Absolute Gravity

Hungry.

The body was hungry. I was hungry.

I wanted to be whole. Bigger. I wanted to go home.

“Where is home?” Bucky asked.

“Home is wherever I am,” I told him.

I was in Tony’s kitchen. In the cabin again. The late afternoon sun spilled in through the window over the sink. The curtains made it glow like gold. There were no lights on yet. So the shadows stretched, and the other three people in the room made no move to fix it. Bucky stood before me, leaning against the sink, haloed in that golden glow. He looked at me with an expression I’d never seen from him before. Like he couldn’t stand me. Sam and Wanda lingered back by the door. There were no signs of anyone else, save for the colorful plastic plates in the dish drainer that looked like something a kid would have.

Time had passed. Decisions were made. I was moved, no longer cuffed to a cot. Conversations were still being had.

The pain was ebbing out again like low tide. Peeling back the veil of Darkness enough to give me a glimpse.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” Bucky asked. “Tearing her apart?” This conversation had started without me. He wasn’t talking to me. It wasn’t me that he detested. He had his arms over his chest, sleeves rolled up to show the black and gold of the unfamiliar arm.

“I’ll tear all of you apart if that’s what it takes,” Chaos told him. He sighed and glared at me.

“You know I can’t let you do that.” She laughed. I laughed.

“And what makes you think you can stop me?”

“It’s bluffing,” Wanda said from the other side of the kitchen. She leaned in the doorway, watching us talk. Sam hung back too like he didn’t trust me and might have to get between us. She didn’t need him to protect her. But they both knew I’d hesitate to hurt him.

Chaos was hungry. I was hungry. Wanda would taste the sweetest.

“It doesn’t want to hurt Johanna,” Wanda said. “It loves her. It loves you.” Bucky looked like he didn’t like that. He scowled. But I smiled at the girl.

“You have so much chaos inside you,” I told her. “But you allow yourself to be limited by the confines of your body. I’m what happens when you don’t.”

“But you’re limited by Jo’s body,” Bucky pointed out.

“Humans are very big things inside very tiny bodies. And yet, you’re still incapable of comprehending the magnitude of what I am and what I can do. Jo’s body limits me because I’m allowing it to limit me. But I am a very big piece of a much larger whole. I existed long before your planet formed, and I’ll exist long after it’s gone. You’re all an insignificant fraction of my life. So don’t mistake my fondness for love. I’ll go home. Whether I tear her apart or not. I’m asking you not to kill me because you won’t succeed. You’ll only kill her.”

“And you don’t want her to die.”

She didn’t answer. I didn’t answer.

My stomach rumbled again. So Chaos focused on my need before her own. I moved to pick up the fork beside me. They’d given me food even though I wasn’t me. But the pain was still sinking away. Giving me more control over my own thoughts and movements.

It was terrifying to watch my life be lived without me. To be a passenger in my own body. I only checked in mid-conversation like a radio that kept going in and out. All I could do was watch while she threatened the people I cared about.

“B-Bucky?” I managed to get out. The pain was mine. It didn’t belong to Chaos. And it seemed the more pain there was, the less control I had. I had to take advantage of it while I still could. “I don’t know how to make it stop.”

He was in front of me in half a second. He set his hand on mine, forcing it still. Forcing me to feel him again. There was a pulse in his wrist. One, two. Three, four.

“You can fight it,” he promised me. His eyes were sincere and blue and very real. “We’re doing everything we can on this end. I need you to keep looking, okay? Look for what you’re missing. There has to be a piece we didn’t catch.”

“I can’t go back to the place where you’re gone.”

“They’re just memories, Jo. They’re in the past. They aren’t real anymore. I’m here, and I’m alive. Try to hold onto that. Try to pay attention to what you see. Try not to get lost in the memories.” I shook my head.

“The pain comes and goes in waves. I have more control when the pain lessons. I think—I think she takes control when the agony gets too much.”

“She’s trying to protect you from it,” Wanda confirmed. I nodded. But I needed to get as much out as possible before losing control again.

“Tony built me a suit,” I told him. “It’s self-contained. Not a weapon. Like a reverse hazmat suit. Nanotech. Find the watch. It’s black and silver. It will stop her from hurting anyone. It won’t contain her forever, but it’ll give us more time.”

“Black and silver watch,” Sam said, already moving for the door. “I’m on it.”

The memory flickered. The feel of Bucky’s hand on mine. Metal against my skin. The feel of my knives flipping through my fingers. Black and silver. The flash of the window in the kitchen. Bucky bathed in that warm gold light. The trees around us in the place we used to train. The slice of a metal blade through the pad of my thumb.

“I hurt you,” I stated. Bucky turned back to me. “Did I?” He shook his head.

“No, Jo. You haven’t done anything.”

“I miss you. If you’re real. If you’re telling me the truth. I miss you. I love you.”

He held me against his chest. We were in Romania, holding each other in the woods where we trained. His long hair tickled my neck when he hugged me. The birds were twittering from the trees. I’d hurt my hand by accident. He pressed it to his chest between us.

“I know,” he said in the memory, his fingers moving to my hair. His cheek was rough and warm against mine. “And I love you too.”

The mirror showed the image of a woman who looked nothing like me. It was me, of course, beneath all the makeup and the pretty shimmering red gown. Clara had picked it out herself. Not even giving me a say. I hadn’t asked to have one anyway. It was her wedding, after all. I’d wear whatever she wanted me to wear.

And now I was running my fingers down my sides. Skin catching on the deep red gems. The dress was the color of wine. It matched my lips. My hair was silky and smooth for the first time in years. I couldn’t even see the hollow spaces between my eyes. I didn’t look like me.

“You’re thinking about him,” Chaos said. The palm shadows twisted on the floor. Why was I thinking about him?

I’d just seen him. Hadn’t I?

“I know he never cared about my appearance,” I sighed. “But sometimes I wish we could have gotten dressed up and gone out. Like normal people. I used to like to dress up. Before.”

“You wish he could see you in that dress.”

“Maybe.”

“You look beautiful,” he said from behind me. There was no image of him in the reflection. So when I spun around, I didn’t expect him to be there. He hadn’t been in the memory. He’d been somewhere far away. Lost to me. But he was standing there now. In my apartment in Malibu. Hair short. Arm black. The red on the pillows was just a little too saturated.

“Let him in,” I told Chaos. “Let Wanda push him through.” She said nothing. The red faded back into its normal dull color. Until someone else was standing where he’d been. We were back in the memory. The day of Clara’s wedding.

“You look beautiful,” my dad said.

“Dad?” I asked.

“You seem surprised. My daughter is getting married, isn’t she?”

“No, that’s not why I was surprised. I—you were someone else. Or at least I thought you were. For just a moment. Of course you’re here. I just—wasn’t expecting to see you in my cell.” He nodded slowly, eyes creasing with a frown.

“Tony told us something was going on. But—I didn’t expect this.” I sighed and dropped my hands again.

“It’s fine. I just never wanted you to see me like this. That’s all.” I stepped forward to give him a hug. He squeezed me as if we hadn’t spent time apart. As if I had never learned the truth about who he was. That he wasn’t my father by blood. But it didn’t matter, and it never would. He was my dad. I held him tighter. Longer than I had in the memory.

Something resurfaced. A flicker of conscious thought.

He was going to die.

“Don’t let me go,” I whispered.

“Never,” Chaos promised.