A/N : MAJOR ENDGAME SPOILERS, feel warned.

So, after watching Endgame three days ago I still feel dead inside, so I wrote this story to help myself, and hopefully you too, feel a little bit better. It's a fix it fic of the particular thing what shouldn't have ever happened. Natasha Romanoff is and will always be the stronger Avenger. I was crying my eyes out watching her dying in front of Clint. And I still can't believe she's really gone. Anyway, I hope you'll like the story. English is not my main language, so I'm sorry for mistakes. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER : Not mine, everything belongs to MCU.

For the first time in her entire life, Natasha Romanoff was really scared. But she wasn't scared of jumping or coming death, but of how fast she jumped, how she longed to her destiny, to her end. Then she remembered why she was doing this. For half of lives in the universe, for all of this people who turned to dust on their beloved ones eyes and disappeared into the air. For little Morgan, sweet five year old, who needed both of her parents. For Lila, Cooper and Nathaniel, the little gang she loved and treated like her own, and who loved her all the same, seeing a hero inside of her and her big heart she needed to hide for so long. For Clint, especially for him, so that he could be with Laura and his children he misses so much, so he could fix his mistakes he blames himself for, all of this knowing that he got a second change, the most beautiful gift she could ever give him for everything he did for her. If not for him, she would be dead long ago, so at least now she could return a favor. She was doing this for whole world, for mothers and fathers to have their children back, and for chlidren to have back their parents. For her friends, who were her only real family. She was doing this also for her own, little world. World of superheros, protectors, among which after all this years she found her place, and for the first time felt like at home, finally wanted by someone and cared for. And eventually, she was doing this for herself. Black Widow killed hundreds, maybe even thousands. She couldn't turn back time, but maybe now she could save millions. If her life, her history, was suppoused to end this way, then she was okay with it, it was enough for her. Falling down, getting closer to the ground faster and faster, Natasha closed her eyes, and one last tear fell on her cheek, the tear of relief that she could die as a hero she wanted to be so badly, but never could find within herself.

Remembering this all, Natasha Romanoff wasn't scared anymore.

''Natasha!"

''It's okay."

''Natasha, give me another hand! I can't hold us both for long!"

''Let me go."

''No! I can't!"

''It's okay, Clint. Let me go."

''No, I'll take us out. Just, please, give me your damn hand!"

''You're the best what has ever happened to me, Clint. I'll miss you."

''Nat, please-''

''I love you."

''Natasha, I can't- No, Natasha! NO! NO!"

''Clint! Clint, wake up!" He rose to a sitting position in a heartbeat, all covered with sweat and shaking. He looked at the figure who was sitting on his bed. Wanda. She looked at him with her big eyes filled with sadness and worry, and put her hands on his shoulders. ''Hey, you okay? You had a nightmare, you were screaming in your sleep."

It took a moment for him to figure out what was happening and take in the informations. He took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his hands. It was wet, but not only from sweat. He looked at the red-haired girl and swallowed the bump that had formed in his throat.

''I'm sorry I woke you."

''You didn't. I can't sleep."

He nodded and looked at the moon, which shone through the window into the room. It was so quiet outside and so calm that he, in whose heart a storm was raging, felt out of place here. Although he tried not to show it, to give the impression of being self-controlled, it would blow him from the inside, with every breath his lungs were filling with not air but the living fire that wandered through the veins throughout his whole body. Making a good face for a bad game was getting more and more exhausting.

''Are you alright?" Wanda asked quietly. He looked back at her. Though everyone was mourning the way he did, she was the one who seemed to understand what was happening in his mind. Maybe she really did.

''No," he answered truthfully. ''Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. I see how she's falling down and hitting the damn ground."

''I know what you're feeling, what you're going through."

''If you just could see her then. I knew she was scared, I could see it in her eyes. She didn't want to die. But somehow, she had so much determination in herself like never before. She didn't hesistate even for a second."

''She died a hero."

''She didn't have to. If I'd just jump first, or if I'd hold her tigher, not letting her pull away-''

''One of you had to make the sacrifice, blaming yourself won't change the reality. Nothing can, and you that. She saved us all. I'm here because of her, everyone is back because of her. She wanted this. She made a decision."

''She didn't deserve this."

''None of us did."

