Chapter Four

Doctor, Doctor

"Again." Steve requests and I huff, feeling the ache in my limbs. We'd been exercising for over two hours. When we got back I instantly changed and met him in the gym to start training. First there were the stealth crawls, the spy rolls, and flexibility tests. Then came the high kicks, the squats, and the endurance. We've just finished practicing my punches and keeping my hands up and have moved onto one on one contact. He's trying to get me to land a punch on him, but so far, no luck. 

I grind my teeth and go back into my stance, raising my fists in front of my face. Steve just stands in front of me, relaxed. It's infuriating. I take a breath and swing as I exhale, like Steve showed me. Steve steps out of the way easily and I stomp in frustration. I throw my fists out faster and harder, still trying to land a single punch on him. "Channel the anger. Don't loose control." He says firmly in his damn calm voice. I grind my teeth again and continue my assault, now throwing in kicks when I can. He catches or dodges every move.

"Ugh!" I ground out, stopping. "I haven't even nicked you!" I say, more than a little frustrated.

"That's okay." He assures me with gentle eyes as I tangle my hands in my hair, pulling on it in irritation. "Jo, I've been fighting for years and this is only your first training lesson. Give yourself a break."

"No breaks." I snap and resume my fighting stance.

"Hold on, ki-Jo." He sighs as he looks at me, surveying me. "What if we work on using your abilities for a while? You'll need to learn to control those too." After a moment I drop my fists and nod. "Good. Sit down for a minute and I'll get us some water. Remember, breathe in through the nose and out of your mouth." He instructs and hops off the stage, jogging to the fridge in the corner. 

I wipe my forehead and tighten my ponytail before I sit down in the middle of the ring. As I rest my elbow on my knee and my chin on my hand, Steve comes over and sits down in front of me. He unscrews my water and sets it in front of me, then drinks his own. Sighing, I down the entire bottle.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Steve? I don't even know how I work." I point out, too tired to use proper language. He half-smiles and shrugs.

"I'm ready." He holds out his hand to me and I stare at it.

"What should I do? Heal some part of you? Read a certain memory, emotion?" I ask, my mind whirring with the possibilities and dangers. Steve laughs, his blue eyes much wider and more awake than mine.

"How about we just see what happens. Just take my hand and talk me through what you're seeing and feeling." He says in a very therapy-like way. Anxiety fills me and I put my hand on Steve's before I can change my mind. My grip instantly tightens on his when he grasps mine and I start feeling things. "Remember to talk me through things. What's happening?" He asks me, but his voice is a bit fuzzy. My eyes shut so my mind stops battling with what I'm seeing and that clears up some of the fuzz.

"I can feel your strength. The power coursing through your limbs feels like it's in mine as well." I say, but my lips don't move.

"Wait. I can hear you inside my head, but not by hearing." He says and my head aches a little from the assault of him thinking the words and saying them.

"Try just talking in your head," I tell him through thought. Strangely, it feels natural; as if my brain is releasing a pent-up breath every time I speak.

"Alright. Can you hear me this way?" He says and it's much better. Funnily enough, his inside voice is the same as his outside voice, although I suppose that isn't that surprising.

"That's perfect. This is weird though, I've never been in contact with someone for this long. Are you okay? Am I hurting you?" I ask worriedly.

"I'm fine, Jo. Although I agree about the weird part." He responds and alleviates some of my anxiety. His own emotions are very mellow. Uneasiness is on the surface, but beneath it is concern, compassion, curiosity, but most of all care. He cares so damn much. "Jo? What's going on? You feel...upset." He hesitates, as new to this as I am.

"No, no. Everything's okay." I assure him. "What should I do now?" I ask, hesitating before doing anything else.

"Uh, well. We can pass words, emotions, why not try something else? An image or something." He suggests. I send him the first image that comes to mind, him with his furrowed brows. He chuckles and I smile slightly.

"I guess this is as close as it gets to seeing myself through someone else's eyes." Unbidden, an image of my bruised and scarred reflection appears in my mind, transferring to his. I sigh. "Steve, it's just from fighting on the streets. I'm fine." I assure him wiggling my fingers against his hand so he knows he's holding on just a little too tight. I can practically taste the intense concern and sadness on my tongue when it comes up into his brain.

"A kid like you shouldn't have gone through what you have." He says sadly, as if he could have done anything about it. Words float up in his brain and tear memories out of me, bringing them to the surface of my mind. All of a sudden, I can almost feel my uncle's hands pinning my arms to the wall and his scruff rubbing against my skin, his chapped lips pressed against my neck.

