A/N: Alrighty, here's chapter two. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry that everyone's ages aren't really accurate, particularly the kids, but I wanted to make them coherent to violet because I didn't know how old they were supposed to be then. Just go along with it. Also, I hope my writing of grief is okay, because I really wanted to include it but also make it as accurate as possible. Please let me know, I would love some feedback. Read at your own risk, bc this is gonna be sad as hell.

Natasha closed her eyes for a half a second as she rode her motorcycle to the farm. She had decided not to take any fancy SHIELD jets, and just enjoy the ride to Clint's house by bike.

It's not Clint's house anymore.

She opened her eyes immediately afterward, of course, but it was nice to just feel the cool wind against her face and smell the spring air.

The drive was about a day, and she stopped once to use the bathroom and get some food but other than that she just rode in silence. It was the first break she'd gotten in a while where she wasn't worrying about Thanos. It was nice to not be worried.

Now she was just sad.

It was around 9pm when she arrived, pulling her bike into the driveway and turning the key. She stood up, looking around and stretching.

It hadn't changed at all. Sure, things were a bit broken down and dusty from not being cared for for 5 years, but it looked the same. It hadn't been touched.

"Nat?"

Natasha turned around and saw Laura standing behind her, holding a pile of wood. She looked the same too.

"Laura." Nat whispered, enveloping Laura in a hug. Laura dropped the wood she was holding and wrapped her arms around Natasha. They stayed there like that for a minute. "Do you know what happened?" Natasha asked, a general question that could mean anything from "Do you know that you've been gone for 5 years" to "Do you know that your husband died."

"We've… been gone. For 5 years. And then we were brought back, and Thanos was killed?" Laura stated as more of a question, looking to Natasha for confirmation. Natasha nodded slowly.

"And Tony Stark died. I saw that on the news." She said, a look of sadness crossing her face. Natasha bit her lip, wondering when she should tell her.

She didn't need to.

"Where's Clint?" Laura asked suspiciously, looking down the road Natasha came from even though she was doubtful she would see anything.

Natasha didn't answer. Laura frowned.

"Nat? Where's Clint?" She asked more urgently, and Nat closed her eyes against the tears forming in them. "He's not…" Laura gasped. Nat swallowed the lump in her throat.

"We went together to a planet called Vormir to get the soul stone. We…" She forced down a sob, knowing she needed to keep it together for Laura. "One of us had to lose something we loved. I… I tried, Laura. I fought him for it. But…"

Natasha shook her head, looking out into the distance.

"He saved the world. And he saved me." She said quietly.

Even in the dark, Natasha could see the tear slipping down Laura's blank face. Slowly, she sank to her knees, the tear turning into cries turning into sobs. Natasha simply stood next to her, unmoving.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but eventually Laura ran out of tears and knelt there, on the ground, in the dark.

"I'm sorry." Natasha whispered, unsure of what she was supposed to do now.

"Auntie Nat?"

Natasha swiveled around to see Cooper walking apprehensively toward the pair, stopping a few feet away from them. Despite the circumstances, Natasha felt a smile tug at her lips when she saw Cooper. He was still 15, but somehow looked older than when Natasha last saw him. The thought of smiling immediately left her when she remembered what Cooper was about to find out.

"Hey, Coop." She muttered, stepping around her bike to give him a hug. Then she stepped back and opened her mouth.

Goddamn it, this is harder than I thought it would be.

"Cooper… fuck." She put her head in her hand and took a deep breath. Cooper eyed her carefully.

"What's wrong with mom? Mom?" He said, slowly approaching his mother.

"You know what, let's just all go inside." Natasha suggested, guiding Laura to the door with Cooper behind them. Ever the perceptive one, Cooper stayed quiet with dread forming on his face. He was pretty sure he knew what was going on.

Once they were inside, Natasha helped Laura sit down. Laura was quietly crying, and Cooper went and collected his siblings from upstairs. Lila, who was 12, was holding 4 year old Nate's hand. Natasha's breath caught in her throat when she saw them, wondering how she was going to do this. They all sat down on the couch, looking at their mother with concern and at Natasha with confusion. Cooper, however, was staring at the floor. Natasha perched on the edge of one of the living room chairs.

"Hey guys. Um… I'm really sorry, but…" She looked at their faces sadly, and then looked away. She couldn't watch. "Your dad didn't make it back." She said finally.

