Archive of Our Own

ONE - Family In All The Places You Least Expect

His ears were ringing and all he could see was blinding white light.  What the hell?  Tony was lost in the sea of white, completely disoriented.  Through the ringing in his ears he could hear shouts and cries, but he didn’t understand why.  Where the hell was he?  What was happening?  He reached for his wrist watch gauntlet, scrabbling to hit the button on the side, but something was wrong.  Normally the nanotech would have crawled up his arm to give his arm some protection and bring out a repulsor, but it didn’t feel like that’s what was happening.

The ground shook beneath him, and it was the first moment he realized he was on the ground.  Then suddenly his vision cleared and all the sound of the chaos around him came rushing back in.  His breath caught as his senses were assaulted by the stench of something burning, screams in the street, and the sound of explosions as the ground continued to shake.

He sat up from where he’d been lying on his back and clenched his eyes shut for long moments, just trying to breathe.  He didn’t know what was going on… where he was, but now was definitely not an ideal moment for a panic attack.  It didn’t help that his head simultaneously felt like it was stuffed with cotton and at the same time had been split open.  He reached up with a groan to the back of his head just to verify that the pain wasn’t from his skull being split in two, but his hand came away clean.  No blood, just dust and grit from lying on the floor.

Tony’s eyes flew open again at a terrified shout and he looked around for the source.  He was in a destroyed coffee shop (his favorite coffee shop on East 49th), completely alone.  There was glass all over the floor where the windows had been blown inward by a blast, chairs turned on their sides, and- he closed his eyes again.  There was a body by the door.  Someone had been too close to the windows when they’d exploded.

Careful not to place his hands down on the shards of glass on the floor, Tony pushed himself up and moved over to the man to check for a pulse.  There was none.  He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, and stumbled past the man and out the door.  People were running down the street, ducking as explosions went off nearby.  If they were smart, he thought, they’d head to a subway station.  They weren’t safe out on the street.

A loud explosion shook the ground so hard that Tony struggled to keep his balance.  That had sounded close, like it was on East 50th.  He reached down to his gauntlet watch again and pressed the button several times, but again, nothing happened.

A woman ran by outside, a briefcase held up over her head, and Tony reached out the broken coffee shop door and grabbed her, pulling her back into the darkened shop just as another explosion rocked the ground.  “Hey!  Let me go!”  She struggled and he let her go, holding his hands up in the air.

“It’s best to wait in here.  It’s a-” it was a warzone out there.

She looked up at his face and paused, recognizing him.  He was one of the most recognizable faces in the country.  He usually went out with a hat and sunglasses, but he’d lost them when he’d been knocked out by whatever blast had blown out all the windows and sent the coffee shop patrons running out of the shop.

“Can’t you do something about all this?” she asked.  There was desperation in her eyes.  Tony didn’t even know what this was.

“What’s happening out there?”

“Some sort of attack.  I dunno,” she said, breathless.

“By who?  Who’s attacking us?”  He wanted to reach out and grab her arm… shake her… make her tell him all the vital information he needed to know, but hugged himself instead, planting his hands firmly on his shoulders.  His left shoulder hurt to touch and he glanced at it briefly to note there was no blood… no glass embedded in his shoulder through his maroon pullover.  It must just be bruised then.

“I don’t- there were people on flying machines… like in 2012.”

“Aliens?” Tony let his hands fall back to his sides.  No… please no.  Not again.

“I dunno,” she stammered.  “It looked like regular people… but the machines they had… it was like that.  Like the alien gliders.”

There was another explosion, this one just down the street, and both ducked as bits of asphalt and metal from cars out front went flying past the destroyed coffee shop windows.  A plume of dust blew in, coating them.  If Tony hadn’t pulled her inside, she probably would have been caught in the explosion.  As if to drive the point home, there were wails from outside down the street, and Tony’s stomach turned.  He tried to keep his eyes up on her face and not let them drift down to the poor soul on the floor that hadn’t made it.

He reached down and hit the button on his watch again, but again nothing happened.  He felt in his pocket for his phone.  He’d have to have FRIDAY send him a suit.  His phone wouldn’t turn on though.  The screen wouldn’t light up.  What the hell?

“Your phone,” Tony said, holding out his hands and making a ‘give me’ motion.  “I need it.”

She dug around in her briefcase and pulled it out, but it didn’t seem to be working either.

“An EMP must have taken the electronics out.”  He looked up to the destroyed windows again and noted there were no cars trying to make their way down the street.  In fact, people had abandoned their vehicles in the road.  He went to the door and looked out and noted his Audi was a hunk of twisted metal lying upside down right where he’d parked it.

No gauntlet.  No phone.  No FRIDAY.  No car.  No suits.

“Ok,” he said, turning away from her.  Shit.  Ok.  No, not ok!  This was a really bad time to have a panic attack!

He turned back to her and started to talk, words flying out of his mouth almost faster than he could think them in a bid to occupy his brain long enough to stave off the feeling of all the breath being squeezed out of his chest.

“Our best bet is to stay inside until it’s over.  Most of the Avengers are in town this morning.  They were at the tower when I left.  They’ll be on this.  We go out there right now and try to make it to the tower, we’re dead.  So we stay put and wait it out.”  His eyes flashed up to her to see if she was listening, but found her staring at the body on the floor.  He stepped towards her and said, “Hey, eyes up here.”

Her eyes came up to his and he found tears there.  Not good.  If she panicked he was definitely going to lose it.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Joy.”

“Hi Joy.  I’m Tony.”

“I know.”

He pointed at a chair, walked forward, feet crunching over broken glass, and picked it up from where it was lying on its side.  “Sit there Joy.”

She sat down, flinched hard at another explosion, this one four or five blocks away, and then kept her eyes on the black screen of her phone.  Having nothing left to do now but wait, Tony watched out the window.  No one was left out on the street, and his mind flew into overdrive.

Cap, Nat, Clint, Bruce and Barnes were at the tower.  Rhodey was away in DC, but he was only a 30 minute flight if he booked it in his suit.  With an attack this big… Tony assumed DC had been notified and that Rhodey would be on his way… that he might already be around somewhere fighting whoever this was.  It had been quite a while since an attack of this size on New York.  There were always minor villains trying something.  Last month there had been a guy controlling a swarm of two hundred flying robots near Central Park.  The month before there had been two villains that had teamed up in Harlem, though Nat and Clint had taken them both out on their own.

It had been two years since something this big though.  Two years since there had been such chaos in the streets.  It didn’t matter how many fights Tony had been in… how much death and destruction he’d seen… he was never going to get used to this.  Seeing the street outside with chunks of concrete and cars on fire made him think of the battle of New York… of flying into a wormhole with a nuke and not getting to say goodbye to Pepper.  Worse, it took him right back to Afghanistan to the convoy being hit, and being so confused and disoriented that he hadn’t known what to do with himself as the soldiers around him died.

“Hey.”

