This is by far my favorite scene/chapter of the fic.
3.
"Clint. Hey, Clint."
He rolled over and groaned, pulled his pillow over his head, not ready to wake up yet; it felt like he'd just fallen asleep. He'd just gotten back from a week in Algeria and hadn't been able to sleep on the plane because of all the bullshit paperwork he had to fill out. Leave it to SHIELD to want triplicate copies of all paperwork in hand when a team reported back in. Clint rather suspected that SHIELD paperwork was a special form of torture designed to punish him for past life transgressions.
"Clint, wake up."
There was someone poking his ribs now, insistently with a finger. He tried to brush them away, but the damn finger was persistent.
"Clint, come on, Clint."
The voice took on a whining quality, and he finally pushed his pillow aside and peeled an eye open.
Natasha was sitting cross-legged on the bed, hovering over him, her chin resting in her palms.
"Hey," he rasped, finally registering who was waking him up. "Are you okay?" Even though he knew that Bruce had a handle on things, that the pregnancy was being carefully monitored and everything was fine, he still worried.
"I'm hungry," she said matter of factly.
He stared uncomprehendingly, and maybe it was just the sleep deprivation, but he wasn't at all sure why she had to wake him up to tell him that.
"There's food in the kitchen." There was always food in the kitchen, especially now that Pepper knew Natasha was pregnant.
Natasha shook her head. "Nope. Not the right food."
Clint sighed, already knowing where this was going. "Nat, we got like, an entire fridge out there full of stuff you like. Surely there's something there you can eat."
"Thor and Steve ate all the good stuff, and then Bruce came and ate all my ice cream."
"There was, like, two containers in there!"
"He was hungry." Natasha raised her eyebrows. "Just like me right now."
"So, you're telling me there's nothing in this entire tower that you can eat right now?"
"Well . . ." she dragged out the syllable. "There's a ton of food. It's just not the right food."
And there it was. Natasha stared at him expectantly, and Clint sighed again and sat up, slinging his legs over the side of the bed.
"What do you want?" He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice; he really wasn't upset at her, just tired. "Where am I going?"
"Um, I want French fries and eggs. And some olives." She thought about that for a second, then added. "And a strawberry milkshake."
"Where am I getting all of that at," he glanced at the clock. "3 AM?"
She gave him a toothy grin. "The diner."
He rubbed his eyes, stood up. "And why couldn't you just go to the diner without waking me up?" Even now, he wasn't worried about her going out alone at night. She was more capable five months along than any criminal, common or otherwise, she might encounter.
She stood then, too, shrugged a little and started pulling on her clothes. "Because I wanted you to come with me."
"Oh." He searched around on the floor for his discarded jeans, tugging on a shirt and a clean pair of socks. "You wanted me to go with you," he repeated, the annoyance creeping back in even as he pulled on his boots.
Natasha was already fully dressed and waiting by the door to the room. "I missed you." She already had him, all she had to do was ask and he would obey, but those three little words made him move just a little quicker.
He stepped close to her, invaded her space in the doorway. He leaned low over her, brushed his lips over hers. "I missed you, too."
And he had, fiercely. Separations from Natasha had always been interminable, even before he had admitted to himself why those stretches of time seemed so empty. It had always been part of their job though; they were partners, but they didn't always work together, and it was something that both of them had gotten used to over the years. This time, though, had been the first he'd been away from her for any length of time since . . . well, since they'd found out about the baby. Every moment of the mission, ever single second he crouched on a roof, waiting, watching, every bit of time since he got onto that plane headed east, all he could think about was her. How she was doing, how she was sleeping, how their child was growing, changing, and he was missing it.
So even though he was exhausted and could probably sleep for the next twelve hours, he was content to hold Natasha's hand in his as they meandered down the tower and walked the two blocks to her favorite diner, the one where they served a full menu at any hour of the day or night and the coffee was always fresh.
The waitress (and he couldn't really believe her name was really Flo, but that's what her nametag said and she responded to it, so who was he to argue?) seated them at a booth in the back, their usual table, next to a window that overlooked the street. Natasha slid into the seat beside, and she ordered without looking at the menu; they've been here a lot in the past couple months.
"And for you?" Flo asked him.
"Just coffee, thanks." He was never really hungry before dawn, and besides, Natasha's eyes were usually bigger than her stomach these days, and she'd ordered more than enough for the two of them.
He smirked at the misnomer. No, not the both of them at all. The three of them.
"What are you thinking?" Natasha asked him, and he was struck by how beautiful she was, sitting there in her sweats, hair tied up haphazardly, wan in the fluorescent light of the diner. She looked young, radiant, glowing even, in that way of pregnant women everywhere, and his heart ached to look at her.
"You. Me." He glanced down where her hand rested on her belly. "The baby." He reached out and entwined his fingers with hers, let them sit over the life growing inside of her. They sat quietly for a while like that, smiling at Flo when she brought their drinks and staring out the window, waiting for the rest of Natasha's food.
Suddenly, Natasha went completely still and let out a surprised, "Oh." Her voice was tiny, breathy, and her eyes were wide.
"Nat?" he asked, concern in his voice.
She gasped again. "Did you feel that?"
He frowned. "Feel what?"
He had no idea what she was talking about until he did. It was subtle at first, light, and he wouldn't have though anything of it except for Natasha's reaction. And then he put two and two together and realized what she meant. That was their baby. Moving. Inside of Natasha.
Wow.
No, scratch wow. Holy fucking shit.
They've both got thousand megawatt smiles plastered across their faces when Flo brought out the food, and even though Natasha said, "I guess the baby's hungry, too," and tucked in, Clint couldn't stop himself from keeping his palm pressed to her tummy while she ate, even long after the fluttering subsided.
Eventually, she slurped up the end of her shake and declared, "Gotta pee," and scampered off to the restroom.
He was polishing off the last of his third cup of coffee when Flo came by.
"You or your wife need anything else?"
He didn't bother to correct her, didn't bother to explain that he and Natasha weren't married or even engaged. He didn't even try to explain that they were closer than that, and the bond they'd formed in battles across the world meant more than anything a piece of paper and a golden ring could ever mean.
So he just shook his head. "No, thanks. Just the check, please."
And after Natasha got back and they'd paid, they walked back to Stark tower slowly, his arm across her shoulders as she waddled gracefully as only Natasha could, and they watched the sunrise over the city.