Start by pulling him out of the fire and
hoping that he will forget the smell.
He was supposed to be an angel but they took him
from that light and turned him into something hungry,
something that forgets what his hands are for when they
aren't shak...
Since everyone was cool with my pizza idea, I called in the order and emptied out the meeting box while we waited. I told Graham to stay in the living room with Bucky, but that lasted a total of two minutes before he wandered into the kitchen looking for things to help with. There wasn't much for either of us to do. And after I swatted him away a few times, he relented and took a seat at the kitchen table.
"You're not going to make us sit at the table like a real family, are you?" he asked, picking at the napkin holder I never actually used. It was a gift from my mom that was now stuffed with mail I hadn't gone through yet. I was busy folding towels, but smiled at him anyway.
"I wasn't," I said. "But now I am. Thanks for the idea." He groaned loudly, going back to looking like a petulant teenager.
"You're just like my mom."
One of my biggest pet peeves was being compared to people's mothers. I would have thrown a towel at him if his mother wasn't dead. Bucky once told me I reminded him of Steve's mom. I was sure she was nice, but it drove me nuts. It always brought me right back to adolescence when my mom told me I was destined for motherhood because I kept bringing home injured animals. I'd been shelling out money to the birth control industry since I was old enough to get it without my parents finding out. Maternal wasn't exactly my forte.
And it wasn't that I disliked children. The opposite actually. I liked them so much I knew I'd be a shit mom and didn't want to ruin anyone's life. But there were fleeting moments I'd considered it. Wanted it, even. The whole marriage and family shebang. When Jimenez and I were seeing each other and I started to feel myself falling in love for the first time, I genuinely believed we'd come back home, get married, and start a family.
It just wasn't in the cards for me now. My chance for that life died with Jimenez. Died with a gunshot wound to my shoulder and the trauma that ensued. The only man I even remotely wanted to consider that life with now couldn't possibly have it.
"Why don't you have any pets?" Graham asked. "Like a service dog or something? Maybe even a cat. A cat would like it here. Or even just a goldfish. I find it weird that you own a house, but you don't even have a pet. You have the perfect yard for a little dog. Like a–chihuhua or a poodle or something. I think you'd like big dogs though. Like big doofus dogs."
"There's a raccoon in the attic. I haven't seen him since I got back from Malibu though."
"I'm pretty sure the pests in your walls don't count as pets."
"They could. If I can convince him to move in with me like I did with you."
"Hilarious."
"I gave him a name and everything."
"What's his name?"
"Rocket. Because he used to shoot out of the hole in the roof like a rocket and shake the whole tree."
"That's a good name for a raccoon. I hope he comes back. Maybe he's hibernating. Do raccoons hibernate?"
"I have absolutely no idea. I was never interested in learning random animal facts."
"What are you interested in then? Like everyone has a thing, right? Mine is embroidery. I know it sounds dumb, but my mom taught me, and I always liked it. What about you? What's your thing?"
"Knives," I told him. "I used to be really good with knives. I could hit a moving target on the mark every time. I even used to do tricks. I still have some upstairs. Black titanium throwing knives. They're as sharp as razor blades."
"Why don't you do it anymore?" I turned to face him. I was wearing a zippered hoodie, but I had a tank top on underneath. So I pulled down the zipper and slid it off my shoulders to show him my scars. He hissed through his teeth. "Yeah, I guess that would do it. Need a lot of upper arm strength, I imagine." I started to pull it back up, but then he squinted. "What happened to that one?" He pointed to my left.
"I got shot." He shook his head.
"No, that one looks like a gunshot wound. I can see the entry and surgery scars. That one." He pointed to the left again. "That doesn't look like a bullet wound." I looked down at the scars on my shoulder. Then I looked at the scars on the right. The right showed a clear entry wound and a single line where they'd cut me open to fix the shattered bone, and stapled me back together. The other one looked like a spider web of raised pink skin.
"Some bullets have a tendency to explode on impact," I reminded him. He shook his head slowly and then met my eyes.
"We've both seen some shit, Jo. You were a combat medic. We both know what it looks like."
I ran my fingers over the scars. He said it in an almost accusatory tone. As if he thought I'd lie about it to cover something up. I never paid much attention to the scars anymore. The left one still ached from time to time, but the right one was far more painful. So I didn't think about it as much.
"I can tell you what it looks like," Bucky said. He was suddenly standing right behind Graham. Only he wasn't holding a knife this time. Graham jumped anyway.
"Crap on a stick," he whispered.
"What does it look like to you?" I asked. Bucky's eyes moved over the right shoulder, where the scars he'd left on me were now hidden beneath the sleeve of my hoodie. Then he moved to the left.
"It looks like you were shredded. Intentionally." I shook my head.
"I was shot."
"And whoever dug the bullet out either didn't know what the hell they were doing, or they were trying to make you suffer." I pulled the sleeve back up and zipped the hoodie.
"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," I insisted. But whatever it was, I couldn't remember it.
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I'm not sure if I explained this in the first one or not, but when I wrote the first book, Guardians of the Galaxy hadn't come out yet. So Rocket Raccoon was more of an obscure character. I named the raccoon living in Jo's attic Rocket as a nod to him, and then the movie came out shortly after.
Now I kind of wish I'd made her attic friend a cat that could have later become Alpine. But it is what it is.
So yeah, he's not actually Rocket Raccoon. But I imagine Bucky probably lost his shit when he met the real Rocket Raccoon. I never wrote it, but I think it would be a funny epilogue chapter of Bucky explaining meeting Rocket to Jo and confronting her about her ability to predict the future (maybe I'll write it someday).
