Bucky POV, Between Chapter 6-7
Timestamp #2 (Bucky POV, somewhere between Chapter 6-7)
The lab was an amazing place—there were so many things here to look at and learn, and he wanted to know all of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his eyes off Tony.
He was standing in front of one of the holoscreens, moving and spinning pieces of his latest suit into place with no hesitation, like his mind was already twenty steps ahead and his hands were still trying to catch up. Bucky had known since before he knew hardly anything that Tony Stark was physically attractive. Pepper’s friend had helped him learn what that attraction meant.
But it was more than that.
There were all kinds of beautiful people on the internet, and they didn’t do anything for him. There was something different about Tony. He’d seen him in videos on YouTube, walking down red carpets, smiling stiffly with his eyes hidden by colored and mirrored lenses, and he could pass as any other anonymous playboy. Bucky recognized it for what it was: a mask just as impenetrable as the one he wore when he was Iron Man.
Bucky understood masks well. He wore them, too.
Tony paused suddenly, before looking back at him with a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked in concern.
“Just trying to figure out what you’re doing,” Bucky lied quickly.
“Oh,” Tony said, and his eyes lit up. “Look, come here.”
Bucky slipped off the stool and came to stand beside him. The light from the screens was painting both of them blue. Tony was movement and grace and life, and sometimes Bucky couldn’t understand why he ever wasted his time on him. He didn’t deserve any of this, but he was going to hold onto it for as long as he could.
“You see this bit?” Tony asked, his hands flashing out to enlarge a section in one quick move. “This is the internal structure for the repulsers on my suit. I’m trying to increase control over the strength, I want to be able to fly straight and knock an apple off someone’s head from fifty paces. I don’t think that’s asking for much.”
Tony spun the image, frowning slightly. “The issue is it’s drawing power from the arc reactor, and that’s basically unlimited within the bounds of a mission. I’d never go out without enough energy to last five years. So it wants to go big, but I want to refine it. I mean, I have refined it. But things can always improve, you know what I mean?”
“Not sure I do,” Bucky said gently, but Tony was too into the diagrams to even notice.
Tony just spun the image again, zooming out, and started a simulation that showed how the repulser drew power through the arm and filtered it through all its tiny mechanisms, until it was bursting out in a beam of a light like a sun flare.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Tony breathed, eyes on the screen.
Bucky turned back to watch him. “Yes,” he agreed.