A Gift From: alphaflyer
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Silver Bells
A Gift For: ellavescent
Rating:PG-13
Warnings:some swearing, mild sexual references, movie-level violence
Summary/Prompts Used: So you think that taking a baby on a mission to capture a kidnapping gang is nothing short of lunacy? Clint and Natasha couldn't agree more. Yet here they are, trapped in suburbia with a miniature civilian in tow, just days before Christmas -- theirs is not exactly a wonderful life. Or is it?
Based on the following prompts: Baby!fic -- something different from the idea that a baby is a spanner in the works for Clint and Natasha; Natasha falls for Clint first; and Domesticity -- perhaps they fell into it without meaning to? Oh, and anything relating to the holidays.
Author's Note:I’m not sure that this is entirely what you expected, Ella (may I call you Ella?) but I’m wired a certain way and … well, we are who we are, for better or worse, and my mind is a steel pretzel.
Thanks to the world's most wonderful beta, Shenshen77, and to those of you who patted me on the head when I wailed Baby!fic??? I can't do Baby!fic!!!!!



Silver Bells

I.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Clint stares at Fury as if the good Director has suddenly sprouted a second eye -- on a stalk.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. actually expects us to take a live baby on a mission? An immobile, inarticulate, defenseless miniature civilian..."

"... who isn't even toilet trained?” Natasha finishes his sentence, but her partner isn’t done.

“And you want us to take that same baby into a situation where they’re not only exposed to dangerous criminal activity, but are actually the featured bait? Can’t you get R&D to give us an animatronic one?"

Natasha invokes the final trump card.

“Have you talked to Legal, whether S.H.I.E.L.D.’s third-party liability insurance covers cases of gross negligence by senior management? Imagine the law suit.”

“I’m confident that you two can make sure that the kid is not actually in danger,” Fury growls, unmoved. (The bit about the insurance, Natasha notices, is left unaddressed.)

Clint isn’t willing to let the matter go, though. If there were a soapbox in Fury’s office, he’d be climbing it right now, brandishing one of his shoes. Natasha knows that it’s not because Clint hates kids -- he doesn’t, quite the opposite, actually. If there’s one thing Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton agree on, it’s that kids have no place in harm’s way.

“Romanoff’s right. Aren’t there, like, laws against what you’re planning on having us do? Child endangerment? Criminal negligence? Kidnapping, for fucks sake?”

“Kidnappers is precisely what we are going after with this operation,” Coulson notes in that inflection-free voice of his. “There have been a spate of kidnappings in the Westchester County area in the last couple of months. Ransom, usually for around a million dollars or two. As soon as people stopped letting their children play outside, the perpetrators turned to home invasion.”

“Something we have reason to believe you two would be more than able to deal with,” Fury’s face has that look of distaste that it gets when he utters something that could be mistaken for a compliment.

“We have complete confidence in your ability to keep the kid in question safe, agents. But the real reason you’ve been picked for this mission, rather than someone like Schmidt or Miyazaki is that we need you to take the perps alive, and we need Romanoff to talk to them. They’re currently holding three children. In one of the cases, the parents can’t pay. Not everyone in Westchester is as rich as they’d like you to believe. Time is running out, and the FBI has no leads.”

What he really means, of course, is that the FBI would never conceive of a plan as unorthodox as this. The Feds might use controlled deliveries to make drug seizures, but controlled kidnappings? Natasha gives her partner a questioning look; Hill goes for the pre-emptive strike, lest the wordless exchange morphs into a coordinated assault.

“We will have eyes on the site from above, should the perps … get away.”

“We get extraction now?” The sarcasm dripping from Barton’s voice is weapons grade. “And from Westchester County, yet? It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Barton,” Fury replies. “It’s not for you. It’s for tracking the kid, if you lose it.”

