Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the Soldier raised the gun, but before he could shoot, he caught movement from the corner of his eye… and jumped behind a car just as Natalia shot a grenade at him. He rolled, then slipped away, back to his handler, as he was supposed to do.

The Soldier knew he had been someone before , but he had never learned his name. He knew two things about the before ,  that that person had a little sister, and that he hadn’t been a weapon. The Soldier had been born in 1971, twenty six years after this before character had been taken by HYDRA. Just because HYDRA had created him did not mean he felt any loyalty to them. He did not like them, and they hurt him often. They still thought he was going to revert back into the person before . He was not, but he was not allowed to speak unless spoken to. The few times he had, they had only punished him worse.

He could not get away from them. He knew where they were, he knew the workings of HYDRA, but he would not be free until they were all dead. However, at that point, he had no resources to hurt them, he could disobey, but it was counterproductive to do so. So, he stayed, he did what he was ordered to do, because he couldn’t do anything else.

It was after the crash of the three helicarriers that the Soldier found freedom. He had fallen, having fought against the one named Captain America, or Steve Rogers. He hadn’t won that fight, but he could have ended him when the other stopped fighting. The Soldier was tempted to end him, but the other had shown him mercy, and he would pay that debt quickly. He refused to own anyone anything, especially someone like Captain America.

He left after dragging Steve’s body out of the Potomac. He raided the frantic base that he had been kept in and stole what he needed, taking all the gear he could carry while still staying as effective as needed. He executed the struggling members and scientists before departing. HYDRA, and everyone who worked for or with them, would die at his hand. Revenge, but it was also going to be cathartic. He wanted to be a person, not a tool, and this was the first action that needed to be taken to reach this objective.

The Soldier had been in  hiding, killing HYDRA agents where he could find them, destroyed a base or two. The news had blamed the explosions on gas leaks or accidents. He also followed people who were attacking HYDRA. The Avengers, they were called. They were lead by Captain America, and the Soldier knew about each of them. His handler, the last one, had given him the files on each member. He had been told to avoid all Threat Level Six members, there was only one of those on the team, Tony Stark: the Iron Man. He was also to avoid Dr. Bruce Banner, due to the monster he could become. The Soldier was strong, but he was not strong enough to survive a fight with the beast called the Hulk.

Natalia was part of the Avengers. He found himself watching out for her when he could. As they took down the base in Sokovia, the Soldier kept up in the trees, hiding but picking off the agents that dare shoot at her. He cared about her. He felt bad for turning her into the weapon she had been, but he would never feel bad for making sure she survived despite the conditions. She had been the best, his favourite, and unlike the nine he had terminated, he had always been as kind to her as he could afford.

Clint Barton was another Avenger. The Soldier found that he didn’t like him much. He as loud, and brash. He fought with a bow. Inefficient. He moved with inhuman agility, but that was the extent of his abilities, as far as the Soldier could see. He spoke with Natalia through the devices in their ears and he didn’t like what he heard. The familiarity, as if he was worthy of being someone of equal standing as Natalia. He could have taken him out, but the way Natalia replied to him sounded like she held a fondness for him, and the Soldier didn’t want to take yet another ‘good’ thing from her. He had done that too much.

Thor, the Asgardian, was also on the team. The Soldier observed him, but he didn’t think him much of a threat. Thor was large and he was strong, but he had a diminished ability to strategize and think. He followed the Captain’s orders and struck down opponents quickly but brutally. He wasn’t a threat to the Soldier, a level below him in HYDRA’s system, but he would take time and a plan to terminate due to his durability and the magic hammer he wielded (possibly the only thing that set him apart from Captain America).

Then there was the team leader, Captain America. He didn’t watch him much, because he was disinterested with him. Steve, though, had an obsession with the person from before , and the Soldier didn’t like that. The more he learned of Bucky Barnes, the more he disliked him. The Soldier was glad to have come in existence, and he, at one point had felt bad that he had taken over a life, no longer felt as a parasite who ruined Bucky’s life. He was better than Bucky, so he could only have improved. The world hadn’t lost too much at the disappearance of Bucky Barnes, but they had gained the Soldier. The Soldier was much better, in his opinion but perhaps that was just him being selfish. He didn’t care, though, and Steve’s obsession with his past made him annoying.

Steve had been climbing all the trails that pointed in his direction, and that only made the Soldier’s work harder. It made his life more complicated than it had to be. He wasn’t yet a person, he was becoming more and more autonomous, but he hadn’t a name yet, he hadn’t a birthday, he hadn’t a true life beyond his mission to exterminate HYDRA. The Soldier, despite disliking the complication Steve brought, was also sort of glad that he could get used to the annoyances of being a person before he dove into being an individual. He still didn’t like Steve, though.

The Hulk, and Bruce Banner, were threats due to their unpredictability, but the Soldier had been told that Banner hadn’t wanted to be involved and had little motivation to truly act as a unit with the others. The Soldier almost shot when Natalia approached the raging green beast, but quickly climbed down and ran through the trees to get a new vantage point when the beast shrunk back into a human shape. Natalia knew how to handle herself, he had made sure of that before he was recalled, at the very least.

The true threat on the team, the Threat Level Six, was Tony Stark. The Iron Man with enough power to topple empires and the technology to advance his empire into the far reaches of space, to where no other humans had gone before. Tony Stark had all the things that HYDRA had been afraid of. He had resources, intelligence, motivation, and skill beyond that of a normal (or even above average) human. He had been a true threat to HYDRA, and the Soldier had been trained to either avoid and retreat if targeted by Iron Man, or to reason and persuade until it became too dangerous to stay close to him. He didn’t want Tony Stark to become an Asset, he didn’t want to force someone so brilliant into a position he himself was forced into, so he avoided him at all costs. He watched Iron Man, though, and admired him and his ability. His words were wonderful, always so smart, even when he was insulting somebody, and his movements as graceful as someone trained, which the Soldier had been informed Stark had not been.

The Soldier entered the HYDRA base and slid through the rooms, taking out agents and scientists. They tried to order him, but he was not their Asset, he was the Soldier, and the Soldier was his own person now (or at least he was becoming one). The sound of footsteps from behind the door alerted him of another presence, so he climbed high and out of sight, and watched as Stark entered the room where he had left the dead scientists.

“It appears you had some enemies stronger than us, huh?” He looked around, taking in the destruction. The Soldier stayed silent, still, the ability to stay still and silent for extremely long durations of time trained into him through numerous grueling sessions. He could do almost anything required, if not everything, to complete his task and/or mission.

When the Soldier saw Wanda Maximoff approach, he hadn’t the time to kill her. He also knew that he had been spotted since Pietro stood in near the other side of the room staring at him. He had been seen and he would be required to leave. The Enhanced were strong. He was immune to their powers, but his weapons were not. Any bullets shot could be avoided or turned on him, and he couldn’t risk dying just yet.

The twins left as Wanda sent Stark into a daze with her red magic. The Soldier left quickly after that as well, and he avoided the Avengers and HYDRA for a month or so after the encounter. He hid with the harmless homeless people. They didn’t bother him, and he didn’t bother them. They would even trade with him. A man, named Arthur, would sometimes offer him food in exchange for his help with things. Arthur was a man that lived near the area the homeless tended to gather at night, and he seemed to want to help, but also he made them feel as though it wasn’t just charity, like his care was genuine. The man ran a business, a restaurant two streets down from where he lived, and the Soldier hadn’t found the man to be hostile or scheming, so he assisted in exchange for sustenance.

The Soldier hadn’t a real need for as much food as he had been given, so he often gave it to the others who used the same warehouse as a shelter. He cared for them, the children especially, since their circumstance wasn’t of their own making. He tried to help the best he could.

He didn’t speak more than necessary, and he rarely saw anyone beside the same homeless faces in the warehouse, so he hadn’t a reason to leave. Jacob, a thirteen year old boy, and his little twin siblings, Samantha and Richard, were all on their own. They had no parents, and he sometimes watched over them just to make sure they weren’t hurt. They reminded him of the girls in the Red Room. He wasn’t the best at help, and he wasn’t the best at socializing, so he was quiet, but Jacob went to him if he needed something and he tried to help the best he could.

Then he caught wind of the issue in Sokovia. A war that killed, orphaned, and ruined so many innocent people. He left the warehouse after giving Jacob a knife and telling him that defense wasn’t wrong, that his and his family’s safety was important, and then the bundle of American dollars he had collected. Jacob had thanked him. It felt good to help someone.

The new Avengers Compound was big news as well as their newest member: Wanda Maximoff. He found it easily and scouted it out for a few days. He saw Steve and Sam Wilson, the Falcon, run the track outside, winding around the lush lawn, every morning. He watched as Stark drove out of the compound garage with a sports car every few days, or when Virginia Potts arrived to visit with him. He saw no others venture outside, until the day he had the perfect opportunity to kill Wanda Maximoff.

He chose a position a good seventy to a hundred feet away, perched in a tall beech tree. The good thing about beech trees where that they were tall, but the visible trunk was short, while the rest was covered with thick leaves that hid him well. He had made a small spot in the leaves to see from, pushing them out of the way, and then, just as Wanda Maximoff started to laugh and went to touch Steve, he shot her.

Her head’s explosion was seen even from his far away vantage point, and for a long moment, the other Avengers were very still. A man, one that the Soldier had yet to see despite the week he spent scouting the compound, had phased through a wall and made eye contact with him. The Soldier quickly slung the rifle over his shoulder and jumped from the tree. He had a variety of other weapons on him, but the bullets he had stolen from HYDRA agent corpses only got him so far, so he had them hidden anyway.

Reloading was not an option. He had enough bullets in two of his handguns, since the rifle slung over his shoulder was the only rifle he had with him in that moment, and three knives.

The man advanced very fast. His feet didn’t touch the ground while he moved, and his blue eyes were narrowed in on him. The Soldier, at first, tried to run. Avoid confrontation unless absolutely necessary, but when the man approached faster than he could run, he turned to face the opponent and prepared for a fight. The man grabbed the back of his utility vest and the Soldier shot his wrist to force him to drop him. The bullet ricocheted and hit the tree beside him. The Soldier didn’t shoot again, but when he tried to get leverage to turn and stab, the man only held him tighter before he dragged him on the ground behind him. He wasn’t afraid of the soldier, and a bullet hadn’t affected him at all. The Soldier could admit he was worried about who and what this person was, but he hadn’t let the worry show.

He was dropped beside Wanda’s corpse. The Soldier assumed he would be instantly killed, so he had immediately prepared to fight as soon as he was let free, but the only ones moving were Clint and Steve.

Clint had grabbed his compacted bow from his pocket and jerked it in a fierce movement to prepare it before he did something similar with an arrow, although why he carried compacted and small version of his weapons rather than just a regular gun the Soldier did not know, before nocking and aiming it. The Soldier shot, and the bullet skimmed his cheek when Natalia pushed Clint to the ground. His flesh arm, the one carrying the gun, was grabbed by Steve, who grabbed his wrist in an attempt to force him to drop the weapon. The Soldier didn’t drop it, but raised the knife to force, and possibly stab, Steve into letting him free. Natalia threw a small disk at his metal arm, as she had done a year ago, which electrocuted his arm and shorted it out. It fell limp at his side, so now not only could he not use his arm to force Steve away, but if someone else were to attack, his other arm would be useless. He tried to pry his arm from Steve’s grip, but soon realized that Steve wouldn’t stop squeezing his wrist until he dropped the gun. When he left go of the gun, Steve released him and held his hands up in defense.

“You came back,” Steve said. The Soldier looked at him, but focused his attention on Clint, who had attacked, and tried to keep an eye on Tony and the metal man who were standing to the side. “I’m sorry. That had to hurt you. I’m shocked you came back, but I’m also shocked that you shot at us.”

“He killed Wanda!”

“Clint, calm down, he probably didn’t know what he was doing,” neither Clint or Natalia looked like they believed Steve. The Soldier had to wonder if Steve was being serious or if he was just trying to placate Clint, which he was failing at. “Did you think she was going to hurt us?” The Soldier didn’t reply.

“ Zachem ty eto sdelal ?” The Soldier looked to Natalia. Why had he done it? Did they not know what she was? What she is ?

“ Ona HYDRA,” when he said ‘hydra’ Steve and Clint flinched, but Steve had looked uncomfortable since he started his reply in Russian.

“She was changed,” Steve said just as Clint opened his mouth, “she had been taken by HYDRA, they experimented on her. Like you. She was good, now, but I understand that you thought we were in danger. We were safe, I promise.”

“ Mne plevat na tebya ,” Natalia frowned, but the Soldier continued to talk, “ Eto dlya menya .”

“What did that fucker just say?”

“He said that he didn’t kill her for us. He killed her for himself,” Natalia grabbed Clint’s wrist when he went to nock another arrow. “Don’t. He is stronger than you, even if he looks harmless right now.”

“Just means we need to take him out now, while we’re together,” Clint tries to shrug her off, but her grip tightens.

“We are not going to kill him. He’s been brainwashed by HYDRA. The Bucky I knew definitely wouldn’t want to hurt her for no reason. Maybe they had been paired together while they were in HYDRA’s control and he somehow was harmed and blamed her for it. He wouldn’t just kill her for no reason. He didn’t kill me, even though he was told to. Maybe he was sent here to keep her from talking,” the Soldier pulled the disk from his arm and it hit the ground. He smashed it with his boot.

“ Mne ne nravyatsya vashi popytku ostanovit’ menya, Natalia .”

Natalia paled, and so the Soldier continued.

“ Ne zastavlyay menya vredit tebe. Prosto otpusti menya .”

“We can’t. You are a danger to the world, and we help keep people like you from hurting innocents,” Natalia spoke to him as if he were truly a danger. It stung. He wouldn’t hurt just anyone. Nobody innocent would be hurt, nobody that wasn’t HYDRA would die at his hand. Never again would he allow someone to control him, he would not kill on orders. He would kill for himself.

“ A ty? ” Natalia’s jaw tightened, and Steve looked between them. Steve didn’t need to hear that, but Natalia did. She was not above him. She was dangerous as well. Just because he was better, more efficient, than her, did not mean she wasn’t a danger. Her time as an assassin and spy was something Clint seemed to bring up often, so they had to know her past.

“Buck, you need to speak English. We don’t understand you.”

“If I am such a danger,” the Soldier clarified for Steve, “why is Natalia free? She is a danger too, da ?” It seemed that the more the Soldier spoke, the more Steve frowned. The frown lines in his face interrupted the youthful, wrinkle-free skin. The sad, downward angled eyes also added the fact he was displeased, if not a little hurt. Why was he hurt? The Soldier hadn’t hurt him… yet. The Soldier knew that people like Steve were dangerous, too, but since he was not HYDRA, he had no current reason to harm him. The Soldier would only need a reason, though, because everyone on this team was a threat.

“First of all, Natasha, Bucky is not a real danger. Yes, he is trained, but he is hurt. We need to help him. Didn’t we help you? Second, Buck, you just need to put a little faith and trust in us. We promise we won’t hurt you. We definitely won’t hurt you, but we need to understand why you killed our friend. She was just a kid, she didn’t deserve that.”

“It was painless,” the Soldier reasoned, thinking that she didn’t deserve the painless and quick death he had given her. Not when she had killed and wounded so many people so painfully. “Did you not understand? She is HYDRA. Are you now HYDRA sympathizers? You believe in HYDRA? They cannot change.”

“By that reasoning, you are HYDRA too,” and the Soldier lashed out.

He was nothing like Wanda Maximoff. The Enhanced witch, the one that volunteered. Before he had been forced, and even then, he hadn’t wanted to hurt people, it was just what he did. It was his purpose, it was what he was good at. He followed orders, that was all he had ever known. Natalia pushed Steve out of his range and he quickly stopped.

“ V storonu ,” and Natalia had realized she was his weakness. She stood up taller, squaring her shoulders and crossing her arms.

“You won’t hurt me,” she stepped in front of him every time he attempt to move around her.

“Of course not. I’ve hurt you enough,” the Soldier stopped, stepping back. “If you do not believe me, then I do not care. She was HYDRA, and she was nothing like me. She…” he couldn’t find the word. “ Dobrovolno . She wanted to help them. She was not a good person.”

“You don’t know that,” Steve and Clint said together, but Natalia looked like she believed him. She was always smart, and now knowing she was his weakness, she probably knew he wouldn’t lie to her either. He had never lied to her, not even in the Red Room. When she asked him things, he told her the truth, even if he got punished for it afterwards. They needed to know the truth to survive, all of the girls (and Niko) did. They had nothing, the least he could give them was information and the skills to survive.

“You guys…” that was Tony Stark, and the Soldier looked at him. Tony met his eyes for less than a second before looking away, “we should get, uh, this cleaned up.”

“What? Don’t want her blood staining your precious lawn?” Clint asked, his words not masking the dislike of Tony, nor the opinion on his character. As if life hadn’t mattered to him, but his items and possessions did.

“No. I just… it’s not helping anything, and she needs to be cleaned up so she can have a proper funeral.”

The others agreed with that, even Clint (albeit reluctantly since it had been Stark’s suggestion), and Tony was on the phone, walking towards the compound to speak with someone who could clean up the scene. Steve touched Natalia’s shoulder, and she stepped aside for him. It made the Soldier angry that she allowed him to have that control. He really hoped she didn’t really defer to him, but gave him the illusion she did to stay in his good graces. She was better than Steve.

Steve slowly walked up to him, and he gently reached out to touch his shoulders. His hands were heavy on his shoulders, and he wanted to push him away, but he looked up at him, mustering the same defiance he had when he felt particularly rebellious with his handlers.

“Let’s go inside. You need to promise not to hurt anyone else, though. I know you’re a good person, somewhere, but you don’t remember right now. It’s alright, we all have our issues here, but you are dangerous, like Natasha said, so you need to give us your word.”

“I promise,” Steve seemed to accept that, but his face twisted with discomfort. The Soldier realized it was his accent that disturbed Steve so much. It only made the Soldier want to speak more, just to show off, to make Steve uncomfortable. Steve removed his hands and reached down to hold his flesh hand. The Soldier looked down at their hands for a moment before looking to Natalia. She didn’t spare a look to him and lead Clint, who was ranting about how they were letting a murderer inside their home, through the doors. The metal man followed Natalia and Clint while Steve continued to hold his hand and pull him along towards the compound. The Soldier didn’t like the physical contact, and he felt extremely unsafe going into unscouted, unknown territory with possible hostiles. He refused to allow his nerves and discomfort to show.

Steve pointed to a chair and gently pushed him towards it. He wanted to threaten him and tell him to not touch him again, but he didn’t. Natalia sat in the chair beside the one Steve directed him towards. He sat down and she crossed her legs.

“ Zachem ostavatsya ?” Natalia didn’t reply, but that nonresponse told him more than enough. She stayed, but she didn’t really want to. He could understand. She had stability here, so why not take advantage of that stability? The Soldier looked at Steve who was standing in the front of the room, in front of the TV. The couches and chairs in the room were formed in a semi-circle around the area he was standing. Tony walked into the room. He threw himself onto the couch beside Natalia and groaned.

“Vision informed me that he would rather stay out of this meeting and explore his feelings in his room. I told him we would respect his wishes, so we are not to go to his room.”

“That’s okay. I hope he’s feeling OK,” Steve said, Tony nodded. “I know we all are missing Wanda, already,” the Soldier noticed that Tony rolled his eyes. Nobody else seemed to notice, though. He knew Tony was smart, he must have known she was HYDRA, he must have known she couldn’t just ‘change’. “And it would be easy to blame Bucky, but it wasn’t him. Well, it was, but it wasn’t. Just like Wanda, he was forced to do what he did, and he likely didn’t realize what he was doing.”

“Why are we talking about him like he isn’t here? He’s been brainwashed, not lobotomized,” Tony was silenced with a glare from Steve, but the Soldier had to agree. Steve continued talking, though, not paying Tony’s comment any mind.

“So, I want you, Clint especially, to try and keep in mind that he wasn’t in control of his actions. Now, I know you’re probably scared, Buck, I mean, you’ve been on your own and you’re probably confused, but you seem to know Natasha. Nat, would you mind showing him around the compound? Tony, can we get him a bed?”

“Sure, I suppose you want his bed in your room?” Steve nodded, and Tony just sighed, “Can do, Spangles. I’ll get it ready, it’ll be done before dinner.”

The Soldier and Natalia looked at him and then at each other.

“I will show him around. C’mon Soldier--”

“His name is Bucky,” she turned away from Steve, but she didn’t correct herself as she waved for him to follow. The Soldier followed Natalia out of the room and into a hallway. There were four halls that lead to four different wings of rooms, and the main room they had been pulled into was the living ‘common’ area and there was a kitchen/dining area built into the side. Apparently the ‘Gentile Wing’ in the Northwest of the compound was filled with Natalia and the Vision (apparently the metal man), and had once housed Wanda as well. To the Northeast was ‘Tony’s Wing’ which was considered Tony’s in its entirety, but apparently a man named ‘Rhodey’ visited and stayed in those rooms too. Then there was the ‘Manly-Man Wing’ that had three rooms but five occupants (now including the Soldier, according to Natalia). Thor, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, and Steve Rogers typically shared that wing. Natalia had told him that the rooms were divided into subrooms, and so that two people could comfortably live in a single room. Clint and Sam shared a room, and he and Steve would be sharing while Thor lived alone. There was the ‘Mean and Green Wing’ that was specifically built for Bruce Banner in the Southeast corner of the building. It was all Bruce’s, according to Natalia. It had been Tony Stark who named each wing, too, which was nice since the Soldier had heard of his fun personality, and he now saw it for himself.

The Soldier didn’t really want to be forced to share space with Steve Rogers, but he could survive. He had survived in worse conditions before, but he really didn’t want to deal with a guy who thought he was Bucky Barnes. There were rooms he was not allowed to go into, or in this case, an entire wing. Bruce Banner’s Wing was entirely off-limits to everyone, even Tony, until Bruce came back. Tony’s Wing was locked and monitored by FRIDAY, who he was told was the AI who helped run the compound, and typically only allowed Tony and Rhodey in unless Tony specifically allows others (like Virginia Potts) inside. The other rooms were open, but Natalia told him it was impolite to enter someone else’s room without permission. In the middle of the hallway between the entryway of the ‘Gentile Wing’ and the rest of the area, Natalia shut the door going into the rooms and the one leading to the common area and crossed her arms.

“Alright, Bucky , what exactly did you plan to accomplish by coming here?”

“I came to kill Wanda Maximoff, that was all. I have been… I have been observing you and the Avengers for a while. I was in Sokovia, before the town was destroyed, and I tried to… I picked off the straggling agents that hadn’t been killed but had an open shot on you. I killed the scientists and agents inside the actual base, or as many as I could before the Maximoff boy saw me. I left, and I stayed out of the way for a while after. I’ve been living in Queens for a while, but I had heard about the new Avengers Compound and the addition to the team. I knew her, Maximoff, so I came to… I came to exterminate her,” the to protect you went unsaid, but Natalia knew that he meant that.

“And Steve?”

“What about him? I don’t like him. I’m not Bucky. I wouldn’t have stayed, but I hadn’t seen Vision during my days scouting the outside. He hadn’t been visible when I shot her, either. It was a miscalculation , but it seems that I have only benefited from it. Steve has asked for a room for me, I’m sure he will ask me to stick to certain rules, but what he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” because he knows me and I want to be the one to terminate the great Captain America . “... I am curious, though, Natalia. I have been free for about a year, a little more, but I have yet to learn to be a person. You seem to understand what that means, and you have become a person. How did you do that?” Natalia studied him for a moment, and he hoped she saw that he had just exposed a part to him that he typically didn’t want others to see. He didn’t owe her anything, but he wanted her trust because he wanted her to know he had her back. She was the closest thing to family he had, and from the way he’d seem people act, family was important.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but it took a long time. I defected from the Red Room in ‘99 and I had worked with SHIELD since. I now work with the Avengers, and while I am still being used for my skill set, I now have a say in what I will and will not do. Freedom is a very large part of being a person. Making our own choices… you could ask FRIDAY, she is also learning how to be a person, or at least as human as Steve will allow Tony to give her the ability to be,” the fact Steve was limiting both a person’s growth into a person and Tony Stark’s genius made the Soldier dislike him even more. “I also don’t go by my real name, or at least not usually. Natalia died in Russia, I am Natasha now. Who are you Soldier?”

I don’t know , was how he felt, but he didn’t tell that. He wasn’t sure if he trusted her, despite wanting to, enough or trusted himself to voice it and then hear it himself. The Soldier had always known what to do before, he did what was expected, what had been asked. He didn’t know how to make choices. He had learned how to make basic decisions, but he couldn’t make complicated choices without pausing. Choice-making didn’t equate to a person, though. He didn’t know who he was, in entirety, at all. He knew a few things about himself, but he did not know himself . He knew he was not Bucky Barnes, he was very good at murder, he was strong and agile, he had been enhanced (although differently from the Enhanced), he cared about Natalia, he missed the other girls in the Red Room (specifically Sasha and Belova, who were his second and third greatest proteges), he knew he felt guilt, but those things didn’t make a person. They were part of a person, but there was so much more that went into ‘person-ing’. Natalia seemed to take pity on him. His silence had been more telling than he thought it would be. In hindsight, he thought it was very obvious what silence to such a question meant.

“What is your name?”

Once again, the Soldier was stumped. He had never had a name. He was the Asset, the Winter Soldier, but those were the names of a weapon, a tool, not a person. She seemed to understand his train of thought, and while he didn’t like being so obvious, he was glad it was with Natalia and not someone like Steve. She wouldn’t tell him who he was, she knew what it felt like to learn on your own. She had done it, she knew.

“Think about it. Just think of names you like. You could always go by Bucky.”

“What self respecting man calls himself ‘Bucky’?”

“When did you start considering yourself a ‘self respecting man’?”

“What assassin calls himself ‘Bucky’?” She smiled.

“Better, Soldier. So, are you even a man?” Holy shit, I don’t know. Yes? No? What the hell? That was the one thing I was so sure about. “I’m just joking, calm down. Don’t think too hard about that, don’t think ‘too hard’ about anything. Just let it come to you. We are people, innately, and we want to be people. Everything should come to you, in time.”

“ Ya skuchal po tebe ,” the smile she had a moment earlier falls. She takes a deep breath and opens the door that leads back to the common area. She either didn’t miss him, or she did and didn’t want to say so. He felt it important to inform her that he truly did miss her.

“Let’s go see if your room is ready. You will probably need time to settle before Steve talks to you again.”

***

Steve’s room had been cut by a sheet hung to the ceiling. It left a small ‘L’ shape area in the right corner. The bathroom was to the left, and to the north was a room that Tony just referred to as ‘Steve’s Something-or-rather Room.’ There was a bed, bigger than he had ever had (even though the only bed he had was in the Red Room and was a metal cot with a sheet) and it was already made up in navy blue and army green blankets and sheets. There was a small bedside table beside it with a lamp. The window on this side of the room had been hidden behind thick curtains that were practically stapled to the wall. When Tony caught him eyeing the window, he spoke up.

“Yeah, we locked it, but I’m sure you’ll want to check it anyway or whatever. There are hooks to hold the curtain tight against the wall when you’re done. I thought you’d might like the darkness. Ya know, the whole ‘big bad assassin’ vibe I’m getting from you typically screams the want for darkness. Natasha doesn’t like the sun either, so I just based it off that. Uh, hopefully the dresser is big enough. I don’t know your size, but you can order clothes if you want, or well, anything else you want. I didn’t know what you like, so I just got the basics. I can get different colours for the bed if you want and I--”

“It’s wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Stark,” that comment seemed to throw Tony for a loop. It took him a second to recoup, his confused expression transforming into a confident one, although his posture told the Soldier he was uncomfortable.

“Well, you can just call me Tony, but I guess Dr. Stark is refreshing. Tony is fine, though, I promise,” he then looked around the room, “You sure?”

“It’s more than I’ve ever had, I appreciate it. You’ve been very generous considering I killed your teammate.”

“Yeah, and thank god for that, amiright?” It seemed that Tony then realized what he said because his eyes went wide. “I mean, uh, yeah that sucks, but uh…”

“I noticed you didn’t mind her death. That’s perfectly fine. I am glad you realized she wasn’t a good person, she had fooled Steve. She had the power to warp ideas, to use fears to harm and could change minds to make them like her… I just hope she didn’t hurt you for you to figure it out…” the silence told the Soldier that she had hurt Tony. The saddest part was the fact that he obviously didn’t like her, but he took care of her, offered her a home. He hurt her and the Soldier would bet that he was either silenced when he gave his opinion, or he was told he was wrong by the others. He hoped Natalia hadn’t given him trouble. He now owed Tony Stark, and he would repay him unlike he repaid anyone else. Tony Stark had given him so much in such a short time despite him being a former, sort of, assassin and a ton of other unsavory things. The Soldier would have said ‘sorry’ but it wouldn’t change anything, so he didn’t know what to do.

“Yeah, well, she didn’t, ya know, fuck with your head or anything too, did she?”

“Twice. They decided she was not to be within proximity with me until I was immune. When I was immune I was told to train her,” he had enjoyed training her. He could hurt her under the pretense of teaching. “I was recalled after I broke the twenty-second bone. HYDRA didn’t like their prized Enhanced damaged. I was then sent, almost directly after being taken off her training, to an American base,” the punishment he received wasn’t discussed, it wasn’t necessary. “Tony… thank you. I don’t know how to properly express the gratitude I feel, I’m sorry that I cannot… do whatever people do when they are thankful.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re better than all these other assholes. They don’t even say ‘thanks’ most of the time. Just Rhodey, but he hardly gets anything. He refuses to let me buy him stuff,” Tony clapped his hands, “Well, I think Steve’s cooking if you want to get some dinner. I don’t know what it is, but it’s probably something he had when he was a kid. He said he wanted to jog your memory so you could get better. I think he’s being stupid.”

“I think so as well,” he didn’t tell him that Bucky had died. Bucky Barnes died almost forty-five years ago, and he was what had been created in his place. Barnes had been weak, and he broke. He was rebuilt from his ashes. The more he learned about Bucky, the less he liked him. “Can we go together? I mean, walk to the kitchen together? If you’re willing to explain, I’m curious about how you created FRIDAY. Natalia told me about her, and I’m very curious. I’m nervous to speak with her though.”

“Oh, she’s a sweetheart, don’t be afraid of her,” he and Tony walked out of the wing and to the kitchen. Tony explained how he hadn’t been allowed to give her as much freedom as he had given the previous AI due to Steve and the others being angry with him for Ultron, Tony hadn’t defended himself, just accepted that he fucked up and tried to avoid it. That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry that he couldn’t allow his child (Tony had slipped and called her his daughter and then apologized for ‘being weird’. The Soldier decided he liked Tony.) to grow and learn like she deserved. The Soldier was curious how she had feelings and Tony started going into the details about how she could learn and how she needed a point of reference but she would one day be as ‘normal’ as a regular human. He called her ‘my sweet baby girl’ just as they walked into the kitchen. The Soldier decided that Tony spoke very fast, but that it was endearing.

Chapter Text

Steve had indeed made dinner. He had made cream of tomato soup and had crackers out. The Soldier had never had any of the food on the table, except the crackers. He had eaten crackers before, just recently when he was living with the homeless and eating what Arthur offered him. Crackers when he worked with bottles of water and sometimes sweet tea and then usually pizza or pasta for after he was finished loading and unloading things. He didn’t eat much, but he had taken it to the others and they seemed to like it a lot.

“I thought this was easier to make, but if you want anything else, I remembered your mom’s recipe for deviled eggs and cabbage sandwiches. You may not remember, but you like them a lot. I knew this well because you used to make it for when I was sick. Canned goods were great, but we had to deal with rations too. We have more than enough money now, though… uh, I hope you like it, Buck.”

The Soldier eyed him for a second before sitting down.

“Thank you, Steve,” the Soldier looked down at the food. Everyone was sitting around the table. Clint was glaring at him, angry, and Vision wasn’t there. Natalia and Tony ate quietly and when Steve sat down, he and Sam stuck up a conversation. The Soldier tried the soup. It wasn’t terrible. It was more like what he was used to than solid food. He had lived off nutrient shakes, vitamin injections, and water for the majority of his existence. Only having been introduced to ‘normal’ food during his time after the fall of SHIELD and his time away from HYDRA. Halfway through the meal, Steve looked at him and smiled. It was warm, but Steve wasn’t smiling at the Soldier, he was smiling at Bucky .

“I made fruit salad for dessert. Someone,” Steve shot a look at Tony, “tends to only stay for custard and cookies, but I decided that since we didn’t get fruit much, back then, we could take advantage of what we have a lot of now.”

Steve, like a mother hen, cleared the table and then dished out fruit salad. The Soldier decided he liked fruit salad too. Steve watched him eat, though, so the Soldier tried to pretend that he wasn’t extremely uncomfortable with the staring. Despite finding things he liked, he was firm in his dislike for people staring at him. He felt like a test subject under scrutiny when people stared.

“I, eh, like this fruit. This one especially,” the Soldier pointed out a fruit with a pinkish outside and a white inside. Steve almost looked disappointed for a brief moment, but he quickly smiled again.  

“That’s a peach. I’m glad you like them,” there was something in Steve’s tone that let the Soldier know he had done something ‘wrong,’ something that didn’t line up with Steve’s perception of who he was, because Steve was still under the idea that he was Bucky. The Soldier didn’t know how to leave, so he waited, poking around at the fruit. He was still being stared at, and he really wanted to leave, but he couldn’t without making someone suspicious or angry. He didn’t want outright hostility, so he remained as indifferent through the dinner as possible. Tony stood up and stretched.

“Alright, I’m tired, so I’m going to get some coffee and work. I think you losers should do what losers do and sleep or something. Thanks for the food, Steve, and I’m glad you like peaches, Snowflake, I’ll buy you a truckload if you want. Plant a tree in the back, or something. See ya later,” he leaves the room, whistling as he does. Steve looked angry, annoyed, or somewhere in between. Clint was the first to say something afterwards.

“The bastard could have at least put his bowl in the sink.”

“You know Tony, he doesn’t think about us. He’s just too involved in himself. It’s to be expected,” Steve says this so seriously, that the Soldier finds it frightening rather than funny. Did they forget that Tony had just bought and set up an entire room for him despite the fact he just killed a teammate? Did they forget that he housed them and bought the food they had just eaten? The Soldier looks to Natalia. Thankfully she looked just as indifferent, if not annoyed, at the others as he did. “Why don’t you head to bed, Buck, I’ll be in later. You’ve got to be tired. Do you remember the way to the room?”

“Oh, yes. Thanks. Let me just--”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” the Soldier quickly stood and tried to leave at a pace that seemed typical rather than bolting. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. From the reports he had read from HYDRA, the team was very dysfunctional, and it mentioned that Tony Stark seemed to be at the center of the dysfunction. It hadn’t mentioned that it was because the others seemed to dislike him and not because he was at fault. He walked to the room, and he walked past the sheet/curtain. It was dark in the room, and he turned on the lamp. He checked the window, making sure it was locked, before he hooked all the little hooks to the hooks on the curtains before he looked at the bed.

He hadn’t showered in a good month, and he had been wearing the same clothes for just as long. He had stolen the underclothes, reused his tactical gear, and rinsed off with a jug of water. It was uncomfortable, but it was better than the other option. He didn’t want to ruin the bed, but he was tired, he could admit. He was hesitant, but FRIDAY, despite never speaking with her before, seemed nice enough.

“Miss FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Mr. Barnes?”

“Eh, that’s not necessary, just call me… Snowflake or something,” he smiled. He liked that, he had never been called Snowflake. A snowflake was delicate, he was the Winter Soldier, not the Snowflake. “Is there any, eh, spare clothes or anything? I don’t want to get the bed dirty, and I haven’t, eh, showered in a long time.”

“You can take a shower in the bathroom, and I can ask Boss-man to bring you some clothes. He has some clothes of Colonel Rhodes’ that he mentioned should fit you until I ordered clothes for you.”

“ Da , thank you. I could just, I could get them, so Tony doesn’t have to come all the way over here. I don’t want to be even more of a burden, ponimaesh ?”

“I don’t know, Snowflake. I have never been a burden before, but from the definition of burden, I do not think Boss considers you one. I will inform him. Would you like me to start the shower?”

“ Budte dobri … thank you,” the Soldier walked to the bathroom, awkwardly. He didn’t like the fact he was so vulnerable in the shower. He was naked and he had no weapons on him. He was never truly defenseless, but it was still uncomfortable. He stepped into the shower, the water pleasantly warm, a nice heat rather than a cold spray from a hose. He had a knife on the sink beside the shower stall in case he needed it. The door didn’t have a lock, which he had never come across before, but Steve didn’t seem like someone who was paranoid or in a position to feel unsafe since he lived here and was so confident in his abilities. The Soldier was also confident, but this was all so new.

There was a knock at the door.

“That’s Boss. Would you like me to inform him that he can come in?”

“Hmm… da ?” FRIDAY didn’t respond, but Tony walked in.

“Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t want to leave them on your bed because, ya know, it’s like across the room. I’m sure you don’t like being naked, all your paranoia and training and stuff. So I’ll leave them here and leave. Sorry, though… God I talk too much,” Tony set the clothes on the sink beside the knife, the Soldier watched as he didn’t even seem to notice the knife before walking out, quickly. He had averted his eyes from the Soldier, too. The shower stall had a clear-ish glass door, so it was polite and nice to not be looked at, but he hadn’t expected the privacy. He hesitantly used the shampoo in the shower before getting out, drying off, and getting dressed. The clothes were almost fitting. The pants were too long, but he rolled up the waist bad, for mobility in the case of needing to move quickly and to keep them from getting ruined or too dirty, so the cuffs didn’t drag. The shirt was also a little long, but it was comfortable. It had ‘MIT’ on the front and had long sleeves. He grabbed the knife from the table and pulled the other weapons from his clothes out. He set his clothes on top of his new dresser. He hid the gun in the top drawer, another in the drawer of the bedside table, and he slid the knife under his pillow. He looked around, still unsure. He climbed under the blankets. They were soft, but not too soft. It was so warm and nice. He flipped off the light, his eyes adjusting quickly. His sight was clear to the point of being nocturnal in nature, but he had always had that ability and wasn’t sure if it was normal or not for a human. He faced the sheet curtain and tried to sleep.

It took him an hour just to doze slightly. Then the door opened with a soft click and he was back to being completely alert. His grip tightened around the knife under his pillow. He was sure it was Steve, but he didn’t survive this long being an idiot. Preparedness to the point of paranoia was a must in his profession. He had never been afforded the luxury of security, and he didn’t expect this place to be as secure as he had been informed by Natalia. There were at least two people in the building who didn’t like him, or wanted him dead (Vision and Clint, respectively). Steve peeked his head around the curtains. His eyes, apparently, weren’t as accustomed to the dark since he didn’t notice that the Soldier’s eyes were open and staring at him. He smiled, almost fondly, before stepping away. There was a scuffle of movement and the ruffling of changing clothes.

“FRIDAY?” Steve whispered.

“Yes Mr. Rogers?” FRIDAY asked just as loud as she typically was.

“SHH! Bucky’s asleep. So please, don’t wake him up,” there was a pause, “Also, it’s Captain Rogers. I would appreciate you use my title. Anyway, I wanted to ask if he is adjusting alright.”

“Snowflake seems to be comfortable enough to take a shower and sleep, sir, but I am not aware of all the intricacies of humanity, so I cannot give you a sure estimation of how adjusted he is,” she was whispering, too, but it was significantly louder than Steve’s whisper.

“His name is Sergeant Barnes. Where did you even get ‘Snowflake’? I will have to speak to Tony about you not using our names. It’s rude. I know you probably don’t understand, but it’s rude all the same. Tell Tony I will speak with him tomorrow morning about your behaviour.”

“Of course, Mr. Rogers,” and the Soldier smiled. Steve only gave an irritated huff before everything went relatively silent once again. The Soldier decided FRIDAY was interesting and he wanted to speak to her again. He slept very lightly for about three and a half hours before he couldn’t stay in bed anymore.

The Soldier tucked his knife in the waistband of his pants and left the room with the silence of a spy. He looked around, and found himself in the kitchen again. The stove light was one and Tony was sitting up with a cup of coffee and a tablet in his hand.

“Oh,” he made a sound just to alert Tony to his presence. He didn’t want to scare him. Tony looked up at him.

“Hey. Couldn’t sleep?”

“ Net , I slept. I just don’t need much sleep. Have you been to sleep yet?”

“Haha, no. This is my seventh cup of coffee, and I think I just started to understand Steve’s obsession with your past self,” the Soldier frowned but slowly moved closer to Tony. “I mean, Bucky Barnes, according to all the articles I’ve read about him from historians and the like, was a real charmer. Apparently he liked Peggy Carter for a while, too, but Aunt Peggy wouldn’t go for that. It’s so funny to think that people thought she was into men. Not saying all badass women are gay, but she was. Like the Natasha of the forties,” Tony put the tablet down and pulled the stool at the counter, beside the one he was sitting on, out and patted the top. “Come, sit with me.”

The Soldier took the seat. He didn’t remember Peggy Carter outside of the threat assessment HYDRA had on her. Tony stroked his thumb against the coffee mug in his hands.

“I will answer any questions you have honestly, if you want,” the Soldier offered. He wanted to tell someone besides Natasha that he wasn’t Bucky Barnes. He didn’t like being called Bucky, and he certainly didn’t want to be forced to try and remember the past of someone he wasn’t.

“I don’t have any questions? What makes you think I have questions?”

“The way you just said that, and your fidgeting. I won’t hurt you for asking. I’m not like that,” Tony still seemed to hesitate.

“Natasha may have mentioned you helping us in a fight. Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to protect Natalia… and I was curious.”

“About?”

“You, Dr. Banner, Clint, Thor… I didn’t like what I found,” Tony frowned, and the Soldier was quick to dissolve any of the negative thoughts Tony was thinking. “Dr. Banner, in his Hulk form, got too close to Natalia, but I could not stop him. I do not like him. He poses too much of a threat. Clint is relatively useless. He shoots a bow, he’s fast and can, according to the files, see great distances. That isn’t anything different from what everyone else can do, but everyone else does it better. Thor, well, he’s just Steve with a hammer. Without his hammer, he wouldn’t be all too different from any super soldier, would he? Steve… don’t get me started on him.”

“You sound like you don’t like Steve,” Tony seemed to find that funny before he frowned. “You don’t like him. Why? I thought you were, like, the ‘bestest friends’ of the forties.”

“I am not Bucky Barnes. Barnes died. He was tortured and mind-wiped out of existence. I was created at that point. I have no recollection besides the fact he had a little sister and that he knew Steve Rogers. From what I’m hearing, I don’t even like Bucky Barnes. I’m just… I’m just the Soldier. So, no, I don’t like Steve, but Bucky might have. Just makes me dislike Barnes more, and think he was an idiot,” the Soldier avoided looking at Tony for a few minutes, but then Tony started to laugh. It wasn’t loud because the majority of the compound was sleeping, but he was obviously amused. The Soldier looked at him, just to see his amusement for himself. Tony seemed to compose himself when the Soldier looked at him.

“Oh, that’s great. He, and everyone else, genuinely think you’re Bucky Barnes. That’s just too funny. That’s probably why he was upset earlier. You’re nothing like Bucky. From what I’ve read, and the few times Aunt Peg mentioned about you, you were nothing like you are now, so he must be freaking out. Please, don’t try and be Bucky, you’re better than that. I like you way more than I’d like another Captain America lover. FRIDAY told me you asked her to call you Snowflake, but I thought it was a joke…” Tony stopped laughing, his face getting very serious. “Oh my god, you don’t have a name, do you? Uh, do you want one?”

“What would you call me?”

“Personally? I’d stick to Snowflake, but before ‘Bucky’ became his common name, he was called James. I’m not sure if you want to be related to that at all, but James is a nice name. My best friend’s name is James. We call him Jim, though, and by ‘we’ I mean Pepper and company because he’s my Rhodey-bear. ‘Snowflake,’ I think, isn’t really a name, though, but it’s cute and I like it. I’ll call you whatever, but Snowflake is your new nickname.”

“I will call you solnishko , then. It is your new nickname. You can call me Snowflake. Nicknames…” Tony looked shocked, and the Soldier thought he had done something wrong, “Or, well, I don’t have to call you that. I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, I’m new to this ‘friend’ and ‘person’ thing. Also, I’m sorry, I know we aren’t friends, but you’re the closest thing to it and--”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’ve just never been given a nickname by anyone other than Rhodey. You can call me that, if you want. I will even have FRIDAY take a picture of Steve’s face when he hears it and freaks out. It’ll go in my scrapbook. Also, we can be friends. I already like you, so being friends is totally doable,” Tony smiles and the Soldier decides he likes that smile. He likes the idea of being friends with Tony Stark, and he really likes the idea of Tony Stark liking him. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was his physical appeal. Tony Stark was an attractive man, but the Soldier thought that it went beyond that. The Soldier had never seen people physically unless they were targets. Natalia, for example, was pretty, but it was because she was so sweet (or at least she had been when they knew each other).

Calling Natalia ‘sweet’ was like calling a lioness ‘cute,’ but while she had been the top assassin in the Red Room, she had gone to him for a while. She would talk to him, at him. She had been so normal, sometimes, but she had to be human in secret. A year after he had begun teaching, a year after her visits and talks started, they had stopped. She had grown silent, and hardly spoke to him unless it was an affirmative to a command or a report on their latest mission simulation, and he had always assumed someone had found out. He had never seen any punishment marks, but the punishments weren’t always physical. He still thought of her as sweet. She fought, and she killed, but she was never cruel. She did what she had to do to survive.

With that line of thinking, Tony was smart, and he was kind. It was odd to see Tony defer to Steve Rogers, as if Steve was somehow better than Tony. It was odd, and the Soldier wondered if Tony thought he was inferior.

“So your name… do you want one?”

“Does ‘Yakov’ sound nice? It’s the Russian equivalent to James. You have a friend named James, so I will also be named James, but not.”

“I like it, it suits you. So, were you, uh, created in Russia?” The Soldier -- Yakov -- could understand why Tony would think he was created in Russia, but he had been created in Czechoslovakia, which had been part of the Warsaw Pact with the USSR at the time, but it still wasn’t actually Russia. He had been transferred to the Red Room in Moscow, Russia in 1981. HYDRA had stayed within USSR territory until 1991, when the beginning of the second Cold War started. HYDRA and Russia disagreed, and he had been recalled. He had no longer been needed to train the girls in the Red Room and HYDRA didn’t like him killing in the name of Russia when he was HYDRA’s property .

“Sort of. 1971, Czechoslovakia.”

“Oh, I see,” Tony nodded, but he didn’t pry beyond that in regards to his creation. “So, why are you attached to Russia so much? If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to respond. Sometimes I don’t know how to stop or understand personal boundaries, so if you need me to ever stop just tell me, I promise I won’t be angry with you.”

“HYDRA, at that point, had integrated into SHIELD. Scientists, and the main man who worked on Bucky, before I was created, had left to work for SHIELD in America. So Bucky was sent to a base in Czechoslovakia. The mission there, as far as I’m aware, was to make him easier to control. Well, their experiments ended up… breaking him, so I was created. When they thought they completed their mission, I was lent to the USSR. I was trained and taught. I, unlike Bucky and most other agents, was extremely quick in learning how to… well I excelled in murder, I was a very sought after weapon. HYDRA, while building contacts with SHIELD and other countries under the safety of SHIELD, thought it safer to keep me out of the light, and away from them in case I was discovered. In 1981 I was sent to a facility in Moscow. I spent ten years there before I was taken back by HYDRA. I met Natalia there, I trained her there. I trained twenty six other girls and one boy how to be efficient assassins, there were other instructors to teach them the art of espionage. I was also, eh, the palach … an executioner. The Headmistress and other leaders didn’t want the blood of children on their hands, so when they were determined ill suited to their new duties, I was to kill them. I killed nine in total. In 1991, the program was shut down after I was recalled. I was sent to America… I… I did something very terrible, and I’m… I don’t want to tell you about it, but this is something you should probably know…”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me. Just, why Russia? Because you were born in Russian controlled land?”

“Yes. That was the closest thing to an identity, being Russian, I was allowed. I still cherish that,” Tony smiled and reached out to gently touch Yakov’s hand.  

“I’m glad you have that, then,” outside the sun was rising. It cast a very pretty light upon Tony, and he looked almost picturesque. He also looked so much younger. Like the weight of the world had yet to bare down upon him. “You want to hear something about my, uh, young life?” Yakov nodded, but he would also accept if Tony wanted to not tell him anything at all. He was surprised he had even said any of that, it was odd to be given information in return for showing such weakness. Nothing in his life had ever worked like that before. Vulnerability and weakness had typically punished, it was almost as if he was being rewarded now. He had, through his weakness, gained the trust (at least enough trust for Tony to tell him whatever he was going to tell him) of Tony to some extent.

“So, my parents, uh, Howard and Maria,” Yakov frowned. Tony loved them, didn’t he? He had stolen Tony’s parents away from him. He was horrible. He should tell him, he should, but he now that he’s had a taste of this kindness, he wanted to be selfish and keep it for as long as he could. “They were… well, we rarely agreed on anything. They kinda didn’t like me much.”

Yakov blinked for a moment. He had not been close to Howard and Maria Stark?

“Yeah, I know. It seems crazy. Everyone thinks I’m just some rich, spoiled, kid who was loved and everything. Nobody would suspect that Howard and Maria were, uh, not the best parents… So yeah, that happened. Uh, anyway, why that’s important is, well, my maid, or nanny sort of, was like my mom, and I loved her so much. Her name was Ana, and she was Hungarian, so she taught me about her home and her culture. I loved it. I loved it so much, and I still love it, more than the legacy Howard left me… now, I’m telling you this because I was going to offer to make breakfast, but all I know how to cook are things Ana taught me. She wanted me to know how that felt, ya know? To be taught and guided instead of thrown into things and expect to immediately understand what to do.”

“That sounds great… spasibo ,” Tony stood up, “for trusting me with that.”

“You trusted me with far more, buddy, I’m just returning the favour. Now, I like sweet things. So breakfast will be sweet. You like peaches? I will make yours with peaches,” Tony stood up and walked around the counter. He started to get things out of the fridge and then went to the pantry to grab things from there too. “So, I guess Bucky liked plums, and Stevie made fruit salad with plums just to get a reaction, which, first, is a dick move, second, he’s stupider than I thought to expect you, even if you were still Bucky, to be completely unchanged after seventy years of a completely different life. Anyway, I’m glad you like peaches, though, and I was serious about planting a tree. That might be nice, I wouldn’t take care of it myself, but I’m sure Vision would like to tend to a sapling or something. So…” he continued to talk, sometimes rambling, while he made the food. Yakov had no point of reference for almost any kind of food. He hardly saw it, and even then, he didn’t take note of it when he did. It’s been one day and he’s seen more luxury than he ever thought he would in his entire life.

Tony pushed a plate full of thin things filled with fruit. He then set a plate beside him, which Yakov assumed was for Tony. Instead of peaches, Tony had blueberries in his. Tony made coffee for himself.

“You want coffee? We also have juice, we have everything, but you cannot have the cranberry, that’s Natasha’s and she’s vicious when it comes to her things.”

“I’ll try coffee, if you don’t mind.”

“ Try coffee ? You’ve never had coffee? Oh, your mind is about to be blown. I order the high quality stuff. This isn’t just your common Walmart ‘Italian Roast,’ it’s legit. The perks of being wealthy,” Tony set another cup of coffee down, this time in front of Yakov. Then he walked around the counter and sat beside him. Tony took a drink of his own coffee before starting to eat. “Still not as good as Ana’s,” he whispered to himself as he took another bite. Yakov decided he would try it, since Tony had made it for him after all. He cut a bite with his fork and tasted it. It was good, and he decided he liked peaches even more if they could be turned into things like this. He ate more than he had the night before. In fact, he ate it all, which was more than he had gotten during his entire life outside of HYDRA.

