Chapter 1: Hands on

Chapter summary: Things get a little hands-on, though not in a way anyone expects.

AN: This fic is set after Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1 x 17 Turn, turn, turn

I plotted this out a fair while before Cap 2 came out at the movies and fortunately it only took a little bit of tweaking to make it reasonably canon compliant. I'm head over heels for this ship right now! I call them 'biofreeze' :)

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

"A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare to the jeweled vision of a life started anew."
― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

"They're not our prisoners," Coulson said as Jemma watched Captain America and the man who was apparently the Winter Soldier through the one-way glass.

"Which begs the question, why are they in one of our holding cells?" Jemma asked, as politely as she could. She was already postulating theories and trying to figure out what all this had to do with her, and just her, seeing as she was the only member of the team Coulson had called down to this part of the Hub.

"It would seem James Barnes' memories have started to return, just like we suspected after we got those reports from the Triskelion," Coulson said, clasping his hands behind his back in a civilian take on parade rest. "He tracked the Captain down a few days after the Hydra uprising. The two of them have been lying low for the past week, but Barnes' mental state is unstable to say the least."

Jemma's gaze followed the hot mess with shaggy brown hair and three-day stubble as he strolled up and down the length of the cell. He moved with a careless grace, but she wouldn't be surprised if his nonchalance was an act. Meanwhile, Captain Rogers leaned one spectacularly broad shoulder against the wall and tracked the other man's movements with his eyes.

The Captain really was as impressive in the flesh as all the murals at the Smithsonian would have her believe. What the museum displays failed to convey, though, was the captivating colour of his best friend's eyes. Jemma put her multi-skilling abilities to good use by appreciating the exact shade of ice blue while still paying attention to Coulson's briefing.

"Many of Barnes' memories are still missing," Coulson was saying, "both of his former life and his time with Hydra. He suffers from nightmares and delusions, and random objects and events seem to trigger him into assassin mode at no notice."

Assassin mode. Jemma wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, especially seeing as she suspected Coulson was about to ask her to get up close and personal with said assassin. Ex-assassin.

"You want me to cure him," she said, turning back to Coulson.

"I want you to take a look at him and do what you can," he said, tweaking a wrinkle out of his rolled up shirtsleeve. From what Jemma had observed, Phil's suit jackets were on temporary hiatus. With so few agents left on the ground, no one was exempt from clean-up duty.

"Captain Rogers is no fan of SHIELD right now, so he must be desperate to have come to us. These men deserve our help," Coulson said, looking Jemma in the eye. "This is no time for their country to let them down."

Jemma nodded firmly to assure him she got the message. These men had been through enough, and if she could possibly bring them some peace, she would.

"The cell is part of the deal," Coulson said, tipping his head towards the secure room in front of them. It was twice as big as their holding cell on the Bus, and lined with the same tessellated material, though in pale grey, not dark grey, which only made it slightly less depressing. The sole piece of furniture in the room was the bed, which wasn't much more than a metal bench bolted to the wall.

"As long as Barnes stays confined, we don't tell the government we're housing their number one Most Wanted," Coulson continued. "I can't have him on the loose in here while his behaviour is so unpredictable, not until you say it's safe."

From the tightness of his mouth, Jemma got the feeling that threatening Captain America with terms like that had been very difficult for him.

"Find Rogers some staff quarters. I've told him he can visit as much as he wants," Coulson continued. "His level 8 clearance will allow him to come and go as he likes, and he can call the whole thing off at any time. He says the word, the two of them walk out of here, no strings attached."

"Got it," Jemma said, her mind already racing ahead, thinking about the scans she wanted to run, the equipment she'd need. She'd spent the last week patching wounds, sweeping up broken glass and fixing electronics with Fitz, and while it was all work that needed to be done, it wasn't her specialty, not like this. Her fingertips drummed against her thigh as she considered potential treatment regimes.

"The agents watching the Hydra detainees in the other cells on this level won't be having anything to do with Barnes. It's up to you and Rogers to see to his needs. If Ward wasn't with Hand right now I'd assign him to accompany you every time you enter the cell. As it is, your safety will be in the Cap's hands, so you've got nothing to worry about."

Jemma hoped he was right.

"Keep me updated on your progress. I won't be able to keep as close an eye on this as I'd like," he said, the tired lines around his eyes seeming more apparent for a moment.

