Della
I left work and instead of heading to our apartment I stopped at Steve and Bucky's and knocked on the door.
"Come on in, Delora!"
I rolled my eyes and opened the door. Steve was sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the table, reading the newspaper. His fingers were stained with paint.
"Hey Della," he greeted as I walked in and stripped off my coat and scarf, hanging it up on the hook by the door.
"Hello, Steve," I replied. "Good class this morning?"
Steve nodded. "Yeah. Nessie dropped by to bring me an atomizer because someone is a mother hen." He sent a dirty look in the direction of the kitchen, where Bucky was leaning against the wall with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a towel thrown over his shoulder.
"I would assume the mother hen is you?" I guessed, and Bucky tugged the towel off his shoulder leaning over and whacking Steve across the back of the head with it.
"Hey!" he protested, leaning forwards and scowling over his shoulder. He held the newspaper between himself and Bucky in defense. "Well, you were!"
"Ungrateful," Bucky accused.
"Speaking of my lesson, Nessie ended up staying to model for my class," Steve added to me, still not looking away from Bucky warily. "She said she had something to talk to you about when you're done here."
I raised an eyebrow, not sure what could have come from her modeling for an art class that warranted a serious conversation, but nonetheless I nodded.
"I'll talk to her when I take her home some pizza."
"Let's get started then," Bucky said, gesturing for me to follow him into the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen with him as he tossed the towel onto the counter next to a pile of ingredients. He held up a small card and passed it over to me. I took it and scanned the ingredients and directions curiously.
"I wrote it down for you, since you might not remember everything after just doing it once," Bucky explained.
I smiled faintly. "Actually, I don't ever forget things I've read. So now that you've given me this, I don't technically need you anymore." I turned and pretended to head back for the door and Bucky's jaw dropped open in disbelief. He was quick to catch my arm and pull me back, looking at me in disbelief. But then a smug smile broke across his face.
"Huh, so the more I get under your skin the more fun you are," he noted. "I'd better stop now before you start running around trying to short sheet my bed or glue my shoes to the floor."
I stared at Bucky, my expression blank. "I'll have you know that I'm a hilarious individual."
Steve called from the couch, "You sound like you're about to fall asleep."
"And I'll have you know that you are not by any means 'getting under my skin,'" I informed Bucky sternly. "Now come on, I'm here to learn."
"If I'm teaching you, any chance I can get you to call me Professor Barnes?" Bucky wheedled.
"Goodbye, James."
"Wait, wait!" Bucky laughed, grabbing my arm and keeping me from heading for the door again. "Alright, so, making pizza." He clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. "Time to get serious. Well, for me to get serious. You always are," he corrected himself.
"What's first?" I asked.
"What, you don't remember?" Bucky teased. "I thought you never forgot anything you read?"
I gave him a pointed look and began to recite, "Dissolve yeast into warm water, leave for ten minutes. In another bowl, combine flour, salt, and shortening. Stir in yeast mixture. Knead on a lightly-floured surface until smooth-"
"Okay, okay!" Bucky said quickly, cutting me off. He gave me a sideways look. "You really don't forget anything you read, huh?"
"No," I said smugly, folding my hands behind my back. "I don't."
Bucky shook his head, still looking surprised, and pulled over a small bowl and a large one. "I went ahead and dissolved the yeast, so that's ready and waiting. Here's a bowl for mixing it all together."
I reached for the bag of flour and a measuring cup and measured out the amount that was listed on the card, pouring it into the bowl before adding the salt and shortening. Bucky proffered a wooden spoon and asked,
"Would you like to do the honors?"
I took the spoon from him and set the bowl on the counter, gripping one edge firmly. I began to stir, strong enough that everything mixed together quickly and easily but not hard enough to toss flour and salt everywhere in clouds. Bucky watched and nodded in approval.
"It's like you've done this before."
"Yes, I'm familiar with how to stir a spoon," I replied drily. "I've done it once or twice."
Bucky poured in the yeast and I began to mix it in as he dipped a hand into the flour and began to sprinkle it out onto the counter so that the mixture could be kneaded into dough. He dipped his hand into the bag for a second bit of flour and asked curiously,
"So anything you read, you never forget?"
