Cry Me a River
“Clint, I think you need to stop singing Frozen songs at Loki before he actually freezes your heart,” Coulson says and he means well really. But Loki knows where the food is and the food is with Clint, who is with Tony, who is with Nat, and if he fucks with Clint he’ll be fucking with Tony and Nat and then he will die and not get food. Clint is safe, he is a science, he knows. Also neither Nat nor Tony liked Loki right now so they were basically waiting for a reason to kick his ass to the curb and he knew it. Clint was safe; he could sing Frozen songs at Loki through the vents all he wanted with no consequences.
“I think you over estimate how much Loki dislikes the general public. He might want me dead but he’ll leave me be,” Clint says confidently. If Loki was going to fuck him up he would have tried it by now, he’s been singing Frozen songs to Loki for like a month and a half now and he was sure Loki was tired of that before Clint even started so. Also Tony kept calling him Elsa and making jokes about being cold hearted and he hadn’t been fucked up quite yet so Clint figured if Tony was safe and Loki hated him more he hated Clint he was good.
Coulson sighs because there was no point in arguing, he has learned, because Clint didn’t listen and sometimes did exactly what Coulson didn’t want him to do just to be an asshole. Like eat really really questionable food. And crawl into dumpsters and stuff. Last week he made a blind friend in there and Coulson was really unimpressed with that so naturally Clint hung out with Matt more and his friend Foggy was fucking hilarious. He does, however, give Clint that passive aggressive smile thing he did when he didn’t agree with someone’s decision, Clint has learned its universal, “mmm, I think I’m right,” he says.
“Mmm, well you’re wrong,” Clint tells him, fully intending on irritating Loki more now just because Coulson told him he should stop.
“I don’t think so,” he says, passive aggressive smile still in place and wow, no wonder everyone listened to Coulson. He was so patronizing when he wanted to be. Clint was not some idiot alpha with a complex though; he was not going to be shamed into listening because that was not his style. It was, however, their new routine. Coulson told him not to do stuff; he did the stuff Coulson told him not to, and Coulson sighed and accepted he basically bonded himself to an actual five year old. Fitzsimmons was having a shit with the brain scans they were collecting from the two of them, going on and on about how the two basically predicted each other’s thoughts before they happened and automatically adjusted to each other. Well, Coulson adjusted to Clint, according to the brain scans the reverse never happened for some reason. Probably because Clint was all kinds of stubborn and no Coulson, he will not stop eating the trash.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure after all, even if Coulson absolutely did not agree. Also Coulson’s definition of trash was very loose to say the least. He included chips in his definition of trash. Even Steve disagreed with that and in Clint’s opinion Steve was a tight ass, which was unnecessarily confirmed by Sam. “Clint,” Coulson says in this tone he got sometimes, which is usually the kind of thing Clint didn’t pick up on because you know, half deaf, but with Coulson he swears he can hear his words echoed in his head.
“Coulson,” he says back, adopting the same annoying passive aggressive smile Coulson had on and finally he gives up and accepts his fate as the loser of this argument, which, good. That was the way it should be.
“Everyone says you’re a very chill person but they are wrong,” Coulson tells him, narrowing his eyes at him.
Clint grins, “I pull out the arguments special for you, babe,” he says and Coulson looks so hilariously frustrated. He was trying, really, to become proficient in Clint but the more he tried the more confused he got and it was hardly Clint’s fault he was a flawed human that Coulson kept trying to neatly label. He had, according to everyone around him, never held a steady relationship and Clint could see why. Coulson liked things neat and tidy, easily controlled and micromanaged, which made him good at his job and terrible at relationships.
Clint wasn’t a pop vinyl; he couldn’t be neatly labeled and set on a shelf until Coulson had use for him and it was simultaneously sad and hilarious to watch Coulson try to desperately label him as one thing or another. Clint learned pretty early on that Coulson didn’t seem to think that a person could be to contradicting things at once, actually that appeared to be the problem with Steve and Tony too. Bucky seemed to accept that Tony made no sense, that he wasn’t a thing he could categorize neatly, that he was a person and people weren’t neat and tidy and explainable but Steve was still stuck on all of Tony’s contradictions. If he and Coulson knew anything about people they would know that at any given moment everything about them could change, even if there was no visible reason.
People weren’t something that one could easily quantify and the sooner both Coulson and Steve learned that the better. Until then Clint was going to fuck with Coulson as much as humanly possible because it was fucking fun to throw the guy for a loop.
“I don’t understand you,” Coulson says, tilting his head to the side and honestly. He was killing Clint here; the solution was so damn simple!
