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The two assassins fought hard as they each tried to reach the lip of the cliff first while also making sure that the other stayed far behind. It was a messy fight with dirty tactics while also being one of the least bloodthirsty they’d ever competed in. Which made sense, considering going full out against each other would defeat the purpose of keeping each other safe.
Just as they reached the edge of the cliff an unyielding force summoned them back, making the two friends tumble head over heels onto the rocky ground. Disoriented, the two companions/combatants shared a glance before scanning their surroundings and tried picking themselves up, rising to all fours in an effort to get their feet under them. They got no further as a black smoke rose between the cracks in the rocks and wrapped around their limbs. Despite it’s seemingly intangible substance, it held throughout their struggles.
“It’s cute how either of you think I’m going to let you jump off that edge.”
“Harri!”
“Harriet!”
Clint and Natasha gazes zeroed in on the sound of the youngest agent’s voice, catching sight of her as she pulled off her invisibility cloak with a smile. Her gaze wasn’t on them though. No, Harriet was looking at the sheer drop and the oddly hued sky beyond it. Their forms struggled harder against the shadowy bindings that enveloped them, but their eyes never left her as she casually walked to the cliff to glance over it’s edge.
Clint grit his teeth as his bindings moved with his wiggling, but didn’t actually let him move; “Neat trick. Shitty time to show it off though. You couldn’t have saved it's unveiling for Stark?”
“That implies it’s a new trick, which it’s not. It has been a while since I was able to do it though, which among other things, makes it the perfect time to practise.” Harri’s voice was distant. Soft in way that implied she wasn’t quite present. Clint hated when she sounded like that.
So did Natasha.
“You were supposed to stay with the ship.”
Clint grumbled with her; “That’s what backup is, remember? Someone who can come in and help after everything has gone to shit?”
“So, basically the Avengers are backups?” she asks distantly as her eyes rise to the horizon.
“Harri!”
“Yeah, I didn’t like that plan,” she states casually, snapping back to reality. “So, I decided not to listen to it.”
Rather than look at her captive friends, she searches the ground around her.
“I hate it when she goes Stark on us,” Natasha hissed, more focused on trying to get free than anything else.
“Harriet-” Clint begins in a stern sounding voice, but she cuts him off at the knees.
“Merlin, you’re such a ‘dad,’” she laughed, finally looking at him, at them, as she picked up a small rock. He could see nothing but sincerity in her grin as she tossed the rock between her palms. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she was hiding, Clint couldn’t figure it out. He only hoped Natasha could. Because Harri wouldn’t jeopardise this mission, wouldn’t stall and bind them without a good reason. It wasn’t her way. But he couldn’t think of any reason why she would now.
“It’s suits you, you know? Being a dad,” she clarified, noticing his attention had drifted. “You love your kids. You love your family. And it shows! You practically glow when you let yourself talk about them.”
She paused, tilting her head with a bemused little smile, as if seeing him from a slightly different angle would change something.
“So, why on earth would you want to give that up?”
Clint froze momentarily, as the words Devil’s Advocate flashed through his mind. He worried fleetingly, that Harri really was back at the ship, and they were dealing with some other apparition come to test them. Then Harri turned back towards the cliff edge and, apparition or not, it didn’t matter because he couldn’t watch her go over that ledge any more than he could Nat.
“No, no, I don’t want to give it up! But if my life can save theirs-”
“She’s right,” Natasha stated. “You have Laura and the kids to think about. They’ll be lost without you-”
“No, they won’t. They’ll understand-”
“-That’s why it should be me,” she spoke over him. “It makes sense that I go.”
Harry snorted, turning back to them with a mocking smirk.
“Yeah, says the woman who just reconnected with her sister before the world went to shit,” she said, tossing the rock over her shoulder. It disappeared from sight beneath the lip of the cliff. “Gods, you two are so fucking quick to die for your families. For each other. Have you ever thought of maybe trying to live for them?”
“There is a sacrifice needed for the Soul Stone.”
“We have to give up something we love if we want a chance at getting it. It can’t just be anybody or that would be meaningless-”
“Are you saying my sacrifice would be meaningless?”
The silence was deafening as it dawned on the two captives what their third and youngest was suggesting. The three of them faintly heard the rock hit the bottom.
“Oooh, that’s going to be a fun drop,” Harri’s tone was almost gleeful as she moved back to the cliff edge.
“No! Wait!”
“Don’t!”
She tilted looked back over her shoulder; “‘Don’t’ what? Make a choice?”
Damn her, thought Clint, and damn Steve too for being a bad influence on her. Clint tried to keep calm. He needed to do this right. He needed to convince her.
“Don’t do this. Don’t do it. You need- We need you to be able to go back, in case anything goes wrong. Here or with the others. We need you to watch our backs. There’s no one we trust more. You know that. And you can help explain what happened. Look out for everyone.”
This time, it was Natasha who chimed in.
“It’s better- We’d feel better if it was you. To go back. You’ll be able to help, to fix things if they go wrong.”
“Yeah, that’s nice and all. But I like that plan as much as your last one. I can’t do much if something goes wrong – well, anywhere on these missions. This whole thing is a bit beyond my scope and you both know that. Also, I doubt I can look after your loved ones better than you can. They are your loved ones, after all. And frankly, I don’t like my chances of explaining to your Black Widow sister that I lost a game of suicidal Chicken with you. I just don’t see that going well for me.”
“I told you, they would understand, they will understand-”
“I trust you to-”
Harri sighed as they babbled again, though they’d probably say they were arguing. She kneeled so she was closer to their still bound forms, so she could clearly see their determined faces.
