Who: Phil Coulson & James "Bucky" Barnes (MCU) When: Last week, say... Dec 22 What: Phil needs to learn how to fight with his prosthetic, Captain America enlists Bucky to help Phil. Where: The Gym Status: Completed Log Rating: PG
Phil knew of Barnes, of course. You weren't president of the Steve Rogers fan club without knowing the stories of all the Howling Commandos. And once he'd gotten SHIELD security clearance, he'd gone deeper into the archives, finding out everything he could about Rogers and his actions - which included Barnes and Carter among others. He'd followed the reports since Barnes' reappearance as well back home, watching closely to see just how things developed.
Here, he'd tried to give the other man space, knowing what it was like to have your reputation precede you. But since Steve had recommended training with Barnes, well, Phil had agreed. Which is why he was in the gym once more, his own prosthetic arm wrapped up in his sweatshirt on the bench while he tried to work the bag with his one good arm, using the stump to block. He saw the other man enter and stopped, taking a step back and nodding.
"Barnes. Thanks for coming."
While Bucky was still in the process of forming opinions on things (to think that having the ability to do such a thing was a luxury in his mind still!) -- and had, indeed, formed several strong ones in his time here -- the jury was still out when it came to this particular member of SHIELD. SHIELD still brought a residual metallic taste to his mouth -- an old target, SHIELD, an enemy of his handlers; his body could remember that -- and what he knew of Steve’s actions toward SHIELD did little to ease that association.
But this, here, had been Steve’s idea -- so here he was. A faded grey t-shirt and black trousers, metal arm in full view for all that it swung easily by his side.
Coulson’s nod received a purse of his lips in return. “Steve’s idea,” he said, which spelled it all, really.
"I know." And there it was. Steve's best friend and partner, and the man who had built his life trying to emulate Captain America. Connected by the man they had in common. He didn't presume any sort of good graces with Barnes, he knew the events of the triskelion well.
"Steve thought you might be able to help get me able to fight again." Phil didn't need to say 'because of the arm'. "If it makes you uncomfortable, just say the word and I can find someone else. But I can't seem to get it to work like it should - with or without the new arm. "
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” was not, in itself, a lie. Bucky made no effort to hide his study of the other man, the ravages of conflict -- physical, psychological -- clear to anyone with a pair of functioning eyes. The arm, then, must have been a new thing for him.
“What are you trying to get to work? The arm --” his gaze swung to the lumpy sweatshirt on the bench; “or yourself?”
"Both." Phil let his expression be unguarded, knowing Barnes had dealt with enough secrets in his life and Phil had no intention of adding to them. Besides, anyone that close to Steve was entitled to all - or at least almost all - of Phil's secrets.
"I haven't been able to train how I used to since losing the arm. Got pulled here shortly after it happened. The prosthetic they made, well, it's functional, but there's not much dexterity and no sensation. I have Tony working on something new. Just haven't managed to make much progress."
He followed Barnes' gaze to the sweatshirt and pulled out the prosthetic, holding it out to Barnes in case he wanted to examine it. "Got a memory upgrade recently. Apparently the arm I have there is more advanced - dexterity, sensation, strength. And unfortunately some things happened recently in that timeline."
He glanced up and met Barnes' eyes. "I crossed a line in that timeline. With the arm. It's why I stopped wearing it here. So it's both. I don't know how to fight with the arm, because I don't know how to make it part of me. Especially when the one that was there still hurts. And I don't know how to fight without it anymore."
This was a loaded request. Bucky heard Phil out, reaching with his right hand to take hold of the prosthesis as the other man spoke, fingers of flesh (hardened and blunted, but flesh all the same) making a tactile study of something that both was and wasn’t similar to the dull metallic gleam at his side.
The one that was there still hurts. Phantom pain, they called it. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever get it -- if his brain, now beginning to heal and find long-lost connections, would finally register that the thing soldered into his shoulder was not the thing he’d been born with. Maybe not; it was a part of him now.
“You have to decide.” He held out the arm. “Do you want it or not? If not, stop wasting your time with it. If yes, accept what it does is an extension of what you do. You and it -- one thing. Once your mind accepts that…” A flicker of a smile, thin. “It’s that simple.”
Phil chuckled at that as he took the arm back. "That simple, eh?"
He studied the arm, the echoes of the memories that were fresh in his mind etched on his face as he studied it. "I don't want it," he said quietly. "I don't want what it can do - what I can do with it."
A sigh. "But I think I need it."
“Coulson.” Bucky’s voice swung low and quiet. “You think I couldn’t do what I’ve done without my arm?” My: possessive. He’d not been given a choice, and now that free will was presumably his again, he couldn’t see the arm as anything but a dark part of a terrible whole. “What you can do with it is what you can already do, just… enhanced.”
