The ideas behind this story has been forming in my head for quite a while now, so I wanted to write it up and share it. Natasha is one of my favorite character. Hopefully I do her some justice.
Summary: The cumulative trauma of her line of work takes a toll on Natasha's mental health, leading her to leave SHIELD for a more peaceful life. Set sometime pre-Avengers. Ranges from fluff to angst, and at times some action. Clint and Natasha, with friendships with other SHIELD agents and later, the Avengers.
Content warning: Mentions of mental illness and its treatment.
Chapter 1
Leaning against the front of her desk, Natasha surveyed the children's section, aware of the location and movement of every child sitting at the kid-sized tables. They were painting. Natasha had lined figurines of animals on the tables for the children to use as models for their art. If they wanted to, that is. As she was setting up for the children earlier, more than a few had told her what they were going to paint, and she found most of their plans more creative than the plastic toys she found in a crate in the play area.
"It'll be a dinosaur," Alice had declared, "with spikes all down its tail. But wings on its back so I can ride her. She'll spit icicles—no, fireballs! Like a dragon." The girl had paused there, scrunching her face before looking up at Natasha with wide eyes. "Are dragons dinosaurs?"
As Natasha listened, maintaining eye contact with Alice the whole time, she dipped paint brushes in the cup of water and swirled them in the little paint cups. She smiled at Alice's question. "Dinosaurs and dragons are different—similar but not quite the same. How about I pick out some books about them for you, and you can tell me what you learn next time I see you?"
Alice nodded, hopping from one foot to the other.
"Dinosaurs aren't real though…" a boy sitting close by moaned. He was fidgeting with a toy giraffe. "They're like the fantasy version of the gurwaff."
"Giraffe," Natasha corrected, his pronunciation anyway. She smiled at the children gathering around her and laid pieces of white construction paper in front of them. Without a quick distraction that conversation might have quickly broke down into a hissing match. One of these same toy animals had been thrown while they were sitting on the rug around Natasha during story time once over a disagreement about whether something else was real, or maybe, whether she was pronouncing a name correctly. Actually, it probably happened more than once.
Really, though, Natasha didn't want to take a side even in the slightest or explain which animals were real, not at that point in time. Anyway, she didn't consider herself qualified to judge between fact and fiction. Giraffes and dinosaurs weren't an existential question, he'd find out soon enough.
Natasha heard footsteps, small shoes hitting thin carpeting. She also heard many distinct sounds across the library—at the main desk where a patron and a clerk chattered, everyone's breathing, typing, scribbling, pages turning. The doctors had taught her to ground herself in the present—mostly to deal with the flashbacks that tormented her, but she'd been trying the skills to dull her spy senses as well. She could triangulate the exact location of these sounds in relation to herself. She could. They weren't hostiles, the library wasn't rigged with traps. She found herself daydreaming these days, letting her mind wander into the past a bit while she was still in public. Probably progress, she reasoned.
She felt the balls on her feet in her shoes, her legs crossed at the ankles, her palms on the laminate surface of the desk. She saw the colorful vinyl clothes protecting the tables, counted the last few footsteps until the girl ran up to her.
"Miss Natasha?" The girl Julia held her painting—paint running from globs so thick the paper almost tore—up to Natasha. "I spilled the paint," Julia sniffled. Natasha's eyes darted from the dripping painting to the crying girl, choosing to put her hands on the girl's shoulders.
"I was trying to make dolphins, jumping from the waves…but I poured the paint to get the water," the girl confessed. A drop of paint splattered on Natasha's shoe. She wore pink Converse, a going-away present given to her by Maria as she was preparing to start this job. They had been sitting around her living room on her last night in D.C., Maria and her on the sofa, Clint on the floor, drinking wine, mostly in silence. She had blushed upon opening the box, staring at the pink canvas and the bright, white rubber.
"You'll need them to chase after the kids," Maria had said, hopeful. Natasha had been still, knowing Maria and Clint were both looking at her, wondering.
Natasha could chase anyone, even children, while wearing heels, but her current colleagues didn't need to know this. So she wore the pink shoes on days when she held programs for the kids, with whichever skirt and blouse she was wearing that day.
"I can see the dolphins. They're very pretty," Natasha said. Natasha saw blobs of blue, green and grey paint bleeding together on the picture, on the girl's baggy t-shirt and now, on the carpet. She rubbed her forehead.
"Really? But I ruined it…" Fewer tears welled in Julia's eyes now. She squinted at her painting, eyes scanning the page.
Natasha took the picture and laid it on her desk. "Let's let it dry for now. Maybe we can get it how you want later. For now, how about we start a new painting?" Natasha squeezed Julia's small paint-covered hand, grinning before leading her back to the table.
