Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony will admit that he is a little nervous leaving Barnes with Beck.

Things should be fine. The three of them had been working together with the BARF tech for quite a while now. And—traumatic memory revelations aside—things seem to be going well. So far, Barnes hasn’t been triggered into the Winter Soldier, and he seems to be making progress in his efforts to keep his holo-self from doing so as well.

But, Tony will admit the process can be draining sometimes. He had talked with Judith about this of course, but it is hard sometimes, watching everything that Barnes had been through. Even if they mostly focus on the triggering sequence itself, bits and pieces of his treatment under Hydra still make it through.

Before the memory of Howard and Maria’s death had come up for them to finally deal with, it had been hard at times, processing the torture he had been through, while also coming to terms with his own feelings surrounding his parent’s death.

Things are a bit easier now that they have dealt with that, but he does wonder if Barnes would be more comfortable if he weren’t always in the room with him during the sessions. In the beginning, he had agreed since Barnes had asked that Steve not come, and he figured that the Captain would be more comfortable if there were someone else in the room along with Beck, who had been a relative stranger.

Now though, Beck and Barnes have spent more time together, and he himself is mostly comfortable with the man. Beck can be a little…intense about his research at times, but so far, he seems willing to work with him and Barnes, so he tries not to worry about it too much.

He doesn’t really know how Barnes feels about Beck though. Barnes is still…stiffer than any ordinary person would be, but he has relaxed somewhat since coming to the Tower. He doesn’t talk about himself in third-person anymore at least, which is a relief, and he generally looks less like he expects them all to go haywire on him at any moment.

That doesn’t mean that it is really easy to tell when he is comfortable though. Sometimes he really does seem to ease up on his death-grip on careful protocols and formalities—such as at Steve’s birthday party, or when he had shown him his cars…

But he can still remember how stiff and terrified Barnes had been when they had finally met to talk about his parent’s death.

He huffs and shakes his head, dislodging the less-than-pleasant thoughts from his head. That had been hard, for both of them, but it had been for the best. He had gotten the answers he needed, and he and Barnes had managed to settle into an understanding about everything.

He still doesn’t really know if Barnes prefers having him over Beck in the sessions though.

That doesn’t really matter, because he is now finally back on active duty after his arc reactor removal surgery. Technically, they could just do the BARF sessions whenever he isn’t on missions, but Barnes had said that he doesn’t mind doing them with Beck while they are gone.

So now he is busy suiting up in the common room, the other Avengers getting ready around him as he confirms the last few details with Barnes.

“I was thinking, today’s a good day to let Beck take a shot at it,” he tells him, flexing his fingers in the gauntlets of his suit. It feels nice to be back at it again after so long. Whoever had come up with the idea for a six-weeks post-op recovery period is a terrible, terrible person. “We’ll still be in the city if something goes wrong,” he continues, looking up at Barnes. “It’d be a good test run.”

The mission isn’t really a mission. It is more of a PR stunt to be honest. All they really need to do is stand around and look pretty while the mayor gives a few speeches and sets off whatever celebration they are having. It is fluff work, but Pepper had set it up, and she had agreed that he was, in fact, on active duty, and therefore allowed to go. So not only will going make her happy—because good PR—but he is also fully sanctioned.

That doesn’t mean that the BARF session they had had planned needs to go ahead. He could postpone it if Barnes wants, but the man doesn’t raise any protest. Instead he just nods, his hands clasped behind his back as he swallows and scans the other Avengers getting ready.

“Great,” he tells him, trying to push away the nerves in his stomach as he activates his helmet and waits for it to fold over him. “I’ll let him know. He’ll be here pretty quick.”

Barnes nods again, still completely silent, and he shifts to stand even straighter as the Avengers begin to troop out. Tony blows out a breath and follows the group into the elevator, hoping that things will go well. The event is near enough that they don’t take the quinjet. Instead, they head out in a few large vans. Technically he could fly out and beat them to the site, but he ops to ride along. Lights flash in his helm as he has JARVIS contact Beck with the change in plans for today’s session.

Good to know, Beck texts back, the words glowing white on the inside of his helm. I’ll get ready.

Tony lets out a breath and clears the screen. His mind flashes back to Barnes’ tense, closed-off expression when he had suggested going along with only Beck today. He might not be very good at reading Barnes, but the look reminds him too much of Barnes’ preparing-to-head-to-the-gallows look he had worn when he had come down to talk to him about his parents, and had then announced that he was ‘ready for punishment’.

