Avenger's One-shots and Preferences

Amends Made-Natasha Romanoff

This is a sequel to the previous one-shot "Making Amends." For those of you who read it, the reader previously betrayed Natasha, Steve, and Sam when they were on the run after the Civil War incident. Nat took the betrayal hard and the reader tried to make amends with her during the battle of Wakanda in Infinity War.
All was forgiven, but at the expense of the reader being dusted in the snap. Now we see what happens to the two in Endgame.

Plenty of angst and of course a spoiler alert for anyone who still hasn't seen Endgame.

Despair, anguish, pain...those were just a few words to describe what Natasha was feeling right now. Only two days had passed, but it felt like forever when the snap happened. Two days ago, the one person she ever cared about since her days in the KGB turned to ash right in front of her.
Before then, she had been so angry at you after your betrayal. She was so angry that she never imagined she would ever feel such sadness overwhelm her if something had happened to you.

Yet here she was, silently grieving while what was left of her team, plus the new arrival Captain Marvel, formulate a plan to bring you and everyone back that got dusted. You dying wasn't the part that got to Natasha...what really made the whole thing unbearable was that the two of you had just made up right before the snap happened. It wasn't just you making amends though, it was really the first time you actually opened up to her. Even when the two of you were in the Black Widow program together, the two of you never actually connected on this intimate a level before; sure you and her talked, and she had cared enough to help you escape from the program some years after she got out, but this type of connection was never established up until now when you laid bare all those years you envied her and her flawless techniques that put her ahead of you, and she opened up about how what you saw on the outside was just a facade to mask how she really felt in the inside. The two of you had a plan afterwards; to fight and win the battle and make up for time lost between the two of you.

But now that you were gone, that was never going to happen...not unless Nat and the others could find Thanos and the Infinity stones and use the stones to restore things back to the way they were. It was a long shot, but they had to take it. They owed everyone that wasn't in the room they were standing in that much, yourself included.

-------------five years later---------------------

Five years have passed. Five years since the snap and five years since the team's last hope of recovering the stones was taken away from them thanks to Thanos and his brilliant idea to destroy the stones so no one could reverse what he done. Gone was their last hope of bringing back the half of the universe that got dusted...gone was Natasha's chance of ever seeing you again, gone was her chance of holding you close to her and saying all the things she wanted to say the day she forgave you.

Every week, sometimes every day, Natasha would go with Steve to one of those support groups that helped people still left alive overcome the loss they felt from losing loved ones in the snap. Often, Nat would share a little bit, most of it revolving around losing you. She tried her best to stay strong for the sake of all the other lost souls in that room, but deep down, she was slowly dying, knowing that she had lost so many people she ever cared about, you included. In all honesty though, Nat wasn't really sure what the two of you were exactly; sure there was a special connection the two of you developed after the Black Widow program, but nothing had ever crossed into the romantic spectrum. Maybe, just maybe, if the two of you were here together, it could've have become that way. She'll never know...or so she thinks.

At this point, after five years, Nat had actually considered maybe trying to move on like Steve suggested to the support group. But then Scott Lang showed up and gave what remains of the group a new hope, one last chance to bring back things to the way they were before the snap...a chance to go back in time and collect the Infinity stones.
For Nat, this was her one last chance to bring you back, one last chance to make up for the time was lost between the two of you, and then some.