Hell Bound

Bucky spent the rest of the day going through the book. He didn't bring up what we talked about earlier. Probably because he was afraid of my reaction. Maybe he thought I wasn't handling it well. Which wasn't entirely off the mark. While they were sitting there with their books, I sat on the couch thinking about Russell.

I had a strong memory of my first real mission. I remembered him trying to cheer me up and assure me everything would be okay. I remembered thinking his smile was like my mom's. I didn't think I meant it literally. Just that it was comforting and genuine. But now I wasn't sure that's what I thought at all. Maybe it was my mom's smile, and I just refused to believe that.

His eyes were like hers too. Such a dark shade of brown that they were almost black unless you saw them in sunlight. I always thought I had her eyes. Slightly different in shape. Hers were narrower, and mine were wide. "Innocent eyes" is what she called them. But they had the same color. I looked enough like her that my parentage was never questioned. But now I wasn't sure. Because Russell definitely had dark eyes. Narrow. Almost black. Except in direct sunlight.

My dad's eyes weren't wide or "innocent" either. I never thought much about it before. I'd always been told I favored my mom and never questioned it. But now it was nagging me. I wanted to see what this Beata woman looked like. I wanted to see her face and prove that I wasn't her daughter. I just didn't know how to go about that. If her history was as full of holes as mine was, it was possible there weren't any pictures. And what if it had the opposite effect? What if I looked at her face and saw myself?

I tried watching TV and keeping my mind off it, but I couldn't focus. I'd been sitting there most of the day, staring at the screen but not knowing what was happening. My attention didn't really come back to the living room at all until I noticed Bucky looking at me from the corner of my eye.

"Maybe you should get out of the house for a while," he suggested. "So you can think." I shook my head. Thinking was the last thing I wanted to do.

"No, I just need to stay busy," I told him. "Sitting here while you guys read isn't exactly fun."

Then I got up to find something to do. My house was never very clean, but never really dirty either. I usually cleaned up as I went, and I rarely had guests. I just didn't have anything better to do. So I thought cleaning was at least productive.

Graham came into the kitchen once or twice to offer his help, but I kicked him out every time. I told him to go back to his books, and the silence since both of those things seemed to comfort him. After a while, he stopped asking.

The only problem is that I finished too quickly. I finished the kitchen in record time and then sat down at the table to meticulously polish the silverware my grandma sent me. I never had a use for it, and Clara was probably the better recipient of family heirlooms. But my grandma wanted me to have something that had been brought over from Sokovia. So I kept them stuffed in a cupboard in the kitchen.

I heard Bucky before I saw him this time. His steps were still quiet and almost unnoticeable. But I heard him touch the wall to keep himself upright. The sound of his fingers on the wood made a hollow noise that was metallic and unnatural. He appeared in the entryway a moment later.

"Hey, are you hungry?" I asked, scrubbing away at a silver spoon. "It's a little too early for dinner, but we never had lunch. I could probably make something, but there's nothing good anyway. I could order something from that sandwich shop. How does that sound?"

"Jo," he said softly, leaning against the back of a chair. I looked up.

"Hmm?" He pulled the chair out and took a seat. He had his back to the hallway, and it must have put a lot of effort into trusting Graham not to come racing in with a knife.

"I know what you're doing," he told me.

"I'm polishing my grandma's silver."

"You're trying not to think about it."

"That too."

I went back to the spoon. It was shiny enough, and I'd probably never open the box again, but I kept going anyway. I didn't even like silver. I thought it was a waste of metal. But they were important to my grandma. One of the only things she'd been able to bring from Sokovia. That was the only reason I kept them, though I'd probably make a note to hand them over to Clara the next time I saw her. They'd have more use in Tony's house than mine. He liked real silver.

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said. I shook my head.

"I'm not upset."

"You were earlier. You were angry."

"I wasn't mad. Not with you. It's just—a lot to put on someone all of a sudden. It's a serious accusation. But I'm not upset anymore."

"You are. If you keep polishing that spoon, there won't be anything left of it." I dropped it into the box a little more forcefully than I meant. The silver shook and made a loud noise. He lifted an eyebrow. Just one. It was so much easier to read his expressions now. And this one clearly said, "Not mad, huh?" I picked up another spoon.

"If I keep thinking about it, it'll consume me. And I'm doing everything I can to hold it together."

"I won't force you to deal with it if that's your choice. But I've noticed you have a habit of ignoring your problems until they become life-threatening."

"What else am I supposed to do, Bucky? Even if what you're saying is true, what's that going to do for me? I can't find him. I can't ask my parents. I'm pretty sure Clara doesn't know. And if she or Stark even began to suspect you were here, they'd haul my ass off to New York and lock me up. God only knows what they'd have done to you."

"It might help us figure out what they want you for."

"It won't matter if we don't find him."

"Then I'll start looking as soon as I can move without pain." I shook my head and went back to attacking the spoon.

