i'm so tired (of being afraid) Chapter 3: made to become a sanctuary, an Avengers + Daredevil Crossover fanfic

Nat travels to Russia, first. She met the people who would be her first family there. But they would not truly be family until Ohio.

Ohio, she thinks mirthlessly. She's talking about it like it's a time rather than a place, because it had given her a childhood, a reason not to look forward to growing up.

Of course, she had grown up anyways. The Red Room had taken everything back, or so she had thought.

She's still trying to make her own way through the world, to wipe the red off of her ledger, and some would say that she's done enough, but it never seems that way to her.

(She has always been scared of never being enough.)

Perhaps that's why she's here first: to make up for past amends, or whatever.

Really, Nat just wants to see her parents again, the people who protected her as best they could, and she doesn't fault them for all that they could not do. They tried their best. Natasha is trying her best.

She walks onto Melina's lonely farm, and half expects her or Alexei or Yelena or one of the Widow's to pop out of nowhere and greet her, but nobody does. It is deserted, and she hadn't...she hadn't actually been expecting anyone here, really. This is just one of many safe houses, and most of the Widow's would probably prefer many of the other ones for the sole fact that they are not in Russia, filled with bitter memories of the past.

Nat ran away from her past for so long. She is facing it now, and, spinning around in the dark, abandoned kitchen, she does not feel braver for it, but rather, more somber.

Nobody is here.

Sure, there are other safe houses around the world for all the Widow's they had managed to free, for Natasha if she so chose, but she is not privy to the locations of all of them. Yelena had been. Yelena had known a lot more than her regarding their relocation and reintegration efforts. Yelena had been a lot more involved, and she had been a lot closer to the Widow's, and now half of them are gone and Natasha does not know where to find them.

They had all been trained to hide well, perhaps too well. Nat hopes they're safe.

She finds Melina's pigs—there are, of course, half of them left—and pats each one on the head exactly once. They are scarily self-sufficient. She looks around the house and tidies up a bit. Melina had cleaned almost excessively back in Ohio, and Natasha is still not sure if it was because she was anxious about the mission (as anxious as an experienced Black Widow can be), genuinely concerned about neatness, wanting to emulate the feeling of a regular American family, or trying to assert control over one thing in her life.

Still, she dusts off the shelves and the tables, shifts the clutter into neater piles, and sweeps the floors. The photo album on the shelf, she takes and opens with trembling hands, eyes trailing along smiling faces and bright eyes. There are photos for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for birthdays and anniversaries, all staged for the mission, but their happiness had been real. And then there are other photos, taken almost at random, taken spontaneously. Nat doesn't remember half of them, doesn't think she had known, at the time, that the photos had been taken, but they are there: a day at the playground, their chalk drawings before they had been washed away by the rain, Nat and Yelena snuggling in bed together, Alexei throwing his head back with the force of his laughter.

Natasha takes this one little thing from the house.

It won't be missed by the dead.

All she has are memories.

The problem with memory is that it is fallible.

Nat finds it difficult, sometimes, to remember the exact curve of Melina's smile, the way it had been a mix between melancholy and fond. And of course, since she had been the one taking photos and collecting her own memories, her smile is a rare occurrence in the photo album.

You don't miss something until it is gone, and Natasha feels like she had never appreciated them enough.

She had run away, she had left them behind, and what had they given her? Love, acceptance. They had welcomed her back with open arms despite all of her damn mistakes.

Why? she should've asked them.

And they would have replied, Because we're family.

But what does that mean? Natasha wants to ask, staring at the setting sun, utterly alone except for the delicate, fragile memories in her hands. What exactly does family mean now that it is gone?

And maybe, maybe they would have answered like this:

Family is you and me and everyone else we're stuck with. Natasha can see Yelena rolling her eyes, can see the strands of blonde hair curling around her face. Do you think I'd be voluntarily speaking with you if we weren't family?

Or maybe:

Family transcends death. Love is strong, powerful force. Defeats all. Natasha can feel Alexei's strong arms cradling her like she is a child again, like she was ever a child, and she misses him so much it hurts.

