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5 YEARS AND 4 MONTHS AFTER DECIMATION

PRESENT DAY
OCTOBER 7, 2026

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Marlena took a deep breath and sat her water bottle down at her side. She looked at the empty gym in front of her and frowned, her thoughts wandering back years when she and members of the team would train together or spar with one another. Now it seemed as if she and Natasha were the only ones left. Okoye and the remaining Avengers were off handling issues across the globe under Natasha's command. Tony finally had the family he desired, so he wasn't around as much anymore. Clint was running across the globe wreaking havoc. Steve and Marlena visited every once in a while to see Natasha, but for the most part the two managed to find a way to live without the world of avenging. It wasn't that they were through fighting, but after Thanos it seemed almost as if there wasn't much left to fight for.

After several more minutes of being lost inside her head, Marlena finally stood up. She wiped her face clean of sweat and grabbed her gym bag. She ventured through the compound until she found the room she was looking for, and once she had, she stepped inside. Natasha was sitting alone with her legs propped up on the table in front of her and her eyes were brimming with tears. A small smile pulled at the corner of Marlena's lips and she started toward the redhead.

"You look like shit," Marlena teased her.

Natasha chuckled and wiped the tears from her face. Even after so many years, she still felt the painful effects of losing her teammates—her family. As someone who wasn't big on expressing emotion, she feared she'd never find a way out, but she figured the pain was the price of love, and she loved her team. "It's been a rough few years," she answered with a sigh.

Marlena walked over to her. She sat her bag down and grabbed a chair. She pulled it over to Natasha and sat down beside her, her head falling onto the redhead's shoulder. "Tell me about it," she replied.

"I've missed you," Natasha told her.

Marlena smiled softly and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly within her own. "I've missed you, too. I also meant to bring you the present I got you from Nice today, but Steve was rushing me, so I'll have to get back to you on that."

"Oh," Natasha hummed and placed her head over top of Marlena's. "It's been months since you two got back, I almost forgot about it. What is it?"

"Exactly what you told me you wanted plus a little bit more," Marlena answered her. "I got us matching friendship bracelets."

"Please tell me you're joking."

Marlena laughed and nodded her head. "I sort of am, I did get you that bracelet you wanted. Y'know, the one with your name engraved in Cyrillic script? You should've seen the look on the woman's face when I said your name after telling her I was getting it for a friend."

Natasha smiled and pulled away to look at Marlena. "Red text?"

"Of course."

She released her hold on Natasha and moved to prop her feet onto the desk. She sat back in her seat, clapping her hands to her thighs. Natasha grabbed her left hand and pulled it into view, her green eyes studying the ring sitting on Marlena's finger. It was a 14 karat white gold diamond ring. It was a very beautiful diamond; Steve had chosen it himself, with a bit of help from Tony, and Marlena was absolutely in love with it. Overall, the ring cost around $11,000, but Steve didn't regret it at all. He would've spent more, but it was all he had, and she knew regardless he'd done more than enough.

"It looked smaller in the picture you sent me," Natasha murmured and returned Marlena's hand back to her.

Marlena smiled as she looked over her ring and placed her hand on her lap. She shouldn't have been wearing her ring due to her time at the gym, but sometimes she was quite the forgetful person. "It's beautiful, ain't it?"

"It is," Natasha nodded but frowned when a thought popped into her head. "What did you ever do with your wedding rings from your marriage to Bucky?"

Marlena's expression changed in an instant and she glanced at Natasha before looking down at her hands, or her ring, more specifically. She wasn't sure why Natasha had asked that question, but she wasn't bothered by it the way she would've been three years ago. In fact, she now welcomed conversations about her lost loved ones; it helped ease the ache within her due to their absence. "I destroyed them during my breakdown back home."

"Oh."

"Why do you ask?"

"I just wasn't too sure what you decided to do with them," Natasha answered her, and she laughed quietly to herself as an old memory crossed her mind. "They were really expensive, and I know this because Steve, Sam, and I helped him pick them out."

"My definition of expensive or your definition of expensive?"

"Definitely yours." The redhead laughed as the memory played over in her mind, "he was very proud of himself."

"He should've been."

"So should Steve," Natasha added. "He did an awesome job with the ring and an even better job picking just the right woman to give it to."

"I like to think I picked the right man to wear it for." Marlena smiled softly as she thought of Steve, "Being with him has been everything I never thought it would be."

"And in the end, that's all that matters," Natasha said to her. "I've watched your relationship with him evolve so much over the years. I'm not all that surprised you ended up with him instead of some random hottie from your biology class."

"He's always been one of my best friends apart from you," Marlena started, "Then one day he suddenly became more."

"Was that one day the day he kissed you after Peggy's funeral?" Natasha had a smirk on her face, and Marlena couldn't help but laugh at it. "I remember the look on your face; I remember how troubled you seemed trying to deny that the two of you were anything more than friends at that point."

"I can't lie to you, Nat." Marlena gave a sad sigh, "Bucky left me, and when he did he left this void inside me. Steve was there, and he helped fill that void just enough for me to know I actually felt something for him, no matter how insignificant those feelings seemed to me at the time. He picked me back up and he loved me when the one person who was supposed to couldn't, because he thought leaving was a better option than staying."

