Title: Someday
Rating: PG-13/T
Originally posted: 13th July 2024
Originally written for: Be_Compromised One Prompt Challenge.
Characters/Pairings: Clint/Nat
Notes: prompts were 'rooftop' and 'time travel'.
It was so strange to think about the journey he had taken to arrive on this particular rooftop in this particular moment. If Clint allowed himself to think about them too hard, he would lose concentration entirely, something he could ill afford to do, especially now. Still, a glance at the two watches on his arm - one regular, one very much not - meant it was difficult not to at least consider how long it had been since he started on this particular leg of his life journey. How much convincing he had to do with Lang and Banner, not just to look into the possibilities in the first place, but to commit to making use of the knowledge they uncovered as time went on.
So much for the theory that changing the past caused a new branch-like alternate reality from the main timeline. The possibilities of the quantum realm were bigger than that, so Scott had said.
"Baskin Robbins has thirty-one flavours; apparently, time-travel comes in a whole bunch of varieties too," was how he put it, and so, collaborating with Smart Hulk, he began working on the tech to help Clint travel back in his own timeline to alter their current future.
For any other reason, none of them would even have considered such a thing, but when it came to losing one of their own, particular this one... Clint would do anything and knew that Bruce understood why.
There were a hundred times and places he could go to fix things. Just a few months ago on Vormir, that was the most obvious. Perhaps a few years back, to ensure Thanos was defeated before he got any of the stones at all. In the end, it had to be Clint's decision and it was a big one. He only shared the idea with Laura, and even then, he didn't ask her advice, not this time. He told her this was what he was going to do, and to her credit, she didn't even try to stop him.
"I know this is something you feel you have to do," she said, nodding her understanding, "which means it's the right thing. I trust you, like she trusted you."
She didn't wish him luck or tell him to be careful. She knew it wouldn't make any difference or do any good. The two women he loved most had that in common. Smarter than they might seem on the surface, not just pretty faces, willing to make whatever sacrifices were needed for the people they loved.
Shaking his head, Clint brought himself back to the present moment, even though he was aware that it was actually in the past. Not outside of his own lifetime, which made him smile in spite of everything (Scott had assured him that was actually possible, in spite of what the old TV show about quantum travel might say) just at the very edge of someone else's lifespan.
The sound of the baby crying in the house across the street tore at his heart. He was sure it hit him harder than some because he was a father, but it was also more than that. It was knowing whose pain he was hearing. Knowing he couldn't do anything to help until the coast was well and truly clear.
At last, he saw an opportunity, carefully picking his way down to the ground, grateful at least that the wind was a little less cold at ground-level. Still, it was no secret or generalisation that Russian weather could be biting and bitter. Not that Clint supposed that was the only reason he was shaking all over.
Darting into the house at last, he steeled himself against too much emotion, crossing to the crib and taking up the crying child into his arms.
"It's okay," he told her softly. "I promise, it's all going to be okay, Natasha."
Arriving back in his correct place and time came with a bout of nausea that nobody had warned him about. Maybe that was what he got for messing with his own timeline. If it were the only negative consequence, Clint was more than sure he could live with it.
Crouching on the ground a while longer, he fought to get his bearings. He had only half-expected anyone to be waiting on him at the Avengers compound. Of course, there had been a minor chance it wouldn't even be there anymore. He had messed with things he probably shouldn't have, possibly creating ripples in time so major that everything was turned on its head.
Honestly, he didn't care. He knew that he should, but Clint Barton was without regret when he considered what he had done. Taking Natasha out of a crappy situation and putting her somewhere safe and decent, where the chances of her life taking the path it had - Drakov, the Red Room, mind control, suffering and torment that nobody should have to bear, and a sacrificial ending she should never have had to choose - were as close as possible to zero.
"You have to know that there is a lot of scientific evidence supporting the idea of what we call fate or destiny," Banner had said before he left. "As much as whatever change you make could have catastrophic consequences, there's also a reasonable chance it could make no real difference at all."
With those words ringing in his ears, Clint stood and looked around at the empty room. It was very similar to the one he had left behind, but that didn't necessarily mean much. The Avengers would have existed without Natasha being there, they just would have been a little different, that was all. Clint would still have been an Agent of SHIELD, as he had been before he met her. He knew all these things before he ever made his trip, guaranteeing, as far as he was concerned, the important things, like his own marriage and the existence of his kids, ensuring that Earth's Mightiest Heroes would still be around to defeat the bad guys.
