Chapter 15

"Hey, it's ok," I say to Bucky. I rub his shoulder gently.

He nods his head, clenching his jaw. Although I can tell he's uneasy, it's kinda hot.

I look over at Wanda in the row next to us. Thankfully, T'Challa got us first class tickets, and all three of us don't have to sit too far apart. Bucky and I got the window seat. Wanda is reading a magazine, often shifting her eyes around the plane, the hood of her baseball cap making her look dubious. I told her there was no need for a hat (apparently the spell is making her a blond), but she wanted it anyway.

We are currently over England on our way to Spain. The countryside green expands and folds beneath us. It becomes color blocking.

I breath deeply. Apparently I am the calm one on this journey. Wanda is jumpy, Bucky is nervous. Plenty could go wrong. But I trust them. I will coerce them into the same credence.

I'm trying to get them excited for the fun things in Europe. First off is Barcelona, Spain. We are going to be staying in a small hotel right on the sea. I've always wanted to explore Europe, and now's my chance. And I get to have two of my best friends with me.

I flip through the pamphlet on Barcelona a third time. The words flow like a river, fluctuating like Bucky's face. Wanda remains rigid.

Both of them are caught within themselves. Wanda is fully capable. Bucky has no need to be afraid. Nobody can hurt them; nobody knows who they are. They wear layers upon layers of masks, and put all the pressure on themselves to protect and enclose. No human on earth is capable of that; some things are up providence.

I close my eyes, because I know it makes no difference.

/

"Ok, Ok, that's highly inaccurate. You could never legitimately kill someone with a pen. Plastic isn't that strong."

"Um, excuse me, Matt Damon is capable of anything. If he can save China, he can stab someone with a pen."

Wanda stays quite as Bucky and I fight over the logistics of The Bourne Identity movie we had watched on the plane. I honestly don't know why I picked it, I knew this was coming.

"Looks don't always work, ok, I know." Bucky chuckles, and smiles at me. I grab his hand, shifting my bag on my shoulder.

"Here, let me carry that," Bucky says.

Such a gentleman. I think I'll keep him.

We go through baggage claim, and then out into the fresh, sea sprinkled air. The wind whips my hair. I can see the buildings of the city are softly lit, as if the light natural emits through the walls. Wanda is once again scanning our surrounding restlessly.

The city is calm, yet you can feel the shivers of energy. I see tan couples walk along the sidewalk next to the sea, as we ride by sluggishly in our cab. I leave the window open, despite the driver's annoyance. This is an opportunity I will not miss.

When we reach the hotel, Bucky carries our bags to the door, but a bellboy quickly stops him.

"Aquí, señor, déjame llevar tus maletas."

"Gracias," Bucky says back.

As we walk in, I whisper quietly, "You know what he said?"

"Yeah, didn't you?"

"I almost failed high school Spanish, so no."

"You have a Ph.D!" Bucky spouts indignantly.

"Doesn't mean I know Spanish." I snort.

Orange and neutral color carpets cover the lobby, which has a small, but beautiful golden chanadler in the middle. The walls are terra cotta, and vintage wood composes the tables and check-in desk. Modern, but rustic decor fills the room. The place preaches comfort, but cleanliness; rustic, but modern.

Bucky does the talking with the desk clerk, while Wanda and I go to the back of the lobby, where large, seamless windows cover the wall. It reminds me of the compound, except here I see the Atlantic Ocean instead of jungle.

Wanda gasps. The evening stars dance atop the water, the twilight brushes the tips of the waves, which gently paw edge of the hotels stone structure. Straight from where we stand is a drop off into the cool sea. I can't help but stare, as well.

Our room has a view of the ocean. In fact, the veranda leads right over it, so we are standing over the darkness of the ocean; floating like a cloud over the depths of depravity. As soon as Wanda and I enter our room, she goes straight for the balcony. The white curtains flutter behind her, and she disappears into the night.

I turn back to Bucky. He has remained passive. The beauty hasn't passed over him, I'm sure. But I can see his deep eyes slowly dying. We are getting close to his nightmare.

