Work Text:
”There is an e-mail I believe you should read, boss.” FRIDAY's gently lilting tones half-roused him from his armour-tweak.
Tony hummed over the curcuitry in his left repulsor. ”Yeah? Show me.” A blue holographic display flickered to life right beside him, and his eyes more or less automatically flitted over. His little AI was so tricksy at times that it made his heart hurt. Then he frowned. ”What is...? What am I looking at here? Is that...? Is that from a hotmail account? Seriously? Jesus... No, really, what year is this? Who even...?”
With an annoyed groan he pushed away from the worktable and leaned closer to the screen.
That rang zero bells.
”If this is from a wakandan prince offering his weight in vibranium in exchange for my credit card number I swear to god I will -” Tony squinted at the very short, cryptic message opening as he spoke. ”Okay no seriously, what am I looking at here?”
HM8 70A
That's it. That was the entire thing.
”Also, a follow-up question – why am I looking at it, exactly?”
”That is a licence plate number issued in New York. The format was used between July 1986 and December 2000. This particular plate was issued to a car owned by Howard Stark.”
Tony blinked, head twitching back, and sat up straighter to stare at the screen, any and all amusement instantly wiped away. Suddenly he saw the plate clearly in his mind's eye. And that ugly-ass car it'd been attached to.
He shuddered.
The car they'd died in.
”Get that away from me, FRIDAY”, he muttered, turning to slump over the repulsor again. ”It's some sick bastard's idea of a joke. I don't want to see it. Give me some music. I need to get this done.”
That was a lie and they both knew it, but FRIDAY just turned on something that was all grating guitars and he could pretend to forget.
No JARVIS. No team. No Iron Man. Not really. His Avenger days were behind him because he'd put them there. A last ditch effort in showing Pepper that no, really honey, I'm done. So done. But that had been too little too late right behind the mess that was Ultron, and so now – no Pepper, either. And so there was really no use trying to up the repulsor blasts by 0,3%. Not anymore.
Tony still did the work, though.
His hands just needed to be kept busy.
The second e-mail came a week later.
That one was just the numbers 12161991.
Tony almost sprained his finger on the delete key. Then he went to pour himself a drink.
There were only four days until e-mail number three arrived from the unknown sender Tony had internally started referring to as Jabba, thanks to a half-drunk re-reading of that absolute disgrace of an e-mail address. (It also reflected the mental image Tony was starting to build for himself – of some fat, greasy recluse whose idea of a great time between jerk-off sessions was sending nasty e-mails to Tony Stark. Pretending he was important or some shit. That he'd somehow impress someone with this and not have to die alone...)
(Okay so maybe Tony was also projecting a little bit on that last part but so what?)
And he was still annoyed by that hotmail account. What kind of backwards asshole was this guy?
When he opened the third e-mail, hovering somewhere between exasperated and morbidly curious, it snuffed out all his annoyance and changed everything he'd assumed about Jabba so far.
There was an image attached, of the headline proclaiming that ”Howard and Maria Stark die in car accident”. The one he must have seen a million times by now. But in this version, someone – Jabba himself, most likely – had used something like Paint to crudely cross out the word accident, with uneven, angry-looking, red lines.
The actual message read:
you believe everything you read in the papers?
Tony stared at the screen for so long that when he eventually did blink, tears streaked down his cheeks.
At least he told himself that was why.
”FRIDAY?”
”Yes, boss?” Her voice sounded small and meek and apologetic, almost. Perhaps now regretting having shown him that first message from Jabba.
”Find me this guy. Yesterday.”
Finding Jabba turned out to be both a lot easier, and a lot harder, than Tony had expected.
Tracking where the e-mails had been sent from was simple as pie. There had been no attempts made at hiding it, as it turned out. But that didn't help much because they had all been sent from public places.
The first two were sent from coffee shops that offered free wifi.
The first one from an address in Paramus. And what the fuck was in Paramus? Nothing, as far as Tony cold tell.
The second from Flushing. Honest to god from inside the rebuilt Stark Expo. And that just pissed him off.
And the third? From the New York Public fucking Library. More or less just a skip and a hop down the street from the Tower.
Things were rapidly moving from annoying to aggravating to pretty goddamn threatening and Tony was not about to let this kind of fuckery stand. But for a while more he'd probably have to, because pinning down who Jabba actually was from watching these venues was turning out to be kind of impossible. Even with the times the e-mails were sent narrowed down and security footage examined, he had nothing.
Okay, no, not nothing, to be fair.
He'd managed to figure out who in the tapes had to be Jabba, and even though the guy wasn't fat, at least he was a guy. And he might not be a recluse, but he didn't strike Tony as much of a people person either. In fact, he seemed to avoid human interaction as much as possible, without doing anything to draw attention to himself.
Also? He had an uncanny ability to avoid getting caught on camera. It was damn freaky, actually. Sure, there was the traditional baseball cap and hoodie and he seemed to be wearing sunglasses too whenever possible, but even so Tony should have been able to get something. Even if it was just the hint of a jawline or the angle of a cheekbone, the flash of a profile or the peek of a nose but nope. Nothing! Not one single thing to feed his facial recognition software. Just the general shape of a hunched up guy who seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing where security cameras were placed.
”I can't fucking believe this”, Tony growled at the footage from the Public Library, when Jabba ducked just at the last second to avoid getting his profile caught on tape for the third time on his way back out on the streets, where he of course was lost within seconds in the crowd. ”How does he know where they all are? He's not even looking! Can he hear them or something? But that's not possible unless you have goddamn super...”
He trailed off, mouth flapping opened and closed a few times before he pursed his lips and glared at nothing.
”Son of a bitch.”
The guy was enhanced.
Well, at least that might narrow the search down slightly?
At that moment the alarm for another e-mail from Jabba chimed and Tony spun his chair around to bring it up on a new screen. On his left, FRIDAY was already busy tracking.
There was nothing attached this time.
you are looking at the wrong footage
Tony blinked at the words. Then he tipped his head forward, hiding his face in his palms, thinking so hard he could almost feel fuses burning in his brain.
Of course Jabba knew that Tony was looking for him by now. If he hadn't expected that, he wouldn't have been hiding from the cameras from the start. No, he was saying that Tony was focusing on the wrong thing here.
”I shouldn't be looking for him”, he muttered into the heels of his palms. ”He wants me to look for something else.”
”Should I stop tracking, boss?” FRIDAY sounded doubtful.
Tony shook his head. ”No. Keep looking for him anyway. Track and collect footage as before.” He finally leaned back in his chair and tipped his head back until he was staring up at the ceiling. ”But that's not priority number one anymore. We need to find what it is he wants me to find, too. I'm never going to figure out who he is otherwise.”
