Chapter Text
To say James had been fragile when Steve and Sam first brought him back was a bit of an understatement. Steve would later describe him as, “A fucking mess, but there has never been a man who looked more attractive after five weeks of no showers.”
But, it was understandable. Hydra had a way of screwing you up in the worst way possible, and there’s only so much Sam Wilson can do on a three-hour flight – no matter how angelic those damn cheekbones were.
No one blamed James for being a bit sensitive to light, noise and human beings in general, but whatever worries he had about meeting someone other than the two men who’d led the manhunt for him were dispelled almost immediately by Miss Potts. James was tempted to start a fanclub.
“Hello, Mr. Barnes.” She smiled kindly at him, reaching a hand out for him to grip. The manners his ma had instilled in him were still, apparently, buried under years worth of Hydra knows what, so he reached out to grip it, momentarily freezing when he saw the contrast of the silver against Miss Potts’ skin.
He could break her. Just in the blink of an eye, he could crush every bone in that delicate hand. What was even more incredible – or worse, depending on how you looked at it –, was that she didn’t seem to mind.
He could feel the warmth of her skin through the sensors in the arm, and he realized that this was the first kind human contact he’d felt in decades. He could feel his other hand getting clammy as repressed memories of contact that was not kind worked themselves to the surface, but he shoved them down, deciding that he could deal with that another day. Or never. Yeah, never sounded good, even though Wilson would never let him off that easy.
“Miss Potts,” He said, releasing her hand. It was uncomfortable to let go of it, to lose that contact. “Hydra wants you dead, but I can keep you safe until I’ve trained your team better.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and James couldn’t really say he blamed her. He might have benefitted from telling Steve first and then have Steve tell her, but Hydra wasn’t big on tact, which was why James had lost all ability to talk to women. People, really, come to think of it.
“I see,” She said, briefly glancing at Steve. He actually seemed happy, which was… Odd. “I need to be sure you know that your place here, is yours – and it doesn’t depend on whether you work or not. You’re not here as a guest of Steve either, you’re here as your own person. Nothing will change that.”
“I understand.” James said, though he absolutely did not. She was being so nice, and that was just too much for his brain to process. He hated that he couldn’t, because he knew that he should be able to. “I need to secure the apartments.”
“Why don’t we go there now?” Steve suggested, “We have time before dinner.”
They decided that walking through the lab-area to get to his rooms would be smart; try to get him acquainted with everything in the Tower as soon as possible. James had always been independent, and the idea of needing Steve by his side every time he saw someone in a white coat made him physically ill, and exposure therapy never went wrong, right?
“These are Dr. Foster’s labs,” Steve said, gesturing to the general area behind the bulletproof glass, “She’s an astrophysicist, and Thor’s soulmate. She’s brilliant and reckless, so obviously, we get on really well.”
James rolled his eyes at Steve, thoroughly unimpressed by his friend. “Yeah, you’re a fucking genius.”
“Shut up, asshole,” Steve scoffed, just before his entire face crumbled as he realized what he’d said, and turned to James with apologies already spewing from his lips.
“Shut up, punk,” James interrupted him, words he’d never even think of saying just a few weeks ago spilling easily, “I’m not a doll.”
“I’m sor– “
“Steve,” Sam said, tilting his head in the direction of James, “He’s fine. Don’t worry.”
“Right.” Steve nodded brusquely, reigning himself in. He was about to say something else, but just then the elevator at the end of the hall dinged, and a woman dressed in a flowing skirt and tight shirt walked out, going straight to Dr. Foster’s labs without so much as a glance in their direction.
You didn’t need to be a super soldier to see that she was pissed off.
“Miss Lewis,” One of the lab assistants met her in the door to the lab, blocking her entrance with her body. “You can’t come in, it’s against protocol.”
“I do not give a flying fuck about your protocols,” She spat as she gently tried to push the assistant out of the way. “Jane has a very specific way of talking when she hasn’t slept properly in five days, so let me through, you absolute hamster!”
“Is ‘hamster’ a common insult nowadays?” James whispered to Sam, who was also glued to the spot, watching as the woman argued with the assistant, and the assistant called for security. They seemed reluctant to incapacitate her because she was so obviously not a threat, and also, she’d worked in the building for a year.
“No,” Sam whispered back, then turned to Steve. “It isn’t, right?”
“Are you seriously asking me to decode the intricacies of modern language?” Steve hissed, one arm hovering just outside of reach for James’ metal arm. He was worried the loud voices would trigger some sort of flashback, but honestly, James seemed more infatuated than terrified. He’d always had a soft spot for women who yelled at people.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Sam answered, still whispering. “That was stupid.”
“Really stupid.” James added, watching as the woman finally pushed her way into the lab, and towards another woman writing on a blackboard. “Like, wow. It would be physically impossible to have hit the mark more wrong on that one.”
“Yeah, all right, Bucky.” Steve muttered, “We get it. I’m a fossil, ha-fucking-ha. Also, the structure of that sentence is an abomination.”
“Why are you whispering?” Miss Potts asked, “You know she can’t hear us, right?”
“Oh.” Steve said dumbly, straightening his back. Pepper had a way of making him stand at parade rest without saying anything, but judging by Bucky and Sam’s reaction, she had a way of doing that to all ex-military. “Yes. Of course. We are Avengers, of course we knew that.”
“Are you… Blushing?” James poked Steve’s cheek curiously with his finger, frowning at redness.
“Shut it.” Steve bit out, forgetting for a minute what Bucky had been through, and that getting him to talk was sort of important. Of course, the guilty conscious that followed was completely unnecessary if you asked James, but good luck telling Steve that. “It’s not like I can control it.”
“You can if you’re a Hydra-agent.” James said, and then he promptly fell to the floor in a mess of extremely muscly limbs.
“Guess we found the first trigger,” Sam sighed, already mentally cataloging New York-based therapists who could be trusted. He had a feeling James would need him more as a friend than anything else, and it would be easier for Steve to talk to him if they were on the same page. And they should probably call in Professor Xavier as well.
Darcy was still yelling at her friend’s so-called colleagues as they carried Barnes to his room, so she didn’t notice the way his eyes flickered open as her voice reached a higher-than-strictly-possible note, and she didn’t notice the way the words crawling their way down her ribcage tingled either.