Chapter Text
The Avengers had salvaged a whole row of cryo chambers from the latest Hydra compound they had dismantled. Five of them were very clearly made for human inhabitants, though they had – fucking thankfully – been empty. The sixth was very much not empty, and also very much not intended for a human. It was about ten feet by eight feet, reached Tony almost to chest level, and it had taken quite some work to get it out of the compound and into the Tower, but here it was now, slowly being thawed out.
All Tony's scans had indicated that it held something biological, but the chamber's lining was throwing the readings off too much to tell what kind of creature was in there, so the chamber was securely locked inside an old, Hulk-proof cell, too. Couldn't have whatever was in there run rampant the moment it woke back up.
At least, that was the plan.
Of course, things rapidly went to shit once the thing in cryo ventured out into the world.
Tony woke up after about two hours worth of exhausted sleep, at 3.30 am, when JARVIS sounded an alarm for the level where the chamber was kept. He startled with a yelp, bleary and confused, and ungracefully flailed free of the covers, almost rolling out of bed.
”Whassat?”
”The creature has woken up, left the cryo chamber, and escaped from the cell.”
Suddenly, Tony was very awake. ”What?! Why didn't you alert me sooner?”
”The escape happend in about 16.5 seconds, sir. There was nothing you could have done.”
”Sixteen point...? How did it...? Show me!”
A screen blinked to life in front of him, projected on the bedroom wall, large enough to show in clear detail how the hatch on top of the cryo chamber was effortlessly pushed open from the inside. Something dark was visible in the slim opening, as whatever it was apparently examined its surroundings for a little while. Then the hatch was pushed all the way open, slamming to the side as some sort of huge, dark gray... blob slithered out, across the floor, and then up the wall. It headed straight for the covering of the ventilation, what looked like tentacles slipped into the cracks around it, tugged it free, and bared the steel grating behind. Those bars were only about two inches apart, but that apparently made no difference to the creature, because its tentacles immediately slipped through the bars, quickly followed by the rest of its body, which actually looked like mostly tentacles now, and seemed almost liquid as it slipped through, into the ventilation, and was gone.
”What the fuck was that?” Tony stared at the recording of the now empty cell. ”Shit. Where is it now?”
”Unfortunately I can't tell”, JARVIS informed him. ”It seems it wasn't the chamber that was keeping me from scanning it, but some property of the creature itself. So far it hasn't shown up on any surveillance cameras, so we must assume it is still in the vents, unless it has managed to leave the Tower entirely.”
And fuck, wouldn't that be just the icing on this mess of a cake?
”Okay, alert the team, we need to find it. ASAP.”
Not surprisingly, they didn't find it.
Including the penthouse and the vast basement level beneath, the Tower was 96 floors. The ventilation and other pipes connecting all of it was a sprawling, almost endlessly large system that had no visual surveillance, and even after Tony sent a small host of drones into the vents, pinpointing the creature's location turned out to be impossible.
At least three of the drones did run into it, though, sending back confusing images of dark gray flurries of motion before they were squashed like bugs. So it was still in the Tower. Which was good. But there was no way of knowing where it was. Which was terribly bad.
Still on high alert, they finally had to admit temporary defeat, and retreat for some food and rest.
Tony had been asleep for an impressive five hours this time, when he was woken up by JARVIS again. Only now, it wasn't with an urgent alarm, but a soft, careful verbal prodding.
”Sir? I believe it would be wise to wake up right now.”
Tony blinked into the darkness of his room. ”What's wrong?”
”The creature has left the ventilation system.”
That sounded ominous. Tony swallowed. ”And?”
JARVIS hesitated a moment. ”And it is currently hidden under your bed, sir.”
Tony felt himself give a hitching gasp, tensing up under the covers.
”I would advise against sudden sounds or movements”, JARVIS continued, sounding thoroughly unhappy with the situation and his own advice. ”I will alert the Avengers.”
”Yeah”, Tony murmured, as his fingers clenched around his sheet, ”that sounds like a good idea. Do that. I'll just... stay right here.”
