I'll never be worthy of you
Daddy!
How was that one word the one goddamn thing that had Natasha Romanov - who had quite literally faced monsters and ninjas and assassins and goddamn aliens and literal firing squads - frozen in her tracks? She didn't feel so fearless right now.
In fact, right now, she wasn't sure how she felt at all and she could do nothing but stare wide-eyed at the wriggling child in her arms who fought like hell against her mother's hold; she was strong, she'd forgotten how strong she was. She hadn't had to attempt to hold her still in a few years.
"Em," Natasha warned gently but it did no good.
"Let me goooo!" she whined as she squirmed, attempting to duck out of her mother's arms.
Natasha rolled her eyes, the unfortunate futility of trying to hold still a child that simply would not have it became clear quite quickly and took a half step back, releasing the girl who momentarily turned stunned blue eyes toward her mother before a grin spread across her features and she moved forward faster than Natasha had ever seen her move before.
This was ridiculous.
She'd always known kids were resilient but this was goddamn ridiculous!
She had absolutely no idea at all how the child - who literally just last night had believed her father to be dead - was this okay with all of this. What the hell. To her, the world was spinning out of control and yet her child was the one coping absolutely fine. She watched the little girl throw herself into her father's arms and she tugged away at her bottom lip with her teeth.
"My wish came true," the child spoke softly.
At that moment, Natasha tilted her head to the side as she studied her daughter curiously before a sense of understanding washed over her; she could almost feel her heartbreak in her chest. Her daughter's biggest wish in the world was to have her father here with her, of course, it was.
"Before we left, Jake said if you wish on a shooting star it always comes true and I saw one. I saw one and I wished for you. I wished really hard." Sometimes it was easy to forget that she was just a little girl that still believed in wishes and magic.
Sometimes in this dangerous world of theirs, it was easy for her to forget that she really had raised her daughter to be normal and that meant that she was absolutely nothing like her mother was at that age, she'd almost forgotten that kind of innocence could exist but Natasha couldn't deny for even a second that the words broke her. She could feel the walls closing in around her and she couldn't breathe. She held to the wall like it was the only thing that wasn't going to crash down around her.
She had never realized that her daughter lived with such pain and such a sense of emptiness just like she did. She had tried her best all these years to shelter her but as she watched those bright, innocent blue eyes fill with tears she felt as though every ounce of strength she had left her body and she fought like hell not to drop to her knees.
Bucky Barnes was knocked off balance as a small set of arms wrapped around him and he looked down at the youngster standing before him; he was right, she looked just like her mother except for her eyes. She was small but strong and he could see the same fire that blazed inside of her mother in their daughter. At that moment, no words would come but the girl spoke before he had the chance to dwell on that and the soft words that broke her lips brought tears to his eyes.
Of all the things in the universe this girl could want, the one thing she wanted more than anything was him. It was enough to have her mother reach for the wall for support as she realized just how much her daughter had been missing her father all these years; she'd been around people that had normal families and she'd tried her best to give her as much as she could on her own with the occasional help of Clint or Logan but there were some things that couldn't be replaced.
It was in that moment that he understood the most how much damage he'd caused. He thought he'd understood it before but the set of blue eyes turned up toward him told him that he had no clue at all. With his daughter standing before him, he lowered himself to his knees and he reached out to touch her cheek feeling warm tears run over his fingers. He glanced for a moment toward Natasha feeling altogether more helpless than he ever thought he could.
"Momma always seemed so sad when she talked about you," the little girl released a soft sigh.
"She always talked about you like she wished you were here with us too. I wanted to help her and everyone else had a mom and a dad and I wanted to know what that was like, too." The little girl could meet neither of their eyes as she spoke.
Wordlessly, Natasha walked toward their daughter turning her to face her and pulling her into a tight embrace, placing a kiss on the top of her head before she knelt down and shook her head. All she'd wanted all these years was to protect this little girl and raise her to be normal like everyone else was, she hadn't realized just how much she felt like something was missing. Every time they talked about her dad all she had was questions and Natasha couldn't blame her for that.
She'd tried her best to answer everything she could over the years while protecting her from the darker parts of their truth but it seemed as though there was a part of this girl that still believed there was a way to fix this and a way to bring her father home again. Natasha couldn't remember what it was like to have such an idealistic view of the world or believe in magic the way that their daughter seemed to. She couldn't remember what it was like to be that innocent.
"Baby, it isn't your job to fix my sadness, okay? I am sad, I was-" she inhaled a deep breath.
She was still sad, she was always going to be sad because she'd spent years living under the guise of someone else's lie. Again. He knew how she felt about being lied to and having her life manipulated by the decisions of others. She was always going to feel the pain of that but she hoped eventually she'd learn to forgive it.
"It isn't your job to fix it." It had always been the two of them, of course, she'd noticed how troubled her mother was.
Shit.
At that moment, there was nothing worse in the world than this. Seeing her child cry and feel - even for a moment - like she had to fix her mother's sadness made Natasha feel more like she'd failed than anything else ever had. For years now, she'd been convinced that she wasn't doing a good job at raising this child on her own despite Logan and Clint telling her otherwise and this seemed to reaffirm the fears that she'd been trying to tell them had been consuming her.
