As always, morning arrives. She awakens on her side, hand tucked under the pillow, curled into a grasp around a knife or canister of mace that, for once, isn't there. She's brought both to Indonesia with her, of course; she just forgot to tuck one or the other into place before retiring last night.

All her reasons for that forgetfulness rest beside her. She wakes to a sleeping Bruce, flat on his stomach. With his head turned toward her, his parted mouth is on full display, soft hints of snores reverberating from it. The covers are tucked up to the nape of his neck, obscuring his bare torso. His shirt from the night before is on her body, along with the scent of him, of them, of their sex.

The hand under her pillow retreats, plunges lower in search of his arm that's nearest hers. The expedition is a short one; his left arm lays between them, a languid but insistent bridge across the small gap between them.

The human brain's adaptability is incredible, if not also baffling. They'd been a world away from each other for months. And really, that distance was years old, dating back to the first time he pulled away from her—from romantic ties with her. Now, less than a week together, and consciousness without his touch is an aching hunger. The scant space between them on the bed is too much.

Careful in the steering of his limb, she grabs his arm, slides and settles it against her chest. In yet another untrained yet instinctual gesture, she clasps his one hand between both of hers, brings his lax knuckles to her mouth, and plants her lips and warm breath there.

It's not her intention, but this does rouse him—a gradual, dazed process.

As he blinks sleep away, he lifts his head long enough to say, "Hey." Leftover fatigue slurs his speech.

Detaching from his knuckles, she responds, quiet and soft as the grin curved onto her face, "Hey."

With the one hand firmly in her custody, he wriggles and wiggles onto his side, then closer to her. That helps with his coherence. Significantly more aware, eyes much less filmy, he repeats his greeting, "Good morning."

"Morning."

"You sleep okay?"

"As well as can be expected," she says, nonchalant but honest.

The hand in her hold retracts, though only momentarily. His touch quickly returns, palm cupping her hip, an anchor as he leans in to kiss her forehead.

She revels in the gesture. As she considers loosely gripping his neck and pulling him down, he retreats, abrupt and bashful.

"Sorry," he says, tucking his chin, which removes the warmth of his exhalations. "Morning breath. Not sexy."

"No," she agrees, though she's smelled far, far worse than the mild, fetid dew of his current breath. Playfully, she adds, "But I don't see how it's a problem, unless you were planning on seducing me first thing."

"Well, actually, my plan is…"

Him rolling atop her creates a pause. Quick as it is, it's rife with confounding responses from her body and brain. Her legs slide apart automatically—dispassionate and expectant. Reluctance transmutes her stomach into a coppery metal, paradoxical to the fluttering air in her lungs. Out of habit, she says nothing.

He finishes, "...to make you breakfast."

Then he's off of her, rolled off the bed, bare feet padding over to the bathroom. Pressing through her elbows, she lifts her upper half in time for the bathroom door to click shut. Despite her quick, honed reflexes and deductive reasoning, it feels as though she's missed something.

Propped up she remains until the toilet flushes and the sink faucet runs. Fending off thoughts of Tom–vivid images of their mornings together, of her contemplating an extra few minutes of sleep and the day's tasks while he was rutting above her—she concentrates on the sounds of Bruce's morning ritual. She wills her ears to search and focus on the sporadic triggering of the faucet, of toothbrush bristles faintly scratching away accumulated grime, the muted expectoration, purging fluoride and debris from his mouth. She wills concentration with uncharacteristic difficulty.

It occurs to her that the best course of action may be to replace one relived memory with another. She reclines back against the pillows, one hand tugging at the fabric of Bruce's shirt like a gentle summoning. Just as she smiles, revisiting his concern for her vagina's bacterial microbiome in the thick of reverie, the bathroom door opens.

Bruce emerges with a bashful quirk of his lips. The sight of him, shirtless and refreshed and raw before her, overpowers any and all mental intrusions. In fact, it's remarkably more difficult to not stare as he crosses to his bag and extracts a shirt plus a roll of socks.

She loves him. She's loved him for a long time and, suddenly, after years of denial, it's as plain as the daylight illuminating the room.

To don his socks, he hops from one foot to the other, inching closer to the bed as he does so. Again, she rises—just on one elbow this time, so she's angled toward him. Socks fully on, he kneels into the mattress, bridges the distance between them, deposits a kiss on her brow.

"I'll be in the kitchen," he tells her. "No rush, though."

Their eyes meet—a question in his, a playful dare in hers. They exchange equally voiceless answers. With the slightest smirk and narrowing of her gaze, she communicates the permission he seeks, the invitation she's eager to give. His mouth floats down onto hers, a gentle, transient landing before he lifts and leaves for his self-assigned task.

