Chapter Text
After years of training and, lets be honest, begging - it was finally my first day as a fully-fledged member of the newly reformed Avengers. So much had changed since that fateful battle nearly a year ago between the good of this word and the evil of Thanos. But I’d survived. I couldn’t claim to have thrived, but I’d survived. And for awhile there, that had been the hardest thing.
Not everyone had survived though.
My heard squeezed tightly in my chest as I remembered those who hadn’t. Especially Nat. She’d become a mother to me after my grandfather died. She’d been my rock, my mentor. She’d been there for me since the beginning really. She’d even been there during the dark times. After my world had been completely altered . . . After HYDRA.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips as I recalled those early days after HYDRA had first taken me. The sound in the otherwise quiet hallway shook me from my melancholy thoughts. Nat hadn’t taught me to dwell on ghosts of the past. They couldn’t hurt me now anyway. She would have wanted me to move on. I glanced up at the ceiling, my hand over my heart. Just for you Nat. I would try.
I took a deep breath, plastered a casual (or at least I hoped it looked casual) smile on my face and got ready to meet the rest of the team. Sam had told me that we would be meeting at 0900 sharp. I checked my watch. I still had twenty minutes. My smile suddenly became a lot more genuine. I could do a LOT in twenty minutes. My eyes turned upwards once again to find a conveniently placed air vent right above me. A lot indeed.