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“Nat,” Clint groans. Her eyelids crack open but only briefly, just enough to get a flash of the warm tan skin she’s draped over before slipping closed again. It’s the kind of “Nat” that precedes things like “your hair is in my mouth” or “I’m going to go shoot for a bit,” not actual emergencies like “the ninjas are back” or “the place is about to blow” or “we’re out of coffee,” and her brain registers it exactly as such. She gives a low, sleepy grumble in response, nestling her head further into the warm juncture between his neck and shoulder.
“Nat,” Clint says again, a bit more firmly this time. She drags herself to partial wakefulness, lifting her head to stare up at him blearily. Mussed hair, five o’clock shadow, no visible blood or bullet-holes— “Tell me if I’m still dreaming, but why is Alexei standing in the doorway watching us?”
That wakes her up fully, the jolt of adrenaline reminiscent of the time Clint had accidentally taken a stray taser arrowhead into bed with them. “He what?” She turns to look, just in time to see Alexei’s comically shocked face before a pale hand grasps his collar from behind and yanks him away and out of sight. The door slams shut a second later.
Still blinking, Clint looks down at his bare chest, then at her. He looks back wildly toward the door. “That did not just happen, wait—” Before Natasha can stop him, he nearly vaults out of the bed—nearly only because the bedsheets go to war with his legs at the last second, causing him to flop onto the ground in a heap of flailing limbs and bruised ego, if he had had such a thing to bruise.
“Wait, Clint—” Natasha says, sitting up, but he’s already propelled himself like a fish out of the blanket cocoon—giving her a nice show of his arm muscles at work, but that is neither here nor there—and stumbles into his jeans and a shirt, grabbing the door handle and hopping out on one foot when the other gets momentarily stuck in his pantleg. “Wait—”
Natasha swears in Russian, then grabs her clothes too, pulling on a pair of shorts and yesterday’s shirt from the floor and following him, thankfully not hearing the sound of her idiot partner cracking his head open on the vaulted stairs in his haste.
“It was nightmares!” Clint is insisting to Alexei as she arrives, safely in the dining room with one hand scrambling to zip up his jeans over his lurid purple boxers. He hasn’t even managed to get the shirt on properly yet; it just hangs around his neck. “Nat—I mean, I—had a nightmare!”
Melina smacks Alexei upside the head from where she stands next to him. Breakfast is not yet out on the table except for a tureen of orange juice that looks like it could have come straight out of their kitchen table in Ohio on Sunday mornings. “It is like you want to be scarred for life, entering her room like that,” Melina scolds, but Alexei just twists in his seat to look between the two of them bewilderedly.
“Why would I be scarred for life? He said is just nightmares.” The look of relief on Clint’s face is almost comical, and he stuffs one arm through his shirt-sleeve. Alexei leans in close to Melina, the corner of his bushy beard twitching. “And I sleep with you every night.”
“All right, stop!” Natasha shouts, holding up her hands. She points at Melina and Alexei. “You two, too much information.”
“What? Natasha, is just sleeping, is normal bodily function—”
“In eighty percent of failed marriages the husband and wife sleep in separate bedrooms,” Melina tells her, nodding along with the words with her tone utterly matter-of-fact.
“Yes, Natasha, do you want us to get divorced?” Alexei asks. “We have already had hard life, your mother and I… Much heartache…”
“You weren’t even marr—never mind,” Natasha says with a sigh. She turns to Clint. “And you,” Natasha points, “we are adults. It’s not a secret that we’re sleeping together.”
He runs his hand sheepishly through his hair. “I panicked.”
“What is all the yelling?” Yelena asks, slouching in and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
For a moment, Natasha sees an ally. “Alexei decided to just walk in on Clint and me this morning,” Natasha informs her. “To…to what, to wake us up?”
“I used to do this every morning before school!” Alexei protests. “Natasha, the birds are singing, time to get up…”
“I’m not ten anymore!”
“He never even knocks,” Yelena says with a sour look, sauntering off in the direction of the kitchen. “Until I put knife through hand. Then he learned.” She glances back at Natasha. “Do you need to borrow knife, Natasha, or are you all arrows now?” Her hand is already in the liquor cabinet like she used to in the cookie jar when she was little, but just like back then, Melina is slightly too fast for her.
