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It is Tuesday, and Natasha is dead.
It is Tuesday, and Tony’s entire world has gone up in smoke, in wisps of black air that wash away in the wind before they can escape the atmosphere. Wanda Maximoff lies, tied up in tubes, alive, in the room next to him. The rest of them are scattered throughout the Nigerian hospital. Steve is silent. Thor is shaking. Bruce is empty. Clint is angry.
Natasha is dead.
Tony wonders, if he repeats the words enough times, forcing each sequential letter through his brain, like stuffing a square peg through a round hole, if they will begin to sound real.
NatashaisdeadNatashaisdeadNatashais-
When Steve’s hand slams unceremoniously down on his shoulder, he realizes that he’s been speaking aloud.
Silence falls again.
An indeterminable amount of time later, Rhodey passes through the door to their little wing like a ghost. Steve meets him at the door. “I’ve got the jet,” he is saying, each word running in and out of Tony’s ears like water. “Security’s not good enough here. We need to get out - Can Maximoff be moved?”
Steve nods. “I’ll wake her up.” He walks into the next room; the others have gathered around Tony, watching through the glass as Steve gently shakes Wanda awake.
She comes around slowly, her eyes squinting at the Captain, her hands immediately moving to brace her head. She asks something - about the explosion, probably, about the surprise attack in the middle of their infiltration, about the deathly still moment before someone had bodily picked her up and thrown her out the window of the four story building. And God, who had been in there with her? She couldn’t remember…
Na-tash-a, her lips move, familiar syllables that Tony has tasted on his own tongue thousands of times, her eyes wide as they travel over the group huddled outside of the room. Where’s Natasha.
It’s not even a question. It’s a plea, driven by deep, intrinsic knowledge, some kind of prayer in the company of a demi-god and a bunch of atheists.
Steve shakes his head, and the window separating them from the rest of the team shatters with an abrupt burst of crimson. They can hear her now as she trembles, unconsolable; Vision moves swiftly from his position in a chair by her bed to gather her in his arms. “No no no,” she moans, rocking back and forth, pushing him away. “I killed her. I killed her. ”
Tony wants to disagree, but he can’t, not now when the love of his life is gone because of the young woman sitting mere yards away from him. When Wanda’s desperate eyes meet his, she stumbles out of the bed; she would’ve crumpled to the floor had Vision not been there to catch her. “Tony - Tony, I - I killed her,” she confesses, as if he didn’t already know , as if he hadn’t already imagined his wife crying over the death of their friend rather than the other way around, begging for the vision to be true instead of this unfathomable reality. He doesn’t know what kind of man makes that plea, but he guesses it's the kind of man he is. He can’t be sorry. Not now.
“I’m flying back,” he says, his voice hoarse, the first real words he’s said in hours. He doesn’t know who he’s talking to, but everyone turns to look at him anyway. He can’t bear the immense grief and pity in their eyes, so he looks down. “I can’t - I can’t look at her.”
No one asks of whom he speaks. Wanda crumbles further, but Tony doesn’t see, his eyes burning as he stalks out of the hospital. Soon enough, he’s over the Atlantic, and with the suit on autopilot, he finally falls apart.
-
It is Saturday, and they can’t find Natasha’s body.
For a split second, Tony fills with hope before the officials inform him that the rubble is so deep that she will likely never be found. He hears what they don’t say - that she was crushed beyond recognizability, that her last minutes were probably painful, that he had been halfway across the world in a lab instead of protecting her.
He knows that. He can’t escape from that terrible truth, no amount of alcohol or punching through walls enough to dull the painful guilt. Each word is like a pounding drum, echoing through his skull. He knows that .
Clint has gone underground; Laura and the kids are staying in his apartment in the Compound. She makes a plethora of cookies and pies, telling them all it’s her way of coping and begging Tony and Wanda to eat.
Thor has gone to be with his people for the week. Bruce spends more time in the Hulk’s room than ever, breaking every useless piece of furniture Tony owns against the walls. Steve tries desperately to keep them together.
“We are her family,” he pleads with them all, gaze darting to each person in turn, begging them to say something, to try to heal. “Nat would want-”
Tony snaps. “You don’t know what she would want,” he growls. The two leaders of the Avengers stare at each other in rising anger when a raspy voice cuts the tension between them like a knife.
It is Wanda, peering up from where she had her chin on her knees. “She wanted to live,” she says, voice full of painful grief, her eyes empty and unseeing. Crimson magic has sparked uncontrollably from her for the past week, and yet none of them have the capacity to be concerned when she looks so weak. Tony can’t get out of the room fast enough. He still does not look at her.
The words heal nobody, and they continue to drift about the Compound. Natasha had been the glue that held them together, invisible and strong. She had been the one to draw out the real Steve: the dry, clever leader, never an emotionless soldier. She had been the one to suggest that Jane have a lab in the Tower, to talk to Thor about her insights on Loki which had brought him so much peace. She had bonded deeply with Bruce despite her initial fear, leading a cautious Clint into trusting them with his family. She had saved Tony after he had fallen out with Steve, months of friendship ending in a trust and affection so deep that they had fallen into romance without even noticing. Without her, they have unhinged from each other, floating, not a team, but a collection of ghosts.
Eventually, Tony knows, he will see that Steve is right. He will keep them all together in her memory. He will forgive Wanda because they had learned together how important family is. They will be a broken form of the Avengers, but they will be the Avengers once more.
But for now, he refuses to look past the next second of torment. For now, he will drown himself in memories of her.
-
It is Wednesday, and Tony hears Natasha’s voice for the first time since… well.
