Kool-Aid Man Cap
James tucked a piece of his long hair behind his ear and tried not to fidget too much. Thankfully his metal hand couldn’t shake with nerves, and he kept his flesh and blood one gripped tightly around his glass on the table. He’d been working towards this for the last three years, carefully building his cover, working his way up the ranks of Alexander Pierce’s organization until he was in a position to negotiate a major weapons buy with the Russian mafia. James (or, he should say, Iakov Kuznetsov) was the perfect liaison for the two groups; he had the charming smile and Brooklyn drawl to gain the trust of the Americans, along with the dry humor and capacity for vodka to endear him to the Russians. He was here in the cramped back room of a warehouse along with Pierce himself and his right hand man, goon extraordinaire Brock Rumlow as teams of workers brought in shipments of weapons and James spoke to the Russians on a video call with a tablet propped up on the rickety table.
“Da, ya dostal vam raketnyye puskovyye ustanovki {Yes, I got you the rocket launchers},” James was laughing to Semyon, his contact, when a rumble moved through the warehouse and he shared a glance with Pierce and Rumlow. “Sem, mne nuzhno budet perezvonit' vam {Sem, I will have to call you back},” he said, and was reaching for the End Call button just as the wall behind him burst open in a cloud of brick and dust.
Captain America stood there like a star spangled Kool-Aid man, shield up and ready as all three of the men in the room drew their weapons. “Bucky?”
“Who the hell is Bucky?” James faltered; he didn’t want to kill Captain America, goddamn it, but he had a cover to keep and the guy literally just punched a hole through it. He was between the captain and the other two in the room, and they were closest to the door. “Sir, I’ll hold him off, you guys go. I’ll catch up.” He heard the two men leave immediately- there was something to be said for self preservation among gangsters.
He and Rogers stood in a stretched out moment of frozen anticipation before James grabbed the rickety table he’d been sitting at and flung it at the captain, distracting him long enough to turn and run after Pierce and Rumlow, weaving through dark hallways. “Bucky, wait!” Rogers was following behind him. “I can help you!”
“I’m not who you think,” James growled. “Leave it.”
Rogers caught James’ metal wrist, spinning him around in the same movement. “I know you, James Buchanan Barnes. You've been my best friend since I was five years old.”
James scoffed. “Then why haven’t you spoken to me in twelve years?”
Steve dropped his wrist and stepped back, looking hurt and ashamed, which made what James had to do next that much harder. He slumped and sighed, trying to seem defeated before bringing his metal fist up, hard, to the side of Steve’s jaw, knocking him out cold.
James sprinted for the exit and called out to pierce and Rumlow as he caught up with them. He mustered up a relieved smile and said, “I lost him,” as he stepped forward to join them, but Rumlow had a gun pointed at his chest.
“Brock, what are you doing? We need to get out of here, now!”
“No,” Pierce cut in, “Rumlow and I have to get out. You’ve set us up.”
“The fuck I have! You think I know Captain Goddamn America?” James spat the words at them, panicked and angry and scared shitless. Pierce was almost to the door, to the alley with a waiting car and then he’d be gone, vanished.
“Sure sounded like he knew you,” Rumlow said, gun not wavering from the center of James’ chest.
“He thought I was someone else,” James knew he sounded pleading and desperate, but he was. “I can still save this deal, let me fix this! We can regroup, I can- I’ll call the Semyon from the car-”
“No, Iakov.” Pierce cut him off, cold and calm as ever. “Or should I say James? James Buchanan Barnes, isn’t that what the captain called you?”
James felt the blood drain from his face; he hadn’t realized they’d heard so much, and now his cover was well and truly blown. He opened his mouth, scrambling for something, anything to say that might salvage this, but nothing came.
Rumlow smirked and set his shoulders, finger squeezing the trigger. James twisted to get his left shoulder in front of him as two shots rang out deafeningly loud in the narrow hallway. The first glanced off the metal of his arm, but the second found flesh and James was quickly acquainted with the concrete of the floor as the bullet lodged in his hip and his legs gave out. Rumlow shifted his stance for another shot, but the sound of running footsteps had Pierce barking out a short “Brock,” and they both slipped out the door.
Steve Rogers appeared seconds later, what should’ve been a swollen mess of a broken jaw merely a deep purple bruise with distinct knuckle-shaped markings that looked days instead of minutes old.
“They went for a car out back,” James said from where he was sprawled on the floor. “Hurry, you can still catch them.”
Steve blinked at him dumbly, then down at his hip where he was putting pressure on his gunshot wound and crimson blood was flowing over the silver of his metal fingers with a sort of beauty, if James listened to the shock that was trying to blanket his thoughts and focus on weird shit like that. No, you still have a job to do. “Pierce and Rumlow are out that door-” he tried again, but the sound of squealing tires interrupted him. Pain and defeat washed over him in a wave. “Fuck!” James slammed his metal fist on the ground, leaving a small crater in the concrete.
