I got to see Civil War today. You got an early update.
Speaking of which, I want to open the floor. Is there anything you'd like to see go down in this story? I'm open to suggestions so long as it doesn't entirely mess with my story line. I just feel like there's only so much I can do with Captain America before I reach the end of it. Or rather, before Bucky dies. After that, I will jump straight into Steve coming back and a few chapters of Avengers before I carry on into Winter Soldier and the return of Bucky, which I'm sure we will all be eagerly awaiting.
Side note - some of the suggestions offered may end up in a side story I want to put together of little scenes that popped into my head but don't really have a place to go in the story. I'll probably put a lot of things in there concerning Josie and Howard and Tony. And perhaps some stuff between Josie and some x-men, who knows? I haven't gotten it started yet, but it will be called The Interim Years so watch for that! I'm also contemplating writing another story featuring Yori and Josie in X-men First Class but we'll I love these characters and I don't want to put them back in my toy chest.
Chapter 29: Bucky's Girl
I left the men in the makeshift morgue to gather up the files and move the bodies and stepped out into the main floor of the factory. All around me I could see charred, smoking lash marks on walls and machines. I wrinkled my nose and stepped past a body that had been reduced to shreds of meat and organs and followed the sounds of Yori's whip cracking.
I rounded a corner and found her standing over a fresh body. She raised her hand, her whip swinging up.
"Yori," I called softly. Surprise made her whip around and I was glad I hadn't let the others follow her when she first tore off. I leaned back into a bridge and I just barely dodged it. "Yori, stop," I said firmly as I straightened up.
"Why?" Yori demanded furiously. She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. She was covered from head to toe in splattered gore. All she achieved was smearing the blood on her face. "Why should I?"
"They were just men following orders."
Yori scowled at me thunderously. "Too many good people have suffered because of men following orders. I'm sick of it."
"Come away from there," I pleaded, offering her my hand. "We're… we're going to bury them all in the field outside."
Immediately Yori was up and moving away from the body. "Not without me," she said firmly. I nodded and gestured for her to head back into the hallway. I saw Falsworth and Bucky come out carrying boxed files. Morita, Dugan, Dernier, Steve, and Jones were all very carefully carrying the wrapped bodies out of the hallway. Yori instantly joined them, stretching out her arms wordlessly. They knew which one she wanted, and Steve handed over Adairia's wrapped body.
Silently, they started a procession out of the building. Falsworth and Bucky peeled off to put the boxes in the truck and fetch shovels. The rest of us headed over to an empty patch of field where wildflowers were growing thickly. The three bodies were laid out to wait for their graves. Yori took one look at the line of three corpses, turned around, and walked into the trees.
"Where's she going?" Dugan asked, lifting his bowler hat off of his head and using it to shade his eyes as he watched her go.
I shook my head. "Who knows?"
Bucky and Falsworth reappeared, arms full of shovels. We all got to work, digging deeply into the ground and trying to make the holes as neat as we possibly could. The man was lowered into the first hole, the purple-eyed woman into the second, and Adairia into the last.
"Do we say something?" Jones asked uncertainly.
"I do."
We all spun around to see Yori approaching, three reasonably-sized rocks in her arms. She carried them without difficulty despite their weight. Yori walked along the heads of the graves, placing the rocks above each one. The first two were marked with simple crosses etched into the stone but the last had a name and date on it, along with a character at the bottom. That was placed at Adairia's head.
"How'd you do that?" Jones asked in disbelief. Yori held up her fingers, glowing an ominous green. She didn't say anything though, just knelt beside the last grave in seiza and bowed her head, folding her hands together. Her lips moved frantically, but even I couldn't tell what she was saying.
Nearly five minutes later Yori rose and backed away from the grave. "Fill it," she bade, her voice thick with emotion. I walked over to her, pulling her into a hug. Yori wasn't a very physical person in terms of affection, but she sank willingly into my arms, wrapping her tail and wings around me as well.
"She didn't deserve this," Yori murmured into my shoulder as I stroked her hair. "She was a good girl…"
"None of us do," I replied softly, kissing her forehead. I looked over her head and met Bucky's stare. I felt terrible as my stomach flopped at the reminder of our kiss, of falling asleep in his arms the night before. It seemed like it was lifetimes ago, something inappropriate to consider at a funeral.