So he sighs and decides to throw Coulson a bone, “has it occurred to you that I’m not something to be understood? Stop trying to categorize me and go with the flow man, I get that I make no sense, that I’m thousands of contradictions all wrapped up into one random blonde guy. If you stop trying to stuff me into one archetype or another you’d stop driving yourself nuts trying to figure me out because you’d know there’s nothing to figure out. You can’t categorize something that’s in constant flux, something that’s fluid, that makes no sense,” he says.
Of all the reactions he could have predicted from either of them he doesn’t think that Coulson’s idiot ass would be surprised that Clint was that smart, and think it at him. Naturally he was offended because excuse him? “Did you just seriously think that you didn’t know I was that smart? Because I am genuinely pissed off about that,” he says because seriously? After all the bonding they’ve done Coulson manages to ruin it in a single thought.
To his credit Coulson looks shamed for it, “no, that’s what I meant!” he tries and Clint raises an eyebrow, silently asking him what he meant by that, then. “I know you’re smart, very smart, I just didn’t think you were that kind of smart. The philosophical kind,” he clarifies, “from what I’ve seen your intelligence is more… hands on, tactile. Not that it’s lesser, it’s just different,” he says, rambling. Clint didn’t need the clarification, he got what Coulson said before just fine but it seems to make Coulson feel better to neatly organize his words for Clint to understand clearly. He must have been good at writing essays in school.
“I get it, I misunderstood how you used the word ‘that’ in your thoughts. You didn’t mean to imply that you thought I was stupid before, you just didn’t know I was that kind of intelligent,” he says and Coulson lights up, body and mind.
“Yes,” he says, sounding relieved, “that’s what I meant.”
Clint sighs and not for the first time Clint wonders if Coulson is trying to organize Clint the way he organized himself. “I get that you like things to be neat and easy to organize, including your own thoughts, but that isn’t how I work. I’m a hot mess Coulson, emphasis on the hot, your neat little boxes will not work here and the sooner you learn that the better,” he says.
*
Tony’s words echo in his head for some time before he decides to actually say something to Bucky. He’s never been good at the whole talking thing, even with Bucky and that was before the whole HYDRA mess. “I’m not going to abandon you,” he blurts and Bucky looks up from the Rubik’s cube he was trying to figure out looking more confused by Steve than the cube.
“Tony can figure these things out in like five seconds,” he says sadly, “I don’t get it. Kinda wanna bite it but that’s illogical.” Steve got the frustration; he still kind of wanted to eat Tony. Or lick his face, at this point he didn’t even understand himself.
Steve sighs because Bucky is avoiding the situation and normally Steve would let Bucky skate over the subject, but if Tony was right he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let Bucky keep thinking Steve was going to move on to someone else when that… that just wasn’t ever going to happen. “Bucky. I’m not going to abandon you,” he says again with emphasis.
Bucky drops the Rubik’s cube on the table and sighs, “for now,” he says lightly and it’s obvious he’s thought something through but Steve isn’t sure what, exactly.
“Tony… Tony said that… that you think that every time you don’t live up to my expectations you think you’ve failed some perceived test that I have and that just isn’t true. I don’t care that you’ve changed Bucky, I care that you aren’t happy and I want you to be healthier.” He gets the impression that his words don’t truly display what he’s feeling and he isn’t sure if Bucky will pick up on what he’s not saying. Normally he would assume that Bucky would, they knew each other better than they knew themselves. At least before.
“I’m never going to be healthier. This is as good as it gets and that’s why you’ll go. You’ll get fed up,” he says quietly but confidently.
“But that isn’t true,” he says and Bucky gives him doubtful looks. He thinks of explaining that Bucky has improved so much since Tony seemed to have made a pet out of him but he figures maybe it was time to change tactics because Bucky wasn’t going to believe him anyways, and he would probably be offended by being described as Tony’s pet. “Fine, okay. Would you leave me?” he asks, knowing the answer before it’s given.
“No,” Bucky says with finality, which was exactly what Steve predicted.
“Well why not? You seem to think I’ll leave you because you’re a different person but when I got the serum I became a different person and I’m not even sure that was for the better now. I changed when you died even if you weren’t around to see it, I changed when you came back, and I changed again with this whole S.H.I.E.L.D/ HYDRA mess. If I’ll leave you because you aren’t the same Bucky I knew it’s only logical to assume that you would do the same to me and you’ve had a half a dozen chances. Why haven’t you taken them?” he asks, again knowing the answer before Bucky gives it.
“That’s different,” Bucky insists, “you’re still Steve.”
“Am I? Be honest Bucky, we both know I’m not the same person I used to be when I was barely five feet tall and ninety pounds soaking wet. And I’m not the same person I was after I lost you or when I got you back, if you don’t care that I’ve changed why the hell would I care that you did?” he says logically. He’s thought this through plenty, he knows he’s right.
