Natasha Romanov had a secret, no surprise there, but this secret was a little different. She was called many things; secret agent, former assassin, avenger, and all-around badass, but one thing that not many people knew about her was that she was something else too; she was a mom. Her son, Peter was adopted when he was a few months old. He was the son of another agent who died in the field and was one of the few friends Natasha had. She was able to convince Fury to let her be the child’s guardian until they could figure out what to do with him, but she soon fell in love with young Peter and legally adopted him herself with Fury’s help.
Over the years, Peter would stay with Clint’s family when she was on missions, but when Tony offered to give her permanent residence at the tower, she decided it was time she and her son were together again. The week they were all moving in, Natasha thought about how she would break the news to her teammates that she was a mom, eventually, she decided to just rip the band-aid off. So she asked Fury to send Peter over with his stuff one afternoon and she made sure to tell him not to say anything to the others, she couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces.
She was sitting in the living room with the others while she waited for the call that they had arrived. Steve and Tony were bickering about something, but she wasn’t really listening, she was too busy thinking about having her маленький паук (little spider) back in her arms. It had been too long since they were together.
“Hey Boss,” F.R.I.D.A.Y called, “Nick Fury is here, he’s got company.”
“What kind of company?” Tony asked.
“Don’t worry, he’s harmless,” Natasha assured them when she got to her feet. It was then Fury and company came in. The others were surprised to see that the person with Fury wasn’t another agent, or at least he didn’t look like one. He looked young and if his shirt was anything to go by, a nerd. He gave the men in the room an awkward wave and when he saw Natasha he ran into her open arms.
“Я скучал по тебе,” Peter said holding his mother tight. “Я тебя люблю.”
“Я люблю тебя больше,” she whispered into his hair, pulling back to take a good look at him. “You’re getting so big, I take it Laura has been feeding you well.”
“I’m sorry who is this?” Tony asked.
“Everyone, this is my son, Peter Romanov. Peter you know everyone already,” Natasha introduced while Peter gave them all a shy wave. He was hiding it pretty well, but she knew he was trying to calm his inner fanboy, being in the presence of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, two of the world’s greatest scientific minds and two of her son’s personal heroes.
“Ты не рассказал им обо мне?”
“Это был не их занят.”
“Um, hello, what do you mean your son? He’s Russian too?” Tony asked, dumbfounded, what else was she hiding from them?
“No, I’m American but Moms’ been speaking Russian to me my whole life, it would be kind of stupid if I didn’t know it.”
“Who’s his father?” Bruce asked.
“We don’t know,” Peter replied, smiling at their shocked faces as they stared at his mom, who also seemed to be having a good time.
“Peter’s biological mother was a fellow agent who passed away. She never said who the father was.”
“When was this?” Tony asked, still not quite getting his head around this new information.
“About fifteen years ago.”
“Does anyone else know?” Steve asked.
“Clint and his family,” Natasha replied, “Peter lives with them most of the time when I have to go on missions, but since I’ll be working with the Avengers mostly now, I decided we should live together again.”
“And you didn’t think to ask me?” Tony asked, hands in his hips.
“It’s not like you don’t have the room,” she turned to Peter and grabbed one of his bags. “Our rooms are next to each other, down the hall. Once you’re settled in, we can check out the training rooms, I have to make sure you haven’t gone soft.”
“Don’t worry, Clint made sure of that,” he turned to face the others. “It was nice to meet you guys.”
The pair then left the common room and headed towards their new bedrooms, leaving the others staring after them with their mouths wide open. They looked at each other and then back at the door.
“So, Nat is a mom.” Bruce nodded, “I can see it.”
“Kind of hard to imagine her kick some guy's ass one minute and then changing diapers the next,” Tony shook his head. “Well, he’s here so let’s get the know the kid.”
In his new bedroom, Peter was putting the last of his clothes away when his mom, knocked on the door and came in to sit on his bed. This room was different from his room at Barton’s farmhouse. He’d miss the farm and the kids, but he was so happy to be with his mom all the time again. He was always worried about her in-between visits. She would come to visit all the time and they’d talk on the phone even more than that, but there was nothing like being together and now her room was just next door.
