A/n: And here's the conclusion... Warning, lots of feels ahead. ;) Thank you for reading, and especially for commenting! Hope you enjoy!

Natasha is still awake but refuses to look at the clock. She can't fall asleep, can't shut off her mind.

"You got in," she whispers to the dark. "You got so far in. Damn you, Clint."

She curses him some more and hits the bed with her tightly balled up fist.

She can still see him falling – sees the hole in his forehead, the question in his eyes, the way his body simply tumbles to the ground like a marionette with cut strings.

Natasha presses the heels of her hands to her eyelids in an attempt to stamp out the image but it won't go away. She knows it never will.

After a number of hours of restless tossing and turning, Natasha finally gives up on finding sleep tonight. She throws on some clothes and heads out of her room.

The Tower is dark and silent, but not eerily so, not like it is during the day where Clint is painfully absent. There's been many nights in the past where she roamed the Tower in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep and felt comforted by the stillness; she's always liked the dark.

She drifts aimlessly at first, then heads to the stairwell. The Tower has a lot of floors, and she doesn't stop at all of them, rather chooses one at random, wanders around, and then moves on to another. On the level containing one of Tony's labs, she's not surprised to see the light on down the hall. She wonders if he's fallen asleep there again.

Natasha stops when she reaches the door, peering in from the shadows. Tony's music is off, and he's seated in a chair by one of his work benches, head in his hands, fingers laced through messy hair. She sees his shoulders shake and realizes he's not sleeping. She hesitates, feeling suddenly as though she's intruding on his grief and debates whether or not she should go in and say something to him.

Bruce comes into view then, carrying a steaming mug, and settles wordlessly on the chair next to Tony. He sets the mug down and picks up some tools, clearly continuing whatever he'd been tinkering with. Natasha watches them for a few moments, and then Tony lifts his head, eyes red and wet. He glances briefly at Bruce, then proceeds to copy his friend and gets back to whatever he'd been working on.

Natasha backs away and rushes for the stairs.

Once in the stairwell, she takes off from the landing and runs up. There's something reassuring in the repetitive pounding of her feet against the metal and concrete. Natasha pushes herself to run hard, to fight through every physical sensation wanting her to slow down, because it gives her something to concentrate on (she can't think of the way Tony looked just now; she can't or she'll break). It gives her something to control in a time when she feels like she has so little of it.

Even when her lungs are burning and there's a sharp stabbing in her side, she pushes harder, runs faster, and soon she's back to the level with her room on it. When she opens the door to that level, the area has a soft blue glow to it, indicating dawn is almost here. She blinks back the sting in her eyes and goes to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

She considers disappearing, more than once. Just leaving. Packing in the middle of the night and never coming back. She wants to stop hurting, wants to leave everything in this tower behind because she sees Clint everywhere and she cannot stop hurting and she's had enough pain in her life, she doesn't need – cannot handle this.

When did she become so weak?

She imagines Clint leaning against the dresser, with that sexy smirk. He's in a red t-shirt this time.

Look at you, he'd say. Running away. Whistles low. Kinda cowardly, don't you think? That's not you.

Yeah, well, she answers back in her head, bitter and sad. You died. What the hell do you expect me to do?

The Clint in her imagination doesn't have a reply.

One night, she does pack instead of merely imagining she will. She's decided she's hit her limit, decided she can't stand it anymore. Natasha throws off the covers, flips on the light and retrieves a backpack from her closet. She starts throwing essentials into it.

She's barely interacted with Steve, Bruce and Tony since it happened, barely even come out of her room, but she can't feel guilty about it. They're grieving in their way; she's grieving in hers. And right now, that means getting the hell out of here and never looking back. Disappearing. Maybe forever.

Leaving and disappearing are other things she's good at.

Natasha knows Steve went to bed at least an hour ago, Bruce is two floors down in the library and she's certain Tony is in his lab with the music cranked to 100. He surprises her, though (normally an impossible thing to do), by opening the door to her room at two or three in the morning while she's busy stuffing her toiletries into the small backpack.

"You running?" the billionaire asks bluntly.

She swallows hard and refuses to meet his gaze, dropping the bag on her bed for a moment. Her voice sounds coarse and rusty when she quietly replies, "I can't stay."

"Sure," Tony crosses his arms over his chest. "I get it. You used to be all epic – the lone-wolf spy type – and then you had Clint. So you didn't have to be all lone-wolf anymore."

She stiffens but lets him continue.

"Look, you know I don't do – I'm not the…emotional, mushy type. Obviously. But I just need to…" Tony rubs the back of his neck, struggling to find the words he wants. She can't help wondering how long he's grappled with himself over whether or not to talk to her like this. Or when the last time he really slept was, judging by the dark circles under his eyes. She remembers the other night with Bruce in the lab, the night after the funeral.

"The thing is… you're part of us now. The six of us are this bizarre dysfunctional family and we're not…" Tony trails off for a moment and she cautiously raises her eyes to meet his uncomfortable ones. She pretends not to notice that he should have said five of us.

