T h e K i d s A r e A l r i g h t
Episode One - Pilot
Scene One, Steven G. Rodgers
Manhattan, New York
It's a visibly hot day, the tarmac they're standing on seems to almost steam, distorting the air around it. The sounds of the commercial flights loading and unloading luggage is muffled behind them. The men in the group stand just to the side of the runway.
Steve stands, one foot on the cart where Tony sits, preventing it from leaving.
"...but be careful," Steve is saying, "And don't forget to call me when you land."
Stane pats Tony roughly on the shoulder from where he sits in the drivers seat of the cart. "He'll be just fine, won't you, sport."
Tony smiles up at his godfather from the passenger seat, "Yeah, it'll be just like what I do in Nevada. Same tests, different desert."
Steve was still unsure about letting Tony fly out to Afghanistan to demonstrate Stark Industries' weapons. Especially since this was a trip Tony would be making on his own. Obadiah would be staying behind to handle the business and finalize a few things before Tony officially took over.
That, really, was the root of the whole issue. Because Tony is an adult now, the little boy that Steve raised since he was fourteen was soon turning twenty-five and inheriting his fathers company.
"I know, I know but call anyways. Okay?"
"Okay, Steve," Tony relents, rolling his eyes but fighting a smile.
"Okay," Steve says again, stalling.
"Okay," Tony repeats, nudging his godfathers foot off of the cart with his own shoe.
"Okay." Steve steps back to let the little cart start towards the private plane on the other side of the tarmac. "I love you!" He calls loudly, waiting until Tony is just far enough away to warrant a raised voice. Tony flips him off over his shoulder for the trouble but calls "Love you," back.
Steve nods to himself, walking aways so he isn't caught watching the boy young man get into the plane. "Okay, he's gonna be okay."
Scene Two, The Soldier
???, Asia
She stands silently, just in front of him.
The weapon was too big in her hands, he'll have to find her a smaller one, when there's time.
Her hands tighten on the gun in anticipation of pulling the trigger but she still leans into him for comfort. She'll have to outgrow that habit but there is time yet for that. He does not plan to leave her on her own just yet.
With his right hand, he reaches forward, in front of them both, to level the barrel of the weapon correctly. He lets her adjust to the feeling of the new position before releasing. His hand floating to her face to push a small curl of red hair from her face.
He ignores the screams from the scientist, yelled in a language the girl cannot understand.
He gives a satisfied hum to signal the child. Changes his own plans just as she pulls the trigger in. He lets both hands raise to cup over her little ears, shielding her from the worst of the sound of the bullet leaving the barrel.
She's still small, he can baby her a bit longer.
Scene Three, Anthony E. Stark
Afganistan
This isn't the first time he's lied to Steve, but it is definitely the worst lie he's told.
He wonders what happened to the solider that had asked for a picture with him. Knows in the back of his mind that the answer is not one that he wants.
The worst part is that he'd already called Steve. As promised, as soon as the plan landed Tony was ready, phone in hand to call his godfather. Steve wouldn't be expecting another call from him until he was due to board the plane home.
A week from now.
Scene Four, Her
The Apartment
They didn't know she was with him.
It was obvious, because they did not search the rest of the home once they spotted him.
She wanted to help, she knew she could, but last time she had tried he had been unhappy with her. He'd made her promise then that she would save herself over him, always. He was the dragon, she was the princess, just like her book.
So, she stayed quiet and stayed hidden.
When they were gone, she snuck into the bedroom, still stepping softly and moving quietly, just incase.
She gathered his things. Mostly, that meant guns and small knives which she tried to strap to herself the way she'd always seen him do.
She almost missed it in her hurry to follow after them but the glint of the sun caught the metal of his necklace. It must have fallen off in the fight.
It had to be sign for her, because he never went anywhere without it. Sometimes, when he thought she was asleep or on bad nights when he forgot she existed all together he would trace the letters of words she couldn't read and promise himself he was real.
She was certain then, that she had to follow, to give him his necklace back. Because if he was a dragon, she was raised by a dragon. She is not going to sit around in the tower pretending to be a princess anymore.
Episode Two - The Necklace
Scene One, Anthony E. Stark
Afganistan?
There is a car battery attached to his heart. There is a car battery attached to his heart.
His heart didn't even race at the thought because it psychically couldn't.
