Chapter Text
The morning Grant disappeared had been a fairly calm one at the Fury household, even though Nick had woken to a frantic call from Melinda.
Despite badly wanting to go out and start looking for Grant, Nick knew that wasn't possible to do. He had Natasha and Bruce to worry about and had to keep to their schedule for their sakes.
So instead, he'd started about their usual morning routine, beginning with getting ready for the day.
Then he went to the kids rooms and woke Natasha up, since Bruce was already finishing homework at his desk.
Natasha was going to have a half day at school, working till lunchtime and then being brought home after lunch. Fury was back at school, since it had been a few weeks since Natasha had come home from the hospital.
Everyone had been so busy that yesterday Nick had finally been able to tell Natasha that they would go shopping after her half day. He would take her to get ice cream or a milkshake at the diner and then they would go around various stores to pick out items for her bedroom as well as clothes and school supplies.
Then they would collect Bruce at school, stop off at the grocery store and all help pick out something for dinner.
So despite how much Nick wanted to go out searching, not only was in not possible but he knew deep down that it wasn't likely to help in the slightest. That didn't stop him constantly checking his phone for updates as he made breakfast though.
Calling the kids down, Nick set the food on the table and took his seat, hoping for a good day, for both his family and Phil and Melinda's.
...
Natasha stood in front of the mirror, clumsily adjusting her sweater. She'd been able to go without the sling for a few days but her hand and arm were nowhere near completely okay. She struggled a lot with holding things, with the pain, with the random numbness. So putting on a sweater should have been easy but since her hand had decided it wanted to not feel shit for a while, she was struggling.
But finally, she'd gotten it on. She'd chosen the dark purple one because even though red was her colour, at the moment it had just been reminding her of blood so...not good, really. And purple was Clint's colour and well, she'd been missing him a lot.
She'd been missing all of them a lot. Tony's jokes, Bucky's sharp tongue, Steve's mother-henning, Thor's brightness. The way they made her feel important, part of something, not alone.
Yeah, she was actually looking forward to lunchtime, when they would all sit out in the field like old times. They'd arranged it as soon as they'd heard Natasha's schedule.
Steve had suggested they do something they hadn't in a while-a sort of picnic/potluck/gossip session.
Basically, each person would bring one food for them all to share.
Natasha and Bruce had spent the whole evening making their contributions. Bruce focused on his blueberry muffins (vegan and downright delicious and also Tony's favourite). The boy had blushed furiously when Natasha pointed that out.
Natasha had been stuck on what to make for days. She barely remembered anything food related from her childhood. The hazy memories she had included some sort of Russian bread/bun thing? And after a lot of research she'd finally found the name of the item: Pirozhki! As she'd flicked through the recipes, a warmth had settled in her chest and she knew for sure that those were what she remembered her mama making. So she tried her hand.
The first batch failed miserably and set off the smoke alarm. Nick had stepped in to help with the second batch and though they weren't perfect, the three had split one and they were actually pretty delicious.
Not exactly like she remembered but she hoped in time she would remember and be able to make the same as her mama had.
Beef ones were apparently popular so even though her and Bruce didn't eat meat, she'd made them ones for the rest of the boys. Then she'd made a potato and vegetable one and one top of all that, a dessert one with caramelized apples.
They'd been in the kitchen for hours, Bruce sticking around to help long after his muffins had cooked.
For the first time in a while, Natasha found herself looking forward to eating as opposed to it being a chore or something to pass the time or even something she felt guilty about because she didn't deserve food or hadn't earned it.
She had very proudly, though still feeling guilty, bought her own ingredients. It had taken a lot of talking and reassuring from Nick and Bruce for her to understand that the money Nick gave her was already hers. The government gave him money to look after her and after the necessities had been paid for, what remained was hers and Nick wasn't going to keep a single part of it.
So she'd perhaps gone overboard at the store, buying more than she could ever possibly need because hey, she apparently had no impulse control and since she had pretty much never set foot in a big ass grocery store, so much of it was new to her.
Besides mountains of snacks she would probably never eat, she'd gotten a cheesy card for each of her friends, Clint and Nick. They were all various thank you cards with notes inside to tell them each how grateful she was for them.
Nick and Bruce had already had their's, proudly displaying them in the living room and the others sat in her bag for lunch time.
Now that the sweater debacle was over, Natasha headed downstairs.
She made sure her Piroshki's were packed up in boxes and in a bag and that she had all her school stuff, including her falling apart notebook and broken binder. She was actually quite excited to get new supplies.
Sitting down at the table, Natasha shared a small smile with Bruce and Nick before scooping some eggs onto her plate.
She'd never had so much food in her life and had probably eaten more in the past week then she usually did in at least two, maybe three. She was sure she'd probably put on a lot of weight already, but she was struggling to stop, despite the guilt.
Having barely any food, constantly worrying about her next meal, never knowing if she would be able to eat that day had now morphed into literally being able to eat what she wanted whenever she wanted and she could not stop.
The food on the table did not last long with two hungry teenagers so soon they were clearing up and heading out to the car.
Yeah, Natasha thought, as she leaned her head against the window, hopefully today would be a good day.
And if not good, fine would be good enough by her.
A fine day.