Natasha died, not in a hail of bullets or in an inferno of fire of her own creation.
Natasha died, not in a whirlwind of shouting, of clamor to save her life.
Natasha died, not in the arms of the man she loved, nor with heartbroken promises of a life unlived, or mourning the life she would never have...
Natasha died alone.
It was Hawkeye who found her, or as he was known by the widow 'Clint'...
As she lay in state, not looking broken at all, on her back, her head tilted away, her red hair hiding the pool of blood around her head.
It was a cruel joke, to have her look so alive.
'Your heart really does stop when you see something so--'--and he is never really able to finish that sentence when he recalls the moment he found Natasha dead on the floor of a Polish warehouse.
As he cradles her in his arms, his wrist guard becoming wet with rapidly cooling blood, he wipes a smudge of her blood from her nose and remarks silently to himself that it must have been a massive head trauma.
It is later a cruel joke that she died, still beautiful.
The higher ups pass down marks of respect to an agent whose absence they feel keenly, both on missions, and 'around the office', and a few dare to ask the man sat alone at lunch, as he picks at his 14th uneaten dinner if he wants to talk.
For someone who was adept and blending in, her absence really is quite stark.
At her basic funeral, there is no stone, no notice that the greatest female assassin in the western hemisphere is in the ground. Killed by a blow to the back of the head.
Just a few close friends stood around an unnamed marker on the ground. Steve, in military dress holding an umbrella, his hand on the archer's back as silent sobs convulse through him and everyone pretends not to see.
It's so strange that people find grief so taboo.
Long after everyone has retired to the cortege of black cars, kindly provided by Stark industries.
Clint finds the cold rain running down the back of his neck, pooling at his back and wishes to God he was in the ground too.
The fire for justice, for explainations dying slowly in the cold February rain.
Was this Natasha's legacy? A pointless death and a stone over where her remains lay?
Clint gets in the car, and asks to go straight home.
He would never visit again.