Played by the Enemy || Captain America || Book 2

Chapter 28: Part I - Anarchy

'it could be today
the day you realise
they have no
more power over you'
Atticus

~

Anarchy and Chaos.

The very idea of anarchy is vastly different than what most people think they know it to be. I've seen many a person substitute the word chaos with anarchy, and vice versa, automatically believing the two words to be synonyms for one another. It's what we see our leaders and idols – politicians, employers, celebrities, authors, royal families, corporate millionaires, social justice icons, and everyone in between – use. We hear, read and see them associate anarchy with chaos.

This is not true.

Chaos, the true definition of chaos, is absolute disorder and confusion. Before the universe was created, the formless matter that existed was chaos. In true chaos, there is no order, there is no structure, there is nothing to rely upon. Perhaps, that is where the confusion between chaos and anarchy lies; in that very non-existence of structure, the lack of anything solid to rely upon, disorder in its purest form.

Anarchy, however, is simply the absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual.

Other definitions outline it as a state of disorder due to the absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems – and often, as I will elaborate on, anarchy does lead to chaos – but in all actuality, it really is just the non-existence of a system of rules and group of people governing our lives. Anarchy is the absence of a government. Anarchy is the absence of law. Anarchy is the absence of anything and anyone telling us what to do or what not to do.

Anarchy, is the freedom of making our own decisions of our own free will. And often amongst that freedom, do we discover a wild, chaotic soul – for anarchy sets chaos free.

I've had time to think on our way over to SHIELD HQ, and my whole life, there has been a group or person telling me what to do or what not to do. From the Hand, to SHIELD, to HYDRA, to all my clients as an assassin, Nicky, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the government, my father, Thanos, Steve – everyone has always told me what's right, what's wrong, who I'm supposed to be, who I'm supposed to serve, who I'm supposed to kill, what I'm supposed to do, and what the very meaning of my existence is. I'm stubborn, reckless, don't like taking orders, and yet, my entire life... that's all I've really done.

Well fuck that.

No more will people tell me who I am, who I am supposed to be. I will tell them who I am supposed to be. SHIELD is about to fall. HYDRA is about to fall. The Hand lost their grip on me long ago. People can try and make me into a hero, and at the end of the day, I may end up being a hero with questionable morals, but I also am an assassin with a dark past that has done things I both regret and don't regret. Every single decision I've made is a part of who I am right now, and I'm not sorry for who I am, not anymore. I'm not looking for forgiveness from anyone, and I'm way past asking for permission for anything.

Anarchy has enlightened me, freed me. Steve is a soldier who is so used to following orders and set rules, and now that there is no military or SHIELD to follow, he's well on his way to discovering anarchy himself. He's not there yet, not whilst the mantle of Captain America remains on his shoulders, he is on his way though.

Anarchy has been my reckoning. I am trouble, and now that anarchy has let my wild soul free, I am chaos. You cannot break what has no structure, what has no form.

And I – Lillian Veronica Nightshade, daughter of Loki, the Nightingale, the Avenger – I am the assassin who can't be broken.

Great, now that I've been a dramatic ass bitch and the grand, theatrical, revelational end of book speech is out of the way, we can be on with the story.