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"Excuse me, Captain Rogers, but your presence has been requested in the medical bay. Sir appears quite insistent."
Steve cursed and stood from his chair.
"The bridge is yours, Natasha."
The redhead just waved him off.
"Go. I'll keep trying to get in contact with the team on the surface. The sooner we can get Banner back on board, the better."
Steve couldn't agree with her more but said nothing as he followed JARVIS's direction out of the bridge and toward the medical bay. He refused to run, not wanting to cause alarm among the crew of the Avenger, but his pace could only be described as brisk. The doors swept open as he approached, not even waiting for him to input a passcode in the keypad and he felt a rush of gratitude towards JARVIS and his beautiful, artificially intelligent self. Tony was inside, sitting perched on the edge of the bed that held Bucky. Bucky himself was propped up on pillows and smiling amicably, maybe even a little flirtatiously, though his metal arm was held in a sling across his chest. They both looked up as Steve entered the room.
"Hey, Cap! You got here pretty quick for an old timer!"
Steve scowled in the face of Tony's grin.
"JARVIS made it sound like there might be some emergency."
The crew of the Avenger had only just gotten Bucky on board a few weeks ago, rescuing him from a species known as HYDRA. They'd used illusions to capture specimens of other species into order to breed the perfect race of slave workers. Bucky hadn't been sure what was and what wasn't reality for a while, causing more than a few incidents following his arrival.
"Was that the impression you got?" Tony's faked innocence was entirely unconvincing, especially considering the way he shared a conspiratorial look with Bucky. "Must have been a glitch. I'll have to check into that."
Steve only scowled harder.
"So you didn't request me coming down to the medical bay?"
"No, I did," Tony hastened to reassure. "There's something we need to talk about."
Steve's gaze darted to the man who had been his best friend for so many years, the man he'd grew up with.
"About Bucky?"
The man in question smiled wryly.
"About my arm."
The muscles in Steve's back and shoulders instantly jumped with tension.
"Is there something wrong with it?"
Tony's snort sounded downright insulted.
"Wrong with it? From a mechanical standpoint, the damn thing is nearly perfect. I don't know what kind of expertise HYDRA was working with but…I couldn't have pulled off something like this, Cap. If it weren't for the fact that I never set foot on that planet, I might not believe it were real."
"But you're still going to take it off, right? Remove the arm?"
Tony and Bucky shared another look, this time a bit uncertain.
"That's the trouble, Stevie…"
"I can't take it off."
Steve had to fight down the urge to seize Tony by the front of his uniform and hoist him into the air.
"What do you mean you can't take it off?" He knew he sounded angry, but he couldn't seem to reign it in. Tony was up off the bed in an instant, hand held up in a placating manner. "You said you would take it off!"
"I said I would try," Tony shot right back, not cowing in the slightest. "They've fused it with his bone structure, though. If I try and remove his arm, even with Bruce's help and the finest equipment in the universe, the best case scenario would wind up with Bucky paralyzed. Far more likely, he'd be dead."
"Stevie," Bucky soothed, "it's okay. Tony and I have talked about it. Besides," he gave his signature grin, "I'm pretty used to having it at this point. It would be weird for it to be gone."
"Look, I'm not saying we give up." Tony had clearly seen Steve's dissatisfaction wasn't going away. "I'm just saying that it's not something we can do right now. We can keep looking, keep researching. Maybe we'll find something, and maybe by that point Buck-a-roo'll be ready for it to come off. Until then, though, this is our reality. We need to be able to deal with it."
"But isn't it…broken or whatever?"
The arm hadn't been cooperating when they'd gotten Bucky back to the Avenger, which was probably a blessing considering the state he'd been in at the time. He probably would have done a lot more damage if he'd had the use of that arm.
"Just needed to be reset, apparently." Bucky wiggled his metal fingers in Steve's direction. "Tony got it all figured out. The sling it just for my shoulder. It's still feeling pretty sore."
Considering his arm had nearly been ripped from his body during the rescue, that wasn't really much of a surprise.
"Right." Steve cast a slightly suspicious glance between them, sensing something more. "And is there anything else I should know?"
"Yes, actually!" Tony said far too brightly for Steve's liking. "We're fucking. Thought you should know."
Steve nearly chocked on his tongue. Bucky, the utter bastard, started laughing.
"You're what?" Steve rasped.
"Fucking," Tony stated again simply. "I know there are all those anti-fraternization policies but those really only apply to people who are on the same crew or when one individual could be a commanding officer to another individual but since Bucky isn't technically even a member of Starfleet that shouldn't be a problem, right? We just thought you should know. In case something happens and it comes up at some point."
Steve groaned and ran a hand over his face, clearly unhappy.
"I hate you. I just want you to know that."
Steve didn't have to look at Tony to know the genius was grinning at him.