Chapter 8
The next morning, the four of us left for the compound. As we drove through Ohio, I was shocked that we never got caught in traffic.
“It’s so quiet,” I said, staring out the window of Steve’s truck. Natasha was sitting in the front seat, Clint was beside me, and pretty much all of my belongings were in the truck bed. “I know half the population disappeared, but I guess I didn’t think it would be this abandoned.”
“They might have done what we’re doing,” Clint said. “After everyone disappeared, they probably found any family they have left.” Family? Either I’m crazy, or he just called me family.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I just thought that more people would have stayed here. It’s not like no one has any family here.”
We stopped for lunch at a park in Pennsylvania. Clint left to go to the restroom, leaving me with Steve and Natasha.
“I’m probably overthinking this, but Clint said ‘family,’ and I might have misinterpreted it, but-”
“He meant what he said,” Natasha interrupted. “When you called him every week, it ended up being the highlight of his week. Because he helped someone one time, and that person cared enough about him to call him and make sure he was okay. I couldn’t call him, no matter how badly I wanted to; one of the terms of his house arrest was that he couldn’t have any contact with any of us. It killed me to not be able to check on him, but you did. I’ve known Clint for a long time, and I’ve seen him in some pretty dark places mentally. I don’t know if he would have made it without you.
“You saved his life, Alex. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”
“And he saved mine,” I said, smiling and my eyes full of tears. “I knew that anytime I needed him, he would be there. At first, I didn’t plan on actually using his phone number. Then, he got arrested, and I didn’t know what happened to him. I called him almost every day at first. I knew he wouldn’t answer, but I knew it couldn’t hurt to try. I didn’t have to stray from the weekly calls that often, but even those helped me through a lot.”
We got to the compound just after dinner. Since we hadn’t eaten yet, we ate leftover pizza and headed to bed. Pepper had set up a room for me, next to Clint’s so he wouldn’t be far if I needed him in the middle of the night.
Around 10:30 the next morning, Clint knocked on my door and poked his head in.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” I shrugged. “Do you want help getting out of bed?” I shook my head.
“I think I just want to stay here for a while. I’m not ready to meet everyone yet.” He nodded and opened the door before walking in and sitting down in the chair by my bed. “You okay?” I nodded.
“I think everything from the last two weeks has finally caught up with me. I just feel like we were always moving around so much and there was so much information coming in at once, I didn’t have time to process any of it. Now that I’m here, I guess my brain decided it was time to deal with everything at once.” Clint sighed and nodded.
“What do you need from me? Do you want me to leave you alone for a bit, or do you want me to stay here?”
“Will you stay here, at least for a little while?” The corner of his mouth turned up, and he nodded.
“Let me grab some things, then I’ll be right back.” A few minutes later, he walked back in with a book and a few bags of snack food. He set the snacks down on the bed between us, pulled up a chair, and sat down. As I started eating, he opened the book and started humming a song I didn’t think anyone else knew.
“How do you know that song?” I asked, suddenly paying a lot more attention to what he was humming.
“Laura learned it at a camp she went to as a kid. She would sing it to our kids every night. How do you know the song?”
“My mom learned it at camp, too. And she sang it to me every night. I thought it was just a thing at the camp she went to. I haven’t heard it since she died.”
“I can stop if it’s too painful,” he said. I shook my head, grateful that he gave me the choice but not wanting him to stop.
“If she sang it to your kids every night, how is it not too painful for you?”
“It’s more than just the song we sang to our kids; it helped me through really dark times. What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room, and I can only tell you half of the story.” I nodded, slightly scared of what was going to happen. “When I met Nat, she was in a dark place. She had been trained to kill since she was a child, and she got on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar; I was supposed to kill her. I found her hideout in Budapest and reported back to S.H.I.E.L.D. I told them that she would be an asset, and they agreed. She told me everything about the Red Room, and I told S.H.I.E.L.D. They made us take it out, then she would be part of S.H.I.E.L.D.
“It was really hard on her; we were on the run for days. I tried everything I could to keep her mind off of everything, but she still shut down. I remember hearing her hum to herself. I wasn’t certain, but it sounded like lullabies. I didn’t know if it would work, but I started singing Magic to her.
“She opened up, told me about her sister and how they were both trained. I told her about my kids. When I brought her back to the States, she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. I didn’t have to sing that song again until I was in prison.
“It was really hard for me, but I could tell it was worse for Wanda. I could hear her ramming herself into the sides of her cell wall all day and all night. We were next to each other, so I couldn’t see her, but Sam was across from me and he looked scared for her. I knew that look, and I knew she was hurting herself. I would sit against the wall we shared and sing it. I don’t know if she heard it or if she just felt my presence on the other side of the wall, but she stopped. I would sing it over and over again. I think I only stopped to sleep and eat.” I sighed and sat up.
