It wasn't her first life nor was it her last. It was, however, the first time Sakura Haruno realized that she wasn't the only one with an extraordinary ability. And how she realized it…

"What are you doing? Are you…scrapbooking?" Dr. Sakura Haruno looked up and met the eyes of the genius engineer Tony Stark and scowled.

"It's not scrapbooking. I'm keeping papers relevant to the cases I'm working on. It helps me keep the details straight in my mind."

"Ok, but you should know that only pre-pubescent girls scrapbook."

Sakura slammed her hand down on the table and said, "Goddamn it Sherlock!" and then her words caught up to her. This was not that lifetime. This was Tony Stark, not Sherlock Holmes, but his words were almost his verbatim, and it threw her back to one of the lives she had lived before.

And she had lived many lives…

"…Watson?" Sakura met Tony Stark's eyes unable to do anything more than stare in shock. Shock, though, was never Sherlock's problem. "You look a hell of a lot prettier this go around."

And that was how Sakura Haruno ended up living in Avengers Tower.

The Avengers thought it was strange how one day Tony dragged a woman home and absolutely refused to let her out of his sight. More than one of them asked if Tony had kidnapped her and her reply was the same.

"Yes, but don't call the police on the idiot because apparently, I have Stockholm syndrome." Sometimes she would mutter under her breath, "or maybe it's Sherlock syndrome."

"How long have you been able to do it, Watson?" Tony asked her one day. She had been unable to get him to call her by her real name. To him, she'd always be Watson, and for some reason, it annoyed the hell out of her.

"Since my first life ended I've bounced from lifetime to lifetime."

"How?"

"I would think you would know better than me, Sherlock. You were always the genius." Tony waved the words away. "I assumed it was reincarnation gone wrong."

Sakura snorted. "You assumed? Oh, how the mighty have fallen." Sakura ignored Tony's glare as she laughed uproariously.

"I also believed that the world couldn't survive without my genius." That cut Sakura's amusement short, and she rolled her eyes. Tony waved a hand. "But enough about that. You remember your first life? Because I don't."

Sakura nodded. "Yes. I remember." Tony arched a brow and Sakura sighed. "I've always been either a soldier or a doctor. Most times I'm both."

"And in this life, you're just a doctor?"

"I think your team pretty much has the soldier aspect covered."

"Were you a woman in your first life?"

"Yes, and before you ask my name was Sakura Haruno. I look exactly as I did then, and whenever I do, I take the name—even if I have to change it legally."

Tony studied her for a long while before he nodded. "It's good to have you back Watson."

"It's Sakura."

Tony ignored her.

"In my first life, this was my Clan symbol." Sakura grabbed a blank piece of paper off Tony's workbench and drew her circle. "I think this is why I bounce from life to life never forgetting who I was."

Tony looked at her carefully. "What do you mean?"

"It's a circle, Sherlock. Circles go on forever. My Clan had no special abilities in life—except for intelligence…but in death, well, it's an entirely different thing."

"We should have a signal," Tony said out of the blue. Sakura arched a brow at him.

"A signal for what?"

Tony waved his hands in the air. "So that we can find each other again in our next lives."

Sakura laughed. "I think I've proved already that I'd know you anywhere Sherlock."

"But next time…next time I'll look for you. And I'll find you, Watson. You may know me anywhere, but I'll find you anywhere in any lifetime."

Natasha was the first to note how frequently Tony called Dr. Sakura Haruno, Watson. At first, she assumed that it was some private joke between the two of them but upon watching the two of them together. She began to wonder and thus studied the two of them carefully.

"Tony?"

"Mmm?"

They were down in his lab and Sakura assisted him as well as she could, but since she wasn't an engineer, it wasn't much. Despite that when she wasn't doing her work she was with him. He had even cleared out space in his workshop for her.

"What happened with Moriarty?"

Tony let out an anguished yell, and Sakura rushed over to him. He was holding his hand close to his chest, and Sakura could see he had burned himself. She grabbed his hand, and he tried to yank it back but was no match for her strength. She reached out her hand and let the green glow of her chakra first soothe the pain and then heal the injury. She could see the questions in his eyes and waited for him to ask them, but he didn't. Instead, when she had completely healed him, he left his workshop.

Sakura didn't follow. She had a feeling that things with Moriarty didn't end well for either of them.

Natasha was also the first to note that Tony and Dr. Haruno were not talking to each other and they were both miserable because of it.

"What do you think is going on with them?" Clint finally asked her after a week of silence.

