Freedom is Sweet

It’s been a month, and Tony has learned two things. He is always, always, going to listen to Rhodey from now on. And the Winter Soldier isn’t a legend for nothing. Five weeks, and nothing. Friday is growing frustrated that even she can’t turn up the most infamous assassin on this side of the century. Tony has been trying to see this too as a learning opportunity. For her mostly, for him it just sucks.

Rhodey was right of course, the whole thing was a disaster. First the shouting match with Rogers when Tony tried to explain his suspicions. Then the kidnapping, and the subsequent loss of an assassin, which honestly was the easy part. Then he had to fly back to the tower and relieve Rhodey and Hope of a fuming Captain America. Steve of course didn’t listen, it was like trying to explain biomechanics to a brick wall. Accusations flew fast and easy, and only when Tony was lying in bed, hours and hours later, did he finally acknowledge that they’d gotten to him. That Steve’s words had gotten to him.

You’re just out for revenge. I told you, it wasn’t his fault. It was Hydra. Is that why you’ve been meeting with us, you and your little entourage have just been planning to kidnap Bucky?! He’s not the Winter Soldier, he’s recovered. He’s better! You better find him before something happens to him, or I swear to God, Tony. 

Tony had held his tongue. Hadn’t said I know it wasn’t him. I’ve always known! I know it wasn’t his fault. But he knows damn well Rogers isn’t listening. Steve hasn’t listened to him since he mentioned Wanda’s house arrest with Vision, three years ago. So he’d just stood there, taken whatever Rogers had to throw at him, and then promised to find the man he’d just lost.

And then the five weeks. Five weeks of nothing. Well, nothing but a stressed PR team once again trying to save Tony’s ass. 

Rhodey has been trying to be kind, trying to understand, but Tony knows well enough that he’s crossed a line with this one. It was stupid. He should have found another way. But… The gaze of the Winter Soldier burns itself uninvited into his brain, again, and he can’t shake it. And Tony knows in his gut that he was right. And because of that, he can’t really regret doing it.

Sure, he let his parent’s killer loose on the world. Steve has lost his best friend, again. I was your friend. Tony steps out of his oldtimer and out of the memory. He tries.

It’s dark already, he’s been taking his time with the drive to the Compound. He needs time to think, to figure out how to fix this, and driving with an empty phone is about as much alone time as he’s going to get. As much as he loves Rhodey and Pepper, they are fighting the front facing battle. They are protecting the New Avengers, making sure this stunt doesn’t reflect badly on them, doesn’t break things. They don’t have time to fix the actual problem. To find the Winter Soldier.

Tony walks through the back of the Compound absentmindedly, automatically taking the road less traveled to his workshop. A soft chirp alerts him that he’s within Friday’s range again, and he makes a note to drop his phone off to charge sometime before tomorrow. It’s been a quiet drive without her.

“Initiating Code Contagion,” are her welcoming words to him, and Tony freezes. Someone is in the workshop. Someone other than him and the bots.

“Fri? What’s going on?”

“There has been a breach of security. Should I alert the Colonels?” Right, Carol is over for a visit to her wife and earth.

“Details, Friday, details first,” he snaps, twisting his hand so that the iron gauntlets assemble around his hands.

The details step out into the light just as Friday informs him: “Sergeant Barnes has broken into the lab in your absence.”

Tony freezes. Well, that solves one problem. And creates a hundred more, all condensed into the space of one shaggy one armed super soldier.

“I am–”

“Friday stop.” Tony keeps his eyes on Barnes, slowly stretching his fingers to arm the gauntlets. Barnes doesn’t move, only the cold light in his eyes as he tracks Tony’s movement proof that he’s not catatonic like before. “You will not alert anyone unless I tell you to. Silent mode.”

When Barnes still doesn’t move, Tony takes a moment to look at him properly. The summary is that the man looks like he’s been through hell and back. Whatever kind of makeup he was using before, it’s gone now, no attempt to hide the black rings under his eyes. He looks gaunt, like he hasn’t eaten since Tony lost him, how did you lose the Winter Soldier, Tony? You said he was catatonic, how did you loose a whole ass super solider? Tony pushes Rhodey’s voice out of his head. He has to focus, there is an assassin in his sanctuary.

Although, looking at him, Tony is surprised Barnes is still standing. He is breathing even and controlled, very controlled, the muscles of his jaw clenched around the effort. His clothes are the poor abused corpses of the button down, jacket and jeans Tony kidnapped him in from the tower, torn, dirty and with the stench of five weeks of city on them.

Huh. He never left the city. Tony wants to kick himself, New York is his home turf, he should’ve been able to find him. But then again, Barnes is here. He somehow made it inside the compound, starved, sleep deprived and clearly in a lot of pain.

He has to ignore that. Tony knows he has to ignore that. Still. He can see it, clear as day. The way Barnes holds himself, stiff, breathing controlled as not to let anything slip out. The thin sheen of sweat on his forehead that can’t be from anything else. He must have been waiting here for hours. Tony left the lab this morning to head to the tower, a meeting about the accords, again. He’s been gone all day.

“Care to share why you’re here, Sergeant,” Tony asks. He needs to start somewhere, and figuring out whether he will need the full suit for this or not is a good idea. Barnes flinches at that, his hand going up to his head, pressing the ball of his hand into his eyes.

Curious. Migraine? Flashback? What was it? 

