1 September
I don't like shoes.
They're a necessity and I like my necessities to look nice, but I don't like them.
If I'm going to be totally accurate, I don't like wearing them.
They're too confining.
I'm not sure where it comes from. Probably all the years of ballet; strapped in and en pointe. Or maybe all the years of constant preparedness; never knowing when I'd need to hit the road, and if shoes weren't on my feet then I'd have to hit the road without them.
My feet have spent a lot of time enjoying their freedom lately.
Which is why, when Friday's Irish twang broke my silent vigil at my desk to alert me of an approaching ship, I felt the cool tile against my flesh as I ran.
Cool tile.
Sharp gravel.
Soft grass.
Night had fallen thick but the compound's bright lights created a halo of almost daylight. Somewhere inside, Bruce and his team were still setting up. A breeze rippled along until propulsion from the Benatar blew it away. The rumbling ship turned into a rattling one, bringing itself closer to the ground.
I'm surprised it's not a hell of a lot louder, given what goes into making a vehicle worthy of space travel. It makes about as much noise as a plane. Except the engine is bigger than a plane's, and it's strong enough to survive multiple atmospheres, the vacuum of space, high-velocity travel, violent skirmishes, crash landing, and the odd collision or two with a piece of space debris. It really should be a hundred times louder.
Though my eardrums were thankful it wasn't.
The wind whipped up. My hair caught everywhere; around my ears, atop my nose, on my eyelashes. I scraped what I could into a scruffy ponytail. The air went from clear and crisp to heavy on, what I had long since dubbed, Eau de Spaceship.
A little bit metallic, a little bit ozone, a little bit something I wasn't entirely sure belonged to this planet. It caught in the throat. I wouldn't recommend.
At last, the ship touched down. I waited with bated breath, as every human in a Hollywood space invasion movie had done before me, for something to happen.
The ramp opened at the back of the ship with a whoosh. A way down for the inhabitants. Or a way up for me. I stepped onto it.
Cold metal.
The journey up was short but it was in those few moments I became aware I hadn't set foot on the ship since our failure of a mission to shake Thanos down for the Stones.
The harshness of the surface at my feet was forgotten at the first whiff of the oppressive scent of charred meat. Days on from the attack and it permeated everything. I paused, weighing up the pros and cons of breathing through mouth or nose. Then realised it didn't matter in the end.
There was a stretcher laid out on the table. Rocket's tiny body a raw, angry mess.
Great swathes of fur missing. Visible skin red and pink. Scars of agony crissed and crossed the surface. Bandages were applied and weeping wounds had turned them into gory souvenirs.
My stomach roiled. I shushed it. Throwing up would be of as much use as deciding how to breathe.
He was quiet only because he was unconscious. The swift up and down of his chest said everything. Nebula knelt at the side of the table, checking through a bag full of medical supplies.
"There's a bed in med-bay," I said, the woman didn't jump because of course she wouldn't, there was no way her enhancements hadn't picked up my entering her home, "Bruce is there, he's brought another doctor with him, you know, to handle the fiddly stuff. A technician from Wakanda has holo'd in as well."
She didn't say anything, instead she carried on going through the motions. As much as I would have loved to stand back and let her do whatever her mind had convinced her she needed to do, there was a very sick member of our team lying between us.
"I'll help you carry him," I said.
"He is in pain."
"Then we better make sure we're careful."
She paused her cataloguing and stared at nothing before cocking her head in my direction and focusing those incredibly dark eyes on me. She was always composed. There was nothing to say if it was her nature or a by-product of the cybernetics Thanos forced into her system. This time there was a slight crack to that composure, a pronounced forcefulness to her actions. As if they were as necessary for her as they were for Rocket.
"I have done what I can and he is still in pain."
"Then it's time for us to do what we can."
"You do not understand." Her words were clipped and dangerous and for just a second there was a wild glint in her eyes. Without anything to distract her, anything to channel all her training and control into, panic started to fray her carefully woven mask. She breathed heavily as she chewed on her words before spitting them out, "Rocket is - he is volatile. Crass. Short-tempered. He is hateable. He is Rocket..."
She trailed off, needing to re-gather the words she seemed to have lost. Her head dropped and, still kneeling next to the bag with fingers digging into her thighs, she looked like she was in supplication.