His eyes came up at Joy’s voice and he found her giving him a worried look.  “Yeah?”

“Just- breathe.”

Shit.  His breathing was ragged, wasn’t it?  He’d been standing there with his back to her, hands on his hips and starting to hyperventilate.  “Yeah,” he said again.  He reached up and dragged his hand over his face.  Not 2012.  Not 2008.  He wondered what they were going to call this day… how he’d think back on this incident in two or three years and how much it would add to his nightmares.

He dragged his mind away from that and let it wander to Pepper.  Pepper was at the tower.  She had a day full of meetings scheduled with the board and several other departments.  The tower was overengineered to withstand natural disasters and attacks.  She would be fine.  He repeated it to himself several times to reassure himself.  Pepper would be fine, and Peter would be fine because he was at school in Queens and- oh.  Oh no.

“Shit,” Tony said, voice barely above a whisper.  It brought Joy’s attention to him anyway.

“What?”

“What day is it?”

When she just stared at him, panic began to bubble up in his chest again.  “What’s today?” he asked again, louder this time.  He motioned frantically with his hands.  “The date?  What’s today?”

“It’s Friday the 10th.”

“No,” he breathed out.  “Damn it.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer her, and looked back out the broken windows to the street.  Peter wasn’t at school, he was on a field trip to MOMA which was about eight blocks away.  If his bus had already left Queens and had entered this part of the city, Peter could be hurt, or worse.

“I have to go,” he said.

“What?  You can’t go out there.”

Tony wasn’t going to argue with her.  He had to find Peter.  It was going to be an impossible task on foot.  He needed to get back to the tower and get a suit and hope the EMP hadn’t knocked his electronics out there.  His lab was shielded from that sort of thing.

“Hear that?” he asked as he crunched over broken glass to the door.  “It sounds like it stopped.”  He turned back to her.  “I’d recommend staying here for a while longer just to be sure, then try to make your way out of the destruction zone or down to a subway.”  He felt bad leaving her there… not taking her with him back to the tower, but he needed to move as quickly as possible so he could find Peter.  His gut clenched again at the thought that Peter might be lying dead in the street somewhere just blocks from here.  His eyes moved involuntarily down to the body on the floor, and Tony had to breathe through the urge to throw up.  “Sorry,” he told her, and then he stepped out onto the street.  After the explosions that had been happening on their street and nearby, the entire area was now eerily silent.  It felt… wrong.  Tony had experienced the same feeling a number of times before in the silence following big battles, and along with it the feeling he couldn’t shake that something else was coming.

He pushed it all down inside himself and turned towards Park Ave.  He just needed to make it up one block to Park Ave and then he could make his way up that street for six blocks and then turn West down 55th to get back to the tower.  Looking down the block, he could see it was going to be a difficult task to get back to the tower though.  Cars were overturned and on fire, chunks of the sidewalk and street were missing, and there was broken glass from blown out windows everywhere along with other debris.

He started picking his way down the street, careful when stepping over rubble to be sure his footing was stable.  The last thing he needed to do was sprain an ankle.  He would crawl back to the tower if he had to, but that would delay him from getting back, and he needed to get there as soon as possible.  Another vision, this time of Peter bleeding out because he was moving too slowly, formed in his mind, and Tony picked up his pace.  His best hope was that somehow Peter’s class had been delayed and hadn’t entered this part of the city yet… that they had been alerted of the destruction and had turned back towards Midtown high.

It took him seven or eight minutes to make it down the block and onto Park Ave.  It should have taken him three or four, but he was going as fast as he could with this much debris to navigate.  His shoulders fell when he saw how much worse Park Ave looked.  He didn’t waste any time before starting up the street.  Luckily it looked like most people had cleared out, probably taking refuge in Grand Central Terminal.  He was glad that there weren’t bodies littering the street.

He made his way up a block to East 50th before he saw anybody else.  At first his gut clenched when he saw the person lying on the ground trapped under a car that was on its side.  He hurried as fast as he could to the car, head pounding as he went, and let out a sigh of relief and wanted to groan at the same time when he realized that the person was moving.  It wasn’t until he was right up to the car that he realized it wasn’t a stranger, but someone he knew.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked, throwing his uninjured shoulder up against the car and putting his weight into it.  Sergeant Barnes was lying there on his back, one leg trapped beneath it, and had been struggling trying to push the car off of himself.  He didn’t answer as he pushed again.  He had no leverage, so it was up to Tony to tip the car back onto its wheels to free him.

“Are you- pushing- at all?” Tony ground out as he dug his feet in against the curb and tried to lift more with his legs.  It would be best if he could start the car rocking, but he was afraid if he did that he’d end up hurting Barnes even more.

“Just get it off enough for me to slide out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Tony ground out again.  In his armor he could lift the car up without any effort at all.  By himself it was almost impossible.  He needed to get Barnes out, but he didn’t think there was any way he would be able to by himself.

“A little more,” Barnes said.  He sounded like he was in pain.  Tony had his eyes clenched shut, focusing on trying to push the car over and fight against the rising nausea from the pounding in his head, so he couldn’t see what was going on.  “Almost-” Barnes gave a grunt and then said, “I’m out.”

Tony didn’t look before he pulled back from the car and it crashed down several inches to the street.  He was panting from the effort and noted that Barnes was doing the same, lying on his back.  Tony was surprised he had been able to budge the car even an inch.  “Was that you or me?” he asked, leaning over to put his hands on his knees, out of breath.  Barnes was enhanced, like Steve and had super strength.

“You,” he said, struggling to get up onto his elbows.  “I didn’t have any leverage.”

Tony waited for his head to stop pounding, but it didn’t and he didn’t think it was going to.  He was pretty sure he had a concussion from getting knocked out in the coffee shop.  “Where are the others?” he asked.  If Barnes was down here, it meant Steve and the others would be too.

“I don’t know.”

Tony looked down at him with a frown.  “They left you?”

“No, I wasn’t down here fighting.  I was just getting some air when things started to happen.”

“Crap,” Tony muttered.  He reached up and rubbed his forehead hard.  He looked up the street, and then down it.  There was no sign of the team, or anyone else that could help Barnes.  That was a real problem, for a lot of reasons.  He couldn’t leave Barnes, but he needed to leave him so that he could get back as quickly as possible and find Peter.

He looked down at the man and noted that as soon as he did, Barnes looked away.  Things had been uncomfortable between them since the Rogues had returned four months prior.  Tony had done his best to avoid Barnes at all costs, and this was the first time they’d actually spoken since the Rogues had returned.

“You look awful,” Tony said.  There was blood on Barnes' left ankle where it had been trapped under the car and it was sitting at a slightly odd angle.

“It’s broken,” Barnes said, motioning towards his ankle.  He looked up at Tony for a moment, gaze calculating, and then his face hardened.  “I’ll be fine.  Go.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get back to the tower and help the others.  Send someone back for me.”