"Anything I read or see, I don't forget. My memory isn't so good for things I just hear, but it's still fairly decent. It used to drive me crazy in school because I could recite my rote after one reading and then I had to wait while everyone else stumbled along for a few days before they could recite it too."
"What about things like, I dunno, Shakespeare?" Bucky pressed. "Did they make you read that in school? Can you recite stuff that was written a long time ago from memory?"
I gave Bucky a pointed look. "I didn't get past the eighth grade, remember? I had to drop out. But yes, they would have made us read Shakespeare. I read Romeo and Juliet on my own though, because it's one of those things you're supposed to have read, and it stuck just like everything else does. Language doesn't make a difference."
"That's crazy."
"Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; whose misadventured piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parents' strife."
Bucky gave me a look of disbelief before shaking his head and accusing, "Now you're just showing off."
I smirked faintly as I scooped the dough out onto the flour. "Maybe a little."
I was unable to resist. I peered into Bucky's mind and listened to his thoughts. He was deeply impressed by my memory and also a little jealous. He was thinking that if he could do that he wouldn't have had so much trouble in his science class in high school. He also thought that I had a nice voice and that I sounded smooth and soothing reciting like that and it was calming to listen to.
I flushed and hastily withdrew, adding quickly, "It's not what you think. Being able to remember doesn't mean I automatically understood it. I could read about a theory and be able to recite it but I might not understand what it means. Does that make sense?"
Bucky blinked. "I guess that's true. Hey, have you made bread before?" I nodded. "Then you know how to knead dough."
I stepped up to the dough and began to work it, kneading and folding and working it as I waited for it to get smooth and stretchy.
"After that gets to where it needs to be we can put it in an oiled bowl and cover it to let it rise," Bucky explained. He looked around and scowled at the ingredients spread across the counter. "Now, only question is where did I put the oil? Did I even get it out?" he mumbled to himself, and walked over to the cabinet, his back away from me. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the oil half-hidden behind a large can of tomato paste. I opened my mouth to tell Bucky I found it, and it all happened instinctively. My mind stretched out like it did when I reached for a person, only instead of latching onto the small node that was Bucky or Steve, it curled with more firmness than usual around the bottle of oil. My eyes widened as the bottle glowed ever-so-softly a dark purple color. I swallowed thickly and glanced from the bottle to where Bucky was digging through the cabinet and mumbling. I had a moment, and I turned my focus onto the bottle of oil. Like it was on a thread, I dragged that piece of me that was wrapped around it back towards me and my heart nearly stopped when the bottle slid jerkily across the counter. I gasped and my concentration faltered, the glow fading.
"Oh hey, you found it!" Bucky said, turning away from the cabinet and spotting it sitting by me. I felt frozen, terrified that he'd seen me move the bottle with my mind – I'd moved an object with my mind! – but he didn't seem to have seen it. He snatched up the bottle and smirked at me. "You were gonna just let me dig through the cabinet looking for it, huh?"
I licked my lips and replied with a voice that I hoped sounded normal, "I would have told you eventually."
"Uh huh," Bucky said with faux skepticism. "Sure you would have."
The dough was set aside to rise as Bucky taught me how to make the sauce from onions, garlic, tomato paste, and various spices.
"You have a pretty impressive collection of spices," I noted. He and Steve even had a spice rack, an item I had never seen in the home of a bachelor, let alone two.
"Well, when you can only make a couple dishes, you have to change things up however you can," Steve commented as he set the newspaper aside and walked to the kitchen, leaning against the wall. Bucky gave him a pointed look.
"Why don't you learn some new recipes then, pal?"
"Wouldn't want to kick my housewife out of the kitchen," Steve teased. I looked from Steve to Bucky and smirked faintly.
"Hm, if we got him a little pink apron."
Steve's eyes lit with amusement as he continued, "Maybe some hair curlers?"
"I'll see if I can find him some lipstick and a nice skirt."
Bucky gave us both betrayed looks. "Come on, really? You're going to team up with Steve against me?" He pointed at the sauce-smeared dough ready and waiting for toppings. "I'm teaching you to make pizza!"
