Lila
Lila does not sleep that night.
She goes outside, eats some soup and a hotdog. Brings everything inside. Washes her dishes. Throws out the rest of the soup.
Then, she starts to pack. Clothes first, Auntie Nat had said, so Lila goes to the garage and grabs the old duffle bags. She packs as many of her clothes as will fit, leaving out the ones that are almost too small and the ones she never wears. She’s still short, and her dad is- was- convinced that she still had one last growth spurt in her. She packs her shoes in, too, and her sweatshirts.
She packs in her toiletries, and a small bag with the necklace her dad got her for her tenth birthday. A small heart on a chain, engraved with her initials. LB. On top of everything, she lays the floppy stuffed bunny she’s had since she was three. It’s fur is matted from years of love, and one of it’s arms is falling off. She’s never going to get rid of it. The duffle bag almost doesn’t close. She pinches the sides together until it does. She’s not leaving anything else behind.
She starts on the second bag. She methodically packs her favorite books, taking them from her bookshelf and piling them in neat stacks. The Agatha Christies, from when she wanted to be a spy like her aunt. The Percy Jacksons, from when Thor came to their house and she demanded to know more about gods. She packs her brothers’ favorite books, a worn Magic Treehouse and Dune.
She goes to her mom’s bedside table and takes the detective thriller laying there. She hasn’t read it, but her mom talks about it so much the Lila feels like she knows the plot by heart. She walks around the bed to her dad’s side and grabs his Kindle. She’s not supposed to, but she knows that it's full of romance novellas. Her aunt recommended them as a joke, but, according to the conversation she overheard a week ago, now he’s invested in them. She’d peeked, of course, after hearing that. Her aunt has interesting taste. She wonders, distantly, if either of them know about the stuff people write about them. She thinks they probably do. She does, because her friends have no shame. She puts the book in the bag and the Kindle in her backpack. She packs the backpack like she would for a vacation, with a book, her electronics, her sketchbook, and her chargers. This way, it feels less like she’s leaving forever. She zips the second bag closed.
The third bag makes her pause. How does she fit her whole family into this small duffle?
Things, Auntie Nat had said, things that represent them. She remembers what her aunt had said about pictures, and goes to find an envelope. She takes everything down from the fridge, the photos, drawings, and magnets. Slides them into the envelope. She finds the family photo album and takes that, too. She grabs the flash drive out of the digital picture frame, slipping it into her pocket.
Grab one or two things that remind you of them.
Lila walks back outside and over to the picnic table, resolutely avoiding even a glance at the patch of grass and the bow next to it. She walks out into the field, to where Nathanial’s baseball glove lays abandoned. She picks it up, puts it on. It is comically small on her hand. She takes it off, tucking it under her arm as she walks back toward the house. The patch of grass seems to taunt her as she walks by. Back inside, she makes her way methodically through each room, one by one.
From Cooper’s room, she takes his Avengers action figures, each with signature scrawled proudly across it’s foot. She remembers the look of joy on her older brother’s face when her dad handed him the set, and the look of pride in his eyes when Cooper had placed the Hawkeye figure front and center. She doesn’t let herself think about when she might see that look again. Lila carefully puts the figures back inside their box and moves on.
From her parents’ room she takes her mom’s favorite dress, lightweight and flowy with long, deep pockets. The pockets were, arguably, the thing her mom loved most about it.
“Never take good pockets for granted, Flower,” her mother had said, “They hold so many useful things. For example, granola bars for hungry kids.” She’d given Lila the bar, and Lila had filed the information away in her brain. Pockets.
