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The Headquarters of the Sokovia Accord Committee were located in DC, so Rhodey, eventually, had to move out and move there. He still flew in on weekends though: to share the news over a cup of coffee, rant and ask how they were faring. Truth be told, could be better.
The workshop in the East wing became their sanctuary, their fortress. Rhodey’s prediction came true and Trevor the Cactus was now named the Leader of the Cacti Clan, three members in total: Trevor himself, Tamara, his Missis, and the small Mini-T. The workshop didn’t have windowsills (it was below ground level, so of course, there weren’t any), so Tony constructed a little artificial desert for them on one of the workbenches he rarely used.
James, honest to God smiled a full smile, when he caught him reading books on botany and desert plants.
“Well, it was your idea, Tasty Freeze,” his answering grin was mischievous with a hint of fondness. “Can’t let the little buggers die on me now, can I?”
“Mission: success, then.”
James filled the void in his life he didn’t know he possessed. Was this how all soul bonds worked? Tony had almost no points of reference: his parents weren’t meant for each other in that way and Jarvis lost his better half to cancer before Tony was even born into this world…
They shared closet space and more often than not his eccentric Avengers merchandise socks and band T-shirts would mix with James’s soft Henley-shirts, tank tops and black boxers. Neither really minded. James more often than not would go to training exercises and bonding sessions in bright Ironman themed footwear, shocking the bewilderment out of his teammates every time he took his boots off. Tony would just as often demonstrate new gear and weapon upgrades’ hiding the glow of the arc reactor behind the thick cloth of the master assassin’s hoody. It was a black “Game of Thrones” themed piece with a grey wolf head in the front and the ‘Winter is coming’ motto in white blocky letters across the shoulders. A crack gift, payback for the cacti, but his Soldier loved it at first glance. It smelled like him too: gun oil, metal and something hot and spicy, something uniquely James…
There was also a bed here now, hidden from view in a secure nook. They rarely used it, preferring the beat up old coach opposite the small kitchenette in the corner to curl up on. James would be reading or cleaning one of his many guns, Tony - doing some SI or Avengers work on the tablet.
Usually by this point in any relationship Tony has ever found himself in there would be lots of sex - every flat and vertical surface would be thoroughly christened. With James he found himself in no need to cement anything with intricate bed acrobatics… not from the lack of wanting, don’t get him wrong… His Snowflake drove him straight up that proverbial wall, training shirtless and barefoot, in nothing but drawstring sweatpants, which left almost nothing to the imagination. He had muscles for days… without seeming overly bulky too. And this wicked, wicked man knew exactly what he was doing: baiting him to pounce like that… why hasn’t he, though?
Well, James was perfect… while Tony was clearly not.
“You are thinking again,” a familiar accented voice right over his ear, so close that his soulmates slightly chapped lips were touching the lobe in a slight caress, made him jump, hand clutching the ‘AC/DC’ logo on his T-shirt over the arc reactor; habits die hard. “Disturbing things… Bitter things…”
“I’m… confused with myself.”
“Why?”
“I like sex… no, that sounded off… and somewhere along the lines of ‘I like peaches’ which totally wasn’t the thing I’m going for here… I love sex! Yes… I do!”
A deep chuckle sent shivers of arousal down his spine.
“So where is the problem?”
“I don’t know if you do…”
Tony was all for consent, and his soulmate has suffered enough. Hell, the engineer didn’t even know if his Soldier was into men, women or both!
James read between the lines with predictable ease.
Tony was lifted, carried bridal style despite the indignant ‘Hey!’ to the kitchen counter and sat there. They were more or less on the same eye level now, a sign that a serious conversation is to follow. Strangely, but as much as he hated these conversations before, with James they came naturally.
The master assassin started the coffee machine for Tony, then – put a teakettle with water over the stove for himself. He drank his tea Russian style: black and strong, with honey and lemon slices, a common anti-cold remedy. He even caught James drinking raspberry jam flavored hot water once. Tried it (he was a scientist, okay, always ready for experiments), didn’t get what the catch was, but it did taste nice…
Once the coffee was brewed and the tea ready, the Soldier leaned on the counter beside him, Tony’s knee touching his side, and started talking.
“Hydra had other Assets for that kind of work,” James wiggled his metal fingers with a crooked sort of smirk. “Not very stealthy. I did, as you say, charm the pants off some of my targets before carrying out the mission… female and male.”
Oh.
He said as much.
“Oh.”
“Have I liked men Before? I don’t know. In Bucky’s time, it was dangerous, so even if he held affections for somebody, most likely he kept them to himself. Have my Handlers degraded me in such a way? Some have tried. Bucky fought them, I fought them.”
“Do you mean… what I think you mean?” Tony nearly dropped his cup, fingers going numb from the shock of sudden/not sudden realizations.
“If you mean rape, then yes. Bucky was held in a Russian prison the first few years of his… stay with Hydra. One arm short, malnourished and American – many saw him as easy prey. He learned to make and hide shivs there, and I learned from him… but that doesn’t answer your question, does it, Antosha?”
“…not directly, no.”
“Do I want to have sex with you? Very much. Do I want to make love to you? Even more. If we weren’t soulmates, if we just met somewhere on the streets, I would still stop, turn around and follow you with my eyes, because, brainwashed or not, I would find you fascinating. Because you are… and it is a fact.”
Rarely was Anthony Stark rendered speechless, brain working at super-sonic speeds coming up with sharp words and smart quips, but the warmth, the sweet ache from deep within, rising up with a flush and a beaming smile…it had nothing to do with marks, souls and bonds. It was simply… them.
“Can I hug you?”
James raised his left arm in silent invitation, which the engineer happily took. The Soldier was like a furnace, all hard muscle and solid heat, and Tony all but melted into his side. The arc reactor was messing with his blood circulation once again, so cold hands and cold feet were a thing.
“Man, you’re hot.”
James laughed.
“That I am…”
“Are we going to try something?”
“If you want, but I haven’t treated you to dinner yet.”
“Such a gentleman! Are you cooking tonight?”
The laugh morphed into a seductive rumble.
“Ah, hungry, are you, Antosha?”
