Soldier Spy
we should be kind, we should
take warning, we should forgive each other
Instead we are opposite, we
touch as though attacking,
the gifts we bring
even in good faith maybe
warp in our hands to
implements, to manoeuvres
They Are Hostile Nations, Margaret Atwood
“Are you quite done?” Coulson asked after James ended his tirade. He fixed the other man in a venomous glare.
“Am I quite done?” he imitated the question mockingly, “I can assure you, acting director Coulson, that I am beyond done.” James sneered, ripping the lanyard from around his neck and throwing it down on the desk between them. He didn’t even care how petulant a gesture that may be; he was livid. He had trusted them, he had…
“You know, the reason I am now acting director is because you shot my boss.” Coulson replied flatly and dropped his gaze to the lanyard. James felt himself go cold, like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his raging emotions. He was still seething, it just was less like a raging bushfire and more of…something else. He felt less like yelling and more like snapping someone’s neck.
“Oh, is that how it is.” He stated, voice just as flat. There was a thin stripe burning at the back of his neck, where he’d split the lanyard’s ribbon while pulling it off. A look crossed Coulson’s face that might have been regret. “Sergeant…”
James turned, pushing towards the door.
“No, thank you for so helpfully reminding me of my place. I had almost forgotten that I have no right to berate you for locking people up in your basement when I am the one who killed people uncritically. How …well, I’m sure it is something of me.”
Coulson sighed long-sufferingly, but made no attempt to dissuade him from leaving which was fortunate since James was still trying to reign in his neck-snapping sentiments.
Apparently the youngsters had no regard for this imminent danger as Skye place herself squarely in his way as soon as he exited Coulson’s office, Fitz and Simmons some way behind her.
“He’s playing you.” She started, “Ward is playing you. It’s what he does. You can’t-“
“And you have been doing what, exactly?” James shot back so sharply a collective flinch went through the three. Skye stood her ground though.
“You can’t trust a word out of Ward’s damn lying, treacherous mouth.”
“Let’s not do this now.” Or ever. He was so weary. His head pulsed and his heart thumped in a way that even the bottle of pills Dr Constantiniou had prescribed him wouldn’t be able to mend.
“No!” Skye interjected passionately. “Ward has nothing to do with you. He made his choice.” She paused a moment, throwing a glance over at a very quiet Fitz and Simmons; or quiet apart from the very agitated conversation the two were holding with their eyes anyway. “It’s not your job to redeem him.” she paused again, giving him a chance to reply. He couldn’t for the life of him come up with anything to say, so he stayed silent, a looming specter over the smaller woman. Skye sighed.
“He has nothing to do with you.” She reiterated, undeterred.
“Why…”
“Because you are a good person…” Simmons started, Skye taking over by blurting out:
“Even if you’re being kind of a jerk right now, and he –“
“He is a monster.” Fitz concluded, solemn and unhalting.
“How is it that you seem so sure of that?” James felt compelled to ask, fixing each of the three young agents in a heavy gaze, ending on Skye who had not backed down from him even half an inch. Which was both brave and reckless and exactly what Steve would have done.
“You’re …you’re Bucky Barnes.” She sounded almost helpless as she said it, like her faith in the truth of the statement had been fundamentally shaken. James gave her a long, weary look.
“Bucky Barnes is dead, kid. He’s been dead for seventy damn years.” And all he got was an empty grave, memorials on walls and in museums. And this is all that’s left. A murdering puppet playing at being human.There’s a reason legends are better left dead.
He sidestepped them and stalked down the hall towards the living quarters with no plan other than to get out of the sight of each and any other human being for the immediate future.
Skye, and to an only slightly lesser extent Jemma, followed on his heels with barely any delay, all but dragging poor Fitz along. Yet they had trouble to match his angry stride.
“Look, I understand you’re upset-“ Skye panted, reaching for his arm and only missing because he pulled it out of reach reflexively. He snorted, not slowing. These hallways were long.
