The Curse of Dr. Zola
Chapter 34
Interlude-1988
Willa had tears rolling down her face as she watched her daughter drive away. They had had yet another fight, and this time it was bad; her baby girl was moving out to be on her own.
She walked back into the house, but it felt so empty. She sighed and went downstairs to the basement.
She walked over to the time capsule that held James Buchanan Barnes, and traced her fingers delicately over the surface. "What am I supposed to do now?" She asked him, as if he would be able to answer her.
"I've known you most of my life, and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with you. Mama told me that when the time came, I'd know what to do, but Uncle James, how am I supposed to know?"
Willa felt like a failure. She had failed her mother by getting pregnant. She'd failed her son and he died. She failed at trying to train her daughter properly, and now she was gone. "I don't want to fail you too."
She sighed. She wished her mother were here. She also knew that she'd get 'that look', the one she dreaded that only her mother could produce; that look that made her feel awful inside. Once that look came across her mama's face, it made Willa feel like a failure.
"I won't fail again mama. I'll look after her from a distance. I'll protect her, no matter what."
And that's what she did. She watched over her daughter and protected her in silence over the years. She used her gift to acquire the wealth she needed to fund her daughter's inheritance. She put money away into the trust fund that she'd set up for Mary's use once she turned 25.
And she made a huge decision; she needed to prepare Bucky for his future.
She scouted around for some land and bought it; 6.575 acres to be exact. She spent a good deal of time to find the right contractors and hired them to build a house on it.
Of course, it was easy to 'persuade' the men to build to her specific design; her gift came in handy to cloud their minds. No one came onto the property unless she authorized it and she had to 'speak' to them alone first.
The plans that were to be submitted to the zoning board would be the nice legal ones that would conform to current standards, but in secret, they built the house Willa needed. They installed secret doors to secret rooms and used materials not usually used in home building, but James had to be kept safe from prying eyes.
When the basement was finished, she 'persuaded' some of the men to move James to what Willa hoped would be his final stop on his long arduous journey. She patted the wall of little secret compartments. The one thing she learned from her mother was the art of hiding something in plain sight.
After they left, Willa cried for hours before she was finally able to tear herself away. The man sleeping in the capsule felt like a part of her somehow, and now she felt like she was leaving a part of her heart behind. From the moment her mother had 'introduced' her to "Uncle James' he had unknowingly influenced her life forever; she named her only son James Buchanan, and even married a man named James. Who knew?
She shrouded the house deed in layers and only her dearest, oldest attorney friend knew who the property really belonged to, but even then, Willa had to take steps to insure he couldn't tell anyone, and she reluctantly 'persuaded' her oldest friend into silence.
They had gone to college together, and became friends. He went off to law school, while Willa interned at the CIA, eventually getting a job in New York City as a paper pusher. Not many women were field agents, like her mother, but Willa did alright for herself, and kept the secrets her family had kept over the years. When Willa met and later married JT, they had lost touch, but re-connected at a social function in NYC. He became her 'family' attorney ever since.
When he semi-retired and moved out to the suburbs, she visited often. He was a widower by then and she was a widow. They talked briefly about marriage, but nothing really came of it. Aside from JT, who she loved, it was her old friend she regretted about not tying the knot with. It was he that she told about the son she had lost, not JT, and they wept over the loss together.
When he asked her about when she was moving into the house, she told him it was for her daughter, and that's when they set up the layers upon layers of confusing and misleading documentation.
She hired a designer for the interior and turned it into the 1940's on the inside for James, and as always, everything had a secret within a secret. The CIA always taught her to have contingency plans, and she excelled at the skill.
Over the years she had the house updated, and new things installed to keep up to date. When her health began failing, she implored her old friend to keep up the directives she had set in place. She liquidated her assets, and used the last of her strength to 'persuade" someone to put them in the secret compartments.
Her old friend held her hand as she passed from this world, and he cried over not only losing her once, but twice. He regretted not pushing her a bit harder into a marriage of peace and contentment, but Willa was a strong woman. He admired her strength, and suffered along with her in silence in her later years. She never complained, but he always felt there was so much more that she carried that she could never share with anyone. Why she felt she had to carry it alone was the one question he never asked her, and now it was too late.
Bucky heard someone screaming in the distance. From the agonizing sound, he wondered what torture they were doing to that poor bastard…..
And then he came to and realized he was that poor bastard!
He'd been screaming while unconscious, and his throat was almost ready to rupture when Pierce ordered the torture stopped.
