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“I got bit.”
All it takes is three words for their world to come crumbling down.
They’re panting, covered in dirt and sweat and blood that doesn’t belong to them. They’d been surrounded, entirely overwhelmed by the undead; it had been a miracle they’d made it to their safe house alive. Practice and necessity had made the six of them a good team.
But not good enough.
Steve had been their leader from the moment they formed a group. They didn’t always get along, but Steve had mended the rough patches with logic and a calm decisiveness. Four years in the military had given them the commander they had desperately needed.
“Where?” Natasha says. Steve releases his right hand from his left arm to reveal a gushing wound. She swallows. “You’re sure it’s a bite?”
He nods. Natasha has always respected Steve, but now she feels it swell in her chest. There’s no weakness in his eyes. He will not beg for his life. He knows he is a threat to all of them and he will take himself out of the picture before he can do any damage.
Tony, to her left, looks like he’s about to vomit. His skin has gone a sickly pale green.
“We’ll find a cure,” Tony says, his voice shaking. “Bruce and I. We can make one. It can’t be that hard. We’ll do it. We’ll start now.”
In her peripheral vision, she sees Bruce sink into a chair and put his face in his hands. Thor stands protectively next to him with one hand on his shoulder. There are tears in Thor's eyes, but his face is resolute.
“You know that’s not possible, Tony,” Steve says reasonably. “Even if there was a cure, there’s no way you could make it in time.”
“But we don’t know how long it takes!” Tony cries. There is an air of desperation about him. Natasha has to look away. “It could take days, weeks—”
“Tony,” Steve says and Tony falls silent.
The air is tense. Thor sniffs.
“How?” Natasha asks, forcing her voice to be steady and trusting Steve to understand.
He does.
“A bullet to the head should do it, right?”
“No!” Tony yells and Bruce starts. “There’s another way. There has to be another way.”
Never fall in love in a war zone, her instructor had told her a lifetime ago, when things still had made sense. She had accepted it, lived by it, but only now, watching them, did she understand why. The way Steve’s bottom lip quivers, the rawness of Tony’s expression: there is no pain like this one. There will be no recovery.
Natasha isn’t sure who she feels worse for: Steve, who has to end his own life, or Tony, who has to survive it.
“Tony, please,” Steve begs.
Tony shakes his head violently. “No. It can’t be like this. After all the shit we’ve been through, it can’t be.”
“This is how it has to be and you know it.” Tony shakes his head. “If I stay alive, I’m putting you all at risk.”
“I don’t care!”
“I do.”
Tony swallows thickly. They have been with Steve long enough to know that once he sets his mind to something, he is immovable. Tony starts toward Steve, who steps away. Hurt colors Tony’s face and, for the first time since Natasha’s met him, he doesn’t try to hide it.
“I don’t want to infect you,” Steve says in a small voice.
Thor is crying silently next to Bruce. Natasha finds her own hands are shaking.
“If this is what you want,” Tony says slowly, “let me be the one to do it.”
Clint exhales sharply. The burst of air tickles Natasha's shoulder.
There is a horrible, agonized look in Steve’s eyes as he searches Tony’s face.
“Okay."
Steve looks around the room. No one says a word. Goodbyes will make this real. They will cut through the bone to the very heart of them. He meets Natasha’s eyes. She gives him a single curt nod and receives one in return. That is enough for them both.
“It has been an honor,” Thor says, his voice thick with tears.
“It has,” Clint affirms. Natasha waits for the joke, the bad pun, and absence of it reverberates around the room. Her stomach churns painfully. She has lost comrades before: stronger, fiercer men than Steve. There is no reason this should hurt the way it does.
Feelings rarely listen to reason.
“Thank you,” Bruce says. It is such a loaded statement, crammed with gratefulness and mourning and compassion.
Steve nods for a moment and lets out a shaky breath. “Be safe. Take care of yourselves. Avoid high traffic areas. Stay hydrated.”
“Thanks, dad,” Clint says. Steve grins a little to widely.
There is nothing more to say, not without cracking the delicate cover of composure the situation needs. Steve nods at them all and walks out the back door. Tony follows him.
The room exhales.
Clint flops on the couch, looking exhausted. Natasha slowly takes a seat next to him. He pulls her into him, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her neck. She should pull away. She should stand up and run as far as she can. She was better on her own. She was better without all of this. Alliances lead to friendships and friendships lead to pain. But instead she leans int the warmth of his body and shuts her eyes tight.
There is a gunshot from outside. Thor lets out a choked sob. Natasha can feel Clint’s arms tense around her.
They will never move past this. Steve’s ghost will follow them everywhere. They will have to learn how to fight with one less person. They will have to find new tactics for survival without Steve’s objective viewpoint. They will have to do without Steve’s dry humor and genuine smile.
Another gunshot rings out. Clint starts. There is a moment of deafening, terrifying silence.
“No,” Bruce says, staring in horror at the back door. Natasha untangles herself from Clint’s arms and walks slowly, calmly, to the back door. She opens it.
The small flicker of hope within her chest dies out.
They lie a small ways away, Tony curled around Steve’s chest. Steve has a bullet wound on his forehead. Tony has its twin on his temple.
Natasha swallows and turns away, closing the door gently behind her.
“No,” Bruce says again. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please, Natasha.”
“We need to clear out,” she says firmly.
“How could we have let him go out there?" Bruce says, running his hands frantically through his hair. "What we thinking? We should have stopped him. We should have—”
“As if we could stop Tony from doing anything he set his mind to,” Clint says, but he is pale and shaken.
Bruce hides his face in his hands. His shoulders begin to shake.
Clint stands and approaches Natasha quickly. He pulls her into a fierce embrace and she returns it before she can think better of it.
“It is better this way,” Thor says. “They are free from the burdens of this life.”
“Well, we’re not,” Clint says, stepping away from her. “Nat’s right. We need to clear out. It’s not safe here anymore.”
They entered the safe house as six. They leave as four.
They are still alive.
Today.