A heavy wind floated gently down the streets of Greenwich Village, thick with humidity and a threat of storms. A sleek black car turned at the corner, slowed in front of a comfortable brownstone, and parked in the middle of the block.
As Happy Hogan stepped out of the car, Mab Dumont hurried out of her front door, yards of blue-gray silk billowing at the skirts of her gown and creating an illusion of floating down the brownstone's front steps. Silver shoes danced across the sidewalk, glittering with embroidered designs only visible as silk was lifted up and away for a swift exit.
Her gray cane clacked against the concrete and Happy opened the back of the car, a diplomat's smile greeting her. "Good evening, Miss Dumont," he said, "can I hold that for you?" he asked, holding a hand out for her cane.
Too nervous to be suspicious, Mab surrendered the cane, and organized the yards of shimmering silk, tiny embroidered designs, and glittering beads, in both hands.
David hurried down the steps, helping hands gathering silk. He had a silly smile on his face and a misty haze in his eyes. His mouth trembled with emotion as he smiled at his niece and gently closed the car door.
Happy gave the man a moment to embrace the emotion, to savor it. "She looks like a masterpiece," he said.
"She looks like her mother," David replied.
Happy returned to the driver's seat, pulling the car gently away from the curb, but David stayed on the sidewalk, hands clasped over his heart.
Mab rolled down the back window, carefully slipped a silk-wrapped arm out into the heavy breeze, and waved at David as the car pulled turned the corner of the block, headed North.
"Should be a short ride," he said, and Mab could only nod.
Her hands shook, hot and sweaty, but her feet were frozen in the new shoes. She'd tried to break them in over the last few days but the little leather strap at the ankle had given her a ridiculous amount of grief. She'd been tempted to wear sneakers under the gown, but the slight reduction in height had left too much fabric around her feet and she'd nearly given herself a broken nose trying to walk around.
Going there for the first time
It was so much smaller then
That crowded downstairs full of poetry-
Mab nearly slid out of her seat as the car jerked to a sudden halt, and Happy leaned against the horn, shouting something unintelligible about the cab that had cut him off. "Sorry," he called over his shoulder, "you okay?"
Before she could answer, the phone on her lap rang and Mab answered on the first ring. "Tony," she snarled, "I swear to god, if you don't stop calling me and give me five minutes of silence before this party, I will throw myself out of this car and into traffic."
"Nice try, but the doors are locked. How we feeling, Princess?"
"Fuck you, too," she chirped.
"Did the dress fit?" Better than any garment she'd ever owned. The army of designers and dressers had cooed over her figure, complimented her on gaining enough weight between initial fitting and final reveal to fill out into a perfect dress size, and made her prove she could lift and move the panels and yards without damage. She thought they just enjoyed having a new doll to dress up.
"I opted for sweatpants," she replied, plucking at the fabric of her gown. She traced a line of glittering silk - a heavenly hand, a color so delicate it seemed like a memory of a thundercloud. "Where are you, anyway? I thought you'd be in the car with me just to make sure I get out."
"Couldn't get away, too many pencils need pushing. I left you a present, though."
Mab shot an uncertain look at the ribbon-wrapped box on the seat next to her. "You shouldn't have?" she said in the form of a question.
"You're an embarrassment - open it. Preferably before you pull up to the party."
Mab hesitantly tugged on a loop of satin ribbon and it slid free. She lifted the lid off the box and dropped it into the footwell. The box contained a cane: gleaming brass opera handle and heel, and a folded black shaft with a subtle hexagonal black-on-black pattern. Mab lifted it from the box, and it was shockingly light in her hands. She grasped the handle and released the folded shaft, which snapped into full length with a satisfying clack-a-clack.
"I already have a cane," she said, even as she admired the black and gold beauty.
"Gray plastic? Please; it's hideous."
Mab wanted to reject it, but it felt so right in her hands. "Thank you, Tony."
The car slowed, and muted paparazzi flashes struggled to pierce through the security tint.
"Showtime," Happy reported from the driver's seat.
"Try not to trip," Tony encouraged as Mab hung up.
"You'll do great." Happy gave her a look. "Ready?"
Mab gulped, then nodded.
Happy moved slowly, deliberately, stepping out onto the fine carpet and taking the time to straighten his tie. He opened Mab's door, and the night exploded into lights.
