Fury didn't only see to it that Natasha got her medication refill; he personally showed up to deliver it, along with a job offer.

"I'm next to useless to you right now, and I'm still an enemy agent," Natasha said.

"Temporarily."

"Which?"

"Both. Ms. Romanov, I'm pretty sure you realize you're not the first person we've flipped. You're not even the first person that we've flipped who has a...colorful, shall we say, track record."

"Are you that hard up for talent?" Natasha smirked, but her eyes were hard.

"No, in fact. There are about a dozen other people with your exact skillset that are a mere phone call away, if they're not already on my payroll."

"So why do you want me?"

"Because this one took a shine to you." Fury jerked a thumb in Clint's direction. "And his judgment hasn't failed me yet."

Natasha assessed him coolly. "Your psychological manipulation is rather transparent."

"As is yours."

He left without an answer. Natasha both resented and respected his nonetheless confident stride out the Bartons' front door.

"Tea?" Laura asked brightly, after she had closed the door behind Fury. He had inquired about the pregnancy, and given her a small smile that she was almost 100% sure was genuine when she announced that everything seemed to be going well. Any such exchange nowadays left her feeling pretty chipper. "Actually, I'll make lunch."

She left Clint in the living room with Natasha, sitting in the same chair as when he kept watch over her early mornings.

"You looking to cheat on your wife, Barton?"

"I'm sorry?"

"She's pregnant. Probably uncomfortable and not particularly enthusiastic about the thought of sex. You don't want to think of yourself as a bad guy. You don't push. You don't even mention it. But you're frustrated. Intensely so."

Clint crossed his arms. "Continue."

"Your frustration leads you to make an irrational decision when confronted with an enemy. She's attractive. She's injured. If you take her home and care for her, she'll be in your debt. Power over the helpless is a mighty aphrodisiac. And perhaps she won't be..."lucid enough"...to turn you down."

"Why would I get my boss involved?"

"The reasons are manifold. You cover your tracks by presenting her as a case to be flipped. You lose an enemy if she takes you up on your job offer. And, most saliently, she'll be even more indebted to you if you help her start over in life."

Clint fixed her with a piercing look such as she thought that it, and not any particular skill at aiming, might be why he was called Hawkeye.

"Are you trying to wrangle a confession, or is this a first attempt at gaslighting?"

She shrugged.

"It's a pretty brilliant theory either way, but fortunately it's incorrect. Firstly, I have an active sex life. With my wife. Secondly, if I were the type of douche to try to get debt sex out of an enemy, I'd do it with someone a little less likely to slit my throat in the middle of it."

"I don't believe you." She wasn't sure of that.

"Well, maybe you'll believe that Fury would have me in thumbscrews if I jeopardized a mission just so I could chase tail."

That she definitely could believe, but she made no indication of the fact.

"And he'd be able to tell. Immediately." He stood up; stretched. "Y'know, Ms. Romanov, believing the worst about people isn't good for your health."

"And highly addictive painkillers are?"

"...All right, touche. But." He picked up the bottle Fury had left, brandished it aloft, and set it back down. "No one's shoving them down your throat here."

"You were sure insistent that I get them."

"I wanted you to have them. Whether you take them or not is up to you, but you need the resources before you can make a real choice."

"And why, exactly, do you care about my choices?"

"Because I figure anyone who loved a baby that much can't be irredeemable," he opened his mouth to say, before he thought better of it. Laura chose that time to hipcheck the door open, anyway.

"You're not allergic to peanut butter, right?" Laura asked brightly. "Cause I can make you bologna and cheese again if you are. Just thought you'd want something different."

"I'm not allergic to anything," Natasha said.

"Ok, good. Lunch in one minute!" She disappeared back into the kitchen.

"See, how could anyone cheat on that?" Clint asked, with a small smile.

"People have done worse."

"Granted, but." He fixed her with a gaze no less intense than before, but much softer. "People have done better, too."

"And you think I'll "do better" with SHIELD?"

"Well, yeah. That's why I brought you here. And I think, at the very least, SHIELD will do you better."

Laura hipchecked the door open again, this time bearing a tray with three sandwiches and three glasses of iced tea.

"In fact, I think it already has."