I would like to apologize in advance for the utter and complete pain this story/one-shot brings. It hurt me to write this. Like, I think my heart broke a little…

Anyway! Two Romanogers one-shots in two days! I can't help it, I love them. Plus the trailers fuel me with inspiration (and impatience). Then I saw a post on tumblr (which I left a link for in my bio) that basically was a reverse of the "what if your soulmate's first words to you were written on your body?" so this was a "what if your soulmate's last words were on you?" And this is the result :) I took some liberties with it since it wasn't too descriptive, but it's easy to catch on so. It does help to read the tumblr post first, though.

WARNING FOR CHARACTER DEATH. AGAIN, I APOLOGIZE GREATLY.

All right! I don't own Avengers!

Enjoy!

-:-

"I found Ultron!" Steve's voice crackled over their comms. "I'm in pursuit."

"Steve, where are you?" Natasha asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise of her motorcycle. While trying to fight off the robot army Ultron had built, they'd been trying to find Ultron himself and stop him, put an end to all of this. Somewhere in the middle of fighting Ultron, and then battling robots from his army, they'd lost Ultron temporarily.

Steve relayed his location, and Natasha gritted her teeth. She and the rest of the Avengers were still a ways off from him. She'd been following Steve closely, helping him as he grappled with Ultron on the back of a truck, but she'd fallen behind him shortly after that to take care of a few of Ultron's robot minions that were terrorizing civilians.

"Just wait for us, Steve," she urged, trying not to reveal how worried she was.

"She's right, Cap," Stark cut in. "You're gonna need back up. Just keep sight of him till we catch up."

There was a moment of silence from Steve. "Not an option," he said finally.

"Steve—" Natasha tried to argue.

"I'll keep my comm line open in case I need anything," Steve said, voice firm.

He'd decided what he was going to do, and there was no way to change his mind now. Natasha had no choice but to accept it. Still, she revved her bike, speeding even faster than she already was on the streets, swerving in between rows of cars, most of them deserted as she headed closer to the heart of the city, where the destruction and Ultron's reign was worst. She kept her ears tuned into her comm, but all she heard from Steve was background noise as he continued to pursue Ultron.

As she drove, Natasha felt her Words burn on the inside of her right wrist. She grimaced, trying to ignore the dull ache, and trying to ignore the fear and worry she felt in her gut more. The sensible part of her brain told her something terrible would happen if she didn't get to Steve right that second, but she wasn't feeling real reasonable right now, so she ignored that too. Still, the Words flashed in her mind. You're not your ledger, Natasha. She knew the Words by heart, of course. She'd stared at them, read them over and over countless times. They might as well have been written on her heart.

There was never any way for sure to know who anyone's soulmate was until the Words were said, but there was a part of her that just knew. She knew that it was Steve, knew that it was his dying words tattooed on her skin. And it was more than just a feeling in her heart. She could recall clearly in her mind the day they met on that Helicarrier. They'd walked together as she showed him around, talked like they'd known each other forever. And when their hands had touched as they headed off the flight deck and into the command center, there had been a spark. It had been small, short-lived, but it had happened, and her Words had burned like a fire being ignited. When Steve looked at her, she knew he'd felt it too. But she just shrugged it off. Stuff like that usually didn't happen, so it most likely had meant nothing.

But when she actually realized that she was falling in love with Steve Rogers, there was a part of her that wasn't that surprised. She'd thought about that moment on the Helicarrier, that first touch, a lot more than she cared to admit. And it became abundantly clear that that first touch had actually been something—that it wasn't just her imagination or her Words acting up—the first time they made love. Her Words had burned against her skin brighter than before, and she was almost surprised that they weren't actually glowing. Surprised when Steve kissed the letters on her wrist that he didn't catch on fire, too, because the fire was on her skin and inside of her and it burned, burned so bright she thought she would explode.

She'd talked to her friends, to see if they'd felt anything like that. Pepper said that her Words burned for just a second when she and Tony had first touched, but that was it. Nothing like that had ever happened again. Everybody else said pretty much the same thing, and Natasha wondered what the hell was up with her and Steve then, because he said that his Words—or rather Word, because all that he had was his name in big letters up his forearm—burned when he was with her, too. "Maybe it means we're really meant to be," Steve had teased with a cheesy grin on his face one night after she talked to him about it. She'd laughed and shoved it off because that was pretty stupid, but there was a part of him that had believed him, too.

"He stopped," Steve announced suddenly, breaking Natasha from her thoughts. "We're about four blocks east of the last coordinates I gave you."

"I'm five minutes out, Cap," Tony said, voice strained.

"I'm ten minutes away," she replied through gritted teeth. "Clint, what about you?"

"Uh," Clint's voice came over the comms, the sound of destruction in the background. "Yeah, Thor, Hulk, and I are a little busy here. We'll try to catch up as soon as we can, Nat."

Natasha felt a twinge in her heart, because even though Clint had been talking to all of them, she knew the words were meant just for her, to try and soothe her. Needless to say it wasn't working very well.

"I'm going in," Steve announced.

"No, Steve, wait!" Natasha told him firmly.

