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Chapter Text

The world is black, and then all of a sudden, the air escapes her with a silent scream. The wind hurts her face and Sakura watches as the world blurs in her peripheral, the ground rushing to meet her.

She twists mid-air, looking for some sort of leverage. There are tall structures she assumes are buildings but they are foreign to her. There is the ground, what she assumes is the ground but it is black and it's approaching fast, she has to find some way to stop her fall or she'll die, I can't die yet, no, Naruto needs me and what will Sai do, you have to focus Sakura!—when she hits something hard and her body crumples, her air stolen from her once again.

This time, she audibly screams, because whatever she is on, is made of some hard surface that ripples and caves and it is moving like it's alive— oh my god, it is alive and it's breathing— and it is still high in the air. She had grown up with Hashirama trees, she isn't afraid of flying, not when she has Sai, but this place is strange and she doesn't have her teammate to fall back into. A tall, humanoid creature appears from over the edge of it, and Sakura is horrified. A face made of bone and grinning menacingly greets her. Whatever it is, she recognises it as a threat. Sending a punch it's way, she watches as it flies off, and nearly gets knocked over when the creature she is riding smashes into one of the buildings nearby.

Taking her opportunity to escape, she jumps and clings to the side of the stone building, finally able to observe the world around her. Leaning out with two feet and one hand planted firmly on the reinforced steel, dodging pieces of debris, she can look.

It is unfamiliar, alien. People she assumes are civilians are screaming, running on like ants on the ground and there is a hole in the sky, a pocket into another dimension she assumes, and more creatures spilling out with each second.

She remembers Madara and his flashing red eyes, and then the sensation of falling. With growing dread, she takes another good look at the sky. She has a feeling whatever hit she took meant for Kakashi landed her somewhere far, far away.

The building shakes as the foundation begins to give, and from inside Sakura hears screams. Turning and looking into the glass windows, she is met with the terrified faces of three civilians in foreign clothes. She makes a split decision, one that should've been simple, after all she has no obligations here, and smashes the glass.

Rushing in, she goes to demand answers to her questions, when she is met with garbled speech. I can't understand.

That puts a whole new layer of dread in her, and it must show on her face.

"I don't understand you, I am sorry. But I am here to help."

Using her body as the universal language, she holds a hand out to them. Pointing, she motions three, and holds out her hand. A blonde woman nods and reaches out to her immediately, yelping when Sakura lifts her in one arm. The other two, another woman and man, are quickly lifted off the ground. She turns back to the window and ignores their cries of alarm, launching off the building with precise motions. They land safely on the roof of another building only to lift off again, this time landing on the ground. Placing them down gently, she smiles when it seems they thank her. She waves them off, tugging them on the direction she sees other civilians running.

"Go, be safe."

She observes the strange metal contraptions people are sitting in as they whiz by, and she jumps out of the way of one, only to come face to face with three more of those creatures. They snarl at her, towering over her petite frame and she lets out a battle cry, quickly dispatching them.

Green catches her attention from the corner of her eye and she notices quickly that a very large man, two times the size of Chōji, is roaring and smashing those humanoid creatures. Right behind him is a man who is dressed in blue and red, and another wielding some hammer. Realizing they are this world's shinobi, she rushes after them despite the danger.

She left one war so abruptly only to be tossed into another one, and what else is she to do but fight? After all, a small voice whispers to her, it's what Naruto would do, and she is the fiercest kunoichi in the Shinobi Nations.

Natasha notices her first. It's almost hard not to— she has rosy pink hair and is dressed in strange red clothing and white armor. She looks like she's ma cosplayer, not a warrior but her kick sends two Chitauri to the floor in a heap, unlikely to get back up.

"Hawkeye, who is that?"

There is a pause, where her partner notices, too.

"I don't know." There's a grunt from him as he fights off three aliens, twisting his body around to shoot down two aliens, restrings his bow and takes out another in the span of mere seconds.

"She appears to be on our side," she comments, wrangling two aliens in her grasp, knocking the heads of another pair together. Letting out a huff, she said, "Keep an eye out, but we can use all the help we can get."

Clint nods and takes out more of the Chitauri with his arrows.

"Come again?" Says Tony from somewhere high up in the air.

"Foreign soldier with pink hair, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. but doesn't seem to be a threat. Looks like she has a mean right hook," Hawkeye says almost blandly, and Tony seems to think for a moment.

There's a flash of pink to their left and they look momentarily, where cherry blossom petals have begun to float in the air around her. She makes a weird sign with her hands and before their very eyes, the beautiful petals burst into flames, taking out a dozen Chitauri with them in a blazing inferno.

"Well, shit," Clint said, unhelpfully.

"You know what, given today, I shouldn't be surprised. Pink hair. Perfect, the more the merrier," said Stark, either unaware or uncaring of the trick the foreign woman just pulled.

Clint reaches behind his back for more arrows, and realizes there are none. "Shit," he growls this time, thrusting his bow at an oncoming Chitauri. There are too many for him to fend off the distance he is at, given how close he has to get to fight them.

"Shannarō!" A feminine voice cries, and three Chitauri are thrown off their feet in front of him by the same woman who is now wielding a war hammer almost as big as her. Clint lets out a relieved sigh, one he didn't even know he was holding.

"Take these."

He is taken aback by her voice. It is high and melodic, but it is a language he has never heard of. Despite that, he understands what it is she tries to tell him, as she holds out wicked looking knives to him, handle-forward. Pleasantly surprised, he grunts out a "thank you," before they are twirling away from one another, a deadly dance once more.

"It's time to regroup!" Shouts the Captain, and Clint quickly grabs the girl's arm when she doesn't notice them retreating.

"What are you doing?" Whispers Natasha to him.

"Don't bother, she can't understand us anyway. She should come, she is fighting with us."

She is a stranger, yes, but there is something about her that Clint can't place yet, and it seems safe. Safety is what they all need when aliens are pouring out of the sky and everything is uncertain. Natasha, on the other hand is still skeptical.

She follows for a moment, before something catches her eyes. She lets out a sound, catching his attention, and motions to a civilian crouched on the sidewalk. She tells him something and Clint takes it as a dismissal, before he turns back around.

"So that is the warrior you spoke of," says Thor, watching the woman who cradles a young man nearly twice her size in her arms, dashing around the corner and out of sight. Barton nods and the group refocuses on the task at hand.

"We have to do something to close that portal!"

Tony can't breathe. The suit is no longer working, and the voice of JARVIS is not there to comfort him. He floats in space as the hole ahead of him closes foot by foot, and he prays, he prays to anyone out there, that he will make it out alive. He sees a flash of blue, the clear blue sky before he closes his eyes and falls.

The Hulk catches him and places him on the ground. He is still while everyone crowds around him, and for a moment, everyone is afraid. And then his mask comes up, Tony blinking the haze away from his open eyes. He sees the grey of the buildings and smoke, before something —or someone— obscures it.

Impossibly bright green eyes look down at him, as she lays a glowing hand on his now exposed chest. He is too tired to protest, rather he stares at her dirt covered face as if she is all he can see and the other Avengers don't seem worried. A warm feeling overcomes him as Cap says, "We won."

The first thing he says is, "Great, we won. Let's not come in tomorrow, we'll take the day off… I want shawarma. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."

That admission has everyone relieved, because Tony will be Tony, and he seems relatively normal and unscathed, comparatively. They all chuckle, knowing he is dead serious.

Thor smiles. "There is still much to be done yet."

And they have shawarma. There is a lull the day of the attack; the citizens don't know when to return to the city and start rebuilding their lives, but that quickly goes away. The world can no longer deny the presence of the new group called the Avengers, and they struggle at first to get away, with all the news anchors hounding them for answers, and many, many people approaching the pink haired woman with tearing eyes and watery admissions of gratitude. Bruce calms down and Thor handles Loki, who seems to have had all the energy drained out of him, especially after a beating courtesy of the Hulk. Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. take control of the rest.

And they sit, silent in the restaurant, as a worker diligently mops the floor in the back of the store. Steve looks over at the stranger with pink hair as she holds the food in her hands, sitting next to Bruce and Clint, looking utterly lost. It's an expression that resonates with him, strangely enough, especially after being encased in ice for 70 years. She has not spoken a word to them yet.

It is quiet when she says something, something Tony is sure none of them can understand. And then, she begins to cry. Bruce, the closest to her, is alarmed, looking at everyone around the table.

"Aww, hey there, it's okay, cheer up," he tries, placing comforting hands on her shoulders and she leans into him, crying quietly.

"Where did you pick her up, Clint?" Asks Tony.

The man in question shrugs. "She appeared suddenly and started fighting, that's all I know."

Thor attempts to use his All-Speak, but it doesn't work. "She appeared during the fight, you say?"

Clint nods again, looking at the girl who has sagged into a very bewildered and slightly uncomfortable Bruce.

"Perhaps Loki's invasion weakened the barriers between worlds. There are nine realms and many worlds between. There is the chance she could be from any of them."

Tony, casting curious eyes her way, says, "Well, it looks like we'll be having one more guest."

Chapter Text

"What are we gonna do about you, sunshine?" Asks Tony, directing the question more to his companion rather than the woman with pink hair in the room. He still can't believe it. A pink haired girl fell from the sky. I guess it could be weirder, considering who we are and what we just went through...

"We still don't know her name?" Questions Cap, trailing behind him, serious as ever.

Banner and Sakura look up from the papers they're hunched over, and the scientist takes off his glasses.

"I haven't managed to get a word out of her, but whoever she is, Tony, she's brilliant."

He gets up and shows them a page covered in seemingly random numbers.

"It's a learning curve with letters, but she immediately knew what to do with numbers after I showed her the basics."

"Huh," says Tony, taking the paper from his friends hands. The numbers begin to pop out at him, startling him as he realizes what exactly it is he's looking at.

"This is…"

"Yeah," agrees Banner, looking over at the woman sitting at the table, twirling a pen in her hand. She blinks at them, looking a bit confused.

"So, what is it?" Cap interjects, clapping his hands and tilting his head. Tony passes the paper over.

"That, Capsicle, is some advanced physics. Quantum, actually..." he says, letting the sentence fall away as he looked at her, as she looks out at the grey city skyline out the window.

He takes off his dark, tinted glasses and stares out at the scenery behind the glass, too.

"Rain got you down, sunshine?"

She looked up at him, having recognized the nickname at the very least. It had been raining rather heavily since the invasion, but he chalked it up to the fact that a literal hole had been ripped in the sky, probably disrupting natural weather patterns. After all, it is May, and should be sunny. She had been staring out at the city, a contemplative look on her face that seemed almost sad, and he could definitely say he didn't like it.

"Yeah," he says. "The weather's really shitty, it shouldn't be like this," he gestured to the window, where raindrops roll down the glass. "Maybe we'll take you to California, once we get your paperwork all settled."

"Is S.H.I.E.L.D. taking care of that?" Bruce is curious to know the fate of the young woman he is beginning to befriend.

Tony lets out a huff of air. "We can't hide her. She saved countless of lives in the invasion. She's practically as famous as we are," he says, ruffling her hair. She bats his hand away half-heartedly, smiling and shaking her head.

He laughs, and Bruce and Steve smile at the girl. Tony motions for her to follow him, and she gets up, shuffling her papers together and holding her pen in hand. She bows briefly to Bruce, who blinks in shock, and stands next to the tall playboy.

"Come on," he calls, placing his sunglasses in his pocket. "Let's show you my new suit I'm working on. You can even meet Dummy, I think you'll like him. We don't need the sun when we've got your smile," Tony tells her, looking down at her and meeting her gaze. She smiles back at him, and it feels like the room is brighter.

Two weeks after the invasion, she sits with Thor, watching Loki, who is confined in his cell and glowering at the glass, appearing for all intents and purposes, completely unruffled. It is then that she speaks, after so much silence.

"You are familiar."

Thor is startled, and even Loki snaps to attention, watching her with eyes eerily similar to hers. She has done this with Thor many times and not once has she spoken; instead letting the blonde man attempt to do the talking and watching him fail every time. She is observing the black haired man, leaning into Thor. There is a look on her face that speaks of an urgent sense of what seems to be misplaced fondness and deep grief and it makes Thor almost uncomfortable in the rawness of her expression. Loki's face does not change, but his shuffling lets him know his brother feels the same way. The blonde Asgardian shifts to get a better view of her, and she turns to him.

"Like looking in a mirror," she says, the words heavy with accent. "A circle that does not end. I know this story very well; maybe that's why I am here."

She returns to her position against Thor, who watches the top of her head in utter confusion, before looking at his brother. Loki has locked eyes with she and she stares back, unafraid.

Thor does not understand this strange woman, but he lets her burrow into him regardless, sighing as she keeps his side warm. "You are strange, little one, but brave indeed."

Chapter Text

"Buttercup! Look what I've got," shouts Tony, walking into the training facilities. Sakura is there, hitting a punching bag with quick jabs. Turning to look at him, she pushes her hair back with bandaged hands and wipes the sweat off her brow.

"What?" She says to him, nodding to Clint who is also training. He nods at her and reaches out, ruffling her hair. She just grins and walks over to Tony, fixing her bangs that had been mussed.

He hands her a manila envelope as they begin walking.

"What's this?" She asks, squinting at the paper. She flips over to a little book and opens it. Her face is there, along with her name. Sakura Haruno.

"These are documents that will allow you to stay here in the United States. S.H.I.E.L.D. took care of the paperwork for us, now all you have to do is lay low, at least for now. The Invasion is still pretty fresh."

She nods. "It's not like I have any place to go besides here."

Tony almost winces at that, because he knows how badly she wants to go outside, how she itches for it. She's not particularly good at hiding her expressions, and he's always been good at reading most people.

"Tell you what, Buttercup. We'll get you out there exploring, although I don't know if you'll like it much. New York is called the Concrete Jungle for a reason. You just need to have one of us with you, okay? I'll try and clear some space up with Pepper, I'm sure she'll understand…" he trails off, mumbling into his knuckles.

"Buttercup?" She asks, changing the subject. She knows full well that the man next to her will fulfill his promise and she is patient.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, Buttercup. You know." From the look on her face, she does not know, and Tony forgets sometimes that she is from an entire planet, with how well she has acclimated.

"Butter. Condensed animal fat in a cup?" She asks him, beginning to look very confused.

Tony laughs. "No, Sakura, it's a flower. It's yellow and kids like to play this game, put it up to their chins and whatnot, something about the color reflecting on their skin means liking butter."

Sakura wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out. "I do not think I would like butter by itself."

Tony shakes his head. "No, you probably wouldn't. JARVIS?"

Sakura is still looking confused, and startles into a crouch when his AI speaks.

"Yessir?"

"You have a ghost!" Sakura cries. That causes Tony to guffaw loudly. Ghost? He hasn't heard that one before.

"I assure you, Miss Sakura, that I am no ghost. I am an artificial intelligence that Mr. Stark has invented for various purposes. I have no corporeal form."

Sakura rises from her defensive position, a wary look on her face, and Tony doesn't mention how quick she was to stand in front of him when he had no armor on in the face of supposed danger.

"Play that song for us, please?" He knows he doesn't have to specify which one, sure that JARVIS had been listening and knew what he was talking about. The sound of guitar chords, an upbeat piano and drums fills the living room that they were now occupying.

"Ohhh, why do you build me up! Build me up! Buttercup, baby just to let me down?" Tony sings along to the lead singer, knowing he is not very good but still attempting nonetheless, and Sakura has an amazed look on her expression.