Tony pretended to build the weapon, because he had to. He actually built the metal suit, because he had to.
He left Yensen behind.
Because he had to.
Because if he didn't have to then he'd chosen to and Tony just can't accept that.
He wasn't going to make it, not home, not anywhere that could help him. Hell, he may not even make it through the front door. Assuming underground prisons even have front doors.
It had been more than a week since he'd landed in Afganistan. Hopefully, Steve had noticed his absence. Hopefully, Steve was looking for him.
Scene Two, Steven G. Rogers
Afganistan
He should've known. Tony was turning twenty-five which meant he was taking control of Stark Industries, taking the entire company right out of Obadiah Stane's hands. Obadiah, who had run the company for over ten years now. Stane, who organized the trip for Tony to go across the world to demonstrate their new weapons by himself.
Steve should have known and he should have been more careful. He should've insisted he go with Tony. He should've kept Tony home.
But he didn't and now he can't sit around and wait for the tactical team to organize and go in for Tony.
He's here now and he's not waiting.
It's been years since he's run ops like this. Ten years since he officially and totally separated from the military. He resigned from his position as director of the SHIELD branch the day he gained custody of Tony.
The base where they were keeping Tony was quiet, too quiet. They must have known he was coming.
By the time Steve has kicked down the third door in his path, he's beginning to think that the intel he'd been given was simply wrong.
There was no sign of Tony, no sign that he'd ever even been there.
No sign that anyone had been here, not for a very long time.
None until the sound shoes scuffing the concrete behind him reached his ears.
When he turned, though, he wasn't met with an enemy. Not until he looked down, the barrel of a too-big gun pointed in his direction by thin arms.
Steve raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender slowly. He didn't want to hurt this girl, not if he didn't absolutely have to. Steve was fairly certain he could disarm what appeared to be a seven year old girl with minimal damage to either of them.
"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you."
She cocked her head to the side but didn't lower the weapon. Damnit, Steve couldn't help the internal curse. The kid doesn't speak English.
Scene Three, Steven G. Rogers & Her
Afganistan
There was a man, he stood nearly motionless in front of her, hands raised by his ears. He was tall, big. He spoke softly to her in his language, but he was not him.
He spoke to her in Russian, she had never had to learn his language. She thought he didn't want her to.
She wished she knew, now.
The man was the same as her man, but all wrong at just the same time.
This man was big, strong looking, still, he lowered himself to her level. Crouched low enough that their eyes could meet without her needing to tilt her head up.
She adjusted her stance and the barrel of the gun to his new hight, just as he had taught her.
The man she had come here looking for had been moved by the same person that had taken him from her.
The man with the light hair in front of her was alone. He was looking for someone too and he spoke his language.
Perhaps, they were looking for the same person.
Either way, she was all too aware that she would never reach her goal alone. This man was enough like the other that she let herself hope that he would help her just the same.
She took a chance in shifting the weapon to her left hand, the same way that he would when he needed a free hand.
Slowly, she lifts his necklace from her own neck. She holds it out to the light haired man by the metal chain, hopes that the language is one he is able to understand.
The little metal boxes on the chain clang together softly, but it still feels sound to her ears in the otherwise complete silence.
Hesitantly and slowly - so slowly - he reaches out to touch the necklace. He doesn't take it immediately, gaging her reaction to him touching it first, as if he's unsure if she actually wants him to take it.
She doesn't, its all she has of him. Still, she feels like maybe she has to because maybe this is her only chance.
Scene Four, Steven G. Rogers & Her
Afganistan
The barrel of her gun is still level with his head, but she's offering something out to him in one little hand.
Dog tags, he thinks, but that can't be right.
The metal pieces cling lightly against each other as they sway where they dangle in her grip.
He lifts a hand, unsure. She doesn't waver, just keeps the chain offered out to him.
Even once he's claimed the item in his hand, his other still raised by his head unthreateningly, he doesn't look down to inspect it. Not yet.
She's not looking at him anymore, though. Her eyes are glued, maybe unwillingly, to the chain balled up in his fist.
He glanced down quickly, it is dog tags after all.
Steve tries to let the question show on his face, knows she has no way of telling him.
She huffs, an almost annoyed sound, definitely tired. Looks pointedly at the dog tags, to Steve, and back to the tags.
