Chapter 15
Charlotte woke up to a very energetic two year old climbing into the bed and poking her face.
"Lizi! Dejale dormir!" Esme's voice drifted into her half asleep ears.
"Esta bien. Voy a levantarme. Déjame un minuto." Charlotte called out, her words slightly muffled by the pillows. Clint had stayed for a while after the shower. The pair sat at the kitchen table mostly in silence before she asked him to start teaching her more sign. The hasty "come in" she YouTubed while making tea wasn't going to be enough if she was serious about dating him.
And fuck wasn't that something else she had to think about. She had meant what she said the night before but in the daylight she needed to seriously take the time to think about dating a man who didn't trust himself to not wake up violently.
Several more pokes to her face told her that all of those thoughts needed to be tabled for the moment however, a two year old waited for no one.
"Buenos dias mi amor." she said as she actually opened her eyes. Lizzy lay next to her with her face so close Charlotte could feel the puffs of air as the toddler breathed in and out.
"Hi!" Lizzy shouted excitedly.
"Inside voice sweetie, please use your inside voice." Charlotte said as she sat up. She'd gone to bed with her hair wet once Clint left. He hadn't bothered to get his tee shirt back, just slipped his button up over his dress pants and kissed the top of her head as he buttoned up to leave. She'd sat at the table for another twenty minutes, until he'd texted her that he was home safe, before leaving the mugs at the table and going to bed herself.
The morning result of her tossing and turning on wet hair was one side poofed out and one side tangled flat to her head. She thought about ducking into the bathroom but Esme had already watched Lizzy for several hours, she didn't want to ask for too much.
She climbed out of bed and quickly grabbed a pair of sweats to pull on over her underwear.
"Tia, ya voy!" she called out as she tugged the sweats over her hips.
"Toma tu tiempo! Tengo almuerzo." Esme called back.
At the mention of lunch Charlotte felt her own stomach grumble reminding her despite the late night she hadn't eaten since dinner the night before.
She obliged Lizzy's demands to be picked up and balanced the chatting toddler on her hip as she headed into the kitchen. Esme stood in front of the oven with a pre-prepared lasagna.
"Esme, no necesitaba hacer todo de eso." Charlotte said as she settled Lizzy into the booster seat on one of the chairs.
"Yo se, pero tienes que entender algo, eres familia. Quiero hacer eso. No tengo mis propios ninos o nietos. Entonces, tengo eso y eso es mejor."
Charlotte felt tears prick at her eyes as she thought of her own complicated relationship with her family. Esme knew about her history and didn't judge. She knew never having children or grandchildren was one of Esme's few regrets.
"No tengo palabras, te quiero."
"Te quiero también, ahora siéntate y dime todo de anoche."
"Fue bien, fue complicado, no se tia."
As the smells of the cooking lasagna filled the kitchen Charlotte gave Esme a PG rated version of the night before. She stumbled a bit over explaining the panic attack but after a bit Esme understood.
As Esme took the lasagna out of the oven and set it on the table to cool. A serious look clouded her face before she spoke again.
"Mira, cada persona tiene sus propios diablos. Tienes tuyos. Tengo mios. Eso no significa que es tu responsabilidad cuidar los diablos de otra persona. Tienes que saber que puedes hacer, y qué debes hacer."
"Yo se, y ahora no se que quiero hacer."
"Puedes tomar tiempo. No tienes que saber todo hoy."
"Gracias tia."
Further conversation had to be paused as Lizzy proceeded to attempt to cut her own food and mostly managed to smash it around. Luckily a wet washcloth saved the play clothes Lizzy wore from an early meeting with the wash and the conversation turned to day to day practical things. The two women planned on Esme babysitting one afternoon while Charlotte brought both their laundry to the mat. It was just honestly too hard to juggle a toddler, laundry and being out and about. This way Charlotte would be able to do the weeks shopping for both of them and get the wash done all in one day.
After Esme left to go back to her own apartment across the hall Charlotte settled Lizzy down in the living room to play. Out her window she could hear the now constant sounds of a city rebuilding itself. People found new ways to walk over the rubble to work and even though the flowers, drawings and trinkets that lay at various sites still grew, the city kept moving.
The city would always keep breathing.
