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These days she called herself Natasha and danced when she wanted to dance, simply because she loved the freedom she found in the rhythm, the expression she knew with the movement, rather than the posture and the precision and the discipline; spinning in perfect pirouettes to no music as her body threw shadows in the half light of either her bland, utilitarian SHIELD apartment or the gym where the other agents could only silently watch and wonder who she would be when her eyes opened. In a small, unguarded part of her thoughts she entertained the idea that maybe, just maybe, she may have found a new taskmaster, a kinder taskmaster than the one she'd known before . . . but a master was still a master, and though they'd blessedly left the corners of her mind her own (after thoroughly searching them for a threat, an agenda, that was), she was still leery as to the idea of hands about her strings, just as she was leery with the idea of a partner at her back, a partner watching her back, so much so that -
“You did not have to do that; I had you covered.”
In the past eleven months, three weeks, and five days, she had thought to learn the many shades colouring Clint Barton's voice - but the annoyance and irritation she now heard were new to her ears. A line of frustration touched his vowels, turning them bludgeoning instead of sharp, and she knew that his exasperation was one that needed but a push to slide down the slippery slope into true anger.
Natasha did not speak in reply; she simply looked at him, and let her eyes slide away. She did not bother rolling her shoulders to blandly say, “There was a threat; I neutralized it.”
Such was an impulse burned into her very bones; if she did not act, she did not trust her sisters by her side to do so for her. She was one of twenty-eight surviving Widows, and the other twenty-seven were pillars standing tall and alone, no matter that they were crafted by the same architect. If she could not take care of herself, then she was a liability, and liabilities did not last long in the Program.
“But you nearly jeopardized the mission to do so,” Clint retorted, his voice snapping over the words, as if they were aimed from the bow he so favored.
“I do not leave my tasks unfinished,” Natasha returned stiffly, too many days of critical eyes and calculated mouths pressed into thin lines returning to her as waves crashing upon stone. She fought the tingling in her fingertips, for in that moment every animal-wired instinct within her body wanted to let her hand fall to the piece still strapped to her side - telling herself that she was safe here, that she called herself Natasha now, that she was Natasha, and he was not a threat. She did not need -
“No, not usually,” Clint agreed, and she blinked at his reply, trying to ground herself on the sound of his voice. “But you increased the danger to yourself – and me, by extension – with your actions. If you would have let me watch your back, it would have been better for both of us – easier, too.” His voice softened, and when she looked up there was not the light glinting off of steel in the eyes of her handlers, but rather -
She seemingly itched underneath her skin, not understanding the gaze he turned on her now. She tilted her head, wanting to study the look further, to pull it away and examine it, while another part of her wanted to howl and claw it from her skin, leaving bloody tracks until it disappeared, never to stand as a threat to her again.
But Natasha did neither; she simply stared, and did not blink. Finally, Clint gave an audible sigh and reached up to run a hand through his hair in a gesture that she did not have to pause to define as frustration.
“Perhaps,” she shaped her words slowly, carefully, “it would be best if you put in the request for a different partner.”
“Hardly,” Clint snorted to say. “I am the only one insane enough to work with you.” A heartbeat passed, and he asked, “Do you want me to request a transfer?” There was a note in his voice that sounded like a challenge; another that was truly curious. “Because they will lock you up and put you back in that box until they are sure they can trust you – and I don't know how well Fury would be able to hold off the voices who are clamoring for a chance to dissect the Red Room tech still floating around in your body. But out here, with me . . .”
It was understood that Clint Barton was one of the few operatives with the skill set necessary to put her down should she choose to walk outside the path SHIELD had set before her, she understood – she had long understood. Even these months later, that knowledge made something foreign and uncomfortable crawl through her belly, and she cared for it but little.
Natasha continued to silently hold his eyes. He returned her stare without flinching for a moment, and then two, before something seemingly turned in his gaze, and he tilted his head, clearly debating with himself over something. There were times when she wondered how he survived in the world by wearing his emotions so close to the surface of his skin, when she wondered how his humor did not turn back on him as a blade, how his easy compassion did not raze him as a man who dared to handle fire.
She did not understand, and that bemusement was what held her in place now and trapped her feet from running . . . or so she told herself.
“I want to show you something,” Clint finally said, his mouth snapping shut at the end of his sentence, as if to silence the still lingering doubts in his mind. “Afterward, I want you to truly – honestly – tell me if this is somewhere you want to be. Because if I do not have a partner I can count on,” trust, she heard as a blow, pressing on her ribs and drawing short her next breath, “then I risk my chance of coming home alive to them, and that is a risk I refuse to take – even for you.”
She turned his words over in her mind, hearing what he said, but not quite understanding as Clint turned on his heel and walked back to the jet. A moment passed as she watched his stride; noticing his back so clearly turned to her, ever easy and confident in his trust. Her fingertips itched before she let out a breath, and then followed him without speaking.
.
.
They left the Gulf Coast behind, and flew north-east. She let her eyes follow the churn of the ocean before her view was swallowed by the land, and she looked away. Distantly, she heard Clint reporting the successful turn of their mission to Agent Coulson, but she did not hear him mention their near miss with the hostile forces on the ground. She pressed the tips of her fingers into the arms of her seat, wondering what precisely she felt for that knowing . . . wondering what precisely she was supposed to feel, if anything at all.
