Of course, Natasha doesn't tell anyone where she's going or what she's doing.

Or, well, she tells Tony she's going back to her apartment to get a change of clothes, which is...the truth, to an extent. She does go back, she does unlock the door, she does walk in and register all the dust.

It almost looks like she had been dusted like all the rest.

She grabs a few things—a change of clothes, moisturizer and lip gloss, a few guns and daggers, a pack of mints, and a pair of sneakers—before heading out again. Years ago, this had been Natalie Rushman's home, but she is not Natalie Rushman, and so, this home is not hers.

It never was.

(Then where is home?)

Home is undefined.

The Red Room had been where she'd lived for a good portion of her life, sure, but it hadn't been home.

Home is in her people.

Home is in Yelena's laughter, in hanging upside down, in vanilla ice cream dripping from a cone, in chalk drawings on a sidewalk and catching fireflies in the evening. For all intents and purposes, that quaint Ohio house had been Nat's first home, and she wouldn't trade anything for everything she had gotten from it.

Home is in her parents' care, in their arms and surrounded by their warmth. Home is not hiding your faults. Home is being unafraid. And it has been a while since Natasha has truly felt that carefree.

Home is defecting from the Red Room and finding good people elsewhere. Home is grabbing onto a hand in the rain and not letting go. Home is offering a hand in the rain and not letting go. Home is with Clint, with his family, with the Avengers, because they're all stuck together, whether they want to be or not.

Home is in late nights on missions, and early mornings with gallons of coffee. Home is in lighthearted banter and teasing, in prank wars and friendly spars, in healthy competition. Home means accepting new people and learning to grieve the lost.

A lot of the time, learning to grieve is a long journey, but it is easier than first learning to love.

Home means sneaking into Matt's apartment at random times, all in the knowledge that he will be there, waiting for her. Home is in impromptu movie nights, and sometimes it means eating takeout together on the couch. Home is in the internal nervousness of being introduced to someone new, and then realizing that you hadn't needed to be nervous at all.

Home is in imagining the night sky together when it can't actually be seen.

And now that half the world has been dusted, home is gone.

But their remains have blown away in the wind, so, in a sense, home is everywhere.

Natasha sneaks into Matt's apartment.

She could've used the front door—she has a key—but it felt wrong to do so, and it's almost absurd, how carefully she climbs the fire escape up to his top floor apartment, because he is gone, but sometimes she imagines she can still feel him.

She lands lightly on the apartment floor, with only the light of the billboard outside to illuminate her way. She slowly walks around the apartment, hands trailing against the walls, shoes making tracks in the dust. Maybe she should have visited sooner, even if all that's left are ghosts, but before she hadn't had the courage to.

And besides, Matt's lease doesn't run out for another month with his current deposit. She has time before she needs to go through and pack all of his belongings, trying to stuff one Matt Murdock's entire life into a few boxes to store in an innocuous place in the compound. (If tomorrow goes to plan, she won't need to.)

Her eyes catch on the red glint of glasses laying on the counter, and she carefully takes it in hand.

She knows what this means.

Matt had rarely left his home without his glasses (except if he was going out as Daredevil, that is). But the Snap had happened far too early in the day for Matt to be out patrolling in New York. He should've still been at work, finishing things up at the very least.

So, he must have been at home. He must have taken off his glasses and set them there, because they obviously hadn't been dusted with him.

He should've still been at work.

But there are no files open on the table, no half drunken cup of coffee or open laptop that allude to a late night coming up.

He had been waiting for her to come home.

And she hadn't.

She still hasn't, really, because what had made this home was not the place itself but Matt's warm presence, comforting, always there.

She sighs, tucking the pair of glasses in one of her many pockets and wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly feeling very, very alone.

"I'm sorry," she says to the silent apartment. "You were always too good for me."

Natasha cleans the apartment robotically on the outside and struggling on the inside. If- if they succeed tomorrow, Matt will come back to a clean apartment. He'd had an enhanced sense of smell, had always complained whenever there was too much dust around, had obsessively cleaned his apartment and his office as much as humanly possible so he wouldn't end up sneezing every other minute. Nat had found it endearing, the one time she'd come back from a disaster of a mission covered in dust and plaster from a destroyed building, and he had immediately started coughing and shoving her towards the bathroom to shower.

