˗ˏˋ romanogers oneshots ˎˊ˗

deal with it

set post end game: tony and natasha are dead. 

Steve couldn't accept the fact that Natasha was gone. Not now, not yet. There were so many things he had yet to say to her. There were so many things he wanted to do with her. He was planning on proposing when all the fighting Thanos and getting everyone back was over, but he never got the chance. During the five years after the snap, after he had lost Bucky and everyone else who had mattered to him, Natasha was there for him. 

The first night after the battle of Wakanda, she had went down to his quarters in the middle of the night to find him crying is distraught. Without a word, she had simply snuck under the covers and hugged Steve from behind. At that point in time, they had not been dating yet but they knew that they had feelings for each other. The hugging was something they did as a release, as an act of comfort when either one of them had a nightmare. As much as Natasha hated to admit it, Steve was her security blanket, her comforter, even when he didn't know it. 

A few weeks later when they returned to Avengers Compound, everyone started leaving one by one, giving excuses about it being too painful to stay and they had to move on. This meant that the only two people left were Natasha and Steve. Natasha had nowhere to go, with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers being the only home she had ever known after the Red Room. Steve had an apartment in Brooklyn, but he stayed, hoping that he might get a chance with Natasha. They had movie nights, ordered takeout a lot, went for short runs in the day and evening strolls by night. Slowly they grew closer and closer to the point they were inseparable. They had their first kiss, first proper kiss anyways, their first kiss was on the escalator while on the run during the infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., on the docks, the same one where Steve and the others later mourned her. 

Steve, being the romantic type, insisted on flowers and extravagance and expressed that writing hard copy letters was something he wished to do. Natasha, being a minimalist and someone who wasn't loved before, had found him really cheesy and laughed at him being such a dork, her dork. 

Their relationship progressed smoothly over the course of the next five years and they were almost ready to tie the knot. It had been discussed multiple times and Steve had even managed to find a ring similar to his late mother's. Vintage but classy. And simple enough to fit Natasha's taste but sophisticated enough so that she would love it. 

When he had found out the news of her passing, his world had crashed. She was everything he had left and now he lost her too. He was nothing without her. He could not go on. He felt like his heart had been stabbed a million times and it couldn't be fixed. 

If Natasha was still around, she would simply tell him to get off his ass, grief for a while and deal with it. But she was gone. She wasn't coming back to kick his ass back up again. She wasn't there to hold him through his pain. She wasn't there to tell him to deal with it. She wasn't there. He had lost her for good. 

He flashbacks to the sleepless nights when they simply enjoyed each other's presence and found silent comfort in each other. The nightmares, be it losing her, freezing in time or the Red Room, they would somehow all go away in the presence of the other. 

But now Natasha was gone and for Steve, life was a living nightmare. She had been his pillar of strength, his rock, everything holding him together. With her gone, he had come apart. He couldn't sleep and spent night after night sobbing his heart out, holding on to the notion that there was maybe a small chance at getting her back. 

Months passed and slowly he pulled himself back up and begin to train day and night, not stopping for anything or anyone. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep. All he did was train and train. He would start at 5am with a run outside, taking in the sights of the city where he and Natasha used to explore and hangout. Each spot was a painful reminder of his loss and it hurt. He moved back to his apartment, not wanting to be at the compound when she wasn't there. It was hard to adjust but he did so, slowly, thinking of her every step of the way. He occasionally trained at the compound and visited her room while he was at it, but it hurt. All the memories he had made with her were simply too painful to revisit. On more than one occasion, another one of the remaining Avengers had caught him staring into space, sitting on her bed with tears rolling down his cheeks. His suffering and pain was too terrible to name and no one dared to confront him about it, for the fear of being snapped at. Only time could heal the pain, but even with so much time, there would still be pain. He just had to learn to deal with it. 

A/N: and yet another sad one. i don't know why i find satisfaction in killing characters and crying over them but i just do. anyways, this is set post endgame, like said above. and steve never went back to the past because he's just mourning tasha. anyways, thank you for reading and voting and all the comments!! <<3

^^feb 2021 ++ just fixing some spelling errors here ;)