Author's Note:

Hi! That's right, I'm posting again! Wanna know why? Because it's one of my favourite actor's birthdays - SEBASTIAN STAN! I love him so much! And there happens to be another birthday coming up soon - which we have managed to do the chapter for already! So, I'm really excited about it! It does mean that there are sometimes when there's a longer time to wait for a chapter, but it does enable us to post more frequently when we want/need to - and even though I almost forewent the birthday idea, I'm glad I didn't! Of course, if the birthdays were more regular and equally distanced, it'll be a lot easier. But, I love this way right now!

A special thank you to the amazing reviewers on the previous chapters: Sportsfan64; DarylDixon'sLover; LilyRose14; grossly-sweet; TheJollyRoger; Moustache1234; Nowmyworldisperfect; RomanogerLaucifer.

Natasha felt her blood boil almost uncontrollably as she swung the knife around in her left hand, her right hand holding the phone to her ear. "That's fucked up!" She spat. She glanced over at Steve, who looked just as pissed as she felt. "I'm going to rip his di-"

"Don't." The person on the other end of the phone interrupted her. "Right now, if anything happens to that asshole, it'll lead straight to Chloe."

Natasha almost growled. "I am not going to let that thing near anybody ever again." She promised, but Tony was right- it was too soon, and it'd lead to Chloe. But she would kill that man eventually - she was playing the long game.

She heard a baby's cry over Tony's call. "I have to go, Howie is crying again. Just read the file and if we can fight it legally, we will. But only if we are sure to win - we have Chloe's reputation to think of. This will follow her for the rest of her life."

"Fine. Give Howie a hug from me," Natasha replied before ending the call and grabbing her laptop to read the file, examining every single word. It was almost funny how ridiculous it was!

That stupid man was claiming that Chloe had had a crush on him and he continuously would have to take a step back and the only reason he didn't report it was that he didn't want to stop her chances of getting adopted - because apart from that, she was a great and bright young lady. What a load of crap. Well, not Chloe being 'great and bright', but still.

She could find defences for everything he said in his statement, easily rip it apart - after all, she had gone undercover as a lawyer more than once - but there was one thing she couldn't dispute. The case was thrown out of court due to lack of evidence - it wouldn't even make it to court. There was nothing apart from the word of an orphan.

Natasha knew that even her own testimony wouldn't help- she hadn't actually seen anything more than a few touches, so it would be classed as speciation.

Natasha minimised the page on her laptop to look at the background image of Chloe and Selina - she didn't want to drag Chloe through all of this. There was no guarantee that if they got to court - to a jury - that they'd find him guilty. And if that happened, not only would Chloe have to deal with it then, but it would follow her everywhere. Thankfully, Chloe's name hadn't been published anywhere yet - but that didn't mean it wouldn't be released, and the longer the case went on, the worse it would be.

"We'll get justice," Steve promised as he threw his phone onto the bed, causing it to bounce off onto the floor.

She moved forward and took his hands. "We will get justice - but not by using Chloe." He looked at her with confusion. "She needs the chance to be a child and not have to deal with all of this."

Steve sighed and nodded. "I just wish we could have protected her from all of this."

"Maybe I shouldn't have told her to testify at all," Natasha said. Then Chloe wouldn't have to deal with what looked like nobody believing her.

He shook his head, hands tightening on hers. "If you hadn't she would have thought that her word meant nothing at all- that we were telling her to not even bother trying." He lightly argued.

Natasha sighed as she pulled her hair back and out of her face, only to drop it and let it fall again. She leant forward, placing her head against Steve's chest. "How are we going to tell her?" She felt utterly defeated right now, and there was nothing she could do at this current moment.

He held her close. "We'll just be honest and make sure she knows that we don't blame her and that we're here for her." He answered though he sounded just as exhausted. "I just can't believe it didn't go to court. All that hard work…"

She let out a huff and pulled back. "We have to leave to pick up the kids in half an hour." She reminded him. That didn't really give them much time, especially as all she wanted to do was go and work out for hours on end.

