seams / unwinding / night
something grabs at the veins in
my eyes / and unwinds the seams in the dawn.
- kadya chavkin
12.
Tonyblinks, and he is thirteen.
Raza - the leader of the Ten Rings group that kidnapped him for ransom - leers over him, a twisted snarl on his face. "Your father refuses to deliver what I want," Raza says, his voice ice cold. "He is a fool, and you will pay the price."
At first, all Tony can think is fuck you through the heady fear, and he regards his kidnapper with a stubborn glare. But that's when Raza motions one of his men forward and takes the silver box from the man and...Tony recognizes what it is immediately, of course he does. It's a lighter.
"What are you...what are you going to do to me?" His mouth is dry, and he should be strong, God he knows he should be, but -
"Guess," Raza says, and uncaps it.
"P-Please," he says, trying to erase the frankly fucking pathetic panic out of his voice. He trembles against the bonds. "I can get my dad to pay. Just let me talk to him."
"You stupid boy," Raza says. His eyes narrow, but a smile splits his face. It is an unnatural smile, as if there's something inherently, deeply wrong with whatever's behind it. "Do you think I am that gullible?" He spits onto the dusty floor and then hits Tony in the face so hard the boy's ears ring. "You will pay for your father's refusal. You will pay for your offenses."
"Please," Tony says. His voice breaks. He notices one of the men in Raza's group fidgeting, as if he is uneasy, as if his limit is somewhere at torturing - maybe even killing - a child. But no one helps him. Tony, like always, is alone.
Raza flicks the lighter on, and grabs the boy by his chin. "I will enjoy," he says softly, "watching you as you scream." The man's voice is almost tender now. He brushes the already-blossoming bruise on Tony's cheek with the pad of a thumb. The air is so, so silent, except for the slight crackle of the flame, and the breathing of the men surrounding them. And for a second, Tony thinks it's not going to happen. Raza won't do it. No one would hurt him like this, he's not kidnapped, this kind of thing only happens in war-torn countries. He can feel the heat, the flicker, see the light behind his eyelids, but it won't happen. He's a Stark, and Starks are untouchable.
A man laughs in the background. Raza's hand is two inches from his skin. "Ah, Anthony Stark. Family can be a terrible thing."
Tony bolts upright with a gasp, a shout still forming in his mouth. A strangled, frankly embarrassing kind of moan escapes him, and he looks around wildly, praying everyone's asleep.
They are. Good.
His heart is still frantically beating like a rabbit in his chest, and he can already feel a panic attack looming near. Even though not the entire bedroom is dark - there are some lights outside that cast a white glow through the window to match with the falling snow - and Bruce, Barnes, and everyone else are sprawled near him in their sleeping bags, he still feels unsettled. Scared. As if Raza could jump in through the window at any moment, say Anthony Stark in the voice he remembers from his dreams.
There is something wet on his knuckles, and he peers down to realize his nails are biting into the skin there. For a second, he just watches his hands, clenched as if of their own accord, before he snaps to full awareness of what he's doing and yanks his fingers away. Stop it, Tony, he scolds himself mentally. You're not crazy yet, so stop.
Outside, snow is still drifting down heavily even though it's hard to see in the black, and Tony imagines how softly the flurries must fall before they hit the ground. He likes to compare them to feathers, or his mother's eyes and fingers when she plays the piano and the music seems to wake her up - her gaze, wide and warm brown, the lilting melodies that could carry him away into half-dreams about nothing. He thinks, in a way, he is like Maria: drifting through life with those sad Carbonell eyes, smiling at her husband, going to functions, drifting, drifting, always drifting. Not away, exactly, but in some foreign direction - somewhere her son can't reach.
Suddenly the air in the room feels oppressive and stifling, and Tony sucks in a breath. God, fuck, he needs fresh air. Before he can overthink things, he's rolling down the sleeves of his hoodie and padding over to the doorway. There's a shift behind him just as he steps out of the bedroom, but since it's probably just someone rolling over in their sleep, Tony doesn't even bother to look back before he's down the stairs and out the door.