He thought about the headline shouting out his parents' death, and frowned. He'd seen it a million times, but where had he seen it last? Before Jabba had showed up to rub it in his face?
”How far did we get on the decryption of Nat's released files?”
”43,9%, boss.”
”Huh. We've been slow, haven't we?” Tony gnawed on his lip for a moment. ”Get back on those, FRIDAY. Drop anything non-critical, except for tracking my little pen pal, and put everything into that decryption. I need it done.” He hesitated, then sighed. ”Any kind of footage you find, put it aside. I'll be watching that first.”
”On it, boss.”
Some mistakes you make, knowing they are mistakes even before you make them. They just need to be made anyway. They're too important not to make.
Before Tony opened the video with the file name 12161991, he knew it would be a mistake to do so. But there was nothing else to do, was there?
Grainy, black and white footage of a dark, deserted road through the woods. A road Tony knew. The shocking, sudden appearance of a car as it ran straight into a tree, smashing the front. There was no hint of slowing down, as far as Tony could tell from the poor quality. It just rammed right in there. And almost made him miss the blur of a second shape, speeding by on the road behind the car as it crashed.
Squinting, Tony replayed the first few seconds, trying to ignore the car this time, and the twist of nausea in his gut. Yes, there was definitely a second vehicle on that road. A motorcycle, Tony guessed.
And suddenly, Jabba's taunting message about his parents' death not being an accident made a lot more sense. Someone else had been right there.
The footage cut off, and then resumed. Now showing the, yes, motorcycle, parked behind the crashed car. And Howard. On his knees, looking like he'd spilled out of the driver's seat just in time to have his hair grabbed by the dark, menacing shape looming over him. There was no audio on the file, the video barely holding together in itself, but Tony could see Howard's eyes fix on the man's face, his lips moving faintly. Like he... recognized him? Maybe?
Whatever he'd said, it made no difference what so ever, because in the next moment the man raised a weirdly metallic-looking arm, and caved Howard's face in with a heavy fist.
Tony twitched, head jerking back as if he'd been the one to take the blows, mouth gaping open in shock as the video cut out again, resuming just long enough to show the man with the metal arm reaching into the passenger seat instead. His impassively blank face just visible in the blur. The roof of the car was blocking out what he was doing, but Tony could guess. Oh god, could he guess.
He'd always hoped that his mother's broken neck had meant that she'd died quickly. Maybe even on impact. Now that hope was lost.
Another cut in the footage. When it resumed, the man was staring up at the camera, and raised a gun at it. Holding it right between his own eyes, giving Tony the strange, oddly twisted, backwards feeling that the man was pointing it at himself as much as at the lense of the camera.
He fired. The screen went black. And stayed that way.
Tony didn't make it to the bathroom before he threw up.
There was no real need for the facial recognition software to help Tony at this point. He knew that face. Had supplied the exhibit in the Smithsonian with a whole load of photographs and footage of that face, actually. But the cold, scientific confirmation of what he already knew helped him realize that no, he wasn't actually crazy. This was real.
James Buchanan Barnes had murdered his parents.
Tony's hands were cold, clammy and shaking badly when he brought back Jabba's messages on screen, staring at the address. ja bu ba. His goddamn name. It had been there all along.
James Barnes had killed Tony's parents, and then, 24 years later, told him all about it. In a fucking e-mail.
Choking out a hysterical giggle, Tony stared at the address again. ”No wonder he's backwards enough to use hotmail. Jesus. The guy's almost a hundred years old, for fuck's sake.”
It made no sense.
But it did trigger another memory, something the Ultron mess almost had made him forget.
Angrily, Tony shoved the messages out of the way and brought up another video. This one just a little over two years old – shaky cellphone footage from the national news. Of Steve, looking out of place in his bland, civilian clothes while swinging his shield, fighting a man in black. Most of the man's face was covered, but that tangled mess of dark hair, that outift, that arm...
”Son of a bitch!”
Tony put his own fist through the holographic screen, dissolving it, and over-extending his shoulder in the process. He barely felt the twinge.
”I didn't know he was alive, Tony.”
”Bullshit you didn't know!” Tony was trembling with rage, trying to keep his voice steady and failing, miserably. ”You let the guy beat the everloving crap out of you. Don't fucking try to tell me that you would let some random Hydra thug put you in the goddamn hospital! You knew it was him!”
”I fell from the carrier.” Steve's blue eyes were impressively steady, but it was such a non-answer that Tony still knew it was a lie.
”Pro tip, Rogers? Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter. Okay? That's a bad idea, even if you aren't an absolute shit liar to begin with.”
He could see Steve's jaw working, clenching, then he gave just one, tiny, curt nod. ”Yes, I knew. All right? I've been looking for him for two years. Sam's been helping me, but we've got nothing.”
”Jesus.” With an incredulous scoff, Tony turned away, running his fingers through his hair. ”So your old pre-war buddy is now a supersoldier assassin for Hydra, and you....? What? Don't feel like anyone needs to know?” He spun back around to glare at Steve's conflicted face.
At last Rogers sighed and looked away, hands settling on his hips, shoulders slumping. ”I couldn't let everyone hunt him down. He didn't choose this.” Steve glanced back at Tony, then down. ”He pulled me out of the river.”
”And that makes everything else okay?”
”Of course not.” Golden brows twisted into a frown. ”But they used him to do their dirty work, Tony. It's not on him. It's on Hydra.”
They stared at each other for a few tensely quiet moments, while Tony tried to figure out if that was another part of this mess of lies. He had the feeling that Rogers would feed him any bullshit he had to, if it kept Barnes safe.
”Do you even know everything that he did?”
Steve's face was blank. ”No.”
That was a lie.
But Tony didn't have time to find out how big that lie really was, because right then the Jabba alarm chimed from his pocket, and he couldn't put that off. Scowling at Steve, to let him know he sure wasn't saved by the bell just yet, he pulled out his phone.
There was just an empty e-mail this time. But that wasn't the real message. No, the important thing was the only slightly blurred frame FRIDAY had captured off a security feed. Showing a mostly empty coffee shop, the dark, hunched and by now familiar shape of his pen pal – and the pale face he had turned just enough to show the camera a furrowed brow, a high cheekbone, and the tight clench of his jaw under a shadow of stubble.
FRIDAY had helpfully provided the facial recognition output – 100% match, not that Tony needed it – and the address for the coffee shop.
In Brooklyn. Wow. No surprise there.
”I have to go.”
