A Strange Development
James regained consciousness in a dim hospital room. The steady mechanical beep of a heart monitor came from somewhere behind him, and he felt pleasantly fuzzy and heavy. His left hip was heavier than the rest of him though, and in less fun ways, so he lifted the blanket covering himself to find thick bandaging on the area. Oh yeah, I got shot. He poked carefully around, trying to get an idea of the damage, but couldn’t feel anything between the drugs in his system and the bandages covering everything. He looked up to try and find a doctor or nurse, someone who could come in here and tell him he wasn’t going to be paralyzed, when he noticed three silhouettes on the other side of the frosted glass wall of his hospital room.
Steve’s broad shoulders were recognizable anywhere, especially since he was still in his Captain America uniform. The much shorter and slighter, though no less intimidating silhouette of CIA Deputy Task Force Commander Everett Ross was there too, and a third, black-clad figure James didn’t know. He couldn’t make out any words, but what he could figure from the body language and tone of their muffled voices, things were tense. It seemed that Steve and Commander Ross were in agreement on something, and arguing with the third guy about it. Said guy was not having it. His voice rose, and the words carried in to James, “-can’t take Captain America out of the field for a babysitting job!”
There were indistinct murmurs from the other two men, and James saw Steve jut his chin out defiantly, while Commander Ross squared his shoulders with his arms held loosely at his sides. Most people, at first, took this stance to be non-threatening. That impression was very quickly rectified. James didn’t want to be presumptive, but it seemed safe to assume they were discussing him, and he figured he should at least be able to hear what was being said about himself.
“Ay,” his first attempt at speech came out at a croak, so he did what he could to clear his throat and tried again. “Hey!” It was still weaker than he wanted, but he saw Steve’s head snap towards him. He said something to the other two men, and then all three of them were striding into the hospital room.
“Hey Bucky, how’re you feeling?” Steve asked gently as he rushed to the bedside chair. “You had to have surgery to remove the bullet, but the doctor says it went well and you should have a full recovery. Do you need anything? Another blanket? Some water?”
“Jesus Rogers, I’m not your grandmother,” James muttered, and fumbled for the button to raise his bed into a more respectable sitting position. He glanced at the man in the black leather trench coat, a scary motherfucker with one eye, then addressed his commander. “Sir? Do I need to debrief?”
“Hm?” Commander Ross’ attention turned to James from where he’d been glaring at Eyepatch. He crossed his arms over his chest. “No Barnes, Captain Rogers has given me a full account of events, you can provide a supplementary written report when you’ve recovered. We’re placing you in Witness Protection. You’ll disappear until we catch Pierce and Rumlow.”
“What? No, sir, put me on the team to track them down,” James said. “I know them, I can help-” but Ross was already shaking his head.
“It’s too dangerous. Your cover is blown; you’ll have Pierce, Rumlow, and the Russians out for your blood. This isn’t negotiable. You’ll be going to a town in Arizona with a new identity and a partner to help you blend in and watch your back.”
“Sir,” James said, breathless with panic and shame. “Commander Ross, I know the other night was a massive screw up, but you can’t just bench me-”
Ross’ arms uncrossed and James saw his hands flexing at his sides. Danger. He sat bad in his bed, defeated. “Yes, sir.” He got a short nod from Ross, and knew there was no way out of spending an indeterminate amount of time pretending to be normal, having to keep his arm covered, interacting with the locals, and… wait, partner?
“With all due respect to you, sir, and all due humbleness or whatever towards myself, I’m one of your top agents. I don’t need a partner or a- a bodyguard or whatever while I’m playing civilian. I can handle this solo.” He didn’t need some green agent fresh out of the academy to play house with during the most humiliating time in his career. It was bad enough that Steve was here to witness this, even though he was the cause of it. And scary eyepatch guy… “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Director Fury, SHIELD. I was just telling these two gentlemen that same thing, that you don’t need anyone else with you on this sabbatical.” James’ hackles rose at the word choice there, like this was a fucking vacation and not the mandatory punishment for royally screwing up that it actually was.
Steve was on his feet and in Fury’s space before James had even registered movement. “I told you Nick, you don’t get to control me. You are not my keeper. I can take a break from SHIELD to handle this, or I can resign. Either way, I’m going to be there for Agent Barnes.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” James blurted, and later he would blame the painkillers on his total loss of professionalism in front of his boss and (maybe?) Captain America’s boss. Steve rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the ground sheepishly while Commander Ross answered James’ question.
“Captain Rogers has volunteered to act as your security detail while you’re in hiding,” Commander Ross said, almost smugly. “Which is fitting, seeing as it was his team’s interference that caused this situation in the first place.”
Fury opened his mouth to argue at the same time that James forgot the bullet hole in his hip and sat bolt upright with a startled, “what?!” before collapsing back onto the hospital bed with a gasp of pain he couldn’t hold back. The painkillers in his IV couldn’t cover up the fact that he really should have been staying still.
“I’ll get your doctor!” Steve was blushing bright red and spoke too loudly as he left the room without making eye contact with anyone. James was left in a very awkward silence with Fury and Ross, neither man seeming to have any interest in small talk or pleasantries or any sort of positivity, ever. Awkward might not even be the right word for it. Aggressive silence. James held himself as still as possible, ignoring the sweat beading on his brow and trying to keep his breathing quiet and steady as he listened to the beep of his heart rate monitor and worked on slowing it down. The tense silence held for the couple minutes that it took for Steve to herd a doctor into the room.
