1 June 2019

Hey Tom,

It amazes me how difficult it is to get back to normal after everything you think you know is turned upside down.

Of course, it happened with Thanos. And a year after that we're just coping.

Not living.

You can't call it that.

We existed, we survived. But the broken pieces were still broken pieces, the jagged edges just weren't as sharp as they once were.

Then on the anniversary there was the whole Clint thing. I still feel like I'm displaced from myself. That the world I'm in isn't real. I do what I can to get things back to normal. To forget about the killings.

But it's tough. So tough. And I'm not sure what's wrong with me. Compartmentalising was always a specialty. But it feels like all the compartments are starting to knocking into one another.

Like my head is going to burst.

Or my heart.

I'm not sure.

I suppose I should say there hasn't been another attack. No grizzly murder scenes with the ghost of Clint hanging over us.

No more leads to follow. All we can do is sit and wait for the next one. Which is fucked up. Waiting for him to murder more people so we can bring him back to try and coddle him into the person he used to be.

I didn't delude myself. He hadn't put the brakes on because I managed to knock some sense into him. Or even because he was hesitant to bring the Avengers down on him. He was stuck in his grief. It overwhelmed his bloodlust.

Where was he going to strike next? I'm sure even he doesn't know.

These thoughts don't get me anywhere. I still had a charity to help run. A team to keep together. An impossible dream to achieve. And achieving it might actually be the answer I was looking for to the Ronin problem.

So I try and do normal things.

Like talk to Carol.

She's back in space. Walking the beat. Helping those in need. Teaching me about the wider universe as she glides unseen through the stars. A lot of what she has to teach is rooted in things that have happened to her on her travels. Which is fine. It helps me to relate.

Like join Bruce in his lab.

He's calm and I need calming. I don't bother him. Just sit and work through the unexciting parts of my job. Sometimes he talks to himself, almost playing two sides of an argument. When that happens I've learnt it's best to sneak up and ask him a question. As he talks me through it he seems to have a revelation about what he was having trouble with before. The light in his eyes as it clicks together, I don't think I could ever get tired of seeing that.

Like sparring with Steve in the gym.

You might think those would be more one-sided in his favour than they actually are. But, as I've been told many a time, everything's a weapon even your opponent's own strength. Turns out joint gym sessions are more productive; having the other person there to talk to keeps me from slipping into the rabbit hole of my past and everything I could have done differently to avoid the current situation.

Like video calls with Pepper and Morgan.

Tiny Stark has already grown into a bit of a handful, but her mother couldn't look happier. The calls are noisy and interrupted by cries or gabbling. But rather than be annoying they're sounds that fill the compound with life. And I can tell from how free Pepper looks that those laughs and gurgles and giggles have given Tony a strength he was missing since coming back from space. He even said last month was one of the best birthdays he ever had.

Like emailing Rocket.

We still send stupid jokes to each other but we talk about proper stuff too. Not often, and not in so many words. But it's there and I know it's because he misses the other Guardians. He's not sure how to talk to Nebula, saying one of the things about being the only one like him is that he doesn't know what it's like to lose a sibling and doesn't know how to reach out to her. Again, not in so many words but it's there if I use a microscope to read between the lines.

Like holo-calls with Rhodey, Okoye and Nebula.

All people of so few words yet none of us quite seem willing to hang up on our calls. All with other things to do but the chat is like a lifeline. Also looking for a strand of normality in a very un-normal world.

Like trying to contact Thor.

Who never answers.

6 June 2019

Hi Tom,

I realise I haven't written about Sam often.

Which is dumb because I consider him a friend. Even if he is a pile of dust with wings.

I don't know, I guess it's just hard to accept he's gone. Which is also dumb, because it's been over a year.

I never saw him go. Never saw the evidence. And I think the lack of visual proof in my memories makes him more solid.

Even though I know better I still expect him to charge through the door with some stupid comment ready to fall off his lips.

We spent a long time fighting side by side, as Avengers and as fugitives. And though the life he got wasn't the one he signed up for, his belief never wavered.

And he spoke a lot, about the meetings he ran when he got back from tour, about the people he helped as they came through the VA. We would always listen. Amazed at his ability to empathise with whatever situation was put before him. At how he always found a way to help people.

It was one of the many things Steve admired about him.

And something I think both of us missed. Along with the cautionary tales and lame jokes.

So, when Steve told me he'd been looking into meetings for survivors of the snap, my only surprise was that it hadn't come sooner.

There were a few in the city. None of them well-known. None particularly successful because how do you talk about this sort of crap. Do you tackle it from the angle of survivor's guilt or PTSD? Or do you just talk and share and take it one meeting at a time as everyone had to take it all one day at a time?

All things he asked me, as if I knew anything more than he did.

He's going to start going to them. See how it works. If it helps.

At the very least, he said, it's a way for him to get out of the compound. Then he asked me if I wanted to join him.

When every time I step out more shit finds its way into the fan.

No, thank you.

12 June 2019

At last, Tom!

Breaking news from the space frontier.

Okay, so it's sort of been breaking for the past several weeks but I didn't want to bore you, or myself, with the details.

They made it to the planet; an intensely private one shrouded in clouds, which smothered storms, which bothered the surface on an almost constant basis, which the locals didn't mind because the pelting rain and harsh wind was soothing to their skin - according to Nebula when they first arrived.

She took over comms when there was something to report, for which I was grateful. She didn't spend half the time muttering under her breath or throwing insults at people who weren't even there.