”What? Tony!”
He ignored the call from behind his back and hurried out of the new Avengers compound, throwing himself into his car. The last thing he saw of Steve was a concerned frown and hands thrown up in a ”what the fuck?” kind of gesture as Tony shot out of the driveway.
Tony gave himself about a five minute drive closer to the city, chewing on what to do, until he made his final decision. The only one he could make.
It's not on him. It's on Hydra.
Maybe it was true. Maybe Hydra had twisted up Steve's childhood friend somehow, to make him go after him the ruthless way he had in DC. It sounded like something they would do, to be fair. Obviously Steve believed that, for some reason.
Tony hoped it was a fucking good one.
”It's not on him.”
”I don't care”, Tony muttered to Steve's voice in the back of his head. ”He killed my mom.”
”Get the car back home, FRIDAY”, he added, louder, and didn't wait for a reply before he pushed a button by his seat, felt it shift and slide until the suit built into the car could swallow him up, closing tight like an embrace, and he felt like he could breathe properly for the first time since he'd opened the third message from Barnes.
A furious blast from his thrusters got him free of the car, above the trees, and then he was jetting back towards the city.
But not to Manhattan.
It shouldn't have surprised him that Barnes was waiting for him, but somehow it still did.
The suit's scanners picked him up on a rooftop not far from the coffee shop where he'd let himself be spotted, and as far as Tony could tell he'd picked out an empty building, too, one covered in plastic tarps and scaffolding. That was... unexpectedly considerate?
Somewhere deep below Tony's simmering fury and infected hurt there flashed a little warning that something wasn't right.
He ignored it in favour of slamming down into a landing that was harder than strictly necessary, straightening up more slowly and striding closer to the waiting man, boots heavy against the concrete rooftop. FRIDAY was almost frantically scanning the building and the surrounding ones too, looking for hidden back-up. Apparently she seemed to suspect this all was some kind of trap. And maybe it was, to be fair, but Tony was fresh out of fucks to give.
Barnes may have lured him here by taunting him with what he'd done, but even if he had, it was still glaringly true. His reasons for telling Tony what had happened didn't make it less real. And Steve's so painfully obvious lies were grating at him, making it all even worse.
So if he was about to get swarmed by Hydra goons, at least Tony would make damn sure to take Barnes down with him. Anything else, he could deal with later.
The man in question was standing very still, waiting and watching as Iron Man rapidly came closer. He was dressed simply and forgettably in a pair of dark blue jeans, a red henley showing under a brownish jacket, the baseball cap he'd been wearing in the footage from earlier tossed aside along with a backpack, far out of reach. Both his hands were clearly visible by his sides, covered in leather gloves, most likely to hide he metal shine of his left. He wasn't visibly armed, but that meant nothing, really. All of him was a weapon, as far as Tony could tell.
When Tony was only a few more steps away, Barnes even slowly raised his hands level with his shoulders, leather-covered palms out, empty. Somehow the clear sign of surrender just served to piss Tony off even more, and before he'd even tried to parse out why, he had fired up the thrusters and shot forward, slamming into Barnes and knocking him flat.
Barnes blinked at the impact, wheezing a bit at having had the air knocked out of him, but didn't move other than that. Dark eyes staring up at Tony's faceplate, as if in challenge, and suddenly Tony was too angry to have something so impersonal between them. Let the bastard see.
He flipped the faceplate up, showing Barnes a silent snarl. The wind on his face made him realize his cheeks were wet, and he knew Barnes would see that too, but Tony didn't care. And it didn't seem like Barnes cared either. He was just staring up at Tony from the tangled halo of his dark hair, face carefully blank. It reminded Tony of his face in that old footage from the car crash. And at the same time, it was completely different.
It was the eyes, Tony knew. The face was still, but these eyes were screaming. The eyes in the footage had been dead and flat.
”They used him to do their dirty work.”
”Why?” Tony finally had to spit the question out from where it had been writhing around in the back of his head. ”Why did you tell me?”
More silent staring.
Honest to god growling, like a furious pitbull, Tony curled his gauntlets into the fronts of Barnes's open jacket and shoved them both back up on their feet, so he could shake the man. He wasn't small, in any way – probably closer to six feet, and his nondescript clothes not doing much to hide the heavy, solid muscle of his arms and legs. But hanging limp from Tony's grasp, he looked small and frail and helpless – all those things he fucking wasn't.
”WHY?”
No response.
”What's the fucking...” – Tony drew back one arm, and put emphasis on his last word by slamming his metal-covered fist right into Barnes's face - ”...payoff?!”
Barnes dropped back on the rooftop, a groan slipping out of him, but he stayed where he landed, half on his front, spun around from the force of the blow.
”Do you even know?” Tony stepped forward, tangled his right hand into that long mess of hair and used the grip to haul Barnes up on his knees, pulling a grunt of discomfort out of him. Leaning in over the man like that, left fist half raised, they were painting a perfect replica of Barnes bent over Howard Stark.
He had expected more challenge in Barnes's eyes at that, some flare of defiance, anything. Instead the look angled up at Tony through long eyelashes, the angle awkward, was just tired. Bone weary.
”Does it matter?” His voice was wrecked and hoarse with disuse. ”Got what you came for, right? Just finish it.”
That sense of wrong twisted in Tony's gut again, stronger this time. But FRIDAY hadn't given any kind of proximity warning, which meant he and Barnes really were alone up here. No-one was coming for Iron Man while he was occupied. No-one was coming to save Barnes, either.
None of it made sense.
Tony felt his glare at the kneeling man turn more to a frown, more or less against his will, and saw Barnes force his head more to the side, tugging probably painfully on his own hair, shooting Tony a sharp look through a bloody left eye that was already half swollen shut.
”Let's try this again”, Tony said, voice snapping and short. ”What's the payoff?”
For a long moment, Barnes just stared at him, mouth a flat line, stubbled jaw set, and Tony thought he would get nothing. Then Barnes looked down, deflating.
”Sick of runnin'”, he muttered. ”Steve's gonna catch up soon anyway, and he'd never let me go again. If he found me dead, it'd ruin him. Better he just... not find me.”
That actually made Tony blink, incredulous. ”So... what? You commit suicide by proxy? How happy do you think he'd be then? With either of us, for that matter?”
Dark eyes rolled back up to Tony's face. ”You'd be stupid to tell him. Kinda doubt you're stupid.” He shrugged, the movement slow and sluggish. ”I made sure you found the truth, and gave you a clear shot.”
Instead of taking that shot, Tony found himself straightening up, putting more distance between them, the grip on Barnes's hair loosening until his head was free to turn completely around, staring up at Tony's open mouth and pinched-together eyebrows.
