Chapter 21: The Meeting

All of the flaps on the large command tent had been closed and tied shut. Phillips sat behind his desk, with Howard lounging in a chair nearby. Peggy sat as well. Bucky and Jimmy leaned against a table spread with maps with their arms crossed, both of them shooting each other cautious looks. Yori had found a chair near the desk. Howard was shooting her edgy looks. I perched on the edge of Phillips' desk and Steve leaned against a support pole in the middle.

"Well?" Phillips asked after a long, awkward silence. "What do you need to explain?"

I opened my mouth, not quite sure how to begin the long and convoluted explanation.

"I think it'll be easiest if I just show them," Yori said after I faltered. I slanted my eyes at her.

"You don't have to-"

"I know, but it's easiest. Gets the ball rolling, so to speak."

First Yori reached up and pulled off the hat that had miraculously stayed on her head the whole time. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders. Most of it was coal black, but a few chunks were a bright, unnatural red. Then she shucked her coat. Her tail slipped from behind her and draped over the arms of the chair with her massive leathery wings. Peggy gasped, Phillips' eyes widened, and Howard actually scooted a little farther away. Yori reached a clawed hand up and removed the mask from her face. Her eyes were a burning red color and red markings ringed her face, spikes that started from her hairline, her jaw, her temples, and pointed in towards her nose. She smiled, revealing slightly elongated, pointy canines framed by naturally blood red lips.

"I didn't hallucinate that," Bucky said faintly, like he hadn't been sure. I felt his eyes linger on me but I didn't look at him.

"Damn," Jimmy chuckled. "I'd heard about you from Jo here, but I didn't realize just quite how badass you are."

Yori smiled, lounging back in her chair. "You know how to flatter a girl," she snickered. "Come on, I've heard about you from Josie as well." Her eyes flashed with interest. "Let me see them."

Jimmy raised a hand and clenched his fist. Three bony claws a foot in length extended from between his fingers. Yori nodded approvingly.

"Are they are strong as Josie's?"

Jimmy shook his head. "Nah, but I'm stronger and faster than she is."

"Ealum." Phillips' voice was strained, but he was still looking very much in control of himself, which was more than I could say for some people who'd seen Yori. "What am I looking at here?"

"Yes, I think I'd like an explanation as well," Peggy said. Her eyes lingered on Yori's tail, the spade-like tip of which was twitching like a cat's.

Howard, bless him, spoke up. "They're like you, right?" he guessed, looking at me. I nodded, and Phillips flinched.

"Okay, I may have missed some things, but I know you don't have wings."

I shook my head. "No, I don't. That's not… We, the three of us, are all mutants."

"Mutants," Phillips repeated bluntly. "I'm gonna need more than that."

"We carry a mutated gene," I explain. "It gives us… special powers. Some of them are invisible until used, like Jimmy and I, but some of them have, er…" I glanced at Yori.

"Cosmetic influences," Yori supplied, reaching up to touch one of the stripes on her cheek.

"There are only a handful of us that I've ever found," I continued. "All different, from what I've seen. Yori can fly and use her tail, but she also has-"

"This." The whip of light uncurled from Yori's fingers. She snapped it over head with a crack and then let it vanish.

"You've seen Jimmy's claws, but he can also heal at a greatly accelerated rate," I said, pointing to Jimmy. "You could shoot him in the chest and it wouldn't even drop him."

"And what about you?" Peggy asked weakly. "Do you have the…?" She raised her hand questioningly, remembering Yori's comment.

I winced. "Not… not quite. I'm… You know this Howard, but I'm a chimera," I explained. He nodded. He knew all about that, he'd even called me Tigress a time or two. "That means I have two different sets of genetic material making up my body," I explained for the benefit of everyone in the tent who didn't have a basic knowledge of genetics. "Two different sets of genetic material. Both of which are mutated."

"That still doesn't answer her question," Phillips said, his eyes fixed on me.

"I'm similar to Jimmy in a way. We're both what I call 'feral mutants.' That is, people whose mutations have certain animalistic characteristics."

"Tigress," Howard realized.

