[Avengers: Fiction] "Fathers & Mothers" [Clint/Coulson, Pepper/Natasha, G]
Title: Fathers & Mothers
Rating: G
Word Count: 4,034
Fandom: Avengers (MCU/movie ‘verse)
Pairing(s): Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanoff (implied Thor/Jane Foster, Bruce Banner/Darcy Lewis)
Setting: part of my happy ‘verse
Summary: Pepper offers to carry a child for Clint and Phil, to convince Natasha that they’re ready for one of their own.
Fathers & Mothers
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to repeat that,” said Clint, because Pepper could not be saying what he thought she was saying.
She smiled at him, that slightly exasperated, slightly patronizing smile she seemed to reserve only for Clint and Tony, but always with so much genuine affection behind it that he could never be mad at her.
“I said,” Pepper repeated, “that I have put a lot of thought into it, and I am offering to be a surrogate for you and Phil, if and when you decide you want to start a family.”
“Pepper, that’s-” Phil began, unconsciously squeezing Clint’s hand where it was laced with his on the archer’s knee.
“No, I still don’t get it,” said Clint. “You and Natasha were talking to Bruce, about something about Steve, and that made you think about whether Phil and I wanted a baby?”
“Do you want a baby?” Natasha asked, blunt but not harsh. She was sitting on the arm of Pepper’s chair, just touching her wife’s shoulder, and looking evenly at both men.
“I-” Clint began, then finished softly, “I don’t know. I do want kids, but… I didn’t exactly have the best role models, growing up, you know?”
“I know,” said Phil, squeezing his hand on purpose this time. “And look how well you turned out, all on your own.”
Clint fought the urge to duck his head by darting in to kiss Phil, briefly. “Okay,” he said, turning back to the two redheads. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you would do it, Pepper. Wouldn’t… I mean, would it be too hard to give up a kid like that?”
“The baby would be yours, Clint, yours and Phil’s. That was what I was talking to Bruce about. He’s done a lot of genetics research, trying to figure out the Other Guy, and determining what the serum actually did to Steve, and with the advancements in general reproductive science…” She smiled. “And you’re my friends. I wouldn’t just be giving the baby away. I’d just be holding them, for their parents.”
Phil returned her smile. “Clearly, we need to talk about this,” he said. “But thank you for even offering.”
“You’re welcome,” said Pepper.
She kissed Phil’s cheek as she stood, Natasha’s hand brushing Clint’s shoulder, and they left.
“So,” said Clint, into the silence. “A baby.”
“Our baby,” said Phil, then frowned at the expression on Clint’s face. “What is it? We’ve talked about most of our options before, when we started talking about retiring from field work. We even specifically talked about surrogacy, so…”
“I don’t know,” Clint admitted. He turned Phil’s hand over in both of his own, feeling the familiar pattern of calluses beneath his fingertips. “When we talked about surrogacy, well, the only way it’s done is to use the mother’s eggs, her DNA, and I guess I just always assumed that the other half would be yours.”
“Clint-” Phil began.
“I know, you like the way I turned out. But my dad and Barney… I’ve got a lot of screwed up stuff in my family tree.”
“There’s still a lot of debate about nature and nurture, Clint,” said Phil. “But I know that, adopted or biological to either one of us, you will be an amazing father.”
Clint stared at their joined hands for a long moment, then said, “We won’t be able to start a family right away, even if Pepper is ready. I’ll need to start doing more training for a little while, get a few more of the junior agents up to- well, not my level of course, but, you know- before I can pull back to just emergency missions and being on-call for the Avengers. And then-”
“You want to stay home, full-time, with the baby?” Phil asked, surprised.
“I- yeah,” said Clint. “Why have a kid if you’re never going to be around? I can’t keep doing field missions forever, Phil, and I’d never be happy behind a desk, you know that.”
“I do know,” his husband agreed, smiling. “I have the paperwork to prove it. You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”
Clint nodded.
“There are still a lot more things we need to talk about,” said Phil. “But we… we’ve decided to do this?”
Clint grinned. “Let’s make a baby.”
*
Bruce was willing to do most of the preliminary and theoretical work, but he insisted on bringing in actual medical doctors once they moved onto more practical procedures. The doctors ran tests, then some more tests, then even more tests.
Clint finally had enough of the medical talk and headed for Avengers Tower’s practice room, where he was unsurprised to find Natasha already doing some stretches.
“Are you here for you or for me?” he asked.
She tilted her head, considering. “Both.”
“Okay.”
Natasha was already dressed in her regular work-out gear, so Clint skipped the changing room and just swapped his jeans for gym shorts- she had seen far worse than just his underwear- and joined her on the mat.
“So,” said Clint, because he was always the first one to talk. “My husband and I are going to knock up your wife.”
The corners of Natasha’s lips quirked upwards. “It sounds wrong when you say it like that.”
“I hope you and Pepper- especially Pepper- know how grateful we are,” he said, more seriously.
“We do,” said Natasha, and she spun into a kick that he just managed to dodge. “She’s offered to do this for the two of you, don’t think she hasn’t, but… I think she’s doing this for me, too.”
“For you?” he repeated. “Why?”
“Because Pepper wants us to have a baby.”
“What? That’s great! Isn’t that great? Why isn’t that great?”
