Thanos won.
The Avengers have lost.
Their defeat took everything from Andi Brave. . .or at least she thought it did.
Her purpose now is to fulfill a promise she made by trying to live on in the now decimated world that was created by the snap. But...
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Four Years Later
I hang up the phone call with my boss, Maia, through the bluetooth speaker in my car after thanking her again for taking over my afternoon class at work since I didn't get a chance to do so before I left. She owns a local yoga studio where I've been working for her almost two years now. She's agreed to let me take today off early since it's the weekend and I'm finally going to celebrate graduating from college.
It's only online though, but everyone keeps reminding me how big of a milestone it is. I'm not even doing much to celebrate anyways. All I plan to do is to spend the weekend with Helena. She's the big reason I put myself through it all. I want to show her and myself what I can accomplish as her mother.
I park my Toyota RAV4 in the front lawn of Tony's house, but barely make it out of the car when my own daughter leaps at me from behind, attacking me with one of her classic hugs. She latches on you tight like a leech, but also cuddly like a bear. I wonder where she gets it from.
"Hi, sunbeam!" I say, while grabbing my purse from the passenger seat and closing the door behind me. My other hand caresses her long, dark hair as I bend down to plant a kiss on the top of her head.
"I missed you, mommy!" she shouts in Sokovian. She looks up, releasing me from her death grip as she bounces up and down beside me.
"I missed you, too," I say back in my mother tongue. I grab her hand in mine, noticing her nails are painted gold. "Why don't you grab your things so we can head home?"
"No, no! Can we stay?" she asks, our conversation still in Sokovian. She stares up at me with those big doe eyes. "Can we stay longer?"
I squat down to see her face up close. She glances down at her sneakers when I push her outgrown bangs away from her face, taking note that they need a trim while getting a clearer view of those sapphire orbs that have the power to stop my heart. "You wanna stay?"
It's times like these that I make a mental remark about how I once could easily see inside her mind if I wanted to.
"I wanna stay and play with Morgan," she says, this time in English. She scratches the freckles on her cheeks as she wrinkles her cute little nose every time she's nervous.
"You play with Morgan all the time," I tell her, pressing her nose while making a 'Boop' sound. She smiles, but it feels like it's for my sake. Not that she'd think to do so. I mean. . .she's only a kid. "I got off work early because I thought we could have a 'you and me' weekend. We can go anywhere or do anything of your choosing."
For a while she stares down at the ground, then looks up at the cabin, then back at me. "Okay," she says with a little disappointment in her tone I take note of. But then she goes running up the porch steps back inside Tony's house at the exact moment the billionaire himself walks out.