“It’ll be so good being under the same roof again.” She looked around the room and her eyes landed on the pictures on his bedside table. There was a recent one of the two of them smiling at the camera and then next to it, was a much smaller one, about the size of a passport photo in a tiny golden frame. It was Mary, Peter’s birth mother. Being a secret agent meant there weren’t that many photos of her, and this was the only one Natasha could find. She stared straight at the camera as if she was daring it to mess with her. Her smile was subtle but kind of cheeky. It was the kind of smile that just seemed to make everything better. She wanted Peter to have it so he could see where he got his gorgeous eye and his adorable noise came from. She loved Peter and would kick the ass of anyone who said he wasn’t her son, but she still wanted him to know the woman who gave birth to him, who loved him unconditionally until she died.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell them you had a son.”
“They didn’t ask,” she shrugged. “You start your new school next week, you nervous?”
“Not really, but I’m a little nervous about being registered under Romanov.”
“I’d like to think that will warn people to stay on your good side or are you worried it will scare people off?”
“Both, I don’t know, what do people think when they know your mom is a secret agent?”
“Technically not very secret anymore. I know you’re worried but once you settle in and meet some new people, it’ll be okay.”
“Okay, I love you.”
“I love you too, to the moon and back.”
As mothers usually are, Natasha was right. The first day was rough, as they always are, but as the first week went on Peter did start to make friends, his classmates Ned and MJ were very welcoming and they became fast friends. Naturally, everyone was fascinated by him once they found out who his mom was, but some people did give him a hard time. One student, Flash, accused him of making it all up and hassled him for some time until Natasha came to pick him up from school as a surprise.
When Peter and Ned came out of school, talking about their plans for the weekend. They noticed a bunch of people standing around a flashy red car. In the driver’s seat was Natasha who was talking politely to some students who were so excited by the fact an actual Avenger was at their school. Flash pushed his way through the crowd.
“Big fan of yours, by the way, some loser in my class lies about you being his mom,” he laughed, thinking he had finally proven Peter’s lies.
“What a coincidence, my son does actually go here.” She then spotted Ned and Peter and waved to them. The look on Flash’s face was priceless and Peter almost wished he had a camera.
“Hey Mom,” he greeted. “What are you doing here?
“Well, I know you wanted to check out that new comic book shop so I thought I would take you and your friend, maybe get some pizza afterward.”
“That sounds great.”
“Wait, so we’re going for pizza with a S.H.E.I.L.D agent and an Avenger?” Ned’s smiled widely. “This is the best day of my life.”
“You must be Ned, Peter has told me a lot about you, thank you for making the transfer easier on him, you, and MJ. Is she here? Would she like to join us?”
“I’m here,” MJ, like magic, appeared right next to them. “I’d like to come if that’s okay, I’d love to pick your brains about the work S.H.E.I.L.D had done for gender equality in their ranks.” Natasha nodded her approval.
“I’d love to, hop in,” the three of them got into the car, with MJ calling out ‘shotgun’ and no one arguing with her. Once everyone had their seatbelts on Natasha turned to Flash whose mouth was still touching the floor. “What were you saying about someone pretending to be my son?”
“Um…nothing I guess I was wrong.” He mumbled, embarrassed.
“Yes, it seems you were,” she said before driving off.
Natasha, Peter, Ned, and MJ sat in the pizza place. Natasha smiled as she listened to Peter and his friends talk about what they had bought from the shop. She had to admit to they had some pretty cool stuff. She loved days like this, when she could be a mom and not an agent, just a regular mom speeding time with her son. She still couldn’t believe that kid thought Peter was lying about being her son. Romanov wasn’t that common a name. he must have been that Flash kid (stupid name), the one who was causing Peter some trouble. If he had any sense, he’d drop it, usually, she wouldn’t lay a hand on a child, but she could make an exception this time.
“So do you speak Russian?” Ned asked.
“Конечно, я делаю. Я тоже учил Питера. Он очень хорош, это весело высмеивать других без их ведома.”
“I have no clue what you said, but it sounds cool,” Ned said.
“She said yes, and she taught me. We like making fun of the others at the tower.” Peter translated.
“So your mom is a spy…” MJ began.
“Former spy but go on.”
“And you make fun of the Avengers in Russian, that’s awesome.” MJ smiled.
“Это действительно так.” Peter said, taking a bite of his pizza.
