Thank you for the reviews! :D

Natromanoff: eh, sorry…Nat did say he'd forget everything when he'd wake up. Glad you like this :)

Aisling: answers are in this chapter :)

Unbeta-ed work, so all mistakes are mine ^^"

STRAYS

*Chapter 13*

The alarm rang abruptly. Before he could even move, someone slammed the on buzzer. Someone whose body he was comfortably wrapped around.

"Fucking stupid clock." A too-long familiar voice muttered. Barton grunted in agreement. His hand traced circles over her stomach, slowly made their way up to her breasts. Her breath hitched and her body stiffened, but she didn't stop him. He nuzzled her neck, tasted that spot behind her ear with his tongue. His arm tightened around the waist, one leg slipped between hers two and he inhaled her scent deeply. It had been far too long since he'd held her so close, far too long.

"This was a mistake, wasn't it." Clint muttered. Her eyes had been shining and her lips parted. Her fingernails had dug trails in his back and he had bitten her collarbone in retaliation. She had screamed his name, arching beautifully underneath him and he had shattered, lost in her eyes. At the time, it hadn't felt like one. Still now, her body shivered under his caresses but she didn't return them. He felt Natasha's shrug. He didn't want to release her yet and judging by the way she wasn't moving out of his embrace, neither did she. But she didn't appear interested in returning his advances either.

"Dunno." Her voice was quiet, albeit a bit sleepy. "What do you think?"

"Didn't feel like one to me." He replied slowly, nuzzling her shoulder. "I thought it was rather enjoyable. Both times."

"Funny man." She mumbled as she twisted her neck to glance at him.

He grinned down at her and leaned forwards to kiss her lightly. The gentle pressure she returned was so familiar he could almost believe they were back to those months of bliss. Barton felt himself hardening again and would have initiated something more if he wasn't so sure she'd cut his nuts for trying.

As if sensing the shift of mood, Natasha picked up his discarded tee and slipped it on before leaving the bed. Clint let himself roll on his back and stared at the ceiling.

"We're going to have another talk, right?" he asked.

"What about?"

"Dunno. We weren't done with Jeremy. We didn't even tackle 'us', whatever 'us' is. I think we got plenty."

Natasha slipped in sweatpants and came back to sit on the edge of the small bed. Barton took in her messy bed hair, shining and tired eyes. There had been an edge in her eyes when he had seen her two days ago. It had vanished now, and he liked to think he had done something to help.

"Were you serious when you said you'd give us a second shot?" she asked, her face impassible but he knew better. She was fishing around, making plans. Any other time it would have bothered him. Now he knew she had her little guy to protect.

"Dead serious." He replied, staring at her straight in the eye. "Jeremy's my boy and after last night…" he stood up, leaned close enough to see her breath hitch and her eyes darken. "I know there is still something. I think you know it too."

Natasha was clearly hesitating over something.

"You got married, but you never got kids." She suddenly blurted. Clint blinked, caught off guard. It didn't quite surprise him that she knew about his marriage, nor that it had been childless. But there was something in her voice, an interrogation he couldn't understand. She turned around and stared at him straight in the eye. "Why didn't you? You've always wanted kids, and Morse wasn't infertile."

Way to go, he thought with a wince. There were better ways to spend a morning after a great night than tackle his failure of a marriage and his ex-wife's health.

"You checked Bobbi's medical file?" he asked in disbelief.

"I just wanted to know the kind of woman she was," Natasha replied defensively. So she had been curious about him, Clint thought with an inside grin. She had cared.

"You want me to be honest? You want me to tell you why she asked for a divorce?" Natasha nodded. "It was because of you."

She frowned.

"I am entirely missing your point."

Clint sighed and dug his hand in his hair, probably messing them even more than before.

"I was talking to Steve the other day –Steve Rogers, my sometime partner…"

"Yeah, former Captain America who has taken Maria on two dates already." Natasha interrupted and motioned to him to move on. But Clint didn't and stared at her in shock.

"Two dates?" He repeated, astounded. "When?"

"We can talk about that later. The answer please." She was acting less and less guarded around him but more and more like his Natalie. He wondered if whether Natasha was returning to Natalie's mimics on purpose, accidentally, or if that was actually her habits that used to slip through Natalie's persona.

"Fine. So I was talking to Steve about you and I told him…" he hesitated slightly, feeling a nice shade of pink grow over his cheeks: "That the few months we had together were the bests of my life. I wasn't lying, and I wouldn't be if I said it now," he added, glancing at her. Natasha had gone very still and very quiet. "The reason Bobbi and I didn't work out was because I met you first. Even after you shot me-" the redhead winced and looked guilty, "-I couldn't get the 'what if' song out of my mind. What if you'd told me? What if you weren't pretending? What if you had stayed and kept on the charade? What if…" his voice trailed off. He glanced at her again and smiled tightly. "I had this picture in my mind, and it stuck there for years. I thought Bobbi would help me move on. That we'd try to build something together, but in the end I didn't want to," he admitted. "I loved her, but you were always first. All the projects I had in mind, you were always there, no-one else."