When he didn't say anything, Barnes huffed a tired excuse for a laugh. ”You're an Avenger, right? So just... avenge them. It's what you came for.”
They shared another long, silent moment, tense enough to hurt.
Nothing was playing out the way Tony had expected it to.
Then Tony heard himself say, ”No.”
”What?” Barnes had the nerve to glare at him, now.
”Yeah, it's what I came for”, Tony said, because who would he be fooling by claiming any different? ”But no, I'm not. An Avenger. Not anymore. And besides...” He hesitated, still unwilling to admit the truth even though he was now sure it was true – the difference between this version of Barnes and the one in the old footage had driven the point home. ”Besides, I wouldn't really be avenging them by killing you.” Tony made a sweep with his hand to sum up the still kneeling figure on the roof. ”They made you do it, didn't they?”
Fuck Steve and his lies, but it was the only thing that... fit.
Barnes blinked, his lips twisting. ”I still did it.”
”Yeah.” The gauntlets whirred and whined as Tony clenched them to fists, staring off over the surrounding rooftops, all thankfully lower than this one – clearly chosen that way, so no-one would witness what happened here today. He was still fucking livid. His heart sore, his gut a hot twist of rage.
But deep down, behind that core of fury, Tony knew that even if he took the shot, even if he beat Barnes to a bloody pulp, nothing would feel better. He'd known all along, to be honest – he just hadn't cared.
”Yeah, you did.” Tony bit his lip, glancing around the rooftop. ”Okay. Fuck. Just...” He waved to the backpack and baseball cap, still lying discarded to the side. ”Get your stuff. We're leaving.”
Barnes turned blank again.
”Goddamnit”, Tony muttered, leaned abruptly down again and grabbed the man's shoulders – one heavy muscle, one hard metal – and bodily lifted him up on his feet. ”I wasn't actually making a suggestion. With or without your knick-knacks, you're leaving with me. In about ten seconds, so I'd hurry the fuck up if I was you, soldier.”
That form of address earned him a cold glare. But it also made Barnes turn on his heel, snatch up the cap and the bag, shove the former into the latter, slip his arms into the straps, and then turn to look at Tony again. Not exactly cooperating, but not trying to run either.
”Better hold on”, Tony said as he stepped forward, let the faceplate snap back down, and tugged Barnes none too gently into the side of his chest with an arm around his lower back. ”I like it fast and hard. Might as well get used to it.”
He just barely allowed Barnes to get his metal arm around the suit's shoulders before he took off, just as fast and hard as advertised. His microphones picked up Barnes grating out a curse, where his windswept head was tucked against the chestplate. Tony couldn't make himself feel bad about the rough treatment, even so.
The elevator ride down from the roof of the Tower, where Tony had landed, was tense and silent, except for the faint noises of that metal arm as Barnes clenched and unclenched his fist. It was a relief when they reached the communal floor, once home to the team, now abandoned and empty.
”Okay – honesty hour. If I leave you here, are you going to do something to get yourself hurt?” Tony had stopped a few steps from the elevator, hands in his pockets, watching Barnes as he ventured into the open livingroom area, footfalls noiseless.
”No”, was the short, gruff, but honest-sounding reply.
”Great. Also, you can't leave.” Then Tony eyed the smoothly moving, muscular figure and reconsidered. ”Or maybe you could, but not without me knowing. And I'd be on your heels like a bloodhound. So don't even bother.”
He could see Barnes nod, stopping by the huge, curved couch. Then he turned to look directly at Tony for the first time since they landed. ”You should know, I'm pretty sure I'm not just a danger to myself.” He raised his left arm, fingers glinting where he'd pulled off his glove, and tapped his temple. ”What they did to me? It's still here. It could come back.”
”Accidentally?”
Barnes frowned. ”I don't think so. There were... words?” He shook his head. ”I can't remember that part clearly. But I don't think it's something that would slip out in conversation.”
Tony hummed. ”Triggers. Sounds plausible. I'll look into it.” If he had all the vital information, he could probably make some tweaks to the BARF and see if that wouldn't let them reverse it. (He also made a mental note to self to really work on that acronym because not even he thought that was a keeper.)
His mind had already spun off on the possibilities, so it took him a moment to notice the odd look Barnes what giving him.
”Why would you look into anything?”
”Two wrongs don't make a right, Barnes.” He backed up to the elevator doors again. ”I suggest you get a shower, get those clothes washed, and we'll deal with the rest later.” With a sloppy excuse for a salute, he turned as he heard the doors slide open, and left for his own floor. ”Keep a close eye on him, FRIDAY.”
”Yes, boss.”
”And get through the rest of those old SHIELD-slash-Hydra files. We're gonna have some work to do.”
When Tony reached his bedroom, the shock of the day hit him all at once. Suddenly he couldn't find enough air in the room to breathe, his heart was struggling to do its usual job, and his legs folded up under him before he was halfway across the room, knees hitting the carpet hard.
”Fuck”, he choked out, pitching forward, almost faceplanting on the floor. Eyes scratchy and hot as he panted out sobbing breaths into the thick pile of the carpet, which swallowed up the sound of his whimpers.
Tony clenched his hands to fists in his hair, curled up on the floor, and cried so hard he almost thought it would straight up kill him. Human bodies couldn't be made to take this much, could they?
Only he already knew that wasn't true.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
In the morning, his body reminded him that no matter how bad things seem, a crick in the neck can always make everything just that much worse.
It took three days before Tony ventured down to the old communal floor again.
By then he had read things that had made him nearly as sick as watching his parents die in grainy black and white. And he was prepared to admit that Steve might have had good reason to believe that Barnes wasn't acting on his own.
That didn't mean Tony was prepared to forgive, though. Either of them.
It was at 6.30 AM, but Tony wasn't surprised to find Barnes perched on a barstool by the kitchen island, fork hovering over a plate of what looked like scrambled eggs, while he eyed Tony with poorly hidden apprehension. He was dressed in the jeans he had worn before, and his feet were bare. There were white, old scars on both of them, and it looked like the tip of his left little toe was missing. He was also wearing a gray t-shirt with the Stark Industries logo on the chest, something he must have found in a drawer somewhere. It was a size or so too small and showed off an intimidating amount of muscle definition – along with a daunting length of metal arm.
The bruising from taking an Iron Man gauntlet to the face was all gone.
”Morning”, Tony greeted him, sauntering over to the kitchen counter, pressing a button for his preferred setting on the coffee machine.
