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Of all the dozens of ways Len had figured Jim could earn the respect of his infant crew, he had to admit that reading glasses was not on the list.Science was on it, because Jim had always had a thorough understanding of astrophysics and warp engines and everything else, the kid was a fucking overachiever and didn't mind showing it off. Diplomacy was on it, because Jim was slipperier than a wet cat on a Sunday when he wanted to be. Idiotic feats of derring-do, like jumping from a shuttle craft, with no parachute, onto a pinhead, (so he had had a parachute, fine, but it’s not like it wasn’t in the realm of possible things Jim would do) but that was just called Monday on this tin bucket of death.So no, if he had had to guess what would make the crew of the Enterprise start trusting Jim Kirk completely, implicitly, glasses would not have been on the list.Of course, there was something undeniably reassuring about having someone smile at you over a pair of thick black frames, slightly crooked and hair messy from running fidgety hands through and bangs falling over stupid blue eyes and - yeah. He could see why.But still. This was getting ridiculous. It all started with first contact. Len tried to keep the grumbling to a minimum, he really did, but when they landed with shit like this, what the fuck was he supposed to do, start singing church hymns and pray??If there was a G-d out there, Len was 90% sure the woman kept throwing these things at them just to see how they would wiggle out of them. Because somehow, with a bit of wiggling, they always got out of them.So there was first contact, and then a rival government decided they wanted first contact, despite reports saying there was only one centralized government, and then it turns out this “rival government” was just a group of xenophobic asshats who want to torture them for information (how fucking original of them) and then Jim is getting tossed back into their cell with a badly bandaged hand and blinking rapidly.Len is getting very tired of having to fix what careless strangers break for no damn reason. (And isn't that just a perfect description of his entire life). But to be fair, this really hadn't been Jim’s fault. Actually, to be fair, it almost never was. Just don’t tell him that. The random-ensign-of-the-week who was unfortunate enough to get assigned this mission was shivering in the corner, Lt. Uhura sitting next to them and reassuring them that yes, the captain was a self sacrificing idiot who threw himself into danger for everyone, it's not your fault and it's not your inexperience, he would offer to take anyone's place.Len thanked whatever lucky star he had that Nurse Latif was keeping it together. He was far too busy worrying over Jim to be of any use at calming someone down.And this is when Jim gets dumped back into the holding cell, but he barely had time to check over his vital signs (all functionally ok) before Spock and Sulu come blazing in with far more fanfare then necessary.It isn't till they're back in sickbay that he notices that Jim keeps blinking. In fact, he hasn't stopped. Little known fact about Jim Kirk. He needs glasses but prefers to wear lenses, and it isn't for the reason you think.As far as Len can tell it's less about vanity and more about “what if something happens and my glasses break and I'm useless and a liability and get people hurt??” But that's an entire garden plot of worms they don't have to dig up right now, so let's go with practicality. That always sounds good. But more important for the present situation is that Jim literally hasn't stopped blinking since he was shoved back into the dusty holding cell and Len is pretty worried about that. Turns out these terrorists were slightly more competent than they thought and had used some kind of light based torture that had left severe, thankfully repairable, damage to Jims eyes. “What does this mean?” Jim asked, frowning at a spot over Lens shoulder because they'd had to peel his semi-permanent lenses out of his eyes and pray they hadn't torn and left bits behind.They hadn't, thank fuck. That would have been fun, and by fun he means awful.So Jim, while trying to maintain his captain-y demeanor, was staring at a lot of empty sensor-walls and not-nurses.He tried to ignore how endearing it was.“It means you'll be sensitive to really bright lights, be careful with the settings on the padds you write and read reports on. No video games or flashing lights -““Damn I was looking forward to that new club on B deck,” Jim interrupted sarcastically,“- And you'll need to wear glasses for a few weeks.” Len continued, trying not to snicker at his snarky interjections and ignoring the three page journey Jim’s bruised face went through with his last instructions. “Glasses” he said flatly. “Yep.” Len didn't like the look in his eyes. It was directed slightly to the left of him, yeah, but the tightly controlled tone said more then Jim ever would.