Hey everyone! Trying something a little different this time. Hopefully you all like it! This is in honor of my best friend ever, who is responsible for my writing skills and taught me how to write for all sorts of different Avengers pairings. Her name on my phone is Loki, and if you're reading this, you know who you are. Love ya girly, and I miss you! Hopefully this is something you'll approve of, and I plan on writing more Avengers stories for some of your favorite pairings.
Anyway, enjoy everyone! I will be taking many creative liberties with this, so don't expect much of my Avengers stories to be cannon. I use backgrounds that I wrote with my best friend (yes, the same one who inspired this), and we didn't pay much attention to what was and wasn't cannon. We just wrote using our feels. So, don't be too harsh in your reviews. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 1: It Began When the Battle Ended
It had only been a few days since the Battle of New York, and Natasha Romanov found herself in the training room on the Helicarrier in the middle of the night. Somehow, this was one of the few rooms that survived the attack, but Natasha couldn't care less how it remained intact. She was just glad it was.
Ever since she first met Loki, she had been plagued by horrible dreams. The first few, which started the night after she met the God of Mischief, were about a pretty young woman she had never met, yet who felt so familiar. The young, mature assassin closed her eyes as the most recent one flooded her senses, making her feel as though she was having an out-of-body experience.
The girl had red hair, much like Natasha's own curls, golden eyes, and tanned skin, and wore a familiar long, coppery-golden skirt with small cutouts and a slit up the left side that reached her knee, a matching bra-styled top with a halter, and a pair of gold sandals. She was running away from an elaborate city made entirely of gold, crossing a bridge that appeared to be made of a rainbow. She ran into a large, strange looking orb made of gold like the rest of the city, and ran up to a large, dark-skinned man with the same golden eyes, wearing golden armor. He turned when the girl entered, and watched her calmly as she bowed before him, waiting until she stood before him to speak.
"Sierra," the man's voice boomed, "you know you are not supposed to be here." The girl, Sierra, bowed her head in a manner that mixed shame and embarrassment.
"I know, Father," she replied quietly, and the man's face softened.
"Then why have you come here? You know as well as I that I serve the All-Father, and he has forbidden me from speaking to you or your mother, and has forbidden me from helping you escape," her father asked with regret in his tone.
"But Father, I cannot stay here! I cannot continue to be his servant. He treats me worse than he treats the others, and the other servant girls all tease me and call me a slave! Father, I understand how you are bound to him, but you must understand that I cannot be bound to him any longer!" Sierra cried, begging the tall man in front of her to help. The man looked closer at his daughter and found many injuries, some older and scarring, others fresh and bruised, as if they had only been inflicted hours before. He felt hot tears sting his eyes at the sight of his only daughter so broken, but still his vows held.
"Sierra, my child, I cannot help you. I love you, as I loved your mother, but the All-Father must come first. If you truly must escape, you must find a way to do it under my radar," he told her, and tears began to stream down her rosy cheeks.
"Then all hope for me is lost! Father, you see all! No one escapes under your radar!" she exclaimed tearfully, and the man sighed.
"My child, there are hidden entrances into this realm, entrances that can take you anywhere in the universe, entrances that even my watchful gaze cannot monitor. You must find one of these entrances if you wish to escape undetected," he told his daughter, and watched as she took a minute to process this new revelation. She smiled sadly as she hugged her father, and he hugged her back, knowing this would be the last time he ever saw her.
"Thank you, Father," she said to him before running away. He watched her go, listening to the soft but steady beat of her sandals hitting the bridge, and knew those were the last words he would ever hear his only daughter say. For if she was caught, she would be executed, and if she escaped, she could never return to the golden kingdom that was her birthplace.
Natasha's head swam as the memory faded away, and she held on to the nearest object for support. Her vision slowly cleared, and as soon as she felt stable she stood and went to wrap her hands. She wrapped them tightly-one, two, three times-until they felt protected,and made her way to the punching bag in the room. She started by hitting the bag halfheartedly, to get a feel for how solid the heavy bag of sand was, then let out all of her leftover aggression from the battle and her more recent dreams in a flurry of fists and kicks. She moved faster than a normal human would, and only someone with training to rival her own could stand a chance against her. She stopped for half a second when she heard a set of soft, familiar footsteps outside the door, but went back to her attack as soon as she identified the man. She didn't blink an eye when the door opened almost silently and the man came to stand behind her. A pair of strong arms reached around her from behind, and two rough, calloused hands, larger than her own, held her hands firmly but carefully, forcing her to finally stop.
