Respite
Avengers fic (Barton fam + Natasha)
2,113 words
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“Daddy?”
Clint looks up from the table he’s sanding. Nate has come in from outside.
“Yeah, bud?”
“There’s a rocket ship in the garden. Lila told me to tell you.”
Clint frowns. He doesn’t know which of the kids’ games this is. Is this the one where they pretend to be astronauts, or the one where he’s a space alien?
“Cooper says Auntie Nat’s in it.”
Clint smiles. A quinjet. Nat must have come to visit.
“Well come on then,” he says, reaching out so he can haul Nate up onto his hip. He walks out into the field where the kids have been playing, and spots the quinjet. He sees Lila, but before he can smile he realises she’s sprinting towards him, her face stricken with panic. His stomach twists.
“Dad!” she shouts, waving her arms as she runs. Clint starts to run too, because he’s joined the dots superhumanly fast. He is jolting Nate as he runs, so he sets him down and skids up the ramp.
“Nat?” he calls.
There’s no answer.
“She’s unconscious,” Cooper says, from where he’s kneeling by the pilot’s seat. Clint realises Natasha is still strapped into it, and he crouches down. Cooper has already released the buckles on the harness, and it’s easy for Clint to lift her out.
“I can’t tell if she’s bleeding,” Cooper tells him. Clint can’t find a balance between pride in his son’s calmness in a bad situation and guilt that his son has learned how to deal with shit like this at such a young age, so he focuses on getting one foot in front of the other as he carries Natasha up to the farmhouse. He opens his mouth to tell Lila to get her mother, but she’s way ahead of him and Laura is already running out of the front door followed by their daughter. God, his kids are good. He’s faintly horrified at that fact, and he pushes it away again.
“Any idea what happened?” Laura says, as she pushes the door open for him. He makes his way inside.
“Looks like she landed the jet and passed out,” he says, voice tinged with panic. “The kids found her.”
Laura bites her lip as Clint sets his best friend down on the couch.
“Nat?” he murmurs. He checks her pulse, then squeezes her hand. Nothing. He presses down hard on one of her fingernails. Her eyes flicker open.
“Ow,” she says. Her voice is hoarse, and now that she’s under the living room lights, Clint can see that’s she’s pale, and bruised.
“Hey,” he says, shakily. “Hey, you scared me there. You okay?”
“No,” she croaks. “M’not dead. But… not good.”
“Daddy?”
It’s Nate. God, his son is looking at him like he can save the day, and Clint can’t deal with that right now. Laura reads his mind, and ushers the kids away. Clint hears her tell Cooper to take his brother upstairs, and Lila follows them.
“Don’t,” Clint says, as Natasha opens her mouth again. “It’s okay. Just… is anything broken?”
She shakes her head.
“Anything need stitching up?”
She nods, and her eyes flicker to her torso. Clint isn’t sure he wants to see this, because he knows how he gets when he’s confronted with Natasha’s injuries - he doesn’t want to think about someone hurting her, about her being in pain. Laura’s hand on his shoulder reminds him what’s actually important. She’s passing him the first aid kit, and he does his best to go into field mode. Patch up first. Questions later.
He unzips Natasha’s suit down to her navel, and Laura helps her sit up enough to free her arms. Clint identifies the stab wound right away. It’s not near anything vital, but he knows she’s got to be in a hell of a lot of pain. There’s blood on every patch of skin, and it’s clearly been soaking into her suit for a while.
“Morphine?” he murmurs, asking permission first. He always does. She doesn’t always want it. This time he’s lucky, and she nods. He sticks her with a syringe of it, and Laura sits on the couch and shuffles so Natasha’s head is in her lap. Clint focuses on the wound while Laura holds her hands as she flinches. The morphine can only do so much.
Clint stops the bleeding and disinfects the wound before starting the stitching. He has to concentrate on his work, so he won’t remember that this is his best friend that someone stabbed. Laura is stroking her thumbs over Natasha’s knuckles, which are bruised and bloody as well, which Clint tries not to notice.
When he’s done, he bandages her as best he can. She’s limp on the couch now, gazing up at Laura with glassy, exhausted eyes.
“We can’t move her,” Laura murmurs. “Could you get me a bowl of warm water and a cloth?”
He nods, and packs up the kit wordlessly. His actions are robotic. In the back of his head, the anger is drumming on his skull, and right next door is the knowledge that later he’ll have to go upstairs covered in Natasha’s blood and explain to his kids what just happened.
He fetches the water and the cloth, and stops by the spare bedroom to grab an old t-shirt of Nat’s. He hands everything over to Laura and just sits, watching, as his wife gently sponges the blood from Natasha’s skin. She’s semi-conscious now, but she can move enough to help Laura get the worst of it. Laura removes her boots and the rest of her suit, and her gentle touches remind Clint of washing the kids when they were babies. Gentle, tender, loving. The hardest part is getting the t-shirt on, but Laura handles that smoothly and soon Natasha is tucked under a blanket, and Laura is stroking her hair while she drifts off to sleep. The sun is long gone outside the window.
“I can handle the kids if you like,” she says, when she finally gets up. Clint shakes his head, and kisses Laura’s temple.
“You’ve done the hard yards down here,” he murmurs. “I’ll talk to them.”
She kisses his shoulder and for a moment Clint just holds his wife, enjoying the knowledge that the two women he loves most in the world are safe in this room with him.