They did not speak as the miles fell away beneath them. Natasha leaned back in her chair and listened to the hum of the engines; feeling the stress of the mechanical wings against the air currents as she counted out her heartbeats and tried to rediscover a calm she never should have never lost in the first place.
It was approaching evening by the time they set down in some vague point in the north-east, still in New York, but the to the north-west of Albany, if she was paying attention carefully – which she was. Here the landscape was littered with farms both large and small, and sure enough, it was one of those that Clint sat down by in a clearing of trees with the ease of long familiarity and powered the jet down. He did not speak as they put the camouflage net over the craft, and if he noticed the questions in her gaze, he ignored her and carried on with his task. There was something restless about his movements – impatient, even - and she did not first understand why his stride was so brisk as they walked out from the cover of the trees to where she could see a cheerfully glowing farm house on the crest of the gently sloping land, lit against the backdrop of the sun dropping over the fields. Within an hour the landscape would be aflame underneath the sun's death throes, with the late autumn days making night come earlier and earlier as the winter approached.
Natasha was slow in her stride, and she came to stand still where the gravel path met the steps leading up to the wrap-around porch. She watched as Clint took the steps two by two, bounding up them as if he could not hold back his anticipation any longer. She continued to linger, feeling oddly hesitant as she looked up to see the doors to the house open and close on the sight of Clint swooping a young boy – not even five years old – into his arms and spinning him around to the happy cries of daddy. Understanding was as an electric shock to her system when she heard a woman's voice say, “You're home,” in a timbre that was steady and calm as the surface of a deep pool, where currents swirled violently beneath the deep waters.
Understanding had her taking that first stair, and then two, and by the time she hesitantly pushed the door open, she saw Clint holding a slight, willowy woman against his body with one arm while his other arm still held the boy – his son. Natasha glanced away from the child to see that the woman was studying her as intently as Natasha now found herself staring – taking in her thin, pronounced facial features, and noticing where her skin was still darkened by the sun, making the warm brown of her eyes glitter and the dark brown of her hair shine both red and gold from where it still held its summer color. Her petite build was interrupted by the rather pronounced bulge in her stomach, which she rested her left hand upon, even as she returned Clint's embrace with her right.
There was curiosity in her eyes, Natasha noticed, and she tilted her head to inquire, “Who's this?” when she saw the company Clint had brought.
“Laura, Cooper,” Clint cleared his throat to say, “this is Natasha . . . my friend.” This he said more for his son's benefit, looking from the boy to his wife – Natasha spied the simple golden band with its one diamond on Laura's fourth finger - before he tilted his head and met her eyes. Once again she saw the challenge therein – a now familiar sight to her after the last eleven months. “Natasha, I want you to meet Laura and Cooper . . . my family.”
At hearing her name, Natasha saw a flicker of recognition bloom in Laura's eyes. In reply, she felt a moment's guarded defensiveness rise in her. This woman knew, she knew, something fierce and cold within her whispered. Such knowing was dangerous for her, it was a liability, a blade waiting in the dark, and she could not allow her to -
. . . but, no matter what she knew, no matter what Clint had told her, Laura still held out her hand and flashed a smile that reached her eyes, turning the shade of brown therein soft and warm – unguarded, in the truest sense of the word . . . and Natasha did not know what part of herself made her take the woman's hand in her own, and return the greeting.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Laura sincerely welcomed her, and her grip was strong. Natasha was surprised to feel calluses on her fingertips, even though her palms were otherwise soft, earned not through the art of war and its learning.
While Laura was all ease and acceptance, Clint's son was more wondering as he tilted his head and asked, “Is she a friend like Uncle Phil?”
At that, Clint laughed outright, and shook his head to say, “Just like Uncle Phil.” He reached down to ruffle his son's hair, and the boy smiled up at his father and turned into his pant leg to hide his face. Clint, she noticed, did not seem to mind, and his hands could not stop themselves from touching his family now that he was home.
“You should have called ahead,” Laura's look was fond as she chastised her husband. “I would have had the guest bedroom made up for her.”
Clint rolled his shoulders, unconcerned by her censure. “There's still time for that. This was more of an . . . impulse than a plan.”
“Isn't it always?” Laura replied wryly. “Well then, I'll get new sheets out while you shower and clean up. You look like you've just been . . .” she looked her husband up and down, frowning as she reached up to brush sand off his shoulder. “Perhaps I don't want to know where you just were.”
“Probably not,” Clint agreed. Natasha watched as he leaned down to kiss her once again, and Laura swatted his shoulder as she smiled against his mouth.
“Let her shower first, Clint, and you can help me,” Laura smartly decided. “My not getting around as well as I used to is all your fault anyhow.” She turned, and flashed what Natasha could only call a conspiratorial grin. “He takes all of the hot water, every time.”
“Do not,” Clint protested, though not without any real effort.
“Do too, hon,” Laura returned simply, and Clint rolled his eyes.
