Tried to keep this one a little less angsty, a little more light-hearted.
Enjoy.
"Shhh, sweetheart," Clint murmurs as he sways gently to calm the baby in his arms. "It's alright, no need to make a fuss. I'm paying attention to you like you wanted."
He smiles at the expression she's making as she decides whether or not to settle down. He remembers it well from the days when Lila had been a baby. She'd been the fussiest of the bunch - Cooper had been an easy baby that way, and Nathaniel had been downright chill, but Lila had been finicky. Like mother, like daughter, he thinks dryly as he stares down at his granddaughter fondly.
"Alright, how about we give this old thing a try, hmm?" he murmurs as he takes a seat on the porch swing. "Your mom used to love when I'd rock her on this."
He watches as she settles and stretches slightly before snuggling further into the cocoon of blankets. She seems to settle down with the gentle back and forth movement of the swing and Clint watches as her eyes slowly start to droop closed.
"You know, the woman you're named after, your great aunt, loved this old thing too. Used to find her here in the middle of the night sometimes when she couldn't sleep."
He pauses as he lets his mind wander into his memories of Natasha. He can think of his friend fondly and without the wrenching heartache now, but moments like this are the ones he would've loved to have gotten to share with her. He knows she would have made countless jokes about how he was spoiling his granddaughter rotten, and how much of a pushover he was (and she would have been absolutely right). But mostly he knows she would have absolutely loved these quiet moments. They are ones he's still not always sure he deserves, but ones that he's always grateful to have. And it's all thanks to Natasha that he gets to sit here with his granddaughter after raising his daughter and her brothers.
"Oh, oh, I'm sorry," he says softly as the baby begins to fuss a little again. "Didn't realize I'd signed up for a full evening of storytelling. How'd you negotiate that one, hmm? You get that from your mom, I think."
He takes a moment to adjust the blankets and he smiles at the sight of this tiny human, so full of innocence and love and everything he'd worked his whole life for his family to have. He feels a bundle of emotion, made up of love and pride and maybe a tinge of grief, tighten in his throat when he realizes it was everything Nat had died for. It's been many, many years since that fateful day, and the hurt and pain had faded with time, but sometimes things would simply burst forth and bring a wave of grief with them. But the grief wasn't a knife wrenching in his soul anymore. Now it was just a melancholy that his friend didn't get to be here to see these things too.
"I'm so sorry you won't get to meet Natasha. She would have loved you so much," he says softly. "And I'm pretty sure she would have argued with me on this one, but I think she would have found a way to spoil you even more than I will."
He smiles at the thought of Natasha spending far more money than necessary on gifts. He can practically hear her refuting him, "It's my money. I can spend it how I want, Barton."
"She'd have been proud for you to have her name, I think. Probably a bit overwhelmed if her reaction to Nate's name is anything to go by, but she would have been honoured. And I gotta say, kid, no pressure or anything, but those are some big shoes to fill. I mean, you can do whatever it is you want, okay? But whatever it is, you make sure you do it for you. That would have been important to her. Nat fought tooth and nail just so she could have a fraction of the choices you'll get to make. And she did what she did so you and your family and all of us could get to be here and live and make the choices she never got to make."
He lets his words hang in the air while he allows himself a moment to think of his friend and picture her in his mind.
"There you are. Mom was convinced you'd kidnapped the baby and taken off."
Clint chuckles at Lila's words. "Just getting in some one-on-one time with this little one," he says as he looks up and grins. "She's in high demand so I had to get creative."
"Yeah, Mom's been enjoying time with her, that's for sure."
Clint sees his daughter relax back into the swing and close her eyes with a soft sigh. "How are you doing?" he asks softly, remembering what Laura had told him earlier that week about how she'd been struggling to get a handle on her new routines and all the emotional weight that comes with being responsible for a newborn.
Lila inhales and then blows out a heavy exhale before she shakes her head slowly. "I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time," she answers honestly. "And it's...overwhelming sometimes. I know that's because I'm exhausted that it seems that way, but I just-" She blows out another breath. "I don't know."
Clint nods in understanding because he remembers that feeling oh-so well. "Well, she's happy and healthy, so you're doing something right," he reassures.
"Yeah, I guess."
"I was terrified when we brought your brother home," he offers. "I was convinced I was not remotely qualified to be caring for a human being."
She tilts her head, apparently surprised by this. "Really?"
"Mmhmm. Your mom was amazing, but she had doubts too. It's natural to worry."
"How'd you get past it?"
