Okay please don't hate me if I've got some of the details of Natasha's past wrong, I can't remember exactly what we know in the marvel universe and what I've read from other fanfic. Also, let me know what you think! I appreciate all the reveiws I've gotten, but I'd love to hear more of what ya'll think!

Also, I don't own any of this, Marvel gets all the credit for their amazing charaters and stories!

There was a long silence in the room after Natasha's revelation, no one seemed quite sure what to say. Eventually Fury finished the brief and dismissed them all. Rooms had been prepared for everyone upstairs, and they all agreed to meet again in the morning to try and address some of the problems they were facing. Basically, Natasha and Loki's daughter, scarlet, had recently developed powers that had yet to be tested and classified. She was not the most cooperative child, and so Fury was concerned. That on top of the information that Thor might be paying a visit soon created a lot of problems for the girl.

Tasha hung back as people cleared the room in hopes of talking to Clinton, but he was one of the first to leave. Instead she ended up alone with Fury.

"I'd rather not talk about it right now." She said gruffly before he could voice his opinions.

Fury nodded, "She is beautiful, looks just like you." He stated to walk out the door but he paused before leaving "She doesn't know…. Who her parents are. I'm sure this must be hard for you Natasha, but she needs her mother right now."

She didn't move until after he had gone, and then she simple sank into her chair. Me, a mother? I don't even know what that means…. This girl is better off not knowing me at all, I gave her up for a reason. But something else was bothering Natasha too. How long had it been since she had thought about the child? Months? Years? It had been all too easy to hand over a nameless faceless baby to the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors. And then she had hardly thought about it until she saw Loki again. How could I have been so stupid? I should have known there was something weird about him. As she stood to leave the room she felt empty inside. She had betrayed the team, no one could technically blame her, since she had done it fifteen years ago, before she even knew Clint, but she still felt dirty inside.

Natasha did not go directly back to her room, Instead she started up the stairs and looked for a way out onto the roof. "Clint" she called as she shimmied up the last few feet between the highest window and the roof top. So high up from the ground they could see everything in the compound; which was actually very large. There were five large buildings, most of them low enough that they could not been seen through the trees when you stood on the ground. In addition to those five buildings, there were several clusters of what looked like huts or houses each separated by a stretch of trees.

Clint was crouched on the far side of the roof, watching a group of kids play some game in a clearing bellow them. She sat down next to him, folding her legs in pretzel style. She watched the kids for a moment, briefly wondering if one of them was Scarlet. "It was before we met." she said quietly, as if that might explain how she had managed to never mention to her best friend that she had a child with a psychopathic god from another world.

Barton did not speak for a while, but Natasha waited… she knew him well enough to know he needed time to process this. Even she had needed time to process it. She had recognized Loki from those first pictures she had seen off the security footage taken when he arrived and flattened one of S.H.E.I.L.D.'s largest bases. She had told herself she was crazy, that there was no way, but then she met him in person and she could not deny it.

"Does he know?"

Her heart sank at this question, because it spoke volume for what kind of friend Clint was. He hadn't asked how she could be so stupid as to sleep with a crazy man, or why she had never told anyone… he wasn't judging her for giving up the baby either. "No, he recognized me in New York… but I didn't tell him about her." She shuddered at the thought of what Loki's reaction might be. Something inside her rose up and made her want to run to Scarlet and protect her. "I may not be a good mother, but I knew better than to do that."

Clint nodded in agreement, and finally looked up and met Natasha's gaze. She reached out and took his hand, but he pulled away. "I know why you didn't tell me…" he said as he stood. "I understand the need to keep it a secret.. But I cannot pretend that I'm okay with you… you and him. The Natasha I knew would never have let that happen… I spent more time with him than any of you, he was in my brain! I saw how sick ad twisted he was… I guess I would have just thought that you were a better judge of character than that." With that he walked away.

Natasha didn't follow him, it's just going to take him some time, she told herself. She knew none of the Avengers would understand, but Loki had been different when she met him. He had been kind, and she was hurting… She wasn't condoning what he had done in New York, but she also knew that there were two sides to every story, and part of her was still waiting to hear Loki's.

