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Laura calls two days after Natasha finally feels settled with her place at New Avengers Facility.
“You should come,” she says, and Natasha’s known Laura long enough to recognize the difference between “you should come” and you should come.
“I need a week,” she tells Steve from behind the soundproof barrier of the plexiglass. He bobs his head up and down slowly, not taking his eyes off of the punches that Rhodey is throwing into thin air, the ones that Wanda is deflecting with spurts of red.
“Just a week?”
Natasha swallows, keeping her gaze trained in the same direction. “I don’t know,” she admits, because she really doesn’t. Steve nods again.
“Take a week, Romanoff,” he says later when he brings her coffee and a thick folder. Natasha looks up gratefully, knowing she doesn’t have to express the thank you written over her face in actual words.
Steve knows what it means to be needed somewhere.
She takes a regular jet to Iowa, procures the oldest of her aliases for the trip and smiles on her way through security (“Miranda” is on her way home from graduate school, traveling to her parents after finishing her first semester.) She spends a majority of the plane ride alternating between sleeping and staring out the window at the wisps of clouds and endless blue, a thrill that once intrigued her and now feels like an added layer of uncertainty, something that makes her skin crawl with displeasure. She had never wished for Thor or Tony’s ability to fly, had always preferred being grounded. But for someone who spent so much of their life on the run, it had been an escape once, to think about being above the ground.
Now, she knows she’s come too close to the sky to think that being in the air will ever feel something like a comfort again.
The journey upon landing is familiar enough, the perk of having done this a million and one times before: baggage claim, taxi, directions past town. When she pulls up at the edge of the road that she knows leads to the farm, she slips the driver an extra ten and makes the last leg of the trip on foot, dragging her bag behind her through the dirt.
Clint’s waiting for her at the door, leaning against the railing. His feet are bare and his shirt is open and when she gets close enough, she sees that there are new callouses over the pads of his thumbs and brown lining the skin underneath his fingernails.
“We made dinner,” he says as he ushers her inside, without bothering to formally say hello. “It’s beef stew night. And Lila’s been asking for you.”
***
If she’s being honest, there are few things Natasha likes better than being among the Barton clan; then again, there are few things that Natasha likes better than belonging when you feel you don’t belong anywhere.
“I have a wife,” Clint says to her the first time they’re alone at SHIELD. Natasha, in turn, almost drops her sandwich on the floor of his room.
“How long?” she asks after recovering both the sandwich and her bearings, a question that earns her a listless shrug.
“Awhile. Knew her before I came in, so don’t worry.” Clint grins widely. “It’s not like I pick up every girl I meet in this place.”
It would be one botched mission and two years after that Clint would finally bring her to Waverly, with Natasha choosing to hang back by the door while Clint hugged a woman and a child. Natasha had tried to reconcile those warm, overly paternal qualities with the man who stuck arrows in people’s eyes and was hardened in more ways than one, who had a sense of humor that included making jokes about death, and had done so with little success. She had been intently avoiding the apparent reunion that she felt she was intruding on, studying the patterns on the farmhouse wall, when a small hand put pressure on her knee.
“My daddy says you saved his life.”
He saved mine, is what she wants to respond, but the words get stuck in her throat as if she’s choking on them, and anyway, she somehow knows she can’t say those things to a three year old. Instead, she tries to smile, because the last time any child had willingly presented themselves to her, she had killed them without even thinking about it.
“Your dad…your daddy is very good at his job.”
Clint had looked up from Laura’s shoulder and smiled, and Natasha had dug one booted foot into the wooden floor.
***
Clint announces he’s going to the barn after dinner for target practice, and Natasha reads the inflection in his voice, wisely gives him space and opts to help Laura clean up the kitchen before Lila hijacks their conversation to ask about hair braiding. By the time Natasha does manage to slip outside, the sun is almost completely down and a light breeze is starting to wind its way through the property, pulling at the back of her hair.
She’ll give him credit for at least attempting to be truthful about where he was disappearing to -- the target stand is propped up against the far side of the barn and there are a handful of arrows scattered alongside it. He’s sitting on the floor next to them, a bottle of Patron –- the good stuff Natasha remembers from Fury’s office -– by his feet.
“You’ve had enough?” Natasha asks as he picks up the bottle and pours another half glass. Clint shakes his head.
“Nope. What are you going to do about it?”
Natasha sighs. “Nothing,” she admits, pushing a hand through her hair. “That would be stupid, wouldn’t it? To chastise you in your own house like you’re 24 and not 34?”
“I never said I could make good decisions,” he answers and Natasha grins wryly.
“Well, that I do know.” She pauses, giving her response a chance to sink in. “Laura called me. You know why I’m here?”
Clint swallows with effort. “Yeah. I know why.” He looks down at his feet, as if he’s suddenly noticing his actions for the first time. “You know, I promised myself I’d never drink around my kids. Not…well. Not after my dad.”
“You’re in a barn,” Natasha says pointedly. “Your kids are in bed. You’re not going to walk back into the house drunk, are you?”
He doesn’t answer and Natasha steps closer, until she’s right beside him.
“Are you?”
“No,” he responds and Natasha watches his face closely, the way the lines around his eyes scrunch and then flatten out.
“You’re not going to have Laura wake up and ask you why you smell like alcohol at one in the morning?”
“No,” he repeats a little more strongly, shoving the bottle away, as if trying to make a point. Natasha angles her jaw back and forth, running her eyes over his body.
“Then you’re okay.” She bends down and presses a kiss to the top of his head, gently massaging the short strands of hair, and hears the air leave his body as she starts to walk away.
“Natasha.”
She pivots on her heel halfway to the entrance of the barn and raises an eyebrow as he raises his glass.
“Budapest.”
Natasha blinks slowly, and there’s a stabbing pain inside her chest that suddenly won’t abate.
“You and I remember Budapest very differently.”
***
The first time Clint invites Natasha to the farm, she doesn’t want to come.
“You’re not busy, Romanoff,” Clint says the fourth time she refuses his invitation, blocking her on the way out of the gym. He’s got one hand up against the doorframe, his legs angled out in a spread eagle, and he looks decidedly irritated. “You’re just avoiding.”
“Yes,” Natasha replies bluntly, because she's really not in the mood to put up a wall. “I am avoiding. Because I don’t want to go to your farm, Barton.” She pushes past him easily, speed-walking down the corridor that leads to the elevator, but Clint, for all his bulky stature and muscle, is somehow faster.
“Why not?”
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Because,” she repeats shortly, reaching over his arm for the button. He lets her push it, she notices, but he also doesn’t move from where he’s still blocking her.
“Because you don’t want to or because you’re scared?”
Natasha arches her back, meeting his gaze head on. “It doesn’t matter.” Except the thing is, it does matter. It matters because Natasha doesn’t have a home except for the small room on the SHIELD helicarrier and another small room in the base facility, which she knows isn’t even her own -- it’s shared by at least four other agents who rotate their accommodations when the others are out of town.
“Just come with me this weekend,” he implores, and she sighs in frustration as his voice takes on a steep whine. “One weekend, that’s it. And then if you really hate it there, I’ll never ask you to do anything like this again. I won’t even mention my wife at all.”
“You never mention her anyway,” Natasha points out as she gets into the elevator. He shrugs and follows slowly, leaning against the wall as the door closes.
***
“He’s not okay,” Laura says when Natasha walks back into the house. She’s sitting on the couch with her legs up to her chest, twirling a strand of dark hair around one finger and there’s a book open next to her, but Natasha knows that she hasn’t even bothered to look at its contents.