Enhanced. Killing Ward. Crushing his ribs. He'd killed before, of course. But usually with a weapon of some sort. He didn't spend as much time in the field as others. Maybe that was it - he knew he was capable of killing Ward, the arm just allowed him to externalize it, project it on the prosthesis.
"You don't mince your words. I appreciate that," Coulson admitted, tired of all the pussy footing people were doing. Even Steve didn't really acknowledge the arm. But perhaps Barnes was right. The arm wasn't sentient. It was just him. And Coulson had always been a man to use whatever was at his disposal to his advantage - whether it was a bag of flour or a prosthetic arm. He slid the stump into the socket, adjusting the fit. It was a rudimentary model made here shortly after he arrived that allowed him some utility, but not much. Certainly not the level Fitz's most recent model did. "The limitations of it are frustrating."
What little he knew of Phil Coulson had all led him to the same conclusion: he was not a man to offer empty words of comfort to. Not that Bucky had much of those -- not before, not now. Truth, while often horrifying, had the capacity of being its own comfort.
At Phil’s last remark, Bucky took a half step back, stance subtly shifting as he cocked a brow and lifted his chin. “Why don’t you show me what it can do.”
Coulson raised an eyebrow. There was a part of him, the little boy inside, who wondered what his life had become, training with Captain America and Sergeant Bucky Barnes. And then there was the realist who knew all too well the cost of sacrifice. He shifted his position before launching into an attack on Barnes, using the prosthetic more as a club or a weapon and not necessarily as part of him. It felt like dead weight and it showed in his fighting.
A step backwards with his body veering sharply to the side moved Bucky out of the first strike’s immediate path. Two more of Coulson’s lunges -- then Bucky caught the prosthetic, flesh-fingers wrapping around the synthetic ones as his palm absorbed the shock of the strike. A beat, then he kicked out, foot to Phil’s hip.
“Balance is off.”
With Barnes gripping the prosthetic, Phil was somewhat restricted and despite the contorted effort to get out of the way, the kick still landed hard. But it felt good. To have the sensation on his hip instead of the lack of feeling in his hand.
"How do I compensate?"
Releasing the prosthetic only to drop his hand to his waist, Bucky met Coulson’s gaze squarely. “Improvise, I guess.” -- which meant strapping up Phil’s working arm with the belt he offered him. “Fool your head into thinking it doesn’t have any other choice.”
In ways he had been expecting the day to go, binding his good arm to his body had not been on Phil's list. But he understood the principle, take away what he was relying and force him to us the arm. The good thing about Barnes was that Coulson held no authority over him. If this had been one of his team members, he could have just told them it was unnecessary. But there was no such option with Barnes. And Phil knew that he needed to get passed this, even if he didn't want to. His right arm bound to his side, he swung the left with the prosthesis experimentally. It still felt wrong and that was evident on his face, and for a moment he was jealous of Barnes' arm. Phil could see the prosthesis, but feeling ended the stump just below the elbow. He swung a left hook at Barnes' jaw in frustration.
And it was easily -- lazily, even -- dodged. Where others might have mocked and thrown taunts barbed in such a way to encourage a reaction from their opponent, Bucky remained vaguely unreadable, though there was little to disguise the fact that he was assessing Phil’s every misstep, calculating angles and estimating where he would and would not land.
Leaving his own prosthesis largely inactive, Bucky blocked his punch with his forearm, then drove his elbow into the centre of Coulson’s chest as he twisted away from him, coming to a standstill behind the other man.
“Is this how you’d fight if your team members were on the line?”
"If my team were on the line, I wouldn't be fighting with dead weight," Phil replied, grunting at the force of the impact and stumbling. He felt like he had use of no arm. He took a few steps back, assessing and regrouping. He was a better fighter than this. If he could only get out of his head.
He shifted his stance, testing the weight of the fake arm before approaching Barnes again and then delivering a series of jabs.
No doubt Phil Coulson was a skilled, even creative fighter -- from his experience with SHIELD, agents of his classification tended to be forces in their own right, and with that last sequence of jabs, Bucky could see it, the previous economical grace that'd made him so dangerous in the field. But he needed to get out of his head, yes.
Bucky allowed the last two jabs to glance off the swell of his biceps before stepping away. “You don't have the luxury of choice. Not always. Sometimes, all you got is dead weight.”
Coulson wasn't Rogers or Romanoff or even Ward. He was a different fighter. Often underestimated and incredibly resourceful. But he was stuck. That much was evident. His moves were clumsier than they should have been. Phil paused, closing his eyes. What if this was about protecting Skye and Jemma. And getting May back. His moves changed. Though the arm didn't seem like a part of him yet, it was the one weapon he had and he knew he was outmatched against Barnes. He circled, looking for Barnes' weakness and then attacking, a flurry of spins and blows, not letting up. He was going to beat Barnes, or exhaust himself trying.