This is just a little something I have been working on for awhile. As always, I own nothing. I hope you like it, let me know what you think. There will be about 12 or 13 chapters, maybe more, maybe less.
()()()()()()()()()()()
It was this deep, horrible and demanding nagging that subsided in the depths of her mind. Pictures of Nathaniel chimed onto the screen of her specially designed STARK phone unceasingly, but that didn't scratch the itch. And as time passed, the feeling didn't go away, instead it got worse. Something was off, something bad was going to happen, something she could not quite put her finger on.
She was just about to toss an Avenger wannabe into a mat when her phone rang. Not her SHIELD phone or her STARK phone, but her personal phone. The one very few people had the number to. Without hesitation, Natasha swept his legs out from underneath him and barked 'never take your eyes off of your opponent' as she left the gym. She didn't even bother to answer it with her standard, huff of 'Romanoff'.
"This is Natasha," she said, horrified of what could've possibly gone wrong.
"Nat," Fury said.
"What happened," Natasha asked.
"There was an accident," Fury replied.
"Is Barton okay?" Natasha asked, feeling her heart speed up in her chest. She could take on an army of aliens, battle throngs of her former co-workers, and even knock out a never ending swarm of conscious robots without so much as blinking an eye. But when it came to her partner, she might as well have been a scared civilian.
"He's okay," Fury said.
"But?" Natasha prompted.
"Laura isn't," Fury replied. "The funeral is on Friday, there's a car waiting for you outside."
There was nothing else. The line went dead before she could so much as ask a question that was blaring in her mind. What about the kids?
Between the mad woman like sprinting through the hallways of the training facility and the hasty shoving of the essentials into her duffle bag, Natasha failed to realize that she had a visitor standing in the frame of her wide open door. She nearly whipped the gun out of her jumpsuit when she turned to find Steve Rogers standing there with his brow knitting together, concern written all over his face.
"Rogers," Natasha said. "I'm taking a leave of absence."
"Want to talk about it?" He offered, taking a seat on the unmade bed.
"No," Natasha said. "It's personal."
"When will you be back?"
"I don't know," Natasha said stepping past her teammate. "I'll call you when I get there."
Natasha didn't say anything else, she was already halfway out the building.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
She hated this. Hated the circumstances, but here she was in a small SHIELD car driving through what seemed to be endless miles of crops, trying her hardest to prevent the patter of the rain from lulling her to sleep. Natasha knew where she was going, she knew the way by heart. It had started off as her safe house, one from the old days before SHIELD. It had been her favorite, secluded from the world. Clint and Coulson were the only ones who knew it existed. Fury would eventually set up a security system and when Clint met Laura, it had been her gift to them on their wedding day.
She saw the brick chimney first, the one that Clint had called her in to help him fix when Laura got pregnant with Cooper all those years ago. Then the disintegrating shingles on top of the barn that Natasha had spent years trying to convince Clint to call someone to fix. He, being a stubborn pain in the ass, had refused, claiming that they could fix it themselves. Natasha was a lot of things, but she wasn't a roofer.
Natasha sat outside the house for a long time, just staring at the seemingly lifeless house. There was a light on in the living room, the soft warm light that was probably coming from the ceramic lamp on the end table riddled with super-glued cracks. Natasha smiled at the rusty red wagon under the oak tree and the pink bike balanced on the side of the house. Someone, she assumed Cooper, had made a pile of crumbling leaves in the yard and had abandoned the old rake in the overgrown grass. If she had been there for any other reason, she would've ridden Clint's ass until he pulled the run down lawn mower out of the barn and trimmed his own freaking grass while she sat on the front porch sipping Laura's famous peach iced tea. But it wasn't just a regular visit and she knew that she would most likely do it for him.
Somehow, this was actually scaring her. The idea of having to step across the threshold and not see Laura standing at the stove making mac and cheese for the kids or yelling at Clint to get his muddy boots off of the dang coffee table. She couldn't bear to see the hollowed out gaze that would have taken up shop in the eyes of Cooper and little Lila, the kind of look any kid would get after taking the devastating blow of losing their mother. It was all worse than going in blind knowing that there wasn't a back-up plan or an extraction team.
There was an unease filling her body, one that was far worse than the worry that had formerly inhabited it. This, she felt, was somehow her fault. Laura shouldn't have died, she should have been tucking the kids in right about now. Lila would probably be begging for a bedtime story and Cooper for five more minutes of TV time. Clint would probably be struggling to get Nate to take a bottle, a battle in and of itself. None of that was happening.
Natasha could only imagine the tears behind Lila's eyes and the feigned strength in Cooper's. Clint likely moved around the house as a ghost, Cooper doing his best to assist his father with the baby. There were probably thousands of casserole dishes in the fridge, all of which would go untouched. Clint was too full of pride to take the pity food. She couldn't bear to think about the look that would probably replace his playful smirk.
But she had to do this….just not today.
