#and. the portfolio project (a man screams in agony)

[miodiodavinci]

the burnout is real lads . . . . .

[afoolforatook]

Thank you, Wellies

So. I’ve been trying to do both class work and working on wips and just nothing is clicking. So, I thought I should go ahead and do this post, that I’ve been putting off, because.....it’s next week y’all.... So here goes. 

Here’s my original post, that explains what this comic meant to me four years ago. 

And here’s what it means to me now. (this is really long, sorry)

Man, I don’t really even know where to start this. How to start to say thank you. To Ngozi, to all of you.... It’s not possible to fully express what all of you have been for me the past four years. What this story has been for me. 

So many things have changed since I made this post almost four years ago. 

So many things haven’t. 

I’ve been way less active in the fandom since starting at SCAD, and I really was never that incredibly active to begin with, outside of my small group of friends on a discord server. 

And at times I feel bad about that. 

But it’s not because I don’t care about or need this community anymore. 

Rather it’s because this community, this story, gave me the strength to keep moving, and now I want to keep doing so, and make something that might one day even barely begin to show my gratitude. 

So until then, all I can do is say thank you over and over. I can never possibly say it enough. 

But still I wanted to thank you now, and try to explain to you what this comic about hockey and pies has meant to me, one last time before it ends. So that’s what I’ll try to do. 

It was surreal rereading this old post earlier this week. Reading 

“I think I could write a book just of our history and everything leading up to now and the details of this whole event” 

When I wrote this post four years ago, I honestly couldn’t imagine a future where I’d be anything other than incomplete.Or even a future at all. Everyday was just getting up and making myself keep breathing, keep trying to push towards something, even though I had no idea what that could ever be. 

For the first year I wrote daily journal entries, telling Emma about what happened that day, screaming at the universe for doing this, trying to help my future self remember little things, because everything was so hard to hold on to. 

Update days were always something nearly sacred to me. And really not even from a fan point of view. I don’t read them around other people. I sit somewhere quiet, by myself, and read slowly. Because they are little moments I try to share with her still. The only person I want with me when I read them that first time is her, in whatever capacity I can bring myself to imagine. 

A few months after the crash, I found one of Emma’s Spotify playlists. She made playlists for everything; birthday and Christmas presents, mood playlists, friend playlists, monthly playlists. 

This was her May 2016 playlist. Last updated May 16th. Two days before the crash. 

That playlist was literally the only thing I listened to for months on end. 38 songs.Over and over. 

And as I listened I started to think that, just maybe, some of these songs she put there for me. 

West Coast; the song me and Emma would send to each other after high school whenever we wanted to let the other know how much we missed them. 

All I Want is to Be Your Girl. I mean?? 

Slowly I found lyrics in every song that even if just in my own fantasy, were little messages from Emma, telling me to keep going, how to stay strong. 

I was always looking for stories, books, movies, songs, anything about someone grieving the kind of loss I was. Nothing I found felt like it really represented me. If it was about someone young, it was due to suicide or violence or illness. If it was a car crash, it was about a parent or child. If it somehow fit my other demographics, it was never queer. 

I felt totally alone in the exact manifestation of my grief. Like no one else could understand all the tiny details that seemed, to me, to make this all more and more cartoonishly cruel. 

(though one of the most touching moments of my life will always be when Emma’s step mom, the only person in her family who knows about us, sent me a book about grieving a spouse. I cried for hours when I opened that.)

I didn’t have outside representation, support. But I had journals. I had Emma’s songs. I had poems and a handful of inktober drawings. I had my little update moments of connection. And I had so much to say. 

Months, years, of isolation gives you a lot of time to examine your feelings, to question the meaning of things, to think about what exactly grief looked like to you and about how you wanted to live the rest of your life, as someone grieving a love. 

And slowly I began to connect those thoughts to individual lyrics from Emma’s playlist and that helped me actually write all those thoughts out, organize them. 

And that’s how The Mixtape Project started (I still hate using the word memoir. I had to find something else to call it). A book about us. About Emma. About all those thoughts I’d had so long to sit with. Structured around the songs from her playlist. 

I remember the exact moment that I realized that Check Please was going to actively change my life. I was talking to my dad about it, about why I loved the storytelling, the characters, the art, so much. 

I’d told him many times before. But it was always tied to Emma in a way, or to the reasons that I identified with Jack. It was always a little sad in some way. 

But this time. This time it was just excitement. It was just a kid who has always loved words, gushing about a story that fascinated them. 

And I realized. It was the first time I had been just happy, excited, in the months since losing Emma. I remembered all those ideas Emma helped me with in high school, how we gushed over stories like that. I remembered what it was like to just love something and want to create, just because it made you happy. 

I knew I couldn’t go back to UNCA, and none of the other creative writing programs I had looked at seemed like they would fit the new person I was. 

So, for the hell of it, looking for some idea at how to start my life over, I looked at Ngozi’s personal story. And there was SCAD. There was sequential art. 

