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She's racing through a blue vortex, trying to recall only a few moments ago (what she's supposed to be doing, who she is) when she's slammed back into 2023. Her ears pop and her teeth rattle but she feels the solid ground again. She's disoriented, thoughts bouncing around at a dangerous speed when everything rights itself and flies back to her.
She's back from the mission with the soul stone cutting into her palm and Clint's fingertips fading from her wrist. She's sure that she will still be able to feel them until she takes her final breath, whenever that may be. She can't get his strained voice out of her head (it's okay, he said, let me go. Tell Laura and the kids that I -).
"Nat?" It's Steve's voice that cuts through the din first. She tenses and refocuses on the present, temporarily dismissing Clint's lingering ghost. She vaguely notices that the congratulatory remarks and smiles start to wane as they take her in. Or, as they take in the missing member.
"Where's Clint?" Steve presses but he already knows the answer. Everyone does.
At that moment, she hates every single person who is looking at her with pity and regret. She hates that they dared to pat themselves on the back without taking stock of the team. She hates that they ignored her. But most of all, she hates that each team returned whole while a part of her died on Vormir. With Clint. Latent tears sprout in her eyes while her mantra love is for children love is for children love is screams wildly in her brain. Love is for children but war is not. She is not a child, and she loved.
"He - " she starts, knees steady and shaking, but she chokes on the rest. She cannot breathe. She cannot be the Black Widow, does not know how to be the spider without the bird, and just needs to be Natasha (Natalia, a voice from the recesses of her mind breathes).
She takes a step forward, keeping her eyes trained on Steve. If she looks at anyone else, she will break. She cannot break.
So, she walks toward him, ignoring Thor's hung head, ignoring Nebula's callous indifference, ignoring Bruce's sudden and unneeded warmth. Steve's the only true family she has left and the only one she can tell.
"Here," she whispers, roughly shoving the stone in his hand like the diseased thing it is. "Whatever it takes, right?"
She walks out. She doesn't look back.
Tony finds her first. She wasn't that difficult to find if they knew where to look: she is sitting, knees to chest, watching the fading sunlight dance on the lake's surface. Her tears had finally breached and fall in slow, silent streams, carving a path down the cool planes of her face. She doesn't start when she feels the slight pressure of Tony's hand.
"Romanov," he sighs, "I'm not thrilled to admit that finding you took a lot longer than I had initially anticipated."
She purses her lips. "I'm not sure what you boys would do without me," she states sardonically.
"I'm not too sure either," he admits, sitting down, and she knows that he's not just referencing this battle but every other one in between.
A comfortable silence lays over them, and Natasha is surprised to feel grateful for Stark's presence (Steve, although well-meaning, would have suffocated her). His unflinching appearance of nonchalance is welcome.
The sun creeps lower toward the lake, an eerie foreboding carried on its back. The birds fly away. Tony removes his hand and rises to his feet. She hears him open his mouth to speak.
"I know," she responds to his unspoken statement. He doesn't offer his hand; she doesn't need it anyway. He heads to the compound and she allows herself one more moment to live in the pain and guilt and loss and remembrance and then slips back into the Widow's steel. She turns away from Clint's ghost floating over the lake.
Bruce volunteers to wear the gauntlet, accepting a terminal fate if it arises. She does not try to stop him. Instead, when he snaps his fingers, her mind screams bring them back bring them back bring Clint and Ja - before he collapses.
There's a cacophony of sounds as explosions reverberate in the compound and the roof crumbles around her. Natasha's vision goes black as she is thrust into the bellows of the building. Dust & debris cover every inch of her body like a fine layer of snow. She coughs violently, her arm, twisted behind her back, tearing with every subtle movement.
She groans and catches herself wishing. Wishing she was someone else. Wishing Clint was there. Wishing a metal arm was covering her six. But wishes and hope cannot survive in this place; nothing can. She catapults to her feet, righting her arm when she hears it: the low growl of predators stalking and the telltale clanging of sharp nails on burst pipes. In the dark, she makes out the silhouettes of Thanos's army and curses. She reloads her gun, charges her bites. She grabs the gauntlet and aims.
"It always ends in a fight," she mutters between clenched teeth and fires.
Nebula advances toward her and her grip on the gauntlet tightens. She scolds herself for letting her guard down long enough to ignore the imposter in their midst. In an instant, Gamora is standing in front of her with their Nebula who aims a gun at her doppelgänger.
Natasha drops to the floor as present Nebula shoots a bullet that rips through her mirror's heart. She looks up at the sisters.
They do not move.
