Bartoned

Chapter 38

Months passed without incident. You had your work/home routine down and you, Clint, and Nattie were happy. Nattie's vocabulary grew more and more though she didn't speak in sentences, mostly just single words and pointing, she loved going to daycare and had regular play dates with Cruz.

Bucky and Steve brought their kids around a lot. Things were going well with them for the most part but as with all parenting, nothing was ever totally smooth sailing.  Thankfully, with Clint's history with the foster system, when they hit those road bumps, it was good to have someone who got it. They were pretty close to officially adopting them, and the poor kids seemed to be extra stressed out about something going wrong. They'd swing wildly between being ultra-well-behaved to the point they'd start crying if they did anything they perceived as bad to lashing out wildly over things they couldn't put into words.

Steve and Bucky were patient and they had a good blend of loving but firm-handed and understanding of their past traumas. They loved being parents too, even when it was hard and they were pouring their hearts out to Clint, you could see how much they loved those kids.

Barney was around a lot too. He stayed in your spare room until Steve took pity on you both and let him have a room in the main living quarters that the agents and recruits lived in. Even then he was around a lot, trying to make up for lost time with Clint. It was an odd relationship, there was a lot of pain under the surface but they obviously loved each other. Nattie loved her new uncle too. Mostly you just worried Clint was going to get hurt again.

The biggest thing that happened in the seven months between Nattie's first birthday and the wedding was that in August, Kari and Wanda took two weeks off and flew to what remained of Sokovia and returned with twin boys. You knew they were four and had been orphaned during the battle for Sokovia. Aside from that, as Steve and Bucky did with their kids, they were keeping a lot of information to themselves. Kari had said Wanda was worried it would fall through when they got there because the government wasn't super keen to allow American lesbians to adopt, and that she half expected them to change their mind at the last minute. They'd come home with the boys though, and they'd asked you all to wait to meet them until the jet lag was a little less severe and the boys had settled in a little.

Because you were all super excited to meet them, a party was held at Steve and Bucky's place. The whole group showed up early and set up banners and balloons. Bucky spent a lot of the morning cooking Romanian food that he knew was at least close to what was common in Sokovia and you and Clint went and got a cake from the local bakery.

When Kari and Wanda showed up with their new sons there was a round of applause. Wanda was carrying one and he started to cry and buried his face in her neck, while the other hid behind Kari's legs.

"Oh no," Steve said, crouching down to get to the level of the five-year-old on the ground. "It's okay. We're just excited to meet you."

Wanda reached down and ran her hand through the little boy's hair and he looked up at her. She said something in Sokovian and he poked his head out from behind Kari and surveyed the room.

"They don't really speak any English," Wanda said, apologetically as she bounced the other boy on her hip.

"And they grew up in an orphanage where there was a lack of resources so they're a little unused to people. They don't really know the right way to behave," Kari explained. "This is his Luca," she said ruffling the boy at her side's hair. "And that is Mihai."

"It's okay. Let them come to it in their own time," Steve said in that same gentle tone. "It's a lot of new things."

"Thanks, Steve," Kari said, taking Luca's hand and leading him to the table while Wanda went and sat on the couch next to Natasha. Natasha and Wanda started talking softly in Sokovian, sometimes to each other and sometimes to Mihai. Bucky approached Kari and Luca and began to talk to Luca in Sokovian too. He pointed to food and Luca would either nod or shake his head and Bucky would add the food to the plate accordingly.