Bartoned

Chapter 30

"You're gonna need to hurry up if you're gonna make it to training on time!" Clint called from the living room.

You pulled on a t-shirt, flopped down on the end of the bed, and started putting on your shoes. Natasha was six months old and you'd decided to return to work. You and Clint had managed to get your shit together quite a bit in the past two months. More so in the whole year prior. You'd hired a nanny. You'd booked your wedding venue, sent out save-the-date cards, spoken to a caterer, and finalized the last details for Kari's bachelorette party. Meanwhile, Tony had purchased a huge lot of land in Esopus on the riverfront and you and Clint had been designing your new house so that you had it laid out perfectly for your family. You'd felt very accomplished and ready to go back to work, but now the day was here and you didn't feel ready to go back at all. You kept thinking you were going to miss something important. Nattie hadn't started crawling or walking yet, but she did get up on all fours and bounce in place, and she'd pull herself up on the side of the couch and make a funny little high-pitched squeak like she was asking a question. If you were at work all day, chances were she was going to start crawling without you being there to see it.

You came out to find Clint with Nattie in her high chair, feeding her a bowl of baby cereal with pureed apple mixed in. You had the feeling that she was wearing more than she'd eaten. She'd only been eating solid foods for a few days and she still wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Is Doreen not here yet?" you asked, putting the most recent of your expressed milk into the fridge.

"Don't worry. She'll be here," Clint said as he made an exaggerated movement with the spoon trying to get Nattie's attention but only managing to bang the spoon into her pursed lips. "Nattie... why won't you eat, baby?"

"Maybe if it was pizza," you teased, putting your hand on his and using the spoon to tickle her bottom lip. She opened her mouth and he put the spoon in her mouth. "Maybe I should just stay home."

"You can if you want to," Clint said. "But you were excited to go back to work."

"I love my job. And I miss doing it. And I worry that the longer I'm away from it the less likely I'm gonna be able to get back into it because I will just be too old and out of shape to keep up. But I don't want to miss anything. She's so close to crawling. I don't want to come home and her been doing it all day without me to see."

Clint leaned over and kissed your shoulder. "Me every day I leave for work," he said.

"How do you do it?" you asked.

"I don't exactly have any choice," Clint said. "But you do. What do you want to do?"

You whined and poured yourself a coffee. "I don't know. I better go I guess."

"Then you probably don't have time for that," Clint scolded. "We're supposed to be there."

"But Doreen isn't here yet. I'll drink it until she gets here."

Like she'd been summoned there was a rapped knocking on the door. Nattie looked up. "Bweh?" she said, dribbling her porridge down her chin.

You went to the door drinking the coffee in large, mouth-burning gulps on the way.

"I'm so sorry," Doreen said, bursting through the door. "There was an incident on the subway and it delayed everything by half an hour."

"That's okay," Clint said getting up. "You right to take over?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Doreen said coming straight over and taking the spoon off him. "Say, bye-bye mommy and daddy. Have a good day saving the world."

"Bah baba, bwah ba bah," Nattie said, waving her arms around. You and Clint each kissed Nattie goodbye and headed straight to the elevator.