Chapter 2
Rain started to fall as Laura made dinner—spaghetti and garlic bread and Italian sausage, because it was quick and easy—and did her best to not let herself think too long or hard about why her husband’s ex-wife apparently didn’t know she existed until today. Natasha hovered, pretending to help cook as an excuse to monitor Laura’s anxiety, only drifting from her side to check on the kids periodically, who were sitting on the floor in the living room, deeply engrossed in a movie.
Bobbi and Clint sat behind the kids, as far away from each other as possible. Bobbi was perfectly still on the couch, flipping through a magazine maintaining a visible cool, while Clint was trying not to squirm in an arm chair, eyes darting from the cartoons to Bobbi to the kitchen doorway. Other than the sounds of the TV and the rain, the house was completely quiet—not something that happened often, and it definitely made Clint uncomfortable. He was almost relieved when Nate shrieked upstairs, waking from his nap, and practically sprinted up to the bedroom to go get him.
Clint scooped Nate up in his arms and gave him a teething ring, which Nate happily accepted and mouthed at between whimpers. Clint held the baby to his chest, bouncing gently up and down and humming a nondescript lullaby which turned the whimpers to coos.
“I hear rubbing a little schnapps on their gums helps with teething,” Bobbi’s voice whispered from the doorway and Clint about jumped out of his skin.
“I can think of a few people in this house who could make better use of schnapps right about now,” he responded, turning to face the wall opposite from the door.
“You’re good with him,” she said, her voice soft and warm, and Clint’s grip on Nate tightened ever so slightly.
“It only took me three tries to figure a few things out.” He continued to refuse to look at her, instead watching the rain fall outside. Bobbi hung back and took a moment to absorb what she was looking at in this bedroom: the handmade quilts, the antique furniture, the laundry and baby things strewn around, the green farm and red barn just outside the window. And there, in the center, was Clint, holding a baby that shared his eyes, a perfect centerpiece to the Norman Rockwell image. She, however, lingered in the doorway, practically glued. She was painfully aware that this wasn’t her space, and she didn’t belong in this picture.
“Look, Barton, I’m really happy for you. I never imagined you retiring, and I definitely never imagined you as mister family man. But it suits you. It suits you really well, actually, and I’m really happy for you, and I’m sorry for showing up here and spoiling it,” she said, resisting the tears that threatened to well up behind her eyes. Clint sat down on the edge of the bed and sat Nate on his lap. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, nor one he’d ever imagined having. Especially not in the bedroom he shared with Nat and Laura.
“Why did you come here, Bobbi? I haven’t seen you or heard from you since…”
“Florence. It’s been since Florence,” Bobbi finished for him. Florence had been their last trip together, just before Cooper was born. They’d had a brief mission, an easy security job for a bomb threat that had turned out to be a fake, and that was the trip Clint had intended to tell her about Laura and Nat and the life they were building together. Bobbi had beaten him to the punch, dropping the “I’m engaged to Hunter” bomb in a hastily written note, left on a hotel pillow a full day before she’d been scheduled to leave.
“Yeah. Then all this Avengers stuff happened…”
“Your plate seemed full. Mine was too,” she offered, doing her best to sound detached.
“You traded me in for a younger model,” he spat.
“We were married for all of five minutes, and you weren’t exactly a one-woman man from the day we met, either, nor were you honest about it,” she threw back and he shot her a glare that pierced her like an arrow. She wasn’t sure what reaction she was looking for, but that wasn’t it. “Look…I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to come into your house and attack you. Or not like this, anyway. More attack you in the fun way.”
Clint made a sound that was somewhere halfway between a chuckle and a scoff. A long, heavy pause hung in the air for a moment, Nathaniel’s gurgling the only thing breaking the quiet.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Clint mustered.
“What question?”
“Why did you come here?”
Bobbi looked at her feet for a moment before starting, “I wasn’t completely honest downstairs at the table with Romanoff. Everything I said is true, but the story goes on.”
Clint sighed heavily. This was far from a surprise. There was always more to the story when it came to Bobbi Morse.
“There was a mission in Russia. A SHIELD mission, under the radar…Hunter and I took it together. It was supposed to be recon but we ended up stopping an assassination, and got caught because of it.” She took another deep breath. “We were disavowed. Chose to be, actually. So we could stop running, learn to be ourselves again, build a life. Like you’ve got here. Hunter wants that and he deserves it.”
“And what do you want?” Clint asked, not missing a beat. Bobbi wasn’t the only expert interrogator in the room.
“Well…I’m here, and not with him, which should say something.”
“It does, but I’m not sure exactly what the message is. Reception is a little fuzzy on my end.”
