A/N: just a little one shot, because i thought about the possibilities that he could have killed her on the helicarrier. it was supposed to be short, but..yeah. i hope it's not too inconsistent! pardon me if it actually is :)

disclaimer: i own na-dah. sadly!

Natasha isn't superhuman. She's just a girl whose parents passed on in a building fire, a girl whose confidence roots from insecurities, a girl who's just a girl. Natasha is just a girl who falls in and out of love, weighs just about how much an average person weighs, and doesn't wear armour that consists of anything more than Kevlar or spandex. She's just the kind of girl that plays well with fire, makes impacting decisions within a two second limit, and carries an army of accessories that aid her in her job. She's not limited to a certain exposure, or is needed to care about anger management. She's calm, twenty-four seven, and nobody knows how she does that.

Natasha isn't superhuman. Everyone needs to get that fact right. She can't walk into the middle of a gunfire and remain unscathed. She can't come out of a trauma and stay perfectly tethered. She can't know that she's about to die and not feel scared. And that's very much what she feels right now. Completely stripped off of confidence, she's just a helpless girl with an amazing fight skill.

She knows fear. Of course she does. She confronts it every single day. Because she isn't superhuman. She has the right to be afraid. It's the reason why her heart thumps now. Why the blood in her fingertips run cold and her bones feel chilled. It's the reason why her breaths are shaky and it gets harder to breath every next second. It's the reason why her eyes dart towards the ceiling, then close, as she whispers a silent prayer. It's why her palms get sweaty as she hears footsteps approaching her. It's why she flinches when he turns at the sound of her featherlight footsteps behind him.

It's every reason. A punch. A kick. A duck. The every little thing he does that makes her feel more afraid than anyone will know. Anyone but him. They've been friends for long. Allies for longer. And god-knows-what when he first spared her life, with heart. He knows every little freckle, and every contour in her skin. Each unseeable twitch in her fingers whenever she lies, and each interval between each heartbeat that drums in her chest, the little burn scar on her back from almost twenty years ago. The way he knows her almost too well is the reason why it's him that she's most afraid of now.

He knows her every defect, every weakness, and it takes a mind like his to imminently make her crumble into defeat. Natasha cracks his arm into an awkward angle, and his wince of pain shatters her heart. It makes the blood boil under her Russian ivory skin, and the tears burn at the back of her eyes. Yes, this is sentimentality. She is a child at prayer, just praying to get her best friend back. She doesn't care if she looks stupid, or if she looks like a pathetic wimp. All she wants is Clint. Him, his mind, his presence. But there's no barter, no end to the bargain, and she's pretty sure she won't get to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She'll be dead by then.

Now, the dagger's at her throat, and they're on the floor. She's contemplating between pushing him off with whatever strength she has left, and letting the brandished steel slice through each vessel and artery that keeps her alive. The memory that replays in her mind is on how they'd discussed about it. How she wanted to die. And Clint, if you ever feel the need to silence me... Words weren't needed to explain further. She simply caressed the side of his face with her finger, down his prominent jawline to the arteries in his neck, and finally ended at his heart with a gentle tap, saying to remember those places, especially there. They are the fastest way to kill your enemy.

That thought about their proximity gives Natasha just about enough strength to push him stumbling out of his position above her, leaving the knife lodged deeply in her left shoulder, almost a through and through. It's a stinging pain that numbs her one good arm all the way to her fingertips. She's affirmably sure that the dagger has nicked her brachial artery, maybe even severed. Nonetheless, she carries on fighting. It's a do or die, right? The bad arm adds as a disadvantage to her as it's too painful to move, and she's starting to get dizzy. Natasha doesn't know if her face betrays her, and if she's producing a voice or not, but she's begging, whether or not in a whimper or with her eyes. Please...She fails to think anymore because her ears are ringing when the dagger is pulled from her wound.

Her limbs feel weak and dead, as powerless as she can ever describe. The superhuman never feels powerless. But she isn't superhuman, and that explains it all. Yet, all that immobility doesn't matter much to her. She's lived through all these injuries before that she's sure her body's stronger than this. A few broken ribs, a shattered radius, countless spots of tender bruises and a nicked artery can't kill her, right? But it's how her best friend is killing her so slowly in ways she's never imagined that makes salt and tears crawl down her cheeks. He's taking her heart apart, piece by piece, string by string, like it's some complicated jigsaw puzzle. Because he's still going to see this when he wakes up. He's going to see this, and he'll never forgive himself.

Asphalt is really catching up to her, and she feels her legs turn flaccid beneath her. Blurred edges of black starts to poke into her vision. Maybe she really is going to die. In his hands. Maybe it's the moment when her heart finally falls apart that she'll disappear from the world forever. Not even having a chance to say goodbye. Not even having a chance to love and be loved by the one she feared the most. She's not embarrassed. She doesn't want to deny it anymore. What's there to hide, especially when she knows she's about to die? But she can't muster anything and tell it to his shadow.

Any last bit of will is dead or vanishing in her, but her senses still stay strong and keen. They will, until the very end. She feels it very well when she's being restrained by one of her arms, with her back against the cold, metal wall of the helicarrier. And his lips start on hers, nipping on them with irresistible passion. She doesn't have any core strength to hold herself up anymore, let alone resist his act of intimacy, how much the sirens in her head go off as a warning to Loki's words. Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear.

Slowly. Everything's coming to a stop right in front of her, except his lips. Those surprisingly soft, tender lips that she'd occasionally been staring at for the past five years, those that are parting her lips, is the only warmth she feels. Cold sweat spreads like wildfire through every sparking nerve, the blood in her cheeks disappearing until they are bone-white. Then, his hand moves to rest on her cheek, gently digging his fingertips into her skin. She wants that warmth, savours it like an alcoholic or drug addict being allowed their one last dose. And she remembers, weirdly at this dire point, how her father always tells her that the chapel they frequent to smells like magnolias every time. Somehow, the overwhelming scent tickles her nose now.