"This is your music?"

Tony nods, beginning to dance in place. "You've never heard of The Foundations?" Of course she hadn't, but it was still fun to tease her.

She laughs loudly. "We have music but nothing like this!"

"I need you!" Tony points to the pink haired woman, continuing, "More than anyone, darlin', you know I have from the start."

Sakura laughs in delight and starts dancing. It's not like any movement he's seen on Earth, but he takes it in stride and dances along with her.

"Build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart!" He sings, grabbing her hand and twirling around.

When the music is done and the two of them are still shimmying to an unheard tune, Sakura turns to him and says in a breathless laugh, "That was the best song I've ever heard!"

He takes his glasses off his head and slips them onto her face, as she smiles at him in that dizzying way. "Believe me, there's a lot more music in this world than just that one song, there's Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the whole lot!"

Sakura clutches the papers to her chest, strands of her pink hair coming loose from her high bun. She hums the song, and Tony can't explain the fondness in his chest at the clear sound.

She is unafraid of Bruce. In fact, she is the only one besides Tony who is entirely unafraid of him and Banner has to wonder, because Stark is slightly off the deep end. Why, Bruce is unsure, but he accepts it as it is quickly. Sakura watches as he works in the medical lab in the Tower every few days, staying a far enough distance away from his work, but never where she cannot see what it is he's doing.

After knowing her only in silence, she is suddenly talking and asks him anything and everything under the sun. Her words are slow and careful, punctuated by an unusual accent, much like the Asgardians. The scientist is quick to deduce that not only is the woman is brilliant, as she was forming comprehensible, even complex sentences after only a few short weeks of being immersed in the language and culture, she is a genius in her own right. She tackles each task he gives her and completes it happily. Bruce doesn't mind answering any question she has, aware that this is how she is learning of this world.

One day, she tells him something that few before dared to say.

"You have a duality to you, sensei."

He looks up, alarmed. Does she mean the Other Guy?

She observes him with a tilt of her head, pink hair spilling down her shoulder. "I can sense it. It is you— but not you at the same time."

Bruce is quiet, and returns his eyes to his work, doing his best to remain calm.

"I know someone much like you. Some hated him for it, but most of us knew the truth and loved him anyway," she says flippantly, as though this is a matter-of-fact statement, as though she is not contradicting all he has known.

"What?" He whispers, eyes glued to her.

She grins, showing off her dimples, and it is kind. "We are all broken in some way, so why does it matter? It is part of you, and you are you, sensei. Nothing takes away from that, no matter the beast in your belly."

Bruce stares at her for a moment, wrapping his head around her off phrasing. It is strange, but he understands the sentiment. He looks at her as if she is other-worldly, which he remembers belatedly that she is, wishing he had been recording that so he could listen to it for the rest of his life.

"Thank you," he tells her, and it is the most sincere thing he has ever said in his life.

Chapter Text

"You seem a bit young for reading glasses," Sakura says as she walks in, tearing off those black gloves she seems so fond of.

Steve looks up. "You'd be surprised by how old I actually am."

She scrutinizes him with those intense eyes, and Steve does his best not to fidget.

"And how old are you, then?"

"Well over seventy years old."

"Well," she sighed, grabbing a glass of water. "You'll have to share your secret with me. I want to look like that when I'm going on 70 years."

He shakes his head, smiling at the indirect compliment he just received. Putting a bookmark in on the page he is reading, he closes the book. "I was frozen in ice for a long time, when I woke up I ended up here. Everything was different. New technology, no familiar faces, even the regular haunts I loved to spend time in Brooklyn, all gone."

Sakura stops what she is doing to listen, and understands his plight immediately. "I see," she says and Steve wonders what she sees as she stares at him. "So this is a new world for you, too."

And she sits down with him, opening the pouch he has never seen her without. Delicately, almost sacredly, she shows him a book of photos no bigger than three by two inches and he blinks in surprise.

The Polaroid size photos are better quality than he imagined, filled with many unique, colorful people. She flips to one picture, where five people sit at a picnic in tall grass, shaded by a leafy tree. There she is in the middle, head tilt back and mouth stretched wide in laughter to the sky, surrounded by her loved ones, and she brushes her thumb across the picture in apparent longing.

"I left my world in the middle of a war. I don't know what has happened to them. What if my boys need me? I don't know if I'll ever be able to get back, to grow old with them."

"Wow, Sakura," says Captain, because he isn't sure what to say. The world he can see from the the photos looks so drastically different, a large village she calls home, filled with so much green, and he is beyond sure that she misses it, because he knows he does. He can hear it so plainly in her voice, the threat of tears never too far away as she looks at the smiling faces in the photos. And he doesn't know what to say, because she has opened up to him inexplicably, unsure as to why.

She stares at the photo a little while longer before carefully closing the book and tucking it away. Shaking her head, she says, "There is nothing that can be done. I am glad I have this left of them, at least."

Steve looks at the raw look on her face, and pulls out his own relic for her to look at. Peggy's face looks back at him, as youthful as ever. She places a hand on his shoulder and they don't say anything for a minute.

"She is beautiful," she tells him after a brief moment of silence. He nods in agreement. "She is."

Thor!" Cries Sakura, running into the room, a wide grin nearly splitting her face. Thor looks up, a pop tart in his hand, and the newspaper in another.

"Yes, Sakura?"

"It's beautiful out! Let's go flying," She says to him, sitting on the arm of his chair. He moves to accommodate her, placing his poptart and newspaper on the coffee table, wrapping an arm around her waist and looking up at her.

"How do you know that I can fly?"

"Tony said you can?"

Tony, who is making a quick breakfast at the counter in a navy suit and tie, has the decency to look sheepish at the look Thor sends him. "I did no such thing!" He pipes up. When Sakura glances over at him, the look disappears completely. "Princess, that was supposed to be a secret."

She rolls her eyes. "As if anything you say is a secret."

He wags his finger at her. "Ah-ah attitude! Watch it, Cherry Bomb, and behave. Point Break, if you take her with you, don't drop her." With that, Tony leaves, talking into his cellphone, over his slightly burnt toast. "Yes, Pepper I'll be right there, yes, Happy is driving—, now, has anyone heard of the most recent attack?"

Sakura furrows her brows at Iron Man, who has just left, making a mental note to figure out what he had been talking about. "So?" She turns back around and asks him, and Thor frowns. "I do not know, little one. It is not very safe."

Sakura rolls her eyes again, and Thor wonders where the quiet girl he remembers and this sassy woman met in the middle. "Come on, now, I promise I'm stronger than I look."

Those words are heavy with promise, and while Thor is dubious, he knows when he is losing a fight. Jane taught him well in that aspect.

"Very well then, we shall go flying."

"Yatta!" She cheered. "Let's go somewhere green, I haven't seen plants in too long."

Thor follows as the pink haired spritely woman bounces up the stairs to the roof. The skies are a dreary grey and the air is cool, but there is a bright look on her face. "It may rain, little one," he informs her, but she just grins up at him and Thor doesn't have it in him to say no.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" She asks him when he stands there awkwardly, unaware that he doesn't know just how to hold her safely. With Jane, he has confidence. But Sakura is built like the flowers in his mother's garden, despite her bubbly attitude. He takes too long, apparently, because Sakura is making a running start off the building and Thor's heart lodges itself in his throat permanently- "Sakura!"

She leaps over the edge with laughter in her chest, and Thor zooms down to reach her. The breath leaves her as she is caught jarringly, her eyes sparkling and wide with adrenaline.

"You will be the death of me," he tells her, and she just looks up at him innocently. In another bold move, she wriggles out of his arms and he drops her and has to reach out and catch her again. About to scold her, he stops at the sight of her wide grin and blown pupils and decides to shake his head.

The wind blows through their hair and Thor flies them beyond the city limits, where the urban sprawl begins to fade and make way for green, rolling hills. She sits quietly, looking down at the world in wonder, and Thor steals glances at the woman enraptured with nature, smiling fondly.

"Are you not cold?" He asks after a long beat of silence, and she just burrows deeper into the fabric of his shirt, shaking her head and unable to look away from the scenery.

"This world is so different from mine," she breathes, and Thor can't help but agree with Sakura. Earth has it's charm, but he misses home from time to time, and knows the pink haired woman must feel the same way.

"Why do you like to fly?" He says, and she looks up at him, finally. "Why do you like to fly?" She turns the question back at him and says, "Part of it is the freedom, the literal seperation from the ground and responsibilities, but Sai always used to take us flying. It reminds me of him."

The two say nothing the rest of the trip, as they calmly fly back home to the tower. Thor sets her down gently, and gets a brief hug in gratitude. He waves her off as she disappears into the tower, and promises himself he will not see sadness in those familiar green eyes again, even if it means using Mjolnir for purposes other than fighting.

The Avengers Initiative is what Nick Fury calls it, and Sakura is curious. "This is what you got after New York, no? Your team."

Fury nods and pushes the papers to her. She picks them up and scrutinized them.

"And what does this have to do with me?" She questions him, unsure as to where the conversation is going. "You have what you want."

Fury raises his eyebrow and gives her a pointed look. "I want you, Haruno, on this team. We need you."

Sakura sighs and looks out at the New York City skyline, thinking long and hard. After a few minutes of careful thoughts, Sakura shakes her head and pushes the envelope back.

"No."

Fury blinks, almost as if he wasn't expecting her answer. "No?" He repeats.

She nods. "No. This world does not need me when it has enough heroes to save it. I will not join this team as a fighter, but maybe as a healer…" She trails off, and now Fury is truly surprised.

"A healer?"

"No one is invincible."

"Fair enough. So what do you propose?"

"Going with the team to areas of conflict. Healing them and civilians. No one will have to worry, I know how to defend myself."

Nick Fury smiles and it is a grim thing. They shake hands. "Alright then, Haruno. It's a done deal. Welcome to the Avengers."

She returns the smile. "No going back now."

Chapter Text

Sakura is eating a rice ball in front of Loki's cell, like she does most Mondays and Thursdays. That's how Loki knows what day of the week it is, and has some semblance of understanding of the days passing him by. She is so utterly casual and it infuriates him.

"You should be afraid of me."

She is sitting in front of his cell, knowing this might be one of the last times she gets to catch a glimpse of the Trickster God, before the Asgardians whisk him away to a world where she cannot follow. She cocks her head.

"Why should I?"

And she wonders, because she can feel him, she knows he is sad. He is sad and hurting and looking at him feels jagged but she can't help but be drawn to the curve of his face and wonder what those lips would look like to smile.

The brunette scoffs condescendingly. "Perhaps because I attempted world domination just a short few weeks ago?"

Sakura shrugs. "We all have hobbies."

Loki shakes his head, and Sakura wonders if the corners of his mouth lift in derision, or amusement. She likes to think it's the latter.

Loki stalks to the edge of his cage, nearly pressed up against the glass, his face twisted in a scowl. He presses his hand against the cold surface, and from his fingers, frost begins to spread. He turns a deep blue, lines in a lighter shade criss-crossing his skin while his irises and sclera glow crimson red. In this form, with the angular ridges on his face, he looks particularly somber. He whispers to her, "Everyone else fears me, so why shouldn't you? I am the monster that parents tell their children about. I am different."

What he doesn't know is that Naruto has taught her to love and she is unafraid. Rather, she is allured by his otherworldly looks, —she's always been a sucker for pretty faces and she will take that secret to the grave before the other Avengers find out, especially Tony— so she won't tell him that. She takes steady strides to meet him and places her hand against the glass, where his rests on the other side. Her other one hovers as if to touch his face, but she can't.

"So?" She asks. "Maybe we are different, but in the end, we all bleed."

She puts her other hand on the glass and looks up at the impossibly tall God. She knows Thor loves him. She doesn't know why he's different from his brother or what exactly he is, but he is Loki just the same, and that is enough for her. And as the blue and the cold recedes, Loki letting his Asgardian magic hide his true heritage, his carefully crafted mask cracks for a moment. He is surprised and it leaves him vulnerable to an old, fluttering feeling in his chest, one he thought had died out quite some time ago.

And Thor, who went unnoticed in the background during the exchange, tucks himself out of sight and against a wall, pressing fingers to his eyes. Thor dares to hope.

Sakura lets out a soft sigh, staring down at the picturebook in her hands. In it is all the memories she holds close to her, and it's what she stares at every night, falling asleep to familiar faces in a foreign world.

Her fingers hesitantly touch the picture she is looking at, and she dreams of going back.

To late nights at Ichiraku with Naruto, who is grinning over his sixth bowl of ramen, four more to go, she's only at one bowl, the cicadas chirping loudly.

She flips the page. To early mornings and tea with Sai, who has a paintbrush in his hand and is finally getting a hang of smiling genuinely.

Another page turn, and she dreams of Kakashi, who is sitting on her sofa, face exposed for her apartment walls to see and never to tell, reading and Pakkun is on his lap, the rest of the pack on the floor.

Of cozy nights cuddled up to Yamato, sharing scary stories over the campfire to a terrified Naruto. To gossip at the stand that sells her favorite tempura with Ino, cloud watching with Shikamaru, late nights doing paperwork with Tsunade-Shishō, picking flowers with Hinata, creating new poisons with Shizune-nee, her life. Her life before the war, before everything went to hell and didn't return.

She misses them more every day she is away, and the ache in her chest does not relent. She feels it with every deep breath she takes.

But even so, she now knows of rambunctious, always ridiculous Tony, always ready to make her laugh. Steve, who understands her and what she is going through. Thor, with his lasting patience and his larger than life presence, to Banner and his hesitant smiles that melt her heart. Natasha, with her cautious acceptance and Clint, who could be her uncle with the way he messes her hair each time she walks past him. Even Loki, who has a certain hope to him, that things can always get better, with time and care.

And with that, Sakura dreams of her birth world at night, and with each passing day, realizes this new world is slowly but surely becoming hers, too. And she knows that it is all thanks to the people in the tower that reaches high into the sky.

It rains when Thor returns from Asgard, a few short months after bringing Loki back to face his punishment. Sakura sits at the top of Stark Towers in hopes to catch the Thunder God somewhere in the lightning. When he lands with a whirl of his hammer, Sakura greets him with a smile. He begins to return it before he notices the soaked state of her clothes and hair.

"Sakura, little one, have you been waiting for me this whole time?"

Sakura smiles at him, and says, "Maybe, maybe not. It's a beautiful day for flying."

Thor walks over to her, his magic stopping the rain from hitting them. "You will get a cold," he scolds, and she rolls her eyes.

"How is he?" She asks instead, trying to fend off the god's surprisingly mother-hen tendencies. She wonders if some of it had to do with her size. She knows she was small, but Thor towered over her.

His eyebrows knit together. "All will be well," he assures her, and she believes him. The two come in from the roof of the building, JARVIS giving them clearance to enter. He places a hand on her back, and steers them down the hall, and she follows diligently. "Shall we go flying tomorrow? The man in the little box says it will be nice weather."

Sakura laughs. "I would like that," she tells him.

Chapter Text

"Cherry bomb!" Greets Tony Stark with a smile, a sleek looking Virginia Potts behind him, holding an envelope.

"Tony," she greets, looking up from her book. "Hi, Pepper," she says with a warm smile that gets returned readily. Tony looks more tired than she remembers him being. His eyes are dark and there is a frown on his face, but he wipes it away quickly when he sees her staring at him quizzically.

"We want you to come with us to California."

Sakura raises her eyebrow. "Why?"

Tony shrugs. "Summer is close to done, and the holidays will be here soon. We want you to spend it with us."