They are women covered in blood, in ashes, and in histories of contributions to never-ending violence. After years of hand-delivering death, they find that it's hard to flinch.
She surfaces and watches the three advance on the mad titan, knowing in her bones that there will be no winner; no one will come out of this in one piece. She knows, feeling it deep in her body, that this chaos will reign until someone makes the power play.
Stark falls first. Steve and Thor fight harder still, and she again catches herself wishing that Stark would just stay down. This is a battle that cannot be won by armor alone; it is won by gods and monsters and super soldier serum. She also knows who Tony Stark is (and who he thinks he is) and watches with a grimace as he works tirelessly to reboot his suit. They're all made of the same stuff, the Avengers. They constantly rise back up until someone permanently forces them back down.
Steve throws the hammer. She wonders how long he's had that trick up his sleeve. She smiles and is not surprised.
His shield is in pieces, littering the ground that Thanos has tossed him onto. She watches his eyes as he scrapes together a last-ditch plan, even as he bleeds out on the dirt. She can't help but take this as an opening and stitches a plan together rapidly (it's what Clint would have done, she tells herself). She cannot stand by and watch as another family member is ripped away from her (she imagines scratching Steve's name off, right next to Clint and -).
Natasha moves towards him then, stalking Thanos as he taunts the dying Captain. Her weapons are warm and she's preparing to pounce, ready to make the power play while Steve follows her movements and his eyes frantically scream at her as the broken record of whatever it takes loops in her head.
Her comm clicks.
"Steve?"
She's frozen, an ashen statue surrounded by dark desolation.
"On your left."
Allies burst through the portals with such determination and resolve that she cannot help but let out a frenzied laugh. T'Challa begins the war cry. Wanda spins red orbs around her lithe fingers. Peter swings in and perches on overturned earth. And then, like a dream that she never realized that she had, the amber light reflects off of a metal arm. Relief washes her and she almost smiles. Natasha silently promises herself (and him) that if they survive, she will find her smile again.
Steve stands at the front, ready to lead an unwavering group of heroes into the final throes of war. He claps Sam on the back.
"Avengers."
A beat.
His mouth moves, and they launch.
She fights dirty and hard, not knowing when and if she will ever reach the end. She sees enemies fall, cuts down more than she can count, but carbon copies more ferocious and bloodthirsty eventually replace them. She watches comrades suffer and sees friends covered in wounds that may never heal.
She's powerless to assist others - she cannot help the friends who are light years away, across a field filled with countless enemies worse than the last. She soldiers on, muscles screaming, because she's an Avenger, damn it, and that's what she's supposed to do. It's what she wants to do.
There's an ebb and flow to the waves of predators attacking her but soon she finds herself in calmer waters. She wipes her forehead, vaguely aware of the blood dripping from her left brow. She doesn't entertain the idea of taking a respite; instead, she runs to a nearby sector swarming with destruction. There, she catches the aftermath of an ally's descent under a mass of beasts and charges forward for the rescue.
She fights efficiently, freeing her comrade in a matter of moments.
"Thanks," a voice calls from the ground. Checking her surroundings for any advancing armies, she blindly offers her hand.
If she had taken a few more seconds to listen, she would have heard the familiar grooves in his voice that spun tales of heartache and of first love. She would have heard the melody of an ill-fated escape and distorted memories. She would have heard the story of the coldest winter.
Instead, Natasha's met with the fiercest pair of pale eyes that she barely remembers.
They have never had time and the battlefield offers no more to spare. The memories flood her eyes, the ones of sneaking into rooms, of stolen moments during secret missions, of his harsh training regiment, of hands ripping them apart in the dead of night -
"I had that," he says, dissipating their past with his cool voice.
She stares at him incredulously.
"I'm sure," she deadpans.
They're staring at each other as fire rains from the sky. His hand is still warm against her hand and she briefly wonders if his metal arm, shiny and full of vibranium, will feel any different on the rest of her skin.
She curses in Russian and his eyes, locked on her, flash with some emotion that she cannot place.
"Milaya moya," he whispers. It rumbles low in his chest and she swears that she can feel it in hers, too. It's louder than the booming explosions and the cracking earth.
With a start, she realizes that the emotion in his eyes was recognition.
She makes a choked sound that bubbles into a mildly hysterical laugh. The absurdity of reuniting with a lost love whilst knocking at Death's door threatens to break her.
Death does not offer the luxury of waiting. So, Natasha doesn't wait either.
Grabbing his vest, she kisses him. It's not a tender kiss; it's desperation. It's fast and hot and rushed and tastes like blood and ash and is over far too soon.