“He is,” Natasha lies, because it’s not that she doesn’t think Laura won’t understand, it’s just not a conversation she wants to have at midnight. She sits down on the couch, trying to figure out how to put her thoughts into words that might be better understood than just saying he’s compromised. “The fight took a lot out of us. He needs some time to recover.”
Laura manages what looks like a forced smile. “You know, I totally support everything he does. I have since the first time he told me about this life. And I’m so proud of him, and the kids are so proud of him, but...” She stops, trailing off, and Natasha leans back, staring up at the ceiling.
“But you thought this time would be different.”
Laura swallows. “He’s done the mind control thing,” she continues after a moment. “I’ve patched up more injuries and paid for more physical therapy than I can remember. And I know what this was -- I knew the risks. But you’d think after all this time, it would get easier.”
Natasha feels her throat tighten, her mind hovering over the vision of light blue orbs. “It never gets easier,” she admits quietly. “You learn how to deal with the monsters and the magic and the things that make you unable to sleep at night. You push them away enough so that you can function. But sometimes you take hits that are hard to come back from, no matter how well adjusted you think you are.”
I had a dream that I was an Avenger. She finds Laura’s eyes and sees the unasked question in her gaze.
“You’re wondering why I’m not disappearing to the barn at late hours. Because you know I took a hit out there, too.”
Laura nods a little sadly in confirmation and Natasha sighs.
***
The bedroom across the hall from Clint and Laura’s looks the same as it did when Natasha had left it a few weeks ago: same blanket folded into the same patterned squares, same closet filled with the same clothing Natasha hasn’t bothered to move from the hangers, aside from the washes she knows Laura does when she’s away for too long. There’s a drawing sitting on her pillow, two stick figures with a large yellow sun with the words For Auntie Nat scrawled across the top; she picks it up with a small smile before putting it down gently and walking to the window, pressing a hand against the dusty glass.
Natasha squints into the darkness pressing in on the farm, the muted not-quite-dark-blue colors that spread their ink-stained fingertips along the expanse of otherwise smooth sky, until she zeroes in on the unmistakable figure of Clint walking out towards the house. She pins her gaze to his body, watching for any variation of unease, a misstep or a sway or a change in his gait that would imply he’s feeling anything less than normal.
He does stumble slightly as he walks up the porch, catching his foot on the loose plank of the bottom step, but Natasha’s pretty sure at this point the action is more out of tiredness than drunkenness. As she watches the door close behind him, she turns, shifting her senses to the hallway where she can hear him walking slowly up the stairs. Eventually satisfied with the sound of his feet steadily hitting against the wood floor, she finally lets herself relax, stretching out on the bed fully clothed until her eyes feel heavy enough to attempt sleep.
***
Natasha’s first meal at the farmhouse is baked beans and turkey, and although Laura says everyone eats in the kitchen, they sit outside on the porch on a worn cloth blanket.
It feels strangely domestic and not at all like anything she’s used to -- at SHIELD, she’s used to eating on her own or at the corner back table with Clint, if he’s available -- in the Red Room she was used to sharing a long mess hall table with other girls where the focus was less on eating and more on wondering if she would be alive to have her next meal at all. When she had been let go from the Red Room and was living on the streets in between assignments, she would steal scraps of leftover food from garbage cans or full meals from grocery stores.
“Laura cooked me baked beans on our second date,” Clint says, shifting as the child that had been formally introduced to Natasha as Cooper crawls into his lap and situates himself between his legs, running a small plastic truck across his jeans. “It’s kind of a thing.”
There’s a definite contrast between the man who she works with and the man who comes home to a simple life with his family in the middle of nowhere, and Natasha is realizing that at the farm, it’s all kind of a thing. The quilt on the bed she’s staying in is a thing, and the dart board in the kitchen is a thing, and the photos hanging on the walls are a thing, and it all feels strange and overwhelming, like she’s trying too hard to fit in somewhere that she knows she’ll never understand.
“I think I’m going to leave tomorrow,” she tells Clint after they’ve finished eating, and Clint frowns a little as he untangles his son from his legs.
“Why? Food was that bad?”
Natasha rolls her eyes, wrapping her arms across her chest, the sleeves of the too big sweatshirt she’s borrowed swimming over her wrists. “No. But I don’t belong here. I mean, I don’t belong anywhere...but trust me, I certainly don’t belong here.”
Clint continues to look a little confused. “You’re my partner, Romanoff. What’s mine is yours...and that doesn’t just mean my clothing. That means my family.” He offers a crooked smile, nodding towards Laura’s back. “Anyway, I think she likes you.”
“She doesn’t even know me,” Natasha counters, playing with her fork. The ends are too blunt to do any real damage, and sometimes she still has to catch herself when she realizes she’s thinking about things like that out of the blue. Clint shrugs.
“She will. She’s got a knack for reading people. Could see through Barney’s whole thing when I brought him here a few years ago.”
Natasha looks up and watches Laura through the window where she can see her cleaning dishes, up to her arms in soapy water the way Natasha remembers she would be after washing her hands of her roommate’s blood.
***
“So. You and Banner.” The next morning, Clint is leaning over Nathaniel’s crib and Natasha raises an eyebrow.
“What about me and Banner?”
Clint shrugs, running his fingers over the baby’s cheek. “You’re a thing. Laura said so.”
“No,” Natasha says, shoving a small top into the drawer with a little too much force. “We were never a thing. It was…it was stupid. It was me thinking I could be a little normal for once.” Clint shoots her a look and she sighs. “I saw something in him, I guess. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
“That’s all?”
Natasha clenches her teeth until her jaw hurts. “That’s all.” She watches as Clint reaches into the crib and picks up the baby, placing it on his shoulder.
“Could’ve been ‘Natasha’,” he is all he says in response and she makes a face.
“I never thought you’d have three kids.”
“I never thought I’d have any kids.”
***
Against her better wishes, Natasha ends up returning to the farm less than a month after her first visit because Clint breaks his wrist and Fury gets so annoyed with his restlessness that he institutes a mandatory week-long vacation -- mostly so (Natasha thinks) he doesn’t have to deal with her partner’s whining.
“The kids are going to love me,” Clint mutters as they walk up the steps of the farmhouse. “Usually, I’m gone for months at a time.”
“What do you tell them?” Natasha asks curiously as he digs into his pocket for a key. “Especially, you know…” She gestures towards his arm; his coat sleeve is covering the cast he’s wearing but she knows he can’t keep his injury hidden forever. She had never had the luxury of casts; all of her bones had been shoved back into place without any help. Weak girls, sloppy girls -- they didn’t make it in the Red Room.
“Ah.” Clint smiles, but Natasha notices it looks a little halfhearted. “Well, the kids don’t notice anything out of the ordinary.” He sticks the key into the lock. “So long as daddy can still, you know, read a book or something, they don’t really care. I’ll worry about it when they’re older.”
“What about…” Natasha pauses as Clint starts to turn the knob on the door and he freezes, his face changing just enough.
“Laura? She’s uh...she’s used to it, I guess. Perk of the job. You just get used to it.”
Natasha had gotten used to it once, the “perks of the job” -- the lying and killing and the unfeeling. She wishes now that she hadn’t, and hugs her arms a little tighter to her chest as Clint pushes open the door. It’s her second time here, but it’s the only place familiar to her besides SHIELD headquarters, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that realization.
“Honey? I’m home.”
