I sat on the couch with my shoulders drooped, my hands clutching each other, and a sad frown unchanging on my face. The television reporter droned on but she didn't seem all that remorseful. She probably wasn't a big comic book person. My mother yelled something from the kitchen to me but I didn't catch what she said. On the screen, images flashed. There was the cover for the first Captain America. There was Thor. Spider-man, X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, they all flashed past as the woman spoke about the extreme success of all of these names. My mother shouted again, something about if I was hungry. I nodded my head, although she couldn't see me, but I guess she got the hint when I didn't respond again. This reporter's voice was beginning to annoy me.
"If you are just joining us, we have just been informed of the tragic passing of one of history's greatest writers and comic book geniuses, Stan Lee. Lee passed hours ago in his homeā¦"
I sighed and clicked off the television. I really couldn't tolerate her voice anymore. I knew she was supposed to deliver the news in an unbiased and objective way, but could she show some emotion! I got up from the couch and dragged my feet to my room, shutting the door behind me and throwing myself onto the bed. I grunted in pain as my face landed on the edge of a book, slicing it with a miniscule cut. I was about to swipe the book off of the bed when I saw what it was. One of my Captain Americas. I picked it up and placed it neatly on the floor, in one of the piles of comics that I had made there. Looking around my room, I thought, Well I'll probably be treating these with a little more respect now. There were thin comic books strewn all over the place. On the chair, on the floor, on the desk, in the closet. I need to get a filing box or something. I snorted. Or a specialized room.
I had not even the slightest clue why I was feeling so melancholy. Sure, Stan Lee was gone, the genius man who had brought me so many of the things that I loved. Sure, it was tragic. But I felt like I had lost someone close to me, like family-close. I groaned. I get too attached to people I don't even know, I thought. I wasn't crying, but I felt exhausted and my eyes hurt like I had been. Chalking it up to being tired from doing absolutely nothing all day, I put my head down and shut my eyes.
"What does she know?"
"Not a thing. At least that's what we're told and that's how we're going to have to treat it."
"We've kept her on the radar for 18 years?"
"We've watched people for far longer."
The huge, black SUV drove smoothly along the highway. The license plates were not recognizable from any state or federal agency that had ever been seen before. One of the windows went down slightly.
"Hey. We're trying to keep a low profile for now, remember?"
"What, they're going to see the top of my head and immediately know what's going down? Calm down, Hill. It's too hot in here, anyway."
The brown-haired woman driving the car turned her head to scowl at the man sitting in the passenger's seat. He raised an eyebrow. "And if we're talking about keeping a low profile, how about you keep your eyes on the road so you don't cause a wreck." He turned his head back to look out the window. "That's kind of high-profile," he added, muttering.
The woman, Hill, turned her head back to the road. "Fine, it's just that this makes me nervous. Approaching something like this. It could go any way possible and some of those possibilities are not very good."
Before the man could answer, a voice piped up from the back seat. A red-haired woman leaned forward, sticking her face through the space of the seats. "If she wanted to cause trouble, she would have done it already. It's not like she didn't have the firepower. She's been quiet for nearly 20 years. If she knows nothing, it's not like she's waiting for us to pop up before she deals some damage."
The man in the passenger's seat nodded quickly, agreeing.
"Fine, it still makes me nervous. It should make you nervous, too, Coulson," Hill said, taking her eyes off of the road once more to shoot a look at the man sitting next to her. "I know you think this is a bit suspicious too, even though you have the emotional range of a rock."
"If this part of the job makes you nervous, hell, if the job itself makes you nervous, then I have to say that you have made some very poor career decisions. Take a hint from Agent Romanoff. Relax. She's probably more worried about whether or not it's going to rain and you should be too. Right?"
The woman in the back seat shrugged, her short flaming hair bobbing up and down. "Eh."
