Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I got a little sidetracked with work. I hope I managed to find a good balance between continued angst from the previous chapter and humor. I wanted to thank Addicted-To-Sugar-Quills, CrazyDC, and ConnorVolturi. Inu-rulz, I hope I answered your question. As always, please leave reviews and let me know what you think and/or what you would like to see in upcoming chapters. I could definitely use some new ideas!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or any such Marvel characters; it makes me sad on a daily basis.
Clint dragged a ragged hand over his eyes. He finally convinced the nurses to take Natasha off the sedatives. He knew how much she hated the overwhelming groggy feeling that accompanied such drugs. Hill slipped in through the door quietly and handed him a large folder.
"There's information in there that Stark couldn't have hacked in a hundred years."
Clint had the decency to grimace a bit, but he wasn't ashamed or guilty. His wife went dark, and he found the information he needed. He was an agent after all; collecting intelligence was par for the course. As are injuries, he reminded himself with a frown.
"It does look a bit thicker than the file he retrieved for me," the archer commented absentmindedly as he dropped the manila file onto the side of Natasha's bed. Looking up, he noticed how much smaller it made her seem since the file took up more of the bed than she did. He immediately moved it to his lap. "Can I get a list of her tox screen?"
"You're not going to like what you see."
"I rarely ever do."
"Her doctor said everything should heal within 6 weeks, especially since the ankle was a clean break. He didn't take into account her enhanced physiology though. I bet a month," Hill joked. She tried desperately to bring some comedy to the tense situation.
"If it takes her a month to heal, she's going to go on a massacring rampage," he snorted. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to fend off the headache that was already pulsing behind his eyes. "She'll probably make a game out of it too."
"We'll have to put some tape lines on the floor, so innocent bystanders don't accidentally cross into her range of fire."
"She's the Black Widow, Hill. Given her range of fire, you're going to have clear out the whole medical bay." The woman laughed, knowing the statement was truer than she would like to admit. "If she's here for a month, Fury is going to have a great time corralling our children."
"He's an old softie at heart. He just pretends he has a stick up his ass."
"He should look into acting if that's how he pretends. The man seems to play the part well," Clint scoffed. Hill laughed with a knowing nod before excusing herself to give the archer time to sift through all the information in the file in front of him.
He steeled himself and opened the file. Natasha's cover had been as a dance instructor working in the studio beneath the mark's suspected headquarters. Of course, he thought to himself, of course, the douche bag would choose a location surrounded by children for his nefarious plans. Who would think twice about an ignorant old lady who owns a dance studio in the middle of Kiev sharing the upstairs apartment with her gunrunning son and his organization of thugs? It sounds like the perfect place for children. His brain ranted as he continued to filter through the information.
Natasha was tasked with befriending the old woman and collecting intel on her son and his extracurricular activities. He grimaced, noting the mark, one Victor Shevchenko, was a well-known politician. There was a lot left out of the file Stark hacked and a lot left out about how the operation went south. For instance, how Natasha started in Kiev yet was picked up in Bratislava. Ukraine to Slovakia, he calculated the time in his head- 16 hours by car or 3 hours by plane give-or-take. He didn't know if he had a preference. All Clint knew was that nothing good happened during the 2 days she was gone. Nothing good ever happened when the mark's goal was to get you into an abandoned warehouse in a completely different country. He paused a second to thank his lucky stars that the mark was ultimately unsuccessful.
Clint sensed her shift more than he saw or felt it. He paused in his reading to glance up from the file and saw her green eyes locked on him. He let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. She didn't blink; she just stared straight at her partner. Standing slowly as not to spook her, he murmured her name and told her she was safe. Her shoulders relaxed just slightly. Her eyes eventually shifted around the room, taking in her surroundings.
"I hate hospitals," she growled. Clint laughed out of pure relief; whatever happened didn't break her. Sure, he figured, there would be both physical and emotional healing, but she was still there with her snarky personality shining through. "Who the fuck decided people heal best under fluorescent bulbs drowning in the overwhelming smell of bleach?" Yep, he thought to himself, she's going to be just fine.
"Well, doctor says you'll be healed in 6 weeks."
"Barton, you had better be fucking kidding me." She snarled, the threat evident in her tone.
"I told him he was an idiot," Clint defended with his hands raised comically in the universal sign for surrender. "I told him it's never taken you longer than three weeks to heal, but no one listens to me."
"Usually for good reason," Natasha muttered with a smirk. "Damage," she asked.
"Broken ankle, fractured ribs, concussion, assortment of burns, deep bruising, a few lacerations and a couple gashes that needed some serious stitch work," he recited. He ticked off a finger each time he listed another injury.
"It looks like you're trying to recall our grocery list," she teased.
