It's not what it seems

1

It was a cold snowy day, the eleventh of February 2017. I was walking trough the streets of Amsterdam, a place where I wouldn't stand out, since loads of people speak different languages in a city this big. It was two days since I got here and one day since I dyed my hair. I looked in the window of a nearby shop. No matter how many times you dye your hair, you always need to get used to it. This time it was even worse, since there is a pretty big difference between red and black, also I was wearing brown contacts, to make me stand out even less, I was almost unrecognisable, only the well trained eye could see what was behind the disguise. I smiled at my own reflection, trying to reassure myself that everything was fine, that going to this little rainy, or in this case snowy, country was a good move, that taking on a new identity was the right thing to do. But it just didn't work for me, not this time. I'm used to taking on new identities, that was not the problem, it was the fleeing part that got me. It's not something I had done as much as changing identities, it was an act of cowardice and I hate looking like a coward. It made me look weak, while weak is certainly a thing I'm not. But I fled anyway. And no matter how good my reason, it still felt bad.

I sighed and continued walking. Thinking about all of this made me think of the reason why I fled. And that's not a pretty story. I did the wrong thing, I know that, but, I want to believe I did it for the right reasons. Since it was about my friends and I was not wanting to lose any of them, since I don't make friends so easily, but I ended up losing I don't know how many of them, but I'm sure about one. But what else was I supposed to do? If two of your friends get in a fight that involves you, that involves your future and those of your friends, what else could you do than what you think is right, even though it involves lying, or fooling your friends? My acts, they weren't selfish, they were to help, okay, maybe they were a little bit selfish, because I don't like to be controlled, I want to be free, but I'm sure most of my friends want that too. It's hard being an Avenger, even though it might seem easy sometimes. Choices like those make my life even more difficult than it already is. The Avengers, free or controlled? The answer seemed quite clear to me, free to act to their own good will. But Tony seemed to be thinking different about that, he wanted us to be controlled. So when it came to choosing sides, I of course took Tony's, just so I could figure out how exactly he wanted us to be controlled, so I could figure out a way to avoid it. Okay, maybe my reasons were a bit more selfish than I want to admit, but, I'm sure I could have helped the rest, Steve's side would have been grateful for the information if Tony had won. I think he did, at least he managed to capture about half of Steve's "team" before he sent me away. I first went back to Germany, hoping I could find out where Steve went, but I found nothing of him. I had to flee from Germany, since I got the U.N on my heels. They followed met through Europe, but lost me in Italy, where I spent almost a year before going to the Netherlands. Everything was a lot smaller here then it was in Italy, but it surely had some kind of beauty to it.

Yesterday I signed myself up for a Dutch language course, under the name of Leah Waters. An American name. But since I "outgrew" my Russian accent, that won't be a problem. The only problem will probably be the grammar, which, I heard, is very hard to learn. And I believe it, since Dutch is like German in many ways and German grammar is very hard. I don't know what was harder to learn, German with all their rules for der, die, das, den, dem and all that. Or English with "that that" and words like read and lead which van be interpreted in to different ways. Or words like plane plain, that sound almost the same. It's both very difficult, but I mastered both at a young age, so Dutch shouldn't be too much of a problem. The further they day longed, the bigger the snowflakes got. So eventually, when they got too big and when it got to cold, I decided to go back to the hotel where I was staying. There I sat down on the bed in my hotel room, not knowing what else I could do. After some minutes of staring at the ceiling I decided to grab a book. I'm not really used to having a lot of spare time, due to all the missions I get. But since there's no S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, and since the Avengers pretty much fall apart I suddenly had a lot of it. And actually, I didn't really know what to do with it at the time, so I bought myself some books, since reading is good for you. And I found I actually enjoy reading. So I read for a few hours, forgetting the time and the reason I was here, until I turned on the TV. Well, it didn't directly link to what happened in Germany, but in some way it did.