***
After Natasha has showered, while Laura takes the kids outside, she locks herself in her room and opens a few files that she’s taken from Steve, running her eyes over the papers before she realizes she’s not really taking in any of the information.
“You and I remember Budapest very differently.”
It had started as a joke, a testament to how far their relationship had evolved, because of course Clint would choose to make fun of a situation where they almost died, and of course Natasha would choose to hold tight to something that, over time, became a defining moment in her life. Throughout the years, the statement had wound its way from situational fact to something that defined them -- if they were okay, if they were on the same page, if they needed help. Budapest was a code within a code that only they knew the enormity of, and they either were mutually in agreement with its meaning or not.
Natasha tosses the papers aside, tying back what she can of her hair before making her way down the steps. Clint’s working on the floorboards in the front hall, pulling at the planks until the browned wood comes loose with a groan.
“Clint.”
He doesn’t look up, his eyes fixated on the ground, his mouth firm in concentration, and Natasha frowns. The night in the barn had been an anomaly, or so she had thought, and in any case it’s been awhile since he’s used the silent treatment as an outright form of being upset.
“Clint.” She raises her voice, craning her neck so she can see him better, and then walks across the room, dropping down to her knees beside him.
“Hey,” she says, her voice close to his head and he jerks a little bit, his shoulders flinching. Natasha furrows her brow. “Hey, you wanna help me figure out some of the stuff in these files that I brought?”
She sees the look that passes through Clint’s eyes as she asks the question, the fear and the plea not to press anything further, and when he nods, she gets up without finishing the conversation.
***
Natasha lets him off the hook through dinner and the rest of the night, largely because she knows better, and then tries to corner him after Laura puts the kids to bed. But Lila wants a story and Cooper isn’t tired and Natasha ends up retreating to the bedroom earlier than she’s planned, only half surprised when she walks out of the bathroom and finds Clint sitting on the bed.
He’s hunched over uncharacteristically, his palms clasped behind the back of his neck, and she recognizes the fatigue plaguing his muscles; it’s the same position she’s often seen him assume when they’ve returned from an assignment or had a particularly taxing mission. Natasha shuts off the bathroom light and walks over to the bed, picking up the folder she’s left on the pillow.
“When?”
A few beats of silence pass before he responds. “A few days after I came back. They think it’s from the explosions in Sokovia...just enough to shatter part of my eardrum. Fury has the reports.”
Natasha lets out a slow breath, counting the seconds of the exhale in her head. “And you haven’t told her.”
Clint raises his head, staring directly at the wall. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Natasha asks, keeping her voice gentle as she sits next to him. Clint twists his fingers together.
“Because I promised her I’d come back.”
“You did come back,” Natasha assesses, and Clint shakes his head.
“But I didn’t. Not the way she wanted me to, anyway.” He shifts, allowing her more space. “The first time I did this, I came back with PTSD. Like a walking nightmare. Now I’ve lost half my hearing.” He barks out a quiet laugh. “I’m like the poster boy for the worst things in this life.”
“And I’m the poster girl,” Natasha adds matter-of-factly. “I know your scars, Clint. They don’t make you any less of a person. And you know that you could have been a lot worse off if –”
“If,” Clint interrupts a little too sharply. “Can we not go there tonight? Please, Nat?”
Natasha blinks a few times and then nods. “Fine,” she relents, rocking to her feet. “But you should at least go to bed. Laura already knows something’s up.” Before she can move forward, one hand shoots out, fingers interlocking into her own.
“Stay?”
Natasha gives him a look. “Clint.”
“Come on,” he presses. “I just really need someone that gets it. That’s why you came, right?”
Natasha bites down on her lip, willing her emotions to stay below the surface, not that she had ever been good at hiding them around him, anyway.
You and I remember Budapest very differently.
“I’ll stay. But not here.”
She grabs a blanket from the bed and walks out of the room, down the stairs, striding through the living room and yanking open the front door. Clint follows slowly and she waits until he’s joined her outside before she closes the door behind her with a soft click.
She continues walking until she reaches the barn, ducking inside, her senses immediately assaulted by the mustiness she’s never truly gotten used to. Spreading the blanket on the ground, she stretches out with her legs out in front of her, and he joins her, pressing himself into her side. Natasha feels him relax instantly as their skin touches, recognizes the loss of tension as he unwinds and shifts slightly out of instinct, causing her hipbone to jut into his side.
“Sorry,” she apologizes quietly, her eyes darting towards the spot where she knows his injury is. Clint shakes his head, lifting up his shirt.
“Not your fault.” He takes her hand and guides it to his torso, using her finger to poke at it gently. “Doesn’t really hurt, see? Just sometimes gets a little tingly.”
Natasha lets her hand fall away. There’s barely a trace of a scar, but she can’t shake the feeling that something feels off.
“Laura said she could tell the difference,” Clint says as if reading her mind and Natasha nods.
“So can I.”
***
Natasha manages to keep her distance from Clint’s domesticated world until her fourth visit, when, upon trying to open a can of coffee, she accidentally runs her finger underneath the sharp metal tin and slices open the underside of her pointer finger.
She curses loudly before catching herself -- she’s not used to watching her mouth and she’s also not used to being so vulnerable with her reactions, but the injury catches her so off guard that she finds herself completely out of her element.
It fit, in a way. She always felt out of her element when he brought her here, to this place that was so much his, that he kept trying to make hers.
“Natasha?” Laura’s voice sounds concerned, far away and then a little closer as she walks into the kitchen. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Natasha lies, steadying her voice, ignoring the throbbing cut and the blood on her hand. Compared to everything else she’s endured in her life, it might as well be a bruise. “Just hurt myself by accident. If you have a band-aid or something, that’ll be okay.” Natasha avoids Laura’s gaze as she stops in front of her, offering out a ratty dishtowel.
“Here,” she says as Natasha wraps the cloth around her finger. “And I can get you a bandage, but I think I have something better.”
Natasha looks up curiously, squeezing her finger harder as blood oozes out of the sliced skin, watching as Laura reaches for the cupboard and removes a large bottle.
“Sapphire Bombay,” she says a little thoughtfully, staring at the alcohol before twisting the top off. “I bought this the day after Clint left for his very first mission. I thought I’d down the whole thing in one day because I wouldn’t be able to handle being worried about whether or not he’d come back alive.” She pours herself half a glass and holds it out. “Believe it or not, I haven’t actually used it much. But I still bring it out when I need it.”
Natasha hesitates for a moment before taking the cup in her good hand. “Thank you,” she says carefully, keeping her tone neutral. Laura smiles.
“You know, you’re not the first person Clint’s brought to my door.” Laura raises an eyebrow as she pours her own glass. “But you might be the last.”
Natasha takes another sip of her alcohol, feeling the confusion shadow her face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve never seen him act this way around anyone that wasn’t a family member.” She shrugs. “Clint likes to help people. It’s one of his more endearing qualities...we kept his brother here for awhile when he needed a place to regroup. But as far as I know, you’re the first person he’s willingly tried to introduce this life to.”
Natasha puts her glass down as Laura hands her a bandage. “I don’t understand,” she says finally, applying the large band-aid to her cut. “I’m like a charge to him. I’m not even a friend. I’m just his co-worker. He thinks he owes me all these things in my life, just because I had a bad one.”
“You’ll find he’s like that,” Laura says, sinking down into a chair. “If he cares about you, he’ll be loyal to you no matter what. He’ll see you through all your worst moments.” There’s a cautious tone hidden in her voice, one that Natasha latches on to, and she finds herself mesmerized; she would never give up so much information about a person no matter how comfortable she felt, because doing so could mean death, or worse.
