Hell Bound

“MP3,” Bucky said from my side. He was breathing hard, though not nearly as bad as I was, and this was the first coherent word I’d heard from him in a while. In English, at least.

“What?” I asked, turning onto my side to face him. We were lying sideways on the bed, and his legs were hanging over the edge of the mattress.

“The MP3 player. Do you think he got it?”

“I forgot he was here, to be completely honest.”

“So did I.”

“Well, I’m sure it was the first thing he went for after I came up here to find you.” He smiled. He apparently found this very amusing.

“He made breakfast,” he reminded me. I pinched my eyes shut.

“Aw, man. Now we have to get up.” He reached out to stop me from getting out of bed. Even though I had made no attempts to do so. The metal was shockingly cold against my bare skin.

“Don’t go?” I lifted his hand and slid my fingers between his. He shifted his attention to them.

I was going to tell him that we had to go back down there eventually. Or let him know that I didn’t want to. But instead, I ran my fingers over the back of his so I could feel all the ridges and plates and smooth metal. He didn’t pull away, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Can you feel me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Then he looked back at me. “I feel something, but it’s not the same. It’s like knowing that you’re there but not really feeling you. The signal is there. And the memory of feeling. But it’s not like when you touch my skin.” He turned his gaze back to his hand and spread his fingers. The plates shifted to accommodate the movement. It was almost seamless. Just the tiniest bit of mechanical stiffness. He didn’t release me.

“It’s become part of you,” I observed.

“I suppose so,” he murmured. “But I don’t think it’s ever been used this way before. Wasn’t made for this.”

“What way?” He glanced at me and moved our hands. He touched his finger to my chin but kept mine locked in his. The sensation was odd but not uncomfortable. As if I’d accepted it as part of him too.

“It’s a weapon,” he told me. “It wasn’t meant to touch someone like this.” I moved closer and ran my hand up his arm. “Don’t leave,” he repeated. I smiled.

“I know for a fact that you have a spectacular recovery rate, but I don’t. I don’t want to leave, but I’m starving. I didn’t eat before I left. And I’ve had a very—exciting morning.” He groaned and dropped his other arm over his eyes.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh.

He sounded so grumpy. I couldn’t help but kiss his lips before climbing out of bed. His metal arm dropped to the mattress, and he didn’t move until I’d already found something to wear. I sat down beside him. The notebooks from his backpack had spilled out onto the floor when he dropped it. I could see little color-coded tabs sticking out of pages. Some looked more worn than others. As if he’d spent hours scribbling and agonizing over the pages.

“Hey, Buck?” I asked, putting my hand on his solid chest. Mostly just to see the way his skin tensed whenever I touched him.

“Mm?” he replied lazily.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“I’m lying completely naked on your bed, Johanna.” I laughed and smoothed his hair back to kiss his cheek.

“Believe me, I noticed. But that’s not what I meant.” He hesitated.

“You can ask me whatever you need to, but I can’t promise to answer.”

“What are the notebooks for?” He stayed silent, but his arm left his face, and he blinked at me.

“They help me remember,” he explained. “I write things down. So I don’t lose them again.” I nodded slowly in understanding. If I wasn’t starving, I would have stayed in bed with him all day. He was lying on my blankets, wearing nothing but the shadows of tree branches. I already regretted putting my clothes back on.

“That’s a good way to hold onto things, I suppose.”

“It helps.”

“You have so many of them.”

“A lot of time I’m trying to account for. Some notebooks serve different purposes.”

“Aren’t you afraid someone might find them?” He touched my thigh with his fingers. Using a weapon to touch me gently again. It was amazing that it still had the ability to make my heart leap.

“I’m more worried about losing myself again,” he explained.

“I see.”

“Here. Let me show you something.” He stood up and reached for the notebook he’d used to write down the codes from my book. Then he handed it out to me. I was reluctant to take it. I held it in my hands but didn’t open it.

“Are you sure?” He nodded once.

“They’re your memories too.”

