Note: Although I've referenced events that actually happened, this is a piece of fiction!

Chapter 5

Natasha landed in a crouch, so softly that it passed unheard. Unfortunately, that didn't mean she went unseen, her usually inconspicuous black ensemble glaringly out of place in the stark white light of the laboratory.

There was a moment of stunned silence as all eyes swivelled to her.

She swore. In Russian, because she was a professional.

What should have been an empty room was instead occupied by a dozen men and women wearing white lab coats and expressions of shock. She was going to (decimate) (eviscerate) (disembowel) obliterate the incompetent agent she had been paired with as soon as she dealt with the mess she'd been—literally—dropped into.

It was supposed to be an easy mission, she thought as she head-butted the nearest man. A standard infiltrate and retrieve, something she could do blindfolded and bound. Had done previously, as a matter of fact, she remembered, a swift uppercut and elbow to the temple causing a blond woman to crumple to the floor. But Clint was down in San Antonio on a solo assignment, the lucky ублюдок*—she rammed her knee into the next man's gut especially hard—and she was stuck with an imbecile who couldn't even evacuate the place like he was supposed to.

Maybe, she mused, pinching the pressure point of another woman's neck, she was becoming spoilt. Too dependent on the others to do their part. That was the problem with being part of a team like the Avengers—everyone was too reliable, so much so that there was never a doubt in her mind that her back would be covered. The knowledge wasn't nearly as alarming as it should have been.

In less time than it took squeeze into her bodysuit in the morning (something she'd complain less about if the zipper didn't pinch her skin multiple times as she did it up), the scientists were littered on the floor around her, unconscious.

A loud, blaring siren sounded throughout the building. Someone somewhere had still managed to sound the alarm. Cursing again, she started methodically rooting through the numerous test-tubes and other glass containers lining the counters of the lab. She knew what she was looking for: a sample of the vaccine to the Zika virus that was currently being developed and undergoing trials.

It had become something of a race around the world for the creation of counteragents, preventatives, and other medications for the feared virus. What was different about the GlaxoSmithKline facility, however, was its penchant for experimentation with dangerous and illegal substances in their vaccines. After the company had taken a hit with their fraud case in 2012, S.H.I.E.L.D. had kept close tabs on them, and were recently alerted to the development of a potentially unsafe prototype that would soon begin human trials.

Natasha was not pleased. Her partner had been handpicked for the mission for his background in pharmaceutical medicine, and was supposed to be here to identify the required vaccine. She grimaced in disgust. Clearly that hadn't worked out as planned, and now she had to clean up after him.

Petrovna** preserve her from idiots.

She had a superficial idea of what was to be collected, but if she returned with the incorrect one—a fate that was looking more and more likely in the face of the numerous flasks and test tubes laid out before her—it would be months before another attempt could be set up, and the first clinical trials would already be underway.

A rustle of clothing sounded behind her. In one fluid motion, she turned on her heel, dropped to the floor, and kicked the legs out from under the man standing over her. The poised syringe—Natasha would bet her best set of knives it wasn't a kiddie flu shot—fell from his outstretched hand as he fell, and Natasha quickly knocked him out.

Thundering footsteps were drawing nearer—great, more flunkies. There was nothing for it, she'd have to shelve the mission for later. Getting out, preferably in one piece, was her objective now. And as she didn't have Clint's handy Tarzan rope arrows, her way in wouldn't be her exit. The door, then. Sighing, she sprinted out the room, automatically making the necessary turns according to her mental blueprint of the building. She had been staking out this facility for weeks now, and knew the exact location of one of the least used exits.

The footsteps (military, by the sounds of the shoes) were drawing too close.

Additionally, people were jumping out at her from doors on either side of the corridor, forcing her to stop and fight periodically. Hopefully none of these fuckers were equipped with lethal syringes, she thought, as she ducked under a pair of grasping arms.

The further she got, the more people she had to fight through and the more bodies fell to the side. The numbers were not receding, and she was slowly accepting that she may have to endure captivity for a while.

She whirled around, flinging her fist at her next victim who, surprisingly, dodged. In a flash of messy black hair.

"Hey, Red, you alright there?"

"Potter," she snarled, her vision going hazy with rage even as the man took up his position at her back, "Do. Not. Call. Me. Red."

Nothing more was said for the next few minutes as they fought back to back, but the litany of RedRedRed played a blood-curling chant in the back of her head. Red, her mind taunted, as a man collapsed from a swipe of her knife with a spurt of blood. Red, the voice whispered as a scientist screamed, terror in her eyes. Red, the sigh caressed her as a woman's lab coat bloomed scarlet across her chest.

RedRedRedRedRedRe–

"–tasha? Agent Romanoff? It's over."

Shuddering, she blinked her eyes back into focus, realising that she had almost swiped at the empty air in front of her. Potter was staring strangely, too close for comfort. She glared back at him, spine straight and locked, before turning on her heel and walking forward. After a pause, light footsteps followed.