"This is just payment for getting to stay with me, sweetheart. Don't worry about it. No one else is going to know." He murmurs onto my neck. Confusion fills me and I don't push him away. Not until his hand slips under my skirt. My tiny hands go up against his huge chest and do nothing to impede his progress. Tears start to gather in my eyes as helplessness begins to choke me, his hands moving farther and farther under my clothes. 

My eyes dart around for anything that could help, but find nothing. My breathing quickens and my eyes land on his ear. Before I can think too much I bite down hard on it. He grunts and backs up, slapping me hard across the face. I fall to the floor, sprawling across the hard wood as stars dance in front of my eyes. "Bitch!" He yells and spits on the floor just next to my face. I stare up at him in fear as he pulls back a foot and kicks me, once, twice, a third time, before spitting at me again and stomping away. I don't move for at least an hour, thinking that maybe if I'm very still the pain will stop or I'll just melt into the floor. Little did I know that this was getting off easy, and it was the only time I escaped relatively unscathed.

"My god." Steve's voice makes its way through to me and I yank my hand out of his instantly, standing and backing away from him a couple feet. His eyes are misty and red while mine are still dry, although they itch with the need to release angry tears. I swallow with difficulty as I stand there, chest heaving. "Jo, I-" I hold up a hand, not wanting to hear it quite yet.

"You saw everything?" I ask, voice low and rough. He nods once and I nod back. I had figured as much. I stare down at his feet, torn between running out and hearing what he has to say.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry that happened. God." He steps forward slightly and I wince a little, making him stop. I look down and run a hand through my hair nervously. "Jo, I don't think differently of you. You're still the kid that beat me up in an alley when we first met." He says sincerely and I almost crack a smile. "I'm going to come over to you now, alright?" Instead, I walk over to him and put my head on his chest. I wrap my arms around him and breathe in his scent, finding it comforting and very different from the one in my memory. 

He smells like clean linen with a slight lemon tang. I recognize the scent from one of the many bottles found in my shower. After a moment, his arms wrap around me and his body curls slightly as his arms tighten around my small frame. For once, the contact doesn't make my head hurt. All I feel is his concern, and how much he cares. His hand skims over my hair and cradles my head gently. We cling to one another for at least a minute, before I tap his chest and he pulls away. With one look up at him, I walk out and go back to my room. I slip on Bucky's sweatshirt and collapse onto my bed, my brain whirling in chaos.

*Steve's POV*

She leaves me standing in the middle of the ring, still reeling. I've never had an experience like that in my entire life. Hopefully, I won't ever again. I let her go. She probably needs time to calm down. Running a hand through my hair, I hop off the ring and head out.

"Steve?" I hear Buck's voice the minute I walk out the door and find him walking up from my left. When he sees my expression, his steps quicken. "What's wrong?" He asks as he stops beside me. I sigh heavily and shrug. "Stevie?" He says sternly, knowing I'm withholding information.

"It's Jo," I say simply. We go into the gym and sit down and I tell him everything that happened, but I leave out any details. If he doesn't know about her uncle, then I'm not going to be the one to tell him. Bucky understands better than most about keeping people's pasts private and doesn't push. When I'm done he's up and heading out the door to her room with me hot on his tail. "Buck, hold on. I think she needs more time." I tell him, but he keeps on moving. He stops at her door and knocks on it with his metal hand.

"People who relive the sort of trauma that shakes you up Steve, they shouldn't be left alone." I frown at that comment as he knocks again, then just opens the door.

"Kid, you in here?" He asks and sticks his head in the room. Anxiety builds in me as I see his head swivel around the space. He lets go of the door and turns back to me, shaking his head. "She's gone."

*      *      *      *      *      *      *

An hour and a half later, the entire tower has been swept and we've added Natasha to our search party. No Jo to be found. My hair is sticking up like I've been electrocuted because of the number of times I've run my hands through it, Bucky put his hair up into a bun and has been flexing his metal arm so it's whirring 24/7. I've noticed he does it when he's nervous. Natasha looks as she always does, although she's practically chewed a hole in her lip from biting it.

"What the fuck?" Bucky says in frustration and I don't even have the heart to scold him.

"We're going to have to go outside. Maybe she went for a walk." She hands us some coms she seems to always have on her person and we split up. I go straight, Bucky goes right, Nat goes left. None of us put any sort of disguise on, so I get quite a few looks, but no one bothers me. I suspect my look is a bit too intense to bring on any fans. I jog around the city in search of the thin girl, hoping she hasn't managed to find trouble in such a short amount of time. My eyes search every face and scan every alley. 