“Because I don’t know what I am,” said Natasha, her voice hard. “You had a crappy childhood, Clint, but at least it was yours, at least you know you’re human.”
“Hey,” he said, catching her next punch and pulling her into a loose embrace. “You’re human, Nat. Just as human as me. And if you give Pepper a chance, she’ll prove it to you.”
Natasha nudged his ribs with her elbow, gently. “You just don’t want to be alone at your ‘Mommy and Me’ classes.”
“Hell, no,” he agreed, then softened. “I’d like it if our kids could grow up together.”
“Yeah…” she said.
*
“I know what we just heard,” said Pepper, as they left the doctor’s office after her latest check-up. “But I don’t feel pregnant. It doesn’t seem quite real yet.”
“It will very soon,” Phil told her, squeezing her hand. In his other, he carried a thick sheaf of dietary suggestions and other medical advice. “Pepper, I… we…”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling. Happy brought the car up to the curb, and Phil opened the door for her. “Home or the office?” she added, as he slid in beside her.
He smiled. “Home.”
They were both quiet for a moment, watching the New York traffic, then Pepper said, “I’m not just doing this for you and Clint. There’s… I have to admit, it’s a little selfish, too.”
“How is this in any way selfish?” Phil asked.
Pepper took his hand again, considering her words. In the decade since Phil had come back from the dead, there had been no personal secrets between the two of them- professional ones were an entirely different matter- but some things were just difficult to explain.
“I just never thought I’d have a family,” Pepper said at last. “I chose to focus on my career, and I have never regretted that. But I did wonder. It just never seemed possible. Stark Industries, and Tony, were my entire life, and even when Tony and I were dating, I couldn’t see either of us giving up enough work to raise a child.”
“And now?” Phil asked.
“And now… I have a family,” she said. “We’ve made the world a safer place, but I also have people I can call on now, if there’s an emergency at SI, or a call to Assemble, or God forbid, something happens to one of us.”
“Of course you can count on us,” said Phil, then paused. “Have you told Natasha any of this?”
Pepper bit her lip. “I wish there was something I could say. We’ve talked about children, but… there’s so much we don’t know about Tash’s childhood, and what we do know… We’ve been married for three years, Phil, and she still believes she’s incapable of love. And incapable of enough… enough humanity to raise a child.”
“What? Of course she’s human enough. In spite of- because of the things she’s been through, she’s a better person than…”
“I know that,” said Pepper. “And you know that. But Tash… she’s a wonderful aunt to Frigga Foster and all of Bruce and Darcy’s kids, but… it’s time for more drastic measures. Not that I wouldn’t have offered to do this anyway,” she added, quickly. “But, two birds, one stone.”
“You are very devious, sometimes, Miss Potts,” said Phil, smiling.
She smiled back. “Thank you, Director Coulson.”
*
“I learned very young not to want things I can’t have,” said Natasha.
Pepper sank onto the foot of their bed. “Tasha…”
“This,” the agent said, moving to take her wife’s hand, their wedding rings clinking together, “is more than I ever dreamed. But you’re… you were a strong person, your own person, long before you met me. I know you love me, Pepper, I do, but you knew what I am when we met, and you started this relationship with that understanding.”
“I do know what you are,” said Pepper. “You’re so many things, Tasha, not the least of which is that you’re my wife and the woman I love.”
“But I’m not just a woman, am I? I’m a weapon, and I shouldn’t-”
It was a mark of how upset Natasha was that she didn’t sense Pepper moving until the other woman wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight.
“What can I say, Tasha?” she asked, pleading. “What can I do to prove you wrong?”
Natasha slid a hand down her wife’s back, calluses catching on the silky fabric of Pepper’s nightgown. “I don’t know,” she said, in a small voice.
It was too early for Pepper to be showing yet, but pressed together like this, Natasha could feel the slight swell to her middle, where Clint and Phil’s child was growing.
“It’s time for us both to be selfish,” Pepper said. “We’ve earned it.”
“I want to,” said Natasha. “You… you’re glowing, Pepper, and you have no idea how much I’d love to see you like that while you’re carrying our child, but-”
Pepper interrupted her with a kiss, threading her fingers through her wife’s hair until Natasha relaxed against her.
“This is something you can have,” Pepper said, firmly. “This is something I want to give you, and this is something I want for myself.” She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. “Natasha Romanoff, I want to have your babies.”
One corner of Natasha’s mouth quirked up into a smile and she leaned in to kiss Pepper briefly. “I’m not saying ‘yes’,” she said. “But I’m not saying ‘no’.”
“I’ll take it,” said Pepper.
*
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Clint asked.
Pepper gave him a look from the other side of her large desk. “Clint…”
By the time she’d gotten to the end of her first trimester, Clint had begun easing out of active field missions for SHIELD, and one morning Pepper had arrived at work to find Clint, wearing a crisp suit and leaning against her assistant’s desk, already carrying a stack of interoffice mail. Her first instinct had been to thank him for the thought and send him home, but Clint was almost unnaturally gifted at appearing when she needed something and vanishing when she was busy.
Except for right now.
“I’m fine, Clint,” said Pepper. “Really.”
