italics indicate russian, all translations can be found at the end of the chapter.

"NATASHA!" someone yelled and then she saw Clint at the bottom of the stairs, ready to run upstairs with horror written all over his face.

"What's going on?" she asked but he was already going back.

"It's Katya, I think she's having a vision but I never saw something like that-"

Natasha didn't hear anything he said after her daughter's name. She pushed in front of him and run to the living area when she found everyone gathered around Katya, aside from Laura who was trying to get Cooper and crying Lila out of the room. Horrified Tony stood a few feet away. There was something else on his face but Natasha didn't have time to think about it. Clint followed up to her and she felt his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture, as she froze completely looking at her daughter's skinny body shaking on the floor.

All her muscles tensed up as the convulsions raked through her body, slightly arching her back off the floor. Bruce was holding her head so she wouldn't hit it on anything. Blood streamed from her nose and down her cheeks, leaving traces behind on her fair skin. Her eyes rolled back so hard they were white.

"Should we do something?" someone asked "Nat?"

She didn't reply. Instead, she took a few steps and stopped next to Bruce, and kneeled down, suggesting she wants to take his place. Banner didn't protest and let her take over.

"Should we call an ambulance?"

"No." Natasha snapped immediately.

How would they explain this? She had some idea of how Katya acted after attacks like that and saying she has epilepsy wouldn't help. Also, everyone would probably have to hide and leave Laura with Katya as explaining the presence of the Avengers would be even harder.

"Natasha-"

"I said no," she said, not taking her gaze off Katya's tensed-up body. "It'll pass soon."

Only after a while, she realized that her voice cracked. And then felt wetness on her face. Tears suddenly started streaming down her face, but she didn't pay any attention to them, as she waited for the shaking to stop and tried her hardest not to yell at everyone to stop staring. She didn't want them to see her like that, to see Katya like that. She felt bad for Lila and Cooper, they must have been so scared, but she wanted to yell anyway.

At some point, Natasha started to whisper some comforting words and phrases, mostly in Russian, even though she wasn't sure if her little girl could hear her. Romanoff had no idea how much time had passed, but Katya started to finally calm down and loosen up a bit.

"Ty v poryadke" she kept muttering as she started to caress her light hair. Tears kept falling down splattering on her shirt and pants. "Vse budet khorosho, mama zdes'."

The girl lay completely still for a while, aside from exaggerated chest movements, accompanying her every heavy and wheezing breath, like there was something in her throat. Soon, her eyelids started fluttering, but she had trouble opening them for a while.

"Prosnis' malyshka" Natasha asked softly.

She started to move the girl so she could hold her closer like she would hold a toddler. The girl was laying between her crossed legs, her head supported by one of Natasha's arms, as she hugged her close to her chest while the girl's legs were thrown over her thigh.

"Mama?" she murmured and Natasha despite trying her best to keep her cool, couldn't contain her tears.

"I'm here," she assured, caressing her cheek.

"Why are you crying? What happened?"

"It's nothing," Romanoff said, even though she choked on her words.

Katya opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. Instead, she suddenly sat upright and tried to stand up. This was what Natasha was afraid of, it happened before, so she held her tight, knowing she would fall back down the second she tried to stand.

"Easy there, wait a minute." she suggested but Katya shook her head and tried once again "Can't you tell me what you saw?"

"I don't know what I saw."

"Can anyone hand her a piece of paper and crayons?" Natasha asked and got only confused looks in answer. "Now!" she snapped and then added softly. "Please, guys."

Tony was the first to snap out of the shock and the closest one to the table where they left the supplies so he grabbed them. The second Katya got them in her little hands, she started drawing without even looking at the page. She still struggled to keep her eyes open, yet her hands moved like they had a mind of their own. She kept scribbling, adding line after line, covering the whole page. Natasha didn't have a clear look at it, Katya was covering it partly but from what she saw it looked really chaotic, even more than her usual vision drawings.

After a few minutes, both paper and crayon fell out of her hand and clattered to the floor and the girl slumped back in Natasha's arms. She noticed Bruce's worried look, his medical side ready to kick in, but she shook her head. Katya was okay. She wasn't about to lose consciousness, but about to fall asleep. Romanoff changed her position slightly, getting ready to stand up with the girl still in her arms.

"I've got you" she whispered while adjusting her hold on the child.

"Do you want some help?" Steve offered.

"No, I'll manage." Natasha shook her head. "But it would be nice if someone could go first and open the door to her room."

Steve immediately went upstairs and she started following him but stopped and turned to face worried, Bruce and Tony. Clint probably went to check on his kids because she couldn't see him anywhere.

"She'll be okay in the morning" Romanoff assured. "She just needs to sleep it off. If you want you can try to interpret her drawing"

After that, she turned again and followed Rogers who was waiting in the hall. Only then did she realize that she didn't tell him what room was Katya's. She stopped by the door at the end of the corridor and motioned at it. Steve opened it and let them in first. Carrying the girl wasn't hard, she couldn't have been more than seventy pounds. Natasha laid her down on her bed, covered with a lavender-colored knitted blanket. She sat next to her and brushed some hair off her face. Katya still had some blood on her face that needed to be cleaned but at the same time, Natasha didn't want to wake her.

