In Their Hands ✧･ BARNES ✔

twenty one

   They started off in Finland. They went back to the cabin where Clint and Natasha had stayed together. There wasn't much room in the cabin. They stayed there for about three weeks. They had to leave quickly because they ran out of food there, and because it was too hard to get into contact with Coulson if it was needed. 

   So, they went to the apartment in New York. Coulson had restocked the place for them before they arrived. Zola and Coulson had eaten a lot of the food there when Clint and Natasha went out on their mission.

   They had a kind of peaceful stay for a while. They stayed in the apartment all day and all night. Before, Clint would have been able to go out and get them some groceries. However, since James knew that he was with them, it wasn't safe for him to be out anywhere.

   Clint tried to introduce them to popular movies, he played songs for them and they'd dance together. Zola really liked Barbie movies. Clint didn't mind watching them with her. He tried to find fun things for them to do. He wanted to keep their minds off of all of the drama and chaos. He was doing a great job with Zola. She was always happy and excited, despite the bad memories that this apartment had for her.

   After four weeks there, they moved on to the next place. They couldn't stay in one place forever. They had to constantly run and constantly move. Soon enough, however, they would have to stop and they would have to fight. They just weren't ready to. Coulson said that Fury would tell them when they were allowed to stop running. First, the people back at S.H.I.E.L.D had to come up with a decent plan on how to help them.  Thankfully, the information was classified once again. Anyone who wasn't involved before wouldn't be involved now. Sitwell wouldn't be able to transfer any information to anyone else.

   They stayed in  Romania next. Coulson was taking them everywhere that they needed to be. His invisible jet was very useful. They had to break into an apartment room in Romania. Neither of them had a safe house here. It was quiet and uneventful when they stayed in Romania. They were all tired most of the time. There wasn't much food, but Coulson did drop off a few things for them while they stayed there.

   Clint had to risk their cover and go to a pharmacy. He had to pick up some pain killers for Natasha because she had been in a lot of pain recently. Her stomach was bothering her a lot. It was getting larger and larger every week. Sometimes Natasha, Zola and Clint would make up names for the baby. They weren't able to go to a doctor in order to find out the gender, so they came up with boy names and girl names. Clint and Natasha agreed that they wanted to give the new kid a Russian name. Clint was okay with anything except Anastasiya. It was too basic to him.

   For months and months, they ran and ran until a distinct plan was put in place by their workmates. The KGB hadn't rebuilt yet, but soon, they were going to dedicate their time to do that rather than chasing Natasha down. It was taking them too long, and they could always come back to it later.

   It was the sixth month. They still had no idea of what the gender of the kid might have been. Natasha was constantly sick, constantly in a mood, and constantly driving Clint insane. It was even worse because Clint couldn't hear, still. They never had the time to get his ears measured. Therefore, all these months, he had been reading lips and feeling vibrations. It was so dangerous for them because if something happened, he would have no idea. He couldn't hear.

   In the seventh month, they finally returned to New York. There was a plan that was set in place. Natasha clearly wouldn't be able to participate, so they had to make adjustments. Zola couldn't participate either, so Coulson would be in charge of taking care of them two while Clint was away on the mission. The information was classified, so Natasha couldn't know about what was going on.