A/N: Hello! Long time no see, sorry. I've been working on RL, and on two other stories that I want to get ready for posting. Here's the next chapter. Fluff, angst, more angst. Spoilers for CW.
Peter was in New Jersey with a friend. The Avengers were on a "field trip" doing training maneuvers with the Hulk. Allie was at home with Maria, and currently napping as a baby Yorkie in the soft comfy confines of a throw pillow on the floor.
When she woke up, Maria was gone, and a tall, regal man was standing with his back to the room, looking out at the landscape. Allie yelped in mild alarm, and the man turned to look at her.
He had a look of kindness about him, and so instead of running away, Allie transformed into herself again (after all, not just anybody can come into Maria's office) and hugged the pillow to herself. "Hi," she said shyly.
He smiled at her. "Hello. You must be Allie."
"Yup."
"I'm T'Challa."
"The king of Wakanda?" she asked interestedly, dropping the pillow and moving a step forward.
"No, that is my father T'Chaka. I am the prince."
"Oooh." She pulled her necklace out of her shirt and held it up. "Your daddy gave this to me." And she added a belated, "sir," since he was a real-life prince.
He knelt and smiled at her. "That used to be mine. I am very glad it went to someone who appreciates it."
"Yeah. I appreciate it very much. It's the special-est thing I have, except for Bucky Bear and my robot dog and my other robots."
T'Challa grinned. "And you are a shapeshifter."
"Yup!" She eyed him curiously. "Do you have a superpower?"
"I am like Captain Rogers," he said, after a moment.
Her eyes lit up. "You're really fast and strong and smart?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Tony-smart?"
T'Challa's grin turned smug. "Maybe."
"Awesome." She gestured to the necklace visible on his collar. "Is that shark teeth? Daddy brought me a shark tooth from Hawaii but it looks kinda different."
He showed her the necklace. "These are panther claws."
Her eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yes. In my country, the leader of the people is known as the Black Panther." His voice lowered, and he whispered, "But since my father is old, I am the Black Panther."
"Cool!" She bounced on her tiptoes. "Are you here for superhero stuff?"
"Of a sort, yes."
"Cool."
He got a call on his phone, then, and with an apologetic look he moved back to the window to answer it. When he turned back to Allie, there was a small, perfectly formed black panther kitten sitting on the floor, grinning at him. He smiled. "That is very good."
Allie meowed a thanks, and came to rub at his ankles.
He picked her up, and scratched at her ears. "Do you know why my people revere the black panther?" he asked.
A headshake 'no.'
"Well, a long time ago..."
Maria came back to find T'Challa, prince of Wakanda, sitting on the floor in her office, engaged in a staring contest with a black panther kitten. As she entered, T'Challa twitched, and the kitten pounced. He scooped her up, and scratched her belly. "You win," he told the kitten, who looked undeniably smug.
Maria grinned. "Having fun?" she asked.
T'Challa stood gracefully, kitten in arms. "Yes, we are." He handed her his phone. "May I take a picture with you, Allie?"
A bop in the cheek with her nose.
Maria took a picture of the Black Panther with the black panther, and handed it back, grinning. "That is cute," she said.
When the Avengers came back, tired, sore, and dirty, none of them were prepared for the sight of T'Challa and Allie sitting at the living room table, drinking tea and looking at cute cat pictures on the internet.
"Hi guys," Allie said cheerfully.
"Your highness," Steve said politely, shaking T'Challa's hand. "I hope our littlest Avenger kept you well entertained."
"Oh yes," T'Challa said, smiling. "If she were not busy here I would invite her to become a member of the council."
"I'm an honorary black panther now," Allie informed them, and transformed into her newest favorite for a moment before switching back. "We're invited for vacations."
Natasha smiled. "That's nice."
T'Challa and Steve and Tony moved off to talk business, and Allie offered her mommy a cookie. "How did trainings go?" she asked.
"We won," Natasha replied, smirking.
"Of course you did, you were on the Hulk's side," Clint retorted, and rubbed at a bruise on his back. "Ow."
