#avengershc

Natasha cried out, and allowed them to knock her sidearm out of her hand. With uncharacteristic clumsiness, she wrenched herself away and threw a weak punch. To anyone who knew Natasha Romanoff, it was obvious she was acting. Apparently to the men dragging her towards the compound, this was not so obvious. Natasha kicked and screamed until one of them clamped a hand over her mouth, and as Steve watched, she disappeared into the compound. Her decoy commlink was wrested from her in a flurry of static and shouting. The backup comms kicked in, and the noise settled into a clear feed of sound from inside the compound.

“You won’t get away with this,” Natasha was telling her captors.

“Shut up,” one of them growled. There was a thump, and Natasha grunted in pain. Steve winced. It had sounded like a kick from a heavy boot. Nothing too serious. Nothing worth breaking his cover over, he reminded himself.

“Alright, she’s in place,” Tony said. Steve blinked, and took a breath. They had to monitor the situation. He and Tony were Nat’s only safety net on the ground. Clint was above them, hovering high with Bruce in the shielded quinjet. Everything was in place. All they had to do now was wait until Natasha made her move.

She couldn’t yet, though. Steve knew it was going to be at least a few hours until the bugs she had dropped on the way in could work their way into the system and get them the information they needed. Until they could send Natasha the signal to go, they were stuck with a one-way link to her. They could hear everything, but they couldn’t talk to her.

“Good evening,” a voice said, over the comms. Steve had to assume it was one of the guards. No higher ranking HYDRA personnel were in the area, and the base was manned mostly by a skeleton crew.

“Mind telling me what you were doing snooping around our facility?” the voice asked. Steve focused on details. It was a man, and he had an American accent, which had a tinge of Southern to it. Steve couldn’t place it.

“Chester,” Natasha recited. It was a cover she’d selected earlier. “One-five-seven-nine-Alpha-Theta-four.”

“I just want to have a conversation.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“Chester, is it?” the man asked. “Are you an agent?”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“Agent Chester, then. How did you get inside?”

Again, Natasha repeated the phrase. The man asked more questions, and was answered each time with the recitation of numbers and letters. He didn’t sound particularly frustrated, and Steve started to relax.

After almost fifteen minutes of brick wall questioning, there was a sigh, and the sound of a door closing. Steve shifted to get more comfortable, and listened. The door soon opened again, and Steve heard multiple sets of footsteps.

“Chief says you ain’t talking.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“So he said to come have a little fun with you.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four. Chester one-five-seven-”

Natasha’s recitation was cut off abruptly, and Steve jerked when he heard the sound of a slap crackle over the comms. Natasha gasped, and then spat.

“Chester one- Ches- no- what are you-”

She cried out, and Steve curled his hand into a fist. What followed sounded like a flurry of punches. Steve had prepared for this. He knew torture was always a possibility, Nat had even talked to him about it before they’d left. Don’t let it get to you, she’d said. It might happen. It might sound real. I can take it. I can handle it. He had believed her, but now… now it was different. It was actually happening, and he had to sit there listening to it. It was a lot to bear.

“Rogers.”

It was Tony. Steve started guiltily.

“Here, Tony.”

“You okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

There was a silence between them, broken only by the grunts Natasha was making as she was struck repeatedly.

“It’s okay,” Tony said, although his voice sounded slightly quiet. “She knows what she’s doing.”

There was a little more silence.

“No,” Natasha said, sounding frightened. Steve bit his lip. “No, don’t- please- please-”

She screamed, and Steve let a huff of air escape his lips. He didn’t want to listen, but he couldn’t. If she said the password - Tony had joked about safewords before - then he had to be ready to jump into action.

“She’s a good actor.” It was Clint, chiming in from above. “Don’t worry. She’s okay. She-”

A louder scream cut them off. It was ragged, and full of pain and fear.

“Clint,” Steve said, uneasily, “are you sure? It sounds real.”

“It always does,” Clint said. Steve wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be hearing doubt in Clint’s voice too.

“Please!” Natasha shouted, hoarsely. “Please, don’t- don’t! No!”

More screaming, then soft sobbing. Steve could feel bile in his throat. This was worse than feeling the pain himself. He wanted so badly to jump in and do something, but he knew he couldn’t. She hadn’t said the phrase he needed to hear.

“What if she can’t say it?” he asked.

“What?” said Tony.

“What if she forgets it? What if she can’t say the word, and she needs an extraction and we can’t get to her?”

“Calm down, Rogers,” Tony told him, although there was a shake to his voice as Natasha’s sobs echoed down the link. “She’s… she’s just acting. It’s fine. She’s fine.”

“Help me,” Natasha moaned. “God, please, someone- no, no no no, please, no-”

She screamed again, crying out for help, praying out loud. Steve had never heard anything so horrendous. He could only picture what was going on in there. Horrible things. Terrible things. He could barely contain himself. He knew the others would be feeling the same way, so ready to jump in and save their teammate, their Natasha. They couldn’t let this go on much longer.

“Got it,” Clint said. “Bruce has the data. Sending the signal now.”

Steve heard three distinct beeps, and suddenly the crying stopped.

“This has been great, guys,” Natasha said, suddenly sounding like her old self. “But I have to be going.”

There was laughter, which abruptly turned to shouts of alarm and screaming from the men as the link hissed with noise. Steve couldn’t follow what was happening just from the sound, but it was definitely violent. After a few minutes, he heard Natasha again.

“Ready for pickup,” she said. “I’ll be at the rendezvous point in two minutes.”

Steve got to his feet, and began the jog through the trees to the meeting point. When he got there, Natasha was already waiting at the treeline, and Tony was just emerging from the forest. He heard the sound of engines, and before he could say anything, the quinjet appeared. The three of them clambered on board, and before they knew it they were away.

Steve immediately cast off his shield and went to Natasha’s side, grabbing the medical kit as he went.

“Where’s worst?” he asked feverishly. Tony opened the kit and began rooting around in it. Bruce climbed out of the copilot’s seat and joined them.

“Grab gauze,” he directed. “Suture kit- get that disinfectant. God, Tony, get out of the way, I’ll do it.”

“Nat,” Steve said. “Nat? Nat, are you okay?”

“Get off me,” she said, waving him off like he was an irritating insect. “I’m fine, what- Bruce, what are you doing? Get that out of my face.”

Steve moved back, bewildered. Natasha pushed Tony away with her foot, and took hold of the kit herself. She zipped down her suit and rolled it off her top half, revealing some shallow cuts and bruises.

“What…” Bruce mumbled.

“You’re not…” Tony continued.

“I told you,” Clint said, shaking his head. Natasha looked at the three of them, and her gaze softened a bit.

“Idiots,” she sighed. “Those guys barely knew how to hold a knife, let alone torture someone.”

“So…” Steve mumbled. “You… that was all…”

“I’m excellent at faking it,” she smiled. She looked to Tony, expecting a quip, but he just sank down into a seat and ran his hands over his face. Steve felt embarrassment pulling the blood to his face, and he took a seat beside Natasha.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice gentle. “I take it as a compliment.”

