From Darkness

I was in empty space. No—it wasn't empty. Because I was there. Alive. Thinking. Feeling, moving, stretching through the cosmos for something far away from me. Stars flickered from unimaginable distances. Close enough to flood me with starlight but too far to touch. I was weightless. But I wasn't weightless. I had no body, no form to have any weight, even in the deep of open space. I just existed. Thoughts and matter. Feelings and emotions. Floating, reaching endlessly for something gone. There was a feeling somewhere in all the chaos and darkness that made me capable of thought. A yearning for something that was missing. A piece of me that had been lost. No—not lost.

Stolen.

I woke up to a sharp pain cracking through my skull. But it was definitely a skull. It had form. Mass. Weight. And right now, it was in agony. Someone was touching me. And I was me. A person with a body, thoughts, and memories. Still with that ever-present yearning deep inside of me. The hand was sweeping over my skin and into my hair. I groaned.

"Jo?" a voice said. "Can you hear me? Are you awake?"

"Ung," is all I could get out. I moved my hand, and it flopped at my side. "Hurts."

"What hurts?" I lifted my hand and motioned to my head. "I have some aspirin. I'm going to help you up."

I felt his arm under me as he lifted me toward his chest. My body felt limp and heavy at first before my neck responded enough for me to hold my head up. My eyes opened a few seconds later, but all I could do was wince. My whole head throbbed, from my forehead to my ears and all the way around to the back. The light shining in was too bright and made my eyes ache.

Then I caught sight of his face. Blue eyes. Dark hair. Staring at me with concern. I jerked in fear, and he noticed.

"Jo," he said slowly. "It's me. Bucky. We're in Bucharest."

"Bucharest? I—how did we get to Bucharest?" He moved his hand to my face, cupping my cheek and grazing his thumb over my cheekbone. His face looked hurt now.

"I brought us here, remember? Please—tell me you remember?" I blinked a few times as the memories surfaced out of the dark as if on cue. Memories of breathless kisses and amused half-smiles. Answers to questions I hadn't even asked yet. You love him, remember? You love him.

"I…." I had to pause to take a few gulps of air before the puzzle pieces of my mind clicked back into place. You are safe. You are you. "I remember. I'm okay." He looked relieved.

"Here," he said, reaching for something. He held up a couple of pills in his palm. Using the other hand to hold me up. He brought them to my lips and helped me get all of them in my mouth at once. Then he reached for the cup of water he'd set on the floor by the mattress. "Got it?"

"Mm," I replied. I took a big gulp to wash it down, and he cautiously slid his arm out from behind me. I could hold myself up now, but he still took the water. I lifted my knees and leaned against them so I could apply pressure to my aching forehead. "Christ."

"How bad does it hurt?" he questioned, running his hand up my back to massage the tension from my neck.

"Like my skull is being squeezed under an elephant."

"I'm not surprised. There was a lot of blood."

That's when everything really came back. The bus. The heat in my blood. The Darkness shifting beneath my skin. Screams of innocent people just trying to get away from a monster. I pulled my hands to myself and tucked them in the space over my stomach.

"How many people did I kill?" I asked.

"Jo…," he started.

"Do you know?"

"I know."

"Just tell me." He took a deep breath and sighed.

"One."

"Confirmed?"

"Yes. It was in the newspaper this morning. They're calling it an aneurism."

"This morning? How long have I been out?"

"Since yesterday afternoon. Ivan said it hit harder the more targets you hit. You only got one, and you were out for nineteen hours. That contradicts what he told me."

"Are you sure it was just the one?"

"I'm sure." I reached up to rub my eyes.

"Jesus," I muttered. He moved his hand over my back to comfort me.

"What happened back there, Jo?" he asked. I shook my head.

"I don't know. What did you see?"

"You were fine one second. Then the next thing I knew, you'd pinned a stranger to the window and looked ready to rip out his throat. You looked—completely different."

"How so?"

"Like something overtook you."

"Oh, God."

"Ivan said it only activates when you feel threatened."

"He had his hand on my ass."

"Hmm," he said. "Then I can't say I feel sorry for him." I put my face in my hands.

"I didn't mean to kill him."

"What did you mean to do?"