He bites his lip and clenches his fingers restlessly. He thinks he is probably going to have to have a talk with Barnes about Beck—or maybe have Steve do it. Right now, he doubts that Barnes would mention if anything were a problem.  

He can’t deal with any of that now though. He will just have to figure something out after the celebration.

The event is not as bad as it could be. There is a decent sized crowd outside of city hall, and the Avengers mostly just have to stand and listen as the mayor talks about the city’s accomplishments. They are one of the things on that long list, which is why they are here, but for the most part they don’t have to do much besides look impressive, and wave at small children.

He is busy smiling as Sam waves at a little girl with curly black hair tied up into two adorable ponytails, when his whole suit jolts, and his helmet snaps shut around his head. He had folded it down for the event, since he felt seeing his face would make him seem more personable for this, and a sudden sharp fear shoots through him as his suit activates without his orders.

He has never had his suit hacked—and he never wants to have his suit hacked—but he will admit that that is something he thinks about sometimes. It would be completely terrifying to be stuck in a suit not under his control, and for one heart-stopping moment, he worries that, any second now, Iron Man is about to go ballistic on a crowd of civilians.

And then JARVIS’ voice sounds through his helm. “I apologize, Sir,” he says, lights and coding flashing as JARVIS takes control of the suit. “There is an emergency at the Tower that requires your immediate attention.”

And with that, JARVIS activates his thrusters, and he blasts off, no doubt leaving a whole crowd of confused onlookers. It is a relief to know that JARVIS is the reason for his suit’s sudden sentience, but his relief is tempered by growing concern over what could possibly be happening back at the Tower that would prompt JARVIS to such extreme measures.

“Give me the situation,” he orders, his helm display dipping and swooping along with JARVIS’ flight path. “What’s going on?”

JARVIS’ voice is terse and focused as he replies, and the tone doesn’t bode well. “Mr. Beck is attempting to trigger the Sergeant.”

Tony blinks. Part of him notes the lack of the use of ‘Sergeant Barnes’—and he has a sneaking suspicion as to why—but the rest of him is mostly confused. “Isn’t that what he is supposed to be doing?”

That is kind of the point of the BARF sessions, at least, sort of. But JARVIS continues as he guides the suit around a sharp corner. “Beck is attempting to trigger the Winter Soldier completely,” he says, something close to anger in his voice. “The BARF tech is not active.”

“What?” he snaps, and JARVIS isn’t finished.

“It appears to be intentional, Sir,” he says, the Tower coming into view as he blasts forward. “Beck came equipped with the trigger words recorded on a separate device. I can’t disable it.”

“What?” he says again, shock coursing through his system as he takes in JARVIS’ words. Beck had recorded the trigger words separately? And he is trying to trigger Barnes on purpose? “Why?!”

“Unknown, Sir,” JARVIS says tensely, the suit hardly slowing as they near the penthouse suite. “The Sergeant is currently highly distressed.”

No kidding, he thinks, his mind racing as JARVIS guides him into the Tower. The sliding doors are already open, and when he gets inside, he sees that the elevator doors are standing open as well.

JARVIS wastes no time getting him into the elevator, and his stomach actually drops with how fast the AI brings it down. His heart pounds and he swallows dryly as he waits to be let out again. The triggering sequence isn’t that long. Beck had probably already finished it in the time it had taken for JARVIS to whisk him over here. They have never tried to trigger Barnes completely. They have no way to know if he can resist the trigger words yet.

There is a very real possibility that when he gets to the BARF room Barnes will be in Winter Soldier mode. His mind flashes with the image of a crumpled car, and holo-Barnes’ blank face, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

He can’t think of that right now. If Beck has a Winter Soldier Barnes under his control, then he will deal with it.

The next thought his mind helpfully pulls up for him is Barnes’ face when he had been sitting hunched on the couch and trying to explain to him in stilted words about his growing and newfound guilt over Hydra’s missions. Sometimes in the flashes I don’t want to, he had said, looking wretched. I didn’t think it was bad. But now it is.

He opens his eyes, and he knows with absolute certainty that if Beck has managed to trigger Barnes, he will be absolutely devastated afterwards.

He will deal with that too, if he needs to. For now, he just needs to get there. The elevator stops abruptly, and he almost loses his balance as the doors spring open much faster than usual.