Tony’s gut churned again.  At this point he wasn’t sure if it was because of the concussion or all of the panic that kept ebbing and flowing in and out of him like a tide.  He wasn’t feeling panicked at the moment.  He felt angry that he was trapped here with Barnes and sick at the same time that Barnes thought he would just leave him there.  He wasn’t a monster.  He was wary of Barnes and he had good reason to be, if not because he’d killed his parents (which was a pretty good damn reason to be pissed), then because Steve had split up the team and almost killed Tony in Siberia over Barnes.  It was a can of worms and jumbled up emotions Tony didn’t want to open, hence why he had been avoiding the man at all costs.  He’d been avoiding Steve too, but not to the point of having FRIDAY notify him whenever he was on the same floor like he did with Barnes.

“I won’t leave you here,” Tony said, anger cutting through his voice.  Helping Barnes could mean losing Peter.  That would be another family member Barnes would be responsible for killing then.  Tony reached down for him and didn’t give him a choice when he lifted him up, holding on to him so he could find balance on his one good foot.

Once Barnes was stable, Tony looked up and found him giving him an uncertain look.  “Come on.  I needed to be back at the tower forty minutes ago.”

“You can just leave me here.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen.”  Whether he’d assassinated his parents or not, he was still a person… a person who had been under Hydra’s mind control.  Tony knew that.  He’d known that from the start as soon as the truth had been revealed.  It didn’t make the loss of his parents or his bad feelings towards Barnes any less painful.  Nevertheless, Barnes was a person, and he had people that cared about him, waiting for him to return.

Tony moved closer to him and grabbed his left arm, putting it around his neck.  He put his right arm around the Winter Soldier’s waist and said, “Come on.  We need to hurry.”

“I’m sure the tower’s fine.”

“Yeah, well my kid isn’t,” Tony snapped.

Barnes didn’t ask, and for a few moments as they started moving up the street, Tony didn’t answer.  He let a dozen worried thoughts about Peter pass through his mind before he decided to tell Barnes just what a problem he was for him.  It wasn’t that he needed Barnes to know.  He just needed to talk… to keep his mind occupied so it didn’t spin out of control and throw him into the panic attack that had been trying to consume him since he first regained consciousness in the coffee shop.

“I need to be out looking for Peter instead of lugging your heavy ass around.”

“I said you could leave me.”

“And I said that’s not gonna happen,” Tony snapped at him again.  He was quiet for long moments as he helped Barnes hop over a large, loose chunk of concrete.  “Kid was on a field trip to MOMA today.  He’s out there somewhere in the middle of this, and I can’t get out to find him because I can’t call a suit to me, or call the team to come get you because of an EMP or dampening field.  What the hell were you even doing down here anyway?  Why weren’t you back at the tower?”

Barnes didn’t answer.  Tony knew it was an unfair question.  He wasn’t a prisoner.  He was allowed to go out to the city and do things… to live his life.  Normally Tony didn’t care where he went or what he did as long as Tony didn’t have to be involved with it.  He was stressed out though, and his head was pounding, and they were moving at an agonizingly slow pace, Barnes hopping along on one good foot and Tony dragging him around debris as they moved up Park Ave another half a block.

“Now I’m stuck dealing with you,” Tony continued to mutter.  “I shouldn’t be worried about you, but I am, because I have to be, because even if the rest of the team thinks I’m just a jerk or an asshole that’s irresponsible and doesn’t care, I’m not.”  They’d never called him a jerk to his face, but he knew that’s what they thought of him.  Once he had been friends with Nat, and he had thought he was friends with Steve, but they’d both chosen Barnes over him.  Steve had called Tony irresponsible several times in the past.  In fact, it was his favorite thing to tell Tony, and right before the Battle of New York he’d told Tony to his face that he didn’t care about anyone but himself… that he would never be willing to sacrifice himself for others.  It wasn’t true, and Tony believed he had proven that time and again, but it didn’t matter.  They were going to think what they wanted… do what they wanted.  He couldn’t stop any of it.

Anger burned in his stomach as his mind spun through thoughts he’d been trying to keep at bay for months… for a year and a half since the fight in Germany had taken place and the team had broken apart.  He was so deep in thought that he startled when Barnes spoke.  The supersoldier had been quiet for several minutes, just letting Tony rant at him.

“We can’t go this way.”

Tony let his eyes focus.  He’d been moving on automatic and hadn’t been seeing what was ahead of them.  Now that he was paying attention, he saw what Barnes was talking about.  Part of a building had crumbled and there was a ten foot high pile of debris all the way across Park Ave.  There was no way past it.  Tony might have been able to climb over it himself, but there was no way he could get Barnes up and over it with a broken ankle.

Tony turned and looked around them.  “We’ll cut down East 51st.”

They backtracked thirty feet and went down another street.  This one was mostly free of debris surprisingly and they popped out onto Madison Ave after nine or ten minutes.  Madison looked as bad as Park however.  It was going to take forever to get back to the tower.

If Barnes hadn’t been out and about… if he hadn’t gotten hurt… Tony clenched his eyes shut for a moment as they stood on the corner of Madison and East 51st.  It wasn’t Barnes’ fault, he reminded himself.  It wasn't his fault, and if he couldn't get to Peter, that wasn’t his fault either.  Tony wanted it to be though, because that was easy.  It was easy to be mad at Barnes over this when he was still angry with him about his parents, and about Germany, and Siberia.  Tony didn’t want to be angry at all, but if he was going to be, being pissed at Barnes was easier than dealing with the stress and panic and other things warring for his attention.

“You said he was on a field trip?” Barnes asked.

Tony opened his eyes and shifted Barnes’ arm and then his grip around Barnes’ waist because he was heavy and Tony’s back and shoulders were starting to ache from helping him down the street.  “That’s what I said.”  He couldn’t keep his anger and irritation from leaking into his voice.

Barnes pointed past him and down Madison Ave in the opposite direction they needed to go.  Tony glared at him and then looked to where he was pointing.  Almost a block down there was a large vehicle on its side.

“What?” Tony asked, squinting and not sure what Barnes was pointing at.

“It’s a school bus.  I can see it.”

Tony squinted harder but he just didn’t have as good of vision as the supersoldier.  “You’re sure?”

Barnes nodded.  “It’s yellow.”

Tony wanted to keep heading back towards the tower, but if there was any possibility of it being an overturned school bus, he had to get down there to check and see if it was Peter’s class.

“I’ll wait here,” Barnes said, but Tony only tightened his grip on him and turned them left so they could go towards the bus.

“Mention it one more time, Manchurian Candidate,” Tony ground out.  He tried not to think about what the rest of the team thought of him… tried not to let it bother him, but he was reminded again and again in moments like this… moments when Barnes thought he would leave him behind, or when Cap brought up Ultron time and again, or when he was reminded that Nat had said she’d be there and then had switched sides mid battle in Germany to help Steve and RoboCop escape.  He was never going to be able to prove himself to them.  Pepper had once said he should stop trying, because they weren’t his friends… his family, and didn’t matter.  Happy had once said the same thing.  Pep, Rhodey, Happy and Peter were his family.  They were the ones that believed in him, so he should only care about what they thought.  Sometimes he had a hard time remembering that.  Thinking about it now, and thinking about how much Peter needed him, especially if he was hurt, made him pick up the pace.  It was hard for Barnes to keep up as they went down Madison towards the overturned bus, but he didn’t complain.