Now. I’d never ever considered myself an artist. I went to an art high school, I knew art kids. I was never one of them. But that sequential part? That. THAT was what I wanted. That was what I could still be excited about. 

That was how I could pull the Mixtape Project together. The writing, the poems, the art, the music. Comics. Sequential art. A graphic memoir that played with the format. That was the project that kept me going. That was what I was working for. That was the first future I was able to see now that Emma was gone. 

So, for the first time since literally elementary school, I took an art class (also took a mythology class at the same time, which really helped keep my art and storytelling tied). 

I loved it. I was actually happy with my work, surprised by my work and how quickly I felt like I improved (I wouldn’t learn about aphantasia until I got to SCAD, and understand that that drawing 1 class had been so fun, and in a way, easy, because it was all direct observation, and that drawing from memory and imagination would be a much steeper learning curve for me.)

So, when the class ended I thought ‘you know, maybe some kind of art school could be a good idea.’

And then one of my life long best friends, a SCAD animation student, encouraged me to apply, to just go for it. 

And I did. It was a long shot, I was sure. We couldn’t afford it. Why would I get that in that kind of commitment, debt,  after 1 art class? It wasn’t logical. But it felt good. So I did. 

And then I got accepted, and the initial excitement soon fell away, to me and my parents knowing that it really wasn’t doable. 

But we went to admitted students day, just to see. And when we got home, both of my parents cried for a long time. The first happy cry in our house for over two years.

Because they had decided that they had to figure out a way to make it work. 

Because standing in Haymans hall was the first time they had seen me excited about the future since Emma died. It was the first time they’d seen me feel like there was somewhere I was meant to be, that there was somewhere I could fit again. 

So we made it happen. I’ll still be in debt for years, and it’s not necessarily something I’d wholeheartedly recommend to kids getting out of high school, that debt isn’t worth it for many people. 

For me it wasn’t really even worth it exactly for SCAD itself, and you’ll have plenty of professors tell you here that really what you pay for isn’t the education but the networking. 

But for me. For me it was worth it. 

Because I wasn’t wasting away in my basement. 

And I really wasn’t where I’d have liked to have been, ideally, before starting. I was a BRAND new artist. My portfolio for my application was solely my writing work. I hadn’t ever done anything more than scribbled fan comics in my sketchbook. I was coming in wayyyyy behind where most other people were. But I couldn’t wait to feel like I was good enough to be there. There was a strong chance that it was quite literally, a matter of survival. I was reaching a breaking point after nearly three years of isolation and grief with no outlet. The future debt was less of a concern than making sure I didn’t have a complete mental breakdown or worse. 

Now, of course, it hasn’t all been easy or fun or happy once I got here. I’ve doubted myself, I’ve had awful weeks, months, been stressed, unmotivated, in pain, near burnout. 

The first quarter I was absolutely miserable because I had literally no social life. 

Because I was an agoraphobic 23 yr old, living with 17/18 yr olds fresh out of high school. And if I wasn’t careful, I’d dissociate so easily. I’d let myself believe that I was still a teenager fresh from high school. That the past three years of agony hadn’t happened. That I could call Emma and it would ring again. She would answer again. And that illusion was a dangerous pit to fall into. 

And it wasn’t until this fall that my social life really started to improve, beyond one or two close friends. And even still, while it’s much better, it’s nothing like UNCA, like the tight knit family I had that made me identify with SMH and the Haus atmosphere so much. 

But I was moving forward. Agonizingly slowly sometimes. But still forward. 

And then last Spring quarter, just about a year ago, I was in Survey for SEQA. Basically comic book history class. And our final was a 4 page research comic on a comic artist we admired. So of course, I was going to do mine on Ngozi. 

The comic was due at the end of the quarter, the end of May. 

Now, that quarter was the first time I was actually in SEQA classes; Survey, and Intro. 

And those four pages would be the first fully colored, refined comic pages I had EVER done. It was intimidating. I didn’t want to mess it up. Especially because this wasn’t some big name of some far off artist you would never have any connection to. This was someone who all my professors knew. 

I ended up getting extremely lucky and had the chance to email Ngozi and ask if she’d be able to give for a quote for the project, advice for current SCAD students. 

She replied to my email the weekend of the 3rd anniversary. (I then spent hours on a thank you email - because that’s who I am, I can’t not over analyze anything I’m sending to someone important - and then I managed to save it to drafts instead of actually sending it...something I would not notice until literally months later and be absolutely mortified about my apparent rudeness of never thanking her.)

I still am not really happy with how that project came out. I still had (and have) a lot to learn, and it shows. I have, in no way, become an amazing comic artist overnight. I wasn’t expecting to.

But that short email exchange, falling on that weekend; it felt special. It felt like some speck of proof that I was doing the right thing. That things could actually go well in my life again. That if I kept going, I might actually get somewhere that I wanted to be. That maybe I really could make The Mixtape Project happen, if I just kept at it here. 

And then I found out that in the fall, Ngozi would be the SEQA mentor. 

