(Continuation from Part One)

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!!!!!



V.

After dinner there’s really nothing to do but to wait for a home invasion that may or may not come – they have been here less than half a day, and even the most eager criminals don’t work that fast – and try and put the baby to bed. ‘Melanie’ is having none of it, though, despite a fresh nappy, which Natasha makes Hawkeye put on by praising his vastly greater experience and expertise. (Men are easy.)

The Baby starts crying as soon as he puts her in the crib.

Stroking her tummy doesn’t help, and neither does leaving on a light. She does quiet down, though, as soon as Barton picks her up. He holds the baby to his chest, strokes her back and says things like ‘If you don’t go to sleep soon I’m going to have to ask Fury for a raise, ‘cause cradling babies is not in my contract, and I don’t care how cute you are’ in his most soothing voice, and things are good as long as he’s got her.

The second she’s back in the bed, though, the hollering starts up again. Barton makes Natasha pick her up and – surprisingly – that works, too; Natasha doesn’t know how to feel about having a pudgy fist reaching for her hair, but she cannot help but acknowledge that the baby smells nice from close up, and that the hair fuzz against her cheek is even softer than it looks.

The revelation and the moment of unexpected tranquility end the moment the baby is back in her crib.

Barton suggests calling Coulson, but Natasha points out that their handler, despite his know-it-all ninja attitude, actually knows squat about live child maintenance. (The closest he’s ever come to baby wrangling is indoctrinating new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits.)

“I’ll go look if there are some tips on the internet,” she volunteers, but the glare Barton gives her leaves no doubt that he knows exactly what she is really trying to do: escape. The man is no fool.

What’s worse, he has an idea.

“She probably misses her mom. Maybe we should sing her a song or something? My own mom …” Barton stumbles a little over the word, “my mother used to sing to me and my brother when we were little. It was … nice. Always made things better when they were awful. For a bit.”

Natasha can’t help but stare at her partner. Obviously, she knows that he was a child once, everyone was -- even the Black Widow (if only physically) – and he seems to remember enough childhood things for the job at hand. But he has never referred to that part of himself before, and for some reason, the thought of a small, miserable Clint Barton is … what? Disconcerting? Disturbing?

Clint seems to think that the look she’s giving him is a question, and so he explains, although he doesn’t have to.

“She stopped when our father really got into the booze and started beating her. And us. Like it knocked the singing out of her, and then there wasn’t any better to be had anyway. But I remember it worked.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say to that, but then the baby emits another wailing cry and she is spared the necessity. Clint sounds a little desperate when he says, “I don’t suppose you know something that could pass for a lullaby? I doubt Thunder Road will do the trick here.”

As a matter of fact, Natasha does – Red Room training was expansive. It’s different, though, singing for an actual baby instead of a mark. The first couple of lines of Bayushki Bayu come out a bit self-conscious and wobbly, but then her voice gains confidence with each note. The baby looks at her with enormous eyes that won’t leave her face; in the background she can hear Clint clearing his throat.

This time, they make it halfway down the hall before the crying starts again.

“I think you just need to keep holding her, Barton,” Natasha says. “It’s the only thing that seems to work.”

And so it comes to pass that a wide awake and happily gurgling ‘Melanie’ settles on the couch, her head nestled into the shoulder of one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most lethal assets, and gets to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, in black and white, and without commercials. (“I hold the baby, I pick the film.”)

A few minutes in, and Natasha is deeply skeptical of the movie’s premise and her partner’s sanity.

“Angels getting their wings? You picked a movie with angels? And here I thought you were such a hardass, Barton. Wait till the Albanian mafia finds out.”

But Barton refuses to rise to the bait and there’s really nothing else for Natasha to do, so she curls up in one of those soft armchairs, resigns herself to her fate and starts watching. The whole idea of a movie about suicide is not exactly uplifting; she remembers too vividly the temptation to goad that strange American archer into letting fly the arrow he had pointed at her throat.

And what’s that whole thing about alternate lives? Heaven as a black-and-white version of the Red Room, with unseen powers planting false thoughts in people’s heads, in order to cleanse the real ones?

Natasha turns around to quiz her partner on just what he sees in the thing, but he seems to have dozed off and the words die on her lips.

