October 1st 2007.
As she made her way out the school bus, she felt nervous. It was already her third week in elementary school and she didn't have any friends yet. All the kids in her grade were friends before they started school, and her roommates at the orphanage were all a few years older. She sat in her seat, the second to last bench in the middle row, expecting a boring lesson, something like 1+1=2, and that one girl, Jessica, to ask that is for the third time this week.
But, she got a shy, blue-eyed boy standing next to Mrs. Spencer, a middle-aged woman who basically radiated with happiness. "Ok class, please welcome, all the way from Kansas, your new friend, Lucas Scott! Ok, Lucas, you can sit next to Alex there. Alex, honey, please raise your hand!" She did as she was told, the boy awkwardly making his way to the bench. As he settled in, getting his books out, the teacher carrying on with today's lesson, which was actually pretty easy.
Alex got her hands on whatever book she could find, math, history, engeneering, whatever. The other kids tought she was weird, wanting to learn before even getting in school, but she enjoyed it a lot. Sometimes she even used big words, just to confuse her roommates. She somehow dozed off for the entire lesson, only snapping back when she heard the bell ring. The boy turned to her, "Hi. I'm Lucas. What's your name?" Alex smiled at him, "I'm Alexandra Richardson, nice to meet you Lucas!"
He smiled at her, which suprised Alex, by the glances she stole at him during the lesson, she conducted that he was not a person of many smiles. Maybe Ms. Cercle, her caretaker back at the orphanage was right, she should lay off big books. At least for a bit. "So, what's your favorite thing to do, Alex?" She smiled back at him, feeling that this was a start of a beautiful friendship.
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5 years later
She was in fifth grade now, and everything was going fine. Well, Tony Stark turned out to be Iron Man, and when that happened, Lucas changed as a person. He was more outgoing, and he wore Iron Man merch a ton those first few months. That was until she managed to drag him along to read some of the books she loaned, one of them being a collection of works by Dr. Bruce Banner.
Now, as ten year olds, Lucas was dead set on becoming an engeneer, in hopes of somehow landing a job at Stark Industries and meeting Dr. Banner in the near future. And Alex? Alex discovered her love for running. She joined her school's running team, getting the school on news because she won 6 medals in one day. And also somewhat like Lucas, she discovered a hero of her own.
Getting her hands on the books about The Howling Commandos, she had a whole phase about Captain America. Their school even hosted a friend of his, Peggy Carter, to speak about him, as the school was named after Cap himself and it was their 60th anniversary. She also noticed that sometimes she would shuffle randomly, and very fast too. She always brushed it off as outcome of not stretching out properly for running.
As the best friends conversed on the school bus on the ride home, well for Alex to the orphanage, they saw a huge hole open in the sky. Everyone on their bus started screaming as an alien broke one of the back windows, the kids from the back quickly scattering forward. The alien suddenly lost a foot of his height, a mop of red hair seen running on the side of the bus. The kids cheered on another man, a blond guy in a dark suit as he helped them out.
As Lucas and her were one of the last ones, sitting the furthest from the back of the bus, the red haired woman also assisted the man in pulling out the kids. The man smiled, high-fiving a kid from her class with hearing aids, pointing to his ears. Taking a better look, the man had a hearing aid too. "Romanoff, take these kids to safety?" He asked the woman, who nodded, herding them all like sheep.
As the kids ran before the woman, they could hear shots behind them. Curiosity took over her senses, Alex looked back, seeing the woman hit a clean headshot of the alien about 30 meters away from them. "Woah..." She was so in awe she didn't hear Lucas yelling her name, and she quickly found herself on the cold, hard ground, landing on her left arm. She heard it crack after a brief second, the only thing hurting was the scraped elbow.
She was suddely scooped up and hurriedly rushed to her friends who got across safely. She looked up from her arm, seeing the hyperfocused face of the woman with red hair. As they arrived to her classmates, the woman put her down, worried eyes looking over her. To be honest, Alex felt a bit embarrassed making the woman step away from the fight. "Are you ok?", the slightly raspy voice of the redhead asked, Alex nodding in comfirmation.
Natasha nodded back, there was something about this girl that she couldn't quite place her finger on. That was until she looked into the girl's eyes. In them, she saw the man that trained her, and was eventually fathered a child. Her child. But this couldn't be Aleksandra. No, her Aleksandra was either already gone or, what she hoped, with Melina somewhere safe.
"Good. Do you kids have someone to get you home?" The boy next to the blonde nodded, "Yeah, my dads are gonna pick us all up! They have a bus!" She smiled lightly, "That's good. I'll need all of you to stay put until his parents arrive, ok?" Seeing colective nods from the crowd of fifth graders, waving bye as she took off, seeing as more Chitauri were dropping from the hole.