There was a pause, then: ”Mornin'.” The tone almost questioning, like Barnes was trying this ”saying good morning” thing on for size.
”So.” Coffee cup steaming in his hand, Tony turned back to give Barnes a tight smile. ”How would you feel about a road trip?”
Dark gray eyes narrowed. ”Where to?”
”Cleveland.”
”What's in Cleveland?”
”Old friend of yours. Eat up.”
Barnes shoved his fork back into the rest of his eggs, then glanced up at Tony again. ”We're not actually drivin', are we?”
”Nope.”
”You're not fuckin' carrying me again.”
Tony let the smile stretch a bit. ”It's cute how you think you'd have a choice. But no. We're taking the jet. Now, chop-chop!”
No-one opened the door when Tony knocked, but then he hadn't really expected it. He stepped out of the way with a gesture for Barnes, who wasn't slow to try some knocking of his own. Two solid punches from that metal fist took out first the lock, then a metal bolt fastened across the door.
They more or less stepped right into the barrel of a gun when they entered the house, a forgettable-looking, aging man pointing the weapon right at Barnes. His hands were shaking a little, Tony noticed, but from barely three feet away that wouldn't matter much. He just had time to think he should have worn the suit for this, before Barnes's left arm swung up again, clamping over the muzzle and effortlessly twisting the gun out of the man's hand.
The two just stared at each other, and then the man started backing up. As if he thought he had a chance to get away. Genuine fear was shining in his too-wide eyes, though, so maybe it was more desperation than deliberation.
Just when Tony thought the man was going to turn and try to bolt, he opened his mouth instead, and said... something. In what might have been Russian. Or it could have been a name. Hard to tell. Whatever it was, it probably didn't have the intended effect on Barnes. Who instantly lashed out, planting his human fist right in the man's face, dropping him like a stone to the floor, out cold.
”Christ, Barnes”, Tony muttered, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair to get a better look at the man spread-eagled on the floorboards by their feet. ”Did he insult your mother or something?”
There was no reply, and when he looked closer, Tony noticed that Barnes was trembling, from head to foot, all of him clenched up and clearly struggling for some sense of control. And then Tony got it.
Triggers.
”That was the first word, wasn't it?”
Barnes jerked a nod.
”Well. No question about this being the right house then, huh?”
Barnes stiffly shook his head.
”All right. You just... take a minute. Then let's go treasure-hunting.”
It took a while, but in the end they found exactly what they'd been looking for.
A worn, red book with a black star on the front was on top of the pile. That one, Tony handed over to Barnes. The way he held it, like it might snap at his fingers, Tony knew it was what mattered. He still leafed through the rest of the papers in the box they had dug out from behind the basement drywall. It was all in Russian, but with some help from Barnes he decided to leave it. There was enough there to get Vasily Karpov into some real trouble. But nothing that would be useful for helping Barnes.
They left the man tied up in the basement, along with his files. And then they got back in the rented car and drove off – Barnes staring at the book resting on the dashboard.
”What'll happen to him?”
”Nasty, spidery things”, Tony said, dropping the phone he had been fiddling with into his lap, focusing on the road back to the airport. Then glanced at Barnes's bewildered face. ”Don't worry. It's taken care of. We have more important things to deal with.”
”What's going on, Tony?” Steve's voice filled up the line with its earnest concern, and Tony was happy he'd opted out of a video call. He knew the look that went with that tone.
”Nothing. Peachy. How're you, Cap?”
There was a silent hesitation. ”It's just... You were pretty upset. When you left. And then Nat brings in Karpov and...” He made a tiny, strangled noise, and Tony knew what that was for – all the things Steve had read in those notes they had left behind in Cleveland. ”You came asking about Bucky and then that guy turns up? This was you, right?”
Tony pressed his phone a little too hard to his ear, poked his fingertip through a burned hole in his work pants, and said nothing.
”What's going on?”, Steve repeated. ”You need to tell me, if -”
”Oh, really?” Tony couldn't keep from cutting him off right there. ”Is that the way it's supposed to work? Because sometimes my teammates don't tell me things.” He could almost smell grass and wood when he said it, and clenched his teeth against the memory. ”But then”, Tony added with a little chuckle, ”I'm not your teammate anymore, so I guess that's fine.”
”Tony...” Steve gave a hitchy sigh. ”Don't. That's not what it's about. Team or no team, you're my friend.”
”Yeah, well, so was he, right?”
Their breaths mingled on the line for a few moments. Then Tony hung up.
Steve had made his choice two years ago, and every day since.
Tony didn't have to dumb down the explanation for what he wanted to do to get rid of the triggers as much as he had expected. Barnes was far from stupid.
”So basically”, the man summed up in a thoughtful tone, settled in the couch of the communal floor, elbows on his knees. ”You want to... hack into my brain, trick it into replaying a scenario where I'm hearin' the words, but not reacting to them. Until my brain decides that's real.”
”Got it in one.” Tony bounced down in the seat next to him, expertly balancing a glass of scotch so he didn't spill a drop in the movement. ”We're re-programming you.”
”And if I do get triggered?”
”Hulk-proofed cell. You're not going anywhere as the Winter Soldier on my watch.”
Tony could see Barnes gnawing on his bottom lip. ”And how do I know you're not putting any of your own... programming in there?” He tilted his head to stare right at Tony. ”Shoving your own triggers into my brain? I could wake up and be something you made. The Iron Soldier. Then what?”
”Damn”, Tony muttered with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, ”that's good. Why didn't I think of that?” Then he shrugged, sipped from his glass, and met Barnes's eyes with total seriousness. ”Hate to say it, Barnes, but you don't know that. I could, and there'd be nothing you could do about it, once we got started. You're going to have to trust me.”
”Easier said than done.”
”You wanted easy, you're in the wrong place. Around here it's all -”
”Fast and hard”, Barnes filled in, with an actual smirk on his stubbled face, as he leaned back in his seat, hooking the heel of a bare foot over the edge of the cushion. ”Yeah, I remember.”
”Good. Great.” Tony felt a bit off balance suddenly. ”Then we're on the same page.”
The amusement dropped off Barnes's face pretty quickly. ”You're gonna have to give me some reason to trust you, at least. Why would I allow a guy who hates my guts to poke around in my head?”
For a long moment, Tony met his guarded gaze. Then he sighed, slumping a bit deeper into his own seat. ”I don't hate you.”
”But you're pissed. I mean, why wouldn't you be?”
”Yeah.” Thoughtful, Tony paused and scowled into his glass. ”No. Maybe...”
”Well, that clears that right up.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Tony gave a deep sigh. ”Okay, listen...” And then he promptly lost his words. Thankfully Barnes just let him get there in his own time.
