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Added 2017-02-19 23:10:35 +0000 UTCLaura held her. Kept holding her and petting her hair and scratching her back as her body at first refused to relax—her heart raced and her blood pounded, demanding that this be a trap, but Laura wouldn’t be intimidated by her anxiety. She just waited until Natasha’s sense of calm won out over everything else in her life.
Natasha might’ve fallen asleep… or it was just that she was so used to the hectic pace of her mind, thinking and rethinking and scrutinizing and theorizing, that the balm of being thoughtless passed by her in a blur… but she didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear Clint’s footsteps, didn’t hear anything but sensed the taut alertness she knew meant his hackles were up, the psychic alarm of his that could fill a room when their lives were at risk. She was so attuned to it, she thought she could’ve felt it on the other side of the world. She felt it now.
But she kept her eyes closed, her head down and in Laura’s soothing hands, as she heard Laura speak.
“It’s alright, Clint. It’s alright.”
“What is this? Are you punishing me?”
“I’m not punishing anyone,” Laura insisted. “I can’t… crowbar her away from you. And I wouldn’t want to do that to her, or to you. Or to me. I knew from the beginning that this wasn’t going to be a normal marriage, but we promised to do whatever it took to make it work. Maybe it only works with Nat.”
“She’s not who I love.”
“Yes she is. And so am I. Look at her, Clint. Don’t you want her to sleep like this every night?”
“Not if it means losing you—“
“It doesn’t. I love her too. I want to take care of her just as much as you do, I feel the exact same way you do. I’m looking at you and you’re a mirror, Clint. You’re not sure, you don’t know—I’m not sure! I don’t know! But this is what I want. What we all want. Isn’t it, Nat?”
Natasha kept her eyes closed. She couldn’t open them, wouldn’t. Not if she had to see them angry with her, fucked up because of her. She could take anything but that.
“Please, Батя… come to bed?”
