Barton Home, USA

Spring 2015

"You know, you strip that gun any more and you're going to polish it clean away." Nadine nearly started as Steve's voice broke through the absent musing she'd sunk into as her hands disassembled, cleaned and reassembled her Glock.

Off to the side lay all of the guns she'd been able to find, each freshly and expertly tended. She'd managed to track down Barton's personal collection, the firearms he had for his professional life—all with his permission, naturally—and had even gathered most of the (limited) arsenal from the Quinjet, though out of respect she'd left Natasha's regular sidearms alone. But once she'd finished with the Avenger's guns, she returned her attention to her own...repeatedly.

Normally the familiar task was comforting. Today?

Not so much.

Eyes snapping back to focus, having been staring blankly off into the distance, she looked to Steve. There was still a troubled shadow behind his eyes from whatever the Maximoff girl had done to him, but a tired sort of amusement had brightened his features as he watched her curiously. Replacing the last few components, she snapped the slide, priming the chamber—not that there were any bullets in it to load—before laying the gun down.

"It's a calming habit; familiar," she explained quietly, a wan grin meeting his. A faint, thoughtful frown appeared on his face at her tone.

"Just like Natasha." Her grin turned unintentionally brittle.

"Well, I was trained just like Natasha." They both fell into silence. Nadine's gaze turned back to the window, looking sightlessly out over the field surrounding the farmhouse even as her fingers trailed distractedly over the handguns on the counter. After the overwhelming mess of emotions she'd endured on the Quinjet, right now her mind was almost disconcertingly blank. It was a nice change, but also unsettling.

Steve's own eyes followed hers to look out into the waning afternoon, but they were soon sliding back to her. Not a trace of what she was thinking showed on her carefully cool expression, though flickers of emotion glinted too quickly to decipher in her pale eyes before being efficiently tamped down. "What has Natasha told you of her training," she finally asked softly. Steve's frown deepened before he answered.

"Not much. She's never really opened up about her past as so long as I've known her. Not even with Clint, though I suspect he knows more than the rest of us. I didn't even know what the facility was called, not until you showed up." Nadine nodded absently, the disquiet in her expression that had emerged with her question deepening.

Almost unconsciously she picked up one of the guns again, her eyes sliding shut. With a speed and efficiency that spoke of familiarity and experience only endless hours of repetition could impress, she had it apart and reassembled and ready to fire far quicker than she suspected he'd seen anyone—save perhaps Natasha—strip, check and ready a gun. As she set it back on the counter with a nearly gentle measure of control, she glanced up at him again, her eyes growing veiled as she looked away, gesturing weakly to the handgun.

"By the time I was nine, I could disassemble and reassemble over thirty different firearms blindfolded, not counting launchers. Even now, it comes...well, not easier, but it's almost more grounding when my eyes are closed. It was expected—but it's—it's..." She trailed off, her fingers trailing over the guns again, a faint twitch in her index and middle fingers revealing that she was feeling the urge to pick one up again.

She turned back to him, fixing Steve with an intent, almost pained look that had him looking faintly uneasy. "Had the Maximoff girl gotten into my head, it's a good bet that I would have been back there again, just like Natasha." She nodded bitterly at Steve's startled expression, answering before he even opened his mouth to voice the question that was quickly written on his furrowing brow, "and no, she didn't tell me what she was shown. I don't know exactly what she was forced to remember; there was...there were a lot of horrible things that happened in that place. Just singling out one would be hard. But I know her, even after all these years...and I know me. That sort of place? The sort of life we had there? It haunts a person.

"It'll never leave us."

Steve glanced down to the guns sitting on the counter as he processed what she'd said. Absently she wondered if she should've revealed even the little she had about her and Natasha's time in the Red Room. Obviously Natasha had made a point of keeping it to herself if her own teammates hadn't even known the name of the facility.

But now? Well, thanks to her appearance alone, they knew more now simply from meeting her. More would come out eventually. At least having told the Captain what little she had, she had warned him at least a little of the darkness to expect lingering in Natasha's past.