“The sequence has just finished,” JARVIS tells him in a rushed tone, and he wastes no time in sprinting out. His mind focuses on the white panelled door to the BARF room. It is closed, which isn’t a surprise, and he doesn’t bother waiting to find out if it is locked. If he can get there fast enough, he might be able to stop Beck before this gets out of control, and he doesn’t have time to deal with things like tedious locking mechanisms.

Still running, he lifts his hand, the repulsor on his palm whining as he aims at the silver handle. His repulsor beam bursts out and fries the handle, the sound of splintering wood filling the air as a neat hole appears where it had once been. His momentum carries him forward and he kicks the door inward, his heart pounding as he scans the room.

His eyes are drawn immediately to Barnes. The man is crouched on the floor, his back pressed against the far wall as though physically trying to phase through the drywall. His head darts up as he burst inside, and he looks absolutely wrecked. His eyes are wide and haunted, his hair ragged and limp by his too pale face. Tears stain his cheeks, and he shudders as he takes in a gasping breath and shakes.

An unexpected anger surges through him at the sight of his sorry state, and his eyes narrow as he focuses on Beck standing frozen on the other side of the room by the computer terminal. He pales at the sight of his repulsors and his head whips back around to look at Barnes. “Soldat,” he barks out, a frantic edge to his voice. “Get up—”

His anger surges hotter, and he is moving the moment Beck starts talking, his mind focused on stopping him before he can do any real damage. He doesn’t really know what condition Barnes is in mentally, but he had at least been presently aware, and not mind-numbingly blank. His suit whirls as he moves, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Barnes shudder at Beck’s words. His body tenses as he rises half-an-inch before he stops just as abruptly and falls back again.

Tony takes that as a good sign. Barnes is resisting. Beck doesn’t have full control over him yet. His feet pound across the floor, and he can barely contain his snarl as Beck tries to pull away from him. His hand snaps up onto Beck’s wrist, and his next words come out as a growl.

“I wouldn’t try it,” he says, his other hand raised to shine threateningly in Beck's face. He doesn’t know why Beck is trying to trigger Barnes, but he actually doesn’t really care that much. Whatever the reason, it stops now.

The sound of Barnes’ heavy breathing pulls him out of his dark thoughts, and he retracts his helmet to look over, his eyes scanning him anxiously. Barnes looks ill, his face lined and his eyes heavily shadowed. His throat flexes, and he has his hands braced against the floor as though that is the only thing holding him up. He looks a lot like how he did when he had remembered his mission against his parents, which is not something Tony wants to be reminded about right now.

“Just hold it together, Barnes,” he tells him sharply, hoping that Barnes can keep it together for a little while longer. If he can hold on, then maybe Steve—

Right, yes. Steve. He will know what to do with this.

He glances up at the ceiling, his hand still keeping Beck pinned in place. “JARVIS—” he calls, intending to have him call the other Avengers, but he is interrupted by the AI himself.

“You have an incoming call, Sir,” he says, the tension in his voice still present. Tony feels a flare of surprise. He hadn't been expecting a call, but if JARVIS is mentioning it now, then it must be important.  

“Put it through,” he says, doing his best to keep a grip on his reeling emotions. In his hand, Beck tugs irritably at his hold, and he shoots the man a glare, readjusting his grip.

“Tony.” Steve’s voice distracts him from Beck, and he feels a surge of relief at the sound. He looks up, and by the wall he sees Barnes’ head fall forward, his hair swinging down to shield his face as he continues to tremble and breathe shakily. “What happened?” Steve asks, calling his attention away from Barnes. “You suited up and left the ceremony with hardly a word.”

Right, yeah. That probably was confusing for them. He huffs and glares at Beck who is busy squirming again. “Sorry about that,” he says, letting JARVIS pick up his words as he locks eyes with Beck. “JARVIS alerted me to an extremely time-sensitive situation in the tower and I was the one who could get here the fastest.”

Sort of. JARVIS had more or less kidnapped him, but that is too complicated to get into right now. “I’m in the BARF room with Barnes and Beck,” he continues, taking in a shallow breath to try to calm himself. “When can you get here?”

“ETA two minutes,” Steve replies, and he blinks in surprise. That is much closer than he would have expected. Steve continues, answering his unspoken confusion. “When you rushed off, we figured something was up and made our excuses and left.”