"I don't know. I don't remember grabbing him. I don't remember anything. I just remember the realization that he had his hand on me. It made me feel vulnerable and violated, and the next thing I remember is you grabbing my wrist to stop me from clawing his face off."

"But somewhere in that short amount of time, you were able to decide who got to live and who didn't." I shook my head.

"I wasn't thinking."

"No, but something was. You could have killed every person on that bus. Including me. You made a choice not to."

"I still didn't want him to die."

"Yeah—but something else did." I took a deep breath and tried to rub the pain from my temples.

"I shouldn't be here. Too close to people. Too close to you and Elena and everyone in this building. Maybe the whole goddamn city."

"We're not going anywhere." I jerked my head up, fast enough to make pain shoot from the back of my head down my neck.

"I sure as hell can't stay here!" I retorted. He moved his hand to my face again, gently cupping my cheek as he moved to the back of my head. My skull was pounding, and his touch soothed the pain just a little.

"I don't believe I'm in any real danger," he said. I shook my head.

"Of course you are."

"Like I said, somewhere in that split second, you made a choice not to kill me or anyone other than him."

"How do you know I won't do it the next time?"

"Because you don't want to."

"But what if I do? What if something comes over me again? What if I can't stop it?" He sighed.

"I think that even when you're in that state, some part of you knows you don't want to hurt me."

"I killed my own father, Bucky. I wasn't aware enough to make a choice."

"It was an accident. And you didn't infect him. He was there the first time you lost control. He told me you killed everyone in that lab except for him. There was a whole caravan transferring you. You didn't even know he was there. You were still able to get every one of them except for him. Even if you don't know what you're doing—it does." I leaned forward and buried my face in his neck. I wrapped my arms around him and bit my lip to stop the flood of tears.

"Look," he said. "You lost control. Briefly, but at least we're learning how it works. You can control it. I know you can. And now we know what to look for. I saw it in your eyes, and I was able to get through to you."

"At the expense of someone's life."

"A pervert on the bus."

"Still a human being. It's not my job to decide who gets to live or who doesn't."

"Jo," he said. "Stop. Don't beat yourself up over this. We've both done things we wish we hadn't. Things we wish we could change." I clutched at him and shut my eyes.

"I was angry too, Bucky. You think I'll never be angry at you or Elena or anyone else ever again?"

"No. It was a different kind of anger. You said you felt violated and vulnerable. I aim to never make you feel that way. Even if you couldn't stand me, I don't believe you'd be angry enough to hurt me."

"How can you be so sure?" He sighed heavily.

"Maybe—because I know you love me. And I know it's real. I think I'd have to do something pretty terrible, willingly, to make you hate me enough. And I've done plenty of terrible things, and yet you're still here. That makes me think you won't want to."

I didn't say anything. That was exactly the reason I was so scared. Because I loved him. Because I didn't want to hurt him. Because I knew we'd inevitably get mad at each other and have arguments. I didn't know how much it would take to set it off. I didn't want to get into a trivial argument and then wake up to find Bucky dead. It didn't matter what I said anyway. I knew he'd have a counter-argument.

"Give me a chance," he whispered.

"They're still looking for me, James. If it made the newspaper…."

"I don't think they're looking anymore."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't the only thing in the news. The Avengers were in Sokovia yesterday." I lifted my head and looked at him. His blue eyes were bright in the light.

"Why were they in Sokovia?"

"Shutting down that base."

"And they succeeded?"

"Looks that way to me." Relief flooded me. I dropped my head to his shoulder and sighed.

"You think Dana told them?"

"Most likely. It was a large base. They've been making their way through them. They probably would have found it eventually anyway."

"How much information do you think they got on me after taking it out?"

"None."

"Why not?"

"Because they intended to turn you into a sleeper agent. Infiltrate and exterminate. Once you were gone, they would have cleared their systems of you. That base was well guarded. I know, I tried to get in. They would have made it, so you were never there. Sleeper agents lose their effectiveness when their targets know they're coming."

"So a guy having an aneurism on a bus in Bucharest won't raise any red flags." His hand moved to my wrist again. It was more comforting and gentler than the day before when he'd held my wrist to stop me from killing someone.

"No," he said. "We're safe."

I didn't believe that for a second. Someone knew. And someone would come.