Disclaimer: Natasha and Clint belong to Marvel. Norah is mine.

Angry

As Natasha unlocked the door to her and Clint's apartment she could hear her daughter crying loudly. She frowned and quickly closed the door behind her. Dropping her duffel bag in the hallway, she headed towards her daughter's bedroom. Norah was lying in her crib and wailing at the top of her lungs.

"Shhh, sweetie, it's ok. It's ok," Natasha cooed as she picked her daughter up. She gently rubbed Norah's back as she inspected her. The girl was sweating and her face was bright red. It looked like she'd been crying for a while.

"Shh… Where's daddy?" Natasha asked, more to herself rather than her daughter of six months.

Norah's wails turned into quiet whimpering.

"Shhhh…" Natasha repeated as she lightly rocked the girl in her arms. Holding her daughter tightly to her chest, she moved back into the hallway. Worry crept up on her. It had been Clint's turn to watch Norah while she'd been on duty, and it was absolutely unlike him to leave their daughter alone, let alone cry for hours. From the moment they'd brought Norah home, Clint had shot over to Norah's crib as soon as she uttered the tiniest of sounds, day and night. Continuing to rock her daughter gently, who by now had resolved herself to quiet blubbering sounds, Natasha snuck down the hallway towards the living room. Her eyes swept the room from the doorway. No signs of trouble or a fight.

Natasha lowered her daughter into the playpen in the middle of the room and handed her her favorite rattle. Norah had learnt to sit upright on her own a few days ago and since then, sitting upright and shaking her Ironman-shaped rattle was her favorite pastime. Besides eating bananas, which she had probably inherited from her father.

As she turned towards the open kitchen to her right Natasha, stopped dead in her tracks. Clint was sitting on the floor in the right corner of the kitchen, a baby bottle filled with milk clenched tightly in his fist. His eyes were blood-shot as he avoided her gaze, fixing his eyes on the floor in front of him instead. His hair was disheveled, and his arms wrapped tightly around his knees drawn to his chest.

Natasha slowly knelt in front of him.

"Clint?" she asked, keeping her voice low and neutral despite the worry that was quickly spreading in her stomach. "You ok?"

She tried to catch his eye but he turned his head ever so slightly. He lowered his face on to his knees.

"I got angry," he said, his muffled voice hoarse. "Norah… Norah just wouldn't stop crying. I tried everything, changed her diapers, sang to her, rocked her, played her music box, walked with her, and tried to feed her again and again and she just – she just wouldn't stop crying. For hours. I didn't know what to do and I got so angry at her." He took a deep breath. "I begged her to please stop crying but she just kept on going. I was so tired after coming back from Thailand and I just wanted to sleep but she wouldn't let me. She just kept crying."

Natasha carefully placed her right hand on his cheek.

"It's ok. Sometimes you get really angry at your kids. It's fine. It happens. You're not the only one. I read about it in all those pregnancy and parenting books Phil got me. And I've had my moments of frustration as well, believe me, " she tried to soothe her partner.

"You don't understand! I - I was angry. I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to shake some sense into her." Clint finally looked up at Natasha. She could see the fear in his eyes. She knew that he'd worried about becoming like his father ever since he found out that she was pregnant. What Clint didn't see was that he would never be like the man who destroyed his childhood, even on Clint's worst day. Unlike his father, Clint truly cared about others. He always put everyone else first.

"And did you?" she replied evenly.

"Did I what?" Clint asked, his voice shaking.

"Yell at her. Shake her." Natasha supplied, her face expressionless as she held his upset gaze.

"NO! Of course not!" Clint's expression was horrified. "I could never –"

Natasha raised one of her eyebrows and smirked, nonverbally telling him "See?"

Clint wasn't prepared to give up his self-loathing yet, though.

"I say that now. But what about next time?" he asked, settling his chin on his knees with an angry expression on his face. "How do I know – how do you know – that I won't get angry again and hurt our daughter?"

Natasha moved to sit next to him, close enough to create a continuous line of contact along their bodies. She reached for his hand that did not hold the bottle.

"Because I know that you don't want to hurt her. I can't guarantee that Norah won't stress you – or me – out again. But if she does, just do what you did today – take a time-out. Count to ten. Or fifty. Leave the room. Take a breather. We're only human," she said firmly.

Clint turned his head to look at her.

"I'm just afraid that some time, I won't be able to stop myself and that I will… hurt her," he almost whispered the last two words.

"I really don't think that's going to happen because a) I've never met anyone with a patience like yours, and b) you care too much about her to hurt her. But if you're really that worried, do what I do when I get overly frustrated with Norah." Natasha replied.

"And what's that?" Clint asked, dropping his head back against the refrigerator behind him.

"I imagine someone else coming in and trying to hurt our baby." Natasha's voice turned cold. "And all of a sudden I get really furious at them, not Norah. The first time I overdid it a bit and had to work our punching bag for some time before I returned to her." Clint's head jerked around to look at her. Natasha smiled sheepishly. "But I've found the right level since then so I only have to knock them out in my head and my protective instincts kick in anyway."

"I wonder what the parenting book experts would say about that," Clint snorted, turning his head back and looking straight ahead at his oblivious daughter in the playpen.

"It's not a very conventional method, I agree. But I can't think of anything else. We're only human, yes, but we were trained to be aggressive, too. It's what makes us good at our job, and it's what allows me to knock out guys twice my size. It's a part of me. So if I feel my aggression rising, I do what I always do if it happens at an inopportune moment – I deflect. And it works. I don't care what parenting experts say about it. It's not like my life comes anywhere near the imaginations of those parenting experts anyway." Natasha replied calmly.

"So," she tugged Clint's hand lightly. "Ready to get some sleep?" she asked.

Clint nodded pensively.

"Come on then." Natasha stood up and pulled Clint up with her. She was ready to direct him to the couch in the living room but Clint stopped her.

"Thanks," he said. "And sorry."

Natasha pecked a kiss on his lips and squeezed his hand lightly.

"Nothing to be sorry about," she replied with a small smile. She let go of his hand, checked on her daughter happily rattling away in her playpen, and sat down on the couch.

"Do you want to sleep here or in the bedroom?" she asked as she pulled up some mission files she had to go through on the StarkPad on the coffee table. With the StarkPad in one hand, she got comfortable leaning against one of the couch's armrests.

"Here," Clint said, leaving the bottle on the kitchen counter. He crossed the room, crouched next to the playpen and carefully stroked Norah's face.

"I'm really sorry, honey," he whispered. Norah replied by shaking her rattle at him with a high-pitched squeal. Clint's hand lingered a bit before he got up and joined Natasha on the sofa. He lay down next to her on his side, facing the playpen. His head rested on Natasha's chest, and she used her free hand to run her fingers through his hair. Within minutes, he'd fallen asleep to the rhythmic sound of Natasha's heartbeat and the light rattling of his daughter's favorite toy.

As always - read and review please! All feedback is welcome. :)