He can’t help relaxing at that. It is a relief to know that the others are close and on their way. He only needs to hold this together for a few minutes longer before backup arrives. “Alright,” he says, narrowing his eyes as Beck’s face twists and he tugs sharply at his trapped arm. “See you then.”

Beck’s fury grows with the promise of backup, and his eyes flash as he looks at him. “You’re making a mistake,” he hisses, his voice practically venomous. His teeth grind together, and his eyes bore into him as he jerks on his arm. “You think you’re oh so brilliant but you won’t even use the tools you have in front of you.”

Ah. Great. He scowls. Of course Beck would feel the need for a final monologue. He tightens his grip on Beck’s arm and contemplates dragging him out of the room so that he doesn't have to be in here with Barnes. He is reluctant to do that though, because he isn’t exactly sure if leaving Barnes alone right now is any better. He only has to hold on for a few more minutes though, so as long as he can keep Beck’s attention, things shouldn’t get too far out of control.

Beck, it seems, is just getting started. “You and the rest of them,” he snarls furiously. “You think you guys are heroes?” he waves a hand, and his hair falls into his eyes, making him look even more deranged. “You think you’re a hero and you go off and shake hands all day with politicians.”

He just barely resists rolling his eyes. Looks like Beck isn’t really impressed with the Avengers Initiative. He isn’t the only one, but the sentiment is rather exhausting right now, and the man had tried to trigger Barnes, so he isn’t really inclined to listen.  

“Alright Beck,” he says flatly, tugging on his arm. “Time to wrap it up–”

That makes Beck even angrier, and his face twists into a sneer as he tugs back. “Oh sure,” he spits. “You can go smooze around all day,” his lips pull up in disgust. “Maybe fly around in your ‘fancy toy’ and fiddle with a few things–” his eyes flash while his free hand comes up to slap his chest. “While you go and squander my tech.”

He stills, the anger in the man’s voice pulling him up short. Beck’s face is red with fury and a vein pokes out in his neck as he continues to rant. “It has so many applications— you could do so much with it.” Tony’s mouth goes dry, and he can only stare at the man, his blood running cold at the sudden horrible thought of what things Beck must want to do with his tech. “It has so much potential,” Beck continues doggedly, his eyes glinting. “And you turned it into a joke.”

He lets out a frantic, near hysterical laugh, and he can only press his lips together as he watches him. Beck has obviously fallen off the deep end, but it appears to have been a long time coming. He doesn’t know how long the man has been bottling all this up for—and he has to wonder why he has never brought this up before now—but things seem to be unraveling now.

Beck’s eyes take on a darker light, and his voice turns into a snarl. “But you have a habit of throwing away everything, don’t you?” he bites out, his face fierce. “First your weapons manufacturing–” he tenses instinctively at the jab, Beck’s inclinations becoming clearer with every word. “–then my tech,” he continues, before his head sweeps around to look at Barnes, the man cringing back into the wall as Beck spits out his last words. “And him!”

A spark of anger ignites in his mind at the implications, but he doesn’t have a chance to interject before Beck is back at it. “Look at him!” he snaps, tugging sharply at his grip again, his eyes blazing. “You want to make a difference in the world? You want to be a hero?” his eyes are dark pools of fury, and his teeth flash as he bites out his next words. “You have the perfect tool in front of you.”

The word ‘tool’ reverberates in his chest and his hand tightens on Beck’s wrist without meaning to. Tool. Like Barnes isn’t a person. Like he is just some kind of machine. Like he is exactly what Hydra tried to make him.

And that is what Beck thinks of him, isn’t it? That is how he could try to trigger him just now. He sees him as an asset. Something to be used. How could he not have seen this before now? His mind flashes back to the intense look of interest Beck had worn sometimes during their sessions. He thinks now that that had had nothing to do with the man’s interest in the success of his own tech. 

“–and you want to ruin it.” Beck continues to prattle. Every word adding to the growing fire of fury in his chest. “You want to fiddle around and coddle him when you could be using him properly—”

“That’s enough,” he growls, his voice heavy with foreboding and his face drawn down into a scowl. He will not stand here listening to Beck disregard Barnes’ humanity. Not while Barnes is still sitting within earshot.  

His words cut into Beck’s tirade for a moment, and the man stills, his eyes round as he scans him. A second later, his face twists bitterly and he lets out a laugh. “It doesn’t matter anyways now, I guess,” he says, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he shakes his head. “Because I’ve got him now. He’s under my control.” Tony’s blood runs cold and his mind races, because he doesn’t know exactly how true that is, and with the way Beck is talking— “I’ll show you,” he snaps. “You could have been doing so much with him.”

