Disclaimer:
This is Fanfiction. I, as the author, claim ownership of Paige, Danny, and Allison, as well as any events outside of the Marvel Universe. The rest belongs to Marvel Studios, as their name is on it.
Thank you.
Thunder rumbled, lightning cracking across the New York City skyline. The lightning illuminated a young woman with long, dark brown hair. She was sat at a desk, surrounded by drawings. Drawings of places and people, of strange creatures and even an eight-legged horse. There were papers crumpled up in balls that littered the desk and floor by her feet; a laptop was plugged in to charge near her elbow, and a single, dim, bare lightbulb lit up the small bedroom. The closet door was slightly ajar, a skintight body suit draped over the door and a pair of boots spilling out on the floor. The bed was unmade, sheets and blankets alike strewn haphazardly across the mattress, pillows knocked sideways. In the center of the bed was a cardboard box, the cardboard lid resting beside it.
The young woman paid no attention to any of it—the mess, the box, the storm. None of it mattered. She was hunched over a leatherbound journal, furiously writing. Her fingers and wrist was cramping and aching, but she ignored the pain and powered through.
'I have to get it all down,' she thought. 'All of it. They have to know. They have to know everything. Why I've done what I did. Why it has to happen like this.'
She ran out of space on the page and turned to a new one, barely pausing in her writing. She knew her handwriting was sloppy and near illegible in some places, but she didn't have the time to make it perfect. She would have to leave soon, so she could find Steve and Natasha—she'd already spent too much time in her apartment as it was, and was quickly losing the hope of finding them in time.
'But they'll need this,' the young woman thought to herself, writing faster. 'They'll need it to understand everything.' Lightning crackled, and all of a sudden, the rain let loose, pouring down to the earth in torrential sheets. Still, the woman paid no mind, writing even faster.
The lightbulb flickered. Once, twice. Then it stopped. The woman wrote even faster. Another flicker, followed by two more. Her hand was starting to seize up now. One more flicker, and then the light burnt out, plunging the room into darkness.
Natasha Romanoff found herself back in Paige's apartment for the fifth time that week. However, unlike the last four days, Natasha was alone. Clint had been pulled off for a reconnaissance mission in Germany. He didn't give details and she didn't ask. Natasha's green eyes scanned the blank, bare entryway leading into a small living area with a white couch and grey carpet to her left. The television was small and centered perfectly in front of the couch. The area was clean and clinical, with nothing on the walls or glass coffee table. Not even a blanket over the arm of the couch. To her right, a tiny kitchenette of the same appearance was nestled into the corner of the room.
She took three deep breaths and began walking slowly through the room, heading to the door on the far wall. Against her better judgement, Natasha's gaze settled on the living room, where her mind conjured an image. Paige, eighteen years old, long brown hair tucked slopily into a braid that tumbled over her shoulder. Her bright green eyes had been so bright, smile so wide that her dimple was showing. She'd been so excited, rambling on about having her own place, away from the other agents and clear of Tony's shenanigans.
A pang of grief struck Natasha's heart again. It had been weighing on her mind and stinging at her eyes, threatening tears of sadness. It was an awful feeling, and Natasha had never experienced anything like it before. She'd felt something similar, back in the KGB, when her friend was eliminated. Maybe friend was too kind. The girl had been her ally, a distant partner at best. Natasha was never close with that girl, not like she had been with Paige. She'd also felt grief when Clint had been brainwashed. Still, she knew he wasn't gone, and she had been determined to bring him back. No, this was ten times worse—intense, and painful, and Natasha was so frustrated because she felt like crying all the time. And the Black Widow did not cry at anything, unless in character undercover.
And yet, here she was, standing three feet away from the door to Paige's bedroom, blinking back tears for the tenth time in the past seven minutes, let alone the last week. The week that had been one of the most difficult ones of her life, and Natasha had seen a lot of difficult times. Natasha and Clint had spent the last week clearing out the rest of the apartment, sorting through Paige's things and cleaning in order to get it ready to be rented again. They'd removed photos, paintings, magazines, and an entire bookshelf. All pots, plates, cups, and food had been taken out. With another deep breath, Natasha set her sights on the door in front of her and took three steps forward, reaching out a not shaking hand to throw it open.