"Bucky didn't have a choice," Natasha reminded her, though Marlena already knew this. It was a fact Marlena had always resented, but it was out of her control. "I know it probably killed him to leave you and Steve and everyone else behind."

"I know that." Marlena frowned and eyed the ring on her finger once more, "And I still love Bucky so much, and I know if Thanos hadn't happened we'd still be happily married and absolutely loving life with one another, but he's gone and we're not. I never imagined being capable of loving someone else the way I loved him, but then I spent these last few years with Steve, and with each passing day I let the feelings I was forced to bury sneak their way back to the surface, and now I'm here, irrevocably in love with my deceased husband's best friend."

"Don't say that like you're trying to find a way to punish yourself for loving Steve," Natasha chastised her. "I understand the whole premise of girl code and guy code, but I don't think those rules apply in this situation."

"And why don't they?"

"Because your husband died, and through that pain you managed to find someone who made you feel worthy of being loved again. Bucky would've wanted you to be happy, and hell, what better person for you to be happy with than the man he used to walk through fire for?" Natasha grabbed Marlena's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, "You felt guilty for years, I know you did, but you realized the only way for you to be happy was to stop feeling guilty and go after what you wanted."

Marlena could feel the tears burning in her eyes as they continued talking about Bucky. It felt good to finally say his name without wanting to level an entire building, but she could not deny she missed him tremendously. He was no longer the force that drove her romantic love, but he was still such an important person in Marlena's life. He always would be, despite whether or not he was gone or standing at her side. "I miss him so much, y'know?"

"I know you do," Natasha squeezed her hand in her own, "I miss him, too. I miss them all. You have no idea what I would give to hear Sam's annoying voice again."

Marlena couldn't help but chuckle. "I miss watching Wanda try to cook our family dish. She would get so stressed out trying to make it perfect that it would always end terribly. She dropped an entire can of paprika into the pot one time, it was horrifying."

"We lost some very special people," Natasha said quietly, her eyes once again brimming with tears. She leaned her head on Marlena's shoulder and stared at the table in front of her. She missed everyone. She missed everyone so much it physically hurt, and she hated it. "I'd do anything to have them back."

"You and I both."

The two women sat in the silence for several minutes pondering over the thoughts of those they'd lost. It'd been too long since they'd actually been capable of talking about anyone, so it felt good to finally have that small sense of closure and release.

When Steve appeared at the door, the two women turned their attention toward him, but they didn't say anything. Natasha simply wondered why he was there, while Marlena had completely forgotten he was supposed to pick her up. Her and Natasha had gotten lost in their conversation, but Marlena was okay with that.

"Am I interrupting something?" Steve questioned the women with a small smile on his face. He could see the moisture shining in their eyes and knew they'd been crying. He wouldn't press, however.

"No, we were just talking," Marlena answered him.

"What are you doin' here, Rogers?"

"I came to pick up my girl and see a friend."

"Your friend is fine," Natasha told him.

Steve started towards the desk. He didn't believe Natasha, of course. Aside from Marlena, Steve had also been a major help to Natasha during the last five years. While Natasha was getting better, she still had her days, and Steve always seemed to show up right on time. "You know, I saw a pod of whales when I was coming over the bridge..."

"In the Hudson?" Natasha asked.

Marlena let out a breath. She knew what Steve was doing, and she knew Natasha wasn't going to like it.

"There's fewer ships, cleaner water."

"You know," Natasha tried hard to suppress her tears, "if you're about to tell me to look on the bright side, I'm gonna hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich."

"I'm eating the rest of this." Marlena grabbed half of the sandwich and took a bite.

Steve shook his head at Marlena and walked over to sit at the table in front of the two women. "I keep telling everybody that they should move on and grow—some do, but not us."

"If I move on, who does this?" Natasha asked.

"Maybe it doesn't need to be done."

"I used to have nothing, and then I got this—this job, this family, and I was better because of it," Natasha said with a soft smile. Her eyes turned red from the amount of crying she'd done and her face was flushed. "Even though they're gone, I'm still trying to be better."

Marlena was left in a heap of emotions over Natasha's exchange with Steve, and she wiped her face free of the tears that managed to fall. She related more to Natasha's words than she ever thought she would. "This family was better because of you, too, Nat...it is better because of you.

"She's not wrong," Steve added. "I still think we all need to get a life, though."

"You first," Natasha teased him.

A notification popped up in front of Natasha and she opened it. A video display showed Scott Lang, who hadn't been seen or heard from in five years, standing outside in front of a gate talking to the camera. The sight of him was strange, nonetheless, though it sent a warm feeling coursing through Marlena's body despite her assumption the video was simply an old file the system had dredged up.

"Uh, is anyone home?" Scott called to the camera. "This is Scott Lang! We met a few years ago at the airport in Germany."

Marlena furrowed her brows and glanced at Steve and Natasha. "This isn't an old message, is it?"

"Nat?" Steve urged after several seconds of silence from Natasha.

"No," Natasha shook her head and looked at Steve and Marlena. "That's the front gate."

The three of them hurried out of the room and out of the building. They were more than ready to welcome Scott back to reality, though they weren't ready for the change his presence was about to make in their own reality.