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Natasha could barely walk. Clint was holding her up as they made their way up to the Barton Homestead. Natasha's place wasn't far away but Clint's had fewer walls that were going to be fixed 'soon'. Maria's version of 'soon' was the most unreliable timeframe on the planet. Currently, they had a hole in the kitchen and the dining room due to Maria's brilliant idea for an open-plan downstairs.
She wouldn't be able to go over to them without completely blowing her cover and jeopardising her kids and Maria. Tony and Clint were talking but Natasha could barely focus. Of course, the annoying Maximoff girl had to give her flashbacks to the Red Room. Not even Maria knew half of what went wrong there. The memories still played on repeat in her head so Clint held her up as they walked.
There was talking, Laura was there but Natasha couldn't register any of it. She noticed Clint's kids coming down the stairs shouting for him and then she heard a shout for 'Мамулечка'. That was her. Natasha looked up to see her eldest daughter, Alina, sprinting towards her.
"Hi солнышко (little one)," Natasha lifted her daughter into her arms, her legs wrapping around her waist. Everything was okay. She pressed a kiss to the side of her daughter's head, ignoring the eyes she could feel burning a hole in her back.
"Auntie Nat!" Lila threw herself at her legs and Natasha smiled, bending down and adjusting Alina's weight to her hip and bringing Lila into a hug.
"How's my favourite niece?" she whispered in her ear.
"I'm good," Lila whispered back, moving away as another shout for 'Мамулечка' rang out through the house and heavy steps fell on the stairs. Their younger daughter, Lexi, came sprinting towards her and Natasha braced for impact before she picked her up. She held both her daughters close in her arms as she stood up.
"How come you're with Auntie Laura?" she asked them in Russian.
Lexi's head rested on her shoulder, "Mommy had to go away," she whispered, "Fury called."
"Okay," Natasha let them both slide out of her arms, looking over at the rest of the Avengers who were very confused.
"Are they the annoying people you and Mommy talk about?" Lexi asked very innocently. In her defence, she was 4 and she and Maria really needed to stop letting her listen in.
"Mommy?" Tony repeated slowly, not even picking up on the 'annoying'.
"My wife," Natasha explained.
Steve coughed, "You have a wife?"
"Yes," Clint interrupted, answering very impatiently, "Natasha has a wife, I have a wife, we both have kids."
"No, no, no," Tony stopped, "You having a wife and kids is very expected but-"
Natasha glared at him to stop him from talking and bent down and whispered to her girls, "Cover your ears." Tony couldn't be trusted to keep his language child-friendly, "Go on," she nodded, looking back up at him.
"But Natasha is a former double agent for Russia and somehow has a wife and kids in a country where gay marriage is mostly not legal," Tony finished.
"It's legal in New York," Natasha told him with a sarcastic smile.
"I'm sorry," Steve coughed politely as he interrupted Tony just before he was about to speak again, "But gay marriage? You mean a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman."
"Was that not covered in the orientation?" Bruce questioned.
"No," Steve shook his head.
"Is that not normal on Earth?" Thor shrugged.
"Okay," Laura took control of the situation again as Natasha heard a very familiar sound of a very familiar car pull up.
She gave Laura a nod, "I am going to take these two and shower at home," she told her quickly, picking up Lexi and taking Alina's hand and taking them outside to intercept Maria.
"Mommy! Lexi jumped out of her arms and Alina's hand slipped from hers as she ran toward Maria.
"What are you doing home?" Maria whispered, pulling her into a hug after she had hugged their girls and loaded them into the car.
"The Maximoff girl is no fun," Natasha felt she could finally breathe again as she let herself fall into Maria's arms. "She accesses your worst memories."
"And you have some very bad memories," Maria finished, pressing a kiss to her temple, "Let's go home," she told her, taking her hand and pulling her towards the car, "I can thank Laura later, I assume she's going to forcibly invite us over for dinner."
"Well, the rest of the Avengers are there so I don't know about that," Natasha told her as they got in the car. Maria instantly stopped turning the key in the ignition and turned to face Natasha. "They know?" she switched to French, it was the go-to language they knew the girls couldn't understand.
