"I sense there is a missing piece to this equation," Tony mused, resting his head on his open palm lazily. His eyes swiveled past the large assortment of idiosyncraticies Fury had assembled in the last two days. One was missing. His narrowed eyes fixated themselves on the door.
"Huh?" Steve wondered, head tilting to the side, resembling a lost puppy. Natasha rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, gripping the leather armrests and watching as her fingers sunk into the fabric.
"The Avengers Initiative was active long before you were found Captain, we trained and recruited as many gifted individuals that we had found in our database. Some qualified," Natasha glanced sideways at Tony, who sneered at her. "Some did not. When the initiative proved to be a failure, one of the members I recruited was committed to the organization because of her service. And also because-"
"You and Barton adopted her," Tony drawled out, bored. "Didn't know you went anywhere without pipsqueak on your hip, Romanoff?" He rolled his eyes at Steve's incredulous expression, and the hint of sentiment painted on Natasha's porcelain face.
"A child? You're bringing a child into this? That's absurd!" Steve hollered. Tony hummed and waved him off.
"Wasn't the draft age like sixteen when you were spry and wiggling?" Tony question, circling around a nervous looking Banner with a "pokey thing" twirling in between his nimble fingers.
Steve glared at him. "Eighteen as of 1942. But this is different."
"Different? Is it really different, old man?"
Everyone's eyes focused in on the petite figure lingering in the doorway, clad in black from head to toe, frizzy brown hair tied up on the top of her head in an equally frizzy ponytail. She looked smug.
"Ah, there she is. Little Natasha, how are you?"
"Bite me, Stark," Anastazya hissed, sauntering over to Natasha, hands planted firmly on her hips.
"I told you this was a bad time to send me away, now look what's happened. Clint is brainwashed and we are at the brink of intergalactic war and all we have to show for it is a man with a record breaking need for an anger management class, a billionaire playboy asshole, a man who has spent way too much time in Drapes and Things and a human Creamsicle. Not to mention the Twisted Sister cackling to himself underground."
The room was silent for a few moments, and Ana glanced around the room apprehensively.
"No offense."
"None taken," Tony chuckled, looking slightly impressed. Natasha raised a sculpted eyebrow at Ana.
"It's not my fault you went and exploded again. You needed some time to cool off after that last mission."
"Oh, so I'm not the only one who throws temper tantrums? The spawn does too?" Bruce asked, looking amused with the conversation.
"My name is Anastazya, and I don't throw temper tantrums-"
"Oh of course not, just natural disasters," Tony butted in, looking smug. Ana winked at him.
"Adds a little more style don't you think."
"Anastazya."
"Anastazya! What are you doing?" Clint shouted over the madness. Anastazya's eyes never left Tony's limp figure falling from the sky, nuke clutched in his hands. Her heart beat spastically in her chest.
"I-I l-ost p-ow-er," Tony's voice cut in and out of the radio static in Ana's ear. Her body was moving before her mind could catch up. She collapsed to the floor as she was tackled down by one of the Chitauri. But it was enough, her body temperature spiked as she began to absorb the energy of everything around her. Her mind couldn't fathom what she was doing, but she knew it would work. She shakily stood to her feet, vision spotting.
"Tony, it's coming to you!" She shouted, before she shot all of the electricity stored in her being at towards him, watching as the suit absorbed it and he recovered from his fall. He shot straight into the portal and disappeared into the abyss of the galaxy.
Before Anastazya could recover, she was grabbed by her hair and slammed into the building nearest to her. She felt paralyzed as she laid on the chilled cement. She felt the vibrations of the battle, and heard the footsteps approaching her. There was blood, and it was everywhere. Flowing from an unknown source inside of her. It came gushing from all possible places.
"You're going to be okay, Lady Anastazya. We've won, it's over," Thor's voice echoed in her ears. Everything she took in was being dragged out by it's nails, delayed like a malfunctioning computer. Clint was by her side next, her head on his lap. Steve stood beside her as her eyes fluttered shut.
"You did good kid," He told her smoothing back her hair. Clint held onto her tighter as she went still.
"N-No. You don't get to do this. Wake up, Anastazya!" He hollered, shaking her.
"Wake up!"
Anastazya shot up in bed, ignoring the strangled, slightly girlish, shriek coming from Buzz as he dodged getting head butted by her. He swallowed hard before averting his eyes from her.