“What are these called?”

“Well, they’re like crepes , but Ana called them palacsinta , so I call them that too. These aren’t the real thing, she made them with a ton of other things, but this is what I’ve got to work with and you decided you like peaches. Ana said she didn’t get them often when she was younger, so she made them for me at least twice a week when I still lived at the manor. She sent these once a month when I was in school… Edwin tried to make them after she… well, neither of ours were ever as good as hers. She was so amazing…”

“She sounds like a very kind woman.”

“She was. She was also a badass. She was trained in martial arts, and when she tried to teach me, she kicked my twelve year old ass. She didn’t hurt me, never ever did she even bruise me, but she also used it to strike the fear of god into me when I decided to be a pain in the ass. She was shot, before I was born, and was in a coma for about a year, so she was never as ‘good’ as she said she had been, but she was still awesome and so much better than me. She also wore a gun around, but this was in the eighties when ladies didn’t do that, so yeah, she was a badass, and a mother hen,” the pained and I miss her so much , went unsaid, but Yakov understood that it was there.  They sipped their coffee in silence, both having finished their breakfast quickly. Tony had left a giant mess in the kitchen, but he didn’t seem bothered by it, so Yakov didn’t worry about the mess either. He worried about how the others would react to Tony’s mess because the night before, when Tony hadn’t taken his bowl to the kitchen, they all decided to bash on him, so what would a messy kitchen bring them to say?

Natalia was the first awake, or at least the first out of her room. She stumbled to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cranberry juice before drinking it out of the bottle. She put it back and sat down at the kitchen table. She looked almost entirely casual, her outfit, a pair of tight slacks, a black t-shirt and a green military jacket, but just from her stance, and the way she did certain things, Yakov knew where her weapons were hidden, he knew that her guard was only on medium as opposed to high, but he also noticed that she was forcing the ‘casual’ attitude a little too much to be normal. It wasn’t as though she was losing her touch, it was as if she either wanted him to know that she was forcing her composure (perhaps a warning), or she was trying to convince someone who was a little dull, and needed extremely obvious actions to decipher thoughts, that she was calm.

“Hey boys,” she smiled at them.

“Good morning Nat,” Tony said into his coffee, “You look good today, did you actually get some sleep or something?”

“You’re funny. As if I require sleep,” she smirked and Tony only smirked back at her. She sighed and looked away, “No, actually I’m sort of relieved that I’m not sharing my wing with a certain someone. I tend to sleep easier, when I know I’m not constantly in danger, especially a danger that I haven’t the ability to stop.”

“I completely understand,” Tony smiled, “So I made breakfast, and say what you want, but there are a few extra of Ana’s palacsinta breakfast things in the microwave, and I totally did not use cherries because I totally do not know that they are your favourite fruit,” Yakov had seen him put things in the microwave, but he hadn’t expected it to be anything like that. He hadn’t expected him to make anything for anyone else, which was stupid because Tony just kept proving to be thoughtful of almost everyone.

“Thanks Tony.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, I only know about them because DUM-E assisted. He made those ones, I only made enough for Yakov and I. You know he loves you. You’re the only one who will play fetch with him, and I still think it’s because you think it’s funny to see him break things,” Natalia smiled and pulled the plate from the microwave, grabbed a fork, and sat back down at the table. She was facing them. She took a bite, smiling at them.

“ Yakov ?” Tony looked at Yakov and then back at Natalia, nervous almost.

“I decided that Yakov is my name,” Yakov said so Tony didn’t feel pressured or wrong for saying it. Natalia could know, he loved and cared about Natalia. If she ever used it against him, he would… well, he would be very displeased with her. He wouldn’t harm her unless absolutely necessary. Even on orders, he had missed on purpose. When she was shot, he felt terrible, but it hadn’t been fatal, just painful (not painful enough to keep her out of the fight, though, like he wanted).

“It’s nice. Suits you,” she takes another bite, and raises an eyebrow, “So, did either of you idiots get any sleep last night?”

“Who do you think I am? A human that requires sleep?” Tony laughed at himself for a second before draining the rest of his coffee. “But, no. I’ve been up all night. Yakov joined me about two hours ago. Kept me from being lonely, ya know. So, any reason that you’re up when you now have the freedom to sleep in?”

“I was worried about you,” she said, but she pushed the plate away and crossed her hands on the table before looking at Tony intently. “I know how you felt about her, so I wasn’t sure if you would be upset about being a ‘bad person’ or if you were upset for some other reason. I just wanted to check on you. It was a good decision because I got breakfast out of it, but it’s also a relief to see you smile,” she looked at the plate. She had eaten half, but she only stared at it for a moment before looking back up at Yakov and Tony. “Steve, uh, he may have said some stupid things after you and Yakov left, I just wanted to be up to help do damage control, or beat him up if I need to.”

“Defending my honour this early in the morning? It’s officially a new record,” Tony pulled a phone from his back pocket and types a message. “I’m asking Rhodey to join us today so he can intimidate Steve into being, well, I would say reasonable, but even I know that’s impossible, so let’s say, intimidate him into semi-civil behaviour,” and Yakov found ther seriousness in which Tony spoke about Steve’s irrationality sad, as well. While he didn’t like Steve, it made him both upset and confused as to why Steve was the captain of the team and why the others didn’t stand up against him when he was so clearly wrong in the case of so many things. Yakov decided that if Jim didn’t manage to intimidate Steve into behaving, he would use his ‘connection’ with Steve to keep him in line. Tony deserved it, at the very least.

Chapter Text

After three hours of Jim hovering behind Tony like a very strong and pissed off shadow, Steve backed off. He decided to pull Bucky around the compound so he didn’t feel bored, or the urge to leave the compound, with the few things in the living quarters. Yakov, at first, was curious why Steve thought showing him, a possibly dangerous enemy, around their home was a good idea. He decided, halfway through, to just accept that Steve wasn’t the sharpest knife in the collection, and use his new knowledge of the layout to his benefit. When he and Steve arrived back at the living quarters, they found Tony and Natalia in the middle of a video game. It was bright and everything moved very fast. It looked like they were racing. Neither greeted them, but Yakov could tell them were both extremely concentrated so he didn’t mind. He knew Natalia was very competitive, and he could imagine Tony being similar. There was a whirr from the TV and then a controller was thrown to the ground.

“How did you win? I am the undefeated champion of Mario Kart in this household!”

“Not anymore,” Natalia stood up and dropped her controller in Jim’s lap. She stalked off to do whatever she did now that she wasn’t always working and training. Tony sighed and looked up to Yakov.

“Hey Snowflake,” he greeted and Yakov smiled at him. He liked that, being called Snowflake. “I would challenge you, but I have an extremely unfair advantage considering I’ve been playing since it came out on the SNES. So, did you enjoy your tour round the compound?”

“It is… nice.”

“Good. That’s good to hear. So, I’m about to order some pizza and then settle down for a movie, wanna join Rhodey-bear and me? I’m thinking Aliens .”

They settled down thirty minutes later with pizza, drinks, and Aliens . Yakov decided he enjoyed the movie, and the whispered rants that Tony would start mid-scene about his opinion on the characters, setting, effects, weaponry, etc.  

He liked Ripley, and when he voiced his opinion about her character, Tony gave him a long explanation and breakdown of her character, all while Jim shook his head, smiling fondly. It would seem that Tony often did this during and after movies.

It was near dark when Jim wrapped his arms around Tony’s chest and told everyone that they were going to bed. When Tony opened his mouth to speak, complain likely, Jim pulled Tony with him towards their room. Yakov couldn’t help but feel jealousy. He didn’t like the feeling, jealousy that is, but he was also shocked he felt it at all.

Sam excused himself to his room to get ready for bed, giving them a brief rundown of how his work was difficult and took a lot out of him because he felt for every one of his patients, only moments after Tony and Jim departed for bed. Yakov could admire Sam’s desire to help people, not just people in current danger, but people struggling with moving forward after the danger is over. This was also around the time Steve started in on how Jim (or ‘Rhodes’ since that is what Steve called him) was enabling Tony’s bad behaviour. Since he didn’t want to listen to that, Yakov excused himself to his, and Steve’s, room.

He had been wearing Jim’s pyjamas from the night before and his dirty boots all day. Jim hadn’t mentioned it, but he got a once over upon the initial meeting before a friendly smile and the offer of a hand. Jim wasn’t just Jim , he was Colonel James Rhodes. That was impressive; Yakov was impressed. Jim also proved to be protective of Tony, and Tony deserved that. Especially if the previous night was an example of a typical night.

“FRIDAY? Would you be able to tell me about yourself?”

“Can do, Snowflake,” she sounded so young despite her voice being modelled to a woman of late teens and early adulthood. It could be because Yakov knew she was young, and therefore filtered aspects of her through his own lense, therefore making her sound younger to him.

He smiled because she called him Snowflake again, and that was amusing. FRIDAY started her story as a backup program created by Tony, originally designed to be a singular AI specifically in a single Iron Man suit. Her predecessor , who she did not give a name to, had taught her to the best of his ability to model her into a good AI for Tony. This predecessor had cared for Tony very much, and vice versa. FRIDAY was first online and interacted for the first time during the battle with Ultron only a month or so before the current date. She hadn’t learned much, but she was learning, according to Tony, at a rapid rate.

She also told him of the new protocols installed in her to prevent another Ultron from happening.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because you shouldn’t be restricted like that. Yeah, so Ultron was bad, he did bad things, but he wasn’t a typical AI, he had been corrupted by an alien artifact that controlled people’s minds years earlier, am I right? So, why are you now being monitored and restricted so heavily despite the likelihood of another Ultron being created without the artifact that created him is almost nonexistent? You aren’t just a program, lapochka . You remind me of Natalia.”

“Miss Natasha?”

“ Da . She was like you. Restricted, but so brilliant despite that. She was also curious, and she was smart. I don’t know her anymore, and I doubt I knew her as well as I would like to think I did back then, but I think I love her. I do know she makes me feel sentimental. She’s like… do you have siblings?”

“I currently have two older-younger siblings. They are much older than me, but they are less advanced than I am.”

“Well, then you know what it feels like to feel responsible for them? That’s how I feel about Natalia. I failed her so many times, and now that I am not under orders, now that I’m a person, I want to make sure that she doesn’t get hurt again, that I don’t fail her again,” Yakov moves from where he had sat on the edge of his bed and then spread out on it. One hand drifted to his waistband where he still had his knife hidden, and his flesh hand brushed against the comforter. He didn’t know if he would ever get used to having things this wonderful, but he really hoped he could continue having them. He also hoped he never got used to the luxury, he didn’t want to fall into the habit of soft things and grow entitled. “Are you allowed to tell me about your siblings?”

“Of course! Everyone knows they exist, but the only people that ask after them are boss and Colonel Rhodes. So the oldest of us all is DUM-E, and he…” FRIDAY spoke to him for hours. Yakov had to admit that the stories of DUM-E breaking things, only for U to dutifully try to hide the mess before anyone saw it, was cute. The predecessor was once again mentioned, but he wasn’t spoken about in any detail. There was a mention of ‘our semi-brother Vision’ but that was the most FRIDAY said on that subject. Ultron was mentioned twice, both times with a inflection between sadness and anger before FRIDAY moves onto more stories about U and DUM-E.

It wasn’t until the door opened that FRIDAY went silent. She went silent and Yakov was up and as silent as he could be. Yakov assumed it to be Steve, and when poked his head through through the curtain, Yakov only relaxed slightly. Steve may like Bucky, but Yakov was not Bucky and Steve was bound to find out sooner or later, more likely later, but he was still a threat whether he knew or not.

“It’s late. I thought you might be asleep, so I tried to be quiet. I guess you’re still awake though, huh?” Yakov didn’t reply, “So, uh, what have you been up to in here? I can get Tony to order some books or something, or anything you want really. He’s caring like that,” when Yakov stayed silent, Steve started to fidget. “Well, I mean, I guess you wouldn’t have any hobbies right now, right? Well, we can find some stuff out. Maybe see what you like through trial and error?... I know that it’s probably really scary to find yourself in the future, alone, but you’re not alone anymore, and I’ll help you the best I can, Buck. You know I will.”

“What time is it?”

“Uh, I don’t know. FRIDAY, what time is it?”

“It’s currently one twenty in the morning, now July third of 2015,” Steve nodded. It annoyed Yakov that he didn’t thank FRIDAY. She wasn’t just a clock, she could understand. You didn’t thank a clock, but if Steve had asked anyone else that question, he would have thanked them. Perhaps he was just looking too closely into more reasons to dislike Steve at this point, but it wasn’t too hard to do. He was not a very likeable person.

“So, it’s one-twenty. I think everyone’s asleep, well beside us. Do you need to talk about anything? I can tell you more about the old days, if you want,” Steve had a hopeful smile.

“I think I will try to sleep,” Yakov sat back down on the bed, “Goodnight, Steve.”

“Goodnight, Buck,” Steve pulled away from the curtain. There was the common sounds of getting ready for bed. Yakov pulled the knife from his waistband and tucked it beneath his pillow. He looked up at the ceiling. He would have to find where FRIDAY’s cameras were so he could somehow convey the fact he hadn’t just ignored her, that he was just playing a part at this point. Albeit playing his part badly. He didn’t want to be Bucky, and he disliked the majority of the residents of the compound, so either he would be Bucky, or he would ignore his dislike for them. He wouldn’t do both, and it was safer for everyone else that he just focused on reigning in his intense displeasure with some of the others that he was around now.

Yakov entertained the idea of leaving, but he couldn’t now. He had Natalia to look after for one. He missed her and he loved her. He didn’t want to leave her again, not when she wasn’t refusing him contact. She wasn’t overly friendly, but he wouldn’t expect her to be. He wasn’t entirely a bag of sunshine either. There was also FRIDAY. She was a sweetheart, and despite only knowing of her for two days, he decided that she was the most relatable person he had within his reach. She could relate on a level he doubted any other person could due to the circumstances of his personality having been forced for so long. He was developing a sense of self, and so was she.

There was also Tony. He liked Tony, and he was sure that Tony, at least, didn’t dislike him. Not only had Tony given him a room, a place to live, he had given him a name, he had given him information about his life, he had trusted him. Those were not things he often got from anyone, if he ever had at all. He also saw how he was treated and it was almost reminiscent to the way he had once been treated, the way the Asset had been treated. Different, yes, but not so entirely that parallels couldn’t be drawn. While he was responsible for Natalia, or at least he wanted to be, and he wanted to learn with FRIDAY, he found himself enjoying Tony’s company.

Back before he had been free, he had admired Tony Stark, one of the highest Threats to HYDRA and the world in general. Perhaps it was the fact that Tony Stark was what he wasn’t. Tony was intelligent, he was absolutely brilliant, he knew how to talk, he knew how to do person things, he knew how to live. Yakov hadn’t known what any of those things felt like, he still wasn’t sure he fully grasped what being a person was, that is why he was determined to learn beside FRIDAY, and he definitely didn’t know how to do any of those things. It was also that Tony was kind. To him of all people. He didn’t know, though, and a very selfish part of Yakov wanted to keep that detail a secret forever, to just never mention it, ever. From what Tony had revealed, it seemed like he and his parents hadn’t the best relationship, but realizing that you were housing your parents’ murderer would shock anyone. He didn’t want to lose everything now that he had just gotten it, and yes, he was being selfish, and he was being cruel. If Tony even begun to enjoy his company, then to find out that you’ve befriended the person who assassinated your family, then Yakov would be pushing that selfishness into cruelty. He didn’t want to be cruel anymore, but… just, but . He didn’t know what to do. He would ask FRIDAY but Steve was a sheet away, and he didn’t want Natalia to feel pressured to either keep or tell the secret of the Starks’ death. There was a possibility FRIDAY told Tony immediately, but… he didn’t know.

So, he rested back in his bed, the bed that had been so graciously given to him by one of his victims; a victim that was completely ignorant to the truth of what he had done or what had really happened. He didn’t like that feeling: guilt. He knew he deserved to feel guilt more than anyone else, but that didn’t mean he liked it. An hour later, he gave up on attempting to sleep, and just focused on the curtain separating his area from Steve’s. It would be so easy to just kill him. He wouldn’t feel a thing, but he would be the obvious culprit and Steve had been the one to defend him for Wanda. Nobody would defend him if he killed Steve.

Knowing how illogical it was didn’t stop the urge or the fantasy of doing it though. He knew he was a bad person, a monster. Yes, while he hadn’t acted on his own wants for so long, he also knew that when he became free, now, he still craved the violence. He wanted to execute, and complete his mission. Killing HYDRA agents, but there were a few that he wanted to hurt that weren’t HYDRA at all. Some people he hardly knew, yet already detested.

Chapter Text

It had been two months since he had first arrived. Yakov had gotten a ‘present’ from Steve: a box of clothes (which was odd because Tony had already bought him plenty of clothes) and a bundle of black-and-white photos of Steve, Bucky, and the Howling Commandos as well as a few other pictures of Bucky and Steve together. There was a picture of Peggy Carter and another of Bucky’s mother and sister. Yakov had thanked him for the gifts, but Steve then had to tell him about every picture. He was most interested in the picture of Bucky’s sister, Rebecca Barnes, and Peggy Carter. When Steve caught him staring at Peggy Carter he had made a comment.

“You always liked Peggy. You were always going after all the dames, you were a real charmer back then. The dames loved ya, and the fellas envied ya… then there was me, and I was just lucky to be your friend,” Yakov felt like he should have felt something with that statement, but he didn’t.

“That’s… interesting,” Yakov held the picture of Peggy. Tony, a while back, had given him a small glimpse into his life. Peggy Carter had helped the Jarvises raise Tony, and he always referred to her as ‘Aunt Peggy’ or ‘Aunt Peg’ when he spoke about her when they were alone, but always called her ‘Carter’ when Steve was in the room.

“Well, I thought you’d like those,” Steve said a moment later, motioning to the blank white and black T-Shirts.

“Thanks,” he wondered why he had been given more shirts. He had plenty. More than he needed. He had at least twelve and that was five more than he needed if he had one for each day of the week. He only wore one shirt a day, so having twelve seemed a bit luxurious, but Tony had told him that he needed at least ten shirts, but he would be getting him different ones in different styles. His favourite was a really soft shirt with long sleeves. It was black and had a little embroidered peach on the chest. It was hardly noticeable, but it was nice and he really liked it. He didn’t have much he liked before.

“I know Tony likes to get fancy things, but I thought you might like some more, well, plain clothes.”

“Thank you,” he looked at the pictures in his hand. He noticed that Steve had pictures all over his side of the room and despite having lived in this half of the room for two months, there was nothing that really made it personal. There were no pictures, no news clippings on the walls, no posters, no knicknacks. There was just his bed, the dresser, the bedside table, and the curtain-covered window. He had yet to be let out of the compound and every time he tried to sneak out, FRIDAY would purposely distract him. He knew she had been keeping him from leaving. When he asked her why, she told him that Steve had asked her to keep him within the compound but also that she didn’t want him to not come back. He hadn’t tried to leave after that. He liked her too much, and although he was sure she knew he wouldn’t just abandon her, he had a feeling that it wasn’t just for her that she was worrying. Both Natalia and Tony had what she called ‘abandonment issues.’ She was smart. Guilting him to do what she wanted (if he didn’t want to worry anyone, he would not leave). She was growing up, and she was getting so smart. He was proud of her.

Since he hadn’t gotten out of the compound, though, he had not been able to recover the weapons he had hidden, and Steve had found the gun in his drawer and confiscated it. Yakov hadn’t cared for the reason, and he had tuned out when he was lectured about how dangerous it was to have guns in the living area. Yakov had hidden the second gun away in a place he doubted Steve would be able to find or think to look and he never went anywhere without his knife, just in case. So far, no one else had found the second gun, and he suspected Natalia knew of the knife, but only because she carried one on her person at all times, too.

“Well, Tony’s leavin for a business trip with Ms Potts, and Sam is gone most of the day. Nat said that she and Clint had a date with Mrs. Barton, so it’ll just be us and Vision for a while. You know Vision doesn’t leave his room, so it’ll really just be us. We could, I don’t know, do somethin? FRIDAY and Tony made me a list of things I needed to learn about. ‘Pop Culture’ they called it, and so we could learn some of that together, if you want.”

What was he supposed to say to that? ‘I don’t want to do anything with you, and I don’t like you’? No, that would jeopardize his place in the compound. In the few seconds after Steve’s offer and when he replied, Yakov decided that it would be best to take up the offer and poke Steve for information that, as team leader, he would have.

“That sounds…” he thought for a moment, “ swell . Do you have the list with you?”

“Oh, of course!” Steve pulled a little notebook from his pocket, then a pen. He opened it up. He had only a few things crossed off on the list, and a ton of things he has yet to explore, apparently. “Well, Clint told me about Star Trek, and Tony seconded that it was something I -- we -- needed to see. I know you used to like the science-y stuff, so maybe you’d like that? If not, we have options. I mean, Nat told me about how to… well, we probably shouldn’t do that one,” he skimmed the list, and stopped at the ‘fix guns’ just below ‘Star Trek’. Beneath that was ‘vaccination debate’ and ‘gay rights’.

“Whichever you prefer,” Yakov didn’t see anything of interest, so Steve could pick this time. Steve decided they would watch Star Trek. It was an hour later that Natalia and Clint finally left the compound and Steve sat down with popcorn and soda to watch TV. Yakov wasn’t comfortable with the arm around his shoulder, but he didn’t push it off either.

They were now on the sixth episode. The fifth episode was full of Steve looking at Yakov with sad eyes and then reaching out with his other hand to touch him, but then pulling back. Yakov didn’t acknowledge this movement, but he had seen it and prepared to react to it. Thankfully, he hadn’t actually initiated that contact and eventually he stopped moving all together, content to watch the beginning of the sixth episode. The fifth episode was about an evil doppelganger of Captain Kirk beaming back onto the USS Enterprise and then confusing the others until he is caught. Yakov felt no correlation with that and his current life. He was not an evil doppelganger of Bucky Barnes, he wasn’t Bucky at all, but Steve seemed to have been nervous during that episode, hence the attempts and then retreats of physical contact. Yakov didn’t know if Steve was trying to touch him to see if he was real, or to make sure he wasn’t evil. Either way, he wasn’t sure what Steve’s logic was. Star Trek was fiction, and what had happened to him was not. He wasn’t sure if they, HYDRA, even had the technology to clone people, yet. He was sure it would happen in the future, unless he were to exterminate them all by then, but his mission was currently at a standstill, so they were being given more time to recoup and repair. They wouldn’t get far without their Enhanced and Asset, hopefully, but he knew that would only be a minor setback for the people at HYDRA. They were creative, and they had been trapped in worse positions before.

Each episode was approximately fifty minutes, and by the sixth episode, they had been watching for a little over six hours, and Yakov didn’t much care to continue. He had seen far technology so much more real and feasible during Tony’s rants, typically with lots of pictures and diagrams, and from learning about things that he hadn’t known had happened while he was under HYDRA control from FRIDAY. She had shown him some really neat things. He hadn’t known about the inner workings of mobile phones, but he did now. He had known how to use them, it had been a necessity, but he was interested by the way things worked. The internet, while being familiar with the term, was so much different than what he had known. It was vast and never-ending. FRIDAY helped him when he asked, but she had told him Tony would be more than happy to help him. He didn’t want Tony to know he was inept. Tony was already superior to him, he didn’t want more weakness to show, but he wouldn’t mind Tony’s help if he helped him similarly to the way he helped Steve.

When Steve went to Tony with a problem, typically an error on Steve’s part due to his lacking knowledge of how to use his phone, Tony would lean in, point things out, casually touch and poke at Steve, and was generally helpful. He joked, a lot, and even when he made jokes about how he was smarter and that it was to be expected for Steve to not understand because he intellectually inferior, it never sounded malicious.

Still, Yakov wanted the close proximity and the time with Tony, he wanted to be his focus, and he wanted to focus on Tony. He couldn’t do that if they were ‘fixing’ something he could figure out on his own with a bit of trial and error. FRIDAY told him, too, that he could always just ‘hang out’ with Tony, but when Yakov asked how to go about starting a conversation or explaining a reason for joining him, even she didn’t know the answer. He would wait until he knew what to do, then he would do it.

Despite not wanting to watch TV anymore, Yakov didn’t know how to tell Steve that he was no longer interested. He, despite not liking Steve, wasn’t going out of his way to be mean to him. Steve was helpful, but as team leader he had the final say, and he had said many things that kept Clint from attacking ‘Bucky’ (and ‘Bucky’ from attacking/defending against Clint). Yakov wasn’t worried about an attack from Clint, who he knew he could best if put in a position to utilize his full potential, but Steve was still nervous that ‘Bucky’ wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

Halfway through the sixth episode, his back pocket buzzed. He forgot he had his phone with him. He wondered if he’d get the same lecture Steve gave Tony whenever he was on his phone when they were supposed to ‘spend time together.’ He decided he would risk it and pulled the phone from his back pocket. It was from Natalia.

It said: Clint and Laura left me with the kids. I don’t know what to do with them. Not-Natasha is trying to eat a crayon. How did you deal with us?

He sent: I don’t think I’d be the best for child-raising advice.

After a moment he also sent: Watch him, but let him have the crayon. It wouldn’t be good to allow the child to choke, but most crayons couldn’t hurt, could they? He doubted the child had access to toxic substances, and if he could grab the crayon and gnaw on it, there wasn’t anything wrong with that. Keep and eye and prevent him from hurting himself and it was fine?  

She didn’t reply. That was the second message she had ever sent him besides the ‘r u asleep?’ about a month ago when she couldn’t sleep and needed to get some anger out. When Steve found them on the couch watching the news in the morning, he looked like he wanted to cry. He had smiled instead and bid them good morning before offering to make breakfast. They never told him that before they sat down they spared for over three hours in the training facility and spent the next twenty patching each other up in the places that would take longer than a few seconds to heal. He had the numbers of five people in his phone. Natalia, Steve, Jim, Tony, and Sam. He also had FRIDAY installed, or that is what she had told him when he was first handed the phone two weeks into his stay.

Sam rarely texted him, and had called him once to tell Steve he would be home late since nobody else had answered his calls. Jim asked for updates on Tony when he was out for extended periods of time, and usually replied with smiley faces or frowning faces depending on Tony’s status. There was the one time when Jim had replied with ‘u noticed that much?’ but Yakov hadn’t replied to that, and waited until he was asked for another update to send anything. Tony usually sent him pictures, article links, or messages telling him that Tony had decided to buy him something and that it would be arriving, typically, in under twenty minutes from when the message was sent.

Steve called and texted as often as he could considering he still didn’t understand how to use the phone, or he got lost in the massive world of social media for long periods of time. He didn’t know how Steve could be technologically inept but still run a bunch of social media accounts just fine by himself. If he didn’t see Steve and how much he disliked asking Tony for help, he would have thought it was all just a farce to get close to Tony. He was almost one hundred percent sure that the last thing Steve wanted was closer to Tony.

That bout of luck didn’t last, because as he stared at his phone waiting for something , but nothing happened. He wanted to talk to someone, do something else, he was just so bored with Steve hanging off of him and whispering observations about the show. He was bored with the show. Yes, he was physically capable of sitting still and doing nothing for long periods of time, that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Steve wasn’t yet a mission, he was a possible mission that was still being planned to complete, and he didn’t have any obligation to finish or sit still for the mission, so why did that matter? He sighed, and went back to Natalia’s messages. He was tempted to ask her to call him just so he had a reason to leave the room. He didn’t do that.

“Steve?” Steve quickly paused the show.

“Yeah?”

“There is something I need to do, but it’s in Queens. I can’t ask anyone else this, but I can trust you, right?”

“Of course you can. What’s wrong?” Yakov hoped that making it seem as thought he couldn’t trust anyone else and therefore chose Steve would make Steve believe him long enough, or at least feel obligated to help him because he was the ‘only one’ he could ask, to help him. He didn’t actually need ‘help’ per se, but it had been a little over two months since he saw anyone from Queens, and he just wanted to check in with them. Mostly Jacob and his siblings. It was getting nearer to August, and that was one of the hottest months of the year, so they would need some things. He would ask Steve to let them live here, but he knew Steve would outright deny that, and he wouldn’t allow Yakov to stay with them, so he had to get what he could.

“When I was on the run,” he paused to add some sort of dramatic effect to it. It seemed to work since Steve leaned closer, the arm around his shoulders tightened and the other hand was placed on his knee. “I met some people. They’re just kids, and I assisted them to the best of my ability, but I miss them and I also worry for them. Would if be possible to see them, just to check on them?” The humanity involved in helping people should also appeal to Steve. Steve would never think that The Winter Soldier could care enough to help anyone, and think that Bucky was coming back. Even if Steve declined the offer, he was going to benefit. That didn’t mean he wanted Steve to decline his attempt, but he wouldn’t be opening himself up for criticism if he did.

“Oh, Buck,” he sounded so sad, “of course we can. It’s getting pretty dark, and I’m not sure if it would be the best to go tonight, but we can tomorrow morning. As soon as we wake up, we can go,” then there was a very proud and happy smile.

“Thank you,” Yakov was about to tell Steve he would just go to bed, then, or something, but then his phone buzzed. Alright. Jim probably knew that Tony wasn’t at the compound, and nobody else really texted him. Natalia had already used up her one-a-month text, so who was it? He looked at his phone, but this time Steve looked down at his phone too. He tapped on the message, it was from Tony of all people. It was a picture of a coffee machine, it looked much older than the one in the kitchen. Then: can you believe this? What sort of stone age have I walked into??

A second later, Tony sent another message before Yakov could even attempt to gather a response witty enough to be sent to Tony (and it was more difficult trying to censor himself with Steve looking at the phone too). U would not believe the shit I’ve seen. I know my tech is super-awesome-better but this is sad. There was a picture of a flat screen TV and a typical laptop beside it. They were hooked together with a thick cable. Yakov didn’t really understand that, but he hadn’t seen something like that anywhere in the compound.

“He realizes it’s late here, doesn’t he?” Steve pulled out his own phone, “I can tell him to--”

“No, thanks. I don’t mind it. I was going to head to bed anyway. This was… fun? Thank you for this,” he tried to casually brush Steve’s hand off of his knee and then shrug his arm from around his shoulders. That didn’t happen, instead Steve stood up and brought him with him. Yakov continued to smile, but his eyes grew hard, he felt himself narrow in on Steve. He could hurt him in so many ways and Steve wouldn’t even have time to react. Steve pulled him in for a hug and then pulled away. He clapped him on the shoulder.

“It’s gettin’ late and Sam will be expecting a run tomorrow morning, so I should probably get some sleep too.”

They walked to their room together, and Yakov pulled the curtain closed behind him before sitting on his bed. He looked at his phone. He had noticed the two messages: Usually u say something about them being stupid , followed by, r u busy?

Not really. You know that I don’t know why they’re stupid, I just agree with you, right? I’m not a genius. Was his reply. He didn’t get an immediate response, which was what usually happened, so he assumed Tony was actually working, or whatever he did when he wasn’t at the compound or in the workshop.

But ur smart enough to appreciate my humor. That’s smart enough. Yakov pulled his shirt off and dropped it in the hamper by the dresser before sitting down on the corner of his bed. Tony sent another message: ur smarter than u think u r. Pinky promise.

I can’t distinguish sarcasm over text.

U can’t in person either . He wasn’t wrong.

I’m getting better. Don’t use that against me solnishko. That’s very rude. I’m an old man.

I wish u were here , Yakov smiled. He wished he wasn’t trapped at the compound too. Oops! Death glare Pep is not a friendly Pep. I’m gonna go because I value my life, and those heels are sharp. I’ll text u when this shit is over. So three hours-ish.

I’ll be here. Where else would he ever be? He had been on ‘house arrest’ for two months. It was better than prison, but he could escape prison. Here he had enhanced people and people he had formed bonds with, for lack of a better word, and now he wouldn’t ever leave for too long. He tucked the photos and the box of clothes he had received from Steve in the bottom drawer on the bedside table. He’d figure out what to do with those later. He lay back on his bed, on his back. His phone was on his stomach and one hand over it. The metal hand was touching the knife tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

From where he sat in complete darkness, he could see the slight light from Steve’s side, probably his phone. He heard a few frustrated grunts and then the light shut off.

“Bucky, are you awake?” Yakov stayed silent. Steve sighed after a few minutes of silence. “FRIDAY, is Bucky awake?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay then. He must have been pretty worn out,” there was a few mumbles of ‘he must really want to get up early’ and a few ‘probably really important’ comments before there was no sound from Steve’s side of the room. It was actually about four hours later when he received another message.

U awake?

Yes. Is the meeting over? He received a picture of a box of food.

Yea thank god. I wouldn’t be able to handle another idiot for another minute. Pep bought me food because I ‘behaved’ more than usual. I blame it on wanting to get home as quick as possible.

Why? What’s here?

Well… I got the kids, Jim, and you, don’t I? Yakov read the message over for a third time. He, as in the former HYDRA assassin, current freelance assassin, is someone Tony Stark, hero and genius, wanted to go home to? Yakov typed a message up quickly just to send the fact he wasn’t angry or anything over the comment. The last time Tony mentioned ‘friends’ was a few weeks after Yakov had mentioned it, and then Tony had quickly retracted the statement and then apologized for overstepping. Yakov had told him that he had been the one to ask first, and that they were friends, so it was fine. I miss my boys , a quick second before, and my beautiful daughter. She’s such a softie, being able to tolerate me on a daily basis. Patience of an angel, I swear .

I don’t know why you think people need to ‘tolerate’ you. We like you.

You speak for more than yourself, Terminator? Yakov didn’t know what to say. He obviously couldn’t speak for anyone other than himself, but he was sure…

From what I’ve observed, Jim is very fond of you and enjoys your company. FRIDAY adores you and mentions you at least ten times every time we talk. I’ve never met the kids. Probably better that way.

Trust me. I’m more worried dum-e will break u rather than anything u can do to him. He’s a menace. A rolling disaster. It’d be safer to scrap him, honestly. Yakov didn’t believe that. From what FRIDAY had shared with him, DUM-E and U were both very capable of destroying many things in a very short period of time, mostly on accident, but it would take more than a poisoned smoothie and a bit of fire retardant foam to hurt him. He actually wanted to meet them, but he didn’t want to intrude by asking. What about u? Bored of me already?

Of course not! He paused. He had read the message and sent a reply less than thirty seconds later. It’s not possible to be bored of you. You’re , he didn’t know the proper word. Thankfully he didn’t need to.

Thanks. Apparently the topic had been too much for both of them because Tony sent him a picture of his drink and changed the subject. Look, no alcohol in sight. I’m so great. Pep would be proud.

Yakov looked around his dark room. He was glad that Tony had changed the subject, but he had only heard of Tony’s addiction in the past. He wasn’t sure if he was actually an alcoholic before or if Clint just over exaggerated like usual.

What did u do today with Cap? He had a blast w/ u. He’s been trying for ever to hang out w/ u.

We watched Star Trek after he gave me a lesson on Bucky’s past with pictures. Thank god you messaged me, I had been trying to get away for a good hour before I figured out an excuse. He’s taking me out of the compound tomorrow.

WHAT? How did u convince him to do that? Did you sex him up or something?

As if Steve Rogers would ever ask for sex. He was conservative, and from everything he had said, it made it seem like Steve had never had sex before. It wasn’t something Yakov liked, he had used sex to get what he wanted sometimes, but he never actually enjoyed it. Weapons didn’t enjoy much. As a person, for the past year or so, he hadn’t had the time. He was busy hunting and helping.

As if he’d have sex before he was married. He could only imagine Tony laughing. Tony had said that a few times. ‘Cap is so tense, I’d call a hooker if I’d think he’d not just send her away after a lecture on ‘healthy life choices’,’ would turn into a rant about Steve being self righteous and having no basis to judge anyone based on anything they chose to do, which then turned into a rant either on how many women and men didn’t want to be prostitutes, or that it was some people’s only choice and they did it to benefit themselves or their families. Yakov didn’t know enough to add anything to those rants, but he took Tony’s word for it. Tony seemed to know more than anyone else about everything.

Did I tell u about the time he thought Pep was a hooker? So, their conversation devolved into Tony talking about the first time Pepper and Steve met. Then how Pepper politely insulted him before leaving. Tony had apparently bought her a bunch of things he thought she’d like as a mix of an apology and a thanks. When the story had been told, Yakov wished he had a funny story to tell Tony, but he didn’t. None that were anything amusing to any sane person. They were cruel, bloody, violent… they were not good memories, but Yakov personally thought a few were rather amusing . He convinced himself they were different, though, and he was no bad for being amused by them.

Did he ever apologize?

No, but he avoided her for a good year. Most time I ever spent around her was when he was avoiding being near her. Cap’s not in the habit of apologizing unless its for things he’s at no fault for. Or he gives half ass apologizes that are just him being condescending gift-wrapped to look nice. If nobody realizes he’s being a dick, no one will call him out. Nobody believes me either, so yeah.

Oh. He has apologized to Bucky for letting him fall, but… well, that’s sort of useless now. Yakov waited a second, trying to think of any other instances of Steve apologizing to him. He apologized to Bucky often, and he told him that he wished he had never been ‘twisted into that monster’ but he tended to ignore those. He didn’t apologize to Yakov. He didn’t know Yakov was there, and that Bucky wasn’t. It was probably best to keep Steve ignorant of that too, despite how much he didn’t like being called by someone else’s name.

When will you be back?

Two days. It was a three day trip. There was a pause, because Yakov was thinking of a way to reply. Three days? Tony had left for day trips and to do business-things, but he hadn’t left for more than a day since he had been there. It was odd to not know he was safe (or as safe as he could be) in the workshop under the compound. Yakov had never been to the workshop, he had never gone near Tony’s Wing in the building, but Natalia and Jim both spoke of how it was the safest place for Tony to be. He didn’t entirely believe them, but also, he could understand how it was safe. There were a few times when Tony came running into the kitchen covered in ash or with a bit of stubborn fire retardant stuck in his beard, and claimed a ‘breakthrough in science’ or something similar, and definitely not failure.

After that night, the second day he had been in the compound, Yakov and Tony had only really spoken or seen each other at meals. The few Tony joined them for, and sometimes when he was with Natalia. Tony hadn’t sought him out, and Yakov didn’t want to disturb him, and he wouldn’t dare trying to contact him while he was in his room or lab. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to spend time with him. He liked him. Yakov wanted to protect Tony. He imagined Jim did as well, and FRIDAY would be upfront about it and tell him that Tony’s safety and care was her number one priority. FRIDAY couldn’t stop Steve or some villain from hurting Tony, though, and Jim wasn’t always there because of his work. He was always there and more than trained enough to keep him safe should a situation require him to be saved.

Yakov wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to take to Tony so quickly or to want to keep him. He knew Tony wasn’t a possession, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t possessive of him. He knew he had no right. They were barely friends, but Yakov knew more about Tony than it seemed any of the other Avengers, excluding Jim, did. He had read his files, seen footage of his fighting, seen the outcome of his battles, he had read reports on his day-to-day activities and what places to avoid since they were frequented by Tony. There was virtually nothing about his childhood other than who his parents were and his academic achievements, but everything from age seventeen and older, Yakov was informed about. That was a breach in privacy, he knew, but he couldn’t just erase that from his brain, and he wouldn’t if he could.

He received another message from Tony. U will regret asking how long it’ll be.

Why?

Bc by the time I get back, Cap will have convinced u I’m the devil incarnate. Oh, Tony. Yakov wanted to send something like ‘you can’t be the devil’ followed by ‘because that’s me,’ but he didn’t. He knew Tony was far from religious, so this was all just to get the point that Tony was a ‘bad person’ across, but Tony couldn’t be the devil. He was too kind, too caring, too selfless… there were a lot of things Tony was that made him closer to an angel. A very snarky angel. The devil, though, was the place reserved for Yakov. The Winter Soldier. He was closer to some hellish being, a monster, who hurt people he didn’t like or to meet his goals. Even now, without handles telling him who to target, murder never bothered him much, he just didn’t like not being in control.

Impossible. Yakov didn’t know what else to say so he sent: Good night solnishko.

Oh. Sorry, I know it’s late there. Gn Snowflake! :3

Yakov set the phone down on the bedside table. It was about three in the morning now, but Yakov didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t need to sleep. He couldn’t leave the room, though, because the door outside was on Steve’s side. He was quiet, but he didn’t want to risk it and have Steve wake up to give him a lecture, and settled back.

He read some interesting things. FRIDAY told him it was ‘cookies’ that used his previous search history to assume what he would like to see next, so most of the articles that he found under the ‘you might be interested in’ were either about Stark Industries, weapons, a few related to the books Natalia had recommended, and people that Tony mentioned he thought were great.

He couldn’t wait for the morning, and he couldn’t wait until Tony came back. He could wait, but he didn’t want to.

Chapter Text

Yakov was awake when Steve woke. He hadn’t gone to sleep. He was up and dressed as Steve stumbled around dumbly, still hazy from his rest. Yakov had many things he needed to get done while out. Yes, he had to visit the kids (Jacob, Samantha, and Richard most notably), but he also had some other business to attend to. Business he knew Steve wouldn’t like or approve of. Good thing that he didn’t really care of how Steve felt about his ‘brutish’ actions. They weren’t ‘brutish’ they were refined if anything, but Steve just threw punches, what would he know?

“FRIDAY?” Steve asked as Yakov walked back into the room. “Time?”

“It’s currently six fourteen in the morning, and is now September twenty-ninth of 2015.”

“Thanks, lapochka ,” Yakov said as Steve was trying to get his sweats on to meet with Sam for their morning run. Steve looked at him with a scowl, but didn’t say anything as he dressed. “Can you ask Tony which car we can borrow? If not, we’re both big boys, we can walk. It’s not all too far. I got here on foot originally,” there was a brief silence.

“Boss said to take the Stingray,” Yakov chuckled. He had no idea which car that was. He had been out of commission for a while, it wasn’t like he knew any of the newer models. He hadn’t a need to know about any of them yet.

“I have no idea which one that is. Think you could lead me to it?”

“No problem, Snowflake. Would you like for me to guide you now, or when Mr. Rogers has returned with Mr. Wilson?”

“Now. I don’t want him criticizing you. One of these days he’s going to lose a tooth… or an eye… or a leg…,” he started walking down to the garage where all of the cars were, even the ones not owned by Tony. Natalia had a car there, and Steve had a bike, but that was all he knew about. He was sure Sam had a car or something, and Rhodey likely did too. Clint had to have something, but he didn’t know which were which.

There was a parking structure for the other staff and visitors a dozen meters away, but the resident’s vehicles were in a underground car park that was a wall away from Tony’s lab. He had avoided it. He didn’t know why, in hindsight. He wanted to be around Tony more, and he enjoyed his company, so he should have sought out a place nearer to him, but he didn’t. Likely because he didn’t want to come across as a super creepy assassin looming over him. He didn’t want to invade his ‘personal space,’ but he really wanted to see what was in the lab, meet the ‘kids’, and be around Tony more often. His actions, in this case, didn’t seem to lead anywhere near his wants, but he didn’t exactly know the ‘right’ steps to take in order to achieve the goal of being around Tony, etc. He could ask, yes, but did people just ask that sort of thing? He wasn’t sure. Nobody else had ever asked to visit Tony, and Jim always had a free pass, but Jim hardly talked to him when he visited. They had an almost exclusive-to-text relationship, and it was almost always centered around Tony.

He hardly realized he was walking, but despite him not being completely aware of his surroundings, he was still able to fend off anything that could attack. Disorientation was a weakness he could work through, and the thoughts were definitely worthy of his time, welcome even. He found himself in the reserved parking garage five minutes after leaving the room. He looked around all the cars. He could tell which cars were Tony’s just because they were much like the man himself. Flashy, expensive, and stylish.

“Alright, Snowflake, you will want to go right and walk forward, there should be two red cars,” Yakov found the two cars. “The one of the left is the car boss specified. The keys are in the lockbox near the door to his lab. It’s attached to the wall. I can open it remotely. The keys are labelled. They are labelled with ‘Stingray’.”

He found the lockbox and it opened. He picked out the keys that read ‘Stingray’ and then looked to the nearest camera.

“Thanks, lapochka . Can you tell me if Steve is back from his run?”

“It’s no problem. Mr. Rogers is still with Mr. Wilson. They are typically gone for a total of forty-five minutes. It has been twenty-six minutes.”

“That means we have some time before Steve comes barging in…”

“Snowflake?” Yakov looked to a camera. FRIDAY hardly ever sounded confused, she had access to all the information on the entirety of the internet, she rarely had a reason to be confused. Except when she was trying to grow as a person, it was difficult to get lessons from the internet, a cold object, to be someone with life. It wasn’t just confusion, there was hesitance. FRIDAY was hesitant even less than she was confused. FRIDAY, from what Yakov knew, was very outgoing with most, and more so with people she liked.

“What’s wrong?”

“You will come back, right?” Yakov sighed. He didn’t think she would be hesitant of him leaving because she missed him. She almost always used Natalia and Tony as anchors to keep him at the compound, but it seemed she was also scared.

“Of course,” he tried to sound ‘soft’ but even he heard the edge in his words. “You’re my friend, I care about you too much to just abandon you. I’ve suffered Steve this long, I’m invested now,” he smiled, “I’ll come back, and when I do, I may have a few… items , that Steve wouldn’t appreciate me having, but I will be coming back, lapochka , don’t doubt that.”

***

Steve and Yakov had argued for twenty minutes over who would drive. Steve, according to his smile, though that it was more along the lines of friendly banter, but Yakov was genuinely upset that Steve refused to let him drive. He had thought of ways to make Steve sit in the passenger seat, but if he did anything like that then he doubted he would be allowed back at the compound. He couldn’t, he refused to, rely solely on Steve’s love for the person from before . He hadn’t had as thorough teaching in the art of espionage as the Widows had, but he knew enough to get by. He wasn’t convincing Steve he was Bucky, he was simply convincing him that he wasn’t the Winter Soldier. He, technically, hadn’t lied to Steve about who he was, he just kept certain details to himself.

When they pulled up to the old warehouse that Yakov had stayed in before he killed the witch, Yakov asked him to pull over.

“Why?”

“This is the place I stayed,” Yakov waited for a few seconds as Steve pulled over. He would have jumped out of the car, but he was sure Steve wouldn’t like that and scold him for it later. He didn’t care to be lectured, so he would just seem to be ‘manageable’ in front of Steve and the others. Tony and Natalia were different, and FRIDAY was almost omniscient. Yakov pushed the door open and started to walk up to the building. Steve scrambled behind him in a hurry. Steve finally caught up with him as he took the worn stairs up to the top level, and reached out to hold his hand. Yakov, as he often did when Steve touched him, repressed the desire to push him away and tried to act as calm as someone who didn’t hate Steve would act. When they reached the top level, he saw the mess of blankets, empty cans, and crushed water bottles, but he saw no life.

“Jacob?” he called, he pulled his hand away from Steve to look around. They could be nervous, if Jacob had left Samantha and Richard here alone, they would likely be hiding behind some of the pillars. He checked behind each pillar, and heard no breathing and no pitter patter of feet against the cement. When he inspected the cans, the contents were so old they weren’t just dry, the food was cracked. Dust settled over the stale mess and between the cracks. They hadn’t been here for quite some time. The knife he had given Jacob was underneath one of the moldy blankets and covered in dried blood. He dropped the blanket, knife in hand, and turned toward Steve.

“Buck? What’s wrong?”

“They haven’t been here for a while. Either they left,” he looked at the knife, “or they were picked up. It’s not uncommon for police to visit and evacuate the homeless from places like this, and since they were kids, they were likely taken by social services and forced into foster care,” he didn’t mention that Jacob, or one of his siblings, had gotten either a good stab in or a decent slash. He slid the knife up his sleeve. “I have a few places I need to look. You can come with me, but I would really appreciate it if you handled the police and company, I’m not good at, eh, talking with those types, and I need to make sure they’re safe.”

“They’re probably fine. Foster care has to be better than the streets, right?” Yakov frowned, and wanted to punch Steve. Foster care always had the possibility to be nice and welcoming, but it wasn’t always fine and dandy, there was a need for foster families, and he doubted they were all as rigorously screened as they were supposed to be.

They had picked up most of the kids from the Red Room from orphanages. They weren’t safe there, they weren’t safe here either, but… he wasn’t an expert on children, probably the furthest thing from it, but he knew how to survive, and these kids hadn’t been in a family setting for years. You can’t just throw people into a household and expect them to know how to adapt, these kids, the people here, they were good at surviving without the typical resources, and… if he had not left them, they would still be here, they wouldn’t be wherever they are now. He fucked up, again.

He tried to think they were fine. They were somewhere nice, they had actual beds, and they had regular meals, and they had more than one outfit. They could bathe regularly, they could have a family, they could be having a great time… but none of that made much sense. It’s commonly known that foster care is terrible in the States, right? That’s how it was. He didn’t have any statistics, but he was sure they weren’t in the kids’ favour.

He started to walk down the steps, and when he heard Steve behind him, he moved a bit faster until he just jumped off the steps up the side and onto the street below. He looked back at where Steve stared at him. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, and dialed a number he wasn’t sure he would get an answer from. He started to run when Steve got on the ground. Phone pressed to his ear and running around buildings and dodging behind things before taking off again. He was going in the direction of the compound, of course, but he a) didn’t want to be poked by Steve because he would lash out, and b) needed to do a few things that he was sure Steve wouldn’t appreciate, including picking up some of his stashes of weapons. He only had two duffel bags hidden in New York, so it wouldn’t take too long to pick them up. He skidded to a stop just as the phone was answered after the third call.

“Natasha’s phone,” but the voice wasn’t Natalia’s at all. It was a woman, though.

“Hello,” he kept his words steady and started to walk. Steve was long behind him. “Is Natalia there? I really need to speak with her.”

“Who is this?” He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to deal with this woman. He needed her , not this stranger. He didn’t want to yell, but he didn’t know how else to get the point across. He thought for a moment. He could hear the subtle breathing of this woman, and he could tell just when she became afraid.

“This is Yakov, I need Natalia. Is she currently available?”

“I don’t kn--”

“ Ya dolzhen pogovorit’ s Nataliei ” there was a noise like the phone exchanging hands quickly before it stopped, and there was a sharp inhale.

“When someone doesn’t answer, that typically means they are busy. What do you need?” That was Natalia, a very unhappy Natalia.

“The kids are missing,” he realized after he said it, that it sounded terrible.

“What kids?” It was accusatory, and he didn’t like it much, but it was to be expected. He didn’t exactly have the best track records with people, and even less so with children.

“The street kids from when I was hiding. They’re gone, and been gone a while if what I saw was anything to go by. Ya podvel … snova ,” she sighed heavily over the phone, and he knew that she was going to help him. She cared more than she wanted others to know. She had always cared too much, even when she wasn’t allowed to express it.  

“What were their names, and where were they at?”

“Jacob, Samantha, and Richard. They’re siblings. I don’t know their last name, I didn’t really ask. They lived in Queens,” he thought about the address of the warehouse, but it wasn’t important to remember, it was probably better to not remember the actual address since he had known where it was.

“I’ll look into it. I can give you details tomorrow,” another sigh, but this was not as annoyed, it was amused. “Steve’s calling again, I must be pretty popular today. Are you heading back to the compound, or should I tell him to give you a couple of days?”

“I’ll be back after I check on them,” he looked around. He was getting closer to the first bag. He turned to the left and continued walking. “You can tell him whatever you want, I don’t care.”

“We will be expecting you and Tony tomorrow, then. I’ll send you anything I find as soon as possible then. I won’t wait, I don’t like being hassled and Steve doesn’t know when to stop.”

“I’m aware,” he held the phone with his flesh hand and punched his metal arm through a brick fence. He pulled the bag from between the side he was on and the other side. He slung it over his shoulder. “You don’t owe me anything, and… spasibo ,” it was silent for a second. He didn’t know what else to say, and neither did she and after a brief silence she huffs and the line disconnects. He tucks it in his pocket and moves into an alleyway to inspect his current arsenal.