Steve was jolted out of his stare and dropped to his knees beside James, pulling a clotting sponge out of a pocket of his uniform to press to the wound that was bleeding freely now that James wasn’t applying pressure. “Are you ok?” He asked inanely. “What happened?”
“You blew my cover, is what fucking happened,” James growled through clenched teeth. “And I was shot, do I look ok to you?"
Steve touched his ear with the hand that wasn’t pressed to James’ hip. “Sam we need medical on the East side of the building, there’s a door leading to a back alley-”
“Get your team to follow and apprehend a black Ford Expedition-” James tried to shout into Steve’s comms, but Steve tilted his head aside and kept talking.
“GSW to the hip, no exit wound. I need a transport.”
The alley door burst open (even though there was a handle right there, superheroes couldn't resist some property damage, apparently) and a dude with literal wings was standing there looking as panicked as a bird guy in giant goggles can look. When he registered the scene in front of him he ripped off the goggles and rolled his eyes in exasperated relief. “Cap I thought you were down, man.”
“No,” Steve said, irritated and anxious. “What’s the ETA on the ambulance? We need to get Bucky to medical.”
“Who the hell is Bucky?” Sam asked, looking down at the guy that - for all he knew - was here to sell a boat load (a literal cargo vessel boat load) of weapons to some Russian gangsters.
“Bucky’s nobody,” James said, and the shock and anger coursing through his system didn’t even let him feel bad about Steve’s flinch at those words. “I’m Special Agent James Barnes. You assholes just crashed my bust, blew my cover, and let the two biggest players walk out the door. So thanks for throwing away the last three years of my life. If I could stand on both legs I’d kick both your asses.”
“Who’s getting an ass kicking?” Hawkeye emerged from the ceiling. James recognized him from the news coverage on the Battle of New York. When Steve - the Avengers - had become famous.
“You can have one too,” James said to him challengingly, but Hawkeye just grinned back.
“Cap, we’ve been in the building for five minutes and you’ve already picked up a stray?” Hawkeye teased, calm as anything. James considered his chances of drawing on these three, how far he’d get, and which one he’d shoot on the slim chance he got a bullet into one of them.
“Alright,” he said, fed up and frustrated and so fucking done with these goddamn superheroes. He put his metal hand in the wall to create a handhold and hauled himself up to his feet - well, foot. Steve made a pained noise, like he was the one that had fire racing through his pelvis with each heartbeat. James took a breath to clear the dizziness before he raised his right hand, pointing at the three Avengers before him, demanding silence. He reached awkwardly across his body to his left pocket for his phone, only to find a neat bullet hole through the screen. He bit out a curse. “Somebody give me a phone.”
“Buck, the ambulance-” Steve tried to reason, but James cut him off, barely keeping a snarl out of his voice.
“I need a phone so I can call my sup and tell him that three years’ worth of work and federal money just walked out the back door.” James stood there, left leg suspended between his metal hand in the wall and his right foot on the floor, with his right hand outstretched, waiting for a phone to be placed in it.
The three costumed men looked at each other. “Mine’s on the quinjet,” said Steve, shrugging.
Hawkeye pulled his out of a cargo pocket in his pants, revealing a cracked screen, which was apparently its normal state since he wasn’t at all distressed by it. He just held it up, giving James a view of a purple case with a pizza sticker on the back as he mashed at buttons. “Dead battery,” he said, and put it back in his pocket on the second try. The first try it had slid down his leg and thudded to the floor, which gave some insight on the state of the thing.
Wing Guy gave a long-suffering sigh and handed over a sleek, high-tech phone. James entered a phone number, followed by an extension, followed by a code to give him access to a secure line, followed by voice confirmation, followed by two and a half minutes of silent holding before the Commander picked up.
“You’re early.”
“Yes sir,” James said, aware of the eyes on him, of the fact that he was on the cusp of throwing away his career. He gritted his teeth and forced the words out. “I’ve been compromised. Pierce and Rumlow are in the wind. We can secure the weapons that are here at the warehouse, but the mission has collapsed."
“What happened,” his Commander demanded, voice flat with zero inflection.
James gripped the wall harder, brick crumbling around his fingers, and shifted his weight on his good leg. “We had unexpected interference from an outside agency, sir. Another team moved in; we weren’t in place, we didn’t know they were coming and we were unable to mobilize in time.” He paused to breathe deeply and blink black spots away from his vision before continuing. “The Russians may be picked up still with a team. I can - um - I…” He closed his eyes completely now and carefully lowered himself to the floor, groaning a bit as his hip moved and stretched.
“Barnes? What’s going on?”
Before James had time to answer, the phone was taken out of his slack fingers. “This is Captain Steve Rogers, SHIELD operative. To whom am I speaking?”
James wanted to be outraged. Even minor annoyance would work, but he was crashing hard. Adrenaline was fading fast and pulling his consciousness along with it. He slumped back into the wall and heard approaching sirens as Steve talked into the phone.
“Yes Commander Ross, my team was informed of a weapons buy, we weren’t aware an agency was already working-”
Steve’s voice and the increasing wail of the ambulance sirens faded as James gave up on his career and on staying awake.