But he had deserved more.

And so, she cleans. She wipes off the tables and the counters and the furniture, dusts off secluded corners filled with cobwebs, vacuums the floors so that her footprints in the dust are no longer visible. She goes into the kitchen and throws away everything that's gone bad, puts away dishes and utensils, even goes so far as to pour herself a drink with shaky hands, because she doesn't want to be entirely sober for this. She creeps into the bedroom, drink in hand, and decides not to make the bed, the rumpled sheets taunting her as she stares on. This had been Matt's place, his sanctuary from the rest of the world when things got too loud or too quiet, and she has never felt deserving of his willingness for her to encroach on his space, not when she's ruined so many things, not when she's run away from everything, including herself.

Still, she walks inside, opening the window for some fresh air, opening the closet and running her hand along his hanging clothes. If she leans in, she can almost imagine his presence, safe and warm, but she has never been safe and never been warm, still trapped in Russia's cold, so she steps back abruptly and shuts the closet before she can do anything she'll regret.

She regrets coming here already. If things go alright tomorrow, then this mourning would have been for nothing, and she doesn't know what to do with useless grief.

She reaches the bookshelf last. As she's learned, bookshelves tell a lot about people. They can have photos of friends and family on them, or books regarding their interests and hobbies. How worn a book looks can be an indication of how much the owner actually reads them and cares about them, or of how much the owner is willing to spend for a good story.

In this case, Natasha can tell that the owner is blind (duh), what with all the Braille. But there are other books, too, those for visitors like Natasha and Foggy and Karen, which means he cares about his people, enough that he'd buy books just in case they decided to stop by. A good portion of the books are on law (Matt is a lawyer), and there is also a Bible and a few other religious books that Natasha has never had time for (Matt is Catholic). Journal of a Soul is a paperback book, with more creases in the cover than the others, which means this had been a loved book.

What one can't tell from just the bookshelf is that Matt had agonized over the book, had taken it as both hope and condemnation. Natasha purses her lips as she sets her drink on the bookshelf by an unframed photograph of Matt and his dad and takes out the book with gentle hands, as if it is something sacred, and it had been, for Matt, or, at least, the words inside had been, but that means everything to a lawyer, doesn't it? She blows the dust off the cover and flips through pages of words upon words upon words that she cannot understand. She isn't fluent in Braille.

"It's an autobiography of Pope John XXIII," Matt had told her once with a small smile. "It's a collection of all his journal entries starting from when he'd been a teenager and ending with his death."

Nat had tilted her head. "Well, if they're journal entries, doesn't that mean he hadn't wanted the public to know what he'd written? Seems like an invasion of privacy."

Matt had grimaced. "That's true," he had conceded, "but it just makes his words all the more real."

"What does he write about?"

And he had been genuinely surprised by her question, and that had hurt her heart. "You're actually asking?" he had asked. "You actually want to know?"

She had responded with, "Sure, why not? If you care about it then I care about it because I care about you," and he had blushed and looked down, running his fingers along the page.

"I've never really talked to anyone about this except for, like, Father Lantom," he'd confessed. "But, well, the book traces his spiritual journey and how, whenever he had the chance, he would take the opportunity to grow in his faith. A lot of his writing emphasizes how insignificant he is, in the grand scheme of things, that he only exists because God had created him. And that applies to us all, but..."

"But what?"

He had bitten his lip, before continuing. "God created all of us for a purpose, for a vocation, and I'm not entirely sure where mine lies."

"Maybe you've already found it," she had reasoned.

"I don't know," he had said to her. "I wish I could be sure. I wish I could have that much trust."

"Trust that I'll be here for you whenever," she had said then, "because I will do the same for you."

And, well, she hadn't been, had she? She hadn't been there when he'd died because she had been half a world away, trying and failing to prevent it. Things are not okay but maybe they will be, maybe they will be.

