So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along
Natasha stands over James' unconscious body.
She remembers gasping awake, in a broken down warehouse in Albania, Kobik's clutching ghost appearing to her. Shock overcame her, as she remembers the last thing she saw, dodging for Miles as Steve plunged his shield down.
"You aren't dreaming. You did die." She said, seemingly fading in and out.
"....How-"
"I did something bad." She looked down. "I just wanted to play pretend, I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
"....I know." She said, wincing as her body ached.
"I brought you back, when Bucky Bear saved Steve and me."
"Saved?"
"Mhmm. Real Steve and me, we got stuck together, somewhere else. After, I brought you back. But, no one knows I did."
"Why?"
"Because....I didn't know if you wanted to start over."
Nat moved to touch Kobik, her hand going through her.
"Thanks for being my friend." She smiled before disappearing.
James was the first person she saw, her eyes felt hot as she held back tears. The start of her string of bad decisions started after she heard he had died. Ripped apart by Kobik in a misunderstood rage. She never thought she'd see him again. And now, in an all too classic case, the roles were now reversed, and the ghost was standing over the living. She hated every minute of this.
"[I'm sorry, my dear.]" She hoisted him up, wrapping his dead drunk arm around her as she carried him to their room, his cologne buried under the smell of pure Soviet water.
She laid him down carefully, before sitting beside him. Natasha brushed his hair back with her hand, kissing him.
As if right from a storybook, he opened his eyes, his irises dilated. He put his hand on her cheek, soft even when he was heavy in vodka. "Tell me you're real." He whispered.
She tucked her hair behind her ear, before leaning to kiss him again, tasting every inch of the lips she thought she'd lost. "Only for you. ...Go to bed."
He closed his eyes, his mind probably cruelly labelling her as an alcoholic delusion.
A part of her screamed, wanting nothing more than to just lay on the bed, give him her warmth and be there when he wakes up, to prove she wasn't just some cruel karmic retribution that he thought he deserved.
Every damn decision in their lives started with "but", the comical entry of every sacrificial decision that bore weight like a $20 gold watch chain. And the weight was this: there's things you can do as a phantom you can't do alive.
And this...wasn't fair. The 'but' this time, teetering between happiness and duty. The latter promising a non-guaranteed return to the former.
"I'll come back." She whispered to him. "I promise."
She did one of the hardest things she'd ever done, and walked away from the happy ending.
She left out of the window, her wig back on before hesitating. She left the window open, the last coy evidence that it wasn't a dream. That Snow White wasn't dead, but just dreaming. And she'd be back. She promised.