Elena Natalia Barton comes home from the hospital in the arms of her mother.
There's a baby carrier in Clint's arms, along with Natasha's hospital bag and various other baby items, but their daughter entered Stark Tower for the first time that evening in Natasha's arms, nothing more than a bundle of blankets and a tiny face peeking from within them. She's barely let the baby out of her arms since she was born yesterday morning, and Clint's glad for that. She'd worried so much during the pregnancy that she wouldn't be able to support a child and now that their baby girl was here she'd been just so...perfect.
And because he was just terrified of her.
If Natasha hadn't been so besotted with their new baby, then perhaps she would have noticed that.
But she didn't notice. She doesn't notice that he'd only held Elena once in the hospital for more than three minutes, and that he hasn't been alone with her at all. She doesn't notice, even as she takes the baby through to the nursery that Stark had built into their floor and places her into the crib that Clint has built himself with his bare hands. He'd wanted to place his daughter in there for the first time. He'd wanted to carry her into the room and say yes, Uncle Tony gave you the room but me? Daddy? I built this crib for you. I built this bed for you. I put together the wardrobe that holds the clothes you wear. Daddy isn't a good man, but Daddy did this for you. Natasha placed Elena into the crib, and bless her heart, the little girl didn't make a sound. She just looked around her with tired eyes and drifted to sleep once again. She slept a lot. Natasha then turned to Clint and he'd played the good man he could only be around her, kissing her tired forehead and guiding her off to their own room so she could get some rest. She'd barely slept since the baby was born.
She was awake again ten minutes later, lifting a now-screaming Elena from her crib before Clint could even work out how to pick her up while supporting her head.
And over the next few day, Clint comes to realise that while his presence as a father is needed sometimes, he's not really needed by his daughter. Because Natasha is everything what she was always afraid to be - Natasha is the perfect mother. Natasha paces the halls of the floor with Elena on the nights that she won't stop screaming. Natasha changes her diapers. Natasha breast feeds their baby girl so he definitely wasn't needed there. Natasha sang old Russian songs to get her to sleep. Natasha whispered soft words to her and told her how beautiful and loved she was.
And he wanted that. He wanted that moment of eye contact between him and his daughter, where she looked at him with acceptance and adoration and such a pure, unfiltered love. God, he wanted that. But he just...couldn't.
Because Elena had her mother's eyes, her mother's chin, her mother's smile too (Natasha swore that it was a real smile and that it wasn't just gas like Bruce told her it was). Elena may have brushes of light brown hair like his own, but Elena was ultimately a picture of her mother. And when they had first discovered they would have a daughter he had sworn to the sonogram photo that he would protect her, and love her, and never let anyone hurt her.
And then his baby girl had been placed in his arms for the first time, he sees a replica of Natasha's eyes looking up at him, and he remembers what happened to her as a young girl and how easily it had happened. He remembered that Natasha had been taken from her bed and hurt, abused, ruined by men who should have cared for her, and how could he promise to protect his daughter from that? What made him enough of a man to declare that he was strong enough to raise his daughter in this hell-hole of a life he'd lived. What part of him deserved to hold that precious baby and call her his own?
So he steps back. He watches from across the room, stirring a mug of tea for the woman he loved while she held the gaze of the baby she fed. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling while she sang to their daughter in the next room. He looked down at Elena on the rare moments where he changed her diaper and he wondered - do you know me? I'm your father. Did you know that? - and slowly, as time went on, he became nothing more than a support to Natasha, not to their daughter.
Elena is a month old when Clint goes back on a SHIELD operation, and it isn't until he is on a plane to Budapest that he realises he'd kissed Natasha goodbye and then walked right past their daughter without a second glance. And by the time the plane lands in Budapest - where it all began - he felt such a strong self-loathing that he'd spent an hour to himself alongside the river before heading to his pick-up spot.
Because there was a tugging in his heart that wasn't guilt. There was something pulling him away from the view before him, and it was here, in the place where all things began, where he'd first held Natasha's body to his and where he'd first called her his own, where he feels incomplete as a man on his own. Because he may not be her primary caregiver, but his daughter is not within sight or sound. He sleeps in an old hotel room and he cannot hear Natasha's voice calming while she makes gentle cooing sounds. He makes himself a coffee in a broken old kitchen and he looks across the room to see that they aren't curled into a chair together while they communicate in soft sounds and intense looks.