"Let us know if you need anything," Rogers said.

She turned to face him and nodded. She noticed that he stayed in the corridor, not crossing the threshold.

"I will." she agreed.

Steve gently closed the door and Natasha could hear his footsteps on the stairs. After a while, she stood up and went to the bathroom. She left the door open in case Katya woke up and reached for a clean towel. She wet one of its corners with lukewarm water and squeezed the excess out making sure it wouldn't drip on the floor. Natasha crossed the room and sat back on the edge of the bed. With a sigh, she started cleaning red smudges from the girl's face. She wasn't planning on waking up anytime soon.

But she was fine. She was just sleeping. This kind of attack always took a toll on her and Natasha knew it back from their beginning days at S.H.I.E.L.D. when incidents like that would happen even a few times a week, caused by stress and the presence of so many strangers around.

But this was behind them now. It was in the past. It's just a coincidence. She'll wake up in the morning or maybe earlier and she will be just fine-

Tears started pricking Natasha's eyes once again. She tilted her head back and blinked rapidly trying to get rid of them but it was all for nothing. As soon as the first sob escaped from her throat, she stopped holding the tears back. She threw the now dirty towel into the dirty laundry basket and lay down next to Katya. Her bed was pretty big so Natasha fit there comfortably enough. She would move to the couch later but she just wanted to be close to her daughter at least for a while.

She knew she didn't have to keep watch. She could join the rest downstairs, take a look at the drawing, and help them figure out what Katya could have seen. She could take a shower and turn in for the night as well even though it was barely a few minutes past nine. After all, she was very tired after everything that happened lately and this could've been her chance to get a good night's sleep for the first time in a while. But instead, she chose to just lay on her side, with her head propped on her hand as she watched Katya's chest rise and fall rhythmically.

She just had to make sure. Just for a little while.

 ⧗

Natasha's head jerked up suddenly. She opened her eyes, confused. She needed a second to realize that she fell asleep, watching Katya who now was snuggled closely to her. When she heard knocking she understood that it must have woken her up.

The room was dark so Natasha looked at the electric clock on one of the bedside tables. The red glowing numbers showed that it was almost eleven. She slept for over an hour and a half. Romanoff took a few seconds to really wake up. It wasn't like her to fall asleep so suddenly, especially when she didn't want to. Then she stood up and made a few steps she needed to get to the door.

"Tony?" she didn't expect to see him.

He had already turned back and was about to go downstairs when she called after him. He stopped and turned to face her. Natasha left the room and closed the door behind her, not wanting to wake Katya up.

"Oh, I thought you were sleeping, you didn't open at first," he said.

There was still something weird about him since her daughter's attack but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"I was." she stifled a yawn.

"Sorry I woke you up."

"No, it's okay." Natasha assured, "Did you want anything?"

"Just to check if you need anything." he shrugged "And to let you know that we took a look at that drawing. We recognized some things or think we did, but it doesn't make much sense to us. Maybe it'll make more sense to you."

"I doubt it." she admitted, "But I can try."

There was no way of telling when whatever Katya saw would happen. Sometimes it was minutes, only to take weeks to happen the next time. It could have been anything, about anyone. The only thing she could be sure of, judging by the intensity of the attack, the vision was about something much bigger than Cooper tripping on the stairs again. When Katya was younger, attacks like that one were much more common, but to this day, Natasha still hasn't figured out the meaning of many of her visions and probably never would.

"Wait, is everyone still up, or is it just you?" she asked.

"We are all up, besides Mrs. Hawkeye and the kids." Stark explained, "Barton wanted to come to check on you two but I wanted to ask you something so I went instead."

Natasha blinked slowly a few times, keeping her gaze on Tony's face. There was really something off. The only time she saw him act somehow similar to that was when he was sure he would die due to palladium poisoning a few years ago.

"You said earlier that sometimes her vision can be triggered by touch."

Romanoff nodded and motioned for Tony to continue his thought.

"After you went upstairs to talk with Rogers and you two started arguing, I asked Katya if she had any idea what that was about because it didn't sound too good. She didn't hear me or something, so I tapped her on the shoulder." he swallowed and finally met Natasha's gaze after a moment of avoiding it. "And then she was on the floor. Do you think it could've been...?"

Stark didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't have to. Now she understood him clearly and at least realized what was wrong with him and what she saw in his face when she first walked into the living room alarmed by Clint's scream.

It was guilt.

Tony felt guilty about Katya's attack.

"It wasn't your fault, Tony," she assured him immediately. "It may have been triggered by it but it didn't have to. And it could've happened to anyone. Me, Laura, Steve, or one of the kids. It doesn't happen often, but it did and it would be impossible to avoid it. I mean, she would have to live in a bubble to avoid any touch.

"That could be arranged, you know." and just like that, classic Tony was back. But the way he relaxed after the explanation didn't escape Natasha's notice.

"No, thank you." she chuckled. "Let's go take one more look at that drawing."

