Therapy

“You’re a horrible wingman, instead of getting a date with Sam I got fucking therapy session to talk about our relationship issues,” Rhodey tells him.

Tony doesn’t feel bad whatsoever, “hey, you never know, you might like it,” he says. Rhodey will absolutely not like therapy and if Tony was glad to see him suffer a little he wasn’t going to say anything about it. He was more than content to sit back and relax as Rhodey went through a long list of questions he had no interest in answering only to have his entire life reduced to daddy issues.

“I will like therapy as much as I like military kink,” Rhodey tells him.

“So you’ll love it,” Tony jokes, getting the most hilariously offended look from Rhodey. “Oh relax, maybe it’ll lead to a date.”

“You know what screams sexy? Date the patient. Clearly that is never going to happen.”

“Some people are into that sort of thing,” Tony says. He’s learned that if something exists there is a kink community around it and the sexy nurse thing was popular enough that he figured it’d carry over to mental health too.

“And I doubt they doubt they carry that to work with them, and that’s if they’re even in the profession. I am not dating my therapist, that is just not for me and this is all your fault for being a terrible wingman.” It isn’t fault at all and Rhodey knows it but the man looks so indignant about the whole thing that the best Tony could do is laugh at him. He gets an irritated look for his efforts but it’s so worth it.

“Aww come on, being in the profession doesn’t mean anything. Look at how many people think a military kink is a good reason to join up. Besides, I’m like eighty percent sure I have technology kink,” he says.

Rhodey makes a face like he swallowed an entire lemon, “what? Dude, that is not right.”

“Would Sam approve of that statement?” he asks, getting an exaggerated eye roll. “Also don’t fucking kink shame me, your ass joined the military because of military kink, the fact that you hate it now is irrelevant. Also Bucky’s arm is beautiful okay and I really want to punch whichever asshat made him so self-conscious about it. I have ideas and thanks to some asshole I’ll never get to try them,” he says, pouting.

When Bucky thought he was looking for too long at the arm he shifted around uncomfortably, even if Tony wasn’t actually looking. It was a shame because if it didn’t make Bucky so uncomfortable he’d probably stare at all day, it was a beautiful piece of machinery. If he wouldn’t have some serious suspicion cast on him thanks to Obi and his actions he’d go and visit Vankov to talk about it.

“You are depraved,” Rhodey tells him. Tony shrugs, easily accepting his fate.

*

Bucky’s trying to organize boxes of something and he doesn’t think too hard about it. He knows Weasel is into all kinds of illegal shit and he really hoped the media didn’t get ahold of this. So far Phil had easily organized security around him, grinning at Tony the whole time like he was somehow winning some sort of challenge, and they were more than good at their jobs. He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of a reporter in three days and he really did wonder how they did it.

“Psst,” someone hisses, interrupting his work. Bucky straightens up and frowns, looking around but he doesn’t see anything so he goes back to his work. “Oh for fucks sakes, Weasel, over here,” the person hisses again and this time Bucky knew he wasn’t hearing shit. He looks over the room again and finds nothing of note.

“Uh… hello?” he asks to the empty room feeling a bit like an idiot.

“Fuck sakes of course you aren’t Weasel, get you ass over here Barnes, not over there where the fuck are you even going, yeah, over here.” Bucky follows the voice and he swears… but no, it couldn’t possibly be…

It isn’t lost on him that he’s basically in a horror movie right now, walking through the dark back room towards a voice that sounded like an old friend in a shitty neighborhood in an even shitter (sometimes literally) bar. When he gets to the doorway the person in it jumps out, yelling, “boo!” at him. Bucky cannot be blamed for taking a swing at his unknown would-be assailant and thankfully for them they’re fast enough to duck fast otherwise they would have been eating metal arm. “Jesus, Bucky! I can’t believe you tried to punch me!” The guy’s hood falls back and…

“What the fuck happened to you?” is the first thing out of his mouth and in hindsight that was pretty rude. He didn’t like when people drew unwanted attention to his arm, he shouldn’t have drawn attention to Wade’s skin. It had been pretty shocking though, the change, and Bucky wanted to know how the hell that

“What the fuck happened to you?” Wade counters, eyes drawn down towards Bucky’s neck. He frowns for a moment before he realizes what Wade is staring at, “seriously man? I leave for like a month and a bit and you get collared. That’s nice though,” he says.