I licked my lips. "A nice pair of pumps," I pronounced carefully, fighting a smile off my face. Bucky groaned and threw up his hands.
"That's it, no pizza for either of you!"
In the end he relented and, when the pizza came out of the oven, he cut it in half and gave me one while he kept the other for himself and Steve to have for dinner. I donned my coat and draped my scarf loosely around my throat more for convenience than for the sake of cold seeing as I was just going next door.
"Thank you for that, James," I said gratefully as I tucked the index card with the recipe on it into my pocket. "I'll add it to my cookbook when I get home."
"You don't just remember all your recipes?" Bucky teased. I huffed a laugh.
"I do, but recipes are a sacred thing where I'm from. I know women who have gone to their grave with their recipes. They're collected to be passed on."
Bucky smiled faintly, and it was a lot more serious of a smile than I'd ever seen him have before. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "Well, I'm glad to have contributed. Go home before your pizza gets cold," he urged, plucking the collar of my coat before pulling his hand away.
"Good night, Steve," I called uncertainly, looking from my shoulder to Bucky as I left.
I was thinking about that bottle of oil when I carried our half of the pizza into our apartment and saw Nessie sitting on the couch with her legs bare and her feet tucked up under her. She looked up at me and smiled when I walked in.
"Smells delicious, Della!" she said happily, and patted the seat beside her on the couch. "Come on, we can use our hands and eat while we talk. Something amazing happened today and I…" Her expression faltered and she looked me over curiously. "Are you… okay?" she asked uncertainly.
I shook my head, because I honestly didn't know if I was okay or not at this point. I looked down at my coat and, like I had in Bucky's kitchen, I reached out with my mind and folded my thoughts around the buttons on my coat. They glowed the same dark purple, showing up well against the dark fabric. Nessie gasped and her hands flew up to cover her mouth when the buttons slid out of the holes and the coat sagged open on my shoulders.
"Oh my god," she breathed, the magnitude of what I'd just done seeming to hang in the air. "What did you just… how did you… when did you…?"
"Just now," I explained. "Bucky was looking in the cabinet for the oil and I saw it. I didn't mean to do it. I reached out like I do when I'm going to put a thought in someone's head. I wasn't trying to, but my mind sort of… of folded around it and I… I pulled, and the bottle moved."
I looked down and focused on the plate of pizza. It glowed too and floated over to rest on the table in front of the couch. I turned my attention to the kitchen and tried to focus on the towels in the drawer, in pulling them out and bringing them in here to use as napkins. But it was like I was trying to grab water with my thoughts. It caught and then slipped away. Trying again, I focused on the handle of the drawer and I was able to grip it as easily as I had the buttons on my coat or the plate. The sound of the drawer opening could be heard from the kitchen, but I still couldn't get a towel to come floating in.
"You don't have to see it, either!" Nessie gasped, sounding awed.
"I think," I said slowly. "That it's not so much whether I see it or not, it's a matter of knowing exactly what and where it is. I can't make a towel come in here from the drawer because I don't know which towel is on top or where exactly in the drawer it is. But I know where the drawer handle is and what it looks like."
Nessie's face was pale and she looked almost afraid as she asked, "Do you think that whatever happened to us it's still happening."
I bit my lip. There was no good answer for that. We had no idea who the man in the diner was aside from a last name and no idea what was in his case, what it was meant to do, what it had actually done. Every bit of what we'd figured out thus far was a matter of guesswork and dumb luck.
"It's only a theory," I said slowly. "But I think I have, hypothetically, always been able to do this. I just needed to work out the exact method. You may be able to do more than light yourself on fire and dissociate into heat."
Nessie blinked. "Do more? Like what?"
"No idea," I admitted, and shucked my coat the rest of the way, hanging it up by the door. I walked over to the couch and sat down wearily next to her, tugging my shoes off and mirroring her position. "You could be able to… breathe fire, or throw fireballs. Perhaps even manipulate already existing fire instead of just producing it."
"Jesus," Nessie breathed. "How would we find out? Do we just have to try?"