“Buck- um. Agent Barnes.This is Dr. Strange. He performed the surgery to remove the bullet in your hip.”
The doctor the Steve had bullied into the room was tall and haughty-looking, like he had better things to do than stand there and be a social buffer, which he probably did. James levered himself up with his metal arm, holding back a pained grimace, and extended his right hand towards the doctor. “Dr. Strange, thank you for patching me up-”
His gratitude was interrupted by Dr. Strange’s annoyed huff as he strode toward James, ignoring his outstretched hand entirely, and pushed him back on the bed with a hand on his shoulder, not flinching or reacting at all when he grasped metal instead of flesh. “No point in thanking me if you’re going to undo all my work by heaving yourself around and tearing stitches, Agent Barnes. Since I’m here I may as well examine you. The rest of you can leave.” His words were a clear dismissal, and Fury and Ross took the opportunity to leave the room and discuss James’ future without him. Steve stayed hovering in the corner, arms crossed over his dumb broad red, white, and blue chest.
The rich baritone of Dr. Strange’s voice and the quick competence of his hands as he picked along the edges of the bandaging, lifting it up, drew James in. Or it could’ve been the painkillers. It was definitely not because Steve was in the room and he wanted to try and rile him up. Whatever it was, he set his most charming smile to pull at his lips and let his Brooklyn drawl loose to curl around his words. “Aw doc, I was just tryin’ to be respectful. And I think that after you’ve been inside me, we’re close enough for you to call me James. How about you, doc? You got a first name?”
To his delighted surprise, the doctor smiled as he answered, eyes still on James’ wound as he continued his inspection. “My name is Steven.”
James’ smile froze on his face, and he saw Rogers straighten up in surprise. He pushed forward. “What a coincidence, my colleague Captain America over there is also a Steven.”
Dr. Strange turned, apparently just realizing that Rogers was still in the room. He cleared his throat and stood up straight. “So. Agent Barnes. The bullet in your hip was luckily intact, and I was able to extract it without complications. After clearing the wound of all other debris-”
“Does ‘debris’ mean bits of my cell phone?” James quipped.
Dr. Strange laughed, despite trying to hold on to his professional demeanor. “Ah. Yes. So after that, I did what I could to repair the muscle and tendon damage you sustained, now it’s up to your body to finish the healing process. Which right now means staying still. Don’t make me put you in a full body cast.”
“Does that option come with sponge baths?” Dr. Strange and Rogers wore matching blushes at James’ teasing inquiry.
“Yes,” the doctor recovered with a smirk. “Along with bedsores, itching you can’t reach, a general stale smell…”
“Alright, alright. I’ll be good,” James sighed.
Dr. Strange picked up his doctor voice again. “You’ll be able to move around in a day or so. I’m keeping you tonight and tomorrow to make sure things are starting to heal as they should and we’re avoiding infection since I understand you won’t be nearby for convenient checkups. You’ll have crutches and a brace for about three weeks; as long as you behave yourself, follow the PT exercises carefully, don’t overexert, you should be ok to walk without assistance after that. A nurse will go over everything with you in detail before your discharge. Do you have any questions before I go, James?”
“Yeah,” he said, squinting a bit. “What color are your eyes? I’ve been sitting here staring at you and I can’t figure it out. Are they green or blue or…” he trailed off, studying the blush deepening on the doctor’s face and ignoring the uncomfortable shifting from Rogers in the corner.
Dr. Strange chuckled as he re-dressed James’ wound. “I will see you tomorrow, Agent Barnes.”
“G’night, doc,” James grinned at him.
The doctor left the room and James took the opportunity to lean his head back against the bed and close his eyes to breathe for a moment. A nervous cough and shuffle of feet came from the corner, and James rolled his head to look at Steve, who was still huddled in on himself. “So you think that witness protection and staying covert is gonna be easier for me with Captain America hanging around my safe house?” He considered that he maybe shouldn’t be engaging Steve while under the influence of whatever the hell they had in his IV bag, but he couldn’t seem to rein it in.
Steve’s shoulders squared up at the challenge, and James was thrown off, seeing that achingly familiar gesture twelve years later and on such a different body. “I can work undercover, I’m not going to be recognized.”
“You’re the second most recognizable Avenger and you can see your shoulders from space. It’s impossible not to notice you.”
Steve smiled a small, rueful smile. “You’d be surprised. Take off the shield, put on a hat, keep my head down, their eyes slide right off me. Only one person ever noticed me when I wasn’t Captain America; I have no idea what made him look, but I can guarantee it wasn’t the shoulders.”
He was staring at James almost wistfully, and James heard his heart monitor beep faster at the implication of Steve’s words. His mind whirled, but he was too muddled and foggy to be able to figure out how to respond. They stared at each other with twelve years’ worth of questions hanging in the air, then Steve dropped his eyes. “I’ll let you get some rest. I need to go clean up and prepare our cover.”
James just nodded, a contemplative frown on his face. He still didn’t like the situation, but he was too confused and too drugged up to be able to provide any sort of coherent argument, so he’d let it slide for the day. He really did need to get some sleep.