Prelude
Alya…..Alya…."
Alya groaned and her hands reached up to rub her groggy eyes. Her brown orbs wandered around, taking notice of her environment.
She was no longer on that awful red planet, that much was clear.
Because, now, instead of being the only one on her feet, she was the only one lying on the ground.
"Alya."
The young girl sat up and allowed her father to pull her up to stand on her feet. She was still a little disoriented, but too curious to stay where she was.
Alya was pretty sure they were still in Wakanda, but the only thing tripping her up was how…..empty it was.
Everyone who was here was also on that weird, red planet, but she could've sworn that there were more people occupying the land than there were right now.
"Are you okay?" Bucky asked her, using his hands to check her over. She still had the same small injuries from before, but, to his relief, he couldn't find anything new.
"….Yeah." She nodded, still looking around.
She didn't get it. She was confused.
Where was Uncle Steve?
Where was her mother?
Alya couldn't believe her odds.
It had been five years since Thanos snapped his fingers and turned millions to dust.
Fiveyears.
Alya fell asleep for five hours and woke up five years later.
When Okoye explained it to her, she almost didn't believe her, and she wouldn't have if she didn't trust her so much already.
It was really too far out there for her to believe. Sure, Steve was under the ice for, like, seventy years, but that was different.
Alya was turned to dust in 2018, woke up in a different place, fell asleep again, and then woke up again five years later?
She was supposed to be in New York! She and Peter had plans! They were supposed to go sight seeing and stroll through the city drinking hot cocoa, toting a ton of bags of m&m's! When Natasha got back, she was going to take her to Rockefeller Plaza to teach her how to ice skate and she promised she would pick her up every single time fell. She promised they would stay right there on the ice for as long as it took for her to learn.
But Alya hadn't seen her mother yet. She actually couldn't find her anywhere.
She had a very sinking feeling in her gut, but she ignored it in favor of remaining optimistic. Nothing could get Natasha Romanoff, she was way too strong for that.
She wasn't allowed to join everyone in the new fight against the Titan. Her father took one look at her and forbid her from coming along. He thought it would be terribly dangerous for her to fight all these aliens again.
Apparently, she got lucky enough not to get severely injured the first time. All she managed to acquire were a few cuts and bruises from one of the alien's swords.
Honestly, Alya hadn't even realized they were there until he pointed them out. She tried to make it seem like they didn't hurt, but Bucky knew better. She even tried to argue that she's had worse, but he wouldn't budge.
Little girls didn't fight wars.
But since when did Alya listen?
She knew Thanos was responsible for her being MIA for five years and she wanted to take a crack at him herself.
So when everyone entered the portals that Doctor Strange opened up, she hung back and slipped through without anyone else noticing, her collapsable bow in her hand and her quiver on her back.
She wondered what exactly went on these past five years and how much everything had changed. Maybe her mother would be able to explain everything to her in detail.
She really did miss mother and she could only imagine how much Natasha missed her. Five years was a long time to be without the person you loved. Alya knew she wouldn't be able to handle being away from her mother for that long.
It seemed like Steve, Tony, and Thor were all the way at the front, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of new Avengers to back him against Thanos and his army. To her surprise, Steve was wielding Thor's hammer.
She sure did miss a lot.
Alya craned her neck, her eyes squinting in the lowlight in an attempt at finding her mother. She couldn't see her through the sea of people, but she was sure that the woman should've been up in the front with everyone else.
Maybe she was somewhere else.
And all of a sudden, everyone started screaming and running to attack Thanos' army, using all the energy they had to fight their enemy.
At first, Alya watched and looked around at the scene before her.
The sky was dark with smoke and the Compound was dilapidated. It looked like someone fired a missile at it. Her old room was in that Compound, she spent a lot of time there, and was very sad to see it go.
She was pulled from her train of thought when she something hit her from behind, forcing her to fall forward onto the debris covered ground.
The shards made cuts on her hands that she ignored in favor of getting back up onto her feet to see exactly who or what had just rammed into her.
It was one of those aliens.