“We’re due for a star mapping mission, by the time we get any of your so called “exciting” jobs, you should be back to being all vain and proper about your pretty blue eyes”“Aww you think my eyes are pretty?” Jim bounced back like he always did, pretending the idea of glasses didn’t scare him, because he might become a liability, might slow someone down, might become a burden .Which was several shades of messed up but far be it from him to psychoanalyze his best friend.As far as he could tell Jim had once one worn his semi-lenses for a month straight and almost ruined his eyesight permanently. But that had been during extenuating circumstances and Jim had sworn up and down he'd never even thought about trying it again Len believed him. But those extenuating circumstances are the reason behind quite a few of Jim’s bad habits, his hatred of being forced to wear glasses not the least or most concerning of them. Maybe this could be a good thing. Exposure therapy was still a tried and true method after all.Jim had hopped off the bio bed while he entered the last of the information and was fidgeting around with the empty hypo Len had given him to hold. He'd learned early on that if he gave Jim useless things to hold onto he wouldn’t accidentally take apart something important. How someone accidentally took apart a tricorder he still wasn’t entirely sure.“If that's all, then Bones..?” Len ran a careful eye over Jim, not even a scar left to remind them about the two or so hours where he’d been strapped into a chair and screaming.Or maybe not. Len is pretty sure Jim wouldn't have given those assholes the satisfaction of hearing him scream. “That’s all Jim, just remember what I told you and we’ll reassess in a week. The more careful you are, the sooner you can go back to the lenses, at least while your on duty” Jim was already bouncing before he’d finished, no doubt eager to get back to his quarters and go through the reports everyone had already filed. He'd never met someone so enamoured of his job that they even loved the paperwork. Not that that made him whine about it any less.“Captains always on duty!” Jim chirped, clapping a hand on Len’s shoulder and brushing by him.He sighed, realizing they’d forgotten one crucial detail. “Jim wait a minute. I’ll walk you to your quarters.” Jim blinked at him, the little crease between his eyebrows getting deeper. “Bones, I’m fine, you just said so.” Len tossed the padd back on biobed, his report would upload without him babysitting it.“You may be fine, but you’re still not wearing your glasses, and you were about to walk into that biobed.”Jim flushed a deep red, rubbing the back of his head.“Yeah, as entertaining as it might be, the crew probably doesn't need to see the captain apologize to every pole he knocks into”Jim spluttered as Len took his elbow, gently dragging him in the correct direction “There aren’t any poles on the ship Bones, that doesn't even make sense!” Yeah well nothing on this ship ever made sense. Not that he was gonna tell Jim that, drawing his hand through his arm and resolutely ignoring the cooing coming from his nurses. Apparently he’d made a severe miscalculation with his diagnosis, because having been exposed to Jim-in-glasses before, he was, on some small level, prepared to deal with the fact that when asking the question “Can Jim Kirk Be More Attractive?” The answer is, “yes”, and also, “yes, and paradoxically enough it requires the ugliest black plastic frames known to man-and-other kind”.The crew was not so lucky. He wouldn’t be shocked if the amount of ensigns reporting to sickbay for door jam bruises shot up in the next few weeks. How they kept walking into automatic doors was beyond him.They'd met for breakfast like they usually did, and while Jim was telling him how he'd planned his day with the usual accompaniment of his ever expressive hands, waving and weaving and doing all manner of things over his uneaten omelet, pausing every now and then to push those glasses up, Len was too busy watching everyone else, watching them. Or more specifically, watching Jim.It was far too amusing, he decided. He'd need to point this out to Uhura just to have someone else to laugh with.There was the Andorian Lt. over by the replicators, who hadn't even noticed that their food had been ready for the last five minutes. Or the two ensigns behind him, who kept nudging each other and making weird squeaky noises he assumed had temporarily replaced their speech patterns.Or the table of security officers near the windows, trying and failing to be subtle. Which would explain why they always ended up in sickbay, honestly.And here was Nyota, approaching with a bowl of something that smelled truly fantastic and an iced coffee. Jim’s back was too her, and Len suddenly realized that she'd never seen Jim-in-glasses either. Which was...well this could go a number of ways.“I didn’t know you wear glasses, Jim.” Uhura sat down, and Leonard could pretend he wasn’t disappointed all he wanted, but couldn’t she at least give him a dramatic double take like the blue haired kid two tables down? Jim turned to face her, omelet once again forgotten, and gave her the full force of his good-morning smile.“Good morning Uhura! Glad to see your doing alright after yesterday's shit-show.” He pushed his glasses up, waving one hand in some general direction and wrinkling his nose. “The report you submitted was excellent, as always, how’s Ensign Carts doing? I take it he’s alright?” Somehow, the concerned puppy eyes Jim gave anyone when asking about his crews well being seemed even larger behind the slightly smudged glass of his thick frames, and Uhura was clearly not prepared for the sheer power a concerned -Jim-in-glasses wielded. Power he was wholly unaware of. This was going to be great, Len cackled silently.Uhura blinked at Jim. Once, twice, and then slid her eyes over to Leonard, narrowing them slightly as she took in his expression of unconcealed amusement. She smirked, giving him a tiny, almost unnoticeable nod before turning back to Jim, assuring him that she was fine, and that Ensign Carts had made a full recovery. They probably wouldn't be requesting any away missions in the near future though. “Fantastic! “ Jim said, making sure Uhura started her own breakfast before finally turning back to his own omelet and taking a bite. “The Admirals want a complete report, they said they’ll contact us at around 10:00. I hope that won’t interfere with any of the tests you planned today.”