She, on the other hand, settles back into bed, into the lingering sharpness of mint and him on her lips. The fingers of her right hand splay across her abdomen, across his shirt, like cats coming to rest in the sun. For a few minutes, there is only the morning warmth and the mist of him over her. Amazingly, guilt wanders elsewhere for a spell as she lays. She revels and breathes.

She loves him.

When he told her to take her time, he was likely hoping she'd return to sleep. Alas, once he's safely downstairs and the sounds of cupboard-rummaging reach her, she takes to packing.

Despite her short visit, it surprises her to find and remember that she brought only a carry-on bag. While it feels as though it can't possibly hold all she has to stuff into it, it does. Sparse toiletries, a few clothes, an assortment of IDs—some real, most fake—a couple items of miscellany and, of course, Bruce's letter. It all fits into the pack with room to spare.

For an obviously irrational yet frustratingly indeterminate reason, this—her own luggage—strikes a match within her and lights a fuse of white-hot fear. Standing alone in this borrowed bedroom, it's too easy to surrender to the sudden paranoia that tells her she's alone; the past two days are products of wishful, traitorous dreams, not reality, and she's alone. Alone and solely responsible for her now-ruined marriage, her once-happy albeit short marriage. Being clad in another man's shirt—Bruce's shirt—isn't enough to convince her errant mind otherwise. So she flees the bedroom. Her pace is leisurely, but it is fleeing nonetheless.

The sizzling from the kitchen serves as her guide. She descends the stairs with full, flat-footed steps, not entirely trusting the ground to catch her.

Sure enough, though, Bruce is there, pantsless but socked in the kitchen, right where he said he'd be. Never has he lied about his whereabouts. It's when he's told her nothing that she's lost him. Still, she fears. She has to get used to this—wants to get used to this. She'd like to feel less like a woeful, codependent romcom protagonist and trust her boyfriend when he says he'll be right back.

Her boyfriend? Her mind reels and sputters, reaching for a title for him, for them It's too early. It's not—it's nearing 9—she just hasn't slept enough. But no, this isn't the fault of sleep sacrificed. It's today itself she fears. It's too early to be today. Too early to go back, too early to lose him.

Since when did she develop such a capacity for fear? Probably since people started giving her reasons to be afraid—not of them, but of their absence. Damn them for making her care. It'd be so much easier to sleep in, to rest, to pack up and leave if she didn't give a damn.

Too late now.

She wrenches herself from a mental tangle, gives herself a target—Bruce—and pads over to him. The linoleum has an unpleasant chill, and she envies his choice to don socks.

Neither of them speaks as she approaches, slips into the sphere of his personal space, and peers over his shoulder. Acknowledgement is unnecessary. On the stove, there is a breakfast menagerie: browning French toast, over easy eggs, some version of fried rice, and vegetarian sausage (bought because of its convenience and microwave compatibility). Obviously, he'd scavenged through the minimally stocked cabinets, determined to have her eat something besides plain toast and a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast. The array of alternatives are before him, before her.

Two thoughts dawn on her: again, she loves him—has loved him for so long that this notion does not scream or startle her. It just is. She loves him. That, and she does not deserve this gesture, not after what she's done, what she still has to do.

What she has to do is a daunting task for later. Again, it's too early for it today, too early for that time to arrive. As much as she knows she should do it soon, she wants to allow herself this, him—Bruce. She doesn't need it for strength. It's not a need, but she's also experienced the consequences of not addressing deep-rooted wants.

As he tends to the toast, her hands lift and settle like feathers on his hips. In wordless recognition, his free hand—the one not handling a cheap, silicon spatula—covers one of hers. When the toast needs flipping, he goes back to the pan, and she slides her hands up to his chest. She allows herself this, to hold what is now irrevocably hers. Her head bows, coming to rest on his shoulder. Even in the curve of her nose, she holds him, deepens the connection.

When she does this, he asks, "You okay?"

She simply raises her head and kisses his cotton-covered shoulder. Her fingers scrape lightly against the fabric in search of his ribs. Like this—back to her, clothed (partially)-he could be anyone. Greedy and wanting, her hands trace trails down his sides to the hem of his shirt, slip under, and retrace the way to their previous position. Then she's content.

After a moment—four heartbeats, she can feel each under her splayed fingertips—Bruce speaks.

"Miss Romanoff," he says, playfully stern."Those are my boobs."

A snort travels partway up her throat before evolving into a single chuckle. Along with the noise, she raises her bow, brings her chin to rest on his shoulder. She mutters, "Dork."

It's not possible to identify a smile without sight, sound, or a direct touch, but she would swear on her life that he's grinning just as she is. She tucks her own grin into his neck and presses it into a lingering kiss there. Then she just holds him, a silent witness to his culinary juggling of several pans and dishes. Each shift of muscle she feels—whether it's under her hands or from his back against her chest—is a soft piece of art she wants to carry with her everywhere, especially back to the Western Hemisphere.

