(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 9 - 9th October 2017

Natasha woke up early on Monday morning, ready and waiting to turn off the alarm when it sounded. It was only after a few minutes that she remembered, there wasn't going to be any alarm.

As of this past weekend, she and James were done working at the Avengers compound. The New Avengers were sufficiently trained, they really didn't need any more help, and there had been no new recruits for several months. Even if more 'super people' were discovered now, there were others who could work with them. Natasha and James were officially retired.

"Hmm, what time is it?"

She smiled, turning to her husband, running her fingers through his hair. "Early," she told him softly, "and we have nothing to get up for."

"Sounds good," he replied, smiling back, reaching out to pull her closer. "You still missing the hair?" he asked as her fingers continued to move through the much shorter cut than he had before.

"Not really," she admitted. "This is more how you looked when we first met. I don't mind remembering that at all. Sure, it was fun when it was longer too, but I do love you for more than your hair, soldier," she teased, pulling on a few strands.

"Good thing we both have deeper feelings than that," he agreed, messing with her own red locks that were currently also in a somewhat shorter style than times gone by. "I really don't think we would have made it this far if all we liked each other for was how we looked."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I like how you look too," she told him with a grin. "No complaints on that whatsoever."

When he pulled her closer and kissed her then, she went more than willingly into his arms. Truth be told, Natasha had no complaints about any part of her relationship with James Barnes. Sure, they had their spats, their disagreements, their moments when they could quite happily throw things at each other, but that was true of anyone. For the most part, they got along, understood where the other person was coming from even if they didn't wholly agree, and had few real arguments about anything.

They knew how to talk to each other, trusted one another implicitly, lived together very happily, and yes, what they had in the bedroom was certainly more than pleasurable as well. It all added up to a strangely healthy relationship, for a man who was born a century before and a woman who had been raised as a weapon.

"As much fun as this is," she said then, pulling away some, "I hear scratching at the door. Pretty sure Alpine and Liho are still on the work-day schedule, even if we're not."

James sighed, kissed her once more, on the end of her nose, then moved to get out of bed. Sure, it might have been nice to stay where they were, but Natasha knew he loved those cats as much as she did. Besides, it was probably better that they maintained their routine and early mornings as much as possible. No use falling into bad habits, given what was coming next.

"October 9th," said James when he was fully-dressed, fastening his watch to his wrist.

"The day we met." Natasha smiled across at him from her side of the bed. "Wow. It's weird to think it's been six years."

"Six years." He nodded thoughtfully. "If things had been different..." he trailed off, shook his head as if to throw off an unpleasant thought, then headed for the door.

Natasha was faster, as she often was, despite his super soldier status.

"Tell me," she urged him, her back against the door and a hand on his chest.

It wasn't a command, she just really didn't like when he bottled things up. Pretty hypocritical, she was well aware, but when she had learned to share herself with her lover, mind, body, and soul, she had found it worked better when she got the same level of intimacy from him. James never seemed to mind too much, though an upbringing from his day and age did tend to mean that it didn't always come naturally.

"I was just thinking," he told her softly, "that if I had stayed where... when I was in the first place, it would be 1950 by now. From what I read, a lot of changes came with the new decade."

"Headed into the era of rock 'n' roll." Natasha smirked a little at the very idea of James as a teddy boy or a greaser. "You think you would've liked it?"

"I don't know." James shrugged, still pondering for a minute, before he refocused his eyes on Natasha's own gaze and smiled as he leaned down closer. "Not as much as I like being here with you, doll, you know that."

"I do know that," she agreed, still not minding at all when he kissed her like he meant it, as if to provide some definite promise that what he said was true.

Natasha moved out of his way then, let him go deal with the cats that were becoming increasingly noisy in pursuit of their breakfast. She watched James go, smiled as she heard him berating Alpine and Liho for their impatience, never once managing to really sound angry or even annoyed with them.

He was a good man. As much as she knew her own worth and how far she had come, sometimes Natasha couldn't help but wonder if she deserved this. A guy like James. The chance to have a happy life, a real future, a family. Shaking herself out of the funk that was doubtless coming, she got herself dressed and ready for the day ahead, even if it would probably turn out to be a fairly lazy one.

She found James in the kitchen, cleaning up last night's dishes and talking to their pets, as he had a habit of doing, almost as if they were people. Though she knew she probably shouldn't, she couldn't help herself. She hovered just around the corner and listened in a while.

"I know it's going to be a big change, having kids around the place, and then, moving to a real house and everything, but I know you can handle it. You've handled bigger things before, we all have. Life's just a little crazy sometimes. Actually, it's a lot crazy sometimes, but I promise, you have me and you have Nat. We're not going anywhere."

"I'll second that," said Natasha as she appeared from her hiding place, unable to keep the smirk from pulling at her lips when she saw James startle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," he promised her. "You know I don't have any secrets from you, not even with these two," he said, tilting his head at the two cats hungrily lapping at their bowls. "I just don't want them to worry when there are more people here, or when we move or anything. They've been through enough already."

"Big softie," she said, moving to stand behind him and wrap her arms around his waist, while he went back to washing dishes. "You really do think it'll be okay, right? Everything we're doing?"

"I don't see why not."

She wanted to believe that. Natasha really tried to tell herself that she could do anything she set her mind to, even raise kids that weren't her own. It's what they signed up for, what they had managed to convince the authorities they were capable of. Now they were done training the new team of young Avengers, they were severing all ties with their superhero lives, more or less.

