Chapter 30: Training
"Found anything in those files?" Falsworth asked as I flipped through some of the files from the HYDRA base.
"Yes, but nothing good," I replied grimly, flipping a paper over. "I've found references to subjects I haven't found files on. They're at different 'labs.'"
"So that wasn't the only place this was happening." Dugan looked vaguely ill. "Damn, just when I think they can't get any worse."
I bobbed my eyebrows. "I'd recommend you stay away from these files, then," I advised.
Bucky looked sideways at me. "You don't have to comb through these, Josie," he assured me. "The SSR has people that can go through it all."
I shook my head. I couldn't explain my desire to go through the files. Maybe I felt like I owed it to these people to find out what happened to them, because I was alive and they were dead. Maybe I just liked torturing myself. Who knew?
"I want to do it myself," I said firmly, setting the file aside and pulling another one out of the box. I glanced up at Yori. She sat across from me, staring blankly at the opposite side of the truck. I heard her talking with Steve the night before and frankly I was surprised she'd opened up as much as she had. Then again, Steve was easy to trust. I suspected she was falling back into her depressed slump again.
"Yori," I said quietly. "You want to get out and stretch your wings for a while?" Yori wordlessly shook her head. She looked a wreck, her clothes covered in bloodstains and her hair in knots. She'd at least gotten the blood off her face and hands, but it was still sprayed over the rest of her. She didn't seem to care either.
I sighed and opened the next file.
It was a week later that we got back to the base in London. All of us had gratefully headed for showers and real food after giving our reports to Phillips. He hadn't liked it, particularly in the case of myself and Yori, but he agreed to let our team stay together, surprisingly enough. I think he was impressed by the amount of information we'd managed to recover.
The problem of the mutant experiments was troubling. Phillips had tasked Yori and me with looking for information on Klaus Schmidt at every HYDRA building we went to. He didn't have to order us - we would have done it anyway. Both of us wanted to find out about what was happening there. We wanted to find Klaus Schmidt for different reasons. I wanted to know what kind of person could do something like that to another human.
Yori wanted his head on a stick.
All of these thoughts swirled around my head as I lay in my bed. I couldn't sleep, not that I was terribly surprised by that fact. I hadn't expected to sleep well once I got back. The image of the HYDRA soldier I'd shot haunted me, and so did the corpses in the lab. They danced behind my eyes whenever I tried to shut them.
I closed my eyes determinedly, even felt myself start to doze off. Then the image of the HYDRA soldier, his gun shaking in his hand as his chest gushed blood, flashed behind my eyelids. I sat up with a frustrated snarl, shoving my sheets off of me. From the chair by my bed I grabbed my dressing gown and tugged it on, tying the sash around my waist with an annoyed yank.
I seized a bottle of bourbon and two glasses from the wardrobe and slid my feet into slippers, starting down the hall. I was halfway down before I realized I didn't really know where I was going. I considered heading to Bucky, but he had his own problems, his own nightmares to deal with. He may have asked me to be his girl, but I didn't take that as free reign to throw all of my burdens on him and wake him up from the first good night's sleep he'd had in two weeks just because I was having bad dreams.
Next I considered Yori. I doubted she'd be sleeping anyway and if anyone understood nightmares it was her. Even I wasn't clear on exactly what she'd done in the past, but I knew it was bloody and I knew it haunted her. But again, this was the first time she'd had access to a decent bed in two weeks. I felt a bit guilty and childish as I walked to her door and pressed my ear against it. I couldn't hear breathing. Yori wasn't even in. If I had to guess, she was probably down in the gym, taking out her frustrations on a training dummy.
The answer came to me – Howard. He was my usual drinking buddy and he was never judgmental – the way he behaved he didn't have room to be. Besides that, I figured he'd been sleeping in a bed and not in random barns and the back of a moving truck for the past two weeks. I didn't feel nearly as bad about interrupting his sleep.
I walked to Howard's door, knocking softly. I heard a rustling and a groan, then the sound of feet coming to the door.
"Who's 'er?" Howard slurred tiredly as he opened the door. He blinked in surprise as he saw me there in my slippers, holding a bottle. "Damn. This isn't a social call, is it?" I shook my head.
