ye be warned...this is going to hurt...

"Avenge Me" the prequel

:(:):(:):

The mission turned out, as one might construe, and success. The bad guy had been caught by yours truly, Natasha walked away unscathed, and I had been slammed into the side of a brick building with enough force to snap my wrist. One of the field Pop Tents on the other side of LA fixed me up and Fury felt I deserved a trip home. I wasn't about to disagree. Laura reached a little over five months into baby number five and I wanted to get home to her and Coop more than anything in the world. Natasha planned to spoil my, now kindergarten aged, boy and give me and boss ma'am a chance to sleep in. No one in their right mind declined such an offer.

I walked into the house, nursing the cast adorning half of my left forearm. Natasha stood at my right side, guiding me in. It wasn't like I had a broken leg, she just couldn't help poking fun at me some days. All right, most days. I entertained her good will and edged the front door shut behind us. I called ahead and let Laura know we were on our way sometime earlier that day. I also told her not to wait up. We didn't get off the plane until midnight and the drive from the airport home took at least two hours. All I wanted was to sneak upstairs, kiss my little boy, and jump in bed.

Having kids never came easy for us. We lost two babies, Lillian and Callie, at six months of pregnancy after five attempts at IVF. Cooper came as a complete, welcome, surprise. He kicked like an angry mule the entire pregnancy. The birth went fantastic. I even had the time off to see it first hand, pass out in the labor/delivery room, break my nose, and regain consciousness in time to cut Cooper's umbilical cord. I admit it, I cried more than my newborn baby. Natasha said I was being ridiculous, but I saw a tear in her eye whether she cared to admit it or not. Fury visited us in the hospital bearing a baby blanket. I never knew him capable of a tender touch. I guess babies changed a lot of people.

After Cooper came thrashing into the world, I was hooked. I wanted more. A whole football team of them. I wanted a herd of babies with my DNA running crazy all over the Barton family farm. For my benefit, Laura agreed. We started right away, and taking hold of a great run, she got pregnant the year after Cooper. We were ecstatic. Fury was not. I needed time off, and he wouldn't give it. Laura and I both knew after the trouble from the first two, Laura risked losing this new one anytime in the last trimester. I wanted to make sure I could be there just in case the worst happened. I never told anyone about losing those first two babies. Admitting it to him, hurt.

His entire expression changed then. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but not sure what. There weren't many things you can say to someone who suffered through two miscarriages. It took a bit of doing, but somehow he managed to give me four weeks off. It felt like winning the lottery.

Baby Natalia came screaming into the world nine months later. Natasha had been away, taking up my slack in the field. We didn't tell her about our fist, full term little girl because we wanted to surprised her at the airport one day. A baby named after her. We both loved the idea and knew she would too. Keeping a secret like that wasn't easy. Natasha was the queen of rooting out information wherever it might hide and she had become an expert about getting it from me. There were a solid three months before last trimester where Nat and I enjoyed a respite in West Berlin. Every single day she pried me about where my mind was. I could only sit there and grin.

Natalia died at seven weeks of age. We don't know why. She was perfect, healthy, beautiful blue eyed baby with my hair, her mother's ears, and ten perfect toes and fingers. The doctors labeled it SIDS as if it somehow would make us feel better to have a reason that literally meant nothing. We never told Natasha about her. It hurt us too much to think about. After Natalia, we stopped trying. The heartache broke us.

This time around, Natasha found out by chance. We didn't plan Laura's surprise pregnancy and after so many difficulties in the past, we tried to not think about it as seriously as with Cooper and Natalia. She sent me a text one day, letting me know the test result. Natasha had been holding my phone and she almost lost her mind.

"MINE!" she boldly declared, texting Laura frantically. "This one is mine! Little girl. I know it! Named after me." She shot a narrowed gaze at me. "And don't you dare try and disagree."

I wanted to tell her then, but didn't have the words. As hard as it is for someone to find a kind word for parents who had lost three babies in five years, it was even harder for a parent to talk about it. She seemed so happy. She couldn't haven't her own and over time decided to live vicariously through our own good fortune. I wondered if this time was going to be different.