"It won't work. You can't find people who don't want to be found. Trust me. You know the last time I saw you? In Malibu? I was hell-bent on tracking you down myself. I even went to Sam. And look where that got me. It got me nowhere. I didn't see you until you wanted me to see you. And only because you were bleeding to death."

"I wanted to see you even before I was bleeding to death," he said. I glanced at him, and he stared back, challenging me. I didn't say anything. "I've tracked him down before. I can do it again. If I can remember his patterns. People are easier to track nowadays anyway."

"I honestly don't even care what they want me for. I don't care if what you think is true or not. I don't care if they show up tomorrow or next week or never. I just—don't care." I put the spoon down on the table, hard enough to shake the legs and rattle the box of silver again. He studied me.

"What do you care about?" he asked calmly. I pushed my chair out and sighed.

"You," I admitted. I felt another heartfelt declaration teetering on the edge of my tongue. I held it back and tried to reel it back in. "The kid," I continued, "my family, Stark, Steve, Sam. The fucking raccoon in the attic. That's pretty much it." I stood and carried the silverware back to the cupboard, where it would likely hide in the dark for another five years. I hadn't even finished polishing them, but I was already bored with that task, and my shoulders were aching.

"You said you wanted something to hold onto. Why do you want something to hold onto if you don't care whether you make it out alive or not?"

"Because I know what it's like to be tortured. If you have something to hold onto, then you can keep them from getting what they want. I don't want to give them the satisfaction of breaking me again." I knelt down on the floor and shoved the box into the cupboard.

"Again?" he asked quietly. "How do you know what it's like to be tortured, Jo?" I paused with my hand on the cabinet door. Then I sat down on the floor and turned to face him.

"Dreams," I admitted. He was still sitting at the table, but his spine was straight, and he looked ready to jump out of the seat at a moment's notice. "Maybe they're not real. I don't know. I see things I can't make sense of. Nothing coherent. Just—pain. And fear. And water. I think I'm starting to lose it."

"Lose what?"

"My mind." He stood up slowly and came to my side. He knelt beside me and hardly winced from the pain, though I was sure I'd seen the briefest flash of it.

"You're not losing it," he told me confidently.

"Then what's wrong with me? I never used to dream like this. I mean—I always saw the same thing. Sometimes it was more dreamlike. But it was still the same thing. Now everything's different. And it happens every single time I go to sleep. It never used to be this bad. How can I have spent five years of my life believing something that wasn't true?"

His lips were pinched together, and his eyebrows furrowed in that usual dark look he took when he was deep in thought. He pressed a metal hand against the cupboard to balance himself.

"I don't know why they kept you alive, but I have my suspicions about why they made you forget. And how," he explained.

"Why? How?" He took a long time to answer. His jaw was clenched like he was trying not to grind his teeth. His eyes were focused on the cupboard, and his fingers seemed to be digging into his knee. This was difficult for him to talk about.

"The chair was newer," he started. "It was built for me. Just me. It would have turned your brain to mush. So they must have used something else. Something to manipulate your memories."

"Something they did to you before." He nodded once.

"Hypnosis, maybe? Which means there are likely trigger words. Something that will bring everything rushing back all at once. But it's fallible. It slips. Even the chair—didn't always hold."

"You think my therapist was hypnotizing me?"

"I think it's very possible. And that's probably why your memories are slipping now. Because she's not here to keep it in place." I nodded slowly.

"That makes sense. But why do you think they did it?"

"You said that I told you I saw something familiar in you. When I came here before. A darkness."

"That's what you called it, yes."

"I don't think that's it. I don't think I went to you because I recognized a soldier, killer, or familiar darkness. I think I knew you. I came to you because I recognized you."

"That's not possible." His eyes were on mine again.

"Given everything happening to you, is it really impossible?" I slumped against the cupboard and wrapped my arms around my knees.

"Why would they bother to go through all that for me?" I repeated.

"I don't know. Your files from that time are almost non-existent. Which means Russell likely kept it a secret for a reason. But some things have to be put into print, or they raise more questions. Attacks, battles, death records, medical records."

"So, what are you saying?"

"There was a period of three days between the deaths of your squad and your surgery. They wouldn't have waited three days to remove a bullet unless they had good reason. And there's no proof they were even removing anything at all."

"They could have kept me locked up. Especially if I was killing people."

"There's no record of you killing anyone. No friendly fire. No record of you being taken into custody. There aren't even records of you being in medical care until three days later. Even if they did have you in custody, they wouldn't have left you to suffer and bleed for three whole days. If my suspicions about Russell are correct—even if they're not—he would have gotten that bullet out immediately. He wouldn't have let you suffer."

"So, what's your hunch?"

"The memories come in flashes, don't they? Filling in answers. They're not always dreams. Just—general knowledge of something that happened. You know something is true, but you don't know how or why you know." I nodded slowly. "I think they had you. I don't know why or what for. I don't know why they didn't kill you when they were done. But you saw something they didn't want you to see. Something they didn't want to get out."

"So you think I saw…."

"Me."