PROLOGUE
WHAT WILL YOUR STORY BE?

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        WHAT WILL YOUR STORY BE?

    Carol-Anne Harper posed that question to me the first time we met. We were stood before the Wall of Valor — her eyes gazing upon the words as though they were some religious text, her voice far away as she spoke. At first, I hadn't realised she was speaking to me. She had that tone people had when they were talking to themselves rather than whomever was with them, and anyway we had never spoken before. I knew her, vaguely, from our classes — she was the hyperactive, intensely studious girl at the front of the class; always first to put her hand up, always last to back down from a challenger — but we had never spoken. I didn't even know she knew my name until she turned around to me.

    "Cartwright." She said. Even back then, she'd had that same authoritative edge to her voice that automatically commanded your attention and refused to grant it vacation time. My eyes snapped towards her, and she rolled hers at the shock that must have been evident upon my face. "Have you been listening to a word I've said?"

    "I didn't know you were talking to me."

    She gestured around the empty hall. "Who else would I be talking to?"

    "I just assumed whoever it was had run away from your smell."

    Her nose scrunched for a moment, before she let out a laugh. A genuine one. You know how you can tell, sometimes? You hear a laugh and you think, oh, that was real. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, trust me — you notice. There's something in the eyes. Eyes can't lie — if you ever want to know the truth about something, look into someone's eyes.

    "I said," she continued, once she finished laughing, "Can you ever feel anything but small standing in front of these names? I mean, all of them are heroes. Daniel Sousa; the first fallen agent. James Barnes — not technically an agent, but no less a hero. Charlotte Rogers; the sister of Captain Fricking America, and the woman who once saved the Howard Stark's life. All of them have these amazing stories of heroism and sacrifice — they're the reason we're here. It's... beautiful, really."

    Her voice started doing that far away thing again. Her eyes did, too.

    "I stand here, and I read their names, and I hear their stories, and I can't help but be filled with this indescribable hope, and pain, and passion, and I just wonder — what will my story be? What will yours?" A pause. A beat. A flittering moment, before, "What will your story be?"

    First fact about me: I could never really do serious. I can hardly handle it now and I certainly couldn't back then, when I was eighteen and stupid. I've never found myself at ease in the ruminative and sombre, and have always tried my hardest to weasel my way out of them.

    Given that, I doubt it would come as a surprise that my immediate response was a dry, drawn out, "I'm going to save the world."

    Carol-Anne shot me sarcastic glare, and rolled her eyes. "When you finish saving the world — what will your story be then?"

    I didn't know.

    I didn't know how to answer, either. Does anyone ever know how to answer that question? What the hell kind of question even is that — what will your story be? The future is always unwritten. That's why it's the future. Nobody's future ever shapes up the way they had planned it. If it did, do you truly believe my life would have taken the path it did?

    Don't take that as me making excuses. It isn't. I made my choices and I have to live with the consequences, but the fact is this is not the future I had hoped I would have been living. Frankly, I doubt anyone, if posed the same question, would answer, "Well, personally, I hope my story concludes with me sitting in a cell in the Raft, myself."

    Still, there was something in Carol-Anne's eyes that day that was just too earnest to not at least try to put some effort into my answer.

    Perhaps it's a reflection on me that I have always found it easier to wish for futures for others. I had hopes for everyone — every friend I made and ultimately betrayed. It's wrong to write someone else's story for them — after all, that's what people have spent years doing for me — and that was never my intention, but I did have hopes. Usually, they were their hopes in different wrapping paper. For Carol-Anne, it was always one of brilliance and heroics. A story where she actually would save the world, and where all those dreams she'd had since she was a kid genuinely did come true. I hoped her story was happy (it wasn't), and that she truly would become Director of S.H.I.E.L.D one day like she had always quietly hoped (she didn't). For Sharon, I had always hoped something similar — success away from her name, respect for who she was rather than where she came from. Ward, I had wished for peace. Kayla, happiness. Natasha, I had hoped for forgiveness, and Clint, a quiet retirement.

      None of them had fully achieved them. Not in the way I wished for them.

      What will your story be?

    I know how things ended between myself and Carol-Anne. I know they weren't pretty, and that, if you've heard anything about the court case you'll be reading through this interaction between us with crawling skin and clenched teeth as you tried to fight away a secondhand embarrassing awkwardness. But we aren't there yet. I need you to remember that. We aren't there yet. You may be reading this in a post Blip world and I may be writing this in a cell in the Raft, but these words are words from the past. We're back in 2007. None of that has happened yet. None of it will happen for many years yet.

    And so when I finally did answer, I promise, I meant those words back then.

    It wasn't the story I lived, but that doesn't matter. We aren't there yet.

    I think of those words often. What will your story be? As the years passed and my life slowly printed itself upon the page before me, I thought of that question. Even now, I think of it. I suppose that's why I'm writing this, in a way. I have had so little say over how my story has been told — everyone has an idea of me, of who I am, of what I became, after all — that my story has ceased to be mine. It's become something else. A cautionary tale. A treasonous betrayal splashed across newspapers. A tragedy — but not mine.

    This is me taking it back.

    This is me telling you everything, exactly as it happened.

    This is me reclaiming my own story.

    But we still aren't there yet. We're still at the beginning. We're still stood by a the Wall of Valor. Carol-Anne's eyes are fixed upon the names. Mine are fixed upon her. Her question is hanging heavy in the air, and I am preparing to answer.

    "I hope it's a love story," I said, "And I hope it's a happy one."

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