The doctors placed the baby on Natasha's chest and she froze, shell-shocked, before wrapping her arms around her daughter. The doctors worked to clean up Natasha and Baby Girl Barton as Clint leaned down to see his girls.
"You want to hold the baby and let mom get some rest?" The doctor asked with a grin. Clint looked from the baby to the doctor and nodded, speechless. Natasha was already in the process of drifting off, sweat drying on her forehead. "Here you are, then," The doctor passed Clint the child, swaddled in a soft pink blanket, and hurried off to tend to another patient. Clint sighed and sat down in the chair next to Natasha's bed, staring at his daughter's sleeping face. Tears gathered in his eyes and he made no effort to wipe them away as they rolled down his cheeks. She was just so beautiful!
She already had a few faint wisps of her mother's red hair on the top of her head. She had his round face and her mother's lips and a nose that was all her own.
It was another hour before the baby woke up again, her soft cries waking Natasha up.
"What should we name her?" Her voice was laced with the sleep she craved, but the question was a serious one. "She can't be Baby Girl Barton forever."
"Why not? I think Baby Girl works for her." Clint joked. Then he replied: "Phil," Clint responded without hesitation. "Hear me out, though, Nat. It'll be short for Philippa or Phillis or something like that, and Phil was more than a friend to both of us. And I was hoping if we had a boy we could call him Phil but then I realized we could call her Phil as well and..."
"Shh, Clint," she sounded almost as though she were trying to soothe the baby, who made little mewling cat noises. "I like it. Don't worry. We'll call her Philippa." Clint breathed a sigh of relief and he looked up again to see Natasha's face betray her emotions. Natasha hardly ever cried, but he could tell she was close. "Phil. It's perfect."
"I hoped you'd think so, too," Clint smiled.
"Я люблю тебя, Филиппа," Natasha whispered in Russian to their daughter.
"She's just so beautiful, isn't she?" Clint sighed. "She's going to have your smile. I can tell already."
"Well, she has your eyes," Natasha countered. "It's only fair that she gets something from me."
"Really?" Clint leaned over to look at his daughter's eyes. She'd been asleep almost the whole time he'd held her so he didn't get a good look at her. Her eyes lazily drifted to meet him and Natasha was startlingly right. Her eyes were exactly the same as Clint's. "She has your red hair, too."
"She's perfect," Natasha whispered, cooing at her daughter. "Я люблю тебя. Yes, I do." Clint had picked up on a few key Russian phrases before Natasha had given up the language supposedly once and for all a year after joining SHIELD. For some reason he didn't know what this one meant, though he'd heard her say it once or twice before.
"Ya lyublyu tebya," Clint repeated. "What does that mean?"
"I love you," Natasha's eyes swept up to meet Clint's, a warm half-smile on her face.
"I thought you'd given up Russian for good, unless you needed it for work."
"I changed my mind," Natasha sighed wistfully. "I want her to know the language, just in case... I don't know."
"I love her, too," Clint admitted, easing himself onto the bed with his girls while Natasha rubbed the baby's back gently. "So much it hurts." Natasha hummed in agreement.
They were finally a family.
So I normally don't do oneshots, but this little scene got stuck in my brain and I just had to write it. Thoughts?