Walking into our house, all Natasha wanted to do was go upstairs and poke the growing belly. Laura never dissuaded her, despite the obvious disconnect I saw in my wife with the child growing day by day. Neither of us wanted to get too attached. It was a horrible prospect. We learned to live with it.

The scream split the air the minute our front door shut. Natasha launched backward against me. She reached for her gun, she'd taken it off and left it unloaded in the cab. My heart plummeted right down to my boots.

"CLINT!" Laura screamed again. It came from upstairs. I pushed away from my long time partner and thundered up the steps, taking them two, three at a time. The entire way my heart thudded harder and harder. I knew that sound. I knew the way she called to me now was the same way she'd done three times before. I felt an invisible knife dig its way into my middle and twist my guts around it.

"Laura!" I cried.

"Here!"

I turned in the hallway, rushing for the bathroom. I pushed through the half-opened door and squinted past the bright lights. Laura lay along the tile floor. Blood coated from the toilet seat to where she'd dragged herself against the doorway. I dropped down beside her and pulled my wife into my lap.

"The baby . . ." she sobbed. Her hands hovered away from her. She wasn't sure what to do with them.

My arms tightened around her shoulders. My entire body began to shake. "It's ok. It'll be ok." I chanted against her.

At my back, Natasha arrived. She'd stopped at the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife from the block on the counter. I could see the blade reflecting along her arm. Seeing the utter carnage of the bathroom floor, I don't know what possibly could have gone through her mind. A very small, quiet voice whispered my name in the form of a question.

Trying to remain calm for the three of us, I looked up at my partner. Laura's hands found their way to my arms. She clawed against me in pain and terror, leaving streaks of red along my flesh.

"Natasha, I need you to call 9-1-1 right now."

"La—Laura?" she stuttered.

"Natasha!" Frightened, she looked at me. "Get your phone. Dial 9-1-1. Tell them how to get here. Do it now." She knew that tone. The one I only adopted twice in the entire time we'd worked together. The first time I'd been gut shot on a mission and figured I'd either be alive, or dead, in fifteen minutes without medical care. The second, time I'd gone through a pane glass window and took a shard right in the femoral artery. My voice said to stop thinking, do as I say, I am in control. It was the only time she ever bowed to my whim without question.

Flipping on her Black Widow switch, Natasha receded into the emotionless femme fetale I knew so well. She took a few steps away from us, plucked her phone out of her jacket pocket, and pulled her hoodie over her hair. I imagined the thinking, feeling Natasha wouldn't be making a reappearance for a few hours yet. It gave me enough time to formulate the well-worn game plan.

"How long?" I whispered to Laura, holding her tightly as the spasms of premature labor rocked through her. In my mind I counted the weeks since we first found out she was pregnant. Twenty-four. Five and a half months. Too soon. I closed my eyes and tried my utter best to keep it together.

"I couldn't reach the—the phone. Clint, the baby—" Her nails dug into my arm and I didn't care. I continued to sit on the floor with her, blood and whatever else pooled around us. I hated this. I hated the loss. Why wasn't it easy? Why couldn't it be simple? Why us?

"Shh," I soothed, rocking her a little. It always seemed to go like this, though never so far along.

"I need . . . Clint, I need to push . . ."

I shook my head against her hair. "Don't do it. Just hold onto me. We'll get through this."

She arched back against me. Her head falling into the crook of my neck. As strong as I was, I couldn't do anything to take that pain away from her. I knew we didn't have a chance. I knew our baby couldn't make it, not this early, but if she pushed now then what could we possibly do? Holding one more tiny life as it died in my hands might just ruin me for good.

"Hang on. They'll get here soon." I soothed, trying to convince her and myself. I could feel Natasha's shadow looming over my back. Without turning around, I said to her, "Nat, I need you to do me a favor. Cooper's sleeping. Can you stay here and watch him while I go with Laura?"

