Endgame left me with a cacophony of ideas and thoughts swirling around my head, some of which I've managed to write out. A friend encouraged me to post them...and after some gentle coaxing I decided to do just that.

Enjoy.

Clint's covered in dirt and soot, and his ears are still ringing from the initial explosion. He can feel the stickiness of his own blood, and can see the glimmer of the strangely coloured alien blood that's coated his boots, arms, and most of his chest. The air is electric, but not just from the cracks of lightning that Cap and Thor are raining down on their enemies; it buzzes with the tension of good and evil, of stubbornly determined and wrongly righteous, of rays of hope and fierce arrogance.

The battlefield is a chaos of colour, heroes of all shapes and sizes standing out starkly against the darkened sky and plumes of thick smoke. It is a jigsaw of battles, segmented and interchanging from second to second. The scale, seemingly so lopsided to begin, now tips back and forth with every blow. The arrows fly from his bow swiftly, the targets chosen specifically and strategically because he knows they are not from an unlimited supply. He hears the fierce cries of his comrades, giving everything they have for humanity, and this fragile and beautiful place they call home.

It's a small bloom in his chest, but as he spots the Spider kid flying across the battlefield toward the van with the gauntlet in his hand, he feels a pulse of hope. The final few arrows pierce the air and hit their targets as he watches Danvers, Wanda, Okoye, and then Pepper, and so many more assemble to get it across the battlefield. His heart swells with pride at Wanda and the others banding together. And then he feels his throat tighten impossibly as he realizes she's not there. His breaths quicken and he grits his teeth trying to level himself out, because he can't break. Not here, not now. She should be there. She deserves to be there.

He shakes his head to try and loosen the hold of the painful realization, instead focusing on the enemies in front of him, while keeping one eye on Wanda and the others as they plow through the alien forces. He feels the waves of another explosion, and he realizes that they're truly in the final stretch of it, because their strongest warriors are now battling Thanos. It feels as though the seconds fly by, and yet the minutes crawl as they duke it out. He steps up onto some wreckage, because he's always seen better from a distance, and spots Tony mere feet away from Thanos, his Iron Man gauntlet glimmering with those damn stones.

A snap, and then suddenly it is strangely calm. He watches as a blinding light fills the world, leaving them all momentarily dazed. He blinks it away and slowly his vision returns, only to watch the aliens drift away to dust. His head turns left to right and back again, trying to understand. And then his mind puts the pieces together and he realizes what Tony's just done.

Thanos drifts away and Clint looks around, finding stares of both disbelief and pride in his teammates. They won. They actually won.

But the spark of hope flickers away as he watches Rhodey, the kid, and Pepper embrace a dying Tony. The grief washes over him in waves. For Tony, who gave up his family so they could live. And for Nat, who gave up everything so they could even have a chance at bringing everyone back.

He falters, and he stumbles, arms reaching out shakily to try and steady himself as the exhaustion and grief begin to seep into his bones. His breaths are heavy and harsh as everything he's been trying to hold at bay rushes out all at once. She's gone. She's gone and I can't get her back. She did this for me. She did this for us. She did this for her family. She's not here. She should be here. She should-

"Barton."

Clint's gaze shifts from the unspecified point on the hazy horizon to find the wizard Tony had told them about standing in front of him. He blinks, and realizes there is a true depth of sorrow in the wizard's eyes. He'd seen it. He'd seen her death in this outcome, and Clint feels a wave of rage.

"It was the only way."

Clint's grief manifests in another burst of anger as he shoves the wizard back. "No! It was supposed to be me."

"I'm sorry," Strange says with a shake of his head, and Clint can see the regret in his eyes. His anger fades away almost instantly; he knows it isn't Strange's fault, but it still hurts.

Clint slumps in defeat and exhaustion, dropping down onto a nearby rock. She sacrificed everything to give us a chance at this. She gave it all up so we could try. And now she doesn't even know that it was worth it. That her sacrifice has given us back what we'd lost.

"Clint."

The voice is soft this time, and there's a familiar lilt in the accent. Wanda.

"Nat's gone," he says brokenly, his eyes rising to meet hers. Tears prick her eyes as she wraps her arms around him, understanding blooming in her mournful gaze. "She's gone, and we can't get her back."

Wanda doesn't say anything, but he feels her squeeze him a little bit tighter, and feels her tears against his cheek.

"It was supposed to be me," he mumbles into her shoulder.

"Clint…"

"I- I can't- She-" he struggles to put together the words.

"I know," she says softly, and he hears the shudder in her voice and knows that it's hurting her too.

Wanda's hands move to frame his face, imploring him to meet her watery gaze. He can feel the wisps of energy behind her fingertips, but knows that she'd never let it drift into his mind. Her eyes close as more tears drip down her face, and this time he wraps his arms around her.

