Shoutouts to patty cake rocks, Guest, Shannon K, Guest, pinoychick143, Lost it Never Had It, beverlie4055, Jo, Long Lost Letter, pengineer, Black Betty, Guest, kamarooka, and MaddieFayeth96 for reviewing!

Ok, I promised some sexy stuff in the opening of this chapter, so I hope y'all are ready for that =) There's also Clint and Natasha babysitting up ahead, and it'll continue into the next chapter since they still have some more stuff to go through with Mary Katherine!

I know I'm late in this update (I can never stick to my schedule-so sorry!) so thank you (again) for being patient with me!

For extra emotions, listen to "After the Storm" - Mumford & Sons. I know-I'm a giant nerd about keeping a theme =)

Keep letting me know what you think!

Enjoy! =)

Chapter 13

"Ready to try running to the house?"

Natasha looked outside at the black sky that dropped torrents of rain against the truck, the house, the barn, the fields, and all the places she couldn't see. She tried to think of something smart to say, some quick, witty little response to make Clint laugh after the news she'd just dropped on him moments ago, but she couldn't think of anything. All she could think of was the first time the two of them had sat and listened to the rain together. She'd been a silent, unhappy Russian agent still adjusting to her new surrounds and a broken arm, and Clint had been a talkative, more innocent version of the man who sat beside her just then.

"Yeah," she said, settling on a short, simple answer. "We're going to get wet no matter what."

"If we can survive an alien invasion, we can survive a storm, right, Agent Romanoff?" Clint asked. Natasha gave a short, clipped nod, the way she would if she were at work.

"Affirmative, Agent Barton."

"Then let's go into the storm."

Simultaneously, the two assassins pushed the doors to the truck open and started moving towards the house, their legs picking up pace as they ran. Natasha found her hand somehow wrapped in Clint's, and she tightened her grip around his fingers to hold onto him even more. Just as she turned to look up at him, he lost his footing in the mud and slipped, falling and soaking the left side of his jeans with mud, grass, and rainwater. Natasha froze, her mouth open, and Clint looked up at her with such a shocked expression on his face that she couldn't help laughing.

"Nat—it's not—not funny—" Clint sputtered, but soon he was laughing with her, and the two of them were standing outside his farmhouse as the rain poured down on top of them with no regard for them whatsoever.

"Yes, it—oh my god—your face!" Natasha shouted over the rain's roar as she continued laughing.

"What?" Clint asked, unable to hear.

"Your face!" she shouted again, but her words were ripped away from her lips by the sounds of night rain. Laughing with her, Clint pulled himself up to his feet, and he started to look down at his jeans to see the damage done to them, but Natasha kissed him. She put her wet hands on his wet face, and she wetly kissed his wet mouth. She pulled back just a little bit to look at him. "Your face."

Now that he was wet, Clint no longer cared about trying to get to the house quickly. He was soaked, and Natasha was soaked, and there was no use in thinking that they were going to be anything but soaked, so he kissed her again. The rain was cool against his skin, but Natasha was warm on his lips. Even in the downpour, she was warm and represented everything he'd worked so hard for in his life. Even with her hair glued to her face and her dress stuck to her legs, she was the most stunning sight he'd ever seen.

Suddenly, she grabbed him and dragged him towards the farmhouse, moving to the stairs and only pausing to turn around and kiss him hard. She plunged her tongue into his mouth as she pulled him behind her, releasing a quick, sharp breath of a laugh when his foot caught on a stair, and he stumbled. He thought about telling her that sure, she could laugh because she was the most graceful woman in the world, but he couldn't think of another word past her name.

Her hands were all over him, and she touched and pulled and caressed every wet part of his solid form that she could find. Clint wouldn't remember how it happened, but he found himself lying on his back with his face pointed up towards the roof of the porch while Natasha straddled him. He knew he should suggest taking this inside where it was dry and warm and, well, private, but Natasha was kissing his neck and unbuttoning his pants, and he couldn't even breathe, let alone speak.

Natasha groaned as Clint's hands gripped her hips. Reaching between them, she yanked his zipper down and waited while he lifted his hips so she could yank the soaked fabric of his jeans and his boxers down just enough to free his already firm erection. She gripped him in her palm for just a second, and she thought she smiled when she saw Clint's eyes shut. Readjusting herself, Natasha moved over him, and then she sank down on top of him.