So does Bucky but he makes the same face Tony does when he’s going to argue his point despite being wrong and Steve sighs. They’ve been spending too much time together, he’s decided. “Bucky please do me a favor and quit while you’re ahead and refrain from arguing me on this, we both know I’m right. When I found you again you remembered me, after all the shit HYDRA did to you you remembered me. Bonds like that don’t just go away because one or both of us is frustrated or because circumstances change, we will always be connected in ways I didn’t even know existed. ‘Till the end of the line,” he says quietly. He didn’t even remember how that became their thing, Bucky sure as hell wouldn’t remember either, but it had been something they said to one another when the other was feeling bad and maybe Bucky would take comfort in it.
He turns out to be right and Bucky lunges forward into his arms, hugging him tightly. He hugs Bucky back, holding on just as tight, “I love you Bucky and nothing will ever change that,” he says fiercely.
*
So he accidentally fixed Steve’s relationship with Bucky and now he was feeling kind of upset about it when he shouldn’t be. He got it, he was some substitute Steve for Bucky until Steve got his shit together and figured out how the hell to handle Bucky and he served no real purpose anymore. It was fine, really. He had better things to do than whatever it was he was doing with Bucky anyways, like figure out what Nat and May were doing with those 084’s. Thor seemed to be helping out too but mostly because Nat was playing May into thinking she couldn’t lift that hammer Thor seemed fond of. What purpose that served Tony didn’t know but Nat has always been the ‘keep your cards’ close kind of girl. After all she did play Tony into explaining everything about the Iron Man armor to her by playing dumb and cute.
It was his own fucking fault for falling for it too. If he had used his brain like the genius he was supposed to be he wouldn’t have been in that mess. Now there were finger print scans in the gloves and retina scans in the helmet so access was restricted heavily.
“What are you guys doing in here?” he asks, walking into the living room turned 084 holder. He was about eighty percent sure that Bruce and Fitzsimmons snuck in when they thought no one was paying attention and stole a few 084’s to experiment on before bringing them back. They seemed to think no one noticed but he knew for a fact that they didn’t put things back exactly right and neither Nat nor May would overlook something so obvious.
The two look up from the current 084 they were examining and give him these looks. The two seemed to have bonded over the fact that they could have entire conversations via blinking and Tony had yet to decide if that was weird or cool. “Nothing that concerns you,” May says after a few traded blinks with Natasha. Weird, it was weird, he’s decided.
“What’s this thing?” he asks, pointing to an open case that revealed a staff that was probably taller than him, which absolutely did not mean he was short.
Natasha and May trade some more blinks and what was that? He was so going over video later to find all the micro expressions to figure out their blink language. “Nothing that concerns- don’t you dare pick that up!” May yells as Tony reaches forward to grab it. He hadn’t been overly motivated to pick the staff up before but he sure as hell was now so he picks the staff up to examine it closer.
It takes a second for the effects to kick in and oh. Tony blinks and suddenly he’s back in the cave with his head under water, terrorists playing ‘dunk Tony’ again. Then he’s back in New York, laughing in some reporter’s face and the words ‘Merchant of Death’ play in his head over and over until he’s back in the cave. Yinsen’s about to be burnt with that coal if Tony doesn’t comply and so he gives in because he doesn’t care if he dies, but he does care if they kill Yinsen. He can feel Yinsen’s hand in his chest fitting the outer walls that now hold his arc reactor in place. He thinks he hears Yinsen tell him that it’s alright but he thinks that that can’t possibly be true if he feels like he’s so close to dying. He wants to let go, should let go, but something keeps him there. Yinsen gives him a pleading look and Tony begs him not to go but he does and he dies. Tony’s wandering through the desert and he knows this is it. He’s dead and he embraces it, he deserves it.
And then he’s back in the room with Nat and May and they both have guns pointed at him and he’s confused. “Yeah, should have listened to you,” he tells May and he sticks the staff back into the case, “that shit’s fucked up,” he says in a far more flippant tone than the situation required.
Natasha and May exchange more blinks, “I thought you said no one but you could handle that thing without going insane, that a third of that thing drove the entire UK nuts,” Natasha says. Well, at least Tony understood actual words. The blinking was throwing him way off.
