Natasha wakes up and remembers.
She's always known, and she always will, but she's forgotten, the knowledge reverting to a safe space in the back of her consciousness, bleeding away the color in her vision until she was left with this empty shell she's been living in.
The world is striking now, bright, but she can see dark shapes looming in the distance, blackness digging its claws into the ground and dragging itself closer.
She knows what she has to do.
Her love burns the brightest, and she finds him first. In a warehouse where she's made her ground, waiting with the patience she's been forced to cultivate.
She closes her eyes. When she opens them again, he's standing before her, his arrow mere inches from her face. She looks at it.
"Black Widow," he says. His voice is a rasp she didn't know she missed, but it's lacking something. That lack, that deficiency in him, opens its jaws and buries its teeth in her, dipped in loneliness and a sorrow she too had forgotten.
"Yes," she says. She meets his eyes. He lowers his bow. She stands up in a flurry, too tightly wound by this moment to care about how it makes him step back, raise his bow with the arrowhead glinting in the half-darkness. "Do you remember?"
"Remember what," he says, but he still follows her.
She feels his desolation before she's finished knocking on the door.
"Hello?" he asks, opening the door. His brows settle in a confused frown as he sees her. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"
She looks him over, sees how the war has set its marks on him. Ever the soldier, she muses. "I'm Natasha," she says. "Could I come in, Steve? I have a proposition to make."
"How do you know my name?" he asks, but he still takes a step back to let her in. Trusting, she thinks. More trusting than he used to be.
He's a doctor this time around too, but not the kind of doctor she knows him to be. "Doctor Banner," she says, in a stark white lab coat, standing to his left. Getting in was no trouble, would've been no trouble even if she hadn't remembered who she was – as it is, very few doors are closed to her.
"Uh, hi," he says, looking over at her. "I'm sorry, are you new? I don't think I've seen you before."
"I'm Natasha Romanoff," she says, extending an arm. "I have something I think you'll be interested in."
He lowers the vial in his hands. "What's that?"
"Meet me outside this building at noon tomorrow and you'll see," she says, giving him a smile. "I'll buy you lunch."
Tony Stark is in a casino, surrounded by gorgeous men and women, laughing too hard and drinking too much.
She corners him at the bar when he goes to get another drink. "Mr. Stark," she says.
"Hello there," he says, turning and looking her over without a shred of decency, giving her a salacious grin. "What can I do for you?"
She smiles, runs a hand down his chest. "I think you know," she says, and puts a pill in the drink he ordered as it arrives on the counter behind him.
"I think I do, too," he hums, gripping her hand. "Let's get out of here, shall we?" He fumbles for his drink with his unoccupied hand and knocks it back in one go.
"Let's," she says.
"Let's get down to business," Stark says, when they're back at his place, and is out before his head hits the pillow. Natasha sighs. He does this every time, manages to fuck himself up beyond repair. It's worse when he's missing his humble prince, his rhetorical question, and Natasha looks out at the wide panes of window showing a few, twinkling stars in the sky. She lies down beside him, and when he burrows slightly closer, she doesn't really mind.
In the morning, Tony's still groggy. "Tell your house we're leaving," Natasha says, pulling him out of the bed and unceremoniously stuffing a few of his shirts in an over-night bag.
"Bye, JARVIS," Tony yells in a garbled tone. They take the elevator down to his cars, and Natasha immediately goes for one of the bigger ones. She puts Tony in the passenger seat and straps him in. "Again?" he moans pitifully, head lolling back. "I thought my kidnapping quota was filled up this year."
"Sorry," she says cheerfully, hops in the driver's seat, and starts the car.
Clint is waiting outside the warehouse, and his eyebrows do an impressive climb when he sees who's in the passenger seat. "Really?" he asks, as he puts his luggage in the trunk. "Him?"
"I'm awesome," Tony yells, his fingers drumming on the dashboard.
"I know," Natasha says, ignoring him. "Trust me on this, okay?"
Clint eyes her. "I don't know why, but God help me, I do," he says, and settles back in his seat. She gives him a smile in the rearview mirror.
Bruce is waiting outside the university, hands rubbing together nervously. "Clint, open the door," she says, and he does. "Get in, good doctor," she yells at Bruce, who moves closer to the car like a frightened but curious animal – it almost makes her laugh, knowing him for what he truly is, and seeing him like this.
"I thought we were having lunch?" Bruce asks.
"We are," Natasha says. "Come along."