As they neared the bus, working their way around debris on the sidewalk, they started to hear voices, and Tony became aware that there was a group of people near the bus.  He wanted to drop Barnes on the sidewalk and rush forward the moment he caught sight of Peter’s familiar frame.

The yellow school bus was on its side, and a group of teenagers and several adults were sitting on the sidewalk next to it.  Many of them were leaning up against the underside of the overturned bus, some cradling broken wrists, others dazed and confused.  Peter was the only one standing up, and it looked like he was handling the situation despite that there were adults present.  Tony heard him telling a girl to wrap something around a cut on her leg, and then telling a man that was shaking that it was all going to be ok.

Peter didn’t notice them as they approached until a kid with dark hair saw them and said loudly, “Holy shit, is that Tony Stark?”

Peter turned, and Tony caught a look of relief cross his face before his eyes widened at the sight of Barnes leaning heavily against Tony’s side and hopping slowly along, injured foot dragging.

“Mr. Stark!” There was so much relief in his voice that Tony wondered if his own relief at finding Peter alive was somehow seeping from him and Peter was just soaking it up.  “Put him down here,” Peter said, pointing at an empty spot next to the bus.

As the class and random adults that had joined their group looked on, Tony lowered Barnes to the ground where Peter had directed with some difficulty.  He didn’t want to drop him abruptly and injure him more, but Barnes was heavy and Tony’s body was aching and exhausted.  Barnes made it down to the ground safely however, and as soon as Tony’s arms were free, he stood up and pulled Peter into a hug.

If the people gathered had been shocked to see Peter giving Tony Stark orders, and Tony following them, they were even more shocked to see Tony pulling this random kid into a hug.  Tony and Peter weren’t paying attention to any of it though.

“I was so worried about you,” Tony breathed, holding Peter tightly.  He pressed a kiss into the top of Peter’s hair.  “I knew you were down here with your class, but I didn’t know if you were all right.”

“I’m fine.  I’m good, really.”

Tony pulled back to look at him, not letting go of Peter’s shoulders.  His eyes swept over the dust covering Peter’s face and hair, and then down to the rip in his shirt.

“Ok, give it to me straight kid.  Come on.”

“I’m not hurt, really.”

Tony just stared at him and Peter squirmed.  “I broke a couple ribs and sprained my wrist, that’s all.”

“Oh is that all,” Tony said, blowing out a puff of air.  “Let me see.”  Peter reluctantly held up his wrist and Tony reached forward and held it gently, not wanting to hurt him.  It was swollen and bruised.  He let go and said,   “Why don’t you sit down kid.”

“Says the guy with a cut on his forehead,” Peter mumbled.

“What did you just say?”

Peter grinned up at him.  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

“That’s what I thought Roo.”

Tony left one hand on Peter’s shoulder, unwilling to let go of him now that he’d found him there amidst the chaos.  He looked around, trying to gauge what kind of danger they were in, but all he could see around them was rubble, cars flipped over, people limping away and the skyscrapers still standing tall above them.  He let his eyes come back around to the group of injured students and other civilians Peter seemed to have lined up in two rows sitting next to the overturned bus.  He could see people with broken arms, cuts and bruises, but no one was unconscious.  Because of how bad the roads were blocked with debris and cars, it was going to be some time before emergency personnel could make it this far into the destruction zone.  Tony would rather just take Peter and Barnes and get back to the tower, but he knew there was no way Peter was going to leave his injured classmates or civilians behind.

“What are the worst injuries?” Tony asked Peter.  “Anyone who can’t walk?”

“I think we’re all mostly ok,” Peter said.  “I’m pretty sure almost everyone on the bus is concussed.  A couple people have broken arms.  There’s a couple other people with sprained ankles,” he said, motioning behind him as he talked.

“Ok,” Tony said.  “Ok, we’re six blocks from the tower.  We can get everybody there.  I’m hoping the destruction doesn’t go that far and emergency crews can get in to get people out, but if not we can take everyone to the med bay.”

Peter turned to look over the group of injured again, and said, “Mr. Harrington?”

“We’re going to Stark Tower?” the teacher asked, and Peter nodded, trying to give him a small smile.  The man looked dazed and in pain.

“They have a med bay and doctors on staff.”

Mr. Harrington pushed himself up gingerly, using the underside of the bus behind him to get up and said, “Ok, everybody up.  I want all of you to help each other.  Everyone stick together.”  Tony noted he had a deep gash on his upper left arm and that someone had tied a strip of ripped cloth around it to help stem the bleeding.

Peter moved to help people up, and then turned and reached down to Barnes.  “C’mon uncle Bucky.”

Tony stared, watching as Barnes floundered at the name Peter had called him.  Tony was floundering too.  He had done his best to keep Peter away from Barnes and the other Rogues and was surprised he’d chosen to call him uncle… like he’d spent time with him anyway despite Tony’s best efforts.

It looked like Barnes was just going to sit there and stare slack jawed at Peter, but Peter was reaching under his arm to help him up so he didn’t have a choice.  Tony stepped in to help, letting Barnes put his left arm back around his shoulder again.  Peter’s teacher was doing the same to help a girl with a sprained ankle, and two civilians were flanking a guy in a business suit who needed extra help to walk.  No one seemed to need Peter’s help, so he came to Barnes’ other side and let the man wrap his right arm around Peter’s shoulder.

The group set off, everyone too exhausted or in too much pain to talk.  Tony, Peter and Barnes lead the way, careful to step over chunks of concrete, bits of metal, broken glass and holes in the sidewalk.  After a block they had to move around two cars that were overturned and had landed on the sidewalk, but got right back onto the sidewalk afterwards as it was the clearest path.  It was slow going and would take them some time to walk the next five blocks north and then another west.  After another block, some of the kids in Peter’s class started talking quietly behind them to pass the time, but for the most part the little bit of talking amongst the group was things like, “Watch your step,” and, “Do you need a break?”

Tony was both surprised and annoyed when Barnes decided to break the silence at the front of the group with a question to Peter.  “Why’d you call me that?” he asked quietly.

Peter didn’t answer at first, not sure RoboCop was talking to him, but when Tony didn’t answer Peter looked up and found Barnes giving him an uncomfortable look as they helped him navigate the debris littered sidewalk.  “Huh?”

“Why’d you call me uncle?  I’m not your uncle.”

Peter opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off with a sharp laugh from behind.  He stiffened at the sound, and Barnes frowned at him, wondering what was wrong.