Steve groaned. "I've never been so afraid of facing a child." He admitted, throwing an arm over his eyes. "Remind me why they can't ride the bus, again?" Even as he spoke, he stood and went over to his dresser, pulling out a pair of socks and sitting on the edge of the bed to pull them on.

"They can," Natasha replied; they had never fully discussed the children taking the bus, although it would be a lot easier. "I'll look into it."

"Thanks." He responded, finished with his socks and now just sitting, looking at the wall. "I really hope things turn out alright. Chloe deserves so much better than what she's gotten in life."

"... I'll check to see that we have everything for dinner." Natasha decided before grabbing her jacket as she walked out. She was determined to keep things together.

There was a weird feeling in the air, emanating from Steve and Natasha, that put Chloe on edge as they all ate dinner. They held up a conversation easily enough, seemed okay… but still, something was making her uneasy. Sometimes they'd look at her and there'd be this look in their eyes that she couldn't understand. Had something happened? Something that would affect her? Despite her growing anxiousness, Chloe ate all of the chicken on her plate- she was starving. Selina ate similarly, although that wasn't unusual for the girl with the bottomless pit for a stomach. By the time everyone was free to go about their after-dinner activities, Chloe knew something was up when Steve and Natasha, instead of leaving her to read or play with Selina, requested that she step into their room to talk. Dread pulled at her stomach, threatening to bring up the large dinner she'd just eaten. What was going on?

"What is it?" She finally asked after Steve had shut the door behind them. Selina was set up with a princess movie downstairs, so the fact that they'd brought Chloe all the way up here to make sure Selina didn't hear made Chloe even more nervous- was it that sensitive of a topic?

"Maybe you should take a seat, Chloe," Natasha started in a calm and controlled voice as she sat down.

Chloe, gut roiling, sat down beside her as Steve sat on Nat's other side. They turned to face each other. "Did something happen?" Chloe asked nervously.

Natasha took a breath. "It's about your court case - it's not going forward." She said, looking to Steve.

"There wasn't enough evidence for the court to accept it." He furthered. Chloe felt her blood freeze in her veins, felt her heart sputter and stop before jumping back into frantic action, beating hard enough that surely even Natasha and Steve could hear it.

"W-what? It's… what?" Was all she could manage, face going cold- she figured that meant she'd gone considerably pale. "W-why would they…? Don't they believe me?" Her voice came out as a mix between a croak and a squeak, but she couldn't, for the life of her, steady it.

Steve put a hand on her shoulder as a show of support. "Unfortunately, even though I'm sure lots of people there believe you, they're too bogged down by protocols to take your case any further… but that's their fault, not any of ours… and especially not yours. You were very brave to take this as far as you could." Tears welled up in Chloe's eyes, but she nodded minutely.

"I… I can't believe this is happening." She whispered, swiping a hand over her cheeks to remove the tears that had escaped.

Natasha placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll get that bastard one day."

Chloe sniffled, made a small whimpering sound she wasn't proud of and stood to pace. After a few rounds, she felt a little better and asked, "Can I see the records?"

Natasha and Steve shared a look before she received a nod. "Of course."

Steve went to the bedside table and picked up a manila folder, handing it to her. She took it almost hesitantly, thankful that if her foster parents noticed her shaking hands, they didn't comment. She skimmed over the pages, taking in the more important details, and came to a screeching halt halfway through the folder. "He… he blamed me? That- that mother-" she cut herself off by pressing her shaking fist against her lips, not wanting to start cussing people out in front of her guardians- as much as the man deserved it, that was a whole other can of worms she didn't feel like opening. "How could he? And how can people believe that?"

Steve made a disgusted sound. "It's sickening, isn't it? Unfortunately, that happens much too often in these kinds of cases… That man is evil enough to not only victimise a young girl but then blame her for his actions to avoid getting punished himself. It's the sad truth that there are people out there like that."

