A/N: Hello all! Thank you for joining me in this, the sequel to A Widow's Walk. If you haven't read A Widow's Walk, this fic is probably going to confuse you. As in the first fic, I took some liberties with the timing of certain events and existence of certain nobles so just go with it.

Warnings: If it's happened in Game of Thrones, it might happen in this fic.

Pairings: Jon Snow/OFC; Tyrion Lannister/Natasha Romanova/Jaime Lannister; Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanova; Sansa Stark/OMC; Arya Stark/OMC; Other Canon Pairings.

Update Schedule: The update speed of this particular fic is likely to be very slow. Consider yourself forewarned.

The Dragons of Dawn

.

Prologue: Stark Tower

Clint sees Natasha vanish in a flash of blue energy on the roof of Stark Tower, but he refuses to believe she's dead. He already lost Coulson, he won't lose Nat too. He can't.

He annoys the ever living fuck out of everyone above him in the chain of command until they agree Asgard's not getting the Tesseract back unless they help find Natasha. Because she's not dead. It was energy from a portal, right? She's not dead, she's just not here.

It takes a few months of Clint bringing coffee and donuts to Dr. Foster and her intern to make progress, Tony and Bruce dropping by every few days to lend their expertise. (And they are Tony and Bruce. You don't come through something like an alien invasion together without dropping the formalities.) Even then, they don't really get anywhere until Thor shows back up with a manacled Loki.

"I am to aid you in finding your missing spider," the tall douche says in his stupid Shakespeare voice, "as part of the punishment handed down by the Allfather."

Clint doesn't care if he's the All-Mother-Fucker, so long as it works. For the first time since this whole thing began, he's glad Loki's still alive.

Loki's proposed solution seems way more magic-y than strictly necessary, involving a summoning circle painted in the sample of Natasha's blood that Fury keeps on file in case of clones (Clint's never asked if that's so they can identify clones or make them and he doesn't plan to) and other weird stuff, but again. Whatever works. That's his new mantra. Natasha went to bat for him, never gave up on him even when it looked like he'd turned, so he won't give up on her. Won't won't won't.

"I am ready to begin," Loki says to the actual scientists who do much more sciency science.

"You sure about this Reindeer Games?" Tony asks, giving Loki the hairy eyeball. Bruce is on standby, ready to Hulk out at the first sign of a trick. Dr. Foster is flittering around a bunch of weird doodads that measure… stuff.

"As certain as I can be," Loki answers. "I have followed the trail left by the Tesseract's unique energy to the realm where she was mostly likely sent. If she lives, the ritual will summon her here."

"Do not worry," Thor booms. "My brother is an expert in the use of seidr."

Fuck that, Clint will worry if he wants.

They get the ritual underway. The weird machines hum and the bloody summoning circle glows, and Clint nocks an arrow, just in case they call Cthulhu here by mistake. Because that seems like a thing that could happen. (How is this is life?)

A mini tornado comes into being in the middle of the circle, little motes of blue light - like fireflies - dancing in the center of it until they start to make a picture. Little by little, piece by piece, they come together to form the silhouette of a woman. Then, with a crack of displaced air that stings Clint's eyes and rattles the windows, the tornado disperses and the silhouette becomes a flesh and blood person.

A flesh and blood person who just threw a fireball at Loki and is rolling forward and pulling what looks like a dagger from the bodice of her dress.

"Hey! Cool it!" Clint shouts as he takes aim at the woman-who-is-not-Natasha. Except… She stops when Clint shouts at her, but maintains a ready stance. The way she finds the exits, clocks where all the people are around her, and assesses their threat level is pure Black Widow.

She may not be Natasha, but Clint is willing to bet his favorite bow that Nat trained her. And now that he thinks about it - if you gave her red curls instead of black, and made her eyes blue instead of whatever weird green and violet mismatched thing she has going on right now, she would look a lot like Nat. Still not her, but a relative. Maybe.

The others are all jabbering, but Clint isn't paying attention to them, too busy studying Not-Natasha. From the way her eyes are tracking, Clint can tell she understands what they're saying, though she's considering playing dumb. Such a classic Natasha move.

"Clint!" Tony barks right into his ear.

He flinches. "Dammit, Tony! What?!"

Not-Natasha (Notasha?) snaps to attention at that. In a voice with such a heavy Russian accent that at least some of it has to be put on, she says, "Clint?"

He nods, lowering his bow though he leaves the arrow on the string. "Yes."

"That is my uncle's name."

Clint might be having a stroke. "Uncle?" he squeaks out. Looking away from Notasha's face (because he can't bear to look at those almost-familiar features anymore) he finally notices that she's wearing some kind of medieval dress, heavy on black, red, and gold. She's got a huge honking ruby around her neck, and some gold hair ornaments that kind of make it look like her head is on fire, but like... in a sexy way. It's a very Fire Nation, Princess Azula kind of vibe.

Clint likes cartoons.

There's an awkward silence, then Tony says, "Jarvis, bring up security camera footage of Natalie Rushman."

A video starts playing in midair, showing Natasha in a posh business suit, pearls at her throat and Starkpad in hand. Notasha twitches and makes a strangled noise, but then leans forward, breathing out, "Magic."

She looks at Clint. "The woman in this vision resembles paintings I have seen of my grandmother. And if your name is Clint, then you are the knight known as Ser Hawkeye who once fought at her side. You were my favorite bedtime story as a child." She smiles, and it's so perfect Clint is pretty sure she's going to kill him later. Nat always kicked (kicks! Nat always kicks!) his ass when she smiled (smiles!) like that.

"As for me," Notasha puts her knife away and dips into a curtsey. "I am Romanova Pendragon, Princess of Summerhall. But as an old friend of my grandmother's, you may call me Nova."

"Hold up," Foster's intern Darcy says while Clint is wrapping his mind around that. "She's only been gone for a few months. How can she be your grandmother?"

"Time oft moves differently between dimensions," Loki says. Clint wants to punch him in the face on general principle. "It seems that Princess Romanova's realm is one that runs much faster than Midgard. I am more interested in how it is my spell brought her here, when it was designed to retrieve Agent Romanoff. Though I suppose if her highness was the only one of the proper bloodline on her world to bear the name, that could explain it…"

"Nat's dead isn't she?" Clint blurts.

Nova takes a step toward him, her eyes on his still loaded bow, but then she looks up into his face and it's like she sees straight through him. The irises are the wrong color, but the look is familiar. So familiar it hurts.

"Yes," Nova says. "My grandmother is dead."

Clint takes a deep breath. "She have a good life? I mean. I guess she did, since you're here and a princess and… yeah. Tell me how?"

Nova lays a hand on his arm and Clint startles, not sure when she got that close. Fucking Nat, having descendents just as terrifying as she is. Was.

"Of course," the princess says. "I will tell you the story as it is told in my family. But the tale is a long one."