The scene was so casually domestic that Natasha could not help but watch, and dumbly observe. She felt as if she were gaping, out of place and out of touch as she filed facts and stray observations away as if she took in a target, a mission to perform and deliver on . . . only, there was no angle here, just a comfortable home with a comfortable family, and she . . .
Not even her second set of memories had scenes like this for her to draw on; there was never any need to program the casual, domestic moments that so much of the world's population so blithely took for granted; there was no need to plant seeds that could give birth to natural, weak longings, and now she . . .
She felt off-balanced and out of her element, Natasha admitted to herself, so much so that she merely nodded when Laura pointed her towards the bathroom and explained where the clean towels were, and left with her head held high so as to feel as if she were not retreating from what she did not – could not – quite understand.
The bathroom was much like the rest of the farmhouse, comfortable with a country, American sort of charm, and littered with the signs of a happy family. She peeled off her uniform as if shedding a second skin, and found the water hot and scalding within the stall. The Red Room did not see the need for hot water, and by the time she was on her own and could take anything other than a lukewarm shower to quickly wash, the luxury had been so foreign to her that she'd never thought twice about changing her habits. Now she looked down at the rubber sharks and plastic toy boats lining the rim of the tub, and stared until the water went cold around her shoulders and her fingertips started to prune from the moisture.
When she got out, she took more time than usual in toweling dry the long waves of her red hair. She stared as the fog receded from the mirror, and though the face she saw in her reflection was familiar, she nonetheless blinked, expecting to see a stranger.
Rather than returning to her uniform, she found a set of Laura's sweatpants and a baggy Yankee's tee waiting for her in the bedroom connected to the bathroom. She was fortunate to find that Clint's wife was the same height as she, and their sizes worked well enough - even if Natasha was all pronounced curves and sensuous muscle to Laura's more subtle, gentle lines, but the loose fit of the clothes covered up any discrepancies between them.
For a moment she lingered in the guest bedroom – which looked as if it doubled as some sort of artist's hideaway, she noticed, seeing capped tubes of paint and still wet watercolour palettes. There was a large easel with a bare canvas waiting, while boards littered with half finished projects in a dozen different mediums filled most of the space around her.
Natasha stopped before the smaller of the desks, pushed up against the bigger conglomeration of tables that Laura had clearly claimed as her workspace, and she looked down to see where Cooper had clearly tried to mimic his mother's work with construction paper and crayons and running ovals of children's watercolours. For a moment she felt her mouth turn as an unused muscle, but her smile faded as quickly as the impulse came.
By the time she hesitantly crept down to the kitchen with her bare feet, enough time had passed for the hot water to have recovered itself, and Clint was taking his turn in the bathroom. She heard Laura moving about within, directing Cooper in this and that as she marshaled the space like a general overseeing her troops. The boy was careful about helping his mother, Natasha noticed, and he focused, his small brow furrowed with determination as he rolled out what she understood to be some sort of dough underneath Laura's supervision.
“There's leftover casserole to heat up for dinner,” Laura's voice drifted back to her, noticing her before Natasha was wholly ready to reveal herself. “We were thinking pie for a treat – and I already had the dough made.”
“I like pie,” she found the words tumbling from her mouth without her permission as she summoned the courage to walk into the well lit kitchen. She felt naked without her uniform and a weapon at her hip; and her pulse was a too eager thing at her wrists, as if she walked into enemy territory. “I think that apple is my favourite,” she said next – defiant to her thoughts, even if her voice came out as little more than a mutter. But I have yet to try them all, she kept herself from saying, though only just.
“Apple is Clint's favourite too,” Laura smiled to say, and Natasha stiffly took a seat when she gestured. Laura was peeling apples with a knife, and rather than simply staring, she took another knife from the block and set about helping. The motion of separating the skin from the flesh of the fruit was simple, even soothing, and it gave her something to do with her hands. “And Clint has excellent taste, I've come to find over the years,” Laura added, almost as an afterthought.
Natasha did not know what to say to that, so she remained silent. Instead, she listened as Laura instructed Cooper, and after the dough was settled in the pie pan she helped the child fill the crust and season the apples with cinnamon and other spices underneath her supervision. They did not speak much, outside for how to follow the recipe, and Natasha watched as Cooper darted small, shy smiles up at her whenever he could. In her turn, she looked down at the boy as if he were a curiosity to be studied and understood. Before this, the time she had spent with children was nothing great enough to speak of, and she was at least consoled by the knowledge that Cooper seemed to find her as fascinating as she found him.
When the pie was at last put into the oven, and the hot, decadent scent of baking cinnamon apples and buttery crust filled the air, Laura smiled to say, “You have a gift in the kitchen. Do you cook?”
“I can cook . . . but I've only done so recently with any sort of regularity,” Natasha shrugged to say. There were times when her cover demanded skills in the kitchen, and the Red Room made certain that she would be able to provide for herself in any situation, underneath any circumstances. She enjoyed the chemistry of following a recipe whenever she had the chance to put her mind to the art . . . or, at least, lately she did. “But that's true for a lot of things, really,” she added on a mutter.
