A/N: If anyone is wondering why I use Canadian spellings, it's because I'm Canadian. And yes, I live in an igloo.

The next two months went pretty great for everyone. The awkwardness from the breakfast conversation faded away, and everyone moved on to more important things. Like Christmas. And Maria.

Natasha and Maria's kiss was not the only one, and pretty quickly it escalated into… other things. Other things that were very successfully hidden from everyone else however. Maria didn't seem to care that Natasha was pregnant, and said that it made her hotter. Natasha thought this was absolute bullshit, but thought it was really sweet anyway.

As soon as Natasha had a free second the kids had roped her into the task of Christmas decorations, and soon the entire house was filled with twinkling lights, cute and slightly creepy Santa figurines, and a lot of pine needles from the tree Clint had cut down. Christmas was amazing, with wonderful gifts and delicious food and beautiful songs. The Barton family and Maria discovered that Natasha actually had a really beautiful voice, but once they'd complimented her on it she'd refused to sing anymore. Maria couldn't stop staring at Natasha after she'd sung O Holy Night with Lila, and Natasha had to remind her not to kiss her right then and there.

Then it snowed, and everyone went outside to play in it, ending in a full-on snowball battle with Clint, Lila and Laura vs Natasha, Cooper and Maria. Needless to say, Natasha's team won with flying colours, mostly because Maria was an assassin at snowball fights.

After Christmas and New Years the kids went back to school, and the adults fell into a sort of routine. Natasha found it really nice to have stability even though she felt slightly restless, and soon her worries about Sidorov began to fade away, especially after her ribs and Clint's leg healed. January passed alarmingly fast, and she started to wonder how long she and Maria would be staying. Surprisingly, SHIELD hadn't called for either of them or Clint, and as much as Natasha liked work she was pretty glad.

As Natasha's bump got more visible, Lila became absolutely obsessed. Every day she would talk to the baby, and everyone else found it absolutely adorable, and Laura said that this was exactly how she was while she was pregnant with Nathaniel. Speaking of Nathaniel, he'd started to crawl, and Laura took an unbelievable amount of pictures.

Soon enough it was Valentine's day, and Natasha and Maria celebrated in their own secret way, since they hadn't had the courage to tell Laura about them. Lila claimed that she had a boyfriend at school, much to her parent's alarm, but Natasha thought it was adorable. As she watched Lila talk about school and this new "Trevor" person, she felt so glad that Lila was able to grow up with a normal childhood instead of one filled with nightmares and abuse.

The day after Valentine's day was the day of Natasha's scheduled ultrasound. She was going to go with Laura, and although Maria was coming with them for protection, Natasha was kind of glad that she would be there.

"You ready Nat? Do you have a coat?" Laura asked, cleaning up the plates from lunch.

"Laura this is the fourth time you've asked me that. Yes, I have a coat."

"Sorry, I just want to make sure you're not cold."

"I grew up as an assassin in Russia, Laura. I'm not really bothered by cold. But thank you."

"The cold never bothered you anyway." Maria said as she passed Natasha, grabbing her boots. Natasha gave her a playful slap on the arm, laughing because Lila was way too obsessed with Frozen and even though it had come out two years ago, she was constantly singing Let It Go.

As the three of them headed outside, Laura raised her eyebrows at the fact that Natasha hadn't zipped up her coat, but Nat pretended not to notice.

Once at the place, Natasha kept her head down so that she wouldn't be recognized. Once the nurse called for "Rushman," the three of them went into a small room with a bed and ultrasound machine.

"Hi, Ms. Romanoff, I'm doctor Cormison. You can call me Heather. I've been informed about your situation and this will be entirely confidential, so no need to worry. Sit on the bed for me, and I'll just ask you a couple of questions."

Natasha nodded, resigned to telling (mostly) the truth. This was for the health of her kid. She wasn't going to lie.

"Okay, how have you been eating lately?"

"Pretty well. I had some sickness for the first few months but now I can mostly eat everything."

"Good, Mr. Fury told me that you had been kidnapped, or held captive, I'm not sure what you call it but I assume things have improved since then?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful. Now, have you drunk any alcohol, smoked, or done drugs since you found out you were pregnant…?"

