THE AVENGERS:
WIDOW'S PEAK
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
(Contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame)
Clint looked out at the clear lake, Wanda beside him. Both clinging to one another.
"Your family, are they well?" she asked
"I hope they are" Clint replied.
"Hope tends to manage" said Wanda.
"That's what Nat left me with" Clint added.
Wanda turned and noticed the weariness in Clint's eyes, a haunted and emotionally disorganised expression on his face.
"You experienced something else where you were didn't you? Something other than sacrifice?"
"One of us couldn't stand to see the other make the play for the stone, we had to fight. We were already in the fight of our lives, and we had to fight for one of ours to end" Clint said, clenching his fist in frustration.
Wanda tightened her hold on his back, her powers soothing his emotional reflexes in a graceful manner.
"I'm sorry" said Wanda.
"Not as sorry as I've felt, you should have seen her Wanda. Peak efficiency, she wanted it more. Imagine that, wanting to end everything more, all in a fight to restore life"
"You said it was the conditions of the soul exchange"
Being reminded of what he and Natasha had to endure only irritated Clint further, though he could not afford to be too angry, not with his source of calm playing merrily just a few feet from him. He was doing what he could to mask his pain from his loved ones, to try and cast the illusion he had not changed for the worst in the last five years.
He was at a loss to what they would do if they ever did learn of his activities hunting down those who hurt and extorted others for their own nefarious benefit. How he would punish them for disrupting people's lives and taking more away from others just as coldly and as mercilessly as Thanos had done to half the population.
So he would keep it all bottled up, he had to, he had no alternative. He did not want to be thought of as a monster.
Clint, however, was afraid he could never learn how to be content ever again.
"I like to think we're more radical than we let on...but what exactly is radical about following the rules? We were fighting against the so-called balance of the universe; we were at our most selfish, maybe that's what tipped everything. Maybe it was a reminder y'know? Maybe it was the universe telling us if we get everyone moving along, someone's gotta stop along the way"
"Clint..." Wanda began, Clint cut her off.
"No, dammit, listen to me, we're all calm now, we're all clear now, but what we did, we did out of this fancy idea the world would just snap back into place, well the world's not going to stop changing, restoring all those lives isn't going to make everything click regardless of how many times we snap our cosmic mittens. All of us that were left behind moved on, and now they have to accommodate. I envy anyone dealing with that responsibility"
"Would you feel this way if the conflict between you and Natasha didn't need to happen? That if you were willing to let go, to let the pain be associated with the greater good, the great sacrifice, you would feel easier about letting life as we know it now flow around you?" Wanda asked.
Clint thought hard about this, he thought to the last peaceful moments he and Natasha shared before the unpleasantness unfolded. Where all that stood between them was the chasm and the clouds, and what brought them together in those diminishing seconds was the care and concern both had for one another, a bond and a closeness born from so many battles that it fit fitting a tidy little war was what was required to bring their journey together to a close.
He turned to Wanda and answered her question.
"Natasha told everyone back at headquarters she'd see them all in a minute. That she'd commit to a reunion. I could picture it in my head, couple of drinks, a few jokes, the bright smile, and then I spent our last minute seeing her commit herself to the end. Her end. So would it be easier on me if I thought the conflict didn't need to happen? Of course, because I'd have been dead, I'd have made the sacrifice, and Natasha would have came back, she'd maybe not smile as much, shit she probably would drink a little too much, but she'd learn to joke again, to laugh again, and live again.
Me? I'd be redeemed for the kind of things I've done, deeds I have to keep my family from learning about for the rest of my life. Nat would have learned to content herself with the fact I'd helped changed the world and lifted this millstone off of my family.
She died at her peak Wanda. She died young, unphased and unyielding. She committed to the splendour of life, I have to commit to that now in her place, I feel like I'm way past it, but that passion, that fire she had inside of her, I feel like it's in me now, I have to keep it ablaze. I have to be her at her peak, at all times, I can't let that fire die out. In me, or anyone I'm around. Whether or not I can carry on is the conflict I need to resolve now"
"I hope you succeed" said Wanda, and kissed him on the cheek.