Chapter Text
“So what’cha got there Barnes? Looks like some advanced reading, whole paragraphs and everything, you finally graduate to picture books with actual words in them?”
Jim glared up at Tony from his usual seat in his regular both and reminded himself that without the Pott he’d pretty much starve and that no matter how horrible his service, nor grating his personality, there was no way Ginny would ever fire Tony, so punching his face in was an all-around bad idea. Also, as he had as yet to top off Jim’s cup of liquid life, telling him to fuck off before doing so was also a bad call. His only choice was a straight answer but as he opened his mouth to explain why he was reading what amounted to a picture book with such bewildered and intense focus Jim realized there was no way on god’s green earth he could logically explain it.So instead he snapped his mouth shut, looked back down at the battered copy of Marvels: Tales of Adventure, and tried on a casual shrug.
“Some of my kids wanna do a project on it, told ‘um I’d have to read it first to approve the material. Ya, know… Like it’s my job ta do? Because I’m a fucking teacher?” The asshole tacked on at the end of the sentence went unspoken but was well heard.
“Whatever.” Tony shrugged, clearly bored with the subject if Jim was not going to play verbal dodge-ball with him. “You going to order anything this year or are you just here to glare at books and take up valuable booth real estate.”
Jim glanced around the dining room, noting the single group of old timers huddled around a table in the far corner and the back of the one brave diner sitting at the counter. “Yeah, because clearly it’s standing room only in here tonight.”
Tony made a harumph face but did not add any further color commentary before topping off Jim’s cup and wandering back to his usual post behind the counter, so he counted that as win. Not that he could say much, word had clearly gotten out that Lenny was on the grill today and the people of Storybrooke had collectively decided to make alternate plans for dinner that night. Jim picked up his mug and drank deeply, willing the caffeine content to negate the stress headache that had been crawling around the back of his head since he’d agreed to this entire farce. Not that he’s had much of a choice in the matter when he’d cornered Katie and Elijah in the Library that morning.
“Mr. Barnes, you have to believe me.”
Katie’d looked so intense as she stared him down over the open book between them, but behind that Jim could see something else lurking. Terror. Katie was terrified, and desperate for some good old fashioned adult intervention. She needed him on her side, Jim could read that clear as day.
“Kaite maybe-“ Elijah tried to interject but Katie spun on him so fast it made Jim’s head spin.
“No Eli! This is important! I know you don’t believe me, but this is real, it is happening right here, right now, and we need his help,” Katie looked ready to punch one of her best friends in the world right in the face if he tried to “voice of reason” her one more time and Elijah looked worried and scared himself. Though for him it was worry and fear for his friends apparent psychotic break and being totally out of his depth in how to help.
Luckily Jim had dealt with all manner of breaks from reality while in the service and his depth was a whole hell of a lot deeper.
“Elijah, “ Jim used the gentlest voice of authority in his arsenal, “I knocked some books down over by those shelves. Why don’t you go pick them up for me and then head back to class. I’m sure Mr. Wilson is wondering where you disappeared to. Just tell him I grabbed you for some help carrying something and you should be good. Okay? I’ll stay here with Katie and we’ll talk this out, “ Jim gestured to the book that seemed to the crux of the situation and their surroundings, hoping Elijah would fill in the gaps for himself as Jim was not quite sure exactly what “this” was all about.
There was one moment where the boy seemed torn between staying to have his friend’s back and making a break for blessed safety of the classroom and Sam’s post lunch survey of American History, but Jim hadn't cultivated the rep of being the teacher kids could trust for nothing. After a brief war inside his head Elijah nodded before shooting an apologetic look at Katie, and headed over to Jim’s book disaster with a quiet “Yes sir.”
Jim waited and watched as Elijah picked up the books with a brisk efficiency that put him slightly in awe. Just what was Sam teaching those AP kids of his? Jim would bet anything that not only were the books going back on to the correct shelves right side up, the damn things were probably in alphabetical order too. Once Elijah was done, and it was clear that Jim would not start talking until he had moved along, the future leader of the free world reluctantly left them behind and hopefully headed back to Sam’s downy bosom to be clucked back into line with all of Wilson’s other honor roll chicks.
Katie had sat through all of this in surprising silence, for a kid who always seemed to have an answer for everything this was worrisome. Jim watched as she fidgeted and refused to make eye contact, her teeth digging into her bottom lip hard enough to leave a dent, as the minutes ticked on by. Once his ears picked up the sound of the library doors swinging shut Jim cleared his throat and looked down at the cause of all of this trouble. Flipping the book shut he looked at the title in hopes of gleaning some small clue as to why this book in particular was driving one of his kids’ nuts. Marvels: Tales of Adventure, no author listed. The book had the look of something that had been around the block a few times, the cover worn down by countless hands, its pages slightly yellowed with age. The book was lacking a dust jacket and the only illustration on the cover was an embossed symbol, a highly stylized A in a circle, that looked vaguely familiar to Jim but he could not put a finger on to where he’d seen it before.
“So, this book?” Jim prompted.
Katie crossed her arms and looked to the side, “yeah, that book.”
“And you say I’m in it?” For the first time since Jim had known her uncertainty gathered around Katie Bishop like a dark cloud, obscuring the certainty that was her birthright.
“Well….. sort of?”