“Because I can stay,” said Clint. “I could bring you something. Coffee? No, you’re not drinking coffee. Juice? Juice is good. I’ll bring you one of those smoothies you and Nat always-”
Pepper caught his arm, gently. “I’m fine, Clint,” she repeated. She rose to walk with him to the office door, missing the click of her high heels since she’d switched to more practical shoes. “And as much as several members of my staff no doubt appreciate the opportunity to ogle you in that waistcoat-”
“What?” Clint interrupted, but she ignored him- she was happily married, but she wasn’t above a little ogling herself.
“-really, I only have some reading to do this afternoon, reports and assessments to go over, so I honestly don’t need anything.”
“Oh,” said Clint. “I didn’t mean to bother you, it’s just… I feel kind of useless. Normally, I’d have missions, or I’d sit in Phil’s office and read or clean my weapons or something while he does his paperwork. But there’s no missions for me, and Phil and Nat are still out on theirs.”
Pepper smiled. “You can read while I go through my reports,” she said. “But I don’t want to see any weapons.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Clint.
He was so often in motion that she was a little surprised to look up from her paperwork a few hours later and find Clint in the same position, halfway through the battered paperback he’d pulled from the briefcase she knew actually contained his back-up bow.
Clint noticed her attention immediately. “Everything okay?”
Pepper smiled. “I- Oh!”
“What?” said Clint, shooting to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, the baby- oh!- just kicked.”
“Kicked?” the archer repeated. “But the docs said it probably wouldn’t happen for another couple of weeks.”
“Babies aren’t known for listening to doctors,” said Pepper. She held out a hand. “Come and feel.”
Clint let himself be pulled around the desk and rested his palm against her rounded middle. “Hey,” he said, grinning. “She’s kind of feisty, isn’t she?”
“She?” Pepper repeated, arching an eyebrow.
He ducked his head a little, but didn’t move his hand. “I’m hoping.”
She smiled. “You’re really looking forward to being a father.”
“Yeah,” said Clint. “I mean, I’m terrified, of course, but… I want the chance to do better than I had as a kid. I won’t be able to shoot arrows at things forever, and I want to have something more to do, to be, when I can’t be Hawkeye anymore.”
“I have a feeling you’ll never be able to completely give up being Hawkeye,” said Pepper. “But I think I understand what you mean.”
*
“Well, that could have gone better,” said Phil. He closed the motel room door behind them and sank onto the foot of the bed, which groaned in protest.
“It couldn’t have gone much worse,” Natasha told him, already doing a sweep of the room that was as much habit as necessity- they hadn’t left anyone in any condition to come after them.
“All of our people made it out in one piece. I’ll count that as a victory every time.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Some of us in better-off pieces than others.”
“I’m fine,” said Phil.
“Then, clearly, you’ve been married to Clint too long, because you’re using his definition of ‘fine’ You were shot, Phil. I saw the blood.”
“It was only a graze,” he protested, but he rolled up the leg of his suit pants to let her look.
“I should still clean it,” said Natasha, “so you don’t die of infection before we get you back to your husband and baby.”
“Extraction is in less than two hours,” said Phil, as she pulled the first aid kit out of their gear. “Even if I did get an infection, I couldn’t die from it in such a short time.”
Natasha, whose sense of humor had always been a little more sophisticated than his or Clint’s, was perhaps less precise with the peroxide than she could have been. “You need to be more careful,” she said, smoothing a bandage over the graze wound, which had already mostly stopped bleeding. “You’re the director now, Phil, not just a field agent. And you’re going to be a father.”
“It doesn’t make it any worse, you know,” said Phil, resting his hand lightly on her wrist. “Having two people waiting for you, instead of just one.”
She didn’t pretend not to understand. “You mean having two people to leave behind.”
“That, too,” he agreed, softly. “But it goes both ways, Natasha. This is the first time I’ve been an active part of an op in years.”
Since he’d become director and they’d rebuilt SHIELD, Phil had taken a step back from direct field work, although he hadn’t been able to give up overseeing operations from a safe distance and being the reassuring voice in Clint’s ear.
“Clint is usually the one out there, taking risks,” he continued. “And I’ve learned to live with that, wondering every time I send him out if I’ll lose him forever. Except now… now, even if the worst happens, a part of Clint will still be alive.”
“And that makes it better?” Natasha asked.
“Better? No. But maybe, in the long run, easier to bear.” Phil smiled. “Pepper loves you. Would you really want to leave her all alone if something happened to you?”
“That is a pathetic attempt at emotional manipulation, Coulson.”
“It is,” he agreed, easily. “Is it working?”
Natasha sighed. “Yes.” She paused. “Why is it that you- not just you and Pepper and Clint, but all of you- are all so sure that I’d even be any good at being a mother?”
“Because you are capable of anything for the people you love,” Phil told her, honestly, and smiled at her disbelieving expression. “Talk to Pepper.”
She smiled. “I will.”
*
“A girl,” Clint repeated, as a nurse took the baby to be checked out and cleaned up. “Pepper-”
“He means thank you,” said Phil, squeezing her hand, gently. “And so do I.”
Pepper smiled, tired and flushed, but still glowingly beautiful. “Any time, boys.”
Natasha half-sitting on the bed behind her, pressed a kiss to her wife’s temple. “Let’s see how they do with this one first,” she said.
Then the nurse was back, carrying a pink-wrapped bundle. “Who gets to hold her first?”
“Pepper,” said Clint and Phil together, and before she could protest, the baby had been settled carefully into her arms.
