A/N: In light of what we learned in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," let's revisit the interrogation scene from "Marvel's The Avengers."
Love is for Children
"Do you love him?" Loki leered.
Natasha dipped her eyes, seeming submissive but hiding triumph. If Loki thought there could be anything between her and Clint, then Hawkeye was still fighting for what he loved best.
He had thrown Natasha up as a mental firewall to distract Loki from exploring his family connections, had probably put his drunken father and his murderous brother front and center, too. He'd give Loki anything to protect the super secret family that only Fury, Coulson and Hill knew about.
Loki — so excessively interested in the Avengers — had been given Black Widow as a smokescreen. That was fine with Natasha. It was her family, too, now that her generous partner and his sweet, loving wife had made the Russian defector welcome. "Auntie Nat" would fight twice as fiercely for the children, as she would for their father. Clint would expect it.
"Love is for children," Black Widow answered Loki with seeming unconcern. Natasha loved her niece and nephew with all her heart, all the love that could never go to her own children.
Natasha began to talk, spinning Loki a more-than-half-true story about the debt she owed Clint Barton. She wanted to keep Loki's attention on her, prevent him from thinking about the odd gaps in Hawkeye's life story. Loki could never be allowed to know that a big part of her debt was that Clint had given Natasha the home and the family she had never known. The only way she could clear that ledger was to defend Clint's children as if they were her own.
If there was anything true and good in her dark and perilous life, it was that Natasha loved the Barton children more than her own life.
Because, yes, love is for children.