"But… no! You saw it, Natasha! Wouldn't you saying it happened prove it enough?" Chloe demanded, frustrated more than she had ever been in her entire life.

"That wouldn't work - what I saw wasn't enough; it's a subjective point of view," Natasha explained.

"No! You're- you're a superhero, for God's sake! You would never lie about something like that!" Chloe protested, anger starting to well up inside of her and mixing with her dread and frustration. And why shouldn't she be mad, dammit? She deserved to be enraged. She had now become a victim of not just an evil man, but of the court themselves, the system that was supposed to protect the innocents like her! They had failed her! She was furious.

Natasha didn't react at all. "I know you are upset, but no yelling or aggressive speech is allowed." She reminded her calmly. "My background doesn't provide the correct credibility - but even if it did, there's no concrete evidence that would show the jury the whole story. They won't convict somebody simply due to the testimony of a single witness who only saw a small part of it."

At this point, Chloe's anger- both at the courts, at the man who had done all of this, and even at herself- had grown so overwhelming that she just felt numb now. "So… all of that work… all of that pain… was for nothing." She said quietly, slowly leaning against the wall as though its physical presence could steady her rollercoaster of emotions.

"No, of course, it's not for nothing!" Steve immediately argued, standing and going over to her, putting both hands on her shoulders. "We may have lost this battle, but we haven't lost the war. We'll keep fighting this until that man gets what he truly deserves- you have our word on that." He said firmly.

Somehow, that didn't make Chloe feel much better. She nodded. "Okay. I'm… I'm gonna go to… bed, now." Steve sighed and let go of her and she made her way to the door. Before she left, she paused. "Thank you. For doing this with me." Then, without another word, she went to her room, locked the door and cried into her pillows until she fell into a restless sleep.

The next day, Chloe numbly sank onto the living room couch, unable to tear her gaze from the plain wall in front of her. The man who had hurt her for so long… wasn't going to be punished. He was walking free. He could hurt her - and others- still. She feared going back into foster care with his deeds always looming over her- what if he found her? Clearly, the court didn't care about what she said - the word of a pathetic orphan versus the word of a professionally-trained adult. She felt empty, like a failure. And she was terrified. What would happen to her now?

Steve and Natasha had offered their support and condolences, but thankfully were letting her have some space to think and collect herself. They'd done so much for her- and in the end, there was nothing to show for all of their hard work and dedication to bring her justice. How could she face them ever again? She heard the front door open and a few voices conversing quietly in the entryway for a few minutes- Natasha talking to Clint, it sounded like. Selina had been staying with the Bartons for the morning so she could get away from the dark mood surrounding her family for a bit.

"Chlo? Why are you sad?" Selina, sweet little innocent Selina, asked quietly as she came into the living room, arms wrapped, as per usual, around Mister Kyle. Chloe sucked in a breath and tried to put up a happy- or at least not so depressed- facade, but it fell short and she blinked back a boat of sudden tears.

"I… the bad guy got away." She tried to explain without including any of the disturbing details. Selina only knew that Chloe and their guardians were trying to stop a 'bad guy' who had hurt- this was never explained further to the child, simply the word 'hurt'- Chloe before she came to live with them. Selina frowned, looking much too solemn for her age.

"I'm sorry." She said, plopping onto the couch beside her foster sister. She stared at the wall for a minute, a mirror of Chloe, before she looked up at the teen and smiled. "But at least you tried your hardest, right? You guys got super ready for a long time, so I know you did your bestest!" She stated with the unfailing confidence that only a child could possess.

Chloe was slightly taken aback at the splash of optimism in her dark thoughts, and she blinked owlishly. "Yeah… that's true." She conceded. And it certainly was- Chloe, Steve, and Natasha had dedicated so much work toward this case- they'd pulled their weight and then some, and the rest was on the court. Which meant… it wasn't really Chloe's fault, was it? Whether or not the court decided it was worth their time was out of Chloe's hands. She couldn't control what they decided. It was their choice, and thus their fault that a predator was now walking free. A slight weight left Chloe's shoulders at the relocation of the blame. She smiled, though it was a bit watery. "Thanks, Selly."