May lowers her gun, “I am as far as I knew, at least until your pet moron picked it up. The Berserker staff is an Asguardian weapon some soldier ran off with and hid here in refuge. We’ve found some other weapons hidden here for what we assume is the same reason, like the hammer. As far as we know very few humans have the potential to use these weapons without devastating effects, as seen with the staff. Aside from New York this is the most alien interest we’ve seen with earth historically, which is why we were so taken off guard with New York, and also because we had no idea that particular brand of alien existed. Not to mention the apparent lack of a reason. We would have assumed Asguardians would have invaded first considering the amount of weapons they’ve left here, and how dangerous they can be. That thing makes the average human stronger than Steve,” May explains.
Tony watches Natasha absorb and categorize all that information for later use before turning to Tony, “what happened?” she asks. He assumes May wasn’t exactly forth coming about her experience with the staff so he shrugs.
“Don’t know, I got all these shitty flashbacks and then it was done and I was done with it,” he says vaguely. Natasha is plenty smart enough to fill in the gaps so he figures no harm is done. At least the thing stuck to adult memories because if he was going to go down Shitty Memory Lane his entire childhood would have played out too. Maybe the staff just decided to save time and skip right to the recent stuff, who knew?
Nat and May start their blinking thing again and he figures he has had enough excitement from the 084’s. He decides his lab is safer and less likely to replay some of the worst memories he has, plus Dummy needed some updating. When he gets there he expects to find the lab properly abandoned by all human life but he’s pleasantly surprised to find Bucky lingering in his usual spot by Tony’s chair toying with a prototype StarkPad. “Oh ew, put that down, it’s nowhere near done and at thing point it’s pretty much garbage,” he says, giving the prototype more credit than need be.
Bucky looks confused, “it seems to work just fine to me,” he says but that’s because he knows nothing.
“Buck, you regularly click on random internet ads for busty single Russians and claim it’s an accident, you didn’t know what hotkeys were until a few days ago, and despite having an entire arm of tech you are blissfully ignorant to how tech works. Its trash, trust me, I have a lot of bug to work out before it’s even close to sellable,” he says and sits down. There was a reason Stark was considered top of the line and that was because Tony was something of a perfectionist. That also happened to be useful in his line of work because his stuff always needed improvement and there was always a demand for newer tech.
“First of all it is an accident, and second I think you’re too hard on yourself,” Bucky says.
Tony snorts, “I’m not nearly hard enough,” he says before considering his words and laughing. Bucky looks unimpressed with his immaturity but lets it go.
“What’s your funniest childhood memory?” he asks a few minutes later. That was tough and not just because Howard was a piece of shit parent and his mom was largely absent, he and Rhodey had made a few gems worth of memories that were priceless. Like that time they accidentally blew up Howard’s yacht. Thankfully nothing else was too badly damaged in the process.
“Alright so this one time I was upset about something, I can’t remember what now, but Howard wasn’t having it. Except I wasn’t having any of Howard having none of it so we were arguing and we all know I’m an absolute whiner so Howard told me to cry him a river,” he says and Bucky snorts.
“Oh my god, you didn’t,” he says and Tony nods.
“Yes, yes I did. I cried Howard a river. At first I was like ‘how the fuck am I supposed to cry an entire river?’ But then I remembered that Howard didn’t say cry a life sized river, he just told me to cry a river. At that point I had already managed to cry a small bowl so I built a small scale version of Egypt and filled the Nile River with my tears and presented the cried river to Howard. It was hilarious,” he says and Bucky is laughing so hard he’s stopped making noise. Tony leaves out the part where Howard kicked his ass for being a smartass but both he and Howard knew that beating only happened because Howard was pissed Tony outsmarted him.
“That is way better than the time Steve told our art teacher he was a misogynistic fuckwit and that he was totally unsurprised his wife realized she deserved better than his dumb ass and filed for a divorce. He then proceeded to look the guy dead in the eye and dumped a bunch of paint all over his desk, but literally crying someone a river? Genius,” Bucky tells him, grinning at him.
Against his better judgement he smiles back because his stupid ass has gotten emotionally attached, “well, I am a genius. Speaking of terrible teachers though, my poor first nanny was trying her damndest to try and get me to spell my name and I was not having it. I would have much preferred fucking around in Howard’s lab because that was way more interesting than spelling ‘Anthony’ out ten times. I called the poor woman a fascist Nazi, I had no clue what that was, but I knew it was bad and I was done with my name,” he says.
“So what happened?” Bucky asks.
Tony shrugs, “I got busted fucking around in my dad’s lab, got my ass kicked, and still had to spell ‘Anthony' out ten times,” he says flippantly.
Bucky looks horrified, “oh my god that’s awful,” he says.
“Right? She wouldn’t even let me shorten it to ‘Tony’, which is what everyone called me. Why the hell did I have to spell out ‘Anthony’ when no one even uses that name?” he asks, completely ignoring Bucky’s reaction.