Bucky perks up, “thanks! Tony made it. But anyways, where were you? Vanessa and Peter are worried about you.” They were both still hoping that Wade would come back and Bucky supposed they got their wish now.

“Yeah, look, where’s Weasel?” Wade asks, neatly evading the subject.

“Right here and shit you are fucking ugly. I mean you weren’t cute before but fuck, now you are haunting,” Weasel says, coming up behind Bucky.

Wade nods, “thank you.”

“You are hard to look at.”

“Like a testicle with teeth,” Wade says.

“You look like Freddy Kruger facefucked a topographical map of Utah,” Weasel says, shuddering.

“Yeah, cool, he looks like he took an acid bath, can we get to the part of where the fuck you went and how the hell you survived… whatever. Because all things considered, you look pretty good,” Bucky points out.

Weasel frowns at him, “do you have eyes? He looks like an avocado had sex with an older avocado. Like hate sex too, like they hate each other so bad fucking each other to death is all they’ve got left and boy have they gone at it. You look like a horror movie villain, or like a deep fried cock.”

Wade nods solemnly, “my face could give children nightmares,” he agrees.

“Fuck kids, you’re so fucked up looking you’ll be haunting my dreams at night.” The two continue on, insulting Wade’s now heavily scarred skin. He didn’t even have eyebrows anymore and Bucky didn’t know how to feel about that. Guess Wade is getting fake eyebrows for Christmas. Finally the two run out of insults and Weasel gets to the goddamn point, “seriously though man, you might look like one nasty tater tot but like where were you. You can’t just run off for a month and come back looking like a melted Ken doll and expect us to be totally cool with this.”

“I can and I will. I need some guns; I’ve got an asshole to kill for ruining my face. I used to look just like Ryan Reynolds and now I’m lucky if I look like Ryan Reynolds’ puckered asshole and Francis is gunna fucking pay for making me look like a bad eighties horror prop,” Wade says with meaning.

Weasel probably would have responded but Bucky speaks before he gets the chance. “I’m sorry, did I just hear this right. You’re planning to kill a man because you’re ugly?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean also because of the twenty-four hour torture, but mostly because I look like something you’d find on an episode of CSI in a dumpster and who the fuck is going to want anything to do with me now? I liked my sex life damnit, and you think my face looks bad you do not want to take a look at the junk that I’ve got in this trunk,” Wade says, dead serious.

“To be fair you’d have to have rock bottom standards to even consider the junk in your trunk before, but now you need to be black out drunk so you don’t have any memories of it the next day. But I’m pretty sure Vanessa and Peter are pretty desperate by now, they probably won’t care that you look like an eighty year old soggy inside out vagina. I mean they’re gunna need a good relationship with Jack to do the deed but hey, we all make sacrifices for the ones we love,” Weasel says. It occurs to Bucky that this is his version of an inspiring speech, and in true Wade fashion he ruins it in like two seconds.

“Aww, that’s so sweet. Get the fucking guns, Weasel.”

“Um, what do you want?” Weasel asks, clearly stalling for time.

“All the fucking guns!” Wade yells, “look at me face, look at it!”

“I’d actually rather not, I wanna sleep tonight. Just let me sort my shit out and Jesus, man, go get yourself a drink, you’re wound tight. And while you’re at it get Bucky and I something too, we’re gunna need to drink this out of our brains,” Weasel says, shooing Wade off. He goes, thankfully, because if he didn’t whatever Weasel was planning would have been screwed.

