Because I couldn't let that be her ending.
Natasha's whole body aches. Every nerve ending is screaming at her and her head is pounding with the most excruciating headache she's ever experienced. Fiery pain is radiating from her back, and there are shooting pains flying all over her body. Her eyes are squeezed shut as she tries to breathe through the pain, but it's too overwhelming and she can't find any semblance of control over it. All she's aware of is the pain.
"Hang in there, Natasha," a voice says from afar. It breaks through the fog of pain for just a moment, and she has a fleeting thought that she's heard it somewhere before… But before she can begin to try and place it, a fresh wave of pain washes over her and she's stuck battling to just try and stay conscious.
She knows pain; it's an old friend to her. In some ways, it's even comforting in its familiarity. But this...this is beyond anything she's ever experienced. Her usual methods of withstanding torture and the accompanying pain are useless in the face of the all encompassing agony.
"Give it a minute," the voice says, breaking through the fog of pain once more. "It should level out for you soon."
God, I hope so, she thinks just before another wave of pain washes over her. This time she can't help the scream that slips out. Her body feels like it's on fire, but she can't move or do anything to stop it, and panic begins to rise.
"Almost there. Hang on a little longer," the voice instructs. She's not sure why, but the faint familiarity of the voice is comforting, and she feels a small sense of relief spread. The pain remains sharp and distinct, but she feels her mind begin to clear. The memories are fuzzy and unclear as she tries to think back and piece together where she is. All her mind is able to find is a jumble of scenes in no semblance of an order.
Rock…a red face…air rushing past her...a space ship...climbing a mountain…a small explosion...a man staring down at her, anguish on his face…
Her eyes fly open with recognition and the pieces fall into place immediately. Clint! The stone!
She's overwhelmed with thoughts and worries. Did it work? Is he okay? Did everyone else get the rest of the stones? Did they get everyone back?
Her heart drops with realization. If I'm awake...then we can't have succeeded. Clint wouldn't have gotten the stone.
No, she thinks as memories of her plummet rise in her mind, no one could have survived that fall. I must be dead. But...why does everything still hurt? Isn't the afterlife supposed to be peaceful? Unless...maybe this is a different kind of afterlife...
And then suddenly the pain begins to fade and she can't help the sigh of relief she lets out. The fog around her mind clears, and she begins to analyze her surroundings. She's surprised to find soft grass beneath her instead of the hard, unforgiving rock at the base of the cliff. The sky above is a swirl of oranges, reds, and golds, and memories float into her mind of watching sunsets and sunrises over the lake at the compound.
"There you go," the voice says. She turns her head towards it, feeling only distant twinges of pain at the movement. Her eyes widen in shock.
"Coulson?" she says, her voice raspy with disbelief as her mind supplies the name for the face. Okay, I'm definitely dead because he died years ago, she thinks, her mind still trying to come to grips with this new reality.
He smiles just like how she remembered and she feels a familiar sense of calm wrap around her like a warm blanket. In all the years she'd known him he had never looked rattled. His expression had always been calm and as though he had complete command of whatever situation he was in.
"Yeah, it's me. I gotta say though, I was kind of surprised to get this gig," he remarks drily.
Her brow furrows as she stares at him, trying to understand how he is there sitting next to her. He takes her puzzled expression as a sign to continue. "Everyone gets a guide," he explains, holding out his hands to help her sit up. She sways slightly once upright, feeling slightly dizzy at the sudden change in position, but pleased that she's not broken beyond repair. "Someone who they've lost that was important in their life. Parents, grandparents, best friends. That sort of thing."
The realization hits her suddenly as she lifts a hand to examine the back of her head where the throbbing had been most intense, finding a lump that's tender to the touch. "I…" she trails off, the words sitting on her tongue stinging with truth. "I didn't have anyone else."
Phil reaches over to give her hand another squeeze. "I think you mean that everyone else is still alive," he corrects gently.
Hope blooms in her chest. "Does that mean… Did it work?"
Phil nods, another smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Barton got the stone and brought it back to the compound and they..." He hesitates for a beat, a small frown creasing his brow as he considers his words. "Snapped? Unsnapped? Undusted? I'm really not clear what the proper terminology is," he finishes with a shake of his head and a small shrug. "But they got everyone back."
She lets out a shaky exhale and feels a single tear track its way down her cheek. It hadn't been for nothing. It had worked. They'd gotten everyone back. Laura, Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel - they were alive again, and they would take care of him.
"I saw what you did," he says softly, his eyes finding her gaze. "It was incredibly brave."
She offers a half-hearted smile. "I had to. He has his family. They all do."
"You had a family, too, Natasha."
Her eyes close as she feels tears welling up. Losing them was already settling into the pit of her stomach as a permanent ache.
