Scorpio

TWENTY EIGHT - Ghosting

A wooden set of prongs wobbled gracelessly on the porcelain skating rink, scattering tiny green balls and strips of crispy red mats across the aromatic surface and chasing them into dense packs of colour on the otherwise colourless surface. Seeing as its prey had no escape, the prongs lowered, sliding neatly beneath a group of huddled survivors and lifting them into the air towards a certain doom.

A pea fell from Estella's fork, rolling off her lap and onto the ground.

One survivor takes the brave leap from the prongs, preferring the uncertain void of future rather than its guaranteed death - even if the future meant charging into the unknown, alone. Whatever might the universe hold for this courageous little ball?

A tiny little drone flitted over, neatly lifting the pea from the otherwise spotless floor, before buzzing off. Estella watched it go. A hand entered her line of vision, and Estella glanced back to find Bucky watching her, his face impassive as he extended a wooden spoon towards her.

She clasped her fingers around it.

The Diner has acquired a new weapon of mass destruction. The kingdom of Lunch wouldn't stand a chance.

It's been a few days now – a few days of intensive training, learning how to play strategy games with the vigilante Avengers, which was ultimately punctuated by the lack of any teenage life besides her own around the treehouse. Alycs was blatantly avoiding her. Peter had gone home to Queens on the Captain's request, with only a slight struggle on his part. Shuri was the head of technology in the technology-utopia of Central Wakanda, so even she remained mostly absent from Estella's life.

On the bright side, the lack of any distractions meant more time for Estella to adjust to her memories, and take them out on various training equipment – a repetitive routine that made her stronger, increased her emotional tolerance to seeing faces she once knew pop up in her dreams, but apparently gave the adults concern for her lack of character.

Which had led her to her present time - on a field trip to Wakanda, with Sam and Bucky as her babysitters. Visit the towns, have lunch, then an exclusive visit to the technology sectors! Estella could almost hear old advertisement music playing behind the words.

The spoon fished up the last few stragglers, delivering them to her mouth at about five times the efficiency as her fork had offered. The kingdom has been obliterated. A hoverjet occasionally scours its surface, even though it's clear there is nothing left to be done, no one left to be captured. Not a single living soul remains on the oily skating rink.

Morbidly satisfied by the climax of her story, Estella set her utensils on her plate – ten and four o' clock, as she saw the brown-haired lady habitually do in her memories – before pushing the little pile to the center of the table, where a little platform swallowed it up to begin its process of cleansing, rinsing, and sanitizing the plate. The cutlery would be disposed of.

Sam and Bucky had long finished their meals, and sat patiently with their hands around cups of Bengal tea – steaming amber liquid, immersed in milk and topped with spiced foam. Seeing as she was finally finished, they downed their cups, before sliding them into the center of the table as she had done. Bucky offered small talk as they went – surprisingly, the long-haired man of few words had a larger capacity for conversation than Sam, who had outed himself in the first hour of trying to initiate a conversation with Estella only to receive simple one-word answers. Maybe Bucky related to her silence. Maybe he was just accustomed to being ignored.

Either way, Estella was grateful.

"E! So glad you could visit us today!" Shuri's voice beckoned enthusiastically as she popped up from a table of robots, her hair done up in a braided bun. Holographic monitors of faces vanished as she waved her hand, dismissing them. She then took Estella by the arm, leaving Sam and Bucky to file along behind them.