“What the hell are you gunna do?” Bucky asks. He had to have some plan to keep Wade from doing something stupid.

“I’m not doing anything, you’re going to call Vanessa and Peter and I’m going to keep him distracted. I know the ‘let’s lie to him for his own good!’ thing is kind of shitty, but lying to Vanessa and Peter about seeing Wade is worse so like lesser of two evils. Plus he can still go kill that guy; they just know he’s alive first so I mean we’re not even interrupting his plans that much. So here,” Weasel says, handing off his cell to Bucky. He didn’t think too hard about what that white shit all over it was, he just sort of takes it and makes a promise to himself to bleach his first layer of skin off later.

Wade chooses then to walk back in and Bucky slips Weasel’s phone into his back pocket smoothly, Wade doesn’t even notice. Weasel spies the drinks he brought and makes a face, “the fuck do we look like? Twenty something year old girls? We’re gunna need more than a double shot to forget that ugly mug, wait, don’t take them away I still want them,” Weasel says, calling Wade back when he rolls his eyes and goes to walk off. He takes the shots and shoos Wade off to make something stronger, making up some stupid excuse about comforting Bucky when Wade asks why he was still standing in the same spot.

Bucky gives a short and choppy agreement about being traumatized, nodding along stupidly until Wade leaves. “You’re the worst trauma victim ever, mostly because you actually are a trauma victim and you can’t even play one well. Now get that phone out and call before he comes back,” Weasel tells him, waving an arm around.

“What? Now? What am I supposed to say? And what the hell is on your phone? Am I going to get a disease?” he asks, flying into panic mode quick.

“Jesus Christ, here,” Weasel says, shoving one of the shot glasses at him. Bucky takes it gratefully and upends it into his mouth, quickly snatching the second glass out of Weasel’s grip and drinking that too, ignoring Weasel’s weak protest.

“Okay,” he whispers, mouth burning from the whisky that was in the shots. He finds Vanessa in Weasel’s contacts and hits call, holding the phone up to his ear, hoping that he wouldn’t loose his hearing when he bleached that clean too.

“Hello?” Vanessa answers and Bucky jumps, voice sticking in his throat. Weasel starts waving his hands around and Bucky makes a thin squeaking noise in place of actual words. Weasel rolls his eyes and snatches the phone just as Vanessa asks if Weasel is okay. “I’m fine, that was Bucky and I guess he doesn’t know how to work phones. Anyways you need to get to the bar about ten minutes ago. Who cares why, just get Peter and get here,” Weasel tells her, hanging up. “I’m glad I didn’t hire you to be my secretary because you are useless with a phone. Now help me out,” he says.

Wade wanders back in to find them both head first in boxes not suspecting anything and Bucky downs the new drink Wade brought to help calm his nerves.

By the time the shots and the extra drink kicks in he’s pretty buzzed, reminding him just how long it’s been since he drank last. Working with alcohol made it particularly unappealing but now he remembered why people did this. The light float-y feeling was nice and it made him feel less guilty for lying to Wade even if it was only by omission.

Weasel has pulled a stupid number of guns out of some very strange places by the time Bucky hears the door open and thanks his lucky stars that he wasn’t going to have to live with being an accomplice to murder. Wade turns around to face the noise, unintentionally giving himself away so Bucky and Weasel didn’t have to.

For a moment all Peter and Vanessa do is stare in shock, Wade too, until Vanessa finally moves. “You asshole!” she yells, stalking forward faster than Bucky could have in heels that high, “I can’t believe you left us!” She stops in front of him, glaring him down but Wade is looking sheepishly at the ground. “And what the hell happened to your face?”

“You should see his dick,” Weasel throws in entirely unhelpfully.

“Fuck you Weasel,” Vanessa and Wade snap in sync. Weasel lifts his hands in surrender and takes a step back.

“Why are there so many guns?” Peter asks, drawing the attention to himself, “Wade,” he prompts, giving Wade a stern look when he doesn’t answer right away.

