22 January 2021

The Red Room was a very physical place but it never shirked its educational responsibilities. What use was a spy in political spaces if she didn't have a knowledge of politics? What use was a spy in a lab if she didn't understand basic science? What use was a spy in the English-speaking West if she didn't speak English.

We learned ballet and how to fight, we trained with fists and knives and guns, we ran and trekked and hiked, we even suffered through circuit training. In every moment between all of that we learned to unlock the secrets of the world with physics, studied chemistry and all its reactions and tied it all together with a perfect understanding of biology. Geography made the world smaller while history gave it an age we couldn't comprehend. Numbers and their equations, language after language, dialect after dialect.

All of it intense. All failure met with severe punishment.

None of them as awe inspiring as the lessons Carol gave me.

An entire galaxy sparkled around me, and it wasn't even the one I lived in. I saw stars my Earthbound eyes had no right seeing. They twinkled at eye level and planets bobbed in the air. In the dead space between one that looked like Earth, except for the swirling indigo clouds, and a star on the brink of collapse, there was a ship.

It was from there that a text box sprouted to relay everything on record about it. Friday narrated with her usual enthusiasm and holo-Carol stood next to me, conducting my learning. I reached out to the images that scrolled above the text and enlarged them. The focus shifted to external shots of the vessel, caught by anyone who happened to be in the vicinity.

"They," Carol said when I'd flicked through the ship shots and came to some candid portraits, "are anyone known to have associated with the ship."

I faltered when a glimpse of purple skin and golden armour unleashed feelings I hadn't felt since confronting Dreykov. But it wasn't him that made me stop, it was the next one. With hair like oil and eyes like murder, Proxima Midnight sneered through the photo.

"You know her?" Carol asked.

"I've had the pleasure," I said, remembering the fight in a ditch that was later sprinkled blue with her blood. "I stabbed her friend. Wanda killed her."

Carol whistled. "This Wanda sounds like a person I want to meet."

"She's more than just her powers."

"No doubt. Sounds to me like she has a lot of strength that has nothing at all to do with her powers."

I thought about the aftermath of Pietro's death and the way she resolved to save the universe even though it meant losing Vision. Even the willingness to realise and accept she was wrong to support Ultron. All of that strength was uniquely Wanda's, and I don't think she ever realised just how strong she was. I don't think anyone ever told her.

"Yeah," I said, because there weren't any words sincere enough to explain just how much I agreed with Carol, and I scrolled through more of the photos. I stopped again, this time on someone I didn't recognise, but they had a name I knew.

Green skin and purple hair.

"This is Nebula's sister?" I asked. The only thing she had in common with Nebula were eyes of infinite pain and sorrow. All the stories of their turbulent relationship came to mind and I placed her in them.

"Yep."

"Did you know her?"

She shook her head. "Only by reputation. As a daughter of Thanos, then as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy later. Nebula doesn't talk much about her."

"I imagine it's painful." I swallowed against the grief that demanded more. More words, more emotion, more time. Grief that clawed at my throat and screamed in my thoughts as a reminder that it was more than pain, more than unbearable, more than endless. Not even death would sooth the raw and angry void left by a missing sister.

"That ship," Carol said, "is home to a Thanos sympathiser."

"Think I could tell that from its associated persons."

"Alright, smart-arse, tell me what race they are."

There were more cultures and life forms in the universe than I had ever anticipated. Many a lesson had been dedicated to planets and the political and historical baggage that came with their people.

Much to my surprise, and Carol's delight, it was information I took on easily. My understanding of the inter-galactic underworld, space-faring warlords, inter-planetary treaties and thousand-year wars was second-to-none on Earth. Well, minus the people of New Asgard. They were way ahead of me.

Thanks to Thanos' relentless victimisation of planets, there weren't many races who openly supported him, which cut down the amount of people willing to host him and his children. It helped that I recognised the name of the quadrant I was standing in the middle of and, though outdated, the advanced technological ship was easy to recognise.