Or, even:

Family cannot be defined. You kept your heart, and that is enough, it is enough. Natasha can hear Melina's soothing voice, rocking her back to sleep after nightmares and panic attacks over the stupidest things, but Melina had never judged her, had always treated her as someone important, as someone worth something.

(Nat doesn't have a perfect memory, but even she knows that those honest conversations had never happened.)

(She has always been too late.)

Natasha travels to Clint's house next. Iowa is quite far away from Russia, so she has time to contact people and check up on things. Before she'd left, she'd made sure that everyone back at the compound could contact her whenever, because she still has a duty to do, still owes it to the dead to do her job.

She's not abandoning anyone. She's just...taking an extended break.

Matt would probably rephrase it as doing her own, more personal duty, would frame it as benefiting her mental health and therefore the wellbeing of the general public, would convince people that it's necessary.

But she does not feel absolved of guilt. (The dead have never been able to wipe the red off of her ledger—only the living.)

Nat has her own key to the house, and she uses it to unlock the front door and walk straight in. The floors are still littered with toys, the tables laden with papers and books. It looks like chaos, it looks like home. It would look like the marks of a family if not for the stale air, the dust floating in the sunlight, and the eerie stillness of everything. A family with three children should never be this quiet.

That is the root of the problem, though. Out of five people, maybe two or three should have lived, but Natasha's life has been hit after hit after hit and she supposes she should never have expected life to suddenly become fair just because she asked it to.

Except.

There is creaking on the back porch.

Natasha pauses, heart racing, with eagerness and exhilaration or wariness and apprehension, she doesn't know, she doesn't much care. Is there life, here on this farm? Are there not just remnants of people she had known floating in the wind?

She pulls her gun out from her waistband—never go anywhere without a weapon—and stalks quietly around the wall and into the kitchen towards the back door, crouching down slightly so she can't be seen by anyone peeking through the windows. She places a hand on the doorknob, subtly unlocks it, and, after a few seconds, swings the door open and then leaps back behind the kitchen counter so it can act as her shield.

When nobody starts attacking, she peeks her head back out: nothing. Had she just hallucinated the noise? It could've been the wind, to be honest. She wouldn't put it past herself to start hallucinating due to grief.

It would be a first, but it would at least be a sign that her families had meant something to her, that she isn't just some unfeeling former assassin.

That they had existed, that they had had people who cared for them, that Nat had cared for them, had loved them.

And yet, that had not been enough to save them.

She sighs, tucks her gun back into the waistband of her pants, and casually walks out onto the back porch. There's the creaking sound again, and she quickly turns towards the source of it before groaning.

It's the cow.

It's the damn cow.

"I know I'm usually happy to see you, but know that today I'm very unhappy with you," she tells it. It blinks at her uncomprehendingly. "How'd you even get here, anyways? Aren't you supposed to be roaming the fields eating grass, or in the barn sleeping?"

No answer. She hadn't been expecting one.

Except life is life, and life is unexpected. Natasha's gaze trails down to the cow's feet to find an ankle monitor attached snugly to one of its legs. "Why do you have that?" she asks, which is of course a rhetorical question. Her life has really derailed for her to be talking to a cow, of all things. Yes, she knows that Rocket is a raccoon, but at least he can actually talk.

Her mind is admittedly slow to make the connections, but when it does, Nat can do nothing but blink in shock.

This is a government-issued ankle monitor. The only person who would have one here would be Clint. Before the Snap, there had been no public alerts on the arrest of Clint Barton for violating parole. During the Snap, half of all life turned to dust, as well as everything they were holding and wearing. If Clint had been dusted, the ankle monitor would be gone as well. If he hadn't been dusted, he would have had the opportunity, amidst the world's chaos, to take off his ankle monitor and strap it onto his cow.

Clint is not here. Clint had not called her or answered her calls. Clint had not seen fit to let anyone know he was okay. Clint is not okay because Laura and Cooper and Lila and Nate are dead. Natasha is not okay because Clint is not okay.

Clint does not want to be found.

