The Glass Castle
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Tony felt like he was dreaming- no, he must be dreaming. Had this morning even happened? Surely not, right? This was all just some weird fever dream, because his brain had remembered what Natasha and Bruce told him about that cloning girl, and he had happened to see Melissa-from-accounting turned Melissa-from-R&D the other day when he had gone down to see new prototypes. And of course, in his fever dream, he would have seen this guy. So yes, that did make sense- he must be dreaming.
“Is that how you wanna speak to me?”
Nick fury’s eyebrow raised, though barely. He didn’t tap his foot, but one of them was positioned slightly in front of the other on the floor, as though he was maybe at least planning on it. On such a stoic man, even that minute reaction screamed impatience . Or, maybe Nick Fury just screamed impatience in general.
“Director,” Natasha greeted, without much enthusiasm. Fury nodded at her with an equal lack of enthusiasm, although that was really just his baseline.
“You won’t have to worry about the other copy,” he informed them, moving further into the room and settling into the chair at the head of the conference table. He leaned back, folding his hands over his abdomen. “We have her.”
Tony glanced back at the display window of Carrie’s phone still open in front of him. Fury would be angrier, in his dream. He’d be annoying Tony and spitting through his teeth, because that was how Tony always envisioned him when he tuned out Fury’s actual face and just listened to him blabber.
“Why do you have her?” Tony asked, frowning. Fury barely glanced at him before turning back to Natasha, who he much preferred speaking with over Tony.
“You’re late to the party,” he informed her plainly, ignoring Tony’s question. “Honestly, I’d say it was idiotic to even let her leave after what happened before. You know, let me ask you something,” he added. His brow twitched as he seemed to work himself slightly into annoyance as he continued. “How is it that an unknown player can show up randomly one day, show off a power to several of ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ which, by all means, could constitute a major threat to national security, and slip away without someone even thinking to grab her contact card?”
“Bruce had her number,” Tony mumbled bitterly. Fury and Natasha both glanced at him briefly, then turned back to face each other.
“There was a lot to take care of. She slipped through the cracks,” Natasha told him- a much better response, though it still didn’t seem to appease him.
“You bet she did,” he grumbled. He unfolded his hands, opting instead to cross his arms, and leaned forward in his seat. “You’re lucky S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t make the same mistake as you. We’ve been tracking her since the war.”
“So what is she up to?” Tony butt in. Once again, Fury barely glanced at him.
“Works in insider trading,” Fury tells Natasha, as if it had been her question and not Tony’s. “Does everything herself. Based on our intel, she never had it out for the Avengers- so you can scratch that possibility off your list right now.”
Natasha let out a low sigh, leaning back in her chair. “Makes sense, based on what we just read.”
“Is she any good at it?” Tony asked. Fury finally looked at him for more than a split second as he did.
“She’s set for life,” Fury replied, somewhat begrudgingly. “We have the records of her communication line between copies, and a solid case against her. But-”
“But?” Natasha cut in, a slight edge to her voice.
“ But ,” Fury continued, “I thought that’d be a waste.”
***
“You can go to the Raft, if you prefer that,” Fury grumbled, watching her where she sat at her table, head hung low. “Do you prefer that? ‘Cause I can make that happen for you.”
Carrie sighed. She tilted her head up slightly, eyeing him through her hair.
“What are the conditions besides… joining?” she grumbled. Even without changing his expression at all, she imagined that Fury looked pleased.
“You can keep the money.”
Her head shot up. Of all things, she hadn’t been expecting that .
“You move into the tower.”
Well, that wasn’t quite as nice. Carrie pursed her lips slightly.
“Do the actual Avengers even live there?”
“Kind of,” he answered noncommittally. “What makes you think you’re not going to be an actual Avenger?”
Well, alright then. Maybe that would be better, anyway, she thought- less forced interactions. Carrie wasn’t used to being with people all the time that weren’t her.
“You do exactly as we say,” Fury continued. “Training, missions, undercover work. You’ll have to help with the recovery efforts the rest of the Avengers are working on, too. Other than that?”
