Archive of Our Own ^beta

Natasha joined the other remaining avengers in Wakanda’s palace. Everyone sat by themselves, not really knowing what to do. No one spoke and no one looked up when Natasha silently stood up and went to make a call.

She clicked on the contact labelled:

“Wife 🖤”

She picked it up and waited, finger tapping the side of her leg. “Pick up, pick up, pick up” she reapeatedly whispered quietly.

She got no answer.

And that made the tears fall. They had a system that voicemail would be put on if she can’t come to the phone at that moment put that she will call back (for if she was in a meeting or something similar). She didn’t get put to voicemail.

In this situation it meant one thing.

Maria was gone.

Her wife had dusted.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to kill Thanos for daring to do this.

He was going to pay. She is going to get her wife back.

xxxx

For five years, she threw herself into her work, trying to fix every little detail, twenty four/seven. She has always been a rough sleeper; she has had nightmares and bouts of insomnia since the red room, then she had Maria to help her. Now she had no one and only slept when she passed out from exhaustion, after days of no sleep.

Steve noticed, Rhodey noticed, everyone noticed. Everyone noticed that she was not coping, but neither was anyone else. She focused on helping others. It’s what Maria always done.

Now? Now, Tony, Bruce and Scott had created a time machine. Now, they would all snap everyone back.

xxxx

Natasha and Clint where on Vomir. Complaining about the steps before being showed an ultimatum by the souls keeper.

And Nat knew it was to be her. She will never see Maria, Yelena, Clint or anybody again. But she knows they will be safe. She knows she had brought them back; she knew she finally did something good.

She went to jump but Clint fought. In the end, she won over him. He gripped on to her arm and she told him:

“It’s ok”

And she kicks herself of the cliff face.

As she did so she spoke an almost silent apology, “I’m sorry Maria” as she fell down, wind wiping around her before impact.

Then nothing.

xxxx

Maria Hill was stood exactly where she was before, as she watched dust settle around her. This time however, a few cars had appeared having not previously been there.

“Nick?” She took a hesitant step around the car and watched as her boss and her friend Nicholas J Fury appeared in front of her.

This time she put a smile on her face “Nick!” She took a deep breath “what happened?”

Fury turned around and called a relived looking man over.

“Excuse me, sir? Could you tell us what the hell happened?”

“It’s 2023, Thanos wiped out half the population and it seems the avengers snapped you all back!” The man in all his happiness hugged Fury, much to said man’s shock and Maria’s amusement.

The man scurried off and Maria sobered up from laughing.

“Five years. Wow, what should we do?” Hill asked.

“I think you need to call your wife, see if she dusted or not.” Fury replied with a smirk.

Maria kept a straight face, “Yes sir,” she turned around and grinned, leaning against a side post as she went to her contacts and pressed on Natasha’s contact:

“Wife 🖤”

She clicked on it and put the phone to her ear. There was no answer, it went straight to voicemail, and so after the beep Maria spoke “hey, hey darling. I’m sorry I dusted, but I’m back! Please pick up I need to know you are ok, ok um speak soon.”

Maria sat down and played with her phone in her hand. Fury started pacing, talking to many people on the phone about damage control.

After ten minutes had past, Fury looked over at her. “Still no answer Hill?” She shook her head, “Text Barton or someone and ask them to tell her to pick up her damn phone.”

So she did, she opened up her chat with “Bird Brain Barton” and typed ‘Hey, could you please get ‘Tasha to text me?’

The bubbles came up about a two hours later, Fury and Hill now moved from the road and to the park. The bubble disappeared again. This happened five times before she got:

‘I’m so sorry Maria’

Every scinerio she could think of ran through her head. She anxiously waited for the bubbles to appear again when she got a text from Captain America.

She clicked on his chat and her heart broke as she read the message:

‘Hill,
I am sorry to tell you, Clint couldn’t bare writing it, and I took it upon myself to tell you. To bring you all back, we had to get the stones, and she sacrificed herself.

I’m sorry.’

A breathy “no” left her mouth and her throat clogged up. “No, no, no” she repeated getting louder each time and tears streamed down her face.

Fury looked over in a mixture of worry and confusion, “What happened?”

Maria Hill is a trained spy, she can conceal her emotions and that is what she did when she looked him directly in the eye, standing up from her seated position on the bench. She wiped her eyes and stilled her quivering lip, forcing herself to speak.

“She’s dead.”

The next few hours happened in a blur. She remembered Fury giving sympathy, while also being upset himself- having lost someone who was like a daughter to him- she remembered the hug he gave, the second one in her life, and she remembered him telling her to go home.

She knew she tried to argue, her face conveying no emotion, she didn’t want to go back to the apartment she shared- well used to share with her wife. Fury however, was insistent and sent her home.

Her plan was to go home, but not directly home. She made a plan to stop at two places along the way, and that’s how she came home with Cannibas and a lot of alcohol.

The little apartment felt so, lifeless. It was empty a lot- the two that owned it being spies and working for a secret organisation, but knowing the other half of her was never coming back here? It was as if the life had forever been sucked out.

A lot of alcohol was already in the house (the amount of liquor Nat can- could hold was unbelievable) and with the additional alcohol she bought, Maria knew this along with the drugs was not going to go well.

She didn’t hate that idea.

The next thing she knew she was high out her mind, completely and utterly high and really confused. She was happy, anxious and wouldn’t stop talking. She was laughing till she was rolling on the floor laughing.

She went to get more when she realised she had ran out.

That’s when she started in the Tequila. And Vodka. She drank one bottle then the other.

Her memory was coming back, she went from laughing to crying after her second bottle of Vodka.

She threw a pillow at her TV screen and it came back, falling limply at her feet and she giggled.

“Well that worked, huh ‘Tasha?” Her face dropped when she realised what she said and she threw an empty bottle at the wall.

And screamed.

She had never made such a sound before.

It was like nothing she ever did before.

She screamed.