"He is all of those things," she said, "and not. He is my friend and - and-"
"He's all you have left." They were heavy words that fell from my lips with an uncomfortable familiarity. Nebula looked at me again with those intense eyes and gave one of her sharp nods. She eased herself to her feet, shouldered the bag that was the focus of her coping mechanism, and took one end of the stretcher as I took the other.
Even deep in agonised sleep, Rocket felt the shift.
His ragged breathing turned to shallow panting. He twisted, following the orders from his subconscious to get away from the pain.
We negotiated our way down the cold metal ramp.
Across the soft grass.
Over the sharp gravel.
Onto the cool tile.
And we kept him from twisting over the edge, which was a feat and a half because any sort of restraint was out of the question. Even the change in air aggravated his condition.
Three people watched us enter the med-bay. Two of them helped us transfer the broken racoon from stretcher to bed. One of them looked on dispassionately.
No one wanted to cause him more pain. No one wanted to set his mind to spinning more protective layers of unconsciousness against the trauma that crashed through him.
His charred flesh was another thing to contend with, and not just because of how fragile it made Rocket. But because as we moved him the smell of it whooshed into the empty air. Bruce's colleague gagged, and even Bruce looked a little... Well, I was going to say a little green but that's just a cheap joke so let's go with queasy. The only one unaffected was the one person who didn't help. I put both things down to the Wakandan being a hologram.
"It's good to see you again, Nebula, I wish it was under different circumstances though," Bruce said after Rocket was settled. He pointed at the other two people in the room. "This is Emma. She's an exceptional doctor. And Jelani, a technician from Wakanda."
"Why is a technician needed? Rocket is not bionic."
Jelani bristled at Nebula's trademark bluntness and made no effort to explain his presence. Where the old Bruce might have shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands, this not-so-newish Bruce took no notice and ploughed on through.
"When Okoye heard Rocket was coming here to recuperate after an injury she sent us a technology that should significantly increase his recovery rate. Jelani is here to oversee and train us."
With nothing left to do, Nebula and I sidelined ourselves. Emma continued to attach the tubes and monitors while Bruce handled the borrowed technology, guided by the technician's instructions. I didn't realise how close we were until I shifted, trying to ease some of the coolness seeping into my feet, and knocked the bag she carried.
It barely even moved and she barely even noticed.
"We have some supplies here," I said to the room at large, "from the ship."
Nebula never stopped looking at her teammate but she unhooked the bag from her arm and held it out for someone to take. Bruce obliged, placed it on a side table and gently eased the zip open.
"I'll need you to explain all this to me. I only know Earth's medications," he said and I was grateful to him because he gave her an out. He gave her a way to stop the mental spiralling, the panic, the beneath-the-surface freak outs. He gave her a task and she focused.
"I was under the impression you spent time away from Earth," she said when she stepped forward to help him unpack.
"Yeah, but as the Hulk, and he's pretty hard to hurt so I didn't spent much time getting familiar with the treatments."
She took him through everything he needed to know. The names and the dosages, the side effects and which ones not to mix. She told him how to apply each one and the specific ailments they targeted. She also gave him a rundown of Rocket's base stats and a general threshold of what was too high and too low. She told him everything she could and hoped it would be enough.
I stayed on the edges of activity. Everyone a-flurry and a-flitter in their haste to heal. A talent I didn't have. Breaking people, sure. That was a skill I had in spades. Healing, fixing, mending them was something I had yet to learn.
Emma wheeled the portable Wakandan device to Rocket's bedside, which looked generations more advanced the Helen Cho's regeneration cradle. Following instructions from her pixel-formed mentor, it whirred to life and started doing whatever the hell we needed it to do.
The very tiny form of the very formidable racoon writhed in the haze of his unconscious agony. Whatever drugs were already in his system were losing their tenuous grip, the 'relief' part of 'pain relief' non-existent. Recovery less a mercy and more a torture.
"A veterinarian would have been a better choice." Jelani sidled up to me as I stared at my friend, the same disdain from earlier was plastered across his face and I liked to think that perhaps it had taken root in the deep wrinkles that lined his features. I eyed him while I worked out if he was hiding his true emotions behind an aloof scientist persona or if he was just an asshole.
"That better be a joke with some fucking serious timing issues," I said, you might even say growled. In the corner of my eye I saw Bruce stiffen ever so slightly.
