Sergeant
It’s been a week, a little more, James isn’t quite sure. The first time he realised he was losing track of time he panicked. Not like before, not the all consuming feeling like he’s going to die, but the small private kind of panic he can handle on his own. Losing time means he’s missed it, forcibly removed from its flow, stuck on ice and another decade has gone by.
It isn’t that of course. It takes James some time and a lot of prodding Friday and Tony for answers, both of them equally avoidant of the subject, but he eventually gets it confirmed that there is no cryo chamber on the premises. Not in the compound, not in the tower, not in Tony’s possession. James hasn’t quite decided how he feels about that. No cryo chamber, no chair, not even another version of the box from Germany, however ineffective it may have been in the end. It seems like Tony has no means and no plans of restraining the Winter Soldier. Of course its an easy assumption that living in a building with the New Avengers is security measure enough, but James knows better. He and the Soldier are separate states of mind, but not separate entities, and he can think of a dozen way to do damage to the facility, to the people in it. He doesn’t like it, he doesn’t want to know the best paths through the cellar, the best way to avoid Friday’s cameras outside, the patterns in everyone's behaviour that make them vulnerable.
For lack of another way to deal with it, James writes all of it down, leaving the papers in Colonel Rhodes’ office every second night or so. Sure, the door is locked sometimes, but that doesn’t pose a problem. There is a camera on Rhodes’ office door, and James makes sure to break the lock in a way that Friday can see, but nothing changes. Not the lock, not anything in the office. For now the Colonel is allowing this. James has a strong suspicion that Tony has something to do with it.
The man has been nothing but kind to him since he broke in here, and before that, if James tries to think past that. It’s hard, the memories of those five weeks of excruciating pain are still elusive. A mix of pain, paranoia and plans that mainly revolve around survival. And he knows better than to prod further back. But it makes sense. Tony had shown him the footage, had explained his reasoning, why he’d kidnapped James. And something inside James’ scarred chest cavity flutters pleasantly at the idea that Tony has been thinking about him, working the problem before they’d even met. Even after the fight, even after how he’d behaved in the time that James can’t remember.
James gets confirmation that Rhodes isn’t just throwing his notes in the shredder when Friday summons him to Tony’s workshop one morning. James makes his way to the glass doors unseen and unheard. Tony has been prodding him to meet the other Avengers, encouraging him to seek out contact other than just him and Friday. James knows he’s right, he knows that whatever it means to be a person again, to heal and move on, it involves friends, family if you can get it.
But it’s only been a week and change, and James is still getting used to the idea of being a person. Friday helps. She talks to him like she talks to Tony, keeping up conversations despite minutes of silence, flashbacks and interruptions when James needs to move, to pace or hold on to something or write down something new he now has always known. She’s kind and patient in a way a person would never be, and James thinks she’s the greatest thing he’s found this side of hell.
When he gets to the workshop, Tony is in the middle of arguing with her, hunched painfully over something that James recognises as parts of the Colonel’s armour.
“No, Friday, it’s not just the flight stabilisation. Did you even read James’ note? It’s also about the overall integrity of the whole piece, the power directories, the whole thing.”
“Mr. Barnes is here,” Friday announces, instead of answering Tony’s incomprehensible complaints. James glances at what exactly he’s working on, and spots one of his late night diagrams beneath the chaos of tools and metal around Tony, detailing how a well placed shot to Warmachine’s feet could cause the armour to fail catastrophically. So Rhodes has been reading the notes. He’s been showing them to Tony, acting on them. It doesn’t make up for the fact that James thinks of these things in the first place, that he knows all of this, that he’s more weapon than man, but… it has to count for something.
“Snowflake!” Tony sits up, his face brightening like he’s just seen a puppy, like someone drawing back the protection from a nuclear fusion reactor. James can’t help his own smile in return, a small pitiful thing in comparison, but it comes as natural as breathing at this point. “What brings you into my humble abode? Shoulder giving you trouble?”
James shakes his head, his shoulder has been blissfully pain free for a week and change, and he’s rediscovering the strains and limits of his body, now that he can finally move it again. Friday chimes in before James can even try to find the words, and he’s glad she helps him.
“You’ve scheduled an appointment with Mr. Barnes, Boss.”
Tony looks around like a confused squirrel for a moment, at James, at the entrails of War Machine, at the calendar lit up with a dozen different colours that Friday brings up on a hologram. Then his eyes widen and land solidly at James again, who tries not to stagger under the weight of Tony’s attention.
“Oh. Of course, yeah, sorry. Sit down, James, I’ll be right there. Just need to close this up, I didn’t think it was already this late.”
James follows Tony’s gesture towards the designated chair, and then sits on a clear spot on the table next to it. He’s been doing this for a few days now, not quite following instructions. It helps somehow, it reassures him that he can. That even when the instructions are breathe for me and take a seat, make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right there, he’s not bound by them. He considers where he wants to sit, and follows his gut rather than adhering to Tony’s words. On a more practical point, it also helps him figure out his place in the house. Which rules can he bend, which instructions can be disobeyed, and what the consequences are.
