When Winter Strikes

5. Know This

Almost as soon as James had been presented once more to the Shinga and his 'council' to accept their offer of work, his training began – or, as Clint put it, "your fine-tuning sessions. Seeing as you already know how to kill." They put him up in one of the safe houses Fury owned in the city, close to the noble district, and he was woken in the morning after only a few hours of sleep by a woman knelt on his chest, a dagger at his throat.

"You're slower than I remember," was the first thing she said.

James raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to say something similar?"

Her lips twitched, but after a moment she released him. "Get dressed in these," she commanded, handing him a set of grey clothes similar to her own. "Then meet me by the river."

"The river?"

"If I see you on your way there, I will hurt you."

"What? Why? And who the hell –"

"The Shinga wants me to assess your abilities at stealth. Therefore, your task is to make it to the river without being seen. If you get seen on a contract, you could die, and you will have failed."

It all sounded horribly familiar. James swallowed back the memories and nodded, watching as the red-haired woman climbed wordlessly out of his window (hadn't that been locked?) and away into the early morning light. The clothes she'd given him fitted well, and were comfortable and unrestrictive; he assumed this was what wetboys generally wore, and the knowledge stilled him momentarily. He wasn't a Khalidoran tool anymore, but he still had that feeling of being controlled.

Shaking off his unease, he worked out a rough route to the river from his house and tried to stealth his way there as best he could. He kept to shadows and crowded areas, blending in to the travelling masses where he could and even hiding in a cart that was heading in the river's direction. Once or twice he glanced over his shoulder and thought maybe he saw a flash of red, but by the time he reached the side of the river the woman who had woken him up was already there with Clint. The two were stood on a bridge, casually looking up the body of water, and from where he was stood behind the corner of a tannery James worked out that they expected him to come from this way. So he doubled back, keeping the river on his right until he was sure he'd passed the bridge, then slowly made his way towards it once he'd come out on the river bank. He stayed close to the shadows the buildings provided, used a group of merchants for cover when he crossed the path until he found himself stood behind Clint and the red-head. They seemed oblivious. He could change that.

"Homunculus!"

"Shit!" Clint leapt in the air with fright before crouching low and turning, knife drawn, ready to face down the pit wyrm he was sure was coming. The red-head just watched him, eyebrow quirked in disbelief. When Clint realised there was no homunculus, and therefore no pit wyrm, he straightened up with a cough and slipped his knife away. "Yeah, very funny," he grumbled, glaring at James' smirk. He turned to the woman, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "You said he was coming from that way."

"I said he'd probably come from the North. That's not a definite."

"Gimme a break, Nat, my pride's wounded!"

She rolled her eyes, finally turning round to face James properly. "That wasn't bad," she said. "You did better than I thought, actually."

He gave a half-shrug. "Old training. Comes in handy sometimes."

Her responding twitch of the lips was familiar, and not because he'd seen her do it a few hours ago. "Natasha Romanov," she introduced herself, holding out a hand.

"The best female wetboy around," Clint added.

James nodded absently, hand still closed around Natasha's. "Sorry, have we met already? Before this morning, I mean."

"Perhaps." Her face gave nothing away, and he didn't pursue any further details.

What followed the stealth exercise was a general assessment of all his abilities: fighting styles, skills with weapons, fitness, and then general knowledge in the afternoon, running through the different lands, properties of herbs, levels of magi and anything else they could think of. By the time evening rolled around, and the sun dipped beneath the horizon for another few hours, Natasha had left to hand a report on his progress to Fury, leaving James and Clint to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and loosely spar together on a smaller bridge near the outskirts of the Warrens. Their session ended an hour or so later when James accidentally kicked Clint over the bridge's edge and into the Plith.

"Let's call it a night," Clint said once he was out of the water. "I'd like to be able to sleep relatively comfortably tonight, and you're not helping with that."

"You started it," James reminded him jokingly.

He snorted, and peeled off his wet shirt. As he began wringing it out James found himself staring quite unreservedly at the man's exposed chest, and it didn't take long for Clint to notice. Smirking, he said, "You can't tell me you've never seen a few scars before? Kind of expected in our profession."

James tried to respond, but his mind was too preoccupied with cataloguing the scars littering Clint's body; even to the untrained eye it was obvious that these weren't all mementos earned from slip-ups on contracts. The vast majority were precisely mapped out in small clusters: scripture and symbols, ritualistic in appearance, old and raised and with the look of being self-inflicted – and James was well-travelled enough to know what they signified. "You're Friaki?"

