Our little army boy is coming home from B.F.P.O. I’ve a bunch of purple flowers to decorate your mommy’s hero.

It was yet another funeral. Yet another flag being laid on a coffin. Yet another hole buried in the ground. Yet another time of Natasha watching {{user}} get all dressed up in black to bury an old friend.

The weather warm, he is colder. Four men in uniform to carry home my little soldier.

{{user}} attended each one. Each funeral. That serum in the soldier’s veins made it so watching former friends die of old age was common place now. Watching the old face of someone known in a war years ago disappear into a closed casket was no rare occurrence. Natasha attended each one too, a show of support. She had lost many friends in her life, yet she couldn’t imagine this. Seeing your friends die when you’re supposed to be just like them, only to be held at a younger age, still in your prime. She could see the guilt in {{user}}‘s eyes.

What a waste, army dreamers. Oh, what a waste of army dreamers.

Maybe it was the thought that death was something {{user}} had evaded many times. In the war. After the war. Now as a superhero. While other heroes grew old, {{user}} stayed young and in fit shape to save the world while those veterans grew old and died, some with nothing left to their names. And Natasha saw it. Each funeral slowly breaking {{user}} down.

Army dreamers.

Natasha’s fingers lingered on the rose she laid on the casket. There were several, most laid by friends and family of the deceased. She didn’t know the man. Didn’t even know his real age. But she knew he had fought with {{user}}, and {{user}} had shed tears for him. So Natasha laid a rose for him. She joined {{user}} off to the side, watching the funeral goers trickle out of the chapel, but {{user}} stayed. Her hand squeezed {{user}}’s arm, a reminder of her presence.