Joana

Had you asked Joana Kegley what animal she would assume herself to be, as a child she may have told you that she was a stray puppy. In the early 1940s, she may have told you that she was a gazelle.

However, were you to ask her after the war, she would have said that she was a wild dog, chained, foaming at the mouth, untamed, dangerous.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Joana and her twin sister, Winifred, were handed over to their Grandmother when they were twelve, in 1933. Their parents had no time to take care of two girls, for their eldest son was far more important to them. The twins didn't mind living in Brooklyn too much. They loved their Grams and her small clothing store.

It didn't take long for them to meet the crime fighting duo of Brooklyn, James Barnes and Steve Rogers.

Steve was small, his face gaunt and he couldn't always breathe. Joana feared that he didn't get enough to eat at home. (Whenever she brought him to her Grams, the elderly woman always made sure that the boy ate more than his due, no matter how much he assured her that he was fed at home). James Barnes, who was more commonly referred to as Bucky, was well built, strong and fast. He had a rugged handsomeness about him, even at 15 years old. The three became fast friends.

As their bond grew, there were generally two places you could find Joana; at her Gram's during the day and running the streets with her boys by night. By fourteen, she had come home with a black eye at least once a month.

"They bully him, Win. I can't just let them get away with it," she'd tell her sister as her Grams got the ice.

"You can't save everyone, Jo."

"Maybe not, but I can try."

Steve was missing. It wasn't rare that this happened. Still, Bucky and Joana were running frantically around trying to find him. They passed by an alley. Joana glanced down it and skidded to a stop. There was Steve, on the ground, eye blacker than the night sky. Four boys stood around him, laughing. Joana ran into the alley, knowing before she got to Steve's aid how this was going to end.

Without thinking, she curled her fist and socked the boy in the jaw. Bucky called her name from the end of the alleyway. The boy behind the one Jo hit stepped forward and punched her back.

"Jo!" Bucky stepped between her and the boy.

"Steve," Jo said, her voice soft, innocent, as if she hadn't just been punched. "Get outta here."

He shook his ready, nose bleeding, eye purple.

"Go! Winnie can fix you up." With much reluctance, the young boy ran. Bucky seemed to be handling the other four boys rather well. He was trying to talk them down, telling them that Jo hadn't meant to hit the bully, but it was obvious they didn't believe him. The four surrounded him, ready to strike, but not before Jo jumped in, standing at Bucky's back, her fists raised.

"You hit like a girl," the big bully with the bleeding nose drawled angrily. Jo's lips twitched into a smile.

"Thanks."

"Jo, why do you always have to start trouble?" Bucky asked, watching two of the guys with a hard eye.

"These boys gotta know that I'm always ready to get my dress dirty. No one hurts my friends," she replied, "Not if I can stop it."

The big bully hit her across the face and she yelped. Bucky lunged at him, ready to throw some punches.

Luckily, before either of the kids could cause any more trouble, Winnie and Grams came running around the corner into the alley.

"Get away from my granddaughter!" The elderly woman yelled, waving her cane in the air. Steve ran up just behind them, out of breath and wheezing. Jo smiled at the sight of her family. The bullies surrounding her and Bucky started to back away from the Grandmother, who was still screaming at them. They ran further down the alley and were gone from sight. Jo grinned at her sister, who had the look of the devil on her face.

"You fat-headed knucklehead!" Winnie shouted, marching over to her sister and smacking the back of her head.

"Ow," Jo whined.

"What kind of crummy idea was that?" Her sister continued to rebuke her. Jo looked over at Bucky, who was making sure that Steve was alright, but still stifling laughs.

"I'm so tired of them hitting Steve, is all. I had it handled, honest," Jo told her sister, trying to get the girl to stop glaring. Grams walked over to Jo and pushed Winnie out of the way.

"Of course you did, Sweetheart. But you can't forget, Honey, people like them don't like people like us. Those white folks will take any chance they can get to hit a dark-skinned girl like yourself," Grams told her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"I know, Grams, but I had Bucky with me. I would have been fine," Jo said, smiling over at her two friends. Grams waved her fingers at the boys, who both smiled in response.

"Of course, hon. Next time, wait 'till your Grams gets there, then you can beat up the bullies," Grams said, planting a small kiss on her head. "Now, let's go get you cleaned up. Your eyes is already changing colors, and- look at your dress! It's got dirt all over it!"

She was a stray puppy, barking at everything that moved and not standing still for more than two seconds. She loved deeply and laughed loudly. She spoke out of turn and never help back her thoughts and ideas. She was untamed, uncontrollable. She was unstoppable.