"Come in," Howard said, stepping aside and holding the door open. "I always drink at-" He glanced at the clock. It read a little before one in the morning. Howard winced. "Well, it's after five o'clock. We'll go with it."
I sat down at the table and Howard sat across from me. I poured him three fingers into a tumbler and slid it across the table to him before pouring myself the same. Howard took a sip and sighed.
"So to what do I owe the pleasure of this midnight rendezvous?" he asked. "I was always under the impression my flirting didn't work on you."
"I can't sleep," I replied bluntly. Howard frowned slightly and took another sip. He braced his elbow on the table, glass hanging from his fingertips, and pointed at me. "Correct me if I'm wrong, doll, but don't you have a certain blue-eyed soldier you could be drinking with?"
I shook my head. "My blue-eyed soldier has his own nightmares. Besides, he needs his sleep."
Howard was offended. "And I don't?"
"You haven't been napping in the back of a truck the past couple days," I countered, sipping on my liquor.
"Point taken," Howard allowed. "But I did pass out on a lab table a couple of times while you were gone."
I shrugged, completely unsympathetic. I'd done it myself a couple of times and I knew exactly what had happened. "You could have gone to bed but you didn't."
"Yeah, there is that," Howard grumbled. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass contemplatively and sighed. "Look Josie, I get not wanting to bother Barnes, I do. You're trying to be nice. But here's the thing…" Howard looked me dead in the eye, a rare seriousness coming over him. "If you were my girl, I'd want to know what was bothering you."
I stared at him. "How did you know Bucky asked me to be his girl?" I asked him in disbelief. "We've only been back a couple of hours!"
Howard reared back in surprise. "I didn't," he admitted, a grin stretching his face. "Thanks for telling me though, I'll be sure to congratulate him next time I see him. You know, when I mention you showed up tonight at my door in your nightie with a bottle of hooch."
I gave him a dark look. "Don't you dare."
Howard chuckled. "Come on Josie, even I'm not that mean. I do think you should talk to him, though."
I tapped the side of my glass with a finger. "Maybe," I admitted grudgingly.
Howard was right, as usual. If something was bothering me, Bucky would want to know. Bucky would also want to fix it, but he couldn't fix this one. He couldn't take the nightmares away or pull the images out of my brain. I wondered if he had the same problem – did visions of being strapped to a lab table haunt him at night? They must.
"So what's got you up so late?" Howard finally asked, settling back in his chair. "Wanna talk about it?"
I shrugged. "I killed men at the HYDRA base."
"Keyword there being HYDRA," Howard pointed out. I shook my head.
"I know they're the enemy, but they're still people. They were alive and now they're not and that's on me."
Howard shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, Josie. This is a war. People die, and people kill each other. That's what war is. I could tell you the team wouldn't mind if you backed out, but I know you won't do that, right?" I shook my head. "Then I guess my advice is to think about it like this. Yeah, you took a life. But how many lives did you save by ending one?"
I paused, my drink hovering under my nose. Breathing in deeply, I caught the scent of the bourbon. I knew that killing war was acceptable – I even agreed with it. But it was hard to apply that when I was the one who was doing the killing. Howard was right though. If we hadn't taken out that base and everyone in it, what else might have come from it?
"You're surprisingly wise for a playboy," I said shrewdly. Howard smirked.
"It's part of my charm."
We had two weeks of leave while the SSR analyzed the information we'd brought back and gathered information on our next target. Next time we went out, we'd be going after another HYDRA base. It wouldn't take as long to get to as Czechoslovakia, but we would still be cutting it close if we wanted to make it to the Christmas party Howard had announced he was throwing in the bunker. Phillips hadn't exactly been thrilled about the idea, but Howard was notoriously good at spontaneous selective deafness, so Phillips was out of luck.
I was glad to be back. I spent some time with Howard in the lab analyzing the glowing blue things Steve and I had brought back from the HYDRA weapons factory. We'd figured out that it was some kind of energy, like a battery, but we had no idea what sort of energy it was operating on. It wasn't radioactive and it wasn't composed of anything either of us had ever seen.
When I wasn't in the lab, Yori and I were in the gym or the shooting range getting in practice for our next mission. Yori was slowly recovering, but she was still quieter than usual, a sadness lingering in the air around her wherever she went.