I nodded. "I don't know a better way. And I think we should start experimenting a little."
Nessie looked at me nervously. "You sure? You really think that's a good idea?"
"I don't know," I said in frustration, reaching up and beginning to unpin my hair. "I don't know a whole lot about any of this, about what's been done to us. I'm not a scientist. But I think it's best we know exactly what we can and can't do and how to do it so that we avoid anything like what happened today. What would have happened if Bucky hadn't been facing the other way?" I proposed, and Nessie shuddered.
"I mean… I don't think Bucky and Steve would tell anyone if we asked them not to," she said, but she sounded uncertain.
"But you don't know," I replied, and she had to nod in agreement. I relaxed back against the couch wearily and closed my eyes, fanning my hair around my shoulders. I let out a long, cleansing breath.
"I'm going to look into the local library," I mused aloud. "Science was never my favorite subject. If I can get my hands on magazines and try to figure out what's going on as far as new developments, maybe it would help me figure out what's happened to us, or at least give me a better idea of where to look."
Nessie gave a shaky lap and picked up and piece of pizza from the plate, offering it to me. I took it gratefully and bit into it, chewing tiredly. "And I thought I had important news today."
I blinked, recalling that Steve had said Nessie wanted to talk to me. Honestly, in the wake of everything I'd forgotten. "That's right, Steve said you had news. You went to his art class to drop off his atomizer and ended up modeling?"
Nessie nodded, smiling. Some color was starting to return to her face and her eyes were sparkling again, which was a good sign that she was calming down and cheering up now that she had heard all I had to say about our abilities. "The man who was teaching asked me to model for the whole project, for a week of classes."
"And you agreed," I guessed with confidence.
"I did. And he's not going to pay me. But," she stressed, "he's going to put me in touch with a former student of his who is one of the top photographers in the city. He said he'd get me two free hours with him in exchange for my time!"
I blinked. "And why did he think some time with a photographer would be interesting to you?" I asked blankly.
"He wanted a dancer and he heard Steve and I talking about how I wanted to be a dancer," Nessie explained. "And he said that his friend would take pictures and put together a proper portfolio of head shots and glamour shots for me so that I might actually be able to book a professional job!" she finished excitedly.
I stared at her. I knew that we both had an interest in performing and Nessie had always been a little more of an optimist in terms of that ever actually happening where I was, as always, a realist. This would definitely help her out if she wanted to really pursue this. She actually had a shot too, now that we were in a city that had opportunities for dancers.
"Well that's good then," I said, a smile slowly spreading across my face. "And this is sure to make it easier to break into the business for you!"
"For us," Nessie corrected, and began to clarify, "One hour for me, one hour for you. You could really be a singer. On a stage, in front of an audience, instead of just in the shower or while you clean," she stressed, reaching out and resting a hand on my arm encouragingly.
I shook my head. "No, I don't want to take your time. This is a good opportunity for you, and besides, I'm not good enough to-"
"Yeah, and I don't think I'm a good enough dancer to ever have any kind of career, but you say that I am," Nessie informed me sternly. "Trust me, you're good. You really are."
"What would be the point?" I countered, and gestured to my damaged right arm. "It's not like people want a charred girl on stage."
Nessie threw up her hands in exasperation. "Well then, even if we don't ever become fabulously successful, it would be nice to have some good pictures made of us," Nessie reasoned.
"And why is that?" I asked drily.
"So that when we're old and wrinkled and drooling we can show them to our grandchildren and say 'look what a catch your grandmother used to be,'" Nessie chuckled, tossing a cushion my direction. I caught it and tucked it to my chest.
"Grandchildren necessitates children, which usually require getting married," I pointed out. "I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill." Nessie narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"You're quoting something. I don't know what but you're definitely quoting."
"Pride and Prejudice," I admitted. "But the point still stands. But maybe it wouldn't be the worst experience in the world," I agreed. "For the sake of proving a point to my hypothetical grandchildren."
"Great!" Nessie beamed, and hugged me tightly. "It might even be fun, right Della? You remember fun?" she teased, and this time I launched the cushion at her.