Work Text:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Asset pointed his pistol at Tony Stark’s forehead. The man was defenceless, kneeling in the filth of a secluded alley. His expensive pinstriped suit was torn, now soaked with whatever muck clung to the cracked pavement. Blood seeped from a shallow cut above his brow. His breath came in ragged bursts, chest heaving. Brown eyes stared out wide from behind cracked designer sunglasses.
“Please,” Stark rasped. “You don’t have to do this!”
His voice was cut off by a bullet snapping into the dirt near his knees. He flinched, falling sideways as if to dodge it—but the Asset shifted the gun, pressing it once more to the man’s forehead.
“Where is he?” the Asset asked, voice flat beneath the full-face mask.
“I don’t know! I swear—I don’t—just—” Stark’s head shook, trembling. He lifted a shaking hand. “Whatever you think I did, I can fix it! I’ll give you anything!”
It wasn’t the answer the Asset wanted. And fear like this rarely gave anything useful. Another dead end.
He squeezed the trigger.
This time, the bullet didn’t miss.
Stark’s body dropped without a sound, folding in on itself like something mechanical switched off. Blood spread in a slow, blooming halo.
The Asset didn’t move.
He didn’t look again.
He didn’t need to.
Without a word, he turned and walked away, gun still warm in his hand, the name Stark ringing hollow in his mind.
He’d find him. He had to.
“If you’re here to kill me, just do it,” Tony muttered.
His tongue felt too big for his mouth, clumsy and dry, like it had been sandpapered. The scotch bottle dangled from his hand, lukewarm and useless. It hadn’t drowned the taste of smoke and ash in his throat, or the pit of betrayal twisting low in his gut.
The apartment—her apartment?—was cold, even though the radiator clicked in protest from the corner. Or maybe that chill was coming from the figure standing in the doorway, half-shrouded in shadows.
Not moving.
Not speaking.
Just watching.
A man, tall and broad-shouldered, unmoving like a statue—or a loaded gun waiting to fire. Dressed in black from head to toe, face obscured by a matte mask, like he’d stepped out of a nightmare Tony couldn’t quite name.
And God, he radiated danger. Had Sunset send this reaper to cut him off completely? Even drunk, even sprawled on the hardwood with one shoe off and the other halfway untied, Tony’s gut clenched with something primal. His skin prickled. Something about this man screamed precision. Like he could end a life without flinching. Like he already had.
So yeah, Tony figured death had finally caught up to him.
He didn’t bother to sit up. Just tilted his head slightly, blinking up through his lashes at the figure as the bottle slipped from his grip and rolled across the floor.
“Go ahead,” he said, almost a whisper. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
The man finally moved—one slow step forward, then another. The boots were silent on the floor, like he’d been trained to make no sound. That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t right.
“You currently don’t need a potato sack to look like a scarecrow,” the figure said.
His voice was rough and gravelly, with a sliver of dark amusement barely threading through it. Familiar, in the worst possible way.
Tony blinked. His heart gave a confused lurch. That voice... he knew that voice. He squinted, trying to pull the man’s face into focus through the blur of alcohol and low light. But all he could make out was the shape of the mask, the glint of a metal at the man’s side, and something familiar in his stance.
“…Batman?” he rasped when he finally connected the dots.
His voice sounded young. Fragile. Ridiculous. He hated that.
The Asset stood motionless in the hallway of one of the many opulent Stark properties. He had been here years ago, back when Howard had still been alive. The Asset’s mission back then had been to gather intel on Tony’s father and the man hadn’t even noticed his elusive shadow. The architecture hadn’t changed much. A glance at the wall showed that the old World War II photo’s were still there too. They made him feel uncomfortable. He slipped his goggles off, letting the cool air brush his uncovered eyes, but left the rest of the mask on. It felt like armor. Necessary.
He finally stepped into the sitting room where Tony already was, leaning against the back of a leather couch. The man was nursing a half-empty glass of water like it was poison. He still looked worn and haunted. His shirt was wrinkled, his collar stained with sweat. But his mouth still twisted into something sharp. The Asset still wanted.
“So,” Tony said. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“I’ve been looking for you,” the Asset replied.
Tony snorted, taking a slow sip. “Yeah, I noticed. You left me a trail of dead guys with my own face. Not subtle at all. Honestly, I thought I was next. Kinda pissed myself a little.”
His voice sounded flippant, but his eyes didn’t match. They were watchful and there was hurt in them.
