A Gift From: sandy79
Title: Have Yourself A Merry Little Farmhouse Christmas
A Gift For: sgteam14283
Rating: Gen
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: None
Summary/Prompt Used: This world’s Clint might be completely different, but “thanks” to some tragic events, they all still end up at a quite familiar farm for Christmas, dog inclusive.
I mainly used Prompt #2
Author's Note: Happy Holidays, my lovely giftee! I hope you like what my mind has conjured up especially for you! It's set in my Fraction verse/MCU mash-up series, starting with "Once More With Feeling", but can be read on its own. MCU Natasha ends up in the Fraction verse after dying on Vormir. I hope you don’t mind that Bucky also pops in. Laura here is (or better was) married to Clint’s brother Barney, which also makes Cooper and Lila Barney’s children. Enjoy!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Farmhouse Christmas

While their rented truck made its way up the gravel road to the farmhouse, Natasha couldn’t quite contain a grin. Not even six months ago, shortly after she ended up here in this universe, Clint was adamant that he never would go back to Iowa, no matter what. And yet, here they were, arriving at the Barton farm and about to meet a family Clint didn’t even really know about.

Sure, the circumstances for them all, Lucky and Kate included, being here were less than optimal. Several weeks ago, Fury called Clint into a meeting and told him that he got word about Barney’s sudden demise during a mission for the CIA. Which led to a rather awkward phone call with Barney’s widow Laura, that surprisingly (at least for Natasha) with Laura inviting them all to celebrate the holidays at the farm.

The car stopped, and for a short moment, Natasha felt her heart clench. It was as if she was back in “her” world, since the house and everything surrounding it looked exactly the same, down to the color of the roof and the curtains in the windows. Right that moment, the front door opened, and a petite woman came out.

“Hi everyone, welcome to our humble farm. I’m Laura,” she came up to Clint, “hey, brother-in-law.”

“Hi, Laura,” Clint began, hesitating and struggling to find the right words, “I’m… I’m sorry for your loss.”

Laura only shrugged, which caused Natasha, Kate and Bucky exchanging a look. Either the widow was hesitating to show her true emotions to virtual strangers, or she wasn’t as grieving as they all expected her to be.

Once again, the front door opened, and this time, two kids came out, taking in the arrivals with some hesitation. But before any of the adults could even think about saying anything, Lucky broke free from his place at Kate’s feet, trotted over to the kids at the bottom of the stairs and nudged both the girl and the boy with his nose.

“Lucky! Get back here!” both Kate and Clint exclaimed, but once again, Lucky stayed true to his character and ignored any commands, not even Bucky’s whistle made the Labrador Retriever move at all.

“Come on in all,” Laura said, “I have a pot of coffee going.” Clint didn’t have to be asked twice.

The next morning, Natasha woke up to a silent house. Walking down, she suddenly heard Lila squeal (or was that a scream?), and her first instinct was to run back to her and Kate’s guest room and grab the gun she had hidden in her luggage, but just as she turned on the last step, her eyes met those of Laura, standing at the kitchen window, a cup of coffee in hand.

“They’re out with the others and the dog,” Laura stated matter-of-factly before walking over to the coffee machine and pouring a cup for Natasha. “Here,” she handed it over, then gave Nat an almost assessing look. “You’re working for the government as well, right? All of you?”

“What makes you think so?” Natasha gave back before taking a sip.

“That look in your eyes when you heard Lila squeal. Like you wanted to go for any kind of weapon and protect the child of a virtual stranger.”

“What would you say if I say, yes I do? I work for the government? And how do you know how to read someone else’s gazes in the first place?”

Laura smiled. “The second question is easy – I had quite some practice with my late husband. Saw that same look way more often than I would have loved to, starting with our second date. As for your first question – relax, please. You don’t see them, but there are several surveillance and protection measures and protocols working around the farm right now that Barney has installed and set up the moment I told him I was pregnant with Cooper.”

“So you knew about his job?”

“Of course.” Laura chuckled, but the accompanying smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I knew it pretty much from the start, figured it out on my own. And once I asked Barney about it, he told me everything he could without compromising anything. Oh, he had his faults, plenty of them, but if I know things that are true about my husband, it’s that he loved his family, a lot, and that he would have moved Heaven or Hell to protect us.” She finished her cup, put it in the sink and held her hand out to Natasha. “So, what do you say? Should we join them before they start an intervention because they think we went for each other’s throats?”

