AN: So this took so long to come out because not only did I have a couple different versions of this written, I also ended up with another version of the next chapter written and that got totally trashed by the changes I've made. I've been in a constant war with my brain about some of the details of the break between them and the rekindling between Clint and Laura, but I know where things are supposed to fall at different times in the arc. Hopefully other authors deal with this sort of indecision too.
So, without further ado, I'm publishing this version of it for better or worse to commit it to my "canon" so I can move on Thanks for the patience, Constant Readers.
After the kids went to sleep, Laura offered Natasha a glass of wine, which she accepted. It was like a wound for both women: it hurt but they couldn't leave it alone without picking at it.
"How bad was it, really?" Laura knew Clint did some sort of risky work with the military, but he had never let her see him injured beyond mild bruises before.
"Bad." Natasha sipped her wine as she debated just how much to tell Laura. "It was very close." Natasha shivered as a flashback played through her mind. Seeing him lying in so much blood, desperately fishing for the arteries to buy enough time for evac, and it was all her fault. He brought her in, it was her history that blew the mission and he was trying to cover her.
Lost in the images, she startled when Laura laid a hand on her arm. Clint was the only person off-duty that dared to touch her casually when they were at SHIELD. "Thank you for bringing him home." Laura seemed sincere in her gratitude. She stood as she finished her glass. "There are towels in the attached bathroom, if you want to shower before you go to bed." Laura motioned vaguely to the guest room.
"I wouldn't want to disturb you, I can wait." Natasha was confused. Laura wasn't being unpleasant with her, even though she had the right to be. It seemed that not only Clint was intent to challenge her expectations of behavior. Everything in the Red Room was about competition between the girls. When she was working a job, it was usually like that too. Hell, even at SHIELD, most women treated her as a rival.
"I'll be upstairs." Laura gave Natasha a half-hearted smile. "Clint told me about you."
"We aren't..." Natasha suddenly felt this was important to clarify, and was surprised at the fact she was stumbling over her words. "Clint has never..." She shook her head. Almost against her will, she realized that she liked Laura. She was a good person, and Clint deserved that.
Laura sat back down with a sigh. "I know. But..." Laura also struggled with how exactly to phrase things. "I met Clint was I was thirteen, you know. I did trapeze at the circus." Natasha nodded, aware of this part of the story. "I don't know who he is at all." Laura seemed almost relieved to admit it. "So much of his life is shut off to me. And when you marry at sixteen...I doubt he knows who I am either."
"You're a good person." Natasha was sincere in her words. "So is he. And this is an amazing life you have here." She looked around at the cozy farmhouse, hidden away from violence and death.
"So are you, I'm sure. Clint wouldn't...feel the way he does if you weren't." Just from the single day with Natasha, Laura had a good feeling about her.
The assassin laughed bitterly. "Not quite, I think he just wants to save me."
Laura laughed, though hers was more genuine. "He does like fixing things. But I think it goes beyond that. You are a part of his life in a way that I could never be."
"So are you," Natasha countered.
"You could though." Laura nodded to the home. "Anyone can do this."
Natasha shook her head, a hint of pain in her voice. "No. I never could."
"You'll retire some day, I'm sure." Laura was little more hesitant, reading Nat's body language.
Natasha cleared her throat, chuckling slightly. "Uh no. I don't believe in retirement plans. I prefer the blazes of glory."
Laura nodded, putting together all the different pieces of the woman in front of her that she had been given. "I'm sorry." It was the best she could do, understanding perhaps a little more what was going through Clint's head.
"I have a lot to atone for." Natasha finished her own wine. She added her relationship with Clint to the list. She could no longer lie to herself that it was completely platonic or harmless. Here was a woman who was being harmed by it, a woman who clearly did not deserve it.
Laura seemed to read some of that on Natasha's face. She again reached over to place a comforting hand on the other woman's arm. "Not this though. I don't know how exactly to handle this, but don't add it to your burden. If you do, then I'll have a bigger one to carry myself."
She stood up again, going to the stairs for bed. Her emotions were very close to the surface and she was exhausted. She needed to sleep and process. Half way up the stairs, she paused to look down at her would-be rival. "He's been better, happier, since he started working with you." And with that thought, Laura fled to her room, leaving a very overwhelmed Russian assassin in her wake.
Natasha re-entered Clint's room. He was dozing, but awoke when she walked in. She bustled about, doing the medical things she needed to do for the evening, giving IV antibiotics, making sure the dressing was intact.
He didn't say anything as she worked, just followed her with his keen eyes. It was a shitty situation he put her in, and he should have known better. He tried to figure out what to say, how to address the situation without making it more uncomfortable.
Natasha spoke before he had the chance to figure out the words. "Laura is really nice. I like her."
"She is," Clint replied carefully. "I like her too."
An amused snort from his partner. "I would hope so." Their eyes met and tried to communicate all the mixed emotions this trip was stirring up. In her deepest thoughts, she had wished Laura to be some sort of monster. Not like herself maybe, but in some other way. She didn't want to feel bad about the time she spent with Clint nor the time he spent away from home.
Cautiously he asked, "Where is she?"
Nat gave a quick shake of her head, indicating that Laura would not be joining him in this room. "Upstairs. We talked a little." Her voice was hesitant. She wasn't sure where to go with this. "She talked about how you two don't know each other. And that she felt anyone could give you a home like this." It was easier to talk about Laura's emotions rather than her own.
"She's right that we don't." He seemed guilty at the thought. "But what she's been willing to give up to have this life…not many people could do that."
"You could get to know her again. You could try starting over." Somehow in Natasha's mind, the idea formed that giving her partner the perfect home and family life, maybe that would make up for the fact that she could never have it herself.
