Tempus ante Quem
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost
James Barnes was nothing if not adaptable. The fact that he was still alive seventy years after his first death bore sufficient testament to the fact that he was a survivor. Then again it might have just been the fact that he was too stubborn to die, at least that’s what his mother would have said. Well, it was her he had inherited that particular trait from, so she would know.
In any case, it’s not like the transition from hidden stowaway in your apartment to slightly more hidden and slightly less stowaway at the Playground is all too jarring, for the most part. He settled into a sort of routine with surprising ease. Not that there was much to settle in to, truth be told. Between reviewing miles upon miles of documents both paper and digital and going over the results of his tests with Dr Simmons, he was not exactly being worked to exhaustion. In fact, he was probably the least busy person on the entire base. Not that he had any urgent yearning to go out on missions. There was no telling what HYDRA might have buried in the recesses of his subconscious and seeing how even the simplest everyday things could set him off James didn’t exactly volunteer to venture out into that kind of environment. If he lost control in any way there was no telling what would happen; he couldn’t risk it even if there had been any offer to participate in field work. Which there wasn’t. Seemingly Coulson had the same worries.
This, combined with the fact that his sleeping pattern was still sketchy at best, left James with more free time than he knew what to do with. He made copious use of the gym and firing range though. It was never stupid to be prepared, and knowing HYDRA they wouldn’t hesitate to take the fight to him. Besides, he had gotten obscenely out of shape these past few months. After the first three days of lugging around dusty file boxes and attacking punching bags he had trouble lifting a spoon. Which the younger agents seemed to find infinitely amusing.
“I’m an old man. You need to cut me some slack.” He grumbled, feeling every single one of his 96 years. Even if Jemma staunchly maintained that physically he wasn’t even past thirty.
“How old are you all, anyway?” They looked impossibly young to him, even Trip. The first time he’d seen Fitz he’d honestly wondered whether the young Scot shouldn’t still be in school.
“Older than you were when you went to war.” Skye muttered, buttering her toast absently and rather sloppily. They weren’t getting as far with the old SSR files as they’d like, and it was making her cranky to have to wade through cryptic notes on nameless soldiers in old Red Army records.
James mumbled something about kids these days and respecting your elders into his porridge and left it at that.
After that, he went with Jemma to her lab, where Fitz scurried away with a few stuttered half-excuses as soon as he caught sight of them.
“It’s not you.” Jemma said thickly, already shuffling through her tablet to pull up the various scans she did of his skull and brain. James tore his eyes from the now empty doorway, then quickly moved to close the door, still unconvinced. He had seen the two of them together before (ignoring each other a third of the time and engaged in some argument or other another third, and thick as thieves for the rest). They shared this lab space after all. It was only when James came in for his tests and results that the young engineer left. Jemma sighed.
“If it’s you then only because he wants to give you some privacy. But more likely it’s me. There was a …a thing that happened during the fall of SHIELD-“ she shudders a moment before that stiff upper lip comes through and James finds himself wondering if failure to produce the Stiff Upper Lip TM is grounds for denaturalization from the United Kingdom. The force of Monty’s, combined with that certain air of disdain he had, once pushed the Commandos through a grueling trek during a storm. At night. Through the Ardennes. In hindsight it seemed like the sheer force of one man’s disapproval was what propelled them from behind enemy lines to the relative safety of a Résistance encampment.
Jemma is now clearing a spot on her desk, so James pulls himself back from the hazy memory and focuses on the holographic image of his skull morbidly floating a few feet in the air. There is no way he’ll get the story from the young doctor now. Maybe Trip will be more open about relaying what the team went through back then. James tells himself firmly that he doesn’t want to know this because he feels responsible.
Well, he’s equally curious about what the hell happened to him in those past seventy years, so he fidgets with his lanyard and stares at the projection, which is spinning ever so slowly. It tells him nothing.