“I thought…” he mumbled.

“I know,” she said, taking his hand. “Come on, Steve. It’s okay. I’m alright. Here, help me with my back.”

She turned, and handed him a pack of band-aids. Sheepishly, Steve took the box, and stuck the little plasters down over the cuts on her back.

“Tony,” she said. “Could you grab the antiseptic wipes from the kit?”

Tony did as he was told, and Natasha handed Bruce the suture kit.

“There’s a deeper one on my shoulder that probably needs a stitch or two,” she said. Bruce sat on her other side and began to clean out the cut. Natasha sat back and let the three men tend to her. Only Clint caught the amused glance she threw him, and he chuckled to himself as he piloted them towards home. If the team needed to look after her to recover from their ordeal, then so be it. Apparently, it had been harder for them to listen to than it had been for Natasha to endure it. So, she squeezed Steve’s knee, and Bruce’s hand, and nudged Tony gently with her foot, making contact with all of them one by one. They seemed calmer, and each one felt better knowing they were helping a little.

When they arrived back at the compound, the three of them stood awkwardly by as Natasha climbed down from the jet. She smiled, and kissed each of them on the cheek as she passed.

The skull can’t smile itself, but the muscles contort into the facsimile of a grimace, and the black raiment moves as if he is shrugging.

“Never in its history has the soul stone been willingly returned by those who claimed it.” The hollow eyes watch him a moment. “Come.”

He turns, and floats towards the cliff. Steve follows, and at the edge, he watches as the cloaked figure floats out over the chasm below. Steve opens the case. He taps his wrist, and the nanosuit gloves his hand, shimmering energy ready to protect him from the chaos contained within. He takes the glowing yellow stone in his hand, and stands. The figure reaches out, his hand lost somewhere beneath the robes, if he has a hand at all.

Steve drops the stone.

It falls through Schmidt as if he is smoke. Steve watches as the glinting yellow stone vanishes out of sight. When he looks up, his guide has vanished too. He is alone.

On the cliff where his friend made the ultimate sacrifice, Steve bows his head and takes a moment to thank her. Natasha, the woman who saved the universe. Maybe she knows. He hopes so.

Steve taps in his next coordinates, and winks out of existence.

-

A dominion-

She falls. The wind howls.

Please-

The air is ice.

…dominion of death-

Screaming. Maybe it’s her.

Let me go.

Only moments left.

…of death at the very centre-

For him, all for him, always for him-

No. Please, no-

It will be okay. She knows.

…the very centre of celestial existence-

Her last thought is of his face.

It’s okay.

Then nothing.

-

Natasha opens her eyes. Above, a moon in eclipse. The sky is dark. Shallow water laps at the borders of her body and she realises that she can feel it. She sits up. Blinks. If this is the afterlife, it’s a lot wetter than she thought it would be.

The word Vormir appears in her head. It swims up through the fog of her cerebral cortex and hangs there in her mind, waiting to be comprehended. Clint pops up alongside it. Stone. Death. No. Please, no. She shakes her head. Her hair is wet. Let me go. It’s okay.

“Fuck.”

The word tumbles out of her as the gravity in her head readjusts and she remembers what she was about to do. No, what she did. She jumped. That much she knows for sure. She fell. She must have hit the rocks below, and- Clint, where is Clint?

She wonders briefly if she’s dead. She’s not injured, which doesn’t seem right after leaping off a cliff. Dreaming? Maybe she’s dying down there on the rocks. She hopes Clint doesn’t have to watch her. But no. The things around her are real. Tangible. She is alive, but how?

Natasha looks around, and there is no mountain to be seen. No cliffs. No Clint. She only knows she’s still on Vormir thanks to the bruised sky and the glimmering eclipse. She doesn’t know when, though. What day is it? What time?

Time.

She looks down. Her hands are submerged in the water, propping her up. Is the suit affected by water? She never thought to ask. It didn’t occur to her to ask Stark if she could swim laps in this thing. Too preoccupied with the concept of travelling through time.

She touches the panel with hesitant fingertips, and it lights up. Apparently her luck doesn’t end with survival, because the whole thing seems to be functioning. Natasha keys in the date and coordinates for the return, as per the plan. She’ll appear back on the platform with the others. Clint will be there. Natasha is seized by the complete conviction that this is going to work, and she stands in the shallow water, ready to fly.

She hits the button.

The vortex opens and she closes her eyes as she is sucked back into the quantum realm. She locks her arms by her sides as she flies through the flashing tunnels of energy, and her blood is roaring in her ears, and the tunnel is looping back- no, something is wrong, something doesn’t feel like before- she hits something quasi-solid, and cartwheels into the energy stream, the light blinds her and-

She splashes back into the water. Her knees hit the ground below and she grunts, and puts her hands out to stop the rest of her body falling, and realises all at once that she is still here, still on this fucking rock in the middle of space.

Her wrist beeps, and she looks at the panel. 2023. She’s in the right time, but still in the same place. The tunnel has brought her through time but she hasn’t travelled physically. Not ideal for someone without a spaceship. Natasha grinds her teeth, and then takes a breath. She centres herself. A voice in her head that sounds a lot like Clint tells her to put her brain back in gear, so she does. She stands up, and walks out of the water onto what looks, in the dim light, to be a sand dune. She sits. Breathes. At least she can breathe. Bonus.

“Come on,” she mutters, tapping the panel. Red lights are blinking at her, telling her she can’t get anywhere. No Pym Particles, she realises. She’s used the last of them. There is nowhere else she can go. She doesn’t stop tweaking the panel, though, because Natasha Romanoff is not going to fucking die on Vormir. Not again.

It takes almost an hour, and her fingernails are ripped to shreds, but she manages to cannibalise the transmitter from her commlink and patch it into the power source of the panel. Now she has a beacon. Natasha doesn’t hesitate, and the second it’s ready, she switches it on. Anyone could find her, she knows that. It’s a big universe, and there could be any number of dangerous people who could pick up the signal. But anything is better than being here. She cradles the transmitter in her hands, and settles down in the sand to wait.

-

“5…4…3…2…1.”

The air crackles, and Steve appears on the platform. The empty case is in his hand, and as he steps down to the grass, Sam can see the tracks of tears on his cheeks.

“Is it done?” Bruce asks. Steve nods. Bucky’s eyebrows are raised, and Steve meets his gaze briefly but looks away, shaking his head.

“I need a drink,” Bucky says. Sam looks from him to Steve, and nods. What else can they do but be together now? As Steve brushes past him, Sam can smell a faint hint of perfume. He opens his mouth to say something, but he sees Bucky’s face and stops short.

The makeshift base is on the edge of the forest, built from emergency shelter tents, shipping containers, demountable buildings and any useful rubble they’ve found around the ruins of the facility. Pepper has told them numerous times that they don’t have to stay here, that there is accommodation available if they want, but they are all of them soldiers, aside from Banner, and they’re all used to sleeping rough. They even have beds in their tents, which is madness.

