Monster

Finale

I'd never been to the West Coast before staying in Malibu. Tony once offered to take the entire family to Disneyland, but since there were no children in the family, we didn't accept. Also, mainly because it was just a ruse to get Clara to stay with him in Malibu instead of spending all her time in New York.

Even though I'd grown up in Ohio, DC was my home. I'd lived there since officially starting out on my own. And maybe it wasn't much in the span of my life, but it was where my memories were the sharpest, if not the fondest.

When Tony's private jet landed in California, it felt like we were on a different planet. At least as far as what I was used to. Tony lived by the ocean in a tropical area that was sweltering during the day and cold at night. I could never get used to it.

The house was also as lavish as I expected from him. It had more windows than any home needed, and it was always too bright and air-conditioned. There were more rooms than Tony actually needed, and he spent all his time in his lab talking to his robots while Clara hid away in the upstairs office, working.

Tony gave me a job I could do at home, so I never had to leave. It was too simple to be a real job, and he gave me more money than I actually deserved. I saved it so I'd have something to fall back on when I inevitably returned to DC. Since I had no plans to follow them back to New York. Clara was still making excuses for why I couldn't go yet because she was certain I'd be brutally murdered the second I got off the airplane.

During the late afternoons, I'd take my laptop out onto the back deck that overlooked the ocean. I'd hide in the cool shade for as long as I could handle it. I liked it better outside. I felt less cooped up by the ocean. And Clara and Tony were getting ready for an event. I could hear them bickering inside.

Clara seemed to think I wasn't recovering fast enough because I sat around the house all day and barely bothered to dress in regular clothes. She thought working on my laptop put too much strain on my arm and suggested I lie around and do nothing instead. But she didn't like me leaving the house too much, just in case I was kidnapped. If I didn't work, I'd think, and I hated thinking more than working. At least it was the kind of work that I could get lost in. Repetitive. Boring.

Even though there weren't staples in my shoulder and I didn't have to wear a sling anymore, it still hurt constantly. Most of the bone had been replaced or was now plated. The scars forming over the new wound were oddly different from the ones on the other side. It was red and painful, and the bullet and surgery left clear lines instead of spider webs of fused scar tissue.

Whenever conversations about it came up (they often did), Clara liked to remind me of who put them there. He was the reason my arm was so difficult to move without pain and the reason I sat outside all day moping, with nothing but my own thoughts and an effortless job.

It didn't matter how much I tried to explain that Bucky shot me to buy me time and save my life. It didn't matter that he was a perfect shot and changed his target to only injure me, intentionally choosing a place that wouldn't kill me. It didn't matter that it worked, and it gave Tony enough time to reach me. Clara still wasn't convinced he hadn't done it out of malevolence. And I deeply regretted even admitting that he was the one who pulled the trigger.

The door beside me was open, and I could hear Clara clicking around the house in her heels, arguing with Tony. He had some special event planned that she didn't even want to attend, but he insisted she needed to be there. Since her job was to make sure he didn't say anything stupid. Or at least to clean up the mess with the press when he inevitably did anyway.

"I don't need keys!" he was arguing as he followed her around the house. "It's fingerprint activated. You'd know that if you kept the car I got you for your birthday."