"You ok?"

Bucky shakes his head, still watching where Wanda disappeared.

"Yeah, I'm… I'm just going to put my bags away."

He, too, soon disappears into his room next door.

The plan is for us to go out tomorrow night to visit the spiritual grave of his victim. We could do it tonight, but the ten hour flight was depleting. After ordering room service, we tuck away in our rooms, closing up our hearts; trying to ready for the tears tomorrow will bring.

/

My newly bought white dress flows in the wind. I feel so touristy. I have flip flops, a hat, large sunglasses, and one of those crepe dresses, and feel like Rachel McAdams in "Midnight in Paris". Although, this is Spain, but same idea.

I forced Bucky and Wanda out of the hotel. Honestly, if I hadn't, they would have just mopped around there all day. Nope. Not with me. I'm here to explore, because I'm sure as heck not getting another fully paid vacation around Europe.

I may be here for Bucky, but hey, I'm not a bad therapist for enjoying the perks, right?

La Sagrada Familia looms ahead of us. Flowers bloom around the church, making the faint colors that seem to seep forth from the walls more vibrant. Swirls, patterns, triangle windows, and dozens of spikes, which shoot up into the sky as if guarding from attack, are laid atop La Sagrada Familia.

The sky is vibrant, bluer than the ocean, swimming with clouds. Wanda, Bucky, and I simply stand where our taxi dropped us off. It's huge. Huge. I have never seen anything like it, and I doubt they have, too. Bucky may have passed it by, but the blur of blood didn't allow him to soak in any beauty.

The church is rather quiet, with only a few people there, surprisingly. We pay, then go explore.

The inside is like a bee's catacomb; its hive. There are holes and colors everywhere. The details are exquisite. The stain glass paints enamel stories across the walls, telling the History of the church. The ceilings extend higher than I could guess.

We are eclipsed in the details, pinpointed by colors and angles. Being so overwhelmed, we float through the church, and Bucky and I soon find ourselves in the main chapel.

I read the pamphlet in my hand, the other one encapsulated by Bucky's. He gazes at the church calmly, but I can see the fascination within his deep eyes; curiosity churning the waters of his blue.

"Tribunes are built up high into the ceiling of tree like columns," I read.

"Holding up to 1300 adult, and 300 children, chorus members, it sounds as if the heavens above actually opened, and the angels are playing their harps."

"I was in choir once," I say, reminiscing on old days. Bucky looks at me. "I would never go up there though, I would have a heart attack."

"You sing?" Bucky asks astoundedly. His eye are wide.

"Well, yeah, but I-"

"You have too sing for me. Right now." Bucky's voice is playful, but commanding.

"Ah, no. Absolutely not." I flush extremely. I may love to sing, but I'm not prepared for a flash mob.

"Right here. There are hardly any people around. For me?" He smiles seductively, then winks.

Bucky gets close, and whispers, "Please?". His warm breath smells like fruit. It feels like a scene out of Twilight. I really don't want too, but my heart flutters from both nerves, and Bucky's closeness.

There is really no reason not to, though. My years of boutrous singing with friends has taught me not to be ashamed. But in a church, and popular tourist spot? That seems pushing it. I love to make Bucky happy, though, and I know what's coming tonight. This may be the last time I can make him joyful for a long time.

"What do I sing?" I whisper, as if getting ready to pull off a heist.

What are we stealing? The church's sacredness, of course.

"One of the songs you gave me to listen to." Bucky's face is eager now, his smile admiring and animated. I look around for Wanda, a last resort to save me, but she has wandered. We pushed her out by our closeness.

My soul sinks, but Bucky encourages me to search my mind for that playlist, pulling from amongst songs that hold tears, meaning, beyond what I could portray. I grasp the words, find the ones that drift through my mind when things are quiet.

Slowly, the melody lifts from my throat. The notes drift to the ceiling, where they hang, then drip back down upon us again. My face burns in the beginning, but soon the gentle rhythm soothes me, the stage fright wears off like it always does.

