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Tarsus IV had taken more than a mental toll. It had exacted a physical cost as well, one that Jim would have to live with for the rest of his life. Not that he planned to ever let anyone know about it. Being the son of a federation hero seemed to have some perks, he’s given the best treatment available. Only someone who knew what they were looking for would be able to tell that parts of him weren’t actually organic. Prosthetic technology was pretty amazing really, he still has some sense of touch, of environmental stimulus from the false skin. It takes years of therapy and until he gets older and stops growing for the permanent versions to be put in place.
By the time he meets Pike he’s managed to distance himself from as much of his past as he possibly could. Pike brings it all crashing back with a single conversation. He should probably hate the man for it. Somehow he doesn’t.
Bones finds out after assigning himself his primary physician, it’s perhaps the first time he’d seen the man truly stunned. He doesn’t remember what asshole thing he says to his friend but he gets smacked upside the head and Bones never sends a pitying look his way over it which was honestly all he could have hoped for.
Fighting his way to save Pike is, not as rough as it probably could have been. Even after the whole thing is over though, none of the crew really knows.
The loss of Vulcan though, is a hard hit. Jim has more than a few bad memories stirred up from the whole ordeal. He doesn’t feel like he honestly really deserves the Captaincy he’s awarded. Pike thinks otherwise, as do a number of others apparently. He’s not sure what he did to luck into Spock changing his mind and agreeing to join the Enterprise as his Second though.
The attack on Starfleet Command, though, nearly takes Pike when Nero hadn’t. Jim using his body as a human shield might have helped, he’s shot badly, both organically and inorganically but he’d be completely dead otherwise and Pike is alive. He looks like he thinks Jim is a complete idiot, but what else was new.
The damage is repaired in a matter of hours, the appearance of the fake skin will take longer and they don’t have time at the moment. It’s fine, all of it is covered when he’s in uniform, mostly. As long as no one goes staring at his sleeve cuffs he should be fine.
Apprehending Khan is… interesting. Spock’s Vulcan neck pinch somehow doesn’t work. The man is definitely surprised at the force of one of Jim’s punches but it certainly shouldn’t have been enough to make the man surrender. Jim feels dread as he watches Khan’s peaceful surrender and makes the connection, the torpedoes. What the hell had they been put in the middle of.
Khan wants to talk. Of course he does. Just like every other powerful person he’d ever known who had found themself in a position less than what they wanted.
Khan talks, but in the end, he tries to put things over on Jim, to twist things around, to cause Jim doubt or discomfort, asks him if his crew knew what he was. Jim scoffs.
“You don’t even know what I am, if you’re just going to poke until you find something then we’re done here.” Jim turns to leave, Spock following silently as Khan calls after him some trite bullshit about how they were both monsters. Jim rolls his eyes and doesn’t flinch, part of him wants to snark back to tell him something he didn’t already know. He manages to keep his mouth shut.
In the lift though he drags a hand over his face and glances sideways at Spock. “You have anything you want to say while we don’t have an audience?”
“Your response to Khan was indicative that you are other than you appear.”
“Yeah, yeah… you know how we’re not supposed to expose new peoples to technology beyond their current capabilities?”
“Something you regularly see fit to ignore.”
“Something I regularly directly violate by going on away missions at all.” Jim counters and reaching over stops the lift. Reaching up he starts to take off his uniform shirt and pauses when Spock nearly looks taken aback. “Relax, figured this would be preferable to me taking my pants off. It’ll be pretty obvious why this is needed.” He ducks his head and tugs off his shirts and shakes his arm, testing the fingers as he looks down at the damaged faux-dermal covering.
“You have a prosthetic arm. Khan likely discovered as much in the fight when you punched him.”
“Yeah, it’s not just the arm.” Jim says and sighs before tugging his uniform top back on and straightening it as best he can.
“I was unaware you had any mobility enhancements.”
“The only person who really knows is Bones, normally the dermal coat hides it pretty flawlessly. There hasn't been time to get it all fully repaired to an aesthetic standard since I got shot up in the attack on headquarters. I don’t know what Khan thinks I am, but I doubt he assumes I’m some modern cyborg like thing, not with how limited prosthetics were back in the eugenics wars.” Jim reaches over and restarts the lift. “Whatever is going to happen next, it’s not going to be fun, we need some sort of plan.”
