I Thought You Were Different: Part 5

Disconnected

During the scene that was taking place only a few floors away, and out of their attentions, Natasha and Clint were facing their own challenges; they were trying to decide when it would be the right time to bring their children home. They were also trying to decide if the compound could still even be a home to bring them back to. Wade had assured everyone that Thanos was gone, and Stephen said that he would take charge of the Gauntlet, so those threats were gone too; all that was left would be the usual threats that would pull either parent away for a mission at a moment's notice, but now they seemed to carry even more weight. Now that Nat and Clint had experienced death, it was a rumination that wouldn't let them go, and it kept replaying over and over in their minds and wouldn't let them sleep for too many nights in a row.

"I don't know, Nat," Clint sighed, "this is gonna sound really crazy...but I feel...I feel like..."

"Like we're still dead."

"Yeah."

"I know," she groaned, dropping herself onto their bed with a heavy landing, "I can't shake it either. I know that we're alive. I can feel that. But then underneath that, there's just this heaviness and sadness that won't go away. There's this voice that keeps reminding me that I'm not supposed to be here."

"Is that voice yours?"

"I think so."

All Clint could do was to nod along in agreement, giving her a gentle nudge of his hand to get her to scoot over so that he would fit on the mattress next to her. Once he found his place at her side, their positions mimicked what you and Steve had experienced only days before; neither of them were reaching out to touch the other. Natasha feared that if she did, she wouldn't feel a connection to her husband anymore, and that the energy between them had died that day too. Clint feared that he would break her with his touch, even though she was the strongest woman he had ever met. To see Natasha Romanoff going through an uncertainty like this left him shaken.

"Maybe if we bring Allie and Nik back, it will help us find ourselves again?"

"Or maybe it will remind us that we're supposed to be six feet under?"

"Shit, Nat, I'm trying here, okay?" he scoffed, pushing himself up to sit. "We're alive, alright? We can't just mope around here like zombies and not fight to get our lives back the way they were. Yeah, I feel like hell too, but I'm not about to let that get in the way of seeing our kids and being thankful for every minute that we've been given back. If we don't push forward, then we might as well be dead, not to mention how ungrateful it would be for what Wade risked to do it."

Nat knew that he was right, she did. She wanted to be enthusiastic and she wanted Wade to know how much she valued this gift, but the darkness that shrouded her mind was just too encompassing. It didn't feel right to roll the word depressed around in her thoughts, but it was as close as she would come to a definition; she believed that Clint really did understand, but what she didn't quite get was at what moment the tables had turned and he had become the stronger one. She liked this side of him, for allowing her to step back.

"Okay, Barton," she finally relented, "it's your call. Let's have Phil bring them home."

~~~

"I said, who is responsible for this?"

"Stephen, please," you answered readily before anyone else had the chance, though with restraint in your voice to keep your temper in check, "we did what we had to do to get Vision back. We knew that you'd try to stop us, and there wasn't much time-"

"If you knew that I would stop you, then why did you proceed? Shouldn't that alone be enough to warn you of how dangerous that was?"

"We knew the risks, sir," Anthony joined in with you, pushing forward to stand at your side, "and we knew that it was the only way. We accept what happened and would do it again."