A part of me is laughing at the slight déjà vu, I'm sure Bucky had his fair share of looking down alleys for me when we were young. Just to make sure I wasn't getting my teeth kicked in down one of them. As I search, it starts to rain. As people hurry along, the crowd becomes thinner and I can search faster. Suddenly, I hear some sort of scuffling and groaning that certainly isn't normal. I hurry down the nearest alley and almost fall over the source of the groaning. A young man, maybe early twenties, lays on the ground clutching his stomach with blood smudged over his clearly broken nose. I step over him and turn the corner when I hear a familiar voice cussing someone out.

"You're a motherfucking coward, Prince. You're lucky I didn't rip your balls off last time we met, but this time will be different." I hear Jo spat, but still can't see her.

"If you haven't noticed, your hands are a little preoccupied. I do wish they were doing something else, but you chose this option. Pity." A young man speaks and my steps quicken, stepping around trash and various debris slowing me down.

"If you put your dick anywhere close to my mouth I would've bitten the teeny thing off. What is it? Less than an inch?" The sound of grunting and gasping has me jumping over all the crap in my way and finally brings me to the two of them. A young man, no older than the last, is holding Jo against the brick wall of a building behind a dumpster. Her hands are above her head, inside one of his, while his other arm rests against her neck. 

Her feet aren't even touching the ground. Blood drips down from her lip and there's a scratch on her unmarked cheek. My blood boils. I grab the back of his shirt and yank him away from her, wrapping an arm around her waist quickly so she doesn't fall.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll leave now," I growl to the man laying on the ground. He laughs without looking up at me.

"Who are you? Her new sugar daddy?" He asks, then finally looks up and sees my face. Shock fills his eyes and I only have a second to enjoy it before Jo kicks his head into the concrete. I look to her, surprised.

"Asshole. God, that hurt." She breathes and lifts her foot from the ground. I scoop her legs up with my other arm, bridal style. She scowls at me as I start walking out of the alley, not planning to put her down at all.

"Guys, I found her," I say through the coms and hear the varying degrees of relief relayed over it. "Going back to the tower." I turn the coms off and look down at a wiggling and still scowling Jo. "Are you hurt?" I ask worriedly. Her scowl deepens.

"No, blood just likes to spontaneously spout from my lip, Steve." She drolls and my lips turn up just a tad at the attitude. At least I know her pride hasn't taken any hits. "I can walk though." She presses against my chest weakly, but my arms only tighten around her.

"Really? On that ankle?" I question as I walk leisurely down the street as it continues to rain lightly. She huffs and crosses her arms as I continue walking. "What happened back there?" I ask.

"Well, that was Prince. I kicked his ass a while ago at a fight and he took it badly. So, he thought he'd get a friend and come after me. The friend I could deal with, just not him and Prince at the same time." She sighs and finally relaxes in my arms, wincing and putting a hand on her ribs as she does. "It's just not my day." I frown a little and hold her closer when she starts to shiver. Only now do I notice her soaking wet hair and clothes.

"Why are you wearing such light clothes? It's almost winter." I scold lightly, picking up my pace as she sniffles and continues to wipe at the blood that drips off her chin.

"You're scolding me for my clothing choice now? Really?" She asks, but I see the way her lips turn up at the edges from my asking.

"I'm just asking. You'll be lucky if, to top it all off, you don't get sick as well." I point out, finally coming into sight of the tower, Bucky and Natasha hiding just inside the doorway. She starts to cough and I see blood speckle her elbow. "God, Jo." I start running and burst through the doors of the tower. Bucky and Nat move forward and follow me as I hurry to the elevator, knowing the stairs might be faster but would jostle Jo too much.

"What's going on?" Nat asks as we squeeze into the elevator.

"He's overreacting..." Jo responds and I frown down at her.

"She's coughing blood. You're coughing blood and you don't think that's an issue?" I say urgently and rush out of the elevator doors when they open.

"I've had worse, Steve. Can you maybe-" She stops mid-sentence to cough. "calm down?" She finishes weakly and I look at her incredulously. We arrive at Tony's floor and we hurry to his workshop, knowing he's most likely there. Bucky and Natasha open the doors for me and I walk in. Tony's head pops up from behind a huge hunk of metal and his eyebrows raise.

"What the hell is going on?" He asks and there's some metal clanging as he stands up.