Tomorrow, she just has to have trust.

But right now, she puts the book back on the bookshelf and reaches out to straighten everything, and she is succeeding until she gets to the bottommost shelf and finds a small black box sitting peacefully in between two of her most read books. Now that she is kneeling level to the shelf, she notices that one book had been leant against the other, giving just enough room to hide the box, and she knows what this looks like, she knows what this is, but she opens the small box that fits in her hands perfectly just to confirm that...yes, this is a ring.

Fuck.

"Fuck," she says out loud, just to hear it in the silence of the apartment, and she is shaking now, her hands trembling as they close the box. She holds it close to her chest—right over her heart—and curls over it, and her vision is blurring just slightly as she gasps and curses Matt Murdock from beyond the grave. Fuck Matt Murdock, for making her weep when she thought she had finally gotten over everything. Fuck him, for tearing down her walls and breaking open her mental boxes.

How long had this been sitting here? How long had he been waiting for her to find it?

(She realizes that what hurts the most isn't the grief, but the love.)

She is kneeling on the ground cradling an engagement ring box—her engagement ring—wrapped in Yelena's jacket with the many pockets. She is gasping on the floor of the apartment of a dead man she loves. She is crying with the abandon of that child in Ohio. Something awful breaks free from her before she presses a hand to her mouth to smother the sound. She misses all of them so much.

She is grieving for both the living and the dead, and she is making it so much harder on herself than it needs to be.

Life has always been like that for her, but it doesn't need to be so now.

So she takes out her phone and dials a familiar number, doesn't really know what she says, what she manages to get out through the tears, but eventually somebody is picking the lock on the door—she knows who it is (she is too tired to defend herself)—and in Clint walks. He stares at her, then flickers his eyes around the apartment, taking in the scene, and he has always been so sharp, so observant. He won't miss anything, and Nat doesn't feel like explaining herself any more than necessary.

"Nat?" he asks gently, stepping towards her and kneeling by her side, placing a comforting hand on her back.

"I've been hollow this whole time but now it's too much," she croaks out. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Clint tells her honestly, and she glances at him from out of the corner of her eye. "You've always been like that."

"I'm glad you're here," she tells him.

"I'm glad you called me," he tells her. And then, "Do you want to talk?"

She lets out a shaky breath, not bothering to hide her damp cheeks. "I need to finish my drink before I can do that."

He gets up without a word and returns promptly with her drink. She hadn't had to tell him where it was. He's good like that.

After she downs the rest of the alcohol in one go, Clint takes the glass and washes it in the sink. He places it on the dishrack and comes back to her, still crumpled on the floor. He sighs, helps her up with a hand around her arm, and leads her to the couch, where she sinks into the cushions and stares at the ceiling and tries to forget.

"Nat, I know you're good, but you're not that good that one of your aliases is, uh...a Matthew Murdock: blind lawyer, born and raised in Hell's Kitchen, with very concrete records on his existence," Clint says, trying to inject some humor into the situation but not completely succeeding, because they are both grieving in their own ways and their own times.

"I miss him," she tells Clint. "I miss them all. They were all too good for me."

"That's not true. You're one of the best people I know."

She shakes her head. "No, no, I didn't even...I didn't even tell you about- about any of this." She stares at him. "Why are you so calm about this? Shouldn't you be angry?"

He shrugs. "Well," he says, "I seem to recall a very similar conversation in which I told you about my family and you didn't get mad, either, so I think we're even."

"I was told that attachments make you weak," Nat says slowly, trying to gather up her thoughts because she has to get this right. "I was told that caring for someone could compromise you."

"That's bullshit," Clint says promptly, and Natasha nods.

"I thought I knew that," she tells him, "and I guess my brain did somewhat, but my body didn't. I kept running away from them, from you all. I kept switching from one family to the next whenever I started caring too much. I never spent enough time with any of you."

"You still have time."

"For some of you."

"Yeah," Clint says quietly.

"And was that stupid of me?" Natasha asks with a self-deprecating laugh. "I didn't want to care too much and I got hurt anyways."