Clint hadn't expected to be inside her so suddenly, and he sharply cried out, his hands tightening around her hips so hard that it occurred to him in the back of his mind that he might be hurting Natasha. Her head fell back, wet blonde hair falling back across her shoulders, and she closed her eyes at the feeling of him inside her. She knew that she should have waited until they'd gotten into the house, but as she immediately set the pace and began to ride him with hard, steady movements, she knew that she couldn't have waited another second before taking him inside her.

Quietly, she moved over him without waiting for him to adjust to the sudden feeling of sex. Clint breathed and moaned underneath her, every sound being the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard in her entire life. She loved being over him like this—she loved bringing him pleasure and making him feel like this. God, she just loved him. She sank down onto him over and over again, and she watched his face, taking in every small detail.

Clint was far more expressive than he thought he was—or maybe she just knew him—and she always adored looking at his expressions during sex. As she rode him without apology, she watched his face go through a colorful rainbow of unmasked emotions. She saw his pleasure, his struggle, his lust—she saw him enter the primal place she knew he kept safe in the back of his mind just for her.

"Nat—Na—tash—" Clint choked, his fingers digging into the backs of her hips. He closed his eyes and groaned, deep and guttural. He couldn't catch his mind up to the rest of his body, but he found he didn't care. In everything he did, he did it with Natasha, and he would go along with her this time, too, because he trusted her to have his back and to hold him together.

Natasha moaned and pressed her hands into his shoulders. She felt herself already starting to get close, and she didn't want to hold back. Judging from Clint's loud groans and gasps, he wasn't too far off, either. His hands grabbed her through her wet dress, squeezing her thighs, her hips, anywhere he could touch. Even though he couldn't touch as much of her as he wanted to, this was perfect. All he needed was an anchor, and he found that anchor in her.

He managed to make himself focus long enough to look up at her, and he felt his breath come a little harder as he saw her moving above him, her face free of all the inhibitions she put on every day. She looked like a picture out of a dream he'd had once, and honestly, he was so far out of his head that he wouldn't have been surprised if someone told him he'd once dreamed about her before he'd even known her. Hell, he would have believed the next person who said the sky was green.

Changing her movements, Natasha started a rough grind on top of him. She no longer moved over him the way she had been—now she took him inside her as deeply as he would go, and she ground her hips over him. Clint jerked beneath her and released a sharp cry into the air, another sound that wound up being swallowed by the night and the rain. Natasha felt the orgasm she'd been going for begin to build up between her legs, and she continued moving until her climax was undeniably close.

Clint felt the change in her body, and he knew that as soon as Natasha came, he would, too. He somehow managed to force his eyes to stay open, and he locked them onto her. She looked like a wild, untamable force—she was the wind, a tornado, a hurricane, a tsunami—a storm. She was free and unfixed, and he wanted to be like her; he wanted to be with her and to be free with her. He watched her rise up faster and faster to her climax, and he watched her as she tumbled free over him, her wild voice calling out to the wild night.

She rode him through her orgasm, chasing after his for him, and Clint couldn't hold back. Within seconds, he was grasping her hips harder than he had this whole time, and he was groaning to the high heavens as his hips jerked into her. He came deep inside her, the pleasure ripping straight out from his hips and spreading throughout his entire body until he couldn't feel a damn thing. He lay on his back, his breath coming in hard, heavy waves, and it took him a few moments to realize that Natasha was stretched out over his chest. She had her face tucked into his neck and her mouth close to his collarbone. He couldn't see her expression, but he could picture it just as clearly as if he were looking at her just then.

They lay in silence for just a few more moments. The rain continued to pour down around them, completely apathetic towards the fact that they'd just fucked each other senseless on the porch of Clint's childhood home where all the gods and all the earthbound creatures could have watched them. Finally, Natasha moved to sit up just a little bit. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were still bright and glassy as she looked down at him.

