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When Tony Stark first sees footage of the Winter Soldier, he is impressed.
(He would love to get his hands on that arm.)
When Tony digs through Shield/Hydra’s leaked files and discovers exactly who killed his parents, he is enraged.
(Howard Stark may not have been much of a father, but he was HIS, and Maria, his mother, she should never have died that way.)
When Steve tells him the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes are one and the same, Tony is still angry, but he agrees to help track him down.
(Only a small part of him wants to get there first and take revenge.)
When Tony starts digging deeper, examining the Winter Soldier’s history, watching Hydra footage of past procedures, he is disturbed.
(The soft, confused, “but I knew him,” the shaking hand and accelerated breathing, the unmistakable fear as the wipe begins, the screams …so devastatingly different from the machine-like killer on the news footage.)
When Tony finishes his research, he no longer desires revenge.
(Because you can’t blame a gun for a murder, you blame the man who pulled the trigger, and that man is already dead.)
When Tony researches Bucky Barnes, he discovers a man of incredible, indescribable loyalty to a small kid from Brooklyn.
(He no longer wonders why Steve is so desperate to save someone who almost killed him.)
When Tony first meets Bucky Barnes, the man is quiet, a step behind Steve, head down, shoulders hunched, trying to appear smaller, nonthreatening. He immediately offers a floor in his tower for their joint use.
(He never meets the Winter Soldier; that man died when Steve fell into the Potomac.)
When Tony notices the arm is malfunctioning, he offers to help. Bucky hesitantly accepts.
(They talk about Howard once, only once. No forgiveness is offered; instead Tony makes it clear that none is needed.)
When Tony realizes how much Bucky suffers from PTSD, they find common ground.
(Torture, surgery without anesthesia, bodies modified without consent, innocent blood on their hands, nights that end in screams...he remembers that music can be therapeutic, that Bucky Barnes used to play piano, and a Steinway is delivered to Steve and Bucky’s floor later that day.)
When Tony Stark first met Steve Rogers, he never realized he would one day end up being best friends with two emotionally damaged nonagenarians.
(He never regrets it.)