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They can’t bury her, they have no body. Instead they bury a box. There were precious few things to put inside. Pictures. The kid’s drawings. An arrow necklace they returned to, resting on their spotless dining table. Clint decides to build the box himself. He carves it out of wood, creating intricate designs, carefully, gently. The way she had been in those last moments. All of her efforts, to end up there. He wonders if it healed her, in the end, the trying. He wonders if, as she fell, she was satisfied. He shivers.
He hopes it’s warm wherever she is.
She wasn’t expecting it. She was expecting a gunshot to the head. Secretly, selfishly, she hoped it would be quick. She wasn’t expecting, this. First of all, who the fuck uses a bow and arrows? Second of all who the hell tries to save the life of the Black Widow. Natalia. Spy. Assassin. Dead. She was expecting to be dead. She was not expecting this man. This stupid arrow wielding man, to offer her his hand. And she certainly wasn’t expecting that she would take it.
Her fingers slip away from him. She slips away. No. She pulls away. Yanks her hand, her arm, her life, away from his. Throws it off a cliff. For what. For him? For nothing. For everyone, you selfish ass. For everyone. Clint wasn’t expecting it somehow. Even though she was always the better fighter. He was supposed to save her. He tried. He swears, he tried. He can practically feel her hand in his. A phantom. A ghost. His fist tightens. Around an orange stone. Around nothing.
They ripped their hands apart. They tore her heart away from her. She died that day. She was a ghost. A puppet. Nothing. There was no point. No choice. He made the choice to save her life. That stupid idiotic arrow wielding man. And she made the choice to live. It was too easy, wasn’t it, death.
So here she is, Natasha again, letting people poke around in her head, until they’re sure they’ve gotten all of the red poison out. She knows they haven’t. If they had, there would be nothing left of her. Or maybe, there would be a whistle. A small body behind her, clinging to her, and she would protect, protect, protect. She owes that, doesn’t she. To live. To protect. For the one she couldn’t. She just hopes she doesn’t live to regret it.
It’s raining, pouring, and she’s there, holding an umbrella. Of course she is.
Natasha is so full of hope and Clint just has to trust, trust, trust her. She takes his hand. She apologizes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you sooner.” She’s ridiculous like that. He missed her.
He wonders if she ever regrets him saving her. He was supposed to save her. But she saved him. She always saved him.
“I’m sorry, Nat.” Tears mix with the rain on his face. It’s not enough. It won’t ever be enough. But it’s a start.
They couldn’t save any of the other Widows. Natasha is alone. Why should she escape? Why is she here but they are not? All the good ones are dead. She tells Clint, in the air ducts in Budapest in between games of hangman and learning he has a wife and playing tick tac toe. Natasha has a sister. Had. She couldn’t save her. And now she can’t find her.
“They told us love is for children. But we were children. And I loved her so much.” Tears stream down her face. Silent. Desperate. “Where is she? Where did she go? Why can’t I follow?”
They’ve gone somewhere he can’t follow. If Clint thought that he could join them by dying, then he would. But he doesn’t think they are dead. He just doesn’t think he can ever get them back, either. He doesn’t know how to grieve them. In this in between. So instead, he pretends. Pretends that all this blood means something. That he’s making the world better.
Natasha doesn’t know how to grieve, so she likes to imagine instead. To pretend that her sister is out there, somewhere, living a normal life. And she doesn’t want to see her, but that’s fine, that’s okay. She’s happy. And Natasha is happy. People call her a liar. But there’s another voice. A softer, younger, teasing voice. Laughing at her antics. Calling her a poser. Looking at her the way that no one else did. I see you.
In his dreams, he can hear them. Laura’s laugh. Nathaniel’s babbling. Cooper and Lila bickering. Playing. “I miss you.” It’s all he can manage. He hopes wherever they are, they can’t see him. He knows they would be ashamed. He thinks of Lila learning to shoot. Thinks he will never touch a bow again.
Hawkeye is dead. With his family. He is Ronin now.
Natasha exists. The most fundamental part of her has been ripped out, stolen from her: her heart, gone. Lost in the red. It took everything from her. She was stupid to think it would ever give her this. She exists. She is Natalie she is Catherine she is Jenifer she is whoever they want her to be. She is everyone and no one. “Who do you want me to be?” She has no place in the world. Except, slowly, without her even realizing it at first, she does. She has a family she never thought she could.
She is a friend. An aunt. An Avenger. (A sister.)
These days Clint tries not to think about her, if he’s being honest. But he sees a firefly and he remembers. Natasha. Sitting on his front porch. Watching the kids. A bittersweet expression. A longing. A sadness and grief and a joy too.
He sat next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Yelena loved fireflies,” she whispered.
He doesn’t know how she did it. How she ever made it though a single day after all the horrors she’d been though. But she was always better than him.