"We are using the late Princess Shuri's technology on a racoon."
Asshole it was.
"The hell does that matter What's a vet gonna do? He's still a fucking space racoon."
"This situation makes no sense, Miss Romanoff. I am just trying to apply some logic." He walked away and I sucked in a breath that was meant to sooth but brought regret. Friday had switched the air filtration system to its highest setting before we entered medical. The smell lingered with a stubbornness characteristic of the source.
"Terran medicine," Nebula said as she and Bruce approached, eyes on the locker full of narcotics just behind me, "will work, though they won't be as effective. You are still several decades, perhaps a couple of centuries, behind more advanced civilisations."
"We'll catch up," Bruce said with a hint of arrogance he could only have picked up from Tony. There was a twist to Nebula's lips that might have been a smile on anyone else.
"Perhaps." She turned back and surveyed the scene in front of her, the twist straightening itself out into a line. She sagged beneath the heaviness that settled itself, once again, on her shoulders.
"What even caused this?" Emma said, looking from her close inspection of Rocket's bared wounds. Soiled bandages coiled on the floor.
"A case of wrong place, wrong time," I said, having heard a brief explanation twenty-four hours earlier. Emma nodded in understanding though there was nothing to understand.
"The assault we endured," Nebula said, "caused an energy surge. It struck him, more than once."
"Ah, I thought these looked like entrance and exit wounds," she said, once again examining the patient, "explains the burns, too."
"They're pretty extensive," Bruce said, "and there has to be some degree of internal injury. Nebula, you said you gave him a nano-shot?"
"Correct," she said, "there was only one on the ship. Not enough to repair the damage entirely, but enough to stabilise him until we reached Earth."
"You just happened to have a syringe full of nanobots to hand?" Emma said, shock sparking in her eyes when she looked to Nebula.
"Guess it's an essential part of the space traveller's first aid kit," I said.
"I do not understand. It is a common medical supply. Stark has nanotechnology."
"Yeah, but that's Tony," Bruce said.
Nebula just nodded as if that was explanation enough and, in all honesty, it probably was. Rocket's laboured breathing filled the room and the doctors and technician lapsed into a studious silence. There wasn't much they could do while Shuri's machine did its work and their time was best spent absorbing the various readings and their various meanings and devising a treatment plan.
"I must go," Nebula said into the silence, they were words meant for me but they reached everyone, "I promised Captain Danvers I would meet her as soon as I am able."
"So you're just going to drop the road kill off and run?" Jelani said, stood in front of us and carrying on in his suicidal quest to piss off an assassin, a hulked-up scientist, and a cyborg.
"I swear to god," I said and inhaled deeply, ignoring the stench, "the only thing stopping me from kicking your ass into next week is my respect for Okoye."
"Not the thousands of miles between us?"
"If you think I wouldn't fly all the way over there you really must have the barest idea of who I am." Muscle memory took control of my body. My eyes summoned the iciness they'd known since adolescence. The smile that crept onto my face was as deadly as it was insincere. I rolled my shoulders back, dropped my arms, flexed my fingers, and looked deep into the holo-eyes of the hollow man. "You're not untouchable just because you're not here."
He held my gaze for just a moment, then blinked and stepped away. He'd seen enough predators to know when he was pushing his luck.
Nebula had already left the room, smart enough to remove herself from the situation instead of not rising to the bait. I found her at the main exit, looking out at the grounds through the glass door. A thread of sentiment holding her back.
"You can stay, you know," I said before I reached her, "a night's rest won't hurt."
"If I rest," she said, "I won't leave."
"And that's okay. If you're tired you can stop," I said and was damned proud my voice didn't waver, "you don't have to continue with all of this."
'All of this' was often the only thing I dragged myself out of bed for.
'All of this' was the reason I even tried to sleep in the first place, the reason I tried to eat.
'All of this' was the unfathomable belief our endless search wasn't so endless.
'All of this' was all I had left.
And it had left Rocket's life in the balance.
For months now a question had haunted my waking thoughts, a question I had invested much time in avoiding. It brushed against my conscious every now and again, always on the brink of making a nuisance out of itself. Always in the moments on the edge of sleep, of distraction, of consequence in conversation.
Was it worth risking all we had left to bring back all that was taken?
