New York, Avengers Headquarters, 2:26 AM.
She missed Fury.
Not just Fury, of course. What with half the universe having been erased from existence – the Snap, people had taken to calling their heroes' failure – Natasha could easily admit, privately and to herself, she missed a whole lot of things and a whole lot of people.
The tiny appartment she'd kept to the side for appearance's sake, and the nice older lady who'd always wish her well on her 'business trips'. Those fucking skintight suits, and that lecher Stark never failing to roast her ass over them. Kristen from statistics, and trying to pair her up with Steve in-between missions. Lazying around in Central Park after one gone well, watching smiling families run circles around eachother and fantasizing about small houses in Ohio.
Movie night with Laura and the kids, laughing over corny spy movies but really laughing over Clint's exaggerated moaning and complaining that they were nothing like–
The Widow's head shook, formerly glazed over green eyes now staring intently at the bright screen infront of her, a careffuly assembled SHIELD dossier and a maddening question mark staring back at her.
One would think that with half of life gone from the world, half of the lowlife would have been gone too. Or hell, that what remained would come together out of a sense of desperate brotherhood and cameraderie.
One would be naïve, and one would think wrong.
The very worst thing about her line of work – her way of life, really – was witnessing time and time again just how easily human beings could be pushed over the edge, how deep they could sink.
And the Snap had been no gentle push, it had been a goddamn shove.
White collar refuse such as Wilson Fisk and the Triads, wielding fear and confusion like the best of weapons, had been propelled to new unreachable heights by the abrupt disappearance of old rivals and bitter enemies, and all the while their webs of power and influence spread ever wider throughout the shell-shocked populace, streets flooded with opportunists and desperados looking to make something of themselves through unsavory means, or just hurt someone.
Natasha couldn't say she hadn't seen it coming, but she could surely say she wished she hadn't. It might have made for a more hopeful experience, during those first few months of rebuilding - or trying to - as Interim Leader of the Avengers.
Interim Leader, she kept a huff, despite not there being anyone other than her in the large office. Just like i'm only subbing in for Fury.
If Natasha were being honest with herself, something she strived with all her might not to be these days, there were all in all more chances of Fury walking in through the door, swagger and everything, to solve all her problems, than there were of Captain America and Iron Man coming out of their self-imposed retirement to take the job off her shoulders.
But, she brushed away intruding thoughts once again, not the point.
Because the point was the taunting question mark infront of her, and what it stood for.
Fear in the streets, crime on the rise, and some misguided souls with nothing to lose – family men deprived of their families – rather than join the rabbles had chosen to throw themselves at them, mop them up.
Most ended in a bodybag, some mad and grieving in a jail cell, and others, the most proficient ones, on dossiers.
Cletus Kasady, the latest sensation on the news, hadn't been any of those.
An unwated kid born to a woman diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, raised in his grandmother's abusive household, the guy was admittedly dealt a shitty hand from the start.
Yet, Natasha thought, as she read the file for the upteempth time, not without some measure of genuine revulsion, if all the people who were dealt a shitty hand turned into cannibalistic psychopaths with counts of arson, theft, rape, manslaughter and all around carnage to their name, to say the world would be a downright shittier place than what it already was would be a severe understatement.
Locked up under maximum security in Ryker's Island, the serial killer had somehow managed sneaking out not a few weeks prior during an inmate's revolt.
The man's escape, not kept for long from the media, had caused a widespread panic, and truth be told she'd just been about ready to have SHIELD step in – perhaps even ask good old War Machine a favor – when the guy himself had made the news.
Just, not the way anyone had expected.
Heidi Hall, 32 years old widower – snap – mother of two, had been taking the trash in the back alley when out from the shadows had come a spindly, red-haired man wielding a jagged knife and a nasty smile.
He was found a couple days later, Kasady, on the other side of town by an overzealous refuse collector. He'd been stuffed in a garbage cart, organic waste, beaten all over and neck twisted to an ungodly 180 degrees.
The attempted kidnapping – or murder, or worse – had all been recorded by a nearby camera, and it had all been retold by the woman herself, yet even as she looked at the footage, once more, and read the testimony, once again, Natasha still couldn't make neither head nor tails of it.
Cletus had barely taken a step, barely spoken a word, when a third something had joined the picture: a crawling shadow, a blur of red, and a thin string – web-like – wrapping around the fugitive before he could anything else.
Spider-Man, had said a teary Heidi Hall, Queens grown, both to the officers in charge of her case and the journalists smelling a scoup, Spider-Man.
But Spider-Man was gone, the Black Widow knew better than most, and regardless Peter Parker had been just a kid, too young by half – and by all accounts, Stark's included, too good by half – to act out the vicious thing that had been acted out on Kasady.
So who the hell was it, Natasha wondered for what felt like the thousandth time, staring blankly at the file, trying to stomp out the need to pull at her own hair and trying to stomp away any vain hope raising within her chest, who was this guy, shooting webs and wearing red, saving some and executing others.
Who.
Fuck if she knew. Hero hunting and team building weren't supposed to be her problem.
She missed Fury.
Six Days Later.
New York, Queens, 00:04 AM.
Masked vigilante on the prowl… eye-witnesses' testimonies ... reports of excessive violence … the Avengers have issued a statement ... not Spider-Man … for more on the Red Hood, page 2.
The Spider's lip curled, dark claws tearing to shreds fragile paper.
Just his luck that in a world so different, maybe just so differently broken, J Jonah Jameson and his Bugle would be the one constant.
He itched to shut him up, prove the lying worm right in ways he'd never had the pleasure to, but not yet. He couldn't. He wasn't better than that, not by a longshot, but it would serve no purpose, and right now purpose was everything.
Cletus Kasady had been a good start, and rattling the life out of him – a measly man as incapable of defending himself against his kicks and punches just the same as Kate had been against those of Carnage – had felt as good (hollow) as it had the first time, yet Cletus Kasady was just the start.
Mac Gargan, the Spider looked down at the urban abyss below, gazing into the dark and gazing into nothing, Herman Schultz, Adrian Toomes, Samuel Sterns, Dmitri Smerdyakov, Thaddeus Ross, Wilson Fisk, Norman Osborn, Victor Von Doom, Otto Octavius.
Thanos.
Some alive, some dust, all in the list.
His world was gone, and his people had been gone for longer, but he had yet someone left to fight for and he wouldn't let anyone take her from him. Not living ghosts, and not this shadow realm.
The Spider donned the bloody mask, pulled the scarlet hood over his head. He had work to do.
And he allowed himself fall into the dark abyss below.
So, Spider-Man but out to MURDER during the five years between IW and Endgame. Might post a timeline of events for Earth-666 if people are interested, nothing too spoilery but enough to get what went down there.