Steve tilts his head, glancing down again, still not wanting to take his eyes off of her - and her gun long enough to read them. He's sure he couldn't anyways, she doesn't speak English and he doesn't speak whatever she does speak. If she speaks at all.
Apparently, he's taking too long for her tastes. She spits out what sounds like harsh orders but that could just because Steve thinks all Russian sounds harsh.
"I don't know what you want," He tells her.
She makes another small noise, reaches to tug at a loose bit of the chain but doesn't take it from his hand, just urges him to look at it.
Her face scrunches, like she's searching for the right word. Steve hopes its something he'll actually understand but doubts it entirely. He speaks Gaelic, Italian, and the little bits of French that Dernier had taught him. He does not, however, speak Russian, or whatever Russian-sounding language she has been spitting at him.
"Papa," She tells him, still tugging lightly on the chain of the dog tags, tears finally making their way to her eyes but never spilling over.
Steve tries, he really does, not to react, but his eyes still blow wide. He's not entirely sure why that shocks him, there aren't many reasons that a child her age would be in a place like this, but it still shocks him nonetheless.
"This is English," He muses aloud.
"American," She seems to agree, "Papa, American." She says like it's his name.
It's not, because if the tags she'd given him truly belong to her father then her father is James Buchanan Barnes.
A cruel joke, he thinks. Still chancing a look at the service number.
The number that matches Bucky's perfectly.
Episode Three - Drive
Scene One, The Soldier
Moving
They hadn't taken the girl.
Thats all that he knows but he knows it as fact.
They hadn't gotten her.
She would be fine, they had a plan for this. A plan she knew better than she knew anything else, he'd made sure of it. She'd be fine, better maybe, without him.
"Jesus," The young man across from him blanches at him, "What, you bite someone's hand off or something?"
They were in some type of moving vehicle.
Not that it matters but he - James - blames the man for that. They'd both been moved out of the underground base they were being held in after that man had come blazing and blasting through the walls. His suit, though an admittedly smart idea, gave out on him.
Thus, they were being moved.
The man was cuffed, hands in his lap along with the many wires protruding from his chest.
"Yes," James answers matter-of-factly. He had actually only bitten off a few fingers, but, technicalities.
James was muzzled, the mask stretched across his mouth, over his nose and hooked below his chin. His arms were restrained separately, held against the arm rests at the wrist and forearm and against the wall behind him at the bicep. His legs were similarly trapped in a three point system.
"Are you real?" He asks, eyeing the wires that ran into the man's chest. He could be fake, really there but a fake person.
There's a word for that.
"Uh, yeah man, I'm real. Fuck, how long have they had you?"
"Fourty-three hours, forty seven minutes, this time."
"This time?"
"Yes,"
Scene Two, Steven G. Rogers & Her
Afganistan
Steve glances sideways at the girl in his passenger seat, she's looking out of the window on her side, playing with the dog tags Steve had returned to her. She's not tall enough to be in the front seat but he thinks they probably both have bigger problems to worry about.
He's reluctant in calling his team - the team he didn't have the time to wait for - within the girls range of hearing. That is, until he thinks a second longer and realizes that she won't understand anything that's being said anyways.
Rumlow answers almost immediately, he asks questions Steve doesn't have the answers to.
"There was a kid, no one else. Completely abandoned otherwise," Steve is saying, she's no longer twisting the chain in her hands, just gripping the tags tightly in little fists. He's cut off by a gunshot in the distance that pulls his attention from the call.
"Rogers?" Rumlow is calling him from across the phone line.
"Nothing, just," He hesitates, listening for anything that would confirm or deny the occurrence of gun shots. He hears nothing else, "Thought I heard something in the town. I'm headed back now, we can regroup and hit the next base before sun up,"
"And the girl?"
"She's fine," Steve answers before he even really processes the question. "I've got her here with me. She doesn't speak much English, so maybe we can get one of the translators to-"
He trails, his brain catching up with his mouth. He glances over, again, at the young girl across from him. She's straightened her posture, hands squeezing so tightly against the metal in them that he's sure it's leaving marks. She doesn't look at him. "...One of the translators to help her out." He continues in an effort to be as inconspicuous in his revelation as possible. "I think she's looking for-"
The sound of the gunshot hits his ears again, this time much closer and in a fraction of a second he knows why. Someone has shot the front tires of his truck, forcing him to skid to a rather abrupt and bumpy stop.