"We should - -de," she said to him, but he couldn't make out the full sentence with all the noisy water crashing through the air and thundering on top of the porch's roof. However, he could piece together enough to know what she was suggesting, and he nodded. With careful, slow movements, Natasha sat up and moved over him to let him fall out of her, wincing as she did so.

"You ok?" Clint asked, trying to make his weak voice audible over the rain. Natasha smiled and nodded.

"Just fine," she said. Standing up, she smoothed down her wet dress and reached a hand down to Clint, who took it after buttoning and zipping his pants back up. He let her pull him up until he was standing, and he took a few moments to get the buzzing out of his head as all the blood rushed back to where it was supposed to be. Without saying a word, he followed her into the house and shut the door behind him, locking it and keeping the rain outside. Kind of. He and Natasha were so wet that they'd brought the rain in with them to some degree.

Natasha looked down at herself and quietly sighed. "You want first shower?"

"No, you take it," he urged. "I'll make hot drinks."

"Hot chocolate?" she asked, her voice hopeful and surprisingly child-like. Despite his exhaustion, Clint found it in himself to smile.

"Hot chocolate," he said. "With lots of marshmallows."

"I knew there was a reason I loved you."

"Yeah? Well, don't forget it."

"Oh, I won't."

Twenty minutes later, after Clint had taken his shower, he came back downstairs to find Natasha sitting on the floor in a heap of pillows and blankets with the fire going. She heard him walk into the living room, and she turned over her shoulder to look at him, her mug of hot chocolate between her hands.

"I thought I'd switch things up a little," she said, gesturing with her head towards the pillows and blankets.

"I like it." Clint crossed towards her and all but collapsed on top of the cozy pile. "Wow. I feel like a kid again."

"I've never done anything like this with anyone but you before," Natasha replied in a matter of fact tone. "My first time doing the pillow and blanket pile was a few years ago with you that one Christmas when we were finally able to actually spend Christmas together."

Clint looked up at her from his spot on the blankets. "That was your first time doing this?"

"Mmhmmm." She nodded. "You have a lot of firsts of mine under your belt. My first real Christmas, my first real birthday celebration…a lot of firsts."

Clint wasn't surprised to hear this from her. She'd mentioned it back during their very first Christmas together that she hadn't truly celebrated Christmas before, but they hadn't talked about it. Back then, he'd just held her a little longer and kissed her a little softer and gone about trying to make the holiday as good as possible for her.

Now that he thought about it, back then they hadn't talked much about their pasts. They'd still been new and exciting with each other, and even though they'd trusted each other, they hadn't been ready to talk about it. Over the years, Clint had watched Natasha unfold into a more comfortable, more confident version of herself. She talked more freely about things in her past, and she didn't look quite so pained when she did. She could never quite lose that darker expression in her eyes, but she'd learned how to let her stories flow.

"First Spring Festival," he added with a grin. Natasha let out a low grown, but then she laughed as she shook her head.

"I guess so," she said. "Yeah. You can take first for that, too."

"So you really did have fun?" Clint sat up and picked up his mug of hot chocolate that Natasha had set on the coffee table.

"I did. It was nice. All of the people that we got to meet and talk to…they were nice," she replied, quiet and thoughtful. Her eyes took on a more distant expression, and Clint waited for her to talk. She twisted her mouth to the side slightly and lifted her eyes to meet his. "Everyone here is so nice."

"Not everyone," Clint corrected. "But a lot of people are. There are some really lovely people here."

"For the first time in a long time…maybe ever...I don't feel like they're trying to get something from me. You know? They're just nice because they are. They're not trying to manipulate me or figure out what I know about this organization or that organization. They're just…nice."

"It's kind of a different world out here, isn't it?" Clint asked, a small smile lighting up his face.

Natasha lifted her eyebrows and nodded in agreement. "It really is. It's very different from everything I've ever known before. You're farming, I'm fighting with herbs, and we're now apparently contract babysitters."

Clint laughed, low and hearty. "We went from being deadly world assassins to babysitters."

Laughter started to bubble out of Natasha as she thought about the two of them babysitting. "How the hell did we get from that to this?"

"Oh, Jesus, I don't even know." Clint ran a hand through his hair, again reminding Natasha that he needed a haircut, and he sighed. "Well. Babysitting should be…an experience, to say the least."