Sam raids the wreckage while Steve takes a shower in the demountable bathrooms and changes in his tent. He comes back to the clearing to find three friends waiting with worried eyes and dusty bottles of liquor, and he just knows they want to talk, but he can’t do that just yet, so he takes a plastic cup and sits in silence. Everyone is mercifully receptive to his game plan, so they just drink as the sun begins to sink on a day of good work.

Just as Steve starts to think up excuses to be alone, a phone rings. The four of them look around, confused, until Bruce fishes a cell out of his pocket. Gingerly, he tries to tap a button. Sam rescues the phone from his grip, and answers. He flicks it onto speakerphone.

“Hello?”

There is a crackling, and a voice pushes through the static.

“-ner. Banner? Banner, can you hear me?”

“Thor?” Bruce asks. Bucky looks at Steve as if to ask how the hell Thor has a phone. Steve shrugs helplessly.

“The computer found your number,” Thor says, on the other end of the line. “There’s a-”

The static returns. Sam shakes the phone like he’s trying to dislodge the sound.

“Thor?” Bruce calls. “You there?”

“-signal. It’s coming from Vormir.”

There is silence among them.

“Say that again?” Sam requests.

“We’re receiving a homing signal. It’s coming from Vormir.”

The silence is heavier now.

“Nat’s suit,” Steve says. His voice is thick. Emotion rises back to the surface, and he tries to swallow it with a mouthful of whatever the hell is in the cup he’s holding.

“We’re going in to investigate,” Thor says. “If it’s her, we will bring her home, so we can say goodbye properly.”

“Thank you,” Bruce says. “Thank you, Thor.”

-

The farmhouse has been quiet for a while. Laura does what she can, but to her it’s been a matter of weeks since they were out on the field, having lunch. Next thing, they were back there, Clint was gone, and the house looked like it had been abandoned for years. Which, of course, it was. Clint is back, he’s with them, but he’s different. It’s not just the extra five years, Laura thinks, or the haircut, or the tattoos. It’s the loss of his best friend. Laura mourns with him, and the kids do too, but he was there. He saw her die. It’s not the only thing he won’t talk about, but it’s up there.

When the quinjet lands, she almost wants to tell Steve that Clint isn’t here. He doesn’t need to suffer today. Her husband hasn’t made it a full day without crying yet. Neither has she. Laura takes Steve to where Clint is tinkering with the tractor anyway. Can’t turn away Captain America.

“Hey,” says Clint. The word is quiet, yet loaded. Steve can see his eyes are red. He looks so tired.

“Thor and the Guardians picked up a signal,” Steve says. No preamble. Clint deserves better than that. “We think it might be Natasha’s body.”

“Oh my God,” Laura says, voice soft. She puts a hand to her mouth.

Clint drops his head. “Okay. Good. They’re bringing her back?”

Steve nods. “We’ll know for sure in the next couple of hours. If you want to come back-”

“Yeah. I’ll come.”

Steve doesn’t know the protocol. Is Clint a hugging kind of guy? He looks like he needs it. Laura saves the day by walking over to her husband. He wraps his arms around her and clings to her. Steve looks away as Clint buries his face in his wife’s shoulder.

“I’ll be at the jet,” he says, and leaves them in the shed. The air outside is cool, and the last of the light is fading from the sky. Steve can see the beginnings of the field of stars stretching out overhead. The universe is so much bigger than he ever could have imagined. Here, the world still feels small.

“Let’s go.”

It’s Clint. He has grabbed a go bag from somewhere. Steve leads the way onto the jet. Clint sits in the copilot’s seat, and even though they are all of three feet apart, and there is a shared loss between them, the journey back to the ruins of the facility is silent.

-

Natasha is thirsty. How long does it take for a human to starve to death? Three weeks, she recalls. Three days without water. She has oxygen. That’s a small comfort.

Maybe it was too much to hope that someone would pick up the beacon. It’s a big universe. Hopefully she will fall asleep and not wake up. It’s a much more peaceful death than she thought she’d have. That, at least, is good. She wishes, though, that there was some way to get a message to Clint.

It’s hard to tell how long it’s been. There’s no light here. The unmoving eclipsed moon hangs overhead, and the dunes are lit with a dim purple light that does not change. She can’t tell if it’s been hours or days. From the hunger, she guesses around twenty-four hours.

The water is salty. She tried to drink it before. How long ago? Hard to say. The air around her isn’t getting colder, but her body’s core temperature is dropping as she gets weaker and more weary. She lies back on the sand, and looks up at the sky. At least there are stars. Maybe one of them is Earth. She knows she probably can’t see her own planet from here, but it’s nice to think one of the twinkling lights is her home. Clint is there. Steve. Everyone she’s ever known. Her family. Natasha smiles, dry lips cracking. She focuses on the brightest star. A planet? It’s flickering. It’s bright. Really bright. Getting… brighter?

Natasha sits up. It’s getting bigger. No, closer. It’s moving. She squints at it. The light extinguishes, and she realises that it’s something coming through the atmosphere. She sees lights again, this time in the shape of-

“About time,” she croaks. It’s a ship. A goddamn ship. As it draws closer, Natasha realises something, and it forces her to her feet, fills her with energy she didn’t know she could access.

She knows that ship.

-

He’s not ready. Clint will never be ready for this. It was hard enough the first time, and he’s had nightmares about her body for weeks. Now he has to face it, he has to see whatever is left of her. He doesn’t know what to expect, but he knows it will stay with him forever. All he can hope for is a chance to say he’s sorry. He knows he will hate himself for drawing breath over her, when she is dead because of him. For him, Laura said. He tries to tell himself that, and it works sometimes. Other times Clint can’t breathe for the grief, for wishing that he’d just run faster, or knocked her down harder. Something, anything not to feel this gaping hole in his chest, this loss that can’t ever be remedied.

“Clint.”

“I can’t do this.”

Steve has been crying too, but he puts his hand on Clint’s shoulder anyway. They’re all crying. It’s nothing these days. They’ve been crying for five years, why stop now? The sun is breaking over the horizon. It has been a sleepless night at the makeshift facility camp.

“This is the best we could hope for,” says Steve. Clint believes that. Getting her back, even if it’s just a body to bury, is infinitely better than leaving her on that godforsaken planet, alone forever. It’s not bringing her back that Clint can’t face. It’s knowing that there’s nothing left to do. It’s the thought of moving on in a world without Natasha, without his partner and best friend.

“Steve!”

It’s Sam, calling them both. Steve turns his attention to the sky, and hears a faint rumble. From above, the ship appears. Clint watches as it descends, and he feels the twist in his gut that reminds him of the last time he saw it - from the pilot’s seat, with Natasha by his side, giddy and laughing their way to her death.

They walk over to where the ship is touching down. The ramp lowers, and Clint steels himself. He feels Sam’s hand on one shoulder, and Steve’s on the other. The team surrounds him, ready to brace him against whatever agony will be carried down off that ship.

