They'd only been home for a couple of hours, but already things felt the most normal they'd been in quite some time. There was just something about her now – barely even 48 hours after receiving Steve's stem cells – that made Tessa seem… lighter, more relaxed, more… okay.
Sure, she still had a road ahead of her in terms of physical recovery. Mattingly and Bruce both stressed that enough to very nearly put the fear of God back into them. But everyone could see that – whether this would turn out to truly be a cure or not – for Tessa at least, one giant hurdle had been overcome. And the change that spawned in her was utterly remarkable.
"So, anyway," Bucky mumbles into his phone with a sigh. "Yeah, I think we might be good." He pauses briefly, only just now realizing how long he's gone on talking to Steve's voicemail, blabbering on to a machine about how we're home now and Tessa thinks your enhanced cells did the trick and isn't that just incredible and damn if we don't owe you everything, pal. He releases a small chuckle, shaking his head wistfully. "Sorry about the long message. Just… thought you'd want to know. And call when you can. We really want to know how things went with Ross."
He hangs up the call and tosses his cell to the side, dropping his elbows to his knees and his head to his hands. It had been a long week for sure. Aside from everything he and Tessa had just gone through, and in addition to discovering the rather blatant link between Ross and… everything, the compound had been bat shit crazy for days as the entire team fell headlong into finally busting this case wide open.
Stark had yet to return from his tour of the world powers, but everyday he managed to call with some new tidbit… some bright, shiny morsel of either rumor or truth that helped to propel the investigation along. More potentially useful intel had been gathered from the dusty old files in the storeroom too, especially once they decided to finally put the support team in to work on it. They scrambled the team into shifts, allowing them to more efficiently tackle the gargantuan feat of digging through all of the crap brought in from the storage facility that Atkinson had led them to. Bucky was still adamant – and Tony, for once, wholeheartedly had his back in the matter – that no one be told about Tessa's genetics, her powers, nor her history with the X-Men. If any of the team happened upon something related to her, they'd handle it then.
So far, nothing about her – or, surprisingly, any of the X-Men – had been unveiled. But they did uncover more names with multiple connections that seemed promising. Sam had gone with a couple of the support staff to try and track down these new leads while Vision and Wanda continued huddling together – such a sacrifice on their parts – in the small tech lab, going through all of the hard drives, thumb drives and even floppy discs that cluttered that part of the compound.
They still didn't have answers – though, hopefully, Steve and Natasha had gotten some from Ross – but for the first time in a long-ass time, it felt like they were at least making progress.
Bucky hears the soft ding of the dryer and takes just another moment to allow himself to melt languidly into the sofa before he pulls his heavy body up and rises with an exhausted sounding groan. It's barely two in the afternoon and already he cannot wait to curl up in bed tonight, a billowing excitement growing with each passing hour – each deeply felt yawn – that tonight might just garner him the best sleep he's had in… well, a really fucking long time.
He shuffles down the hall to the laundry nook, stopping short and cocking his head curiously to the side upon spying Tessa leaning heavily over the top of the wide-open dryer. "What are you doing?" he asks with a laugh, staring at her looming awkwardly in front of the machine as it heaves thick, hot air out onto her sweatpants-clad legs.
She startles a bit, dumfounded look on her face as she turns to him. Her mouth gapes open like a fish out of water – like someone who's just been caught. "Nothing," she mutters, a bit too quickly. Then, turning back towards the blessedly warm dryer, "laundry," an obvious lie.
He smirks as he steps forward and moves around her, leaning down to inspect the contents of the machine. "You're just standing in front of the open dryer. You aren't even folding anything."
She shrugs, still bent over at the waist, collecting the slowly drifting hot air into her core. "These clothes aren't ready yet."
A single, questioning brow raises high. "Then why is the dryer open?"
Another blithe shrug. "Because it's warm. But these clothes aren't done yet. They have to go through again. To fulfill their destiny."
He feels his lips pull into an amused smirk. "Their destiny?"