"Nat, I—" the sound of an explosion cut him off and Natasha looked up to see fresh smoke rolling into the sky. "I have to do this. Ultron won't stop and I can't let any more people die."

"Steve—" she tried again.

"I'll just keep him busy till you get here," Steve argued.

Steve stopped talking after that and then it was just the sound of fighting on his end, metal clanging against metal, civilians screaming in the background.

"Hurry up, Tony," Natasha relayed over the comms.

"Yeah," was all Tony said in response, and she knew he was pushing, praying his suit to go even faster.

The seconds stretched on, each of them feeling like an hour. Natasha grew closer and closer to Steve's location, but it seemed like she just kept getting farther and farther away. Gritting her teeth she focused on the road ahead of her, nothing else. She just had to keep driving.

"I'm thirty seconds out from Rogers' location—shit!" Tony's voice suddenly sounded over the comm line. "I've got robots on my tail! I've gotta shake 'em. Romanoff, get to Steve."

"Working on it," she muttered back, her worry crawling back up into her throat and settling there, making her unable to swallow it down this time.

Another minute passed and Natasha, once again, cursed the distance between her and Steve, cursed herself from having gotten separated from him in the first place. Then there was a huge crack of lightning in the sky, right above where Steve said he was, and Natasha caught a blur of silver and red, watching as Thor descended to help Steve. She breathed a short sigh of relief and sped up.

"Clint, you okay?" she asked, knowing that the god had been helping him out.

"Yeah, Hulk and I are just about finished up here. We'll be meeting up with you shortly. He'll be fine, Nat," Clint reassured her.

And she almost would have believed it if there wasn't suddenly a huge boom from Steve's end of the comm line.

"Thor!" she heard Steve shout, his voice sounding distant, like he wasn't talking directly into his comm. Then his voice cut off and Natasha's breath caught in her throat.

Then Ultron's voice sounded over Steve's comm. "Humans," the A.I. spat menacingly. "So easy to break." Then there was a loud metallic snap, and she heard something clatter to the ground. Though she wasn't there Natasha knew it was Steve's shield and her heart plummeted.

"Steve, hang on, I'm almost there," she said quickly, her panic steadily rising even as she tried to cage it inside of her.

"Natasha—" Steve whispered. It was all he got out before he gagged and it was so easy, so much easier than it should have been, to picture Steve, dangling off the ground with Ultron's clawed hand around his throat. Thor was down for the count, Steve's shield was broken, and Natasha was still a minute out.

No, no, no, she repeated over and over, clenching her jaw to keep herself from screaming. Come on, come on, come on! Hang on, Steve, please, please, hang on…

"You're...not..." Steve started to say through gritted teeth and Natasha knew he wasn't talking to Ultron. Natasha willed her bike to go faster, but she couldn't push the gas pedal down any further. Nonononono...not now, please not now. Oh god, no no no…please…"Your….ledger," he said, voice barely audible as Ultron surely pressed down harder on his windpipe.

No! Natasha couldn't breathe, could barely focus on the road ahead of her. She felt like she was the one being choked.

Then Ultron's voice—that metal and wires and gears voice—could be heard over the comms, and Natasha had never hated anything more in her entire life. The robot spoke slowly, like he had all the time in the world, and relished every second of that time. "Goodbye, Captain."

"Natasha," Steve whispered, finishing the sentence that had been on her skin forever now, and it felt like a gavel being struck, her heart acting as the sounding block.

"No, Steve!" Natasha screamed. "Steve!"

Then there came the distinct, unmistakable sound of a neck being snapped. Steve's neck. It echoed over the comms, the world came to a stand-still, and all color drained from her vision, the world suddenly a very dull place. The whole team seemed to hold their breath all at once. Natasha couldn't even do that, because she would have needed to be breathing to hold her breath in the first place.

Her Words—which had burned every time he touched her, every time they kissed, burned so hot against her skin as Steve said them—felt icy cold now. Her bike wobbled dangerously beneath her, and it took her far longer than it should have to realize she was not in control. She slowed and swerved just enough to avoid crashing headlong into one of the many abandoned cars that lay in the middle of a road. She righted herself enough then to brake somewhat properly. As the bike tilted to the side, she rolled off it just in time to avoid being crushed under the heavy metal body. She scraped up one of her knees pretty badly in the process, but she didn't even feel it.

She felt everything and nothing all at once as she curled in on herself, struggling to catch her breath. Her lungs couldn't seem to expand enough, though, for her to breathe properly, all her attempts at taking a deep breath failing miserably. She just kept hearing that sound, his neck, being snapped like it was a twig. Steve, Steve….no…. she tried to tell herself it wasn't possible, that Captain America couldn't be cut down so easily, that Steve couldn't just be gone. Just like that. He couldn't be.

Natasha scrambled at the edge of her sleeve, pulling off the Widow's bit cuff on her right wrist, pushing the material up her arm. And just when she didn't think it was possible for her heart to break anymore, when she looked at her Words, she saw that they were just faint white lines now. The letters, once so beautiful and black, swirling across the skin of her wrist so flawlessly, were now nothing more than scars.

-:-

Thanks for reading!

-DaughterOfPoseidon333