Thanks to those of you who have favorited, followed, and especially commented on this story. I appreciate all of the feedback very much.
Spoilers will be true to the timelines, so this one contains the tiniest spoilers for Thor and Captain America. There are no flashes at all to the future (I promise fair warning, no worries).
Also fair warning, since this chapter takes place at a point in the timeline that isn't before or after anything particularly significant, it mostly explores the relationship between Natasha and the Bartons. Piles of fluff ahead.
Enjoy!
Autumn 2011 — Part II
Talking to Clint and splashing cold water on her face helped calm her enough to hitch the smiling mask back onto her face and rejoin the party. She sat next to Bonnie and 'ooh-ed' and 'aah-ed' with the rest as Lila opened her gifts. It was an awkward practice, watching a small child open birthday presents in front of a crowded room, but it did not take long and as Clint had predicted the guests were starting to say their good-byes.
Sunset found Bonnie taking a turn in the bounce house with the kids while Natasha and Clint gathered what he called "party shrapnel" into garbage bags and Laura packed and stored the leftover food. Natasha volunteered to walk the trash out to the garbage cans. When she came back into the kitchen, she heard her name and froze.
"—not sure about that Natalie," a voice she recognized as Bonnie's was saying from the living room. Natasha hung back in the kitchen, near the stove where she was out of Bonnie's sight line.
"Not this again, Mom," Laura sighed, sounding a little exasperated.
"I know, it's just, after meeting her in person, something just feels off about that one. She seemed pretty spaced-out today—"
"Kids' birthday parties are not really her scene—"
"—practically dropped Cooper earlier—"
"—she did not drop Cooper—" Natasha could almost hear Laura rolling her eyes, but a pang of guilt shot through her chest all the same.
"—strangely close relationship with Clint—"
"—They're cousins, Mom—"
"—Always together at work, you say—"
"—That's what it means to be 'partners' in the service—"
"—There's something just not right about her!"
Laura tutted loudly. Natasha imagined her assuming the usual hands-on-hips scolding stance.
"Mom, I love you, and I appreciate you looking out for me—"
"But?"
"But," Laura said with a heavy breath, "This is my marriage, my family, and I trust them both."
"I think you might be making a mistake," Bonnie said quietly. "How can you possibly trust that stranger so much?"
"First of all, she's far from a stranger and second, I do not have to justify my family's decisions to you."
"Am I not part of the family anymore?"
"Ugh, Mom!" Laura said, sounding frustrated now. "Of course you are."
"But not enough to be honest about this?"
"I am being honest, but I don't expect you to understand. Dad was an accountant. Clint puts his life on the line for his country every single day and every time he goes out for a mission there's a very real chance that he might not come back." Laura's voice started to tremble with those last words, but she seemed to steel herself quickly. "Once, a few years back, he saved Nat's life. Family or not, she feels indebted to him. She has risked her own skin more than once to make sure that he comes back home after every mission. She has never once made an inappropriate advance and even if she did, I trust Clint completely." Laura sighed. "My marriage is not your marriage, Mom."
Natasha chose that moment to slip back toward the door and slide it open and closed again loudly to signal that she was back in the house. Predictably, the two women fell silent as Natasha poured a glass of water and finished wiping down the kitchen counters, taking care not to be any louder than she normally would. She was relieved to hear footsteps pounding on the deck outside and both kids flung themselves through the sliding door, looking windswept, hair tousled. She was glad for the second she'd had to set her glass down because Cooper spotted her, ran forward, and leapt up at her, wrapping his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. He clung there like a sloth and beamed up at her.
"Having a bouncy house in our front yard was the best thing ever! You are the coolest!" She returned the hug.
"I'm glad you had fun," she said. Lila was tagging behind also smiling, by this time having caught up with her brother, wrapping her arms around Natasha's knees.
"Thank you Auntie Nat!" She said. Natasha carefully set Cooper down and scooped up Lila.
"Happy birthday, myshka," Natasha said with the kind of gentle smile that only the kids had the power to extract. She moved to push Lila's tousled hair out of her face and frowned. Her forehead was hot to the touch. "Sweetie are you ok?"
