When night comes and everyone has retired to their rooms, Natasha lays in bed wide awake and still, as she stares into the perfect ceiling her, mind is restless.

It had been fun, they'd all had a lot of fun, even Tony who turned out to be the butt of the joke most of the time. The conversation they'd had about Thor's powers had been interesting, and by the end they had all but fallen to the floor with laughter. It had been nice and they'd all had such a good time together. It had been fun. Then she had realized the implications of their discussion and it'd stopped being funny.

She places her hand on her lower abdomen and traces her fingers over the bumpy line of scar tissue. Her eyes are vacant as she goes through all the things that were said and revealed once again.

It still amazes her how easily one could get information out of a person when they're doing nothing more than joking around. Being who she is, of course she had gotten every single detail out of their conversation, everything said and unsaid she had unintentionally untangled, analyzed, and categorized. It was just second nature to her now.

Thor, God of fertility. Who would've thought?

If Natasha really thinks about it, it's sort of stupid where her train of thought has led her. She should be asleep and enjoying the fact that she has not one single thing to do or mission to prepare for, this is basically a vacation. She should be asleep, not wasting her time on useless topics that have long come to pass and for which she can honestly do nothing about.

But …

She doesn't really want children. She doesn't even have a partner to have children with –not that that could actually stop her if she really wanted a child.

Natasha turns to her side and faces the window; a lock of hair falls on her face. Out there the sky is barely dark with the lights of the city but she can still see the starry night.

And really, it's not like she'd have a child with her line of work, that would be irresponsible and dangerous for all parties involved, but… Clint had done it.

She scoffs softly. She is not Clint, she can't do what he does. Sometimes she's still raw around the edges.

Children. How very childish of her.

So it's settled. Natasha closes her eyes and wills herself to sleep once and for all, taking a deep calming breath.

She opens her eyes and sighs in frustration when she has to accept that, no, this has in fact, not been settled at all.

Why is she still thinking about this? It's not happening, she's fine after all. She's lived like this almost as long as she can remember, what would even be the point of it?

The point?

Well… choice would be the point.

She doesn't want to have children, not really, but… what if she wanted to? In the future? What if one day she changed her mind and it was too late? And even if she never wants children, the operation… it has been a thought so long in the back of her mind, like something she didn't want to look at, but knew was there. Now that she's looked, there's no way she can take her eyes away.

This is a thought that burns her mind, her memory, her body. It's been years, but sometimes she imagines she can feel a twinge of pain in her lower abdomen, then she remembers.

Through her life Natasha has had a great many choices taken from her, this had just been one of many, but it was her body, hands inside her organs and her blood spilling out. It hadn't hurt that much, but she remembers the aftermath, that had been painful. She'd felt wrong all over, there was a scar she didn't remember getting too, it was chilling.

That choice had been taken from her and…

She wants her choices back, her autonomy. Ever since she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D. she had been working alongside Clint to rectify her conditioning. It has been a long, painful and tiring path, but she's managed, though some days she still has to work on it.

Natasha likes things now, she can go buy ice cream on her own and actually care what flavor she chooses instead of being infinitely indifferent about it. If the Avengers are having a movie night she can have an opinion on what kind of movie she likes and doesn't.

Choices. Life is full of choices. Every turn and step is something for her to decide and she absolutely loves it.

She closes her eyes and remembers.

"I'll buy you a book, I swear, just come with me. I wont take long." Clint said, dragging her along or as much as small pushes on the back could be considered dragging someone.

"What kind of book?" Natasha asked, her face blank as they walked across the street towards the little bookshop.

He looked at her funny, but didn't stop.

"Dunno, whichever book you like. But it can't be one of those super expensive shits over 50 bucks. I don't have that kind of cash." He warned her.

The bell at the door tinkled as they went in.

"Morning." Smiled an old lady behind the counter as she flipped a page of her tome.

"Morning." Clint greeted back with a smile.

Natasha followed after him as he looked through the shelves up and down.

"What are you buying?" The recently converted assassin asked.

Since she'd begun working for S.H.I.E.L.D. she'd spent almost all her time with the witty archer, he always asked her to come with him shopping or just random places like this one. Probably so her superiors could keep an eye on her in case she decided being on the "good side" didn't suit her anymore. It was a smart decision, logical. Natasha would've done nothing less, she'd probably have slapped a tracker on herself for good measure, but company was fine too.

"Hm…" He made a sound as he skimmed over the covers. "A book on color theory, a friend's birthday is coming up, she's always talking about making her home the pique of a perfect house. Color is very important, so I've heard." He chuckled.

Clint was a good spy, but Natasha was too, there was a lie there but she wasn't sure where. She'd look into it later… or not; it wasn't her job anymore after all. But it never hurt to have a bit of black mail on her partner in case things with S.H.I.E.L.D. got compromised.

"There it is." He grinned triumphantly and turned to her, showing off his acquisition. "Stop following me, Romanov." He laughed good naturedly as she stood there looking idly at the cover. "Go pick a book of your own. I told you if you came with me I'd buy you one."