Sakura looks between the two of them and wonders, would she be intruding? She doesn't know Pepper all that well, besides the friendly greetings and quick conversations, but Sakura knows Tony and his soft spot for the kunoichi, and therefore knows Pepper's soft spot for Tony. She nodded briefly before saying, "We won't be staying here?"

"Ah, about that," says Tony. "Everyone has their own plans for the holidays so we won't be seeing everyone for a while. Plus, we're moving facilities eventually."

"Oh," Sakura says softly, understanding that the rules are different here. These people don't see what they've made as family, at least, maybe not yet. Back home, when you bleed together, you become part of one another and that is the closest thing to family many shinobi have. When there is no guarantee to life, no promises of coming home that can be kept, you somehow love more fiercely for it. She knows this, because each time she saw her family walk out the village gates and return weeks later, she felt her love grow for them. Love knows no boundaries. She knows because even after all their losses, her boys still love each other and love her. She wonders though, if her Avengers can see what they have, when there is nothing there to threaten it. Despite it, Tony welcomes her home with open arms and she can feel her heart skip a beat.

Instead of voicing this, Sakura says, "Ok, I would like that. I've never been to California."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Sakura. You're from a different dimension, of course you haven't been to California."

The woman with pink hair only giggles at the sarcasm laden words, and she heads to her room where she begins to pack up what little belongings she has with her.

The trip is not very long, but Sakura is fascinated by the landscapes they fly over. She's glued to the window, and can't hold back the gasps that leave her lips. They pass fields of green, miles of dry, red earth and huge lakes that reflect the sky like glass. When they land, Sakura is surprised how quickly the time seemed to have gone by her. She takes a glance at the modern look and size of the house. "This is your home?" She asks him, curious, and he nods.

"Come on, let's head inside."

Weeks pass as Sakura gets acquainted with the house. She lives in the same wing of the house as Pepper and Tony and begins to notice when Pepper sneaks into Tony's room, and the times when Tony isn't even in his own bedroom. It worries Sakura more than she would like to admit.

And that is how their days pass. Tony, in the basement of the house, tinkering away at something shiny that Sakura does not understand. Pepper, working each day. And Sakura, who had a better sense of anonymity in California, spends her days exploring the wilder parts of the state, only to return home in time for dinner. More often than not, it is Pepper who comes home, tired and weary to Sakura setting out dinner. She knows the two of them are busy, and that she is not integrated the way they are, but she hopes for all of them at the table. She is disappointed when only two of the three seats are filled, and one look at Pepper tells Sakura she shares the sentiment.

When it has become two months, and the house is filled with tension, there are more and more reports of unusual bombs and something called a Mandarin— although she's not sure what a fruit has to do with explosives—, Sakura has had enough. She marches down to the basement, and walks right up to Tony.

"Something the matter, buttercup?" Tony asks, when he sees Sakura's cocked hip and folded arms, a scowl on her face.

"Yes, in fact—!"

Her tirade stops when she sees suit after suit lined up, in various states of repair. "Is this what you've been doing down here?" She says finally.

Tony does not put down the tool he is using, but turns his body to face her. "We need this. A suit of armor around the world, I mean."

Sakura can see the deep bags forming under his eyes from the lack of sleep, and begins to understand. A strong man he might be, but he wasn't born and bred to be a killer. Not like her, especially not like other shinobi.

"Well. I'm no expert on that, but I can tell that you're too stressed right now. For good reasons, but you need a break: this project can rest for a few hours," she tells him, setting her hand down on his. It makes him stop his work in its tracks and look up at her. She softens her face, and says, "Let's have dinner. Pepper is very worried about you. All of us are." And it's true, because even Happy and James have noticed a difference.

Tony sighs and gets up, placing a hand on Sakura's shoulder. "I suppose I have to now," he tells her, shaking his head and chuckling. "I can never say no to you."

Sakura shrugs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and takes his hand to lead him upstairs, glad he complies. He squints at the sunlight and shades his eyes and Sakura grins, feeling warm at the picture he paints. "You belong in sunlight. It suits you," she tells him, honestly, because she has never told a lie, not since she faced death in strange forests and sheared her own hair.

Tony is quiet as he looks at her, gaze strangely watery, and he quickly turns his head the other way. But his hand, so much larger than hers but no more calloused, briefly wraps around hers before he lets go, and they walk to the table, the food and Pepper waiting for them.

Chapter Text

Sakura stares up at the sky that lights up with explosions: all of Tony’s work destroying themselves in front of her eyes. She feels nothing but a slight ache, aware of how he holds Pepper as they, too, stare up in wonder. She averts her gaze when they share a kiss and knows she has never been unfamiliar to the longing of love, or lack thereof. Unwilling to break their moment, she waits for the two to return their attention to her and she smiles, any traces of her surprising feelings hidden and buried to be forgotten. She reaches for Pepper, whose skin glows slightly with the aftermath of the Extremis, a perversion of natural energy and chakra. She raises her hands and places them glowing on her shoulders, the healing energy already beginning to wash away the odd, orange parasite in the blonde woman’s system. The chakra coursing through the blondes’ system is not the typical chakra imprint left over from elemental jutsu— it would have a different taste and feel to it. It feels almost like… the symbiotic relationship common, and exclusive to the jinchuriki, but that makes no sense in this world. It worries her, regardless. Nothing in this world has shown any true chakra usage or manipulation the way she is familiar with, until now.

Pepper sighs as she feels it disappearing, and Sakura can’t help but echo the sentiment. After their home crumbling to dust and Tony disappearing, followed shortly by Peppers disappearance, —only for both to show up in a dramatic showdown—, Sakura wants nothing more than to return to normal. The theatrics remind her vaguely of Naruto at home and his penchant for trouble finding him in the most flashy, non-ninja way possible. As she heals Pepper, Tony looks fondly at the pink haired woman, his two most important people, his simple and small world surrounding him.

“Hey Sakura,” he said softly and she didn’t look up from her work. “Do you think you could fix this old thing?” He tapped his glowing chest piece and Pepper’s breath hitched somewhere in the back of her throat. Sakura shakes her head and says, “I’m sure there’s something I can do.”

Loki centers his attention to a point in the inside of his cell, his cage, and clutches at the piece of paper crumpled in his hand that rests on his thigh. His back to the wall, he stares at the opposite one of his shuttered world and lets his eyes flutter closed for a moment, reliving each word written in his head. The paper that had been tucked away, hidden from others and maybe even himself, that he did not have the courage to read, until now.

His shaky peace is shattered when the woman he called mother for so many years appears suddenly in his cell with a swish of her elegant robes. She does not expect him to be on the floor, but takes her son's unusual behavior in stride. She doesn’t talk, knowing that since their first interaction, he rebuffed each of her attempts at a conversation. She knows that Thor has not received even a single glance.

She crouches before him and watches him with careful eyes, although he will not meet her piercing gaze. The fact that she never told him about his birth and his origin still stings, and he struggles to let go of the noxious feelings sitting low in his sternum.

Frigga has always been in tune to her children, and knows immediately when something is wrong. “What is the matter, my son?”

Loki casts her a brief flicker of a look, and grasps onto the small letter tighter, creating a crinkling sound that immediately catches Frigga by surprise. “What is this?”

Loki brings it close to his chest, and looks down, unsure for the first time in a long time. After some time and hesitation, he offers her the parchment and startles when his hand doesn’t phase through hers. She is there, she is real. And gently, she unfolds the letter, finding a small, practical scrawl conveying a message.

Loki,

I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Or if I will ever see you again. Thor has promised me he will update me on how you’re doing, although I cannot imagine you’ll be too pleased with your new prison. It may be gilded, but a cage is a cage, nonetheless.

I feel a sense of urgency while writing this. You remember the first thing I said to you? You remind me of someone from my old world, although I never told you about him. His name is Sasuke. He’s always been a jerk, although his family history has a lot to do with it. He’s made a lot of mistakes. He has hurt me and our teammates, and I don’t mean just emotionally. And yet, each one of us could see past his hurt and see him: that’s why we love him so fiercely, even after all that. That’s the thing about love. It’s unconditional.

I tell you this because Sasuke could change. He did, and you can, too. You’ve made some mistakes, and none of us can redo the past, but you have a long life ahead of you. I would hate to think you’ll spend the rest of it collecting dust.

Yours,
Sakura

Frigga holds a hand to her mouth, unable to stop the shine in her eyes. She knows her son better than he knows himself, and finally, someone notices what she’s seen since he was first placed in her arms.

“Do…” Loki stops himself before forging on, “Do you really think she’s right?”

“Oh, Loki,” she pushes back his hair with a tender hand, laugh airy and full of emotion, “Truer words have never been spoken.”

And she hugs her son, clutching him to her, feeling relieved for the first time in a long time. She pulls back, still unable to let go. “So,” she trails off with a sly smirk. “Tell me about her.”

Her son lets out a sharp bark of laughter, shaking his head ruefully. He grabs his mother’s hand, and says “She’s unlike anyone you’ve ever met.” There is a pause, and then, “You’d love her, mother.”

“Oh really now,” Frigga’s smile widens, and she pulls her son close again. She’s already confident that she would. And finally, Loki begins to heal.

Chapter Text

Somewhere tucked away in the Avengers Tower, Sakura bends backwards to duck the fist rushing at her face and uses the momentum to flip over, avoiding the booted foot swiping at her legs. Blowing away a piece of pink hair come undone from her updo, Sakura grins and vaults over her sparring partner to avoid the next barrage of attacks.

Natasha growls lightly, although there is no heat or true aggression behind it. Sakura is the most challenging opponent she has faced in years; she fights with no pattern that can be tracked. Not to mention, her style of fighting is unfamiliar, unhuman in the way it requires extreme flexibility, strength and a general resistance to all known laws of physics. She watches as the pink haired healer jumps high in the air and stays suspended for a moment, holding her leg even higher. Natasha lunges away from the extended appendage being brought down like a hammer, and hides her wince when the thud of her foot vibrates the floor just a little bit. Fighting the nimble, shorter woman is like fighting a gymnist Cap, a frightening thought in of itself. Cap is already formidable without a spine like rubber.

Sakura uses Natasha’s brief moment of distraction to hit the redhead in the solar plexus with a flat palm, winding her. She then spins behind like a dancer, placing an arm around the woman’s neck in a light, breakable chokehold. Panting only slightly, Sakura says, “If this were my kunai,” referring to her strange, wicked knives that would have been in her hands if the fight had been serious. “I yield,” Natasha gasps, knowing when she is beat. The two break apart quickly, the red headed woman taking a drink from her water bottle to regain her composure.

“I don’t know what it is with you and Steve, but you both seem to never run out of energy,” she trails off, hoping to get an answer from the younger woman. Sakura chuckles, wiping off the small beads of sweat that had formed on her brow.

“It’s all we know, so we better be good at it,” her lips tilt at the corner. “Plus, in my case, I’m constantly working with heavy hitters so I have to make up for my shortcomings somehow. People have always brushed me off,” Sakura gestures to all of her, from her vibrant hair and delicate stature. “They don’t make that mistake anymore.”

Natasha hums, knowing the truth in those words, and relating to them. Objectively, she knows she is beautiful and that is often all her enemies see, especially of the male variety. That not only alters how much of a threat they view her as, but how seriously they chose to engage her. She spares her sparring companion a glance, knowing that with her coloring she will never be able to hide the same way that Black Widow could, meaning eventually, notoreity will follow her, in this world and in any other. That, in of itself, is a double-edged sword.

“So,” Natasha drawls, “Why did you chose to take a backseat when it comes to fighting? You’re clearly capable.” And honestly, Natasha couldn’t begin to understand how someone with strength like that could just sit on the sidelines.

Sakura pauses briefly in the act of bandaging her forearms, another strange fashion statement that she chalks up to a difference in culture. Tilting her head up to the ceiling, she frowns. “How do I explain this…?” The kunoichi trails off before meeting Natasha’s eyes. “Humans here are fragile, exceptionally so.”

She nods, waiting for her to continue.

“People may argue about soul or spirit being the thing that keeps us alive, and they’re right, but every living being has and needs a mix of spiritual and physical energy to exist.”

Natasha raises her brow. She has heard of the yogis in lands far away who speak of chakras, chis and spiritual wellness, but she can’t say she really believes much of anything up until now. Maybe it was her upbringing, but those sorts of philosophies never attracted her. Maybe, she admits, in her skepticism, she had overlooked something.

“In my world, we use our life energy to fortify our bones, for both defense and offense. Take now for example, when meeting your blows and hits, I cushioned my arm with it.”

“And did you use it to attack as well?”

Sakura shakes her head rapidly. “No, no, definitely not. If I did, I could have seriously injured you and likely caused property damage.”

Natasha doesn’t let any of her thoughts show on her face, and files that information away for later. Who knows when it would be needed?

“However, it seems that the people of this dimension can’t use it the same way I or my people do, and that means you all must be handled with a lot more care. Something that would only somewhat hurt me, could very well severly injure or even kill someone here, and that is why you all need a healer. I am not invincible, but I’m pretty damn close,” She says, indicating to the strange purple rhombus set in the middle of her forehead.

“A tattoo makes you invincible?” Natasha is once again skeptical.

“It’s the Byakugō no In, or Creation Rebirth: Strength of a Hundred. I constantly filter energy into this seal, which stores it until I need it. It allows me to heal almost any injury, except maybe decapitation.”

Natasha blinks, stupified, and the cheeky grin on Sakura’s face let’s her know that this time, it is showing on her face.

“What? What do you mean maybe?” She exclaims, aware her voice has reached an octave higher than normal.

Sakura sobers up, saying, “During the war, my mentor was cut in half at the torso. With this,” she taps at her forehead, “And the help of our animal familiar, she was able to recover entirely and keep on fighting. It is a skill only she and I have been able to master, because of the level of skill required. It is a forbidden technique, though. Our cells can only regenerate so much before they eventually die. So, it may grant me strength and fleeting immortality, but every time I use it, I shave time off the end of my life.”

What a terrible technique, Natasha thinks to herself. Incredible, yes, but terrible. “Did you tell Fury about this?”

Sakura breaks eye contact, staring off at a random spot to the side. “Ah, yes. About that… I forgot?”

The red haired woman laughs and gets up from the spot she claimed on the floor. “I don’t know how you could forget about something as monumental as that, but he’ll have to know eventually.”

“Fair enough,” Sakura says as she too, gets up and holds a hand out to her, two fingers extended.

“What’s this?” Black Widow asks.

“Seal of Reconciliation. Where I am from, we end every spar with this seal, reminding each other that regardless of the fights’ outcome, we will put it behind us and always be comrades.”

She reaches out for the pink haired warrior’s hand, wrapping her two fingers around the smaller digits offered to her and smiles. She didn’t think she would find companionship in this slip of a woman, but the place in her heart for the Avengers seems to grow steadily with each day.

“Come on, there’s a really cute store on Canal and Baxter, they have Taiyaki. Have you ever tried it?”

A few days later, Natasha is sitting in Fury’s office, calmly drinking a cup of tea.

“What.”

She relishes that even the unshakeable Nick Fury himself doesn’t handle the information better than she did, hiding her grin behind the mug.

Chapter Text

When Thor lands on the ground with a crackle of thunder and a flash of rainbow, Sakura jumps up from her work in a small, well organized lab. It is the one she has been holed up in since Tony made it at her request, no questions asked. She smiles briefly, thinking back to the proud look when he presented it to her a week or two ago, with a flourish and ridiculous bow.

