Natasha tiptoed quietly into Clint's room and shut the door behind her. It appeared empty, but she knew better.
"Get out," said his voice from the ceiling. In the dim lighting of his room she could barely make out his figure against the blackness of the sky. A metal ladder led up the wall and out a trapdoor onto the roof of the helicarrier. Wind whistled around and water lapped against the giant ship as it sat docked in a harbor.
Natasha climbed the ladder and sat next to Clint. "Where are we?"
"Rio" he said coldly. "Go."
She stayed where she was, smelling the salty air and admiring the twinkling lights of the city they were calling home tonight. "It was a girl," she said after a while.
"Are you trying to make me feel better?" he spat.
"I'm trying to be honest."
"Maybe you should have tried that in Budapest."
"And said what? Pass me another .20 caliber as we gear up for what could be the largest, and maybe last, fight of our careers, by the way I'm pregnant?"
"That would have worked." He sat still, fixated on the city. Natasha wondered just how much of it he could see from here.
"And then what? There's no way you would have let me leave the safe house."
"Of course not."
"And you'd be dead."
"Yeah."
"So would I. Remember, they bombed the apartment the next morning. You would have bled to death in the street and I would have died in the explosion. Is that really what you'd prefer?
"We lived, and you went and killed her anyway."
"Earlier today you were fine with that."
"Yes, when it was part of a mission! When you had no choice, when the father ended up with his neck snapped. I'm not a mark, Natasha. I'm not the Black Widow's pray. I love you. Or I used to. You had a choice."
"No, I didn't."
"Do you even hear yourself? I've always tried to see behind your mask Natasha, but now I'm not sure there's anything else left."
She took a long breath, trying to steel herself to the only insult he knew she would take to heart. "You've always been a dreamer." She tried to fix his hair but he swatted her away.
"You're despicable."
"Listen to me, Clint. Please don't think it was easy for me."
"You track record shows otherwise. I thought you were the victim. Turns out you're the monster."
"Where would she be?"
"What?"
"Where would that little girl be, right now?"
"With us."
"With us on a heavily armed military vessel that occasionally plummets out of the sky? Where would she have gone during New York? One of these missions is going to get us killed sooner or later. What then? Who would protect her?"
"Natasha."
"Or if someone ever got ahold of her? Clint, she would be a target for every enemy Shield's ever made."
"We could keep her safe."
"No we couldn't! We couldn't protect her from everyone! We couldn't protect her from the world we live in. We can barely keep ourselves from drowning in blood. We couldn't protect her from every single person out to harm her! From our own recklessness. I know what it's like to be ripped from your family. I know what it's like to be a child thrown into that world, taught to kill, taught to hate. I will not let that happen to my daughter!"
"Tasha," Clint said more softly, calming her down. He held his hand to her head and used his thumb to wipe away her streams of tears. She hadn't even notice when she'd started crying.
"Clint, I'm sorry."
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her head. "Me too."