Guys... omg... I am so dense.

So, since I'm currently working on the hardest part of writing my Endgame scenario, I've been rereading the entirety of my work on The First.

I got to chapter 31, and then read chapter 32 and I realised there is actually a WHOLE CHAPTER MISSING. I'm guessing no one noticed it because the two chapters in question kind of still work.

So I apologise to everyone, I'm fixing the chapters right now, but I assure you, it will be worth it.

Enjoy

xo

Chapter 31

Strange Dynamic

Natasha and Lex flew to Japan, following reports from Rhodey on his investigation into Clint Barton's whereabouts. From all accounts so far, Clint was traversing the globe, hunting down criminals of all sorts, the worse the better. And when he found them, well, the images were graphic to say the least. Natasha looked at the information on the screen in front her, grimacing as she read Clint's new alias, 'Ronin'.

Instead of shooting arrows, he seemed to prefer working with a blade now, and instead of his black and purple signature uniform, he opted for all black with minimal gold, a hood and face covering.

Lex banked the Quinjet, before landing in a large field outside of Tokyo. "One of these days, you need to learn to actually fly, Nat, not just take off," the older Widow commented as she shut down the aircraft like it was second nature. She moved to the back of the aircraft and began gathering her weapons and a few other pieces she thought might be necessary should things go south.

"I never said I couldn't," Natasha replied, picking up her coat and slipping her arms into the sleeves. Lex froze in position as she knelt down to pull ammo from a draw and looked up at Natasha, a flash of annoyance dancing across her features. "I just don't volunteer."

Lex narrowed her eyes slightly, before a smirk graced her lips. "Cheeky bitch."

Natasha gave a small smile to her older counterpart before turning and opening the back hatch of the Quinjet. It was pouring rain in Tokyo, a monsoon currently hovering over the islands of Japan.

"So, according to Rhodey, he's looking at hitting a Yakuza boss named Akihiko," Natasha said as Lex secured her weapons to her back and hips. She wasn't sure what kind of reaction they should expect from Clint, so she was being careful to ensure she was prepared for anything. Natasha reached to the side of the Quinjet and activated a holographic map. A few red dots began to flash on the map. "These are the buildings where this Yakuza faction is based, and sources say that Akihiko could be at any one of these today."

"So, we're splitting up?"

"Don't kill anyone."

Lex pouted. "You take the fun out things, you know that?"

"Steve's orders specifically for you," Natasha said pointedly. Steve had pulled her aside before she had headed out to board the Quinjet. He knew that Lex had a strange passion for violence, but he had worked very hard since meeting her to prevent her from going too far. Natasha had distinctly heard him mutter something about Bucky not wanting her to be in pain under his breath too, but had pretended not to hear him.

Natasha had noticed all the special attention that Steve had been giving to Lex since she had come back, even if Lex herself hadn't. She understood it too. Lex was different, she was faster, stronger, and her mindset was completely different to the rest of them. She hadn't had the opportunity to love since she was six, and then suddenly, she lost a whole heap of friends in one hit when she had finally decided to let people close to her again. Even if she tried to act like it didn't, it had to have had an affect on her.

And Steve wanted to make sure that she didn't spiral back into something she had fought for years not to be. Natasha thought it was sweet, but wondered if perhaps there was another reason he did it. She had seen herself, these last couple weeks, how much closer Lex and Steve had gotten. Whether it was because of a common goal or a common link, it was a strange thing to consider.

"Yo, comrade," Lex called her attention in Russian, waving her hand in front of Natasha's face.

"Hmm? Sorry." She realized she had been staring at Lex while she thought about Steve's behavior towards his fellow super soldier. "So, which side do you want to take?"

An hour later, and Natasha was strolling down the road with an umbrella over her head, eyes roving between the buildings, looking for the last address she had left to look at. Lex had taken the two locations on the other side of the waterway.

"Nat, I've got eyes on Akihiko," Lex's voice came through Natasha's ear piece. Her heart rate picked up. Finally. "Building 10, block 5."

"Any sign of Clint?"

"Non- wait." There was silence on the other end, and Natasha started hurrying to Lex's last coordinates. She had to hurry, because if she missed her chance now, all their hard work tracking him would go to waste. "I've got activity in the building, seems someone's invited themselves in."

"I'm on my way," Natasha murmured, picking up the pace while still working to appear like she was a tourist on a stroll on a rainy day.

"Akhiko is running, seems Clint's making a mess downstairs. Are you sure you don't just want me to go downstairs and take care of it?" Lex asked.

"No! You could put him off."

"Oh, I meant take care of the Yakuza cronies, not Clint. He knows me," Lex replied, as if Natasha had misconstrued what she had offered. "Could take care of it in two minutes flat."

"Stay with Akihiko!" Natasha heard Lex mumble under her breath but she didn't argue any further. The red head hurried around the corner, hearing a commotion from the building across the waterway. "I'm outside."

"Good, because the fun is coming outside, what a mess!"

