A/N: I'm not dead! Just, permanently exhausted and working on NaNoWriMo. Don't ask how that's going, either, thanks :) Also, went to see Thor:Ragnarok, and it was hilarious.

EDIT 11/17/17: Also, hey look at the date! ALSO, thanks to WinterSoldier88 for correction about sister/daughter, you'll see in a minute lol. That's what you get for watching the movie and then trying to write a chapter...

Anyways, here we are, leading into Infinity Wars...

Allie had obstacle course training on Mondays. Natasha and Steve would build the course in the training room, and then she would have to master the obstacle course as her normal self, as best she could. Then a ten-minute water break, and then she'd have to do the obstacle course again, this time using as many different shapeshifts as she needed, to find the most efficient combination of forms. She liked Mondays the best.

On Tuesdays, training was gymnastics and hand-to-hand. The day after that, Allie would do target practice with Clint (she had a child-sized bow and arrow with special purple arrows), and she'd also learn how to be a ninja and blend into the background and walk quietly, and stuff like that. Thursdays was dance lessons with mommy and Wanda. And the day after that was shapeshifting control with Bruce or Hulk. Slowly, Allie was learning to hold larger forms for longer time. And then on the weekends she could play all day and do whatever she wanted. Her favorite thing to do was sit on one of the guys while they did pushups, or cling to their back while doing chin-ups. That was always fun.

Sometimes Pietro would run her down to the ice cream shop in Queens when mommy wasn't looking. And then Allie would bring her mom some raspberry swirl as an apology.

Clint was not allowed to tell his daughter that Natasha and Pietro orchestrated these "runaways."

A~A~A~A

Allie turned nine, and the universe turned upside down. She was at the Tower, doing math with her classmates, when the sky turned dark. It was 11:30 in the morning, on a summer's day.

Allie dropped her math work and ran to the window. "FRIDAY!" she called, craning her neck to the sky. "What's going on!"

"There is a fleet of ships in orbit," FRIDAY replied, sounding shaken for an AI. "Mrs. Stark is on her way to you, Miss Barton."

"What about the rest of them?" Allie asked, glancing at her classmates, who were beginning to panic and cry. "Calm down!" she yelled. "Can't you see there's something going on!"

The evacuation alarm sounded a second later, and the teachers began to usher everyone down to the bunker at the base of the Tower.

"No!" Allie said, to her teacher. "Pepper's coming to get me."

Pepper arrived at that second, a pillar of calm in a flood of scared children. "They're allies," she told the group, giving them a small smile. "It's going to be fine." She took Allie's hand. "Come on, sweetheart, we've got to go."

The two of them met Happy and Rhodey on the quinjet level, and they took off for the facility. Rhodey, as Iron Patriot, flanked them as they flew. "What's going on?" Allie asked, climbing into Pepper's lap for comfort.

Pepper kissed her hair. "Some organization called the Nova Corps, from another planet."

"What do they want?"

"Asylum," Pepper replied.

Allie shivered. "From what?"

"I don't know." Pepper hugged her tightly. "It's going to be okay."

When they got to the facility, there was a trashy looking spaceship on the front lawn, and two little spaceships from the bigger ones in the sky.

Happy turned back to look at them. "We're being ordered to the aux hangar, and then the conference room."

"All right. And Allie?"

"Her too."

Allie clutched Pepper's hand tightly as they landed in the auxiliary hangar. "Are we going to meet aliens, Pep?"

"I don't know, baby."

The quartet walked to the conference room and the first thing Allie saw was a giant tree, a raccoon, a green woman, and a man with a cool leather jacket. And a gold woman in a blue uniform. And a woman with HUGE eyes, and a man that looked like a mini Hulk, but red. He had no shirt on.

Allie made a beeline for her dad, and Clint swung her onto his hip. "Who are they?" she whispered.

"The Guardians of the Galaxy," he replied. "Apparently they're here to warn us against this bad guy named Thanos that's trying to get all the Infinity Stones. He destroyed these guys' home planet."

"Oh okay," she whispered back.

The raccoon pointed to Allie. "Wait, wait, why is there a useless dwarf here?" he demanded.

Allie blinked at him. "I'm not a dwarf."

"Yes, you are, you're like half his size."

She frowned. "I'm a kid, I'm supposed to be half his size."