"Going all lone-wolf isn't an option for us anymore," he finishes, shoulders slumping a little.

Natasha realizes he's including himself in this statement with a pang in her gut. He was someone used to being on his own too once, after all. Maybe not to the same degree, but someone who relied on himself and his skills to get him through, and now he has these people, this team. That like it or not, he relies on them as much as they rely on him and he can't break that just because something like this happens. Probably couldn't even if he wanted to, at this point.

She understands without him having to voice any of it. Even so, she wishes she could explain that staying here is like having a fresh wound that can't scab over – every day, it's ripped wide open and she can't see a day when she won't stop bleeding.

"You need us. Even if you don't think you do." He levels his pained gaze at her. "And we need you too."

She swallows with difficulty around the unexpected lump of emotion in her throat. She's seen Tony hurting – seen all of them hurting, in fact – in one way or another. But this is different (God, everything is different now) and it's a testament to the mark Clint left on each one of them, on them both, because Tony of all people is standing in her doorway, baring a part of his heart in order to convince her to stay.

"Bruce didn't even know," he says, trying to fill the growing silence. "Somebody had to tell him when he woke up. I had to tell him when he woke up."

Natasha stops. She hadn't even thought of how poor Bruce found out. She feels a stab of guilt in her chest.

"And Thor," Tony adds, still in that uncharacteristically soft, miserable tone. "Whenever he gets back."

Silence stretches for several uncomfortable seconds again as Natasha's mind brings forth images of Thor and Bruce learning that their close friend and teammate died while they were gone and unconscious, respectively.

"I just… It's not just you," Tony says, raking his fingers through his hair. "That's what I'm trying to say."

"I know." Her voice is barely a whisper, feeling like the first thing she has managed to say out loud in days. "I'm sorry."

He waves his hand at her dismissively. "No, look, you guys… you were… well." He shrugs. There isn't a word for what they were. "We know. We don't blame you. So don't – it's not your fault. It's just… hard."

She clears her throat and has to work to keep her voice steady as she replies, "Thanks."

Tony nods once in acknowledgement and then suddenly doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. He backs out of the room, gesturing down the hall in an I'm going to go sort of motion, then disappears past the doorway.

Natasha regards the bag on her bed. She could still leave. No one could stop her. He didn't even really try to talk her out of it that much. His words seem to hang in the air before her, though, and she would have to walk through them to get to the hallway. She curls her fingers around the bag's handle and then sets it by the door.

It's as if it's a sign to herself that she doesn't need anyone, not really, and she can leave at any time. She still could disappear, at any moment. She tells herself that she'll maybe stick it out for a few more days, but then she'll leave, no matter what Tony said. They can't stop her (in fact, she'd like to see them try).

Natasha changes into a new shirt of Clint's and climbs into her bed.

She imagines Clint coming through the door with a sarcastic comment about Tony being girly and emotional. She imagines him settling on the edge of the bed beside her, imagines slugging him on the arm and telling him to be nicer. She imagines the glint in his eye and the way his hair is a little bit mussed and the way he looks at her, like no one else ever does, ever will.

Natasha shuts her eyes and imagines he is there, watching her sleep, promising her that it will be all right.

Each night, Natasha is prepared to leave. She gives the bag by the door a look and promises she will leave.

Each night, she finds an excuse to put it off, just for a few more hours. To stay for just a little bit longer. But then she will disappear and escape, and the others will simply have to do without her and that's that.

It's a promise. She won't – cannot stay here forever.

She's not sure where the others have gone this afternoon, but Natasha is the only one home when Coulson arrives with a large box.

"I'm sorry it took so long, Agent Romanoff," his tone is formal but there's no denying the undertone of grief. He holds out the box, his features tightening. "His personal effects."

She nods curtly, taking the box. She's proud of herself: her hands shake only a little and she's able to keep herself steady.

Coulson's eyes are shining. "He was a good man. Good agent and friend."

Natasha doesn't trust her voice so she simply nods again, and then watches Coulson leave.

At first, she puts the box on Clint's bed and leaves it there. She can't bring herself to open it. But then she paces the empty tower and can't stop thinking about what might be in it, and decides that it can't hurt worse than it does right now. Natasha goes back to his room and pulls the top open.

The breath is knocked from her for a good moment. It's all so final. This is what happens in movies, in cop and army movies. The family and friends get the box of stuff and it's just over.

She touches the quiver of arrows, the back-up one he kept in his SHIELD locker, one of his old favorites. There's a set of clothes, miscellaneous knickknacks. A pair of shoes. A few pictures: one depicting Tony, Clint and Thor grinning with huge steins of beer; another with Bruce and Tony, the pair of them covered in paint from a paintball match the team had had.

A third is a candid from one of the many movie nights they'd had (she is stuffing her face with popcorn in the corner, Tony is grinning at the camera, Clint is making a silly face behind Thor's head, who is pointing at whatever was on the TV, Steve is beaming like an idiot, eyes shut when the flash went off; Bruce must've been taking the picture) and a fourth shows Clint teaching Bruce how to shoot a bow and arrow.

