A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! This is largely a Red Room story, but I wanted a happier ending than that would provide, so the prologue/epilogue will be set in some post-Endgame future time period. Thanks for reading! Please read and review! Titles from Painted by MS MR.

What did you think would happen when you put me in unnatural space?

Natasha Romanoff was undercover. It had been a long time since she'd infiltrated anywhere. Well, time was a confusing construct these days. But the universe-changing reality of Thanos and his plan were definitely in the past. She was glad to be back at work, wiping red from her ledger in an environment that made sense, that she had been brought up to understand. No more monsters and magic – or, at least, significantly less of it.

There had been a message waiting for her from Sharon Carter, suggesting that a chemical company could use some closer scrutiny. How Sharon could possibly have known where she was staying, she had no idea. But a note had been affixed to her refrigerator door nonetheless, and she had wondered if perhaps it was time to move. People were not supposed to be able to get inside of her safehouses without her assistance.

In any case, here she was, investigating the company, dressed as a lab tech. Large glasses obscured her face and she was wearing a wig, now that her signature red hair had grown out again, as well as a lab coat. Hidden under her work clothes was her tac suit, though she had found it necessary to dispense with most of her weaponry – that was okay, she had backup.

The building was the usual high-rise skyscraper, with keyed entries to every floor. Her falsified identification badge was likely able to access most of these, but she would have to do some work to get into the more restricted areas. If one could really call it work – she could do this kind of thing in her sleep.

There were quite a few lab techs employed by the company, but it was only a matter of time before someone asked who she was, or at least why she was away from her station. She didn't have a station, so that could get awkward. Especially if they scanned her ID badge and were shown one Les Robertson, a man who did not watch his pockets very well on the street the day before. For one relatively high-ranking in a possibly criminal organization, she would have thought he'd pay more attention. He was now suffering from terrible abdominal cramps as a result, but she doubted he would connect the two enough to learn from his error.

She smiled to herself as she pressed the basement button and was pleased that the request was accepted by the machine. She hadn't been sure where such a oblivious man would have been granted access. She also didn't know where anything interesting might be hiding around here. But people tended to put things they'd rather not be found in basements, so it was a good place to start.

As soon as the doors opened, she slipped out, looking for some kind of cover, but none was available. Fortunately, it was also unnecessary. The room was large and brightly lit, almost like a clean room. There was no gear that would indicate it actually was a clean room, though. More importantly, no one appeared to be around. She moved silently through the interconnected rooms that made up the basement in search of anything suspicious. There were several labs and offices, most of them locked but not a challenge for her to break in and look through for information.

There had been days when paper files were the object of her search. Now, though, her searches were usually computerized. People tended to be predictable with their passwords, sometimes not even changing them from the default. There were a few desktops that required waiting for her algorithm to brute force its way through before getting access, but not many required any tech. If time was less of a factor, she could have found the owners of these offices and stolen their keys to ease this along.

However, it was the middle of night, and while the labs operated at some capacity twenty-four hours a day, the administrative personnel did not. She would have expected a shady company to have its secret basement operations going almost exclusively at night, but what did she know about such things?

Her search yielded nothing more interesting than the usual not-strictly-illegal-but-certainly-immoral kinds of activities one would expect from a company of this size, and she was somewhat disappointed. Even if it was technically good news. She returned to the elevator and stared at the buttons, considering which one to press, but then it started moving on its own. Figuring that was as good an option as any, she resolved to wait and see where she ended up.

"Sharon?" she whispered, pressing her earpiece a little closer.

"You were off our scans there for a minute. You okay?" Agent 13 replied.

"Yeah, just in the basement."

"Find anything?"

"Not really," she admitted.

"Should we call it a day?"

She was about to reply when the elevator doors opened and she was greeted by an unexpected sight. Standing in front of her were a group of what must be mercenaries, and they seemed rather shocked to see her. More than she was to see them, anyway.

"Hi, there," was the conversation starter she opted to use.

They shifted uncomfortably, looking at each other in an attempt to find out what to do about her presence.

"What's the hold up?" a harsh voice demanded, and she could see a man of much slighter build standing behind them, wearing an impatient expression that was all too familiar. When he spotted her, he froze. "Natalia?"

"I'm going to need backup," she said calmly, pressing the elevator button several times. When nothing happened fast enough to suit her, she figured standing there like a sitting duck wasn't the best plan. This floor appeared to be composed only of offices and she ran past the men still conveniently immobilized by their surprise and into one such sanctuary, searching for something substantial with which to defend herself.

"Natalia!" that man, whom she remembered going by Bleach, yelled through the door and there was a cracking sound as one of the large men must have attempted to break it down. Not successfully so far, but it was only a matter of time. She needed a plan.

"Where are you?" Sam's voice broke through her less-than-focused thoughts.

"Fortieth floor," she told him. "Please don't ask me to jump out the window."

His laugh was somewhat mirthless but she appreciated it anyway. "That was the forty-first floor, Nat. I'm sending in help."

"What kind of help?" she wanted to know, hoping he didn't mean that drone of his.

