Absolute Gravity

Pain shot so sharp through my body that it launched me upright amidst a scream. I struggled to move, but my hand was bound, and the light was too bright. It seared into my skull and forced me to pinch my eyes shut.

“Darkness is what she’s made of. Not what she is,” I repeated, hoping it didn’t slip away. I needed to remember that. Why did I need to remember that? I shifted on the bed, feeling the creak of the cot beneath me. The wall felt scratchy and cold at my back. “What she’s made of. Not what she is.”

“What is she made of?” a voice asked.

I paused in my tirade. The pain throbbed, but it wasn’t as sharp. It slipped through me like a wave. Ebbing and cresting. My hand was still bound. I could hear the clink of metal as I tried to shift.

“What?” I whispered.

“You said something. I want to know what you meant.”

I knew that voice. That impossible voice. I pried my eyes open and stared at the man standing beside the cot. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a stern look in his familiar blue eyes. One arm was flesh and tanned. The other black and metal. The space behind him was almost entirely equipment. Lights blinked like stars. There was a holographic image of something I couldn’t make out.

This was Tony’s basement. The shadows had lifted back like a veil.

“Bucky?” He cocked his head to the side, studying me. His hair was cut shorter than I’d ever seen it. He looked different and the same all at once.

“Can I ask who I’m talking to?”

I shook my head as I tried to figure out how to answer that question. Was I me, or was I Chaos?

“I don’t know. I think—I think I’m me. Jo. I think I’m Jo.”

He frowned a little. Like that bothered him. But when he stepped forward, I moved toward the wall again. The cuff around my wrist was the only thing keeping me in place. It was chained to the metal rail. It wouldn’t be enough to contain her. But it was enough to hold me. And that had to be a good sign. I lifted my arm in confusion as the memories resurfaced. The realization that Bucky Barnes was dead.

“Hey,” he said softly, apparently picking up on the panic. “It’s me. It’s alright.” I tried to pry my arm free.

“Bucky’s dead.”

“I’m not dead. I’m right here.”

“Who are you?”

“It’s me, Jo.”

“Where’s Tony?” He didn’t answer right away. So I cut my eyes back to him. Tony promised he’d be there when I woke up. If I was really awake, then Tony should be there.

Bucky just stared at me the same way he used to when he suspected something wasn’t right. Like he’d done when the Darkness was stirring in me, and I’d pretend I was okay. Like he couldn’t sense it. Like he never heard me vomiting that awful Darkness in the other room.

“The last time you were awake, you tried to kill someone. Do you remember?” he asked. I shook my head.

“I wouldn’t. I didn’t.”

“It was Wanda. Do you remember her?” I paused again.

“She put things in my head. She made me watch you kill people. She gave me the freedom to put a gun in my mouth.”

“It wasn’t real.”

“It felt real.”

“Jo,” he said softly again. “Was that you or was that the other one?” I shook my head.

“The other one? Do you mean Chaos?”

“Yes."

"How long have I been—her?”

“Since you woke up yesterday afternoon. But you alternate between absolutely feral and catatonic. You’ve been staring into the dark for the past twenty minutes. This is the first time you’ve said anything coherent in twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be me.” He looked sympathetic again. But instead of moving to comfort me, he turned and set a tablet down on the workbench. I didn’t even notice he’d been holding it. Then he pulled a chair out and wheeled it toward me. He turned it backward so he could rest his arms on the back of it. He stared at the steel gray blanket I’d kicked away in my panic.

“Then we should move quickly,” he said. He finally turned his eyes on me. “They found a way to bring us all back.”

“How?” He shook his head.

“I don’t know the specifics of it. Something involving time travel. Was about as impossible as it sounds. They were able to get their hands on new infinity stones. Used them to bring everyone back. The only problem is that they brought Thanos back with them.” I shifted to get more comfortable. My body still ached. But the wave of pain had gone out like a tide. It was still there, hovering in my joints, though. So I adjusted my legs to ease some of the pain.

“And what happened?”

“The same thing that always happens. Another goddamn battle. We were in Wakanda when everything happened. One moment I was there, fighting a losing battle. Then, the next thing I knew—Steve was gone, and they were telling me five years had passed. I went from one battle right to the next. I wasn’t given much time to ask questions or wrap my mind around it. We just had to keep him from getting his hands on that gauntlet again.”