Tearing off her coat, she runs through the building and can’t hold back the wide grin on her face at the sight of the handsome god, surprise etched on her face at the woman by his side. While she’s never seen her in person or any pictures, Sakura knows this is Dr. Jane Foster, the first human woman Thor met on this small, blue planet and someone he deeply loves.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, crowding the two of them immediately. “There is a strange energy around her.”

“It’s the Aether, little medic, an ancient energy that could destroy the Nine Realms and for whatever reason it’s chosen Jane as its host. I’ll be taking her to Asgard soon, my father will know what to do.”

The medic places her hands on the taller brunette, who nods at her, not disturbed by the familiar mint green glow. Her brow furrows. “If he knows what to do, why come here?”

Thor sighs. “My father is very skilled, but he doesn’t know how to handle humans. I’m worried about what will happen to Jane during and after the extraction. Will you help?”

Sakura nods, following the God’s logic. There’s no doubt in her mind that Jane will need care in the aftermath of the volatile energy’s rampage through her body. Perhaps this is like a Jinchūriki extraction?

“Has this ever happened before? Has something like this been attempted?”

He says nothing, but the grim expression on his face tells her what she needs to know. “Okay,” Sakura accepts. “Another day channeling Naruto, another day doing the impossible, no problem…” she mutters under her breath, before continuing. “What are we waiting for? We’ve got a damsel in distress!”

Jane laughs at that while Thor wraps his free hand around Sakura’s waist, like he does every time they fly. Only this time, he remains rooted to the ground, staring up at the sky. “Heimdall!” He cries, and the kaleidoscope of colors known as the Bifrost envelops them. The feeling is not unlike the Body Flicker, just prolonged. When they land on the dais, a tall man with molten amber eyes greets them.

“Thank you, Heimdall, for doing this,” Thor says in passing, already running down the long bridge leading to the brilliant gold and silver towers, a queasy Jane in tow. Before Sakura can follow, the man who she has to crane her neck up to take in fully, grabs her upper arm in a gentle but firm hold.

“The one who calls herself a healer,” he rumbles, gaze set upon her person, and Sakura has the strangest feeling that he is looking through her, not at her.

“That is me,” she concedes.

“An interloper, you do not belong on this plane,” he says, not unkindly. “I see you search for a way home, but do not rush off too quickly— we will need a lifeline if we are to survive the coming tides.”

He lets her go and Sakura smiles weakly at him, shaken by the whole experience. How can he possibly know the research I’ve been doing? she thinks, And what does he mean a lifeline? The coming tides?

She settles on letting the topic go, darting across the bridge and quickly catching up with Thor, who glances down and asks: “What did Heimdall want?”

“Oh, nothing really,” she tells him, knowing Jane requires her attention if things go wrong, and with her luck, they often do.

Odin hates the humans in his realm on sight, Sakura included. Not that she likes him very much either— she’s been around Tsunade’s old council enough times to be able to identify a warmonger on sight. When Thor loudly claims they will stay here, Sakura has to hide her vindictive and proud smirk, hand clenching around Jane’s shivering one. Thor will be quite the leader one day.

“Don’t you worry,” Sakura whispers, used to high stress situations. “Everything will be alright.”

The two of them are carted off into a room branching off from the healing halls, because apparently, Odin does not know how to remove the Aether. Jane sits on the bed, clearly worn out with the day, while Sakura stands near the window, half obscured by the ornate curtains. She registers a conversation going on behind her, but her gaze is fixed on the Asgardians milling about like ants below, content with their life. While it looks nothing like Konoha, Sakura cannot help but be reminded and her heart aches. Whether he realized it or not, the Guard of the Bifrost had prodded at a wound that was barely scabbed, even after all her time on Earth.

I miss them so much… Did the war end already? Or are they still fighting the Edo Tensei and the Zetsu army? Are my boys okay? She wonders, silently lamenting the unknown fate of her taichō, Yamato, and the many lives that may have been lost without her on the frontlines. She is not arrogant, no, but she knows the impact she had on the number of casualties in the war. The way the Shinobi Allies whispered, Haruno Sakura, the medic who defies Death, itself. Humorlessly, Sakura thinks she has finally stepped out of her boys shadows and has her own special moniker, but at what cost?

“You must be Sakura,” a warm voice interrupts her, and Sakura turns around, taking in the sight of a woman draped in gauzy linen, curled hair piled high atop her head. Her eyes are the same shape as Thor’s and Sakura turns, giving a shallow bow of her head.

“My name is Frigga, although you probably already know that,” she says, her tone cheeky. “Come now, Thor will watch over Jane. There is someone I’ve heard you’re dying to meet.” Sakura perks up, doesn’t even bother to hide her excitement, and the expression makes the Queen of Asgard grin.

Taking her hand, she leads the pink haired warrior down, down, down into the dungeons of the golden realm, and opens a door, pushing her in. “Have fun,” she winks and Sakura replies, ‘Will do!” Rolling her eyes playfully, Sakura is well aware that the closed door is nothing more than a semblance of privacy.

She gazes into eyes, as green as her own and grins. “Are you still contemplating thoughts of world domination? Or did you find a new hobby?”

Loki gives her a dry look, before it breaks and he offers her a tentative smile. “Would you consider reading a hobby? Or painting?”

She walks forward with the intent of touching the man, but he holds up a hand and pokes an invisible barrier. It ripples with light before disappearing again, like nothing happened. “A gilded cage, indeed…” Sakura says, deciding instead to sit on the ground. He mirrors her, ignoring the plush seat behind him.

“Did my mother put you up to this?”

“She most certainly did,” Sakura laughs.

“Which means she’s probably outside the door now, listening in.”

“Oh, most definitely.”

“Did Thor bring you through the Bifrost?”

“Myself and another woman, Jane Foster. You know, besides your brother, you all seem awfully calm that there is a potentially very dangerous energy on the loose in Asgard,” Sakura notes.

Loki scoffs, and Sakura wonders if it’s his trademark the same way that Sasuke monopolized monosyllables and grunts like “hn.”

“My brother’s precious human is the one most at risk, so of course he worries. The rest of us, well. Even the most common of Asgardians, if you could call us common, have combat training. We’ll be fine.”

“You know best,” She agrees, and decides to make the most of the time that has been borrowed for them, smiling and leaning in despite the barrier. If Loki notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Unbeknownst to them all, Frigga’s small rebellion saves her life. Jane is protected by the crown Prince of Asgard, and his mother lives to see another day. Thor, with the help of Sif and Volstagg, protects Jane from an assassination attempt, draws out the ancient energy by tricking the intruders and then promptly kills them, right within Odin’s walls.

One change. The tides, how they turn.

Chapter Text

“You know, Point Break, normal people don’t make a habit of kidnapping pretty young women and taking them to different planets. The least you could’ve done was say, I don’t know, ‘Hey, Tony, brilliant man that you are, I’m going to take the little miss for a interdimensional spin, be back in a few!’”

Sakura spoons another mouthful of cereal in her mouth, looking at the box. Captain Crunch, it says on the label, something she could never find back home in Konoha, or maybe even the entire Elemental Nations. It’s not like she’s done a ton of traveling before, with all the bad blood between the countries and every border bar Suna fortified with foreign, vicious shinobi baying for their pound of Konoha flesh prior to the Alliance. However, the cereal is colorful, processed, and terrible for her health, and she decides she quite likes it. And maybe she’s just imagining it, but the caricature on the box looks rather like a certain blonde haired captain sitting next to her.

“Actually, no, scratch that! Don’t take the little miss anywhere that is not Earth! She’s not even from here, what if she left the confines of Earth and ‘POOF,’ she’s gone forever?”

“I don’t think it works—”

“Nope! Not a word out of you, I’m not about to consider the points of an individual who—”

“Tony, don’t you think you’ve made your point?”

“No, Legolas, no I haven’t! Who’s bright idea was it to let Buttercup anywhere near Reindeer Games? Remember? The guy with the long black hair, Rock of Ages? Loki? The name ring a bell? Let me remind you, he destroyed half of New York City!”

“...He does make a point there.” Clint doesn’t seem willing to argue with that logic.

Deciding to finally take pity on Thor and address the shit show that doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, Sakura stands up. “Tony, I appreciate your concern, but don’t you think you’re putting too much blame on Thor? I’m an adult. I made the decision to follow him, I knew the potential risks and I was willing to pay for them.”

“Sakura,” Tony says, his face strained. “You’re, like, fourteen. That is not an adult in this world.”

Sakura’s brow twitches, and Cap scoots his barstool away from her as subtly as he can. It’s not very subtle, and her brow twitches again.

“I am twenty, first of all. You’re six years off. Second of all, need I remind you the world I come from? Our military training begins at six. We start killing at twelve. I have not been a child for a very long time, and you will do well to remember that.”

Tony blinks, rather horrified. One look at the rest of the room and she sees the expression mirrored on the rest of them.

“I didn’t tell you that?”

A chorus of shaking heads. “Oh…”

Natasha exhales deeply. “Sometimes I really wonder about the world you came from.” And in the ensuing moments, everyone in the room silently agrees.

“WELL,” Tony claps his hands. “All the more reason to keep a close eye on you.”

Sakura groans and the rest of the Avengers recover, chuckling at her exasperation. She’s never been the baby of the group, that title has always gone to Naruto, and she doesn’t like it.

“Come on, Sunshine. Let me show you the newest thing I’ve been working on.”

The snow crunches under her shoes, thankfully close-toed this time. She has kept her cheongsam and the color red, like the plumage of an exotic bird, but the rest of her clothing is made of the strange material of this world, spandex and nylon and sleek in a way the materials back home have not yet achieved. Her boots are knee-high and steel-toed and when she first saw them, she knew instantly she had to have them.

“We are fighting dreamers, takami o mezashite…” she hums under her breath, jumping up and round-housing a soldier in armor without pausing her singing. “Ohhh, just go my way!”

“Are you really singing right now?” Tony is incredulous, his voice coming from somewhere high up and she punches another one into a tree, snapping his spine but not the trunk, thankfully.

“What, you don’t like it? I can try something else: Do you remember the 21st night of september? Love was changing the minds of pretenders!”

“I really regret showing you 70s music, you’re a fiend— shit!”

“Language!” scolds Steve from somewhere to her left, throwing his shield and decimating five of the armoured Hydra agents.

“Clean my mouth out with soap, why don’t you, Mom?” Tony snarks and Sakura giggles. She dodges the bullets aimed at her by dashing up one of the pines and sommersaulting mid-air over Clint’s arrows, landing on a soldier and effectively taking them out.

“We have an advanced in the field!” cries the first Avenger.

“A little late Cap, Clint’s already down! We need to evac!” Natasha shouts ahead of them, and then, “Can someone take out that bunker?”

Hulk runs through the concrete foundation, destroying it completely, and when Thor slams Mjolnir on Steve’s shield, the rest of the soldiers are taken care of. Trusting the boys to get their retrieval job done, and Natasha to calm the alter-ego of Banner, Sakura dashes over to Clint.

“What’s the verdict, doc?”

“Ouch, that looks like it hurts. There’s good news and bad news; the good is that I can fix this and you’ll be good as new. The bad, I can’t do anything about the rest of ya. ”

“Ha ha ha, what ever will I do?” he sneers, but there is the beginning of a smirk on his lips.

“Mmhmm,” she hums, and informs him: “It appears far worse than it actually is. We’ll wait until we’re back on the jet, though. No point in treating this in the field if we don’t need to.” She presses a wad of bandages from her pouches on the wound and picks back up her melody. “Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember? Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day!”

“You know, it really concerns me how nonchalant you are about these things.”

“I’ve had less to work with and worse conditions. Really, this is a walk in the park. And honestly, what can I say? Fighting never fails to put me in a good mood,” She winks down at him.

Sakura’s face glows green with the power emanating from her hands, and Bruce Banner cannot help but be a little green with envy. As he and the rest of the team watch in fascination, the flesh cushioning Barton’s ribs knitting back together in a hypnotic fashion, one he could watch all day. Her energy flows like magic, and if he didn’t know any better, he would say it is magic. There is no other being on the planet, as far as he knows, that has this ability. And to not only be able to do incredible damage, but to reverse it in seconds. That is a paradox, if he’s ever seen one.

When they arrive back at the Tower, a woman in a sleek blue smock greets them. She goes to maneuver the stretcher that Barton is strapped into, but Sakura puts up a hand. Bruce reads the shock on Dr. Cho’s face at the perfectly smooth skin, showing through the tear in the fabric.

“Unfortunately, Barton is intact, in one piece, and all he requires now is a snack. Sorry, Dr. Cho, our resident medic beat you to it. But, you’ll have to show us that Regeneration Cradle sometime,” says Tony.

“Regeneration Cradle?” asks Sakura, and Dr. Cho tells her about her invention back in Seoul. Sakura nods her very pink head.

“That’s incredible, sensei. Not even I could create an entire body in hours.”

Soon, the two women are off talking, already thick as thieves, and before Banner can think any more on the subject of Sakura’s perplexing healing, he’s pulled aside by Tony who has grand visions of AI and world peace.

Sakura lives in the Tower with Tony, so she doesn’t need to go far, just a dozen floors down. She arrives in a dress, deep navy instead of her original red, and accidentally interrupts Thor and Tony’s conversation, one fraught with testosterone and tension. She turns around, attempting to retreat, but they’ve already noticed her, and Tony lets out a low whistle. The dress is backless and plunges deep, making for what she knows is a very flattering figure, but she guesses it’s the scars that catch his attention. Thor touches her bare shoulder gently, hesitantly. “How did this happen?”

“Which one?” She asks, and she’s thankful it doesn’t come out sounding testy.

His calloused hand brushes near her side, and her mind takes her back to that battlefield, puppet parts strewn about and a cave crashing down around her and Chiyo.

“Sasori of the Red Sands. He was part of our world’s most dangerous criminal organization. He got me with a poison coated sword, but luckily I had the antidote on hand and was able to heal myself.”

“And this?” His hand comes to rest higher up, on her right side, and her skin rises with goosebumps at the feathery light touch.

She laughs, and it sounds a bit hollow. “Another sword by another member of our world’s most dangerous criminal organization. I’ve been impaled an alarming amount of times.”

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t think I’d ever want to meet someone you consider extremely dangerous, considering what we’ve seen of your skillset.”

You haven’t seen anything, her mind whispers, but she opts for something less sinister instead. “Would you be surprised to know I am considered the weakest of my team?”

Thor shakes his head. “Surely they are mistaken.”

Sakura grimaces. “Nope, they all have a stupid amount of power-ups. But,” she tells them, holding a hand up. “I never inherited anything from anyone. Everything I have is thanks to me and me alone, and no one else can say the same. I may be the weakest, but I am self-made.”

Tony pats her back, hand resting on the spot where Madara rammed a rod through, and says, “That’s our girl, alright! You’re strong enough for us, Princess.” He doesn’t know the impact of his words, but it soothe’s a bit of that constant fear that she will never be enough.

Then, she takes a whiff of the alcohol in Thor’s hand. “What is that?”

“That, little medic, is the ale of Asguard. Aged for over 1,000 years,” he touts it, swirling the amber liquid in his hand.

“Can I have some?”

“Absolutely not!” squawks the Iron Man. “You are underage!”

Sakura scoffs and reaches up, pulling it away from Thor’s lips and affronted face. She takes a sip and looks at it.

“Huh,” she says, and knocks it back like a shot, much to the growing horror of the two men before her.