Just as soon as they could, they planned to move to a bigger place, a real house with a big back yard and a huge dinner table and all the other things the ideal family unit should have, if they possibly could. It felt strange, and yet, at the same time, Natasha was ready for it. For a new phase, a new start, built firmly upon the solid foundations on her previous new life.

"You know, you could actually help here, right?" said James then, turning to peer at her over his shoulder.

"Fine." She huffed out a sigh, like it was the most inconvenient thing in the world to wipe a few dishes, but she did it anyway. "You know you'd be lost without me, right?" she teased, stacking up all the washed and dried items, then putting them neatly away in their correct places.

"Obviously," James said immediately, no hint of a joke in his tone. "You know, when we first got here, me and Steve, and they put us in that apartment together, I thought that would be it. That we would just live like that, always feeling out of place in the new world, always the odd guys out. If anybody had tried to tell me then where I would be now, where he would be now..." he trailed off, shaking his head, but smiling nonetheless. "It's a little crazy."

"Crazier than demi-god team-mates, aliens attacking New York, and training teenaged superheroes?" asked Natasha, one eyebrow quirked.

"Maybe not that crazy," James admitted, "but still, you have to admit, it is strange, how things work out. I mean, come on, honestly, when you first met me, could you ever have imagined we would end up like this? Married, with two cats, about to adopt a couple of kids?"

Natasha knew he wasn't being as serious as he might be. He wasn't looking for a deep and meaningful answer, just acknowledgement of the fact they had ended up far away from where they started, and quite unexpectedly. Still, she was in a thoughtful, reflective kind of a mood and she couldn't help the seriousness of her reply.

"I never saw myself having any kind of real future," she admitted, turning around the moment she closed the cabinet door. "When I met you... even then, I don't know what I thought the rest of my life would be. I think I figured I would continue working for SHIELD, until I got too old, too slow, and then..."

"And then?" James asked curiously, something like worry in his eyes too.

Natasha bit her lip, hardly wanting to tell him, in spite of the fact they both agreed, long ago, that they could say anything to each other. "I had a lot of red in my ledger that I needed to wipe out," she reminded him, faltering just a little before she went on, eyes more on the linoleum and the cats still eating greedily in the corner than anything else. "I guess I just thought that, one day, when God or fate or the universe decided I had paid my debt, then that would be it. The end."

Her eyes flitted up to look at James then and she instantly wished she could take it back. Anything to take the pain out of his gaze. Anything to not have him look at her with so much sympathy and aching sadness combined.

"Natalia..." he said softly, clearing the kitchen floor in two strides and pulling her close in his arms.

"It's okay," she told him, sniffing just a little into his shoulder. "I wasn't trying to get myself killed or anything. I was just ready. Prepared. If the world needed me to sacrifice myself for some reason or other, I'd like to think I would've done it. There were very few people around to miss me back then." She pulled back some so she could look up at him then. "You know, you were talking earlier about what your life might have been like if you were back in the forties and fifties still," she said with a smile. "How do you think I might have got along back then?"

James smiled back at her, affection in his looks and his touch too, as he moved her hair back behind her ear, then cradled her cheek. "I think you would be amazing, no matter what time or place you lived in. Somehow, you would've ended up on the right side of things and you would've been a hero. A beautiful, smart, fearless hero, just like you are here and now."

He meant every word. She couldn't doubt him, not for a second. If James told her something, anything, she just knew it was the truth. He may not have quite the reputation of Captain America, with all the truth, justice, and valour, but James was cut from the same cloth. He never lied to her and, somehow, he loved her, completely and always.

"You wouldn't say fearless if you could see inside my head right now," she admitted then. "As much as I'm sure about the decision we made about the kids, when I think about how we're going to cope as parents..."

"You don't think it bothers me too?" he checked, no small amount of incredulity in his tone. "Nat, I have no idea if I have what it takes to be a father, but then I remember that you and me have handled everything that's been thrown at us - these past six years together, and a whole lot else before that - and we're still standing. We can do this," he promised her.

"I know," she replied immediately. "I do, I just... It makes me a little nervous sometimes. Pretty sure all new parents get nervous, no matter how they get their kids."

"Probably," James agreed, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Now, this anniversary of ours, I was thinking-"

Before he could say more, Natasha's cell made a loud noise, signalling an incoming message. Almost at the exact same moment, James realised he could hear a similar sound coming from the bedroom where he left his own phone.

"It's the agency," said Natasha, moving so he could see the message they clearly both received at the same time.

"They want us to go over today," he said as he read from the screen. "You don't think...? I mean, I know they said it was a possibility, that if the mother was found..."

Natasha felt tears building behind her eyes and swallowed hard to find her voice.

"We knew it could happen," she said barely, "but there's every chance that's not what this is. They just need to see us. Could be as simple as a form we missed signing or something."

When she looked at James then, she knew he was as freaked out as she was, but trying his best not to show it too. The one-year-old twins that they were supposed to officially adopt at the end of the week, they were a big part of the future they were planning together, a future she never thought she could have, one he certainly couldn't ever have imagined himself, given when he was from and all.

If it didn't happen, they would manage. Try again, adopt some other kids, or maybe just find a way to be a family by themselves, with only Alpine and Liho depending on them.

"You're right," said James then, clearing his throat loudly. "It'll be fine. I'm sure."

Natasha nodded, hoping rather than believing he was right.

To Be Continued...

A/N2: Final chapter/Epilogue should be posted on Friday 29th :)