“What did you do?” Natasha finds herself asking suddenly. “Before you got married, I mean.”
Laura looks a little taken aback at the question, so much so that Natasha's instinct to read people makes her wonder if she'll even be truthful about her answer.
"I was an analyst,” she replies after a long pause. “It’s what I went to school for. I had a pretty well-paying job in DC, but I lost it after a few years and sort of got on the world’s radar in a bad way...had a bad relationship, ended up in a bad place.” She runs her finger over the rim of the glass. “So I came home, because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Started a waitress gig here in Iowa to make money, and he walked in one day during my overnight shift. I guess he thought there was more I could be doing than working in a diner.” Laura's face take on a look that seems slightly too personal for Natasha's liking and she busies herself by taking another long sip of her drink.
“Anyway, that was then. We started dating and when we became serious, he got me a job at SHIELD. I worked there for a few years, in their special ops department, before I got pregnant. No one knew about us, though.”
“You were in SHIELD?” Natasha knows she can’t help the surprise coloring her voice. “He never told me that.”
"For a bit.” Laura smiles. “I never did anything like you do, though. My work was all expense reports and calculators and coffee. Though, I know Clint does like his coffee.”
“He does,” Natasha echoes, staring at Laura’s hands. She can almost see it: long, thin fingers attached to the computers in the bowels of SHIELD’s offices, the people she had initially snubbed because she didn’t think anyone would willingly choose a life so mundane.
And there’s something strangely comforting, she realizes, about sitting in a child-proof house and drinking expensive gin with the other woman in her partner’s life, the woman who Natasha knows is everything she can never be.
***
There’s no word for it really -- the distancing, the pull-back that comes after. Natasha knows that, and she feels that Laura has know that or at least understand it, which is why she doesn’t bother to press the silence that takes up residence between them.
“You know I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t need you,” Laura says as she leans over the porch railing, watching Clint descend into the barn. “If he didn’t need you.”
Natasha nods. “I know,” she agrees, taking a small sip of coffee from the chipped mug and rubbing her thumb against the ceramic, because it’s not about being needed or even wanted. It's about re-establishing something that can only be cemented by trust. “It’s not something that can be fixed easily, though.”
“But it can be fixed.” Laura turns and Natasha smiles a little sadly, thinking of Clint’s hearing, of Pietro, of the things she wants to say out loud but can’t.
“I’m not sure,” she says slowly. “And I don’t want to lie to you about it.”
“I don’t want you to lie,” Laura responds a little tiredly. “I just want him to be okay.”
“He’s human,” Natasha says instantly, because she can’t help herself. “Just like me. He might never be okay. But at some point, he will be better.” She reaches forward and puts her hand on top of Laura’s palm. “When did you know?”
“That something was wrong?” Laura barks out a laugh. “Maybe about a week or two ago. I didn’t want to call you right away, but I know he’d never say anything. He’s too stubborn.”
“Yeah,” Natasha says, looking out at the landscape. She thinks of Budapest, and she thinks of standing on the other edge of a bow, an arrow pointed directly at the center of her forehead. “Yeah, he is.”
“He talked about it, a little,” Laura offers. “The Maximoff kid. He talked about it when he got back.”
Natasha swallows down a lump in her throat that lands directly in her stomach, like an anvil taking up residence in her insides. “What did he say?”
Laura shrugs. “He told me what happened. How he saved his life...how him and his sister eventually came around. But not much else.” She looks over at Natasha. “Was there anything else?”
Natasha takes a breath. “Not really,” she answers, leaning over the railing, watching the sun set behind the barn.
***
Natasha drives into town two afternoons later with Clint next to her, steering the truck onto the dirt roads that lead out of the farm.
“So you haven’t told her,” Clint says as she leans forward, squinting at the windshield through dead bugs and a dusty film. The words sound cautious and hesitant, as if he’s afraid of the answer, and Natasha shakes her head.
“No,” she answers. “You know I haven’t.”
“Because you’re loyal to her,” Clint says a little bitterly, as if he’s offended by the response and Natasha rolls her eyes.
“Because I’m loyal to you. You’re my partner, you’re my best friend, and I thought we established that we don’t just abuse each other’s trust like that.”
Clint leans back against the seat, folding his arms. “Yeah. I know.”
“Besides, your marriage has survived other things,” she points out, twisting the wheel to avoid a deep pothole. “You guys have worked through issues before. Why is this one setback such a problem?”
Clint turns his head and stares out the window, resting his forehead against the glass. “Something Laura said to me,” he says slowly. “When we were here, before we went back to Sokovia. About how the guys were a mess, and how everyone seemed to be stuck in their own heads. But me...I was different. I was grounded. And people -- my team -- they needed me.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, there’s an uncharacteristic edge creeping into his voice, a hysteria he can’t seem to control. “And she was right, wasn’t she? They needed me. And what if they keep needing me, and what if I can never get that back?”
“But you can be compromised and still be worth something,” Natasha says, her mind flashing on Bruce before she blinks the image away. “This stuff doesn’t make you weak. I know you know that.”
Clint closes his eyes. “You know that I do.”
“Okay, so let’s try again,” Natasha says, attempting to keep the argumentative tone out of her voice. “Why is this so hard to accept?”
“Because I don’t want to do that to my kids,” he bursts out suddenly. “Okay? You know I got shuttled around to all the foster places. No one wants you when you’re damaged. They give you up. And I don’t want to be that person for my kids, I don’t want to be that person for Laura, she’s already seen me damaged enough for both of us.”
Natasha hears the change in his voice, the rapid pace in which his inflection turns from controlled to hyper aware, and she jerks the steering wheel, pulling onto the side of the road, killing the engine before twisting around in her seat.
“Clint.”
He leans back again and she can see the rise and fall of his chest as he tries to catch his breath, recognizing the beginnings of his body starting to unravel.
“Clint.”
He doesn’t respond and she leans over, grabbing his chin with two fingers, turning his head towards her and forcing him to meet her eyes. He breathes out once, and she does so in tandem, willing him to align himself with her the way she knows he’s used to doing.
“He died.”
“I know,” Natasha says, because she can recognize this is what he needs -- someone who understands, who was there, who won’t ask questions about why or how or press him for answers, someone who will understand why the sacrifices of this job always hurt.
“His sister’s fighting now. For us. For him.”
“I know,” Natasha repeats. Clint blinks rapidly.
“I want to help her, but I can’t bring him back.”
She doesn’t know what else to say and so she lets his head fall forward until it hits her shoulder, his face shuddering against her skin as the cars speed past them.
***
“Do you like tomatoes?” Laura asks during one longer visit, while Natasha is sitting on the couch pretending to be somewhat interested in a home design television show.
“What?” She looks up, finding Laura’s face in her line of sight, and fights the urge to look away. Clint being open with her was one thing; his wife was another altogether.
“Tomatoes,” Laura repeats simply, unfazed at Natasha's response. “I was going to put them in the salad, but I wasn’t sure --”
“They’re fine,” Natasha replies quickly, feeling entirely too on-the-spot despite the seemingly simple question. When Laura doesn’t move, she adds a brief smile. “Thanks.”
Laura walks away and Natasha sits for a few more moments before she gets up, walking slowly to the kitchen.
“You don’t need help or anything, do you?”
Laura twists her head, whipping dark brown hair back from her face. “I’m all set. I appreciate the offer, though.”