“Ach, eat something, Yelena!” she admonishes, shooing her youngest daughter away from the liquor and corralling her into a seat, paying no mind to Yelena’s pout. “I will make you eggs. It is too early for vodka, even for us.”
Alexei pats her hand from across the table. “Listen to your mother. At least put it in the orange juice.”
“Ooh, are we doing oops-I-just-crashed-through-the-wrong-third-story-window-and-really-need-to-forget mimosas?” Clint asks, plopping down next to Yelena. “Nat, it’s just like that time in Punta Arenas with that really angry pet hedgehog—”
“How did you not know they were together?” Yelena demands of Alexei, cutting across him. “It could not be more obvious. Look at them!” She gestures wildly in the direction of Clint and then Natasha. “Natasha even brought him home for dinner; she called him her partner—”
“I thought he was different kind of partner!” Alexei shrugs. “He is work partner! And as for dinner…he is important man in her life. He gives her second chance, he gives her freedom, he has dog…”
“There’s only one bed in her room! You let them both stay in there!”
“Is trundle bed,” Alexei exclaims. “Secret bed underneath goes in, and out—“ He demonstrates with his hands, “—and in, and out, and in, and out—”
Yelena’s head hits the table with a dull thunk. “Боже мой, please stop.”
“—and whenever you need, it’s there!” Alexei says. “I was trying to be like progressive American father!”
“You asked what his intentions were,” Natasha reminds him.
“So? Maybe he was going to sell you to HYDRA. Maybe he is secretly ninja assassin. Maybe he wanted gardener and it’s a good thing he choose you instead of black thumb over there.” He jerks his hand toward Yelena, never dropping the scolding, fatherly voice that makes Natasha either want to laugh at the absurdity or take one from her sister’s book and put a knife through something soft and fleshy. From the murderous look on her face, Yelena is thinking along the same lines, though Natasha has to admit Melina had a point when she prevented her from buying Barry the Cactus XII and forbade her from touching any of her windowsill plants lest they shrivel up and die as well. “Is always good to check intentions, Natasha.”
“Hey, I am a ninja assassin,” Clint says, but no one even turns to look at him.
“And if he was going to do any of those things, he was going to tell you?” Natasha asks.
“I asked him! I asked him and he deflected!” Alexei booms, hands slapping the table. He stares at them a moment, eyes flicking between them, then sits back with a sigh. “What else can we expect from spy? I am living in house full of spies and is always deflect, deflect, deflect.”
“Get used to it,” Natasha snorts, sliding into the seat next to Clint.
“I am a ninja assassin,” he pouts at her, and she gives him an affectionate roll of her eyes, patting the floof of his morning hair. Well, his morning hair isn't that different from his hair at any other time of day, but still.
“My ninja assassin.”
“Get a room,” Yelena groans immediately, pouring herself a large glass of orange juice. “It is too early in the morning for this shit.”
“Oh, shut up,” Natasha tells her amiably, and Yelena sticks her tongue out in response. Alexei just stares at her, so she juts out her chin. “You got something to say too?”
“You like him like him!” Alexei says, the words a sort of stunned exclamation.
“No shit,” Yelena says with a roll of her eyes.
“What are you, thirteen?”
“Aha! Deflection,” Alexei says, slapping his hand down again. He stands, heading for the other side of the table and Natasha almost thinks he has decided it’s too early in the morning for Yelena’s vodka mimosas after all but he squeezes by her and then Clint, looming over her instead. His hand closes around the back of her shirt collar, as if attempting to pick her up by the scruff of the neck like a kitten.
Natasha ducks, batting his hands away. “What are you doing?”
“Natasha,” he whispers, though Alexei’s whispers have never been the quietest. She recalls several occasions of abysmal hide-and-seek games due to that fact as a child, as well as a Mother’s Day breakfast in bed mishap that had actually saved the kitchen from being burned down due to Melina hearing them all the way from the bedroom. “Natasha, I need to speak with you.”
“So speak,” she says.
