Summary: Natasha's problem began when the healer offered to reverse the Red Room's graduation gift: forced sterilization. It only got worse as Emily proved to be so much more than a simple do-gooder with a gift. Letting her in, sharing secrets with her, and becoming irrevocably attached to her was not in Natasha's gameplan. Set about a year after Avengers, goes through Ultron with some brutal changes.

cross-posted on AO3

A/N - if you're reading this fic again: A) I appreciate you. You are a beautiful creature. B) chapter 1 edit 03Dec2019 (the intro was just awful, you know it was. much better now). Happy Holidays!

if you're new this fic: Welcome! Enjoy :D

Chapter 1
Ms. Superhero

"You've been acting weird all week." Clint grunted. "Something I need to know?"

Natasha gave ground to his flurry of punches. She watched his form, studied his weaknesses and strengths. The old injury in his shoulder was starting to catch up to him. "Have you been taking your anti-inflammatory meds? You're slow."

He puffed and switched tactics, using his legs for longer reach. "Don't change the subject."

She considered a way to derail the conversation as she danced around his attacks. Not many people would have noticed her odd moments of zoning and off-beat returns to conversation this past week. Maybe a handful of spies were good enough to notice the Black Widow slipping. Clint Barton was one. And he was a good friend. Her best friend, trusted and allowed to pry into her thoughts.

Sweeping her leg around in a low kick that he jumped, and following it with an uppercut that brushed his chin, she considered what to say. How to talk about what was troubling her.

"Not here." She said. Too many agents in the gym, doing their own workouts, watching, listening. Natasha Romanoff didn't discuss her personal life in public.

Clint's eyes flickered around. He nodded, refocused, and managed to land a few blows. When a well-timed kick crashed into her side, right where she had a healing injury, she called an end to their sparring session.

"Finally! Thought you'd never get tired." Clint hunched over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. "Goddamn jumping spider."

Hiding her grimace, she touched fingers to her side. They came away damp. From sweat, not blood. Good. No busted stitches. No reason to see the unpleasant doctor and subject herself to another lecture about taking care of herself, no matter how superior to everyone else she was.

She sucked down half the contents of her water bottle. "You're going to the beach next week, right?" Code for a home and family that he kept safe and hidden from SHIELD files.

Clint looked up at her. "Yea."

No blood was on her hand when she pulled it away, and she sighed before grabbing her towel and blotting sweat from her neck. "Mind if I came with you?"

Cradling a mug of fragrant tea against the brisk onset of a cool spring night, Natasha joined Clint and his wife Laura out on the wide wrap-around porch of their enormous, Georgia farmhouse. The sun was setting over the wild forests on the back half of their property, turning the world a vivid orange for a few spectacular minutes. Clint and Laura tried to catch as many sunsets together as possible. It was one of their cute, happy-couple things that Natasha envied and knew she would never experience.

Laura quietly smiled at her from under the mountain of blankets she was snuggling under. "All tucked in?"

"Coop tried to escape, but I threatened him with orange juice for breakfast and he settled." Both parents chuckled at the threat. Nine year old Cooper Barton hated orange juice like Tony Stark hated quiet. Maybe worse. "How much did Clint tell you about the mission in Ohio?"

The radical group that had been smuggling poison into food processing plants for weeks had run into Natasha and Clint. There'd been a firefight, a boiler's cooling system had been damaged, and the resulting explosion had taken out half of the facility, sending debris as far as the nearby interstate. Fighting after that had only increased the collateral damage. At least a dozen people had died that day. A lot less than there could have been, would have been if that healer hadn't shown up.

Surprise stretched across their faces, and Laura glanced at her husband who shrugged. "Didn't leave much out."

These are your friends, Natasha reminded herself. The two people who you trust the most in the entire world. Galaxy. "The woman who was healing people and vanished without a trace. He tell you about her?"

"Natasha?" Lauren leaned closer, worry written all over her.

"I was wounded."

Now Clint was frowning. "You didn't tell me." Though his gaze shot down to her stomach. He wasn't blind, and she hadn't been hiding it. Much.

"You were busy herding people to safety when the shrapnel went through me." From mug to the side of her stomach, right below her ribs, her hand drifted. Under her shirt was a bandaged, stitched laceration that was bad enough even her enhanced regeneration was taking a while to totally heal. It had been much, much worse a week ago. She'd been well on her way to passing out and definitely in need of surgery when the healer had caught up to her.

"Hey!" The woman who had been flitting from one person to the next, slowing the flow of blood into the early spring mud laid fingers on Natasha's arm. "Where are you going? Stay still for two seconds."

Yanking away from the stranger's touch, she jutted her chin at injured children. "There are kids hurt."

Stone-faced, the woman shook her head. Her tone was stern. "None of them have blood fountains from the stomach. Sit your ass down before you're dead and useless, Ms. Superhero."

Natasha allowed a peek to her side, at the weeping gash there. It was far worse than she wanted it to be. "I," but her legs wobbled, and her weight was abruptly being supported by the woman. Too much blood lost. Shit. And now that she had given the wound her attention, it was clearly letting her know that it was deep, too deep, and it hurt. "Fine."

