The morning of the charity ball, Jak and Bucky were alone in her father's penthouse suite in Ottawa. They were on the top floor of a building that looked out over the water and the city. It made Jak miss the days she'd spent cleaning Avengers Tower in another city. Her memories before the Compound were not as fuzzy and she assumed her father hadn't bothered to take them because she'd been so lonely back then that there wasn't much worth taking. She'd been afraid of the Avengers and they hadn't much wanted to talk to someone who had tried to kill Steve Rogers. It was just the original six at that time, and occasionally Rhodey or Sam, though they were usually off on their own missions.
Still, she missed the views of New York and the coffee shop in the lobby of the Tower. She missed people watching and finding solace in the millions of people she would never meet, all going on with their lives.
Now, sitting in her father's penthouse, diligently practicing changing her hair to auburn (though she could have done such a simple spell in her sleep at that point), she wondered if the Avengers were still looking for her. Or if they had even tried to find her in the first place. They were so good at super-heroing that it was hard to believe it would take them two months to find her when she was just across the border. But she knew her father was crafty, and she knew that Steve had been looking for Bucky for the past couple of years with no luck. There was still a chance they were looking, she told herself.
Her father had gone out to meet for brunch with his business associates. He'd left Jak with her magic just so that she could practice her disguise spells. She hadn't let him know how powerful she'd felt since getting her magic back. He wouldn't trust his "meek" daughter if he knew that she was practicing violent spells while on her walks with Bucky in the woods. There were several trees that had taken the brunt of her secrets. She'd known it was a risk to show her strength in front of Bucky, but she'd risked it anyway and he had yet to betray her.
She waited thirty minutes after her father left before she stopped changing her hair color and stood up. With a glance at the camera in the corner of the room, she went to the restroom and came back with a straight edge razor, hot water, a towel, and shaving cream. She had Bucky sit in a chair and carefully patted his scruff with a hot, wet towel.
"I could do it myself," he grunted when she lathered on the shaving cream.
"You could, but my father told me to do it, didn't he?" She flicked open the razor and took a deep breath, "It has been a while since I've done this, so please sit still."
"Why would you have ever done this? Were you a barber?" He asked, giving her confidence. If he had the capacity for sass, then maybe the mind control was already wearing off. It would make her job that much easier.
"My mother, when she was allowed to be around my father, took great pleasure in shaving his face for him. She made me watch every time and told me that one day I would have to know how to shave my husband's face," Jak slowly began to run the blade down his face. He sat perfectly still. "On the occasions that my mother was out of favor with my father and I was older, she made me shave his face instead. The first time I did it, I nicked his chin."
She exhaled and began to quietly weave a spell with her fingertips as she gently scraped away at his face. Her magic wound its way into the mess that was his mind as she did her best to remember the ways her mother had taught her to get inside a person's head. It had never been Jak's forte, but she persevered even so, hoping she wouldn't create more damage as she went.
"I nicked his chin, he slapped me, I finished his shave and nicked him twice more. He slapped me both times and when I was done with the shave, he took the razor and cut the back of my hand three times," she looked at the back of her hand. Two of the scars had faded long ago, but she could still make out the third, which had cut deeper. She'd gotten the cuts when she was ten years old, over two hundred years ago and not a single person had ever noticed them, except Bucky.
Her magic dove into his mind at this thought and pulled up the memory of when he'd been in a cell and she'd been cutting his hair. Her mother had wanted her to be useful and tasked her with the project to keep her out of trouble. While she'd worked, Bucky had noticed the one remaining scar on the back of her hand and asked about it.
"Oh that? It's nothing," she said, "A long ago punishment. My own fault."
"A punishment?" He asked, brow furrowed, "Someone scarred your hand as a punishment?"
"It was my fault," she said again, gently snipping the hair around his face. She told him the story of her first time shaving her father's face and tried to laugh off the ending. It was long ago. She'd deserved it. Hadn't she hurt her father first?
"I'm glad he's dead," Bucky said, "What kind of lunatic cuts up his kid?"
"I… deserved it, though," she stopped cutting his hair, "It was my fault."
"You were a child. He could have scolded you after the first nick and then taken over himself. Why the hell would he slice into your hand?"
"He had every right-"
"I hate your old man," Bucky cut her off, "I hope one day you learn to hate him too."
She paused, blinking at him, and then returned to cutting his hair. She lowered her voice to a faint whisper.
"I've hated him for many years," she confided, "But he was my father and I loved him. Isn't that what love is? Caring for someone even when they do bad things?"
"Maybe sometimes," he told her, "But not when they keep hurting you time and again and never even apologize. Not when it's someone who is supposed to protect you and they are the one you need protection from."