She held her breath for a moment as he paused, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“You can do as you please. No charges will be held against you for criminal activity up until this point.”
Her eyes widened slightly, disbelieving. That… was it?
“Yes,” Fury said, watching her reaction as if she had spoken the question out loud. “That’s it.”
“Why?”
She regarded him carefully for a moment. It felt too easy- way too easy. Fury could have easily confiscated her assets, locked her away, and forced her to do S.H.I.E.L.D.’s dirty work- but instead he was offering her a deal?
Fury stared back at her, seemingly searching her expression for something he didn’t seem to find.
“Why?” he sighed, leaning back in his seat across the table. “Your mutation is incredibly useful to us.”
Her eyes narrowed. There must be more to it than that- Fury could have made use of her without appeasing her at all. What possible use was there to keeping her happy?
Oh .
Her eyes un-narrowed. She nodded, reaching out her hand for him to shake. He stared at it a moment, then he took it.
***
“An Avenger?” Tony scoffed, kicking back in his chair. He swept his feet up, resting them onto the table. Natasha wrinkled her nose, and took her own feet off, replacing them on the floor. “Why not just S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
“To keep her happy?” Natasha guessed, leaning forward all the way and propping her elbows over the tabletop. “You really think she’s that dangerous?”
Fury leaned forward, too, letting out a short huff of air through his nose. “You think so too.”
“She could have other copies out there,” Natasha agreed. “Who knows if this is the main operation, or just a little side project? We have no way of confirming or denying.”
Tony’s eyebrows shut up. He considered what they were implying.
“So we can’t go sending copies to the Raft all willy-nilly, is what you’re saying,” he sighed. “She might retaliate somehow.”
“She had no real combat training, based on the War,” Natasha pointed out.
“But we have no way of knowing if that was real , ” Tony hummed. “It could have been a misdirect, or even just a lack of enthusiasm.”
“ Or only specific copies have training,” Fury added, cutting back in. “For all we know she could have a whole separate field team, and this little batch in New York is just accounting. ”
“ Melissa from accounting, ” Tony mumbled, under his breath. Natasha snorted, and rolled her eyes.
“She’ll live with you here,” Fury said firmly. “Where we can watch her, and the AI can track her phone activity. She’s a prisoner , but one we have to work with nicely.”
“So, what? She’s just going to be your run-of-the-mill Avenger?” Tony scoffed. “Private intel, missions, charity balls?”
“That’s the plan,” said Fury.
***
“Well what were you doing in the Tower?”
“Working.”
Bruce sighed, the frustration clear in his voice. Carrie stared back at him, her expression just as blank and bored as it had been for the entirety of the past hour or so.
“ Besides working.”
“Didn’t you say you’d find out from my phone?” she hummed. She jiggled her wrist, causing her handcuff to clatter obnoxiously against the metal chair- again . She’d been doing it periodically for what felt like years.
“Or you could just tell me,” Bruce huffed. He had abandoned all pretense of interrogation about half an hour in. What he was doing now felt more like begging. Or receiving some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.
“But I don’t want to,” Carrie replied easily.
Bruce’s expression pinched. “You’re such a-”
“Woah, Brucie! Don’t call a woman that word!”
The door clattered open in the corner of the interrogation room. Tony stepped inside, a wide grin on his face. His hands were folded neatly behind his back.
“What- I wasn’t going to say anything bad!” Bruce snapped defensively. Tony laughed.
“Jesus, Banner, she get under your skin that bad?” he teased. Carrie stiffened as she swept her gaze over him- he seemed too easygoing. Had he gotten through her phone?
“You have no idea,” Bruce sighed, turning in his seat to face Tony expectantly. It was obvious he’d come in for a reason, based on how he was rocking excitedly back and forth on his heels. His eyes glinted mischievously.
“Well, you can be done now, if that makes you feel better,” he hummed. “Our little rat here has friends on the inside, it seems. Nick Fury copped you a deal,” he added, turning to address Carrie directly. Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline.