"I don't feel good," she said. She wrapped her arms around Natasha's neck and held on. Natasha made her way out of the kitchen.
"Laura," she called. She gave it a few moments but called out again when she didn't see Laura in the living room either.
"Yeah?" Laura's voice sounded from the porch. Laura's face appeared at the screen door and Bonnie was close behind.
"Lila's forehead feels hot." Laura came inside and felt her daughter's forehead, also frowning.
"She has been congested all day. Maybe she wore herself out. I'll get the thermometer." Natasha stood there unmoving, Lila burrowing further into the crook of her neck.
"Is Lila sick?" Cooper asked.
"Maybe," Natasha said. "But she'll be okay, don't worry." She ruffled Cooper's hair with her free hand. Bonnie stepped forward and reached out for Lila, but the little girl made no effort to loosen her hold. Neither did Natasha.
Laura returned with the thermometer and after half a minute confirmed a low-grade fever. Laura shook her head slightly, leaving again to get the tylenol. Natasha carried Lila upstairs to her room and helped her into her pajamas. By the time they finished, Laura was back with the Tylenol and Bonnie in tow
"I don't understand, she was fine all day," Natasha said. Laura gave her a small smile.
"She's been distracted all day. She's had a little cough and congestion brewing, but now that she's tired and all the hubbub has died down…" she allowed her voice to trail off as she tipped the medicine into Lila's mouth. The little girl took it without protest.
"I'll tuck her in," Bonnie said, a protective tone in her voice. "I have to say goodbye anyway."
"You're leaving?" Lila asked her grandmother.
"Just until next time, honey." Laura and Natasha left the room and headed back down the stairs.
"So how are you feeling? Any better?"
"I am so sorry, Laura," Natasha murmured. They found Clint playing with Cooper in the living room and sat together on the couch.
"No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. Besides—" she lowered her voice. "Coop really had no idea. Nobody else said anything either. You handled it in the best possible way." Natasha paused. She hated bringing her past into the Bartons' home; it felt like she was contaminating something. Unable to think of an adequate response, she sat there next to Laura in silence.
Winding down for the evening, Clint put in a video for Cooper and all of them sat in the room, Clint and Natasha reading through documents on their tablets and Laura doing the crossword. Bonnie rejoined them for a short time after Lila had fallen asleep before it was time for her to go back. Clint and Laura loaded her arms with packaged leftovers before she hugged them and Cooper (she gave Natasha a curt smile), wishing them well and promising to come back soon. When the door had closed behind them, Laura let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. Cooper retreated back to his post in front of the TV to resume his movie.
"Wow," Clint laughed, looking at Natasha. "And here I was thinking there was nobody on the planet that Bonnie liked less than me. What'd you do?" Natasha shrugged and shook her head.
"We all know that I don't have the most winning personality," Natasha said with a grimace. She wouldn't mention the conversation she'd overheard, though she had a shrewd idea that Laura would talk to Clint about it when they had a moment alone. She nodded to Clint. "What did you do that was so terrible?"
"Bonnie's never thought I was good enough for her daughter," Clint shrugged and put his arm around Laura, who relaxed into his embrace. Natasha raised her eyebrows, slid her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, and shrugged her shoulders, her facial expression clearly stating her opinion on the matter. Laura laughed and Natasha's face slid into a smile.
"You know, sometimes I don't love that the two of you get along so well," Clint said ruefully. Laura chuckled and stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.
"I specifically recall you telling me that you were glad I had a friend who wasn't a 'church mom,'" Laura reminded him. "Although in my defense, that description fits pretty much every woman my age in this town."
"Speaking of which, are you going tomorrow?" Natasha asked. "I can watch Lila."
During her first visit to the Barton homestead, she had been somewhat surprised to learn that Clint and his family were religious. At least, the family celebrated Christmas and Easter and regularly attended services at a non-denominational Christian church nearby; Clint joined them whenever he wasn't away on a mission. Natasha probably should have foreseen it, with both Clint and Laura having been raised in small Iowa towns, but his faith was something Clint rarely mentioned away from home. He described himself as being "a fan of canon Jesus;" he liked the general message and thought it would be good for the kids to grow up believing in a higher power who advocated "loving your neighbor," "welcoming strangers," and "helping the least of these."