“Take it from someone who’s done both,” she said, cutting them off. “From someone who’s both died and lived for people.”
She paused making sure she had their attention.
“Dying is easy. It’s just like falling asleep. Quicker and easier, in fact. In some cases, anyway. Living, though, that’s hard. You know that. And living for someone is harder again because it’s not just you, you have to worry about. It’s them, too.”
“So, you want to take the easy way out?” Natasha spat. “Leave us to do the hard work, like always? What would your precious Gryffindor say?”
The words hurt, but that was the point. Harri knew Natasha’s game and didn’t rise to such easy bait. No reason she couldn’t play the game too though.
“Yes, I am. Hopefully, it sticks this time,” she stated calmly. “As for Gryffindor, I honestly couldn’t give a shit, but I’ll be sure to ask if I meet him.”
Natasha full body flinched, looking gutted. Clint rallied.
“What about your family then? What about Teddy?”
Clint nearly flinched himself from the pitying little smile she gave him but managed to stay steady.
“Gods, I thought you had already figured it out,” she said. “They’re already gone.”
“What? No,” Clint shook his head, seeming to physically deny it. “Harry, look, if they’ve been blipped, or snapped, or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now. They-”
“They were already gone before the snap, Clint.”
Clint slumped; desperate bewilderment painted across his face. Natasha wasn’t much better. Harri talked about her family, about Teddy, all the time. She took time off, twice a year to see them, when Shield was still a thing. It had been non-negotiable and Harri was non-contactable during that time. The one and only time Fury had tried to chew Harri out for not answering her phone during leave had shown Harri to be infinitely more terrifying than her age or listed training implied. It was worse than Budapest. Harri would burn the world for her family. They couldn’t just be gone. Clint would’ve known. Nat would’ve known. She wouldn’t have needed to tell them, they would’ve known.
Harri smiled like she understood that she had completely blindsided them, but Clint was still lost in confusion. His family’s absence was like a gaping hole in his chest, and it wasn’t getting better. He’d joked and smiled and thawed a bit since Nat had found him, but it was stilted. Harri was acting like the hole in her chest, that Clint knew she must have because when she talked about her family she fucking glowed too, like that emptiness was normal.
“That’s how I know it’s hard, living for someone. Particularly, when they’re not there. When they’re not coming back.” Her eyes glistened with building tears. She blinked and, though they didn’t fall, her eyes stayed watery. “But talking about them, sharing their stories helped keep them alive in some way. It made it easier. You made it easier.”
She reached out to each of them, their bindings moving them closer. Not dragging them across the ground, but gently floating them into her arms so she could cup their cheeks, her eyes searching their faces equally with near reverence. This, more than anything, proved to Clint and Natasha that this was no imposter trying to fool them out of an all-important stone.
“That’s why it’s going to be me. So that your families never know what it’s like to live without you. Without the possibility of you coming back. So you two never know what it’s like to have to live without each other. So I can pay you back for all you’ve done for me. For all the life you’ve given me.”
This was Harriet in front of them, guiding them closer into her comforting hold. Beating them effortlessly in one of the most important fights of their lives. They couldn’t let her do this, but there was nothing they could do. Fucking magic.
“Think of it as payback for the run around you gave me in Budapest,” she chuckled wetly, leaning her forehead against Natasha’s. “I mean, I know you were trying to protect me, or my innocence or something, but still; scarred for life. And then you had the audacity to frame Fury for it too.”
Seemingly against their will, they all giggled a bit wetly at the memory of Fury’s mild terror and his attempt to circumvent the little witch’s threat. After a quick breath and a sniffle, Harri slowly leaned back, opening her eyes to smile fondly at Natasha before turning her smile on Clint.
“And you, you can think of it as payback for all those times you had me watch your brats,” leaning in so her face, her eyes, were hidden in his hair. “Laura’s brains mixed with your mayhem, multiplied by three? Gods, what were you thinking? What was I thinking? You owe me so big for that, Barton.”
Her voice had died to a whisper by the end. The three of them sat quietly, curled together with Harri anchoring them to the moment. One hand stroking Natasha’s hair, the other supporting the back of Clint’s neck as she breathed in the scent of them.
“I never got the chance to say goodbye to my family. You’ve no idea, no idea, how grateful I am to be able to do this. To be able to tell you I love you and that you both mean the world to me, one last time.”
One more deep breath and it was like she hardened beneath them. She began to gently extract her hands from them. The dream ended. The moment was over. Clint and Natasha’s struggles began anew as the shadows ever so delicately guided them away from Harriet so she could stand and start backing towards the edge.
In a complete switch of characters, Natasha struggled relentlessly against her shadowy bonds. Hurling what were most likely threats, swears and insults in a stream of rapid Russian. Clint, meanwhile, became still and silent. His gaze never left Harri, watching her every move for some opening he could use. To do what, she didn’t know. She had moved out of reach and his bindings were hardly tangible in the ways that would help him. But the role reversal between her two closest friends made her smile fondly again. They really did spend far too much time together. She paused as one of her heels hit open air, taking them in not at their best, though certainly not at their worst. Her fond smile grew at the thought of them living.
“It’s good it’s me. Giving up my life so others can live, is kind of my thing. I’ve done it before, after all.”
Her smile didn’t fade as she let herself fall backwards off the cliff edge. She closed her eyes, relishing the wind in her hair and pretending it was just another free fall from her broom. The panicked cries of her name almost added to the illusion. Opening her eyes, she took in the clear sky full of stars above her. She didn’t recognise any of them, but that too, added to the illusion. That too, made her think of Hogwarts. Of her friends. Of her family. All of them.
That too, made it worth it.