Natasha heard crashing and screaming from inside the building as she moved to stand in the shadows of an adjacent building, watching the activity. Men and women were running into the building, drawing swords and shouting in Japanese.

"It's him! He's after Akihiko!"

"Natasha, Clint has literally killed every person that's come in to defend this guy, are you sure you don't want me to intervene? It's not that's saying something, coming from me."

Natasha bit her lip, from the tone of Lex's voice, she knew that it must have been bad. Maybe even bad enough to make Lex cringe. "No, we can't risk scaring him off."

There was silence on the other end of the comms. "I hope you know what you're doing, Nat."

She hoped she knew what she was doing too. She would soon find out as there was the sound of breaking glass above Natasha and a body was thrown outside, landing on the road and remaining still. On ground level, a lone Japanese man, well-dressed in a suit and carrying a sword, ran out from inside the same building.

"Akihiko has left the building, I'm coming out from the East of the building," Lex warned. Sure enough, Natasha saw Lex drop from the second floor, silently slipping out a window and landing on a small awning that covered a storage area of the building.

Akihiko stumbled, tripping over his own feet in a hurry to get away, just as there was the tinkling of additional glass and a figure appeared to jump from the same window the body had been thrown out of. The figure landed at a crouch, dressed all in black except for a few gold details here and there. They wore a hood over their head, keeping their face concealed by a black mask.

The Yakuza leader stumbled backwards as he tried to get up and away again. "We never did anything to you!"

"You're done hurting people." Natasha bit back a cry. It was Clint, she would recognize that voice anywhere, but she also recognized the underlying tone of anger and pain there.

"You're crazy!" Akihiko turned and ran at the figure, charging with his sword raised. A sword appeared from the sleeve of Clint's robe, and he met Akihiko's strike with a resounding ring of steel on steel. There was the clang of metal on metal as they blocked, parried and struck out at each other.

"Are we letting him kill this guy, or what?" Lex demanded, looking out from her hiding spot in the shadows. Natasha's mind was racing. She knew she should intervene, but at the same time, it was Clint and she didn't want to hurt him. There was another clang of metal on metal as Clint blocked another strike, before slashing across Akihiko's stomach and then his back. "I'll take that as a yes."

Akihiko fell to his knees, his breathing ragged and holding his stomach. "Wait! Help me! I'll give you whatever you want!" Akihiko began to beg.

Clint approached him, standing behind him and looking down at the Yakuza boss. "What I want...You can't give me."

Natasha stepped out from the building, staring at Clint as the body fell from his grasp and he wiped the blood from his sword onto his sleeve. Lex also moved, except her face was completely expressionless and unaffected by what she had just seen. She began to clap, although the sound was muffled by her gloves and the rain.

"Bravo, Hawkeye, or is it Ronin, now?" Lex mocked in near perfect Japanese, stepping out to block the road ahead of him. Natasha could see from her body language that although Lex kept an air of boredom about her persona, she was on edge, ready for Clint to do anything, including attack her.

Clint pulled his hood back, taking his balaclava off. The rain seemed to get heavier around them as Natasha stopped behind him, the rain hammering on her umbrella. Clint looked from Lex to Natasha behind him.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, looking down at the body as he moved away, turning to face Natasha.

"Neither should you," Natasha retorted, standing resolutely where she was. Behind Clint, Lex began to pace on the road. It reminded Natasha of a caged lion sizing up its prey. She trusted Lex, though, she knew she wouldn't move on Clint unless she needed to.

"I've got a job to do," Clint replied, his voice not revealing any emotion whatsoever, and it hurt Natasha to hear him like that.

"Is that what you're calling this?" Lex scoffed, a smirk appearing on her face. "Looks like fun."

Natasha threw Lex a glare over Clint's shoulder, which she responded to by rolling her eyes.

Clint looked between the two, raising an eyebrow. "I sense a strange dynamic here."

"We're no Black Widow and Hawkeye, but you make do with what you've got," Lex returned shrugging her shoulders.

Natasha sighed, loathing Steve for making her take Lex on this mission right now. "Killing all these people isn't going to bring your family back," she said pointedly to Clint, taking a few steps towards him, stopping when there was only arms-length between them. When he didn't answer, she continued. "We found something. A chance, maybe…"

"Don't."

Natasha furrowed her brow in confusion, as Lex approached closer behind Clint. "Don't what?"

In Clint's eyes, Natasha could see pain there. She knew that Clint's family had been victims of the snap, all three of his children and his wife were gone. That was the pain he was carrying now. "Don't give me hope."

"I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you sooner." She reached out, taking his hand in his and holding onto it tight.

Steve opened the door to the roof of the Avengers facility, breathing in the fresh air. He needed a break, the back and forth of ideas on how to build the machine they would use to jump through the Quantum Realm was making his head spin.

He stepped out and walked towards the edge, looking out over the compound. Thanos was right about one thing, after the snap, the air purity was much better, but the trade off was not on par with the perks.

