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Enough is something Bucky is used to.
He remembered enough to intercept Winter Soldier protocols when he’d first crossed paths with Steve in the 21st century. He remembered enough to get by in Romania when he successfully escaped Hydra. He remembered enough of what Hydra would do – had threatened to do – once they’d find him again, and he remembered enough to trust that Steve – little Stevie Rogers from next door – would help him.
Later, he remembered enough to be the Bucky Barnes Steve remembers, and that includes pretending just enough that he isn’t the same Bucky Barnes from before then, either.
Bucky is used to enough, it’s been ingrained from childhood. Before the Fall, before the military, before Steve.
He remembers curling up tight so he could huddle up in the bed he shared with his sisters and his ma with just enough of the thin blanket to cover them all that their shared body heat doesn’t escape. He remembers them pulling the blanket over their heads, whispering and giggling over everything and nothing, and making promises to their ma that no matter their situation that they'd always remember that there was always more to life than this.
She makes them promise it every day, makes them promise a little louder on harder days, just in case.
Like when his stomach would ache just seeing the loaf of stale bread his ma and Tally were able to bargain for with their combined weekly earnings, along with the rare treat of cheese, a sliver of ham and three grapes. If they split the bounty equally. He remembers how their ma would pretend she was too full and give as much to them as she could, remembers how Tally would frown, an argument on her lips, and then roll her eyes fondly when Bucky would produce another slice, cheekily informing, “There’s more than enough to share.”
Bucky remembers his ma yelling at them to be careful when they would climb the roof. He remembers the weight of Rebecca’s head, heavy on his sternum as she played connect-the-dots with the stars overhead. He remembers Tally’s voice as she wove tales with the constellations about countless battles and daring feats, grand escapes, and quick-witted cleverness.
Her stories didn’t always have happy endings, Tally was a realist like that, but every great fable promised the same thing as their ma’s that there was always more.
When he looks at his palms: one with ridges and scars softened by the Serum, the other polished in gleaming silver Vibranium, he knows this probably isn’t what she meant. Then again, he could never be sure.
Tally always did have an air of ambivalent benevolence only apparent in first-born children.
Bucky’s memories, though, like all memories, aren’t perfect, but they’re enough. They’re enough to remind him that he didn’t just appear one day, a fully formed killing machine. That he had a family. That he was a person. That he remembers. It's enough.
He ignores his ma’s promise and Tally’s stories, sets aside any hope for more. Enough is it for him. Enough is what he’s used to. Enough is what he’s always gotten.
Enough, however, is not in Tony’s vocabulary.
Unsurprising, really.
While Bucky’s used to getting by, scraping the bottom of the barrel, barely breathing and surviving through sheer force of fear through the decades, Tony Stark is used to more. Tony is more.
The Tower with his name on it says it all.
But even before then, before Bucky landed back in the United States, freer than he’d been since he’d been forcibly drafted in the forties, Tony’s very existence permeated the air.
From the Rogues’ displeasure that “Tony forced their hand” to their sneering acceptance of his aid to get them back in the good graces of the world, Tony was there without physically having to be there. His words, his actions, his past, and his future seemed of great importance to the group that had both saved and endangered Bucky with every action as Tony’s televised appearances were watched, studied and dissected in detail.
No matter how often Barton insisted that he didn’t care what Tony did, his actions said differently. His vitriol near toxic as he spewed the same hate as the Witch whenever he opened his mouth.
Steve too seemed both sadder and rebelliously unrepentant for reasons Bucky didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with, though he continued to watch raptly as Tony marveled the global arena, charming and cajoling and performing with every smirk and quip.
Bucky can’t blame anyone for being such a captive audience. Meeting the man himself, face to face, Bucky gets it.
He’s always been enthralled by the idea of the future, had loved the possibilities it presented, the hope it envisioned.
Steve just attributed Bucky’s surprising friendship with Tony over that. Over his workshop and his AIs and the Iron Man suits. Not realizing that Tony himself was the future personified in all the best ways: in that fathomless passion that lights him up from the inside that sparks from his bloodstream and gives life to everything he touches. It’s the drive to build and better. It’s the recklessness of his compassion as he gives and gives until he’s at risk of coming away with nothing, and then giving some more.
