What a bizarre guy.
Natalia held up the coat, examining it while its owner ran away. It was a large charcoal pea coat, clearly good quality and probably expensive. She considered leaving it to the doorman, but one glance at the guy made her think that he'd probably sell it to whoever was passing by. The guy was fresh out of high school and he always smelled like pot; he was the super's nephew.
Plus, it was supposed to snow again in a few hours.
The slush outside was the final nail in the coffin and so Nat swung the coat around like a cape before maneuvering her arms into the sleeves. She swam in the wool coat: the cuffs hung over her hands and the hem, which settled over her neighbor's hips, hung down to her mid-thigh. Once she was buttoned up, it looked as though she was wearing nothing but the coat and her fuzzy slippers.
She turned up the collar to protect from the wind and shoved her hands into the coat pockets while she walked out the door. Her bare legs were immediately frozen, but she was Russian and that wasn't about to stop her from clearing the area. First, she stopped by the deli on the corner to grab something to eat. With a ham and cheese bagel stuffed into the deep coat pockets, she found herself walking to catch a train.
Once she was settled safely on the train to Eastchester, Nat finally started to decompress. That bastard was probably taking shit that didn't belong to him, but he knew better than to take anything she'd notice. He'd probably leave with all the toilet paper and batteries, which was replaceable despite being annoying. He barely had anything of his in her apartment, so he should realistically only need one trip to get rid of his shit. She just knew that if he thought she was waiting on him, he'd drag his stupid feet.
More confident in her decision to leave the area, Nat slumped back into her seat and pulled the oversized coat tighter around her body. It was surprisingly soft for a wool coat, she noticed. And it smelled like... soap, mostly. But there was more: rose water, vanilla, and wood smoke. Maybe there was something like oranges there too. She buried her nose in the collar before she caught herself and then flattened it back down to where it belonged.
She wondered why the guy would give her his jacket when she'd already ruined his food. It was like a weird thank you for something she'd objectively done wrong. What a weird guy.
Thinking back to the elevator ride down after the soup-stealing-incident, Nat had expected a question or a comment. He didn't say anything, not even to complain about his sudden lack of soup. She was so hopped up on adrenaline and some level of embarrassment over her own conduct that she'd been forced to break the silence between herself and the monolith.
She'd barely said ten words to the guy, he said even less, and he quite literally forced her to wear his coat before speeding off like a wily cayote was chasing him.
What a weird quiet guy. A handsome weird quiet guy, too. They were usually the weirdest ones 'cause they could get away with it. Maybe he collected dolls or had one of those walls of framed butterflies. She would think that he had a million cats, but he smelled too good for that. Once she thought about it, he did seem like a cat guy.
Maybe it was the long hair.
After that she got distracted thinking about whether she looked like a cat person or a dog person and that spiraled until she was scrolling down the adoption page of an online shelter. She couldn't take care of a pet just yet, she could barely manage the cactus she got for her birthday.
The hour long ride went faster than she would have thought. When it stopped, she tossed out the wrap from her bagel and then continued on her walk. The fluff on her purple slippers was starting to turn grey. How depressing, she really liked them.
After a ten-ish minute walk, Natalia came to stand in front of the surprisingly large 4-bedroom home that belonged to her best friend. She pulled the coat a little tighter around her body on her way up the stairs to the front door. She rapped her knuckles on the door before letting herself in.
No matter how sneaky she thought she was, there was no going unnoticed in the Barton household. She was caught before she'd gotten halfway to the kitchen by an extremely pleased Lila Barton.
"Mom! Mom, Aunt Nat is here!" She called, sprinting ahead to the kitchen without even stopping to say hello to her Aunt Nat.
Natalia followed, making sure to take off her mucky slippers before she hit the wood floor. In the kitchen, Laura was busy flipping pancakes while her husband was bent over the sink washing up the mixing bowl.
"Hey, Nat! What are you doing out here so early? You aren't usually awake this early on a Monday, let alone a Saturday." Clint grabbed a towel to dry off his hands before crossing the floor and giving her a hug.
"Some things are worth waking up early for," Nat shrugged, turning toward Lila and the bump that would hopefully be little Natalia in the near future. Or Natasha, either would work. "How are you feeling? I can take over if your feet hurt."
"No, I spend most of the day sitting after breakfast. I can't get him to let me do much these days," Laura opened her arms for her own hug, enveloping Nat almost like she was one of the kids. "What are you doing out here so early, though?"
Instead of the amusement in Clint's eyes, Laura seemed more concerned. Nat forced an airy laugh and waved her off. "I'm waiting for a bad smell to leave my apartment and I realized that there wasn't any other place that I'd rather be. Plus, I figured I would offer my company at the bus stop to the two munchkins wolfing down pancakes."
