Work Text:
“Going to kill me then,” the Black Widow said. It doesn’t sound like a question. It actually sounds like she’s relieved someone’s finally come to do it.
“Someone was sent to kill me once, had me dead to rights, just like I got you right now,” Clint said. Clint means John Garrett, because he was the first to come, but he knows that Phil Coulson is on the other end of his earwig, listening to every word.
Phil had, after Clint joined SHIELD, said that he hadn’t been there to kill Clint, but Clint knew the type of man Nick Fury was. Nick Fury was the only one able to make Phil Coulson do something he didn’t want to, and Clint called Phil out on his lie.
Clint was talking about John Garrett, but Phil, and the rest of SHIELD, will assume he was talking about Phil instead.
“He made a different choice,” Clint said, lowering his bow, re-quivering his arrow, and holding out his hand. “And so do I.”
Clint pretended not to see the tears welling up in Natasha’s eyes as she grabbed his hand.
“Coulson, I’ll see you in a couple weeks,” Clint said. “You better not break my bow.” He removed his earwig, stepped on it, and then dropped the bow and quiver of arrows onto the couch.
He and Natasha would be gone long before Coulson and the backup STRIKE team broke through the door to the apartment.
“There are snipers, four of them,” Natasha said, looking around, taking note of each of their positions in the woods surrounding the farmhouse. She fingered her guns, calculating ways to kill the four of them before they could kill her and Clint.
“And four more around the other side of the house. My family is kept safe by the organization I work for.”
“SHIELD.”
“No, Hydra. Honey, I’m home!” Clint said, stepping through the door.
“Clint,” Laura said, smiling and rushing forward to hug him. “I’ve missed you. Oh. Who’s this?”
“Natasha, this is my wife, Laura. Laura, this is my friend Natasha.”
“Friend,” Natasha repeated slowly. “I’ve never had a friend before.”
“Well, now you have two,” Laura said, hugging her too. A baby cried from the other room, and Laura pulled away. “That’s our son, Cooper. He’s probably hungry. Come on and I’ll introduce you. He should know his Auntie Nat, don’t you think.”
“Auntie Nat,” Natasha parroted back, as Laura dragged her away.
“Don’t let her trick you into changing his diapers,” Clint called after them.
“Of course not,” Laura said, laughing. “Now that you’re home, you’re on doodoo duty.”
“I’m very confused,” Natasha said.
“So, Hydra,” Natasha said. She had spent hours with Laura, cooing at Cooper, basking in the feeling of having a family for the first time in a long time.
“Hydra, secretly, and SHIELD, officially.”
“SHIELD doesn’t know about your family?”
“No, Hydra got to me first.”
“Hydra’s not much better than the Red Room,” Natasha muttered.
“I could care less who I work for, as long as my family is kept safe,” Clint said. “Those eight snipers are part of a group of thirty-eight. Thirty-two snipers, separated into groups of eight, taking six hour shifts protecting the farmhouse at all times. The other six go with Laura and Cooper wherever and whenever they leave. My family is protected around the clock and all I have to do is kill a few people, and make SHIELD think I’m loyal.”
The Bartons had taken her in, allowed her through all this protection, introduced her to their son, immediately calling her Auntie Nat. The Bartons had made her family, and she in turn would do whatever it took to protect that family.
“So how does this work. I assume you’re taking me in when you go back to see, Coulson was it?”
“SHIELD wanted you dead, but they wanted me dead at one point too. Phil Coulson vouched for me, and I’m pretty sure I can get him on my side, and get him to vouch for you too.”
“This Coulson has a lot of pull then?”
“Director Fury regularly calls Coulson his one good eye. Coming from a guy with an eyepatch, that’s a damn big compliment. But you don’t have to go into SHIELD with me. You could go straight to Hydra instead.”
“Hydra’s the one that wanted me alive, I assume. I’ll go to them, but given the choice, I’d rather stay with you, in both Hydra and SHIELD.”
“I’ll pass that along to my superiors.”
Clint Barton had spared her and given her a family, his family. She’d be damned if she let the man go off on his own and get killed, leaving them behind to mourn. If the world ever wanted Clint Barton dead, it would have to go through her first.
And if the world ever wanted his family dead, not Hydra, not SHIELD, not even the devil himself would prevent her from burning it to the ground.