⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

11:Wakanda
⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

24 hours prior, Luciana had been in her kitchen, dancing with Peter to cheesy music on the radio. 4 hours before Luciana had been on her way to a museum with her class. Now Peter was in space and she was in a quinjet heading for Wakanda.

The teenager gnawed at her lip until a metallic taste filled her mouth. Her phone twirled around over and over in between her hands. She debated calling Rory, Daniela or Graciela again, to say where she was going, but the teenager didn't want to worry any of them. She was still clad in her civilian clothing, which left her more colourful than her companions. In any way that Luciana could stick out, she did.

Vision lay in the back on a built-in stretcher, Wanda held his hand and refused to leave him. The other Avengers were spread out in the aircraft, Steve and Sam were in the cockpit to pilot. Bruce and Rhodey were prepping the War Machine and Hulkbuster suits for them to wear. And Natasha had been comforting Wanda.

Black Widow looked away from her fellow Avenger and to the teenager she loved. She excused herself with an assuring smile before taking a seat next to Luciana. The Russian nudged Luciana's knee with her own, making the girl look up. "Hey," Natasha spoke softly.

"Hey," Luciana replied, leaning back in her metal seat. "I like your hair," Luciana added, eyeing the platinum blond hair that brushed Natasha's chin.

"Thanks," Natasha managed a short laugh and lightly tugged on one of the bleached strands of Luciana's hair. "Glad to see that we're finally matching," Her gaze fixed on the red strands and she smirked in her typical Natasha way. "Keep that up and I'm going to believe you didn't replace me with Tony," Nat mused.

Luciana's eyes widened. "I-I didn't! He just helped me with my suit," As Natasha chuckled, Luciana scrunched her lips in realisation. "Oh," She breathed out. Luciana covered her face with her hands in embarrassment.

"Don't worry Luci," Natasha assured, wrapping an arm around Luciana's shoulders and lightly shaking the teenage girl. "I'm glad you had Tony, and that Tony had you."

Luciana opened her mouth to ask what Natasha meant by that, but Natasha lightly shook her head. A long-standing motion between the two that meant Natasha would explain later, and so Luciana's voice died in her throat.

Natasha uncoiled her arm from around Luciana. "Happy belated birthday," Natasha commented. "I didn't have a lot of time to get you something, but I hope you like this." The woman reached into her pocket and held out a closed fist to Luciana and dropped something small into Luciana's palms.

On the girl's palm lay a metal circle with intricate symbols and a square cut out in the centre. It dangled from a black cord. "It's beautiful, thank you." Luciana reached behind her to fasten the necklace around her neck.

"That belonged to my mother."

"Melina?" Luciana asked, to which Natasha nodded with twitching lips, eyes cast down in reminiscence. "How are they?"

The bittersweet reminiscing made way for joy. "Yelena is working on freeing all the Widows along with others, Melina and Alexei are also helping and," A shiver went down Natasha's spine and she tilted her head back with a grin. "They're attached to the hip."

Remembering the other person that Natasha had mentioned on multiple occasions, Luciana inquired after said person. "And Sung?" Luciana tilted her head down so she could look up at Natasha.

Just as Natasha was about to respond, Steve's voice sounded from the front. "Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0," Steve instructed, leaning over Sam's shoulder, who hesitantly piloted the direction to Steve's instructions.

"I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to."

"You'll see." Natasha softly reached out and held Luciana's hand as a comforting gesture. The quinjet passed through a camouflaged force field and then found itself in a large valley.

Luciana rose from her seat and dropped Natasha's hand so she could look out of the window better. Needless to say that the girl was very impressed by the architecture of the Wakandan city. Not only was it beautiful, it looked very advanced, and yet it kept many classic elements. The buildings rose up into the sky without ruining the landscape, something even a city girl like Luciana had to admit was the case in a lot of the big cities in the States.

The quinjet landed and slowly the occupants disembarked, Steve and Natasha exited first, Bruce, Rhodey and Luciana following while Sam, Wanda and Vision took the rear.

"Should we bow?" Bruce asked, shrugging on his coat as he looked at Rhodey, who nodded in all seriousness.