Rocket appears first. He walks over to the waiting men.

“Don’t be mad, okay?” he says. “I promised I wouldn’t call you before we got here.”

Confused, Clint looks back at the ramp. Walking out of the ship is Thor, followed by Quill. Groot and Drax appear too. Clint doesn’t understand.

“You couldn’t get her?” he asks Thor. His voice is broken. This too has failed. He’s never going to get to tell her he’s sorry.

“Clint,” Steve says. The colour has departed from his face, and his mouth is open. Sam is staring. Clint follows their lines of sight to the ramp, where Natasha Romanoff is stepping onto the grass, supported by Nebula on one side and Mantis on the other.

“Nat,” he chokes. Then he’s running. He hears someone shout something, hears a gasp, a soft ‘oh my god’ from someone, he doesn’t know, doesn’t care who it is. Natasha sees him, and her face slackens- is she crying? Clint is blinded by his own tears and he skids to a halt in front of her. Is she a ghost? A symptom of his mind finally folding in on itself from grief? He reaches out and touches her shoulder. She’s real. Solid. She collapses into him and Clint slumps with her onto the damp grass. The first light of the sun is just touching them, and it’s not warm yet, but she is. She’s alive. Natasha is alive.

“How-”

“I don’t know,” she says. She sounds terrible. She looks like she’s half dead. Better than all dead, Clint thinks, and he cups her face in his hands and inspects her.

“Clint-”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No,” she says. “No, don’t. I’m sorry.”

“Nat-”

She buries her face in his neck and he holds her, realising they are surrounded by clamouring Avengers. Steve is crying, Bucky at his shoulder, Sam is punching the air, and Thor is trying to look smug while he disguises his own tears. Even the Guardians look touched. Clint doesn’t give a shit. His whole world is in his arms, and Natasha pulls back and looks at him, smiling a smile he never thought he’d see again.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he says.

“Can’t promise anything.”

He pulls her close in the light of the dawn, and presses his lips to her forehead.

Natasha closes her eyes and savours the feeling. The dew is wet on her legs. The weak sunlight is warm on her skin. Clint surrounds her with more warmth, with a presence so solid and safe she never wants to leave his embrace.

When she arrives at the tower, she knows her pass will activate security protocols. Doesn’t matter much now. Stark will have been notified the second she re-entered US airspace. She swipes in, and by the time the elevator opens onto Stark’s opulent living room, they are waiting for her.

“Hey,” Clint beams.

“Hey,” she responds. She’s about to ask him what he’s doing here, but he interrupts her with a hug. When he lets her go, she barely has a moment to remember what she was about to ask when Steve hugs her. Bruce is next, and then Tony, although he makes do with an awkward back pat.

“What are you all doing here?” she asks. “I wasn’t expecting a party.”

“Tony called us when you flew into New York,” Steve answers. He has the grace to look guilty that he’s benefited from Tony spying on everyone, but that seems to be an argument they’ve already had, and if she’s honest Natasha is glad that they’re here. She knows Steve’s been off with Sam looking for Barnes, and the fact that he’s taken time out of that job to see her makes her feel less like she’s made a huge mistake by coming back.

She waits for someone to say something, and the silence spins out for a few long moments before she realises they’re waiting for her to speak first. She has no idea what to say. She’s been rehearsing this for a year and she still doesn’t know how to ask them what they do and don’t know, although she’s running with the assumption that Tony and Clint have read everything, Bruce and Steve have tried to abstain out of respect for her feelings but eventually given in and read most of it anyway.

“Okay,” she sighs. “I’ll say it. There was a lot you didn’t know, and now you know it. However that changes my relationships with any of you, just tell me. I’d rather know.”

The men take a moment to share confused looks. Clint puts together a sentence first.

“How would it change anything?” he asks.

“Come on,” she chuckles. “I know what got released. I read through all of it about a hundred times. I know what you know. What happened to me, what I was, all the things I did. I know.”

“Nat,” Steve says, “it doesn’t change anything.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, and steps around him to get to Tony’s bar. God, she’s missed Tony’s bar.

“It’s okay,” she says, once she has a whiskey in her hand. “Seriously. I know it must have been hard to read a lot of that stuff, and not just because it was mostly in Russian. Although, there were some decent translated passages on all the petitions calling for me to be put in federal prison.”

“We’ve read worse,” Clint protests.

“Steve’s right,” Bruce attempts. “It was a lot to take in, but it doesn’t change that you’re our teammate, and our friend.”

“Are you kidding?”

The others stop, and look at Tony, who has followed Nat and poured himself a drink.

“Of course it changes everything,” Tony says. He’s looking at the other three like they’re crazy, and they’re responding with urgent glares, and Natasha kind of wants to see where he’s going with this.

“When I first met you,” Tony says, “properly, I mean, when I first saw you in the suit and you jabbed me in the neck with a hypodermic needle, I knew nothing about you. I couldn’t find anything out either, and that drove me crazy. I learned things here and there, but God, I had no idea how insane your past was.”

“Tony,” Steve growls. Natasha raises a hand, although she can feel a slight tightening in her chest. This is what she was afraid of. Where Tony leads, the others will eventually follow, and if he tells her he can’t work with her, the most she’ll be able to salvage is probably Clint, although God knows how that conversation is going to go. She hasn’t even wrapped her head around what she’ll say to her partner when they’re alone yet.

“My point is,” Tony continues, “if any of us had gone through a tenth of what you’ve been through, there’s no way we would have come out the other side. Hell, I spent a few weeks in a cave in the desert and I you saw how well I dealt with that.”

Natasha narrows her eyes. “Am I crazy, or are you trying to say something nice?”

Tony shrugs. “All I’m saying is that if you don’t want to talk about what was in those files, we don’t have to. And you still have secrets. I have no idea where you were until you boarded that plane in Montreal.”

She smiles. It’s small, but it’s there.

“Come on,” Steve says. “There’s a lot to catch you up on.”

He is asking more questions, but her body has just registered that she’s finally safe, and the adrenaline that’s been running through her veins in place of all her lost blood dissipates. She registers the elevator opening again, but that’s the last thing she’s aware of as her legs give out beneath her and she falls to the floor. She hears someone shouting, and then she hears nothing.

-

“Did you see her fingernails?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see what they did-”

“I saw everything,” Clint snaps, rounding on Steve. “Just- stop.”

Steve sits back heavily in his chair, and swirls his drink around his glass. The ice clinks, and it does nothing to distract him from his thoughts. He can’t get drunk, but this feels like an appropriate time to have a drink in his hand.

“We should have found her,” Steve murmurs. It’s late, and the lounge is empty but for the two of them. Natasha is still in surgery with Helen Cho, who has been flown in by Tony.

“We did our best,” Clint says, but it’s hollow, and the subtext is exactly what Steve’s just said out loud. His voice is bitter. Their best wasn’t good enough.

