Bucky's POV
I'd only had her for two days. Not even a full 48 hours. That was how long she'd been my girl before everything went to shit.
Grace had been gone for a week now. 7 days exactly. Dr. Raynor insisted on a session, but at least she agreed to make it another phone call.
"Tell me how you're feeling," she began.
"Is violence an emotion? I was meaning to ask you." I was pacing in the living room of my apartment.
"That good, huh?"
"Yeah, I'm swell."
"Violence toward whom?" she asked, and I inhaled sharply just at the word "whom," thinking of Grace, how she'd corrected me on it. I missed her so fucking much.
"I don't know what I'm allowed to tell you without getting my pardon revoked."
"You've got temporary immunity due to the circumstances."
"Says who?"
"Me."
"Okay," I said slowly. "I feel like I don't just want to find Grace right now. I want to find her and then kill everyone involved with taking her and keeping her and hurting her. Can I say that? Killing them would make me feel better. Imagining it calms me down. Am I going to the Raft now?"
She paused to think. "You're angry."
"We all are."
Wanda and Vision had to work away from the rest of us so Wanda wouldn't send anybody else through a wall. Natasha put her foot through the glass of a vending machine. Banner flipped the whole conference room table, and we all stood up, hands on weapons, but he just muttered "Sorry, sorry," and left the room.
"Why?" Dr. Raynor pressed. "Why anger more than anything else?"
"Why's everybody mad? Instead of sad or worried or whatever else? Because it's just not fucking fair. That's all."
"Sure, it's not fair. Of course it's not fair."
"Of all people. It shouldn't be her."
"It shouldn't be anyone," Dr. Raynor said.
"Especially not her."
"You feel like it's not fair to you, either, right?"
"I don't know. I just got her, and now she's gone." It felt like the universe let me be happy for a second just to tear her away. Like the universe was balancing out for all the people I'd torn away. But I didn't believe in that sort of shit, I reminded myself. I didn't believe things happened for a reason. Just chaos.
"Are you any closer to finding her?"
"No. Some of the neighbors were forthcoming. HYDRA's been watching her mom for fucking years. Could've taken her or her mom for a long time. They waited until they needed her."
"For what?"
"I don't know. Whatever they have her doing now. We only know what the civilians in the area were threatened and blackmailed into keeping quiet."
"Well, damn."
"Yeah. I keep thinking—" I cut myself off, hesitating. I didn't even want to say it out loud. But I needed her to tell me how to make the thoughts go away so I could focus.
"Yes?"
"I keep thinking. I think—um, I just. I keep wondering, if HYDRA still had me right now. If I'd be with the ones kidnapping her, or if some of the others would've sent me to kill her. I keep wondering if she'd be dead if they still had me to do it. I keep having nightmares about it."
Images from my nightmares—an angry bruise around her throat, or her mouth full of blood, or her eyes vacant, expressionless—kept surfacing. I'd started taking my brief naps on the floor next to the bathroom so when I needed it, I could run to the toilet to vomit afterward.
"You're not part of HYDRA anymore. You need to—"
There was banging on my door. Wanda's voice: "I CAN FIND HER."
"Gotta go, doc. Good talk." I hung up, rushing toward the door, yanking it open, looking down at Wanda expectantly.
"I can find her," she repeated urgently. "I need to come in."
I stepped aside, letting her rush into my apartment. Vision trailed in behind her.
She went straight to my bedroom, yanking the covers off the bed, which had still been in the exact position Grace left them in. Wanda dumped them onto the floor and crawled up onto the bed, looking closely at my sheets. "Aha," she said, satisfied, pinching something from a pillow, holding it up in front of her face.
I just stared at her black nail polish in confusion. I couldn't see anything between her fingers.
She held it up to the light for me. A long strand of blonde hair. "Thanks," she told me distractedly, hurrying back out into my living room.
Vision stayed back to explain. "We've been researching," he told me. "She's found something useful in a book of ancient witchcraft. She hasn't quite explained it to me yet, but I expect it's very promising."
"Wanda. Wait," I called after her, more confused. "You're doing something with that? Some spell or something?"
"Yes. A spell. Found it in a book. I've been trying it out. I can find Clint wherever he is in the ceiling vents, so I figure I can find Grace in whatever country she's in."
"Okay. I'm coming with you."
Vision and I followed her back to the conference room.
"I can find her!" Wanda announced again, barging into the room where Natasha and Stark were sitting alone, their heads turning to look at her. They had the same confused expressions I'd had.
She held the hair up to the light so they could see it, as if that explained anything.
"That's it," Stark said. "The witch is broken. Put her in rice."
Wanda rolled her eyes. "Move this shit," she said, knocking a bunch of files off the table, papers scattering onto the floor. She stood back away from it and focused on the hair again.
"Did you need the table space, or?" Natasha raised an eyebrow.
"No," Wanda said. "But it was distracting me. It's all useless."
"Great."
Wanda held her hands out (dramatically). The hair became a line of red magic, which morphed into a series of symbols (runes?), then disappeared altogether.
There was a beat of silence.
"Was that it?" I asked Wanda.
"I know where she is," she said, shocked, a hint of a smile on her face. "I found her. I did it. I need to get everyone on a Quinjet. How do I get everyone to do that? Does that mean I get to say Avengers Assemble now?"
She took her phone out, typing as she muttered. My phone buzzed a minute later.
She'd started a group chat.
CONFERENCE ROOM NOW!!😠
She looked at me. "I changed my mind," she said. "I thought Steve might feel challenged if I said it."
I blinked. "Um, thoughtful of you."
A/N: i based this on the spell that Dr. Strange uses to find Odin in Thor Ragnarok so none of y'all better be thinking about vampire diaries💀
Also I'm sorry lmao the existence of magic just makes everything so easy and I think anticlimaxes are really funny💀the idea that they worked all week just for Wanda to knock their shit over and find her in a second is really funny to me💀
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