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It might be beautiful in any other time. It still is in it's way now, and when Clint says a long way from Budapest, smile in his voice and stretching across his face, she finds it within herself to laugh.
Clint— a light in his eyes again, hard and glittering sniper-steady. Natasha has missed having someone at her six, even though she's hardly needed it in five years now.
All of the universe stretching out before them, vast and empty as them both. The occasional clouds of entire galaxies, the brilliance of what it means to be travelling at lightspeed.
The two of them are nothing but human. Maybe, Steve had murmured, that's what it takes. It's called the Soul Stone, isn't it? Nothing calculating in his voice, and Natasha had eyed him and his steady hands.
Rumour across the world is that the Widow doesn't have one. Five years after the dusting, their people whisper that Hawkeye-Ronin-Clint doesn't have one either.
Ha. They'd see about that.
"Look," Clint says, muted reverence. She is. She can barely tear her eyes away. She's been all over the world, seen things incomprehensible and dark.
She'd call it dizzying, but it's not. They're on a ship, hurtling into a mission without much intel, and somehow it's still the most familiar thing she knows.
The journey isn't long, but it's enough that Natasha can think back instead of forward for the first time since they started moving, back at HQ, the first time since Scott looked up at them and proposed something ludicrous and tangibly possible.
Behind them: their team, and a couple others.
She's vividly aware of this moment, from the weight of the braid over her shoulder to the shifting expanse of the universe moving past them at lightspeed, and every now and then her attention is drawn back to it. But she's always been Natasha first.
And she's— thinking about this, the stretch of space, the emptiness. How the last time they saw it like this was New York.
What that meant to them. The empty: Tony going up, and Clint sinking away. They never have any good experiences with aliens. She wonders, eyes never flicking to him, whether he's thinking of it too. But she doesn't look away, either, eyes half shut and watching.
It's been so many years, and still.
But Clint's an archer. He goes somewhere far away after the first few minutes of silent awe, even though there's no horizon to watch.
Natasha feels it when he comes back, a breath, two. They've both adjusted to the speed of the ship at this point, and now Clint's eyes sweep over the ship itself slower than the way he'd catalogued it on their way in, like he's learning it.
Natasha looked too, just to see, but she didn't pay much attention, not the way he will. Just enough to make sure, the way she always does.
His posture never changes. Still hiding, always hiding, quiet strength and more intelligence than anyone has ever given him credit for. Natasha drinks all of it in.
Five years, and it's not like they were with each other all the time or anything at all, except it's five years. And then after those five years were over, how when Natasha went to find him, he wouldn't even look her in the eye; and when he did it was alien and trapped-animal-hurt and sharp.
So Natasha's watching him, eyes bright and mouth gentle, just as much as the swirling colours of deep space. And she's thinking about the past instead of the future, and the ship is charted for Vormir on its own but he's still making sure, and hope has never been so cool on her tongue.