The Life After (The After Life)

I am fully burnt out on this story. 

I'm able to come up with ideas and things that I want from this story in my head but nothing will ever get on the page. The ideas I originally had are gone and there's now just...a wall that I cannot get around no matter how hard I try.

So here I am...ending this story now. I was clearing out my inbox and saw a comment about this and I just...I know I'm not going to update this. I just know (honestly, like 90% the fics in my 'fics to update' series I'm just never going to finish - except for one or two...I've created new ideas for them so I'll be able to chug through). So instead of dangling you guys by a thread on the bare minimum of a promise to complete this...I'm officially finishing it. 

Someone can pick it up - either complete it themselves or make something inspired by it if any of you feel so inclined. But I myself will not be including anything.

With that said...I'm going to release the notes and unfinished chapters:

Steve's awake and confused.

Bucky is excited, terrified, and confused. 

Tony is acting weird and stand-offish by not talking.

These idiots just need to get their acts together and figure shit out.

(ft. I just did the math and apparently Tony is 30?)

~

So yeah. This is kind of the timeline so far:

1978-Tony’s born<br />
1996-Howard and Maria die. Tony is taken hostage by HYDRA.<br />
1999-Tony and Bucky escape and blow up HYDRA. HYDRA is destroyed in SHIELD and Tony is promoted to Director. Bucky goes into carbonate.<br />
2008-Bucky wakes up. Tony is Iron Man. The Avengers consists of Natasha, Clint, Bruce, and slightly Tony-not really. Steve is found.

And 2008-1978 = 30 so....apparently Bucky /wasn't\ that far off with 35. 

But with the serum he does look like he's 18 or 19 so... yeeeaaaahhhh.....

~

The trio stared at each other, mostly in shock and maybe fear if the look on Steve's face was anything to go by. Bucky looked a little harder at Tony's red, white, and black suit. It was very form fitting and seemed to just completely shape his body. 

Bucky turned to Steve who was wearing a white shirt and cargo pants. He stared at Steve who looked pretty good for being dead since 1942 (which was holy cow 66 years). Then he looked at Tony again who he noticed looked completely on the defensive side. 

Bucky couldn't see anything past Tony's mask so he had no idea what face he was making but he could tell the young man was tense. 

"Okay." Bucky stepped forward. "This is what you were talking about?" Bucky gestured to Steve who stood straighter. 

The metal around Tony's body snaked away from the extremists of his body and sunk back into his arc reactor at lightning speed. Tony was standing straight and his face was blank and tight. His hair became tousled from his head being in the helmet. 

"Yeah." Tony told him.

Bucky looked over at Steve who smiled lightly at him. Bucky gave a small smile back and looked over at Tony who looked...weird. 

"We were looking for him because Thor's brother Loki tipped us off. I thought why not? and went looking so here he is, I have to go check in with Pep and Rhodey, bye." Tony said shortly and then headed out of the hallway. "Oh and there should be a meeting room down there for you lads to catch up." and then he was gone. 

Bucky blinked. 

"Who was he?" Steve asked behind him and Bucky jumped slightly. 

"Oh uh, Tony. Tony Stark." Bucky took a shuddering breath. "Steve -?"

Steve grinned. "Hey Buck. How - how are you here?" 

"After I fell," Bucky started and he didn't miss the wince. "I was taken by Hydra -"

"Those -!" Steve started, seething. 

"Don't worry, we took care of it." Bucky quickly added. "They're gone. For good. But either way, I was taken in by Hydra and they brainwashed me. I may or may not have kidnapped Tony and we got rid of Hydra before coming here to Shield..."

Bucky kept talking as they started to walk. He told Steve about Hydra and Wakanda and SHIELD and the Avengers. He told Steve pretty much everything that he knew except that Tony was his boyfriend. 

He could tell that Steve knew something was up especially when Steve addressed it saying, "Are we....are we still....?"

Bucky sighed. "I - I don't know Stevie. It's been years. Like 66 years. And...I guess....things have changed." Bucky turned to Steve who looked sad and confused. "I - I'll figure it out." Bucky assured him. "Let's - Let's just go to the Compound, okay?" 

