Chapter 2
Nearly four months after Steve’s release from S.H.I.E.L.D
Tony was pretty pissed when his make out session with Steve fucking Rogers, he still couldn’t believe it, was interrupted by S.H.I.E.L.D calling him. Like he was straddling Captain America right now with only some flannel separating them from nakedness, there was nothing S.H.I.E.L.D had that was better than this. “What?” he snaps into the receiver of his phone.
“Be nice,” Steve tells him, smiling and still looking adorably sleepy. Tony wrinkles his nose at Steve playfully.
“We have another biological weapon for you-” Coulson starts but Tony cuts him off.
“Oh I’m gunna stop you right there, “I don’t care,” he says.
“-But this one has mechanical components,” Coulson continues like Tony hadn’t just interrupted him.
Tony frowns, “what? The hell is that even supposed to mean?” he asks, curious despite himself.
“We’re not sure,” Coulson says, “that’s why we called you.”
“Fine,” he says and hangs up before Coulson can sound smug or something.
Steve raises an eyebrow, running his hands over Tony’s thighs, “what was that?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and looking a little more alert than he had five minutes ago.
“No idea, but apparently they have a biological weapon with mechanical components,” he says, grinning.
Steve looks confused, “what does that mean?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” Tony says, “but I’m hoping for a cyborg!” he says, wiggling around in excitement.
Steve laughs and flips them over, trapping Tony under his body, “do you have to go in right away?” he asks, brushing his nose against Tony’s.
Tony considers it for like a half a second, “nah,” he says and pulls Steve in for a kiss. That lasts a grand total of thirty seconds because Tony couldn’t stop thinking of the possibilities and Steve was annoyed at being an afterthought so he shooed him out.
*
When Tony saw who it was he was like a billion times less excited because his relationship was fucked. Well, he should have expected that, good things never lasted for him. He sighs and turns to Coulson, “just let me handle this alone, got that?” he says, snippier than he intended to be but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Coulson gives him an odd look but nods, probably figuring if he didn’t screw up Steve he probably wouldn’t screw this up either. He takes a deep breath and enters the room that contained on James Buchanan Barnes, AKA Bucky or, according to new information, the Winter Soldier. Tony had heard rumours but really, the guy was a ghost, he never believed that the Winter Soldier was real, or that he was Bucky of all people.
He holds his hands up and does a slow spin to show he wasn’t carrying any weapons, with the clothes he was wearing Bucky would have been able to tell if he was carrying anything, and he walks slowly up to him. “I’m going to unstrap one of your arms, okay?” he says, moving slowly towards the cuffs that strapped Bucky to the table S.H.I.E.L.D decided it was a good idea to restrain him to.
Bucky stays very still when Tony undoes the straps on his human arm, leaving the metal one that was probably the mechanical component Coulson had mentioned where it was until he could properly analyze it. Despite his cooperation Tony can see Bucky’s panic, it was pretty fucking clear he had no idea where he was, maybe not even who he was, and he had no idea what was going on. Tony undoes to final strap and Bucky moves lightning fast, grabbing his throat and lifting him off the floor, displaying an incredible about of strength, probably on par with Steve’s. Tony was going to check that out when he wasn’t being strangled by a mythical assassin.
“Not… wise,” Tony croaks out, “I’m… help,” he manages to squeeze out. Bucky looks confused and drops him, thankfully, and Tony rubs his neck, taking in a reedy breath.
He slowly picks himself off the ground and turns to face Bucky, who flinches hard. Tony sighs, okay, this was going to be more difficult than he expected. He lifts his hands slowly and Bucky continues to flinch, trying to curl into a ball despite being mostly restrained. Amazingly he doesn’t try to undo his straps and go despite that he was clearly capable of that. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Tony says, holding his hands up, “I’m an engineer, I was called in to look at your arm, the metal one,” he throws in, “but I won’t do that until you tell me I can, okay?” he says and takes two large steps back.
He narrates his every move to Bucky before he makes it in an attempt to build trust but it was slow going. He was out getting food around lunch when Steve calls, “hey,” he says into the receiver and winces. He had no idea what to do here, did he tell Steve and have him barge in and freak Bucky out? Not tell Steve and potentially kill his relationship that much faster? Tell Steve and try to keep him out? That would probably be impossible and Tony didn’t blame him. If it was Rhodey there wasn’t a force on earth that would keep him from making sure his best friend was okay, and Rhodey has already done the same for him.
“You’re taking an awfully long time,” Steve comments, “interesting cyborg?” he jokes.