Admiral Marcus hails the Ship, Jim listens as he types out a rapid message and Spock thankfully escorts Carol from the bridge immediately which leaves Jim open to make his play when Marcus finally shows his hand, just in time for Spock to return.
“You definitely could sir, you’ve got the firepower to completely destroy the enterprise, you’ve already caused some casualties I’m sure with your earlier attack… I just hope your daughter wasn’t one of them.” He says calmly and Admiral Marcus stills before clearly thinking that Jim is bluffing.
“Trying to save your crew by threatening my daughter Kirk?”
“I’m not threatening anyone Sir. Carol Marcus is perfectly safe onboard the Enterprise, she’s temporarily a member of my crew, brought on as a munitions expert who presented herself when those lovely torpedoes you gave us were being loaded on board. At least, she was perfectly safe onboard the Enterprise, until you arrived and started attacking a fellow federation vessel.” Bones strides out of the lift and onto the bridge and Jim pauses as he crosses into view and holds up his hands in a gesture. Jim stares and misses whatever Marcus says next. Not that it matters, he just continues as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Our orders are to apprehend John Harrison on charges of violence in relation to the attack on Starfleet Headquarters and return him to face judgement. I intend to follow those orders. If you chose to shoot us out of the sky then there is very little I can do to stop you. If you choose to believe me or not in regards to your daughter being on board makes very little difference, in the end you’re the one who, should you decide to attack our ship, live with knowing you killed your daughter alongside hundreds of innocent Starfleet officers. Now if you don’t mind, we have a prisoner to deliver. Kirk out.” He cuts the transmission and gets out the command to go to warp and Bones swoops in with Jim having skipped visiting the medbay after their planetside fight with the Klingons and Khan and Jim’s being forcibly steered into the lift.
The Vengeance is waiting for them outside of Earth space and Spock sends down the earlier communication between Admiral Marcus and Jim as well as a preliminary report regarding the torpedoes, Khan, and everything they had learned. And then, Khan is transported, and Admiral Marcus is brought in for questioning, and there shouldn’t be any chance of the two remotely seeing each other, yet there they all are, and of course, Khan makes to attack the Admiral and that won’t end well either, they need both idiots to stand trial and reveal how deep this nightmare ran. Khan nearly rips his fucking arm off and Jim bites back against the pain and snarls and as soon as his arm is free he slams it into Khan’s face and the man actually looks surprised at the force behind the hit. Before he starts throwing around his own fists and Jim struggles to block the blows with his inorganic arm. He manages to get his legs up and kick out with as much force as he can which sends Khan off of him and thankfully a number of phasers shoot at the man, only to have seemingly no effect.
Jim swears under his breath and as Khan turns to scan for Marcus again, Jim slams his fist into the back of the bastard’s head and takes him to the ground. He tries to get the man in a hold but the bastard gets out of it and swings a kick at his head which he only just manages to catch and oh man, his arm is going to be so fucked up after this. He tightens his hold on Khan’s foot and jerks it to the side to try to get the man on the ground again and FINALLY someone else joins to help and Spock manages to get a pair of cuffs half on before Khan is surging back into action to fight him off. Jim gets his feet back under him and ends up catching Spock as Khan shoves him away and in his direction, clearly intent on knocking them both over, Jim’s knees don’t buckle under the weight though, He’s brought to a stop but it’s enough to help steady Spock and his second is able to respond to Khan’s attack much faster than the man had expected. Jim definitely needs this fight to end sooner than later. Well, if his arm is already going to need to be replaced. He waits for as much of an opening as he’s likely to get and grabs Khan's wrist as he pulls it back to punch and forces himself to ignore what little touch response he’s getting from the limb, what typically told him and allowed for him to function and pass as suitably normal-human. He just focuses on the mental thought of ‘tighter’ again and again and Khan’s eyes widen and Jim feels the snap under his grip and just keeps going until the man screams and it’s enough of a distraction that Spock is able to force the man’s other hand close enough to get the cuffs on him fully. Jim releases his grip and glances down at his hand as Khan is forced to his knees, his fingers react slowly, but there’s still function. The dermal layer has small tears in it though and he curls his hand mostly closed to hide the evidence that it’s not organic and taking steadying breaths allows the police to take change of Khan.