There’s something there that Fury isn’t saying – nothing new there -- but the truth is, with all three of their superiors seemingly convinced that this is a good idea, Natasha finds herself running out of arguments. Barton seems to have gotten there already. The need to bring three children safely home …

“We have arranged for a house in the area where the number of kidnappings has been the highest,” Coulson states in his best accountant’s voice. “What we don’t know is whether that is because the gang has the neighbourhood under a form of surveillance, or whether there have just been more targets of opportunity. But it’s all we have.”

The look Barton shoots his partner is intense and searching. They have obviously come to the same conclusion, but he won’t let Fury off the hook quite so easily.

“Neither of us knows the least thing about babies,” he says. “And that’s a fact. If it doesn’t get kidnapped, it might starve in our care. Or die of diaper rash. That’s a thing, isn’t it?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. will arrange for a crash course in child maintenance,” Hill snaps her file shut. “At fourteen hundred hours. And before you ask -- yes, the child’s parents have given their consent.”

Fury seals it.

“You have your orders, agents. Dismissed.”

There’s little left to do for Barton but to mutter some general invective and leave; Hill and Coulson file out behind him, but Natasha hangs back and closes the door behind them. When she turns to Fury, she has schooled her face into an impassivity that the Director will recognize as a whole different level of concern than those she has already expressed.

“You know why it is a bad idea to put me in charge of a small child, sir.”

Fury takes her measure coolly, and throws the question right back at her.

“No, I don’t, Agent Romanoff. Why don’t you tell me?”

Natasha is a creature of subtlety, who finds truths hidden in shadows; the direct challenge startles her into a moment of uncertainty. But it doesn’t last long and she straightens, ready to join battle with a challenge of her own.

“I spent my so-called childhood killing other children. To prove that I was better. That I was the best. Then later, I killed them to get their parents to cooperate with my employer.”

There is something behind Fury’s eye that she knows – hopes – isn’t pity; no, it looks like anger. His voice is curiously flat when he asks,
“Did you do that because you wanted to?”

Yes. No. She doesn’t answer.

“See? Didn’t think so.”

But he isn’t done.

“In fact, it’s why you left the Red Room, isn’t it. When Barton made that decision to bring you in, his report said you kept children who were caught in a crossfire from harm. He’s always had a thing about protecting kids. Said you did too.”

“I didn’t … That doesn’t have anything to do …”

“It has everything to do with why we think you can handle this. Would you knowingly endanger this child?”

“No, of course not.”

“Would you let anyone else harm that child? Any child?”

“No. But …” The image of Drakov’s daughter flashes before her eyes, the last in a line of children dead at her hands. The last -- and the worst.

Fury seems to be reading her mind, but doesn’t come up with the answer she wants to hear.

“You have the right to be traumatized by what you did in the Red Room. What they did. Anyone would be. But that does not make you unfit for this mission. That is all, Agent Romanoff.”


II.

The house they pull up to is big. Not by the standards of some of the McMansions in the neighbourhood, mind you, but still the biggest place Clint has ever gone into without either paying entry or having an assigned target.

“Holy shit,” he says, gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly for the occasion. “Guess people really do live like this.”

Natasha scans the place with an air of detachment that doesn’t fool him for a minute. He’s noticed an unusual tension in her ever since they’d left S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with their new identities and blissfully snoozing mission accessory.

“Apparently they do,” she says. “At least if you’re an investment banker.”

Clint nods sagely. Coulson had dragged him to a seminar on criminology in Leiden once (and dragged him out again after Clint offered to provide anecdotal evidence of certain types of criminal behaviour); surprisingly, some of it stuck, including the bit about linkages between crime and economics.

“Until the next stock market crash. Then the For Sale signs sprout up like mushrooms, and people turn to crime to pay their mortgages.”

He’s about to say something else, when a noise emanates from the back seat. A cough. A little high-pitched and tiny, but … a cough. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised at how human it sounds, but he is.

“Do you think it’s sick?” he whispers. Why he’s whispering, he hasn’t a clue, but it seems appropriate. “Already? We’ve only had it for what? An hour?”

Natasha peers over the back seat.