Ten minutes later, Thor carefully watches her from the corner of his gaze and looks for signs of inebriation. He knows she will begin to feel it soon.

Another twenty minutes later, Sakura is laughing at Rhodey’s deplorable joke and Thor begins to sweat.

He is nearly convinced the otherworldly warrior is at least half Asgardian, as he tries to recall any pink hair in his family tree, by the time Clint decides it’s time to poke fun at Mjolnir.

“Whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the powerrrr, come on man! It’s just a gimmick, a trick.”

Thor sends him a smarmy grin, and says, “Be my guest.”

His smile stays fixed in place as Rhodey and Stark struggle, even through Banner’s blustering— until it drops off when his beloved weapon budges just a smidge at Captain America’s insistent pulling.

By the time Sakura’s turn comes around, Thor is relieved when she declines, citing Natasha's answer as her own. Sensing this, she toasts to him with a saucy wink, another tumbler of Asgardian liquor in her hands.

The night’s revelry ends with a oily voice resonating in the room. “None of you are worthy, how could you be? You’re all killers.”

Sakura’s training stops her from startling violently, but she is reminded of Sasori’s human corpses turned into puppets. The creepy thing moves like a puppet without strings, and despite herself, she is thoroughly spooked. Growing up with minimal exposure to technology, she isn’t sure there will ever be a day where animatronics and artificial intelligence don’t unsettle her to some degree. Her fear works with her, unlike in the Forest of Death long ago, and she is far more ready than the others when the defunct bits of the Iron Legion come bursting through the wood.

She pushes Dr. Cho and Agent Hill to the ground, firmly telling them to stay there. She grabs the one that shoots Rhodey through glass and onto the floor below, ripping it’s head off with her bare hands.

“How barbaric,” Ultron comments, but she ignores him entirely, addressing the room at large. “Is anyone injured?”

When he disappears with the scepter, promising “the Avengers extinction,” she feels dread pool in her stomach.

Will there ever be a day when some fanatic convinced they’re God’s gift to humanity is not trying to take over the world?

Chapter Text

She can barely contain her anger, her nervous energy as the bird flies to where the rest of the team has escaped to lick their wounds. Sakura knows that her skillset would have been terrible in such close quarters, the crumbling Akatsuki cave coming to mind, but she kicks herself nonetheless for not being able to help, anyway. When the plane kisses the ground, she bursts past the door and beelines for the farmhouse.

“What the hell happened out there that caused all of you to fall apart?” Her voice cracks like a whip, ending any and all conversations as she steps into the room.

Steve rubs at his forehead. “She got into our minds, Haruno. Gave us all visions that altered reality.”

“Genjutsu,” she says, more to herself than than the room at large. Or at least an imitation of it. “The ability to affect the brain’s chemistry and make the victim see things that are not there, mimicking dreaming in the temporal lobe.”

She goes to each of them, and presses a glowing hand to their foreheads methodically, erasing any of the cloying red energy clinging to their minds. Then, she turns to her gentle doctor.

“Dr. Banner.” The man in question flinches. “Your duality must be addressed. What do you know about sealing?”

They all stare at her like she’s grown a second head. “Sealing?” Banner cocks his head, face haunted.

“Fūinjutsu. The art of sealing objects, living things and energy within another object or living thing.” She pulls out a scroll and lays it out on the dining room table. It is empty until she passes her hand over it, and an array of weapons sit in the middle, surrounded by black, seemingly unintelligible script. Then she pulls up her sleeve, and taps at a delicate tattoo on her shoulder, unleashing the battle axe Tsunade gave her for her sixteenth birthday.

“Incredible,” he whispers, pushing his glasses on.

“Your alter-ego is another being within you, and has it’s own physical and spiritual makeup. My best friend had the Kyūbi sealed inside him an entire lifetime, with very little coaxing the fox out except for the most distressing circumstances.” She eyes the doctor, who dares to hope. “Your situation is different, yes, and I am no expert, but we have to try. You should consider talking to the Hulk and come to an… agreement. Some of this may rely on his willingness to participate.”

“How could that possibly be a good idea?” Nick Fury retorts, standing up from his chair.

“You give the Other Guy a chance in a controlled environment. He won’t be popping out at inopportune times if he has an incentive not to.”

“And who can control the Hulk?”

Sakura grins and it is all teeth.

Sakura has spent most of her time on the blue planet called Earth by Tony’s side. She has to trust him, otherwise, why had she been putting her faith in him all this time? So when he and Banner decide to try again—, when Thor slams his hammer on the glass—, when the man made of Vibranium suspends himself against the cityscape, she trusts.

He is soft-spoken and awkward, like her dear Sai. Her lips twitch upwards when he manifests a cloak in the mirror image of the God of Thunder, and she fully believes in him when he promises he is on the side of Life. She needs no legendary hammer to tell her what he is. She places a hand on his shoulder, and looks at them.

“We need an evacuation plan.”

When they land on Sokovian soil, she and Wanda find the highest vantage points and compel the citizens to leave their homes and evacuate the people to the outskirts of the city. Her genjutus blankets as many as she can reach, without stretching herself thin; she trusts the Scarlet Witch to manage the rest. Before they know it, metal men are crawling out of the ground like the denizens of Hell, itself and the city defy’s gravity, rising into the air.

“NO!” She roars, and she needs no crystal ball to see the future. Sokovia is grey and cold, whereas Konoha is bustling, warm and green, but it will share Konoha’s fate all the same.

“No, no,” the tears begin to flood her eyes. Her native language takes over and she screams into the air, a promise. “Not again!”

She hears Captain America’s orders, but does not care. She grabs hold of the two Sokovian twins and says: “Those six fought off an entire alien invasion. They can take care of themselves, I need you down there with me.”

Already, Sakura sees the ground beneath them crumbling, tumbling into apartment buildings and the sound of people screaming below.

The iryo-nin, the medic-shinobi will do what she does best, and that is stitch lives back together. Wrapping an arm around their waists, she leaps off the floating city rock and lands on the building stretching farthest into the sky. They leap off again, and then, they are on the ground, the outer crust of the Earth creating a massive shadow and blocking out the sun.

“Scarlet Witch, you keep guiding the civilians out of the danger zone. Quicksilver, I need you to gather up all those most critically injured, bring them to me. We cannot save the dead, so leave them where they are. Make sure you check under any structures that have collapsed, too.”

Both bob their heads in agreement, and Wanda gestures to the church steeple peeking beyond the dust, just south of them. “The hospital is in the air, we should put them there instead. The people are familiar with the Basilica.”

Quicksilver nods, “We’ll spread the word. If we’re lucky, we’ll find doctors in our midst.” They separate as the dust creates heavy clouds that hang over the city, turning blood red with the heat of the fires springing up. She collects civilians as she runs, leading them to the church, shouting over and over again that she is a medic.

Under the ornate ceiling painted with a strange God and his holy men, humans with cherub faces and golden wings, she lines the people of Sokovia up. The ones with the most damage are the ones she addresses first, patching them up to the point that she knows they will live. She cannot afford to give too much of her chakra to any one person, knowing from experience that she must be stingy and the people will continue to pour in, hurt and in need of her help.

The people who are not so wounded help her, carrying those who cannot walk to her sides. The bodies of those she couldn’t get to in time are taken away, and soon, doctors arrive. People make do with the little they have on their person, creating bandages and tournaquetes from sweaters and scarves. She delegates the best she can to those who speak English, splattered with blood and viscera.

That is how the Android finds the medic; in the midst of CPR, one hand pinching a man’s nose shut and hand deep in his ribcage manually pumping his heart. When he gasps, back arching, Sakura doubles down and pulls him fully from the lonely precipice he had ventured to. She makes eye contact with Vision, and tells him: “I hope our team doesn’t think we’ve won yet. The hardest battle begins now.”

Chapter Text

Sakura hears that S.H.I.E.L.D. has provided them a new compound in upstate New York, but she has not ventured to it, not yet. She is angry, so very angry— at Ultron, at her teammates for returning to their everyday lives, at the world and the suffering that seems to universally come with living. She remembers the cruelty with which Pein the so-called God stole the souls of her people, and remembers the cruelty with which Nagato the Man returned those souls; only for them to die once more, in a million different ways: from the pure shock, blood loss, smoke inhalation, crushed by buildings, suffocating in the dark.

There is no winning, she thinks, holding up an abandoned pair of heels, when we count our victories by the number of casualties; one is already one too many.

The first week was the most chaotic. The people are so very kind to her, despite their grief. No one was upset when she couldn’t get to their loved ones in time, but she made sure she learned every name and went to every funeral procession, regardless. When the United Nations and Médecins Sans Frontières mobilized, three weeks later, Sakura was surprised to find they deferred to her.

Vision, who has stayed with her ever since, gives her a rather dry look when she tells him this. “You’ve been with these people since the beginning. And anyone who spends even a minute around you can tell you have experience in disaster relief and rescue.”

She chokes up at that, telling him of the day a legend brought to life and his disciples changed everything and Vision embraces her through the waterfall that are her tears.

She is watching a dozen children playing in the rubble, making the debris into a paradise in the way only children can, when Tony calls to tell her he will be coming. She turns him down. She knows without question that the popularity of the Avengers, sans her companion and herself, could not be more low. “I’ll come to you,” she tells him instead.

And so, she and Vision pack up and leave Sokovia, far better than they found it that first fateful day, but certainly not better than it had been prior to Ultron’s reign of terror. They know all will be well with the locals, but Sakura promises to return soon.

She’s not mad anymore, she thinks as she climbs aboard the Quinjet, but she will admit that she is tired. The days she spent frolicking with Thor and draped over Tony’s sofas seem so far away, like a dream that whisked her away from where she’s always supposed to be: the fetid battlefields in all their grotesque glory, where terrible men and strange monsters flourish.

The compound is sprawling and far more clean than what she has grown used to. A rather cheerful face greets them, a man by the name of Sam Wilson, also known as Falcon. He leads them to Tony’s office, bypassing sparring rooms filled with soldiers, and a rather extensive collection of weaponry, military machinery, and strange enough, luxury cars. Something tells her that the latter is a personal collection of the playboy billionaire himself. They pass by the twins, who had been eager to secure their places in the Avengers fold, but Sakura pays them no mind.

“Sakura,” Tony says, whisking her into a hug, which she returns with a quiet sort of relief. Taking in a deep breath, she recognizes his cologne and remembers then, just how much she missed him. All she needed was Thor and Loki and she would be more content than she’d been in weeks.

“Did you just smell me?” He blinks, staring down at her pink hair from behind his lilac purple glasses.

“Maybe,” she sniggers into his stylish shirt and cardigan.

“Don’t get all sniffly on me yet, Cherry Bomb. I have a surprise for you!”

Pulling back, she blinks. “You do?”

Tony drifts back to his desk and reaches down, to a compartment she would have to crane her neck to see. When he returns, there are four beautiful, delicate gold bracelets, imbued with pearlescent circles and Sakura can't begin to think about what they are meant for. “May I?”

She nods and sits down on the couch in the room beside Vision, and Tony leans down to a knee. He carefully fits the snug gold onto her wrists and ankles and Sakura is choked up. He has fed her and kept her safe in the ever-changing nature of modern Earth, she knows he cares. But this? A clear sign of her alliance with him, his colors, his creations. Through her tears, she thinks she and Vision must make quite the pair now, covered in glittering gold and scarlet, their status as warriors on display on their foreheads.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say this is a courting gift,” she croaks, her mirth and smirk watery.

“Huh?” He queries, pulled away from where he admired the metal shining even in the dim office light.

“Back home, something like this is a clear sign of intention to court,” Sakura laughs. “We might as well elope now, with how elaborate this is.”

Tony chokes on air, waving his hands; it is the most flustered she has ever seen him. “Sakura, I am so sorry, I had no idea. Here, I’ll—”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, I won’t tell Pepper about our passionate love affair,” she jests, but holds a protective hand over the circlets. “I know these were not made with that intention, and because of that, I intend to keep them. What do they do?”

“Ah, Sunshine, you’re trying to put me in an early grave, aren’t you? I had been thinking about your abilities. I want you to place your energy in the bracelet, overcharge it.”

Sakura stands up and does exactly as he says, watching in amazement as the pearly spheres begin to glow in a ring, like her family crest she so proudly wears. As she pours in more, her chakra arcs over her head and creates a large, blue dome around her. “This is a shield?” She is, like usual, amazed by his technology.

Vision, who is made of Tony in everything but flesh and blood, raises a hand and lets it hover over the energy. Her chakra gently flickers out, licking at the Android’s fingers. “This is a failsafe, isn’t it?”

Tony affirms that, a blissful expression fixed in place whenever one of his projects turns out exactly how he wanted it to. “A place for you to store your energy. I know you said you have a limited supply, even with the reserve in your forehead, and I know it’s deadly for you if it runs out. Now, you have something else to fall back on.”

Sakura shakes her head, because it is the most thoughtful and important gift she has ever been given. Wryly, she wonders how any suitor would be able to one-up this one. She watches as her chakra accepts Tony into the barrier, the hum of his miniscule chakra meeting hers, making them both tingle. She lets the barrier drop, reabsorbing the chakra to the circles with her impeccable control instead of letting it dissipate into the air, and they glow a faint white, just like Tony’s chest piece. Sakura looks up at them again, and wonders how she ever thought the Haruno crest was an empty circle, when there has always been so much love to be found there.

The former Playboy, current billionaire forges on. “The world has been watching Sokovia, Sakura. And they’ve been seeing you— helping in the immediate aftermath and staying even when you didn’t need to. The UN is trying to get an idea of the death toll, and the numbers they’re reporting… it would’ve been a bloodbath. They’re saying only hundreds died instead of thousands, and it’s because of you.”

Vision interjects, placing a pleasantly warm hand on her wrist, covering the bracelet. “Symbols have power. People have started painting white circles on their backs, claiming to be your followers and there’s already demands that the UN make it the universal designation for medic.”

She stares at the circles and thinks of her mother and father, Haruno Mebuki and Kizashi, who both perished during Pein’s invasion, crushed by the massive chimera unleashed upon their home with all the fury of a scorned god. They were civilians, one a career chunin and the other a seamstress, and they knew they had nothing more than their unconditional love and unwavering support to pass down when she decided she too, would walk with legends. No legacy except a respectable family business and name, not that that mattered much to Konoha’s military dictatorship. And yet, she stares down her two dear companions and thinks, heart tight and heavy in her chest, Kaa-san, Tou-san, I hope I’ve made our family proud.

Chapter Text

Tsunade has always been one of the most important people to Sakura outside of her family, she thinks, alongside Ino and her beloved Team 7. The last of the great Senju, an immovable mountain and an unshakeable woman, is someone Sakura, like all young girls, always hoped she’d emulate. But, she admits, maybe not like this.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been calling for her to come back to the compound for months now, and she’s been ignoring their every attempt at contacting her, traveling where she pleases and healing the poor and downtrodden. She’s not subtle; Tony consistently contacts her about any theory or idea of how to return home, trying in vain to find the portal that spit her out into this world. Bruce, too, was able to track her down and take her up on her offer to seal his alter-ego, which had been done in a Naruto-esque fashion: one made of pure luck, sunny positivity and sheer will.

Which means the agency knows her whereabouts, but they haven’t attempted to apprehend her and she will keep doing as she does. By now, Vision has returned at their summoning, but Sakura has always been stubborn, and she will continue to take every free drink and free meal insistently pressed into her hands. It’s not like Nick Fury and his men really need her right now, not when there are people dying of tuberculosis and malaria, not when she needs to enforce proper quarantining and water purifying methods, when there are mental and physical disability stigmas that need to be broken down, not when this world seems so far ahead in terms of technology but still miles behind her own medically.