“Starved…”
***
They put that bed to good use. Intricate bed acrobatics, who was he kidding! James got him beat, but at least Tony made him work for it.
So while he lied there sprawled across their king size bed resembling a cat high on quality cream, reveling in pleasant aches in places that haven’t ached in years, thoroughly blissed out from five rounds James put them through, the master assassin tried to calm his somewhat uneven breathing. Five rounds that rendered the engineer almost completely immobile, made him only slightly winded, which was a lot, considering all those crazy training regimens the Soldier put himself through every day. The broad toothy smile the man was sporting, though, so open and free, unhinged and predatory, would have made stronger men rethink their life choices... and possibly piss their pants.
Scary, yet not. His soulmate… and he loves him just the way he is.
“There isn’t anything particularly ‘Winter’ about you at all, soldier boy…”
“Oh, I would hope so… can’t have you calling me Sargecicle, can I? It just don’t sound right, doll.”
Now Tony was wide awake and staring at him, honey-brown eyes wide like saucers.
“…Snowflake?”
“Mhm?”
“…Brooklyn drawl?”
“Ah…I apologize. Often when I’m happy, it’s easier to slip into the mannerisms of Before.”
“Oh…that’s good. More pieces to form a whole…”
“You thought ‘Bucky’ returned, didn’t you?”
“Well…”
“Your heartbeat skipped.”
Tony suppressed a frustrated groan. James gave a playful growl in return and got swatted for his efforts, but the engineer let himself be held and cuddled regardless.
“Does Steve know?”
“I’m not happy around him nowadays.”
“As much it pains me to admit, he just wants his old friend back. This I can understand, because there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for Rhodey-bear, if he was in trouble.”
“But?”
“I would do it differently. Certified genius, you know?” Tony cuddled James back: metal arm and scars and long ruffled hair and crazy glint in grey eyes and peculiar foreign habits… all of him. “And I may have invented a device to help you with the trigger word problem…”
“…your heart skipped again. Not like a lie, more like pain. What is the… catch of this device?”
“Basically, the Binary-Augmented-Retro-Framing system (or B.A.R.F.… don’t you dare smile, you cheeky bastard) is designed to revive and relive memories in a controlled environment of a virtual reality… and change them. From what information I gathered about the subject of Hydra brainwashing - from the files dumped on the Net by Nat and Cap and from files we uncovered in various Hydra bases – the core of it is inducing a Pavlovian-like reaction linked to a sequence of seemingly random words. So if we manage to change that reaction - the words won’t work. The catch, as you put it - you’ll have to remember everything, relive it and figure out how to break the link… several times, until it works.”
“You don’t want me to relive 70 years of torture again.”
“No, I don’t.”
“What does Shuri have to say about the idea?”
“Her alternative is to spend time - from several months up to one year - in a cryogenic chamber, the program working on the triggers while you sleep. A year of nightmares you can’t wake up from and can’t escape. Couldn’t have that either, so we worked out the bugs and kinks out of B.A.R.F. instead…”
“I’ll do it.”
“You will?”
“I will. Not all memories were of torture, dusha moya (soul of mine). When I was awake, I always had you.”
***
Making love to Tony had been a revelation. He never knew how gentle he could be until Tony. He never knew how passionate he could be until Tony. He never knew he could be… until Tony. He was a Weapon, an Asset, Fist of Hydra… soulless. Tony, his Antosha, was his soul. The fire to his ice, the cold to his heat…
His team didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t fill the mold! Because Tony Stark wasn’t just your average eccentric billionaire... he was also the man who assembled the first Ironman armor in a cave, scavenging his own missiles for parts and radioactive palladium.
SHIELD and Nick Fury were going to use him, bleed his genius dry and, if not for Natalia’s faulty psychological assessment, Tony would have let them. Willingly put his foot in the bear trap. He still did…
Sleep was still a rather illusive concept to the Soldier, so most of his nights were spent curled protectively around his slumbering sunshine in their shared bed: thinking, analyzing, planning…
The team, he found himself in, was… dysfunctional. It took only one training session to put the dot over that particular ‘i’. He had worked with Hydra STRIKE teams in the past that worked better than this. Tony would call this a train wreck relationship, but James was never one for subtlety. From his point of view, the situation could be described as ‘полный песец’, something between a SNAFU and a FUBAR - terms Bucky of Before would be familiar with.
They won’t be stopping anybody.
Another factor – Ironman had indeed a very powerful presence in the field. Hard to replace, because his solnyshko managed to create something so perfect that even the infamous Winter Soldier could not compare. And the team mourned his absence…
Clint still expected Tony to be there to catch him, he and Steve had a deadly killer move of their own, even Natalia seemed to miss the easy banter on the comms. Wilson had the wings and the skill (the man, former para-rescue officer, wasn’t named Falcon for nothing), but couldn’t replace the irreplaceable even with War Machine backing him up.
Another problem was James himself. With his lone-wolf attitude and faithful ORSIS sniper rifle he ruled the training field, ghosting his targets in ways that made Clint jealous. One might think Steve would be the one to mend the gravely injured team spirit, but no. Captain America was silent. Since Tony made him a new shield and Rogers thanked him, the super-soldier shut them both out: out of his life, out of his team. From the mandatory team building movie nights and dinners, though, he could not exclude them, but… to those Tony rarely went, and the Soldier was immune to most known and some unknown poisons anyway.
“I can hear you thinking, Snowdrop…” fresh from a two day long working binge Tony sounded tired. James quirked the corner of his mouth in a tiny yet genuine smile and kissed him tenderly in the ear.
“Did I wake you?”
“Nope…” the engineer snuggled closer. “Wasn’t sleeping…”
“Traitorous heart…”
“Ugh, so… what gives?”
“Have you watched footage from the recent training exercises?”
“Yeah… Fri gives me regular updates. I make your gear, so I need to monitor it in action,” Tony gave him a sleepy leer. “The pants giving you any more trouble, sugar?”
James kissed him again, this time with more heat and more bite.
“Would drop them for you anytime, doll…”
“Oh, growly… I like that…”
“Do you like blini, Antosha? I’m going to cook.”