Bucky offered me a faint, sympathetic smile. I returned the gesture weakly as the men got to work filling in the graves. It took several minutes, but finally Morita brushed away a bit of dirt from the man's headstone and we turned away from the graves, heading back to the truck.
We had to drive later into the night, but as Steve had said we spent the night in the same abandoned barn. The pall of the day hung over us like a dark cloud. Like before, Yori was the first person out of the truck, but she didn't say anything. She just moved to the front of the barn and sat down on the crate where Steve had kept watch the night before.
None of us had the stomach for dinner. By unspoken consent, we just climbed out of the truck with our sleeping bags and got ready for bed.
"Josie?"
I paused as I made my way to my stall from the night before. Falsworth was standing by the tack room door. I approached him, asking wearily, "Yes James?"
"I'd like to apologize," Falsworth said softly. I shook my head.
"If you want to apologize to anyone it's Yori who needs it, she's the one who knew-" Falsworth cut me off by shaking his head.
"That's not what I'm apologizing for," he corrected. "I suppose in the back of my mind I was still convinced that you and your friend shouldn't be here. I couldn't begin to understand why you'd ask to come with us. I understand now," he said, his voice shaky. "You may be fighting a different war, but it's a war all the same. You're fighting to exist."
I smiled slightly. "It's not a different war, not really. It's all the same issue – someone got too much power and decided that someone else was lesser than them. Just a different battlefield."
Falsworth nodded. "I understand. But I feel I should tell you how much I admire you and Yori."
I smiled at him, genuinely touched by his words. "Thank you, James. Admiration is not something I ever thought I'd really receive much of in my life. It means a lot."
Falsworth nodded again. "You deserve it. You both do. Goodnight," he said, stepping away from the door.
"Goodnight," I replied, and turned back to my stall. I paused when I saw Bucky already sitting on his opened-up sleeping roll.
"Do you mind?" he whispered. I bit my lip. I knew I should say yes for many reasons. Propriety's sake for one, and because he'd never promised me anything or made any real declarations of his feelings towards me – the kiss from earlier flashed in my mind – but I couldn't bring myself to turn him away. Right now all I wanted was for someone to hold me like when I was little.
I shook my head and started undoing my sleeping roll. Like the night before I lay down next to Bucky, curling up willingly against his side. He draped the opened sleeping bag over us and wrapped me in his arms, pulling me closer. I laid my head on his chest, thinking.
I had understood, coming out here, that I would see things that would turn my stomach, things that would make me furious and depressed and a hundred other terrible feelings. I would see things that would give me nightmares, things that I might not ever recover from seeing. I just hadn't expected it to be so soon, so close to home.
But I couldn't bring myself to regret coming either. I was proud to know that because of what I'd done those three mutants had a decent burial, that maybe their deaths could help us come closer to bringing down whoever Klaus Schmidt was. Anyone normal coming across the bodies might have thought they were HYDRA experiments. They wouldn't have known what they really were.
I tried to imagine what those people must have gone through and shivered, hastily pushing that train of thought aside. It was far too real, far too close. It could easily have been me on that table had I been born in Europe or if I had come over here sooner. It could have been Yori if I'd gotten to her a couple of days later.
I understood Yori's dislike – not even dislike really, more of a distrust or disdain – for homo sapiens. I knew she hadn't had the same experiences I had. It was hard to believe that the man who had strapped her down and experimented on her was part of the same species as the man now holding me and stroking my hair.
"Why are you so good to me?" I breathed, toying with a button on his jacket, clicking my nails against it and tracing the edge with the tip of my fingers.
Bucky chuckled, the sound vibrating in his chest. "What kinda question is that?"
"A real one," I replied bluntly. "Why are you so good to me? Why aren't you afraid? Why don't you hate me?"
Bucky sighed. "I don't know, really. I mean, it is a little intimidating, especially after seeing Yori use Steve for a punching bag. I know you can hurt me, I guess I just… I trust you won't." He shrugged. "You're a good person Belle, you won't hurt someone for no reason. And I'm not ever going to give you a reason," he swore. He tilted his head to look down at me. I looked up at him, blue eyes burning into my soul as I saw the honesty there. Bucky really, really meant it. He was promising me this from the bottom of his heart.
