Chapter Text
Clint came into the apartment, taking in the warm, sweet smell and hearing laughter from the kitchen. He called out to Natasha and went to the closet, putting his quiver away with decidedly less ceremony than usual.
“In the kitchen!”
He tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck, getting it out of the way before Nat saw him and raised hell. She hated when he did that, but it was a habit he couldn’t seem to break. The solution, obviously, was just to do it when she wasn’t around. Clint was no fool; even married to her and the father of their daughter, he wasn’t about to provoke the temper of Natasha Romanov Barton.
He rounded the corner into the kitchen to find she and Darcy laughing, Natasha pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven. “Hey babe!” she called out, smiling.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, bending down a little to kiss her cheek. “How are ya, Darce?”
Darcy smiled at her friend. “Fair to middlin’.”
Clint grinned. “How’s the new boyfriend?”
Natasha chuckled and Darcy blushed. “I’m still not sure whether I should thank you or throw something at you for that.”
“If you’re as happy as you seem to be, I would think that thanking us should be the thing to do.”
“Seems that way,” Darcy nodded, still blushing. “Steve and I are getting along great.”
“Good,” Clint said, giving her a side-hug. “Let me know if I need to put an arrow through him for being a dick, okay?”
“Oh, hush,” Natasha said, swatting him with a towel.
“Where’s Erinna?”
“Jumperoo,” Darcy said. “We just left her a minute ago. Bubble Guppies is on.”
“Stupid fish-kids,” Clint muttered. “Alright then. I’m going to hop in the shower. Darce, you sticking around for dinner?”
“Dunno. Waiting to hear back from Steve.”
“Wait,” Natasha put her hands on her hips. “Something's not right. I’m baking. I just took cookies out of the oven. I’ve baked exactly six times in our relationship, and you’ve fairly bounced off the wall every time. Why’re you so sullen this time?”
Clint smiled. “I’m sorry, just got swept up in the excitement of Steve and Darcy’s budding romance. It smells good! What’d you make?”
“Snickerdoodles,” Natasha said, eyeing him. “Darcy gave me her mother’s recipe. They’re delicious, and Erinna is finally old enough to eat most table foods. I thought it would be a nice treat for all of us. And you’re hiding something, but we’ll talk about it later.”
“It’ll be fun to watch her eat a cookie, that’ll be cute. And I’m fine, just need a shower.”
She stared him down, and he met her gaze for a moment, looking away after a while. Clint mumbled and wandered off, still feeling her stare on him.
In the shower, he leaned against the cold tile and asked himself when, exactly, he was going to tell her, knowing it had to be soon - before Tony told her, anyway. She’d wear him down soon. She had him, he knew it, but he’d hold out as long as he could.
>>------->
He found her in her dance studio the next day, her body practicing the movements she knew so well, and he leaned in the door and watched her. Erinna sat on a blanket in the corner gumming her favorite giraffe toy, also watching her mother, perhaps wondering if she’d ever be able to do what her she was seeing.
Clint waited until the song was done then came into the studio, scooping up Erinna while Natasha toweled her face and slid the cloth around her neck, drinking from the bottle of water. He cooed to his daughter, who patted his face playfully, and Natasha watched them carefully.
“You ready to talk now?” she asked with a bite to her tone.
“Nat,” he said slowly and without looking at her, “this is one of those things that you can never un-know. I wish I didn’t know it, but I do. Now I have the information and don’t know what to do with it. I don’t think I want to tell you.”
“I want to know.”
“It’s about your family.”
Natasha went silent, her hands dropping from her hips. She looked at him, the shock evident in her eyes, then shook her head after he’d finally looked up at her. “I don’t know if I want that information or not.”
“See? I thought I did, now I don’t.”
“Is it...is it bad?”
“Natasha, there was no good information to learn. No matter what we found out, it was going to be hard to hear, hard to know.”
She nodded her acceptance of this and looked away. He didn’t say anything, he just bounced Erinna, acknowledging her tiny presence in his arms without looking at her. Natasha looked wounded, and the fact that he’d done that to her tore at his heart like a clawed, fanged animal. He felt lower than he’d felt since he’d been on that mission with the kingpin’s daughter. He’d hurt her, carelessly, for his own selfish gain. He’d wanted to hurt the people who hurt her, the thoughts of what it may do to her in the here-and-now were secondary. Now the evidence of his negligence was staring at her slipper-clad feet, and he couldn’t be more of a bastard if he tried.
“Erinna really liked the cookies, I didn’t make enough. I think I’ll make some more this evening.”
“Natasha…” he started, reaching out one hand for her, shifting the baby. She shook her head and kept walking towards the door.
“You seemed to like them, too. They were a hit. I’ll make a bunch this time.”
She left, and he stood with their daughter in his arms. Erinna looked up at him, green eyes shining and smiling at him, and he shook his head at her. “Oh, baby girl, did you ever draw the short straw on the emotionally-capable father front.”
>>------->
Natasha was acting as if everything were completely normal by the time he made it back to their apartment, and he couldn’t detect anything that would indicate that the fact he had intel about her family was even on her mind.
Except she kept popping up with questions about them at odd, unexpected times.
Changing Erinna’s diaper the next day, she asked while applying powder, “Who else knows?”
“Knows what?” he asked back, taken off guard.
“About my family.”
“Oh. Steve and Tony.”
She nodded and said nothing else until three days after that, in the car. “I haven’t asked them, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“Steve and Tony. And I haven’t bothered you with it.”
Clint reached over and held her hand. “You can ask me anything you want. I won’t hide anything. But don’t force them into anything, okay?”
She went silent again until the next night, in bed, and she woke him with it. “Are they alive?”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant this time. “Some of them. Others have died across the years.”
She said nothing, then two days later she murmured something while rocking Erinna as he watched the game with the volume low. He muted the television and asked her to repeat it.
“My mother?”
“Alive.”
Natasha didn’t say anything, she just rocked for a second. Clint sensed a change in the air and let her go on.
“I remember her sometimes, you know. And I think of her sometimes, when I rock the baby.”
“I’ll tell you if you want to know, Natasha.”
Clint watched a single, glittery tear fall to the baby’s head, and his heart broke all over again.
“Maybe. Maybe soon. But not tonight.” She sniffled, then went silent again. The silence yawned around them, and Clint’s mind swirled with things to say - comfort for her, recriminations for himself, ways to soften the blow of the story he knew he must tell soon. He opened his mouth to say something - anything - when Natasha spoke before he could. “Tonight, I’m going to put Erinna in the bed, and get the cookies, and you and I are going to sit on the couch together and watch the rest of this dumb game. Okay?”
Natasha looked up at him with wet eyes and he nodded. “Absolutely,” he agreed quietly.