#miscfics

-

Natasha stopped with her hand on the doorframe, and it wasn’t until Clint was inside the room that he realised that she hadn’t followed him.

“Come in,” he urged, beckoning her. “It’s okay. He’s just dozing, but he’ll wake up any minute now. You’ll want to see that.”

She followed almost reluctantly, padding into the room like she was entering a church. She realised she was holding her breath, and exhaled slowly as she approached the crib.

There, lying on his back, sleeping like an angel was Nathaniel. Little Nate. Almost named for her. Her nephew. A perfect, tiny, little person that her best friend had made.

“Hey,” she murmured, reaching down to stroke the soft hair on his head. “Hey, Nate. I’m your aunty Tasha.”

Clint grinned, and backed out of the room, heading to tell Laura she didn’t have to worry about checking in on the baby for a little while.

Natasha watched from above as little Nate opened his eyes and yawned, waving his pudgy little fists around in the air. She reached down and picked him up, gently cradling his head and moving slowly over to the armchair in the corner of the room.

“Hey, little guy,” she murmured. “Hey, it’s okay. There you go. It’s just me.”

She sat down, easing Nate into her arms and leaning back so he could lie against her chest. He cooed softly, and waved his hands a bit, and she just watched, awed by the tiny spectacle that was this kid of Clint’s, this brand new baby. She refused to let tears creep into her eyes. This wasn’t something to cry over.

She gazed down at Clint’s son for a long while. She remembered holding Lila like this, years ago now. She had been younger, and broken, and terrified that by holding a baby she would corrupt it just by touching it. But Lila had grown up just fine, and Natasha was older and wiser now.

“You’re gonna love it here,” she murmured. “This house is a good place. I lived here for a while, and this is where your brother and sister live. They’re gonna look out for you, and your mom and dad are gonna make sure you grow up and become a great person.” She gently nudged his nose with her fingertip. “And Aunty Tasha’s gonna kidnap you and take you to do all the fun stuff they won’t let you do at home. I promise.”

As she talked softly to the baby, Nate fell asleep, silently and perfectly. One by one, the hours drifted away, until the sun was dipping towards the horizon outside the window.

“Nat?”

Natasha looked up, and gave Clint a soft smile. “What is it?”

He grinned at her. “It’s just… you’ve been up here for hours.”

“He fell asleep,” she murmured, looking down at baby Nathaniel, sleeping in her arms. “I didn’t want to wake him.”

Clint’s smile didn’t fade. “You can put him in the crib. He won’t wake up.”

“I can’t.”

“I know the feeling.”

Clint moved over and gently eased his baby from her arms, setting him down in his crib. Natasha gazed over his shoulder and down at Nate, willing herself to tear her eyes away from him. Clint broke the spell, nudging her. She followed him out of the room, and gently closed the door behind them.

“He’s perfect,” she murmured, her breath rushing out of her.

-

Don’t worry, girl. It only hurts the first time.

Liars. Fucking liars, all of them. She knew it would hurt, not just because she’d never done it before, but because the brute lying on top of her had never thought to treat a woman as anything other than a hole for hire. After a dozen painful thrusts and a gust of bad breath, he was done, and he slumped onto his back. Natalia lay there, wondering if she was supposed to feel violated. All she felt was a mild sense of irritation that with all the surgeries, everything they’d done to ensure that she could take this route of seduction without there being issues, they couldn’t have figured out some way to make it hurt less. Not that they ever cared about the girls being in pain, but it wasn’t exactly adding to her efficiency as she slid out of bed and hobbled over to the purse she’d dropped at the door. The butterfly knife twirled in her fingers, and in thirty seconds the sleeping man’s heart was pumping his lifeblood out through the gash across his neck. Natalia wiped the blade on the sheets, and tucked it into her purse. She pulled her dress back on, zipped it up, and slipped out the door. It was going to be her sixteenth birthday tomorrow, and if she was lucky, they might allow her to watch the older widows sparring.

-

So many missions ended this way. Natalia was at least of age now, and had done this enough times to expect the rough treatment. She knew there were ways she could train herself so it would be less painful, but she didn’t mind it hurting so much anymore. It reminded her why she was doing it. For all this man had gushed over her beautiful face, he sure didn’t want to see any of it. He had his hand on the back of her head, forcing her face into the pillows as he thrust away behind her. He was clumsy, and muttering under his breath, presumably to keep his focus so his drunken body wouldn’t betray him and deny him the bragging rights. She wished she was here to kill him, but when he finished and fell asleep on top of her, she rolled out from under him, quietly robbed him and left without a backwards glance.