Laura's eyes softened, and she looked down the hall to make sure that Cooper had truly left to put on his pajamas for the night before turning to her. Unflinchingly, she held her gaze to say, “For that I have to thank you. You've brought my husband home alive more than once, I've heard.”
“Clint's done the same for me,” she mumbled, not bothering to mention that both Haiti and Dublin were side effects of her completing her own orders - at last admitting, even to herself, that she had not wanted any harm to come to him, and thus, she had acted to make it so. “He . . . he's my partner.” He trusts me, she understood with an uncomfortable sort of twisting in her gut. He knows me, more so than I care for at times, and yet he trusts me, even with what he loves most, and I . . . .
“Good,” Laura nodded her head smartly to say. “Call it a wife's prerogative, but I want the best in his corner when he's out there, and if that means you, then I'm more than happy that he's found you.”
Laura did not say anything more than that, not then, and she simply returned to cleaning up the floury mess in the kitchen as if their conversation had never happened. For a heartbeat, Natasha watched her, and then moved to help in silence.
.
.
Mostly, she found it difficult to sleep in new places, and Natasha settled into the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room, expecting yet another sleepless night before she forced her body to partake of the rest it needed. She stared at the ceiling for a long time, listening to the old house creak and moan, while the ceiling fan spun in circles above her head. She could still smell the scent of baked apples hovering in the air, and when she swallowed, her throat was strangely thick with some emotion she could not name. Her ribs felt tight over her lungs, denying her of her breath, and she inhaled long and slow to fill them.
Even so, she fell asleep without meaning to, and, strangely, she slept the night through without remembered dreams.
.
.
The next morning she was treated to breakfast as the Barton family's guest.
Natasha sat and watched as Clint and Laura spun about each other in the kitchen with practiced ease as pancake batter was stirred and eggs were broken into the same pan the bacon had cooked in, filling the air with all sorts of smells that unexpectedly had her stomach rumbling in anticipation. She nursed a hot cup of coffee with fresh cream as Cooper brought his coloring books and crayons to the table, and she helped him colour a page from a science fiction film about robots, making sure she used the yellows as she was instructed to by the child. The simple task filled her as she followed the lines, watching the robot come alive before her eyes.
After breakfast, Clint headed outside to where he had a chicken coop to work on, and shrugged at her raised brow to say, “I have a to-do list I tackle every time I'm home, and I don't chip away at it nearly fast enough.”
Before she could ask for a task, he handed her an axe and pointed to a waiting pile of wood in the yard. A smile tugged on his mouth when he said, “Keep yourself busy, Romanov.”
She quirked a brow at him, but set herself about the task, even so. It was not the same as dancing, but it had a rhythm about it that she enjoyed, and the taxing strain it placed upon her muscles was pleasing. The pile she had when she was done was even more satisfying.
She came in around noon feeling oddly refreshed, and was happy to take Laura's offer of a coke and a ham sandwich, sitting down to see where Laura was working on a portrait of her son in simple charcoal lines upon a piece of warm toned paper. Sitting across from her, Cooper too had a piece of paper taped to a board, and he drew what Natasha assumed to be Laura. He got the long waves of her hair right, at any rate, even if the rest was a child's valiant efforts at proportion, rather than any true skill for conveying a likeness.
“Like mother's,” the five year old announced proudly, turning to display his masterpiece, and Natasha leaned over to look with an appropriate level of enthusiasm.
“I have a degree in fine arts, though I now teach it at the schools in Galway,” Laura explained, smiling happily when Natasha complimented her work – which was good, truly. She captured her son's dark eyes and impish smile perfectly, and he fairly jumped from the page, even as a sketch.
When Cooper put his piece of paper away for a new one, and started to draw again, it took Natasha a moment to understand that he was drawing her, and she stiffened a bit in her spot, uncomfortable, though she knew not why.
Laura looked between them, understanding, and a smile tugged on her mouth to say, “You do have a lovely face. Would you mind?” she held up her charcoal as if to further explain her request.
Natasha merely shrugged, content to let Laura do what she wanted, even as she accepted the offer of coloured pastels and started to work on a piece of her own. She did not have the skill to produce someone's likeness, but she did enjoy the way the dry dust smeared underneath her fingertips, and she drew formless shapes on the paper simply because she could, watching as a picture emerged from the chaos of movement and colour.
Later, she kept Cooper's gifted portrait next to her own piece, oddly wanting to bring them both back to her SHIELD apartment to decorate the plain grey walls that had nothing else within she truly called her own. Her heart twisted with the urge as she watched Laura wipe her messy hands on her son's face, and when Cooper laughed with feigned outrage, she fought the oddly foreign urge she had to smile, as unexpected as it was.
.
.
That night was a late night for the family. As a weekend treat, Cooper was allowed to stay up past his bedtime, and after hearing her admit that she had never seen Star Wars (or an assortment of other pop culture icons, for which Clint and his entire family worked together to draft a must-watch list, ranked in number of you need this in your life importance) they sat down with popcorn and M&Ms to watch as many of the six films as they could before their eyes did them in. At some early hour in the morning, after Laura and Cooper fell asleep and Clint put his family to bed, Natasha walked the perimeter of the farm as she'd been trained to do, looking for weaknesses in the defenses and taking stock of the angles of the landscape before finally turning in for the night herself.
