Trying something new. A different viewpoint at different points of the movie, observing Natasha's actions and mannerisms. Maybe later I'll explore some stranger's observations of Clint and Natasha together. We'll see. For now, enjoy my first experiment. :)

Disclaimer: No!

how desperate are you, that you rely on such lost creatures?
a girl

I am only a young girl of ten when the woman in black approaches me.

That, for the rest of my life, is how my friends and I will refer to her. The woman in black. She approaches me in the busy bazaar of a small town in India, smile sweet as the honey my grandmotheruses to make the flat bread that we are so famous for. "Little one," she calls me, beckoning to come over. "Little one, come here, please."

I approach, but cautiously and only with the approval of my best friend Khairul as he watches from behind, ready to sound the alarm if anything terrible happens. I walk towards the woman slowly, tentatively, the way my father approaches a wild python in the grass. "Hello," I say at last in my shy, tremulous voice.

She smiles at me, the smile still as sweet, but there is something about her that makes me think twice. She is calm, but there is some sort of storm brewing behind her brows. There are things about this woman, secrets that flit in and out of her eyes as she bends down to see me eye to eye. "Little one," she says gently, "what is your name?"

I look behind me to Khairul and his hand moves closer to the bell in case anything should happen. The woman follows my gaze and her smile grows knowing now- another secret has been added to her ever-growing list, it seems. "I won't hurt you," she says, still in that gentle, sweet tone. I cannot help but think of my older sister Jannah, the one who is now eighteen and married to some merchant off in the bazaars of Istanbul. She, too, carries a look of many secrets.

"My name is Amanah," I say at last, my name being picked up and whispered on the breaths of the wind. "What is your name?"

Her red hair, bright like the flames we light on the nights of Divali, falls forward in her face as she answers. "Natalie. It is so nice to meet you, Amanah. You have such lovely eyes."

I dip my head forward, suddenly shyer than usual.

"Amanah," the woman named Natalie says in her strange, accented dialect, "can you do me a favor?"

I shake my head quickly. "Father says I cannot help strangers. I am not old enough to do so."

There is a look that is on her face for the slightest moment, and in my ten year old mind I cannot pinpoint the accurate expression. When I am older I will come to realize that it is a look of pure desperation, something that says I will do anything, anything if you will do this one thing for me. When I am older I will realize that this is also the look Jannah wears whenever she whispers to my eldest brother Sai things that I am never told.

Instead, the woman says, "I understand, Amanah. But this is not something your father has to know about, and we do not have to tell him." She stops bending and instead sits on the front step, not minding the dust and dirt that covers the top layer.

I scuff at the floor shyly. "I don't know. Father is already angry with me for letting the cows out last week."

"I am sorry," the woman- Natalie- says with some understanding.

We stand there in silence, myself and the strange woman in black named Natalie. She stares off into the distance, I admire her gold chain. Finally, she looks back at me and catches me staring. "Do you like it?" she asks, picking it up between her slender fingers and letting me touch it.

My skin is so dark compared to hers, and I wonder where she comes from. "Yes," I tell her still in my shy voice, "it is very pretty. Like you," I add as an afterthought.

I can almost hear my brother Sai scoff in my mind: You always did know how to say exactly the right things.

Natalie smiles at my remark, but it is a sad smile, a troubled one. It is a smile that I will later realize means that there are troubles that must never be spoken of. There are troubles that weigh heavily on the mind of the person smiling, but they must not be revealed. It is one of those smiles that will lead to unhappiness, strange as it may seem. "Yes, it is. My friend gave it to me many years ago. Thank you, Amanah." She sighs wearily.

I am curious now, so I venture forward. "Is your friend okay?"

She brings her head back up, her sweet smile back in place. "Yes, of course Amanah. Thank you for asking."

"I cannot help you, but perhaps my friend Khairul can," I offer, not wanting her to leave without some sort of closure.

"No, no," she says a little vaguely. "It is not necessary. People say you're the best but…"

"Best for what?" I ask, my curiousity piqued.

Natalie hesitates. "People say you have a kind heart," she says at last. "But I understand that you cannot go against your father. It is always hard to do that."

"Why would I go against my father?"

"I need the doctor's help," Natalie explains- although it is not as much of an explanation as it is a subject change.

There is only one doctor in the entire bazaar. It is hard not to know who she is talking about. He is tall, with brown hair and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He is always perpetually peering out from over the top, occasionally adjusting them. He will not know me, although I do know him. I wonder if I should do this for her, if I should do this for a complete stranger I do not know. I'm sorely tempted. I want her to like me, I want to help this woman who is clearly upset. I want to help her because she reminds me of Jannah, who too has a lot of secrets but nobody to help her.

