because while I've never been overly fond of Tony's character, he seems to be the one that keeps popping up in my spurts of inspiration for these conversations...

enjoy.

Tony spots Natasha immediately, since she's the lone figure on the beach. He watches for a moment, letting the moment soak in because it doesn't seem real to him. Even when she wasn't busy with the Avengers or off doing Fury's dirty work for SHIELD (before it went down into the Potomac that is), she'd had this air of readiness about her. Like a spring tightly coiled and ready to explode at a moment's notice. Probably a result of how she was raised. Trained he corrects himself, because her childhood (if you could even call it that) wasn't the sort of thing you casually referred to as how she was "raised".

In fact, he's not sure he's ever seen her well and truly relaxed; even in death she's been a bit tightly wound. Not that he judges, because he's still unpacking and dealing with a lot of the trauma from his own life and he knows that she had already amassed a few suitcases' worth of her own trauma when they met. And that doesn't include the shit they'd experienced in the years since as members of the Avengers.

Right now though, she's clad in a black bikini that would have made the pre-Avengers Tony Stark drool, lounging in a beach chair that's reclined almost fully. And while he's a bit too far away to be able to really try and read her expression, even at this distance he can tell the usual air of tension around her isn't there. It's about damn time he thinks to himself as he feels a smile spread across his face at the sight, because she damn well deserves to be at peace after the shit she'd gone through in her life and what she'd given up in her final act.

He had taken to life in death quickly enough, aided by the balm of being reunited with his parents, aunts and uncles, and friends he'd lost, but Nat hadn't quite had the same experience. Sure, Phil Coulson had been there to guide her and Tony himself had joined her not long later, but ultimately most everyone else Natasha considered important to her she had left behind. She hides it well, but he's spent enough time with her over the years and had seen just enough of her inthose five years to be able to read through her mask and know she's hurting.

They've shared more than a few conversations since they had reunited in the afterlife, most of which had centred on their exploration of their new home. On a handful of occasions they had talked about the people and things they'd left behind. He'd told her about the battle after they brought everyone back, and she'd filled him in on what had gone down on Vormir - though he knows there's a lot more to it than what she had told him. He told her stories about Pepper and Morgan, and she shared memories about their teammates from over the years.

Still though, with everything they shared, he got the distinct sense that she was leaving her feelings packed away for the most part. His own emotional walls and general unwillingness to tackle the hard conversations had faded, and it wasn't all that unusual for him to want to have those hard conversations now. At first he thought maybe it was just some weird thing about the afterlife that impacted everyone, but when he saw Nat still holding everything back he knew that wasn't the case.

He's seen flashes of the old Natasha - teasing, snarky comments and little smirks here and there - but she's been a touch melancholy the last little while. He supposes she's still struggling with the weight of everything she left behind. He and Phil have been trying to make her believe what they already knew - that she's a good person...a hero even, but despite their efforts she never seemed to fully accept or agree.

Here though, lying under the warm sun with a gentle ocean breeze blowing in, she looks completely at peace. He spots the nearby bar and a grin spreads as a plan quickly forms. Finding the exact ingredients he needs (and man oh man, that was a nice perk of the afterlife - always having the things you need without having to ask), he mixes a couple drinks before heading over to join her.

"Hiya, Charlotte," he quips as he settles into the chair next to hers.

Her eyes open slowly and her head tips to the side as an eyebrow arches in a silent question.

"C'mon...Charlotte's Web? Tell me you've read Charlotte's Web."

"Oddly enough, they didn't have it around when I was growing up," she retorts drily.

He gasps theatrically. "A travesty, I assure you."

"One of those for me?" she asks, ignoring his dramatics and flicking her gaze to the frilly, beachy drinks in his hands.

"Yeah," he answers, handing a glass over. "Figured you might need some refreshments. It's important to hydrate you know."

She takes a sip and tilts her head, considering the taste. "Not bad," she says before taking another sip and then putting the glass down on the small table between the chairs. "Thanks."

"De nada," he answers lazily and then he grins because he knows exactly how she's going to react. And sure enough, just as he'd thought, she grimaces. "What? You don't have the monopoly on speaking multiple languages."

"You know, one of the perks of dying was supposed to be peace."

It takes him a beat to realize that she's teasing him, and not admitting something to him. "Oh, c'mon, Red. You know you love me."

"Debatable," she retorts with a wink before picking up the glass for another sip.

