Hey everybody! I'm back from the jungle (literally) with another oneshot I got most of done in an international airport. I couldn't get anything posted because they charged an obscene amount for wifi. Like seriously?

A year later, Lena watched as some changes were made.

She sat on edge as Sofiya and Katya's potential adoptive parents met the girls. They were an aging Japanese couple whose children were in college. The wife looked like a dumpling and the man looked like he didn't go without a walk every day. Overall, they seemed fine, lovely even.

"Hello." The woman bent down in front of Sofiya and Katya, as Lena, Bruce, and Natasha watched carefully, "I'm Kaiko and this is my husband Kaede."

"It's nice to meet you." Sofiya stuck out her hand and shook both of them in turn while Katya closed up, shyly looking away. Lena's heart clenched. Did they really have to do this?

"Katya? How are you today?"

"I'm well." Katya replied slowly looking at her.

"What do you like to do, Katya?"

"Dancing."

"Me too." Sofiya added, "We all dance."

"Would you like to—" The otherwise silent man, whose accent was a lot thicker than his wife's searched for the word, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Show us?" Kaiko suggested.

"Yes—that." Kaede nodded, "Snow—er show."

Katya giggled, hiding it behind her hand. The man blushed. "It's okay, I forget words too."

Lena let out a deep breath of relief. For the rest of the day, Sofiya and Katya showed them around the property, from the studio to their bedroom, cheerfully chatting about their days the entire time. Soon after they left with the Takata family, Veronika and Ava, two girls of a similar age were placed in another home in a similar fashion. Then, finally, Irina and Nina, the eldest of the girls going were placed with the Barton children after a great deal of careful consideration.

That left Lena, Alisa, Viktoriya, and Svetlana, mainly because they wanted to stay, and Tatiana, who they hadn't bothered to screen at all. From a logical standpoint, Lena could see how five children were manageable enough. Five for the Bartons and five for Bruce and Natasha was even and odd at the same time. Lena wondered if Sofiya and Katya would become Takatas (that would be an interesting thing to explain to confused teachers) and Veronika and Ava would become Fitzpatricks. Did that mean that Irina and Nina would become Bartons? It was all so strange. Lena bit her lip, staring up at the ceiling of her ominously empty bedroom. Yelena Belova didn't sound like her name anymore. It was something she wrote on sheets of paper when asked of her but it wasn't her name.

Lena.

Lena Belova still didn't sound right.

Lena Banner.

Lena Romanoff.

Lena.

She wondered if her preoccupation with this topic was strange. Children were often named after their parents or their adopted parents but Bruce and Natasha were not her parents. Lena rose, suddenly feeling a little queasy with that conclusion. There was stirring in the kitchen and out of habit, Lena walked on the balls of her feet to investigate.

"I hear you." Tatiana said dully, "You're either Lena or Svetlana."

"Lena." She admitted, slipping in. "What are you doing?" She gestured towards the kettle on the stove.

"Making hot chocolate."

"Why?"

"Why not?" Tatiana countered.

Lena nodded, sitting on the chair leaned forward, her arms crossed around her stomach in a defensive position, "What's your name?"

"Pardon?"

"Your whole name. The one you had when you got to—"

"Volkoff. My papa's name was Ilya. Tatiana Ilyinichna Volkoff."

"I had no papa. My mother didn't give me a middle name." Yelena replied sourly, "It's incomplete."

"Well my papa used to knock the living shit out of me, so I don't feel particularly lucky on that count."

"I feel like it's still missing."

"You can have mine too if you'd like. Or you could try turning Bruce's name into a middle name."

"Bruceovna? Robertovna?" Lena tried out the names, biting her lip, "Yelena Robertovna Belova."

"You like it."

"Yes. I'll ask him about it in the morning though. I'd hate to take any liberties—"

"What are you doing up?" Viktoriya walked in, rubbing her eyes with the long sleeve of an Iron Man hoodie that someone got her for Christmas.

"Making hot chocolate." Tatiana answered lightly.

"Can I have some?"

"Of course." Tatiana had already been taking another mug out before she asked.