Mab kept her eyes down, demure and focused, as she slipped both feet to the ground together as she'd practiced. "Breathe, just… breathe." With a duck of her head and a strong hand on Happy's offered arm, she stood, and the misty waterfall of silk clouds followed, falling into position as she took a step forward. Happy stayed next to the car, and as she turned out of his reach he slipped the new black and gold cane into her hand.
He disappeared back into the car, and Mab had to move forward as another town car approached the carpet.
A midday sun's worth of light flushed and glittered beyond a velvet rope, a gauntlet of screaming photographers ushering her down the line, look this way, look this way, smile for us, smile, smile, they called.
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
Lifting her head slowly as she walked, each step acclimating her to the clamor and the harsh light, she lifted her gaze to the horizon. A few more steps, a few more smiles, turning in a sea of silk, the weight of their attention and the yards of blue-gray silk left her teetering on the edge of collapse.
But she was stronger now, and her grip on the cane was steady. The tight silk sleeves restricted her reach and Mab was terrified at the prospect of dropping her cane, unsure if she would be able to retrieve it from the ground.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Mab traversed the carpet without mishap, and a small woman dressed entirely in black, clipboard in hand, appeared at her side as she approached the doors of the hotel. "Welcome to The Pierre, Miss Dumont. Follow me, please."
White marble and gold filigree hinged open like a splendid monster's glittering maw, ready to feast on her terror and punish her uncertainty.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
The marble floors were made for extravagance, and Mab was grateful she'd practiced in her new heels. The high polish glowed with a mirror's shine, skimming the crisp hem of her gown with little whispers of praise.
Once safely in an elevator, the coordinator spoke only briefly. "Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?"
Mab shook her head. "No, thank you."
"It might be hard to get away once you join the party, which is why I ask." She pressed with a careful insistence, perhaps from experience, but Mab needed her stomach to stay empty.
"I appreciate it, but no."
The coordinator nodded and didn't insist further.
Many have already fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts,
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow.
Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds;
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the mower.
The elevator doors opened to a mercifully empty landing. Mab was led left, right, and down a hall to ornate doors propped open. She could hear the merry murmuring of a crowd, and a sign proclaiming a celebration in her honor spelled the end of her invisibility.
The coordinator offered no words of encouragement, but simply stopped walking as Mab continued on, hands clasped softly at the level of her waist as she entered the ballroom. She garnered only mild interest from the assembled social royalty, and Mab would have preferred it stayed that way. She would have been more than content to hide at the back of the hall until it was time for her to give the speech, thank the foundation, and leave as soon as possible.
Mab didn't recognize the face that beamed at her through the crowd, a shock of copper hair complementing a stunning cobalt evening gown, but recognized her voice as she said "Mab, so glad you made it. Let me introduce you to-" Pepper Potts - stunning, charismatic - led Mab into the welcoming arms of the lion's den.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
An ambassador, an heiress, a man beyond means. Nods and handshakes and smiles and laughter. And smiles and laughter, and smile, smile, smile, Mab reminded in her head. This is the road back from ruin, this is the path you chose.
"It's so good to meet you," said a woman in dazzling purple, "I can't tell you what your work means to me. I read a lot as a girl, and-"
Am I allowed to look at this?
To be able to see the sky wheeling overhead
Knowing that beyond its cloudy Visage
Is an expanse of stars and wonder untold.
Names, countless names, titles and places. Ambassador to Spain, Ambassador from Spain, Director of this, CEO of that. To your left, power. To your right, unfathomable wealth. Curator of bones. President of blood.
"Can you settle an argument for us," asked a man nearly strangled by the starched white of his dress shirt's collar, "There's a poem - I can't remember what it's called, but I'm sure you know the one - about duck hunting." He tugged at his collar with a finger, but his tie was equally tight and kept the collar from moving at all.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
"Miss Dumont?" A gentleman to her left asked. His lapel bore a strange distinctive pin - a tiny sword with patterns she didn't recognize at a distance. His jaw was too square to match his nose, but his smile was earnest, though perhaps a little too sincere for strangers.
"Yes, Mister…?" she trailed off, leaving the opening for him to introduce himself.
