The Third Black Widow

Nothing Lasts Forever, But This Is Gonna Take Me Down

I wait for the most anxiety-filled minute of my life. I don't take my eyes off the platform. Then finally, they arrive, and turn into normal size, and all of their helmets come off. "Did we get 'em all?" asks Bruce. Everyone holds up the stones, and everyone cheers. "Are you telling me this actually worked?" asks Rhodey.

I notice there is a missing redhead. Nat isn't there. I run over to the platform and I say "Clint, where's Nat?" Clint looks down. "Where is she?" I ask with my voice slightly raised. Clint doesn't respond. "Clint, please tell me where my sister is!" I say with my voice even more raised.

Clint is standing there unresponsive, looking at the ground. I can't take it anymore. I'm done holding myself together.

"CLINTON FRANCIS BARTON! WHERE IS MY SISTER?!" I yell. "S-she's gone," says Clint. "So you're telling me, that Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, the Red Room's best assassin, the first female Avenger, my last living family member, and my sister is dead?" I say in complete denial.

I heard what Clint said. I just can't bring myself to accept it. "Yes. I'm sorry," says Clint.

I drop to the floor and sit there sobbing uncontrollably. Everyone is looking at me not knowing what to do.

Nat's gone and there's no getting her back. What if this doesn't work? What if she died for nothing? What am I going to tell Yelena? Besides, that, I'm all alone now.

We all walk to the dock outside, and Tony asks, "Do we know if she has any other family?" "Yeah, you guys, me, Yelena, Melina, Alexi, and Clint's family," I say. It hurts to say Yelena. Not in a bad way but in a I miss her way.

I sit here and cry. I don't even hear what Thor says until he asks, "Yeah, no, you're acting like she's dead. Why are we acting like she's dead? We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones, Lizzie, we can bring her back. Isn't that right? So, stop this shit. We're the Avengers. Get it together." says Thor. "Can't get her back," says Clint. "What's he...? What?" asks Thor. "It can't be undone. It can't," says Clint.

I am crying so hard about Nat. Thor laughs, and I look at him, and he says, "Look, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're a very earthly being, okay? And we're talking about space magic. And "can't" seems very definitive. Don't you think?" "Yeah, look, I know that I'm way outside my pay grade here. But she still isn't here, is she," says Clint. "No, that's my point," says Thor. "It can't be undone. Or that's at least what the red, floating guy had to say. Maybe you wanna go talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer, and you go fly, and you talk to him. It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it." says Clint, upset and with an angry tone.

I would love to fly to talk to the red floating guy myself. The only issue is that I can't fly. The adults talk for a few minutes, and Bruce gets mad and throws a bench far across the lake. "She's not coming back. We have to make it worth it. We have to." says Bruce. Steve stands up and says, "We will."

I run inside and go to my bedroom, and I close the door behind me. I sit on my bed and try to take some deep breaths. My mind is buzzing with thoughts about Nat. I realize that the last time Nat, Yelena, and I were all together was when we took down the Red Room. The last time we all did our special secret whistle was that day when we said goodbye. It will never be the same. There won't be three whistles. There will only be two from here on out.

Oh, no. There won't be any bridge competitions or chasing each other around just because we can. No more synchronized Ballet or Gymnastics or shooting targets with Nat.

One of my fondest memories of Nat and I is when we were kids and I think Yelena went to the store with Melina. Anyways, we were having fun just the two of us. Nat was pushing me on the swing as high as the swing would go. Then I'd pump my legs to keep it going and she'd run in front of the swing and I'd jump off the swing and she'd fall to the ground catching me and we'd be a tangled mess on the floor. But we'd laugh so hard about it.

I remember when Yelena and I painted Nat's hair blue when Melina and Alexi wouldn't let her dye it blue. We had almost as much paint in our hair as Nat did.
A lot of my best memories are from when I was four.

My favorite recent-ish memories are when Nat, Yelena, and I were taking down the Red Room together and we were talking about Yelena's vest. That was hilarious. To me, at least. Nat and Yelena were pretty serious. Ish.

I get up from my bed and walk over to my nightstand. I'm gazing at pictures of Nat and I and pictures of Nat, Yelena, and I.

One of my favorites is of Nat, Yelena, and I as kids when Yelena and I painted Nat's hair blue. We're all laughing at Alexi who was taking the picture. We all have paint all down our shirts, not to mention our hair. Nat's hair is completely blue, Yelena and I's isn't. The top of Yelena's hair is blue, but the rest of her head is blonde. It's not shown in this particular picture but I had painted a big heart on the back of Yelena's hair because she asked me to. My brown hair has blue paint on the top of it but there are lots of areas where my brown hair is showing. Yelena painted a star on the back of my head because I asked her to. I remember looking in the mirror and painting vertical blue stripes on my bangs.

There's a sequel picture where all three of us have our hair entirely painted blue. The duo is in a double frame as are a few other sets of pictures.

There's another picture of the three of us on the floor in bridges. This one is in another double frame. One side is of us in our bridges with our normal hair colors and the other is of us with our electric blue hair in our bridges.

Another is of us each sitting behind a cake that we each baked. It was summer and we were bored and we were in the mood for sugar so we each baked a cake or should I say, Nat baked three cakes and Yelena and I helped ourselves to lots of batter and we each decorated one. I dumped half a vial of sprinkles on my cake and the other half in my mouth. Oh, and by the way, the amount of frosting on my shirt instead of my cake was alarming. Frosting somehow made its way into my hair.

Let's just say I was a very messy four year old who was prone to getting things in my hair. Yelena was pretty messy, but she was cleaner than I was.
In this picture, her cake was somewhat organized in the sense that she didn't just throw a glob of frosting and sprinkles and candy on the cake. She actually spread the frosting and made a pattern with the candy before filling in the cracks with sprinkles.
Nat was the cleanest and she had the prettiest cake. It was a pretty design and she even iced the edges of the cake in a pretty wave-like pattern.

"Nat, thank you for the best years of my life. I miss you so much already. I promise not to let your sacrifice go to waste," I say with tears rolling down my cheeks.

I am in my room for thirty minutes, daydreaming about my favorite memories with Nat, when I hear a knock on my door. "Come in," I say. Clint walks in, and  I say "I just want to be alone right now." He says, "I am really sorry, Lizzie. By the way, we have a gauntlet ready to bring Yelena and everyone who was snapped back." "Good. I'll be down in five minutes." I say. Clint nods and walks out of my room.

I get into my suit and take all of the pictures out of their frames, fold them, and put them in my pocket. I scan my room for any other things I need. After this, I might not come back here. I spot the plane that I flew here shrunken to the size of a Lego thanks to Pym Tech on my nightstand. I pick it up and I grab the reverse Pym Tech disc that will bring it to normal size and I put that in my pocket too.