Bucky is watching, only half-conscious, as Stark tiptoes over to the doorway before disappearing neatly out the room. Even though his brain startles and starts flagging warning signs in his head, his eyes are still heavy with sleep as he scrubs a hand - his flesh hand - over his face blearily. He'd only woken up two seconds ago, his body having alerted him to movement even while he was unconscious.
Yeah, he's always more alert now. Since his parents' deaths, since the crash, he hasn't been wholly the same.
What the fuck, go follow him, his brain yells. Stark could be - Stark could be - doing something bad right now.
With a soft grunt, the teen sits up and quickly scans to make sure everyone else hasn't been awoken by Stark or himself. Then, pushing himself up with his solid new arm, he lightly makes his way down the stairs and after the other boy.
Outside, Stark is sitting on the steps of the house and appears to be doing nothing but watching bits of snow flurry down. He must be really deep in thought, because he doesn't even notice when Bucky cracks the door open. Anyhow, Bucky doesn't trust that, not at all; Stark isn't the type of person to do things without missions. Even before the guy broke Bucky's prosthetic, Bucky's never really liked him in the first place. Everyone knows Stark, even though he's a new student this year; they've all seen him in newspapers a few times, and definitely his father. And to be honest, Stark's a magnetic character. You can hate him with all your heart, yet he never seems to be the figure in the background. But Bucky's met many guys like him before; after all, he's had to defend Steve from many of those in the past, when they've driven up in their Aston Martins and Teslas and yelled "shrimpy little fairy." (If only they knew which one of them actually had those thoughts). Coming from a poor family in a poor neighborhood, okay, yeah, Bucky will admit he kind of distrusts most rich people (beside Thor, he's great) in general. It might not be right, but it certainly is personal.
Stark reaches a hand out all of a sudden, catches bits of snow in his hand, and sighs. Bucky looks out, to see what Stark could possibly be wanting to get out of sitting on an icy step at one am in the goddamn morning, but he doesn't see much. It's so dark now you can't even see anything beside the few feet of snow beyond the wooden steps, lit up by the yellow porch light.
Bucky steps forward, and his boot accidentally makes a creaking noise. Stark turns sharply, his eyes widening, and he flinches back from where he's sitting. "Shit, Barnes, give a guy a heart attack." Stark awkwardly scratches the back of his head. "Uh, sorry, I wasn't. Um. I wanted to just look at the snow. I guess you can tell me to leave if you want, it's just easier to get fresh air out here."
He's right, Bucky notices. He feels a lot better outside already, in the biting cold, a respite from the itchy feeling he gets of being trapped inside.
"What are you doing out here?" Stark asks curiously, then winces. "I mean - not in a rude way. Just, why?"
"Enjoying the scenery," Bucky decides to go with. "Just like you, I assume."
Stark nods, the ghost of something flashing across his face. "You can sit, if you want."
Bucky does; he tries to be as far away from Stark as possible, but the steps are so narrow that they end up being nearly side-by-side anyway. He notices Stark is shivering, probably unused to the frigid weather because of his childhood growing up in Malibu. And technically, Bucky doesn't really need both of the jackets he grabbed on his way out the door, but one thing people need to learn is Bucky does not always feel morally inclined to be a good person. That's mostly Steve's thing.
"I'm really bad at handling the cold, but winter is one of my favorite seasons," Stark is saying quietly, and Bucky realizes with a start that the guy is talking to him. He already has a comeback on his tongue, something along the lines of whatever, fuck off asshole, but then his brain registers what Stark's said and it sounds almost... friendly. Or, at least, like an olive branch of some sort. Okay, he can play along.
"I hate winter," he says in response. "Sometimes."
"Why?" Stark says, then his gaze flickers uncomfortably, almost like he regrets asking the question.
