I thought I was going to get this chapter out a lot sooner, but I've spent the past 12 days in the hospital and got surgery. I'm glad I'm managing to update on January 2, since that's the day I revived this fanfic a year ago (and it's the same day I abandoned it like 3 years ago).
When Steve surges forward, instinct screams at James to defend himself from an attacker, but even the other voice says STEVE IS AN ALLY.
Steve is a Captain, outranking James. James stands at attention. He has memories of fighting with Steve, of serving under the captain's leadership.
Steve's arms envelop James in a hug, thumping his back. James hears Bucky's voice say, fondly you're a punk. Not the words a soldier would ever say to a commanding officer. Evidently, Bucky had. James frowns. He'd known Steve before they were soldiers, as evidenced by the memories of Steve as a small, sickly child with a spirit that was anything but frail. That had been one of his first visions on the night he'd taken Harry from Number 4, Privet Drive.
James has a quick flash of Steve returning punk with jerk.
The real Steve does not call James a jerk, does not release him from the embrace that James has not returned, despite the Bucky voice's commands to do so.
"I thought you were dead." Steve breathes close to James's ear.
"Everyone thought the same about you." Stark smirks down at Harry. "Especially him."
Steve gives no indication that he's heard.
James knows all too well that being frozen is nonlethal, though he had no intel that Steve was frozen until recently. Had HYDRA known? If they'd found him...
"Steve." James says.
Steve releases James from the hug, but holds his shoulders, brow creased with concern as he frowns at the prosthetic shoulder.
"Bucky, what happened? The train-"
Steve stops. He appears to be experiencing his own flashback. When it ends, his voice is tight. "You survived. Buck, if I'd known..."
"So did you," Stark says, once again ignored by Steve. Stark throws up his hands.
"Howlett said the war's been over for a while... how long?"
"My dad's James." Harry tugs on James's pant leg until James picks him up. From his vantage point in James's prosthetic arm, Harry stares at Steve with a challenge in his green eyes, as if daring Steve to hug James again. Steve's blue eyes are a combination of bewilderment and pain.
"Your dad?" Steve echoes, glancing between James and Harry, as if trying to find a resemblance. "Did you- it wasn't you and Peggy, was it?"
Steve sounds hurt now, almost betrayed. Something in James twinges.
Really, Rogers? Carter ain't the only British woman in the world. Bucky scoffs, sounding suspiciously hurt as well.
"Where'd he come from?" Steve frowns at Harry. James shifts his son closer to his chest.
"You see, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much-" Stark starts in a slightly mocking voice, then glances at Harry and stops.
Steve's face becomes increasingly strained as James reports. After 14.3 seconds, Steve orders James to stop the mission report, and James complies.
STEVE IS A CAPTAIN, repeats the voice, starting an argument in James's head over whether Steve is now a handler.
A third voice enters the debate- Professor X. 'Neither you nor Captain Rogers are currently enlisted. He has no authority over you.'
He always did, Bucky replies. I was followin' that punk from Brooklyn a decade before the war.
James continues to stand at attention, but keeps Harry in his arms.
James is unsure as to how Steve will react when he learns that his former friend had become the Fist of HYDRA for decades, had been an assassin for the Soviets.
Steve will most likely decommission him, or ensure Sergeant Barnes is court-martialed and imprisoned for treason. James will not be able to take care of Harry in prison.
Harry will be better off with Steve. James starts to pass his son over, despite not being ordered to. Harry refuses to let go, trying to launch himself further into James's arms by planting a foot in Steve's stomach and pushing off. "He's not my dad!"
Stark is yelling "Whoa, hang on a sec here," Steve's shouting questions and Harry has begun to scream wordlessly.
The decibels rise until Logan appears in the doorway, growling that he can't hear his damn game. The man steps aside for Professor X to enter.
The professor quiets the room without saying a word or making any sort of nonverbal threat. "I'm terribly sorry for my absence prior to now. Captain Rogers, James, would you care to join me for tea? There is much we need to discuss."
Tony's left to deal with an irate preschooler, but Pepper would probably say it's karma for all Tony's made her put up with.
"Mr. Rogers is stinky." Harry's voice is hard. "And dumb."
Tony snorts and gets a very unamused look in return. Harry seems to be digging for worse words to call Steve, and Tony wonders how kids live without swearing. Finally, Harry exclaims "He's FUBAR in the pits!"
Tony can't help the burst of laughter that escapes, though it dies quickly when Harry continues with "He's not my dad. Why'd Dad-"
Tony's heart clenches, knowing all too well what it's like to have a parent focus on Captain America. Tony hadn't missed how James seemed to have considered leaving back at his mansion.