“So, this is a severe fracture right here,” Jemma explains, pointing out a faint ridged line that runs along the bone, forking out in a handful of places. “But it healed quite well, even though an injury of this degree is usually fatal even with the proper care.”
James shuddered. The ridge was long, enormous even. His head would have been cracked open like an egg. Had been, in fact. He can just about feel the dull thudding in his head, feel the cold, the numbness. His arm is giving him grief, too.
“The trauma would have been considerable…” she paused, furrowing her brows, then put up a couple of other scans, eyes flicking between the images.
“Do you see this?” she continued, highlighting an area in an impressively lifelike translucent 3D model of a human brain. His brain, which left him somewhere between impressed and queasy. The area she indicated was a large cluster of dense matter.
“What am I seeing?” he asked.
“Scar tissue, but it’s in layers. There are traces of a constant healing process until the next trauma overwrites that progress.”
“The wipes.” He said tonelessly, hand twitching in search of furry feline comfort and only finding the thin plastic of the lanyard he wore around his neck. The more he stared at the hologram the easier it became to pick out similarly damaged areas. There were a lot of those. He swallowed hard, twisting the lanyard’s cord around his finger absently.
“So basically my brain is mush.” He decreed morosely. Well, that would explain the headaches, he supposed.
“No, nonono I wouldn’t say that!” Jemma was quick to interject, but while he appreciated the sentiment that sent her off on a tangent about his extraordinary healing factor and more statistics than he could ever hope to process, broken, broken and pitiful; you are a broken, useless thing and a burden. Even the one thing you were built for you can’t do anymore. You don’t deserve their kindness. On the outside, he just nods along politely.
The ‘research’ room is in just as much of a state of contained chaos as it has been since before he arrived, and so far it feels like all they’re doing is shifting boxes around. There are no leads on current HYDRA activity, nothing to add to the wall of cork and pinned pictures at the far side of the room. The pictures on the wall are of known HYDRA agents, some of which he knows, some of which he has even taken out himself for the benefit of some or other internal power struggle. Coulson had been surprised to learn how paranoid they were at the top there. Surprised, yet quietly delighted of James hadn’t completely lost his edge. The thing was that there was no unified corpus of operatives, but a factionalized network of cells and branches only now coming back into their own after burrowing into every worthwhile target on earth for the last seven decades, heads upon heads to cut off and no body. And so far they were even having trouble finding the heads.
“What is this even doing here!” Skye exclaimed after reviewing yet another box only to find it half full of notes in messily scrawled Cyrillic script. James wasn’t even through with deciphering the yield of the last two boxes, let alone translate them, nevertheless he fished the brittle paper out and stacked it neatly on the pile next to him.
You kept yourself occupied with work in order not to have to deal with how empty your apartment was now. You get calls regularly, speaking with both James and Skye every few days, but it just isn’t enough and it somehow never last long enough. Also, courtesy of this whole absurd situation, your closest childhood friend now had Captain America on speed dial. It wasn’t your job to act as a go-between for the estranged friends. It wasn’t that you didn’t care – you did, a lot – but around two weeks in the constant ‘Have you heard from Bucky? What did he say?’ -calls were getting out of hand. Their conversations now never lasted as long as Steve would have probably liked, but they happened and that’s what mattered.
So it comes as no small surprise to you when the good Captain appears at your door on a Friday evening, asking you to accompany him on a road trip to meet with James’ last living relatives that weekend. Somehow you’ve said yes before your brain has fully processed this information. Steve smiles in relief.
“So, who are we meeting again?” you ask the next morning, taking a sip from your thermos of coffee because apparently doing things with Steve Rogers means starting to do said things at an obscenely early time in the day, even on the weekend.
“Her name is Grace, she’s a biology teacher in Rhode Island and she is Bucky’s older sister’s granddaughter.” Steve rattles off, for all intents and purposes far too awake. Ugh. Does America know their golden boy is a morning person? “I mean of the older one of his younger sisters. The younger one never had children and his brother fell in Korea.” He amends quickly. There’s a sadness in his eyes and it occurs to you that James’ younger siblings were people he knew as children, grew up with, even only saw being born and they still all died before him.