When the thought of the States and what must be done there intrudes, she channels her focus into the two-part heartbeat under her left palm. Instead of looking at a clock, instead of counting seconds or counting anything, she anchors herself to his heart and lets its thrumming pass the time. That way, it doesn't feel like long before breakfast is done—the cooking of it, at least.

Once satisfied with the state of the culinary array, Bruce switches the heat off and transfers a few things to the plates he has set aside. Then, he turns in her arms. Not without reluctance, her hands retreat from the interior of his shirt as he moves. They resettle on his chest, above the fabric. Meanwhile, his arms curl around her lower back, gently pulling her to him in an invitation she gladly accepts. With their combined weight reinforced against the stove, she leans into him and rests. Their foreheads knock together with the ease of breathing.

After a breath, Bruce asks, quiet, "Do you wanna eat?"

"Eventually," she says, eyelids falling shut.

Another breath. The smell of cooked sugar and the pleasant fragrance of spices.

He murmurs, "What do you wanna do right now?"

"Stay here," she returns, thinking of both the short-term and long-term.

As though the connection point of their foreheads is a tunnel for the exchange of thoughts, he understands instantly and kisses her as though sealing an oath. In parting, he promises her, "I'll be waiting." Her eyes open to his sincerity and conviction. Gaze connected to hers, unwavering, he adds, "I'm not going anywhere."

The best way to communicate the depth of her understanding is to kiss him, she thinks. And she does. Loosely fisting his shirt in her hands and tugging him into her, she pulls his mouth where it's already eager to go.

Eventually, they'll eat. For now, she just soaks him in and succumbs to the sweet intoxication.

Walking into the house she shares with Tom is worse than entering any funeral. One of the few things that got her through the non-stop, low-grade anxiety spells of the 22 hour flight was the hope, the belief that the tangles in her network of muscles would loosen once she touched US soil. Surely it'd be somewhat like a mission, where any nerves harbored before, in the prep phase, would evaporate once she went in, guns blazing.

Now she's here, and faced with the gut-wrenching reality. Somehow, it's possible to feel worse, tighter with anxiety. And she does.

Tom's left her to their bedroom to unpack, rest. He'd tried greeting her with a kiss at the airport. That, she had managed to dodge, blaming a lack of dental hygiene that sometimes accompanies traveling.

Nothing had stopped him from embracing her before he left her to her own devices. Only minutes ago, he'd hugged her tight and expressed his gratitude for her homecoming. She'd pushed away visceral thoughts of Bruce, thoughts that had also helped her through the hell of her return flight. She reached for anything in her mental arsenal to stave off the thoughts. She tried to not think about him.

She's still trying to not think about him.

Thus, of course, her mind is only on him. Her mind is back in Indonesia, is on the plane they took from Balikpapan to Jakarta. Despite her insisting otherwise, that she was fine, would be fine, Bruce had joined her for the two hour flight that made up the first leg of her trip. They had said little. In fact, they'd said nothing. There was just her hand on his leg, mid-thigh, and his palm covering hers. They hadn't kissed when they parted, when she boarded her international flight. At the time, a mutual squeeze of their hands sufficed as their temporary goodbye.

Now, she wishes for more. And she wishes she did less. And, somehow, regret isn't one of the endless knots within her. Shame, however, is more than happy to compensate for her lack of remorse. There's a phantom of their joining that lingers below her belly, and the shame is a scorching holy water constantly sprinkling on the warm embers of the recent memories. It takes constant, conscious effort to resist shuddering.

She can't stay here.

A floor below, Tom busies himself in the kitchen with late lunch preparations. Neither of them like to cook, and they're fortunate enough to have the financial freedom to order takeout often. She thought that's what they would do for lunch–order in. Why didn't they? Rather, why did Tom decide to play the part of chef now?

At the top of the stairs, she lingers, a litany of crass language rolling through her head that would most assuredly draw disapproval from Steve Rogers if he heard any of it.

Thinking of Steve brings the other boys to mind, which stays her a few moments longer at the apex of the stairs. She hasn't been in contact with Tony, Thor, Steve—not even Clint since finding Bruce. Hell, only Clint knew where she really was, what she was doing when she went to Indonesia. Before she could wonder what her friends—her family, really—would say about this, before she could imagine scathing words and insults where there would be none, Clint's approval rose to the forefront of her stormy mind.

People make mistakes all the time. The love of your life only happens once.

At the time, she hadn't told him of her feelings for Bruce. He could read her as though she were his twin, though. Bastard.

The consistent sounds of cooking—sizzling, simmering, cookware scraping—return her to the present, to her elongated pause at the top of the stairs. One hand reaches for the railing. Her knuckles instantly whiten in a vice around the sanded wood. If she stays here, waiting for the right moment to go shatter a man's life, she'll never move. She'll never get back to Bruce. The mere notion of that spurs her beyond hesitation into action.