Niceties aside, Natasha personally had difficulty swallowing a document stating that eating shrimp was a sin but selling a daughter into slavery was okay, and she had difficulty accepting a god who would send a pack of bears to maul a bunch of kids because they mocked a guy for being bald. Needless to say, she was not a church-goer.
"I had wanted to, but let's see how Lila is in the morning. Cooper might be bummed to miss his friends at Sunday School, but he'll be okay."
The three of them rejoined Cooper in the living room where a recent release featuring animated yellow aliens. Natasha absorbed herself in her SHIELD tablet, looking over the background files for her next assignment. She only realized that the movie was over when Cooper appeared at her side, poking at her shoulder and holding a book in front of the eyes.
"Will you read to me?" His hazel eyes twinkled with anticipation. Natasha smiled, switched off her tablet, and set it aside. Cooper thrust the book into her hands and scooted closer, helping her open the book to the marked page. He leaned against her and she began to read.
"'Chapter 6, The Journey from Chapter Nine and Three-Quarters. Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun…'" Clint and Laura stood and collected the used glasses and mugs, exiting to the kitchen so as not to disturb the pair.
"You know, for a 'big kid,' he sure likes to snuggle with Nat," Clint said.
"Speaking of Nat," she said soberly, her eyes fixed on her husband's face, "what happened today?"
"Flashback of some kind, I think," Clint said, shrugging his shoulders briefly. "She didn't really say, and I didn't push her."
"I wonder what triggered it?" she wondered aloud, not really respecting a response. Laura knew that there were certain confidences that Clint kept, usually pertaining to Natasha's past. She knew the gist of what the Black Widow's life had looked like before Clint had intervened and brought her to SHIELD, but she had made a point not to pry. Although she had never said so, Laura had a shrewd suspicion that was a big part of why Natasha felt so comfortable here. "Obviously something about the party, maybe the balloons popping? I just want to try to prevent it from happening again."
"Not sure, she didn't say. Just sat there. I haven't seen her have a flashback that bad since we came back from Baku a couple years ago."
"She also hasn't had one around the kids before, at least as far as I know," Laura pointed out.
"Yeah," Clint nodded in agreement, "she looked terrified when she asked how Cooper was doing after she set him down and took off. The thought that she might have hurt him really freaked her out."
"I don't think Cooper suspected a thing." She echoed his own thoughts from earlier.
"And Natasha would never hurt the kids. Or any other kids, for that matter." At least, Clint thought, not as a fully trained assassin. He knew the file on the Red Room program more intimately than most of the SHIELD agents tasked with a related operation, both through those files and in knowing Natasha, and some of the details of the children's training regimen sent a chill through his blood. It was enough to know that only about a quarter of those who entered the academy would graduate from it. He shook those unsettling thoughts off quickly.
Clint and Laura both looked over at their friend, sitting cozily on the couch with Cooper nestled at her side, focused on the book in front of them. Something she read made them both laugh and Natasha tucked a long, red curl back behind her ear before turning the page. When Laura first met her, she had been struck by the mismatch between Natasha's youthful face and the trauma-weary eyes that made her seem decades older. Now, sitting there with Cooper, she witnessed one of those rare times when the light in Natasha's eyes reflected her true chronology, a woman who had just entered her late twenties.
"She's probably going to have a rough night," Clint said. Laura nodded in agreement. She couldn't think of a single way to help her friend except to be there with a cup of tea —or shot of vodka— and sympathetic ear if Natasha asked. The two of them stood in silence for another minute.
"I should go check on Lila," Laura said. She gave Clint's shoulder a squeeze as she stood and walked toward the staircase. She found Lila sleeping restlessly but did not want to wake the child. Her fever seemed to have broken for now. Laura watched her sleep for several minutes before changing into her pajamas and going back downstairs. She heard Natasha's even voice as she stepped off of the staircase.
"…'Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."'
"'Cause he still had a pig tail from Hagrid's umbrella!" Cooper laughed loudly. "That's funny!"