Well, that has never stopped Natasha before.

"Hi, if you called then you know who I am and what I'm doing because everyone I know is a stalker. Leave a message but make sure to scream obnoxiously into the phone so I can actually hear it. Nat, I can see you laughing at me...stop laughing at me...my jokes are not lame. I'm keeping this voicemail message just to spite you."

"CLINT, YOU'RE ALIVE?!"

"Clint, answer your damn phone!"

"Hi, if you called then you know who I am and what I'm doing because everyone I know is a stalker. Leave a message but make sure to scream obnoxiously into the phone so I can actually hear it. Nat, I can see you laughing at me...stop laughing at me...you know my jokes are funny. I'm keeping this voicemail message just to spite you."

"Call me back when you get this."

"Come back."

"I'm here. God, Clint, I'm here."

She does not have the most rational response to this sudden change in plans.

As soon as she gets back to the compound, she storms inside and sees everyone gathered in the dining room. Perfect. She only has to repeat herself once. Also, she's pretty hungry. Apparently, traveling around trying to simultaneously confront and run away from your grief makes it easy for you to forget to eat.

"You're back early," Tony observes with raised eyebrows, a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth.

Natasha plants her hands on the table and leans towards them in what she hopes is a somewhat threatening manner, but honestly she's tired and hungry and could really use a fucking break.

This was supposed to be a break.

It's only made her more lost.

"You guys need to help me find and kill Clint," she says lowly. She almost expects Rocket or Nebula to ask, Who the hell is Clint? But then she remembers that they had gone off to space for a mission and promised to be back eventually.

Eventually. Very specific.

Bruce chokes on water. "Clint's alive?!" he coughs out, pounding on his chest a little.

"That seems...kinda counterproductive?" Steve says, but Natasha glares at him.

"We'll get right on it," Tony says quickly with a winning smile. "I'll help you kill him myself."

"That still seems very counterproductive—"

"Why don't you sit down and eat something, Nat?" Rhodey asks, pulling out a chair next to Pepper, who's looking at her with some amount of concern, but Natasha is fine. She's fine. "You're looking a little pale."

She almost collapses into the chair, and her hand trembles as she reaches for a fork.

Okay, maybe she's not fine.

But Clint is more not fine, so they'll deal with him first.

Natasha can take a break afterwards.

Nat accidentally takes a break right then and there, nodding off at the table after her last forkful of food.

Maybe she should've slept more.

Maybe she shouldn't have forgotten to sleep.

Maybe she should have never been trained to forgo sleep at 15 years old, already old enough for self-discipline and old enough to stop growing.

She wakes in her bed, blinking up at the ceiling for a few moments while Thor speaks in what she assumes is Asgardian, in a way that is unfamiliar but melodic and soothing.

"Thor?" she asks softly during a break between lines. She tilts her head to the side to stare at him, sitting in a too small chair at her bedside.

He starts a little, smiles at her like she deserves it. "Natasha. How are you?" he asks gently.

She curls up fully on her side to face him, and normally it would feel vulnerable but she's just so tired of keeping it in, of keeping it all together. "I don't know," she whispers, and the silence around them feels sacred.

"Tony is working on tracking Clint down," Thor informs her. "Steve carried you here after you fell asleep."

Natasha grimaces. So much for her reputation.

But Thor must see it, because he says, "It's fine to rest."

"We need to keep going," she tells him. "There's still so much to do."

"I agree that there's still work to be done, but in reality there will always be work to be done," Thor says solemnly. "We need to rest every once in a while in order to do the work successfully."

Nat narrows her eyes at him. "When did you get so wise?" she asks.

He laughs quietly. "I suppose I've learned from trial and error. I was in a situation rather close to yours a week or two ago. According to Bruce, Valkyrie had to physically drag me to my bed."

She snorts, trying to imagine the scene in her head. "Guess we're all a mess, aren't we?"