Now, the dress with it’s long, deep pockets is folded over Lila’s arm as she walks over to her mother’s jewelry box. It’s a mess, necklaces tangled together, with earrings and bracelets scattered among them. Frowning, Lila tries to sift through the mass, but she can’t really see anything that reminds her of her mom. Actually, she barely sees anything she recognizes. Her mom hardly wears any jewelry, which probably explains the state of the box. Lila’s only ever seen her mom wear her wedding ring- turned to dust on her finger- or the necklace that Clint had gotten her for their anniversary, years ago now. It’s small and gold, with a tiny arrow charm hanging from it. She knows he had one with a bow to match, had seen it hanging from his neck as he fixed her stance. Nice job, Hawkeye. But her mom hadn’t been wearing it when… everything happened, but where is it? Lila searches the box again, and checks the bathroom to no avail. The necklace is nowhere to be found. Frustrated and trying to hold back tears -why is this the thing that sets her off, and not everything else? Is there something wrong with her?- she leaves her parents’ room and starts to head back to her own to pack her family away.
Once she finishes zipping up the last duffle bag, Lila doesn’t know what to do. She stares at the bags for a long time. Her stomach growls. She eats a granola bar.
She does a lap through the house, unplugging all the electronics and locking all the doors, just like Auntie Nat had told her to.
She closes the windows, grabs her dad’s keys, and turns drags the duffle bags downstairs, setting them in the living room with her backpack.
She turns off all the lights, leaving only the ones in the living room glowing against the black-and-blue sky.
Lila sits in front of the glass doors, plugs in her phone, and waits.
~:~
The Quinjet arrives in the early morning, landing on the field as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. Lila watches as it descends, trying to control her breathing.
This is it, she thinks to herself, this it goodbye.
Taking a deep breath, she unlocks the door and walks outside, past the table and the toys, watching as the jet settles. The back hatch opens, and a blonde figure walks out.
“Lila?” it says, and Lila runs forward, throwing herself on her aunt.
She thought she was ready, thought she was doing fine. She hasn’t cried once, has been cool, calm and collected, as her mother would say, and she’s done everything she was supposed to. Lila thought she was fine.
She’s not.
The moment she touches Auntie Nat, the moment Auntie Nat grabs her, holds her as if making sure she’s real, Lila breaks down. She collapses against her aunt, sobbing and trembling. Her aunt gently lowers them to the ground, and they sit there, Natasha stroking Lila’s hair as she cries, the reality of what’s happened crashing over her, slamming into her, drowning her.
“I know, Lila, I know. Let it out, sweetheart, let it out,” her aunt murmurs, and Lila sobs even more, thoughts and memories blurring together.
They sit like that for a long time, Natasha holding Lila and stroking her hair. If Natasha cries too, well, no one is there to notice except Lila, and she’s a bit preoccupied. Eventually, Lila sniffs and pushes herself upright, rubbing her eyes and blinking.
“Better?” Natasha asks, and Lila nods shakily. “Alright, how ‘bout we go grab the stuff? You grab your bags, I’ll grab your dad’s and my stuff, and we’ll leave.”
Lila says hesitantly, “Can I come with you? To get Dad’s stuff, I mean.” When Nat looks hesitant, she adds, “I want to see. He’s my dad, and Hawkeye was a big part of his life. I- I want to know more about that side of him.”
Natasha sighs and says, “Of course you can, Lila, but just remember that he tried to keep you guys away from all that for a reason. It’s scary, what we do, and most of it isn’t pretty.”
“I know,” Lila says, looking more and more sure of herself the longer she speaks, “but I want to see anyways.”
Her aunt nods and turns back to the house. As they walk, Lila slips her hand into her aunt’s, squeezing it tight. She smiles a little when she feels a squeeze in return.
After Lila lugs her bags outside and into the back of the Quinjet, she returns to the house. She walks upstairs to see Auntie Nat emerging from her room (technically it’s the guest room, but her aunt’s the only guest they ever have, so as far as Lila’s concerned, that’s her room), carrying a duffle that is presumably full of clothes.
“Alright, let’s go get the gear,” Nat says, and Lila nods, leading her aunt around the back of the house and to the shed. Really, it looks nothing like a shed and more like a concrete bunker, but The Shed is what it’s been christened, so The Shed it is. Nat reaches into a pocket in her vest, withdrawing a key. She turns the lock, opens the heavy door, and gestures Lila inside.