A heavy, tense silence fell over the bedroom. Alone, stiff as a board, Tony stared into the dark, not able to do anything but wait. He could call the suit, but it wouldn't get there faster than the team. And he was pretty sure it counted as a 'sudden movement' anyway. Considering how quickly the creature was able to get around, Tony had to agree with JARVIS that it probably wasn't a good idea.
Just a moment later, though, he was seriously reconsidering this decision. Because that's when he felt something move into the bed. He tensed up so hard it hurt as he felt the covers shift a bit, heard the faint sound of something sliding across the sheets, and then there it came. The soft, barely there, strangely hesitant touch of what had to be one of the creature's tentacles against his ankle. His heart was beating frantically, erratically, as the tentacle slid over the soft, hairless skin just at the knobbly bones where leg turned to foot.
The tentacle was surprisingly smooth. Tony had expected something cold and slimy, but it was about the same temperature as his own skin, just a little bit cooler, and felt satiny-soft, nearly no friction at all as it was sliding across his foot, slowly wrapping itself all around it, experimentally stroking his lower leg.
It tickled at the hairs there, which made Tony's leg give a tiny, reflexive twitch, against his will. The little jerking motion made the tentacle tense up around his foot, and for a moment Tony imagined it squeezing down, crushing every delicate little bone in there, and he couldn't breathe this was how he'd die but... it never happened. The tentacle just froze for a few seconds, and then it retracted, let go, slipped out from between the sheets in a much faster movement than it had slipper in under them, and was gone.
A faint, slithering noise made Tony certain that the creature had left its hiding place under the bed, and the room as well, but he still stayed put, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow down, until the team came to help.
Though their 'help' ended up meaning they checked under his bed, like the parents of a scared, too-imaginative kid, found nothing, and Steve having to actually support Tony as he got out of bed because his legs were like jelly after the rush of adrenaline. When he told them the direction he'd heard the creature slither off, they could see that it had gotten back into a vent, and so there was no use looking for it in Tony's rooms.
Steve decided he and his shield were still spending the rest of the night out on Tony's couch, and Tony was too shaken up to object, so he just wobbled into the bathroom before trying for some more sleep.
At least there were no marks on his ankle. That was something to be relieved about.
The hunt for the creature in the vents remained unsuccessful, and Tony couldn't even feel surprised when JARVIS woke him up again two days later, and it was back to hiding under his bed.
But this time, he didn't let JARVIS call the team.
”I want to see what it does”, he murmured into his pillow, where he was sprawled out on his front.
He could practically hear the dubious disapproval in the silence that followed, but Tony didn't care.
Hunting the thing had been a complete fail so far. Perhaps finding out what it wanted would be a better way to go about it.
It wasn't long before the carefully exploring tentacle was back in his bed. This time it felt for Tony's foot again, but it didn't wrap around it. Instead it wound its way up along the outside of Tony's leg, sliding softly against the length of it until it reached the hem on the leg of his boxers. There it abruptly stopped, hisitantly explored the new texture it had encountered, and then patted its way up Tony's hip, to his waist, where it seemed to flatten out and widen, stroking Tony's skin, like it was happy to be back to that, after having the cloth between them.
Tony had to struggle to stay still, but he wasn't quite as stiff and terrified. A measure of curiosity and fascination had started to slip into the cracks of what had been solid horror before. Because it didn't feel like the creature was out to hurt him, at all. If anything, it seemed curious, too.
The exploring tentacle reached as high as the middle of Tony's back, rubbing gently between his shoulder blades when it felt the muscles there move as Tony shifted slightly in bed, unable to stay completely still. It didn't seem to startle, at least. But with one last long, languid stroke along the curve and dip of his spine on the way back down, the tentacle once more retreated, slipped out of his bed, and was gone.
After staying still for a while, making sure he was alone, Tony turned on the lights, and went into the bathroom. The mirror showed him what he'd already known it would - that his skin was dry, unmarked, and unbroken.
He told JARVIS to stand down, that there was no reason to involve the team, and got back into bed.
Tony still spent an hour staring up at the dark ceiling and thinking about his visitor. Why had the creature decided to come to him, of all people? What did it want from him? He frowned, rubbing a hand over his scarred sternum. By the feel of it, the creature just wanted to... touch him? That seemed weird, but so far it was all it had done, and very gently, at that. Tony couldn't even say anything but that it had felt, well, sort of nice?
