#fbhfaves

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.

-

Natasha makes a point of knowing everything that goes on around her. Information is power, and though she’s long past the stage where she thought everyone at SHIELD wanted to kill her, she’s still not entirely comfortable with secrets being kept from her. She’s been reprimanded several times and threatened with deportation once for accessing Fury’s private accounts. The latter was a dressing down from the man himself, the only time Phil wasn’t able to cover for her.

But there’s one thing Natasha doesn’t know, and that is that Clint has a workable knowledge of Russian. He started learning in the down days while she was being deprogrammed, when there was nothing else to do except wait in the waiting room. He’s kept it to himself so far. At first he didn’t want her to mock his clumsy accent and terrible phrasing. Then, it was because he found out she sometimes mutters to herself in her native tongue, and it’s useful to be able to decode a language she doesn’t think he speaks.

It feels a little duplicitous, and he often has to remind himself that he is a spy. He’ll tell her eventually, and it’s not like she’s revealed anything sensitive. Usually the things she says are just expletives, and the words match the tone of her voice anyway, so speaking Russian isn’t even necessary for comprehension.

It’s not until things start to settle that he wonders if now is the time to tell her. The dust has well and truly cleared, and they are being sent out into the world as a team. SHIELD no longer views Natasha as a flight risk, but as half of the most successful strike team in the history of the agency.

He doesn’t tell her when they’re in Paris. He has a few opportunities, but it doesn’t strike him as the right time. Besides, he’s learning new conjugations, and he wants to have those down before he reveals himself. He doesn’t tell her when they’re in Montreal. He’s securing his knowledge of alcohol words, which he figures will be useful. In Caracas, she almost discovers his notebook. He thinks for a moment he will have to tell her, but her fingers brush over it while digging for audio equipment misplaced in his bag. Clint feels guilty now, but he still has so much to learn. He needs to do this properly.

In Khartoum, he is sitting on the edge of a bed, watching her move around the tiny kitchen. He decides that now is the time. It’s been a hard day, and they could both use something nice. He opens his mouth, but she turns to him and he snaps it shut again.

“Lock the window,” she says, pointing behind him. He rolls over the bed and slides the bolt home, then pulls the curtains for good measure.

“I think we did well,” he says. “Evac should be here by the morning.”

“You don’t have to fill the silence with talking, you know.”

He clasps his chest. “You don’t wanna talk to me?” he asks, wounded. She smiles, and flips him off. He mimes a shot to the chest, and flops backwards onto the bed. She laughs, and he sits up. Her eyes are sparkling.

“Я люблю тебя,” she mutters, still smiling at him. Clint falters. He thinks he understands, but he can’t have got that right. She wouldn’t have said it. He brushes it off.

A month later, back at HQ, they have finished training for the day, and they’re sprawled on a couch watching TV. Clint is nodding off, his head on his chest, and he feels Natasha get up to leave. He almost rouses himself, but he feels her fingers on his shoulder.

“Я люблю тебя,” she murmurs. It is unmistakeable this time. Clint feigns sleep until the door closes behind her, and then opens his eyes.

I love you. She’s said it twice now, he’s sure. He knows the only reason she’s saying it is she thinks he can’t understand her, which puts him in a difficult spot. He should tell her he speaks Russian. It’s the right thing to do. But if he does, she’ll stop saying it. And he needs to hear it again, he just has to.

She says it twice more before Clint can’t let it go on any longer. They have grown so close, and he knows that even if she doesn’t say it, it’s true. He loves her too - how could he not? They are in perfect balance. They complete each other.

One night over drinks, when he does some stupid trick with a dart and she laughs and he stumbles, they find themselves dancing. It’s clumsy, and slow, but it’s sweet and he wants nothing more than for this to go on forever.

“Я люблю тебя,” she whispers, into his shoulder. I love you.

“Я тоже тебя люблю,” he replies, without thinking. I love you too.

She pulls back instantly. He doesn’t realise what he’s done for a moment, then it clicks.

“You speak Russian?” she demands.

“Not very well,” he says. She seems torn between anger and something else, but he’s not sure what the something else actually is. Clint waits, wondering if this has ruined everything.

