Chapter Text
June suns, you cannot store them
To warm the winter’s cold - A.E. Housman
The discussion - argument, more like - droned on around James. Sometimes it seemed like this was his entire life, now. Hunter argued with Lance argued with Palmer argued with Stein argued with... it went on and on and on, over every mission.
This was what happened when you tried to run a team on a democratic basis. Never mind that Hunter hadn’t intended that to be the case when he recruited them. Their captain had deliberately chosen people known for flaunting the rules and thinking outside the box. He’d gotten what he asked for, and the headaches that went with it.
And over in their corner of the Waverider bridge, the three Rogues all watching, listening, in their own ways.
Well, Len was watching and listening, and occasionally interjecting a pithy comment to cut someone's ego down to size. Mick Rory was munching on a bag of chips, more interested in staring at Sara's ass then paying attention.
And James... ordinarily James kept quiet, but was paying close attention, and he'd speak up if he thought their ragtag team was planning something especially stupid. Today, he couldn't focus on anything but the forest outside the windows.
The trees were nothing special. It was a typical European forest, he'd seen a hundred just like it. What interested him was out there in the trees, somewhere not so very far away.
The Howling Commandos. Captain America. And most importantly, a younger and painfully innocent version of himself. Bucky Barnes.
It was the tail end of 1943. In less than a month, that charming young soldier would fall to his 'death', and from his ashes the Winter Soldier would arise. It was hard for James to think about anything else.
Especially since the team was going in endless, unproductive circles. They knew Vandal Savage was here somewhere. Gideon had dug up a reference to him working with the Red Skull during the war in an uneasy but mutually profitable alliance. But 'here' covered a lot of territory, and they needed better intel to figure out an exact location.
The Allied Forces might have information about Savage’s whereabouts. They had to be tracking him. That much, the team agreed on. Palmer wanted to play dressup, go in as a high-ranking officer and demand the information. Lance wanted to sneak in at night and steal it. There were half a dozen other ideas floating around, all of them bad. Quite a few were likely to get them shot.
Palmer might be on to something, though. At least, if you turned your head and looked at the idea sideways. Marching in, claiming to be an officer nobody in camp had ever seen, would earn him a swift visit from some angry MPs.
Marching in and claiming to be a soldier everyone in camp had seen was another matter.
It was the only reliable way they were gonna get that intel. James knew it. Captain Hunter knew it too, the bastard. He kept casting sidelong looks at James with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, 'what are you waiting for?'. James supposed he ought to be grateful Hunter hadn't brought it up himself.
Finally he couldn't take it anymore. Without a sound, James rose to his feet and skirted around the edge of the bridge, heading for the door. Hunter gave him a brief nod, as if giving him permission to leave. As if James gave a shit about his permission.
Len was the only other person who noticed him going, and his lover gave James a concerned look. They'd been together long enough now that James could interpret just fine without words. Len was checking if James needed or wanted company, assuming that James was leaving because being in this time period bothered him too much.
With a shake of his head, James told Len to stay put, and slipped out the door. Only when it slid closed behind him, sealing him into the interior hallway of the ship and away from the windows, did it feel like he could take a full breath again.
So much weight of history, out there. So much potential for change. All he needed to do would be to break his younger self's arm so he couldn't go on the mission in the Alps, and James could save himself from seventy fucking years of torture. Hell, the timeline probably wouldn't even be altered much. Some other poor bastard POW would be HYDRA's favourite test subject, and become the Winter Soldier.
Even knowing it was wrong, even knowing how much he would lose if he did it, James was so damned tempted.
In a half-conscious motion he flexed his metal hand in and out of a fist a few times. It had become a nervous tic, and a thinking gesture. Len loved to tease him about it. James ribbed him right back about Len playing with his ring.
And that, right there, was the argument for why James shouldn't rescue himself. If he did, he would never meet the Rogues. Leonard Snart was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
But the words 'Is it really worth it?' kept ringing in his head.
"Gideon. You there?"
"Certainly. I'm capable of splitting my attention to several areas of the ship at once, if necessary. What can I do for you, Sergeant?"
Gideon and Hunter both delighted in calling him by a rank he hadn't deserved in decades. The computer, at least, was only following her programming and her captain's example. James was pretty sure Hunter did it to get under his skin. Maybe also to remind him of the hero he'd once been, the reason Hunter had recruited him for this insane mission to kill an immortal tyrant.