Bucky looks up at the sky, with its huge white-blue moon, and his mouth moves of its own accord. "My parents got shot in the middle of December, and then a month later I got into a car accident on the way to my new foster family. Such a messy injury that the doctors had t' amputate my arm. That's how the Rogerses caught wind of where I was. Before, it was like I'd disappeared off the face of the earth." Let's see how he'll react to that, he thinks bitterly. Honestly, he's still a little shocked at himself for spilling out his secrets to a dick he barely knows, but really he thinks it's because he's itching for a fight. Stark will make fun of him, and Bucky will have a reason to punch that stupid face in. The other boy may be good-looking, but it won't stop Bucky from breaking that nose of his. And maybe it's also because sometimes it's just easier to talk about things with people you don't know, people you don't like. These people don't expect anything from you; you don't expect anything from them.
To Bucky's surprise, Stark doesn't mock him. In fact, his eyes soften into something almost sympathetic, like he could possibly know what watching your parents get shot in your shitty apartment building feels like, or seeing the windshield of a vehicle embed itself in a CPS officer's face. "I'm sorry for breaking your arm," Stark says quietly. "Not just because of the backstory, but because it was a shitty thing to do. I could say I reacted in the moment, but that's not really an excuse. And I, um, understand, you know. That you guys don't like me. I mean, you don't have to like me. I get why you wouldn't. But if there's anything I can do to stop you from hating me, I'll. um. I can do it. Not that I'd do it just for forgiveness, but if you want."
Stark's gaze is so intense that Bucky almost forgets what to say. He acknowledges what the shorter teen has said with a tip of his head, but deigns not to answer.
"Uh - okay," Stark says, and this apologetic, stammering guy is nothing like the enigmatic, smooth-talking persona Bucky normally spots around school. Surprisingly, it works, though. If Stark had tried to charm him, Bucky probably would've slugged him.
A few minutes pass by in silence, except for the sound of the wind and the gentle rustling of the trees. Bucky can feel Stark glancing at him every so often, but he keeps his eyes trained on the dark, on the moon and sprinkle of stars above and ahead of him.
"Barnes," Stark says softly after a moment. Bucky turns suspiciously, looks at the other boy. Stark's eyes are bright, even in the darkness, and it's startling for a moment. "I hate summertime. I used to love it, but now I can't...I don't like the beach or the sun or anything. I used to love it all, but now it feels...I don't know. Sometimes it feels like an open coffin."
Bucky waits, but no explanation seems to be forthcoming. "Why are you telling me this?" he goes with, because he isn't sure if he wants to hear some stupid jokey reason for why Stark doesn't like heat.
Stark shrugs. He seems small all of a sudden, curled up in that thin baggy sweatshirt on the step. "I just...I don't know."
Another beat passes by. Bucky is still watching the moon, and it seems to glow brighter in his vision. Stark twitches, then says - his voice faint under the wind - "You like your new arm, right?"
"What?" Bucky says, his voice immediately snappish. If this is some ploy, to remind him of what he's lost...
"It feels better, right?" Stark's tone sounds genuine, very nervous but earnest.
"Yeah, sure," Bucky says, unwilling to share anything about how much he really does like the new arm. Jesus, he's really got to hunt down Bruce's friend and praise the shit out of the guy.
"Good," Stark says, looking weirdly relieved and even almost proud. "Good."
It's honestly been an odd conversation, but a few times Bucky has to shake himself into remembering Stark is not someone a decent person would want to be friends, or even acquaintances, with. It's probably because he's tired and it's cold out and he's been vividly recalling his past trauma, so he's all kinds of fucked up right now, but in this moment Stark no longer seems like a monster and more like a timid guy just trying to make things right.
Abruptly, he gets up. This is too much, too sudden, and he needs to get away. From winter, from Stark. From all the icky things something inside him is telling him that he can't quite understand. "I'm going back to sleep," he says roughly, as Stark watches him go.
"Good night," Stark says, already turning back to the dark; his face is yin-yanged in shadow, like he belongs in a painting made without color. Right before Bucky closes the door, he sees Stark's shoulders slump, and what it reminds him of is almost intriguing yet utterly foolish at the same time - as if Stark's curving back under the porch light is carrying the weight of the world.