It's one of my favorite poly!Avengers fics, but I can't seem to remember the title!
Basically it's Post-Endgame and instead of killing Tony the snap has sent him into an alternate world where all the Avengers are living together in the tower. A/B/O is the biological norm in this alternate earth and Tony was basically the beloved omega of the entire team who died suddenly and left them all reeling... until alternate universe Tony shows up out of the blue.
It was so much just... love for Tony and found family feelings and I wanna re-read it but I can't find it! Help!
When the door knocked Peggy huffed, having just reached home from the office, she wasn’t particularly pleased that now her quiet evening was being interrupted. She wondered if it was Angie again, wanting some entertainment for the evening. While Peggy was fine to host her for the evening, she prefered not to, because the day had been long and dragged on and all Peggy wanted to do was get in, get settled, have some food and try her best to destress in the bath.
“One moment!” Peggy called out as she got up from the kitchen barstool. The cup of tea was in her hand still, taking a sip as she moved the key in the door and opened it.
Then her world went still, the china falling from her hands as she took in the sight before her. Her hand went to her thigh for a moment, and the garter and holster Ana had made her sitting there with a fully loaded gun. Not that she was fearful, but this… him, he was unexpected. It was almost like a reflex at this point, to make sure she kept herself safe.
The heels of her shoes shuffled back slowly, wordlessly watching him as her mind reeled taking him in, stature, eyes, the smell of him, for a moment it's like nothing had changed and Peggy is transported to the war and she was confused looking at him, but she knows Steve when she sees Steve.
He’s older. Even with the serum, she can still make that observation. The lines around his eyes and mouth give it away. Still as perfect as ever. A little more refined is all. She can’t quite make out his expression, but she notes he’s somewhere between relieved and tired. Like he had gone through hell to get here.
Peggy swallowed.
The radio in the background filled the room because they were silent. Watching each other like the two of them were, examining each other, feeling each other out as if to determine the best way to break the ice. Peggy usually had a lot to say, being a product of her career made her yearn to say something, she debated whether she should be more cautious.
Part of her doesn't want to.
Part of her doesn’t care.
There's a stinging in her eyes, and a burning sensation that rises in her throat and she knows she’s about to cry. She felt embarrassed by the fact too. It doesn’t surprise her because the anniversary of him going down is coming up and she had been feeling particularly weepy at the mere mention of his name, let alone him now standing in her home.
It wasn’t until he was fully inside and kicked the door to close it a little that Peggy stopped moving, and moved her hand away from her thigh. If this was a sick joke, some mind game or otherwise she had determined at that moment that she was more than happy for that to be her fate if she got a few more moments with him.
They had lost enough time.
But the fact is he’s not said anything and is being respectful and patient with her.
She knows the man she loves.
She does move closer, crashing against him, burying her head into his chest and breathing him in. The stinging in her eyes spilt over as her fingers gripped the fabric of his clothes, so tight that the pads of her fingers hurt, turning white. She didn’t care though, so fearful that if she let go, he would go too.
“I’ve reached insanity haven’t I?” Peggy half-joked, she was generally curious that she had, or that maybe she had died and gone to heaven. That her mind is playing the world's worst prank on her. A cruel prank if anything, one she was willing to give into, if even for one evening. “Are you real?” She sniffled. The moment was perfectly timed with the next song that came on the radio, a song dedicated to lovers returning from war and Peggy smiled. “Am I dreaming?”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Characters: Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Maria Hill, Nick Fury
Additional Tags: Fluff, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), natasha is alive
Summary:
Maria muses over losing Natasha and gaining her back as Natasha beats Clint up whilst sparring.
Author: doctornineandthreequarters
Rating: gen
Word Count: <2k
Genre(s): fluff
Film-specific: post endgame
Tropes: babysitting, peter parker, morgan stark, endgame fix it, worried!pepper, anniversary
Summary: Tony watched the conversation between Pepper and Peter, a smirk on his face. They were going out for their wedding anniversary. Both Happy and Rhodey were busy, so Peter was babysitting Morgan. Peter had spent a lot of time with Morgan since everything was set back to the way it was before. Tony had made sure that Peter spent a lot of time at the cabin. May was perfectly fine with it and even encouraged it. But babysitting Morgan on his own was a little different.