The door opens. Tony walks in. He looks as exhausted as the two of them feel.

“Is she-”

“She’s stable,” he says. “Whoever did this to her knew what they were doing, but she’ll heal with time. Bullets are out, she bled a lot. Helen says she’ll need a lot of looking after, but she’ll be okay. She… yeah. She’ll be okay.”

It’s not much, but it does a little to ease the tension. There have been at least three times in the last twelve hours that Clint has been sure his partner is going to die. They only know what happened before they lost contact with her, although her laundry list of injuries has gone some way to solving the mystery of what happened to her. They don’t know who took her, or why, or where. There’s a beat up old Nissan parked outside on the gravel, which hasn’t provided many clues other than a Missouri license plate and a shitload of blood on the driver’s seat and the console.

“We should all get some rest,” Steve says, ever the voice of reason. Tony nods, and Clint tries to look like he’ll be doing anything except sitting by Natasha’s bed until she wakes up. Maybe Steve already knows this, because he claps Clint on the shoulder, and leaves him to it. Clint snags a bottle of something brown from the bench and walks the long way to the medical unit. Helen is typing when he arrives, and she has mercifully changed out of her bloodied scrubs.

“How long will she be out?” he asks. He doesn’t ask if she’s okay. He knows she’s not. He doesn’t ask if she’s going to be okay. Neither of them know the answer to that.

“The anaesthetic should wear off in about two hours,” she tells him. He nods, and she gestures to the door of one of the recovery rooms. He pushes inside and goes to sit in the chair Helen has left there for him. Is he really so predictable? If he shares such an obvious bond with his partner, why didn’t he find her before this violence was perpetrated? Why didn’t he stop them from torturing her? She looks exhausted, even while unconscious. Clint swigs at the bottle in his hands, trying to wash the guilt from where it sits lodged in his throat. It doesn’t work, but the burn is nice.

He dozes for a while, always waking to check, sometimes drinking.

“Barton.”

He rouses. Natasha is sitting up. She hasn’t ripped out her IVs, so she probably knows where she is. That, at least, is comforting.

“Uh oh,” he chuckles. “Last name. Am I in trouble?” She doesn’t reply, just gazes evenly at him. He is put in mind of the early days, long before they were working together. “Tasha?”

“Eight days.”

He tastes bile. “I know. We were looking, I barely slept-”

She interrupts with a scoff, and he falls silent.

“You barely slept,” she mutters. “Eight days, Clint.”

He doesn’t know what to say. She stares him down, daring him to make an excuse when he knows there are none to make.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care,” she tells him. It hits him in the gut, and he wishes she would just punch him. Then he would know she was okay. This, this quiet anger from a woman who can barely move from her injuries, this is so much worse than a physical blow.

“Get out.”

“Tash-”

“Get out.”

He rises, and thinks about arguing, but she’s looking at him with a coldness in her eyes that he hasn’t seen before. This is new, and it scares him. He leaves the room, presses a button to summon Helen from wherever she’s sleeping, and then goes to his quarters. He passes out on top of his blankets.

-

Natasha is begrudgingly released after three days, on strict instructions from Helen that she is to remain on bed rest for at least the next week, an instruction that no one in the facility will have the nerve to enforce. They can only hope that Natasha’s self-preservation instinct extends to injury recovery.

Bruce is the first person to be refused entry to her quarters, swiftly followed by Steve. Clint thinks she’ll let him in. He’s sure of it. She’s never gone this long without talking to him, and he’s never been so completely unable to check up on her.

He comes back to the lounge and throws himself down on the couch. The others don’t need to ask if he was admitted into her rooms. He’s only been gone ten minutes.

Tony slips out quietly, while Steve and Bruce try to talk Clint through it. He makes his way to her door, and with Friday’s help, he overrides the locks and lets himself in.

The blinds are all open, letting the sunlight in. The space is neat, which is unexpected. Natasha is sitting by the window with a cup of tea, and as she watches him walk through the door, she sets the mug down on the coffee table beside her. She turns the mug so the handle is facing away from the edge of the table.

“I’m sorry for the invasion of privacy,” Tony says, holding his hands up. “You know I wouldn’t do it unless I had to.”

“I’m gonna give you one chance to leave,” Natasha says. She stands up out of her chair, and moves towards him. When he doesn’t move, she stops about half a foot away from him. For a terrifying second, Tony wonders if they’re going to hug.

“Romanoff, I know you blame us for not saving you.”

“I don’t need to be saved,” she says. “And that was your chance.”

She swings, and before he can duck, her fist collides with his solar plexus. There is so much force behind it that he doubles over, barely catching himself on the couch as he staggers backwards. She doesn’t have to tell him to leave. He’s already on the way out, trying and failing to straighten up as he convinces himself he’s not running for his life. The door locks behind him.

Clint finds him lying on the floor in the lounge, slowly getting his breath back as Steve watches on. There’s not much any of them can do.

-

By the time six days have gone past, Clint has formed a rough plan. After Tony’s encounter with her, Natasha has been spotted here and there around the facility. Whenever anyone enters a space she’s already in, she leaves. If anyone tries to talk to her, she ignores them. Clint is watching Steve slowly fold in on himself from the guilt, and he’s had enough. There’s always a solution. His might not work, but god damn it, he has to try.

At his request, Friday lets him know when she enters the kitchen. Clint goes after her, and finds her at the toaster. She hears him coming, and goes to leave.

“Don’t,” he says. He catches her shoulder and she pulls away from him, glaring. He stands between her and the door.

“Get out of my way.”

“Natasha-”

“Move.”

He puts his hand on her shoulder and she grabs his wrist, twisting his arm painfully behind his back.

“Do you want me to hurt you?” she demands. She lets him go, and makes for the door. Clint grabs for her again, and she whips around and knees him in the stomach. He gasps, and drops to the ground. Natasha advances on him. Her eyes have that same cold look he saw in the medical unit.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he wheezes. “So do what you have to.”

She looks like she’s about to help him up, but instead her foot connects with his side. Clint grunts, and tries to get to his feet. Natasha swings round and he catches another kick, this time to the back of his knees. He goes down again, and again, he staggers to his feet. Natasha punches him square in the jaw. He doesn’t make a move to defend himself, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with that as her next punch breaks his nose. Clint can feel himself choking on his own blood, and another punch splits his brow. She’s methodical, and calculated, and Clint realises that this plan was garbage. She’s not breaking, she’s not emotional, she’s just doing to him what he asked her to do. What he wanted her to do. She knees him in the stomach and he drops like a stone.

Steve finds him lying there twenty minutes later and helps him to the medical unit. Helen has departed, so Clint cleans himself up as best he can, and Steve puts him to bed.

“We’ve got to do something,” he says to Tony, after the sun has gone down and the two of them are the last ones left in the lounge.

“Mmm,” Tony says. Steve can’t tell if he’s agreeing or not.

-

“What the hell is this?”

