Early update! You guys can thank the Marvel TV shows on Disney+ for that, I finally got around to watching them and each story was complex and incredibly entertaining, especially LOKI. Anyway, without further ado, enjoyyy :)
Part One
"You know, Point Break, normal people don't make a habit of kidnapping pretty young women and taking them to different planets. The least you could've done was say, I don't know, 'Hey, Tony, brilliant man that you are, I'm going to take the little miss for a interdimensional spin, be back in a few!'"
Sakura spoons another mouthful of cereal in her mouth, looking at the box. Captain Crunch, it says on the label, something she could never find back home in Konoha, or maybe even the entire Elemental Nations. It's not like she's done a ton of traveling before, with all the bad blood between the countries and every border bar Suna fortified with foreign, vicious shinobi baying for their pound of Konoha flesh prior to the Alliance. However, the cereal is colorful, processed, and terrible for her health, and she decides she quite likes it. And maybe she's just imagining it, but the caricature on the box looks rather like a certain blonde haired captain sitting next to her.
"Actually, no, scratch that! Don't take the little miss anywhere that is not Earth! She's not even from here, what if she left the confines of Earth and 'POOF,' she's gone forever?"
"I don't think it works—"
"Nope! Not a word out of you, I'm not about to consider the points of an individual who—"
"Tony, don't you think you've made your point?"
"No, Legolas, no I haven't! Who's bright idea was it to let Buttercup anywhere near Reindeer Games? Remember? The guy with the long black hair, Rock of Ages? Loki? The name ring a bell? Let me remind you, he destroyed half of New York City!"
"...He does make a point there." Clint doesn't seem willing to argue with that logic.
Deciding to finally take pity on Thor and address the shit show that doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon, Sakura stands up. "Tony, I appreciate your concern, but don't you think you're putting too much blame on Thor? I'm an adult. I made the decision to follow him, I knew the potential risks and I was willing to pay for them."
"Sakura," Tony says, his face strained. "You're, like, fourteen. That is not an adult in this world."
Sakura's brow twitches, and Cap scoots his barstool away from her as subtly as he can. It's not very subtle, and her brow twitches again.
"I am twenty, first of all. You're six years off. Second of all, need I remind you the world I come from? Our military training begins at six. We start killing at twelve. I have not been a child for a very long time, and you will do well to remember that."
Tony blinks, rather horrified. One look at the rest of the room and she sees the expression mirrored on the rest of them.
"I didn't tell you that?"
A chorus of shaking heads. "Oh…"
Natasha exhales deeply. "Sometimes I really wonder about the world you came from." And in the ensuing moments, everyone in the room silently agrees.
"WELL," Tony claps his hands. "All the more reason to keep a close eye on you."
Sakura groans and the rest of the Avengers recover, chuckling at her exasperation. She's never been the baby of the group, that title has always gone to Naruto, and she doesn't like it.
"Come on, Sunshine. Let me show you the newest thing I've been working on."
The snow crunches under her shoes, thankfully close-toed this time. She has kept her cheongsam and the color red, like the plumage of an exotic bird, but the rest of her clothing is made of the strange material of this world, spandex and nylon and sleek in a way the materials back home have not yet achieved. Her boots are knee-high and steel-toed and when she first saw them, she knew instantly she had to have them.
"We are fighting dreamers, takami o mezashite…" she hums under her breath, jumping up and round-housing a soldier in armor without pausing her singing. "Ohhh, just go my way!"
"Are you really singing right now?" Tony is incredulous, his voice coming from somewhere high up and she punches another one into a tree, snapping his spine but not the trunk, thankfully.
"What, you don't like it? I can try something else: Do you remember the 21st night of september? Love was changing the minds of pretenders!"
"I really regret showing you 70s music, you're a fiend— shit!"
"Language!" scolds Steve from somewhere to her left, throwing his shield and decimating five of the armoured Hydra agents.
"Clean my mouth out with soap, why don't you, Mom?" Tony snarks and Sakura giggles. She dodges the bullets aimed at her by dashing up one of the pines and sommersaulting mid-air over Clint's arrows, landing on a soldier and effectively taking them out.
"We have an advanced in the field!" cries the first Avenger.
"A little late Cap, Clint's already down! We need to evac!" Natasha shouts ahead of them, and then, "Can someone take out that bunker?"
Hulk runs through the concrete foundation, destroying it completely, and when Thor slams Mjolnir on Steve's shield, the rest of the soldiers are taken care of. Trusting the boys to get their retrieval job done, and Natasha to calm the alter-ego of Banner, Sakura dashes over to Clint.
"What's the verdict, doc?"
"Ouch, that looks like it hurts. There's good news and bad news; the good is that I can fix this and you'll be good as new. The bad, I can't do anything about the rest of ya. "
"Ha ha ha, what ever will I do?" he sneers, but there is the beginning of a smirk on his lips.
"Mmhmm," she hums, and informs him: "It appears far worse than it actually is. We'll wait until we're back on the jet, though. No point in treating this in the field if we don't need to." She presses a wad of bandages from her pouches on the wound and picks back up her melody. "Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember? Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day!"
"You know, it really concerns me how nonchalant you are about these things."
"I've had less to work with and worse conditions. Really, this is a walk in the park. And honestly, what can I say? Fighting never fails to put me in a good mood," She winks down at him.
