The Cold Blows White (in the Tower tonight)
January 17
Today has been a seriously super long day, and it’s not over yet. It’s been a long week, if I’m honest about it. That funky snowstorm…nor’easter…blizzard…whatever… anyway, I am so glad I wasn’t stuck out in it, or that I had to leave my toasty warm apartment for food or work or anything. This morning I definitely didn’t want to get out of bed. I was snuggled in very deep under my faux down comforter, Spazzie snoring comfortably next to me, when my alarm went off. I stretched my hand from under the pillow towards the bedside table and tapped my cell phone, dropping it to the floor. I decided that moment it was time to find a bigger night stand. This one didn’t have room enough for my phone, radio, lamp, glasses, lip balm, lotion bottle, water cup, and whatever book I was reading at the moment (I am currently finishing a re-read of Memoirs of a Geisha by William Golding), not to mention my journal and requisite box of tissues. I rolled to my back, slowly waking like the sun peeking over the horizon. The air in my apartment felt a little colder on my nose than I thought it should be, but that could be product of me being toasty warm and wishing I didn’t have to get up. And then I reached for my water cup and took a sip to wet my dry mouth.
My water cup is insulated, one of those that keeps hot liquids hot and cold ones cold. Every night before bed, I put slightly cool water in it, turn the thermostat down to about 63, then get into bed. It keeps my water cool but not too cold. But this morning, my water was much, much cooler than it should have been. I was now nearly wide awake. I sat up, immediately shivering from the cold air around me. My thermostat is programmed to maintain a cooler temperature at night, and warm slightly to 68 about half an hour before my alarm goes off so that I don’t have quite as hard of a time getting out of bed as I might if the room was cold. I swung my feet out from under the warm covers (Spazzie protesting this move) and put them on the floor for about 2 seconds. I was used to having a toasty warm floor. I very quickly tucked my feet into the cat slippers and went looking in my closet for my big fluffy red robe. My subsequent conversation with Jarvis went something like this:
Me: “Jarvis, what is the temperature in this room?” Jarvis: “Approximately 6 degrees.” M: *pausing to sigh* “And what does that translate to in American?” J: “Approximately 42.8 degrees Fahrenheit.” M: “Increase temperature to 68, please.” J: “I would like to fulfill your request, but I am afraid I cannot.” (This statement made me stop for a moment and think. I flicked a light switch and they bloomed to life.) M: “Why can’t you turn it up?” J: “There is a problem with the heating system, miss.” M: “Thanks for playing the obvious game –“ J: “I’m afraid I do not understand, miss…” M: “Never mind, Jarvis, can’t you fix the problem?” J: “I cannot, miss, Mr. Stark did not program me to handle this particular problem. It requires a human to take care of it.” M: “Thanks anyway. Uh, is it this cold on all the upper floors?” J: “No, miss.” (I breathed a sigh of relief and turned towards my bathroom.) “The temperature on the upper floors ranges between 49 to 62 degrees.” M: “Thanks, Jarvis.”
I also asked Jarvis if there were maybe portable space heaters somewhere I could borrow until the heat was fixed, and he informed me that the Tower had a fully functioning internal heating system complete with radiant heat flooring. The Tower didn’t need space heaters. I really hoped he could translate my glare.
I figured then, I would grab a nice hot shower, pull on a thermal top under my long sleeved uniform shirt, and take a sweater with me in case I got too chilly. I turned the water on in the shower, returning to feed Spazzie (who was the smarter of the two of us and refusing to get down from the warm nest he created in my comforter) and grab a change of clothes. I’ll never know why I just jumped right into the shower. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t completely awake. Maybe it was fog from grief still controlling my brain. Maybe I actually trusted The Man’s statement when he said the Tower never ran out of hot water. Obviously, Himself thought rather highly of his creation, and too highly of it at that. Because the water? It was barely warmer than the water I usually put in my cup before bed. And I had jumped right into the stream. And right back out, dripping and shivering.
I tried to get completely dry, but of course my hair was not cooperating. I pulled on thermals (top and bottom), thermal socks, a t-shirt, thinner sweater, flannel long sleeve, fleece-lined jeans (thank you Sunny!), my uniform tee, and a sweatshirt. I managed to be able to bend enough to get my sneakers on, but not far enough to tie them. I needed to borrow Sunny’s hair dryer anyway. I practically waddled across the hall and knocked on the door.
