Queen of Crows

“But, Daddy!” whines Lila as she clings to her father’s leg. “We don’t want you and Aunt Nat to go!”

She and Cooper had been pouting and whining for the past hour since they found out their father and aunt were leaving. Laura had been uncommonly quiet because of the departure, but was trying to hide her sadness. It wraps around her like a blanket in your mind’s eye, dark blue and bordering on the color of dusk. Yet, no sinister simply a dark emotion.

It had been several weeks they had been able to stay and after the first night they accepted you completely. Clint and you spoke in ASL and somehow all of his cheesy dad jokes made you laugh as hard as the kids. It had been a long time since you’d seen a dad as great as Clint Barton. He treated you like a little sister and teased you mercilessly, which you quickly learned to give back with equal sass. Unlike Clint’s over-the-top brothering, Natasha became a quiet comfort. She sat with you and shared pieces of herself that it seemed she shared with few. Little bits like a crow dropping pebbles at the foot of a trusted friend. You learned how much she loved daisies and that cake pops were her favorite dessert. Or how she hates broccoli and always reads the end of a book first.

You were family to these people, yet you couldn’t offer the same candor. Too soon you feared it would all end.

“Take care, kid.” Clint gives you a hug and you pass over the cards the kids made.

“Here are the cards from the kids,” you pinch his shoulder and he lets out a squeak of pain. “Don’t read them until you’re back safely. We both know if you look at them before you’ll be turning around and coming back.”

He pouts, “Fine, you big meanie.” As he goes on to hug Laura and the kids, Nat approaches you.

“Watch out for them,” she smiles at Clint who is tickling Cooper mercilessly. “They need someone to hold things together.”

For a moment, your smile slips but you quickly pull it back into position. “Of course, you know I’d do anything for them.” What you don’t say is that watching out for them might not be best for them. Part of you knows that you’re toxic. If you stay the family will start to die from the inside out. It’ll be slow and unnoticeable until it is too late to save them. That’s how it has always been with you. Toxic. Deadly. Unfortunately cursed.

A loud caw breaks through your troubled thoughts, and you glance up to see the crows shifting uneasily. They sense the shifting of the wind and instinctually realize that things will change – soon.

~

Clint and Nat strolled into the common room of the tower looking refreshed and smiling. Tony was pouring himself another cup of coffee while monitoring a page of notes Bruce was scribbling in, and Steve and Bucky were chatting with Sam on the sofa. It was a relaxed atmosphere as they greeted the newly returned agents.

“Alright, idiots! Gather round and see the adorable shit my kids made me!” Clint grins like a fool while he waves the unopened package of cards in the air.

The others laugh and grumble, but come to see what he holds anyway. They watch as he pulls out the first card, Lila’s, and finds it covered in pink spiders with a crayon version of Nat on the inside beating up bad guys. Everyone laughs and Nat barely manages to suppress a blush of pleasure. Steve makes a comment about how Nat should wear a pink body suit instead of black and nearly gets eliminated by her stare alone. The next is from Cooper and contains a ton of pirate stickers, because he’s obsessed with pirates and thinks Clint would make a good first mate. More laughter as Tony compares Fury to a pirate and Bruce muses how he wanted to be a pirate when he was young. Then comes one from Laura and Nate that is simply her reminding him not to come back with a dog because if they get one it will be picked out as a family. Nate’s chubby handprint is splashed on the cover and Sam remarks how it’s in Clint’s color.

Then a third card falls out of the larger envelope. It lands on the floor innocent in its pale blue envelope. Bucky scopes down and picks it up, handing it to Clint.

Clint turns it over in his hands and they all stare for a moment at the name written on it. In loopy writing is the name Nick Fury.

“Holy shit.” Tony whispers, setting down his coffee.

For a moment, they all stare at each other and then Clint is ripping the letter open and yanking the paper out. It is a simply piece of paper, folded in half, and only contains one line of text.

Your move.

“Nobody was there but us. How could… No!” Clint’s eyes are wide as they meet Nat’s. “I need to call her. NOW!” He shoves the paper into Steve’s hand, and the supersoldier takes it while signaling Tony to call Fury.

The phone rings while Clint has it pressed tightly against his ear. “She was so normal. All she did was wash dishes and make funny quips. I like her, Nat. She was good people. You saw her singing Nate to sleep. And she carried Lila on her back while playing ponies! Ponies! What kind of horrible villain plays ponies with a little girl. We would have sensed if she was bad. Oh, god… she’s with my family.”

“Clint, sweetie? You just left!” comes Laura’s laughing voice on the other end of the phone.

Clint lets out a choked sob in relief. “Laura, where’s (y/n)? Is she there now?”

“No, she went out to grab groceries this afternoon. I thought you said you liked her. Clint, she’s a good person. Calm down and stop worrying.”

“Did she take any of the kids with her?” There’s an undertone of panic in Clint’s voice still. The team watches him intently as he clutches the phone.

Laura laughs, “Not this time. Lila and Cooper are beat from all the antics they got into with you here and are napping, and Nate is about to eat something. Right, sweetie?” There’s the sound of a baby’s laughter on the other end as Nate waves his arms and giggles.

Sinking to his knees, Clint closes his eyes. “That’s good. I’m going to send some agents to your house now. Whatever you do, do not let her back in. She’s dangerous, Laura. You can’t trust (y/n). She’s a monster.”

~

“She was living with my family, sir. Taking care of my kids and chatting with my wife. Natasha and I met her, talked to her, and never suspected anything was off about her. There were no indications that she knew us or that she was planning anything. There are agents at my house now and my family is going to be relocated. She’s vanished, sir. No one can find any trace of her since she supposedly left to get groceries yesterday afternoon.”

Fury stares at Clint while he gives his brief report. As he listens to Clint continuing to talk, Fury stared at the message the woman had sent him. (Y/n), she had called herself. It was a pretty name and made Fury want to chuckle at how normal it sounds. In fact, she could be anyone by Clint’s description. The kind of woman that flitted through crowds unnoticed unless she wanted to be, she never needed to stand out. He’d been younger when he’d seen the woman. She’d seemed like a mere slip of a girl at first glance. And though he tried her features always became fuzzy and distorted the harder her tried to recall them.

“Did the crows leave?” he interrupts Clint’s report.

For a moment Clint pauses, then frowns. “Yeah, they did.”

“Then the queen of crows is gone.”