They spent an hour locating who they were after. The thing about hiding in an intensely private neighbourhood is the neighbours sure as hell knew everyone else's business. If someone wasn't from there then they found out everything they could. To which Nebula could attest when they were directed to a hovel on the outskirts of a town full of hovels. It was only when they went there, found it was empty and traipsed all the way back (the air thick with Rocket's complaints of idiotic meat-sacks with rattling skulls instead of brains) that they were told he was visiting the next planet over.

Cue a discussion about whether they should lay in wait or hotfoot it over in case they could catch up to him there.

They hotfooted it; neither liked the weather.

Didn't take long to get there. But the search on planet number two was longer than either expected. They were about to give up and go back to 'the stormy shithole' (give you a guess where that name came from) when luck fell in their favour. Their quarry happened to be visiting the bar they stopped off at on the way back to the ship.

Though, they didn't consider themselves all that lucky when it turned out their quarry was a Dark Elf.

Now, I heard Thor mention something about them back when we were hunting down leftover Hydra cells. And Carol's covered them in her lessons. Both were pretty certain that the race was on the brink of extinction, if it hadn't already fallen over it.

"Could be a Skrull," Rocket said, shuffling around in his hologram, shooting glances at their new passenger, "just saying maybe we should go a few rounds with him to make sure."

I looked at the two of them, Rocket and Nebula, isolated throughout life in their own ways, and realised their capacity for playing good cop might not be enough for the mission.

"I'd rather you didn't beat him about," I said, "attack only if you're attacked first."

"Geez, on the other side of the galaxy and you're still managing to suck away our fun."

"Uhhh, Nebula," I said, not sure if Rocket was listening.

"I will ensure he is not harmed while in our care, Agent Romanoff."

"Thank you. Any idea what he knows?"

They didn't. He kept his knowledge hidden and promised to take them to it.

"And, uh, what happens if he leads us into a trap. Do we just sit and take it or do we blow him into the sky?" Rocket said. "If we're taking a vote I like the second option, you know, on account of not wanting to die."

"Fight back," I said, "does he know who Captain Marvel is?"

I listened as Rocket scurried away and heard muttering as he asked the question and got his answer.

"Yes. Doesn't seem to be a fan."

"Oh good, then tell him that if anything happens to the two of you, Captain Marvel will personally hunt him down across the universe until she puts him in his grave."

"I like the way you think," Rocket said and gave a smile that made me glad we were on the same side.

"Let me know as soon as you can," I said and signed off.

13 June 2019

As soon as they could happened to be at three in the morning. Give or take a few minutes.

I was just pleased to have something to do other than stare at the ceiling.

And there was also some satisfaction in having something to add to another of my Infinity Folders, because the Dark Elf knew a thing or two about the Reality Stone. Only he kept calling it the Aether and I realised it was the thing that caused all that chaos in London a few years back.

For a backwater, Earth did attract a lot of power.

Rocket was subdued as he related it back to me. Nebula too, who couldn't bring herself to say anything. It clicked into place when they said the stone was given to the care of The Collector, who had once resided in Knowhere.

Which, I knew from Carol, was destroyed by Thanos when he went to pick it up. This was the reason the Guardians had split up. The reason Gamora was captured and placed on the path to her death.

Reality often sucks. But it didn't have to suck as much as this.

I thanked them, told them to take some time to rest.

Though they don't strike me as people who like to rest.

19 June 2019

Hey Tom,

Bruce isn't around so much anymore.

I think he's trying to get used to his new lodgings. It's still empty, Bruce still adamant that they need to wait until after he's transformed before filling the place up with stuff.

It's always a bit unexpected to walk into the kitchen and find him there. But he was this morning, a smile on his lips as he read the paper, eyes moving slowly as he took his time over each story.

He put it down as soon as he realised I was there.

"Can't see anything about Clint," he said, "that's got to be good."

"Yeah, he's been inactive for a while," I said when I joined him at the table with a cup of coffee in my hands, glad to no longer be a victim of Steve's smoothie making.

"Think he's stopped for good?"

I shook my head.

As conversations go, this wasn't one I was keen to have at any time, let alone at the start of the day. Not that I would tell Bruce that. He took too many things to heart.

"How's all the lab work going?" I said instead.

"Yeah, good. I'm on track. Still finalising everything, reducing the risk of catastrophic mistakes as much as I can. I uh, I reckon October, you know. For the change."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

It felt weird, having a countdown. A deadline for when the gentle man in front of me would become a, hopefully, gentle Hulk. Not that the Hulk couldn't be gentle when he wanted to, it just wasn't a natural part of him. Most people were still scared of him, hell there was a part of me that would never forget the chase through the helicarrier. But I spent more time with the Hulk than most, working on the lullaby.

He wasn't all bad.

Actually, he wasn't even a lot bad. He just reacted to the world around him, which never reacted well to him.

"Do you still feel him," I asked.

"Yeah, he's still there. But he just doesn't want to come out. It's like a toddler having a tantrum, except with more patience."

I laughed.

"Actually," Bruce continued, "he's aware of what I'm doing. I can feel him paying attention to the work. He's good at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself but I think he's onboard. It's weird, sometimes there's a thought that obviously isn't mine and I spent a while ignoring them, until I realised he's helping."

"Well that's different."

"I know," he ran a thumb along the crease in the paper, "It's the most we've ever communicated."

"It's the right thing Bruce," I said, "you're on the right path."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

I bit my tongue, feeling that he wanted to spend some time with that thought.

And that's fine because I had my own vying for attention. A mini sort of revelation as I spend breakfast talking to my housemate about his impending future as a giant green creature.

A mini sort of revelation that said I'm trying so hard to find something normal that I'm blinded to the fact none of the things I've distracted myself with are.

No part of my life is normal.

And it's always been that way.

So maybe, in a weird way, that's the most normal thing I can ask for.