“It’s been five years?” I asked. He nodded.

“The last thing I thought of before it happened was you.” He stared at the blanket again. “I could feel that something was wrong. I don’t know how to explain it. It felt like—those moments before I went into cryo. This overwhelming sense of dread. So I went to Steve to ask him to watch out for you. And the next thing I knew, the sun had shifted all at once. Steve was gone. I came back mid-sentence. Still asking about you.”

“You were in Wakanda all the time we were apart?” He nodded and ran his hand up and down his new arm. Clara told me Tony had destroyed it. It didn’t even occur to me that he’d been given a new one.

“They helped me be me again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay them. They fixed my head. So no one can use me to hurt anyone again. The new arm doesn’t hurt like the other one did.” I nodded slowly, the pain ebbing on the edge of my consciousness again.

“You’re right,” I said. “That does sound impossible.” He smiled at me halfheartedly.

“Here.”

He slid the chair closer, urging me to uncurl my body. So I moved toward him, letting him take my free hand in his. It was warm and solid and felt so real. But Chaos and Maximoff were both really good at making things feel real when they weren’t. There was usually always something off about the illusions, though. Things I didn’t notice in the moment. Those fleeting feelings of an uncanny valley. The lack of a heartbeat where there should be one.

Bucky must have known that. Or remembered how I’d dig my fingers into his shirt to feel his heartbeat whenever I had panic attacks. How I’d count the steady beats of his heart until mine slowed to match its pace. He settled my hand there, and I could feel it. That soft, gentle rhythm that made me gasp. I gripped my fingers in his shirt.

“You’re really here,” I stated. He smiled again.

“Yeah, Jo. I’m really here.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“I wish I could explain it better. But we’re running out of time, and I don’t know how much longer you’ll be you.”

“Where’s Tony?” He released my hand and let me fold myself back into a little ball of safety.

“There were casualties. He was one of them. I’m sorry.”

“How did he go?”

“How do you think? Sacrificed himself. Used the gauntlet to wipe out Thanos’ army. It was too much for his body to handle. We, um—we lost Steve too.” He didn’t seem ready to go into detail about that part. The pain was flickering behind my eyes again, setting off little sparks in my vision.

“I’m sorry about Steve.” He nodded quickly and then took a deep breath to get himself back on track.

“Stark left me all his research. He wasn’t idle while you were under. This—thing—inside you. It expands. It grows. It’s bigger now than it was when we last saw each other. It’s bigger than it was when you went to sleep. I don’t think it’s actually trying to take control of your consciousness. I think it just can’t help it. Your doctor, Liv, said your body is already beginning to break down. So we need to get this figured out. And fast.

“Wanda said your mind is fractured. You’re essentially two beings occupying one body, and your body isn’t big enough to contain it. So you go back and forth between this reality and whatever memory it shows you. When it has control, you dream. And when you have control, you’re in agony.”

I nodded again. It was already burning back through my body. The tide was coming back in. My arms were shaking enough that I could hear a gentle tap tap tap of the cuff against the cot frame. My stomach rumbled. I was starving. But the pain was beginning to overpower that. The world was starting to feel a little hazy again. I had to be quick while I still had the ability to think like myself.

“I keep reliving the same memories over and over. Starting from when we parted and ending when I went under. Then it loops back around. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that it’s not real anymore.”

“And you have no idea why it keeps showing you these specific memories?”

“I don’t know that it’s Chaos doing it. She seemed confused when I asked her.”

“You talk to it?”

“Sometimes.”

I flinched again and tried to rub the pain from between my eyes. He reached out to touch me, smoothing my hair back and settling his hand on my cheek. He felt real and solid again. Warm and alive. I could feel the gentle flutter of his pulse in his wrist. She couldn’t mimic a heartbeat. There was no falseness or uncanny valley. Bucky Barnes was alive.

“If it’s not Chaos that’s making you relive these memories, then who is it?” he asked.

“I think it’s me,” I admitted. “She said something before—she said she only shows me what I ask her to show me.”

“Then why are you doing this to yourself?”

“I don’t know. I think—I think I started this because I was looking for something. There’s something I’m trying to figure out. I just can’t even remember what I’m looking for or why.”