The consequences of his latest little rebellion, similar to the consequences of most of his deviations, are a wide grin from Tony when he finds James perched the corner of a desk, his hand running over the metal edges.
“What is this about?” That’s another thing James has been getting used to. He can ask for all the information and clarification his heart desires. Tony or Friday will always sit down the same way he is now and explain.
“Bluntly put, the panic attacks. I have some ideas I wanted to discuss with you. As I said before, I have resources that could help you, and what I don’t have, I know who to talk to. But it’s your call.” Tony sighs. “I’ve been thinking about it, Friday and me both.”
“Sorry,” James offers reflexively. Tony’s eyebrows furrow, his head tilting in a way that James is learning means confusion.
“What on earth for?”
James swallows around too many thoughts at once, but Tony waits the way he has done all morning until James can get a breath through his throat.
“I am causing you work. I’m sure you have better things to do. I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to become another problem you need to fix.”
But Tony is already shaking his head.
“I don’t need to do anything, Snowflake. I am choosing to help you because I am trying to be a better man, and I think this is part of that. I want to help. I am almost perfectly tailored to help here.” He shrugs, sheepishly looking down at his hands. “And like I said, it’s not leaving my mind. Figured, while I’m here anyway, might make some use of it.”
James wants to protest. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to be seen and fussed about and cause work. Being seen has always meant a turn for the worse, and even if here, in Tony’s domain, he can convince himself to trust that he won’t be hurt for standing in the light, he doesn’t want Tony to be the one to break his back trying to lift James out of this. But behind the gentle voice and the kind words, James can tell that Tony is as stubborn as he is about this, maybe more. It would be an exhausting argument that he might not even win. And James is still on edge enough to be selfish. Take what you can, survive. Don’t look back.
“What are the ideas?”
Tony beams at him, and James tries to ignore the way his heart stumbles over itself at the sight.
“What are the facts as you understand them? Just so I dont bore you to death before we even get to the good bit.”
James isn't sure how Tony might ever be able to bore him, but that is a question he keeps to himself for now. Because this is also a new thing in his life. Being asked what he thinks, what he knows, his opinion. Constantly, incessantly, to the point that at first he thought it was a test. Tony trying to sus out how much he remembers, how useful he can still be. Until he realised that Tony just genuinely wants to know his thoughts on movie choices and coffee variations.
So he takes a deep breath, and tries to sort his thoughts. “I woke up when you were flying me over New York, dropped out and ran. It was a reboot, again, like from the chair, and I can’t remember the time between going into cryo in Wakanda and waking up,” James begins to list. Tony nods, watching him with rapt attention, so James focuses on Dum-E trying to sort scrap on the other side of the workshop to be able to think. “Normally gaps fill in eventually, the conditioning only ever holds in the moment. Back in Romania it came down like rain, and it’s been the same now. Except for that span of time.
“Which means it’s something else, not the triggers. Something worse maybe, whatever that means.”
“What makes you think that?” Tony prods gently.
“The panic. My whole body tenses up whenever I try to remember back, and then the panic attacks. I…” James sighs, playing with the hem of his sleeve. He’s showing nerves, but he’s allowed now, so he pours the nervous energy into the movement. “Bucky knew fear, but the way everyone does. He was scared of dying, scared of loosing the people he loved. He was scared of pain, but in the face of each of these he found that the fear wasn’t so insurmountable after all.
“The soldier doesn’t really understand fear, only as something he can instil that will make his opponents sloppy. He doesn’t feel it at all. And I– Well, I don’t know yet. But this doesn’t feel right. My body is scared of something I can’t remember, and nothing else feels like that. The pain wasn’t that eclipsing, the emptiness isn’t, the loneliness isn’t. Wasn’t,” he corrects with a shy look towards Tony. “It doesn’t feel like it’s mine, is all,” he quickly continues before Tony can say anything.
“So, facts,” Tony says, lifting his hands to count them off. “You remember everything just fine, fine being within your parameters here, up until you got into cryo. At this point Steve and his merry band is there, including Maximoff of course. I know from chats with King T’Challa that you were taken out of cryo just before the pardons got through, to prepare you. He says you seemed pretty out of it, mostly stressed, quiet, and confused. Princess Shuri worked together with Maximoff to get the triggers out, which seems to have worked and lead to a remarkably steep recovery arc. Shuri describes it as over night.”
He doesn’t remember any of this. Tony notices his furrowed brown and smiles grimly.
“Exactly. Red flag number one. From there you all make to the glorious U S of A, where Steve pretty much immediately gets in contact with us to get into the New Avengers. You’re with him on every one of these meetings, behaving like someone plucked you out of videos from the Smithsonian.”
A vague image of dashing smiles and a man looking strikingly handsome yet somehow casual in uniform drifts through James’ mind and he shudders. That image feels nothing like him, it feels like plastic wrapping to his very alive, bleeding meat. Tony looks up at him, concern etched in his eyes.
“You good there, Snowflake? Tell me if you need a break.”
James shakes his head, that's not it, and Tony waits patiently until James has sorted the words im his head.
“No break. Just feels wrong, is all.”