"Well, Clint wasn't really expecting the girls to be there and I wasn't in the right mind to make a decision," Natasha pointed out in French as Maria started to pull out of the driveway.
"What don't you want us to know?" Alina asked them.
"Just telling Mommy about the latest mission, sweetie," she turned to look at her daughter. Too smart for her own good.
"I want to know about the latest mission!" Lexi complained, "Did you fight any aliens?"
"Not this time," Natasha told her, "It was very boring." Lexi groaned, her head falling back against her car seat in complete annoyance. Natasha just laughed, unbuckling her seatbelt and turning around to look at her properly as Maria stopped driving.
"Maybe next time," she reassured her, rubbing her leg, "And maybe tonight I could tell you the story of my favourite mission with Mommy."
She could feel Maria staring at her in confusion. They were clearly thinking about different missions, Natasha's mind was solely focusing on the PG13 ones. Maria coughed and Natasha looked over to see her blushing Natasha just shook her head at her.
"Let's go inside so Mama can change, girls," Maria managed to compose herself, glaring a little at Natasha.
One panicked discussion while they stuck the girls in front of cartoons later and a phone call to the Bartons and they were heading over for dinner with plans to see how long it took the obvious idiots known as the Avengers to figure it all out. Then Natasha would make sure they knew they had to keep it a secret.
They walked over there. It was only a couple of minutes but still, they both ended up carrying a child in their arms. It was how they walked in.
"Is Natasha's wife not joining us?" Tony called from the table. Maria looked over at Natasha as Alina slipped from her arms to go play with the Barton kids. Lexi followed not far behind.
"Some things should be kept private," Natasha shrugged as she went over to Laura and took the knife out of her hands, "Go sit down," she told her very firmly. Clint couldn't be trusted to cook and Laura needed a break. She had 4 kids to look after most of the day and a baby growing inside her.
"Do you know who it is?" Tony was asking Maria behind her.
"Yes," Maria told him, sitting down, "I need a mission debrief anyway," she changed the subject, "Fury's orders." She wasn't lying there, Fury had told if she was going over she might as well get some work done at the same time.
"Seriously," Clint complained.
"You know the drill," she heard Maria slap a pen and paper against his chest. She would have to do it a bit but she had taken on cooking duties so she was exempt. She also always came last. It was her job to point out anyone else's mistakes. Tony might pay for everything and Steve handed out all the orders officially but Natasha always ended up the responsible one. The rest of them were amateurs.
While they were all filling the forms out and Natasha was cooking, Alina came sprinting into the room. "Moms I'm hungry," she complained in Russian.
"It'll be ready soon," Maria told her as Alina climbed into her lap, burying her head in her neck. Maria wrapped an arm around her and kept telling Thor that one-word answers weren't acceptable.
"You speak Russian?" Tony interrupted her again.
"Yes," Maria answered in Russian, challenging him. He clearly didn't speak Russian from the confused look he couldn't speak the language. He should be able to.
Alina moved into Natasha's lap as Maria took over the cooking, threatening Laura when she tried to get near the kitchen. Laura ended up next to Natasha as she filled out the form. "This is a throwback," she laughed, picking up the form.
"You're a SHIELD agent?" Bruce questioned.
"Once she was SHIELD's greatest asset," Maria glared over at Clint, "Then Clint messed everything up."
"Not this again," he complained, "I don't know how many times I have to tell all of you-"
"Hey," Laura cut him off, patting his hand gently, "We've all heard it a hundred times before."
Natasha smiled, they heard him justifying knocking Laura up almost every day for the last six years. "Fury disciplined him and put him on desk duty for three months when he knocked her up," she told them, "He was pissed."
"You're that good?" Tony scoffed.
"Best scores in the academy followed by best results of any agents," Maria told them, "At one point, it was her, May and I running the four SHIELD teams."
"The best times," Laura smiled, "Do you remember it when we were all your bosses?" she teased Clint.
