I don't own The Avengers.
It was those nights that he hated the most. The nights when he woke up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, grasping the blankets tightly in his fist and waiting for her to ask what it was about this time. Waiting for her to lay her hand on his bare shoulder and tell him to go back to sleep.
Because these nightmares weren't uncommon. The ones where something happened to her, where he wasn't able to help her. He always had them, always had had them. And she was always there to comfort him and remind him that she was safe.
But she wasn't there. He would wake up with tears running down his face, and try to tell himself that it was just a dream. That she was lying next to him, her breathing slow and steady, with that little hum she would make every now and then. And then he would look at her and realize that it wasn't just a dream, she wasn't there to comfort him anymore.
He remembered the funeral, in fact that was what the dream was about sometimes. It had been perfect. The roses were red, just like Natasha's hair. There weren't many people, just the team and Jane and Pepper and Darcy and Erik and Fury and Hill. They didn't have a priest or any kind of religious service. It wasn't her style. It was just her friends saying things, and even Stark cried a little. Clint had tried to talk, he really had. He'd said her name, and then he'd looked at her coffin, white with two red roses on it. The picture of her smiling and laughing. She almost looked like just another 26 year old girl. And he had just broken down into tears.
After the funeral everyone left after telling him how sorry they were and laying a hand on the coffin. He hasn't acknowledged them, just stared down at the coffin. After they were gone he pulled the little box out of his pocket and opened it. It was a silver ring lined with diamonds. He'd seen it in the store and decided it was perfect.
She would never wear it now. He's planned to ask her to marry him the night after the mission, in the shwarma place that had become a tradition for them after the battle with the Chitauri. He would have gotten up to go to the bathroom and asked the waiter to put it on her plate when he delivered it. Everyone would have clapped and Thor would have told them some story about The customs on Asgard, and Stark would have slapped him on the back and told him that he knew it would happen sooner or later and he god damn better the best man.
But she was gone now, and she would never wear the ring. He put it around the two roses on her coffin, holding them together.
He hadn't seen her get shot. They were in a mission to Russia to take down the Red Room. It was fitting, he thought, that she should go down in the place where she was created. The rest of the team was behind them, holding back the guards, while the two of them went to kill the Director. Clint had been fighting three men when he heard the gun, and a few seconds later Natasha's cry. He turned to see her lying on the floor in her own blood. He'd fallen to his knees next to her, forgetting the men behind him, who thankfully left him alone.
She'd been shot in the stomach, and the bullet had punctured a lung. Her lips were stained red with the blood bubbling up onto them as tried to say her name. He took her hand, frighteningly aware of how it trembled. "It's okay," he'd whispered, "you'll be fine," but she tugged him closer and whispered "I love you" in his ear. He could taste the blood on her lips when he kissed her, and when he pulled away, her eyes were blank.
When the team had rushed in, ready to help them kill the Director, they found him kneeling on the floor with tears running down his cheeks to land on her cold hand. "She's gone," he'd told them.
They got the girls out and killed the Director and Steve had carried her body out to lay it on the snow. Clint had stayed behind to set the Red Room on fire. It was truly the Red Room now, red with her blood.
As the room went up in flames, he sat and watched it burn, his hand in the puddle of her blood on the concrete floor. Steve had come and carried him out too.
On those nights, he went down to the training room and shoot arrows at the targets until there were no more arrows or no more targets. A few times he attacked the punching bag until his knuckles bled and Steve came down hours later to find him kneeling on the floor staring at his hands like they were still covered in her blood. He didn't flinch when Steve cleaned his knuckles. He didn't even move.
He never cried, not in front of them. He only cried on those nights, when he knew no one could hear.
Three weeks after her death, he went missing. They found him in an abandoned building with a gun in his hand, a bullet in his head, and blood on his hand. The house was on fire.
Depressing, I know. For anyone who is following me, I'm sorry I've been MIA. I'm working on the next chapter of The Sadness Of Mistakes, and I'll have another chapter of Of the Angels' Grace up soon.
I'm working on another fanfiction for The Avengers, because I have fallen in love with the movie. So far all the fanfictions I've written have been Clint/Natasha, although one of them isn't really about them specifically.
Hope you liked this one, please review.