"Yes! Ugh, God, ugh."

Natasha was drowning herself. Deliberately, forcefully, drowning herself. With every driving thrust and grinding circles of her hips, burying the man within her as deep as she could until she couldn't slip any further up his body.

It wasn't for the pleasure, it was for the concentration, for the exertion and for the numb feeling she would experience at the finish.

She drove her body downwards, again and again, almost unaware of the mutterings of her partner. Natasha barely touched him, made no contact with his thighs, hips or chest. She kept her eyes closed, thinking and picturing the best way to get them both satisfied. She knew grinding down on him wouldn't help her cause, no, she needed him on top for that and at this moment, she couldn't touch him, couldn't fathom his fingers on her skin in any way. She needed to keep going, working both her ab muscles and those in her pelvic floor. She needed to see stars, needed to shudder and pulsate for minutes after it had all come to a head.

Everything was gone. Everything lay in ruins, her life and the only thing close to a family. Gone. This was the life of a Widow, this was why they didn't get close, why they never made connections and why they were denied the opportunity to have children.

"Tash- Tasha."

He hissed her name and gave a final buck of his hips to hers, clashing the bones together. She felt the warm fluid release deep into her body. She wasn't ready to stop, she wasn't numb. She needed to be numb.

He had gone limp beneath her and as she carried on trying desperately to rock against him she could feel him struggling to stay within her body. She wasn't ready to pretend everything was alright. She knew he wanted comfort. She wanted vigour, exhaustion – even pain. He tried to stop, to pull out and relax in the sticky puddle that would remain.

"Nat?"

She hadn't even truly been aware of her body, of how much she was still forcing herself onto him. She had coaxed every last drop from his body and now she was trying to draw blood from a stone, willing the impossible.

A hand took her elbow, gentle but firm. She shook her head absently,

"No, need more."

"Natasha."

This time she looked up, met his blue eyes, scruffy hair and ridiculous biceps. He was concerned, but he knew her well enough to know that she never dealt with pain in the usual way.

Suddenly, as she was drawn out of her one tracked thought, she felt guilt hit. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was married. He had three beautiful kids, for God's sake, there was a reason he didn't carry condoms.

Was it cheating now? If they were gone then was it really cheating?

His whole family had gone, Laura, Lila, Cooper and little Nate. Natasha felt hers were gone too. They still had Steve, still had Bruce but they had no idea if Tony was alive or dead. This, this sticky mess had only happened because she had been so relieved to find her best friend in one piece.

They were gone. So much was unsaid and so much more undone.

Clint helped her move to sit on the edge of the bed, not caring that the looked right out across New York and that many people were at risk of having an open viewing of her body.

What was next, what happened now? Had he really won, was it over?

She knew what dictatorship felt like, she knew life in fear both under Ivan and at a higher level under Stalin, but this was more, the whole world was in the same situation, the whole world was at the mercy of a purple guy with the most vulgar looking chin on the planet.

People were looking to the Avengers for help, pleading for their safety and for a way to – perhaps – get their family members back. The team was wounded too, the team was wounded further than ever before.

They had lost Vis and Wanda, Bucky, and possibly Tony. They had seen people disappear at their feet.

Natasha couldn't look at Clint, she couldn't believe she had done this to Laura, to their kids. She had to believe there was a chance, there was some way they could come back. Kids, kids never deserve to die. That was a principle she had carried for a long time. She knew children to die, and she didn't want to ever see it again.

She was resting on that, another innocent child, lost.

Natasha couldn't even think about it in front of Clint, she got up, dragged herself into the en-suite bathroom and clung to the sink, staring into the mirror. Wanda had confided in her when they were picked up from Edinburgh. She had told Natasha her fears, had questioned whether it was even possible. When they'd got back to base Natasha had found the strips in Bruce's lab, done the test and confirmed the impossible. She had comforted the teen, told her it'd work out and that they'd keep her safe.

Then the world went to hell.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her face was drained of colour, her eyes dark and puffy. She watched as a tear welled in her eye and dripped onto her cheek. She didn't remember the last time she had cried like this; didn't remember the last time she had cared. The tear was for them all, all of those the world over who had died, all of those who had lost their families. The tear was for the Avengers, and their major failure to protect the earth, and it was a tear for possibilities, for a future they would now never see.