I never answered it. Too scared that if I did I wouldn't like the answer, as Steve hadn't to his own question at first.
"Why would I want to stop?" Nebula said and dragged my thoughts and focus back to her and continued with such ferocity I was left in no doubt she'd had this very talk with herself. "What is the alternative? I share your belief, Agent Romanoff. There's a way out there, we just have to find it. I accept I will not get my sister back, but there are others to return. I will not stop. I cannot. There is much I have done that is undoable. If there is a chance of undoing my father's greatest crime then I have to carry on. There is - I have - I do not know. I just..."
"Have red in your ledger," I said.
She nodded.
"And you'd like to wipe it out."
She nodded again.
Sympathy bloomed painfully. Her predicament was something I understood all too well. There were no words I could share, as there hadn't been any words for Clint to offer me. All I could give her in misery was solidarity.
"Go careful, Nebula."
"Of course."
At last, she walked through the doors and I watched her go. Watched until she climbed aboard the ship, until that ship joined the stars in the sky.
3 September
One hour. Every six hours, Tom.
How long and how often Rocket is exposed to the machine. We discovered it needed an unhindered view of the biological matter it was healing. Which meant, in that hour, his wounds were exposed and vulnerable without bandages.
Once that hour was up he was slathered in an ointment Nebula had left behind. It had antiseptic qualities but that was just a side-effect. It's true purpose was to heal the burns, which it did. Much as the machine was doing for Rocket as a whole, the ointment sped up the body's natural healing ability. Calming the damaged nerves into fixing themselves and encouraging new skin to grow, removing the need for skin grafts.
It wasn't the quickest process but Friday was adamant there was no sign of infection.
Then the bandages went back on. Fresh and white and wrapped as tight as anyone dared. When the incident first happened I had no doubt the racoon's injuries were akin to third-degree burns. By the time the Guardians reached us they were on the border between second and third. Bruce had hissed and winced at the sight of anything touching such delicate skin. With the machine and ointment doing their respective jobs he felt confident enough to apply dressings, sometimes alien ones, sometimes experimental ones, sometimes just plain old gauze ones.
I was most glad Rocket was still unconscious during the moments of wrapping and unwrapping the bandages.
One hour. Every six hours.
When he looked the most vulnerable, looked the most broken. But it was necessary because it carried on the internal healing process Nebula had started.
And it was during one of those one hours that Steve decided to turn up.
"Ouch," he said when he entered the room, mouth downturned and eyes downcast as he surveyed Rocket. Bruce looked up from the notes he was pouring over and smiled.
"Steve," he said, "been a while."
"Sure has," the soldier said and reached up to pat the scientist's shoulder in greeting, "sorry about that."
"What are you doing here?" I asked. With my concentration broken I realised sitting as I was, contorted into my chair with one leg bent so I could prop my chin on my knee, wasn't going to get me any bonus points with a chiropractor. There were a few winces and clicks as I straightened myself out.
"Wanted to see how he was doing." Steve settled into the chair next to mine.
I rubbed my eyes, which were raw from the lack of proper sleep. The light in the room didn't help much. "Better, we think. Hasn't woken up though."
"And how're you doing?"
"Well, I'm not the one stuck in a bed, doped up to high hell looking like a cross between a Scooby Doo villain and a cheap Halloween costume, so I'm just peachy."
Steve chuckled but stopped when his eyes found their way back to the bed. They explored the scarred paths and crevices, picked out the malting fur, and watched his breathing.
"She never leaves," Bruce said, nose buried in his notes again.
"That's a lie."
"Bathroom breaks don't count, and-"
"They do."
"-Neither does taking work calls in the corridor."
I sighed and Steve had to look out the window to hide his grin from me. It was thirty six hours and counting since we hooked Rocket up. His sixth dose of that machine under way. And, as much as I wanted to deny it, I had only left the room for the reasons Bruce highlighted.
"If you even suggest Steve take me for a walk I will break your nose," I said.
"Duly noted."
We let the whirring do the talking for some moments. A few lights blinked on the machine but nothing else happened. Steve shifted in his chair and it squeaked at the movement.
"I mean, if you do want to go for a walk-" he started but I cut it off with a punch to his upper arm.
"You boys are a pain in the neck."