She laid awake for only a moment before giving in to the call for sleep, and let it take her away until the dawn.
.
.
Another two days passed in much the same way, and on the third day she was hunched over a stretched piece of cold pressed paper and letting watercolours soak into the wet surface, watching the purples and blues from her brush bloom like bruises before she drew the shapes out into petals as Laura had taught her.
“ . . . and the popcorn went everywhere. The acrobats were laughing and his brother was teasing him mercilessly while he tried to stammer his apology – apparently he never missed, and Barney was certain that seeing me had thrown his aim, though Clint denied it then. He took me backstage to offer me one of his shirts to replace the one my pop had spilled all over, and one thing led to another . . .”
Laura gestured: her hands summarizing the farm house, the stack of children's pictures she graded for her substitute at the school, along with her swollen stomach and the former Soviet assassin who was more created than grown, eating apple pie and dabbling with her watercolours on the family room floor. Natasha dragged her brush through the damp surface of the paper, and watched the colours spread.
“I came back the next day to return the top,” Laura continued her story, not minding her quiet audience as she filled in the silence with words enough for the both of them, “and when I did -”
But her story was cut off by a gasp, and Natasha looked up at the sound, her every sense - which she had not quite allowed to relax, but rather loosen, as a beast preparing to find rest in the winter – suddenly coiling as Laura reached down to grasp at her swollen midsection. Her face was contorted into an expression of pain, and she bit her lip to breathe through her discomfort.
Natasha slowly pushed her brush down, and asked with a calmness she did notfeel, “Isn't this early?”
“A bit,” Laura answered, and something of what Natasha felt must have shown in her eyes, for she amended, “Not too early, mind you . . . just early.”
Even so, she hunched over against the pain racking her midsection once again, and Natasha felt something thick and sharp fill her, flooding her limbs with adrenaline and the urge to act.
She did not wait for Laura's direction; she simply found her feet, and took matters into her own hands, first fetching Laura's jacket and the soft slip-on shoes that were the one pair her swollen feet still felt comfortable in. She helped the other woman up, and guided her to thread her arms through the jacket sleeves much as she had done for Cooper that morning. Though her hands were steady, her heart thundered a furious tempo in her chest - one that would have had Madame sneering and her fellow assets staring for, but she simply swallowed back the lump in her throat and told herself to focus. Clint had taken the truck to make a Home Depot run in town, but she still had Laura's Jeep that she slammed into gear and took off down the dirt road with more speed than finesse once Laura had her seat-belt on.
“Mothers do this all the time,” even so, Laura found her breath to assure her. She was still breathing heavily, and her face creased into painful lines that she valiantly tried to contain. “Hundreds of babies are born every day.”
Not while I am near, Natasha wanted to say, not knowing how to confess that she had never been around an expecting woman before - that she had never, would never, have the chance to become one herself, and what was so everyday, so normal for so much of the population was, for her . . .
“And it takes a long time; labor is never how it's shown in the movies,” Laura assured as if she had spoken her innermost thoughts aloud. In reply, Natasha's mouth pressed into a thin line.
For the fact remained that Laura was in pain. Clint's wife was in pain, and no matter that she spoke soothingly and calmly, her hands had yet to leave her stomach with their white fingered grip, and Natasha felt determination settle into her as something living, coiling around her heart and squeezing with a familiar urge to act and succeed.
Her hands tightened over the wheel, and she floored the gas petal as dirt flew around them.
Normally, she was wary inside hospitals at the best of times, and she felt a familiar rise in her adrenal system as she guided Laura through the automatic doors and blinked against the fluorescent lighting and mandatory beige walls that all hospitals seemingly had. Cool steel and medical white glared at her everywhere she looked, all sterile and cold, and she bit her lip before gesturing to a nurse for a wheelchair – who already saw Laura's plight and was rushing to help, soothing Natasha's tightly wound nerves with her usefulness, at the very least.
A half hour later, Laura was admitted and the doctor had a look on his face that Natasha cared not to see – recognizing concern before it was tucked away behind a bland mask of practicality. The whole time, Natasha stood between Laura's bed and the door, placing her body as a shield while the doctor did his examination, fighting the age old, instinctive mistrust she felt rising in her lungs to fill the very air she breathed. Just barely, she bit her tongue and fought the urge to warn the doctor in a low voice just what any ineptitudes on his part would mean for his continued health.
But this was not the Red Room, Natasha forced herself to remember; he was not here to cut her open and let her spill out so that he could fill in her veins with someone – something – else. Instead, his eyes were calm, and his voice was the soothing lilt of a man who had helped hundreds of mothers bring their children into the world, even as he explained . . .
“The placenta has moved from the line of my uterus,” Laura calmly repeated back to Natasha. “It's not a death sentence for the baby, but it can be dangerous – so the doctor wants to keep an eye on us. It is early for me to deliver, but not too early if worse comes to worst, and they are going to try to give me as much time as possible . . . but I don't expect to pass the weekend without the baby being born.”
A weekend in the hospital, she thought first, calming the instinctive rise in her lungs, before thinking . . . if they had not gotten there in time . . .