Natasha nods, knocking her nails against the table. She knows Clint’s gone out and considers heading back upstairs, mostly to get away from any awkward conversation because there are things about this farm -- this situation -- that still make her feel like she’s trying to figure out where she belongs.
Start with something to build the thread, Clint had suggested earlier that morning after a breakfast that had left Natasha feeling a bit cold. She wants to get to know you. She just doesn’t want to feel like she’s trying to force you to talk to her.
“Laura was my name,” Natasha says. “One of my covers, at some point.” She’s unsure why she’s feeling so open even though she knows nothing about her life is so much a secret anymore, it’s all there in files and folders, the endgame of the deal she had made when she joined SHIELD.
Laura turns around again. “A few years ago, we were talking about baby names. We decided on Lila, but he said Laura felt familiar.” She settles on Natasha’s gaze. “That it reminded him of someone else he knew, who deserved a good life.”
Natasha’s mouth suddenly goes dry and Laura wipes her hands on her pants before closing the distance between them. Instantly, Natasha wonders if more of her life has been spread between Clint and his wife than she's realized, and the longer she considers it, the more she thinks that it might not be the worst thing in the world, to have someone else on her side, however unknowingly.
“How long have you been Natasha?” Laura asks and sometimes Natasha has to remind herself that even though Laura never moved beyond paperwork at SHIELD, there were likely things about Clint’s life that didn’t quite come as a shock. She swallows.
“Over ten years,” she says softly, keeping the fractures out of her voice. “He gave me the option to choose who I wanted to be.”
Laura reaches for Natasha’s hand.
***
They end up in a coffee shop that’s less than crowded, with Natasha buying Clint’s cup before sliding into the booth across from him.
“How long are you staying?” he asks as he spoons sugar into his mug, and she has a feeling they’re going to conveniently end up dancing around his breakdown as if nothing’s wrong, the way they used to once upon a time.
“However long I need to,” Natasha answers. “And however long you need me.” She doesn’t say the rest, the fact that she’ll never really leave him, not really, not even when she goes back to New York, but she knows he knows that. There was needing someone, and then there was needing someone. The fact that one of them could be vulnerable enough at any one time to need someone was rare enough that they tended to take it seriously.
“The longer you stay, the longer the kids are gonna have a hard time when you leave,” he says. Natasha pushes her napkin across the table, leaning back in her chair.
“Yeah, well. Auntie Nat only has so many hours in the day to teach people how to fight on the school grounds.” She pokes at his arm. “Their dad has to find time to teach them, too.”
“Their dad is too busy showing them how to shoot arrows,” Clint says just as pointedly. Natasha kicks him under the table. “Pretend arrows.”
“You can’t defend yourself in public with arrows, smartass.”
“Then I’ll come to you when they get thrown out of school for unruly behavior.”
“And then I’ll find out that you’ve been thrown out of the house because you let your children play with weapons.”
“Then I’ll come live with you.”
“You wish.”
It’s banter Natasha can match easily, a comfortable ease, things they can joke about now that they’re used to each other’s lives. It’s enough to make Natasha forget that there was a time she actually did wish, and she had never wanted to be close to anyone until Clint, until someone made her feel safe enough to consider it a possibility.
***
Laura’s waiting in the kitchen when they return and Natasha has half a mind to force Clint into a conversation right then and there, despite the fact that she knows she never could. He seems to read her mind, though, heading upstairs after pausing to give Laura a quick kiss and Natasha wisely lingers by the couch. When she sees Laura start to follow, she backs towards the door again.
She heads outside and walks down the steps, stopping halfway down the path until she’s put a good distance between herself and the house. It’s quiet mostly, she can hear a few birds as they fly overhead but not much else and it calms her, reminds her of the first time she took a moment to herself here, the first time she realized she could get used to being removed from the rest of the world.
Natasha closes her eyes.
***
Laura sends them off when it’s still dark out, but doesn’t forget to pack them with the essentials -- sandwiches for Clint, bread rolls from the bakery for Natasha -- and Natasha waits until they’ve driven at least twenty minutes to ask the question that’s been sitting on her mind since they left the farm.
“What’s up?” Clint asks, giving her a sideways glance, and Natasha knows he’s read the look on her face. Even so, she debates whether or not to say the words out loud.
“You told her I love you,” she says finally, and Clint looks a little surprised, but nods.
“Yeah. I did.” He knits his eyebrows together. “Is that a problem?”
Natasha looks away. “No, it’s just…” She takes a breath. “It’s just that you’d never say that to me.”
Clint’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, the knuckles of his hands turning white. “No,” he agrees. “I guess I wouldn’t. But you know that I can’t.”
Natasha nods, because she knows he’s right. I love you is reserved for normal relationships: relationships that start with wine and first dates and french kisses. I love you isn’t for spies and partners, for people who measure their lives by bullet wounds and scars, who constantly live in a world where you never know what breath will be your last.
Because she loves Clint, and she knows Clint loves her. But I love you was final, and it was simple, and it was reserved for Laura. Don’t die out there was casual, and it was less formal, and it was reserved for Natasha, or for Clint, depending on who was suiting up for the day. It’s one more distinction that Natasha knows will forever separate the two women Clint’s chosen to include in the most important parts of his life.
“Hey,” she says two days later when they’re back in New York and he’s preparing for an assignment with Sitwell that will take him off the grid for at least a week. “Don’t die out there, okay?” (She’ll text him later the same thing, just to be sure, only his response then will be to send an eye roll emoticon.) Clint gives a lazy salute and then walks forward to kiss her gently on the forehead.
“Can I get a least get a bullet wound, then?”
“Not if it requires stitches.”
“What about a concussion?”
“I’ll concuss you myself,” Natasha replies, and Clint smiles.
“Then I guess I’ll try my hardest not to die.”
***
It’s slipping into early evening when Natasha finally makes her way back into the house and the first thing she notices is the silence. Nathaniel is probably asleep, she theorizes, but the absence of any kind of additional sound makes her wonder if Clint’s taken the other kids out. The second thing she notices is Laura sitting alone at the kitchen table, a large bottle positioned just out of reach, a half-filled cup at her elbow.
“Sapphire Bombay,” Natasha says as she sits down, giving Laura a sideways glance as she shakes her hair out. “You only drink that when you have a really bad cut, right?”
Laura laughs, a sound that Natasha notices doesn’t seem to match the expression on her face. “Does that mean you want some?"
"Have I ever been known to turn down a drink from you?" Natasha asks lightly, taking the bottle. Laura doesn't quite smile back.
"He told me,” she says finally. “About his hearing.” Natasha hears the way her voice is straddling somewhere between nonchalant and unsettled, and she puts her hand on her arm.
“He was afraid,” Natasha explains, though the words feel forced, like she’s trying to convince her of a lie. “I think he was afraid that you would see him as weak. That the kids would see him as weak”
“Because of his past,” Laura says a little sadly, looking past Natasha and into the distance. “He always felt like he had to prove himself, even though I told him every day that he was enough.”
“I know,” Natasha says, and maybe, she thinks, maybe one day she’ll find a way to tell Laura about New York, and she’ll tell her about the hours she spent in a locked bedroom with no lights reminding Clint after every nightmare, “you’re enough -- you’re enough and you always will be.” A safehouse was how she had explained it back then; that’s what she had used to refer to the fact that she harbored him in one of her old apartments when he felt too dangerous to be around his family. She hadn’t mentioned anything more of his recovery, and whether it was out of respect or trust, Laura had never asked. It was a relationship that Natasha was comfortable with: Laura trusted Natasha enough to know she could put her husband back together in ways that she couldn’t, and Natasha trusted Laura enough to know that if she had to leave Clint for weeks on end, he would be taken care of in a way no one else would bother to understand.