More quickly than gently, Natasha was lowered to sit on a car hood. Her hands were put on the woman's shoulders. "Try not to fall over." The woman settled bloody hands around the wound, closed her eyes. "This will hurt."

Prickles snapped, bit, burned. Pain flared, was followed by an odd, squirming sensation. Blood stopped flowing, and the woman released her hold, braced herself against the car, panting and sweating. Her own breaths coming in short gulps, Natasha could only hold on while they both recovered. "I thought magical healing would feel good," she purposely joked. "Damn."

The woman looked up at her. Their noses nearly brushed from the closeness. She smelled of sweat, blood, fear, and under that, a nice perfume. Dichromatic irises blinked at her. Natasha had seen the oddness of an iris that was half blue on one side, half brown the other, but never in both eyes. Either the woman had been seriously injured in exactly the same way in both eyes, or had the most unique mutation. Or maybe it was something like the green pigmentation of the Hulk; it came with the power?

How many missions would have gone better with someone like her around? How many innocent lives could have been saved? How many had been saved today?

"I repaired the intestines and blood vessels, sealed the abdominal cavity." She heaved backward and gave herself a foot of breathing space.

Natasha took in the woman's unimpressive figure, less than average height -barely taller than Natasha- muddy sneakers, and blood-stained sweatshirt that was probably trying to hide her pudgy belly and small breasts. She had shoulder-length, brown hair, and pale Caucasian features. Again, those dichromatic irises startled Natasha. How odd. Was the woman on SHIELD's powered people Index? Doubtful. Director Fury would've found a way to wrangle a resource like her into service. Where was she from? She sounded Midwestern, possibly West Coast. Urban. Educated. How f-

"You'll want stitches and a few days bed rest. Even with that accelerated healing I noticed."

How much could...

"One other thing." Her expression and tone were hesitant. "I also couldn't help noticing that your," she met Natasha's sharp gaze, swallowed, lowered her voice, "Reproductive system has previous damage."

Natasha's world froze.

"I don't know if it was intentional on your part or not, but if you want, I can repair it." She ran a hand over her neck, leaving bloody smears. "Another day. As thanks for saving Earth. Saving more lives than I ever could."

Graduation from the Red Room, the forced sterilization to help ensure a Black Widow formed zero attachments, remained a perfect assassin. It could be reversed? Helpless with hope and fear, Natasha stared at the stranger. Did she want this?

"Hey, I don't need an answer right now." The woman's voice was low, comforting, and she was touching Natasha's cheek. The Black Widow had killed for less. Right now, she could barely breathe, let alone demand the removal of the unsolicited touch. "My name's Emily Fortune. I'm sure that's all you need to track me down. I can see this is a big deal for you, and I'll keep it to myself. Okay?"

That arrogant hand was completely cradling her cheek now. Natasha wanted to chop it off, but its healing powers were too valuable, and she didn't have motor function yet.

"Day's not over. You can process this later, okay? Pull your badass self together, Ms. Superhero."

But Natasha remained caught up in the idea that she could be an almost-normal human again. Could have the option to be a mother. Not that a Black Widow would make a good parent. No. Never. She'd be a horrible parent. She wouldn't put a child through that.

But to have the option...

Crack! Sharp pain flared in her cheek, made instinct and training roar. She grabbed the offending hand, twisted its attached arm around, and shoved her attacker face-first into the car hood. Sharper, deeper pain shrieked from her side. A sharp gasp came from under her. The healer. Oh. Natasha released her and stepped back.

"Ow." Rubbing at her shoulder, the woman, Emily, cringed. "That worked way too well. Okay. Um, you're up. I'm off to see who else I can keep from the morgue today."

Hand hovering not over her bloody side, but over her barren womb, Natasha stared after her.

"Nat?" Laura was standing up from the blankets, eyes worried. "Hey, you're scaring me."

She gave herself a mental shake. The sun had nearly given up its dominance of the sky. "Sorry. I was wounded, and she healed me. Then she told me that she could reverse the sterilization." She finished in a small voice.

Both of her friends knew exactly what she was talking about. Laura hid her excitement for Natasha terribly while Clint's thoughts were harder to parse. He was probably excited, worried, thinking up ways to tease her.

"I don't know what to do." Natasha admitted.

A well used hairbrush paused halfway through Emily's rich cocoa-brown hair. One of the few things about herself that she was truly proud of. Her hair was damn gorgeous. It almost made up for the monstrosity she called a nose and her otherwise plain features. She met her own black eyes in the mirror before sighing and distracting herself with the enormous green bruise that stretched from jaw to cheek.

"Wish I could heal myself."

She continued brushing her thick hair. Longer locks, with deep russet curls, flashed in memory. An Avenger. The Black Widow. She'd gone nearly catatonic when Emily had offered to repair her reproduction system. What kind of monster had done that to her? It clearly wasn't genetic, and the woman's reaction said it wasn't accidental. Emily snorted at the irony. She herself never wanted to be pregnant and would be happy to give up a life of menstruation. No more PMS ever? Hell yes! But to be completely denied the choice?

A/N - Constructive criticism welcomed and encouraged!