Steve nodded. 

~

By the way, did I say that Rhodey and Pepper were getting married? Is that what I said?

~

Tony gets a new name and he's called Chernyy Volk. He doesn't know what that means because it's Russian but it's Black Wolf {Author's Note: That name comes into play later somehow. Maybe in a remake of Age of Ultron--the second book to this}).

BELOW IS MULTI - CHAPTER:

Plan for the next few chapters:

Bucky manages to calm Steve down. Maybe kiss? Or at least Steve tries to initiate it. Or something like that...maybe not…

Tony leaves them to catch up. 

Bucky explains that he was the Winter Soldier and he explains everything with Tony and then from what he knows what has happened. He kinda leaves out the part that Tony is his boyfriend. 

Steve sleeps in an empty room. 

The Avengers already exist - Tony is also in charge of that. Tony is a bit thick in the fact that he doesn’t realize that Natasha is Natalia. The Avengers started about two years after - 2001 ish. They’re simply there to take care of problems where the government is out of their depth. The Avengers was created after Thor came to Earth. Thor, Bruce, Iron Man, Natasha, and Clint are apart of it. Bruce, Natasha, and Clint know that Iron Man is Tony Stark. To the rest of the world, Iron Man works for SI to get rid of weapons that landed in terrorist hands. They’re all secret identities. 

Steve is eased into the 21st century with Tony's and Bucky's help. The three become really close, despite Tony's worries and slightly standoffish reaction to Steve. He always loved Captain America but his dad was always looking for Cap and now Bucky was giving him a lot of attention and Steve seemed to only see Howard in him and all of this being resolved takes Bucky to convince Tony that he will never toss Tony away like his dad did.

Once he realizes that Steve is only seeing Howard in Tony (because he knows what Howard did to Tony) he actually snaps at Steve and tells him to stop acting like that and is actually super protective of Tony. Steve's a little shocked but he tries to get the idea of Howard out of his head and instead just focuses on Tony and how Tony acts. He finds he likes Tony a lot more than he thought.

White Wolf has joined the Avengers and then Captain America. Steve is a little worried but Bucky assures him that Tony can handle himself and would whoop his ass if Steve tries to take the suit away. The Avengers all train together. 

*During the New York problem, Tony loses his suit and the Avengers want him to stay safe so they try to get him to move away from the fight:

"Just, go, Tony!" Natasha snapped. "It'll be safer!"

"I'm not going!" Tony barked back, glaring. "You have that little faith in me!?"

"You don’t have your suit!" Clint shouted back, sliding down one of the destroyed window panes of a nearby store. "Just go back to the quinjet, where it's safe-!"

He pulled out an arrow and Tony whirled around to see a Chitauri launching at him. Instincts kicked in and Tony flipped backward just as the arrow went straight through where he was standing and into the alien. Tony landed, knees bent, one arm out for balance, and one arm in the air.

Like he was taught.

"Tony!" Steve was there now, but Natasha and Clint were staring at Tony in amazement and suspicion. "Where did your suit go-?"

"I lost it," Tony said, standing. "It's broken, can't call it back-look out!"

A Chitauri snuck up behind him and attempted to leap on him but Tony jumped again, bending backward like a cat and twisting in the air. He landed on the Chitauri instead and it shrieked. Tony just hooked his legs and tugged to the left, snapping the alien's neck and dropping to the floor. Once again, knees bent, arm out on the ground, another arm in the air.

This time, Natasha wasn't shy about speaking her mind.

"Where did you learn that?" She demanded. Tony looked at her. She looked back at him, hard.

"A while ago," Tony said, waving the question away.

"I didn't ask when," Natasha fired back. "I asked where." Bucky had joined them and he took one look at the Chitauri on the ground, Tony, and sighed. Natasha glanced at him. "Do you know?" She asked.

Bucky looked at Tony who shrugged. "Yeah."

"Then where did he learn that move?" Natasha crossed her arms.

"Hydra," he said. "They...they taught him that."

"After a load of torture, yeah," Tony snorted.

