Natasha woke up at her usual time and went for her run. Clint was asleep when she left. She ducked in the shower as soon as she returned. Entering the bedroom still toweling her hair dry, she saw that Clint was stretched across the bed, parallel to the pillows. Hearing her footsteps, he turned and put his finger to his lips. She nodded, and he motioned for her to join him.

Lying next to Clint, Natasha followed the path of his eyes to the cat bed. The calico cat was grooming, and then she realized there were little balls of fuzz with her. She heard a tiny mew.

"Do you see them, Nat?" her partner whispered in her ear.

She nodded. "How many?"

"I count four. There's a little calico, an orange, a gray, and a black and white. Do you want to hold them?"

"Let me finish getting dressed and we'll see how mama is doing then. Looks like they're all nursing right now."

After breakfast, they returned to the bedroom and sat down on the far side of the bed. The calico cat eyed them suspiciously. Natasha reached her hand out towards the closest ball of fluff, and the calico gave a short little hiss. She pulled her hand back. "Touchy," she half-scolded the cat. "I thought we were friends."

Clint gave a little huff of laughter. "Maybe she just needs to be reassured." He began to coo at the cat in Russian, telling her that she was a pretty girl, and a good mama, and that they weren't going to hurt her babies. The cat stared at him, even as she groomed the little gray kitten. When she finished, Clint reached in and scratched her chin before slowly lifting the gray kitten in his hand. He handed the kitten to Natasha. "Just hold it like this for a moment. We shouldn't keep them away from mom for long."

Natasha was in awe of the tiny life in her hand. The kitten fit in the palm of her hand, its tiny head in the space between her thumb and forefinger. She ran a single finger down the kitten's back, feeling the soft fur. Then the kitten began crying, emitting tiny squeaks. "Listen to those sounds. Here, go back to mama, baby," Natasha gently returned the kitten to the calico. This time the mother cat allowed her to pick up a second kitten to inspect and pet.

After Natasha had handled each kitten and they were all nursing again, she decided to sit and watch them a little longer. She felt Clint shift, and then his chin was on her shoulder.

"So what do you think?" he asked

"I've never seen anything so precious."

She heard the smile in his voice. "I know. I'm glad you're getting to see it." Natasha leaned her head against his, and they stayed that way for a long time, watching the kittens and listening to their little squeaks.

The next morning, Natasha returned from her run to find Clint already showered and dressed. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing. It was progress. She didn't want to draw Clint's attention to his emotional state and allow him to backslide. After breakfast, they again spent time watching and holding the kittens.

"What should we name them?" Natasha asked.

Clint's forehead wrinkled as he thought, and then he suddenly gave her a small grin. "Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Murdock?"

"The A-Team? Really?" Natasha asked.

Clint gave her an innocent look. "Ok, not the A-Team. Wait! I've got another one: Peter, Egon -"

"Ghostbusters are also a no-go," she said, shaking her head and trying not to laugh.

"Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Leonardo?"

"Oh, painters, that might be - wait," she gave him a suspicious glare. "You're only suggesting those names because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, aren't you? Keep it up and I'm going to insist on Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose."

"John, Paul, George, and Ringo?" Clint countered.

She brought the calico kitten she was holding up to her face and stage-whispered, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Don't listen to him. He would give you all terrible names if I wasn't here to supervise him."

Clint laughed. "You're right. We need at least one girl's name, because calico cats are almost always female."

"When will be able to tell if they're male or female?" Natasha asked curiously.

"At about...three weeks, if I remember right? I can try now, but I might not get it right. By then, it will be more obvious."

The calico kitten let out a squeak, and mother cat responded by coming to Natasha and nipping her hand. "Ok, you can have your baby back." They replaced all the kittens into the cat bed and watched as they began nursing. Clint moved his hand over Natasha's and laced their fingers together. He kissed her temple before leaning his head against hers.

"I have an idea for their names," she whispered. "Kiev. Odessa. Istanbul. Budapest."

Clint smiled. "Kiev is where I found you."

"Kiev is where you saved me," she corrected. "Odessa was our first mission together."

Her partner laughed. "Mission sounds so benign. I'll never forget the look on Coulson's face when you told him you didn't need an extraction plan."

"Yeah, his poker face needed work. I thought it would have been better after putting up with you," she teased, and was rewarded with a playful smack on the upper arm. She play-punched back.

"Why Istanbul?"

"That was the mission that established us as Strike Team Delta," she reminded him. "I know you don't remember much of that part."

"Right, Coulson sent me in with that new guy. He and I were there, what, one night, and then he got us both captured. The next time I remember, I was in a quinjet, gut-shot, with you pressing down on me, yelling at me that I better not 'fucking die and leave you alone' or you were going to, and I quote, bring me back to life to kill me again?" Clint didn't realize he had unconsciously placed his hand over the ugly scar tissue just next to his navel until Natasha's hand covered it.

"That was the one," she confirmed quietly. "You scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going to lose you."

"Didn't you also tell Coulson that you were going to give him a literal demonstration of what it meant to have his guts for garters?" Clint asked.

She snorted. "I made a lot of threats. I don't remember them all now, but I know I meant them at the time. And then Budapest -"

Clint cut her off with a squeeze of her hand. "We both know why Budapest." They lapsed into silence while he kissed her temple again. "Even if we do remember it very differently."