Not to mention there was one race Carol had a habit of circling back round to. As unintentional as it was, it wasn't surprising. They were her version of the Red Room.

"The Kree," I said, "one of the purists that came out in support of him after the Guardians defeated Ronan the Accuser."

"Star pupil as ever," Carol said. "This particular Kree was incredibly helpful in Thanos' research phase of operation fuck-half-the-universe. When Thanos was sceptical of the stones' existence this guy pointed him in the right direction for confirmation, which ended up being the Mind Stone itself. He also helped to uncover the rumours that the hidden temple on Morag contained the Power Stone and it was his contacts that suggested the Time Stone went by another name, much like the Reality Stone."

"So, you're saying this guy might have some answers for us."

"Maybe," she shrugged, "he's not someone I trust."

"Thanos did though."

"Betray Thanos and seal your fate. The man suggested genocide by lottery on his own planet and killed his own daughter, with many a crime in between."

"But?"

"But it's worth a shot, I guess." She eyed the ship with a lot of hostility. "It has to be. He was difficult to track down. I can get to him no problem, but there'll be a lot of people caught in the crossfire."

"Any chance of avoiding that?"

"Nope. He suffers from a serious case of cowardice. He'd throw his whole family into a black hole if it meant he was spared."

"The people that work for him?"

"Usually indentured. Some of them were survivors of Thanos-stricken planets before he got his gauntlet. Some of them prisoners of war taken by the Kree. Some of them Kree volunteers."

If our mission had a time-limit or the fate of a war hung in the balance, it would have been the type of decision I hated making. The sort of decision with the sort of reasoning that made me sound like Thanos: There was no cost too high to ensure the right outcome.

But there wasn't a time limit. There wasn't a war. Just a universe-wide spell or scientific experiment or cosmic anomaly to undo. Innocent people needn't be sacrificed for that. Especially when they almost certainly had people taken by the Snap.

"You know what I'm gonna say," I said and Carol exaggerated a sigh.

"You're gonna say hold off. Because, for most of them, it's not their fault they're there. Let's see if we can get little to no collateral damage." She waved her hand and the galaxy disappeared into Friday's endless data storage. "You know, Romanoff, I didn't think the Russian intelligence service was known for its bleeding hearts."

I levelled her with a look that quite clearly said as a former harbinger of collateral damage I had no desire to inflict more on the world I lived in nor the galaxy it was found in.

"Fine. Message received," she said and winked.

"You mentioned the Mind Stone earlier."

All the information I had on it was from Loki's invasion and after. We knew it controlled people's minds, we knew it drew out Wanda's and Pietro's powers, we knew it gave Vision life. We didn't know where it came from, we didn't know how Thanos got his snap-happy hands on it, we didn't really know the extent of its powers.

"Yeah," she said, "so, you know, if I grab him we might be able to have a nice little chat about it."

"Still not gonna change what I said."

"Technically you didn't say, just got me to say it."

"Which you were able to do because you heard my voice in your head, saying it."

"You're impossible Romanoff."

"No, Danvers, just extremely stubborn."

12 February 2021

Hi Tom,

Do you know the real fun part of an intergalactic team? Explaining the everyday Earth-exclusives that only exist because, as a species, we're a bit behind the times and, as a species, we just make no sense sometimes.

Oh that, yeah that's a phone box. You know, in case you don't have your phone on you. Nope, no one really uses them anymore but they're just sort of there.

Why do humans need language-to-language dictionaries? Well, not everyone happens to have a universal translator.

Daylight savings time? I don't know, something to do with candles and saving energy and war probably came into it later. Why don't you just Google it instead of pestering me with these questions, Rocket. What's Google? Oh come on, we've been over this!

Of course, it's not always Rocket who's asking. Nebula is curious too. She spent a lifetime travelling across the universe at her father's behest, but never really had a chance to immerse herself in any of the cultures.

She liked to learn about customs and traditions.

