Violet-Sky had just gotten out of the shower and had done her hair and changed when she felt the tiredness coming on. She had just started her walk down the hall to meet up again with Natasha, Clint, and Steve when she collapsed. She heard Clint and Steve both shout, "Vi?!"

The next thing she heard was a tsk, tsk, tsk. "You naughty, naughty little girl," a smooth British voice remarked. "You should have known better than to run from me." She looked up to see Loki standing over her, back hidden behind the curtain on Asgard. Her breathing unconsciously picked up the pace a little in hatred and anticipation. A quick glance down showed her dream-self was in the dress again. She bit at her lip to keep her from shouting at him. Wake up, wake up, wake up, she urged herself silently. Everything around her quivered.

"I didn't run. I was rescued. It's not my fault Clint has an overprotective streak a mile wide and a thousand miles deep," she retorted, her hands clenching into fists around her skirts to keep from punching him in that pale nose of his. She pressed against the repressive dream with all of her willpower. She needed to quite simply just get out. She had to break his hold on her dreams. She needed to be free.

"You had the choice to go with them or stay with me."

"You could never make me happy. There was no choice."

Finally losing it, she let go of her skirt and punched him in the nose. As the blood began to flow, the demigod put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and pinched to stem it off. Violet-Sky used his distraction to shove against the dream with every ounce of her mind.

Everything around her shattered. She could feel herself surfacing.

"Vi? Violet-Sky? Are you okay?" a familiar voice asked.

"Give her some space, Clint. You're smothering her," Natasha's voice chastised.

"Violet-Sky? If you can hear me, we need you to wake up." That was… Steve?

"Would you like me to call the hospital?" JARVIS's British voice inquired.

"No." Clint. Definitely Clint.

"Vi? Wake up Vi! Come on, if you can hear me, you've got to wake up!"

Violet-Sky was trapped in some strange limbo. She was trying to wake up, but something was holding her under. She was almost there. One last shove and she could…

She felt herself slipping. No, no, no, no, no!

With a gasp, her purple eyes flew open. She drew in deep breaths of cool air. Her head was in Steve's lap, his hands cradling her face. Clint and Natasha were kneeling on either side of her, looking remarkably concerned. A headache decided to bubble against her temples right then. She rubbed against them. "Tell the guy with the jackhammer to lay off would you?" she grumbled. Clint snorted at the TRON reference while Steve half-smiled at her pathetic attempt at being funny when she wasn't exactly… all there.

"Loki?" Steve asked.

"Mm-hmm." Her voice went up in pitch at the end to make her sound annoyed and only slightly obnoxious. Clint smiled and offered her his hand. She took it and let him help her haul her to a standing position. She swayed dangerously on the spot. Both Steve and Clint grabbed her to keep her steady. Her eyes blinked as she kept adjusting.

"He can knock you out?" Clint asked.

"Not anymore. I just have to fight it harder."

"Tired?"

"Little," she admitted.

"Coffee?" Steve asked jokingly. She smacked him in the chest.

"No you nimrod."

"I see which side of the family she gets her sass from," Steve mumbled under his breath so none of the others heard him. He got a nod from Clint and swooped her up into his arms. She shrieked involuntarily before settling. The super soldier bore her to the main room and set her down on the sofa. She grinned at them as Steve went over to grab the plate of food they'd made for her while she showered. She slurred something about wanting Earth food after a week of Asgardian rich stuff when he set it in front of her.

"So… I imagine Loki's pretty ticked?" Natasha asked.

"You have no idea," Violet-Sky muttered sarcastically. "He looked like he was going to have a conniption." Steve smirked and pressed his nose into her braid. Clint grinned.

"We have you back now," he said.

"Yeah, but I gotta find a way to keep him from knowing where I am so he can't invade my dreams anymore. I gotta run from him and HYDRA now." She tore a piece of bread off from the rest angrily and shoved it into her mouth before burying her face in her hands.

Steve put his hand on her shoulder. "Let's go spar. It'll help you get your anger out."

"That's a good idea," Natasha supplied. "In fact, we'll all go spar."


Before she knew it, Violet-Sky found herself pummeling the living daylights out of a bag hanging from the ceiling before directing her attention to an opponent that could fight back. Steve was a master at physical combat. All Violet-Sky decided to do was keep up with him and dodge. She could easily attack, but she wanted to test her other skills. Once, she moved to counter, missed, and her fingers hit the pole that held the boxing ring—which was square—ropes up. The force split her knuckles open. She was used to the bleeding skin and wrapped it up before whirling back into fighting.

Clint and Natasha were watching, having ended in a decent stalemate a few minutes before. Usually Natasha could win no sweat, but Violet-Sky must have taught Clint a couple of things from her own style of combat. "She's doing really well," the redhead assassin commented. Clint nodded, crossing his arms and watching the blur that was his cousin.

"Much better than last year at this time," he responded, not taking his eyes off the soft-fighting. Steve was going easy on her. He had seen the super soldier take on several men at a time in a cramped elevator and win. To be bested by a girl plenty more than half his real age of ninety-five wasn't possible. He was being kind to her, like he was kind to everyone else. Clint glanced over at Natasha. He wasn't really very kind to her. She wasn't really very kind to him. They had based their relationship on the same cold sarcasm that came with their extremely dangerous lines of work. Maybe he could change that.

The heel of Violet-Sky's hand pushed very firmly into Steve's sternum, sending him stumbling back into the ropes of the ring and falling forward. Violet-Sky panted, sweat pouring down her face. "That was fun. Can I shoot my bow now? It's been too long."


End Note: Oooooooooooooh! I bet you thought she was out-of-the-woods didn't you? Well not yet, my friends. Not. Yet.

Thanks for reading! Y'all are awesome!

~Cass