Part of her is still amazed that, professional killer that he is, Barton can fall asleep in her presence at all. (And that she can do the same, and sleep soundly.) The current scene, however, is a different thing altogether.

His long fingers are splayed across the baby’s shoulders, even in sleep making sure that she won’t roll off, or only into the back cushions; his chest is rising and falling with her weight on top. ‘Melanie’ has drifted off too, maybe in response to the rhythm of his heartbeat, and is making soft baby noises as she puffs her breath into his neck. He looks younger somehow, his spiky hair matching the baby’s blonde fuzz and a small smile on his lips.

And even though she knows that he can and will flash into lethal asset mode at the slightest sound, Natasha realizes with a sudden and absolute certainty that the man on that couch right now is not Hawkeye, one half of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most dangerous team.

No, this is Clint Barton, unshielded, unarmed, unguarded. Different. Real.

And she also realizes that somewhere along the way, Clint Barton infiltrated her defenses, not all that long after Hawkeye kicked down the door.

Natasha has no idea how to feel about that, or how to fit her own reality – the Red Room; the blood on her hands; Drakov’s daughter; the years of being the Black Widow -- into this sudden and inconvenient epiphany. All she knows is that examining the thought too closely could dispel the unforeseen peace she feels, and so she doesn’t.

She just watches her partner, even as George Bailey gets back the life he was meant to have, as the good people of Bedford Falls come through, and the tinkling of a bell announces that an angel finally got his wings.


VI.

Morning comes early, and who needs an alarm clock when there’s a baby around?

Clint barely remembers crawling into the S.H.I.E.L.D.-supplied king-sized bed after depositing ‘Melanie’ in her crib; it appears that he managed to take off his shoes, socks and jeans before sinking into the most restful sleep he can remember having in … well, let’s just say, it’s been a very long time. Westchester County sure beats Kinshasa or Irkutsk for comfort.

The bed is enormous and the warm space created by his body heat is surrounded by cool sheets, but it’s comfortable and he allows himself a moment to luxuriate, and think. Maybe he should start spending some of the high-risk bonus that S.H.I.E.L.D. drops in his account every month. Buy some extras for his little pad, like decent sheets, a real duvet and some pictures for the walls. Just because his life was shit growing up doesn’t mean he has to keep living in squalor, does it?

Of course, he’d need some help, ‘cause fuck, shopping is a soul-sucking way to spend time. Maybe Natasha would …

Clint recognizes a small, tentative noise sound from across the room as the reason he woke up, not a cry, but rather a content babbling: ‘Melanie’ is talking to herself.

He is startled by another sound, plus movement, coming from close by. A sudden adrenaline spike sends him into full-on red alert, which doesn’t abate in the least when it dawns on him that the Black Widow has been sharing his bed.

She’s still asleep but scooting towards him now, a bit like a heat-seeking missile. (Natasha hates the cold.) Just how close might she have come during the night?

Clint mentally runs past the events of the previous evening: visitation by the Spirit of Suburbia; dinner; attempt at a bath that ended with more water on the floor than on the baby; several rounds of nappies; the sleep routine from hell_… By the time he gets to Jimmy Stewart’s role in the evening, he concludes that the only reason his partner is in bed with him is that when it comes to playing a part, she’s all about The Method.

A brief check confirms that, inconveniently, his body seems to be into The Method as well. It’s not the first time her proximity has done this to him; Sitwell once claimed, after a bottle of paint stripper raki, that he could cut the tension between Delta Team with a knife -- but this feels different. Why, he can’t quite put his finger on_…

Shit. Bad metaphor. Cold shower. Or shower, anyway.

He makes his escape quietly, so as not to alert the baby to his presence; the water has just started when the burbling turns into a wail. His partner will have her hands full.

It’s all in the timing, Hawkeye, he congratulates himself as he closes the door to the en suite behind him, and proceeds to have a long and productive shower. (Rain showerheads – another thing to put into his place. Soon.)

When Clint emerges from the en suite, dressed in a towel, Natasha is sitting cross-legged on the bed, bouncing the baby on her lap and glaring at him resentfully. But then he notices that her eyes widen a little and slide down his body for a second.

Now despite what Bobbi said there at the end, Clint is not an idiot when it comes to women, and he knows that this look means a heck of a lot more than nice abs, partner. It’s a look that kicks him in the gut; nothing like the one she gives her marks either -- no, it’s much more … raw, and intimate.