She keeps an ear to the ground for any sound or sighting of the God of Thunder. She misses him and his brother dearly, but she knows that until they wish to be found, no amount of searching will bring her any closer to her Old Norse Gods.

She continues to travel.

At one point she finds herself in a peculiar place called Kamar-Taj, in the heart of Kathmandu, healing the hands of a man dressed in a fancy red cape, going by the name of Doctor. Doctor of what, she’s not sure exactly, but his silent, awed reverence at her glowing touch doesn’t make her press for questions. A week later, she walks through the war torn countries of the Middle East, providing physical therapy for war wounds both old and new. And a week after that, she is helping sift through the rubble of a decimated infectious disease lab and a bomb that destroyed an entire city block. There is not much she can do after the fact, but she treats the dust inhalation best she can, holding strangers together as they unravel with confusion and grief. She is far too old and used to the Shinigami’s graspl to beat herself up for not doing more, but the tears spill down regardless, cutting thick lines in the dust that rested on her cheeks.

When she finally sets foot on the compound grounds, nearly 7 months after she visited the first time, she greets Tony with a kiss on the cheek and a world weary smile.

“You look tired, Cherry Bomb,” he observes.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” she tells him, leaning into a hug. “Speaking of, where’s Bruce? How’s he holding up?”

“No Jolly Green Giant as of yet. He and Natasha are probably at one of the labs, I’ll get them for you.” He leads her into the building, the cool breeze from the AC unit hitting her like a breath of fresh air.

“So… Natasha and Bruce?”

The man made of Iron glances back at her question. “Yeah, I know. Who would’ve thought? Apparently they’ve been an item since the dinner party, according to Steve.”

“Huh,” she sighs, stopping in the doorway. “People change when you’re not looking.”

“Mmhmm,” he intoned, his eyes tracing the curve of her face. “Now come on, can’t keep anybody waiting, can we?”

Vision phases through a wall and his face lights up in a way she hadn’t seen before and finds it adorable. She deeply misses the frank and clear-eyed naivety of Sai, but is thankful Vision does not seem to be infected with the same foot-in-mouth syndrome the black haired artist is known for. She gives him a hug too, smiling up at him. His aura is soothing, more at ease and confident. She likes the way it looks on him.

He settles in alongside the twins, Steve and Falcon. There is a strange man she does not recognize in the corner, wearing a pressed suit and tie.

“Seems like I was the last one to get an invitation, what’s all this for?” She asks as Tony in a whisper, feeling a somber mood fall upon the room; one whose origin she is oblivious to.

The man, who introduces himself as U.S. Secretary of State says: “The world owes the Avnegers an un-payable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives… but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some… who would prefer the word “vigilantes”.

Natasha pipes up. “And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?”

“How about dangerous?” offers Ross. “What would you call a group of U.S. based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

The Secretary of State activates a screen behind him and pictures Sakura knows all too well begin to roll across the screen. Photos from New York to Sokovia to Lagos. Sakura already knows the opinion of the people, has seen the resentment civilians throw at the rest of the Avengers. She had thought maybe her work would earn them some wiggle room, but now, she knew that there would be no escaping the consequences.

He places a thick tome on the table, calling it the Sokovia Accords. Tells them to think about it; a crack in the foundation appears. Before the man in the suit leaves, he turns to Sakura.

“Haruno Sakura. You are being formally invited to the Assembly in Vienna to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for outstanding contributions to medicine and the continued survival of humanity,” he says, eyes shining.

There are gasps around the room, and Sakura is floored, despite the words of Vision and Tony all those months ago. “W-what?”

She balks at her question, realizing she may sound rude and then quickly says, “Why?”

“There are few who do not know your story these days, Miss Sakura. The woman who fell out of the sky, who has no home and no obligation to this world that is not hers; the woman who made it her duty to care for us strangers like we are her own flesh and blood, her own people. The medic with a pure, never-ending circle for her symbol, a circle that holds us all within it. 177 fatalities is 177 lives too many, but the ones you saved, those numbers are astronomical. All 117 countries voted on it unanimously; I speak for everyone when I say, we look forward to having you.”

Tony gives her a side hug and she leans in, relishing the feeling. His gaze is fond and she smiles up at him.

And yet, the fissure begins to widen.

“Who signed?”

“Tony, Vision, Quicksilver, Sakura, Bruce, Rhodey.”

A hum echoes in a cold cathedral.

The plane ride is quiet despite the number of people in it, and Sakura leans further into the man she has become so incredibly fond of, reading over his shoulder. “Conway was definitely murdered,” she whispers to herself, but subsequently, Tony hears it and frowns, shushing her.

“Buttercup, how am I supposed to enjoy the mystery when you ruin it before it even begins?”

She blows a little raspberry, and closes her eyes, letting the strange hum of the jet soothe her anxiety.

She, Natasha, Quicksilver, Bruce, Rhodey, Vision and Tony step off the plane, and she cannot help but feel that they are off balance without the rest of their entourage in tow. She knows that with all the tension between the original members, she and the others will need to do everything in their power to make things right. Sakura adjusts the bright red cheongsam top with the white circle at the back, the now famous symbol drawing the attention of many eyes. The pink haired woman recognizes the Wakandan Prince as he approaches her and Natasha, from where they split off from the group. She lets them banter, only inserting herself in the conversation towards its end.

“Politics are something you’ll have to get used to, Your Highness. You’ll come to find that every part of the tree is important, and not one part can survive without the other.”

The two of them blink at her, surprised. “An interesting analogy, from the Firebird of Sokovia herself,” says T’Challa, quickly recovering. She smiles and thinks that while he may not like politics, he’s rather good at it.

“It's not so far off as you’d believe,” she smiles, eyes far away. She thinks of the imposing figure of her mentor, the Hokage with her likeness carved into a mountainside, her green haori and pigtails billowing in the heat of their village burning, and the long shadow she casts upon the people she has and always will fiercely protect.

“It would seem you are rather wise in the ways of negotiations, Miss Sakura,” King T’Chaka interjects, smiling at the three of them, before greeting his son in his native tongue.

“I should hope so,” she tells him. “I did not just inherit my strength from my mentor, I learned from her what it means to run a village, how to counter terrorism, and how to broker peace between Nations.”

“Then you know just how important this is,” He says, glasses reflecting from the overhead lights and she nods, looking out the glass windows. She lets Natasha and T’Challa take lead once more, missing the appraising and surprised glances sent her way.

“If everyone would please take their seats,” a voice overhead commands, and T’Challa summarizes: “That is the future calling.”

When they call her name, she stands tall and proud and walks up to the stage. She takes the offered object with a sad smile, and goes to address them all.

“This is far beyond anything I could’ve imagined when I decided to take the role offered to me in this world. I need no medal nor any titles,” she tells the crowd, paying no mind to the cameras that flash, taking her picture and recording her voice.

“I did what I did because I know better than most what it means to lose everything. My village, Konohagakure, was bustling and bright. The crown jewel of our nation, and we the citizens, proud and tall like the trees of our forest. Until one day, a man who claimed to be a god with the power to back it up, rose into the sky and crushed our home with a wave of his hand.”

She looks around, making eye contact with those who dare to meet her gaze. “My people. 150,000 lives, gone in an instant.”

The silence is deafening in the wake of her admission.

“All of the businesses, and markets, and parks; the places we built with our hands and loved until they became more. Everywhere you stepped was home; the place you went back to at night just another place to sleep in. From our mightiest warrior to our smallest child, each a member of the Mighty Tree. Our home was taken from us, but that did not curb our strength or our spirit. We took our tragedy for what it was: Chapter One. And we said goodbye to our home and our loved ones, buried them in our hearts and began anew. It is not our experiences that define us, but the people we choose to become afterwards. How we move forwards will tell history of the people we are.”

“Many of you have lost homes, lost loved ones. That loss is immeasurable, but we will endure and return no matter the pain. This is not about me or an award; that is just one small piece of the puzzle. Let this meeting be one where we move forward, where we become one in our hope, where we become stronger because we all have something precious to protect. To the Great Tree we make, from the deepest root to the littlest leaf.”

She bows low, and when she looks up, blinking back tears, she sees not a dry eye in the room. As she is about to step away from the podium, the King of Wakanda grasps her hand and bows just as deeply. She holds his shoulder and smiles, glad she decided all those years ago to fight the good fight, someone else’s war, to be just a little more like her precious person, her sunshine, her Naruto.

Someone screams “EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” and suddenly, a loud explosion cuts off the King’s speech, sending shards of glass in every direction. She is acting on adrenaline, on instinct, before her mind can truly think and launches herself at the two men on the podium. It is not a far distance and her hand is glowing before she even knows the fate of the man she has come to respect in such a short time.

T’Challa is sobbing, overcome with grief, but what his untrained hands missed, hers have not. She sees the acute trauma and remembers the wounds Kakashi came back with after facing Deidara, the bomb specialist and knows what to do. “Don’t mourn him, Your Highness. His soul has not left us yet.”

A pulse, so very weak, beginning to ebb under her hands and tie itself to the Pure Lands. She unknowingly grabs the threads of fate once more, and pulls.

Chapter Text

Sakura’s gazeis hard as she stares at Wanda. The woman glares in return, glowing faintly red. That would’ve been intimidating to anyone else, but it was nothing to her. She had stared down Madara’s Eternal Mangekyo, the Scarlet Witch’s tricks would not spook her in the slightest.

“Vision cares very much about your feelings, so he put it lightly. I won’t,” she says, channeling the same tough-love that Tsunade had used to build Sakura up and make her capable of crushing mountains. “You are, quite understandably, viewed as a threat. Considering the integral part you and your brother played in the ruin of Sokovia, you will at best be seen as someone who has incredible power and an inability to control it properly. At worst, people will see you as someone very capable and willing to harm others; a loose cannon. This is not to protect you, this is to make sure you don’t hurt anyone else. That is why you are not allowed to leave the compounds.”

Pietro is leaning against the countertop and there is an exhaustion there that belies more than a few nights of bad sleep. He and Banner had both been at the compound during the botched mission in Lagos, thankfully missing the action and any potential ill-association, but that doesn’t stop them from stressing over it, or the rest of the team.

“And with the King’s near death and the culprit still unknown, tensions are higher than ever. We can’t afford another international incident.”

Wanda glowers at her, but before she can say anything else, Banner’s phone lights up and catches the attention of everyone in the room. He answers the phone with a smile, his lover’s name on his lips, before he turns pale.

“That’s not a happy expression. Let’s go, Banner. Time to test out that seal, ne?” She turns to the twins, stern. “Pietro, make sure you two stay home for the time being. Vision will help you two with anything you need.”

What she doesn’t know is that hours after they leave, Clint decides it is time to go out of hiding, taking the twins and leaving the compound a mess in their wake.

“Captain Rogers.” Vision descends to the ground, having sliced it through. “I know you believe what you’re doing is right, but for the collective good, you must surrender now.”

Steve’s frown is as icy as the Siberian tundra, and Tony reads the expression with ease, after having known the man and worked with him for many years.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Tony exhales, and he waves his hand. The choppy sound of a helicopter rings from overhead, and it lands. Bruce is in the front, pulling out of the seatbelt and going to embrace the Black Widow. Behind him jumps out Sakura with feline grace, pink hair and bright red cheongsam billowing in the draft leftover by the aircraft.

“Who’s that?” asks Scott Lang, and a few of them do a double-take at his words. “You don’t know?” whisper-yells Pietro, eyes wide. “What rock have you been living under?”

Sam snorts at the unintentional pun, but lets out a deep sigh. “This just got a lot messier.” Bucky looks over at him, raising an eyebrow.

Breezing past the crew amassed by Tony, she stops short of Captain America and looks past him. “This is the soldier you spoke of, the one from your original time?”

Steve blinks, unsure of the line of questioning and where she is taking it. “Yes, Bucky is my dearest friend.”

She nods and gives the rather disheveled man a once-over before staring straight into Steve’s baby-blue eyes once more.

“He’s your friend,” she tells him gently, placing a gloved hand on his forearm. “But you look at him like he’s your family. I can appreciate that Steve, I understand what you’re going through more than anybody. But you can’t throw away everything you’ve built in his absence. Life goes on and you’ve made something worthwhile with us, too.”

“You’ve trusted us, put your life in our hands. Let us do the same for Bucky, we’ve always protected our own. If you trust us like I know you do, you’ll let us do what’s right.”

And Steve can feel more than see the way Bucky wilts, eyes misty and wide, like he wasn’t expecting to be forgiven and accepted so quickly. No one could expect this, not even him. And damn Tony, who looks soft, for knowing that Sakura is one for the unexpected.

As if to seal the final nail in the coffin, she adds, “The Accords are well-intended and important, which means not only can we make it work, we will have to make it work. We’ve gone through a hell of a lot worse and come out on top. What makes this any different?”

He grimaces despite her reassurances, unable to picture being ruled by fickle politicians. Steve has to look away from those big, green eyes or they’ll be his undoing. He clenches his jaw and steadies himself, the movement not unnoticed by his two companions and the pink-haired warrior. Pulling his arm out of her grasp and stepping away, he says: “Sakura. I can’t ignore injustice for the sake of keeping the idea of peace, not when there’s a real threat in front of us. The Sokovia Accords are just holding us back from what we need to do and I have a mission to complete. The other Winter Soldiers need to be eliminated.”

His expression is weary but stubborn, and the sweet look melts off of Sakura’s face, leaving something else, a look that is entirely unfamiliar to him, to all of them, really. She backs away, settling her feet firmly in front of Tony, and no one misses the meaning behind it.

“Very well,” she says. “If you cannot see reason and this is your final decision, you are a threat to the safety and happiness of my precious people.”

“Sakura,” Steve asks, words thick in his throat, because he never intended for his actions to be read as this. “Is that what you think I am?”

Her stance only deepens, sharpening into something strange and dangerous.

That stings, because when it comes down to it, Sakura now sees him as a threat, rather than a dear friend and comrade. He recalled the countless nights where they spent staring at the stars and talking of the lives they left behind and the ones they built in the present day, but he knows for every stolen moment she’s spent with him, she has made a home with the man made of Iron. He knows he made his mistake when he stood between that second chance. He knows he shouldn’t be hurt, should have seen it coming. Because he knows her; knows she is capable of making the sacrifices she’s needed to make, when she whispers of Naruto, her sunshine incarnate, and how she would do anything, anything, for him, even if it meant casting away, even killing Sasuke, who she also loves, and Steve wonders where he falls into her narrative.

“Cap, what do we do?” Sam asks.

“We fight,” he whispers, running forward.

Before any of them can get much further, there is a blur of pink and red and Sakura is upon them with all the fury of a woman scorned, green eyes flashing poisonous in the sunlight. Her fist is pulled back, and Steve and Bucky leap back, thinking they are free from her reach. But her target was never them, not directly. She buries her hand in the ground with all the precision of a surgical needle and the might of a small supernova and the concrete groans at first before rolling out as the earth opened like a dark maw under her.

“Holy shit,” whispers Peter Parker, who escaped the fate of the others on the ground, stars in his eyes.

