Under Pressure

James watches Tony, and he watches Tony watch him too. Clearly he’s emotionally hung up on him and James wants to take advantage of it but he doesn’t. His bad ideas have done enough for him already, but that doesn’t mean he was giving up. He continues to watch Tony watch him, something he might find worrying considering he was attempting to replace some more of that old wiring in his arm but Tony was good at multitasking.

He must lose his concentration though because he sighs and leans back, “please stop looking at me like that,” he says finally.

He takes his time looking over Tony’s body, noting his soft looking sweat pants with ‘War Machine’ written down the side and the faded band T-shirt that speaks to a level of intimacy that clearly hadn’t left when the knowledge that he wasn’t Bucky did. Tony wore suits like shields- including the metal one that was a literal shield- his being dressed down was his own weird kind of vulnerability. So he smiles slow and deliberate, “look at you like what?” he asks, slight Russian accent leaking through. Usually he hid it under Bucky’s ridiculous Brooklyn accent but Tony knew so what was the point? The accent clearly registers with Tony but thankfully he ignores that in favor of giving him a look.

“You know what I mean, you’re still doing it,” Tony says, waving at him.

Yeah, he was and he knew it. “I’m just looking at you the way I always have,” he points out.

Tony opens his mouth and then closes it, “that’s not the point,” he says softly.

“Maybe not,” he murmurs, “but this shouldn’t be a problem. So technically I’m not who you thought I was, that doesn’t really change our relationship.” Just everything else around it plus the complication of Bucky. That still stung, Tony’s sleeping with Bucky, but ultimately he had no idea and he couldn’t expect him to no matter how much he’d like to hold him responsible for that. But he couldn’t make decisions with information he didn’t have.

“It changes everything,” Tony says.

“Like what? Bucky doesn’t even have any memory of our relationship anyways,” he says, rolling his eyes.

Tony, however, looks kind of like he’s swallowed a bee. “Is that seriously supposed to make me feel better?” he asks, voice rising a little at the end.

“What’s it matter if he remembers or not, he off and slept with you too, its not like he’s suffering,” he mumbles more to himself than Tony. And Bucky was the one who deserved to suffer anyways, he was always the one escaping and forcing him to deal with Bucky’s shit show. Then he went and fucked the only thing he had to his damn self unbeknownst to Tony. Or technically Bucky too but he personally felt figuring out you had an entire other person in your head shouldn’t be hard to figure out. Tony noticed right away. Hell, Steve noticed right away.

“He’s an entire person I didn’t know wasn’t you! And wait, what am I supposed to call you anyways? Seems weird to call you Bucky,” he says, wrinkling his nose in a way Steve never would. Steve would be in denial and if he wasn’t he’d do his best to get rid of the bits of Bucky he didn’t love like he already did now. But Tony makes a good point and when he opens his mouth to say James it sticks in his throat for a moment. James was a name he gave himself because it was different than Bucky’s, but technically it was still a form of attaching himself to Bucky. For the first time he actually gets a chance to be whomever he wanted with whatever name he wanted totally free of Bucky and he was going to use Bucky’s first name? No.

Instead he smiles again but its different from his last smile, more like it was for himself than Tony. “Yasha,” he says finally, “my name is Yasha.” The long form of the name, Yakov, was technically the Russian form of Jacob or James, but it seemed more fitting that he chose a name that was, for all intents and purposes, from his home country. And its something Bucky would never chose even if it did technically link back to his first name.

Tony considers this for a long moment. “Yasha,” he says faintly, gaze falling softly over his features. “Suits you,” he adds.

“So do you. We understand each other, Tony, probably better than most people would. Its not like people are accepting of self-serving motivations let alone how we started. But I get you and your anger at Steve, I get why you’d want to piss him off. Of course you did and I was the only weapon you had against him that you knew would work. Thankfully for you we had the same goal.” One he understood at that, and he wasn’t offended by it either. People were cruel and they didn’t make good choices, Tony was hardly an exception and he accepted that. It wasn’t like his own motivations were pure and unlike a certain someone they knew he wasn’t going to hold Tony to hypocritical standards either.

“This entire thing was selfish of me,” Tony mumbles more to himself than Yasha.

He shrugs, “so what if it was, I used you too and you don’t seem offended about it. And in your defense Bucky was an accident so you can’t hold yourself responsible for that. And its not like I made your goal difficult to achieve,” he points out, grinning.