But mostly to get under his skin. It worked, too. On both counts.
Asshole.
"I assume you've got records of me from this time period?" To say he didn’t want to do this couldn’t begin to cover the depth of his aversion. James really fucking did not want to do this. But it needed to be done, and he was the only one who could. "Can you synthesize my uniform?"
"Of course." Computers should not be able to sound smug, but Gideon frequently managed it. "Shall I engage the barbering unit as well?"
Having a machine, even one as precise as Gideon, come at his head with a blade was not an appealing prospect. Unfortunately, shoulder-length hair was not gonna cut it for this mission.
Christ. Len and his fucking puns were rubbing off on him.
Less than ten minutes later he made his way back down the hall to the bridge. Everything seemed distinctly surreal. There was no sense of movement when he turned his head, no hair hanging into his face. His cheeks felt raw from the close shave, and every time air hit the back of his neck he had to fight the urge to shiver. A dirt-smudged bandage with convincing-looking spots of ‘blood’ hid his left hand, since gloves weren’t part of his uniform and might draw notice.
The uniform was both alien and painfully familiar. Gideon had made it look appropriately weathered and broken down. It even smelled right - which was to say, like blood and gunpowder and harsh lye soap.
It felt like the ghost of Bucky Barnes was riding his shoulders. He had no right to wear this uniform, to be this man again. No right to wear the winged symbol of the Howling Commandos. Not after everything the Winter Soldier had done.
As the door slid open, he found himself walking right back into the middle of the same circular argument as before. Lance was giving Palmer a particularly disdainful look as she spoke. "...suggesting we should waltz up to the Allied forces and ask them very nicely to hand over their highly classified documents?"
Well, there'd never been a better cue for an entrance. "That's exactly what we're gonna do," James declared.
All eyes turned to him. Quite a few of them did a comical double-take. Len was staring - they were all staring, but Len's gaze held a note of sadness and sympathy that the others were distinctly lacking.
Len, alone out of all of them, knew how much this transformation cost James.
Stein seemed particularly surprised, mouth gaping open until he snapped it shut. "But, my boy, you're the spitting image of Bucky Barnes!"
James gave him a flat look, nonplussed. "Seriously? You're the Howling Commandos fanatic in this crew?" He'd expected it to be Palmer, if anyone.
"Howling Commandos?" Jackson sounded confused.
"Do they not teach history in school anymore?" Stein gave a heavy sigh. "The Howling Commandos were an elite unit in the Second World War, under the command of Captain Steve Rogers."
"Captain America," Palmer put in eagerly. "Right, I remember hearing about those guys. Kinda the first version of the Avengers. Gideon, bring up an image of Bucky Barnes?"
Obligingly, a holograph of Bucky and Steve appeared before them. It wasn't a photograph James recognized, and the memory of when it might have been taken eluded him. They were in their field uniforms, relaxed and smiling, at the 107th base camp. Probably a still from one of the many film reels that had been shot about the Commandos for morale-boosting movie clips to show back home.
"Remarkable." Stein peered first at the image, then at James. "The resemblance is uncanny. Are you a relative?"
"Something like that." James really didn't want them going down that particular line of inquiry, so he changed the subject. "As Barnes I should be able to get the info we need. No way the 107th wasn't tracking Savage, if he was rumoured to be involved with the Skull."
They'd never been sent on any sorties against Savage that he recalled, but the brass rarely passed on info they didn't think the grunts needed to know. Steve might have been aware, but chosen to concentrate their strategy against HYDRA unless Savage became an immediate threat.
Or hell, maybe they'd fought an entire pitched battle against the asshole and James didn't remember. There were still so many gaps in his memories, so many things he didn't know he was missing until he tripped over one of the holes.
"Might work," Lance said, thoughtful. "You'd have to be careful not to be seen in two places at once - or worse, run into the real Barnes."
He could see the way her eyes went distant, calculating the new possibilities for infiltration. She was good at that, for much the same reason he was. Ta-er Al-Sahfer had been a legend in her day, one of the most dangerous members of the League of Assassins. Quite possibly on par with the Winter Soldier.
They'd both changed their stripes since then - or feathers, in the White Canary's case - but their deadly instincts remained.
"So I go in while the Commandos are out," James suggested. "Claim we ran into one of Savage's groups in the field, and Rogers sent me back to get more intel. Gives me a reason to be in and out as quickly as possible."