“We’re all upset. I think it would be best if we all tried to calm down and talk this out.” Simmons tried to mediate, in response to which Fitz snorted, although much more softly.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay upset for a while. I find it helps me focus.” James bit out scathingly, breaking his stride for only a beat and taking entirely too much pleasure in seeing the others stumble into each other. Part of him wanted to go on yelling, but he seemed to have expended all his words with Coulson. So instead he swallowed hard and kept on walking; fleeing really. Sometimes it was better for everyone involved to remove yourself from a situation.
“If you knew what he did to us you wouldn’t judge us so harshly now.” Skye argued, skidding a few inches after jumping in front of him, forcing him to stop in his tracks or barrel into her. He had half a mind to do the latter, but something stopped him. The cold flared up, his blood still simmering just below boiling point.
“No, you’re right. I don’t know.” The words came out nonchalantly, but he was still seething on the inside. The problem was: so was she. Skye had planted her feet wide and her hands on her hips. Her lip quivered angrily and he knew right then that she wouldn’t back down. So he continued, voice flat and almost casual except for a sharply withering edge.
“I don’t know anything because none of you fucking talk about it!”
“It’s not-“ Jemma tried to protest, but James cut across her harshly.
“You all looked me in the eyes and fucking lied to me all these weeks!”
“We almost died!” Fitz interjected hotly, quickly falling silent again as if his own outburst had shocked him into it.
“So did I!” James snarled, crossing his arms in front of his chest and curling his fingers into fists and the fabric of his shirt.
“Yeah, and it took you like half a year to talk about that.” Skye commented, and he was this close to seeing red.
“How dare you compare-“
“Oh what, because no one is as damaged and fucked up as poor old Bucky Barnes? You’re not the sole subscriber to Suffering Weekly!”
He huffed because that seemed like a natural response and Skye softened by a fraction.
“Look, he’s down there because it’s necessary. He’s dangerous and it’s our responsibility to keep him from hurting more people.”
To be the shield between the innocent and those who would harm them. He understood the implication easily enough, though it irked him somewhat that he ought to be swayed by mention of his own legacy (no, Bucky Barnes’ legacy, and even more so that of Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers, and many more worthy than him, then or now). It irked him even more since he knew how few were truly innocent, and also how a noble goal might still require mean methods. You don’t beat bad people by nicely asking them to stop, unfortunately. He’d learnt that early on, and applied it voluntarily during the war. The trouble with drawing lines in the sand was that sand was so easily washed away, leaving you to redraw the line or stop bothering to. Nothing was ever easy, wasn’t that the crux of the matter?
In any case, the adrenaline high he had been riding was cresting still, but only just, leaving him to crash in the very near future. In any case, they weren’t going to resolve this now, and it was useless trying to when the lot of them were so wound up. In any case he didn’t want to go on arguing, and yelling, and fighting, ending up saying things he might truly regret.
“It’s a damn slippery slope.” He replied flatly, unclenching one hand to scrub over his face. There was a burning building up behind his eyes – not pain as such, more like the synapses in his brain going off like a damn firework. He felt like his mind was overloading with thoughts. Sensing that he wasn’t going to get through Skye, and to lessening degree, Simmons, he turned on his heel to take another way to his quarters, only to come almost toe to toe with Agent May. She must have followed the sounds of arguing, possibly after a short discussion with Coulson in his office. Had James been less drained he might have said something venomous. As it was, he just glared. Agent May was, perhaps predictably, unimpressed, but did not seem quite as impenetrable as usual.
“You don’t look that well.” Agent May observed after a moment of mutual glowering, and while this was probably not incorrect it was not at all what he had expected to hear. His heart thumped erratically. He swayed and there was a mighty rushing in his ears a moment, so much so that he couldn’t really understand May’s next words which were directed at the younger agents behind him. He groaned, steadying himself on the wall with one hand as his vision began to swim. Immensely irritated, he found that he would maybe like to yell some more after all, now that he found himself unable to. His knees buckled from under him as black spots started to appear in his field of vision. He vaguely heard a female voice saying something about hypotension, which registered as weird in regards to what Dr Constantiniou had been prescribing him pills for-
It could not have been more than a few seconds that he blacked out, certainly less than a minute. He felt the cool brickwork of the walls against his back and the fussing of small hands, which he swatted at reflexively.