“I don’t think so. Maybe babies just … cough sometimes?” Her voice gets firmer as she comes to a conclusion. “It probably wants attention.”

For Clint, coughing to get attention is something people do when they walk into a store where the clerks are too busy yakking to notice paying customers; seems a tad precocious for an eight-month-old. But what the hell does he know.

“Okay,” he says. “Tell you what. I’ll get our stuff out of the trunk, you take the baby inside and … I dunno. Give it attention. Cuddle it, or something.”

Natasha stiffens with what he suspects has to be indignation, because the Black Widow doesn’t freeze in panic.

“Here’s the deal, Barton,” she says. “If we have to do this suburban couple thing? I cook. You cuddle. No gender-stereotyping, okay?”

Clint is about to argue, but the baby opens its mouth and starts to wail.

“No, baby, no,” Clint says as he scrambles out of the car. “No crying, you hear me? The neighbours are going to think we’re abusing you, or something.”

Which isn’t that far off, of course, in the general using-a-baby-as-bait-for-criminals sense, but the last thing they need right now is for someone to call social services. Fury would kill them over the paperwork.

Then again, sometimes babies just cry because they’re babies. It’s basically their job, and maybe no one will come running. But how do you get one to stop?

Back in the foster system, Clint did time with kids even smaller and more helpless than he’d been, and there were things you did for them when no one else could be bothered. Maybe Fury was counting on that, because it’s sure kicking in now.

Clint disengages the bucket seat and hauls the whole thing out of the car. (Ingenious, really, the kit people come up with these days. He doesn’t even remember seat belts being used in the Barton family pick-up.) He gives it an experimental swing, and says something like “Look, sweetie, you’re flying,” in a voice that even to himself sounds like it’s had its normal edge sanded off. Natasha’s head whips around as if she’d just witnessed an instance of alien possession.

Inside the seat, though, the baby stops crying and its eyes – no, her eyes, it’s supposed to be a little girl, not that he’s looked to confirm, that would be creepy – her eyes go a little round at the sudden motion, and then she emits a totally different sound. Is that what people are talking about when they say babies gurgle? Well, it sure beats wailing.

Clint gives the baby bucket another swing, and is rewarded with another gurgle. Who knew babies can change moods on a dime like that?

“Hey, guess what, Romanoff,” he says. “I seem to have a gift.”

Natasha rolls her eyes at him and grabs their bags, sticking the one containing his bow into his free hand, and heads for the front door. Clint stops her.

Normally it’s Natasha who has to remind him to get into character; it isn’t like her not to sweat the details. But Clint has a vague feeling that crossing the threshold of your dream home with your child would be a thing for most normal people, so if that’s who they’re playing, maybe they should stop and mark the moment.

“Hey, Mommy?” he sings out. “Come give us some sugar, for the lady peeking out from behind the curtain across the street. Who knows, she may be the neighbourhood lookout, and will spread word of our coming to the right places.”

Natasha looks for a second as if she’s ready to murder him, and not in a particularly pain-free way. But she slips into the suburban housewife routine easily enough, drops the bags and takes the few steps towards him with open arms.

“But of course, honey bear,” she coos, a smile lighting up her features. “Provided you promise not to drop the carrier and end this mission before it begins.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweet pea,” he replies and leans down for a chaste peck as her arms wrap around his neck. Her lips always feel kind of nice when they have to do this for a mission cover, despite his suspicion that she’d rather lick out the bottom of a hamster cage than kiss someone who’s not a mark. He shoots her one of his grins.

“Baby too. Mommy dearest.”

He holds the carrier just at Natasha’s chest height, and tries hard not to notice how she seems to instinctively recoil. But it’s there, in the set of her shoulders, the momentary widening of her eyes, as she takes in the fuzzy head poking out from under several layers of flannel blankets. She puts a kiss into the space just above.

And just like that, the baby starts to cry again.


III.