Before he can say anything, Beck’s expression turns cruel, and his next words distract him completely. “It’s too late to stop him now,” he leers. “He wouldn’t stop for Howard, I doubt he’d stop for you or Captain Rogers.”

He stiffens, and he knows for sure that he has Beck’s wrist in a bruising grip, but he can’t think much beyond the absolute rage that races through him. How— how dare he? How dare he bring up Howard like this.

Beck had been there to see one of the worst BARF sessions either he or Barnes had had, and the fact that he is using it now as a weapon against him—

In the back of his mind, he is aware of the abrupt up tick in Barnes’ breathing at Beck’s implications, and the sound helps pull him out of his haze of fury.

Not quickly enough it would seem, because Beck is already turning to Barnes, a gleam of determination in his eye. “Asset—”

His eyes widen and he jerks Beck towards him, trying to wrap his hand around his mouth, or at least stall him before he can say anything damaging. Beck cuts off and the sound of pounding feet fills the air as the man struggles with him, trying to avoid his hand.

They both look up as the feet grow nearer and Steve bursts through the ruined door, his shield at his side and his eyes ablaze. To be honest, he looks every inch the avenging angel Captain America is supposed to be, and the sight of him sends a wave of relief flooding through his system.

Beck is not so reassured. He is close enough to the man to hear how his breath catches at the arrival of backup, and his voice takes on a frantic tone as he twists his face away again and barks at Barnes. “Asset!” he snaps, and Tony grits his teeth at the use of Hydra’s name for Barnes.

Beck ducks his hand, and he bites back a growl of frustration. He needs to keep him from triggering Barnes. They are so close. If he can just— Beck pulls away. “Asset attack—”

“No!”

The word echoes desperately off the walls, and Beck actually freezes at the sound of it. Tony can’t help stopping too, his eyes wide as he stares at Barnes. The man’s head is ducked down into his chest, his shoulders heaving as he presses back into the wall, his hands shaking. “No,” he gets out again, his voice high and frantic, his breathing speeding up. “No, I— No. No. I won’t. I won't.”

Oh. The realisation hits him all at once and his breath stutters. Barnes is— Barnes is resisting the trigger words. In real life. He is resisting. He is refusing to comply.

He is also teetering on the edge of falling apart. His breath is fast and shallow, his trembling growing more pronounced as he shakes his head and presses back against the wall. It is clear that Beck’s efforts to trigger him and make him fight either him or Steve has not done anything for his overall mental health, and Tony is about done with letting Beck stick around Barnes any longer.

“I’ll deal with him,” he says to Steve, noting the wide-eyed look on his face as he too comes to terms with the monumental step Barnes had been forced into today. He jerks none-too gently on Beck and twists his arm around behind his back. “You take care of Barnes.”

Steve nods immediately, and Tony leaves him to it, his eyes narrowed as he moves to push Beck out of the room. That seems to snap the man out of his shock at failing, and his anger returns. “What?” he shrieks, practically frothing at the mouth as he tries to turn his head back to look at Barnes. He grunts as Tony shoves him forward, and he bucks in his grip. “What do you mean no?” he shouts incredulously. “You’re not allowed— I said the trigger words you stupid—”

They reach the door, and Tony drags him out, pulling them out of earshot so that Barnes can at least have a chance at calming down. He looks up to the sound of the elevator opening, and he sees the other Avengers coming out, their stances wary and their eyes searching as they scan him.

He knows instantly that Steve must have sprinted up the stairway as soon as they arrived in the car park in order to get here before any of them. He can also tell from their dark expressions towards Beck, that JARVIS must have already informed them of what he had tried to do.

“Hey guys,” he says grimly, and the others sweep their eyes over him, before looking up towards the smoking door.

“How is he?” Sam asks from his position next to Clint and Natasha, his eyes hard as he looks back at Beck. Bruce is behind them, breathing very carefully, the barest tint of green in his eyes as he regards Beck.

Tony pushes Beck forward a step and lets out a sigh. “Steve’s with him,” he says, tightening his grip when Beck tries to pull away from him again. “He resisted the trigger words. They didn’t work on him.”

He can feel the immediate relief that sweeps through the group, and he relaxes a little too, a small smile twitching on his face.

