They did not make it to the other side of the war, but they are here.
Blood in her mouth, blood on her hands, and half of them are gone.
.
The ash, the dust and ruin—it's everywhere. Natasha has been in Wakanda often enough in the past two years—she grieved here, after a fashion. She watched the thaw, the glacial shift of legend into man.
(Steve grieved too. They didn't talk about it much, what passed between Tony and Steve in Siberia, why Tony left them in Wakanda even though the public scrutiny died down.)
(Natasha saw the film reel in the bunker. She can string together an answer.)
But now the world is ending. Bucky and Vision, Wanda and T'Challa—vanished.
"I can't find Sam," Rhodey says, voice strained thin. "I can't find Sam."
Steve's face doesn't even change. That's how much loss is hanging in the air, layered in ashes around them. There's no pointing in breaking further.
.
She doesn't love Bruce anymore, not like that. If it even was love. Natasha wasn't supposed to love any of them, and somehow she came to love all of them.
Truth be told—Shuri is weeping inconsolably in Okoye's arms. Thor and Bruce and Rhodey are huddled together, trying to formulate a plan.
She's lost sight of Steve. Steve has likely lost sight of Steve.
Truth be told, she shouldn't be thinking about herself. Shouldn't be drawing lines around her tattered heart, when half the world is dead.
She smiles at Bruce when he looks at her, and goes to find Captain America, even though she knows that he won't want to be found.
.
He chose Bucky over Tony. He chose sacrifice over life, time and time again.
So did Thanos, in exactly the opposite way.
Natasha is not a leader. She only watches leaders rise and fall.
She knows where to find Steve because she knows Steve. She's spent two years knowing Steve. Again, her heart is not important. Again, they have lost so many.
Again, she is thinking of her heart, and their future.
The lab still feels cold. There's no Winter Soldier frozen here. Not anymore.
In the cloud of quiet darkness, after-battle darkness, Natasha smells alien blood. It reminds her of New York—the sour tang of Chitauri. These weren't Chitauri. These—she swipes a hand across her forehead.
It doesn't matter.
His back is towards her.
(She loves him.) (Nothing matters.)
Natasha thinks of what their way forward has to mean. Without Bucky, without Sam. Without Wanda or Vision or T'Challa or half of Wakanda's population. She can't think about the rest of the billions. Not here.
"Captain." The title, spoken, is a choice.
He shakes his head.
They are all alone here. She—Natasha, Black Widow, friend, whoever she needs to be—closes the distance between them and takes his hand. "We need you," she says. "We need a leader."
She doesn't let go until he meets her eyes.
(Later, when Steve is the one they lose, she'll tell herself that it's what he would have wanted.)