Clint frowned slightly. He had thought of it before – but where would he start? And where would that leave his partner? "It's not as easy as that, you know." He met her eyes and they both knew she did. No matter what either of them would admit or act on, to change his relationship with his wife would mean he would have to change his relationship with his partner, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do that.
"I know." Natasha didn't let him see her eyes, hiding some of the emotion from him.
"I'm sorry, Nat." He turned away guiltily, his jaw tense.
His partner locked the door to the room - the last thing she would want is his children walking in - and went to his good side, sitting down on the bed and taking his hand. "Laura said something to me, and I'm going to tell you the same: Don't add this to your burden, or you'll only add to mine." She watched their fingers mesh with each other as they had so many times before. "You know I don't get the happy ending." Her voice was soft but she was comfortable with the fact that this was part of her penance.
"And I'm supposed to?" Clint was annoyed. "And why shouldn't you someday retire and have a family of your own? Eventually you'll move past this."
She laughed bitterly. "Because I'll never move past this. I'll never be more than this. This is who I am, who I was bred to be, what I have been created to do!" She shook her head. "You should know better, Barton. There's only one ticket for me out of this job."
He voice took on a pleading tone. "It doesn't have to be like that though. You have choices." He wasn't sure how he could function in a world where Natasha no longer existed.
"No I don't. Those choices were taken from me by the Red Room before you ever met me." She still sat beside him, but kept looking forward, away from his face, her hand tight around his. The poison that had come to the surface when she saw his children had to be expelled. "Do you know how they signify that you have completed your training and are ready to go out and serve their purposes? They strap you to a bed, tie you down," she hesitated, tears actually forming in her eyes. Clint wasn't sure he had seen her cry in years, no matter how badly she was hurt. "They couldn't do regular surgery; that might leave a scar, and they couldn't have anything mar my perfect skin." Her voice was soft, but laced with bitterness. "They were always so careful about scars."
"You don't have to tell me this," Clint said, concern on his face. He knew they had done so many horrible things to her, but she had never talked about this before. He knew she was feeling vulnerable now, and he didn't want her to share more than she would be comfortable with in the future.
She continued to speak, as if he hadn't tried to stop her. "I don't know exactly what they did, just that I was kept awake during it and it hurt, more than anything else they had done before. They wanted to make sure we could never get pregnant. That we would never entertain dreams of leaving and having a normal family. That nothing could ever be more important to us than them. That nothing would ever love us, but them. I was twelve." Tears slipped down her face. She hadn't thought about her graduation in years, but seeing the Barton family just ripped it to the surface. She felt Clint's arms go around her while she was talking and just leaned against his chest, taking the comfort he could give her.
Clint struggled while she got her story out. It made him so angry, that he wanted to yell and hit things and go chasing after the monsters who had raised her and make them pay for the damage they caused. But that wasn't the reaction Natasha needed in the moment. She just needed his presence and understanding, so he tamped down the anger. She was more important to him in the moment than his own anger. There were no words that could make what she just admitted any less horrifying, so he just murmured soft words of understanding and held her.
He realized now just how much it hurt her to see his family – not just because of Laura – but because of the children and the fact he did have a retirement to look forward to someday, all things she could never picture for herself. "I'm sorry I asked you to come with me." He was nearly close to crying himself. The hurt Clint had caused his partner was nearly unbearable to him. He hadn't considered all the ways he would be hurting her by bringing her here.
Natasha's soft voice tried to reassure him. "I'm not. Clint, I want you to have all this. I have to think someone can have it."
His own voice was low and gravelly with emotion. "I don't deserve this. What if I don't want it?" 'What if I want you instead' was the unsaid continuation.
"You do deserve it, Clint. Please, believe me that you do." She met his eyes earnestly. Not only had he stopped his own mercenary ways, he had gotten her to stop as well, which was worth a lot of black in his column too, in her mind. She also knew though that he deserved better than her, and that the opportunity for a family wasn't one to be given up lightly.
"I don't see how I do, because it's not enough for me." Clint stroked her hair gently. For years he had maintained barriers between them for various reasons: Because he was married, or because he was worried about taking advantage of her. But now the limbo they had existed in was coming to an end, for better or worse.
To be honest with himself, he felt like the biggest jackass of them all, for putting any of them in this situation. He was selfish because he just was so drawn to Natasha, never mind whether it was good for her mental state or not. And ignoring the fact that no matter what the circumstances, he was technically married. He had painted himself into a corner and now he was going to destroy everything, including himself, if he wasn't careful.
On top of all that, he wasn't sure he deserved the happy ending that Natasha was envisioning for him either. He had killed more people than she had, for far less reason. She had the rationale that she had been brainwashed to be a killer. He had a shitty childhood, but so did a lot of men who sat on death row. If he was willing to give up on Laura, it would mean likely giving up on the children too. He couldn't expect her to stay hidden for him forever. He couldn't imagine losing the kids, no matter how he felt about the woman in his arms.
She kissed his temple with a sigh. "You are better than you give yourself credit for." Natasha knew his body language as fluently as she spoke English. She could see the various sources of guilt warring for dominance.
"So are you." He looked over at his partner, trying to justify in his mind what was in his heart. He wasn't sure how he could live with himself if he chose Natasha and lost his children. But he also couldn't imagine losing the bond he shared with his partner.
She knew the right thing was for him to stay with Laura and his children, but she had been forced onto so many men in her life, and the thought of losing the one man that she chose for herself was threatening to break her. She rested her forehead on his cheek for a moment. "Get some sleep."
"You too." He knew she wouldn't stay in there with him, not under the circumstances, no matter what Laura had told her.
It was a complicated web they were trapped in and for once, Natasha was unsure how to extricate herself. Usually she was laying the threads to trip others, but this had grown out of control and even she was caught.