Summary: James knows that, in theory, Natalia has a family. He knows she has to have a mom and a dad somewhere in the world, but he'd never actually thought he'd have to meet them. Partially because he knows the Red Room probably had them killed, but partially because he's just never actually thought about it.

Italics represent Russian

James can count on one hand the number of times he has been to her New York apartment. It's not their favorite place to be, but she keeps it because it's a nice space to have after difficult missions or when neither of them wants to be bothered by the rest of the team. Typically, though, she stays with him in Brooklyn or in her room at the Tower, which is why it's so strange that he hasn't seen her at either place in nearly a week.

It's been four days since she returned from a mission in Romania. She'd gone straight to his apartment and slept for nineteen hours before going to her own apartment to change. She never came back.

Now, James isn't one to worry. It's likely that she fell asleep again so he doesn't bother her for a day. When the second day comes and goes and all he gets is a handful of texts, he figures her mission must have been rougher than he thought and decides to give her space.

On the third day, she sends him exactly two texts and that's it. Day four? Radio silence.

He calls Steve to ask if he's seen her at the Compound training, but he hasn't. Next, he calls the Tower just to see if she dropped by to talk with Tony. God knows why, but sometimes she likes to chat with Tony until the sun rises and they're both too drunk to function. Unfortunately, that's another dead end.

As a last resort, he calls Barton who doesn't answer. He tries her phone twice and both times, it rings then goes to voicemail. She isn't picking up and she knows not to ignore his calls or he'll panic.

"Goddammit, Natalia," he mutters. He's out the door and speeding to her house before he even pockets his phone.

Here's the thing, he knows Natalia can take care of herself. She can probably take care of herself better than he can if it came down to it, but that doesn't keep him from sprinting up the four flights of stairs to her apartment door. It's a bit of a miracle he pauses to knock on her door before opening it.

Surprisingly, it isn't locked and comes flying open as he twists the knob completely off with his metal hand. He'll fix it later. Probably.

As the doorknob falls to the ground, a cabinet in the kitchen slams shut and someone curses in Russian. It isn't Natalia.

He's already made a pretty loud entrance and there's no doubt that the person in the kitchen knows he's inside, but he still creeps around the corner without making a noise. As soon as he rounds the corner, a gun is held to his head and he's met with the sight of a furious blonde.

"Who the hell are you?" she demands with a scowl.

"Who are you?" James echoes back. "What are you doing in here?"

"I asked you first." Her scowl doesn't go away and since she's holding a gun to his head, James figures that's a fair point.

"Where's Natalia?" James asks. Her eyes narrow.

The blonde's eyes flicker behind him and he takes advantage of it. She may be quick with a gun, but the distraction is just enough for him to lunge forward and steal it from him. As soon as he turns the gun on her, though, it's knocked out of his hand.

She isn't alone, he realizes.

Without pause, he wraps his metal hand around the person's wrist and squeezes, making them drop the gun. The blonde's foot is in his face a second later and he hears a crunch as his nose breaks from the hit.

"Goddamit!"

He releases the second person's hand so he can knock out the blonde with his metal fist―a nose for a nose, right?―but the second person grabs his fist and kicks in his knee from behind before he can.

"James! Stop!"

At the shout, he looks up to see Natalia standing behind him. There's a whirlwind of thoughts that go crashing through his head as he goes crashing to the floor thanks to Natalia kicking out his knee. The first is that he probably broke her wrist earlier, and the second is that falling with a broken nose hurts like a bitch.

"Natalia," he gasps.

"What the hell happened?" Natalia asks, looking between him and the blonde. "I swear, can I not even go to the bathroom in peace?"

"Who the hell is this?" The blonde points to where James is still on the ground. "He broke into your apartment and tried to kill us both."

"He didn't try to kill us," Natalia assures her, "he's my partner."

"Partner, like, work partner?" the blonde asks, raising an eyebrow. "Or partner, like, partner."

James rolls his eyes at the way she emphasizes the word the second time. What is she, eleven?

"Both," Natalia says smoothly. Turning to him, she says, "She has a point though, James. What are you doing here?"

"I called," he tells her, getting to his feet. "Twice. You didn't answer."

Her eyes widen at the realization and she curses softly. In one step, she's at his side and even though it's clear that she's safe, he still sighs in relief at the movement.