"I still have nightmares," Clint muttered, "You three were mean and you were meaner to me than you were to Nat."
"Maybe I was just better than you," Natasha shrugged, "Or maybe I didn't have arguments with my wife in the middle of a mission about dinner options."
"Oh, so we just aren't going to talk about you two fighting about apartments while parachuting into-"
"While is the keyword," Maria cut him off before he could reveal state secrets, "You can't multitask." Plus, they were not fighting about apartments. It was a slightly heated discussion and Maria's opinions about the size of the kitchen they needed were completely wrong. They just need space in the fridge for leftovers.
Alina had heard this conversation a hundred times before and she was focused on what Natasha was writing anyway. "It's why Uncle Nick said you couldn't be on a team with Laura but Мамулечка could be on a team with Mommy," she reminded Fury.
"Uncle Nick?" Steve repeated.
"That doesn't matter, we know Natasha's wife is an agent now," Tony ignored the shock of everyone else. Fury was a softie. That wasn't a secret.
Alina went to speak, "They are being idiots and they don't realise that Mommy is Mommy," she nodded toward Maria, "So don't tell them," Natasha warned her in Russian. Alina looked over at Maria who just winked back at her. She just nodded.
"Wait," Tony stopped, "Do you know who your Mommy is?" he asked her.
Alina smiled, "Of course."
"Can you tell us who it is?"
"No," she shrugged just as the food timer went off.
Natasha stood up with Alina in her arms, "I'll get the kids," she volunteered. She didn't want to get dragged into the chaos of laying the table and where everybody was going to sit. They were in the playroom, engaged in a very intense running of a playdough restaurant. "Dinner is ready," she told them, stopping them before they sprinted out of the room, "Hands," she warned them, Alina slipping out of her arms to run with the others to the bathroom. Natasha followed to make sure their hands were being washed properly.
It was essentially herding to get them all into the kitchen and sitting at the table. One always got distracted and multiple attempts were made to start water fights. Then every time she had lifted one into a chair at the table, another decided it was time to run around. Clint eventually helped her, grabbing Coop and tackling him into his seat. They managed it in the end and once the food was in front of them, they made no effort to move.
They should have realised halfway through dinner. Lexi had called for 'Mom', her usual tactic when she didn't really care which Mom it was that responded. Both she and Natasha turned to look at her, "What is it?" Maria asked gently.
"Can I have some water please?" she asked.
"I've got it," Maria told her. Only Bruce seemed to realise, looking over at Natasha.
"Maria," he mouthed. Natasha just nodded and he seemed to understand straight away and went back to eating his dinner.
The rest of them didn't realise even after Natasha and Maria worked together to get both their kids into bed. It was easy enough to carry him home later when they were sleeping. They didn't notice when Maria leaned against her chair as they planned the next steps of the mission and the next steps to fight Ultron. Not even when Maria pressed a kiss to her temple, telling her quietly to stay safe.
They only noticed when Maria turned to Laura, "Do you need Nat and me to take any of these idiots back to our place?" she asked her.
"Our place?" Tony questioned. Natasha watched from the living room where she was trying to lift up Lexi without waking her. Alina wasn't anywhere close to sleep.
"Yes," Maria smiled, "The place where Nat and I live." She picked up Alina as she walked over to her.
"You're the wife," Tony realised slowly as Natasha managed to lift Lexi. She stirred a little but was mostly a dead weight as her head fell against Natasha's shoulder.
"That's me," Maria smiled sarcastically as Natasha walked back over to her.
"Seriously, do you need us to take any of them over?" Natasha asked Laura, ignoring Tony's confusion.
"We should be fine," Laura smiled.
Natasha adjusted Lexi's weight in her arms, "Look after my future namesake even if he is a traitor," she told her looking down at her bump, "We'll see you in the morning."
"Night Nat," Laura laughed lightly, pulling her into an awkward one-armed hug.
"Night," Natasha smiled, she hugged Clint and Maria hugged the Bartons before they both made their way home.
Natasha could hear Tony whisper as she left, "What the fuck."