And he just knows that it’s for him.

Professional, Barton. You’re on a mission. Plus, there’s a kid in the room.

Yep, it’s all in the timing. Or absence thereof.

“I think I need you to turn around if you want me to get dressed, Babsie,” he says jauntily, but he knows bloody well that the professional interrogator across the room will not have missed the slight crack in his voice. Fine. So be it.

He knows that his voice actually matches what he saw in her eyes there, and maybe some day one of them will have the guts to try and deal with what just happened here between them.

But not now. There’s a job to be done.

Since both the diapers and the coffee are in the kitchen, Clint grabs the baby and heads downstairs after a quick dressing job – jeans and a turtleneck, for that smart-casual yuppie look, socks can come later. They can probably both use a moment anyway.

Remembering her complaints about leaving the open nappy on the island, and unexpectedly inclined to please her, Clint decides to be Responsible for a change. The little Velcro tabs actually allow you to turn the disgusting object into a tidy and relatively unsmelly little ball, when you tamp them down just so. He’s just trying to figure out whether he can toss the thing into that silver garbage pail in the corner with the lid still closed – firing from the right angle should lift it up just enough – when the door bell rings.

Who the hell would come to someone’s house at eight in the morning?

Oh, yes. Home invasion?

At eight fucking a.m.?

They’ve been here for less than a day; no gang works that fast, surely. Besides, the odds that they’ll be targeted to begin with are pretty long, unless S.HI.E.L.D. has done some underground advertising about the Watsons’ fabulous cash reserves.

“Honey,” he hollers, loud enough for whoever is on the other side of the door to hear. “We have guests. I’ve got the baby. Care to open the door?”

Natasha is down the stairs before he’s finished, Glock in hand, and heads for the door. Clint opens the empty cupboard ‘Melanie’ had explored earlier, and puts her half way in.

“Get in there and play, sweetie,” he hisses. “Just so … you know. In case. Besides, it’s a great cave.”

He takes up position behind the island, hand on his bow, quiver on the barstool.

“Ready.”

Natasha examines the image on the security monitor.

“It’s okay,” she says, her voice audibly relaxing, if not exactly enthusiastic. She sticks the Glock into the waistband of her pants, under her flowing top. “It’s your girlfriend, the cookie monster.”

She opens the door wide enough to admit Annie Miller, who says “Good morning dear,” in a slightly shrill voice.

And all hell breaks loose.

The woman is shoved aside by four burly men, who must have been waiting outside the security camera’s field of view; suddenly the bright white marble of the entrance is filled with cursing, dark-clad, balaclava-wearing thugs, two of whom are waving guns.

They enter with shouts of “Give us the fucking kid and we won’t harm you,” as if that were any kind of enticement for anyone. They’re probably used to dealing with terrified homeowners freezing before them in stunned surprise.

Well, there’s a bit of surprise at work, to be honest, but Delta Team’s response time is pretty unparalleled in the business, and the game’s afoot before the invaders even realize it.

The first man, one of the two unarmed ones, makes a grab for Natasha, presumably to pin her in his gorilla-like arms. The sound of his wrist breaking is followed by the dull thud of his body landing on the floor, and the heel of her left foot connecting with his skull. He doesn’t get up.

She has already moved on to the second one, a well-placed kick knocking the gun out of his hand before she twists his neck, when Clint’s arrow drills into the larynx of another armed man who is pushing into the kitchen. (They don’t all need to be alive to tell them where the abducted children are being kept, and this one looks dangerous.)

The fourth intruder seems to have come to the realization that their intended targets are putting up a bit of resistance, and reaches for a gun in his waistband. Since Clint can’t be bothered to find out which hand he might favour when he gets it out, he nocks two arrows at once, drilling one into each arm. Stark Industries’ fine workmanship allows both arrowheads to slice through the man’s winter parka like butter. He doesn’t go down, but his arms drop uselessly by his side, and he seems frozen in shock.

By unspoken agreement, both of them have been careful to keep their bodies between the attackers and the space behind the island, where ‘Melanie’ has been exploring cupboards in blissful ignorance. But with the threat from the four men reduced to a minimum, Clint vaults over the island.