Tom's got his back to her when she finally enters the kitchen, one earbud in. Probably listening to some podcast, she thinks. His mind needs additional stimulation, something to chew on when he cooks. Something to chew on she has indeed.

"Hey," she says, low, hoping to avoid startling him.

Alas, he starts a little, splashing something on the stovetop as a result. Regardless, a grin greets her when he turns. "Did you unpack already?" He asks.

"No–no, I couldn't…" She trails off, chooses an answer that's not not technically a lie. "I'm not tired."

"Okay," he returns, nonchalant—so gut-wrenchingly nonchalant. "This isn't gonna be ready for at least…" He refers to his phone, surveys the pot, then concludes, "It's gonna be a while. So…"

"So we can talk," she says.

"Yeah, sure." Obviously oblivious to the grimness cloaking her, he shifts his gaze back to the pot. The ambiance on his side of the kitchen is casual, prepared for anecdotes from her travels, complaints about airports and flights, a brief summary of her trip's itinerary—prepared for exactly the wrong things.

Over twenty hours of travel, of being in the air and waiting in airports, and still she lacks a script for this.

She starts simple, with just his name. "Tom."

"Tasha." There's a smirk in his voice. Damn.

"I went to Indonesia."

Not so much as a backward glance. "It's frigging hot there."

"Yeah."

Nothing. He stirs, taps his phone, stares at the screen.

"Tom," she says again, a summon to her shadows.

"Yeah, hon, go for it. I'm listening."

Listening for the wrong things, she thinks. On an inhale, she gathers her darkness—the ashes of everything he's not aware has already burned—and crosses over into his territory. Her footfalls don't draw his attention. Only when she reaches in and switches his burner off does he look—really look—at her.

Somehow, a sliver of the shade swarming her catches his notice. A corner of his mouth twitches downward. He asks, slightly solemn, "Did something happen there?"

Yes, and no. It happened—started happening—at our wedding. Maybe it happened before then. No–it was definitely happening before that, she thinks. Instead of barraging him with that esoteric bemusement, she simply states, "I found Bruce."

"That's great. Right?" The severity of her expression causes him to ask. As far as he knows, Bruce's disappearance meant the loss of her other best friend in the world, which wasn't wrong. It's also so far from the full truth. Ignorant of that, though, he just seeks reassurance, "He's okay, right?"

The easiest, simplest answer is a nod.

A cursory look passes over her. Tom's fingers drum lightly on the counter. Slowly, the heat from the pot recedes. The glowing clock on the stove changes to a new minute.

He pays attention to her—of course he does, he loves her—but doesn't linger on her long enough to get any sort of accurate read. True, smothering emotions beneath a brick-walled expression is one of her many skills, but surely some modicum of her anxiety and dread must be seeping through the cracks. If only he'd stop worrying about lunch—his darting glances to the pot are plain. If only he'd look.

Finally, after an endless minute, he asks, "Did you wanna...talk about how you found him?"

Yes, and no. "He left me a note," she explains, "when we got married."

That attracts his full attention. Brows furrowing, tone tinted with suspicion, he questions, "What kind of a note?"

"It was a goodbye."

"Okay," he says, now on high-alert, not dissuaded in any way by her answer. His response is a tacit urging. The problem is not whether the truth will emerge, but how.

Possibilities simmer in her brain like a storm with a fusillade of lightning. He was in love with me. He's still in love with me. And I'm in love with him. I didn't even know I was—I had convinced myself he was a close friend and a kindred spirit, and he is, but he's also so much more. But, in not being able to have that, to have him, I think I convinced myself I had that more with you. The last thought is a novel one. As soon as it strikes her, it resonates deeper than a faint inkling passing by; the thought occurs and it sinks like a stone in water, a heavy revelation.

"I went and found him because of what the note said." A hand lifts to the counter. Her fingers curl into a tight grip on the quartz edge. She allows herself one full cycle of breath before she ushers in the cataclysm. "I found him because I wanted to be with him. I want to be with him," she quickly corrects. Her fingertips dig into the counter, groping for traction where there is little.

The words and their implications seem to stiffen him into a statue. His lips barely move when he quietly demands of her, "What are you saying?"

If ever she's been in the eye of some tempest, it's now. The edge—the barrier between calm and tumult—looms right before her. To it, to Tom, she utters, as low and clear as him, "You know what I'm saying."

"Say it," he murmurs, a prelude to severe thunder. "Say it so I can believe it."

The way he asks reminds her too much of someone staring death in the eye and asking for 1,000 cuts instead of a quick bullet. He deserves better, and he deserves to hear that from someone who's not her—someone who wants to wake up to him every day for the rest of their lives.

Though it deepens the wound, she says, low and firm, "I love him."

The statement hits him entirely like a gunshot. Expecting a disaster and enduring one are two completely different experiences—the former can never fully prepare anyone for the latter.