She nods once, definitively. "They're destined to keep me warm." Then she frowns deep and dramatic, pivoting only barely to look over at him, still afraid to move too far lest any more of the rapidly dissipating heat escapes. "No more hot flashes," she tells him sorrowfully. "So cold."
A deep chuckle builds in his chest, burns up his throat as he takes a step closer to her. "You're cold because you still don't have any meat on your bones," he says, reaching out and playfully pinching at her ribs through her heavy sweater.
She lets out a small squeal and jumps back, so close to the dryer that her hip's nearly inside of it. "You can't say that to a woman. You can't talk to me about meat on my bones."
He gives her a coy look – sly and mischievous – before crossing his arms casually over his chest and asking, "Should I tell you that you need more cushion for the pushin'?"
Her eyes blow wide as, "Oh my God!" sputters out of her and she shoots stark upright, spinning to face him. "Where did you even hear that?!"
He shrugs, swallows down the laughter that threatens to churn out of him, and replies simply, "Sam."
She blinks once, twice, and turns back to the still open dryer. "Well, he is officially banned from this house."
"'Bout damn time," he mutters contentedly, before taking hold of her arm and tugging her away from the machine. "You keep running that same load through the dryer, you're gonna shrink all my clothes," he tells her as he pulls her close, tucking her to his chest.
She lets out a little whine of protest, twisting in his grip and reaching plaintively for the nearly dispelled hot air as he kicks the dryer door shut. With a thick pout, she falls forward into his warm and inviting body, giving in easily. She folds her arms up between them, leans all of her weight on him, and mumbles indistinctively into his chest, "Oh no. We wouldn't want that."
He wraps his arms tighter around her, hugging her close, and he feels a slight shiver pass through her as she works her elbows into his ribs as though trying to burrow into him. He rests his chin on the top of her head for a long moment, breathing in her scent… and the awful, far-too-familiar smell of hospital antiseptic. "How 'bout I run you a bath?" he suggests, pulling back just enough to gaze down at her and gauge her reaction. "Get warm and clean at the same time?"
"Are you calling me dirty?" she inquires, just a hint of offense to her tone.
He brings his flesh hand up to cup the side of her face, fingers reaching idly back into her hair as he begins spinning a limp curl before giving the lock a small tug. "You smell like medical," He mutters with a crooked, teasing grin.
She gives a quick shrug and retorts haughtily, "I happen to like medical." Her smug expression as she cocks her head up pulls a clipped snort of a laugh out of him. "Fine," she announces after just a brief moment of thought. She pulls out of his embrace and spins away, heading off down the hall. "Make it a hot one," she tosses over her shoulder.
He frowns down at the suddenly empty space in his arms before glowering at her. "Where are you going?"
She pivots to enter the kitchen, leans out of the doorway to look back at him with a rather stern guise. "I'm making hot cocoa to take into my bath," she states decisively, hint of prescribing doctor to her tone. "Warming from the inside and out." A wide grin spills out over her face and that beautiful lightness that has been so very absent from her eyes for so very long sweeps back in, almost making her green irises glow a brilliant emerald, glistening even in the dim, yellow light of the hall. "You want?"
He feels his pulse quicken as he watches her impatiently shift from foot to foot, expectant brow raised high as she waits for his reply. He releases a short laugh, shaking his head fondly as he heads for the hall bath. "Sure, baby," he says before ducking in to start the water. "That sounds good."
000
"So you haven't heard anything?" she shouts from the bathroom, thick steam still filtering out into the hallway through the wide-open door.
Bucky grins to himself as he listens to the sound of the hairdryer blowing, a noise that he, truthfully, rarely hears even when Tessa's at 100%. Nine times out of ten, she simply pulls her hair up into a dripping, messy bun right out of the shower rather than making any attempt to do anything with it. So the fact that she's willing to dry her hair post-bath – fact that she has the energy and desire to make an attempt to do anything at all right now – that alone has him feeling like he's dancing all the way up on cloud freakin' nine.
