Retribution ★ Avengers

Good Sense of Normalcy

Marlena stared at the MacBook sitting on the counter in front of her. She was sure her lunch was getting cold, but she couldn't bring herself to care too much. She was desperate to uncover some sort of information on the mysterious Hydra family Bucky told her about just the night before, but not once in her life had the internet ever been so useless. Once upon a time, it was almost impossible not to find anything related to Hydra on the internet, thanks to SHIELD's massive data dump back in 2014, but with each new search, Marlena was left with little to no results. At this point she'd be happy to find anything, even an encrypted file. All she'd need to find her way inside was one phone call.

Marlena glanced at her phone laying on the counter and frowned slightly. She hadn't received a single notification, at least from the few she wanted to speak to. Earlier that morning, Steve left with Bucky and Wanda on yet another rescue mission for the twins. Since then, there'd been no update from any of them, no insight as to whether or not they were all still okay. The anxiety of the situation left her with terrible nausea and a building migraine, one she was now battling slowly with a dose of acetaminophen. She figured her research would help serve as a distraction, but waiting on the results proved to be much more disappointing than waiting on her phone to ring.

"I spent an hour making that and you're not even gonna eat it?"

Marlena groaned and looked at her mother, who was staring at her from her spot by the stove. She prepared lunch for everyone in the apartment—Mason, Greyson, Marlena, and herself—and while everyone else finished their meal without a problem, Marlena was falling behind.

"Sorry," Marlena apologized and picked away at her food with a fork. There were no words to describe just how much she missed her mother's cooking, but the sight of it only made her feel nauseous. She blamed her anxiety and her pregnancy. "I'm just a bit anxious and it's making me nauseous."

"They're gonna be okay, y'know?" Miranda reassured her.

Marlena nodded her head slightly and pushed her plate away from her. "I know, but I just got Bucky and Wanda back, and if I lose them again I don't know what I'll do."

"And Steve?"

"I don't even wanna think about what would happen if I lost him," she answered quietly, her eyes on her laptop screen once more.

"You haven't talked much about your relationship with him," Miranda chimed. "At least to me, you haven't."

Marlena shrugged and looked at her mom again. "It's hard to talk about being in love with your deceased husband's best friend when your deceased husband is sitting right across from you."

"Do you see Bucky sitting anywhere?" Miranda gestured to the empty kitchen. "It's just me, Mar, and I've been out of the loop for so long due to literal death, so if you could please just give me back some sense of normalcy, that would be wonderful."

"You got a pretty good sense of normalcy last night in my guest bedroom." A disgusted expression fell across Marlena's face as she recalled everything she'd heard the night before. It was all she needed to know that her mom and Greyson were, in fact, back for good. She'd just forgotten how disgusting that fact could be.

"I didn't think you'd hear that," Miranda muttered. "The TV was on in both your room and the living room."

Marlena raised her brows and tapped her head with her index finger, letting her mother know she didn't need to physically hear them to know what was going on. Miranda had completely forgotten.