Chapter Text
Nick lets her have a Quinjet, giving her coordinates to all of his hideouts without questioning what she’s doing and she doesn’t tell him; somewhere, subconsciously, they probably both know that this isn’t even about her anymore, it’s about Natasha, Natasha, Natasha .
She sets the coordinates; it’s in Russia, of course, and the GPS gives her seven and a half hours before she lands.
(it doesn’t feel any better, none of this feels right or natural or fair and it’s tearing her apart, burning a hole through her because Natasha isn’t here anymore to walk the Earth; all she can think of is Natasha’s face but it hurts .)
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts-
She punches the Quinjet wall, feeling wet streaks on her face; the only response is a slight dent and the stabilizing of the aircraft.
There’s no one to see her, hear her, listen-
No one .
(not anymore. not since Natasha.)
She reaches into her back pocket, digging out her phone and scrolling to the voicemail inbox.
57 unread .
Her thumb hovers over the first message from April 27th, 2018 and she closes her eyes, feels the tears being squeezed out from under her eyelids.
Sitting down on a seat, she clicks the button.
“Quick check-in. Apparently, Thanos, this intergalactic hellbringer, is collecting all the Infinity Stones. We’re on our way to Wakanda right now.”
There’s a brief pause where all she can hear is the silence of Natasha’s voice; she wants the gap to be filled, she just wants Natasha back and hear her voice and look into her eyes-
“Steve and I picked up Wanda and Vision. Call me when Nick gives you the clear. ”
She keeps her eyes closed for another moment, hearing the silence drag out before taking a deep breath, feeling her chest rise and fall.
She opens her eyes; her cheeks are stained.
She presses the button again.
“Quick check-in…”
---
“<<Who are you?>>”
She whips her head around.
“<<No one comes here anymore. Not after her.>>”
“<<Who?>>” she replies.
“<<And the American speaks.>>”
She raises an eyebrow, he stands up from his rickety stool.
“<<Red Death. Black Widow. Whatever she’s going by these days.>>”
She pauses for a second, feels her jaw clench at Natasha’s name and her emotionless mask slides back on quickly.
“<<She’s dead.>>”
The man looks surprised. “<<Romanova? She finally did it?>>”
“<<What do you mean?>>”
“<<Too stubborn to die by another’s hand, that one. The only way that Romanova could die is if she chose it herself.>>”
She looks away, squeezes her eyes shut, trying to calm her racing heart but all she can see is Natasha’s face and it doesn’t help, nothing can help at all.
“<<You’re right,>>” she finally replies. “<<She chose sacrifice.>>”
He looks at her, as if analyzing every wrinkle on her face.
“<<Show me.>>”
“<<What?>>”
“<<The necklace. I need verification.>>”
Wordlessly, she digs out the arrow necklace from inside her combat suit currently covered up by an overcoat, seeing the moonlight reflect off the silver of the arrow. And she ignores the emotion welling up in her chest.
(not a day goes by where she doesn’t look at this and it’s a reminder of Natasha and what she went through and the cliff -
not that she needs reminding. her heart’s already shredded up anyways.)
“<<Interesting. I thought Romanova would’ve given it to him.>>”
“<<Who?>>”
“<<They fell down from the roof right,>>” he hobbles a couple of meters down the road, motioning towards a dark alleyway, “<<right there. Scared off some birds. I remember it.>>”
“<<He didn’t kill her when he had the chance to. And then they leave together.>>”
The man sighs, digging out a key and a slip of paper from his coat.
“<<She comes back a couple of years later, gives this to me, tells me to give this to the right person.>>”
He hands it to her and she inspects the key, looks at the golden glint. There’s something engraved on it that she can’t decipher in the moonlight and when she takes a look at the scribbles on the paper they’re also illegible in the dark; she’ll have to ride back to the Quinjet and decipher it there.
But at least it’s something. At least she can hold onto this like she can hold onto the necklace, almost as if she’s gripping onto something, anything that reminds her of Natasha, Natasha, Natasha who’s gone but won’t ever disappear.
“<<She means something to you, I can tell.>>”
“<<She is everything.>>”
It slips out with no hesitation at all and she’s surprised by the firmness of her own voice even though it hurts, everything hurts .
“<<Go. Maybe one day you’ll see her again.>>”
---
The putt putt of her motorcycle stops when she turns her bike off, letting it sit in the belly of the Quinjet and she immediately misses the noise; her thoughts become too loud in the silence.