"That's the end of the chapter," Natasha said, a small smile playing on her lips.
"That's perfect, because it happens to be exactly your bedtime," Clint interjected.
Cooper only put up a little protest before going willingly with his father to bed. Laura sat on the couch diagonally from Natasha, who was replacing the bookmark and setting the book on a nearby table. Their eyes met briefly.
"Is it okay if we don't talk about it?" Natasha asked quietly.
"Sure. Want some tea?"
"No, thanks."
"Vodka? I have a bottle of the stuff that you like."
"No, thanks. I think I'm just going to go to bed." Laura looked into the younger woman's face. She would not meet her eyes.
"You know where to find us if you need anything," Laura offered, and Natasha nodded in understanding.
"Thanks."
Laura woke just after 2 in the morning to a hoarse, rasping cough and found Lila in bed awake, crying, and burning with fever. She recognized the cough, which sounded like a seal's bark, as a symptom of croup, so after another dose of tylenol she wrapped Lila in a blanket and carried her downstairs, heading for the cold air outside. As she passed into the front hallway, she saw that there was a sliver of light glowing under the door of Natasha's room. She stopped and listened for a moment.
There was a dull, rhythmic sound coming from the room, a muffled thump…thump…thump thump. Concerned, she quietly moved down the hallway and lightly tapped on the door. The noises stopped.
"Nat," she called softly through the door. "Are you okay?"
A second later, the door swung open. Natasha stood there with her hair swept into a bun, dressed in a tank top and athletic leggings. She had a look on her face that Laura couldn't quite read, containing stony rigidity and focus along with a trace of trepidation. Soft classical music played in the background. Laura also noted, surprised, that she wore tightly laced ballet shoes.
"I heard noises and got worried," she told Natasha, by way of apology.
"Is Lila okay?" The little girl rested on Laura's hip, looking sleepily between her mother and Natasha.
"She has croup, so I'm taking her to sit in the cold air for awhile, to help her cough. I saw your light on and heard thumping so I wanted to check on you first." Natasha nodded.
"Want company?"
"Sure." Natasha untied and slipped off her ballet shoes and into thick socks, tugged her hoodie over her head, and followed Laura and Lila down the hall. They took seats on the porch swing and Lila gave a round of gasping, bark-like coughs that startled Natasha. She had never heard a sound like that coming from a child before. Laura gave her an understanding smile.
"Croup has a distinctive cough. It sounds worse than it is," she said reassuringly. "The cold air helps with the upper airway inflammation." Natasha reached her right hand over to stroke Lila's hair, damp from sweat.
"Hang in there, myshka," she murmured. Lila calmed for a moment, turning her head on her mother's shoulder to look at Natasha. She continued to stroke the child's hair until her eyes started to fall closed.
"So, I've gotta ask—ballet?" Laura said, glancing over at her friend. Natasha shrugged.
"Old habits," she said simply.
"Where'd you learn to dance?" Natasha glanced at Lila, who appeared to be falling asleep, then back at Laura.
"My…training program," she said. Laura looked aghast, unable to reconcile in her mind the idea of such a graceful art being taught at a harsh boarding school for young assassins-in-training. "The school's cover was as a ballet academy. That's how they explained the existence of the building, the kids, some of the financing. It was also the ruse for recruitment."
"Recruitment?"
"Yeah," a dark look crossed Natasha's face. "We were all orphans. The headmistress would go around to orphanages across the country, scouting for young girls who seemed to have certain qualities: discipline, focus, intelligence, physical health and strength. She assessed each girl and if selected, the orphanage was told the girl had qualified for a place at the ballet school."
"And the orphanages just let them take the girls?"
"Both were run by the state," she told Laura. "And in order to keep up the act, we learned ballet."
Lila was half-awake, eyes partly closed but still looking in Natasha's direction. She continued to stroke the little girl's hair. When she had been Lila's age, she supposed her own mother would have done the same when she was ill as well.
"Were you good?"
