NOTES: Thanks, as always, to the_wordbutler for cleaning up my words and pushing me to write.

And with this update ends another story in Nadiaverse. Now for the sad news.

The 180 Days 'verse will continue as scheduled, as will The Cellist, but Nadiaverse is going to take a bit of a break. Two reasons for that are 1) I need to write this Sam/Steve story that's been in my head for a while now or it will never see the light of day. 2) Work is about to get crazy. I'm a fourth of the way through a month of out-of-town training. As soon as I get back, my school year starts. I'm teaching an extra class this year and have a hefty subject load to cover. As a result, I need to keep my focus on work for a bit in order to make sure I'm doing justice to my students and the subject matter.

Therefore, AT THE ABSOLUTE LATEST, you'll see the return of Nadiaverse mid-November. I whole-heartedly realize that is four months from now, and I really am sorry about that. Hopefully I can get my crap together sooner than expected. Or I may just use the time to build up enough of a buffer that I don't have to stress about quickly writing crappy and/or short chapters just to have updates done.

TL;DR: Three one-shots will start mid-November on the usual every other week update schedule. First Duty, the next in the multi-chapter Nadiaverse stories, will start in January at the absolute latest.

I'm really sorry to have to do this, and I promise you will get more words. But it just won't be as quickly as either of us would like.

Sorry to bum you out before you start reading.

"Where'd you learn to make fire, Daddy?"

Natasha saw Steve's grin in the light of the campfire. He poked it a few more times to make sure it was going to hold before he sat down on folding chair next to Natasha.

"My friend taught me while I was in the Army. He grew up in the country, and his family went camping all the time when he was a kid."

"You didn't go camping or make fires?" Nadia asked.

"No, Bug, I lived in the city. Fires weren't really allowed."

After much debate of where to spend some family time over the weekend, Nadia had ended the conversation by declaring she wanted to go camping. Her parents knew the sole reason why, but they were willing to play along. They retreated to the woods of Maine, leaving most of their communication devices behind (just a Stark satellite phone in case things went to hell). They camped deep in the woods, away from anyone who might recognize them or someone with a telephoto lens on a camera. Pepper had offered to find them a little cabin to stay in, but both Steve and Natasha had plenty of experience sleeping under the stars and were just fine giving that experience to their daughter.

"Can I do it?" Nadia asked, her mind focused solely on the fire and what it signaled as she started to climb down from her mother's lap.

"No," Natasha answered, wrapping her arms around Nadia. "Not until you're older." Nadia slumped with a sigh, but didn't argue.

Steve rolled his lips to keep from smiling. After poking at the fire one last time, he looked up at Natasha. "Think it's hot enough?"

"I don't know," she replied coyly. Jostling Nadia lightly on her lap, she asked, "Think it's a big enough fire to roast marshmallows?"

"'Mores?" Nadia gasped.

"That's the only reason why you wanted to go camping," Steve answered. "Look in my bag."

Nadia hopped off of Natasha's lap and—with some help from her mother—pulled out a bag of jumbo marshmallows almost as big as she was. She bounced her way over to her father, making sure to stay back away from the fire. Natasha dug out the graham crackers and chocolate bars.

"We forgot sticks," Steve announced as he stood and wiped his hands on jeans. "Let's go find some," he told Nadia before hoisting her up to sit on his shoulders.

Natasha grabbed the bag of marshmallows from Nadia, who saw the bag as white, fluffy gold, and wished them well on their search. She listened as Steve and Nadia debated about quality of sticks, debating proper size and shape. Rarely was Natasha afforded such quiet and sweet moments in her life. And now she had the opportunity for sweeter memories, but she doubted her life would stay quiet with another child.

Soon enough, father and daughter returned with a trio of sticks to use for roasting marshmallows. "I think she just likes to watch them burn," Steve commented quietly to Natasha. "Wonder where she gets that from?" Natasha shoved him, but didn't disagree.

Once they'd all eaten their fill of the treat, and after the struggle of wiping down a sticky three-year-old in the middle of the woods, Steve grabbed Nadia to sit on his lap. She wiggled and bounced, her sugar high kicking in. He shot Natasha an apologetic look, and then began a game of tag with her, their talk having to wait a bit longer.

While the two of the chased each other around, Natasha practiced what she was going to say for the hundredth time. But no matter how many times she went through the talk in her head, it never felt right. How was a three-year-old supposed to understand family planning?

