In all of her years, through all her battles, La'tasha Hope had never thought she'd come to stand before men and women of amazing powers and skills and be able to call them friend.

But here she was, sitting on a large tattered mat deep inside the walls of Stark towers with Natalia Romanova. The two had just finished an intense round of one on one sparing and were in desperate need of a break. Neither woman wanted to admit defeat but they both knew the super spy could easily end the fight by snapping her neck.

Good thing they were friends and not enemies.

"Shit." Tasha huffed, taking another long drink of water. "I gotta watch out for your head. I'm going to have a bruise on my hip for a week." She grumbled.

The other woman smirked, though she had to wipe a small trickle of blood from the corner of her perfect lips. Tasha felt a little bit of satisfaction knowing she'd at least made the other woman bleed and while most people would think that was one weird way for friends to think, most people didn't have theirs training them in all things secret spy works.

"Yea well, so long as Robocop doesn't threaten me again." She replied smoothly. Bucky had been less than thrilled when she told him Nat was going to train her but he quickly succeeded when he realized she'd need the training in case Hydra showed its ugly head again.

"It will be Boney you'll have to worry about." A deep voice called from across the room. Bucky sat lazily against the wall watching the women fight. On the outside he looked like a normal gym junkie, sweater, sweat pants, hair tied back and a pair of black leather grip gloves.

It all masked the brooding violence that he could be. Not that it was how he was now. The others, they didn't trust him. The Captain was still edgy around him, but she knew with time they would come to see him as she did.

"I like Mr. Boney." Nat laughed, standing to help Tasha up. The two woman dusted off and headed towards their lone audience.

"Only because he hit me so hard he nearly broke my jaw." Bucky grumbled, leather hand rubbing his still tender chin.

After not hearing from her in nearly two weeks, finding her apartment a disaster, and finding out Bucky had been wanted by every government agency in practically the world, he was none too happy. And Tasha didn't have the courage to face him alone so of course she brought Bucky along. Nat had volunteered as escort but she suspected Nat knew exactly how Boney was going to react.

It didn't help that Bucky, himself, refused to raise a hand in his defense. Tasha had to pry the old man off of him.

Somehow they ended up hugging. Her adopted father had tears running down his wrinkly, sun burnt face and she could hold him, tears of her own making her face flushed. Tasha had been told by some suits that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone about the events leading up to Bucky's capture or after but, like most times in Tasha's life, she refused to play by their rules.

Boney hadn't been too happy to hear about her boyfriend's true past but something in the way he nodded solemnly made Tasha relax a bit. She tried to skip over the part where the Soldier, as she liked to refer to it, had tried to kill her but Bucky wouldn't let her.

Boney had been surprisingly calm, brows scrunched, but patient. He turned to her after Bucky had finished explaining, and asked if she thought she was in danger with him.

She had taken one look at Bucky and declared with all the confidence in the world, "Absolutely not."

And the rest… Well, that's sort of a blur.

Over the course of a month, Boney had made himself a usual in the Avengers workout routine. After Nat let the higher-ups know that Boney was in on the Super Soldier info, they couldn't just leave him be. So they kept an eye on him, letting him visit. He brought an old fashioned coaching skill that kept Bucky from accidently tearing the equipment to pieces.

Tasha looked around, realizing since the first time since it was just her and Mark, that she had a new rag-tagged type of family here. People who, despite their backgrounds, she could trust.

She looked into the piercing blue eyes of her man and smiled. Just one side of her mouth, letting him know exactly what she was thinking about.

"I think it's time to hit the showers." She sighed, mock-despondently.

Nat rolled her eyes, and started mumbling in Russian. Tasha had no idea what the other woman had said, but Bucky was laughing and she didn't mind at all. In fact, she could really get used to that sound…

Done! It's finally done and I'm so sorry if you waited this long for such a short ending. I just wasn't sure how I wanted it to end! I am, however, happy to finally see Tasha with a little bit of a happy ending. I think she deserved it. Bucky too!

-Moonandwinter