001:
Childhood ~ I
Down the street, there are boys playing on the sidewalk, laughing, shoving, pushing - doing what normal boys do. The nine-year-old redhead thinks that they might be her age, but she doesn't go outside, she doesn't even contemplate leaving her bedroom in order to go and see who these boys are. The late afternoon sun has disappeared and it's going to rain soon - she can tell - but she says nothing about it. She only watches them - a tad envious, but passively, for the most part - because she's not allowed to do anything after school.
She thinks she remembers them from school. One of them, she knows his name is Clint. And the one shoving the tiny blonde boy, with a grin on his face - that's James - or Bucky, or whichever he'd said it was. The one he's just pushed is Steve. And then there's the jerk - there's Tony, looking like he's going to die of laughter at any given moment. Natasha frowns, and thinks that he might as well.
The last time she'd spoken to him, he had started calling her Spider-Man, but she doesn't really know why. There's a red hourglass on the back of her sweatshirt, sure, but that doesn't mean she likes spider, or is a man - because she's a girl, with red hair, who Tony likes to tease, who Clint likes to hang out with when he'd fed up with Tony. Bucky never really leaves Steve's side, but Clint always comes.
She thinks about asking Clint if he wants to come inside, but she doesn't leave her spot at the window. She just watches, because she's by herself, and her parents always tell her she can't have any friends over - and she should be careful who she talks to at school, and so, to be careful, she doesn't talk to anyone - and so she doesn't even really consider going anywhere, but she wants Clint to come and play with her - to build a fort out of the couch cushions downstairs, to teach her how to shoot the rubber arrows with his brand new bow.
But she says nothing, and continues to watch.
She really doesn't think she's supposed to have friends. Isn't that what her mother meant? Isn't that how she wants her to proceed through school?
Isn't it?