Unfortunately by the time I had all the details about how to apply, the quarter had started and there were only a couple of weeks before it was due, and the only pages I had even anywhere close to being portfolio ready were either my research comic or a few older Check Please fan comics, none of which I would even have considered putting in that portfolio (I’m not 100% certain it would actually have come across as sucking up but it sure felt like it would have). And despite my best efforts, it just wasn’t possible, with how slow I work and having to keep up with classwork, for me to get a portfolio ready in time. 

That hurt for a while. I felt like I had this clear sign of perfect timing. How could I pass up that chance? How could I forgive myself for not doing everything I could to earn that experience? How was I not letting Emma down if I ruined this opportunity? 

It took a while to get out of that negative thought spiral. But I did, and it’s still a bummer, but it’s okay. 

And something that really helped? 

In October, Ngozi still came to campus to give a lecture. And that would have been good enough; just sitting in on that helped me feel excited, encouraged again. But then, after the lecture (with my amazing roommate waiting patiently behind with me, to make sure I didn’t actually have a panic attack on the way home) I got to talk to her. 

We all hope to one day get to talk to the people who inspired us, whose work we love, to tell them how much they mean to us. And yes, I was a little version of starstruck. 

But that wasn’t why I was shaking. That wasn’t why I told her I was going to do my best to get this out without crying (and I did, I’m proud to say). 

It was because I had the opportunity, while at the school that had given me a chance to start my life again, to thank the woman who was in all likelihood, one of the main reasons I was even still alive. If it had not been for Check Please I wouldn’t have had that good thing to keep sharing with Emma. I wouldn’t have found sequential art, at least not for a while longer probably. I wouldn’t have been able to finally picture a future I wanted to get to. 

And I’ll be honest, I don’t remember 90% of what I actually said that night to Ngozi. 

But I told her my story. I told her about Emma. About how Check Please was the last thing we got to share. I thanked her. And she was wonderful and kind and emotional and hugged me a couple of times, and even though I don’t remember a lot of what I actually said; it was something that will be one of the most important, affirming moments of my life. 

I didn’t have a panic attack on the way home. I somehow managed to not cry until we were back to our dorm. But I was stunned. 

Not even because of the amazing moment I had been able to have with Ngozi. 

But because it hit me. 

I was doing it. I was there. I had actually made it this far. 

Somewhere that just over a year ago I never would have believed was possible. 

A time when, two years before, I hadn’t even been sure I could make it to alive. 

That weekend was my 24th birthday. And it was the first birthday since I left UNCA at 19, that I didn’t just hate the fact that I was getting older. That I was moving away from the happiest parts of my life so far. 

Yes it still hurt getting further from Emma, putting another tick on the years that I got that she didn’t. 

But I was actually finally excited at the idea of even having a future, let alone having an idea of what it could be. 

February was a difficult month for me. I have another (entirely way too long) post about why everything that happened with RWBY and Fairgame was so difficult for me, but to put it simply; my hope for the future was shaken.

I was back in the toxic negative thought spirals I had fought for years to train myself out of. 

I was seeing Emma, or her brother, or her mom, in crowds; something I hadn’t experienced since the first few months after the crash. I was in one of the biggest crisis moments I’d had since Emma’s death. 

But I was more experienced than when I was 20. 

It wasn’t fun, a lot of it probably wasn’t the ideal way to cope, but I did it. And I kept up with my work. I isolated more, but not completely. I made myself vent on snapchat or tumblr, and not worry about oversharing or annoying people, because it was either get it out or let it fester in my head.  And I couldn’t afford to let that happen. 

In mid March, I made a pitch packet for my comic scripting final. 

It was for The Mixtape Project. It was hard, and nerve-wracking, and there’s still mountains of work to be done. 

But after my initial synopsis (first of like seven versions, cause trying to put this thing in a good synopsis format is a nightmare) my professor told me that he thought my story had potential. 

That he could see it being published. He suggested, knowing that I was planning on taking his advanced scripting course this quarter (hey remember how mid march was only a few weeks ago?? Huh?? wild), that I keep working on it, and see about taking it to Editor’s day (SEQA students’ opportunity to basically pitch themselves and their ideas to publishers). 

Now, my professor is by no means an overly harsh critic, and is plenty supportive in general. 

But I also knew that that was not just something he said to students all the time. That he meant it. 

Editor’s Day (now online) is in mid May. The week of the 4th anniversary of Emma’s death, to be exact. 

Everything is a mess right now, and I’m stressed and tired and scared and heartbroken (this will be the first time since I was 9 that I have not had Merlefest; the highlight of my year, and since Emma’s death; the last big happy thing before I plunge into the nightmare that is May). 

Tuesday will come. Check Please will end. I will continue to support Ngozi and her work after Bitty’s story ends. 

But it will be sad. It won’t be easy. 

This thing that has been my tether to the most important person in my life, will still be there, but it will be over. 

It will have a concrete end. It will no longer be part of the future I am pushing towards. 

But I am a different person than the shattered kid who wrote this post four years ago. 

