Monster

Three

It was already mid-afternoon by the time I found my way back home. I walked into the quiet, empty house and dumped my bag on the floor. Even though the silence was deafening, I marched across the living room with determination and fished my phone out of my back pocket.

My sister Clara moved to New York to go to school. Even though we wanted to be closer, we weren’t. Not anymore anyway. Clara and I were marginally different growing up. Clara had always been bright and organized. The kind of girl who knew what she wanted and how to get it, but still managed to stay on a straight and narrow path. I, on the other hand, had been the wild child. It wasn’t that I’d been particularly bad, just that I never knew what I wanted and frequently did things like sneak out at night and ditch classes.

Clara lived in Manhattan in a small apartment she shared with a financial journalist who seemed to be even less organized than me. Though I wasn’t sure Clara spent any time at home anymore since her nights were usually spent in Tony Stark’s penthouse.

Our parents couldn’t have been happier with the arrangement. The Starks were influential figures in our households. When my grandparents immigrated from Sokovia, Howard Stark had run into them quite by accident. The encounter left them with new jobs and one hell of a story, which I'd heard so often I now knew it by heart. Tony Stark, despite his bad reputation and dangerous hobbies, was the perfect match for my older sister.

Until a wormhole opened up above New York City and sent an army of aliens raining down on Stark tower.

I remembered hearing about the attack from my office in DC. I stood in the break room watching the events unfold on the TV. I had a horrible feeling in my gut that I’d just witnessed my sister’s death, and somehow that fact was harder to grasp than the sense of my own impending death. What I didn’t know was that while Tony Stark was in the midst of an intense one-on-one battle with a Chitauri soldier, and losing, Clara had gone at the creature armed with nothing but a staple remover and a fierce tenacity. She’d accidentally yanked out the creature’s breathing apparatus in the scuffle, and it promptly suffocated.

That was the day Tony Stark found his way into our lives, and also the day I decided to stop underestimating my sister.

After the attack, when flights were no longer grounded, I booked the earliest flight into the city to make sure Clara was safe and had a place to stay. Her Manhattan apartment had been decimated, but she didn’t seem all that broken up about it since I found her sitting comfortably in Stark’s penthouse with no bra on under her wrinkled shirt, and hickeys hidden under her collar.

Since then, Stark was doing everything he could to buy her continued affection. Clara never outright admitted that they were dating. At least not in so many words. But they were always together, the media knew they were together, and during the holidays my whole family received ridiculous gifts from Iron Man himself. Quickly followed by an apology from Clara, who found his purchases obnoxious and insulting. Despite the gifts, she really did love him.

The phone I slid out of my back pocket was a gift from Tony, and I refused to send it back because it was made of a thin piece of clear glass and hadn’t been released to the public yet. I quickly commanded the phone to call Clara, and before I knew it, someone was answering on the other line. Just not my sister.

“Hello, you’ve reached the desk of Miss Clara Hayes,” Tony answered in what I assumed was a weak impression of Marilyn Monroe. “I’m afraid Miss Hayes is disinclined at the moment. Would you be so kind as to leave a message?”

“Tony,” I snapped as I kicked off my shoes and got comfortable on the couch. “You know it’s me and you know why I’m calling. Either put my sister on the phone or explain to me why you agreed to help Hill and Romanoff bug my house.”

“Well, for one thing,” he said, dropping the silly voice. “I bugged your house months ago. And two, they said it was to, you know, keep you alive. Which is something I’m interested in doing. Because if I fail to do that, I won’t have anyone to nag me anymore. And you know I love it when she nags.” I sighed and dropped my head on the back of the couch. The day was still young, and I could already feel the beginnings of a headache.

“Just give me the phone,” Clara said in the background.

Even though it was so early in the day, I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep right there on the couch. But I knew the sleep wouldn’t come, and if it did, I’d probably be assaulted with nightmares again anyway. Talking to Clara seemed like the right thing to do, so I forced my eyes opened and tried to stay focused as the sound of shuffling came from the phone.

“No, I’m not giving you anything,” Tony said.

“For God’s sake, Tony. Did you really bug my house?” I asked.

“Technically no. But also technically yes? Technically it’s Jarvis and not me. I can’t hear or see you. But I do get alerted to a rise in heart rate and heat signatures. Meaning Jarvis would tell me if someone was in your house or you were scared. That sort of thing.” I squinted at the beams of dust floating through the living room. I wondered how long it had been since Tony set it up. And more importantly, if Jarvis told him the last time I’d had someone in my house. Well—my bedroom.

“Oh—would that mean you could also tell if I was—having s*x?”

“Well, I would be able to—if you ever had any.” The phone shuffled again, and he whispered. “I’m joking. But I do know about the nightmares. Don’t worry. I haven’t told her.”

“Well, thanks. I think.”

