Chapter 20

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We're back in the compound, my knees buckling as I come crashing down onto all fours. Tears splashing from my cheeks onto the floor. Body heaving as I gasp, failing to hold back broken sobs.

Then another image fills my mind.

A soul for a soul.

Dangling from a cliff.

Our minds intertwined.

It's okay.

Whatever it takes.

She lets go.

They all appear standing in a circle, frantically searching for the stones.

"Did we get 'em all?" Green Banner asks, eyes wandering the room.

Stark's friend has an expression of childlike glee explode across his face, "Are you telling me this actually worked?"

Then Barton collapsed to his knees, devoid of any emotion.

Our minds intertwined.

Green Banner and Rogers stare at the lone agent. The partner all alone.

"Clint, where's Nat?"

A soul for a soul.

I watch through his eyes as she smiled through the tears, kicking herself away from his grasp.

Whatever it takes.

Barton says nothing, the grief cracking through, his lip quivering. Green Banner inhales softly, refusing to believe it.

Is this love, Agent Romanoff?

Until eventually Barton looks up, unable to help the water from falling down his cheeks.

Love is for children, I owe him a debt.

•••

What remains of their fractured team is sitting outside, mourning the loss of their own.

I'm on the other end of the compound, preferably as far away from the mind stone as possible.

Hoping that the 2012 stone doesn't know what happened five years ago. Or that it recognizes me from New York.

What scares me more is the fact it doesn't try to communicate with me.

As if it knows it will meet Thanos again.

And that thought petrifies me.

"I know you're there," a voice calls out, making me jolt away from the window I was next to. I was supposed to be watching the team grieve, but now I'm noticing the team is gone and there is a voice behind me talking.

I am the only one in the room.

Whipping my head around, revealing a man with hair on the top of his head, the sides faded. A bow strapped across his shoulders, a look of pain and pity written across his face.

I cock my head, glancing around the room to make sure that he's not talking to someone else who happened to sneak in.

Because that's not possible.

He shouldn't see me.

My own mother didn't. Why should he?

"Our minds intertwined. As you so elegantly put it," Barton responds, answering questions I didn't utter.

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