There was a pause. Cooper closed his eyes. Lila's jaw dropped open. Nate furrowed his eyebrows. Finally, a sob escaped from Lila. Then another. Then she was crying. Laura got up from her chair and sat down next to her, the two of them crying together. Laura opened her other arm in Cooper and Nate's direction, but Cooper ran out of the room.

Nate simply stared.

"Well when's he coming back?" The little boy asked, and Lila sobbed louder. Natasha sighed, knowing this would be hard.

"Buddy," She said, kneeling down and putting her hands on his shoulders. "Your daddy… he sacrificed himself. That means that he saved the world… but he's not coming back." She explained. Nate stared up at her.

"Why not?"

"Because…" She bit her lip. Here we go. "Because he died."

Nate's face went from confused, to shocked, to sad. Then he shook his head.

"But daddy doesn't die. He saves the world."

"Well, he did save the world. But… in order to save the world, me and your daddy had to lose something we loved. And so we… lost your daddy." She said, trying to explain this in a way that a four year old could understand.

"So you killed him?"

There was another pause, and guilt began to crash over Natasha like a wave.

"No. I didn't kill him. He chose to sacrifice himself. I tried to fight him for it, but he won." She was explaining this to Nate, but she was also saying it for the benefit of everyone else in the room. She didn't want them to think that she hadn't tried. She really had tried.

Nate finally understood - at least, he understood the part that needed understanding. Which was that his dad was dead. He started crying too, and Natasha picked him up and sat down in the recliner. She let him cry. She let them all cry. But she didn't let herself cry. Because even though she knew it wasn't, even though she had tried her best, a tiny part of herself was screaming at her that this was all her fault.

Nobody slept that night, or the next. Nate and Lila had gotten into Laura's bed, curling up with her as they grieved together, but Cooper stayed shut in his room. They hadn't seen him at all that evening, and they didn't see him the next morning either. But Natasha didn't really see anyone the next morning. Nobody really spoke at all the next day, or emerged from their rooms. She had gotten up and gone for a run, and then mostly stayed out to avoid wallowing. At around noon she came back and made some lunch, which people slunk downstairs to nibble at occasionally, but for the rest of the day sobs were heard from Laura's room and everything was just sad.

The day after, though, everyone but Cooper came downstairs and sat in the living room, subdued.

At first, nobody spoke. Laura was staring blankly off into the distance, Lila was sniffling, curled on the edge of the couch with a pillow, and Nate was playing with his trucks. Being that he was four, he had forgotten all about last night.

"Nat…" Laura began, her voice shaky and uncertain, "Could you… tell us what happened? Exactly what happened?"

Natasha took a slow sip of her coffee, unsure what she should say. She felt like if she told them what had happened, they would think it was her fault.

It is your fault.

She shook away the voice in her head and nodded. They deserved to know. Of course they deserved to know. She glanced at Nate, and Laura shook her head.

"He doesn't understand anyway." She muttered, and Natasha took a deep breath before beginning.

"We split up into pairs to collect the stones. People went to different places in space, different places in time… we went everywhere. Me and Clint went together to get the soul stone to a planet called Vormir. There was a guardian there, on the top of a cliff. We call him Red Skull, and he told us, essentially, that to get the soul stone we had to exchange another soul. A soul for a soul."

She paused, taking another drawn out sip of her coffee.

"Like I said before… one of us had to lose something we loved. So… me and Clint fought for it. I was winning, but Clint shot one of his arrows and… went for the cliff. I tried to go after him, I tried to attach my grappling hook to his belt so he would be caught and I could jump, but it malfunctioned and I… I had to hold on because both of us couldn't die. So… I tried, I really did. I grabbed his hand, but…" She shook her head, watching as Laura and Lila silently cried while they listened. It was even harder because Nate was happily playing with his trucks, completely oblivious to what was going on around him.

"He told me to tell you guys that he loves you." She said before getting up and stepping outside.

She felt bad for leaving them like that, but she couldn't stand it. She couldn't watch them cry, and she couldn't grieve with them because their grieving wasn't the same. They deserved to grieve. Did she?

Clint had saved her. All those years ago, when he was sent to kill her, he had saved her. And she could have sacrificed herself, she could have died a hero, wiping out the goddamned red in her ledger. Her ledger… she thought she had given up obsessing over that, she thought she had forgiven herself for her past, but…

Aw, fuck you Clint.

