one-way ticket
i took a chance to build a world of mine
a one-way ticket for another life
i used to dream about the other side
the sun rising on the skyline
- woodkid, "land of all"
6.
"How'd he like it," Tony asks Bruce the next day before lunch, in AP Physics.
Bruce looks at him for a long while before patting Tony tentatively on the shoulder. "It's gorgeous," he says, quietly. "He loved it."
Here's how it happens:
It's late in the afternoon and they're all lounging in Bucky and Steve's dorm room. They usually meet up here, despite the fact that there are definitely not allowed to be girls in the boys' building. Nobody's really worried about getting caught though; the RAs don't give half the fucks they're supposed to usually and if Natasha were here, she'd just give them a glare and they'd all scurry off, macho men or not. Natasha's got somewhat of a reputation at SHIELD and it's obvious some of the teachers are wary around her too.
Bruce shows up late, his glasses askew on the bridge of his nose and his wild brown curls all tousled. "Hey Bruce," they all say, and Clint scoots over to make a spot for him on the beanbag shoved in the corner of the room. Everyone's here beside Natasha, who's coming back on Thursday, and Thor, who's probably off making out with Jane in a broom closet or something. Everyone, of course, means Bucky, Steve, Clint, and Bruce. And this time Sam's here too, but he's really only close with Bucky and Steve.
"What's that?" Bucky says, nodding towards the bow-tied box held carefully in Bruce's arms.
"Oh, I forgot," Bruce stammers, holding it out to Bucky. "Here - ah, it's yours."
"Mine?" Bucky says, reaching out with his one good arm.
"Oh, wait, wait, it's - it needs to be held with a lot of support - " Bruce clambers awkwardly off the beanbag and places it on Bucky's lap. It's actually fairly light, and Bruce can only marvel at how Tony managed to pull this off.
"What is it, Bruce?" Steve says, eyeing the box. It's a mixture of curiosity and amusement and...not distrust, exactly. But protectiveness.
"It's, uh, an arm," Bruce says quickly, helping Bucky untie the bow and lift the cover of the Macy's box. "A new one, for Bucky."
"You made Bucky an arm?" Sam blurts out, incredulous, and Bruce shrinks back a little. "I didn't," he says. "I asked one of my friends; he was in robotics at his old school." It's not exactly a terrible lie, either. Tony used to be on a robotics team - from what Bruce has heard, the Stark Industries heir has won the national robotics championship three out of the three times he's competed in it. If SHIELD had a team, they'd ream out every other school with Tony at the forefront.
Bucky is looking at him with a sort of stunned worshipful awe that has Bruce crawling in his pants. He doesn't deserve those looks from Bucky or from the rest of the room. He's not the one who asked, he's certainly not the one who made it, and quite frankly he doubts anyone but Tony could've constructed something so beautiful and modern and advanced. (He's always known that Tony's a genius, of course, but it's even more mindblowing to see the results of that genius.) But Tony had requested anonymity, and Bucky would be much more averse to accepting this if Bruce had said that Tony's responsible for this work of art, so he says nothing.
"Wow," Sam says after a moment, and Clint whistles in agreement. "Put it on, Barnes."
"Here, I'll help," Bruce says, crawling over to his friend's side. "Over break I researched how to do this and my friend put a list of instructions in the box, so."
Everyone watches as Bruce attaches wires and electrodes and fits on a comfy black shoulder sleeve. Bucky just grunts every time Bruce asks him if he's okay or if it hurts, which supposedly means "no." If there's one good thing about Bucky's Hammer tech - something that Tony had very reluctantly admitted - it's that it implemented osseointegrated titanium implants, meaning that Bucky is no longer required to endure extensive surgery for his prosthetic.
After Bruce is done, he withdraws from Bucky's side. There's a long silence as he allows Bucky to adjust himself to the feel of the arm, and then, asks hopefully, "Works?"
Bucky wiggles his metal fingers - he wiggles his fucking fingers - and his eyes open like a child's do on Christmas morning. "I can... It's so smooth," he says, his voice hoarse. "I can... Wait. I can feel things. I can feel pain."
"Is that a good thing," Steve says, leaning forward. His brows furrow. "You're not supposed to be feeling pain, right?"
"No, no," Bucky whispers. His dark grey eyes are clear. "I mean, I can feel human again."
"Aww, that's cute," Clint says, breaking the silence, but then he comes forward and wraps himself around Bucky in a warm hug.
Bucky pats Clint on the back with a broody sort of amusement on his face. He uncurls his metal fingers, curls them again. "It's so light, and it does exactly what I want it to do," he says softly. He lifts his eyes to Bruce. "Who made this? I want to thank them in person. Must be...Jesus, must be a real genius."
If only you knew, Bruce thinks with dark humor. He shakes his head. "It's one of the people who gets picked on by Stone. He doesn't want to reveal who he is in case Tiberius goes after him."
Bucky snorts. "Stone won't be coming after me now," he says with a mild viciousness. "Nor will Stark, for that matter."
"Tony says sorry," Bruce says hesitantly, as if that'll mean anything. "He wants to make it up to you."