----
Or Pepper and Tony go out for their anniversary and leave Peter in charge of Morgan.
the past will be the past (but the future is brighter than any flashback)
This is my @irondadficexchange fic for the lovely @iamirondad 🎉🎉🎉
The prompt I chose to use was Peter gets hurt on patrol. The title of this fic comes from the song January White by Sleeping at Last.
Hope you enjoy!
Post-endgame, Tony saved the world and survived. Life is finally getting back to normal. Peter goes out on patrol and everything is fine, until it's not.
Read on AO3
“Dang.” Peter muttered.
Everything had been going fine, great actually.
It was a few months after everyone returned from their five year disappearance and things were finally getting settled down. Thanks to Doctor Strange, Tony was starting to get back on his feet after wielding the gauntlet. It hadn't been easy, but he was determined to get back to normal, or as close as he could get. Peter and May had a new apartment in Queens, school would start soon, and Spider-Man was finally patrolling again.
But now, it was only Peter’s third afternoon back on the streets and there was already a knife in his thigh.
Admittedly, he had been a little distracted (maybe things hadn't been quite as great as Peter wanted to believe). Putting the suit back on had been harder than he expected it to be. The first few times he tried, he hadn’t been able to put it on at all. Anxiety and fear plagued him. The feeling of crumbling into nothingness, darkness slowly but inevitably consuming him, invaded his thoughts like a dense, unwanted cloud. In his dreams, he watched Tony die over and over and over. The man hadn’t even died in real life, but Peter’s subconscious had decided to play out the worst case scenario repeatedly.
The feeling that the people of New York needed him only heightened his anxiety. All he wanted was to get out there and help people, but he couldn’t, he wasn’t strong enough. The feeling of utter incompetence was paralyzing, shaking him to his core. If he couldn’t be Spider-Man, who was he?
It had taken time, especially time with Tony, for Peter to feel like he was ready to go out again. The nightmares were finally receding, the anxieties lessening. His first two patrols had been mostly uneventful and he had felt great afterward, but for some reason it was different this time.
A guy had stolen some lady’s purse and run off with it. Peter was hot on his heels, hoping he could get the purse back to its rightful owner, and maybe web up the thief while he was at it, but while he was running, Peter’s heart rate had sped up more than usual. His senses tingled, something felt wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He ignored the feeling as he caught up to the purse snatcher, but that turned out to be a big mistake.
The man turned as Peter grabbed his shoulder, immediately plunging the knife Peter hadn’t noticed into his thigh.
As Peter stumbled back, the man continued running, turning down an alley and out of sight.
“Dang,” Peter muttered, looking down at his right leg. The suit was already turning a darker shade of red. He shot a web up the nearest building and swung himself onto the roof.
He wanted to go after the attacker, but his vision was starting to get blurry, his head starting to spin. The stab wound wasn’t that bad, right? He plopped down unceremoniously on the ground, careful not to disturb the knife that was still in his leg. The pain and the fuzziness reminded him of Thanos and the stones and the gauntlet and that stupid planet and watching the people around him turn to dus-
“Incoming call from Tony Stark,” Karen said, interrupting Peter’s spiraling thoughts.
“Dang,” Peter said again, face scrunching up as a wave of dizziness rolled through him. “Decline the call.”
“I’m afraid he’s bypassing my control,” Karen said. Before she could say anything else, the call went through.
“Peter?” Tony’s worried voice rang in his ears. “Are you okay, kid?”
Peter opened his mouth to answer, but he felt like he couldn’t breathe in enough air, so he gasped instead.
“Peter?” Tony’s voice was growing louder and more concerned. “Can you answer me? What’s going on?”
Peter gasped again, finally getting enough air. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice rising about an octave higher than usual. “Just a little accident, everything’s fine.”