She breaks him out of super prison. That she put him in. Well. Family is, complicated. She knows that better than anyone. But it makes sense. He has always been the more moral one, but she has always been the more practical one.
“Nice hair.”
She snorts. Her eyes threaten to fill with tears but she pushes it away. Clint notices, of course he does. He sends her a questioning, concerned look. She shakes her head and hugs him. Old trauma is clinging fresh to her skin but she hugs him and breaths him in and “Everything’s going to be okay.” Still friends. Still family. Always.
“I like your vest.”
“Thanks, my sister gave it to me.”
His eyes go wide. She beams.
He doesn’t know what he regrets more, that he wasn’t there when they lost, or that he was ever there at all. That he ever spent a moment away from his family. Before they were gone. Dust. She’s your family too. He regrets it even as he leaves her. Leaves his bow. Takes up a sword. But she would make it better. Just a fraction of a bit better. And he doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve the comfort. He doesn’t deserve to be here. When they are gone.
“Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“Because Thanos took the wrong fifty percent.”
Why is he here and they are gone?
Why did she survive, when they turned to dust? It’s not a question that can be answered. So she shifts to another. How can she bring them back? She is going to bring them back. She’s making her stand. Here in this empty compound, leading the fractured remains of what used to be her family.
Five years. Everyone else gives up. Or moves on. Or at least, pretends to. Not her. Not again.
Natasha used to have nothing. And then she had family. So much more family than she ever knew she could. She had a sister. An infuriating, reckless, compassionate, adorable, little sister. She had parents. She had a niece and nephews and a sister-in-law and a stupid idiotic arrow wielding man of a best friend. She had a team. And people she loved. Some of whom stand with her, and some of whom are gone now. But she knows, she is better for them. They made her better.
She stands on the ledge of a cliff. She can do this for them. Her heart, maybe she did find it. Maybe she never lost it.
“Whatever it takes.”
He goes to the room and wonders if he is making a monumentally stupid mistake. It was one thing to let the Black Widow escape, but to try and have a conversation? Well, he hopes it won’t be his last. She is sitting calmly at the edge of the bed. Waiting for him.
“You didn’t leave,” he comments, only partially surprised.
“You didn’t shoot. Why.”
“You wanted me to.” It’s not a question.
“So?”
“So you hate yourself and you wanna die, that it?”
“You don’t know me. Clint Barton. I am. Tired. ” He’s not surprised she knows who he is.
“I don’t know you,” he agrees. “But I know there’s another way. I know you can do some good. Help people. Protect people. Innocent people.”
“Why. Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Because, I spend a lot of time looking at bad, but I see good in you. And I’m really hoping you’re gonna prove me right. I could use a win. So, what do you say?” He offers her his hand.
He is lying in a pool of water. “Clint!” Natasha shouts, confused. Isn’t she dead, why isn’t she dead? She runs to him and tries to shake him. She goes right through him. Oh.
She is not really here. But, the stone.
She looks down. She is holding it. Oh.
Slowly, carefully, she reaches for his hand, needing it to be solid, needing to take it, one last time. Her hand touches his. She exhales slowly. She places the stone in his palm and closes his fingers tightly around it.
One last squeeze, and then, she fades away.
Clint doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here. On this rooftop, waiting, waiting. He’s a sniper, he can be patient when he needs to be. But this is all starting to grate on him. It’s gotten, monotonous. He’s waiting for another target. The Black Widow. A fancy title but just another dirt bag. Scum of the earth. Not worth anything. And he has the joy of running around in the filth trying to stop it from contaminating the brighter world above. Another shot. Another life. Another weapon. Replaceable. Discardable. Just like him.
Then he sees her. And, he hesitates.
There’s something in her expression. A flicker. Like hope. That this is the end.
It was only the beginning.
Natasha doesn’t know how long she has been here. In this, place. Time doesn’t really make sense. Had it been days, seconds, years? But it’s not bad, exactly. It’s not much of anything. She takes stock. She can’t exactly feel her body, which is, odd. But she doesn’t feel any pain at least. She feels, distantly, a loneliness. The kind that had plagued her so often in those last five years. But she feels a satisfaction too. A calmness. She did it. She knows this, can feel this. She saved them. It was enough. She was enough.
It’s not terrible this place, if only because she can sense somehow, that it is not permanent. It is a waiting ground. So Natasha waits. She can be patient. She waited five years for her moment just to end up here. But this isn’t the end. She was so scared, as she let go, no matter how much she accepted it, choose it, she was still scared. But now she’s not. Now she just waits. She’s ready.
And then she sees something. A flicker. Like fireflies. She hears voices, calling her name. And she feels, a warmth. A hope.
It’s time.
Natasha doesn’t hesitate. She steps into the light.