Steve isn't outside his apartment, so Natasha has to go up and get him. "Don't go anywhere," she tells her passengers. Clint rolls his eyes a little, and Tony and Bruce only spare her the most cursory of glances. They'd struck up a conversation as soon as Tony was coherent enough, and haven't really stopped talking – despite Clint's decreasingly polite coughs.
"Steve?" She knocks on his door.
"Yes?" he says, opening it. "Oh, it's you."
"It's me," Natasha agrees. She worries, for a split second, that Steve will resist, that he will stay in this empty apartment and get caught on the jagged edges of despair, merely existing when he has so much more potential to be. "Aren't you coming?"
"I…" Steve sighs, looks back at his apartment. "I dunno," he says, honestly. "Why should I?"
"Steve," she says. "At this point, what have you got to lose?"
His face looks stricken, before settling into the stony mask of the soldier. "Fine," he says, clipped. "I'll just go get some stuff."
Natasha allows herself a mental sigh of relief.
They've been driving for hours when they arrive, but time passes in another fashion for her now. It doesn't for her passengers – Clint's stayed out of all of it, and Bruce has desperately tried to, reverting to muttering old Sanskrit mantras that Natasha feels like a drum in her bones. Steve and Tony shout at each other, Tony twisted around in his seat to look Steve in the eye as they find each other's weak spots with eerie precision andpush, forcing their way under each other's skin already. They won't let go, Natasha knows. They do this every time, clash and fight and prod until they're so deep into the other they can't find their way back, so they dig their fingers in and settle.
Still, even though Natasha's witnessed it before, too many times to count, the sight of the cabin is a relief, nestled in a small clearing surrounded by trees.
"We're here, boys," she says and turns off the engine. "Stop squabbling."
In the wake of the sound of Steve and Tony's argument, Clint and Bruce's twin sighs of relief seem exaggeratedly loud.
Thor's sitting outside the modest cabin, on the obviously self-built porch. He watches them arrive with a tense look on his face.
"You," Thor says when Natasha exits the car, slamming the door behind her.
"Me," she agrees.
"Do you really think this wise?" he asks, as Bruce helps Tony limp out of the car. He'd been restless, his knee bouncing up and down in an irregular pattern until Clint punched it. He hadn't needed to punch it that hard, but Natasha agreed that Tony's yowl of pain was satisfying.
Natasha shrugs. "It's time, can't you feel it?"
Thor looks at her, and nods warily.
They've each brought their weapons, and that, more than anything, relaxes Natasha. She's made the right choice.
"What's with the shield?" Tony asks Steve, and if Natasha could lose count of something, she would've lost count of the times he's asked. Steve shrugs. He's trying to ignore Tony, make himself as uninteresting as possible. If anything, it makes Tony more adamant.
"Seriously," he asks again. "Where is it from?"
Steve's dog tags glint in the sun, and Natasha sees Tony see them.
"You were a soldier," Tony says. "Are a soldier, probably, look at that stance. Wow, how does your back not hurt? That level of straightness is unparalleled, I'm pretty sure it's straighter than Tiger Woods."
Steve sighs. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
Tony snorts. "Uhm, have you seen where we are?" He swipes a finger over the tablet in his lap, but it seems more like a habit than anything. "We're in bumfuck nowhere, and you have a shield, and that is the lamest thing. Who gives a soldier a shield nowadays?"
"Tony," Bruce says. He's sitting away from the group, distancing himself. His eyes meet Natasha's, quick as a flick, and she sees his feelings of being unworthy, undeserving. He's always been like this, terrified of the power he wields and the earth-shattering, terrible, protective love that wells up in him.
Tony makes a face at him, but falls silent, to Natasha's surprise.
Clint meticulously cleans his bow next to her. Their knees touch.
"You've progressed," she says. "A little, at least."
"I wish you would say what you meant," he replies, and she laughs, because this is the clearest she's ever been, losing her veil of mystery and secrets so they all can see her, see themselves reflected in her.
The first night, stillness settles in the cabin, and she knows what they will become.
Natasha sees everything. She sees Tony crawling into Steve's bed and leaving it shortly after, Steve pushing him back out. She sees Thor sit in front of the small fireplace, staring at an old photograph of a dark-haired boy for hours and hours. She sees Bruce turn in his sleep, the disquiet in his bones leaking into his thoughts and limbs. She sees Clint standing guard, already protecting this group of strangers.
Not strangers anymore, as she sees him start to remember.
