When I was 13, I was a high school senior, and a boy in my class invited me to my first party. I snuck out of my mom's apartment, because I knew she wouldn't have given me permission to go. When I showed up, the address was an empty construction site in Queens. It was an hour-long train ride home, and I cried the whole way back.
My socks snag on the sidewalk. I didn't have time to put on shoes before I climbed out the window. I step onto the bright, maintained grass of a university park, taking a shortcut toward my lab.
When I was 19, I was working in a lab at MIT for my PhD research, and one of the undergraduates told me to follow him into the storage closet—that was the first real life penis I ever saw. I screamed and somebody let me out, but the other guys in the lab thought it was funny.
The Stanford main campus is dead this time of morning. As I walk, I slip my phone out from the waistband of my shorts. There are several missed calls from Colin, Steve, and Tony. There are two others from unknown numbers, which must be Meridian's lawyers. I ignore all of them and open a video file.
When I was 22, I went to DC to work for SHIELD. I didn't have my own office, and Brock Rumlow never used his, so he let me work there when I wanted peace and quiet. Sometimes people have ulterior motives: I lost my virginity on his desk. That went on for two months. I think I might have been in love with him. Sometimes people have ulterior motives behind their ulterior motives: he kidnapped me for HYDRA. They locked me in a basement laboratory for two months in hopes that I'd recreate the super soldier serum.
Ever since then, I've made sure to correct my impulse to trust people, but I still can't help but feel like stomped dog shit now, as I watch Rumlow being escorted out of prison.
I replay the video. I cup my hand above the screen to block out the pale sunlight. It's my 54th watch of the same 8 second clip. I captured it from last night's surveillance footage. It's the reason I didn't get any sleep. I swipe my thumb to ignore a text from Colin. Then another from Steve. Tony calls me again, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I ignore that too. In the video, Rumlow is handcuffed and flanked by two guards. As he crosses past the last gate of the prison, he looks up at the dark sky of last night with a satisfied intake of breath. At least, I assume he feels satisfied. His face is scarred now. There was an explosion when Tony, Steve, and Natasha came and saved me. I wonder if it still hurts, but I realize I don't care either way. I don't feel vengeful; I just don't want him to hurt me again.
I look up at the orange and pink sky. The moon has abandoned me completely. I shiver. It's chilly—it's an early morning of late April, and my shorts are tiny. The warm sandstone buildings are squat and square, with red roofs and curved archways. There are rows of neat palm trees. I had never seen a palm tree before I moved here two years ago. Sometimes I miss the freezing cold.
The computer science building is called Stark Hall. I think he must have paid for it. Obnoxious. I'm usually the last person to go home in the evenings, and I tend to leave the back door unlocked out of spite.
I also leave the back door unlocked for times when I don't have my keycard. Times such as now. I go inside.
My lab is on the second floor. I put my own security system in place (the university is not aware of this). I scan my fingerprint and my eye (if someone's already cut off my finger and ripped out my eyeball, then they've already won, and they can have my robots). The lab whirs and groans to life when I enter. The mechanical blinds over the window shoot up to let the sunlight in, and blue light glows from screens. A hologram projects from a control table in the center of the room. Usually that hologram is my structural designs for IVY, but today it's showing me a map of Stanford with three blinking dots clustered together a couple blocks away, labeled Romanoff, Rogers, Stark.
"Shut that map down," I say. "I know they're in town." The hologram powers off.
There's an emergency shower in my lab. I requested to have it installed last year so I could work with corrosive chemicals. Sometimes people have ulterior motives: sometimes I spend the night and shower here. I open a drawer and rummage for a change of clothes. IVY, a vine-shaped, elastic robot, untwists her head (tail? It's all the same) from the leg of a nearby table, less so watching me (she doesn't have eyes) and more so letting me know she's alert.
"Make yourself scarce when Colin comes in today," I tell her. "He's not happy with either of us."
She slithers meekly behind a supply cabinet.
"I think you're doing great!" I call half-heartedly.
I shower in the corner while the voice of a computer reads through my emails, and my phone vibrates with more calls and texts. I get dressed in a white blouse and a pale pink skirt for my lectures later. I take a brief moment to feel like shit while I do that, because despite being flared and reaching well past my knees, this skirt has been described as "distracting" in my course evaluations. Other highlights from the additional comments section have included "I couldn't take her seriously" (very loaded—why not?); "tits" (also loaded—what about them?); "I only took her class because she knows Tony Stark" (thank you for the feedback); and "She never responds to emails" (some complaints are more valid than others).
I walk barefoot to the control table at the center of the room. A robotic arm dries my wet footprints with hot air behind me. Then it directs the heat to my hair when I'm standing still. I block Colin's number, not for the first time. I'll unblock it later.
"Pull up that map again?" I ask. The hologram powers back up. Tony, Natasha, and Steve are outside the building. No, now they're at the back door, which I left unlocked. Two more dots have lit up. Meredith Warren, the Meridian CEO, is on the other side of the building. Colin is trailing behind her.
The arm powers off the heat; my hair is dry. I mutter a thanks.