“I got a notification from your suit that said it was punctured by a knife,” Tony said, sounding completely unconvinced of Peter’s answer.
“Yeah…” Peter started. “But I’ll be fine, I’m sure it’ll heal up real quick.”
“Absolutely not,” Tony said sternly, “get to the tower now.”
Peter’s breathing was still irregular and labored, “I would,” he said between gasps, “but I think I’m having a panic attack or something.” He paused, “I- I think I’m just gonna lay here for a little while.”
“I’m sending a suit,” Tony said, his voice still agitated.
“Oh, you really don’t have to,” Peter said, “I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Shut up Parker, the suit’s already on its way.”
Peter pulled his mask off so he could breathe more easily. His chest still felt unusually tight, his throat constricted. What was wrong with him? This wasn’t exactly the first time something had gone awry while he was on patrol. He’d been shot, stabbed, knocked out, pretty much every trick in the book, but he could usually walk it off. This was different. There was a sense of dread and panic lurking somewhere inside of him. He felt as though, at any moment, he would crumble again, floating away, just dust in the wind.
At that mental image, he gasped again, tears were starting to gather in his eyes. He heard something approaching, but he was still laying on the roof, pinned down by his own intrusive thoughts.
“Hey, Pete,” he heard Iron Man’s voice, the outline of the suit coming into view. “I’m going to get you back to the tower, okay?”
Peter didn’t respond, everything was blurring around him again.
“Peter!” Iron Man’s voice sounded upset, almost like he was dying again.
The pain that blossomed from Peter’s leg was suddenly amplified. I’m dying. Was all he could think. Tony’s right there, but I’m dying. It was all too familiar. He can’t save me. No one can save me. In his mind, he could imagine the tips of his fingers starting to disintegrate. Please, not again.
He didn’t realize it, but he was sobbing now.
Iron Man gently picked him up and held him close, careful to avoid jostling his leg. He was saying something to Peter, talking quietly to him, but Peter couldn’t seem to understand what he was saying.
“I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark,” he gasped.
The suit stopped talking at that, and after a moment they took off from the roof, not flying too fast, but getting Peter back to the tower, back to Tony, as quickly as possible.
When they landed on top of the recently re-acquired Stark Tower, Tony was waiting, Helen Cho by his side.
Tony hurried over to Peter, who was still being held by the suit.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Tony said quickly, cupping Peter’s face in his hands. “You’re going to be okay bud, everything’s going to be just fine, I’ve got you.”
Peter took a shuddering breath, tears still streaking down his face. He let out an involuntary cry, unable to calm himself down.
Tony’s thumb gently wiped at Peter’s cheek. He ran a hand through the boy’s sweaty hair. “We’re going to take good care of you, Pete, your leg will be all better in no time. We have to get you down to the med bay now.”
Tony held onto Peter’s hand as they headed to the elevator, the Iron Man suit still carrying the boy.
Helen injected Peter with pain meds first, a dose strong enough for him to pass out within a few minutes. Under Tony’s watchful eye, she removed the blade from Peter’s thigh, cleaning and stitching up the wound before she left the meds and Peter’s advanced healing to take care of the rest.
Tony stayed in the room while Peter slept, going through the footage from Peter’s suit, trying to figure out what went wrong.
Peter’s frightened cries stabbed at his heart, reminding him too of the worst day of everyone’s lives. “ I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark” echoed around in his mind.
After a couple of hours, Peter started awake, a frenzied look in his eyes.
Tony was by his side in a heartbeat. “You’re safe, Pete,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”
Peter looked around the room frantically until his eyes settled on Tony. He relaxed, laying back down on the bed with a relieved sigh.
“How do you feel?” Tony asked carefully.
“I’m really tired,” Peter said, rubbing at his eyes.
Tony nodded, “the meds really wiped you out.” After a moment, he ventured further, “what happened out there?”
Peter’s brow furrowed, “I don’t know,” he sat up gingerly. “I started out doing my usual thing. I helped a cat that was stuck in a tree, I stopped someone from breaking into a car, you know, what I always do. But then I went after this purse-snatcher and something felt wrong, but I didn’t know what, and then I wasn’t really paying attention, and then the guy stabbed me and ran away.”