“In private. It’s important,” he tells her with a side glance at Clint. Yelena too is watching curiously, nosy in a way that fulfills every children’s movie stereotype of the annoying little sister. Alexei paws at her shoulder—no, nudges her out of the chair—and Natasha acquiesces with a quick “be right back” sign to Clint, her hands moving through the motion with quick, exasperated jerks.
Once they are out in the hallway, Natasha turns to Alexei, crossing her arms. “What is it?”
He checks around the corner once more, and Natasha mentally prepares herself for some wildly out-of-touch, inappropriate question. If he asks her about Captain America again—if he asks her why she’s not with Captain America instead— Alexei leans in close. “Was there…consent?”
For a moment, Natasha can only stare at him. “I would never—you think I’d—Clint would never—”
“Your mother is strongest woman I know, and she could not stop it,” Alexei says. “I am strongest man I know, and I could not stop it from happening to her.” His eyes are quiet and sad under bushy eyebrows. “Consent is important, Natasha. Your mother taught me how much.”
“That’s…” Natasha stops, has to break eye contact, to look away. “That’s not what I meant. I know it isn’t a choice, and I didn’t mean to imply—I’m a Red Room graduate,” she says, her tone now low and bitter. “I know that better than most.”
Alexei sets a large hand on her shoulder, and she doesn’t even think about flinching away. “I know.”
“Thank you,” she says, meeting his eyes again. Natasha covers his hand with hers, briefly, before letting go.
“So I did it right?” Alexei asks after a moment, snapping the tension in two like Steve with a pile of wood logs and gazing at her with something that is almost eagerness. “I did father thing right?”
Natasha slowly nods, bemused.
He breaks into a grin. “Bah, Melina says parenting thing is hard, at beginning of Ohio mission. I tell her it is not, you just feed them and play with them and water them—” She briefly wonders if Alexei thinks small children are like plants, and resists the urge to snort at the mental image of him overturning a watering can on top of a tiny Yelena’s head. “—and you know what your mother says? She says is good they are just little girls. Because teenage girls would be nightmare, moody and dating and always talking back. ’Course, she didn’t know that Yelena would be toddler terror yet, but still.” He puffs out his chest. “I would be great dad to teenager daughter.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you would be better than she expected,” Natasha allows, a small smile gracing her lips.
“Yes!” He looks close to doing a fist pump. “Can I tell Melina?”
“Go for it,” Natasha says, and watches with a strange sort of fondness as he immediately takes off for the kitchen, just an excited child of a man himself, then follows behind.
“It isn’t poisoned this time, right?” Clint is asking as they return to the table, Melina setting down a steaming plate in front of him. There is already one in front of Yelena, who is picking at the food with her fork—or just swirling it around her plate; it’s hard to tell with her.
“You ask! Good,” Melina replies, patting his arm. “You’re getting smarter.”
Clint looks down at the food. “That…wasn’t an answer.”
“Gold star,” Melina praises. “No, there is no poison.”
Clint nudges a scrap of egg with his fork, still looking uncertain. “This isn’t…like….a test, is it? Am I supposed to not believe you?” His stomach gave an audible grumble. “Because this looks really good and I’m really hungry.”
“There is fine line between prudence and paranoia, Clinton,” Melina replies.
“…Don’t I know it,” Clint says, glancing at Natasha before shrugging and beginning to shovel eggs in his mouth.
“Melina! Melina,” Alexei says, bounding up to her and taking her hands in one large one of his. She raises her eyebrows but does not pull away. “I gave Natasha the talk and she said I did good!”
Natasha sighs at his choice of words, Yelena’s eyes bulge, and Clint spits an impressive amount of egg all over the table in a spray of rubbery flecks of yellow and white.
“Fanny!” Yelena calls immediately, giving Clint a look of disgust. The dog comes running, tail held high, and all Yelena has to do is pat the table once with her palm before the dog is jumping on top of it in a neat leap, snuffling around for all the extra bits of egg.
“Yelena! Dog does not belong on table!” Melina admonishes.
“But Mama, it’s clean now…” Yelena says, and indeed, the table is free of egg once more and just a bit shinier as the dog does a graceful bound off the edge and trundles away, tail held high and swishing through the air.
“Clean and covered in dog spittle.”
“You let Alexei-pig eat off the table!” her sister accuses.