He raised his hand to brush her chin delicately. He read a few emotions in Natasha's eyes, like shame, guilt, embarrassment. But to his relief, she didn't try to shy away from him, so he went on.

"Bobbi found pictures of us in my old stuff and started asking questions. She demanded a divorce after…after she saw that one photo where we were both smiling, and she looked at me and told me she deserved better than the man I was. She divorced because she told me she had never seen that big of a smile on my face even after two years of marriage."

Natasha shut her eyes closed. Part of her was guilty and the other guiltily relieved. He hadn't managed to move on any better than she had.

"Tasha." She opened her eyes and looked at him. "You shot me but you made sure I survived afterwards." All the times he had cursed the Black Widow for nearly killing him, he hadn't taken in account that she hadn't killed him. If the Russian assassin wanted someone dead, they'd be. And yet he had lived. "I had enough time to resent you. Don't wanna rush but, you know." His fingers caressed the side of her cheek. No matter what she had done to him, Clint knew he couldn't stay away from her. He had always been like a moth drawn by her flame. How poetic, he thought sarcastically

"Take it day by day?" he nodded. The corner of her lips twisted upwards and she leaned into his palm. "Works for me."

They let the silence settle, slowly leaned towards each other. Their faces were inches away…

The shrilling tune of a phone ring broke the moment. Natasha's. Clint was tempted to urge her to ignore it, but the redhead picked it up. The conversation barely lasted a minute before she hung up.

"We need to get going. Our extraction is leaving in half an hour."

Clint repressed the urge to whine.

"I didn't realize you were in such a hurry to get back."

"If they're on time, we can still make it to pick up Jeremy at school for lunchtime." At his confused gaze, she rolled her eyes. "Spring break is over; Jer went back to school this morning."

"We have to give our reports" he pointed. She glared at him.

"Screw the reports. I want to be there and spend time with my kid. I haven't properly taken care of him during two weeks and I've skipped spring break on a fool play. Maria won't whine if I give my statement one day late." Barton didn't know whether he felt amused or horrified at the transformation of Natasha from assassin to mom. "Are you coming with me? I think Jer would like that."

"Having both parents picking him up at school? It's that a kid's worst nightmare?"

"Pretty much" she replied, but a slightly guilty glint appeared in her eyes. "But in his case, it's kinda been his dream."

He laughed. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to say, 'darling, we've just been cockblocked by our kid'."

Something was wrong, Jeremy thought as he checked outside the window. For the past ten minutes, men were walking in and out of the school, carrying stuff and boxes. He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

"Mr Romanoff, is there a problem?" Mrs Carter asked dryly.

The boy jumped on his chair and smiled sheepishly.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" he asked with a positively cute and embarrassed smile. The twins gave him a stare of 'what are you up to' disbelief as the teacher reluctantly signed him a pass. This would be the first time he ever asked to walk out of class, so Jeremy thought it worked out in his favor. Instead of going to the bathroom though, he took a shortcut and hid behind a wall to spy on the newcomers. They were five, hanging around the headmaster's office. He didn't recognize any familiar faces and it made him uneasy. Quickly, he pulled out his miniature cellphone and called at the Residence. Oliver picked up at the second ring.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class, lad?" the British hacker asked. Jeremy ignored the amused tone and whispered:

"I'm sending you pictures of some guys, can you ID them ASAP?"

"Jer?" Oliver sounded puzzled; the boy never called without a good reason and when he did, he never made such odd requests. Jeremy hung up and took a few shots discreetly, then sent them via text. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but he couldn't help this gut feeling. Instead of hanging out any longer, he hurried back to a secluded spot. No need to take useless risks, Natasha always told him. He knew the grounds well enough to hide in case things turned sour.

Oliver called back thirty seconds later.

"Kid," his voice was dead serious, so Jeremy figured he had been right. "Ring the fire alarm and get everyone out of this school right now."

The boy spotted the red box on the opposite wall and, after checking his environment again, ran and broke the glass. Immediately, alarms started to blaze. Every door of each classroom opened on students and teachers walking out, the former glad to catch a break, the latter annoyed and worried of not being told there would be an exercise. Jeremy mingled with a bunch of students and made his way back to the place he had seen the men. Only one was left, looking pissed and perplexed at the same time. Jeremy was starting to believe everything would be alright when the first screams started.

Maria was working on a late project when Oliver hacked her account for a video conference conversation. The moment his face appeared on the computer screen, she glared at him.

"Haven't I told you to stop-"

"Remember the Red Bombers? They're at the children's school."

That was all Maria needed. Her daughters, as well as most of the STRAYS's kids were there.

"Call in all STRAYS on site." She ordered. "Priority is the safety of the children and the staff. If the local police try to meddle, I need identification clearance. I'm sending a SHIELD team right away."

BTW, I won't be updating for a while (life and priorities. I hate those). Story is almost done though. Thank you for reading so far!