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When the text came in, the number was unlisted. Natasha debated her options: she could drag herself off of the excuse for a mattress that the safehouse afforded her, pull out her laptop, and run extensive searches on whoever might be trying to contact her in the middle of the night. Or she could open up the text and just let the analysts back at headquarters try to rip her a new one.
Given that their astonishing overabundance of incompetence was the reason she was currently exhausted and nursing a sprained ankle in a safehouse, she wasn’t too worried about raising their ire. She opened the message.
It’s been two months. You don’t text, you don’t call.
Instantly, Natasha forgot all weariness and sat up. Had one of her enemies found her? She reached for her bag, and the phone buzzed again.
Wait, that sounded threatening, I didn’t mean it like that. Oops!
“The hell?” Natasha asked aloud.
The phone buzzed a third time.
But seriously, get your redheaded tush home and come help me fix this mess YOUR partner left.
Natasha’s shoulders sagged a minute amount as she let the tension go on a released breath. Not too many people in her life—not that there were a lot of them still living, and her contacts within SHIELD were still so new—would use the term “tush.” It was something vaguely folksy.
Like a woman living on a farm in Iowa might say.
But Laura Barton had never contacted her directly before. Barton had mentioned a time or two that she’d asked how Nat was doing, and that Laura wanted to tell her hi from Cooper, but—well, this was a first. Barton had said Laura liked her, but maybe he’d been lying, hoping to keep the peace between his wife and his partner.
Natasha continued to frown at the phone. Why was Laura reaching out to her now? And how had she gotten this number?
As if eager to answer her, the phone buzzed against her palm once more.
And please pick up some milk on your way, if you can.
Dawn was just beginning to break in Iowa as Natasha lowered the Quinjet, folding the wings in so she could back it easily into the barn Clint had retrofitted for this purpose. Her ankle twinged a little with pain as she bent to scoop up her overnight bag and the plastic sack from the local Qwik-E-Mart—why did they insist on garbling the name as much as possible at those places?—but overall, it was a tolerable pain. Less tolerable were the nerves that snaked through her middle. The Black Widow was not somebody who dealt in nerves. Yet, nevertheless, there they were.
She picked her way across the fields, scanning for any signs of trouble. Laura hadn’t used any of the distress codes in her texts, but she could never be too sure.
And for Laura to be contacting her when she knew Clint was off on a retrieval op in Madripoor…
She knocked on the front door rather than breaking in. Another step toward becoming “just a regular girl,” as Coulson had put it once. Though she expected Laura was likely asleep, from inside she heard the sounds of footsteps almost right away, and then the other woman, hair up in a messy bun and wearing what had to be her husband’s old ARMY tee, was grinning at her. “You got here fast, wow,” Laura said. She had Cooper, tiny, wide-eyed Cooper, balanced on her hip.
Natasha stared at the toddler and held up the Kwik-E-Mart bag. “I, uh, I brought the milk.”
Before she knew exactly what was going on, Laura pulled her in for a hug, which was definitely not her milieu unless she was playing a mark. But Laura from the first day had been sincere and genuine, so happy to meet any coworker of her husband’s that it was like all of the terrible things Natasha had done didn’t even register. To prove it, the other woman was grinning as she pulled back from the hug. “I have been going a little crazy. Clint’s gone, as you know, and I haven’t had anybody here but this fella to talk to. Thank you.”
“No problem,” Natasha said.
Laura raised her eyebrows and took the bag she was still stupidly holding out. “Huh, I didn’t think the mart opened for a couple more hours, and you got exactly the right kind. How did you even…?”
“I have my ways.” She wasn’t worried about news of the break-in getting back to SHIELD. She wasn’t that sloppy. Besides, she’d left more than enough money for her purchases.
“Well, thank you again, and, actually here—would you mind…?”
She used to be good at dodging loaded weaponry, Natasha thought, and yet she still found herself holding an armful of squirming toddler. She and Cooper Barton stared at each other, each studying the other like an alien specimen. He broke first, jamming his fist into his mouth and gumming the side of it. The corners of his lips tilted up.
Natasha almost wanted to smile back. His little dinosaur onesie had clawed feet on it. Carefully, she balanced him on her hip. “You said Clint left a mess?” she asked, following Laura through to the kitchen.