Tony leaned forward in his seat, “did you figure out what was wrong?”
Peter shook his head. “I guess I was sensing the knife, but that didn’t really seem like the problem. It was the first time my senses were warning me that I was in danger like that since… well since I died.”
Tony swallowed hard. “That’s why you had a panic attack.”
“Yeah,” Peter said sheepishly. “I’ve felt it in my dreams plenty of times, but this felt so much like I was going to disappear again that it freaked me out.”
“That would freak me out too,” Tony said. “It did freak me out.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Peter said, sounding discouraged. “I thought I was ready to be Spider-Man again, but at the first sign of trouble I flipped out.”
“It’s totally normal to feel that way,” Tony reassured him. “It can take a long time to recover from something traumatic like that.”
“I know,” Peter sighed, “but I’ve been sitting around long enough. I just want to get out there and do something, start helping people again. I don’t want the past to stop from doing stuff now.”
Tony nodded, “I know how you feel. After Loki and his little army invaded New York, I felt like I was never going to be normal again. Any thought of aliens or wormholes or almost dying would set me off like nothing else. I didn’t feel safe anymore and I let fear control me for a really long time.”
“What did you do?” Peter asked. “How did you feel safe again?”
Tony paused. “I guess I learned to live one day at a time,” he finally said. “I realized that I was taking the present for granted. The past is something that already happened and you just have to look to the future, let it pull you in, away from your past, away from all of the crappy stuff and into something new and exciting and beautiful.”
“Or you could just discover time travel and go back and fix it,” Peter suggested mischievously.
Tony reached out and messed with Peter’s hair. “Only for you, kid. Overly sentimental speeches aside, I just want you to know that it’s okay if you’re not ready to go out as Spider-Man yet. That doesn’t mean you aren’t Spider-Man anymore or anything like that, it just means that you need to take a little extra time to recover.”
Peter nodded. “I think I’ll take another week or two off, see how it goes from there.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Tony said. “We have to fix your suit now anyway.”
Peter laughed, “that’s true.”
“I just finished some upgrades on the Iron Spider,” Tony added. Once we get you in that, you won’t have to worry about silly little knives anymore.”
Peter smiled, “thanks, Tony.”
“For what?” Tony asked, looking mildly confused.
Peter shrugged, “for looking out for me. It’s really nice to know you’ll always have my back.”
Tony couldn’t help but grin. “Of course, kid.” He pulled Peter into a tight hug. “Always.”
Clint warned him about this, though he didn’t have a name to tell Steve. Here, on this rock at the centre of the universe, a face from the past.
“Schmidt.”
The eyes are the same, he realises, though the man is floating, surrounded by the ghostly tendrils of his reaper’s cloak. A guide, Clint said. Steve has guessed correctly.
“Not anymore,” says the figure. “I am a guide now, here to show the way to a treasure. You, however, already possess it.”
Steve’s grip on the case tightens and relaxes. That’s why he’s here. To return what was taken.
“So,” Steve says. “Do I just hand it to you?”
The skull can’t smile itself, but the muscles contort into the facsimile of a grimace, and the black raiment moves as if he is shrugging.
“Never in its history has the soul stone been willingly returned by those who claimed it.” The hollow eyes watch him a moment. “Come.”
He turns, and floats towards the cliff. Steve follows, and at the edge, he watches as the cloaked figure floats out over the chasm below. Steve opens the case. He taps his wrist, and the nanosuit gloves his hand, shimmering energy ready to protect him from the chaos contained within. He takes the glowing yellow stone in his hand, and stands. The figure reaches out, his hand lost somewhere beneath the robes, if he has a hand at all.
Steve drops the stone.
It falls through Schmidt as if he is smoke. Steve watches as the glinting yellow stone vanishes out of sight. When he looks up, his guide has vanished too. He is alone.
