “And Romanoff gave her life for all of it. When I first met her, she was famous for one thing. Now she’ll be forever infamous for quite another. She created her future, rewrote every single second of the legacy we won’t forget. Her sacrifice is the reason we’re all able to be here, and it’s one we will always remember. Thank you, Agent Romanoff.” He drops his flower into the water, lowering his voice, whispering, “Natasha.”
Carol kneels on one leg beside him, watching her black rose float to join Fury’s.
Maria joins both of them. “I’m going to miss you,” she says, more to the flower than any of them, and drops it into the river.
Next to her, Melinda May does the same, and Sharon gently places a rose next to theirs with a quiet, “thank you.”
Bruce, having stood apart from the main group this entire time, finally looks up from his hands. “There’s too much to say and I don’t know where to start,” he whispers, walking over. “But I’m just thankful for the time I spent with her, and I’m thankful she helped me see a part of myself I didn’t know still existed. She helped bring me some peace. I hope she found some for herself, too.”
He tosses his rose as far down the river as he can, retreating back into his cardigan, wrapping his arms around himself, shaking his head.
Steve feels a hand on his shoulder, and he turns his head to see Laura standing behind him, holding four flowers. He moves to let her in, and she kneels beside him, releasing her armful of roses into the water.
“Natasha was like a sister to me,” she starts, her eyes wet but her voice controlled. “She’s done so much for our family, for me, for the kids. Whenever Clint was on a difficult mission, she’d show up at our door, bag in hand, ready to stay with us until he returned. She kept us safe, and she kept us company. And if she was on that mission with him, I knew he’d come back to us safely. She always made sure of it.”
Steve looks down, another tear forming in his eye.
“She always made an effort to be there for me, for the kids, and I just hope, wherever she is, she knows how thankful we are. And that our lives will never be the same without her in them.”
Steve puts his hand on her leg, and looks back to see if Clint is able to speak. He’s not looking that great, honestly, but he hands Nate off to Wanda, and the little kid grips her arms tightly while his father heads to the water.
Clint bends down next to his wife, rose in hand. He looks like he’s just going to drop it silently, but then he chokes out, “It should’ve been me.”
His rose falls into the water with a plop, and Clint crumples up beside it on the bank, curling into himself. “It should’ve been me, you idiot.” He holds his head, trying and failing to catch his sobs in his hands. “It should’ve been me.”
Laura wraps her arms around his shoulders, holding him as he rocks back and forth. She looks to Steve, slowly understanding the circumstances surrounding Natasha’s sacrifice. It wasn’t just for families around the universe, it was for her. It was for her family.
Between her husbands’ shaking and the dawning of that realization, tears start to fall from her eyes, too, and soon the two of them are crying amidst the rest of Natasha’s family.
Cooper and Lila stand back, trying to stay strong while their parents break down. Wanda carries Nate down to the river, handing him her flower to drop in the water. He does, then quickly buries his face in her chest. “Bye, Auntie Nat,” he says, his voice muffled by her jacket. She strokes the top of his head, playing with his hair, remembering quite vividly how she’d comfort Pietro the same way when they were little.
Time stands still as the group bows their heads. Slowly, one by one, they start to stand, starting with Fury, then Carol and May and Maria and Sharon, then Bucky and Sam. Steve stands, too, giving Laura and Clint some privacy at the edge of the river.
He starts to head to Bucky first, but stops when he sees Wanda handing Nate off to his sister. Lila puts Nate down and he hides behind her legs as Steve approaches.
“Nathaniel.” Nate stares up at him with wide eyes. “I’m Steve.”
“I know.”
Lila tries to push Nate toward him, but the boy doesn’t move until Steve reaches into his backpack. “You loved your Auntie Nat, huh?”
Steve bends down to be on eye level with him, and Nate nods.
“I’ve got something for you,” Steve says, pulling out the jacket Natasha left in his apartment. “It’s from your aunt. She would’ve wanted you to have it.”
He holds it out, and Nate looks up at Lila. She nods, and hesitantly, he reaches out his hands.
“You want to put it on?”
Nate nods. Steve smiles, softly, and slips the sleeves over the boy’s arms. He’s suddenly dwarfed, the jacket enormous, leaving him room to grow into it for more than a few years.
Steve pats his head and stands.
“Thank you,” Lila mouths, looking at the awe on her brother’s face. He knew their aunt the shortest amount of time, but the two of them had been inseparable every time she visited. If Natasha was there, Nate was with her, holding her hand, asking her to read or play catch or hide and seek, and he always had to be pried from her grasp at bedtime. Now he’ll never be apart from her, even when he realizes the finality of the goodbyes taking place today.
For now, though, he’s happy in his innocence. He tentatively hugs Steve’s legs, and Steve wraps his arms around the boy immediately, holding him tight, wishing more than anything he could tell Nat her nephew would be okay, they’d all be okay.
“She loved you all so much,” he whispers, trying not to let his voice crack, trying to stay strong for the boy in his grasp.
“It’s funny,” Lila starts. “You never know a moment is your last one until long after it’s gone. And then you have to scramble to remember it fully.”
Steve gives her a sad smile.
“I’m just going to miss her,” she says. “And I wish I could’ve told her goodbye.”
“Me, too,” Steve confides, opening one arm to invite her into his and Nate’s embrace. She takes it, hugging him tightly, and Steve feels Cooper join in, too.