“Oh, something like that,” he says, “turns out the guy is a little… well a lot fucked up, I’m trying to build some rapport at the moment but it’s slow going, he doesn’t trust anyone right now and I’m not about to force him into cooperation,” like S.H.I.E.L.D he adds to himself.
“Oh wow, is he okay?” Steve asks, immediately empathizing with someone he doesn’t even know he knows. It was sweet, Tony thought, and he loved that about Steve even if it drove him nuts sometimes.
“No, not even a little,” he says honestly because he was definitely planning on telling Steve about Bucky later but now just wasn’t the time, Bucky wasn’t ready for new people to be introduced, Bucky wasn’t even ready for him to be reintroduced. He and Steve talk for a few more minutes before he hangs up and goes back to trying to get Bucky to not flinch every time he moved.
He brings food in case Bucky was hungry but didn’t really expect him to take much of an interest in it. He, however, was very fond of McDonald’s and devoured his food in like five minutes. “That looks disgusting,” Bucky says and flinches when Tony looks up.
“Ehh, shnot bahh,” he tells him, mouth full of burger. Bucky wrinkles his nose at him and he decides Bucky Barnes has absolutely zero taste, at least not in food, his taste in guys wasn’t half bad not that he knew that yet.
Tony was well aware that it was selfish to hope Bucky never got his memories back just so his relationship would remain intact but that’s what he found himself wishing for by dinner time. He had mostly unstrapped Bucky by then, slowly releasing one limb at a time to build trust without giving him too much freedom all at once. It seemed to work because around seven o’clock Bucky speaks again, “why are you pacing?” he asks quietly, his voice still sounding loud in the near empty room.
“This guy I started dating a couple months ago, his ex is back in two and my relationship is fucked,” he says, not bothering to lie.
“That shouldn’t matter,” Bucky says softly, “if he cares.”
“I really hope you’re right,” Tony says, well aware that telling Bucky that he hoped his relationship with Steve never returned to the way it was so so cruel, especially since he didn’t even know what was going on. But then he always had been a selfish bastard, this was no different.
Two hours after than Bucky speaks again, this time requesting his metal arm to be freed, claiming discomfort. Tony wasn’t an idiot though, Bucky had been tracking his movements closely and Tony was a very predictable creature, he knew Bucky knew that he was going to the bathroom in five minutes. “Thought you said you were an engineer?” he says, eyeing Tony suspiciously.
“I am, but I’ve been held hostage too. I know an escape plan when I see one,” he says and goes back to pacing. He calls Steve an hour after than to tell him he won’t be home that night, that he wasn’t really sure when he would be home.
Bucky quickly becomes aware that Tony isn’t leaving until he gets permission to work on his arm and the two enter a competition to see who will break and fall asleep first. Tony was good at competition though, and he was used to being up for days at a time. Bucky had chosen the wrong person to try this with but he didn’t know it yet. Steve gets worried on day three, telling him it wasn’t healthy to be awake this long, as usual. Tony tells him not to worry and requests he bring some of Tony’s things so he can at least do work while he waited Bucky out.
It was early on day four that Bucky tries to unstrap his metal arm from the table, promptly getting zapped. Nothing too harsh, but not something he’d want to try again, he frowns at Tony and he shrugs, saying that they didn’t particularly want Bucky to escape. He had no idea what S.H.I.E.L.D had rigged up, whatever it was didn’t seem to react to him and that was what he found most important.
Early on day five Bucky passes out and Tony sighs, “thank fucking god,” he says and quickly follows Bucky’s lead and falls asleep slumped in the corner.
Coulson wakes him up sometime later and gives him food, harassing him about how much longer this was going to take. Tony snatched the food and told Coulson too piss off. The smell of food wakes Bucky up, he hadn’t eaten a whole lot in the last few days, probably not trusting S.H.I.E.L.D to give him poison free food. Tony didn’t blame the guy; he decided to eat cafeteria food once and decided he’d rather eat whatever he was fed in the caves in Afghanistan.
“Fine,” Bucky says some time after he had woken up, “and I want a hash brown,” he says, probably trying to sound assertive but not succeeding in the least, he just sounded freaked out.
“Fine,” Tony says, picking himself up off the floor slowly, grabbing the hash brown he saved for Bucky in case he decided to cooperate. It seemed he realized that was better than option two, S.H.I.E.L.D cafeteria food, frankly rocks were a better option than that.
He walks over, still moving relatively slowly, and makes an attempt to drop the hash brown in Bucky’s mouth but he misses and it falls on his face, “sorry,” he says, laughing. Bucky looked unimpressed.