Once everyone got their heads around the fact Natasha had a son and started getting used to seeing her act like a mama bear, life went back to normal. They soon discovered that Peter was smart, very smart and he eventually let the inner fanboy free when Bruce and Tony started talking about their research. The day Tony showed him the lab it was like Christmas and his birthday rolled into one. Peter’s school was great, one of the best, but with Tony and Bruce, he would be able to reach his full potential. She knew moving him into the tower would be a good idea. Steve was the first to approach her one day in the kitchen and ask her about Peter. The others were in the lab and she was making some lunch.
“So Peter is pretty great,” he began.
“Yes, he is.”
“So, seriously why did you ever mention him? And don’t say we never asked because we did.”
“My job is dangerous, maybe a little less so now without all the undercover missions but still,” she began. “I’ve had to keep so many secrets in my line of work, it became second nature. Peter is more important than any of the other things I never talk about, he is the purest thing in my life, and I wanted to keep him that way, I thought the best way to do that would be to hide him.”
“So why introduce him now?”
“He’ll grow and he needs to be in the world, I can’t hide him away like some dirty little secret because he’s not, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t imagine loving anyone as much as him.”
“Why did you take him in? Was his mother a friend?”
“Yes, Mary was a good agent, but something went wrong one day, as it sometimes does.” She didn’t know what the mission was, only a few people were able to know, they were just told that something didn’t go according to plan. Mary wasn’t the only agent to have a child, but she was one of the few to keep them and continue being an agent. At first, Natasha thought she was crazy, how was she going to manage missions and motherhood? When she became Peter’s guardian, she started to see why Mary did what she; a sweet smile, chubby cheeks, and an adorable giggle.
“I saw what Mary saw, a beautiful little boy who deserved to be loved and I don’t know why but I wanted to be the one to love him. I think I’m doing a pretty good job so far.”
“You are,” Steve assured her. “He’s lucky to have you as his mom.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
Being a parent is never easy and when you add being an Avenger into the mix that makes it even harder. Natasha would always worry about how her job would impact Peter’s life, how it would put a target on his back. When he first became her ward, she wondered if letting him go would be the best option, let some nice normal family raise him away from the world that killed his mother. She even went as far as to look into potential families, but none of them seemed good enough. It didn’t matter how rich they were or how influential they were, they just weren’t good for Peter in her eyes. She eventually figured that the only one who came close to being good enough was her, the look on Fury’s face when she told him she was adopting Peter. He liked to act all stoic, but she knew he loved her little spiderling almost as much as she did.
Once she had finished her lunch, Natasha went downstairs to the lab to check on the boys, make sure they hadn’t blown themselves up. Peter was so excited to hear that he would be meeting Dr. Bruce Banner and Tony Stark as he had been following their work for years. When she reached the lab everyone was too preoccupied to notice her and Tony had his music blaring loudly, no wonder Pepper had him soundproof this place. F.R.I.D.A.Y must have informed them she was there because the music was turned off and Peter, practically jumping out of his skin with excitement.
“Mom, you have to check this out, I’ve been helping Mr. Stark with some suit upgrades,” Peter pulled her over to one of the monitors and showed her what they been working on.
It seemed that they were working on improving Tony’s blasters and making his targeting system more accurate. While Peter talked about their upgrades, she could really only understand part of it, but she loved the sparkle in her son’s eyes when he talked about science. While Peter talked, Bruce and Tony were amazed to see Natasha smile. They had seen her smiling of course, but it was usually a smirk or a half-smile, but this was a real smile, it sort of reminded Tony of his mother. Now that was a comparison, he never thought he would make.
“He’s a smart kid, Nat,” Bruce chimed in when Peter finally stopped talking, How was he able to breathe? “Way smarter than most kids his age.”
“Reminds me of myself when I was his age,” Tony added, ignoring the terrified look on Natasha’s face.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want to hear,” Natasha said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
“Hey Mom, I could have a suit?”
“Absolutely not, not until you’re at least eighteen or maybe thirty.”
“Could make him something spider-themed,” Tony suggested, “So he can match with Mama Bear.”
“As adorable as that sounds, let’s not.”
She had to admit, Natasha was worried about how the others would react to Peter, but it seemed like he was fitting in just fine with everyone. She knew not every day would be like this, there would be times when someone may try to use him against her, or when there would be a chance she may not come home. Peter knew from a young age, even without being told, that his mother had a dangerous job and there was a chance she might not come back, like his birth mother. One thing was certain no matter how tough the mission, how hard the enemy fought back as long as her little spiderling was waiting for her to come home, she would always come home. After all, she loved him to the moon and back.