"I want that gun back," she says, releasing her grip, She takes off towards Peter, James's smirk burned onto the back of her eyelids.
Stark breaks his promise and makes the power play. The sky shines brilliantly for just a few moments before it dims above and in his eyes. Thanos and his army disintegrate into ash, the acrid fog polluting the air, and the sun reemerges once more.
Natasha begins to run over to Tony but her legs are firmly rooted to the hard ground. She cannot move, cannot see anything but Tony Stark being scratched out under Clint Barton. She hears Peter beg and beg and beg until it's too overwhelming and she crumbles to her knees.
Her mind, for once, is silent.
When his name fades from her view, all she can see is blood. Blood on the packed earth, blood on her clothing, blood on her hands. It's thick and pungent, molding to her skin and hiding under her nails. She thinks about the freshly spilled blood, the blood over the past ten years, the blood throughout her history. She roughly pushes her stained hands into the dirt, dragging them through the bits of stone and rock over and over again. She scrubs and scratches until her hands are raw.
He sits down next to her, extending a cold hand. An offering. She accepts it and gingerly places her hand in his. She stills, tension seeping out of her body. She collapses into him, ignoring the sound of her ammo clanging against his arm, and releases a deep, primal sob. She buries her face into his neck and cries, for Tony, for Clint, for Vision and Gamora, for the myriad of others that she couldn't save.
She wraps herself around him, hoping that this time, if she holds on tight enough, he won't disappear. James grips her tighter and she breaks.
Steve asks her if she wants to be at the front of the procession, placed between him and Peter. She declines, terrified that she will see Morgan’s eyes as she realizes that her father isn’t coming back.
Instead, she stands in the back of the crowd with the others. James stands to her left, solid and unwavering, ready to offer comfort as needed. She is unmovable until: Peter picks up Morgan, propping him on his hip, and teaches her how to wave to her father’s wreath floating in the middle of the lake. James’s hand finds hers before her breath audibly catches. She holds on tight – if she doesn’t, she will unwind.
If Sam notices something, he keeps it to himself.
Natasha wakes up alone, opening her eyes and staring at the plain ceiling. For a few moments, she does not move. This is a new luxury for her: sleeping in a real bed, not taking shifts, and enjoying the genuine, simple comfort of uninterrupted sleep. Light filters in through the window, warming her face. In those quiet moments, she finds solace. When the horrors of the past week (five years) return to the forefront of her mind, she drags herself out of her bed.
She hears low voices exchanging conversation and pads into the other room.
The air smells like calming lavender and bitter coffee, mixing with the tension radiating off of the two men locked in the remnants of a heated conversation.
“Buck,” Steve says, “you know why I have to do this. Why I want to do this.” Bucky (James) shakes his head and scratches the back of his neck, a tick Natasha noticed he picked up somewhere between then and now.
“I know, I know,” he resigns, “Doesn’t mean that I won’t miss you any less.” He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. They envelop each other into a hug then, both holding tightly as though they’ll never see each other again. Natasha, curious, clears her through.
“What are you doing, exactly?” She asks as the two brothers break apart. Steve raises a blonde eyebrow at her unexpected presence. James subtlely extends his arm and she’s a magnet, drawn to his side in an instant. She fits perfectly, a jagged piece to his complicated puzzle.
“What are you doing exactly?” Steve subsequently questions, pointedly staring at the pair.
“I’m not sure that’s a thread you really want to pull on, Rogers,” she teases. James hands her his half-full coffee cup. It’s lukewarm at this point, but the pause allows her mind to work out the code of Steve’s cryptic comments.
The two watch each other, a waiting game, waiting for the other to fill the silence first.
“Steve,” James offers, “I’ll see you in a little bit.” He kisses her temple and excuses himself.
“The less I know, right?” He mumbles.
“It’s not my story to tell.” She places a hand over his. Both are calloused, but his so much more. He carries the full brunt of the battle with him, and it shows. His hands are worn with lines, of stories of wins and losses, of the great Captain America, but more importantly, of the great Steve Rogers. When she meets his eyes, he’s laid bare, and she knows. “What’s the plan, Cap?”
“I’m returning the stones. Sooner rather than later, actually.”
“And then?”
He tears his eyes from hers.
“And then…back.” She grins slightly.
“You’re a terrible liar.” He shrugs.
“Never could quite get the hang of it.”
“Steve.” She puts all of her weight into his name, that one syllable that has saved her time and time again. The name that became her home when the one she had was destroyed. A refuge.
“I think,” he starts, “it’s time for Steve Rogers to come out of retirement.” It’s one simple sentence, and it holds the world.