“Easy Sarge, easy.” A female voice implored him urgently, and Simmons’ worried face came into view, Skye beside her and Agent May close behind.
“Was that another trigger?”
“I don’t think so,” Simmons answered uncertainly, grasping his right wrist while she looked down at her watch in deep concentration. If she was trying to discern his blood pressure then good luck; from the erratic thumping in his chest that seemed to be all over the place. “Just a spot of syncope, I think. Probably due to a number of factors interacting unfavourably.” Simmons concluded just as James worked up enough focus to yank his arm out of her grasp. Sucking in a harsh breath, he struggled to his feet and continued glaring. Unfortunately the world was still swaying slightly and he found himself leaning heavily onto the wall again, which had far from the intended effect. Then again he wasn’t really in any shape to go on yelling, instead finding himself panting harshly and dizzy.
“I think it might be best if you go lay down a while, Sergeant Barnes.” Agent May suggested sensibly, which earned her an unwilling growl. She took it graciously, then her attention shifted to the hallway behind him.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Miranda?”
Dr Constantiniou came into view, thoughtfully giving him a wide berth so she could come at him fully visible instead of from behind or the side. Not that he was in a mind to appreciate such gestures at the moment. He glared, pressing one hand to his chest as if to force his heartbeat to return to a normal rhythm. Dr Constantiniou looked worried.
“It might be in part due to the medication I prescribed you. I would need to do some tests to be sure…”
“No tests!” he snarled, having found some of his voice again. He would be damned if he let any of them near him now.
“I suppose you will be equally as reluctant to come back to the infirmary with me, then?” Dr Constantiniou said in a tone that was both sad and resigned. For a split second he thought of what a terrible, obstinate patient Steve had been and felt a little bit bad. It didn’t stick, though.
“Damn right.” He spat, pushing away from the wall and making a concerted effort to stand up straight. The world was still spinning a bit around the edges, but he managed alright.
“Will you at least go get some rest?” Skye pleaded, looking so upset that for a moment he would have promised her anything. Remembering that he was still mad, he squashed the sentiment and nodded curtly.
“Okay.” She said softly, looking like she wanted to say more, but wisely deciding against it. Agent May seemed to have no such qualms as she quickly strode over and up beside him where he was rather preoccupied in making his feet move towards his quarters.
“One more thing.”
He groaned, stubbornly pushing forward. Whatever it was the senior agent wanted, he sincerely hoped it wouldn’t last the whole way. He didn’t need to be walked to his room like a disobedient child.
“Please don’t do anything stupid and reckless now.”
He spared her a sidelong glance and a humorless grin.
“The walls are safe from me, Agent May. Good day.”
He did indeed rest, if you could call sitting on the mattress of his bed and flipping through the file about Nameless Soldier Number 17 resting, that is. He did rest more properly, too, during the day, dozing mostly though he did manage one half-hour power nap around midday. If anything it helped his body feel less fatigued, even if his mind was buzzing too much to allow for any actual respite.
So, for focus, he gets up, determined to completely ignore anyone who might cross his path. No one does, and he arrives at the baths a few minutes later, promptly busying himself with setting up his shaving equipment. One of the safe houses they’d stayed at during the last several weeks, during the missions together, had had a lone abandoned straight razor that no one seemed to have any vested interest in, so he’d pocketed it. It’s one of the things he’s very, very sure he remembers from before. His dad had one just like it, with a smooth handle and a gleaming blade, and he’d shown his son how to use it that one summer. It must have been ’32 or ’33; that year James had grown almost a foot while his voice dropped and somehow by the end of it all that stubborn chubby-cheeked baby fat had finally evaporated and given way to the daily bristle.