“How are you still functioning? I mean, you’ve been through so much and you’re still fighting. Yet, here I am, not even able to get out of bed.”
“Everyone has different limits as to what they can handle. I’ve gone through a lot, yes, but I’ve also had time to adjust and find coping mechanisms. You’ve gone through a lot just in the last two weeks, not to mention everything you’ve gone through before this. You’ve also been focusing a lot on getting better, so now that you have time to rest and relax, everything is hitting you at once. The rest of the team out there wants to meet you, but they’re not going to until you’re ready.” There was a knock at the door, and Rhodey peeked his head in.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Pepper needs to talk to you about something, Clint.” He stood up and looked at me.
“You’ll be okay for a few minutes, right?” He asked. I chuckled lightly and nodded.
“Yes, Clint. I’ll be fine.”He left, and Rhodey took his spot.
“I hope you don’t mind me coming to sit with you.” I shrugged. I could feel myself closing off, and I hated it. I knew what he was trying to do; he had gone through something similar, and he was just trying to relate to me or make me feel better, but it was like my body wouldn’t let me take any advice or comfort from him. “I’m sure Clint told you about my accident.” I nodded. “What he didn’t tell you was that I was depressed for a long time. In the beginning, I didn’t get out of bed most days. But what kept me going- what got me out of bed on my bad days- was Tony. He was stubborn as hell, but he kept me going. He made my braces, and he helped me walk again.
“I know our situations are different, and I know that it’s going to be much harder for you to walk again than it was for me. But, I can tell you that the people here want to help you. You don’t need to talk to us if you don’t want to. But, we’re here if you do.” I took a deep breath and started talking.
“I just feel so helpless. Clint’s always there for me, and I will never be able to thank him enough for that. I wish I didn’t feel like such a burden. I lost my parents when I was 15. Even though I still had my best friend’s parents, I still learned to depend on myself and only ask for help when I really needed it. Now, I can’t do anything by myself. Hell, I can’t even get out of bed by myself.”
“You will. Recovery takes time. And you’ll learn to rely on others more. Trust me, I wasn’t okay with needing a lot of help at first either. I was in the military; they teach you teamwork, but also independence. You don’t know who’s all coming back with you.”
“How did you learn to be okay with it? All the help, I mean.”
“Because I’m human, Alex. We all are. Some of us need more help than others, and that’s okay. The important thing is that you find people who are willing to help you. Lucky for you, you’ve got that, right here; all of us are more than willing to help you in whatever way you need.” That thought- that a group of strangers were willing to do anything for me at the drop of a hat- terrified me.
“After my parents died, I lost a lot of friends. They told me that I was ‘too much’ for them, or that I needed too much from them. I don’t think I can go through that again. I can’t trust a group of people and then lose them all because I get to be too much for them and have them disappear. I don’t have anyone else.” Rhodey sighed and nodded.
“I get that. We can be a lot for someone to handle. But, we’ve all lost people because we were ‘too much’ for them. Trust me, you can’t be worse than us.” We both chuckled, and I sighed. He’s right; they could have left me in Ohio by myself, but they didn’t. They could have told Clint that I couldn’t stay with them, but they invited me to stay as long as I needed. They’re giving me time to adjust; I’m not being confronted by everyone at once. I’m not being forced to get out of bed and do things.
“Can you help me out of bed?” He smiled and nodded. After he got me into my chair, we went out to the living room area, where everyone else was. After being introduced to everyone, Clint and Pepper came out of the meeting room.
The next few days went pretty much the same way. I was getting to know everyone, which was nice, but I could tell they were preoccupied with everything else that was happening. Pepper was insistent that Tony was alive, but no one else really believed it. Things got intense between her and Rhodey a few times, and I couldn’t blame either one of them. Rhodey wanted to accept the loss of his best friend; Pepper refused to believe that he was gone.
Meanwhile, Natasha was grieving her sister lost to the Snap, which meant that Clint was with her almost all the time. So, Steve and I started spending more time together. It was nice to get to know him as Steve, rather than the Captain America everyone knew. He told me a lot about his childhood and the science convention he went to with Bucky. I realized we had a lot more in common than I thought; both of our best friends were more like our brothers, we both lost our parents, and we both lost our brothers in the Snap. Sure, he was frozen in ice for almost 70 years, and he fought Nazis, but his life as Steve Rogers was very similar to my life.