She looked up at the sky, wishing that Clint hadn't jumped. He had saved her, again. And here she was, sitting outside while Clint's wife and kids were crying in the house. Look where she'd gotten herself.

Back at the Avengers facility, Maria sat with Violet and Steve on the couch. Violet was watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, because even though it was rated TV-14, Violet lived with the Avengers so she'd been exposed to a lot worse than the stuff in the show.

She was explaining what was going on in the show to Steve when Wanda came down the stairs. Everyone looked up, watching as she walked into the kitchen. Then she came out with an apple, sitting down on the couch.

"...hi." Maria said, confused at Wanda's sudden appearance. They hadn't seen her for two days. Wanda didn't say anything, but smiled slightly. They stared.

"You're the one with the awesome magic powers, right?" Violet asked, and Wanda nodded. "Cool." Violet said, shutting off the TV after her episode ended. Wanda set her apple on the table beside her and stared at them silently. Violet's eyebrows began to crease in the same way that Natasha's always did, and she looked to Wanda apprehensively.

"I'm sorry about Vision." She said quietly, and Wanda looked away.

"Thank you." She whispered.

There was a silence, and Steve got up to go help Bucky make dinner. Wanda opened her mouth to say something but stopped. Instead, she smiled at Violet.

"You've grown up. I remember when I used to hold you when you were a baby."

Violet smiled shyly, and Wanda went back upstairs with her apple.

"Maria?" Violet asked contemplatively.

"Yup."

"I thought Wanda was sad."

"She is sad." Maria said, confused.

"But she smiled at me and was talking."

Maria laughed a little bit. Violet was mature in many ways, but as an eight year old there were a lot of things she didn't understand.

"Well, you're sad, right? About your uncle Clint and Tony?" Maria said carefully.

"Yeah."

"But you're not sad all the time."

"...no."

"That's because when you're sad, the sadness doesn't block everything else out. It's less of a barrier, and more like… it's more like a light. When you turn off the lights in your room can you still see?"

"I mean, yeah, a little bit."

"Right. Well when you're really sad, sometimes the lights go out. And it's really hard to see. But it's not entirely dark. Sometimes…" Maria sighed, knowing this was a heavy subject for a little kid. "Sometimes people get very sad, especially when somebody dies, and that's called grief. You're grieving right now for your uncles. Wanda's grieving for Vision. And there are some times when it's pitch black and you can't see at all. But if you're lucky, there are people there for you to turn on the lights. It's not automatic, it can take a very long time, and sometimes it's never fully bright again. But we're here for Wanda to help her find some light." Maria explained, rubbing Violet's head.

"Oh. So Wanda is in the dark but she's also not in the dark?" Violet said, raising an eyebrow.

"She's trying her best to make her way through the darkness."

"Oh. Okay." Said Violet as she got up from the couch, heading up to her room.

Once she closed the door, she turned off the lights. Her blinds were still shut, so everything went dark. But a little bit of light was shining from the crack under the door. And a little bit of light was shining through the blinds.

She sighed, sitting on her bed in the darkness. She reached over to her bedside table, grabbing a framed photo that had been there as long as she could remember. It had a whole bunch of people in it: her mom, Maria, uncle Steve, uncle Bruce, uncle Tony, uncle Clint, uncle Thor, that Bucky guy, Sam who was uncle Steve's friend, Vision, Sasha, and a guy who was probably around Sasha's age who was sitting with uncle Tony who she was pretty sure was Peter. They were all in their own conversations, spread out across the room, but they were all in it. Everyone but uncle Rhodey, who was taking the picture.

Violet scanned all of their faces, stopping at uncle Clint's. He looked happy, sitting with Sasha and her mom. A tear slipped down Violet's face and she sniffed. She wished he was here. Maybe then she'd be less confused.

Because everything was confusing. Nothing seemed to make sense. Just a couple of years ago she had gone along with everything anyone said, but now she was realizing just how messed up things seemed to be. All she wanted was for someone to explain everything to her, but what was really scary was that no one seemed to know.

She set the photo down on her bedside table again and flopped onto her pillow. She sniffed again, and crawled across her bed to turn on the light.

She didn't like being in the dark.