Taking off her helmet with a sigh, she takes the key and paper out of the waterproof compartment in her suit.
The paper is wrinkled in the light, presumably from years of wear and tear, but she can still read the series of numbers and letters on it:
“23.AD1B71758E219652BD3C, 8B.A67A0F9096BB98C7E282”
Interesting.
Natasha’s chosen hexadecimal for these coordinates instead of, well, normal numbers and even with all the years she’s spent with Natasha, she can only hazard a guess why.
( “I’m only here to make your life interesting, Maria,” Natasha says with a dead-straight face.
She raises an eyebrow, and a few seconds later Natasha lets out a smile that only makes her heart skip a little.)
The sudden flashback makes her still for a moment and all she can think about is Natasha again and it’s like a vicious cycle; one image, one memory and suddenly she’s dragged back into this loop of seeing Natasha everywhere; in the streets, in buildings, when she closes her eyes.
(she’d seen a flash of red hair a couple of weeks ago in a crowd and she knows it’s not Natasha but what if? )
She turns her attention to the key next, analyzing it underneath a desk lamp and it’s-
For you, Maria. I love you. - Nat
She closes her eyes and suddenly there are tears running down her face and she doesn’t know why; it’s been five months and she’s supposed to be fine now but it isn’t, it isn’t ever going to be okay.
And suddenly she’s chucked the key against the Quinjet wall and it drops to the ground with a slight clink and why did she do that, she can’t lose one of the few pieces she has left .
She picks it up again, gripping the metal so tightly that her knuckles turn white.
She just wants Natasha back.
---
The coordinates on the paper give her a place in Tokyo and she arrives a couple of hours later, parking the Quinjet in one of Nick’s underground bases.
(there’s a void inside of her, she thinks, as she steps out of a random doorway and into a lively street; she doesn’t feel anything even with the lights and the street vendors and the people because this universe didn’t let her save Natasha.
Would you have jumped for her?
the question pops up over and over again in her mind, and she always says yes.)
She walks for half an hour, a few days, a minute or two (who knows? she doesn’t gauge time anymore) but she arrives at the outskirts of the city eventually, walking up to a grimy-looking set of shipping containers.
(she should still feel something, maybe, walking up to what could be the last piece of Natasha she has left, but the thought of her only makes it worse.)
There’s a lock attached to the bottom of the container and she pulls out her key, inserts it in-
It doesn’t work.
(her heart jumps a little; she can’t help it because what if this doesn’t work?)
She leans in, pulls out a flashlight to inspect the lock; it’s almost completely rusted in the LED light and she switches it off, yanks on the lock once, twice, three times-
Clink .
The lock pops off.
And when she pulls the door up and steps inside all she sees is another door; another lock.
This time, the key turns.
And of course, it opens up to a stairwell and from the footprints embedded in the layer of dust someone has been here recently; she wonders what function it served, why it’s here in all places.
She walks down a couple of flights, finally reaching the bottom and-
No.
(it’s not Natasha, it’ll never be Natasha again but what she sees makes her stop dead in her tracks.)
There’s a ring on a table, placed in the middle of the room.
“No,” she murmurs, walking slowly up to the box as if she could scare it away with too-quick movements, “you don’t get to do this. Not now.”
(no one answers, of course, but it helps a little, pretending that Natasha’s somewhere out there and able to hear her.
she isn’t though, of course.
she isn’t. )
And there’s a sheet of paper right next to the ring and she picks it up, as if being gentle will do anything:
Maria, if you’re reading this, I was right. I didn’t come back.
But it’s the same with every mission; you do what you need in order to save the world. The chances of my death on this one are a lot higher than what I’d like them to be.
The ring should explain why, I hope - I’ve been planning to do this for a while and I didn’t want to go without showing you that I’m ready to take the next step with you, Maria, because I love you.
I wish this could be longer, but we’re time jumping in a couple of hours and I’ve got to get back.
I wish we had more time.
I’m sorry.
Stay strong.
I love you.
~ Nat
And she looks back up from the paper, grabbing the ring even though it looks blurry with the tears in her eyes and she clutches onto it like it’s a lifeline because in a way, it is; without this, she’s nothing but a woman who failed to keep her partner safe but Natasha still loves her , so much so that she was prepared to document it on paper.
Maria leans against the wall, holds the ring in her fist, and cries.
I wish we had more time.