Scarlet froze in the hallway, her veins turned to ice, standing maybe ten feet in front of her was an angry woman in black leather. She was different than Scarlet, strong and confident, but the red curls and scowled face were the same. Her mother was here. She watched as the woman hurried past her and started sprinting up the stairs, she never even looked up. 'I guess I shouldn't be suprised she thought to herself, 'the woman gave me up as a baby, why should she recognize me now?' It was strange though, there was no doubt in her mind that this woman was her mother, despite never having seen a picture or been told what she looked like. In fact, all Scarlet was supposed to know about her parents was that one was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, and the other a very dangerous man. She had put together a lot more than that though. The thing about living in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D base was that there were lots of conversations going on that no one was supposed to hear, and if you were clever like Scarlet, you could pick up some interesting information.

She started walking again, her uneven gait causing some curious looks from the other student, or as Scarlet called them; inmates. But she had never let that deter her. As she walked she reviewed what she knew about the woman; she was with the group that had just arrived that morning and had spent the entire morning hiding in the basement with Fury. The Avengers people called them. She remembered hearing about them after the attack on New York, just a few months before S.H.I.E.L.D. Had brought her here. Most of the Avengers were super heroes; Ironman, Bruce Banner (also known as the Hulk), and Captain America were among them. To be listed among people like that she assumed the woman must be a pretty legit fighter. That wasn't much to know about the woman who gave birth to you, but something Scarlet had learned in her three years at the base was that getting intelligence isn't about what you know, it's who you know.

It took her about ten minutes to get to the library, and as she expected R.A.M. was sitting at a table on the far side of the room staring intently at a computer screen. The girl was only about eleven, but she was one of the smartest people that Scarlet had met and S.H.I.E.L.D. Had picked her up a few months before when they noticed her uncanny ability with computers. That is, she was caught hacking their data base trying to find information about a friend who had disappeared. S.H.I.E.L.D. had given her two options, be under a sort of technological house arrest for the rest of her life, or allow them to train her and become a S.H.I.E.L.D. Asset. R.A.M. had chosen the latter. Scarlet reached the computer and carelessly smacked a couple of keys before plopping down in the chair next to her. Almost immediately the screen went black and a security warning appeared.

R.A.M. turned to her, less than pleased. "You know, some people would say excuse me."

Scarlet smiled, "Oh but that is so mainstream." she retorted. Scarlet was under one of the strictest security protocols in the whole compound. Even touching a piece of technology could put it under lock down for the next twenty four hours. She also wore an ankle bracelet, and an agent followed her at all times. The weird thing was, no one could figure out why. All you had to do was look at her to know that she wasn't a threat, heck, she could hardly walk let alone attack someone. Maybe now she could finally get some answers.

"So R.A.M., if you have a minute I need some info on our new guests. "

The girl rolled her eyes, "I think I have some time…. You certainly made sure of that."

Scarlet rolled her eyes "Oh relax, after you tell me what I want to know I will clear the computer lock." And she wasn't lying, though Scarlet was not allowed to touch a computer, she could tell someone in the tech department that she had accidentally locked her friends computer, and after ensuring that Scarlet would not have access to it, they would restore whatever R.A.M. had been working on. "You remember that team of freaks who saved the world during the attack on New York?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. Tried to keep it under wraps but I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of the Avengers at this point." R.A.M. said sounding bored.

"Well they showed up here this morning for a briefing with Fury. And I want to know everything you've got on the scary ginger one in leather."

R.A.M. smirked "You mean agent Romaov? They call her the Black Widow… she is one of the most hard core spies known to man… trained by the Russians, literally programed to kill. Lord knows how S.H.I.E.L.D. Was able to turn her to the good side… But she's been in the agency for about fifteen years, I could tell you more if you hadn't fried that thing." she gestured to the computer, which was still displaying the security message.

Scarlet shrugged, "That's enough for now, thanks!"

As she got up to leave R.A.M. called after her "Get it working again, you promised!"

Scarlet waved her off and headed out the door. She would do as she had promised, she had a lot to think about anyway. Ten minutes later a security team escorted her to her room and a guard was posted outside the door. She guessed that R.A.M.'s computer would be working again within the hour.