"You ever babysit a baby before?" Natasha asked.

"Nope. And I assume you haven't either?"

"Your assumption is correct."

"Huh. We're really in for something, aren't we?"

"It shouldn't be that hard. I'll just Google some tips or something. I mean…she's a baby. How hard can it be?"

Natasha had no idea how she would come to regret her words.

It wasn't until Emily and David had whisked out the door, leaving Mary Katherine lying on a quilt in the living room while Clint watched over her that Natasha realized just how hard it was going to be. So far, the baby hadn't done anything that required panic or know-how, but as Natasha walked back into the living room and looked down at Clint and Mary Katherine, it dawned on her that she had no idea what to do with the baby.

"Someone's awake. Someone has those big beautiful eyes open, and she's just as curious as can be. Yes, she is," Clint said softly, his voice low and warm as he put his finger in Mary Katherine's tiny little hand. The baby stretched out her fingers and loosely wrapped them around his finger, and she stared at him with huge, interested eyes.

"I have no idea how you do it," Natasha said, crossing farther into the room. She lowered herself down to the floor on the other side of Mary Katherine and kept a close eye on the baby.

"Do what?" Clint asked without looking away.

"Be this natural with kids. It's a special gift. You should've included it on your SHIELD form," she said. He gave her a sharp warning look, and she rolled her eyes. "Please. She's only a few months old. She's not going to tell David and Emily what I said."

"Still. I don't want to be too careful," Clint mumbled, meriting a laugh from Natasha.

"Anyway. You didn't answer my question. How are you so good at this. Like…what do you know what to do with kids? If it were just Mary Katherine and me, I'd be staring at her, and she'd be staring at me, and neither of us would do anything," Natasha replied in a dry, humor-filled tone.

Clint laughed. "I don't know. You just…talk to them. About anything. They don't judge you. That's what's so nice about kids. Especially the little ones like this. They haven't had their minds implanted with gross stuff yet. They're just along for the ride."

"I still don't know what to do with them," Natasha deadpanned.

"Bullshit," Clint said with a snort. "When you held her that time Emily came to the house with her, you knew exactly what to do."

"That was different," Natasha protested.

"No, it wasn't. Here." Gently, Clint scooped Mary Katherine up in his arms and held her out to Natasha. "Take her."

Natasha glanced warily at him, but he nodded at her, his whole face so enthusiastic that she couldn't tell him no. Carefully, she held her arms out and let Clint pass the baby to her. Mary Katherine wriggled just slightly, but within seconds, she was comfortable and happy, still looking around her with interest.

"See? You did that just fine," Clint said softly. "Look at that. You're a natural."

"Holding a baby isn't hard. It's knowing what to do with it," she said, trying to ignore the soft look on his face as he looked at the both of them. "It's trying to figure out how to keep it entertained and happy and…and safe."

"Well, you're doing a damn good job of it so far." Clint grinned as he continued to watch her. "Natasha Romanoff holding a baby. Never thought I'd see the day."

"You tell anyone at SHIELD, and I'll kill you," Natasha threatened, though she smiled as she said it. Mary Katherine made a small noise, and she glanced down at the baby. "Not you. I won't kill you. I'm talking to that thing over there."

"Oh, so I'm a thing?" Clint lifted his eyebrows. "Don't confuse her."

"Well, I'm not going to lie to her."

Suddenly, the baby began to cry, and that was when Natasha realized how far in over her head she was. Panicked, she looked at Clint, who was looking at her with the same expression.

"Why's she crying?" he asked.

"I don't know!" Natasha protested. "I was hoping you'd know the answer."

"Uh…no. No, I don't know the answer. Try rocking her."

Natasha started to rock the baby, hoping that she didn't look too awkward as she did it. Mary Katherine seemed unfazed by the gentle motions, and she kept crying, her small fists bunching up. "Clint, I don't know why she's crying. Is she hungry? Did Emily say she would get hungry?"

"Emily said she fed her about an hour ago. Does she want more?" Clint asked.