“I was maybe gunna kill the guy the guy that made me ugly,” Wade mumbles at the ground.

“What did we say about murder?” Peter asks sternly.

“We don’t kill people,” Wade says, eyes still on the ground.

“You don’t kill people, but I’ll murder the asshole who did that to you,” Vanessa says turning towards the nearest gun.

Weasel jumps in front of it, “yeah, I’m going to have to ask you to back away from the fire arms unless you’ve had training. I don’t really want you to accidentally shoot me,” he says and glances over to Bucky, “or Bucky I guess. It would suck to have to hire a new bartender who is willing to ignore all the illegal shit I do. It’s hard to find good help.” Bucky snorts because that was probably the bravest thing he’s ever seen Weasel do and it was probably abut as brave as he’d ever get. Weasel has a high sense of self-preservation and he wasn’t much intent on playing hero.

“What happened?” Peter asks when Vanessa takes a step forward looking ready to fight Weasel for the gun. Bucky would dive under something but everything was probably explosive so he wouldn’t really be waving himself. He really hoped Weasel wasn’t stupid enough to leave those things loaded.

“Mostly torture and boredom,” Wade says easily, like that was a totally normal thing to say.

“Oh my god. I’d ask if you’re ok but you’re obviously not so come home Wade, and stop inching towards that gun,” Peter says, scolding him towards the end there.

“I’m hideous and I want revenge!” Wade says in protest.

Vanessa, thankfully, stops staring down Weasel at this point and both Weasel and Bucky relax a little. “You know what, I don’t care. I might have to take a couple of shots and a Valium but at the end of the day you have a face I’d be happy to sit on,” she says meaningfully.

Bucky snorts, “yeah, because all that scar tissue made his nose bigger than his dick,” he mumbles.

Weasel lets out a loud noise Bucky thinks is a laugh and doubles over, clutching his stomach. Peter gasps in offense and hurries over to Wade, petting his back, “don’t listen to him, that’s not true.” Vanessa joins in on the petting, murmuring her own words of encouragement. Wade relaxes quite a bit, clearly in need of some love.

*

Phil adjusts the aviators on his face, pleasant smile fixed in place. He knew the expression drove Stark nuts and he wasn’t the only one, which was the point. “So you’ve checked it out?” Nick asks, brow over his good eye jumping up in question.

“Yeah and he’s harmless. Tests indicate that whatever happened to him it boosted his immune system into overdrive, which would have killed him if not for the cancer. In an ironic twist of events Wade Wilson’s quickly mutating and spreading cancer is actually saving his life,” he says. That certainly wasn’t what he expected and probably not what Wilson expected either.

Nick nods, taking a small sip of his tea. Phil would have taken him more of a black coffee kind of guy but he is actually far more of a tea snob like himself. They swapped brands and loose-leaf teas often now that they were in regular contact again, much to the annoyance of the rest of the agency. According to one bright eyed bushy tailed Sharon Carter, who Phil had to admit was very good at her job, Nicky never shut up about him. That was a nice confidence booster plus he got to lord it over everyone but Hill, who is Nick’s other favorite and now second in command. People could only dream of her security clearance level, hell, most people only ever dreamed of his security clearance level.

“So you didn’t detect anything… else?” he asks vaguely but they both know what he means.

“Not presently no. I’ll keep you updated,” he says, taking a drink of his own tea. He certainly hoped that Wilson only ended up some sort of genetic anomaly given the precarious state of individuals with… abilities. The first problem being that no one knew about them but the government and that didn’t always work in their favor.

“Any idea on how A.I.M achieved the cure for cancer?” Nick asks.

“Oh, it’s no cure, Wilson has several genetic anomalies that made their ‘treatment’ successful. But no, I’m not certain how this all happened. I’m a spy, Nick, not a scientist,” he reminds him. Stark had been relatively unhelpful in the situation though he was happily backtracking A.I.M’s tech so he could get his back.

