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It was two days before Steve got the chance to speak to Coulson alone. But finally, late one night – or at least, when the sky outside the Bus was dark; weeks of living on the Quinjet had shot Steve’s time sense to hell – he caught up with Coulson in his office.
It seemed like the best place to talk. The office was soundproof, and Steve thought - actually, Steve rather hoped – that there was going to be quite a lot of shouting.
Coulson had his door propped open; he usually did when he was in his office. He looked up from his laptop when Steve knocked. “Captain Rogers,” he said, and closed his laptop. “Please come in. Sit down.”
Steve closed the door behind him. Coulson stood up, moving to the corner to refill his coffee cup. “Would you like some?” he asked.
“No,” Steve said. He didn’t sit either. Coulson set the coffee pot back on the hob. “Coulson, I need to talk to you.”
Coulson turned to Steve, leaning his back against the counter and sipping his coffee – he made a little face, as if it had been brewing too long – and said, “Before we get started, I wanted to apologize for my behavior in Stark Tower. It was inappropriate and unprofessional.”
That took the wind out of Steve’s sails. He sat down. “I’m not the one you owe an apology to,” he pointed out.
Coulson sipped his coffee. “I’ve already apologized to Agent Barnes.”
“Really? When?”
Steve must have sounded as skeptical as he felt, because Coulson’s voice was very dry. “Privately,” he said. “I don’t think he would have appreciated a public apology.”
No. Bucky would have been humiliated and furious.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee?”
“No thanks,” Steve repeated. Coulson finally came back to the desk and sat again, positioning his own coffee neatly on a coaster. “What I don’t understand,” Steve said, “is why – after everything he’s been through – you decided that the best course of action would be to confront him while he was taking a bath. God, Coulson, why – ?”
“I intended to confront him as soon as I found him,” Coulson said. “I didn’t expect that I would find him in a bathtub.”
“And when you did, you didn’t think, ‘Oh, maybe I should give him a minute to dry off and put some clothes on’?”
“The point was to catch him off guard.”
“But why? What did you think that was going to accomplish?”
“The last two times, when he hit Hunter and May, we ended up going around and around in circles. I wanted to have an honest conversation with him.”
“But that’s not how you get Bucky to be honest with you! If he feels trapped he gets angry and defensive and he’ll say whatever comes into his head to get you off his back. If you want him to be honest, he needs to feel safe and have plenty of time to think.”
“To craft his story so you’ll buy it hook, line, and sinker?”
Steve struggled to remain calm. “He also needs to know that there’s a good chance he’ll be believed if he tells the truth,” he said. Coulson crossed his arms, and Steve lost his struggle with his temper. “If you think that badly of him, Coulson, then why don’t you think he was telling the truth about Hunter and May? He hit them because he wanted to and he’s not sorry, isn’t that what you’d expect him to say?”
“I think Agent Barnes has many fine qualities. He’s brave, clever, excessively loyal to you, and phenomenally calm under fire. But he’s also a liar.”
“He’s not – ” Steve began; but he cut himself off as soon as his brain caught up with his mouth.
“He spent months feeding Dr. Charles an absolute fabrication about his terrible childhood, complete with crocodile tears,” said Coulson. “You suggested we should cut off the sessions. You said, if I recall, that Agent Barnes thought the whole thing was hilarious.”
“That was over a year ago,” Steve protested.
“He sometimes tells the truth, and sometimes it’s nothing but the truth, but do you really think he’s told you the whole truth even once since he came in from the cold?” Coulson pressed.
Steve’s limbs felt leaden. “You still think he’s Hydra.”
“He doesn’t have to be Hydra to be untrustworthy, Captain Rogers.”
“That’s not an answer,” Steve replied. “Do you think he’s Hydra?”
“No,” Coulson said. “I think he’s loyal to himself and to you and he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else.”
Coulson rarely swore. It startled Steve out of his defensiveness enough that he at least considered Coulson’s words. “I don’t think that’s true,” Steve said finally. “He likes Natasha and – ” Sam, he almost said, but Sam and Bucky really didn’t have a relationship. They had a one-sided, on-going interrogation about Sam’s wings. “And Skye and Simmons and Mack.”
“All right,” Coulson said. “He doesn’t give a fuck about SHIELD.”
“Coulson, he risks his life for you weekly. What more do you want?”
“He’s been risking his life for us almost since we let him out of his cell,” said Coulson. “And you also had reservations about his trustworthiness right up until he concussed you.”
“Are you suggesting that I trust him because of brain damage?”
“No,” said Coulson. “I’m saying that you got a concussion, spent the next three months more or less uninterrupted in his company, and by the end of it he’d converted you to his version of reality.”
“Coulson, all that happened is that he persuaded me that his paranoia wasn’t actually delusional,” Steve said. “You bugged our apartment. Jesus Christ, Coulson, you bugged our apartment.”
“Director Fury bugged your apartment, too,” Coulson pointed out.
“And that worked out so well for him! That’s probably how Hydra figured out he was there! They were searching for any sign of him, and bam, there’s his voice on the bugs in Captain America’s apartment. For God’s sake, Coulson, don’t emulate Nick Fury. He was a terrible director,” Steve shot back.
Coulson’s coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth. He appeared shocked speechless. Steve was pretty surprised himself.