Natasha was way too stunned from Laura’s honesty to do anything else than to grab the other woman’s hand and let herself being pulled out onto the porch running around the house.

Lucky, and subsequently both kids, came up the three steps almost immediately, vying for Nat’s attention, which in turn led to chuckles from the rest of the small gang. But as soon as the moment happened it was over again, and while Clint managed to engage both the dog AND the kids in a wild game of catch, Bucky and Kate came up to Natasha, both wearing a slightly worried expression.

“You’re okay, doll?” Bucky asked, his pale blue eyes searching Natasha’s.

“Yeah, just had a bit of a flashback in there,” she threw a thumb over her shoulder into the kitchen, where Laura was already working on preparing breakfast.

“To your own world, right?”

“Yep, right after Lila let out a squeal.” Nat heaved a sigh. “You know, when the Snap happened, it was so sudden. One moment, people would just do their jobs, or spending time with their family, and the next moment, they were gone.” She swallowed. “The Clint on my world lost his family while doing so, and while I wasn’t there with them, I only can imagine how awful that must have been.”

“Hey, doll, take it easy. We’re all working on preventing it happening on this world, and thanks to your intel, we made quite some progress, so we’re entitled to relax, if even for some days,” Bucky gave back before pulling Nat in a hug.

“Group hug!” Clint suddenly exclaimed, and before she could do anything, Nat found herself smacked in the middle of a human burrito, adorned with a dog pressing into her legs.

Apart from that one moment, their first day at the farm went by rather smoothly. Sure, it gave some rather awkward moments, mostly due to anyone going into the wrong room, but even those were far and few between and forgotten almost the moment they happened.

Laura was, for the lack of a better word, a wonderful woman, the kids were adorable, and Natasha couldn’t quite shake the fear that this world’s Clint would follow the footsteps of “her” Clint and move out here for good. Not that he wouldn’t have deserved a loving family, not at all, but still, it was a thought that didn’t quite settle right in her stomach. And if the worried look Kate threw her way after Clint announced that he wanted to support Laura and the kids after breakfast was anything to count for, Nat wasn’t the only one to feel that way.

Of course, Clint picked up the slight change in Nat’s mood almost immediately (apparently, the master archer was attuned to her, no matter what universe), and once Bucky, Kate and Lucky had corralled the kids outside again and Laura was up in the attic to get some Christmas decorations, he grabbed Nat by the arm and led her out the front door and some way down the road.

“You okay, Nat? I saw you and Kate exchange a look when I said I want to support Laura, so what’s up?”

“Nothing, Clint, it’s… it’s actually stupid, to be honest,” Natasha answered with a sigh.

“Hey, hey,” Clint took her face in both hands and tilted her head slightly back, all but forcing her to look him into the eye, “it troubles you, and therefore it’s not stupid. You’re way too smart for something like that. So, wanna try again? I guess it has to do with the version of me you know from your old world, right?”

“Yeah.” Nat heaved another sigh. “Remember when I told you that my Clint was a married family man?” Clint nodded. “Well, his wife also was named Laura, and the two older kids were named Cooper and Lila…” she trailed off.

“So you’re afraid you’re losing me the same way as you did with your Clint?” Now it was Natasha’s turn to nod. “No, darling, you won’t. Yeah, I want to support them, but I won’t move out here or anything like that. There’s a reason why I left the farm all those years ago, besides the fights with both my father and brother. I’m not exactly cut out for any kind of farm work, and I have too many good things waiting for me in the big city. And on top of that, I don’t want any old enemies come out here and threaten them, no matter how many security measures are at work here.” Natasha only raised an eyebrow at that. “Bucky spotted them while we drove up here, and told me when we went to bed that first night.”

“Oh, Laura also told me, this morning. She also figured it out that we all are working for the government.”

“Well, if there’s one thing my dear brother did right, it was marrying her. She’s whip smart, as far as I can tell.”

“Uncle Clint!!” Lila exclaimed while coming around the corner of the porch.

“Hey, pumpkin, what’s up?”

But instead of a verbal answer, Lila only pointed to the sky above them, and only then did both spies notice that it had started to snow. Maybe this would be a really merry and magical Christmas after all.

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The End

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