The Avengers

Red

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing. Not the Avengers, not Black Widow, not Hawkeye. I do not own anything even remotely Marvel related.

Summary: It was a sick cosmic joke. She knew she couldn't clean the red from her ledger. Not quite anyways. She knew that no matter how much good she did, her past would always be drenched in red. Her future would be as well, due to her profession. Natasha knew her place in the universe—so why did her son have to suffer? Why did his innocent blood have to be spilled?

Pronunciation:

Alexei—ah-leek-SYAY

Persik—pear-seek

Alexei had always bruised easily. That was what earned him his nickname, Persik, which meant "peach" in Russian. It could also mean tomato of course, but that worked too because of his tomato red hair. That's at least how Clint defended the nickname to her the first time he used it on the toddler as he iced the little boy's newest terrible, bumpy bruise. Natasha hadn't said a word for or against the title, having decreed long ago her utter refusal to be one of those moms who used sappy pet names on their kids like "munchkin" and "honeybun" or some other Little Debbie's convection; she only demanded that Clint kept a better eye on his son. The amount of bruises Alexei garnered on a weekly basis was becoming disturbing at that point.

No matter how carefully you watched him though, it seemed impossible for the toddler to go to bed without a fresh bruise blemishing his baby skin or a cut from a fall that refused to scab over for hours and hours. Natasha was reluctant to let Alexei have play dates once he got old enough. With Tori, it had been a welcome dose of normalcy. Or rather, civilian normalcy. It was nice to have a few hours where Natasha and Clint could just kick back with another pair of parents, drink ice tea, and discuss things not related to super villains, aliens, or secret intelligence while the kids ran wild on the playground or in someone's backyard. With Alexei however, it was clear from the get-go that there would be no relaxing while he played. Not when he bruised so easily and bled so much from the tiniest cuts.

Instead, Clint would make excuses—"Can't this weekend. Tori has dance classes. When we don't come and watch, she tap-dances on all the wood floors in the house for hours on end in an effort to drive us insane." or "Sorry, but if I told you where we're going to be this weekend I'd have to kill you."—and Natasha would simply intimidate civilian couples who asked by telling them, "My employers would like to avoid security breaches of any and every kind. That includes the children of agents. If you want our children to have a play date, you must first acquire the proper forms, fill them out in full, and submit them in a timely fashion to be put on a waiting list. After a period of two to four weeks, the forms to approve you personally and schedule the play date should arrive in my mail box, at which point I will contact you to set up a face to face conference to debate which date would be preferable. Once we schedule the play date, I can submit the proper forms and we'll be able to proceed with the play date in a timely fashion. Permitted you don't have a criminal record of course." Most people tell her to forget about it after they hear the word "proper forms", though some manage to hang on until "waiting list."

By the time Alexei is five, Natasha has already long suspected something is deeply wrong with him. The only reason she hasn't taken him to the doctor to find out what is because part of her keeps telling her, like a desperate mantra, "Kids get bruises. He's just clumsy. It's nothing really. You're being paranoid, Natasha, and not in the good way. Don't end up like one of those crazy moms who carry antibacterial soap everywhere." The discrete dirty looks Tori gives her for days after denying her permission to join the archery club at school only makes the mantra more insist that she should lighten up and stop being so overprotective. That mantra is silenced two days after New Year's.

"The grilled cheeses are ready!" Clint calls from the kitchen. He emerges a moment later looking like the star of the circus again with four plates of grilled cheese sandwiches and pickles balanced on his arms while his hands hold two soda cans each. On his head is a fifth plate containing four extra sandwiches in case anyone wants seconds. Tori laughs at the sight while Natasha quirks a smile at him as she stands from the living room couch and goes off in search of Alexei. "Ask him if he wants his pickle!" Tori calls after her, and Natasha knows she's already eyeing the green vegetable—"fruit" Clint contests, and not even the supreme court can resolve this age old debate of theirs—on her brother's plate greedily.

Natasha checks Alexei's room first. He's not there, but his floor is a mess of lego pieces and dolls stolen from the toy box gathering dust in the corner of his sister's bedroom. Ten minutes ago, the last time she checked in on him on her way from the master bedroom to the living room, he'd been watching cartoons on his TV set, so he had to have just been playing a few minutes ago. Natasha checks Tori's room right next door, wondering if he'd gone in search of more of her old toys to play with. He's not there, but a far more terrifying sight is. She strides quickly across the room to press her finger into one of the red stains by the toy box. It's still wet and it sticks to her finger.