He heads for the exit to cut off a retreating Annie, but Natasha is already on her way so he goes into mop-up mode, starting by kicking the various dropped weapons out of reach. Careful not to step into any blood with his bare feet, he takes a handful of zip ties from his duffel bag and gets down to the business of tying up the still-breathing casualties.

Natasha, in turn, has retrieved Annie Miller – her Glock points at the woman’s face, which is twisted into what the latter probably hopes are fear and panic.

“They made me do it!” she screeches. “They were threatening my family! They’re monsters!”

Natasha’s gun doesn’t waver, and she nods her approval as Clint zip-ties Annie’s wrists together behind the woman’s back, none too gently.

“Looking at the faces of at least two of these guys,” Natasha says evenly, “at least two of them are your family. What are you, the Ma Barker of Westchester County?”

Impressed that some of his American history lessons have apparently registered, Clint gives Natasha a fond look before turning to the man whose arms still have his arrows in them.

“Sorry dude, but I’ll need those arrows back. They cost a fucking fortune. Deep breath -- you have the right to remain silent.”

The man’s two short screams quickly subside into a prolonged moan, and he looks as if he might pass out. Clint, unimpressed, takes his arrows over to the sink and rinses them off before he goes to check on Natasha’s first victim.

“Still breathing,” he confirms. “That leaves three of ‘em to tell us where they’re keeping those other kids. My bet is on Annie here to sing first. Let me know whether you need me to string the bow.”

A little noise in the corner reminds both him and Natasha of the small civilian presence in the kitchen. For a moment, Clint finds himself wavering. Some personas are easier to put on than to take off, but the baby doesn’t deserve who he is out here.

“You chat up her ladyship there, I’ll take care of the munchkin.”

Clint glares at Annie Miller – if that’s her name – in passing. He suppresses the urge to take a swing at her (interrogation is Natasha’s specialty) but he does inform her in passing that the sooner she gets to rot in hell, the better.

He picks up the baby and turns her face towards his chest as he carries her past the battlefield into the living room, so she won’t see the carnage; he’s been there, older than her at the time, but who knows what babies take in and remember, they don’t talk, and … just, no.

The TV should be capable of producing cartoons at this time on a Saturday morning, and maybe it will keep her distracted. He tosses a few pillows on the floor -- a bit of a mix between a nest and a fortress, hopefully she won’t feel the urge to crawl after him.

“Sorry, munchkin, we’re a little busy right now. You’ll like Tweety Bird, you’ll see. Just don’t believe any of the commercials, okay?”

He puts her in the centre of the pillows with a kiss on the head, closes his eyes, and hauls Hawkeye back to the surface. By the time he gets back to the kitchen, Natasha is saying, in her least reassuring tone, that, “Oh no, Mrs. Miller. We’re not the police. We’re much worse than the police.”

Clint emphasizes her point by way of removing his arrow from the dead guy’s throat; he takes no small satisfaction in watching the former cookie lady turn a sickly shade of green.

“In fact, you’re going to ask for the police by the time Jim here is halfway done with your boys. But no one’s calling them, so they won’t come until we’re ready to hand them four bodies, lawfully killed by parents defending their baby. You’ll live without your sons, and we’ll make the cover of Parents magazine.”

Clint gives her an approving grin. She wants him to be bad cop? He can do that. In fact, he’d be delighted. People who use small children for personal gain have a special circle of hell waiting for them.

Speaking of children. He picks up his cell phone and dials Coulson.

“We have five … no, make that four prisoners, sir. Soon to be three, I think. … Baby’s fine. By the time you get here, we should have the information you need. … Call before you come in though, in case we need a bit more time to carve it out of them. Wouldn’t want you to have to see that – you’re far too credible a witness. Yeah, fine, we’ll keep one of them alive for the justice system. … Roger that, sir.”

Natasha almost snorts at the last bit, which she is sure Coulson hadn’t actually stuck around to hear. She herself is usually pretty subtle about obtaining information, but people who choose home invasion as their M.O. generally aren’t into nuance. Sometimes the classics work best.

“Okay then, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Annie. Where are you keeping the children you took?”

Clint just twirls his arrow – this last one, he hasn’t bothered to clean – and heads over to the man with the two holes in his arms. He’s still conscious, and whimpers at the sight.