Selina returned her smile with a wide, cheerful grin and a tight hug. "You're welcome!"

Out of all of the foster families that Chloe had been placed in and eventually left behind, she was sure that this one would be the only one she'd ever truly miss.

Natasha poured out her go-bag onto the bed to sort through it - it was nearly three in the morning but she just couldn't sleep, and she knew Steve wouldn't mind as he wasn't asleep either. She moved her things into piles before grabbing the pile of clothes she had put to one side when organising the whole walk-in wardrobe earlier that night. If she didn't go to sleep after this, she was sure she'd end up reorganising the entire house - but who needs sleep anyway? Tomorrow wasn't going to be a big day at the base; she was mainly doing a few test sequences with the team to see what they needed to work on and how well they had maintained their training.

"Nat, you okay? You're cleaning much more intensively than the usual insomnia routine." Steve's voice filtered in from the doorway. "And the go-bags aren't due for a clothes swap-out until Saturday."

She glanced up at him, wondering why he had left the room to begin with, but decided that wasn't important. "I'm going to be at the base a lot more in the upcoming weeks," she explained softly, not wanting her voice to travel and wake up the children - not that that was a real possibility; their room was far enough away that talking normally wouldn't disturb the kids, but it was late so things appeared to be quieter than usual. "I'm just being prepared."

He shrugged and sat on the bed. "I was thinking about what I would do around the house as the stay-at-home Dad. How often would I need to do the deep cleaning stuff, like shampooing the carpets? I have the feeling I'll have plenty of time on my hands."

"Then maybe you should reconsider retiring," Natasha commented as she neatly began to place items into her bag. "It's not like you can't fit the work around the children's schedule - and I doubt aliens are going to attack on a regular basis." She pointed out. It would have probably have been better if she had brought up her qualms about him retiring when he'd first told her, or at least before he retired - in fact, she had never planned on saying anything, but she didn't care right now. The court case had blown up in their faces and she wasn't allowed to go out and kill the guy - not yet, anyway; it was too soon and that would be suspicious - so she'd just say what she was feeling and get some answers that she probably already knew or didn't want to hear.

He chuckled, though there wasn't much humour in it. "Nah, I don't mind the extra time- I just hope I can figure out a rough schedule for what I do with the time." He gazed silently at the wall for a few minutes thoughtfully. "You know, there's something I've been thinking a lot about lately." He suddenly said, breaking the silence.

"And what is that?" Natasha asked as she moved on to putting weapons and extra ammo into her go-bag.

He was quiet, a signal that he was waiting for her to look at him before he continued. Sighing, she did so, and he met her eyes intently. "We need to talk about Chloe. I think you've had it on your mind, too." He stated knowingly, though not in the usual annoying way.

Natasha loaded and then unloaded her gun whilst looking at him before placing it into her bag securely. Chloe was on her mind a lot lately, especially now due to what happened, and even though she suspected she and Steve were on similar wavelengths, she didn't want to be the one to bring it up. She was the entire reason why they had fostered Chloe to begin with and that was after Steve's initial reluctance - so there was a slight doubt in her mind that they were thinking differently. "Then let's talk." She said shortly, indicating for him to continue as she also sat down on the bed after zipping up the main compartment of her bag.

Steve was quiet again, but it was a thinking quiet. Then he said, "I think we should adopt her."

A small smile made its way onto her lips - which surprised her a little as she didn't think anything would make her smile today. "Agreed. All it takes is a visit with the judge - there's nothing that would stop us." She replied. In all honesty, she had already looked into it - there were no others with parental rights for Chloe and there was nothing stopping them from adopting her as she had lived with them for a while now.

