Chapter Text
Present Day
Manhattan
“Madame B. was right about friends. Friendship makes you blind, and will one day get you killed. Again."
The room fills with a thick, uncomfortable silence after the door slams shut behind Yelena. Natasha’s heart feels like it’s been ripped out of her chest and stomped on. All her previous rage has fled and turned the blood in her veins to frozen sludge that can no longer pump blood or oxygen to her organs. The air is like ice in her lungs.
She has lost her sister, again.
“Nat…” Rhodey murmurs, crouching down beside where she is collapsed in her wheelchair. “I’m so sorry about your sister. I swear, I had no idea this incident with Barton even happened.”
His words stir a confused mix of emotions within her, a part of her wanting to lash out and blame him for her sister’s behavior while at the same time being all too aware that Yelena had full control over her own actions.
“But…as much as it pains me to say it, Yelena isn’t the first to come to this conclusion about Barton. There have been extensive speculations on both the news and all over social media.”
The icy sludge in Natasha's veins abruptly thaws and once again begins to simmer. She glares at Rhodey.
He makes a pleading face. “Come on, Nat. Objectively, can’t you see what many people would find suspicious about your death?”
“Just lay off, man,” Sam interjects.
"No.” She wheels her chair to face Rhodey and crosses her arms. "I want to hear what he has to say. Go ahead. Let’s assume I don’t know Clint from Adam.”
Rhodey rubs his neck as he straightens, taking a deep breath and several moments to consider his words.
“Would you say that Barton loved you?” he asks finally.
“What kind of asinine question is that?” she snaps.
He holds his hands up placatingly. “I’m not implying he didn’t. Anyone with eyes knows the answer to that. Now let me ask you something else. Did Barton love his family?”
Natasha rubs her temple. “Rhodey, what the hell are you getting at?”
“We all know the answer to that, too” Rhodey continues with a sweep of his hand, addressing everyone rather than just Natasha. “We saw what happened to him when his family was taken. And we know that he would have done anything to get them back, wouldn’t you agree?”
“He wouldn’t push me off a cliff.”
“Do you think he loved you more than he loved his family?”
The question inspires rage.
“Don’t look at me like that, Nat. It’s a fair question.”
It’s an asinine question, and venom tints her voice. “Loving me and loving his family are not mutually exclusive.”
“Not under normal circumstances, no. But it became that way when he was forced into that bullshit ultimatum for the stone. And it was bullshit, Nat. He was forced to choose between you.”
His voice isn’t without compassion, and with mild horror, she feels the backs of her eyes begin to burn.
Rhodey crouches back down to her level, rests his hands on the arm of the wheelchair, and speaks very softly. “As horrible as it was, you became the final obstacle in the way of being able to reunite with his family.”
No.
“This is Clint you’re talking about, Rhodey. He would never–”
“Clint Barton is dead, Bruce. Thanos may as well have dusted him too, because Clint Barton died the instant he snapped his fingers, and you know it.”
A stabbing pain shoots through her heart as she remembers the cold, apathetic eyes of the stranger that had walked around in her best friend’s body for those five long years. The horror of that first morning to find him gone when she woke. Every new shred of grief inflicted with each unanswered phone call. The graphic, vengeful cruelty evident in the description of each of the Ronin’s victims.
That had not been Clint.
Rhodey shuffles closer. Places a hand on hers. She jerks away, but he is undeterred. He waits patiently until she meets his eyes, filled with compassion.
“I’m not saying these things to hurt you, Nat. Barton was my friend too. But he’s gone.”
“No.”
Clint would never hurt her.
“Then what happened, Nat? I’ll accept any other reasonable explanation. But it’s clear that it was a shitty, shitty situation, and in the end, all he wanted was to get them back.”
“All I wanted was to get them back! I know I went over that ledge voluntarily!”
“Then who betrayed you on Vormir, Nat?”
“I don’t know!” Her eyes burn and her heart aches.
Clint wouldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t.
“Rhodey, come on.”
“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here, Bruce. She admits she doesn’t remember!”
“She’s injured! She doesn’t need this. Look at her!”
Clint. Where are you? Come back. Tell them they’re wrong. Tell them you would never do that to me.
Please. Come back and tell me that’s not what happened.
“Nat… Hey, it’s okay.”
