Clint x Natasha FanFic's

Happy Birthday by TashaBlackWidow

WARNING: Sad scenes. One of my favourites

Happy Birthday

TashaBlackWidow

Summary:

Three years after being hit by a staggering loss, Clint and Natasha finally come together to say the words they've been holding back.

Notes:

This story is fed from the fact that is I hadn't miscarried, my son would be three years old today. Happy birthday, unnamed boy. Every single emotion and word in this story is true and genuine.

Work Text:

The bed is wet when Clint wakes up. Not the whole bed, just the part of the sheet where his hand is resting as it's draped over her hip. He isn't sure what's woken him at first, but it doesn't take long for him to work it out, even though it takes a long moment for his sleep-addled brain to put the pieces together. Natasha's shaking, really trembling beyond control, almost vibrating in a way that convinces him there's a terribly made carbon copy of her lying beside him until he realises that this isn't a normal nightmare. It's not even a nightmare. She isn't asleep, but she's definitely not awake enough to know what's going on. Her eyes are barely open, unfocused, desperate, and the arm that was once resting over his, enclosing them together in their rest, is now pressing down so firmly on her stomach she looks like she might burst through it, which is why his hand had fallen down onto the sheet...the wet sheet...

He feels like he's watching himself move from outside his own body as he tears away the bed sheets that are thrown haphazardly over them. They're still only in their underwear after a night spent together in his bed on the helicarrier and against the steel grey sheet they're lying on he can instantly see the reason for her agony. Blood. The sheet is tainted with so much blood it looks like she's had her throat slit but the stain is too far down for it to be her throat. Shaking hands check over every inch of her skin for injury until his hands join hers over her stomach and he...knows. He just knows at that moment. The pieces of the puzzle slide into place and his stomach drops so quickly it drags his heart down along with it.

His voice trembles as he whispers her name, pressing his face into her neck for a moment which a pained whine that he's never heard from his own lips before, not even when his parents died when he was a child, because this is worse than anything he's ever felt before. That sounds breaks his own hear more than the fact that Natasha is barely making any sound except for gasping breaths against the pain, and he realises with an agonising shattering of his heart that she doesn't know what's happening.

"Nat, we gotta go," he tells her, his voice distant as he struggles to block out the facts just enough to do what needs to be done. "Come on, we're going now."

He gets out of the bed to find her clothes, a robe, anything to cover her dignity with, and ends up carefully sliding one of his own sweaters over her. It dangles past her hips but she doesn't adjust it or play with the hem like she sometimes did. She barely notices it against her bare skin until he has to physically remove her hands from her stomach to put them through the sleeves and this makes her cry out and her eyes screw shut. It's only when he goes to find clothes for himself when he realises that his boxers are dripping with the blood, but the tendrils of it dripping down onto his thighs are nothing compared to the puddle she's now sitting in.

Four hours later, the only infirmary assistant they trust to treat them has been sworn to secrecy of Natasha's presence there, and confirms what Clint already knows. She's miscarried their child in the night. They snuck into a civilian hospital under false names only yesterday morning and had conned themselves into a free check-up for her. Natasha was nineteen weeks pregnant, still barely showing because she'd kept up her exercise and strict diet, and she was told by the nurse on staff that it would take a while to come into her stomach properly because it was her first pregnancy. Clint had noticed for the first time that day, as she lay back for the scan and he stared through misty eyes at the computer image of a baby-type thing that actually did have the shape of his nose, and even Natasha's eyes are close to tears when they're told it's a boy.