It took me longer than it should have to know.

Tony Stark should have been my first thought. How he had dared to take advantage of my trust. I don't trust anyone to work on me unconscious. A lifetime of being used as an unwilling lab rat in the Red Room's experiments…of undergoing procedures and surgeries for anything and everything their scientists and doctors theorized about with no explanation or consent for what anything they did to me would result in made sure of that. Even so, I trusted Stark. I trusted that he was only trying to help me. I trusted him with my unconscious body. I trusted Bruce to make sure nothing bad happened. I trusted both of them to fix me like some ignorant child.

I shouldn't have.

Tony and his damned God complex. As I bent over the sink and brushed the vomit taste out of my mouth, I tried desperately to keep my focus there. Anger. Anger is a safe emotion. The betrayal of it. What the location of those incision stitches meant in hindsight. How they both dared to take advantage of my unconscious state and then lie to me about it.

I hand brushes over my flat belly. I want so desperately to rustle up enough anger to keep my focus there, where I at least have some actionable idea of what to do. Tony was going to pay dearly for this, I chant as loudly as I can in my mind, desperately trying to drown out all the other thoughts my mind keeps circling back to…a baby. Me and Clint had…had made a baby. Clint's baby that was also half me. I was carrying a tiny life inside of me…just like the one I had been carrying as barely more than a child that the Red Room had murdered- had beaten out of me…had sterilized me for.

I slam down my toothbrush onto the counter, only to feel another wave of morning sickness wash over me and start throwing up all over again. I may be able to write this off as food poisoning from the little hole in the wall where we'd gotten dinner, we are in Guatemala, after all, he'd believe it…but I can't keep this a secret for long if I can't get the morning sickness under control. That's what had given me away in the Red Room too. Tomorrow morning, I need to make finding a way to control it my top priority.

Once we're back in New York, I'll deal with this…I'll…I'll…

What in hell am I going to do?

I can't be a mother. I can't…but I also know that the idea of letting anyone hurt this little human inside me…of murdering it…I'd rather die first. I've killed so my children in my life. I never wanted to. That's what got me into trouble with the Red Room the few times I dared to try to refuse. It didn't matter though. It never mattered because they always got their way in the end. At least until Clint came and we went back and destroyed them all.

What the hell am I going to do?

I could go to Pepper. She always gives me good advice. She's expecting herself though and I can't imagine her telling me to do anything else but keep it. In her mind, we'd probably just share a nanny and let them grow up together. The idea is laughable. Two babies of Avengers in one tower that we'd all somehow have to keep out of the press. Even I couldn't pull that off and they'd both end up as valuable targets. Our baby would never have a chance at anything resembling a normal life.

I could give it away. I could find some couple out there, or maybe even a family who already has a kid or two and let them raise it. Give it a normal childhood away from all of the violence and mess and obvious issues having parents like us would bring. Let them grow up to be a functional adult. I'd have to find the right people, of course. Background check and then put them under intense observation for months to make sure they are good enough parents first. I'd also have to find an excuse to disappear for about six months and fake the birth certificate because the baby would never be safe if it had any connections to me.

I rinse my mouth out again, unhappy with the idea of just giving a baby…me an Clint's baby…away to anyone and hoping for the best from a distance, but already sure that it's definitely their best shot at a real life. What would Clint say about it? Knowing him, he'd want to keep it despite any obvious issues that would bring. He'd never give it up.

If he finds out…he can't find out.

Clint knows my tells, but I haven't tried to truly hide from him for years. I've never had motivation like this to truly trick him. I take a deep breath in through my nose and breathe out slowly, studying my reflection in the mirror.

I can do it.

I have to.

I walk back into the bedroom and stare at my sleeping partner. The man who saved me from the Red Room. The man that saved me from myself. Every functional part of my life that I can look back on and feel good about can be credited to him. He loves me like I honestly didn't believe really existed in the world. He would never betray me. He would never do anything to hurt me. He doesn't deserve this. He's never given me any cause to lie or betray him, but I'm about to do both anyway.

Because, as much as I love him, I already know that I love this little piece of him growing in my belly more. I have to. If this little human is going to have any chance at all in life, I'm going to have to love it more that I love myself or Clint. I have to do what I couldn't possibly do if I chose to put myself or Clint first. After all the children I've killed and all the lives I've destroyed, I'm going to make sure this one survives me.

When I watch Clint sleeping, I feel like another version of myself. Like the girl I was before he took me out of Russia…or maybe more like I did on the nights soon after he took me. Staring at him in the moonlight filtering in through the window, he looks so peaceful. I'd have never known him to be an assassin by the look on his face as he sleeps. No guilt. No remorse. No indication of how deadly he was…just a rather handsome, even if in an average kind of way, guy who was drawing ever closer to forty and still managed to sleep with the serenity of a child tuck into their toddler bed. I study his face, worn from so many days and years out in the sun and wind, waiting to take his shot at the exact perfect moment. The average, mousy brown hair. His average features overall.

I'm so thankful for them because he doesn't stand out at all on a sheerly physical level. Of course, to me he's the most handsome man I've ever met, but I know logically that conclusion is 90% emotionally derived on my part. He's handsome to me because I love him. The fact that I'm so intensely attracted to him has little to do with his actual looks and much more to do with the way he's treated me over the years and taught me how to be able to look at anyone, earnestly, in the way a normal woman might look at the man she loves. The way he's taught me to be human instead of an empty porcelain doll.

I study his features intensely, trying to guess which area likely to be dominant traits our child is likely to inherit over my own. He's handsome, but not compared to Steve Rogers or Thor. He's not handsome in any way that would force him to stand out in a crowd. If our baby is lucky enough to inherit his mousy brown hair and more of his features than mine, they'd likely blend right in with the majority of Caucasian families with no features to call attention. I hope this is the case. I imagine a little boy- a miniature version of Clint with one or two of my features mixed in- the shape of my eyes or nose, perhaps.

Involuntarily my hand starts up towards my belly, nonexistent to anyone from the outside, but quickly correct myself. I can't let myself be weak like that…can't take any risk of forming a habit that might give me away. Clint can never know about his baby. The child can never know about either one of us. No one can ever know that I ever carried this life or it could end up as a target of just about every terrorist organization, cartel, scored government, and gang that hated either me or Clint and that list was…extensive. More extensive that I could ever hope to keep tabs on all at once. What happened to me last year was the result of just one loose end…one scorned man with a few useful contacts wanting revenge. There must be at least hundreds, but very likely well over a thousand between Clint and I, with just as must motivation to want any child of ours dead or worse. I won't chance that.

I hold the blood of dozens of other people's children on my hands. I do not deserve to get to be a mother myself after all I've done. That isn't my baby's fault though. It may well be the one thing I have ever been responsible for doing that is completely innocent.

Carefully, I climb back into my former position in our bed, halfway underneath the archer, moving so slowly and carefully that not even his assassin's instincts wake him up. I force my breathing to be even and slow, just as if I were asleep. I stare into the darkness, spinning the web of lies in my mind and layering my plans into neat sequences and backups, a dozen fallback plans are weaving themselves into place, just in case.

I feel him steady heartbeat against my back and listen to his quiet breath at my ear and allow myself to savor the comfort of him for just another moment before I pack it away into a far back shelf inside my brain.

Goodbye, Clint. I'm sorry.