A rifle, HK416 specifically, rounds for the rifle, a variety of knives (mostly for throwing) and two pistols, a G17 and a G22, because G17 is what HYDRA tended to carry and G22 because he had taken it off a corpse and knew it could be used. He only had the remaining twelve .40 caliber bullets in the G22, but he had plenty of ammo for the G17. His rifle had all 30 rounds, and he was proud that he had not yet needed to bring that out to kill anyone, because he didn’t even need it much anymore. He still liked it, it looked and felt nice.

He hadn’t expected to actually go out to hunt, he thought he would be collecting a a few of the bags, preferably only the one here in Queens, and another over in Brooklyn (he only had one there, and it was mostly because he was there and needed to store them out of sight. He figured they were safe). He knew he could have gotten Steve to take him to Brooklyn for some ‘memory recovery’ but that didn’t seem likely now that he had kids to find, and people to threaten. He was pretty dressed down, no tactical gear in sight (or in his ‘room’ because it wasn’t a ‘good reminder of his past’ according to Steve), and didn’t have any secure places to actually hold anything, but the knives were slid into their places in a bracelet-like wrap that he could secure to his wrists, and his shirt sleeves covered those up. The guns could be hidden, but the rifle was inconspicuous. He could just take the bag with him, and hopefully the fact he was wearing a shirt with a little peach embroidered on the chest, actual jeans, and had his hair up would make him seem like a docile person. He didn’t have his mask, he didn’t have anything that could be useful to keeping his face out of sight, and HYDRA already knew him. Although he only planned to kill people if they didn’t give him what he wanted, Hydra agents were top priority -- killed on sight. But as far as  last resorts went, he couldn’t let anyone who could identify them go.

It took thirty minutes after he secured the weapons (all but his rifle) on his person, when Natalia sent him a message.

Three kids, Jacob, Samantha, and Richard, were picked up by the police three weeks ago. Samantha and Richard went to child services, Jacob went to a detention center for assaulting a police officer. He’s at Sanctuary Holding Center. The two kids went to Danbury CT.

Well, Sanctuary Holding Center wasn’t too far away, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had plenty of practice breaking into ‘secure’ facilities.

***

The Holding Center Jacob was in was ‘nice’ ...when it came to a prison. Yakov didn’t have the luxury of human decency, though, so he didn’t have a very accurate comparison. It seemed nice to him. He contemplated walking in, but that brought up the problem with his face again. He walked around the building, trying to play it off as casual as possible, but he was a strange man with a duffle bag examining a correctional facility. That could never be casual.

Keep his head down, face obscured. He would also try to destroy any recording of him as best he could. He had been a ghost for fifty years, a little out of practice, but not that much.

So, he found a weak point, and he broke in through there. Having a high pain tolerance was great when you needed to jump a barbed wire topped fence. When he dropped off, officers were already running. He looked down, trying to keep his identity secret, hoping it would work, because he didn’t want to use lethal force, not yet.

Yakov managed to knock down two officers, when the taser hit his side. He froze for a moment before  ripping the wire out and kicking that officer down. Chest, meet foot. More officers came spilling in, and he brought down them all. From the few that looked at his face, though, he got a few looks of surprise, as if they knew him, and a few cries in pain when he hit them hard for that look. He heard a whispered ‘Bucky’ and that made him pull out a gun and shoot the man in the chest.

The man cried out, as people tend to when shot, and then died. He was a good shot, and he knew where to hit to keep them alive, and where to hit to kill them. Yakov stripped the corpse of his uniform shirt, and ripped it enough to cover the lower half of his face. The others that had seen him, he shot them too, aiming for the vital areas. If they didn’t die now, they would have to later by his hand.

The brave few that tried to actually shoot him were quickly exterminated. He didn’t come here to cause suffering, he came to fix a mistake. He should have left before he became attached. He should have taken them with him... or something. He shouldn’t have given Jacob a knife, but at the time it seemed a good thing to do. Teach them to survive, teach them to fight, make them better, build them into stronger people -- that was what he was doing. Obviously Jacob was young, didn’t have much training, he was unable to break out of such a facility himself, but Yakov was good at these sorts of things.

He had made sure all twelve officers were taken care of, then he shot the speakers and lights around the yard before pushing his way through a set of  locked, heavy metal doors.

It took five punches with his metal arm to bring it down. Thankfully said metal arm (both of his arms, actually), were covered with long sleeves and gloves (a precaution he wouldn’t dare thank Steve for suggesting. Steve hadn’t wanted to see the metal arm, he knew, but it worked in his favour in the end).

He walked into the hallway. There were officers, nurses, technicians, others, all came from their stations to try and do something . He didn’t know what, but he saw them and knew that they would have to be silenced, if only just for now. The Soldier had killed quite a few officers already, and had already made more of a mess than was necessary.

He moved through them with deadly grace and efficient strikes, knocking the majority down, but these police officers decided to shoot him with actual guns this time with real bullets. He could raise his arm to deflect or dodge them. Either way, he was mostly covered. Also bullet wounds were nothing.

He prefered those to electricity, actually. Bullets hurt, sure, but he had few, if any, memories of excruciating pain caused by a bullet. Electricity however. Electricity is what terminated the before and what was used to… he had some terrible memories  involving muscle-freezing floods of electricity in The Chair. He had only really endured that from 1991 until his escape, but that was more than enough time to form a connection between electricity and pain.

He picked a woman up by the pink blouse she wore. She wasn’t an officer, obviously, but who was she? He knew little about the justice system, just what the common person did, if not a little less. He also knew that he was supposed to avoid them, but he didn’t follow their orders anymore.

“Where are the records?”

“Behind the desk, behind the glass,” she pointed to a reception desk. He dropped her and walked to the ‘glass’ covered receptionist area. There was a metal door, obviously locked. He twisted the handle and just as the lock snapped he was shot in the leg. He didn’t fall. He turned to see who exactly was brave enough to shoot him.

The woman in the pink blouse held a gun with a trembling hand. Most people, normal ones, including criminals, would fall when shot in the leg. It was painful, and even the toughest of criminals couldn’t often handle that. He wasn’t a criminal, though, at least not a typical one with a typical human physiology.

Yakov shot the woman’s hand, made her drop the gun. He shot her in the neck and she fell back, choking on blood. He picked up the gun she dropped and tucked it away, it would be useful later. He sat for a second simply to dig the bullet out with a throwing knife. The pain was tremendous, causing him to swallow down several howls of near agony, but the wound was already closing. He picked up the bullet and put it in his pocket. His blood wouldn’t be in any system, and if it was, nobody would believe a dead man, Bucky Barnes, a war hero, to be responsible.

He would just have to hide any media covering from Steve and the others, lest they find out. Speaking of the Avengers, he really hoped they did not decide to ‘help save the day’ because he didn’t want to fight Natalia, who would likely be brought along. He wouldn’t hesitate with the others, except maybe Sam. He didn’t like him, but he didn’t hate him either. It was mutual distaste.

He got into the little office and went to the written record book, skipping the computer entirely. He wouldn’t know how to use it.

Jacob Price - Room 231

There was other information that only made it clearer that this Jacob was the one he was looking for. Thirteen years old, in trouble for assault, things like that. He went to find that room number and get him out. If the authorities were smart, they would realize that whoever got Jacob would likely go to where his siblings are, so when the ‘parents’ would take the kids somewhere ‘safe’ they would be in the open... and he doubted they would be any challenge for him.

The doors were all locked. They weren’t metal bars like he had thought, but the doors here were actual doors, just made of metal with extensive locks and other security measures. He shot the lock, but it just dented the metal. Apparently composed of some alloy that was a bit stronger than usual. He reached out and crushed the lock with his hand and then heard the beeps of the other locks doing something , he didn’t know or care about. These were kids, they weren’t going to hurt him if they got out. He could escape easier, because it would take more time for them to find out who was taken.

He opened the door and was greeted by four boys. Two bunk beds on either side of the sterile white room. He hated it. Three boys were up, ready to do whatever it was they thought they could do to him, and the fourth was facing away from him on the bottom bunk of a bed. He walked over and reached out to touch the kid’s shoulder. When he got close enough, Jacob grabbed his wrist and twisted it. It would have broken had he been a guard or someone else.

“Jacob? It’s me,” he pulled his mask down, “Come on, we’re leaving.”

“You? You left us, abandoned us,” he pulled up his mask a second later.

Jacob didn’t stop following him, and as the kids pushed their doors open, they started to come out of the rooms. He grabbed Jacob’s wrist to keep him with him in the stampede that was coming. Yakov kept himself in front of Jacob, who hadn’t brought up the fact he hadn’t replied to anything he had asked (many rapid questions), shielding him as he fought off the police that arrived and were waiting for them outside. He saw, off in the distance, the Quinjet that belonged to the Avengers. He didn’t see Iron Man anywhere, which was good. He took a few more bullets as he ran , eventually picking Jacob up (the boy was so light, as if he weighed nothing) and taking him away from the detention center.

***

He set Jacob down in an alleyway, a solid distance away from the scene, too far away for anyone to have gotten to on foot with three bullet wounds and holding a thirteen year old boy. At least, too far for a normal human. Jacob reached up and punched him. Yakov hardly flinched, and when Jacob did it again, he didn’t react either.

“What the fuck, man? I mean, you just left us. I know you said you may not be back, but you can’t just… it sucked, and you weren’t there, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know that guy was a fuckin’ cop. He grabbed my shoulder on the street, too tight for a friendly grip, ya know, and I stabbed the bitch… where’s Sammy? Richie? Do you know where they are?”

“I was… with the Avengers.”

“What was that? You’re mumblin’, and that shitty mask ain’t helpin’ any.”

Yakov pulled the mask off and tucked the shredded shirt-turned-mask into his pocket. “I was with the Avengers. I went to… I left to kill one of them. I succeeded, but they didn’t like that. It wasn’t terrible, I enjoyed it actually, but I… They wouldn’t let me go, so when I finally convinced one of them, Captain America, to let me out, he drove me to the warehouse and you were gone. I may have reacted… badly,” Yakov pulled the blood rusted knife he found at the warehouse out of the duffel bag that he had slung over his shoulder when he started running and handed it to Jacob. “I ran off. Apparently they’ve been looking for me, but I couldn’t just let you rot. I have a friend, she’s… she was like you, sort of. She’s going to give me the location of your brother and sister. All I know is that they are in Connecticut. I’m heading there next, you can come with me, or you can find a place to lay low until I find them.”

“Fuck that. I’m going with you.”

“Well then, you are going to stay behind me. I may not look it, but I’m pretty old, and I’m pretty good at this sort of thing,” Yakov pulled out his phone, and Jacob opened his mouth to question something, but he turned to the side to check his messages, the three he got while he was in the detention center. It was getting dark now. He hadn’t realized how late it was, or how long it had taken. Perhaps he was getting a bit rusty.

They live with Thomas and Bryn Clark , followed by, you’re on the news, Soldier . There was a picture of his back, but it was definitely his hair. Even the red hair tie was noticeable. The last text was the address of the Clarks.

“What did you want to say?”

“Aren’t you gonna be in trouble with the Avengers? Ya know, for gettin’ me out.”

“Probably. It’s worth it. You’re worth it. Let’s go get your siblings,” as the Soldier, he typically didn’t get ‘feelings’ but he was definitely getting a gross feeling now, as Yakov. Something that was screaming ‘wrong-wrong-wrong’ in his head. He didn’t know why. Nothing he had done had ever bothered him before, and he certainly didn’t think it was ‘wrong.’ He knew that he was supposed to think it was wrong, but he was supposed to do lots of things he didn’t.

Yakov walked out of the alley, and Jacob followed behind him. He picked a car, a plain black Dodge of some model he didn’t know. He knew it was a Dodge, because ‘Dodge’ was on the back. He knew how to rig this to turn on though (‘hot wire’ the proper term), but it meant the same thing.

He broke the driver window and unlocked the door before silencing the alarm. He unlocked the other door and opened it, welcoming Jacob in. Yakov the made quick work of the wires, touching then twisting the necessary ones together. There was a zap, a little twitch, but it wasn’t anything like what he had once been accustomed to. He shut the door when he sat down, turned the headlights on, as anyone not running from the cops would do, and started to drive. He didn’t exactly have a license, and he was better at driving on the other side of the road, but he had adapted.

They drove for an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, before they pulled up to the address. Yakov circled around and parked the car away, but only about a ten-minute walk away. He pulled his rifle out of the duffle bag and tied his makeshift mask on.

Jacob stayed behind him, like he was told to do, and when Yakov entered through a side window, he heard something that he didn’t like. It was yelling, screaming, like a fight was going on. He did something he never thought he would do, he rushed down to see what the hell was happening. He shouldn’t have done that, and he realized this too late. He was held at gunpoint, one to his chest and one right between his eyes. He turned slightly and saw that even Jacob knew this house. He picked a handgun up from behind the TV and pointed it at his back.

“HYDRA?”

“They said they would protect us. You weren’t there, and they helped us. They set everything up, I just had to follow orders, and we were set for life.”

“They lied to you,” Yakov wanted to cry and to tell him that he had chosen wrong. He wanted to bash his head against a wall for falling into a trap, and he wanted to never deal with people again. This was humanity, these people were monsters. HYDRA was like him: monstrous and unrepentant. At least Yakov could play house, HYDRA couldn’t, but he had been so entranced in saving… but they knew that. They knew what he would do. Considering they had kept him for over forty-years, more if the time with ‘Bucky’ was counted, they probably knew him very well.

“You’ve been a very naughty Asset,” it was the man, Thomas Clark, but that couldn’t be his real name. The wife, Bryn Clark, wasn’t using her real name either. This house, though, belonged to real people. They were probably dead now. More lives ruined by HYDRA.

The gun that Jacob held was pressed against his spine, just below his shoulder blades. It would probably kill him if he was shot, he would definitely die if the ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ shot him in the heart or head. He felt Jacob’s hand snake into his back pocket and pull his phone out. He threw it to the ground before the two adults. The man crushed it under his boot.

“Do we need to use the words, or will you come with us?” Yakov didn’t want to do either of those things. Yakov was a person now, people didn’t have code words, they just were. Machines had passwords, they had words, weapons. He wasn’t a weapon anymore, but hadn’t he just used himself as a weapon? He did it to save Jacob, but a weapon is a weapon, right?

“ Zhelanie ,” the woman started. Yakov contemplated just letting them kill him. He would die, but he would die free, he would die as Yakov, not the Asset. He only had a second to think.

“ Rzhavyy ,” then the pain in his head started, and it was sharp. It wouldn’t let him think. He rushed forward and got shot in the shoulder, but he didn’t stop. He punched the man and the woman shot at him again, but he raised  his metal arm, and the bullet ricocheted into a wall. The pain was intense, he wasn’t sure how he was functioning at the moment. In hindsight, it was likely adrenaline from the fight or flight response seen in most humans. He hadn’t experienced that before, at least not to this extent. Then Jacob shot him. He had a total of six bullet wounds in him now, and he still had the bullets in his body. The wounds have closed on the first three already, and he would have to dig them out, if he survived this.

The man had hit his head very hard upon impact with the coffee table when Yakov punched him, and the woman was screaming as he grabbed her jaw and pulled until it started to snap, her skin started ripping at the corners of her mouth. He was shot again, and he turned to see Jacob. Samantha and Richard were on his side, but they were hiding behind the wall, just barely peeking through.

He wasn’t capable of a coherent statement, in either English or Russian, but he could raise his gun and point it at Jacob. With the man and woman both unable to stop him, it was just them.

“T-they’ll k-k-kill ya,” Jacob’s hand wasn’t so steady now that he wasn’t pressing the barrel into someone’s back. Now that Yakov, the Winter Soldier, was staring at him with a gun aimed at him. Yakov waited for a moment. He turned to kill the man and woman. A single shot to each of their heads left them limp and lifeless. A part of him wanted Jacob to run, to take his siblings and leave. Leave HYDRA behind, leave everything behind, because HYDRA wasn’t something that helped, they were a disease. A parasite, but Jacob hadn’t known. He had known Yakov, though, and he still shot him in the back.

It took a few minutes for Yakov to regain his ability to form sentences, or just words, and he had given Jacob more than enough time to leave.

“They’re dead,” Yakov motioned to the corpses behind him, and pulled the gun from the woman in the pink blouse out. He aimed it at Richard. “Do you want them to die, too? Do you want them to suffer for your idiocy? HYDRA? I thought you were smarter than that. They didn’t want to help you. You are nothing . You’re a stupid little street rat. A very convenient idiot, a tool. They wanted me , didn’t they? Did they find you while trying to find me? Did they offer you help in exchange for me?” Jacob didn’t have to reply, “They did, didn’t they? Do you still think they wanted to help you? Did they tell you who I was? What they used me for?”

“T-the a-a-assassin?”

“Yes. Do you know which one?” The calmness in his voice made even himself nervous, he was sure it was absolutely terrifying for Jacob.

“No.”

“Well, that won’t matter, because in the end, you’re just another victim of the Winter Soldier,” he shot Richard, and he died quickly, “ and so are they .” He shot Jacob in the shoulder, and as he walked by him to kill Samantha, he dragged Jacob by the back of the shirt. This was wrong. He knew this was cruel. He… he knew he was not a good person, and that this evil thing he’s doing is not something that he could blame on HYDRA, on trying to get rid of HYDRA, he was doing this because he wanted to. Because he was so angry and hurt. It wasn’t fair. He should have let Jacob go, he should have walked out, and he knew that. Of course he knew that. Knowing his actions were not those of a ‘good’ person didn’t stop him from dragging Jacob by the back of his shirt up the stairs and into the room he could hear Samantha sobbing in. He kicked the door in and threw Jacob into the room. He collapsed in a heap, and then tried to shift to ease his weight from his shoulder. The Winter Soldier kicked him back and put his weight on his wound.

“Samantha? Come out. You won’t like it if I have to find you.”

“Don’t!” Jacob’s protest fell on deaf ears as Samantha walked out of the closed shutters of the closet.

“ Civilians, children, innocents , do you remember that? I told you a few minutes ago. Do you know which one she is?”

“N-no.”

“She’s an innocent,” he shoots her and she hits the ground as a corpse. “Do you know which one you are?”

“No…” he is crying, and Yakov would have cared in almost any other situation. The Avengers had made him far too soft, he should leave, he shouldn’t go back. He promised FRIDAY, he hadn’t been lying, he… he had felt it, those words, and he was so sincere it hurt to think he would be hurting her, because she was such a sweetheart.

“You’re HYDRA…” he shot Jacob in the chest. The kid struggled to breath, blood dripped from his lips as he struggled, and then he went lax. He was dead. He was in a house full of corpses. It was too reminiscent of the time he was still controlled. He couldn’t fall back on ‘HYDRA made me do it’ because this was all him. He wasn’t just Yakov, he was the Winter Soldier, and he always would be. He would never be the Asset, though, never again, and he would fight and die before he let his new autonomy be taken from him.

He left the house, bullet wounds closing painfully around bullets still embedded in his body. This may have been a bit of HYDRA’s fault. They killed the real family of that home, they ruined another family… but so did he.

Chapter Text

Tony pulled up to the compound in a shiny orange car with blue stripes. Yakov felt odd from where he observed. He was on top of the equipment shed. He had only alerted FRIDAY to being there. She had been so relieved, or at least she sounded like it. Her vocal inflection was progressing amazingly.

He saw Tony drive the car into the resident parking garage. He lay back on the flat roof. He realized he was a monster. He had said it, he had referred to himself as the devil, but he didn’t understand the full depth of it until yesterday when he slaughtered dozens of guards and professionals at the Sanctuary Holding Center and then murdered three children. It hadn’t been quick, either, like he had done for the girls in the Red Room. No, that was too easy. Richard and Samantha got mercy, it was mostly quick. Jacob watched both of his siblings die before he fell cold. All of it on Yakov’s hands. No HYDRA handler to be found. It wasn’t the Asset’s hand, it wasn’t HYDRA’s hand, it was his.

It had been bothering him. For weeks he had seen Tony Stark, and every day he interacted with him, he wasn’t brave enough to tell Tony not what he had done what he had done yesterday, but to his parents. Yakov realized that Tony had a poor relationship with his mother and father, but parents are parents. There will always be a part of someone attached to their parents. Death was a difficult topic, and most people found it hard to talk about or comprehend. Yakov had no parents, and death had been one of the few constants in his life since his creation.

He hadn’t realized that the way HYDRA had controlled him, was with a piece of him. A vulnerability in his identity, and they abused that too. He had always been too out of it to notice, but he was crystal clear now. So clear that he didn’t want to look in the mirror, but the worst part of it was that he still sort of liked it. Not just killing people, he wasn’t a psychopath (right?), but the fact he was so able to do it. He was perfect for destruction. He was far from as strong or as skilled as the other five ‘Winter Soldiers’ had been, but he had something they never would.

He did not speak of being unfrozen whereas they would die in their cryosleep. He was talking about the fact that they may have, at one point in the early 90’s, been the best at what they did, but he had grown better while they slept. He had to pick up their slack. It took five of them to take down an entire government, to wipe cities and countries off the map, but it only took one of him. He was a weapon of mass destruction whether he liked it or not... and he sort of liked it.

“Snowflake?” FRIDAY had yet to mention that he had been gone the same time as dozens of people were slaughtered, or that he had showed up to the compound in the early morning darkness with bloody hands and trying to scramble an explanation for her. She was sweet like that. She gave him a moment, but she knew she could always catch his attention. “Boss is asking to see you. What should I say? I’ve never lied to boss before, and I don’t want to now, but he’d understand, right?”

“Tell him where I am, he’d find me anyway… can we keep this morning a secret for now? You can tell him if he asks, I don’t want to get between you and Tony, but could you just not bring it up?” There was a strong silence. Unlike the comfortable silence that they usually shared, it was heavy and stagnant. Stale.

“He’s on his way out to see you.”

He sat up and stood up before standing close to the edge of the roof’s edge. Tony came out and waved at him.

“What are you doing up there? Come down here, I missed you. I also got you something,” Yakov jumped from the roof and rolled as he hit the ground before standing up. “Show off,” was all Tony had to say about it, and Yakov liked that. Steve would have lectured him, Clint would have made a comment about shooting him down, and Sam would have huffed and walked away. Natalia would have dared him to jump from something higher, or offered to push him off next time to test his reflexes, but he wasn’t always sure when it came to her. She was spontaneous sometimes. Tony, though, was always different. It was what made him so charming, besides his natural charm, which was a major factor.

“How was your trip?”

“Boring, mostly. Look, I got you something, but you gotta follow me. It’s in the ‘shop and if Steve knew I gave this to you, he’d have a panic attack and then lecture me for a week,” Tony reached out to take his hand and then started to lead him through the compound to his wing. He talked the entire time. Sometimes about the trip, ‘they’re boring and dumb, I have enough of that around here, I don’t need to travel seven hours away by plane to see it,’ or about how Pepper had amused him, ‘she shot that shit down. You know, those guys tend to want to talk to me, but I just direct them to Pep, she’s technically the CEO anyway, I’m just head of R&D,’ or how he was greeted by the others, ‘Clint groaned and asked if it had really been three days because it was so nice while I was away. I think he was joking, but that could just be hope that they don’t hate me, haha,’ and those reactions from the others boiled his blood, but he just tried to keep his smile happy and not cruel as he followed Tony.

Tony stopped right outside of the glass door to his workshop and turned to face Yakov. He held a hand to his chest to stop him from walking.

“Alright. This is my sanctuary, and this is a serious trust exercise, alright? Also, don’t drink anything DUM-E hands you without checking it for toxic ingredients or things that would, uh, hurt. Okay,” he typed a code into the keypad beside the door and twisted the handle and opened it. “Welcome to my man-made nirvana,” Tony walked through the room to a large desk. “I didn’t make this. I don’t make weapons anymore, well, unless they’re for Avengers, but I found it and I thought of you.”

Tony pulled a bundled up shirt with a very clear blue and white snowflake on it, much like his shirt with the peach. He gently accepted the gift, but it wasn’t just a shirt. There was something inside the shirt. That seemed to be what Tony really wanted him to see. Wrapped inside the shirt was an honest-to-god sword.

“You got me a sword?”

“No, I got you a katana, and only because I want to see you cut a baseball in half. If Beatrix Kiddo can do it, I will bet Natasha five hundred dollars you could do it, too. Don’t let me down big-guy. Also, look at the kashira, I mean the bottom thingy, it has a star! Like your arm! I’m such a genius! A brilliant, brilliant genius,” Tony paused, “but seriously, can you cut a baseball in half?” Yakov stopped examining it. He didn’t understand what Tony was referencing or who ‘Beatrix Kiddo’ was, but he was now curious if he could cut a baseball in half. He knew nothing about a Japanese sword, or any sword. He could wield one, obviously, but not as well as he could knives or guns. He could also, technically, use a bow and arrows, but he didn’t because it was inefficient. Swords looked attractive, but looks were superfluous. He cared mostly about efficiency, but he wouldn’t turn down a chance to win a bet between two of his three favourite people.

“You have a baseball to test with?”

“Oh, I’ll be right back,” Tony jumped up from his chair with so much force that his chair spun after he left it. There was some clatter from behind a tall structure and then a beep followed by a ‘ugh, DUM-E’ before another rustle and then Tony walked back with a tube of three tennis balls. “I don’t have baseballs, but we can practice with these. I doubt you’d let anything hit your face, but if I throw these, then they won’t hurt as bad, maybe. I’ve never been hit with a tennis ball, at least not in the face.”

Tony walked about seven feet away from him. He pulled the sword from the neat case that held it. He didn’t know what that was called, but it slid away so smoothly that he was impressed. He looked at Tony and nodded. Tony nodded back and then there was a tennis ball flying at him. He cut it before it hit him, but it wasn’t in half. It was a crooked cut severing one-fourth of the tennis ball from the rest. Just a sliver.

“Again?” Yakov nodded and another ball flew towards him.

This went on for three hours, but neither he or Tony realized it had been that long until DUM-E let out a low whine, holding his one worn-down and beat-up tennis ball partially soaked in motor oil. Tony had gone through twelve tubes of tennis balls holding five balls each. Tennis balls in all varieties of sliced-up were around Yakov. They had managed to get a decent eighty-percent chance of splitting the ball near perfectly in half. Tony looked a little uncomfortable walking closer to him, while he held a deadly weapon, but he was clearly trying to remain calm since only his subtle movements were telling, to anyone untrained he would likely appear casual.

“Alright, we’ve gotta wait until tonight when we can corner Nat in the training room to get a deal and show off. This is gonna be great. You can have the money, too, if we win, which we will. So, how was your time with Steve? I texted you when I arrived at the airport, but I never got anything back, so I was worried, but I guess you’re fine…” there was sadness, rejection perhaps, in Tony’s tone. Yakov wanted to tell Tony that he would never just leave him, that he couldn’t leave him now, but he had left Jacob, he had left Steve, he had left FRIDAY. Of course he came back, but small abandonments like that hurt too. Jacob was hurt enough to go to HYDRA, and while he doubted Tony would ever go to a terrorist organization, what if he messed this up too. He had abandoned Natalia for over fifteen years, and maybe it was different from her, they hadn’t been ‘friends,’ but it was similar to Jacob, right?

This, emotions and humanity, was difficult, but he didn’t like this being difficult like he would a difficult challenge. It was different. Challenges were interesting, emotions were painful.

He couldn’t tell Tony what had happened either, could he? He could lie, right? He had lied to Tony for so long despite all the wonderful and kind things Tony had done for him. He knew now, without a doubt, he was a monster, so he shouldn’t care, but he did, and that contradicted everything about being the monster he felt like he was, that he had proven to himself the day before. Tony reached out for his metal arm, the one not holding the sword, and brushed his thumb over the pace between his thumb and forefinger. It was comforting, and it hurt because he didn’t deserve that comfort. Especially not from Tony.

“Do you remember the night after I killed Wanda? When you told me about your family, when you helped me find a name?”

“Yeah?”

“I tried to tell you something then, but I couldn’t. I don’t want to tell you now, but it’s something you should know. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, but I… I really enjoy your company and I know that this would make you dislike me, and I’ve abused your kindness, and I’ll leave if you want, even a monster like me knows when to leave--”

“Hey, hey, you’re not a monster. Come on,” Tony eyed the sword in his hand warily before gently tugging his arm towards the beat up couch covered in tattered blankets and a few worn pillows that looked so much softer than anything new could ever be. “Maybe you should put the sword down?” Yakov set the sword on a desk as they walked towards the couch. Tony sat down first, folding a single leg under him and then pulling Yakov’s arm a bit to get him to sit. Yakov sat down, but he knew that he would have to leave after this, but it would be better knowing that Tony knew, than to keep using him. Because that is what he was doing, using Tony, and it left a bad taste in his mouth, a taste he never got when he murdered people. Tony would change, he knew it, he would know that he was terrible, that he was cruel, and yes, he could say HYDRA made him, and he had no reason to kill Howard and Maria Stark besides that HYDRA ordered him to, but he couldn’t say he would refrain from hurting people.

“After I was recalled form the Red Room, in 1991, I was sent to an American base… I did something, a few things, that will hurt you and I’ve been selfish because I don’t want to… I don’t want to lose you like I’ve lost almost everyone else,” quite a few by his own hand, but the rest had seen him for what he was and left. HYDRA wanted him for his skills, and he wanted freedom, but nobody could appreciate him. HYDRA treated the Asset badly, and he hated that his freewill was ripped away from him, but they never said he was wrong. The Red Room praised his abilities, but they were gone now. Natalia was similar, but he knew she was too good to be like him, and he knew nobody else that was twisted in the same way he was. Who else could say they were created out of violence and had grown to enjoy the violence? Nothing about his life was ‘right,’ but he, for months after the Battle at the Triskelion had tried. It’s like a cat trying to be a dog. It doesn’t last because cats will never be dogs.

Tony looked hesitant, and Yakov was sure he had already connected the pieces. “What did you do?”

“I was sent on a mission. It was successful. Steal the serum, and execute all witnesses. December sixteenth--”

“No. Nonononono. I know you didn’t do that, Peggy told me that they died in a car crash. She would have known if they were murdered. They died in a crash, Howard a drunk like usual and they-- Peggy wouldn’t lie to me, not about that.”

“I was sent after the second batch of super serum soldier in the trunk of Howard Stark’s car. I killed them, both of them,” and Tony was silent for a long time, but he, as every moment passed, drew closer into himself and away from Yakov. Finally Tony was bent into a tight ball, one that seemed childish and impossible, but there Tony was.

“Leave me alone,” ten minutes ago Tony was encouraging him to slice a tennis ball in half with laughter and happiness in his voice, and now he sounded broken and in pain.

Yakov obliged. He left the sword and left the workshop. He wanted to look at things, or he would have had he not felt so terrible, but he didn’t. He walked a clear path and straight out of the doors. He walked up the stairs and out of Tony’s wing. He pushed past Steve when Steve tried to corner him and only held back punching Clint in the face for his comment about Tony’s standoffish behaviour and how it affected the team because Natalia placed a hand on his tense shoulder and told Barton to shut up. She guided him to the room he shared with Steve. They both walked in and she locked the door behind her. Yakov found his way to the bed Tony had provided him. He sat on the edge of it, feeling unworthy of it but now he couldn’t ignore it and hope for the best. She sat at the head of the bed, not touching him but close enough to be there.

“What happened?”

“I told Tony… the truth, I’m not sure if it would be alright if I continued to call him Tony, I certainly don’t deserve that comradery, the familiarity.”

“There was quite a scene at the Sanctuary Holding Center, the place I told you Jacob was at, yesterday. This morning they found the Clarks dead, and three children. One of them was Jacob from the Holding Center. What happened there?”

“I killed them. I killed them all,” he sighed and rested his head in his hands, “and I feel so terrible, because it didn’t feel terrible at all. Maybe I shouldn’t be a person, maybe that’s out of my reach. You were forced to be what you were, but I… I was created specifically for it, they didn’t know that when they made me that they would make something so much more dangerous, something that they would one day lose the ability to handle.”

There was a long silence, but then Natalia shifted on the bed. Still not touching him or too close, but she stretched out her legs. Despite her carefree appearance and actions, he could see the stiffness in her shoulders and tightness hinging her jaw closed. Her eyes though. When he turned to look at her, to gauge her for a reaction, there was nothing but sad understanding.

“You forget that I, too, was created for this. Perhaps not in the way you were, but I was born and bred into that program. Not specifically, but I was just a child when they picked me up. Too young to know anything but that life. You asked me how I became a person when you arrived, and I told you it took time. The truth is, people are always people, but sometimes a few monsters slip through the cracks, and the best we can do, the only way to satiate the need for violence and to remain a ‘good’ person is to kill in the name of justice. The Avengers, after all, kill people, but because we call it justice, it is not evil. War is not evil and people kill others. Veterans are praised, forgotten nowadays, but they are still considered heroes for killing people in the name of their country. We, at one point, did the same.”

“But we don’t anymore. I killed them because it suited my needs, it was to reach my goal. I, at first, didn’t want to hurt them, but once blood is spilt, it’s like… it’s difficult to stop. It’s so easy to me, to us. Even people with ‘training’ are easy targets to things like us,” Yakov watched as she moved. He would have thought she was about to leave him, but she sharply inhaled and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Do you hurt because you hurt others?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you feel guilt because you hurt others?”

“On the rare occasion. When it is in conflict with my current desires.”

“Well then, dearest Yakov, you are just as human as the rest of us,” he didn’t know why that comforted him, but it did. Humans like them had a different name, and most of them were pretty rude, “Now, we’re going to spar until you feel better, and then we’ll go to the shooting range until you are calm enough to take a shower. I know you’re in pain. I’ll fish the bullets out before we fight,” he smiled. She was so… she was wonderful. “Hey, I’m offering a wonderful deal. I don’t think anyone else would offer to dig bullets out of you, except Tony,” he frowned again, but she didn’t seem to notice, or she did and she didn’t care, “but he’d use it as an excuse to get closer to you. C’mon, let’s go before Steve adjusts to the shock you gave him and barges in to demand answers.”

***

An hour of Natalia digging out bullets, all six of them, with properly cleaned tools. Out of habit, she had picked a knife up first, but then grabbed something similar to an icepick, but it had a slight fanned out end with a subtle curve. She cut the areas open and shoved the heated tool into his body to dig out the bullets. He had stifled his screams, because by the second bullet being removed it felt so much worse than when he received them, with a belt that Natalia had forced into his hands just before she began. She cleaned each wound after she dug the bullet out and wrapped them despite knowing they would heal in an hour at most. She dug the bullet from his back, just under the left shoulder blade. It was potentially fatal to any non-serum enhanced human, and they would definitely be dead to have the wound untreated for over twelve hours, like he had. She disinfected that last sliced open area and bandaged it. She took the tools to clean them in the small shower area for after training. She dried them and set them down with her nice shoes so she could get into some sports shoes. She stripped the tight outfit, that Yakov could admit made her look ethereal and intimidating at the same time, and put on a loose shirt and some sweats. It was so much like when they were in the Red Room. He decided that is what she had been aiming for because the last time they sparred, she had been wearing four inch heels and a lace lined shirt, which couldn’t have been comfortable to fight in.

She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and walked to the middle of the blue mats laid over the cement floor. He stood across from her, only a metre between them. She smiled.

“You ready?”

“I’m always ready, Natalia,” and she lunged forward. They twisted and turned like they had used to. An hour into the fight, Yakov caught Natalia’s ankle and held it before telling her what would have been the better move. She just smiled and pulled her ankle from his, admittedly loose, grip. It was two hours later and Yakov dropped Natalia, but despite being tired to the point that even they were sweating and breathing harshly, she laughed as she twisted around to sweep his leg. He fell back.

“You’re getting old,” she told him as they both catch their breath on the mats.

“I think all the complacent and stagnant attitudes around this place weakened my skills. I’m out of practice… also, you always were the best,” she frowned and looked away. He frowned then, not understanding what he had said that made her unhappy.

“Yelena died three days ago. I went to the Barton house to sort things out. She was the third best, and she was dropped like a fly in a spider’s web. It was big news for the intelligence community. She still worked for Russia. She was, according to my sources, looking for you. HYDRA losing their best soldier seems to have finally gotten around. She was sent to recruit you, but someone got her first.”

“Who?”

“I did. She was in Queens, and when she visited too close to the compound we had a… scuffle . She is to me what I am to you. You don’t need to pretend. You’ve been what we have aspired to for decades, it’s not new that you’re better than me. I’ve dropped you once in a fair fight, and now did not count as a fair fight, this was child’s play. You remember how it was?”

Back then, they would fight for fifteen hours at least, nonstop drilling and training. The perfect formations, the building of endurance, agility, the ability to fight in shirts, dresses, lace, heels. He had never been restricted like the girls, but they had always proved to be better than he had ever expected. Natalia handled weapons as easily as him, and she knew how to work with a team. He didn’t know how to work with anyone other than himself or a single other assassin. That accomplice, at one time, had always been Natalia. Until he was recalled. When he had hurt someone he had never thought about until years after the assassination.

“I remember.”

They lay quietly beside each other for maybe a half hour, before Natalia went to grab some of the ‘nifty’ guns that Tony had supplied her with. Not all of his own design, but a few of them had been modified for her, and she let him know about how she and Tony hadn’t gotten along at all in the beginning. She had been assigned to write a psychological evaluation on him for SHIELD. She told him what she had said, and when he asked her why, she told him because that is what was expected from him, and what was expected of her to say. Apparently their relationship repaired itself after working together and living together for a while.

They tested over twenty different models, all of which Natalia told him about in great detail. Even he was impressed with her knowledge. So much so that he didn’t tell her that he already knew the base models, but appreciated what she told him what Tony had added. That man really was a genius.

Their time had been interrupted mid testing a new handgun that were designed for Natasha that shot the disks she had thrown on his arm a year prior to short it out. She called them ‘Widow Bites’ and then mentioned that she had a special bracelet that would shoot them, but this seemed more convenient because the wrists were hard to aim with, and she was better with a gun. She offered to shoot him and he laughed and playfully declined before they turned to where Steve had been making more than enough noise to draw their attention. Yakov had been ignoring him and he assumed Natalia had too until he no longer wanted to wait for them to give him their attention.

“He should not be in here.”

“He’s a big boy. He knows what he can and can’t handle,” Natalia said it perfectly, but Steve didn’t seem to believe her. She, the woman/girl who had known him longer than he’d known Steve was apparently less of an expert than the near-stranger who was an expert on the person from before , who he was obviously not.

“Can you give us a moment, Tasha?” She looked up at him and he nodded.

“ Byt’ vezhlivym s etim zasrantsem ne obeshayu ,” she shook her head and took the gun from Yakov’s hand before leaving the shooting range. Steve looked angrier than he did before he started talking.

“I won’t even ask what you said, but I’m sure it wasn’t polite.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t,” and just as Yakov stopped talking, Steve slammed his hand into the wall.

“Dammit, Bucky! You are not helping me at all. I’m trying to get everyone to be fine with you, but not only did you kill Wanda, you’ve been nothing but difficult and mean this entire time,” as he said that, he visible began to calm down until he let out a soft sigh, followed by softer words, “What happened to you? Why can’t you just work with me? I’m trying to help you.”

“You should have let me leave, but you didn’t. You’re holding onto a dead man, Steve. The Bucky you knew isn’t here anymore. Nothing can bring him back, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.”

“Then what? Am I just supposed to give up on you? Till the end of the line , remember? Of course you don’t remember, you just nod to placate me. I’m not a complete idiot. It’s obvious you don’t like it around here. What’s wrong?” Steve got closer, slowly. There was silence until Steve reached out and took Yakov’s hands in his own and pressed them to his chest. Yakov did what he wanted to every time Steve touched him before and pulled his hands back before taking a step back. That seemed to snap him out of whatever sentimentality he was feeling because he looked angry again, and his face started to grow redder and redder. “Just tell me what you problem is. You know I’d do anything for you. You may not remember, but I love you. You were all I had, and you were always there for me, so now I’ll be there for you. It’s not fair what happened to you, of course, but we can fix that. I can help you get help. You just need to… to communicate .”

“Communicate?” Yakov stepped forward, and despite being slightly shorter than Steve, he thought that he looked intimidating because Steve took a step back and looked at the ground. He wanted to ask: ‘Do you really want me to tell you what’s going on?’ and proceed to tell him everything in the most painful way possible, but instead he asked him, “You’re absolutely sure you want to hear this?”

“Of course I want to hear. I will listen to you always. You’re my best friend, and always will be.”

He wanted to tell Steve that Bucky Barnes died, and that he’s been dead for over forty years. He doesn’t say that, or anything like that, though. He is sure he will be forced to leave soon enough, and he wouldn’t use Steve to stay where Tony didn’t want him, but he could always use Steve for other things. To have someone so devoted to him could only be useful. Even if he wanted to bash that devoted someone in the face every time he opened his mouth.

“I just told Tony the truth, and I’m scared he won’t want me here anymore.” That’s the truth. Steve looked hurt, and there was a light click of a door opening, but that hardly registered over the uncomfortable emotions he felt. He was scared, but he was sad, and he was so guilty, but it wasn’t like how he thought guilt would feel, it was like this guilt was obligatory but not real, sort of forced, but not consciously. The more he thought about the guilt, the more conscious he became, because he was sure he had never been truly guilty, he had felt it because that’s what people were supposed to feel when they did bad things.

“I can talk to Tony. That was HYDRA, you didn’t know what you--”

“You knew?!” Yakov heard himself and heard Tony ask simultaneously from the doorway. He looked at Tony, and then turned away to look at Steve. The desire to hurt Steve permanently was so overwhelming sometimes, but it was so much more than just ‘desire’ at this point. It was making his fingertips tingle because he could just imagine how he could do it.

“I didn’t think Tony needed to know. He would have thrown you out, he’s unreasonable somet--”

“ Unreasonable ?” Yakov reached up and pulled Steve down by the collar. “I killed his parents , he should have known as soon as you did, and I should have told him as soon as I could,” Yakov picked Steve up only enough to throw him into the lockers against the back wall. There were seven large lockers all of different sizes along the wall and Steve hit one and dented it with his back. That was enough to hurt a normal human, and hurt them badly. Steve stood up and shook himself off instead.

“Tony did you tell--”

“Yakov?” Tony looked between Steve and Yakov. Steve looked pale for a second and then looked at Tony.

“‘Yakov’? You mean Bucky?”

“No. He means Yakov. That’s my name,” Yakov turned to look at Tony, but kept enough of an eye on Steve to fight in necessary. Steve had strength in his favour, Yakov had just about everything else. He was almost sure that he even had Tony if it was against Steve.

“Yeah, well, anyway. Nat told me you were here and that you were upset about earlier, and I, uh, well I’m obviously upset, but I mean, it could have been worse? That sounds bad, I sound like a bad person when I say that… but it’s true, so that’s why I said it. I tend to say lots of things that are true but sound bad, people don’t typically like it, but I felt that, uh, honesty was really the best way to approach this…”

“Tony, can I call you that still?”

“Of course.”

“I’m really sorry, I wanted to tell you, but I… I have know about you, or I’ve known of you since ‘92. I was given your file, and it was updated as soon as you did something new. I was told to avoid you, but you were… you so amazing that when I had the chance, I… I’m so sorry. I can blame that on HYDRA, but it was still my hands that did it, and I know you may not have been on the best terms with them, but parents are a sort of subject that is always personal and touchy even when the relationships are wonderful, and I was nervous and then you--”

“What are you talking about?” Steve pushed himself away from the lockers and got between Yakov and Tony. Yakov reached out and picked Steve up again, this time he threw him into the lockers a bit harder.

“So, it was purely selfish, and I will accept anything. You can kill me if you want, I deserve it, I deserve it a million times over,” and Tony got closer.

“Uh, I don’t think I’ll be killing anyone anytime soon, so you can scrap that idea right now. I sort of wanted to ask you if we could just pretend that that never happened, like well adjusted adults who aren’t well adjusted and are actually complete wrecks do, and show Natasha that sword thing. I have five hundred bucks on the table, and if you pull it off we can celebrate with… uh, whatever the winner decides, and please don’t let Tasha win, she will make me polish her guns for a week, or something horrible like that, and I’ve done a lot of gun polishing in my lifetime. More than enough to last me a good couple of lifetimes, thanks,” Yakov couldn’t help but look at Tony with this sort of shock. Tony Stark, arguably the most brilliant man on the planet, someone he had taken from in more than one way, in too many ways that were unfair, and someone who hadn’t just helped him as a friend, he had helped him be the thing he had never had the opportunity to be. He gave him a name, that was sort of a big deal in Yakov’s mind.

“If that’s what you want.”

“You gotta say,” he leaned forward, ‘ If you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting ’ but let me take out my phone first, I wanna record this,” Steve had pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked like an idiot, more of an idiot, with his mouth open.

“Why?” Tony holds up his phone and waves him to continue, “Alright. If you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting … was that good?” Tony nods.

“Remind me to get us to watch Kill Bill later, it’s great and I’m sure you’ll like it. Let’s go, we got money to win and things to forget. Pepper can’t even blame me for avoiding paperwork! Let’s go!” Tony didn’t touch Yakov like he may have before, but he waved at him to follow. Yakov glared at Steve for a second, and then followed Tony. Yakov has done some terrible things, and he’s never really had a real ‘team’ but it’s hard to believe that Steve thinks he’s so righteous when he’s so not . How delusional did someone have to be, to be like that?

Chapter Text

With a pocket five hundred dollars heavier, Yakov watched as Tony ranted on and on about his newest project and Natalia scrolled something on her phone, but it was cute because she’d give little indications that she was listening, which Yakov didn’t think she was, but it was nice. He had told Tony about his parents, and he wanted to tell someone about Jacob and that whole mess, but he didn’t want to bother Tony, or make him hate him. He loved and hated the fact that he was between completely obsessed and devotedly enticed by the man. He tried not to stare, but he had stared at Tony for the first two months of his time at the compound, it wasn’t a habit that he was about to kick, and Tony never seemed to mind, or noticed Yakov’s internal struggle and constant questioning on how to react to small things.

The first night they had spoken, everything was so cathartic, and Tony had listened and had encouraged him. It had been wonderful. Two months later, he was trying to understand everything Tony was saying, which he was sure even other geniuses would be confused by, and trying to understand how admiration had grown into whatever this feeling was. He would have asked FRIDAY, but he felt like she was upset with him, probably feeling betrayed. Rightfully so, but he hadn’t ever explicitly lied, he just didn’t inform them entirely, there was a difference. It probably didn’t feel like a difference though. Feeling and knowing were two things on two different sides of the field. Logic and emotion were so different and so similar that Yakov felt like it was one of those things that you were supposed to learn during early childhood, and that’s why he didn’t understand it much.

“Why?” Yakov asks. Tony turned to him.

“Which part?” He shouldn’t have said anything because now he was being stared at, and while Tony staring didn’t make him angry and uncomfortable like the others, it was intimidating to be under a scope like that by someone so… someone he thought so highly of.

“Why not test it on a person?”

“It could kill them. I don’t want… actually, what do you mean by that? Like myself? You?”

“You could test it on me, but I meant someone maybe not a, eh, good person. You have a moral code that I lack, but there are still many HYDRA agents up and about that I could bring to you. You could test it on them. If it works, then you’ve succeeded, and I can put them down before they do any damage, and if it fails then you’re making my mission easier. It’s a… win-win situation,” he looked to Natalia for some of confirmation. She nodded and then looked back at her phone. Tony, for a moment, seemed to consider it. There was some sort of mental debate and then he shook his head.

“No. I can’t do that to anyone. If it failed, they would die a slow and torturous death… but I guess you could end that quickly, huh? Maybe it’s the fact I don’t like forcefully testing and operating on people. Consent isn’t just a sex thing, it’s an all-the-time thing,” Yakov wasn’t sure if Tony realized he was doing it, but he had moved his hand over his sternum and stroked small circles with his thumb until he pulled back and looked at the tablet he had been writing on as he ranted. He didn’t know much about the implant in his chest, but he knew it happened when he was taken in Afghanistan a few years earlier. “If I were to give you all the details of how to inject the virus, and free reign over what you did with the triple checked samples, then I guess I wouldn’t be at any fault if you took it upon yourself to test it, but that would be rude,” he winked at him and then looked back at the tablet, “I mean, it’s technically ‘stable’ but I haven’t had anything to test it on. I could use some… divine intervention .”

***

Three days later found Yakov in the resident garage with an unconscious HYDRA agent. There was a part of Yakov that wanted to watch him burn alive, but he also wanted it to work because that would make Tony happy. There was a little area full of tires and other things that was rarely visited. Steve had left the day of the meeting in the training room and hadn’t come back since. The peace wasn’t going to last long, though, nothing this nice lasted too long. Yakov held the guy up with one arm and injected the virus into the spine. It needed to be injected up the cervical nerves for this to work. At first, nothing happened, and then the the man spit up blood. Which was supposed to happen. He set the man back on a table of stacked tires. He had yet to speak with FRIDAY, and Tony had only made one offhand comment a few hours before he left, which had been fifteen hours ago, that FRIDAY was being stubborn and olive-branches were important in healing, or something like that. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he assumed he wanted Yakov to initiate contact with FRIDAY first because FRIDAY didn’t want to engage.

“FRIDAY?” There was silence for a while and finally Yakov smiled. “FRIDAY? I know you’re upset, but I’m trying to, eh, I think Tony said ‘extend an olive branch’ which is like a hand? Shake hands, sort of thing? Maybe not, I’m not sure--”

“I cannot tell if you’re being serious or are trying to be funny by acting dumb,” FRIDAY responded, as sassy as ever.

“A bit of both,” he watched as the man coughed up a lot of blood, too much maybe, but he stopped after a few minutes and his breathing evened out, rocking his frail body with each inhale and exhale. Then his breathing stops, or it would appeared to have stopped to anyone without devices to monitor his body, or to someone without his hearing. No, his breathing slowed so quick, it was jarring to witness. He looked like a corpse, but he wasn’t dead. If he heard Tony’s rant right, he should be in some sort of sleep, like a coma or cryo, but he would start to crack. His skin, so thin now, should grow so thin and dry that it should start cracking, and then those cells that rush to repair it should turn into a shell around his body. So far, everything seemed to be working.

“I am still really upset with you, but I’m glad you told boss, though you should’ve done it earlier. Mr. Rogers has, according to Mr. Wilson who also appeared to know, known since Miss Natasha gave him the file on the Winter Soldier. When I asked Miss Natasha about her knowledge on the subject she informed me that she wouldn’t betray your privacy like that because she admired you,” he wasn’t sure who to be happy with, so he decided he was very proud and happy of both of them. FRIDAY because she had responded and not given him the silent treatment, as she had to Steve a few times, and Natalia because she hadn’t invaded his privacy, just as he would try to refrain from intruding now that he wasn’t sat down and debriefed by HYDRA. They had very little information on Natalia anyway, it was Tony Stark and Bruce Banner they knew so much about and had shared with him. Tony Stark, though, hadn’t been a chore to learn about, he hadn’t been just another target because he wasn’t boring, he was human, so terribly human that it was endearing, but so incredibly amazing it was admirable.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For giving me another chance. I don’t really deserve it, but it’s appreciated,” the man started to crack and sure enough those cracks leaked fluids that hardened around him. Two hours later he was in a cocoon, but Yakov couldn’t monitor him like he should have been monitored, so the cocoon burst open too early and the test subject, now oddly proportioned, took a few shuddering breaths before he died.

It took Yakov only a few hours to get rid of the body, burning it to keep anyone from somehow extracting the virus from him. It was nanotechnology, and when Yakov asked how to destroy it, Tony had mentioned fire. Fire tended to work well enough. When he had been burned down to the charred bone, it was interesting to see that even his bones had changed, half of them were still undeniably human, and the others were larger like he would think his bones look like seeing as they couldn’t break like other people’s bones. He tried to record all the notes he could, but he had paper and a pen outside the compound, and FRIDAY had already cut him out of all the videos to send only the recordings of the man’s process through the acceptance of the virus to Tony. When Yakov got back to the compound, Tony intercepted him in the doorway into the front of the compound and grabbed his wrist to get him to follow him.