"I found love where it

wasn't supposed to be,

Right in front of me,

Talk some sense to me"

A few of the tourist stop, and give me odd glances. But Bucky's adoring face keeps my voice non-faltering. His eyes swell, flowing like the tide, rushing in emotion.

When I finish, a silence presses around us, pressing us closer to each other. Bucky smiles widely, and clasps his lips onto mine, his eyes bright. The happiness confounds me, and the kiss surprises. I laugh.

He grabs my head strongly, but gently. We fold into a hug.

"I didn't know I was courting a singer," Bucky says, teasingly.

"Ha, ha. Well, I'm not doing something like this again, so don't get used to it," I say, relaxing back into his arms, looking at his eyes. In reality, if he wanted me too, I would.

I grab Bucky's hand, and we walk through more of the church. The windows' colors brush over us, absorbing through the bubble of love and joy we are within, tinting us red.

Folding chairs are set up for an upcoming event, but are not blocked off. Wanda is curling in one, looking at the golden cross at the end of the church. Her hands are clasped tightly, as if debating prayer.

This trip has only just begun, and we have already left her.

A look must crease my eyes, for when Bucky catches it, he grabs it, and immediately nods in understanding. I walk to the chairs, and sit in the one next to hers. Wanda keeps her eyes strained towards the cross.

That's when I notice the cross necklace clutched tightly in her hands.

"It was my mother's," Wanda says, the normality of her voice surprising me.

"She believed." Wanda nods towards the cross.

"And you?" I ask.

Her eyes remain fixated. "I grew up saying my prayers every night, on the floor of our small apartment. Then the roof fell in. And so did my faith."

I'm quiet. I leave her space to fill out my questions.

Finally, she does. "I was angry. We were angry." I know who Wanda is speaking of immediately: her brother.

"From that anger, and grief… and fear, I got my powers. And from them, I got the same fear from others."

Her Sokovian accent is thick and heavy, layered with emotions, weaved with pain. Red dances around her fingers. I glance around quickly, but nobody is watching.

"I bought that building down, as Stark did to my family."

"Wanda," I begin.

"You didn't let me finish." Now, she looks at me. Wanda's eyes are peeling off catechism, flaking dusty bitterness. Power, force, invades her voice. "I have accepted it. I know it wasn't all me. But I feel as if my powers have been haunting me. From my family's death, to gaining powers, to killing. They were always leading me to them. How do I control my powers, when… I'm afraid they control me?"

"You can't." I don't hesitant for a second.

Wanda seems rather taken aback by this statement, as if she expected some reassuring sermon.

"You can't control a single thing in life. Everything is beyond our control. I have done things I'm not proud of, said things I wish I hadn't, hurt people. We all have an innate sense of right and wrong, and you have to trust that it will guide you to the right things."

"How could I trust it when I have killed so many people?"

"But you have saved so many more."

Wanda is quiet. She looks down at her hands.

I want to reach her, to stretch my arms and embrace her hurts, hurl them away from her.

"Was my mother right? Does God truly lead us?" Wanda whispers softly.

"Thats for you to decide, dear." No longer able to constrain myself, I reach out and wrap my arms around her in a large hug. "You will save people, Wanda. I trust you. Don't feel bad that you can't trust yourself yet. That will come in time. I love you, and I believe you will protect us."

"What if I hurt you?" She whispers.

"Then that was the plan for my life."

I feel small droplets on my arms. They slide down like raindrops on a car window, more drops catching each other, then sliding down together. That's what Wanda and I will do: grasp onto each other, hold the other up until we splash, away from all the pain.

/

The breeze is fierce. It blows my hair, whips it around my face, and claws at me. I wrap my light sweater as close to me as I can; I force it to be a hug.

We slowly climb the fire escape. The store it sleeps on top of, dimly lit, is about to be closed. Bucky is foremost, guiding the way. No doubt he had to pursue a hundred horrible memories to find the way to this one. He had to find the store, the staircase, where he murdered a human. I shudder.