Then he turned to get dressed while I ran my hands over the navy blue color. I didn’t want to intrude on his personal thoughts. Even if they were about me. But I was curious. And he’d given me permission.

I opened the cover to scribbles. It seemed to be a basic fact sheet. He’d written down the information he could have collected on a basic search. My name, age, and birthdate. He had military information, the names of my parents, and my sister. I turned the page, and it changed. The writing had gotten slightly neater, and he’d moved on from basic facts to questions.

Who is she?

How does she know who I am?

Why does she count her heartbeats?

Some of the questions were written forcefully. I could see where he’d scratched the pen so roughly that it showed through the other side. He’d crossed things out in apparent frustration. But the questions moved into facts as he slowly began to remember things. Not just something he could have picked up on a search.

Washington DC.

Black eyes? Brown. Sunlight.

Brown hair. Not too dark.

Waitress? Agent.

Pink knife. It sparkles?

Doesn’t like to carry a gun.

Nightmares.

Special Ops?

Combat medic.

Jo.

He was pulling his pants back on and not paying any attention to me. I wondered why he let me see this. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep reading. It was hard seeing him try to work things out, and I didn’t know how long ago this was. It could have been months. It could have been days. I turned the page anyway, and the statements evolved into sentences.

Waffle maker was the first word.

She likes olives on her pizza. I don’t think I like olives. This was news to me. He never complained or asked me to leave them off. Whenever I asked him what he wanted, he told me to get whatever I wanted. I wondered if there were other things he didn’t like but never told me.

She sighs in her sleep. How do I know that?

There’s a raccoon in her attic. She gave it a name.

She’s alone. She doesn’t like to be alone. I think she’s lonely. But it’s intentional.

She holds that knife like an extended limb. She’s trained with it.

What is the name of the goddamn raccoon? Rocky? No.

Steve trusts her. I don’t think he loves her.

She likes old television shows. She likes things that make her sad. She said she likes things that make her feel.

ROCKET.

I think she loves me. ?

That was the last word on the page. He’d underlined it. There was even a question mark as if he was back and forth on it. He left the remainder of the page blank as if he intended to return to it when he had an answer.

“Still hungry?” he asked as I sat there staring at the words on the page. I looked up and nodded. I was trying to come up with reasons why I couldn’t answer that question. But when I looked at him standing before the window in the dappled light, all I could think about was how heavy and full my heart felt. I felt giddy like a child but eager and terrified of the future all at once.

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a sec. I need to brush my hair. You did a number on it,” I explained.

He smiled and reached for his backpack. He stuffed the other notebooks inside but didn’t ask for the one I was still holding in my lap. I didn’t blame him for wanting to keep the other ones hidden. I didn’t want to see them either. I could only imagine what else he was trying to come to terms with.

“I’ll meet you down there,” he said. I watched him head toward the door, but then he stopped once he got it opened. “What happened to him?” he asked.

“Who?” I replied.

“The man. The one who tried to hurt you.”

“Oh.” I looked back down at the notebook. “A slap on the wrist. I didn’t see him again.”

“You don’t know where he is now?”

“No. I couldn’t bring myself to look.”

He turned and headed out the door. I could hear him go down the stairs, slowly but steady enough to indicate he was healing. He didn’t even seem bothered the whole time we were in bed. He’d taken over this time, pinning me beneath him and never even wincing. He was going to leave soon.

I reached for the pen that was sitting on my nightstand. There was more in the notebook that I could read and even a few of those tabs. But I didn’t want to look anymore. They were his private thoughts, regardless of who they were about. I tried to glance through it, my eye only catching a few scattered words and memories. He remembered that night we spent together. He hadn’t gone back to sleep after. He hadn’t trusted me. Even then. But he remembered how I’d looked at him when we were together, and he apparently decided that he didn’t care.

But I kept going back to what he’d written on that page toward the beginning of the book. “I think she loves me,” it said. I tapped the pen on the edge of the notebook a few times before I put it on the paper and wrote, “She does.”