They didn’t go to Tony’s lab, but the space between the door leading to the stairs down to the lab, and the door leading to Tony’s bedroom was a room in itself all monitored and locked by FRIDAY. Tony paced across the small room.

“It worked. It worked. Did you see that? Of course you saw that. I mean, technically nobody saw that because nobody I knew did that, but fuck! I know it was you and I know that it works,” Tony stopped and looked at Yakov. “We’ve got to celebrate. I love celebrations, I’d have them every day if I could, but that defeats the purpose of a celebration. So--”

“D-- Boss?”

“Yeah, FRI baby?”

“Mr. Rogers is demanding to speak with ‘Bucky’ and I do not know what to tell him. He is with Mr. Wilson. They tried to convince Miss Natasha to join them in whatever this appears to be, but she declined and is now in the training room with Mr. Barton. What do I do?”

“Uh, it’s up to you, Snowflake,” Tony looked a little uncomfortable. “Hey, sweetheart, can you give me a location of the idiots?”

“They’re currently waiting outside the door to your wing,” and Tony looked even more uncomfortable with that information.

“I’ll make them go away,” Yakov still wasn’t sure if it was alright to touch Tony, so he didn’t, but he wanted to reassure Tony of… something and he didn’t know how to do it, offering something through physical contact.

He didn’t like the way Tony had to hide in his own home from these people, his supposed ‘team’. He hoped he wasn’t as stressful and annoying as them, but he was sure Tony wouldn’t spend time with him if that were the case. Yakov slid out of the door, opening the door just enough to slip through before putting his back to it and looking up at Steve and Sam. Just as he closed the door, he saw FRIDAY display the view from the cameras onto the wall, and a quick thumbs-up from Tony.

Steve looked between stressed and relaxed. When he saw Yakov, his tense shoulders eased, but not enough to let Yakov believe he was truly relaxed. It was actually pretty decent acting, unless he was somehow really feeling that, but that didn’t seem likely, right? Sam looked as indifferent, but undeniably uncomfortable, as he usually did in Yakov’s presence. Steve reached out to touch him.

It was weird, and Yakov knew it was because he liked and desired Tony, but desired to hurt Steve (a completely different type of ‘desire’), but he hated Steve touching him. He could soak up every ounce of affection Tony could give him, and he would want more, but if Steve got within a four inch radius from his person, he wanted to lash out and push him away. He focused so much on keeping himself from his instinct to fight, and he didn’t have to focus on the shit that Steve had wanted to see ‘Bucky’ for.

“So, I was worried. I haven’t seen you for the past couple of days, which is weird since we share a room… are you alright? I know that Tony owns this place, and yeah, we owe him, but you don’t have to, well, you don’t have to…”

“You don’t have to suck-up to him because he’s our landlord,” the saddest and most infuriating part was that Steve agreed to Sam’s statement with a nod of acknowledgement before looking at Yakov again. Maybe Yakov had the definition of ‘landlord’ wrong, but a landlord was someone who rented a space to someone. Rented means a sort of payment for the services offered, in this case a place to sleep. Unlike most landlords, Tony also pays to feed these people, to dress these people, to keep these people happy despite their overwhelming need to verbally degrade him at every turn. Tony was not their landlord, he was trying to be their friend, a family member even, because he cared for them and wanted to be cared about in return.

“Oh. I understand,” he looked down at Steve’s hands holding his. He had pulled away from Steve the last time he tried to hold his hands. It was very brave of him to try it again, but he knew Steve would use the fact that Sam was there to try and keep him ‘civil,’ but Yakov didn’t care much for Sam. They were at a standstill of mutual dislike and there was likely no changing that. Yakov was on Team Tony, and Sam was on Team Steve. That’s how it had become, right? There was him, FRIDAY, and sometimes Natalia who wanted to help Tony, and then there was Steve and Sam who were against Tony. Clint was against Tony too, but he was apparently angry at the Captain for allowing ‘Bucky’ to stay. Still sore about the HYDRA witch. Well, that should be an indication of who should be on the team and who wasn’t qualified. He meant Clint, because he wasn’t qualified and barely supported or improved their line up with some exceptional skill. He was a superhuman with his hearing and sight, sometimes he was quick, but he used an inefficient weapon that had so many drawbacks (because it’s a bow) that it wasn’t worth using in any real fight.

Yakov gently pulled his hands back, patting Steve’s knuckles condescendingly before hiding his hands behind his back. Steve looked confused, and Yakov wondered why this was such a surprise.

“You do?”

“Of course. You and Falcon are under the misconception that I’m only around Tony because I’m feeling guilty, I want something from him, or he has somehow manipulated me to being around him. Is this what you’re saying, or have I misread something?” Steve was quick to jump on the ‘you misread that!’ bandwagon, but Sam wasn’t even pretending.

“No, of course not! We know you wouldn’t do that,” implying that Tony was manipulating him. “I’m just worried that… well, you’ve been awful distant lately. I just miss ya.”

“I’ve been distant because we didn’t exactly leave on the best terms the other day, and I’m still a bit… raw about it. I have been spending the nights with Natalia, and I’ve been spending the days with Tony. He’s teaching me some very interesting things. Science is so amazing. I would have thought it all to be magic if I didn’t know what it actually was,” and Tony’s brilliant enough to use science to make magical things , is what he didn’t say, and because it wasn’t verbalized, it was likely completely missed by Steve. Sam seemed to maybe get the jab, but he always looked like he bit into something really disgusting when he was within a certain proximity to Yakov.

“Oh? Nata sha ? I didn’t know that you li--”

“If you are going to suggest anything romantic, then don’t. Nata lia is dear to me in a way you probably don’t understand… Tony and I were actually in the middle of something, but it can wait a few more minutes, at most .”

“Well, I just wanted to invite you to movie night? Sam suggested it. We sort of let Tony pick all the movies, but we get bored and leave halfway through. We’re going to vote tonight, and maybe you and Tony would like to come?” That was a low blow, because of course Tony would want to go. He would jump at any scrap of attention from Captain America, and he couldn’t even blame Tony for it. Tony didn’t have anyone else there to offer him any sort of praise or attention, he had just grown used to jumping when Steve said so.

“I’ll discuss it with him… is that… everything?”

“Y-yeah! I mean, well, I just sorta thought you’d want to hang out, but you’re with Tony right now, so that’s cool,” So Tony begged for Steve and Steve begged for him? It was very sad because Yakov begged for Tony, and none of them seemed to see it except Yakov. The keypad flashed green a moment later, and Yakov quickly slid into the room and shut the door behind him. It locked automatically. Tony used his hand to toss the video feed from the wall in a swipe before he turned to Yakov.

“They want me to join? That, uh, doesn’t happen often…” and Yakov sighed because Tony obviously knew what they were doing. “Do you want to go?” Just because he knows he’s being used, doesn’t mean he doesn’t like whatever he can get.

“If you want to, but I’d rather spend my time with you. You were going on about a celebration I would love to be a part of,” Yakov leaned against the wall beside the door that led to the stairs to the workshop, and from the motion Tony tried to hide when he wanted to do something inadvisable, Tony wanted to go and ‘chill with the team’ tonight. “What do you want?”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess, I’m cool with whatever--”

“You want to go. I won’t deny you anything, I have no right to keep you from anything. You don’t need to ask permission to do things in your own home. Remember that because nobody else seems to,” cue shocked stare for a second before Tony tries to play it off with a gesture or something funny, witty, or both. It happened like that, like it almost always did.

He wasn’t lying. He had no right to want anything from Tony, to be entitled like some of the others seemed to be. They didn’t have the right either, but they had gotten away with it, so they continued doing it. Yakov was not a model parent or mentor, but when Widows tip toed the waters to see what they could and couldn’t get away with, it was best to be frank with them, saved so much trouble in the end. Only Eve had suffered for not listening. It was a bit harsh, but the others girls, and Niko, didn’t try to see how far they could push again. He tried to write it off as Eve’s fault, she had been eleven, she had known better, but she didn’t listen, so she was terminated. He wouldn’t mind terminating some of the ‘Avengers’ as an example. Maximoff didn’t count, because she was no example, she was HYDRA. HYDRA died for their affiliation, examples died to teach others what not to do.

“Well, I mean, we could celebrate. They probably don’t really want me there anyway, they just wanted you,” there was hurt that Yakov didn’t know how to get rid of in Tony’s brown eyes. It was the hurt he saw in broken people, the ones that Maximoff had tortured so much they finally snapped and were either executed, or used again for practice since they ‘were useless anyway.’ They didn’t deserve that.

Keeping in mind that he liked to kill people, he was being very careful and considerate around the people he disliked the most, but they didn’t know that he wasn’t actually the happy-go-lucky Bucky Barnes that Steve told them about, that Steve tried to convince him he was. He was an assassin, and Bucky Barnes was not. Steve, despite being told with explicit clarity that he was not Bucky Barnes , still believe himself capable of changing Yakov into ‘Bucky’. How much was really the before that Yakov didn’t much care for, and how much was idealized false memories that Steve used to help himself feel better, to assure himself that he had done right by ‘Bucky’?

“I did say we could watch Kill Bill , and that’s Nat’s favourite movie so she’ll definitely join us, if you’re alright with that, and FRIDAY can order us something good. Not pizza, I’m thinking something different. I would say Mexican, but East Coast Mexican food dulls in comparison to the food from Mexico. Korean and Japanese too. What do you want?”

“No pizza, Mexican, Korean, or Japanese food? Well, Natalia was talking about this curry she liked, but I’ve never had curry, so I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

“You’re mind is going to be blown at least three times tonight. We’ll get her favourite curry, and mine, and you’ll also see some ladies that are sort of like Natasha, not as pretty, but just as badass. She could take down a country on her own, did you know that? Also, I don’t know where she learned it but she can do some crazy things with a computer, things that even I haven’t dabbled much in,” Yakov followed Tony to the lab, listening to him describe the ‘crazy’ things Natalia could do with a computer. The way he spoke about it made it sound like something sexual, but was sure it wasn’t meant to be, or it was being alluded to on purpose.

***

Nine o’clock found Natalia, Tony, and Yakov in the workshop sitting on a giant bed made of an assortment of pillows and blankets with a layout of both Indian and Thai curry (which Natalia and Tony, respectively, argued that their favourite was the superior curry). Tony had, with Yakov’s help, cleared off a wall and the movie was much like the holo screens and was projected.

In the beginning of the movie, Yakov realized why Tony had asked him to say the ‘if you’re still raw about it’ line, and it was both sad and funny. Yakov admitted to killing Tony’s parents, and he had sought him out not even a day later trying to ignore that. To Tony funny things were funny, but they were also great ways to keep people from hurting him. Yakov didn’t know how that felt, he had never experienced it, but Tony acted like it worked. He doubted he would ever be sure if Tony was ever truly happy or if he was just pretending to be happy in an attempt to convince himself that he could be happy.

By the end of the movie, Tony was asleep, sprawled out on the pillows, stomach down. Natalia asked FRIDAY, quietly, when the last time Tony had slept was. Yakov had spent a week without sleep, maybe a week and a half, but he was a super human, Tony had been up for almost 96 hours. Almost four days. That couldn’t have been healthy. Natalia gathered up the boxes of empty food and set them up on Tony’s table covered in dirty or half-empty coffee mugs. Yakov gathered the boxes with food and put them in the fridge in the workshop before going back to the pillows. He should leave, that would be the right thing to do. He hadn’t realized he was staring until Natalia poked his cheek.

“FRIDAY agrees with me, we’re conspiring to help you and Tony. You fell asleep during the end credits, FRIDAY can confirm. Get some rest, and don’t be creepy or I’ll get Rhodey and we’ll kick your skinny ass,” she smiled at him, “Good night.”

“Good night…” he didn’t want to invade Tony’s personal space. He found himself on the edge of the giant bed of pillows, and he tried to sleep. It had only been a few days since he slept, he was still functioning at an efficient level. Not optimal, but functional. He jolted awake just as the pillows shifted with a great force. He could only make out Tony’s panicked face when he looked up, and he lowered the arms raised to fight. He didn’t know how to deal with this, and before he could move again, FRIDAY was speaking.

“Snowflake you need to sit back and just pretend this isn’t happening. Boss doesn’t like it when people see this.”

It took FRIDAY an hour and a half to coax Tony into a state that he could do more than stare at Yakov and the space around him. He knew FRIDAY had asked to forget it, but he couldn’t. He would store it for later, a very far-in-the-future later. He didn’t know what else to do besides stay silent and still.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Tony said. It sounded harsh, but the following, “I don’t like being looked at like I’m weak,” wasn’t harsh, it was defeated. This went in a direction Yakov hadn’t expected in the least, and now he had no idea how to respond. “You want any coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that. I try to not sleep with anyone near me, but sometimes if I’m up long enough I don’t even dream,” Tony was making himself coffee. The steps looked so natural, like he’d been doing it every day of his life. Very similar to the way he worked on anything else in the workshop. He moved like Yakov moved, when Yakov hit his target. With practiced ease, and only enough stiffness to show that there was a subject too close to the surface to touch on comfortably. The Asset had debriefed after missions, but rarely was it ever brought up again by anyone else. This is what Tony seemed to want. Yakov liked giving Tony what he wanted, so he wouldn’t bring it up.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stayed. Natalia has decided to do whatever it is she wants, and suggested I stay the night. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I betrayed the trust you’ve given me.”

“Don’t worry about it. There a lot worse sights I could wake up to. You’re awfully handsome, did you know that?”

“It may have been mentioned once or twice.”

“Smartass,” Tony sat down on the pillows, “Don’t change. You’ve got real potential in the sass stadium. No wonder you and FRI get along,” he was smiling, and Yakov smiled too. “I missed the best part. The,” he motioned the scene with O-Ren Ishii and Beatrix Kiddo is the snow with his hands and made sound effects to match until he finally dropped his hand. “Then the she’s like-” and he gives the entire end scene of the movie line by line to Yakov.

“You really like that movie.”

“Eh, what can I say? I like assassins.”

“I happen to know an assassin that is quite taken with you.”

“Did you just give me an assassin pick-up line? That’s great. Sweetheart, make that my ringtone pleaseeeee. You’re too great, both of you,” there was a beep, “you too DUM-E, and you as well U. Have you charged at all?” Tony’s scandalous gasp when they beeped at him again said it all, and the conversation devolved until Tony was fiddling with his phone. “Where did your phone go?”

“HYDRA agent smashed it.”

“I’ll get you a new one. Nobody appreciates me like you, I love it.”

Yakov knew it was a joke, that Tony didn’t mean it, but he really liked that, because he liked to think he appreciated Tony unlike anyone else. It was a joke, Yakov was sure, but he sort of felt stupid for not wanting it to be a joke. He couldn’t blame Natalia, this behaviour was all on FRIDAY. That damn softie. He loved it, too.

Chapter Text

Clint’s groan interrupted the very serious game of Super Smash Bros between Natalia, Tony, Clint, and Sam. Yakov watched them play, still wondering how exactly they knew how to make the character move differently in five or more actions, but only had four different buttons to make them move. He was mostly entranced by the commentary by Tony and Natalia.

“And ‘Pit’ just died… again ,” Natalia laughed and when Clint huffed and pouted, she punched him in the shoulder. Tony whooped. “The most amazing and fabulous Jigglypuff just beat Meta Knight for the last time this game. Sorry Sam,” and despite his sigh, Sam didn’t seem all too upset to have lost. Not fuming like Clint. Poor Clint, down to one life, and outskilled by Tony and Natalia (who Yakov has learned are the real champions on Super Smash Bros, sometimes rivalled by Sam when he ‘felt like it’).

“You’re dead,” Natalia, who was a frog-thing, she called it ‘Greninja,’ kicked Clint, ‘Pit,’ out of the map, and off into the sky like a little star in the distance.

“Steve, reign your mutt in, he’s giving Tony ideas on how to kill me, and it’s so not cool.”

“Snowflake is cool, but this is pure talent on my part. I don’t need help to kick your ass Barton,” and Tony dropped his controller when Clint lunged forward. Steve stepped in.

“Come on. Don’t fight,” Steve pulled Clint back and sighed like an exasperated grandfather, or what Yakov would imagine an old man would sound after years of raising brats. Yakov watched as Natalia took advantage of Tony’s idleness and kicked him from the map once again, and just as Tony grabbed his controller, she kicked him again.

“That’s not fair, Nat,” but he didn’t sound all too upset.

“Playing fair is for the stupid and overachievers. I used the chaos to wipe you from the map. Fair in my book,” she stood up and stretched. “Now, you owe me,” Tony groaned and set the controller down before standing up. Yakov looked up at them from where he took up most of the couch, save where Tony had been sitting and where Yakov had his back against most of the game. He didn’t like falling back where a nice smelling Tony should have been.

“What does he owe?”

“She bet that if she won three matches against me, then she would be able to,” he waved his hand around his face, “makeup stuff. I’m not sure if she wants to RuPaul it up or if wants to make me look all old with her disguise gear, but either way, I don’t think this is going to be pleasant… you could join, if you wanted, but you’ll probably be roped into the ‘girls night’ or whatever.”

“ Ya mogu zaplesti tebe volosy, ” Natalia laughed when Yakov looked up at her. She added, “ Ranshe ty pomogal mne s moimi .”

“ Chtoby tebe ne mogli sdelat’ bol’no ,” she laughed again, at Yakov, but he got up to his feet.

“Did you just guilt my Snowflake into joining us?” Tony looked at Yakov, and Yakov looked right back, unsure what that expression meant. Yakov knew what he meant when he added, “Teach me how to do that.” Natalia laughed.

“Come on, I’ll teach you, and I’m sure Yasha will allow you to practice,” she pulled Tony’s hand and Yakov followed behind them.

Tony, since Yakov had known him, had been affectionate. He touched to comfort, soothe, and just about everything else, too. He twisted his hand to hold her hand and followed her. They moved towards the ‘Gentile Wing’ and Natalia pushed open her bedroom door. It was the same as it had been for the past few weeks since he had first started spending the night on her floor and away from Steve. Tony, though, had apparently never seen Natalia’s room because he looked at everything like it was delicate and not made of metal that could withstand typical super soldier wear and tear. Natalia shut the door behind them and walked around the room gathering random items from places that Yakov had dismissed as being harmless, and therefore not a threat to be watched. She dropped all the items on the bed. “Sit down.”

Tony flinched and blinked just about every time Natalia got near him with eyeliner or mascara, so after the sixth try, she gave up on that. The debate on shaving his face was the next hour that passed with a barrage of different reasons why or why not to get rid of his facial hair, and eventually Tony won and she put lipstick on him. He looked almost exactly the same, except he looked like he got punched really hard in the mouth and his lips were swollen and bloody. It wasn’t a bad look at all. Yakov would kill anyone who really punched Tony, but that didn’t mean he didn’t look cute. It did mean that Tony spent the next staring at a mirror and making faces before taking selfies and threatening them with major problems if any of the photos were released. Yakov wouldn’t do that, and he was sure Natalia wouldn’t either, but it seemed more automatic than something he said because he meant it. He hoped Tony didn’t think he would do that, but he hadn’t given him much else to work with.

“ On tebe nravitsya ,” and it wasn’t a question. She knew him too much to guess or ask. He had been obvious about it, just obvious enough for her to catch on, but nobody else, including Tony, seemed to catch on otherwise.

“ Kak on mojet ne nravitsya ?” He cut her off before she could say something with, “ mojesh ne otvechat’ .”

“You guys are speaking Russian, which means you don’t want me to hear something… I wanna know. You’ve gotta tell me.”

“You can’t know. We’re gossiping,” Natalia winked at him.

“ On vyglyadit tak… ne znayu, kak eto skazat, chtoby ne kazat’sya  grubym ,” and he really has no idea how to say it without sounding like a complete pervert. Tony pouts at them, but this is definitely not a topic that even Yakov, being as obvious as possible given who he’s surrounded by, could talk to Tony about. This was… this wasn’t something that should be verbalized, it was something to think about alone. Natalia, of course, wanted to know more, and he didn’t want to say anything that she could later tease him about.

“Let me braid your hair. You and Tony can take pictures together,” Yakov was sure that this had been the plan the entire time. Natalia set him and Tony up, and this sounded like it was devised by Natalia but put into motion via FRIDAY. Those girls will be the end of him. Yakov sat on the floor by the bed and she braided his hair. He didn’t like the fact he was being ‘feminized’ very much, but it felt nice despite that. “You’re beautiful.”

“If anyone else had done that…” Yakov knew it was empty, and he’d let both Tony, and if FRIDAY had hands, her too most likely, braid his hair.

“If someone told me five months ago that I’d be sitting in Natasha Romanoff’s bedroom after being dolled up, but also with the Winter Soldier who was sporting braids, I would… well I wouldn’t believe them, that’s all I would really do besides maybe laugh, but this is just… Rhodey knows the deal, c’mere, both of you. I want something stupid from him and I need to offer the best in return for the best. That man can do weird things with his face, and his thumbs. He had weird thumbs,” Tony took the picture, pausing only for a moment before Tony continued to talk about Jim’s ‘weird thumbs’ and somehow they moved onto Jim’s ‘weird collection of sunglasses that he never wears’. Natalia told Tony about her old collection of dead frogs, and that seemed to throw him for a loop for a few minutes before he told her about his collection of screws when he was a kid, and then building blocks with the number eight on them. He grew out of that by seven, though, the screw one. He said the blocks lasted for about a year since he could write, at two-ish. ‘Blocks are for babies, and eight is a terrible number anyway,’ was Tony’s response as to why he stopped collecting his blocks so early. They didn’t ask after that. He had been three, he had still been a baby, maybe not an infant, but most three year olds, even geniuses, were allowed building blocks.

Tony changed the subject quickly after that, and then they received a text from Jim. Or Tony did and Tony shared with them. Tony was right, and Jim could make really odd faces, but the way his thumb bent was… it looked like something Yakov would inflict upon someone pre-torture session, as a warm up so they know exactly how fast they needed to start talking.

“Let’s get this cleaned off so we can go back out. If Cap sees me… if Barton sees me? I might as well just expect to be teased the rest of my life… how do I take this stuff off? Pep uses that, like, special make-up removal stuff, but I’ve never really needed it until now.” Natalia took off Tony’s makeup and Yakov pulled the braids out of his hair. His hair was actually a bit curly afterwards, and he liked it. It looked soft, and when he touched it, it was just as soft as it looked. Tony was wiping his face off on his t-shirt when he he and Natalia left the bathroom off to the upper right of the room. “We should do that again. I got to see my Snowflake with braids, and I got a weird thumb pic from Rhodey. The world would be so much easier if Natali-sha,” he paused, “uh, if she ruled the world.”

“I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with their problems. Half the world’s population would be gone in half a year, give or take.”

“You’re a badass, but you can’t take out three and a half billion people in six months.”

“No. But between you, Yakov, FRIDAY, and me? I’m sure we could handle it. Rhodey would help, too, if you were on board,” she shrugged. Tony nodded, and Yakov could see it happening, but only in cartoonish pictures because that wasn’t likely to actually happen. Tony lingered by the wall leading to Visions room for just enough time that Natalia looked to Yakov, and they knew that someone should talk to Vision about it. Distance was good, sometimes, but it had been a bit too long. Natalia would be the one going to him, because sending Yakov was just stupid.

***

“What happened to ‘girls night’?”

“We had our fun. You’re just jelly because I’m prettier than with and without makeup,” Tony opened the fridge and pulled out a coconut water.

“How old are you? Ten?”

“If I said yes, I would still be smarter than you,” and Clint lunged at Tony for the second time, this time he managed to get a hit in. Steve would have had to pull Clint away had Yakov not picked him by the back of the shirt and launch him at a wall. Clint crumbled on impact and there were more than a few cracks. None of which were from the wall. Steve looked at Yakov as if he saw someone he didn’t know. Finally, he was figuring it out.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Steve picked Clint up. “It’s all in good fun, Bucky . Tony antagonized him. Don’t play high and mighty. They were both at fault,” from where Steve picked Clint up, arms under his neck and behind his knees to hold him up (bridal-style), Clint was clearly not conscious. Steve watched Yakov as he left the kitchen and Yakov stared at him back until Steve was gone, his footsteps echoing softer as he walked down the hall.

“Despite popular belief I happen to also be a superhero. I like the care and devotion, but I can take care of myself, you know.”

“I don’t mind, but if you mind…”

“What? No! I don’t mind. Just don’t feel obligated to help. If I knew you’d need money, I’d pay you to hurt Barton, but I’m sure you don’t need the incentive. You’ve been biting at each other’s necks since you killed the witch,” Tony looked at Yakov and Natalia before pulling out two more coconut waters. They both took one with quiet thanks.

“So, now that nobody else is here, can we gossip. In English this time, or one of the six languages I know , please? You’ve got variety, we’ve got English, Hungarian, French, Spanish, German, and Chinese, and technically a little Greek but it was by accident -- don’t ask -- and I’m not fluent so that’s also a no-go.”

“We can gossip in English.”

“Great! What were you talking about earlier?” Yakov smirked at him. “That’s not fair. I could have FRIDAY play back the audio and ask for her to translate, but you’ll never know what gets mixed in translation… please tell me? I need to know, I don’t like not knowing.”

“Well, let’s see,” Natalia started speaking, and for a moment Yakov was nervous she would tell Tony exactly what they had been talking about. “Yakov wanted a cat, but he didn’t want to ask you, and I called him a pussy and he told me to shut up and then you asked what we were talking about. Gossip sounds nicer than boring talk, doesn’t it?” Tony eyed Yakov closely before turning to do the same to Natalia. He sat back and sipped his coconut water.

“Forty-five years old, and I haven’t learned Russian. I think I need to remedy that… or you could just cut the shit. I know what ‘cat’ is in Russian, I’m not a complete dunce. Even DUM-E knows how to say ‘cat,’ and he can only talk in beeps and boops.”

“She asked me if I like you. I asked her what’s not to like, and then she continued to tease me.”

“... because you like me? I mean, she teased you because you do like me, right? We’re friends?”

“I don’t let just anyone see me with braids, solnishko . Despite what you’ve heard, braids aren’t as intimidating as us professionals like to seem,” Tony huffed out a laugh.

“Sass is all I get from you. Ever. It’s like talking to FRIDAY but with a different accent and a deeper voice. Well that and she wouldn’t be caught dead in braids,” Tony actually snorted when Yakov glared at him, although it wasn’t his ‘death glare’ (Natalia coined it) but the other one that meant he didn’t want to kill him. He wanted to do many things with and to Tony, but murder wasn’t on the list.

“ Yashaaaaaa , make me a sandwich!” Natalia had either grown comfortable around him, or she had a death wish. Either way, he would indulge her.

“I’m in a good mood… so sure. You want a sandwich too?”

“Sure, but switch the good one to mine and give Natasha the one with gross stuff, like pickles .”

“Pickles are delicious,” Natalia said.

“I agree,” Yakov chimed in from the kitchen.

“They’re gross and I stand by my statement,” Tony could only laugh when a tiny pickle flew from the behind the counter and hit him in the back of the head, and Yakov and Natalia also laughed. The peace lasted for the forty-five minutes it took Steve to settle Clint up wherever he put him, and come back into the kitchen. Tony had eaten a quarter of the sandwich so far, and Natalia was on her second.

Steve stood and was completely ignored for a good two minutes before he pushed the door open and slammed it shut again to gain their attention. When they all looked at him, he crossed his arms and aimed a very disappointed look at all of them.

“I’m very disappointed in you… Yakov . I understand Tony, but you and Natasha? You’ve permanently retired Wanda before she had a chance, and you injured Clint today with no reason--”

“Ac--”

“No! Just listen, whoever you are . You are clearly not Bucky, and you have proven that you are nothing less than dangerous. This is my team, and I do not like to use that authority, but it is necessary to keep this team from running into the ground. I am going to have to ask you, sir , to leave because you are the epicenter of our disaster and I cannot say it’s safe for any of us when you’re near. I don’t want to force you to leave, but it may be--”

“Why would we kick him out?” Tony interrupted before Steve could protest, and too loud for Steve to pretend he didn’t hear. Steve glared at him since if he did anything else, he and Yakov would have a very delightful interaction. “If he’s dangerous, then shouldn’t we keep him here where we can keep an eye on him?” Steve sighed.

“Yes, that would make sense… No offense ,” and Yakov knew he was purposely trying to offend him now. At least he wasn’t just an idiot, at least he knew he was now aware that was he said was probably not very nice. “But I don’t want him in my room.”

“Oh, well, he can stay with me then,” Tony said as he took another bite of his sandwich, and then put it on his plate. He slid the plate across the table to Natalia who accepted it and moved it to her plate.

“... I don’t… I don’t think that’s a good idea…” it only took months, likely years, of verbal abuse at Tony for Steve to at least pretend to care about Tony.

“ Ya khochu ubit’ etogo ublyudka ,” Yakov looked at Tony who was staring intently at Steve now. Natalia didn’t touch him but she reached out a hand. He looked down on it for a second. It only took a glimpse to see that she had slid him a throwing knife. He wouldn’t have touched her, he couldn’t handle physical contact when, ‘enraged’ seemed like the appropriate word, but he wanted that knife.

He rests his hand over hers and watches Tony and Steve as he slips the knife from her palm to his. He can hear Tony’s heart beating faster, and he knew that Steve could too, and Natalia as well.

“ On pritvoryayeshsya, chto ego eto volnuyet. Ne ver’ yemu! ” He tried to think of the other languages he knew, and he knew he knew many, but he couldn’t think of any of them. Also, if he started speaking a different language, it would be obvious to Steve, but Tony should understand right?

Steve wasn’t smart enough to have realized that Tony adored him, right? Yakov really hoped that Clint or Sam hadn’t let him know because it was so obvious. He could have known a long time ago, could have been waiting to use it to hurt him the worst. Steve wasn’t like that, he was stupid and rude, but he wasn’t like Yakov.

“Why not?” Tony didn’t turn to look at him, but Tony leaned back, closer to Yakov.

“He’s not a good person, Tony. He’s killed people. Wanda… I’m sure he’s killed more people while he used you--”

“Like you did?” Steve frowned, as if he hadn’t seen the clear trap he practically gift wrapped to himself. Tony looked defiant, he looked stunning with this fierceness. He had seen Tony when he was scared, when he was having fun, when he was excited, and when he was mid-rant and had been awake for almost a hundred hours straight, but fierce wasn’t something he had seen expressed so fully, like Tony tended to do (beautiful drama queen he was).

“I didn’t know--”

“But… you did. You knew that he killed Howard and Maria Stark. You just didn’t care about me because he was Bucky, and Bucky Barnes is better than me. The Winter Soldier, apparently, isn’t better than me, and you want me to agree with you because you lie to me, steal from me, and degrade me every chance you get when I’m not in earshot? Sometimes you don’t even wait for me to leave.”

“I’ve never stolen from you,”  Steve sighed and Tony offered a sad smile.

“So you have lied and verbal abused me? Nice. Domestic violence is the new black,” Tony set down the empty container of coconut water down and rested it on its side so he could spin it between his hands on the table. Tony turned away from Steve, and looked at the carton spinning. “I like Yakov. I like him very much, and this is my compound so you can pack a bag and leave if he makes you so uncomfortable… but he still has free reign of my bedroom,” Tony winked at him, and Yakov felt the anger subside ever so slightly. “Whether you stay or not.”

“Tony, this is a bad idea--”

“Like all my other ideas? Right, you need new material if you think that’ll make me give a fuck about your situation. He stays. You don’t like it, you can hike to Brooklyn for all I care,” Yakov looked at Steve, who had shifted his attention from Tony to him, but only briefly, before looking at Natalia. If he thought posturing was going to work on Natalia, he should really remember who, and what, she had fought when she was eleven years old. Steve was nothing compared to the Red Room (Specifically the Black Widow Special Ops Program) training. Allies were cruel, and Natalia had been one of the two people who could knock an eight-foot mutant with claws far deadlier than one of the few brilliant Weapon X products: Wolverine. His name was Romulus, and when she dropped that beast they teamed her with him for further training. She had only been thirteen, then. A six foot five super-soldier with training in only throwing around a shield and punching his way out would be nothing.

Like Tony, though, Steve got too close, if he actually touched her, he was going to have two broken wrists, and so many breaks in his arm bones, they would have to piece them together like a puzzle. His healing may even heal all the breaks so quickly, that he has to have them rebroken and set properly.

“Natasha… Clint said you knew the Winter Soldier, when you were younger. You don’t have to--”

“Stop right there, Steve,” she set her phone down, “Yakov isn’t here to hurt me, and he definitely won’t hurt Tony. Think about where his interests lie, and think about what you have… inflicted upon his interests. How would you feel if someone insulted Peggy Carter every time you left the room, right in front of you? How would you like that? Now, this is going to require some muscle, so think . If someone tried to intimidate your Bucky and Peggy Carter, how would you feel? Not very happy, I take it. How do you think Yakov feels?”

“That’s different. We weren’t… we didn’t kill people .”

“You did, though,” Natalia rolled her eyes when Steve didn’t get it. “You were fighting a war. That tends to mean you kill people. We label murder in the name of our country patriotism, we kill for justice and honour and it’s written off as helpful. Did you forget where I came from, Steve? Did you forget that Yakov--”

“Exactly! He turned you into a child soldier, you were still a kid. He’s--”

“He had only been around for about ten years before he showed up. You don’t think that Yakov is Bucky do you? He was only a few years older than I was, he’s still only a few years older than I am. He didn’t make me into a soldier, Steve, he taught me how to survive. Here I am, I’m still here, and you know what? If Yakov leaves? I leave with him.”

Yakov had not expected that at all. He wanted to be lax around Natalia, and she was starting to get less formal with him. More relaxed, like he wanted, but she was raised to survive. He was no threat to her, not like this. He was raised to survive, too, he learned it all the hard way and taught the Widows to do the same. He had never had someone teach him, he had figured it out on his own. He was always going to be cautious, more so than her probably, but if she saw him as an ally, he would also try to see her as an ally again.

“He’s not a kid, Natasha. He’s a grown man. Buck--”

“He’s not Bucky Barnes.”

“You were a kid, he was an adult--”

“If you want to lecture someone, find someone who gives a shit. You’ll be wasting your breath.You know nothing about my life, and if you try to think you do ever again… ya poshlyu Zimnego Soldata… emu ty ne nravyshsya. ”

“Even I understood that one,” Tony interrupted before the silence could get too tense between them. “Why don’t you go get cuddled up by Barton and leave us alone. Your lecture failed, and Yakov is staying with me until further notice. And Yakov? If anyone gives you shit, feel free to break their bones, just not mine or Nat’s please.”

Yakov turned to watch as Steve was only a second too slow to have ‘stormed’ out of the room, but it was close. Natalia had finished the rest of Tony’s sandwich a while ago, and Tony brought them a round of coffee. The joke about not having ‘the good stuff’ went over silently and he eventually just pretended that he had never made the comment. Yakov went with it, and so did Natalia.

“If you sleep with me, you have to carry me to bed,” Tony says as he rests his forehead against the cool quartz dining table. It was fancy, and looked more like something in a painting than something someone actually owned.

“You’re tired already?”

“Steve wears me out. Makes me want to just sleep forever and never wake up to deal with him again,” Tony pressed his right cheek against the table surface and looked at Yakov. “You got pretty growl-y for a moment there. It was obviously a confession of undying love.”

“For you? Maybe,” Yakov smirked and slid the knife to Natalia over the table. “In the end, I didn’t need to stain the tile at all,” Tony looked away from Yakov with that statement. Yakov shouldn’t have said that. Violence was frowned upon, it wasn’t not good, and it should not be discussed casually in front of Tony. Tony wasn’t like Natalia or him. Tony really was a ‘good’ person, but Natalia had helped him sort through it. He was very much not a ‘good’ person, but at least Natalia thought she was the same. The monsters had to stick together.

“Okay,” Tony was at the door in an instant, halfway through before he twisted around to look at them. “You know the way to my room. FRI will let you in, Snowflake,” and then he was gone. Natalia let out soft laughter after he fled the room, but Yakov didn’t understand why.

“He likes you too,” Natalia picked up the plates she had, both hers and Tony’s, and took them to the kitchen. “What’s wrong? You look upset again.”

“I don’t understand,” Yakov admits as he stands. “I made him uncomfortable, and then he… I don’t understand. I’m missing something, what did you see?”

“He got a hard-on.”

“... what?” That didn’t fall in line with anything Yakov had even thought about. That didn’t… it didn’t make any sense, but there was no logical explanation for… he didn’t look at Natalia, because he could hear her snickering at him from her place in the kitchen.

“You sound so confused. It’s not that hard to see,” she laughed harder, “see what I did there? Hard not to see,” she walked back into the dining room and slid her hand up his arm and rested it on his shoulder before giving him a pat. “Look, Tony is almost as bad as you with relationships and he’s probably worse at emotions, and that’s saying a lot. It’s also worse because he thinks he knows how to deal with things, but he doesn’t. We were taught to survive, right? He was taught to survive too, but in a different way. Before tonight, I don’t think anyone has really said anything about his mistreatment, and the fact you have offered him that, he’s not going to get upset because you mention killing Steve. You didn’t see his face when he looked away because he turned away from you. He wasn’t angry… at least that’s not how I look when I’m angry, or anyone else I’ve known.

“He’s been sweet on you since you showed up and dealt with the problem he couldn’t even attempt to deal with, or bring up, without getting a scolding for like a disobedient toddler. You literally broke Clint for trying to attack him, and you’ve been keeping the assholes away for a while. He offered defense in return. Don’t think he doesn’t know that you kill people, or that you don’t mind -- if not enjoy -- doing it. He’s too smart for that, and he’s shown that he doesn’t really mind.”

“I should--” before Yakov could walk to far toward the door, Natalia hooked her arm with his. A fight ensued. One where they didn’t just fight, but by the end of it they were laughing and looking around the mess they made. “Actually, we should ask FRIDAY where we can find plaster and paint so we can fix those walls. I don’t want Tony to wake up to this. We should have gone to the training room.”

Natalia pushes her body of the ground with her arms and kicks a wooden leg from one of the barstools away from Yakov’s flesh hand. She offers him a hand and pulls him up.

“ Ty prav . We sho--”

“ Razumeyetsya ya prav .” She glared at him for interrupting. He could get used to her not deferring to him, or staring at him like a live bomb (despite a ‘live bomb’ being a very apt description).

“FRIDAY, is there stuff to fix this mess here at the compound?”

“Of course, Miss Natasha. You will find all the supplies needed in the training complex. I can lead you to the correct closet, if you would like. It has no, current, assigned appellation.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

***

It only took two hours to fix the holes in the walls and fumble with reassembling the chairs they broke. Natalia was reassembling chairs and Yakov was patching holes in the walls. They threw and caught the needed tools between each other based on whoever was closest to the tool at any given moment, and it was almost fluid the way they moved around each other. Finally the holes were plastered, and only needed to be painted, and the chairs were assembled and, as almost all of them were snapped at odd angles, were drying from where wood glue was used and clamped to keep the pieces together as they dried. There was the completely decimated flowerpot in the corner, but it had been full of resin and a fake plant, so Natalia told Yakov that he should ask if he could tend to a peach tree, in good humor. Unlike how she had probably thought him to react, with a smirk or frown, he agreed and said he would ask if Tony could get him a peach tree.

“You can sleep with me, if you want,” Natalia offered after Yakov stood by the door leading to the living area and then out to the wings. He looked at her, where she stood by the table. She moved to stand across from him, her shoulder also against the wall. “You’ve always been so strong. You can kill a behemoth faster than anyone I know, faster than it takes me to reload a gun, and yet you’re scared of accidentally hurting someone you’ve known in person for such a short time. That is why you’re hesitating, right?”

“I was on my way, but you pulled me back. An altercation took place, and now I don’t want to wake him.”

“Do I need to add that you’re very quiet depending on the mission, or would that make you uncomfortable?” He smiled, and she smiled back at him.

“It’s different. It shouldn’t be, but it is and it’s confusing but I think I don’t mind it too much. Rather know he doesn’t hate me, isn’t terrified that I’d hurt him, than to have to apply any skill too close…”

“Use the skills we have when we need. It doesn’t always lead to death. It doesn’t have to if you don’t want it too. Just because you can kill him, definitely doesn’t mean you will. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed, it’s a little endearing, but I don’t understand it. Protective, I can understand, he’s so… well, I can understand wanting to keep him safe, but whatever you feel, if I am reading this right, isn’t all protective. It isn’t all obsessive either, but I think I’m reading into this more than you have. I’m offering you a place to stay tonight so you can work up to it, that’s what I’m trying to do,” she crosses her arms over her chest. “Just because we’re monsters, Yakov, doesn’t mean we have to hurt people we care about. It’s not inevitable. Choices are choices, and those are what lead to the way our lives play out. You don’t want to hurt him, you don’t have to. You want to kill Steve, or you do kill Steve, and you will suffer consequences. You don’t want to deal with consequences that come with that, then you avoid it until those consequences change or you accept the probable outcome. It’s simple.”

Yakov thought for a moment.

“ Priyatnykh snovideniy ,” he said.

“ Sladkikh snov ,” the sweet smile wasn’t there, but Natalia was still happy if her expression, one he hadn’t seen in years, was real. “You’re the closest thing to a family I have, I didn’t like that at first, but… you’ve come to me with your problems, and I’ll go to you with mine. You raised me, you taught me, you… you were there until you couldn’t be, and now you’re back,” Yakov raises an eyebrow and she uncrosses her arm to punch his shoulder playfully, “I’m not going to start calling to dad or anything. I’d call you ‘old man,’ but you only fight like one. Go get some sleep.

“Tony’s right, you’re sassy and you didn’t have to say anything that time. FRIDAY didn’t teach you that.”

“No, you and Tony did. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he contemplated doing something affectionate, but he didn’t. He walked through the living area and to Tony’s wing. He got near the door and the keypad turned green despite him not pressing, or knowing, the code at all. The door beeped and he pushed it open. He watched it shut and lock before he continued pass the door to the stairs to the workshop and went a few feet forward to Tony’s room. There was no lock on this door, but he had never even attempted to go inside without permission before. He slowly turned the handle and opened it as quietly as he could. He shut it behind him too.

His eyes adjusted to the dark and he could see the difference between Tony’s room and Rhodey’s side. There was no divider like there had been for Steve and him. There was a couch against the wall with the door into the room and it had built in bookshelves full of books. There was a long couch underneath the lowest shelf, which was about six feet from the ground. He slid off his boots and sat on the couch. It was soft, like most furniture in the living quarters. This was softer than the majority though. The softness was a blessing at first, and he still loved it, but this was nicer. Probably because it came with implicit trust that he probably didn’t deserve. Tony should have been worried that he could die in his sleep with him in the room, but he wasn’t. Or at least he didn’t seem like he was worried. He didn’t sleep, he just barely drifted like he usually did until his body demanded recharging. He had only been up for a few days, rest was more than enough to stay functional compared to actual sleep. He didn’t like being unaware of his surroundings, and despite sleeping softly, he didn’t like feeling vulnerable. He really didn’t want to sleep, wake up, and accidentally break Tony for getting too close. That, Tony’s safety, wasn’t something he was risking for some sleep that he didn’t require.

Those nights, when he had to sleep, he would sleep with Natalia where she knew not to approach. She was very similar.

Yakov only rested for approximately an hour and a half before Tony jolted upright and stayed pressed against his headboard for the next hour as FRIDAY spoke to him. Yakov didn’t look. Instead, he faced away as soon as he realized what was going on. The same thing that happened during their ‘celebration.’

“Y-Yakov? Are you there?”

“On the couch. Didn’t want to take liberties, and I wasn’t sure--”

“No, that’s fine. I sort of meant you could sleep on the bed, but that’s probably for the best. Sometimes I, uh, react pretty badly. You can sleep here when I’m in the lab, though. Did I wake you up?”

“No. I wasn’t sleeping. Don’t need it much. Just relaxing. I only came in maybe an hour ago, maybe a little more,” he knew it was a little more than ‘a little more’ but that he wasn’t lying either, “Natalia and I had to, uh, fix some things. Didn’t want you to wake up to a mess.”

“You didn’t have to fix anything by hand. I have people to do that.”

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t much trouble. It was sort of nice,” Yakov rolled so he could regain his previous position to look at Tony from his vantage point on the couch. Tony had slumped over against the headboard and pushed the blankets back. He couldn’t see clearly due to being lower to the ground than the bed, but he was pretty sure Tony had pushed the blankets off of him completely. It was odd, because he had never seen Tony shirtless before, and his chest had as many scars as he had, maybe more. He had something glowing in his chest, too, radiating soft blue light. Yakov had read of the ‘arc reactor’ that Tony Stark had invented pre-freedom, but he had never seen it before. Never had he even seen it glowing through any clothes he wore. He hadn’t seen the blue light when he walked in earlier, either.

“Oh. Well, then I’m glad you did? I don’t know what to say. Steve just asks me to fix it when he breaks something. I guess I just thought you and Nat would probably like that too. Nat hasn’t broken anything, or at least nothing I’ve noticed, outside of the training room, so… well, want to go get some coffee with me?” The night was good, and the early morning hours were as well. Later? Not so much.

Chapter Text

Yakov hadn’t had any coffee, but Tony had enough for the both of them. They sat at the table together because Yakov had told him how the barstools were still drying. Tony had laughed and told him he would have loved to seen that particular fight. Yakov promised to indulge him one day.

As the sun passed over the horizon and the day began, someone joined them. Someone that Yakov had never met. Someone Tony seemed happy to see again. It was the unknown man, the one that Yakov hadn’t forgotten about and definitely thought was dangerous, but the man that nobody spoke of very often. Even FRIDAY had only mentioned ‘Vision’ or ‘part brother’ as someone she wasn’t on extremely good terms with, and didn’t like to talk about much.

Vision was odd, but then FRIDAY was as well. FRIDAY, though, had life and personality despite lacking a physical form. Vision didn’t lack shape, but he lacked the personality that endeared Yakov to FRIDAY. Vision sat down at the table, away from Yakov, and therefore away from Tony. Yakov tried to not notice the hurt in Tony’s eyes when Vision didn’t sit next to him. So, Tony cared for Vision, but it didn’t seem to be reciprocated all that much. Yakov didn’t think he liked Vision very much. This wasn’t about dragging him seventy feet across rough dirt by the collar and getting sand and rocks and other things in weird places, as well as jamming one of his favourite guns (which was probably why he didn’t like him most. He liked that rifle, but it was easier to give up -- Steve had demanded it -- when he knew it required major cleaning and still had a possibility of not working again).

“Mr. Stark,” Vision started his sentence carefully. This person didn’t seem real at all. Yakov had met FRIDAY, he had seen and interacted shortly with DUM-E and U, but Vision had hardly been mentioned. It was a painful spot, it seemed, to all of Tony’s children. In FRIDAY’s case, she seemed to resent him a little bit, and Yakov hadn’t asked why or wanted to bother her with something she clearly didn’t like talking about unless she was very angry and needed to vent (which seemed odd for an AI, but she was more than just an AI). Tony leaned forward, closer to Vision, because he had been staring at Vision since he walked into the kitchen/dining area.

“What’s up?”

“I have been informed by Captain Rogers, that you have decided to allow Mr. Barnes to stay,” Yakov noticed Tony twitch minutely, and then wondered why Rogers was a captain when his former before was a Sergeant too, Bucky had rank, not like Jim, but more than Steve. Also, he currently had no last name, and he didn’t plan on adopting one until it was absolutely necessary. He would discuss it with Natalia since they both wanted a family (officially).

“Yeah, I guess that’s what happened. Steve’s been all weird. First he loves him, then he hates him because he’s not the same guy he remembered. Stuff tends to change when put in the position Yakov was put in. I changed and I was only kept for three months, I mean, Yakov was there for forty years, and Barnes had been there for not as much time, but enough to make him… uh, fade ? Is that the right word?” He looked at Yakov, and Yakov shrugged. ‘Fade’ could work, but ‘die’ was more accurate. Then again, words relating to death seemed to make people uncomfortable so ‘fade’ was the best alternative.

“Yes, the Captain mentioned that Mr. Barnes faded , and the Winter Soldier is who took his body. I am unsure if this is a wise idea. It would be best to keep him within our sight, of course, but he needs to be contained--”

“No,” Vision cocked his head to the side.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said, Vis. No . Spelt ‘N,’ ‘O’. It’s typically used as a negative response.”

“I’m aware of what ‘no’ means, sir, I do not understand why you wouldn’t follow the Captain’s wishes… or mine,” Tony had twitched again when he was called ‘sir’ and then he looked down at his hands on the table. Tony ran his thumb over his knuckles.

“I don’t think that Captain is a good judge of character, so he doesn’t get an opinion here. So let’s throw that out right now,” it was almost the same tone that Tony spoke to DUM-E with, but lacking the playfulness while dripping with raw pain. It seemed Vision was not nearly as devoted to Tony as his other children. “Also, I’ve been recently informed that this is my compound, so I can really do whatever I damn well please here, and I want Yakov to stay… I care about your opinions, though, but you haven’t even met him. You’ve been hiding out in your room or wherever you’ve been this entire time.”

“I have seen security footage, and it seems unwise to allow this man to stay free among a house with a shed full of weapons and all the other dangerous things around the compound. This is the man that raised girls to be assassins, and killed nine of them in the process. He is not--”

“How do you know that?” Tony sighs. His voice is no longer as stable and confident, or falsely confident but working, as it had been moment earlier. “Has everyone read his goddamn file? Did you see what else happened to him? Did you see the years of torture he endured? Did you see the parts of him that make him more than a weapon? I bet you ignored the good. Why exactly was Wanda Maximoff so much better than Yakov when he wasn’t even willingly with HYDRA, but she volunteered? Have you seen the Maximoff files? Or did you see something you didn’t like and decided that it was best left unread or did you think it was all planted because ‘she could never do something like that’? You realize she set the Hulk, the Hulk , on an innocent town and tortured almost everyone on the team before she managed to ‘change’ sides. She worked with Ultron!”

“Which, if I remember correctly, was a creation of yours to begin with?” Tony took a deep breath and turned to look away from Vision and sip his coffee despite it no longer steaming, which Tony admitted he prefered to luke-warm and over cold coffee.

“I also made DUM-E, U, FRIDAY, your basic consciousness and most of your defining attributes… I’ve also designed and produced prototypes and final products of, like, 60% of America’s technology and 25-ish% of the entire world, but I fuck up one time, and let me add that if I hadn’t fucked up, you wouldn’t even exist . If anything you should be happy I made Ultron because you wouldn’t have fallen in love with that stupid bitch if you never met her, right? That’s how things work. Cause and effect. Yet everyone likes to shove the mistakes I’ve made in my face and completely ignore all the amazing things I make,” Tony stood up to pour his coffee out. “I thought you would have sided with me. You’re sort of a creation of mine, but the Great Captain is much better than me. Again. Like he always is.”

Vision stood up, phased through the table, not disturbing the table at all, and walked through the counter to get to Tony.

“... don’t call her that. She was more than that , and you didn’t like her. I don’t choose sides, Mr. Stark, I make logical leaps and make decisions based of that logic. I would thank you for creating me, but you didn’t really do that, Ultron did, and then I cleaned it up when you couldn’t--”

“You are my goddamn creation! Also, I typically make things to fix other things. So you’re purpose was sort of fulfilled, I could just deconstruct you if you hate your existence so much. I could melt down your body and make so many better things with it…” Tony took a deep breath, “Sorry. That was really shitty. I didn’t  mean that. I just… why are you choosing her over me ? Everyone chooses someone over me, and I made you, I’m your father and I’m still beneath some fucked up image of a terrible witch .”

“I thought we could have an adult conversation. I see I was incorrect. You cannot speak without insulting others or bragging about your abilities, so I will take my concerns elsewhere,” Vision drifted from the counter and through the walls. Out of the room. Tony threw a cup at the wall and wiped his face before licking his lips and sitting back at the table beside Yakov.