“It’s time, son.” George Barnes had announced ominously, attempting to exchange a conspirational glance with his wife, who was demonstratively engrossed in her newspaper, and James had looked up at his father in alarm, the impending food fight between the babies which he’d been trying to prevent by means of stern older brother looks utterly forgotten.
“Time for what, Pa?”
George Barnes made a show of gazing out of the kitchen window into the lazy Sunday morning slowly unfolding outside.
“I’ve been waiting for this since the day you were born, my boy.” He said wistfully, with a tone of pride before fixing his increasingly confused son with a warm paternal look.
“It’s time I taught you how to shave.”
“I wanna learn, too! Pa! Papa!” Five-year-old Jules demanded immediately, to little more than the statement that it would be his turn in approximately ten years. He’d pouted the rest of the day.
“See that he doesn’t cut his own throat by accident.” Was all that his mother had had to say on the matter, and James had followed his father to the bathroom with a feeling in the pit of his stomach that was part queasy and part giddy.
He hadn’t cut his throat, only nicked it a little bit. Also he’d made the mistake of accidentally swallowing a bit of shaving cream. Other than that, he’d managed alright. Soon enough, shaving became an irreplaceable part of his morning routine, a sort of meditation that helped him prepare for the day ahead. Upon his deployment to Europe, James hadn’t taken a whole lot of personal items with him: two books, a handful of photos, knick-knack that had no other value than that of sentiment, and his father’s razor. Last he knew, it had been in his pack. He wondered where it had ended up-
Gripping the smooth handle in his right, he tilted his head back to get at the sensitive skin under his jaw, which was always a finicky sort of deal he’d found, especially with only one hand.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help with that?” a voice called from his side, somewhat faded as befitting of an old memory. From the corner of his eye he could see the shorter, wiry frame of a young man in an incomplete Red Army uniform, the jacket thrown over a chair behind them with the hat resting on top of it. James grinned at him through the mirror.
“Thanks, but I must …uh, needed do that?” he chanced in cringe-inducing Russian.
“Need to do this. Or have to do this.” The smaller man corrected lightly, raising his own blade back to his face.
“Yes. I need to do this By myself. Thank you, Saitchik.”
“Saitchik…” James murmured, now firmly back at the Playground and in 2014. “Huh.”
Turning the mental images over in his head, he finished shaving. When he was done, James wiped away the last remnants of shaving cream, went back to his quarters and started packing.
Skye awoke the next morning, early and far from rested. In fact she had been tossing and turning all night. Groggily she sat up and gathered what she needed for a shower. Their little rooms were equipped with small bathrooms each, but of you wanted to do more than splash your face or brush your teeth, you’d have to use the larger facilities, which had shower stalls and locker rooms, much like a gym. Trotting by the Sarge’s door, she paused a moment, contemplating briefly whether or not he might have calmed down enough by now. Deciding that even if he was, she wasn’t awake enough for another confrontation yet she shuffled along. Once showered she made her way back, quickly throwing her towel over the back of a chair to dry and marching back up to Barnes’ door. They would resolve this. Now. Well, maybe they wouldn’t exactly resolve it, but she was set on salvaging their relationship and in her opinion that was something that really couldn’t wait. It was still early, but not painfully so. The sun had already risen; the earliest risers were already moving about in the kitchen making themselves breakfast. Taking a deep preparatory breath, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.
Half a minute passed without any discernible reaction. She tried again, rapping her knuckles on the door more sharply. It stung a bit. Again nothing. She put her ear to the wood, listening for any signs of life on the other side. He was very quiet when he wanted to be, she reasoned when she could not hear a thing. In any case, sulking was not a particularly sound-intensive activity. Of course, he could just be trying to get her to leave by way of ignoring her. Not that this would work; she was determined.
“Sarge!” she called out, knocking again, “Sarge! I just wanna talk, okay? Can we please talk? James?”
There was no answer, not even a petulant demand to get lost. First it annoyed her, then worry started to creep in. He’d promised May, but there really was no telling …even if he hadn’t hurt himself in any way, his heart might have given him trouble. The doctor had been rather concerned the previous day.