“You’re the one who ghosted me two years ago,” Tony added, his tone dipping. “Right after we got frisky in the parking lot.”
The Asset blinked, caught off guard. His shoulders stiffened, and something shifted behind his mask. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said. “I was... addled.”
Tony shrugged, but his gaze stayed fixed. “So now you're back. And what? That whole murder spree was your version of a love letter?”
“No,” the Asset said, quietly. “I just didn’t want to mistake you again.”
Tony’s breath hitched. He straightened, clutching the glass tighter. “So you’re not here to finish me off?”
“No. I—” The Asset hesitated. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“That night. You said…” The Asset’s voice dropped lower. “You wanted to keep me.”
Tony opened his mouth, then shut it again. His mind flicked back, unbidden.
“Still thinking of leaving me?” he’d asked, breathless, the backseat fogged with heat and want.
“There are other people to have sex with,” the masked man had replied.
“Fuck that,” Tony had snapped. “I want you. I don’t even care what your face looks like. You could be hideous—though that chin and that mouth? Damn. I don’t know why, but you feel familiar.”
“We’ve never met before,” the man had said.
“Yeah,” Tony had murmured. “That’s what makes it worse.”
Tony exhaled, long and slow. “But you left?”
“I came back,” the Asset said.
The Asset wanted sex. Not in the way people talked about it. This wasn’t some abstract itch or a calculated decision. It was raw, hot in his gut, crawling over his skin like fire under ice. He wanted Tony. Only Tony. He wasn’t supposed to want anything.
For years, maybe even decades, he’d been a hollow vessel. Nothing stirred in him. The drugs took care of that, snuffing out urges, flattening emotion. His body had become a tool, not a thing that desired or felt. Until Tony.
Something had snapped loose the moment they met. His body reacted first: heat pooling low, breath stuttering whenever Tony came too close, a slow, burning hunger. He’d tried to ignore it. Suppress it. Failures, all of them. Tony paced now, in front of him, rambling, sharp and bright and alive. The Asset watched him, greedily taking in every movement: the clench of his jaw, the curl of his fingers around the rim of a glass, the way his lips moved when he was thinking too fast to filter. Tony didn’t know what he was doing to him. He didn’t know what he’d done.
“You were supposed to kill me, right?” Tony asked, voice edged with morbid interest. “That was your mission?”
“Yes.”
Tony turned to look at him, brows raised. “So… how screwed were you when you didn’t?”
The Asset’s jaw tightened. He dropped his gaze to the floor. His fingers flexed once before he forced them still. “I was in trouble,” he said quietly. “And punished accordingly.”
“I… don’t want to know what that means. Do I?”
The Asset shook his head.
Tony’s voice dropped. “Was it… part of your mission to sleep with me?”
The Asset looked up. Held his gaze, tried to look as honest as he could. “No.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
Tony’s brows drew together, confused. “Why?”
The Asset took a step forward. Just one. He didn’t touch, didn’t reach. But his body leaned toward Tony instinctively, like gravity pulled him closer. “Because I wanted you,” he said, the words stripped of all pretence. “... I still do.”
Tony blinked. His mouth parted, then closed again. “I don’t think I’ve ever fucked my way out of being assassinated,” Tony muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, a crooked smile tugging at his lips. “Go me?”
The Asset said nothing. He watched the way Tony’s smile faltered, how it gave way to something quieter.
“You still killed innocent people,” Tony said, not accusing but tired. It was the kind of tired that settled in the bones.
“They weren’t you,” the Asset said, as if that explained anything. “They were decoys. Replacements.”
“They were still people.”
“It was my mission.”
Tony looked away. Swallowed something down. His hands fidgeted, restless and nervous. He didn’t see the way the Asset’s fingers twitched in response, aching to reach out and still them. To touch.
“What about now?” Tony asked.
The Asset hesitated. It showed in the way his shoulders dropped, the subtle tension in his stance, the flicker of his throat as he swallowed.
“Is it still your mission to kill me?” Tony asked, his voice softer now.
“… yes,” the Asset said after a beat. “-but I don’t want to.”
"You? Don’t want to?”
“No,” the Asset insisted, a little too fast. A little too close to pleading. “I want. No, I need-“ His voice caught. This was harder than infiltration, harder than killing. Harder than being remade again and again. “You said you would keep me.”