“Tell me about them.” You say gently, seeing as you have a seven hour drive in front of you.
“Did Bucky never…?” he trails off, eyes flicking to you quickly before settling on the road again. You shake your head.
“He doesn’t remember, not yet or not enough anyway.” And he hadn’t wanted to look any of it up before it came back to him by itself.
“I just thought because of the cat-”
“What on earth does our cat have to do with this?” you gave him a look that you hoped would dissuade him from any remarks on how you’d just called her ‘our’; the slip had startled you as soon as it was out.
“It’s just – you said he named her and his sister’s name was Rebecca, Becky for short.”
“Oh …Oh!”
“Hmm …alright, so there was Becky, then Rose was born in ’25 and the youngest was Julian, but everyone just called him Jules…”
In the end you fell back asleep during the drive, only waking when Steve pulled up in front of a cute little two-story house with a large backyard. The first thing that greets the two of you is a striped Scottish fold cat trying to herd her kittens out of or into a flowerbed, it isn’t really clear to tell.
“Oh, you’re here!” a voice called from the front porch. You looked up from the kittens only to reel a moment. The woman standing in the doorway looked strikingly similar to James that she might have well been his sister, except with warm brown eyes and an even warmer smile.
“I hope traffic wasn’t too bad.” The woman said kindly, holding open the door for you and Steve, “I sent my husband away with the kids for the weekend, so we won’t be disturbed. They’re visiting the grandparents.” She smiled softly as she closed the door and led you down a short hallway and into the den. You barely had time to take in the pictures on the walls.
“It’s very kind of you to receive us, Mrs Proctor.” Steve said politely.
“Oh please, call me Grace,” she waved him off, already vanishing into the half-open kitchen to brew some coffee, “If that’s not too forward? I know we’re only meeting in person for the first time today, but between Nana’s stories and our correspondence I feel like I know you already.”
Steve smiles softly, accepting his coffee cup with a quiet ‘thanks’. “Call me Steve, then.” He turns to you. “This is Miss _______. She’s …um … a mutual acquaintance.”
“_______ is completely fine.” You interject, wanting in on the newly established first name basis. Grace smiles a moment before her expression becomes conspirational and she leans in slightly over the counter.
“So, he’s really still alive? And you found him?”
Steve nodded, a little sadly, and Grace let out a long sigh.
“I know this is probably confidential and you’re already telling me more than you’re supposed to, but is he… How is he? What happened to him? Is he alright?” she said breathlessly, twisting her fingers in the thin gold band of her necklace. It wasn’t exactly difficult to figure out that they were talking about James. You exchanged a look with Steve before taking Grace’s fidgeting hands while he cleared his throat.
“You’re right, I can’t tell you that yet. He’s not really alright. The things he went through, that were done to him …I hope that in time… They meddled with his memory, made him forget who he was…” Steve’s voice faltered and by now there were tears glistening in Grace’s eyes.
“I used to wish that Nana was still alive to see this day from the moment you first called me, but now I’m beginning to think it may be better this way.” She sniffled a moment, wiping her eyes before straightening. “Alright, let me just fetch you the box.”
‘The box’, it turns out, is a large cardboard thing filled with odds and ends that had too much sentimental value to Rebecca Barnes Proctor to throw them away. There were photos and letters, old toys and books, James’ things from the war, sent home after his fall. You didn’t pry into the exact contents of the box; that was for him to do. Instead Steve and you stayed up talking with Grace until late in the evening, her recounting all her grandmother’s stories and Steve filling in where he could and just listening along with you to anything that happened after the war. You spent the night tucked away into a room that with shockingly blue walls and a continuous Star Wars theme while Steve did his time in mini dinosaur gallery. The next morning you got ready after a hearty breakfast during which you found out that the traditional Barnes pancake recipe had been dutifully passed down.