“I’m not mad that he didn’t tell me,” Laura says as she picks up her glass. “But I hate that he still feels like he has to do things this way.”
Natasha leans forward onto her elbows. “When we came back to the farm, that day he brought us in. After Ultron’s...attack.” It feels strange to call it an attack because sometimes, when she thinks about it, it feels more like a violation. “My...my vision…” She stops again, trying to figure out how to phrase her words in a way that might make sense. “I was reminded of my life before I met Clint. Of the person they made me -- of the person that I was forced to be because I didn’t have another choice.” When Laura meets her eyes, Natasha can see a thin film glazing over her pupils.
“There are things Clint has never told you...about me,” Natasha continues. “The same way there are things I know he’s never told me about you.”
Laura nods. “But that’s not the only thing, is it?”
Natasha shakes her head. “He feels guilty about the Maximoff kid,” she says slowly. “He’s worried about his sister, but he doesn’t want to go to her...I think, in a way, it makes him feel the way he felt when his own parents abandoned him. Like he can’t do anything that will make it up to her. Even though it wasn’t his fault.”
Laura picks up her glass again, swirling the liquid around. “You know, it’s funny. Clint’s always been the most competent person I know. Even when he hasn’t been okay, he’s been stable enough to not be a mess. And when I worked at SHIELD, I saw enough people who were messes.”
You should’ve seen me, Natasha thinks as she threads her hands through her hair.
“That’s the thing about this world, you know. Sometimes, the most competent people are the ones who hide things the best.”
***
They’re three weeks into chasing down a lead on a large amount of illegal weapon acquisitions when Clint suddenly announces that he won’t be going with her on their next assignment, and that she’ll be teaming with one of the newly minted agents instead.
“You just got back,” she argues, after cornering him in the bedroom of his Brooklyn apartment. “And this is the first time we’ve gotten a lead together in at least a month. Now you’re going to leave me with some inexperienced agent?”
“He may be inexperienced, but he’s decent,” Clint replies with a shrug. “I should know, I helped train him. Besides, it’s just one trip. I’ll be back within 48 hours and I bet you won’t even miss me.”
“Negative. He’ll probably make idiot jokes that he actually thinks are worth laughing at. With you, I just know you’re never that funny.”
“Ouch, Nat.” He picks up a freshly washed shirt and tosses it at her head. “Way to hit where it hurts.”
Natasha rolls her eyes, not bothering to pick up the offending item of clothing as it falls to the floor. “You’re not even going to tell me where you’re going?”
Clint shrugs. “The farm. Like I said, I’ll be back in a few days.”
“And you’re not taking me?” It’s meant to come out more curiously, but instead, she finds the tone of her words reflecting the hurt she feels. As much as it had become almost annoying to have Clint assume she would want to come home with him every time he left SHIELD, it also was a kind of comfort, a feeling of knowing someone else wanted her around, that they didn’t think she was a killer or a monster. And Natasha would be lying if she couldn't admit that over the years, it had become a staple that she had clung to, even if it was a life that could never be wholly hers in the same way that it was his.
“It’s just for two days,” Clint says apologetically, looking up. “Maybe less. Besides, we’ve got that assignment.”
“I’ve got that assignment,” Natasha corrects. “You apparently get free reign to leave me whenever you want.”
Clint sighs, taking out a large duffel from his closet. “Let it go, Nat. I’ll bring you next time, I promise. The kids might kill me if I don’t.”
She doesn’t respond and instead watches him pack from across the room, the way she once did when she was hurting and wounded, but scared to make a move around the person who had saved her life.
***
When Natasha walks outside the next morning, she finds Clint sitting on the front steps in a pair of patched up, dirt-covered jeans. He’s holding a mug between two palms but doesn’t seem to be drinking from it, instead staring out at the open lawn in the same way she’s seen him fixate on his favorite television programs.
“You’re thinking about leaving,” Natasha says quietly as she sits down next to him, pulling her legs up, because she doesn’t have to wonder where his mind is. Clint winces, but doesn’t respond.
“It’s a terrible thought.”
“No,” Natasha says, following his gaze. “It’s a logical thought.” At her words, Clint does shift his eyes.
“Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to.”
“Because I never had a family to worry about giving up,” Natasha answers. “Not like this. But it doesn’t mean that I haven’t watched people I care about die because of things I’ve done in my past.” She swallows, thinking of Yelena. “It doesn’t mean that the people who have been involved in my life haven’t suffered at my expense.”
Clint sighs, his breaths causing ripples to skim along the film of his coffee. “You know, this is why I’ve always kept them off the grid. Except for you...but for a while, I was able to feel like I had this under control.”
“For a while,” Natasha echoes, thinking of Loki. It had been the first time since their relationship began that she’d seen him seriously consider going underground, to the point where she was worried he actually would if she wasn’t with him. “Ultron’s gone. Hydra’s gone.”
“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” Clint stretches his neck forward, angling his head towards the sky. “If not Ultron, if it’s not Hydra, it’s going to be another thing. Whatever Thor said about those stones...these new enhanced people popping up everywhere. How do we know someone’s not going to come and blast my family away while we’re in the middle of eating dinner?"
“You don’t,” Natasha admits, keeping her voice low.
“How do I know I’m not going to be forced to pick up a gun and shoot people to death in the living room while my own kids are reading a book and playing board games?” Clint continues, as if he hasn’t even heard her response. “I was so stupid. I brought everyone here when we could’ve been attacked. I knew we needed a safehouse, but what if someone had come, and what if I had been forced to be that person around my family?”
“You’re not a killer,” Natasha responds carefully even though she knows it’s a lie. Even if she’d never told Clint what happened when he was on the helicarrier, she knows there’s no going back from a life where you take people down for a living. Once you put a bullet or an arrow in someone’s head, whether they deserved it or not, you reach a status you’re incapable of coming back from.
“Maybe not,” he counters. “But sometimes it’s hard to be this…” He trails off, looking out at the grass again. “While knowing that I’ve always been something else.”
“Do you want to leave?” Natasha asks evenly and Clint finally moves his coffee cup closer to his mouth.
“I want them to be safe,” he answers and she shakes her head.
“That’s not an answer.”
He lets out a small laugh and then puts the mug on top of his knee. “I want to leave,” he says after a long moment. “But I don’t think I ever can.”
***
“Do you believe in forgiveness?” Laura asks at five in the morning while they’re sitting on the porch swing because neither of them can sleep, though Natasha knows the insomnia comes from different reasons. She feels her stomach start to churn.
“I…” she trails off, watching the sky brighten with orange and red hues. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean, do you believe that you should forgive people even when they hurt you, because the reason they do the things that hurt is because they’re trying to protect you?”
Natasha nods. “Yes,” she answers and Laura brings her legs to her chest.
“He asked me that question after he met you. He sat right here with me in this same spot and asked if I believed in forgiveness.”
“What did you tell him?” Natasha asks, though she has a feeling she already knows the answer. Laura lets her lips turn up slightly.
“I told him that humans are, by nature, predisposed to second chances.” Her fingers dance along the armrest, a delicate and silent frolic. “But only the ones who care enough will give them to you.”