“You want me to ‘keep you’? Like a sugar baby?” Tony repeated. He stared incredulous at him. The Asset nodded once. His posture still, but his hands clenching at his sides.
“This is so weird. It almost feels like we’re continuing that conversation at the club,” Tony murmured. “But that was… two years ago.”
“It’s been four months for me.”
Tony stilled. “How?”
“When they don’t need me, they… put me away.”
“Put you away?”
“Frozen.”
Tony’s mouth opened, closed. He took a shaky step back, like he needed more space to process what he was hearing. “Okay,” he muttered. “That is… I have no words.”
The Asset watched him. Watched his confusion, his revulsion, his helplessness. He wanted to reach out. To brush a knuckle down Tony’s cheek, to see if the warmth in him was real. To remind himself that this was not a dream or a mission.
But he stayed still.
Wanting.
Burning.
Finally, Tony managed to convince the Asset, who was still frustratingly nameless, to take off his mask. It had taken the promise of a kiss as bait, but hey, whatever worked. The assassin had stilled for a moment, then slowly reached up, gloved fingers pausing at the edge of the fabric like he was unsure if he even had the right. Tony waited, heart thudding, breath caught. The mask peeled away.
It was… a little creepy, honestly, the way the guy looked at him. Like Tony was something precious. Something edible. But it was also weirdly flattering how drawn he clearly was. The way he always managed to touch Tony: a brush of fingers down his arm, a palm on the small of his back, fingers ghosting along his wrist under the pretense of checking a pulse that didn’t need checking.
Tony had felt those eyes long before the mask came off: scanning his lips, lingering on his neck, his hands, like he was memorizing him inch by inch. And now those eyes were bare. Icy, intense, and locked on him. The mask dropped to the floor with a soft thud. And Tony finally saw his face.
A sharp jaw shadowed with stubble. A mouth set in a line of grim focus. Cheekbones that could cut glass. But it was the eyes—God, it was the eyes—and the familiar tilt of the brow, the line of the chin. Recognition slammed into him like a brick to the face.
“Oh gods,” Tony breathed, stumbling back a step. “You’re James Bucky Barnes. You're my goddamn deadcrush!”
The man blinked slowly, like an cat. “I am your what?”
Tony halflaughed, halfgasped. “You are-no. Fuck this.” He turned on his heel, already moving toward the liquor shelf. “I need another drink.”
A hand shot out, fast as lightning, strong fingers curling around his wrist. “No more drinks,” the Asset said. No, not the Asset. That was a name for a weapon, a ghost. But this man had a face. A history. Barnes? James? Bucky? Tony’s heart tripped. He could barely hear over the buzzing in his ears.
“This explains so much,” he muttered, voice breaking apart into pieces. “Your chin looked so familiar. Of course it did. Your photo’s been hanging in the mansion hall since like forever. I’ve seen your goddamn face every day of my life! Just younger, smiling, frozen in sepia.” He was spiraling. He knew it. He knew it. And still, he couldn’t stop the crash.
“Dad would’ve been so mad,” he whispered, a strange giggle bubbling out of his throat, hysterical and sharp. “Suck on that, Dad!” He dragged a hand through his hair, pacing in a tight circle. Barnes-Bucky-watched him with a deep furrow in his brow, unreadable but not unfeeling. The same hand that had stopped Tony reached out again, hovering near his shoulder now, unsure whether to touch. Tony stopped moving. His eyes met Bucky’s.
“You were my childhood hero,” he said. “And I just offered you a kiss to see your face.”
Silence stretched between them. Heavy and charged. Then Bucky, ever so slowly, reached for Tony’s hand. Not just grabbing at it this time, but a gentle curl of fingers brushing against his, testing if the contact would be allowed.
Tony didn’t pull away.
Bucky stared at their hands, at the way their fingers had brushed. Just a touch. But that touch felt louder than a gunshot. He was used to silence, used to nothingness. Orders. Missions. Pain. This? This was new. And Tony... Tony was so alive. Even panicking, even unraveling, he burned bright. His hands trembled, and there was a tightness around his eyes, but his mouth-God, his mouth-was still as sharp and expressive as ever. Bucky’s gaze dropped to it again, unbidden. It always drew his attention. Even two years ago, when they had been around his dick. His mission had been to kill Tony Stark. He hadn’t.
Because the moment he’d been approached by the man, something in him had glitched. The programming had failed. All the layers of ice they’d frozen into him had started to crack. Tony was beautiful. Alive. Dangerous. And Bucky had wanted him more than he'd ever wanted anything. And now, Tony was standing in front of him, still reeling, but not stepping back.