Color touches Tony’s cheeks as he laughs a little and looks away, “guess not. Things are still complicated though,” he says softly.

“Or maybe you’re making it that way. Bucky got his relationship however thankfully short lived that was, I don’t see why I can’t have mine,” he says.

*

How the fuck he always managed to get into these ridiculous situations he had no fucking clue but Tony seemed to be a magnet for all things ridiculous. He sighs as… the fuck if he knew walks out of his bedroom and rubs his eyes. “What time is it?” Bucky- Tony knew it was Bucky because apparently Yasha fucking faked a Brooklyn accent- asks.

“There’s a clock in your room, but its almost noon,” he tells Bucky.

Bucky squints, clearly trying to remember if he saw a clock but he was probably looking at the walls, not the night stand. Tony knew Steve didn’t keep digital clocks so it probably hadn’t occurred to him to look where most kept their clocks these days so he tells him where to look. While he takes off Tony lays his head on the island of the kitchen wondering what the fuck he was going to do. Emotions weren’t his strong suit but getting mixed up with two people in one body when one of them seemed completely unaware of the other plus a creepy possessive boyfriend Tony was shocked hadn’t shown up to beat his ass yet? That was just out of his scope of things he could deal with and currently his only friend was a sixteen year old kid from halfway across the world. God his life was embarrassing. If Rhodey wasn’t eyeball deep in Accords negotiations while Steve apparently fought him the whole way he’d call him, but for now he left Rhodey alone. He already had enough to deal with and Tony could fill him in later.

When Bucky returns though he looks like he’s achieved something so Tony guesses he found the clock. Or at least he looks like that until his eyes land on Tony again, than he looks down, clearly unsure what to do. “Um,” he mumbles more to himself than Tony, “I uh, well I really like you but I’m pretty sure a relationship at the moment would be a bad idea.” He winces like he expects Tony to react badly but all Tony does is nod. Bucky relaxes and Tony has to wonder what the fuck Steve did to him if having an opinion that was true made him tense up like that.

“Yeah, and uh… I have something to show you,” he tells Bucky. He grabs the StarkPad beside him and walks over, drawing a confused look from Bucky but he doesn’t look afraid at least. He takes that as a victory in light of recent events. “You aren’t the only one living in your head,” he says and he hands over the tablet, pressing play on the helpful video he made. Some of it was probably a bunch of stuff he didn’t want to see, but was relevant to him nonetheless. Tony would want to know if he had another person in his head sleeping with people. Besides that Yasha made several references that outright stated he was aware of Bucky’s life, memories, and most importantly his relationships. Meaning he knew all about Steve. It only seemed fair that Bucky know about him. Even if they technically slept together too.

That had obviously been an accident but Yasha was lying to himself if he was trying to act like he wasn’t biter about it. He put on a better act that Tony would have if he technically got cheated on- and wasn’t that fucked up- but he clearly still had feelings about it. And Bucky, the poor bastard went from looking confused to shocked to horrified and eventually settles on dumbfounded. Tony watches as he basically goes through the five stages of grief in a matter of seconds before he stops the video himself, proving Steve’s bad with technology theory wrong.

“Sorry,” Tony mumbles, looking away. He jumps a little when he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to find Bucky frowning at him.

“For what?” he asks.

Tony sighs, “thinking a totally different person was you, sleeping with said person under the guise that he was you, actually sleeping with you, bursting your bubble to the fact that you apparently have way bigger problems than anyone could have guessed, and probably some stuff I haven’t thought of yet. That’s kind of a big deal,” he says, nodding at the now paused of video.

Bucky still looks confused before he finally shakes his head. “One, none of that stuff was your fault- its pretty obvious you didn’t realize… Yeah, I’ll deal with that later. But at least you actually figured out what the problem was and explained it. Steve thought it was you,” he mumbles. Tony can’t help it, he rolls his eyes at that and then gathers himself because that was unfair to Bucky.

“You deserved to know what was happening,” he says simply. There was no other way to put it and if Tony was in that position he would want someone to tell him he was sharing a body with someone else too.

Bucky looks back down at the video and his shoulders droop a little. “Did… we seriously slept together before… before?” he asks.

He nods, “several times. That video was pretty conservative,” he says and Bucky looks slightly horrified. “Sorry,” he adds again.

“There was like five different- seriously?” he asks.