On the cliff where his friend made the ultimate sacrifice, Steve bows his head and takes a moment to thank her. Natasha, the woman who saved the universe. Maybe she knows. He hopes so.
Steve taps in his next coordinates, and winks out of existence.
-
A dominion-
She falls. The wind howls.
Please-
The air is ice.
…dominion of death-
Screaming. Maybe it’s her.
Let me go.
Only moments left.
…of death at the very centre-
For him, all for him, always for him-
No. Please, no-
It will be okay. She knows.
…the very centre of celestial existence-
Her last thought is of his face.
It’s okay.
Then nothing.
-
Natasha opens her eyes. Above, a moon in eclipse. The sky is dark. Shallow water laps at the borders of her body and she realises that she can feel it. She sits up. Blinks. If this is the afterlife, it’s a lot wetter than she thought it would be.
The word Vormir appears in her head. It swims up through the fog of her cerebral cortex and hangs there in her mind, waiting to be comprehended. Clint pops up alongside it. Stone. Death. No. Please, no. She shakes her head. Her hair is wet. Let me go. It’s okay.
“Fuck.”
The word tumbles out of her as the gravity in her head readjusts and she remembers what she was about to do. No, what she did. She jumped. That much she knows for sure. She fell. She must have hit the rocks below, and- Clint, where is Clint?
She wonders briefly if she’s dead. She’s not injured, which doesn’t seem right after leaping off a cliff. Dreaming? Maybe she’s dying down there on the rocks. She hopes Clint doesn’t have to watch her. But no. The things around her are real. Tangible. She is alive, but how?
Natasha looks around, and there is no mountain to be seen. No cliffs. No Clint. She only knows she’s still on Vormir thanks to the bruised sky and the glimmering eclipse. She doesn’t know when, though. What day is it? What time?
Time.
She looks down. Her hands are submerged in the water, propping her up. Is the suit affected by water? She never thought to ask. It didn’t occur to her to ask Stark if she could swim laps in this thing. Too preoccupied with the concept of travelling through time.
She touches the panel with hesitant fingertips, and it lights up. Apparently her luck doesn’t end with survival, because the whole thing seems to be functioning. Natasha keys in the date and coordinates for the return, as per the plan. She’ll appear back on the platform with the others. Clint will be there. Natasha is seized by the complete conviction that this is going to work, and she stands in the shallow water, ready to fly.
She hits the button.
The vortex opens and she closes her eyes as she is sucked back into the quantum realm. She locks her arms by her sides as she flies through the flashing tunnels of energy, and her blood is roaring in her ears, and the tunnel is looping back- no, something is wrong, something doesn’t feel like before- she hits something quasi-solid, and cartwheels into the energy stream, the light blinds her and-
She splashes back into the water. Her knees hit the ground below and she grunts, and puts her hands out to stop the rest of her body falling, and realises all at once that she is still here, still on this fucking rock in the middle of space.
Her wrist beeps, and she looks at the panel. 2023. She’s in the right time, but still in the same place. The tunnel has brought her through time but she hasn’t travelled physically. Not ideal for someone without a spaceship. Natasha grinds her teeth, and then takes a breath. She centres herself. A voice in her head that sounds a lot like Clint tells her to put her brain back in gear, so she does. She stands up, and walks out of the water onto what looks, in the dim light, to be a sand dune. She sits. Breathes. At least she can breathe. Bonus.
“Come on,” she mutters, tapping the panel. Red lights are blinking at her, telling her she can’t get anywhere. No Pym Particles, she realises. She’s used the last of them. There is nowhere else she can go. She doesn’t stop tweaking the panel, though, because Natasha Romanoff is not going to fucking die on Vormir. Not again.
It takes almost an hour, and her fingernails are ripped to shreds, but she manages to cannibalise the transmitter from her commlink and patch it into the power source of the panel. Now she has a beacon. Natasha doesn’t hesitate, and the second it’s ready, she switches it on. Anyone could find her, she knows that. It’s a big universe, and there could be any number of dangerous people who could pick up the signal. But anything is better than being here. She cradles the transmitter in her hands, and settles down in the sand to wait.