Because here, in the city where him and Natasha became more than just a partnership, he wanted to take in what they had created together. He wanted his daughter.
Pulling out his phone, he called Natasha's number. It was the middle of the night, thirty minutes after her last feed, he figured, so she might still be awake. Her voice was a tired grumble when she answered the phone. "Hey, gorgeous," he speaks softly. "Baby girl keeping you up?"
"Just got her back to sleep," she replies quietly, showing that the baby is still in her arms despite being asleep. "You're alright?"
"Missed you," he tells her honestly. "Both of you."
The silence that follows makes him realise that she's always noticed his distance from their daughter. "Clint," she whispers, not even trying to finish the sentence.
"I'll be home in about twelve hours," he said, glancing at his watch. "I've got a debriefing with Fury I want to get done before I come home, so I should see you just as you're waking up."
"Okay," she tells him, wondering why he's telling her this over the phone rather than through a text message.
"And then once I'm home, we're locking the door for the day," he tells her, words that he should have spoken months ago spilling from his mouth. "We're locking the door, shutting off all interferance, and I want to spend the whole day with my daughter in my arms."
"Clint..."
"I'm sorry, Tasha," he whispers, running his hand through his hair. "I was so scared about being her father that I just...decided not to be."
"Come home safe," she tells him quietly. "Come back to us, and we'll fix it, okay?"
He's not sure how many hours have passed since he left Budapest. The time difference and the reports that waited for him at SHIELD had fried his brain, but he had a promise to keep and he wasn't going to let paperwork get in the way of that. The moment he was closing the door behind him, he switches off his cellphone, leaving it with his bag in the entrance hall, tossing his jacket along with it. He walks through the quiet halls, noticing that there's no gentle sounds within the apartment level. The door to Elena's room is open and he steps inside, taking a moment to admire her over the bars of the crib.
She is beautiful, isn't she?
She's wide awake but quiet - did you know I was coming home? Were you waiting for me? - and he takes her in his arms as easily as if he'd known all along. She can support her own head now, so he's not so paranoid about breaking her neck or dropping her. There's still no stirring from the other bedroom, so he changes her diaper, dresses her in a new sleep suit and then goes over to the rocking chair in the corner, laying her down in his arms as she stares up at him.
"This is new, isn't it?" he whispers to her, careful to keep the room quiet. Natasha needs the sleep.
Elena coos at him softly.
"I know. I've been a shitty father, haven't I?" he tells her. He strokes a finger down her tiny cheek. "I'm going to try and do better from now on, if you'll forgive me?"
She reaches out with her tiny hands, still so small and delicate, and grabs his hand, pulling it down to her so she can play with his fingers.
"I hope that's a yes," he mumbles. "Look, your momma? She's going to be the best momma in the world, okay? She's perfect, for us both, really. She's always gonna know what you need and when you need it. Me? I'm going to need a bit of help. No one ever teaches you how to be a Dad. No one ever tells you how scary it is. Because the truth? There were people who should have protected your mother when she was little, and they didn't. And I'm terrified that I'll screw up and someone will be allowed to hurt you."
Elena stops her attempts to chew on his fingers, burying a dribble-covered hand into his shirt instead, holding herself to him as her face looks up at his. This is what he watches Natasha experience every day, this eye contact, this knowing glance, and there's nothing in the world that could make him look away from her.
"I've not been very good at showing it, but you're my baby girl and I have so much love in my heart for you that I don't know what to do with it. I might not be able to promise that no one will ever hurt you, but I can promise that for as long as I'm your dad, I won't let anyone get away with it. If someone hurts you, I'll hunt them down until the ends of the Earth. Because that's what I'm good at. But I am going to get good at being a dad too, and I'm going to be a good dad because it's what you need and what you deserve. I just..." he sighed, lifting her a little within his arms so that she was holding herself up on his chest, their faces close. "I'm just a bit of a disaster right now, so if I'm doing something crazy, you have my permission to throw up on me to teach me a lesson."
Elena coos again, leaning forward to press a sloppy kiss on the end of his nose. When he smiles, he sees a flash of red behind her and there's Natasha leaning against the doorway, a tired smile on her lips. He stands from the chair, kissing the woman who bought his baby girl to life and guiding her back to their own room.
He has a promise to keep.