Jim doesn't notice what Verity's up to, but even if he was, he probably wouldn't attach too much significance to it. Instead, of course, he's focused on trying to figure out what exactly Samus is expecting of him. So far, it's not making a lot of sense to him. Understandably, Starfleet tends to focus more on diplomacy and reconciliation than getting the upper hand psychologically, and before he enlisted, he was far more inclined to not give a fuck what other people thought about him, so his training and experience in this area is a little lacking, to say the least.

"I don't see how me pretending to be the reckless asshole they expect is going to help at all," he says with a frown. Again, not discounting it, but so far he's having trouble connecting the particular dots she's interested in.