-
“5…4…3…2…1.”
The air crackles, and Steve appears on the platform. The empty case is in his hand, and as he steps down to the grass, Sam can see the tracks of tears on his cheeks.
“Is it done?” Bruce asks. Steve nods. Bucky’s eyebrows are raised, and Steve meets his gaze briefly but looks away, shaking his head.
“I need a drink,” Bucky says. Sam looks from him to Steve, and nods. What else can they do but be together now? As Steve brushes past him, Sam can smell a faint hint of perfume. He opens his mouth to say something, but he sees Bucky’s face and stops short.
The makeshift base is on the edge of the forest, built from emergency shelter tents, shipping containers, demountable buildings and any useful rubble they’ve found around the ruins of the facility. Pepper has told them numerous times that they don’t have to stay here, that there is accommodation available if they want, but they are all of them soldiers, aside from Banner, and they’re all used to sleeping rough. They even have beds in their tents, which is madness.
Sam raids the wreckage while Steve takes a shower in the demountable bathrooms and changes in his tent. He comes back to the clearing to find three friends waiting with worried eyes and dusty bottles of liquor, and he just knows they want to talk, but he can’t do that just yet, so he takes a plastic cup and sits in silence. Everyone is mercifully receptive to his game plan, so they just drink as the sun begins to sink on a day of good work.
Just as Steve starts to think up excuses to be alone, a phone rings. The four of them look around, confused, until Bruce fishes a cell out of his pocket. Gingerly, he tries to tap a button. Sam rescues the phone from his grip, and answers. He flicks it onto speakerphone.
“Hello?”
There is a crackling, and a voice pushes through the static.
“-ner. Banner? Banner, can you hear me?”
“Thor?” Bruce asks. Bucky looks at Steve as if to ask how the hell Thor has a phone. Steve shrugs helplessly.
“The computer found your number,” Thor says, on the other end of the line. “There’s a-”
The static returns. Sam shakes the phone like he’s trying to dislodge the sound.
“Thor?” Bruce calls. “You there?”
“-signal. It’s coming from Vormir.”
There is silence among them.
“Say that again?” Sam requests.
“We’re receiving a homing signal. It’s coming from Vormir.”
The silence is heavier now.
“Nat’s suit,” Steve says. His voice is thick. Emotion rises back to the surface, and he tries to swallow it with a mouthful of whatever the hell is in the cup he’s holding.
“We’re going in to investigate,” Thor says. “If it’s her, we will bring her home, so we can say goodbye properly.”
“Thank you,” Bruce says. “Thank you, Thor.”
-
The farmhouse has been quiet for a while. Laura does what she can, but to her it’s been a matter of weeks since they were out on the field, having lunch. Next thing, they were back there, Clint was gone, and the house looked like it had been abandoned for years. Which, of course, it was. Clint is back, he’s with them, but he’s different. It’s not just the extra five years, Laura thinks, or the haircut, or the tattoos. It’s the loss of his best friend. Laura mourns with him, and the kids do too, but he was there. He saw her die. It’s not the only thing he won’t talk about, but it’s up there.
When the quinjet lands, she almost wants to tell Steve that Clint isn’t here. He doesn’t need to suffer today. Her husband hasn’t made it a full day without crying yet. Neither has she. Laura takes Steve to where Clint is tinkering with the tractor anyway. Can’t turn away Captain America.
“Hey,” says Clint. The word is quiet, yet loaded. Steve can see his eyes are red. He looks so tired.
“Thor and the Guardians picked up a signal,” Steve says. No preamble. Clint deserves better than that. “We think it might be Natasha’s body.”
“Oh my God,” Laura says, voice soft. She puts a hand to her mouth.
Clint drops his head. “Okay. Good. They’re bringing her back?”
Steve nods. “We’ll know for sure in the next couple of hours. If you want to come back-”
“Yeah. I’ll come.”
Steve doesn’t know the protocol. Is Clint a hugging kind of guy? He looks like he needs it. Laura saves the day by walking over to her husband. He wraps his arms around her and clings to her. Steve looks away as Clint buries his face in his wife’s shoulder.
