The first time Lila was ever going to be on a plane--or well a jet-- and it was going to take off at four in the morning and take over three hours. She wasn't sure if she should be happy that she gets to spend more time with the others, or annoyed because apparently "too dark to see your hand in front of your face" was the perfect time to leave.
Usually, Lila would be fine for leaving on an adventure at any time of day, (or night in this case). But she was already worried about how the flight would go, and about trying to be friends with the Widows. Key word being trying.
And she would be lying if she said she wasn't so nervous about getting the missing widows back that she wanted to throw up. Or maybe she was just worried flying would make her throw up.
Her mind couldn't stop running through the different scenarios that could happen. And it didn't help when she had no idea how real missions usually go.
She had only been on one mission before, and it wasn't even real! It was just a spur of the moment rescue mission... that went horribly wrong and ended up causing both Lila and Wanda to get trapped.
And Wanda got injured...
Lila shook her head, scattering the thoughts. Those did not help her mood or nervousness at all.
She looked to her side, where her dad was restringing his bow. They had been on the plan for a half an hour, and he had already done it over ten times.
"Do that anymore, Dad, and you're going to break the string," Lila told him.
He smiled sheepishly. "I know, it just helps me feel like I'm more prepared to handle the unknown."
"Oh... Is there something that might help me calm down?" Lila asked.
Clint shrugged, shooting her a small smile, "It's different for every person. Maybe you could go see what the others are doing to stay calm."
Lila nodded, knowing that was Clint's way of telling her to go talk to people to distract herself. She slipped out of her seat and walked up a few rows to where Adira and Evelyn were sitting and talking between themselves.
"Hey," Lila said.
"Hey," Evelyn replied.
Adira didn't say anything, but gave Lila a small smile instead.
"Do you need something?" Evelyn asked.
"I was just wondering if there was something you did before missions to calm down?" Lila asked, feeling the need to explain more, she continued, "I was just trying to figure out a way to calm myself down, but can't think of any."
The two widows looked at each other then back at her.
"Uhm, nevermind, I'll go ask someone else," Lila said after a moment of silence. She turned to leave.
"Breathing exercises," Adira said quietly, stopping Lila in her tracks.
"What?" Lila asked, turning back to them.
"I do breathing exercises," Adira repeated, "It helps calm me down and focus."
Evelyn nodded, "Meditation is good too."
"Is that what you do?"
"Yep. It helps me pull my thoughts together." Evelyn said.
Lila nodded, "Those are helpful, thanks."
Adira and Evelyn nodded in reply. As Lila continued forward, she started thinking about the two widows. Adira was only a few years older than Lila, but she was so shy, and distant. And Evelyn was only a few years older than Adira, and she seemed even more closed off.
And Ella and Nichole, they were young too. How was it that all of them were so closed off? So... seemingly alone?
What had happened to them?
That seemed like kind of a dumb question now that Lila had thought about it. The Red Room had happened. She knew this.
The Red Room... it must have been so terrible for them. Some of the stories that Natasha and Yelena had mentioned.......
Lila knew that they had skimmed over some of the worst details. She was unsure if it was because they didn't want the others to know everything, or if they didn't want to, or even just couldn't talk about it.
But still... some of those stories....
Rima, Yelena, and Vaani were sitting together a few feet ahead, in the middle of a conversation. Not wanting to interrupt them quite yet, Lila slipped into the seats behind them.
"-Adira, Evelyn, and Vikki made it up. Want to try?" Rima asked the other two widows.
"We just tell you the one thing that we wished we could have changed in our life?" Vaani asked.
"Sort of? Just, if you could change one decision that you made. Just one. What would it be?" Rima replied.
"What's the point if we can't change anything anyway?" Yelena asked, "There's really no point in dwelling on the past, is there?"
Rima shrugged, "I know that's what the Red Room taught us, but Evelyn said she liked this game because it made her think of what she did in the past that she regretted, and how she could have handled it better. Then she can apply it to her life right now, and deal with similar situations in a better way."
"Oh," Yelena seemed to be thinking it over.
"It's worth a shot, isn't it?" Rima said, "I'll go first. The one thing I would change is that I would stop Vikki and the others from going on that mission."
"Why wouldn't you change something from the Red Room instead?" Yelena asked, "Wouldn't it change more for the better if you could change something from then?"
"Maybe, but then maybe I never would have met Adira. Maybe I never would have been able to stay safe with Vikki. Maybe I never would have met the others, and gotten closer to them.