Jak let the memory go free in Bucky's mind and watched his eyes widen. She continued shaving his face as she unwound more memories of their time together. She reached his neck and delicately moved the blade over the thin skin as she moved on from selfishly reviewing their shared memories and let him ruminate on other events of his life, doing her best to steer clear of his years as the Winter Soldier, but knowing he remembered them anyway.
When she had finished his shave and was washing his face with cold water, he looked her directly in the eye and then glanced at the camera. He carefully reached his hand up, hiding it behind her body so the camera wouldn't see, and pressed his rough fingertips to her cheek.
"Ruth," he said softly and then shook his head, "That's not your name anymore."
"I don't think I've ever had a name," she smiled at him, "But you can call me Jak if you want. It's the name that I've had the most freedom with in centuries. But in front of my father you have to use the name Jessica if you call me anything at all."
"Jak? It doesn't quite suit you, but I like it."
He smiled, but dropped it a moment later, aware of the camera. He lowered his hand from her face and let her finish her task. When she sat back and scrutinized her work, he sat very still, pretending for her father's watching eyes that he was not himself and that all she'd done was shave his face.
"There," she said, "You look much less scruffy now."
"Thank you," he said, voice raw with emotion, but face stoic.
"Any time," she nodded, hiding her hand with the angle of her body as she squeezed his hand, "Now, I'm not going to cut your hair because I think it's nice, but we've got to give it a proper wash. If I give you the shampoo and conditioner, can you manage that on your own?"
"I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight while your father is away," he reminded her. She rolled her eyes.
"I guess we'll turn the kitchen sink into a hair salon then. Come on."
There were more cameras in the kitchen, but she doubted they would pick up sound. She and Bucky talked freely while she washed his hair, though she always made sure to block his mouth from the camera in case her father read his lips, or wondered why the Winter Soldier was suddenly so chatty.
It made her heart feel light to have a conversation with someone apart from Uriah for once and it was even better that it was Bucky. She'd forgotten how fun he was to talk to and how much they'd enjoyed their time together even when they were in the cold, dark dungeon of a Hydra facility.
"I'm almost done with the conditioner," she told him, "Then we'll comb it out, but after that I won't really have any other excuses to interact with you beyond the mindless rambling I've been doing for the past few weeks."
"We're going to get out of here," Bucky told her, "Both of us are going to get the hell away from your looney bin dad. We just have to be more careful than the last time I had my brain."
"Yes, no more saving me heroically from his wrath, got it?" She told him sternly, "I think I undid some of what my mother did to your brain, but I don't want to give my father the chance to find out if those trigger words still work."
"Me either," he grunted, "But if you're going to make me promise not to try and save you, then you'd better be careful not to get in any situations where you need saving. Got it?"
"I am his perfect demure Jessica," she fluttered her eyelashes innocently, "What fault could he find with me?"
"Historically speaking, it seems like he's been able to find many faults with you. Completely unfounded faults, but who knows what will set that guy off. I swear he was going to have a stroke the first time I came back from trying to kidnap you empty handed. He seems like he's just always burning with rage and ready to let loose."
"I suppose, if you live as long as he has then you get frustrated easily," she repeated one of her mother's common defenses of her father's anger.
"You'd think it would make you have more patience, having seen so much of the way things work already," Bucky rolled his eyes, "Besides, it doesn't seem like the Asgardians have that problem. Although the one did really leave a mark on my shoulder with his knife."
"Asgardians plural?" She asked, frowning. "Other than Thor?"
"Yeah," Bucky watched her face, "Loki. He was at the Compound too, right? He stabbed me when I tried to kidnap you."
Jak felt something in her mind begin to unravel, but the sharp pain it caused pounded against her skull too hard to follow the trail further. She squeezed her eyes closed and pursued it anyway, but Bucky's voice pulled her back.
"You could put back my memories, but not your own?"
"My father's magic is much stronger and more recently cast than the spell my mother put on you that my father has just been reactivating," she finished washing his hair and handed him a towel. "Loki, the guy who tried to take over the world? He was at the Compound?"
"I think he was on probation or something. I don't know," he regarded her curiously, "You really don't remember?"
"No," she rubbed her forehead, "My father must have ripped him out of my brain."
"Huh," he paused for a long moment as if debating something, "Well… uh, it didn't seem like you and Loki got along very well anyway," he cleared his throat, "Sorry about kidnapping you, by the way."
"I'm sorry you got stabbed trying to do so," she let the distant, misty memories of Loki go and smiled at Bucky. "Like you said, we're going to find a way to get out of here. And I think we should do it tonight."
"At the ball?!"
"What better cover for an escape than a party?" She discreetly put her hand on his knee, "But now that I have you back, I won't go without you. So… what do you say?"
"Tell me what you have planned."