Sakura's face glows green with the power emanating from her hands, and Bruce Banner cannot help but be a little green with envy. As he and the rest of the team watch in fascination, the flesh cushioning Barton's ribs knitting back together in a hypnotic fashion, one he could watch all day. Her energy flows like magic, and if he didn't know any better, he would say it is magic. There is no other being on the planet, as far as he knows, that has this ability. And to not only be able to do incredible damage, but to reverse it in seconds. That is a paradox, if he's ever seen one.
When they arrive back at the Tower, a woman in a sleek blue smock greets them. She goes to maneuver the stretcher that Barton is strapped into, but Sakura puts up a hand. Bruce reads the shock on Dr. Cho's face at the perfectly smooth skin, showing through the tear in the fabric.
"Unfortunately, Barton is intact, in one piece, and all he requires now is a snack. Sorry, Dr. Cho, our resident medic beat you to it. But, you'll have to show us that Regeneration Cradle sometime," says Tony.
"Regeneration Cradle?" asks Sakura, and Dr. Cho tells her about her invention back in Seoul. Sakura nods her very pink head.
"That's incredible, sensei. Not even I could create an entire body in hours."
Soon, the two women are off talking, already thick as thieves, and before Banner can think any more on the subject of Sakura's perplexing healing, he's pulled aside by Tony who has grand visions of AI and world peace.
Sakura lives in the Tower with Tony, so she doesn't need to go far, just a dozen floors down. She arrives in a dress, deep navy instead of her original red, and accidentally interrupts Thor and Tony's conversation, one fraught with testosterone and tension. She turns around, attempting to retreat, but they've already noticed her, and Tony lets out a low whistle. The dress is backless and plunges deep, making for what she knows is a very flattering figure, but she guesses it's the scars that catch his attention. Thor touches her bare shoulder gently, hesitantly. "How did this happen?"
"Which one?" She asks, and she's thankful it doesn't come out sounding testy.
His calloused hand brushes near her side, and her mind takes her back to that battlefield, puppet parts strewn about and a cave crashing down around her and Chiyo.
"Sasori of the Red Sands. He was part of our world's most dangerous criminal organization. He got me with a poison coated sword, but luckily I had the antidote on hand and was able to heal myself."
"And this?" His hand comes to rest higher up, on her right side, and her skin rises with goosebumps at the feathery light touch.
She laughs, and it sounds a bit hollow. "Another sword by another member of our world's most dangerous criminal organization. I've been impaled an alarming amount of times."
Tony shakes his head. "I don't think I'd ever want to meet someone you consider extremely dangerous, considering what we've seen of your skillset."
You haven't seen anything, her mind whispers, but she opts for something less sinister instead. "Would you be surprised to know I am considered the weakest of my team?"
Thor shakes his head. "Surely they are mistaken."
Sakura grimaces. "Nope, they all have a stupid amount of power-ups. But," she tells them, holding a hand up. "I never inherited anything from anyone. Everything I have is thanks to me and me alone, and no one else can say the same. I may be the weakest, but I am self-made."
Tony pats her back, hand resting on the spot where Madara rammed a rod through, and says, "That's our girl, alright! You're strong enough for us, Princess." He doesn't know the impact of his words, but it soothe's a bit of that constant fear that she will never be enough.
Then, she takes a whiff of the alcohol in Thor's hand. "What is that?"
"That, little medic, is the ale of Asguard. Aged for over 1,000 years," he touts it, swirling the amber liquid in his hand.
"Can I have some?"
"Absolutely not!" squawks the Iron Man. "You are underage!"
Sakura scoffs and reaches up, pulling it away from Thor's lips and affronted face. She takes a sip and looks at it.
"Huh," she says, and knocks it back like a shot, much to the growing horror of the two men before her.
Ten minutes later, Thor carefully watches her from the corner of his gaze and looks for signs of inebriation. He knows she will begin to feel it soon.
Another twenty minutes later, Sakura is laughing at Rhodey's deplorable joke and Thor begins to sweat.
He is nearly convinced the otherwordly warrior is at least half Asgardian, as he tries to recall any pink hair in his family tree, by the time Clint decides it's time to poke fun at Mjolnir.
"Whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the powerrrr, come on man! It's just a gimmick, a trick."
Thor sends him a smarmy grin, and says, "Be my guest."
His smile stays fixed in place as Rhodey and Stark struggle, even through Banner's blustering— until it drops off when his beloved weapon budges just a smidge at Captain America's insistent pulling.
By the time Sakura's turn comes around, Thor is relieved when she declines, citing Natasha's answer as her own. Sensing this, she toasts to him with a saucy wink, another tumbler of Asgardian liquor in her hands.
The night's revelry ends with a oily voice resonating in the room. "None of you are worthy, how could you be? You're all killers."
Sakura's training stops her from startling violently, but she is reminded of Sasori's human corpses turned into puppets. The creepy thing moves like a puppet without strings, and despite herself, she is thoroughly spooked. Growing up with minimal exposure to technology, she isn't sure there will ever be a day where animatronics and artificial intelligence don't unsettle her to some degree. Her fear works with her, unlike in the Forest of Death long ago, and she is far more ready than the others when the defunct bits of the Iron Legion come bursting through the wood.
She pushes Dr. Cho and Agent Hill to the ground, firmly telling them to stay there. She grabs the one that shoots Rhodey through glass and onto the floor below, ripping it's head off with her bare hands.
"How barbaric," Ultron comments, but she ignores him entirely, addressing the room at large. "Is anyone injured?"
When he disappears with the scepter, promising "the Avengers extinction," she feels dread pool in her stomach.
Will there ever be a day when some fanatic convinced they're God's gift to humanity is not trying to take over the world?
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