Saving Grace

Ninety Eight

Everything of Nat's was gone besides the clothes of hers that she'd given to Grace — the ones she was still wearing in the fight — and the birthday and Christmas presents and things that Nat had gifted her family over the years. Grace had clothes and books and art supplies and small weapons for self defense that she'd only ever used in training. There was nothing that was truly Nat's anymore, and so Grace made her something.

She got flowers — twenty dark red roses — and she arranged them around a small portrait of Nat, painted from a picture Grace had taken after braiding her hair, before they'd left on the mission.

They'd discussed it all, they'd figured out the mission — where the Stones were, who was going where. Everyone went to get suited up, and when Grace and Nat were ready, others weren't yet, though Bruce was still messing with the machine anyway. And Nat had taken to wearing her hair in different braids over the last few years, a lot of the time having nothing else to do but experiment with it when she was in the compound alone. Grace wanted to try braiding Nat's hair herself.

Nat sat in a low chair, and Grace started braiding, though Nat had to help her a bit at some points. They talked, at first about the mission, their hopes and their worries.

"We can do it," Nat had said. "And we will do it — because we have to." Grace's hands had stilled then, and Nat tried to look up at her, though she couldn't turn her head much. "What's up?"

Grace sighed. "I don't know. It's just... I'm so close to getting them back, you know? Peter and Wanda and-and everybody. But what if... what if we can't do it? What if it doesn't work? What if, if we do get them back, it won't be the same anymore? What if... What if I'll be too changed?" And then her voice dropped into a whisper, not wanting to say it but needing to. "What if Peter won't love me anymore?"

Nat turned fully then, forcing Grace to let go of her hair, and she grabbed her hands, looking her in the eyes. "Grace... why would he stop loving you? I mean, to tell you the truth, you are changed, but... it's not a bad change. You have grown up so much in the last five years... And, yeah, it'll probably be hard for the both of you, when he gets back, and you'll have to work through some things, but that doesn't mean he'll just stop loving you. Based on what you've told me, I don't think it'd be possible for him to." Grace laughed a little at that, tears in her eyes, and Nat did the same. "It's gonna be alright, Grace. No matter what happens. It'll be alright."

Grace smiled, then wiped her eyes. "Okay... Now, turn back around so I can finish your hair."

Nat laughed and did as asked, and they started joking and laughing with each other while Grace braided her hair, soon finishing it as she decided to do something less complicated after the other one fell out. But it still looked good.

"I wanna see it," Nat said, and Grace took a picture of it, from the back. She walked around to the front, and Nat expected her to show her the picture, but Grace took another one, of the front view of the braid.

"Hey, no paparazzi," Nat protested, laughing, and Grace took the picture while her mouth was open, her smile wide, the happiest look on her face that she'd had in a long time.

That was the picture Grace painted. That beautiful, happy picture. Below her face, she'd written, 'See you when I see you,' in English and Russian, the letters spelled in thin, sweeping black lines. A work of hours, with a quiet fear of messing it all up.

Those who knew her and those closest to her stood at the lakeside, and Grace and Clint held onto to that arrangement together, Clint's family and Pepper and Steve and Sam, even Bucky, the rest of the Avengers, Fury and Maria, and T'Challa too, standing close behind them.

They set the little thing afloat, all remembering her. Honoring her. They watched it drift out into the middle of the lake, calmly, slowly. They played a Russian funeral song, and they cried, and Grace wished that her father was there to cry with her.

"See you when I see you, Nat," she whispered to the water, and then she turned and walked back towards the house, where, in her room, a shirt and a pair of leggings would sit, folded, waiting for her to take them out when the pain got to be too much.