“We’re at a loss about how to get this thing out of you. There has to be something missing. What you’re looking for has to be in these memories.” I shook my head. The trembling was getting worse. The pain was bleeding out of my chest and into the rest of me again. The shadows were starting to shift and warp behind him.

“I get lost in them. I forget they aren’t real. Sometimes something triggers a thought. Sometimes things seem slightly off, and I go off-script. But then I get swept up in them again. It’s like I’m reliving it all over again. How can I look for something if I can’t even remember what I’m supposed to look for? If I don’t even know that I’m looking for something?”

“I don’t know. We just have to keep trying. I’m doing everything I can on my end. Your doctor is flying out tomorrow. She thinks Banner might be able to help. We’re doing the best we can. We just don’t know where to start beyond digging through years of Stark’s research.”

“I think it’s coming back.”

“Then tell me what to do.”

“Feed me. For starters. God, I’m starving. Other than that—what was it I said earlier? I was trying to remember it.”

“You said ‘Darkness is what she’s made of. Not what she is.’ What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Just that it has to mean something if I was trying to force myself to remember it.” I gripped my stomach and winced. His hand moved to my shoulder.

“Hey,” he said. “Try to stay with me, okay? I’m right here. Wherever you go—try to remember that. I’m right here with you. I won’t leave you.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

The darkness flickered. Like a light that didn’t want to stay on. The pain was overwhelming again. The image of the basement lab and Bucky’s worried expression superimposed over the inside of my Malibu apartment.

“Don’t you have wedding planning to be doing?” I asked Tony.

Bucky squinted.

“Jo,” he said.

I reached my hand for his throat.

Tony looked up from where he’d been tinkering at his workbench.

I was in Malibu.

But I wasn’t. Before.

The pain eased out of me in a wave of relief. I was safe. I was in Malibu. Tony smiled.

He’d brought his whole workbench into my cell so we could design the suit together. I was covered to the neck in a mostly bare metal suit except for the few pieces he’d already painted black and silver.

“I’m here, Jo. I’m still with you,” a voice said.

I glanced at Tony in confusion. He hadn’t spoken.

“You think I’m the one doing the planning?” he asked as he stalked over to tinker with my ankle piece again. I stared at my reflection in the glass window, looking out over the water. It smiled back at me.

“Shouldn’t you be? It is a Stark party, after all,” I pointed out.

“Of course. Which means the people I hire will be perfectly capable of handling it. I have more important things to do.” I almost kicked him.

“Wow, Tony.” He flinched.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

He stood back up and ran his hand through his hair. I always preferred this Tony to the one who was so neat and stylish. This wasn’t Iron Man or playboy billionaire Tony. This was just a nerdy guy who liked to tinker with mechanics and make stupid shit for the hell of it. The same man who named all his robots and loved them like his own children even when they malfunctioned.

“How did you mean it then?” He pushed a button, forcing the suit to break back down.

“I just meant—party planning isn’t really my thing. Believe it or not.”

“That’s shocking. Partying sure is.” He shrugged and tossed some custom-built tool I couldn’t name onto the workbench he’d dragged in.

“That’s the thing. I never have to do the planning. I tell someone else what I want, pay them, and show up. That’s how it goes.”

“You reek of privilege, you know that? So you just choose not to have any say in how you get married?”

“We told them what we wanted, paid them, and now we’ll show up. I just want to marry her. I don’t care how it happens.”

“Okay, still reeks of privilege, but I’ll let it slide.” He grinned. “So, what’s next?”

“Next is testing. Making the suit is easy. But it’s not my usual work. It needs to protect you from the outside as much as the inside. I understand it enough to build you an apartment to contain you. But this is smaller and likely in closer quarters with innocent people. The biggest challenge I’m facing is actually the bleeding. I don’t want you to drown in your own blood.”

“A minor concern.”

“A major concern.”

We both sighed in frustration. He leaned against the workbench and crossed his arms over his chest. I knew he preferred to be in his own lab with his own things within reach. But he wasn’t ready to test the suit and wanted me to have a hand in it.