"I'm happy with my life right now. All of it except for the fact that Vikki and the others are missing. So why should I change things that might ruin that?" Rima replied.
"I get that," Vaani said, "Adira might not be your sister by blood, but she is your sister, and you don't want to risk ruining that."
"Exactly. Well, you all are my sisters. That's just what it feels like now. A family. You know?" Rima said.
Yelena nodded, "Yeah, I think we both know what you're talking about."
"Good to know that people actually understand what I'm talking about!" Rima smiled, "Want to give it a try, Yelena?"
"...Sure. I guess... I would change things so that I had spent more time with Nat," Yelena told them, "Maybe if I had, I would have been more prepared for her death."
"There's no preparing for death. It catches everyone off guard. There's nothing you can do about that," Vaani said.
"...yeah. I guess you're right on that. But.... at least I would have had more good memories to look back on after her death," Yelena said.
Rima nodded, "Hey, at least you have another chance to spend more time with her."
Yelena smiled, though it seemed a bit off, "Yeah. I guess I'm pretty lucky when it comes to that."
"Don't waste that chance," Vaani told her.
"It's your turn, Vaani. What do you want to change?" Rima asked.
"...I..." Vaani glanced out of the window at the dark silhouette hinting at clouds by swirling through the sky and blocking the stars' light, "I would try harder to save a friend."
Try harder to save a friend? Had Vaani lost someone important to her?
Lila felt a growing lump in her throat. She felt awful knowing how good her home life had been compared to the lives of these Widows who hadn't even had a home!
How was it that life could be so good to some people, and yet terrible to others? How could anyone deserve what life was giving?
"I need a drink," Vaani said, slipping out of the row.
Lila watched her walk to the kitchenette at the back of the jet, before hesitantly getting up and following her. By the time Lila caught up to her, Vaani already had a drink in hand and was leaning against the kitchenette counter.
She looked at Lila with an eyebrow raised, "Kid."
"Hi! Uhm, so, if there's turbulence won't both of us fall over?" Lila asked, unsure how to otherwise start the conversation.
"You might. The worst that would happen to me is that I would spill my drink," Vaani replied before taking a swig from her drink.
"Oh, right."
"Did you need something?" Vaani asked.
"Not really...?"
"Good."
Lila fell quiet while Vaani took another drink. How was she supposed to turn this conversation around to ask what she really wanted to know? Ugh! She should have accepted her dad's offer to teach her interrogation tactics!
"Why'd you sign on to a mission like this, Kid?" Vaani asked abruptly, "It's going to be a dangerous one."
"I know. But dangerous isn't impossible!" Lila said.
Vaani chuckled, "You've got spirit for a kid so young. Don't let anyone break it."
"I won't," Lila said, "I'll never lose my spirit."
"We all say that. And we all mean it at the time too. But sometimes, we don't get to decide what we lose. It just gets taken from us," Vaani told Lila.
"Then I won't let anyone take it either!" Lila replied, meeting Vaani's gaze evenly. She was determined to show Vaani that she meant what she said.
Vaani spoke slowly, as if weighing each word she said in her mind before she spoke them, "Except sometimes, you can't stop it."
Lila paused, at a loss for words.
"Though I guess, if they don't steal it from you, would you have ever seen the value of it?" Vaani continued, "Or would you have just continued everyday, always thinking you needed more spirit because you didn't realize how much you already had.
"...I guess if something wasn't stolen from us, or if someone didn't break us so completely, then we wouldn't have seen the value of healing and learning to move on without that thing..."
Vaani almost seemed to be thinking out loud more than holding up a conversation.
Then, deciding the conversation was done, she finished her drink and left to go sit by Wanda and Yelena again.
For a rare moment, Lila was speechless as she watched Vaani leave.
Vaani just doesn't trust me enough yet! I'll be able to help her later! I'm sure of it!
Yeah! I just need to survive the mission, help find and save the widows, and do some incredibly awesomely cool things while we do it to somehow prove to Vaani that I really am trustworthy!
But if I'm an Avenger-in-Training, and I am, even though Dad says I'm not, and she hates the Avengers... then will she ever really trust me?
Why does she hate the Avengers? Earlier, she mentioned the Avengers being 'too depressed about their losses' to deal with the world's problems.
She also said that they all lost things. But she said we, and us, as if she had lost something great... had she?
Did all the widows lose something?
What do I do to help?!
Lila sighed. Why was it so hard to figure out how to help people?! Vaani was right about that too. What could they do without making it all so much worse?