"Humans by nature and by survival are adaptable." a former sociology professor of hers had once said, "No matter what happens the human mind will adjust and find its new normal. It's one of the reasons people stay in abusive relationships so long, one of the many reasons. The violence has been adapted to normal for them, that is how they survive. It's also one of the reasons we build cities after bombs. It's why no matter what happens we celebrate birth and death and all the other moments of life in between. No matter what happens, if one ounce of humanity can crawl away it will cry, build and celebrate all over again. It is our curse and our blessing."
Somehow having a child to take care of and plan around became normal. Somehow knowing and seeing a legitimate super hero became the new normal.
Her vibrating phone pulled her out of her thoughts before she couldn't wander down the path too far. She didn't know the number but since it could be the social worker she answered it anyway.
"Hello, this is Charlotte speaking." she said politely.
"Charlotte, it's Natasha. I'd like to take you and Lizzy shopping tomorrow if you don't have any plans." the voice of Clint's best friend came over her phone silky and smooth.
"Um, hi, Natasha. Yeah that should be good. What were you thinking?" she asked.
"I will pick you both up at eleven. We can get lunch. It will be fun."
Charlotte wasn't sure if the scary woman was reassuring her or convincing herself. Unless she decided to not see Clint again she'd like to get along with his best friend. One afternoon shopping seemed fairly painless.
"That works great for the two of us. Do you have the address for the apartment?"
"I will get it from Clint. I will call when I am outside. Please call me Natalie while we are out, I would rather not be noticed too much. Clint told me you understood this."
"I can do that. See you tomorrow Natasha, thank you for calling."
"What do you think about that Lizzy- we're going shopping tomorrow." Charlotte said.
“Ice cream?" the toddler asked curiously.
"Yeah sweetie we can get ice cream. Here let's read a couple of books. Tia brought you one with Spanish colors." Charlotte grabbed the book and helped the toddler settle comfortably on the couch and began to read.
~&~
Clint woke up with a heavy, cotton stuffed head. The clock reflected on the ceiling told he'd slept at least six hours. The warmth from the other side of the bed told him Natasha stayed most of that time or at least had recently been there. The aftermath of some of his panic attacks felt decidedly similar to long missions where his body refused to listen to him anymore and just collapsed.
Six hours at once was one of his longer stretches since the helicarrier.
He reached over to the table on his side of the bed and grabbed his hearing aids. He was in the process of turning them on and slipping them into his ear when Natasha walked back into the room with two mugs of coffee.
"You were starting to stir. I made new coffee. You realize it's the middle of the afternoon." she said as she passed him a mug.
"Yep, I decided to get lazy in my old age." Clint said he doubted anyone else would read the humor in Natasha's voice but he long learned to read her humor. The sly smile that played across her lips would have been a full laugh on anyone else.
"I texted Dr. Geller, you have an appointment tomorrow at nine am. I am going shopping with Lizzy and Charlotte tomorrow at eleven."
"Well at least I'll have something to talk about in therapy." Clint deadpanned.
"I'm sure you would have thought about something no matter what. Like that file on some run down place in Bed-Stuy JARVIS made for you that I am certain you were planning on telling me about."
"It's nothing," Clint groaned, "some kids were having problems with some thugs. Slum lord trying to push the tenants out. I just stopped a fight."
"You mean over a week ago on the night of the first date you had with the woman you helped during an alien invasion and broke your hearing aid and thought the rest of us wouldn't notice?" Natasha raised an eyebrow slightly as she stared at him.
"You mean the night you stole all of the food out of my kitchen and forced my date into a team bonding event?" Clint asked with equal amounts of cheery blithe in his voice.
"Exactly."
"It's nothing Tasha, just something I'm keeping an eye on." Clint promised.
"One day I am not going to stop your hero complex and you will wish you had listened to me."
"You gave me this speech when we broke up."
"It was true then too. You are a good man Clinton Barton. I think I will go for a walk in Bed-Stuy today, would you like to go with me?"
"I know that voice, I don't have a choice. Yes let's go walk around New York together with no purpose or ulterior motives at all whatsoever." Clint dragged a hand over his face.
"You are the one who helped me learn to take care of those who can't take care of themselves. It is only right I help you too."
"I'm telling Geller you're an enabler and she'll say you should come to my sessions with me." Clint said.