“Oh,” Pepper breathed. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“She’s a redhead,” said Clint, brushing gentle fingers over the fuzz of red-gold hair. “But you’re not really- I mean, biologically-”
“My mom was a redhead,” said Phil, as Pepper carefully handed him the baby. “She’s got your eyes, Clint.”
“That may change as she gets older,” the doctor said, offering the newborn her fingers to grasp. “And does this little lady have a name?”
Phil smiled. “Frances Virginia Coulson. We’re going to call her Frankie.”
“I’ll go finish up Frankie’s paperwork, then,” said the Doctor, and left.
“I still don’t see why you wanted to name her after me,” Clint said, softly, leaning on Phil’s shoulder. “Pepper, sure, but…”
He trailed off as Phil transferred their daughter into his arms.
“Because you insisted on giving her just my last name,” Phil said. “She ought to have one of your names, too.”
For once, Clint didn’t argue, he just nodded, eyes fixed on Frankie. After a long moment, he swallowed hard and said, “It’s your turn to hold her, Nat.”
Natasha was still sitting on Pepper’s bed, running her fingers through her wife’s hair, and she stiffened. “Clint, she’s barely five minutes old,” she protested.
But Frankie had turned toward the sound of her voice, and Natasha didn’t object when Clint gently slid the baby into her arms.
“Oh,” said Natasha, on a breath.
She looked up at Clint, looking more openly vulnerable than she had since he’d had a gun on her and refused to take the shot.
“Nat?” he asked.
“Aren’t you terrified?” she asked, quietly.
“Hell, yes,” said Clint, fingers barely touching his daughter’s hair, his other hand curled around Natasha’s elbow. “I’m beyond terrified. She’s going to start walking and running and climbing trees and falling out of trees and-”
“Interesting that’s where your mind goes first,” Phil said, dryly.
Clint ignored him. “She’s going to keep us up at night, and make huge messes, and learn terrible habits from our whole family, let’s be honest, and… and I can’t wait.”
Natasha looked down at Frankie for a long moment, then slid the baby back into Clint’s arms and moved to press her forehead against Pepper’s temple. “You really want to do this again? Maternity suits, swollen ankles, delivery…?”
“With you?” said Pepper. “Yes.”
Her wife took a deep breath. “We’ll have to wait a year. Maybe two.”
Pepper smiled and kissed her. “Okay.”
*
“Indeed,” said Thor. “I would greatly enjoy more delicious tea.”
He was seated at a child-sized table, holding out a small teacup to his seven-year-old daughter, Frigga. She poured him another serving of weak, room temperature tea, then did the same for the four-year-old Banner twins and almost-two-year-old Frankie.
“Hey, any room for one more?” asked Clint, smiling.
“Of course, Uncle Clint,” said Frigga, in her ‘princess of Asgard’ voice- usually, she spoke like a native New Yorker, but she could put on her father’s accent when she wanted to. “Join us.”
He grinned and dropped to sit beside Frankie, who immediately climbed into his lap. “Hey, table manners, kiddo,” he laughed, but didn’t try to move her.
“Agent Barton,” said JARVIS’s voice. “I have been instructed to request that you meet the arriving party in the family entrance lobby.”
Clint grinned. “Okay, tea party over. Are you guys ready to meet your new cousin?”
The twins made identical disgusted faces. “A new cousin?” Danni asked.
“Aren’t there enough of us?” asked Andy.
Thor laughed and scooped him up, then Danni, swinging them both onto his shoulders. “No family is too large that contains so much love. Is that not right, Clint?”
“Right back at’cha, big guy,” said Clint. He let Frankie climb up his leg, then hoisted her onto his hip and held out his hand to Frigga. “C’mon, kids.”
Bruce and Darcy joined them in the elevator with six-year-old Brianna, and Jane hurried from the direction of the labs, pinning up her hair with a well-chewed pencil.
They could hear Tony even before the door from the garage opened, “…sure you should be walking, Pep? There’s got to be a wheelchair, somewhere, or… or Steve could carry you.”
“I’m fine, Tony,” said Pepper, as they came into the lobby, then she smiled. “You didn’t all have to come down to meet us.”
“But we wanted to see the baby,” said Brianna, and Frigga nodded.
Natasha carefully shifted their newborn son so that the girls could see him. “His name is John,” she said.
“John Natashovich Potts,” said Pepper. “That’s terrible Russian, I know, but it sounds right.”
“I wanna see!” Frankie whined, and Clint moved to stand beside Natasha. His daughter peered at her brand new cousin for a long moment, then poked gently at a tiny hand with her not-much-bigger one.
“He has red hair, like me,” she said. “Is that because we have the same mommy?”
“Not quite, pumpkin,” said Phil, smiling, and tweaked her red-gold pigtail.
Frankie wriggled in Clint’s arms until he loosened his grip enough for her to swing herself onto Phil’s shoulders- making Clint start to worry about that ‘falling out of trees’ thing- and Clint sidled up to Natasha as she passed John back to Pepper.
“So,” said Clint, “how’s the other mother?”
Natasha smiled. “Terrified. Does it get better?”
He glanced over to where Frankie was using Phil’s tie as an anchor to lean over and try to grab Thor’s hair.
“Yes and no,” said Clint. “But you’ll enjoy it.”
Natasha followed his gaze to their entire family, surrounding its newest member with nothing but love and welcome.