“We got here in time,” Laura's hands twitched, as if she fought the urge to reach over and take her own hand. “I thank you for that; I couldn't have done it without you.”
Natasha let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding, and filled her lungs again.
Laura settled back against her nest of pillows, and rested her hands on her stomach. She was no longer moving in pain, even if her face did contort in an odd look every now and again, and Natasha was at least thankful to the doctor for that.
Her look was noticed, and Laura smiled wryly to say, “It was just a kick, nothing else. She's just . . . active right now.”
“You still think she'll be a girl?” Natasha tilted her head, curious as to her mother's intuition. A part of her had found it odd that they wanted to be surprised about their baby's gender in this day and age; it wasn't sensible, to go into such a mission as parenthood without knowing any information they could while preparing, and yet . . .
“What do you think?” Laura asked, and her eyes were soft.
For a moment, Natasha imagined Laura's smiling eyes and Clint's impish grin in the face of a little girl whose hands were sticky with the red clay Laura had just recently taken to. But she said nothing.
Yet, as ever, Laura was unperturbed by her silence. Instead, she waved her hand and said, “Come here.” Her voice was quiet, and there was no demand in her tone, only a request – an offer.
And Natasha stared at her warily, uncertainly; not wanting to . . .
“Have you ever felt a baby kick?” Laura asked, still holding a hand out to her.
Never from the womb, she thought; never in the first days of life, even. She'd never had siblings or cousins or babysitting jobs, and, suddenly, all of the nevers, all of the evers she could think of rose to swallow her. She could not quite keep them down; she could not quite fight them away. Natasha stiffened, her posture turning straight and severe as she summoned the strength they had given to her in place of herself. She looked down at Laura and then at the door, wanting . . .
But no.
“Could I?” she found herself asking, hating that her voice felt small, and sounded even smaller still – like a child, certain of a rebuke.
But Laura's eyes were only kind, and when she guided her hand to rest on the bulge of her stomach, she felt . . .
Strangely, Natasha felt her eyes burn when the little one struck her hand – strongly so, she was surprised to feel. She bit the inside of her cheek, but could not stop the sudden rising she felt within herself, then overwhelmed, and needing . . .
“I'll say hello properly soon,” she at last summoned her voice to say, and then she turned – retreated - unable to stand in the room any longer.
.
.
Clint picked up Cooper early from school, and the small family stayed in Laura's hospital room for the rest of the evening. Natasha sat outside in the waiting room, falling into the state of rest and quiet observation she often employed during sentry postings and information gleaning missions. She stared at the clock and counted out her breaths until, before she knew it, night had come and gone. By the early hours of the morning, Laura was in the first stages of actual labor.
By noon, Agent Coulson came with hamburgers from the diner down the street, intent on feeding them something else than the sub-par cafeteria food that they'd had for both breakfast and dinner the night before. He greeted her with a bland, genial smiled, and Natasha only nodded once in acknowledgment of his presence before taking the meal he offered her.
Natasha did enjoy hamburgers, almost as much as she enjoyed pizza, and too many years of having to feed her body because it was necessary while her adrenaline was up and her missions were ongoing had her biting in and forgetting about her worry long enough to eat.
She was surprised when Coulson brought out a portable chessboard from his briefcase, and gestured to the tabloid covered table between them. “These things take a good amount of time, in my experience,” he commented matter-of-factly. “I've learned to come prepared.”
Natasha raised a brow, curious, but Coulson only shook his head, seemingly amused by her wondering, and would not elaborate further.
“And,” he admitted, “I wanted to see if all of the Russian stereotypes were true – if you wouldn't mind humoring me, that is?”
While she did not smile, she could feel the left corner of her mouth tug, so much so that she did not mind sitting down and bending her mind to the tactics and discipline the game required. She was pleasantly surprised when Coulson took her two for two, and when their fifth game was winding dangerously close to a stalemate, Clint came from down the hall to fill them in on Laura's progress, pausing for a moment in order to take a few bites of his now cold burger to keep up his own strength for the long day still ahead of him. Her contractions were coming closer and closer together, he reported, but they still had a few hours' fight before them; but Laura was a determined one, and she was doing as well as she could in nature's age old struggle for new life while Clint simply held her hand and wished that he could do more.
“They're naming him after me, you know,” Coulson smiled to declare, moving his bishop on an angle of white squares and smiling that bland, pleasant smile that Natasha could not yet tell for truth or lie.
“Not if it's a girl,” Clint pointed out, his mouth twisting in a forced way. His eyes were worried, still flicking back to the delivery room, but Natasha was glad that he'd taken a moment to compose himself and find his footing again.
“Phillipa, then,” Coulson was unconcerned, and Natasha took his bishop with her knight, dooming it to join the majority of the pieces that were already standing off to the side of the board.
For a moment, Clint was silent. “Phillipa . . . Lila,” Clint tried the name out on his tongue. He lingered over it for a moment, as if it were a particularly fine wine. “You know, it doesn't sound half bad.”