She didn't answer me. I supposed I never expected her to. She'd do as I asked and raise no qualms about it. Us leaving her in the empty house afforded a chance to be alone with her thoughts, something I suspected she dearly wanted now.

Driving into the hospital became a blur of flashing lights, screaming wife, and jostling movement. The placenta had torn away. No one knew why. No one ever seemed to know a definitive reason for me losing any of my babies. Our world had the ability to form Helicarriers that disappeared into the air, giant green rage monsters from a lab, and freeze a World War II war hero in a block of ice, but it could never tell me why I lost so many kids. Why I kept having to bury them every couple years. I wanted to scream, tear out my hair, throw a chair through a window, or just lay down and cry myself to sleep. Instead I did nothing. That's what my wife needed. Laura deserved to have me crawl up in the hospital bed with her, pull her into my strong arms, and just hold her until she fell asleep. Her tears stained my shirt. She cried for three hours before the strain became too much and exhaustion finally took over.

The first two miscarriages were different. The babies were small, smaller than my hand. We held the tiny bodies and said a final, horrified goodbye to them. We buried Natalia at the cemetery close to home. The last time I kissed my little girl, she was already dead and cold in her crib. This baby, this twenty-four-week old, red, silent child emerged into this world in the back of an ambulance. The paramedic did CPR the entire way to the hospital. I never got to touch her. I figured I never would.

Sometime after nine, Natasha arrived in our hospital room. I told the staff to let her up, claiming she was Laura's sister. It became our typical rouse to get her around security. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, hood up, jacket tightly closed, looking drawn in and so very vulnerable. It struck me cold seeing her that way. I guess now it was high time I owed her an explanation.

I slipped my arm out from under Laura's head, replacing it with my pillow. Arranging the blanket tightly around her body, I slowly climbed out of bed and padded into the hallway. Natasha gave my wife a fleeting, emotionless look, and followed me. She closed the door.

Natasha didn't demand anything from me. In a way, if I never said anything at all, she might have accepted it and went about her life. She could erase this night from her memory like one might delete a file from a computer. The Black Widow operatives hardwired her that way. In my opinion, she deserved better.

"The room's cleaned. Cooper went to school with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple, pear, and an apple juice box. I filled his water bottle and put it into his back pack. His things were already packed. I put on his green sneakers, khakis, and sent him with a coat. It's supposed to be fifty degrees today." Facts and figures sometimes brought her comfort. More than that, were the details. I nodded at her assessment and tried to figure out what the Hell I should say to her.

"Thank you." I started with.

She shifted her feet, tightened her arms around her middle and glanced up the hall. A nurse wheeled someone's newborn into a room. The child was crying.

"I'm sorry I never told you."

Her bottom lip wedged between her teeth and she bit down, hard. The crying baby disappeared behind a door, muffling the sounds.

"This was the forth."

She shifted her feet again, rolled her shoulders, and seemed tense enough to double as a flag pole. Now that I'd started, I had to finish it.

"Lillian died almost five months in. We hadn't picked out a name yet. We didn't even know she was a girl yet. Laura woke up one night, bleeding, and I rushed her in. We found out she was miscarrying. The same thing happened with Callie. She made it to six months. They were our first kids, before Cooper. We stopped the IVF because we thought maybe it had something to do with it. We know it didn't, but what else could we think?" I felt that familiar, stabbing, ache hit my chest and I had to turn away from her. I rubbed a hand over my tired eyes.

"After Cooper, she got pregnant again right away." God, this hurt. I leaned against the wall with my forehead, trying to just get the truth out and not die in the process. "You were picking up my slack. Fury told everyone I had Meningitis. After everything we went through, I needed to be with her as much as I could. We named her Natalia." I swallowed hard and shifted slightly to see the color completely drain out of her face. "We wanted to surprise you when you got back. She just died. No reason. I went to check on her before I went to sleep and she was just laying there, limp, dead. The paramedics had to pull me off her. I did CPR, they did too, I didn't want to let her go. Nat, I never told you because I couldn't."

