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Year 1977
Mom and Dad were arguing again, making Tony want to cover up his ears and scream until they fell silent. Ana was hugging him, snuggling him to her chest; he inhaled the sweet smell of her perfume and for a moment went rigid from a new wave of fear.
“Tony?” Jarvis stroked the boy’s back, trying to calm him down. “It’s alright, it was just a dream.”
“No.” He shook his head, certain that the man was wrong.
“It’s your fault! Yours!” Mom was shouting. “You filled the kid’s head with stories about the deadman! Now he has nightmares about your wonderful Captain killing him! Do you have any idea, why?”
“Oh, do enlighten me, darling,” Dad said mockingly. “What did the shrink say to calm you down?”
She clenched her hands into fists, breathing hard; a heavy silence fell.
“We need to pick up the pieces,” Tony said to Ana.
“What pieces, sweetheart?”
Dad swung his hand and knocked the vase down from the table, which crashed into smithereens. Then everyone looked at Tony. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.
Year 2006
“Tony,” Hank poked his head into the classroom. “Charles is asking for you.”
“Thanks, I’m coming,” Tony nodded. Despite their age difference, Hank and he had been good friends for a long time, even when Tony was just a scrawny little teenager, scared of the visions of the future. It was Hank who became his mentor and teacher. Tony would say that he was like a father to him if the comparison wasn’t so insulting.
When Tony was six and his parents checked him for X-gene, Howard, who had been proven to that Tony’s ability to see the future was real, thought that the only important thing was that Captain America was alive and he could be found. Not Tony seeing Captain America drive his shield into Tony’s chest. They’ve never discussed this, but Tony was sure that if they did Howard would sadly think that he deserved that.
So neither Jarvis nor Hank were a replacement for his father. They were much, much better.
“When I come back, I want to see the room in this objective reality. Is that clear?”
The kids answered him with the most sincere looks they could master, which Tony learned not to trust at least a decade ago. DUM-E was standing in the corner of the room with a fire extinguisher on the ready, though, ready to drown perpetrators in foam even before fire starting, so everyone would probably survive until the break.
Tony closed the door behind him, walked through the quiet building and stopped in front of Professor’s study, looking into the nearest future, as usual. In between going to college and getting several doctorates, Tony had spent more than twenty-five years in the school for gifted children, so he knew to be wary of Charles’ calls. The future answered with a mixture of yet nonexistent emotions. The cocktail was rather acrid: irritation, anger, interest, and, somewhere in the distance, a shining feeling of something good, so radiant that the possibility of it overshadowed everything else. Tony looked to the side, imagining leaving right at this moment, and the radiance disappeared instantly, replaced with pictures. He clearly saw his day, filled with nothing unusual, and the temptation go back to his trodden routine was quite strong.
“Tony,” there was Charles’ tired voice inside his head. “I know you’re here.”
Tony sniffed and opened the door.
“Anthony Stark, gentlemen,” Professor introduced him. “Tony, the Avengers came seeking your help.”
Steve Rogers – Captain America, the national icon, an example to follow and the invited star of all of his childhood nightmares – stood up and extended his hand.
Tony tried to shake it as quickly as possible, noticing the other guy.
“Dr. Banner!” Tony shook his hand with much more enthusiasm. “Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled… and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”
Banner’s face turned so sour as if Tony squeezed a couple of dozen lemons into his mouth, hinting that the wound was still too fresh to joke about it.
“To excuse Tony’s lack of tact,” Charles smiled. “I am just have to mention that he is Hank McCoy’s friend.”
Banner sighed.
“Dr. Stark, we need your help.”
“Call me Tony. It’s hard to imagine how I’ll be able to help the Avengers. You see, I have a delta-level mutation, so…”
“We are more interested in your brains,” Banner smiled. “And it’s Bruce, Tony.”
“What do you mean?”
Bruce looked at Rogers. Tony followed his gaze, suddenly coming to an understanding that the omnipotent Captain America that Howard Stark spent many years and all of his fortune searching for, bankrupting his company, looked tired and downcast.
“We found Bucky,” he said simply. “And we need your help to get rid of HYDRA programming in his head.”