”I spent more than half my life blaming my dad for their deaths”, he finally said, more or less into his drink. He could feel Barnes studying the side of his face. ”He was behind the wheel, so it had to be his fault. Hell, he was most likely drunk, too. So it wasn't that hard to blame him. He never liked me, and his last 'fuck you' to me was taking away one of the few people who genuinely did.” He took a swallow from the glass, gathering strength. ”When I saw the truth, I think a lof of my anger was really over that fact. That I spent all those years hating him for something he didn't actually do.”
”Something I did”, Barnes added quietly.
Tony turned his head, tipped it slightly over the back of the couch, and looked at his drawn face. ”Yeah, that was the way I saw it, because that was easy. At first. Being angry at you fit the pattern, you know? And, well, all that anger had to go somewhere. But then I figured out I knew you.”
Barnes blinked, looking confused.
”I knew how you felt”, Tony clarified. ”People had stolen what you were, what you had, and used it against your will. To do things you couldn't stop. And I know that feeling. I've been there. And I hated that place. I built the suit and burned that place down on my way out. And then I stopped more godawful things from happening in my name. Or I tried to. My record's not... spotless, but I tried.” He turned a little more, leaning a bit closer in his seat. ”So yes, we both got blood on our hands we didn't ask for. But now you've got a choice.
”This is not me saying all is forgiven and forgotten because let me tell you, Barnes, I do not work that way. It's about choice, and the fact that you squandered yours on your first try, so I'm giving you a do-over.” He poked Barnes in the chest, using the index finger of the hand still holding his mostly empty glass. ”You chose to run and hide and disappear. And then.... what? Everything that's gone wrong in the world because people fucked you over epically is just going to work itself out? Stop being a mess? Because you're no longer in the picture?”
He gave Barnes a few moments of silence to give an answer, but Tony couldn't say he was surprised when one didn't come. His face was shuttered, half hidden behind the eternal tangles of his hair.
”My parents are still dead. Along with everyone else they made you put a bullet in. You committing suicide by Iron Man isn't going to change that, no matter if you go down knowing what you did or not.” Tony leaned back and finished his drink. ”Taking your autonomy back, going out into the world and fixing things. Now that? That might make a difference that matters.”
He rolled forward, stood, and walked to the bar to set the empty glass down. Still staring at the polished surface, he spoke up again. ”I don't believe in forgiving and forgetting, but I do believe in second chances. Rising from the ashes, and all that poetic bullshit. In remaking yourself.” There he turned enough to look at Barnes over his shoulder, found his pale face blank, but eyes flaring. ”Just don't do that for me, or for anyone who's worm-food.” He hesitated. ”Or for Steve. You do it for you. You figure out the reason you're still here, and then decide not to waste it.”
Tony shrugged. ”Or – you do decide to waste it, and in that case? We're done. Don't even bother trying to find a reason to trust me, because there's no fucking point.”
And with that, he walked out. Leaving Barnes on the couch with a brooding look on his face.
Maybe that would be the last of it, but despite prior evidence to the contrary, Tony didn't actually believe that Barnes was the quitting kind.
He was proven right the next morning, when Barnes was waiting for him in the communal kitchen, coffee ready in the pot, looking determined, shoulders squared – and feet as bare as always. He seemed to have something against shoes. And socks.
Tony poured himself a steaming cup and raised it in a mock toast. ”Glad to have you on board, soldier.”
Barnes huffed. ”No you're not.”
”No I'm not.” Tony smiled, bright and fake but maybe a little bit genuinely amused, too. ”Come on, let's do this thing.”
Okay, it wasn't really as simple as all that. It took some tinkering, and to be honest, Tony hadn't been sure the retro-framing would work for this. After all, letting himself relive a happier version of his last moments with his parents wasn't the same as dealing with triggers to unleash destruction incarnate. This wasn't just painful – it vas highly volatile.
But of course, it was also painful, and even though it did work, it was slow going, and rough as hell. Even on Tony, who couldn't do more than oversee the technical side of it all, and make sure the security around the work was top notch.
The triggers were dug in deep, combined with conditioning and pain responses and muscle memory, and in the beginning they couldn't work through more than one or two of the words before they had to pause the session. Even so, Barnes never called a stop, only for breaks. Even when he left the chamber barely able to stand on his own, trembling and pale, nauseous and drenched in sweat.
In the beginning, every time he shuffled out looking lost, Tony expected him to say no more, this is it, I give up. But he never did. He dragged himself to his rooms, threw up, collapsed, slept like the dead, and then rolled out of bed the next morning to start all over. Drawn and dark-eyed, but still just as determined.
Tony couldn't help feeling slightly and grudgingly impressed.
The man had grit. And was stubborn as sin.
No wonder he and Steve got along...
The first time Barnes made it through all the trigger words in the same session, he smiled for the first time in weeks. It was a faint, wobbly thing, mouth unsteadily ticking up like he could barely remember how it was done, but it was at the same time so proud that Tony couldn't help but smile back.
He probably looked pretty proud, too.
Somewhere deep inside he'd started to feel a tiny flicker of something that might have been... protectiveness? Tony wasn't sure. Maybe it was some obsolete, by proxy reaction, because he was always helping his team out with tech. Or, he had always helped... Back when he'd been on the team.
Setting people up with tech, improving them, arming them for, well, life – that was how he'd always showed he cared. So that was all this was – his own kind of trigger. Muscle memory. His heart reacting in response to the action of helping.
It wasn't that he actually cared.
So when Barnes looked at him from across the room, hesitantly asking if maybe Tony would consider helping him get that red fucking star off his arm, Tony's heart didn't do a little twitching thing. At all.
It was just muscle memory.
But he got up from the chair by the retro-framing controls. (He couldn't call it the BARF anymore, not after the third time it made Barnes throw up so hard his eyes where still blood-shot the day after. It just felt wrong.) And then he waved Barnes along to the workshop, pointing him to a stool by a worktable.
Sitting there, hands folding, un-folding and re-folding in his lap, using his bare toes against the concrete floor to spin himself slowly around to take in the room, he almost looked child-like, eyes wide and curious.
”So, Barnes”, Tony started, leaning with the small of his back against the edge of the table, arms crossed in front of him. And then he didn't get any further.
The man spun back around, much quicker, making Tony startle faintly. ”My name is Bucky”, he said, softly, but with certainty.
Tony blinked. Then he nodded. If he decided he'd worked his way back to a place where he was comfortable under that name, then who was Tony to object. ”Fine. Whatever. So, Bucky. Do you want something else there instead, or...?”