It’s the way he looks up at the same stars like Bucky does, and he awes like it still has so much to teach him.
Tony Stark is a marvel Bucky’s never hoped to meet before.
And Bucky knows he shouldn’t pursue a friendship, let alone anything else. He ignores the memory of his ma and Tally both.
This. This is enough.
Besides, he’s certainly gotten more than he deserves.
A sentiment that Tony doesn’t share as he offers him yet another gift. Different than the arm Tony made with Princess Shuri’s help, different than the pardon he organized, different still to the life Tony helps him live in the States, but it’s just as big – just as life-changing – it’s more than Bucky could have ever asked for: The photograph is old, the paper stiff. It smells like dust and jasmine.
“How…how did you…?”
“It was with Aunt Peggy’s old stuff,” Tony says quietly, smile curling almost hesitantly at the corner of his mouth. “She knew I had a thing for her war stories.”
It’s an awful picture, if he’s being honest, but Peggy and the other two women are practically beaming from within the frame. And Bucky. Bucky’s there too. Unconsciously he touches his mouth in the image. He doesn’t remember ever smiling like that.
“You…knew her?”
“Peggy was my godmother.” Tony snorts. “Officially. Unofficially, I was born, Mom let her hold me, and she just decided that’s who she was going to be. Howard certainly wasn’t going to stop her.”
Bucky’s huff of laughter sounds suspiciously wet. “That sounds like her…” Peggy never took anyone’s shit for anything. God help anyone who got in her way. Her smirk alone, all red lips and white teeth, reminds him of Tally.
He brushes his cheek with his forefinger, a stray tear flicked away like an afterthought. “Shouldn’t you…shouldn’t you be giving this to Steve?”
“He already got some of her things.” Tony shrugs, and Bucky can’t help but think how big of a person he is for it. After everything Steve’s done, has kept on doing with his persistence and refusal to see any kind of compromise, Tony’s still willing to part with some of the only things he has left of someone he loved.
“No, this one though – this one’s yours,” Tony insists, his smile quietly encouraging as he adds, “She said so herself.”
Bucky doesn’t know why he hesitates when Tony motions for him to turn the photograph over, but Tony only moves closer in response, gently assisting with roughened hands to turn the picture around to reveal a messy, slanted script. It reads, “Leave it to you to go ruining my wedding picture, Jamie."
Bucky's breath catches at the mocking nickname and at the date that follows before his eyes trail down the paper and fall on the paragraph beneath it, littered with splodges of tears smearing the ink. "It took forever to get this developed, but when I got it in the mail along with that damned military notice saying you were missing, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So, I did both. I wanted to be stubborn about it, was practically making plans already to ship out to where your last mission was, but -- Peggy already lost Steve. I couldn’t put Angie through that too. But I know you’re out there. I know it. And to my dying day, I promise I’ll get to you. Regardless of what that means, Jamie, I’ll be there at the end of the line. Tally."
He almost drops the photograph when he turns it over again.
In the picture, it’s so clear that it’s her, putting him in a headlock that he laughs.
She’d been just as tall as he was at the time. Tally practically dwarfs Angie beside her, and makes Peggy look damned near delicate by comparison, military dress or not.
Bucky finds himself telling Tony that. How Tally and Angie obviously couldn’t get married at the time, but how they’d done what they could in terms of ceremony.
How Tally hadn’t owned any nice dresses, felt no particular inclination towards them, so she'd opted for the fanciest of her nurse uniforms, the one she “graduated” in before she was shipped off to sew soldiers back together. She didn’t mind. She was never a very dressy dame, preferring slacks and trousers and anything that wasn't as feminine as their ma had liked, but Rebecca had taken advantage of to add to her own wardrobe.
How Tally had teased that Angie was pretty enough for the both of them anyway and that Angie had pouted over it, so, Tally compromised by putting on one of Bucky’s better suits.