I’m not who I was before Emma died. I never will be. I’d never try to be. I want Emma back more than anything. But that won’t happen. And as long as this is all real, I never want to pretend this didn’t happen. 

That I didn’t shatter in a way that will never heal like people expect. 

I’m still all those shattered pieces that wrote this post. Maybe a few have had the edges dulled, maybe I’ve lost a few, glued a few together perfectly, maybe picked up a few stray pieces that didn’t come from the me from before. 

But I will be those shattered pieces for the rest of my life. 

They won’t magically fuse back together. I work every day to hold them, to keep myself in some shape that resembles a functioning person. 

Some days I fail. Some days, I am too tired to even try. Some days, I am so angry, I’d rather hurl the pieces at whatever power or fate or god or chaos decided that I got to live and she didn’t. 

But those days pass. 

And I learn how to hold the pieces better, how to avoid the sharpest edges, how to take care of the wounds when I inevitably cut myself on one, how to allow other people to help me hold them, how to accept that some pieces may feel safe and smooth and comforting but they are traps, illusions that are the easy way to do things, but not the healthy way, not the way that will help me achieve my goals.

That person, made of all those unholdable pieces, four years ago, was staying alive for everyone else but themself. 

And some days I still am. 

For my parents. For Emma. For all the other queer, mentally ill, grieving kids and young adults and just people, who are looking for the same representation I was, who feel as alone as I still do so often. 

But some days. 

On those really good days. 

I’m alive, carrying all those pieces, just because I want to be. For me. 

I want to spin around in the morning, singing along to my bluegrass spotify. I want to get excited over finally figuring out how to write that line that was giving me so much trouble, or finish that sketch that I never thought I could manage. I want to hope that despite how awful everything seems, there’s still a good future out there. It’s still possible to be happy some days. 

I want to cry because I get to see Jack and Bitty get the happy ending that me and Emma didn’t. 

And now, unlike that version of me from four years ago, when it ends, I will have things still. 

Things that I have worked everyday to reach, to deserve, to hold out to people and say

 “Hey, sometimes everything hurts and you know that things will never be what they were, and parts of you will always miss that. But there are still things you can find that hurt less, that ease the hurt, that teach you how to better hold the hurt, to stop trying to say it doesn’t exist or trying to get rid of it completely and hating yourself when you can’t. You can still be hurt, be irreparably broken in so many places, and still find the happy things. You are still worthy of love, no matter how broken you are. Your worth is not tied to how much you are able to heal.  You are worthy of so much love, just because you are still here, no matter how many tiny pieces you are in.”  

The thing is, I will still always have a future that includes Emma. Because I couldn’t tell you exactly which of my pieces are from her, but so many of them are. 

There is no version of me, from here on to the day I die, that does not have her influence embedded in every piece. 

These days I try to be a little kinder to myself. It doesn’t always work, but I try. 

Because, to Emma, I was Bitty. I radiated that “thing”. 

Whether or not I saw it in myself, doesn’t matter, because she did. 

But to me she was the one who radiated. 

And she is a part of me. She can’t radiate that “thing” herself anymore. 

But I can, at least I can try.

Because If this person I loved and trusted so immensely, saw something worth loving in me? There must be something there worth loving, right? 

And if she is a part of me for the rest of my life, how can I hate myself? How can I do anything but keep going so that, even if just in my head, a part of her gets to keep going too. 

My family and friends joke that every friend group I’ve ever had calls me something different. And really it’s not a joke. In middle school I was CB #4 (that’s a long, terribly embarrassing, story). In high school I was Pond (and many variations there of: Pondala, Pondy, Raindrop, Puddle, you get the picture). At UNCA, when I came out as nonbinary, I started going by Auden. When I went home it was back to Meagan; Meagan always felt right with my parents. 

With Emma I was always Meagan. We were Meagan and Emma. Megma. Meagan and Emma have online adventures!

After she was gone, Meagan didn’t really feel like me anymore. I loved Meagan, I missed Meagan, I wished I could still really fully be Meagan, and I’m okay still being Meagan sometimes. 

But that real Meagan. The Meagan that was Emma’s Meagan. Doesn’t exist anymore. I lost that Meagan somewhere in that first night of screaming and trying to break my hand against the wall, so I could just feel something other than the agony of Emma being gone.

When I joined a Check Please chat group, a few months after the crash, we gave each other hockey nicknames. I was Farley. 

My second quarter at SCAD, I started going by Farley. It stuck. 

That’s who this version of me is. This new artist, still figuring things out, but still going. 

I may not always stay Farley (other than ya’know artist ‘branding’. We’ll see) but that’s okay. Farley is who I need to be right now. 

Farley is who will finish The Mixtape Project. 

(because of two people mishearing both my nickname and last name I will, at least once in my career, use the pseudonym Fartley McFarmland and no one will stop me). 

I can’t imagine what, who, will come after Farley, if anything.

But Check Please will always be a part of making Farley, and every future version of me, exist. 