-

No matter how many times you do this, they told her, there will always be firsts.

That was true, of course, and it was that advice that was bouncing around her head as she gazed at her first female target. She was beautiful, and not much older than Natalia herself. They fell into bed, and though she knew that it wasn’t real, it was the first time she hadn’t had to fake orgasm to hurry along the foreplay. Acting was easy with the woman between her legs, and when it was her turn, she found her training had prepared her well. Pleased at being a passable lover, she was smiling slightly as she screwed the silencer onto her pistol and shot the woman through the back of the head as she lay sleeping. One more first under her belt. She hummed as she left the room.

-

There was always one who thought he could get away with touching the girls. He got the drop on Natalia before she had a chance to defend herself, and she found herself pressed against a wall in a dark closet, as a trainer thrust shakily into her from behind, crooning about what a good girl she was. A part of her felt sick. Of all the times she’d had sex, she’d never once been forced. She’d acted like she wasn’t in control, sure, but this… this was different. When he was done, he kissed her hard. She went to the silent ghost with the metal arm, the man they weren’t supposed to speak to, and she told him what the trainer had done. He said nothing, and she was sentenced to confinement for breaking the rules, but a week later the trainer turned up dead. His neck had been violently broken, and he had been thrown off the roof of the compound into the snow.

-

Freedom. It wasn’t a word she’d ever thought she would be able to apply to herself. Natalia- no, Natasha, now- was free. Free to do whatever work she saw fit to take. And yet somehow, she found herself back in the same hotel room, with the same faceless man grunting over her, on her first assignment of her self-given freedom. Fucking the information out of a target. Again. This time, she was glad he wanted her face in the pillows. That way, he couldn’t see the anguish on her face at the thought that this was all she was good for, and all she would ever be good at. Had she amounted to nothing but a degrading sex act in an anonymous hotel room with a dead man walking? This time, when she shot him, she felt no sense of accomplishment. Just a heavy weight settling in her stomach. This was the life she had chosen. She wondered for a moment, as she walked out of the room, if she shouldn’t just go back and throw herself on the mercy of the Red Room. At least there, when she wound up in bed with someone, it was under orders and not of her own free will.

-

“Tasha?”

She snapped out of her reverie. Clint’s face was hovering above her. She blinked.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly. “Are you not feeling like-”

“Sorry,” she murmured, trailing her fingers over his cheek. “I was just thinking.”

“Do I want to know?”

She chuckled, and Clint slid off her, landing on his side. He pulled her in so she was resting against him.

“Wondering if you’re ever going to get sick of me,” she admitted. It was Clint’s turn to laugh.

“People get sick of each other,” he shrugged. “I won’t promise I’ll be around forever, because we’re in a line of work that doesn’t really come with a retirement plan, and last I checked, I’m about the most likely to die in a stupid accident. Cap gets hit by a bus, he’s probably going to be fine. Me… not so much.”

“But-”

“But nothing. I love you.”

There it was. It wasn’t that he hadn’t said it before. She’d even said it to him a couple of times, and meant it, which was huge for her. But it was so annoying when he used it to win arguments, especially because she had no response to it.

“I love you too,” she conceded.

Clint kissed her jaw, and moved his lips down her neck. Natasha closed her eyes. She loved it when he was soft like this. He actually liked kissing her, which was weird, in her experience.

When she was ready, he moved between her legs. He never liked for her to be facing away from him; he always insisted that she lie back, so he could kiss her while they fucked. It had taken some getting used to, but she had never disliked it. Feeling loved during sex was still sometimes foreign. Love and sex had always been opposite ends of a convoluted spectrum, and yet for Clint they were inextricably linked. It was so simple for him. He loved her, so he wanted her to feel good. The first time he’d stopped midway through a session because she’d changed her mind had been staggering to her. That someone could care enough to put their own needs aside for her… it was unthinkable.

When a soft climax washed over her, and Clint finished, she felt that now familiar warmth settle over her. It was something she’d only ever felt with Clint, and he described it as ‘afterglow’, something that normal people apparently felt all the time.

“Love… you,” Clint mumbled into her hair, wrapping himself around her and pulling the covers up so they would be warm.