"Was," Clint said. "My brother and I were chased out of our home while I was still a kid. Our father had gotten himself killed for some reason, and that made us fair game for slavers and other clans. Barney had a plan of sorts, and got us to Cenaria where we joined Carson's guild in the Warrens. I didn't like it much. Got beat on by a couple of bigs fairly regularly – Chisholm and Duquesne. My brother didn't stick around long either, so I learned pretty quickly how to take care of myself. I tell you – getting out of there was the best move I ever made."

"You didn't think to go back?" James asked. "To Friaku, I mean."

Slinging the wet shirt over his shoulder, Clint shrugged. "Honestly, I didn't know much about the place," he admitted as they started to walk. He gestured to his torso. "All of these came from what little Barney knew about our old customs, and he didn't know much. Hell, half of them are probably wrong, or mean the opposite to what I think they do. I gave it up after the bastard ditched me anyway. Cenaria's been more of a home than Friaku – and that's saying something, seeing as I don't consider either place 'home'."

"I know how that feels." He was supposedly born in Cenaria, but all his current memories were of Khalidor and visits to places all over Midcyru. He'd never call Khalidor home, even if that was the land he returned to after missions, yet he didn't have a close enough connection with Cenaria to do the same. "I guess there is no 'home' for guys like us."

"Guess not," Clint agreed with a laugh. After a few minutes of walking in silence, he broke it with a different question. "Were you using your Talent earlier?"

"No." The wetboy stared at him, and he shrugged. "I was never taught to use it."

"You're shitting me?" He shook his head in disbelief, and James frowned.

"Is that a problem?"

"Not so much," Clint said. "Just means we'll have to change a few things." Running a hand down his face, he sighed. "You know what, let's just leave it 'til tomorrow. I'm cold, wet, and too tired to be arsed anymore."

Over the next few days James found himself constantly 'under assessment'. Clint and Natasha were thorough in their training, pushing him to his limits in several scenarios under the watchful (sometimes unnerving) gaze of either Hill or Coulson, and finally teaching him how to use his Talent. He understood it fairly easily, even with Clint's less-than comprehensive guidance on how to utilise it, and soon he was surpassing even Hill's expectations in regards to what he could do. Frequently he found himself destroying objects far beyond his reach in fights, or landing a blow too-hard on Clint during sparring (one particularly sore moment was when he'd been spinning too fast for his leg to raise properly, and rather than connecting with Clint's diaphragm like he'd intended, his foot had landed somewhere lower), but Coulson assured him it was natural.

"You've been trained to be as good as someone with the Talent without using it yourself," he said. "It won't be long before you understand your limitations and how much Talent you need to use for certain things." It was a fair statement – James had to be reminded more often than not to use his Talent during training.

The memories became infused with dreams during these days. Before he'd been able to tell the difference; now, he'd start out in a memory, sneaking up to an unsuspecting drunkard to acquire his clothing, then suddenly find himself using his Talent to destroy half a house by accident, unable to help the innocents trapped inside. He woke up once already out of bed, Natasha pinned beneath him, a knife positioned at the corner of her eye, both of them covered in sweat. She never said a word while he regained his composure, and he wondered if she understood in some way.

He got a surprise one morning when, instead of waking up to whatever new trap Clint had had 'a friend' assemble over him in the night (and these 'traps' were insanely complicated) he found Phil Coulson sat in his kitchen. "Dress nice," he said. "We're going to see someone about some forms."

Coulson remained silent as he led James into a backwater stretch of the city, the houses becoming a little further apart as they neared the its edge. Finally they stopped outside a dazzling white one with a vast array of herb gardens in the surrounding area, and Fury signalled him to stay back while he approached the door. He stopped short of it, waiting for something, and after a shimmer passed over the wood in front of him. Satisfied, he reached forward and knocked, beckoning James forward as he did so.

"Phil Coulson. To what do we…"

James blinked in surprise. "Sister Potts?"

Sister Potts stared at him for a long moment, then turned to Coulson, a clearly unimpressed look on her face. "Let me guess – Clint picked him up?"

"Is Stark in?" He ignored her question.

With one more glance at James, she rolled her eyes and stepped aside. "He won't be happy that you called by unannounced. And with a guest."

"Then he can deal with it."

"Who can deal with what?" A man appeared at the top of the wooden staircase on their right. He didn't look particularly impressive: scruffy hair and clothes, a short goatee, and soot marks covering his forearms and neck, but the way he watched Coulson and James with bright, almost over-excited eyes suggested to the latter that there was more to him after all. His smile was tight. "Coulson. Long-time no see." His gaze settled over James. "And guest," he said, tone losing the false-friendliness altogether. "What is this?"