Finally, the ocean unfolds before our view. The roof is completely flat, the edge only a few feet up. We are near the end of the city, where we can see a dull light off in the distance, a ship moving through the night.

I can imagine Bucky dunking down, having to crawl to not be seen; crawling like the dog Hydra made him.

"Here is where I put the rifle," Bucky says quietly, pointing to the ledge of the roof, right at the corner. I peer over the side, and directly in my line of site is a shabby looking building. A little worn down, but it's still beautiful like the rest of Spain.

Now that we are here, I turn back to Wanda. She holds out the white roses. I hand them right to Bucky, who takes them lightly in his hands. For a moment, I am shocked to see two hands on Bucky, then I remember he put on Stark's arm. A one armed man would have called unnecessary attention.

There are no words for us to say. What could you say when you killed someone by your hands; killed them with a dark patch placed inside of you. But Bucky speaks.

How? Is the only thought that run rampant within my head.

"I killed someone here. The monster Hydra made out of me, destroyed a life."

I feel the gasp inside. I don't want to be audible, so I don't breath.

"I don't know if he had a family. They usually did," Bucky mumbles, his voice crumbling. "But he came here to stop something… I can't remember what." Bucky closes his eyes, searching for the memories. But I can see it hurts. He quickly opens them. "Well, he came here to stop something evil. I can honor him for that. For the sacrifice he made."

Tears well up in my eyes. I see the pain, but the braveness Bucky posses', and will some into me. I inhale, trying to focus on the wind, on the ocean. Out of the corner of my eye I see Bucky pull apart the rose, letting it's petals drip down to where the man was murdered, down to the entryway of the opposite building. They melt onto the ground, washing away the blood, the impurities that stained that road.

I look down, absorbed in the petals, my thoughts drifting like them. Suddenly, the door bursts open, and a scantily dressed women stumbles out. She looks around, confused, anxious… Desperate most of all, until an arm reaches out and grabs her. The door slams shut.

Bucky is staring intensly at the little scene. Wanda seems captivated too, and I can see her curious eyes shining with questions.

Bucky gasps. Then, lightning quick, he runs across the roof, and jumps down the fire escape. While this shocks me, I realize how powerful he is in that moment. So fast. So strong. His muscles pound the ground, ready to tear apart anything.

"What are you doing?" Wanda yells, running after him. I can see the moment she hesitates, almost using her powers to fly down. But she is in disguise.

I feel myself propelling down the steps, practically hopping. Bucky races across the street, and rams his shoulder into the door. Inside, all I can see his blackness. Heaving, I make it too the door a little after Wanda.

It smells weird. Too sweet— like someone is covering up stench. I'm about to go in, but Wanda steps in front of me. "Let me go first."

I let her. We don't see Bucky. The place looks like a hotel. There are doors lining a single dark hallway, and what seems like a larger, dimly lit room past a set of stairs.

I hear moaning from one of the rooms. Slowly, while Wanda looks around, I push the door open. A women. A man. A tangle of bodies, flashing arms and legs. Heat fills the room. More stench.

The girl gasps. That's when I see: She's a girl. No older than sixteen, she lays in the bed with a foreign looking man. He, too, looks surprised.

The pudgy man looks past me, out the door. "I was promised privacy!" He screeches.

That when I turn around. There's a yell, then the sound of a scramble. Bucky is back.

Door after door, he slams his foot into them. He breaks the barriers, and shocks and screams come forth from within the boxes.

Bucky looks angry. His face is painted with disgust. Just as swiftly as he came into the building, he leaves. I turn back around.

More girls are crawling out of the rooms, sheets or skimpy outfits wrapped around them. They look shock to see the door open. Through the busted entryways, I can see men shoving clothes upon themselves.

A brothel. That's what this is. A brothel.

Wanda has run into the dim room. I stand there, staring at all the women staring at me. Their eyes are scared, wide with anticipation. They look at me as if I was pointing a gun.