A short headshake. ”Just get it off. There's no mark I'd feel comfortble wearing instead. Carryin' this thing around is bad enough.” He raised his metal hand and wiggled his fingers, movements accompanied by faint whirring.
”Well, I'm not taking the whole thing off”, Tony said, turning to rummage around for something useful to polish off the star. It didn't look like it was more than painted on, so it shouldn't be that hard. ”Although at some point, you should probably have it checked over. To keep it in working condition.”
There was a soft snort behind him. ”What good could come from that?”
Elbow-deep in tools and parts and scrap metal, Tony paused to look over his shoulder. Barnes was staring at his left hand, fisted on his thigh.
”No matter if a knife is a weapon or a tool, you still need to keep it sharp.”
Slowly, Barnes's head rolled to the side so he could glance up at Tony through the tresses of his hair. ”Maybe.”
Tony nodded after a moment, and went back to searching for tools of his own.
He did get the star off. That prompted another smile from Bucky. An almost proper one, this time.
One night a few days later he found Bucky in the livingroom, draped along the seats of the couch, head pillowed on his folded up flesh arm, eyes closed, mouth slightly slack in sleep. He had changed into a different t-shirt and sweatpants combo after their lastest successful session in the retro-framing, and his hair looked dark with damp from a shower.
Tony had almost entirely forgotten about the backpack Bucky had brought with him to the Tower. Now it was lying open on the floor by the couch, contents spilling out right where Bucky's metal hand was resting in the thick pile of the rug. Curious, he stepped closer, footfalls soundless, and crouched by the mess of papers and notebooks and what looked like newspaper clippings. On top of it all was a flyer for the Smithsonian exhibition, a colourful picture of Cap covering most of it, earnest and serious and saluting the camera. He couldn't resist picking it up, running the pad of his thumb over creases where it had been folded so often that the print had fallen off the paper, a corner frayed from wear.
He wasn't sure what told him that Bucky was awake. Just some subtle shift in the air that made Tony turn his head to find those gray eyes open, watching him sharply, even though his eyelids were heavy and drooping. Tony wondered is he should feel caught in the act, but it didn't look like Bucky was pissed about his snooping. And the stuff had been out in the open, after all.
”You went to see it?” Tony held up the flyer, to make it clear what he was talking about.
Without even glancing at it, Bucky gave a barely-there nod into the cushion, scruff rasping against the coarse fabric. ”After the fight on the carriers”, he murmured, voice rough. ”Barely knew my name, and people were looking at my picture, sharing my life story. Talked about me like I was a hero.”
”Well, you were a hero.” Dropping the flyer back on the pile, Tony reconsidered. ”Are”, he corrected, ”still being alive and all.”
Bucky huffed, the corner of his mouth curling up in a bitter twist. ”Ain't any kind of hero. Just a murderer.”
”No, you're not.” Tony rested his elbow on the edge of the seat, supporting himself where he was still crouched and balancing on his toes. It was getting uncomfortable. ”You've killed people, but that's not murder. Murder takes premeditation. Motive. All you had was a mission, and not your own.” Tony grimaced, and pushed himself up standing. His knees couldn't take it anymore.
Silently, Bucky watched him from under a dark fan of lashes.
”Look, I know all about the guilt that comes with carrying the name of a weapon”, Tony said, weary, crossing his arms, tucking them against the knot of an ache behind his reconstructed sternum. ”And it's fucking bitter. But do yourself a favour and try to place the blame where it belongs.”
For a while more, Barnes just looked at him. Then he closed his eyes, and heaved a faintly trembling sigh. A single tear was glistening in the inner corner of his eye, right by his nose.
Not at all thinking it through – what it meant, or the risk of startling a just-barely de-programmed supersoldier assassin – Tony dropped his arms to his sides, leaned forward, and stroked his hand through Bucky's hair, sweeping strands of it off his creased forehead, cupping the back of his head for a moment.
”Sleep on it”, he murmured.
Then he made himself turn and leave, and even stay away a couple of days. Tony tried to tell himself it was to give Barnes some time to himself, but he knew it wasn't true.
When Tony did return to the communal floor, Bucky was nowhere to be found. Which was unfamiliar and admittedly freaked him out for about ten seconds, until FRIDAY noticed his panicked looking around.
”Sergeant Barnes is using the firing range, boss.”
Tony blinked. ”Huh. That's new?”
”Not exactly”, FRIDAY supplied while he went back into the elevator, going down another floor. ”It's the third time in as many days.”
After that, Tony didn't have to ask anything more, because now he was stepping out onto the range, and immediately spotted Barnes, stretched out on his front on a mat. His legs spread for stability, looking like he wanted to dig his bare toes into dirt that wasn't there. Because of fucking course he wasn't wearing shoes in here, either. One of the prototypes for practice sniper rifles was cradled securely in his hands, steadied just below the front of his right shoulder.
Stopping in his tracks, Tony watched as Bucky's ribs flexed slightly with a slow breath, finger squeezing the trigger in the stillness after the exhale. There was no sound, but on one of the screens Bucky had pulled up by his mat, Tony saw a bright blue point flare up dead center at the target across the range.
”This is nice.”
Tony startled a little. He hadn't noticed Bucky lowering the rifle, turning his head just enough to look at Tony from the corner of his eye.
”Yeah, making everyone the nicest toys was kind of my thing”, Tony said, shrugging a shoulder, hands slipping into his pockets. ”Guess it's all yours now.”
An eyebrow arched. ”You're not using it at all?”
”No.”
For a while, Bucky looked at him. Then he glanced down, making a sharp, sideways little nod with his head, indicating the mat he was on. ”Come on.”
It was stupid. Tony knew a challenge when he heard one, and trying to out-sniper James Buchanan Barnes was kind of pointless. But before he'd even formulated a refusal, he was walking across the floor, kneeling down by Bucky's legs, and carefully laying down, supported on his elbows, close enough that he felt the warmth off the other man's right upper arm. He opened his palms in invitation, easily accepting the weight of the rifle, settling it against his front.
”Huh.”
Tony glanced at Barnes. ”What?”
”You know how to shoot.”
With a snort, Tony focused on the target through the scope, adjusting his aim. ”When I was five, I knew all the parts of a handgun by heart, and could field strip and reassemble one almost as fast as my old man.” He shuffled his legs apart a little wider, found his balance. ”So, yeah, you could say that I know how to shoot.”
