Battle Scars.

“Hello?”

Maybe this was a bad idea. The voice at the other end of the line doesn't sound worried. In fact, she doesn't sound like she is expecting anything from the call. She doesn't know the number, Natasha made sure to use a burner phone to contact her. One phone that she can throw under the wheels of the car when she is done with the call.

“Hi Laura, it's Nat.” It took her a couple of seconds to reply, and she thinks for a moment that maybe the line had gone dead.

“Oh hi, Nat! What can I do for you?”

Well. How to explain this? She can hear the muffeld voices of kids in the background – Lila's what, 4 now? She doesn't know how to tell her. So the only sound that comes out of her doesn't help. At all.

“Uhm...”

“Is everything alright?”

Now she can hear laura's fear kick in. They established a long time ago that if anything were to happen to Clint, Nat would be the one to call and tell. It's as if she can hear Laura go through all the dreadful possibilities as she does.

“It's... Clint's been compromised.”

There comes no answer for a couple of seconds. Maybe it was too blunt? Was it too blunt? She looks up from the blank point she had been looking at, trying to find something else to focus on. How do you even tell your partner's wife that your partner's been brainwashed by a God from another dimension? (And that he tried to kill his boss, and helped steal an alien artefact that might destroy the Earth if things go wrong?)

“Laura?” she asks, careful.

“I'm here.” A pause. She lets her have it. She doesn't what to say anyway.

“I'm just...” Natasha knows. She had the same reaction when Phil told her. Hell, she'd dropped every single little thing she had been doing at the time (okay, getting a bunch of Russian soldiers to admit to moving tanks without proper authorization, as well as moving fine art for the black market into the country wasn't a little thing, but she had still dropped it as soon as she'd heard).

“How did it happen?” Laura finally asks. She hears Lila and Cooper's voices are a bit more muffled now, so she guesses Laura has moved to the kitchen where they can't hear her. Kids pick up on everything. If something's going on, they know. Better hide it for as long as she can.

“We don't know yet,” Natasha begins, as she tries to find a way to explain what had happened. She'd seen the footage that had been salvaged from the PEGASUS site. Loki had used his stick to take control of several agents, going for Clint as the first. Why Clint first? “Something took control of him, and he's been MIA since. He was alive last time we saw him, if that's any consolation.”

She can't say Loki's name on the line. Not this one, at least, it might spark up hidden interests. She doesn't even know if Laura knows about Loki. How much clearance has Laura got? Does Clint tell her everything he does? Does she even know what work Clint had been doing in New Mexico, looking after the Tesseract? She's not sure. Clint's always been secretive about his family – and with good reason. Look at the mess that's about to go down.

“You don't know where he is now?” Laura asks, and she can hear the worry peel through. If she were standing in front of her, she would read it in her eyes, and in her very being. She knew well enough that Clint would do anything for Laura, and Laura would do anything for Clint.

“No, we've got every tracking device out, and we're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet, but... Nothing.” She doesn't know if she should add that they both know Clint's the cleverest agent she's ever met. “He's covering his and the asset's tracks so well, I'm not even sure how we're going to find him. Unless he wants us to find him.”

Now Natasha's rambling. She doesn't know what to say, what to do. Usually, if things go wrong, she'd ask Clint. How would he handle it? When she was looking after Stark and he was with Coulson in New Mexico looking for the hammer, she would tell him what a bigoted idiot Tony was. He'd tell her to try and understand the man, and the troubles he'd been through.

Clint always made sure everybody around him knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. He always seemed to know what to say. And with him gone- taken by that monster Loki.

“Is there anything I can do?” Laura finally asks, breaking Natasha's train of thoughts. She sounds very clearminded. After all, Laura was in the army, that's how her and Clint met. After she decided to play house by marrying a secret agent, Laura's been keeping track with what is going on in the world.

“No, I don't think so.”

Pause.

“Just... lay low? The asset that took Clint isn't after you guys, he's after something else.” Is that supposed to make Laura feel better, Natasha asks herself. She doesn't know. Maybe. Maybe it's supposed to make herself feel better too.

“Alright. But, Natasha?” She sort of knows what's coming now. She's known it all along, mostly because she's been included in Clint's life ever since he deemed her worthy of her trust.

“Find him.” It's not a question. She doesn't even say please. Natasha understands, and she nods, even though she knows Laura can't see her.

“I will. I promise. He'll show up at some point, and we'll take him in, and then I'll do everything I can to-”

“Just find him. Bring him home,” Laura finally says, with a faint sound of sadness and tiredness. Clint's been gone so long now. He's been with PEGASUS for a couple of months already, ever since Thor came down on that town in New Mexico.

“As soon as I can.”

Is she supposed to hang up now? Or should she wait? Say goodbye, maybe? She doesn't know. So she just hangs onto the line, hoping Laura will break the awkward silence for her.

“Thank you, Natasha.”

Oh.

“It was nothing, I just thought you should- you know. You should know about it.” Nobody else at SHIELD knows about Laura. Not even Coulson. Fury does, and she does, but not even Clint's handlers seem to know that he's got a family life playing around in a farm in Iowa. Natasha's amazed at it, actually. But then again, Fury does always hide things from his agents. Fury's secrets have secrets, they sometimes laugh about with Clint.

“Talk to you soon,” Laura finally says, and Natasha hears the line go dead, and the flat tone indicating the conversation has ended. Immediately, he snaps the phone from her ear, pulls the battery out and throws it on the floor before crushing it with her foot.