Echo| Natasha Romanoff

4. Chapter 9

Andrea's p.o.v

1 year after the blip:

Everyone had moved out except me and Nat. Steve got a small apartment in the centre of New York, he was seen constantly helping with clean up, in support groups helping as many people as he could. He was keen on trying to rebuild society as much as he could. A couple of times a month he would come and check up on us. He would say the same thing each time, "don't work too hard."

He had given up hope of getting them back, but nonetheless Nat and I were still on comms with Carol, the raccoon, the Dora Milaje and Rhodey. Carol was the one mainly trying to find a way to get everyone back, but she often came back to Earth.

We had a couple of beers one night and she explained that her friend was sick, and it wasn't looking good. She had explained that her friend's daughter got dusted too, and that she wanted to get them back so she could see her one last time before she passed.

I had a constant pit in my stomach about what had happened. That there was always something more I could do. But the more we searched, the more we read up on things we would never truly understand, the more hope was being lost.

We were trying to stay close but both of us had been slowly becoming emotionally unavailable, still in our grief over our families with no way of explaining it to each other. I still loved her, I would never stop loving her. I just wondered if maybe, with all of this, she had stopped loving me.

I stood in the training room, boxing gloves on, slamming my fists against the bag with everything in me. I didn't want to get out of shape just in case we did figure something out. I needed to be able to fight at all times.

My eyes were forward at all times, I avoided thinking about the past because no matter what, all I could think about was Wanda. Is it just nothingness for her? Is she in hell? If that even exists. Heaven?

I took my anger out on the bag over and over again until I went to take a swing and it was stopped by Natasha. She looked tired and her roots were starting to grow out, my heart skipped a beat at the thought of her red hair being back, but I don't think she wanted it.

"What are you thinking about?" She asked calmly, taking my hand. She pulled me to the bench and started unstrapping my gloves. "I think you can guess," I muttered, looking at my hands and seeing that they were red and bruised.

"I think we should take the day off. Stop looking for 24 hours. Just so we can be ourselves again," she suggested, keeping eye contact away from me almost as if she was nervous as to what I would say.

"You're right." She appeared taken aback by my response. I hadn't taken a break since. Constantly in contact with people trying to get leads to find Clint, to get my sister back, to get my friends back. And when I wasn't doing that, I was training, weights, cardio, anything.

But I knew I was becoming exhausted and I wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer. I excused myself from the interaction to take a shower and change, and once out of the bathroom, I came face to face with my wife once more.

"What did you have planned?" I asked her, and she smiled softly at me, taking my hand once more. "I think you'll know once we arrive," she whispered, pulling me with her. After walking outside of the compound for about 15 minutes I realized where we were. Although I couldn't see it at the time, this was the date Nat took me on, when we were figuring things out again. My heart skipped a beat at her thoughtfulness.

A blanket, and a picnic basket all sat in place. I could look over for miles due to us being at the top of a hill. We sat down and I hugged my knees to my chest tightly. "I'm sorry," I whispered, and I could see out of the corner of my eye, her turning her head towards me. "What are you sorry for?" she questioned. When I didn't answer, she placed her hand on my cheek, and then pulled it towards her so I was looking at her.