Avengers Imagines

It's Over - Avengers // TonyNat (ENDGAME SPOILERS)

A/N: ENDGAME SPOILERS, SERIOUSLY MAJOR SPOILERS

it's been like two weeks tho bro if you haven't watched it then i can't really help you

Description: "It's finally over. You did it." "No, we did it."

Warnings: ENDGAME SPOILERS, angst, but kind of happy ending, BAMF natasha romanoff, BAMF tony stark, there's an afterlife here

Word count: 1334

all hail the king and queen of the mcu, i don't make the rules

- - - - - -

The sun is setting in upstate New York as the last of the rays reflect over the Hudson river. It's calming, sitting on the balcony with her feet tucked underneath her thighs and a mug of hot chocolate in her hands.

The rapidly darkening sky reminds her of the red of a different planet, one far less forgiving than this one. It should send chills down her spine, it should have her mind reeling with nightmares without anyone here to comfort her.

But it doesn't. There are no nightmares here, only peace and calm.

She wonders, of course she does, and she wants more than anything to know if it worked, if she helped. On the other hand, it's really only been a day since her death and most of it she's spent adjusting to her new reality. But time works differently here, and Natasha wouldn't be surprised if it's been even longer. Everything is the same, yet so, so different.

After all, when has there ever been complete silence at Avengers headquarters? Even in the post-snap world there was communication, human life, something to do. Here there is nothing, just peace and quiet.

Which is why she jumps when music starts thumping through the compound, the bass shaking the remainder of her hot chocolate and, had the song not been instantly familiar, she'd already be on the defensive.

Instead, she lets AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill" rinse over her, the break in the calm strangely pleasant and simultaneously dismaying because it can't be, not really, not him and certainly not here.

The volume on the music lessens enough for a voice to break through, smooth and wonderfully, painfully, familiar.

"Agent Romanoff... you miss me?"

And she had just seen him yesterday, but here a day feels like a lifetime and she can't stop herself from drinking in the sight of him. As he walks out onto the balcony, she can't help but notice he looks years younger, younger than she's ever seen him look, possibly. There are no worry lines on his handsome face, no familiar glow of the arc reactor, no tiredness at all on his features. He's wearing his long since ruined Black Sabbath t-shirt and jeans; there's no billionaire, genius, philanthropist here— he's just a man completing his last mission and embracing a new journey.

"Tony," she breathes.

"So this is heaven, huh?" He smiles, all white teeth as he makes a show of looking around the compound he knows so well. "So heaven for you is a place I built. Not sure I needed the stroke to my ego."

"Or it could be hell," she counters, still disbelieving because why is Tony here?

"I'd like to think that, after everything we've been through, we deserve a little better than hell."

"Tony-"

"It's okay, Nat." He turns to smile at her though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He looks pained, hurt, but not regretful. "This was always the way it was meant to end for me."

"I was going to say that I'm sorry," she responds, refolding her legs underneath her as she stares out onto the water. "You were happy, Tony. You had a family and we dragged you back into all of it."