His eyes took on a whole new kind of burn as he continued, "As far as why I'm good to you, well, I'd think that'd be pretty clear by now. I all but told you how I felt about you right before…" He trailed off. He was trying to spare my feelings, but I knew what he was thinking. Before we charged into the factory, before we found the bodies.
I flushed, remembering Bucky kissing me. "Yeah, you made your feelings pretty clear," I agreed, turning my head slightly to hide my shy smile in his chest.
"You didn't," Bucky pointed out. "I don't want to pressure you to say anything," he added hastily. "I'd planned to do this up right – take you out to dinner and dancing, walk around and sit in a park like we did back home, and ask you to be my girl."
I kept my face buried in his chest, chuckling softly. Bucky pulled away from me slightly, looking down at me. "What's funny?" he asked, a small smile starting to pick up one corner of his mouth. I could hear the amusement in his voice, happy just because I was happy. It warmed my heart and chased out some of the darkness of the day.
"I was just thinking," I mused, "that all would have been a lot nicer than curled up in an abandoned barn in Czechoslovakia. But I think this right here is just a little more genuine."
"More genuine," Bucky repeated. He laughed, tightening his arm around my shoulders. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Nothin' showy, just you and me. So what about it?" he asked. "Will you be my girl, Belle?"
I didn't know what got into me. I'd never been flirtatious or seductive like some of the girls back home. I'd always felt ridiculous giving out coy smiles and twirling my hair around my finger. I didn't know how to do all those soft brushes on the shoulder or arm that were supposed to drive a man crazy. I didn't know what to say or how to say it.
But with Bucky I felt confident, like I didn't have to put on an act. I never had around him, but he still liked me. He wanted me to be his girl. Bucky's girl, the thought spun my head more than the serum had.
I felt simultaneously shy and incredibly bold as I leaned up and pressed my lips to Bucky's in answer. Neither of us had brushed our teeth for a couple of days, we were lying in straw, and I had a bullet hole through my shirt, but I was happy. I leaned back, feeling content and just a little bit smug. Somehow, by some act of God, I'd managed to get a man like Bucky Barnes interested in me.
"To be honest, I think I have been for a while already," I admitted sheepishly. "Peggy's been teasing me about you since Camp Lehigh."
Bucky laughed. "And Steve's been giving me a hard time since I got back."
I burrowed my nose into his chest and breathed in deeply. Bucky peered down at me, still stroking my hair and rubbing my back.
"You really do like the way I smell, don't you?" he hummed amusedly. I nodded sheepishly.
"I know it sounds strange. It's just very soothing to me." I shook my head. "I can't explain what it's like really. It calms me down."
"You've never actually told me what I smell like," Bucky realized. I smiled slightly and inhaled again.
"Guess," I challenged.
"Grass?"
"No."
"Sweat and blood?"
"No… well a little. Under that."
"The best hamburgers in Brooklyn?" Bucky and I both laughed at that one before he reached up and tapped me on the nose. "Come on Belle. Tell me?"
I looked up at him. He was pouting, looking out from under his brow. He looked completely ridiculous, and utterly adorable.
I decided to humor him and replied simply, "A storm."
"You need sleep. I know you did get any last night."
"I've gone a week without sleep. Two days won't bother me," Yori replied absently as Steve approached her crate. Her eyes were fixed absently on the trees in the distance.
"You need to sleep," Steve insisted, leaning against the barn door. "I can watch, it's no trouble."
"I can't sleep," Yori said bluntly, blinking as she pulled her eyes away from the horizon and looked at him. "Even before today, I rarely sleep through the night. Too many nightmares. Too many years."
Normally, Yori looked no older than Steve. Now as he looked at her he thought he could see a weight on her shoulders and a dimness in her eyes that he'd always associated with older people. She still looked young, but the way she carried herself was like one who had seen the world. And she had.
Steve had known he was signing himself up for some extra emotions, allowing women onto the team. But he couldn't blame Yori for this. He tried to imagine how he would feel walking into the lab, pulling back a sheet, and seeing Bucky lying there pale and cold. His mind immediately rejected the idea.
"How'd you meet her?" Steve asked quietly.