It had been a while since he had last seen Pierce, and he couldn't remember the last time they had brought him any food. His body was weak from hunger, and the torture from the electric shock was driving him to his limits.
"Give him some water." Pierce directed. "He can go for a while without food, but he still needs water."
Someone held a glass of water with a straw in it close and Bucky sucked down the water before Pierce changed his mind about it.
Was this the third or fourth round of starvation he'd endured? He didn't know. All time stopped for him.
Pierce was insidious. He was using Bucky's enhanced body against him, knowing he needed 4 times the amount of food as any normal man, he purposely starved him.
"Ok, that's enough for now." He dismissed the tech manning the controls. "You're going to come around to my way of thinking you know; it's just a matter of time. You will obey me."
Bucky couldn't even talk to tell him to go and do something anatomically impossible to himself, so he just glared.
"I'll have some food sent in after I leave, but I won't always be this kind." Pierce left the room.
He made Bucky wait 30 minutes before someone came and left a tray of food on the floor, and then left Bucky hanging from the magnetic cuffs on the wall another 15 minutes to stare at the food he couldn't get to before he was released.
He fell heavily to the floor when the cuffs opened. Bucky was so exhausted he had to crawl to get to the tray. He wolfed down the food like a madman until his stomach revolted. He willed himself not to vomit it all up again, forcing it to stay down. His body desperately needed food. He didn't know how much longer he could survive these bouts of torture and starvation. Each round was worse because his body was weaker each time.
Shawn came in and grabbed Bucky by his hair. "Comply and this will all be over." He let Bucky's head drop to the floor and walked to his feet. He picked him up by the ankles and dragged him down the hall for some new kind of torture.
"So, are we all set?" Steve looked around at his teams; Nat and Clint, Fury and Wilson, Mary and himself. "You all have your assignments and targets. We will all check our gear, and make sure everything works. Maria will be our eyes and ears at Stark Tower and Tony will partner up with War Machine once he arrives. Maria has briefed him already. We will hit all four targets simultaneously. Make sure no one pops the cyanide pill, we need at least one person alive."
Rhodey landed in Clint's yard shortly thereafter, and he and Tony stood at the ready. The teams boarded the jets and they took off one by one.
Laura watched them leave, and gave Mary a hopeful send-off.
They all checked in with Maria just before attacking their targets. Steve realized that they were spreading themselves really thin, but he hoped to cut down on the time factor. With Bucky in the hands of HYDRA there was nothing to stop them from hurting him.
Steve gave the signal and the four targets were attacked in unison flawlessly. Steve was worried about Mary. She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a warrior. She had only had the most basic of training, but most of all, she was untested in a real fight.
IN NYC when the aliens were invading, she mostly helped the others by distracting the flying monsters and the chariot riding Chitauri. She assisted civilians off the streets and to safety, but she really hadn't fought anyone hand to hand. Steve hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The teams checked in as they secured their targets.
Fury and Wilson had come up empty at their target. So did Nat and Clint. No Bucky.
Stark and Rhodes fared better and managed to secure several operatives, none of which knew anything about any other cell. But that's what interrogation was for later.
Mary pushed at people and things, and Steve bashed them with his shield. When he could, he threw the shield and Mary amplified its' velocity and impact.
She wore the necklace and it amplified what she could do, but it never glowed for her, not even once.
How did mama do it?
In the end they found very little for their efforts. They rounded up all their captives and for the ride back, Mary was allowed to interrogate them.
Only one gave up a clue and then he laughed in her face. She got mad and slapped his face.
"You'll never find him!" He taunted her.
She leaned in closer. "What if I want them to find me?"
Steve's face fell. "Mary, you don't want to do this."
"Steve, what choice do I have? I can't leave Bucky there to suffer, and we're wasting time." She turned back to their prisoner. "If I surrender myself, will they exchange me for Bucky?"
Suddenly, his face seemed less than certain. "How do I know this isn't a trap?"
"How bad do they want me? If we let you go, will you get word to them?"
He nodded.
"Steve, please!"
"Mary, you don't know what you'll be walking into."
"Did Bucky? If you were captured, Bucky would do the same for you."
"I know he would."
"Then let me do this."
"Bucky will never forgive me."
"He will when you find me."
Steve opened his mouth, but there just wasn't anything left to say, so he looked down at the floor and nodded slightly.
Mary turned her attention back to their prisoner. "Exchange or nothing, and Bucky better be in good health."
"I'll tell them."