(Re)Birth
As you guessed, James hadn’t really slept the previous night, and all but passed out (though by now on the couch) in the early morning hours. In a way it reassured you to find this sign of his inner turmoil after your discoveries at the museum the day before. He’d seemed far too calm on the way back. You knew he still tended to bottle up his feelings, so there was a certain degree of relief to see that he hadn’t been as unaffected as he’d outwardly seemed.
Quietly, you got dressed and grabbed your purse and keys, writing him a note that you were just quickly picking up a few things from the store in case he should wake in the meantime. You didn’t want to cause him any more distress by making him wonder where you might have disappeared to on a Saturday morning. The small grocery run wasn’t even strictly necessary, but you had something that you needed to get and buying a handful of odd ends on the way was practical.
You returned a good hour later to find your roommate still asleep, Becky cat curled up on his chest. He starts to stir slightly when you set down your bags in the kitchen, waking slowly and with a deep yawn.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” You smile, poking your head out of the kitchen. He mumbles something that gets lost in another yawn. You give him time to wake up properly, busying yourself with putting your shopping away in the meantime. You do so until only one item is left at the bottom of the bag – the thing you originally went out for. Hearing footsteps approach, you quickly stuff it in a cupboard and move to make coffee.
“How’d you sleep?” James asks while plucking cutlery out of its drawer. His eyes are slightly bloodshot and have dark rings underneath them, but otherwise he looks comparatively alright.
“Better than you, I should think.” You reply sympathetically.
“Hardly an art.” He scoffs, but it’s good-natured enough. At least he’s not denying the trouble he still has with getting a decent night’s sleep. After he’s set the table as per usual, you tell him to sit and rest while you cook up some breakfast and seeing as he’s still yawning intermittently, he happily obliges.
You quickly prepare some eggs and bacon with buttered toast and carry that over to the dining table, where James looks like the task of scratching Becky’s tummy is the only thing currently keeping him awake, but he perks up the moment food and coffee are placed in front of him.
“Dig in.” you encourage him, before vanishing back into the kitchen for a second, going for the cupboard where you hid your purchase earlier.
With a deep breath, you take it out of the plastic bag, smooth out the edges of the rather unspectacular wrapping paper and the bow you had the shop assistant place on it, and take the flat, rectangular box to the table, pushing it over to James’ side of the table nonchalantly.
“What’s this?” he asks with furrowed brows, food yet untouched.
“It’s a present for you.” You reply casually and start spearing eggs on your fork. By now Becky has peeked her head over the edge of the table, trying to find out why she wasn’t being petted anymore (and also probably to discern where the bacon smell came from and whether she could get away with stealing a piece or so). James expression is still one of complete loss. Suddenly you feel doubt rise within you, questioning whether this really was as good an idea as you thought the previous night while googling Bucky Barnes’ official life story on your phone while you couldn’t sleep. It had been late and you exhausted; that can impair a person’s good judgment, possibly. Well, it’s too late to back out now, so you power through. What choice do you have, after all?
“It’s a birthday present. Well, not quite a birthday present, seeing it’s May now, but since we didn’t know who you were until yesterday, well…” your voice falters, unsure of how to end. James stares at you, blinks once, then a second time, mouth falling open just a fraction. You can almost see the flurry of thoughts running through his head.
“Right, yes, birthdays,” he mutters absently. Another thing that hadn’t really occurred to him yet. “People have those.” He catches himself and drags his gaze from you to the wrapped parcel, reaching out a tentative hand but not quite daring to touch it.
“I don’t even know when mine’s supposed to be.” He muses, almost inaudibly. The display at the museum hadn’t gone into that much detail. He knew Steve’s birthday fell on an important date, though he wasn’t quite sure which one, only that it was some sort of holiday.
“March 10th.” You supply from across the table between stuffing your face with bites of toast. “I looked it up.”
“That was just before …we met.” He ends diplomatically. That day, the 13th, had also been the day that HYDRA had been exposed and the Helicarriers had fallen. The 10th had been when they unfroze him to hunt down the man with the eye-patch, the director of SHIELD. He grimaces slightly as he pieces this together, one hand automatically going back to bury itself in Becky’s warm, soft coat which earns a satisfied purr.
“Well, at least I can be reasonably certain my gift beats that.” You comment tartly, your temper once again flaring up at the malicious callousness that seems to be a trademark of HYDRA.
“You don’t have to open it now. Your food’s getting cold anyway.”
James watched you eat as if this wasn’t a big deal. He felt overwhelmed in a way that neither the breaking of his programming by Steve nor the previous day’s revelations had managed. He was barely coming to terms with being a person rather than a possession himself and the first thing you did upon learning who he used to be was to go out and get him a birthday present, after giving him food and shelter, your patience and your considerable kindness, all without ever asking anything in return, even knowing who he was, what he was, and you had not once failed to treat him like a human being. He gazed at his plate, all appetite gone as he was filled with an indescribable and very confounding cluster of emotions. He felt like he might burst from it all. He knows, in that moment, with unrelenting clarity that he would lay down his life for you without even a flicker of hesitation. Feeling his eyes moisten, he takes one more look at the neatly wrapped parcel with the perky bow, gently sets Becky cat on the chair next to him, and in a moment, he’s rounded the table and pulled you into a firm embrace. You have just enough time to let your fork fall on the plate.