Inside the house, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Property & Accommodations section has done a pretty nice job. The same people responsible for that dire shit hole of a safe house in Cartagena are capable of both taste and functionality when properly motivated, and pulled out all the stops to create an upper-middle class _suburban dream home.

Teams of movers apparently spent the better part of two days moving in furniture, visibly announcing to the entire neighbourhood – and anyone driving by -- that a new family was moving in, one that could afford an interior designer to direct traffic. And all that before Fury ordered Delta Team on this mission, and they accepted. The man’s confidence knows no bounds.

Natasha drops the duffle bags on the floor, while Barton sets his bow and the car seat on the granite-covered kitchen island with equal care. The baby quiets almost as soon as he loosens the restraints and picks her up, and Natasha feels a twinge of something in her gut. Jealousy? Ridiculous. Surprise. Yes, that’s it. Surprise. Who knew that Hawkeye had it in him to be a baby charmer?

“Holy shit,” he says now, taking in the hardwood floors, the gleaming countertops in the kitchen, and the ten-foot ceilings in the adjoining family room. “So this is how the other two percent live. Dibs on the couch by the fireplace, and that plasma TV better have cable.”

“This isn’t a holiday, Barton,” she reminds him succinctly. “Plus we have work to do.”

He sighs.

“Right. Walk-through and fix-its.”

As always, he turns professional on a dime – paranoia and unwillingness to trust pre-installed security systems has saved their lives more than once. Except, his voice still doesn’t sound quite the same, filtered through the fuzzy blonde hair of a baby that now has one tiny arm wrapped around his neck, her head turning this way and that as she is taking in her surroundings and pointing at something.

“Whatcher looking at, sweetie?” Clint asks the baby, and is rewarded by a finger being poked in his face. “Hey!”

Obviously thrilled by his reaction she does it again, giggling impishly at the frown that mere days ago caused Pedro Montalban to wet his pants. The next thing Barton says, though, causes a shudder to run down Natasha’s spine, S.H.I.E.L.D. training notwithstanding.

“Shit. You smell something? Mommy, I think it’s time to change nappies.”

Natasha is not even remotely tempted. Barton seems to be enjoying talking to the baby for some perverse reason, and more power to him – he can keep right on doing it.

“All yours, Barton -- I watched you practice. You’re almost a pro. Besides, the baby seems to like you, God knows why. Diapers should be in the pantry with all the other stuff S.H.I.E.L.D. laid in. Good luck.”

And with that, she’s out of the kitchen and up the stairs before he can so much as utter a protest. The Black Widow does not do diapers. Not even for marks with a baby fetish.

Natasha takes her time with the recce. The rooms on the ground floor are large and open, with good sight lines to all three entry points and plenty of space for close combat. The gang’s M.O. has been to push their way into the front door, with backup from yards, patios and side entrances.

Time to reduce the options.

Natasha disengages the garage door mechanism – sloppy work by the S.H.I.E.L.D. advance team, she’d have to mention that to Coulson – and jams the door leading from the garage into the house. (Is that what people call a mud room?) Barton will just have to clean the car if it snows.

That leaves two entry points – backyard, and front door. There are French doors leading to the garden, and she mentally draws lines on the floor up to which incoming gunfire might scatter glass. Keep the child inside those.

The garden is going to be a problem, she figures. Leaving the deck light on will only serve to put the rest of the space into greater darkness, and without it, the only way one could see anything would be to turn off the living room lights and wait for five minutes to allow one’s eyes to adjust.

Upstairs, the bedrooms are sufficiently far away from the trees in the yard to be inconvenient as entry points; good. She sits down on the master bed for a moment, checking the sight lines to the room with the crib -- less than ideal. She makes a mental note to move the crib into the bedroom.

That’s not … un-normal, is it? Natasha frowns for a moment as she tries to remember where she might have once slept, before the Red Room became her nursery. But as always, there are loops within loops in her memories, pathways crossing and re-crossing, dead ends and dark corners that scream, Don’t touch! And as always, it’s impossible to sort out which ones are real, and which ones are remnants of the Red Room’s ideas of what sort of past would be useful or convenient.