A few minutes later, it’s Natasha who picks up the phone, providing Coulson with the location of the missing children and details about the number of gang members with them. The rescue will be done by the FBI (no questions asked) in the name of inter-agency cooperation and protecting the covert nature of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s operations.

“Whaddya know,” Clint comments as he puts down his bow and reaches for one of Annie’s cookies. “She really was the neighbourhood lookout. Should have just stuck to baking.”


VII.

The debriefing at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters in Manhattan is short and sweet. Hill is off dealing with the FBI (no one can choke off potential turf battles as decisively as the woman who can quell a riot with a raised eyebrow). Coulson is there, of course, with a sheaf of papers, while Fury greets Natasha with a look that practically screams, ‘See?’ She pointedly ignores him; it is, after all, not easy arguing with your superior officer over the head of a happily chattering baby -- at least with any credibility.

Natasha never really thought about what it might feel to hold a small, warm human with no agenda other than soaking up information for its own sake. ‘Melanie’s’ head is turning this way and that as she takes in the sights, pointing and making pithy observations about the monitors on Fury’s walls in a language all her own.

Natasha also never really imagined just how good it might feel.

Coulson glances over at her, his eyes lingering on the baby for a moment, then on Natasha’s face, before fixing on his notes. He starts without waiting for her or Clint to sit down.

“The Miller family is, in fact, a family, with a long criminal tradition. And yes, that is their real name. They escape tracking by the authorities by changing their birth dates around periodically. Father is a permanent fixture at Attica on a double homicide; Annie specializes in swindling senior citizens out of their life savings.

“You met the two sons and two sons-in-law. The man Agent Barton killed is Peter Kenshaw, married to Maude Miller, the oldest daughter. Based on his history, it was probably him who encouraged the clan to diversify into kidnapping for ransom. They would find a temporarily empty home in a good neighbourhood and use that as a basis for operations for a week at a time, snatch a child and move on.

“In your case, they decided to take advantage of the fact that you were new to the area and your home. They got Annie to scout out the security system, so the boys knew to stay outside the field of vision when someone opened the door.”

Clint is fidgeting, strumming his fingers on his hips; the information is interesting, of course, but what he really wants to know is whether they found the kids. Coulson nods.

“The FBI retrieved four missing children from a house in Newark, all under two years old. That was actually one more than we knew about; her parents hadn’t notified police and were apparently arranging for ransom. All are in good health, although understandably scared and confused. They are being reunited with their families; appropriate psychological services will be made available.”

He stops, and Fury gives a small, satisfied nod.

“And with Hill’s help even the FBI will, in time, forgive us for solving their problems. Good job, agents.”

Clint stares from one man to the other.

“Wait. That’s it? What about our baby? When does she get to go back to her parents? I’d like to be there, by the way, and give them a piece of my mind.”

The look he gives Fury strongly suggests to Natasha that it’s more than a piece of his mind that her partner would like to deliver, but Fury is not inclined to play along.

“How about right now?” He punches the comm button for his assistant. “Please send in Miss Sanderson. She’s a single parent, by the way.”

Natasha and Clint are equally nonplussed. Sanderson. From Accounting?

A young woman enters the room; it’s clear from the uncertain way she looks around that she is not accustomed to being in the Director’s boardroom. But any hesitation ends, the second her eyes alight on the baby in Natasha’s arms.

Her baby, obviously.

“Amy!” she chokes out and rushes over, ignoring all dictates of protocol. And there is absolutely no doubt that ‘Melanie’ – Amy – is happy to see her. She emits a small squeal and stretches out her arms, practically squirming out of Natasha’s grip.

The look on Clint’s face softens a fraction at the sight, but only for a moment. His voice is harsh when he grinds out his challenge.

“What the hell were you thinking, using that beautiful little girl as bait for a gang of kidnappers? She could have been...”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, can’t seem to be able to, but it doesn’t seem necessary. The young woman looks up from where her face is burrowed into her daughter’s soft hair, but doesn’t answer immediately; maybe she is intimidated by the flint in Hawkeye’s eyes.

The silence stretches, until Natasha breaks it.

“Why?”

The young woman touches the baby’s head with her lips. When she looks up, there are tears in her eyes.

“One of the missing children was my niece; she’s younger than Amy. My brother died in Afghanistan three months ago. His convoy drove across an IED and Emily ...”