He held up a hand, er, paw. "Wait, let me rephrase. What's a useless kid doing here?"

"Rocket!" the guy in the leather jacket hissed. "Shut up!"

Allie wriggled down to the floor, and transformed into a tall dragon with wings and spikes briefly, before transforming into a taller version of herself. "I'm not useless," she informed him, glaring at him.

The aliens looked impressed.

"That's so cool," the guy in the leather jacket said. "I'm Peter Quill, ignore the crazy raccoon."

"I'm Allie," she said, and walked up to the tree. "You're awesome."

"I am Groot," the tree replied, reaching out with a small branch to pat her on the head.

She concentrated, and shapeshifted into a small version of him. "I am Groot?" she asked.

The tree smiled. "I am Groot," he agreed.

"Not that this isn't a touching sight, because it is," the raccoon said, and climbed onto the tree's shoulder, "but we have things to do, like, save the universe."

Allie retreated, in regular form, to her dad's side.

Quill turned back to Steve. "So, that's basically the gist of it. We need the other Infinity Stones and your android."

"And that guy's arm," Rocket added, pointing to Bucky's arm.

The green woman slapped his paw down. "No, we don't."

"Okay, no we don't. But we do need the android."

"Wait, why?" Allie asked, forgetting she wasn't really supposed to talk.

"Because there's a madman bent on killing everyone in the universe, and he needs the Infinity Stones to do it. Well, he doesn't need them, he's crazy powerful, but they'll help him. And apparently, two of them are here. And we have the other two, so that makes four."

"Five," Thor announced, walking in with his brother, and a very familiar blue cube held in a clear container. "Greetings, all. Heimdall saw you meeting, and we decided it was time to bring this back."

Vision stepped forward. "I have one, Dr. Strange has the other one, where's the third?"

"Your daughter knows," came a voice, and it was followed by Dr. Strange stepping from a green portal, his necklace glowing brightly. "Hello."

Allie backed away from the Time stone. "Nope," she whispered. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

Dr. Strange looked at her and smiled mysteriously. "Yes, you did, didn't you?"

Everyone looked at Allie.

She hid behind Clint's legs.

The green woman stepped forward. "How did you do that?" she asked. "It took all five of us to use the Orb for one minute, and it nearly killed all of us."

Allie shrugged. "I don't know," she whispered, suddenly scared. "I was just holding it."

The gold woman in the blue uniform stepped over and ran a scanner over her. "Human, with mutant DNA," she declared. "Not a Celestial or an Eternal. Pity."

Clint moved in front of Allie, shielding her. "And not part of this discussion," he said firmly.

"Actually," Loki said, clearing his throat, "I have a theory about that."

They all turned to look at him. "Well?"

"Allie is a mutant," Loki said simply. "A mutant shapeshifter."

"Okay... And?"

"She has the genes, the direct line of shapeshifting descent, of En Sabah Nur."

"Who is that?" Quill asked.

"The first mutant," Steve said, his eyes widening. "The most powerful of them all." He turned to look at Bruce. "I thought you typed her DNA."

"I don't have a sample of Apocalypse's DNA, nobody does," Bruce said, looking shaken. "But all mutants, the X-gene comes from him, so, yes, Allie does have that."

"It's possible that she automatically transformed into a being capable of holding the Time stone," Loki continued. "Her mutant ability is largely defensive."

"So what, we're just gonna give her one of these and hope she doesn't die?" Rocket asked.

"NO!" came the unanimous chorus from all the Avengers in the room.

"Give her the Time stone," Loki said impatiently. "She's held it before, she can do it again."

"This is not a toy," Dr. Strange said.

"Yes I know that. Do you?"

Dr. Strange made a face, and slipped the necklace over his head. He pointed out the clasp on the side, and handed the entire thing to Allie.

She tried to hand it back. "No, I don't want to," she said, terrified of going back or forward in time.

"Shh," he said, reaching forward and tapping her forehead. "Calm..."

Allie took a deep breath, and clicked open the clasp. The Time Stone tumbled into her palm, and she looked at it curiously. "It's not doing anything."

"Just don't drop it, sweetheart," Clint murmured behind her.

The woman from the Nova Corps waved the scanner again. "She's holding the state of an Eternal," she whispered, awed.