Emotion constricted my throat and I closed my eyes. "We wanted more kids, but not like that. Not anymore. This was a surprised. We didn't want you to know, because we didn't want to get attached in case . . . in case . . ."

Natasha's barrier broke. She crossed the air between us and collapsed into my chest, clamping her hands together behind my back. I felt like I might fall right into her. The tears I kept Laura from seeing all came out now. As strong as I was, I couldn't stop this. I was powerless to protect the most innocent life of all. My own children. I wondered what was wrong with me? What had I done to deserve it? Laura was an angel, for loving me, for the work she did, in everything my superior. It had to be me.

"I'm sorry, are you Mr. Barton?"

Paperwork. Forms. Insurance. Funeral arrangements. Those were the only reasons why hospital personnel came up to me in times like this, and frankly I didn't have it in me to speak to them. Natasha extracted herself and turned toward the doctor.

"What does he need to do?" she asked, the assassin once more driving the emotion out of her.

"We just wanted to give you an update. I know it's been an emotional few hours, and we've been working very hard," the man said.

My legs couldn't hold me up any longer. I had faith putting Natasha in charge from here out. I sank against the wall, burying my head in my hands.

"Update on what?" she asked.

"The lungs, while not fully developed, aren't as traumatic as most preemies her age. We've delivered a dose of surfactant and have her on a breathing tube for now, but so far things look promising. We have the umbilical catheter in place and, though she's doesn't have a suckling reflex, she's handling the IV fluids fairly well."

I felt Natasha's hand batting my shoulder. I didn't rise.

"Wait, you're telling me she's alive?!" Natasha exclaimed.

The doctor sounded surprised, surely just as much as my partner was. "I'm . . . I'm so sorry, didn't anyone come to tell you? Anyone at all?"

If I hadn't stepped in, Natasha might have killed him for that.

I had to see her for myself and prove that the child surrounded by stacks of machines, oxygen, and wrapped in a plastic bubble was mine. The baby was hardly bigger than my hand. I remembered slipping off my wedding ring and fitting it right up her arm all the way to the shoulder. Our baby girl. Our living, gorgeous, baby girl. I cried when Cooper was born. They were elated tears full of pent up emotion, and a good deal of pain from the nose I busted. Seeing that impossibly small child nestled in her incubator I cried much differently.

It took months to bring her home. In that time Fury came to visit us, in the flesh, at the hospital. I let him hold our little girl. She fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. Immediately, he was as smitten as the rest of us. Coulson drove with him. He bought a stuffed dog along the way. The toy was larger than her, a point that made all of us laugh.

After understanding the reality of what Laura and I went through, that we'd named a little girl Natalia, and soon lost her, Natasha didn't press about a second chance. Regardless, we gave her Natasha's middle name, Aliana. Tasha came to the hospital as often as time allowed, and stayed late into the nights. If visiting hours were over, she'd help me break in to sit with her. The staff got used to it, and stopped ordering us out. After all, it didn't do any good.

On the day she was supposed to have been born, Laura and I brought Lila Aliana Smith-Barton home for the first time. Fury, unbeknownst to us, waited there with a few gifts he'd rounded up from our closest friends, (Phil, Natasha, and him). Natasha dressed Cooper up like a miniature Hawkeye. The entire living room was decked out in pink, and the baby room had been repainted, redesigned, and dare say even finished. I'd gotten behind on that between work and spending time with my favorite girls. It took five more months of waking up every single hour of the night before my wife and I felt confident that Lila would be all right. Our family had pulled through.

And, most importantly according to my partner, Natasha finally had a little girl to show how to do a reverse spinning back kick.

Priorities.

O.M.G. poor Clint. this is so tragic, I couldn't help but write it. Little Lila captivating hearts from the moment she was born. And I think it is TOO MUCH that "Bun Bun" was the stuffed dog Coulson gave her when she was born.

I don't know where I'm going from here. i'll see where inspiration takes me. I kinda like the idea of the Avengers showing up eventually in his life, especially from the perspective I've written for Clint here...but i don't know.

Stay tuned.

Please review!