That perked the genius up. While he himself was nearly helpless in the kitchen (brewing excellent coffee being the only exception), James knew his way not only around the knives, but also around the pots and the pans. The small kitchenette in the workshop actually looked lived in now: with plates, eating utensils, funny mugs…
“Really?”
“Yes. Extra blueberry for you…”
“Yummy,” now Tony was kissing him: chin, along the jaw, temple… a playful nip on the earlobe, a passionate bite over the place where neck meets shoulder, a gentle caress over the vibranium plating and a new kiss… right over the mark; he never shied away. “But you, soldier boy, usually aren’t that kind to share house specialties with just anybody…”
“I have come to a conclusion that a certain degree of socialization between the team and myself is necessary.”
“…?!” Tony had a very expressive set of eyebrows on him; James was suitably impressed.
“They fear me more than they fear death. Unwise behavior.”
“Ah… and you want to show them your more human side? Might work… ”
“Yes, but making blini for you would be far more pleasant... You deserve a treat for finishing all those stark phone upgrades, signing all those contracts Miss Potts sent you and all in time, so honey is in order too.”
If his solnyshko wasn’t so tired, he certainly would have jumped him. For Tony Stark, on the wrong side of forty, to find out that somewhere in the world still existed four types of honey he didn’t know about… well. They commandeered Tony’s private jet and fled to Moscow in matter of hours with James in the pilot seat; a risky, yet amusing operation: stealing a plane they had already the keys to.
Is it really okay to eat that, James? It’s brown… is honey supposed to be brown? Right, here we go… mhm?... mhm! Man, no way this is just from flowers and bees! Seriously, buckwheat? Just no way! Is it… okay to buy the whole jar, all 3 liters of it? Let’s do this…
In total they made that vendor’s day, buying enough honey to last them several months and had Tony enthusiastically nibbling on another popular local treat: a walnut-honey mix, tasty and good for health.
“The brown one? Or the light one? I really like the light one…”
“Then linden honey it is.”
***
“You never did tell me, Red October, do they teach cooking in assassin school?”
Team building mandatory dinner: Wilson and Barton chopped some vegetables into a salad, Nat and Steve made some curry, James threw down some blini: one half with cottage cheese filling with blueberries, the other half plain ones, and brought a little jar of honey to dip them in. Tony brought some expensive Turkish coffee that should be prepared by hand in a nearly ritualistic manner which Vision found interesting. Wanda set the table.
Still a little out of it and a little pale, the girl tried to move on with her life. She still didn’t like Tony much, but stopped showing open signs of hostility towards the genius. Most likely knew what would happen if she didn’t – she’d been inside the Soldier’s mind after all.
Tony’s question, offhanded as it may seem (James knew what his soulmate was up to, though; sneaky-sneaky), made almost everybody at the table jump. Wilson even chocked on the tea he was drinking which should have been amusing, but wasn’t.
James smirked, before casually dipping a folded blin in the honey jar and taking a healthy bite out of it.
“No. It is something I picked up on the side…”
“Like the reading thing?”
The Soldier had a learning capacity that in some ways rivaled that of an AI. He soaked in knowledge like a sponge, as if compensating for all the time spent in cryogenic sleep… tragically, that was also the time when Tony had been hurt the most. He would have defected sooner, they would have met sooner… he would have painted a huge target on Tony’s back sooner.
“Pochti (Almost)… One of my handlers, a Soviet general and a valuable ally to the Hydra cause, was very paranoid. He only ate the food that was prepared in front of him and drank the drinks made with bottled water. As his bodyguard, that particular mission was also mine to perform. It was a big scandal, when I served him his morning eggs extra-crispy.”
“When you say it that way, I’m thinking more like ‘burned’…”
“We didn’t have Internet then. Or Miss Friday whispering prompts in my ear, for the matter.”
“Why thank you, Sargent Barnes!” chirped the AI happily through the speakers hidden behind reinforced panels in the ceiling.
“Vsegda pojaluysta (Very much welcome).”
“So… what happened next?” ironically, it was Wanda who asked. The team stiffened, no doubt expecting words like ‘torture’, ‘punishment’, ‘broken fingers’ or ‘whiplashing’… the Soldier shrugged.
“I was given a cookbook.”
“Wait… what?” Barton stared, as did everybody else. Even Steve looked somewhat baffled. He shrugged again, before making a mean looking face and expertly reproducing a particular Russian accent:
“’Vyuchi ot korki do korki, Soldat (Memorize it from the first page to the last, Soldier), i chtoby jalob bol’she ne bylo (and I don’t want to hear any more complaints)’.”
Nat, who was sitting beside Steve, went rigid.
“General Vsevolod Stashevski?”
“Yes.”
“I was sent to spy on him… later.”
“He did like them young… and beautiful. How did he die?”
“Clint shot him in the eye.”
The archer turned pensive.
“Hold on a second… that old bold bastard with mismatched eyes in Budapest?”
“That’s the one…”
And what happened in Budapest was a topic off-limits, apparently. James finished his honeyed blin, subtly peeked into his mate’s plate and none so subtly served him another helping of the ones with blueberries. Tony glared.
“You can survive on coffee, dusha moya (soul of mine), but do you really have to?”
“Well, no, obviously. There are also smoothies that DUM-E makes me… are you trying to get me fat or something?”
“I don’t know. Is it working?”
“No!”
“Okay. But I was more concerned about your appetite.”
Tony drank some coffee, absentmindedly tapping a simple rhythm against the circle of blue light in the center of his chest. He was wearing a tank top, so the arc reactor was in plain sight, adding its soft blueish glow to the already dimmed lights of the common kitchen. It also made the chain around his neck seem more silvery than it originally was and the metal piece on it somehow darker.
“I don’t think it works that way, Snowflake… It has been what… three months since the operation? Fri is watching me like a hawk - some of the symptoms would have shown themselves by now.”
“I didn’t know I was stronger than a normal human until I ripped off an escape hatch from an armored vehicle … with my flesh arm.”