"I'm not certain. However, after a bit of digging, I've realized that there has been no real contact between Dr. Sakura Haruno and Tony Stark."

"There has to be," Clint argued. "Those two are thick as thieves. Hell, I think if Tony had to choose between her and Rhodes he'd pick her."

Natasha agreed with that assessment. She just didn't understand it. So when the silence between the two extended, she decided to dig deeper.

She found out that Dr. Sakura Haruno's real name was Alice Summers. She changed her name to Sakura Haruno when she was eighteen years old and dyed her hair pink before it was fashionable. It was probable that the trend of the vivid hair colors came from her. She was born to a woman who was an x-ray technologist and an absentee father.

She had no school debt and had somehow managed to pay for her education in cash with the occasional grant here and there. Natasha pondered whether or not the money for her education had come from the Stark family. It was a possibility, but somehow she doubted it.

Dr. Haruno approached Natasha before she could approach her.

"If you have questions about me Black Widow feel free to ask." Dr. Haruno walked into the kitchen at sat at the table directly across from her. Steve was in the kitchen making breakfast. Bruce was sipping a cup of tea and Clint walked into a kitchen at the end of her sentence.

Natasha, not one to be intimidated, asked flat out, "Who are you?" The tension in the room skyrocketed, and without a word, Bruce picked up his cup of tea and exited the room. Neither woman watched him go. Steve looked like he was seconds away from intervening but one look for Natasha stopped him.

"I'm Dr. Sakura Haruno."

"Who are you really?"

"Dr. Sakura Haruno. Who are you, вдова?"

It was a point in her favor, and it made Natasha's lips twitch.

"How do you know Tony?"

"Once upon a time we were friends—or I like to think that we were." Natasha saw her face darken.

"We still are, Watson." Sakura raised her head and looked at Tony who was looking at her as if she were the only thing in the room. As if the sun rose and set with her.

"You have a funny way of showing it."

"Look, I don't like thinking about that time."

"I figured they were good times." Tony flinched. "Or was I reading things wrong?"

"Now, is not the time, Watson." Tony glanced around as if just realizing he had an enraptured audience.

Natasha decided to take the chance. "Why does he call you Watson?"

Sakura chuckled and said, "Because he's Sherlock."

Tony refused to let Natasha question her any further and ushered her out of the kitchen and down to his labs where he continued his work. Sakura couldn't help but ask the question herself though.

"Why do you still call me Watson?"

Tony turned and grinned at her. Somehow Sakura knew she was about to be annoyed, and she was right. "Because it's elementary, my dear."

And then she went and fell in love with the man.

Again.

The day they found out that they weren't the only two who had lived many lifetimes was the day an old enemy resurfaced.

The note he sent to the Tower read:

It's good to see you again, Sherlock.

-M

Tony had gone nuts. He had no idea how the note had gotten by security—and into his lab of all places. Even JARVIS had been unable to identify how it got in which only made Tony angrier. She had never seen him thus. Not as Sherlock Holmes and not as Tony Stark. It scared her. It was also the day she found out that Moriarty and Sherlock had killed each other.

However, Sakura suspected that for some reason Sherlock had let Moriarty get the best of him. She couldn't put her finger on why she felt that way, though.

"I'm not going to let him get you again, Watson."

"Things are different this time around. When I'm Sakura Haruno, I have full access to my abilities."

"You mean like the thing that you did with my hand?"

Sakura nodded. "I can do more than that. And we're not alone this time. We have your Avengers."

"This isn't their battle."

"It isn't." Sakura readily agreed. "But that doesn't mean they won't help us fight it. We need to tell them the truth."

Tony smirked. "We did." And Sakura thought it was a shame that even in this incarnation that he was so damned wonderful.

"Yeah, we did, and now we'll tell them and not laugh our asses off about it afterward."

"Fine, but when this blows up in our faces don't say I didn't tell you so."

"And when they help us out I will rub it in your face."

Tony snarked, "I liked you better as a man."

Sakura laughed. "Liar."

The Avengers didn't believe them at first. Well, Dr. Banner did, but Tony said he was special. But Tony did always have a soft spot for doctors.

In their next lives, Sakura flew in the skies wearing a symbol that was vastly different from what she was used to bedecked in blue and red. And Tony stalked the shadows, preferred black, and was still a notorious playboy. They tried to kill each other at first, but then...

Well, Sakura knew Tony anywhere, and Tony claimed he found her.

A/N: This is the start of a new series although this time none of the stories will be interconnected. I call it the Marvelous Sakura Series. :)