"Well, that's an improvement over the looks of derision you probably shot my way in those early days. To be fair though, almost everyone hated me at some point. I'm told I can be insufferable," he finishes with a grin.

"I never hated you, Tony," she replies, her answer far more genuine than he'd expected. "You were always over the top, most of the stuff you did was absurd and completely stupid, and you were unbearably narcissistic, yes, but I never hated you."

He holds her gaze for a moment, searching for something he can't name in her expression. "Well I never hated you either," he replies pointedly. "Even if you were spectacularly excellent at the whole spy game thing," he adds, a bit cheekily.

"Hazard of my upbringing," she quips.

"Or perk," he counters, because as much as he knew she hated what had been done to her, she'd never been the type to hang on regrets. Not until Thanos that is.

She apparently doesn't feel the need to respond and instead takes another, larger sip before reclining her chair the rest of the way down and turning over to lie on her stomach. He blinks to try and process the sight, because a sun-bathing Natasha Romanoff was not something he ever expected of her.

His gaze drifts to the horizon as silence ensues, with just the lull of the ocean lapping at the shore filling the space around them. But he has never done well with silence, and so almost as quickly as it had settled in, he breaks it.

"So I've been thinking," he says before taking a drink and then letting his head loll to the side to look at her.

"Do you ever stop thinking?" she remarks drily, eyes staying closed, as though she hasn't deemed the conversation worthy of her full attention just yet.

"First of all, no, and you know that," he begins. "Second of all, I'm trying to have a genuine moment with you, and you're ruining it."

"Wouldn't be me if I didn't ruin your fun."

"See, but you don't have to. We're different people than we were on Earth."

"Yes, dying will do that to you," she deadpans.

"Nat," he whines, "c'mon."

She breathes out a deliberate exhale. "Fine. What were you thinking about?"

He knows broaching the topic of their former lives is a sharp turn considering their light banter, but he still wants to delve into it. He just hopes it doesn't spoil her apparently excellent mood.

"How lucky we both are to have had our deaths be so goddamn hard," he says, knowing she'll read the hesitancy in his tone and understand that he's trying to be gentle.

Now her eyes open and she regards him with a searching, but not angry expression. "Come again?"

"We had people that we loved. People worth dying for. It made leaving them behind hard, yeah, but meant that our lives were worth it, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess," she answers casually. It's quiet for a beat, and then she surprises him. "I ever tell you that when I first met Clint, I wanted him to kill me?"

"I- What?" he stutters, shocked by her blasé delivery of such a terrifying fact. He figures it's connected somehow to their fledgling discussion about their sacrifices but he hasn't connected the dots fully just yet.

"I'd broken through some of my conditioning and I wanted out because I was so, so tired. But I couldn't kill myself because it went against the very base-level programming they had put in me, and that I couldn't break on my own. So instead I engineered a situation where I could let someone else do it for me."

Even though he should be used to her blunt answers and explanations, he's still shocked into silence by her words. "I...I didn't know."

"Well, it's not something I told people. Not even Fury knew how Clint caught up to me. He didn't question it."

"Wait. Why didn't Barton kill you?"

She smiles now, a genuinely fond one. "Said he saw something in my eyes he recognized."

Tony blinks in surprise. He's not sure what he expected her answer to be, but that was definitely not it. He'd always known the two of them were close, and he'd known that Barton had been the one to bring her into SHIELD, but he had no idea about the depth of their history. "I honestly don't know what to say to that."

She chuckles. "That's a first."

"I just...that seems wildly unsafe and ill-advised," he says, head shaking in disbelief. "I mean, no offense, but you were basically the world's most deadly assassin at that point, right?"

"Clint might've argued a few rounds with you to make a case for himself holding the title, but yes."

"And Barton's not a stupid guy, but he just...waltzed in and said 'Nah, you know what? I'm not gonna kill you'?"

She smiles fondly again. "Basically, yeah."

"O...kay. How come none of that was in your file?"

She smirks now. "Because they didn't write down most of my file. It was safer for me and for them that way."

"You know, sometimes I forget how utterly dangerous you were. Like, I knew you were lethal because I'd seen you handle your batons, not to mention the scary accuracy with knives and bullets. But I forgot you could probably kill a man with nothing but a library book."

"Haven't lost my touch then."

"Wait...have you killed someone with a book?"

"Long before John Wick did," she answers.

He blinks and a laundry list of random objects begins to form in his mind because he's curious what she can make into a weapon. "What about a pen? A regular one that is."

She nods.

"Spoon?"

