Grace sits at the side of the stage at a presentation at MIT, nearly a year after Ultron was defeated. A curtain covers her for the most part, and everyone backstage has been instructed to stay far away from where she is. She convinced Tony to bring her — nearly got him to let her sit in the actual crowd — but she's still not sure if she even wants to be here.

It beats sitting alone at home, so there's that.

On the stage is a very realistic projection of a living room she's never been in, and two people are in it, one a woman she's never met, the other the person she's mad at right now.

The woman she's never met is playing a piano and singing. "Try to remember the kind of September, when grass was green..." She's beautiful, and Grace's heart, which has been so hard lately, softens at her voice.

A third person, a man she's never met, walks in from an unseen room and pulls a blanket off the lump on the couch — the lump being the person she's mad at right now. He sits up, a Santa hat on his head.

"Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father," the woman at the piano says as she continues to play.

"Who's the homeless person on the couch?" the man asks.

The boy, a naive, skinny kid of twenty one, stands. "This is why I love coming home for Christmas — right before you leave town."

"Be nice, dear," the woman — Grace's middle name — says to the man, "he's been studying abroad."

"Really, which broad?" the man asks, pulling the hat off the boy's head. "What's her name?"

"Candice," the boy replies.

"Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday," the man says.

"Okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly. Where you going?"

Maria smiles. "Your father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway."

"We might have to make a quick stop," the man says.

"At the Pentagon. Right?" the boy asks. He leans down to his mother. "Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary."

Maria stops playing the piano as the man says, "You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man some day. I'll get the bags."

He walks out, and Maria stands. "He does miss you when you're not here. And, frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what's about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it."

And when Howard walks back in, Tony looks at him and says, "I love you, Dad." Then, he looks at Maria. "And I know you did the best you could."

Maria kisses his cheek as Tony — the real Tony, the older one — walks into the room. The younger Tony watches his parents as they leave.

"That's how I wished it happened," the real Tony says. "Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF — man, I gotta work on that acronym — an extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to clear... traumatic memories." He stops and blows out a candle that's sitting on the piano, causing the room — the projection — to start to disappear. He continues. "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport, or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief." He takes off his glasses as the projection fades, leaving only the framework it was projected on. "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in their right mind would've ever funded it.

"Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement?" The students in the crowd say it with him. "'To generate, disseminate... and preserve knowledge.' And work with others — to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges. Well, you are the others. And, quiet as it's kept, the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke." This causes them to laugh. Tony continues. "Oh, I'm sorry — rather, you were. As of this moment, every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in... all of your projects have just been approved and funded." The entire crowd cheers. "No strings, no taxes, just re-frame the future! Starting now."

And then he stops. Grace knows exactly why — it's not just the look on his face, but she can see the teleprompter he's reading from. It says: 'Now I would like to introduce the head of the foundation: Pepper Potts.'

Tony recollects himself. "Go break some eggs."

He walks off the opposite side of the stage from Grace, and she gets up too. She has to meet him somewhere backstage before they go to the car to leave. If only Happy were here.

She makes her way to where she's supposed to meet him, deciding to play a game on her phone to kill time. She left her book in the car, unfortunately.

But when she opens up her phone, her fingers gravitate towards the phone icon. She bites her lip, then goes so far as to tap it, bringing up her contact list. It's fairly short.

Bruce, Clint, Dad, Happy, Harley... Nat, Rhodey, Steve, and, recently, Wanda.

But the one she's looking for — or... isn't looking for — is under M.

Mom.

When she left, she told Grace she would still be there for her if — when — she needed her. She told her she could call any time.

But how can she? She left her father; she's gone, pretty much out of their lives, and she's just supposed to... call her? She's even debated just changing her contact name to 'Pepper' because of the whole situation.

Is she still her mom? Does she still want to be? She left Tony — she left her.

But all Grace has to do is call her. Talk to her. But what could she say? Would it even matter? At this point, she'd probably just settle for hearing her voicemail.

