SHIELD security camera, Director's office, shortly after the battle of New York.
A man with an eye patch and an impressive leather coat sat at his desk, on the phone with the government. A woman with red hair, dressed in a tactical suit opened the door without knocking and strode in with purpose in her jaw and a dead look in her eyes. She was one of very few people who could have managed this entrance without being unavoidably and painfully detained on the way. Nick Fury told the President of the United States that he would call him back and met Natasha Romanoff's gaze.
"It's Barton," she said without preamble.
"Medical can't clear him," he agreed.
"This is magic, nothing we were ever trained for," she argued, not with him, he knew. "Medical has no idea if he's clean."
"What about you, Agent Romanoff?" asked Fury, steepling his fingers. "Do you say he's clean?"
"I can't make that determination," she answerd, her face shuttering. "He's cleaner than when he was trying to kill us, that's for certain. But when he dreams…he keeps trying to hurt me, and it takes him a long time to wake up enough to know what he's doing."
"Trying being the operative word, I assume," replied Fury, raising his eyebrow.
"He doesn't win," said Natasha, rolling her eyes with a hint of her usual self before flashing back to the blank look. "But it's killing him that he's trying."
"Report, Romanoff," requested Fury.
"Refusing food, accepting medical treatment only with greater reluctance than usual, sitting alone, not engaging with others, spending so much time shooting things he's hurting himself."
"It's Barton. Did you expect him to deal by crying a flood and throwing himself back into his life?"
"He blames himself for Phil's death," said Natasha bluntly.
"Well, that would muck with a man's ability to cope, wouldn't it," mused Fury. "Letting in the man who killed your own husband. Dismissed, Romanoff. Barton's not the only problem I have to solve this week. With any luck, I can solve a few of 'em at once."
It wasn't that week, but the next, that Fury saw a different dangerous woman in his office about Clint Barton.
"Good morning, Agent Nathan. It's good to meet you properly. I wonder if you could give me a review of your history with Clint Barton and Phil Coulson."
"Director Fury," Laura replied. "I'm sure you could give me a better one than I could give you."
Fury chuckled. "I like you already. Nevertheless, I prefer to get your take on it before I go making particularly rash decisions."
Laura Nathan nodded. "I met Clint and Phil, as well as Natasha Romanoff, when an op unexpectedly involved my sister Audrey, at which point I called for backup, not wanting to somehow compromise the op. Phil saved Audrey's life, and they grew rather attached to each other. Phil suspected Audrey's interest to be romantic, so Clint, Natasha and I ended up involved in their relationship quite a bit, helping Phil to navigate that landmine and eventually, to hang out and laugh at the pair of them. Audrey accepted it would never go anywhere after she heard about Clint, but as we all know, it's not that easy to turn feelings off, and I believe she still has them, but they maintained as close a friendship as they could with that as well as SHIELD's usual relationship hazards in the way. I stayed even closer to the three of them, not having agent/civilian problems to deal with, and we remained close friends up through my resignation from SHIELD to raise the children I rescued from my op in Toronto. They're all regulars at my place. And the tension lessened considerably last month when Audrey took a job with the symphony in Portland."
Fury nodded. "That's just about perfect, Agent. I may have a proposal for you."
"Why, Director, we've just met," teased Laura.
"Oh, it's not me who'd be marrying you, Ms. Nathan."
"You have got to be kidding me, Sir," said Natasha Romanoff as she stared into the lab where the prone form of Phil Coulson was lying on a table.
"Romanoff, honestly, tell me you have a better idea," said Fury, spreading his hands. "Barton may still have Loki in the brain, so he needs watching, preferably by a SHIELD agent. The only way to ensure Phil Coulson's continued existence on God's green earth involves a procedure that will wipe a good chunk of his memory, including some of the most important parts of his relationship with his husband. If for some reason I decided not to make that happen, Barton gets to drown in guilt, fail to properly mourn his husband, and quite possibly end up dead as well. I heard you had to take a bottle of pills away from him this morning."
Natasha did not flinch. Natasha never flinched.
"Now what am I supposed to do, wipe Coulson's memory and give him back to his husband, confusing the hell out of said husband's tortured and attempting-to-mourn brain, forcing said husband to care for him and rebuild the relationship on his own whilst being thoroughly fucked in the head, and quite possibly killing him again anyway should said husband be housing a demigod?"
"So we wipe Clint's memory," said Natasha without moving. "We give him a family to go home to so he can work through everything, incidentally a family that contains a woman who could take him out if necessary."
"Hardly incidentally, Romanoff, I thought you knew me better than that," said Fury, and Natasha cracked half a smile.
"Laura's agreed to it?"
"Laura's agreed. She's very fond of Clint, her kids are both old enough and used to weird shit to go along with it, and they already know him and you both, so there will be very little acting going on, and very little work to convince his brain he loves her." He was repeating all her own words back to her, but she didn't comment on it.
"Fine," said Natasha. "But you're the one explaining your logic to him when he eventually finds out."
Natasha dragged Clint to his appointment with SHIELD medical, reflecting grimly that Clint had never liked it and would never so much as set foot in it again if he learned what had been done to him. She ended up in the waiting room with Laura Nathan, now Laura Barton.
"You don't have to do this," she said quietly, making eye contact with the woman she considered a sister.
"I don't, but I'm going to," agree Laura. Natasha raised an eyebrow.
"He needs my help. I can give him safety and a way out of this mess. I do love him, as a dear friend, and he's not hard on the eyes. It won't be such a burden to be a wife to him. Nat, I miss Phil myself, and I know that pain is magnified beyond belief for you, and even more than that for Clint. If I can do something to make it liveable, I will."