Natasha has her hands on her hips, and even with bruised eyes and awkward injury-protecting posture she still looks formidable.

“Natasha,” Steve says, rising from his seat. “We’re worried about you.”

“A fucking intervention?” she demands, looking around at the team. They are sitting in a semicircle, with an empty chair waiting for her. In the centre, opposite where she is expected to sit, Clint is watching her. Despite two black eyes and the gauze covering his nose, he still looks at her with pity in his eyes, and she despises him for it. She turns for the door, contempt plain in every taut muscle. Steve is up and blocking her exit before she can blink.

“Move,” she says. Even. Calculated. Steve shakes his head. Natasha switches tactics.

“The last people who locked me in a room were the people who tortured me,” she says. Steve visibly blanches, and he almost lets go of the handle.

“Remember?” she asks, hardening her tone. “The ones you didn’t bother to come save me from? The ones who ripped out my fingernails and cut lines into my skin? The ones who raped me?”

“Give it a fucking rest, Romanoff.”

Everyone turns to look incredulously at Tony, including Natasha. He is leaning back in his chair, arms folded.

“Tony,” Steve exclaims, his scolding hushed as if Natasha can’t hear him.

“What?” Tony retorts. “You see what she’s doing, right?”

“Stark,” Natasha warns.

“No,” he says, and raises a hand. “I know what you’re doing, and this kind of shit isn’t going to fly with me.”

He stands, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “You know how many times you’ve manipulated me? You’ve used every trick in the book on me, I’ve watched you do it to other people too. But not this time, not to us. You can snap Rogers’ will like a twig but not mine.”

Natasha, for once, is lost for a response. Steve is still gripping the handle, staring at Tony with a mix of confusion and apprehension.

“We’re your friends,” Tony says. “No, more than that. Hold onto your hats, cause this cliche’s a doozy. We’re your family. You can’t guilt us into letting you beat up Barton, or me, or…”  Tony glances at Steve. “Hurting Steve’s feelings, I guess?”

“Tony,” Clint protests.

“Shut up, Barton. I’m defending you and your broken nose.”

Tony walks over to where Natasha is still being blocked by Steve.

“What happened to you was terrible,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be tortured. It sucks ass. We should have found you sooner, and we didn’t. And we’re sorry. You know we are, and you also know we did everything in our power to find you. So you go take some time to yourself, and if you beat on anyone else, I swear to God I’ll tattle on you to Fury.”

He motions, and Steve lets go of the door. Natasha leaves, and Steve sags. For a long few moments, it’s quiet in the room.

“You’re such an asshole,” Bruce groans, his face in his hands.

“He’s right,” Clint admits. Steve nods.

Three corridors away, Natasha stops. She clenches a fist, and stops herself before she hits the wall. Her fingers gently touch the cool plaster, and then she rests her head against it, willing her heart to stop racing, pleading with her own pulse to stop strangling her.

He’s right. She knows he’s right. She should go back there, talk to them, apologise. But part of her is still aflame with the injustice of it all, that she was taken because she’s a woman, because they could hurt her in ways they couldn’t hurt the others, and the others, the others- they didn’t come for her, they didn’t save her. After all this time, all these years of learning to trust Barton, to be vulnerable, and then to trust this team, after all this time, she still had to save herself. It is a small comfort that she is strong enough to do their job for them, although Natasha has always known this to be true.

There is strength in forgiveness, Clint told her once. Oddly poetic for a man who prides himself on being able to eat two pizzas in under twenty minutes. What he meant is that holding a grudge only corrupts a person, poisons them until the hatred is all that there is. She doesn’t want to be that way. She’s tried it, and that path wrought nothing but destruction, endless violence and death. Clint saved her from all of that. Her Clint. Her boy with the bow. It is a strange life she lives, and she knows that any life at all is more than she hoped for when she was younger. In the Red Room, all she wanted from life was to leave it quickly and painlessly. Now she is allowed to want so much more, and she does, and the result is these emotions she was never permitted to explore before. Love. Trust. Heartbreak. Disappointment. It’s a wild pastiche, this life.

Her head is still resting against the wall when she hears footsteps. She arranges herself, and prepares to greet her partner.

It’s not Clint. Tony emerges from a doorway, and she huffs, annoyed.

“You okay?” he asks. Regret rises in her as she realises he’s truly worried for her, and that he’s suffering as much guilt as the others.

“I shouldn’t have punched you,” she says.

“That’s not technically an apology.”

“Well, I’m not technically sorry.”

He smiles wryly. Natasha sighs, and faces him.

“I’m sorry I blamed you,” she says. “I know you did everything you could.”

“You’re home now,” he says. “It’s okay.”

Something in her wavers. It’s such a comforting thing to hear from someone she’s only really ever traded insults with.

“Thank you, Tony.”

She doesn’t expect the hug, and when it comes, she wants to cry. These people love her. He’s right, they’re more of a family than she’s ever had. She lets her head rest on his shoulder, and marvels at the terrifying vulnerability he’s letting her show, without mocking, without passing any comment at all. He just hugs her, happy that she’s here. He cares that she’s alive, and Natasha can’t help but be amazed at how that feels.

Tony finally pulls back, but surprises her one last time by pressing an awkward kiss to her forehead. It’s the most intimate they’ve ever been, and she sees him put his guard back up as she punches him gently in the arm.

“A few of us are going to watch shitty movies in the lounge tonight,” he says. “You don’t have to come, but if you want to come-”

“I’ll be there,” she says. He nods, and walks away. Natasha wanders down the corridor, lost in what’s just happened.

-

He rolls off her quickly, holding out a hand to help her up. Tony blasts through the air overhead, knocking the sniper bodily out of the tree.

“Trees around you two are clear,” he calls over the comms. Steve signals his thanks, and looks down to see why Natasha hasn’t grasped his hand to pull herself up yet.

His stomach drops into his boots. Natasha’s eyes are closed, and there is blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. He can’t see where she’s hit on the black fabric of her uniform, but it can’t be good.

“Nat’s hit,” he says, his breath catching. “She’s- Nat’s hit. Someone- I need help.”

“Copy.” Steve’s not sure who replies in his ear. He’s already dropping to his knees beside Natasha and bundling her into his arms. Her eyelids are twitching, and he chooses to see that as a good thing. At least she’s not dead yet.

“Quinjet is a hundred metres dead ahead of you, Cap,” Tony says. Steve starts to run, and the jostling seems to rouse Natasha, who makes a quiet pained noise.

“Hang on, Nat,” he mutters. “Almost there.”

Clint is on board when he runs up the ramp. He has the stretcher half unfolded, and grapples with the other half so Steve can lower Natasha onto it.

“Where are you, Stark?” Steve demands.

“Here,” Tony says, landing on the ramp. “I’ll pilot. Look after her.”

Steve does as he’s told. As they take off, he unhooks the first aid kit from the wall. Clint is holding Natasha’s hand, murmuring to her. Steve approaches, and realises that her eyes are open.