“Captain.” Spock says simply and Jim gives their surroundings a quick once over, more than a few faces are staring at them, at him,
“We should get to the debrief.” He replies and Spock nods and waits to fall into step next to Jim.
“What Are You.” Khan’s furious voice demands and Jim pauses and looks at the man with a smirk.
“Have you forgotten? You said it yourself, that we were both monsters, not my fault you thought we were the same sort.” He turns away and walks off towards the building they would be expected at.
The debrief is tedious, long, and Jim’s arm starts sending intermittent pain signals about halfway through. Damage to the sensory tech most likely, he does his best to ignore it. The last thing he wanted was to be forced to out himself to a roomful of some of Starfleet’s highest ranked officers. Sure, they’d have access to the information if they went digging in his files, but it was the questions of how such a thing had happened that he didn’t want to deal with. When they take a brief recess Jim quickly tries to find an empty room he can use and closes himself inside before taking off his shirt and trying to survey the damage. The join of the faux dermal to his biological skin is splitting, it looks pretty horrific honestly and he tries to quickly assess the rest of his arm as best he can with a surprising amount of the faux-dermal still in place. He’d locked the room, but that didn’t mean someone higher up couldn’t override it and there isn’t enough time between when the door beeps and when it opens for him to get his shirt back on, he really only has time to clasp his hand to his upper arm over the torn shoulder seam and meets Pike’s confused gaze as he wheels into the room.
“Everything alright?” It’s not really a question and Jim swallows and glances at the door.
“Close the door?” Jim asks and Pike nods slowly doing so before wheeling closer to where Jim is.
“So, what exactly is going on here?” He asks and Jim considers it for a moment and slowly removes his hand from the torn seam. “Jesus.”
“It’s damaged, I was just trying to see how badly and see if I could turn off the pain transmitters since they keep going off in the meeting.”
“Yeah, understandable… It’s not just the arm, is it.”
“No.”
“How much?”
“About 40% inorganic.” Jim says and glances at Pike who looks, more thoughtful than pitying, he feels a bit relieved at that and starts poking at his arm again. He gets a sudden jolt of pain and tenses but is able to at least figure out from there how to disconnect that ‘nerve’ and after testing that the same level of mobility remained as before he shifts to put his uniform shirts back on.
“Is it a liability?”
“No. It’s advanced enough to not be affected by any attempts to shut them down. Full gamut of tests for it, some methods can cut off certain functions, the nerve response and moderation, but it’s all able to be manually controlled by me, I just have to be more careful about what I’m doing so I don’t exceed what a normal human would be able to. The PT was extremely thorough.” He says and uniform back in place he meets Pike’s gaze again.
“Alright, who on your crew knows?”
“Bones, and now Spock, I told him after we got Khan onboard.”
“Well, I think you should have told him sooner, but I suppose that’s your decision. Now, about this debriefing, you said something to Khan on the plaza. You know they’re going to ask why you told the man that you were a different sort of monster.” Jim closes his eyes and curses himself.
“I should have. Dammit.”
“I assume you meant that you’re part inorganic.”
“I- mostly. Yeah.”
“Are you going to share that information with the council?”
“Prefer not to, it’s in my file though, mostly I just don’t want to deal with them asking why.”
“I think that’s pretty understandable.”
“How, you don’t know why either? How could you think it’s understandable?”
“Jim, you went through something, something that lead to the best option being to replace 40% of your body with inorganic prosthetics instead of intensive regrowth procedure. I don’t have to know what it was to deduce that whatever it was had to have been traumatic.”
Jim watches Pike and then looks down at his hands.
“Traumatic… I guess, that’s what everyone else called it too.”
“What would you call it then?” He looks up at Pike, he seems a bit more unsettled than before.
“Necessary.” He settles on, and their comms beep alerting them to return to the main chamber.