“Not now Flash,” came Ned’s tired and irritated voice.  Ned had come to the tower several times to visit Peter, and Tony was glad that he was alive and well too.  He was Peter’s best and only friend and Tony didn’t want his kid to go through that kind of loss again.  He’d lost too much already.

“Seriously, what did he expect?” Flash said, sounding irritated himself.  “You want me to feel bad for Parker just because he doesn’t know that he doesn’t have a family?”

Peter and Barnes were jerked backwards when Tony stopped abruptly.  He twisted out of Barnes’ arm and Peter was forced to support the supersoldier’s full weight.

“So this is a thing?” Tony snapped, turning to the group of people behind them, eyes searching for who had been talking.  Ned gave a little sideways nod towards Flash, who was cradling his broken arm to himself and Tony zoned in on him.  “Bullying my son is a thing?  Why don’t you just stay here by yourself while the rest of us head to the tower.  How about that?”

Flash gaped at him like a fish, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out, eyes wide.  The rest of Peter’s class and the three civilians who had been walking with them wore a similar expression.

“S- son?” Flash finally pulled himself together enough to ask.

“Yeah,” Tony said, taking several steps forward until he was right in front of him.  Tony poked Flash’s chest with his pointer finger.  “Let me guess, your name is Flash?”  Peter had mentioned him before.  Tony had wanted to go down to the school to talk to the principal after Happy had told him he’d witnessed some kid bullying Peter on the front steps of Midtown, but Peter had begged him not to.

Flash gulped and gave a nod.

“You’ve got two choices Flash.” Tony said his name like it was something that tasted unsavory.  “Either you apologize to him and leave him alone from this point forward, or you can find your own way out of this mess.”

Flash floundered for a few moments, unable to tear his eyes away from Tony’s angry face as he stared up at it.  Finally he let his eyes flicker over to Peter, who was still supporting Barnes.  They’d both turned to watch, gaping just as much as Flash and the others, at the dramatic scene unfolding on the destroyed street.

“Sorry Parker… erm… I mean… Stark?” Flash’s voice pitched up and cracked at the end, both confused and stressed at the latest turn of events.

Tony, ready to be done with this entire day, turned on his heel and stalked away, jaw still clenched in anger.  He went back to Barnes’ side without a word and lifted the supersoldier’s arm back over his shoulders.  The trio turned and started to walk again.  “Dumbass thing to say,” Tony muttered, though it was loud enough for Flash and Ned to hear directly behind them.  “Talking shit about a kid in front of his dad and uncle who is the Winter Soldier.”  He continued to mutter about Flash being lucky that he didn’t have access to his Iron Man suit at the moment, as they helped Barnes navigate around a huge chunk of fallen concrete.  The rest of the group fell silent behind them, and stayed that way, like they were afraid to anger Iron Man.  He must look and sound crazed to them, he thought.

Tony wasn’t sure how long it took them to get off of Madison and then a block down East 55th to Stark Tower, but he was grateful when the tower loomed up over them.  There wasn’t any destruction on this portion of East 55th, though there were a lot of people limping down the street like them.  Before they made it all the way to the front entrance of the tower, they spotted a group of seven or eight people going in the front doors.  A minute later they made it inside and were greeted with organized chaos.

SI security and other staff were directing injured people to sit down in rows in the lobby, were handing out water bottles, and were bringing bandages and pieces of cloth to people to press to bleeding wounds.  One of the doctors from the med bay was there doing triage.  Tony must have looked more of a mess than he thought, because at first the security guard that came up to them when they entered through the front doors didn’t recognize him.

“There’s space over here.  Come in and sit down.  The authorities have been notified that we have wounded but it’s going to take them some time to come and pick people up.  A lot of the roads are still blocked by debris.”

“Is the med bay up and running?” Tony asked.  The security guard paused where he’d been ushering people in their group to a cramped space on the floor up against the front desk and looked up at Tony.  He scrutinized his dirty face for a moment, and then his eyes widened in recognition.

“Mr. Stark!”

“That’s me.  Is the med bay running?”

“It’s running, but it’s busy sir.”  He was going to say more, but stopped when Pepper hurried over.  Tony hadn’t realized she’d been in the lobby in the midst of the chaos.

“Tony!” she said.  Barnes let go of him and leaned heavily on Peter as Pepper moved in to hug Tony, trying to be cautious of any injuries he had. After a moment she pulled back to look him up and down, eyeing the cut on his forehead he hadn’t even realized he had until Peter had said something earlier about it.

“FRIDAY said you went out but I couldn’t get ahold of you,” she rushed to say.

“Sorry, my phone was down.  Everything is down.”

“We know.  There was some sort of EMP that was set off, but it was pretty localized.  It didn’t make it as far as the tower.”  She turned and eyed Barnes, who was struggling to keep his balance on one foot, and spied Peter.  She couldn’t hug him because he was the only thing keeping Barnes upright, so she moved forward and cupped his face gently with one hand. “I’m glad you’re ok sweetheart,” she said. “I was worried about you too since your field trip was today.  I’m not surprised Tony found you though.”

“I’m ok,” Peter tried to reassure her.

“I’m glad.”

Tony moved back to Barnes’ side and let him put his arm around Tony’s neck and shoulders again.  “We’re going up to the Med Bay.”

“Can you take Mr. Harrington with you?” Peter asked.  “Oh, and Flash?  There’s a couple other people with broken bones too.”

“It’ll be a little bit of a wait,” Pepper said, reaching forward to touch Peter’s arm and leaving it there.  She looked like she didn’t want to let him out of her sight again either.

“What do you mean can I take them with me?” Tony asked.  “You’re coming.”

“No, I wanna go back out and help,” Peter said.  “I can bring more people back here or at least tell them to make their way here to wait for ambulances.  I can help.  I’m going.”  Peter tried to make his voice sound assertive, but judging by the look he was giving Tony from the other side of Barnes, he knew Tony wasn’t going to allow it.

"Not with broken ribs you're not."

Peter was quiet for several moments, but then his shoulders slumped and he said, “Yeah, ok.”  Tony wished Barnes wasn’t between them so he could give Peter another hug.

Mr. Harrington, Flash, and two girls, one with a broken leg and another with a broken arm, follow Peter, Barnes and Tony to the elevator. They were all quiet as they rose up through the tower.  All of them were dirty, and had torn clothes and messy hair.  Considering the other injuries Tony had encountered (his mind flashed back again to the person in the coffee shop that didn’t make it), he knew he was lucky to have only suffered a few cuts and bruises, and a concussion.  Peter was lucky too.  They all were.  He couldn’t help but wonder as the elevator continued up towards the 82nd floor, how many people out there hadn’t made it.

When the elevator doors opened to the 82nd floor, which housed the med bay and some guest rooms, they found the hallway outside the med bay full of injured people sitting along one wall on the floor.  A nurse spotted them and hurried down the hall towards them.  “What are your injuries?” she asked.  They went over their injuries and she told Mr. Harrington that the doctor would want to see him first to clean out his gash and get it stitched up.  The rest of them settled in to wait.  Tony didn’t want to lower Barnes to the floor again, so he and Barnes ended up leaning against a wall, Tony still supporting him.