Natasha loathes to think what she must look like. She’s so exhausted, and everything hurts, both on the outside and the inside. The bitter echoes of what Mantis managed to pull from deep within her still lingers like a bad aftertaste, and none of it makes sense.
Clint would never hurt her. He’d die first.
"Clint wouldn’t hurt me,” she insists, hating how small she sounds.
Rhodey is getting frustrated now. "He did hurt you! I saw it with my own eyes, Nat. You can’t deny that he changed after the Snap.”
"He was grieving, that doesn't mean–”
"And he never recovered. Guilt has been eating away at him for almost two years now. Driven to the point of psychotic episodes.”
Psychotic—oh God, Clint... What have you put yourself through?
“No.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
Natasha clenches her teeth, because she can’t. All her repressed emotions seem to be in direct conflict with what she knows in her soul to be true.
"I don't know why. But I do know that Clint did not murder me."
"The evidence indicates otherwise."
Damn the evidence! This is Clint they’re talking about! And every scrap of faith she has in him bubbles up and boils over.
"What if it were Tony? Huh?" she snaps heatedly. "What if Pepper, pregnant with Morgan, got snapped into dust, and everyone Tony ever loved was gone, except you? What if it were you and Tony that went to Vormir, huh? And Tony came back, and you didn't. If someone accused Tony of murdering you to get his family back, would you believe it?"
Rhodey scoffs. "That’s… different. Tony–"
"Was positively famous for his unwavering selflessness, right?"
"Nat," Bruce whispers.
It's a low, low blow. Especially in the same room as Pepper, red-eyed and stony-faced in the corner. But at this moment, she can't bring herself to care. Clint isn’t even here to defend himself. She’ll be damned if she doesn’t do so for him until he can.
The mention of Tony must have hit a nerve, because Rhodey's infuriating calm evaporates in an instant. "Tony literally died to save the universe! Without him, none of us would even be here! How dare you compare what Tony did to Barton.”
He snarls Clint’s name like it’s a curse word, and Natasha seethes with such fury that words get clogged in her throat. She pulls herself upright with full intention to throw blows before her leg spasms in agony and causes her to collapse into a pathetic heap on the floor.
“Nat!”
“That’s enough!” Sam says, rushing to help her up. “Rhodey, just stand down! Bruce, take Nat back to her room. I am not having another civil war happen on my watch!”
The room is spinning. Her left calf muscle spasms. Lab equipment flicks into flashing images of rock and blood and snow…
Clint… Where are you? Come back. Tell them that’s not what happened… Tell them you would never…hurt me…
"...Steve will be here soon…” someone says from far away. “...should be able to shed some light on..."
Clint… please… Please come back…
She is peripherally aware that her surroundings have changed. Shouting is replaced with silence. The chair is replaced with a soft bed. But the pain, the desperate longing to see Clint—that remains.
“...should help with the pain, Nat…”
Some indeterminate amount of time later, she comes back to herself. There’s the all-too-familiar beep of the heart monitor. The pleasant lull that tells her she is hooked up to the good drugs. And there’s Bruce, sitting beside the bed, staring at her with a mix of worry and compassion.
“Bruce?”
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
“You don’t believe what Rhodey is saying, do you?”
Bruce is quiet for a moment, and when he finally speaks, he sounds utterly exhausted. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Nat. I don’t want to. But I am all too aware that any of us are capable of doing questionable, sometimes terrible things if circumstances drive us to it. If we lose our heads and madness takes over.”
Natasha squeezes her eyes shut and considers the statement. She knows what she herself has done in the past. What many of them have done. What Bruce is no doubt picturing in his head right now.
The sins of the Hulk. The Black Widow. The Winter Soldier.
The Ronin.
She would be a hypocrite to deny that any of them, including Clint, are capable of terrible things.
But not when it comes to their allies. Not when it comes to them.
She stares Bruce dead in the eye. “You do realize what the retrieval of that stone meant, don’t you?”
He wouldn’t, Bruce. He wouldn’t. Not to me.
Bruce can’t hold her gaze. He sighs deeply and stares at the wall in silent deliberation for several minutes. “There are a few more things that have happened while you were away that you should know, Nat,” he says finally. “We wanted to wait until you were a bit stronger, but... I think you need to know.”
Her skin prickles with apprehension. “About Clint?”
“Clint. And Steve. And…Wanda.”
And Bruce was right to worry that this would overwhelm her, because it does.