“Hey,” he says, dropping down beside her. “Hold still.”

“Morphine,” she croaks. “Pretty please.”

Steve manages a smile, but it’s undercut by his own fear as he realises the pool of blood under her is spreading still, and she looks too pale. He prepares a syringe, and unceremoniously sticks her with it. She relaxes a fraction. Steve hands Clint the scissors and he cuts away his partner’s suit until they discover the source of the blood: a gunshot wound in her stomach. Steve blanches, and Tony looks over his shoulder.

“Gutshot,” Clint tells Tony, as Steve presses a wad of gauze down over the wound. The tautness of his voice betrays just how bad a situation they’re in. They are at least five hours from the facility, even at top speed, and it’s going to be an effort to keep her alive that long.

“Clint?” Natasha asks. Her voice is shaky, weak from pain and morphine. She looks at her partner and Clint drops down to be closer to her.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s all gonna be okay. Just lie still.”

Steve pulls back slightly, his hand still on the gauze, putting pressure on the gunshot wound in her stomach. He tries not to think about the blood that’s already soaked through the gauze and onto his hand. He tries not to think about the fact that they’re hours away from help, and a first aid kit might not be enough to save her.

“Steve. Steve.”

It’s Clint, snapping him back to reality. Steve increases the pressure on the gauze pad under his fingers, and Natasha yelps in pain, gripping Clint’s arm.

“We’ve got one more dose of morphine,” he tells Natasha.

“So we wait until it gets bad,” she groans. She coughs, and more blood flecks her lips. Steve grimaces.

“Lie still,” Clint repeats. “Steve, there should be a battery powered cauteriser in there somewhere.”

Steve rummages for a moment, then pulls out a blue plastic wand. “Got it.”

Natasha grips Clint’s hands, and Steve realises it’s up to him to stop her from bleeding out. He grits his teeth, and clicks the little wand on. It takes a few moments to heat up, then it beeps. He lifts the gauze off Natasha’s wound, and looks at her. She nods, and he sees her loosen her jaw ever so slightly.

Focusing solely on the task at hand, Steve goes to work. He touches the tip of the instrument to the edges of the bullet wound. Natasha lasts until the third touch, and then she cries out with the pain of it. The smell is unbearable, and Steve is sure he’s going to be sick by the time he’s done. Natasha is shaking with pain, and turns her head so she doesn’t have to watch. Clint holds her head with one hand, and grips her fingers with the other.

After what feels like hours, it’s done, and Steve begins to clean the wound carefully. When it’s as clean as it can get, he bandages her, and slumps back against the wall. Clint shifts so she can hold his hand comfortably, and Steve finds his hand resting on her leg. He just wants all of this to be over. Natasha is supposed to be snarky, bickering with Tony and bantering with Clint. Seeing her like this, pale, covered with blood, gripping Clint’s hand weakly and trying to rest, is unnerving.

Steve heaves himself up, and packs up the kit. He leaves it by Clint, and then goes to flop into the copilot’s seat. Tony glances over at him, and Steve realises he has Natasha’s blood all over his uniform.

“You did good,” Tony says. His voice is gruff, and it gives Steve the tiniest skerrick of pleasure when he realises that Tony is scared shitless just like the rest of them. For once, he has no jokes, no quips. He’s just frightened. Steve claps him wordlessly on the shoulder as they jet towards home.

-

“Is she out of surgery?”

Steve has finally cleaned himself up, and even slept a little. Clint has done the same while Natasha has been under the knife, and he’s making himself a coffee.

“Helen’s with her in medical,” the archer tells him. “She’s still out, but she’s going to be okay.”

Steve relaxes. Dr Cho is the best in the business, and though he’s never needed surgery with his special brand of regenerative abilities, he’s glad Tony could get her to the facility on such short notice.

When they are finally allowed in, Natasha is just waking up from the anaesthetic. She looks so vulnerable that Steve almost wants to leave. He doesn’t feel like he’s allowed to see her so pale, so tired, her hair messy and her eyes glazed from painkillers. But Clint pushes him into the room, and he goes to her bedside, because he can’t help but be worried about her.

“Hey, Romanoff,” he says. Clint stoops to kiss her forehead, and she makes a soft noise of appreciation.

“Thanks for saving my ass,” she murmurs. Steve squeezes her hand.

“Anytime,” he says. His voice is thick. They came so close to losing her.

“Hey,” she says. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

He drags up a seat, and Clint does the same on her other side.

“How are you feeling?” Clint asks her. Natasha snorts softly.

“Like I got shot in the stomach,” she says. “Honestly, what kind of question is that?”

The sarcasm seems to strengthen her, and Steve chuckles softly while Clint makes an indignant protest. They chat for a while, until Natasha drifts back off to sleep. Steve leaves Clint watching over his partner, but that clenched feeling in his gut hasn’t left him even by the time he showers and goes to bed.

-

Steve half expects to see Natasha up and about within a few days. He’s had to scold her before for pushing through her recovery as fast as she can. He’s seen her ignore shoulder wounds, shots to the leg, broken bones and various illnesses in favour of training or missions. When he doesn’t see her after the third day, he goes to her quarters and knocks on her door. There’s no answer, so he lets himself in.

Clint has gone to meet with Coulson and Fury, so Steve finds Natasha propped up in bed, reading a novel. Her hair is plaited messily to one side, and she looks exhausted but comfortable. When Steve enters, she looks up. Even the small movement of her head makes her wince. Steve goes over to her bed and hovers, unsure of what to do.

“It’s okay,” she says, and pats the bed. “Come here.”

He obeys, and sits on the edge of the mattress.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

It’s an odd thing to say, when she’s the one bandaged and bedridden and he’s fine.

“I’m fine,” he says. Even as he says it, he knows it’s not true. Natasha looks at him, looks right into his soul. That’s what it feels like, at least. He sighs. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’ll heal,” she says. “I promise.”

“I’ve never seen you this bad before.”

She shrugs, which makes her wince again. Steve wishes he could do something to take the pain away.

“I just need some time,” she says. “Now tell me what’s really bothering you.”

Steve hangs his head. How can he apologise for falling behind her? He was supposed to have her six, to protect her. He was the one with the goddamn shield, and now she’s here, she almost died because of him.

“Steve.”

He has to wonder if Clint is subjected to this kind of mind reading. Probably. It’s like she knows exactly what’s going on in his head before he can even process it himself. She’s looking at him, and he can tell she knows he blames himself. Her eyes are soft, and he knows if she wasn’t in so much pain she’d be laughing at him.

“I’m alive,” she says. “I know you’re gonna blame yourself anyway, but you kept me alive. That’s what counts.”

Steve wants to argue, but she motions for him to come closer. He’s not actually sure what she’s going to do until she puts her arms around him and hugs him. It’s gentle, so as to avoid hurting her, but it’s enormously comforting, and Steve lets his head rest on her shoulder for a moment. If it was anyone else, he would be embarrassed by this display. Natasha knows how to coax emotions out of him. He’s heard people call her cold, intimidating, and a whole host of other adjectives, and now he knows it’s because only a select few ever get to see the side of her that is warm and kind. Natasha is the Black Widow, but this person, the one holding him and telling him it’s alright, this is someone else entirely.