“Point taken… but, on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly your type of serum Doctor Cho pumped me with, just an extremely watered version of it. I think we’re good…”
“What are you talking about?” Sam Wilson may have been new to the super-hero world, but he was by no means stupid. The spies remained casually silent, while keeping their eyes and ears open, fishing for new information. They were still loyal to SHIELD… or Fury, who represented SHIELD. Wanda, most likely sensing the atmosphere in the room, moved her chair closer to Vision. Steve just sat there, arms crossed over his chest, jaws locked, as if ready for a fight…
He hadn’t told them anything: about what happened in the bunker, about what happened after. Tony, his clever Tony, saw that too… and hid his pain behind a bite of Russian pancake with cottage cheese.
“I guess, I could sort of understand why Steve didn’t tell me, but why he didn’t tell you I have no idea. To cut the long story short, I’ll stick to the cliff notes version. It is common knowledge what happened to my parents on one cold December night in 1991. They called it an accident, turned out it wasn’t. Hydra send their best assassin after my father… or rather after the vials with the super soldier serum my father was about to transport somewhere in the trunk of his car. And James never fails. Steve, and maybe Nat, must have stumbled upon this when they exposed Hydra hiding within SHIELD: the files, the Winter Soldier program, the video about the Winter Soldier killing Howard and Maria Stark. He decided to… spare me, I guess. Or save his long lost childhood friend. But, knowing him, it was probably both. A former Sokovian military officer, Colonel Helmut Zemo lost his entire family to Ultron… and to the Avengers to some extent, hard to tell who caused the most destruction at this point. He tracked down one of James’s former handlers, the one with the Red Book. The man killed him, took the Book, posed as a psychologist to trigger the Winter Soldier… and made sure all the key pieces to make his revenge complete were in the place he wanted them to be to show us that video.” Tony took another vicious bite. “The Accords, the accountability… it was all bullshit, it didn’t matter! The so called ‘Civil war’… it was nothing compared to what I felt seeing the man who killed my mother right there beside me, so I lashed out. We nearly killed each other in that bunker. I nearly killed my fucking soulmate in that bunker! Luckily for all of us, James snapped out of it fast enough to stop Steve caving my chest in more than he already did…”
“Jesus fucking Christ…”
“What of Zemo?”
“James killed him in a quite artistic manner through a blast proof glass wall. But that’s not the point. The point is… thank fuck I had the reactor removed, but the artificial sternum was still busted, I was getting worse, so Friday and James had to think fast to save my life.”
“So you flew to Korea, found Doctor Cho and her Cradle, but that doesn’t explain the serum…”
“Well, Nat, how should I put it… I don’t trust anybody with my arc reactor technology. Maybe, I could trust James… in time, but at that moment he was an arm short, Helen was not that kind of doctor, but she could do something else. She found a way for me to oversee the installation personally. A truly genius woman and a brave one too! To approach Snowflake with a needle like that…”
“You are not a super soldier, Stark.”
“He speaks! And no, Steve, I’m really not, but I didn’t turn into a monster either, which is always a plus… Why didn’t you tell them?”
“There was nothing to tell.”
“Obviously. But that ‘nothing’ is turning into ‘something’ here, affecting your teamwork… what the Hell, Rogers?”
“I…”
“Just say it!”
“I can’t work with him… When I see him, wearing Bucky’s face, speaking with Bucky’s voice… and I just can’t help but remember, how he fell off that train, what they did to him and the others in that prison camp… and those files, Jesus God, like we haven’t suffered enough! My best friend killing my other best friend in cold blood!” it was like the floodgates opening; Steve having a long needed nervous breakdown. “Bucky always protected me. For once in my life I wanted to protect him… I’m so sorry.”
Silence reined the kitchen for a very long time after that. Sam Wilson, faithful to his VA counselor training and despite being thoroughly freaked out himself, very slowly, very carefully reached out, pulling a silently sobbing Steve into a one arm hug. Clint’s and Natasha’s faces held unreadable expressions. Wanda looked somewhat shocked, Vision – troubled.
James’s face betrayed nothing. His eyes, though… more icy blue than metal grey, blank and pained at the same time. Blank, because he hadn’t expected anything less; pained, because on some deep spiritual level it still hurt to know he wasn’t wanted, he wasn’t needed…
“James is not a monster, Steve,” Tony’s eyes were dark; gone was the soft honey-brown that fascinated him so much. It was like looking into the abyss, which stared at you back, promising death and destruction. “Never was. If you want to blame somebody, blame Hydra, who put him… put us in this position. James stayed to help you defend this mud ball, because it is his home too. Do not insult his decision…”
He could feel the mark on his left shoulder burn with icy fury, despite the fact that it was now metal and wire instead of flesh and bone.
“Tony, you’re being biased, because the Winter Soldier is your soulmate. You literally have no idea what is going on in that head. He may be still loyal to Hydra and just using your bond to get to your resources for all you know!”
Natalia, ever the voice of reason. Cold fury flared again; he could feel it in his fingertips, licking the vibranium plating from within. It felt nice - to be protected like that. But this argument was driving the wedge between teammates deeper…
Unacceptable.
So James stood up, evoking a startled silence from those present, calmly collected the plates and silver wear they brought from the workshop, before gesturing to Tony to follow his lead.
“This meeting was a mistake. It will not happen again.”
***
A few days later Friday sounded the Avengers Alarm, because, apparently, New York was attacked by a giant robot.
Must be Tuesday…
***
“Friday, do we have a visual?”
“Yes, Boss! And it’s quite a spectacular sight!” she might sound cheery, but Tony wasn’t fooled. His baby girl was being extra-salty lately - no hot water for the Rogues… for a month! He managed to talk her out of pursuing more drastic measures of retaliation… and what the Hell is Protocol Perimetr (Perimeter)? He was pretty sure he hadn’t written anything like that, so it must have been James’s doing…
“Bring it up, baby girl!”
And wow… she wasn’t wrong. The robot was huge, sky-scraper huge, anthropomorphic in its form, with something akin to a reactor (power source?) in its chest, bearing weapons of unknown variety.
“Is it piloted?” Steve might have lived through an alien invasion, the fall of a secret spy organization, a homicidal android, but giant robots… it was a first.