A finger crunched under her boot. Her back stiffened further. A nose cracked under her next, more forceful step. A wrist twisted. An ankle rolled. A palm bled.

"Natasha. Stop."

She kept walking.

"We're leaving now," Potter said, his voice gentler than she had ever heard it. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they disappeared.

The sun was setting, casting a fiery glow on the slopes and valleys of the Grand Canyon. Natasha shivered. Red, her mind whispered again.

"I still hate being called 'boy'," Potter said suddenly.

Natasha's lip curled. "Spare me the platitudes, Potter. I really couldn't care less–"

" 'Freak' is a close second," Potter continued, ignoring her interruption. "They were the names my only remaining relatives called me for as long as I can remember. Every time I hear someone yelling 'boy', I instinctively look around for my great big Uncle Vernon lumbering after me."

Barely refraining from rolling her eyes, Natasha said, "Potter–"

"I look for my cupboard, where at least I'll be safe from his swinging fists,"—Natasha froze—"Aunt Petunia's frying pan, or Aunt Marge's mutt. It was almost a blessing when I'd be sent to my cupboard for a few days because it meant a small respite from my relatives. Sure, I wouldn't get any food, but hunger I could handle. Hunger was miles better than aching ribs and a broken nose and worrying that I'd be punished for bleeding on the carpet. And they knew my 'freakish nature' would heal everything soon enough, so my injuries never worried them."

Were someone to describe Natasha at that moment, they would have likened her to an avenging angel. Her body was held taut with tension and fury, knuckles white against her skin. The last fiery rays of the sun caught her own red hair, setting it ablaze in a flaming halo.

The smouldering image was lost on the man beside her, whose eyes were fixed on the far depths of the canyon spread before him. "It got better, of course, once I started attending the 'freak school' – at least with Uncle Vernon, who was terrified that someone was watching us all the time. My dear cousin Dudley, however, was growing ever larger and took it upon himself to dole out what his father could not, with his gang of thugs to help. No one would think anything of a bit of roughhousing between cousins, even if it ended in a bleeding eye or a broken arm – boys would be boys, after all."

He turned to Natasha. "It has been almost two decades since I've seen hide or hair of any of my relatives, thank Merlin for small mercies. But words, as you know, can hurt far worse than any fist ever could, and all we can do is accept that those words do not define who we are. Even if it means forgiving those who hurt us – which I admit is easier when you haven't see them for nigh on twenty years. However, it is far more important to forgive ourselves," he added softly.

"Besides," he said lightly, "whatever association you have with the word, there is also much beauty in red! This canyon, for example: one of the most beautiful gifts of nature. The enticing red of an apple, the bold red of a rose. The captivating red of the leaves in autumn. I say let's discover and luxuriate in all the red of the world tonight!"

He took hold of her elbow, a charming smile full of both mischief and understanding, and turned on his heel.

Red, she thought as the red sun sunk behind the red peaks and valleys of the canyon, a faint smile on her red lips.

Hours later, in the quiet of her bedroom, surrounded by various red fabrics and trinkets, Natasha's eyes gleamed in the dark. Vernon, Petunia, Marge, Dudley. England. Surely it won't be very difficult to track these people down.

A/N: Whaaatt? A new chapter? Be still, my heart! Say it ain't so! Y'all are hallucinating, clearly. Jokes aside, I know I've been away for a helluva long time (over a year, what?!) and I seriously want to thank you all so much for the lovely comments and feedback I've continued to receive in that time. I really don't deserve you all – you guys are the best!

A little more insight into Natasha in this one (and Harry, as always). I wasn't initially going to write the 'therapy' session that Harry inflicted on her (and this turned into a session more for Harry than Natasha in the end), but there were so many requests that I decided to reconsider. And then recently I had a dream (my unconscious brain comes up with the weirdest shit I swear) that inspired me to write this out. This chapter was like pulling teeth though; Natasha's voice was so hard to pin down, and I had to keep playing around with tone and sentence structure and stuff. By the way, the only real events referenced are the Zika outbreak and the GlaxoSmithKline fraud case.

* ублюдок = bastard in Russian (… I think – please correct me if I'm wrong!)

**Petrovna – referring to Elizaveta Petrovna, the Russian empress who seized control of the country at 31 years of age in 1741. No clue if it is legitimately invoked as a swear, but she seems to be the kind of person Natasha might look up to.

Fun fact: Elizabeth Petrovna one day just stormed in to one of the elite regiments of the Imperial Russian Army in a warrior's breastplate and basically said, "Are you with me or the cheat on the throne?" and the dudes were like, damn, woman, definitely you! And they took the country without killing anyone, and she kept her promise to never execute anyone if she became Empress throughout her life. Yeah, she was pretty damn cool. (Yes, this is the sort of thing I spend my time researching … not medicine, as I should be doing)

As many have guessed, the scribbles Harry gave Nick in the last chapter was indeed parseltongue! Vous avez deviner vraiment—les gribouillages sont du parseltongue! :)

This shameless writer begs for more reviews that she does not deserve! Thank you!