He strides into the bedroom and cracks open a window to release some of the built-up steam from the apartment. "Steve called last night to check in on you," he says, shouting a bit over the hairdryer as he moves into the bedroom doorway and leans his hip on the jamb. "And I left him a voicemail a little while ago. But I haven't heard from him or Romanov since." He folds his arms across his chest as he watches her – clad in nothing more than a damp towel as she looms half in the bathroom, half in the hall – tossing her long, dark waves back and forth as she awkwardly tries to hold the diffuser in place. "You know what you're doing there?" he asks, thoroughly amused lilt to his voice.
She flips herself upright, stumbling back a bit as she goes, one hand reaching out for the vanity. The hairdryer flips off and an annoyed huff escapes her lips. "I hate this thing," she grumbles, angrily pulling the plug from the socket. He walks over and takes it from her, wraps the cord carefully around the handle before tossing it into the cabinet beneath the sink. When he looks up again, she's sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, deep frown on her face. "I'm tired," she bemoans. "I shouldn't be tired from drying my hair."
He kneels down in front of her, lays a hand on her knee and gives it a quick squeeze. His warm, flesh fingers slowly travel up her thigh, just meeting the hem of the towel barely covering her as she sits. "You can't fix everything all at once," he tells her, voice low and sincere. "It's gonna take time."
She looks up and locks onto his steely blue eyes, her own bright green orbs looking so much clearer – even if currently dulled by frustration and a hint of defeat. "It's already been too long."
He smiles crookedly at her. "You feel your powers coming back?" She gives him a perplexed look, brows knitting tightly together. "If you want, you can pull some of my energy."
Her head falls back dramatically. "Very funny," she gripes.
Bucky just shrugs. "I've got nothing going on today. I could just take a nap. Sleep it off" She glares at him admonishingly. "I'd recover," he says with a small chuckle. "You know I would."
She reaches down to her thigh, where his fingers continue to play with the thick terrycloth towel, rough callouses lightly butting up against her goosebump-pocked skin. And she swiftly pushes him away, rising so fast that she actually knocks him off balance and sends him crashing to the floor with a theatrical harrumph and a barely stifled laugh.
"I'm not going to pull your life force so that I can get dressed without yawning," she intones, looming over him. Her hand extends down to him and he sniggers as he reaches for it, standing easily after letting her struggle for a moment to haul him upright.
"How 'bout some soup, then?" he offers, following her out into the hall and lingering there as she sweeps into their bedroom to begin digging around bureau drawers for her clothes.
"Ugh," she moans, roughly pulling on a pair of underwear just as he steps into the room. "You ever gonna say anything to me again that doesn't involve the offer of food?" A tank top comes next, tugged over her head while the towel's still on, a seemingly insecure action that does not go unnoticed. His smile falters – just a bit – as he watches her dress without ever allowing herself to be naked… without ever allowing him to see her laid bare.
"Not sure," he mutters with a shrug.
The towel finally drops, once a pair of navy leggings are in place, and she spins to face him. "Are you my husband or are you my waiter?"
Another shrug. "Depends on how well you tip."
Her eyes narrow at him, a thoroughly unamused expression pulling at her features. But he knows those eyes well enough to discern the smiling twinkle buried within. The accusatory look quickly fades as she continues to stare him down for a moment longer, countenance pulling into something akin to confusion as she steps back and looks around the room, craning her head in a slow arc.
He moves back out into the hall, over to the laundry nook, and swiftly pops open the just-dinged dryer, load number two ready to be folded. He reaches in and grabs a thick sweatshirt – an old, slightly tattered hoodie of his that he only ever wears down to the gym and back – and tosses it to her.
"Thank you," she clips, tugging the warm, bulky shirt on over her head. Her eyes flutter shut for just a fraction of a second as her nostrils widen to pull in the delightful smell of fresh laundry.
"You're welcome," he replies, holding out a hand, waiting patiently for her to accept it with a small grin.
