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It's the year 2023 and the fight against Thanos is finally over and the heroes won this fight although they had to lose one of them for their win and brought everyone back, also a specific dark-haired woman who finally decided that she couldn't wait any longer to tell the person she loves her true feelings. And so she grabbed her car keys and drove to this person's apartment only to notice that their car wasn't there and no one opened the door...
I knocked at her door hoping that she was home although her car wasn't outside in the parking lot. I waited for a bunch of minutes but no one opened and so I decided I would just wait until she comes back, since she was probably just getting groceries or something like that. I slide down on the wall next to her door and my mind starts spinning around: What should I tell her exactly? Would she say that she felt the same or would she reject me? I don't know what I even thought, I just drove here without really thinking over this whole situation because I couldn't hold my feelings back any longer. As I hear steps I quickly jump up from the ground, thinking that it was her who came home. But as I looked at the person walking in my direction, I saw that it wasn't the beautiful redhead that I was waiting for. It was her best friend who had cardboard boxes under one arm whilst he was wiping away something with his other hand. As came closer I saw that he was wiping away tears. He stopped in front of me and looked me directly in the eyes. "What are you doing here Hill?" he asked under tears. "First of all, I could ask you the same, and second of all I wanted to talk to a certain redhead about something very important."
He looked to the ground before he got a pair of keys out of his pocket. "So they didn't tell you..." "They didn't tell me what Barton?!" He opened her door with the pair of keys and signed me to come inside and close the door behind me. I stepped in and after I closed the door I sat down across from him at the kitchen table. "So now spit it out, where is Romanoff?" He gulped and even more, tears streamed down his cheeks and all he managed to say was"It's my fault..." before the tears laced up his throat. I first didn't get what he meant and why it was his fault but the more I thought about the more it got to me: She wouldn't come home ever again. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. "What happened to her Clint?" He looked up and looked surprised since he never saw me crying. "To bring you all back we had to get all the Infinity stone, for which we split up in groups so that we could get them faster and to bring everyone back as soon as possible. Tasha and I teamed up together and went to Vormir where we met a not too unfamiliar red skeleton that told us..." he let out a huge sob before continuing "... that we had to lose what we love in order to get the stone. One of us had to sacrifice themselves Maria...and as I was about to jump she did the most typical thing and saved me. I managed to grab her arm, I had her arm but she said that it would be okay, let go and fell."
I couldn't hold my anger and sadness back anymore and got up just to run into her bathroom. I locked the door behind me and sag to the floor. Tears stream down my face and it feels like my life lost its sense. I let out the most heartbreaking scream ever and grab one of the towels from the towel warmer at the wall just to press it against my chest. As my nose picks up the familiar smell, more and more tears escape my eyes. The towel still smells like her lavender shampoo. I hear a knock at the bathroom door and then Clint's voice "Maria uhm there is a box with your name on top of it...maybe you should be the one opening it." I get up and open the door so that he can give me the box before I lock the door again. I sit down on the cold floor again and pull out my hair tie before opening the box. The first thing I see is an unopened letter with my name on it and so I decided to open it:
Dear Maria,
I don't know what to write or how to start this letter, which I'm writing because I don't know how to tell you this in person. Maria, you became one of the few persons I would trust with my life. You were always there when I needed someone to talk or complain to. You were the one that motivated me to start dancing again. There is so much I just wanna say thank you for but you know how hard this is for me. I never thought I would ever experience this feeling that others describe as butterflies in their stomachs. But I do and without any doubt, you're the reason for it. I clearly remember the day I told you about one of the sentences that got drummed into my head during my childhood. They always told us that love was for children, and to be honest, until I met you I believed this with my whole heart, but it's wrong in every kind of way Maria. We've known each other for such a long time and I think it's about time to tell you about my feelings since I wasted enough time thinking that there probably couldn't be more between us. я лююблю тебя Maria. ~Tasha
She felt the same as I do and we both wasted so much time thinking that there couldn't be more than just friendship between the two of us. I lean my head against the door before starting to read the letter over and over again. I can't believe that the both of us could've been happy together. I take a look through the other things in the box and find a lot of pictures of activities we did together in the last years and some little souvenirs I gave her when I came back from missions outside of North America. I place all the things on the lid of the box and only three pieces are remaining in the box. I grab the last picture and once again my eyes fill with tears. This was the picture Clint took from them dancing together at one of Stark's parties. But it wasn't just them dancing, this day was special and Clint didn't even know about it
September 2012
The whole New York catastrophe was finally over and it seemed like everything would be normal again. Thor and Loki went back to Asgard, Dr. Banner found a new place where he can continue his work and the other Avengers accepted Stark's invitation to live in the Avengers tower together. This day seemed pretty normal if it wasn't for the fact that a specific Billionaire decided to host a spontaneous party on this evening without a warning for anyone living in the tower with him or the one Avenger on mission anywhere in South Africa that came back on this day together with Fury's right hand, Maria Hill. The two women arrived on the hellicarrier of the Triskelion and director Fury already waited for them to tell him about their mission. As the two women came out of the meeting hours later a call from no other than the one and only Tony Stark reached Natasha Romanoff. He told her that he would have a party on this evening and that she was of course invited since she lived in the tower and that she could come in the company of a friend of course and so it came that both women arrived at the tower on that evening in the only dresses they could find in Maria's closet. But as they entered they were still the ones that caught the most looks from every male at this party. A few hours later the two women decided they wouldn't wait for some random men asking them to dance with them, and so Natasha grabbed Maria's hand and dragged her to the dance floor, where Natashas best friend made the picture of the two women dancing together.
