How do you learn to live?
Marcelina didn't have a childhood. She didn't have a life. She was a piece in a machine she had no control over. So once she got out- once she was given all the things she never thought were possible- she finally began to u...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I know she means a lot to you, Nat. I don't know if you see yourself if her or-"
"This isn't about me, Steve. She's a little girl; we can't just abandon her."
"Natasha," The Avengers fell back into their argument. Marcelina rested her head on the cold cream-colored wall in the room.
Cell.
It was big. It was nice, comfortable. Made to seem like she choose to be here, though it's not like she could leave.
Not that there was anywhere she could go.
Marcelina traced the lines where the walls met in the corner with her eyes. She memorized every scrape and scuff in the room standing around her. Calloused fingers ran along the small gaps between each wood plank that made up the floor.
"Marcelina?" Bruce Banner spoke for the millionth time. He kept asking questions she wouldn't answer. Three hours of this, and all she wanted to do was tell him it's "Mar-ce-leena" not "Mar-ce-line-a." Whether she wouldn't or couldn't was irrelevant.
"Are you hungry? You didn't eat your sandwich. I can make you something else." Marcelina pulled on a loose string on the oversized green sweater she was wearing.
Marcelina didn't know why. It was stupid, she knew. But she just couldn't will herself to talk. It felt like the house she'd been living in had flooded. She kept trying and trying to find a way to breathe, but every time she almost broke the surface, the ball and chain around her ankle got heavier and heavier till she fell back down to the bottom.
Refusing to speak allowed the tiniest sliver of control back into the multi-car pileup that her life had turned into.
"You coming?" Marcelina stared at him with a questioning look for a few moments before following him to what looked like a plain wall. Just before Bruce would've walked into the wall, it slid open, revealing a long hallway.
The striped purple, blue, and pink socks Natasha had given her to wear silenced her steps on the cold hall floor.
Bruce led Marcelina into the biggest kitchen she'd ever seen. She sat in one of the bar stools at the island while he started pulling ingredients out of the fridge.
"I've always loved cooking. I used to make this every Saturday with my daughter." He has a daughter? "I don't get to see her much-it's too dangerous after everything. But I still make it once a week."
There were a thousand questions she wanted to ask:
What's her name? Who's her mother? Are you married? How old is she? What does she look like? Does she have your eyes? Or scraggly brown hair? What's she like? Where is she?