Yori and I had taken two punching bags and were whaling on them. My knuckles weren't taped, but Yori's were. Or at least, they were when she started. She'd been throwing hits so hard and so fast that now the wrappings trailed off her hands and arms in several places. I glanced sideways at her worriedly as she hit and kicked the punching bag with single-minded determination.
"How are you doing?" I asked her quietly. A normal person wouldn't have been able to hear over the sound of the punching bag rattling on its chains, but I knew Yori could.
"I'm alive," she replied bluntly. "I'm still fighting."
I took that as a good sign. She had responded and she hadn't lashed out. Yori was determined and had a goal.
"Good." I smiled at her and was rewarded with a slight upward quirk of her lips that made me hopeful again. To set off my feelings, I leaped up and brought by heel down and around in a devastating spinning kick. The punching bag snapped up, swinging almost completely horizontal before falling heavily back into place, swinging wildly.
"You're always impressing me."
I smiled as I heard Bucky approached behind me. His warm hands rested on my hips and he placed a kiss on the side of my jaw in greeting. I smiled, reaching up and back to cup his cheek as I happily inhaled his scent.
This was a new and wonderful part of my life. Bucky seemed unable to keep his hands off me, which was flattering. He wasn't grabby and he didn't cross lines, but he always found excuses to touch me – pushing back a couple loose strands of hair, trailing his fingers down my arm, greeting me with a peck on my cheek or my forehead. I basked in the attention, refusing to be ashamed even when Dugan and Morita gave us a hard time.
"Quit bragging!" Dugan called from the weights, where he and Steve were pushing themselves. He looked sideways at Steve as the man lifted several hundred pounds with ease and scowled in annoyance. "Show-off," he muttered under his breath.
Steve smiled apologetically. "Sorry, can't help it."
Bucky laughed softly as I spun around to face him. His blue eyes were twinkling at me as I looked up at him, amusement and affection shining down at me. I melted inside just a little bit, unable to resist the urge to go up on my toes and kiss his jaw, stubble tickling my lips.
"Here I was coming down to ask if you wanted a spar," Bucky said wryly, then glanced at the punching bag, which was still swaying slightly. "I'm starting to reconsider."
I blushed. "I'd be afraid of hurting you…" I admitted. Bucky winced. "Sorry."
"You're killin' my ego here, Josie," Bucky grimaced, placing a hand over his heart and feigning hurt. "I'm wounded."
"Your ego could take a few hits," Steve called as he moved to a heavier set of weights. He was out of his normal uniform, in a simple white t-shirt, the muscles of his arms gleaming with sweat and rippling. I was completely content with Bucky, thrilled even, but part of me couldn't contain a girlish squeal at the sight.
"No one asked you, punk!" Bucky called back. The words were harsh but the tone was anything but. I smiled slightly. I loved watching Bucky and Steve interact. Their friendship ran so deep, and it was heartwarming to see the pair of them joking and giving each other a hard time.
"Jerk," Steve countered.
"A spar's not a bad idea."
Everyone paused as Yori spoke aloud for the first time since she'd arrived. She stepped away from her punching bag.
"What do you say, taichō?" Yori continued, crossing her arms and nodding to the boxing ring. "Care to take me on?"
Steve was visibly hesitant. "I don't really think…"
Yori's head tilted. "Scared?" she challenged, her voice purposefully innocent.
Steve didn't rise to her bait. His eyes just flicked from her to me questioningly before finally fixing on me. I was the resident expert on Yori and her moods and she'd pretty much been left to me to deal with her grief. Steve didn't know if it was a good idea or not to spar with her.
I didn't either, really. On one hand, Yori was dangerous and didn't pull punches, but if there was anyone here who could take it besides me it would be Steve. There was a chance she could slip too far into the fight and get a little out of control. But maybe this was what she needed? A chance to just let loose and lay into something that could take her hits and fight back, just purge all her emotions in the age-old rhythm of combat.
I looked back at Steve and, equally uncertain, I nodded. Steve mirrored me, his eyes flicking back to Yori, whose face split into a wide smile, her eyes lighting with a familiar fire.
"Good," she purred, permanently blackened lips curving into a smirk. Her wings flared and spread and she flew herself over the ropes, dropping down lightly. Steve approached and climbed over the ropes with ease, entering the ring.