And then they are in the fray. Sakura goes for Quicksilver, the one she thought least invested, because she is the only one able to keep up with his inhuman speed. Channeling chakra to her eyes, she dodges his attempt to clip her side and whirls around like a spinning top on it’s head. Sorely wishing for a pair of Byakugan eyes, she relies on her other senses to fill her in. Letting the rest of the fighting behind her melt away, she can feel the wind and hear the scrape of his shoes on the broken concrete, and can sense his chakra, however faint it may be. She lets him hit her a few times, the punches making her stumble, but those few moments tell her everything about his fighting pattern. The next time he goes to catch her, hitting her head from behind, she grabs his hand, meeting his wide green eyes with her own. “Gotcha,” she whispers, already grabbing her ninja wire and wrapping it around him. Summoning her slugs to make sure he stays safe and doesn’t escape, she gives him a forlorn look.

“I don’t want to do this,” she informs him, worried he may think otherwise. “I expected more from you.”

His shoulder shrug is an awkward movement with his hands tied behind his back. “I love my sister more than anything,” he offers and she understands. Once upon a time, she made the promise to follow Sasuke into the darkness, too. But I know better now, she reminds herself, and leaves him tucked away from line of fire. As she’s about to look for Wanda, aware she is one of the biggest threats, the stranger in an even stranger suit grows to the size of Gamabunta before her eyes. He grabs Rhodey and she worries that even a single hit from the massive man could cause severe damage.

A plane wing is thrown and she punches it to oblivion. When a massive bus comes barreling T’Challa’s way, she stops it dead in it’s tracks with one hand. She looks back and is suddenly struck with an idea.

Sakura flashes to Banner’s side, who had returned to the relative safety of the helicopter he’d been driving. “You ready?” She asks, and he nods, his face grim.

His skin begins to bubble and morph, not unlike Orochimaru’s curse mark. When Hulk awakens, heaving and eyes darting to and fro, Sakura stands in his line of vision.

“Hey, Big Guy. I promised you I’d do some training with you, and I’ve been pretty late, we’re long overdue. After this, want to make our sessions on Wednesdays?”

“Hulk smash more?”

“That’s right, bud. We’ll see if we can get you into a fight club or ring, but I don’t know how much of a fight anyone will be. We’ll make sure you get to be your own person. Now, see that huge guy? Beat ‘im up for me, but not too much okay?”

As Spider-Man goes to wrap his webs around him, Tony asks, “Anyone on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose, I’m open ton suggestion.”

Hulk screams and Sakura siddles up next to him, keeping up with his huge stride. When he launches himself at Lang, she asks Tony, “Did you really forget? We have a Hulk on our side.” Under her breath, she asks in her native tongue, “How’s that for a dynamic entry, Gai-sensei?”

Vision’s glittering cape catches her attention, where Bucky and Steve are booking it for the Quinjet. As she can feel the pipes underneath her rushing with water, she sees the hangar beginning to collapse. Going through the hand signs of one of the few elemental jutsu she knows, the one that had been so monumental all those years ago in a strange misty land. The water surges and bursts through the pipe, twisting and forming into a snarling dragon, taller than the hanger itself. It lets out a watery roar and washes away Wanda’s scarlet energy before Rhodey hits her with a percussive wave of sound. Hoping that that was enough to deter the two inside, she turns back, panting, to the rest of the fight which seems to have slowed. Hulk is huffing over Lang who has shrunk and Vision over Wanda. She spots the youngest, and picks him up bridal style.

“H-hi,” he says, winded, as he scrambles about in her arms with his mask barely covering his face. “My n-name’s Peter Parker.”

She grins down at him, despite being not much taller than him. She pulls his mask down completely for him. “Hiya, Peter Parker.”

She puts him down next to Lang, and goes to fetch Quicksilver. With the three of them secure, and Clint limping over, she is sure the amount of chakra she has will be enough to heal the minor bumps and scrapes they all had. Until Vision shoots a beam into the sky and Rhodey is falling, falling, falling— and her heart is falling with him. She’s pumping chakra into her legs, knowing she won’t get there in time and she may not be able to save him.

A wordless snarl rips out of her throat when she gets there, pushing Sam out of the way before Tony can so much as raise his hand. Her hands are aglow and she does her best to see what’s wrong.

There are several brittle breaks in his spinal cord, and she already knows that the prognosis won’t be great. With their modern medicine, he would be confined to a wheelchair. With her, his chances of walking are higher, but she will not make any promises, not so soon.

With another glowing hand, she wipes the black eye away and holds the cheek of the man made of iron, the man who never once turned her away. “I can’t promise full recovery, but I’ll do my best.”

Tears are streaming down his blank face, but his lips twitch briefly upwards. “I know you will, Buttercup.”

Natasha is in the wind, and the only comfort Sakura finds in the situation is that the rest of them are in cells. She and Bruce spend the next two days tending to the well-being of James Rhodes, doing their best to get him comfortable, but healing is hard on the body and his journey to recovery long stretched out before him.

When the third day goes by, and she hears nothing of Tony, she calls Pepper. She knows the call is a long-shot, considering the pain and uncertainty between the two, but she still hopes. Pepper doesn’t know where he is, and neither does Happy. She begins to worry.

“Bruce, what if something happened to him?”

“Sakura,” he sighs, pulling off the large glasses that magnify his eyes like an insect. “Tony is incredible, and so is his suit. If anyone can make it out of any tough spot, it’s him.”

“Sure he can, but does that mean he has to do it alone?” She shakes her head, and gets up. “I’m going to Siberia. Tell Rhodey I’ll be gone for a day or two.”

With that, Sakura takes off. She is no tracker like her old genin sensei, but she can manage well-enough and thankfully, this world has modern technology hers never even dreamed of. The GPS and jet make short work of a journey that would’ve taken over a week otherwise. When she arrives at the northern most part of the world— the tall pines shivering under blistering snow and howling wind, she finds him. The cave is industrial and cold and he is crawling and limping, tinkering with his suit that has been smashed every which way.

“I’m getting too old for this,” he admits when he sees her come in, blinking frozen salt away. She hurries over to him helps remove the clunky and malfunctioning suit from his body, replacing it with a wool blanket. “I find myself in these types of situations too often.”

“You wouldn’t if you learned to rely on us,” she admonishes gently. There is a haunted look shadowing his face and she will not press further. “We love you Tony, for once let us help you, yeah?”

Lifting his arm up over her shoulder, they stand and she walks him to the jet. “My parents died when I was 18,” he blurts out.

Sakura hums because she remembers this story, and holds him a little tighter.

“I always wanted it to be an accident,” he continues and his voice begins to hitch. “Sure, we didn’t agree on a whole lot but I still couldn’t picture anyone wanting to hurt my old man, and especially not my mother… it was Bucky.”

By now they’re in the jet and Sakura is cleaning the old, frozen blood off his face and torso. She doesn’t mention it when she cleans more tears than blood— those never made anyone weak.

“He knew. He knew. And he didn’t think to tell me! What has all the last five years meant to him, nothing?!”

And Tony cries and screams his grief and rage into the icy tundra, letting the wind take away his words and carry them far, far away. And Sakura, Sakura says nothing at all.

She melts out of the shadows that cling to her like a second skin, sure that she appeared like a wraith with their startled looks. She tsks and her eyes glint in the low light. “You’re all brawns and no brain, aren’t you? You shouldn’t have come here.”

Steve lifts his head and looks down his nose at her. “I won’t just leave them.”

There is a moment of silence.

The moment is broken by Sakura’s brittle, bitter laughter. It makes Steve flinch, because it was the last reaction he expected, and it is not a nice sound.

“Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum,” the words roll off her tongue with all the familiarity of having said them a lifetime and the conviction of someone who lived by those words just as long.

“You left us, Rogers. You left Tony in the middle of Siberia without a functioning suit. The man who wants so badly to do the right thing, who wanted you to come with him instead of being killed by the UN's machine guns. The man who you betrayed, who is grieving and in pain, who you beat within an inch of his life without a second thought because you deemed him unimportant. I had to find him, traumatized about his parents deaths' and the hurt you caused because you only apply your morals where and for who you see fit. Where I am from, traitors are the most reviled, and they are hunted and culled like the dogs they are. If you value your life, you will turn around and leave. You cannot beat me, and I have very few reasons to not kill you where you stand, Captain America.”

And while Captain America is formidable, incredible in ways not many others are on this strange, blue planet, she only needs a miniscule burst of her energy to stop his heart and induce a heart attack, killing him instantly. Konoha, with the best medic program in all the nations, found that medics made incredible ANBU assassins.

“Hey--!” Sam begins to interject, and she pins him with only a glance.

“You have no right to say anything, not a single one of you. Actions have consequences and the price of your fearless leaders’ freedom is very high. Do you think any of you should walk out of here free men and women, while James Rhodes may never be able to walk again?”

She challenges him, and takes grim satisfaction from the contrite look on The Falcon’s face. Clint refuses to make eye contact with her.

“And you think this is any better? Tony Stark would have kept me and my brother inside the rest of our lives,” Wanda spits and Sakura’s smile is sickly sweet.

“You are a spoiled child, Maximoff, who had a temper-tantrum. Your actions directly correlated to the death of 177 people in Sokovia. I’m sure with good behavior you would’ve been free far sooner but really, even a lifetime living in a cushy compound with a movie theater and pool is hardly penance for 177 lives. I don’t want to hear any more foolishness for you.”

“Leave, Steve,” she commands, and it is only Bucky’s hand on his shoulder that makes him rethink confronting the woman. Bucky nods at Sakura, and understanding his intent, she nods back.

None of the former Avengers speak up when Captain America walks away. The silence continues well into the night where the kunoichi stays rooted in her spot, holding silent vigil.

Sakura wakes up that night with a sob. It is not a nightmare— no; she’s learned to respect her nightmares, they ground her to what she knows is reality. It is the most beautiful dream, one that felt real, that makes her cry: Konoha rebuilt, and all of her precious people alive and thriving. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom and the Konoha 12 gather underneath with their parents and teachers and she can swear she even sees Obito—! They are eating umeboshi onigiri and joking and laughing and there are some tears here and there but nothing can dissuade the joy that is present. And Sakura cries because the dream was so real and she misses them so much it hurts. Every time she thinks of them, grief cuts through her scars and splits her open like a knife.

Sakura gets up and washes her face, padding quietly to the bathroom so as not to wake Pepper or Tony. She is distracted by the fuzzy, happy glow still lingering in her mind. In her haste, she doesn’t notice the cloying red chakra around her, dissipating ever-so gently.

Chapter Text

A strange number pops up on her new cellphone, and it makes her cautious. She only has a few numbers programmed in, and even fewer people know she has a device now, so who can it be?

She decides to ignore it, until the screen lights up again with an insistent buzz.

The message reads: Tønsberg, Norway. Loki and Thor both need a handler and people are telling me it’s you.

Her heart leaps into her throat, and she is out of her chair, travelling cloak back in place and wrapped around her shoulders.

“I have jasmine and oolo— wait, where are you going? You just got back from Seoul!” Pepper cries, her hands occupied by tea boxes.

“The jasmine will have to wait, Pepper, I’m here practically every other night as it is,” she laughs, twirling a piece of her carnation colored hair around her finger. “Apparently there’s a little town in Norway calling my name. I’m taking the Quinjet, thanks for having me!”

And with a quick peck to the older woman’s cheek, she rushes off, dodging Tony’s half-assed attempts to catch her. “The Quinjet is not your personal plane, Sakura!” he shouts but it is resigned, knowing she probably won’t listen, anyway.

“Dr. Cho says hi!” is her faint reply back, already down the hallway.

“So she’s heard the news. Damn, I was trying to keep it a secret for a little while longer. Is this what it feels like to be a parent?” Tony sulks dejectedly as he slinks up to his partner.

“Honestly,” Pepper clicks her tongue. “She’s no worse than you were when you were younger, and you were quite the pain.”

“Hmph. Boy Toys Number 1 and 2 aren’t good enough for her. And I resent that, you know? At least I didn’t use expensive military equipment to go flirt. And I don’t even know with who at this point.”

Pepper hums, teasing. “I get the feeling you’ll find nobody good enough for her, dear. And maybe you didn’t use it to flirt, but as I recall, you did stand up in front of a crowd and tell us all that you just peed in your suit.”

When the Quinjet lands on the outskirts of town, she opens the hatch and steps out. The salty wind whips at her hair and jacket, and in the distance, she spies foundations being raised and boats returning with the catch of the day. She walks down the road, chortling at the sign that says: New Asgard in fanciful lettering. It certainly doesn’t match the new seaside town, but it does harken to what she remembers from her impromptu trip approximately three years ago. Wow, has it really been that long? She’s been in this world for nearing five years now, and surprisingly, her heart doesn’t pang as much as she expected. While she will never forget and always miss her old world, this one has grown on her to her chagrin.

At the edge of the town, a willowy figure dressed in black waits for her. Delight filling her body, she picks up her pace.

Loki shakes his head as he gazes upon Sakura, years later and still just as lovely as meadowsweet in bloom. “I never understand why my brother calls you little one,” he says, and Sakura has a brief moment to feel confusion and elation at the way he says his brother, before he continues. “You have always been larger than life.”

Sakura hides her flush at the compliment, and grabs his hand. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

Frigga is as golden as she remembers, but there is a gray tinge of sadness to her edges, and Sakura knows cheerlessly, she is spoiled for choice as to why. Any would reel at the loss of their husband, child, and home, gone in one fell swoop. Yet, the Queen meets her with warmth and a quiet welcome.

“Were you the one who sent that message?” She asks lowly in the woman's ear as they embrace. Frigga, still conspiring even now, tells her, “I’m no good with human technology, I had Valkyrie send it. You’ll meet her soon.”

When she withdraws, she nods to Heimdall standing in the corner, and allows the dark haired frost giant to guide her out of the town hall and down to the docks. There, she sees the God of Thunder sitting and sorting through the assortment of sea creatures before him, Mjolnir suspiciously absent. She takes one look at Thor’s newly cut hair and winces. Leaning over, she inquires: “Bad breakup?”

Loki’s expression is melancholy. “Like you won’t believe.”

She whistles low, before hopping down. “Hey stranger,” she tilts her head, hair spilling over her shoulder. “I didn’t think you could get more handsome, but here you are.”

Thor spins around, single eye wide and bright, before her words register and he blushes, suddenly bashful. “It was an accident,” he grumbles, even as he opens his arms to let her in. Quietly, he takes in the familiar scent of her and holds her a bit closer, his eyes fluttering shut at the feel of her own arms squeezing him just as tight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into his jacket that smells like petrichor and ozone, not really sure which of his losses she is offering condolences for because like his mother, he is spoiled for choice. She’s sorry, nonetheless.

“It’s okay,” he mumbles again, but doesn’t let go and neither does she.

“It doesn’t have to be right now, but it will be,” she promises him, and she means it wholeheartedly.

She has to crane her neck up to get a proper look as he contemplates her, brow furrowed. “I’m not going anywhere,” she soothes. “If Tony wants his Quinjet, he’ll have to come get it.”

That entices a bark of laughter from both princes.

And she makes due on her promise. And Tony does pick up his Quinjet, grumbling about it all the while.

The trio spend dinners in the cramped house with their queen, and more often than not, fall asleep under piles of blankets in front of the crackling fireplace. When the extraterrestrials realize Sakura is no ordinary human and can lift whole beams of wood above her head with one hand, they instantly delegate her to constructing the new houses for their overcrowded town. When she’s not needed for her strength and the boys are busy, she works with the children, helping them through the difficult emotions of displacement.