"I'm not a guest, just the hired help." While all the guests were drinking champagne in perfect crystal stems, this man offered her a cup of what appeared to be tea. "You looked like you could use a drink, ma'am."
The sharp reply was right there on her lips. Sure do love being called ma'am, she would quip, makes me feel all youthful and spry.
But that was from another time.
And the dark-haired gentleman offering her tea was not Steve.
Because Steve wasn't here.
Steve didn't want her.
She gripped her new cane tightly. "Would you excuse me for a minute?" She needed air. Mab turned away, leaving the perfectly reasonable man who was only trying to help in favor of the only sanctuary she could find. Mab stepped out of tall glass-paneled doors and onto a red brick terrace, and the wind whipped over her shoulders, tumbling into Central Park.
"What the fuck," Mab hissed, free hand grasping at the terrace railing as the hand on her cane began to shake. "What the fuck!" she screamed out over the park.
A chuckle across the small terrace made it abundantly clear that Mab was not alone. She could feel the heat of embarrassment flush all the way down to her new shoes. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize anyone was out here."
She fought the urge to hide her face and run, instead turning towards the stranger. Everyone at the event was dressed to the nines, but Mab was used to most of the gentlemen sporting almost identical black tuxedoes. This man was wearing a dazzlingly embroidered dashiki with black and purple motifs.
"You are the guest of honor tonight, am I correct? The Silent Laureate."
She wasn't sure whether to curtsy or what at an event like this, so she just extended a hand for a handshake. "Mab Dumont. And I'm sorry, I only had a few hours to read the guest list and try to memorize a few faces, you are…?"
"T'Challa." He smiled and took her hand in a firm but gentle shake. "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a party-crasher. I wasn't originally invited, but a last-minute addition at my father's insistence."
"Local or out of town?"
His smile broadened. "Not local." So, international then. "Do you have a favorite poem, Silent Laureate?"
"I always feel like questions of that vein are a test. If I pick something obscure I'm an elitist. If I pick something popular I'm unscholarly. If I pick something that appeals to the audience I'm pandering. There is no way to win."
"Respectfully, I disagree. In this instance, it should be clear what work is your favorite."
Mab sat down on a stone bench, her back to the balcony. She preferred to lean her cane between her legs, but the silk gown prevented it and she had to rest it against the bench beside her. "And what is that?"
Without prompting, T'Challa sat beside her, but a respectful gap left between them. "Your own."
Mab sighed. "What a splendid way to display arrogance."
He shrugged in a very un-princely fashion. "I believe this party is in your honor."
"Have you read my poems?" Mab asked, not intending for it to sound quite so much like an attack.
"I have," he replied with calm assurance. "Ten pounds more."
Mab was ready for the ground to open up and eat her now. "I'm sorry, this is a very stressful night for me."
"I understand." He looked out over the terrace and into Central Park at her side.
"Your father is T'Chaka, King of Wakanda," she stated as fact, having finally run through enough of her memory to recognize the family resemblance from the vetted guest book the aides had tried to help her memorize.
T'Challa smiled. "I hope this will not spoil our wonderful conversation."
Mab hummed. "I like to think that words have power. But mine - my best - has no place here. Too much despair. Too much rage."
The wind sighed around them, building with intensity and the yet-unfulfilled promise of rain. The wind shifted her cane a little too much and it clattered to the ground, striking T'Challa's knee on the way down.
He scooped it up without comment, and before Mab could even apologize he brushed it carefully with a hand to ensure the complex pattern hadn't been damaged. "Rage is beautiful. I believe there is even a famous poem about it."
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
He continued, unaware of the poets that haunted Mab, but still grasped her cane. "Rage blooms from a passion for something worth fighting for. If you did not love it, the wrath would not grow." He looked at Mab with a strange sorrow, offering her back her cane. "You may not feel your words have power, but the pedestal you stand on grants it."
She accepted it slowly, a solemnity in his expression giving her pause. "I don't follow."
He clasped his now empty hands in font of his chest, feeling a moment beyond her. "In Wakanda, a full gathering of the tribes is a once-in-a-lifetime event, usually only when the King has died. This reception has a remarkable guest list."
"Once in a lifetime, one might say."
