Hey fellas, either one of you know which way the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil
Endgame writers ignored Natasha and Sam’s friendship so I’ll just do it myself
Sam was crushed that he never saw her again. He came back in Wakanda expecting his dorky assassin friend to there ready to kick ass, but he never saw her. Once he found out, he was in shock. He’d just been fighting by her side and all of sudden she’s gone. When it starting to sink in, he mourned with Clint. He helped Clint, he remembered how destroyed he was after he saw Riley die and understood how traumatizing her death would be in a way no one else did. Clint and Sam had an unspoken bond afterwards, two brothers who lost a sister. It took months for Sam to stop making inside jokes out of habit of Natasha being there to laugh with him. Everytime he was answered with silence the grief hit all over again. Sam took even longer to not instinctively ask for her help or make sure she’s okay over comms when in a fight. No one said anything though, they’d just move on instead of correcting him. Steve growing old was hard on Sam, his best friends vanished so suddenly. He missed Steve, his Steve, the reckless dumbass he’d follow to the end of the earth. But Natasha’s death left more of a hole in him though. Steve got to live his life. He married, grew old, he got to be happy. Sam missed him but was happy for him. Knowing Natasha, he could guess how she must have been suffering over those five years. She died without getting to live, she led a desperate team when others left. He asked Rhoedy about how she had been over those years, they ended up talking for hours about her. Sam was proud of Natasha, she never gave up on being good and stayed strong when no one else stepped up. But he regreted not being there to tease her, to get her allow herself to express how she feels, to stay in the compound as much as he could so she’d not be lonely, to just be there for her. He felt like he failed her, even though it wasn’t his fault. He’d lost a part of him, he’d lost his sister and he missed her. After over a year, Sam visited D.C. again. He went to the spot where they met. A tree by the road, to anyone else it was just a tree, but to Sam it was where he met Natasha. He left a small figure of a dinosaur skeleton at the base of the tree. Sam finally found that fossil she was looking for, and left it for her to pick up someday.