So, um. I'm alive.

On the outside.

Have some angst. And fluff.

Chapter Twenty Six - Winter, Part Five

He looked at the card.

It looked so innocent, just a flat thing with blue and purple circular designs on it.

But it held memories.

They weren't his memories, but the thought scared him.

If HYDRA could do all of these things already with science, what could they do with magic on their hands?

But he trusted this new handler.

He stared at the card again, a flash of memories overwhelming him – his memories:

Similar looking cards in the hands of an older woman; himself, Stevie and Becca standing in front of her as she shuffled them and had them pick cards out of a spread.

"Bucky, go first, go first!" Becca said excitedly.

The lady gestured to the deck. "First, what would you like to know?"

His mouth felt dry. "What is my future?"

"Boo!" Becca called behind him.

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "It will be broad. Nothing too specific."

Bucky shrugged.

She gestured to the cards, taught him how to shuffle them and then paused. "Now pull three."

He didn't know why he felt so nervous about this. It's not like he really believed in it, he was only doing it for Becca.

His mouth still felt like it was stuffed with cotton as he drew three cards.

The lady gasped, but he didn't look up at her, or at Becca or Stevie. He was stuck staring at the gruesome cards.

He didn't know what they meant, but none of the depictions looked good.

Finally, he looked up at the lady. "What does it mean?" he asked roughly.

Her eyes were filled with pity as she reached out a hand and placed it on his cheek. "Oh, my child, I am so sorry."

Before any of them could say anything, she was gone in the winds, with no sign of her or her cards.

Bucky turned back to Stevie and Becca.

"That was weird," Becca muttered, staring where the lady ran off. "She didn't even tell you what the cards signified…what cards were they? I know enough to tell you what they mean."

They didn't see the cards. For some reason, he didn't want to tell them.

Becca narrowed her eyes at him, sensing his hesitance. "James."

"The Tower, Death, and Ten of Swords," he admitted.

Her gasp nearly went unnoticed under Steve's shouting. "You're going to die?!"

"No, moron," Becca said, hitting the seventeen-year-old and recovering her composure. "Death doesn't always mean…death. Like, actual death for the person involved. More like…a complete cut of ties. The death of an idea, or relationship."

"Oh, that's not so bad," Steve muttered, calming down.

Bucky hadn't looked away from his older sister. "Isn't it?"

Becca averted her eyes. "They're just silly cards, Bucky. It's not like it really matters…"

"Becca, you've always believed in this stuff," he pointed out. "What does it mean?"

The fifteen-year-old's face was frighteningly solemn as she finally said, "It means that your future is going to take a turn for the worst, Buck."

He was brought back to reality by a sharp snapping sound.

Looking down, the button Elle had given him had been completely crushed in his hand – he had been pushing it down so hard he had shattered the thing.

He was breathing heavily and he looked around the room, the bright white contrasting to the dirty streets of his memory.

Shakily, he moved what was left of the button onto the pull-out tray, his hand flinching as he passed Elle's card.

The door burst open, and Elle jumped in frantically. "Are you alright?"

He opened his mouth to reply but had no words, before he turned his gaze onto the broken remains. Her gaze followed his and she took a deep breath and entered the room, sitting on the chair next to his bed.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.

He didn't say anything, and she slowly moved out her hand, leaving it open for him to take.

Gratefully, he took it.

All of a sudden, Elle jumped. "WHAT THE FU-"

She cut off as she looked down. "What the fuck, Milo?"

"Who's Milo?" he asked.

She leaned over in the chair, crawling half under the bed before she popped up again. "This is Milo."

In her hands she held a cute calico kitten.

Without another word, she put the cat in his lap.

He froze. The creature was extremely small, and could fit in the palm of his hand. And even his nonmetallic hand was still extremely strong.

"It's okay," Elle soothed, sensing his fear. "I know you won't hurt him."

He didn't feel nearly as certain as she was, but another look revealed that she was still looking at him eagerly, waiting for him to touch the kitten.