He didn't have much in the way of touching in his own life, and some days he missed any skin on skin contact with a fierceness that made him want to break down in tears. So he couldn't really blame the creature, if it felt sort of the same.
Tony couldn't imagine that Hydra were big on hugs.
Maybe it was just... touch-starved?
After all, since escaping from cryo it had done absolutely nothing to wreak havoc and destruction on the Tower from the inside, even though it most certainly could have done massive damage by now. It hadn't even showed itself to anyone, much less gone on the attack. Tony was the only one it had laid a tentacle on, so far, and that didn't at all qualify as an attack, either.
Tony fell asleep certain that the creature wasn't an enemy. Though he still had no idea what it actually was, if that wasn't it.
They all found out the next day, when Bruce called for a team meeting. He had been busy working at Hydra's files, while the rest of them had been uselessly creature-hunting.
”Steve, you might want to sit down for this one”, Bruce started the meeting.
Steve frowned at him. ”What's going on?” He made no move to sit, even though the rest of the team were already seated around the conference table in the room where they usually met pre and post missions.
Bruce sighed, shrugged, and gave up. ”All right, there is no painless way to say this, so, here's the deal.” He still clasped and unclasped his hands a couple times on the table before he spoke up, all of them watching him warily. ”The creature we brought back, that's what was... or, is... or, what's left of...” He swallowed. ”Of James Barnes.”
Steve's face went so white Tony actually thought he was going to pass out. But then he took an unsteady side-step and finally sank down into a chair.
”Hydra found him after he fell from the train, and they tried to bring him back to life, but he was already gone.” Bruce spoke at a steady pace, probably trying to get it all over and done with. Drawing it out would just make it worse. ”They used stem cells, mixed his DNA up with anything they could find, and from what I can tell, they were trying to create an actual hydra, to fight for them. The specimen we found was the only one that survived.”
”Well”, Tony muttered, ”Close enough, considering their not-an-actual-hydra symbol.”
Natasha kicked his shin under the table.
”As we've seen, it's fast, strong, and can get in and out of anywhere. And it's smart enough to understand and follow orders. So they decided to add it to their roster of brain-washed assassins. The problem is just that... well.” Bruce gave an awkward shrug. ”It doesn't actually have a brain. As such. Or any organs, really. So whatever they were doing to their human test subjects, it didn't work with this creature. And whatever it's made up of, there was maybe enough of Barnes left in there that it decided that it wanted none of their orders, and proceded to make life hell for them, until they could get it into cryo by force.” He looked up from his hands and right at Cap. ”It's been in there almost as long as you were in the ocean, Steve.”
Running a shaking hand over his mouth, Steve nodded. His eyes were wide and wet. ”Why...” He had to clear his throat and try again. ”Why didn't he come find me?”
Why go to Tony and not me?, was no doubt the question he didn't ask.
Bruce had apparently also heard it, though, because he glanced at Tony before he answered. ”At this stage, without getting a chance at a closer examination, we can't know if there is anything more of Barnes in there, than a partial genetic match. It might not remember you. It might not remember it used to be human, even.” He looked at Tony again, and gestured vaguely in his direction. ”The theory I'm working with, is that since Tony's scent would have been the only one to pick up in the cell where it woke up, it searched Tony's rooms out via the vents.”
Tony blinked. ”You... uh... you're saying it... imprinted on me?”
A corner of Bruce's mouth actually ticked up a hint. ”In a way, yes. Your scent was the only familiar thing for it, so it went to find you.”
Tony wasn't sure what to think of that.
Steve's drawn face gave a clue that he wasn't a fan of the idea, though.
The creature that might once have been Bucky Barnes visited again the next night, under the cover of darkness once more.
This time, it was a bit more daring, and reached two tentacles up into Tony's bed. One explored his feet and legs, keeping the touches firm enough now that they didn't tickle unbearably. The other started at the waistline of his boxers and worked up along his back, to his shoulders. It stayed clear of the area covered by his boxers entirely. It really seemed to take issue with clothing.