He fell silent, slowed his breathing, steadied his hands as much as he could, exhaled, and fired. When he glanced at the screen by their side, he was about an inch and a half off bull's eye. Admittedly, he was rusty, but he was pretty happy with that anyway, for a first shot. Humming to himself, he changed his position a little, shifted his hold, aimed, fired, and was only half an inch off this time.
”You're good”, Bucky said when Tony lowered the rifle onto the floor. ”I'd like to see what you could do on a proper range. This one's too short.”
”I'd like to see what you could do while flying.”
That earned him a flash of a grin. ”Point”, Barnes offered, reaching for the rifle and settling it back by his shoulder.
After he'd hit the target dead center again – the fucking show-off – Tony glanced over his shoulder down their legs. ”Hey, question?”
”Yeah?” A distracted murmur.
”Why're you always walking around barefoot?”
Bucky got off another perfect shot, then he turned his head and looked at Tony, so close that their shoulders were still almost brushing. ”Had my feet in combat boots since 1943”, he said. ”Figured they'd earned a break.”
”Fair”, Tony agreed. And then, for some reason couldn't stop his mouth from adding: ”I guess all of you has.”
Gray eyes blinked at him. Tony had nothing to say, so he blinked back, and they just stared at each other for a few moments, until Barnes huffed, and raised the rifle again.
”Don't worry”, he muttered, his mouth hidden behind the stock, voice sounding half sad, half amused. ”That doesn't mean I think you've forgiven and forgotten.”
”It's not like that anymore.” Tony rolled onto his back on the thick mat, but not really away. Not caring if he upset Bucky's aim in the process. Just so he could breathe a little, throwing an arm across his face to hide. ”I mean yeah, I never forget anything, but there's always the option of accepting the way things are, and moving on. And I can't forgive, but I think that's mostly because I stopped blaming you. A while ago, actually.”
He heard the thunk of the rifle being put down on the floor, and then some shuffling as Bucky moved around on the mat, too. ”You're still bitter, though.”
Lifting his arm high enough, Tony shot Bucky a questioning look from under a raised brow.
”You're a good actor, but I can still tell”, Barnes said, shrugging his still-human shoulder.
”Yeah, well...” Tony sighed and dropped his arm back over his eyes. ”I'm not bitter because of you. You haven't chosen to do anything to me. You don't owe me anything. We're good.”
Fuck, but it was even true. He'd never thought he'd be able to honestly say that to the man who had killed his mother, but there it was. It had taken months, but the truth had been there since the moment on that Brooklyn rooftop, looking into Bucky's screaming eyes.
And two wrongs didn't make a right. Hating one victim couldn't save another.
”But someone did?” Apparently, Bucky wasn't ready to drop the subject.
Tony hesitated, then gave up. ”Let's say someone could have told me the truth before you did.”
A quiet moment, then: ”Steve.” Not even a question.
”Yeah.” He sighed. ”He was looking for you. And I could have helped him. He knows I would have fucking bent over backwards if he'd just asked. That I would have kept the authorities off your back. But he didn't. And all things considered, there's only one reason I can think of for that, and that is that he already knew.”
This silence was longer. ”Well... fuck.”
Without any kind of warning, Tony found himself giggling, despite the hurt and the resentment. It was too fucking surreal not to laugh. He let his arm flop down on the mat above his head and squinted up at Barnes against the bright lights from the high ceiling, biting down on his lip to keep the unhinged laughter back.
He got the most world-weary, lopsided little smile in return. ”Wanna fire off a few more rounds?”
Tony finally got his face under control enough to speak, sounding rough and breathless all at once. ”I really do.”
”Come on, then.”
Bucky was already dropping back down before he was done talking, and Tony rolled back over on his front, ending up much closer to Barnes, pressing into his arm, the outside of their legs flush together. And he could feel Bucky leaning into his shoulder in turn, just a little.
It felt way too nice.
It took three more weeks after that before Bucky showed up in the workshop asking if Tony would consider fixing up his arm. To be honest, Tony had expected it to take longer, but he took it as a good sign that Barnes was starting to let go of his self-image as a walking weapon. He hadn't thought he deserved a fully functioning arm, before, because what would he use it for, except more destruction?
Tony didn't comment on the change of heart, though. He just pulled out the collection of precision tools he had already put together, thinking that this day was probably coming.
Bucky eyed the readied tray of tools with a raised brow, but didn't mention it.
The mechanical arm was an odd mix. Parts of it was futuristic brilliance, while other parts were an archaic mess. Tony fixed up the wiring and added a better power core, while cleaning and polishing up and fine-tuning the bits that were already kind of amazing. And again, he had that old feeling of caring-by-proxy. That what he tinkered with and improved was... well, not his, exactly. Especially not when it happened to be part of someone else's actual body. But his responsibility.
That twinge of protectiveness flared up again, as he watched Barnes run through a series of movement and grip tests, comparing results with previous tinkering sessions. He was both a lot faster and more precise, as well as stronger.
”Well, look at that”, Tony smirked, tapping the edge of the holographic screen so it would flip around, showing Bucky all his improved stats. ”Fast and hard. You're fitting right in.”
Chuckling, the man shook his head slightly, but didn't say anything.
Later that night, back on the couch of the old communal livingroom which had somehow turned to their livingroom, when Tony was sick of spending time in his empty penthouse, he watched Bucky repeatedly pick up Tony's empty scotch glass, and then put it back down. Marveling at the new, effortless control of his digits.
”So”, Tony finally said, where he was leaning forward on his knees to study the smooth slide of metal plates. ”What's the plan?”
”Plan?” Bucky put the glass down one final time, and then planted his elbows on his knees, to mirror Tony's position by his side.
”You had me fix up the arm. I guess that means you've figured out what you want to do with your second chance at a choice of your own?”
Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Bucky tilted his head to the side. ”It's not really a plan. More of a... possibility.”
”Yeah?”
Tony had expected Bucky to elaborate on what he meant. In words. He hadn't expected that metal hand to slowly reach out and gently clasp Tony's right hand, hanging half-opened by his knee. His careful fingers twisted, slipped themselves in between Tony's own, and pressed their palms softly but firmly together. He hadn't expected that at all.
When he blinked up into Bucky's gray eyes they were clear, calm. Showing an offer, and hope. But there was nothing desperate or fearful there.
Tony could brush the offer aside, and they'd still be good.
He didn't.
Instead, he deliberately pressed the pad of his thumb to Bucky's knuckle, and rubbed a tiny, warm little circle into it.
”Now, that wasn't fast and hard at all”, Tony noted, a corner of his mouth quirking up in a tease of a smile.
”No”, Bucky said, giving a real but soft smile in return. ”But to be honest? I don't think that's how you like to do things, after all.”