Yori smiled slightly. She pulled her legs under her until she was kneeling on top of the crate. "It wasn't long after I left Josie's. I cut through Europe and decided to run up to Scotland, see what I could get into. Then the war started and I was stuck in the UK. That's when I met Adairia. She had just gotten married and her husband had headed off to war. He knew what she was, but he loved her anyway. She was so in love, so young…
"She let me stay with her. She said the house felt empty with her husband gone. Personally, I think she just felt sorry for me. I took the offer, regardless. I taught her how to fight, how to advance her powers. It was nice.
"But then she got a note saying that her husband was MIA. She made up her mind that she was going to go look for him. I told her that she wasn't strong enough, but she was insistent. And honestly, I thought she could handle herself. Her talent was fire – she could create and manipulate it. It was that I doubted she could kill.
"We split up when we reached the continent, each following different leads. I got captured by HYDRA, as you know. Apparently this other Schmidt got his hands on Adairia. Now I'm alive and she's dead. I never even found out if her husband was still alive or not." Yori smiled faintly. "Guess it doesn't matter now, eh? At least if I find him I can tell him where she is."
"It matters," Steve insisted. "It matters because it was her goal and even if her husband is dead, at least you found an answer for her."
Yori let out a breath through her nose. "Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm going to try to find out the moment we get back to base. I'll get Adairia's answer for her." She sighed heavily. "This isn't the first friend I've lost, after all. I suppose it's just that she died so young, so… innocent. Each time I lose someone young I'm reminded of how they should be living long, full lives and I'm the one that deserves death."
Steve shook his head. "You can't think like that, Yori," he disagreed, trying his best to console her. "You can't help that you've lived so long-"
"You're misunderstanding again," Yori cut him off. "I deserve death. I should be the one in the ground. They, who have done nothing wrong, should be living their lives. Adairia should be in her little cottage with her husband raising their first child. Instead she's in some random field in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a rock to mark that she ever lived." Yori smirked self-deprecatingly. "Maybe losing them all is my punishment."
Steve placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yori, I know you've got a past you're not proud of, but look what you're doing now! You can't have done anything that doesn't deserve forgiveness, especially after so long."
Yori turned to look at him, red eyes challenging blue. "Haven't I?" she asked softly, silkily. "You don't know what I'm capable of, Steve. You've never seen me angry. Not grieving, like today, but angry and wrathful and filled with hate. You don't know how monstrous I can be. How… demonic."
There was a twist in her last word and Steve knew there was a lot of emotion tied up in it. Considering how she looked, how could there not be? She had to have heard it hurled at her hundreds, thousands of times.
"I should apologize for flipping you today," Yori spoke up suddenly. "It was wrong of me. Of all the people I've hurt, I do feel a bit bad for injuring you."
"It didn't hurt," Steve said immediately. It was a lie though. The breath had been blasted out of his lungs when he connected with the tile floor. Shock didn't even begin to describe how he felt when he realized that tiny little Yori had taken him down.
"Despite that…" Yori's eyes were back on the trees. "You're almost unbearably innocent, I've thought that since I met you. You carry her picture in your compass for god's sake," Yori said with a small smile.
Steve blushed as he thought of the small picture of Peggy he had tucked away inside of his compass. He could see her in his mind, the graceful curls in her hair, the brilliant red of her lips. He could hear her lilting, accented voice in his ear. He'd be hard pressed to pinpoint one thing, but something about Peggy Carter had completely bewitched him from the moment he'd seen her walk down the line of recruits back at Camp Lehigh.
"Oh dear god," Yori said in disgust. "Go away, you look so lovesick it's actually making my teeth hurt."
Steve's flush darkened, but when he looked at Yori, she was smirking. It was something, at least. He considered it his job to keep his men safe physically but also to help them through the rough days. This had definitely been a rough day for Yori.
"Well," he said, pushing himself off the door. "Omyasi- uh… what was that word you said last night?"
Yori's smirk widened. "Oyasuminasai," she said slowly, rotating to look at him. "O-ya-su-mi-na-sai."
"Oyasuminasai," Steve repeated slowly, and felt a little bit proud when Yori nodded her approval.
"Your accent needs work, but I'll teach you a few phrases eventually."