"Hmmm, I don't think that's us," Bruce said, "you got that sleeping in the chair."
Steve coughed his way through a laugh and I tried to enjoy the light heartedness that had followed him into the room. It was a rare treat these days, but sometimes absence didn't make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it made it grow harder.
There was time for the light hearted because there was nothing else we could do. Bruce went through his notes. I sat and worked. Steve visited. And that was the extent of our usefulness. Sure, it looked like Rocket's stats were improving but none of us knew for sure. No one knew if he would wake up. No one knew if the treatment was good for him in the long run.
So we all sat here and read through notes, carried on with work and distracted ourselves with jokes. Because there was nothing comforting in knowing someone's life depended on our best guesses.
"I spoke to Wong," I said just to have said something, "he's looking to see if there's anything he can do."
"I don't get it," Steve sighed, "he has actual magic, or whatever it is, at his fingertips, and there isn't, like, a healing something or other he can use?
"He gave me some sort of lecture," I said with a shrug of my shoulders, curling a loose strand of hair around one of my fingers, "which I took to mean there was more to it than that and I was stupid for asking a question similar to yours."
"Just more stuff we don't understand," Bruce said but didn't get much further because Friday interrupted to alert us to Jelani's incoming holo-call. Over the past few days he'd done less and less to endear himself to us, but he proved competent and dedicated to his job.
"How is it going?" He asked as soon as the pixels formed a coherent image of him. The three of us looked around to see who was going to answer. Steve just gave a hey-I'm-new-here half shrug and Bruce caved when he saw the daggers I glared the super soldier's way.
"Slow," he sighed then expanded on his comment a few seconds later. "It's the genetics. We've never worked with anyone like this before."
"This is exactly what I'm saying," and any goodwill I forced myself to have at the technician for a job well done, so far, ebbed away in seconds, "we know nothing of his kind. We should wake him."
Steve spluttered at the words and Bruce's eyes narrowed. The air in the room cooled as I felt the unshifting anger within boil. Jelani, though, didn't notice a thing and carried on.
"The short-term pain would be outweighed by the improvement of his long-term recovery from the knowledge we gain."
There was a sharp laugh from Bruce who could no longer mask the disdain on his overlarge features. "Notice it's the person who's not at risk of serious injury suggesting it."
I shared his sentiment, but not his tact.
"Absolutely not," I snapped, jumping up from my chair, arms folded, ignoring the futility of squaring up to a projection, "we're not putting him through any more trauma unless necessary."
"And if it proves necessary?"
"It won't," I said and saw both Steve and Bruce shift uncomfortably at the tone in my voice. "As far as he's aware he's the only one of his kind. His knowledge isn't much more than ours. So, instead of making comments about vets and theorising about helping him, how about actually helping him."
The technician mumbled under his breath but didn't answer, which was enough for me to know Okoye was going to be treated to a piece of his mind and I was going to be treated to a dutiful call from her later on.
"We're learning as we go, Nat," Bruce said as I headed out the door, unable to stay in the same room as the stunningly unhelpful Wakandan even if, technically, I wasn't, "we have to do a fair bit of theorising."
"Just do it faster," I snapped back from the corridor. I was halfway down it when I heard Steve's footsteps follow in mine. All sorts of retorts sprang to mind but I held them back. I wasn't that far gone, yet. There was still some semblance of self I had a grasp on.
I kept going until I reached the main juncture and I stuttered to a halt. No idea where to go. No idea what to do.
Steve had no such qualms. As soon as he caught up he wrapped me in his arms and pulled me in for a hug I didn't know I needed. Would never admit to needing.
And I indulged him for a few seconds.
Because thirty six hours had passed and there was so little progress.
Because I was angry and human contact seemed to quell it.
Because that little bit of pressure kept all the shattered pieces together.
"You'll probably kill me for saying it," he said as a joke but in his soothing only-reserved-for-the-sick-or-injured voice, which had me wondering which one he thought I was, "but you need rest, Nat."
Out of pure treachery, my eyes drooped under the influence of a sleepless ache and his rumbling voice. I forced them back open and pulled away from the impromptu embrace so there was distance between us but didn't retreat. Still not knowing where I wanted to go.
"How did we get like this, Steve? How did we get half a team down and fighting to keep the scraps we still have left alive? It shouldn't be like this."
