7 February 2020
Hi Tom,
The weather is miserable.
Grey skies, solid sheets of rain. Patterns of droplets patter against the glass. But I don't hear it. We're wrapped in a soundproof bubble.
I watched out the windows, enthralled. The wind so chaotic the drops come from every direction. So strong the trees dance away from the force of its touch.
I wish I could hear it. That wailing wind. That relentless rain. Without sound I feel so detached. It's all happening. Just not to me.
FRIDAY's told us all to remain grounded. It's a good thing Steve made it back before the weather turned. Probably good our space-travelling friends got back to their journey. Even if it returned the halls back to their empty selves.
Life going back to its normal state. Christmas was so...temporary. For a few weeks we pretend our lives are full of people and the cheer they bring. Then they go and it feels like reality hits harder than it did before.
So, it's just me and Captain America at the compound.
Captain America, huh.
For the first time that's a name that doesn't sit right.
Tony may have taken the shield from him in Siberia, and then Steve may have stripped himself of the rest of the iconography that went with it, but he was always Cap on the run. More than he ever was now.
He doesn't believe in any of that anymore. The title or what it stood for. All of that's gone because a man with none of that won.
He's lost himself and I think that's what he's trying to find at his meetings. The ones he's so anxious about missing he's still braving the open roads to attend.
You never know, maybe if my constant research turns something up we can bring him back along with everyone else.
16 February 2020
Hi Tom,
The compound is a graveyard of memories.
Like the farm.
Like the city.
Like the whole fucking planet.
But it's more concentrated here. I think. Here where we had such hope, such dreams, such ambitions. Here were we thought we could not only change the world but protect it.
Lofty ideas, which became cruel lessons.
You cannot change something that does not want to be.
You cannot protect something all the time, no matter how much it might be crying out for it.
You cannot count on the future.
The compound is a graveyard. And just like the farm I'm the ghost fading through the halls and the rooms and the walls. The spectre flitting between floors, past windows and through doors. I haunted and this was my mansion, my house, my castle.
With nothing for company.
Just my thoughts.
Just my heartbeat.
Just myself.
Mostly.
There are still the morning gym sessions and the occasional breakfast with Steve, when he's not on a mission. The every now and then fly-by from Rhodey. The calls from space when the ETs phone "home". The catch-ups with Okoye. But even when they're here, no one's really present.
Because who likes visiting a graveyard?
There's only one person. One person who was so unbelievably present it was hard not to be swept up in her enthusiasm for every moment. Hard not to find the joy in life as she did.
My date for the Valentine's weekend.
Because, in what I initially thought was an ill-advised fit of altruism, I volunteered to babysit Morgan as her parents were forced to make use of the romantic couples getaway gift Happy had gotten them for their anniversary last year.
It was difficult at first, adjusting.
The constant company.
The constant noise.
The constant distraction.
Somehow it made the silences louder. I felt it more in between her laughing and crying and squealing and all the noises that came from her doing nothing more than living. The silence and the emptiness loomed always. But I found comfort in that.
The reason?
Because they felt normal.
They were familiar. They were comfortable.
Everything that came with Morgan was not.
At some point Steve had stopped seeking me out and I followed suit. There was something he wanted to say but he hadn't yet found the words, and my company made him uncomfortable while he worked it out.
And I thought I didn't care.
Then the noise came and my days were filled with the clamour and the echoes, and sometimes I closed my eyes and pretended it was bustling once again. As if she could make enough noise to be all those hundreds of people.
I spoke to her and fed her and did all the other things I needed to do, then half a day had gone by and I realised I'd been speaking to her in Russian the whole time. I had a brief moment of fun imagining Tony's face when his daughter uttered her first word in my first language. Then I swallowed past the lump in my throat and carried on talking.
She seemed to like the different noises.
I tickled her and played games with her and told her edited stories of SHIELD, and the first time I met her mum and dad, and how I knocked Uncle Happy to his ass in the boxing ring. I encouraged her to make as much noise as possible because I wanted, so, so wanted that to be normal again.
We toured the compound, because what else am I going to do with a child in a place not fit for her? I showed her the living areas and the view from the windows. I took her to Bruce's research lab and the medical wing, but kept away from the kitchen in case she thought it was dinnertime. We visited everyone's quarters, except for Steve's and then I took her to the Avenger Archive with all our old stuff. I swear she recognised some of the repulsors that were dotted around.
Our final stop, though I wasn't sure why, was the gym. My escape from the work and the days and the world. But to her it was a large and boring room that held no fun. Not even the blueprints for my planned addition interested her.