"Well…" I say hesitantly. "I suppose I can always help you…"

"Will you?" And at once Natalie's face is lit up. "Thank you, Amanah!" All of a sudden I find that I am holding the gold chain I had been admiring earlier.

"Oh, I don't-" I begin.

"Take it," she insists sharply, and even at ten years old I can suddenly hear the desperation in her voice. "Take it and go. Now." She is on her feet, looming over my tiny, ten year old self.

I am suddenly scared, sure that she is hiding a secret, like how Jannah hides her secrets whenever she sees me. "I-" I stutter, backing away and letting the gold chain fall into the sand, "I-"

She immediately softens, sensing my sudden fear at her unmasking. "I am sorry, Amanah," she says gently. "I am merely excited, that is all." She puts the gold chain back into my hand. "I am sorry for scaring you. Now please go find my friend- there is little time left."

"But what will I tell him? Where will I meet you?" I put the gold chain into my pocket, planning to give it back to her when I see her next.

"You will tell him…" She cocks her head as though listening to someone. "You will tell him that someone is seriously ill and needs his help," she says at last. "There is a hut at the edge of the village. I will be there. Take him there and run."

Even though Natalie's voice is still gentle, I am still scared and I know that she is not telling me the entire truth. There is still something ominous looming in her voice, but I cannot leave this bargain now. I only have one last question. "But what if he is tending to someone when I find him?" I ask, my voice still quavery.

At that, Natalie's face changes. "Amanah," she says quietly, "no more questions. This is very, very important." Maybe it is the dim lighting in the night bazaar, but I can almost imagine I see tears glistening in her eyes. "Please do this for me." Later I will come to recognize the notes of desperation, pleading, begging. "Please."

That is all I need. I am scared of this alternately desperate and terrifyingly sad woman. Her secrets have been intimated; I am too young at ten to understand them all. So I run. I run to go find the doctor.

…

He is where I expected him to be- at Naham's house, where his two children are slowly dying. I run up the stairs, not even caring that the house is infected, not even caring that the old woman at the foot of the stairs is yelling after me in her cracked, leathery voice. I run up into the room, following the sound of the coughs.

"What are you doing, child? There are sick people here!" Naham's wife is on her feet at once, horror on her features.

"My father," I say, remembering the woman in black's instructions. "My father is very sick. Please come!" I make up some symptoms. I'm not really lying, but then again I'm not really telling the truth either.

He is resistant. "Like them?" He jerks his head at the two coughing, crying children. I cannot leave them, his entire posture says, I have a responsibility here. How do I tell him I, too, have a responsibility, that the one I have been given also hinges on life and death? For the woman made it out to be so, and I can tell she is genuinely desperate for the person she is trying to save.

I try to think of something else to say but nothing is coming to my head.

And then I remember the woman's face. I remember her eyes, the desperation that lay so subtly underneath her cheekbones, her dimples, her brows. I remember that sense of stifling desperation, the kind you get when you see your harvest wither or when your youngest sister dies from a snake bite no one can cure. I remember her voice- I remember how earnestly she begged in her own way, even giving up a gold chain that she clearly loved.

I remember all this, and so I speak like her.

"Please," I beg.

I beg not for myself. I beg for the woman in black with the red hair. I beg for Natalie, for all she has been through, for whatever she is so desperate to heal.

"Please," I repeat.

The doctor follows.

This entire story was actually inspired by Loki's line from his confrontation with the Black Widow. "How desperate are you, that you rely on such lost creatures to save you?" is how I think the line went. Or I'm paraphrasing. At any rate, my reasoning for using this line as the title was that Natasha, in her bid to not only help save the world but also Clint in the process, is increasingly desperate.

In this case, the girl Amanah (and that's not her name because I made it up, DISCLAIMER) does not understand the whole picture. For a ten year old she's actually pretty perceptive, though, due to her older sister Jannah. She does not understand the whole picture or why it's so desperately important to Natasha- hence the term "lost". She's lost because she does not see the whole picture the way Natasha sees it. She could have chosen to not do it, thus causing Natasha to lose the one thing that would have solidly convinced Banner to come in without any incident. Without Banner, arguably the Tesseract would never have been found, and Clint would have been lost forever.

Natasha, therefore is desperate in using this little girl as a pawn, but she really has no choice. Or she does, but she would rather rely on this "lost creature" to help save herself and Clint. Without this girl's help... things might have gone south. Bit of a stretch, but there's my reasoning for it. :)

Sorry for the lengthy footnote, but there you have it! Let me know what you think. I love hearing comments from you guys. Honestly, they make me think and they challenge me to think outside the box. So thank you for all that. Keep em coming!