Title: Shots Fired
Author: JoeHundredaire
Rating: R/FR18
Disclaimer: Right, I actually went and checked to be sure this time… after being passed around like a slut at a frat party over the past few years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series, and all associated characters now belong to Warner Brothers. With a myriad of writers, artists, and editors - and directors, now that we're getting decent movie and television renditions - actual rights are a nightmare when you go near a comic book universe. Suffice it to say that Marvel Entertainment LLC owns all of the property printed in their comics, along with the television and movie adaptations of said same property. Not mine, don't sue, and so forth and so on.
Summary: The only thing Natasha is worse at than sniping with Patience and Time… is helping her daughters out with their love lives.
Joe's Note: This story follows after Ho Ho No and likewise serves as a side story set in the future of Dawnie Does the Marvelverse. I'm again trying to keep away from specific details regarding the family's interactions with Dawn because I don't want to paint myself into a corner or need to come back and rewrite this story or the one preceding it to ensure that something in the ongoing story works the way I want it to. Also, I should warn you that while I will not do anything remotely sexual with them, if the idea of preteen characters being capable of homosexual rather than heterosexual crushes is offensive to you? Please give this story a pass. Given my own lifestyle and the lives of the people around me, I'm firmly of the belief that sexuality is nature rather than nurture, and that a girl can crush on another girl in middle school just as surely as a girl can crush on a boy.
Dedications & Thanks: To Alexander, Nicholas, Nathan, Vi9, William, Koby, Wil, Thomas, Tracy, Christopher, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

"…how did I miss that shot?"

"Because you didn't aim properly?"

"I can put a bullet through a man's eye socket from over a mile away. I can aim a sniper rifle better than anyone else alive, Barbara."

"Except when we put Patience and Time in your hands, evidently. And seriously? You're going to real name me over a failed headshot? Pfft." Barbara 'Bobbi' Morse leaned over and nipped her wife playfully on the shoulder before returning her attention to the rightmost of the two televisions set up in their living room. Checking her ammo counters, she let out an appreciative noise as she realized that she'd picked up some heavy weapon ammo along the way, switching to her rocket launcher just long enough to stuff two rounds into the magazine before tucking it away again. Then she took advantage of the current lull, cycling through her other two weapons and topping off their magazines, before frowning as she spun her character in a slow circle. "Why are we sitting around the Mothyards? The quest said-"

There was a rumble as the sky darkened, and then an incoming Public Event alert flashed in the top left corner of the screen. Natasha Romanoff shot Bobbi a smug grin before nodding in the televisions' direction. "These things run on a schedule, and some are hourly while others show up every thirty minutes. I didn't think we'd make it to the Skywatch on time, so I had us take out the event that showed up in the Steppes three minutes after we touched down and then stall here for a bit to catch this warsat. When it's done, we'll still have thirty minutes before the next Skywatch event starts."

Bobbi nodded approvingly before flinching as the screen pulsed white several times and the controller vibrated wildly in her hands. No matter how many times she got dragged into this particular event, the beginning always managed to catch her off guard. Considering how short a time she'd been playing compared to her wife and their mutual friend, though, she was actually kinda proud of how well she'd managed to catch on to how things worked… even if her character's play style was utterly alien to her. Life as a Striker Titan was pretty much the antithesis of what she did in real life: she was expected to wade into the middle of combat, soak up damage, and then unleash powerful frontal assaults. After surfing through one of the handful of Wikis about the game, she was convinced that a Bladedancer might have been more her speed if given the choice… but they needed a balanced team for strikes and raids, which meant that not everyone could play a Hunter. Although it could have been worse, Bobbi consoled herself; at least she wasn't the sucker stuck playing as a Warlock. Even when specced for durability, both subclasses tended to go down faster than one of Tony Stark's dates.

Speaking of their resident Warlock… even as Bobbi ran toward the on-screen marker that denoted the warsat's location, a black and red banner spread across the bottom of her screen, announcing the arrival of a new fireteam member. "Nice of you to join us, Sharon. What happened, did Steve forget how to do something on his iPhone for the ninth time?"

The loud snort that came back over the headset she was wearing made Bobbi flinch and adjust the volume as a Sparrow went rocketing past her, coming to a stop so that a Warlock in sleek white raid set armor could hop off and begin running alongside her. "No, he actually asked me over for a cup of coffee rather than invent another stupid excuse. Wasn't as bad as I thought, although he's got shit taste in coffee. I'm going to have to anonymously stuff a bag of some decent beans into his mailbox or something. Would have rather been home and online with you two, to be honest; finding out that I'm basically getting my great-aunt's sloppy seconds was enough to kill any unprofessional interest I had."

Entering the circle around the crashed satellite, Bobbi shot a glance over at Natasha as she thumbed the square button to deploy her Ghost and join the event. The redhead shot her a grin as she did likewise before looking up at the ceiling the way she tended to when talking with someone not in the room. "If you're in the market for someone new to have unprofessional interest in, Bobbi's made it clear that I'm not allowed to try and seduce Faith. You've got a similar body type to Bobbi; she'd probably find you just as sexy as she does my wife."