“Sarge? I’m counting to ten now. If you haven’t opened this door by the time I’m done I’m going to assume I need to come in, and then I’m coming in. One…”
Still there was not even a peep from inside the room, but she counted down all the way before gripping the handle.
“I’ve warned you, partner.” She muttered and turned the handle, surprised to find that the door hadn’t been locked. It swung open slowly, revealing the inside of the sparse quarters. Which were empty. Skye stepped inside, looking behind the door, then inside the small bathroom. There weren’t many other spots where a man his size could hide so she checked those out, too. He wasn’t there. A slight sense of panic began to rise up her throat. The bag – your old bag – was missing also along with what little James had brought with him in terms of personal belongings. Merely the finished copy of The Count of Monte Christo was still lying on the nightstand.
“What the shit, Sarge.” She muttered under her breath, glaring into the room like he might materialize again all of a sudden. “Please don’t do this …have done this …whatever …Goddammit!”
There were a whole lot of people to inform about this now and she did not look forward to that.
At approximately the same time the team reconvened in Coulson’s office after a thorough search of the premises to discuss the hows and whos of informing Captain Rogers that they’d lost his best friend, James stowed away inside a cargo flight headed to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Navigating his way out of the massive airhub, he continued to the northward bound Autobahn where he then hitched a ride towards Berlin with a cheerful Polish truck driver who was completely unashamed about singing along to almost every song on the radio. Unfortunately the cheery Pole couldn’t take him all the way and passed him off to a sullen Bulgarian, who in turn referred him to a very bored-looking Romanian. By the time the sun started setting, he’d made it into the city, found one of the few public pay phones still in use in this age of mobile communication and left Skye a voice mail that said not to come looking for him. And, if at all possible, not to tell anyone outside of the base that he had gone, unless he wasn’t back by the end of the month. By that point he supposed he’d either found what he was looking for or run into a situation he couldn’t get out of by himself. First though, he hefted his bag and trekked to the nearest public library. He had a few things to look up. Having squeezed all the data he could out of Yellow Pages, old magazine issues and the world wide web, he continued on his way, until he was once again stood before the door of Dr Loewe and her neighbor with the familiar name. He briefly debated ringing the young German archaeologist’s doorbell, but decided against it since he didn’t have a convincing story to tell for why he was there.
Gathering all his wits and guts about him, he raised his hand and knocked on the door with the name tag ‘Novakov’. For a while nothing happened, and he almost considered turning back, but then the quick thud of steps could be heard approaching and the door was yanked open to reveal a slightly harried-looking, middle aged woman. She was rather on the short side with a light build and long brown hair with grey starting to streak through.
“Ja bitte?” she demanded impatiently, pushing her wire-framed glasses up her nose.
“Dok… Sorry, I’m looking for a Doctor Novakov.” He responded. In Russian, which hadn’t been the plan but seemed to give the woman enough pause not to slam the door in his face.
“That’s me. What is it?” she responded, picking up the language change seamlessly.
“Um, no, sorry, I mean Doctor Nikolai Novakov. He must be over ninety. I was told he lived here.”
“That’s my father. He hasn’t lived here since he retired. Who are you? A former student? A journalist? Secret Services?” the last one had clearly been meant at least half as a joke, but James shifted nervously nonetheless.
“No, ma’am, none of that. I just …used to know him, a long time ago.” Something compelled him to go on. “From the army. During the war.”
The woman had prepared herself for a dismissive snort that now lodged in her throat. She peered at him again, more intently this time, then did a double take and slammed the door shut. James winced. That could have gone better. Then again, he’d barely had a plan to begin with. He wasn’t even sure what he hoped to find. It was a miracle the man he sought was still alive, being well into his mid-nineties with all the actual physical decay to go with it.