Most didn't make sense to her.

"I do not understand. Are they real?"

I'd just taken a generous gulp of soda and almost choked when she answered. The drink stung the back of my throat and felt like it was bubbling through my nose and up along my optic nerves. I tried to blink it back but my eyes watered a little when I looked at holo-Nebula.

"No. They're fake little cutesy ones."

She looked straight ahead as she contemplated my words and, not for the first time, I wondered what her life had been like for such a revelation to surprise her. At least, I think she looked surprised. Yeah, let's go with that.

"Shame," she said at last, "real ones would be better."

"It's supposed to be romantic," I said, as if I was in any way an authority on the subject, "rather than ripping out your heart and giving it to people in an overly dramatic declaration, they hand over a representation of it. Usually as a card."

"But would a better demonstration not be to find your lover's worst enemy, cut their heart from their chest and present it to your love while it's still warm?"

It was my turn to think and, I'll be honest, they're not words I had ever thought I'd contemplate."No," I said once an argument had fully formed in my head, "because that would be murder and there's no point in declaring your love like that if you're just going to spend the rest of your life behind bars. Plus, I think people just prefer to get chocolates in a heart-shaped box."

"A 'cutesy' heart-shaped box?" She hesitated on 'cutesy' as if she couldn't believe the word was about to come out of her mouth. I nodded in reply and her shoulders slumped just a fraction. "Your planet has weird customs."

"Can't argue with that."

"Have you ever had one?"

"What?"

"A Valentine's card. Whatever it is you humans exchange."

So used to skipping over my memories of Ohio the denial had left my mouth before I managed to rein it in. It was only after our call ended that I remembered the glitter saturated bits of card Yelena and I exchanged every year of our mission.

19 February 2021

I said last month that all things secrets and intrigue were my thing.

Keeping Tony's people-are-out-to-get-me-and-I'm-not-even-being-paranoid problem from the others was uncomfortable. Shellhead himself figured, and I agreed, that telling the others would alert the hopeful Tony-nappers that we were counter-planning. Our circle of former and current Avengers and associates weren't always the most subtle. The only saving grace was that Pepper knew.

Our faceless adversaries had taken many pains to make sure there was no digital trail. That made us both confident that hacking into the most advanced and secure systems in the world was not on their agenda. Though that didn't stop Tony from running diagnostics every twelve hours or me from sneaking into Friday's system through the back doors I'd spotted over the years. The larger of which I'd patched up long ago but felt the need to see if I'd left any gaps for an entrepreneuring hacker to slip through. I even made a habit of sweeping the compound for bugs.

"What about your delivery driver?" Tony said, sat on the sofa in my office because, even though he didn't admit it, he'd lost faith in the digital, which is like me losing faith in the shadows.

"Aaron?"

"Yeah. He's an Avenger fanboy isn't he?"

"Yeah, but Rhodey's his favourite not you."

"Exactly. That's suspicious."

"He's not involved. You really think I'd request a regular delivery guy without going above and beyond on the background checks? I tore his life apart. I know him better than his friends and family do and I know them better than he does. He doesn't have the knowhow to hack."

"Yeah, but if we circle back round to our original working theory we're not looking for hackers. Puts him right back into the mix."

"Tony," I said, trying not to sound too exasperated with him, "my delivery guy is not trying to kidnap you."

"I wanna talk to him."

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Because when you're trying to smoke out a mole the interrogations are meant to be subtle. And I don't think you and subtle have ever been introduced."

He folded his arms and slumped further into the sofa. And though his brow was furrowed with worry and there was more stress-induced silver sprinkled through his hair and beard, he looked more like a tantrum prone two-year-old than his actual two-year-old ever did.

"Level with me, Rusty. Without that digital trail what chance do we have of finding them?"