In his state of semi-shock, Tom sputters, "So…" He yanks the earbud necklace off his neck, a tenuous tether he breaks in order to back away from her. His expression transforms into a grotesque formation she's never seen before. It sears into her as he demands, "So what the fuck is this then?"

A fair question. Saying as much, however, would be less than helpful right now.

A snake summoning its venom, he spits at her, "You're with me for five years, you marry me—why? Were you just waiting for him to…what? Huh? Was I just the next best thing? 'Cause you do know I love you too, right? I don't have someone on the side I'm secretly waiting for. It's just you. Just you, Natasha. Fuck!" The last exclamation strikes her like a slap to the face. As though unable to stomach the sight of her, he whirls so that his back is a wall between them.

"I know. I'm sorry," she says, a painful mix of feeble and earnest. "I made a mistake. I didn't—"

"That's what you call this? That's what you call five years? A mistake?" Like a tropical storm's volatile winds, he turns back, everything about him escalating. Red ignites his face and quickly burns into a blazing crimson. Nearing a yell, he repeats, "A fucking mistake?"

"I know it's awful," she says, calm water in a tide pool amidst the tempest she summoned. "But would you really rather I keep lying to you? Would you rather I continued lying and pretending—to build this fake life just to give you something I can't fully invest in?"

"Clearly, you're already excellent at that."

"Tom," she implores. "I didn't know—not until he left me that letter. What would you'd've wanted me to do?"

"What would I have wanted? Now you're worried about what I want? I would've wanted—fuck!" He slaps the counter, which causes her to jump, not that he seems to care or notice. Fixated on some miscellaneous spot on the quartz, he then concedes, "I don't know."

If he doesn't know, then she's lost beyond the point of finding. Every conceivable suggestion feels impossible. It's dangerous for her to throw anything out into uncharted territory.

So she waits. A warehouse awaiting a wrecking ball, she waits.

"Why?" He says finally, "Why would you go across the globe to track him down and not tell me? Why not tell me then?" He charges on, not leaving her room to answer, "What were you gonna do if you didn't find him? What if he didn't want to be with you?"

That stings her, though she keeps the balm to herself, her response internal: He's always wanted to be with me. He just wouldn't let himself.

Of course, the questions jabbed at her weren't genuine inquiries or points to ponder. As with a nest of hornets, the best course of action is not to prod.

To himself, as though she isn't there, he utters, "Fuck." His muddy green eyes bore into the floor, a film of moisture shimmering over the irises and sclerae.

The most courteous thing to do in the moment, she thinks, is to divert her gaze. Looking to the pot beside her, a shiny skin taking shape over the contents, she says, "I know there isn't any way for me to make this better." Quieter, as though she asks this of a god and not her soon-to-be-ex-husband, she poses the question, "What can I do to stop it from getting worse?"

A gurgled hybrid of a scoff and a sob rises and recedes. He coughs it back and brings a tight fist to his chest, creating the facade of someone clearing their throat. The illusion hurts more, stabs deeper, somehow, but it's not like she can request a display of tears. How could she possibly say, Please don't pretend with me—just do what you need to. Feel what you need to. If she wanted to avoid hypocrisy—and she does—she couldn't iterate any of that. Plus, it doesn't help that Tom is particularly sensitive, yet retains some seriously outdated notions about men crying.

With a force that would aggravate a brain injury if he had one, he shakes his head. Then, with not another sound uttered, his shoulders square and he stalks off—out of the kitchen, up the stairs, toward the bedroom. Up there, he slams the door and the house trembles. She remains in the kitchen, motionless, anticipating aftershocks.

Minutes pass, and she spends them mulling. Her overcritical conscience wastes no time making her a punching bag for herself. That's to be expected, though. What's odd, and thus distracts her from self-criticisms and insults, is the dissociative numb that chills her to absolute stillness.

Part of her is hyper-aware of every detail in the kitchen—every cut and corner, where and how the light falls from the two windows sharing the same wall, a lone spoon and navy blue bowl in the drying rack. The feeling of strangeness that prickles under her skin surpasses what she felt when she saw this house for the first time. This feels like she's broken into someone else's occupied home to give herself a tour.

Those sensations, however, belong to her physical body, above which her mind hovers. If her psyche could be pinned down to one location, it would be in the corner overhead, utterly detached. That predominant part of her reaches for Indonesia, for the days passed with Bruce. Were it possible, those thoughts would condense into a red balloon that drifted up and out of the house, into the atmosphere, into the jetstreams, riding wind until she could rematerialize by Bruce.

For that nauseatingly fanciful notion, there is a heavy pang of guilt that strikes like a hammer behind her diaphragm. The feeling is an unfortunate and abrupt tether that tugs the mind-body connection back into sync. A glance to the stove's clock reveals at least ten minutes have passed.