"You're right, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like this at all. But it is. And this is our reality now and we can't change that."
"We can," I said without anger or desperation but full of conviction, which, if his widened eyes were anything to go by, surprised him just as much as it did me, "we can change it Steve."
"How?"
"I said I know we can, not that I know how. Those are two different things."
He opened his mouth to say something but he stopped himself, a flicker of doubt in his eyes anchoring them in his throat. I couldn't decide if that doubt was a sign of how far I'd fallen in the after-Snap or how far he had.
Dedicated pessimist to reticent optimist.
Blind optimist to reluctant pessimist.
He tapped a finger against his thigh, geeing himself up to speak in spite of whatever had halted him."I wish I had your certainty."
And there was anguish in his voice. Hints of it, anyway. Along with anger and bitterness. But mostly longing. A longing for the way he used to think and believe.
"And I wish I had your doubt," I said, glad when he nodded in understanding instead of questioning me. With doubt there was no tunnel-vision. With doubt there was no threat of raised hopes, false hopes, crushed hopes. The triad I was swirling in the middle of.
I took a deep breath and let the oxygen stretch and saturate my lungs
"Just gotta keep everyone alive between now and then," he said with a wistful smile. It was a burden lifted from his shoulders but a burden he would never forget.
"Starting with this goddamn racoon," I said.
7 September
Hi Tom,
Bruce kicked me out.
Said I had to spend at least an hour away from Rocket's room, catching up with life.
He said it was for my sanity. I think it was for his.
I was in the corridor for less than ten seconds before I was joined by a projection of Okoye walking next to me. A single sidelong glance and I knew she wasn't the happiest of people.
She frowned. It wasn't obvious, she has good control over her emotions and expressions. There was just something about the set of her eyes and the stiffer-than-normal posture she walked with.
"Hi Okoye," I said.
"I send you technology from the late Princess Shuri's archive, I assign a technician to help you use it, and I provide you with access to him whenever it's needed. You yell at him. You threaten him. And you ignore his advice."
"Okoye, I-"
She held up a finger. No one had dared to silence me with that simple gesture since my Red Room days and survival instincts of old reared their ugly heads and clamped my mouth shut. She took a deep breath and tilted her head to one side, allowing her eyes to dart to something I couldn't see. A second later and she relaxed.
"I would yell, threaten and ignore, too. If I was in your position," she said.
"He was standing right there?" I asked.
"Indeed. He is a popular man. Enjoys the approval of all the tribes and respect of the scientific team he patched together in Shuri's absence. He is, as you would say, a pain in the ass. But he is also good at his job, which makes him tolerable. I do not wish to defend his treatment of you, as his words and actions are supposed to represent Wakanda, but I must."
"You're right," I said, "he's helping us and we weren't all that welcoming. Consider me suitably chastised and I'll make an effort going forward. Promise."
"I was expecting more of a fight."
"Gotta pick your battles," I said, "no point in wasting energy when you don't have it."
"Then perhaps this will give you a boost," she said, "I'm fairly certain he's terrified of you."
A laugh bubbled up in my lungs but faded away before it could reach my lips. I smirked instead. "Hmmm, I can't imagine why."
Sometimes I wonder what our relationship would be like if the Snap hadn't happened. Our friendship was a small and fragile thing. I was the woman who had shot the then prince several times with my Widow bites. She was the general of the man who sold me out to the UN. We respected each other, but we were wary. Aware of the threat we posed. Two years went by and she helped where she could. First at the urging of her king, then at her own. The Snap had thrown us into positions we'd never thought we'd find ourselves in. Running things people thought we had no right running. Strengthening what was once fragile.
"Nat," she said as she came to a stop and I could tell from the look in her eyes her mind had travelled a similar path to mine, "I find myself thinking often of the women who fought side by side against Thanos' army. Only to realise we are no longer the same women." I shook my head, though she wasn't looking for an answer as she continued, "I do not think that is a bad thing, but sometimes there is very little I wouldn't give to go back to the simplicity of our problems before then."
This time I did laugh and she joined me very briefly. "You mean me on the run from most of the world and you as the general of some of the most elite warriors on the planet?"
"At least our worries only extended globally, back then," she said, "now they're a little further afield."
"Does it ever blow your mind?" I asked and she looked at me with a questioning brow. "All the things we talk about with a straight face."