I put all the things back in the box and stand up. I grab the box and leave the bathroom. I look around to find out where Clint is to say that I'm going to go home now. I find him in her bedroom sitting in front of the bed with a bunch of pictures from her shelf in his hand. As he notices me standing in the doorframe he looks up and nods. "And what was in the box?" "Pictures and some souvenirs I gave her" he shrug his shoulders and looked at me like he knew that this wasn't everything that was in there. "I just wanted to say that I will drive home now..." I said whilst feeling that there were again tears rolling down my cheeks. "Okay, but Maria what do you wanted to tell Tasha?" "That's something really personal and private Barton and nothing you should care about. And I also think she already knew what I wanted to tell her..." "You loved her, right? She loved you too Maria" he said while looking at the floor. I let out a sob and take a deep breath "Yeah I did and I still do, this is what I wanted to tell her today" I answered and before I could turn around to leave, he pulled me into a hug.
Around two hours later I sit on my desk in the Triskelion and open up Natasha's file; her status does indeed say deceased... I close the file and take a sip of my water before a thought hit's my head: Did someone tell her family? I honestly don't think so because nobody even knew about her family and so I grab my phone after I looked up her sister's phone number. I head outside and sit down on a bench where I can be alone. I type in her phone number and press the calling button. It rings until a young woman answers the phone:
"Yelena Belova" "Hello, here is Maria. Maria Hill. I worked together with Natasha." "What do you mean by you worked?" "There was a huge fight against a villain who snapped away half of the popularity, Natasha was in this fight and... and to save the world she... she sacrificed herself..." I was crying again and I could also hear Yelena sobbing. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Yelena..." "Thanks... but tell me how well did you know my sister?" "We were really good friends" There was silence for a while before Yelena said something I didn't expect "I would really like to give her a tombstone next to her mother's if you agree with this. I also would really like to meet up with you, since Natasha and you were probably more than just good friends." I was shocked but I agreed to meet her next week at the place where she wanted her tombstone to be.
1 week later...
I got out of my car as I arrived at the address Yelena had sent me. It was in Ohio and so I had to take a flight and rent a car to get here but it was worth it since this would give Natasha what she deserved. As I got out of the car I already saw the tree Yelena described and started walking there with the flowers I had brought with me. I really want to say that seeing her tombstone didn't hit me like a brick but it did. Because as soon as I stood in front of it everything overcame me once again and the thought that I had missed the biggest chance of my life was back again. I knelt and placed the flowers in front of the stone with her name and daughter, sister, avenger wrote on it. I placed my forehead on her tombstone and started singing the song we always sung on karaoke nights:
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside
The day the music diedSo, bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die"
As soon as I finish the first verse I hear footsteps behind me and get up. I turn around and look in the face of a blonde woman that had tears in her eyes. "You have to be Maria, I'm Yelena," she said while wiping away her tears. I nodded and she knelt down to rearrange some flowers. "You brought her flowers and sang to her, she must have meant a lot to you. But from where do you know this song?" she asked and I answered her with a very shaking voice "We used to sing this song on karaoke evenings, she always said it reminded her of the good times from her childhood, and yeah she meant a lot to me." Yelena smiled a little. "You know this was my favorite song when we were children, she always hated it and said that it was stupid that I liked this song..." Tears rolled down my cheeks and as I looked at Yelena, it seemed like the same thing that broke in me also broke in her when Natasha died. Without knowing how she would react I gave Yelena a hug. We hugged each other for about ten minutes and as we parted we stood in front of the tombstone for an eternity because we both didn't want to leave but as Ilooked at the clock at my wrist I noticed that it was getting late and slowly darker around us. And so I knelt down in front of her tombstone and whispered: Я очень любил тебя, Наталья и всегда буду.
As I stood back up Yelena turned to me and said: "I knew that you loved, no one that was just a regular friend of hers, with which she shared-nothing, would never have such an emotional reaction while telling her sister about this. I nodded and we both walked back to our cars to drive home or wherever we were staying for the night. We said goodbye and promised each other to stay in touch. I really loved her and I don't think I will ever stop loving her or even loving someone new in the way I loved her.