He pulls her along through the hall and into the living room, where he spins her round and gives her a slight shove down onto the couch. The liveliest of giggles spills from her lips and for a moment – just a brief fraction of a second – he's able to forget about everything. About Steve and Natasha being in DC, maybe – hopefully – getting answers from Ross that will lead them somewhere. About the support team trudging through files downstairs that just might hold some of Tessa's darkest, most private secrets. About Bruce's still-doubtful countenance when releasing her from medical earlier – Just keep checking in. We don't know that this is permanent. About the fact that, while her endocrine system seems to be – magically – functioning normally, putting her on her way to recovery, his wife is still sick.
For just one single, bright and shining moment, all is good.
"You should try Steve again," she says suddenly, breaking him from his reverie.
He lets out a long, deep sigh, "Yeah," dropping from his lips in a lackluster promise as he plops down onto the sofa beside her. He leans to the side and grabs his phone off the table, stares at it for a long beat, deciding whether or not to dial.
Her hand snakes around his wrist as he holds tightly to the cell. "You scared about what he'll say?" she asks, tone tender and all-too perceptive.
His lips curl into a crooked smile, eyes still trained on the locked screen of his phone – on the picture of him and Tessa, happy and freezing and carefree at Coney Island. "You reading my mind now too?"
She drops an indelicate snort. "Never could read minds, and I don't want to learn how. But I can feel your concern." She lets out a long sigh and leans back into the cushions. "Just like muscle memory… it's all coming back to me now."
He drops the phone into his lap and leans back with her, maneuvering his right arm over her shoulders so she can recline into him, fitting so easily, so perfectly into his side. "Bet it was a nice break, huh? Not having to feel all of us for a awhile?"
She snuggles into him, pulling up her knees and tucking them inside the bottom of the toasty sweatshirt. "I didn't mind the silence from Bruce. He broods way more than he talks. I end up shutting him out more than anybody, I think." Her hands disappear into the sleeves of the shirt, fingertips just barely visible as she begins to lazily pick at the edges of the worn cuffs, her faraway gaze trained on the movement. "But it was also… weird."
"Because feeling that is what you're used to," he supplies in a soft, subtle tone. His eyes slowly wander from her face – where a deep, pensive frown has taken root – down to her well-hidden hands worrying the fabric of his sweatshirt, before finally veering off to track a sudden movement in his periphery.
Across the room, Eddie's light gray tail absently whips back and forth two more times before he rolls lazily over onto his side, gently twisting in the swath of sunlight beaming onto the living room floor. He blinks slowly over at the couple on the couch – seeming to just now notice that his people are in the room – and he lets out a wide kitty yawn. Bucky smiles at him and shoots him a quick wink, all the invitation he needs to pull himself from his cozy spot and meander over to the sofa.
Tessa leans forward awkwardly, popping her legs out of the warm sweatshirt so she can reach down to pick Ed up in her arms and settle him into her lap. "I guess," she mutters with a shrug as her fingers absently rake along the soft fur of the cat's back. Eddie stretches himself out over both of his humans' legs, positioning his white belly on the straight-from-the-dryer shirt as he lets out a soft mew. "I just don't know how all you people do it."
"What?" Bucky asks with a chuckle. "Figure people out without… reading their energy?"
"Yeah." She shifts in his hold, craning her head to gaze up at him. "I mean, seriously, how do you people get anything done?"
He peers down at her, eyes narrowed and shining with a teasing glint. "I thought you weren't supposed to say you people…"
"Ha, ha," she intones, rolling her eyes. Then, with a sharp jab to his ribs that elicits a playful wince, "Weren't you going to call Steve?"
His smile fades a bit as he lets out a gruff sigh and reluctantly fingers the phone in his lap. "I was kind of enjoying just talking to you."
"Aw," she drawls out, her tone cloying and saccharin. She turns into him – much to the chagrin of the now displaced cat, who lets out an annoyed mewl – and grabs his face, sandwiching his cheeks firmly between both palms. "Aren't you just the sweetest wittle thing?!"
He shoots her an irritated glare, face still awkwardly smooshed. "You ruined it," he bites out between tightly squeezed cheeks.