“You deserve that and more,” she says because it’s all she needs to say. He knows. They are pages out of the same book.
She hugs him before he slips away.
“Thank you, Nat. For everything,” he murmurs into her shoulder.
“No need to thank me.”
“Don’t do that,” he says fiercely and steps out of their embrace, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve fought harder than anyone I’ve ever known. You’ve constantly placed yourself last on all lists. We were always waiting for someone to make the power play, not realizing that you’ve been making it for years.” She feels the tears start to form in her eyes but doesn’t wipe them away. “You never gave up hope over the past five, ten years. You’re the reason that we made it. You. Don’t undercut yourself. You’re an Avenger, Nat. You always have been.” He smiles. “You’ve always been one of the good guys.”
She’s stunned into silence, her heart full.
“Steve, I – ”
“I know,” he stops her.
“I’ll miss you. I already do,” she continues. “You were my home.”
“That will never change. But,” he nods towards the archway James disappeared through, “maybe it’s time to build a new one.”
She hugs him again. They stay like that for a while, holding each other, because, at that moment, no enemies are bursting from the sky, threatening their existence. Hydra isn’t creeping around the edges. There aren’t any ghosts, stones, or mad titans. There is just the slight sun warming the room, the smell of coffee surrounding them, and two half broken people slowly on the mend.
“Take care of him,” he whispers and she places a soft kiss on his cheek.
“Don’t worry about us,” she winks. “Take care of Peggy.”
She spends time gathering the pieces of her old lives, filling in her new one with memories and experiences that she chooses to hold onto. She discards the rest.
It takes her too long, but when she visits Laura and the kids, she brings Clint’s bow and arrows. She gives Lila her old arrow necklace (she doesn’t need it anymore – she has a small one tattooed near her heart, near Clint’s memory) and weaves tales of the Great Hawkeye for the kids while Laura cries in the bedroom. It will never be enough, and she knows that, but it’s a start.
James waits up for her after those visits and holds her as she sobs. When she lays her head on his chest and falls asleep, he carries her broken pieces to their room. He’ll hold her hands behind her back on the nights that she tries to claw at her skin, at her mind, at him.
But he’s always there when she awakes, and that is enough.
He spends too much time reading about histories that he’s changed and slowly comes to terms with his past. His calming presence gives her room to think, but on some nights, she steadies him when the ghosts of the Winter Soldier’s victims swarm their room and he screams until his voice is hoarse.
But she’s always there when he awakes, and that is enough.
She’s there on the day Sam officially takes up the mantle of Captain America and calls James to accompany him. She reminds him that he’s a good man (not really, no, he says, but you’re the only one who understands that) and tells him that the world is ready for Sam and him to be their heroes.
The first time he suits up, he sighs, sheepishly admitting that he feels strange without the telltale red on his arm. She takes her lipstick from a drawer and draws a sloppy star. He smirks and she laughs.
Sam isn’t too thrilled when he arrives late to the mission, lipstick smeared on his arm.
Natasha continues to coordinate and monitor the New Avengers Initiative. It’s good, hard work, work that leaves a positive mark. Wanda will visit her on some days, requesting the Black Widow’s skillset, but she shakes her head and declines. She’s stored her bites and (most of) her guns in the armory, for now, content with the younger generation to lead the fight. She’s already had lifetimes of experiences.
The comfortable, settled rhythm of her life plays on, like the record player James brought into their home. She’s sitting in the living room, gazing up at the stars, when she realizes that they have finally moved on. It hits her with a jolt. She never thought she would earn this right, but the proof is in the clean dishes, the made bed, the home (home) occupied by two. The evidence is in the mundane arguments and gentle teasing.
They’ve moved on, and that is enough.
The sun rises and the sun sets, and Natasha watches them all. She’s mesmerized by each one: how they change, how they stay the same. James tucks a loose red curl behind her ear. She catches his eye.
“What’s on your mind?” She whispers, lacing her warm fingers with his cold, metal ones. He squeezes her hand.
“This. Everything. Nothing.” He furrows his brow. She grins.
“I love when you babble,” she teases and he lights up.
“And I love you.” It’s not the first time he’s said it, and it certainly won’t be the last. Each time he says it, she feels her blood rush and her heart swell. She cannot believe that these are the moments that she gets to live in.
She’s already had so many of these moments, and cannot wait for more.
“I love you,” she returns. His leans over to kiss her forehead, and she tucks her head under his chin. Wrapping his arms around her, Natasha lets the sunset close her heavy eyes as she listens to the low hum of his arm.
Home.