"It'll be a better one if you stop calling me Rusty." A small smile flickered across his lips and I was glad to see his mood wasn't totally darkened. "There might not be a digital trail, but there will be something."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Everyone leaves a trace. And to exist even for a little while without leaving one, that's not the type of training and experience you can pick up from a YouTube tutorial. It's my level sort of training. And," I looked at him sprawled out on the sofa, shoes off and jacket thrown over the back, "if I was trying to kidnap you I'd say it was mission accomplished right now."

He flashed me a smile then hauled himself from his reclined position, toed his shoes on and grabbed the jacket as he stood. "But you haven't kidnapped me, so I can leave with no objections."

"For now." There was something about the way he sauntered towards the door that gave me pause. "Don't you dare bother Aaron. I'm not breaking in a replacement."

"You really think you can track down whoever's behind it?"

"Of course I can."

"And then what?"

"We let them kidnap you."

"What?" He spluttered and took a few steps back into the room. "The whole point is to avoid the kidnapping."

"Trust me Tony, it works. They let their guard down, give you the information they're looking for. Then bam, they're on their backs or hanging from chains and you're walking away with nothing but a ladder in your tights."

"That sounds oddly specific. Do you have tights in my size?"

"My point is, I've done it before. It'll work."

He hesitated again. I always forgot how much I hated the sight of an uncertain Tony Stark, it was about as wrong as Captain America without the shield. "What about Pep and Morgan?"

"Pepper's working from home, right? Friday has eyes on her, keeps track of her if she goes for a run. And Morgan's only two, it's not like she's gonna be out on the town painting it red. They're safer at home than anywhere else."

"You know," he said, half turned back towards the door, "I'm not sure I've told you recently how glad I am that we're on the same side." I knew from the little flash of something behind his eyes that we both thought of the same thing. An ill-fated encounter at a hospital after the beat down at the airport.

"We've always been on the same side." I offered a small smile and hoped he didn't take offence from my words.

"Always will be," he threw over his shoulder as he left.

23 February 2021

Korg sent round his shortlist of books for next month's Sakaaran book club meeting. An eclectic mix with his usual misguided explanations.

Brighton Rock because it's not a rock he's familiar with.

The Hidden Life of Trees because Groot.

The Martian because that's a race of people he's not heard of before.

The Complete Language of Flowers because that's not a language programmed into his translator implant.

The Colour of Magic because Thor had told him stories of the wizards of Midgard.

Good Omens because they're better than bad ones.

I didn't usually vote. Most of his choices were things I'd read or had no interest in reading. Except, just as I was about to close the email I remembered the utter boredom of hanging out in my room during my English stakeout.

So I looked through them all and ticked them off.

The Complete Language of Flowers? Already done. As a spy, understanding the different meanings behind flowers was an essential, and useful, knowledge pool.

The Martian? Read it a few years ago. I'd misjudged how taken Tony would be at the idea of being a pop culture reference. So taken that, when the film was in production, he contacted the studio and insisted they did use the Ironman move.

Brighton Rock was one of the few Western books I read before defecting.

And I enjoyed the vivid imagination and whimsical writing of Terry Pratchett so much that I'd long since read his entire bibliography, including the result of his delightfully bonkers partnership with Neil Gaiman.

So my vote went towards The Hidden Life of Trees simply because it was the only one I hadn't yet read. At least I would get to read the whole thing, my habit of skipping the last chapter didn't extend to non-fiction.

Half a day later my hard-headed acquaintance holo-called.

"Um hey. Hello. Can you hear me. Oh wait, you can see me. I don't think I meant to do that but what you gonna do when your fingers are too big for the screens, huh." He lifted a hand and wiggled his fingers then he switched his focus to something I couldn't see, though I heard the crashing of waves. "I hope you don't mind if I keep looking away. I have to because of the harbour. I don't want to accidentally end up at the bottom of it on my walk, you know.