“Most likely. Maybe there are even more pilots than one – ever seen Power Rangers, Cap?”
“Em…”
“The Pacific Rim scenario,” said James from his seat in the far end of the jet, near the weapons locker. That perked the genius up.
“You think?”
“They copied the design.”
“Huh…” Tony turned pensive. “We’ll be lucky if the design was the only thing they copied. Fri, let’s find us some weak points…”
“On it, Boss!”
With the engineer no longer making small talk, the jet reverted into awkward silence. After that catastrophe of a dinner, team dynamics shifted once more.
James was making an effort to integrate before, now he wasn’t.
Tony was hiding in the workshop, now he wasn’t.
Objectively speaking, he could understand what Natasha Romanoff based her assumptions on. All she saw was the Winter Soldier: the nightmare of her Red Room childhood, the man that shot through her to get to his target, the ghost story. What she never saw was the man behind the muzzle, the personality which Tony knew existed, because there were times, when James’s iron control over their soul bond… slipped. Almost always – due to severe physical pain from that demonic contraption Hydra called a ‘recalibration chair’, rarely – when he wanted to show him something interesting.
Tony was ten when he accidentally stumbled into places unknown through the link he knew was there… and found himself right in between torture sessions. The sight of a long haired man with blue-grey eyes pale from pain, dressed only in a pair of paper thin hospital pants, strapped in a dentist like chair with metal bands and the recognizable cracking of electricity burned into his mind by his own eidetic memory gave him nightmares for weeks… and his screams, when the mysterious man saw him curled up in a far corner of the lab, trembling and soundlessly sobbing into his red pajama sleeves…
Нет… нет… нет! ( No … no … no !)
Hе смотри! (Don’t look!) Hе смотри! (Don’t look!)
Не смотри… (Don’t look…)
James, most likely, doesn’t remember. It’s okay. Tony could remember for them both.
Steve cleared his throat.
“Okay, our best bet is to stop the robot before it reaches Manhattan. I contacted the Council, informed them about the situation, and since there are other super-heroes in New York, who signed the Accords, we’ll have back up. Until then…”
“Who are they calling in?”
“Spiderman and someone called Doctor Strange.”
“Doctor Stephen Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme of the New York Sanctum,” said Vision with a polite little smile. “It would seem he is an extremely capable magic user... and a genius neurosurgeon.”
“He is also an insufferable jerk,” supplied Tony, while still engrossed in threat analysis; James, a silent sentinel at his side, taking in the multitude of charts, graphics and schematics with keen interest. “Good to have him on our side, though…Any news from Thor and Bruce?”
“Technically, Thor is still on the Avengers roster. In reality, though…” Steve frowned. “He’s got his people to look after now. And Bruce decided to stay with them… to help out.”
‘We could use the Hulk’ read Tony between the lines. ‘Bruce Banner, though, wasn’t all that important, his eight doctorates and genius scientific research - worthless.’
Sounded eerily familiar…
A touch of vibranium fingers, a feather light caress along the line of his shoulder, brought him back to the present.
“Не волнуйся, я присмотрю за Паучком (Don’t worry, I’ll look after the Little Spider),” a whisper so quiet that even Rogers’s super hearing couldn’t pick it up over the noise of the engines, but Tony had Fri in his ear… and Fri took to spying techniques like a duck to water. Instead of speaking out laud, he typed his answer in a small dialogue box in the corner of his tablet.
“I hope it won’t come to that.”
They reached the point of no return, passing the Statue of Liberty. The Avengers suited up, ready for action. Well, Tony and Sam suited up, the only ones capable of flight, except for Vision. Others would have to operate from inside the quinjet. He didn’t know how they would manage that, because it would be a mighty tight squeeze…
“Ironman, Falcon – the air is yours! Vision – be on the lookout for civilians, evacuate them if needed! Hawkeye, Widow - cover them from the jet! The rest of us…” Captain America shot a quick glance at the black masked figure that returned to its previously occupied seat on the bench near the weapon lockers. “… will have to wait and see.”
Tony just huffed. For some reason, he wasn’t optimistic at all…
***
It took them several hours to put the gigantic machine down… several hours and one nearly smashed to smithereens American symbol. Just like in the movie it took two to pilot the thing and just like in the movies the robot carried a plasma cannon in one arm and a retractable sword in the other.
The plan went to shit almost instantly. Falcon almost got swatted like a fly, saved by Vision in the last possible moment. His wings, though, were not so lucky. Tony managed to distract the robot long enough for them to escape. The metal alloy used here proved to be tougher than expected. No gold-titanium, of course, but tough enough to render most of their weapons useless. In other words, they needed more teeth…
It was strange watching James and Wanda work together and finding himself along for the ride, but they made a pretty gruesome team. The Soldier with a 50 caliber sniper rifle using explosive rounds as markers for possible weak spots and the Witch ripping into said spots with her power. What she couldn’t reach, Ironman decimated with repulsor blasts and uni-beams. They managed to disable the cannon wielding arm, but the villains noticed the jet and the sword came into play…
The Sorcerer Supreme with Spiderman as back up arrived just in time to prevent the jet from being shish-kebabed. A yellowish glow of a magic portal engulfed the blade sending it who knows where, another – one of the legs cutting it off from the knee down, the third was drawn around the nuclear reactor carving it out of the robot’s chest. And just like that a lean, mean, killing machine was no more than a huge pile of scrap metal.
With adrenalin still thrumming through his veins, Ironman dived towards the open cargo bay of the quinjet… only to curse up a storm when James (unexpectedly!) jumped out, right into his waiting arms.
“What in the world…?! Snowflake!”
“Take me home, darling… or someone might die…”
The first part of the phrase was spoken in soft Brooklyn drawl, almost a whimper really, while the second was growled out with harsh Russian heaviness…
Tony’s heart almost literally stopped, alarm bells ringing laud in his mind. A moment later he was gently cradling his Soldier in his arms, whispering sweet nothings in English and Italian, a language he hadn’t spoken in since 16 December 1991. His accent must be terrible…
James seemed to calm down a little, still clinging to him as if he wanted to crawl into the armor with the engineer. His reserved, stoic Soldier, reduced to this… what the Hell happened?