"The best in my year," Natasha said quietly, bitterness in her tone. "The drills are very focused and technically complex. Helps me take my mind off—" a coughing fit from Lila interrupted her thought. Laura shifted her daughter in her lap, but the change in position and, Natasha thought, discomfort or fear from not breathing well caused Lila to wail. Fat tears rolled down her bright pink cheeks, her harsh coughing sounded like the child could barely get air in.
"Shhhhh," Laura hushed. "Calm down baby." She hummed a lullaby and rubbed her daughter's back, but Lila only cried harder. The harder she cried, the worse her breathing became.
"I have an idea," Natasha said, and retreated into the house. She returned back to the porch less than a minute later with Laura's laptop and Lila's favorite DVD in her hands.
"Good thinking," said Laura appreciatively over Lila's crying, watching as the DVD was loaded into the laptop and began to play. Natasha pulled a small plastic table around from the side of the swing to rest in front of it, propped up the laptop, and sat back on the swing.
As she had predicted, Lila's crying quickly waned when the opening score of The Sound of Music began to play. Her breathing eased and she settled back into her mother's arms, turning to see the screen. Both Natasha and Laura relaxed.
"I'll take her to the d-o-c-t-o-r in the morning," Laura said softly, "but no need for an ER visit tonight as long as she's breathing okay when she's calm." Several minutes passed with the only sound coming from Maria twirling about the hills of Austria. Lila gave only an occasional cough now.
"Sorry about how my mom acted toward you," Laura said softly. "She's a good person but a little protective."
"No need to apologize."
"So how much of our argument did you overhear?"
"I'm sorry, Laura, I didn't mean to eavesdrop." Laura laughed.
"We weren't exactly being subtle, and you are a spy." She sighed and adjusted Lila's position in her arms. "She and my dad split when I was in high school. He was—pretty unfaithful, so she's touchy about that sort of thing, and she really doesn't trust new people."
"We have that in common," Natasha shot Laura a small smirk.
"I know this family dynamic is —unconventional—but I truly wouldn't have it any other way. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate everything you do for all of us." Laura smiled genuinely, stroking Lila's hair. She was starting to fall asleep again as a group of nuns onscreen sang in the background.
"No need for thanks. You are the closest thing to a family I've ever had," Natasha said, her matter-of-fact tone sending a pang through Laura. It was one of those brutally honest things that Natasha sometimes said that was meant to express happiness or be taken as a compliment, but the implications of which broke Laura's heart.
She still remembered with painful clarity a conversation they'd had last year, just before Natasha had gone undercover as an assistant to Tony Stark. His reputation as a playboy and womanizer was widely known, and she had not been thrilled to overhear Natasha scheduling a lingerie photo shoot to "build her cover" for the operation. After she had hung up the phone, Laura approached, taking a seat next to her on the steps of the back porch.
"Hope SHIELD leaves plenty of time for digital retouching," Natasha said with an eyebrow raised, gesturing to her left side. The scar there was still pink and puckered, the injury only 3 months old at that time.
"Listen, Nat," Laura started, unsure how to phrase her concern without Natasha interpreting it as a weakness. "I know you feel you owe SHIELD, but if they ask you to do anything too uncomfortable," she laid a delicate stress on the word and decided it sounded wrong. She tried again. "If they ask you to do something inappropriate, or too intimate—"
Natasha had looked up at her, expression unreadable, but Laura could tell she understood her meaning. There was understanding in her green eyes as they searched Laura's. She kept her expression neutral and shook her head a fraction.
"No, it's SHIELD," Natasha had said, "They don't make me do that sort of thing."
The word 'anymore' had remained unstated, but Laura quickly swallowed the lump rising in her throat at the implication.
Now, sitting in the cool night air on the front porch and keeping vigil over an ill child, Laura reached her right hand from where it had been resting on Lila's back over to Natasha. She found her left hand and squeezed.
"I meant what I said to my mother," she said quietly. "You are a member of our family."
They sat like that for over an hour, until Laura was yawning mightily and consistently dozing off, fighting sleep for the sake of her child. Lila remained asleep in her arms, no further coughing fits, but starting to stir and fuss every time Natasha tried to stop the movie.
"You need to get some sleep," Natasha said quietly, standing to stretch and starting for the door. "I'll go wake Clint so you can trade off." Laura shook her head, straightening in her seat.