“The Admirals will be calling?” Len interrupted, eyeing Uhura and the dawning realization on her face as she looked around the very distracted mess.“Yeah. Pike should be there, if you wanna stop by.” Jim was oblivious, somehow , still, and Len was going to have so much fun with this, he just knew it.Uhura giggled, a lieutenant to the right of their table missing his face with his fork for the third time in a row when Jim smiled, and Len smirked back at him. “You know what? I just might.” When Leonard strolled onto the bridge later in the morning, the first thing he noticed was Nyota, almost vibrating out of her seat and frequently hiding her smirk behind a raised hand. Lucky for her everyone was far too distracted to notice. Spock might have, if he wasn’t staring at Jim a little too intently, eyebrows practically drawn into a V shape.Nyota looked at him from over Spock's shoulder, and abruptly turned her seat back to face her console when their eyes met and he wiggled his eyebrows. Her shoulders shook, and Len decided to let her recover in peace while he checked out the rest of the bridge, all of whom seemed to be paying an odd amount of attention to the fairly standard meeting. The Admirals, for their part, were concentrating very hard. Too hard. And fidgeting. And glancing at their notes and then back at Jim and then suddenly back at their notes. Pike was the only listening properly and asking intelligent questions, instead of, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” over and over.Len leaned back against one of the consoles, noticing that the crew member seated behind it slid their seat slightly to the right. His view was once again clear, and Len was continuously amused by how unsubtle everyone had become.Jim was explaining something, using a lot of big words and hand waving and normally the Admirals expected him to hand over technical explanations to Spock, but apparently they believed glasses instantly added +5 to intelligence. Idiots. “Captain Kirk, is everything all right?” Admiral Cartway interrupted. Jim paused, head tilted and glasses sliding down his nose.“Yes? Is there a problem Admirals?” His eyebrows crinkled, “I’m sorry, did I forget to specify? No one suffered any major injuries during the mission, everything has already been healed or is in the process of being healed.”Len snorted, figures the kid had downplayed an hour or so of intense light-based torture. If it had been any other crewmember Jim would be demanding he get a medal. But since it was Jim, it was something to be brushed off and ignored. “Well,” the Admiral blustered, flushing past zher whiskers, “You have, it’s just, you see...Glasses.” Zhe finished lamely, curling zher ears inward and fidgeting. Pike finally looked away from the Enterprise bridge and glanced over his colleagues. He then looked back at Jim, and the Admirals, and at the bridge crew. Biting his lip he leaned forward, clearly trying very hard not to laugh. “Captain Kirk has always had glasses, Antha. I suspect he downplayed the damage done to his eyes, since that must be why he’s not wearing his semi-lenses today.” Admiral Cartway made a small purr of agreement, still flushed a lovely peach.Clearly seconds away from losing it completely, Pike turned back to face them with a wide grin. “Captain Kirk, thank you for the detailed reports. If there is anything else we need to know we’ll contact you.” He cut the connection, but not before the entire bridge saw him break out in uncontrollable giggles, gasping for breath.“What the hell was that?” Jim asked no one in particular, but everyone on the bridge was suddenly very busy with their consoles. Lunch the next day was entertaining. For Len, at least. Everyone else was too busy whining over how hard it was to concentrate now. “It does not even make sense!” Chekov muttered into his oatmeal. “How is he more attractive with glasses on?” Sulu shrugged, grabbing a blueberry out of Chekhov's bowl and ignoring his angry glare.“I don't know. Pavlovian maybe? Like, associating glasses with intelligence?” Uhura raised an eyebrow. “And intelligence with attractiveness? Didn't know you leaned that way ‘Karu.” Sulu shrugged again, grabbing another blueberry. He wiggled his eyebrows at her, smirking over Chekhov's exasperated protests, whispering something about vulcans and glasses and Uhura flushed, just a little. Len loved her, he really did, but there were just some things he didn’t need to know.“Admit it, everyone loves a smart-hot guy” the table nodded, one by one, some more reluctant than others. “and even more when they don’t notice it, like, at all.” Len couldn't help snickering at that, because it was true. Jim could be more oblivious then a dog chasing a stick sometimes.“It still isn't fair how pretty he looks” Chekov said, not noticing Sulu sneaking more fruit from his bowl.