The first week after the battle had been rough for the pair. They hadn't left their room, not wanting to leave the safety that they felt in there. It was easy to ignore the world, and so they holed themselves away to feel protected.

The time was mostly spent distracting themselves and each other by reading, binge-watching TV shows, and listening to music. It felt nice and simple.

One night they had played some slower music and ended up slow dancing together for hours, although to an outsider it would look more like awkward shuffling due to Eleanor's sprain. But, they revelled in the moment. It was slow, intimate, soft, and allowed them to just live in the present with each other. Them vs the world.

When the nighttime came it was the hardest, the nightmares were still frequent and strong, but they had learnt which techniques helped each other to be free from their mind's horrors. Eleanor had found that the method she used on the first night, of repeating where they were and that they were safe over and over helped bring Natasha back to the present. Natasha found that if she lifted Eleanor up off of the bed and held her koala style whilst rocking side to side helped her.

They were getting by.

There were daily phone calls from Aunt Sarah wondering how they were doing. When she found out that Eleanor and Nat had been involved in the Battle of New York she immediately panicked and assumed the worst, until she got a rushed message from Eleanor telling them that they were safe in the hospital, pretty banged up but doing okay.

Maria also kept up to date on how they were doing over text over the week until she was finally able to pay them a proper visit. Work had been very busy and stressful for her and the other two Agents understood that. During the visit, Maria could clearly see that they were not fine, but she knew better than to pressure them into talking. If it was just Eleanor she might have pushed a bit harder, but with the two of them, she was just more than happy to provide herself as a distraction.

She ordered in pizza for the two Avengers, and they had a games night for the first time in months. They gossiped about work with information that Maria had found out, laughed at anything and everything, and there were a few times when one of them was launched onto the floor if they were being accused of cheating.

It was nice. It felt normal, and normalcy was something that was desperately needed. That night with Maria reminded both Eleanor and Natasha that this wasn't going to be forever, their normal lives could and would continue, and that was a big breakthrough for them.

That night they weren't as scared to fall asleep, the both of them still work up in a panic at least once, but they weren't as far gone as they usually were, where it could take hours to get back to normal. This continued over the next week again, and they were both immensely proud of each other for the progress they were making, and they made sure that the other knew this.

The occasional bad nightmare would sneak its way in, but they were fully prepared for these now. Most of the time when they were woken up they whispered words of reassurance to each other, and whilst being held would be able to fall back asleep again after a while.

Everything seemed to be falling back into place, they did it. They knew that it was likely that these nightmares were here to stay for a while, but they knew that they would be able to cope with them together, as a team.

---

It had officially been two weeks since the Battle, and Eleanor was scheduled for a check-up at the hospital to see if she could go back to walking normally. Both were hoping that they would be able to as it would mean that they could start booking viewings for apartments that they had seen and liked online.

Eleanor knew that Nat was getting excited and slightly impatient at wanting to go and attend a bunch of viewings, so she was actually quite anxious about the appointment, worried about letting Nat down if she had to keep off of her feet for most of the time for another week. Even though it wouldn't be her fault.

"Come on then, let's go see if you need to get your leg amputated", Nat joked as she helped Eleanor out of the passenger seat in the hospital car park.

"One more joke about my leg Romanoff and I will-".

"You'll what?", Nat interrupted whilst smirking as they reached the hospital entrance.

"I dunno I'll- I'll put pasta sauce in all of your shoes".

"Oh, I'm so scared El", Nat laughed.

"You should be". Eleanor was deadly serious, she did not take pasta sauce threats lightly.

Once they had checked in at reception they only had to wait ten minutes before they were called into one of the examination rooms. Nat sat on a chair next to the Doctor's desk, and Eleanor had to sit on the exam bed. She took the boot off and had to perform some physical exercises, at first it did hurt slightly due to the ache of not using her ankle for a while, which worried her. She was desperate to be able to walk around again. Luckily, after a few minutes of stretching it out again, she was able to move around perfectly fine.

They were informed that the swelling had gone down and there didn't seem to be any major damage seeing as she could move, so she was free to go on both legs.

Nat looked ecstatic as she beamed at her girlfriend from across the room, and Eleanor matched this smile with an equally enthusiastic one. This felt like they could finally say goodbye to what had happened two weeks ago, and start moving on with what they wanted to do. It was the final obstacle and they had moved past it.

They kept their cool as they walked out of the hospital, but once they reached the car Nat stopped Eleanor before she could get into it. She grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up into the air, spinning around in circles a few times. Eleanor wrapped her legs around Nat's waist and the pair laughed.

When they had come to a standstill they just stared at each other with complete adoration in their eyes. "We can find our home", Nat grinned, once again causing Eleanor to smile as well, it was contagious. She loved seeing her this happy.

