So I'm back, with Covid knocking the world to crap I didn't know which way was up and work has been chaotic. Thank you so much for waiting and I hope you like this chapter :)
Chapter Twenty Six
Rental cars always had a distinctive scent to them, too clean but never quite new with a dollar air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. The radio was tuned to a classical station, likely from the previous driver, that Lucie immediately turned off, instead choosing to listen to the warm hum of the engine and settling herself in for a seven-hour drive with the heat blasting to fight off the November chill. She had tried to usual tricks, tried drowning in a new identity but it was near impossible with every journalist in the country on the lookout for her. The woman who stood alongside the Avengers in New York as the Chitauri rained down hell, her mask had fallen a few times during the fight and she had been identified.
Unless you counted the untouched car her father had bought her for her sweet sixteen, Lucie had never owned a car. There wasn't much point in New York where the subway was king and cabs were merely the support act. All rentals were the same, reliably boring cars designed to get a client from A to B with next to no excitement. Lucie waited impatiently for road signs that read "Now leaving Illinois" and "Welcome to Missouri" while trying to concentrate on her speed, the last thing she needed was to get pulled over by a rookie PD officer who thought he had more authority than he did.
Missouri was quiet and picturesque, it was easy to pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist and she scolded herself for not coming down more often. What had it been? A month? Three? Six? Too many, that's for sure. Her ears rang with the perpetual sound of New York hustle and traffic. A background noise Lucie had always found comforting until she was faced with the tranquillity of the Missouri countryside.
Her destination was easy to find, it was a dirt road she could navigate to blindfolded. A secluded little farmhouse with a disproportionate amount of land held together with little more than secrecy and the seemingly infinite understanding of the lady of the house. Said lady seemed to know everything and was already stood waiting with a mug of tea on the porch as the farmhouse came into view.
"Long time, no see," she greeted, offering a warm smile with open arms.
Lucie smiled, unable to help it when the sentiment didn't reach her eyes. She scuffed her boots in the dirt, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air and folding herself into Laura's open arms.
"I meant to drop by sooner." It was the truth, Lucie had just kept putting it off. Not wanting to be a burden or to add to the stress of the household, not wanting to scare the kids when she woke in the middle of the night.
It felt nothing but natural as Laura looped her arm around Lucie's, shoved a baby monitor into the back pocket of her denim shorts and led her the spy inside. Laura Barton's Home for Off-Duty Spies was open for business. For once, everything was quiet, only the faint twittering of the radio in the kitchen to shoo away the silence.
"No Clint?" Lucie asked, sitting at the table and wrapping her hands around her mug.
She hadn't considered whether or not Clint would actually be home. Other than their daily check-ins to make sure that their trio was still breathing, they had rarely spoken since New York, the last time they laid eyes on each other being at the plaza where Thor returned Loki to Asgard. Sometimes it felt like years ago, other days it was like the morning after the Battle of New York; two in the morning and just drifting off on the couch that she shared with a fast asleep Steve in her apartment. Terror had pulled her out of her nightmares, the screams of bystanders and the sharp hiss of Chitauri weapons destroying the city. Even as the shadowed outlines of her apartment became more focused she could feel the heat on her face from the fires, the burn in her fingers from holding her knives tight, the clamminess of her hair that was soaked in dark Chitauri ichor.
"He took Cooper fishing, they'll be back later. I'm assuming he didn't know you were coming?"
Lucie offered a gentle smirk as if Clint had the ability or inclination to keep anything secret from his wife.
"Nope," she said, popping the 'p'. "What you baking?"
"Carrot cake."
"Vegetables do not and will never belong in cake," Lucie said, mock gagging at the thought.
"If I'd have known you were coming then I would have made red velvet," Laura teased, throwing a dry rag at Lucie's head that the latter didn't even attempt to dodge.
With the cake safely out of the oven and her coffee cup drained, Laura pulled out a chair and planted herself in front of her house guest. All the smiles were gone, instead she wore the determined look of a woman who lived almost entirely in fear that her husband may never come home from and in the full knowledge that she would never be able to bury him if that day ever came. A woman who bore the weight of the world on her shoulders yet baked cakes and taught her kids to ride their bikes and was a shoulder to cry on. Laura Barton was a superhero.
"So… what's going on?"
Lucie was silent.
"Clint does this thing when he's worried. He's renovating the barn, top to bottom. He's pulling out old tools and beams, fixing the roof. He's been busy. Not the kind of busy when he usually gets home from work, I'm used to renovations by now but..." Laura sighed, taking a deep breath and looking towards the back door as if she was expecting Clint to reappear at any moment.
"This is different. He only gets like this when it's you and Nat. If I wasn't secure in my marriage then I might be jealous of the fact that my husband was so emotionally invested in two beautiful women. So…what's going on?"
Lucie dared not tear her eyes away, finally permitting herself to admit what kept her up at night.
"I fucked up."
Laura offered a kind smile and pushed Lucie's mug further into her hands, a gentle reminder to press on.
"I didn't tell Steve who I was, I figured that he wouldn't trust me if he knew about my Dad or Howard. "
"Weren't he and Howard friends?" Laura asked, remembering the old footage that the news channels had been peddling since New York and the subsequent documentaries that were popping up left, right and centre.
Lucie nodded. "They were, Dad and Howard are so similar that I was scared he would tar me with the same brush. Nobody at SHIELD knew until just before the battle."
"Nat told me about your little showdown."
"I bet she found it entertaining."
"She's worried too, was even packed up for Chicago before she was reassigned."
The younger woman smiled, it would have been nice to see Natasha, to not have to censor her voice or worry about what she might be implying. Laura was a goddess amongst women but she had never seen a battlefield, never learnt the full extent of what her husband did for a living; nor did she ever want to. Instead, she just taught herself how to heal the wounds Clint came home with, then Natasha's when he brought her to the farm, then Lucie. Clint had developed a pattern of bringing home strays.
"Hiding out and giving Steve the silent treatment is getting you nowhere. Everything that man knew since coming out of the ice comes from you, he has a right to be angry that you lied. Maybe he's forgiven you but you'll never know unless you get your ass in gear. Go and ask for your job back!"
Lucie opened her mouth to protest.
"Yes, I know you told Fury to shove his job but put on your big girl boots and suck it up. You are an agent, it's who you are not what you do because we both know that if you go and work for your Dad then you will be miserable. I don't want to have to look at your miserable face when you spend most of your time filling in paperwork instead of taking out the bad guys."
As if on cue, the baby monitor sounded a whiny cry and Laura's face immediately softened.
"While you're at it you need to make up with your Dad," she added, rising from the table and jogging up the stairs.
With Laura safely out of sight, Lucie let her forehead fall onto the table with a thud and a defeated groan. She was right. Laura was always right.
"Well, that's you told," came an amused voice from behind her.
"How much of that did you hear?"
"Not much," he answered, pulling her into a hug as she rose from her seat. "So where you headed first? Malibu or DC?"
"DC? What happened to New York?"
"Everyone was relocated to the Triskellion after the battle. Including Nat and Rogers."
"Is she mad?" Lucie winced, pulling back to watch Clint's reaction.
"Not that you quit SHIELD."
As always with Clint, it was more what wasn't said. He could have just said no but that would have been a lie. Instead, he stuck relatively close to the truth. She had known him long enough to know not to ask but to be prepared to weather to the storm when it inevitable hit DC like a hurricane in New Orleans.