Darkness that the Maximoff girl's manipulations had brought to the surface from wherever she'd tried to hide it away.

She looked over to Steve. He didn't have that sort of darkness hiding in him. Oh, there was some. He was a soldier, after all—from the Second World War at that—and soldiers always carried darkness back with them when they returned from the fight...if they ever truly returned. War had a habit of doing that.

But the way he had been affected by the Maximoff girl's visions? It had taken some time and study to decipher him—despite being as open with his emotions as he often seemed, he hid it well, that was for sure; probably a result of the era he'd been born and raised in and the life he'd led—but having seen the way he and Stark had been interacting outside? Whatever they'd been talking about, the Captain's posture and guarded expressions had made it clear to her that whatever he had been confronted with in the scrapyard was still very close to the surface. She had little doubt he'd been just as badly affected as Banner and her sister, only...differently. He seemed haunted like they were, but her instincts said he was...well, sad. Resigned. She didn't have a way to say it that could really do what she was seeing justice. There was a deep heartache lingering behind his guarded expression that just didn't quite fit with the flashbacks to fights or war or death she had initially suspected he'd been shown.

Neither was it something new. That she was sure of. Whatever he'd been shown had been haunting him for a long time. It was something he was usually able to keep in check, hidden away just as she and Natasha kept their own past horrors at bay.

The Sokovian girl had brought forward something he'd already been fighting, making it stronger. It was keeping him off his game, but not in the same way Banner or Nat's nightmares were for them.

"What did you see," she finally asked softly, her voice careful and even gentle. Steve stared out the window, his gaze impossibly distant like hers had been. After a moment he tried to smile as he turned back to her, realizing he hadn't answered her, though the expression was sad, nearly a grimace.

"Everything I missed...and everything I can't have."

She had nothing to say to that. The questions on the Quinjet suddenly made perfect sense. With a sad sigh she turned back to the guns in front of her, absently beginning to gather them up. She wasn't going to get any more comfort from the routine anymore today.

"I'm sorry," she offered softly. He nodded once in silent thanks, but she could tell from his shadowed expression that her sympathy had really provided very little comfort. After a moment, he began to help her tidy up her makeshift workstation.

"I'm sorry for my questions on the Quinjet." The apology took her completely by surprise. She glanced up to him with a faint, questioning frown, nearly causing him to hesitate. "It was insensitive, especially considering how—"

"How I stayed? How I helped?" she interrupted shrewdly, her face carefully not betraying a thing even if she still felt...conflicted. She shot him a small, almost sad smile. Yes. She could see how that would seem unlike her given his experience with her so far, limited as it might be. It was true. It was strange that she'd stuck around the way she had. Certainly not with Nina still out there somewhere in Ultron's possession. And that wasn't even the only reason.

By trade and training she was a spy and an assassin. She worked alone. And she'd had no qualms of reminding the team of that.

So sticking with them would undoubtedly seem odd to the Captain.

"I won't deny that I thought about leaving, of slipping away—they were so close—" the exclamation burst out impatiently, voice full of frustration even as her hands tensed, knuckles going white as they clenched around one of Barton's rifles. But then she sighed, glancing up to Steve with a tired, wan smile. The topic of the Twins and Nina was understandably touchy for her.

But she still couldn't bring herself to feel she'd made the wrong decision in staying with the team.

"I can't say I would've blamed you." Her grey eyes flashed up to him with astonishment. Steve could only shrug before continuing. "Not that I'm ungrateful," he amended with an apologetic grin, "but it was a chance to catch up with the Maximoffs. And you were right before when you said this wasn't your fight. I never should have pressured you into joining it and I am sorry for that." He hesitated again, fascinated by how openly startled she seemed with his confession and apology. "But...thank you. For sticking around. I'm not sure how we would have managed without you." She dropped her gaze back down to the collection of firearms, fingers absently tracing over the contours of the nearest one. Something in her chest had eased at his words. But that wasn't why she did it; she couldn't just have left them. There was more to it now. They meant something to her now.

