The closest thing to a daughter

Season 5 Episode 20

If only she could, she would make a deal with God and get him to switch their places. Natasha Romanoff did not believe in God, she had experienced and inflicted too much suffering to believe in his existence. But if she could, she would.

Steve would do the same just to see her happy again. There was only one person he could think of who could help him do that.

"You want what?" asked Strange in amazement when Rogers had told him his request. Back in time to when everything was perfect for his family - when Abigail and Danny were alive. It was selfish to leave everything they now had in front of them and especially who they had around them again, but he would leave everything behind for her.

"Rogers I cannot grant you that wish. Even if you don't want to hear it now, but the death of Abigail was necessary. Sooner or later, the Darkhold would have destroyed her, and with her power, she could have destroyed us all."

Steve shook his head. He had seen what the little one was capable of. He had seen her transformation, but he didn't believe in the magnitude that the Darkhold could create.

"If we pick a time before her contact with the Darkhold, she won't be in any danger and you can close the book before someone else gets their hands on it."

Stephen Strange was very tempted by this offer. He had been trying to ban the book from history for a long time, but had failed up to the present time. To his knowledge, there was a magic in it that allowed changing the past without harming the future. But this project would bring risks with it and not exactly small ones.

But what were the risks? And wouldn't the benefits be much higher, which would bring success? He would give four people a well-deserved quiet life, so should he really be so selfish? He shouldn't.

"Agreed. But once there, there's no going back."

He didn't even want that anymore. Captain America was tired of being Captain America. He liked helping people, but he had done nothing but fight his whole life, now he wanted the life Tony had always advised him to live. With Natasha, with Abigail, and with Danny.

His idea was accepted with cautious joy by the now completely changed Black Widow, but met with her approval as well. Never before had a death affected her as much as that of her daughter, and she hadn't had to witness very little. At a team meeting, on the other hand, there was a longer discussion. Everyone begrudged the two, but the parting would not be easy for anyone. But it would be for them as if they had never been away only Natasha and Steve would know what it was actually like.

"Well, see you in a bit," Nat said goodbye to Clint, hugging him with a smile. He had resisted for the longest time, but in the end, his best friend's happiness was more important to him than anything else. "See you in a minute," he repeated her words from before they had retrieved the stones. But this time, they would see each other again, guaranteed. For Natasha it would take a few years, even a whole decade but for Clint practically no time would pass.

One last hug and then she knew it was time to go. It was time to finally get her long-awaited happiness. Sometimes running away was brave. Sometimes running away was what made you find the right thing. 15 years, 15 million tears. But now this was to end.

The spell let them do everything they could imagine without affecting the present. For them, this time would stop here, to which they would return as soon as they died in their parallel world. A second life, or in Abigail and Natasha's case they were even given a third life.

Stephen Strange positioned himself in front of the new couple and cast a long complicated spell while trying to open a portal. Steve turned to face Bucky once more. Again he would leave him in another time, but again he would come back. Exactly to the point where he would now leave him and everyone else.

But he had already developed a precise plan. Since they had to travel at a time when Abigail was not yet in possession of the Darkhold, but also wanted Danny alive, the only time left was just before Ultron. So he would rescue both Wanda and Pietro, as well as Bucky from the clutches of Hydra. Everything sounded far too good to be true.

At the latest, when they walked through the portal waving hand in hand, both were overcome by the truth.