Intermittent marching and the dropping of unidentified miscellany inform her that Tom's still here, still closed in what is no longer their bedroom. He and his justified fury stand between her and her unpacked bag more than the closed bedroom door does, and it inexplicably feels like that bag contains her last worldly possessions.

In a state of quiet disequilibrium, she transitions from the kitchen—site of the slaughter—to the living room. Its stillness and lack of life envelop her and her fraught yet numb state easily. Perched at the edge of an armchair intended, at its time of purchase, for guests, she waits. For what, she is uncertain. But her conscious cleaves into halves: one tunes into the muffled ruckus of Tom upstairs, while the other relives small moments that make her short time with Bruce feel like a lifetime. Banter over his scooter, catching a look of blissful disbelief he affixed to her as she perused the ordered chaos of his tiny kitchen, his palm on her bare hip, full of adoration and void of any sexual expectation or entitlement. Those are small moments that remind her life will go on, and it will go on with him.

Eventually, Tom does emerge. He hastens down the stairs with his largest suitcase, unconcerned with the various bumps and bangs that the thing causes as it trundles down the stairs behind him. If she didn't know better, she'd stand, ask him what he's doing and where he's going. Maybe she'd even try and stop him. But she does know him, which is what makes this such an irreparable mess. She knows there's nothing she can do except sit and watch as Tom hits the ground floor, marches for the front door, and exits.

Outside, a car revs to life. The clunky hum of its engine fades as it peels away from the house faster than it ever has before.

There's a soft, slow throbbing in the back of her head when she wakes. Her legs are stiff. She spent a restless night on the living room couch, curled to fit on the cushions, a stiff throw pillow for head support. One of her light jackets serves as an inadequate blanket. There were better options, but many of them were upstairs. Many of them carried all-too familiar and now-unwanted scents.

She feels somewhat like a lone survivor camping among the casts of Pompeii.

For a short time last night, at least, that wasn't true. In the fresh darkness following sunset, she called Bruce. Since Balikpapan is twelve hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, there were still traces of sleep rasping in his voice when he answered. She sandwiched her head between her phone and a throw pillow, closed her eyes, and imagined him back beside her as he indulged her in the most mundane parts of the day before. Nasi goreng with a fried egg for breakfast. The daughter of a neighbor scraped her knee on the street while playing and asked if it was bad enough to ride on Bruce's bike to the nearest hospital (it wasn't). A slow day working at the tiny clinic in town. A few more pages of The Silmarillion read at home. A late afternoon outing to the beach. He'd forgotten to apply sunscreen to his nose, and the skin there would surely peel soon.

Of course, there were the events of her day to report, but he didn't press her for those, didn't pry for more than the few details she gave him. His missing her was a constant undercurrent in his tone, but he didn't say it because she didn't say it. She didn't tell him how much she missed him because she couldn't guarantee what would happen to her if she spoke the words aloud. Even her parting I love you was quiet, hidden from her pesky, volatile emotional state.

Now, she's awake. After a quick, instinctual assessment of her surroundings, after her thoughts dwell on Bruce, yesterday sinks into her as a poison soaks through the skin. She can't get out of here fast enough. She won't leave without ensuring Tom is alright, though. She won't call or text him yet. She'll wrestle with the paradoxical dread of his eventual homecoming.

Something thuds in the garage. Her arm lunges for her nearby bag, for one of the weapons within. Once armed, she stands.

Before she's gotten out of the living room, the door that leads to the garage opens and closes. Footsteps approach, their familiarity practically spelling out the name of the person in the house: Tom.

He appears before her with the look of a man who's spent a month dwelling in a cave without sunlight. Sure, his outward appearance—clothes and hair and all—are prim and tidy. To her, the sum of him resembles the risen ghost of a well-to-do guest from the sunken Titanic.

She lets him make the first move, the first statement. During a deep inhale that precedes what she hopes will be a discussion, the optics of their current state dawn on her like a shadow. They're standing a few feet apart, her equipped with a gun and him the appearance of a ghost. She hopes he won't comment on the sick suitability of it.

Thankfully, he just says, "I think you should be the one to file." To file for divorce, he means, avoiding the word divorce like a slur.

To say she'd already planned on that would be unnecessary salt in the wound. So she responds, "Okay."

A moment passes. It's as though there's a moat of mud between them, and it delays the rate at which their words reach each other.

"Gotta sell the house too," he says. With this, his eyes dart around, landing on anything, everything but her.

Again, the simplest answer is the least painful. She nods, pushes away the intrusive suggestions of sheer, apathetic pragmatism. Either of them staying here is not an option, logic be damned.

As though asking about takeout on a tired Monday night, he inquires, "You wanna move out first?"

The nonchalance is a relief. The nonchalance consecrates her suspicion that she's lost him forever. She's not sure whether those feelings are at odds with each other.