"All the more reason for me to do it. I spent five years trying to get to that point, to get somewhere where it could be fixed. It was within my grasp to be able to get us closer to that; there was no way I was going to let it slip away."
Phil is quiet for a moment before he answers. "It was a long road to get there, but you did get there in the end."
She lets out a heavy sigh. "So this is the afterlife?" she asks.
Phil doesn't comment on her abrupt change of topic, and she's grateful. "Yes...and no," he hedges. "It's more of an in between sort of place. Souls come here to heal before they move on."
"But you're here."
"Everyone gets a guide," he reminds her. "And besides, I haven't been "up here" as long as you think," he adds with a tinge of guilt, using air quotes that make her eyebrows rise in surprise.
"You weren't really dead?" She lets out a weak laugh. "I knew Fury was lying. That bastard."
Phil chuckles. "Guilty as charged. He brought me back through some...less than human means, but everything caught up to me in the end."
"I'm sorry," she says sadly, because she knows what it's like to get your life back and then have the rug pulled out from under you.
"Don't be. I lived a long enough life. I met and worked with some amazing people." He offers her a pointed smile which she returns with a small one of her own. She knows what he's saying. "You on the other hand… You were supposed to live longer," he says sadly. "You didn't get a childhood, and I had hoped after SHIELD fell that you would get to live an actual life."
"Wasn't really ever in the cards for me, Phil."
"No, you were meant for something greater. To be a hero."
"I'm not-"
"You are," he interrupts her protest. "You're a hero, Natasha."
She feels tears well in her eyes again because those words mean so much coming from Phil, who practically worshipped Captain America, the man who was the very embodiment of a hero. But the label has never felt right to her, not with the darkness in her past and the red in her ledger.
She remembers being on the receiving end of a patented Steve Rogers speech once, where he'd argued fervently that she was every bit deserving of the title of hero. They'd been walking back from clearing out a Hydra base in the middle of a city, and suddenly Steve had been surrounded by kids clamouring for his attention. She'd arched an eyebrow in amusement and quipped that she didn't see any kids looking for Black Widow's autograph. He'd shot her a look of disappointment before patiently signing every scrap of paper the kids handed him.
Her heart clenches at the thought of Steve. They had grown closer leading the Avengers together, and then even more so in those years on the run. He had become a close friend in a way that she had never anticipated. She knows that her death will hit him hard. He'd always been willing to lay down his life to save people, but had never much cared for his friends doing the same for him.
And then her thoughts drift to each of the rest of them. Thor, who loved so fiercely, but had lost so much. Bruce, who she had grown so close to through the lullaby. They'd never quite been able to work out their timing, but she had found a kindred spirit in him - someone who understood what it was to see yourself as a monster and try to reconcile that with being a hero. Tony, who understood what it was to try and make up for your past, and who had put his heart and soul into the team. And Clint, who had pulled her out of the darkness even when she'd fought him, hadn't judged her on her past, and had loved her when she hadn't deserved it. He'd been devastated when she forced his hand on that cliff.
Natasha's tears finally break the dam as memories of her life flood her mind. But she only allows herself a brief moment to mourn them before she breathes in a steadying breath and wipes away the tears and redirects her focus. The pain in her limbs has almost completely disappeared, replaced by a dull tingling, and she wiggles her toes experimentally.
Before she can verify they are moving, Phil lets out a chuckle. "Don't worry, they're moving," he says, knowing exactly where her mind had gone. "You'll heal back to your normal self. It just takes some time."
She licks her lips, stalling herself from asking the question she really wants to ask. Is this heaven? Or hell?
She had never been a religious person, and so had never really believed anything would happen to her when she died. But then, she hadn't believed in aliens or magical stones capable of killing off half of all life, and look how that turned out.
She wonders if her sacrifice to get the stone is enough to balance out her ledger. She wonders if it can balance the tragedy and death she'd spread with that damn hospital fire, and the grief she'd wrought with all those assassinations. And the needless blood spilled over the years, and the screams of pain from torture, and the cries of children left orphaned. And...and...and... The list was seemingly endless.
Still, the fact that Phil is with her gives her hope that she won't be stuck in some sort of hell. He'd been a good person, and definitely would have gone up, not down. But then again, maybe it was all leading her into a false sense of security before the floor dropped out from under her.
Her stomach drops with the idea that the worst is still to come. She's not certain she can handle it and come out the other side intact, because the last five years, and watching Clint scream for her as she fell had been torture enough.
"I know what you're thinking, Natasha," he interrupts her thoughts, searching for her gaze with a sad expression on his face. "You're a good person. You're not being sentenced to eternal damnation."
"I don't know if I-"
"You deserve to rest in peace," he says firmly, cutting her off. "You didn't have the keys in those early years; you weren't driving that car - they were. They made you do everything."