He remembers watching her relationship with Nat grow over the months that followed the battle with Ultron. He hadn't seen it firsthand, but it was clear in the way they both spoke about each other that they had forged a bond.

He pulls back out of her hold and stands up abruptly. "Come on," he says pulling her to her feet and putting a gentle hand to her back, "looks like everyone's gathering over there."

The gathering in the middle of the battlefield is impromptu. Everyone looks to Cap and he looks around wearily, beaten but not broken. Not physically at least, but there's an unsteadiness about him as he stands, almost as though he's swaying. Everyone's waiting for a Captain America speech, but Steve Rogers, Clint realizes, doesn't have anything to say. He's exhausted and the grief has settled onto his face, making him look older than Clint can ever remember seeing him. He'd lost a friend and teammate in Tony, and in Nat he'd lost one of his closest friends. Clint realizes that Steve looks as lost he feels, and knows that he too can't find anything to ground himself with.

It's Sam that steps in and begins to organize people into groups to check on the wounded, and begin the initial steps of reuniting people with their loved ones.

Memories of his family drift into Clint's mind as he remembers that they're back. They're at the farm. They're alive. And they're waiting for him.

Clint stays behind only briefly, reuniting with what's left of the original Avengers that had been formed to fight in New York all those years ago. They don't say much of anything, can't say much of anything. He figures the loss of Tony and Nat is stinging too much, and being around each other is too painful a reminder of what they had once been.

Bruce breaks the silence and explains that they have to put the stones back from where they got them, and Clint feels the faintest glimmer of hope that returning the stone will bring her back...but then he hears the echoes of the words that had led to so much strife - an everlasting exchange. Bruce meets his gaze then, and Clint's sure that he knows about that tiny blip of hope that had sputtered out as quickly as it had sparked. His thoughts turn dark and bitter as he thinks that it doesn't seem fair that an everlasting exchange be required to borrow a stone.

The bitterness gives way to hope...hope that was first sparked by Nat's words to him on that street in Tokyo. He thinks of Laura, and Cooper, and Lila, and Nathaniel, and feels an overwhelming urge to be with them.

He meets Cap's gaze and holds it for a moment, feeling the understanding pass between them.

"Go," Cap says, his first words since Thanos was defeated. "We've got this."

Clint shoots him a grateful look and then heads off in search of a ride home.

He finds one of their old Quinjets that had been mostly outside of the blast, and was mercifully functional enough to fly. He gets it into the air, sets in the course, and then turns on the autopilot. He rummages around the craft, searching for something to change into and finds his old locker still containing an outfit. His hand lingers on the locker next to his with her name, but he leaves it alone. There would be time later. Right now, he had to clean himself up - because he hadn't seen them in five long years, and there was no way he was going to scare the living shit out of them with alien blood all over him.

They'd met him as the back hatch of the Quinjet lowered, and he'd held them in his arms tightly, so tightly, but somehow it didn't feel tight enough. He'd lost them, and with everything he'd been through in the past few days it didn't seem real that they were here. That they were in his arms, held in a hug meant to make up for lost time.

Later, after the kids had gone to bed, he and Laura went for a short walk. They stayed close enough to hear the kids if they needed them, but far enough away for the conversation Clint knew he had to have with her.

They sit side by side, staring ahead into the darkening sky dotted with stars. Laura's hand reaches over and clasps his tightly, inherently knowing that he needs her strength in this moment. He isn't convinced that she doesn't already know what he's going to tell her; she's always been able to read him.

He's not sure how, but he finds what feels like the last dredges of strength in his body to force out the words. "Nat's gone," he whispers, and the grief that he has tried so hard to lock away with the joy of getting his family back blooms once more in his chest.

Laura's eyes close at the news, and her hand comes up to cover her mouth. He sees her chest start to shake with the force of trying to keep in her cries. He can see the tears that had been brimming break the dam and streak down her face as she falls into him, gripping his shirt tightly in her fist. He hears her grief begin to pour out, and he wraps his arms around her.

"She sacrificed herself for me," he says brokenly, memories of their battle atop the cliff flashing in his mind's eye. "For us. For everyone." The lump in his throat strangles him and he can feel the tears that have been pushing against his will for hours finally rushing out and streaking down his face.

"She told me once that she never made promises she couldn't keep," Laura offers quietly, her voice quaking with the weight of the memory and the crushing truth that her friend was never coming home. "And then right after she promised me that she'd do everything in her power to make sure you always came home to us."