"No, I'll do it," Laura said. "Here, take her for a minute —" She gestured for Natasha to come closer, but Natasha's eyes widened slightly and she shook her head.
"I'm not sure—" she started to say
"Nat, it's okay. We trust you, and besides, it's only going to be a minute." Before Natasha could argue, Laura was shifting Lila's weight into Natasha's arms. Sensing the change, Lila fussed briefly before she found the crook of Natasha's neck and nuzzled into it, small legs wrapping around her waist and arms around her neck. Laura draped her blanket over the two of them.
"Wait, Laura, what if—"
"Nothing is going to happen," she said much more confidently than Natasha felt. "My cell is on just in case, and Clint will be down in a minute." With that, she kissed Lila's temple and turned back into the house. The screen door clapped against the doorframe as Laura disappeared up the stairs. Natasha was left alone on the porch with Lila still clinging to her.
Unsure what else to do, she started to pace across the porch, but without warning Lila woke in a fit of coughing. Imitating Laura's movements from before, she rubbed Lila's back in a circular motion and turned up the laptop volume. The sound of the Von Trapp family singers performing Edelweiss drifted from the speakers but did nothing to calm the little girl down.
"Shh, shh, your dad will be here soon," she soothed, sitting back on the swing and hoping the rocking motion would help. "Bayushki bayu, bayushki bayu." The Russian words came to her lips without thought, a nonsense phrase used to calm babies, which Natasha repeated set to the tune of a lullaby she knew from childhood. Lila gazed at her with heavy eyes, her coughing becoming less severe.
"Keep singing?" Lila asked in a small and sleepy voice. Natasha smoothed the stray hairs out of the girl's face.
"I don't know any lullabies in English, little one."
"Please sing, Auntie Nat," she begged. Natasha looked into her weary little face, where the tears had not dried on her flushed cheeks and her voice was still hoarse, and found she couldn't refuse. She sighed and reached for the words of a lullaby from deep in her past.
"Sleep, my joy, sleep; the lights went out in the house; the birds quieted in the garden, and fish fell asleep in the pond," she crooned softly, the Russian words coming back to her easily. She reached with her foot and pushed her laptop closed, cutting off the extra noise. Lila gave a cough and then settled, curling into Natasha's chest, her head settling between her collarbone and jaw. "The moon shines in the sky, the moon peeks into the window; now close your eyes and sleep, my joy, sleep."
Lila's breathing was deeper and slower now. Soft footsteps approached and Natasha saw Clint stepping onto the porch out of the corner of his eye. She pieced together another stanza in her mind and continued to sing.
"Sweetly, my little bird flies where there is no anxiety or trouble; now close your eyes and sleep, little myshka, sleep." Clint took Laura's vacated seat on the swing as lightly as he could, so as not to disturb Lila, who appeared to be close to sleep. Natasha met Clint's eyes and was puzzled by the expression in them, a mixture of relief, gratitude, surprise, and pity? She could not be sure of the last one. She hummed the tune wordlessly for two more rounds before allowing her voice to trail off. The two of them waited several moments, but Lila did not stir.
"She doing okay?"
"A long as she is calm," she told him, careful not to move a muscle.
"You were singing." The surprise in his voice was unconcealed.
"She asked," Natasha said simply.
Clint folded his arms across his chest and smiled in awe at his partner and friend. She had come so very far from the day he first located her and made the decision to disobey his orders. Aside from (maybe) Coulson, nobody at SHIELD would ever guess that this tough-as-nails, fearless master assassin now sat holding and comforting his little girl with the kind of tenderness that she never recalled receiving herself.
"You're smirking."
"You've gotten soft, Romanoff," he joked softly.
She supposed he might be right, but Natasha didn't see it as softness. Her relationship with the Bartons had introduced a source of weakness, maybe, but also helped her to find a strength she never knew she could have.
She had been trained to be a fighter; it was nice to have something in her life that was worth the fight.
Let me know what you think; as always, I would appreciate reviews, favorites, and follows.
The next chapter will be out in a week or so and take place after the events of The Avengers, so stay tuned!