"What does that mean?" Natasha demanded, her tone like ice.

"Thanos, the one after the stones, is an Eternal," Gamora explained. "The Celestials created the Eternals. They're able to control massive amounts of power."

"And that's what gave humans the ability to have mutants in the first place, starting with Apocalypse," Quill continued.

"Can she control it?" Drax asked.

"It doesn't matter. We're not asking a nine-year-old to wield an Infinity Stone, no matter how much potential she has," Steve said firmly. "Allie, put it back in the necklace."

She placed the Time stone back, and handed the necklace to Dr. Strange. "So, what does that mean?" she asked, worried. "Am I gonna turn into an alien?"

Natasha knelt to hug her. "No, baby. You're just, really, really powerful."

Allie clung to her mother. "I want to help."

"Maybe she can hang onto one of these," Quill said, gesturing to the stones in the room.

"Hold up," Tony said, pointing at Dr. Strange. "You said you knew where the last one is."

Dr. Strange nodded, and looked at the two Asgardians. "Your eldest sister knows where it is," he said. "She had it, once upon a time."

"Considering her title, I'm not surprised," Loki mused.

Thor nodded grimly. "We will return to Asgard and procure the location."

"So, wait, what are we going to do with all six stones?" Peter asked.

"A preemptive strike?" Bucky suggested. "If Thanos is coming for them, we can beat him at his own game."

"We don't have a gauntlet," Quill pointed out. "There's no way to combine them."

Loki held up a hand. "Actually, there is a gauntlet, in the vault. On Asgard."

Gamora nearly choked. "There's TWO?"

Steve held up a hand. "Okay. Here's what we're gonna do."

"Wait, who put you in charge?" Rocket asked.

"Dude, this is Captain America. He's in charge," Quill stressed. "Definitely in charge."

Steve nodded in thanks. "Prime Minister, your people can seek asylum here, although it might not be the safest place since Thanos is probably coming straight here."

"No. We will stay and fight. This seems to be the only way it will end. And your space navy is severely lacking."

"We don't have one," Sam informed her.

"that makes it even more imperative that we stay and fight."

Steve looked at the Asgardians. "Thor, Loki, leave us the Tesseract and go back to Asgard. Bring Vision with you, to read Hela's mind. Send us a message when you get the location of the Soul stone. If you can get it yourselves, send Vision back to us. We're going to need all our heavy hitters on Earth to defend the Infinity Stones."

Thor nodded.

Quill and Gamora stepped forward. "Let us go with you. We've got a ship, and contacts."

Steve nodded.

"Great. We'll take one of your Nova ships," Quill said.

The Prime Minister glared at him. "You said you had a ship."

"Well yeah, but that's gotta stay here to protect the rest of the stones. We need one to get around in."

"Very well."

Those five left, and Steve looked at the rest of them critically. "And we'll hold the fort."

"Just wait for Thanos to show up, like a bunch of-"

Three different pairs of hands clapped over Allie's ears before the raccoon could finish speaking. "Dollar in the jar!" she said loudly, due to the three pairs of hands over her ears.

"The heck's a dollar?" was the first thing she heard.

Allie giggled despite herself.

A~A~A~A

Vision came back from Asgard two hours later, carrying the Gauntlet. "It is a fake, but we think it might work. The actual Gauntlet is merely something to hold the stones with, and this will do the same thing. The Soul stone is in Niflheim. The others have gone to retrieve it."

"How long is that gonna take, do you think?" Tony asked.

Vision shook his head. "She embedded it in a labyrinth in the center of that realm. It may take some time."

"Great," Bucky said, "we'll just defend the Earth from the Mad Titan, or whatever he's called."

"That is very apt," Mantis said.

Steve came in, speaking to T'Challa over the phone. "Yes. Yes we will, thank you." He hung up, and looked at Clint and Natasha. "T'Challa has offered to let us send Allie and most of the civilians from Xandar to Wakanda."

The two spies shared a glance. Allie would be safe there, safer than she would be here, surrounded by Infinity Stones and people that might try to force her to wield them. Clint nodded. "That's the best place for her right now."

Allie, when told of the plan, gave them a flat, "No."

"Allie, it's not safe here," Clint said, kneeling to face her.

"No. I wanna stay with you." She hid her face in his shoulder. "What if I can help?"