His hands fell. "One might. I'm not suggesting you try to crown a King here. I'm just pointing out that you are not powerless." He stood, brushing out his dashiki. "I will leave you to your thoughts, Silent Laureate."
Mab gripped the new cane with two hands, staring down at it. She lifted her head, shouting "Thank you!" to T'Challa, barely catching his shadow. But he paused, nodded to her with a serene smile, and vanished back into the reception hall.
Stars and windows and streetlights glittered around her as the city awoke into the evening. A rumble of cars - or was it thunder - filled the thick summertime air.
Her old cane had had the decency to creak in defeat when she'd gripped it tightly. This new one - a gift from her patron, she thought with scorn - had no pity for her. She had a lot of self-pity, though.
She was sad, of course, that no one was there for her. Not to stand at her side, or hold her hand, or call when it rained. But she had grieved for that, and it had taken up enough time of her life. She wasn't about to hold open the door for that grief again. But she would not let that harden her.
She was tired, of course, of playing the pretty puppet to atone for her sins. But she had made her choices, and now it was time to reap the field she had sowed. But she would not turn away from a sun that shone on her.
Mab sat on the bench, appreciating the expensive terrace of a building she would likely never set foot in again. She enjoyed the silence, the New York Silence, of wind and thunder and cars and the hum of a million dreams.
She switched her cane to a single hand, letting the shaft pivot to its working position, and rose from the bench. Her hands and her feet and her heart were steady.
The terrace behind her, the doors opening before her, the party enveloping her once more, the world returned to a sharp focus she hadn't realized was missing. The string quartet played something uplifting yet unobtrusive, enhancing the atmosphere without drawing attention. Mab hadn't even noticed they were there before. The crystal chandeliers glittered in the subtle wind that followed Mab in from the terrace, casting rainbows to dance across the walls.
"There you are!" Pepper called, bustling through the crowd, "I've been looking everywhere for you. Are you ready?"
Mab nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak yet. Pepper didn't wait for her to second-guess herself, and firmly led Mab through the crowd to a small dais outfitted with a podium. Mab stood to one side as Pepper called for the crowd to settle, and made an excellent joke, and spoke about the Foundation. Time moved like a slippery eel trapped on the dock, both quick but not going anywhere with any speed. Mab could only stare into the spotlights, waiting, listening.
"Ladies and Gentlement, your Silent Laureate: Mab Dumont!" Pepper applauded with the crowd and stepped aside.
Mab rubbed her hands together as she approached the podium and microphone. A teleprompter slightly to her right started to scroll through her speech; all she had to do was follow along.
"Good evening," she leaned down a little to speak into the microphone. "I'd like to start with a poem that's not mine, in the spirit of the occasion."
I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said – "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet to survive, stamped on those lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
"I think we'd like to believe in a world of heroes and kings, where the greater choices for the future are all made for us and always in our best interest. That all those things will be remembered as beautiful, and justified, and brave."
She looked away from the teleprompter and out into the gathered crowd. Out into the power and wealth and indifference. "We used to be this shining beacon of hope in the world – Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore – but we've created such a strict definition of who we believe to be worthy of the things we take for granted that we have closed our Golden Door. This exclusivity – restricted to only the people we deem normal and acceptable – is poisoning us."
The teleprompter stopped as she deviated from the prepared speech. It scrolled back a little, as if to help her find her place again. Mab ignored it.
"I ask you, how will history remember you? In your version of history, because you will only ever perceive your version, will you be Ozymandias – King of Kings, look upon my works and despair – where your selfish desires crumble when you are gone?"
The silence bore down on her, a breath of the universe held in her honor.
"I charge you, as a humble poet finding her feet that you may never think of again after this night, to remember that your version of history is not the only one possible."
Do not go gentle into that good night.
She took a deep breath. "Let me tell you a story about the ocean."
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Mab didn't need a teleprompter to help her remember this poem, this secret fury no one had ever heard. She knew this poem as well as the inconstant beat of her heart. "Keep going," her mother whispered in her memory.
Her eyes and her lips and her soul opened, and the words spilled forth.
At eight, I took a trip to the sea with my class
I was not allowed to swim for fear my weakness would overtake me
And I might drown
So I watched from the sand as my classmates laughed
And my teacher tried to explain what I already knew.