“I’ll be at the jet,” he says, and leaves them in the shed. The air outside is cool, and the last of the light is fading from the sky. Steve can see the beginnings of the field of stars stretching out overhead. The universe is so much bigger than he ever could have imagined. Here, the world still feels small.
“Let’s go.”
It’s Clint. He has grabbed a go bag from somewhere. Steve leads the way onto the jet. Clint sits in the copilot’s seat, and even though they are all of three feet apart, and there is a shared loss between them, the journey back to the ruins of the facility is silent.
-
Natasha is thirsty. How long does it take for a human to starve to death? Three weeks, she recalls. Three days without water. She has oxygen. That’s a small comfort.
Maybe it was too much to hope that someone would pick up the beacon. It’s a big universe. Hopefully she will fall asleep and not wake up. It’s a much more peaceful death than she thought she’d have. That, at least, is good. She wishes, though, that there was some way to get a message to Clint.
It’s hard to tell how long it’s been. There’s no light here. The unmoving eclipsed moon hangs overhead, and the dunes are lit with a dim purple light that does not change. She can’t tell if it’s been hours or days. From the hunger, she guesses around twenty-four hours.
The water is salty. She tried to drink it before. How long ago? Hard to say. The air around her isn’t getting colder, but her body’s core temperature is dropping as she gets weaker and more weary. She lies back on the sand, and looks up at the sky. At least there are stars. Maybe one of them is Earth. She knows she probably can’t see her own planet from here, but it’s nice to think one of the twinkling lights is her home. Clint is there. Steve. Everyone she’s ever known. Her family. Natasha smiles, dry lips cracking. She focuses on the brightest star. A planet? It’s flickering. It’s bright. Really bright. Getting… brighter?
Natasha sits up. It’s getting bigger. No, closer. It’s moving. She squints at it. The light extinguishes, and she realises that it’s something coming through the atmosphere. She sees lights again, this time in the shape of-
“About time,” she croaks. It’s a ship. A goddamn ship. As it draws closer, Natasha realises something, and it forces her to her feet, fills her with energy she didn’t know she could access.
She knows that ship.
-
He’s not ready. Clint will never be ready for this. It was hard enough the first time, and he’s had nightmares about her body for weeks. Now he has to face it, he has to see whatever is left of her. He doesn’t know what to expect, but he knows it will stay with him forever. All he can hope for is a chance to say he’s sorry. He knows he will hate himself for drawing breath over her, when she is dead because of him. For him, Laura said. He tries to tell himself that, and it works sometimes. Other times Clint can’t breathe for the grief, for wishing that he’d just run faster, or knocked her down harder. Something, anything not to feel this gaping hole in his chest, this loss that can’t ever be remedied.
“Clint.”
“I can’t do this.”
Steve has been crying too, but he puts his hand on Clint’s shoulder anyway. They’re all crying. It’s nothing these days. They’ve been crying for five years, why stop now? The sun is breaking over the horizon. It has been a sleepless night at the makeshift facility camp.
“This is the best we could hope for,” says Steve. Clint believes that. Getting her back, even if it’s just a body to bury, is infinitely better than leaving her on that godforsaken planet, alone forever. It’s not bringing her back that Clint can’t face. It’s knowing that there’s nothing left to do. It’s the thought of moving on in a world without Natasha, without his partner and best friend.
“Steve!”
It’s Sam, calling them both. Steve turns his attention to the sky, and hears a faint rumble. From above, the ship appears. Clint watches as it descends, and he feels the twist in his gut that reminds him of the last time he saw it - from the pilot’s seat, with Natasha by his side, giddy and laughing their way to her death.
They walk over to where the ship is touching down. The ramp lowers, and Clint steels himself. He feels Sam’s hand on one shoulder, and Steve’s on the other. The team surrounds him, ready to brace him against whatever agony will be carried down off that ship.
Rocket appears first. He walks over to the waiting men.