Breaking glass somewhere outside of her office interrupted her and it sounded like whomever had been beating at her door now had something else to beat on. Well, it wouldn't be very sportsman-like to just hide out in here, so she took a deep breath, pulled out her Stingers, and opened the door.

Outside, there were six mercenaries as well as Bleach, and now a seventh man who apparently had been tossed in through the window. Certainly not a tactic she would have expected or recommended, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The fight wasn't exactly fair, so she figured she'd better lend a hand. Charging at the nearest man, she brought him down using her signature move before lunging at the next closest person. All of the mercenaries were armed, but were resisting using their guns for some reason. Some reason that did not apply to the use of knives. It took a bit of maneuvering, but she managed to get the knife away from the guy. She didn't particularly want to outright stab him, since he was just working, same as her, but she would if necessary.

He barreled toward her and she leapt out of the way, turning around to strike him solidly on the head with the knife handle. It wasn't a very large point of contact, but proved enough to throw him off. Enough for him to drop to his knees and maybe not be a threat for a short while. She looked around and found that the other four men were down, while Bleach had disappeared, presumably taking the elevator.

"Hello, Barnes," she said as the former Winter Soldier stood up and moved a little away from the last man he'd dispatched. None of them were dead, she was pretty sure, likely due to the fact that he had the fortune of having an effective blunt instrument attached to his shoulder. No deadlier weapon was necessary.

"Romanoff," he replied evenly.

"Sharon?" she tried.

"Get outside. Now."

She realized there were sirens going off, maybe for a few minutes and she just hadn't noticed. Troubling, since she usually would be aware of something so obvious. And loud. "Did Sam just throw you in here?" she asked conversationally while she looked for the stairs.

"Yeah. Seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied a little uncomfortably, pulling at the collar of his new suit.

"I'm sure it did," she replied, smirking as she headed for the staircase. Barnes followed her and they made good time getting to the ground floor. Outside, many of the workers were milling about, waiting to be told they could reenter the building. She and Barnes joined in with them unobtrusively as instructed by Sharon. She was, of course, still more or less in disguise (though her wig and glasses had been lost in the scuffle), but Barnes was dressed for a mission and hiding him was more difficult.

They headed for one of the larger pockets of employees to better disguise his presence. Well, that was her motivation. They didn't discuss it. Communication on a mission tended to be nonverbal by necessity. Not to mention the fact that he had said only a handful of words to her in years.

A sudden explosion made everyone gasp, and there were flames clearly visible on several of the floors. Then pandemonium ensued and people began to run. The structural integrity of the building would likely hold, especially since the sprinklers had come on, but they joined in the panic with everyone else. Once they were far enough away, they broke off and she led the way back to her safe house.

While they waited for Sharon or Sam give them further directions, she made some tea. It had been distinctly unpleasant to see Bleach again. Because it had been a very long time since she had done so, she'd hoped to be over it by now, but her nerves were a little shaken. Tea would help.

"Are you okay?" Barnes asked, startling her from remembering more than she would like to right now.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied. He continued to look at her, not accepting her hasty response. They hadn't been working together for very long. Well, not recently, anyway, she thought bitterly. Still, if she was compromised, then her teammates deserved to know about it. She had intended to tell Sharon the truth, why not Barnes?

There were very clear reasons why not, but she ignored them. "I… The man who was in charge of those guys. I knew him."

He nodded as though this made some kind of sense to him. She opened her mouth to ask him about that, but then Sharon made contact and they had more pressing concerns.

"You reading me, Nat?"

"Yes, we're here. Barnes and I are in the safehouse."

"Good. The building is still standing, but whatever they were doing in there, they managed to hide all the evidence. You said you weren't able to find anything?"

"Yeah, nothing substantial," she had to admit.

"Why did they attack you, then?"

She pursed her lips, not looking at Barnes. "The leader recognized me. And got away, probably the reason things were on fire."

"Did you get a good look at him, Barnes?" Sharon asked. He nodded. "Enough that we might be able to track him down?"

"His name is Bleach. I don't know if that's first or last," Barnes reported evenly, ignoring the way she looked at him sharply. "He was affiliated with HYDRA."

"It's not much, but we'll see what we can do. Sam's been tracking vehicles that left at the beginning of the chaos and thinks he found the one our guy used. We'll go check it out. You sit tight in case we need you."

"Yes, ma'am," Natasha replied.

"Don't ma'am me, Nat; I'm younger than you. Stay out of trouble."

The silence that followed the exchange tinged toward awkward. Natasha went to the kitchenette and prepared her tea, watching Barnes out of the corner of her eye as he walked over to the window. There were a lot of reasons to let it go, or to wait until later to pursue it, but if there was one thing she'd learned in the last year, it was that there was no time like the present.

"Barnes." He turned around, expression unreadable except for a hint of anxiety, likely guessing her intent. "Do you remember Bleach?"

"Yes," he replied, jaw clenching at he met her gaze. Clearly, he understood the underlying implications of her question.

"Do you remember our time together?" The question came out as a whisper and her heart pounded at the prospect of finally knowing the answer.

"I remember everything, Natalia."