The words come out in a flood, although her breathing is punctuated by small sobs.

“You see, Emily is all we have left of Tom. He never even got to meet her. She was born halfway through his tour. He was almost ready to come back when he was killed and_… and Laura took it so hard. She moved back in with her parents and_… well, when those people broke in and took Emily, it almost killed her.”

She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and looks at Clint and Natasha a little defiantly.

“The FBI wasn’t getting anywhere and Laura’s family, well, they live in a nice house but their company isn’t doing well and they couldn’t make the ransom_… and_… And so I asked Director Fury if there was anything S.H.I.E.L.D. could do.”

Fury nods curtly.

“We look after our own, agents. S.H.I.E.L.D. is family. In time, I’m sure, the FBI will come to forgive us for solving their problem for them.”

Clint, who has been to Afghanistan and has seen his share of untimely death, seems to be fresh out of protest. The only thing he seems to be able to do is walk over to stroke Amy’s head with one long, calloused finger. She makes a happy noise and gives him a smile that he returns quickly, although almost reluctantly; it’s echoed, a bit tremulously, by the baby’s mother. Natasha is not so easily distracted.

“But Amy?” she asks. “How could you risk_…”

“Everybody says Delta Team is the best,” Tina Sanderson says softly. “Agent Coulson speaks so highly of you. And_… I’ve watched you spar, too. You work together, not like some of the other agents, who just want to show off. I knew you would never let anything happen to Amy, that she’d be safe with you. And she was. I trust you.”

Natasha stills, and looks over to Clint in disbelief, to see if he’s heard the same thing she has.

Trust? The Black Widow?

But Tina isn’t done.

“Amy seems to have really taken to you, Agent Barton. If you’d like, you can come visit her. Both of you, anytime. She’s in the day care on the tenth floor, so you don’t even have to go far. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

Coulson clears his throat.

“I’m sure you’d like to go home now, Miss Sanderson, and see your sister-in-law and your niece. And take a couple of days; come back after New Year’s.”

Tina beams at him, and mouths another ‘thank you’ in Natasha’s and Clint’s direction before leaving, trying with mixed success to get Amy to wave goodbye.

Fury, as always, has to have the last word, and he picks up where he and Natasha had left off, a mere two days ago.

“You see, Agent Romanoff, trust. Trust is a beautiful thing. You just have to have it in yourself, too. Dismissed.”


VIII.

“Amy. That’s a good name for her,” Clint says as they wait for the elevator that will take them down to street level. “I think I’ll miss her.”

Natasha has been observing her partner being unusually introspective; Clint can go for hours without saying anything, but that faraway look, that’s new.

“Why?” she asks. “What do you think you’re going to miss, exactly?”

Clint looks a bit self-conscious, almost as if he wishes he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Oh, I dunno. It was nice having something small and warm to pick up whenever you felt like it, I guess. Being around someone who just_… trusts you. Trusts you to do the right thing, and make everything okay.”

There it is again, that word, but as her partner is blissfully unaware of her discussion with Fury she decides to cut him some slack.

“I had no idea you liked kids that much,” she says. “I mean, I’ve known since Abidjan that you’re prepared to move mountains to protect them, but this was … different.”

She pauses, and casts a sideways look at Clint, to see how he’ll respond. He weighs his words carefully, not least because Sitwell is getting on the elevator, giving them a nod and a thumbs up. For a secretive organization, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a very finely tuned grapevine.

“I guess it’s good to know that there are alternatives out there, you know. That life isn’t all about death and evil and_… that there are better things out there. Kids are_… Shit, this is going to sound totally corny.“

She lets him know with her silence that it’s okay to go on, that she won’t laugh at him, won’t judge him, and he looks momentarily grateful. Sitwell has his iPod buds in, which is probably just as well.

“Kids are_… what’s good, Tasha.”

Natasha doesn’t bother to challenge him on the use of the nickname he keeps insisting on; instead, she blurts out what she knows.

“I didn’t use to believe that.”

Clint doesn’t say anything more and she wonders whether he even heard her, or got what she is really saying. Thanks to a father with a violent streak Clint’s hearing isn’t anywhere nearly as good as his eyesight; it tends to get worse when there’s background noise, like the whine of the elevator. But when it stops on the ground floor and the door slides open he suddenly turns to her, his eyes cool and measuring, as if he has a target in his sights.