Teacher calls me different
When at the age of eight how am I to understand
That sticker doesn't come off clean
She doesn't mean it to be permanent or cruel
But it is.
When I run for the ocean
Teacher holds me back
I cannot even feel that salt on my hands
So she reminds me again.
The ocean will still drown me
With gloriously indifferent hands
of blue-green and silver
That cannot forgive
I am other
Teacher rewards my tears with candy
And promises of someday
When even the ocean
May be accessible to the other.
Pious preachings of someday's equality
Do not equity make.
They only reveal the fervor with which
You
Don a blindfold
And stuff cotton in your ears
We know that you fight the change
As viciously as you cheat death
To delay, to bargain, to ignore
That one day
You, too
Will be denied the ocean.
Time, money, medicine, circumstance, accident
eventually make other of us all
You are not special
You
Will someday be stopped at the sand.
This story has no serene ending to help you sleep
Or stare at the ocean without thinking of regret
I hope it clings to you
Like the salt-spray casting off
And the roar of waves forever reminds you of the truth:
To call us other and deny the ocean
You pretend you are immune
Leaving the line in the sand someday
You
Will never be able to cross
as
Other.
She stepped away from the podium to polite but confused applause.
Murmurs of conversation, nothing but a wild buzz in her ears, followed her down the steps. Mab had forgotten that immediately after the speech was a small press junket, and the sudden onslaught of microphones being shoved in her face was alarming and startling.
There was cameras, and various video, and a recorder here, and so many hands raised for questions. Mab struggled to keep up with the questions and longed for a more sensible place to put her hands. The cumbersome gown had pockets she wasn't really supposed to use, her head hurt from the complicated updo, and she just wanted to go home and sleep. But this evening was her debut, as it were, and she couldn't escape the attention.
"Miss Dumont!" someone in the press crowd cried. "Were you faking your heart problems to draw notoriety?"
Before she even had the chance to balk, to diffuse, or rage, she was rescued by a flippant voice at her side. "It's rude to wave pitchforks at the guest of honor."
The crowd drew instantly silent before someone muttered; "Holy shit that's Tony Stark," a little too loudly.
He seemed to notice Mab in a matter too casual and convenient to be anything but carefully orchestrated. "A beautiful Poet! Come take a photo with me," he demanded in the least demanding fashion.
"Hello, darling - sorry I'm late. Had to pick up a few things." He kissed the air next to her cheek and more cameras flashed.
Mab stood awkwardly, not sure what to do with her hands for the photos and opted to gently interlock her fingers around Tony's proffered arm. With a practiced ease she followed his lead in smiling for the cameras, turning their attention from one photographer to the next."You made it," she whispered through a smile.
"I hope it clings to you," Tony set his hand on hers, squeezing it gently. "Good job."
Mab's eyes burned a little and her throat felt tight.
One moment, Mab was holding Stark's arm, and the next, he had moved his arm away, forcing her to take a step with it. In that step, another arm appeared and a form followed, like a new partner cutting in on the dance floor. Seamless, flawless, admirable. The hand-off would have been invisible.
And as Tony launched into a speech about the future of the September Foundation, Happy Hogan led Mab away from the horde of photographers without anyone seeming to truly take note.
"Thank you," Mab whispered, shoulders sagging as Happy led her through a door concealed by velvet panels.
"You did great," Happy encouraged, "I liked your poem. It was brave."
"I think I'll know if I regret it after I read the paper in the morning."
They turned a corner, Happy checking his phone briefly. "You ready to get out of here? Back exit is through the kitchen - I think you've had enough photographers for one night."
"More than ready," Mab agreed. "Lead the way."
A/N: If you were tempted to skim through Mab's speech because it's a boring speech, please go read it. I'm really proud of it, and I'm proud of her poem about the ocean. Mab really does have a strong grasp of poetry, and here she is almost haunted by poets. Haunted by those who came before.
Thank you all so much for your patience! I'm in the middle of my Master's Degree right now, and started a new and More Important job in July, so I've been very busy.
I was super excited for the next chapter… and then I realized I needed some more content between this and that, so there's going to be another one that needs a lot of writing. The chapter title is fun: A Clown Car Named Desire.
Make of that what you will.
Please leave me a review, or a comment. I read them all, often repeatedly.