Work Text:
“Hey y/n, ya think you could grab this for me?” Tony passed you a piece of paper with a bunch of chemicals on it and a location. “It’s for Bruce. I think this might be the missing chemicals I need to help stabilise him.”
You were supposed to be on a month holiday. You and Natasha had taken down a massive drug ring. It had taken just under a year to do and Fury promised you at least a month off. Natasha had planned a holiday for the both of you and you were supposed to be leaving in a few days.
“I do have that holiday Tony…” it’s not that you didn’t want to help, it’s just that you really needed a break. That and the fact you had no clue where the location of the holiday was and if there’s one thing you hated, it was not knowing something.
“I promise it will literally just take an afternoon. Not even that if you take one of the jets.”
“Sure Tones. But if I’m not back in time for my holiday Natasha is going to kill you. I’ll be back in a bit!” You waved to him as you went up to yours and Nat’s shared room to get ready.
“Hey Natty, Tony wants me to grab some science stuff. I’ll be back for dinner.” You go around the room, grabbing everything you need for the brief mission, if you could even call it that.
“Okay detka.” She leans up from where she was sitting at the desk so you can kiss her. “Be safe baby.”
“I will try my best.” You smiled at her, leaving the room, before calling out to her “Make sure you save me some food!”
~~~~~
It was not the easy mission you were promised. You had gone in alone, no backup because why would you need any? It was just grabbing some chemicals. It was an easy in and out job. Except it wasn’t. Turns out, the large drug ring you and Natasha had taken down together had found a new leader - one who clearly didn’t know the meaning of ‘turning a new leaf’ because he currently had you strapped to a chair so tightly your hands were going purple from the ropes cutting off your circulation. Even if you made it out of here, there was going to be months of physical therapy and he hadn’t even started on the torture yet. You had a horrible feeling you weren’t going to make it back for dinner.
They beat you senseless. They cut you and broke your bones. They tore out teeth and fingernails. They waterboarded you, hung you up and left you for what felt like hours. You only came to when you felt yourself being placed on a soft chair, a screen playing something in front of you.
“Wakey wakey sweetheart.” Wannabe mob boss lifted your chin up so you could look at the screen “your friends wanna say hi.”
The looks on their faces broke you. Tony looked so damn guilty you just wanted to give him a hug. It wasn’t his fault but you knew he was going to blame himself for this for a long time. Wanda, one of your closest friends, couldn’t even look at you. You finally looked at Natasha whose eyes spoke of sadness but clenched jaw was full of anger. It was like her body didn’t know which emotion to feel so it settled awkwardly between the two.
“Sno yur ful” you tried to speak but the words were slurred and quiet
“Aww here that guys, she’s telling you it’s not your fault.” He cackled and hit your temple with his gun. The world went muffled and you were so so tired. You just needed to close your eyes. Just for a second. It would all be okay if you just closed your eyes…
Your friends and girlfriend watched as you’re eyes closed, screaming at the screen for you to wake up, to focus on their voices.
Natasha let out a sob as she heard a sharp bang and watched your head roll forward, blood running from your forehead down your face.
~~~~~
In the following weeks, no one spoke. Not really. The only time the team spoke to each other was to ask if they could be passed something. Game nights came to a halt after the team kept realising they were waiting for you to take your turn. Mealtimes were no longer taken together and for some, the meals stopped altogether.
The funeral was stiff and painful. It was closed casket because of the amount of damage they had done to you. None of the team cried at the service. That right
was given to your family, your brothers and sister who were all so much younger than you. Your cousins who realised how badly this would tear up your parents.
Your dad came over to talk to Natasha before she could leave. He apologised for the fact she was left behind to continue living. He expressed his regret at the fact the two of you never got that holiday, him being one of the only other people to know how special that trip was going to be.
Steve was constantly running, he hadn’t known what kind of impact your death would have on him. The two of you were never very close but he missed the little jokes the two of you had.
After the funeral, Wanda ran away. You were like a sister to her and she had now lost not only Pietro, but you too. Vision went with her.
Tony locked himself in his lab, staying there for 23 hours a day. That one hour where he was asleep, he was tormented by that sharp bang, except in his dreams, he was the one pulling the trigger.
Sam missed the playful flirting the two of you would do to get under Natasha’s skin. He missed the way you would always try to beat him at monopoly.
Natasha vowed to kill every single one of those people who ever put a finger on you. She turned dark. Went right back to what she was programmed to be, a ruthless killer. Once she had hunted each one down, she felt empty. There was nothing that could fill the void in her soul.
She blamed Tony in the beginning. He was the one who asked you to go and get those damn chemicals. He could have sent anyone else. It was a low level job but he was just too lazy to fill out the paperwork. Slowly, her anger turned from Tony to Bruce. Bruce was the one who experimented on himself. If he hadn’t had an obsession with whatever the hell Steve was injected with, then he wouldn’t have needed something to counterbalance it.
All she had wanted to do was to propose. That’s what the whole holiday was about. Hell, she was two minutes away from doing it at the damn dinner the two of you were planning on having. The ring in her pocket felt so heavy that a few times she had tried to throw it right into the sea, making sure it was never seen again. Natasha refrained from doing so. Something stopped her from ever getting rid of it, she held on to it as if it was the last piece of you she had.
“You said you’d be back for dinner…” Natasha placed the ring along with your favourite flowers on your grave, just wishing that she could have stopped you, that she could have got there in time, that you hadn’t been sent out on that stupid mission. She just wanted one more dinner with you.