"Oh, definitely," Thor says. They breathe together in the silence for a few moments before Natasha sits up slowly and tries to fix her messy hair. She leans against the wall, crosses her arms in front of her chest, and takes the time to watch Thor. There's no perusing for buried secrets, no evaluating for weaknesses, nothing but two friends sitting together after the end of the world.

"What were you saying, earlier?" she asks after a few minutes. "It sounded special to you."

Thor sighs, looking down at his clasped hands for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "It's a poem my mother had loved. It's about finding the last remnants of beauty in a world torn apart by war and filled with death. What I was reciting is a rather...abridged version of the poem. I can't quite remember all the words. But Loki knew. He memorized our mother's favorite poems as easily as he breathed air."

"That's beautiful," is all Natasha can say, because everything that she feels cannot be communicated in words.

Thor is subtly wiping away tears, and Natasha does him the service of ignoring them. She looks away, eyes trailing along mostly empty bookshelves and catching on her go bag, set with care on the desk by the wall, a photo album full of memories and what once was lying in its depths.

"Where did you go, on your travels?" Thor asks, following her gaze.

Nat shrugs. She doesn't know anymore. "I went to find ghosts of people I had known," she says carefully. "I found memories instead."

"You found Clint."

She shakes her head. "No, not yet." After a moment, she says, "It's not enough."

"Why?"

Natasha looks at him. And, well, she's never been too fond of Loki—actually really hates his guts—and Clint even more so, but something about the way Thor speaks about him just...means something to her.

She's not willing to share everything, not yet. But, "I had a sister." Thor blinks at her, having not expected the conversation to go in this direction. "She was kind and selfless and tried her best with what she had, and I loved her for that."

Thor's breath catches in his throat. "Natasha, I don't—"

"Let me finish," she says desperately, because if he doesn't then she won't ever tell anyone this story, and someone needs to know, someone other than her, how much she had been loved, how much Nat misses her. "Her name was Yelena. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she liked letting her vanilla ice cream melt in the sun before she licked it all up. The only reason we match in the hair department is because I dyed my hair. Thor, we're not related by blood, but that doesn't mean our bond is weaker. It's rather the opposite, actually." Natasha tilts her head back, blinking away the tears that have snuck up on her. "I love her, and you should love him too."

"I failed him," Thor croaks out. "Thanos killed him right in front of me and I could do nothing."

"She died in the Snap," Nat tells him. "Thanos killed her, too, and we can keep blaming ourselves all we want for not being able to win this time around, but it won't do any good. They're...they're dead, but what matters is that we remember them."

"Still," Thor says, voice shakier by the minute, "I should have protected him."

Natasha laughs, long and bitter. "That's the curse of older siblings, isn't it?" she says, finally letting the tears fall silently down her cheeks. "We were supposed to protect them, but they always manage to get out from under our wings anyways."

There are reports of a masked vigilante in Hell's Kitchen.

Any other day, any other day, Natasha would assume it's Matt.

But Matt is gone, and Natasha can do nothing for him.

Besides, the MO is all wrong: dead bodies and throwing knives. Matt would have never snapped like that, no matter what. She thinks, sometimes, a lot of times, that he had always been better than her in a lot of ways, that she had never deserved him, but now is not the time to dwell on the dead.

The living are suffering. The living are grieving. Specifically, Clint Barton is grieving, and he thinks that using knives instead of arrows will throw Natasha off of his trail but she is better than that. She has always been able to see through his shields.

On a rainy evening, Natasha walks into Hell's Kitchen huddled under a black umbrella. It's been almost three months since the Snap, and red has been streaking its way into her hair. It feels fitting, really, to bring a tiny bit of her true self into Daredevil's territory, because Matt had been able to see through her shields, too.

She walks aimlessly around the place, making sure Clint, wherever he is, will spot her. At least, it first starts off as aimless, but she soon finds herself walking a familiar path, past Clinton Church and the closed offices of Nelson & Murdock, past Fogwell's Gym and Matt's dark apartment that Natasha quickly looks away from. She makes her way to Josie's Bar and buys herself a drink—just one, she needs to be mostly sober for what's to come—and Josie raises an eyebrow at her but doesn't comment.

