Chapter Text
Vormir, space, 2014 — 2023
> Natasha ( Clint)
They get to the top of the mountain after what feels like a lifetime, and Natasha’s limbs hurt — if she's honest with herself, she doesn’t remember when she last felt not in pain in her own body, at least not since the Blip has happened.
From that fateful day five years ago, everything has just felt distant, blurred, numb, like nothing could make sense anymore. There had been moments when her head had been clear from the fog, and that’s when she’d gathered enough courage to go ask for help (she’s still here because of Tony and Pepper, there’s no use in denying that, because before talking to them she’d gotten to the point where she didn’t think she could’ve lived to see another day).
But then again, she’s gotten to that same point so many times over the years that she’s lost count. In the Red Room, when she was too young to even know feelings like those could exist, when she’d first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and no one wanted to trust her, after Ultron, haunted by the memories she’d worked so hard to repress, after taking down the Red Room (and facing Dreykov again, mostly, because nightmares are one thing, but living them is on a whole other level).
When she was young, she didn't know what it was like to not be in pain, the Red Room made sure of that. And yet, somehow, as the years went by she'd found that, in the mess that her life was, pain was the only thing she could control — whether it was the pain of an empty stomach, of a broken bone or of a wound bleeding in front of her eyes. Slowly, quietly, she’d started to embrace it, and before she knew it the only thing that she thought she could control had actually taken control over her.
And yet, even then, there was a big part of herself who didn't care, not when she could find so much comfort in those tiny blades, in the blood dripping down her arms and legs, in the ache that cut right through the numbness and made her feel something, even if it was only temporary.
She’d gone back to it after Ultron, and she hadn’t meant to let it get this bad (not that anybody had noticed, until Yelena — her younger sister, the little girl that had been ripped away from her when she was six, the teenager she thought she’d saved in Budapest, the woman she’d found in the same city right when things were becoming too much — who had just listened to her, held her, and helped her find a way out.)
Until she’d disappeared, and Natasha’s world had crumbled right there, and the only way to cope had been going back to cuts on her thighs, strenuous training, not sleeping and skipping meals because she couldn’t bring herself to care about being healthy, not when half of the world was gone and she was still there, being the only person who actually deserved to turn to dust.
In the first three years after the Blip, she’d found herself passed out on the bathroom floor from blood loss more times than she can count (they’d told her she was marble, that she couldn’t break, and yet she can’t remember a time in her life where she’d felt more than a pile of broken glass).
Tony and Pepper — and Morgan, in her own way, even though seeing her reminded Natasha of the child Nate would never have the chance to be, and it hurt — had helped, had cared enough to check on her, make her eat properly and sleep like an actual human being (that had been mostly Pepper, since Tony lacked the same skill and couldn’t help that much).
Things had been better, for a while. They’d been great, even, when Scott had appeared in front of the compound with a solution, when the team had gone back to something that resembled the old days, and Natasha’d felt like maybe things would be okay again.
And now she’s standing at the edge of a cliff in fucking space, looking down and thinking that if jumping down is what it takes for all of those people — Yelena — to come back, then she’s ready to do it — she’s been for years, and now the cold ground under her almost seems welcoming.
Clint wants to jump in her place, and she tells him she’s doing this to save his life (she is, but at the same time she’s doing this for herself too, to shut out the voices, to put a stop to all of the pain, the nightmares, the panic attacks, the numbness, to not have a reason to turn another part of her body in a canvas filled with blood anymore).
They fight, and the pain forces her down, because in a blur Clint is running towards the edge, and she’s laying on the ground while he gets closer to becoming another red mark on her ledger (he’d be dead because of her, because that’s what she does — she kills people, ruins lives, just like she’d been taught).
Her training takes over, and before she realizes it Natasha has secured Clint on a wire and she’s dangling on the side of the cliff, her best friend’s arm being the only reason she’s not already at the bottom of the mountain.
“Let me go. It’s okay,” she whispers, and she means it, more than he can understand, because she’s been waiting for this moment for so long, and now her death can even bring something good to the world — she can bring something good to the world, for once in her life.
Clint lets out a strangled cry, begging her to stay, but she’s not going to rethink this, not when she's this close.
She stares at him, and she wants to tell him that she loves him, that she’s grateful for what he’s done for her, that she wishes she was stronger, or at least strong enough to hold on a little longer (she isn’t, she’s not marble, she’s been shattered for years and there’s nothing he can do to put her back together).
Instead, she uses all of the strength she has to push herself away from the side of the cliff, and Clint’s screams are suffocated by the wind in her ears as she falls, falls, falls, every second closer to the ground, and she smiles, finally at peace.
She thinks of Yelena, who’d showed her how to be a child in Ohio, she thinks of Melina, Antonia, the mother whose name she’ll never find out, she thinks of Clint, Maria, Coulson and Fury, the first people who’d made her feel at home in America, she thinks about the Avengers as a whole, then she focuses on Wanda, Tony, Steve, Sam, Bruce, on the moments they’d shared together, the movie nights, the missions, cooking, even being on the run together, learning how to live as a family.
As she lands on the cold hard ground, the world sees for the first time how broken Natasha Romanoff has always been, and it’s too late for anyone to save her.