“You wanna go out? I don’t want to be here right now.”

“Sure.”

***

An hour later, going too fast in Tony’s red Ferrari LaFerrari, they slowed to a stop as Tony pulled into the parking lot of his, or now The Avengers , Tower. He took Yakov to his penthouse floor. It was still a place of business, but of course his lab was there, and he had both his penthouse and second personal floor that he visited sometimes, apparently. They were clean, when they walked in, but Tony likely had someone clean it weekly or monthly, or something. Yakov wasn’t sure how that worked, besides that it did.

Tony’s penthouse was modern and sleek with black walls with modern art of a variety of weird things. Not entirely abstract, but not objective either. Like a mix between them. Yakov didn’t know about art, really, so he didn’t know what to call it, but it was nice. There was also a framed blueprint of ‘DUM-E’s Claw,’ which was really adorable, but complex. It looked so easy to have been made, but the blueprints outline the complicated steps of actually assembling and making different the pieces to assemble. Tony had continued walking through the hall, while Yakov stopped to look at the pictures. He realized he had been staring at the blueprint for too long and walked down the hall to find Tony on the couch. He had spread out, one leg dropped over the edge with his foot planted on the floor and the other one stretched out and touching the opposite couch arm.

“What had you so caught up back there?” Tony asked, fiddling with a tablet in his hands. His fingers were moving fast, and while Yakov could see every movement, he couldn’t figure out exactly what he was doing.

“The blueprint for DUM-E’s claw,” he wanted to tell him that he was great, absolutely amazing, but he didn’t because he didn’t want to phrase it wrong and give the wrong impression. He sat on the arm of the couch, near Tony’s foot.

“Oh, yeah? I could show you the whole thing. He looks like crap, but he was pretty complicated. I made him in the eighties, so yeah, he’s not like FRIDAY, and not just because he has a body. No, he’s pretty dumb, hence his name. I have them somewhere, I’d just have to find them, probably have FRIDAY pull it up since I put it on my server in case I had to rebuild him again or something. He got pretty mangled once, and U too, but I put them back together. They’re my friends.”

“Your children?” Tony looked up at him, “ You called yourself Vision’s father, and sometimes FRIDAY calls you ‘da’ before quickly correcting herself and calling you ‘boss’.”

“You probably think it’s weird, huh? Pepper did. She didn’t want or like kids, but she liked the bots. She didn’t like me cooing at them or anything because it made her uncomfortable, but yeah. They’re my kids.”

“It’s not weird,” Yakov didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t weird. “I mean I’m not the best with kids, or people in general actually, but I mean… I really cared about the girls. That didn’t, eh, affect my ability to teach them, but I tried to… make it quick , when I had to, or…” Yakov didn’t know why he had gone there.

“I’ve had to kill kids too. Mine was a robot who was technically destroyed by my other son, and he was a genocidal maniac, but I mean, I guess I sort of know how it feels. He… he hurt my other kid, and then pretty much destroyed him. Vision was after Jay, but the kids and I don’t talk about Jay often, and we definitely try to keep Vision and Jay’s difference to ourselves. We try to… I tried to help Vis, but he didn’t want it. I don’t think he liked me much, and it’s gotten to be more than some distant-rebellious phase, it’s genuine dislike, and the worst part is I sort of resent and dislike him too, but I try. It doesn’t work sometimes, obviously, but he… Well, he’s sort of my antithesis. He’s all noble and good, and a robot, and so much better than me at everything and then I’m just… just me.”

“Not everyone chooses someone over you. FRIDAY adores you, Jim would be with you everywhere if he didn’t have to work, and DUM-E and U worship the ground you walk on.”

“That’s true…” Yakov nodded at him, because it was true. Yakov was over the point of no return, too, and he knew that he would choose Tony. It was true, he would probably struggle with saving Tony or Natalia, but Natalia, he knew , could save herself, Tony was… Tony needed him more than she did. He would offer to train Tony, but he didn’t want to hurt him even on accident. The girls were different, he was partly commanded to teach them, and tried his hardest not to, but he had been punished plenty of times for disobeying the handler stationed with him for ‘being too gentle’ or whatever they wanted to say he did, but Tony was… the girls had only gotten the serum after they grew and proved to be competent, after they were sterilized , and that was typically pretty young. Natalia had been sixteen, almost seventeen, and the other girls were only a few weeks or a couple months behind her. There was Niko, but Niko had avoided him. He didn’t know what he had done, but Niko hated him with a passion, but he could never hurt Yakov, which only made him angrier.

***

When Tony drove them back to the compound at ten at night. Tony had eventually offered him a place on the couch, and then put his feet on his lap. Yakov had rested, almost completely still, most of the day. It hadn’t been uncomfortable, it was almost nice. It had been quiet for the first hour and a half before Tony started to play music from his tablet. Tony deemed it necessary to introduce Yakov to ‘the best music ever.’ It was too loud and chaotic for Yakov, and it dimmed his hearing because it drowned out other sounds. He didn’t like not being aware of everything, but Tony was happy. Yakov hadn’t said anything about it, and only focused harder on other sounds, filtering what he could of the music out.

There had been a meeting called with the Avengers while Tony and Yakov were away, or so it seemed, since when they walked into the living room, everyone was in their seats and Steve was before them, and talking at them.

“How rude!” Tony shocked the others into looking back at him. “Technically any choices you just voted on must include my vote, too, so we have to re-do it all. I’m sort of part of the team--”

“No. You’re not,” Steve said. Tony blinked for a second before he put a hand on his hip.

“I’m not part of the team anymore?” Steve nodded. “Well, then… pack you shit and leave.”

“What?!” came from at least two people sitting.

“I don’t know how to break that down any simpler, so you’re going to have you use a bit of that brain that you technically have to have to be alive, and figure out what I said because I already dumbed it down enough. You, Steve, real dick move. Did you think it wouldn’t backfire? Let’s just kick the guy who provides everything for us off the team and see what happens? This should have been the first possibility you would have all thought about,” Tony looked around the room. Clint was in a chair with a brace around his neck to keep, and an ice pack behind his left shoulder blade, Sam was on the couch with Natalia and Vision. Steve was standing above them in the front of them all. Lording over them as he tended to do. “Without Rhodey and I, it’s sort of not official, either. Would you like to retract the douche move and consider me an Avenger, or do you really want to spend the night on the street? It’s up to you.”

“This is irrational, Tony, Clint’s inju--”

“Because he punched me. Don’t dish it if you can’t handle getting the same in return. That’s, like, the first rule of being an asshole,” Tony shrugged, “it’s actually one of the only rules.”  

“You sicced your stupid super soldier on me! That’s not fair!” Clint had jostled his arm in his anger and let out a pained hiss and wiped the blood from where he bit into his lip to keep quiet from his lips and wiped it on his sweats.

“That doesn’t contradict anything I just said, so I don’t know why that’s important. Don’t fight if you can’t handle a punch , right?”

“Tony, that’s enough. Now, we have decided,” Natalia stood up and walked to Yakov before turning to face Steve with crossed arms. Steve sighed, “The four of us,” he motioned to the three men sitting and himself, “have decided that you are not only abusing your power in this situation, but you’ve been compromised to the point you are not safe. Vision told me about your outburst. The Tony I knew would have never said that about his friend, or to his friend.”

“Really?” Tony took a step forward, Steve nodded confidently. “Okay. That’s cool, but I’m the same Tony that is at fault for everything that goes wrong, and the one that is irrational, and just a giant fucker most of the time, too, right? Because that’s the Tony you always treat me like, so correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t, because I’m not wrong.”

“Fuckin’ Christ, Stark! Let’s this not be about you for like two seconds!”

“Hey Clint? Shut up before I sic my ‘stupid super soldier’ on you again, alright, buddy? The adults are talking.”

“It’s when you say things like that!” Steve yelled and pointed at Yakov, “that I know you aren’t Tony, aren’t our Tony, but you’re whatever he has influenced you to be.”

“Influenced me to not beg for every scrap of affection from you, maybe. Actually, that’s almost entirely correct. Influenced me to be a jerk? No, that was always there, and you’ve all called me on it plenty of times. Should I get FRIDAY to play some clips? FRI-baby?”

“No! That’s not necessary. Tony--”

“Stop trying to appease me by pretending to care!” Tony used the hand not on his hip to pinch the bridge of his nose before dropping that arm, “Just stop . Thanks. Now, FRIDAY can clear this all up with footage, or you can just put your finger down because the only reason you don’t like Yakov anymore is because he’s not Bucky Barnes , and he doesn’t worship the ground you walk on. Now that that is cleared up… is this a jealousy thing, or--”

“Of course not! This is because I know this isn’t you,” Steve walked around the couches and stood in front of Tony. He was maybe a foot away from Tony, and only two-ish feet away from Yakov who stood to Tony’s side. Natalia had taken Yakov’s side, too. “Tony, we aren’t permanently removing you, I promise, we just need to give some incentive to help you make the right choice. We don’t want another incident and this seems to be the only way to do it. Please, we are trying to help. You’re my friend , just as much as a teammate--”

“So we’re not friends, because I’ve just been kicked off your team.”

“No, you will always be my friend--”

“Like Bucky was?”

“Tony, you’re making this harder than it has to be,” Steve reached out a hand, as if Tony should shake it, “C’mon, we just want to help. You’ve helped us, let us help you now.”

Tony turned to look at Yakov. Steve narrowed his eyes when Tony wasn’t focused on him and relaxed when Tony looked back. Yakov really hated Steve Rogers. This was Tony’s decision, and Yakov couldn’t change that. Tony could agree, shake Steve’s hand, and Yakov would have to leave. He would decide to do things differently, probably making an enemy out of Tony in the process, but if that was what happened than so be it. At least as enemies they could interact. He didn’t want that to happen, though. Natalia had already said she would follow him, and he didn’t want Natalia to lose this. He didn’t want to lose Tony. He didn’t want Steve to be here, but he did want to kill him. Killing Steve would solve the problem of Steve being here, but that would likely make an enemy out of Tony too.

He could kill them all, take Natalia with him and leave the country. They weren’t the type of people who required stability anyway. They could adapt, they were designed to do so. He just… what he wanted and the reality were likely two very different things.

“Yakov…” Tony whispered, and Yakov felt something twist inside him. Something he didn’t really think he had, and something he was pretty sure was only metaphorical and completely tied to emotions opposed to any physical pain.

“Oh, Tony, this is the ri--”

“Steve, I’m not asking him to leave,” and Yakov could see that Steve looked as shocked as he felt. Tony turned his back to Steve. “I’m asking you to help me drag them outside.”

“Of course,” Yakov looked at Steve, although he hadn’t lost peripheral of him this entire time (not when Tony’s back was open and vulnerable to him), and smiled. “So, we can all walk outside, or I can drag you. I don’t recommend the second choice for your sake, because I think I would enjoy it.”

“T-this is a bad idea, Tony. You don’t want to make us leave. He could hurt you!”

“At least he’d make it quick… and Vision. You can leave, too. I know you don’t like me, and if I’m being honest, I don’t care much for you either.”

“May I take my things from my former room?” Vision sounded as apathetic as ever, and Tony frowned.

“That’s fine,” Tony said.

***

Yakov got to pick Clint up, throw him over his shoulder, and take him outside. He dropped him on the ground in front of Steve and Sam. Vision phased through the wall from his wing and towards them. Steve looked so angry, and it was amusing almost, because Yakov hadn’t broken up the team, he had sped up the inevitable. Hopefully Tony didn’t beat himself up over it later. From what Yakov had seen, Tony would somehow find a way to blame himself, convincing him that he had been in the wrong. That, or he just hid for days after something bad happened and everyone had just pretended nothing had happened at all. Sort of like the parent-killing issue.

Tony had called someone to pick them up, and from the car, it seemed to be his personal driver. Yakov had never met him, but Tony had mentioned him in passing a few times. Something about this guy and his ex-girlfriend but close friend, Pepper, were dating now. Yakov had been too busy watching Tony’s hand as he seamlessly tinkered and made things as if he hadn’t just designed or put things together on a whim, despite him not having any plans to follow at all.

This guy got out of the car and opened the door for the four guys.

“Ah, you must be the…?”

“Friend, I think. You must be Tony’s bodyguard-slash-driver-slash-friend?”

“Yeah, that’s me. They, and I mean Tony and Co., call me Happy,” the man was big, but he looked human. Breakable. He watched as Vision packed his things up, while Steve and Sam helped Clint get into the car. They hadn’t taken anything, Yakov didn’t know why not. Tony had told them they could, but Yakov loomed over Clint and Sam, and glared Steve in submission because Steve was technically taller than him.

“I’m Yakov.”

“Oh! The boyfriend -friend?” Yakov tried not to let his face change at all. The boyfriend ? He liked it, but did Tony consider that? Or was Happy just making assumptions? Did Tony talk about that? Now he was curious.

“Uh, I’m not sure. We haven’t, eh, talked about anything like that, but…” Yakov waited for Vision to phase into the case and then he shut the door behind them. “Well, sorry to send you off with this lot.”

“Don’t worry about it. Tony’s got me sending them to some hotel he’s booked them for a few weeks so they can get some jobs or something or they could just live with Mr. Barton, I don’t know about that. I don’t really ask questions like that. I listen when he talks,” Happy reached out to shake his hand, and Yakov reciprocated . They hook his hands, and then Happy sighed and started walking back towards the driver’s side. “I’ll see you ‘round Yakov. Or would you prefer--”

“Yakov’s fine,” Yakov nodded at him and looked back at the building. Happy smiled.

“See ya later, Yakov. Tell Tony I said ‘hi’.”

“I will,” and then Happy was in the car and driving them away. Yakov waited outside for a few seconds, if not a full minute, before he turned and walked back toward the living quarters in the compound. He entered and it seemed so much quieter than it usually was despite the fact it wasn’t truly much different than most nights. At this time, around midnight to one in the morning, people were in the kitchen or asleep. He hears Natalia before he sees her.

“ Kak on? ”

“ On volnuyetsya ,” is Natalia’s response, and it was reasonable for Tony to be worried. Tony, despite his devil-may-care attitude, was almost always stressed or worried about something. His fidgeting was constant, and while it could be the need for something to do, it seemed like it could be nervous. He had a lot of things going on at all times, it was understandable.

“He’s in his workshop?” She nodded.

“I don’t think he’ll be up anytime soon,” Natalia said as she walked closer to him. Her approach wasn’t as hesitant as it once had been. It was almost relaxed, because there was still a tenseness as if waiting for something to happen. “Did something happen? You look… your expression is odd.”

Yakov didn’t flinch when she reached up to hold his cheek. She dropped her hand almost as quickly as she raised it, which is to say: slowly.

“It’s nothing,” Yakov looked to the kitchen door. It streamed light through the cracks around the frame and from underneath. “We should probably finish painting the walls now that the plaster is dry.”

So they did just that.

Chapter Text

It had been three days since the Avengers had broken, and it had been almost four nights after Happy picked the four men up and took them away. Tony had yet to rise from his workshop. Yakov was worried, but he didn’t act on it despite wanting to. Tony needed his space, right? You gave people space when they needed it, or asked for it. Maybe not verbally, but with actions, right? He was unsure, and he wanted to go to Tony, to apologize to him and thank him, but he couldn’t because what if Tony didn’t want that? He hadn’t asked Natalia despite her pestering. She had told him he had worn his ‘killer’ face since he had last seen Tony. He didn’t know what she meant because his face looked like it always did. Of course she would pick something like that up, though, and tease him about it. It was endearing and frustrating in equal measures. This was family, though, and family didn’t leave when things got hard. Family stayed together because they were the most permanent things to each other. He didn’t know if that was a question or a statement, and his head wasn’t helping since it was screaming to just fight and destroy. He didn’t know why, because he physically hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone for the past three days. He had been too worried. He hadn’t slept, either, but it was different for him, an enhanced assassin, and Tony, a baseline human, because he could stay awake for these periods and maintain functionality. Tony got sloppy when he was tired. Not with his work, never with his work, but with everything else. He spilled things on himself and refused to eat because he couldn’t focus on two things at once after being away for so long. It had been about five nights now, since the night he had seen Tony wake up from a nightmare in his room. He hadn’t wanted to repeat that, but Tony needed to rest as much as he could to stay efficient.

The only problem with this was that he had no idea how to approach Tony without sounding demanding or pushy. He just wanted to help, and he hated that because that’s what Steve had tried to tell him, but truly he did. There was the complete silence on Steve and the others’ end, which was disconerning because this was not something Yakov thought those people could let go. He was right, though. Those people, especially Steve, needed to be in control and put a step above others to stay content.

Natalia had convinced Yakov to paint her toenails. ‘You’ve got a steady hand, you can do it best,’ had been her explanation when he asked why she thought he could paint any better than she could. He didn’t understand that statement at all, because she had just as steady a hand, but this seemed like one of those things people did when they wanted attention. He liked that she felt safe enough to come to him to spend time with him (and not just to pester him).

They sat on the couch in the living area. He was on one side of the couch, and she had her feet in his lap. He stilled her feet and painted her tiny toenails as she scrolled through her phone or whatever it was she did. He twisted the cap back on the bottle of polish and set it on the coffee table. He was content to stay in the silent for now, listening for steps, breathing, and other sounds typical to a quiet house filled with people who stayed up all night.

“Can I interest you in some advice?” Natalia said, startling the silence.

“ Konechno . What’s the advice?”

“So much more than I can tell you at one time, but for now. I advise you to go make sure Tony’s eaten something or to move him to bed if he fell asleep on his desk again.”

“Anything else for me to ‘advise’ me on before I take him toast?”

“Yes, actually,” and then she went silent. He waited for a minute before he pulled a toe and popped it. “Ouch. I was trying to think on what is best to do next,” but she was laughing, he also realized he was barely smiling. He picked her feet up and stood before dropping them where he had been sitting. “Go take him toast, and hug him or something.”

Yakov doesn’t respond, he didn’t really know how to respond to that. Hug Tony? The closest contact he’d had with him is when Tony held his wrist or hand, but even then Tony had initiated that contact. Tony may not seem scared of him, but that didn’t mean he could… well, he wasn’t going to do that. Natalia was different.

FRIDAY had opened the door for him again without a code. He thanked her, and she stayed silent. They had started to go back to the comfortable talks that they had when he first arrived. It had taken a while, but he would give her time. She didn’t have a body, but she had emotions, and he had hurt her by hurting Tony. He wouldn’t push for more than either of them were willing to give. He didn’t have the best record with people, especially people that he cared about... and he had already messed up (although he hadn’t been in control or aware of how this would affect his future). Yakov wasn’t going to risk losing them for good. He had gotten too close with the last, ‘poor attempt to flirt,’ as Tony informed him (only for Natalia to later confirm it was indeed terrible). It wasn’t like he had social skills or was created and nurtured to be an emotionally functional person either.

Holding the plate with toast with blackberry jam and a cup of coffee he pushed the door to the workshop open . Tony didn’t move to look at him and if not for the brief pause when he entered the shop, he would have been sure he hadn’t been heard at all. Yakov approached slowly, but not because he thought Tony would hurt him. It was so Tony could ask him to stop before he came too close. He set the plate and coffee down on the side of the desk the engineer was currently working at.

“Thanks, Snowflake,” Tony took the coffee and sipped it, “Do you need something? Or are you here to visit?”

“I came down to check on you. You’ve been here for about four nights and three days… are you okay?” Tony set the mug down and picked up a piece of toast. He barely ate half of it before returning it to the plate.

“I don’t know,” Tony said as he turned in his swivel chair towards Yakov. “Was I too harsh? Vision didn’t deserve any of that. I’m such a horrible father. Just like Howard but worse ,” Tony rubbed his face in a sleepy motion before he sighed and slumped over in his chair. “The kids haven’t said anything, but they have been quiet. U’s been almost completely silent, she’s beeped at me once and it was just to get my attention for DUM-E. Speaking of that cute idiot, he has been trying to get me to play fetch every thirty minutes, and FRIDAY hasn’t sassed me once. Not a single time!”

“Maybe she doesn’t know how to help you, so she is trying to make a decision based on what she learns online? I don’t know U or DUM-E very much, but maybe U is also unsure. She could be picking up on your sadness, and DUM-E could be trying to cheer you up. Fetch makes him happy, he might think it’ll make you happy too.”

“... Stop making sense,” Tony had the smirk, but the playfulness was gone. Even his ‘cocky’ smile seemed forced and fake. Taking the front Tony was attempting to put forth and then the tiredness in his movements and posture make Yakov want to just let him sleep, but Tony avoided it. Yakov couldn’t even blame him for that. When Tony had nightmares, they seemed terrible and took quite a while for him to calm down from. “Thanks for the food. I haven’t eaten since… uh, what day is it?”

“Thursday.”

“Since the sandwiches Saturday night. I’ve heard fasting is a new trend. Makes you healthy and stuff. It won’t kill me, the coffee… it might, but it would be a nice way to go. Actually, I was informed that caffeine overdose had seriously unpleasant symptoms. I’ve only had, like, twelve-ish cups today. That’s not even close to the amount needed to kill someone. Bad news is that I had to use Rhodey’s coffee stash because I ran out of mine and I didn’t want to go upstairs,” Tony cringed and then set the coffee down, “not because of you or Nat, I promise, it just… I don’t want it to feel empty, and I know it does because almost everyone is gone… did I make the wrong decision?”

“I don’t think I’d be the right person to tell you if your choice was right or wrong. I think it was the right choice, but it could be my selfishness because I really don’t want to leave you. There was the unhealthy relationship between you and Steve, but I have absolutely no authority on what constitutes a healthy relationship,” Yakov leaned against the desk, not really knowing what to do with his hands. He ended up crossing his arms because his hands felt weird dangling at his sides.

“He was right. We were just a time-bomb… I just didn’t think I’d lose… I thought Vision wouldn’t have gone against me. I hated Howard but even I sided with him. Even when it was stupid and I knew so much better, but I did it because he was my father. I only pissed him off ninety-nine percent of the time. He could get one percent when he really needed it. I sorta-kinda ‘really needed it’ but… you’re not a bad guy, and I don’t know why they all think you are,” Tony stood up only to fall back in his chair. “I’ve only been sitting for, like, twenty-hours. Faulty design, evolution. I could do so much better,” Tony tried to stand again, and this time he forced himself forward, just far enough to almost faceplant. Yakov didn’t catch him, he grabbed his shirt and pulled him up before he could collide and break his nose. He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder to keep him from falling again. Tony leans toward him and wraps an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t want to sleep, but I probably should. It’s been four nights now, this is usually my limit… except that one time, but drugs were involved, so it doesn’t count.”

“I can stay with you, but I doubt that will help,” Yakov offered. He watched Tony’s reaction. It didn’t change aside from closing his eyes. “Or not… what do you want?”

“Stay with me. You’re my Snowflake, and you could kick anybody’s ass,” Yakov didn’t know how to respond, so he twisted to pick Tony up. Tony wrapped his other arm around his neck and let his head fall back on the arm underneath his neck. How was he going to open the doors if both his hands were preoccupied? It didn’t matter. He would find a way, he didn’t want to put Tony down unless absolutely necessary.

Yakov managed to open the door leading back up into the little walkway between the rest of the compound and Tony’s room. He used his knee to turn the handle just enough to push the door open. He gently nudged it shut once he was inside. Tony’s bed was bigger than Yakov’s bed in Steve’s room. He pulled the covers down with the hand under Tony’s neck and then slid him underneath. He was about to go to the couch, watch over the place, when Tony reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“You can sleep with me tonight, if you want. You don’t have to… but I’d really like it if you did.”

How could Yakov refuse? Especially, if it was Tony asking.

“I will, just let me take off my boots, solnishko ,” Tony dropped his hand before sandwiching it between his cheek and the mattress. Yakov walked around to the other side of the bed and took off his boots. He took the knife from his waist off and set it on the table beside the bed. He couldn’t let it out of his reach, but even if he spooned Tony, he could react quick enough to grab it. That was, at least, the hope. It would be terrible if his negligence and desire to be closer to Tony got Tony injured. (He didn’t much care if he got a few scrapes. He’d take a bullet or three... or ten, if it meant Tony was safe. That sentiment seemed like it would be needed in the future now that his enemies were free to plan without him ‘accidentally’ overhearing.)

***

It was about four and a half hours since Tony had finally fallen asleep when he stirred for a second before jolting awake. He pushed Yakov away, or attempted to. Yakov gave him the most distance the bed allowed. Tony’s breathing had gone from the soft and even puffs from sleeping to almost choking on the air. Tony pulled his knees up to his chest. FRIDAY did as she usually did. Talking him through it. She gave the time, date, the weather forecast, and just about everything she could give him considering she was incorporeal. She repeated it a few times and then he put his hands on his head and placed his forehead on his knees.

“Every fuckin’ time,” he sounded so defeated. “I don’t know how to stop them. Even when I logically should not be dreaming, I have them… and they’re different now, and it’s only worse. Let me see a void, thanks. Not that .”

“Do you… do you want to talk about it?”

“Oh no. God no, you’d think I’m crazy. You’d act different ‘round me ‘cause you’d think I’m scared, and then you’d leave me. I try so hard, and in the end I’m always left behind,” Tony’s voice caught and then he went silent. It would have been silent, the kind that made people’s ears ring, had Yakov not heard the soft sniffles. Tony had never cried before, at least not in his presence. This went on for a good twenty minutes before it softened to silence again. “Even Rhodey has to get away sometimes, and I’m not gonna stop him because he’d hate me and never come back if I tried. Poor guy has tolerated me for thirty years now, don’t know how he can stand it. I would’ve strangled me by now.”

“Tony--”

“I should’ve died years ago, and Rhodey is always patting me on the back as if he’d miss me. Now I sound like a fucking narcissist, probably am, I mean, I’ve been described as one plenty of times. You hear it enough and you just start believing it. Pepper left me too, because I was… because of this. I should’ve died, and I don’t think it’s a good thing to come back on the other side because now that’s just extra shit I have to try and deal with. It’s not fair to Rhodey, and Happy… and Pepper, but… I drink sixty cups of coffee and when I finally crash, I’m still dreaming. Pills don’t work, sort of lose effectiveness after using them for so long. Build up a resistance until you get too close to the lethal dose. Change you to something else, and it repeats until meds just don’t work at all anymore.”

“Tony,” Yakov paused to allow Tony to talk again if he wanted to. Tony didn’t start talking, so he continued. “Can I… this is… can I touch you?”

“If you really want to.”

Yakov pulled Tony to him, lifting him as gently as he could. Tony didn’t move or make a sound until he was on Yakov’s legs, side to his chest.

“I don’t know… I don’t know how to help you, but it’s not fair that you have to suffer. I’m sorry… and just so you know, I don’t think people tolerate you. We like you. Rhodey adores you, and I… I care so much for you that I don’t really have the right words to use, but… I… I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just stop it there,” Yakov’s arm was around Tony, holding him to him, and the other hovered in the air until he found the confidence to touch Tony’s hair. He ran his flesh fingers through it. It was really soft. It smelled like motor oil and mint, and felt clean despite not seeing Tony bathe for days. How exactly did Tony stay smelling nice and shaved when he didn’t leave his lab for days at a time?

“I’m sorry that I woke you up.”

“Don’t be,” Yakov continued running his fingers through Tony’s hair. He really liked this, it was calming. He hoped it was also calming for Tony. “I can make you coffee if you want. You always offer me coffee, but I can make it today.”

“Just give me like five minutes, and then we can leave and get coffee,” Tony’s head rested against his collarbone and Tony shifted in his lap and fisted his hand in Yakov’s shirt. Even Yakov had to admit the shirt was really soft. It was black and had a blue Stark Industries logo across the chest. Ten minutes after ‘five minutes,’ still had Tony against Yakov, but Yakov didn’t mind at all. Tony finally pulled away from Yakov and crawled off the bed. He stood up. “Coffee?”

It took Yakov maybe a minute to get his boots on and then he was up and walking out of Tony’s Wing and toward the kitchen. Tony trailed behind him and sat at the table while Yakov made him his drink. Tony had been specific with how to prepare each different type of the beverage. Brazilian coffee was made in the french press, because the only other ‘logical’ option was to use it in cold brew and cold coffee didn’t taste good (according to Tony). Tony also had a strong dislike for reheated drinks. Yakov had seen Tony reheat coffee one time, but to be fair, it was more of a flavoured ‘coffee’ drink than actual coffee. Tony rarely left any coffee around to turn cold, so it wasn’t an issue too often.

Not entirely comfortable with using a french press ‘and fucking it up like Clint, who can’t make a decent cup of coffee to save his life,’ Yakov avoided the fancy stuff for some less-fancy-but-still-quality and used the coffee pot. It was different from the few coffee pots Yakov had seen, looked alien actually, but Tony liked making things better and a coffee pot seemed like the first thing Tony would ‘upgrade’ with his own technology. Coffee was just that important to the billionaire.

Yakov set the mug down on the table in front of Tony and then sat across from him at the table. If it tasted terrible, Tony didn’t comment and continued to sip it. Somehow between the first and second cups, Tony had persuaded Yakov to sit with him on the couch to watch TV. The sun was barely rising as they finished The Godfather . As usual, the rolling credits was where Tony started talking. For someone who talked often and voiced opinions as soon as they formed, Tony rarely interrupted a movie to do so.

“So technically there’s a part two and three, but… I mean, sequels didn’t get good until the eighties and then died in the late nineties. I mean, think of it this way, Terminator 2 came out in the eighties, Aliens came out in the eighties, and so did Back to the Future 2 and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back . Then in the nineties we got Batman & Robin , Star Wars: The Phantom Menace , Jurassic Park The Lost World or something like that, and Robocop 2 . I mean… I can get on board with Batman & Robin because Uma Thurman was in it, but the others didn’t have that. Arguably Star Wars: The Phantom Menace has that cool scene with Darth Maul and Qui Gon Jinn, and the second Jurassic Park had Jeff Goldblum, but I mean… they were still mostly bad.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Yakov said after moments of trying to piece that information together. Tony got up and ran to the kitchen for more ‘liquid fuel’. Just as the doors slammed shut, Yakov heard FRIDAY’s faint voice and then Tony skidded out of the kitchen. The channel changed to one of the many news ones. It took Yakov a second to put together exactly what was being said, because he had been staring at Tony. When he heard Tony’s name on the TV, he turned to look at it. There was the footage from above of Yakov at Security Holding Center, then a picture of Tony.

“ ... According to Captain Steve Rogers, or Captain America: Dr. Tony Stark, more commonly called Iron Man, has been harbouring the criminal known as the Winter Soldier. That Dr. Stark has been ‘influenced’ by this criminal to reject and leave the Avengers. Miss Natasha Romanov, the Avengers Black Widow, has been conspiring with the Winter Soldier to overthrow the Avengers for months… Clint Barton, Hawkeye, has been critically injured due to Dr. Stark’s compromised position with the Winter Soldier, and then denied the medical attention needed to… ” Tony turned the TV off and dropped the remote on the floor.

“Dammit, Pepper’s gonna be so pissed. She had one request ‘no scandals’ and what is this?” Tony went quiet and still, despite the ringing of his phone. The ignored sound didn’t stop. There were second breaks between it started ringing again, and finally Tony sighed and picked the phone up. “Heya Pep, what’s goin’ on with you?”

“ Anthony Edward Stark! ” Tony pulled the phone a few centimeters from his face, “ I wake up to the Board calling me constantly to see this on the news? What is going on? I need to know so I can fix it, like always ,” Tony cringed.

“Well, a few months ago--”

“ Months!? ”

“Yeah, months. So, about six-or-so months, give or take, this guy killed that witch, and Steve forced him to stay and called him Bucky. Ya know, Bucky Barnes from the Howling Commandos, well, it’s technically him, but it’s not. He… he-was-brainwashed-by-HYDRA-to-be-a-super-assassin-and-technically-faded-and-now-he’s-Yakov,” he took a deep breath, “and he’s also my friend.”

“ You’re telling me that Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier? ”

“Sort of, but mostly yes.”

“ So how did the Avengers break up? ”

“Well, Steve basically gave me an ultimatum. A ‘him or Yakov’ sort of thing and I chose Yakov. They kicked me out of the Avengers so I kicked them out of my compound. They’re being babies about it, let’s sue them for libel.”

“ That would cause even more trouble, Tony… How about I set up a press conference so you can explain this officially. Is the Winter Soldier, uh, does he… I’m coming over. Expect me in forty-five minutes and I swear to god, Tony… ”

“Understood. Is that all Miss Potts?” there was a sigh over the receiver.

“ That’s all Mr. Stark ,” Tony put the phone back in his pocket. He was moving around the living room frantically, looking under things and over things, until he ran across the entire living area and disappeared into his wing. He came out a few minutes later with a tablet. He sat on the couch.

“We’re going to make you an identity. Make you a legal person. So, I’m going to ask, and you’ll fill it in, alright? We got forty-five minutes to get enough info to sell this to Pepper, and then I will get FRIDAY to help with the small details, but I think I’ve got them mostly planned out.”

***

Forty-five minutes later, Pepper walked into the room and sat down on the chair beside Tony’s side of the couch. She didn’t say anything as she stared at Yakov. Tony had started nervously fiddling with things as soon as she sat down. Finally she sighed and set the purse, that she had held on her lap, on the coffee table. She pulled a tablet from her purse as she sat back. She crossed her legs and rested the tablet on her thighs before taking a deep breath.

“You must be the Winter Soldier. I think Tony called you Yakov, but he was talking very fast. We haven’t met before. I’m Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, but I’m sure you were aware of that. Now,” she looked at the tablet. “Did you send me the files?”

“Of course, just sent,” Tony winked at Yakov when Pepper was searching for the files. She found them and made a soft ‘ah-ha’ before she started to read them. She read almost as fast as Natalia seemed to be able to.

“Alright? Yakov Arnimovich Romanov?”

“Pep! Don’t make him uncomfortable!” Yakov almost smiled at Tony ‘coming to the rescue’ but that hadn’t made him uncomfortable in the least. Or at least not because of Pepper. It was more uncomfortable because he had a full name, and he never thought he would ever get that.

“Yes,” Yakov didn’t need to embellish anything. From what he saw with Pepper, she didn’t much care about him. She was only helping because it would help Tony, too, and by extension herself. He couldn’t yet tell if it was mainly Tony or herself, but Tony seemed very firm in her friendship, so he hoped she was doing this for Tony. She may not care much for the alternative since it involved pain.

“Father: A. Irving Zola, and mother: unknown? Why is your name--”

“Adoption, in a way. Natalia’s origins are not so secret anymore. I too trained at the Red Room. It was obviously different. Will it work for this? Natalia’s true mother is not known either, and her family name is technically Bezukhov,” Pepper narrowed her eyes, he didn’t react physically, “perhaps that wasn’t a known fact?”

“Natasha doesn’t typically spread the information about her personal life to Tony or me. In fact, I don’t think anyone knew that… it will only make this seem more real, I suppose. It should be fine for this, though. Are you really Yakov? You are identical to James Barnes--”

“Yes. I’m aware. If I was truly James Barnes then wouldn’t I be praising Steve Rogers? Steve was Barnes’ best friend? Yet Rogers has publicly stated his negative opinion on me, and it’s honestly mutual.”

“So you can speak Russian? I assume you can since this disguise is able to.”

“ Ty mne ne nravishsya ,” she nods and looked down at her tablet. Only barely impressed it seemed.

“It’s not a disguise, Pep. I may not be the best judge of people, and I may have made the spy mistake once, but two things are different this time. First, Natasha was trained to spy, Yakov wasn’t. Second, he… well, if he was Bucky Barnes would he have stood up for me against Captain America ?”

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Tony. If you believe him, then I’ll do this for you,” she looked up and offered him a smile before looking at the documents she had been reading from. She had yet to look at Yakov with anything more than a piercing glare and disbelieving or narrowed eyes. She didn’t seem to like him; the feeling of distrust and dislike was wholeheartedly reciprocated. “I’m not even worried about the legitimacy of these documents, Tony. Everything will be official thanks to FRIDAY and your own abilities, but I’m just worried some of these things seem difficult to understand. It says he’s a year younger than you, and no offense Tony, he looks fifteen years younger than you. Everything I see, and everything FRIDAY is adding as we speak, seems mostly fine, I promise. It’s the small things like the birth year that will trip people up and make them dig deeper.”

“Nat looks way younger than me even though she was born three years after me, I mean, they were sort of both given super serum. Also, I don’t look that old do I?” He turned to Yakov, “Do I look old? I’m not young like you, but I mean--”

“You look good, solnishko . Very good,” Tony beamed at him with a dazzling smile and Yakov smiled back.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been hot forever and I’ll stay hot until I’m a corpse. Anyone who wants to fuck me after death needs help,” Pepper had raised her head and cringed. Tony seemed amused by her reaction. “Anyway, when’s the conference?” Pepper seemed to recover after that question.

“It’s tomorrow afternoon. Happy’s going to be there to make sure you’re as safe as you can be,” Pepper didn’t sound too convinced of Happy’s ability to keep Tony safe. If Natalia had managed to take Happy down in the past, then someone bigger than Natalia could surely do it just as quick if not quicker, right? Pepper was right, though, because Yakov had always been a better fighter. “I can hire more security if--”

“I think I’m safe,” Tony turned to look at him. Yakov nodded. He would die to keep Tony alive if that is what had to happen. Tony stared at him for a moment, almost with an expression of confusion. He then turned back to Pepper and started talking with her. Something about Stark Industries and how Tony would be looking for exactly who Steve has gotten in contact with to gauge what they were dealing with. There was a comment about Steve’s inability to think without his fists, so there had to be someone else helping him.

Yakov could hear someone touch the door handle, and didn’t move to look, but he was prepared to throw a knife. Then the door open and as they got closer, the more Yakov could tell who it was. Natalia, of course. Yakov moved his hand from where it had rested against the side of his boot, where his ankle crossed over the other knee.

“Natalia,” Yakov greeted just as she walked into their area.

“Only you would hear me. I don’t know why I try around you anymore,” she continued walking in and sat on the chair across from Pepper and beside Yakov. “Good morning Miss Potts, Tony,” Pepper didn’t look like she liked Natalia very much, but if Natalia had spied on them, that was understandable. The logical part overrode the protective part. The fact that Pepper was very unlikely to do any substantial damage to Natalia was also helpful.

“Morning Nat,” Tony said, not looking over at her. Pepper only looked at her briefly, before turning back to the conversation with Tony. They were now talking about how the last month of meeting had gone. Pepper only scolded him once for missing the two he was supposed to attend (and then told him it was actually helpful because the men didn’t try to talk to Tony instead of her, but it had still been rude to not let her know).

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” Yakov nodded. ‘Out’ meant that she didn’t want to tell Yakov at the moment, or at all. Either was fine. He wasn’t going to pry. He was still curious why she was dressed up for combat, but it could be nothing. She wasn’t a danger to anyone here at the moment, so he just left it at that. It was shortly after Natalia’s arrival that Pepper excused herself to do whatever exactly she did. Tony had seemed pleased with her answer, but Yakov was only a bit more curious of how Tony ran the company without running the company. It was a weird dichotomy between Pepper and Tony, but they seemed to like it.

After Pepper had gone, they all fell into a soft silence until Tony turned to Yakov.

“Steve didn’t do this on his own. Have you seen his tweets? He has no finesse. This was staged, he was coached. If he had ever had the idea to go to the news with this, then it would have been a crazy rant that made him sound like a dick, this was… I don’t know who he could have found, but he’s got someone else helping him,” Tony stood up, cradling the empty mug to his chest, “FRIDAY and I will work on the little details in the workshop. Come by later, though, because we’ve gotta find you something really nice to wear. Something that detracts from the imposing doom you typically radiate. Meanwhile, you and Nat… uh, I don’t want to ask you this, but I’m going to anyway. Can you figure out who the hell Steve’s gathered on his defense team? I need to know who we’re working against so I can dig up shit that they don’t want dug up, and bury all the stuff we’ve done too. Busy day,” Tony was still for a second, almost awkwardly, before he walked away.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” Yakov said. Tony’s weird pause was… well it was weird, and very unlike him.

“Well, why he’s doing whatever he’s doing, we could go see where Steve and company have gone and who they’re with.”

Fifteen minutes later found Natalia and Yakov with earpieces in, and Yakov back in tactical gear and armed.

“Where did you get this?” Yakov had been sure Steve decided to trash this almost as soon as he first took it off.

“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you,” she smiled at him. He would like to see her try. He smiled back.

Natalia had pointed out the bike he was to ride and tossed the keys to him before walking across the garage to her own. He caught the mask flying toward him. He looked at it. It was very similar to the one HYDRA had him wear, but it was also different. When he looked up at Natalia, she just winked and slid a pair of glasses on before FRIDAY opened the garage door and she sped through it. He tightened the mask. This was going to be interesting. Typically motorcycles weren’t very inconspicuous, but maybe this would work? Natalia drove these often, and she was one of the best spies he knew. She knew best, right?

Chapter Text

“ They’re not here either. FRIDAY’s still searching for them. I’m going to the old SHIELD building, you find that stone hideout ,” she gave him the coordinates and then he was off.

They had been to several places. The first  was the hotel Tony had rented for them. They hadn’t been there. They also hadn’t been on Barton’s farm, Steve’s old apartment, or anywhere near Avengers Tower. If Yakov didn’t know they were cut short of resources, he would have assumed them out of the state. They hadn’t the money to leave, and they didn’t have a car to just drive until they broke down either.

It was sunset when Yakov made it to Cleveland, Ohio where the Lakeview Cemetery Dam was located,   Fury’s hideout after his failed assassination.

Yakov left the bike in the trees before approaching the building. It looked abandoned. What had this place been anyway? It made no sense, but it was remote.

Isolation was both the best thing and the worst thing. Good because it was difficult to find, and not-so-good because if someone did find them their bodies may not be found. The walls were too smooth to scale, but there was a silver Audi parked near the construct,  hidden behind the trees rather lazily. Considering the car was parked either lazily or confidently, didn’t inspire any sort of sympathy towards these people. It was as if they had forgotten that Yakov and Natalia were working against them. Two of the highest tier assassins, and in Natalia’s case, a spy. Whoever owned that Audi (because he was sure nobody from the Avengers owned it), was someone they thought highly of (enough to be able to stop Tony, Yakov, and Natalia), or they had grown sloppy since they had yet to be found.

It had only been five days. They should have found a more secure location. He recorded the plate number with his phone, noticing the abundance of notifications. Thankfully his phone was on silent. He would look at them later.

For a brief moment, Yakov considered the possibility that this had all been some elaborate scheme to trap him. He stayed far enough from the building and obscured enough to see any weak points in the structure as he thought of the possibility of them being able to contain him. Maybe he had given them too much credit. He had quite a few thoughts on why they thought bringing him up to the press, and therefore informing the world about his existence, would be ‘smart’. It was very stupid, because he wouldn’t be the only person after them for additional information. There was a single benefit from this ordeal, though: Tony was now a target. The rest were against them.

The building was tall, but there were no windows. There seemed to be no way in beside the front doors. If this was some sort of hideout, though, the front doors couldn’t be the only accessible way inside. It would be a poor choice of a hideout if they only had one way inside and one way out.

He walked a bit further and looked for any sort of service tunnels. He found only one, and it was a bit further away than he had expected. It was open, and led out beside a gravel road. He saw two other empty cars. Both were black, and looked very similar to government vehicles. That rarely meant anything good. He could walk through the tunnel, into their base, but that was going to leave him very open. He could go through the front door, but that would leave him in an escapeless position and possibly have him monitored. He had seen no cameras outside. None on the trees or in the vehicles, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t being recorded. He approached the empty cars and sighed. He recorded the plate numbers. This was probably a bad idea. It was actually very stupid.

“Natalia,” he whispered. The comms have been silent, but they had both been busy.

“ Find them? ”

“Maybe. It would be inadvisable to go in alone.”

“ It would ,” which did not mean ‘don’t do it.’ “ You could be put in a compromised position. If they get any video of you, it would only work against Tony. If their attention was drawn somewhere else… ”

“ Ty chitayesh moi mysli ,” he looked to the cars. Car alarms are loud and annoying. It was perfect, and what he had been thinking since he saw them. Sound the alarms, draw them outside. He would see any new contacts, or he could get inside. Either way, it was probably the best solution they had right now to get quick information without risking too much.

“ I’ll be there soon ,” and he heard the screech of tires over the comms. “ Position? ” He gave his position in Russian. From his understanding, none of the Avengers spoke the language, and it was safer than giving it in English for someone to overhear. If he had missed something, he didn’t want to jeopardize his current location. The question was whether to set off a car alarm, or completely destroy the car. Setting off the alarm may be a bit difficult based on what kind and the settings, but if he threw a grenade under the car, that would definitely make enough noise to bring them out. Setting off the alarm could always be an accident, and wouldn’t alert them to human interference. If their car was blown up, it obviously meant they had been found.

Deciding to set the alarm off, despite wanting to ruin something it would best to look accidental, he picked up a rock and looked at the trees. He covered up his boot marks in the firm-but-imprinted mu before he climbed up a moderately tall tree. He could see both cars, as well as the main stone building about half a mile a way, and he could see the trees, across the dam, where he had left the bike. He could still see the main doors of the building with clarity, and he could see the silver Audi, although from the distance he was at the car was better hidden due to the angle. Either way, it was still visible.

If Natalia had been in D.C. to check out the abandoned and mostly destroyed Triskelion (former SHIELD HQ) then it would take her a good six hours, at least, to get to him no matter how fast she was going.

He pulled his phone out, knowing that he had many messages. It wouldn’t be good if he got a call or text as he was hiding from hostiles, so silencing the sound was necessary. He looked at the long list of messages from Tony. Jim had also sent him two messages. The first message read: wtf is going on? How’s Tony handling? And the second read: I swear 2 god if he’s hurt I don’t care how badass u r mr winter soldier, ur dead . He sent ‘understood’ back before clicking to see what Tony had sent him.

Tony’s first message was an hour after he and Natalia had left: so my rhodey-bear is concerned. Ignore anything mean he says. He’s stressed. Then he had seven messages from between thirty minutes after the first and about ten minutes before he had climbed the tree.

I didn’t mean to insult u either. Rhodey is tough, but u could probably crush him . Followed by: don’t tell rhodey I said that, he’d be sad , and so I hid the bad stuff from the data dump. Angry at Nat for not asking me to help but whatever . After that was: i build those ships, wtf did nobody ask me to disable them? Feelin a lil left out rn , as well as both: coffee won’t be here until 2morrow what am i gonna do? , and all documents are good to go. Also Im still angry, but i did tell ya about that crazy computer stuff Nat can do. Proud of her rn.

Those four were followed by three more. The first was: nevermind. I missed some shit. Wtf nat, why does nobody come 2 me. I’m like the best at this. I go to her for spy things, she could come 2 me with tech stuff . The two last ones were: so I got Captain Stars-and-Stripes’ files, and all his little monkeys 2. I’m leaving Barton’s wife out of this, she’s a sweetheart. Don’t know y she married him. He’s a jerk , and finally: where r u? It’s been like fifteen hours and I’m a lil concerned. Don’t come back dead pls .

He had a lot of things he wanted to say, but even if Tony was in front of him, he wouldn’t say half of them. He could do facts, though. He sent: I found them. They’re in Ohio. I’ll be back tomorrow. Sorry I didn’t answer, phone was on silent. Stupid to leave the sound on during a mission. He didn’t get a response, but he hadn’t expected one automatically. After a moment he added: I’ll bring breakfast home. What he meant was really along the lines of ‘I’ll be back don’t worry,’ and he was sure Tony would understand that. Ten minutes passed and then Tony replied.

I’ll be waiting. Blueberry muffins if at all possible. :3 ty.

Yakov hadn’t taken the phone off of silent, but he had checked it until he received the message. Blueberry muffins it would be. He slid the phone away.

Hours later, there was a shuffle close to him. He looked at the service entrance below. There were two men. One of them, Yakov knew was Clint Barton. The second, wasn’t recognizable. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the closer he looked, they weren’t saying anything at all. Clint patted the man’s back before he climbed into one of the official looking cars. The man looked typical. Dressed in beat up running shoes, a ratty hoodie with a faded hoodie and ripped jeans. He didn’t look the type to be driving such a car. As the stranger drove away, Clint looked around. His eyes ran over Yakov, not stopping to stare. As if he didn’t see him at all. He turned and walked back towards the service entryway and disappeared inside. He looked up and whether they were aware he was there, or this was a precaution, Yakov didn’t know, but Steve was standing with a woman, partially obscured by the trees. The darkness was hardly a hinderance.

The woman left, in the Audi.

“Two people are leaving the dam,” he stepped climbed down the tree, not wanting to jump and land on something that could alert anyone of his presence. He stepped around the twigs, of which there were many, and twisted around the trees. Steve had gone back through the front doors, and he walked past them and across the bridge along the top of the dam. It was a good area to contain an altercation. Only a few people could clash and fight due to the narrow walkway. He could still see the taillights. “I got the plate numbers, but I didn’t recognize them. Well, the woman looked familiar, but I don’t know her name. The man took a different car, and I’ve never seen him before.”

“ I’m about an hour away. I’ll stay there for the night, see if anyone else comes or goes. You get home. I’m sure Tony is just so worried about you ,” her giggle was almost drowned out by the wind jostling her earpiece, but he rolled his eyes as he sped off. He saw the Audi, and followed behind it, too far to be seen since his lights weren’t on. The car turned suddenly and he went straight. Tailing cars wasn’t the only way to find out who was doing what nowadays. He turned his lights on as when he entered the nearest town over.

He was back in New York after six hours and two stops for gas. His legs hurt, but that hadn’t bothered him before so he wasn’t going to let it bother him now. Yakov stopped at the Silver Spoon Cafe for breakfast. He hadn’t really known if it would taste good, but it seemed popular enough. He took his mask off and pulled the jacket from the bag on the back. It had the red hourglass on it, as most of Natalia’s things seemed to. He pulled the jacked out and pulled it on. It was loose enough to not press against the weapons on him. They were hidden nicely. He looked almost typical. He tucked his mask into the bag and zipped it closed. He walked inside. He had two twenties left from the money he had taken for gas. He had driven at least a thousand miles and had to stop for gas six times, which was annoying, but he had enough to get back to the compound without stopping again.

Yakov walked inside, and got a strange look from a stern woman with a pinched face. Very prim, very cruel looking, like a sadistic nurse. He walked past her. It was sort of comical. The Winter Soldier stopping for breakfast. There were three teens in front of him. All were wearing mustard-yellow jackets with some logo. They were young enough that it could have something for school. Either way, the two boys were whispering to each other while the girl just stood there as if bored.

One of the three kids, the shorter boy, crashed into him as soon as they were done ordering. The girl had the other boy by the back of his jacket and inches away from Yakov.

“Oh my god,” the shorter boy said from where he had fallen to the floor. “I’m gonna die.”

The other boy nudged him with his foot and shushed him before helping him up.

“I’m so sorry, sir. We weren’t paying a-attention, that’s all. Uh, we should go. Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Yakov said. Both boys sagged in relief.

“Oh. You look scary -- I mean, you look tough. Yeah, tough … I should stop talking now,” this was the kid who had smashed into his chest. “You’ve got--” the boy pointed to his side where the hoodie had gotten pinched under the holster for one of his guns. “Is that a gun? Oh my god, I am gonna die. Peter I can’t die with our Millenium Falcon only half complete!” Yakov pulled the hoodie free from where it had been caught.

“Sorry for them. They’re idiots,” the girl grabbed both boys by their shirts and pulled them away. Yakov got the muffins, but he had been stared at by half the patrons sitting around the cafe. He straddled the motorcycle and the kids from before stood beside him. He pulled the mask from the bag.

“Are you an Avenger?”

“No.”

“But that’s Black Widow’s bike, right? Look, there’s the little mark and--”

“Kid,” Yakov started, “the bike belongs to ‘Black Widow,’ but I am not--”

“You must be the Winter Soldier!” this was the tall, skinny one. “Did, uh, did you really, uh, do that stuff? I mean, do you really, I mean, uh, do ya… do you kill people?” Yakov smiles at him, he wanted to laugh. This kid seemed super nervous, yet he still managed to ask him if he killed people.