Clint smoothed her hair. "Sweetheart, you're nine years old. You shouldn't have to worry about any of this."

Allie started to cry. "I am worried, though, about you, and mommy, and Steve, and Thor, and the whole universe! What if you die?"

"Oh, sweetheart..." He hugged her tightly, but Clint couldn't promise that no one would die. And Allie knew that. "I'm sorry, baby, but the greatest help you could be, is be safe," he said softly, kissing her head. "That would make our jobs much easier, knowing you were safe."

"And you'll be careful?" she asked, voice muffled in his chest.

"We'll be as careful as we can," Clint said. "I promise."

Allie shook her head. "I don't want to go, but-" her voice broke. "I'll go. So you can save the world."

Clint forced the tears down, and shared a glance with Natasha. "Thank you, sweetheart," he breathed, shuffling to the side so Natasha could hug her as well. "Mommy and I will go with you, okay, make sure you have everything you need. And then we'll have to come right back, okay?"

She clung to Natasha like a leech, tears running down her face. "Okay. Can I, can I say bye to everyone?"

Natasha kissed her forehead. "There's a little more time," she assured her. "Go ahead."

Allie's goodbyes to all the Avengers made everyone cry, and she made them promise to try their hardest not to die. Then, Clint packed her little suitcase that looked like R2D2, and they boarded a quinjet, flying in formation with the refugee jets going to Wakanda. A SHIELD agent piloted the quinjet so the spies could have all the time they needed with their daughter.

Allie sat in between her parents, holding tight to Natasha's hand, and Clint holding onto both of them.

"Is T'Challa going with you too?" Allie asked, after a few minutes.

"No, he's going to stay in Wakanda, and coordinate with us from there."

"Can we talk on the video?" Allie asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, of course, baby." Clint kissed her cheek. "We'll call you every day, all right?"

"Okay." She hid her face in his chest. "I don't want you to fight."

"I know, sweetheart. But someone has to."

Allie sniffed. "I know." She transferred her hug to Natasha. "But you're the best-est of the best and the whole world needs you."

Natasha kissed her. "We're not doing this for the whole world, baby, we're doing this to keep you safe."

Allie started to cry.

Clint wrapped an arm around both of them. "Shh, sweetheart, it's going to be okay."

When they landed in Wakanda, Allie had a death-grip on her parents, and they didn't look like they were going to let go anytime either.

T'Challa met them and the other refugees on the tarmac, and gave the trio a compassionate gaze. "You'll have nothing to worry about while she is here," he reassured the anxious parents.

Natasha nodded, and very reluctantly, pried Allie's grip from herself. "I love you, sweetheart," she said, meeting Allie's tearful gaze.

"I love you too mommy," Allie sobbed, still clinging to Clint.

Clint gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. "I love you so much, baby."

"Love you, daddy. Be safe."

He handed her to T'Challa, and rubbed his sleeve over his eyes to dash away any emotion. "Thank you," he said, to the prince.

T'Challa inclined his head in a nod. "I will see you soon. Safe travels."

Hawkeye and Black Widow gave Allie a final wave, and got back on the quinjet.

Allie waved until the quinjet cloaked and disappeared, and then buried her face in T'Challa's shoulder. "I miss them already," she whispered.

T'Challa placed his hand on her back. "We will call them later," he promised, and carried her while he directed the Xandar refugees to follow his people. He took her to a comfortable sitting room, and a moment later, a woman with a nice smile and a motherly air walked into the room. She bowed to the prince. "This is Nila," he said, gesturing to the woman. "She will oversee your comfort here, Allie."

"Hi," Allie said, smiling at her.

"Hello, little one." Nila held out a hand. "Would you like to see your room and unpack your things?"

"Okay." Allie paused, and ran to T'Challa. She hugged him. "Thank you."

He patted the top of her head with a smile. "I could hardly turn away our little black panther, now, could I?"

She smiled at him, and went with Nila. Her smile dropped as they walked the richly decorated, but unfamiliar, corridors. Allie wished she could be at home, with the 'vengers, and wished she was old enough to help kick Thanos' butt. There was nothing she could do but wait, and she hated it.

A~A~A~A

A/N 2: Once I can work myself up to maybe-maybe-not some character deaths, I will be posting. Eventually. Hang in there, everybody and thanks for sticking with me!