"Sometimes."
"What would little Okoye say if she saw you now?"
"Ruling my country? She would think it treasonous and it would be tough to convince her otherwise. What about little Natasha?"
"She'd be shocked to see I'm so old. Black Widows come with an expiration date. Mid-thirties is longer than most."
"May you continue to shock her for many years to come," Okoye said.
"And may we soon find a way for you to renounce your treasonous ways."
She laughed a little then changed the subject without hesitation. "I will be in America at the end of the month, if it suits, I will attend our team meeting in person."
She disappeared soon after that and I was disappointed to realise I'd barely killed fifteen minutes of the allotted sixty of my banishment. Behind me I could hear all the noise that came with an active hospital room. It was tempting to turn back, but my muscles were enjoying the stretch. I took the stairs all the way to the top and came to a stop at the floor to ceiling windows, looking out over the empty land, eyes following the winding road to the gated entrance.
I didn't get long to admire the view. There was a sizzling and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as something that shouldn't be there was. I turned around, and instead of seeing the vast expanse of empty room, I was looking at Wong sat at his desk in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Considering whenever he dropped by like this I was usually sat at my own desk, I could almost forgive him for his comment.
"Huh, so there is more to that place than your crappy desk and brown walls."
"Wish I could say the same for yours."
"Mine is mystical and yours has no character. You should visit some time, get an idea of what a proper headquarters looks like."
"Hmmm, no thanks," I said and circled a finger in the air, mimicking the edges of the portal, "this is enough magic for me."
"That's a shame," he said, "I have found several healing spells that may help your friend. Though I would be reluctant to try them. They would need adjusting to his species and without the proper preparation, which comes with knowledge, I may well end up doing more harm."
Take the risk of magic backfiring spectacularly or sit and wait for the science to run its course.
"He's making progress," I said, "I'm sure it's slow compared to magic, but it's still progress."
An engine roared its way down the road I was looking at just a couple of minutes before. The lack of an interrupting Friday meant it could only be one person.
"I understand," Wong said and opened his mouth to continue but someone called him in the distance and he settled for an apologetic smile instead, "I need to go. Let me know if you change your mind."
The portal closed and the thrum of magic filtered away. One thing I hated about my chats with Wong was that the mundane was even more pronounced in his wake. He might be stuck in the same building like I was, but he was making a difference.
The reason I knew that?
Nothing had changed. No realities crushing one another. No big bad bleeding in from another dimension. No evil sorcerers going around and splitting their souls into pieces or whatever it is an evil version of Wong might do.
I got out of bed every morning and the world outside was exactly the same as it was the night before. A symbol of his success. A reminder of my failure.
Silence hung in the air like an old friend. It, too, had no place amongst the hive of activity that was Rocket's hospital room. I took a moment to savour it, registering that the quiet meant the car had arrived.
I headed back down, certain Bruce had intended for me to do something more useful with my enforced break, turned into the main corridor and was greeted by the sight of Tony with a pushchair. Morgan laughed happily from her seat, her dad leaning over and talking with that tone reserved just for her. One part adoration, one part dumbass, and one part dry humour that was bound to fly over her head.
It was so unexpected and so domestic I was smiling before I knew it.
"Oh look Morgan," he said when he spotted me, "it's aunt Rusty. And it looks like she's in a good mood, which means she's less likely to cut daddy open and sell his organs on the black market."
"Less likely sure," I said, "but not totally off the table. What brings you by?"
His eyes danced as he considered making another joke but thought better of it. The pushchair squealed to a stop and he crouched down to rummage through the baby bag hanging from the handles. "Smurfette sent me some specifications. Apparently nanobots are an injectable medicine. And-" he paused when he found what he was looking for, a grey canister with a baby wipe hanging from it, "I was sort annoyed I hadn't thought of it so, you know, I made it a priority. Figured our favourite live-action talking Disney animal could do with it." He frowned and plucked the baby wipe away, tucking it back into the bag before bringing himself to full height again.
"Gotta say, Shellhead, this whole look suits you."
"What, the genius, billionaire, philanthropist air I'm always rocking?" He cocked an eyebrow and lifted his chin, almost daring me to mention him dropping the 'playboy' part of his self-awarded epithet.
"Frazzled father."