Somehow, Lila found herself in the cockpit of the jet, where Tatyanna and Wanda were in control of flying. Natasha was sitting in a seat behind them, and jumped out of their conversation when Lila walked in.
"Hey, Lila, what are you doing up here?" she asked as Lila slid into the only other open seat.
She shrugged, "I've been asking people what they do to relax before a mission."
"This your first mission, Kid?" Tatyana asked.
"Yeah, it's stressing me out," Lila admitted.
"Missions do that. Well, I try to think through what could happen and what I could do to deal with that," the widow said, "It helps me feel more prepared and less stressed. But it doesn't always work for everyone."
"A lot of things that people do to relax don't work for others," Wanda said.
"What do you do?" Lila asked.
Wanda pressed a few buttons on the jet dashboard, "I drink tea. It helps me relax and calms my mind."
"Tea can be calming?"
Wanda nodded, "My tea is made with special leaves that help me relax. But a lot of people I've met have found that tea isn't what helps them. Actually, tea sometimes makes things worse for them."
"Oh," Lila hadn't known any of that. Maybe she'd have to ask Wanda to have some tea with her later and show her how to make it, "You just drink tea before missions?"
"When I can," Wanda said, "Sometimes I can't, so I do something else instead."
"That's where I come in," Natasha spoke up.
"How does that relate to you?" Lila asked.
"When Wanda doesn't have time or the materials to make tea, she joins me in my relaxing techniques," Natasha said.
Wanda nodded again, "Natasha likes spending time with the team before missions."
"Why's that?"
"It reminds me that I can count on them during this mission, or after the mission if I need help unwinding," Natasha said.
"Makes sense," Tatyana agreed, "Sometimes the others and I do that too."
Natasha nodded as Lila frowned a little, "There's stuff you need to do after missions?"
"Well, there's the paperwork, of course. But yes, a lot of times you need to unwind after a mission. The Avengers and I go to a bar or out to dinner after an easy mission if we want to go out. Otherwise we stay in and watch a movie," Natasha said.
"What about after a hard mission?" Lila asked.
"A lot of times, we hole up in the theater room with popcorn and blankets and we just watch movies until we all pass out," she answered.
"So that you all know that each other are safe," Tatyana said, continuing when Natasha nodded, "The widows and I do that as well. It helps us relax and not feel like there's as much danger as we otherwise would."
"Oh. That makes sense," Lila was starting to think there was a lot more to being a hero then she did before.
"Being a hero is hard, isn't it," Lila asked.
"It... can be... really really hard," Natasha frowned, "A lot of hard things could happen. You could lose a friend, or a family member. You could lose your life. You could be tortured by memories of the past. Or just plain tortured."
"It's definitely not as easy as social media makes it seem. But I think it's worth it when you think about those you saved. Whose lives you've impacted.... But even so, terrible things happen everyday, and when you're a hero, you have to see those things. You can't always stop them," Wanda sighed, "After seeing those things, having to live through them, I don't think you could ever really heal.
"Something will always seem different, or off. There's just no way, to be the same as before," she finished.
Tatyana nodded, "It can be hard. Especially when you don't think you're the hero."
"But you are heroes!" Lila protested, "You help people!"
"And sometimes you have to make hard calls and hurt people in the process," Natasha said, "It can be hard to not think you're a monster afterwards."
Tatyana and Wanda both agreed sadly.
Lila frowned, "You're not monsters!"
"How can you be sure, Lila? How can anyone be sure?" Tatyanna asked, "We've hurt people. Lost people. Killed people."
"Did you want to?" Lila blurted out.
"What?"
"Did you want to hurt them?" she repeated.
Tatyana hesitated, "...no."
"Then you're not a monster," Lila replied firmly, folding her arms.
Natasha raised an eyebrow, "What makes you think that?"
"You didn't want to do it. Monsters like hurting people, they want to. So, yeah, maybe you've killed people. But it wasn't for the fun of it. You had good intentions. And intentions are everything in this world," Lila said.
Wanda smiled, "Lila's exactly right. Not everything is as black and white as heroes and monsters. Bad people can do good things, and good people can do bad things."
Tatyana was watching Lila with surprise. "You know... you are a very smart kid. I think you're going to change the world one day."
Lila grinned, "Everyone can change the world. They just have the choice between changing it in a good way or a bad way."
Tatyana smiled brightly back at her, "Thank you, Lila, for reminding me that I have a choice."
Not much time later, they had reached their destination. They hid the jet about a mile or two away from the town where the widows disappeared.
As they hiked, Lila realized that she might just understand a lot more about what it means to be a hero.