“I can’t stop you worrying about me,” she says. “But if it’ll make you feel better, feel free to wait on me hand and foot until I can get out of bed on my own.”

He laughs, and the tension melts out of him. Being teased is his home ground. He knows the terrain well enough to be comfortable again.

“Send me a list and I’ll raid the kitchen for you,” he promises. She’s looking weary again, so he stands, and she watches him.

“Could you come back later?” she asks. Her voice is soft, not quite needy, but there is a definite tone of not wanting to be alone. “Clint won’t be back until tonight,” she explains.

“Sure,” he says. “Get some sleep, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He leaves, and closes her door behind him. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone is as invulnerable as he is, but times like this serve as a reminder. The people around him are never a given, and though Steve doesn’t think he takes any of them for granted, almost losing Natasha has brought up a fear in him he didn’t know existed. He doesn’t know what to do with it, so he pushes it down, covers it with other thoughts, nice things he can do for Natasha while she’s stuck in bed, movies they could watch, stories he can tell her. Any of that is better than dwelling on the fact that he could have lost her, and wondering what he would do if that happened, and worse, wondering if next time he’ll be too late.

-

There is a softness to the light when the morning comes. The grass outside is gold, and the movement of the trees in the breeze is graceful. Tony likes the view of the lake from the kitchen.

The team moves around each other in comfortable silence. The long night is over, and none of them have slept much. Weariness is an old friend to all of them. They wear it like a blanket wrapped around their shoulders, warm and willing them back into the safety and comfort of bed.

“Morning.”

It’s Steve. Tony has made the coffee this time.

“Did you sleep?” Steve asks. Tony shakes his head. “Me neither.” For a moment, Tony thinks that the man is going to walk right past him, but he stops, and Tony tries to clap him on the shoulder. A comforting gesture. Steve reaches out, and Tony finds himself in a hug. It’s not a gesture either of them would expect, but it’s a welcome salve for the night they’ve spent in fear and quiet vigil.

Tony breaks the quick embrace, and slides a mug of coffee over to Steve. A thanks for the night before. Steve takes it, and wanders off to find his own window through which to take in the morning.

“I thought the sun would never rise.”

Wanda is lying in bed. She knows the heartbeat in her ear is synthetic, as is the chest she’s resting her head on, but Vision is surprisingly good to snuggle up to. Especially after the night they’ve had.

“It always does,” he murmurs.

“I wish I could have done more.”

He strokes her hair. He knows her wishes. He knows how she fears she’s somehow caused this, that the touch of her magic on Natasha’s mind somehow brought her closer to the edge. What he doesn’t know is how to convince her that she hasn’t caused this, that she’s not a guilty party here. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just holds her as the gentle light of the morning plays across their pillows.

By the kitchen windows, Sam finds Steve. Sam is quicker to offer a hug than Tony, and there is coffee, and there is a debrief, as always. Sam knows how to talk soldiers through things like this. Sam needs to talk too, so they move somewhere comfortable, with a view of the water, and they just let things out until there aren’t any more words in them, and all they can do is stare out at the beautiful lake beyond the window.

Somewhere in a bedroom, where the light is bathing the walls of an apartment with soft gold, Clint watches Natasha wake. Her red curls splay over the white pillow, and the colour in the sunlight is vibrant and reminds Clint that she is alive. He hasn’t slept. Only watched.

“Hey.”

Her voice is still rough and tired. She has screamed it away, and it won’t come back for a few days.

“Morning,” he whispers. He has no energy remaining. It has been spent on keeping her alive when she could no longer do it herself. She knows this. She reaches out and touches his face. She traces the topography of the lines on his brow, and knows that the worry is for her, that his exhaustion is his reward for loving her. Yet he persists in it, this task, Sisyphean in its very nature. He carries her to the top of the mountain only to watch her tumble all the way down. He turns, follows her down into the dark, and begins the journey all over again. This is forever. He cannot escape. He doesn’t want to.

“Thank you.” Not sorry. He won’t accept an apology. He knows it’s not her fault, that there are demons no one can slay for her. She stopped apologising to him years ago. Now she thanks him for being here still, even after the worst she can throw at him.

“You’re okay,” he tells her. She knows he doesn’t mean the bandages on her wrist, or the tapestry of cuts and bruises that is the rest of her skin. He means that she’s with him, and with him she is always safe, and so very, very loved.

She presses close, and kisses his nose. He closes his eyes, savouring her touch, and she can’t believe anyone could love her like this.

She leaves him when he falls asleep. She’s not locked in now, Clint knows she can be trusted once she’s slept. She leaves his apartment, and it’s only early but she finds Tony in the kitchen, flicking idly through something on a tablet as he sips what she assumes is one of many coffees he’s had through the night. He looks up when she enters.

“You should be resting,” he says, and it’s the absence of snark that bothers her. She knows she scared him, so she doesn’t comment, just reaches out for him. He wraps her in a hug, and then pulls back and kisses her forehead. She moves away, pretending not to notice him ducking his head and fighting back emotion.

Sam and Steve are next, no doubt alerted by a message from Tony. They don’t say anything, just hug her both at once, so she’s surrounded by them. They are so warm, and they smell like coffee and cologne. Natasha lets herself be held, and tries not to feel guilty. She makes tea once they let her go, and it’s only when she’s on her way back to Clint that she runs into Wanda. Vision is hovering behind her, as anxiously as an android can hover.

“Natasha,” Wanda says, the word rushing out of her. She has been crying, Natasha can see, and she looks so young like this. Her face crumples, and Natasha understands why Vision has tried to keep her away from this. With her throat burning, Natasha opens her arms and Wanda thuds into her, clinging to her.

“I’m sorry,” the girl is saying. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

“Shh,” Natasha hushes her. Vision is by her in an instant, and manoeuvres the mug out of Natasha’s hand so she can concentrate on holding Wanda.

“It’s my fault,” Wanda whispers into her shoulder. “I put those things in your head.”

“You didn’t,” Natasha says. She wishes her voice wasn’t so hoarse. She pulls Wanda back so she can look at her. “Those things were already there. This wasn’t you. None of this is because of you.”

Wanda shakes her head, and Natasha pulls her back in. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “I’m okay.”

This is the price, she realises. This is what she has done to the team. It wasn’t intentional, and she couldn’t think about the consequences in the dark of the night when all she wanted was for her mind to go quiet. Now she sees, in the light, what her actions have wrought. For the first time in a couple of days, Natasha feels a rush of relief that she is alive, and the team does not have to deal with something incomprehensibly terrible.

Vision takes Wanda by the shoulders and steers her away. He returns Natasha’s tea, and she makes her way back to where Clint is sleeping soundly, exhausted by the longest night he’s had in a while.

-