Flesh and Bone ◇ Bucky Barnes ◇

Chapter XXVIII: Down With This Ship

Joana

"I do not understand how you survive," Karpov said, sitting in a chair in front of Joana. They had just wiped Bucky and sent him away, somewhere she did not know. "Just a few days ago, you were almost beaten to death by the man you claim to love, and yet, here you are, a glitter of hope still in your eyes. Tell me your secrets."

Joana smiled, baring her teeth like fangs.

"My body is a vessel," she told him. "You can hurt my body and never touch my mind."

"I am no Greek philosopher, Joana. Use simple terms a man like me can understand."

"I know many languages, Karpov, but Danika never taught me to speak dog."

This wasn't the first time that her biting wit and sarcasm had gotten her a backhand across the face. As Karpov sat back down, Joana shifted her jaw back and forth then shook her head.

"You hit like a girl," she said to him, nonchalant. He struck her again. And again. And then again. She started laughing, her teeth stained red.

"Why...." He hit her again. "Won't...." Another hit. "You...." One final hit to her face. "Die?"

"Because!" She yelled, startling him backwards. His knuckles were bloody and bruised, but it looked nothing like her face. Her eyes were swollen, and her lips busted. The wound on her cheek tore open. "Because I can't!"

She heaved, her chest rising and falling quickly. She started hyperventilating, tears of grief and anger clouding her eyes.

"Because you can beat me and choke me and tie me up. Because you can take my dignity and my innocence and my love. Because you can take my family and my friends and my life. Because you can take my name and drag it through the mud. And still, even through all of that, you cannot take my freedom, no matter how hard you try."

"But, Joana, you're trapped here. You can't leave. Everything you've done, you've had no control over."

"That's what you don't understand, Karpov," she told him, a soft smile on her face. "Freedom isn't the ability to move your arms or see the sun every morning. Freedom is in the mind. And my mind, you cannot take away."

Karpov said nothing. He just stared at her, cold and hard, as if trying to read her mind.

"You think you took Bucky's mind from him, but you can't, not fully. You saw, just a few days ago. No matter how hard you try to desensitize me to him, you can't, because his mind is still partially his own. Don't think I don't know you've been pondering whether or not I should go through that blender." Her eyes glanced over to the the machine behind Karpov. "But you know I'll come out on the other side. I will. Not some super assassin. That's why you haven't put me through it yet. Because I'll survive. I always do."

"Why?" He asked. Joana was surprised to see real inquiry on his face.

Why? Why did she survive? What did she have to fight for? What was there for her after she escaped?

Joana shrugged.

"I survive for myself," she said finally. "I survive because there is so much I can do. Because I deserve the chance to live."