Still Feel It All (Avengers: Endgame)

Chapter 1

"Slow Down (feat. Sufjan Stevens)" - Gabriel Kahane

I don't know whether or not she expected me to pick up the phone, but I did. After an apprehensive exchanged of hellos the conversation sat in silence for a while. With the phone pressed up to my ear, I could almost hear my old roommate's breathing on the other line. That was all I needed to hear, anyways.

What was I supposed to say? So, how are you? How've you been? Sorry that we haven't talked in half a year, it's just that everyone we know is dead.

"You're running the used bookstore now?" My roommate asked.

I exhaled in relief and felt my shoulders relax, unpinning themselves from their place scrunched up beneath my ears. "Yes," I nodded, though she couldn't see it through the phone. "Yeah, I don't know who's paying to keep the lights on, but as long as I can get in the door this is what I'm doing."

"Are you sure that's legal?" Tanya was always the pragmatist.

"No," I admitted. "But it's not like I'm making a profit. All the money stays in the register. If someone comes to yell at me about it, I can just tell them I work here. I signed all the paperwork for the summer before, I'm sure it's still around here somewhere."

"Well, it's good that you're doing something, at least." Tanya sounded tired. Her family of four had all made it out, against the odds, but they each had pieces of broken lives that they were still sweeping up around them. It was hard work, I knew it well. "That's better than most people."

"I think people either shut down completely, or else they're trying to go on like nothing happened."

"You can't act like nothing happened."

I took in a breath. Sometimes I could still smell the charred odor, could still feel the ash in my eyes, under my nails, clinging to my hair... "I don't know how they do it, but they do," I told my friend. "Schools were open out here in under a month."

"That's ridiculous."

"Well, nobody came to class..." My attention switched as a couple walked past the bookstore, hand in hand. Must be nice.

It'd been a slow day. Only a few customers had come in at all, and most weren't interested in buying anything, they just wanted some human interaction. I didn't mind-- there were a lot of lonely people out in the world as of late, and I was often one of them.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I heard the bell on the door ring and felt a warm breeze come in just after I turned my attention back to the conversation at hand. Or rather, in hand.

"...Let people do what they need to do in order to heal, instead of pushing them back into normal life so fast," Tanya was saying, but my eyes were fixed on the man who had just walked in. There was something familiar about him. He was in jeans and a solid-colored shirt, with a baseball cap pulled low over his face, exploring the rows of books with a sort of nervous tension. My feminine instincts said "danger," especially given the fact that he was built. Like, built. I was always wary of men who looked like they could snap my spine without much effort, but then again who wasn't?

"Hey, Tanya, can I call you back?" I whispered. "I have a customer."

"Oh, don't hang up the phone for me," the man said quickly, turning to face me. "I'll only be a minute."

But Tanya had already said a quick goodbye and hung up. I would've kept her on the phone, had I known what the man's response would be, but it was too late now. That was only the second time I'd heard from her since we left campus after the snap, and I was irritated that our call had been cut short. I didn't know when I'd hear from her again. "It's fine, she already hung up," I sighed.

It wasn't the customer's fault though. And even if it was, I couldn't be upset with him about it. He was the customer, after all.

I cleared my throat and stood up a little straighter, trying to salvage my professional appearance. "Can I help you find anything specific?" I asked. "Self-help manuals and all the other grief resources are in the back left, there," I said. I pointed towards the back wall, nearest the door, as far away from my place behind the desk as I could get them without leaving them outside on the curb. I'd considered that, but deemed it a poor idea no matter how tempting.

"No," he said quickly. His voice-- I'd heard it before. I couldn't figure it out, but it was right in front of me. It was on the tip of my tongue. "No, that's the opposite of what I'm looking for, actually. I just need..."

"So, you got detention."

Oh my god. It's...

"You screwed up."

It can't be....

"I just need something to read on the way back to Brooklyn," the man said, turning to look at me with a kind smile. "Now that I have some time for reading."

Captain America is in my bookstore. Stupefied, unable to form a coherent sentence, I gestured vaguely to the right side of the room, under the "Fiction" label, and declared:

"Harry Potter."

His eyes lit up, sparked with some interest. I could see it even below the shadow of the baseball cap. "Right," he said, pulling a small black notebook out of his pocket. "That's on my list!"

I took in a deep breath... and exhaled. "You don't have to keep your hat down like that," I told him, "I know who you are."

He paused, frozen for a second. Tense. Then, he sighed. His shoulders slumped a bit, and he was quiet, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "I can go, if--"

"Don't," I said, shaking my head. "I don't know how it happened," I admitted, "but I don't blame the Avengers." The people who still valued the Avengers were primarily New Yorkers who were saved by one hero or another in 2012, otherwise the superheroes weren't very popular. The states as a whole were relatively forgiving; in other places "Stark" was a very bad word. I didn't pass judgement. "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone," and all that.

"That's good to know," he said, but I could tell he wasn't convinced. I regretted saying anything at all. If he was tense and uncomfortable before, he looked defeated now. Some of the excitement had died from his eyes.

I came out from behind the counter and wove through the stacks of books in tall bookcases. "This is a British copy," I said, handing him a paperback with only gentle signs of use. It was lucky just to have one line down the spine and a couple of dog-eared pages. "It says 'Philosopher's Stone,' but in the US it's really 'Sorcerer's Stone.' I wish we had a Scholastic copy--" I ran my fingers along the spines of two additional copies, but they were all Bloomsbury; all "Philosopher's Stone."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "This is perfect."

He bought the book, and I gave him a little paper bag to carry it out in.

"I have to ask," he said, turning back before he got to the door. "What gave me away?"

"The voice," I nodded. He raised an eyebrow and I flushed. "I got detention a lot," I explained. "High-school was a... trying time, for me."

He laughed, and it was like the first time I'd heard anyone laugh since the world fell apart. It felt like maybe a couple of little pieces of the world just came back together. Like maybe everything would be okay eventually.

He seemed a bit bewildered himself. "High-school was a trying time for all of us," he said, but his eyes looked far away. "It wasn't any easier back then."

"I'll see you again soon," he said, as if he'd just decided this.

I believed him. "Looking forward to it."

And I was. Luckily, I wouldn't have to wait too long.