Not important. At the moment his better half was top priority… there, he even started speaking like James, but thinking in clipped military style sentences was easier somehow. After, though… he’ll find out and bash some faces in. The main problem – his current suit was no longer up to snuff: too well known, too well studied, predictable in its limitations.
“…Friday?”
“Yes, Boss?”
“We’re leaving. Announce the Captain and take the team back to the Compound via scenic route… and open the Bleeding Edge Project. Daddy needs to do some science…”
The following evening in the workshop was a silent one. The whole East wing of the Compound was subjected to Protocol Perimetr, which turned out to be a security protocol, not unlike those Tony used to ‘blackout’ his lab.
Tony worked.
Nano-tech. A fourth generation arc reactor. Extremis. Humanity? No more than a last year’s fashion accessory. James stayed by his side the entire time, as if it was his turn to huddle for warmth. Such a tall, strong man needing such basic animalistic comfort…
“Are you going to ask?”
“No. You’ll have to tell me yourself, Buttercup… but only if you want to.”
“Clever, clever Tony… you take such good care of me…”
“Funny man… and here I thought it was the exact opposite,” Tony paused for a few moments. “You know that I can’t cook to save my life, but… have we ever discussed comfort food? It’s cheeseburgers for me. Since MIT, because it was the only thing that could bring me back from an engineering binge, and let me tell you, Rhodey-bear could share an impressive amount of funny stories about all the things he tried to feed me. Pickled plums were only the second worst!”
“… tried them. Not that bad… considering all the things I sunk my teeth into…”
“Ew… I still remember that tree bark/ rough bear meat thing… couldn’t look at stakes for quite some time after that.”
“Oh… so you were watching…hiding behind those wild strawberry bushes, no doubt…”
“Mhm… they looked very tasty though, the berries… Shame is, in that ghost-like state you can’t really do much…”
“True…” James shuffled closer, although that should seem impossible. “They were talking about you on the jet. Knowing I would hear, expecting me to react and to prove them right. They said you brainwashed me into compliance, because you are cunning like that… using every available Asset to your advantage… and the Winter Soldier is the best there is. They know nothing…”
“No, they don’t,” maybe he should be furious, but all he felt was… emptiness. “Was it Steve?”
“He heard us. Felt entitled to my happy moments... when the only one entitled to them is you. Vision had to hold him back from jumping after me…”
“So… Steve will come banging on our door. Well, good luck to him, because he’s not getting any…”
“… it is strange, but I think… Bucky would have punched him.”
“Oh?”
“… he had very strong inner instincts… saw the good in people… saw the bad… Stevie was good once…Zola was always bad.”
“You think the serum changed him?”
“No… the life after did.”
***
Black tank top, black boxers, red Henley and black cargo pants. Socks, combat boots, belt with a heavy buckle, could be weaponized. Knives: one strapped to the small of his back, one hidden in his boot and one in the open, in a thigh sheath on the right side. And last, but not least, a thin elastic cord masking as a hair tie.
James was getting ready for movie night.
Approximately 4 hours ago his solnyshko returned from the monthly meeting with the Accords Council, where a working prototype of the B.A.R.F. system was presented. They did a test run, Tony explained the science behind the simulations, Colonel Rhodes explained how the device could be used to help war veterans with treatment of PTSD. The logic behind the reasoning was quite simple – if B.A.R.F. can help Sargent Barnes overcome more than 70 years of torture and brainwashing, then it would work for the veterans too. Sam Wilson was also present and had given his professional opinion on the matter. Surprisingly, it was rather supportive… all, except one little clause.
The sessions should be overseen by at least one other member of the Avengers Initiative, except Ironman. For additional security reasons, they said. His sunshine called bullshit and accused the Council of human rights violation, namely the right for freedom. Soon enough the meeting turned into a verbal fencing match. Tony and Rhodey were good, but, unfortunately, they were outnumbered. The resolution went through.
Now, 4 and a half hours later, his soulmate was sitting on their favorite ratty coach in the workshop, sporting a stormy expression and still dressed to the nines. In front of him on a low glass table stood a bottle of expensive scotch and two tumblers.
Tony wasn’t intending to drink. He stopped drinking anything stronger than juice and water sometime after the Ultron debacle.
“Wilson probably told them.”
“Yes. Want to guess who is going to be the first to volunteer?”
“I wager, it would be Wilson as well. He is too much of a professional to send anyone else…”
“At least, with Wilson, we won’t have to worry about that he’ll tell anyone. He took an oath… or something,” Tony frowned. “The process of building simulations is divided in three stages, because the algorithm needs to differentiate between the good, the bad and the neutral to monitor your progress. I’m talking about extremes here: the best memory, the worst memory and the one you don’t feel anything about. After that the real work begins.”
“You will also need to study some other extremes, Antosha: what my mind looks like before the triggers are activated and after.”
Tony while still harboring a stormy expression is no longer frowning – he looks miserable instead.
“I know… God, I know…”
“If anyone is to say them, it should be you. I trust you with my life. It is only logical for the Soldier to view you as his Handler as well.”
He could tell by the gleam in the engineer’s eyes that he was curious. It was like that trip to Moscow all over again.
“So how does this work exactly? There is obviously Bucky from the 40s. Then there is James of Today. And now… the Soldier?”
“Bucky took the worst of it. In order to survive, he had to adapt… this way, when they broke him, something still remained… the basic things, mostly. Like that instinct I told you about.”
“The core programming…”
“If he were a machine, you would be right. They built the Soldier over that. He isn’t like us. He is Hydra through and through, but even he has a code he follows, things he respects… people he hates. He also doesn’t speak English… at all.”
“Wow… and James? Where does he stand?”
“Middle ground. Aren’t you going to ask who you bonded with? An important question…”
“Judging by your accent, I think, I have a pretty good idea… in too deep to get cold feet now anyway… Triggers – we are still so getting rid of them, partly, because I have no sense of self-preservation, but mostly because I just love you to bits.”
James smiled. His solnyshko’s heartbeat hadn’t faltered once.