“So what are your plans for the holidays, anyway? Feel like getting together and watching sappy movies? I missed most of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

She’s not quite sure what he’s asking, or why, but she can’t shake the image of him and Amy on the couch, and that makes for as good a response as any.

“You sure you won’t just sleep through it again?”

He shrugs and gives her one of those lopsided grins.

“No promises. Been a long day. But I trust you to wake me up when Clarence gets his wings. I don’t want to miss that again. It’s the best part.”

She doesn’t actually remember agreeing to his plan, but it seems that she has and they end up walking through the lobby of HQ side-by-side, nodding greetings to colleagues as they go.

Bing Crosby’s Silver Bells wafts out of the PA system, somewhat at odds with the guards kitted out in their tac gear and cradling their submachine guns. Worse, some bright spark in HR has obviously decided that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s work force needs a little more Homeland, less Law Enforcement at this festive time, and as a result the front lobby is a great deal more Martha Stewart than Maria Hill.

But somewhere over the last twenty-four hours, Natasha has come to the conclusion that holiday tackiness may just have its place, and she holds off on the sarcastic comment. Clint does the same, she notices, but after what she’s just witnessed during this mission, she would no longer believe him anyway.

There’s a steady stream of agents heading out for the holidays, shouting wishes to each other that the world will hold together for the next couple of days, so they can actually stay away. But there’s an odd pattern in the exodus as people cross the lobby, a special gravity field that seems to reside somewhere around the central lighting array. Some people seem to actively avoid it while others slow down, in an odd dance of opposing magnetic fields.

And then she spots it, a ball of something green – real or fake, it’s hard to tell and it doesn’t really matter – swaying in the draft whenever the front door whooshes open or shut.

Mistletoe.

Clint has noticed it too, she’s sure of it. He hesitates for just a fraction, looks at her briefly as if for confirmation – of what, she doesn’t know. But his intent becomes obvious when he touches his hand to the small of her back, steering her -- he probably thinks unobtrusively – towards the parasitic plant.

By the time they get there she has made up her mind and reaches up first, burying her fingers in his short (and surprisingly soft) hair, to pull his head down to her height. Neither of them hesitates. When her lips touch his, the feeling is_… she’s gleaned from a trashy airplane novel that the word should be electric. At the time she scoffed, but that’s the word that currently fills her senses, all the way to her core.

They’ve kissed before, of course, and it’s always been pleasant. But this?

There’s something completely new in the way she wants to lean in, the way his lips now are opening, tracing the outline of her own with surprising tenderness. She gives a small, involuntary moan, which Clint seems to take as encouragement to open her mouth with his tongue. He cups her cheek with his left hand as he makes the kiss more demanding, and she molds herself to his lean form.

Natasha has no idea exactly how she should feel about whatever seems to be happening here, but it does feel … right. Clint gives her an almost triumphant grin after they part, as if he has just made an important point. Perhaps he has?

All movement around them seems to have stopped, and a familiar voice (Sitwell?) proclaims loudly that, “Mistletoes don’t count for the pool – that’s neutral territory. And no, it doesn’t matter how long. Nice try, Evans.”

Time to stop being a spectacle. Natasha hooks her arm into her partner’s and steers him out of the lobby towards the next street corner, where you can catch yellow cabs heading for Lower Manhattan where Clint keeps his little loft. (Natasha hates having to pay a cabbie for what amounts to a course correction.)

The sidewalks are busy, slushy and wet, sparkling in the neon of the city and the Christmas lights in various store windows. The fat flakes that had transformed the suburbs into a white wonderland don’t have a chance against the masses of last-minute shoppers, but they do cling to woolen coats, hats, and – briefly -- eyelashes.

Clint and Natasha blend into the crowd almost effortlessly; maybe they pass for office workers, on their way home from work. No one gives them a second glance.

It’s a strange feeling, being like everyone else, but not an unpleasant one and for some reason she feels compelled to give Clint’s arm a squeeze. He squeezes back and looks down on her, with a smile that feels like what might be coming home.

Somewhere, Natasha thinks that she can hear the sound of a bell tinkling, and she almost laughs out loud at the sheer audacity of the thing. It’s purely a figment of her imagination, of course.

But all things considered, that in itself counts as a win.