“I just…I do want it. A life, to be a person. I’m just tired. I’m tired of the whole world being on my shoulders. I’m tired of not knowing who I am without the spy life. But I want to make sure there’s no loose ends before I try to figure it out, and you…”
“I’m a loose end.”
“Yeah.” Bobbi’s heart skipped a beat admitting it, but it was true. A lot had been left unsaid between her and Clint, and she had been in a mood lately to mend fences. She and Hunter had agreed to meet in a week after they’d both done just that—he was going to the UK to touch base with family, and she had told him she would be doing the same. Skye had agreed to help her—through multiple proxies and false online identities, of course—and had gotten her the coordinates.
“You know, Bobbi, in all the time I’ve known you, this is possibly the first time I’ve understood you.” Clint stood, settling the baby on one side of him. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. Dinner is probably just about ready.”
———————————
Laura heard the baby cry, then loud, fast footsteps as Clint ran up the stairs. She shook her head at her husband’s predictable awkward clumsiness—it was a wonder he was a spy, because when he was at home, the man moved with all the quiet and grace of a three-legged elephant.
She wouldn’t have noticed the quieter footsteps following him up if she hadn’t been listening very intently (the fourth stair creaked, something Clint had been swearing he would fix since they’d moved in). Laura froze, suddenly stiff and alarmed. Suddenly perfectly aware that there was a stranger in the house, someone who had influence and knowledge of her husband that she never would. A whole life she didn’t know about. A relationship, deep understanding, and a twisted form of love she would never be a part of. And that person was currently headed toward her bedroom, where her husband and baby were.
“Myshka, what’s wrong?” Natasha asked, already knowing the answer.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear,” Laura said, still frozen, piece of bread in one hand and knife loaded with butter in the other.
“I know, Laura. I know, I don’t like it either, but they have things to talk out.”
“Why upstairs, though? Why in our bedroom?” Laura’s voice was starting to quaver. Alarm bells were going off in her brain left and right.
“Do you want me to go up there, haul her down, make her disappear? We’d have a particularly beautiful tomato crop next year but I can’t guarantee it won’t traumatize the kids…” Natasha said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Laura’s ear. Laura eased with the comfort and familiarity of the motion, and resumed buttering the bread.
“No, I guess you’re right. I just don’t like it. It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Natasha picked up a piece of bread and joined in the buttering.
“Of all the people we’ve had in this house, soldiers, spies, literal gods, and a basically omnipotent teenager, Bobbi Morse is the only one who has ever scared me.” Laura said, tossing the bread down on the cookie sheet.
“Considering I recruited and trained her, I’d take that as a compliment under different circumstances,” Nat said, raising an eyebrow, gauging Laura’s reaction out of the corner of her eye.
“I didn’t know that,” was all she said, arranging bread on the sheet.
“Yeah. Laura, I promise you, she poses no threat to you or to our family, physically or emotionally. If I thought she did, she’d be gone.” Natasha placed a hand protectively on the small of Laura’s back, and Laura seemingly ignored it, instead meticulously sprinkling garlic and herbs on the buttered bread.
“Do we want regular or cheesy garlic bread?” she asked, trying and failing to ignore the continued alarm bells.
“Cheesy. Laura, I know you don’t trust her. I don’t either. But I trust Clint, even around her. So I need you to trust me, okay? They haven’t spoken since before Cooper was born,” Natasha reassured. Laura grabbed some shredded mozzarella out of the fridge, left over from pizza night, and sprinkled it on the bread before sliding the sheet into the oven.
“How do you know, though? How do you know he hasn’t been sneaking it, hiding it?”
“He may be a spy, but he’s a terrible liar, especially when it comes to you and to me. And I may or may not have been periodically checking up on her for the last twelve or so years.” Natasha smirked, fairly proud of herself, but Laura’s shoulders shrunk. Nat put one hand on her hip, and the other under her chin, turning her face to look at her.
“Laura, look at me. Clint chose a long time ago. He chose this life, those kids, me, and most importantly, he chose you. And he’s a man of his word if nothing else. And he and Bobbi are a lot alike in that sense, and she’s now in love with someone else. So while I don’t know why she’s here now or what she wants, I sincerely doubt it’s to ruin her own life and drag him down with her. Understand?” Laura softened, and wrapped her arms around Natasha’s waist, settling her head on her wife’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Laura said, voice muffled as her face was buried. Natasha kissed her head and rubbed her back.
“Better get that cheesy bread out before it burns or Lila will be devastated,” Natasha whispered softly, not really wanting the hug to end but knowing that Laura needed to keep moving in order to keep the panic at bay. It was how she’d been as long as Natasha knew her—when Laura was upset or anxious, she washed windows, baked cookies, canned things, made lists. She processed things through being productive and caring for others, which was one of the many things about Laura that simultaneously drove Natasha insane and made her fall even more deeply in love with her.