"Yeah, he's a king." Luciana nodded to herself but glanced over as Rhodey ticked her shoulder. The man subtly shook his head at the teenager. She bit her lip to contain her thought and Rhodey winked at her.

"Seems like I'm always thanking you for something," Steve said, shaking hands with T'Challa who looked over the blond's shoulder. His kind dark eyes looked over all the people behind Steve and Natasha.

Bruce leaned forward in a very uncomfortable bow, prompting Rhodey to look at him with a fake shock on his face. "What are you doing?" Bruce frowned as he looked up at the man.

"Uh, we don't do that here," T'Challa uttered, waving his hands as Bruce quickly straightened his back. Bruce cast a look at Rhodey who merely grinned in response. The doctor then looked at Luciana who ducked her hair away from the Avenger.

"Who might you be?" T'Challa questioned, looking at Luciana who felt the heat of a blush creep up from her neck to her cheeks. Now, Luciana was very much a fangirl of many things, and she was definitely a huge fan of the King T'Challa. Not only did he open the borders of Wakanda and encourage his little tech genius sister, but he was also working on ending poverty. He had bought various neighbourhoods in cities all over the world and reformed them to house the people who were struggling. Amazing programs were helping a lot of kids in need. Not to mention that T'Challa was attractive, smart, kind and had a brilliant suit.

"I.....I..I..I'm Luciana," She muttered, rubbing her neck sheepishly as she looked at his dark eyes. Which did not help with the teen's blushing situation.

T'Challa extended a hand to Luciana and she timidly shook it. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Luciana." He nodded curtly at her and smiled kindly whilst shaking a hand before spinning on his heel and starting to lead the group into the tall building before them. "So how big of an assault can we expect?" He called back to no one in particular.

"Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault," Bruce responded, making a few big strides to catch up with the younger man. After all, Bruce had hardly seen the armies of Thanos, but they were able to destroy the ship filled with Asgardians and that was enough to strike fear in the hearts of anyone who had ever met any Asgardian.

"How are we looking?" Natasha asked as she walked in between T'Challa and Luciana, who was looking at the marvellous enhanced buildings.

"You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..." T'Challa trailed off as a familiar brunet approached them with a dark-haired woman by his side.

"A semi-stable, 100-year-old man." Bucky smiled sweetly at Steve before the two men hugged each other tightly before they released each other, their hands remaining on each other's shoulders.

"How you been, Buck?" Steve asked, looking at his best friend.

Bucky shrugged. "Uh, not bad, for the end of the world," Bucky chuckled.

"And you'll have me," The woman piped up, eyeing the Avengers and Luciana before her.

Sam grimaced at Sung. "Always great working with you two," He piped up, still clutching Vision's arm to keep the humanoid robot upright.

"Could have left you in that prison, Wilson," Sung spat with a thick Russian accent, but despite her words, she didn't look at him with any malicious intent.

Contrasting Sam, Natasha and Wanda appeared very happy to see Sung. "Sung," Natasha breathed out. Sung smiled softly and nodded at Natasha before doing the same gesture towards Steve, although it was less warm.

As the Avengers made their way inside, Luciana lingered slightly to look back at Sung and Natasha who were hugging and talking to one another in hushed voices. "Come, we don't have much time," T'Challa said warmly, laying a hand on Luciana's shoulder to lead her on and make the girl blush.

◎ ◉ ◎

Soon enough most of the group stood in Shuri's lab. The young scientist stood before a complicated machine that hovered over Vision, who lay on an examination table.

"Whoa. The structure is polymorphic," Shuri breathed out, her eyes looking over the complicated structure of Vision's mind.

Bruce shoved some reading glasses up his nose. "Right, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially," Bruce said, peering over the princess's shoulder.

Shuri turned to look up at Bruce "Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?"

Vision turned his head and looked at poor Bruce, who seemed completely taken aback. "Because we....we....we didn't think of it," Bruce stuttered and Shuri smiled somewhat condescending manner, but lacking any true meanness.

"I'm sure you did your best," She reassured before flickering her eyes back to the hologram that showed how the Stone was connected to Vision himself.