She was confronted with a maelstrom of mess and memories, and all of a sudden, Natasha began to believe that this mission would be impossible, not without help, and was about to abort and turn tail. Paige's bedroom was filled with personal belongings, which made the job so much harder to face. These were things that she knew, and recognized, and remembered their origins. There was the oversized black sweater that Paige wore often when it got cold, draped over the foot of her messy, unmade bed. The black leather choker with a silver chain and moon pendant that Paige wore for the first month was sat on the bedside table. And on the windowsill was a tiny potted succulent, one that Bruce had brought back to Paige from India. The closet door was flung open, spilling shirts and jackets and the occasional dress. Shoes were shoved in the bottom. The curtains were drawn tightly, but the blinds were still open. Drawings littered the walls. Some were perfect and precise, drawn carefully; others, however, were smudged and sloppy, like Paige had been in a rush to get the images onto paper. Clothing and balls of paper speckled the floor, with pens and pencils added in. Jewelry was draped over the posts of the headboard on the bed.
The desk was by far the messiest. Balls of paper, unfinished drawings, granola bar wrappers. There were pens and pencils and paints and charcoal. Books dotted the area. Some were new, others torn and tattered, and the rest in every stage in between. In the middle of the mess was Paige's laptop, plugged in to charge, as if she had stayed up all night on it—as she frequently did—and finally ended up having to plug it in before it died completely at around two in the morning. It looked as if Paige had left in a hurry, expecting to be back soon to clean it all up.
Except she'd never be back.
A glance at the clock told Natasha that she had been standing in the doorway for fifteen minutes now, trying to work up the courage to begin. She knew she couldn't leave. If she didn't do this, they'd send in some other agents who didn't respect or care for Paige's things, and that was unacceptable. Natasha would not let the last remainder of one of her family member's memory be tarnished. So, Natasha would complete this mission, and do so without crying.
There were boxes for things that Natasha would keep, and trash bags for the rest. She started with the floor, throwing out the balls of paper and collecting the clothes in a few bags to take to Goodwill. Paige would have wanted that. She was always doing something to help those without anything for themselves. Natasha kept a few, such as the black sweater and the rest of Paige's favorites. The woman had worn them constantly, almost to the point that they were hideous and barely more than rags. When someone pointed that fact out, Paige would defend the clothes endlessly with blazing eyes and a suppressed smile. Natasha emptied the closet, piling clothes into the bags and shoes into separate ones. Any little trinket she found were tossed into a box.
Natasha then began to work on the desk area, starting with the laptop. She unplugged it and placed both the machine and the cord into a box. They were followed by the books, and then Natasha was faced with the task of sorting through all of Paige's drawings. She threw the unfinished ones out. Most were unrecognizable anyway. Natasha began stripping the walls bare, sorting the drawings into people, places, and things. Every single one was placed gently in a box, and Natasha began blinking back the tears again as she saw her own face, staring back at her. The drawing of her seemed to be shocked, but trying to hide it, and there was an IV in the far edge of the page. She recognized the hideous modern art on the wall over her shoulder in the drawing, and knew Paige had recreated their moment after the Battle at New York.
Paige had been so young, recklessly charging into the middle of a battle with no training and no weapons. Natasha and Clint had trained that recklessness out of her. Or so they thought, apparently. But Paige. . . definitely wasn't herself that day. Going on and on about how it had to happen and that she wasn't meant to be alive. The way she ran headfirst into two different dangerous situations. The first Natasha had saved her from—but the second. . . Natasha's hands clenched into fists, crumpling the drawing of herself -some. Instantly, she began to smooth out the wrinkles and placed the paper in the box with the rest. Paige had been so stupid that day, charging in blindly and talking suicide, practically.