That earned laughter from Cooper and Lila while they finished up their breakfast.
"Wanda is going to be by soon; she's actually been helping us out with the bus in the mornings for the past few months," Clint said.
"It still feels like she should be getting on the bus herself," Laura laughed, flicking off the stove knob and plating the last monster pancake. Clint slipped past her, stealing the pancake from the counter and kissing his wife in the process.
"How old is she now?" Natasha cocked her eyebrow. That girl had always acted much older than she was but Natasha always thought of her as a surly 15 year old.
"23," Clint said between bites. "She's only four years younger than you, Nat."
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, picking up one of the extra pancakes and picking it apart with her fingers. "But I wasn't fifteen when I was fifteen, I was probably twenty by then."
"Every sixteen year old thinks that," Laura pointed out.
Nat waved her off, focusing instead on the kids. "So when do you guys get to go on break, huh? We haven't had a sleepover in a while."
"Two weeks!" Lila exclaimed, turning to her parents with wide eyes. "Can we sleep at Aunt Nat's house when school gets out? Please?" Cooper, while much more nonchalant about the invitation, was staring expectantly.
"Of course you can, as long as you behave yourselves until then." A collective cheer came from Natalia, Cooper, and Lila. They talked about going to see the big Christmas trees in Rockefeller Center and maybe even going ice skating. That part of the city was usually off limits for her during the holiday season, except for when the Barton kids were in charge. After a few minutes of discussion, the doorbell rang.
"Cooper, go let Wanda in," Clint said, pointing toward the door. With a mighty groan, Cooper trekked off to the front door, mouth still full of pancake. Seconds later he returned, Wanda Maximoff following closely behind.
Wanda was taller than her, probably by three or four inches. She looked far different than the surly 15 year old that lived in her head. It was a little funny that she still saw Wanda and her brother that way, she saw them almost every Christmas and Fourth of July and maybe three times randomly through the year. They were hardly strangers...
"Nat! What are you doing here so early, don't you sleep until noon?" She asked, stepping quickly to give Natalia a quick hug.
"My super is getting rid of a rat problem this morning, I had to vacate the premises because of all the chemicals," she shrugged, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind Wanda's ear.
"You said you were waiting for a bad smell to leave," Cooper protested.
"The bad smell is from the chemicals," Nat retorted, sticking out her tongue. The adults in the room chuckles while the children retaliated with their own screwed up faces. Not long after, Cooper and Lila kissed their mom and dad, gathered their school bags, and headed out the door with Wanda close behind. Laura finished her food not long after and immediately made her way upstairs to get ready for work.
Nat settled down cross the kitchen table from Clint, working on her second pancake in the comfortable silence.
"He's gone, then?" Clint murmured, taking a sip of his coffee. Nat nodded. "Good. Never liked him."
Natalia scoffed, "You could have told me that."
"I don't think it would have made a difference. I'm not convinced you liked him either." He stared at her over the rim of his mug and Nat held her expression steady. Just because Clint was right didn't mean he needed to be told he was right.
Instead, she shrugged him off and started to drum her fingers on the table impatiently. Silence droned on while Clint finished his coffee, stretching for some time after that.
"You heard back about the Stark job yet?" He finally asked, standing and crossing the room to wash his mug.
"Yeah," Nat nodded, standing and pulling her coat tighter around her. She caught another whiff of roses but didn't let that derail her thoughts again. "I've got my second interview tomorrow morning."
"Second interview?"
"Apparently Stark is paranoid after his whole 'kidnapped in the desert' episode."
Clint hummed thoughtfully, setting his mug in the dish rack. "I hope you get it."
"So do I. I'll be able to afford the suburban house and the two-point-five kids soon, just like you," she teased. Clint chuckled at her and checked the time.
As the responsible adult he was, he announced that he had to get ready and leave for work but that she could stay as long as she wanted. As the father that he was, he advised her to borrow shoes and pants or she'd get sick. If he wasn't under such a time crunch, she would have assumed that he'd turn off his hearing aids just to stop her from arguing about how being Russian meant she was fine in a bathrobe and a borrowed coat. Nonetheless, Natalia committed to neither but an hour or so after Clint was gone and all the dishes were done, she did borrow a pair of sweatpants from Laura so that she could head home.
It was only half past eleven by the time she stepped off the train in Manhattan. She took the long route back home, stopping by a deli for lunch before shuffling back into her building. By then her fuzzy slippers were muddy scraps, of course. But when she got back to her apartment all that was left was a note that she tossed in the trash without reading. Once her lunch was finished, she took a bubble bath in her tiny tub and then settled down for a nap. She had a good seven hours until work was going to start rolling in.
The coat was left hanging over the arm of her couch while she slept.