He sighed, thinking of all those that were gone. As if losing Bucky once wasn't bad enough, he had to lose both Bucky and Sam at the same time. It wasn't fair. He was glad Tony came around though, with Tony, Bruce and Scott all working together, and Nebula's background knowledge of Thanos, they were going to succeed. They had to.

"You mind?" came an all to familiar voice from behind him.

He turned in surprise, finding Lex sprawled on the concrete behind him. She was dressed in black track pants and a white singlet, her shoes discarded to one side and her hair tied up in a messy bun. It was an interesting look, and not one he was used to seeing on her. She looked very relaxed, as she lifted her head from the concrete and fixed her gaze on him, her deep brown eyes squinting at him slightly as if she was adjusting them to the sunlight.

"What are you doing up here?" he asked, moving to one side and leaning against the railing.

"Me? I'm always up here," she retorted, sitting up and shielding her eyes from the sun. "What are you doing here?"

He raised his eyebrows, he had always wondered where she disappeared to. He folded his arms and sighed, thinking of the mayhem downstairs. "I just needed some air."

"So, you steal my sunshine?"

"Is that what you're doing?" He looked her up and down. "Don't women usually wear…" he felt awkward suddenly and began motioning to his own body.

Lex raised her eyebrows expectantly, a smirk dancing on her lips as she looked back up at him. "Sorry, what was that?"

He sighed. "You know...never mind."

She cocked her head to one side, grinning coyly. "Is Captain America insinuating that I should be in a bikini right now?"

Steve grit his teeth and pressed his lips together. "No, that's not what I'm saying at all."

Lex laughed, clapping, before motioning for Steve to sit next to her. "Relax, Rogers, at your age you'll give yourself a heart attack."

He sighed, doing his best not to smile, before moving to sit next to her. "You mean at my age YOU will give me a heart attack."

She winked at him and nudged him with her shoulder. "Touche." He leant his elbows on his knees as he looked towards the horizon. "The science mumbo jumbo doing your head in?"

Steve pressed his lips together. "That obvious, huh?"

"We are designed to hit things, not to think about why when we hit those things, they break," she reasoned, leaning back on her hands and moving to sit crossed legged.

Steve grimaced and looked back at her in annoyance. "Can you stop saying that you were designed? You're more than that."

She raised her eyebrows at Steve. "Huh?"

"Stop saying you were designed, or made. You're a human being, not a machine," he scolded her. He wasn't sure about what exactly happened to her while she was at the Red Room, or even after that, but to him she was still a person with feelings and emotions. And she clearly had her own willpower, otherwise she wouldn't have survived as long as she had.

She sat forward, looking Steve in the face, her expression seeming to be thoughtful. He felt awkward suddenly, like perhaps he had been out of line in saying so. It was true though, he hated hearing her talk about herself like that. And he had hated hearing Bucky talk like that about himself too.

"But it's true. We were designed, molded to fit into a perfect shape suitable to perform tasks deemed necessary by those who would control us," Lex said quietly, not once taking her eyes off of Steve. He found it unnerving. "Why does that make you so uncomfortable? Is it because you haven't accepted that you're just like us? Created to perform a task?"

"That may have been why we were created, Lex, but that no longer defines us," he retorted, turning to face her fully. "We no longer answer to anyone, we control who we are and what we do. What we do now, defines our future, no one else. So stop saying that about yourself. You're so much more than that."

Lex narrowed her eyes at Steve, who looked away finally. He wasn't used to talking to Lex like that. Deep and meaningfuls were always her and Bucky's thing. Steve was more the inspiring speech type.

"Why?"

Steve turned to look back at Lex in confusion. "What?"

"Why do you keep trying to push this better person bullshit on me?" she asked quietly. There was no malice in her voice or in her expression, she seemed genuinely curious.

Steve faltered slightly, before swallowing and thinking carefully how to answer. "If it wasn't for you, Bucky would have been all alone in Bucharest. If it wasn't for you, Bucky could have been killed by Tony. And Bucky…he cared for you, a lot, even if you don't understand that. You cared for him when I couldn't. I need to take care of you, for him."

She pressed her lips together thoughtfully, before looking up into the sky. Steve could see her trying to understand what he was saying. "I see." He wasn't sure that she did understand, as her expression remained thoughtful as they both looked up to the sky, watching a line of clouds roll in. "You're right about one thing."

"What's that?" he asked, not looking at her, instead staring out over the lake that was within the Avengers facility grounds. He was surprised when she leaned across and rested her head on his shoulder. He looked down at her with a stunned expression.

"I don't completely understand, but I'm okay with it," she sighed, still not moving her head. Looking down at her, he suddenly realized how tired she looked.

Steve reached across with his spare hand, patting her on the head and leaning his own head against hers. "Sorry if I get all righteous on you every now and then, it's a force of habit," he joked, as he felt her rest her hand on top of his that rested on the concrete.

"It's fine, as long as you let me be annoyingly morbid in return." He laughed lightly, pulling his head away from hers and shaking it. "Hey, you like chocolate cake?"

Ok! This is the correct chapter, I'll be shifting the other chapters back so that they all line up again.

Sorry guys!

xo

Krayzee