"Can you do it?" Wanda whimpered and Luciana looked at the slightly older woman sadly, all the joy of being in Wakanda washing away. Luciana knew how it was to lose her parents, and she could only imagine the pain of losing a twin. Not to mention, Wanda had to deal with all the stuff that Sokovia had been cursed with and the world seeing her as a threat.

Shuri looked at Wanda with a stern look. "Yes, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures," Shuri answered in a pained tone, her gaze turned to look at her brother. "It will take time, brother."

"How long?" Steve inquired and Shuri hesitated a split second before nodding to herself.

"As long as you can give me."

Just then, the leader of the Dora Milaje flicked a bead of her bracelet onto her hand. The bead projected a small globe with a pulsing location. "Something's entered the atmosphere," She informed and Luciana felt a pit form in her stomach.

"So they're here?"

As if on queue, they were informed by Sung, Bucky and Rohdey, that the army of Thanos had in fact arrived. Steve and T'Challa walked towards the wall-length windows of Shuri's lab. Luciana followed them with her eyes. Just outside the defensive forcefield of the Golden City, they could see triangular vessels slam into the field. Ground rose up from the force of impact and trees plummeted to the ground. Steve and T'Challa locked eyes, both feared what they'd all have to face.

"It's too late," Vision grunted, sitting up on the table. "We need to destroy the stone now," He stared at Wanda who shook her hand while her lips quivered.

"Vision, get your ass back on the table," Natasha ordered, walking past him to look out of the windows before she looked at Luciana who jerked her head up, silently assuring the Widow that Luciana was alright. Well, as okay as she could be in the current situation.

"We will hold them off," T'Challa spoke, he and Okoye - the Dora Milaje leader - headed for the door.

Steve meanwhile turned to look at Wanda. "Wanda, as soon as the stone's out of his head...you blow it to hell."

The Sokovian nodded quickly. "I will."

"Evacuate the city. Engage all defence procedures," T'Challa marched away before spinning on his heel and pointing at Steve. "And get this man a shield."

"Luci, are you okay?" Natasha asked softly, looking at the younger brunette.

Luciana breathed in deeply before nodding ."Ye-yeah."

Natasha looked over the obvious anxiety on the teenager's face. "You can stay here with Wanda and Shuri if you want. No one would hold that against you."

The teen gnawed at her bottom lip again, eyes flickering in between Wanda and Shuri and the alien vessels. Then she made her decision.

"No, I uh, I'm coming. It's my job."

Natasha's lips tugged into a soft sad tainted smile. "Okay then," She glanced at Wanda, Shuri and Vision a last time before she rushed out of the building with Luciana. "That's my girl," Natasha commented, stealing a short chuckle from Luciana.

The Columbian quickly shrugged off her clothes and left them in her backpack, in Shuri's lab. With her suit activated, Luciana exited the building as Hummingbird. Only, an unhooded version of her alter ego, there was no need to conceal her face and hair in shadows in this place.

"Kid," Rhodey called out as he approached Luciana in his suit. "Be careful out there," He pointed at the green fields. "Stay close to someone at all times, got it?"

"Yes sir." Luciana raised her chin and straightened her back.

A grin cracked on Rhodey's face and he bumped Luciana's shoulder with his head. "Welcome to the Avengers, time to save the world and work for a living."

a/n:
and so it begins...
let's ignore the bad and focus on the good lol. for one
luciana meeting all her idols is just very cute to me, and she's officially an avenger now!
i genuinely do wish we had more time with luciana and everyone on the team, there are so many
fun dynamics, obviously we have tony x luci, nat x luci and rhodey x luci. but let me tell you
about the fun that would be sam x luci, shuri x luci, t'challa x luci and wanda x luci lol.
not including the ones not on earth lol.
as for nat and luci, there is more history to be explored there that we'll see towards the end
of the book and will shed some more light on how natasha treats luci. also fully headcannon
that nat sees luci as her daughter and we support luciana and her million parents :)

also, if you don't recognise sung, that's my oc from my natasha book. if you want to check
out her story, it takes place in owing a debt (au) and owing a life (mcu).

what are your thoughts so far? hope you're enjoying
love,
-victoria

sad post

and let's all cry together, oh oh, cry together.
natasha was a hero, no one can take that away from her, not even death.

date published: 4 august 2023
word count:2513