She checks the windows. They're still locked. She takes out her phone and checks the security system. Everything looks in order. No open doors or windows, no anomalies of any sort. Not convinced, Natasha takes out a blade tucked in her boot and presses a button on her phone to silently alert Clint that she thinks something might be wrong. She creeps out of Tori's room and goes to check the bathroom across the hall, deciding to work her way room to room in search of some sort of breach in security.

At first, nothing seems wrong. Everything is how it usually is. A damp towel is on the floor from the kids' baths last night that's beginning to smell a tad mildewy. The hamper is overflowing slightly. The sea-life themed shower curtains are sort of rumpled from her shower this morning. Toothpaste for the morning brushings is caked to the sides of the sink. Someone—Clint—left the toilet seat up. However, in the bathroom trash is all the evidence Natasha needs to both confirm and deny her suspicions.

There are several bloody sheets of toilet paper in the bin. Natasha is sure the blood was Alexei's. She is also sure that an assassin or enemy of any kind wouldn't have made a detour to the bathroom to clean up. It would have been an incredibly stupid move. Natasha takes out her phone and deactivates the alert, informing Clint everything is alright—or at least not as bad as it could have been. She tucks her blade back in her boot.

"Alexei!" She calls out finally. "Alexei, you aren't in trouble. Come out, you're father made us all lunch." She hears a low, prolonged creak from down the hall. She peaks her head out of the bathroom. Tip-toeing out of the master bedroom is Alexei. He has little wads of toilet paper stuffed up his nostrils. The wads and his upper lip both are stained red and the collar of his shirt isn't much better off. He looks ready to cry.

"I was careful!" Alexei protested right off the bat.

"What happened, Persik?" Natasha asked, approaching her son and taking a knee to examine in him. She tugged the paper wads from his nose. Amazingly—or more accurately, appallingly, some blood still trickled from his nose and to his lips. Alexei whimpered as he went to wipe to blood away. His hands are already stained red enough, so Natasha stops him. She takes his red hand and says, "Let's get you cleaned up."

Minutes later, Alexei is clean of all blood and not so close to tears anymore as he sits on the toilet lid, swinging his legs back and forth. Natasha bent down in front of him and combed his red hair out of his face. "Alexei, how did you get a nose bleed?" She asked him gently. "I was careful." Alexei repeats defensively. "I know you hate it, Mama, when I get hurt all over—so I was careful! I didn't fall or get hit or nothing." There was a catch in his throat. "And the blood came anyways!" He exploded, sounding utterly betrayed. "All over my face, and my shirt, and Tori's floor! Everywhere! But that's not how it's supposed to work! It's supposed to be, I fall or get hit and then the blood and bruises come! They can't just show up uninvited like, like one of those bad guys you and Daddy fight!" Alexei cried openly now. He wasn't a sobbing, blubbering mess of snot and tears, but he cried with soft whimpers and shaking shoulders nonetheless. Natasha gathers him in her arms and holds him tight in what Clint calls her "Mama Bear hug". Natasha likes the comparison of her to a bear. Especially in reference to how she hugs her children. It reminds her of a man she can hardly remember aside from the fact he was big and hairy like a bear and hugged with burly arms close to his warm, muscular chest.

Alexei threw his arms around her neck and made himself comfortable in the crook. Natasha rubbed circles in his back and thread her other hand in the mop of red hair on his head. "The blood is a bad guy." She told him. "So are the bruises." Alexei sniffled curiously. "Really?" Natasha nods sincerely. "Really. And ya know what?"

"What?" Alexei croaks.

"Anyone can deal with bad guys. Everyone on Earth has to deal with them at some point, in some shape. But it takes a real tough guy to deal as many bad guys as you have to." She informs him, pulling away and giving him a reassuring smile. Alexei smiled thankfully through his tears, but all too soon it faded from his lips. "Why me though? Why am I always getting hurt by bad guys?" He asked her helplessly. Natasha has no real answer for him and can't bear to give him some fairy-tale bullshit lie. Not when something could be genuinely wrong with him. "I don't know, Persik. But we'll find out."

Ten minutes later, Alexei is chewing on his cold grilled cheese while Tori munches on the pickle she stole from him, Clint is watching some American-Gladiator-esque show on TV with one eye and Alexei with the other, and Natasha is in the kitchen scheduling an important appointment over the phone.

Hemophilia.

Alexei Romanoff has hemophilia.

It's a sick, cosmic joke.