"Tasha," a familiar voice spoke from behind her, and the redhead sighed.
"Hey Clint," she replied, and in one fluid motion she found herself facing the man who had practically raised her. His sharp yet kind blue eyes studied her, his brow knitting in worry when he took in how tired she was.
"Is it because of the battle?" the man known to most as Hawkeye asked her, and she hesitated before answering. Her exhaustion was, technically, because of the battle, but she knew there was more to it than that. She'd been in countless fights and missions before, most of which could count as battles, but none of those left her with strange visions about a girl she didn't know.
"I'm not sure. I don't even truly know what's wrong," she admitted softly, and felt his strong arms wrap her into a hug. She leaned into him and he just held her for a minute, then she felt him guide her to a bench against the far wall. He handed her a water bottle, which she took gratefully as she sat, and he sat next to her. He wrapped one arm around her petite but strong frame and took a deep breath.
"Well, describe it for me. Is it a pain? Is it nightmares?" he asked cautiously, knowing how sensitive she could be to certain topics. She took a drink from the water bottle to bide time so she could figure out how to describe what was going on in her dreams.
"Not nightmares, per say. I guess they're dreams, but they're more like visions. I keep seeing this girl that looks and feels really familiar, but I don't know who she is. Her hair is exactly like mine is, though. She has gold eyes, and wears a gold dress that looks a little like a belly dancing costume that I swear I've seen before. In the most recent one, she's running away from a gold kingdom, and across some kind of colorful bridge, to meet a man with gold eyes that she calls her father, and he tells her how she can escape. He called her Sierra," she tells him, focusing on the memory so she can tell him everything, but willing it to not come back.
"So, a girl with gold eyes, red hair, and a gold belly dancing costume is talking to her dad and running away?" Clint asked her slowly, and Natasha knew he wasn't sure what to think of her story.
"Yes," she answered, wanting to convince him but not knowing how.
"And it's a girl you've never met?" he asked her, and she nodded.
"She seems really familiar, and I keep feeling like I should remember her or recognize her, but I don't," she told him, and he sighed.
"It's probably nothing, then. It might just be your imagination and stress getting the best of you. You always did like to write," he reminded her, trying to calm her down, but his partner shook her head fiercely.
"Clint, that's not what's happening, I swear. I know I've always liked to write when I get stressed and need to clear my head, but that was different. These, visions, are different. I'm not myself when I have them, and you can't blame it on my being drunk because I don't like drinking that much," she said, her emerald green eyes meeting his blue ones. He sighed and ran a hand over his face, but before he could say anything, Natasha's head swam and her vision blurred, and she lost all connection to the world around her.
Sierra was wandering through a busy, snow-covered town that Natasha recognized almost instantly. She was in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the winter, wearing a heavy coat over her gold dress and sandals, and her once gold eyes were now green. A nagging feeling tugged at the corners of Natasha's consciousness, telling her she should recognize the girl now, yet her brain can't tell her who it is. Sierra continues to wander through the streets, shivering and hunched over in an attempt to block the cold, snowy winds that were bashing against her small frame. A tall man with a long, warm coat, a hat, leather gloves, and boots walked towards her with his head down, his back facing Natasha's point of view. He ran into the shivering Sierra, knocking her into the snow accidentally, and he stopped instantly.
"I'm so sorry," he exclaimed in Russian, reaching out a hand to help her up. She took it gratefully and kept her head down as she stood, shivering more than ever now that her skirt was drenched in snow.
"It's fine," she replied between shivers in perfect Russian, startling Natasha. The man took in her partially frozen form and took off his jacket, wrapping her up in it. She tried to refuse his offer, but he stopped her.