“Yeah,” she said softly, bumping his shoulder. “I think I do.”
THE END
Current Mood:
mellow
Rating: G
Word Count: 4,034
Fandom: Avengers (MCU/movie ‘verse)
Pairing(s): Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanoff (implied Thor/Jane Foster, Bruce Banner/Darcy Lewis)
Setting: part of my happy ‘verse
Summary: Pepper offers to carry a child for Clint and Phil, to convince Natasha that they’re ready for one of their own.
Fathers & Mothers
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to repeat that,” said Clint, because Pepper could not be saying what he thought she was saying.
She smiled at him, that slightly exasperated, slightly patronizing smile she seemed to reserve only for Clint and Tony, but always with so much genuine affection behind it that he could never be mad at her.
“I said,” Pepper repeated, “that I have put a lot of thought into it, and I am offering to be a surrogate for you and Phil, if and when you decide you want to start a family.”
“Pepper, that’s-” Phil began, unconsciously squeezing Clint’s hand where it was laced with his on the archer’s knee.
“No, I still don’t get it,” said Clint. “You and Natasha were talking to Bruce, about something about Steve, and that made you think about whether Phil and I wanted a baby?”
“Do you want a baby?” Natasha asked, blunt but not harsh. She was sitting on the arm of Pepper’s chair, just touching her wife’s shoulder, and looking evenly at both men.
“I-” Clint began, then finished softly, “I don’t know. I do want kids, but… I didn’t exactly have the best role models, growing up, you know?”
“I know,” said Phil, squeezing his hand on purpose this time. “And look how well you turned out, all on your own.”
Clint fought the urge to duck his head by darting in to kiss Phil, briefly. “Okay,” he said, turning back to the two redheads. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you would do it, Pepper. Wouldn’t… I mean, would it be too hard to give up a kid like that?”
“The baby would be yours, Clint, yours and Phil’s. That was what I was talking to Bruce about. He’s done a lot of genetics research, trying to figure out the Other Guy, and determining what the serum actually did to Steve, and with the advancements in general reproductive science…” She smiled. “And you’re my friends. I wouldn’t just be giving the baby away. I’d just be holding them, for their parents.”
Phil returned her smile. “Clearly, we need to talk about this,” he said. “But thank you for even offering.”
“You’re welcome,” said Pepper.
She kissed Phil’s cheek as she stood, Natasha’s hand brushing Clint’s shoulder, and they left.
“So,” said Clint, into the silence. “A baby.”
“Our baby,” said Phil, then frowned at the expression on Clint’s face. “What is it? We’ve talked about most of our options before, when we started talking about retiring from field work. We even specifically talked about surrogacy, so…”
“I don’t know,” Clint admitted. He turned Phil’s hand over in both of his own, feeling the familiar pattern of calluses beneath his fingertips. “When we talked about surrogacy, well, the only way it’s done is to use the mother’s eggs, her DNA, and I guess I just always assumed that the other half would be yours.”
“Clint-” Phil began.
“I know, you like the way I turned out. But my dad and Barney… I’ve got a lot of screwed up stuff in my family tree.”
“There’s still a lot of debate about nature and nurture, Clint,” said Phil. “But I know that, adopted or biological to either one of us, you will be an amazing father.”
Clint stared at their joined hands for a long moment, then said, “We won’t be able to start a family right away, even if Pepper is ready. I’ll need to start doing more training for a little while, get a few more of the junior agents up to- well, not my level of course, but, you know- before I can pull back to just emergency missions and being on-call for the Avengers. And then-”
“You want to stay home, full-time, with the baby?” Phil asked, surprised.
“I- yeah,” said Clint. “Why have a kid if you’re never going to be around? I can’t keep doing field missions forever, Phil, and I’d never be happy behind a desk, you know that.”
“I do know,” his husband agreed, smiling. “I have the paperwork to prove it. You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”
Clint nodded.
“There are still a lot more things we need to talk about,” said Phil. “But we… we’ve decided to do this?”
Clint grinned. “Let’s make a baby.”
*
Bruce was willing to do most of the preliminary and theoretical work, but he insisted on bringing in actual medical doctors once they moved onto more practical procedures. The doctors ran tests, then some more tests, then even more tests.
Clint finally had enough of the medical talk and headed for Avengers Tower’s practice room, where he was unsurprised to find Natasha already doing some stretches.
“Are you here for you or for me?” he asked.
She tilted her head, considering. “Both.”
“Okay.”
Natasha was already dressed in her regular work-out gear, so Clint skipped the changing room and just swapped his jeans for gym shorts- she had seen far worse than just his underwear- and joined her on the mat.
“So,” said Clint, because he was always the first one to talk. “My husband and I are going to knock up your wife.”
The corners of Natasha’s lips quirked upwards. “It sounds wrong when you say it like that.”
“I hope you and Pepper- especially Pepper- know how grateful we are,” he said, more seriously.
“We do,” said Natasha, and she spun into a kick that he just managed to dodge. “She’s offered to do this for the two of you, don’t think she hasn’t, but… I think she’s doing this for me, too.”
“For you?” he repeated. “Why?”
“Because Pepper wants us to have a baby.”
“What? That’s great! Isn’t that great? Why isn’t that great?”
“Because I don’t know what I am,” said Natasha, her voice hard. “You had a crappy childhood, Clint, but at least it was yours, at least you know you’re human.”
