A/N: Natasha is just absolutely amazing, and deserves her own fic. This is for all who requested it-I've gotten a few.
Ok, as for shipping...with the downfall *sniffle* of Clintasha (I'm not going to hurt dear Laura Barton and keep shipping it in the traditional way), I'm moving towards shipping Winter Widow. I do not ship Brutasha, but it is not treated unkindly here. I kind of ship Romanogers, because I LOVE them and their chemistry is on fire, but I don't want them together in canon, per se. So there's a mix here.
Anyway. To the fic! And thank you all for support of my writing, particularly lately. It's been joyous.
When she says that love is for children, she doesn't mean that it is foolish.
She means that it is something she can never have.
...
Natasha falls in love with Clint Barton when he saves her life in Budapest, when he doesn't let them kill her. She tries to kill him, but both before and after she fails, she thinks of him as hers.
She never calls it love, never knows it for what it is.
Clint is her only friend for a long while. The KGB trained her to have a deadpan sense of humor just before she goes in for the kill—literally or figuratively. It's not endearing.
Clint, though. Clint finds her endlessly amusing.
He doesn't trust her. For a while, she doesn't realize that she wants him to.
She saves his life on a mission, and thinks of trying to kiss him. She doesn't.
Clint grins, Clint trusts her, and says he has something to show her.
Her heart does something, at that.
He drives her out to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and Natasha's heart does something else, at that.
The woman who opens up the door and runs into his arms has love in her eyes.
Natasha doesn't dare ask herself why she recognizes it.
...
She's very good at what she does. The best, perhaps. She runs with a super-powered pack, even though all she has are some gadgets and a hundred ways to kill someone with her bare hands.
She's friend with Laura Barton. The children love her. She loves them, as best she can. Love is for children.
Natasha runs a light hand over their hair, and remembers how the table was ice-cold beneath her.
They didn't use anesthesia.
...
She counts her scars like some people count their stars. Hers are lucky too; none of them are readily visible.
She could fall in love with Steve Rogers if she let herself.
She thinks about kissing him. She thinks about how his arms would feel around her. She would be safe.
(She doesn't let herself.)
...
Bruce seems like a good option. He's broken enough, and quiet enough too. He doesn't radiate that white-hot martyrdom of Steve's righteousness. He isn't taken like Clint is.
It isn't exactly love.
Nothing is, for her.
It makes her smile while it lasts, but it doesn't last.
...
Natasha lives to fight another day, and a day after that. She isn't always happy, but she isn't always in pain. There are worse ways to spend an unpredictable life.
She has friends.
She loves them, if love is something that ever gets to belong to her. She would die for them.
Is that not enough?
Loki was wrong, even though he said all the right things.
Natasha has a ledger, and it does drip red.
But red isn't always the color of blood.
...
When she says that love is for children, she doesn't mean that she scorns it.
She means that it is something she wants.
...
She doesn't realize just how much a family they are until they are falling apart.
She isn't exactly on anyone's side. She's on everyone's side, and it hurts.
She watches Tony suffer, watches Steve suffer, and knows that sitting out still brings guilt even when it isn't your fight.
Love is for children, but heartbreak doesn't come with anesthesia either.