I could go on and on about how beautiful this story and these characters are, how inspiring Ngozi is, how genius her storytelling is, how powerful and important her work is. I could go on for days about all of that. But this is already so long, and I know that so many of you can go on about that probably way better than I could currently. 

But, as many of my professors tell us over and over, only I can tell this story. My story. Emma’s story. Our story. And it’s one I plan on telling for the rest of my life. 

And Check Please, Ngozi, will forever be the thing that made that possible.

So thank you. Those two words that are way too small to say it all. 

Thank you. 

Every fic writer

Every artist

Every rper 

Every chat friend

Every shitposter

Every theorist or meta poster

Every fan

Thank you. 

B. “Shitty” Knight. 

Larissa “Lardo” Duan

Adam “Holster” Birkholtz

Justin “Ransom” Oluransi

John Johnson

Ollie O'Meara 

Pacer Wicks

Jenny and Mandy

Nicholas and Jean-Claude

Coach Hall 

Coach Murray

Suzanne Bittle

Richard “Coach” Bittle

William “Dex” Poindexter

Derek “Nursey” Nurse

Chris “Chowder” Chow

Kent Parson

Alicia Zimmermann

“Bad” Bob Zimmermann

Tony “Tango” Tangredi

Connor “Whiskey” Whisk

Denice “Foxtrot” Ford

Fry Guy

Georgia “Georgie” Martin

Alexei “Tater” Mashkov

Sebastian “Marty” St. Martin

Dustin “Snowy” Snow

Poots

Randall “Thirdy” Robinson

Jonathan “Hops” Hopper

River “Bully” Bullard

Lukas “Louis” Landmann

(I’m almost certain I had to have missed someone)

Thank you.

Jack “Zimmboni” Laurent Zimmermann

Thank you.

Eric “Bitty” Richard Bittle

Thank you.

Ngozi Ukazu

Thank you. For everything. 

For having my back. I’ll always have yours.

Always yours, 

Farley M.

[buckygirl-fanfiction]

Sparks Chapter 28

Pairing: Bucky POV X Reader POV ft. Other characters from the Avengers team.

Word Count: 3.8K

Summary: The perpetrators behind the attacks are finally reveals. Bucky begins to pull away after y/n’s rejection.

August 19, 2016

 10am

 Bucky’s  POV

 I saw her with him, the scientist, they were seated across from each other at a table in front of the cafe. She was looking through some papers and he was smiling down at her while she read. Is that who she chose? I can’t help but feel the sting of heartbreak. I averted my gaze and kept walking.

 6pm

 I’m on the elevator up to the lab. It’s Friday night and she wants to hang out. I agreed, even though it pains me to see her after everything that’s happened. But, she needs a friend and i’ll suffer through a little heartbreak for her. I’d suffer through anything for her. It’s painful though, when she rests her head on my shoulder, when she slips her fingers through mine, when she smiles at me. I can almost feel my heart pulse in agony.

 But, the wound is fresh… and time will heal it. One day i’ll be able to look at her again and it won’t hurt.

 I step off the elevator and walk through the mostly deserted lab. Most of the lights are off. Only the dim hallway lights illuminate my path. I see her office at the end of the corridor and through the glass doors I see him again. He pushes past the doors with a smile on his face and walks in my direction. He looks up from his phone and sees me and stops when we are close enough, “Bucky right?” he says.

 “Only my friends call me Bucky,” I say. It comes out a little meaner than i’d intended it to.

 “My mistake. y/n talks a lot about you,” he says, “Bucky this, Bucky that…” he trails off. I almost detect jealousy in his tone. I’m silent and he continues, “Well nice seeing you man,” he says and with that he leaves me standing in the corridor alone to ponder over his words.

 y/n spots me through her glass doors and waves. I see her grab her bag and she walks towards me.

 “Hey,” she says smiling. “Umm, you saw Dean. What did he say?”

 “Nothing of importance,” I say.

 “We’re not…” she trails off, “I mean, I wouldn’t do that to you.” She says with pity in her eyes.

 “You don’t owe me an explanation,” I say.

 “He just dropped off some files. He asked me to consult on a project.” She continues ignoring my last sentence.

 “Like I said. I don’t care,” It comes out harsher than i’d intended and she looks a little hurt. “I don’t mean it like that… I just mean who you date is your business.” I say trying to fix it. But, this is exactly what I was afraid of: breaking our friendship to a point where it couldn’t be mended.

 “What do you want to do?” She says trying to put a smile back on her face.

 “I don’t know,” I say, “you decide.”

 She takes my arm and I feel it again. That distinctive pang of a broken heart. She notices my stiffness and looks at me questioningly for a second, “y/n…” I say but i’m cut off by my phone ringing. I quickly slip my arm out of hers and dig in my pocket for my phone.

 “Saved by the bell,” she says looking down.

 “It’s… not like that,” I say. But it is and she knows it. Things have changed. I pick up my phone and say, “yes?”

 y/n’s POV

 I don’t know how to fix us. I wish things would go back to the way they were before. It’s been an awkward week of silences and avoidances. He’s like a million miles away and I can’t seem to bring him back and it stings. He broke us. I broke us.