There’s a glimpse of one that comes often, that she thinks is true, would like to be true: Warmth, a gentle touch, and the smell of safety. But whenever she tries to seize it, to truly remember it, the image gets pierced by a scream and shards of ice and skitters away, beyond her reach.

Not real, then.

By the time Natasha returns to the kitchen, dusk is falling even though it’s just past four o’clock; the days can’t lengthen again soon enough.

She is greeted by the sight of her partner, sitting on a stool in the center of the kitchen holding a dry -- if crookedly diapered – baby. The latter is sucking contentedly on a bottle and compared to how Natasha had left him, the scene is one of peace, and bliss.

But there’s also a smell that’s a mix of baby powder, overheated milk and open sewer. Maybe the Hawk bonds better with infants than she does, but he has a long way to go down the road to domestication.

“Clinton Francis Barton. Couldn’t you at least have tossed that … that thing in the garbage when you took it off? Those wipes, too? And isn’t there a better place to deal with human excrement than the kitchen?”

He shrugs, and gives her one of those infuriating grins that she will wipe off his face some day. (Preferably with what’s sitting on the table.)

“The table thing here in the middle was the right height for the job. Plus, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the chance to make a contribution. And I put a kitchen towel underneath, see? I’m not a complete barbarian. Come, munchkin. We’re going to watch TV while Mommy cleans up.”

Clint seems to have resigned himself to being the primary caregiver, which is fine with her. But … munchkin?

There’s a chill running down her spine at the affection that one word seems to convey, one she can’t quite put a finger on until she hears the voice in her head.

Love is for children.

“You do know what happens when you give things a name, don’t you?”

He looks at her, frowning.

“She’s not a thing, Romanoff. Or even a mark. And she has a name already, even if we don’t know it. Two, if you count the one S.H.I.E.L.D. gave her, but I don’t think it’s right to get her used to that.”

Natasha doesn’t really have a good answer to that, at least none that she is prepared to give him. Besides, he’s not wrong -- Melanie is kind of … Seventies. She has no idea who came up with that. Probably Coulson, or that woman in Records, the one who wears crocheted vests even in the summer. She resolves the silence by stepping up to the kitchen window.

“Have you looked at this? There seems to be a competition in the neighourhood who can have the highest electricity bill.”

Clint, still carrying the baby – not-quite-Melanie -- steps up beside her.

“Holy shit! Munchkin, will you look at that!”

The explosion of lights on the street is remarkable; every available piece of greenery appears to be covered in colourful decorations. Sometimes there are different colours for each bush, white or blue or red; in others, all the colours of the rainbow are jumbled together. Many houses, in addition, have the eaves lined with lights and a couple have what looks like brightly lid reindeer sleds on the front lawn or the roof.

Except theirs, which is bathed in darkness.

The baby is pointing at the lights, smiling and gurgling something.

“We need lights,” she decides. “Front and back. It would solve some of the perimeter issues I noted. You can’t see into the garden, when the lights are on inside.”

Barton frowns.

“Wouldn’t we want them to have some dark, so they feel comfortable and pick this house?’

“I don’t think darkness is the issue. A number of the attacks have been in daytime. Wouldn’t hurt to be able to see them moving around.”

Clint frowns.

“You think S.H.I.E.L.D. would come back, put them up?”

He should have seen it coming of course but he didn’t, and for some reason that pleases her.

“I thought putting up Christmas lights was the Daddy’s job?”

In the end, they both go to procure those blasted lights, baby in tow, since it’s not consistent with their mission mandate – not to mention basic common sense, given its purpose -- to leave the child with just one of them. Of course, Clint has to phone Coulson first.

“You guys forgot something vital to the suburban experience. Where the hell can I get Christmas lights? … Hardware store? Not a lighting place? You sure? … Yeah, fine, whatever. So where do I find one of those suckers? And when do they close? … Yes, I know what the internet is, Coulson. Merry fucking Christmas to you, too.”


