Abiit nemine salutato

CHAPTER FOUR:A visit on Vormir

Vormir, 2014

The ship Natasha and Clint were in landed on the said planet of death.

"Wow..." Clint said as he stepped out of the ship. "Under different circumstances, this would be totally awesome." He referred to the scenery the planet offered.

Natasha looked at Clint and gave him a smile. The two friends of long date started walking towards the mountain and climbed it together without saying a thing. The woman was dying to tell her best friend about her child but she had promised herself she wouldn't say a thing to anyone before Steve knew. Tired of the silence, she spoke up in a jokingly way. "I bet the raccoon didn't have to climb a mountain."

Clint let out a chuckle and kept climbing. "Technically, he's not a raccoon, you know."

"Whatever." She scoffed amusingly. "He eats garbage."

They looked at each other with an amused smile and continued climbing.

"Welcome." A groggily voice said. The two adults pulled out their weapons and pointed them to where the voice had came from. "Natasha, daughter of Ivan." The voice spoke up again. "Clint, son of Edith." There stood a flying person dressed in all black, its face was red and skeletal.

Natasha froze for a moment. Daughter of Ivan, she had never heard the name of either one of her parents before. She quickly recovered and tried to not let it paralyse her. "Who are you?"

"Consider me a guide... To you, and to all who seek the Soul Stone." The Stone-keeper said.

"Oh, good. You tell us where it is then we'll be on our way." She spoke up again her hands still holding up her gun.

A smile crept up on the person's face. "Ah, liebchen... If only it were that easy." The red-coloured skin thing floated towards the cliff. Natasha and Clint looked at each other before carefully following. The redhead was feeling sceptical about the thing's intentions. "What you seek lies in front of you." It said. "As does what you fear."

They both frowned slightly at his explanation. Natasha let out a sigh before saying. "The stone is down there."

"Oh, great. We just climbed that damn mountain." Clint complained.

However, the red thing kept going on with his explanation. "It is, for one of you. For the other... In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange, a soul for a soul."

They both looked worriedly at each other. They walked a little backwards, away from the thing, needing to think about their next step. They kept silence, both of them lost in their thoughts. Natasha was sitting on a log, her eyes looked empty and her hands were over her mouth. She kept thinking about what to do. If she jumped, her friends would lost her and she would never see her child ever again. If Clint jumped, he wouldn't get to see his family again and they would come back in a world where he would no longer be there. The choice was hard.

Clint watched the Stone-keeper with a careful look, he was, out of the two of them, the most sceptical now. "How's it going?" He asked. "Jesus... Maybe he's making this shit up."

Natasha drifted her eyes to him. "No, I don't think so."

He was the one who scoffed this time. "Why? 'Cause he knows your Daddy's name?

She shook her head and gave him a sad look. "I didn't." She informed him, she never told him that she had no clue about who her parents were or was. "Thanos left here with the stone without his daughter, it's not a coincidence."

The archer sighed, he knew she was right. "Yeah. Sorry." He apologized after realizing he had been kind of mean to her.

Natasha took a deep breath. "Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes." Clint repeated in a determined voice.

Natasha stood up and walked to where Clint was. "If we don't get that stone, billions of people stay dead."

"Then I guess we both know who it's gotta be." He said, taking her hand in his.

She smiled softly. "I guess we do." She said before taking Clint's hand with her other and squeezed it softly. Their eyes crossed the other's and he raised up an eyebrow.

"I'm starting to think, we've been meaning different people here, Natasha."

She looked at him intensely. "For the last five years, I've been trying to do one thing, get to right here. That's all it's been about, bringing everybody back."

"Oh, don't you get all decent on me now." He slightly shook his head.

"What? You think I wanna do it?" She breathed slowly. "I'm trying to save your life, you idiot."

"Yeah well, I don't want you to, because I..." He trailed off. "Natasha, you know what I've done. You know what I've become." He declared with emotion.

She shook her head. "Clint, I don't judge people on their worst mistakes."

"Maybe you should."

"But you didn't." She reminded him. "No matter what I had done, you never once judged me."

"You're a pain in my ass right now, you know that?" He chuckled slightly.

Natasha gave him a smile and they both leaned in, they laid their foreheads against each other. "Okay. You win." He whispered softly. They pulled back and Clint smiled at Natasha before knocking her to the ground. "Tell my family I love them."

She tackled him to the ground, holding out her arm towards him. "You tell them yourself." She electrocuted him with one of her widow bites and ran towards the cliff.

Only Clint got up, shot an explosive arrow next to her and Natasha got knocked out. He then ran towards the cliff and jumped.