Another nod.

"Oh my god. This is… What's the weirdest item you've used?"

She thinks for a moment. "Probably a teddy bear."

"A teddy bear?!"

"Yup."

"How?" he asks, and then immediately regrets it. "Wait! I don't want to know. I gave Morgan a teddy bear. This would ruin that for me."

She just smiles.

"Well," he says, steering them back on topic, "I'm glad Barton made the call he did."

"I'm touched, Tony," she quips. "Really."

"I'm serious, Nat," he insists. "I know how we met was less than ideal-"

She scoffs playfully. "Don't lie. I saw your expression when I got into the ring. Nothing about that was less than ideal for you," she teases.

He rolls his eyes. "Well, yeah, but you were trying to entice me. And then you took down Happy like it was nothing…"

"Lucky for both of us you were already a goner for Pepper. Believe me, I was not looking forward to-"

"Nope," he interrupts. "We're not going there. Knowing that death by teddy bear is a real thing that's happened is enough trauma for me today. Let's just both be glad things between us didn't have to go beyond my initial ogling."

"You weren't really going to sleep with me," she says confidently.

His mouth drops open, because while he'll talk with her about a lot of things, this one seems like it should stay unsaid. "What'd I just say? I say 'we're not going there' and then what do you do? You go right there. Boundaries, Red. Boundaries."

She shrugs as she turns onto her side to face him, head propped up on her hand. "It was obvious you loved Pepper. You wanted me around because it was your impulse and I was a pretty, shiny, new thing. You were never going to sleep with me, despite what your lizard brain was trying to convince you."

"My lizard brain?"

"Well I could've gone with your dick, but lizard brain seemed more polite."

"I'll give you that," he says with a laugh. "But you have very skillfully directed the conversation away from my point."

A smile curls on her lips. "Hazard of my upbringing."

He ignores her quip. "I'm glad we met though. I'm glad you stabbed me in the neck, and took out Hammer's guys at the facility, not to mention hacking back into Rhodey's suit..."

"Tony-"

"And God, that doesn't even get us to the Avengers. Without you, Phil, Fury, and Hill woulda been cleaning us guys off the floor after having killed each other because we couldn't put our egos aside. And of course you-"

"I get it," she interrupts softly.

"I don't think you do," he argues.

She shakes her head. "You give me too much credit."

"I don't give you enough credit," he corrects. "I'm telling you, when we came back onto that platform and you weren't there, we were wrecked. We were lost. We had everything we needed to undo what the purple asshole did, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do anything."

"Tony-" she tries again.

"You were important, Nat. I don't know if you've accepted that yet, but you were really fucking important to us, okay? And to a lot of other people too. The world needed Natasha Romanoff, and they were damn lucky to have you. Sure, they didn't appreciate you nearly as much as they should have then...but now? Nat, now they're celebrating you. And rightfully calling you a hero."

She sighs heavily. He can tell it's out of discomfort, and he represses the urge to groan out loud in frustration.

"Look," he says pointedly as he removes his sunglasses to meet her gaze properly, "the sooner you accept it, the sooner I'll stop badgering the point."

She's quiet for a moment, just holding his gaze. There's something in her eyes that he can't quite identify, but it almost looks like she's starting to accept his words. "I'm working on it," she answers finally.

"Good," he says with a nod. "But, Nat? Maybe work on that a bit faster, because you deserve to know it in your bones."

"It's not as easy as-"

"I know, I know. I'm just saying you deserve to have some peace, and I know this is something that's niggling at you."

She smiles warmly in reply. "You really can be quite sweet sometimes," she says, a callback to their first conversation in the afterlife.

"Oh ye, of little faith," he says, sliding his sunglasses back on and tipping his head back to lean against the headrest once more.

"No, me of experience with your foot-in-mouth stupidity," she corrects with a knowing smile.

"Yeah, okay. You might have a point there," he says, pointing a finger at her. "But I'm a changed man."

"No, you still stick your foot in your mouth. Often."

"Part of why you love me."

"I thought we established that was a debatable fact."

"You wound me, Itsy Bitsy."

"Your ego can take it, Shell Head, considering it's the size of Texas."

"Just Texas?"

"You're right. Probably closer to North America as a whole."

They both laugh and then let the sound of the crashing waves fill the void that follows.

"I've been thinking," he starts again after a moment, turning his head to watch her reaction.

"Oh boy. Again?" she says, turning to face him. "Haven't we covered enough heavy material today?" she asks.