He throws and arm out instinctually to force the girl to stay back in her seat, afraid she may go flying through the windshield. She barely flinches and tried to hide it when she does.
Scene Three, Anthony E. Stark & James B. Barnes
24.8 miles away
If he's going to be completely honest, Tony feels a little insignificant next to his fellow prisoner.
Tony not only built an entirely functional, weaponized, metallic body armor robot suit using only old car scraps and failed missile equipment. He did it with a hole the size of his fist in his chest. And-and, don't forget the literal car batter that he'd had to lug around while he did it because the thing was connected to his heart.
Tony did all of that, while imprisoned in an underground shithole, and it worked.
Still, somehow, Tony is seen as the less dangerous of the unwilling road trippers. He's strapped into the surprisingly comfortable seats in the back of the vehicle with a normal seatbelt, his hands cuffed with regular handcuffs.
Tall, dark and staring, however, has no less than five separate restraints holding him down. It's a wonder the man can blink - not that he does very often - with the way they have him tied down. The man is muzzled for fucks sake.
When Tony asks - because he's Tony and he never learned when to keep his mouth shut - what the man had done to earn that kind of treatment, he hadn't expected to get an answer.
He definitely didn't expect to get the answer that he got.
"So, uh, where do you think they're taking us?" Tony asks his surprisingly forthcoming cell mate - or, uhm, van mate as it is. "Think they've got another hole in the ground to toss us into? Who am I kidding, of course they do. I wonder how far we've gone, maybe Steve can track us before we get too far off. I sent him a location signal from the last place before I started tearing shit up, so I hope we're staying local. Hey, I think-"
All he receives for his efforts is a smack to the head from a man with a big gun and a continuous glare from his buddy across the vehicle.
"Oh, sorry, I guess I'm distracting Hannibal Lecter over there from his meditation moment."
"Shut up,"
Tony's never been one for taking orders, but something in the man's voice just demands it, "Shutting up,"
Scene Four, James B. Barnes & Anthony E. Stark
A (soon to be) Parked Car
This kid is so much worse than his kid. His kid knows when to be quiet, when to show her hand and when to wait.
This kid does not.
And, he never seems to shut the fuck up.
James is trying to listen for any clues or signs of where the might be going or how long they will be driving. He wants to know how many of there others are in the vehicle with them, how many are following behind separately. He needs to catalog weapons and search for weaknesses.
None of which his can do with somebody else's brat whining in his ear.
Whoever 'Steve' is to the boy, James also hopes he'll hurry the hell up and take the boy off of James' hands.
"Kid," He prompts, forty-five minutes after telling him to stop talking. The English feels weird in his mouth but it also feels right.
"I'm not a kid,"
"Kid," James says anyways, just to be an annoyance. "Can you shoot that gun?" he nods to the one in a sleeping guard's hand.
"Can I- I built that gun! Of course I can shoot it."
James nods, taking in the one - snoring - guard in the back with them, listening to the two others in the front.
He gives it a second, rolls his head to one side and then the other, as far as his restraints will let him. Wiggles his fingers a bit in their place, tied to the arm of his specially made chair. James plants his boots just a bit more firmly on the vehicles flooring and forces his upper body outward and upward.
The floor of the vehicle actually cracks under the force, which isn't a downside exactly, just unexpected.
The expected was that the restraints on James' arms would give into the sudden pressure of him wrenching himself forwards. Which it does, of course, he's not sure exactly what they had done to him in their experiments, but he knows that since them his strength has never failed him.
Even when his enemies plan for the strength that they had given him, it never seems to be enough. This instance shows no difference in that.
Episode Five, Kids
Scene One, James B. Barnes "the Winter Soldier"
A Parked Car
The kids name is Tony Stark.
He thinks that should mean something.
That is, James thinks that the name 'Stark' should mean something. It sounds so oddly familiar, but it's not an all together uncommon surname. The kid also seems to think that his name should mean something, though perhaps not to James specifically but to people as a whole. Seems a bit egotistical, but that's certainly not the kids biggest problem in the moment.
No, the kid's biggest problem would be the firepower pointed in their direction from the surrounding vehicles around them.
James knows that as soon as the vehicle his in with 'Tony Stark' stops is when the trouble really starts.