"Let me tell you, my friend, if I find myself at the bottom of the harbour there's no getting myself out of that pickle. I'll just have to stay down there and play host to the fish and those creepy side-walking things in shells, you know they have all those legs and pinch you real hard though I like to think I'll be brave and be all like 'piss of crustacean'," he mimed kicking something while he carried on talking, "until someone comes looking or I eventually erode to nothing.

"What do you think that'll be like, eroding to nothing? I see all these mighty rocks and all I can think is that they used to be even mightier. Then all those years passed right on by and chipped at them as they went. I guess all rock is perishable in the end, huh. I think that would be a horrible way to go, down in the harbour, do you? Oh," he blinked a couple of times as he finally took a breath, "you're not Valkyrie."

"Just me, I'm afraid," I bit back the laugh that bubbled up at the randomness of the greeting that had spilled from his mouth right alongside existential questions and statements.

"Oh. Well hey Thor's friend who knew Thor when he had his hammer."

"Uh, hi."

"Were you ever worried about his relationship with his hammer?"

"With Mjolnir?"

"Bless you."

"Uhh, no I wasn't. It was just a hammer."

"Hmmm. When we first met he said some things about him and his hammer that I found very concerning."

"Did he?" I said just to give myself a chance to reorient myself in this strange but typically Korg conversation.

"Yep. I probably shouldn't say. Sounded like private stuff."

"How is Thor?" I asked because, A, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what Korg thought he heard and, B, this was the first time in a while I'd had contact with those physically close to the Asgardian.

"You know," he paused as he searched for words, or maybe he was trying to avoid them. Rock dust trickled from his head to his Hawaiian shirt-clad shoulders and there was an idle part of my mind that wondered if it was his equivalent of dandruff. "He's Thor."

As vague as the answer sounded it was the most specific I could hope for. Thor was stubborn and broken and depressed. But above all he was in denial. Demons haunted his everyday but he didn't have the motivation to face up to them.

"What about you?"

"Oh no, I'm not Thor." There was an innocence to his tone and a slight bewilderment in his eyes. He'd wrenched a wry smile from me before I could hold it back.

"I meant how are you?"

"Yep, that's a better question friend." He paused and tapped a finger against his chin. "One I should be able to answer but I'm not sure how. I had a lot of time to contemplate as a gladiator - is that odd? Maybe, I don't know how gladiating works anywhere else - and I thought I had contemplated all that needed contemplating. More of a contemplator than a competitor. Doug used to say that. He was a competitor. But I'm here, he's not. Rest in peace Doug, though I think he's resting in pieces. Poor Doug."

"I understand."

"About Doug?"

"About not knowing how to answer that question."

"You do?"

I nodded and waited until my words fell into place before I spoke again. Korg showed an uncharacteristic understanding of the few moments of silence that followed and didn't try to fill them. "I think people forget that feeling is a very isolated experience. No one else can feel what you feel, no one else can understand it because feelings by their very nature are abstract and indefinable and almost indescribable." I let those words settle for a moment and hoped it was something Korg understood on an instinctive level. It was a sentiment that had followed me since my deprogramming. Everyone asked how I was feeling and almost everyone was disappointed when I couldn't put it into words.

"And," I continued, "not being able to explain makes it very difficult for us to understand it ourselves. Like now, I guess. Right in this moment I don't feel bad or horrible or angry, but that doesn't mean I'm happy. Or maybe that's exactly what happy is, the lack of negative emotions, and we've all just hyped it up through all our misunderstanding. We all just have to figure it out on our own."

They were words I didn't know were rattling around in my head, but they felt like important ones to say. Whether it meant anything to Korg I didn't know. Hell, I wasn't even sure what they meant to me. I just knew they needed saying, even if I didn't know they existed until they came out of my mouth.

"That's what books are for," he said, "and stories."

"Huh?"

"So we don't have to figure it out on our own, you know. Good thing we have our book club then, huh. I was happy to see your email earlier. I'm glad you're taking part again."

"Me too," I smiled and realised my neutral state had tipped ever so slightly into the positive as gratitude for this creature made of rock rushed through me.