Ok, so this will be the LAST chapter of the night! Be sure to start at chapter 43!

Chapter 45

Natasha felt the change. One minute she was standing in the hallway, considering the old bedroom Clint once had in Avengers Tower and the next a tight fist landed against her back and circled her abdomen before it finished with a kick right to her pelvis. The dramatic spasm caught her by surprise at first. A wave of terror stole into her mind and the panic came galloping behind it. She knew what women said when this happened. It's time. Two little words that had the potential to change her life forever. This was it. The big moment. No longer would she be waddling around the world with Clint's only family growing steadily inside her. It was time to come out. Time to panic, rush to the hospital, feel the pain, and sit under the heavy stares of friends and doctors who waited expectantly for her to produce the prodigal child. She found herself slipping into Clint's room and closing the door. The spasm didn't last but she had the keen impression it wasn't going to be long before the next one hit her.

Some first time mothers had their children swiftly, within an hour. Some took longer. One woman told her it took two days for her first boy to come screaming into the world. Did Natasha still have time to stop this? To pretend everything wasn't going to change that same day?

A fear she couldn't imagine stole into her soul. All the doctors, friends, family, they prepared her for the happiness of motherhood and the difficulty of the labor she'd inevitably experience. None of them mentioned that terror. The one that made her want to squeeze her knees against one another and keep Clint's child inside even a day longer. She wasn't going to be a mother. That was decided the day she found out about the child she and Clint shared. A woman like her didn't deserve motherhood in her opinion. Tony and Pepper could handle this in a way Natasha never could. That was the plan. That was her only plan.

Natasha leaned her sore back against the wall and looked in at Clint's mostly abandoned place. He kept so few things in this room after he moved into Avengers Mansion and his home in New Jersey. It still smelled like him. That faint tone of spice, carbon fiber, and leather.

"Clint, I can't do this," Natasha whispered to the air like a prayer. "I couldn't do this with you, and I can't do it alone. I don't know what to do."

The clamped fist traveled down her spine again until it squeezed her abdomen. Tighter, harder, more painful than before, she told herself. She couldn't just stay in Clint's room, alone, and deliver the baby herself on the floor. Whether she liked it or not, this was happening.

Natasha swallowed back the fear and slowly, meticulously, caged up those emotions trying to overrun her mind. She explained them away with words like hormones, stress, and pain. Human emotions that a Black Widow did not experience. She was stronger than that. By the third contraction, she began to feel the pain a little less. Her world came back into a finite focus and it was time to move. Clint wasn't coming to save her, hold her, or love her ever again. She was in this alone, for better or worse, and it was time to woman up and do what had to be done. Pushing off the wall, Natasha turned away from Clint's old belongings and headed down the hall for the elevator. Her emergency hospital bag was already in the car downstairs.

"Tasha?"

As she passed the living room, Steve called out to her. She slowed for a moment to consider him.

"You ok?"

A fake smile fell over her like a perfectly planned mask. "Of course. I'm going out. I'll be back in a few hours." The plan had once been all hands on deck. Tony would drive her to the hospital while Steve stayed behind to gather Pepper, Bruce, and Thor. Together they would meet at New York General's Mercy Hope Delivery Center and the baby watch would begin. Natasha wasn't sure why she decided to change her mind now.

"Need someone to go along?" Steve offered. He tried too hard to seem nonchalant sometimes. It was almost painful to watch. He'd spoken with Sif only a few days before. The Asgardian warrior chanced to descend from the Bifrost to see him, distance between them apparently too much for as long as he'd been away. Natasha wasn't sure how she'd feel seeing them together. Jealously had always been a fault of hers but suddenly it changed. She liked Sif, and always had. The Asgardian had held out most of her life for Thor to come back to his senses and marry one of his own race. Without him, she had a chance to see clearly for once, and the person standing right in front of her had been Steve. Natasha had to admit, they looked good together.

Natasha began moving for the elevator again before the next contraction gave her up. "Not going for long. Don't wait up," she called over her shoulder, ending the conversation.

What lay before her, Natasha did not particularly plan on enjoying. A product of the Russian Black Widow experiment meant she'd been given more than the standard treatment as an operative. Steve Rogers might have been the first super soldier, but Natasha and her team were the next generation. On top of her remarkable healing factors and agility, she also possessed a high pain tolerance. That would be put to the ultimate test in the trial to come.

Trial, she thought to herself, slipping behind the steering wheel of her borrowed car. Trial was a good word for it. Emotionally she had to disconnect from the process and step back into a role that made sense for her to cope. She couldn't truly face the reality before her. Clint left her a single mother, waiting to give birth like Natasha never knew she could, to a child who must inevitably look like him in some ways. She'd have to stare into the face of that baby, hold its hand, consider its needs, and watch for those little idiosyncrasies of Clint to start trickling out. Every laugh, smile, and comment would remind her of the man she'd lost forever. Only one person in her life held the ability to break her, and that was Clint Barton. How much more could his only son do it? It wouldn't be fair. Not to Henry and not to her.