All the little girl wanted was her father.
"Are you going to go again?" She peered over her mother's shoulder at her father.
Her father sat upon the floor of Natasha's apartment feeling more useless now than he ever had in his life. He'd broken the heart of a poor little girl, he'd left her wishing and hoping for years that someday, her daddy would come home and he hated himself for it. He heard her question and the soldier inhaled a breath, shaking his head.
"Never. Never again," he promised.
What a big promise indeed it was to make, he caught Natasha's eye and in that moment he spoke a wordless apology that he had no idea if she would ever accept or even if she ever could. He wouldn't blame her if she didn't, but she knew him well enough to know that he'd always love her no matter what. He'd love her no matter what she chose, he'd love her even if she spent the rest of his life hating him.
He'd loved her even when he had no idea who she was, that kind of feeling didn't just go away no matter how much someone tried to take it away.
He couldn't read her and that bothered him, she was fighting hard to shut down and he could tell that it was because she didn't want him to see just how much this was getting to her. He knew she was trying to act like there was a wall inside of her and he hated it. It had been a long time since she'd shut him out like this. He fell back so he was sat on his heels and he released a sigh as the child pulled out of her mother's arms and wiped away her tears.
"Did you eat yet?" Natasha questioned, pulling herself to her feet as she fought to focus her mind.
"Yeah, uncle Logan got me food before I came home," She shrugged her shoulders softly.
Natasha nodded her head weakly. "Okay well, go get changed and see what I did with your room while you were out, okay? We need to have a grown-up talk."
The little girl frowned at her mother. "The last time you did that you threatened to throw a lamp at Uncle Clint."
Natasha let a burst of laughter break her lips. "Yeah well, Uncle Clint was being a jerk and you were supposed to be sleeping."
"He's annoying when he gets mad. He rants." The little girl rolled her eyes dramatically.
Mussing her daughter's hair as she fought back laughter because she was exactly right: Clint Barton was overdramatic sometimes and he ranted better than he did absolutely anything else, Natasha tapped her on the shoulder.
"Go get changed. Scoot." She inclined her head then.
Grinning at her mother, she leaned forward to place a kiss on her cheek before she turned and ran toward her father and threw her arms around his neck.
"No more being gone!" she ordered before she pulled back and ran toward her room.
Natasha shook her head as she took a step toward Bucky, holding her hand out to help him to his feet. He stared at it for a moment, in truth he'd half expected her to either leave him there to get himself up or hit him and knock him back on his ass though he supposed her measured, the calm response was because of the child down the hallway. He knew that she was furious, he could see it but it was also buried beneath pain that seemed to have won out and she was tired. She was more tired than she could possibly begin to put into words. He took her hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet.
"You shouldn't have been here when she got home." She didn't mean it.
In truth, she knew from the moment that he'd stepped through that door today that it wouldn't have been avoidable forever, sooner or later they were going to have to sit down and they were going to have to talk to Emiliya who deserved to know the truth... Or most of it anyway. The truth of just what she was would remain locked up until it was absolutely necessary if that day ever came at all but she wouldn't have been able to continue to lie to her if she knew her dad was alive.
She wasn't that cold and she'd never lie to her daughter like that even though she had no way of knowing how she'd have responded at all. She hadn't seen her react like that coming, not at all. She wished the hell that she could've seen it coming. She wished that she had seen just how much of her pain her precious baby saw but she'd always thought that she'd done better to hide it. She didn't show much of it until she thought she was alone.
Given who her parents were it really wasn't that much of a surprise that she was as intuitive as she was or that she was apparently that good at sneaking around.
Bucky Barnes released a sigh at Natasha's words. He hadn't intended to be here when she got back. He hadn't intended to come face to face with her just yet, he really had wanted that to be Natasha's call. He had wanted it to be on her terms so that she could do her best to provide whatever buffer she thought necessary but things weren't quite what either of them had really planned for it to be. He wasn't sure what the hell he should've expected but just like her, he hadn't expected that.
"I didn't intend to be," he replied, he glanced up at her as he spoke.
"For what it's worth? I'm sorry. I know it's just words, I know that it doesn't change what I did and I know it doesn't change the pain you went through or what you've been through all these years but I am sorry and I wish the hell that it hadn't happened this way."
"I do," she replied simply.
"I wouldn't change it because I wouldn't change a single day I got with her. I wouldn't change the hardest parts or the easiest ones, I'd never change any time I had with her."
He could understand that better than he probably should have been able to. He could see just how strong a bond the two of them had; they'd never talked about being parents. They'd never had that conversation because for years they'd been led to believe that it wasn't possible and that it never would be unless they decided to adopt someday but it made sense for that to have been yet another lie, their histories were littered with lies told by people who only wanted to control them.
Of course, they should've known that things weren't as black and white as their captors had them believe it was.
"I wouldn't expect any different," he admitted weakly.
"But I'd have come back sooner if I'd known." Or he'd never have left at all if he'd known she was pregnant.