She even meets Valkyrie, a tall, broad warrior with a mane of brown hair and striking white tattoos on her face. Sakura is unashamed to admit she is a little starry-eyed, and the amused look on the other woman’s face tells her it’s obvious. It’s in that moment that she confirms she does indeed have a thing for Asgardians.

The three grow closer, and there is hardly a minute where she does not see both, if not just because she is living with them. Thor even manages to convince Loki to come out on the boat one day, much to his displeasure and extreme reluctance. He spends most of the day leaning over the side of the raft, as Sakura pats his back and Thor snickers. “I’ll consider us even for the snake trick,” he informs his brother, and Loki still has enough energy to flip him off.

After that little fiasco, she has the fun— if questionable— opportunity to see their brotherly antics up close. The siblings prank each other mercilessly, although Thor gets the shorter end of the stick more often than not. Yet, it seems to do the trick. When she and the rest of New Asgard notice Thor’s frequent frowns have slowly but surely morphed back to grins, they breathe a collective sigh of relief. Everything will be okay.

She wakes up and stumbles out of bed, knocking frantically on the door next to hers. When Loki opens the door, looking as disheveled as she’s ever seen him, Thor still nestled in the blankets of his twin bed, eyes narrowed and glaring, she lets her breath release, hands shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Loki’s visage is instantly one of concern, and Thor’s earlier grumpiness vanishes as he sits up in bed, comforter pooling in his lap.

Sakura doesn’t know, isn’t sure, but she remembers the all-consuming fear that would wrap around her heart and throat every eve in the fields during the Fourth Shinobi War; this fear is like an old demon that crawled out of the backyard where she buried it. It is familiar like an old lover and that terrifies her all the more. She tells him: “I feel like something is wrong. Like something is going to happen and it’s going to be bad, and I don’t know what.”

“It’ll be okay,” Loki soothes, and he coaxes her into the room, shutting the door behind. She climbs into bed with the Thunder God, and the Trickster God forgoes his own bed on the other wall, squishing in behind her.

Thor grunts. “There’s not enough space for you.”

“There would be if someone laid off on the beer,” he retorts but there is no heat behind it.

The uneasy feeling ebbs as Loki begins to sing in the quiet of the dark. His hand briefly caresses her forehead where her seal lays before tracing back down her arm and grasping her hand firmly. “I stormsvarte fjell, jeg vandrer alene…”

She feels the hushed rumble in Thor’s chest when he, too, faintly picks up the melody, wide hand snaking around her waist. The shanty brings a small smile to her face, as she remembers the soft look that would overtake the princes when their mother would hum it, lost to the nostalgia of their childhood memories.

Snuggling further into the blankets, she closes her eyes. Sleep takes her amidst the sound of far off thunder in the fjords and ancient, frozen forests, quietly awaiting the return of spring.

“I eplehagen står møyen den vene. Og synger: når kommer du hjem?”

And then it happens. In the middle of the next day, one that had been going like any other, a strange ring-shaped ship appears above the steadily growing town. Thor is crackling with lightning, and Sakura unleashes her battle axe as they run to where the Queen and God of Mischief are.

But they are too late. Heimdall steps out the door, crystalline tears dripping down his face and into his beard. Inside, in a pool of blood, lie mother and son.

Chapter Text

“Thanos is searching for the Infinity Stones,” Heimdall says, wiping his tears, and Thor gasps, choking on his sobs. The implication is lost on Sakura, but she can appreciate the graveness of the situation. As they collect over the cooling bodies of the Asgardian royalty, the strange ship begins to take off.

“We need to stop that ship,” mutters Sakura, and Thor shakes his head. “I need a hammer.” He wills himself into a stoic state, shuttering his emotions like he saw his father do in the war room many times. His face is marble, beautiful and terrible to look upon, all the same.

“You are both right. That ship is headed for the Time Stone and the one who guards it,” the Gatekeeper says, sharing a meaningful glance with Valkyrie.

“Doctor Stephen Strange, yes?” Sakura remembers vaguely, an aristocratic man with spindly fingers that shook like a leaf on the wind.

She receives a chorus of nods and Sakura begins to ready herself, gathering chakra in her legs and preparing to give chase to the quickly shrinking alien aircraft before Heimdall stops her. “I will send you to him through the Bifrost. It will give you more time to warn them and prepare the best you can.”

“And Thor and I will go to Nidavellir to create a hammer,” Valkyrie chimes in, as she kneels and tenderly closes the eyes of the unseeing Asgardian Queen, her beautiful curls knotted with blood.

“How?” Thor asks, momentarily perplexed.

The warrior smirks, although it is short-lived. “I know a guy who can get us there.”

After deciding, the group begins to fraction off. Heimdall, who will stand watch over New Asgard, powers up the Bifrost and as Sakura begins to step into the rainbow energy field, she looks back.

“Be careful,” she wishes them all, and is gone in an instant. Heimdall closes his eyes and whispers a prayer, as Valkyrie sends a distress signal to an unlikely, old friend.

Sakura comes crashing down to Earth, leaving a crater in the concrete in front of the New York Sanctum Sanctorum. It creates a minor quake and the people around her shriek in momentary fear, a cop settled against his cruiser flinching and beginning to reach for his gun. He settles after registering her tell-tale pink hair, but she’s on a mission.

“Clear this entire area of the city, there’s about to be an alien spacecraft with an unknown threat,” she barks out and the cop blinks, dumbfounded. “You heard me!” she says again, and his partner, who had been in the cruiser, nods, furiously talking into her intercom.

“What’s going on?”

She turns and is greeted by Doctor Strange descending down, his cape fluttering wildly around his ankles.

“Thanos is coming and he’s here to take your stone,” she tells him and he pales, drawing a hand to the necklace settled on his chest.

“And how do you know this?”

Sakura growls. “There is no time for games, Doctor! His men were just in New Asgard. We need to prepare.”

As Doctor Strange relays the information to a newly arrived Wong, Sakura pulls out ink and paper. A few Master of the Mystic Arts will set up their shields and armor, but Sakura will not let them do it alone. Every ninja chunin level and above knows how to make a standard paper bomb, but Sakura is no ordinary Konoha ninja. She and Naruto spent many nights messing with the trigger and it’s timing. While the enemy might be immune to her bombs, they offer her cover.

The ship appears suddenly, not there and then looming the next. Her muscles tense as she waits under the cover of a discreet transformation, a common pigeon on the ground. An ugly, massive creature with breath foul enough to make Kakashi keel over flung itself to the ground, followed by an equally ugly, but far more cunning-looking creature. She can tell immediately which one is going to be the problem.

“Go home, you’re not welcome here!” A cocky, familiar voice calls out as the Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian make their way to the Sanctum and Sakura tenses, not expecting Tony. How did he--? Oh right, Doctor Strange’s portals.

Even as the Iron Man and aliens conversed, Sakura’s mind is moving at top speed; the odds are not in their favor, neither with environment or the unknown abilities of two hostile enemies. Cull lumbers over and unsuspectingly, trips one of her many tags. The resounding explosion is more light and sound than explosive, given the urban setting but it worked to disorient and distract. Sakura uses flash step to enter under the guard of the giant, and with a glowing green hand, slices the right arm off the beast completely. It roars in pain and swats at her with the other hand, but she quickly retreats to a safe, long-range distance to regroup. The interaction takes only seconds, but the Ebony Maw has his eyes on her and she can feel their heavy weight.

“Surprising, but a nuisance all the same,” he says, and with a wave of his hands, sends hundreds of tiny shards of building debris at her, forcing her focus away from Doctor Strange and Tony Stark. She is dodging, reinforcing her skin with chakra so it is hard like diamonds and is reminded briefly of the fateful mission long ago, where Haku did his best to turn her teammates into pin cushions. It seems that the enchantment is living, she notes, because the shards no longer point to her, but are targeting unsuspecting civilians trying to evacuate. “Shit,” she says, and wishes, not for the first time, for a kekkei genkai like Neji’s Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven. Being a close range brawler was no joke, but dodging it has it’s limits.

Everything is happening fast, like the Fourth War and Sakura compartmentalizes the best she can. Sensing more than seeing the last of the civilians leave the street, she places further explosive tags on the surrounding buildings and punches the ground, kicking up enough sound and dust to give Peter Parker the in he was searching for. He swings in with a sharp cry, landing a punch to the vile giant and Sakura turns her attention to the Doctor, threading her hands and shouting: “Suiton: Mizuame Nabara!”

Pointing the jutsu directly at Ebony Maw and he swats it away but does not expect the stickiness of her technique. It weighs him down and he growls, a ferocious sound. “Very well,” he says and places his hands together, warping the air and capturing the volatile cape of the eccentric Doctor Strange.

“Strange!” She shouts. Sakura is alarmed, gearing up to get the wizard out of his binding when Tony captures her attention. “SAKURA! Get to Vision, he needs you most! Someone needs to get that stone out of him and that somebody has to be you! Take the Quinjet and go to Dublin! We’ve got this covered.”

He points with his chin to the escape being slowed down by Spiderman and Wong and she trusts in her friend enough to nod and turn her back, sending a prayer up to gods she wasn’t quite sure she believed in.

Sakura is sprinting up north, racing for the Avengers Headquarters, sides heaving with the urgency of the situation. After years of complacency, she is kicking herself for not taking this strange planet more seriously and keeping her highly conditioned body up to tip top shape. Peace had a way of softening her, for better or for worse.

The Headquarters came into sight but it was not unoccupied. Relief, for a brief, dizzying moment, flooded through her when the red, artificial flesh of the Vision fell into her sights.

“Status!” She barks, falling somewhere in between the Head of the Third Division and the incredibly bossy genin she’d once been, neither feeling quite right.

“Sakura,” breathes Captain America, feeling equally relived to see her. “We intercepted two of Thanos’s soldiers before they could get the Mind Stone.”

The very stone they were talking about seemed to glitter with a new, ominous weight as it sat on the brow of Vision. Wanda, to his right, looked beside herself as she reached for Sakura.

“Vision wants me to destroy the Mind Stone…” she falters, before forging on. “I can’t, Sakura. Is there anything you can do?”

Sakura squeezes the hands desperately clasping hers. “I can’t make any promises, Wanda, but I can try.”

Quicksilver, waiting besides his sister, wilts with the pressure of it all, Wanda never more than an arms reach from him.

“Thank you,” he whispers when it seems Sakura’s answer has left the witch speechless.

“Don’t thank me yet, Pietro. Your sister needs to be ready for anything, there are more lives at stake than we know. In the meantime, we need to find a secure location. Cap?”

He nods. “I know a place.”

“Lead the way,” says Sam.

In the Quinjet, it is quiet and tense. The only noise is the hum of the engine as Sakura leans over Vision with her hands just barely grazing his forehead, her eyes closed and brows knitted in concentration.

Eventually, the quiet breaks as the Falcon and Captain Rogers speak in hushed tones about the whereabouts of Romanoff and Banner.

“I just contacted Rhodes, he’s securing Pepper right now before he meets us in Wakanda.”

The murmured words flow over Sakura’s head, barely registering, as she felt with her chakra the complex signature of the stone and the strange, almost sentient buzzing it emits. The stone is bound to the molecules of Vision’s skin which will be tedious, incredibly delicate work to do but not impossible, no, not for her. The real question is, will Vision remain Vision after the stone is gone? How much of him will be left?

“I have never felt your life force so strongly,” Vision says in that crisp, polite tone of his. “It tastes like a river in a forest, if you can even taste that.”

Sakura laughs, surprised for a moment but then not, because Vision is astute and becoming more a man every day, senses sharpening. “My teammate always used to describe it as slugs and dirt. I think I’ll take your description over his any day!”

Landing in Wakanda is a flurry of heat, colors and movement. She is running besides the android, one hand on his arm as they ferry the group into the labs laced with vibranium and history beyond written words. Normally, she would be gawking at such a place, but her focus is laser-thin and wielded like a scalpel.

Shuri is bright, vivacious and more than capable of keeping up with Sakura as she spits medical jargon her way, positioning Vision under a strange contraption with a laser. The plan is to extract the stone using Wakandan technology and use her chakra to simultaneously heal the surrounding area and report and mitigate any strange brain activity.

“Wanda,” calls Sakura before the entire team can leave. “If we manage to extract the stone, we’ll need you here to handle it.”

The rest of the Avengers take up post outside, waiting inevitably for when the threat would come to them. It is not long, at least not from Sakura’s perspective, before there is the sound of clashing and the ground rumbling with the stampede of war rhinos.

Just as the telltale roar of the Hulk greets them, even deep in the safety of the lab, they make progress. High with the thrill of having done the seemingly impossible, Shuri and Sakura rejoice.

“We have done it! Quick, Wanda,” and the Scarlet Witch is there, hands shaking around the golden, glowing stone. She sweats with the effort of it, seemingly heavy in it’s gravitational pull. Despite the clear strain, she cracks an eye open and asks after her lover.

“He’s alive,” was all Sakura could offer, noticing that the android’s brain seemed dimmer, like a city cut from the electric grid and the view from the night sky suddenly dark. This answer, however, seemed sufficient for the woman and she set off to secure the stone, some of the remaining Dora Milaje.

Shuri and Sakura could have left the android at the table, not needing to secure him since the threat hanging over him was now gone, but they took him to the healing halls proper and set him up in a bed, where he was seen to by a frail looking old man with a severe frown.

“Let’s get back to them, why don’t we?”

More movement and Sakura is swept in the feeling of it, the maddening panic of knowing in her bones that this is it: the moments to come will decide everything. The medic who rised out of the ashes of a war unlike any in known history was ready to face the challenge. The stubborn, naive genin wanted to curl up in a ball and wail for the lives she knew might be lost in a matter of moments. Like always, the veteran won and she steels her resolve.

There are new players and her heart traitorously flutters when she sees the sharp visage of her god, flanks heaving and looking fiercer than ever. It drops faster when she sees the spill of red hair, lanky body dangling from a meaty, purple fist. There is almost a reverent quiet that falls upon the battlefield.

Thanos is not the scariest enemy she has ever faced, although he cuts an imposing figure against the cheery blue Wakandan sky. However, the threat he poses, one she is not sure she even understands, being yet again a stranger to this world, is unfathomable.

Thor screams with all the sorrow in his body, swinging the ferocious war hammer with ease and dexterity. The blade cuts through like butter, causing Thanos to drop Wanda to the ground where she lies eerily still and unblinking like a doll, head at an unnatural angle. She cannot see the look of agony on the alien’s face, although she is sure it is there.

Everything slows for a moment and the smug look on Thor’s face suddenly drops to a pallid horror. Sakura shunts chakra to her ears at lightning speed but she barely catches the end of the sentence. “.... the head.”

Before she knows what she is doing, she flash steps to the two of them, and gathers enough chakra to level a small mountain into her fist. It is not enough.

The head of Thanos shoots off somewhere to her left, a gruesome gift for somebody else to deal with at a later date. There is viscera spurting from the thick, muscle-corded neck and arterial spray on the Thunder God’s face, the scarlet turning his eyes an impossible shade of blue. And yet, the hand in the strange armor, stones beginning to fade, has already formed and fallen from a snap.

She reaches, reaches, reaches, for Thor, Thor— Naruto! No! Naruto? No, no, this is all wrong! Her hands turning to nothing but dust and she can hardly feel the familiar touch of the man she knows she loves but he can’t remember his name, who is he again?

The world turns dark and she closes her eyes and thinks, blue, so blue. And as the rest of half the world breathes their last breaths, Sakura gasps her first, the smell of rain heavy in the air.