"God, that's pathetic," the blonde mutters. She rolls her eyes and even Natalia scowls at her.

"Go get a towel," she tells the girl. "You broke his nose and it's bleeding all over my kitchen."

James is suddenly all too aware of something warm trickling down his chin. When he glances down, sure enough, he's bleeding all over Natalia's kitchen floor.

When the girl returns with a towel, James notices the way Natalia turns to grab it with her left hand and keeps her right firmly at her side.

"God, Nat." She presses the towel to his nose and it hurts, but it's not why he'd gasped. "I broke your wrist, didn't I?"

It's clear that she's trying to keep it out of his sight and the towel muffles his voice, but she doesn't pretend like she didn't hear him.

"Probably," she admits.

Already, he can see bruises forming from where he'd grabbed her wrist much too tightly and he feels his gut twist at the thought.

"I'll break his wrist for you," the blonde tells Natalia in Russian, narrowing her eyes at him from across the kitchen. "I'll even break the metal one."

Natalia sighs and glances at her. "No, Yelena."

"He wouldn't even see it coming," the girl―Yelena, apparently―replies.

"Yes, he would," Natalia objects. "He speaks Russian."

Yelena raises her eyebrows in surprise and looks at him with an expression that he places somewhere between impressed and annoyed.

"I'll still do it," she tells Natalia. "You can get a new partner."

"I rather like this one," Natalia says with a soft smile.

It makes James's whole chest feel warm and based on the way Yelena rolls her eyes again, he doubts he does a good job at hiding the feeling.

"God, you're worse than Alexei and Melina," she grumbles.

James isn't sure who Alexei and Melina are, but Natalia immediately takes offense at her statement and demands she take it back.

"No way," Yelena says. "I'm right and you know it."

"If you don't like it," Natalia says, "then you can leave."

Yelena does exactly that, but James doubts she goes much further than around the corner. She had pointed a gun at him in Natalia's honor and he gets the feeling she isn't one to leave a friend immediately after facing a potential threat. Call it intuition or personal experience, but James knows she isn't going far. Just in case.

"Your friend seems like a real knockout," James murmurs, still eyeing where Yelena had gone.

"She's my sister."

James almost chokes, but because there's already such little air making its way through the towel and his broken nose, he doesn't really succeed. What he does succeed at, however, is jumping in surprise and punching himself in the face. He yelps in pain as his hand smashes into his nose and Natalia laughs.

"Is it really that surprising?" she exclaims.

"It wasn't exactly obvious," James grumbles.

Natalia laughs harder.

"Dammit, Natalia, stop laughing," he says. He's fighting back a smile of his own under the towel, but she can't see it. "I'm in pain and delusional."

"You're dramatic is what you are," she tells him. Still laughing, she presses a kiss to his temple and says, "Go get the medkit in the bathroom and fix your nose."

"What about your wrist?" His eyes dart down to where her hand is swelling and turning a dark shade of purple.

"As soon as your nose stops bleeding," she says, "you'll drive me to the Tower to get it fixed."

James hurries to stop the bleeding in his nose and attempts to at least straighten it. When they're at the Tower, he'll have someone actually fix it. His current priority, though, is getting Natalia's wrist taken care of before it gets any worse.

"Yelena?" he asks, glancing at Natalia as she grabs her jacket.

She shakes her head. "She's staying here. If Alexei and Melina return to an empty apartment, all hell will break loose."

"Alexei and Melina?" It's the second time he's heard those names but he still doesn't know who they are.

"Yeah." Natalia nods and she attempts to hide her grin as she says, "Our parents."

This time, at least, he doesn't punch himself in the face and he doesn't choke. He does let out a slightly strangled sound that makes Natalia laugh much too loudly to be considered polite in the hallway.

"Your parents?"

"Not our birth parents, of course," she says. It does absolutely nothing to calm him down. "You'll meet them once my arm is no longer purple and blue."

Sure enough, her whole forearm has started to turn an ugly purple color. Fortunately, the Tower doctors are able to take care of it for them and she's cleared to go home after she receives a cast. Unfortunately, that means James is about to meet Natalia's parents after recently injuring her.

He hopes it goes better than it did with Yelena.

(It―kind of―does.)