He talks of alternate timelines and mental breakdowns. Heart attacks and psychotic episodes, knife wounds and psych wards, magical mountains and missing persons.
This isn't what she died for. She died to end suffering, but it seems that all she succeeded in was creating more.
Clint. Please, please come back soon.
-
Time Variance Authority
This is how it should have happened. It was supposed to be me.
Clint stares at the file on the desk, his own name staring back up at him. Despite repeated, increasingly desperate attempts, the film strip continues to dissolve into static during that fateful moment on the ledge, omitting the one bit of information he wants.
What did he do that was so different? How did his alternate self ensure that he, not Natasha, went over that ledge?
Loki peers outside the theater, then motions Clint over. “The corridor is clear for the moment. We need to make our way to the archives and find your file. If we compare your timeline with that of your variant, we may get the information we need to defeat Kang.”
“Natasha’s file too,” Clint demands, staring at the bolded words on the page before him.
“What?”
“If you want my help, then I want to see Natasha’s side of events in this alternate timeline.”
See how things should have happened.
Loki nods. “Very well. That may also help us isolate the significant difference between your realities. But as I said, the entire TVA is currently set on finding you. It is essential that they do not, do you understand?”
Whatever.
Clint nods, and moves toward the door of the theater.
Before he can touch the handle, Loki moves with frightening speed and flings something around his throat that locks with a click. If his speed were anything less than superhuman, he would have caught Clint’s blade directly in his left eyeball a split second later.
“What the hell is this!” Clint shouts, pulling frantically at the collar to no avail.
Loki holds his hands out as if he can physically push away Clint’s fury. “My sincerest apologies, Agent Barton. This device is a time collar, and is only a precaution. If necessary, I can use it to instantly transport you back to this room, so that no one finds you.”
“Take it off. Now,” Clint grits out.
“I would have asked you, but I assumed you would refuse.”
“You assumed correctly.” Clint grinds his teeth together so hard his jaw cracks.
“It is absolutely vital that you are not discovered! I promise you, the instant we are safe, I will remove it.”
How outrageously stupid does Loki think he is?
“As reassuring as that is, take it off. Now.”
“I am truly sorry, but…no.”
Clint lunges for him, then there’s a strange tingle in his gut before he finds himself in the exact position he was in five seconds earlier.
What the actual…
“You do not have a choice, I am afraid.” Loki motions to a small device in his hand.
Clint’s clenched fists tremble with rage, horror and fury overtaking every cell in his body.
“Are you telling me,” Clint grinds out, the taste of metal and stomach acid in his mouth. “That you have taken free will away from me again?”
Loki’s face goes pale at this, but he recovers quickly. “I swear, I will release you once we are safe.” He motions toward the door. “But if you want to find Romanoff’s file, then we must be quick.”
Clint growls, knuckles going white from how tightly he fists them. He has complete confidence that should he be able to get his hands around Loki's neck, he could wring the life out of him without an ounce of regret, but...
Loki is his only thread to Natasha.
"Fine," Clint grits out, his left hand slipping into his pocket. "After you."
Loki regards him with narrowed eyes for a moment, but pulls open the heavy door of the time theater and motions for Clint to follow.
Clint fiddles with the lockpick in his pocket. Just because Loki is his only tie to Natasha does not mean he has to play by Loki's rules.
They move swiftly and silently, ducking into corners and elevators, soon finding themselves in a vast library, sprawling with endless aisles in every direction, each one stacked with so many files that many have spilled over onto the floor.
As Clint gawks at the sheer vastness surrounding them, Loki, in another lightning-fast gesture, plucks a hair from Clint's head, and as Clint reacts with an instinctive fist directed at Loki’s face, it connects with nothing but the air from where he stood just fifteen seconds prior.
“This way,” Loki says with a tiny, infuriating grin.
All of Clint’s favorite knives are going to be dull and useless by the time he is done with Loki. But it will be worth it.
They continue through aisle after aisle. Browse row after row of files, taking care to keep out of sight.
“How the hell are we supposed to find one file in all of this?”
“I know how this place works. Trust me.”
Yeah, right.
More aisles. More files. Loki descends to lower levels, twisting and turning through a maze of paperwork. Eventually he comes to a stop in the middle of an aisle, browsing files.
Clint is getting impatient.
“Well, where is it?"
“There are infinite branches expanding as we speak, Agent Barton. Excuse me if it is taking some time to locate one specific needle in this acre of a haystack.”