"Natasha's not going to send all of us away, is she?"

"No, just the ones that can act normal." Svetlana entered, her tone bitter. Tatiana sighed and took more mugs out. Lena supposed that they might as well wait for Alisa to wake up as well.

"We can act normal." Lena protested.

"But we can't be normal like they can. They were beaten and neglected—there are many that go through that and still become proper adults. They didn't have to kill the people they slept by." Svetlana sat on the counter across from Lena, sure to get the higher ground in the slightest of ways.

"I don't think it matters—" Lena argued.

"What matters is we are here." Tatiana interrupted, pressing a mug of steaming hot chocolate smothered in whipped cream and marshmallows in everyone's hands one by one. "And right now, we are drinking hot chocolate and aren't going to think about these things too much, right?"

Lena turned around and gave Alisa (who had tried to enter as quietly as she had) a mug before the girl could say anything. She sat on the breakfast nook bench next to Viktoriya, waiting for the next part of the argument to unfold. Svetlana could be deadly and vindictive with her words. While staying at the studio softened everyone else, it made her seem sharper and more bitter. She took a sip of her drink and sighed, putting it off to the side.

"I don't think you've thought about it. We don't have a future, Lena."

"Of course we do. Our needs are met and we do well academically—"

"And what? We're just going to go out into the world and get normal jobs and get married and have babies and pretend like none of this ever happened? You're deluding yourself, Lena, if you think you can do that."

"Just because you can't doesn't mean I can't." Lena spat. Svetlana looked like she was ready to pounce on Lena and Lena would almost gladly welcome the fight. Only, she felt incredibly bad once the thought crossed her mind.

"Svetlana—"

"No. Tatiana, no. You're just as bad as she is. Let's have hot chocolate and not think about everything that's wrong with us? I thought you were the eldest! You should know better than any of us. But no, you're going around and talking to people and talk to talent scouts and pretend to care and you have that Ethan person who always hangs on to your every last word and you think, you think that it makes you normal. We can never be normal!"

"There's no such thing as normal anyway." Lena said and everyone's eyes landed on her, "We do the best we can."

"What are you going to do?"

"I want to go to music school." Lena shrugged, "And Tatiana's going to join SHIELD when she turns eighteen."

"That's still your plan?" Svetlana turned on Tatiana again, her voice incredulous, "What about your pet friend? Do you think they're going to want you if you have that kind of pressure point?"

"That is none of your concern."

"Svetlana doesn't like dancing." Alisa said quietly. Everyone turned towards her. She was still playing with the whipped cream atop her hot chocolate.

"What?"

"Svetlana doesn't like dancing."

Svetlana rolled her eyes, "What does—"

"If you don't want to dance, then stop. If you don't want to be normal, then stop trying." Alisa continued absently, "I don't see why you find it so hard."

"You can't see the future because you don't do what you like to do." Viktoriya added.

"I—"

"You just do as your told then complain about it when you have no real reason to do things in the first place. It doesn't make sense." With that final statement, Alisa hopped down from the seat and left.

"Wait for me!" Viktoriya trailed behind, holding her hot chocolate in one hand and Alisa's abandoned mug in the other. This left the three older girls staring at each other in silence.

Tatiana cleared her throat and looked off to the side awkwardly. Svetlana glared into her cup, no doubt fighting her own demons. Lena was just glad that her concern of the night happened to be a name.

"I had a nightmare. It made me mad." Svetlana spoke at last, "I'm sorry—I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"I'm sorry too." Lena replied. And she was sorry. She hated conflict of all sorts.

Tatiana still didn't say anything. She stared down at her phone with a text from Ethan for a long moment, before switching it off and throwing the cooling kettle on the back burner. Lena watched as she retreated to her room like she was being pursued and then got up to leave.

"Goodnight, Svetlana. I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Lena and—I think I'm going to skip on practice tomorrow. Alisa had a point."

"I'm sure Natasha will understand." Lena slowly closed her door and climbed into her bed once more, this time warmed by her hot chocolate and tired enough to simply drift off without dreams or concerns. It was a good feeling.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Suggestions? They can all be left in the happy little box below.