He was sneering down at her, ready to finish her off, but Alya wasn't about to let him win. She hopped right back up onto her feet and forced her bow to collapse so that she could use her spear which had an easier swing.
"My, my, my." He hissed. "What have we here? A little child. All alone. You humans make it so easy."
The alien lunged at her, but she stepped to side, which only made him angrier. He twirled the medium sized dagger that he held in his hand and managed to swipe at her leg.
"Agh!" Alya gasped at the red hot pain and took her weight off that leg, trying to limp the pain off.
But she wouldn't have much time to do that and seeing the blood trickle from the wound made her angry.
So she whipped her spear around and pointed the blade at him.
He let out a battle cry and advanced towards her once again, but he didn't get very far before Alya actually used her weapon.
The force from the blade stopped him in his tracks and his eyes widened from the pain that he felt. Alya watched as his mouth gaped open and closed to try to say something, or to try to take in a deep breath.
But she'd gotten him in just the right place.
Yanking the spear out, she watched as he fell in a heap on the ground, gasping for air.
She looked down at him and found that she was met with a choice.
She could either leave him there to suffer, or she could show him a little mercy.
Alya was no longer held captive inside of the four walls of the Red Room. She didn't have to make him suffer.
This was a war and they were on opposite sides.
And just because he wasn't human, didn't mean that she had to lose her own humanity.
So, taking a beat, she raised the spear, catching a look of respect in his eyes before she ended this whole thing.
And with that, she turned and walked away.
"Take it!"
Alya felt a bronze-colored gauntlet with the infinity stones being shoved into her hands before she could even process what was going on. She'd fought so many aliens today, that when all of this was over, she was going to take a long vacation.
And she was never watching E.T. again.
Between the daggers and the missiles that Thanos' army dropped down, she was beginning to see why her father told her to stay where she was in Wakanda. Everything was in utter chaos and no matter where she looked, she just couldn't find her mother.
Where was she?
When she came to her senses, she ran as fast as she possibly could, the gauntlet tucked tightly underneath her arm.
She could only describe this experience as something akin to playing football.
She was the one with the ball and everyone else was trying to tackle her and take it from her.
The only difference was, this was a matter of life or death.
No biggie, she could totally handle this.
"I got you!"
Just when she was about to get tackled, she felt something hit her back and snatch her up off the ground at warp speed.
She shrieked in surprise, only calming down once she saw that it was only Peter. She'd never swung with him before, but this was kind of exciting. Every few seconds, it felt like they were free falling before he would shoot another web at something to prevent them from falling and hitting the ground.
Neither of the two kids said anything to each other. They didn't have to and there wasn't enough time to do it. As quickly as he swooped in to help her, Peter left just as fast, taking the gauntlet with him.
He'd left her in a pretty high place, just enough that she was able to look down and see what was going on below.
And it gave her the perfect opportunity to snipe some unsuspecting aliens.
With purpose, Alya reached into her quiver and pulled out an arrow, notching it in her bow before she took aim.
There were some aliens trying to sneak up behind Steve, so she pulled the string back, aimed, and let the arrow fly on the exhale, hitting a bullseye.
Smiling when Steve turned in her direction, she saluted him with a wink before looking for more aliens to fire at.
"Alya!" She heard someone scream her name, but before she could make out who it was, she felt something creeping up behind her.
When she turned around, it was too late to try to defend herself.
Another alien raised its weapon and prepared to use it.
And if he thought that Alya was going to cower away, he needed to think again.
The twelve year old leaned back on her elbows so that she could face him, tilted her chin up was high as it would go, and looked him in the eyes.
If this was how it ended, then Alya will have made up for all the lives she took under Dreykov's orders back in the Red Room.
And she wasn't afraid.
But before the blade of the alien's weapon could touch her, a samurai sword came out of nowhere and imbedded itself in the alien's back, causing it to drop several feet below.
"Uncle Clint, when did you start using—" Alya didn't get to finish her sentence because the man immediately yanked her to stand up on her feet before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Oh....this is nice."