She glanced up to see the look the two men traded, and though they said nothing more, Clint's stride was easier when he walked back down the hall again. Natasha watched him for a long moment, losing herself in her thoughts to the point where she distantly heard Coulson announce checkmate, and put only half her heart into reassembling their pieces once again.
It turned out to be another six hours before Laura brought Clint's daughter into a world – a daughter, and though Coulson at first huffed in feigned disappointment, he nonetheless smiled to reveal, “I think Clint was hoping for a girl, though he'd never admit to a preference.”
His eyes were glittering, and when he was at last called back to see Laura and the child some time later, his stride was only what she could call eager, even though nothing else about his calm demeanor had changed.
Alone once more, Natasha sat back in her hard plastic chair and continued to wait - which meant that she was more than surprised when Coulson came out not even twenty minutes later and informed her that it was her turn.
“Me?” the one word escaped her before she could pull it back in, and she bit her tongue afterward, hating all that it had revealed.
But Coulson's expression did not change, and only . . . something about the crinkling around his eyes revealed his thoughts as he softly repeated, “You, Miss Romanov.”
It took her a long moment to rise from her chair, and her body moved by rout, rather than by her own command as she went through the doors leading back to the maternity suites. She found Laura's room, and after taking a deep breath – marshaling herself – she let herself in.
Her first thought was that Laura looked exhausted, exhausted but satisfied, and after looking her over and assuring herself that all was well with her physically, she looked down at the tiny bundle she held. The infant girl was almost swallowed by her swaddling, and Natasha caught a glimpse of red, wrinkled skin and a face with a tiny, upturned nose and closed eyes, her ears so small that they were no bigger than the pad of her thumb. Aesthetically, she had never found the idea of newborn babies to be beautiful, and yet . . .
She looked down at the child Laura held, and found something twist about her heart, quite taken.
“Would you like to hold her?” Laura offered. “You did promise to introduce yourself earlier.”
She had, she remembered after a skipped heartbeat. Even so, she hesitated. “I've never . . .” the syllables came out awkward and ungainly from her lips, and her accent was thick in a way that it had not been in years underneath her iron control. Even so, she did not quite know how to say what she needed to say; the words were stuck in her throat.
But Laura understood. “It's okay,” she assured. “It's instinct, you'll see.”
Instinct, Natasha thought after a moment's uncomfortable thought, wondering if this instinct was one her creators would have dared to let survive – or let lie dormant, at least, knowing that there would never be a chance, a choice -
But she swallowed, and shoved her darker thoughts away, refusing to dwell on them any longer. Instead, she summoned her courage, and made the decision for herself: she wanted to hold the baby, and so she would. When she looked up, she found that Clint was staring at her, something unreadable in his eyes as she sat down on the edge of Laura's hospital bed, holding her breath as Laura handed the tiny bundle to her, and -
. . . she was holding the baby, who was warm and tiny and perfect all at once. At first, she did not quite know what to do with her hands before she instinctively moved to secure the girl's head and cradle her close to her own body, unsure how tightly to hold her, when -
“She won't break,” Laura assured her. “She wants to feel secure; hold her tight.”
And, sure enough, the baby was then blinking, recognizing the loss of her mother's warmth as she looked up with large, dark eyes and stared. Natasha merely stared back, then tightening her hold on her, not daring to move and free a hand in order to touch the curve of her cheek or the soft fuzz of her brown hair as she then so dearly wanted.
“What's her name?” she asked quietly, softly. When she started to rock the girl, she closed her eyes once again, and Natasha felt something inside of her twist at the knowledge that the baby felt secure enough in her arms to sleep.
She swallowed away an unexpected bubble of grief at the sight, and instead forced herself to focus on the even more unexpected tendrils of warmth she could feel wrap around her heart, and tug, binding her to the small being she held . . . and her family too.
“We've decided to go with Lila,” Clint revealed, and by his side, Laura smiled to take his hand. “Phil would have been impossible to live with otherwise.”
“It's a good name,” Natasha muttered, and did not say anything more for quite some time as she held the girl – Lila - and marveled at the tiny life she cradled in her hands.
When she at last passed the baby back to Clint, who was all too eager to hold his daughter now that Laura had nodded off for some much deserved rest, he did not immediately let her go. Instead, he held her eyes, and asked: “Are you staying, Natasha?”
She knew that he was not merely referring to the hospital.
“You're my partner,” she answered in the simplest way she knew how - even then unable to take the plunge and return his trust with an admission of her own. “ . . . maybe,” even so, she could not wholly let his opening himself up to her go unanswered, “ . . . you'll name your next daughter after me. Someday.”
It was the first time she'd dared to quip with him; the first time she'd tried to stretch her mouth into a semblance of a smile – a real smile – and she knew that he noticed her effort. He realized, and he understood.
“You know what?” Clint returned with a smile of his own, glancing down at his daughter as one besotted. “You never know.”
.
.
After nearly eight years, she knew better than most where the stairs leading up to the porch whispered and moaned when pressure was applied. She knew how to move the screen door so that it didn't squeak on its hinges, and she knew the spots in the floor that would creak underfoot if she was not careful with her step. It was second nature for her to slip to the counter and sit down to see the apple pie that had been left for her, accompanied by a note penned with Laura's looping handwriting, declaring “as promised”, with only a piece missing to show where Clint had gotten grabby fingers before his wife had pulled him away.