“Hey,” he said, catching her next punch and pulling her into a loose embrace. “You’re human, Nat. Just as human as me. And if you give Pepper a chance, she’ll prove it to you.”
Natasha nudged his ribs with her elbow, gently. “You just don’t want to be alone at your ‘Mommy and Me’ classes.”
“Hell, no,” he agreed, then softened. “I’d like it if our kids could grow up together.”
“Yeah…” she said.
*
“I know what we just heard,” said Pepper, as they left the doctor’s office after her latest check-up. “But I don’t feel pregnant. It doesn’t seem quite real yet.”
“It will very soon,” Phil told her, squeezing her hand. In his other, he carried a thick sheaf of dietary suggestions and other medical advice. “Pepper, I… we…”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling. Happy brought the car up to the curb, and Phil opened the door for her. “Home or the office?” she added, as he slid in beside her.
He smiled. “Home.”
They were both quiet for a moment, watching the New York traffic, then Pepper said, “I’m not just doing this for you and Clint. There’s… I have to admit, it’s a little selfish, too.”
“How is this in any way selfish?” Phil asked.
Pepper took his hand again, considering her words. In the decade since Phil had come back from the dead, there had been no personal secrets between the two of them- professional ones were an entirely different matter- but some things were just difficult to explain.
“I just never thought I’d have a family,” Pepper said at last. “I chose to focus on my career, and I have never regretted that. But I did wonder. It just never seemed possible. Stark Industries, and Tony, were my entire life, and even when Tony and I were dating, I couldn’t see either of us giving up enough work to raise a child.”
“And now?” Phil asked.
“And now… I have a family,” she said. “We’ve made the world a safer place, but I also have people I can call on now, if there’s an emergency at SI, or a call to Assemble, or God forbid, something happens to one of us.”
“Of course you can count on us,” said Phil, then paused. “Have you told Natasha any of this?”
Pepper bit her lip. “I wish there was something I could say. We’ve talked about children, but… there’s so much we don’t know about Tash’s childhood, and what we do know… We’ve been married for three years, Phil, and she still believes she’s incapable of love. And incapable of enough… enough humanity to raise a child.”
“What? Of course she’s human enough. In spite of- because of the things she’s been through, she’s a better person than…”
“I know that,” said Pepper. “And you know that. But Tash… she’s a wonderful aunt to Frigga Foster and all of Bruce and Darcy’s kids, but… it’s time for more drastic measures. Not that I wouldn’t have offered to do this anyway,” she added, quickly. “But, two birds, one stone.”
“You are very devious, sometimes, Miss Potts,” said Phil, smiling.
She smiled back. “Thank you, Director Coulson.”
*
“I learned very young not to want things I can’t have,” said Natasha.
Pepper sank onto the foot of their bed. “Tasha…”
“This,” the agent said, moving to take her wife’s hand, their wedding rings clinking together, “is more than I ever dreamed. But you’re… you were a strong person, your own person, long before you met me. I know you love me, Pepper, I do, but you knew what I am when we met, and you started this relationship with that understanding.”
“I do know what you are,” said Pepper. “You’re so many things, Tasha, not the least of which is that you’re my wife and the woman I love.”
“But I’m not just a woman, am I? I’m a weapon, and I shouldn’t-”
It was a mark of how upset Natasha was that she didn’t sense Pepper moving until the other woman wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight.
“What can I say, Tasha?” she asked, pleading. “What can I do to prove you wrong?”
Natasha slid a hand down her wife’s back, calluses catching on the silky fabric of Pepper’s nightgown. “I don’t know,” she said, in a small voice.
It was too early for Pepper to be showing yet, but pressed together like this, Natasha could feel the slight swell to her middle, where Clint and Phil’s child was growing.
“It’s time for us both to be selfish,” Pepper said. “We’ve earned it.”
“I want to,” said Natasha. “You… you’re glowing, Pepper, and you have no idea how much I’d love to see you like that while you’re carrying our child, but-”
Pepper interrupted her with a kiss, threading her fingers through her wife’s hair until Natasha relaxed against her.
“This is something you can have,” Pepper said, firmly. “This is something I want to give you, and this is something I want for myself.” She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. “Natasha Romanoff, I want to have your babies.”
One corner of Natasha’s mouth quirked up into a smile and she leaned in to kiss Pepper briefly. “I’m not saying ‘yes’,” she said. “But I’m not saying ‘no’.”
“I’ll take it,” said Pepper.
*
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Clint asked.
Pepper gave him a look from the other side of her large desk. “Clint…”
By the time she’d gotten to the end of her first trimester, Clint had begun easing out of active field missions for SHIELD, and one morning Pepper had arrived at work to find Clint, wearing a crisp suit and leaning against her assistant’s desk, already carrying a stack of interoffice mail. Her first instinct had been to thank him for the thought and send him home, but Clint was almost unnaturally gifted at appearing when she needed something and vanishing when she was busy.
Except for right now.
“I’m fine, Clint,” said Pepper. “Really.”
“Because I can stay,” said Clint. “I could bring you something. Coffee? No, you’re not drinking coffee. Juice? Juice is good. I’ll bring you one of those smoothies you and Nat always-”
Pepper caught his arm, gently. “I’m fine, Clint,” she repeated. She rose to walk with him to the office door, missing the click of her high heels since she’d switched to more practical shoes. “And as much as several members of my staff no doubt appreciate the opportunity to ogle you in that waistcoat-”
“What?” Clint interrupted, but she ignored him- she was happily married, but she wasn’t above a little ogling herself.