Natasha remembers Loki's words, the words of countless villains actually, all of whom sought to use her past to manipulate or simply hurt her. That was all well and good. You could try and hurt her all you wanted. She probably kind of deserved it. But her kids…If she had anyone to blame but herself, that person would be dead within the hour.

"As you may be aware, hemophilia is a blood disorder where the blood does not clot properly, lacking the proteins needed, leading to prolonged and profuse bleeding when cut, easy bruising, and spontaneous bouts of bleeding from no real cause at all." The doctor hesitated. "It's genetic, but it's rare and almost exclusively occurs in boys." She informed them. Clint was pressing his forehead against the sterile white wall of the hospital hallway. "This is my fault isn't it." He muttered. The doctor cringed as her eyes darted between Clint, who looked like the typical devastated parent, and Natasha, who kept up an unreadable expression that clearly made the young doctor wary of her. The quiet ones, after all, were usually the ones who exploded in fits of tears, or made fist-sized craters in the wall, or both, and with no warning. "It's no one's fault. Having a child with hemophilia is just the result of a bad dice roll. Women can go their whole lives never knowing they carry the gene, though some may notice they bleed a bit more than average when they get cut." She explained. Every bloody wound she's ever had flashes before Natasha's eyes then. She shoves them all back down into the dark abyss they belong in at the back of her head.

Clint doesn't look relieved in the least as he puts his back to the wall. Natasha takes a deep breath through her nose and asks the doctor, "What are our options?" The doctor gives them a pitying look Natasha hates but also understands. She'd pity them too if she was a doctor.

"There is no cure for hemophilia, but since the 1960s, great strides have been made. Today, replacement therapy is the preferred form of treatment; it's when we inject the protein needed for clotting and coagulation in blood into the affected person's vein. Considering Alexei's young age, I would recommend primary prophylaxis. Primary prophylaxis is typical for children and reaps multiple benefits. Alexei would be able to lead a more active lifestyle, his risk of spontaneous bleeding and bruising would be lowered, and risk of joint disease from internal bleeding in the joints would be reduced as well. Keep in mind your budget however, as injections would have to frequent and they can often be costly. On-demand treatment—treatment only when needed—is the cheaper option.

"As for products, you have two choices: plasma-derived products, which are made from human blood, or recombinant factor concentrates, which come from hamster cells. Plasma-derived products derive the proteins needed in treatment from donated human blood that is heavily screened and sterilized before the extraction process. However, there would still be a miniscule chance of it carrying a human virus which Alexei would be very vulnerable to as a hemophiliac. Recombinant factor concentrates, being made from hamster cells, carry no risk of carrying human diseases. Whatever you decide, I'd recommend we schedule Alexei to have a port-a-catheter implanted. It'd be implanted under his skin and connected to a central vein. It would last many years and Alexei would be allowed to participate in water activities with it. The risk of infection is there, but is low as long as injections are performed properly." The doctor informed them with utmost sympathy in her voice. Natasha didn't consider many things overwhelming, but hearing the options just to make her kid's life even livable might just have been one of the top ten overwhelming things she ever endured. She discreetly checked her own pulse on her wrist. Her heart was racing.

"I'll write this all down for you and give you the proper forms and information so you can reach your decision in your own time. And of course, there'll be a list of medications that aggravate hemophilia to give to any medical personnel that need that information. I'll also put in an order for a medical bracelet for Alexei, identifying him as a hemophiliac if he ever gets in an accident or anything. Until then, let's all just be thankful this is a moderate case and be glad that this was caught when it was." The doctor said softly, and then she excused herself.

Clint wordlessly pulled Natasha into an embrace and rested his forehead against her shoulder. "I'm going to ask for leave from missions for a couple months. Until we sort this out." He whispered. Neither of them went undercover or on many long term missions anymore. Most of their missions lasted a week or so at most nowadays. Missions with the Avengers requiring their services only came around every few months, and major crisis's per year had decreased dramatically with the rise of super human heroes in the world. Even so, Natasha agreed she should ask for an official leave of absence as well.

Everyone would understand.

"Alexei Romanoff has hemophilia." She whispered aloud and followed it with a dark scoff. "We should have seen it coming. You know what they say about history repeating itself and all." She could practically feel Clint quirk a thin smile. "Maybe we should have named him Ivan or something else stereotypically Russian then." He commented. "Nah," Natasha replied. "Then the universe would have just given him an alcoholic affection for vodka."

Clint pulled away and raised an eyebrow. There was no smile, thin or otherwise, to accompany it. "You're blaming this of the universe, Nat?"