"How do you feel?"
"Swell," she responded with a snarky tone. He didn't resist the urge to roll his eyes. He fixed her with a look, and she groaned noiselessly. She closed her eyes and took a detailed assessment of her own body, paying particular attention to the muscles around her torso that throbbed with each breath. "Feels like I was an ugly Ukrainian's punching bag," she decided. She saw the worry and fear flicker through his stormy eyes and regretted her jab. "I have felt worse," she amended.
"What happened, Tasha?" She shrugged, which caused an immediate wince as her fractured ribs shifted painfully.
"How are Philip and Amelia?"
"Tasha."
"Clint."
"You fell off the grid for 2 days. Once you're debriefed and they clear you, we'll go home, and you can see them."
"Okay. Get Hill in here and I'll debrief while you go harass a doctor to discharge me."
"I'm debriefing you," he informed her. He watched her face carefully.
"That's not protocol."
"Hill called me in to debrief you. What can I say? You intimidate people." There was a humorous edge to his voice that accompanied his smile as he tried to ease the tension that built in the room.
"We're supposed to follow protocol," she stated plainly, already slipping into her utterly professional character that she adopted during difficult debriefings.
"Tasha, you and I have adverse reactions to protocol. It's like oil and water or polar opposites on two magnets or Stark and Fury. We rarely follow protocol unless it's life-or-death, and even then, we tend to make up our own rules and roll with the punches, literally. So," he prompted.
She sighed and reluctantly nodded.
"Are you hallucinating or feeling any effects of drugs in your system beyond those of the sedative and pain killers distributed upon extraction from Bratislava?"
"I was in Kiev."
"You were picked up from a payphone outside an abandoned warehouse in Bratislava, Slovakia."
"Oh."
"Are you hallucinating? Do you feel any trailing effects of other drugs in your system?"
"No."
"Can you tell me what you remember?"
"I was teaching the last class of the day. It was an intermediate ballet class for 8 to 10 year olds. A man came in through the dance studio door, and he walked up the backstairs to get to the apartment above where Shevchenko ran his operation. The old lady was gone for the afternoon, and I was getting ready to go back to the apartment.
A little girl from the class came up to me outside to ask me a question. She was 10 and wanted to trade extra lessons for cleaning duties. I got hit with a decent voltage of electricity numerous times. A handful of syringes, including one with a paralyzing agent, were injected and I woke up in a warehouse hanging from rope bindings off a hook. They kept giving me the paralyzing agent, and my body wouldn't move though my mind was fully functional.
I had been made. The man was a client of Shevchenko and recognized me from the program. He was a soldier training near the Red Room facilities. He remembered my hair. He didn't know if it was me for sure or just an unlucky look-alike, but Shevchenko didn't want to take a chance. I sustained a majority of my injuries while the paralyzing agent was in effect. Shevchenko missed a dose, and it started to wear off, enough for me to take them both down and evacuate the warehouse before lighting it up."
There was little to no emotion in her retelling. Natasha walked him through the events in a detached and clinical manner. This was work, and he knew better than anyone just how quickly she could fall into that professional mindset.
"And the girl?"
"I don't know. Any other questions?"
"We'll have the nurse do a secondary tox screen to include in the report, and I'll get a doctor to issue the discharge papers." He stood and left the room. Just outside, away from her line of vision, Clint leaned heavily against the wall of the corridor. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back. She was leaving something out. He had been her partner for so long and sat through countless debriefings with her; he knew when she was omitting something from her report.
"Barton," Hill asked softly. He jerked his eyes open and refocused on his handler. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I just sent a nurse in for the second tox screen. Everything okay?"
He cleared his throat before offering a curt nod. "Yeah, it's good. She's been debriefed."
"Figured you would be looking for this," she said. Hill handed him the discharge form, and he smiled gratefully. "No training until the cast on her ankle is off. I don't have to tell you about first aid. You two should have your own medical bay at this rate. Anyway, go home. Reports due Wednesday morning by 0900," she informed him.
"Thanks," he mumbled.
Taking a deep breath, Clint walked back into Natasha's room to help her get home.
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Philip practically bowled her down when she hobbled through the door. Amelia struggled desperately to get out of her seat where she was eating pancakes. Natasha bent at the waist as best as she could and kissed her son's sandy blonde hair as he wrapped his arms around her. Amelia wasn't far behind, and the three year old nearly tackled Philip in her haste to see her mom.
"You got boo boos." Philip noticed when he pulled back to look at her.
"Yeah, but I'm okay," she promised. "Actually," she whispered, "I'm much better now that you've both given me a hug. It looks like I missed Sunday cartoons though."