I really should just let them confront me. Painful, but quick. Get it over with. But then I'm imagining the Rumlow conversation. I'm imagining Tony's face. I'm imagining he's pitying me, ruffling my hair and saying "you did good kid," when we both know damn well I didn't. He's telling me that nobody could have escaped HYDRA in my situation, that he would've laid low exactly like I did, that I was clever just for staying alive until they found me. I can't stand it when people lie like that.
I'm going to have to do it anyway. I'm going to have to let them into my lab if they stand outside it, knocking and calling my name the way Steve was earlier. It would be too awkward not to. The only other escape would be out the window.
As I'm considering all of this, I'm barely even conscious of the fact that I've pulled on my socks and shoes, hoisted myself up onto a counter, and climbed out the window of my lab. It faces east, away from the entry points of both sets of dots. It's a good enough escape route.
I'm fully outside, dangling from the ledge, my feet scrambling for purchase against the building. Now I realize this window isn't jumpable. The building is short, but so am I, and two stories up is higher from here than it looks from the ground. Below me, there's a bed of neat, well-maintained landscaping. A couple of yellow flowers and a blooming bush dotted pink. Not a good place to land. The bush looks pointy, and I don't want to take any innocent flowers with me when I die.
There's a tree behind my back, its branches level with me. My hands are already burning from their grip against the rough concrete, so I swing my legs backward, toward it. I catch the toes of my shoes against two different branches, evening my weight out carefully in an effort not to snap them. I'm spread out like a scared cat.
"I wouldn't let go from up there," someone calls from below me. "Too high. You'll be lucky if you're able to limp away."
I look down, under my armpit, at the flower bed. There's a guy there now, dressed in all black, with a leather jacket. He's carelessly stepping on a little yellow flower with what appear to be tactical boots. I'm suspicious. He looks too old to be a student and too gloomy to be here pitching a start-up. Meanwhile, my skirt is somehow both riding up my legs and billowing in the breeze.
"Who are you? Do you know the Avengers? Or Meridian?" Here's my reasoning: 1) even from up here, I can tell he's conspicuously well-built, 2) he's got the sort of calm, stiff posture that I know comes from years of training, and 3) he has the audacity to yell obvious, unsolicited advice at a stranger. I think he must be SHIELD or military or something.
"Avengers. I know Steve," he says.
Then I realize: Bucky. Steve's friend. When I was looking for him years ago, his hair was longer. It's short now.
"Can you all leave me alone? Please?" I call down. "Clearly, I'm going through some stuff right now."
"I'd pull myself back up and go out a first story window," he says. "You're easy to spot up there."
"Do I look like I can do a pull up?"
"I said that's what I would do."
"Are you making fun of me?"
It's hard to make out his expression at this distance. From what I can tell, there's not a trace of humor on his face—but then again, I don't think there's a trace of anything there other than a frown and a slight squint in the sunlight.
"Let go and I'll catch you," he says, but he keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"Um, no?" I say. I don't want to be rude, so I add, "I have trust issues."
I try to adjust my foot to a more comfortable angle, and I lose my balance. There's a painful jolt of panic, but I regain my footing on another branch.
"Look, if I don't catch you, you'll break your legs," he says. "If I wasn't here, you'd still break your legs. You might as well take your chances trusting me."
"I think someone with trust issues would get herself out of this in a clever, stubborn, independent way," I say. I don't know why I'm telling him this.
"Why are we talking hypotheticals? Do you have trust issues or not?"
"I do!"
"I don't think you have trust issues. People with trust issues don't tell strangers about their trust issues."
"We're not strangers. We're both friends with Steve."
His boots crunch in the soil as he takes a step toward me. He's almost directly under me. "Is the issue that you're too trusting?"
"Yes, but I'm trying to quit!"
"Now's not a good time for that. Quit tomorrow."
I shift my knee to steady myself better on one of the branches. My legs are spread farther apart. I wonder if he can see up my skirt. "Can you see up my skirt?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says.
"What do I do?"
I'm about to clarify— about getting down, not about my skirt —but he follows my leap without explanation: "I don't see what's hard about this decision," he says. "Just let go and I'll catch you."
"Shit. I'm gonna climb down."
"Using what?" It's the first time he's sounded concerned.
Using what. Good question. "Hey IVY?" I call to the window. I look back down at Bucky as I wait for her. "You don't care about Meridian Technologies, right? You wouldn't sell anyone information about their...potential product launches?"
"No, I wouldn't. But I'd say 'no' either way, so you're not learning anything new by asking me that."
"I don't think you'd tell me that you would say 'no' either way if you weren't trustworthy," I say. When I look up again, I can see IVY poking over the windowsill. I nod for her to come help, and she twists herself around my arm.
I can only trust that she's looped herself around something sturdy on the other end as I grasp her with both hands, letting go of the window. I don't fall. Then, carefully, I remove my feet from the tree, one by one, and dangle for a moment.
I'm briefly convinced that my arms are being ripped off as she stretches herself out to lower me down. Then, as my feet are about to touch the ground, IVY promptly snaps in half. My ankle twists painfully as I stumble, but I don't fall. I catch myself against the building.