Natasha knows that somewhere inside that brain of his, behind those icy blue irises he carries, is conscience. It's longing. It's the unfathomable concern and affection for her that Loki can't control. It's the only reason why he isn't forcing his tongue down her throat, or peeling that blood-soaked spandex suit off her skin and violate her just the way the devious demigod thinks he's able - and more than willing - to. But he's wrong. And it's because he's wrong that there is a war raging on in his head. Sentimentality, in fact, is the only thing Loki has underestimated. Greatly.

She feels his warm breath breathing into her from between their lips, but she's completely breathless. She's lost between knowing if he's the one stealing all that air away, or if he's actually trying - forcing through all that restraint- to provide it. Because she's dying, and he can't just watch her die like that until she dies in his arms. So his hand is gripping her face as if it's her life, and he's throwing out delicate, moist breaths that cling onto the insides of her cheeks. Clint. She knows it's a sound. It's his name she chokes effortfully, even though it is barely a whisper. That's when she notices something.

Something in his eyes. Behind all that inescapable blue, something is set free. A flicker of recognition, lasting less than a second. But it had been there, even if not holding for long. His eyebrows knit together, expressing confusion. Natasha guesses that he's pushing his boundaries, exercising his range of sentimentality. Because they're closer than Loki thinks. Because sentimentality is everything that makes them much more powerful than Loki will ever find possible for his understanding. And that's why his hand bleeds from holding the steel of the knife too tight in contemplation.

Exsanguination. It's always the slowest way to die. Bright red blood seeping out through wounds. Pulse by pulse, until it all dries out and the person is dead. She's learnt about this over the many years she has spent assassinating and torturing her targets. But the heart. It's the only wound that she feels proud enough to die from. It's where she had told him to harm. Especially there. And once that band of restraint abruptly snaps back into place, and he's only given less than a second of even the slightest bit of control, it's where she gets her final wound, with blood on the wall. That streak of red is what wakes him, next to her weighing deadweight in his arms.

Ten seconds... It's all he needs. Just ten more seconds to hold each other close, and feel her alive. Just ten more seconds to say what they've always wanted to say since the start. It's the truth and reason to why he spared her that night. Just those three simple words. But is it enough? Will it ever be enough? No, those three words, they're not enough anymore. Because she's dying, and she just might already be dead with his dagger in her heart, and he just can't help but watch. He doesn't know what to do.

They are, to each the other, an invisible tether which keeps them both grounded. It's strong, unbreakable. Because when you love someone like that, they're a part of you. And they, they are a part of them, attached with that unseeable iron hold which secures each of them to completion. Clint's finally able to reach out to that tether, but he knows he's too late. The tether is lightweight now. Give it a little tug, and it'll fall apart. He's only holding onto emptiness, with her pulseless body resting in his arms. Her face is tear stained. The first tear he can finally let trickle down his cheek, after all that shock, is for that.

Nat?He calls, voice shaking. She doesn't open her eyes, and he easily buckles to the floor. He risks going mad; whether from devastation or from grief, guilt or anger, he doesn't know. His trembling fingers touch her skin, clammy and cold on his fingertips. Dead, he knows. Dead. Dead. Dead. He killed her. Him. When he once vowed to never hurt her. Now, she's his 'masterpiece', a work of art in bodily scars and bruises, and the blotches of contrast of bright, wet red on tanned skin. He wants to yell, scream Loki's name and curse for every misfortune that can ever befall on the demigod. But he has no voice.

He cradles her in his arms, now coated over with blood. Her blood. The lifeblood that keeps her alive, and warm, and gives him all existent reason to love her immensely. To love her silently as long as he feels that warmth radiating from her skin. Everything that makes her... Natasha. It's all on his arms. Nat, wake up... Please?He's on the verge of insanity. His head hurts, and his heart hurts, and he doesn't know a world where Natasha isn't in his equation. She's already gone, but he still pleads and begs and crumbles all over again like there's any slice of chance left.

Clint holds her tighter, holds her closer, holds her in his chest and digs his shivering face into her slumped shoulder. I love you, okay? He pleads. Natasha… Natasha I love you. Just- please wake up. He wants to keep her warm. He needs to. And his hands rub against her arms, up and down, up and down, and he holds her closer and tighter, knowing that right now, he'd give everything up for her to warm up to his skin. But she doesn't. She's still cold, and lifeless, and gone. Her head still lolls motionlessly, weighing him down on him like the rest of her body. His unsteady breaths linger on her collarbone, and he voicelessly whimpers Natasha's name repeatedly. Nat. Nat. Nat.Just like Budapest. She's always disappearing in his arms. Always within reach, yet still so far away...

Nat. Nat. Nat. He never copes well with the death of a loved one. Grief just piles, and piles, and it piles until he snaps from the pressure. Maybe he'll snap now. Because when he looks over her again, his tears fall unchecked, drop by drop, tapping onto her face. He's numb all over, numb from the grief. And Clint's tears slowly turn to blood. Dripping... Dripping... Dripping from the crack in his open skull. It splits right open, just like a shell, and he just might feel lighter, slipping slowly... Slowly, and maybe he just might join her in death... They are the fastest way to kill your enemy. Her voice echoes in his head. But the easiest way to silence the heart.

They aren't superhuman. They have conscience, and they know fear. They savour love, and they know sentimentality. They have heart, and they taste kryptonite. They aren't superhuman at all. And it's the reason why they fall.