"Will you draw me dolphins, Miss Natasha?" Julia look at her with wide, admiring eyes. Kids did that, Natasha had learned. In one of her past lives, Natasha would have read that look as fear. It would have been fear. The boy beside them watched Natasha as well. They wanted her to draw a dolphin, expected her to be able to draw a dolphin.
"Have you ever seen a dolphin, Miss Natasha?"
"I saw dolphins at the aquarium!"
"Can we go to the beach?" Other children chimed in.
Natasha took a slight step back from the group of children, feeling a bit dizzy, the influx of energetic voices overwhelming her. She focused on inhaling, one, two, three. She would have exhaled slowly as well, but she had to lunge forward to catch a spilled cup of water.
"Yeah, I've seen dolphins," Natasha soaked up the puddle with a wad of paper towels from a roll sitting on the table. "I've been to the aquarium too." She added, lest she leave any clues to where she had actually seen dolphins. Had she gone to the aquarium, she couldn't recall, she'd have to suggest it to Clint for a future date. But some time ago, she and Clint had seen dolphins leaping past the cruise ship on which they had been undercover, a mission that hadn't actually been that fun despite the way it must sound. Clint had gotten sunburn—despite her warning him that the reflective surface of the water made the sun ray's worse. He had thought she was teasing him, and went back to reading, that is, tracking the movement of some smugglers below deck.
Using a cruise ship to disguise illegal commerce, so original, but they followed the bad guys, not judged them—about their cunning, or lack-thereof anyway. That's what Natasha remembered, another routine bust, until the dolphins leapt past, probably in a perfect arc right over the orange, semi-circle sun the horizon was absorbing. The fight with thugs had worn them out, yet they had to remain vigilant beside the secured cargo, waiting to reach land again, and Clint was moaning because he had had to shoot arrows with his burnt arms. At the time, the dolphins barely showed up on her mental radar. They weren't her mission.
"Why don't we draw a dolphin together?" And then you can color it."
"You promise to help?
"Of course." Natasha took a sheet of paper and a pencil and put them in front of Julia. Julia mostly did the drawing, but Natasha helped her erase and try again when she wasn't pleased with her work, and guided her hand at the tricky parts, mostly the fins. It came out looking like a dolphin, not perfect but kind of cute. Julia was smiling. She drew a smile on the dolphin. Natasha showed her how to wipe the excess paint from the brush and paint in slow, careful strokes.
Natasha went around to the other children as well, complimenting their work, asking whoever seemed restless to describe their pictures or encouraging those who made a mess to at least clean themselves up before their parents came to get them.
"Remember to leave your paintings flat on the table so they can dry," Natasha reminded the group. She had given detailed instructions before they had begun, but that had been an hour ago, and she wasn't certain she could recall what she had said. There had been a few attempts to lift the art—none of which ended too disastrously since nothing was too wet. It was mostly a precaution to protect the rest of the library and their parents' cars.
Parents trickled in to pick up their children, some of whom ran to their parents while others had to be escorted off. Many had to be reminded a third time that they could show their parents their art but had to leave it there. Natasha straightened the chairs as they left and gathered the brushes into a bucket.
"Miss Natasha?" Alice was standing in front of her, waiting.
"Yes?"
"You were going to—"
Right, Natasha was going to pick out books for Alice. Unlike, apparently, her, kids never forget. Except she never (okay, maybe she had a miniscule rate of overlooking small details, since she, for the most part, is human) forgot either. Daydreaming, forgetting…this arrangement was kind of brainwashing her. But she still had the exact shelf location of every book topic in the children's section memorized after a few glances at the diagrams on her desk. The image of the diagram stuck in her mind, the way so many maps of mission-related buildings had, study the plans, navigate the structure, take out the target. The way more recently, the flashbacks and the hallucinations had. Natasha had made it this far though, far enough to use that same skill to assist young children in a library in a small town, far away from combat, from her own illness (an overly forgiving description of her recent past). That was the point.
Natasha held up one finger, indicating one moment and hurried over to the section on dinosaurs. She picked one 'non-fiction' (to the extent that children's books could be factual) book.
"What do dinosaurs eat? Where did dinosaurs live? Find answers to these questions and more!" read the words on the cover in holographic text that wrapped around the picture of a green brontosaurus. At the top of the cover, a pterodactyl soared over an array of Triassic conifers and ferns. Pterodactyls were not technically dinosaurs, in the same way that strawberries aren't actually botanical berries, so she might be adding to Alice's confusion. She handed this book along with a story book to Alice.
By this time, Alice's mother, who wore a pants suit and a Bluetooth earbud and was looking at something on her phone, had arrived. Alice ran to her mom, the books tucked under her arm. She took her mother's hand and pulled her over to where she had been sitting. "I drew a dinosaur!"