Tears bubble in my eyes. I feel numb, and try to run, or comfort, help, something.

A girl screams. I turn, and a large man with policia written on the back of his jacket barges in, more men following him. A siren roars in the background.

I can finally move, I'm jolted awake. I see Bucky amidst the officers, trying to explain things. I hear him say calmly, as I walk towards him, pushing myself through tons of cold bodies, "I heard a noise, saw a women come out the door and yell for help. It was locked, but I was able to push it in with my shoulder."

He speaks some of the words in Spanish, some in English, and I garner his general meaning from that. When Bucky spots me, he excuses himself from the police officers.

"We need to leave," He says lowly, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.

"What about Wanda?"

We both look around for her. An ambulance has pulled up, examining girls on gurneys and stretchers. Lights and sirens almost blind me.

"There she is," Bucky says, pointing.

Wanda is coming out of the brothel, walking near some police who are leading two huge men from the building. Both of them have greasy hair and sleazy suits; what you would expect. Their hands are tied, and they have large bruises on their faces.

"Did you do that?" I ask. But Bucky is waving to Wanda, who quickly comes over. They pull me away from the scene. Photographers are there, snapping pictures of the scene. A camera flashes in my eyes, and I'm led on blindly by Bucky's arm. We push away, getting away from the sweet.

Finally, after walking quickly for at least two blocks, we stop at a small cafe. Bucky holds open the door for me, but won't look me in the eye. We all sit down inside the warm building with a huff.

I feel numb, overwhelmed by those girls. The fear slapped me, raked it's filthiness, the stuff they must feel everyday, over me. It was all so quick.

"What..." Wanda wanders off. She knows what it is.

Bucky is staring straight ahead. Staring at the wood graining of the circular table. I can see him sorting the memories in his mind, laying them out upon the table until they make sense. Organizing the hurt out of them. Only one other couple sits in the small cafe, painted a light brown orange.

His eyes are swimming. After a deep exhale, Bucky says, "That was the Gullone brothers brothel, one of Hydra's biggest sources of funding."

"What?" Wanda gasps.

"As soon as I saw that girl, I remembered. My mission was to kill Philip Marcellous. He had had a tip from someone that Hydra was running a operative, or business out of Barcelona. He worked for the department of Justice in Spain, although many speculated he had ties to Hydra. I shot him before her could even enter the building."

Bucky is silent. He finally got it off his chest.

"I… I thought Hydra was dismantled?"

"Bucky shakes his head. "For the most part, but lone operatives still function, as long as they are not found out."

I speak slowly, my breath hitching, voice breaking. "Were those girls… forced… taken..." I can't find the right word.

"Most are there by blackmail, or to protect or feed their families. Some by other reasons." He doesn't need to say what they are.

We sit in silence. Bucky gets up, goes to the counter and buys some pastries. But the warm goo, sickly sweet, of the roll only reminds me of the brothel.

But that place is gone. It was grasped with a metal grip, ripped apart by Bucky's memories. Something came out of the hurt. Good: good came out of that man's death.

"Bucky, those girls can live their life now," I breathe.

"With the weight of their past weighing down on them," He mumbles.

I laugh. "You saved them! Your memories, that man's death, freed them! Don't you see?" I jump up.

"But what if Marcellous had found them out?" Bucky demands, trying to rationalize.

"Hydra would have sent someone else," Wanda whispers, staring deeply at her roll.

"But they sent you! Someone who was saved, someone who would try to reverse what evil had been done through him."

I grasp Bucky's face in my hands. This was a breakthrough, the one I've been waiting for. I see the tears in his eyes, as I push his face to look up at me. I gently trace his lips with my thumb.

I smile, so wide it hurts. I taste salt in my mouth. I'm crying too.

"What happened to you, saved those girls, and many more. They may have the weight of those memories, like you have yours, but that pain will be used for good. You can save more people, Buck."

I finish, right before Bucky's lips press onto mine with a small explanation of joy, "They will save you."

/