Bucky coiled his arms around my waist, pulling me to his chest. He looked down at me questioningly. "Is this a good idea?" he asked me uncertainly. I shrugged.
"No idea," I admitted. "But I'm fairly confident Steve can handle her."
Bucky guided us over to a bench along one wall, close to the ring. He sat down and I seated myself next to him. Dugan, distracted from his own workout, sat down on Bucky's other side.
"This is gonna be good," he said grimly as Steve and Yori squared off.
Yori was in fine form, her wings spread, tail lifted, and an ominous smile on her face. She looked every bit like a formidable demon. Steve stood firm though and didn't flinch despite her appearance, raising his arms in a characteristic boxer's stance.
"An unstoppable force meets an immovable object," I murmured quietly.
Like my words had been the trigger, Yori threw herself at Steve. He sidestepped and tried to reach for her tail like he'd seen me do. It whipped out of his reach as Yori spun, bringing a fist towards Steve's head. He blocked her and she came at him in a flurry of kicks. Steve let himself be backed around the ring, using his arms and legs to catch and redirect or outright stop her attacks against him. The longer she steered him around, the more visibly annoyed Yori looked.
"Attack me!" she shouted at Steve angrily, spinning in a circle with one leg extended. Steve shook his head as he leaned back, out of range. Yori continued to spin and gave a leap. My eyes widened as I recognized the technique. Steve lowered an arm to block her leg aimed at his side. At the last second Yori tucked her leg in and instead battered his head and side with her wings, finishing with a strike across his shoulder with the flat of her tail. She landed a short distance away in a crouch with one leg extended.
"I can take a hit, Steve," she said shortly, straightening up and fixing him with a glare.
"I know," Steve admitted. "But I don't want to hurt you."
Yori laughed harshly. "You're making the assumption that you could!" She lunged again, swinging her fist towards his shoulder. Steve raised an arm to block. Yori seized his wrist and used it to swing herself up and around. She landed with her knees digging into the sway of his spine, her arms around his neck in a chokehold.
"Do you throw me or do I knock you out?" Yori challenged. "Your call!"
Steve reached behind himself, trying to grab a hold of her tail or a wing, but Yori kept her appendages tucked close. Steve staggered.
"She won't kill him, will she?" Bucky whispered to me, gripping my hand worriedly. I shook my head.
"She won't kill him," I assured Bucky, placing my hand over his own. "She will knock him out though," I admitted.
Steve had apparently decided to start fighting. He reached over his shoulders and grabbed Yori around the neck and shoulders, ripping her over his head and slamming her down to the ground. Steve aimed to step on her chest, keeping her pinned, but Yori grabbed his ankle in her tail and yanked, pulling him into an unwilling split. I heard Dugan and Bucky wince in sympathy. Steve recovered quickly, getting to his knees and spinning to face her. Yori was already up, aiming to kick him across the jaw. Steve grabbed her ankle and yanked – harder than he meant to, going by the surprise on his face as Yori was ripped off her feet and flung into the ropes. She hung there for a moment, panting.
Steve slowly stood, eyes on her. "Sorry, Yori, I didn't mean to-"
Yori cut him off by bursting into full-throated laughter. All of us stared at her in surprise as she flipped herself around and sagged against the ropes, strands of hair hanging in her sweaty face. My eyes widened. Yori must have been really pushing herself if she was sweating and panting like that. Steve had given her a good workout.
"That's just what the doctor ordered!" Yori announced, rising up on her toes and raising her hands over her head, one hand wrapped around the other wrist. She gave a long, luxurious stretch and tossed Steve an appreciative smirk. "Well done, taichō. I may actually be sore."
Steve shook his head. "I'll get you some ice, I didn't intend to-"
Yori chuckled again. "Please, I know how hard you can hit. I knew what I was getting into. Don't feel bad. I just needed to hit something that hit back." Yori brought a foot up and took it in her palm, casually stretching it straight up over her head. The men's eyes widened in disbelief. I smiled. I'd seen Yori do that time and time again – she only did it when she was feeling particularly satisfied with a workout.
It was clear Yori was snapping out of her funk, I mused as she switched legs and dragged the other one up and over her head. Now if only I could do the same…
