Marvel What If?- An Autism Story

One step at a time

It feels early when Steve wakes up the next day. His limbs still ache from the strains of the last few weeks. But it's the best sleep he's had in a while. But as usual, he doesn't want to stay in bed for long and drags himself out. Leaning back over to gently brush the messy hair from Bucky's face without waking him.

The hallways are dim, and the bright lights in the elevator make him shield his eyes before it dings open.

As soon as he steps out, he's shocked to find Mary ambling back and forth in the corridor.

As he gets closer to the living room, he sees a very tired Nat and Clint sprawled out on the sofa watching tv.

"What's going on? Why's Mary up?"

"She doesn't seem to like sleep", Nat replied. "She hasn't been to sleep yet, we thought she'd wear herself out".

"She hasn't slept since the fifties", Clint giggled from tiredness.

Apparently everyone's up early today as Tony walks in to get a cup of coffee.

"So good news and bad news. Good news is I can buy anything else available.... Bad news is they discontinued the crackers she likes almost fifty years ago so we cant get any more".

Clint groans from across the room.

"She's only got two left".

The others have no idea what they're going to feed her once they run out. But for now, they'll make breakfast as normal and give her pieces.

"Hey Mary", says Steve as he crouches in front of her. "Try some toast, it's really good".

She ignored him for as long as possible until she starts getting annoyed and hits him when he gets too close. Eventually he backs away and lets her have her normal meal of crackers.

"What are we meant to feed her? Where's vision and Bruce? They'd know", said Clint.

"They're busy taking apart the time machine".

Instead of trying to get her to eat more, they just once again watched as she made a mess everywhere. The dvds now made a line out into the hall and the small playing pieces kept getting stood on, the person cursing and holding their foot every time.

Eventually Wanda walked in and surveyed the room and lost looks on everyone's faces as they watched Mary with wide eyes as she just kept opening cupboards.

"She needs clothes and toys", decided Wanda. "Lets go to the small mall close by".

Everyone went off to get ready so Steve put Mary's jacket on her with only a little trouble.

Sam came back first and told Steve to get changed. So with a quick stop in the kitchen, he went up to his floor and peeked back into Bucky's room. He was still fast asleep and Steve decided not to wake him but left some food on his bedside table and a note saying where they were going and that he was welcome to join them.

He closed the door quietly and ran into his own room, changing into jeans and a clean T-shirt before heading downstairs again.

Everyone was somehow ready to go already, except Mary, who still needed shoes and socks.

"I don't think she likes shoes", Tony deadpanned.

Steve reached for the socks and knelt down to put them on her.

"We're putting our shoes and socks on so we can go and look at toys".

He had no idea if she could understand him or not, but if she did, she didn't like the idea as she kicked out. He struggled to get the socks over moving feet when she eventually managed to walk away. Still without socks.