"Sorry," Bruce said sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it," Clint said, patting him on the back. "Just next time do it to the bad guys."
"Got it."
A~A~A~A
"What is it about people named Ross?" Sam asked no one in particular, as he glared at the short blond man that faced the Avengers.
He sighed. "Just because my last name is Ross does not mean in any way that I am out to take down the Avengers or Doctor Banner or anyone in particular. I am just here to-"
"To warn us about a possible future where all superpowered people become property of the state," Steve finished, his voice hard. "We heard you."
"Captain Rogers, the only reason I'm telling you this is because nobody wants it to happen. We have already dealt with the Winter Soldier issue, and the close call in Sokovia. Obliterate HYDRA, by all means. Save the world, yes please. But keep your noses clean and your heads up before it becomes my job to try and regulate your activity." Everett Ross gave them a curt nod, and walked out of the room.
The coffee cup on the conference table turned back into Allie. "I don't think I like him," she decided.
Wanda pulled her into her lap, and kissed her hair. "I don't think he's a very likeable person, malyshka," she said, the Russian endearment coming easily to her lips.
"He's right though," Tony volunteered after a moment. "We do need some kind of supervision."
Rhodey raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, did we sweep the room for Life-Model Decoys before this conversation because I think I'm looking at one right now."
"Tony's right," Steve sighed, looking all of his hundred years for a moment, "but there's no one we can trust to do the overseeing, so we're just gonna have to muddle along." He looked at Tony. "Between the two of us we can figure it out, can't we?"
Tony met his gaze and nodded. "We're both geniuses, we'll think of something."
Clint clapped his hands together and stood up. "Good. Now that's out of the way, someone mentioned something about pancakes?"
"Yes!" Pietro zoomed off towards the kitchen. "I'll get 'em started!" he called back, his speed making him sound like a hyped-up chipmunk.
Allie craned her neck to look up at Wanda, who hadn't moved. "Wanda?" she asked. "What's wrong?"
Wanda was staring at Bucky. "The Avengers," she said quietly. "We were almost destroyed..."
Allie hugged her. "But we aren't. Everything's okay. Mr. Ross went home."
"We almost weren't," Wanda said, her gaze far away. Her hands glowed a light red as she hugged Allie, trying to ground herself in the little girl's presence. She took a deep breath, and smiled slightly. "Visions are funny things, aren't they, Allie?"
Allie frowned at her. "Are you sure you's okay, Wanda?"
"I'm sure." Wanda scooped Allie up with her telekinesis and floated her through the air, making her giggle like mad. "Come on, let's go have brunch."
Allie did a cartwheel in midair and giggled.
A~A~A~A
Later that night, after bath time, story time, and cuddles, Allie fell asleep surrounded by her stuffed animals. As she entered REM sleep, her body started to glow slightly red...
Sokovia, gone, destroyed. Tony gone, defeated. Bucky a walking PTSD. Bruce, gone. Pietro, dead. The team sad and small and trying to do its best.
Lagos. Screams, rubble, so much guilt.
The secretary of state. An argument. A binding signature.
Bucky! Bombs! Death! Capture! An evil man in sheep's clothing... a series of words... cold, dead eyes of the Winter Soldier...
Fighting. So much fighting. The team, now two, pulling their punches, dodging and weaving, nothing at full power, trying to convince themselves they're both right and both wrong - why wasn't anyone listening?
A prison in the ice. Six bodies. A recording from 1991. Tears, betrayal, emotional manipulation that worked until three of the strongest men ever were on the floor, nearly dead from fighting. A stolen quinjet. Another tube of ice. A raft, a prison, a breakout.
Three beings in an empty compound, waiting for a crisis big enough to bring the team together again...
Allie let out a cry of absolute anguish, sobbing into her pillow, curling around her favored Bucky Bear as she wept. "No, no, come back," she pleaded, caught in the terrible nightmare of what-almost-was. "Come back, come back, please..."
FRIDAY alerted Clint to his daughter's distress and he rolled out of bed, instantly awake. He heard her heart-breaking sobs and ran to her room, kneeling by her bed. "What is it, Allie, what's wrong?" he asked, scooping the hysterical child into his arms.