He quietly snaps the sleeping guards neck, he doesn't have the time to feel guilt about it, doubts he'd feel guilty anyways. James isn't sure he even knows what that word means anymore, if he ever really did.
He hands the kid - Tony - the weapon, hoping he hadn't just been talking brave4 when he'd said he knew how to shoot the thing. James seriously doubts that this kid would be as quick a study as his kid. And he doesn't have the time to teach him anyways, because there's no doubt in his mind that the two guards up front had heard him bread their restraints.
That assumption is proven correct when a device on the now deceased guard sparks to life with a deep voice calling out.
"They're going to stop the truck," He tells Tony, who's still sat in his spot, tied hands in front of him gripping tightly to the gun James had given him. "There's at least three other vehicles in the group, they're going to expect me to turn back the way we came from."
He doesn't know why he's telling the kid, doesn't know when he decided that leaving the boy behind wasn't an option he was willing to consider.
"Stay close, I'm not slowing down for you and I'm definitely not coming back for you," He lies, and then he kicks the back doors of the van open.
Scene Two, Her
Steve's Truck
She's done everything wrong.
Still, she's decided she likes Steve.
Liked, he's talking to someone. A voice she doesn't know and doesn't like.
Nothing good ever comes from fears caused by memories she no longer has.
When the tires of Steve's truck pop suddenly she's knows there are exactly three possible reasons.
Two of those possibilities are correct.
Scene Three, Tony & James
Open Road
Tony isn't even sure how it happens, he just knows that he stays as close as possible to the psychopaths muzzle-man as possible during the fight that doesn't actually last more than ten minutes.
He only takes three shots himself, the rest is all the crazy, terminator-esque man.
Tony knows enough to know that the man had to have some sort of enhancement, like the super soldier serum they gave Captain America in the 40's. But Tony knows more than most about how - and why - Steve Rogers was the only man to ever receive a perfected version of the serum.
Which all leads Tony to the very sound assumption that this is some sort of botched attempt by 'enemy' scientists. Hydra, Howard would have claimed, even though everyone knows that Hydra hadn't existed since 1945.
The man, who's name Tony doesn't even know, takes every visible weapon but doesn't take a vehicle.
Tony makes a point of continuously complaining about that dumbass decision to travel on foot to the nearest town.
Well, until the nameless, life-saving creep shoots him a glare that practically threatens to actually shoot him all on it's own... really, there was no reason to point that gun at him.
They finally steal a car when they reach what's more of a village than a town and, yeah Tony, remember where you are. Sue him, it's been a rough week.
They don't go back the way they came, Tony wants to complain about that too, but honestly, he's just glad to be not-dead at the moment. The man - that has a cool metal arm, which he's not going to bother him about or complain about being called 'kid' - has been doing a pretty good job of keeping both of them not-dead.
He also seems to know where he's going. Which is great, because all Tony sees in desert, desert and oh yep, there's some more desert. That's, desert as in sand, and not a sweet treat after dinner.
Damn, Tony would kill another three mindless goons for a dessert right now - the sweet kind - or, god, a cheeseburger. "Man, I really want a cheeseburger,"
"Shut up,"
Tony leans as far over in his seat in the passenger side of their stolen car and squints so that he can lift one - still handcuffed - hand to pretend to smush the man's head between his fingers.
Very suddenly, the man stops their car, gets out and begins trudging through the sand once again.
"Oh, c'mon, seriously? I have heart problems now!"
Scene Four, The Soldier & Her
Desert (not dessert, sorry Tony)
The shooting doesn't start in earnest until Steve gets out of the truck.
His immediate response is, of course, to protect the child he was in charge of. Except, she was doing the exact same thing.
Steve didn't seem to be picking up on that fact, though.
She knew that the shots were coming from two different directions, neither side was aiming for her.
She took a minute, an educated guess though there was no way to know for sure, and picked a direction.
Steve dropped her to the sand, trying to cover her little body with his own while he devised plan of his own, but hers was already ready to go into motion. So she rolled out from under him, grabbing at his wrist to pull him along. Directly towards the origination of one of the sets of bullets.
She does her best to stay in front of Steve, though she could never completely cover him the way he did for her. She just has to be seen first.
She picked the right direction, something she hadn't realized she was worried about until the relief was flooding her.
Unnatural, though completely normal for her, was it to find comfort in someone so extremely dangerous. Intimidating in a way few others ever were, armed to the teeth and pointing a large gun in her direction.