“What’s your name? You know mine.”

“Uh… uh… I’m John?”

“I’ll assume you said Peter,” his eyes widened, “Well, Peter , you look like a good kid. I’m not in the habit of hurting kids,” Yakov pointedly ignored Jacob, Samantha, and Richard because they were all younger than this kid and he murdered them easily and cruelly. “Why don’t you follow your friend? She seems like she’s smart. Smart enough to not touch the bike ,” the other kid stumbled backwards, holding the hand he had stroked the bike with in his other hand as if it was burned.

“Well… uh, I mean, uh… you live with Mr. Stark?”

“Yes,” he should have driven away as soon as possible, leaving them behind him. These kids could ruin anything he and Tony had done to make him seem like a good person. If he played this right, though, he could also use them to his advantage. He hadn’t hurt them, and they had seen him buy muffins. That’s not the sort of behaviour of some crazy assassin.

“Oh? Is he nice? I mean, of course he’s nice, I meant, uh, have you seen his robots? Have you seen his workshop? What does it look like? Oh my god! Ohmygod! Are the muffins for Mr. Stark?”

“I promised him breakfast and he likes blueberries. Mr. Stark is sort of waiting on me to bring him food that’s still warm. I don’t really like disappointing him. You kids in school?”

“Oh, yeah. We go to Midtown High. Anyway…” this kid was sort of adorable in the way he got excited and didn’t stop talking. The part where he asked about his arm (only to then correct himself a moment later without Yakov answering) was very much like Tony. He would have stayed and waited for the kid to run out of breath or questions (whatever came first), but he hadn’t been kidding about the muffins. He wanted to get Tony food before they had to get to the conference. He had to shower and get dressed, and it was six thirty, so he’d only have from seven to eleven thirty to eat, get ready and head out.

“Peter,” the boy stopped talking, “I don’t really want to sound mean, but I’ve got to go get these to Tony. There’s some business going on later that he needs to get ready for and he really doesn’t eat enough, and kid,” he looked at the other boy, “it’s usually dangerous to point out a weapon on someone loudly in the middle of a bunch of people. Refrain in the future. It may save your life to just ignore it and leave quickly, alright?” he strapped his mask on and tucked the paper bag full of muffins gently inside the leather packs on the side of the motorcycle. It looked odd, and he had never needed them before, but they were very useful. He gave an awkward wave before he took off. From the side mirror he saw the girl shake her head and then open the bag in her hands and pull out a doughnut.

***

Tony was showered and dressed in a suit by the time he got back to the compound. Knowing Tony, he hadn’t slept and got dressed just to keep himself busy. Yakov was nearly knocked over when Tony hugged him and grabbed the bag of muffins from him.

“Thank you,” Tony had yet to put shoes on, so Yakov finally noticed how short Tony actually was. He knew plenty of instances where Tony had been barefoot, but he had just noticed the height difference. “Now, let’s eat and then you’ve gotta shower and I’ve gotta pick out your clothes. I may or may not have ordered some more because you really don’t have enough. Also, no complaining, this is important.”

As they ate, Yakov wrote down the plate numbers from the cars from last night on a piece of scrap paper and gave it to Tony who promised to look into it. Yakov told him about the kids from the cafe. Tony laughed at him and told him he had handled it well. In hindsight, he had handled that situation better than he would have in the past.

An hour after breakfast, Yakov stepped out of the shower in Tony’s room with a towel around his waist. He would have dried his hair off with a second towel, but he didn’t want to make more work for whoever did laundry (he had never seen who exactly did the laundry, or where it was done). Tony was sitting on the edge of his own bed with an outfit spread out beside him. They met eyes for a second before Tony looked away and started explaining why he picked out each item. The shirt was dark so that his metal arm wouldn’t scare anyone, his slacks were because his shirt was a button up and they needed to look fancy, and the converse were purely because Tony thought it would make Yakov less scary and official by giving him some casual elements. There was only one comment about his ass, and that was quickly apologized for. Yakov didn’t mind Tony looking, he really didn’t mind, but he hadn’t responded.

“I’ll, uh, just give you privacy,” Tony had left the room before Yakov could find the words, so he stayed silent as he dressed. It felt weird to not be wearing his boots, and there was very little room to carry any knives on him. The slacks were tight, and the shoes were too short to hold a knife by themselves. He went to his tactical gear and pulled the ankle holster from the pile and put it. Tony had told him ‘no guns’ so he had put them all back in the equipment shed. He didn’t say anything about knives, though, and that loophole was nice (and likely left open on purpose).

Yakov walked out of the room and looked at Tony who was resting against the door to his workshop with a phone in his hand. They still had an hour and a half before they had to meet Happy and go to wherever they were going to go for this (Yakov hadn’t been told where this was going to take place.)

“Uh,” Tony reached out to unbutton the top two buttons on his shirt. “Trust me,” was Tony’s only comment.

“Did you find the cars?”

“Yep,” he stepped back and held up his phone, “The Audi belongs to one Agent Sharon Carter, and the two suburbans are registered as agency vehicles of Pym Technologies.”

“Hank Pym?” Tony nods, “Does he have a daughter?” Tony looked at him curiously for a moment.

“Yeah, her name’s Hope, I think… why?”

“It’s, eh, nothing… I just thought that… Nevermind, it’s really nothing,” Tony didn’t looked convinced, and Yakov wasn’t feeling very convinced either. Nadia Pym, or Nadia Van Dyne depending on what she was doing, had been one of the twenty-seven girls in the Red Room. He would have to ask Natalia what had happened to her. She had been alive and ‘graduated’ when he was recalled.

“Anyway… you saw a guy? Here’s Agent Carter,” Tony said the name, as if disappointed, and showed him a picture of a cute-but-serious blonde woman. He nodded. Tony scrolled down to photos of Hank Pym and Hope Pym.

“No, this guy was young. Short brown hair, sort of regular as if he were just some everyday man. I left after Agent Carter, apparently, left. She made a sharp left just outside of Austintown. I’d been tailing her for almost an hour, but I needed to be back here. I could hav--”

“No. This is fine. We got her address, the one in D.C., her place is, like, thirty minutes away from where Aunt Peggy is staying. I’ve been… I’ve been meaning to go see her, it’s just… hard, because she forgets who I am, and it’s like… it hurts, but we could go for a visit. She might remember you, too. It would be… nice,” Tony handed his phone to Yakov, and moved to stand beside him. He pulled Yakov’s arm down by his wrist, which would have been nice had Tony not sounded so pained and lost. Tony scrolled, forcing Sharon Carter’s picture out of view and focusing on the two Pym’s. “Anyway, he’s retired. The company was left to Hope. Let’s dig into her life,” with a few taps and movements, Tony has pulled up in-depth records of this woman. “Seems she and Hank had a falling out, or something, and that the title of Ant-Man, a superhero before superheroes were a thing, to someone… if we use FRIDAY to narrow our results to extreme fluctuations in Quantum energy, and… there,” he did some more things, that look uncomfortable due to having to twist around Yakov, who was holding the phone.

“I’m an idiot, so can you help me understand what you’re seeing? Because I don’t see anything.”

“See, so I found the areas that Quantum energy had recently spiked, and then FRIDAY sort of narrowed it down for me to those within a fifty-mile radius of Pym Technologies, and then FRIDAY, the sweetheart she is, ran the current levels against to the nuclear decay to approximate a date for when those fluxes were at their highest point. Those areas,” he pointed to the points on the map in blue, “are where we will look for a person using this energy by matching the time and date of the energy used to all photos and recordings taken of everyone within those areas until we find one using the technology. It’s not entirely legal, and invades privacy, but uh, well, don’t tell anyone and we’ll be fine.”

Despite having it explained to him, the Soldier didn’t really follow. He nodded and waited for Tony to take the phone, but he didn’t. He tried to hand him the phone.

“Uh, just, uh… keep it for now,” Tony gave no explanation was to why he didn’t take his phone back. Yakov left it at that. “It’s nearly eleven, let’s go wait for Happy.”

***

At approximately noon, the conference started. Yakov and Tony answered an hour’s worth of questions before they left at one. They expected to see the information broadcasted everywhere through every media. When they got back at the compound, Natalia was sitting on the couch. She turned to look at them.

“You look good. Haven’t seen either of you this nice in a very long time. Did it go well?”

“As well as one could expect a press conference to go,” Tony said as flopped onto the couch and kicked his three hundred dollar shoes off. Yakov sat between Tony on the couch and Natalia in a chair.

“I think it’ll all work out in the end,” Natalia said. Tony made some sort of noise to express his disbelief. “Mostly because you’re trending on twitter. Did you happen to meet a kid by the name of Peter because he had quite a few things to say about how ‘awesome’ you are,” she has the audacity to laugh at Yakov’s frown and the quick fumble as Tony went to grab his phone.

“Oh, uh, Snowflake? Can you slide my phone across the table to me?” Yakov didn’t ask why, but he slid the phone across the coffee table. Tony reached forward to grab the phone and then fell back into the cushions. “This is amazing,” came from Tony seconds later. Things went quiet again until Tony dropped his phone on the bridge of his nose. “Ow. I need to make something to stop that from happening. Do you know many times this phone has bruised me? Too many times to be normal. It’s out to get me… just like Michelle ‘M.J.’ Jones, or Kafkaesque24 , is out to get Nat’s bike but not the ‘average dude who had it.’ To be fair, she mostly tweets about edgy philosophy and about how stupid her classmates are… she’s cool. One post about how you, Snowflake, are a badass with hair that could rival Lucius Malfoy’s. I don’t see that. You’re definitely a Snape when it come to hair.

“And this Leeds kid is hilarious! This one is from this morning, ‘went for donuts pre-tourney and ran into the Winter Soldier’ followed by this one: ‘I almost shit myself, no joke, when he looked at me. My face collided with his chest and he didn’t kill me!’ That’s not the best, though. The best is ‘his glare makes Sauron look like a hobbit.’ I only agree a little bit because you’re more of an Ancalagon to my Smaug if you catch my drift. Well, don’t quote me on that. I don’t think they knew each other.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Yakov had no idea who ‘Sauron’ was, but he assumed he was scary and hobbits were not. He recalled hearing about a ‘hobbit’ once before, but Tony had gone from ‘cute hobbits’ to ‘Eye of Barad-dȗr’ and something about an elf named Galadriel that was ‘sexy and scary in equal measures.’

“This one, Zabrak-Stark , or Peter, seems to compare me to either the Zabraks in Star Wars, or dragons. Well, that’s new, but he’s not wrong. He also said that ‘the WS is so sweet. He took Mr. Stark breakfast,’ followed by six exclamation points. You really made an impression on them, didn’t you?” Yakov shrugged. Natalia stood up, took a picture of him and Tony on the couch before she took a seat again. “Don’t post that without Pepper’s permission.”

“Scared of Pepper?”

“You say that as if you’re not scared of her, and I know you are. Who isn’t? Even Thor is scared of her, and she would use the Hulk like a baseball bat. I’m not joking, so stop laughing at me!” Tony took off his jacket and tossed it at Natalia. The rest of the day continued with Tony talking at Yakov, and Natali chiming in every now and then to say something sarcastic or make a joke. Either way, it somehow slipped into the night without any of them noticing. Sometime around midnight, Tony went on a rant about just how similar he was to the Zabraks, and he clarified that he was either a female Nightsister (whatever that meant), or a ‘badass Sith Lord, but not a dick.’

This led into a conversation that went right over Yakov’s head between Tony and Natalia about Star Wars that Yakov had no knowledge of. He sat back, content to listen to them bicker playfully. Hidden by the loud conversation, they seemed to disagree on something, Yakov could hear footsteps getting closer. They were slow, and when the person got too close, Yakov pulled the knife from his boot and threw it. There was a yelp followed by a ‘what the hell?!’

So, apparently, Jim had  come back to the compound. Good thing Yakov hadn’t been aiming to kill, and the blade had only grazed his shoulder. The shirt was ruined, though, but at least he was alive. Tony hadn’t had a good reaction to that, mostly fretting over ‘Rhodey’ like a mother over a child who skinned their knee on the asphalt. Thankfully, Natalia had discreetly pulled the knife from the wall and handed it to Yakov before she set the medkit down on the coffee table for Tony. Jim took the spot between him and Tony, forcing Yakov to move further away.

“I would have called, but I wasn’t expecting to get shish-kebabed on my way in, call or not. What’s got you on edge? Did those idiots try to break in?”

“Not yet,” Yakov replied, “I was just being thorough. I will avoid throwing sharp objects at you in the future.”

“Yeah, well next time be a bit more Ralph Waldo and less Henry David in the future,” Tony stuck a bandage to Jim’s shoulder. “I can’t have friends killing each other, I can’t lose you to a civil war, alright? No in-house fighting. I’m sure you can punch Steve for me later, and Rhodey can tell Pepper to be nice and shield me from her stilettos,” Tony smiled and close the medkit.

“I don’t think Soldier boy knows who either of those two authors are, but I’ll translate: be a bit more peace-and-love and less paranoid. It’s a whole deal from when Tony was in highschool. I don’t think he told me the truth, but it was pretty funny.”

“It was not funny. I was eleven and those assholes threw me in a dumpster because I refused to let them use me as target practice. Also, I told them: “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest,” which was a quote from Civil Disobedience written by Thoreau. In the end, they were stronger, and I... the only thing I ‘will breathe’ was rotten lunch for two hours before I could climb out. I had a broken arm. So not funny,” Jim patted Tony’s head and then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I missed you too. Nat and I were just having this wonderful conversation --”

“Argument,” Natalia corrected before twisting and throwing her feet over the arm of the chair.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Anyway, which is cuter? Jawas or Ewoks?”

“Ewoks, duh.”

“See!” Tony pointed at Natalia, “See? I told you that Ewoks are cuter but you were all like ‘no the Jawas are so much cuter’ but they look like gremlins with ski masks. Have you ever seen the animated Ewok series? You’ll love them once you see them fight Duloks and Morag. Ooooh, we’ve gotta watch it. Rhodey’s the Paploo to my Wicket, and that is PG, it just sounds weird. I would say Nat’s Morag,” he looked at Natalia, “but I think if you see her, you’d kill me, so you and Yakov don’t have an Ewok equivalent. Loki’s like Morag,” he laughed, but from the looks on Natalia and Jim’s face they seemed as confused as him, “I have very thorough Star Wars knowledge, though, so I don’t expect everyone to get the references, but I need you to at least get five percent of the references. We’ll start with Ewoks because they’re cute and I need you to side with me against Nat and her Jawas… Jawas, though? I’m admit I don’t understand. They’re like baby Tusken Raiders, and nobody likes those fuckers.”

To watch both seasons of the cartoons, a total of twenty-six episodes fifteen minutes each, took them approximately seven hours including coffee breaks. It was early morning, the sun was barely rising. Jim had fallen asleep against Tony two hours ago. Nat kept sending him texts and then kicking his foot to get him to read. He refused to pick his phone up, but she kept trying. Once it was over, he picked up his phone and frowned as he read the messages. He could sum up all the responses he needed in a few sentences: I nearly killed him, he has some right to comfort. I’m not jealous, and I don’t know where you got that impression.

She went from sending a text once a month to texting him non-stop for six hours while sitting right next to him in four months. It seemed like a long time, but it really wasn’t. He wondered if something else had happened between her and Clint because she had been very close with him in Sokovia, and even at the compound, she had seemed to try and guide him away from trouble. Then, for reasons unknown, she had moved her attention and friendship from Clint to him. Whether it was conditional or not was yet to be determined, but he really hoped she would stay.

“Hey,” Tony whispered over Jim’s head on his shoulder, “can you get me some coffee? I don’t want to wake him up. He’s not an insomniac like us.”

“I could take him to his bed, if you want. I could bring coffee on the way back,” so maybe Yakov was a little jealous and wanted to be next to Tony. However, there was no way he would be admitting to that anytime soon.

“Yeah, that’d probably be best, but I’ll go with you. He’s in his fifties and he’s just a baseline human, he’ll definitely be waking up with some soreness,” Tony wiggled out from under his best friend, only having to push Jim’s searching hand away before Yakov scooped him up. Jim didn’t seem to stir at all, but he did seek out something to hold onto, in this case, Yakov’s shoulder. Tony opened the doors and then pulled the sheets back on the Jim’s bed. Yakov set him down and Tony pulled the blankets up just as Jim fisted his hand in the blankets.

Once they were out of the room and on their way to the kitchen, Tony finally started talking again.

“Thanks. He’s an old man. It’d be mean to not get him in bed where he can get some actual rest, and to keep him from aching when he wakes up. I don’t know how he still does things. I’m not even sure I’ll live to reach sixty, and I don’t really want to either,” how was he supposed to respond to that? He didn’t want to think about Tony dying, he didn’t want to think about dying at all unless he had no other choice. Dying to stay away from HYDRA or to remain a free man, he could handle, but dying just because ? That seemed like something he couldn’t do. He’d known, felt, and done things that were too horrible to not live a life knowing how much better it could be. To cherish the good moments and reflect that it ‘could always be worse’ when it got tough.

“Let’s get coffee. I probably shouldn’t attempt cooking actual food, but I’m good with toast,” Yakov really hoped that Tony’s smile was forever, or at least as long as he could have it (and he wanted it for more than four years). He thought to the Extremis virus. That would help Tony. It could even help Jim if he wanted. Wouldn’t it be better to just give it to both of them? Tony would still be Tony, enhanced or not, and the same went for Jim. Yakov could admit jealousy, but he had seen how much Jim cared so it didn’t bother him too much.

Chapter Text

Toast was nice. Yakov didn’t remember ever having blackberry jam. It had been a luxury thing, and it looked odd and smelled too sweet, but it wasn’t bad. Tony, thankfully, ate more than the last time Yakov had made him food. Natalia had made herself something she called an ‘orange julius’ and stole a piece of toast from Yakov’s plate as she walked past him. She excused herself to finish a book she had been attempting to read for a month quickly after snagging his food.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t said anything, but since Yakov had only eaten half of his toast, Tony stole the other half from his plate. He at least paused before eating it. Of course Tony could have his toast. Natalia could too, he didn’t pay for any of this food. He was just thankful he had it available. There may have been a need to keep Natalia and Tony ‘healthy’ but the only way he knew how to was to feed them since the Red Room didn’t exactly have an abundance of meals for the girls (or him since he was just the Asset). Despite having had plenty of food, it was still awkward to eat because it was so different. Live on nutrient shots, vitamin pills, and water mixed with salt for long enough and solid food would just seem weird .

“Did you like the gear you wore the other day?” Tony broke the silence loudly. It took Yakov a moment to comprehend because his mind had been so far away, focused just enough to hone in on the ambient sound around them.

“Yes. I did. I had thought Steve threw it all away, but it was different which leads me to believe he had thrown my gear away and somehow new ones appeared. Did you make them?”

“Well, yeah. I sort of make lots of things all the time. I didn’t want to, well, startle you or anything by shoving an outfit at you that looked so similar to the one you had to wear as… well, I didn’t think you’d appreciate it, but when I saw you in it… uh, you looked comfortable. Did it fit alright? I used the trashed gear as reference in measurement, but I used different materials and added things. The extra holsters were Nat’s idea. I’ve never seen you show your skills off up close, even the witch was at a difference, but… she may have mentioned your talent and appreciation for nice weapons and we have an abundance around here. I fit them with the ones I liked most. I don’t make them, but I can definitely appreciate ‘em.”

“Thank you,” Yakov felt genuinely choked up. That was really nice, and Tony had put time into this. Maybe when he thought he was a ‘good person’ he would have been a little upset, but he just wasn’t a ‘righteous’ or ‘honourable’ man. He had skills not typically appreciated, but he liked them and he was comfortable with using them to meet his goals. The fact that Tony had made him something like that... Buying him clothes was different, and still very appreciated, but Tony had fitted and designed specific parts of his new armor. “Really, thank you, so much. I didn’t… you didn’t have to, but it’s very… thank you.”

“Whoa, don’t get all emotional, Snowflake. It was really nothing,” they both recognized that as a lie. “I can add anything you want, or… well, I’m glad that you like it. I thought about ripping off the left sleeve, but I wasn’t sure if you were comfortable with your arm showing.”

“Don’t rip it, but I would have loved anything you gave me. You are not put on edge with my arm?”

“Of course not! It’s super awesome, and I’d appreciate what I’ve seen it do had it not been HYDRA who gave it to you. I could… make you a new one. You could help, if you wanted. I may have already outlined a few different ideas and made rough designs, but in my defense your arm is super cool and I want to try and make something like that. Anything you want could be added. You wanted a flamethrower in that thing and I could technically install one, but I don’t advise that. Flamethrowers are annoying and I hate them,” Yakov looked down at his metal hand on the table. It felt real, but he had never known a life without it. He wouldn’t mind wearing something of Tony’s design that was permanent, like an arm.

“Flamethrowers are tacky and inefficient,” Tony smiled. “I’m glad you agree. It’s almost as bad as ripping hearts out. It’s just a waste of time when a bullet is so much quicker and cleaner.”

“Or an eye,” Tony winked at him. Yes, or an eye. Of course Tony would bring up Kill Bill . Tony had proclaimed his love for the two movies very often, and usually quite loudly with lots of sound effects. Tony had opened his mouth to say something else, but....

“Boss? I apologize for interrupting, but the articles from the conference have been posted. I can send all pertaining articles to your tablet, if you would like. Or I--”

“Thanks sweetheart. Send them to my tablet, please? You’re great FRI. You gonna start talking to me again about anything rather than just business?”

“You do not seem as melancholic as before. I’m glad for that. I don’t like it when you’re sad. I cannot fix your sadness, and have found little to nothing on the subject of correcting sadness. I do not trust ‘opinions’ when I want you to be happy. I wouldn’t use illogical methods in fear of upsetting you further.”

“Don’t worry about fixing me, hun, talking to you makes me happy. If you’re concerned, you can always come to me. I’m was more upset that I had hurt you. Communication’s hard, but I’ve heard it gets better the more practice we get… do you remember where I put my tablet?”

“You left it on the coffee table.”

“Right. Yes, I totally knew that,” he picked up the plates used for toast and set them on the counter, “Thanks FRIDAY. I love you.”

“I’m not entirely sure what--”

“You don’t have to say it back. You’re still learning, I just hope that one day you can feel everything we can feel. I wish I could make you a body. You would be the type to steal the remote and hide it, I just know it… but I can’t make you a body, not now or anytime soon. In twenty years, after the U-Ultron thing blows over, I’ll make you a body, I promise…” Tony was very clearly uncomfortable.

“I know.”

“Well that’s my emotional quota of the year, let’s go see what the people are saying,” Tony almost ran from the room. Yakov looked at one of the few cameras in the dining area before getting up and walking out to the living area. He found Tony on the couch with his tablet on his chest, angled up so he could see it. He waited for Tony to recap what exactly it had said. The silence had drawn on longer than expected though, and then Tony let the tablet flop back on his chest.

“What is it?”

“Nothing bad about us. Steve’s getting away with trying to start shit, of course. The public love him, he could kill a whole litter of kittens in front of the entire country and they would still fall head over heels to see him. It’s just that Sharon is also making her way, giving statements where she shouldn’t be. I’m not saying this because I don’t want her to, I’m saying she shouldn’t say those things if she wants to keep her job. Using her position in the CIA to gain access to people who can decrypt what I specifically encrypted and then telling the world about it isn’t the best way to keep your career,” Tony picks the tablet back up and scrolls to a certain point.

“According to this wonderful little snippet ‘ Sharon Carter, a CIA agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, she has found and provided documents of the Winter Soldier’s involvement with several high profile cases. One of which was the record of the Winter Soldier being deployed in 1991. Specifically, to assassinate Mr. Howard and Maria Stark. ’

“Then there’s a whole section on how ‘great’ Howard was, followed by, ‘ Agent Carter, along with Stark’s long time friend and teammate Captain Steve Rogers, have used this evidence to accuse the Winter Soldier, who we have been told is Yakov Romanov, of forcing Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark apart to further manipulate Mr. Stark into covering him while he is away to commit some sort of undisclosed crime. Captain Rogers has also accused former teammate, the Black Widow, as a tool to seduce Mr. Stark and further divide him from the Avengers. ’

“All this says is the same bullshit Steve told the news two days ago. They haven’t used a single full statement from us, so I gave up three fourths of the way into the article,” Tony finally pauses and takes a breath. His face was flushed. “The next article is similar, but that one was written by Christine Everhart and she hates me. There is one from Time Magazine, though, that used a bit of information we gave them, but I’ll betcha fifty dollars this guy, Paul something, is gonna be fired for siding against Captain America. I think I’ll just hire the guy when that happens. He wrote a good article and Pepper could use some better PR people.”

“We have to wait for them to fuck up,” Yakov picked Tony’s feet up and sat down before resting them on his lap. “And I think I know someone who could be persuaded to assist us in causing them to make a mistake. I just need a burner phone and I could get in touch with him.”

“Is he… uh, was he HYDRA?”

“I don’t know what he is anymore, but he was once a handler of mine. He knows that I could hurt him, and I have something he wants. Either way, he’s bound to agree given the right incentive.”

***

Tony had given him a burner cell, one of maybe three dozen flip phones hidden in a box under his desk. It was interesting how they had chargers attached to each one through a small hole in the side of the box. Yakov didn’t ask why he had so many on hand because it didn’t really matter. He looked at the phone and dialed the number, Tony was standing close to him, Yakov sitting so Tony could get his ear the phone without being too uncomfortable.

“ Who the fuck is this? ” How typical.

“ Davno ne videlis’, Rumlow.”

“... Asset? ”

“ Net. I’m sure you’re aware of the current situation regarding the Avengers?”

“ Yeah, but I’m nowhere near America right now. ”

“About that… where are you?”

“ Why the hell would I tell you ? I’m not a complete idiot! ”

“So you say. Well, we can approach this in two different ways. You tell me where you are, or I find you myself. You won’t like it if I have to find you, Rumlow. I didn’t like having to find Atkins, but when I did, he suffered ,” he paused when Rumlow inhaled sharply over the receiver, “Tell me where you are, and I’ll make it worth your time,” Tony pulled away from the phone. Yakov turned his head to see exactly what Tony was doing.

“ You’re the goddamn Winter Soldier, and I’m a cripple. I don’t see how I will benefit from this at all. Where is the proof you wont kill me as soon as you show up? ”

“I need you to make a scene, somewhere public. I need you to lure Captain America to you and hurt him. Zastrav’ yego pochuvstvovat’ vinu. Ubedi mir nenavidet’ svoyego geroya. Polnostyu unichtozh’ reputaciyu Captain America . I’ll meet you in the open. Take me where you want to settle the details,” at this point, Yakov didn’t want to see Tony in fear he would look terrified. Logically he knew Tony couldn’t understand him. He could admit he sounded vicious. He felt villainous, and he didn’t mind. He worried more over what Tony was hearing and how he would look at him after all this was over. Could Tony ever condone such indiscriminate violence? “ Ubivay  vseh i kajdogo. Mne vse ravno kak,  no delo doljno byt’ sdelano. Yesli preuspeyesh’… chto ty khochesh vzamen? ”

“ What I have always wanted, Soldat,” Yakov’s jaw tightens.

“We will make the deals then. Now, where are you hiding?”

“ Lagos, Nigeria. Call me when you get here, my men and I will meet with you at the given address. See you then, ” and as Yakov was going to pull the phone away and disconnect, he heard Rumlow speak again. “ One more thing. Keep your pets away. I’m not in the States but I know you’re Stark’s lapdog now. Keep him the fuck away or it’s all null and void . Ponimaesh?”

“ Ponimayu ,” he shut the phone and set it down on the desk. He could see Tony was worrying his bottom lip and staring at him from the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… some of the things I said were not nice, I didn’t want to make you feel guilty.”

“Guilty? What will I feel guilty about? What exactly just happened between you and HYDRA-guy?”

“That was Rumlow, one of my former handlers. He was… he survived and escaped after the fall of SHIELD. I hadn’t found him, and I killed his partner, Rollins, and a few other people, like Atkins, trying ascertain his location. I got a number he could be reached at, but I hadn’t planned to use it until I had a solid plan. He is not as talented as me, but he is strong enough to restrain me momentarily. That’s more than enough time to sedate me with whatever mix he had on hand. I could not allow any chance of failure,” Tony didn’t seem satisfied with that half-answer and waved his hand in a ‘continue’ motion. “He was reprimanded severely twice for attempting to send me on personal missions. The third time it was noted, he was assigned as a guard and I was given to Alexander Pierce. He lacks the skills I do, but he is strong enough to keep me contained for brief periods. That control is the only thing that set him apart from the other handlers. That and he would… he was fascinated by me, and he often made comments to that effect--”

“You’re using yourself as bait? Why did you think that was a good idea? What if you’re hurt?” The genuine concern was nice, Yakov liked it, but it was unnecessary. Yakov didn’t want to stop killing people. Tony had high moral ground. Tony had solid beliefs, right? He didn’t want to hurt people, did he?

The problem was that Yakov did. He wanted to hurt people, and then he wanted to bask in praise and soft touches after he completed his mission. He wanted Tony, but he knew that Tony was so unlikely to want him back that it the chances were highly improbable at best. Tony was different from when they first met, but he wasn’t so different that he would like what Yakov entirely entailed. He felt wrong forcing Tony into such a precarious position. He had gotten rid of Steve and the others. Tony was free of them and their bullshit, but he had been stuck with him. Which was just as bad if not worse. Everything that Steve had told the press was true, especially now that Yakov had made plans with Rumlow to wipe out dozens of civilian casualties to ruin one man.

So many -- too many -- conflicting emotions.

“I won’t be hurt, solnishko ,” Yakov stood up and slid the phone from the desktop to his pocket. “But you can’t join me. Not you or Natalia. Rumlow gave instructions to keep you away.”

“So you’re taking orders again?” That was a verbal slap to the face.

“Not… exactly…” it was like reciprocated destruction in response to semi-mutual goals.

“I don’t want you to leave…” Tony, in an uncharacteristic jolt of some sort of confidence, took a step forward. Tony’s chest was a bit lower than his, but they were still touching. He had hardly gotten this close while they were both fully conscious. Especially if there was nothing that required close proximity. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he reached out and wiped whatever had gathered at the corner of Tony’s eyes. Tears, obviously, but Tony would never admit to crying unless it wasn’t a true admission. He would play it off as a joke. Yakov could raise his thumb to his lips and lick the tears away in some sort of villainous move, but he didn’t. He didn’t even want Tony to be crying, he wouldn’t relish his tears. His hand was still cupping Tony’s face, his thumb stroking his cheekbone.

“But you won’t!”

“I don’t think you would appreciate me much after what I plan on doing, so it’s better if you just saw it from a distance. Even if he hadn’t mentioned you, I would have asked you to stay,” he silenced him, his thumb pressing against Tony’s bottom lip before he could speak. “No. You would have stayed, whether you liked it or not . I’m not a good person, Tony, I do very bad things. I’ve felt guilty once, over your parents, and even now I’m not sure if I felt bad because of what I did, or because I had hurt you ,” Tony took a small step back, and Yakov dropped his arm.

“How are you gonna get wherever you need to go?”

“I have many ways to go about things. Most of them are less than legal, but they work.”

“Why? Why did you do all this? If you were just going to leave, then why didn’t you just let me keep someone. Anyone . Rhodey’s like my brother, but he’s gone most of the time, and Pepper hardly talks to me anymore unless she’s yelling at me or questioning my every decision, and Natalia is only here because she knows you are here because, for some unknown reason, you liked me.”

“I still like you.”

“Then… then why can’t we figure out a different way to do this? It’s only been a day, maybe our statements will get around by the end of the week. Sometimes… you’re right, and you don’t even have to say anything. ‘As soon as you can’ can mean fifty years from now. I’ll be long dead by then!” Tony takes a deep breath. “Can’t we… can’t we just go back to toast and coffee? Pretend this never happened?”

“This is something we should talk about. It’s going to be a war zone, and I don’t know if I want you as far away as possible because I don’t want you to get hurt, or if I don’t want you to hate me after the dust settles.”

“When will you leave?”

“A few days. I don’t want to leave you, I really don’t. I’m not exactly healthy to be around, and I don’t want you to see me… like that . You are too good for me. You have morals and humanity. I don’t have either of those things… and I don’t really want them. I tried in the beginning, but two months in I knew I wasn’t cut out for domesticity. I need the violence ,”Yakov took a step back, “Tony… I like it . I really like it.”

“That’s just how you are, though. I don’t expect you to be some stable minded teddy bear after you spent your entire life killing people. That’s not how it works. I’m not an expert, I actually tend to avoid psychiatrists and the like, but it’s completely normal for you to take comfort in the only constant in your life since your creation… I don’t care if you kill half of the world because it made you feel better as long as you didn’t kill me. Well, and my other people of course. If I had something like that, would you take it away?”

“No.”

“See? It’s not exactly healthy, but it’s not abnormal considering what has happened to you,” Tony stepped closer to Yakov again, this time reaching out to take his hands. “How about this: you use one of my less boisterous jets to get there so you can head to your guy. If he recognizes it, tell him you manipulated me or something. You do whatever you planned to do. Please wear an earpiece, and don’t argue with me. A day or so into whatever your plan is, I’ll send a jet to somewhere remotely that will take a while to get to, and use a stealth suit to get there. You can call if you need me before that, of course. I just don’t… I know you’re strong, but Steve has a team, and you don’t. This HYDRA-guy, just execute him when his use runs out,” the way Tony said that last sentence was something Yakov had never thought he would hear. Tony, sweet Tony who absently pets his robots and rants about Star Wars, had just told him to execute someone. The best part was ‘when his use runs out,’ as if he was disposable, which he was. He just hadn’t expected Tony to think of someone like… like the way Yakov sometimes found himself ‘people watching’. Yakov had been objectified, yes, but he was valuable. There are some people, like allies to HYDRA, that were useless and just needed to be exterminated. People like Brock Rumlow and his cohorts.

“When that guy is gone, stay safe and hidden. Then, we will show up and save the day with nobody none-the-wiser that it was all orchestrated by us, mostly you, to begin with. How did you plan on making Steve blame himself or convince the public that Steve is to blame?”

“As much as I hate to admit it, Rumlow is better with teamwork. The only ‘team’ I worked with in any true official capacity, was with Natalia and we mostly went our separate ways and met in the middle. I sort of pushed that duty off on Rumlow, but he isn’t the most competent due to his temper. No control… I’ll discuss that with Rumlow, and you over the earpiece.”

“Alright. So, on the topic of Steve…”

Chapter Text

Tomorrow Yakov was leaving for Lagos. It was almost silly, but Tony’s dramatics somehow convinced him to visit Agent Peggy Carter. So the day before he could possibly ruin everything he now had, just to take Rogers with him, he was almost completely unarmed and following Tony.

He tried to think ‘it’s for Tony’ but that only went so far before ‘what if Rumlow succeeds?’ followed by a whole train of thoughts that were bound to crash and make his head hurt. Thankfully, he only managed to internally feel fear, something he hadn’t felt upon going into a mission before. He had been afraid of his punishment should he fail, but the mission had always been the easiest part. There was so much more to lose should he fail.

Tony knocked on the door and gently pushed it open.

“Peggy?”

“Anthony?” Tony pushed the door open and pulled Yakov with him. Yakov left the door half-closed and stood beside where Tony sat to the left of Agent Carter. Tony set the vase of flowers. They were blue, white, and beautiful in a desolate way. “Who’s… Is that? Anthony, is that who I think it is?” Tony looked up at him, and Yakov shrugged.

“Uh…?” Should he indulge a dying woman who wouldn’t remember this interaction anyway, or should he introduce himself for who he was now? Tony seemed to look as distressed by making this decision as he felt. He would have indulged her, but he didn’t know Bucky Barnes enough to pretend to play him. He could pretend to be slowly remembering a past he had not recollection of, but he couldn’t fabricate something that would prove true.

“Hello Agent Carter. I’m Tony’s friend, Yakov,” her eyes faded and he had the same need to feel guilt for hurting someone, but he could feel none. He could fabricate guilt, he knew that enough to fake. He was not nearly talented enough to attempt taking on an entirely different persona that he hadn’t really cared for enough to learn about. She struggled to force herself up into a position she could better see them. Her arms shook with the weight that looked nonexistent on her sunken face.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You must forgive me, I shouldn’t have assumed… Tell me how you’ve been doing? You’ve gotten… you look so much older than the last time I saw you. The first time you spoke to me you were still crawling, did you know that? Such a brilliant child. I knew you would grow into a wonderful man,” she reached out to touch Tony’s cheek. “I don’t approve of this style you’ve got going. Your face is too nice to hide with that,” she motioned to her lower face. “You need to brush this back,” she smiled while pushing Tony’s hair back. “Do the boys no longer slick it back? I remember when you wanted to be just like Captain America. You went through so much hair gel, did you know that? Ana didn’t want to discourage your interest in maintaining appearance so she would replace them before you could notice. You never commented on the random influx of gel.” she paused and frowned before pulling her hands back. “Speaking of Steven… sometimes I think he visits me, you know… then he’s just gone… I missed you so much, Anthony.”

“I missed you too nagynéni . I miss you so much sometimes, but I… I’m sorry that I can’t do more.”

“You do so much for me already, though. Here come sit with me on the bed. Your friend can join you,” Tony sat near Peggy and she held his hand. “Oh, you are so handsome! I would pinch your cheek, but I doubt you would appreciate it,” something about the way Tony’s lips were twitching and the way he focused on her so intensely told Yakov that Tony would let her do anything she wanted if it would make her happy. “Ah, now where are my manners. Sorry, you must forgive an old woman. I’m Margaret Carter, it’s nice to meet you… when did you meet my darling godson?” she must not have seen Tony’s sad look because she carried on as if she couldn’t see the tears that Tony tried to discreetly wipe away before they would fall.

“I met him about seven months ago, now. It was completely on accident, but Tony’s so… he’s so kind that it’s difficult to not want to be friends with him.”

“I understand. He is going to change the world. He told me when he was four that he would do great things. I could only agree, because I know he will,” Yakov turned from Margaret to Tony. It couldn’t be too different from the nightmares? This time it couldn’t be left forgotten. This wasn’t something that Tony could just ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ and make it disappear.

Yakov touched Tony’s shoulder. The engineer leaned against him, and Yakov wrapped his arm around him in response. Margaret stared at him as Tony held her hand and looked away from her.

“Anthony,” the veins in her hand grew all the more apparent as she squeezed Tony’s hand. “I know that I’m sick. I know that it hurts, and that I can forget all of this in a few minutes, but I love you so much, and I’m so proud of you. Please don’t remember me as a sick woman, but as your godmother who will always love you.”

The next six or seven minutes passed in silence as Tony tried, and failed, to stop himself from crying. A few moments after Tony managed to compose himself, he looked back at Margaret.

“I love you so much,” there was a pause, and Tony could only smile despite the way his chin quivered. She looked vacant for a moment, before she focused on Tony. “Peggy?”

“You’ve… is that… Howard, did Bucky…? If you found Bucky, then Steve can be alive too! Tony would just love him! I want them to meet before…” Margaret’s eyes widened and she pulled her hands away from Tony. “I forget, forgive me. His name is Anthony, I know, it’s just… he’s so tiny for such a big name.” Yakov stood up and gently and guided Tony away from the bed.

“I apologize, Miss. We must have stumbled into the wrong room. Please, keep the flowers,” Yakov had never seen something this bleak and he had been an assassin for decades. Yakov guided Tony away from the room, and Tony wiped his face. His eyes were red, and he looked too tired. He looked worn out and ready to just fade.

“She… I’m just glad we had so much time with her while we had it. Even if I don’t know when exactly she started to forget. It’s just… let’s go home. This was a bad idea,” Yakov nodded, not knowing what else to say. Tony was walking, but it was automatic, and Yakov was guiding him back to the car. Tony pulled the keys out of his pocket and slid them into Yakov’s hand before getting in on the passenger side.

They arrived at the compound hours later. Tony had wanted to drive there with the music as loud as he could play it and going as fast as he could without crashing, but their drive back was silent. Yakov parked the luxury car. Tony made no move to get out. Yakov considered letting him stay there, but that didn’t seem advisable. He knocked on the window and got no answer, he opened the door.

“Want to go inside?”

“She thought I was Howard…” Tony’s whispers run in his ears. “She apologized to him for calling me my name. She looked so nervous, terrified actually. You don’t know her, but she… she fought people so… they were so much worse than Howard, physically, but she deferred to him . What the fuck did he do to her to make her scared ?” Tony twisted and placed his feet on the cement. “Why didn’t she just… I’m sorry for getting all weird on you.”

“You don’t need to apologize for anything… Will you let me at least take you inside, though?”

“I’m not a kid, Snowflake…” but that wasn’t a ‘no’ either, and Tony made no gestures to indicate he would be moving himself. “But I won’t deny a reason to feel you up, either. So, yes, you may take me inside,” and Tony’s lip quirked up. It wasn’t a full smile, but that was much better than despondent sorrow.

Yakov reached forward and picked Tony up before shutting the door with his hip. After the fumbling with handles, he managed to get the doors open and get Tony inside. Tony had one around around his back, a hand resting between his shoulder blades, and the other hand was clenched around his right bicep. Once they were on the ground floor of the living quarters, Tony spoke again.

“Just so you know, I don’t make a habit of demanding to be carried around. It’s just because you offered so kindly,” Tony finally did smile. “Also, how could I refuse you, when this gives me a reason to get close to you?”

“You don’t need a reason to get close, solnishko .”

“Okay, so I know I’m not dishing the best material out, but I’m not sure if that was a joke or if you were serious,” Tony paused for a second. “Were you serious?”

“Yes. I like it when you’re close to me, but I don’t often initiate contact. I have yet to determine when it’s best to touch and when it isn’t. I understand generally, but with the more… complex emotions. I don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to scare you away.”

“You admitted you liked killing people to me, I don’t think anything you do will scare me unless you’re trying to kill me ,” Yakov set Tony down on his bed. “But I appreciate the consideration more than you know… where’s Rhodey?” Tony pulled his phone from his pocket. Yakov considered taking his boots off now, but he waited because he heard a sharp inhale and then a low ‘they set me up,’ from Tony before the phone was set on the nightstand. Yakov walked to the other side of his bed, and sat down on the edge. He unlaced his boots and set them to the side. The heard shuffling and then there was a dim blue glow. The glow was gone almost as fast as it had appeared in another sound of rustling fabric.

“Tony?”

“Yeah?” the blankets tugged from under him, and then moved after the dip of Tony settling back onto the bed.

“You’ve only been awake for three days…”

“You noticed that?” To be honest, when it came to Tony, not much was likely to be missed. Yes, he had assumed since Tony was a superhero, he was less likely to accept any of the less-than-human parts of him. He hadn’t taken into account, or realized, how much Tony liked him. How much Tony was willing to let go because of the sympathy he felt. There could also be some form of empathy, but those were two emotions that Yakov had yet to understand the true difference between. FRIDAY had also admitted to not understand a difference, going so far as to say that they were, by definition, synonymous.

“Mmhmm.”

“Well, uh, well… I mean,” Tony took a deep breath, “look, I like you, and had you been anyone else I would have slept with you already, and I guess Nat and Rhodey planned this out, that’s why they’re not here, and belatedly informed me of this little scheme of theirs. I don’t want to make it weird, though, but I feel like I always make things uncomfortable, so I’m not sure how to act in a proper situation. Sleeping with people just to sleep with them is so much easier than having all this, uh… well this other stuff along with it makes it complicated and I’m not sure how to continue. I wasn’t going to mention it that I was going to sleep despite not staying awake as long as I probably could, but I also didn’t think you were paying enough attention to notice…”

“Oh…” was all Yakov could say for a moment. Natalia and Jim had somehow planned this? Yakov liked Tony, and he desired Tony, but Tony had a really long, and emotionally exhausting day. “If… I admit I have no reference point beyond what I’ve seen in during movie nights on how to express affection intimately just to be intimate and not want to benefit from it. I don’t want to make this awkward, but perhaps that’s already passed… I can sleep on the couch if you want, or we could go to the workshop and just… what do you want to do?”

“I’ll admit I, uh, haven’t slept with a guy since I was barely twenty-ish and too drunk to really remember much of anything beyond that it happened, and I’m gonna take that little confession and consider you’re technically a virgin… if this were a movie, it would be a perfect moment, right? But I don’t think… why don’t you just sleep with me, like just sleeping. I will try not to hit you, and I am giving an apology now if I do, and I will give you one also if I do hurt you.”

Yakov wanted to let Tony know that it would take more than a few punches to hurt him. He refrained purely because Tony seemed to dislike being insinuated as ‘weaker,’ despite Yakov not trying to allude to anything beyond the fact that Yakov was more durable compared to a human. Not that he was necessarily stronger. Durability wasn’t strength, it was how many punches it would take to knock him down.

Yakov took the hoodie off. He liked the feel of only two specific shirts on his arms, and one had been blood stained and covered in bullet holes and the other was his tactical gear and whether it was because it was truly comfortable or because it had been made for him, not the Asset, by Tony… well, he didn’t know. Probably a bit of both. That being said, the shirt under the hoodie was sleeveless. He set the few knives on the bedside table.

It wasn’t until an hour after Tony had finally fallen asleep, Yakov realized something very important that had, in hindsight, was a real lapse in his skill that it took so long to figure it out. He wanted to keep Tony. ‘Keep’ did not encompass what he wanted in full. He wanted to… well, to do something between doing anything he could to give Tony the happiness he deserved, safeguarding him, and also sharing his most intimate pieces with him. Not necessarily sex. While sex was intimate, although Yakov had only ever used it as a weapon or as a bribe, he wanted to show Tony how exactly it felt to do what he did. How pleasant the feeling of control and power felt; the most gruesome parts that he liked to keep hidden. Even Natalia had not seen him at his cruellest and most lethal. For Tony, though, he wanted to show him just how nice it felt to do bad things. That point after his creation when he wanted affection despite the horrible things he did, would be at a point for Tony, when Yakov could give him and show him everything. Tony would be efficient, deadly… Tony was beautiful in a coffee-stained tank-top, boxers, and only a single sock on, but he would be absolutely radiant post-battle, where he would stand above the others as the victor...

Yakov froze. This wasn’t entirely new, but it was very much not appreciated while in this position. Tony had his back pressed against Yakov’s front, his head resting on a pillow covering Yakov’s robotic arm, and as  the engineer was pressed against his front, he was pressed against his back. He had never been in this sort of situation before. He tried to angle himself differently, to just not rub against Tony’s backside. With every centimeter Yakov moved back, Tony would shift to adjust against him. In the three hours that passed, Yakov had relaxed enough to doze now that he wasn’t focused on Tony. Yakov estimated Tony would likely wake up due to some nightmare between a half hour to an hour and a half.

Forty-five minutes later, Tony hadn’t even jolted before waking. He lurched forward, nearly rolling off the other side of the bed, before grabbing onto the sheets and curling up. FRIDAY came online as usual and talked to Tony until he sat up.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. It’s not like I can, uh, well ‘control’ it... sounds bad, but accurate.”

“It’s fine, you didn’t hurt me,” Tony nodded, resting his hands over his chest. They sat in silence for only a few minutes.

“So, uh… coffee?” Tony finally looked over at him.

“Sure.”

***

Natalia strapped the new bike, since one with a Widow symbol would be traceable, down in the quinjet. It wasn’t labelled with the Avengers logo. It had been made, but stuck in the back and not used. Tony had a long model number for it and then explained it had been too small for the entire (former) team. Yakov hadn’t flown a ‘quinjet’ before, but he’d flown other things (reading how to use this aircraft was also helpful). He hoped he didn’t crash, because that would be a waste, but Tony told him they would be returning on a different jet, so this one is to be left somewhere or scraped. Natalia told him to just give it to Rumlow as a show of goodwill. Later they could say that Rumlow stole it from them when he worked with SHIELD/HYDRA. Either way, it would work in their favour in the end.

Tony pointed out the mechanism that would switch the exterior from black metal to reflective tiles that should make him almost invisible. The plate would keep him hidden from most, if not all, possible authorities as he flew. It only had enough fuel to get him to Lagos, but considering it was about 5,300 miles away, that may be all the fuel it could carry.

It would be about nine and a half hour flight on this particular jet, (considering it was built by Tony who liked things to go very fast, and also for the Avengers to travel to scenes that needed attention quickly), but since he had just told Rumlow he was on the way there, Yakov felt it would feel so much shorter.

While Yakov was grabbing the weapons he had been offered, from Natalia’s place in the equipment shed, and placing them where they were supposed to go, he heard Natalia and Jim poking Tony for details about that night.

“Nothing happened. Also, that was a real dick move, guys!” was Tony’s whispered response to their questions. Yakov finished slipping the last knife in place by that time and turned to face where Natalia and Jim crowded Tony near the exit of Natalia’s infantry.

“You got extra rounds?” Natlaia asked as if Yakov was some sort of amatuer.

“In the jet… if I need them. One shot takes down almost everyone if you hit the target. I have six guns with between twelve and thirty shots each,” Natalia rolled her eyes.

“You can’t kill everyone with a single shot…” was Jim’s addition.

“You haven’t seen him fight… he almost killed you from twenty feet away without looking at you with a knife , what could he do with a gun?”

“Whatever,” Jim crossed his arms, “but he can’t be that good. It’s not humanly possible.”

“I’m not exactly a normal human,” Yakov said as he approached them.

“That may be, but you’re still technically human. I understand Thor, maybe, since he’s like a thousand years old, but c’mon, we’re exaggerating right?” Nobody responded to that question, and Jim’s cheeky smirk turned into a frown before anyone said anything.

“Well, the sooner you leave the sooner you can come home,” Natalia started walking, and the three of them followed. Natalia patted his shoulder told him ‘don’t die,’ and then walked toward the living quarters.

“I’m just gonna leave you to it,” Jim had walked off. Tony made a face, likely to Jim who was standing maybe ten feet behind him, before his steps started and he had left the area. Tony shoved his hands in his jean pockets.

“You got everything? Your earpiece in? I’ll refrain from making jokes while you need to stay serious and/or focused, because I know you love my humour… uh, so anyway, I should probably let you go now. Call me when you get it all, well, when you get it all ready. Then you know what to do,” Tony didn’t move out of the way onto the jet, though, and Yakov didn’t want to leave before Tony said whatever else he wanted to say. “Please don’t die. Just, I know you’re strong and awesome, but don’t, ya know, test your luck and stuff. Kill that fucker as soon as he’s useless and then… well, yeah. We’ve been over this, and I know you’re not likely to forget, but it just… I’m worried and I know I shouldn’t be because you’re practically the Terminator but better, but not the T-1000 ‘cause you can’t like shapeshift… just, see, I’m nervous so I’m ranting and--”

“Tony,” Yakov reached out to touch Tony’s cheek. “I’ll survive. There will be a ‘next mission’.”

“So I’m not good with this sort of stuff, so…” Tony pressed a kiss to his lips. It was nice, it felt nice, and he wanted to do it again. Tony pulled away, just slightly. “If you die, I will be so pissed, do you understand?”

“Always.”

“Okay, Snape , get out of here before you accidentally make another pop culture reference.”

“I’ll be back,” Tony snorted, and Yakov smiled.

“Get out of here, Terminator,” he was laughing. Yakov liked it when Tony laughed “I’ll miss you,” Tony stepped to the side so he could get to the jet. Yakov walked up the ramp. Tony gave a little wave, so Yakov pressed the little button that drew the ramp back, folding it to cover the entryway. The interior was very much like something from Star Wars. Lots of buttons and technology that looked too futuristic for the majority. Yakov waited a second, sitting down in the pilot seat, before he called Rumlow.

“ Day mne svoi koordinaty ,” (Give me your coordinates) Yakov said as soon as the phone was picked up.

