A.N: I wrote this because I couldn't get the idea out of my head - nor could I figure out where it had came from. Then it hit me - I read something similar a while back and it obviously struck a chord so I'm dedicating this to the person who planted its seed in my brain. For Lastavica who inspired this with her wonderful oneshot "It is what it is" - if you haven't read it I recommend that you do!

Gone

The moment that the top ten stories of the building fell he knew that it was over. It started with a rumble and then the horizon changed before his eyes as what had been there a moment earlier crumbled and collapsed. The sudden realisation of what had just happened, a crushing knowledge, froze him for a heartbeat or two, his heart jack-hammering in his chest as the impact made the ground shake beneath his feet. She was in the shadows of that particular building looking for civilian casualties. Before the dust had even settled he was on the move, ignoring the orders that came over his earpiece and running toward the wreckage.

Pushing aside the pain in his shoulder, the fear that clawed its way up his throat, he moved as fast as his feet could carry him, leaping over obstacles and scrambling over mountains of debris that lay in his path. He forgot about the others on the frequency and he called for her, repeating her name over and over with increasing desperation. The silence was deafening, her lack of response more terrifying than anything he had ever known, a sudden Natasha shaped hole in the fabric of his universe.

"Does anyone have eyes on her?" he asked desperately. "Somebody tell me that she wasn't under it when it came down!"

He caught snippets of response, too blinded by panic to allocate voices to their owners.

" … thought she was with you!"

"I'll take a sweep over the building …" this from Tony.

Steve's voice, "Barton you can't go over there, it isn't safe!"

The lower levels of the building were still intact, only the upper floors having been hit by the leviathan as it crashed from the sky, and Clint didn't break stride as he flew through the wreckage, keen eyes searching for any sign of his partner amid the rubble. He wanted to believe that she wasn't there, that she had somehow escaped the collapse unscathed, but his heart wouldn't let him believe what his brain was trying to tell him. Somehow he knew, just as he always had, as if her physical being was just an extension of his own.

"Natasha!" his voice echoed between buildings, cutting through the dust that was still settling around him. Then he heard it, faint, barely above a sigh on the comms link.

"Barton … " It was her, he would know that voice anywhere.

"Where are you?"

She ignored the question, instead giving him the answer to another that he purposefully didn't ask. "I think I'm done Barton."

He found her in the shadows of a neighbouring building, lower body crushed beneath the weight of a steel support beam and back bent at an impossible angle. She was alive, barely, and as their eyes met she offered him the faintest hint of a smile, trying hard to hide the pain that even that simple movement caused her.

"You found me," the whisper was one that showed no surprise, they had a habit of finding one another against all the odds, they'd stopped trying to explain it years ago.

Barton swallowed around the lump in his throat and knelt at her side, she hadn't been lying when she suggested that there might be nothing he could do to save her. From this angle he could see the damage done to her body and suspected that they were indeed running out of time. Instead of their usual witty banter he gave her the real deal. "If I was blind I'd be able to find you," he exclaimed softly, "I'd just follow my feet."

She chuckled, stopping only when a coughing spell stole her breath. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, bright against her skin and confirming his fears about internal injuries. Her breath was laboured and wheezy, lungs fighting for every moment she had left. "Charmer, " she managed to say, falling silent because she didn't have the air to speak further.

"Hold on," he told her, already assessing the fastest way to clear away the rubble that trapped her. He tested the weight of the steel, shifting it slightly, stopping when the movement caused her to cry out sharply. The problem was immediately obvious, the weight of the beam was stopping her from bleeding out. Leave her there and she'd suffocate; move the weight and she'd bleed out. Catch twenty-two. "You're gonna be fine."

She let out a shaky breath and shook her head, her smile and comment familiar as the eyes that looked up at him, "liar."

He didn't bother to contradict her, he was a liar. In this moment he would lie to her as much as he had to to make her feel better and that she knew it somehow made that okay. Her pain gnawed at him, rendering his own injuries suddenly painless. His fingers found her own, palm wrapping around hers as he willed his warmth into her.

"Barton, do we need medics?" Steve's voice sounded in his ear, concern evident and he remembered that the others would be able to hear both sides of this conversation they were having but must be hanging back to allow them this moment. That they would give up their own chance to say goodbye in order to let him say his only showed that they understood more about himself and Natasha than he had given them credit for.

In a moment of selfishness Clint wanted to tear the earpiece from his ear and make sure that what passed between them at the end remained private, but he couldn't. He wouldn't take that from them, or from her. He looked down at her, lowering a hand to gently stroke her hair, the fiery red covered by a layer of white dust and gave her the choice. She made it, communicating her answer with a simple movement of her head. "No we don't need medical," he replied.

Natasha swallowed. "We always knew it would happen one day," she told him. "Don't blame yourself for it."

"I didn't think it would be you," he replied simply. "Is the pain bad Nat?"

She smiled, lied to him. "Not with you here." Expression faltering for a moment, she squeezed his fingers weakly. "It's okay Clint, I'm okay. Just … don't make me go alone."

Silence descended, each of them allowing all the things they never said to fill up the space around them. Both of them drew from the strength of their bond, allowing the heavy, vital warmth of it to flow from his palm to hers. They had been together for years, friends, partners and more, and they both knew that the end of that was coming for them whether they were ready for it or not.

Her hand tightened on his and he stretched out on the ruined ground at her side only to be closer to her. He could hear the change in her breathing, feel the difference in the palm he still held. It wouldn't be long now. Slowly and with obvious difficulty, she raised her palm to lay it against his cheek, her blood transferring from her skin to his. "Don't do anything stupid without me," she told him.

"I won't," he assured her. Neither of them elaborated, there was no need. They'd had the conversation and he would honour the agreement they made, no matter how difficult he might find it.

Her face turned toward his and he moved a little closer. Eye to eye, sharing every breath, they waited out the shivers. Her hand spasmed around his own, grip growing weaker.

It took only minutes; it felt like a lifetime.

The fact that he was there to hold her hand and share her last breath was little comfort. Her eyes were only half closed, glassy green orbs that no longer held the fierce intelligence he was used to, he closed them with gentle fingertips and pressed a kiss to her forehead before he rose to his feet, shaking and no longer able to hide from the enormity of what had just happened. Deep breaths, he needed to get control of himself, needed to do what she would have done if their roles were reversed.

He staggered a couple of steps, turned his face toward the sky and waited until he was calm enough to speak. He filled the silence with the only words that he could form. "She's gone," he said softly, imagining four men elsewhere in the vicinity absorbing the weight of his words. "Natasha's gone."