"I fought off the conditioning eventually, and I should have been able to do it earlier," she argues. "Phil, I know you looked into my past when they sent Clint after me, and then even more when he decided to spare my life. You know what I've done."
"I know what the chernaya vdova did."
Natasha can't help the laugh fall from her lips. "Your Russian is terrible."
He arches an eyebrow at her cheekiness. "Don't change the subject."
"I'm not," she protests, a small, teasing smile lingering on her lips. "But your Russian is terrible, and you needed to know that."
He sighs. "Natasha."
"I am the Black Widow. Or, at least I was," she answers with a sigh of her own. "I can't pretend it wasn't my fingers that pulled those triggers and lit those matches."
"Natalia did those things. The Black Widow did those things," he counters. "But Natasha Romanoff? She worked her whole life to be a better person, and to make the world better. She saved lives."
"Phil-"
"You gave your life to save trillions, Natasha," he says pointedly, his tone firm and unshakable. "If you think that doesn't balance out the shit the Red Room made you do, you're a fool."
Her eyes close as she lets his words hang in the air, finding comfort in them. Even she can admit it's hard to argue with him, because as much as she might try to deny it...it makes sense. She still thinks she should've been able to break free from their hold sooner, but then maybe it all led to that moment on the cliff. Maybe all that shit had been necessary to lead to her sacrifice.
She licks her lips again. "Can you give me a hand? I want to try standing up."
He nods, and helps to pull her up to her feet. She's still a bit unsteady, but she's relieved to find that she can stand.
"Told ya," he says with a knowing grin. "Right as rain."
"Tell that to my pounding head."
"Well, you did fall several hundred feet and land directly onto the rocky ground of an alien planet."
Her eyes widen at his brazen description of her death. He was direct, and occasionally sarcastic, yes, but never callous.
He grins, and she's perplexed.
"And now you know how Clint and I felt when you first joined SHIELD," he says, pointing a finger at her. "You would just spout off these awful, terrible, but completely accurate things, and it scared the shit out of us. You gave the word blunt new meaning."
She smiles and lets out a short laugh that he joins in with.
"So what's it like?" she asks after the laughter fades. "The...after."
"Can't really describe it," he says thoughtfully with a rueful grin. "It's sort of different for every person, or at least parts of it are."
"That's not helpful."
"Sorry," he offers with a shrug.
"Some guide you are," she teases. It feels good to banter with him again, and she realizes just how much she had missed him. He had been one of the first people outside of Clint that she'd relaxed around and let in, and losing him had hit her hard.
"You're lucky I don't assign you some paperwork to do."
"You always did like piling on the paperwork."
"No, I liked pawning off my paperwork onto you two."
Her mouth drops open. "You didn't."
"On occasion."
"How? I never…"
"You're not the only talented liar SHIELD employed," he answers with a smug grin that is just so...Coulson. Really, she realizes, it's less smug and more knowing.
"I don't know what to say."
His expression shifts to a more serious one. "Say you believe me when I tell you that you're worthy of being here. That you're worthy of being called a hero."
Her gaze drops to her hands which have begun twisting together, mirroring her internal struggle. It's a tell she never allowed herself to give into before now.
"Natasha," he prompts softly. "You're not a monster."
She opens her mouth to retort, the familiar denial sitting on the tip of her tongue, but finds herself thinking instead. She thinks of grateful parents thanking her for saving their children. She thinks of Steve's wide, grateful eyes meeting her gaze when he feels the bullet whiz past his head and turns to find her having knocked over a soldier behind him. She thinks of Thor, praising her as a warrior and telling her she would be welcome in Asgard. She thinks of Clint and Laura opening up their home to her. She thinks of the Barton kids, and becoming Auntie Nat. She thinks of standing shoulder to shoulder with the Avengers, taking down aliens in New York and robots in Sokovia. She thinks of trying to hold it all together for five long years after everything had fallen apart. She thinks of saving her best friend's life, and watching his anguish as she makes sure he doesn't have to be the one to let go of her hand.
"It will take time," Phil says, his voice ever gentle, kind, and reassuring. "But I think that eventually you'll be able to see yourself the way that I do. The way that Clint, Cap, Banner, Thor, Stark, and so many others did." He pauses. "At least, I hope you will."
It's Natasha who reaches over this time to give his hand a squeeze. "Thank you," she whispers.
He smiles and then wraps his arms around her in a hug. They'd never done this while they were alive, but they had been different people then, and Natasha finds that it doesn't feel strange at all. She squeezes him tightly and lets herself lean into his embrace, finding strength in the arms of her friend.
"So," he says after a moment as they break apart. "Want the grand tour?"
She swallows, apprehension swirling in her gut. She nods, not quite trusting herself to talk. Phil wraps a steadying arm around her waist and they begin to move forward with small steps - toward what's next.
...thoughts? comments? If you have a moment, would love to hear 'em.