She releases her hold, giving his face a firm pat with her left hand, and she then pulls herself up off the couch with an exaggerated groan. Eddie gives her a vicious glare as hops over her shifting legs and slinks back behind Bucky, curling up on his other side. "You call him," she declares, looming over her husband and pointing down at his cell. "I'm going to make food."
"Food?" he questions curiously, watching as she shuffles off in her thick-socked feet toward the kitchen. "You're hungry?"
"I want toast!" she tosses over her shoulder before pausing in the doorway and spinning to face him. "Lucky for you, that just happens to the one thing I can make on my own." Another strident, pointed nod at the phone follows. "Get me my intel," she demands lowly, single brow raised high.
He lets out a short chuckle, shaking his head fondly as he unlocks the screen on his cell and navigates to his contacts. "Part of that statement was music to my ears," he mutters. "But the last part makes me worry about what the rest of my life's gonna be like. Getting ordered around by a tiny little tyrant drowning in someone else's clothes…"
She leans out of the kitchen doorway, eyes narrowed accusingly. "I can hear you."
He brings the now-ringing phone up to his ear and shoots her a shit-eating grin. "I know."
She smiles to herself, shaking her head a bit as she strides over to the counter to plug in the toaster. The one thing I can make on my own, she repeats to herself chidingly. A thick, irritated breath huffs out of her as she perks her ears to catch Bucky's voice in the next room – "Call when you can." – clearly leaving a clipped voicemail, one that's followed by a sigh so painfully deep she can hear it from where she stands.
He's exhausted. That'd be obvious to anyone, but now that she's paying attention – now that she's focused enough to be able to see and feel – it's almost palpable to her. The dark circles beneath his eyes, the slumped posture, that thing he does – squinting and pinching his face while almost violently rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and then raking his fingers through his hair – all of it is telltale sleepy James. And what does he do about it? What does he do to correct this terrible state he's gotten himself into? He continues to take care of her.
She lets out a small, almost apologetic groan as she pops the bread in the toaster and ties off the bag. And she rolls her eyes at her own insolence. Really? She's going to be irritated with him right now? After all he's done for her – over the past few weeks alone – just to keep her head above water?
He fed her whatever she needed – doing his own research to find foods and recipes appropriate for her physical condition – and he never once hesitated to hold back her hair and rub soft, slow circles into her back when those meals didn't agree with her. He carried her to bed on more than one occasion, changed her clothes as she slept, tucked her in when she trembled from the cold and quickly shucked all the covers when she woke soaked in sweat in the middle of the night. He spent the last four days camped out by her side in medical, holding her hand and telling her he loved her and assuring her that everything would be alright – despite his face betraying the doubt he truly felt. Even today, when he should be resting himself, trying to recover from the hell she'd just put him through, even today he's been doing laundry, offering to cook for her… running her a bath. And what does she do? Order him to play phone tag with Steve so she can know about what's going on outside these walls… when what she should be focused on is what's happening inside of them.
She spins on a heel, ready to march back into the living room and tell him to go bed immediately. She'll finish the laundry. And make him a frozen pizza when he gets up. And she can call Nat and guilt her into talking about what they learned from Ross, bypassing Steve entirely. For once – in what seems like a very, very long time – she will take care of him.
But before she makes it a single step, an odd – and eerily familiar – sensation washes over her. Her vision blurs around the edges, ears whomping, sounds echoing. And an excruciating, icepick-like pain shoots through her skull. She lets out a quick, sharp gasp and whimper, dropping her head to her hands – slamming her eyes shut – as her body begins to sway.
And then, as quickly as the sensation rose, it filters away to nothing, leaving her to sputter for but a fraction of a moment more before easily regaining her breath. She straightens her shoulders, pulls her head from her hands, and slowly – blearily – blinks her eyes open.
"Hello, my dear," she hears sound in her periphery, immediately recognizable, if a bit distant. She turns around, towards the lightly accented voice and sees the blurry outline of a man in a wheelchair take shape in the middle of her kitchen.