"I already found mine", Eleanor softly replied.

"Oh?", Nat thought that she had suddenly taken a liking to an apartment that they had looked at online or something.

"You", Eleanor said as she leaned closer to Nat and gave her an Eskimo kiss, Nat's nose cutely scrunching in response. Nat could have sworn that her heart exploded right then and there. She thought that it was impossible to love Eleanor more than she already did, but here she was proving herself wrong on the daily.

Nat gave Eleanor a tight squeeze before putting her on the floor, "Come on, we need to go book some stuff!".

---

Well, the first viewing was a disaster, the building itself was a mess. They should have known that the apartment wouldn't have been any better. The bedroom was quite literally only big enough to fit a double bed in, and the "office space" was a closet.

They couldn't help but laugh as they got back to their car to get to the next viewing on time. Usually, after a bad viewing, a person might feel disappointed, but it was just so clearly a scam as it looked nothing like the photos, so they shared a chuckle before moving on.

The next few viewings were a bit more disappointing. They were close to being what they wanted but something just seemed off about it, and the two couldn't quite place it, so they were disappointed. They didn't expect much, good lighting, 2 bedrooms, and a homey feel. So far none of them felt like it could be their home.

"Hey, the next one could be it, you never know", Eleanor tried to reassure Nat who was sitting in the passenger seat looking utterly miserable as they headed to their next viewing.

"We've seen about ten apartments in the last three days, El. It just seems like there's nowhere here that's home, and we have to go back to work next week", she pouted.

"There's gonna be somewhere for us, I promise you".

Nat nodded along but really didn't really believe her. She was in complete doubt about this idea now, thinking that she was a fool for thinking that she could do something normal like this, firmly believing that she was just not meant for that kind of life, no matter how much she wanted it.

She was snapped out of the self-deprecating thoughts however by a very upbeat Eleanor squealing in delight as she parked.

"Huh?", Nat mumbled as she looked in the direction that Eleanor was before a smile appeared on her face.

The apartment building that they were going to be viewing. The street was lovely, and there was no litter or graffiti, there was an adorable little coffee shop a few doors down. Little patches of grass dotted about with individual trees planted. The building itself looked clean, the brick was vibrant and welcoming, and all of the windows had little french balcony pieces where people had hung up plants and fairy lights.

Faith had been restored in the two Agents as they happily walked hand in hand to the real estate agent to take them to the apartment. There were fourteen floors, and the apartment they were looking at was on the eleventh. The elevator ride to the top was smooth and didn't seem like a steel deathtrap like the other buildings they had visited, so that was a bonus.

When the estate agent opened the door and allowed the two women to enter, their jaws dropped. It was lovely. Immediately as you walk through the door you are in the living room. The floor was a nice, smooth and polished mahogany hardwood, with Dorset cream coloured walls. It was spacious and the windows provided lots of natural light. There was a brick fireplace on the same wall as the door was, which wasn't necessary, but a nice edition.

When looking to the left there is a small kitchen area, small but organised in a way that it would feel big enough. Half of the kitchen was exposed to the rest of the living room, and the other half had a closed plan but had a cute small wooden door in the wall to look in and out of and pass food through.

Next to the kitchen was a bathroom, very small but would do the job especially as the main bathroom was the bedroom's en-suite.

To the right were two doors, one of them was the second bedroom, but was realistically too small to be a bedroom so is an office space, and the door on the right was the bedroom.

The bedroom was also very spacious, with a cream coloured carpet and white walls. There was a built-in wardrobe, and the en-suite door was on the same wall. The en-suite was huge, it had a shower and a bathtub, as well as a sink with a very large counter, and a toilet of course.

"So, what do you think?", the estate agent asked the pair after they had looked around. Eleanor and Nat just looked at each other and nodded enthusiastically. This felt like home.

"Yeah, this is the one", Eleanor told the agent who smiled and started discussing the process. They were buying, not renting, so they went through some details surrounding the mortgage, and explained that they would get the key in a week once all of the paperwork had gone through.

The two were thrilled. It really was the perfect home for them and was in a good location. The Triskelion was only a fifteen-minute drive away, so getting to work wouldn't be an issue. Now all they had to do was wait for the keys. They had found a home amidst the madness that people call life.

They headed home to immediately pack but found that when they walked into their room at SHIELD the mood shifted. This was the first space that they had shared together, where Eleanor had comforted Nat about Budapest all of those years ago, the countless movie nights and game nights, the space where they had said their first "I love you"'s. A lot of meaningful moments are linked back to this room, and it would be hard to say goodbye.

The two gave each other watery smiles as they took in the fact that they were moving onto bigger things, and leaving small parts of them behind. The packing could wait until tomorrow, first, they just wanted to have one final evening in their room. Their first home.