#mission oops

Day 17

Dread

 Coming Home ‘verse

 She’s grown used to the waiting. It’s the life of every woman with a husband who serves something larger than his family. At least that’s what she tells herself when days of no contact stretch into weeks. When a short text from Nat is the best she can expect and comes with zero guarantee that they’re even together – it’s equally likely that Nat’s just the one who has access to a secure enough line and has weaseled adequate intel out of someone to be sure he’s still breathing.

She’s seen the videos on social media of fathers coming home from war, surprising their children in classrooms, school assemblies, and the like. Knows good and well that it’s not the life her family leads. That while the task is sometimes likened to it in her head, Clint is, first and foremost, an assassin. He works for the highest bidder. Right now, that’s SHIELD. At least on paper. She also knows that he operates outside official channels more often than not. That he is sent to places no one would ever admit to having sent him. That he and Nat do things that are scrubbed so clean from the records that they will never see the light of day.

The sense of utter dread at seeing a black SUV on the long driveway to the house, though? She’s fairly certain that is a sensation she shares with a lot of other women. She glances down at the baby at her breast. Nate is still so young, and for a moment she considers just how she’s going to tell him about a father he won’t have known. A rogue thought presses in, that maybe Nat is still alive, that she could help her tell the kids, that she would help to raise them – though really Nat’s almost as much one of the children as one of the adults when left to her own devices. Goodness only knows what she could get herself into with Clint to drag her back from the edge.

The knot of worry in her throat stops all oxygen when a man she doesn’t recognize exits the vehicle first. A moment later, that knot dissolves in utter relief, seeing Nat climb out as well. Then there is a flurry of red hair heading toward the ground and a flash of movement before the stranger is carrying Nat to the house.

Laura doesn’t bother detaching the baby from his meal as she rushes out the door to meet them, grateful for what she jokingly refers to as a third baby problem – namely that baby Nate spends a LOT of time in the sling carrier so she has hands available for other tasks. Right now, that task is directing a stranger to the bedroom Nat claims as hers. She’s so focused on it that she only barely registers that Steve is also coming up the stairs of the porch until he’s speaking to her.

“Clint’s due back in a few more hours, but she was adamant we needed to bring her to you, not the medical,” Steve tells her.

“She does that,” is the automatic reply. Laura half processes that this means transport was either limited or that there’s some other reason Clint isn’t there. The lump of worry leaves her with a churning sense of nausea, but there’s nothing for it.

The baby is making the soft mumbling noises that mean he will sleep easily now, so Laura detours to the family room, pops him into the bassinet, tosses the sling onto the couch, and grabs the baby monitor to clip to her pocket. Nat’s settled into the bed when Laura reaches her, the contrast between her soft, shallow breaths and the deep ones of the baby over the monitor is outright disturbing. Laura thumbs the control over to the vibration alert. It will tell her if he wakes. Right now, she needs to know why Natasha is clearly sedated.

“What did she take?”

“Donnatal.”

“Glorious,” Laura mutters in reply. It’s a barbiturate, mostly. Nat uses it when she’s detoxing hard. “And you are?” she finally gets around to asking.

“James Barnes, ma’am.”

A raised eyebrow is all she offers in reply. She knew that Steve’s Bucky is participating in things, atoning for past sins in much the way Nat does. There’s some kind of history there, that Natasha flat refuses to address out loud. Laura takes that to mean it’s a connection of the Russian variety.

“Laura?” Nat mumbles from the bed and she goes to her, shifting a few fallen curls away from fluttering eyelids.

“Hey there,” she tells her, voice soft and measured.

“I tried,” she whispers, before pressing her lips into a tight line and swallowing hard.

Laura reaches into the bedside table and grabs a shallow plastic basin that lives in the drawer, rolls Nat to her side, and pins the basin under her chin.

“M’empty,” Nat grumbles at her, before proving the point with a couple of pitiful retches.

“What’d you try, love?” Laura presses when she’s finished.

“T’get us out, I did. I tried,” she babbles, and Laura begins to think that she’s going to need that bin for herself soon.

She looks to Steve and James, hoping one of them will offer a more coherent explanation. It’s James who speaks.

“They were picked up. Took us a couple days to find them and extract. Clint needs a couple bones set properly – he’ll be along once that’s dealt with by the medical people. This one’s too stubborn for that and she wanted to come home. So we’re here.”

“Nothing they’ll do to help,” Nat counters, and Laura spares a thought to wonder just what is in her system besides the Donnatal.

“Tell me what you need?” Laura asks her instead.

“M’sorry,” is all she gets in reply before Nat rolls over and wraps her arms around her, burying her face at her hip and curling up there like a cat. Her shoulders are trembling and Laura runs her hands through her hair, offering what comfort she can while sitting with her own worries. For Clint and whatever injuries he’s having tended. For Nat and the detox to come. For the baby who will wake soon to a worried mama, a sick Auntie Nat, and a pair of men who Laura would put money on being more comfortable with high explosives than small humans.