IV.

By the time they get back from an experience that has sent Barton off on a major rant (‘who the fuck invented the shopping cart, and why do people stuff it full of crap just so they can stand in line for an hour of my life that I’ll never get back?’), it has started snowing. Those fat, juicy flakes that sit on your coat for a minute before turning into water, but that stick to the trees and turn them into something out of a postcard.

Natasha hates snow, hates the cold; too many times, and in too many ways, the Red Room used it as a teaching tool to discourage imperfection in its young recruits.

‘Melanie,’ on the other hand, is fascinated_. She waves her arms and legs excitedly as she gets lifted out of the car and squeals when one of them splats on her cheek. And just like that, Hawkeye turns off the invective and regresses before Natasha’s eyes, turning the baby’s face into the onslaught and proceeds to show her how to catch the things with his tongue. She seems to find this riotously funny and starts to imitate him, letting out shrieks of delight when he manages, time and again, to turn her mouth right into the path of the fattest, juiciest flakes.

It actually looks like … fun, and when she sticks out her own tongue and manages to catch a flake on its very tip, the sudden dribble of cold water that runs into her mouth makes her smile. You could run those Christmas lights off Barton’s answering grin.

But there’s only so much snow Natasha can stand in one sitting. She refuses to participate in the hanging of the lights and announces that she will look after food procurement instead. Luckily Barton doesn’t argue. His smile dims and he looks at her for a moment in that way he sometimes has, the one that goes straight to her gut.

Why does he care that she hates the snow?

Natasha puts the baby down on the kitchen floor, within easy reach, and heads for the refrigerator to see what S.H.I.E.L.D. has stocked. Barton will be happy – there are several containers of Chinese takeout (someone knows her partner) and a few salads in plastic containers (and her), plus a selection of cold meats and cheese. Coulson. Not bad. She sticks the containers in the microwave one by one; Barton doesn’t require china.

A sudden clanging sets every nerve in her body on high alert, and she whirls in the direction of the noise.

The baby is mobile. Who knew?

‘Melanie’ is sitting about ten feet from where Natasha had originally put her down, and has managed to pull open a cupboard door. How she got there is anybody’s guess – crawling or sliding on her corduroy-clad behind, it doesn’t really matter. Jabbering contentedly to herself in a language that could mean anything or nothing, she starts pulling pots and metal bowls out of the cupboard. She is having the time of her life, making them clang and ring as she goes, squealing each time, and Natasha has to admit that the whole scene is … kind of adorable.

She pulls her smartphone out of her back pocket and snaps a picture, which she e-mails to Coulson with the comment that “junior agent training is progressing nicely.”

Barton comes in and takes off his boots. He pulls on sneakers before coming into the kitchen – sock feet is not really an option in close combat – and Natasha finds herself staring at him as he moves around the entrance with the silent grace of a cat.

“There,” he says, shaking snowflakes out of his spiky hair that transform into droplets as they descend. “We blend in now, honey. Is there food?”

Dinner is a pretty messy affair, between Barton and his cardboard containers, and two rank amateurs taking turns at trying to put what amounts to orange mush into the baby’s mouth with a spoon.

Solid food for supper, then a bottle before bed, the handwritten instructions say. They came with a chewed-on velvet rabbit with ears perfect for being gripped by a small fist, and Natasha feels an odd twinge at what the baby’s mother might be thinking right now. (Did her own mother know something like the Red Room existed?)

But feeding solid food to someone who has decided that asserting the only form of control over their life they can is to keep their mouth firmly shut, is easier said then done.

Barton’s “Quinjet, coming in for a landing, eeeeeow!” finally works, if only because the baby’s mouth opens in surprise. As a second round, she gets to pick up Cheerios with chubby little fingers; only half end up on the floor.

How do kids learn to do those things, without conditioning?

Natasha insists that Barton help clean up this time. Melanie is back on the floor, examining another cupboard and, finding it empty – S.H.I.E.L.D. obviously decided that they didn’t need to be fully equipped -- crawls inside.