Clint looked down at his shaking hand and bit his lip to try to hold back a sob. He knew she was right. They both were, Wanda and Natasha. There was no other choice. It was a war, and during the war the victims were inevitable. Someone had to sacrifice themself, give their life so that someone else could live. Someone had to pay the price. But why it had to be her? Why it had to be them to go on that stupid planet and get that damn stone? Why, why, why? Her absence, though short, felt so unreal to him. It wasn't getting to him yet that he's never gonna see her smile, hear her laugh, take her hand in his or hug her again. All this time he belived that she'll come back home, to her friends. To him. She'll come back and she'll be laughing at him being so naive. She'll come back and everything's going to be as it used to be.

Why couldn't it be so simple?

He knew about her past and that she hasn't get to meet her biological parents or any relatives. All the time since he fist met her she'd repeat she's all alone in the world but that's okay, because after doing so many bad things, she earned this. But it wasn't true. Family isn't made only by blood, family is the ties made by time, it's the emotions people are giving to each other. This kind of a family Natasha had, and though she stubbornly insisted on it, she was never really alone. He, his wife and his kids, their team, they all always cared about her and loved her the way she was, with all the good and bad in her, because no one is perfect, and they knew it. Until the very end she believed that there was no one for her to live for or to fight for. She was so wrong.

''I hadn't say goodbye the way I should have," he said and a tear rolled down his cheek. ''I wish that I could see her again one more time and say how much she meant to me, but assure that everyting's fine, that she can be calm and rest, because thanks to her, we did it. I wish there was a way for me to say all of this and don't regret that I wasn't given the chance to do it before it was too late."

Wanda smiled through her own tears, feeling and understanding his pain. She squizzed his arm gently. ''She knows," she said quietly. Frowning, he looked up into her eyes. Only now he noticed that her eyes were as empty and sad as his.

''How can you be sure about that?" he asked. She smiled, causing glistening in the moonlingt tears fall down her pale face.

''Let's call it a feeling."

''I miss her. So much."

''Me too."

''Life is so unfair."

''And it will never be."

''I really loved her, you know?"

''Yes, I know."

That night Clint didn't go back to sleep.

That night Clint got an idea.

An idea, that maybe could bring Natasha back.

''A soul for a soul!"

''What?" Steve, who stood a step from the time travel machine, turned around. Clint ran to him and pointed to the suitcase with the Infinity Stones Captain was holding.

''A soul for a soul," he repeated. ''It was a condition of getting the Infinity Stone. Natasha exchanged her soul for a soul of the Stone. What if the exchange can be done again?"

Steve frowned. ''You mean exchanging the Stone for Natasha?"

''Simple deal, the condition will be still the same. We give back the Stone and in return we get Nat." Steve, Bruce, Sam and Bucky looked at each other.

Bruce nodded after thinking for a moment. ''It might work," he said. Clint turned back to Steve, who didn't look convinced.

''You're right, it might work. But then again, it might not. You know about that, Barton?" he asked, looking him in the eyes.

Clint took a step towards him. ''If there's even a shadow of a chance of bringing her back, then I'm taking it. I'll take the risk, because I own her. I'm going to fight until there are no more possibilities. I'll do this for Nat. She'd do the same for any of us."

After a moment Steve nodded and put his hand on the archer's shoulder. ''Alright. I guess we can try."

Clint let out the air from his lungs he didn't even know he was holding. ''I'll go with you," he said. ''We'll return all of the Infinity Stones and get Natasha back."

''Let's go, then."

Clint smiled, feeling something other than sorrow and helplessness in his heart for the first time. It was hope.

He was here before. He knew that it was quiet here, dark and terrifying. But standing here again, knowing what had happened here, he had the impression that everything was even more quiet, more dark and even more frightening. This place haunted him in his dreams, and now he was here again. He was standing in the open field, yet he felt like an animal locked in a cage.

As he approached the cliff, his heart pounded like crazy in his chest. The last time he looked down, he saw her body. It was hundreds of meters away from him, but he could see it clearly anyway. So calm on the cold ground, so lifeless, made him want to vomit. He didn't know if he was strong enough to look there again, but he knew he had to.

Looking ahead, he came so close that the fronts of his shoes touched the edge of the cliff. You have to do it, you just have to, he repeated to himself in his mind for the hundredth time, collecting the last of the courage and determination that remained in him. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails began to cut into his skin. He took a deep breath.