And then Beck decides to speak up again. “I almost had him,” he spits, twisting in his hold. “I would have had him if you hadn't interrupted. You’ve seen what he can do. And you just want to erase that—?”

He cuts off, because in the blink of an eye, Natasha is in front of him, a blade hovering inches from his throat. “I suggest you stop talking,” she says darkly.

Beck wisely shuts up.

Tony—who may or may not have also been a little terrified by her abrupt appearance in front of him—is rather glad for it.

oOo

After that, it is a matter of calling the police and handing Beck over to them. They don’t have enough to charge him with much right now, but he is volatile and violent enough for the police to at least take him into custody.

He is let out a little while later with a fine, but Tony is already deep into digging through Beck’s history at SI. Not only is the man sacked, but he is certain he will find something more criminalising to pin on him and get him behind bars for longer.

He says as much to the others when they gather to discuss what had happened. It is about a day or so after the initial incident, and they are all sitting around in the common room. Barnes still looks a little shaken, but he appears stable enough, his eyes jumping between them as they talk about what Beck had done.

Tony can’t help feeling a little guilty about all of this. This whole time, Beck had seen Barnes as a tool, and he hadn't even noticed.

“If I’d known he was nuts I never would have worked with him,” he says definitively, his hands flexing on the couch. “I didn’t realise he was so upset.” His mind flashes back to Beck’s laundry list of complains and he runs a restless hand through his hair, shaking his head. “He worked for Stark Industries. He developed BARF for SI, it might have been his idea, but we still had the right to use it as we saw fit.”

Generally, he tries to be good about respecting the intellectual property of his staff, and giving credit and directional licence when due. He had done his best to do that with Beck too, that is one of the reasons he had been so involved with the BARF sessions in the first place. Obviously, that hadn't been enough for him. “Guess he had a problem with that,” he mutters.

Natasha leans forward to try to reassure him that this isn’t all his fault, and while he can appreciate the gesture, he can’t help arguing against it. He is busy explaining why he had kept Beck on in the first place, when Barnes speaks up, his eyes pinned to his hands clasped in his lap.

“Beck didn’t want you to know,” he says, his shoulders stiffening as he speaks. “He never said anything while you were around.”

His stomach clenches and he sits up, his eyes round as he stares at Barnes. “Wait. He said something to you?” he sputters, his mind racing as he realises that Beck might not have kept his sentiments so well hidden around Barnes. Is that why Barnes had been so tense around him? He can’t even imagine— “What did he say?”

Barnes rolls his shoulders uncomfortably, and his fingers whiten in his lap as he swallows. “It wasn’t really anything,” he mumbles, and Tony knows instantly that it must have been something. Beck had been treating Barnes badly this whole time and he hadn't even known—

And hadn't he thought, before all this, that Barnes probably wouldn’t say if there were any problems?

Steve seems to come to the same conclusion, because his eyes are sad and understanding as he shifts next to Barnes and calls his attention over to him. “Bucky,” he says quietly. “If Beck treated you poorly, then we need to know about it. It isn’t okay.”

Barnes flicks his eyes over Steve, and his fingers flex in his lap. “He— I didn’t know he was so angry,” he stutters, his eyes dropping down to his hands. “He complained about the sessions but—” he cuts off as he chews on his lip, and Tony stares at him. From Barnes’ words it is obvious Beck had not kept his frustrations hidden from him. No wonder Barnes had been uncomfortable around him.

“But he was acting like a normal agent,” Barnes continues, and Tony’s stomach drops. Beside Bucky, Steve’s face goes pale. “Agents are always–” Barnes waves a hand, and Tony swallows, his mouth dry. “–dissatisfied,” he continues. “Working with the Asset outside of missions. He thought I could be used better—”

He cuts off, pausing, his eyes distant as he thinks over his words. For his part, Tony feels almost nauseated at the thought of what Barnes must think of as normal behaviour. If Beck had been acting like a Hydra agent, and Barnes hadn't even thought anything of it—

Next to Barnes, Steve shifts, his lips pressing together as he too comes to terms with what Barnes is saying. “Bucky,” he says softly, and Barnes brings his gaze up to him, his eyes wide as though he too is suddenly coming to realise just how bad Beck had been. Steve’s hands twist in his lap and he meets Barnes’ eyes. “Buck, people—” he breathes in. “The way Hydra agents treated you…is not how people are supposed to treat you.”

