Barton cut and color.

Natasha Romanoff had always loved it when people played with her hair. It took her a long time to figure it out, it wasn't until she was out in the field that someone else touched her hair, but when they did it with no harm intended, all she wanted was to close her eyes, lay down on somewhere and enjoy. She loved going to the hairdresser's so much after she'd joined SHIELD that she went down there every other week to get her hair colored in another shade of her trademark red until her hair was ruined by it and she'd have to start anew.

The Stark mission had been a good mixture of tiresome annoying billionaires and action packed graveness. Natasha saw herself pretty much done after Ivan Vanko was taken down, and left in a quinjet to the Barton farm minutes after Coulson had cleared her. He asked her to swap jet with Clint, who had been staying there for the last month, but was now requested on a mission in New Mexico. Natasha knew he wouldn't be happy, but she stepped up and took the responsibility upon herself. Laura and the kids would love to have her there either way.

The youngest of the kids, three-year-old Lila, had gathered a sudden fascination with hairdressers after Laura had taken her with on a little visit into town a week or so ago, and while Natasha lay on the couch writing her report for SHIELD (the only piece of work herself and Clint was allowed to take home), her head propped up to the armrest and her ears filled with Tsjajkovskji's wonderful notes, she felt the little girl tugging at her hair.

"Hey, Lila," she announced and pulled out an earbud so she could talk to the girl.

"Auntie Nat, can we play hairdresser?"

Auntie Nat had nothing against the girl tugging a little at her hair (that she had grown out the past year for the Stark job) so she pulled her hair out of the casual ponytail she had set up and let it flow over the edge of the couch. She handed the band to the girl. Little Lila took that as a yes, and started to work her way around the scrunchy. It tugged a little more than Natasha anticipated, but she didn't have the heart to tell the kid, so she stuffed her earbud back in her ear and suffered through.

Lila had vast plans for Auntie Nat, she vaguely noted. The girl left and returned with a brush (Natasha didn't look, but felt it by the change in tugging) and after that left and returned more frequently. Natasha could hear her low voice creating her little universe over the music, but couldn't hear what she said. All in all, this was excellent baby watch, in her opinion. She lay there and felt Lila's presence while Laura drove to pick Cooper up from school and while getting some tedious work done. If she put her goodwill into it, it sometimes turned to that comfortable massage she liked.

Clint was tired but happy. This mission was by far one of the best ones he'd had in a long time (he was pretty sure Coulson only put him on this so that he wouldn't hear about disproportions in workload from his co-handlers) but he was still more than ready to get back after a week in New Mexico. The heat and the people was enough to last him a lifetime. He was ready to snuggle up against his wife, read his daughter a ridiculous book about princesses and watch his son's baseball practice for a change. He was not ready for what awaited him in his home.

Lila was running towards him from the second he slammed the screen door and declared he was home. Like always, she still worked on getting her legs to move fast enough and not fall on her face, and like always, it was still a high-risk entertainment on Clint's part. What was worse this time was that she'd somehow gotten hold of a pair of kitchen scissors and was sporting them in her tiny hand, unaware of the danger they brought. Clint walked towards her and swooped her up before she had the chance to fall on her face and injure herself badly. "Hey, sweetie," he greeted, and then removed the pointy object from his daughter's hand. "What're you doing with this?" he asked. "You know you're not old enough for scissors, especially not without a grown-up!"

She looked ashamed, but chewed on her upper lip and set her vast blue eyes right against his. "But we're playing hairdresser, Dad, look!" she excused, and Clint held back a frown. That Barbie would never be the same. Lila was pointing towards the living room, and he walked into it to see what was left of her toys.

Instead, he saw something that caught his breath and made him work hard not to cringe in laughter. Laying back towards him was Natasha, and all around her was dark red strands of hair. Laura's favorite cup stood by the foot of the sofa, filled up by a brown liquid that, in Clint's best guess, contained a mixture of Laura's morning coffee, water and dishwashing soap. It looked like Lila had dipped her subject's hair in it to wash before she cut it off. The cup had obviously not been big enough for Nat's entire head, so Lila sufficed with the bottom half of her hair. What wasn't cut off, had been tied together in a mess of hair and scrunchy, wet and tattered stumps ready to get their share of trimming. The floor was covered in reddish-brownish wet strands of what once were, floating around in what unfortunate homemade shampoo Lila had spilled out on accident. And, as if to top it off, Laura's comb stuck out of a messy part of Nat's hair, as high as Lila could reach, setting the dot over the "i" in this Lila Barton masterpiece.

Just then, the screen door slammed again, and Laura and Cooper came to join Clint on the threshold of their living room to see the creation the little three-year-old had created. Cooper's eyes widened in shock, and Laura clenched her jaws together to avoid smiling. "Did you do all this, Lila?" she asked her child, and managed to hold herself together for a scolding face.

Lila said nothing, just looked down at the ground. "Auntie Nat said I could play."

Just then, Auntie Nat became aware of the commotion behind her, and turned her head around in the couch. Unaware of the reason the entire family was stuck on the threshold, she smiled and closed her computer. "Hey Clint, how was New Mexico?"

Clint couldn't hold back anymore. He howled in laughter, let his daughter down, so that Laura, the only one who still kept it together could swoop the girl up in her arms and lead her to the kitchen for a minor scolding. He wasn't sure she could even do that, she was barely keeping it together herself. Nat say up in the couch and touched her head cautiously, following the gazes of the two remaining Bartons.

Clint knew Russian, and had for the sake of his children taught his wife Russian swearwords, so that she, when he was not there, could catch Auntie Nat learning them to their kids. That was why, in all, Natasha by the time she was done looking herself in the mirror owed over fifty dollars to the swear jar, a sum that was more expensive than the pack of hair dye Natasha bought to cover up her disastrous new short hair. It turned out the color wasn't as bright as it promised (or maybe it was the remains of coffee in her hair that did it), so Natasha ended up with only a tiny shade brighter hair and a bob cut she told Laura was "more practical" to make the woman stop making excuses for her daughter. She did, however, in a gesture of good faith, show the girl how you actually color your hair, and then proceeded to turn the dark brown locks orange with another wash-out dye, just to make Clint stop grinning mischievously whenever he saw her head.

Neither of them knew that that same bob cut was the one that Black Widow action figures all over the planet would end up wearing.