*
As it happened, Tony was really good at modeling and weapon design. He could be great – in his visions, a pretty blonde asked him what he’d thought about being called a ‘Death Merchant’, and Tony quoted his father in reply. So he spent all of his life to make sure this would never happen. He probably should thank Captain America too – if his father company hadn’t been destroyed, he wouldn’t have been able to escape that fate.
Instead of bringing destruction, he tried to help. He created prosthetics instead of bombs; robot helpers for disabled people instead of homing missiles; educational programs instead of fighter aircrafts’ firmware. His invention that could help Bucky Barnes wasn’t accessible for the general public yet; initially it had been created for people who suffered from traumatizing memories. Artificially created with a program, it could be controlled and changed, weakening PSTD triggers. At least, so it was in theory.
Tony could hardly imagine how it could weaken sixty years’ worth of brainwashing.
However, the Avengers had left the school, and Tony raised his eyebrow, watching the Quinjet take off.
“Is it wise to bring Winter Soldier here?” he asked. “Our kids can drive mad even the mentally stable.”
Charles chuckled.
“They would be flattered that you think so highly of them,” he joked. “Would you like to go with them?”
Tony pictured that and almost shuddered. Though it was the future that would never come to life, he still remembered it.
“No,” he shook his head. “I need to go back to class.”
“Tony?” Charles said when he has already reached the door. “Sometimes you just need to keep swimming.”
“Charles, please, don’t,” he asked. “Please leave you philosophical riddles for Magneto, distract the man from his evil plans and let him think for a while.”
Charles laughed at his back. Tony left.
He really needed to get back to the kids now.
*
“Telepathy, telekinesis, that one spits fire when nervous, so be careful with him, you’ll make him nervous for sure, I can tell. Let’s see what else we have here…” Tony shamelessly pointed with his finger. “Flies, hits with electric shock, controls squirrels, breathes under water, freezes, creates illusions, becomes invisible… that one has bear claws, that one – lion ones, don’t come near that girl in a white dress at all if you want to keep your hide.”
Barnes was listening to him in complete silence, almost without blinking, which was rather unnerving. He was so clearly uncomfortable being in the school, that Tony just couldn’t help himself:
“Also, I would advise against running away.”
Barnes’ eyes widened a little.
“Are you a telepath too?” he asked.
“A prophet,” Tony wrinkled his nose at the term, as usual. “Your future is hazy and uncertain, but wait…“ he closed his eyes and made the most complex face he could master. “I see you escape… I see… clearly see Captain America dragging you back, accompanied by the national anthem, and you forever lose any authority among our little monsters.”
Tony cracked one eye open to watch Barnes’ reaction.
“You joking?” he asked at last.
“Still have your sense of humor,” Tony patted him on the shoulder. “That’s good, you’ll need it here.”
*
“Shouldn’t we start the treatment?” Barnes’d hovered over him so unexpectedly that Tony started.
“We are going to get into your head,” he reminded. “And wouldn’t want to be an unbidden guest there, because, trust me, it will end very badly. We’ll begin when you get used to me.”
“You know how everything will end?” Barnes recoiled and paled a bit.
“Not for sure. There’re too many possibilities. Well, the future is not predetermined. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves, and all that.”
Barnes only blinked in response, and Tony was horrified:
“What, you’re like one fifth Terminator, and you haven’t seen the movie? That’s a shame. Come on, I’ll fill on the blanks in your education.”
Tony stood up and stretched his sore from sitting in one spot muscles.
“Don’t you have to finish grading the papers?” Barnes nodded at the stack of the tests, but Tony waved him off.
“I don’t need to have the vision to know all of their grades. Let’s go, Barnes, don’t just stand there!”
*
“Nino, dear, why didn’t you tell me about meeting that man?”
If there was a person whose hatred for Captain America even Red Scull would envy, it could be only Maria Collins Carbonell, who’d been clearly snitched to by Charles or Hank already.
Coming to think about it, Tony would give anything to see the face of a family councilor his parents visited a couple of times before the divorce.
“Mom,” Tony wrinkled his forehead. “Turn off the Italian Mom. Or at least go back to your favorite topic.”
