Imagine If You Assembled the Avengers: Volume 1

Parental Guidance (Rogers/Romanoff x reader)

As you stood over the dark portal below, you fought your body's response of fear and hyperventilation. It looked ominous and terrifying, but you were given a reasonable amount of reassurance that it might work to take you back to a time before you were born; a time when your parents didn't even know that they would become your parents one day. It was a time that you were racing to get to so you could save them from the assassin that had been relentlessly chasing you.

"This has to work," you mumbled to yourself, "there's no other way."

"(Y/N), you must hurry. I don't know how much longer that I can hold this stable and if you don't leave now you may not be able to return."

You continued to stare down into the void, the wind of the vortex blowing your hair furiously, "Loki, tell my parents that I love them. If this doesn't work and I don't come back, I want them to know."

"You're certain that there's no other way?"

"He's going to go back and stop them, so that I'm never born. This is it."

"(Y/N), stop!"

Your body jolted at the sound of your father, running towards you as fast as he could, but you couldn't let him reach you; you couldn't let him stop you from doing this. It was as much to save him as it was to save yourself, and if you didn't go now you may never get the chance again. You finally turned away from the portal and looked at him with a small smile, jumping into the blackness just as his fingertips grazed your arm.

~~~

You hit the firm ground with a jarring thud and felt the concrete beneath you scraping at your skin. The disorientation lasted for only a moment, and you quickly stood to find anything that could show you the current date. Loki had successfully kept you in New York City, but when? You brushed the dirt from your clothes and straightened, walking out onto the sidewalk from the alleyway that had deposited you here.

"Date, I need the date..." you whispered to yourself, scanning the buildings around you to get your sense of where in the city you were. You stuck your head into the door of a small shop and looked around, finding an older man behind the checkout counter. "Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me the date?"

"November 14th."

"Um...and the year?"

He paused for a moment, looking at you as if you had lost your mind, and perhaps you had. This plan of yours was a long shot and it might not even work, leaving you stuck in the past forever.

"2015."

"Thank you!" You turned quickly and ran to the corner to check the street signs, smiling when you realized how much you now owed your Asgardian friend. "50th and Park," you sighed, "Loki, you're good." You turned and saw the tower only a few blocks away, allowing yourself only a moment of relief before the panic set in. You had only 12 hours before the portal would reappear, and no idea how you would even get inside the tower to protect Steve and Natasha from the threat that was coming.

Just as you began to run towards it, you saw him; your target rounding the corner at the edge of the building. You pulled your weapons and broke into a sprint to catch up, more thankful than ever for the speed that you had inherited from your father.

"Excuse me, coming through, excuse me!"

Darting around the mass of people filling the sidewalk, you finally had him in your sights, just as he was about to enter. "Stop! If you want me, then come at me, but leave them alone!" People around you screamed and ran away, causing a commotion in the streets, but you held your stance firmly. "This is between you and me!"