And that wasn't even counting the Ultron aspect.

"No. You were right back at the Tower...well, you're right now too. It wasn't my fight...but...now it is. And not just because Ultron has Nina," Nadine finally said, her voice low and almost resigned. Steve leaned against the counter, watching her avidly as she deliberated over how to say what she needed to. "You were right when you said Ultron was too big a threat for me to ignore." Steve frowned.

"I said that?" She glanced up to him again with a faintly amused look.

"Subtext." He couldn't help it; a laugh huffed out of his chest at the almost teasing glint in her eyes. But she sobered again quickly enough, sighing heavily as she did.

"But it was more than that...back there. In the Salvage Yard, I mean. I couldn't just—I couldn't just leave you all like that; exposed, vulnerable." Shadows seemed to appear behind her eyes as she smiled in a bitter, depreciating way that had Steve frowning. "I do, after all, have a bit of a conscience." She couldn't help the way her chest clenched at the way it came out. There were times she wondered how true that was...but did it really need to show in her voice?

She nearly jumped when his hand brushed against her arm.

And there it was again, the feeling that something hard and sharp in her chest was easing.

"If it makes a difference, I never believed you didn't have a conscience," he said softly, sounding utterly sincere. She refused to look at him, though her eyes were suddenly prickling traitorously, very nearly flicking to him. "Just different priorities," he added lightly, obviously feeling the need to ease the weight his declaration had apparently put on her. It sent a strange feeling through her to know his certainty about her morals was affecting her the way it was. More than that, she felt oddly...okay with the idea of him knowing how much his words had affected her.

But old habits die hard.

Quickly enough, she had her emotions back under control and hidden securely away. A small laugh hiccupped out of her as she nodded slowly, finally looking up to him. Her eyes were clear and shadowless again.

"That's certainly one way of putting it."

He smiled back.

With his help it didn't take long to get the Avengers' freshly tended arsenal squared away again. And when they did, it was just in time for dinner preparations to begin.

As Steve and Nadine made their way back to the kitchen the Barton kids were already making short work of the grilled cheese sandwiches their Auntie Nat had made them while their mom was starting on dinner for the herd of Avengers. It was impossible for the sight not to bring a smile to Nadine's face.

Just as it was impossible not to feel a sting of wistful regret.

Her little sister should've been able to do this with Nina too...

Quickly enough, Cooper and Lila were done with their dinner and their mom was shooing them out of the kitchen to finish up their homework so the Avengers could have their turn.

And before anyone seemed to realize what had happened, Laura Barton had put them all to work on dinner under her watchful eye; a born general, was Hawkeye's wife. Steve and Bruce were quickly set to cutting up vegetables while Nadine was assigned to keep an eye on sauce as she made up the salad. Nat put her prior familiarity with the Barton home to use as she started getting the flatware and cutlery together.

It was so...domestic.

It was nice.

It reminded her of her own small, happy moments, making dinner with Nina by her side, smiling and laughing as her daughter regaled her with tales of her day at school or her accomplishments during one of her after-school activities. Back when she'd been able to pretend she and Nina had a simple, normal life.

The ache in her chest that came with thoughts of Nina intensified again.

"How old is yours?" Nadine looked up to where Laura had come to stand next to her, checking on the monster batch of spaghetti sauce the pregnant woman was throwing together for her unexpected guests. Satisfied with its progress, she began throwing in the vegetables she'd collected from the guys, adding it to the simmering meat and tomato base. Nadine shot the other woman a questioning look. Laura grinned knowingly. "You multitask like a mom," she said with a hint of teasing. Nadine raised an equally light-hearted eyebrow at the other woman as she set the fresh-mixed salad aside.

"Am I to believe your husband didn't say anything?" Laura's eyes twinkled merrily. Nadine laughed softly as the other woman shrugged, grinning almost conspiratorially.