"It's okay! JARVIS can play them again!" Philip led Natasha to the couch and clamored up next to her, tucked happily into one side, with Amelia on the other.
"Be careful of Mommy's boo boos," Clint reminded as he walked into the kitchen. "Thanks, Pepper."
"How is she?"
"She's Natasha."
"Ah," the strawberry blonde nodded knowingly. "Well, if you need anything, you know where to find me. Welcome home, Natasha," she called as she walked towards the door.
"Mommy, where are Auntie Pepper's babies going to come from," Philip asked. In the kitchen, Clint choked on his water.
"They're in her tummy. That's why she has a bump," Natasha explained as Clint pounded his chest in an effort to breathe.
"But how do they get in her tummy?"
"How do you think they get in there," she asked. Her gaze locked on Clint's and she looked a little bewildered. He shot back a similarly shocked look. At least they were on the same page, and neither of them had a single idea of what to say.
"Murphy says you get a baby with a bee and a bird. Annie said you get a baby when you dance in bed. Murphy's mommy is going to have a baby too, and he was talking about how big she got when we were at recess. I told him he was stupid. I asked Uncle Steve about it, but he turned red like a tomato and didn't tell me. Oh, and Eric said that his mommy said that a stork drops the baby off. Then he said a stork was a bird, and I told him my daddy was a bird. He thinks daddy delivers babies."
"I'm a hawk," Clint groaned from behind the couch. "Did you tell him I don't deliver babies?"
"I tried, but I couldn't member the name of the bird you are, so he kept saying you were a stork. Annie told him a stork was like a dragon, and they're make-believe."
"Hawk," Clint repeated under his breath. "Not stork. Hawk."
"Murphy can't be right. He does a dance when he's right. He looks stupid."
"Stupid isn't a nice word," Natasha reminded him.
"What's a nice word for stupid," Philip countered. When she glared at him, he rolled his eyes dramatically. "Well who's right? Where did Auntie Pepper's babies come from?"
"When two people love each other very much," Clint started.
"Please sound like more of a cliché," she grumbled in Arabic, knowing neither child understood that particular language.
He fixed her with a glare before continuing. "They have a baby."
"I know that," Philip drawled slowly. "But how does the baby get here?"
"It appears magically into the mommy's tummy where it hangs out for a little while before being born." Clint bullshitted his way through the explanation while actively avoiding looking at Natasha for fear he would burst out laughing. He could hear the change in her breathing as she tried to prevent smirking at his response.
"Oh, okay," Philip nodded.
"I want a baby," Amelia announced.
"No, no you don't. You don't want a baby. You don't want to have…" Clint halted abruptly trying to find a different word for sex. "You don't want to fondue. You don't want babies. You don't want to date. In fact, you can't date until after you're married. It's a rule now," he decided. "Set in stone, Daddy wins." Natasha merely rolled her eyes.
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"Fury, I have a question," Stark declared.
"Why are you on my base?"
"I can't stop by to 'say hello to my little friend'," he asked, feigning emotional pain as he referenced a classic film.
"What are you doing on my base," Fury repeated.
"Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
"Stark," the director growled.
"Right, so I've got a question."
"So you said."
"It's kind of important. Could you swivel so that you're non-pirate eye can see me?"
"Stark," Fury snarled again. "I am busy running an international intelligence organization. What do you want?"
"I'm having twins."
"Great. Just what the world needs… a double dose of Stark in infant form. Do I need to prepare a Doomsday plan or something for when your twins wreck havoc on the world as we know it?"
"That wasn't the question. In fact," Stark pointed out, "I said a statement. I explicitly said I had a question."
Fury dropped the file in his hands and turned to face Stark. "What," he hissed.
"Pepper seems to like you."
"Again, not a question."
"She wants you to be the godfather."
"For the love of God, Stark, stop making movie references and get on with the damn question."
"That was the question," Tony drawled.
"What was the question?"
"I'm supposed to ask you if you will be the godfather to one of our twins when they're born." The silence spread between them. Fury blinked once or twice, and Stark shifted nervously. "Pepper seems to think it's a good idea," he mumbled.
"Why?"
"Hell if I know," Stark grumbled. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Can't you just list me as an emergency contact or something and call it a day?"
"You're welcome to tell Pepper that. I did my job. I asked. I'm done. I want an éclair from Paris."
"I mean, as Director, my life isn't exactly suited for children in any scenario, especially not your children. Mellow, quiet children could be a possibility, but your children will be neither mellow nor quiet."
"Trust me. I'm not planning to run off and die and leave my children with a balding Cyclops."
"Says the narcissistic billionaire whose pastimes include excessive drinking, frequent, unmonitored explosions, and flying around the world in a tin can suit at speeds that rival our fastest jets," Fury retorted.
