Dancing in Her Webs | Yelena Belova [1]

Chapter 1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Irina was born into fame and fortune. Everyone she'd ever encountered said she was "lucky," but she-herself said it was a curse. Once the fame of her father erupted even more-so due to him being the heroic Iron Man, nothing she did was private—all because she was Tony Stark's daughter. The older she got, the more she became a target for the media as the world's next juicy gossip.

  Reporters and the bright flash of cameras outside every building and around every corner, wanting and waiting for the opportunity to pry into her day-to-day life.

  A simple life secluded from everyone and everything is all she'd dreamt of since she was a teenager—when the already-focused media that followed her father became increasingly claustrophobic for her.

  Then the fiasco at the Leipzig-Halle airport happened. Irina had been crushed that her father allowed himself and the team's disagreement to go as far as it did.

  Irina sided with Steve Rogers and his faction when the wedge between the team had been hammered. Because of her opinion, the tension between her and her father reached the highest it'd ever been. At the end of the day, no matter how hard she tried to drill how wrong the Accords were into her father's thick skull, her opinion meant nothing.

  She's not an all mighty, Earth-saving-Avenger.

  With as much power as the Avengers possess together, it's dangerous, yes, and no government should control that much. Irina believed they —the Avengers— should get to decide what they can and cannot do, as long as it's for good.

  And all of the Avengers are. Ultron wasn't their fault, nor was Loki's terror and destruction on New York City. If it hadn't been for them, Earth would've been doomed the moment Loki opened the portal, and a lot more lives would've been taken; the same goes for Ultron.

  Shortly after the incident in Germany, Irina tried getting her father to see how bad the Sokovia Accords were once more, but he still didn't listen, and Irina couldn't handle the same bullshit he spewed about how it's a "good thing". The choice between fleeing or watching her declared family get locked away was easy.

  Traveling with the ex-assassin, now global fugitive Natasha Romanoff was her ticket, and in doing so, Irina's name was bound to come straight to Secretary Ross —it's only a matter of time.

  The ferry's low and long drawn-out horn jolted Irina back to reality. Deep brown eyes resembling her father's surveyed the ship full of vehicles and Norwegian locals.

  She leaned back against the hood of the silver car and tapped her index and middle finger on the hood to a nonexistent beat. The cold Norwegian air nipped at her exposed skin, and she pulled the hood up on her plain grey hoodie.

  Irina sighed in boredom, hopped on the cold metal hood, and placed her black Chuck Taylor's on the front bumper. Her hood's suddenly pulled off her head.

  "Hey." She nearly jumped out of her skin.

  She snapped her head to them and shoved them into the neighbouring car, "Damn you, Nat! You scared the hell out of me."

  "What have I told you about always being aware of your surroundings?"

  Irina rolled her eyes and waved the outlawed Avenger off, "You've only been saying that since we met."