Natasha sat on the roof alone for a while, she didn't really feel like talking to anyone except Barton, and he had made it pretty clear that he was not in the chatting mood. When it started to rain she finally pulled herself up and climbed back through the window. Steve was sitting on a chair by the door of the room, he stood as she closed the window.

"Took you long enough" he said as he came over to her "I thought you might have run away from us." He enveloped her into a hug and she tried to pull away, but Steve was strong, and she was too tired to fight him right now.

"I don't know what happened Tasha," he whispered to her "But you can talk to me, I'm here for you." and she knew he meant it, Steve Roger was just that kind of guy, the kind of guy who would sit with you all night and listen without ever thinking that he might score.

"Clint is mad… and I just don't know if he will ever forgive me…" she whispered back "And Fury wants me to be a mother, I didn't sign up for that… I just can't." She stopped herself before the emotions broke through to her face, but Steve was smart enough to guess what she was feeling. He was one of those people who was really good at getting people to talk, he could read them like a book. Of course, Tasha herself was excellent at reading people, but it was different for her, she saw lies and deceit where he saw anger, hurt, and abandonment.

He pulled away and they sat down on the stiff bed that sat on the other side of the room, this was probably someone's bedroom, but they didn't really care. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked quietly.

She didn't, no part of her body wanted to talk about this, but she did anyway. "It was before I came to S.H.I.E.L.D. , actually, right after I met Barton for the first time. A mission had gone wrong, he had interrupted me and I had missed my target. I knew that the people I worked for would probably want me dead, or at least seriously punish me for failing a mission, and so I ran. I ended up at some seedy bar in Norway somewhere… and I was tried, and alone, and I didn't know who I was anymore… and well David, or I guess Loki, he was there…"

Steve didn't say anything, he just watched her. Man, this guy would have made a great shrink if the whole super solider thing hadn't panned out.

"Of course he has wearing normal clothes, and he even talked normally… Loki is much better at blending in than Thor. I don't think he targeted me or anything, he was just checking the place out. He bought me a drink, and we started talking. I wouldn't call him a nice guy but we had connected… and something about him was very attractive. Anyway, it was just one night, I left before he woke up, and two months later the stick turned blue." She took a deep breathe, she had never told anyone this, not even Fury when she told him about how she had known Loki before New York. "Anyway, that was right around the time Coulson and Barton were trying to bring me over to S.H.I.E.L.D. They ended up compromising me, and I found my self tied to a bed in a hospital room in one of S.H.I.E.L.D. 's facilities. Fury came in and took off the restraints. I think he thought I would attack him but I didn't, I wasn't going to get out alive anyway. He told me that they had run some tests when I was brought in, and he knew I was pregnant… He offered me a deal."

Steve took a deep breath "So S.H.I.E.L.D. Kept you safe until you had the baby, and then…"

Natasha's face was stone cold "I gave her up for adoption, that was the deal… they would find her a home where she could never be connected to me, and I would come work for S.H.I.E.L.D. "

"And then?" he prompted

She shrugged, "I recognized Loki the moment I saw him, thought it took me a while to accept it. After everything in New York went down I contacted Fury and told him what I had learned."

"And since then?"

Now she stood "Nothing, I didn't ask what he was going to do because I didn't want to know. I gave her up for a reason Steve, I chose the job… I wasn't made to be a mother. I hadn't even thought about her again until today."

Steve stood too "Well what now? Are you going to talk to her, tell her who you are?"

"I don't know" She said looking down at the floor.

"And what about Loki?"

Now she laughed "What about him? It's not like I can contact him from here, and even if I could, he tried to destroy our world five years ago, something tells me he isn't exactly dad material. Does it matter what I think about him? That I can't bring myself to hate him? I had always thought of him as the man who saved me, if I hadn't have been pregnant I'm not sure I would have made that deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. , so yes, part of me will always think of him as… as… I don't know…" She stopped talking, did she love him? No, not a chance. He was a murderer, but then again… so was she. "It's not like we are going to settle down in Asguard with a white picket fence" she muttered, and then she walked out of the room before Steve could say anymore.

What do you guys think? Do like Scarlet? Do you think Loki could be redeemed? Or that he would be a good father (I kind of shudder at the thought actually...) Thanks for reading, I'll post the thrid chapter as soon as I have it done!