I dust my skirt off and pick up the piece of IVY that fell with me. The other half of her is still in the window. I can see her sparking up there as I straighten up. When I turn around to commence my I-told-you-so's, Bucky is already walking away, through the parking lot behind the building. I hurry to catch up with him, scraping my calf against the bush as I pass.
"Can I explain myself?" I call to his back, wincing as I jog on my freshly twisted ankle.
When I catch up, I'm hovering near his shoulder like a pest. He glances down at me. "I'd go that way if I were you," he says, nodding back the way we came. "We're in clear sight from the building out here."
"I only went out the window because I don't like confrontation, and there are like five different people in that building trying to confront me," I explain, a little out of breath. The brisk pace he's walking at feels like cardio to me. "I don't know what Steve has been saying about me, but I didn't just move out here and stop answering their calls on a whim. I was really messed up after I was kidnapped. Did Steve tell you about that? They had to come save me. And a couple months after that, I helped Tony build Ultron. So, not only am I incompetent, but I'm a danger to society, and I should honestly be put to death. Sorry, are you listening, or am I being annoying right now?"
There's a pause. "You're sort of an open book, huh?" Bucky says. He cuts behind a line of trees at the edge of the parking lot and ducks into an alley between the backs of two buildings. I follow after him.
"I'm Grace," I say.
"Don't follow me into an alley, Grace. You don't know me."
"Where are you going?" I ask, continuing to follow him into the alley. I think he seems safe.
"Why would I tell you that?"
"I don't know. Why wouldn't you? Do you have trust issues?"
He doesn't reply. I keep talking. "Do you know if everyone is mad at me? Steve said Nat was mad at me. But I think Steve might also be mad at me, and just won't say it? Also do you know Tony? What's Tony saying about me?"
"No idea."
"They came here to tell me that Rumlow was released, right? SHIELD has him doing something for a mission. I figure they're using him for information."
He stops walking. I stop with him. He drags his hand over his jaw and sighs. "How do you know that already?"
"I gained remote access to the security feed at—"
"Don't tell me that," he says. "Lie."
He's tall. I toy with the broken half of IVY in my hands. "But you'll know I'm lying if I lie," I say. "It'd just be doublespeak."
"Sometimes you have to use doublespeak so you don't implicate yourself in crimes."
"I don't like doing that. I don't know how to do it artfully."
"Don't commit crimes, then."
I scuff the tip of my shoe against the pavement. Then I glance down at it to make sure I didn't leave a mark. I need them to stay nice; these loafers are the only shoes I ever wear. They have a tiny heel to make me a bit taller, but they don't pinch my feet. When I look back up, Bucky's walking away again.
"Bucky, wait!" I call out. "I have questions!"
To my surprise, he stops. Suddenly. He turns around. Slowly.
There's a crease between his eyebrows, and his lips become a straight line. He folds his arms. His eyes are blue, I notice. I also notice that they're flickering over my face intently. Far behind him, on the street outside the alley, an engine revs several times, spluttering to life.
"You know who I am," he says.
I nod. I don't know what I said that was wrong. I wring IVY in my hands, stretching her taut.
"You knew this whole time?" he asks.
"After you said you knew Steve. It took me a second to recognize you because you—" I wince in pain as one of IVY's loose wires sparks against my skin. My hand shoots to my mouth instinctively, and I suck on the burned side of my thumb. It stings.
I'm expecting him to walk away again, but when I look back up, I make eye contact with him instead. He's still staring at me. Seriously, what the hell did I say wrong? I move my hand away from my mouth because he's made me self-conscious.
"Sorry," I say. "I was gonna say 'because you cut your hair.' It used to be longer. I helped Steve look for you when you were in Europe. I was the camera disguised as a bird. Remember? You ripped its head off and threw it in a dumpster in Rome?"
My thumb has begun throbbing. I check the damage. There's a small red mark on it, just below my knuckle. I squeeze it with my other fingers.
There's a pause. Bucky glances down both directions of the alley, as if double checking to make sure we're alone. Then his shoulders relax. He takes a step toward me, leans down slightly, and his voice lowers, like he's leveling with me: "Steve and the others are just trying to protect you. They're afraid Rumlow might come after you if he gets a chance to escape his handlers."
I shrug. My thumb hurts.
"You can't outrun your past," he says. He's trying to look me in the eye, but I'm staring at the zipper of his jacket. "Trust me. You have to stop and face it eventually."
"Not yet, though?" I say it like a question, like I'm asking for permission. I kind of am.
He moves away from me and sighs. Then he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a small notebook and a pen. He flattens the notebook against the side of the building and scrawls something across a page.
"You'll get yourself killed trying to avoid the others," he says. He rips out the page and hands it to me. There's a phone number on it. "Call me if you notice anything suspicious, if you feel like you're being followed. Trust your instincts. And—I'll tell them I briefed you on Rumlow. So they'll quit trying to talk to you about it."
I start to thank him, but he cuts me off.
"Turn around. Head east. Stay behind those trees, and don't go back into the parking lot or they'll see you," he says. He takes a couple steps backward, watching me. "I'm going this way. Don't follow me."
He turns around completely. I call out "thank you" to his back. I watch him turn the corner and disappear onto the street.