Eventually the youngest child answered, wearing shorts, of all things. Sometimes I wonder about those kids. I went in through Sunny’s bedroom to her bathroom and rummaged around in her cabinet for her hair dryer. I tried being quiet, but that became close to impossible, considering all the things she had crammed in that cabinet. Who puts Oreos in the back of their bathroom closet? In spite of my efforts, I woke Sunny earlier than she needed to be awake. She sounded frustrated at first, but when I asked where her hair dryer was, she calmed down again. After she directed me to its hiding place, (in a desk drawer, of all places), she asked me why I had so many clothes on. I replied by asking Jarvis what the temperature was, to which he (it? Still not sure on that one) replied approximately 44.3 degrees. She thought that wasn’t too bad, there must have been a warm front come through. I looked at her, hair dryer pointed at my head, and informed her that was the temperature inside. She was as thrilled with that answer as I was. Noticing my shoelaces were undone, she called the smallest kid in to tie them for me. I asked him if he still had his bow biters, and could I please borrow them for the day. He soon was smirking as he slipped the Kermit the Frog heads onto my shoes, tied the laces tightly, and clamped the mouths over the bows.
As I was leaving the apartment, I suggested she layer up. I told her I was going to check with Miss Potts about maybe making soup for lunch. One last stop by my apartment to grab my long cowl and a hat, I headed up to the not-much-warmer workplace.
At least there was coffee, I thought, grabbing one of the spare coffee cups in the cupboard and pouring a cup. My eyes nearly bugged out when I took a sip. I think this coffee could climb out of the cup, walk across the room, and slap the drinker awake. I must have made a choking noise as Clint walked around the corner, because he chuckled and informed me that he made coffee super-strong. I held out the cup to him, still shuddering, and he dumped the contents into his own cup, grinning at my expression. His laughter followed him back down the hall to the lounge.
Miss Potts came in with Coulson, offering him some coffee. She looked at me curiously as she talked with him, then informed me that he would be staying another night or two, but we were expecting a couple other people to arrive for an afternoon meeting; Sunny and I would be expected to keep ourselves out of the way. Stark Industries would be working with a skeleton crew, so she would be in her office until then. I did ask her if I could raid the cafeteria again, in case the usual places weren’t delivering, and she told me to get whatever I needed. Smiling and thanking her, I sat down to make up a list. About half an hour later, Jarvis informed me that there was a local grocery store that was making deliveries in the area, so I had him transmit my list to them. By the time Sunny arrived for work at 9, I was separating out the groceries. Soon we were up to our elbows peeling, chopping, mixing, and stirring. Within an hour, soup was bubbling on the stove and in the crockpot. Clint sniffed his way into the kitchen area, lifting lids and tasting until I caught sight of him and whacked the back of his hand with a wooden spoon, scowling at him. I was busy angrily humming “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” about to put a loaf of bread into the oven. He wisely retreated.
By the time noon arrived, we’d managed to increase the temperature in the kitchen to almost 60. Not hard to do with pots of gumbo, chicken noodle, tomato rice, and vegetable beef soups simmering on the stove and chili bubbling in the crock pot, and cornbread, honey-oat bread and sourdough rolls baking in the ovens. One of Steve’s buddies had arrived an hour or so ago, and they had recently come down from the training room. Surprisingly, Bucky had been sulking in the kitchen with us since his arrival. I felt a bit gratified when Steve’s friend (he introduced himself as Sam) mentioned it was a bit cool, but then he dismissed it as a result of their recent workout. I was trying to mentally rewrite the theme song from Disney’s “Frozen,” but I had gotten stuck. I tried to not be obvious as I backed up to the oven door to warm my butt. There was no warming my toes, however, and so I was going to just be cold until the heating was working again.
