It was almost a surprise that Natasha went quietly, simply swinging by her desk to collect her bag, shoving her mug roughly inside before reaching for her coat and leaving the office without saying a word or approaching Allerton in one last act of intimidation. She just pulled the door open and waved vaguely behind her rather than say goodbye.

None of the rest of them dared move as Allerton continued to scrutinise them, before finally giving up. "Fine, since you're in agreement that this was ultimately Natasha's fault, Zach you're on your first written warning and I expect you all to be on your absolute best behaviour." With that she turned and flounced out of the team office and into her own.

"What happened?" Sofia finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper as if she were scared of breaking the silence that was acting as some kind of fragile shield.

"Zach and Joe got it into their heads to embarrass Allerton at her conference yesterday," Antonis explained.

"We didn't even do that!" Zachariah protested. "I did listen to you, you know, instead we spoke to a bunch of other reps and just stated what we were personally interested in with her research and what we'd ask about and the like. You know, let other people spring the trap. She just caught us in the foyer beforehand and basically chucked us out."

"Then why was she baying for blood this morning?"

"Because she always is?"

"Zach!" Antonis snapped, making Olivia jump.

"Joe might have shouted at her about her behaviour," Zachariah admitted. "She probably thinks someone overheard."

"Probably?"

"Okay, someone will definitely have overheard."

Antonis just shook his head at Zachariah, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "And that is all you've got to say for yourself? Nat just took the fall for this after you gave us zero warning of what actually happened. How many of us even knew you were going? And what is your plan now?"

"What do you want me to say? We couldn't do nothing after what she did to Sofia."

"You should not have done that!" Antonis shouted.

"Wait, you did something so stupid for me?" Sofia interrupted. "What possessed you to do that?"

"Joe told me what state you were in when you got home the other day, that Allerton had done that -"

"So your solution was to publicly embarrass her? And you did not think that would end badly?" Sofia asked. Then muttered "idiots" under her breath in italian.

"We had to do something."

"No you didn't," Antonis corrected.

"Because there was another way?" Zachariah asked, his tone mocking. "We've been in survival mode for years and haven't been able to do anything. Nothing touches her!"

"These last few months have been far worse than the last few years, if we had played it smart we might finally have been able to do something. Or at least not get any of us fired!"

"That was Tasha's choice!"

Antonis' jaw twitched as the truth of Zachariah's words sank in. The two men glaring at each other as an angry silence fell over the office, which was only broken when Allerton's door slammed opposite them in the corridor.

"Boys, not now," Sofia said softly. "Do not give her the satisfaction."

Neither of them said anything, but simply turned from each other and Antonis headed back to the lab to try and see if he could figure out what Natasha had been doing, whereas Zachariah returned to his desk to continue the report he had been writing. Olivia and Sofia shared a concerned look at just how loud and aggressive his typing was, before finally Sofia gave a wry shrug and tiny sigh and turned back to her own screen.

~-x-~

Antonis wasn't entirely surprised the only response to his tentative knock was a sharp "go away!" courtesy of the room's occupant. "Nat, it is Toni," he said. When there was no further response from the room he knocked again.

"I said go away!"

"No," he replied, knocking again as if to prove a point. And as if to prove a point of her own there was no further reply from Natasha. "Please, can I come in?"

Yet again he was greeted with yet more silence. He banged on the door again. "Nat, I will shout at you from the corridor if I have to."

Finally he elicited a different response from her as she yanked the door open to glare up at him. "Can't take a hint, Katsaros?"

For a moment he was thrown entirely off guard. "Would we be friends if I could?" He retorted, knowing that her reversion to his surname was a way of trying to reconstruct a whole lot of walls after recent events. He wasn't sure he could blame her for that. After all, she had just got herself fired because she let herself care enough to protect others.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her face didn't show anything, but the slight shift in her stance let him know that a part of her found amusement in that. "Fine," she sighed, stepping aside to let him into her room. "You have five minutes."

He walked into her room and turned to her as she shut the door. "Then I will not waste time and ask how you are -"

"Good."

"- and instead ask what your plan is now?"

"My plan?" Natasha asked incredulously. "My plan involves finding a new job when I've got no reference to show for the only academic job I've held since leaving uni."

"You really are not going to fight this?" He asked. "There is no way her dismissal can stand. She had no justification, you did not admit to anything."

"What's the point, Toni?" She asked tiredly. "Even if I fight against it, I'm returning to a boss that manipulates us all, belittles us all, not to mention the mess with the team that will still require cleaning up. I just… What's the point?"

He blinked at her for a moment. He knew she protected them as best she could. He knew that she took on extra duties because Allerton didn't fulfil hers. He had thought she shared some of that load with Zachariah and himself. Now he was starting to suspect she'd been hiding just how much she was shielding them. Could he have been that blind? No, because if she was doing that she was almost certainly deliberately making sure they wouldn't notice.