She's about to call her when Tony arrives, looking upset — shaken, even.

Grace turns off her phone, her brows furrowing. "What happened?"

Tony looks at her, jumping at little as if he hadn't realized she was standing there. "What? Oh, I... It's fine. It's nothing. Come on." With that, he starts walking out, and Grace is forced to follow him.

It's probably about that teleprompter, Grace thinks, but Tony is thinking about something else entirely.

~~~~

When Tony told Grace he was going to the Avengers Compound, she instantly grabbed her things. "I'm coming with you."

Tony sighed. He was tired. "Sweetheart, I'm bringing the Secretary of State, too — it's a... legal matter we have to discuss."

"I don't care," Grace replied. She was tired, too, but she was also angry. "Take the President himself with you if you want to, but I'm going too. I haven't been in forever."

What could he do? He wouldn't be surprised if she somehow stowed away in the car. She said she was going, she was going. Beside, how could he say no to her after what he did? "Alright, fine. But you're leaving the room during the discussion."

"Whatever."

And, now, here they are, standing in the conference room. Mr. Thaddeus Ross — the Secretary of State — is standing off to the side, as Tony previously told him he wanted to give his daughter time to see the team first.

She hugs Rhodey first, and he hugs her back tightly. "Hey, mini Stark. How ya holdin' up?"

Grace pulls back. "Fine. I guess."

Then, she hugs Nat. "Hey, Grace. It's a been while."

"Too long."

Then, she turns to Steve, who she hugs too. "Hey, Steve."

"Hey, Grace."

Then, Wanda. "Hello, iertare," she says, smiling sadly at Grace, knowing what she's going through right now.

"Hey, Wanda."

Next to her is Sam, who, finally, gets a hug. And then there's Vision, who holds his fist out to her. "Hello, small one." They fist bump, then do a little explosion at the end, something she taught him the last time they saw each other; it's just different enough to appease Rhodey. Then, she actually hugs Vision, looking at her father after she pulls away.

He nods towards the door a little, indicating the discussion needs to start now. But she plops herself down in a chair off to the side, crossing her arms and looking at him the entire time. He knows then and there there's nothing he can do, so he nods to Ross to begin.

The Avengers sit down, and Tony sits off to the side, near Grace, as Ross starts, "Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my back-swing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after thirteen hours of surgery and a triple bypass... I found something forty years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective.

"The world owes the Avengers an un-payable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives, but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some... who would prefer the word 'vigilantes.'"

"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Nat asks stiffly.

"How about 'dangerous?'" Ross replies, a bit of anger creeping its way into his voice. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose, and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?" He turns on a screen behind him, which pulls up a map. "New York."

It zooms in on New York, then show the battle fought. A Chitauri leviathan. Running civilians. The footage ends with Hulk jumping into a building and sending dust falling onto the camera.

"Washington DC."

Fires. Running civilians — again. A Helicarrier crashing into water, sending waves rolling over the streets.

"Sokovia."

Grace swallows a lump in her throat as the footage plays: Running, terrified civilians. The city rising. A building crumbling.

"Lagos."

A building on fire. Paramedics rolling out someone on a stretcher. People being helped to safety amidst destruction. A girl laying on the ground, dead.

Wanda looks away abruptly, and Steve says, "That's enough."

Ross turns off the screen, but continues. "For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution." He grabs a thick book and gives it to Wanda, who's closest to him. "The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary."

"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place," Steve says. "I feel we've done that."

Ross raises a brow at him. "Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?" Steve meets his eye, but doesn't respond. Ross continues. "If I misplaced a couple of thirty megaton nukes, you can bet there'd be consequences... Compromise. Reassurance. That's how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground."

Rhodey, who now has the book, asks, "So, there are contingencies?"

"Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords," Ross says. "Talk it over."

"And if we come to a decision you don't like?" Nat asks.

"Then you retire."