"You're just jealous that the Iron Man suit is faster than your QuinJet."
"Don't you have a Parisian woman to be harassing about the fluffiness of your éclair," the taller man mocked. Stark took that as his cue and turned to leave. When he reached the door, he heard Fury say, "Tell Pepper I'll think about it and I appreciate the request."
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"Daddy, sit!" Amelia cried as he walked through the door. Natasha, Amelia, and Philip sat around a small table in the living room, each holding a tiny plastic cup.
"What's this," he asked cautiously. He placed the well-worn bow case on the kitchen counter on his left.
"It's a tea party! We're princesses," Amelia announced. Indeed, the little girl was adorned in a princess costume she got from Banner on her third birthday.
"I'm not a princess," Philip grumbled as he drank his imaginary tea.
"It's a tea party, and you're a princess. It's pretend," she glared at her brother.
"Can I go play Mario now," he whined.
Natasha shook her head. "You actually enjoy time out, so this is your punishment. You get to be a princess and have a nice tea party with Amelia and me." Philip huffed and crossed his arms over his chest as he pouted. "Tell Daddy what you did."
"Hmm," he pondered. "I think I'm good. I learned my lesson."
"Philip."
"I'm okay," he insisted. "I'm a princess."
"Philip Aiden Barton."
"I shot Amelia with a bunch of arrows," he grumbled. Clint lifted an eyebrow, silently telling him to continue.
"Why?"
"She was playing with my Legos."
"And if you can't share and play nicely with your toys, you're going to sit here and play nicely with her toys," Natasha told him.
"Yeah, yeah. I know." She fixed him with a quick glare at the disrespect laced in his tone. "I mean, yes ma'am."
"Daddy, play princesses with us! Сидите пожалуйста." The young girl smiled up at him as she requested he sit in Russian. "Mommy's a fairy princess ballerina. I'm the queen." She looked over at Philip. "Philip is the prince who's supposed to rescue the other princess, but he got thirsty. He wanted tea. You can be… You can be the princess' fairy godmother! You can have a wand and a crown," she exclaimed excitedly as leapt from the table and ran to the dress-up chest in the far corner. Digging through it, she found just what she was looking for. Standing on her tippy toes, she put the crown on her father's head and handed him the pink, shimmery wand.
Amelia ran back to the box to find a shield and sword for Philip.
"Not a word," Clint breathed heavily as Natasha bit her lip, threatening to tease him and laugh. "Don't even, Tasha."
She couldn't help it. A throaty laughed bubbled out of her, even as she covered her mouth with her hand to try and stifle the noise.
"Tasha," he warned.
"Hawkeye, the fairy godmother," Natasha teased mercilessly. "Oh god, it's too good. I want nothing more than to put this in your jacket. Occupation," she pretended to read, "world's best marksman, unparalleled with bow and arrow, SHIELD agent, and part-time fairy godmother."
"It's tea time," Amelia declared as she sat back in her spot. "We need cookies to have with tea!" Her little feet hit the wood floors as she rushed into the kitchen to find snacks to have with tea. Philip just looked utterly bored. Natasha couldn't stop laughing, and Clint actually seemed to pout.
The front door opened to reveal Tony and Banner. Clint audibly groaned as he dropped his head, nearly causing his crown to fall off.
"Oh my god," Banner grinned.
"Aren't you a pretty little princess," Tony mercilessly mocked. "Did you decide to swap your bow out for a pink wand? It's okay. SHIELD will understand that you've decided to alter your weapon of choice."
"Shut up," Clint grumbled.
"We're having tea," Amelia repeated for the umpteenth time.
"We just stopped by to talk about some of the new dynamics for those arrow heads we've been working on," Banner explained with a shit-eating smirk as he took his phone out to snap a picture of the two assassins dressed up at a tea party.
"No, we're having tea," the girl replied.
"We're having tea," Tony asked cautiously.
"Yes. It's teatime. Uncle Tony, you can be Rapunzel, but you're not stuck in the tower anymore cause your fairy godmother gave you wings!"
"Rapunzel? Fairy godmother," he stuttered. "What?"
"Daddy is the fairy godmother. See, he has a crown," Amelia explained as if it made the most sense in the world. The presence of the crown clearly transformed the bow-and-arrow-wielding assassin into a fairy godmother. "And Uncle Bruce, you can be Sleeping Beauty, 'cept you're not sleeping cause you like tea."
Amelia hustled around, her red curls bouncing as she skipped around the living room. Each of her uncles received a costume before being ushered to the table to grab a small cup and drink imaginary tea.
Tony looked between Banner and Barton and whispered, "No one speaks of this day ever." The two other men couldn't help but agree.