A different nurse came out a few minutes later along with a patient that had been treated, told him to take the elevator back down to the lobby, and then eyed Tony and Barnes.

“Mr. Stark, we can take you now.”

Tony looked at the other people sitting in the hall waiting to be treated. He was fine and would be ok waiting for a while longer.  It wasn’t like they could do much for a concussion anyway.  He’d rather they take Barnes and Peter, or some of the other people that had broken bones that needed tending to.

“I can wait.  Take Barnes.”

“No,” Barnes said, voice rough.  He nodded towards the other people in the hall.  “Them first.”

The nurse sighed and then went down the hall asking to look at people’s injuries.  She ended up taking a little girl and her mother into the med bay.  The little girl looked fine, but her mother’s wrist was extremely swollen and purple.

Mr. Harrington came back out, and then Flash was seen, followed by Peter’s other two classmates.  Tony and Barnes were both asked again if they wanted to be seen, but Barnes said he would wait his turn, because there were still ten people ahead of him that had been there before they came up.

“Pete, you wanna see if you can find a chair?” Tony asked.  Peter nodded and went down the hall and around a corner.  He was probably going to one of the guest rooms.  They had already been waiting forty five minutes, and Tony needed to set Barnes down.

While Peter was gone, his teacher looked up from his spot on the floor across the hall where he waited with Flash for Peter’s other two classmates to come out so they could go back to the lobby together.

“Mr. Stark,” he said, and Tony looked down at him.  “I just wanted to tell you what a big help Peter was to us.  After it flipped over, he made his way to the back of the bus and opened the emergency exit.  He got everyone out and seated and then started helping other people.  It was like he’d done all of this before… he was calm and collected as he directed people on what he wanted them to do.  I never expected that kind of leadership from one of my students.”

Tony bet he had also never expected to get caught up in an attack on the city either.  Or maybe he had with all of the recent attacks and the Battle of New York back in 2012.  “He’s a good kid,” Tony said.

“I just wanted you to know how proud of him I am.  I’ll be telling the principal about how helpful he was,” Mr. Harrington finished.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”  He was sure Peter wouldn’t appreciate it.  The kid was modest and didn’t like his accomplishments as Spider Man to be called out.  He was still Spider Man, even without the suit.  His teacher had said it was like Peter had done all of this before.  He hadn’t dealt with this exact thing before, but Peter was used to directing civilians on what to do in an emergency.  Once Tony had been notified by FRIDAY that Spider Man had run into a burning building.  He’d flown out of the tower with his suit, intending to drag Peter out of the burning building, only to arrive at the incident to find Spider Man outside and directing the firefighters on which floor to go to and how many civilians were up there.  The firefighters hadn’t even questioned him because he was Spider Man and had spoken with authority on the matter.  “I’m proud of him too,” Tony said.  Thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d told Peter that.  He should tell the kid that more often.

Peter brought back a chair a few minutes later, and placed it next to Barnes, who sank down into it.  Ten minutes later, Peter’s teacher and classmates went back down to the lobby, and a few minutes after that, Happy appeared with a bag of items for them.  “Here, Pep said you’d want this,” he said, pulling a brand new cellphone out of the bag and handing it to Tony.  “FRIDAY set it up how you had your other one.”  He pulled out a second phone and gave it to Peter, and then handed the plastic bag to Tony.  It had three bottles of water and several granola bars.

“Thanks.  How’s it looking downstairs?”

“Three ambulances have come so far, but they’re slow in coming back.  The city’s a mess right now.  They’ve been packing people into the back to get as many people to the hospital as they can.  We still have more people coming in, even people that aren’t hurt.  Pep was able to get a hold of someone from the city.  They’re sending buses in to get people out of the damaged area.”

Happy asked if they needed him to stay, and Tony told him they didn’t and to head back downstairs to help Pepper.  He used his new phone to catch up with what was going on both inside and outside the tower, and to check in with the rest of the team while they waited to be seen by the doctor.  Steve, Nat, Sam and Clint were all out helping injured people and clearing roads.  Rhodey was also out and about doing the same.  They didn’t know where exactly Bruce was, but Nat had reported back that she thought he might be in another building near the tower helping injured people that had gathered there.  As of yet, no one had answers about who the attackers were.  The team had taken them out and SHIELD had come to collect them for interrogation.

From the time they had made it up to the 82nd floor to the time it was finally their turn to be seen, a little over two hours had passed.  Peter and Tony helped Barnes into the med bay and up onto a bed.

“No,” Barnes said when a tired looking doctor came to look at his leg.  “Them first.”

The doctor eyed Tony and then Peter and said, “They don’t look as bad as you do.”

“Them first,” Barnes growled, and the doctor sighed and turned to Peter and Tony.

Peter sat on a bed next to the one Barnes was on and the doctor prodded his ribs, felt his wrist, and asked Peter a series of questions to determine if he had a concussion or not.  He didn’t.

The doctor took a little more time with Tony, who still had a pounding headache, and was declared to have a concussion the moment he told the doctor that he had been knocked out in the coffee shop.  The doctor left the room to get some supplies because he was out, and left the three of them alone for several minutes.

Peter broke the silence, sitting on a bed shoulder to shoulder with Tony, eyes on the floor.  “I um…” he swallowed around the lump in his throat.  “I didn’t mean anything by it.  Calling you uncle I mean.  It won’t happen again.”  His voice was quiet and his cheeks were tinged pink, like he might be embarrassed.

Barnes didn’t respond, he only stared at Peter for long moments.  Tony put his hand on the back of Peter’s head and pulled him in sideways for a hug.  "You're ok Roo.  You didn't do anything wrong."

"Flash was right," Peter mumbled.  He pressed his face into Tony’s shoulder.  It was his sore shoulder, but he wasn’t going to pull away.  Peter needed him and after the stressful, anxiety filled day they had all had, Tony was glad to have him there in his arms where he knew he was safe. 

"No, he wasn't.  He had no idea what he was talking about," Tony told him.

They were quiet for a few moments before Peter said softly, "Thanks for lying for me… in front of Flash."

"What are you talking about?"  Tony looked down at the top of Peter’s head, confused.

"You told him I'm your son."

He sighed.  "You are, ok?  All I could think about was finding you because I knew you were on a field trip in the area.  I was worried out of my mind, Roo.  I thought you were hurt, or dying, or-" Tony took a breath, irritated that the panic from earlier was still trying to rise back up in his chest even though things had settled down now.

"But-"

"But nothing,” he said, cutting Peter off.  “Don't let that jerk get in your head.  You're not alone.  You have me and Pep, and Happy, ok?  And let's not forget aunt hottie."