“That’s it?” Lila asks, surprised, because she feels as though there should probably be a bit more security around all this dangerous stuff. Her aunt shakes her head, putting her finger to a small scanner on the wall.
“If I hadn’t done that, in about five seconds the door would’ve shut, and a gas would fill the space to knock us out. Even if we were wearing gas masks, this place is airtight, so we would’ve run out of oxygen eventually.” She gives Lila a smile. “But I did, so it won’t.” Lila gulps and nods, suddenly very thankful that she’d listened when her parents had told her to stay away from The Shed.
Natasha unzips the second, empty duffle and starts loading things into it. Bow, arrows, more arrows, another bow, was that box marked explosive?
“Should those be loose in there?” Lila asks nervously as her Auntie Nat dumps the explosive arrows into the bag.
“Oh, they’ll be fine, they need to hit something with much more force then that to explode,” Auntie Nat reassures her. “They’re made by Tony Stark, they can survive one plane ride.” She turns away to continue putting things in the bag, and Lila moves further into the bunker, examining the various cases and boxes.
In the back, against the wall, is a folding table. On it are two twin swords and an array of daggers, and Lila moves forwards to examine them, intrigued. Her dad had never said anything about using anything except his bow, and she hadn’t realized he even knew how to use a sword.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” She mutters, picking one of them up and studying it. “Swords are so cool.” She sets it back down and moves on to the box next to it. Inside is a neatly folded costume, complete with a dramatic hood and- Lila feels the inside- yep, secret pockets. She puts if hastily back in the box as her aunt approaches, the duffle now significantly more full.
“Auntie Nat, what’s all this?” Lila asks, gesturing to the table behind her. “Dad never said anything about swords!”
Her aunt’s face drops slightly, and she gives Lila a slightly tight smile. “I’d almost forgotten about those. They’re… let’s just say the things on that table don’t exactly hold the best memories for your dad.”
“Oh,” Lila says, “sorry, I-”
“No, no, it’s good you found them, we do need to take them. I wouldn’t have remembered otherwise,” Nat reassures her quickly, flashing a reassuring smile. She rummages through another bin until she finds a sheath, and after putting the knives away, she tosses the swords and suit into the bag, zips it up, and says, “Okay, I think that’s everything. Come on, Lila, let’s go.”
Lila follows Auntie Nat back outside, blinking as the sun hits her eyes. Had they really been in there that long? They make the long trek across the field- for the last time, Lila thinks, and then mentally slaps herself when she feels the tears start to prick at her eyes again. Her aunt glances back, so Lila jogs to catch up and grabs her hand again. She squeezes, and Nat gives her a gentle squeeze back. Once inside the Quinjet, Natasha lets go, dumping the bag into the pile of other bags in a storage compartment. She gestures at the cockpit, saying, “Welcome to the Quinjet, Ms. Barton,” in an over-the-top English accent. Lila grins, and her grin only widens as she steps into the cockpit, staring at the controls and monitors and out through the front windows. Despite the circumstances, she can’t help but feel excited. She’s been begging for years to see the inside of the Quinjet, and now she gets to ride in it? Who wouldn’t be excited?
Auntie Nat sits in the pilot seat and gestures to the one across from it, saying, “Come on up, Lila, the view’s fantastic from the front!”
Lila sits down and buckles herself in, still grinning.
“Whad’ya think?” her aunt asks, and Lila beams as she responds,
“It’s so cool, Auntie Nat, this is so, so, so cool.”
Her aunt laughs and punches in their coordinates, settling back as the back closes and the jet begins to rise.
“So, where are we going?” Lila asks, realizing that she can’t remember if Auntie Nat ever told her. Auntie Nat looks over at her and smiles.
“The Avengers Compund.”