And then, he looked down.

She wasn't there.

He did not know what he was really expecting or what he should feel now. Relief? Disappointment? He wanted to laugh, cry and scream at the same time. She wasn't there. There was not even a slightest trace left of her.

He heard the sound of steps approaching him from the back, but he didn't look away from the darkness.

''Is this where- Where she-''

''Yes".

Steve sighed and also looked down. ''High. At least she wasn't in pain," he said.

Clint closed his eyes for a moment, trying to control his emotions. He knew that Steve wanted to try to cheer him up, but at the thought of his best friend shattering at the bottom, with pain or without, of the fear and powerlessness she must have felt falling off, he felt even worse.

''Do you have the Stone?" he asked after a moment, clearing his throat. Steve opened the suitcase and pulled out the last Infinity Stone. It was shining brightly in the darkness of Vormir, as if it knew that its place was there. Steve looked at Clint, reached out and handed him the stone.

''I think you're the one who should do it," he said. Clint took the stone from him and lowered his eyes on it. Such a small object, yet having enough power to took the thing he loves most from him.

''Yes," he sighed. ''I think so, too."

He squizzed the Soul Stone in his hand for the last time, took a breath and then threw it into the darkness.

A soul for a soul.

Holding the air, both he and Steve, were watching the small yellow light fall down and disappear from their sight.

A soul for a soul.

It was so quiet that he could only hear the noise of his own blood in his ears. He leaned as far as he could, staring into the deep and waiting. For a sign, for something, anything. With every second that seemed to go on forever, hope was slowly leaving his heart. Nothing was happening.

He lost her. Forever.

''I really thought it was going to work," he whispered, feeling his strength leave him.

Steve looked at him with sadness and compassion, but he didn't dare touch him, knowing what he was going through right now. At the moment no words and no actions could help.

''You think too much. I always tell you this, but you never listen."

Clint's heart stopped for a moment.

In a fraction of a second he turned around, in the direction where the voice came from.

And then he saw her.

''What? You look like you've seen a ghost," she said with such typical for her sarcasm in her voice. Looking straight at him, she was smiling wildly. With her eyes gleaming with joy and rosy cheeks, she looked like a small child whose parents had just promised a trip to Disneyland.

She was standing ten feets away from him, but for a few seconds Clint couldn't believe his own eyes.

''Natasha" he breathed out.

He crossed the distance between them with two steps and after a moment he was holding her in his arms. Safe and sound.

Alive.

Without thinking of Stevie, who discreetly watched them from the side, trying to give the couple some privacy, he moved his fingers through her hair, her long hair he loved so much, and drew her close to him, that from a distance they seemed to be one person. And it was true, they were one. They both needed each other like air and complemented each other in every way possible. Their friendship was something much more, greater and more precious. Nothing could change that and nothing could take it away from them. He took a deep breath, sucking in her scent.

''You know, now, when I have the opportunity, I would like to live a little longer, and not to get choked from a hug," she laughed, but she didn't pull away even an inch.

''You died in front of my eyes. I thought I lost you forever," he wshispered. Tears were running freely down his face.

She looked up and put her hand on his cheek with a loving smile. ''I know, Clint."

''What you did was so reckless and unresponssible, Nat."

''Yet, you'd do exactly the same."

''You're so stubborn."

''So are you."

''I was suppoused to jump, not you."

''I would never forgive myself if I let you. I was the one who had to do this. I owe you too much to let you die."

''And what about me? Do you have any idea what did I feel watching you falling?"

''I'm sorry. But I don't regret. And I'd do this again in a heartbeat."

''I know. And that's why you're grounded, for the rest of you're life."

She laughed. God, how he missed that laugh.

''We won, Nat," he said. ''We saved everyone, thanks to you. We did it. All together."

In response, she only smiled meaningful. Wanda was right. She knew. She knew everything.

He caught her face in both hands. He kissed her on the top of the head, and then touched their foreheads together. They were so close that they breathed the same air. He never felt more full and happy than at that moment. She was here, feeling so small in his embrance. He got her back.

He got back his own, little world.

''I love you," she said.

''I love you, too."

''Let's go home, shall we?"

Natasha Romanoff was alive.

And she was coming back home.

It's okay, you can rest now, sweetheart. I love you, 3000.