"Confirmed, really. He'd mentioned you before...this," Laura admitted, "that you'd temporarily joined the team." She sobered, fixing Nadine with a searching look, a flicker of sympathetic pain in her brown eyes. "But he didn't mention that you did because your daughter was taken."

"Nina's seventeen," Nadine supplied softly as Laura paused. The other woman's eyes widened with a trace of surprise, her own eyebrows rising. Nadine chuckled.

"Yeah, I know. Most people we knew back home just assumed I was an older sister or an aunt who'd adopted her—assumptions I never corrected, to be honest—but I really am her mom." Laura cleared her throat nervously, shooting Nadine an apologetic look as the blonde stirred the sauce.

"Sorry, but...wow." Nadine smiled back at the brunette.

"It's okay," she said with a smile, even surprising herself that the comment hadn't bothered her the way the observation about her perceived age as she usually was. "I'm used to it. I did have her quite young, but my Enhancement has also slowed my aging process a bit." Laura made a faintly wistful sound.

"Must be nice." Nadine glanced to the other woman and before they knew it, both of them had broken out into quiet giggles. As their shared laughter quieted, Laura grew serious again, laying a hand on Nadine's shoulder.

"He feels awful about what happened," Nadine frowned at her, her stomach twisting faintly as she guessed what the other woman meant. Sure enough, Laura's next words confirmed it. "Clint—that your daughter was taken while he, Nat and the Captain had you with them on their mission." Nadine shook her head slowly, a protest coming to her lips.

Funny, she hadn't even realized she honestly didn't blame the Avengers for Nina being taken anymore.

"No, I—Laura, I don't—" Laura nodded softly, seeming to understand.

"I know. He also said that you'd been sent after Nat to get you out of the way, that even if they hadn't insisted you go with them she might still have been gone by the time you got back. That doesn't change that he feels somewhat responsible. If it were our kids..." she glanced over to the table in the living room where Clint sat with their two children, leaning over Lila's shoulder as he pointed something out. She looked back to Nadine. "He's going to help get her back." Nadine was still watching Barton and his children, the ache in her chest intensifying as her eyes began to grow damp.

"He doesn't even know me..." she murmured, "I don't even know if...if our situations were reversed..." Laura's hand chafed her shoulder reassuringly, causing the blonde assassin to meet the brunette's assessing gaze.

"I think you would," Laura countered just as softly. Nadine's expression turned skeptical.

"You don't know me either," she pointed out firmly. Laura shrugged as she turned back to the sauce. It was beginning to smell heavenly.

"I know Nat. And even if Clint hadn't told me she still sees you as a sister even after being apart for so many years, I can see how much she cares about you, how highly she thinks of you. And I can see how much you care for her." The pregnant woman pulled the mixing spoon from the pot, tapping it gently against the rim before covering the sauce to simmer until the rest of the food was ready. She turned to Nadine again, her expression earnest. "You two are a lot alike. It's taken Nat a long time to get to the place she is now, to open up the way she has here and with the Team, even if she still acts the part of the unshakable, mission-oriented loner out in the world. But we've known from the moment we met her that she has a good heart. And I think you do too. Clint's not usually wrong about such things.

"And neither am I," she finished conclusively, a faintly challenging gleam in her eyes. But before Nadine could make her counter-argument, Stark's voice spoke up from the back door, interrupting each of the quiet conversations going on in the busy kitchen.

"Hey Barton?" Clint didn't even glance up from where he sat next to Lila, supervising his daughter as she worked on her homework.

"Yeah, Tony?"

"I think you need to clean out your barn more often." Just about everyone glanced over to the billionaire with some variation of confusion on their faces...save Laura, Nadine noticed, who quickly hid a look of mixed amusement and apology. "I found a stray next to the tractor. I hope you've got room for one more."

Nadine's jaw nearly dropped as Tony stepped aside to let Nick Fury into the house.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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