“I’m a pretty randy guy?” he asks more than states and Bucky snorts.

“That’s an under exaggeration,” he mumbles. “Okay, um. What the fuck?” he asks, staring back down at the video.

“I’m going to be honest I have no idea how to handle this. I don’t know what you need, if you need anything, or if you even want anything from me after all of… this,” he says, gesturing to the video.

“I… don’t have anywhere else to go,” Bucky says softly, almost too softly to hear and that just broke Tony’s heart.

“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he says quickly, “but if you want I can set you up somewhere that isn’t here with me to give you space. You probably need a little time to think before you can figure out how to like… live in the modern world.” Seems how Steve hadn’t allowed him to do much of anything that he didn’t want.

Bucky looks down at him, head titled to the side. “Why would you do any of that stuff?” he asks softly.

Tony shrugs, “one, you need it. And I’m half the reason you don’t have anywhere else to go so it’s only fair that I do my part,” he adds, looking away.

He’s surprised when Bucky tilts his head back up, “Tony, you didn’t do anything. And its not your fault I have no where else to go, that’s Steve’s. You were the one who gave me a way to get out of that, and you’re still the only one giving me an option out of the option I had to get out of that. So stop apologizing like you’ve done something wrong. Also I don’t really want to go anywhere else at the moment. This is enough of a shock as it is- you talk to the walls,” he says, giving the nearest speaker in the room a suspicious look.

Everyone did that with FRIDAY and JARVIS before her and he laughs, “FRIDAY isn’t something everyone has. Your own apartment would probably be less of a shock, but if you want to stay here you can. The uh… well the problem is Steve and your stuff. FRIDAY has informed me that his calls are growing more frequent and I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t just showed up here,” he says honestly.

For a moment Bucky looks panicked but he takes a breath before speaking. “Can he do that? Just show up?”

Tony shrugs, “technically yeah, but he wouldn’t be able to get in. This place was built to survive tougher stuff than super soldiers with a vengeance,” he says. It was built to withstand alien invasions, hulks, and gods among other things Tony didn’t know existed until the last decade.

This seems to relax Bucky a bit and Tony is happy for it. “That’s probably why he hasn’t shown up then. And that this place is public. He always acts different if other people are around but I can’t figure out what it is…” he murmurs more to himself than Tony.

Unfortunately Tony knows the answer to that. “Whatever he says doesn’t have that condescending undertone. Whatever comes out is actually loving, not a subtle way of insulting you. Kind of like the difference between an insult from a friend and an insult from someone you don’t know- they could say the same thing but the intent changes the words completely,” he says and Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“Yeah, that’s it!” he says excitedly before wincing. “Sorry you have that frame of reference,” he mumbles.

“What’s done is done. The person who actually needs an apology is you but I doubt any apology Steve would offer would be genuine. And he will apologize, probably claim to change, definitely claim to love you, and most likely blame me for all of this. Cycle of abuse is a bitch,” he says bluntly.

When Bucky frowns Tony knows he’s probably been through a few cycles if that sounded familiar to him. Probably nothing too extreme- most of Steve’s behavior sounded controlling more than anything, but it would escalate. It always did, especially when the person on the receiving end of the abuse started to question things. Hence Tony being blamed for things he wasn’t responsible for when Bucky refused to be isolated from him. Abuse 101 was isolation and when your victim didn’t have any connections to the world it wasn’t hard to shut them away. But when Bucky, or Yasha, who fucking knew there, refused to listen the logical way to cut him off was to claim he was a problem. In the end that backfired.

“Can… can you explain more about abusive relationships?” Bucky asks softly. He looks so hurt and lost that Tony can’t help but reach out to him but he drops his hand before he makes contact, not wanting to push Bucky in this condition. “I’m not a leper, Tony, you can touch me. I’ll tell you if I don’t want you to,” he says.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “would you? Don’t answer that right away- I’m serious. Would you tell me even if you ran the risk of making me angry?”

The question clearly makes Bucky think, but after several moments of silence he nods. “Yeah, I would. You listen,” he explains. “And I miss touch,” he adds softly. “After seventy years where the only touch I got was torture I…” he trails off, not knowing how to explain his feelings. “I think the other me, the other personality, whatever he is I think he feels the same way.”

