I Probably Should Have Expected This
"Great! You're awake!" Tony said. Barnes stared at him for a moment, his eyes clearing a bit.
"Yes," he said.
"How are you feeling?" Bruce asked.
"Functional."
"That's...good," Bruce said slowly. "Are you feeling any pain?"
Barnes just stared at Bruce as though trying to ask, what type of question is that?
"I'm guessing not," Bruce said. He stood up and looked over at Tony. Clearly he was expecting Tony to deal with the ex-Soviet assassin in the commons. Tony realized that he really hadn't planned this far and didn't actually know what he was going to do. He gestured with his hands trying to tell Bruce that he had no idea what to do. Bruce just smiled and walked off, making sure to keep in sight of Barnes.
Tony plopped down onto the couch with a sigh. Barnes turned his attention to him and Tony had to admit it was a little unnerving. Especially because he didn't make eye contact, which actually could be worse because, fuck, look at those eyes. They were a bright icy blue and Tony could get lost in them for hours and maybe he should stop staring at him.
Tong coughed. "So, we can continue sitting here or I can show you around the tower," he offered.
Barnes stared at him and Tony almost thought he wasn't going to answer until he heard him say, soft and very shyly, "Show me around the tower."
Tony smiled. He didn't know how bad whatever happened to Barnes was but if he made a choice than that had to be good, right? Either way, Tony was going to try his best to encourage Barnes to make his own choices. Having choices made for you sucked, and Tony was sure Barnes had had his fill of others making choices for him.
He stood up and waited and Barnes stood up, ready to follow him. He did it so silently it unnerved Tony. A little like when Nat would just randomly appear. Sometimes she surprised me him so bad he wondered if he would be able to get a heart attack with his arc reactor.
Tony rubbed his hands together and gestured around the commons. "These are the commons, when the other Avengers are here we normally hang out in here. There's a kitchen with food and a coffee machine, the living room, which we're in now, there's a coffee machine over there." Tony pointed over at the coffee machine sitting on the cabinets lining the large, flat screen TV. He really liked his coffee, and after Pepper said he was only allowed one machine in his lab he had to make sure he stached as many as he could at other places in his tower. Or the Avengers Tower, as it now was.
Tony led Barnes around the tower, showing him places that everyone was allowed to go into and private rooms where he would need to ask permission. Throughout the whole thing Barnes didn't say a single thing. They walked back up to the commons and Tony made himself some coffee. "Any questions about anything?" he asked.
Barnes looked around the commons and then looked down. "I didn't see anything for maintenance," he said shyly.
"What?" Tony asked. He was pretty sure Barnes was talking about that damn chair that he had seen in the files, but he wanted to hear what Barnes meant. He really hoped it wasn't the chair.
Barnes' eyes flicked up to Tony before going back to the floor. "My chair and the cryo chamber," he said.
"Those aren't here," Tony said.
Barnes looked slightly alarmed. Tony really hoped he wasn't going to freak out. "They will arrive?" he asked.
"You don't need them," Tony said. He figured he might just as well explain what happened. "I brought you to Avengers Tower, you're not with HYDRA anymore."
Barnes blinked and refused to look at Tony. "You are my new Handler?" he asked.
Tony pulled a face. "Uh, no...I'm going to stop you there," he said. "I'm not in any way your handler except that I'm going to make sure HYDRA doesn't get you back, kapiche?"
Barnes turned to look at Tony and stared at him for a solid minute. "Understood?" he said. Tony really hoped that the effects of what he had gone through weren't permanant. Steve would probably go on a killing spree if what happened to Barnes couldn't be healed in some way. A good friend would probably tell Steve that he had found Barnes, but it didn't look like Barnes was ready to deal with the giant golden retriever that Steve could be.
"Great, you thirsty? I can give you some coffee or water or juice. Really anything I probably have it," Tony said.
"Water?" Barnes asked shyly. Tony smiled at him and walked over to the cabinet and took out a glass of water filling it up before giving it to Barnes. Barnes studied it for a bit before hesitantly drinking it.