"…when I told you that propositioning your own adoptive daughter was the most disgusting thing I'd ever heard of, Natasha, that was not me issuing a challenge." There was a bit of a pause as the Fallen skiff came swooping into deposit the first round of troops, Sharon eliminating the two Vandals with headshots from her heavy pistol before Bobbi could even take aim. The three of them manage to mow down the remaining Dregs in short order, and Sharon sighed. "No. Just… no. Also, does someone want to tell me why we're here instead of at the Skywatch? Because while yes, this is indeed a warsat event, Urzok only spawns with that particular warsat. And when the system does those 'the enemy moves against each other' things, but that's not here. That's there."

As the skiff swooped in to make another drop, it decided to reach out and touch Bobbi, the blue bolt of energy dropping her shields and sending her staggering back. Accordingly, she was again relegated to cleanup duty as Natasha's assault rifle roared to life, chewing up the mixture of Dregs and Vandals as Sharon unloaded one shot after another into the enemy, taking down mobs already weakened by Natasha's spray of bullets. "We missed the last Skywatch event while waiting for you, so we're taking advantage of what's going on between the spawn point and our destination." Bounding outside of the glowing circle to collect a pair of uncommon engrams, Natasha let out a soft hum. "There's a cute new girl in IT named Daisy. Had her crack the encryption on an AIM thumb drive for me as a test; she did it three times faster than the supposed best agent we have in the department. I've still got a few thumb drives from that operation I was running when I got called in for the whole Loki incident. I could drop one off on Monday and chat her up for you if you want."

Sharon let out a bark of laughter as the event rolled onward, the skiff making yet another pass to drop off a third group of grunts. Before either of her teammates could react, Bobbi went bounding forward and hammered L1 and R1 at the same time. The view abruptly switched from first person to third as she executed her character's super ability, making Natasha and Sharon groan as the entire wave disappeared in the Fist of Havoc's wave of rippling wave of Arc Light. When Bobbi pulled out her rocket launcher and aimed it skyward in preparation for the skiff's return, Sharon evidently took it as a sign that she could refocus her concentration on the conversation. "Mmm, pass. Not interested in a woman who'll want to talk nerdy to me. Actually, I'm not sure why you're trying to set me up with women period. Shouldn't the fact that I was crushing on Steve Rogers be a hint as to which team I bat for?"

"Dear, I'm old enough to have… actually, you'd fit halfway between my granddaughter's generation and my great-granddaughter's generation. Still. I've been around long enough to have an immaculately tuned gaydar and you are about as straight as Sophie Turner. Which reminds me, I really need to talk to Nick about seeing if SHIELD will let me shop that script I wrote based loosely on my early life. I'd love to see her play me, especially if they squeeze her into something halfway accurate for my Red Room days." Natasha offered Bobbi a wicked grin before mouthing 'black and red latex'. It took the blonde a moment to realize what her wife was talking about; a copy of the catsuit in question was actually hanging in their closet. And then Bobbi found herself wondering if the fact that it harkened back to a darker period in Natasha's life had anything to do with how often it was broken out for nights that involved paddles, riding crops, and other things that tested even the redhead's pain tolerance. Then the damn skiff returned, Bobbi forced her thoughts to the present so that she could adjust her aim and release a rocket into its underside, and Natasha proved that her senses were far and away better than her wife's. "What's the matter, ptichka? I know we didn't wake you up because the new soundproofing can handle a lot worse than this."

Making her way over to Natasha, Kate Bishop collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, curling up with her head resting on the redhead's bare knee. "Can't sleep. My brain's too awake." Bobbi and Natasha exchanged glances before shrugging as one; while their busy lives were half the reason that Kate was the product of communal child-rearing, the other half was that no one person seemed to quite understand how the girl worked. Between the lot of them, though, they managed to do a passable enough job. "All Vandals next. Stalkers and Reavers." …and evidently someone in the community didn't quite understand how ESRB ratings worked. Lovely. Silence descended once more, broken only by the chatter of their respective guns, Kate waiting until they'd cleared through the newly arrived enemies before speaking again. "Dad, how do you get someone to go out with you?"

Bobbi's eyes widened, both at what had been asked and who Kate was seeking advice from. This promised to end terribly and judging by the snickering she could hear over the headset, Sharon agreed. Natasha shot a filthy look up at the ceiling before shifting the controller to her right hand, reaching down to run her fingers through Kate's hair. "That… isn't a question with an easy answer, ptichka. I'll skip the lectures about them having to like you and all that; you of all people understand that no means no. Hmm. Do you have a lot in common? Because if you do, that makes it easy. Like if you have the same taste in movies? Instead of just going to the same movie together, you can ask them to go to the movie with you as a date."

"Oh yeah, we have loads in common. Like, you and Mom levels of stuff in common." Kate's eyes went wide and she straightened up, eyes bouncing back and forth between Natasha and Bobbi. "Wait. That's it. How did you get Mom to go out with you, Dad?"