"Believe it or not, Natasha," he says with a fond smile. Her eyebrows rise in surprise and he chuckles softly. "I know, I was as surprised as you are. It was late one night after I'd finished feeding Cooper a couple days after we brought him home and I noticed I had a secure message from her on my phone. It was a short and painfully polite congratulations, and when I noticed she'd sent it just ten minutes earlier I sent a text back immediately. A part of me wanted to talk to her, I think. It'd been months since we last got to talk more than a few minutes because she'd been picking up slack on the missions I had been slated to handle, and I'd been off the grid entirely."
"Let me guess - she was awake and replied right away?"
He smiles and nods once. "She was a bit of a workaholic. Worse than when you knew her, actually. Anyway, we got onto a call after exchanging a few messages and then suddenly I was spilling my worries to her that I was gonna screw him up and scar him for life. She was quiet and just listened until I finally stopped talking. Then she told me she couldn't think of a better couple of people to care for a child and teach them how to navigate the world. She said that if we could handle acclimating her to a new life after the way she'd grown up, we could handle anything. I remember thinking she'd meant to deliver it as a joke, but she was dead serious about it. She told me that it was okay to worry, that it just meant that I cared, but that I didn't need to worry quite so much because she'd already seen that we were as prepared as we could be. She said she knew that as I got more time as a dad, I'd get more comfortable with everything."
Lila stays quiet as she blinks, absorbing the words her aunt had once told her father.
"Coming from her it just seemed to hold weight, you know? She was always straight from the hip, no bullshit about everything, so she wasn't just saying it to make me feel better. I was still terrified after that, but it was more manageable."
"She did give great advice. About everything apparently."
"Phil used to say she'd lived a lot of lives through everything she'd grown up with and she must've inherited the wisdom from those lives."
Lila smiles before looking down and leaning over to adjust the blankets around her daughter. "I wish she could've been here to meet her."
"Me too," Clint agrees. He knows it would have meant the world to his friend to see her niece and nephews living and thriving in their own paths of life. He knows she would have been so proud of them, and supported them in any way she could.
Lila bites her lip and Clint can tell she's weighing whether to say something on her mind. He gives her a small, encouraging smile which seems to be enough to sway her into sharing. "Maybe it's silly," she begins slowly, "but I like to think she's keeping an eye on me- on us, still."
Clint reaches up to scratch his chin thoughtfully. He's wondered the same thing occasionally over the years. He'd never been overly religious and believed in life after death or anything, but after everything he'd seen with SHIELD and the Avengers, and being assured by Thor that Valhalla was indeed a real place, his perspective had shifted a bit. "I fought aliens and robots, travelled to a different timeline entirely, and held an actual magical stone in my hand. No way I'm drawing the line that the afterlife isn't real and she isn't somewhere watching over us."
"Well, if she is watching, then she's definitely making some sarcastic comments about us fulfilling a movie trope about having a heart-to-heart on a porch swing," Lila remarks with a fond grin.
Clint chuckles. "Oh, I think she definitely is. But I would argue she doesn't get to point fingers, because she and I had our share of tête-à-têtes on this porch swing too."
Lila smirks. "I remember Mom and her used to drink out here sometimes."
Clint nods as he grins widely. "Ah, yes. I remember being shooed away on more than one occasion for some 'girl talk' which, from what I could see, mostly involved drinking wine and laughing. Probably at my expense."
Lila smirks. "You're just grumpy because you weren't invited."
"And you were?" he counters.
"Once. I left after they let me taste the wine and I spat it out."
Clint can't help the laugh from bubbling up and he rushes to soothe the baby that had been startled by his sudden movements.
"Oh, good job, Dad. You woke the baby," she teases with a roll of her eyes.
"Shh," he says as he gently rocks the baby a bit to lull her back to sleep. "It's alright, it's alright. I'm sorry, that was loud and sudden, huh? I'll be quiet now, I promise. You just go back to sleep, hmm? Don't worry about a thing, we've got you." It doesn't take long for her to fall back into a light, content sleep. "Oh, hey, look," he says when he looks up and spots fireflies beginning to emerge from the grass.
Lila's gaze rises from her daughter and a warm smile spreads at the sight. "Do you remember that one night Aunt Nat and I camped out in the treehouse?" she asks quietly, mindful of her daughter's newly rediscovered slumber in her grandfather's arms.
"Mm," Clint hums in reply. He does remember that. Lila had been absolutely ecstatic that Nat had agreed to sleep outside with her.
"I'm pretty sure she didn't sleep at all that night."
"Probably not. She was always very vigilant when it came to your safety. Made her an excellent babysitter in my eyes," he says with a small smile. Most people probably thought it foolish, but he had always trusted Natasha implicitly with his kids. So had Laura.
"We sat out and watched the fireflies for what felt like hours," Lila says fondly. "I remember I'd fallen while riding my bike earlier that day, and Cooper had teased me mercilessly about it."