Natasha jumped after him and hooked him up to a grappling hook. He grabbed her hand so she wouldn't fall. "Damn you!" He yelled after her.

She looked at him with a soft and encouraging smile. "Let me go." She said, in almost a whisper.

"No, please. No." He begged tearing up. He couldn't do that, couldn't let her die.

"It's okay..." She replied before adding. "Tell my son I love him."

"Please! No..." He said sadly.

Natasha kicked herself against the wall and fell off the rope. Her body plummeted on the cold ground of Vormir. Clint turned away his head, he couldn't take in the view of his best friend on the ground like that, dead. He looked back down to find her surrounded by blood, the tears were falling like rivers.

A boom in the sky sent Clint in a pool of water with the Soul Stone in his hand. He hit the ground out of sadness. She was gone, she died. Suddenly, his quantum suits activated and he shrank back to the present day. He was soon joined by the others returning from their journeys.

Bruce looked on his right and asked. "Did we get them all?"

Rhodey raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You telling me this'll actually work?" He asked out of surprise and a chuckle followed.

Steve nodded as he slightly smiled but everybody paused and started to realize someone was missing. Clint dropped on his knees, his eyes filled with tears. The blonde soldier dropped his smile and looked at Clint. "Clint... Where's Nat?" Bruce asked.

Clint looked forwards, his eyes were looking nowhere and were teary, he kept silent. The silence from him told them what they needed to know, Natasha was no longer alive. Hulk stepped out and hung his head low. Steve shook his head and walked away from the platform. He couldn't believe this, he couldn't realize that she was dead. After losing everybody, he hadn't thought he'd lose her too.

The tears were threatening to fall, he didn't even get to tell her goodbye. He didn't even get to declare his feelings for her. He heard steps behind him but he didn't care, he just kept walking. He needed to be alone.

"Steve!" He heard Tony call out his name, but he just kept going forward. "Steve, wait!"

The man made of iron started running and arrived before his friend. Steve didn't look at him and tried to walk away. "Steve..." Tony said.

"No." He replied, his voice cracking and he backed away.

"Steve." Tony said and put his hands on Steve's upper arms. "Look at me."

The soldier shook his head and hung it low. He couldn't face the truth. "I know it hurts, I loved her, too. Maybe not in the way you did but I did love her." He told him. "Natasha... She…gave me something for you, that she actually wanted to give you herself, but, uh, I will do it."

"I don't care, I just want to be alone."

"Steve, it's important. You will want to have this." He assured him. "Come with me and see for yourself."

Tony's cabin, 2023

Tony pulled his car over and turned off the engine. Steve was looking outside of the car, it seemed he was lost in his thoughts.

"Come on, we're here." Tony said, softly.

Steve hummed and got out of the car, wiping the tears at the corner of his eyes. The billionaire did so, too and walked towards his house. The door opened and a little girl came running towards him. "Daddy!" She yelled happily and jumped into his arms. Tony smiled hugging his daughter, she was the only source of comfort he had and of course, Pepper was, too but not in the same way. "Hey, pumpkin." He kissed her head and held her on his left hip.

Steve looked at them then followed the two when Tony started walking towards his house. They entered the house and Pepper frowned, she knew he wasn't to be there so soon. She noticed the hint of pain in his eyes and in Steve's whole face. She knew something bad had happened, otherwise Natasha would've been there as well.

Tony set down Morgan and walked to Pepper. He took her in his arms, hugging her, she returned his hug in a comforting manner. "She didn't make it." He told her, sadly.

Steve closed his eyes as he heard those words. He wanted to shout and cry, the pain was insurmountable. "Where is he?" Tony asked a few moment later and Steve opened his eyes, who were they talking about?

"Upstairs." The strawberry haired woman replied. "With Happy."

He let his lips found hers in a soft kiss and nodded. "Come with me." He then said as he looked backwards at Steve.

The soldier said a soft 'Hello' to Pepper before following Tony upstairs. He took him to a bedroom and the blonde man looked inside the room. He saw that Happy was there, he waved at him but then his hand dropped and his mouth hung open as his eyes landed on the child beside him. He had the same fiery red hair as Natasha did.

Somehow everything made sense. Her disappearing, the thing she wanted to give him, the distance he had seen in her eyes.

He couldn't believe this, she had a child. The boy noticed that two people came into the room and his eyes lifted to Steve. A small gasp escaped from the hundred-year-old man as he looked into his eyes. They had the same baby blue eyes and the same nose.

Everything and nothing made sense.

He had a child.

Natasha had his child. He felt the tears beam up at his eyes once again. His eyes drifted to Tony in confusion, then back to the child, his child.

"She was afraid to tell you about him."

She went away without bidding anyone farewell