 He’s talking on the phone and I lean against the wall of the corridor waiting. Hoping it’s not another excuse he can use to ditch me. When he’s done he hangs up and looks at me and sighs.

 “Come on, you might as well come with me. They’re going to need you,” he says running his hand through his hair.

 “What happened?”

 “A jet just blew up,” Bucky says.

 “A jet?” That doesn’t sound like Hydra. Have they moved into domestic terrorism now?

 The rest of the night went by in a blur of horrific images. All of which I had to actively shift through trying to find bomb remnants for the reconstruction. I finally went to sleep around 4am. I snuck into Bucky’s apartment. His bedroom door was left ajar and I peaked through the slit and saw him asleep in a pair of sweatpants. His chest was bare and his hair was wet. He must’ve just gotten out of the shower. Ordinarily I would have silently slipped under the covers next to him and fallen asleep on the bed. But, for some reason that didn’t seem fair to him. Instead I pulled the door closed and settled for the sofa. I couldn’t sleep. So many things were running through my mind. But, staying awake in this state wouldn’t be of much help. Nothing made sense anymore. I’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing bomb after bomb and i’ve been getting nowhere. But, for some reason tonight was different. I felt a faint pull, like my subconscious mind knew something my waking mind didn’t know just yet. Like a important piece of puzzle you remember seeing once but no matter how hard you look can’t seem to find. Then there was Bucky, my best friend Bucky… I felt him pulling away. Slowly and it was painful. No one wants their best friend to pull away. It’s liking losing a part of yourself, a companion, a comrade, a …

 I fell asleep to this, to these haunting thoughts and had equally haunting dreams.

 September 6, 2016

 This time it was me who was stitching him up. There was a large gash on his chest and I didn’t want to know how he got it. He’s been requesting more assignments and being more reckless. We sat in silence as I carefully pierced the suture through his flesh closing the wound. He didn’t even seem to flinch. Instead he just looked down and I wasn’t brave enough to say anything.

 September 17, 2016

 He’s gone again. Somewhere he didn’t bother to tell me. I’m sitting here in the lab wondering whether i’ve made a mistake. What if he doesn’t come back this time? He asked for too much and I couldn’t give it to him. I couldn’t bring myself to give him the power to hurt me, but somehow he already possessed it.

 I try to focus my mind and look through the reconstructions again but I can’t. I decide to call it a night and walk towards my office. The lab door clicks behind me. I look at my watch it’s around 1am. Mostly everyone else has gone home. When I get to my office I look down at my desk, which is covered in papers. I’m not usually this unorganized. But, I guess everything in my life is falling apart slowing reflecting how my feelings are also falling apart.

 I try my best to organize them, the folders. I’m piling the files into groups when I come across it, the final piece that’s been scratching at the back of my head for weeks now. It’s the file Dean gave me. The project he asked me to consult on. He’s a weapons expert and he’s working on nano explosives. Very similar to the ones i’ve been reconstructing for the last couple weeks. Why would he give me this? It seems like a blatantly obvious way to get yourself caught. I hadn’t opened the file since the morning he gave it to me. I only flipped through it, then I was distracted by the plane. It makes no sense. They were almost identical in design. Expect the plans Dean gave me were unfinished. Flawed. He couldn't seem to work out the kinks, that’s why he asked me to consult. I pick up my phone ready to call the first person that comes to mind: Bucky. But, he’s not here.

 An hour later i’m in a conference room with Agent Carter and Tony shifting through Dean’s entire project portfolio.

 “It doesn’t make sense. Why would he work for Hydra?” I ask, “Then why would he ask me to consult?”

 “What if this was never Hydra?” asks the blond woman, Sharon.

 “What?”

 “Dr. Dean Campbell weapons researcher affiliated with Stark Industries. He is working on a project currently with engineer Linda Highworth.” She says.

 “Yes, we know this Carter… What’s new?” Tony asks impatiently annoyed at being dragged back here at 2am.

 “Highworth industries just made over a 300 million dollars today in a stock market crash. The airline, the one whose plane crashed today, their stocks just plummeted. Highworth took a very risky gamble against the airline 2 days ago. October 2015, the bomb in Time square Highworth lost round about half a billion gambling on the wrong side of the market. If the bomb had gone off he would have stood to make considerably more. Specifically in government defense contracts.”

 “Linda works on government defense contracts. If she engineered domestic terrorist attacks her cooperation would have stood to make millions in panicked political funding directed towards domestic defence.” I say staring wide eyed at Carter. I knew something was off. Dirty bombs and domestic terrorism. This never screamed Hydra.

 “Your theory sounds pretty appealing until you remember Dr. Highworth is on the scientific research board here at Stark and on a handful other boards with a clearance level higher than the president.” Tony says. “His daughter may seem sketchy but his corporation is clear and free. Not only is he under security scrutiny from us, but i’m sure the NSA vets him thoroughly enough. It’s not them.” Tony says resolutely.