Tony, Pepper called me and told me you needed to show up at the SI board meeting this week. I know you know it, too, and not picking up the phone will not get you out of it. Call me.
Hey, Peter and I have been waiting outside for thirty minutes. If you don’t get here soon - oh, I see you. Really, Stark, the porsche? Where’s the little spider going to ride?
Tony, I know you’re in the middle of restoring FRIDAY right now, and you won’t get this until you and Bruce come up for air, but we were called in. Steve is sending Wanda, Sam, and me - I just wanted to let you know. See you tonight, solnyshka.
He doesn’t see her that night. He wishes he could tell her she took his sunshine with her. He wishes she would scold him for being late, for avoiding Pepper. He wishes he could hold her tightly and tell her he loves her, that he won’t ever leave her, that they found each other too late and a mere three months with her as his wife would never be enough.
Everything he wishes for, large or small, is impossible. Everything he wishes for breaks his heart.
-
It is Monday, and something is wrong.
Late at night, only about half an hour from midnight, Tony gets a text from a blocked number that is only a string of numbers. Steve looks over his shoulder and immediately deduces that they are coordinates. FRIDAY finds that they are coordinates for a mere fifteen miles away in the forest surrounding the Compound, and Steve orders Clint and Vision to stay back just in case. They file on to the jet, landing in the empty space in several minutes.
Empty, with the exception of some kind of burning hunk of metal. When Tony asks what it was, FRIDAY analyzes and replies: “A helicopter, Boss. Taiwanese Defense Model.”
“Spread out and look around,” Steve orders, and the Avengers ready themselves.
But before they can even exit the jet, a haggard figure stumbles into the glow spilled across the ground by the flickering loading dock lights. He recognizes the burst of red and dark green eyes like he is underwater, something pressing so firmly on his chest that inhalation seems impossible. Yet his lungs continue to draw air, and he stumbles to the side before Steve catches him by the arm.
When the figure catches sight of them in return, she heaves a deep breath and falls. Tony hears a yelp from Wanda, and red energy shoots from her hands to brace and keep Natasha upright.
Natasha.
Wanda rushes forward, Thor hot on her heels, each reaching for an arm to pull over their shoulders. The height difference between the two makes Natasha wince in pain at being pulled different ways at such an angle, and Wanda lets go and allows Thor to lift Tony’s wife bodily off her feet, a strong arm around her waist, dropping his hammer in lieu of carrying her the last few feet to Tony.
“Nat, are you well?” He is asking, voice deep with concern as he gently sets her down. Tony can’t move.
“I’m fine,” she grunts. “My leg…”
Wanda drops to her knees - clearly suppressing choked sobs as she sees the state of Natasha’s leg - Bruce joining her with his phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah, get a room ready,” he is mumbling into the mouthpiece. Wanda supports her hip while Bruce runs his hands along her calf, reporting the breaks over the phone in a clinical voice that doesn’t match the way his jaw is set, the way his entire body is trembling, and Tony tries not to hear words like shattered or long recovery or setting the bone because he’s already too close to a breakdown as it is.
“What happened?” Steve is asking, and it is his familiar, sharp Captain-voice that pulls Tony out from under his panic attack to realize that Natasha is watching him, the longing and concern in her eyes palpable probably only to him, who knows her like he knows himself.
With two steps and multiple Avengers scattering out of the way, she is in his arms.
Natasha grips him so tightly that he can feel her fingers press bruises into his skin. He doesn’t care. “It’s over,” she breathes into his shoulder. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry -”
“Nat,” Tony laughs into her hair, and her name sounds better than any word in any language, than anything in existence. “ Honey , I wanna hash this all out later. Yelling, plates flying, the whole shebang.” Now that he is speaking, he can’t stop. “But right now, just hang on, okay? We’re gonna take you home.”
“All I wanted was to come home to you,” she says into his shirt, her voice wobbling, and oh god if his wife is crying then it must’ve been worse than he had imagined. Any residual anger, and there is really very little, fades from him like the wispy smoke that had taken her away in the first place.
He pulls back a little, pressing his lips to hers in a hard, dry kiss. Any onlooker would call it chaste, but the clear passion and relief in it cause the others to look away awkwardly. He grins against her lips, and feeling her smile in return makes it so they’re pretty much just pressing their faces together, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind at all.
Clint darts into the plane seconds later with an excited shout; he is so buoyant at the sight of Natasha that Tony can’t even remotely begrudge him for interrupting. He skids to a stop next to them, and Natasha turns her head so she can press her forehead to his. Tony allows this with a smile, resting his chin on her shoulder.
And from over the shoulder of his very-much-so-breathing wife, Tony’s eyes catch on the blinking digital clock on the cockpit. Natasha uncharacteristically snuggles deeper into his arms. One day he will tease her about it, but for now, he raises his eyebrow at the others, jerking his head toward the woman in his arms. He meets Wanda’s eyes for the first time in weeks, and the sheer relief he sees there makes him stumble out some sort of apology that she accepts with a bright smile. Their team happily gathers around them, pressing their hands to Natasha’s back - ostensibly to keep her steady, but Tony sees the tension bleed out of them when she exhales. Despite her usual disdain of touch, she even allows Steve’s friendly kiss to her temple; they are too blissful to even quip about the tears that leak from the corners of his eyes. She forgives Wanda without a thought. Something has shifted in all of them, for the better.
The numbers on the clock blink to midnight, and Tony’s smile is so wide that something that is frozen within him shatters. He closes his eyes.
-
It is Tuesday, and Natasha is alive .