How could it when there was a door she wasn't allowed past and she was her father's daughter? She pointed and pointed at the weapons locker and didn't like it when I walked back towards the exit.
"No no," I said, "what's in there is not for you, little one. Not for you."
She fell asleep easily. I did not. Not at all.
I sat on my bed and watched the travel cot that came with her. Listened for her sleepy sounds. Part of me addicted to the noise of someone else, another terrified something might happen.
Her breathing was soothing. And I wondered if there was another reality out there somewhere in which the child I was listening to was my own.
I didn't have that stirring most people did. My existence was about taking life, not nurturing it. And it came with enemies and a past that was more than a little complicated. No one deserved to inherit that. How could I ever be responsible for teaching someone right from wrong when I spent so much of my life not caring?
No, though the choice was taken from me, children weren't on the cards for me long before the graduation ceremony. I didn't yearn for a kid, not even as I watched Morgan sleep. But I started to realise, then, that I was grateful my life hadn't passed childless. One of the best roles I've ever played was Auntie Nat. I liked that version of myself.
It's something I realise even more, now, as I strain my ears for sounds that aren't there. That haven't been since Tony and Pepper picked her up. The silence is back and the emptiness, I'm sure, is right behind.
11 March 2020
Hi Tom,
I'm not supposed to be surprised. I'm supposed to see the bigger picture, or at least more of it than other people. And yet, every now and then comes humbling proof that I'm not all that different from them.
But I don't want to be humbled. I don't want to be blindsided. The reason I'm trying to watch the bigger picture is to protect those caught up on the tiny little slivers they came across.
Humble, blindside and surprise was exactly what Okoye did when she holo-called yesterday.
Though she stood straight there was a sag to her shoulders most people would miss, a jagged edge to her voice that she wasn't always able to smooth away, and an almost glassy look in her eyes that I would have been willing to pass off as a bad connection if not for everything else.
"It's the second anniversary next month, Nat. Who's attending?"
Confronted by this new information, which wasn't really new at all, my brain froze. When it thawed I ran through the maths and found she was right. Of course she was. Just under two months away and it hadn't even popped up on my radar.
I cleared my throat, "the three in space will be there via hologram. But Bruce, Steve and Rhodey will be. I think it's best we leave Thor in peace. Have you contacted Tony?"
She tilted her head. "He's my next call." She smirked. "Glad I came to you first. Sounds like you haven't thought about it."
"Damn, I must be out of practice if you can tell."
"Don't forget, Nat, I've spent a lifetime reading people's intentions."
And I've spent a lifetime hiding them. I thought. Something I've done a lot of lately, finishing conversations in my head while the other person was standing right in front of me.
"What do you have planned this year?" I asked to stop us from lapsing into silence.
"We've had free rein to organise the commemorations without interference this time. We hope to create something that will last, in the heritage of the world as well as Wakanda."
"If anyone can do it, you can."
She bowed her head ever so slightly, accepting the compliment with a grace I'd only ever been able to associate with her.
"You should get here early again, Nat. There's something I want to show you."
"You can't leave me hanging like that."
She laughed. Easy and unguarded and proof of her having grown to the role.
"Turn up," she said, "and you won't be."
20 March 2020
Dreams.
They're there a lot.
When I manage to sleep.
I don't remember them. But I know I've had them. The rushing pulse and the sense of having forgotten something. The relief because even in their absence I knew I didn't want to remember.
Still, I can't help but think. Can't help but try and dig into it to uncover something. All there is is muddled feelings and vague impressions. Someone who breezed into my life at some point said dreams which hid themselves were dreams that caused mischief. They were a person as vague and muddled as my dreams.
After all these years, after all the strain and pain of deprogramming, it was still frustrating to have those empty spots in my memory. Never to be filled in.
However, even I have to admit it might be a good thing. For every one I don't remember there's five more I do, with a clarity I wish I couldn't recall for some of them. That's when I focus on what's in front of me. This journal laid out on my desk, with crossed out words and scribbles in the margins. I see the crumpled top corners where I knocked it off my desk a couple of weeks ago. Dying rays of sun have settled over some words, as if unveiling a hidden message. My coffee is strong, the bitter blackness tickles my nose. But my tongue still remembers how hot it is.
I look up and see over Steve's shoulder by accident, regretting it immediately. On his tablet is a Brooklyn apartment. He flicks to another and another. Reading each listing and making notes in his book.