The pages underneath Jim’s fingertips were partially made up of text and part illustrations. Not quite a comic, more like a picture book written for old kids or adults. The book itself seemed to be made of up a bunch of short stories, weird hybrid adaptions of super hero comic books, classic fairy tales and some that seemed to be created entirely out of new cloth. Warriors and assassins, magicians and gods, all of them separately fighting off the evil plots of a multi headed dragon from Greek mythology and its many evil Nazi mad scientist minions.
Seriously, Nazi mad scientists, working for dragon’s, fighting a group call the Avenging Knights of the Shield.He could not even make this shit up.
It was stupid, there was nothing in this book that had anything to do with his life, as it was here now in Storybrooke, nor in any of the years that had battered him about before he washed up on the town’s shores. But still…. There was something odd about it, a sense of rightness that overtook Jim when he’d started reading the words on the page. He’d promised Katie he would, read the damn book that is. It was the only way he could see to slap a tourniquet on the situation. Katie was not going to let this go, Jim knew that for a fact, and while he normally would bring something like this to the attention of her parents, there was something about the Bishops that made him hold off. It’s not that they were bad people… well except for the fact that they were totally bad people. Jim was pretty sure Katie’s dad was connected and honestly, what was a juiced mobster was doing way out in the back ass of Maine even? The damn situation made not one lick of sense, but that was a crusade for another day.
So yeah, there was no way Jim was going to trust that guy to do right by his kid, he was going to have to do it for him and right now that meant playing along until he had some sort of handle on the situation. Jim let his fingers do the walking as he skimmed though the various stories; Rage of the Hulk, Littlest Dancer and the Blood Red Room, The Man with the Iron Heart, How the Falcon Found His Wings… There were some seriously weird tales in that book, but there was one chapter he kept coming back to, The Star and the Shield.
Jim could see how Katie’s head had gotten twisted by it, because seriously if Jim didn’t know better he’d have sworn he was looking at himself all done up in water colors on the page. Sure the hair was different, like Jim would ever have it that long, what was he? A god damn hobo? His ma would kill him. But the other details? They were there in spades. And the character’s background, a one armed broken warrior on the run from his past? That hit a little too close to home. Even just reading the character’s name, The Winter Solider, was enough to make Jim’s skin prickle with goose bumps.
Leaning back Jim tore his eyes away from the illustration of the Winter Solider fighting shadows and monsters while trying to get to an artic cave where his heart slept in a coffin of ice and focused on the ceiling, trying to steady his breath. His good hand shook as he tried to steady himself, pressing his palm flat on the formic table top, resisting his fingers urge to curl inward, this was not the sort of situation fists could get him out of. Closing his eyes Jim focused on his safe place, the one carefully crafted in the endless hours of therapy he’d endured while he’d slowly fought his way through recovery in the shitty VA hospital he’d gotten dumped in once he’d finally landed back in the states. Quite room, sounds of Brooklyn coming through an open window. Jim let the details of the room fill themselves in, slipping into place almost like memory.
The only light was coming through a widow hung with lace curtains, Irish lace passed down after she’d passed on. Two twin beds, currently across from another, but ready to be pushed together soon enough once the weather starts to turn. Braided rope rug on the floor, his sister Becca’s work, Jim is sprawled across it while his head rests on a skinny thigh. His eyes are closed, but that don’t matter because he didn't need eyes to feel the fine boned hand working its way through his hair or to hear the deep voice humming absently above him, or smell the clean scent of the man with him mixing with his own, blending them together into one--
“You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti?
You want a Maserati? You better work bitch
You want a Lamborghini? Sippin' martinis?
Look hot in a bikini? You better work bitch”
What the hell?!!
Jim was yanked outta his head by the obnoxious pop music blaring out of his phone. Across the room Tony was shooting him some seriously judging eyebrows and even the old timers across the way were starting to turn around to see who was making such the racket. Jim snaked out his hand and accepted the call before Brittney could get to the chorus,
“Barton. Seriously, how the fuck did you manage to get a hold of my phone long enough to change my ring tone?”
“Dude, I keep telling you I’mma ninja.”
“I thought you said you were Batman?”
“Dude. Batman is a ninja, get with the program. Anyways, that is besides the point. The actual point is where the hell are you?"
“Um. What?”
“I'm at your place, freezing my nads off, while you and my promised beer and pizza are not.”
“Oh, hell. Jeeze, I’m sorry ‘bout that pal. I’m at the Pott and lost track of time. Wanna meet me here and I’ll buy you a burger and beer?”
“Are you kidding? Not with Lenny Fitz, the Boy Born With the Ability to Taste, on grill tonight. You head back here as agreed upon, with my pizza and beer, and I’ll just wait inside your place.”
“Fine, but you don’t have a key to get in.”
“Heh, that’s cute. Your Netflix password is still the same, right? Awesome I will see you in twenty.”
Jim stared blankly at his phone for a good minute before starting to pack up and wave Tony over for his check. His fingers lingered on the cover of Marvels a brief second before he popped it into his bag, that was a mystery for another night. Tonight he had a janitor with delusions of being the next Jason Borne to mollify and, after he’d gotten enough beer into him, listen to the one billionth reiteration of the saga of Barton V Rushman: No Ordinary Love.”