Slowly, he reached out his right hand – if he was going to touch the cat, he was going to feel its fur – and pet him.

The kitten mewled and butted its head against his hand, rubbing himself eagerly over it.

"He's so small…" he whispered.

"Yeah," Elle said. He dragged his eyes away from the cat to see her beaming at him. "You see? It's fine."

Bucky wasn't sure of that, but he didn't say a word.

"So," Elle continued, looking over at the crushed remains of the button. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

He looked back to the kitten, which was curling up on his lap, purring wildly.

Several moments of silence later, he finally spoke. "I remembered something. Again."

"That's good," Elle said. "Can you describe it to me?"

"I was young," he said quietly. "Stevie was with me. So was Becca. She…I think she was my sister."

"Yes, I believe you had a younger sister named Rebecca," Elle mused.

"She liked spiritual stuff," he said, reminiscing. To his surprise, he found that he was smiling as he looked down and scratched the cat under its chin.

"She brought me, and Stevie, even though he should've stayed inside, to this fortune teller, and we cut some tarot cards. I never actually got the chance to look up what they meant. Becca never told me, she was too scared of them."

"Do you remember them?" Elle asked curiously.

"Yeah," he said, finally looking up and meeting her eyes. "The Tower, Death, and Ten of Swords."

Elle paused, thinking. "I'm going to be honest, I don't use card magic. Cana does, but we can't reach her right now. Though I will agree that those cards don't exactly seem good. But we can find out what they mean, if you want?"

He nodded.

"Okay, then I'm going to introduce you to someone," Elle said. "Seeing as you broke the button and we need another way for you to contact me if there's an emergency."

He felt a flash of panic and Elle's hand was on his in a second. "You're not in trouble for breaking it. Don't worry. But are you ready to meet someone new?"

"Someone new?" he asked nervously.

"Do you know what Artificial Intelligence is?" she asked.

He nodded. "Arnim Zola uploaded his mind onto a computer. He was still my handler for several years after that."

"How did that work?" she muttered, but he had a feeling that she didn't actually want to know.

"Well, this is somewhat similar. It's basically a person who was created through code, except this person is awesome! I'd like to introduce you to JARVIS! He runs the house."

"You flatter me, Mrs. Dreyar," a voice said, echoing slightly.

Bucky tensed.

"Anyway," she continued. "Since he runs the house, he also monitors everything. Don't worry – it's nothing too invasive. It's mostly measuring a room's vitals, and if something happens, then he'll turn on the cameras to see what's happening and if they need help."

"So he won't watch me if I don't want to?" he asked, suspicion coloring his tone.

She nodded. "Unless an emergency happens. Then yeah, JARVIS won't know. It's like…" she trailed off for a bit. "Like he's over in the corner of the room, reading a book. He's not really paying attention to you, but if you were to say, break something or get mysteriously attacked, he would stop reading the book and come to your help."

He deflated slightly. That wasn't too bad. And he supposed that most people wouldn't want someone watching their every move, so it makes sense that JARVIS had a smaller form of monitoring. He sighed and relaxed himself more, enjoying the vibrations from the small cat and the quiet peacefulness of the room.

"You can also ask JARVIS any questions," Elle said. She was smiling again. He wondered if she ever got tired of that. Maybe her cheeks don't hurt because she uses those muscles more? "Do you know what the internet is?"

He hesitated. "Not really," he finally admitted.

"To be fair, I'm not sure I know what it is, either," she agreed. "But I know how to use it and how useful it is. Anyway, JARVIS is connected to the internet and can look things up immediately if you want. Though he will be going over your web searches. Sorry."

He shrugged. He didn't really care.

"Anyway," Elle continued. "If you say 'JARVIS' in here, it will redirect his attention to this room. Like calling his name from the other side of the room. Then you can tell him that you want to talk to me if you need to."

He nodded.

She looked at the cat, who did not want to move. "Do you want to read a book?"

