It was less than a month after coming home from the hospital that everything fell apart, well even more fell apart. The scrapes and bruises from the car accident have just finished healing and the doctor had declared she needed a few weeks longer in her wrist brace.
The only word she had to describe what she felt like was numb. But before, before the last semblance of stability crumbled away, she had been grateful. Grateful that she hadn't lost all of her family as so many had between the "Blip" and the tragedies that ensued. That she still had her dad and Aunt Nat.
So when her dad, former Avenger and now just a heartbroken man who had lost almost everything, announced that he would be leaving she was blindsided.
It was their new normal. Karina was seated at the worn kitchen table, the last of the evening light filtering in through the bay window of her childhood home with Clint standing at the sink looking out at the farm fields of the Homestead. It was quieter now, without the kids, but it was still home. The closest thing left.
Clint broke the silence, "I'm leaving Karina. Not now but soon." He stayed facing away as if he couldn't bear to look at her.
Karina stares at his back. It was all she could do to stammer out, "What? Why?"
Clint sighs as he runs his hand through his hair, "There are alot of bad people, criminals, that are taking advantage of the chaos. I need to help rein them in."
"So? Help Aunt Nat or Steve with the relief efforts. We could go to the compound for awhile and help out there." Karina suggested.
Her stomach tightened and flipped and her throat tightened as her anxiety built. The voice in the back of her mind insisted that it wasn't that easy.
"This is something that can't be fixed by rebuilding. It was at the core of these people before. They wont stop with charity. This is something I can do, that I have to do. I need to do it alone." Clint insisted, finally turning to face his daughter.
'No Dad, we are in this together. It's just us now." Karina whispered, pulling her knee to her chest, a barrier between her and the inevitable hurt. Her throat locks at the thought of what her dad had just proposed. That he leave, without her.
"There are people out there that don't deserve to have lived through the snap while they didn't. I have to…"
"Have to what, Dad?" She snapped as she lept to her feet. The cool sadness turned to hot anger, "Avenge them? News flash Dad, you're not an Avenger anymore. Even if you were they failed."
"You don't understand. I put everything on the line for you all, for my family, and it didn't mean anything!"
"I don't understand? I lost my parents at three years old. Now I've lost my siblings and mother all over again. You are the one that has no idea what I'm going through. I can't lose anyone else." She was almost screaming by the end of her rant. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "I need you Dad."
"You're not losing me. I'm leaving but not forever. I can't stay here in this house without them here doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs."
"Stay, Dad please."
"No, I won't stay here while criminals run free and alive when they aren't"
"It's always been about you." Karina snapped "Why'd you even bother adopting me if you were just going to dump me the second you got the chance? If you leave, you aren't the man I thought you were. You're no longer my Dad, you're just the man who raised me."
"I adopted you because I love you! You needed me then and I chose to be there for you as a parent. Damn it, Karina! I'm leaving because I'm trying to protect one of the only people I love that I have left! I'm trying to fix part of this broken world for you!"
"If you loved me, if you really knew what I needed, you would stay" Karina whispered.
The two locked into a stare-down before silently breaking it off. Karina stalked up the stairs, struggling to keep back tears. When she reached the safety of her room she softly shut the door numbly. She picked up the stuffed dog Nathaniel had left on the floor and hugged it to her chest before collapsing onto her bed, sobbing. She curled around the toy, pretending she giving her youngest brother a hug. She fell asleep like that.
When she woke up that morning it was deathly quiet. Sitting up, she just knew. She knew that he had left, vanished like a thief in the night. She became completely and utterly alone, an orphan in a broken world.
"Goodbye, Uncle Clint."