Jim ends up disclosing that his comment had been in relation to Khan having assumed that he was similarly genetically enhanced and that he had said what he had in counter to that as he was not as Khan had supposed.
“The question remains, how were you able to physically restrain and engage in hand to hand combat with someone of Khan’s enhanced capabilities?” Jim hesitates and takes a deep breath.
“As is detailed in my personal files, I have inorganic components that comprise roughly 40% of my body.” Utter silence fills the chamber and Jim waits.
“What the hell happened that you had 40% of your body replaced?”
“I move to ask the question be struck from the record and the Captain not held to answer.” Pike cuts in before Jim can even start to think of a reply. “I would also suggest that others consider what is being asked and the violation of privacy it poses without holding any value to the purpose of this meeting.” There’s a long pause and finally someone quietly voices “so moved” followed by another voice “seconded”. The rest of the debrief goes more or less smoothly. When it’s over, Jim calls Bones and meets his CMO where directed, oddly enough with Pike tagging along as well.
“Jesus kid what the hell did you think you were doing? Were you trying to get your arm ripped off? Fingers?”
“They’re fine, mostly stuck with the right side.”
“Legs?”
“Probably not too much worse off than they were, took a few hits though.”
“I’ll run a diagnostic on it. You disabled the sensory array on your arm?”
“Started shocking me in the debrief.”
“Hmn, we’ll have to likely get a replacement in, damn, you really did a number on the dermal covering. Be best if we take it off to be honest.”
“You want me to walk around with a visibly inorganic hand?” Jim says with a grimace.
“Well, you can either do that or we can just take your arm off completely until the replacement gets here. Seeing as you were already on your replacement arm that we had on hand, I’m not about to apply the dermal we do have on top of this mangled piece of tech you’re using. No dermal or no arm, your choice.”
“...dermal.” Jim bites out with no small amount of irritation.
He ends up with a temporary covering to protect the internal workings and Bones works on applying it as the diagnostics get run on his other replacement limbs. Pike seems fine just tapping away at his PADD and Jim watches the Admiral for several long silent moments and eventually he breaks the silence.
“Why haven’t you asked?” Pike looks up and meets Jim’s gaze steadily.
“It’s none of my business, is it?”
“No, but that- I figured you’d want to know.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. But if you don’t want to tell me, it’s certainly not my place to make you.”
“Right… right…” Pike is watching him closely and he frowns slightly before speaking.
“Do you, want, to talk about it?” He asks, clearly uncertain and Jim watches him for a moment, he’s aware of how tense he is, that Bones has stopped working on his arm and is likely watching him closely.
“I- no, but I think I’d like you to know.”
“Alright, if you’re sure.”
“... yeah.” He glances at Bones who is in fact watching him but returns to working on his arm with a stern frown. Pike looks slightly wary, clearly bracing himself for something and not knowing what. “Federation medical determined that they had to amputate to save my life. I was already suffering from the infections that had started weeks before they showed up. It was a pretty drastic decision, they weren’t sure if the shock from the surgery would kill me with how bad a state they’d found us in. They induced a coma, when I woke up, they’d removed most of my limbs and I was back on Earth in a long term medical care facility.”
“You didn’t receive medical attention for the injuries when they happened?”
“No, no, there wasn’t the option for that. We were in hiding, you said it must have been traumatic, I think they mostly refer to it now as a massacre. The first injury I got to my lower leg at the start of it all, escaping the square where he gave the execution order. There was a number of times I should have died, I was- I guess I thought when the ships came-”
“Jim.” That’s Bones and Jim looks at the man who is watching him closely. “You alright?” Jim swallows and shakes his head vaguely and then more firmly.
“Sorry, I think i’ve been a bit out of it since Marcus’ little monologue moment.”
“Jim, you don’t have to talk about this now, or at all.”
“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t. Still, should be better about it. Shouldn’t be so hard to talk about.”
“Says the person who never allowed anyone to counsel them through recovery from it.” Bones grumbles.
“Fair… I had the multiple amputations due to injuries received on Tarsus IV.”
Pike is watching him with a furrowed brow and finally gives an audible exhale.