Tony, spread out on his front again, stayed still and let it feel around as long as it wanted. Actually, he felt himself relax more and more as the minutes of tentative stroking and rubbing went on. It felt entirely non-threatening, and quite soothing, to be honest.
After a while, his legs were almost entirely wound up in soft, slowly undulating tentacle. Its tip was playing with his toes, poking between them and exploring their different sizes. The second tentacle carefully felt its way down his arm, caressed the sensitive skin at the interior bend of his elbow, stroked down his wrist. And then it curiously wriggled its way under the pads of Tony's fingers, which were relaxed and curved gently toward his palm.
He wasn't sure if it was a reflex, or his own curiosity, that made Tony slowly close his fingers around the tentacle in his hand, just as gently as it touched him. It felt even smoother against his fingertips, and it didn't feel like touching a human, or even like touching a snake, which would have been his first guess considering the shape. There didn't seem to be muscle beneath the silky skin, just something soft that yielded to his touch, far more malleable than flesh.
It froze up and tensed in his grip, just as it had when Tony's leg moved that first time, and he suspected that its next move would be to disengage.
”Hey”, Tony murmured, and felt the whole length of both tentacles go completely still against him. ”It's all right.” Bruce had said it was intelligent, so there was a chance it could understand him. Either way, Tony tried to keep his voice steady, soothing. ”You don't have to leave. You can stay. I don't mind at all.”
As he said it, Tony realized it was completely true. He didn't mind. And while he spoke, he noticed how the pad of his thumb was slowly, almost affectionately, rubbing tiny circles against the smooth skin of the tentacle he was barely holding.
Gradually, a few inches at a time, the tentacles softened and relaxed around him again. The one around his legs stayed there, a heavy comfort. The tip of the other one, the length of it resting along his back and arm, slowly wound around his palm entirely, until they were effectively holding hands.
”There you go”, Tony praised, his eyelids growing heavier by the second. ”We're good.”
He was just starting to drift off into sleep properly when a third tentacle joined him in the bed, curved around his shoulder, slid up the back of his neck, and awkwardly patted his hair. Like it was praising him right back.
Tony fell asleep with a smile on his face.
”Sir?” The warning tone in JARVIS's voice would have startled Tony out of the movie he was watching in his livingroom a couple nights later, if it wasn't for the fact that he had already noticed that he wasn't alone in the room anymore.
”Yeah”, he muttered under his breath, ”I know.”
Without moving his head too much, Tony rolled his eyes hard up and to the right. So much it almost hurt. The room was dimly lit, mostly from the TV screen, but it was more than enough for Tony to see the outline of his guest against the white paint of his walls.
The creature had slipped out of the vents, and was curled up hanging in the corner. It was mostly a gray, shapeless mass, the tapered ends of countless tentacles plastering it to the ceiling and walls somehow. An unmoving, dark entity with far too much body to be a shadow. It should have been ominous, terrifying, to come to the realization that something like that was hanging more or less over his head, but Tony couldn't quite feel threatened anymore.
Since he was now pretty sure that the creature understood English, Tony suspected that it knew it was busted. But it stayed still for a long time, even so.
When it finally did start to move, it inched its way diagonally down the wall from the corner, toward the couch. Moving made the tentacles longer, thicker, and in turn the creature's body got smaller. It seemed like whatever it was made up of under the slate-gray skin had no real structure. It shifted around like the thing was filled with soft clay. Which was sort of what it had felt like when Tony had touched it, actually. There were no muscles, no bones, not even really any organs, according to Bruce. Just a mass of... something.
Tony lost sight of it when it disappeared behind the couch, squeezed in between the wall and the back of the seats. There was just the soft noise of its smooth skin sliding against the two surfaces. He swallowed and stared straight ahead at the TV screen again, though he didn't see what was playing out there anymore. It could have been anything at this point. All he was aware of, was the slip and slide of tentacles behind his back.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw when one of them emerged. It undulated its way over the back of the couch by Tony's side, pressed against the bare skin of his arm on the way down. He was getting used to the smooth, soft touch by now and didn't flinch or tense up. But he did wait to see what it would do now that he, for the first time, wasn't in bed and mostly undressed.