I nodded. "Not just because of the fact that my skin has stripes under black light," I explained. "The 'feral' package usually includes enhanced speed and strength and enhanced senses. I can hear and smell better and I'm more flexible than a normal person and on top of that, I have an instinctive side that displays several qualities of a big cat."

"Like what?" Steve asked.

Jimmy snorted. "Ever seen her near catnip? It's hilarious."

I flushed. "Aside from that-"

"You also had a really bad tendency towards biting and scratching in a fight," Yori recalled. "And you like going for the throat."

I winced. "Yeah, that too."

"What was that you did on the catwalk?" I froze as Bucky spoke up. His eyes were on me but I still couldn't look at him. I didn't want to see the disgust. "You made… spikes or something come out of you."

Howard made a face. "Yeah, Erskine said that was a little off-putting."

Phillips looked like at any moment he might blow steam. "Erskine knew?"

Howard nodded. "Yeah. We both knew about the second bit. She told us. Left out the big cat thing, though," he said, looking at me in annoyance.

"I can manipulate my osteoblasts and osteoclasts," I explained. "In layman's terms, I can harden or soften my bones, make new ones, and force them out of my body. Because of that, it also comes with advanced healing, like Jimmy."

"That's why she told us," Howard said knowledgably. "Once she found out Steve was going to be our guinea pig she got all anxious, particularly when we couldn't get the survival rate as high as she wanted. She told us about her advanced regeneration and gave us a sample to work with. That's probably part of why you survived the procedure," he added to Steve, whose eyes widened.

"You told them about this... to help me?" he said, looking incredibly touched. Also, incredibly guilty. "You didn't have to share your secret, I'm sure I would have been okay…"

"There was a three in four chance that was true," I agreed. "But there was also a one in four chance it wasn't. And I made a promise to try and keep you out of trouble." I lowered my gaze, focusing on my feet. "I don't break promises."

"That's why you weren't afraid to go with Steve," Peggy realized. "You knew if you got hurt you'd just heal."

I nodded sheepishly. I felt worn and thin, like butter scraped over too much bread. So much had come spilling out today and I was exhausted after running around the HYDRA factory and surrounding forest like a madwoman. I could feel myself crashing fast. I sagged tiredly at the edge of the desk and pushed myself off of it.

"If that's all, I'm going to go," I said quietly.

"I think I'll join you in a moment," Yori said, reaching for her disguise. I gave her directions to my tent and then, when no one stopped me, I stepped out into the camp.

Bucky watched Josie walk out of the tent. She hadn't looked at him the whole time she'd been in the tent. Back in the medical tent she hadn't either, she'd been as cold an impersonal as any nurse. Even when he'd asked her a question she'd still avoided looking at him. In fact, she hadn't looked at him once since those spikes – bones, he thought, and felt a little queasy – had popped out of her back in the factory.

He'd been equal parts delighted and horrified to see her. His first thought had been pleasure to see her, followed immediately by terror at the idea that HYDRA had captured her. When he'd realized she had come with Steve to rescue him, he'd again been touched that she would risk so much to come after him and appalled that she'd risked so much to come after him.

His heart had nearly stopped when she leaped over that huge gap. He'd been so certain she wasn't going to make it, and she nearly hadn't. Once he'd gotten her over the railing he couldn't resist pulling her into his arms, reassuring himself that she was really okay.

Then entire walk back to camp from the factory, she hovered near her friend in the mask. Bucky had been quietly curious about the lady behind the snarling demon face, but he'd brushed it off as some kind of idiosyncrasy. He'd been pleased to let Josie linger protectively by her friend, contenting himself with a few glances a minute just to remind himself that she was okay.

He'd thought, when she walked into the medical tent and approached him, that she wanted to talk, to catch up, just like they used to. But she'd been icy cold and distant. Her eyes were always sparkling when she talked to him, but they'd been dim and tired. Her answers were short and stilted. It… hurt. A lot.

H couldn't deny, he'd been a little off-put when Josie had at first just sprouted spikes out of nowhere. He could still remember the sickening sucking sound that he'd heard when she pulled that spike – rib – out of her torso and the animalistic snarl she'd worn when she'd thrown it. He remembered the way she'd dropped down on all fours and how easily she'd run that way.