"I don't know! Go look for some milk in the fridge. We might as well try. Emily said there was also a written out tentative schedule for what they do with her, so maybe that'll be of some help, too," Natasha said. Clint nodded, and he was up in a flash. Natasha continued rocking the baby, looking down at her as she cried. "Shhhh. Don't cry. We're trying to figure this out. I'm just as stressed as you are. You don't know what's going on…neither do I…we should be working together to figure out a strategy. Not opposing each other. Hmmm? What do you think?" Mary Katherine kept crying. "Ok, so maybe being a spy isn't in your future."

"Did you just try to negotiate with her?" Clint called from the kitchen.

"How did you hear that over all this commotion?" Natasha called back. "And don't you have a job to do?"

"I'm doing it—I'm doing it," Clint mumbled. Mary Katherine continued to cry, and Natasha continued to feel her stress levels rise.

"I promise that there's nothing to cry about," she said to the tiny baby. "I promise. At least not right now in your life. You've got a house and a mom and dad who love you very much. You're warm. You've got clothes on. That's enough to be happy about, right?" Mary Katherine bawled incessantly. "Right. But you can't talk. So this is your only way to communicate. So to you, there's everything to cry about. Ok. Got it."

Clint popped back into the living room. "Please tell me you weren't just analyzing her like she was the subject of an interrogation."

"You can take the spy out of the field, but you can't take the field out of the spy," Natasha said, and then she paused. "That sounded better in my head."

"Here's a bottle." Clint held it out, and Natasha took it. Natasha had never fed a baby before, but she figured it couldn't be that difficult. Carefully, she lowered the rubber nipple down and let Mary Katherine take it in her mouth. Just like magic, she went quiet, and she sucked hard on the bottle.

"Oh, wow," Natasha remarked. "I wasn't expecting that to work."

"Neither was I," Clint added. "Huh. Maybe we should make this a business. Make money off it like a bunch of high schoolers."

"I don't know. I'm already stressed about this, and we've only been here about 10 minutes," Natasha replied with a smirk. "Besides, how many people would hire us to babysit our kids?"

"Tons of people," Clint said smugly. "People love you here."

Natasha glanced up at him, finally managing to tear her eyes away from how cute Mary Katherine looked as she took care of her bottle. "You've talked to people about me?"

"They have talked to me about you." Clint smiled at her. "Everyone likes you. They say you're just as sweet as you can be, which came as a little surprising since you're this model-beautiful city girl. No one's said a negative thing at all to me."

"Well, they wouldn't say it to your face."

"No. But I've heard talk. Everyone loves you, Nat. You fit in well here." Clint wanted to tell her that she fit the role she was currently in right now as she held Mary Katherine and carefully fed the tiny baby. He wanted to tell her that she looked amazing with a baby in her arms and a bottle in one hand, but he didn't want to make her sad.

He'd always figured that she'd been sterile of some kind. She'd never once told him to wear a condom during sex, nor had she ever talked about getting a period, taking a nightly pill, or getting another kind of contraceptive. He'd noticed all of those things early on, and he'd researched as much as he could about the Red Room. Sure enough, he'd learned that the Red Room sterilized their girls. Natasha's file didn't include it—at least not where he had the clearance to see—but he knew that she was included in that group of sterilized girls all the same.

He would have been lying to himself if he said that he'd never thought about kids. Sure, he'd thought about kids a lot. Granted, he knew that with the life he led, it was too dangerous to have kids. God, his life made it far too dangerous. But still. That didn't mean that he couldn't think about it from time to time. He never dwelled on the thought of kids, nor did he think about it very often, but kids had definitely crossed his mind.

As he watched Natasha hold Mary Katherine, he briefly allowed himself to wonder what their kids would have looked like. Would they have inherited Natasha's red hair and his blue eyes? Or would they have gotten his blond hair and her green eyes? Maybe they would have had a mixture of both. He didn't know, and he never would. And that was ok with him. It truly was. Kids were out of the question, even with SHIELD destroyed.

"Got something on your mind?" Natasha asked, breaking him out of his silent thoughts. Clint blinked a few times, and then he smiled.

"No," he said. "Well, yeah, but nothing important. Just thinking about how to change a diaper."

"Oh. Yeah. That."

I will always remember this image of you, Clint thought.

I will always remember the life we could've had over the one we currently have, his mind whispered.

I will always choose the version of our lives that includes you.