It wasn’t uncommon for him to build suits for the people he cared about. Rhodey was the only one I knew who ran with it the way he had. War Machine was as much an Avenger as Tony was. Clara, on the other hand, flat-out refused. But that didn’t mean Tony didn’t make her one anyway. Unlike mine, hers was just to protect her in the event of an earthquake or bombing or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was already a little baby-sized pod tucked away somewhere for Bernie.

“You know I never wanted one of these, right?” I pointed out. “Never even considered it.”

“I know. That’s what makes you such a good candidate. Rhodes never asked for one, either. I’d never give one to anyone who’d abuse it.” I nodded.

“I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to be an Avenger. I just want to make sure I can’t hurt anyone.”

“I know. Don’t worry. Yours won’t come with weaponry. I just couldn’t resist giving it a little pizazz.”

“Pizazz, right. Why black and silver?”

“To match your throwing knives. My first mock-up was going to be hot pink and glittery, but Clara said you’d rather die than wear that, so I threw it out.” I snorted.

“Yeah, that might be a little too much for me.”

“Thought so.”

“You look tired, Tony,” I noticed.

“Maybe I’m just getting old. A few years ago, I lived for this lifestyle. Parties, Avenging. But now I have a family. And—I’m tired.”

“You ever think about retiring?” He turned around and tapped the weird custom tool on a metal sheet. It made a clanging sound in the quiet apartment. A tap tap tap like the cuff around my wrist.

“I could,” Tony said.

“But you wouldn’t rest.”

“No. Not knowing there’s still so much more for me to do.” He gave me a playful smile as he prepared to brush it all off.

“I’m tired, too,” I admitted. “In my soul. Tired of doing the same things over and over again. I feel like I’m missing something. There’s something here I need to see, and I can’t figure out what it is. But something is happening out there. Something she doesn’t seem to want me to see.”

“What would you do if you didn’t have this affliction, so to speak?” I rubbed the ache in my chest. It wasn’t a literal pain. Just the ache of a tired soul.

“I don’t know. I haven’t considered having a future after this. Hurts too much, I think. Because I know I never will.”

“Have you ever considered that you’re reliving these memories because you don’t want to face the possibility that there’s life after all this?” I shook my head. That wasn’t what he’d said. So it wasn’t really him. Of course it wasn’t. It hadn’t been for a very long time. These were just memories. This man was a ghost.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m tired, and I don’t want to wake up in a world where everyone I love is dead.”

“Tony’s dead.” I nodded. I didn’t know if it was a question or a statement.

“I think I already knew that. He promised he’d be there when I woke up.”

“What would you do if you didn’t have this affliction, so to speak?” he repeated. We were back on track now. The momentary lapse was over.

“I don’t know. I haven’t considered having a future after this. Hurts too much.”

“God, you’re a pessimist.”

“Realistic.”

“Pessimistic.” He slapped my shoulder and walked away to collect all his things and finish up in his lab. “I got you a new doctor. Her name is Liv. She’s a close friend of Dr. Cho’s but does more work stateside. She’ll be meeting with you in a few days.”

“Hopefully, I won’t kill this one.”

“We’ll get this figured out.”

“What do you picture for me? For my future?”

“That house of yours needs an upgrade. Gotta get that roof fixed.”

“That’s where the raccoon lives.”

“You can’t have raccoons in your attic, Hayes. But not just the roof. There are other repairs you need done. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get you a dog.”

“Sell the house, Tony. I don’t think I’ll ever be going back.” Not without Bucky. Tony nodded.

“If that’s what you want.”

“I do. Just make sure the raccoon is okay.” Then he smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Will do.” He saluted me and went to leave.

“Can I ask you something?” I hadn’t said that before. Not in the actual memory. Tony stopped. Or at least the image of him did.

“What do you want to know?” he asked. Or Chaos did, in his voice.

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. I just want to go home.”

“You know they’ll help you, right? If you stop trying to kill them?”

“They’re not trying to help me. They only want to help you. Even if it destroys me.”

“Your chances of getting home will increase if you cooperate.”

She turned her head to look back at me. She was no longer wearing the mask of Tony Stark. Instead, she’d donned Beata’s face again.

“I’m hungry, Jo,” she stated. “It’s a hunger that can’t be sated on this planet. And you know how I feed in this atmosphere.” Then the memory vanished back into the dark with all the others.