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He wasn't there. The growing sense of dread in her stomach intensified, clawing and gnawing at her until Natasha thought it might eat her alive. She watched Bucky disintegrate right before Steve's eyes, watched the stragglers slowly regroup around them. There were so few of them now, and not just because of the enemies they had been fighting; the field was strewn with bodies, but it was the dust that made her fear, that left her frozen in horror. A body they could mourn, a body they could bury, but this...
She tried to hold on to hope. He wasn't there, that meant there was a chance, a chance he was still alive somewhere. For now she could believe. Part of her wanted to cling to that, to stay and comfort Steve, Okoye, Thor; to search the battlefield for wounded, to gather what was left. She could put off the truth and continue to believe, but for how long? And there was another part of her that needed to know, that wanted to shirk all of her duties and run for the jet, for her phone, and call him this very second. For now he was Schrodinger's Clint, a thought that made her smile for the briefest second.
He would have found that hilarious.
She stayed. Despite that desperate need to assure herself he was okay, she stayed. It was only reassuring if it was true, and she couldn't just leave now, not until they had all taken a few minutes, not until she had met Steve's gaze. Even through his grief he could see her fear and knew exactly what she was thinking: the person he loved most in the world was gone, but the fate of Natasha's was still unknown. He nodded.
Silently she slipped away, breaking into a run once she hit the open field. Her body ached from the battle, her hand clutched her side where she suspected a broken rib or two, but she didn't slow down. Adrenaline and fear pushed her forward, and it took every ounce of her strength to keep going, to ignore the random piles of dust at her feet, the confused and sobbing people in the streets. She couldn't help them, she couldn't stop, couldn't... couldn't think. Couldn't let herself. Couldn't... god, he couldn't be... he was fine, he had to be.
It felt like an eternity before she finally reached the jet. Her phone was right where she left it and she snatched it up quickly, almost dropping it as she fumbled with unsteady hands to light up the screen.
It was dead.
The black screen stared back at her mockingly, so appropriate for the events of the day. Dead. Dead like Wanda, like T'Challa, like Sam. But not Clint. Please not Clint. Frantically searching for her charger, Natasha felt more out of control than she could ever remember. Her head was spinning, her breathing shallow. She needed to know, but for now he was alive. She plugged in the phone. He was still alive. She waited for it to turn on. He was still alive.
Excruciatingly slow, the phone came to life, and with trembling fingers she unlocked it.
No signal.
No signal.
Finally! She watched that one single bar flicker on, and waited for...
Nothing.
Oh god.
Her stomach sank and she felt dizzy, like the world was suddenly spinning a thousand times faster than it should. She had lost a lot of friends today, they all had, but she knew she could mourn them, and fight for them, and carry on with whatever the future held as long as he was with her. She could be strong with him beside her, but how could she be there for everyone else now? How could she pull the pieces all back together when she herself was torn completely in two?
Collapsing to the floor, she could barely breathe, the very action painful, like a thousand tiny shards of glass attacking her lungs. Her heart. He was gone. Not killed in battle her side, just gone. She didn't even know where he had been, she... she hadn't been there with him. He was just gone, dust, and she would never see him again, never hear his laugh, never feel his touch. It wasn't right, it couldn't be. She couldn't imagine a world deprived of those things. It was so bleak, so harsh, so pointless.
She sat numb, barely able to even process what had happened. Her phone had slipped from her hand, and she almost missed it when it started buzzing and vibrating beside her. For a long moment she just stared at it before reaching one shaky hand to pick it up. Holding her breath she peered through her tears at the notifications: 34 missed calls. 17 voice messages. 22 texts.
All of them from Clint.
A loud sob escaped her completely unchecked, the wave of relief that washed over her overwhelming. He was alive. He was alive. She didn't bother to check any of the messages, instead immediately dialing his number.
It didn't even finish its first ring before she heard the soft click and Clint's familiar voice. “Natasha, thank god.” It was such a beautiful sound, so real, so raw. He sounded exactly as she felt, the tears in his voice as evident as the ones that ran down her cheeks, and she had never felt more relieved, more alive, in her entire life.
She laughed and cried all at once, trying to talk, to make words make sense with everything she was feeling, but for the longest time all she could manage were four short words. “I'm okay. We're okay.”
She wasn't sure what lay ahead for them, how they would reverse what Thanos had done, or if they even could, but she knew she could face it now. She could face anything as long as they were together.