“You guys will be okay,” he says, watching as Wanda helps Laura and Clint up. The two hold on to each other, and Wanda gives them a quick hug before heading over to Carol.
“Are you?”
Steve looks at Lila and then searches for Bucky, finding him by a tree with Sam. The two of them are in a seemingly heated debate, their hand motions comically exaggerated. “Yeah,” he answers, shaking his head slightly, smiling to himself.
“I’m surprised you got Cooper in a group hug,” he hears Laura say, and Cooper immediately drops out of the embrace.
Steve turns toward her voice. “Yeah, well, no one should be alone today.”
She nods, giving him a soft smile despite the pain and heartbreak and knowledge now heavily displayed on her face. She smooths her daughters hair, and Lila leaves Steve to wrap her arms around her mom.
“Hey buddy,” Steve whispers to Nate still wrapped around his leg. “You want to go to your mom?”
He nods, but looks up at Steve first. “Thank you for my jacket,” he says, and Steve nods his head quickly, not about to let another tear fall.
He turns to head toward Bucky, but Laura puts her hand on his sleeve.
“You’re always a welcome member of our family, Steve,” she says.
“Thank you.” He gives her a quick smile before excusing himself, heading toward his two idiots still fighting by the tree.
“You know, this might not be the best place for an argument,” he says, walking up behind them.
“We’re just getting it out of our system before the rest of the group arrives,” Sam says.
Steve checks his watch. They’ve got about thirty minutes before Pepper shows up with her daughter and Happy starts letting the press in.
“Do you have the rest of the flowers?”
“Here,” Bucky replies, handing Steve the basket.
“I get the roses,” Sam starts, watching as Steve takes the flowers back down to the water’s edge. “But why the chamomile?”
“National flower of Russia,” Bucky answers.
“Oh.”
“I think.”
“Didn’t you work for Russia for, like, a hundred years? Shouldn’t you know that for sure?”
Bucky gives him a look, and Sam raises his eyebrows in response. Normally, Bucky would quip right back, but right now, his eyes and attention are fixed on Steve.
Down at the river, Steve bends, turning over the basket, releasing the rest of the flowers. “See you in a minute, Romanoff,” he whispers, watching as the roses and the leftover chamomile slowly join their family, ebbing and bobbing along the gentle flow of the current.
He stands, watching them all float downstream, not quite sure where downstream even leads.
Bucky leaves Sam and joins him, reaching for Steve’s hand.
“I had told her we both needed to get lives,” Steve starts, gripping Bucky’s fingers tightly. “Right before all this. She laughed and told me to get one first. And then she gave hers so I can live mine. So we could all live ours.”
“You could still get the life you always wanted.”
Steve looks at Bucky, his eyes shiny again. He opens his mouth but then closes it, shaking his head slightly. “I wouldn’t want that life without you in it.”
“Steve, I can’t go back with you. I couldn’t relive that all again. I couldn’t. I’m responsible for too many deaths over the years.”
“What would you do instead?”
“Natasha started a web of funds a while back. Fury told me about it the other day. I’m not sure anyone else knows. She tracked down the families of people… affected… by her past actions, and she’d been taking up the odd job, a missing person’s case, event protection, etc. She put the payments into all these separate accounts. The families probably don’t even know where the money comes from. But it’ll run dry soon.”
“You were thinking of carrying it on?”
“If I can.”
“I don’t want to live without you,” Steve whispers. “Not again.”
“Doesn’t your serum slow your aging?”
“What?”
“The memory is blurry, but on the bridge, back when everything was just beginning, during the war, didn’t Schmidt, Red Skull, whatever, say you left humanity behind? Couldn’t that mean you’ll live forever? Couldn’t we both?”
Steve pauses, thinking back to one of Thor’s many comments about mortality, of which he always excluded Steve. He never wanted to accept it before, but Thor could be right. Bucky could be right. Maybe he’s immortal. Or, at least, someone with a longer than average life expectancy.
“You could live the life you used to dream about with her,” Bucky continues. “With Peggy. You could finally take a break, rest easy, and then be back here with me. Fury said no time would pass on our end.”
“That’s a risk.”
“But you’d be happy.”
Steve bites his tongue, shaking his head. He wants to say he’d never be fully happy without Bucky, but instead, he just rests his head against his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“We’ve got a few nights together to figure it all out,” Bucky whispers into his ear. “They’re not sending you back yet. Don’t worry.”
Steve nestles closer to him, straining to feel Bucky’s heartbeat through his jacket. How could he leave him after he finally got him back?
Bucky gives him a soft kiss on his forehead, not caring that Sam and Bruce have joined them at the river, watching the flowers slowly round the bend, waiting for the other half of their newly expanded team to arrive.
He glances at the Bartons, rubbing their kids’ shoulders, faking strength for the next part of the ceremony. Wanda catches his eye and gives him a nod, and he returns it, a small, small smile on his face. He kisses Steve’s head again. They’ve got a lot to talk about, they both know it. But that’s a discussion for a later time, one in which they’ve already made up for all the moments they’ve lost.
“Thanks for being here, Buck,” Steve whispers, quietly, so only he could hear. His smile widens just a bit.
He lightly bites the tip of Steve’s ear. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he whispers back, with another gentle kiss, as the last of the flowers make their way out of view.