Tony’s mind races in the background, and he isn’t sure whether he likes this. Whether he wants to know Barnes’ sore spots. Whether he trusts himself with them. He’s been trying, he’s been doing good, helping, using his minds that is so so very good and disassembling things and making them better to make them better for everyone. But he’s learned how to take things apart with his father, his father’s work. Tony has always been good at finding weak spots.

“Take me out.”

The Winter Soldier’s voice is a low rasp, something unused and unpracticed. Tony shudders at the voice first, at the words second.

“What?!”

Barnes takes a deep controlled breath, breathing out slowly. He winces, flinches away from the stump of his left arm. Pain. He’s hurt. How long has this been an issue? Five weeks? Before? It didn’t show before. Can she do that? Is that why he was so gaunt then, so tense? He just didn’t register the pain? Can Strange do that? This could help. 

“Howard.” The word lands like a meteor. “Maria.” A crater. “I almost killed you.” A gun leveled at his head, right between his eyes. The surreality of feeling the bullets get tanked by the glove. Knowing they were meant from him. That he was a split second of inattention away from death. “Twice.” The screaming of metal against metal. The flashes of warnings in the heads up display as the reactor gets dug out of him, slowly. He watches it happen. “We left you to die.” Cold. He is so so so cold, it’s in his bones, for hours. Even know it sometimes comes, he’s almost burned his skin in showers trying to get it out.

The Winter Soldier looks up at him, piercing blue eyes boring into Tony. He sometimes dreams of those eyes. Wakes up screaming. He knows Barnes had little to nothing to do with any this. He’s seen the Hydra files. Has seen the videos. The science of how a weapons is made. He’s good at taking things apart. He understands how the man before him was made in horrifying replicable detail. And he knows he’s asking for death for things he did not do.

Still. Hard to shake those eyes. Hard to shake the fear. Tony shakes his head.

“No, I’m not an executioner.” Merchant of Death, Tony. That is your legacy. 

Barnes’ face twists, and Tony can’t quite make out if it’s anger or pain there. “I am giving this to you,” the man grunts, taking a step forward and hissing with the pain of it. Tony instinctively flinches backwards, and the metal of the room flinches towards him. Barnes’ gaze darts towards the three Iron Man suits suddenly standing sentinel behind Tony, but his eyes find him like a bullet. “This is all I have.” Tony’s heart sinks. Oh. He realises what this is. “Please.” Atonement.

Oh, he’s all to familiar with this, this kind of atonement. My life for my sins.

“I am not killing you, Barnes.” 

The Winter Soldier glances at the Iron Man suits behind him, and something on his face twists. Suicide by cop, huh? Well, Tony isn’t going to make it that easy. He has no idea what he’s feeling right now, it’s complicated, always so complicated, especially with Barnes, but he’s not a killer. He’s not one for revenge, not anymore.

So when Barnes lunges for him, he’s ready. Tony steps back into one of the suits and the metal melts around him like relief. Tony knows it’s fucked, he knows he should be better than this by now, but there is no safety but that of his own engineering surrounding him. He knows each nut and bolt, each damn circuit of this suit, of the other two, all of them. He’s in control here. Yeah, definitely not the safest mindset, but betrayal by your closest friends and family really does a number on you.

Barnes lunges for him and while Friday is muted, she is still there, her insight on the assassin flying past him on the heads up display. The arm is as Barnes left with it in Siberia. They didn’t do anything. Tony grimaces as he half dodges a punch, half catches the man as he stumbles past him. 

“This can’t be right, Fri, they have to have done something.”

Friday halts the information flow on the analysis of the arm stump, highlighting all the reasons it looks exactly like the last time she saw it. Exposed wires – nerves – and all.

“Barnes, calm down. I’m not killing you, c’mon.” 

Barnes is heaving big lungfuls of breath, and now that Tony knows what the hell is going on, he is sickeningly in awe of the man. He knows how that arm was made, the wires interlaced with Barnes’ nerves. Tony knows that even with everything, the shrapnel, the reactor, the cardiac arrests, the shield, the everything, he can’t imagine the pain Barnes is in right now. Barnes is fighting him to end right now.

“I’m fixing this,” he mutters quietly to Friday, who can’t protest because she’s still muted, but tries her very best via the heads up display. Out loud he says: “Sorry, Sergeant.” Again Barnes flinches, draws back for a moment and screws his eyes shut. Curious. Tony doesn’t hesitate. He’s good at finding weak spots, but in this caste it’s the art of finding one that won’t do anything more than he intends. He goes for the shoulder where the sleeve of the button down has been torn off revealing fraying wires and infected flesh.

It’s not kind, but nobody has ever accused Tony of being kind. He just tries not to be cruel. He gets a hold of Barnes’ shoulder and immediately all blood drains from the man’s face. A slight bit of pressure and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

He drops like a stone, the strings of his body cut he collapses, his head thumping loud on the floor of the workshop. Friday brings up his vitals, as far as she can make them out. It’s a mess. At least there’s no blood. 

Tony steps out of the suit. “Friday, you can come back.”

“I never left, boss. May I now inform the colonels?”

Tony sighs and crouches down next to the unconscious form of Bucky Barnes on his workshop floor. The man stinks.

“No. If Rhodey asks, you can tell him I’m home. And if he wants to come down, you may inform him that everyone is banned from the workshop on account of me doing stupid shit."