“Off a plate on the table. And pigs are cleaner than dogs, Yelena. The bacteria that lives in their mouths alone—”
“Melina,” Alexei whines and with visible effort she turns back to him.
“Yes, yes, tell me about it in kitchen,” she says, leading him out of the room. “Shchi must be stirred twice a minute at this stage; do not let it burn…”
“Return of the Shchi,” Clint mouths at Natasha as she slides into the seat next to him. “Only because Revenge of the Shchi occurred in your upstairs bathroom last night…”
Yelena just snorts, picking up her plate and glass and scooting to the far end of the table with it. For a moment, Natasha thinks she’s getting out of range for any further egg-spatter—or…shchi-related…anything—but her true aim becomes clear as Yelena takes advantage of Melina’s vacating of the area to go for the vodka again, pouring the rest of the handle into her orange juice.
Typical.
Natasha leans in closer, propping one of her feet against his chair. “You good?” she murmurs, and trusts he understands she doesn’t mean intestinally.
“The Talk?” he counters with a significant look. “Are you?” He waggles his eyebrows. “I can hold back your hair if needed.”
“Surprisingly, I’m fine,” Natasha says, watching his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Well, I’d ask you to taste-test my eggs, but we both know that won’t work,” he says with an exaggerated what-can-you-do twitch of his shoulders, like when Kate’s pissed off the mafia again and they all get dragged into a shootout with way too many bros in tracksuits.
“She won’t try poisoning you again,” Natasha assures him. “…Probably.”
“Always a little chaos with Widows involved. Or Red Guardians,” Clint agrees amiably.
“You mean they’re not paragons of Russian pragmatism and professionalism?” Natasha asks, and then laughs at the look he gives her. “It always is, with these three. Just wait until everyone else wakes up.”
“Don’t you go counting yourself out,” Clint eyes her. “Remember that prank you pulled on Sitwell back in the day? Before we knew he was an octopus head, of course—makes me wish you actually had let that filing cabinet drop on him—”
Natasha gives him a smile every bit as sweet as it is lethal. “All right, me included.”
He glances around the dining room again, Widow’s bites and other advanced weaponry organized on one wall right across from a bookshelf of well-loved titles and travel guides and a map dotted with colorful pushpins of places the girls actually wanted to see rather than just operate in, Yelena at the other end of the table alternately eating her eggs and hand-feeding them to Fanny and Lucky, the murmurs of Melina and Alexei drifting in from the kitchen, and the faint sounds of life stirring upstairs, Antonia and Lerato and whichever other Widows may have come in during the night getting ready to descend. “Home,” Clint says softly, and she knows he means all of it—the chaos and the broken pieces of Ohio back together again and the tiniest scraps of absolution she has found every time she looks into Antonia’s eyes, clear and blue. “I’m glad you finally found yours.”
“Well, half of it,” Natasha says, drawing in closer, green gaze fixed on the blue of his eyes as their foreheads almost touch. “I found the other half years ago. In a little town called Budapest, ever heard of it?”
“I think so…” Clint says, wrinkling his nose. “Southeast of Bratislava, yeah? Winding streets, cute little night market…” His grin is barely suppressed; she can see it in the crinkles around his eyes. “I hear there’s giant rats in the subway ventilation shafts, though.”
“Giant rats who need to learn how to spell before they declare themselves king of hangman,” Natasha says, and laughs when he scowls at her. “It really is home, though. It’s a piece of me that I didn’t know I was missing…until I had them back again.” Clint’s hand finds hers and squeezes, and she knows he understands. He always does. “Brave the shchi for another two weeks for me?”
“Me? Terrified of your mother? Not at all,” he jokes, then drops his voice softer again. “I’ll brave her as long as you want, Nat. You know that.”
“And Dad, too, right?” Yelena asks, butting her head in between them so that her face is inches from either of theirs, arms slung across each of their seat-backs so suddenly that both of them jump, master assassin status be damned. Of course she had been listening in. Of course. Yelena smirks. “I’m telling Alexei you said he’s not as scary as Mama.”
“What?” Natasha scrambles to her feet, but Yelena is already making for the kitchen, leaving her to sprint around the table after her. “Yelena, no—Yelena, he’ll be crushed—Yelena, the lecture—Yelena—”