A Different Call

Reconvene

A.N. This is a little short, but I do have one more chapter I'm hoping to put out tonight.

Clint woke up in a shallow lake, staring up the sky. When he sat up, he noticed that the mountain he had been dangling from just a few seconds ago was now miles away.

He felt a weight in his right hand and pulled up form the water only to see there was something emanating an orange glow from within his grasp. Clint opened his hand and saw it was the stone that he cost him everything. There was something else though in his hand let reminded Clint of how the universe has a sick sense of humor. Somehow Nat's ring ended in Clint's grasp as will.

Clint took a second to collect himself and try to stop himself from hurling the stupid stone as far as he could before activating the Pym particles to head back to the compound.

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Everyone arrived back on the platform and there was a feeling of excitement and giddiness in the air, like a child who had just figured out where their parents hid the Christmas presents.

"Are you telling me that actually worked?" Rhodey asked, the disbelief palpable in his voice.

"Did we get them all?" Bruce asked, looking among the group to make sure that each team had the necessary object.

The excitement decreased when his eyes settled on Clint who had dropped to his knees, finagling succumbing to the hollowness that he had felt since waking up in the water.

"Clint? Are you okay?" Steve asked, concern for his teammate evident.

It was at this time that Bruce finished his visual review and realized that there was one less Avenger standing in the circle.

"Where's Nat?" Bruce asked, bringing everyone's attention to the problem at hand. "WHERE'S NAT?!"

Clint's tear-filled eyes and inability to make eye contact answered the team's question.

"Why don't you guys talk this out. The rest of us will extract the stones and get the machine ready," Rhodey suggested, beginning to herd the newer team members out of the room.

Tony just nodded and began to lead the original Avengers toward the dock that was attached to the compound, as far away from this room that they could reasonably go.

"Do we know if she had family?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Us," Steve supplied.

Clint wanted to speak up and remind the team that there was more to Natasha's life, but was there really a point when everyone else in her life was gone because of that damn grape. Clint was also unsure of his ability to speak audible sentences.

"Why are you doing that?" Thor asked, turning to Tony, an undercurrent of anger in his voice.

"I'm just asking a question-" Tony supplied with the appropriate amount of nervousness for being confronted by an angry morning Norse god.

"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... Cap we can bring her back," Steve looked down and blinked away tears. "Isn't that right? So, stop this shit. We're the Avengers. Get it together," Thor spoke as though he was trying to rally troops rather than reassure his morning friends.

"Can't get her back," Clint spoke bluntly as he looked out over the lake.

Thor stopped and turned to look back at the rest of the group, shocked that the archer would give up so quickly due to his relationship with Natasha. "What's he? What?"

"It can't be undone," Clint said, his battle with his own emotions apparent in his voice's gravely tone. "It can't."

Thor began to laugh in an almost manic manner, Clint looked up at him with disbelief, pain etched into the lines on his forehead. Thor held up his hand, "Look, I'm sorry, no offense, but you're a very earthly being okay?" The god's movement to akin to ones you'd see when an adult was talking to a toddler. "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-my pay grade here. But she still isn't here, is she?"

"No that's my point," Thor said slowly trying to get his idea through to the human man.

"It can't be undone." By this point, Clint's voice had started to crack from the grief he was feeling. "Or that's at least what the red, floating guy had to say. Maybe you wanna go talk to him?" Clint's tone began to shift from one of sorrow to one of anger, that left no question as to how he had survived so many years on his own. "Go grab your hammer and you go and you talk to him. You tell him to bring back my fiancée."

The whole team went silent and looked down, whether it was from the shock of seeing the normally calm and goofy archer so charged or from finding out the depths to which the two spy's relationship went it was unsure.

After a moment of silence Clint finally spoke up again, "It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it." There was no attempt to hide the archer's tears.

Banner, who had been silent up until this point ripped a bench off the ground and hurled it across the lake. "She's not coming back. We have to make it worth it. We have to."

"We will," Steve said, his voice filling everyone with determination.

Well, everyone but Clint who was left wondering why it took the death of someone he loved to make the team finally come together.