His comment earns him a snort and an eye roll from Nick. “I know Phil. Speaking of spies though, your Clint is something,” he says.

Phil perks up, “oh, isn’t he? How is he doing?” The last thing he expected was for Clint to end up in S.H.I.E.L.D with him but they had ended up in some busy coffee shop while Nick and Phil went over some information. Clint obviously had no idea what most of the mundane chitchat meant though Phil figured that Clint would have picked up they were speaking entirely in code. The man wasn’t stupid. He was, however, quite bored after a half an hour of sitting there while not contributing anything. So he took his empty coffee cup, leaned back in his chair to balance precariously on the back two legs and let the coffee cup fly. It went clear across the store and over the head of the woman standing in front of the trashcan, landing in the trash. After repeating this with Nick and Phil’s empty cups Nick was impressed.

Nick asked if his aim was always that good and Clint shrugged and told him he was better with a bow but yeah, he never missed. Which Phil knew already, no matter how impossible the shot Clint always made it. The bow thing was new and he also learned that Clint grew up in a circus and he used to shoot apples off his brother’s head. That was a level of trust Phil had in exactly no one.

“He’s a cheeky asshole. Your assessment was spot on though; he’s an expert marksman, and an extremely talented problem solver. What your report left out was that he’s the laziest human being I have ever met and his talent stems from always wanting to take the path of least resistance. It makes him valuable, though, because he isn’t looking to show off or impress, he just wants to get the task done in the quickest, most efficient way possible so he can go nap. And he does it right the first time too, that alone is enough to make me want him on my side,” Nicky says. Phil grins because of course Clint would do well, he knew he would. He’s never met anyone who could use their resources and environment to their advantage like Clint could all in the name of not liking to move.

“Just wait until you ask him to get information, he’s always so intent on wanting to not do that again that he comes back with far more than what you needed to begin with and he has a very good memory. He’d make a great spy, and you were thinking of giving me a team again,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “While I’m at it I call dibs on Romanov, if you have her play for Ward’s team I am not going to be happy.”

“Actually I was going to give you Ward’s team, Ward included but fine. I’ll throw Romanov in too, if she’s happy to go. I do not want to piss that woman off. About Clint though, you sure you want you Dom working under you? might cause relationship problems,” Nick says.

“Never did with us,” Phil points out though they were more equals at work rather than Nick working under him.

“Not everyone can make separations that easy and I’m not looking to lose one of my best spies because of home life issues again.”

It was fair, Phil supposed, but not a necessary worry. “Clint makes separations easily enough, he’s too lazy to put up much of a fuss. If he has a problem he’ll state it and expect to come up with and employ a solution to said problem. Plus the banter will be excellent with Romanov there. They’ll love each other and I love the agents making the job interesting if I’m not the one in the field.” He’d be in some other location directing the team, which wasn’t his favorite job but it was a prestigious job so he’d take it and hoped something blew up. Nick used to joke that no matter how simple the mission Phil Coulson always made sure something exploded and it was true. Things were more interesting with explosions though.

Nick snorts, “I always forget how much of an adrenaline junkie you are. Your Clint know about that?” he asks.

“He’ll figure it out soon enough. I used to experiment with laundry soaps but then the concoctions made Clint itchy to I switched to dish soaps.” It was his version of keeping things interesting for himself. He’d change furniture around a lot too; experiment with his ties and suits. In hindsight it was pretty clear where Clint got the impression that he was content, happy even, but bored as hell. It was hard going from keeping international secrets so secret that even most of the world governments didn’t know about those secrets to keeping house. Sweeping was nowhere near as interesting as skydiving over Bolivia to extract a USB with encrypted information about people with varying abilities. Experimenting with soaps and furniture never did cut it for him.

“Very exciting,” Nick says dryly, “this poor bastard is in for one hell of a shock when you inevitably blow something up.”