She blinked back tears again. "Why, Paige?" She murmured, voice cracking and hoarse. "Why would you do this?" She then realized she was talking aloud to herself, staring at the box full of drawings.
'Focus, Natasha,' she reprimanded herself sharply. 'Get the job done.' Natasha removed the jewelry from the headboard and stripped the bed of blankets and sheets. Pens and other loose objects were picked up and thrown away, and Natasha retrieved the vacuum from outside the door and swept the grey carpeting. Once that was done, Natasha used warm, soapy water and a rag to scrub the walls free of sticky tape residue and the desk from paint, pencil, and charcoal residue. There was a single, uncovered lamp on the corner of the desk, and upon flicking the switch, she discovered the bulb to be burnt out. Natasha searched for the lampshade, but found nothing, so she threw the whole lamp away. She scrubbed the headboard and foot of the bed, and began packing up.
Natasha took the trash to the dumpster outside and deposited the boxes and bags of clothes in the trunk of her car. She went back inside to retrieve the vacuum and bucket to return them to the community janitorial closet in the building, before walking back into the bare, clinical apartment. Inside the bedroom, Natasha reminiced on how it used to be so full of life and color in comparison to the whites and grays that it existed as now. She did one more thorough check of the room, looking for anything that she missed, and realized she had not checked underneath the bed.
Kneeling down on the floor, Natasha slid onto her stomach and peered under the bed frame. Her line of sight was blocked by a medium-sized cardboard box, complete with a lid and handle cutouts on the side. Curious, Natasha pulled the box out into the open and knelt on the floor. It wasn't anything really special—just a cardboard box. It wasn't particularly heavy, but there was something inside. Natasha removed the lid and set it aside. Some cash, a few passports, a couple of cell phones—one was even broken and shattered, and Natasha knew that one to be the phone Paige had been carrying on the first day they'd ever met. There were SHIELD files, of missions and marks. The last thing Natasha found in the box was a small, leather bound journal. Brows furrowed, Natasha picked up the journal. It was black leather, with the initials PMW stamped in silver in the bottom right hand corner. When she opened the cover, she was confronted by Paige's familiar handwriting that was half cursive, half script. It seemed to be an introductory letter of some sort, which confused Natasha. At the same time, writing an introduction to a personal journal seemed like such a Paige thing to do. Still, as she actually began to read, Natasha found herself struck dumb.
'I'm sorry. I don't know who is going to find this first, but I suspect either Natasha or Clint will. I want to tell you that I am sorry for putting you through this. At this point in time, you probably don't understand why I left like I did. I promise I will explain in time, but for now, I'm sorry. If there was another way, believe me, I would have taken it instead. In order for me to explain everything, I have to tell you everything. But this journal shouldn't be a secret. Please, tell the others. Whoever is left in the aftermath. Make sure the rest of the Avengers know, and make sure they know that I'm sorry for hurting them, too.
My name is Paige McKenzie Willows. As of right now, I am twenty years old. I am writing this before I go find Steve and Natasha. SHIELD is falling, and something bad is going to happen when I do find them. I don't know what yet, but I feel it. I've seen it, in my dreams. That's why I'm apologising, because I know it's unlikely that I will ever get to explain this in person. I'm not the person you think I am. I'm not human—not entirely, anyway, although I'm still not sure what I am exactly, either. The Stones have a mind of their own. I don't have time for this. I'm going to tell you—all of you—everything I know. But I know I can't just tell you the straight facts. You don't deserve just the bare minimum. I have to tell you everything from the very beginning, so you can follow my paths and hopefully understand the things I've done over the years.
I'm going to go way back to the very beginning. I know we haven't known each other long, but you became a family when I never asked for one. That is why you deserve the truth. All of it. I'm going to tell you my stories, my secrets, and everything that goes along with them. I think you'll find these stories quite familiar. . .'
Comments? Criticism? All is welcome and appreciated. I began this series about four years ago and then dropped it. I recently re-discovered it, looked through, and had a cringe attack. I'm still in love with the idea, so I've rewritten it and posted it again.
This is Kenna signing off until next chapter.