“When he’s ready could you … just tell him he’s always welcome here. Family has to stick together and Nana would have wanted it.” Grace said upon saying her goodbyes. Steve nodded.
“I will. Thank you, Grace.”
It was the week after that when Sam called you. You were just catching up on your household chores (left to accumulate now that your mentally unstable laundry fairy was absent; seriously, he even ironed the sheets. Who even does that? How bored was he?) when the phone rang. You wrestled two very determined pillowcases to get to it and picked up breathlessly, glad that you had caller ID.
“Heya, Sammy, what’s up? How’s your dad doing?” the elderly gentleman had been released from the hospital not long before, inadvertently giving his son a great cover to seemingly interrupt his search with Steve.
“Hey ______, he’s fine and saying that if he’d known he’d get a basket of your muffins out of it he’d have gotten a heart attack sooner.” You snorted in response. Supposedly Wilson Sr had suffered the attack while ‘accidentally switching to Fox News’ according to his son.
“So, any special reason for this call?” you ask, carefully pushing Becky off the edge of a freshly washed bedspread.
“It’s the Fourth of July next Friday-” Sam began. You had planned to spend the holiday moping with ice cream and a movie marathon, but his tone told you that he was about to proposition you with something else and, in his opinion, infinitely better.
“Yes, and?”
“It’s also Steve’s birthday.” Oh. Oh! You vaguely remembered that detail from the museum exhibit.
“And since there’s currently no HYDRA activity anywhere close I thought it would be nice for him to just have a day to himself, celebrating with some friends, you know?” You did know, or at least you guessed. He put on a brave face but underneath one could see the exhaustion. You weren’t quite sure what qualified you for the friend position, but decided not to question it.
“And you were thinking what, exactly?” you said simply to mess with him while you were already mentally re-planning your next trip to the grocery store. It would be nice not eating the same thing for three nights in a row because you were still used to cooking for someone who ate for two.
“I, uh …just a small affair really, nothing big. Everyone’s out celebrating anyway, besides, Steve doesn’t exactly have an expansive social circle.”
“Shocking.” You comment flatly.
“I know right? It’s a bit sad really. So I was thinking…”
“You were thinking that you and I try to cheer him up on his birthday because everyone else he knows is either dead or in hiding.”
“Some are in New York, too.” he remarks in a small voice. It’s strangely endearing how thoughtful of Steve he is when he barely knew the man for much longer than you did James.
“Well, since my tiny apartment cannot possibly contain Tony Stark’s personality we’ll have to make do with just the two of us and a brooding cat.” You conclude, resigned.
“So, your place then?”
You sigh, in a way that is fond, but also resigned.
On the Fourth, Steve is visibly touched by your efforts.
“You shouldn’t have.” He tells you and Sam repeatedly. After the twentieth time or so he is told to ‘shut it and eat your damn cake, Rogers’.
As soon as the sky darkens, you open the window wide to where you’ll easily be able to see the fireworks. Becky settles in Sam’s lap, meowing plaintively until he starts rubbing her belly. Then the fireworks start and you all fall silent, watching the swirling colors light up the sky. You’re too enraptured in the display to notice Steve going stiff next to you, wincing minutely at a particularly loud boom. You send him a questioning glance of the ‘you okay there?’ variety.
“I’m sorry – it’s …I used to love fireworks, the colors and bursting patterns…” his voice peters out and he flinches again at the next thunderous crack; Sam on your other side does too, but manages to mask it a bit better. It’s only then that it occurs to you that they’re both veterans and you immediately feel bad for not thinking of that earlier, especially considering your line of work. Suddenly, an idea strikes you and you clamber up and into the hall closet, digging until you find the objects of desire.
“Here.” You say simply, handing each man a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, which they take gratefully. It may not be a perfect solution, but then again it’s not a perfect situation.