She moved to pour a glass of wine before she sat on the couch and shook her head at him. She knew he'd have come home if he'd known, she knew already that if he'd known that she was pregnant with their child he wouldn't have done what he'd done and they'd have left together to raise their child as far away from all of this as they could have possibly gotten but instead that responsibility fell solely to her and for eight years, she'd done it. For eight years she'd kept that little girl safe.
"He'll use her to hurt me but if he finds out what she is or who she is? We both know what comes next." She gripped the glass tightly; she fought to remind herself not to break it.
"She doesn't know. She doesn't know what she really is and she never will if I can help it."
"She's like us?" His brow furrowed as he spoke, he watched her nod.
"Yeah. I had some tests done when she was little." By someone, she'd trusted completely of course.
He knew as well as she did the danger that would put her in. He knew as well as she did that the child would already have a target on her back with Natasha being her mother but so far, no one - that they knew of - knew who her father was, nor did they know just how much that made it likely that she was just as special as her parents were. He knew that neither of their ghosts was locked in graves that would keep them from destroying everything. Their ghosts would consume what little good they had just like they always had.
"So what do we do?" He didn't know if Natasha had a plan.
"We turn to people we can trust. I've already made a few calls today. Tony, Matt, Bobbi, Laura, Carol, Bruce, Jess... I didn't tell them yet why I need their help. Bobbi knows, Clint never keeps a damn thing from her so she was the one I had do the tests but everyone else is clueless. They've all agreed to a meeting. I don't know how I'm gonna explain all of this but we need all the help we can get. I don't know if he's working alone or if he's got a goddamn army. The son of a bitch is charismatic and resourceful so we can't safely assume he doesn't have any backing."
There were few people in the world Natasha hated more than she hated Alexei and this time, she wanted dead to be dead. She either wanted him so goddamn dead there was no way he'd ever claw his way out of whatever circle of hell he ended up in or she wanted him locked up in the deepest, darkest hole anyone could find and while she'd prefer the former if she had absolutely no other choice the latter would have to do.
"And if he's not working alone?" It was an obvious question and he knew it.
"Then he'll have his army met with an army of my own."
She watched the way he frowned and she regarded him curiously. He shook his head at her.
"You've always had an army at your back, Nat. You know every damn person that loves you would fight by your side in a heartbeat so that's not it, that isn't what you really do. You don't run, you've never run from anything as long as I've known you." With the exception of doing exactly that when she found out she'd been pregnant but that made sense.
She was trying to keep that tiny life inside of her safe.
"You're afraid of something this time and it's more than just having this life touch hers, what is it? I know you better, talk to me." He met her eyes then.
She didn't look away, instead, Natasha released a sigh and leaned back against the back of the couch.
"What if I fail? If I lose her I don't know what I'd do. I've faced monsters my whole life but I've never fought for someone else before except for you. Back to back, side by side with my friends and the people I care about but I don't know how to win if there has to be a sacrifice. What if the only way to win is to lose who I've become? How can I face her after that?" She brought the glass to her lips and downed the rest of the liquid.
It'd do no good, they couldn't get drunk and he knew she wouldn't even try, not with a child here.
"I won't let that happen. I've never let you lose who you were before and I won't now. I know you don't trust me, I know a part of you probably hates me and I'm good with that, I really am but I want you to trust that at least. I'll never stop fighting for you, Nat. I've broken something I shouldn't have broken when I told you I wouldn't walk away or lie to you again and I know I screwed up but I swear to you, I won't ever let you lose yourself and I'll never let anyone turn you into anything you don't wanna be again." Oh how he wanted to reach out now.
She shook her head though as he spoke. No. No, not at all.
"I don't hate you," she sounded sad as she spoke.
"I wish I did, I'm mad as hell at you but I don't hate you. When I saw you I- I half wanted to kill you myself for what you'd done and I half wanted to do exactly what she did and ask you not to leave again and I haven't felt that torn in years." She truly wanted to make him realize the damage that he'd done but from the look in his eyes, she saw he understood it perfectly, and torturing him despite her anger would do neither of them any good.
"Don't get me wrong, I still wanna shoot you but I'm exhausted. I'm so tired and I hate that I didn't realize how hurt she was and now she's facing a danger, unlike any goddamn thing I ever wanted for her and I can't fight every battle there is at once anymore. I need to be strong for her but I'm tired." She admitted, casting her eyes away.
"Then let me help you." He wanted to be the hero in the story she'd told their daughter.
He wanted to be worthy of that and of them.
"I don't hate you but I don't trust you," Soft, sad words slipped her lips as she glanced back toward her daughter's room.
"I'll let you tuck her in tonight but then I want you to leave. I need to figure out what I wanna do and how I want to handle this."
That was fair. He couldn't ask anything more of her than that especially when he knew it was more than he had the right to ask at all; he knew she could very well kick him out and not even give him a moment with his child but Natasha wouldn't be that cruel, not to her child...
And though she wouldn't admit it to him, she wouldn't be that cruel to the man she loved even if she did want to beat the hell out of him but then that wasn't the first time she had and doubtlessly it wouldn't be the last either.
He had a real talent for pissing her off.