"You're cold. My home isn't far. You can warm up there," he told her kindly, and she nodded and followed him. They reached a small apartment a few blocks down the street, and he opened the door to reveal a very messy, but very cozy interior.
"Pardon the mess," he said sheepishly as they both entered and he shut the door behind them. She looked around and smiled slightly.
"I don't mind. What's your name, by the way?" she asked him, and the man finally turned so Natasha could see his face. For a second the entire vision froze as her brain tried to process what she was seeing, but then the man smiled and spoke.
"Ivan Romanov. And yours?" Ivan asked her, and she smiled slightly as she picked up a small matryoshka doll on the mantle of the fireplace.
"My name is Nicole," the girl said to him, satisfying him with an answer and leaving Natasha with more questions than ever as the world spun once again.
Natasha kept her eyes closed and her body tense for several minutes after the vision faded. She slowly recognized Clint's voice urgently asking if she was okay, and felt his arms tensely wrapped around her. She slowly convinced her body to relax and willed her eyes to open, and at first all she could see were Clint's worried blue eyes.
"What the hell just happened?" Clint exclaimed as he helped her stabilize herself. She took a shaky breath and leaned into him for support.
"I think I saw my parents meet…" she said slowly, unable to understand why this vision didn't come as a dream.
"You, what?" her partner asked incredulously, and Natasha shrugged slightly.
"I saw my dad meet my mom. It was the girl from the other vision, Sierra, but she told him she was Nicole, which was my mom's name. This time she had green eyes, and she looked almost exactly like me, just with slightly tanner skin," she told him, and his eyes widened slightly.
"So, you think your mom is the one from the first dream you told me about?" he asked her, his brow furrowed in confusion, and Natasha nodded.
"I think so. She died when I was so young that there's a lot about her that I never knew, but I'm almost positive that was her," she said quietly, and Clint began rubbing circles on her back soothingly.
"When did these start?" he asked her, and she took a breath to brace herself for the reaction she knew was coming.
"After I interrogated Loki when he was locked on the Helicarrier. I had the first one while you were unconscious and fighting off his control," she told him carefully, trying to keep him from blaming himself for what happened.
"Loki caused this?" Clint replied, bristling. Natasha sighed and braced herself for the next explosion she knew would come.
"I think he did. I need to talk to him-" she started, but Clint immediately cut her off.
"No," he stated with obvious finality. Natasha let out an exasperated sigh.
"Clint, I'm not 11 anymore. I can take care of myself. I could take care of myself at 11," she reminded him, but his grip on her tightened.
"I don't care. You're not going anywhere near him," he said, and she stood to face him, her green eyes burning into his with palpable frustration.
"For your information, I've already been near him," she told him, an edge of warning in her tone.
"Exactly. And you ended up cursed to have strange visions about your family history. That isn't normal, Tasha!" Clint exclaimed, and Natasha glared daggers at him. If looks could kill, her partner would be dead.
"And maybe he's the only one who can fix this, or tell me what's going on! If it started when I met him, maybe he knows something!" she shouted at him. He stood and towered over her small frame, but she didn't shy away. She was faster than he was, and more agile, and even though he was physically stronger, she always won when they fought. She was never afraid of him anyway.
"Natasha, I'm not letting you anywhere near him, and that's final. If he hurt you, I'd have to kill him," he said before storming out of the training room, probably heading off to the shooting range. Tasha just let him go, not wanting to deal with him anymore.
She rewrapped her hands and began to let out her frustrations on the punching bag. She stayed there until the sun began to peak over the horizon, turning the sky from an inky, midnight blue to varying shades of pink and orange. She finally sighed and rewrapped her hands before going to shower for the day. At noon, Thor would take Loki back to Asgard, and Natasha would lose her chance to ask him about her visions. She just hoped she would learn how to control them on her own.
Well what's going on with Natasha? Like I said earlier, very little of this will actually be cannon. A majority of this is my made up background and whatever I feel like doing to the characters to work with the plot. The only things that will be cannon are the movie references, because there's not much I can do to change those.
Leave a review and tell me what you think! Hopefully you all liked it, and thanks so much for reading and giving this a chance! Snowflakes of love and fun to you all!