“Why?” she asks. They’re standing a foot apart, and Clint is achingly aware of the distance.

“For you,” he says. She takes the step back over to him and before he can wonder if he’s about to get punched, she kisses him. It’s softer than he expected. Tender. Loving. He slides his arms around her and kisses her back.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“The way fresh snow looks in the morning.”

“That’s a good one. Uh… the smell of coffee grounds when you’re hungover. Actually, just the smell of coffee grounds. Any time of- ow- any time of the day.”

Natasha eases the pressure on his arm, shifting the gauze pad slightly. “Sorry.”

Clint shakes his head. “S’okay. Better than bleeding. Ooh, that’s one. Not bleeding.”

She snorts. “Not bleeding isn’t a nice thing.”

“Tell that to someone who’s bleeding.”

She gives his non-lacerated arm a light smack. “I mean in general. It’s not good enough to be not bleeding. You don’t go for a walk and appreciate the sunshine, the sounds of nature, and the sensation of not bleeding.”

“Maybe you don’t.”

She laughs. The sound of it is odd, after the furious violence they’ve seen in the last twelve hours. “C’mon, Barton. Give me a real one.”

He concentrates, which is the same face he made when she stabbed him with a tetanus shot. “Uh… okay, how about the first rain after a drought?”

“Pastoral. I like it.”

“What can I say? I’m a farm boy at heart.” He shrugs, and winces when the movement aggravates a shoulder injury he’s forgotten about until just now. Natasha keeps her focus on the cuts to his arm for now. One thing at a time, just keep on going.

“The sound of a log fire in a hearth,” she says, as she packs up the kit a while later.

“Nice. The taste of good chocolate,” he replies. His arm is bound in white now, and most of his blood is still on the inside of his body. It’s as good a result as he could have hoped for.

Natasha is in the shower when Clint opens the door to the bathroom.

“Classical music,” she yawns, as his clothes hit the floor. He carefully holds his bandaged arm over his head as she turns and lets the water hit his chest.

“You can’t just say ‘classical music’,” he informs her. She ignores him, squeezes some body wash into her cupped hand and lets it wash away before she realises she’s forgotten to use it. She shakes her head, and tries again, this time gets her hands to his skin and begins to wash him. He can use his other arm, but this is nice. This feels good. These repetitive washing motions help her focus, and forget.

“That’s like saying ‘sunrises’ or ‘sunsets’.”

“Those are good ones,” she says. “I’m taking them. Sunrises and sunsets.”

“That’s not how the game works. What kind of classical music makes you happy?”

She shrugs. Spreads suds over his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Bach? Haydn? Beethoven?”

“Yeah.”

He huffs. “You’re not playing by the rules.”

“I’m tired.”

“Fine. The… sound of medium sized waves on the shore of a beach.”

“Medium sized waves?”

He nods, as she spreads body wash suds into his hair. It’s not shampoo, but he can’t bend down to get the bottle, and she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Clint?”

He shakes himself back into the present. “If they’re too small you can’t hear them. Too big, and the sound is too deep. Too big.” Big noises. He doesn’t need any more of that, at least not today.

They are both clean and drying off before she speaks again.

“Good scotch.”

“Nice. A happy dog.”

She pulls on a pair of pyjama pants. Stops, lost. Clint has to hand her a shirt. She looks at it like she doesn’t understand what it is. Shakes herself. Puts it on. Natasha sits on the edge of the bed, and it could be the edge of the world for all she notices what’s around her. Clint stands in front of her, not too close, and squeezes her shoulder.

“The colour of your hair.”

She makes a face at him, and when he doesn’t recant, she softens a little, and pulls him towards her.

“A soft bed after a long mission,” she murmurs.

“The way you smile in your sleep when you have good dreams.”

“They’re about you,” she tells him. He smiles. She pulls him down towards the bed and he lets himself crumple in an awkward heap. She laughs, and pulls the covers over both of them, extinguishing the lamp. Her arms go around his waist, and her head comes down on his shoulder.

“You,” Clint says. Nothing else will ever heal him like her. He kisses her forehead.