"Sure," she says simply.

Quiet settles over them once more, a thick mud. Even her limbs feel stuck in it. She stays, waiting for his response, his action. The gun she holds is far too heavy in her grip.

He nods, the kind of curt gesture someone uses when cutting off a conversation. Sure enough, right after the movement, he says, "Alright."

And he turns to go.

"That's it?" Her tone maintains a good, non-accusatory evenness. The tightrope-thin line between the urgent need to act and the need for careful consideration is a liminal space that's practically her lifelong home. Her experience in the area pays off now; Tom stops. He also doesn't turn to face her, doesn't respond. Gently, she prompts him, "There isn't anything else you wanna get off your chest? You don't wanna ask me—"

"If I say anything else to you right now, it's gonna get nasty." Fair of him, she thinks. Barely looking over his shoulder at her, he adds, "And I'm not ready to ask you anything. Not yet. I just wanna…"

"Yeah." Now she nods, the same curt thing as his earlier.

He lingers. She watches him as a deer does when it faces a human, unsure of its intent and level of threat.

Ever so slightly, he angles himself toward her. She gets the feeling that's the closest he can come right now to direct eye contact with her.

Without a single shard of malice, he tells her, "I really hope I can forgive you someday."

"I wouldn't count on it," she counters, the remorse she allows genuine.

Around all the heartbreak and ache, he manages to show these flashes of compassion. She almost wishes he wouldn't; the small mercies so quickly reconstruct the man she convinced herself she loved like a husband, like a partner. Without these details, however, Tom wouldn't be Tom and then, perhaps, this might be easier. And she doesn't deserve easier.

With the pseudo-telepathy that can come with knowing and coexisting with someone for years, he seemingly intercepts her thoughts as they come. He says to her in quiet, earnest insistence, "Try to forgive yourself too."

Then he goes. The goodbye is sealed and buried without it being said. Just like that, just with him leaving the room, her current husband is now a stranger.

To the phantom of him that occupies the foyer, she responds within her mind, I wouldn't count on it.

The house she stands in is now a coffin, and she can feel the air running thin. She doesn't bother to go up and grab more of her things—more clothes, toiletries, equipment, anything. She secures her gun, grabs her bag, and walks out and away from this now-dead thing.

By the time she's off the last plane of her journey, the house is on the market. Steve and Clint oversee the operations, make donation arrangements, make a truckload of decisions on her behalf without a single photo or text. Movers pack the few belongings she'll keep into a box the Bartons will hold for her. That's how she wants it. It's everything she didn't ask for. How Steve and Clint were informed, she doesn't know, can only narrow the source down to two possibilities—Tom and Bruce. In a rare moment of chosen ignorance, she doesn't want to know who made the calls for her.

Now, she's back in Indonesia—the only place she wants to be. In Balikpapan with a certain someone, to be specific.

That someone awaits her with his dorky little bike at the island's international airport. He receives her with open arms and reciprocation; every first move, first action of their reunion here in public is hers to initiate. She settles for a hug. It's brief, but she sinks deep into him like a fox running into the undergrowth. His arms around her are solid and unwavering, and she thinks this is what it must feel like to jump from a plane and know the parachute will catch you on the long way down.

It's when they step into his place that she finally kisses him. He's barely got the front door shut when she spins him around with a tug on his arm and lets herself sink fully into him. Her hands form a cradle for his face, which he takes, folds together and presses to his chest. He then mirrors her initial gesture, bookending her cheeks with splayed palms and applying pressure like an anchor drifting, dropping into submerged sand. She fills her fingers with the linen of his shirt.

He starts to turn her toward the wall. A tendency to overthink quickly overcomes the compulsion, though, so he simply pivots them and stays in place. The mere suggestion of the movement strikes an instant need in her. Her curled fingers tug at his shirt. Encouragement and a tether link him as she takes a small step backward. He responds with a gentle but firm push of his mouth that sends them into the wall. His hands on either side of her face slide around to the back of her head to pillow her head, a cushion ensuring she doesn't somehow hurt herself landing against the hard surface. For a few moments, she lets the weight of everything lift, lets her legs go slightly boneless.

After blessedly long minutes of embracing—that time punctuated with two quick check-ins from Bruce between kisses—they head into his bedroom? She wonders. There's no set plan, but it feels like there's an unspoken understanding that this small abode isn't their permanent place. The closest thing she has to a plan right now is a vague notion: they'll probably drift together from here, cohabiting temporary spaces without officially moving in together—not until her divorce is finalized. Not until the house is sold and sorted out. Not until the guilt is less than a giant lead weight on her conscience.

It's not a plan, but it's the best compromise she can strike with that leaden guilt right now. It's not a plan, but she clings to it like a rope suspending her between the top and bottom of a large wall.