"Come back, come back!" She thrashed and wriggled, trying to get out of his grasp.
Clint tried to hold her closer. "Shh, shh, it's a nightmare, it's just a dream baby, you're okay, you're okay."
Allie couldn't hear him. "STEVETONYNO!" she shrieked, and went absolutely limp.
Clint's heart dropped to his toes and he felt for a pulse. "Allie?" He found it, just barely. "Allie, Allie, can you hear me? Allie, sweetheart, wake up." He touched her face.
She didn't respond.
"FRIDAY, alert medical," he said tersely, shoving the terrified father down and bringing Hawkeye to bear before he completely freaked out. He picked up the unresponsive girl and ran to the infirmary, laying her down on the waiting bed.
Natasha met him there, pale with worry as soon as FRIDAY had notified her there was something wrong with Allie. "What happened?" she asked, reaching out to stroke Allie's cheek gently.
"I don't know. She had a nightmare and she was screaming and then she just passed out-" Clint watched the doctors surround his baby girl, talking about dopamine levels and brainwaves and unresponsive to stimuli, and felt his knees go weak. "Tasha-"
She braced him automatically, and they clung to each other as Allie was wheeled away for scans. "We have to tell the others," Tasha said numbly, her own objective Black Widow persona nowhere to be found. "We have to do..."
FRIDAY's calm voice interrupted her trailing sentence. "The Avengers have been notified. Doctor Banner and Captain Rogers are on their way to medical. Mr. Stark is reviewing the security logs to identify what happened."
A second later, a more-rumpled-than-usual Dr. Banner bustled through the doors. He paused for a second to nod at Clint and Natasha, and then went through to the other doctors. That one glance was enough to calm them down a fraction.
Steve came through the doors a half-second later, and went straight to Clint and Natasha. Even in pajama pants and a white T-shirt that actually fit him, he was a commanding presence, and both superheroes relaxed a fraction more. Someone was here to take over. "What happened?" Steve asked.
Clint told him.
"All right." Steve deftly steered them both to chairs, and made them sit down. "Bruce will figure it out. Let's just take a second to pull it together and then we'll go see what the doctors say, okay?"
"Someone should be there with Allie," Clint said, and tried to stand.
Steve held him down in the chair. "C'mon Clint, no one needs a fainter in medical. Stay here, I'll get you both a cup of coffee." He gave them a Captain 'Murica stink-eye and headed to the coffee station.
He came back a moment later with two cups of coffee so thick with caffeine and sugar just smelling it made Clint's hands jitter. Steve glared at them until they both downed the cups, and amazingly, it worked to steady their nerves.
"All right," Steve said, levering them to their feet. "Let's go see what's up."
The trio ventured into the actual medical section, and Bruce met them in the hallway. He held out his hands calmly. "She's stable," he assured them. "She's just, not waking up."
Clint twitched. "What does that mean, not waking up?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.
Bruce ignored the hostility. "It means, she's in a state of extended REM sleep and we can't wake her up. She's seeing something, and it's got her in a state of catatonia. She was unconscious for five minutes and then she started crying and calling out names."
"Whose names?" Natasha asked.
"Ours," Bruce said. "All the Avengers. Her brain activity is through the roof, and until we know what's causing this we can't sedate her."
"But she's terrified," Clint objected. "Whatever she's seeing, she was terrified." He could still hear her scream echoing in his ears.
"I know," Bruce said grimly. "We tried to sedate her already, it didn't even take. Just made her body relax, but her mind... it's somewhere else right now and physically, medically, there's nothing we can do. I'm going to do some blood tests, radiation tests, to see if there's anything causing this level of activity but right now we just have to wait it out."
"Can't Vision, or Wanda, do something?" Steve asked quietly.
Bruce nodded. "I'm getting Vision down here, but we don't know if trying to get a telepath in there will make things worse."
Steve patted him on the shoulder. "Just do your best, Bruce."
"I will." He headed to the nearest lab.