Peter finally wrapped one arm around Tony’s chest and gripped his dirty pullover tightly.  On the bed across from them where Bucky sat with his leg up, he watched as Peter’s arm trembled slightly where he held onto Tony.  Tony sighed and put one hand on the back of Peter's head again.

"I was worried about you too Mr. Stark," Peter said quietly.  "And- and Pepper and Happy, and Bruce and-"

"Bucky," the supersoldier said quietly, cutting off Peter's mumbled stuttering.  Peter pulled his face away from Tony's chest, hair now messed up slightly more than it was before, and turned to look at him.  Tony was looking at him too, face tight.

"What?" Peter whispered.

"You can call me uncle Bucky… I liked it," he said, voice rough and uncertain.  Tony doubted Barnes had liked it.  Most likely he just hadn’t known what to think about it.  He didn’t know what exactly Barnes knew about Peter since Tony made it a point to keep the two apart, but he appreciated what the Manchurian Candidate… what Bucky was trying to do for his kid now.  “And your dad is right,” Bucky continued with a huff.  “That kid is an idiot.”

Tony's expression softened the smallest amount.  He gave Bucky a minute nod, and then ruffled Peter's hair, full attention back on his kid again… back on the son that he wished was actually his.  "Hear that?  Even Barnes agrees."  He had considered briefly, saying, ‘even your uncle Bucky agrees’ but it was too soon for that.  He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that.  But if Peter wanted to call him uncle… wanted to feel like he had more family, Tony didn’t feel right trying to put a stop to it.  Suddenly he felt bad for keeping Peter and Bucky apart before this.  He’d had a good reason for it, back when he’d believed Bucky was dangerous.  He hadn’t believed that for a long time though.

Peter’s phone rang and he pulled away from Tony a little to get it out of his pocket.  “It’s May.  She’s probably freaking out.”

“Go ahead and answer it.  Tell her you can stay here for the night.  I’m sure she’ll be bogged down at the hospital.  Tell her I’ll keep you as long as she’ll let me.”

Peter gave a nod and answered the phone as he slid off the bed.  “May.”  He turned to go out into the hall for some privacy, though he wouldn’t find any there with a dozen people who had come up in the elevator after them waiting to be seen.  “No no, I’m fine, really!”  He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door, leaving Tony and Bucky alone again.

Tony shifted, feeling uncomfortable sitting there alone with Barnes.  He wondered why the doctor hadn’t come back yet.  Maybe he was looking for medication for Tony’s headache or taking a much needed break.  It was also possible that they had pulled more patients in from the hall that needed treatment first.  In that case, it could be awhile.  Tony had found Peter, and everyone was safe, so he had nothing left to rant about to keep his mind occupied and his uneasy feelings at bay.

As it turned out, Barnes wasn’t comfortable with the silence either.  “You’re wrong.”

Tony looked up at him, trying to tamp down on the quick flash of anger and irritation that had come over him at the man’s voice.  “Enlighten me.”  The team always thought he was wrong.  Wrong to want to take preemptive measures to protect the planet.  Wrong to want to sign the Accords when they weren’t perfect.  Wrong for more things than he could recount.  To be fair, he knew he wasn’t always right.  He was wrong a lot of times, but it got old having it pointed out to him and having old mistakes brought up again and again.  Most of the team didn’t do that, usually that was Steve.  It didn’t mean the rest of the team didn’t agree with Cap though.

“What you told me earlier… on the street.  You said-” Barnes paused, looked like he was trying to get up the courage to finish his sentence and said, “you said the team thinks you’re a jerk, or an asshole that’s irresponsible and doesn’t care.  You’re wrong.”

Tony frowned and looked away.  Barnes didn’t know what he was talking about.  They all thought that, with the exception perhaps of Bruce, who had skipped out on the whole Civil War thing because he’d taken off after Sokovia and disappeared down to South America.  He’d been gone almost as long as the Rogues had been, returning just a couple months before they had, and asking Tony if he could move back into the Avengers levels of the tower.

“I don’t think that,” Barnes said when Tony didn’t respond.

Tony looked up at him and snapped, “You thought I was going to leave you injured on the street.”

Barnes gave a small shake of his head.  “No, I just knew you had someone you were worried about and I was going to slow you down.”

Tony thought about saying, ‘we’re a team, we don’t leave each other behind,’ but it would be a lie.  They weren’t a team despite that they were all being forced to live together for the time being by the Accords committee, until a revised version of the Accords was finalized for the Rogues to sign.  Maybe the rest of them were a team of some sort, but Tony didn’t count himself a part of that anymore, because he didn’t think they did.  The part about not leaving each other behind was wrong too.  Steve had left him behind in Siberia, injured and gasping for breath.

“Maybe you should breathe,” Barnes said.  Tony didn’t look up at him.  His chest was too tight to take a breath.  It looked like he wasn’t going to avoid that panic attack that had been plaguing him all day after all.  He’d fought through it so he could find Peter, but Peter was safe now, out in the hall talking to May.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”  When Tony didn’t respond, Bucky muttered, “Crap,” and started edging himself off the side of his hospital bed.  “Doc!  Hey, can we get some help in here!”

The door to the other half of the med bay didn’t open, and no one came in.  Tony gripped the edge of the bed he was sitting on so tight that his knuckles started to hurt.

“Crap, crap, ok,” Bucky said.  He slid onto the floor, standing on his good leg, and hopped the two steps across to the bed Tony was sitting on, struggling to get a breath.

“I don’t know what I said.”  He sounded panicked himself.  “I didn’t mean to do this.  Whatever I said, just forget it.”  He lifted a hand like he wanted to touch Tony’s shoulder, but then pulled it back like he’d been burned despite not having touched him.  “Take a breath or something.  You’re gonna pass out, then everyone will be pissed at me.”

Tony choked out a laugh.  No one would be mad at Barnes aside from Tony.  He hadn’t done anything wrong.  Hydra was responsible for all his past wrongdoings.  Tony knew it.  He knew it, but was still struggling to get past it.

“I’ll go get the doctor.”  Barnes turned to hop away, but Tony reached out and grabbed his arm, probably harder than he would have if he wasn’t having a panic attack.  Barnes winced because it was his flesh arm Tony had a hold of, and it was probably bruised from being thrown by a blast and trapped under a car.  Tony let go.  He hadn’t meant to grip him that tight or to cause him any pain.

“You’ll fall,” he managed to get out, and went back to gripping the edge of the bed tightly.  “Sit.”

Barnes didn’t sit.  He stayed standing, balancing on one leg and watching Tony with a mixture of anxiety and worry as he struggled to breathe.

“Talk,” Tony said.  Sometimes he could stop anxiety if he could focus on something else.  Usually that meant going to his lab and tinkering, or trying to solve complicated math and science equations he’d been struggling to solve for weeks.  Earlier it had meant ranting at Barnes on the street.  Now he couldn’t talk or tinker and needed something else to focus on.

“What?”