It was dark out; more morning than night as the moon gave away its place in the cloudy sky. The lights were mostly dimmed within, with only a soft lamp in the living room left on while The Empire Strikes Back still played on the television screen. Natasha only glanced at Han Solo and Princess Leia with the mists of the carbonite chamber swirling around them before smiling and shaking her head with fondness – Cooper's tastes had not changed much over the years, and she was then curious as to how the child had convinced his newest victims to watch the classics before the prequels. Like she had been, Wanda was a rather blank slate when it came to the finer points of pop culture, and she knew that Cooper had enjoyed the fresh audience his 'babysitter' presented.
She took her first bite of pie, and made a mental note to tell him to organize the Lord of the Rings marathon only while she was there. That point was non-negotiable.
Clearly tired from the long day - and the children, this Natasha knew from experience – Wanda had given into sleep some time ago, while, sitting as a silent sentinel at her side . . .
“There's a guest bedroom, you know,” she offered Vision between bites of pie. “Clint won't mind if you stay, no matter how much he'll grumble about it.”
It was the new guest bedroom, she did not add, for the previous one had been claimed by her, and now remained her own - complete with drawers filled with her own clothes and shelves lined with the books she wanted to read. Within there were knick-knacks from her travels, and a dozen little meaningless things she nonetheless possessed and called her own - hers. Briefly, she remembered tossing and turning in her bed, knowing that Clint reclaimed his mind from a god just a room away, and worrying for her partner in a way that was fierce enough to rob her of her breath; just as she remembered the farm house filled to the brim with the Avengers just months before . . . she had pulled Bruce down to sleep by her side, twining about him like a vine and refusing to hear his objections all the while. Be a good guest; Laura doesn't have room for everyone, she had said, and when he had finally given up trying to argue with her, she had stayed awake and listened to his heartbeat when he finally gave into sleep. For a short, breathless moment, she had dared to imagine -
She swallowed against the memory, and did not yet take another bite.
“For now we are comfortable; I do not wish to disturb her,” the android answered, his voice a low whisper so as to not awaken the woman at his side. He then paused, and tilted his head as if listening to something only he could hear. “And she is dreaming,” he added after a moment. “They all are; she shares the girl's dream, I believe.”
Curious in no small way for the unique bond the pair shared, Natasha asked, “What does she dream of?”
“I cannot tell the whole of it,” Vision answered after a moment's contemplation. “But I do believe that there is cotton candy involved.”
“Well, Lila is Clint's daughter,” Natasha could not help but shake her head to say. She snorted, and when she did so she caught the barest scent of something that smelled as if it had been burning, not too long ago. She furrowed her brow to ask, “Was there a fire?”
“A brief one,” Vision answered, but was quick to add – at least, for him, “yet it was quickly adverted, and set to rights.”
Natasha snorted, and knew, even as she asked, “Cooper?”
“We have been led to believe that any information shared on our part would lead to incriminating the child in question,” Vision responded vaguely.
“Uh huh,” she answered, but seeing as there was no harm done – clearly Wanda's abilities had been put to use in righting the kitchen and hiding the damage – she was willing to let the subject go. Clint and Laura could deal with it later as they saw fit.
They were quiet for a time following, with only the ghostly sound of Darth Vader's breathing and the buzzing of lightsabers engaged in battle to be heard between them. She blinked, taken by the sound of the duel, before focusing when Vision softly whispered, “This is a house that makes true sleep possible, I believe. She does not sleep this well at the Facility.”
The feeling was one that she well understood. “Do you sleep?” Natasha asked after a moment, truly curious.
“I have slower brain cycles that allow me to recompute while my body repowers itself,” Vision replied thoughtfully. “You may call that sleeping, if you wish.”
“Do you dream?” Natasha asked next, well knowing the difference between what a body was programmed to do, and what a body could do.
“Yes,” Vision answered after a moment, looking down at Wanda once again. He wove gentle fingers through her hair, and Natasha was wise enough to recognize a hand that was still wondrous for the new-found ability of touch. “Here I have found that I do.”
“I am glad,” Natasha answered after a moment, and that was all there was to say on the matter. She looked down at her dessert, before glancing to Vision and offering, “Pie? It's apple.”
“I have discovered that I do enjoy apple pie,” Vision replied after a moment. “Though I have yet to try all of the dessert's varieties.”
“Well, you're in luck, then,” Natasha said, standing to find a second plate for the android. “And you're in good company, too; apple's my favourite.”
“That,” Vision said after a moment's consideration, meeting her eyes with the strange, not quite mechanical focus of his gaze, “I wholly believe.”
She tucked away a smile, and after dolloping out whip cream, she offered Vision his plate before sitting down on the couch next to the couple. Wanda fidgeted once in her sleep, and Natasha allowed the girl to prop her feet on her lap, hearing as she sighed in contentment to find a comfortable position once more. Then, as the house settled around them, they watched the movie in companionable silence.
Content, Natasha ate her own pie, and waited for Clint and Laura to return to the house she called her home.