Things Gone Wrong

How had things gone so wrong, so fast? For the first time in a long time, things had been going well. The Avengers had been protecting from all sorts of evil. SHIELD had their backs. For the first time, she was a hero.

Natasha had felt like her years in the Red Room had been made up for. The good finally outdoing the evil; the blood on her ledger finally being washed away after all those years.

But now, she wasn't so sure. How long had those… things been controlling SHIELD? How many of her missions were corrupted? How much blood had been added to ledger instead of washed away?

Natasha tried to keep her mind off of it by focusing on the road, but every time she looked in the rear view mirror, he mind would wander back to it. Celeste Middleton and Jimmy Novak were in the back. Celeste had fallen asleep miles back, being it was three in the morning. Oddly, Jimmy seemed wide awake. His eyes were fixed outside.

Tony was wide awake as well. His eyes were glued to his Stark Pad, looking over the battle footage. Jimmy said he would explain everything when they got somewhere safe, but Tony was convinced he would figure it out before then.

Thor had flown ahead to tell the others that they were safe. Thor had taken SHIELD's fall by far the best. Although, he didn't have any personal connections to SHIELD, so there was nothing really to mourn for him.

Off in the distance, she could see the bright lights of New York. Despite all that happened there, it was still one of the busiest cities in America. It was the city that never sleeps. It was the city that could recover from even the worst fate. Natasha hoped that SHIELD would do the same.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

"Did you find a place for everyone to sleep?"

Bruce quietly sat himself on the couch and seemed to sink into it. "There is enough beds to sleep a small city in here. Luckily enough, almost none of them are taken. I set them all up on the third floor. JARVIS is watching them now."

Clint flung himself onto the couch as well, leaning his head on Bruce's shoulder without thinking, "Are they doing ok?"

"From what I can tell, they should be fine. Well, except for maybe Samuel. He hasn't woken up yet. Clara is suffering from a minor concussion and a broken leg. Dean has some serious injuries, but they should heal with time. Kevin seems to be in a bit of shock, which makes sense. He is just a kid after all."

"How about you?" Clint asked, feeling a little out of it himself, "You doing ok?"

"I'm fin-" Bruce stopped himself mid-sentence. He wanted to say he was fine. He really did, but in truth, he wasn't. He had found on of his very few friends dead. The man had died alone. Steve had died alone.

Clint quickly filled the silence, "It's late, Bruce. Really late. Go get some sleep. I'll wait up for the others. We'll figure this out when we've all gotten some rest. We all need some tonight."

With a sigh, Bruce nodded his head and headed off to bed. Before he left the room, he turned back and gently said, "You're not a machine, Clint. You need rest as well. JARVIS will keep an eye on the others. Remember, even birds need to sleep every once in awhile." With that, he left.

Clint sat on the couch a little while longer. He couldn't help but to stare in wonder at the city below. The city that never sleeps. Even now, at three in the morning, people were running around like ants. Buildings were lit up with people working away inside.

He knew that The Avengers weren't going to be like that after everything that had happened. They would never be able to recover as fast as New York had. Especially after Steve. . .

How had things gone so wrong so fast?

A/N: So this only took like a year to get up… Oops! I haven't finished editing Stranger Things Have Occurred, but I thought I would start on it's sequel. I have been working on some other stuff that I'll probably post at some point… Maybe? I have lots of idea's for Stranger Things Have Happened, so I hope you stick with it!