***
Natasha thinks about calling ahead but has a sneaking suspicion that Laura will brush her off, so she doesn’t bother and instead decides to throw caution to the wind and show up without any notice.
She heads straight to the barn when she arrives, putting her things in the corner near the old tools, before mentally preparing to pull herself together. She knows at least she doesn’t have to tell Laura anything, that had been the perk having Fury make the call she wanted to avoid. But she’s fighting jet lag across three different countries and the lingering unknown of the situation is, by itself, exhausting. She’s sore, she’s frustrated and she’s got hidden bruises in places she doesn’t want to think of, a side effect of healing but not being quite fully healed, and it’s all beginning to take its toll.
“Natasha?”
She’s not prepared for the voice, strained and wobbly, to pull her out of her thoughts and turns abruptly, her eyes lingering on eyes lined with red, stuffed up skin bunching underneath.
“I’m sorry,” Natasha apologizes, thinking suddenly she should be remorseful for so much more than showing up unannounced. “I would have called, but—”
“But you figured I’d tell you not to bother making the trip,” says Laura, sitting down on a rusty bench. Natasha looks at her forlornly.
“Honestly, yes.”
Laura plays with her fingers, glancing up. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m a mess.”
“Look at who you’re talking to,” Natasha responds, letting her voice soften when she sees Laura’s face. “He would’ve wanted me to be here.”
Laura makes a noise in the back of her throat. “He would have.” She swallows. “Is there…do you have anything?”
How bad is it? Natasha wants to answer and it hurts that she can’t, because she wants to be able to tell Laura the same thing that she’s been telling herself -- she wants to believe the same thing that she’s been telling Fury and anyone else who dares to tell her otherwise – it can and will be okay, because it has to be.
“He shot a number of agents when he escaped the compound, but he didn’t shoot to kill. Fury assessed the attacks, including his own, and they were deliberately off mark. Which means he’s trying to fight it…or he was.” She takes a steadying breath. “We think the guy – Loki – the person that took him, we think he’s keeping him under some lock and key and using him to his advantage. Mostly his mind, because of what he knows about us and SHIELD. But probably also his skills.”
“They told me they were getting a team together,” Laura says, a modicum of hope taking up residence in her voice. “Are they?”
Natasha nods. “Yes. I’m leaving from here to go to Kolkata. There’s a person there that I know, that can help us with the research that we need to find him.”
Laura doesn’t respond for what Natasha thinks is far too long, and when she does, Natasha can hear the cracks starting to widen.
“You know, I always thought I’d get a call.” Laura waves her hand around. “And it would be that he’d done something stupid and walked into a danger zone. Or that his quinjet had been shot out of the sky by some sniper. I never expected to be told that he’d been brainwashed and kidnapped by…by an alien.” She drags a palm across her face; it looks strangely bare in the dim light of the barn but Natasha can see the faint tear streaks when Laura moves her fingers away.
“I will fight for him,” Natasha promises, sitting down fully. She grabs Laura’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “I won’t stop until I get him back. Even if it kills me.”
Laura puts her head down. “Most people can’t promise that.”
“I’m not most people,” Natasha responds, her voice as firm as she can make it. “I’m his partner. And I’m telling you that he’s going to come home.”
***
Natasha grabs a small bag from under her bed and slips out of the house, hesitating when she reaches the door to the barn; she can hear the sharp twang of a bow release that means Clint’s practicing which is at least something, and it causes her to think better of her decision. She works her way around to the back instead, angling her small body through a door in the side where she can maneuver in easily, coming up catty-corner to where he’s positioned himself before slinking back into the shadows.
He’s not using the target stand she knows he keeps for this purpose, instead choosing to aim his arrows at small chalk markings on the barn wall. Natasha watches in silence as his back muscles tense and then release, the breaths cycling through his body in comfortable waves, and she knows that he has to know she’s here, even if he won’t say anything.
“How’s my form?” Clint finally asks after he’s released another arrow, his voice level. He doesn’t turn around and Natasha frowns, stepping out from behind the tractor.
“It’s not terrible,” she replies just as levelly. “But I’m wondering if it’s hiding somewhere, along with the rest of my best friend.”
Clint twirls around on his heel and Natasha raises a brow. “Laura –-”
“Talked to me,” Natasha finishes. “She’s upset, but she’ll work through it. How are you?”
“I’m…” Clint trails off and Natasha knows what he wants to say. Fine won’t really cut it and not fine would also be a lie since he’s not completely on the verge of a breakdown. But he’s shooting blindly to keep himself occupied and he’s avoiding being around his family and Natasha’s well aware of what all those combined responses mean.
“You’ve been better,” Natasha fills in and Clint lets his arm fall limply by his side, his bow knocking into his legs. Natasha sits down on the floor cross-legged, putting a palm in the open space next to her and Clint follows after another moment, joining her on the ground.
“Just like old times.”
“Except there’s no moon,” Clint says moodily. “No rooftop. And no wine.”
Natasha smiles and reaches into the bag she’s carried into the barn, producing a full bottle of red. “I can’t help with the rooftop or moon parts, though,” she says as she twists off the top. The smile that responds is so achingly forced that Natasha wants to grab him right then and there and beat his emotions out of him the way she did a few years ago. She restrains herself, pouring the alcohol into a plastic cup.
“Pietro Maximoff,” Clint says, lifting his glass as she hands it over. Natasha finishes pouring her own drink and follows suit.
“Pietro.”
Clint downs most of what Natasha’s poured, wordlessly handing over his cup for a refill. “Is this how they teach you to deal with things in the real world?”
“Not really,” Natasha says a little offhandedly. “The real world is a lot of emotional trauma and accepting your feelings. I’m pretty sure that this is just denial.”
“We’re good at denial,” Clint mutters and Natasha snorts.
“Unfortunately, we are.”
“Laura,” he continues, without pausing the conversation. “Does she hate me?”
Natasha inclines her head. “Clint…” She puts down her drink. “No. She’s not even mad at you. Besides, she’s your wife. How could she hate you?”
He shrugs, looking away. “Failure to disclose my issues? Being a terrible husband? Thinking of leaving? This isn’t exactly a job where you can count on your mental stability.”
“No,” Natasha agrees, watching him drink more. “And by the way, she doesn’t know you’re thinking of leaving. But while we’re on the subject, you’re doing a pretty good job of hating yourself.”
It’s the words she’s wanted to say since she arrived at the farm, the words she knows have needed to be said since Laura called her, the ones she’s been avoiding saying because she hasn’t known how to say them without feeling like she had a hidden agenda. Clint tenses, and then the glass in his hand starts to shake gently, and Natasha quickly entangles his fingers from around the cup.
He grabs onto her hand once she’s done and she puts her arm around his back, drawing him in, letting him fall against her. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t speak, and she stays like that for a long time until her shirt is soaked through, until she’s allowed herself to break as well.
***
The first night that Clint doesn’t disappear after hours, the first night that he helps with dinner and makes an effort to work around the house, is roughly three days after their conversation at the barn and at the end of the night, Natasha heads upstairs and pulls her bag from underneath the bed.
“You have to go?”
She wants to be annoyed but she’s not; she’s known he’s read her face during dinner, that he was going to follow her from the moment she left the kitchen.
“I don’t have to,” Natasha says. “But we both know that you have to do the rest of this yourself.” She’s done her part, she knows -- she’s made him break through enough of the hurt in a way that Laura found impossible to do. But he needs to finish healing, and the rest of that journey was a league in which she was completely out her depth.