He shrugged. "I look good in everything. It's the beard."
We walked to the hospital room together, stopping just a little short so Morgan wouldn't see the healing-yet-still-horrific injuries covering Rocket. I stayed with her, heart clenching ever so slightly as she reminded me so much of Nate and Lila while she tried to say my name, only managing the first syllable.
In the background Tony explained what he'd done.
Bruce was hopeful.
Emma hedged her bets.
And Jelani scoffed.
I breathed out slowly and counted to ten in my head, doing my best to keep my earlier promise to Okoye.
10 September
Hi Tom,
Beeping and whirring and thudding and talking. The world within the compound.
Steady beeping meant Rocket was stable. Erratic beeping meant he was not.
Unhurried footsteps meant Rocket was stable. Frantic footsteps meant he was not.
Voices floating free on the air meant Rocket was stable. Panicked, whispered voices meant he was not.
Beeping and whirring and thudding and talking. This was how the days passed.
If I ate, I ate in the med bay. If I slept, I slept in the med bay. I definitely worked, and I definitely worked from the med bay.
To Bruce and Emma I was a part of the furniture, one that sometimes spoke back. One they threw concerned glances at. One that was most certainly not standard issue hospital equipment.
Sometimes Jelani popped up to make sure we 'were treating Princess Shuri's machine with the respect it deserved'. He never offered more words than necessary. We never listened unless we had to. In time I might come to accept his detached attitude was a part of his professionalism, as it had once been a part of mine. But in the moment it was a coldness none of us appreciated. None of us needed.
Light was just touching the world outside. Different hues and shades grew brighter minute by minute as the sun splashed its colours across the canvas sky. There were no clues as to what sort of day loomed ahead.
It was fresh. It was impressionable.
There were no footsteps, no voices. The medics were asleep in the early hour.
There was no whirring, the machine treatment not due to start again for a few more hours.
The beeping continued as it always did. A steady stream of proof of life.
I stayed folded up in the wingback chair I'd dragged from the main communal area to become my work station, dining table and bed.
Not asleep. Not quite awake.
A doze. A stupor.
Eyes half closed.
Ears half listening.
There was a dull ache invading my muscles, protesting the extensive use of the chair. Only overwhelmed by the sharper pangs of a twisted stomach that hungered for food and threatened to throw it back up. The phantom taste of bile made sure I listened more to the latter.
In the limbo of somewhat conscious my nose fancied it could pick out that charred scent of flesh and fur that had accompanied Rocket for so long. But the treatment was far enough along and the compound's air filtration system strong enough for it to have disappeared days ago. It was another phantom.
Scratch.
A new sound. One I didn't know the meaning of. A third phantom perhaps.
Scratch.
I opened my eyes fully. Exhaustion still trying to pull them down but the unknown always came with a burst of adrenaline.
Scratch.
Like something dragging itself across thread.
Scratch.
Like a nail...
Scratch.
...Or a claw.
I shifted and the chair squeaked at the pressure change. The blanket Bruce had placed over me fell softly to the ground, followed swiftly by a fluttering of papers I'd clutched to in my half doze without realising.
My feet padded softly. My breath hitched. My heart hammered. All as I drew closer to the bed.
Scratch.
Everything stopped. My feet, my breath, my heart. Because then, right then, he moved. Just enough to catch against the thread of his covers. I hesitated, just slightly, my hazy brain trying to figure out what he wanted. He raised a finger to scratch again and I reached out to stop him, knowing what it was costing. I gently placed the tip of my finger on the top of his hand. It may have escaped injury in the accident but that didn't mean a careless action wouldn't cause a ripple effect.
Nothing happened, not even the slightest tremor. Not even another scratch.
Instead I gave him my finger to squeeze and rubbed reassurance into the top of his hand with the pad of my thumb. He opened one eye, with a lot of effort, and regarded me. Recognition flared, and so did my smile, before he snapped it shut again.
"It's okay, Rocket," I said, feeling and hearing the cracks in my voice and not really sure if they came from disuse or emotion, "you're not alone."
And there was the slightest of slight pressure on my finger in response.
A/N: There was going to be more to this but since it's pretty long already it felt like this was a good place to stop. So, with a couple of thousand words and skeleton plans sorted, hopefully it won't be so long until the next one. Stay safe! :)