“No problem. And I’m pretty sure there’s a large rodent living in your attic.”

“His name is Rocket. We’ve made peace. So what do you think of this job, mission thing? What have they told you?”

“They haven’t told me anything. So naturally, I know everything. And I think it’s a stupid idea and you shouldn’t do it. But I also think it’s your business, and you can do whatever the hell you want.”

“I was sort of looking for your opinion,” I told him.

“Well, I’m guessing you already accepted the job. So my opinion is useless.”

“Tony, you’re being just a tad creepy, and you should probably stop. I don’t need you to monitor my house, and I don’t like it when you think you know my decisions.”

“Blame your sister. She’s the one who made me do it.”

“Put her on the phone.”

“Yep.” The phone moved again, and I pressed it to my shoulder so I could pull off my socks and get comfortable.

“Hi, Jo,” Clara finally responded.

“Why did you tell your boyfriend to bug my house?”

“I didn’t ask him to bug your house. He just wanted you to be connected to Jarvis somewhere other than your phone, and I knew you wouldn’t let him install it if we asked. So I told him to go ahead and do it anyway.”

“You know it’s a little creepy, right? Like a lot creepy.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But it’s just Jarvis. And it’s more like an advanced security system than a bug. Plus, it’ll keep you safe during this mission—or whatever. By the way, I do know about the nightmares, Tony. And not because I’m a creep but because I’m a good sister and I know when you’re not okay.”

“I’m fine. I’m doing great considering. I mean—since the whole thing with Hydra. It could be a lot worse. I could be rotting in a jail cell. My therapist did say I was making progress. Of course, that was before. And she always said that.”

“Your therapist worked for SHIELD.”

“So did I.”

“Yeah, but she was actually Hydra. She was totally cool with them murdering half the world.”

“Your boyfriend is the one who helped design the weapon that would have killed the both of you. I know you always distrusted SHIELD, and I don’t blame you for that. But some of us were actually in it with the best intentions. And those people saved your asses. You don’t have to be grateful, but you could try to be a bit more considerate. I lost my job. More importantly, I believed in something that turned out to be—not what I thought it was.”

“I just wish you picked less dangerous occupations,” Clara remarked.

“I wish you picked less dangerous boyfriends,” I countered. It wasn’t true. I liked Tony. Even though his actions did sometimes put my sister’s life at risk. Clara was silent for a moment.

“Fine. You win. This time,” she finally answered.

“Good. So what do you think of this mission? Don’t act like you don’t already know. Tony tells you everything.”

“I think it sounds crazy and cliché like one of those cheesy romantic comedies where you pretend to be dating and fall in love.” Clara had a much brighter outlook than I did.

“I’m not going to fall in love with Captain America.”

“Can’t,” Tony said from the background. “He has a girlfriend. Or a someone anyway. I don’t know what she is.”

“What?” we replied simultaneously.

“Wow, you guys are so far out of the loop.”

“Since when does he have a girlfriend? He never said anything about it,” Clara argued.

“You don’t remember the one girl he was banging before he went off to DC? She’s one of those ‘special’ people. Enhanced.”

“Banging, really? What is this, a high school locker room? And no, I don’t remember hearing about this.”

“So far out of the loop. What do we even talk about?”

“Did you know he had a girlfriend? Why do they need you to do this job if he has a girlfriend?”

“Well, enhanced being the keyword, dear. Also, she lives here in New York.”

“Okay, so can you guys stop bickering for like five seconds so I can talk to my sister?” I asked.

“Sorry,” they both replied. I had a feeling Tony put me on speakerphone, and his answer proved my theory.

“Okay, so anyway. Do you think this is a bad idea or what?” Clara sighed. It was something she frequently did.

“I don’t know, Jo,” she decided. “I think it’s stupid. And he sounds dangerous. I mean—from the few files Hill sent us. He nearly took Washington off the map.”

“He didn’t do it singlehandedly. And according to Rogers, he was brainwashed. He had no part of the decision making process.”

“He still seems dangerous. People don’t just—bounce back from that kind of thing. But you’re just supposed to be the safe place, right? Just be careful. Keep us informed. I know you can’t really talk about it after next week—but you can at least tell me you’re okay. And I don’t just mean physically.”

“I will. And I’ll do my best to keep safe. I’ve lasted this long. What’s a robot-armed super soldier against me?”

“Not funny.”

“It was a little funny,” Tony muttered.

“Not funny,” Clara repeated. I rubbed the growing ache from my forehead. The combination of nightmares, coffee, and no food weighed down on me.

“Alright. Well, I have to get to work on my house. I’ll call you again before we get everything set up.”

“Okay. Bye, Jo.”

“Bye.”

I set the phone down on the coffee table, and the screen went blank. Then I took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. I was just supposed to be the safe place, but somehow I didn’t think it’d be that easy.