The realization that she's not actually – not entirely – in her own kitchen right now… that, rather, she's buried deep within her own mind, sucked in to share this moment with an interloper, hits her like a punch to the gut. "You have got to be kidding me," she groans as her eyes focus on the now clear image of Professor Xavier.
He smiles wide. "Yes, I suppose we did have an agreement. I know, I'm not supposed to get inside your head." And he wheels himself closer to her, his ever-loving, kind and patient eyes boring into her as he says simply, "But… desperate times…"
"Where are you?" she asks, words bolting from her mouth before she even realizes the question had formed in her mind. "Bobby went to find you. And…" A swift stab of grief and guilt hits her in the chest, knocks the breath from her lungs, and she lowers herself – her thoughtform, really – to the chair just appeared beside her.
"Yes," he says softly as he moves closer to her side. He reaches out and takes her hand in his. "I know."
She looks up into his crystal blue eyes and can plainly see – can feel through their tethered energy – that he knows all about Kitty and the others whom they lost. Her eyes slam shut, head shaking mournfully. "I… I didn't know… I didn't know where they were… or that they were even…" She blinks once, twice, and looks over at him with a forlorn gaze. "I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for, my dear," he tells her, brow furrowing. "You did nothing wrong."
"But I knew… we all knew that Lobe was a threat."
"Yes. And you told us that. And asked us to help. And we did… nothing." He hangs his head for a brief moment, sad gaze drifting off towards the floor. When he looks back up at her, he seems to have aged a decade at least. Even here in this non-physical form, he seems tired, sad… and old. "We mustn't dwell on the past now, my dear," he tells her, voice dropping an octave. "We've still far too much left to lose."
She nods, one single firm and decisive movement, and asks again, "Did Bobby find you?"
His lips quirk into a small grin. "He did."
"So you're… are you with the Brotherhood?"
"I am. We are." He leans forward in his seat, tone taking on a conspiratorial note – as though being inside her mind wasn't clandestine enough – as he says, "You must come here too."
She stares at him for a moment, mouth gaping and bobbing as she decides just what to say. Of course, she'll go. There's really no question about that. But –
"I know you're… not well," he mutters woefully. "Oh, Anna, I could feel it when you were there… with them. I could feel you reaching out. And I could feel…" He takes a sharp breath, eyes so keenly focused on her that it sends an uneasy chill shooting up her spine. "I felt that power rise up inside of you. Power from the Phoenix. Power from you."
She shakes her head steadily, gaze veering off to avoid his pointed stare. "I… I didn't mean to. I didn't know."
"But now you do know." He gathers both of her hands in his own and, despite that fact that this is all little more than a dream, a sort of subliminal fantasy, she swears she can feel the smooth warmth emanating from his skin as he traces his thumbs across her knuckles. "Can you find that power again? Can you use it?"
"I…" she stutters a bit, unsure of the answer. "I… lost my powers for a while. What they did to me… it messed with…"
"Yes," he nods. "Yes, I know. I had tried to reach out several days ago. But I could feel your… weakness. Your absence." A wide, bright smile wraps around his face. "But then this morning, you were back! That lovely, lively spark of Anna just popped back to life in my periphery."
"Before everything faded, I was doing things I didn't know I could do," she tells him, her voice taking on an almost wistful quality. "Things I… I'm not sure that I want to do."
"Anna," he says, pulling her from her drifting thoughts. "We need you now. We need that power that was able to rip the Phoenix from Jean. The power that was able to piece me back together when she tore me apart. The power that allowed you to escape from that madman's hold. The X-Men need you – what's left of us. Mutantkind needs you."
"No pressure," she jibes with a snort and a smirk.
He merely smiles lightly in response, giving her hands a swift but comforting squeeze. "I'm going to place our location in your mind," he tells her softly, words slow and careful. "When you wake, you'll know where we are, how to find us. You must come, Anna. Just as soon as you can. You must come to us. We need you."
She looks up at him and pulls in a deep, steadying breath, gives a single, firm nod in agreement. "Okay."
And then – following no more than a quick blink – she's thrust back into reality, spinning on a heel to find her toast just popped.