He didn't lower the weapon, even when she called for him, wrapping her little arms around him, having left Steve behind in the sand.
"Steve!" A man's voice calls in the same tone that she had called for the soldier. Her man drops the weapon from its ready position, but doesn't ever let it slip from his grip. He does, though, dip low enough to scoop her into his right arm, pulling her up and close.
"Natalia," He has a weird mask on his face, she doesn't like it so she pulls it. Lightly, just incase it hurts him. It doesn't seem to, but it also doesn't budge.
Steve has a smaller, curly haired man in a tight hug. When they part, it's only half way. Steve keeps ahold of Tony with one arm, angling them in a way puts Tony further away from the soldier.
Natalia's eyes widen and she reaches out to allow the metal tags to unravel from the ball she'd held them in. When the tags clang together at the bottom, she moves to pull the necklace over the soldiers head.
"Is that you dad, kiddo?" Steve says, although he knows that she won't understand, "Papa?"
"You're a dad?" Tony shouts, almost outraged. He turns to Steve, "The fucking Terminator is a dad?"
In Russian, James turns to his kid to ask, "You told him I am your father?"
"It was the only thing I knew in your language that would work," She explains, "It's close enough, isn't it?"
"Yeah, kid, it's close enough." In English, he says. "Where did you find her?"
"She found me," The blond, Tony's Steve, says, not even stumbling over the surprise of the soldier speaking English. "At the base where they were holding Tony,"
He sounds suspicious as he says it, but never vocalizes the thought. Tony informs him quietly of the fact that they were both prisoners and 'Terminator' was most certainly not the enemy. Maybe not a friendly, exactly, but he wasn't involved with the group that took Tony.
"What happened to the plan?" the soldier asks in Russian again.
"I didn't like the plan," The girl says confidently, but she's nervously twisting and pulling at the tags that are now back around James' neck, "You left your necklace, I just wanted to give it back."
"The clasp is on the back," he tells her, it takes her a moment to understand, reaching back to take the mask off of his face.
When she does, he moves the gun in his left hand to a holster on his thigh and uses the newly freed metal hand to push greasy red hair from her flushed face, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Steve stiffens, he hadn't actually given half a thought to hoping the name on the dog tags was correct. But there he was "Bucky?"
The soldier's eyebrows twist up, confused. "No, at least, not anymore."
"Bucky, like Bucky Barnes?" Tony says at the same time that Natalia asks, "What's Bucky?"
Switching again to Russian, James tells her, "He means me, I think, who I was before."
"Bucky is a stupid name,"
At that, James laughs and, though Steve is shocked still and motionless, staring down his not-dead best friend, James still feels the need to translate, "Yeah, Bucky is a stupid name,"
END
home
Natalia struggles with English. That was a surprise for James.
Tony does not struggle with Russian, once he actually bothers to learn it. He takes Nat along to all of his meeting with Russian companies anyways.
Steve still catches himself thinking of James as Bucky. They're completely different people but they're so similar at the same time.
James has decided to go by 'James' and not Bucky, because it really is a stupid name. He doesn't say anything when Steve slips up though.
He's not, not Bucky Barnes, he's just different. For far too long he'd feared, that because he couldn't and likely never would remember that time in his life where he was Bucky Barnes, that Steve would grow tired of having a Bucky-imposter around. He never did.
Steve's on the phone with the new director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, who took over when Steve resigned to take care of Tony. Tony is on the phone with some foreign ambassador, cursing down the line about clean energy and cost-benefits.
Natalia is throwing spoons - because she's no longer allowed to throw knives in the house.
Every now and then, James will correct her stance or attempt to distract her in some increasingly silly way. Because he can be silly with her now, life is no longer just finding the best way to get her through the week alive.
Legally, he's her dad now. Though their names and identities aren't theirs.
He's braided her hair back, its falling out into its pretty little curl pattern in the front. Tony tugs a curl and hands her the phone, so, he'd been speaking to the Russian again, then.
Steve moves the whole couch a few inches backwards when he flops down on it, the smushes himself into James' side, because it's been 70 years and that's allowed now.
James got a cat, it hates him but it loves Steve and immediately moves to sit on him when he settles.
Steve sneezes right on cue. Serum can't fix everything, Steve's still allergic to cats and James can't remember being a human.
it is what it is