Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable.
This fic was another of my middle of the night fics, which means it's one of my angstier pieces. Mostly I got to thinking about how Whedon said about one of the themes of Age of Ultron being death and the sky high possibility of someone dying and this happened. This was heavily inspired by the song Through The Ghost by Shinedown, which is where the title came from.
Just like last time, it takes losing someone to pull them together. It takes Natasha's ragged scream as Clint crumbles and all of the memories of Coulson's death come flooding back.
It should not take losing their friend to bring them together. They all immediately know that.
But they are the Avengers. Without something to avenge, what are they?
That does not help them when Natasha has to fight her way through Ultron's robotic minions to get to him. Nothing seems to be able to help at all.
Tony and Steve share a meaningful glance and time seems to stand still as the magnitude of the situation truly hits them. They have lost their ally, their friend, their teammate. He is – was? – world's greatest marksman and he is simply gone. They spring into action again before something else can happen. (They cannot even bring themselves to think something worse because they are breaking, shattering, falling at that very moment.)
When the dust settles, they have won. Their victory is hollow. Hawkeye is down. There is nothing left to avenge.
Steve thought he had seen Natasha upset when Fury died. Those tears are nothing now. She does not even bother to hide her pain this time. There is no work to do to distract her now. There is no ghost walking in their steps. There might as well be.
Clint is another ghost now. They all have them. Howard Stark. Obediah Stane. Betty Ross. Loki. Peggy Carter. Bucky Barnes. Phil Coulson. But Clint Barton is their ghost more than any of the others, even Phil.
Natasha's grief is the worst. Clint might have bonded with the others, but they all knew that they were closer than words.
She reaches out for him in his absence, intending to take his hand or exchange a glance. He is not there. She retreats. She expects him to be there every time she turns around, but he is not. Clint haunts her every waking moment and then he haunts her dreams. She misses him.
His cover as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent might be blown, but somehow – Natasha is not even sure how – despite being branded a terrorist because of HYDRA, the United States Army gives Clint the funeral she knows he deserves. She hates every single moment of it and she knows he would, too. She thinks he would have hated the fuss, but she accepts the flag and the hole he has left grows even larger.
She tries to hold herself together at the Tower. It is all she can do to keep herself together in front of the rest of the team. She appreciates Steve's attempts to reach out and his invitation to help him look for Bucky to get her mind off of Clint. She appreciates Bruce's offer to listen. She appreciates Tony's invitation to join him in the lab. She appreciates Pepper's insistence that they go shopping to try to focus on something else.
She still wakes reaching out for him. She still sees him out of the corner of her eye as she turns. She still starts to say something only to stop when she realizes that he is not there.
It takes everything she has not to direct questions at him over the comms. She catches herself once and it kills her, but her hands do not shake and she does not waver.
Everything seems like it is beginning to close in on her. Natasha was never claustrophobic, but the world is beginning to seem that way. Her vision narrows to his absence when she is alone. Her thoughts spin out of control and she is forever aware of the bleeding ledger that she feels like she will never be able to stem now. With Clint at her side it all made sense. She had hope that she could clear her debts, both real and imagined. Now she does not know what to do.
She is spinning out, just like her thoughts. Her hands are steady and she is no less the Black Widow than she was before. But the great ache in her heart never stops. The ghost in her footsteps never fades. The grief never truly stops, even when she makes peace with his absence. (And his stupid, idiotic accidental sacrifice.)
But she puts away his bow and his arrows, his flannel shirts and leather jackets, the old ID badge they both knew they would never use again after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. She does not put away the arrow necklace.
With his ghost at her side she finds her purpose again. He would want that, she thinks.