"It's time," He said, before walking out of the room.
Ana looked bewildered as she wiped the tears from her face, she examined the room the slept in. The room she had been sleeping in for the last three days. Not necessarily her room although that's what Kian called it, it lacked all the charms of a home to be given such a title. It was barren except for the cot tucked in the corner of the room, and the plastic bag full of clothes Buzz had thrifted for her.
Although Buzz had bought plenty of reputable sweaters for her, Anastazya couldn't bring herself to change out of Pietro's jacket. It still smelled of him, and was as warm as he was. Though those things constantly brought Ana heartache, she couldn't bear to be without it. Kian said that was fine, as long as he could dispose of the rest of her bloodstained clothing.
Living in this new reality had a lot of new rules tacked onto it. Rule #1: Fit In.
"There are a lot more people like you in the world than you think, lots of people with special abilities," Kian had explained, wringing his hands together. He looked pale even just thinking about it. "Ever since New York, there's a group of people around here who make it their business to get rid of those people."
"Call it, a preemptive strike almost," Buzz added, running his hands through his hair. "They call themselves The Suffocators. Who knows what they'll do to you once they find you. Who know what they'll do to us once they find you."
Kian looked sideways at Buzz, clearly irritated with his constant insensitivity. "The hair is a dead giveaway, I'll stop by the store tomorrow morning to get you some hair dye. Any preference?"
Ana looked down at the carpet, wrapping the moth eaten blanket Kian had given her around herself.
"Brown," She had said.
Anastazya felt nauseous just thinking about it, something as simple and harmless as dyeing her hair had such staggering impact on her self-image. Things had changed, drastically so. And this would only be a permanent reminder of just how much they had.
And the only person who wasn't aware of it was stalking back into the Avengers Compound with a vengeance. He had trusted his fellow teammates with Anastazya's safety, and they had allowed it to go so far out of hand that Heimdall grounded him to the realm for it. They had faced the Chitauri's wrath, and Ultron's scheming, but they couldn't hold off a few mercenaries?
He knew things were dismal, but it wasn't as clear to him until he walked into the living room, where they all sat crouched over and tear-stained. Only husks of human shells, no life inside of them. The worst of them all was the silver-haired boy, caved in on himself and trembling so incessantly he had his own separate rating on the Richter Scale. His sister had her arms wrapped around his cowering figure, stroking his hair in some earthly attempt to calm his nerves. The atmosphere didn't stop him from asking the question.
"Where is Anastazya?" She demanded. Tony looked lazily up at his Asgardian friend, constantly confident demeanor shattered in a way that started Thor.
"She ran away," He answered. "She had an accident, one of those old natural disasters, you know? We didn't know what to do, it was bad. We locked her in the lab, and waited for her to wake up to talk to her. But when she did, she escaped. Must of been something lover boy over there said."
"Do not blame this on my brother!" Wanda snapped with more vehemence than anyone knew she had in her, and Pietro flinched. "We are all equally to blame. This was not a spontaneous event, it was a wind-up. We should have seen this coming. And we shouldn't have treated her like rabid dog and lock her up."
"Well," Thor started. "No matter how she got where she is, she is gone. And I must find her. The fate of the universe is now in the hands of a very fragile teenage girl and whoever is taking care of her. I must find her and take her back to Asgard for protection."
Pietro's unfocused gaze snapped up suddenly at that statement, the red brimming his eyes from hours of lament made his eyes seem glow in the dark in the dim lighting of the tower.
"For how long will she be there?" He asked, voice weak and shaking. His heart swelled.
"Indefinitely," Thor answered seriously.
As Thor turned Pietro shot up to his feet. "Please, let me go with you," He pleaded. Steve looked warily at him.
"Pietro, I'm not sure-"
"If she is to be there forever, then I must be there with her. I have made a mistake, but I can not live without her. And her without me. It is not meant to be this broken. Please," Pietro begged, crystalline eyes pooling with tears once again. "I will help you bring her back."
Thor stared for a moment before nodded hesitantly. "You and your sister, follow me. The world is a large place and Anastazya is an exceptionally small human being. We must find her post haste."
This was about to make Rule #1 especially difficult for Anastazya to follow. Brown hair or not, things hadn't changed as drastically as she first believed.
If Anastazya was lost, it was only a matter of time before they would find her. Always.