oh i fucked that nat post up real good, didn’t I? whoops. That’s what comes of trying to do that during dnd I suppose.
My current favorite nat story is alternate universe never joined shield Nat getting dragged over to this universe and she’s both real pissed off about it and also very confused by everything. there was a big…thing? that happened? something apocalyptic level and she was involved in stopping it or reversing it, AU!Nat isn’t really sure but none of it seems like her and she holes up somewhere and does research on herself but not before she causes some amount of problem.
meanwhile, nick is catching rumors that natasha romanoff is not dead and also back on the mercenary bandwagon and he thinks really hard about sending a message to clint to investigate, who’s been not coping with his best friend being dead, or to wanda who has made an effort to fall off his radar that has natasha’s fingerprints all over it and he wants to respect that, and does finally send a message to Sam that there’s maybe something he should poke his newly shield-bearing nose into.
and sam and bucky do finally catch up with her and she’s just like, oh it’s you, and sam goes Nat? and Bucky’s really excellent reflexes are the main reason that Sam doesn’t get shot in the side (”You’re supposed to use the goddamn shield for this, Wilson, what the shit” and sam is like “yeah, yeah, okay, i know, i’m just more used to using the wings and there wasn’t–” “i’m going to spend all day shooting at you until it doesn’t occur to you that there’s not a big magic frisbee attached to your arm that laughs at bullets”) but you know, once they get past the shooting and everything, it’s Sam who spent literal years fighting with Nat daily and knows a LOT about the way she likes to fight and Bucky who is getting a totally unreal sense of deja vu because some of those moves are his moves but scaled down for someone half his size and weight (and also she somehow manages to get up on his shoulders again what the fuck is that about and continues trying to punch him in the head while Sam is trying to pry her off.
anyway, the point is, they do finally manage to fight her and then they drag her back to Camp Steve, who is just like very…..Sam does not know what to make of that expression, because sad doesn’t really seem to do it justice, this whole weight of something that’s not just their Nat being gone but is like the look he used to get when they were on the run and he came across some goddamn thing, a war memorial or whatever, something that sent him back to all the people he never meant to lose, a busload of loss, and not for the first time does Sam wonder what exactly Steve got up to in that minute between one life and the next.
steve calls wanda and wanda calls clint and AU!Nat is scoffing openly at the very idea that they can three ghosts of christmas her or it’s a wonderful life her, whatever it is that they think they’re going to accomplish by surrounding her with the relics of a dead woman, do they think she’s just going to be that person because they want her to be? is their natasha so replaceable to them?
(sam calls rhodey, who somehow calls space????, and Bucky seems weirdly pleased when that Raccoon guy shows up with that blue lady that Rhodey hugs and the Raccoon guy says “Carol can’t come, she’s doing something” and he mimes punching and something exploding and Rhodey says “nothing too bad, I hope, she can call us if she needs to” and Rocket is like, right ‘cause what are we going to do that she can’t and also that Okoye says that they can’t expect this woman to want to be the same and that they should set their expectations accordingly, but also that if anyone would want the choice to change, it would be Natasha. “But she can’t get away?” asks Rhodey. “Nah,” says Rocket, “she’s still mostly managing Wakanda while her king guy catches up on what’s happened.”)
and uh, pretty much all they want is to give nat the chance to find out the person she could be.