He smiled back at her genuinely. "Great! We'll tell her tomorrow, then." He decided. "By the way, has Selina picked a new bed yet? There was a big fuss about it a while ago, but nobody's really mentioned it since."

"No - we can't tell her yet." Natasha protested quickly. "Let her get over all of this first, let her deal with what happened instead of deflecting it." She said. "Give her some time to be sad before we give her happy news - I know it sounds strange, but…" She stopped talking and moved on to the next point. "She's looked in a lot of magazines but I think it would be nice if she could see the bed before she chooses it - I'm not sure she realises that it'll be bigger than the page - she keeps talking about putting her dollies in the new bed."

Steve thankfully followed her switch of subjects seamlessly. "Alright, we'll wait." He agreed. "And I can take her to the store to actually see the beds, if you'd like. I'm sure she'd love to have a day out."

Natasha nodded in agreement. "You could wait until the weekend, or take her after school." She suggested with the ghost of a smile. "You know, Selina has a half day on Thursday and Chloe doesn't - you could take her then."

He nodded. "Alright- sounds like a plan."

Natasha nodded, almost a mirror image of Steve, before standing up. "Great. I'm going to make sure all of the dishes are done-"

"They are."

She looked at him, twisting her lips - damn, why did the house have to be so clean? Next time she was in this mood, she was going to Clint's - she could spend days organising everything there. "Fine." She replied with a little huff. "I needed to clean all of my weapons anyway."

Hey, guys! Thank you oh so very much for reading! :D This chapter was both very fun and very tricky to write because of all the plot-iness in it. In fact, I'd get really into writing, and Vanilla would be like, "Okay, I like it, but let's change it." So then we had to delete most of what I'd written and start all over again.

(Vanilla) Hey! Don't make me the bad guy here! I'm not like that a lot *pouts*

I'm not making you the bad guy! You doing that is probably what makes our stories as successful as they are, tbh. Quality Control, I suppose… Although I've still come to dread your little "I know you're not gonna like this, but we need to significantly change what you just wrote" noise.

(Vanilla) *Snorts* It's not always significant. I only made you change the last paragraph of like… twelve paragraphs yesterday….

Oh, and then, when she does that, I'm like, 'well, dang, alright, clean slate,' so I delete the entire paragraph, and then Vanilla starts teasing me! Well, the teasing comes later - first, she's all, "Hey, no! You undo that right now!" It's such hilarious chaos.

(Vanilla) Violet here gets a little over dramatic sometimes. hehe

*Gasps* *Faints* *Places a curse upon your household* I don't know where you come up with that nonsense, Vanilla! I'm completely rational in my responses…

(Vanilla) Right… yeah… My accusations are super wild! *Sarcastic* How about we debate this later and just thank the readers again for being some of the most amazing and brilliant individuals on the planet?

*Cracks knuckles* Got it. *Deep inhale* YOU ALL RULE! No, seriously, you, the person reading this- you specifically make my day just by existing on the same existential plane as me! Hope your day is FANTABULOUS!

Hey, Vanilla? Have you noticed that both of our nicknames are scents? I just now realized that. We should just end each chapter with -The Scents. Whaddaya think? Eh? Eh? :D

(Vanilla) Oh yeah. But no… unless you want to collab on a band? I'm sure we'd rock it. Actually… now I'm really starting to like the joint nickname of The Scents… What do you guys think (readers)?

(Still Vanilla) And I have a few questions for you all:

For when we hit 200 reviews (probably not for a while), we want to give you all a treat. The usual thing would be to simply post the next chapter, but I've done that before - so I'd love to know if any of you have any ideas?

Next - I always give a shout-out/thank you to everybody that reviewed the previous chapter, do you like that? Or should I just stick with replying to them (Which I try to remember)?

Lastly - do you like the long author's notes, or would you prefer short and simple? Or would like prefer a short beginning A/N and longer end or visa-versa? I know I tend to skip the A/N when I really want to read a story.

Thanks!