Keeping half an ear on the conversation, Bobbi split the rest of her concentration between mowing down a mixture of Captains - both standard and Reaver, the latter being as big a pain in her ass as always - and Servitors, and dreading what might emerge from Natasha's mouth. Thankfully, the redhead was feeling mostly age-appropriate that evening. "Back when your mom was still a barely a Level 4 agent, she wasn't exactly the badass she is today and so I had to save her on a lot of our missions. After tackling her out of the way of one too many bullets, I realized that I wouldn't do something like that for just any agent… and so I kissed her and asked her if she wanted to go out for dinner when we got back to America. She made a few nonsense noises, then said yes, then made more noises, turned about as red as my hair…" Pausing, Natasha triggered her own super ability and used the Golden Gun to put down three Reaver Captains in as many shots before continuing. "…and then I got shot in the ass because I was too busy staring into your mom's eyes to remember what situational awareness was."

"Constant vigilance!"

"That's my girl. So our romantic dinner actually ended up being Chinese takeout in my hospital room at the Triskelion after they dug the bullet out of me, but I made up for it after I got out." Natasha jerked her head in Bobbi's direction. "Remember that necklace with all the bullets on it that she wore before we got married? The butt bullet was the big one in the center. The two smaller ones were from me saving her on another mission."

Kate let out a soft squeal before flopping back down across Natasha's lap. "That's so romantic! I'm so going to do that some day." Looking down at her daughter in alarm, Bobbi found the brunette frowning as she furrowed her brow in thought. "…or maybe I'll just save her without getting shot and buy my girlfriend pretty jewelry. Yeah. That sounds like a better idea."

One last wave later the event came to an end, and Bobbi spun her character in a slow circle before letting out a muffled curse in Cantonese, a language that Kate possessed neither a traveler's nor a sailor's fluency in… yet. She hadn't even gotten any uncommon engrams out of that fight, much less a rare. Fucking stingy game. "Yes, not getting shot is a great idea. As someone who has been, I recommend it. And Natasha, I don't remember you being my knight in shining armor that often back when I was new to field work…"

"Yes, well, you suffered a lot of concussions back then. It's understandable that your memory isn't the best." Natasha set down her controller long enough to adjust Kate on her lap, picking the controller back up in her left hand so that she could move her character with her thumb while using her other hand to play with Kate's hair. "So, potential girlfriend huh? Anyone we know?"

Kate stiffened for a moment, muttered something in Russian that Bobbi recognized enough of to frown at, and then groaned. "Yes. Which means you won't need to talk Uncle Agent and Aunt Maria into investigating her. It's one of the clerks in Legal. Her name is Jennifer."

Racking her brain, Bobbi tried to pin a person to the name. She was hampered by the fact that she didn't exactly deal with Legal often, not to mention the fact that Jennifer was an incredibly common name. And then she was struck by a terrible suspicion that she knew exactly who her daughter was talking about. Bobbi found herself desperately hoping that she was wrong, but… "Are you talking about Jennifer Walters?"

"Yup."

"Six foot seven, seven hundred pound, green skin and hair, can benchpress a Quinjet… that Jennifer Walters?"

"Yup."

"…she's half again your age."

"Aren't you in like, an April-December relationship? Maybe March?" Kate sniffed before reaching her hand out to snatch the controller away from Bobbi, taking over as the party of three navigated through the Lunar Complex on the way to the Skywatch. "Besides, I'll have you know that everyone says I'm very mature for my age."

Natasha shot an amused look at Bobbi, mouthed 'owned', and then went back to using both hands to work the controller as they ran into an area swarming with both Fallen and Hive mobs. "I think it's wonderful. After all, if you're going to dream? Dream big! And they don't get much bigger than the She-Hulk, now do they? Maybe next time we're in Washington, we can sit down with her and Bruce for a nice dinner together. I'll make sure she understands that if she hurts you, they'll never find all the parts of her body, and then maybe you can ask if she wants to see a movie. Although we will need to discuss relationship milestones if she says yes; I've got nothing against hand-holding and an innocent kiss or two, but I won't have you trying to take things further with her for at least a few years."

As the two began bickering back and forth over whether or not it was fair that Natasha assumed Kate would be the aggressor in a relationship, Bobbi rose to her feet and took the few steps over to the nearby couch, flopping down with a huff. Wasn't like she was involved with their conversation. Or her game anymore, evidently. "This is my life. And people wonder why I'm so eager to go out on missions…"

Sharon chuckled at that. "Would you mind if I bugged your apartment? Just one out in the living room; I'm not a pervert. Didn't realize before tonight how relaxing it is to sit back and unwind to a good old-fashioned radio drama. Helps me understand whey Great-Aunt Margaret loved them so much. I didn't believe you could get invested in a story just from sitting around listening to it, but here I am…"

"Funny, Sharon. And maybe. Maybe… if you give Lillian from Accounting a call? I hear she has a bit of a thing for field agents. And your new uniform, if the look I saw her giving you the other week in the lobby is anything to go by."

"Lillian… redhead, green eyes, bit freckly, lip piercing?"

"Tongue, too."

"…deal."