Over the years Natasha saw probably hundreds of Katya's works. The ones she drew for herself, just because she felt like drawing, weren't much different from a typical drawing made by a kid her age, she was just maybe slightly more artistically gifted. But the vision caused ones were chaotic, almost abstract, and usually didn't make sense until finished and even after that it wasn't always certain what was going on.

And yet, Romanoff never saw one like this one. She didn't pay much attention to it before, she was too scared for Katya to care about it. The page was almost all filled up and there was so much happening on the page she couldn't decide where to look first. She felt her eyebrows raise in confusion.

"We didn't want to ruin it so we did this to help us somehow," Bruce said and put a thin piece of paper over the drawing. It was thin enough so they could all see the drawing underneath clearly but the additional layer made it possible to mark the more distinctive parts, without messing with the actual work. Whatever the men managed to recognize, was circled and signed.

"We think this is the most obvious part." Steve pointed to the upper right corner where red and gold dominated, forming a familiar shape.

"Iron Man suit." Natasha read the caption at the end of the arrow.

The more she looked at it the more it seemed like the suit. What was also obvious - it was damaged. Heavily scratched and probably burned. She moved her finger across the page to the center where two circles were drawn, a smaller one inside the bigger one. The bigger one marked the ruins of a building but at the end of the arrow were only question marks. The smaller one encircled the Avengers symbol.

"No idea what that building is, but the A is pretty clear," Clint said and shrugged.

A little bit lower was another obvious thing - Steve's shield, but also scratched and cracked, just like Tony's suit. But something else attracted Natasha's attention. Just below the ruins, there were six crystals. Blue, yellow, red, green, orange, and purple, all on a lighter purple background.

"What about that?" she asked, hoping for anything, even though the crystals weren't marked.

"No idea." Steve shook his head. Natasha looked at the rest of the men but they gave her the same silent answer,

And despite the incoherence of the work, there was one thing that repeated all over the page. Irregular shapes, in different sizes, but never bigger than a quarter of an inch, in black, brown, and grey, sometimes so small they were just dots. And only in one place, close to the left lower corner, they had a source as they looked like they were coming from an outline of a group of people.

"Have you noticed all of this?" Natasha pointed to the outline and then scattered details. "I wonder what that is."

"Dust? Or maybe ash, since this looks like fire to me." Bruce said pointing back to the ruins of the unknown building. It was rimmed with a bit of red and orange, it could've been a fire.

"I don't think I can help you much," she said after a few more minutes of pointing to different things and asking a few more questions. She didn't find out anything new besides the so-called dust, only the most obvious things the men marked without her. "I guess it'll be another mystery vision."

"That's too bad because it really doesn't seem like something good is about to happen," Tony said, exhaling loudly and leaning back in a chair. "And the kid said that if the vision is triggered by touch, it's about that person so... Lucky me, I guess."

"I wouldn't pay much attention to that theory this time, to be honest." Natasha also leaned back and shook her head. "I've never seen a drawing so chaotic and I really doubt it's all about you."

"Can't believe I'm saying that but for once I'm glad to hear that something is not about me," Stark admitted.

"I don't wanna be a bad host, but I think I'm gonna call it a night." Clint pushed his chair back and stood up. He wished everyone goodnight and reminded them that they still have a lot to do regarding Ultron.

Bruce followed suit and Tony also, just a few minutes later, after he, Natasha, and Steve talked about their next move. Romanoff would never admit it out loud, but something about that day, about this attack, made her scared to leave Katya. It was a different kind of fear. Not the usual one, the fear of the girl getting mad at her or having a panic attack or a nightmare or another attack and Natasha not being there to comfort her. She was scared about leaving. She was scared about saying goodbye while hugging her, turning away, and entering the jet to go wherever they will have to.

So with all her strength, she pushed these intrusive thoughts to the back of her mind. She had a job to do. She had people counting on her. It's the tiredness talking, her mind is playing tricks on her. But instead, she stayed still in the chair in the dimly lit kitchen, with Steve across the table and Katya's drawing still in the middle of it.

"Nat, about earlier-" Rogers said.

"Don't." she quickly cut him off. She didn't want to talk about this anymore. About him. She already said too much. She shouldn't have said anything, no one was supposed to know any of that. She didn't even want to think about all of the things that one conversation made her remember.

These memories were important to her, precious even. Maybe priceless as there was a chance that she was the only one who still remember all of it. She wanted to remember. For years it was all she had left of him. Well, almost.

But remembering hurt.

All these memories brought every time she dared to reminisce was pain.

Steve brought it all to the surface and he had no idea how much effort did it take for her not to break down crying. She had enough of everything that day. Too much had happened. She had worse days when she took more hits. But everything combined, starting with Ultron and the Maximoff girl, revealing Katya's existence to everyone and her attack was just too much.

"Natasha please, just help me understand." Steve pleaded.

"Drop it, Steve." she warned "There's nothing for you to understand here. Goodnight."

Without sparing another glance at him, she quickly stood up and went upstairs. 

translations:

"Ty v poryadke" (...) "Vse budet khorosho, mama zdes'." - "You are okay. (...) Everything is going to be fine, mum is here."

"Prosnis' malyshka" - "Wake up, baby girl."

"Moya zvezda" - "My star"

next chapter in two days :)