The fire burns bright, flushing their cheeks. Bruce set it up with firewood Thor provided, hauling too many logs from the fireplace inside. Natasha looks at each of them, looks at how Steve and Tony are sitting next to each other, shoulders touching, both waiting for the other shoe to drop. Bruce is talking to Clint, their conversation slightly stilted. Bruce wrings his hands together, over and over, and Natasha wants to go over and touch them, still them. Clint looks down at them too, but he doesn't say anything, and Natasha knows neither of them would be wanted.
Thor is sitting next to Natasha, old souls resting against each other. Thor is like he's always been, and it's comforting, calming to know that she isn't alone in this. Thor is still filled with thunder and rage, still so drenched in mourning she doesn't know if he can ever leave it behind.
"Hey," Tony calls to Bruce and Clint, the fire crackling slightly. "What are you two gossiping about over there?"
Bruce meets his eyes with embarrassingly naked relief.
"Nothing," Clint says, stretching his arms out behind him. Natasha follows the movement with her eyes, almost flustered by her own attention to him. She's been without him for so long, it's like a piece is slowly fitting itself back together, shaped like this fierce warrior, the core of him still matching perfectly as his outer layers have changed. "Bruce was asking me about his work."
"You're a soldier, too, aren't you," Tony says, with a glance over at Steve.
Clint grins. "Close enough, although super-secret top spy also fits the bill."
"Really?" Tony looks intrigued now, leaning forward to rest his hands on his knees, bringing his entire side flush with Steve. Natasha notices Steve tense and forcefully relax. "For who?"
"Classified," Clint says, and that's all he says while Tony asks him about every fathomable thing over the next ten minutes. Finally, Steve breaks it up.
"Come on, Tony," he says, and Tony startles a bit, like he'd almost forgotten who he was sitting next to. "Let's talk about something else."
"Fine," Tony says, looking put out. "Why don't we discuss what I do?"
Steve sighs, but he's smiling.
The conversation continues, flows and settles, only becoming stilted and awkward as something reminds them that they are superficially strangers, that none of them had met before yesterday. Natasha comments irregularly, content to look for her old friends blossoming in these new faces, and eventually Steve and Tony make their excuses, Tony citing work as they enter the cabin some fifty feet from the fire. It would almost work, too, if Tony could've spared the lecherous grin he threw at them over his shoulder.
Bruce sighs. "I'd better check he doesn't kill him," he says, dusting off his knees as he stands. Thor stands too.
"I'll join you."
They walk up to the cabin, and Natasha hears the faint beginnings of a conversation before the door is shut and it's just Clint and her.
Clint stands up, walks over to her, and she can see his shadow carving its way across the land, sees the powerful, great wings that now beset his back. The sight shocks her to the core, even though she knew it was coming. He sits next to her, and they stare into the fire before he grabs her wrist.
"I've missed you," he says, old eyes meeting older.
She tangles their fingers and leans her head on his shoulder. "I've missed you too," she says. "More than I can say."
"What's your game here?" he asks, but his tone isn't accusatory, merely inquisitive.
"You know."
"I guess I do," Clint sighs, and they sit, watching the flames.
Bruce remembers, and Natasha doesn't notice immediately. She sits next to him in the noon light, bright blue sky overhead, watching Clint and Steve fence. It was an offhand comment made by Tony, but neither of them said no, and word magically became action.
If she hadn't seen Clint last night, she would've recognized him today – the stance and the way he holds himself is impossible to mistake. Steve is shaky, but he's getting there, too, it's obvious every time he tightens his grip on the sword, automatically accounting for a weight that isn't present.
Bruce is silent next to her, leaning back with his hands buried in the grass, and it's just as Natasha hears it whistle she looks over at him. Where his hands are, the grass is growing, nudging against his palms like an eager puppy. She grins, suddenly, fiercely, overcome with emotion, and Bruce gives her a calm smile back. He opens his arms, and she hugs him tightly, feeling the familiar contours of him surround her. "It's good to be back," he says quietly, in her ear.
"Fucking shit," she hears, and looks up to see Clint with his sword on the ground, one hand wrapped around the other and glaring at them. Bruce just gives him another smile, which makes Clint soften slightly.
Tony cheers. "Steve wins!"
"Uh, thanks," Steve says, slightly red in a way that Natasha can, if she stretches her imagination, attribute to the sun.
"Now it's time for food," Tony says. "Where's the chef?" He looks around for Thor, and he meets Natasha's eyes in a split second. She sees his confusion, his eternal restlessness, his denial and his self-hatred and his fundamental lack of understanding, and she thinks, oh, shit.
He cracks in the afternoon. His tablet's broken, chipped, and Natasha knows he could rebuild it with ease, but this is the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Why are we here?" he shouts in her face, grabs her and shakes her. She could break his arms in an instant, force one behind his back until he begged for mercy, but that's not what he needs right now. "Why the fuck did you bring us here, what is going on?"