"Are you okay?" The man asked, tears glossing his blue eyes.
Which was really something for Alya to see. Never once in all these years had she ever seen her Uncle Clint cry.
"Yeah, I'm okay." She smiled. "He's not, though."
"You stay with me, Booger." He spoke softly, like he didn't trust his voice not to break.
"Okay." So Alya didn't argue.
Instead, she turned around so that her back was facing his and notched an arrow on the string of her bow.
With a nod from her uncle, they began to shoot at Thanos' army with speed and precision.
One arrow at a time.
Alya felt like the fight had lasted for days instead of hours. She was winded and fatigued. Most importantly, she scoured the entire battlefield and found there was no sign of her mother.
All of a sudden, everything stopped.
Nobody moved. Nobody made a sound.
And then, Thanos and his entire army began to turn to right to dust.
Alya gently pushed through the crowd of heroes to see what it was they were staring at and gasped when she saw Tony.
He was on the ground, half his body burnt to a crisp. He was the one who snapped this time and it took everything out of him.
"B-Bambi…" He grimaced, even talking gave him a great deal of pain.
Pepper took a look at her and waved her over.
Alya's legs started moving before she could register what they were doing and she only regained control of herself when she dropped down to her knees in front of him.
"Uncle Tony?" She was afraid of touching him just incase she accidentally hurt him any furthe, so she kept her hands to herself. "Uncle Tony? How did you—"
"—I'm….sorry." He spoke through labored breaths. "I'm sorry…..I never should've…..I…."
"Uncle Tony, stop." She shook her head. If this was what she thought this was about, then she didn't want to hear it. She forgave him a long time ago. It was water under the bridge. "It's okay."
"No…" He groaned. "S'not okay….was wrong."
"I forgive you." She forced a smile. "I'm not mad at you. I love you."
"I love you, too…." His eyes became frighteningly unfocused for a few seconds before returning to normal. "….Have a….cousin…..Morgan…she loves you, too…"
Tony had a kid? Wow, that five years sounded like a totally different lifetime now.
”Look out for....for each other....okay? She’s....gonna need you.”
"Okay." Alya reached out, hesitating before he placed her hand in his, feeling him squeeze back even though she could see that the simple movement was agonizing for him. "Okay."
A tear slipped from her eye as she stood up, allowing Pepper to have her moment with the man. She wasn't some naive little kid. She knew what was going to happen. She didn't like it, but it wasn't up to her.
A gentle hand grabbed her from behind and pulled her in for a hug, forcing her to look away.
Alya's lip quivered as her heart shattered in time with Tony's arc reactor as it flickered out. The only thing keeping her upright was Steve. Her chest heaved up and down, trying to catch some air, but failing miserably and her vision blurred from all the water her ducts produced.
All she wanted was her mother.
"W-Where is she?" She asked Steve, who happened to be the one holding her. "What happened to her?"
Alya's mind raced a mile a minute as she began to fear the worst, if she hadn't seen Natasha by now, then that only meant one thing.
She was gone.
She was gone and she was never coming back. Ever.
How was she supposed to live without her? How was she going to move on?
How was she—
"Alya?"
A gasp escaped Alya's throat as a familiar voice broke her right out of her thoughts.
"Mama!"
The twelve year old shoved Steve away as if he meant nothing and leapt into her mother's arms, throwing her own around her neck.
"Where were you, Mama?" She questioned, tears pouring down her cheeks. "How come I couldn't find you?"
"Baby." Natasha pressed her lips up against her daughter's forehead, ignoring all the ash and the cuts. "My baby."
After five long years, she finally had her daughter back. The missing piece, the most important piece of her was back where she belonged. In her arms, safe and sound.
She did everything in her power to make sure she'd come back and it worked. Alya was here.
She was never letting her go again.
"The Compound got hit..." She began to explain. "It took a while to get out...but I found someone who really missed you."
When Alya looked down to see what she meant, she beamed when she saw her little black cat, looking up at her.
"She missed you...I missed you."
"Don't ever let me go, okay?" Alya whimpered.
"Never."