“Ironic then isn’t it. That Khan thought the two of you were alike.” Jim stares at the admiral for a long moment before a grin splits over his face and he just laughs, because damn, Pike was fucking spot on with that one.
The replacement comes two days later and thankfully he’s pretty sure no one had really seen his non-organic hand in the time in between thanks to all of the drama occurring at headquarters keeping him away from the ship in the time between. At least that’s what’s supposed to happen, the dermal can’t be put on until after the arm is verified as fully integrated and while he understands that from a practical perspective but as far as trying to return to a semblance of normalcy it’s terrible. So when Bones drags him out to a bar, he’s honestly perhaps for the first time ever reluctant to go. More so because it’s fucking summer and is blazing hot and he feels like he looks like a douchebag wearing a jacket over top his tee. The alternatives are looking like a crazy person for wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer, or putting the non-bio arm on full display. They thankfully get a table in a back corner and Jim at least gets to see Bones’ displeased expression and know that his friend hasn’t intentionally set him up before Chekov of all people appears and is followed rather quickly by most of the Alpha shift bridge crew. Spock looks slightly uncertain if they should be intruding and the others easily force him into it regardless.
For the most part everyone is distracted enough having a good time that no one either notices or at least comments on Jim wearing a jacket. The issue is that with so many people now sharing the table it’s now somehow even warmer than it was before. Jim is sweltering in his jacket and honestly, it’s starting to make him more anxious than the thought of exposing his arm like he’d need to. He excuses himself from the table to some complaints and a suspicious look from Bones that he manages to put at ease by promising to be right back. He helps himself to using the washroom and then slips out the back door and into the slightly cooler now nighttime air. He rubs a hand over his face and pulls it away to be met by the mechanical construction that was part of him. He really didn’t want to give up the comfort of having passed as normal for the past ten years, but, was he really so vain that he cared so much about it. He didn’t want to answer questions about it. But, did he really not trust his crew so much that he needed to hide it from them. Clearly he’d more than proven that it wasn’t a weakness. He unzips his jacket and shrugs it off with a relieved sigh and pauses before looking down at his arm. And it is, it’s his arm, hell, he’d lived without a dermal from the time they first amputated to when he’d been given a more permanent prosthesis. He moves down the joints and watches the visible ‘muscle’ reaction before looking up at the seemingly starless sky and jacket in hand, turning to go back inside.
Bones frowns slightly at him and he gives a slight shrug and retakes his seat without saying anything. He catches a quick searching look from Spock but turns away in favor of taking a sip of his drink. The conversation is clearly not in the manner of wanting to be derailed. He Uhura, predictably, is the next person he catches, only unlike Bones or Spock, she’s staring at his arm, and not his face. He shifts slightly and her gaze jumps up to his before he looks away and takes a long pull from his drink. Which, is when Scotty of all people finds them and the group overall cheers but
Scotty smiles as he scans the group and then lights up like he’s just been given an early Christmas gift and inserts himself next to Jim and eagerly reaches towards but thankfully doesn’t touch Jim’s arm spouting off a near incomprehensible spiel about the model of arm Jim has and he can’t help it, he laughs.
“Hands to yourself Scotty, I don’t need you plotting to dissect me.”
“Ah, but sir,” Jim grins and shakes his head and turns to ask Bones if they can just give the engineer the broken one when he realizes that his crew have all stopped socializing and are looking at him, or rather, his arm, looking a bit lost.
“They, there was no word that you were injured fighting Khan.” Sulu says, quite tactfully and Jim blinks and takes a moment before nodding.
“I, wasn’t really, been a rough couple weeks on my arm though, had to replace my, uh, arm.” Oddly enough, everyone seems to relax at the statement. Chekov starts going on about how modern prosthetics were invented in Russia and overall conversation strikes up. Scotty pokes his arm and he scowls and jerks it away from the man. “Seriously Scotty. Bones can we give him the old one or something so he doesn’t try stealing my limbs?”
“I suppose, it might be good to have someone onboard with some knowledge about the mechanical workings of them.” Bones says thoughtfully and Jim rolls his eyes and gives Scotty a smile.
“Right, no touching the tech when there’s nothing wrong with it though. Work for you Scotty?”
“Ay sir, I can work with that.”