“As a field agent and as a human being I have nothing but respect for him,” Steve said, both because it was true and because he needed to stall a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “But – as the director of SHIELD his job was to protect the planet. Instead SHIELD became an incubator for one of the greatest threats to global security. If Fury weren’t so addicted to secrecy and compartmentalization, Hydra never could have gotten as far as they did. And obviously that’s not entirely his fault: he was building on the foundation set by Howard Stark – ” Steve had to pause and swallow before he went on – “and Peggy Carter.”
He had to say it: it was true. At least it couldn’t hurt her now. Even on her good days, she barely remembered SHIELD existed. She only recognized Steve about half the time. He had to swallow again before he could continue.
“They founded SHIELD to protect people,” Steve said. “It’s a good ideal, and I know we both believe in it. That’s why we both joined SHIELD. Twice.” He gave a little smile, glancing at Coulson to see how he was taking this. Coulson was listening, silent and thoughtful. “But the methods SHIELD used the first time around made us into a threat rather than a protective force. If we want to live up to that ideal, we have to try new tactics.”
For a moment, Steve thought he had Coulson hooked. Coulson had set down his coffee cup, and for once his imperturbable affability was gone: his expression was frowning, thoughtful, urgent, and for a moment Steve could see why Coulson’s team would happily follow him anywhere.
Then Coulson said mildly, “Gunning for my job, Captain Rogers?”
The bottom dropped out of Steve’s stomach. “No, sir. I would be terrible at every part of your job.”
The intensity had disappeared from Coulson’s face. He gave the impression of infinite serene patience beneath that affable almost-smile. “You have the speech-making part down cold.”
“That’s a very small part of your job,” Steve replied. He felt horribly uncomfortable; it was an effort not to squirm in his chair like a schoolboy sent to the principal’s office. Was Coulson genuinely concerned that Steve wanted his job? Steve could think of few jobs that he wanted less or would do more poorly. “All I want is to point out is that if Bucky doesn’t trust SHIELD, it’s partly because SHIELD isn’t trustworthy. I know you think I’ve lost all objectivity about Bucky, but – ”
“Captain Rogers, you never had any objectivity about Agent Barnes in the first place. It’s your objectivity about everything else that I’m concerned about.”
Steve gaped. Coulson took another sip of his coffee, considering Steve over the rim of his plain white mug. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked at last.
Coulson set the mug down. “I told you that I brought you on the Bus because we needed your help to attack the Hydra supersoldier labs,” he said. “And that’s true. But you’re also here because I wanted to observe your behavior firsthand.”
“Why?”
“I was concerned,” said Coulson, “and observation has only strengthened this concern – that you’re growing increasingly unstable.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not sleeping well. You have nightmares – ”
“How do you know?” Could the bugs read his heart rate, like JARVIS could?
“You get,” Coulson said, “rather loud.”
A tidal wave of heat rushed over Steve’s face. “Oh,” he said, and barely managed not to drop his gaze to his feet. It fell, instead, on a millefiori paperweight sitting next to Coulson’s coffee cup. The paperweight was intensely blue. “I hadn’t… realized.”
“You’re losing weight and muscle mass because you don’t eat enough.” True. “You avoid the rest of the team.”
“I don’t – ”
“You’re increasingly short-tempered,” continued Coulson, unperturbed. “Leaving aside your assault on a superior officer – ”
“When did I – ?”
Coulson unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve to show the bruises on his forearm, left by Steve’s hand when Steve dragged him out of the bathroom. Steve felt light-headed and sick.
Coulson didn’t roll down his sleeve again. “You’ve grown less and less capable of conducting a discussion without growing angry. Do you know how many times you’ve snapped at me in the last ten minutes?” Steve couldn’t look away from the bruise. “We’re on the same side, Captain Rogers. We both want to defeat Hydra. We both want Agent Barnes to continue as a member of SHIELD. I’m just concerned that you’ve spent so much time around him that his paranoia has infected you.”
“Again,” said Steve. “It’s not paranoid to believe you’re watching us when you are, in fact, watching our every move.”
“I’m not watching your every move,” Coulson replied patiently. “It took me hours to find you and Agent Barnes in New York, and I might not have managed it if you hadn’t walked right into Stark Tower.”
Great. The Bus must have some kind of link to JARVIS.
Coulson picked up his coffee cup, attempted to take a sip, and put it down again. Empty. Steve finally managed to transfer his gaze from Coulson’s bruised arm to the paperweight. Blue, blue, blue.
“I don’t think any of us realized how stressful you would find looking after Agent Barnes,” Coulson said. “I’m concerned that it’s put a strain on your mental health. Perhaps I made a mistake by not separating you after he concussed you.”
“It would have been terrible for Bucky,” Steve said. He remembered Bucky crying for half the night. He could not imagine what damage that would have done without Steve there to comfort him.
“But this has been pretty terrible for you,” Coulson replied.
“I,” said Steve. “Really, Coulson, I’m fine.”
There was another long silence. Steve lifted his gaze from the paperweight to look into Coulson’s eyes. “I’m fine,” he said again. “I’ll eat more. I’ll find some sleeping exercises or something.” He paused. Coulson waited. Steve licked his lips. “And I’m sorry about your arm.”
He really was sorry about Coulson’s arm. He hadn’t meant to hurt him.
“All right,” said Coulson. “Is there anything else?”
But the apology tasted like defeat.
“No,” Steve said.
“All right,” said Coulson. “We’re landing in Germany in about two hours. Try to get some sleep.”