"Good to see you looking well, Stark," Coulson said as Stark descended the remainder of the stairs, hostility almost radiating off him. "I've come to ask a favour is all."

"What kind of favour?"

"There's going to be a new noble in town."

Stark's gaze flicked back and forth between the two of them. He scoffed. "That's a bit beneath my talents, don't you think?"

"Fury thinks you're the best there is, which is why I'm here."

"Fury thinks he's got something over me. That's why you're here."

"We do." Coulson strolled over to one of Stark's shelves, fingers brushing the rolled up parchment stacked haphazardly at shoulder-height. "It would be a shame if your supplies were to run out, wouldn't it?"

James watched curiously as something close to panic flickered in Stark's eyes before he smirked humourlessly. "I like the way you talk, Coulson. I hate you for it, but then there'd probably be some other asshole I'd have to deal with instead of you, so I guess I can't complain."

"And yet you do." Coulson walked round behind James, clapping him on the shoulder. "James, this is Anthony Stark."

"Tony. My father called me Anthony."

"James is our latest member, and I'd like him up high, so to speak."

"I thought being 'up high' was Hawkeye's forte." Coulson stared at him, and Tony raised his hands. "Whatever you say, big guy. James, nice to –" Halfway towards shaking James' hand, Tony stopped and stared at his left arm. "Now what do we have here?"

"Uh, just – hey!" Tony had pushed up the sleeve covering his metal arm, and was now staring at it with a mixture of awe and fear.

"This is incredible," he said. "Whoever constructed this was… well a genius! There's no other word. I've been looking into metal preservation, but I've never thought that combining it with… I mean, this should technically be impossible. These weaves – they're so simple, and yet they're each working off one another – adjust the order they've been placed in even minutely and you could ruin the whole combined effect!"

James swallowed. "Please don't."

"How did you do this? Where did you do this? Who helped you? No, wait, don't tell me – was it Osborn? Rhodes?"

"Who –"

"I wouldn't mind so much if it was Rhodes –"

"Stark."

Both Tony and James jumped at Coulson's tone, and Tony dropped the sleeve back down. James backed away a little, worried that Tony's interest in his metal limb was far from abated. The mage cleared his throat. "Right, so, documents." He lead them through to the back of the house, which James noticed was littered with bits of metal, scrolls, books and herbs – and a dog, who watched them disinterestedly from the corner of the study.

"I trust you're up to date with the styles?" Coulson asked.

"'Course I am. I'm up to date on everything. Pepper? I think we're running out of ink."

It was Sister Potts who answered. "I'll get some at market tomorrow."

"Thanks Pep. Right, so what are we looking at? Birth certificates? Family crest? Certificate of service?"

"Just the background necessities for now," Coulson instructed.

"Got it. Jarvis? Where'd I put the blank templates?" To James' surprise, the dog picked itself up and trotted over to a set of drawers, bumping the bottom one with his nose and looking back at them. "Thanks boy."

As Tony rummaged around, James turned a questioning look to Coulson. "What's all this about?"

"We're making you a noble."

He blinked. "You're kidding." Coulson raised his eyebrows. "Right, of course not. But how the hell are you going to make me a noble?"

"Mr Stark here is an expert at forgery," the Shinga's hand explained, "both of the metal and documentation varieties. We'll get you invites to nobility events, pretend you're new to the area, give you a legitimate backstory, and as a result you'll be our eyes and ears amongst them."

Tony spread out an array of sheets on his desk, and James shook his head. "You can't seriously tell me this will work?" he said. "I mean, nobles know each other. They'll see me as a fraud right off!"

"No they won't," Coulson disagreed calmly, then turned back to Tony. "He'll need a family name. A non-descript one, not too prominent."

"So something like… Wilson?"

"No, the Wilsons are too loud. They'll kick up a fuss if they hear. And Wade would take it too literally."

"Good point. Okay then… Richards? We could pass him off as Reed's brother."

"No," James choked out. When they both looked at him quizzically, he struggled to think of a reason besides 'I killed him and it would be weird taking his family name'. "Wouldn't Richards have told people about me? They'll wonder why he didn't."

Tony shrugged. "We could probably make a story for that."

Thankfully, Coulson was shaking his head. "Richards is too high. We need something lower."