“I don’t know Nick Fury.”
“He knows you.” Tony moved toward her, reaching over behind her and unlocking her handcuffs, which clattered to the floor. She moved her hands back in front of her, rubbing at her wrists.
“Is this a deal that I’ve agreed to?”
Tony’s smile widened. Even though Fury had seemed weary of a potential threat from Carrie, he’d always been the type to have trouble taking things too seriously.
“You did. Homebody is here,” he said, gleefully stressing the code name. Carrie shot him a glare at the subtle confirmation that he had managed to hack into her stuff.
“I guess you had fun with my phone, then,” she grumbled. Tony laughed.
***
It felt unnerving to sit in the conference room with two of them.
That’s what Tony was sure everyone was thinking. He could practically see what Nat was thinking about- and what he was thinking about, too. The two copies of Carrie that sit in front of them don’t have the same curly, auburn bob that Melissa Smith had, but the eyes are the same. (Well, at least they look slightly less dull, now.)
Tony was sure Natasha was playing the same game of mental-unfocus and tuning-out that he was when Fury started informing the copies that he was covering up her little stunt and that he had agents standing in as next-of-kin. He focused up a little more when the Carrie sitting on the left- the one wearing the famed pizzeria uniform, he noted, now that he was seeing her for himself- cut in to ask Fury about her apartment and some guy named Will, a name which Tony remembered having seen in her phone.
“I don’t care about your apartment,” Fury snorted. “Do what you want.”
“Yeah, no shit,” she huffed. “But I’m the landlord. I have to be there.”
Carrie watched him carefully. Fury’s lips tightened together for a moment. Natasha shot Tony a weary glance.
“You can hire someone to work as the landlord,” Fury informed her.
Carrie sighed, obviously annoyed, but it was the answer she had been expecting. She didn't push back against him.
“Well, can I call Will?”
“When we’re done,” Fury said. She grit her teeth.
“When can I go get my stuff?” She tried, instead. For how bored he looked, Fury could have been yawning- though he wasn’t.
“Someone else is grabbing your stuff.”
The second copy of Carrie- this one was dressed casually, in jeans and a light brown sweater- leaned slightly closer to the replica next to her. Her eyes flickered to the face of her copy, though the first Carrie wasn’t looking back at her. Her hand twitched, almost as if to reach out for her face, or her shoulder, but she pulled it back.
“I already asked him all that,” she said, instead. The first Carrie turned to meet her gaze, and frowned.
“I guess you did,” she said, and then settled in against the back of her chair, silent.
Across the table from Tony, sitting next to Natasha, Bruce watched the two of them carefully. His green, oversized fists were resting over the table bracketing his torso, perpetually clenched. For too long, nobody spoke.
“Well?” Fury finally asked, a hint of impatience in his tone. “Which one will it be?”
The eyes of both clones snapped to him in tandem. Each of their left hands shifted identically, one inch or so to the side where they were draped over their respective laps. Their heads tilted ever so slightly to the right, hair falling slightly out from behind their ears. Tony felt a shiver run down his spine- it was just downright creepy , how in sync they were.
The ‘Homebody’ clone turned to face the pizzeria clone, a silent communication seeming to occur between them. Then, she sighed, leaning back and scrubbing a hand down her face. The pizzeria clone hung her head slightly, looking almost ashamed.
“Can I borrow a gun?”
Everybody but Fury tensed visibly. Bruce sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, and Tony’s hand clenched around the edge of the table.
“ No , ” Natasha snapped immediately, nose flaring slightly. “Just do what you did in the war. The tap-out thing.”
“We’ve been separated for months,” the copy in jeans protested, her voice calm and sure, as if she was explaining something like a math problem or a chemical equation instead of giving a reason why she should be allowed to kill a living, breathing copy of herself. “It will fuck with my head.”
This seemed to pique Fury’s interest. “How so?”
The copies glanced at each other again, as if to decide whether this was information they should divulge. They shrugged at each other.
“Our memories will converge,” the copy in the waitressing uniform said. “But it’s really dicey, doing it with long time spans. I forget stuff, get confused.”