"What else would have the power to finally punish me—and so poetically on top of it?" She replied with a shoulder shrug.

"Nat," Clint said. Natasha nearly scoffed. He sounded like he'd just caught her with her hand in the cookie jar. Or rather, the self-deprecation jar. "Nat, this is genetic. A numbers game. The universe—or whatever's charge, Hell if I know—hasn't inflicted our son with a blood disorder just to get back at you for your past. For either of our pasts. And if it has, well, I've done some messed up shit in my past too, so it wouldn't all be on you anyways." He assured her. Natasha knew he was right logically. That didn't stop her from feeling like he was wrong though.

Explaining things to everyone aside from their kids in their lives was the easy part, even if it did result in some weirdly out of character moments from some of their friends, like Tony turning weirdly solemn for about two and a half minutes, and Fury looking visibly upset for a split second when they came into his office and told him their child was suffering from a chronic illness and their affairs needed to be put in order. Cap was completely in-character at least. That was assuring. Though they did have to explain to him that hemophilia wasn't as life threatening today as it had been back in the 40s. Afterwards, he offered to come over and talk to Alexei anytime, "seeing as how I have experience with the whole walking bruise and chronic illness stuff." The others were helpful as well. Tony and Pepper even promised to invest money into research for a cure. Tony also had possibly the biggest toy from the store closest to the tower delivered to their house the next day. Even with that typical Tony gesture though, everyone was noticeably sobered by the news.

They were the easy part though. The hard part was telling the actual sick person that they were sick. And his sister of course. But as most people learn at some point in their life regrettably, five year olds aren't known for their comprehension skills of Dr. Seuss let alone the ins-and-outs of human disease. Eleven year olds aren't much better.

Alexei and Tori both need to have certain things repeated to them several times for everything to really sink in. Of course Alexei's first real question is: "Am I going to die?" It comes out in the most pitiful whimper that had ever reached Natasha's ears. That's saying something considering all the people who had begged her for mercy.

"No," Natasha spits out automatically. It's as knee-jerk a reaction as if would be for her to break a man's neck in a fight. Just like years on the job had honed her reflexives to be deadly, years of parenting had honed them to be comforting when it came to her kids. "No, you can live a long, happy life as long as you're treated properly." Alexei and Tori remained appropriately skeptical.

"Look, it's going to be alright." Clint assured them both. "Nothing's changed, guys. Nothing's gotten worse. In fact, things are going to get better. Once Alexei starts his treatments, he won't bleed so badly or get bruised so much." A smile split Clint's features and reached over to ruffle Alexei's red hair. "And too bad. You won't be our little Persik anymore."

Tori managed a small giggle. "He still has red hair." She pointed out. "We can still call him a tomato!"

Alexei wrinkled his nose as his sister as he batted his father's hand away. "I'm not a fruit!" He whined.

"Sure smell like one. Have you been using Mom's shampoo again? You know you're only supposed to use the stuff that doesn't make you cry. Not the fruity smelling stuff that Mom uses."

"That's actually mine." Clint piped up.

"Then what does Mom use?" Tori asked.

Clint shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I guess she just smells like apricots and melon naturally." He then looked over at her and quirked an eyebrow. Natasha swatted his shoulder. "Suck-ups don't get kisses." She informed him.

"Who said I was asking for a kiss? Maybe I wanted a foot rub? Or a neck rub? I do a lot around this house ya know." Clint huffed melodramatically, drawing another giggle from his daughter and son. He grinned triumphantly.

"Learn to put down the toilet seat and we'll talk." Natasha replied, and her kids giggled and Clint rolled his eyes and made a witty comeback about hair in the shower drain. Natasha smiled all the while, making a sarcastic retort and groaning right along with Alexei and Tori at the bad pun Clint came back with. Deep down, however, she couldn't shake the fact that at only five years old, her son had become permanently associated with the color red.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this.

BTW, this ties in with my other Clintasha kid!fic "Every Parent's Worst Nightmare".

Clarifications if you need them:

*Alexei Romanoff is also the name of the last Prince of Russia, the son of Tsar Nicholas II. He had hemophilia, which was actually a factor leading to the Russian revolution and his mother's severe unpopularity with the people, since she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Hemophilia was considered an "English disease".

*I tried to make this fic as accurate as possible. Nothing about hemophilia is fictionalized here.

*Even the supreme court of the United States couldn't decide whether pickles are fruits or vegetables.

Again, I hope you enjoyed the story. Please review. I'm going to make a third story about an older Alexei and Tori later I think. Thanks for reading!