Cruel Summer

Okay I lied. When I told Loki I had been completely on my own, I mean.

See, this is where Henry and Isolde come in. You might be asking yourself, ‘who?’

Well, I haven’t really talked about them for a reason.

They’re my secret. Which sounds ridiculous, I know. How can people be a secret?

By not telling anyone at work about them.

Not even Cameron has met them, or knows who they are. I’ve mentioned them in passing, but not who they are to me or anything that could lead someone to find them.

I don’t even have them listed as my emergency contact.

And when I talk about them, I don’t use their names, just refer to them as ‘my friends.’

But that would be doing them an injustice. They’re not just my friends, they’re my family. My chosen family.

I was almost done with my first four years of college when my parents died. I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t want to fail out, since I was so close to the end, but it was really hard. I kept thinking about how if the accident wouldn’t have happened, my parents would still be here, would be able to make it to my graduation, which was only about a month away.

The school told me I could take some time, pick back up the next semester.

But what was the point? I was almost done.

To make things even more tragic, my long term boyfriend up and dumped me.

No reasons, no explanations, he just ended it and left. Moved to San Diego I heard from some mutual friends.

We had been dating for five years at that point. We had started dating in high school, and came from a smaller town. He knew all of my relatives, and was a part of the family at that point. We dated all through college, through the good and the bad.

Then, my parents died, and he left me soon after.

It was hard. I tried to find a reason. I even told myself at times it was because I was so depressed and who would want to be with someone like that?

But then I told myself that's bullshit. The people who love you are supposed to stick around when things are hard for you, no matter how sad you are and how much that pains them. You would do it for them, that’s what they're supposed to do for you.

But even with both tragedies, I graduated undergrad with a good GPA, and a passable GRE score.

I applied and was accepted into two graduate programs. I knew that now since I was completely on my own, I needed to be very careful with my money. There was money I got from my parents estate, as their only child, but I wanted to save that. Save it for something really important, an investment my parents would be proud of.

Therefore, I chose the program that gave me the most funding, and a position as a graduate teaching assistant. I worked two jobs outside of that to keep myself going, and it was hard to make friends with very little free time.

I met people through my program, and we got along okay I suppose, but they were more just acquaintances and colleagues than friends.

And then I met Henry and Isolde.

They were in graduate programs too, just not in my department. I met them through a campus club where people would get together and play different board games. It was mostly meant for stressed out grad students wanting to relax and focus on something else other than academics, which is exactly why I was there.

That is where I met them.

Henry and Isolde were kind of a package deal, and that was more than okay with me. When I met them, they were already married, and about two years older than me.

Henry was getting his PhD in History with an emphasis on Oceania and Samoan culture. Isolde was getting her PhD in Political Science.

They both wanted to be professors, and move to NYC after they got their degrees.

When I met them, something just clicked. The three of us became friends almost instantly.

I had things in common with the both of them, and then things we all had in common, and this made talking about things very easy.

Soon enough I was at their apartment almost daily, and we would all hang out together constantly.

I remember asking them if they got sick of me, saw me as an unwanted third wheel, but they just waved my fears away, telling me that they were more than happy to have me around.

When I told them more about my history, they were compassionate and caring, and helped me find a good therapist to go to.

Which was much needed.

When we graduated, them with their PhD and me with my Masters (we ironically were set to get done at the same time), I decided to move to New York City as well.

I figured there was really nothing back home for me, and New York was such a large city that I should be able to find something to do with my degree.

They got a house, since they had secured jobs as professors. Henry at NYU, and Isolde at Columbia.

I rented a small studio apartment in Manhattan, and worked a few retail and food service jobs until I was able to get my job at Stark Industries.

While we didn’t see each other as often as before, we were still as close as ever, especially when they started having problems conceiving.

They were secure in their jobs, and were ready to start a family. They tried many times to get pregnant, but nothing seemed to be working.

I was there with them through it all. The pain, the sadness, the anxiety. The feelings of failure.

Both of them were convinced that something was wrong with them. They would never admit this to each other, but in confidence, each of them told me they were afraid that they were the problem.

Henry was worried he was infertile, or had too low a sperm count. Isolde was worried she wasn’t ovulating, or that something was wrong with the structure of her uterus and she just wasn’t fit to carry a child.

I told them about how a woman I knew through work had gone through IVF, and mentioned that maybe they should consult with a doctor about it.

So they did, and about a year later they had a newborn baby girl.

She was born on July 17th, 2010, and she became the joy of all three of our lives.

They named her Katherine, a name which made both the historian and the political scientist happy, and appointed me her legal godparent.

Because of this, and our long standing friendship, I go over to their house every week, on Sunday afternoons for brunch.

And it’s also why I am very protective of them, especially as an employee of Stark Industries and a close friend of Tony Stark, where you know there will always be people who want to get back at him.

So when they ask at our normal Sunday meal when they are going to meet Cameron, I panic.

They don’t know how much of a secret they are to me. It would be hard to explain, to get into the true nature of my work. They wouldn’t understand.

So I say, “Actually, we just broke up.”

They look at me with twin looks of downheartedness.

“It’s okay, it wasn’t a serious thing,” I reply, lying. About both things.

They still look sad, probably thinking back on my history with relationships and feeling bad that yet again, Harper is alone.

But they leave it alone (for now), and change the subject.

“So, anything new happening at the tower,” Henry asks, cutting Kat’s pancakes for her. She is only three after all. Well, almost.

“Not really,’ I reply, shrugging, “though I have been given some new work responsibilities.”

“How exciting,” Isolde responds, standing at the counter and filling up some glasses with juice, “what kinds of responsibilities?”

“Well, now instead of answering phones for Pepper, I’m working on the Avengers press image,” I lie again, shoving some eggs into my mouth.

I feel bad for lying to them so much today, but I feel it’s necessary. Like I said, they wouldn’t understand all the intricacies of my secretive work life.

“That seems like quite a big job,” Henry comments, “but they definitely need it. And if anyone can do it, you can!”

I blush. I’ve always been bad at receiving compliments.

I don't respond, and we move on to discussing what we want to do for Katherine’s birthday, which is coming up in a few months.

I look over at her, happily eating her pancakes, and smile.

She looks at me, coos, and goes back to stuffing her cheeks with syrupy breakfast food.

Things are good.