"Your mom and I gave him a pretty good scolding for that one, if I remember correctly."
Lila nods. "Aunt Nat somehow knew something was off with me, even though she hadn't been there that morning and no one had told her. Somehow, she made me forget all about it though. It felt like it was just me and her and the fireflies that night."
"She was good like that, huh?"
"Yeah," Lila says a bit wistfully.
Clint looks at his daughter and reaches out a hand to cup her cheek. "I miss her too," he says quietly.
"Sometimes it seems stupid I'm still hurting over her being gone. It's been so long-"
"Hey," Clint chastises gently, "grief doesn't have a timeline. It comes and goes as it pleases. And if you think I've gotten over losing her, then you would be sadly mistaken."
"I know. It just-" She sighs and looks down at her daughter in Clint's arms, adjusting the blanket swaddled around her out of habit. "It still doesn't seem fair."
"Because it's not," Clint answers honestly. He'd spent a long time trying to reconcile everything surrounding her death. He's still not certain it's all resolved, but he'd promised himself way back when that he would live a good rest of his life to honour her, and that he'd spend all the time he could with the family she'd died to bring back. "But her legacy is in good hands with this one," he continues. "This is what she wanted. Her family to be together, to live, to grow. She saved everyone because she thought we were worth saving. All of us."
Lila wipes away a tear that had snuck out. "Mm," she hums, unable to find words. He knows that even after all these years she still aches at the loss. They all do. Nat's death had left a hole in their family that they didn't quite know how to fill. One that he's not sure Nat realized just how significant it would be when she forced his hand on that cliff.
"Speaking of, she would've been absolutely honoured by this little one having her name."
Lila smiles. "It just seemed right."
Clint returns her smile with one of his own. "She'd be proud of you, kid."
"Yeah, I guess I grew up alright, huh?"
"Damn right," he says firmly with a nod.
"No thanks to you."
Clint looks up at the new voice and grins at his wife who'd walked through the door to join them. "Aw, c'mon now, babe."
"I will retract it if, and only if, you hand over my granddaughter," Laura bargains.
"No can do, honey," Clint refuses. "She just fell asleep," he explains while putting on an expression of innocence.
Laura sits down next to Clint and pouts theatrically for a beat before she relents and relaxes against him. "Oh, wow, they're really active tonight," she comments as she looks out over the yard at the fireflies.
"We were just remembering that time Aunt Nat and I camped out in the treehouse."
Laura chuckled. "Oh yeah, Nat was beyond exhausted but she couldn't say no to you. I don't know how she managed to get any sleep in that thing. It was not wide enough for an adult to lie down."
"I'm pretty sure she didn't sleep at all," Lila says with a smile, "but if she did, it was probably while sitting up."
"The true mark of love," Laura quips.
They fall quiet then and Clint peeks down at his granddaughter again. He feels his heart warm as he imagines what his best friend's expression would have been at being told Lila had named her daughter after her. She'd been shocked and a little confused when he and Laura had told her about wanting to name Nathaniel after her. Her slight discomfort with the idea at first had given way pretty quickly to acceptance though. There had been a quiet sort of awe and disbelief in her expression then, like she couldn't quite believe she was worthy of such an honour. He thinks she would've been absolutely bowled over by the love in Lila's gesture.
"There was something about fireflies with her," Lila says, interrupting their silent reverie. "I always used to think she was just a little sad about seeing them. Like it was bittersweet or something."
Clint nods. "Come to think of it, you're right."
"She told me she used to know someone who'd liked them," Laura offers and Clint frowns as he tries to think who Nat might've meant. Yelena maybe?
"She used to run with us to catch them in jars," Lila continues and he's not sure she heard either of them reply, "and then we'd sit together and hold a blanket over our heads so we could see them more clearly if it wasn't dark enough yet."
Clint smiles when he spots his daughter's watery eyes and soft smile as she recounts the moments with her aunt.
"But she always made sure we released them at the end of the night. She was very firm about that." Clint just nods, sensing his daughter still has more to say. "And even when Cooper got bored with it, or when she was sore and hurting from a mission, she always made sure she still would go and catch them with me."
"She loved spending time with you guys," he comments and Laura hums in agreement.
Lila smiles. "We were so lucky to have had her."
"Yeah, we were," Laura agrees.
"And here we are back to the cliché emotional conversation on a porch," Lila quips after a beat of silence. "She'd be teasing us mercilessly for this."
"Probably," Laura agrees with a laugh.
"Definitely," Clint corrects with a grin.
Got a little side-tracked with my other fics, but still got some stories to tell for this one.
As always, love to hear any thoughts/comments. They do so motivate me. 😊
And thank you all who've left a few words - greatly appreciated!