Bruce leaves the bed only to retrieve food. There's a lone chair in the bedroom that he drags over and repurposes as a tray for a small menagerie of sustenance. Once that's situated beside her, he returns to lie at her side. It's then that she regales the unfolding of events with Tom. Despite her brain casting her as a villain the whole time, Bruce remains there with her, open and reassuring and accepting the whole time she talks. At one point, when she pauses to contemplate food, he is even apologetic, and she realizes he is blaming himself as much as she blames herself.

He doesn't ask for forgiveness. Earnestly, she tells him he already has it. Forgiveness happened when he appeared in the yard of her borrowed home days ago. Forgiveness happened when they kissed, when she held onto him as he drove them to his home—this home—and opened everything of his to her. Forgiveness was made between their bodies when they slept together.

Perhaps, she thinks, in all of that absolution, there is some grace left for herself.

That thought hovers above her until they retire to sleep for the night. Both of them strip down completely, but unseductive, chaste. Just holding each other is the kind of melding and mending their bodies need right now, not sex. Not yet.

The thought of forgiving herself warps into a nightmare as soon as she drifts off.

She jolts awake to the phantom feeling of a gun in her hand. Her nervous system is charged and ready, and it doesn't feel like she's slept a wink. Curious about the time, and eager to fill her palms with anything but a weapon, she reaches for her phone. A hasty, fumbling search under her pillow and across the nightstand turns up nothing. Grateful for the distraction, she casts her mind back, tracking its known locations throughout the day.

The cell must have been cast aside with her shorts, she determines. Those are somewhere near the bed—it's not like she threw them across the room. It's just a matter of searching without disturbing Bruce.

When she slips out of bed, temperate equatorial air moves over her bare skin like a thoughtless inhale. Yet, her shoulders tense, as though someone just slipped an ice cube down her spine. The absence of A/C, thick bedspread, and pajamas transports her mind to where she is not, and who is not here. A too-vivid vision from her dream hits her like a thrashing bull: her with a gun in her hand, Tom on the other end, blood already spilling out of his mouth. In the dream, her finger paused on the trigger but was, apparently, superfluous. Dream-Tom had gurgled something indiscernible, and drops of saliva and gore misted the corners of her mouth, the line of her jaw.

Like a cat fleeing the scene of a crime, she pads out of the bedroom. In the utter dark, she feels her way to the single bathroom in the house. There, she collapses. For the first time in a long time, she crumbles.

Her hands press to her head as though praying but, really, she tries to exorcize the phantom weight of a firearm from her palms. Let the heat of her own skin replace the heat of a just-fired gun. She sits on the floor, knees curled into herself, and imagines her feet are flat slabs of heavy marble, splayed and anchoring. Recoil thrums under her skin, echoes in her bones—aftershocks of an earthquake. She presses, presses, presses into her heels, into the balls of her feet and thinks of kilometers-thick rock absorbing disaster.

She doesn't realize Bruce has joined her until a questioning touch settles on her shoulder, and she startles. How long she's been like this, she doesn't know. Whether she's been awake or in some early phase of sleep is up for debate. She's not even sure whether her eyes have been open or closed for the past however long. There's only been the leftover dream-image of her holding a gun to Tom until the soft outside touch on her.

Bruce says her name—how many times has he said her name, or different iterations of it? Nat. Nat. Natasha.

There are questions too. Is it alright if he touches her? Yes. Can he get her something–water, food, a blanket? No. Would holding her hand be helpful? Holding me would be better. Her own answers feel more distant than his voice, somehow, but she has to have spoken them, because Bruce scooches and slides himself behind her. She moves off the wall to give him space, and to turn so that her wingspan is almost perpendicular to the plane of his chest. There's a few awkward moments of leg-shifting, the gradual process of settling in and finding an inevitable fit between them. He murmurs apologies for each extra movement, but she's glad for it.

In a gesture of faux-reverence, she leans her forehead into the side of his face closest to her. Were she the religious type—which would be someone entirely different from herself, frankly—this would probably be a moment of prayer. This is the part where she'd beg for spiritual absolution and trade out the guilt with boundless apologies. She is, however and of course, herself, and she has never been her own merciful god.

Yet, Bruce holds her as though she's holy.

Everything he says to her, he says with his body, with strokes and touch. A hand on her back assures her that he is there. The thumb moving like a gentle metronome feels like a soft, steady chant of I love you. The sturdy wall of his torso with its easy, rhythmic rise and fall feels like an entrance into a future, with each breath as a promise to stay with her in every way.

Maybe someday the compassion he has for her will spill over. Maybe it will pour into all these cracks she feels right now and solidify into gold. It won't happen tonight, not tomorrow, but someday it might. And maybe the cracks in them, in this, will always stare back at them. As long as he's the one filling her up, and she's doing the same for him, that will always be exactly what she wants. And now she has it. She has them, cracked and whole and golden.