stands_for_hope | The Metropolis Dork Squad, Captain America, and the Falcon in... Angst, Death, and Taxes

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house of am

The Metropolis Dork Squad, Captain America, and the Falcon in... Angst, Death, and Taxes

[continued from here]

The day had arrived. The trap had been set.

They'd gone to Lois's apartment the day before and made their intentions clear, hoping that with a short period of time, the HYDRA forces wouldn't be able to pull together anything that was too hard to handle.

Jim's paycheck had come in, so he'd treated a rather delicious dinner for the three of them, which had been followed up with some surveillance work, a couple of flights over the various buildings to scout for good positions (both to look for snipers and to drop Lois), and a watching of The Incredibles since there weren't any good games on.

Lois hadn't quite gotten Jim into a french braid with flowers, but she had managed to twist up a few smaller braids and tuck the remainder into a pony tail to keep the worst of it out of his face. If Lois was happy about it as much for it's utility as to give Jim a firm, physical reminder of the people who cared about him... well, she wasn't about to say it out loud.

Clark was with them until roughly half an hour before and informed them just before he left that Captain America was on the ground, apparently sketching one of the ruined and as yet unrepaired buildings on a bench nearby with large 'easel case' while the Falcon was half a mile away on a rooftop. Thankfully, while a good portion of the surrounding area had been destroyed during the attack on Metropolis, this neighborhood was semi-functional (if largely empty during the weekend) so he wasn't entirely out of place.

That just left Lois, her HYDRA pin tucked in place at her collar, and Jim in the empty office room, doing their best to psych themselves into believing this would work.

...and Clark going to investigate the singular figure hiding out on one of the higher rooftops nearby.

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Clark just smiled and kept his lips shut. Which had Lois coming around the couch to lean down and start poking him.

"Smallville..."

Clark stayed resolute.

"Smallville."

Smirk.

Smallville!"

He spread his hands, but before Lois could start poking him too hard in the chest, he scooped her up in his lap and held her close before leaning down to whisper in her ear.

"I may have learned how to dance while you were talking to superheroes."

Which made her instantly relax before turning to Jim with a happy little grin that said as clear as day that she knew where those lessons had come from and appreciated them. Then she focused down on Clark.

"And when were you going to tell me?"

He let his head tilt back and forth before kissing her cheek again.

"Dunno. Probably the next time we were at one of those boring social functions."

Which, for some reason, earned him a slightly chocolate icinc-flavored kiss.

His brows rose. "...That wasn't what I was wondering about, but she should know that, too," he admitted. "I didn't teach him to Lindy, but I don't think people do that much anymore."

He'd have seen signs for it if they had. Signs or some kind of something. The kind of dances people did now were the kind of thing you would've been arrested for doing in public last time he'd been in the scene.

Clark blinked over at Jim curiously, not sure what he might have been talking about specifically.

"What did you mean?"

Because other than teasing, Clark didn't actually have any secrets from Lois. Not anything important anyway. Just the silly, normal things that couples had.

"About Steve having a thing for me," he answered, cutting into his slice of cake again. It wasn't bad. It wasn't anything he'd ever had before, and he wasn't sure he'd make it again - but as desserts went, it wasn't bad.

It'd be better, he decided, with strawberries.

Lois snorted.

"Things I knew upon seeing the look on his face when you walked in for $500, Alex," Lois noted as she reached over to take another piece of the cake.

"Not that it didn't jive with a bunch of things Grandma said, but she also thought he was obviously 'confused' about women in general so I wasn't sure if that was just old people thinking or if she had a point. I don't know if it's like that but he loves you like a great big thing that's all over his face."

Clark looked over at Lois and blinked.

"He never was good with women," Jim said, shaking his head. "Didn't have a clue about how to talk to 'em, but I wouldn't date any girls who treated him bad twice." But then, after a shrug and another bite of cake, he went on, "I just know he turned into a puppy looking for approval after I told him he could see in colour. He used to only do that with girls he liked if I remember right. But that and a dollar might get you a cup of coffee."

"Well," Lois said thoughtfully in between licking the icing off of her fingers, "if you want to know what I think after talking to him for a bit, I'm happy to tell you. I'm a reporter, it's what we do. But you seemed ready to leave Steve Rogers on the backburner when you left so... "

Lois looked him in the eye.

"Just make sure you want to know before you ask."

Jim met her eyes for a few moments before speaking again. Here, he could do that. He could take the time to think before speaking. "It's one thing to talk about him," he said. "It's something else to actually have him standing there, looking at me like he's waiting for me to make things either better or worse. Hell, talking about him might help. Means I might be able to figure out where he fits in who I am."

"We talked," she mentioned again, and the words meant something a little more now. It hadn't been an interview and it hadn't been a bullying session; Lois, for all of her brassy attitude had one of the most warm and loving hearts and with Jim out of the room, she hadn't quite been able to ignore the mess jammed in a too-big suit that was Steve Rogers.

