Poetic Justice (Soft Robotics 2.0)

3. POETIC JUSTICE

POV: BUCKY

Decided on beating Rumlow to death. Time: 11:15. Location: Dr. Raynor's couch.

Before my therapy session yesterday morning, when Steve told me Rumlow would be walking the streets again, my first thought was fire. Fire is my best guess for his worst nightmare, since he's been hurt by it before. That's why I thought it would be best to burn him alive. And I thought he should be restrained, knowing pain and death is coming before it happens. That sort of fear is brutal. When you're strapped down and your brain won't stop telling your body to fight, but there's nothing your body can do. Worst thing I've ever felt. Worse than physical pain.

At first, I thought it would be best if Rumlow died with maximum fear. That sounded like justice to me. The poetic kind.

But Dr. Raynor has me thinking about it differently now. In the session yesterday, she asked me if I felt afraid during the last mission, when we were being shot at by some of my old HYDRA contacts. I said to her, "It'd be good if I died on a mission, because that would even things out—ya know, cosmically. Settle the score of the universe. Poetic justice."

And she said, "You're always saying that. Poetic justice. What do you mean by that?" Then she lowered her chin like she was staring at me over the frames of invisible glasses.

I got the impression that she was about to tell me what I meant by that regardless of whatever I thought I meant, so I said, "You tell me."

She said, "That's not how this works."

Yes it is. But I played along, and I said, "I think people should get back whatever they've put out. I've killed people, so I should get killed. It's not about guilt. It's about poetry."

"It's not about guilt," Dr. Raynor said. Sometimes she does that. Repeats whatever I said as if she's making a point.

"It doesn't just apply to me," I said. "That's how I know it's not guilt."

She said, "Who else does it apply to?"

"Everybody. Take Brock Rumlow. I've been thinking about him lately. He was HYDRA—" I noticed she was jotting that name down like it was new intel (she has to pass that sort of thing along to the brass), so I said, "He's in SHIELD custody. They caught him a couple years back. You don't have to write this down."

She crossed the note out and put the pen down with a passive aggressive thud. She looked at me expectantly. I looked back at her expectantly. So she stopped expecting anything from me and she said, "Go on."

"My point was that I think Rumlow should be tortured, because he tortured other people."

"Other people," she repeated. Her tone was skeptical, but slightly more sympathetic—as close as she ever got to sympathy, at least—which made things worse. Pity makes my skin crawl.

"Other people. That's what I said."

She jotted something else down, and then she changed her strategy. "You're comparing yourself to someone who caused harm of their own volition."

"Volition doesn't make a difference to the universe," I said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Just not how the universe operates."

She raised her eyebrows, which meant she'd led me to her main point. "Poetic justice...do you ever think about other types of justice?" she asked. "Say, justice for yourself?"

She's the expert. So I settled back against the couch and I said, "No. Good point, doc."

That's how I settled on beating Rumlow to death. I like the sound of justice for myself. I think I'd like the sound of Rumlow's bones crunching too. In that moment, there on that cold psychiatrist couch, I really let myself picture it: punching him until his skull becomes human detritus ground into the pavement.