Clint's eyes close at her words. Nat had made good on the promise. She'd brought him home. She'd made sure everyone had a chance to come home. And as much as it killed him that she was gone, he was grateful for what she'd done. But there was a part of him that hated himself for the joy he'd felt hugging his kids and his wife after five long years. Because it belittled the bond he and Nat had built over the years. They'd been friends and partners, but it had been so much more than that. Laura was the love of his life, but Nat...she'd been his soulmate in the truest sense of the word. They'd both been broken and put themselves back together in ways that the world might not have thought pretty, but they'd fought to find their place in the world.

He lets out a shaky breath before he begins to tell Laura the rest of the details. He pieces together the timeline for her, and explains their plan for a Time Heist. He tells her about the sickening drop in his stomach as he and Nat realized what had to happen, and how he'd decided immediately that she deserved to live. He tells her about their conversation, and their battle to save each other. And then he tells her about her final plea to him to let her go, and how she'd reassured him that it was okay.

But he can't find the words to explain to her why he'd been so willing to die, or to explain what he'd become in those five years. He can't find the words to tell her that even with the prospect of getting her and the kids back, choosing to let Nat live had been easy.

Laura's tears fall freely, as do his own. He holds her tightly, and breathes in the scent of her, trying to ground himself and get some footing, because he feels himself slipping. He feels himself drowning in the guilt, and the loss, and the overwhelming sadness,

He doesn't know how long they sit there before their tears subside, but eventually they do. And it's then that he tries to put into words the jumble of emotions and thoughts in his head.

"She was the best out of all of us," he says, breaking the silence. "Everyone else left it behind, or decided to move past it, but there she was, holding it all together. She was trying to get her family back together, and the rest of us had given up."

He pauses as he remembers the vulnerability he'd seen in her expression in Tokyo. Her words had been overflowing with more emotion than he'd remembered ever seeing in her, but the familiar unwavering steel was there too. He'd leaned into it, believing the hope she was providing was real. Anyone else but her, and he'd have turned them down flatly and not given it a second thought.

"I'm proud of her," he says, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth, even as his face is wet with tears. "I think back to when I first met her, and to who she was… She spent her whole life trying to make up for what they'd made her do. She wanted so badly to be a better person. And she was."

"She came a long way from the young assassin you brought here," Laura agrees, a slight sniffle giving away the still lingering remnants of tears.

"Yeah," he agrees, because it's true. She may have thought her ledger unable to be cleared, but in his eyes she'd long ago wiped it clean.

They fall into silence again, and his thoughts drift to their last moments together. Dangling over a cliff, hand slipping out of his, and she'd told him it was okay with a soft and gentle expression. She'd looked so damn young, and her eyes had been so bright with a depth of something in them that he couldn't quite place.

And then he realizes...it was peace. She had been at peace with her decision, and wanted so desperately to let him know that. He'd been distraught when she'd pulled away and pushed off the cliff, and he couldn't watch her hit the ground. But in those seconds immediately after their hands broke apart, she had held his gaze, and in it, he realized, had been peace.

"She went out on her terms," Clint says, the realization forming even as he says the words. "The deck was stacked against us, against her, but she made her choice."

Laura's only response is a strangled, muffled cry.

He finds himself unable to say anything else as he feels the now familiar squeezing in his chest. Somehow, despite everything they'd ever gone up against, from assassins and spies, to aliens and robots, he'd never thought he would lose her. They had survived so many things over the years that he had foolishly begun to believe he might make it through this life without losing her. He knew that it was far from certain, and that the job they'd had made that an impracticality at worst, and a hopeless wish at best, but they'd defied the odds so many times before…

He lets out a heavy and shaky exhale. He knows she wouldn't have wanted him to dwell on it. He knows she would have kicked his ass for moping around when he should be focusing on his family. He knows she would want him to be happy. But all he can think of is how young she'd looked, gazing up at him with eyes full of determination, apology, and reassurance all rolled into one.

He remembers the day he'd finally come face to face with her, clear as if it were yesterday. She was younger than he'd been told, but her eyes told him she'd lived a lot of life in her young years. And he didn't need to have read the scraps of intel they had on her to know much of her life had been filled with things no one should ever be subjected to. She had stared him down fiercely but he'd recognized the mask covering exhaustion and resignation. He'd remembered a time when someone had seen that in him, and pulled him out of it instead of killing him. And so he'd lowered his bow and introduced himself.

Clint breathes out a half chuckle as he remembers the sheer number of curse words she'd thrown at him that day, jumping from language to language. He feels the knot of grief loosen the tiniest fraction, and he thinks that maybe if he remembers everything they shared over their years together that it will help. Not a cure, and certainly not a fix, but something. A small fraction of hope.

Thoughts? Comments? Let me know, if you have a moment and are so inclined.