Don't You Worry Child

Do I Wanna Know

Chapter Summary: Fury has a proposition for Samantha, one that she won't refuse. However, she didn't quite realise that it would mean dealing with her ex-boyfriend. Natasha has an idea as to where Samantha may have been during the 'missing years'.

Soundtrack: Do I Wanna Know by Arctic Monkeys

In typical Tony Stark style, a party was thrown to celebrate Samantha's return. If she was being honest with herself, Samantha would have preferred to gauge her own eyes out than go to a party with everyone she'd known before her 'death'. It wasn't that she didn't like the people, most of them were like her family, she just didn't know what she was getting herself in for. Would there be tears? What would people say? Maybe she should just insist on playing with Sophia instead. It hadn't taken long for Samantha to find herself wrapped around her little sister's finger. She vowed to herself that, were Sophia to find herself in any form of danger, she would at least help to rescue her.

Still, despite her reluctance to even go to the party, she dressed in a metallic pink leopard print dress, she'd found in her wardrobe. It had a puffball skirt that stopped mid-thigh and a collar that stopped just short of where her throat started. She'd found it whilst digging about in her wardrobe, she was glad that her father and Pepper hadn't thrown out any of her stuff, if only because it made finding something to wear ten times easier. She'd paired it with some black Jimmy Choo strappy sandals and a black box clutch. Her hair had been curled – at Pepper's behest – and left in loose tendrils. The look had her younger sister's stamp of approval so that was something.

She entered the sector of Stark Tower where the party was being held, a gracious smile on her face as she stepped down the stairs, desperately trying to avoid tripping up. Clearly, in the three years she couldn't remember, she hadn't worn high heels. There was applause as she made her way towards the crowd of friends. She wanted to cry, why was everyone applauding? Half of these people were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents for goodness sake, an agent's return after three years wasn't that uncommon, surely. She scoured the room for someone she knew and found Natasha and Bruce, internally breathing a sigh of relief. She made her way over to them, thankful that they weren't too far away from the stairs. "See, I told you this wasn't some kind of prank," Natasha told Bruce with a laugh and Samantha smiled at their banter. Okay, maybe she could support this coupling.

"What is with the assumption that this was all some kind of practical joke? First Pepper, now you guys," Samantha said with a laugh "I'm starting to think nobody missed me,"

Natasha looked to Bruce and Bruce said, with his ever kind smile trained on Samantha "It's just..." he trailed off as though he were trying to find the words. She smiled sadly, discussing this with the people she considered a part of her family should not be this difficult.

"I know, you guys thought I was dead," she turned around for a moment to see Steve dancing with Agent 13 – she really did need to find out what her name was – and smiled sadly at that sight too. "Steve, he... he is happy right?" she asked her friends, the sad smile still on her face.

"He seems to be but you know what he's like," Natasha said as though she didn't want to hurt Samantha's feelings.

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She couldn't quite remember how she'd gotten out onto the balcony or how long she'd been there. She just knew that she needed to think. It was a lot to get used to, everything changing. She looked out at the New York skyline, it seemed to be the only thing that hadn't changed. The lights stayed lit, the buildings still existed. The city that didn't sleep still didn't sleep. It almost seemed to be the only grain of normalcy there was. She looked out at it, trying to mull over everything she'd learnt that evening. Steve seemed to be happy – that was good, she was trying to convince herself that the fact that he was happy was good anyway. Clint's wife, Laura, was nice, so nice that Samantha had almost forgotten the fact that she had been hidden by Clint for years. Natasha and Bruce made a good couple. Sophia was as much of a party animal as her father had once been. "You know your dad was pretty self-destructive after you went missing, I'd prefer if it didn't happen again," she heard and turned around to see an eye-patched man she never thought she'd see: One Nicholas J. Fury.