“-really, I only have some reading to do this afternoon, reports and assessments to go over, so I honestly don’t need anything.”
“Oh,” said Clint. “I didn’t mean to bother you, it’s just… I feel kind of useless. Normally, I’d have missions, or I’d sit in Phil’s office and read or clean my weapons or something while he does his paperwork. But there’s no missions for me, and Phil and Nat are still out on theirs.”
Pepper smiled. “You can read while I go through my reports,” she said. “But I don’t want to see any weapons.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Clint.
He was so often in motion that she was a little surprised to look up from her paperwork a few hours later and find Clint in the same position, halfway through the battered paperback he’d pulled from the briefcase she knew actually contained his back-up bow.
Clint noticed her attention immediately. “Everything okay?”
Pepper smiled. “I- Oh!”
“What?” said Clint, shooting to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, the baby- oh!- just kicked.”
“Kicked?” the archer repeated. “But the docs said it probably wouldn’t happen for another couple of weeks.”
“Babies aren’t known for listening to doctors,” said Pepper. She held out a hand. “Come and feel.”
Clint let himself be pulled around the desk and rested his palm against her rounded middle. “Hey,” he said, grinning. “She’s kind of feisty, isn’t she?”
“She?” Pepper repeated, arching an eyebrow.
He ducked his head a little, but didn’t move his hand. “I’m hoping.”
She smiled. “You’re really looking forward to being a father.”
“Yeah,” said Clint. “I mean, I’m terrified, of course, but… I want the chance to do better than I had as a kid. I won’t be able to shoot arrows at things forever, and I want to have something more to do, to be, when I can’t be Hawkeye anymore.”
“I have a feeling you’ll never be able to completely give up being Hawkeye,” said Pepper. “But I think I understand what you mean.”
*
“Well, that could have gone better,” said Phil. He closed the motel room door behind them and sank onto the foot of the bed, which groaned in protest.
“It couldn’t have gone much worse,” Natasha told him, already doing a sweep of the room that was as much habit as necessity- they hadn’t left anyone in any condition to come after them.
“All of our people made it out in one piece. I’ll count that as a victory every time.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Some of us in better-off pieces than others.”
“I’m fine,” said Phil.
“Then, clearly, you’ve been married to Clint too long, because you’re using his definition of ‘fine’ You were shot, Phil. I saw the blood.”
“It was only a graze,” he protested, but he rolled up the leg of his suit pants to let her look.
“I should still clean it,” said Natasha, “so you don’t die of infection before we get you back to your husband and baby.”
“Extraction is in less than two hours,” said Phil, as she pulled the first aid kit out of their gear. “Even if I did get an infection, I couldn’t die from it in such a short time.”
Natasha, whose sense of humor had always been a little more sophisticated than his or Clint’s, was perhaps less precise with the peroxide than she could have been. “You need to be more careful,” she said, smoothing a bandage over the graze wound, which had already mostly stopped bleeding. “You’re the director now, Phil, not just a field agent. And you’re going to be a father.”
“It doesn’t make it any worse, you know,” said Phil, resting his hand lightly on her wrist. “Having two people waiting for you, instead of just one.”
She didn’t pretend not to understand. “You mean having two people to leave behind.”
“That, too,” he agreed, softly. “But it goes both ways, Natasha. This is the first time I’ve been an active part of an op in years.”
Since he’d become director and they’d rebuilt SHIELD, Phil had taken a step back from direct field work, although he hadn’t been able to give up overseeing operations from a safe distance and being the reassuring voice in Clint’s ear.
“Clint is usually the one out there, taking risks,” he continued. “And I’ve learned to live with that, wondering every time I send him out if I’ll lose him forever. Except now… now, even if the worst happens, a part of Clint will still be alive.”
“And that makes it better?” Natasha asked.
“Better? No. But maybe, in the long run, easier to bear.” Phil smiled. “Pepper loves you. Would you really want to leave her all alone if something happened to you?”
“That is a pathetic attempt at emotional manipulation, Coulson.”
“It is,” he agreed, easily. “Is it working?”
Natasha sighed. “Yes.” She paused. “Why is it that you- not just you and Pepper and Clint, but all of you- are all so sure that I’d even be any good at being a mother?”
“Because you are capable of anything for the people you love,” Phil told her, honestly, and smiled at her disbelieving expression. “Talk to Pepper.”
She smiled. “I will.”
*
“A girl,” Clint repeated, as a nurse took the baby to be checked out and cleaned up. “Pepper-”
“He means thank you,” said Phil, squeezing her hand, gently. “And so do I.”
Pepper smiled, tired and flushed, but still glowingly beautiful. “Any time, boys.”
Natasha half-sitting on the bed behind her, pressed a kiss to her wife’s temple. “Let’s see how they do with this one first,” she said.
Then the nurse was back, carrying a pink-wrapped bundle. “Who gets to hold her first?”
“Pepper,” said Clint and Phil together, and before she could protest, the baby had been settled carefully into her arms.