When they’re not on missions there is a certain predilection for communal games, both video and board. Mack of mac’n‘cheese fame is always eager for opponents and since James is neither willing nor able to bear the silence of being alone for any longer than strictly necessary he lets himself be roped into almost anything by the incredibly tall mechanic, whose duties keep him on site at basically all times. So far James has learnt to wield rainbow road to devastating effect and the distress of his co-players.
There is music playing in the background this time; it’s a mellow classical piece with pensive, almost mournful strings. James was from a musical family, his mother having ingrained a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the art in all her children. He didn't know this piece (frankly it sounded a bit too modern to be any of the Bach, Schubert, Vivaldi, Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, Corelli you name them his mother had made sure they were familiar with), but something about it rung eerily familiar. He couldn't put his finger on it, though, and thus forced himself to not dwell on it and instead focus on the game of Scrabble Mack had gently encouraged him, Fitz, Trip and Skye to participate in. Soon enough, the piece faded, just as he was dragged into a debate over whether or not Fitz's word was in fact admissible or not. Really, debate was too strong a word for the light teasing happening, nevertheless James found himself taking the young Scot's side out of pure instinct. In the end, they decided to count it and Skye was next, blocking the chance for James to put in his next word and earn no less than two triple points with lethal accuracy. With an internal sigh, he shifted his game pieces around in the search for a new combination. There was a rather promising 'R' on the board with quite some free space around it and pleasingly close to those winning squares. The recording in the background had moved on to a somewhat livelier piece with a lovely solo violin part. There was something about the way the violinist... The other's expectant faces brought him back to the plot and he realized that he must have been fidgeting with his letters for longer than commonly seen as acceptable. Fortunately they were as patient with him as they were with Fitz, which abated his frustration with himself infinitesimally. Flashing a small apologetic smile he looked down at what his hands had been doing with the letters while he had been too absorbed in the music. He quickly laid the letters out on the board, spelling the word 'rose' - a meaning-laden flower as well as a well-liked timeless girls' name. In fact his own sister, the younger of the two had been named-
"Oh! Of course, yes! Rosie!" Within a moment's notice, it all clicked into place. Apparently only for him, as he was met with four pairs of very confused eyes.
"The music," he pointed out, enigmatically, "It's... I think... Is there a way of finding out the names of the performers?"
He still wasn't making much sense to the SHIELD agents, he could see it, but Trip indulgently told him where to find the CD case and he went over to retrieve it.
"Solo violin: Rose Barnes," he read aloud, feeling a triumphant grin spread across his face. He'd been right, he'd remembered and recognized her by the way she played.
"Was that..."
"My little sister," James confirmed cheerfully, proudly adding, "She went to Juillard." There was even a short biography in the booklet, Rose Barnes, born in Brooklyn in 1925, graduating from the Juillard School with honors, went on to become a renowned solo performer in her own right after playing with the New York Philharmonic, founding member of all-female string quartet 'The Brooklyn Muses', notable lifelong peace activist, teaching master classes, etc etc. He could still see her as a young girl, always rather on the wiry side, hair swept back over one shoulder and her violin tucked under her chin with a look of fierce determination, lips pursed tight in concentration just like he himself always did.
"You still don't get extra points, Sarge." Skye was quipping, and he laughed it off good-naturedly.
He doesn't cry until he's back in his assigned quarters, back pressed up against the wall, alone. He took the CD case there with him, and looked at the photo in the booklet that shows his baby sister older than their mother was when he last saw her, and reads the dedication that says 'In remembrance of my beloved brothers, James and Julian'.
Of course he can’t sleep after that. He lets the tears flow out of sight from anyone, then dozes a little in the hopes that his exhaustion is enough for even just a nap, but he has no such luck. Sighing, he grabbed a book off his night stand and made for the common room to while away the hours with tea and literature. Where he picked up the taste for tea, whether it was in England during the war or in Russia after, he has no way of telling.