"Jo is hurt. Do you have a doctor here or on call?" I question hopefully. He nods as he wipes his hands off on an even dirtier towel than him.

"Yeah. I can have the team's doctor here within the hour." He says and walks past us, leading us to a different room that resembles a very upscale hospital room. Tony instantly gets on the phone as I lay Jo down on the bed very gently and put a blanket over her which she promptly throws off.

"Steve, I appreciate this, but what I really want is clean, not soaked clothing." She moves to the edge of the bed to get down, but I grab her legs before she does.

"You aren't going anywhere, Jo. You need help." I tell her sternly.

"Barnes and I will get you some clothes, but you should stay here," Natasha tells her and gives her a look before walking out. Buck leans over and whispers something to Jo that makes her half-smile, then swat his shoulder. He follows Nat out and I release Jo's legs. Before I can stop her, she's up and moving to the chair in the corner. Tony chuckles as he watches me sigh in exasperation.

"I'm not going to sit in the bed you're going to make me sit in and make it soggy. I will sit in this chair until I change clothes, then I will sit in the stupid bed until the doctor comes. Happy?" She asks, leaning back against the wall with her hand on her stomach. Sighing, I let it go and nod. Tony moves over beside me and pats my shoulder.

"Doctor will be here in thirty minutes. Until then, I'm going to stay here and keep you two company. This promises to be entertaining." He comments and I cross my arms over my chest while shaking my head.

"Behave, Tony," I warn, but Jo is smirking.

"It's entertaining for me." She comments, her eyes closing as she coughs. I grab a small white towel from the counter on the wall and hand it to her. She looks at me gratefully as she coughs into it, making a face at the amount of blood in it.

"Geez, kid. What'd you get into?" Tony asks, moving away from me to grab a chair and sit beside Jo.

"She got into a fight with two twenty-year-old men." I scold lightly, watching her every move closely as she dabs at her lip. Tony whistles.

"Wow, kid-"

"Enough with the kid shit. Call me Jo." She says sternly, but Tony shrugs it off.

"Those aren't the kinds of things I was doing when I was seventeen." He looks over at me. "I was...well, I guess I shouldn't say what I was doing." He hesitates and grins when I send him a warning glance.

"Please, Stark.  Everyone in the world knows what you were doing when you were seventeen." Jo rolls her eyes. "You were fucking girls round the clock, then ditching them the next morning. Parties, drinking, all that shit." She says very matter-of-fact and shrugs when I frown at her language.

"Language, Josephine." I use her full name as Nat said it and watch her eyes widen at me. Tony laughs and rests his arms on the back of the chair he's straddling.

"Well, she isn't wrong." Tony allows and Jo goes back to smirking. "So, what? No guys in your present? Future?" Tony nudges her slightly and she laughs, then coughs. She shakes her head.

"No. Hell no." She croaks after her coughing fit has ended. Tony shrugs.

"Seems like you take after your other dad over there." He gestures to me and I raise an eyebrow in surprise.

"What?" Jo chokes out, sounding a little strangled. Tony grins.

"Well, tin man has told me stories about blondie over there and how he used to have to save his ass from being beat to a pulp in every back alley known to man." He teases and I shake my head. Dammit, Buck. "About the dad thing, I figure we're all part parent to you. Steve's the main dad because no one but a dad can make a kid look like that when they say their full name." Tony finishes. I smile and shake my head at him, but Jo seems to be having an existential crisis. Just then, Nat and Bucky come back in with a pile of clothes. Bucky, Tony, and I walk out and wait until she's finished changing to walk back in.

"Tony, what was with that dad stuff?" I ask as we wait, curious and a little worried we've freaked Jo out. He shrugs.

"I was just talking. Besides, it's true isn't it?" He asks as Bucky looks between the two of us interestedly.

"Do I even want to know what's going on here or is this a kink thing?" He jokes and I look at him with disdain, but I'm smiling.

"Shut it, Robocop. Cap's worried I've scared away his kid by calling all of us her parents." He sums up and Bucky scoffs.

"I'd run away from the very idea of you being my parent, Stark." He quips instantly as a young woman suddenly starts hurrying down the hallway towards us.

"Hey, Joan." Tony greets our team's doctor as Bucky and I nod to her in respect. Tony opens the door and we all follow them both inside. Jo is dressed and amazingly sitting on the bed as I asked.

"Is this my patient?" She asks in surprise and the room fills with quiet laughter.

"This is a future addition to the team. Her name is Jo." Nat says as she watches Joan carefully. Natasha doesn't trust others easily, and it seems like Joan hasn't earned her trust yet.