“Oh,” Pepper breathed. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“She’s a redhead,” said Clint, brushing gentle fingers over the fuzz of red-gold hair. “But you’re not really- I mean, biologically-”
“My mom was a redhead,” said Phil, as Pepper carefully handed him the baby. “She’s got your eyes, Clint.”
“That may change as she gets older,” the doctor said, offering the newborn her fingers to grasp. “And does this little lady have a name?”
Phil smiled. “Frances Virginia Coulson. We’re going to call her Frankie.”
“I’ll go finish up Frankie’s paperwork, then,” said the Doctor, and left.
“I still don’t see why you wanted to name her after me,” Clint said, softly, leaning on Phil’s shoulder. “Pepper, sure, but…”
He trailed off as Phil transferred their daughter into his arms.
“Because you insisted on giving her just my last name,” Phil said. “She ought to have one of your names, too.”
For once, Clint didn’t argue, he just nodded, eyes fixed on Frankie. After a long moment, he swallowed hard and said, “It’s your turn to hold her, Nat.”
Natasha was still sitting on Pepper’s bed, running her fingers through her wife’s hair, and she stiffened. “Clint, she’s barely five minutes old,” she protested.
But Frankie had turned toward the sound of her voice, and Natasha didn’t object when Clint gently slid the baby into her arms.
“Oh,” said Natasha, on a breath.
She looked up at Clint, looking more openly vulnerable than she had since he’d had a gun on her and refused to take the shot.
“Nat?” he asked.
“Aren’t you terrified?” she asked, quietly.
“Hell, yes,” said Clint, fingers barely touching his daughter’s hair, his other hand curled around Natasha’s elbow. “I’m beyond terrified. She’s going to start walking and running and climbing trees and falling out of trees and-”
“Interesting that’s where your mind goes first,” Phil said, dryly.
Clint ignored him. “She’s going to keep us up at night, and make huge messes, and learn terrible habits from our whole family, let’s be honest, and… and I can’t wait.”
Natasha looked down at Frankie for a long moment, then slid the baby back into Clint’s arms and moved to press her forehead against Pepper’s temple. “You really want to do this again? Maternity suits, swollen ankles, delivery…?”
“With you?” said Pepper. “Yes.”
Her wife took a deep breath. “We’ll have to wait a year. Maybe two.”
Pepper smiled and kissed her. “Okay.”
*
“Indeed,” said Thor. “I would greatly enjoy more delicious tea.”
He was seated at a child-sized table, holding out a small teacup to his seven-year-old daughter, Frigga. She poured him another serving of weak, room temperature tea, then did the same for the four-year-old Banner twins and almost-two-year-old Frankie.
“Hey, any room for one more?” asked Clint, smiling.
“Of course, Uncle Clint,” said Frigga, in her ‘princess of Asgard’ voice- usually, she spoke like a native New Yorker, but she could put on her father’s accent when she wanted to. “Join us.”
He grinned and dropped to sit beside Frankie, who immediately climbed into his lap. “Hey, table manners, kiddo,” he laughed, but didn’t try to move her.
“Agent Barton,” said JARVIS’s voice. “I have been instructed to request that you meet the arriving party in the family entrance lobby.”
Clint grinned. “Okay, tea party over. Are you guys ready to meet your new cousin?”
The twins made identical disgusted faces. “A new cousin?” Danni asked.
“Aren’t there enough of us?” asked Andy.
Thor laughed and scooped him up, then Danni, swinging them both onto his shoulders. “No family is too large that contains so much love. Is that not right, Clint?”
“Right back at’cha, big guy,” said Clint. He let Frankie climb up his leg, then hoisted her onto his hip and held out his hand to Frigga. “C’mon, kids.”
Bruce and Darcy joined them in the elevator with six-year-old Brianna, and Jane hurried from the direction of the labs, pinning up her hair with a well-chewed pencil.
They could hear Tony even before the door from the garage opened, “…sure you should be walking, Pep? There’s got to be a wheelchair, somewhere, or… or Steve could carry you.”
“I’m fine, Tony,” said Pepper, as they came into the lobby, then she smiled. “You didn’t all have to come down to meet us.”
“But we wanted to see the baby,” said Brianna, and Frigga nodded.
Natasha carefully shifted their newborn son so that the girls could see him. “His name is John,” she said.
“John Natashovich Potts,” said Pepper. “That’s terrible Russian, I know, but it sounds right.”
“I wanna see!” Frankie whined, and Clint moved to stand beside Natasha. His daughter peered at her brand new cousin for a long moment, then poked gently at a tiny hand with her not-much-bigger one.
“He has red hair, like me,” she said. “Is that because we have the same mommy?”
“Not quite, pumpkin,” said Phil, smiling, and tweaked her red-gold pigtail.
Frankie wriggled in Clint’s arms until he loosened his grip enough for her to swing herself onto Phil’s shoulders- making Clint start to worry about that ‘falling out of trees’ thing- and Clint sidled up to Natasha as she passed John back to Pepper.
“So,” said Clint, “how’s the other mother?”
Natasha smiled. “Terrified. Does it get better?”
He glanced over to where Frankie was using Phil’s tie as an anchor to lean over and try to grab Thor’s hair.
“Yes and no,” said Clint. “But you’ll enjoy it.”
Natasha followed his gaze to their entire family, surrounding its newest member with nothing but love and welcome.
“Yeah,” she said softly, bumping his shoulder. “I think I do.”
THE END
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