Granted, James has a lot of history with Steve- history that James doesn't remember most of, clearly, but it's there. Everyone knows about the inseparable duo of Cap and Bucky- the more classic "brothers in all but blood" view to the controversial theory that they were secretly lovers, which had caused even more of an uproar in some circles than when the paparazzi caught Tony with another man.
Tony's kind of glad Howard wasn't around for that, and he doesn't appreciate that Steve mistook him for Howard. Tony can sort of get why he'd though that, but still- ouch. And he definitely isn't thinking about how disappointed Steve must be that it's him and not Howard.
Shoving that thought away, Tony crouches down to Harry's level. "I'll make sure he won't pull a Howard. But hey, he hugs you and not Steve, right?"
Harry nods miserably. Tony promises that he'll make sure to remind James that Harry's his top priority, then decides that's enough about feelings, either Harry's or his own. Besides, he's pretty sure Pepper would tell him not to promote a competition between Harry and Steve, so he already screwed that up.
Tony tries to distract Harry in the garage, showing him the parts of a motorcycle that isn't Logan's. Tony assures Harry that he could make a flying motorcycle, then has to deal with Harry's disappointment when the results aren't instantaneous. Or maybe that's carryover from his stress about James.
Moody clomps in and lifts the bike with a flick of his wand, which doesn't help Tony's explanation that engineering takes time. Stupid magic.
Harry smiles for the first time in two hours and begs to sit on it. Moody lowers the bike and waits for Harry to clamber on before levitating it again, growling a warning for the boy to be vigilant. Harry beams, pretending to steer and making engine noises with his mouth.
When James silently enters the room, Harry's frown returns. He folds his arms, scowling down at James from his vantage point. "Steve's not my dad. You are."
"I am." James answers.
At those words, Harry scrambles off the bike while it's still hovering, and James moves with superhuman speed to catch Harry in his flesh arm.
"You said 'til the end of the line." Harry says.
Tony catches a glimpse of Steve in the doorway, noting that he somehow looks like a kicked puppy. Harry wraps his arms around James's neck, while James gives Tony and Moody a look that promises a drawn-out disembowelment if they let Harry ride a floating motorcycle again.
Tony raises his hands to show his innocence in the matter. James turns wordlessly and stalks away.
Thawing Steve has made everything more complicated, not easier. James's previous handlers surely would have recalibrated him for this lack of judgement.
Steve alternates between anger-fueled righteousness as he promises to rain judgement down on every last HYDRA base, expressing shock that HYDRA is still active, and giving James deep, pitying looks.
What a hypocrite, Bucky grouses, as James is regaled with memories- Small, skinny Steve glaring in bed, muttering "I ain't made of glass, Buck,"
Steve even tries to join James and Harry in their room at night. James can't object, but Harry does, and Steve reluctantly takes a room down the hall.
At 0056, James takes Harry down to the kitchen for hot chocolate. Logan, sitting in the dark with a cigar and beer, barely acknowledges their presence or preparations until Harry pushes a mug of hot chocolate at him.
"Not really my kind of drink, kid." Logan mutters, but he takes his cigar out to take a sip, grimacing at the sweetness.
"Did you have bad dreams?" Harry asks him. "We did."
James had awoken, muttering in Russian until, slowly, Harry's voice made him aware of his surroundings.
They sit in silence, though if Stark joins them as he had last night, that will certainly change.
Footsteps approach, but they are not Stark's.
"Couldn't sleep, Bucky?" Steve's hair is rumpled, his tight shirt and loose pants provide inadequate protection.
"I am functional." James reports. Steve's face twists, and James waits for his captain to start apologizing profusely, repeatedly, as he had in Professor X's office upon learning James survived the fall from the train. The Professor had used phrases such as survivor's guilt and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a new code for Shell-Shock. Difficulty sleeping, the professor said, was to be expected. He'd mentioned he could make them sleep, but reliance on telepathic sleeping aids was hardly a long-term solution.
Steve had been adament that he was James's friend, not his Captain.
Steve sits at the table, glancing at their mugs. Harry does not offer to make him hot chocolate, instead scooting closer to James.
Steve starts to debrief a mission that he, Bucky and Logan had completed together, specifically one time they'd made coffee out of acorns.
No flashes enter James's mind during the debrief, James remembers nothing of the mission or working with Logan, but commits it to memory and will add it to the journal that Professor X gave him.
Harry frowns through the debrief and then, as if trying to outperform Steve, says "My dad jumped off a train with me."
Steve's body tenses, his eyes suddenly unfocused.
James waits silently for another round of apologies, but Steve shakes his head and asks James if he remembers Coney Island, how they thought the Cyclone would fall to pieces.
"You forget it's been seven decades?" Logan asks.
Steve's face falters before he returns the scowl. "I just woke up."