After twenty minutes of tag, and then hide-and-seek, Steve once again grabbed a less squirmy Nadia and plopped her down on his lap. "Now or never," he told Natasha.

She nodded and took a deep breath. Once this conversation was done, she knew she might be out of reasons to say no to the gift Frigga had given them. "What did you think about being around Mister Jasper's daughters? Did you have fun?"

"Sometimes," Nadia answered. "I missed you."

"We missed you, too," Natasha reassured. "But what did you think about spending time with sisters?"

Nadia gave a big shrug, her shoulders almost touching her ears.

"What were some good things about it?" Steve asked.

Nadia moved her focus to playing with the hem of her t-shirt before saying, "One of them would play with me when I asked. They were nice."

"Would you like to be a sister?" Natasha asked.

Nadia's face shot up in fear. "I have to go back to their house? You're leaving?"

"No, sweetie," Steve said, rubbing his hand on her back to calm her down. "That's not how you would become a sister. Mama and I would have a baby."

The girl's eyes widened as she looked back and forth between her parents. Once the surprise settled in, she began to fold in on herself. "The sisters had to share."

"Their toys?" Steve asked.

"Mama and Daddy," Nadia explained. "I like just us."

They all sat quietly after that. Natasha couldn't think of a way to spin Nadia's answer. She couldn't remember what it was like to have parents, but if she got them back, she wouldn't want to share them with other people, either.

Natasha half-listened to Steve ask Nadia questions about stars and what she thought the planets in space looked like. Rising from her chair, she signaled to Steve that she was going to check in. His brow creased in concern for a half second, but he didn't say anything to her about it.

Phone in hand, Natasha walked a distance far enough away that she was sure Steve couldn't easily overhear her, but close enough she could still keep the fire in sight. By memory, she keyed in the number for Clint's cell phone.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"We're in the middle of the woods," she answered with a sigh. "We're fine."

"Then why are you calling?"

"Because Nadia said she didn't want siblings." Natasha shook her head. "Why does this hurt?"

"Because it's something you want but you're too chicken to admit it," Clint told her. "She's three, Tasha. I'm supposedly an adult, and half the time I don't know what I want for dinner. You can't make this decision based on what she wants."

"Her life will be affected, too," Natasha argued.

"Yeah, but you never know how good something is or how bad you wanted it until you have it," Clint replied. "Shouldn't you be talking to, I don't know, your husband about this?"

Natasha ignored his question and instead asked another of her own. "What if I'm not capable of loving another one?"

"Nat," he answered, his voice as serious as it ever got. "You are the only person who thinks you wouldn't be able to pull that off. Now get off the phone with me and quit avoiding Steve. He'll start moping. No one wants him to mope."

She hung up without saying anything else and began to trek back to their camp. As she got closer, she saw Nadia's head bob in exhaustion. Steve pulled her against his chest and kissed the top of her head.

Whatever courage Natasha'd built up within her to talk to Steve about how she felt vanished at the sight. A voice in her head, one that had taunted her most of her life, pointed out that she didn't deserve the goodness she already had. She didn't have the right to ask for more.

But then Steve caught her eye, and she was overwhelmed with the urge to tell that voice in her head to shove it. Natasha crossed the distance between them and sat back down in her chair.

"What'd Clint say?" Steve asked quietly. Nadia stirred slightly at the sound of his voice, but didn't wake.

"To not make you mope." She sighed and looked up at the stars. She wasn't great at recognizing and naming constellations. She only knew enough to get her bearings so she knew which direction she was running. "I'm not saying it's going to happen as soon as we get home," she said turning her focus back to Steve, "but I want more than 'just us.'"

Steve's eyebrows shot up. "You're sure?"

Natasha nodded. "You deserve it." She waved him off before he started to argue. "You're not asking me to do this. I want to. I'm selfish, and I'll greedily take as many pieces of you as I can get."

"And what about her?" Steve asked, nodding in Nadia's direction.

"For once, Clint made some sense," Natasha replied. She looked over the little girl asleep in Steve's lap and felt her chest swell. Just the sight of her daughter was enough to warm her cold heart. And then there was this man. This good, strong man who was willing to stick with them, love them, and care for them. Years after the day they made themselves into a family, it still floored Natasha. "Sometimes you don't know you want something until you have it."