Nobody else notices her. They all have their own dead to mourn.

Nat's thoughts stray back to Clint as she swirls the shitty alcohol in her glass, staring down at its depths. Clint would hate this place, she thinks with a snort, but Matt had loved it. Or, at least, he had loved the company. They'd never really hung out here—there was always too much at risk—but now Nat wonders if it would've been better to take the risk, to stop running away and switching between families once one got too close, because now they are all gone and Nat doesn't think she had been close enough.

She eyes a very drunk Jessica Jones at the other end of the bar until she finishes her own drink, leaves a tip (which she's sure Josie doesn't get a lot of), and walks back into the rain, umbrella in hand, though she doesn't open it quite fast enough and still gets slightly soaked, which is on par for her life lately.

She spies a dark figure running across the rooftops out of the corner of her eye, and knows she's got him.

Natasha follows.

She hadn't known Hell's Kitchen as well as Matt, of course she hadn't, but she knows her way around better than Clint, and that's what gives her the advantage right here and now.

She almost laughs out loud as she creeps along the rooftops after Clint, which would be insanely counterproductive to her stealth. But she can't help but think that Clint would've had his ass kicked here had Matt still been alive. Matt had always been very protective of Hell's Kitchen.

And now Clint is protecting it in his place.

(Clint isn't protecting Hell's Kitchen for Matt, or even for Nat. He's doing so out of grief. But it's close enough.)

"Clint," she gasps out once she catches up to him, and she knows he's heard her when he tenses up at the building's edge, back turned towards her.

"Nat," Clint responds quietly. "You're here." And it is not an admonishment like she had expected.

"You're alive," Nat repeats dumbly. He probably heard all of her desperate voice messages. He doesn't need her to repeat what he already knows.

"I didn't want to be found," he says.

"You think I wouldn't have tried anyways?" Natasha asks. "Clint, you're my best friend. You're family."

"I've got a job to do," Clint says, voice slightly raised. "I thought you would've understood that."

Natasha shakes her head, even though he can't see her. "That what you're calling this?" she asks.

He turns around abruptly, droplets of rain falling along the creases in his clothes. There is no bow, no quiver of arrows, just a hurt and lonely man drowning in his grief. If Nat were anyone else, she wouldn't recognize him. Grief does that to you, or maybe it's the absence of people who had always been by your side. "They survived," he says, and she knows he's referring to all the gang members he's slaughtered in Hell's Kitchen's streets. In the other boroughs, crime rates had gone up after the Snap, but not here, and she hadn't really thought about it before (had maybe been foolishly hoping that somehow the ghost of Daredevil was protecting his home), but now she knows why.

"I know," she says.

"But they're dead," Clint says, voice breaking a little, this time referring to Laura, to Nate and Cooper and Lila, to the children who had called her 'Auntie Nat', to a family Nat had loved, too.

"I know," she says.

"Why aren't you angry about this?!" Clint screams, voice echoing over the rooftops. Nat flinches back just the tiniest bit and closes her eyes, imagines how Matt would describe the sound, reflecting off of each crystal droplet of rain.

"I was," Nat croaks out, "but now I'm hollowed out." She takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly like she hasn't been breathing for all of her life. Life is fragile like that. "Killing people isn't going to bring your family back," she says. But what she wants to say, selfishly, pleadingly, is, They were my family too. I'm grieving them too.

And maybe, just maybe, Clint gets it. Maybe, inside his head somewhere there is a part of him that knows how to read Natasha, too. Maybe there had never been any shields between them because they had never been needed.

"I'm sorry," he says, just standing there, arms limp by his side.

"Come home," she says, holding out a hand.

He continues standing there, rainwater dripping from his hair, his face, his clothes. "Where is that?" he asks.

"Come with me," she tells him, stepping closer. And the outstretched hand means much more than a beckoning. It means I'm here and we're in this together.

Clint grabs onto her hand like he's afraid she'll turn to dust, too, and when she doesn't, he steps under the umbrella and sobs as Nat pulls him into her arms. This embrace, they both know, means you're not alone.