“Hey…” you say softly, running a hand through his hair as he holds you, face pressed to your middle as he kneels next to your chair awkwardly. You feel rather than hear him trying to suppress a heaving sob and instinctively reach out your other hand to rub his back comfortingly. This reaction catches you a bit off guard, to say the least. He’s recounted horrific tales of torture and murder to you, and he’d been clearly affected by those, but this is the first time that you witness him cry and suddenly you feel bad for upsetting him.
“Hey,” you say again, even more softly than the first time, and you feel his arms tighten around your waist just a fraction. Another sob shudders through him, and by proxy of proximity you, and you feel moisture seep into your shirt as he gives up trying to hold back the tears.
“I didn’t mean to make you upset. I’m sorry.”
“No!” he chokes out, the sound muffled against your stomach and he clutches you tighter yet again. “They’re happy tears. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I …I don’t deserve any of this.” The last word is almost dissolved into another sob, and by now you feel like crying, too. At a loss for words, you can only stoop lower and wrap your arms around his quaking shoulders. You want to tell him that this is the very least, that no one could ever deserve the things that were done to him by HYDRA, but you can’t find the words. Becky makes good use of your distraction to help herself to some bacon.
---
Steve paced along the sleek, glass-and-metal lobby of the commanding building, irritation rolling off of him in waves. He and Sam had interrupted their search in order to go after a strong lead that said the Winter Soldier had been seen prowling the streets of Brooklyn. At least it had looked like a strong enough lead, and even though they hadn’t really been convinced they’d still checked it out. It was another dead end, and now they were here to confront Hill about sending them on a wild goose chase.
“Oh, good morning, Captain Rogers.” A female voice calls from the elevators, making both men look up. Pepper Potts approaches with clacking heels and a mildly stressed-looking assistant trailing behind.
“Good morning, Miss Potts.” Steve replies politely, nodding another greeting to the assistant, who is wrestling with a laptop bag and a clothing sack, before introducing Sam.
“I didn’t know you were in the city. I hope this doesn’t mean that there are HYDRA elements here to worry about.”
“Not anymore, ma’am.” Steve forces a smile. Officially no one can know that they’re actually looking for the Winter Soldier, much less that he is actually Bucky. He half articulates the question in his mind already, but stops himself. It would take too long to explain why they would need confidential information on a random Stark Industries employee, and if that woman is really housing and helping Bucky he doesn’t want to cause her any trouble by bringing her to potentially unfavorable attention with her CEO. Besides, Miss Potts seems to be in a hurry, and so are they, since the receptionist is just calling over for them to go up to Hill’s office. They might just as well ask her. They hurriedly bid their goodbyes and stepped into the elevator.
---
“So, what exactly is this?” James asked, turning the DVD box around in his hands. It had taken a while but eventually you’d both calmed down again, stuck the cold breakfast in the microwave and ate. Now he had unwrapped his present and didn’t quite seem to know what to do with it. Admittedly, the purpose wasn’t immediately obvious. He turned the case back around to take another lengthy look at the cover, which consisted of some artsy silhouettes in front of a stylized trench panorama and a bold-lettered title that simply said ‘Howling Commandos’, and in smaller letters ‘Extended Edition’. You fumbled for words for a moment.
“You know the other day when we came across that World War 2 series while zapping?”
“Band of Brothers.” He nodded. You’d watched the first half of an episode together until it had been too much for James and he’d reluctantly asked you to change the channel. You flinched a bit at the memory, doubting again whether the idea that had seemed nothing short of brilliant at half past four in the morning actually was.
“Well, this is like that, but about…”
“Us.” He finished your sentence, understanding beginning to dawn on him. “So that means at the beginning and end of each episode…”
“Yes.” You confirmed. “Except this thing is like eight years old so obviously it’s without…”
“Steve.”
“Uh-huh.”
James fell silent for a worryingly long time, just staring blankly at the DVD case in his hands. You wondered what might be going through his head right now and nervously pushed your hand through your hair.
“I got you the extended edition because it has the full interviews and then some.” You explained quietly. You had learned the previous day that the other five Howling Commandoes were all deceased by now; they had been elderly even when the series was produced. But even if he didn’t properly remember them yet, they had been his friends, part of his history. You had wanted to give that back to him as best as you could, but now you were really beginning to doubt that this had been a good idea.
“I can take it back if you don’t like it.” You offered meekly, averting your eyes and mentally castigating yourself.
“What? No! No, I do; I’m just a bit …overwhelmed I- Thank you, _________. This means a lot to me.”
“It does?”
He nodded and set the case down on the coffee table, swallowing thickly, then shuffled closer to you.
“Uh-oh, are you gonna hug me again?” you joked despite the fact that his arms were already in the process of wrapping around you.
“Most certainly.”
“You gonna cry again, too?” you teased on, returning the embrace with relief.
“Possibly.”
“Well, okay, that’s what friends are for.”
“We’re friends?” he asked, his voice muffled slightly against your neck. You mumbled a quiet affirmation and felt him squeeze you a bit tighter.