 “Then explain the sketchy stock market gambles,” I say challenging him.

 “Carter could probably find twenty other corporations gambling on the stock market on those same dates. It’s nothing new.” He says.

 “Exactly if he is stock manipulating using domestic terrorism then he has a entire organization behind him to make him look clear. Probably an entire organization of people just as powerful as him.” Carter says standing firm in her theory. “It’s the only explanation. Both of them would have enough clearance. It explains the security breaches. They were the moles. Linda had access to Dr. Campbell’s notes. She wouldn’t have know he consulted y/n.”

 “Explain Axelrod then, why would he be using Hydra tech to brainwash the cyborg then? None of that connects back to Highworth.” Tony says.

 “He isn’t a cyborg,” I retort angrily, “If you’re too blind to see what’s right in front of you, you might as well doom us all.”

 “I’ll put them under surveillance,” Tony says rubbing his eyes. “That’s the best I can do.”

 “Screw this,” I say. I grab my bag and head out of the room angrily. If he needed proof i’d give him proof.

 Twenty minutes later I was at her apartment. It was late, almost 3am. She lived in a doorman building. Of course she would, after all the people she’s murdered in the name of profit, were paying for it. I had to be careful. I called Sam, he was the only other person I could convince to believe me. Steve would have gone to Tony, to do this through the right channels. I need to get her to confess or I needed to lull her into a sense of security. Just long enough to find the information I needed. Sam was parked outside in a car listening to my every word through an earpiece. He was just backup. Not the backup I wanted, but the only backup I had.

The doorman eyed me curiously and let me up. The platinum blond answered the door in a pair of silk pajamas. Her sharp features stuck out through her skin. Her pointed nose and high cheekbones looked almost to be painfully sticking out of her flesh. She looked confused. She was a good actress, I have to give that to her.

 “Dr. y/l/n what are you doing here?” She says squinting her eyes. I must of disturbed her sound sleep after the hundreds she’s killed. I wonder how she can face it.

 Well, I was a good actress too, “I had to come see you.” I say in my best panicked voice.

 “Of course, come in,” she says leading me through the marble corridor towards the living room.

 She sat in silence across from me. Her apartment looked clean and spotless unlike her conscience. I dug shakily into my purse playing my role perfectly. I pulled out the file, the one Dean gave me. “You know i’m consulting on your project with Dean. The nano explosives. He gave me the file weeks ago.”

 He face betrays her for a second, “Of course I know,” she says trying to bring her steel expression back, “what about it?”

 “I don’t know if you know. But i’m also working on the reconstruction of flight 284,” I say, “the one from a couple weeks ago.”

“Yes, I heard it was terrible.” She pauses then continues, “I don’t quite see the correlation.”

 “How much do you know about the explosives used on flight 284?” I ask.

 “Not much,” she says and I almost believe her, “y/n I don’t understand why are you here?”

 “I found some similarities between your work with Dean and the explosives used on the flight,” I say.

 “OH god.” She says playing her best shocked card. “I don’t understand do you suspect someone on our team?”

 “I suspect your father,” I say playing my final card. “I looked into some of his companies financial activity and it seems correlated to a handful of other planned attacks, like flight 284. How much does he know of your work?”

 “Have you told anyone else of your suspicions?” She says alarmed and for the first time the emotion she exhibits is genuine.

 “No, I came stright away from the lab,” I say, “I had to be sure. I knew you couldn't be involved since you knew about Dean consulting me about your current project. It wouldn’t make sense for you to consult me and use the same explosives in the attack. But, your father… Did he know? Did he know you were consulting me?” I ask innocently.

 “I… I don’t think so… I… I can check. I have access to his database.” She says getting up. “Wait here i’m going to get my laptop.”

 She speedily walked out of the room. I had her right where I wanted her. Two things would happen now. If she was innocent she would return with a laptop and we’d search together for clues. If she was smart, that’s what she would do. But, she wasn’t smart. She was rattled and she would either believe I was innocently coming to her for help or that I knew the entirety of the plan and she would call my bluff. Either way she would try to kill me. Either way I had someone watching after me patiently in the sky.

 I was right. I heard the click of the gun behind me and I heard her footsteps. I slowly turned and tried to push down the smirk that was risking on my face. “Hands up,” she said. “Get on your knees.”

 “Oh… God Linda what are you doing?” I said in my best shaken up voice.

 “Who! Who else knows you’re here?” She yells as I slowly sink to my knees. I look out the window of the tall apartment building we’re in and I see a glimmer far off in the distance.

 “No… noone.” I say maintaining my character. “I don’t. I don’t understand,” I say in a shaky voice. “You knew, why would you ask Dean to consult me if you knew I was working on the reconstructions?”

 “Fucking Campbell, he’s going to have to die now too. I didn’t know that fool consulted you,” she says hissing at me holding up the silver gun and pointing it down at me.

 “It was a dangerous risk. Using explosives from your project. Someone could have caught on. You should have been more careful.” I say as a smile spreads over my face. I break my character and slowly stand up. She raises the gun as I do.