"If she thinks it will help I will gladly join you." Natasha said.
"I know, love you Tasha. Let me shower and we can go for a walk."
An hour later found the pair wandering around Bed-Stuy. Clint had put on loose, stretched out jeans and an old plaid button up after his shower. He looked like any working man taking a day to wander New York with his girlfriend. Natasha had put on leggings and a loose tunic style top. Both of them could move freely if needed and blended perfectly with the surrounding area.
Both of them could move easily enough to fight if needed too.
"You know our lives are weird right?" Clint asked Natasha as she tucked her hand in his elbow and leaned closer.
"Yes, but it is our lives and the ones we choose." Natasha replied, "Did you see the update on Phil?"
"Yeah, looks like the docs are gonna try to wake him up soon. Do you think we should be there now?" Clint asked.
Natasha paused for a moment before answering. Clint watched her pretend to look in the window of a resale shop.
"No, he would not want us to sit and wait uselessly. Tony has already built him a room to recover in once he is awake. Phil will want to know as much about the tower dynamics as possible. You and I both know he is the only one who can lead the Avengers as Fury calls us."
"You're right but it feels weird." Clint complained.
"You are thinking with your heart, not your head. Besides, you believe that if you finally listen to Phil and go to your therapy he will get better faster. That is more useful to all of us in the long run. I think I like that shirt, I want to go in the store."
Clint laughed at the seemingly non sequitur.
"Let's get you the shirt. Also I know that about my therapy but you don't have to point it out. I'm going to see Dr. Geller tomorrow."
"Good," Natasha opened the shop door, "she is very good at her job."
"You know Tasha, you could always try talking to her. On your own I mean, not as a part of my therapy. Might help you wipe out some of that red in your ledger you keep talking about. What do you think of that purple sweatshirt?"
"You wear too much purple, the green would look nice. And I will think about it."
"Can you think about it without bruising the fuck out of me next time we spar? Seriously, our sex life used to send us to medical, we do not need to revisit that." Clint said as he examined a couple of shirts.
Natasha muttered something unflattering in Russian instead of answering and Clint couldn't help but smile. Despite the panic attack of last night this was the most normal things had been in weeks.
Twenty minutes later the pair left the shop both with a few purchases. They kept wandering the streets but as they got closer to the alley where Clint fought the Russian guys he could feel them both tense slightly. The conversation switched to light small talk that neither of them paid much attention to. His second time here, without a fight or broken hearing aids to distract him, gave Clint the chance to look around more. While it had been obvious his first time that the building was in disrepair he could see more and more signs of neglect. The trim around the doorway of the entrance looked like it was one slam away from falling off. Natasha pointed up at the fire escapes and Clint would bet his favorite bow not a single one of them was up to code or even close to functional.
"No wonder the old owner wanted to sell for cheap. It'd cost the price of the building to get it back up to snuff." Clint muttered.
"And no wonder the tenants are scared, if they could afford to move they wouldn't live here." Natasha said.
"The kids said the track suit bro's were bullying social security money out of old ladies. Clearly they skipped the day of learning right and wrong in school."
"Holy fuck man are you Batman?" a voice called from the other end of the alley, "I was going to call you, Javi said not to, he didn't think you'd answer but I said we had to try. The guys are back and they're pounding on Mr. DuBars door."
Clint turned to see one of the teens from the other week jogging toward them.
"Fuck sorry man, I forgot, you're deaf. I guess you didn't hear me-"
"No I heard you kid, I got new aids. What's going on?" Clint cut the kid off.
"Those guys are back on the second floor. They say they're collecting back rent and they're about to break down Mr. DuBar's door. There's four of them and he's like 80 man."
"Can you let us in? We'll handle it." Clint said.
"Man, the front locks been broken for years. Owner wouldn't fix it."
"Alright, hang out here, we'll be back in a minute." Clint said as both he and Natasha set their bags on the alley ground, "Watch these for us?"
"Yeah man, sure you're not Batman or some shit?"
"Nah, just your friendly neighborhood idiot." Clint answered as he and Natasha moved toward the door. "How you wanna do this Tash?"
"Two a piece? Looks like there's two staircases, we can box them in." Natasha said pointing at the second stair at the end of the hall.