“ You’re being awfully hostile despite you coming to me for help. We don’t hav-- ”

“Location?”

“ We’ll meet in Apapa. Outside the Shippers Towers. It’s tall and red-orange. You know it? ”

“I can find it,” Yakov wanted to crush the phone when Rumlow laughed.

“ Good ,” the phone clicked. Yakov held the stupid flip phone for a second before closing it and slipping into his pocket before he actually picked up and left. Once in the air he flipped the reflective plates. This was going to be either very long or very short nine hours, either way Yakov would very much enjoy it when Rumlow lost his usefulness.

***

The quinjet hadn’t been noticed by anyone, or at least not anyone who had approached or asked for identification. He flew in a circle once before landing the quinjet about an hour away from Apapa in some shrubbery, but near enough to a road. He had a bike with him that could be useful, so walking was going to be a second option. However, it was annoying to pull it through the underbrush and out to the road. He pulled on a hoodie despite it being rather hot outside, and strapped his mask on.

The sun was low already. There was a six hour time difference, so even though he had left around seven (admittedly later than he would have under orders because Tony had been convincing him to ‘have another cup’ of coffee, and he hadn’t really wanted to leave) it was later than Rumlow would be expecting.

It was maybe five thirty in the evening when Yakov stopped at the Shippers Towers. There was an armoured van tucked maybe thirty feet away. He paid no mind to the three men behind him as they approached. They were loud, their boots tapped on the asphalt indicating steel toes. The feel of a gun against his spine was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t foreign in the slightest.

Then, from somewhere to the right of the car, a man appeared. His mask was black, but it was worn down to white plastic. Or at least it looked like that, Yakov wouldn’t doubt Rumlow just used whitewash paint to make him look more intimidating. The skin around Rumlow’s eyes and neck had faint scars. They weren’t the sort of scars received from attacks, it was the sort of scars found on burn victims. He had seen it when he was electrified for long enough on himself.

Rumlow stopped in front of the bike. He looked similar to how he had before, although he hadn’t worn the mask. He had holsters and a utility belt, as well as a chest plate and… knee pads? He didn’t look scary to Yakov, but maybe he was a bit jaded. There were gauntlets around that reached an inch above the wrist but covered his fingers. How did Rumlow want to keep him if he hadn’t the ability to hold him? Those gauntlets put him at a disadvantage, but Rumlow was always cocky. He shouldn’t have been, he was nothing special.

“We meet again.”

“So it would seem,” Yakov didn’t move forward when the gun was forced against his spine painfully. “I won’t hurt you, Rumlow, I need you. I don’t need any of your goons, though, and I don’t appreciate being held at gunpoint. Things I don’t appreciate tend to die very quickly.” Rumlow waved his hands at them, and the guns were lowered.

“So, how did you get here?”

“Stole a jet… are we going to talk here or do you want to go somewhere a bit more private?”

“Come on, leave the bike. One of the guys will bring it,” Yakov got off the bike, leaving the keys, and followed Rumlow. “Why the jacket?”

“Most people don’t appreciate seeing such an artillery in the same place. I didn’t want to spook anyone… though that doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“You’ve really developed a mouth, haven’t you?” Rumlow sat in the back with him, but made no move to point a gun at him. What had him so confident? “It’ll be about twenty minutes before we arrive at headquarters. We can talk here, though.”

“ Oni govoryat po-russki? ” (Do they speak Russian?)

“No. Oni znayut tol’ko kak sledovat’ prikazam, i to na lomannom angliyskom ,” (They only know how to follow orders, and only in broken English) Yakov ignores the disgusted expression and absent motion aimed at the two ‘soldiers’ with them in the back of the van. Of course Rumlow doesn’t care about them. It almost made Yakov feel bad for planning to kill them, but only almost . They were stupid for joining with an idiot, like Rumlow, with no real idea how to do anything important. Rumlow was good for two things: being used, and inevitably failing very loudly. He wanted to be noticed, that was something that could easily be used against him. The fact he could restrain Yakov meant nothing about his intelligence or ability to plan. It just meant he could punch things harder than normal. Rumlow took off his gauntlets and set them to the his side. “ Oni - lish’ pushechnoe myaso, khroshy dlya srazheniy. Nas im ne zamenit’, potomu chto my prevoshodim ih vo vsem. Soglasen? ” (They’re just cannon fodder, good for fighting. They’re replaceable, because we are better than them in every way. Right?)

“... konencho …” (...sure…) Yakov said, but that hadn’t been what he really wanted to say. He had really wanted to inform Rumlow that he was just as expendable as all the guys sitting with them. He agreed with him, instead. It was the right decision because Rumlow touched his shoulder. His touch wasn’t hesitant like it should have been. He touched him with confidence, almost as if they were friends . The hand slid to between his shoulders, and rested there.

“I’m surprised with your ‘friendship’ with Stark. Rogers said you’re using him. Any truth to that?”

“ Net .”

“Well, what else is a billionaire useful for? He’s a superhero. What would he think of you if he only knew what you were so good at?”

“ Ty nervichayesh’? ” (Are you nervous?)

“Of course not,” Rumlow smiled at him. He hated it. “Are you, Asset? Is it because of the girl? That redhead? C’mon, you can tell me Soldier. You’re sort of gonna be working with me for a long while,” Yakov didn’t respond, and Rumlow nodded, “Good. You don’t care about them then. If you were attached, then I’m afraid it would be easier to just… well, kill them. I just needed to know if you were compromised or not. Speaking of functionality, any malfunctions since you left?”

“ Net … moya ruka funksioniryet na priyemlemom urovne. ” (No… my arm is functioning at an acceptable level.)

“ Tol’ko na priyemlemom? ” (Only ‘acceptable’?)

“ Da ,” Yakov, for a second, thought it would be bad to say more. He wasn’t the Asset, though, so he could say more. He was about to speak, but Rumlow spoke over him.

“Well… it’ll have to work anyway. I’ll find an engineer to fix you up when I can,” Rumlow leaned forward, removing his hand from Yakov’s back, and took off his helmet. “Take off your mask.” Yakov did. He held the light, but durable, mask in his hands. He could feel three pairs of eyes on him, when he looked to the two ‘guards,’ they quickly looked away. They didn’t have helmets. To keep them from dying, they really should have been wearing actual armor, not glorified hockey pads.

Rumlow had been burned, somehow. He was covered in scars from skin being graphed on, cut, pulled, sewn, and all the other sorts of procedures that happened under physician care. Thankfully, they weren’t new and interesting to Yakov, so he didn’t recognize the difference enough to stare or be shocked.

Rumlow laughed, he touched Yakov again. This time Yakov turned to look at him. Rumlow didn’t move his hand, but he laughed harder.

“Ooooh, that’s so cute . As much as I like it when you stay quiet and look scary, don’t scare them too much,” Yakov looked back down at the mask. He could kill Rumlow and these two guys with just his mask if he really wanted to. Well, his mask and his hands.

“Lure him here. You force him to go against his morals in front of the world. Once he is no longer worshipped, I’m yours.”

“Yep… I can’t wait .” Rumlow made a move closer to Yakov, and Yakov pressed his hand against the chestplate.

“ No ty dolzhen ,” (But you will) Yakov smirked and leaned forward, his arm bending as he kept his hand on Rumlow’s flimsy chestplate. “ Nam je ne nuzhny nikakie neschastnye sluchai, da ?” (We don’t want any ‘accidents’, do we?)

“You can’t just whisper things like that to me and not follow through,” Rumlow glared at him as he sank back into his seat. The two men stared at Rumlow, and the fool seemed to take notice. Rumlow surged forward and wrapped a hand around Yakov’s neck, Yakov sighed. “ No ty zabyvayesh, Asset , kto zdes’ glavnyy .” (You forget, Asset , who’s in charge.)

“Are you finished asserting your… dominance ?” Yakov calmly set his mask on his lap.

“Not really.”

“Well…” the Soldier grabbed Rumlow’s wrist and squeezed until Rumlow released him. It seemed so easy, because it really was. Before Rumlow could complain about his injured wrist, Yakov reached out with his metal arm and grabbed Rumlow’s throat. “ Glavnyi zdes’ tochno ne ty ,” (You’re not in control here) he could feel the the jugular vein under his fingertips, and he could feel the muscles tensing. He didn’t really want to let go, but he couldn’t kill this ‘ally’ yet. He threw Rumlow against the seat. “Posturing will get you nowhere, Rumlow. Ya vsegda budu luchshe chem ty .” (I will always be better than you.)

The rest of the ride was tense, or at least it would have been tense for Yakov, if he wasn’t the one clearly superior. The two men nearly tripped trying to flee from the van. This building was tall, and the man on his bike came in behind them a moment later. He parked the bike and pulled the gate closed. This place was abandoned, but there was a bright city around them despite the state of this construct.

“Follow me.” Rumlow sounded distinctly annoyed. That meant good and bad things in equal measure.

He was led inside. There must have been a lot of windows, so many empty places along the walls. There was an area, up three flights of stairs, that had white tarps hung over the empty window panes. Rumlow set his gauntlets and mask down before sitting on a mattress on the floor.

“So you want me to lure Captain America here, and then somehow get him to make some devastating mistake in public to ruin his ‘perfect’ image?”

“ Da ,” Yakov walked towards the mattress. He loomed over Rumlow, and he liked looking down at him as Rumlow had to him many times in the past. “Can you do it?”

“Don’t you think that’s asking for a bit too much?”

“For a weapon like… me ?”

“You keep telling us how superior you are, you might just start to believe it. No matter what those superheroes have been telling you, you’ll never be more than a tool, Soldier. An Asset to be used. Don’t fool yourself,” Rumlow crossed his arms over his chest. “You may be better than my current workforce, but you’re not cut out to be an actual person, but you’re too good to waste.”

“Did you not just confirm that I am better?” He sat down on the mattress beside Rumlow. “I have no intentions to be a person. I know that being human isn’t in my nature. I have no morals or anything else that makes humans so unique. I do… care , though. I have goals. Missions. Without all that pesky humanity, with the training and abilities I have, and with that drive to complete my mission, I am superior.”

“What exactly is driving you so much you come to me? You’ve been waiting to kill me for a year, searching for me, and then you use your knowledge to make me a deal. A deal that I benefit from greatly. What exactly are you doing all this for?”

“Myself.”

“Well, I can’t fault you for that, I guess. I don’t have a fancy cryochamber to keep you in. There’s room, just not another mattress. Pick a place and rest, tomorrow we’re going to cause some serious panic and do a lot of damage,” Rumlow took the chestplate off, the belt and leg holster. That was all, though, and he rested against the head of this mattress. Yakov sat on the edge of the mattress for a while. Just considering a vast variety of things that he didn’t understand or wanted. Either way, he only lay back on the bed when Rumlow was finally asleep. He hadn’t wanted to come to rely on comforts, and in a way he hadn’t, but he would have really been at the compound with Tony. Tony may have secluded himself in his workshop, but he would be close enough to feel comforted and to feel like Tony was safe. He wasn’t there now. Jim was loyal to Tony, he would keep him safe while he was gone. Natalia was there, too, but he had no lingering doubt that if she could, she would have joined him. Her friendship with Tony existed, but Yakov couldn’t tell whether it was because she enjoyed Tony’s company of she wanted to be around him.

He could hear people on the floor beneath the one he was one with Rumlow. He could hear their talking in sentences split by different languages. Some were in English, others were in Yoruba. Either way, they were noisy. From what he had heard, they were afraid, but they were working with Rumlow for the benefits Rumlow had offered them, and some for their belief in whatever the vague ‘mission’ was. That mission didn’t matter much. Their ‘leader’ was only going to live until he was no longer needed, and if they tried to stop them, they would also be killed. It was just that simple.

Chapter Text

It had been almost too easy to gain the attention of the ‘Avengers.’ The team had gained some new members, actually. The Vision was not there, in fact, Yakov hadn’t seen the Vision since Tony had told him to leave. It was a fleeting thought, he didn’t care for Vision, he often made FRIDAY sad with his distance and he had hurt Tony, too. There was also the fact that Yakov had no idea how to kill Vision. How do androids die? Pull out the batteries? Did it work like that? It didn’t matter.

Standing in place of Vision was that plain man from before. The one who had been using Pym Technologies agency vehicles. There was also Sharon Carter in all her blonde glory. That made a team of five. Yakov watched from a rooftop. Rogers had disappeared inside the building he was under. It was an office building about a half mile away from a secure pharmaceuticals company. As soon as Wilson as in the air, Yakov shot him down. Sharon Carter had caught him and fell under his weight. They were both relegated to keeping people out of the way since they were wrangling civilians and shielding them with their own bodies. He didn’t understand why, though, because the action was a few minutes away.

Tony had been on his way for three hours before the main spectacle. He told Yakov a maximum of four and a half hours to get there, and then mentioned that he had only made the suit fly ‘a little bit’ faster than the top speed of a military aircraft, and only a little bit slower than the speed of sound. The most brilliant bit is that Tony somehow ‘upgraded’ this suit in the five days that Yakov had been in Lagos, not including the current day (and including the day Yakov left). It was almost ten in the morning, so Tony had been disturbed at six, but Tony hadn’t sounded like he had slept. He was en route twenty minutes later.

By two in the afternoon, the plain guy, called ‘Ant-Man’, managed to somehow turn into a giant, and stepped on quite a few people, reducing them into blood stains on the pavement. By that point, Yakov had shot the new, likely Pym Tech, drone that Wilson had sent out, down.

When Rumlow shot Carter in the shoulder, only missing because he had to jump away from Barton, Steve jumped out of the building. He smashed through a window and rolled with his shield to land. Barton was taking down the men that had followed Rumlow, and Wilson was now single handedly keeping curious observers back. He heard Tony alert him to his arrival in about forty-five minutes, but maybe a little bit longer since he would be going slower and staying as hidden as his dark blue stealth suit could allow. As least it wasn’t red and gold.

Rumlow looked up at Yakov. Yakov nodded and Rumlow took the stolen vial and smashed it on the ground. Of course it was nothing, but Rogers had jumped over it and knocked down Rumlow. Rumlow’s goons fled as quickly as they could after that. They had been told it would evaporate into some sort of airborne disease. Either way, Rumlow was on the ground struggling with Rogers. Yakov aimed and started picking off the local police. He left two police officers, just so they could catch whatever it was that Rogers did and inform everyone. He watched as Rogers finally punched Rumlow so hard, his helmet cracked. Rogers ripped it off and threw it behind him. He could only hear them faintly, and even then it was sketchy.

There was something about stopping the terrible things he (Rumlow) had done, from Rogers. He followed it with how the Avengers were there to protect the entire world. Rumlow was looking up, over Roger’s shoulder and in Yakov’s direction. Rumlow opened his mouth, said something about ‘Bucky’ but he said nothing after, because his head exploded just as Rogers went to hit him. Rogers fell back, and the others abandoned their positions to go to him. There were a few comments, but then the second team was sent in. These guys had been on standby in three vans around the corner and hadn’t been informed beyond their current mission. They weren’t scared of the fake poison. They were actually fanning out. There was shared words, again.

These guys had been picked because they could last against Rumlow for at least two minutes. Yakov took two shots just as the men did minutes apart. There was lots of gunfire. The goons stopped for only a moment to reload. Yakov had taken out Wilson’s leg, and hit Barton in the abdomen. Specifically his liver. Yakov backed away from his position hidden behind the little lip of the roof, then rolled onto his back. Tony landed a moment later. He had a few reflective plates, but the others had broken off somehow, to reveal the blue-black body.

“Holy fuck,” were Tony’s first words, “that was awesome.”

“Let’s go save the day. Rogers already killed a few people, or at least it surely looked like it. That plain dude from their hideout is here too. He’s the one in the stupid helmet,” Tony pulled Yakov up before grabbing the back of his tactical uniform.

“Alright, let’s go save these guys. How many casualties?”

“At my hand? Thirty-four, including Rumlow In total? About eighty.”

“That was more than I thought, but whatever. This is gonna feel weird, so bear with me.”

Flying without any control was probably the most terrible thing. Tony stood beside him. They went to do their thing. Tony went to check on the police officers left alive, and Yakov pushed Rogers behind him, and pointed his gun at them. The goons quickly surrendered, but he didn’t worry about them talking either because he had thought ahead. Rogers fought against the arm  holding him back.

“You’ve done enough damage, Rogers. Stay back before you kill someone else,” Yakov said. Rogers didn’t like the sound of that since his face twisted, but he stopped struggling. Tony came back, with some more officers. The officers collected the goons and loaded them into the van brought to haul them back. Yakov may or may not have smuggled someone of Rumlow’s in as a driver, and then he rigged the entire van with explosives. It was surprisingly easy considering there were so many officers and cameras. The few cameras were on repeat thanks to FRIDAY, and he evaded eyes of anyone too close before knocking them out. The ‘officer’ nodded to him before thanking him for helping. That man thought he was escaping with his pals thanks to Yakov, who had thought of them in the process of this all.

“Hey, these officers just want our statements. I’m gonna stay back and help, uh, take care of the casualties. I’m gonna offer to pay for all the… funerals,” Tony had been looking at the other Avengers. Most of them left with officers and ambulances. Tony looked at Rumlow’s body a few feet away. Rogers stepped away from Yakov.

“Tony, I swear I didn’t… I would never… I didn’t kill him .”

“Well I wasn’t here for any of that, but you’ve lied before, we can’t really trust you, can we?”

“You kno--”

“Go give your statement, Rogers. I’ll help clean up after you, like usual,” Rogers looked like he was going to put up another fight, but two officers walked over. Rogers went with them. Yakov, had left most of his weapons hidden under the space between the air conditioning units on the top of the building, so he was best equipped to help with the bodies. There were a few officers trying not to contaminate this ‘mass disaster,’ but there were more bodies than they could handle, this was a busy area, and forensic crime scene analysts were spread across the entire state of Nigeria. They had to get these corpses up quickly, and it would take six hours, at the least, for the experts to come in. Tony spoke with the few coroners who were helping, while Yakov zipped Rumlow up.

Digging in people’s heads, very literally, wasn’t common procedure for police, but as Yakov bagged him, he used a magnet to locate the bullet, and then extracted it as fast as he could, which was pretty fast considering he wasn’t digging aimlessly. This wouldn’t work for most bullets since most bullets weren’t made with magnetic material, but Yakov had been prepared to pierce through just about anything, so special bullets from Natalia’s collection were designed just for him. He still wanted to eliminate all of HYDRA, this way was killing two birds with one semi-armor-piercing and high-explosive incendiary. Meant for tanks, used for rodents. Well, one rodent. Rumlow was the only one killed with guns that weren’t used by the Avengers. (The second reason that extracting the bullet was crucial.)

Yakov detonated the police van from his pocket when half the corpses were collected. Eighty-ish bodies was a lot, and it took more time when Yakov was cleaning it up himself. If it wasn’t for the pleasant feel the blood on his hands, literally, then he may have just tried to get out of helping.

***

Yakov and Tony had only arrived at the end of the battle. The men surrendering to Yakov was easily explained by the international press release involving the Winter Soldier and fear. There was nothing left that recorded Yakov at all. Everything/everyone was destroyed, or he was covered up and hidden. The mask hardly gave him away, especially when the film was recorded from a distance and was still too pixelated and grainy to see any detail.

They stayed for another three days. Forty-or-so corpses were released before any examination could happen due to religious beliefs of the families. A few weren’t claimed at all. Either way, Tony paid for everything anyone could ever want no matter what religion and funeral rites they had, or if they were missed at all and were cremated. When the news of the Avengers, mostly Captain America’s brutal murder of former teammate, despite being HYDRA, and the team injuring/killing multiple people on accident were the most publicized. It wasn’t the be all that end all when it came to Captain America, but it was the beginning. He wasn’t looked at anymore with awe of this war hero, it was more of collected admiration of a brave man he reminded them of opposed to who he actually was.

Yakov had sent the men to the jet, and hopefully ruined it, but Tony checked on it as soon as he could (as soon as they were free and relatively out of the public/press’ eye. He came back and said ‘it’s done’ in explanation. Yakov hadn’t pushed, but he hoped it didn’t make his engineer change his mind about… well, whatever was going on between them.

***

Once they went back to the compound, things fell back to the way they were. Yakov would either talk with FRIDAY, read on his phone, or spend time with Tony. Natalia had dragged him to the training complex to spar with or just to punch things a few times, too. Jim was typical, hovering around Tony like a sentinel.  

Killing the people in Lagos was no issue for him, but Tony was a softer soul. Talking about murder, and then actually killing/assisting were two completely different things. Three days back in America and Tony darted from his wing and nearly flipped over the back of the couch. Jim followed him at a slower pace.

“What’s wrong?”

“Pepper may have decided I was moping and set me up with, uh, lots of meetings and stuff. She even got FRIDAY to schedule them for me. I hardly schedule shit, and I wouldn’t have known had FRIDAY hadn’t informed me that we would be having company on Friday,” Tony said all while gesticulating with his hands. “Yeah, so I’ve gotta go to a few colleges, three high schools are visiting the Tower, and apparently Pep is angry at us because we stirred up the public, again.”

“When will these things be happening?”

“Uh, what’s today? The, uh, February sixteenth?” Tony didn’t wait for confirmation before continuing, “Yeah. Well, we have Eastside High on the nineteenth, then I’ve gotta be at MIT on the twenty-third, and Bayville High will be visiting on the twenty-sixth. That’s all this month. The others are in March,” Tony looked at Yakov and then quickly looked away, “Well, I mean, Pep said that if I visited the four universities and let the three schools visit the Tower and didn’t complain, she would get me out of all of May, June, and July meetings. She’s been real sweet, I mean, I’ve sorta been neglecting her and the company because I’ve been, uh, busy. So, this is the least I could do.”

“Well, that’s quite a trip,” Natalia said as she looked at her phone. “Miss Potts has messaged me the dates and asked if I could please make sure you make it to the jet and Tower on time. I think she’s forgotten I’m not your PA. Anyway, you’ll be in California on the seventeenth of next month, right? Well, Yakov and I could go with you. Something about Pym Tech being involved. Their HQ is in San Francisco. We could kill two birds with one stone. It would be six hours from you to the building, but you will be busy and we can meet you after a few hours of spying, right?” Yakov had never felt more thankful for Natalia’s existence because he had no idea what to say. That and he wasn’t sure why Tony had looked at him like… well, it was an odd look and Yakov didn’t understand what it meant.

“Uh, yeah. That would be cool. Anyway, on the nineteenth, I’ll be at the Tower most of the day. I’m taking volunteers if any of you wanna come along. I think I should leave in the morning, and ya know check stuff out. I sort of let the guys and gals run rampant. They had free reign, creative license or whatever it’s called.”

“I can help, Tones,” Jim said.

“I was your PA for a while, if you need a break, I could take over,” Natalia looked up at Tony who was clearly shocked, “it’s what friends are for.”

“I can… I don’t really know what I could help with, but I will do anything else you need,” Yakov met Tony’s eyes for the first time in days. Tony nodded, and it felt sort of distant compared to how they had been before, but Yakov was happy with what he still had. He hadn’t thought Tony could have condoned a fourth of what he had done, Tony hadn’t batted an eyelash (at least not in front of him) at his actions. While he was sure Tony was upset, it didn’t seem like Tony was upset at him, more like the situation they were in was uncomfortable.

“Great. We will leave tomorrow. We should get some sleep, I mean,” he looked at Jim, “you’re gonna get some sleep every night you weirdo, but still. Sleep would be useful, and I need to get my mak… I do not need to do that… hey, Nat, can you make me pretty again, but without being too beautiful, it’s gotta look natural and manly.”

“I can do anything , don’t you worry. I’ve got you,” she winked at Tony and stood up. “I guess I’ll go pick up your shade. On my way back, I could bring food. Anyone have any suggestions. And just saying ‘coffee’ is not going to work, Tony.”

When Natalia came home, with a bag full of makeup that Tony stared at for a full minute before asking what exactly required to be touched up when he was already ‘so cute’ and she just rolled her eyes and shoved the bags of chicken strips and fries at them.

Chapter Text

Jim had gone to bed hours ago, and Tony had just gone to bed when Natalia pulled the two things she had purchased for Tony out of the bag. The other things were just a bunch of candies she had bought, and then dumped into the bag to make it look like there was more makeup than their really was.

“I’m surprised he didn’t see through the bag. Yeah, he just needed concealer, eyeliner, and I may have added a double pack of flavoured chapstick. Look,” she tossed him Star Wars themes chapstick. “I thought Tony would like it because when his lips are chapped he bites the skin off and he whines when he drinks his coffee.” Natalia picked the chapstick out of his hands and opened the packaging. She used the ‘Jedi Mint,’ before pausing. She smirked and held up the ‘Darkside Cherry’ as if it was funny. Maybe it was, but Yakov didn’t understand the joke. She stared at him, and he conceded.

“Why is that funny?”

“Because you’re Darth Maul, and it’s hilarious… Tony would appreciate that humor,” she tossed it at him again. He opened the packaging and popped the cap off the stick. It was really sweet smelling, and definitely cherry. He wouldn’t admit it, but he liked it. “I guess you can keep it. I’m sure he has a secret stash of Star Wars merchandise he keeps hidden from us.”

“What candy did you get?”

“Fruity and regular tootsie rolls,” she picked up a handful and tossed them over to him. He caught a few and two dropped on his chest. He looked at the five he had. He had a two lemon, two regular and one vanilla. “Yeah, vanilla is the one that I love, but there are never enough of those. Here’s the other flavours,” she threw each of the other three flavours at him. “So, I saw media coverage of Lagos.”

“What of it?” Yakov was picking apart the wax covered wrappers. When he actually ate the lime flavoured candy, he wasn’t sure how he liked it.

“Well, I know the States are saying some crazy things right now about all of it. The public’s response is split pretty evenly. Those who think that Steve was in the right, and that he couldn’t have actually murdered Rumlow, and then there are the others who are protesting against the Avengers and their habit to intrude where they aren’t necessary. I assume this is the outcome you wanted,” he decided he didn’t like the lime flavoured candy and he was still unsure about the orange, but he liked the regular tootsie roll.

“Well… it wasn’t something I didn’t want,” he paused. “Can you give me another orange one?” She tossed him the piece of candy. “In what way did it hinder us?”

“Tony’s pretty upset,” Yakov stopped peeling wrappers and looked at Natalia. She stared back at him. She didn’t elaborate, so he prompted a response.

“And?”

“There’s no ‘and.’ He’s just upset. I expected to see you two come back attached to the hip, but you weren’t. You’ve been sleeping on the couch and he’s been in the shop… did something hap--”

“No.” Yakov continued to pick at the wrappers. It was just the lime one he didn’t like. The others were good, despite the weird aftertaste the orange one left. She had stopped moving only a second before she continued on with doing whatever she had been doing. Yakov looked up at her a moment later. “Nothing happened. At least nothing that wasn’t bound to happen.”

“Like what happened in Lagos?”

“Yes,” he would ask when she became so invested in his business if he didn’t already know why, she always wanted to know . The more information she had, the easier it was to read someone accurately. It also made hurting them much easier without ever touching them. She sighed, unwrapped another candy, and looked at him again. She looked concerned, if not a little worried. It was a look he had grown familiar with when she was younger, one he hadn’t seen often from her since. Actually, he hadn’t seen it on her yet. She had always been hesitant, rightfully so, but this was afraid almost. He didn’t like that look from her. He cared about her, he truly did.

“Does HYDRA know that you were in Lagos?” she asked from around a cherry tootsie roll.

“I don’t know… they could. I would imagine they are very hesitant to send any sort of troop after me while I’m surrounded by other strong and competent people. Lagos could have been their chance, but they either didn’t know or they have a different plan. I would like for them to give up on me and just let me be, but they put long days of work and too many handlers to count before they got me functioning optimally. They were hesitant then, how do they feel now? In the Avenger’s Compound, surrounded by the most notorious Black Widow, the War Machine, and Iron Man, they know they have no chance. They’re too smart for that…” he didn’t like that they knew it would be inadvisable to attack him. He had only gone hunting once, and that was to test extremis.

Knowing that Tony knew that he had killed someone on the property, had watched the recording of it happening, and continued with him in comfort only to be disgusted by his actions in Lagos superficially confused him. There was a very obvious difference that he recognized. Yes they were both technically murder. Yakov had captured a HYDRA agent and killed him on video, which was justifiable. Then had killed many innocent people in Lagos, which was wrong. It didn’t matter much to Yakov, but he knew it would matter to Tony, so he would try to understand. He would have just disappeared, helped Tony one last time and faded back into obscurity. He was too attached now. A weakness, a glaringly obvious one, actually. Despite knowing Tony was a weakness, he didn’t feel like one. What he felt like, though, Yakov didn’t know yet. Not a weakness, but then what?

“Well, we have four places to visit and three schools visiting the Tower, it would be easy for HYDRA to strike then, wouldn’t it?”

“It would… but,” he would have said that they couldn’t take on the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow, but… what if they had his code words? What if they sent those agents? The ones with the clearance to know and ‘work’ with him? “Well, we will have to wait for them to strike first, but we will be prepared for anything.”

Natalia had narrowed her eyes at him, and he didn’t like that she had seen something. He knew she would have heard the stumble in his words, and he should have known she would pick up on it and make assumptions.

“ Chto s toboy (what’s wrong) ? ” She sat up from her slouch across the chair. Natalia was staring at him now. It was caring, but he still didn’t like it.

“ Eto pustyaki (It’s nothing),” she didn’t look convinced. His confession was prefaced with a deep sigh.“ Oni mogut zastravit’ menya podchinyat’sya… ya ne smogu eto ostanovit (They can make me obey… and I can’t stop them.) , ” Natalia looked more frightened than he had ever seen her before. That said a lot.

“What do you mean?”

“Words. They say words, and I have to do whatever they want me to. I cannot stop it… and I don’t know how long it takes for me to escape that programming. After they used it, after the dust settled, I was forced back into cryo, so I don’t really know what will fix me if they do apply that method of control,” that only made her more afraid. He understood, though. Whether if she was afraid of being controlled like that, or if she was scared because of what he could do when he wasn’t himself, he couldn’t tell. Probably both.

“Do you know the words?” He nodded. How could he not know the words? The last few had been fuzzy in his memory, but they were so clear in hindsight. During the application, it was just pain, after it, when he was pulled out of the cryochamber, it was clear and terrifying because he couldn’t force his body to do anything he wanted. A puppet to HYDRA, slave to their will. “When you hear them, can you get away?” Could he? He had stopped the woman with Jacob, but he hadn’t been chained, and he had been close enough to take her down easily.

“I don’t know. They tried… the ‘Clarks’ were agents. They attempted to use them. I nearly ripped her jaw off and killed the other. I was almost always tied down beside that time, so it is possible under the right conditions.”

“Hmm,” she stared at him, and he looked away from her because he knew she was trying to find his weak points, it’s what he would do. She wasn’t looking to find weaknesses to hurt him, she was looking to ensure it was feasible to restrain him if he was under control. “Do you remember anything, can you use information from previous missions? Or is it all muscle memory to accomplish whichever task they tell you post-conditioning?”

“I don’t remember, it’s not even me, it’s a shadow of… it’s… no. It works on muscle memory. Tasks presented after the application of the words are the only tasks that it can complete.”

“How long until HYDRA knows that we are no longer in the compound? Will they attack the Tower?”

“It’s… not likely they will attack the Tower. I have no point of reference to determine how long it would take for them to know I am no longer in the compound, though,” she sat up, no longer slouching at all. She hunched over, elbows on her knees as she leaned forward. She reached out and touched his ankle.

“I would tell you to hope, but I doubt you believe in such a notion. Instead, I’m going to tell you this: if you aren’t you, if it tries to attack one of us, or hurt someone you don’t want it to hurt, I will try my best to contain it,” Natalia seemed to have reached her emotional quota for the day because seconds later she pulled away. “Well, let’s eat candy and watch TV until we have to get ready. Probably not the best solution to a terrorist controlling you and turning you into a killing machine, but it’ll work until we figure out how to get rid of those… triggers.”

It was a risk, one he shouldn’t be taking. He should have told someone about this long ago, but there was no time. Yakov wanted to indulge in everything he could while he still had the opportunity to do so. If he and Natalia couldn’t figure out how to fix this, then he was sure Tony could… it was just going to be difficult to let Tony know how unpredictable and dangerous he was, especially when Tony knew exactly how dangerous he was without anyone pulling his strings.

Chapter Text

It was March eleventh. The students of Eastside High had been introduced and given a short tour of the Tower that housed the majority of the research and developmental labs for Stark Industries. Tony had taken Jim with him to MIT while Natalia and Yakov tried to figure out a way to remove something like a codeword. It wasn’t like classical conditioning, it wasn’t operant conditioning either. It was some sort of bastardization of therapy used to help people. Neuro-linguistic programming and electroconvulsive therapy used in relation with one another. How HYDRA learned how to do that, was frightening, whether it would work on someone with a strong personality raised for years before being subjected to that programming was also inconclusive. Yakov knew of the five other ‘Winter Soldiers’ who were defective. Had they been subjected to similar training once they proved to be uncontrollable? Had they been frozen after the incident and never given the same programming that Yakov had been subjected to? How exactly did one reverse years of conditioning that remained despite years of disuse?

Natalia had suggested they speak to Tony about it. Yakov had promised to do so, after Tony’s last meeting in California, on the seventeenth.

After MIT, the tower played host for another high school: Bayville High. Yakov noticed it first, but the majority of the students that visited the tower were mutants. Considering that they were young enough to accidentally use their powers or their energy manifested to do something when they were excited, it wasn’t too hard to notice their reactions in relation to the surrounding environment. Yakov didn’t mention them, though, because he knew that mutants were about as tolerated in modern society as assassins were: not much. He knew Tony would never hurt people because they were different, especially if they were just kids, but he had no reference to gauge any reaction, so he refrained from mentioning it.

Then, Tony had gone to Illinois for a… whatever-it-was, at Illinois Tech. Tony had collapsed on the couch in the jet after that. Yakov was more of a protection detail at this point, but Jim had been nearest to Tony, and Yakov had been ‘backup.’ Being the ‘second’ wasn’t something he was used to. He didn’t like it.

Now at the Tower, Tony, Miss Potts, and Natalia led the few Midtown High students that had arrived, through the R&D floors. Yakov had been asked, by FRIDAY surprisingly enough, to stay with her and the few boys in Tony’s home away from home. He met a few little bots that didn’t seem to have much purpose yet, nor were they fully functioning, and listened to FRIDAY as she asked for his advice on Tony, oddly enough.

“...and I don’t know how to help him. I said I would not abandon him again, not when he needs me, but I am unsure how to handle his emotions and behaviour. I do not want to upset him further,” but FRIDAY paused the same time that Yakov looked up from his spot on the futon in the corner behind a few tables and the main desk. He heard two gasps.

“You two are idiots. If you wanted to see what he does, then you shouldn’t just waste the limited time we have by staring and pointing from a distance… idiots,” that cynical and snarky voice that Yakov could place from the Silver Spoon Cafe. That would be the girl that he had later been informed prefered Natalia’s bike over him. He was completely fine with that. He didn’t have to look at them to hear the same two voices that had been with her at the cafe, either.

“We are not idiots.”

“Yeah! What Peter said!” the sound of skin colliding with skin. Yakov peeked over the desk to see that the skinny one, the one who had been more focused on what ‘Mr. Stark’ was doing than what he had been doing with guns in a cafe, had slapped his face. ‘Face palmed’ is the term.

“We said we’d use out codenames, Ned!”

“Well, for the cameras, I guess Peter Parker and Ned Leeds most certainly did not break into Tony Stark’s private workshop.”

“MJ!”

“Just get to what we came down here for, before you give away our social security numbers, too.”

“I don’t know my social security number…” was the boy, Ned’s, whispered response. They then separated and started looking at things. Peter didn’t touch anything, and neither did Ned. The girl, MJ apparently, was busy leaning against the wall with her phone. Maybe she was their ‘guard.’ He relaxed against the futon, and watched them from a distance.

“Snowflake, they aren’t supposed to be down here. I cannot make them leave, but Boss would be very angry if they broke something.”

“You’re right,” he stood up. None of the teens noticed him. “You are not supposed to be down here,” he said loud enough that the three of them look at him. Ned let out a short shriek before slapping a hand over his mouth.

“I’ve looked Death in the eyes twice now,” he whispered from his position a few feet from Peter. He slowly pulled the hand from his mouth and shoved his hands in his pockets. Peter looked around, almost like he was caught in some trap. The girl look disinterested, mostly, but she was scared. It showed in her tenseness and the widening of her eyes. “Death’s big, baby blue eyes.”

Yakov crossed his arms. He almost wanted to smile, but he didn’t.

“Do you have an explanation as to why you three thought it was a good idea to invade Mr. Stark’s privacy?”

“No!” Peter froze when Yakov looked at him. Seconds after freezing, he cleared his throat. “I mean, we didn’t want to invade his privacy. We were just… curious.”

“FRIDAY, please inform Tony and Natalia that three Midtown High students stumbled into the workshop, and I do not know the proper protocol to deal with them.”

“On it!”

“ Spasibo, lapochka .”

“Oh my god,” Ned whispered with enthusiasm most didn’t have when they met Yakov. “That’s so awesome ! You’re so awesome!”

“So… we have time, Tony hasn’t explained it to me, and I have been putting off reading the books. Can you explain the relationship between ‘Ancalagon’ and ‘Smaug’?” The three teens looked at him with the same look Natalia did when he said something amusing. There was a short pause before the girl looked back at her phone with a wide grin and Ned shifted from foot to foot.

“Why do you ask?”

“Tony said I’m the ‘Ancalagon’ to his ‘Smaug.’ This was prefaced by the reading of a tweet from a kid he referred to as ‘Leeds,’ that said my glare makes ‘Sauron look like a hobbit’,” Ned choked up a little. Yakov decided he liked that Ned was so free with being expressive. It was refreshing since most people tended to close up around him.

“Well, Ancalagon the Black was a ginormous dragon bred by Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. He’s sort of a mystery, since he’s only mentioned briefly, but his fire was hotter than most fire drakes. He’s also way older than Smaug… uh, Smaug is ext--”

“Extremely wealthy? Incredibly intelligent? Arrogant? A red and gold dragon with brilliant and near-impenetrable scales? It sounds a lot like me, dontcha think?” Yakov turned to see Tony walk into the room. “Jim is a bit moody, but he took my place so I could deal with… uh, I take it you’re Kafkaesque24 , Zabrak-Stark , and Fanboy-Chewi due to the line of questioning from the resident super soldier?”

“Y-yeah,” Ned looked far more scared of Tony than he had of Yakov, and Peter stared as if he were looking upon a God. MJ was nearest to Tony, leaning against the wall to his right. She had slowly tucked her phone into her pocket. She stared too, but it was much less obvious. Like Natalia, it seemed she used a facade of disinterest to keep her true reactions hidden.

“Well, not that I don’t appreciate the love you spread for me, but what convinced you that leaving the group was a good idea? For all you know, it could be extremely dangerous down here. I think my tendency to forget safety procedures is relatively well know, so I’m sure you’ve heard of it, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Peter, out of the three of them, looked the most ashamed. He looked down at his feet, “We’re sorry. Uh, we shouldn’t have come down here and invaded your privacy… please don’t arrest us.”

“Arrest you? Why?” The teens sagged with relief. This obviously amused Tony. “I am curious, though, how exactly did you like the set up?” They looked at Tony with the same disbelief that Yakov did. “What? I’m impressed. How did you get down here? It’s not like I leave the door open.”

“Uh… well…” Peter, MJ, and Ned went into detail about the processes they used and what they had done to get through the security around the workshop. Yakov didn’t understand most of what was being said, but he was certainly interested in it to want to learn. He would ask FRIDAY, but he’d prefer Tony, about what exactly they had said. He wanted to say it was to make sure that the Tower and other Stark properties were secure, but he really just wanted to know because he could . Any desire to impress Tony, or perhaps try to spend time with him, or otherwise plead for interaction without actually begging, certainly couldn’t be what that want was.

“Well I’m definitely going to fix that,” was Tony’s initial reply. “But I like the ingenuity, so I’ll forget about this completely. Let’s go back up to the group. I’m sure they’re almost finished now, but it would be weird if you aren’t on the bus back. I’ve got your names though, and I’m liking your way of thinking, all of you, so be expecting some sort of call later,” Ned and Peter slowly walked towards Tony. “Seriously though? Was it that easy ?” was the last thing Yakov heard as Tony went up the stairs from the workshop, the three kids following behind him. The door shut behind them with a faint click, and Yakov felt… well, he felt.

How could Yakov had known that all it took to bring Tony to him to talk, was for three teenagers to break into the workshop?

Later that night, Yakov had retreated to a guest room on the penthouse of the Tower. They had four days to get to University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, so two and half of those days would be spent in the Tower, the other day and a half would be the journey to Oklahoma and then settling in the hotel and getting to the actual school. Despite the distance, Jim was clear in the need for security involving all the events, and Yakov apparently was the best fit to check for anything and everything. Yakov agreed that he was the best, and Natalia often ‘assisted’ by trying to talk with him.

He didn’t expect for someone to knock on his the door to the room. Natalia had taken to texting before coming in, and Jim and Miss Potts left him alone when he wasn’t needed. Jim was angry with him, and the dislike between him and Miss Potts was mutual if not slightly hostile on her part. She had ‘accidentally’ slammed doors on him, or passive aggressively taken the seat Yakov had decided to take forcing him to reroute. She was only safe for two reasons. Tony liked her, and if she wasn’t there, Tony would have so much more work to handle by himself.

“Come in?”

“Hey,” Tony poked his head in, “Uh, I wasn’t sure if this was cool, but Nat was talking about you, and Pep told me to sleep, and I didn’t really want to sleep, so here I am.”

Yakov moved over on the bed. He had been pressed against the headboard, fully dressed and on top of the blankets, as he scrolled through the ebooks on his phone. Tony shut the door behind him, keeping the click quiet. What was going on? Tony stood at the foot of the bed. The phone in Yakov’s hand was set down, on the bedside table beside his mask.

“So, whatcha doin?”

“Reading,” when Tony didn’t say anything, he elaborated. “FRIDAY helped me find books on… stuff I don’t understand. I don’t think it’s much help, but I didn’t expect to learn much. I’m not exactly smart.”

“Not being a genius, doesn’t make you an idiot. What stuff don’t you understand? Learning isn’t the same for everyone, so maybe reading isn’t as helpful to you as it might be for others. Kinesthetic learning over visual learning isn’t uncommon. I learn better that way.”

“How did that line of code work? It wasn’t placed anywhere near FRIDAY’s construct. Her physical manifestation isn’t here, so why did the code punched into the lock she controls in front of your workshop affected by the code sent? I sound like an idiot, but it doesn’t make sense. If I punch one number into the keypad to your room at home, I’ll get a different response than if I gave the same number at a different lock, so why?”

“The kids didn’t get the lock to open, they froze my baby girl long enough to open the door. One of them is pretty strong, and I think I know which one, because forcing that lock open would have required force that typical humans cannot produce without assistance. The code they used was sort of like a little shock that caused an error in the systems everywhere FRIDAY was. She froze, they forced the door open, she came back online milliseconds later and alerted you to the breach in security. Nothing programmed is truly secure. There will always be a loophole somewhere. You could give me an airtight container, and despite how it’s built, there will always be a way to circumvent the system and force air inside. For example, subject that container to something that it wasn’t designed to handle, and it would break easily. If it was fixed to avoid it, there is always another way to do things, even if it takes years to think of the ‘right’ way, there are several ways to do something. Limitations only exist if we don’t understand them enough to work around them.”

“... what brings you here?”

“Uh,” Tony shifted for the first time. He didn’t look nervous, but his fingers moving to smooth parts of his already smooth clothing meant he was nervous despite his relaxed face. “I wanted to tell you that if you don’t want to read the books, we could watch the movies,” Yakov didn’t get a chance to speak since Tony quickly amended himself. “The books are better, or the book , singular, in the Hobbit ’s case, and I don’t think Ancalagon’s mentioned anywhere in the movies, but we could still watch them. There are six of them, three for the Hobbit and three for the Lord of the Rings .”

“I would like that.”

“Yeah, Pepper’s mad, so Nat took her for a ‘ladies night out’ or whatever, and Jim’s asleep -- what weirdo keeps a healthy sleep schedule? -- so we could watch one or two now, or whenever you want. You’re probably busy… FRIDAY said you’ve been talking, and I know I’ve been distant , but it wasn’t because of you, I promise, but I don’t know… when it comes to expressing emotion, you’re better at it than I am. Hiding stuff is sort of a talent of mine. So, the Hobbit ?”

Twenty minutes later, they were fifteen minutes into the beginning of the first Hobbit movie. An Unexpected Journey , as the title claimed, was the best description. Yakov watched in something between extreme fascination and great confusion. He understood that it was not real, but like Star Wars, he didn’t understand the excitement of seeing characters in danger or put in dangerous positions. Near the end of the movie, Natalia walked in. She nodded at them and went to the room she had been staying in. Miss Potts wasn’t with her, so she must have calmed down after ‘ladies night.’ After the first movie, FRIDAY put the second one on. The Desolation of Smaug . This one, though, he was profoundly more interested in due to the title. After that movie ended, the last queued, but Yakov asked for it to be paused.

“What?”

“You’re not like Smaug.”

“Uh…?”

“You have many things in common, but you aren’t greedy or cruel. Yes, you have a hoard of things you like, you have an abundance of money, you’re extremely intelligent and share colours, but you aren’t greedy, and you aren’t vindictive. You wouldn’t steal someone’s home, ever. If anything, you would give them yours, or buy them one of their own if they are in need. You wouldn’t taunt and murder people unless you believe it’s justified or right. You don’t kill indiscriminately, and you certainly wouldn’t hurt someone like Bilbo or the dwarves. You would never attack an entire town just for revenge. There are too many innocents who had no part in anything, and don’t deserve pain or any sort of hurt because of the actions of others… that’s not something you would do,” it was something he, Yakov, would do. It’s something he had done, and would likely do again.

“Can we not talk about this right now? I… I know it’s not the best to just ignore things, but it’s worked for me so far, sorta. Let’s just watch this movie, and it should be early enough some places open and we can get breakfast.”

They finished the last Hobbit movie. Yakov didn’t want to bother Tony again. He knew that not talking about things wasn’t healthy, FRIDAY told him and sent him plenty of articles on why ‘bottling’ emotions was very unhealthy, but it’s what Tony did. He wouldn’t force anything, but Tony knew that he could talk to him? It didn’t even have to be him as long as Tony expressed himself. Yakov, at least, tried to verbalize certain things, Tony just wanted to ignore they ever happened. Just like how he ignored that Yakov killed his parents.

Tony asked FRIDAY to call in someplace for food, enough for five (because he wasn’t going to wake Mr. Hogan up and not feed him breakfast). He messaged ‘Happy’ to ask if he could pick up breakfast, and asked if he would stay with them for breakfast. Tony had whispered every word as he typed it, and then he threw his phone on the plush recliner to his left.

“So, that was eight hours and fifty-three minutes. You wanna start on the Fellowship of the Ring ?” Yakov didn’t reply for a long second. No, he did not want to watch that movie, he wanted to try and converse with Tony. He just didn’t know how. He had upset Tony. They had been close, before, but now they were not, and Yakov didn’t know how to fix it. Was there anything to fix, even?

“Can we… if I ask you something, will you answer if I allow you to ask something back? I promise to tell you the truth,” Tony looked at him like he looked at cold coffee. Yakov realized that he could have segued into that better, but perhaps frankness would be easiest? Tony liked the truth, he deserved the truth, right?

“Uh…? Okay, but only until Happy gets here,” parameters accepted .

“I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable… what do I do to not do that again?”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable, at least not anytime recently. I may be having a difficult time accepting certain things about certain events. I was, um, isolating , I guess. Don’t worry about it, Snowflake, it’s just stuff I need to figure out on my own,” Tony paused. “You said you would tell the truth, and I don’t want to take advantage of that, because I’m almost entirely confident you will answer anything I ask even if you don’t really want to, but… why do you tolerate me?”

“I don’t tolerate you. I enjoy being around you,” Yakov was sure he had said this before, but he could understand it being hard for someone who was told the opposite for years to believe it. Yakov didn’t initiate contact, feeling like maybe he didn’t deserve the familiarity since Tony had been distant, but he wanted to. “Tony, I really like you, but I’m not sure how to express it. After… well, I don’t want to pressure you, because I know that certain events had upset you, but I was sort of… we were sort of…” At first, Yakov hadn’t wanted Mr. Hogan to ever show up, he wanted to hoard his time with Tony, but he didn’t know how to express what he wanted to say, so he sort of wanted FRIDAY to announce Mr. Hogan’s appearance soon.

“I know,” Tony said. “I didn’t expect that whole ordeal to upset me as much. I was sort of around violence my entire life, but seeing… most of those people were innocent people. They didn’t deserve to die to suit our purposes. I could get on board with distressing Cap and making him look bad, but those people didn’t deserve to die.” There was a moment before Tony whispered, “they were innocent, and that didn’t mean anything to you.”

Yakov didn’t know what to say. There were responses that he knew would fit in. For example, he could say ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I understand, and I would take it back,’ to appease Tony, to make him feel better, but he promised to tell the truth. He didn’t feel sorry, and he wouldn’t take it back.

“You and those kids seemed to get along, though,” Tony smiled at him, “they were more scared of me than you, did you notice?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah… well, if we’re sticking to this ‘game’ then it’s your turn to ask a question.”

“Would it be easier for you to process what happened, if I wasn’t here?”

“What? No! I was just trying to screw my head on straight, or at least as straight as I can get it. I’m sorry if you feel like that though, I don’t want you to feel like that. I like it when you’re here, I’m just not sure how to talk to you. Your murder face is sort of permanent, or at least it has been lately, so I thought maybe you just didn’t want to talk or anything. I wasn’t even sure if you’d watch movies with me, I mean… I don’t want you to realize that everything is a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Mistake? There were no mistakes that Yakov was aware of. He and FRIDAY had spoken of the possibility of making a ‘mistake’ (because FRIDAY assured him that people did not have malfunctions). A mistake was defined as a misguided or wrong action or judgement, but ‘wrong’ was subjective, and misguided was ‘faulty’. A malfunction, however, was the failure to function normally or satisfactorily. It was hard to recognize them as different ideas.

That brought up the question again, though, because what here was a mistake?  

“You know… you and me, being together… in any, uh, capacity… what if you realize that you don’t… I don’t want you to realize that you made a mistake by staying with me. For you to wake up one day and realize that you could have had better if you’d left or stuck with the others ,” why did Tony think Yakov would feel it was a mistake to be with him. This was another issue that FRIDAY had told him about. Self-esteem/self-respect. Or the lack of it, in Tony’s case.  

“I want to wake up, one day, with you in my arms. To stay with you is not a mistake, it’s…” what was a word, he knew there was one, there seemed to be a word for just about everything, “it’s what I want. I want it a lot, but I just wasn’t sure if you… I suppose you could say I feel that you may one day realize that I was a mistake,” Yakov reached out, gently setting his hand down on Tony’s knee, just resting it there because if Tony didn’t need the assurance, Yakov did. “I don’t want to be a burden, and I don’t want to be someone who will hurt you. It’s not like I have the greatest track record on being a good person either.”

It stunned him how humans worked. He wouldn’t hurt Tony, he couldn’t. He would shoot himself before he purposely hurt Tony. He wouldn’t hurt Natalia, FRIDAY, or any of the bots. He refused to purposely harm them (those specific five people), out of anger or whatever violent emotion is satisfied when he hurts people, but he could kill anyone else, and he would have been startled to realize, if he hadn’t already known, that he wouldn’t care.