A somewhat longer moment later the door was ripped open again, making him wince again as the light from inside the apartment hit his eyes. The woman was holding a smallish rectangular piece of paper in her hand, conscientiously checking it against his face. It made him rather aware of the fact that his hair had grown out a couple of inches and that he hadn’t shaved or showered since leaving the base. That had, all in all, been less than 48 hours ago, but traversing half the globe in ways that are meant for non-sentient cargo will have an effect.
“Where did you say you knew my father from?” the woman asked weakly.
“From the war.” James replied cautiously. According to all the information he’d found online about Dr Nikolai Novakov, he’d only ever served in the one war. The woman nodded absently.
“Sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“I am Seventeen.”
She paled a bit, but nodded again, more to herself. She threw another glance at the thing in her hand, a photo by the looks of it. The woman then stepped aside and waved him through, closing the door behind the two of them.
“I thought he made you up; a crazy war story to entertain his kids. My brother and I even tried to investigate when we were older …not much came of that. My father would tell us the most fantastical bedtime stories, you know? All from the top of his head.” Her gaze dropped to his side, eyeing the gloved hand that held his bag. “Um, what’s with the arm, if you don’t mind me asking? Don’t tell me whatever helped you to look thirty over seven decades also helped you grow a new arm!”
He almost laughed, then, whether at the clearly overwhelmed woman in front of him or the general succession of circumstances that had led him to stand awkwardly in her hallway at this precise moment he didn’t care to investigate. So he merely dropped the bag and pulled off his glove. “Prosthetic.”
Her eyes went a bit wide at the gleaming metal finish.
“Fancy.”
“You have no idea…”
“Tatiana.”
“You have no idea, Tatiana Nikolaevna.”
She gazed at the photo in her hand again, smiling a little. She seemed to get over the initial shock of having strange men knock on her door bearing remnants mysterious pasts with enviable grace.
“You name isn’t really Seventeen, is it?”
“No, but I’m afraid there is much I don’t remember about the last few years.”
“But you remember by father and would like to talk to him in the hope that he might be able to help you piece a few things back together.” She was a sharp one. He appreciated that.
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re in luck because I’m actually in the process of visiting him today. I meant to be off hours ago but a pet emergency needed taking care of. If you carry my bags with your fancy arm I’ll let you tag along. Deal?”
Smirking, James made a show of flexing the metal fingers. “Direct me to your luggage, Tatiana Nikolaevna.”
Another three hours on the Autobahn and James was caught halfway between the giddy exhilaration of speed and never wanting to travel extended distances by car ever again. Tatiana had coaxed a bit more of his story out of him, though it was mostly regarding what connected him with her father, which there wasn’t a lot that he knew so there wasn’t much that he could reveal. In turn she told him about the family, how her father had moved into the country to marry her mother and become a well-respected trauma surgeon, about her siblings, of which there were four and that she was the youngest, and the story their father used to tell them about the soldier without a name. They drove steadily northward until reaching the Baltic Sea, bypassing Rostock and driving on to a sweet little village called Häschendorf. By now it was dark outside, the night pitch black save for the lights of cars and buildings. Tatiana pulled up to a little one-story house with a lovely garden that looked like the last place James would ever have thought to look, or in fact should be at. There was a lovely garden, too. In the distance, one could even hear the even sound of the sea. While he busied himself with getting the bags, Tatiana had already walked up to the door and rung the bell. Out of instinct, James stayed hidden in the shadows while someone shuffled inside the house and then cracked open the door. Seeing who was on the other side, a very slim old man with a cane threw open the door and hugged Tatiana tightly.
“Tanechka! I was starting to think you had forgotten your old father.”
“Papa, I called twice to say that I would be late.” She scolded mildly, disentangling herself from her father. “Papa, remember how you used to tell us the story of your friend who lost his arm and memory? And we never really believed you?” She handed him the old photograph and waved James over from the car. He approached slowly with the luggage while Novakov senior studied the picture thoughtfully, looking up when he sensed another person approaching.
“Hello, Saitchik.” James said, his voice sounding oddly rough and choked. The old man froze a moment before breaking out into a bright if slightly teary grin. After over seventy years, Novakov could finally stop searching.