A/N: So, this is my entry for a writing challenge hosted by one of my Tumblr buds. My prompt was "an unseen goodbye," in the category of dancing with canon but filling in the gaps and making it better. It's not due until the end of the month, which gives you guys an idea of how eager my procrastinating self was to write this lol (I've had the idea for this chapter since shortly after I saw Endgame the first time, so it's been brewing for a while, this challenge just finally gave me the push to actually write it). Hope you enjoy!

April 2023

Wanda didn't need to see Thanos's army dissolving to know the battle was over. She didn't need to hear the sounds of battle stop, or feel the relief of two armies. No, she knew the exact moment Tony did.

She knew the moment he took the Stones. She knew the moment he snapped his fingers. She knew the moment his brilliant, shining mind began to dim.

His agony tore across the battlefield, white-hot and blinding, like being caught in a nuclear explosion. She fell to her knees, a scream tearing from her throat. She clutched her head, fingers fisting in her hair, struggling futilely to control the power that burst from her at the impact. His pain burned her, burned her mind like it was burning his arm, and she would never know how he wasn't screaming with her.

Then they started dying, and not one by one. Thanos and his two armies all died within seconds. Confusion, pain, fear, disbelief, they all burst through thousands of minds simultaneously in an overwhelming hurricane of final thoughts. They died just as rapidly, their minds leaving a vast emptiness behind in the blink of an eye, never giving her time to adjust. She shook from the suddenness of it, the intensity of it.

The grief came next, flooding into the void before she could take a breath. Pepper, Rhodey, Peter, Steve, Thor, Bruce, Clint, Nebula. It crashed over her like a tsunami, cold and unforgiving. It stole her breath, crushing it from her chest, rushing into her lungs instead of air when she tried to gasp. Tears poured down her face, silent, unstoppable, stinging the shrapnel cuts on her cheeks.

Wanda struggled. She struggled to rein her mind in, close it off, stop the inpouring of pain. Someone knelt beside her, trying to comfort her, but they weren't enough. "I need-" she tried to gasp. "I need-"

Mom?

Dead.

Dad?

Dead.

Pietro?

Dead.

Vis?

Dead.

Nat?

Someone came running up, dropping to their knees beside her. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't tell who it was, but the original comforter backed off, giving way to the newcomer. They tried to comfort her, to take her face into their hands, but their grief attacked her through the contact, combined with a relief so powerful that it electrified every overloaded neuron. She flinched away with a cry.

"Ok, ok, no touching. Got it."

The familiar voice, steady despite the emotions roiling within him, finally broke through the storm within her. "Clint?" she rasped.

"Yeah, kid, I'm here," he said, soft and blissfully, beautifully calm. "Just focus on my voice. It's just you and me."

Wanda clung to his voice, clung to it like a lifeline in a churning ocean. She hauled it closer to her, imagining it wrapping around her like a cocoon. Finally, finally, she found a moment of silence, the eye of the storm. She sucked in a breath, prying her eyes open to see Clint for the first time in what Strange had told her was five years.

"What happened to your hair?" she whispered.

Clint laughed. It was more relieved than amused, tinged by something almost maniacal, but it made her let out the tiniest, weakest of chuckles. He held out his hand in question, and almost before she had finished nodding, he was pulling her into the fiercest hug of her life. "God, I missed you," he breathed.

She let him disentangle her hands from her hair, let them fall to wrap around him. She started shaking again, but this time, it was her own pain, her own heartbreak that drove her to cling to him, burying her face in his shoulder. "I had to kill him, Clint," she sobbed. "I had to kill Vis."

"I know," he said quietly, running his fingers through her hair, smoothing it tenderly. "I know, kid."

His hand trembled as he spoke, and even through the haze of numbing exhaustion that had been setting in since the moment of calm, she felt his spike of grief. But it was different. It was too fresh to be about Vision, too old to be about Tony. It took all the willpower she could muster to lift her head and look at him. "Clint," she said lowly, hesitantly, "what aren't you telling me?"

His hand stuttered, tears welling in his eyes. He tried to control his grief, tried to keep it from her, but he couldn't stop the memory that flashed through his mind.

Let me go.

It's ok.

He couldn't hide the image of Nat sprawled at the bottom of a cliff, broken and bleeding, lifeless forevermore.

"No," Wanda protested, pushing back, trying to escape the memory. "No. No!"

Clint couldn't stop his tears anymore. He grabbed her hands, tried to pull her back to him. "I'm sorry," he rasped. "I'm sorry. I tried, I tried, I- I-"

His guilt surged over her, and she remembered hanging off the cliff, clutching Nat with everything she had, but it wasn't enough. She looked up at her, peaceful, accepting, ready to die to save her. Them. Clint. The universe.

Wanda tore her mind free from his, the effort stealing the last of her strength. She collapsed back against him, sobs wracking her body. He held her close, more reserved but crying with her nonetheless. "I just can't save any of your siblings, can I?" he whispered.

Wanda pressed her forehead into the crook between Clint's neck and shoulder, shaking her head. "No," she said brokenly. "We can't."