"How about he loses his arm twice in a row, then we can see," Bucky snaps, but his voice cracks a little again. "It fucking sucks, being one-handed," he says finally, softer.
Clint shudders from where his face is nestled into Bucky's neck. "Can't even imagine," he says. "Imagine trying to shoot an arrow with only one hand?"
"Knowing you, you'd find a way," Sam points out. "And shut up, Barton, stop making everything about archery. We're trying to have a bonding circle."
"Well," Bucky says, turning the atmosphere serious again. "Please tell your robotics friend thank you. I..." He trails off, swallows, a shadow passing across his face. "I don't know if I coulda handled having to go through another year without my arm, you know?"
"Yeah, Buck, we understand," Steve says softly, and looks at his best friend of eleven years with the softest gaze anyone's ever seen him wear. The moment is heavy, quiet. Then Bucky cracks a sudden smile and hops to his feet, new fingers flexing and uncurling. "Ingrid's curry sound good? I'm starving."
Clint scoffs, but there's no heat behind his words when he says, "Barnes, that restaurant's not even authentic Indian cuisine. All the chefs are literally white and blue-eyed."
"Authentic cuisine? Using big words now, you deserve a gold star," Bucky says back as Clint makes a face and climbs to his feet. Everyone else stands up as well, Sam giving a great yawn full of gusto as he stretches.
Bucky smirks back at Clint as the group moves toward the door. "C'mon, you know you love Ingrid's despite your inner white denial. Let's go."
Tony doesn't smoke much. At least, not after he was kidnapped and Howard refused to pay ransom, so they beat the shit out of him so bad his ribs broke and pierced his lungs and his heart started having panic-induced arrhythmia. But right now he leans forward to wrap his lips around Becky's cigarette - Becky who won't ever know about his heart condition now that she's leaving - and looks at her over the butt. Her eyes are watery but he knows it's not just from the smoke, and he leans his shoulder against the brick wall of the building and sighs around the cigarette in his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Tony," she says to him, softly. "My mom - she doesn't have enough money anymore, and I'm not here on scholarship."
"But you..." Tony furrows his brow.
Becky smiles gently; it doesn't reach her eyes. "Even though they're divorcing and I told my mom he doesn't control her, my dad wants me to go to HYDRA Academy. Says it'll make me into a proper woman."
Her laugh - when it escapes - is bitter.
"HYDRA?" Tony says. He makes a face. "That academy has an awful reputation." Then bites his lip seconds later, because that's probably the farthest thing from what Becky wants to hear right now.
"Awful to you," Becky says. "It's highly prestigious, and..." She trails off. "I guess it really is awful to any decent person."
Yeah, Tony thinks, recalling the lawsuits filed against the head of school - Arnim Zola - just three months ago for alleged sexual relations with at least three female students. It sickens him, to think Becky will be heading off there in just a day, that she'll probably catch the slimeball's eye because a girl like her just looks so innocently pretty (how did that asshole even manage to drop the charges with such overwhelming evidence?). Fuck, he wants to puke.
"I'm afraid for you," he says honestly, and touches her knee. It isn't a sexual act, nor does he intend it to be; her hands, shaking in her lap with the cigarette, still as his thumb traces comforting circles.
"Me too," Becky says, and combs back her blonde ringlets. "I'm going to miss you, Tony. You're a good friend, no matter what you think. No matter what people say."
Tony finds that he cannot muster up a reply and squeezes her knee instead, not trusting himself to be able to hold back the sadness he knows is climbing up inside his throat.
After a pregnant moment Becky stands gracefully, her blue eyes sorrowful, and they go back to Tony's single-man dorm room while the sun is still out and the afternoon is faintly there. Inside the room, Becky unclasps her bra and Tony takes off his pants. They kiss a little, and Becky's face is warm and tired in the little light that sneaks from behind the curtain. Tony traces her body with his calloused hands for the last time, maps out her breasts with his tongue, leaves a hickey like a forget-me-not on her slim milk-white collarbone.
She is very beautiful, in the kind of way he wants to gaze at for the rest of his life, Tony realizes as her underwear comes off. If he wasn't Tony Stark, and she wasn't Becky Munroe, they might be a couple. In a different universe, at a different high school, with less-broken hearts.
In the waning afternoon in Tony's room they have slow, wanting sex, as if sex will keep the missing her at bay for the rest of the empty, lonely year. Tony melts into ashes as Becky arches beneath him and he slips in and out like the conjoining and splitting of two souls. "Tony," she murmurs into his neck, sweet and sad like a prayer, and he kisses her and tries to convey with his lips that she is the only person he has really talked to outside of sex and class and parties and how that means so damn much even if he's never said it aloud.
"Tony, I'll miss you," she says again into his sweat-dampened skin, and Tony rolls off her and presses against her side as duskier bits of sunlight begin to filter into the dorm. She fits neatly, easily, into all the spaces between the wall and the bed and his body, like a puzzle piece - so fucking right, and not replaceable at all, and yet. And yet.
"I'll miss you too, Becks." His voice sounds dulled and hoarse in the post-sex haze. And her fingers touch his hand, and they twist together in a knot as if they don't ever have to say a final good-bye, and he remembers how lonely his life always has been and how lonely it always will be.