They tossed around a few more names, including Pym, Munroe, Summers and Wagner, but each one came with its own set of problems; it was a long time before Tony, on the verge of getting bored, threw one last name into the air. "How about Barnes?"

"Barnes?" Coulson echoed.

He nodded, swinging his feet off his desk and letting his chair fall back onto four legs. "Rebecca Barnes was the last well-known member of the family to live here. She died about a year ago, but nobody really seemed to notice. We say that James here was a distant cousin of hers gone travelling, and that the news only reached him a few months ago."

Coulson tucked his chin into his hand. "Was this Rebecca Barnes married?"

Tony shook his head. "No children either. She was a Baroness, and her estate is modest but easily recognisable as a noble's household. And, I believe, up for sale – but if we prove that we have an heir in our midst, it'll be his."

"I don't recall seeing a Barnes on the last few attendee lists of dinners."

"She didn't go. Not a fan of the bigger dos, apparently."

"James Barnes…" After a minute, Coulson nodded. "It'll do. Give him a secondary name too, something in keeping with the family."

"Buchanan was the grandfather's name."

"Then put that down."

James watched, slightly dazed, as Tony printed 'James Buchanan Barnes' onto a blank birth certificate before asking him about his birth date, his weight, where he might have been born, and then adding the same details to other important looking documents. Pretty soon, he even had a family crest in the collection that was handed to Pepper to be stitched onto his new clothes. "New clothes?"

She nodded. "You can't turn up to noble events looking like a peasant."

"Yeah, right…"

Coulson and Tony began discussing financial formalities, including house and land ownership, and eventually it all became a little too much for James. He excused himself, thanking everyone for their kindness but leaving before they could say anything else to him. He'd been in this city for a little over two months, and already he'd gone from street worker to local hero to minor noble. He needed some space to breathe, and perhaps some time to relax.

Staring down at the freshly caught fish, Bruce sighed, and felt his stomach growl. This was the third night in a row they'd had to eat fish, but as Betty pointed out: they were limited unless they caught a rabbit during the day, and knew that this would be a possibility before they set out. Even so, there was only so much he could do with fish, and not very good fish at that.

"We should reach the base of the mountain in a couple of days," Betty said as they ate. She had been staying quietly optimistic throughout their journey, keeping her husband on the positive side whenever it looked like he was getting impatient or frustrated with their slow progress. "It'll be easier to find places to sleep then. There'll be caves, I'm sure."

"Uninhabited caves, I hope."

"Well, I can't deny that bear would make a change from fish and rabbit," she joked. He gave her a small smile back, and the silence settled over them again. "Bruce?"

"Hm?"

"If we do find Stephen – and I truly hope that we do – what will we do next?"

Bruce had asked himself that question, and it wasn't an easy one to answer. "We talk," he said with a shrug. "Maybe try and convince him to come back with us."

"But those things he did to James – what if that's who he is now?" Betty said quietly.

"I don't think so."

"Think? Or hope?"

He faltered. "Both," he said eventually. Seeing her face fall a little he reached across and took her hand in his, squeezing it gently. "Wherever Stephen is, we'll find him, and we'll help him," he assured her. "We're his friends. That means something to him, I know it does."

Mustering up a smile, Betty nodded in agreement. "I just hope he's alright," she said in a small voice. Neither of them was considering the possibility of their friend not being alright, because the consequences, if that was indeed the case, frightened them both.

James couldn't sleep. There were too many things running through his head: his training, both old and new, memories of Cenarian nobles he'd killed, Natasha, all the information he needed to know to make Baron James Buchanan Barnes believable, Clint's history, Tony Stark's reaction to his arm, Darcy's comments on his almost-noble appearance, and Charles Xavier's last words to him. A lot had happened in a short space of time, and despite the mage's advice, James realised he was probably going to have to come to terms with his future before his past.

"Is that possible?" he whispered into the darkness. He received no answer, and remembered with bitter humour all the times he'd prayed to Khali back in Khalidor, how he'd always thought (or been made to think) that she'd heard him, somehow, and was considering his wishes. These days he found it hard to believe in either Khali or the One God that some people believed in here. In his eyes, there was more evidence to suggest that neither existed. The idea was nice, though.

Clint had spoken once of a Night Angel that supposedly watched over all wetboy activity, the ideal deliverer of justice and retribution, one who only dealt death to those who deserved it. He sounded too good to be true, and James felt foolish imagining an urban legend offering him guidance and redemption – but if he sent a quiet prayer out into the darkness, nobody was around to know.