"That's life."

"Fuck life," she says with vehemence, still holding tight to the box in her hand. "Love hurts."

"But that's what makes us human, right?" Clint asks.

"What's with all this philosophical bullshit?"

Clint snorts. "You started it."

She sighs. And well, now that she's on the topic..."I kept all of my families separate so I'd be hurt less if one of them was gone, but now two of them are gone and it hurts more because it feels like I'm grieving them alone. Why did I do that? Why was I so selfish?"

"So don't do it anymore," Clint says suddenly. "Tell me about them."

And so, Nat weaves a story of happier times. Or, well, multiple different stories, but they all amount to the same loss.

She tells him about Yelena's smile, and how she'd always lick her ice cream instead of biting into it like any sane person would to keep it from melting in the light of the sun. She tells him about their secret whistle, and about being upside down. She tells him that Yelena's favorite ice cream flavor had been vanilla, and that Nat can't stomach it anymore because Nat was supposed to protect her and now she is gone.

She tells him about Yelena's kindness before the Red Room, and her kindness after the Red Room, like it had been a time or a phase instead of a place and a prison and a way of life. She tells him about Ohio with all the nostalgia of someone who grew up far too fast.

She tells him about Melina, and how she had framed the first drawing Nat had made for her. She tells him that Melina had been her first hero, and that nobody else will ever compare, because, while Melina had shown her strength and elegance, she had also shown her love and kindness and gentleness. Melina had been the one to dye her hair blue, had built her into her own person, and Natasha will always be nothing but grateful for that.

She tells Clint about Alexei, and how he had been such an idiot sometimes, but he had loved them, and that had meant something. She tells him that Alexei hadn't shown his love in any of the conventional ways, but that was fine because he had learned how to show it in other ways, like through ridiculous stories (Yelena had still been traumatized from the last one) and through training them to survive anything that life throws at them. Yelena and Natasha had not been Black Widow's to him, but his girls first and foremost. She tells him that Alexei had always meant well, even when he struggled to show it.

Natasha tells Clint about their years on the run, when he hadn't followed. She tells him about Wanda's simultaneous fear and joy using her magic, and how the joy had just won out by the time death came. She tells him about Wanda's loss, and how Nat had told her she hadn't needed to grieve on her own, and then Nat tells Clint about Pietro, too, just to share the grief further.

She tells him about Steve's beard, which he hadn't had the chance to see, and they both laugh even though it hadn't been a joke.

She tells him about Bucky and his own red ledger. She tells him that the Winter Soldier had tried to kill her all those years ago (Clint knows), and that when Bucky finally remembered, he'd tried to apologize over and over again, and Natasha had shown him the scar and simply said that he didn't need to, that she was okay. (She is not okay.) She tells him that the Wakandans had called Bucky 'White Wolf', and that had meant more to him than any other title did, except for maybe Steve Roger's friend.

She tells him that Sam had been an idealistic son of a bitch who would have followed anyone to hell and back if he only believed in them. She tells him that throughout the craziness of their lives, Sam Wilson had been the one to ground everyone, to bring everyone back to Earth, which is ironic considering he could fly. But flying isn't just for soaring through the skies, but for catching people, too.

She tells him that Matt Murdock (definitely not Matthew) had looked for the good in everyone, and that even though it had hurt him several times over, he had kept doing it right until the moment of his death. She tells him that Matt had fought with both his fists and his words, and that both had been equally dangerous. She tells him that Matt had worked his ass off to get to where he was, and that he had done a lot of his work pro bono or with baked goods as payment. She tells Clint that Matt had been Daredevil, but he had had a kind heart, and Clint believes her.

She tells him that Foggy Nelson had been Matt Murdock's best friend, and that he'd tried to give her the shovel talk once upon a time but completely failed in doing so. She tells him that Foggy was the kind of guy you could depend on for anything, and she tells him not to make fun of his name, because he had thought Franklin was much worse, and you have to respect the wants of the dead.

She tells him that she wishes they weren't dead.

