A/N I nearly didn't upload this month, and when the news about Chadwick Boseman came out I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I can guess it threw you all for a loop as much as it did me. I'm attaching a quick list of charities/organisations that support people living with cancer, especially black communities, at the bottom of the chapter that you can donate to, support and use the resources of if you would like. I also just want to include a quick extract from the piece Ryan Coogler wrote about him, since he words it a lot better than I could. Remember it's okay - and important - to grieve if you feel it, and if you want to vent feel free to PM me.
All the love, and Wakanda Forever X
It had been raining since Eva had got off the plane at Gatwick, but with a rare stroke of luck the typical English weather had broken to reveal a light, watery sun that spilled over the first day of the Chelsea Flower Show like runny yolk. Eva stepped back at last, hands on hips, and surveyed her small patch of land with a frown. She had an artisan garden, smaller than the big show ones that drew all the tourists and tucked round the back where most people either forgot or didn't bother to go, and it was half-overshadowed by a huge hospital building next door. For anyone else this would have been a problem, but Eva had spent the best part of the last decade in New York City. Small, dark and cramped was where she excelled.
She was pretty damn proud of it, too. Sponsored by the Stark Foundation (of course) to raise awareness for grassroots charity projects helping communities ravaged by the Snap, she had spent the last year and a half carefully pruning back each tree, shrub and flower by exactly half its size, then allowing it to grow back more or less naturally. Now, with sculptures designed by kids in care after losing their families dotted amongst the greenery, the garden (that had been flown over from the States in a quinjet in various parts, with Eva flitting amongst them with a spray bottle and a sack of fertiliser the whole flight) had a strange, otherworldly feel. It looked like the suburbs upstate that, half-empty and neglected, were starting to be reclaimed by nature.
Good, Eva thought.
"Eva? Eva Kresk?"
She turned around and saw a small, dungaree-d man walking towards her. Despite his unassuming figure, she recognized him immediately: anyone with more than a passing knowledge of horticulture would have to be living under a rock not to. He was one of the stars of the flower show, the best young landscape artist in the business, a man who had four different subspecies of flora named after him by various botanical groupies.
And Eva had completely forgotten his name.
"Hi," she said, trying not to panic. "Um. I mean – yes. That's me."
"I saw your name in the brochure."
If only I'd remembered to do the same, she thought. "Oh. Cool. This is my garden. Obviously."
Typical. She had spent years around superheroes, the most famous and recognizable people in the world, without batting an eyelid. And now she finally did get starstruck, it was for a gardener that she couldn't even remember the name of.
"I love what you've done with it," he said earnestly. "It's really beautiful. You're definitely in the running for a medal."
"Ha!" Eva said. "Hahaha! Right. Thanks, though."
"I mean it," he said. "You came here with the Stark Foundation, right? How did you land that sponsorship?"
Eva blinked. She always assumed everyone that knew her knew of her links to the old Avengers; in fact, she chalked most of her success up to the fact. She had been thinking that, uh, whatshisname had come over to try and charm his way into the Avengers compound, and win the contract of a lifetime. Did he really not know? Was he really paying her… a genuine compliment?
"I've got friends in high places," she said.
"Really?" he asked.
Eva frowned. "Do you know who the Avengers are?" she asked.
"Isn't it a wrestling group?" he asked.
"But…" Eva began, in amazement. "Didn't you notice the Snap a couple of years ago? Half of all life disappearing?"
"What? Oh, yes. That. I don't really watch the news, so I don't know much about it."
"Do you know who Tony Stark is?"
"Pepper Potts' husband? I know who she is. She was a keynote speaker at a conference on sustainable urban farming I went to a few years ago. But Tony Stark… I'm not sure. Should I know?"
Oh my God. "Can I buy you a drink?" Eva asked, before she could stop herself. The man blinked.
"Okay," he said, and smiled. "I'll come and meet you after close."
"Great," said Eva, her head spinning. He didn't know who Tony Stark was. In her books, that made him the luckiest man in the universe. There was no way she was letting him go. "And – sorry – what's your name?"
"Ash," he said. "Like the tree."
"Right. I knew that. See you later."
Eva waited until he was out of earshot, and started cackling. He doesn't know who Iron Man is!
- Cancer Black Care: a UK non-profit for black people affected by cancer
- Malecare: US charity supporting male cancer survivors in underserved communities
- Bowel Cancer UK and the Colon Cancer Coalition (US)
- The Prostate Health Education Network (US) works to eliminate the disproportional effect cancer has on African American men.
"In African cultures, we often refer to loved ones that have passed on as ancestors. Sometimes you are genetically related. Sometimes you are not. I had the privilege of directing scenes of Chad's character, T'Challa, communicating with the ancestors of Wakanda. We were in Atlanta, in an abandoned warehouse, with bluescreens, and massive movie lights, but Chad's performance made it feel real. I think it was because from the time that I met him, the ancestors spoke through him.
"It's no secret to me now how he was able to skilfully portray some of our most notable ones. I had no doubt that he would live on and continue to bless us with more. But it is with a heavy heart and a sense of deep gratitude to have ever been in his presence, that I have to reckon with the fact that Chad is an ancestor now. And I know that he will watch over us, until we meet again."
- Ryan Coogler