 “Get back down,” she hisses.

 “You know what I still don’t understand,” I say sitting down on the sofa and crossing my legs, “How Hydra is involved in this? Your father and you are just using terrorist attacks as a ploy to play the stock market, how many other countries are involved in this? How many other leaders? You must have a pretty solid organization. But, how is Hydra involved? Why was Axelrod involved?”

 ��You think you’re smart then figure it out yourself. But be fast you don’t have a lot of time left,” she says smiling at me, “I killed your friend… and now i’m going to kill you.”

 “You really think I came here alone?” I say smiling, “I have a little birdy on my shoulder.” Right on cue I duck my head down facing away from the window. I hear glass break and a shot go off. When I turn back around I see Sam with his great big metal wings. They retract back into his harness and Linda is on the ground in a pair of cuffs, struggling against the floor. I stand up shaking off the stray shards of glass from my hair.

 September 21, 2016

 “She still won’t talk?” I ask Tony whose ego has taken a severe hit. Dr. Highworth Senior is nowhere to be found. As for his daughter she’s being detained. If there is any Hydra connection Fury wants to know about it. But, she doesn’t seem to be in as a talkative mood as she was the night I went to visit her. Bucky is back, but he’s been avoiding me. Not intentionally I don’t think. But, I feel a difference. He’s been avoiding me a lot lately in the name of his job.

 “She wants to talk to you,” Fury says from the head of the table. I haven’t seen him much. I’ve always reported to Tony before. But ever since Highworth was exposed I’ve been reporting to him.

 “She’s not going in there alone,” Bucky says walking in through the door. I turn to find him standing in the doorway. I wonder how long he’s been here.

 “I don’t care who she goes with, I just want answers…”

 Silence, that’s all i’m met with. From Bucky on the walk over to the interrogation room and from Linda when i’m inside. “You’re the one that wanted to talk.” I say narrowing my eyes at her.

 “I didn’t know you’d be bringing the soldier…” she says trailing off looking curiously at Bucky. “Your very own person lap dog I see…”

 “What do you want?” I snap.

 “We tried to turn him,” she says twisting her wrists in the cuffs that hold her. She looks different in a orange jumpsuit. Worn out and angry. “Axelrod tried to turn him. He’s the weakest link you know and it would have been very beneficial to us to have him on our side.”

 I feel a pang of pity run through me at her words. Bucky isn’t the weakest link.

 “I want a deal,” she says. “I’m sick of rotting away in here and I don’t plan on a long stay.”

 “What do you want?” I ask. Does she really think she can negotiate her way out of this?

 “I want an Island. Preferably somewhere with a stellar resort. Security and access to my accounts.”

 “You really think I’m in a position to make that happen?” I say looking back through the one way glass at Fury who's probably somewhere on the other side.

 “I’ll tell you everything I know and i’ll get your little lap dog into Spectre,” she says smiling at her reflection in the one way glass. Looking past it to the man in charge, just like I did a second ago.

 A minute later Fury is inside the room, “No games.”

 “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says teasingly.

 “Whats Spectre?” I ask.

 “Oh the new Hydra of sorts… My grandfather was a member, you see, of Hydra. My father would have been inducted into the order as well but they died out. They’re obsolete now. Spectre is a new creation, a new organization, a smarter one, a profit oriented organization. Unlike Hydra, not a power orientated one. My father’s very own pet project. We at times have utilized Hydra’s technology, like the soldier. Axelrod thought he could turn him and then we would have someone on the inside of the all mighty Avengers. Clearly you foiled that. You foil a lot of things Dr. y/l/n. Maybe you’re the one we should have been trying to recruit.” She says. After a pause she continues, “I’m just as smart though, maybe even smarter. I want my freedom. Then, i’ll get your little lap dog into Spectre. We can call it an escape and I can say I turned him. Either way it’s a mutually beneficial plan. You’ll have a mole inside Spectre and I won’t have to sport this lovely shade of orange anymore,” she says pulling at her sleeve.

 “Clever, your plan only works if I let you go,” Fury says.

 “Your idiotic if you think we’re going to let you go,” I say interrupting Fury. “What stops you from exposing him once he is on the inside?” I ask.

 “Well, i’m not asking for much… Instead of rotting in here for the rest of my life. I’d rather be confined to a Island somewhere in the Caribbean. I have contacts inside Spectre who will believe the story: That I turned the famous Winter Soldier and once he’s on the inside i’ll lay low. As a sign of good faith i’ll even cut off all communication. Say you killed me, tracked me down, took me out, I don’t care. He’ll be in,” she says nodding her head towards Bucky, “Then you can do whatever you want with Spectre. Tear it all down for all I care. But, as a sign of good faith I want a guarantee you will leave me out of it. In my pretty little Island. I’m sure a smart man like you can figure out a plan that ends in both our mutual satisfactions,” she says aimed at Fury. “You know it’s not hard to sell, he was always the weakest link,” she says turning to Bucky.