"Because we want you on the team? Because… we will miss you. Because you can share the burden with us. You do not have to do everything."

She rubbed at her face before sitting heavily on the edge of her bed. "I want a time machine."

Antonis chuckled at that, and dug his phone out of his pocket and quickly tapped away until he had the page he wanted and held it out to her. "I cannot get you one of those, but maybe this is a start?"

Natasha looked up at him for a moment, as if she could glean something from his expression before turning her attention to the phone and angling it better to read the email he was showing her. "HR are investigating our whole team?"

Antonis nodded. "They want to interview us all, to assess us. They also said they were going to run an audit, but not what on."

"It's probably just a fancy way of covering up the fact they're gonna read a bunch of our emails," Natasha shrugged, letting go of his wrist so he could put the phone away. "You really think this time will be different?"

"What have we got left to lose?" He asked, and Natasha almost managed a wry chuckle. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" She asked as she looked up.

"Take the fall?"

She turned back to the floor before saying, "foolishness?" Then sighed. "Didn't seem like there was any point getting all of us fired."

Antonis chuckled. "I am not so sure, maybe it would have made a point?"

Natasha finally managed a smile, unsure if it was because of his joke or because he seemed to have forgotten she hadn't actually answered his question. "Aren't you supposed to be the sensible one?"

"I do not have much competition."

~-x-~

"If you keep twisting that crust any longer, a seagull is gonna swoop down and steal it from you," Peter chuckled.

Olivia's head snapped up from where she had been staring at what was left of her sandwich without really seeing it for the last few minutes. "Sorry, I was… thinking."

"Given how hard you were glaring at that crust, I'm going to assume you were revving yourself up to finally take the plunge into adulthood and finish the whole of your sandwich this time."

Olivia pretended to give him her best side-eye glare, though based on the grin on his face he knew she was fighting a smile of her own.

After a moment he finally nudged her with his elbow. "Well?"

Olivia sighed. "How do you apologise to someone?"

Peter pushed his glasses up his flat nose. "You walk up to them, maybe say hi, and then say you're sorry?"

"Peter, I'm serious!"

"Then maybe explain why that isn't a viable option?"

Olivia twisted the crust again before angrily throwing it towards a nearby group of pigeons, who briefly scattered before all swooping back to tussle over the prize. "You know how I told you about the whole Joe thing?" She asked, and Peter nodded. Naturally he had politely enquired as to what was going on once HR got involved, if she could say, and she had finally blabbed everything to him. "I need to apologise to Sofia for not telling her. But how? It's almost two weeks since she found out, and months since the original incident… I just feel awkward thinking about starting it."

"Then just go up to her and say 'I know it won't make up for not saying anything at the time, but I just want you to know that I am sorry about what happened and how I handled it'. Don't wait for a reply, just carry on as you normally would so she knows you don't expect forgiveness or anything really."

"How do you make it sound so simple?"

"Isn't it?"

"Maybe," Olivia replied with a shrug, her fingers playing with her long red hair now she no longer had the bread to occupy them with.

"Nope, I'm not having that," Peter cut in. "I want you to promise me that once you get back to your lab after lunch, you'll apologise to her rather than agonise over it for another three days."

"That's an oddly specific number."

"And you're evading. Promise me?"

Olivia held his gaze for a moment as she considered her options. "Okay, promise."

"Good." Then he turned from her to where the pigeons had finally scattered now they no longer had food. "Seriously, what adult doesn't eat their crusts?" Peter teased making Olivia swat his arm, barely feeling it through his coat.

~-x-~

By the time she was walking back down the corridor Olivia was already regretting making that promise. Her stomach was churning with nerves because somehow now it was imminent it didn't seem anywhere near as simple as Peter had made it out to be.

She took a breath as she recited his words in her mind. She could do this. She even had a script! She would do this.

She wasn't entirely surprised to see the office empty apart from Sofia by the time she returned. It would be just her luck. She nodded to herself and headed straight for her desk to put her bag down and enter her password as she sat down. Once she finished typing she turned to Sofia and said, "I know it won't make up for not saying anything at the time, and I don't expect it to change anything, but I just want you to know that I am sorry about what happened and how I handled it." She briefly chewed her lip before adding another "I'm sorry" and turning back to her computer.

She could almost feel Sofia's gaze on the side of her face, but didn't turn back, just continued to scroll through till she found the file she wanted.

"I am not saying I forgive you, yet, but I think I know why you did not," Sofia whispered when it became clear Olivia wasn't going to say anything else.

That made her turn back. "I should've told you."

"Sì," Sofia agreed. "But you were going to, and then we did not trust you. Even if you had remembered, I am not sure I would have believed you."

"I guess that's fair, I really would've looked like a usurper…"

They were both surprised that made Sofia giggle, only for a sad look to pass over her face. "I miss the way this team used to be. The jokes, the… friends."

"Yeah, I miss it too," Olivia agreed. "I think we all do."