“Like an act,” Tony offers, and more images come. Ballet shoes, small girls, costumes and the scent of surgery. James swallows them down the way he has for days now. It’s slowing down, but experience says it will still take months until he has an even semi-cohesive idea of his life together. Experience also tells him to enjoy it while it lasts.
“Something like that, yeah. I don't think I could smile for that long,” James murmurs, a strange thing to realise, but Tony takes it in stride, nods.
“And the everything I showed you before,” he continues, and James tries to focus back on the facts at hand, on Tony’s hand.
“So what now?”
Tony sighs, running a hand over his face, over his immaculate goatee.
“Well, several options. First, I need to know if you’re okay with me calling in some help. Smart as I am, magic and psychology is not actually my forte. We have better chances of figuring this out with some help, but only if you’re comfortable with that.”
Tony looks at him expectantly, and James is frozen in the face of a choice where Tony clearly expects a specific answer. Does he want a consort or an experiment? James tries to forget the thought as soon as it came. He’s a lot worse at remembering than he is at forgetting. There is no cryo chamber here. No chair. Nothing to hurt you. Nothing to torture you, nothing to whipe you. The consequences of getting this wrong are survivable.
So James goes with what seems like the most logical option, so far Tony has expressed an inclination towards well reasoned lines of logic.
“Whatever helps,” he settles on, and it earns him one of those unreadable looks from Tony.
“If you’re sure. I will call Doctor Strange, explain the situation to him, I’ll try not to mention it’s you, answering those questions is going to be annoying as fuck. But frustrating as he can be, he’s not sorcerer supreme for nothing.”
James hears the tension in the shift in his voice more than he feels it in his body. His voice is the part of him he has least control over, it's the part Hydra needed the least from him.
“What will Strange want to know?” He cannot fathom someone as easy and lithe with words as Tony struggling to answer a question. The idea of what kinds of questions about James this might entail sends a spike of dread through him. James lets go of the table he’s sitting on. He doesn’t need to break Tony’s workshop too.
Tony sighs, looking around the workshop, a sadness on his face, something old and worn out. Grief, James realises with a pang of guilt.
“The same questions Rhodey is asking me. Even Pepper started yesterday, if you can believe it. Rhodey is such a snitch.”
“I’ll go.” James says it before Tony can even finish. He normally doesn’t interrupt, it happens to him so often, what little words he can scapre together drowned out by others. He tries not to be like that. But maybe, if he’s fast enough, he can get out before he does any more damage.
Tony looks at him in absolute bewilderment. “What? Why?”
James slides off the table, takes a step backwards towards the doors.
“You are kind, so you’ve offered me help when I asked for a bullet. And I don’t know if it’s easier for you like this, but you’re just acting as if everything’s okay, as if there’s nothing between us. I have done the damage, each time I was the one that hurt you, so you say how this goes.”
“James, no—“
“Why are you ignoring your friends’ advice?”
Tony stumbles over his words and sighs, rubbing the back of his neck.
“They’re good, the best people I know. But they’re all loyal to a fault. Yeah, you hurt me. They are worried it’ll happen again. They don’t understand how important this is to me.”
Something pleasant flutters in James’ stomach, but he pushes it down. Right now he has to figure out whether the man before him is being tremendously stupid or smarter beyond James’ comprehension.
“Why? Why do you care? I’m a murderer,” he points out the most obvious thing about him. He’s always so confused that the blood on his hands isn’t visible. That it doesn’t smell, decades old death should smell.
But Tony only scoffs. “I killed about two million people, give or take. You’re not the only one.”
Something in James wants to argue, this isn’t right. But that’s not the battle he’s trying to win ground in right now.
“I killed your parents.” He doesn’t throw it out, simply lays the stone cold horrible truth out between them. This is what they’re talking about, the rift between them that everyone is so worried about. The raving that everyone thinks that James will drag Tony down into, including James. Doesn’t matter that Tony is trying to help him out, the only one really trying to help him out since Shuri discovered him as her science project. It doesn’t matter if in the end they’re both lying shattered at the bottom. At least James knows his way around rock bottom.
Tony sighs, looking at the ravine with him. “And I killed Wanda’s and Pietro’s parents. This shit happens when you stack a bunch of murderers into one building. We’re bound to run into each other. Run over each other.”
“Your friends are right, Tony,” James says softly, and admitting this is like pulling bullets from his flesh. “I hurt you. If you keep on doing this, trying to fix me, it’s bound to happen again, I can’t help that. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.” Tony looks at him, a hard stubbornness on his face that's as simple as fire. “You’re a person. A person that’s been through hell and back in ways I will never be able to fully grasp. You’re clawing your way out of hell with a quiet resilience I admire the way you admire a nuclear fusion reaction. I think you deserve help, and I want to give it.”
He stands up, and despite being smaller than James, just a man surrounded by weapons of mass destruction attuned to his heartbeat, James feels the power Tony has.
“You don’t want to hurt me? Alright. Talk to me then. Be honest when I ask you things about this. Help me help you. Use what I am giving you and climb.”
Tony is staring at him and James would burn up in the fire in his brown eyes if he stood any closer. James swallows and nods.
“Ask whoever you need to. I—“ he hesitates, but he’s been asked to share the truth. “I trust you.”