“I agree.” Jim dropped his tray onto the table, swinging his legs over the bench. Len took a long moment to enjoy the shame, greif, and slow horror cycling over everyone's faces, excepting Uhura's calm indifference, and turned back to see Jim taking a bite out of his quesadilla “that nebula we’ve parked at is just, unfairly gorgeous, I feel like I'll never see something as beautiful again.” He noticed everyone's incredulous, blank stares, chewing on.“What,” he swallowed, glancing up through his glasses, long dark lashes pressed up against the glass and eyes wide and blue.”Was it something I said?” Hendorff's head hit the table with a soft curse. In the end it was about three weeks, three weeks of watching ensigns walk into doors, and department heads personally delivering reports and then staying to talk them over with the captain, trailing off mid sentence when Jim would lick his lips and push his glasses up, or stick his hands in his pockets and lean forward, looking at you like you were the most interesting thing in the room. Three weeks of the whole ship walking around dazed and confused, and as much as he enjoyed it all, Len can’t say he’d miss any of it. Although it was definitely nice,having the crew ask stupid questions just to talk to the captain and then realizing that Captain Kirk actually knew what he was saying. There was a special, vindictive sort of joy Len took in watching people realize that Jim not only read all their reports, he understood them, and remembered them, and could help them solve technical problems just as well as he could give inspiring monologues. Better, in fact.Just ask anyone (see: ensign no name, recent away mission, sadistic terrorists). The captain would sooner throw himself in front of his crew like an old martyr then see someone get hurt under his watch.Not that Len thought this was necessarily a bad thing. It was simply a truth universally acknowledged, like the birds and the bees, single men in want of partners, and that captains are willing to die for their crew.Who was he kidding he hated it. But at the very least, now the rest of the crew had acknowledged it, and were in the process of realizing how much they hated it too.But here’s the odd thing about the crew. For the first time they were realizing that it didn’t have to be a life challenging situation for the captain to help them. Something about seeing Jim in his dorky old frames had made the switch flip from Captain Awesome to Captain Approachable, and Len could honestly say he’d never seen Jim more content. He liked fielding impossible questions from twitchy ensigns, about weird math and not-quite-magical science, and engineering, (which was just weird as a general rule). He genuinely enjoyed it when his crew took the time to approach with problems that they had run up against, and he’d been trying for months to get around the necessary stiffness, the divide in the chain of command, that kept them from doing so.Leonard had never thought glasses would do the trick, yet here they are. Jim making stupid dad jokes and acting like his usual dorky self and pushing his glasses up his nose, his crew looking at him with stars in their eyes and completely enamored of the dorky-wisecracking-wide-eyed captain. If he’d known glasses was all it would take, he would’ve tried hiding Jim’s lenses months ago. At breakfast the next day, an ensign slowly approached their table, Jim once again not noticing and waving his hands around like he was some kind of ringmaster. Although a circus was a fair description of the Enterprise on any given day.“Captain Kirk?” The ensign almost looked disappointed about something. Jim paused, face lighting up like a nova star “Ensign Sh’ohr! What can I do for you today?” Len wasn't shocked that he knew the kids name. The ensign appeared to be though, and he seemed a little overwhelmed with the idea of having the captains full attention directed at him.“We ran into a problem at the astrometrics lab and Ensign Rolain mentioned that you had made a few suggestions...” the kid (was the crew somehow getting younger?) handed over a padd, eyeing Leonard and fidgeting.Jim scrolled through a mathematics heavy document, something Len couldn't make heads or tails of upside down, and muttering to himself while making a few marks with a stylus. “Sir if I may” the ensign blurted out. Jim looked up and smiled, soft and encouraging and as approachable as ever, glasses or no. “What happened to your glasses sir?” Jim blinked, and Len had to concentrate very, very hard not to burst into hysterical laughter.“Oh those? I only had to wear them for a few weeks due to an optical injury. I’m fine now.” The ensign somehow looked both delighted and incredibly disappointed. “I’m glad you’re alright sir. I suppose you won't be wearing them again anytime soon.” Another blink, and the crease between his eyes deepened. Len figured if he’d worn those glasses for another two weeks he probably would have eventually figured it out. In a way he's glad Jim never did.“Nope, probably not. Here, try these adjustments.” He handed over the padd to Sh’ohr, who was clearly trying to keep the disappointment at bay, and turned back to face his food. “That was weird” he commented, poking himself in the eye when he tried to push up the glasses he was no longer wearing.“You have no idea.” Len muttered into his coffee cup. "You really don't."