“Talk about something.”  He tried to draw in a deep breath, but couldn’t.  His hands were starting to shake from how tight he was gripping the bed.  “Anything- I don’t care.  Not Siberia.”  Siberia was the last thing he wanted to think about when that was the thing that most frequently gave him panic attacks and nightmares these days.  All of that had lessened some in the months after Siberia, but then the Rogues had moved back in and his anxiety had ramped up again with Steve living in the tower.

Tony didn’t know what he expected Barnes to start talking about.  Wakanda, or what the Rogues had done while out on the run, or things they had been doing since they’d come back, but the recipe for honey plum jam wasn’t it.

“You need seven cups of sugar, five cups of peeled plums ground up, those little ones they make prunes with, half a cup of water, honey, lemon juice, pectin, and cinnamon.”

“What the hell,” Tony said, giving him a bewildered look, “do I need- all that- for?”

“Honey plum jam.”  Bucky looked embarrassed at the look Tony was still giving him, like he was crazy, but Tony had asked him to talk so he turned his face away from him, so he didn’t have to see the look, and kept going.  “In a kettle you combine the sugar, honey, plums, water and lemon juice.  Bring it to a boil and keep stirring it.  Then you take it off the heat and stir in the cinamon, and skim off the foam.  It all gets poured into jars, the lids go on, and then it goes into a boiling water bath.  Then you have jam.  That’s it.”  He looked up at Tony again, who’s breathing had evened out and was no longer labored.

“Jam?” Tony asked.

Bucky’s cheeks tinged pink again.  “You wanted me to talk.”

Tony opened his mouth to ask if he’d made jam, and if not, why he had the recipe memorized, but closed his mouth.  He didn’t want to know.  He wasn’t friends with Barnes and wouldn’t be.  “Thanks,” he murmured.

Bucky hopped back to his bed and lifted himself up onto it, legs hanging over the side, broken ankle included.  Once he was settled again, he looked away from Tony and said, “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to-” he motioned towards Tony to indicate the panic attack he’d had.

“You didn’t.”

“I was talking to you and you-” he didn’t finish his sentence, and looked away from him again.

Tony sighed heavily and then dragged his hand down his face.  Where the hell was the doctor?

They sat in uncomfortable silence for long moments before Tony decided he didn’t want to do that again.  “You’re the one that’s wrong.  They all think that about me.”

“They don’t.”  Barnes looked like that was all he was going to say, but he finished with, “They don’t think that.”

“Where’s your proof?”  Tony had all kinds of reasons to believe he was right.

“You’re kind of an asshole sometimes,” Bucky said after a moment, “according to Steve.”

“See, there you go.”

“No one else thinks that… or that you don’t care.  I think you care.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that.  He felt… bolstered by it somehow.  He didn’t know Barnes.  He knew nothing about him aside from that he was Steve’s friend, had been controlled by Hydra, and had played a part in his parent’s deaths… had in a roundabout way played a part in Steve and Tony fighting, and Steve leaving him behind.  It shouldn’t matter that Bucky thought that Tony cared, or that he didn’t think Tony was an asshole or irresponsible, but it did.  It mattered, and it pissed him off a little that it did.

The doctor chose that moment to come back in.  He handed Tony a bottle of prescription pills with his name on it, gave him a printed sheet of instructions for his concussion as well as another sheet with instructions for Peter’s injuries, and then turned to Barnes.  “We’ll use a portable x-ray to get a look at that leg.  I understand you don’t have enhanced healing?”

Barnes layed back on the hospital bed and shook his head.  “No.”

Tony sat there and watched as the Doctor pulled out a metal plate and slid it under Bucky’s leg.  He didn’t think to get up and leave until the doctor turned and said, “You can go.”

He slid off the bed and went to the door, painkillers and instructions in hand as the doctor left to go back to the other half of the med bay.  Tony turned back and looked at Barnes before he left.  He looked uncomfortable… tense.  His shoulders were hunched up towards his neck like he was trying to protect himself.

“You want me to stay?” Tony asked.  Maybe Barnes just didn’t like hospitals.

He looked up at Tony, brows pulled together in confusion.  “No.  You gotta find your kid.”

Barnes had insisted everyone else be seen before him.  Tony was starting to think more and more that after his time with Hydra, he didn’t like doctors.

“Peter’s fine,” Tony said.  He knew he was.  FRIDAY would tell him if the kid was trying to leave the tower to go back out into the mess that was currently called Manhattan.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah…” Tony said slowly, “not buying it.”  Something he’d said to Barnes earlier out on the street came to mind: he shouldn’t be worrying about him, but he was.  It didn’t rankle as bad as it had before though.  Tony leaned up against the wall by the door with his arms crossed to wait.

The doctor opened the door to the other half of the med bay and handed Tony a lead apron with a heavy sigh.  “At least hold this in front of yourself while I get a picture of his ankle.”  He disappeared again just long enough to trigger the machine from the other room and then came back in and took the lead apron from Tony.

Tony watched from the other side of the room as Bucky’s ankle was set and then put in a black cast.  He took two of the pain pills that he’d been given and pulled out his phone so he could use FRIDAY to check on Peter, and then Pepper and Happy.  Apparently Bruce was back in the building and was helping in the lobby.  Peter was up in the penthouse still talking to May on the phone.

Bucky was given a bottle of supersoldier strength pain pills, a set of crutches, and sent on his way.  The doctor seemed happy to be rid of them both.  When they got back into the hallway, there were only a few people left waiting to be seen.

Bucky was slow with the crutches as they made their way to the elevator.  Inside, Tony hit the button for the penthouse, and Bucky hit the button for the Avenger’s common floor.

The elevator rose up six levels to the Avengers floor first.  Before the elevator doors could slide open to let Bucky out, Tony said, “Thanks… for being good to Peter.”

Balanced on the crutches, Bucky looked over at him.  “He’s a good kid.”

Before Tony could stop himself he said, “You’re a good uncle.”  Bucky looked as shocked at Tony’s words as Tony felt.  To cover it up Tony hurried to say, “Maybe we can team up to make that little shit Flash leave him alone.”

Bucky was silent as FRIDAY continued to hold the elevator doors open.  He stared at Tony, and for one wild moment, Tony half expected him to start reciting the recipe for plum jam again.  A small smile tugged at the corners of Bucky’s lips.  He didn’t say anything as he used the crutches to get out of the elevator.  The doors slid shut and Tony was left alone.

It had been a shitty day.  He was alive, Peter was safe, and Bucky wasn’t still stuck under a car out on Park Ave.  He still felt like he could have another panic attack just thinking about it all.  He didn’t think he had any right to smile, but as the elevator began to rise up towards the penthouse, and Peter, a small smile tugged on his lips too.

His kid hadn’t fought him when Tony had said he was his son.  And Bucky hadn’t fought too hard about being Peter’s uncle.  Uncle Bucky.  He never thought he’d see the day.  It had been a confusing, anxiety ridden, insane day, but Tony smiled anyway.