The soft murmur of the wind was soothing, in a way that even the burn of whiskey couldn't quite do. Natasha sighed, so tired and tipped her head back, aching from something that she couldn't even name anymore. It had just been too damn long...
"She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette..." The words were old, older than the world around her now, and the first burning tear rolled harshly down a porcelain cheek, and she remembered his voice, husky and honey soft. "She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget...We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time...But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind...Until the night..." She had to pause at that, the tears rolling faster now, painful and all the years she'd lived began to blur together, memories of battles and Thursday night movies fading painfully away. He was gone, gone and forgotten by everyone but her...they all were.
"He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger...And finally drank away her memory... " It hadn't been her favorite song, but it had been one he sang a lot, and she...she remembered that. Clint loved that song...it reminded him of the family he'd lost so many years ago, and of her, and the family they'd gained again. "...life is short but this time it was bigger...than the strength he had to get up off his knees...We found him with his face down in the pillow...with a note that said I'll love her till I die..."
She missed his hands, work-worn and calloused, bloodied more often than not, hands capable of killing enemy after enemy...and yet so gentle when the day was done, cradling her as softly as any child. He was her guardian angel up above, always watching her back...and now...now..."And when we buried him beneath the willow...The angels sang a whiskey lullaby." She moved away now from the lip of the building, SHIELD's latest headquarters...or at least, whatever it was called now's headquarters. SHIELD had died with Fury, with Coulson and Hill...and she missed it, missed the backstabbing and the donuts, missed the jokes and the threats and the long nights spent poring over missions, failed and successful. She missed them.
"The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself...For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath...She finally drank her pain away a little at a time...But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind...Until the night..." She slugged back the whiskey now, stumbling as she cried behind the words, down the forgotten staircase in a world of hovercraft and elevators carried by light. Down, down to the rooms she'd claimed long ago, when she was left alone by all she'd loved. First Clint, to a stray bullet, of all things, from a sniper only half as good as he, but twice as patient...then Coulson, by the same sniper, the second bullet ripping his throat out before her eyes.
The third took out her right eye.
She killed him in a cold, cold rage...and healed as their corpses were carried away, lost in a haze of blood and grief.
"She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger..." Tony was next, still caring in his own assholish way, just as regal and handsome in silver gray and wrinkles as he had been young. Steve had taken that loss harder, perhaps, than he had Phil and Clint, and Natasha had loved him as best she could, giving him, for a brief flicker of time, the life he might have had a long time ago. "And finally drank away his memory..." She had lost him, too, to time and the final effects of the serum, withering him to nothingness, a scant few years after Tony's death. "Life is short but this time it was bigger...Than the strength she had to get up off her knees..." Bruce had been her savior then, his great strength so much more than her own, and he helped her heal. She loved him so much more then...before the rages began to destroy him from the inside. The first time he hit her, she was stunned. The second time, she put a bullet between his eyes...and the Hulk begged her forgiveness, sorrowed and hurting. The third time, she ran.
"We found her with her face down in the pillow...Clinging to his picture for dear life..." She fell onto her bed, fingers cradling her bottle and her beloved Glock, and wanted to scream at the memories of Bruce and the Hulk being ripped apart and lost to her. Thor had returned then, aged beyond measure, and for a time, she dwelt in Asgard's halls, a lady among the Aesir...But as everything, that didn't last, either. He passed in battle, as she had known she would, Sif and his Warriors Three alongside him, a redeemed Loki fighting just as fierce as the rest. She alone had walked off the field that day. "We laid her next to him beneath the willow...While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby..." She cupped the bottle close, aching now in remembered pain as the world seemed to catch up with her, still young and beautiful and a perfect killer at the ripe age of six thousand, eight hundred and forty two. Enough...enough of this...enough of existing where she was no longer needed. She drained the bottle, a vintage that Clint had found the year before he passed, and flicked the safety off her gun, the tears drying to salty pain.
"She put that bottle to her head, and pulled the trigger..." Bang.