The tentacle, long and limber and about the same thickness as Tony's forearm, until it tapered off at the end, had reached Tony's hip now. It patted the course fabric of his jeans and drew back at once, coiling and uncoiling on itself, as if it wanted to rub away the sensation of the unpleasant texture. It wasn't the first time Tony had noticed its thorough dislike for touching his clothes, but it was the first time he'd actually seen the reaction play out.
It made his next decision strangely easy.
He moved his hand, the one on the opposite side of the tentacle, and pinched the front of his t-shirt between thumb and index finger, pulling it away from his stomach. That left a gap in his coverage between the low waist of his jeans, and the hem of his t-shirt.
Hovering in the air by his side, the tentacle seemed to hesitate, maybe sensing his movements and trying to figure out what it meant. Then it got with the program, and slipped its way into the offered opening. It flattened out noticeably when it touched Tony's warm skin, shivering a little in obvious delight, and then quickly snaked its way up his abdomen, to his chest.
”There you go”, Tony said with a smile.
The tentacle hesitated at the sound of his voice. Or maybe the vibrations of it in his chest. But only for a brief moment. Then it seemed to be properly encouraged by the words, and the tentacle started to curiously explore the mass of scar tissue over Tony's sternum. He'd been on his front in bed the previous times the creature had touched him, so this was its first encounter with the remains of Tony's arc reactor. It could have been terrifying, but the touch was so gentle and careful, Tony instead found himself starting to relax back into the cushions.
In fact he was so distracted by the caresses over the partially numb, partially over-sensitive scarring, that he didn't notice when more tentacles joined the party. And when he did, he just made a soft, surprised little noise in the back of his throat and then... let himself enjoy it.
At least two more tentacles joined the first under his t-shirt. It was hard to tell, with the writhing, soft, indistinct movements and touches, how many they really were. But he felt one wrap around his waist, spiralling its way around him into a proper hug, as another one stroked its way to his clavicles, up his neck, and then started exploring his face with a slim, dextrous tip. It felt the softness of his lip, twitched away from the roughness of his stubbled jaw, and wound its way up his nose, along the arch of his eyebrow, caressed his crow's feet, and wriggled into the hair at his temple.
Tony, eyes closed under the touches to his face, smiled, and let himself melt a little.
More tentacles had wrapped around his arms, slipped between his fingers to hold his hands, snaked their way into the short sleeves to tickle his armpits, coil around his shoulders. He was held snugly but gently all over his upper body by now, pushed against the back of the seat, and the satiny-smooth feel of it was somehow incredibly comforting. Nothing – no one – had touched him this much in absolute ages and it was so, so good.
Something in his chest felt like it lurched sideways, his throat tighetend painfully, but he wasn't aware that he was crying until a tentacle tip curiously wiped at the wetness running down the side of his nose. And paused.
The whole creatured shivered faintly this time, and the fattest tentacle, the one around Tony's midriff, tightened slightly.
Tony couldn't explain how, but he knew it was a question.
”I'm fine”, he said. His voice came out thick and a little strangled, though, so he backed it up with a squeeze around the tentacle wrapped up in his right palm. It flattened under the pads of his fingers, and then puffed itself fat again when he let up. ”This is nice.” This time his words slipped into a deeper, pleasant register.
Again, the tentacles holding him shivered, this reaction stronger and more confident, somehow, and then the two of them just stayed like that.
The movie ended and another started and somewhere along the way Tony started watching again, lost in some kind of mindless action plot. He was distantly aware that he was slowly, affectionately stroking his palm back and forth over the thick tentacle resting heavy and relaxed over his belly, but it just felt good, and right, and very soothing.
A little later a movement made him glance to the side, and Tony realized that the bulk of what could be considered the creature's 'body' was now resting on the back of the couch beside Tony's head. Tentacles draped down along the cushions, hanging motionless and at peace.
As Tony watched, curious, there was another movement in the gray mass, and then, slowly, a slit in the soft surface, which Tony hadn't even noticed until now, slid open to reveal an eye. It was huge, lidded in hairless folds of gray skin, but somehow it was also very, very human, with a blue-gray iris, surrounded by white, and a pupil narrowing down even in the faint light off the TV, to fix on Tony's face.