Striding off towards the room that was designated his own, at least before his trip to Russia in 1984, Clint felt his heart start to race the closer he got to the door. He paused before letting himself in, hesitating just a second before pressing his thumb to the key pad, then sighing with relief when he was granted access. It all looked very much the same in there. The framed picture on the night-stand was only slightly altered, but still showed himself, Laura, Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel. Sitting on the bed with the picture in his hands, it was only then it occurred to him that his youngest son might have a different name now. After all he had been named for...
"Hey."
The sound of her voice made him startle and he turned fast, feeling as if he was looking at a ghost as he looked her over.
"Nat?"
Her name came out hoarse and so soft it was a wonder she even heard. God knows what she made of the look on his face which had to be comical, because he honestly didn't even know what he was feeling.
"You... you're here. You're alive and you're here."
He was up from the bed in a second, striding towards her, wrapping his arms right around her to hold on tight, so very tight. She hugged him back, that old familiar feeling that he missed so much, and he just breathed her in for as long as he could.
Natasha was here. Not just alive in the world, but there with him. It ought to be impossible. He had changed everything, or at least, he should have done. She never should have been an assassin, which had to have kept her from ever joining SHIELD, the Avengers. How did they even meet?
He wanted to ask her, but hardly knew how. At the end of the day, he wondered if it mattered. She was alive, she was there with him, and when he finally pulled back to see her face, he saw she looked well. Concerned for him, obviously, but well, good, healthy, if not quite happy...
"Clint, what's going on?" she asked then, eyes moving over his whole form. "Should I even ask about the outfit?"
He looked down at himself, feeling stupid, feeling delirious and strange. He half-expected to wake up any second and find this was all a dream. His eyes went to the framed photograph still held tight in his hand and he shook his head.
"I just don't understand what happened."
Natasha sighed, putting a hand to his shoulder. "I know it's not the greatest situation sometimes. I know you miss the kids, but Laura is so great about us visiting. You said yourself, you probably see them more now than you did when you guys were still together."
That got Clint's attention in double-quick time, though he never got a chance to ask what she meant before she seemed instinctively to know he needed her to explain.
"Come on, you guys had to have had the most amicable divorce of any two people on Earth. It was almost weird how nice you both were about it, and she's never really been mad about you and me. Somehow, she just understands. She's been a better person than I might have been in her shoes," she said with a smirk that all too quickly gave way to a frown. "This isn't about you regretting anything, right? We always said if we ever changed our minds, we would tell each other."
They were together. Clint wasn't sure why it seemed so strange to him. It wasn't as if the thought had never crossed his mind, married or not, and he was 99% sure Laura had always known it too. So, somehow, it had happened. He and his wife had parted ways, more amicably than most couples did, and now, he and Natasha were, what? Married? A couple, at the very least. No wedding bands, he quickly noticed, but that wasn't so strange, in their line of work anyway.
A quick glance at the bed showed it was more than big enough for two, with items he recognised as her own lying on the far side nightstand, meaning they really were sharing this room, sharing a bed, sharing their lives in a way they had never in their lives before.
"Clint?"
"I'm fine," he promised her, hating the worry in her tone, reaching for her hand and squeezing, finding her a smile to help ease her worry. "I promise, I am more than okay with... everything," he swore to her, as honest as he had ever been in his life. "I just..."
He didn't know how to tell her, couldn't imagine how to begin to explain, or maybe he could, but now just wasn't the time. Yes, someday, he might explain it all. The old timeline, the way he tried to fix it, and how it had changed things so much, but not at all in the ways he had thought. At the same time, he hoped she might tell him what he missed. How this had happened, how she still ended up the same version of herself that he had known before, or close enough, anyway. How they had come to be there in that moment, both alive and together. Now just wasn't the right time for any of that.
"No regrets," he told her instead, smiling as he pulled her closer in his arms. "I love you, Nat. You know that, right?"
"I should by now," she said, rolling her eyes, "and I love you too," she promised, leaning in for a kiss he happily gave her.
Everything else could wait for another day.
The End
