Way We Go Down ｡ Natasha Romanoff

EPILOGUE

Wakanda
2016

The years had passed by quickly, one soldier being asleep for the days and nights that had drifted by in what almost felt like a blink of an eye. When Alec Thayer had finally opened his eyes to the harsh sunlight in East Africa, he found unfamiliar faces glancing across at him. A young princess, who was gifted with wonderful creations and a brilliant mind had smiled and explained how he had ended up in Wakanda, alongside his old friend who had been a Winter Soldier too. For roughly three years, Alec Thayer had spent his time frozen and only a few weeks ago Poppy Thayer had made the decision to move him to a safer place with Bucky Barnes and in the deep tangles of Africa, he had woken without the demons humming in his mind. The Princess of Wakanda had cured him. 

The weeks of training and gaining control over his mind had taken a lot of strength out of him, but he was determined to fight against the horrors that had controlled his life for too long. When the time was finally right, when a new battle against a foe was looming on the horizon, his family came back to him. 

He had heard the stories of how a few selected Avengers were now in hiding and how Natasha was no longer Black Widow, her hair even dyed a shade of blonde. He had imagined meeting her in so many different ways, so when she finally came to Wakanda, he almost cried with the very sight of the spy he loved so deeply, who had been through quite a lot while he had been sleeping away his demons that would never truly be gone. 

"Hey, stranger." Natasha Romanoff smoothly greeted him, her shoulder pressed against the doorframe of a laboratory he had been stuck in for days on end lately. He had spent a lot of time in the outskirt of Wakanda with Bucky Barnes, living in a hut and mastering their minds again. He almost felt strange being cooped up in a room in the middle of a highly advanced city. She stood there like some sort of angel, but he knew she was not. Too much pain and blood were on her hands, but thankfully, his own darkly bruised heart matched her own. 

Alec smiled. "What took you so long, Natalia?"

The nickname that connected so deeply with her past didn't even bother her now, she was just glad to finally have Alec Thayer back in her life without the tangled mess he had found himself in years ago. "I've been busy, mister. Heard about a little thing called a war? You should have stuck around for that one. We could have used your help."

Smoothly, the spy inched closer to him, her eyes taking in his freshly shaved beard and his long hair that brushed his shoulders. When she finally reached him, her hands fanned his shoulder blades as he sat down in a chair. With a devilish grin, his hands snaked around her hips, holding her in place. "I think you guys had it covered." He glanced up at her, admiring her new hair colour. "I do have to say, I miss the red."

Nat sighed, "Me too."

"I've missed you too," Alec went on. "How about we catch up? There's a double bed upstairs with my name written all over it."

A laugh caught in her throat, "Very tempting."

"But?"

The spy tilted her head back to the doorway, where a bright eyed nineteen-year-old girl waited now, a polka-dot umbrella clutched in her hands. Poppy Thayer had grown up a little bit more since she had said her goodbyes to her brother again. She had graduated Lockwood Boarding School for the Gifted in Science and Technology and was now a student at Caltech in California, along with her part-time work for Tony Stark as a junior engineer. She was quite the busy bee, but it had kept her mind full of study and work while her brother was asleep. "Because you've got another visitor that's been dying to see you." Natasha said, leaning forward and dropping a kiss to his forehead while she stepped aside, her hand never leaving his shoulder though. She feared if she let him go, he might disappear again. 

Poppy almost squealed when she stepped into the room, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Without thinking, she had pushed herself into her brother's embrace and closed her eyes against his chest before tears could swell in her eyes. "You're not allowed to get captured, or go to sleep again for years. Do you hear me, Sleeping Beauty?"

Alec nodded his head, holding warmly onto his little sister. He felt finally at peace with his family around him. He may have missed so many years with being away, but he had the rest of his life to make up for it and he was not about to let that opportunity slip away, not again. He was finally home. "I'm not going anywhere. Not ever again."

- author's ramblings - 

*wipes at tears* Thank you so much for reading my little story y'all. Poppy, Alec and Nat have been a very huge part of my writing in the last few months, they're truly such an iconic family and mean so much to me. Nat really doesn't get much love in the fandom, which is why I took this plot from my bestie starfragment to begin with and I'm really hoping I did your plot justice!! I feel like we've had a lot of ups and downs and I've certainly thrown some curve balls in there for you (Elliott being a HYRDA sleeper agent omg her story will be coming soon dw) but it's been such a wonderful journey, and I would like to thank everyone who stuck around and invested your time and effort into my characters. Thank you to the readers that actually supported me with votes and comments and didn't simply ghost/silent read because that sucks. If you wanna' leave your thoughts on the entire story or ending or whatnot, that'd be swell. Originally, this story was going to end with Alec dying and sacrificing himself for Poppy and Nat, but I couldn't do it because he deserves the world. So happy ending, yay. Anyway, this story ends here and I will not be writing it into Infinity War, that's not to say Alec won't appear in other stories though. I've got a few extra scenes coming too, which are going to be very fluffy, so enjoy!! 

- tinkertaydust x