I'm so sorry.
In some universe they were together. Not having been ripped apart by Ultron and the bullets that rained down upon him. She had been ushering people onto lifeboats. She hadn't been looking. If she was honest, if she had seen his body fall to the floor with the boy he was protecting in his arms and watch his eyes turn lifeless and the blood pour out of his wounds… she wouldn't have been able to function. To live. To continue.
It was Steve who told her. Steve, courageous and righteous Steve who was covered in blood. His blood. The white star on his uniform was turned red by it. She remembers that day a lot, goes back to it during the night and during the day. Wondering, no, wishing, that there was something she could have done.
There was only one thought in her head. One word. No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
She saw Steve's face as he watched her take in the information and cover her mouth, watched her knees give way to her grief and fall to the ground. No. She screamed. She's never screamed before. Not when she was being tortured for information or when she was being beaten and raped by her handlers in the Red Room. Her head was spinning, unable to keep still, and she was overwhelmed by the sudden ache she felt in her chest. She felt… empty. Worthless. Broken. She felt like her insides had been ripped out then stuffed back into her after being mutilated.
Her head was screaming at her. So she covered her ears and screamed back. She didn't hear Tony talking in her ear or feel Steve trying to help her up. She was lost in her own head and the endless repetition of just… no. The screaming didn't work. It felt… weird. Wrong. But she didn't know how else to react. That one sentence had changed her life forever. Changed her.
When she finally looked up, she saw Sokovia fall to the ground. Break into a thousand pieces. Tony had admitted later they left his body on it, not wanting to move him. She wished he hadn't told her that. She didn't want to envision his body plummeting to the ground.
Shit. Shit. No. No.
Her heart felt heavy. Blocked up. Everyone says grief feels like your heart is broken in two, but it doesn't, it feels like your heart is being squashed underneath the weight of… everything. Feelings. Memories. It's a pain that can never be described so as to fully understand how it feels.
Somehow she ended up in a car. She doesn't know when, or where. Everything just kind of… fused together. Nothing mattered, not while he was gone. He made everything better. Made her better. Now she's just as hopeless as when they first met. Not knowing what to do or who to trust. Alone. This is the first time in thirteen years that she felt utterly and completely… alone. She knew she still had the team, but what good are they? Who are they to replace Clint, who was her comfort and her constant reminder of safety and warmth? They will never fill the gaping whole he left in her heart. He was special.
She tried so hard to fight the tears, the onslaught of emotion that threatened to swallow her whole every minute. She had tears running quietly down her cheeks, and started to sob in her hand. Raw, uncontrollable sobs that made her body convulse.
Steve had sat in the back with her, and when he saw her sobbing into her hands he pulled her against his chest. Her sobbing increased in volume as she remembered the blood on his suit, and she tried desperately to get away. When Steve realised, he let her go and watched as she curled into a ball in her seat, wishing that Clint would come back and make everything okay again.
Natasha hates him. Fuck him. Fuck him for leaving her. Fuck him for not saying goodbye. Fuck him. She wanted to bring him back to life just to kill him again. To make him pay for letting her live while he died. He promised her. Promised he would never leave.
Well he fucking lied to her.
It's been three months. Three unbearable months. When they got back to the tower, the team tried to talk to her, but she ignored them and ran up the stairs to their floor, not bothering with the elevator. It would've taken too long. She needed him.
She locked herself in his room for weeks on end, wrapping herself in his sheets and trying to block out the world and focus on him. His scent. His room. Him. The team took turns trying to get her out, but none of them succeeded. Eventually, they stopped coming. She only wore his clothes. They were a weak attempt at filling the archer-sized aching hole in her heart that reminded her that he wasn't here. He wasn't anywhere.
Clint was the family she never had. He was everything to her. He was the endless laughs shared over bottles of beer and premium vodka. He was the quiet nights in bed, the late night talks and movie nights.
She couldn't handle it, whatever you would label it as. Grief. Depression. Anger. Sadness. Every day she wishes she wouldn't wake up, not that she sleeps very much, she admits. She keeps envisioning his cold and lifeless body.
Fucking hell, what was wrong with her? Why on earth did she let one man in so close? Why did she get so attached? The Natasha thirteen years ago would have never have let this happen.
Natasha skipped his funeral. It would have been the last straw for her. It was the final confirmation that he was actually dead, that it wasn't some stupid prank or a practical joke and he wasn't going to scare the crap out of her when she left to go to the toilet.
She wants to go back to their apartment and stay with Liho and Lucky and bask in the memories they made there, but she couldn't bring herself to move from his room. Besides, they never really spent much time there anyway, they always got the neighbours to feed the pets.
Natasha knew she was becoming skinny, she skipped most meals now, which she knew Clint would tell her off for. He would cook her eggs and patiently wait for her to eat every single bit before bringing her back to bed and putting on a movie. He always knew how to make everything infinitely better.
She misses the feel of his skin against hers. The sweet sound of him singing in her ear softly late at night to help her sleep after a nightmare or how husky his voice was in the morning, the way he would always put her first. His warm, huge bear hugs which she always claimed to have hated but always found herself snuggling further into him eventually.
It was the little moments that stuck with her the most. Whether it be a simple hand brush or a wink sent from across the room. To some people they don't matter, they're just moments that happen for a split-second then pass, but she can still feel the weight of his hand in hers, still see that silly smirk he used to wear all the time.
They're the moments that she treasures the most. Silly little interactions that stick in her brain because they're just so… him.
Natasha has never felt a pain this intense. He was the only thing holding her together, and now she's falling apart, seam by seam, crack by crack.
And he's not here to put her back together again.