He can’t put the next part off any longer. Laura goes to the kitchen to make tea, and Clint climbs the stairs. The kids are all in Cooper’s bed, and Lila is reading them all a story. The book is forgotten the second Clint opens the door.
“Is Auntie Nat okay?” Lila asks. Clint can see that they’ve all changed into their pyjamas, and again he feels that weird mix of pride and guilt. They’ve learned to look out for each other. They shouldn’t have had to.
“She’s going to be fine,” he assures them. He climbs onto the bed and lets them rest against him, these precious little people that he made. “Mommy and I fixed her up, and she just needs some time to rest.”
“Is she gonna stay with us?” Nate pipes up.
“Of course she is,” he tells his son. “We’re all going to look after her.”
He carries Nate to his own bed, and tucks them all in one by one. He goes downstairs next, and kisses Laura, and tells her he loves her. She knows he’s not coming to bed tonight, so she helps him drag the mattress from the spare room into the living room, next to the couch where Natasha is sleeping. Laura grabs a pile of blankets, and in a quiet whirl of activity they both get ready for bed. Soon they are cuddled up under a mess of blankets, both watching Natasha sleep.
“She’s gonna be okay,” Laura tells him, even though Clint hasn’t given voice to the fears in his head.
“I know,” he lies. She rolls, and Clint lets himself be enveloped in his wife’s embrace. He falls asleep like that, wrapped in Laura’s arms.
When he wakes, he’s tangled in a blanket, and someone is moving on the mattress. He opens bleary eyes and finds Natasha picking her way through the blankets.
“C’mere,” he mumbles, patting the mattress. She gingerly slides down and sits. Laura rouses, and smiles sleepily at her.
“Feeling any better?” she asks.
“Sore,” Natasha sighs. “Guys, I’m so sorry-”
“Shut up,” they say in practiced unison. It’s a routine they go through every time something like this happens, and all three of them smile tired smiles.
“Thank you,” Natasha murmurs. Laura pulls back the covers, and Natasha, hesitant at first, slides down to lie between them. Clint and Laura both move in, and carefully shift so they are holding her, arms criss-crossed over her, legs tangling together. They fall asleep again, just as the first hint of light is appearing outside.
Clint is woken for a second time by a little hand patting his cheek. He opens his eyes. Nate. His son is uncharacteristically quiet, and Clint smiles at him, disengaging a little from Natasha.
“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs.
“Is it breakfast time?” Nate asks.
“It sure is,” he murmurs. “But let’s let Mommy and Auntie Nat sleep a little longer. C’mon.”
He gently moves Natasha towards Laura, and rolls out of bed, swinging Nate up into his arms as he goes. He takes his son to the kitchen, and sets him on the counter.
“Pancakes?” he asks. Nate nods enthusiastically, and Clint sets about making breakfast for the household. By the time the first cake is being flipped, Cooper and Lila have appeared in the kitchen, and Laura is up and about as well.
“Smells good.”
“Auntie Nat!” Lila exclaims. She scrapes back her chair and runs for Natasha, who has appeared in the doorway.
“Gently, Lila,” Laura reminds her. Lila hugs Natasha as gently as she can, and Natasha pats her back. In the light, Clint can see how exhausted his partner looks. She’s bruised all over, and there are cuts and scrapes he didn’t even notice yesterday. He bites the inside of his cheek as she sits down at the table.
“Hungry?” he murmurs. She nods. Clint serves her a pancake, which she drowns in syrup. She’s eating, at least. While she’s tackling the pancake, Clint goes back to the living room and hauls the mattress back to the bed in the spare room. He makes the bed, and arranges the pillows, then fetches a water bottle and painkillers. By the time he’s done, Natasha has appeared in the doorway, Lila at her side.
“Thank you,” she says. The fact that she hasn’t started making jokes or making fun of him is a little worrying to Clint, but he knows Natasha just needs time to rest. He pulls back the covers, and Natasha climbs into bed.
“Auntie Nat needs to sleep,” Clint murmurs to Lila. His daughter nods, and kisses Natasha on the cheek before she leaves. Clint follows suit, kissing her on the forehead.
Clint’s chore for the day is sanding back the table. He completely abandoned it yesterday, and now that he knows Natasha is safe and sleeping, he can return to it. He keeps sanding, scraping away the layers of the old varnish. With each mark he removes, he tries his hardest not to think about the marks on Natasha’s skin, and how they got there.
When he comes in a few hours later, Laura is reading by the window.
“Where is everyone?” he asks.
“Taking a nap,” she smiles. It’s a loving smile, so warm and tender, and Clint knows exactly where his kids are. He goes to Natasha’s room, and leans in the doorway, smiling fondly.
Natasha is sound asleep on the pillows. Under one arm, Nate is snuggled up beside her. Her other arm is around Cooper’s shoulders, and Lila is sprawled over her legs.
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
It’s Laura. He wraps an arm around his wife.
“She’s going to be okay,” he mumbles, more for himself than for her.
“Of course she is. We love her and we’re going to take care of her.”
He loves Laura so much in that moment he can barely contain it. She seems to know, and wraps her arms around him, helping him like she always does.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “I’ll help you varnish the table.”
He takes a last look at his sleeping children, tangled up with his Natasha, all of them so beautiful and so precious and so, so loved. Laura tugs him away, and Clint closes the door, letting them sleep.