Natasha stared at them, somewhat surprised. “Did it fuck with you after the war?”
There had been a lot of copies in the war. Hundreds- maybe over a thousand. It had been hard to tell, especially with half of them dusted and another quarter tapped away at the end. Only the dead quarter had remained tangible for counting- not that anybody had taken on the task. Natasha knew, because word had come from Wakanda, that the bodies had been burned. (Those intact enough had been used for organ donation, Okoye had said in her message- Carrie had a card. In the end, they had collected almost half as many usable organs as the U.S. might get from donors in a full month.)
The clones cracked identical, small smiles, and shook their heads. “No. If the memories are short and similar, they sort of blend together.”
This time, they replied simultaneously. Bruce visibly cringed across that table, and Tony silently commiserated- that would take some serious getting used to.
Natasha nodded, looking like she had fallen into some deeper thought as she processed this new information. Tony’s gaze flicked over to Fury- he was contemplating silently, and Tony could guess what he was thinking. If time apart could be a limiting constraint on Carrie’s use of her powers, any long-term copies she made were probably intended to last forever- unless she really did just go around killing her own copies on the daily. It would be useful for them if there was a good reason for Carrie to limit herself to just one, main copy within the tower- she would be easier to monitor.
"You do know what you're asking me to allow, right?" Fury finally asked her. Both Carries sighed, looking almost annoyed.
“I can’t take myself out real quick, but you’d let me have a psychotic break for the next month?” The copies spoke in tandem again- did they always do that, Tony wondered? Natasha glowered at them.
“Fine,” Fury cut in, and Natasha glanced back at him- her anger which had been directed toward Carrie seemed to disappear as she masked her reaction.
“But...” it was Bruce who cut in this time, to both Tony and Natasha’s surprise. He hadn’t witnessed the original Carrie-suicide of the day, after all, which was the experience driving their tension, at least. But it seemed he was against it either way.
“We’re not subjecting her to that,” Tony denied Bruce immediately, surprising everyone as well. Fury nodded in agreement, and Natasha rounded on him.
“She can’t just-”
“Natasha,” he cut her off, sending her a look. He wasn’t any more happy about this than she was, but he knew that to take, there had to be give. He knew it very well, and if anything was clear to him from the events of the day so far, it was that Carrie knew it too. She wouldn’t let them take her. Not without give .
“Great.” The two copies of Carrie smiled, clasping one hand each together between them and leaning back against their chairs. “It will only take a second.”
***
It only took a second. Fury watched it.
When he returned to the conference room with only the Homebody copy in tow, looking as composed and relaxed as ever despite having just gone off to shoot another version of herself through the skull, Tony thought Fury even looked pleased. Although, he might have only thought it because he hated Fury.
“Tony is your babysitter for a while,” he told her as he led her back inside- it was the first thing Tony was hearing about it. “Just so we know you’re not going to try and run. And trust me, that’s not a good idea.”
“I know already,” Carrie snapped at him, glaring out of the corner of her eye. “Go ahead and do whatever. Get my phone tapped and bug my room and whatever else you’re planning. I don’t give a shit.”
“Well I didn’t know,” Tony protested, frowning. “I’ve got better shit to do than watch her all day like she’s a kid.”
“Tough,” Fury told him. “Well, you all can sort out the rest.”
In a moment, he was gone. Carrie was left with Tony, Bruce, and Natasha- who was glaring at her like she had just killed somebody. Well, in a way, she had.
There wasn’t much fanfare after that. Natasha stalked off and Tony led Carrie wordlessly up to the residential floor of the tower, which felt practically deserted- it was way too large now that most of the team had been dusted away.
He brought her to one of the rooms there, near the end of the hallway, and had FRIDAY unlock the door. Carrie peered inside- it was nice, but sterile. It looked like a hotel room. Tony didn't bother showing her anything else, just pushed it open wider until she got the hint and ducked inside beneath his arm. He left her there without another word, and as she turned around to thank him, she only saw the door slam in her face.