“You could have just handed it to me,” he gripes. Tony ignores him in favour of his arm, which proved to be very a very interesting thing indeed.
He spent maybe ten minutes looking at it when Bucky decides to ask what was going on, “I don’t know,” he says, frowning at the mechanics. Bucky’s wrist and shoulders were still strapped down, which probably wouldn’t do a whole lot of Bucky felt like escaping but it made him feel better.
“Well why are you making that face?” Bucky asks, sounding nervous.
Tony tilts his head to the side, “because there are only two people in the entirety of human history that could have made this and one has been dead for fifteen years, and I sure as hell didn’t make this… kinda wish I did though, it’s cool,” he says, grinning at Bucky. Bucky just looked freaked out though, like he’d just seen a ghost, and he starts to pull away somewhat frantically.
“Hey, hey,” Tony says, taking a step back, putting his hands up again, “whoa, calm down,” he tells Bucky. Bucky looked fucking terrified though, like he was expecting Tony to pounce on him at any moment or something, as if he’d win that fight. “I think you might have misunderstood what I said.”
“You said that only you and whoever could have built this, the other guy is dead, that leaves you,” Bucky says and he starts pulling at the straps again.
“Hey, take a breath,” he tells Bucky, “don’t get me wrong, I built everything that went into this arm and what I didn’t my father did, but neither one of us actually built the arm itself. I can promise you that, all of this stuff can be acquired independently. Clearly someone bought a StarkTech arm, some assembly required,” he says, brows drawing together in confusion.
“Promise?” Bucky asks, voice barely loud enough to hear.
“Yeah,” Tony says, “I promise.”
*
Howard loved New York; he decided that before he even got there. Too bad Selene hated it, he’d move there in a heartbeat. Grant seemed to take after his mother and absolutely hated the crowds and the bustle but Maria liked it. He figured she would, she was much more like him than Grant was, not that he loved either one more than the other. Selene had been acting weird, like she was expecting someone to jump out at her at any moment but he assumed that was because she didn’t like large cities, which turned out to be very far from the truth.
He’s walking around by himself, Selene and the kids were off doing something they wanted to do, when he runs into someone. “Oh shit,” he says, automatically reaching out to steady the person he ran into. He looks at who he caught and just about drops him out of shock, “Tony… Tony Stark!” he says, excited. What were the chances! He’d been hoping he’d run into Tony but really, he was a busy man and New York was huge, plus for all he knew Tony wasn’t even in the country. But here he was, running over Tony… and god, that was so embarrassing, this so wasn’t how this should have went.
Tony looks likes just seen a ghost, “Howard?” he asks, looking confused, hurt, and a little offended. Howard understood the confused and offended bit, he did just practically run the guy over, but the hurt in Tony’s expression threw him for a loop.
“Um, yeah? How do you know my name?” he asks, confused. Tony Stark knew his name, how was that even possible? He was tempted not to care except that was way too weird.
He extracts himself from Howard’s grasp, “ugh, gee, I don’t know, because you’re my dad?” Tony says like its obvious, looking at him like he’s stupid, “you’re supposed to be a little bit dead though.”
Howard laughs nervously, “what? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” What the hell was Tony playing at here? His dad?Frankly he imagined if he ever met Tony in person he’d be less… weird.
Tony raises an eyebrow, “so you’re not Howard Stark? Or are just that ashamed of me you faked your own death, somehow de-aged the shit out of yourself, and deny all relations to me because it is just that embarrassing to be related to me?” he asks, upset.
Howard frowns, “what? No, I’m Howard Stone, but if I was your father I sure as hell wouldn’t be ashamed of you, you’re an extremely successful business man and brilliant inventor, what kind of father would possibly be ashamed of you?” he asks, horrified that someone could possibly think Tony Stark wasn’t a success. If he wasn’t he didn’t really want to know what constituted as a failure in that father’s eyes. God, what a crappy person, and a terrible parent!
Tony sighs and rubs his face, “shit, I am so sorry, you look exactly like my dead father. Good lord, I need to go to bed, so sorry,” he says to Howard again before rushing off to where ever it was he was headed, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Well, that was weird. Howard supposed he’d be freaked out if he ran into someone that looked like his dead father too though, especially if they had the same name. Not that he would know, ever since the accident fifteen years ago he couldn’t remember anything about his previous life, just that no one had come looking for him. Thankfully Selene had been around to pull him out of the car and get him medical attention; he’d be dead without her.