"But that's a Red Room move," Natasha said suddenly and Tony's snort turned into a choking cough. "That shouldn't be-" 

"Hydra and the Red Room were teamed, remember?" Bucky said, looking at Natasha. She took a step back, shock and fear flitting over her face before she settled back. "Yeah. I remember. And I'm sorry. Really, I am."

Natasha went silent.

"But here's the thing," Bucky continued. "There was a new program that came from the Red Room and he was one of the first contestants-"

"What was it called?" Clint asked, looking at Natasha worriedly.

"The Black Widow Ops Program," Bucky said and Natasha's head snapped up.

"Ohhhh, that's why Black Widow sounded familiar..." Tony mused. He looked at Natasha nervously. 

"It was a program intended to eliminate you," Bucky was still talking to Natasha. "Every assassin they trained would later be programmed to kill you and then anybody else that tried to mess with Hydra or the Red Room."

There was a pause. 

"Oh," Tony squeaked suddenly. "You-you're Natalia Alionova Romanova." Natasha stared at him.

"Yeah," she said. "That's...my birth name." Tony squawked.

"Oh god! I was taught how to kill you! This is really not good for the team-shit! This is not good!-"

"Calm down," Bucky smiled at Tony. "You shut it down before they could even get the program really going. But,” he added thoughtfully. “Just in case, you might not want to train with Natasha. You could end up killing her."

Natasha snorted, "I highly doubt it."

"Well don't," Bucky warned. "Because he was trained to rethink every single move you make-everything you do or don't do. What you will do and how to counteract what you have done. He's the ultimate Black-Widow-Killing Machine. If the program did get uploaded, it could still trigger and you would be dead within minutes."

Natasha stilled. Then slowly, the whole team looked at Tony who looked as pale as a sheet.

"Can we not train together?" Tony's voice cracked and he croaked out the words. "I mean, I'd prefer it if I don't go into a mindless-Black-Widow-Killing-Machine, but that might just be me so..."

"Natasha," Steve stepped in. "When this is over, don't test your limits and train with Tony. Got it?" Natasha slouched and mumbled but nodded. 

"My friends!" Thor landed next to all of them with a bang. "I have found a way to stop this madness!"

"Let's hear it Point Break," Tony said quickly.

------Once the New York problem thing is done, Clint, Natasha, Tony, Bucky, and Steve are sent to find new Avengers. (Bruce and Thor went to Asgard because troubles have been arising. Skips the Dark World but Thor knows about the Aether. It goes straight to Ragnoark)Tony finds Peter. Natasha finds Wanda and Pietro--getting rid of most of the rest of HYDRA in the process. Bucky finds T'Challa. They train these guys and at some point the Avengers find out that Tony is Director of SHIELD because it wasn’t a well known fact and Fury still acted like the Director.
Maybe in the next book they go after HYDRA and the Red Room when they realize that it's still operative and it's mostly Red Room. It also ties in with Ultron because the Red Room makes something like Ultron. (And then, someone manages to launch the program again and anytime from there on out, Tony sees Natasha-he goes blank faced and tries to kill her.)

Misha comes back eventually and says that Luka is the prince of Russia and he’s back home. Misha is his bodyguard.

REMEMBER= Misha-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, skin was a light creme color. Misha had bangs and her hair went down to almost her waist. Luka had pale skin as well and he had green eyes and dark hair. It occured to Tony that Luka was thinner than everyone else. 

In my version, Tony was born 1978. 18 years later (1996) Howard dies. 

Timeline: 

1978-Tony’s born

1996-Howard and Maria die. Tony is taken hostage by HYDRA. 

1999-Tony and Bucky escape and blow up HYDRA. HYDRA is destroyed in SHIELD and Tony is promoted to Director. Bucky goes into carbonate. 

2008-Bucky wakes up. Tony is Iron Man. The Avengers consists of Natasha, Clint, Bruce, and slightly Tony-not really. Steve is found.

2008-2012--Bucky and Tony easing Steve into the 21st Century. They all fall in love. 

2012-Chitauri Attack

2013-