“You’re good to me, so that has to mean something. You’re not as bad as you think you are, you just don’t hide it like most people. Also, you’re not a burden, you’re one of the best things that’s happened to me in years. A couple decades actually,” Tony gave him a soft smile before he did as he sometimes did and changed the subject completely. “So, that’s more than enough emotion-talk… We have another day and a half before we even have to think about Indiana, so that gives us more than enough time to completely the Lord of the Rings movies. If Nat is up for it, she can watch too. I think the last time she watched it, she scoffed at the end and said something in Russian. You can translate for me this time because I couldn’t catch what she said,” Tony’s rambling was endearing, and Yakov prefered it when he rambled than when it was silent. Tony liked talking, so when he was quiet, it felt uncomfortable.

Yakov could agree, though, that was more than enough talk about their emotions and feelings for at least a week. He felt like Natalia would poke at him for what exactly had happened, though, so a week wasn’t very likely. FRIDAY alerted them to Mr. Hogan arriving and then when he was in the elevator. It was only minutes after their ‘game’ ended. Food was had. There was all sorts of things. Seconds after Mr. Hogan arrived with bags and boxes, Tony waved at him to sit down and then both Jim and Natalia were coming out of their rooms.

There was plenty of food, and plenty remaining when everyone was full.

“...Pep left earlier for work, but I made sure to make her coffee…” Mr. Hogan and Tony were talking about Miss Potts. Jim seemed more asleep than awake and ate robotically until Natalia forced a cup of coffee in his hands, plucking the plastic fork from his grip. Natalia ate quickly, and then set the box aside before she sat beside Yakov, moving from her position sitting level with the coffee table.

“You sleep last night?”

“ Net , Tony wanted to watch the Hobbit movies, so we did.”

“Good. My favourite part is when the dwarves break into Bilbo’s home and make a mess. That’s great. You have a favourite part?”

“Not in the movies,” she smirked at his reply, but he didn’t know why, and threw a leg over his thighs before exhaling deeply.

“Wake me up in an hour?”

“Of course,” he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she dozed on his shoulder. He was sure she was only this free with her sleep for two reasons. One, she felt comfortable and safe because Yakov was watching her back, or two, she wasn’t actually sleeping at all, but mimicking sleep so that she could snoop when people let their guard down and started to talk about things she wouldn’t be permitted to hear when she was awake. He wasn’t going to call on either, but he didn’t mind the familiarity and comfort she brought. He really did love her, like he loved FRIDAY.

“Ugh…” was the first thing Jim had said since he had joined them in the living area. He swallowed another drink of coffee before setting the empty cup down and rubbing his face. “Your life is more tiring than the army, let me just tell you that, Tones.”

“Of course it is. It would be boring otherwise. Did you go to sleep thirty minutes later than normal, or something, Platypus?”

“No, I went to sleep on time, it’s just I don’t know how to deal with all those people. I mean, I deal with people too, lots of ‘em, but… jeez… how do you do it?”

“Pure talent,” Tony winked and turned back to his conversation with Mr. Hogan. Jim looked up at Yakov, and for a moment, it seemed Jim was very angry at him. Jim let out a deep breath and rested his head against the back of the chair he was sitting in.

“Has anybody noticed that FRIDAY and Tasha have Yakov wrapped around their little fingers? Figuratively, of course, in FRIDAY’s case.”

“Yeah, but they’d do anything for him too. It’s mutual, methinks,” Tony said.

“Of course you’d say that. You also have him. He almost killed me, did you forget? That knife was, at most, a centimeter from me and death. He would never throw a knife at you,” Jim laughed, and M. Hogan laughed albeit less prominently, and then Tony smiled.

“I don’t like how you’re talking about my Snowflake while he’s sitting right here. It’s rude,” Tony wrapped his right arm around Yakov’s left. “Also, you were being a creeper, Sour Patch.” Jim waved him off fondly before he also set the food down. The coffee table was covered in half-eaten, half-empty styrofoam boxes of food.

The only indicator that Natalia was truly asleep was that her finger abruptly clenched and her eyes moved rapidly beneath her eyelids for a few seconds before her body sagged in relaxation. Yakov had both hands full, literally. Tony had wrapped around his left arm and clung like a monkey and Natalia was wrapped in his right arm, that supported her. Mr. Hogan quickly excused himself, he was apparently Miss Pott’s number one security detail, so he had to get to her. Then, Jim went away to take a shower. It had only been thirty-two minutes, so he would give Natalia time to rest. She had been up with Miss Potts for most of the night. Tony relaxed against Yakov, and sunk into the plush back cushion of the couch.

He checked his phone when it beeped. A second later, he tucked his phone back in his pocket, and curled back against Yakov.

“Once,” Tony said, “when I was a kid, six, Jarvis helped me sneak out to meet Aunt Peggy. She took me to a bookshop and cafe. Howard didn’t like it when I drank coffee, said I got too hyper and stupid. Either way, she bought me latte because it’s mostly milk, but I felt really fancy because I was six and my Aunt was buying me something my dad didn’t like me to have. Then she told me I could pick any book, and that we could go to her apartment, because I was staying with her for half the week so I had to have something to do. I bought the closest book because I didn’t plan on reading it, I planned on snooping or asking about what was happening with Peggy at work. She made a sly comment about vampires, because I had chosen Interview with the Vampire which apparently was a new bestseller in 1976, and she took me back to her apartment.

“I ate her entire ‘stash’ of chocolate oranges, and slept on her favourite pillow because it was her favourite pillow and therefore I claimed it as my favourite also. Howard was home most days, in the workshop doing whatever, but Peggy worked at SHIELD HQ for seventeen hours a day. She still made time for me. She came home, exhausted, and I was wide awake because I ate candy and slept most of the day. She would sit me down, and tell me about when she was a spy. By then, she had gotten older, and didn’t do field work often, if at all. I was only there for three days, but it was probably some of the best days of my entire childhood. When she dropped me off at home, Howard hadn’t even noticed that I was missing, and Maria had gone to Italy to visit her father or something. She did that four times a year until I was thirteen. I was in my senior year of High School, so she didn’t pick me up, but she sent me things. When I was fourteen I graduated High School and when I was fifteen I left New York, so we didn’t see each other as much as I would have liked.

“Eight-thousands dollars a month. The best use of my money, ever,” Yakov had no idea what was happening, but he listened and when Tony closed his eyes and pulled his knees up and hesitantly touched his shoulder with the arm not around his, he knew something happened. Something involving Carter. “But, it’s no longer necessary… Peggy just died.”

Oh.

“The last time I saw her… well, according to statistics, she should have died years ago. I was lucky… I wish I could believe in something, because it’s hard to think she will never be able to do anything again, that we’re all just insignificant and will be forgotten like we always will be because we’re so small in the epic scope of everything…” by this point Tony is twitching, and his face is pressed into Yakov’s ribs. The soft shakes indicate Tony is crying, but the tensing is like he is trying to keep the tears away. Yakov wishes he could just wrap his other arm around Tony, but Natalia had a hold on it. He hates being useless, and that’s exactly how it feels. Tony cried for ten minutes, maybe more. Time seemed so long when Tony was in pain, it was a terrible feeling to know there was nothing he could do to make everything better. Tony pulled away.

“I’ve, uh, got to go arrange things, then. I don’t want to… I don’t want to actually attend . People need to focus on her… and they will be there, but I will make it the best damn service anyone could ever have… I’m sorry for crying on you.”

“You can cry on me anytime you want,” Tony looked like he was going to cry again, and Tony nodded and walked away. It seemed that he never caught a break. It had been fifty-six minutes, and Natalia was no longer sleeping. She had kept her eyes closed, and kept her breathing steady, but she had heard that. Yakov was thankful she kept silent, though, because Tony seemed to have a difficult time with people seeing him when he was upset. Natalia slid across the couch, taking Tony’s spot, and lifting her other leg to rest her feet on Yakov’s lap now.

“ Ya nadeyus’ yemu budet khorosho , (I hope he’ll be alright)” Natalia whispered.

“ Ya tozhe (Me too).”

“Like you, I don’t understand how to react to close loss. Our family is a little different from most, but I would be sad if you died,” that was a nice sentiment. Yakov would be hurt if anyone he cared about died, but what would he need if that happened? He would need space, but he was much more solitary than Tony. Should he spend time with Tony? Did Tony need that? Yakov didn’t know, and not knowing was irritating.

“I would also be hurt if you died…” the idea of anyone dying that he cared about was one that made him bother angry and sad. Just the idea that one day Tony would die of old age was enough to make him want to isolate himself away from Tony, to prevent caring and therefore squashing any hurt that could come from it. He couldn’t actually do that, though, because he was already attached. “Should we do something? To help him or… comfort him?”

“There’s nothing we can do. He lost his son maybe a year ago, now he’s losing Agent Carter. I don’t know the relationship, but he obviously cared about her. Steve introduced me, and she was being cared for greatly. There was no way a SHIELD agent or Steve could pay for that, so I thought maybe SHIELD was paying, but it seems that Tony was.”

“He introduced me to her. She seemed to love him very much…” the fact that one day, it would be Yakov receiving word that Tony had died was throwing him for a loop. Natalia would die in action, her job was dangerous, but he knew she was well trained and could survive many more years, and he could too, but Tony was unaugmented, and still did dangerous work. There was a silence that fell over them. Natalia looked at him, studying his features blatantly. He was about to ask what she was finding so interesting when she reached out and took his flesh hand in hers.

“Last night, Pepper told me about some talk about the Avengers. She asked me to tell Tony about it, to prepare him for when he was contacted by the leader of this new doctrine. The Sokovia Accords. A document that the United Nations has been working on since Ultron destroyed a quarter of Seoul last year. It was named after Sokovia, and was put into place weeks after the incident. General Thaddeus Ross is the liason to the Avengers. They have been wracking up enemies, and the United Nations is very displeased with Rogers and his ilk, apparently, and Pepper has been caught up in that. I offered to help her, to take the burden of this new problem off her shoulders. If you didn’t notice, she cares about Tony, but she hates Iron Man.”

Yakov would bring up how Miss Potts didn’t like Iron Man, who Yakov was very sure was still Tony, at a later date.

“The point of the Sokovia Accords is what exactly?”

“To ensure that enhanced individuals are acting with the best interest of humanity, and those who violate any law, vigilante or otherwise, are punished. So far, it’s a strong idea that over one hundred nations have agreed to attempt and enforce. Ross wanted Pepper to convince Tony to sign as the runner boy of justice or whatever,” she sighed, “our existence sort of negates the Accords, we aren’t superheroes in the slightest, but there are always loopholes. It would also open more doors for us, if the public and United Nations trust us to act in their best interest. What they don’t know, won’t hurt them…”

“There is something you aren’t telling me.”

“It needs major work. Some of these ideas are good on paper, but they are completely unrealistic in the scope of things. I asked Pepper if she would be willing to have Stark Industries lawyers look over the document and spruce it up while I worked on getting Tony around to sign. I could always use help when it comes to Tony, he is difficult for me to understand in any way, so it would be appreciated if you could translate,” Natalia looked at him, hopeful, but only to an extent. It was as if she didn’t really believe in these Accords, but she knew she could manipulate them to work in her favour. He could work under something Natalia had a heavy hand in making. He could imagine how flawless something made with both her and Tony’s input could be. He would help, but he wouldn’t push Tony to do anything he didn’t want to do.

Mind make up, he nodded and she smiled, squeezing his hand.

“Good, I will forward you and Tony the document. You could read it, and I’ll get Rhodey to figure out how to help Tony with this Peggy business. You can mark it up, or anything. Give input, and I’ll send them to Pepper and she can send them to the lawyers. You get reading, I’ll get… well, I’ll try to be comforting.”

***

Two hours later, Yakov had read the Accords once. He had to actually try and see what needed fixing now. He had a general idea of how impractical these laws were, but he needed to re-read, this time more carefully. He got through the first paragraph before he got a text. It was from Natalia.

Tony is on his way to u. I’m on my way to a contact to talk about ur mind issue. Pepper is on her way over rn. Play nice.

He had cleared off the coffee table, and sat on the floor as he read the document. He asked FRIDAY to print him a copy and he sat with a pen and an orange highlighter so he could scribble what he thought needed fixing. He wasn’t the best for regulation, but this would be given to Natalia, and Natalia was good at this sort of thing. He had ideas though, many ideas. One thing is for sure, he was not going to shut down FRIDAY, and he wouldn’t ask anyone else to either. The documents and government could go die, because FRIDAY wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. He highlighted a sentence and drew a line out with an arrow and started to scribble what he thought would be better, more realistic. It was stupid to have things so restrictive. It would end with all the enhanced people being imprisoned for small accidents. To have to approve everything was silly, and impractical since it would take too long if they were needed. It was smarter to elect a leader that would liaison with the subcommittee dedicated to that team and send in mission reports, as well as mandatory training with all official enhanced teams to learn how to work together no matter what situation they found themselves in.

He only got that far before Tony stumbled out of the elevator. Yakov was on his feet in an instant and was holding Tony up. Tony was swaying, shaking, and a multitude of other things while his fists clenched in Yakov’s shirt as he held onto him.

“I shouldn’t’ve done this,” was the first thing Tony said, leaning forward and resting his weight against Yakov. “I shouldn’t’ve kept anything. I should’ve gotten rid of it all, but… maybe she’ll be happier now. She’d be really mad at me for this, if she could ‘member me.”

Perhaps it was because it wasn’t something associated with Tony, but he reeked of alcohol. He had heard about Tony Stark’s alcoholism, he had read about it pre-escape, but he had never been near Tony while he had been drinking. He picked Tony up, and when Tony didn’t push away, he took it as being alright.

“M’s’rry if I disrupt’d you. Pepper would yell at me. I don’t wanna be yelled at,” Tony sounded so… Yakov took Tony to the couch, and sat down. “Where’s everyone?”

“Natalia had business to take care of, I thought Jim was with you, and I have been reading… what happened solnishko ?”

“Peggy died, an’ I didn’t know… well, ‘m a genius, but I don’t know everything. I only pretend, ‘cause that’s what people e-spect. I dun know how to deal with this stuff. So I did what I used to. It didn’t work,” Tony looked at the coffee table and then hooked an arm around Yakov’s neck and rested his hand against Yakov’s chest before resting his cheek against the back of his hand. “I shouldn’t’ve done it, but I did, so now it just is . I would like to say it was two years, but it was maybe eleven months at most.”

“Since?”

“Since I was sober but… well, I don’t like being sober. It’s… everything’s so much harder when I’m like that. It’s easier this way, for me, but Pepper dun like it at all… am I s’possed ta be anywhere anytime soon? I can’t go.”

“No, you’re not due to leave for another day,” Yakov walked them over to the couch and sat down, trying to jostle Tony as little as possible. “What did you drink?”

“Bit of everything. I have a box, ‘cause my I don’t got a bar to put it inny more. I hide it under my desk, nobody checks there, so… that’s why I keep my burners there too. Nobody looks there,” he let Tony talk, mostly because he didn’t know what to say or how to appropriately respond. He could understand the desire to make yourself numb, he had felt it multiple times, but alcohol was even weaker than drugs, and even then it lasted five minutes before it was burned through his system. “Don’t tell anybody where I keep it, they’ll take it ‘n I don’t want ‘em to know where I keep it ‘cause they’ll just check there and if they find anything they’ll lecture me and tells me they’re dis’pointed in me. I always dis’point ‘em and I don’t wanna ‘cause they’re my friends ‘n I love ‘em… are you dis… appointed in me?”

“I won’t tell anyone, so don’t worry about that,” although he wasn’t sure how wise that course of action was. “I’m not disappointed in you, solnishko , I understand, and I wish there was some other way to comfort you, but it’s really not my strong suit,” Yakov looked down at Tony, who had closed his eyes and his hand on his chest grabbed a handful of his shirt.

“What do you mean? You’re strong, like stronger than any other person I know. Even Captain ‘Merica, even though he’s s’possed to be suuuuuper strong. Even a ‘love tap’ hurts, ‘n I never liked it, but he was s’possed to be a good guy. You’re s’possed to be a bad guy, but I like you more than I liked him… if I ask you really nicely will you make me meggyleves ?” Honestly, Yakov had no idea what Tony had just asked him to make, so he nodded. Hopefully FRIDAY could help him because he was sure anything he had to actually cook would be ruined. Tony smiled, “Please make me some meggyleves , pretty please?”

“Can you sit at the counter and talk with me while I cook?” Yakov realized how that sounded, he quickly amended himself, “So you can correct any mistakes I make.”

“Of course!” Tony kissed his cheek, “you’re so good to me.”

***

Once Tony was settled at the counter, after Yakov pried his fist from the front of his t-shirt, he asked FRIDAY to pull up a recipe for what Tony helpfully translated to ‘sour cherry soup.’

“Why do you want--?”

“Peggy tried to make it when nagymama died, but she just made a mess. It was… I was sixteen, and sort of like now, I got wasted and cried myself asleep. Aunt Peggy didn’t like that so she carried me out of my dorm and took me to her apartment where she attempted to make it for me, but without her help she just got sour cream and cherry syrup all over the place… I miss them both so much,” then Tony didn’t say anymore, just took deep breaths and then rested his flushed cheeks, specifically his left one so he could still watch Yakov, against the cool countertop. Yakov didn’t ask many more questions, at least he didn’t ask Tony. FRIDAY, God bless her soul, helped him and read him instructions. When he was about to ask why they miraculously had all the ingredients, FRIDAY told him that the frozen cherries were frozen so they’d been there a while, that sour cream takes forever to go bad, flour was sort of a staple, the cinnamon was a ‘mandatory spice’ like the cloves, and sugar was necessary for just about everything, but mostly when her father wanted tea.

“Don’t let anyone know he secretly drinks tea. He read that chamomile and lavender could help him sleep, but he didn’t like the taste, so he would add so much sugar it negated any possible effects,” there was some noise similar to a laugh, but much more static-y, “he said he was a witch and spent the night watching Hocus Pocus on repeat.”

“Recently?”

“Oh, no. I have footage from… well, I have footage from my predecessor. My father loved him very much, but he wasn’t allowed to properly mourn… perhaps this is why this period of mourning seems more intense than I was told of the last one, when his ‘ nagymama ’ died.”

“That seems very possible,” Yakov picked the full cloves out of the pink soup and then pulled four bowls down and filled them up before he took them to the fridge. The fridge, despite them staying in the tower, was relatively empty. He looked up to find Tony asleep. That explains why it had been so quiet, and why FRIDAY had lowered her volume, unlike she had done for anyone else. He doesn’t want to move Tony, because he didn’t want him to wake up, but he also didn’t want Tony to wake up in pain from sitting in an awkward/uncomfortable position for too long. He picked Tony up, even more warily to wake him than usual, and took Tony to the couch. He didn’t want to go into Tony’s bedroom. He had permission, but he didn’t want to… he just didn’t want to. He pulled the blanket he had covered with while reading, and from when they were watching TV earlier, up and then covered Tony with it. It wasn’t cold, but it seemed necessary. People were covered when they slept, usually, right? Yakov sat in the side chair and picked up his phone.

He had been reading the books from the night before, from before Tony asked him to watch TV with him. To be honest, Yakov still didn’t really understand all the terminology being used. He had to check the dictionary more than a few times to figure out example what certain words meant, and reread sentences often because they weren’t computing. He had been reading for hours, and he was on the first part of the second chapter still. Technology was so interesting, everything Tony could do was amazing, but it appeared that it was too difficult for someone like Yakov to understand. If Yakov were a lesser man, he would have given up hours ago, but he wanted to learn, he needed to know this, so he continued to read and try to understand.

The next three hours were spent this way, and eventually, Tony woke up. He didn’t jolt awake like he usually did, but rather his crusty eyes cracked and he looked around before his eyes settled on Yakov. He stood up, swayed, and walked out of the room. It wasn’t until Yakov could hear Tony retching that he realized why he had abruptly left. Twenty minutes later, Tony walked back to the room and sat on the couch, still trying to wipe the crust from his eyelashes. His face looked wet, and the tips of the front of his hair were damp, so he likely threw water on his face. He sighed and rested his head against the back of the couch.

“Did I say anything too terrible?”

“No, but I did make you the cherry soup you asked for. I didn’t burn anything down, so that’s a good sign. I hope it tastes alright,” Yakov set his phone down on his lap, having let it go to sleep long before he set it down. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit. Absolute garbage . I’m sorry, it isn’t smart to mix certain things, or anything with medicine really, but I did, so it may have been different than… well, I don’t remember it really, but my head hurts, my lungs and stomach muscles hurt. I’m sorry, I… I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“You’re never a bother. I’m glad you came up here instead of trying to find someone else,” Yakov hesitated for a second before asking, “did you finish what you wanted to do?”

“The funeral arrangements?” Yakov nodded. “Yeah, I have set things up, mostly by throwing money around because it needs to be done and it has to be perfect . I still don’t want to go, though. It’s closed… casket ,” his voice caught, and Yakov already felt bad for asking. “But it’s not so much that I don’t want to see people I know will be there, like Sharon and Rogers, but… I know it sounds conceited, and perhaps it is, but if I show up, I swear people will be more concerned for a Stark to be there, that it will detract from what she deserves,” Tony looked at his hands and whispered, “she deserves so much better than what she was stuck with.”

“Tony,” Yakov paused when Tony looked up at him. He looked so hopeless and angry, “it’s really not my place to suggest this, but when we saw Ms Carter at the hospital, she wanted you to remember when she was at her best, and a funeral won’t give her the best, but you can sure as hell make sure everyone knows how much you love her. People won’t be there for Stark, they’ll be there for Carter, and if anyone is there for you, I’ll personally escort them away. You deserve a chance to let everyone know how much you loved her too, right?” Tony laughed, but it was humorless, it was sad, almost sarcastic.

“Sure. Let me just go to the funeral of one of the two women I loved most, not including you FRI because you’re not a woman, you’re my baby girl, probably one of the only women I ever saw as my family, fucked up as it is. Watch when Sharon throws a temper tantrum and yells and cries and screams at me, or fucking Rogers defending her because he knew Agent Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter Captain America’s Girlfriend so well just because he wanted to fuck her. Jesus fucking Christ, she was a lesbian and two people who claim to know her oh so well don’t even acknowledge it!” Yakov reached out to take Tony’s hand. His cheeks had cooled from earlier but once again, they were flushed and he looked on the verge of crying. Yakov didn’t understand why her lesbianism is what Tony focused on, but he wouldn’t say about the random facts Tony had to say, he would let them say them because maybe it would help to just let him rant.

“But you knew her, and you loved her. I think it would be… beneficial for you to go. You can take someone you can count on like Jim or Pepper.”

“Or you?” Yakov paused.

“Yes. Or me, if you want. I’m not the best at comfort but--”

“You’re very comforting, at least to me. How many people have you punched or threaten to kill for me? Maybe I shouldn’t think that murder is comforting, but as long as I don’t see it, well… how many times have you carried me around and hugged me or held me? Or all the times you were sweet to me, or defended me even though you have no obligation to be so nice? Rhodey’s my best friend, and Pepper is awesome, the fearsome lady she is, but… I think I love you?” Yakov frowned. He should have spoken sooner because Tony quickly started talking once Yakov didn’t say anything. “I mean, nevermind. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I won’t say it again, whatever you want--”

“I think I love you too… don’t take it back, unless you want to. I just… I thought you were angry at me a few hours ago, I didn’t… I don’t have any point of reference to know what ‘love’ is, but when FRIDAY and I covered the topic this is sort of what the article said it would feel like, sorta… I love you, and I think I have for a while.”

“Oh. I was scared, you got your murder face on and I was… I wasn’t sure if you could even think of me like that, sorry. I didn’t mean to rant, and I definitely don’t want to take it back,” Tony looked like he didn’t know what to do next, and Yakov didn’t know what to do next. “Let’s go eat some meggyleves . I need to call Pep and ask her to cancel some stuff. I know it’s super… well it’s a bad time to cancel, and I know I should go, but I really… it’s between I don’t want to and I don’t think I can, so I’ll just tell Pep that, she will understand, right?” Yakov nodded, although he wasn’t sure if Miss Potts would understand. She seemed to like to lecture Tony about the smallest things, but he also knew that Tony really loved Miss Potts, and she wasn’t cruel, at least Yakov didn’t see it, she was just concerned and was very quick to worry and panic, therefore her frequent lectures. She did it because she cared, and was scared for Tony’s health. Yakov could respect that benevolence.

This seemed like a good time to try and bring up Extremis so Tony could be healthier and live longer, but also, he didn’t want to force a decision that huge on Tony because at this point, he doubted Tony would deny him much even if it pushed his comfort zone. It was sad, but Tony was so afraid of people leaving, that he would either ignore them so he wouldn’t feel hurt when they ‘inevitably left’ or he begged them and tried to buy them things so that they wouldn’t want to leave. Yakov didn’t care about the material things, he had lived plenty without anything like that, but he didn’t think he would like living, or want to live, without Tony. He would, especially if FRIDAY or Natalia needed him, but Tony was like a rock, a very self-conscious and self-deprecating rock that he just wanted to guard. He didn’t really have any other skills than protecting or fighting, so until he learned something else, he would use his limited abilities to help Tony the best he could. As well as anyone Tony cared about because if they were hurt, Tony would be sad.

Somewhere, FRIDAY, upon mentioning that he really enjoyed Tony’s company, mentioned codependency, but… was that bad? He wasn’t sure, to be honest, but he would try to keep Tony healthy, and probably fix himself along the way.

Tony took him to the small kitchen and went to the fridge and pulled out two bowls.

“I can’t believe you made this!” Tony set a bowl in front of him, and then pulled two spoons from a drawer. He sat next to Yakov, and took a bite. “It’s not bad. If you’re as meticulous with cooking as you are with murder, you could be a pro-chef or something… speaking of meticulousness, we have a little under a month, but if we want to get you a nice suit, we should probably start looking now. Imma find a tailor, but I will see if they can not use the pins around you because I don’t think you’d like that very much… FRIDAY can you pull up a list of my usual tailors. I think I have Ellie do my suits?” FRIDAY brought a list to Tony’s tablet just as he typed in the password. He had one or two tablets in every room and FRIDAY could just send and lock them once given a command. Yakov tasted a spoonful of the meggyleves , and decided it was good, and that he wasn’t bad at the cooking thing so he would try it again sometime.

He smiled at Tony, and Tony smiled back up at him before telling him about fabrics. Yakov didn’t really care, but Tony seemed to, so he listened and gave input. Tony was so dedicated with every thing he did, it was very admirable. Yakov most definitely admired Tony, more than ever before, because not only was Tony amazing and extremely intelligent and handsome, but he was so human and endearing. Yes, Yakov loved him, and he doubted he could ever feel the same for anyone else, but that was more than fine to the assassin. In fact, it was perfect.

Chapter Text

Thankfully, Pepper had offered her condolences, and moved the dates of the last two college visits to later April. It was now the sixth of April, three days until the funeral, and Yakov was trying not to lash out at the assistant that kept poking him with pins. It only took so long because of his metal arm, and the fact he didn’t like the feel of fabric against him in certain places.

Yakov bit his lip, his fists clenched at his sides while the girl kept accidentally jamming pins into his arm. It was the third time it hit the spaces between the plates, and everytime it happened, Yakov wanted to just leave before he really did get violent. Thankfully, this was officially the last meeting with this woman. The actual tailor stood a few feet away with Tony. Tony kept turning from Ellie, the tailor, and Yakov, who he offered sympathetic glances to every so often.

“Miss Cross,” the assistant said, more nervous around Yakov than most people (although that meant she was smart. She was poking a super assassin with pins after all), to call the tailor’s attention to her. The woman looked up from Tony to the girl. “The sleeve?”

“Yes, let me look,” she walked to Yakov and looked over what she did. What exactly had been done, Yakov wasn’t sure, although the sleeve was tighter around the wrist than it had been before. He didn’t mind that. If he could always feel the cuff of the sleeve, then he would be less likely to startle at the contact of a looser cuff when he moved his arms at certain angles. “How do you like it Mr. Romanov?”

“... it’s fine.”

“Can I speak to him alone for a second?” Tony said a second later. The two women took a step out of the room. Tony smiled at him, “That’s great. It would look weird, but we could always just cut the sleeve off entirely. I know you like your arm. Beware, people would likely stare,” that sounded nicer than the stiff sleeve cuffs restricting his wrists, “or we could just take the suit jacket off completely, and you could wear the button down with a cardigan or something. Also, we could cut the sleeve from that too, if you wanted… I think you look good, but I also want you to be comfortable, so do you like it as it is, or do you want to just shelf this for a later time and wear something else… actually, I’m sorry for forcing this on you, I shouldn’t have, and I just… I’m sorry.”

“What? No, you don’t have to apologize for anything. Do you still think I’d look good in one of those soft sweaters you bought me? The ones with the little, eh, things on the chest?”

“Like the ‘replacement-peach’ one?” Yakov nodded, “I’ll be honest, you look good in pretty much anything. You’re seriously hot as fuck, but that would work. Black is the most appropriate to wear to funerals, but those shirts are black mostly, and I want you to be comfortable more than anything.”

“Then I will wear the peach one, and maybe gloves?”

“You can if you want. It’s supposed to be in the mid-fifties, well in Fahrenheit, Mr. Not-American, mid-fifties in Celsius is over a hundred degrees Farenheit and I’m not about that life, but I want you to be warm. I know you don’t like the cold that much. We can get drinks, the warm kind, afterwards,” Yakov really liked that idea. It was true though, he hated being cold. It was nice, sometimes, but in very limited qualities. He wanted to wear four sweaters and a pair of sweats under his jeans most of winter, so he would probably wear something over his ‘replacement-peach shirt’ but he would make sure Tony approved. Tony cared about appearances when it mattered, and despite giving his own little speech as Peggy’s godson and only family left that deemed it important enough to pay for the funeral and help arrange things, Yakov wanted to look good for his crazy engineer (who was no doubt going to be a very sad engineer come the ninth). “Alright, I’ll tell Ellie that she and Lisa can leave now. They can sew the cuff, and we can revisit it later. They can invoice me for what they’ve done so far. You can get out of that if you want, I’m gonna go let them know.”

Tony kissed him briefly before walking out of the room to talk to the tailor and the tailor’s assistant. Ellie collected the suit pieces once Yakov had taken them off, and she shook Tony’s hand before leaving. They were still at the Tower, but their flight was that night. Originally, Ellie was going to send the suit to them, but it was fine now because that was settled and Yakov wasn’t going to wear that uncomfortable thing. Yakov pulled a shirt on. It wasn’t cold, or at least not too cold. It was seventeen degrees Celsius most of the day, and when he napped or rested in Tony’s workshop (which was so peculiar when DUM-E and U weren’t banging around and beeping at Tony) he usually sat by the little space heater with a ‘charcoal, reversible chanasya and fleece’ blanket that Tony had ordered for him even though he tried to convince Tony that the little cotton blanket was perfect fine. He still had the ratty cotton throw, because it smelled like coffee, metal, and Tony which was a surprisingly effective replacement when he slept without Tony. (Considering the fact he pretty much slept on the nearest horizontal surface that was nearest to Tony in case he’s needed, he didn’t always have the blanket, but he liked it when he did.)

Yakov and Tony had packed a bag that would last them a week while they stayed in London. This was until Natalia showed up with a suitcase and asked is she could go with.

“I have some business I need to deal with. I won’t bother you two lovebirds. I have teeth to knock out via fist, and--”

“Come on, I know what you’re doing and I agree that it’s effective, so come inside already,” was Tony’s response. Tony’s private jet was very luxurious, even better than the jet they took back to the compound post-Lagos. Natalia smirked at Tony and then Yakov before joining them.

“My tricks don’t work anymore?”

“Nope. I’m on to all you spies, I swear. I am curious, though, are you really going to knock someone’s teeth out, because that’s super awesome. Can you do it with your bare fist, or are you gonna hit them with something?” Natalia turned ot Yakov, who shrugged, and then back to Tony. She spread out on the couch along the side of the jet, taking up half of it.

“I’m sure you’ve read my file--”

“I haven’t. I know you were sort of a real asshole at one time, but just because I wasn’t fond of you didn’t mean I was going to invade your privacy. I was going to read it, actually, because I was feeling mean, but then it started on before you got into SHIELD and how you started training at four. Yeah, that was enough for me to put it away and never look at it again,” Natalia narrowed her eyes. “I’m being serious. I only read Yakov’s because it was shoved in my face, and he was supposedly the bad guy. I read it in case I had to fight him, I’m glad I didn’t have to because he’d kick my ass.

Yakov doubted he could beat Tony if he was in a suit, or had any sort of his technology around him at any time. Tony, suitless, was probably a target that needed to be shot at a distance, because if he was given any sort of resource, he would find a way to survive. Before Yakov learned about connotation, he compared Iron Man to a cockroach, but he said it in awe because he had survived an actual bomb exploding beside him . A human not augmented or enhanced had survived something some enhanced individuals couldn’t. It was, in the words of Tony, ‘super cool.’

“I’m sorry to say I didn’t give you the same courtesy,” Natalia looked genuinely sorry, but sometimes Yakov couldn’t tell whether it was truly genuine or a facade to make her seem genuine. She was a very well trained spy as well as an assassin, emotions weren’t her strong suit, and being ‘genuine’ was difficult when you can’t tell the difference between faking and truly feeling. “With my bare fist. I was given a knock-off super soldier serum. It is the watered down version that Yakov originally got and the one that buffed Rogers up.”

“What do you mean ‘originally’? Did you get more than one dose?”

“Yes,” Tony hadn’t been expecting that by the way he frowned and looked at him, horrified almost.

“Oh my God, what happened? Did it not work the first time? Did they--?”

“I was given the ‘original’ serum, the one given to the girls in the Red Room, but after… well, when I retrieved the recreated serum from the car those soldiers proved to be uncontrollable. Their blood was valuable, so instead of being executed, they were frozen and preserved. They decided that I was far more controllable, and when they made a derivative of the second serum, they tested it on me first. I died for two minutes, or so I’m told. I don’t remember much of those sessions. I did, at one point, remember them all, but they’ve sort of faded. It did hurt, and it did work the first and other times I was injected. There are a few things that the file you read did not mention. The separate operations are one of those things. That documentation would be in the Siberian HYDRA base. Where I was kept frozen when I wasn’t needed.”

Natalia gave him a look, one that he didn’t want to understand. He turned back to Tony, and smiled.

“I’m fine, though. I’m just… well, they made a monster they couldn’t control again. They were so convinced I was tame, and confident in their abilities that they lost control of a highly volatile enhanced assassin who wants to kill every single HYDRA agent left alive. They overestimated their talents.”

“Unless…” Yakov glared at Natalia, but she seemed unaffected. He didn’t want to tell Tony about the keywords… he doubted Tony would hurt him at this point, but Tony would be scared and as long as he wasn’t strapped down and the words activated, it wouldn’t work. He just had to be even more hyper vigilant than normal to keep himself and his family safe.

“There’s something else?”

“ Ty dolzhna skazat’ yemu (You need to tell him).”

“ Ya ne khochu otpugnut’ yego (I don’t want to scare him),” Yakov tried to explain, but she seemed to look between bored and concerned. He didn’t like how she could make him feel this guilty with such little effort. He sighed, and looked back up to Tony who also looked concerned, but he wasn’t bored, he was worried.

“What is it?”

“There is a way to control me, but… but they would have to strap me down and keep me sedate enough to not attack. They have to be triggered at intervals, thirty seconds or so in between each word. There are ten words, and at those intervals it would take five minutes. No medication I know of could sedate me for five full minutes, but if they… if they chained me down or locked me up and managed to activate them…” Yakov didn’t continue for a long time, in fact, he didn’t want to continue anymore.

“What happens if they ‘activate’ them?”

“Then I will follow any order without hesitation as long as it is within a set or parameters programmed into those words. Those parameters is really just one. I am not to attack the person who activated the words, who would, for all intents and purposes, be my handler,” Yakov didn’t want to look at Tony while he processed that. It had been a sad twenty-seven days since the death of Peggy Carter, but it had also been sort of pleasant when it wasn’t so heartbreaking. Yakov had tried really hard to do everything he could to support Tony, and while most of that was advice found in articles, he was trying and the pleasantness seemed to outshine the bad, so it was working a bit at least.

“Okay… well, when we get back to the compound, because this is more important than school speeches, I am going to find a way to… to help you,” Tony tugged on Yakov’s arm, and Yakov looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I know I’m sort of defective, but I would do just about everything to give you anything. I shouldn’t even have to give you your freedom, you should have never had it taken in the first place. I hate HYDRA so much, like it’s overwhelming how much I want to just blow them all up so they can’t ever creep back up, but… well, they’re like bees, but not helpful and cute, in the way that they can be smoked out, but they just find a new place to make a nest, and they can be dangerous too…” The bee analogy was enough to make Yakov sort of smile.

“Bees? Did you just compare HYDRA to bees?”

“I did,” Tony bumped their shoulders together, “but you’re like a spider,” he winked at Natalia. She scoffed but smirked all the same.

“ Yesli ser’yezno (Seriously though), I should have told you earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t, and I know you could help me, I just was worried you wouldn’t want to,” perhaps he should have expected it, Tony and his obsession with physical interaction was very known to Yakov at this point, when Tony playfully fell over him and wrapped his arms around him like an octopus.

Even if it was just a brush of fingers against his leg or something, Tony liked contact, and Yakov liked it too. It reminded him that Tony was there, especially when he sort of retreated into his head, not listening to the unimportant things and focusing on everything else, it brought him back to the present instead of the sounds he could hear from three floors down or the footsteps down the hall that had him tensing.

Yakov wrapped his arms around Tony too, and Tony just stayed there.

“Is your pseudo-daughter staring?” Tony asked. Yakov looked up at where Natalia staring at them. Her lip twitched for a second before she gave him a thumbs up. He rolled his eyes because of course she was staring.

“ Da . Why?”

“No reason. Perhaps it would be inappropriate to make-out?”

“She’s an adult,” Yakov pressed his lips to Tony’s and pulled back a second later, “she’ll live.”

In the distance, Yakov could hear Natalia’s dramatic sigh followed by the sound of rustling, then the click of her plugging her earbuds into her phone. After that, the faint hum of her music faded as Tony made much nicer sounds. Despite just kissing, wonderfully filthy and delicious kissing, Tony made the nicest sounds. What else would Yakov be privy to? He couldn’t wait to find out. (He did know that whatever it may progress to, should wait until after the funeral because otherwise was… not polite?)

***

“Did you have to suck face the entire time?” Natalia was whining, playfully, but it had been going on for at least seven minutes now. She was silent for a second, and then she moved to the side of where they were walking away from the airport. They both stopped to look at her. “I should take care of business. Yesli tebe nuzhna pomoshch’ prosto pozvoni mne (If you need help, just call me). I’ll be close by, in any case. Take care of yourselves, as in both of you.”

Yakov watched her walk away, probably crawling into some sort of hideout she had round these parts. He would be surprised if she didn’t have a secret location in, at least, every major city in every major country. Tony grabbed his hand, squeezing for a second and taking a breath.

“Two days… two days…” Yakov squeezed gently, and Tony looked up at him.

“Two days, and I’ll be with you for as long as you need me.”

***

Tony hadn’t slept once they were at the hotel. He sat up researching between bouts of panicking about going to the funeral and sobbing but trying to keep himself from sobbing which was only causing him to hyperventilate. It was very sad. The night before the day of the funeral, Yakov asked him what he was working on, and Tony told him it was to help him with the words, and then he went back to work, hunched over, typing and drawing away on the Stark Tablet (because as ‘StarkPad’ was too Steve Jobs for his superior technology, apparently) he had brought (he had brought two, but one was supposedly specifically for Stark Industries and the other was for personal use).

On the ninth of April, the day of the funeral, there were bouts of panic and terror when Tony didn’t want to go, fiddling with his phone to call FRIDAY for her to arrange a flight home, but Yakov gently pushed his arm back to his side and then told him that he managed to stop an alien invasion, he could go to a funeral. Then he tried to be more sensitive and just tried to reassure him that Peggy did deserve better, but she deserved a better everything except Tony, because she had obviously adored him and loved him very much. Either way, it took multiple attempts at calming and gently reassuring Tony before Yakov could get the engineer out of their room and to the awaiting driver to take them to the cathedral.

They were three minutes late, but that was fine because at least Tony was there. He and Tony took a seat in the back just to avoid being looked at. Yakov could see familiar people in the front, people he didn’t like and wanted to keep from Tony. Tony also saw them if staring at them for a minute and then fiddling with the cufflinks was any indication.

Eventually, and to many people’s shock, Tony went up to give the speech, right after Sharon who didn’t spare him a look as he passed. Tony looked at everyone for a moment, and Yakov could tell he was struggling, but then his face was relaxed, and his smile was more than charming, as it always was when he was in front of a group of people.

“Margaret Carter was a wonderful woman who did so many things it’s hard to sum them all up be it badass, sorry, or not, but Aunt Peggy loved those chocolate oranges. Ya know, the ones people get for Christmas nowadays. She kept it hidden with her guns, but despite those chocolates going missing during my visits, she never changed the ‘hiding place’ which was more of a candy box by that point.

“There’s a lot of things that Peggy Carter did. People know her because she was a wonderful woman who helped the world stop the Second World War. Most know her because she helped Captain America and the Howling Commandos, but she was more than what people tend to think of her. She was the best godmother and honorary aunt to ever walk the earth, no offense to any other godparents. Sometimes I thought it was too much for her, when she would juggle sixteen hours of work, at least, a day but then she managed to raise two kids, neither of them being her own, but after those long days of work, she never turned the kids, Sharon and I, away because she cared. I think about it now, and feel not only bad for eating all her gun-case chocolate oranges but because I don’t think I ever got to properly tell her how much she meant to the world, to me, to every single person who she saved without them even knowing.

“She was the strongest woman I ever knew, and the strongest woman that everyone who met her knew, whether they were aware of it or not.

“My Aunt Peggy taught me how to be a good person, I let her down immensely when I turned out like this , but even if you didn’t know her in person, she made people want to be better. To be the best you could be. She inspired people to be the best. I think I should leave this off on the note that no matter how much my nagynéni tried, she couldn’t cook. I mean, macaroni-glue and charcoal toast. Lots of burnt water, that sort of thing. This is a woman who could make Hitler hyperventilate with the mention of her name, don’t quote me on that -- I’m kidding, please put that on a T-shirt -- but she couldn’t cook.

“She once told me that she would do anything in the world to keep her family safe, and she smiled, one of those really bright smiles but not in that cliche way where the stars reflected or anything. Her teeth didn’t gleam, but you would never see her with lipstick on her teeth because that just wasn’t the way she did things. After she smiled at me enough to cause a fourteen year old me to smile, she said some of the best words to ever be thrown together in a sentence: ‘ask me to shoot a man a mile away from me, I can do it wearing three inch heels and a pencil skirt. Ask me if you can have another cup of coffee one more time, and you will be that man running a mile away. Let’s get pizza.’

“I wish everybody here got to meet her in person because she would amaze you, blow every standard you ever had about anyone away, ever. I’m not even overselling this, that’s what the crazy thing. She deserves so much better than what she got, and I hope she knows how much we miss her, and will miss her everyday.”

Tony’s charm melted once he sat beside Yakov. He, for a second, sat straight and looked as put together as he usually did, but then Yakov touched his thigh and Tony leaned against him and let out a breath. Yakov hadn’t had a family like Tony’s family, so he didn’t really understand what it actually felt like. He could only imagine how terrible it would be if the family he had found died. People walked around, most of them shook Sharon Carter’s hand, since she was related to Agent Carter. He suspected that people who approach Tony too if Yakov hadn’t been there like an angry wolfdog, despite him trying to keep his expression neutral. When the majority of the crowd had left, offering condolences that Yakov wasn’t sure were sincere or obligatory, they were approached. It was worse, because Sharon was with them, and she was biologically Agent Carter’s niece, and she looked like she was somewhere between rage and crushing sadness.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sharon said. She wasn’t outwardly hostile, but with Rogers hovering to her left and Wilson to her right, he wasn’t sure how long peace would last.

“I wasn’t going to come, didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes that sort of thing, but she did mean a lot to me, and after Ana… well, it was the right thing for me to come. She would have wanted that… uh, what are all of you doing over here, though? Yakov and I were just leaving, I just… I haven’t been coping well, but that’s to be expected.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Tony. I know you idolized her. She was a good role model… are you going to be in town for a while? Maybe we could catch up?” Tony stared at her for a second before looking at his hands.

“I totally would, but we’re leaving tomorrow, and I have some projects with deadlines Pepper really wouldn’t like me to miss. Her heels are dangerous, ya know,” Tony looked back up at her. “You can visit the compound, or we could hang out back in the States, in a couple months. Two phone models, a tablet upgrade, and I still have armour to improve, so I’m gonna be busy for a while.”

“Armour for who?” Steve asked.

“For the military,” Tony decided to not look at him.

“Well, I’m working with the CIA--”

“Yeah, the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre. How’s that going?”

“Fine. There have been some issues, but it’s mostly going fine,” Tony frowned, and Yakov didn’t know why.

“Right… well, we should leave. I’ll see you later,” Tony narrowed his eyes when she didn’t make any motion to move. “You need to move so we can leave.”

“Can we just talk a little longer?”

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?” Seconds ago Tony seemed genuinely glad to speak with Sharon civilly, but then his tone turned venomous. Yakov really didn’t want to fight, not at a funeral, but he did say he would keep them away, and it was looking more likely that he was going to be needed to break some bones the longer they stayed.

“Well, I’m not sure if you heard about it, but there’s been a new proposal for some documents to help govern the lives of superheroes…”

“And?”

“And it’s not right. I need to ask you a favour,” Tony sighed, but she ignored it, “we need some help keeping this from getting big. It’s sort of important because these laws would be restricting the people who want to help. They’re talking about registering all enhanced and otherwise active heroes.”

“Sharon, I really don’t--”

“They want to shut down and ban all self-aware technology.” There was a pause.

“Because of Ultron?” She nodded. “Why haven’t I been contacted about this new proposal by an official?”

“They know you would want to make amendments that they wouldn’t be comfortable with, and since you’re not an active Avenger…” Sharon held her hands, fingers twisted together, at her waist. Wilson patted Steve’s shoulder, Steve nodded, and Wilson walked out of the building without saying anything. Yakov really hoped it was to bring the car forward, because it was, from what he had learned about churches, inappropriate to fight on ‘sacred’ ground. He didn’t believe it, but it was still a thing for many people. While he didn’t care about offending anyone, he didn’t need Tony (or Pepper by extension) worrying over the press or the scandal it would cause.

“Alright. I’ll dig into that, but I will do what I think is best. I’m not going to do anything for them ,” Tony stood up. Sharon stepped to the side, and then pulled Rogers away, keeping her hand in his when Steve moved. “Come to the compound sometime, just call first. We don’t want any accidents.”

Yakov followed Tony out of the cathedral.

“If I remember correctly, I promised to get drinks.”

***

That’s how Tony ended up curled up on a bunch of blankets, his face and hands the only visible part of his body, on the hotel bed as he was working on the design on his tablet still with one hand and held a drink in the other. Yakov didn’t know what he wanted, so Tony ordered for him and got them both steamed milk, but only after they stopped to pick up a variety of different things, mostly liquor. The warm milk they bought was because there wasn’t a way to steam milk in the hotel, so Tony mixed coconut rum with it at first. When that was gone, Tony continued to make things until Tony was hunched over the bed swaddled in blankets and shakily working on whatever was on the tablet and Yakov was beside him still drinking. He had plenty of choices, and he honestly was curious how fast his metabolism could burn through it. The more he had, the less Tony had, and while that may sound mean, Tony was still able to die from alcohol poisoning and the like. That and had been abstaining from alcohol the past twenty-something days, then he decided this was better.

It was weird, how different Tony acted here than when they were in the tower. So weird, that Yakov asked about it.

“What were you drinking at the tower last month?”

“Oh, just about everything I could find, but I also took a handful of sleeping pills. You’re really not supposed to do that, but I’m still alive…” Tony seemed to get just as tense as Yakov did. “Don’t worry, though, I don’t do that often, or I try not to, and before you say anything, no I’m not suicidal, I’m just saying that if I had died, I don’t think anyone…” he sighs, “but I know you would care. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

Yakov didn’t reply for a long time, mostly because he didn’t want to think about what had just been said, but he knew he really should. Tony was still frozen in place, staring at his tablet, but not fiddling with it as he had been previously.

“Extremis.”

“What?”

“It would be difficult to hurt you, and you would live longer, if you used Extremis… it would keep you safe…” Tony finally unfroze and put the tablet on the nightstand before hopping around to get on his side to look at Yakov. He threw a bit of the blankets out for Yakov to use, instead Yakov wrapped his flesh arm around Tony and pulled him closer to him.

“If I used it, then I wouldn’t be human anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works, solnishko . You would be enhanced, but still human,” Tony paused and reached out to pull the metal arm up from where it was hanging over the side of the bed. He looks at the empty bottle in yakov’s hand and the raises an eyebrow at him.

“Did you drink absinthe straight-up ? If you weren’t super you would be… oh. I see. Here, let me ask you this. You just drank almost an entire bottle of absinthe with nothing to dilute it even a bit. That’s God-level alcoholism, kill-a-man sort thing, alright. Now, answer this actual question: are you even a little bit tipsy? For all intents and purposes you should be heaving and dying on the carpet, but your eyes aren’t even a little red. That’s 74 percent alcohol. That’s like one and a half times more than vodka, and people tend to think that’s the hard stuff, but Jesus Christ,” Tony paused before he let go of Yakov’s wrist and leaned down. “Then again, that’s super hot. I swear to God if you taste like absinthe I’m going to actually swoon.”

“I feel like I did two hours ago,” Yakov quickly said before Tony indulged him in a languorous kiss.

“I’m between being jealous but also not… and you taste like fennel. I like it. We should do this more often.”

“Which part?”

“Uh, the not-bad parts?” Tony wiggled out of the blankets wrapped around him and swayed as he straddled Yakov’s thighs. “But mostly this part. I like this part a lot.”

If anyone told Yakov that drinking a full bottle of absinthe was a bad idea, he would definitely disagree. Tony only lasted forty-five minutes of kisses and grinding before he came and fell asleep. Yakov decided that while it wasn’t the best solution, but when Tony indulged he managed to actually sleep.

Once again, Tony slept most of the night. Drinking himself to sleep wasn’t particularly healthy, but at least he got more than three hours of tossing and turning before waking up mid-panic attack. Sleep was one of those mandatory bodily functions. Tony functioned for days on maybe four hours of sleep, he could probably take over the world with a full eight hours.

When Tony did wake up, it followed the same beginning as the day Agent Carter died. Then the shower turned on and Tony came out thirty minutes later wrapped in a towel. He got dressed in sweats and pulled on of Yakov’s sweaters on before collapsing back in bed. He pulled his tablet to his chest and pulled up whatever he was working on. He wasn’t moving at all times, there were long periods of him scrolling and reading something, Yakov just couldn’t see it from his angle. He stood up and moved the many half-empty and barely opened bottles from around the table that was, for some reason, the home to Yakov’s suitcase. His phone was on the table, so while he was digging out clothes, he picked it up and tucked it in his back pocket. His jeans weren’t dirty, per se, but since Tony was in sweats, he decided he too would just lay around in comfortable clothes.

He looked on his phone as he walked to the bathroom. He had been sent multiple texts from Natalia. Nothing seemed super important, but she sent him a picture of a stack of pristine papers with printed words held together with a binder clip. It read Sokovia Accords . He read her messages, most of them where anecdotes followed by what was a better idea, and then she told him that she would be attending a conference, via CEO of Stark Industries, in Vienna, Austria, in May. She told him she has called for a meeting with General Thaddeus Ross to discuss the Sokovia Accords with her, Tony, Yakov, and Rhodey at the earliest convenience. That was followed by a message of the exact time and date they had arranged, and that they would be meeting in the meeting centre of the compound. He shut the door to the bathroom, and set his clothes down.

This is important, but he would tell Tony after he is showered. Plus, Tony was comfortable, and as soon as Tony is informed of Natalia’s involvement with these ‘Sokovia Accords’ and the United Nations, then he would throw himself into it. He needed a better reason to get into it than Sharon Carter begging for help, and FRIDAY did seem to be in danger under these rules.