The trio entered Allie's hospital room. She was tiny in the hospital bed built to accommodate a superhero's larger bulk, and now she was pale and motionless, wearing little silver disks that were transmitting information to a dozen monitors.
A young nurse was sitting in the chair by her bed, holding her hand. She stood up when the Avengers entered. "I'm Maya," she said kindly. "Hold her hand, talk to her, try and keep her calm." She moved out of the room.
Natasha took the vacant chair and held Allie's hand. "Shh, baby, we're here," she said softly, kissing her forehead. "We're not going anywhere."
The only movement on her part was the restless twitching of her eyes behind her eyelids as she tracked something only she could see.
Steve clasped Clint on the shoulder lightly. "I'll get you some more coffee," he said.
"Keep it coming," Clint said, dragging a chair to Allie's other side.
Vision knocked on the open door and came in hesitantly. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to Allie.
"Yeah." Clint stepped back from the bed and let Vision take his place.
Vision laid a translucent hand on Allie's forehead, and his eyes closed. He was instantly transported to...
the compound?
A~A~A~A
Vision looked around for anyone else. Allie was there, ghostly and translucent like himself. "Allie," he said, kneeling in front of her.
She looked through him, her eyes wide and terrified. "Rhodey's hurt," she said, giving a little sob. "He fell."
Vision looked in that direction, and saw a solid version of himself helping a sweating, cursing version of Rhodey to walk three steps across to a motorized wheelchair. His heart dropped. "Rhodey is fine," he told Allie. "Why are you dreaming this?"
"I'm not," Allie said, and she looked up at him, her young eyes too world-weary. "This isn't my dream. Whose is it, Vision?"
He held tight to her hand, the two of them unreal in a solid world. "I don't know. Take me back to the beginning."
"How?"
"Concentrate."
She screwed her eyes closed, and then the scene changed.
They were standing in an alleyway. Allie turned to look at a cardboard box, and saw herself as a puppy. "That's me," she breathed. "What..."
A version of Clint walked by the entrance to the alleyway, whistling tunelessly, a box of doughnuts in his hand. Because of the whistling, he missed the whimpering of the puppy in the alley and continued on his merry way.
Allie let out a choked sob. "No, daddy, come back, you has to come back!" She turned to the puppy, screaming. "Go after him! Go get him!"
The puppy was too tired. She didn't.
Vision held a sobbing Allie in his arms as they watched a child find the puppy, and bring it home to its mother. The other version of Allie changed into her regular form, and scared the family half to death. "Pwease help," the four-year-old sobbed.
A month later, Allie was given into the care of Professor Xavier. "You're going to be safe here," the professor promised, his eyes kind. "Everything will be all right."
But in the Avengers tower, tempers were riled, people split up on their merry way. Steve joined SHIELD, Clint went back to his family, HE WAS MARRIED TO LAURA, WHAT!, and Thor never came back until Greenwich.
Vision felt himself slipping from the vision of this other world, and grabbed Allie's hands desperately. "Come back with me," he said. "Wake up, Allie."
"I can't," she whimpered, and her whole body glowing a faint red was the last thing Vision saw-
He woke up, and jerked away from the bed on instinct, nearly stumbling over the chair.
Clint steadied him. "What?" he asked desperately. "What's wrong? The both of you were screaming, why was she telling me to come back? What's she dreaming about?"
Vision, even though he didn't need to breath, took a steadying breath. "I believe her mind is trapped in an alternate timeline," he said. "Where events played out differently, and the Avengers are separated." He racked his brains. "I saw, before I fell out of the vision, a hint of red..."
Natasha spoke up. "Wanda?"
Vision nodded. "She may know how to fix this. I will retrieve her." He hurried from the room.
Clint pressed a kiss to Allie's white cheek. "I'm right here, munchkin, I'm not going anywhere."
In the midst of the other-universe, Allie couldn't hear him. She was alone and there were helicarriers falling from the sky...
A~A~A~A
A/N 2: Sorry to leave y'all hanging. Check out my other stories in the meantime! :)