"No."

"Okay. How are your sleeping habits?"

"They haven't changed much."

"Okay… how many hours of sleep would you say you get a night? On average?"

"Um, probably… six?"

"Oh. Well you should be getting at least eight at this stage in your pregnancy. Do you have insomnia, or some other kind of sleeping issue?"

"Probably." She joked, laughing slightly, but Heather didn't laugh. Natasha quickly corrected her mistake.

"No."

Heather looked skeptical, but she sighed and moved on.

"Just try your best to get to bed early and sleep in as much as you can."

Natasha gave her a fake smile, catching Maria's eye, who was looking at her with amusement. They both knew that wasn't going to happen.

"Okay, what about your sex life?"

Natasha stared at her.

"I could ask them to leave, if you want…."

Natasha shook her head. If she asked them to leave, or said something about it, Laura would know. Because there was no one else in the house. She'd probably assume Clint was cheating on her, because she thought Nat was straight, so Natasha was definitely prepared to deny everything. She glanced sideways and saw that Maria had her "I'm a security guard and you can't do anything to change that" face on.

"Don't have one."

"Okay…"

Heather, once again, didn't quite believe her, but put her clipboard down and instructed Natasha to lie down. She did so, putting her feet where she was told to.

"Alright, you're about 6 months along, or 26 weeks, is that correct?"

"25."

"Okay, and I was also told about this machine that malfunctioned, so things might be a bit different since you started off at two months. I can see that your baby is a little small for six months, which is okay, just make sure to eat good food, exercise, and get lots of sleep." Heather said, emphasizing the part about sleep. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"While I get set up, I'll keep asking you some questions."

Great.

"Have you been getting lots of exercise?"

"She has, I had to stop her from going on her morning runs when she hit five months. But she's been in the barn every day using the shooting targets and occasionally lightly sparring with Clint, which I do not approve of." Laura cut in, looking at Nat with a mixture of amusement and disapproval. Heather stopped what she was doing, and turned to face Nat.

"Shooting, like… guns?"

Clearly this isn't a SHIELD doctor, Natasha thought, but nodded. Heather frowned.

"That's not good for the baby, with the recoil, and sparring definitely isn't." She said and Nat stopped herself from rolling her eyes again. But she knew Heather was right.

After profusely promising that she would stop target practice, Natasha lifted up her shirt and Heather squirted the cold gel on it. She rolled the wand around a bit, before smiling and pointing at the small little thing that was the baby.

"At 25 weeks your baby should be about the size of a rutabaga, but it's a little bit small, as I said. Not to worry, it should catch up in the coming weeks. Would you like to know the gender?"

"Sure."

"Alright…" Heather stopped for dramatic effect, which greatly annoyed Natasha. "It's a girl!"

Natasha laughed slightly, knowing Cooper would be glad. He and Lila had had an ongoing debate about whether it would be a girl or a boy, and Cooper was pro-girl. She hadn't wanted to argue with Lila, but Natasha'd been pretty sure it would be a girl too, even though it didn't matter.

Tears filled Laura's eyes as she looked at the tiny little girl on the screen, and although Natasha was nowhere near crying, she did feel happy. Overwhelmingly happy, the kind of happy she rarely ever felt. She looked over at Maria and saw, just for a second, her security guard face give way to a small smile.

After Laura had finished cooing over the blob on the small screen and talking about all of the little outfits she was going to make since it was a baby girl, Heather handed Natasha a wipe to clean the gel off of her stomach and they left with some pills Natasha was supposed to take and a list of a bunch of stuff Natasha didn't have the patience to read. They drove home, and as soon as Nat reached the door, Lila and Cooper attacked her.

"Auntie Nat! Auntie Nat! Is it a boy? It's a boy, right?" Lila squealed, leaping into her Aunt's arms.

"Lila! You know Auntie Nat's not supposed to carry anything." Laura exclaimed.

"It's fine." Natasha said, chuckling at Lila's eager face. Laura scoffed disapprovingly as Natasha adjusted Lila on her hip and headed inside. As much as it was slightly uncomfortable to carry anything this late in her pregnancy, she wanted to keep this last shred of normalcy.