Not unreasonable on the surface, yet Clint can’t help wondering if Loki is stalling, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to get what he really wants out of Clint.
Clint studies him. Loki looks almost too familiar. Young. His hair is the same length and style as in Clint's flashbacks and nightmares. Surely he isn’t…
“You said these people pulled you abruptly from the timeline. Where, or when, exactly did they pull you from?”
Loki pulls a file from the shelf and flips through it, choosing not to acknowledge him.
“If you want my help, you’d better answer my questions.”
Loki sighs. Replaces the file and pulls out another. “Just after New York.”
Four words, but they’re enough. Clint's fists clench involuntarily. "I see."
“I’m not…proud of it. What I did to you.”
Clint stares blankly at Loki. “Is that so.”
“You don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you. But I have grown immensely in my time here, outside of the timeline. Free from the influence of this madman we are investigating. He knows–controls–everything. None of us ever really had free will. He assigned us roles to bring about what he desired to happen. He had me designated as the villain, and it was a part I was happy to play. But now…” His eyes meet Clint’s, then he shakes his head. “Never mind. It is of no matter. And I am sure an apology would mean absolutely nothing to you.”
In that, at least, he is right. Loki is scum because it is in his nature. Not because someone cast him in a role.
Just like no one cast Clint to be a useless screw up. He managed that all on his own.
“Just find Natasha’s file.”
Loki side-eyes him. "Might I remind you that we need this file to learn how to stop Kang. What exactly is your plan when we find it? Torture yourself with what you should have done instead? Pull her from that timeline into yours?"
“That’s the only way your mind works, isn't it? What to get for yourself."
Clint doesn't mention that the thought–the temptation–had occurred to him. But taking Natasha from one reality would only doom another to live on without her. Besides, although he cannot pinpoint why, he has the distinct, inarguable impression that whatever this resolute conviction of Natasha’s survival may be, it is his Natasha that fuels it, not some alternate version of her.
She is alive. Out there, somewhere. He knows it. And he intends to keep his promise to his wife and family.
Loki motions for them to move. "It's not here. We will have to try–"
Loki jerks to a stop as he rounds the corner, and then there’s a jarring, unnatural sensation that ripples down Clint’s whole body, and an instant later he finds himself in the exact position he was just a minute earlier, far down the aisle. Loki has not moved from his position at the end of the aisle, peering around the corner at something out of Clint’s sightline.
That bastard just used that damn contraption on him.
"Howdy there!" says a new, feminine voice with a distinctly southern drawl, just out of Clint’s line of sight. "I'm making the rounds around the archives to assist you poor overworked analysts. Anything I can help you with, hon?"
Loki grins with far too many teeth. "Miss Minutes! Why, yes! How thoughtful of you to offer to assist. It is overwhelming, all this paperwork from the new branches. But I am finding everything adequately enough. Thank you."
Clint keeps his back to one side of the aisle and peers cautiously between binders.
A clock. Loki is speaking to a floating, talking, cartoon clock.
"Sure thing!" The clock says, then tilts its…head? body? to one side. “Hmm, can't say as I remember seeing you before, hon."
Loki’s voice…changes. Goes deeper. Even more pretentious, if that were possible. “I’m an analyst. New in this department. With all the chaos the paperwork probably hasn’t cleared yet.”
The clock heaves a dramatic sigh. “Don’t I know it. Well, if you're sure there's nothing I can help you with–"
“Wait!” Loki holds out alternate-Clint’s file. “Uh, could you be a lamb and pull the corresponding file to this one for a, uh, Natalia Romanova?"
The file becomes animated as the clock accepts it. What in the everloving–
"Sure thing, cutie! Just one sec!”
The clock spins in a cartoon whirlwind and vanishes.
“What?” Clint hiss-whispers at Loki.
Loki gestures for him to be silent, then straightens up and grins with too many teeth again as the clock reappears.
“Here ya go, hon!” the clock says, handing Loki an animated file that somehow becomes real as it passes from her hands to Loki's.
What the hell is this place.
Clint shakes himself and forces the question from his mind. As Loki scans the file, Clint retreats a few paces and digs out his lock pick, going to work on the infernal contraption around his neck. He and Natasha have found themselves held captive by every kind of lock in existence, and not one has been able to hold them yet. This one will be no different.
Loki shakes the file enthusiastically. “Ah! Yes, this is it! You’re an incredible time saver.”