"Wow! She's gonna kick some bad guy butt, right Alex?" Lucas cheered to her, seeing the woman take off, but she was more focused on the person that made the woman literally take off. "Dude, that's Captain America..."
"Oh? Oh yeah, he's cool too, I guess."
"Lucas!"
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Clint shook his hands over the sink, reaching for the towel. His face and arms were greasy, and he almost felt like he just finished fixing up his tractor, instead of getting mind controled by a Norse god and then stopping an alien invasion. "Uh... Clint, you remember how I told you about my- my daughter?" In the seven years he's known Natasha, he'd never heard her stumble in a sentence this much. Actually, he's never heard her stutter until today.
"Yeah?" he threw the oily towel into the laundry basket, praying to God he'll never have to get oil somewhere other then his hands. He landed on the head of the bed, Natasha, now in one of his hoodies and a pair of sweatpant, fumbling with her hands. Looking closer, he saw her picking at her wrists. "Nat, no, stop that." Green eyes looked into his blue ones with, tears threatening to spill out. He sighed, bringing his hand up, motioning that she starts. "Fine, fine... Go on..."
Natasha took a shakey breath through her teeth, "Well... I saw a girl today, and Clint. She looked exactly what my Aleksandra would look like now." She felt the tears spilling out slowly, as her best friend wrapped his arms around her, letting her cry her heart out. She wouldn't cry infront of anyone else but Clint, one of the only people who ever accepted her in the early days.
What escaped Natasha's memory was the fact the little girl had golden ring around her neck. Her golden ring. In the ER, that same girl fiddled with the said ring, her left arm hung on a cloth Lucas's dad John messily wrapped to keep it in place. "Richardson!" The doctor called, looking up to see Alex being patted on the shoulder by Lucas, the two getting up and entering the room.
The doctor looked at John, "Are you family?" John shook his head, "No, no, she's- um, she's an orphan, but my son is there as emotional support." The woman laughed at that, "Alright, you can come in." The blond closed the door behind him, Alex already sitting on the examination table, Lucas standing next to her, looking at his dad. The doctor jotted some things down, before putting the clipboard on the table.
"Hi Alex, I'm Dr. Allen." Alex raised her healthy hand in a wave, Dr. Allen laughing before continuing, "So, can you tell me what happened?" Alex explained what happened, the doctor nodding all the way through. "Okay, we're gonna have to take an x-ray just to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's just cracked, not broken, and then we'll properly put in a cast, are you fine with that?"
Alex nodded, hopping off the stool and to the x-ray machine. Dr. Allen scanned her arm, waiting for the x-rays to develop. Once they did, she put them on the light, hand on her chin. "Mhm, yep, just as I said, cracked. That means it'll heal faster." She mused to herself, before turning around and clapping her hands together. "Alright, let's put that arm in a cast."
Alex noted that Dr. Allen was very energetic, and seemed to love her job. As they headed back to the orphanage, John offered that she stayed with them for a few days, an offer Alex declined, she needed to read books and all Lucas read were comics.
As she settled in her bed, she looked outside her window, seeing a flash in the sky zooming around, helping out with debris. That was probably Iron Man, or his friend War Machine. With thoughts of the day behind her in her head, and her left arm propped up onto a pillow so she didn't accidentally crush it over the night, she fell asleep.
Down a few blocks, a woman tossed and turned in her bed in the Stark Tower, before awakening covered in cold sweat, chest heaving madly. The woman fell back onto her bed, trying to calm her breathing, before reaching for the glass of water Tony left there a few hours ago. She stared at an imaginary dot somewhere outside, feeling sleep take her again slowly. Sighing, she leant back once again, pulling the covers over her body, falling asleep shortly after.
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aaaaaaaaaalright, i used a random translator for the russian, i understand it but do not read cyrllic sadly.
also the dr.allen part. TOTALLY UNINTENTIONAL, I GOT A RANDOM NAME GENERATOR AND IT GAVE ME THAT, ONLY AFTER I REALIZED WHO DR. ALLEN IS but i'll keep it here, i don't want some other random ass name like dr. handler lmao kennedy allen supremacy
ER visit based on what i wish happened to me when i broke my arm, but nooooo, some dumbass doc had to scare nine year old me with a fucking operation. boohoo, -100/10 hoe. i didn't need one at all, but i really wanted to hit him with a marble i had in my hand at the time, hah.
i'll try to update as often as i can, but no promises. also don't be silent readers, i love reading comments!