It wasn't much longer after that when the woes of being a teenage girl caught up to young Joana.

She hadn't been allowed in school, so she wasn't much used to talking to boys outside of Bucky and Steve and those who wandered into Grams' shop. Winnie had been infatuated with Steve since they met and she had told Jo about all the different feelings that went along with it.

So when Joana was 15 and started to recognized those feelings in herself, she got scared.

There was a boy named Piper Johnson. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a strong jaw. His dark hair lay perfectly atop his head, bringing out the brilliant blue in his dazzling eyes. His Ma was a client of Grams', which meant that Jo saw Piper often enough. She never had the courage to talk to him. He was two years older than her and a football star at the school. She doubted that he even knew her name. She told Winnie that she had butterflies in her stomach every time she was near him and she never seemed to tear her gaze from him. But she didn't just tell her sister. She told Bucky too.

Bucky was all too willing to get Joana and Piper together. He stopped by Grams' once while Piper was there and somehow manipulated Jo into talking to him. It wasn't hard, actually, to get Jo to do something. A simple dare would do the trick. She digested her butterflies and put on a smile and went to talk to him. Bucky stood off to the side, being a friend of the boy, smiling with pride as they sparked a conversation.

Afterward, Joana believed that she and Piper had become friends, and she could thank no one except Bucky.

"No need to thank me, Baby Doll," he said, putting her in a headlock and ruffling her hair. "You plucked up your own courage and asked him. "You're really stuck on him, aren't you?" He released her from his grip and, still smiling, they walked side-by-side.

"Am not, you dead hoofer."

"Jo and her sugar daddy."

"He's not my sugar daddy!"

"Well, he's rich and he's your boy friend, a friend that is, in fact, a boy, so, yes, he's your sugar daddy."

"Shut up, Barnes."

Once Joana and Winnie had turned 15, it was clear to Grams that they would be smart and quite the cookies, so she made sure to brag about her girls to everyone she could. The twins would always protest, both turning a bright shade of pink. All the while, Bucky would feed Joana information about what kind of girl Piper liked.

"She's gentle and quiet and makes sure to mind her own business," Bucky said, "Nothing like you at all. I mean, you're loud and obnoxious and you mind everyone's business but your own."

Joana spent many a night thinking about all the things Bucky told her. So she made sure not to get her dress dirty. She stopped telling her stupid jokes and crazy stories and wild dreams. She got quieter, she listened better. Bucky thought she was sick.

"Why aren't you talking?" He'd ask.

"I'm practicing," would be her response.

"For what?"

"For when Piper's my boyfriend."

Bucky didn't like it, not one bit.

However, he continued to talk to Piper for her, because she was his friend and he wanted to see her happy. One day, he made a plan that would hopefully remind Joana that boys aren't everything. So he told her to hide away somewhere in her Grams' shop and he started talking to Piper.

"So, whatcha think of Joana?" He asked the boy.

"She's sweet," was his short reply.

"And she's quite a cookie," Bucky added, "Isn't she?"

"I guess so."

"Would you ever think about going out with her?"

Piper paused, thinking.

"Listen, Barnes, I know she's your friend and all, but nobody wants to date a black girl."

Joana's heart stopped. She did everything she could not to cry. Bucky did all he could not to punch Piper then and there. Instead, he forced a smile.

"Well, if you won't date her, I guess I could take her out dancing."

"Yeah, you do that, Barnes."

Joana vowed to never have feelings for a guy again. She repressed every romantic emotion towards anyone she met, including her two best friends. Winnie, being the smarter of the two, had been allowed into school, despite her skin color. Joana was left alone at Grams, learning to read and write as best she could. After Piper's proclamation of 'truth', Jo went back to the dirty dresses and loud talking, but there were times when she still found herself not telling stories and not telling jokes and filtering what words she said.

By the time she was 17, Joana was almost as smart as her sister. With her ambition and drive, along with the help of her friends and Winnie, she learned quickly and efficiently, but she denied all requests for her to join a school. She wanted to stay with her Grams and help around the shop. By the time World War II rolled in, she had matured quite well, no longer punching people at random or calling people names because she felt like it. She learned that there were times when talking was called for and when being quiet and listening was far more appropriate. She smiled and laughed. She was free and didn't care what people thought of her. She was a professional.

She was a horse in the wind, a gazelle leaping through meadows. She was graceful and gleeful and elegant. She was all around gay, but never forgot her defensiveness when it came to her friends. She spoke out against injustice and stood against those who wished to drag her down.

She was an immovable force, and Bucky Barnes was terribly in love with her.