"I've been up the whole time, bub."
"You haven't aged." Steve's eyes narrow slightly in thought. "I can't believe Howard had a kid. Tony."
"Mr. Stark's not a kid." says Harry, looking confused.
"And that he's Howard's age."
"Howard Stark is deceased." James reminds Steve, who looks down at his hands on the table.
When Stark staggers in to refill a coffee mug, Steve stands and extends a hand.
"Tony," Steve says, shaking Stark's hand firmly. "I heard all you've done for Bucky, and for that, I really can't thank you enough."
Stark blinks, seeming incapable of forming a sentence, then waves it away and begins a rapid-fire spiel about Dr. McCoy and his research and how Stark, Dr. McCoy, and Dr. Banner should form a scientist superhero team.
Steve continues to stick close to James's side throughout the day, to Harry's obvious annoyance.
While the other students are in class, James has been teaching Harry basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Harry is not the most attentive student, eyes straying toward the basketball court.
James does not want to think about how HYDRA would have ensured Harry's concentration and punished any lapses. He knows that HYDRA would not let James take the punishments for Harry, and the thought of Harry going through that makes the voice scream PROTECT.
James takes Harry out to the court and has him count the number of times he dribbles the ball. Throughout the lesson, Steve keeps interrupting, frequently addressing James as if he's Bucky, as if James had spent no time as the Winter Soldier. Several times, James notes Steve looking at him with a haunted, guilty look, the same look he'd had when he learned HYDRA was still active.
Steve doesn't get quite as worked up when Stark tells him the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1957, but he's not happy about it. James tries to remember if he was awake in that year, though he doubts he would have cared about that information then.
Technology allows them to watch or listen to old games. That evening, Stark has JARVIS compile the highlights of baseball history on his phone and projects it onto the wall. James sits next to Steve on the couch, writing in a new notebook.
Harry frowns at the screen. "Can we watch hockey?"
Steve opens his mouth, and shuts it. He's still clearly unsure of how to act around Harry, and James remembers Steve saying he'd never liked when people handed their kids over for pictures.
Harry goes back to drawing more disproportionate shapes and people. James forces himself to smile when Harry holds it up proudly.
"What is it?" Steve asks.
"Quidditch!"
Moody had told Harry about the magical sport, which involves reckless flying on brooms and balls called Bludgers, enchanted with the sole purpose of ramming into players. At least baseballs and hockey pucks aren't sentient. Quidditch sounds worse than Stark's flying, but Harry is enamored.
Harry returns to drawing, explaining that his new scribbles are a team of people on flying motorbikes and hockey sticks. Steve watches Harry work, and quietly remarks "He looks a lot like me at that age."
Harry's face scrunches, but he doesn't look up from his paper. "No. You have yellow hair like Dudley and no scar."
Steve sighs and grabs his own sheet of paper. He sweeps the pencil across, creating a detailed image of James on a flying motorcycle. Harry inches closer and closer to observe, until his nose is practically touching the paper as he asks Steve to draw hoops.
Harry admires the drawing, then grabs one of his previous ones- three, dark-haired stick figures representing himself, James and Tony. Steve waits with a clearly hopeful expression as Harry grabs a yellow crayon, holding it over the happy people.
Harry draws Steve- on the back of the page, fighting off a hoard of faceless stick figures. He shows the picture and asks "Are you going to fight HYDRA?"
Steve's face becomes grim again, and James does not find Steve anywhere when he reconnoiters the mansion at night. Logan's bike is also missing. Upon receiving this intel, Logan promises that any scratches on his bike will be replicated on Steve's body. The shorter man is unintimidated by James and growls right back.
Professor X disappears into the basement and somehow locates Steve and learns he's raiding a HYDRA base in New Jersey.
Of course it's Jersey. Bucky scoffs, but he urges James to go. The punk needs someone to watch his back.
The voices in James's head almost tear him in two, worse than when Steve was in the ice.
STEVE DID NOT ORDER US TO ACCOMPANY HIM ON THE MISSION, the other voice says, though memories of helping Steve in alley fights reveal that Bucky had often engaged in combat without Steve's orders.
"Look," Stark tells James. "Steve didn't even tell you he was going, and he's single-handedly stormed bases before. You need to stay here with Harry, because I am not qualified to look after a kid."
James nods stiffly, and tells Harry it's time for reading. They skip the picture book about a bear hibernating. Harry flips half-heartedly through a Captain America comic that one student had lent him.
"Where are you?" he asks, looking at a cartoon drawing of Captain America with a kid sidekick greatly resembling Robin.
The Bucky voice is dismayed at what they made him in the comics, and Harry is unhappy about not seeing James in the comic at all.
Welp, clearly things are still tough for James, and Steve.