“Darling, my wish to see grandchildren before I pass away is constant. I think I don’t have to explain the meaning of that to you.”
Tony rolled his eyes and snorted. Mom was silent for a moment, optimistically hoping he would tell her wish would come true, and sighed.
“At least tell me, how are you.”
“I am a teacher at the mutant school,” Tony reminded. “So, naturally, this week we’ve rebuilt the left wing again.”
“No one’s hurt?”
“No,” Tony smiled.
“That’s wonderful… How is Mr. Barnes?”
“They told you even this?” Tony was horrified.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been the only human teacher in your school for fifteen years. Everyone tells me everything.”
Tony sighed.
“Yesterday we tried to connect him to the program for the first time. He panicked a little, but I’ve asked Colossus to keep watch at the door, so everything’s okay.”
“Did he hurt you?” she asked worriedly.
“No,” he shook his head, as if she could see him. “Don’t worry, he’s not a bad guy. Hides from giggling senior girls, can cook, helps lifting heavy stuff without complaints. You’ll like him.”
Mom hummed skeptically.
“We’ll see,” she said at last.
*
“Easy, easy,” Tony squeezed shoulder of heavily breathing Barnes. “You did well.”
“I gave way again.”
“Just for a minute,” Tony said confidently. “You won.”
“I can do a lot of things in a minute.”
Barnes winces, as if the thought brought him physical pain. Tony had no illusions what Winter Soldier was capable of, but he found the strength to look him dead in the eye.
“You can win. This is your future.”
“Lying again?” Barnes licked his lips, and Tony followed the tongue movement with his gaze. Barnes was very handsome man, there was no denying that. Tony himself spent too much time with kids.
So he needed to spend a couple of days away from the school as soon as possible.
“No,” he shook his head. “The further we go, the clearer I see. You’ll make it.”
“You could inspire people to go to war,” Barnes sniffed.
“I wouldn’t want that,” Tony smiled. ”Make love, not war, that’s a wonderful motto.”
“Yeah…” Barnes was also staring at his lips. His Adam’s apple twitched when he swallowed.
“Let’s try again?” Tony suggested.
Barnes clenched his fists, as if he was preparing for the final battle of his life.
“Yes.”
“Remember, you are the one in charge of your life. Only you.”
Barnes nodded, put the device on his head and all of a sudden stopped Tony’s hand when he tried to turn it on.
“Not ready?”
“I…” he swallowed again. “May I try something?”
Tony tilted his head.
“Try what?”
Barnes intertwined their fingers.
“May I?”
Tony squeezed his hand harder and nodded, feeling the warmth of his skin.
*
“Zhelanie. Rzhavyi. Semnadtsat’. Rassvet. Pech’. Devyat’. Dobroserdechnyi. Vozvraschenie na rodinu. Odin. Tovarnyi vagon.”
Rogers finished and, it seemed, even stopped breathing, waiting for what would come next. Bucky kept standing with a half-smile on his lips.
“No more, Stevie. They are not in my head anymore.”
Rogers smiled so widely that Tony worried about the well-being of his heroic face.
“Bucky,” he breathed out, hugging his best friend tightly. “Thank you.”
Tony didn’t understand at first that he was talking to him.
“Dr. Stark, thank you,” Rogers repeated. “Thank you.”
“Um. Glad I could help. Well…” he scrubbed the back of his head and turned around. “I think I’ll leave you two alone.”
However, he didn’t make it to the door. Bucky turned him around and hugged so firmly his bones cracked.
“Tony,” he breathed hotly into his temple. “You can’t even imagine… Tony.”
The problem was that he could.
The shining that had been blinding him for all these months, surrounded and engulfed him, finally letting him see the pieces of the joining picture. In every fragment, in every piece, there was Bucky.
Tony sobbed and clenched the fabric of Bucky’s shirt in his fingers.
“The future is glorious,” he said. “Come with me if you want to live… happily ever after. Oh, God. No, wait, I’m an atheist. Bucky, I… I can’t shut up, help me.”
Bucky laughed quietly, kissing him everywhere he could reach.