”So, I guess we're having a movie night, huh?”
Another eye opened beside the first. And then they both blinked at him, slow and friendly, like a cat showing it likes you. Something about the relaxed way they narrowed looked a bit like the creature was smiling, mouthlessly.
”Yeah”, Tony smiled back. ”I like you, too.”
He fell asleep before the movie ended, still wrapped safely in yards and yards of tentacles.
When he woke up in the morning he first thought they were gone, the creature up and left for the vents again. But then he noticed that where he was stretched out on his front along the seats, one of his arms was hanging off the edge, and a single, slim tentacle was reaching out from under the couch, wrapped between his fingers, up his wrist, holding on.
Maybe it should have been strange, how easy it was to make room for a tentacle monster in his life, but Tony found that he just didn't care if it was.
The creature had taken an obvious liking to him, and it wasn't long before it dared to come out in the daylight as well, though only when they were alone together. It stayed clear of the rest of the team, still, but it was only a few days before it came to join Tony as he worked in the 'shop.
It helped Tony's peace of mind that the 'bots seemed to accept the creature almost at once. Watching the cautious introductions had been the most fun Tony'd had in a long time. The creature had sucked itself flat to the ceiling and dropped down one, single tentacle to warily pat at DUM-E and U as they curiously reached up their grasping claws, to watch it in turn.
Once it had decided that the 'bots weren't a threat, the creature had explored the rest of the workshop, and then came to cling to the table where Tony was designing a new, improved armour for Steve. One of those huge, steel-blue eyes peeked over the edge of the table, watching the holographic displays, and then a thin, hesitant tentacle slipped over the edge too, and reached out. The tip, slimmer than one of Tony's fingers, hovered in the air a moment, and then poked the white star at the center of Cap's chest. At the touch, that part of the design blew up large on the screen, and the tentacle jerked back a few inches, the creature's eye wide and startled.
”It's ok”, Tony soothed. ”It does that so I can get a better view of the details. See?” He poked the tip of his own finger to one of the side panels on the armour, and that one layered itself on top, another zoomed in view of the construction revealed.
Immediately the creature's tentacle flared out wide and flat, wriggling in the air in what could have been excitement, and it went back to watching Tony work for a while.
Then, while typing out a note for improvements to the flexibility on the fabrics, Tony had an idea. He blinked at the interface, considered, and then shrugged. He minimized the whole project into a corner, and pulled up a screen that was just a keyboard made of blue light. Then he touched the corners of it, drew them to the sides, and suddenly the keys were huge.
He glanced down, and found two large eyes already watching him.
”I know you understand what I'm saying.” Tony gestured to the glowing letters. ”But maybe you want to talk back?”
The creature eyed the keys, and then reached its tentacle back out. It hesitated, blinked a few times, and made a decision. The slim tip tapped on the Y, the E, and then the S, in rapid succession, the resulting word hovering above the keyboard for a drawn out moment.
”Oh wow you can actually write”, Tony breathed out in a fascinated rush. ”Holy shit that's awesome.”
The tentacle swayed in the air in a smugly gleeful little dance, blue-gray eyes narrow and smiling again.
”Okay then, smartass.” Tony grinned at it. ”How about you tell me your name?”
With a flourish and a flick in his direction, something that Tony suspected was tentacle for 'challenge accepted', the creature reached for the keys again, and without any hesitation started spelling out a new word.
B-U-C-K-Y
And just like that, Tony knew he couldn't keep thinking about his new friend as 'it' or 'the creature'.
He wasn't human anymore, but he was obviously still a person, with a name.
”Hey there, Bucky”, Tony said, and turned his chair enough that he could reach his right hand out for a shake. ”It's nice to meet you.” And then, because he suddenly realized Bucky might not actually know, he added, ”I'm Tony Stark.”
Bucky's huge eyes blinked at him. Then he reached out a tentacle, the first one still hovering by the keyboard. He flattened just the tip of the tentacle, until it was nearly the size and shape of a hand, although without any fingers or a thumb, and wrapped it around Tony's hand. He gave it a firm squeeze and a shake, and at the same time, his other tentacle tapped out a response.
NICE TO BE MET
And Tony could just bet that it was.