This was a trial. She only had to endure this process of labor and delivery, gift the baby away to Tony and Pepper, and be seen forever as the kind aunt instead of the abandoning mother. Clint might be disappointed if he was still alive. He'd certainly convince her out of the self-deprecating opinion of herself. But the fact remained that Clint Barton was dead and Natasha couldn't do something like this without him.

Her movements became robotic, as if a mission had been dropped in her lap and it was time to complete it at last. A nine month long, strenuous, toll on her body that might take a few hours of agonizing pain to be rid of, but at least that would be it. Confinement over. She could be Natasha Romanov, Black Widow, again. A few hours didn't seem so long in the scheme of things.

Natasha parked in the short-term lot of the hospital, grabbed her emergency bag from the trunk, and walked inside. Decades learning to hide pain served her well on this occasion. She'd almost completely suppressed the thought of her quickening contractions. Dr. Castillo had her OBGYN team on standby whenever Natasha inevitably arrived. Black Widow operatives weren't typical patients for that service. They couldn't process medication like normal physiology humans. They knew most pain medications had to be on a constant drip in order to touch her. For that reason, Natasha decided to deliver without drugs. If they were hardly going to help, why waste them?

She signed her false name at the front desk of the ward and slid her Avengers ID card across to the nurse. It only took a few minutes for Dr. Castillo herself to arrive and sweep Natasha up to her friends in the Mercy Grace. Even the patients in this hospital had the potential to out her secret. The free world wasn't ready to hear that their hero, Clint Barton, might have a child. Natasha didn't want that status hanging over the baby's life. Being raised by Tony Stark was enough to make anyone spoiled. There was no need to help that along by adding teams of paparazzi and news crews.

"No one with you?" Dr. Castillo asked in curiosity. She helped pull Natasha's bag off her shoulder and set it in the chair beside the hospital bed. They'd entered a private room in a sleepy corner of the hospital, well away from the excitement bustling everywhere else.

"I decided to come alone," Natasha replied easily.

"If an emergency comes up, is it all right if I call . . ." Castillo fished for a name, someone who might be cool under pressure and not be swept up in the reality of everything going on. "Steve?"

"I think Steve is liable to pass out on the floor." Natasha smirked, disrobed unabashedly, and fitted the hospital gown on. She slipped easily back into her Black Widow persona. This was a mission. Only a mission. And soon she would be done.

"Pepper?" Castillo offered next. She took the folded clothes Natasha offered her and set them in a chair. She recognized this apathetic woman across from her. Castillo had considerable experience with the entire Avengers team. While Natasha did not often land on her exam table, she had been a fixture of late as she progressed in her pregnancy.

"Pepper's ready to pop herself." Natasha scooted onto the hospital bed back first and sat up. "If you are desperate for an emergency contact, then do the free world a favor and call Bruce. He might Hulk out of the phone, but he'll be clear headed after he gets here. He's been practicing."

Castillo smiled at that and set a few more things out on her supply stand. "You are in luck. Apparently there is a mass of new moms in this hospital today. So much so that a few of us extra folks have been pulled from special duties to apply our midwife roots again." Castillo sat on the end of the bed with Natasha's file in her hand. "No one will think it strange if I stay. I've delivered six babies since last night. Technically my shift is over, but since my replacement is already here, I'm going to stick around and be your primary if you prefer."

A flicker of happiness broke through Natasha's emotional barricade. It took her a few minutes to beat it back into submission. "I would like that," she said.

Castillo rubbed her knee gently. "Don't worry. You are the strongest woman I know and if anyone can conquer this, it's you. Let me get a couple of the best girls on this floor and let's see where you are at. This will all be over before you know it."

Another piece of mortar fell from Natasha's façade before she had a chance to replace it. She wanted to burst into tears, but she didn't know why. Hormones, that little voice reminded her tentatively, it will all be over soon.

"Does Tony know what he's going to name him?" Castillo asked.

"Maybe Henry, after Clint's grandfather. He was a hero in World War II. Clint didn't know him but we heard such wonderful things about him once," Natasha supplied.

"I think Henry is a very nice name. What if Clint surprises everyone and it's a girl?"

Natasha always knew the baby was a boy. She wasn't sure why. It just didn't seem logical any other way. Though she thought very little of a boy's name, she thought even less of a girl. A girl meant it might be like her. It may have her hair, her body, and her eyes . . . things Natasha didn't want. This was Clint's child, not hers.

"I'm not sure." Natasha admitted.

Dr. Castillo nodded. "I'm sure whatever is chosen will be just perfect. How far are the contractions apart?"

"Every five minutes."

"Water break?"

"No."

"The last time we did your ultrasound . . ." Castillo rechecked her file to be sure the date was correct. "The baby was breach. Has there been any change since?"

"I don't think so."

"Ok, we'll check and see then. If we need to, we'll try some of those things we discussed to get the baby turned around. I'll be right back. If you need anything, hit the call button. I'm going to let the nurses know I've taken over this case so no one else comes down here to bother you. If you change your mind and decide to have someone here, just let me know." She stood with the file dropping beside her leg.

Natasha didn't plan on that happening, but she nodded all the same. It was time to get this over with.

OMG

it's happening. the day has come. Baby Barton arriving in the world and NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT IT! Poor Natasha, now we kind of see why it is she can't face being a mother. grief is such a terrible thing.

please review:)