So …
Yeah.
This is my first Avengers FanFiction. You can literally feel the awkwardness in the air.
Ah.
Anyway, I noticed there aren't many BlackHill fics out there … so I wrote one, and stayed up til 3 a.m. writing it. Yeah, I'm pretty dedicated.
This FanFic is based on the film Moonrise Kingdom, which I don't own. Sadly.
I also don't own The Avengers, obviously because BlackHill is not canon ._.
So, let's get started before I drown in awkward.
The first time Natasha Romanoff meets Maria Hill is actually not a proper meeting at all. It's a glance, an acknowledgment, the fact that they are nine years old and still do what their parents tell them is an important factor in this.
The woods deep in the mainland of the island are scattered with small and large natural treasures, one of them being a large oak tree which Natasha sometimes likes to climb, when the voices downstairs get louder and when her record player's volume can't block them out. So, she opens her window, climbs down the side of her house and runs away until it's roughly dinnertime, because nine-year olds can only dream about properly running away.
Natasha lives on the South side of the island, right in front of the sea, so the hike to the woods is long but worthwhile, giving her a few hours of solitude and silence.
Only today she's not alone.
Down there, sitting on a collapsible beach chair underneath the giant oak tree, with an easel, more colours of paint than an art store and a focused expression on her face, is Maria.
Except Natasha doesn't know that's her name. All she knows is that another nine-year old girl has discovered her tree, and Natasha has no idea what to do about it.
Just then, a pair of brilliant blue eyes look up and catch Natasha's own emerald-green ones, and all they can do is stare at each other until Natasha turns and runs back home even though it's not dinnertime, because Maria, though she doesn't know it's Maria, is strange and new and by her tree.
Maria's painting, of the woodland around her, remains the same, only now there's a flash of coppery red in the distance. It could be a fox. It could be Natasha, weaving through the painted trees silently.
What Natasha doesn't know- in fact, she knows nothing- is that Maria's parents died when she was five, in a 'mysterious' accident. She's been moved around to six different foster homes, and has finally been fostered by a family on the North side of the island.
She's been labelled 'emotionally disturbed' by social services.
She doesn't belong. Not really.
Their first real meeting comes when they are twelve. Natasha still remembers the girl who was painting the wood, and Natasha is immortalized in Maria's painting- and mind-, or maybe it's a fox.
The island's only church is a dismal one, locate dint he centre of the island, but it's production of Noah's Ark is a cheerful event, with children in bright coloured clothes pretending to be animals, and adults who imagine themselves thespians leap about the makeshift stage sprouting lines with wide eyes.
Although the play is mildly intriguing, Maria is bored, and she soundlessly slips away, while her foster parents are left blissfully unaware.
Backstage, behind a clothes rack, five girls dressed as birds sit dabbing on the final touches of make-up. In the middle sits Natasha, bored as well, dressed all in black with matching feathers and lots of dark eye makeup, making her green eyes stand out. All that's out of place is the white blood-soaked bandage on her right hand.
The clothes rack shifts, and a girl appears. Natasha sees this in the mirror and whips around in her seat, followed by the other girls.
It's Maria.
Natasha's eyes widen for a moment as she recognises the painter. Maria doesn't react, but somehow Natasha knows she's been recognised behind her stage make-up.
"What kind of bird are you?" asks Maria curiously, her breath-taking blue eyes never leaving Natasha's frame.
Clarissa, a girl dressed in blue on the right side of Natasha, takes the lead as usual.
"Well," she says in her bossy voice "I'm a sparrow, she's a-"
"No." interrupts Maria, and Natasha fights back a smile.
"I said, what kind of bird … are you?" she raises a finger to point at Natasha, whose heartbeat speeds up every time her eyes meet Maria's. Everyone turns to look at her and she fights the urge to blush.
"I'm a raven." she manages to say, locking eyes with Maria. She thinks she can see a flicker of emotion in them, and then it dies, replaced with an emptiness Natasha can only wonder about.
"Of course you are." Maria murmurs, and Natasha feels like there's no one else in the room with them, that it's just her and the beautiful painter.
"What happened to your hand?" asks Maria, and Natasha is pulled back into reality.
"I punched a mirror." she said, not bothering to skirt over the truth. Some of the girls look shocked, having not heard the full truth, but Clarissa just rolls her eyes. Maria does nothing.
"Why?"
"My parents were fighting again." There it was again. There was no need to lie around Maria. For Natasha, the truth came easily, something that surprised her..
"Ah." says Maria, and crosses her arms. "I'm Maria Hill. Who are you?" she asks, her eyes twinkling.
"I'm a raven." Natasha smiles, and Maria grins back, and it's the second moment in her entire life that she's ever wanted to freeze. The first was when she first saw Maria, painting in the woods.
"My name is Natasha. Natasha Romanoff."
Just then, the costume designer came in, flapping her arms in an agitated manner.
"Birds, get ready, you're on in …" her voice died away as she saw Maria.
"Who are you? Get out, get out!" she yelled, and Maria vanished, after one more glance at Maria that seemed to last forever.
"She likes you, you know." said Leah, a girl dressed as an owl on Natasha's left side.
"Do you like her too?" asked Katy, who was dressed as a dove.
Natasha thought for a moment. "Yeah. I do." she said, and then they went out on stage, Natasha searching the crowds for Maria.
But she was gone.
Later after she'd got changed, scrubbed her face paint off and was ready to meet her grumbling foster father, mad that his wife had gone home without him, Natasha found a note in her bag.
'My dearest raven Natasha,
Meet me by the big oak every day at 5 p.m. and we can talk, and I can paint and maybe do something about your hand.
Yours truly,
Maria Hill.'
And so it began
Every day they met after school, and talked about random things, things they had in common, things they didn't have in common, Maria's favourite thing to paint (Natasha, followed closely by trees), Natasha's favourite books (spy novels), their parents, and so much more.
One night, almost a whole year later, Natasha closed her eyes and found different phrases of their conversations running through her head.
'You were my favourite animal in the performance. You have a beautiful voice …'
'I'm not the raven anymore. I yelled at the costume designer. Now I'm a swan …'
'I found swans on the lake one day and stole some feathers and braided them in my hair, but my foster mother ripped them out …'
'My mother made me grow my hair long. I really want short hair though …'
'Then you could pretend to be a boy- but I think you're too beautiful, you'd get caught out …'
'In school, Clarissa- the sparrow- said I was basically a boy since all I did was hang out in the woods. She said I was dysfunctional. She called you a freak. I lost my temper and got in a fight. Now I've been suspended …'
'I've stopped going to school. I'm too smart, I had to correct the teacher the other day. I just walked out. My foster parents don't really care …'
One thing that really struck Natasha was something Maria had mentioned today, while they were on the topic of superpowers.
'I wish I could fly … I wonder if humans will ever evolve enough to fly? Maybe we can grow wings and you can properly be a raven forever … I think I'm more of an owl ..'
An idea popped into Natasha's head, and it refused to leave. Silently, she got dressed, put on her shoes, opened the window, climbed down the side of the house and ran away into the night.
All the way on the other side of the island, Maria Hill woke with a start, her blue eyes quickly adjusting to the dark. She turned on her light and was greeted by the familiar presence of dream catchers, crystals, feathers and drawings, several of Natasha.
Natasha.
Her raven.
Somehow, she knew the reason she woke up was about her fellow thirteen year old.
Her raven was going to do something stupid, she just knew it.
She hurriedly put a sweatshirt on over her pyjamas, laced up her hiking boots and climbed out the window into the night, to save her raven.