Laura rolled her eyes expressively. “Did he,” she said. “Cooper, buddy, why don’t you show Auntie Nat what your playroom looks like?”
It took every bit of self-control Natasha had not to jolt at the title. For years, she’d floundered on her own, told that anybody around her was the competition. In SHIELD, things were different, but she was the outsider, even with Clint.
And just like that: Auntie Nat.
Huh.
“It’s through there,” Laura said, jerking her head as she opened the fridge. “Just be careful. Oh, geez, like I have to tell you that. You could probably do acrobatics around the hole or something. Standing on your head, even.”
“Hole?” Curiosity had her stepping through the dining room, to a sunny space—or it would be sunny in a few hours, it looked like—covered in painters’ dropcloths and other home repair tools. A plastic chest full of toys sat in the middle of the dusty mess, looking incongruent. But not as incongruent as the gaping hole in the floor, through which she could see the basement.
Cooper babbled something at her in his baby language and pointed at the hole. “Yes, I see,” Natasha said without meaning to. The sound of her voice made the child grin broadly and stick his slobber-covered hand right in her hair. It inexplicably made her want to laugh. “Kind of silly of your papa, huh?” she asked with a great deal more confidence.
She stepped closer to peer through. The basement looked like it contained several old board games and a rocking horse, also in the middle of a remodel.
At least Clint had put up a sign that said NO BABYS ALLOWED (she was going to give him crap for his spelling when she saw him next) and some chairs. What little good it all did.
“What happened?” she asked, returning to the kitchen.
“Who knows? The man gets a wild hair, and suddenly we’re at Home Depot again.” Laura waved an absent hand in the air over her head. “I really do appreciate you getting here so quickly, though. I know your job’s stressful, and Clint, he told me I should take my time reaching out to you, but...”
“It’s fine,” Natasha said.
“Really?”
If she had been busy, she would simply have texted back. But Natasha paused before she could point that out. Clint had been dropping hints about the farm lately, and sharing pictures of Cooper (who had grown so much since she’d seen him; the difference was startling). She’d been under the impression that he was doing this to try and push her toward Coulson’s “regular girl” standards, but maybe he had other motives in mind. She bounced the baby on her hip the way she’d seen Laura do, and he giggled. “Yes,” she said. “I imagine it gets lonely out here when Clint is gone.”
“It’s quiet, at any rate. Most days, I like that. Coffee?”
“Please.”
“And I do have friends in town that I see a lot, but none of them know what Clint does, you know, so sometimes it’s nice. Plus, if I befriend you, you’ll have extra incentive to keep bringing him home safe.” Laura gave Natasha a bright smile over the fridge door as she pulled out the coffee beans.
It made Natasha laugh. “You’re honest. And I see why he calls you ma’am.”
“That’s because he knows what’s good for him.”
Half an hour later, Cooper was no longer bouncing on Natasha’s knee but had been put up in his high-chair, half of his breakfast covering his face (which didn’t stop him from grinning cheekily at Natasha. “Little flirt,” Laura said, sitting down). And Natasha had an honest to god plate of sunny side-up eggs, sausages, and toast in front of her, while sun rays sneaked into the kitchen and caught the tendrils of steam from their coffee cups. It was by far the homiest scene she’s ever participated in. Twelve hours before, she’d been in a knife fight in Laos.
She wondered if Clint ever felt the way she did now. Or had he grown accustomed to leaving it all outside whenever he came home? Maybe that explained his preternatural ability to focus and remain calm.
“So,” Laura said, mopping up the runny yolk with a piece of her toast. “What do you think we should do?”
“About?”
“The giant hole in the floor. Clint said you were kind of like a scary Russian ninja with, and I’m quoting him here, ‘crazy mad skills.’ I don’t suppose that extends to home repair.”
“So far, it has not,” Natasha said. “But life has taught me how to—how is it you put this—wear many hats? Between the two of us, we can figure something out.”
“Right. So finish your breakfast, and we’ll head to the hardware store. Given that Cooper is very much his father’s son and a little escape artist, I want to get that hole covered up sooner than later.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Natasha said, and Laura laughed.
She’d never, she thought, worn the repairman hat before, in all of her roles. And she definitely hadn’t worn the auntie hat before, either, but from the way Cooper beamed at her while he threw cheerios across the tray and onto the floor, that one wouldn’t be so hard to handle.