She tells him that Karen Page had been daring and brave and always digging for more, and how Nat had taught her some tricks, and she had taught her some in return. She tells him that Karen had had a way with words. She tells him that Karen could defend herself against anything except for dust and death.

She tells him that she had loved them, and he says that he knows.

"They loved you too, Nat," Clint tells her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.

"I wish I could know that for sure," she whispers.

"Have faith," he whispers back. She wishes she could.

After a few seconds, Natasha yawns. "God, what time is it?" she asks.

"Way too late to be awake, considering we're gonna be breaking the laws of physics."

Natasha groans, tipping her head back to rest against the back of the couch.

Clint laughs softly and says, "Y'know, I knew you came here, before. To Hell's Kitchen, that is. I had no idea what exactly you were doing or where exactly you were going, but I knew that Hell's Kitchen was a special place for you. So, after, I didn't just come here to take my anger out on the surviving gangs, but to try and keep the place safe."

"Thank you," she says quietly.

"We know more than you think, Nat," Clint says to her. "You're not alone in this."

She grimaces. "Half my brain knows, I think. The Red Room really fucked me up."

"Yeah, well, what's new?" Clint says with some humor.

Nat smiles and looks down at the box still in her hands. She opens it and shows Clint, even though he had probably already assumed what was there. "I would've said yes," she tells him, just so that someone knows.

"He sounds like a great guy," Clint says, and then the corner of his lips twitches. "Trust me, my hearing is completely sound."

Nat snorts—totally undignified—and says, voice wavering just slightly, "You would've liked his blind jokes."

"I bet."

"I wish you could have met him. I wish I hadn't been too scared to introduce the two of you."

"Well, now you've shared his memory with me," Clint tells her, reaching out to close the box and hold her hands in both his own. "We're in this together. That includes whatever happens tomorrow."

"Technically, it's today now," Nat reminds him.

"Whatever. When the time travel heist works, you'll be able to say yes to him, and you'll be able to correct your sister on her horrid ice cream eating habits."

Nat frowns. "I thought you didn't want to believe in hope," she says.

"Isn't hope part of being human?" he asks her.

"I miss feeling human, in this world with genocidal aliens and magical stones."

"But you are human," Clint says, "so believe me when I say we have a chance."

She believes him. She believes him.

Nat jolts awake on a familiar beat up couch, and for just half a second she thinks Matt is there with her before Clint groans, blinking awake beside her.

He stands up, pressing a hand to his spine. "My back," he moans.

"My neck," Nat complains in return. She definitely should not have been sleeping in that position.

"Not a good start to time travel day," Clint says, grimacing.

Nat registers the bags under his eyes, knows her eyebags are probably worse, and says, guilt curling under her words, "You were here all night?"

Clint glances at her and immediately clocks onto what she's not saying. "You helped me through my grief. It was bound to happen the other way around, too." He gives her a small, reassuring smile. "I wouldn't trade last night for anything."

"Thank you," she tells him. She feels like she said a lot of thank you's last night, even if it's a blur.

He waves it away. "Come on, Nat," he tells her, holding out a hand. "Ready to save the world?"

She takes his hand, and they walk out under the light of the rising sun.

Tony raises an eyebrow once they walk into the compound. "Rough night?" he asks, in lieu of all the questions he actually wants to ask.

"You could say that," Natasha grumbles. "Where's the good coffee?"

Tony points to the dining table, where mugs of coffee have already been poured. She and Clint both give him nods of appreciation and make a beeline for the coffee.

(Her coffee has too much sugar and too much creamer, but it tastes like home.)

(That's what she needs right now.)

(Tony knows more than she's been giving him credit for.)

Steve walks up to them and puts a hand on both of their shoulders, leaning in to say, softly, "Are you guys alright?"

"Better than before," Nat tells him honestly, and he must believe her because he drops it.

Clint's still very much focused on his drink—iced, with more sugar than coffee.

"So...we ready to do this?" Rhodey asks. It's a rhetorical question.

"Do we have a choice?" Steve says.

Hope you guys are ready for Vormir! :)