It had spun his mind when Yori started shucking protective layers and exposing wings and a tail and those markings on her face. Everything about her, from her eyes to her teeth to her nails screamed inhuman. And then Jimmy had just casually shoved some bony claws out of his fist like it was nothing. He couldn't quite make it fit in his head, the idea that people could do these kinds of things, even though he'd seen it with his own eyes.

Then Josie began to explain, just like she always did when someone didn't understand something. She was great that way. He knew people in school who'd sneered down their noses at those who asked them to explain something, or who had made the answer so convoluted you walked off more confused than you approached them. Josie never did that, she just laid out all the facts.

He remembered their conversations at Camp Lehigh like they were yesterday. They and the picture still tucked inside his waistband, hidden from the HYDRA guards, had been the things that kept him fighting when the guards tried to beat them down, had kept him smiling when some of the other men cried themselves to sleep. Every night he was in that hell that he wasn't strapped to a damn table – the indignity of that one still rankled – he had fallen asleep looking at her smiling face.

The picture itself wasn't anything special. It was just Josie. She was sitting under a tree with a book in her lap, just like he'd found her doing so often at basic. She was looking up at the camera and smiling widely, one hand turning a page. Her grey eyes seemed to sparkle even through the black and white.

He'd seen her eyes sparkle a lot like that during their conversations, whenever it was something she was particularly passionate about. He remembered it the days they'd talked about mutations. She'd explained about her field of human mutation, even told him he was a mutant. He'd asked if she was one and, thinking back, he remembered her eyes widening slightly at the question before she answered. When she'd confirmed it, those words now carried so much more weight. She was telling him as much as she was able to at the time.

And considering what she said about an animalistic side, her choice of reading about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made a lot of sense. The book took on a whole new meaning when you looked at it from the perspective of someone who was as much in touch with their instinctive, animalistic side as Josie explained herself to be. He remembered the slightly hurt look on her face when he'd shuddered at the main character and now he felt like kicking himself.

"Because I'm a monster too!"

There had been so much rage on her face when she'd snarled that at Schmidt, but it came out so easily. Bucky realized with a jolt that she really did mean it. She considered herself a monster compared to normal people, or at least, knew that a lot of other people would see her as a monster. His heart broke as he wondered what she must have been through to reach that conclusion.

He wondered if that's why she hadn't so much as looked at him. Did she expect him to reject her? To push her away and call her a monster, a freak?

Bucky's eyes flicked to Steve, who was still lingering by the support post. Steve gave him a sympathetic look. He'd noticed how Josie refused to look at him as well.

Yori cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her as she began tucking her hair into her hat.

"Quit looking like a kicked puppy," she snapped at Bucky. His eyes widened in surprise. "None of us who have the option come clean about what we are. As you may have noticed, that leads to people wanting to cut us open and find out how we tick. She's been told since she was a child to protect herself from that, and she knows what could happen if she told someone who was normal about what she was."

"I wouldn't-" Bucky started angrily, offended by the very idea.

Josie wasn't entirely human, and that had thrown him off at first, but it would throw anyone off, wouldn't it? He'd never met anyone like her, he already knew that. That was just even more true now.

"I'm getting that," Yori cut him off. "Unfortunately, I'm not the one who needs to understand it. Maybe you should tell her, yes?" She rolled her eyes when he just gaped at her. "Go after her now, baka, or I'll change my mind about letting you anywhere near my protégée."

Bucky didn't know what she'd just called him, but it definitely wasn't polite. He also knew she was right. He needed to get to Josie and talk some things out with her before she withdrew from him so much he couldn't get her back.

Bucky darted out of the tent, intent on seeking out his Belle.

"What do you mean, your protégée?" Phillips demanded as Bucky hustled out. "You barely look older than Josie."

Yori smirked. "I know. Suffice it to say, I look damn good for my age."

I sat at the edge of my bed, head buried in my hands.

I had never wanted anyone to know this about me – not anyone normal, at least. If they knew then they could judge, and if they decided I was a freak, a monster… it would hurt. It would hurt a lot. And now in one fell swoop all of the normal people who were most important to me knew about me. All of them could judge me in any way they wanted, and I was afraid of how many of them I was about to lose.