Tony cleared out the bottle and tumblers, started walking towards the coffee machine, but changed course at the last second, choosing tea. Not the fancy stuff, and the kettle was electric, but sometimes… you just need shitty leaf water to shock your taste buds (and your brain) into action.
“Movie night… what’s on the film menu?”
“Something called ‘Ocean’s eleven’. Miss Friday said it was about a team of thieves raiding a casino.”
“Well, yes and no. For one, they are not just any thieves, they are the best thieves. Secondly, it’s a comedy! Comedies are usually fun, especially, those where you can trash the science… have you stolen anything before?”
“People. In some cases, information.”
“See? You’re in the theme! Stealing money, valuables and art pieces can’t be that different, right?”
Wrong, but the Soldier kept that little piece of information to himself. Watching Tony change into more comfortable clothes was a far more pleasurable activity. And Antosha knew he was watching, so with a knowing smirk he put up a little show… just for him.
Watching his soulmate shimmy in a pair of worn jeans, a band T-shirt and some beat up sneakers, got him thinking how different they were: physically and in the depths of their minds. For example, they needed to overcome more than 15 centimeters of height difference to look each other in the eye, but it never seemed to be a problem when they wanted to kiss. His enhanced strength had its uses, and Tony seemed to like being manhandled quite a bit.
Tony had also fleur for the dramatic, partly due to him being the face of Stark Industries all these years, partly because of his natural character traits, while James preferred sticking to the shadows, but again it didn’t seem to matter when they wanted to do something together. Working on some cars or bikes from Tony’s extensive collection, venturing into random flower shops or lounging in bed for two days straight doing absolutely nothing – they moved in complete synch.
Tony was brilliant, the genius mind behind the success of Stark Industries both as a weapon manufacturing company and as the world’s leader in clean energy production, while the Soldier had been the driving force behind Hydra’s rise to power for almost a century, but all past and present becomes null and void when they decide to put their intelligence to the test and create something marvelous together… his new tactical gear a fine example.
The Ying to his Yang…
As a finishing touch, Tony put on an expensive looking watch. James remembers this one, although not as clearly as he would have liked, through the fog like state the triggers always left behind.
“You ready?”
“A gun would be most appreciated, but alas…”
Tony huffed, good-naturally, before shaking his head.
“And they call me dramatic…”
***
The movie turned out to be quite interesting… if you don’t know the physics behind what was happening on the screen. James, unfortunately, knew, so he was only half way into the plot. About two thirds of his attention was spread around the room: watching, estimating… tolerating being watched and estimated in return.
Steve is glaring. While Barton and Natalia filled the silence with easy banter, discussing how ‘it should be done’ with Sam playing the role of an avid listener, James glared back, his eyes a startling mix of grey and blue.
Не верь ему… (Do not trust him.)
Он предаст… (He will betray…)
The familiar icy chill of protectiveness licked at his nerves, setting the mark on his shoulder ablaze. He doesn’t open the bond to the feeling though. His soulmate finally relaxed enough to focus on the amusing moments of the film instead of the stares as subtle as they were.
They claimed the far end of the huge C-shaped coach. James took up most of the space, sprawling on the cushions like an oversized cat. Tony didn’t seem to mind – he just did some claiming of his own, shamelessly spreading himself right in his soulmate’s lap. Their first public show of affection.
Many joked about the billionaire being ‘pocket-sized’. The Soldier would disagree, because what would they know about the concept of ‘perfect’? That’s right, not a thing…
They made a pretty picture. James sitting with his legs spread like so, Tony snuggled between them, back to chest, head resting on the Soldier’s shoulder. Once in a while he would tilt his face up, prompting James to tilt his head to the side… and suddenly they were almost kissing. The bond between them sang with heat and excitement and tender affection. The air – filled with whispers and giggles… and his left hand rests against the arc reactor in his mate’s chest, a protective cage of metal fingers. He very much enjoys the way his sunshine leans into the touch.
Steve is glaring. He should really stop.
“So, Tony, when are you planning to start the deprogramming?” asked Sam, after the final movie credits rolled and Fri switched the screen to a random news channel.
“If the co-interested parties agree, then Monday.”
“Parties?”
“Well, yeah. As much as it pains me, I have to ask actual permission for this one. Really sensitive matter for some present, but… I need to study how the trigger words affect the psych, as you say, in the field, which means… we’ll have to actually use them! And activate the Winter Soldier.”
In one moment Steve was sitting half a room away, in the next – he was so close he could be standing in their faces. Could be… but wasn’t, because there was a knife pointing at the hollow of his neck. The sky in Steve’s eyes met the ice in James’s…
The Captain was too stubborn to step back. The Soldier knew he didn’t have to.
“Absolutely not!”
“Why? We can do this in a Hulk-proof room, under heavy surveillance, with you guys watching.”
“Tony, just… no.”
“The Hell, Steve! It’s not like he is a danger to society in that state!”
“And how do you know that? It could be dangerous!”
“Haven’t you read the Files? Of course, it’s fucking dangerous… but it also needs to be done. Even my better half thinks so, and it’s going to hurt him a lot more than it’s going to hurt you… any of you.”
“He agreed?” now Steve looked suspicious. “Isn’t it a little fast?”
“We planned it for months. It’s that I figured out the first working prototype only recently. The first B.A.R.F. was as big as this room, now – it’s just a pair of glasses wired to a laptop.” Tony seemed unbothered by the knife in his mate’s hand. “Or are you not interested? Does SHIELD want the Soldier for themselves: triggers, user’s guide, all that jazz? I bet the old pirate would have a ball…”
Natalia’s expression was perfectly neutral… naturally, because that particular skill was beaten into her quite literally. Clint’s poker face was good, but not that good… also his heartbeat faltered for a fraction of a second. For the Soldier, that was evidence enough.
Rogers must have also heard that little stammer, because now his facial expression rivaled that of somebody being punched in the gut.
“They said they are going to help him. Help bring Bucky back.”
“How? They told you how?”
“No… they said I had to bring him, so they’d examine him first, to determine what should be done.”
“And if he said no, what would you have done then? Storm the castle to stab him with a syringe full of elephant tranquilizer?”