"Alright, I'll meet you up there." Clint jogged down the hall to the second stairs and took them two at a time. As he reached the top he could hear Natasha's voice drift down the hallway.
"Hello boys, I think I am lost. Can you help me?"
"Bro, who the fuck is this bitch bro?" one of the guys said. Clint saw again that each of them wore a matching navy blue tracksuit.
"You guys seriously had a meeting and decided to embrace the world's worst fashion choice huh?" Clint asked. When the guy closest to him turned to see who spoke, Clint wasted no time in punching him in the face and knocking him to the ground.
"It's this fucking dude again bro! Kick his ass!" one of the other guys yelled. Somehow they seemed to either forget Natasha or flat out discarded her as a threat. Clint took a moment to laugh internally at their mistake before he threw himself into the fight. Between the tight quarters and both him and Natasha fighting soon all four men were on the ground knocked out.
"You take me to all the best places." Natasha said looking exactly as perfect as she had when she started the fight. One of the guys lay twitching on the ground from her widow bite disguised in her bracelet.
"And you never take me anywhere fun. Remember Rome in 2008? That was all you Tasha. What do we do with these idiots now?"
"It looks like your young friend from before brought a friend or two of his own."
Clint looked up and saw the boy from earlier and his friend from the other week. He was guessing the second boy was Javi.
"Hey kid, I didn't get your names." he called out.
"I'm Jeremy, this is Javi." Jeremy said, "What are you going to do with them now?"
"Well if you guys are willing to do some heavy lifting I thought that the dumpster out back looked a little empty." Clint said as he felt a grin split across his face. "We can roll it a couple of blocks and trade it for an empty one."
"Ain't that illegal?" Javi asked.
"So is threatening to harm people for money." Natasha said. "Help me grab this one. The neighbors are starting to watch."
Clint looked around and indeed all four doors in the hall were cracked open. From his memory he recalled JARVIS saying there were twenty units in the apartment. Four units, five floors and it seemed the neighbors knew each other. By the end of the day Clint figured his number would be passed around. Mostly because he planned on telling the boys to do just that.
"Come on Jeremy, grab under this guy's arms, dead weight is heavy so lift with your legs kid."
After they dragged the first two guys out a couple of the other younger tenants came to help lift the last two. They made short work of tossing them in the dumpster and moving it down several blocks and pushing an identical fresh one back.
"Look, I'll come by in a few days and replace that lock on the front entrance. It won't keep them out forever since they're working for the new landlord but if they come back it'll stop them long enough you can give me a call. Pass my number around, I know you were already going to do it but make sure you call." Clint told Jeremy and Javi, "I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. Like I said the names Clint."
"If for some reason he does not answer, here is my number. I am Natalie." Natasha said as she pulled a slip of paper from nowhere with her number already written in her elegant script.
"Thanks guys. We can't pay you or nothing though." Jeremy said as he took the paper.
"We know, just make sure you give us a call." Clint said. "Actually look, text me now so I have your number. Seems like you know most folks in the building so I'll text you when I come to fix the door. Figure out how many keys I need to get. Can you two do that?"
"Yeah man, I'll let you know tonight. Between Javi, me and my moms we can talk to everyone." Jeremy said.
"Good, I'll see you Saturday at the latest. We gotta head out but use that number."
"Thanks man."
The two teenagers shook their hands before heading back inside. Clint could hear them talking about the best way to figure out how many keys were needed.
"You know," Natasha said as they headed down the street, "Pepper has all of us on staff at Stark Industries."
"Yeah, I know that Tasha, I was with you when we signed the paperwork."
"Did you look at the salary we're being paid?" Natasha asked.
"I did not." Clint confessed, "I figured if there was anything I needed to know you'd catch it."
"One day I will not cover your ass. Look at the salary. Plus there's also all the money you have squirreled away over the years. The new owner of the building might find it to be too complicated to raise the rent like he wants and may be motivated to sell."
"Are you trying to tell me I should buy an apartment and become a landlord, Tasha, seriously?" Clint asked.
"I am saying facts, you can do with those as you wish." Natasha said.
"You know, I'm never asking a Russian to follow me home ever again." Clint laughed as he nudged her with his shoulder.
"That would probably be wise. Come, we missed our morning session."
Clint let loose a second full belly laugh as they headed back to the tower.