It’s a testament to the gripping tale that his situational awareness is compromised to the point that he doesn’t notice Agent May until she plops down on the couch next to the one he’s curled up on, a tea cup of her own steaming on the coffee table between them.
"The Count of Monte Cristo," the senior agent remarked upon spying the volume in his hands. "For inspiration?"
James closed the book, weighing it in his hand pensively. It was a story famous for being about revenge. It made sense for the agents of the shadow-SHIELD to be wary of him and his possible intentions even without him leaving such blatantly obvious clues lying around. Except this wasn't what it appeared.
"You ever read it?" he asked in return, not really seeking to deflect her question.
"Abridged children's version when I was eleven or so." May replied, but he could tell she wasn't letting it go. And an abridged version? Tsk.
"Dumas is much underrated, as are many things that are wildly popular." he began, flicking through the pages at random. "It's not just a story about revenge, Agent May. It's a story about many things. It's also a story about identity. What do you think the relationship between Edmond and the Count is?"
She made no reply. He saw through her tactic at once; it was one of the oldest and simplest ploys in the books, but since they were not enemies and he wanted all of the agents to trust him he decided to indulge her.
"You see, the Count of Monte Cristo is a made-up person. He doesn't really exist, except he does. Edmond created him. The question is, are they two separate people? Is the Count just an alter ego he can summon and discard at will or is he a part of him that he can't deny, or escape?"
Realization sparked in her eyes as he spoke, as he had counted it would. James held the book out to her, offering it. She shook her head, saying that she had no time for reading as long as HYDRA was still on the loose, effectively closing the circle. He smirked and placed the heavy volume back in its previous place.
"It's not revenge I'm after. HYDRA must be taken down for good, and I'll help with that wherever I can, but I won't go out on a mad killing spree or anything of that sort. You can all rest assured."
Trip finds the Sergeant wandering the hallways at night, a nervous look in his darting eyes.
"Gabe!" the other man whisper-shouts as soon as he catches sight of him, "What's the hold-up? We're supposed to be halfway to Belgium already! Where's Dum Dum? Monty will never make it if we don't hurry! Did you get a hold of Miss Beatrice?"
It's all Trip can do not to take a hold of the man's shoulders. He's obviously lost in the tangles of his memories. His grandfather had told Trip much about their missions as he got older, but he can't for the life of him remember this story and thinks that maybe the Sergeant's brain is so muddled that he's mixing things up. Meanwhile James is still staring at the other man, shoulders tense and fists clenched by his sides, heart hammering away so hard that he can feel the blood rushing through his head.
"Look, we missed the rendezvous. We need the help. Try to get in contact with Miss Beatrice; her smuggler friends will be able to get us across the Channel. I'll go find Dugan."
"Sarge," Trip says earnestly, holding the other man back with a hand on his shoulder as he makes to jog off. "Sarge, what year is it."
"Gabe, we don't have time for this now. Monty is bleeding out in a barn halfway between Saverne and Sarreguemines!" he answers, irritated.
"Sarge," Trip says again, patient but firm, "What year is it?"
He sighs, wondering why his fellow soldier is being so obstinate.
"It's ninete-" even as he says it he knows that's not true. It's not 1944 and he's not in northern Alsace. And the man in front of him is not Gabriel Jones. He's too tall. He looks around a moment and finds he's not even in a barn. He looks at the hand he's clasped around the other man's forearm and almost jumps out of his skin to find it glinting in the dim light from a lamp further up the corridor.
“Whoa…” he breathes softly as his mind settles back into the present, reeling a moment. Trip’s hands on his shoulders are steadying him, their solid warmth grounding.
“So, sleepwalking?” the agent asks carefully.
“I’ll put it on the list.” James replies, allowing himself to lean against the other man tiredly for a moment. When they are about to turn into the hallway that’ll lead them to the sleeping quarters Agent May stops them, looking about as harried as someone as unflappable as she is can.
“Something’s come up. The team leaves at 0400,” that was an hour from then, roughly. She turned to James. “You need to come, too.”