“It’s all better than leaving him with you!”
Предатель … (Traitor…)
“… I’m his soulmate.”
“No, you’re not!”
You know nothing…
Ice filled his nerves, his veins… the need to protect… the need to kill…
…He lashed out.
***
Tony could have said something.
When the bond between him and Snowflake went liquid nitrogen levels of cold, the engineer still had a few spare seconds to shout out something alerting or make some kind warning gesture… he would have… maybe, if he wasn’t so shocked, because… what is wrong with these people?! Everyone deserves a soulmate, but not him?! Or better yet… everyone and anyone could be his soulmate, just not Bucky Barnes?! To Hell with God or who’s responsible! Steven ‘Captain America’ Rogers said so and so it will be!
Thanks whatever gods present, Wanda and Vision decided to forego tonight’s meeting and go on a real date somewhere off the Compound grounds and didn’t have to see this.
He was still in James’s lap when the master assassin lunged, blade aimed for the kill. Steve was saved by his super-human reflexes, but only barely, meaning the blow landed, just not deep enough. Blood painted Steve’s shirt red. This seemed to be some sort of signal because not a moment later James was jumped by both Natasha and Clint, despite Sam’s shouts of ‘what the heck are you doing?!’.
Tony acted on instinct: unfolded the gauntlet and blasted Nat into the nearest wall.
“Friday, Protocol Black Watch! And call Rhodey!”
“Understood, Protocol Black Watch engaged…”
Clint slowed the Soldier down, but only barely enough for Rogers to try and incapacitate the vibranium arm. For his efforts he received a knife to the side and a bashed in nose. Clint then tried to strangle the assassin with a bowstring… the very same bowstring Tony spent several sleepless nights perfecting.
Emptiness and dread, dread and emptiness - were the only emotions he could feel right now, stuck on a loop. So Tony aimed the gauntlet at Clint, waited a few seconds for it to charge and fired. The sonic blast caught the archer in the back, knocking him out with far more efficiency than Nat - the Widow was already coming to…
“Colonel Rhodes is on his way, Boss, along with Mister Everett Ross and Doctor Strange. The suit in sentinel mode is by the door.”
“What, Stark? Not man enough to finish me yourself?! Need the suit to do it?!” a broken nose and a knife wound in the side weren’t that serious of an issue to put Rogers down.
James’s answering snarl was almost feral.
“Ему и не нужно… Я все сделаю сам! (He doesn’t need to… I’ll do all the work myself!)”
And he threw the blond through the couch.
Tony watched the two super-soldiers fight with an eerie sort of calm, claiming a semi-strategic position by the entrance all the while keeping an eye on Nat, who like the spider she was trained to be, was trying to lull him into a false sense of security by keeping still and docile.
“Aren’t you going to interfere?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father always told me that a lesson well learned is a lesson learned from personal experience. And we learned a valuable lesson today already,” he smiled at her with his best media smile. “You can’t be loyal to two masters for long...”
“If you think the Soldier will be loyal to you out of some sort of stupid affection, then you are a fool, Stark.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that…”
Another crash announced the tragic demise of the big flat-screen TV.
Sam soon found himself seeking refuge in the small island of calm at Tony’s side. The man looked equal parts confused and bewildered.
“Not what you expected from the Avengers, huh?”
“Man, you are one messed up bunch…”
“Going to watch the sessions?”
“Yeah, like there is much choice… I being the only one both experienced in PTSD treatment and an Avenger… Can I ask something?”
“Fire away…”
“Why does Steve dislike you so? You’re an OK guy, keeping us fed, clothed, living rent free… you’re repairing our gear, for Pete’s sake!”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m Hydra incarnate, brainwashed his best friend all over again…”
“… that’s not it, is it?”
“You’ll have to see for yourself. I don’t feel like explaining anymore...”
***
When Rhodey arrived with Ross and Strange in toe, the space looked like a bomb went off right in the middle: blast waves shattering walls, shrapnel cracking floors and ceilings, glass shards sparkling like diamonds…
The soldiers trashed the living room, kitchen… even the bathroom, where James, honest to God, dunked Rogers in the toilet, breaking the thing in the process. Tony would be touched, if he still possessed the capacity to feel something apart from a dreadful sort of apathy.
“Извинись… (Apologize…),” James got Steve pinned to the fridge, and try as he might to get free vibranium was just not that type of metal to yield to mere super-serum strength.
“No.”
“Извинись! (Apologize!)”
“No!” another attempt to get free. “Bucky, stop! Snap out of it! This isn’t you!”
Wham! The metallic casing gave in with a groan, and now the fridge was sporting a Steve-sized indent on the front. James’s snarl became outright vicious…
“Gentlemen!” Colonel Rhodes’s commanding voice made both of them freeze and take a step back, although for different reasons. “Stand down and explain yourselves!”
Behind him Strange was already holding something, resembling a glowing golden string, and President Ross, loyal to his CIA training, had a Glock at the ready. Baseline human in the world of super-heroes… Tony could relate.
“We had a disagreement, sir,” the Soldiers voice was raspy, accent present. “It won’t happen again.”
“May I inquire about the core of the issue, Sargent?”
“There is a popular Russian saying: we either don’t speak ill about the dead, or don’t speak about them at all…”
Ross and Rhodey shared a glance.
“… understood. And you, Captain? Have anything to add?”
Steve spit some blood from his split bottom lip on the marble tiles, only an inch away from the toe of the Soldier’s boot. No way was it unintentional.
“No, sir, I have nothing.”
“Good… to the conference room, all of you! And someone haul Barton to med bay… the man probably got a concussion…”
***
“Doctor Stark, are you certain your device will work?”
“Positive,” Tony smiled a tired smile. “I would never subject my better half to faulty goods, so… before presenting it to the Counsel, I tested the system on myself! You know, feels real nice not to be afraid of taking bubble baths anymore…”
Ross was looking at him funny… or, which was more likely, trying to figure out the exact level of his sanity. Tony just shrugged good-naturally, but his devil may care attitude was quickly replaced by a more solemn expression.
“It will work…”
… to much is at stake for it not to.