My ears pricked at the sound of footsteps coming closer. They were heavy, like the person was tired.

"Belle?" called a voice from outside. It was Bucky. Of course it was. "You decent?"

I smiled bitterly. "Debatable," I called back. "Come in."

Bucky ducked under the flap. He looked tired and worn and grungy, like he should after spending months in a prison. But he had a smile on his face, one that looked genuine, and it was enough to make me submit to hope that maybe he wouldn't be angry.

"Can I sit?" Bucky asked, nodding to the end of my bed. I nodded and he set himself down beside me. For a moment we just sat there, both of us leaning forwards with our elbows on our knees.

"Are you disgusted?" I asked softly. I had to know or it was going to drive me crazy. "Just tell me, please."

Bucky didn't answer for a moment. I grew tenser and tenser with each moment that passed.

"Show me again?" Bucky requested. I looked up at him in surprise, but he was just looking at me with those big blue eyes of his, a politely questioning look on his face.

Hesitantly I offered him my hand. From inside my palm a spike of bone emerged along with a trickle of blood. I kept the tip rounded so it wasn't as threatening.

Bucky reached out with his left hand, cupping the back of my hand and lifting it higher so that he could see the spike. Slowly, he raised his other hand.

"Can I touch?" he asked curiously, tilting his head and observing the bone. I nodded wordlessly. I was frozen in place, I couldn't have denied him anything at that moment. I was on tender hooks, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Bucky trailed a finger along the bone slowly. "Can you feel that?" he asked curiously.

"Sort of." I shifted uncomfortably. "Are you disgusted?" I asked again.

Bucky sighed and dropped my hand. "Aw geez, Belle." He leaned forwards on his knees again, rubbing a palm over his face. "Disgusted's a pretty harsh word. I think unnerved is a little better."

I turned away, pulling my hand into my lap and sucking the bone back into my palm. I didn't want to unnerve him anymore. The tears were prickling my eyes and this time I didn't know if I could hold them back.

"Don't look like that, Belle," Bucky begged, sounding pained. "You're breaking my heart. You didn't let me finish."

I shook my head, tears ready to fall. "What more is there to say? I unnerve you and you don't want to be around me anymore. It's hardly the first time…"

"Belle!" Bucky barked. I looked up at him, startled. "When did I say I didn't want anything to do with you?"

I blinked. "W-Well, n-normal people tend to be-"

"But I'm not normal, am I?" Bucky said supportively, grabbing my shoulders and turning me slightly to face him. "Remember? You told me once I was a mutant too. Blue eyes?" he coaxed, urging me to remember.

I smiled, remembering that day under the tree. Me surrounded by papers and Bucky lounging there while I explained human mutation.

"I'm a little jealous to be honest," Bucky said with a small chuckle. "I get pretty eyes, you get superpowers." I gave a watery laugh at that. "Belle, I think the only reason that spiky thing you do even bothers me is because… well, usually if your bones are outside your body then something's gone wrong."

I laughed again. "That's true," I admitted.

"You used what you could do to help Steve pull through that experiment of his," Bucky said gently, taking my hands again and folding them between his own. "I can't hate that. I don't see how anyone could. What you can do, all of you… it's amazing."

I snorted. "You would be one of the few who think that," I said softly. Bucky scowled.

"Who got you so sure that everyone was going to hate you for this?" he demanded angrily. "Who would do that?"

"Part of it was Yori," I recalled. "Her parents abandoned her when they saw her. People shunned her, called her a demon, tried to kill her. I was scared that if people knew, the same thing would happen to me. I know it was a different time, but still. And also… my stepmother," I admitted softly.

"C'mere." Bucky wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close so that I leaned up against his chest. I nuzzled there, breathing deeply and just basked in the feeling of being held. Bucky stroked my hair with his other hand and planted a kiss on top of my head.

"You don't have to tell me," he promised me. "But if you want to… I'll listen."

"It's okay." For the first time I wanted to tell someone everything about me. Probably because I could. Bucky wasn't running, he wasn't looking down his nose at me and he wasn't calling me an abomination.