He's undaunted. Maybe it's selfish to push on given she'd been in a good mood before he joined her, but he can't help it. "I never apologized for abandoning you after Thanos."

She sighs ever so lightly as she shakes her head. "You don't owe me an apology, Tony."

"Yeah, I do. Because we all left the world in a lurch after losing, and I got back from space and just left."

"You'd earned the right to step away," she counters.

"So had you, but you stayed."

"The difference is I couldn't step away."

"I knew you were alone in the Compound though. I found out Cap had left, and knew Bruce was in the lab, and that Rhodey was off doing his government stuff most of the time. I knew you were all alone there and I didn't do a damn thing."

"That's not true," she counters with a frown. "You offered me an olive branch after Morgan was born. I turned you down."

His mind brings forward the memory of her holding a newborn Morgan, rocking her gently with an expert's hand that had completely surprised him. "Why did you turn me down?"

She's contemplative for a moment before answering. "I don't know."

"Bullshit," he accuses, because while he's mindful of not totally spoiling her mood, he's not letting her get away with such an obvious lie.

"I wanted you to have your family. You'd earned that right for peace and quiet. And just because I couldn't let my failure go-"

"Our failure," he corrects. "That weight never sat on just your shoulders."

"Regardless," she dismisses with a wave of her hand, "I was a link to the life you'd left behind."

His expression falls. "Nat…"

She smiles gently. "It's okay, Tony. It really is. I just wish you'd gotten more time with them." She hesitates for a moment and then adds, "No one else was supposed to be here with me."

He shakes his head. "Nat… God, that's not- You-" He blows out a breath quickly. "You were part of my family too. I know we were on somewhat shaky ground then, but that didn't mean you weren't important to me. Hell, I told Morgan bedtime stories about her Aunt Tasha. In fact, I wished she'd had more time with you, because you're strong, and smart, and don't take bullshit from anybody, but you're also incredibly kind and compassionate to your friends and family. And that's exactly the kind of person I want her to grow up to be."

Nat purses her lips, and he thinks that maybe his words have cracked her seemingly impenetrable shell. He'd thought she would argue that Morgan had Pepper to look up to as a role model, and she'd have been right, of course. But Natasha had been those things in a completely different world than Pepper. And besides, it wouldn't have been a bad thing for Morgan to have more than one strong woman to look up to.

"You deserved better from me," he insists.

She shakes her head. "Don't apologize for putting them first. You didn't owe me anything. You don't owe me anything."

"You were the one left holding the bag."

"I couldn't move on. There's a difference."

He sighs. "I thought about it sometimes." Her brow furrows in a silent question. "About you and how you were there, still chasing down every little scrap of a lead you could find on how to fix things. How you didn't move on. Those were the days I would spend hours in my workshop and lose myself in dumb ideas and upgrades to suits I'd sworn to never use again. I think Pepper knew why...she could always read me, you know? I think she understood I needed to mend our friendship. It's why she let me come along to that meeting about starting the foundation for the kids. It's why she always happened to get updates from her staff about it when I was around."

"Tony…"

"You deserved better from me, Nat. You were the one who kept it all together. You held all our burdens of responsibility for five years while I fucked off and selfishly lived my life in peace. God, and the Accords? You were trying to keep the team together, and the only place it got you was stuck between a goddamn rock and a hard place. Back on the run, being chased by the governments of the nations you'd been protecting… I know you didn't want that, and you sure as hell didn't deserve it. And you didn't deserve to be shunned by me after Thanos. It wasn't your fault we lost."

She shakes her head. "Tony, stop. You're twisted up in some sort of guilt where there doesn't need to be any. I don't hold it against you. Any of it."

It's his turn to counter this time. "You should."

"Well, I don't," she huffs out in reply. "So don't let this fester in your mind. We're dead, and we've buried any hatchets that might've been in play. No point holding grudges or feeling guilty about things we can't change."

He blows out a breath. "I really hate how mature you are sometimes."

She grins slowly. "Only sometimes?"

"Don't start what you can't finish, Widow."

She laughs. "That just tells me I've already won, Tin Man."

"Oh, it's so on."

Her eyes twinkle with mischief. "On like Donkey Kong?"

He can't help the snort. Yeah, they both had a long way to go to come to terms with everything. But they had each other, and they'd be okay.

hopefully that wasn't another tear-jerker! trying to balance a bit of humour and banter in there with the heavier stuff...

thoughts? comments? suggestions for future conversations? let me know... :)