“Good instincts,” her partner remarks when she pulls the door shut from inside even as the doorbell rings.

They both reach for their guns, loosening the holsters. Clint’s bow is still on the kitchen island; he moves it out of sight onto the bar stool and takes up position behind the island. Natasha is better at close combat, and so it makes sense for her to take point at the door and for him to have the space to loosen his arrows.

She examines the video transmission from the security camera on the porch and makes the all-clear signal behind her back.

Their visitor – it must have been the woman Barton called curtain lady, who’d logged their arrival and must have been itching for a close-up – is bearing a tray of cookies and an artless smile.

“Welcome to the neighbourhood, dears,” she coos excitedly. “I wanted to be the first to make you feel at home.”

Natasha isn’t really sure what kind of response is called for, but she knows Barton will be no help whatsoever, and so she utters a non-committal thank you.

“I’m Annie. Annie Miller, from across the way at Number 78? I watched your furniture arriving these last couple of days, and I was so happy that someone was finally moving into the MacAdams’ place. And the lights outside? Lovely. I saw your husband putting them up and thought you could do with something festive. Such a shame, isn’t it, what happened to the MacAdamses, the foreclosure and all? But these are tough times and my, look what you’ve done with the family room already! Gorgeous, just gorgeous. You can just tell that couch is not from IKEA, can’t you? Although of course some people like it, and it’s okay when that’s all they can afford, right? But you obviously have great taste, Mr. and Mrs. …?”

The tsunami of words ends as quickly as it had been unleashed, and the woman – early sixties, stout but not fat, bottle-grey hair with a bluish sheen and evidence of severe curling activity – looks at them expectantly.

“Watson,” Natasha hastens to explain. “I’m Barbara, and this is my husband, Jim. He just got transferred to a bank in the city from Chicago, and yes, thank you. Our decorator did a marvelous job. We just moved in, but it already feels like home.”

And because they are supposed to spread the news about a baby being available for kidnapping, she adds, with a lightness she finds surprisingly hard to conjure, “Our daughter seems to like it here too.”

“Yes, yes,” Annie twinkles excitedly. “I saw you bring her into the house, the little darling. Where is she? I just adore babies, don’t you?”

Barton, to his credit, recognizes his cue and produces the infant, who has gotten bored with the empty cupboard and is currently making a beeline on hands and knees for the one she’d cleaned out earlier. She squeals in surprise when he picks her up, but seems happy enough to be swung around and settled in the crook of his elbow.

The bow remains on the stool. Annie Miller is duly excited by the baby, and if she notices Barton subtly blocking her way from getting too close to the island, she gives no sign of it.

“Oh, what a darling little girl. And doesn’t she look just like her Daddy? Too bad she didn’t get your gorgeous red hair, Barbara – may I call you Barbara? – but blonde is lovely too, isn’t it?”

She fusses over the baby for another few minutes, before reminding them of the cookies Natasha has set on the counter.

“Now promise me that you’ll try these, dears. My gran’s recipe, from Pennsylvania, she was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock and don’t they make just the best cookies?” she coos at the entrance, before taking her leave after another good look around, and more comments on the fabulous decorating job and their just adorable baby.

“Holy shit, what was that?” Barton demands as soon as the door has closed behind their visitor. “I’d no idea the human mouth was capable of forming words that fast, and so completely without content.”

He reaches for a cookie and bites into it.

“But I gotta say, that woman can bake. Can you bake, Babsie dear?”

Natasha favours him with a glare.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to accept food from strangers, Jimmy darling?”

Barton swallows his cookie, reaches for another one and shakes his head.

“That was no stranger, Babs. That was Annie Miller, from across the way. Welcome to the Real Housewives of Westchester County. And guess what -- you’ve just been tagged. You’re one of them now. I suggest you start baking.”

Natasha frowns, but not in response to his comment.

“Did you notice that she didn’t even mention the kidnappings?”

(continued here in part two)