"Oh, I am so in on this," Palmer said, excited in that way he got where anticipation overwhelmed his admittedly impressive intellect. Which was to say, the way he behaved most of the time.
"Absolutely not." If James had to expose himself, dig deep into the most painful wound he'd ever suffered in his life, he was not turning it into a spectator sport. "I'm going alone. More people just means more chances for somebody to realize we don't fit."
"Is it logical that Captain Rogers would send Sergeant Barnes back to base alone?" Hunter asked. "Through enemy territory, with no support to increase his chances of making it there and back?"
Damn it. The point was a reasonable one. Especially coming from Hunter, who was usually trying to limit the damage his unruly team of misfits inevitably caused to history. "Fine," James ground out. "I'll take Len and Rory with me."
"And me," Palmer insisted. "I'm not missing out on a chance to walk around where Captain America lived."
"What about me?" Jackson put in. "You think there weren't black guys dying in the Army in WW2?"
"Yeah, and they were treated like shit, segregated into their own units and sent out as canon fodder." James shook his head.
"Unfortunately, James is correct." Stein always said James' name like it tasted sour, annoyed that James refused to disclose his last name so the professor could be as formal as he preferred. "There were only a handful of black men serving in the 107th, all of them rescued from HYDRA by the good Captain and originally part of other units. The inclusion was unheard of, particularly that of Gabe Jones among the Commandos themselves."
"Rogers wouldn't let 'em cut out good soldiers for the colour of their skin." That much, James remembered. "Said if the brass wanted to beat HYDRA, they had to let him do it his way. But every man in camp knew those coloured guys, at least by sight. Jackson's out. Lance and Saunders are out. Stein's too old. Hunter's too foreign - there were Brits and Frenchies in the 107th, but again, everybody knew them."
He stared at Palmer, but try as he might, couldn't find a reason the man should be excluded. Palmer grinned back at him like a kid at Christmas, and James scowled. "We don't need him," was the best he could come up with. "Three's enough."
"Then Mick can stay, he's more likely to refuse to follow an order and screw us up, anyway," Palmer pointed out.
"Watch it, haircut," Rory grumbled. He stood, crumpling his bag of chips and tossing it aside, uncaring that there was no garbage to put it in. "If Snart and Jimmy are going, I'm in. I hate Nazis."
The one thing James and Rory agreed on, unconditionally. James didn't bother to mention that they weren't going to be fighting any Nazis in the camp. If Rory had decided he wanted to come, it would be a waste of breath to try to convince him otherwise.
"Four seems a reasonable number," Hunter declared, ending the argument. "As it happens, we've landed not far from the base camp of the 107th."
'As it happens'. Bullshit. James glared at the man, taking that as confirmation that this had been Hunter's plan all along. He wondered, if he hadn't volunteered, would Hunter have eventually outed him and ordered him to do it?
Probably. The asshole was utterly ruthless when it came to stopping Savage, and getting revenge for his dead family. James could respect that, even if he sometimes disagreed with Hunter's methods.
James would do the same if the Rogues had been killed by Savage, after all. The same, and far worse.
"Fine," he relented, not trying to hide his displeasure at Hunter pulling rank. "Get uniforms. You follow my orders - no questions, no arguments. Don't even think about asking Gideon to make you anything higher than a private."
"He's looking at you, Raymond." Len smirked at their unwanted fourth.
"Actually, I was looking at you," James retorted, though he let his gaze soften slightly so Len would know he was teasing. "You'll always put yourself in charge if you can get away with it. I'm the ranking NCO. I'm the only one who knows what the fuck he's doing."
"Plus, anyone ranking higher than private within the 107th would, again, be known to all the other members," Stein agreed. He peered at James, brow furrowed. "There is one additional concern, however. Bucky Barnes was known as a rather charming young man. I presume your experience with the Army is also far more recent, and I imagine protocols have changed a great deal in seventy years. Are you certain you can pull this off? The members of the 107th would have known Sergeant Barnes very well."
"In and out," James repeated. "The Commandos won't be there, and they're the only ones who would spot me as a fake that fast. Anybody tries to stop me to chat, I tell them it's urgent and they'll leave me be. I can fake it that long."
He hoped. God, please let this not be a case where his memories were so spotty that he didn't realize there were important details he was missing. Worse, if he was too good at passing, Palmer might realize there was more going on with James than met the eye.
This had the potential to be such a fucking disaster.