I don't know when I happened or why it did, but nearing my twenty-sixth birthday, my best friends Bucky and Sharon thought I was depressed. This may be due to the fact that I ate infrequently, never left the house, read my favourite book over and over, and did nothing but sketch. Also, I thought about death. Often.
It's really not a bad thing, thinking about death, when you really are just thinking about it. The idea of death is inescapable. We all die someday.
Believing in this thoroughly is probably why Bucky thought I was so depressed. Depression, Dr. Erskine told me, was a side effect of my cancer. Thinking about death, I told him, was a side effect of dying. Really, everything is.
Despite my insistence that I was not depressed, Dr. Erskine adjusted my medication accordingly and also ordered that I attend a weekly Cancer Support Group.
If thinking about death didn't make me depressed, the Support Group sure did. It featured a rotating cast of characters, real, honest to God, people who seemed to have leapt out of novels. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.
We met in the basement of a S.H.I.E.L.D facility (I've been told S.H.I.E.L.D stands for 'Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division', though Bucky prefers 'Shitty Housing In Exotic Locations Division'. He says it suits it more) every Wednesday.
The facility itself was shaped like an addition symbol, though our Support Group Leader, Nick Fury, insisted it was a cross during the first meeting by saying "You motherfuckers are right where the heart of Jesus would have been. Show some respect."
I respected the fact that Jesus allowed Nick's colourful language right near his heart, that's for sure.
So this is how it was right near God's heart: Six or seven of us walked/wheeled in, thought about eating the food offered then thought against it, and finally sat down in the circle of chairs Nick had set up for us. Once we were all settled in, Nick would recount for the seven thousandth time his depressing life story—he'd had cancer in his eye and they thought he would die but he didn't and here he is, a full grown man with an eye patch in the basement of a government facility, doing a job he hates with people he can't stand, waiting, as we all do, for the relief he's been searching for since cancer took his eye, but spared his terrifying and somewhat saddening life.
If Support Group was supposed to suggest that we might be so lucky, it failed immensely.
Once Nick was done, we would introduce ourselves by name, age, diagnosis, and how we were feeling that day. "I'm Steve," I'd say, "Twenty-five. Thyroid originally, but there's a satellite colony in my lungs. I'm okay."
I soon realized the only redeeming facet of Support Group was Clint Barton. Clint was a few years older than me, a former soldier from what he had shared in his introductions, and a former professional archer.
After a bout of eye cancer (quite similar to that of Nick) left Clint with one real eye and one glass one, he had begun to attend support group. I had a feeling he did so less because he lost his eyesight and more because he lost archery. From recent Support Group meetings, I had learned that remission left Clint's only good eye in mortal peril.
During Support Group, the two of us communicated exclusively in sighs. Someone would start talking about letting themselves be shot by lasers or drinking some experimental chemical and Clint would look over at me and sigh microscopically. I would exhale and shake my head in reply.
As you can tell by my recounting, Support Group was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that on the day of my meeting Tony Stark, I had absolutely refused to go.
It was Bucky who eventually coerced me into attending, though I had attempted to hold my ground for the most part.
"Steve, c'mon, just go to the damn meeting!" he said, rolling his eyes at me.
"Hey, no moving!" I replied, sketching him out in quick strokes, "And no, I refuse to go."
Bucky was quiet for awhile, before breathing out the words that damned me into attending Support Group.
"Steve, you deserve a life."
Bucky was never one for reflection, whereas I, with my short life expectancy, did nothing but. His words were what changed my mind; his words, the silence that eased its way into the room after them, and the look on his face that was etched into my sketchbook.
The only thing worse that dying from cancer is watching someone you love die from cancer.
I let Sharon to drive me to Support even though I was fully capable of driving myself. Sharon was one to bully you into letting her do nice things; she constantly felt the need to show that she was tough, but sweet. In all honesty, I thought her befriending me in the midst of my chemotherapy was proof enough, but Sharon Carter is Sharon Carter and I wouldn't change that.
As we pulled up in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D building, Sharon offered to carry my oxygen tank for me. I refused and, for once, she didn't bully me into letting her do so. I felt grateful for that as I adjusted the cannula in my nose and wheeled the small tank through the front doors of the building. "Hey Steve!" she called out before I had pulled the door closed behind me, "Make some friends, would you?" I laughed and threw her a thumbs up behind the glass door.
I didn't want to take the elevator to the meeting because it was a sort of Last Days thing to do at Support Group so I took the stairs. Wheeling my oxygen tank down the last step, I noticed something new. Or rather, someone new.
And he was staring at me.