"From what I can tell, he's been 'Captain America'ing it up pretty much since he came out of the ice. The only thing that he does for himself is visit... if I say Peggy Carter, you'll know who I'm talking about, right?"

The name reached into his mind slowly, like a river finding a new course, but then he remembered. He remembered the words - knew them by heart for some damned reason - but only now did he realise the context. "Yeah. I remember her. She only had eyes for Steve."

He'd tried. Failed. Joked.

Probably shouldn't have joked.

"Apparently, she founded SHIELD, got married, had children, had grandchildren and now she's living in a nursing home just outside of DC. He comes to see her every week. Gets to tell her about how he's alive every week too, sometimes twice in one visit."

He could do the math on that himself. Lois felt gauche just mentioning it at all; Steve had been much kinder about it, but also much more emotional (mostly by being emotionless, his eyes staring out at nothing and no one actually in the room) and that was all right for him, but this was a woman she didn't even know.

"But he still goes every week."

Jim nodded slowly. He could imagine how that hurt him. But he knew Steve. he had a thing for being as honourable as he could, and that fit him like a glove. "Of course he does," he said, though. "That's what he does."

"Why do you think that is?"

Because this wasn't about Steve or Jim. This was about Steve and Jim, and she had to know what the lay of the land before she made her argument. Every paper had an audience and you had to know what it was if you were going to be effective.

"He loves her." That much was obvious. He'd loved her back then, too - just things had conspired against him. "And she's probably the closest thing he has to an anchor."

"More like his life vest," and Lois's voice was soft but not quiet.

"The look on his face when he talked about her... well, it was pretty damn close to the look on his face when he talked about you."

Jim heaved a sigh, shaking his head. "And that guy who was with him - Sam. Probably the closest thing he's done to making a friend since he woke up."

"Pretty much. And even Sam told me that he can't get in half the time. I cheated and used Grandma Margot."

She leaned back against Clark, who was staying very firmly quiet during all of this, an unreadable expression on his face.

"If you want to know if he wants to make out with you? Couldn't tell you. I know how he felt about Bucky Barnes, something you are going to have to ask him yourself," and she was gentle but firm on that point, "but I also know he knows that you're not the same person. I do know, though, that he loves you. And... I can't exactly blame him."

She shrugged.

"I'm..." He took a breath, then looked away. It was hard to put words to. Harder than it should by any stretch, but he'd been failing at the concept for hours now. Eventually, it had to work, right? "I know he knows I've changed," he exhaled. "And I know he cares. That wasn't the question. Problem is, that isn't what matters. It's just what's easiest to say."

And that made things complicated.

"Obviously." And she did sound like she'd been expecting that answer. Lois was guiding the conversation as much as she was navigating it.

"So the question is: what matters? I've got a guess but I'd rather hear it from you. Assumption is not the reporter's way, after all."

And that was the question. "What matters... is..."

What was the word? This was what he'd been thinking of, trying to figure out, and he only had the barest skeleton of an idea. "It's... Balance."

But there was more than that.

"There are two people in my head," he blurted at last. "There's Bucky Barnes, who everybody sees as a hero, who knew Steve Rogers, who knows how to make roast and how to fix walls, and there's... the Winter Soldier, who knows how to kill people in untraceable ways. And now there's Jim, trying to figure out what fits between both, what stays and what goes, and it's... balance. I do okay day to day, sorting things out, but when he's around, everything tips one way, and the other side fights back."

Lois nodded, something settling into place for her as she'd obviously had her theories. She pretty much lived with Jim, she had seen the Winter Soldier...

"Jim disappears between Bucky trying to get to his friend and the Winter Soldier trying to kill him," she said, only the lightest guessing tone to her words. She was reasonably certain.

"And the more Captain America is out, the stronger the Winter Soldier. The more Steve, the more it's Bucky. But both of them put you out of balance. Am I right?"

He nodded slowly. "Sounds right, anyway," he agreed. "I have reactions I can't stop. When he's being all Captain America, it gets so easy to let training take over."

So easy. So easy to let everything that had been zapped into his brain do its job. Like falling into a bed that suited every plane of his body--

"I need to build Jim up strong enough so Steve and Captain America don't knock him over."

"

"And Sam, Clint, and Margot are going to work on getting Steve to come out behind the shield on his own," Lois said with a firm nod.

"It'll be easier for you to be in balance if he is, after all."

Clark looked up at Lois and it was obvious that he was both deeply impressed and incredibly touched that Lois had dived headfirst into the whole thing. It was... not something he was good at and she constantly amazed him.

Lois just smiled.

"Don't be too impressed. It's not just me. This is a joint operation of the official second-string sort-of-Avengers. We planned things."

Jim gave her a faint smile. "I still mean to see Margot eventually. Hopefully not when Steve's visiting, but eventually. I promised she could laugh at my hair." And there was a part of him that definitely looked forward to it.

"She's about an hour out, near where my parents live at the base. We can go out some weekend."

She smiled.

"When you're not dead on your feet from work."

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