Yeah, so did he except he’s never really been lacking touch. What he had been lacking was positive touch and it wasn’t something he realized until he read that information on touch starvation FRIDAY sent him a while back. “Its called being touch starved,” Tony tells him, “and touch is important to mental health. Well, positive touch. I can do that for you if you need, god knows I don’t have enough of it, and I know you aren’t looking for anything out of it. I won’t cross whatever boundaries you set up,” he says. “And I should probably find you a therapist,” he adds.

*

When Yasha reappears Tony knows it right away. It was basically impossible not to once he knew how Bucky acted and how Yasha did. The difference was like night and day, especially since Yasha was currently pissed. “How come Bucky gets a relationship with you but I don’t, I was the one who started a relationship with you!” he all but yells.

Tony sighs, “because if I give Bucky an inch he won’t try and take a mile, Yasha. You would- you’re about to,” he points out.

This only seems to piss him off more but he clenches his jaw, unwilling to vocalize what Tony had picked up on. Instead he stands there silent for several moments before the anger seems to leave his frame, “I just want to keep the one thing I have,” he says softly, looking at the ground. When he turns away, his face twisting in anger a little as he blinks rapidly Tony knows it isn’t a manipulation tactic so he sighs.

“I shouldn’t be the only thing you have,” he says softly. “Go out and explore, find hobbies, friends, a job, whatever. I get that you want to keep what’s familiar but you need to sort yourself out, so does Bucky. Adding a relationship to that mess won’t do anything to help you,” he tells him.

“Maybe not, but its not like I had much opportunity to get a hobby- I spent most of my time hiding from Steve,” Yasha mumbles and Tony frowns because it isn’t the first time he’s alluded to more control.

“What do you mean by that? How much control do you have?” he asks. He isn’t sure if he’s asking for his own benefit or for Bucky’s.

Yasha shrugs, “a lot more than Bucky. He can’t really force a takeover- he’s only managed once and that’s when I was about to kill Steve. He didn’t really know much about me at all until you went and filled him in. Thanks for that, by the way. I liked not being known about,” he says, giving Tony a look.

Yeah, he didn’t really care what Yasha thought of that, someone had to fill Bucky in on what was happening when he was losing time. If Tony were in his situation he would want to know too. “Bucky deserved to know what was going on so suck it up- I wasn’t keeping information like that to myself. Not when it’s literally life altering, for both of us- actually all three of us.” Tony tells him. He’s learned his lesson, probably one too many times, about keeping things he shouldn’t to himself.

For a moment Yasha just continues to look annoyed but then he sighs. “Fine, okay, I guess that kind of makes my life easier anyways. Just…” he trails off for a second, sighing before speaking again. “Can I suggest something?” he asks finally.

Tony is tempted to say no but he figures that would probably come later anyways so he sighs. “Go ahead,” he tells Yasha, waving a hand around.

Yasha looks relieved with this and smiles a little before speaking. “So you think I need a hobby or something, you’re probably right about that. Its not like I don’t want my own life and you kind of made that possible sort of by accident. So say I do that, find a hobby, or a job, or some friends or something. Will you give me a chance then?” he asks softly.

He wants to say no, he probably should, but instead of doing that he makes his own set of parameters. Its not like he wasn’t used to negotiating, after all- he did it all the time in business. “I have to talk to Bucky,” he says instead of what he should and Yasha rolls his eyes.

“What’s he matter?” he says in an irritated tone.

“You didn’t like being subjected to his private life, did you? If you had a say I’m sure his relationship with Steve would have been a lot different. And barring that he should probably have a say in what goes on with his own damn body, and you should have some kind of stakes in what he does with yours. That sounds complicated but better you than me, honestly. Point is Bucky hasn’t had much choice in anything in over seventy years, neither have you, but having choice now doesn’t mean you should steamroll each other. And also get therapy,” he adds, figuring that last one would be as good as a no anyways but Yasha surprises him by giving him an irritated look but agreeing.

“Don’t look so shocked, Stark. You’re the only thing on this planet that makes me feel something- you think I wouldn’t sit in a shrink’s office for an hour a week to keep that? It’s a small price to pay,” he says. He sounds painfully honest and Tony’s heart squeezes for a moment, surprised by the level of sacrifice Yasha was willing to make for him. But maybe that was because vulnerability never came easy to him, especially not to strangers who could have agendas. It makes this, whatever this is, feel more worth keeping so he nods.

“Then okay- so long as Bucky agrees,” he adds when Yasha looks a little too hopeful.