He blinked, slowly. "Russian?" he asked.

"You want to read it in Russian?" Elle asked.

He nodded.

"Okay," she said. "I'll get a tablet. Tony made some that should be sturdier and more durable, so we'll see how long it lasts."

She grinned.

"He doesn't mind?" Bucky asked, wondering again about the man living there.

Elle shrugged. "If you can break it, that means it's not strong enough. Which means he needs to work on it. It's a sort of feedback, he likes it. If you notice any other problems, he'll want to know about that, too. SI is still moving over to clean energy, and communications. Most people don't even know that we're making phones and other electronics now. Tony's still working out the kinks."

He nodded, not quite sure he got all that, but he'd review it later and, if needed, he had JARVIS to tell him what SI was.

Elle got up and came back pretty quickly, bringing some more food with her along with the tablet. "Unfortunately, it's done using body heat and is touch sensitive. I know you're left-handed."

Bucky shrugged. Hydra had trained any dominant traits out of him. He was easily ambidextrous now, so it wouldn't be too difficult to use the tablet.

"I put The Hobbit on it," Elle said as she handed it to him. "You might have actually read it, it was published a few years before the war broke out. But even if you don't, it's a great book and it's a fun reread anyway."

To his surprise, she climbed onto the bed with him, switching around so she laid out on it and taking another tablet out of nowhere.

"Magic, remember," she said, seeing his look. "I've got my own work to do, so I'm just getting comfy."

He couldn't begrudge her for that. After years of sleeping standing up or on the roughest, weirdest terrain Hydra could find, the bed he had was like a cloud.

For a while, they stayed like that. He liked the tablet; he liked it a lot. As he read the Hobbit, it was starting to come back to him, slowly, with flashes of Becca reading it to him while he did odd jobs around the neighborhood, fixing people's possessions for measly wages. The way the tablet set up was nice, and from the way Elle told it, it wasn't the only book on there – he could put more books on it and switch whenever he wanted. That was amazing! He remembered how he felt in that flash of memory with the flying car. He liked science, he remembered that. He didn't really get the chance to appreciate all of the changes that happened while he was under.

Elle was still lying next to him, down on her stomach with her head near his feet. She was leaning directly against him, and the feeling of her next to him, and the cat on his lap, were extremely comforting.

Eventually, all of the food vanished and Milo got up and stretched. Elle finished up on her tablet and turned to him, stretching as well. "I know you haven't used the shower yet. JARVIS hasn't felt it running. Do you know how?"

He didn't want to admit that he didn't know how to work a shower, but the last time he was in there, there was a lot of buttons and he didn't want to break anything.

He shook his head. Elle led him over to the bathroom, and brought her palm up to her face when she saw it. That was odd.

"Oh, Tony," she muttered. "You had to make it complicated." She turned back to him. "First, know that this shower confuses me, so don't be upset. I'll talk to Tony later, find out what everything means. For now, ignore these." She pointed at a line of buttons. "This is all you need." She pointed at two other buttons, which were dials. "This one controls the temperature." She tapped the first one. "And this one controls the water pressure. When you get the hang of it, and I figure out what they are, then I can introduce the other buttons."

He nodded. "Will you leave now?"

"Do you want me to?"

He thought about it a bit before nodding. "Will you bring the cat back?"

She smiled. "Yeah. I'll bring him again tomorrow."

She picked up Milo and left the room, and Bucky turned back to the shower.

"Everything good?" Tony asked as I settled down next to him in the lab. He was back to building arms. This one looked ridiculous, and I watched as he pushed a button and it turned into a gun.

"What?" he asked, at my incredulous look.

"He's not going to want that!" I said.

"This isn't for now. This is like…for a different thing."

I stared at him. "Tony…"

"He might want it later. Now it's just scientific curiosity on how I would connect nerves to the trigger."

"…Yeah, sure, okay," I said, shrugging. "JARVIS told me about the time you made a walking toaster, so…"

"JARVIS!" Tony whined, slumping over. "Okay, 1) I was drunk. 2) the thought of self-delivering toast was very appealing to my college-self."