Two more towards the bottom – one with Darcy, one with Phil. She didn't realize Clint had kept so many pictures in his work locker.

She smiles at the array of photos, at how Clint always pretended he wasn't sentimental, and then discovers the last picture in the box: one of her and Clint. It's one of those cheesy "selfies" everybody and their dog have taken of themselves at one time or another, but it charms her nonetheless. Their faces are pressed close together, cheek to cheek, and he is grinning while she has her usual soft, demure smile on. She doesn't remember when it was taken, though it is clear they were outside, with sand and sun in the background.

The picture becomes blurry as her eyes fill with tears and she tucks the photos back into the box.

She can't stop the train of grief threatening to engulf her in that moment and wraps her arms tight around chest. Suddenly Natasha needs to be anywhere but in his room, so she bolts. She makes it to the stairwell before has to stop, struggling to breathe. She leans against the wall and slides down until she is sitting and her knees are at her chin.

The gleaming blonde head of Thor pokes through one of the doorways she just exited and he spots her at once, crumpled on a landing one flight down.

She didn't even know he was back.

He hurries down the steps to her without hesitation.

"Lady Natasha…" Thor crouches down beside her in the stairwell and wraps his muscular arms around her. He's dressed in civilian clothes: jeans and a green, long-sleeved shirt. "I'm sorry I could not be here sooner."

She curls into his chest and damn it, she's crying.

He holds her for a long time while her sobs subside.

"He was the greatest of warriors," Thor's voice is a low, comforting rumble. "I will miss him greatly. As we all shall."

Briefly she wonders who had to tell him what happened, but then realizes it doesn't matter. She doesn't know what to say, and he simply keeps his arms around her in comfort, not needing her to say anything at all.

The act reminds her of Clint.

As the days roll past, she finds it difficult to make it through every one. It feels as though a piece of her soul has been ripped out. Though, truth be told, she's had parts of her soul removed before.

Lying in Clint's bed watching the sun crawl across the far wall, she thinks that his death also represented the killing of hope for her, in some way. When they used to go on missions years before the Avengers ever came along, if something happened to him – if he was shot, injured, abducted, missing – it was bad, but there was always hope, however small. Hope that he was still alive, that he was alright or that it would all be okay in the end.

It was never born from some sort of naïve optimism that had her clinging to every thread, but rather a realistic compartmentalization that she cannot accept defeat until it becomes concrete fact. It is part of what has made her a brilliant agent, because if there is even a chance, no matter how slim, she will seize it.

It's why during the Loki incident, she was worried daily for her partner – had trouble sleeping more often than not, in fact – but he was not dead and he was not necessarily permanently lost. There was a chance, there was hope, and that's all she ever needed to keep going. She's never once thought of herself as codependent, but she supposes that she and Clint have somehow effortlessly been one for so long, that she suddenly feels like a crippled half instead of a complete whole without him.

Seeing Clint die, right before her eyes without a shadow of a doubt, was more than her partner dying. It was the strangling of the hope that always burned within her that he could come back – he always came back to her. It was the murder of the notion that things would still turn out okay, that he could catch her if she fell.

This is concrete fact, this is it: he is gone and can never come back to her again.

Natasha pours Bruce some tea while Thor cuts up fruit for breakfast. Tony is chattering incessantly about some new gadget he came up with during the night while Steve is perusing the comics section of a newspaper and mm-hmming every few minutes out of politeness.

She glances at the empty stool, feeling a pang of sadness spike in her chest.

Bruce catches her look and holds her gaze for a moment, warm and understanding, before turning his attention to the steaming mug before him.

Natasha lets her eyes wander to the bow and arrow mounted on the living room wall. They put it up together two weeks ago. She remembers the feeling of the arrow between her fingertips as she passed it to Thor, and the way she let Steve hold her trembling hand afterwards.

It can never be okay – the loss will never fully go away, especially for her because of what he meant to her. But maybe it won't be so painfully exhausting after a while, so acute and constant. These people, these freaks who are as messed up as she is, are hurting too but they're supporting each other. They're a team and that's how they're getting through the loss of one of their own, even if no one is specifically acknowledging it.

Years ago, if she had suffered this deep of a loss, she would have simply disappeared. Started over somewhere, anonymous and alone. Maybe she would have still been a spy, maybe she would have settled into some sort of normalcy, maybe something else entirely. Probably would have died alone, and no one would have been the wiser.

Now she has people that actually care and she doesn't have that option anymore, not really. She can't simply disappear to drown in her grief and pain – she would make the others suffer two losses then, and she couldn't put them through that. Not only do they care about her, she's grown to care about them too, in a way she could have never predicted. They are, for better or for worse, a family somehow. She's read somewhere that family sticks together to make it through the darkness.

And this darkness is pretty damn dark.

The bag is still by her door a month and a half later.

-end-