Sunny had managed to take my mind off of my frozen appendages by getting me singing silly songs. Bucky was sitting at the counter sulking over his cup of coffee, Steve and Sam were at the table talking, the occasional disappointed or annoyed glance sent Bucky’s way from Steve or Sam, respectively. Tasha had just come in with Coulson, who had apparently gone to the theater where she had found him, and Clint was pouring himself his umpteenth cup of coffee when Miss Potts and The Man had entered with another stranger. Sunny, as usual, clammed up as soon as The Man left the elevator. I nudged her though, once more softly singing at her. She frowned and mumbled the reply. Bucky smirked, and joined in quietly on the reply the second time. The three latest-come continued with their earnest conversations. I’m not completely sure when Dr. Banner came in, but he picked up on the reply too. Miss Potts cocked her head towards us soon afterwards, as everyone in the room – except for the three huddled in conversation – were soon singing softly together in almost-harmony. All three finally turned their attention to the rest of us as we got to the very end, all of us just singing everything, ending with a giant crescendo of “BUT BABY IT’S COOOOOOOOOLD OOUUUUUTTTTTTSIIIIIIIIIIIDE!!!!!”
There was a lot of laughter, and apparently a lot of confusion from Himself. He looked around, from face to face, and finally asked if lunch was ready. I gave Sunny a perturbed glance and said yeah, as soon as the cornbread was done. At least Dr. Banner suggested we just serve in the kitchen instead of trying to fit everything on the table, making less work for us. We stepped back and let them serve themselves, wiping up the drips and crumbs when they were all seated with their lunch. A few minutes later, Miss Potts suggested we sit down and eat with them. After exchanging a glance with Sunny, we dished up some soup and managed to find places at the table, Sunny between Bucky and Steve, me between Steve and Tasha. There was awkward silence, it seemed, so Miss Potts introduced the other new guest at the table as Col. James Rhodes, a friend of The Man. He asked us how we liked living and working in the Tower for The Man. He was looking at Sunny which gave a free moment to growl under my breath. I shivered as a cold draft crossed the back of my neck. I muttered to Steve and Tasha they could move a little closer. They responded by edging slightly away from me, I looked to each of them and said, “No, seriously, move closer!”
I guess it was a little louder than I expected because everyone was looking at me. I informed the table that I was cold. There was a bit of a rant by me, a bit of sass back from The Man, and then I repeated my conversation with Jarvis about the temperature in my apartment, why it was that cold, and why Jarvis couldn’t fix it. He sat there blinking for a moment, I could almost see him running the calculations and specs back from the top floor down until he hit the area of the problem. He mentioned fixing it after their after lunch meeting. Miss Potts, bless her heart, insisted the meeting could wait for a while. He agreed, and Tasha nudged me with her shoulder.
After we were finished – well most of us, at least – Tony and his buddy Rhodey left to go figure out where the exact location of the problem was and get it fixed sooner rather than later. Sunny and I made quick work of the dishes, wiping everything down. Then, on a whim, I pulled up a recipe from back home and started pulling out ingredients. Most everyone had drifted away to other parts of the Tower, except Bucky. He was still in the kitchen, though he had moved his bowl to the other side of the island from me. He was working on his 4th bowl of soup. He watched as I poured the batter into two large pans and popped them into the oven. I made a quick round of the lounge for stray dishes before finishing up.
When The Man reappeared to announce that the heat was restored, looking quite proud of himself (naturally), Bucky had finished at least one more bowl of soup (I think he had a bowl of each kind). The Man’s eyes lit up and he made a beeline for the brownies I had just pulled from the oven. I smacked the hand that reached for a spatula to cut and take one. I warned him to let them cool for at least 20 minutes before trying to eat any. Then I covered the soup pots and asked them to let me know when they were done. I planned to return to put away the leftovers at that time.
I returned to my apartment to unpack another of the boxes I brought back with me from Christmas. Spazzie had found a warm patch of sunlight to laze around in. It wasn’t long before I got out of most of the layers I put on earlier. True to his word, The Man had fixed the heat. That’s about the time I turned and whacked the cup of hot chocolate I had made for myself. It quickly soaked my shirt and lap. Ugh, I am going to have to take a quick shower before returning to work.
At least I knew better than to just jump into the shower. The water is still cold, not even warmer than it was this morning. I guess I’ll have to rub his nose – ugh, remind - The Man that he said the Tower never runs out of hot water. For now, I think I’ll just sort of sponge off the cocoa and put on some new clothes before I go back to the kitchen. At least tomorrow everything should be running again.