"It's still a walking toaster," I said, snickering, before it was followed by a yawn.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Always," I muttered. "Anyway, you got in contact with them, right?"

"The lawyers?" he asked.

I nodded. "How did that go?"

"Well," Tony started. "First they thought it was a joke. But then Murdock told the other one that it was really my voice."

I nodded. "Matt's blind. His hearing is really good as a result, though, so I'm not surprised he was able to tell."

Tony nodded. "Yes, Nelson seemed to take his word for it pretty quickly. I offered to fly them out."

"And?" I asked.

"They'll be here in a few days," Tony said. "What's so special about them, though? They're still pretty fresh out of school…"

"That's right, I forgot they're like a decade younger than you," I muttered. "Still, they're really good lawyers and they'd rather be helping people who need it rather than big companies."

"They'd sort of be working at SI," Tony pointed out.

"Than corrupt companies," I corrected. "Matt becomes a hero too. He uses his other senses to help him fight people, and he's pretty good at it. And I know you keep him on retainer in the comics, so I figured we'd get a head start and drag them into our corner. Plus, I know they're trustworthy. We can trust them with Bucky's case – not just in terms of keeping it secret, but also in defending it to the fullest."

Tony nodded. "Alright, I can understand that. I don't really know any lawyers personally enough that I'd trust them with this, either, so it's probably good that you have one."

"Jennifer Walters," I named. "I don't know if she exists in this universe. She was never introduced in the movies, but in the comics, she's another hero and a genius lawyer. I'm pretty sure she actively worked for you, at SI."

"What did she do?" Tony asked, interested. "Hero-wise, I mean."

"She needed a blood transfusion, and the only one who was available as an acceptable match was her cousin. Bruce Banner."

Tony's eyes widened. "So she became…big too?"

"A Hulk," I said. "And yes. Last time I checked, she's supposed to be around seven feet tall, green, and still retain all of her brains. And she's like that all the time. It's not like with Bruce, where he can shift back and forth between his normal form and his other."

Tony was quiet at that. Thinking.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I'm trying to think of this from a literary perspective," Tony said. "Since it's all technically fictional. Bruce…was he based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?"

I nodded. "Yep. Got it in one. Badass no matter what form, though."

"Really?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Don't know if it happened in this universe or not, but in the main continuity he killed his dad."

"What?"

"It was self-defense," I said. "His dad had been abusing him and his mom for years before Bruce shot him. I'm pretty sure he was thirteen or something. I dunno, it's been awhile."

"Wait, how much of the comics have you actually read?" Tony asked.

"Not a lot," I admitted. "But I learned a lot of things through Tumblr."

"Through what?" he asked.

"Tumblr," I said. "It's a place where nerds gather and unite over their nerdiness. I'd see posts comparing comics to this universe, essays on character study, all sorts of things."

"Is that how you know so much about me?" Tony asked.

"Part of it, yeah," I admitted. "Like, this one fan who was a doctor wrote up a report on how the arc reactor would really affect you, and how, if you could still somehow move with it in, you should probably still be too crippled with chronic pain to function. Things like that. And honestly, that report was fucking horrifying to look at. Especially after I learned more about the human body for Saturn's Winds. Like holy shit, Tony."

He winced.

"Can you actually breathe?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Kind of? Not a real breath. Nothing too big, there's not enough room for it to expand properly."

He shifted back to the gun-arm uncomfortably, and I dropped the subject, getting up and squeezing his shoulder a bit before heading for the stairs. "I'm going to make some more food. Come up when you're hungry. I'll bother you if you haven't moved in two hours."

Tony had already tossed his gun-arm to the side and was pulling up a bare skeleton arm when I left him.

Ripples chapter should be up tomorrow, or next Tuesday. For some reason, I've only been writing in class, and I only have class Tuesday through Thursday. So yeah. But it's almost done.