The mother dropped her phone into her purse and examined the picture Alice was pointing at. Natasha straightened a few books standing on an endcap. She'd have to look into getting some more accurate book about dinosaurs, maybe have a dinosaur night soon. There had to be a dinosaur in that toy bin that she had overlooked.
"Thank you for everything you do, Natasha. I know Alice at least really enjoys these programs." As her mother spoke, Alice looked at her feet.
There was no need for any thanks. Children's programing was part of her job—the job she had imagined herself having since her college years, when she, who usually worked part-time in the Classics library, took a few shifts in the children's collection as a favor for a friend. Her inspiration had about 100% less truth than the dinosaur book, but if she ever wanted to apply to a library science graduate program she would write that in her statement of purpose, along with everything else she made up on the spot that would fit.
"Alice has expressed an interest in dinosaurs," Natasha said, "I chose the books for her as a starting point." She tried to emphasize starting point, a hint to the mother to not take the books too seriously. She didn't want to question Alice's intelligence or leave her with any further confusion.
"Say thanks to Miss Natasha, Alice," Alice's mother said to her daughter.
"ThankyouMissNatasha," Alice was still looking down, but Natasha could tell her was smiling.
After Alice, her mother, and the rest of the children had left, Natasha rinsed the paint brushes in the staff bathroom sink until the water ran clear and dumped the used water, various shades of browns, down the drain. She'd clean up the tables in the morning after everything had dried. It was well after 7pm now, nearing the library's closing time and past the time she would leave on a night without a program.
As she was soaking up as much water as she could from the bristles of the brushes on a rag before putting them away in the storage cabinet where she kept the art supplies, a co-worker from the main desk approached her. Footsteps, along with the sound of wheels on carpet.
"I don't know how you do it, Natasha, letting kids paint is risky business."
Again, it was her job. And she always did what the job entailed. "I draw the line at glitter," Natasha replied, turning to face him. The co-worker smirked. He had brought Natasha a cart stacked with books that needed re-shelfing—more work for the morning. She's have to bring some stain remover for the carpet as well.
"You don't have kids, right? That's how you can say that."
"Yeah…" Natasha returned to putting away the painting supplies.
"My grandkids, luckily, they like to draw on the screens. Now-a-days, you touch anything, and you can draw in any color you can imagine. Back when I was a kid, we just had chalk."
Natasha chuckled as she shut the cabinet. "When I was young, I was more into writing. I'd fill notebooks with my scribbles." She reasoned that could have been true.
"Hah hah…when you were young…like last week." Natasha shook her head at him.
Natasha's purse was in the bottom drawer of her desk, and her leather jacket was hung over her chair. She grabbed both. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
At home, after changing into more comfortable clothes, Natasha sat on her sofa. She called Clint, figuring he'd be home, put the phone on speaker and set the phone on the arm rest. The phone rang a few times, there was some rustling and then Clint's voice.
"Nat!"
"Are you home, Clint?"
"Nah, not yet, now that you mention it, I should leave…"
"Okay, call me back when you get home then. You're not needed for a mission or anything?"
"No, no, I was just working on stuff—archer stuff. As of now, I'll still be available this weekend. I'll come see you."
"Call me back, Clint. I need to eat something anyway."
"Alright, alright! I love you, Nat."
"Love you too, Barton."
Natasha got up and went to her freezer. Inside, she had plastic storage containers filled with food she had cooked Sunday afternoon. She took one, dumped it on a plate and punched three minutes into the microwave. The window of the microwave fogged up as it warmed up the plate. Natasha sat at the table watching it turn, blurred by the steam. She rested her arms on the table and stretched her legs. The microwave beeped, and she rose to stir the food. It would need a few more minutes.
When Clint called back, she was again settled into the sofa, her feet on the coffee table, eating the albeit reheated grilled vegetables and brown rice.
"I'm home now," Clint clattered some metal in the background, "that's me putting frozen pizza in the oven. What's up, Nat? How are you feeling?"
"Well, I painted with little kids this evening."
"That sounds like so much fun!"
"More fun than archer stuff?
"I'm biased. But really, that sounds tiring. Put your feet up."
"My feet are up. Literally."
"Please take care of yourself."
Natasha frowned at a slice zucchini she was poking at with her fork.
"We can do whatever you want tomorrow night." Clint broke the slight silence.
"I'll think about it."
"Natasha…"
"Oh, Clint! I forgot something earlier!"
"Did you find it?"
"No, I mean I told someone I would do something for them, and they had to remind me."
"Oh! That's…good? You know, you once told me you'd wait for me, and you left without me. After a mission."
"That never happened."
They both laughed.
Clint liked to hear from Natasha before she went to sleep. But that night Natasha didn't call him—instead reading a few extra pages. She left her phone face down on the table next to her bed. Her phone woke her up at 7am every morning, after she went to sleep at 11pm every night.