“You’re okay enough to be around your family again,” Natasha continues, putting the clothes down. “Laura knows what’s going on, which means you don’t have to hide anymore.” She steps closer, and puts her hands on his shoulders. “There’s nothing else I can do for you, Clint. Unless you want me to hit you in the head again.”
“Anything but that,” he mutters and she feels the shudder run through his body as she presses herself against him. It sometimes unnerves her how much of New York still runs through his veins: a memory of a recovery that Natasha knows he’ll probably never be able to shake because once you let yourself tip over the edge that heavily, it’s hard to ever get yourself back.
“They need you here,” Natasha confirms as she pulls away. “You need this life, for a little while. To remember what it feels like to appreciate being able to come home.”
Clint shoves his hands in his pockets. “How are you still convinced I’m not going to decide to run away?”
“I’m not,” Natasha says with a shrug. “But if I don’t trust you once I know you’re at the point when you can think logically about your situation again, what kind of partner am I?”
Clint makes a face. “The kids still want a tree house.”
“Then it’ll be one more project to keep you occupied,” Natasha responds, not bothering to keep the seriousness out of her voice. They both know what Clint’s vested interest in home improvement means, though Natasha also knows she’s not going to bother to talk him out of it. She’s done the emotional trauma and the nightmares, and if she had to choose a method for him to deal with the ever-lingering PTSD, she’d much rather have him taking on ten dozen projects around the house.
“They’ve upped their request to include that the walls be painted all in purple.”
“Wonder where they got that from,” Natasha mutters with a small smile as Clint turns, pausing at the door frame.
“I’m going to come back,” he promises and Natasha takes in his eyes, the way his hair is matted to his forehead and the open flannel shirt, tries to keep her eyes away from his torso.
“When you’re better,” she says, putting all the pressure she can on her words. It had been so easy to do this once, when there was less at stake, and she wonders when it all changed. “When you’re better, you can come back.”
***
Natasha meets Clint at his apartment three weeks after Hydra’s infiltration, letting herself in with her key, surprised to find him stretched out on the couch. Her first instinct is that he’s sleeping, since the television is off and the small space is silent save for the street noise of New York. But upon closer inspection, she can see his leg twitching in a way that she knows means he’s alert.
“Are you okay?” she asks, approaching the couch. Clint grunts in response as he moves, allowing her room to sit next to him.
“Laura’s having another kid.” He stops, as if he’s suddenly realized what he’s said aloud. “We’re having another kid.”
“Okay,” Natasha says as her mind works to process the news. She’s mostly surprised because truthfully, even after all these years, being supportive and understanding still feels strange at times. Clint tended to be easy that way, thanks to the fact they’d somehow managed a mutual connection that let them understand each other’s reactions, and it was something she never thought about when she was around him.
“Isn’t that good?”
Clint laughs shortly. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s good. Just...unexpected, I guess. I didn’t really think about having another kid.”
“But you told me she wanted one,” Natasha says, putting her hands on her knees. “Laura told me she wanted one.”
Clint rolls his eyes. “Wanting a child and making a child are two different things.”
“No kidding,” Natasha responds bluntly. “So the real answer here is someone didn’t use protection when they were supposed to.” She catches his eye and grins, which causes him to break into a smile in return.
“You’re a brat, Romanoff.”
“Takes one to know one, Barton.”
Clint falls silent again, studying the floor. “We weren’t sure, after New York. If it was something that we even wanted. We talked about it a lot, but you know…” He sighs. “Anyway, I think we’re going to name it Natasha. If it’s a girl.”
Natasha’s swivels her head as he finishes talking. “After me?”
“Yeah,” Clint says, picking up a pillow and tracing his fingers over the horribly patterned fabric. “We needed a name that was meaningful and you’re already pretty much part of the family, anyway.”
Natasha nods, focusing on the television in the corner, the small dart board on the wall that bears the slightest resemblance to the one she knows is in his kitchen at the farm, and she almost doesn’t realize how long she’s been sitting in silence until Clint speaks again, tugging on her arm.
“Is that okay?”
And Natasha realizes that he looks so worried, she thinks he might panic. She immediately finds herself curling up on instinct, tucking her head against his chest.
“Yeah,” she says, settling into him, something warm unfurling in her stomach. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
***
It’s a month and a half of texts and photos, a month and a half of phone calls and Laura’s messages, and Natasha’s in the middle of organizing papers when the door to the facility opens with a loud creak. She doesn’t look up instantly, only when she recognizes the familiar tread of footsteps against the tiles.
“What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like?” Clint asks, dropping his bag to the ground with a loud thud. He’s still wearing his sunglasses, despite being indoors, and his jeans are ripped at the knees, as though he’s made the effort to arrive in the most ratty travel clothes he could find. “I told you. I’m coming back.”
Natasha eyes him, putting down her papers before standing up slowly. “What about Laura?”
“What about Laura?”
Natasha gives him what she knows is not a gentle look and Clint sighs. “She’s fine. Really. I didn’t up and leave. She knows where I am, and she’s okay with it. Plus, I’m not...you know, avenging.”
“You’re training,” Natasha responds, eyeing him carefully, her gaze coming to rest on his new hearing aids. “With the Maximoff girl.”
“I have to. It’s my job.”
“I know it is,” Natasha says, stepping closer. She glances up. “You feel good?”
“Yeah,” Clint nods, and he puts his hands on her hips. “I do.”
“You’re sure you okay?”
“Nat --”
“Budapest.” She waits, presses her lips together and watches his face. “Tell me about Budapest.”
Clint opens his mouth and then closes it abruptly, squaring his jaw. “Room fourteen eleven, snipers on the roof, explosion two blocks away. Someone fired the warning shot that went through the window. You pushed me out of the way, but the gun was on the table by the bed.” He takes a breath. “You were bleeding -- bullet to the leg. It went through your suit. You told me to drag you into the closet so you were out of danger of their sight lines.”
“And then?” Natasha asks, her voice hesitant.
“And then Coulson got on our comm and tried to tell us to evacuate,” he continues. “Because there was a possibility they could blow the place. But you wouldn't listen, and you cut the channel, even though you needed medical attention. We couldn't leave until morning with the way the attack was playing out.”
“Except I told you to leave,” Natasha says as Clint continues to stare her down.
“And I wouldn’t. So I told you the story of how Laura and I met, because I had to try to keep you alive. You said it was the first time you saw me as someone who could be capable of having a family. And then you told me about your own family. You told me how the people you worked for had you kill them --”
“And you told me that whatever I did in my past didn’t mean I couldn’t still be a good person,” Natasha finishes. “Because you killed for a living. And you had a family. And you made it work.”
Clint nods. “You asked me if I would ever leave them.”
“You said only if Laura ever told you to go.”
“You know I’ve never told anyone about that.”
“Neither have I,” Natasha says as she steps forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. She can smell the remnant of stale coffee on his breath, the scent that feels so much like a familiar form of home, wonders how long it took him to travel and if he even bothered to stop anywhere. She decides as she pulls away that it doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter that they’ll always know intimate secrets about each other’s lives that they’ll take to their graves, secrets that they’d never tell their significant others, or their children, or the people in their lives that were expected to know all the important details.
“How long are you staying?” she asks as she shoves a folder into his hands and Clint meets her eyes.
“However long I need to. And however long you need me.”
Natasha smiles. “Then make some coffee while you have a moment, Barton.” She slips her free palm into his, familiarizing herself with the warm calloused skin that she knows as if its her own. “We’ve got work to do.”