“I aim to please! Just give me a holler if you need anything else!”
Loki frowns, says “Wait!" and reaches into his pocket, pulling out the hair he plucked from Clint’s head. "I am having a bit of difficulty locating the file for the specific variant matching the temporal aura of this DNA sample. Have to make sure it’s properly filed once we prune it. We don’t need more confusion, am I right?”
“And how. Sure thing, hon! Just give me one second!” She disappears.
Shit.
Clint conceals the pick behind his back, returning to Loki’s side. "What are you doing?! What even was that?!"
"I want your own file on hand. It will assist us with comparisons of the timelines.”
“No, I mean—that was a freaking cartoon.”
“Who is also the eyes and ears of the madman who runs this place. You would do well to keep silent and let me do the talking."
“Yeah well, you also said trust is for fools, so guess what, buddy.”
“There is a difference between trust and… assurance based on mutually beneficial goals.”
Before Clint can respond, the clock reappears with a regretful expression.
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find—wait! Here it is!” She points to the file in Loki’s hand.
Damn is this lock tricky. He longs to take the contraption apart and study its architecture. Each gear he fiddles with proves ineffective, until the pick lightly brushes against a tiny, almost imperceptible lever, just within reach.
Loki blinks at the file, his face growing impossibly more pinched. “This is his file? The one matching the DNA sample I gave you?” he asks, pointing to the folder.
Come on... Come on... There!
There's the faintest click, and the collar's gears shift to release, and–
What the–
The collar's lock clicks closed once more without warning, and Clint barely holds in a curse.
“Sure is! You had it the whole time! Were ya just yankin’ my chain?” She adopts a playful scolding expression and puts her hands on her…hips.
Loki stares, then grins with all teeth showing. “You got me. Trying to keep a light atmosphere amidst the chaos!”
Clint digs inside the collar once more, finding the lever and forcing it back. Again the collar makes a sound of release. Clint keeps the pick in place, intending to block the lever’s path should it try to snap back.
The collar locks once more, but the pick touches nothing.
“Oh, you!” She slaps Loki on the shoulder. “Give me a holler if ya need anythin’ else!” she says before disappearing once more.
Son of a bitch.
The lever is back in its original position, without having moved at all.
The damn collar is time-locked, looping back to its previous configuration every few seconds unless released by the controller.
Son of an Asgardian, Norse god, nine-realm kingly bitch.
Clint chucks away the lockpick in disgust. What the hell is this place?! Time technology, manipulative demigods, and actual animated clocks.
“This doesn’t make any sense," Loki murmurs to himself.
“Nothing in this damn place makes sense. How did you just have a conversation with a freaking cartoon?”
“No–not that, you idiot! Did you not hear what she just said?” Loki shakes his head and begins to pace. “It must be an error. It has to be.”
Maybe he should have listened better.
“What? What did she say?”
Loki holds up the file for Clint's variant. “This is your alternate self's file from the same timeline as my own; six-one-six in their numbering system. It was my original intention to pull this version of yourself from the timeline, just before you died on Vormir during the retrieval of the Soul Stone.” He holds up the other file. “Miss Minutes just gave me Romanoff's file, corresponding to this same universe. Six-one-six." He opens the file and flips to a specific page. "This is her side of what we just viewed in the time theater. She survived on Vormir, and brought the Soul Stone back to the Avengers to defeat Thanos in 2023."
Clint nods, willing himself not to focus on the bitter regret that his own reality did not play out in the same way. “And?”
"I then asked Miss Minutes to locate your file. Not one for any variant of yourself, you specifically." He again holds up the six-one-six file and gives him a pointed look. "She says this is it."
Wait. But…
"How can that be the file for both myself and an alternate version of me?" He takes the file from Loki and flips to the end, where it states clearly:
Place of death: Vormir.
Year: 2014
Cause of death: Sacrifice for retrieval of Soul Stone during Avenger’s Time Heist of 2023
"This doesn’t make sense. How could I have both died and not died for the stone?" Clint's pulse races. He eyes Loki critically. Searching for the manipulation, the hidden scheme, but... Loki’s confusion appears genuine. He almost looks alarmed.
"Let us return to the time theater. The quicker we investigate the content of these files, the better.”
All thoughts of violence or escape flee from Clint’s mind as they rush down the corridor, replaced by a thick fog of foreboding.
