Just one phone call away from bad news.
You lightly curse words better said now rather than later in front of your young children as you try to untangle a great big pile of what used to be blue yarn. Rich navy pools in your hands making your once soft fingers dry and itchy. The yarn, thin and floppy, threatens to snap as you pull at it.
Untangling the universe would be easier than trying to unravel the knot so complex.
You drop the mass of blue and look up from where you’re sitting in your trusty spinny chair, opening and closing your hands as you try to get the feeling back into them. To your right is your desktop computer open and bright, the editorial page you were working on before your break ready to be edited, to your left your good friend Peter Parker trying so desperately trying to knit a tiny hat.
“If I lose the feeling in my fingers I’m going to sue you for punitive damages.” you jest as you click your hands with a grimace on your face.
Peter doesn’t seem to be doing any better for his spindly hands clumsy loop the red wool over the needles, his hands then pausing as he tries to remember how to knit.
“You’ll be fine, you can use one of those text to speech machines like Stephen Hawking u-“
“-Peter, Stephen Hawking couldn’t speak, I can speak, it would be a waste of blink-to-speak machine!” you interrupt as you slide over the balls of blue and white wool you’ve already detangled for him as far away from you as humanely possible.
“Yeah, well, I forgot about that…” you stare at Peter with blank expression, one that say ‘are you serious?’.
To think a man with multiple PHD’s can be so dumb, though you’ve known him for almost ten years so you already know what he’s like at the best of times.
“Maybe you could do that whole hand magic thing like Doctor Strange-“
You both pause what you’re doing and say in unison, “- God rest his soul.“ Peter carrying knitting as your frown turns into an amused smile.
You would not make such joke in front of your husband, or many other people for that matter considering Strange is a hero, but when he was alive he was a right asshole to you and Reed. You didn’t know Stephen Strange that well, you’d only met him twice, and on both times he had made some snide comments about your choice in shoes and partner so you’ve never really given a damn about the man even with the whole world saving thing.
Having a corner desk at the Daily Bugle whilst being friends with Peter for so long has led you to develop a humour akin to a teenage boy and well, Peter has met Strange before as well, so back when the magic doctor was alive he’d put on his best Aunt May voice and say ‘And may God bless him, he’ll need it.’ whenever Strange came up in conversation.
Either way, Strange lingers on your mind as you go back to trying to untangle the blue yarn. Every finger starts to ache once more as you concentrate on the knot, flashes of Stephen Strange and his broken wrist watch and a woman with a nice, kind face cloud your mind like a bad memory. It takes a few minutes for you to snap back to reality, Peter leaning over to place his hand over yours to make you stop. Your gaze snaps up to Peter who has abandoned the hat, worry striking his face.
“Did it rain last night?” you get out, you voice suddenly weak.
“It tried but it cleared up. Why’d you ask?”
“It feels like it should be raining, Peter, I should be raining.”
Truth be told Peter had asked you to unknot his permanently knotted yarn just so you’d stop blankly stop staring at your screen. Since walking into work you’ve been off, and not in the ‘I’m pissed off, don’t talk to me.’ kind of off, but the kind of off that he’s only ever seen once before.
The wool was just a distraction but it’s no longer working.
“It’s probably raining in Toronto by now, the rain clouds where just passing by.” Peter knows that the rain isn’t the problem, he wondered too the night before why it hadn’t rained when the sky was so thick with ink like rain clouds.
“Just today just feels like one of those days-“ you begin saying, your hands retreating to your lap, the wool dragging with them and falling onto the dirtied carpet of the floor, “- I think I might have forgotten something and I had a bad night and…“
“Was it the clown chasing you naked dream again?” Peter asks all too seriously and just like that you burst out laughing.
“I told you to never bring that dream up again!” you say in-between giggles.
And so it goes, your mind still wonders and your break goes slower than expected but you slowly brighten up. Jamesom doesn’t shout at you or Peter which is also a small win. It still stays sunny out, the bright rays of sun leaking past the potted plants in the widow boxes onto your computer screen.
It’s around ten or so minutes later when your desk phone rings with a loud chirp that vibrates the table making you jump from your focused typing. People don’t tend to ring your work phone, they normally email you so for a moment your stare at the early two thousands receiver, the green pixilated screen flashing as an unknown number calls.
It’s uncommon for the older stationary phones in the office to ring, most people either having the upgraded ‘modern’ hunks of plastic or their own mobile phones. You crane you head up to look around the room you see many sets of eyes looking back you in a silent annoyance, you look at Peter who just carries on with his mess of a hat.
Face scrunched up in an apologetic look you pick up the receiver and shove it between your shoulder, a rushed ‘Hello’ coming out of your mouth.
The voice on the other end is automated but familiar for many times you’ve been put on hold by one of the many Ultron robots whilst trying to contact Reed (who has a habit of turning of his mobile when he’s working).
The voice speaks to you in a matter of fact way, a cold way to be honest, one devoid of empathy, which on any other occasion you’d brush off because the Ultron’s are just robots who were never programmed like that but really in this moment you need a warm voice. You need to feel warm again, like you have Reed nuzzling your neck and your children cuddled up to your side, that you can wake up from a nightmare ok because Reed is there with you.
But you’re not ok.
You don’t even hang up as you stand up, knocking over the desk chair in the process. Tears already fill your wide eyes, your wool worn hands shaking as your try to hold onto something stable. Eyes all around stay on you, though a few people get up and wonder over, their question blurring into a monotone buzz.
Peter gets to you first, his knitted hat and needles abandoned as he takes your hands.
“It should have rained.” is all you cry over and over again as you teeter to the side, Peter practically engulfing you as he lowers you down to his own seat, his voice blurring in with the others, “It should have rained, Peter, it should have rained.”
The blue wool still lays tangled on the floor.