"You've got your hands full. I'll take care of him," she assured him.

"I know you will," he said without hesitation, and with a curt nod, he left her to her task.

Jemma appraised both men once more from behind the cover of the one-way glass before turning on her heel and heading for the lab to get her brain scanner.

As far as life-threatening assignments go, at least this one would be easy on the eyes.

Bucky shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto one end of the bed. May as well make himself at home, right? Being penned in already had him pacing, but apparently he'd spent the majority of the last seventy years imprisoned, so what's a little longer? At least in here he couldn't hurt anyone.

Without regular maintenance his programming was degrading. He could feel himself becoming less of a weapon and more of a man with each passing day, but he still had no idea who that man was.

The knowledge that he had committed so many murders roiled through his guts and threatened to make him dry wretch for the tenth time that day. Not all of his victims had been innocent, and most of them he couldn't even remember, but that didn't make it any easier to live with. If he dwelled on it for too long the thoughts started to swallow him up, pull him down, like a pit of tar. Sometimes he clawed his way back out on his own. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered. The other times it was Steve who dragged his pathetic ass out of the blackness.

Just the sight of Steve's face gave Bucky a reason to hold on, even if he didn't really understand why. Maybe it would make more sense when (if?) he got more memories back, but something deep inside him told him that as long as he had Steve he might just be able to weather the storm of his tormented mind. If this Simmons guy could bring even a little bit of order to the chaos, though, it would be a hell of an improvement.

As it turned out, Simmons wasn't a guy, but a pretty girl who barely looked old enough to buy her own beer.

"Ms Simmons," said Steve, straightening up as the door slid open. The young woman entered, some sort of device in her hands, and the door slid shut behind her.

"Please, call me Jemma," she said with a warm smile and a pleasant accent.

A pretty, British girl, then.

With a pink cardigan and a ponytail.

She turned her smile on Bucky but almost instantly her mouth became a soft 'o' and both perfect brows arched upward.

"The arm!" she exclaimed. She crossed the small room in a few short strides. "I can't believe I forgot about the arm!"

She dropped the device she was holding onto the thin mattress of the bed and took his left hand in both of hers. "Fitz is going to be so jealous that I got to see it first!"

She brushed her thumb over his knuckles, then turned his hand over and examined the intricate metal plates of his palm, all the while bombarding him with questions about the cybernetic limb's construction and capabilities. He gave perfunctory answers, trying not to get distracted by the gentle touches of her small, soft hands.

"Look at the articulation!" she murmured, cupping his fingers with her own and squeezing gently so she could watch them curl and uncurl over his palm. He should be offended, he supposed, but it was hard to feel insulted when you were being touched with such reverence.

Bucky cocked a bemused eyebrow at Steve, but the only response he got was a tiny hitch of one shoulder and a more deeply furrowed brow.

Jemma ran her hand up the outside of his forearm, over the elbow and all the way up until her fingers dipped under the short sleeve of his black t-shirt. Her eyes kept going, clearly curious about his shoulder, and probably about how the arm was attached to his body, but apparently asking someone to take their shirt off after only knowing them for ten seconds crossed a line, even for Miss Handsy here.

"Forgive me, that was…" She gave a little shake of her head, finally seeming to realise how forward she was being. "May I continue?" she asked, lifting his hand slightly to indicate her meaning.

"Sure," he answered, because it's not like he wanted her to stop.

From that point on she was more restrained, a little more clinical in her examination. "It really is a work of art," she said, smiling up at him with something like awe.

Steve chose that moment to clear his throat. "Agent Coulson says you're a prodigy in the field of neuroscience," he said, and if he sounded a bit dubious, Jemma didn't seem to notice.

"I'm not really one for labels," she said easily, releasing Bucky's hand. "But I dare say I'm the best you're going to get in the current climate, so I suppose we should get to it. Why don't you sit down?" she said to Bucky, gesturing to the bed behind him and reclaiming her abandoned piece of tech.

The device wasn't much bigger than a paperback novel, little lights on it starting to glow as she powered it up.

"I'm just going to take a scan of your brain," she said, eyes on the back-lit display as she tapped and swiped at it. The device chirped happily at her and she gave him a smile. "Won't hurt a bit."

She leaned in and held the beeping, flashing thing over his temple. Out of nowhere a ball of anxiety coalesced in his gut and, like it was operating on orders of its own, his flesh and blood arm snapped out and grabbed her by the throat.