Steve steps forward. They're the only two who haven't remembered yet, but Steve's close, the niggling at the back of his head inching forward. "Can't you feel it?" Steve asks. "Something holding us here?"
"Fuck that shit," Tony yells, "I've spent enough time fucking being tied down, I don't—who are you people, anyway? Fucking—" he stops talking, hands shaking, and a smile devoid of any humor twitches on his lips. He turns around and starts walking into the woods.
Steve shouts his name, makes to go after him, but Bruce holds out a hand to stop him. "Let him go," he says. "It's the only way."
The woods are empty. This is a bad idea.
Tony doesn't turn back.
The beat of his feet against the ground remind him of something else, something darker and brighter and so fucking sandy, and the memories pull him down until he's not sure how long he's been walking.
He's not sure how long the figure next to him has been walking beside him, either.
"Hello," the dark-haired man says, smile glinting in the shadows of the trees. "I have a proposition for you."
Tony stops. "Who the fuck are you," he asks tiredly, but the man just laughs.
"You have so much potential," the man says, "will you listen to me this time? You don't have to be some errand boy." Tony is quiet, mentally taking a moment to freak out over the amount of crazy as shit people around here, and the man apparently takes it as agreement. "Come with me," he says, and grabs Tony's arm.
Tony bats it away. "Thanks, but no thanks," Tony says. "Maybe lose the pallor and the crazy talk, and I'd be interested."
The man laughs again, a low laugh that curls itself around Tony and seems to hang in the air. "I see," he says, and touches Tony's face.
He touches Tony's face.
Tony wrenches his hand away. "Dude, don't— okay, it's leaving time now," he says, and pushes the man away before turning to his heel.
He goes back to the cabin in half the time, feeling eyes on his back the entire time.
"Could someone please just tell me what is going on," Tony says as he enters the clearing. The five have moved slightly, but they're still gathered in a half-circle, some sitting, some standing, obviously waiting for him. Natasha snaps to attention as soon as she hears his voice, eyes clouding as she looks him over. The other man's residue is clinging to his clothing, to the shape of his brow.
"Some random guy in the woods called me an 'errand boy'," Tony continues, and now Thor's the one who jerks a little. He seeks out Natasha, and she nods. They all know who it was. "Why?"
"Tony," Steve says. Steve's remembered, in the time Tony was gone, and his shadow is a great, flickering thing in the twilight. "Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" Tony says, and he looks too open, too vulnerable. Natasha can see the push he needs, can see it like a pathway opening up in an overgrown jungle.
"You were our messenger," she says, and Tony snorts.
"Yeah, okay, I'm done with you guys," he says. "I'm driving back, if anybody wants to join—"
"You were our messenger," Natasha repeats, "but it's not about sending a message. It's about being a bridge between two peoples, between two worlds. What would you call the media in ancient times, Tony? Rumors and gossip? Myths and holy books?"
The wall between him and understanding is paper-thin, sanded down by their mere presence. Steve takes a step closer to him. "Please," he says. "Remember. For me."
"Or for me," Bruce says, also stepping closer.
"Or for any of us," Thor says, "remember and be with us, friend."
"This is getting creepily cult-like, guys," Tony says. "Please stop."
Natasha steps forward too, grips Tony to stop him from taking a step back, and lays a hand on Tony's forehead. "Gabriel. Remember us."
When Tony opens his eyes again, his eyes are clear, and he breathes out slowly as he meets each of their eyes, stopping at Steve. "Finally," he says.
"You're one to talk," Steve says, grinning like a fool. They embrace, and the others discreetly look away.
"Okay," Tony says, as he disentangles himself from Steve. "Why have you orchestrated this?" He directs the question at Natasha, but he looks at all of them. They look back steadily.
"Something big is coming," Natasha says. "You can feel it, can't you?"
Tony looks behind them, imagines he can see a deranged smile cloaked in the woods. "Yeah," he says, "I can."
A/N: Thanks to quixotesque over at AO3 for pushing me to write this, and to Linda for saying it wasn't horrible - it's all based on the tumblr posts of the Angel!AU that's been making its rounds. If you're confused, Natasha is Raziel; Clint is Uriel; Steve is Michael; Bruce is Suriel; Tony is Gabriel; Thor is Ramiel, and Loki is, of course, Lucifer. The title comes from John Milton's Paradise Lost: do they stand only stand / By ignorance, is that their happy state, / The proof of their obedience and faith?