"I don't need a book," she answered easily but frowned when Clint snorted.

"And I don't need a collection of slasher film posters, but I still have it. Pick something," he insisted.

Natasha was taken aback for a moment. What would be an appropriate book to choose? What would Clint like her to decide? This was probably a test; she needed to think like him in order to get this right.

The smile on Clint's face began diminishing.

"Natasha." He began and she straightened her back, Clint only called her name when he wanted to be serious or get a point across. "I swear there is no ulterior motive, it was just a nice gesture. You don't have to pick anything if you don't want to."

She stopped and looked at him dead in the eye. This was it. It had been a moment like this, the way he'd convinced her to do good. He'd told her later, 'Sometimes people just do good things'. She'd always had a hard time believing him, but moments like this… they reminded her why she was here, why she'd decided to go with Clint and work for S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Okay…" Natasha said "What… what should I choose?" She looked around, there were way too many options for her liking.

"What genre do you like?" Clint began walking backwards. "Action? Mystery? Drama? Romance?" His smile was back as he pointed at each of the labels as he passed them "Or are you more of a autobiography person? Memoirs? I'm not a fan myself to be honest. How about historical fiction? Those are nice, tend to be sad though."

"I don't know." She really didn't know. She'd read a ton of books, but all of those had had a purpose, information on an enemy, interest of a target, weaponry design- her reading had always been a necessity for the next mission, or for training "What do you think I'd like?"

"Everyone's different, Miss Romanov. That's the beautify of it." He looked around for a moment and grabbed a book "We can figure it out as we go." Clint offered it to her.

The cover had a foggy and gloom image of London and the Big Ben*. "We have time don't we?"

"Yeah. I suppose we do."

She felt like smiling, though she didn't. Clint smiled enough for both of them anyway.

It sounds silly, but she likes having choices, making choices; she likes sticking to them and changing them if she doesn't like them anymore. Like when she orders different things to eat everywhere she goes. Or how she drinks her coffee with milk but no sugar and she can tell people to change her coffee if that's not what they've given her.

Aside from not making the worst possible of choices and having a… a kind of family, she supposes what she likes the most of her new life are the choices.

This… is pretty big. This isn't a choice that had ever been in her hands, she couldn't one day just suddenly decide she wanted to get pregnant, she just can't and that's it.

But Thor… he is a literal God. For as much as she had bothered Tony about it, she is still skeptical about a lot of things and most of today had been a big joke, perhaps he'd exaggerated the range of his abilities to make fun of Tony.

She remembers the dead plant in his hands and how really, truly magical it was when he breathed life to it so easily, like it was no effort at all.

It's hard to be skeptical with things like that, but everything has its limits, Thor is not all-powerful after all.

If she goes through with this, there are a lot of facts to consider.

First she'd have to confide in Thor, she'd have to show… vulnerability in a way. She'd have to explain what had been done to her, part of her history. She isn't the best of buddies with Thor, she'll be the first to admit that, but aside from the fact that showing weakness of any kind is never in her book of options, Thor is… he's good, just simply good. The kind of person Clint referred as 'Naturally Good' a bit like the archer himself.

While a part of her doesn't care about his opinion, there's also another part… Natasha doesn't want Thor to look at her through a different lens than she is used to. When he looks at her, he doesn't see the murderer, the cold-blooded killer. That would change if she went through with this, the conversation is very unlikely to go around the Red Room.

That was one thing.

Another is, the God of Thunder hadn't specified what the procedure entailed, for all she knows it would be just as painful –and scarring- as her initial operation had been.

Does she really need that? She is fine just as she is, what would be the point of adding new burdens to her already messed up head?

Natasha buries her face in her pillow and covers her head with her arms.

Why is she doing this to herself?

It… it wouldn't hurt to ask. Clint has taught her asking never took too much from her; it is easy and can be as uncompromising as she wants it to be.

The spy sighs and makes the tense muscles in her back soften.

She can ask. No harm would come from it.

Tomorrow, then. She doesn't have to make the choice this very moment.

She closes her eyes. Somewhere in the back of her mind she fears she's already decided.

Tired but still riled up, she tries to go to sleep again.

Tomorrow.

*The book Clint gives Natasha is Neverwhere written by Neil Gaiman. It's about being lost and forgotten.

Abril: Hello everyone! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

So I know there's a lot of controversy around this bit of character information on Natasha. But my thoughts on that specific scene from Age of Ultron are that when she referred to herself as a Monster she was actually talking about her killing a ton of people. The pregnancy thing, I believe at least, was because Bruce had say he couldn't give her children and Natasha just showed him, "hey I completely understand".

I also don't think that Natasha wanting the choice to get pregnant diminishes her character any. She can still be a badass and think, "damn I'm never going to be able to do this, what an absolute buzzkill".

THAT'S RAMBLING ENOUGH. I apologize. Gooday everyone :D sorry if I bothered anyone with this.

Also, also, on a last note. A lot of people seem to think this is a ThorxNatasha story, and while you're certainly allowed to view it like that, it's not where this story is heading. Sorry, I just don't want to get anyones hopes up.