"So? Boy or girl?" Cooper asked.

Natasha tried to break the news Heather-style, by painfully drawing it out, and after she put Lila down she opened her mouth but paused for a second, absolutely tantalizing the kids.

"Auntie Naaaaaaaaaaaaat!"

"It's a girl." She said with a little smile. Cooper punched the air.

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Haha, loser." He cried, pointing at Lila. She crossed her arms and pouted.

"Come on Coop, be nice to your sister." Natasha said, before sitting down on the couch and putting her feet up. She grabbed the remote and turned the tv on, flipping through channels until Lila saw the Discovery Channel and ordered Natasha to turn up the volume. She settled herself on Natasha's legs, and Cooper grabbed his book and sat next to Nat's feet. Natasha looked down at Lila, who was watching the "lake-dwelling mantis shrimp" with rapt attention, and she imagined when she would have her own little girl. She felt corny, but she liked the idea of raising someone herself, teaching them stuff, maybe even teaching her little girl ballet. She couldn't help but smile as Lila laughed at some funny-dancing birds, and for the first time, she felt the baby kick.

About a week later, Natasha was put in charge of Nate while the rest of the family went out and Maria had gone to meet up with Fury. Laura said it was a good chance for Natasha to get used to taking care of babies. So after everyone said goodbye, Natasha sat with Nate on her lap, watching some mindless rom-com on tv. She thought that those movies were pretty unrealistic and sometimes kind of gross - like when she saw one about a young woman who was like 18 and hooked up with a 50 year old man in Tokyo.

After half an hour of peace, Nate started crying. Natasha checked his diaper, which was clean, so she assumed he was hungry. This was about the time when Laura said he should eat. She warmed up his bottle, tested it on her wrist, and fed it to him with relative success.

Nate seemed like a pretty chill baby, but that night Natasha just couldn't get him to sleep. After an hour of standing by his crib trying to get him to fall asleep, she gave up and lifted him into her arms. He was still crying, so she tried shushing him and gave his head a little kiss. She'd expected that babies would smell bad, but he actually smelled really nice. Not nice like flowers or candy, but a different kind of nice. She couldn't explain it.

As she bounced him up and down, she had an idea. She brought him downstairs and put on his tiny snowsuit, with its accompanying mittens and hat. Then she put on her own coat and stepped outside. The air was chilly, but not enough that she was concerned about him. She sat down on the porch swing and gently swung back and forth, back and forth. The night was peaceful, and soon Nate stopped fussing.

"There's a good boy." She whispered, continuing the rhythmic rocking of the swing. He snuggled into her, and she smiled. When he wasn't crying he was just so cute. And was it even possible for something to be so small?

She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped his nose, and then gently stood up. She needed to keep moving so as not to wake him up, and so she slowly paced the porch, holding the baby to her chest. She liked it outside - it was too quiet inside, but outside there was the gentle whistling of the breeze, the blowing of the trees, and the comforting smell of winter that couldn't really be described.

When she reached the other side of the porch, she doubled back because she saw something that seemed to be out of place. It was a little glimmer of colour poking out from the white blanket of glistening snow. She crept back inside and grabbed her boots, and then stepped down into the snow which crunched under her feet. She reached the place where the colour was, noticing that it was purple. She carefully bent down, trying not to upset Nate, and moved the snow from around it. It was a violet. She frowned, because she knew that flowers shouldn't grow in the middle of february. But this one had survived, thriving despite its harsh climate, it's colours just as vibrant as ever.

Keeping one hand on Nate, who was quietly gurgling, she placed a hand on her bump, smiling as she realized that that flower was just like her kid. A small ray of hope, thriving in a place that it never should've thrived in. Natasha wasn't much of a believer in hope, yet here she was with more hope than she'd ever had in her life. She had assumed that could never have children, but this kid had been a fluke of technology. Natasha didn't like calling her child a mistake though, or a malfunction. It was more like a miracle, even if Tony had been the one to cause it. But even though she never thought she would be, she was glad to have her baby. Her violet.