The Handler's Dilemma
She’d told herself that if Clint ever walked away from that cozy, farm-fed porch-swing dream of his, it would be because he wanted to, because it would be his own decision. Not because she tempted. And definitely not because she waited, quietly, in the background like some half-written footnote at the edge of his fantasy life.
So now what?
She understood the implications. If Laura was out of the picture, then so were the limits. No more dividing lines between what they were and what they weren’t. There would be no more convenient excuses, and no more safe deflections.
She could, of course, choose not to answer. That would be simple. If she left the message unread, or at least unacknowledged, then the version of Clint she knew, the one with all that sunny-boy morality, could stay frozen in place. It could remain untainted.
Something twisted under her ribs, a slow, heavy coil.
Clint wasn’t supposed to choose her. That was the whole point.
And even if Natasha would never admit it to herself, she loved him for exactly that. Because he wouldn’t. She loved him for the galling, infuriating, utterly sincere belief that people could be better. Even her. Especially her.
Not for his potential to walk away from his wife and kids and toss that conviction at her like she knew what to do with it.
Another part of her thought: Well, it’s about damn time.
Because once, this had been the dream.
Black Widow and Hawkeye, unshackled. No handlers, no lies between them, no need to play parts they’d long outgrown. Just the two of them on equal ground, moving through the world like it was theirs to carve.
They’d whispered versions of that dream in safehouses and sniper nests, trading what-ifs like contraband. It had always ended the same way, though. One of them pulling back, usually her.
Because, at the end of the day, dreams weren’t real. Clint had a family. He had Laura and two—no, three now, there was Nate—children who looked at him like he hung the damn moon. And she, Natasha, wouldn’t trust herself to want something like that (that good, that clean) without ruining it. She didn’t want to be the villain of their story.
But now, with one line of text, he’d made her that anyway.
She stared at the message.
LAURA AND I ARE THROUGH
That was it? Just five words, lobbed like a grenade into her lap. Here, Nat, you deal with it. You decide what happens now. You choose how much of this wreckage you want to inherit.
Her thumb hovered over the keypad. A dozen replies curled like smoke in her chest. She could say finally, or why now, or don’t pin this on me, or come find me.
But what she wanted to type instead was: coward.
She set the phone face-down, a little harder than necessary. If she answered now, it wouldn’t be the right answer, no matter what she wrote.
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