Tony chuckles. “Aunt Angie was like that. Any excuse to get dressed up.”
Bucky huffs a chuckle at the memory of Tally fussing over his military uniform and tugging almost hatefully at the medal he received after he was first sprung from Hydra’s clutches before they shook his hand and sent him back to fight.
His hand trembles, unbidden.
Flashes of his panic at going back to the battlefield, of being strapped onto that table, of Hydra scientists looming over him. The sick green light. The memory still paralyzes him.
From where Tony’s hand has found itself on Bucky’s lower back, he squeezes, and Bucky lets out a shaky breath before continuing his retelling:
“Don’t think I haven’t given them shit for it,” Bucky remembers Tally saying, “I’ll crack them eventually, just you wait. If I can get ‘Captain America’ over there to fall in line, don’t think I can’t do the same to them.”
“In Steve’s defense,” Bucky drawled, “he’s got a soft spot for strong women.”
Tally did up the topmost button of his uniform viciously, smirk pulling at her lips. “All men have soft spots, and I know exactly how to make them kneel.” He’d made a face at her innuendo, snarked about how she should be nicer to him lest he ruin her celebrations. "I never! I'm the best sister, I’d never do that to you and your fella,” she’d decried with faux outrage, inviting him to hassle her about whether the little house she and Angie were getting was going to be bought under her first name, Rosalie Barnes, or if she was going with the name their ma gave her for old time’s sake and use Rosalie Tallulah.
She’d answered by kneeing him, and that was at least half of the reason he had such a constipated expression in the picture.
Tony laughs so hard he’s crying, and Bucky smiles as he feels the other man shake at his side, takes comfort in how they look so very similar to Tally and Angie in the picture.
“Did you..know her, my sister?” Bucky asks once Tony’s caught his breath and leaning against Bucky’s arm.
“A little,” he admits. “Not as well as Aunt Angie. I think she was a bit thrown at how much I looked like Howard. I don’t think she ever forgave him for giving Steve the Serum.”
Bucky huffs out a breath, half laugh and half groan. “She almost took his head off when she first saw him. Yelled about how she didn’t care if he was big now she could and would lay him out, and how dare you put yourself in danger like this, Steven Grant?”
Tony laughs again, echoing, “That sounds like something she’d say. Yelled it enough times at Aunt Peggy, that’s for sure.”
Bucky gets the feeling then that Tony doesn’t get to share these memories, doesn’t get to reminiscence or have a laugh over the people that have come and passed. Bucky knows Steve hasn’t let him, he’s made it obvious how he’s hoarded every piece of the forties he could get his hands on, Bucky and Peggy, both. It’s selfish, but Bucky understands it, and Tony does too.
But Tony’s connection to the past is as tenuous as Bucky’s, and he remembers his ma and decides, there’s more than enough to share:
“Tally,” Bucky begins with a smile, “she liked you.”
Tony hums, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “You think?”
Looking down at him the way Bucky does, he can practically see each individual inky lash, catch the wink of whiskey gold beneath, and see the laugh lines around his eyes that match the quirk at his lip, the dimple at his cheek.
His pink lipped mouth is a rosebud in the mussed stubble of his beard, and Bucky bites his own.
He’s imagined doing it in every innocent and not so innocent way, has stopped himself every time simply because he had enough – a home, an arm, a life, a future. That’s more than he could have asked for, hoped for, deserved. Still, like the worst sister ever, Tally needles, “There’s always more” and Tony’s looking up at him questioningly, mouth already quirked to tease, and Bucky can’t disagree with her there.
“Darlin’, I know.”
Tony blushes prettily at the slip, grumbles about how Bucky’ll need more than his Brooklyn charm to impress Tony, and before he knows it, Bucky’s promising Tony he’ll do his very best to woo him anyway.
When he sets aside the photograph, he traces the bright grin of his sister’s smile, grins at the mischievous twinkle in her eye, and thinks she would have approved.
After all, Tally Barnes was never big on enough, and Tony Stark is everything and more.