“You said you’d give me a kiss,” Bucky murmured.
“That’s why you took off the mask?”
“I wanted to see if you’d keep your promise.”
A beat passed. Then Tony stepped closer, something unreadable in his expression—part challenge, part surrender. “You want a kiss?”
Bucky nodded once. Slow. He didn’t expect the kiss to feel like this. It started light. Just Tony’s mouth on his. Warm. Curious. But not hesitant. Bucky stood still, every nerve in his body on high alert, afraid to breathe. Tony’s hand slid up his chest, resting over the place where his heart should’ve been pounding if he were normal. Then Tony tilted his head. Kissed him deeper. Bucky’s control fractured.
He made a sound, low in his throat, and grabbed Tony by the waist—gently but with a need he didn’t know how to contain. He kissed back, mouth parting, hunger rising. This wasn’t tactical. This wasn’t rehearsed. It was messy. Real. He wanted Tony. Not for the mission. Not as a cover. Not to prove anything. He just wanted him.
Tony pulled back. His lips were pink and swollen, pupils blown wide. “Okay,” he rasped. “You kiss like a guy who’s been waiting seventy years.”
“I have,” Bucky said, voice rough. “I just didn’t know it was you I was waiting for.”
Tony stared at him.
And didn’t laugh.
Didn’t mock.
Didn’t pull away.
Bucky felt something shift—not in the mission, not in the room.
In him.
He was breaking free.
Tony sat in the workshop, fingers steepled against his mouth, trying to figure out what the hell to do with the assassin. No... Bucky. Who now lingered silently on the edge of his life like a loaded gun he didn’t want to unload. It would’ve been easier if Bucky were still cold, controlled, a walking kill-switch. But he wasn’t. The man was there: glitches and all. Sometimes he spoke in half-memories. Sometimes he just stared, haunted, like he was trying to hear something buried beneath thirty years of static. The programming was mostly gone, or maybe just cracked. But his memory was Swiss cheese. And one thing was painfully clear:
HYDRA wasn’t going to let him walk.
They’d sent him to kill Tony Stark, and he hadn’t. That alone had probably lit up every red flag in whatever hellhole they ran their operations from. If Bucky didn’t return with Tony’s head on a platter, they’d come looking. Tony wasn’t going to let that happen. They talked about options. Staging Bucky’s death. Tony even sketched out prototypes for a new kind of disguise. Synthetic skin overlays, maybe a restructured exo-frame. Something that could turn James Buchanan Barnes into someone else entirely.
“Maybe you can be my bodyguard,” Tony muttered, half-joking as he swiped through the designs on his tablet. “Walk around in some horrible disguise. Like a shaved head and wraparound sunglasses. Real Men in Black vibes.”
Bucky tilted his head. “What’s Men in Black?”
“Oh no! We’re going to fix your brain AND your pop culture references!” But then it hit him. Like a surge of electricity straight to his spine. His gaze snapped to Bucky. “Captain America,” he suddenly said.
Bucky looked confused. “Steve?”
“No, you!” Tony stood, pacing, adrenaline bubbling up beneath his skin. “Listen! HYDRA built you to replace Steve Rogers. Though the opposite of him, I guess, Captain Soviet Union? Either way, what if we flipped the script? What if you didn’t hide? What if we told the world that Captain America didn’t die: he just came back?”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed, wary. “You want me to be him?”
“I want you to be you. But we reframe the narrative.” Tony moved closer, his voice softer now, urgent. “You think the public won’t eat it up? ‘Lost soldier returns. Saved from the enemy. A symbol reborn.’ You walk into the light, Buck, and we burn their narrative to the ground.”
Bucky was silent. So Tony reached up, slow, careful, and pushed a lock of hair behind Bucky’s ear. His fingers lingered, and Bucky didn’t flinch. In fact, he leaned into the touch, the faintest exhale leaving his lips. That quiet, intimate motion said more than anything he could have spoken aloud. Tony swallowed then grinned, unable to stop the spark of excitement flaring in his chest. “We’re going to let Captain America rise from the ashes.”
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Bucky asked, voice low, rough-edged, “And what about you?”
Tony shrugged, but his heart beat a little faster. “I guess I’ll be the guy who got seduced instead of assassinated.”
Bucky's mouth twitched. It was not quite a smile, but it was close.