"Okay, Jo. I'm Joan. Can you tell me what happened?" Joan asks as she begins to go to work, getting out a thermometer and setting it on the bed as she cleans off Jo's cheek first. Jo explains in a short, pithy way and Joan is smiling by the end. "Alright, well the blood you're coughing is coming mostly from your lip. After that's cleaned off the blood should go away." I sigh in relief and Natasha sends me a wink to tell me she caught it. "But," My ears perk up and the concern comes back at that word. "your ankle is strained. I'm surprised you didn't break it. I can wrap it and give you something for the pain, so that isn't too bad. Also, you have a fever running at 101. Have you been achy lately?" Jo rolls her eyes.

"Yes, but I train and fight. That isn't abnormal." Jo explains and Joan nods as she works on Jo's ankle.

"Alright, chills and sweats at night?" The redhead asks.

"That isn't abnormal either. Nightmares." She says curtly, just glancing up at me before looking back at Joan. Damn, I haven't been looking after this kid as well as I should be.

"Headache? Sore throat?" Joan continues and Jo huffs as she gets more and more irritated.

"I get headaches a lot. And sore throats." She says shortly. Joan hesitates slightly before looking around at all of us.

"Everyone please leave." She asks and gives no explanation. None of us move. Joan puts her hands on her hips and points to the door. "Leave, or I will singlehandedly poison all of you." She threatens and we slowly shuffle out. Nat stays until Jo leans over and whispers to her, only then does she leave the room with one last glance at Joan that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. After we're out and the doors are shut, Tony quickly pulls out a small device and turns it on. The screen lights up and as a small volume icon turns up I hear Joan and Jo talking. We all lean towards it to hear what they're saying better.

"Can you be honest with me now?" Joan says and a sigh follows that definitely belongs to Jo.

"My throat is almost always sore because I scream in my sleep. I'm tired all the time because I try not to sleep because of the damn nightmares. I get chills and sweats because of the terror. Is that enough?" She sniffles and I can practically see the annoyed face she gets when people try to get to know her. They keep talking about her medical history as I continue beating myself up for not looking after her better.

"Damn," Bucky says, looking across our little circle to me. I nod and I can tell we're of the same mind on this.

"Alright. I'm sure you have the flu, so I'm going to give you Tamiflu. You need to rest and get some actual sleep, then you'll recover in a matter of days. Now, you're lucky I have some shots already here." We hear cabinets opening and closing as Joan moves around the room.

"Is that necessary?" Jo asks, her voice significantly higher. I stand up from my leaning position and look into the glass room, worried about the fear in her voice.

"Uh, yes. Seems like you haven't had any vaccinations in years, so you're in danger of practically every disease. Sorry, but you need them." Joan apologizes in a gentle but firm voice. Jo looks up and meets my eyes. When I see the fear in them I open the door and walk to her side.

"What's going on, Jo?" I ask as the rest of the team filters back in behind me. She looks a bit sheepish as Joan rolls over a little cart with a couple of needles on it. When she leans away from it, it hits me. "Do you not like needles?" She narrows her eyes at me.

"Does anyone?" She asks as Joan gets herself ready.

"Ready?" Joan asks nicely. Jo swallows.

"I think I'd rather die from some illness." She says genuinely.

"Nah, come on." Bucky steps forward and grabs her hand with his left. I'm happy to see he's alright with using his metal hand, he never used to touch people with it. "We got this." She looks at him and nods, then grabs my hand with her free one.

"Okay." She says and I feel her fear in my mind. I try to be as calm as possible for her, but I'm still mostly worried. "Chill out, Steve." She tells me softly in my head and I smile a little.

"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?" She smiles a little and then it's all over.

"Okay. You're done. Remember what I said, rest." Joan says and ducks out. Jo lets go of my hand and rolls her shoulder, frowning at the soreness.

"Alright. Bed for you." I say and move forward to pick her up again, but Bucky beats me to the punch.

"Come on, Steve. At least let her have dinner first." He pleads and I almost instantly give in. "Good." He starts walking and we all follow the two of them like dogs. "There's a Say Yes marathon on and I'm making you watch it with me." He says and she laughs, making the rest of us smile.

"Is everyone just going to carry me everywhere now?" She asks, poking Bucky in the chest as he lifts her higher onto him.

"Yes." He and I say in unison, making her groan.

A/N

Phew, alright everyone, heavy stuff. How are we doing? Doing alright? Okay, let's keep going. ;)