"Bucky, no!" shouted Steve, lurching forward, but in the half second it took him to reach them, the red haze behind Bucky's eyes was already starting to clear.

He let Jemma go and she stumbled back, coughing.

"Sorry," he muttered, feeling every bit the monster he ultimately was. "Guess I'm not a fan of tech near my face."

Incomplete memories of a buzzing sound, a blinding blue light and searing pain skirted the edges of his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut against a half-remembered image of some sort of apparatus over his face and the lingering fear it fuelled.

Steve dropped a heavy hand onto his shoulder. He wasn't sure if it was intended to calm him or restrain him, but it was reassuring either way.

"That's—" Jemma coughed again, then took a slow, careful breath. "That's okay," she said, which was a stupid thing to say, because even with his messed up moral compass he knew that almost crushing the life out of someone who's trying to help you was nowhere near the vicinity of okay.

He put his face in his hands, elbows on his knees. "You should leave."

"No, no, now that we know that's a trigger for you we can work around it—" Jemma was starting to say.

"Steve, make her go," Bucky bit out. He couldn't be responsible for the death of another innocent person. He kept his head down so he didn't need to see the look of disappointment on Steve's face. They were both idiots for thinking this could ever have worked.

"Mr Barnes," Jemma said assertively, and Bucky looked up despite himself. "I hate to burst your bubble, but you're hardly the scariest thing I've encountered since I started working for S.H.I.E.L.D., and you're certainly not the first person to threaten my life." The bravado was an act, even if the words were true, but she was putting on a good performance. "Furthermore, whether I stay or go is my choice to make and I'll thank you to let me make it."

The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently. "Come on, Buck, let's give it another go," said Steve. "We'll all be more careful this time."

Bucky didn't say anything, just sighed wearily, but Steve knew a win when he got one. "What did you mean 'work around it'?" Steve asked Jemma.

"Well," she began, some of the earlier light returning to her eyes as the conversation switched back to getting some science done, "that all depends on what exactly prompted the reaction. The lights, the noise, the proximity to his face, the fact that I was standing over him...?" She looked to Bucky for his answer.

"All of the above," he muttered.

"Okay." She drew the word out as she thought for a moment. "Okay," she said again, more decisively. "This time I think you should be standing," she said to Bucky, "so you feel more in control. I can turn the scanner's sound alerts off, that's not a problem. I can't turn the lights or the display off but you won't be able to see them if I'm standing behind you. Captain Rogers, I'd like you on distraction duty, if you'd be so kind."

Steve nodded and Bucky wondered how a little thing like her got so good at giving orders.

"On your feet, soldier," Steve said, hauling him up.

Not that Bucky didn't still have reservations, but Jemma's plan sounded worth a try, and at least now she was going into this with her eyes open. He moved far enough away from the bed that Jemma could position herself behind him. Steve stood right in front of him, for which Bucky was grateful. This is how they should have done it the first time, with Steve as far in the line of fire and Jemma as far out of it as possible.

"Hey, I learned a new version of Rock, Paper, Scissors the other day, I'll show you," Steve said, and they were only five rounds into a subdued game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock when Jemma announced the scan was all done.

"Nice work, gentlemen." Her smile was a reward in itself.

"What happens next?" Steve asked as the three of them turned to face each other.

"What happens next is that I go back to my lab and analyse these results in more detail," she said. "But the good news is that memories can't actually be wiped, just blocked, and I have high hopes that some targeted delta-ray therapy will be able to remove those blocks. I'll start on your oldest memories first," she said to Bucky. "I can't guarantee a few of the more recent ones won't come unstuck in the process, but it sounds like that's happening regardless."

Bucky clenched his jaw at the thought of some of those more recent memories.

"I'll need Fitz to help me make some modifications to my equipment first, so we'll start the treatment tomorrow," she continued. "I also want to bring your hormone levels back to something more closely resembling normal brain chemistry. Some of the levels are dangerously low and others are off the charts. I imagine it's a result of the way they were manipulating your biochemistry each time you went in and out of stasis. Your moods will become much more manageable once we start a program of stabilising injections."

She eyed him warily, but there was a grin lurking behind it. "How are you with needles?"

AN: Thank you, as always, for reading. Reviews are always very greatly appreciated. Chapter 2 shouldn't be too far off :)