"I grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with me," I began. "Granny Nevade also has a mutation, so it was accepted. My family worked hard to shelter us from any outside scorn. But then my father met Sarah. He fell in love and married her. She didn't know anything about us. When she found out…" I trailed off.

"She was appalled. Sarah's always been disgusted by my abilities. That's what started her crusade to turn me into a proper lady, but it never worked. So she turned her focus to a consolation prize – the family money. My great-grandmother Nevade is the matriarch of our family – she saw what Sarah was doing to me, how it made me feel. Nevade has made sure that Sarah can't get to a single cent of the Ealum fortune.

"It's started a bit of a silent war in the family. Dad hates what Sarah does to me, but he's an optimist. He thinks that if we spent some time together and got to know each other it would all go away. He loves me, but he also loves her. The past couple of years I decided to just step away from the family for a while. For his sake, to try and get rid of some of the tension."

For a moment we just sat, Bucky holding me and stroking my hair and me basking in his acceptance. It was something that I'd always avoided even a chance at for the sake of protecting myself.

"Damn," Bucky finally murmured. "I don't see how anyone could do that to a kid."

"Easily," I replied. "It's a fact of life for us. Family will forgive a lot, but not everything. Yori was abandoned. Jimmy never speaks about his parents, but I get the feeling there's definitely some history there. I've met a few others, and a lot of them have stories to tell." I shook my head. "It's not surprising really. Lots of people would be unnerved finding out that their best friend could… I don't know, set them on fire or something."

I buried closer to Bucky and inhaled deeply. His chest shook with a laugh.

"Are you… Are you smelling me?" he asked, sounding like he was torn between confusion and amusement. My eyes widened and my face burned red. "Belle?"

"You… smell good," I admitted shyly, pulling away from him a little. "I mentioned my sense of smell is heightened, right? I can smell the unique scent of a person."

Bucky laughed outright at that one. "Belle, I spent a couple of months in a cage and I haven't cleaned up any more than sticking my head in a bucket the whole time. There is no way I smell good."

We just took a sharp turn towards Mary Sue, I know. Let me explain - this is part of what inspired this story in the first place. A friend of mine was studying genetics and I got curious. I stumbled across chimerism and was interested in the concept - I also wondered how normal genetic mutations could interact with x-men style mutations. Thus, Josie was born as my mental experiment. I'd wanted to do a BuckyXOC for some time and she seemed perfect, particularly since her own genetics were the perfect thing to get her interested in the subject.

And now, a word on both Yori and Josie's abilities. I've had a couple people say they were surprised by this or they weren't expecting it. I'd like to explain where I got the ideas for their abilities.

Josie: As previously mentioned, chimeras sometimes have lines on their body, hence the UV scene in a previous chapter. Tigress was an appropriate code name for her so I decided that her second mutation would be something similar to Wolverine's animalistic tendencies. It also offers the potential for some interesting scenes and conflicts. As for her bones, well, that was plucked from the character of Kimimaro from Naruto. He also had the ability to manipulate his bones and advanced healing. I adore his character and think he was gone too soon, and I think his abilities present some fascinating possibilities, so I used him as another basis for a power.

Yori: Yori has been bouncing around my head for some time now. I have no idea where she came from, she was just there one day. I wanted Josie to have a sort of mentor so she didn't come out of the gate kicking butt for no reason, and I also wanted Steve to have someone who could relate to him after he was defrosted, so I decided to use her here.

Yori's abilities and bits of her appearance were also inspired by a mash-up of characters from various anime. I took the idea of having bat-like wings from Mira Jane of Fairy Tail. Also, if you've ever seen Inuyasha, you will probably recognize her 'light whip' as a technique of Sesshomaru's, as well as her having fangs and claws. His markings also became the inspiration for Yori's, although she has considerably more of them. Also, Yori's future code name of 'Youkai' comes from the demons of Inuyasha as well. In the show, Sesshomaru is a very accomplished swordsman, and I gave Yori a bit of that as well. Also, because I think Japanese weapons are absolutely gorgeous - hence her asking for her sword last chapter.

So, there you go! Kind of a behind the scenes look at these characters. I don't know if any of you care but I always find it kind of interesting when an author gives some background on where the idea for characters comes from.