“Don’t be mad, okay?” he says. “I promised I wouldn’t call you before we got here.”
Confused, Clint looks back at the ramp. Walking out of the ship is Thor, followed by Quill. Groot and Drax appear too. Clint doesn’t understand.
“You couldn’t get her?” he asks Thor. His voice is broken. This too has failed. He’s never going to get to tell her he’s sorry.
“Clint,” Steve says. The colour has departed from his face, and his mouth is open. Sam is staring. Clint follows their lines of sight to the ramp, where Natasha Romanoff is stepping onto the grass, supported by Nebula on one side and Mantis on the other.
“Nat,” he chokes. Then he’s running. He hears someone shout something, hears a gasp, a soft ‘oh my god’ from someone, he doesn’t know, doesn’t care who it is. Natasha sees him, and her face slackens- is she crying? Clint is blinded by his own tears and he skids to a halt in front of her. Is she a ghost? A symptom of his mind finally folding in on itself from grief? He reaches out and touches her shoulder. She’s real. Solid. She collapses into him and Clint slumps with her onto the damp grass. The first light of the sun is just touching them, and it’s not warm yet, but she is. She’s alive. Natasha is alive.
“How-”
“I don’t know,” she says. She sounds terrible. She looks like she’s half dead. Better than all dead, Clint thinks, and he cups her face in his hands and inspects her.
“Clint-”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No,” she says. “No, don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Nat-”
She buries her face in his neck and he holds her, realising they are surrounded by clamouring Avengers. Steve is crying, Bucky at his shoulder, Sam is punching the air, and Thor is trying to look smug while he disguises his own tears. Even the Guardians look touched. Clint doesn’t give a shit. His whole world is in his arms, and Natasha pulls back and looks at him, smiling a smile he never thought he’d see again.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he says.
“Can’t promise anything.”
He pulls her close in the light of the dawn, and presses his lips to her forehead.
Natasha closes her eyes and savours the feeling. The dew is wet on her legs. The weak sunlight is warm on her skin. Clint surrounds her with more warmth, with a presence so solid and safe she never wants to leave his embrace.
“Welcome home,” he says, and they simply hold onto one another, each silently thanking the universe for the gift of the other.
Alright, so I found this on Pinterest and decided I had to fix it, but then the thing I tried to write was too long for Pinterest, so here. Y'all have it instead. Sorry if anyone is ooc a little, I was just focused on 'Must. Fix. Immediately.'
Tony comes in from the garage to find Pepper in the doorway of the living room. Before he can ask what's going on, she shushes him and tugs him to the door to join her. Peter and Morgan are playing in front of the couch.
Morgan sees them in the doorway a few moments later, immediately chirps 'Daddy!', and runs over. Tony picks her up because of course he does, and Peter hops to his feet with an awkward smile and quickly offers his typical 'hello, Mr. Stark', and Morgan turns her head to look at him before turning back to look at Tony.
"Peter's being silly. Why didn't he call you 'Dad'?"
Everyone sort of freezes for a second, Peter opens his mouth to stammer out an answer, but Tony cuts him off before he can try.
"You are absolutely right", he announces to Morgan with a quick grin. "But he grew up with his aunt, so he's not used to calling anyone dad." Pepper tries to chime in before he can say anything else.
"He's welcome to call us what he likes." Tony spins to look at Peter and continues to talk, some things never change.
"Yeah, but just. Making a point. Now, how about you go grab a few toys to show Peter?" Morgan nods and Tony lets her down. Peter goes to talk, but Tony cuts him off. "All joking aside. I mean it. Just if you want to, but, uh." He takes a deep breath and braces himself to hear a solid no. "You could call me dad if you wanted. Like I said, you don't have to, would kinda defeat the purpose--" He's cut off as Peter finally moves and a pair of arms are flung around him.
"You told her about me." Peter sounds a little stunned. Tony shrugs a bit around Peter's tight hug and goes to talk, but Peter's soft whisper cuts him off. "Thanks...Dad." Tony hugs him back just as tightly and Pepper sneaks a picture before they notice.