Tony sipped his coffee and wondered how he was going to explain to Pepper and Rhodey how he had managed to get the Winter Soldier in his tower without being killed. Well, hopefully without being killed, it would really suck if that happened. Especially because Pepper and Rhodey would probably lbrin ghim back to life to say that they knew it was a horrible idea and kill hiim all over again.
"I'm not going to make you stay if you don't want to," Tony started. "But I was wondering if you would be willing to stay for a bit and if I could maybe take a look at your arm?" he asked. Surely he would know that it would be fine to say no to that, and if it comes to it Jarvis will let him know if Barnes is starting to get a panic attack so he can stop.
Barnes just stared at him. Again. It was starting to get to the point where Tony was sure he was actively punished if he made any of his own choices and wondered where the nearest place he could destroy any and all HYDRA agents were. "Yes?" Barnes asked. That shouldn't need to be a question damnit HYDRA.
"Great, we can head down to my lab and get Bruce to go with us." Yeah, no way was Tony doing this alone. He was going to drag Bruce into what could potentially be his death because he figured that there was a chance the Big Guy could save him if Barnes got violent. He stood up and without needing to prompt Barnes to follow him walked down to the elevator. When he reached his lab Bruce was already waiting for them with a slightly exasperated face.
"I barely even got time to enjoy my tea before Jarvis was calling me down to your lab," Bruce said. "What is Barnes doing with you?"
"I asked if I could look at his arm and he said yes," Tony explained. Barnes nodded and he saw Bruce slightly relax. "What are you going to do if Steve calls you while your doing this?" he asked.
Oh. That could turn out to be a problem. Maybe he could call Nat and get her to distract Steve until he could come up with an explaination? But then she would know and she might actually tell Fury, and that could lead to a whole bunch of different problems. Wait, he didn't need a video feed, he could just do a voice call. Or would that be too suspicious seeing as he rarely ever did that. Tony sighed to himself. "We'll deal with that if it happens," he decided.
Bruce frowned but shrugged. Tony led Barnes deeper into his workshop so that he could scan the arm. Barnes followed and Bruce walked after them. Tony sat down in one of the office chairs he had and spun around in it to face Barnes and Bruce.
"I'm just going to do a small scan, is that fine?" Tony asked Barnes, he really didn't want to do something that Barnes didn't want him to, and the scan was the least invasive thing he could be doing with the arm.
Barnes shrugged and held out his arm. Tony quickly scanned it and then opened more screens as the scan loaded. They watched as a model of Barnes's arm appeared slowly on the screen. Tony started to go over it, searching for anything that shouldn't be there.
Tony hummed to himself as he spotted a couple small machines that didn't exactly fit in the arm. He tapped them and turned to Barnes. "Do you know what these are?" he asked. They weren't trackers, there weren't any signals coming from them, and Tony didn't think they were explosives or poison or anything along the lines of that.
Barnes fronwed and leaned forwards to study the screen. "Offline trackers, among other failsafes," he said.
"Failsafes?" Tony asked.
"Cocktails of different chemicals designed to keep the Asset immobile until a task force could recover it."
Tony blinked. "Are they online?" he asked. He hoped not, Tony really didn't want to deal witha comatose super soldier because of some obscure mix of chemicals HYDRA had given him.
Barnes shrugged. "They haven't gone off yet, so it could be assumed that they are also offline," he said.
Tony frowned and looked at his screens. "Do you want me to check or not?" Tony asked. "If I did have to check I would actually have to look in the arm and not just take scans."
Barnes frowned and moved his arm closer to himself. "Or we could go back up to the commons room and watch a movie and get some more food," Tony said, glancing back at Bruce. "That sounds like a good idea, right? All in favor?"
Bruce nodded. "Yeah, let's go get some food," he said, starting to walk over to the elevator. Barnes watched him and looked back at Ton. Tony stretched in his chair and stood up.
"Come on Frosty, take out food and a movie awaits us!" Tony said herding Barnes over to the elevator.