Barnes’ face is slack in a way that denotes dumbfoundedness, but he also looks like he believes Steve—like a light bulb is finally dawning. Steve holds his gaze determinedly. “It was wrong of them to do it,” he says definitively. “And whatever Beck did was wrong too.”

Barnes swallows and nods, still looking stunned, and Steve leans forward. “Next time,” he says quieter. “If anyone makes you feel like that, please tell one of us, so that we can help.”

Tony sincerely hopes that Barnes will actually take them up on that, because it is about time he learns that what Hydra did to him is unacceptable, and should never happen again.

Barnes’ eyes drop back down to his lap and he nods again, his fingers twisting together. “Sorry,” he whispers, and Steve’s hand twitches as he resists the urge to reach out to him.

“It’s not your fault, Buck,” he says, and his calming tone manages to pull Barnes’ gaze back up to him. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he offers him a small smile. “None of us could have predicted what Beck would do, but now we know.”

Barnes relaxes, and he nods slowly, only to have his attention pulled away as JARVIS speaks up. “If it is any consolation, Sergeant,” he says, and Tony notes the shade of regretfulness that lives in his tone. “I too did not suspect Beck, even though I was privy to his behavior towards you.” Tony raises an eyebrow in concern, and JARVIS continues. “His complaints were sporadic, and did not seem to cause you much distress, so at the time I did not take any action…and for that I apologize.”

Barnes looks surprised by JARVIS’ apology, but he accepts it easily enough—even taking a moment to reassure the AI like Steve had done for him. Tony sees Natasha’s mouth twitch up at that, and he can’t help feeling similarly—even though he is a little worried by what JARVIS had said.

He is distracted away from that though, as, next to Natasha, Clint huffs out a breath and looks up. “You should put in a new protocol, Tony,” he suggests waving his hand. “Anyone who’s a dick to Barnes automatically gets a red flag.” His mouth pulls up in a crooked smile and he grins at the group. “A ‘true test of character’ kind of thing.”

Tony is pretty sure Clint is joking, but…the idea isn’t half-bad.

oOo

Later, in his lab, he sits with his arms folded, his brows drawn together in thought. Barnes’ words from earlier echo in his mind.

Beck didn’t want you to know. He never said anything while you were around.

He was acting like a normal agent.

He scowls and sits up. He is pretty sure after all this, and after what Steve had said, that Barnes will be more likely to tell them if someone were to ever act like Beck did around him again.

But…but it is probably likely that this will not be the last time someone disregards Barnes’ personhood. Not only that, but once it comes out who Barnes is and his past as the Winter Soldier, he wouldn’t be surprised if people were to treat him different because of that too. Similar to how people had with him, and his weapons.

He sits up straighter and he makes his decision. “JARVIS,” he calls, looking down at the projected screen in front of him. “Open up a new protocol subroutine.” The screen lights up in front of him, lines of code waiting for his input. “Protocol title,” he announces. “’Test of Character’.”

He settles into his chair and allows a small smile to grow on his face. “Category one, ’Being a dick to Barnes’.”

Chapter Text

The Asset lets the Helicarriers be destroyed, and then his handler takes him to a new base and gives him a new mission. “Prepare for changes in protocol,” he says, and the Asset tries, no matter how confusing the suspension of his wiping and cryofreeze protocols are, or how strange his new mission seems to him.

‘Live in Avengers Tower’, what does that even mean? How is he even supposed to do that?

His Handler continues to talk though, and the Asset pulls himself away from his confusion to listen. His hands press down on the mattress beneath him as he tries to ground himself against the repeated onslaught of today’s strangeness.

“Several people currently live in Avengers Tower,” his handler tells him, before he begins to list off each Avenger in turn. The Asset knows about these people, since they are currently occupying the med-bay around him, but he accepts and catalogues each name carefully. If Avengers Tower is going to be his main base of operations, then it stands to reason that the Avengers will now be the primary team with which he will be working.

In front of him, his handler continues to outline the basics of the Tower. “This Tower is equipped with an advanced computer assistant named JARVIS,” he informs him, and the Asset is careful not to blink in surprise. The Vault had certainly never had anything like that. He watches as his handler looks towards the ceiling. “JARVIS,” he commands. “Can you introduce yourself?”

The Asset isn’t sure what he had been expecting, but a voice from the ceiling is not it. “Hello Sergeant Barnes,” it says.

If JARVIS says anything else, the Asset does not hear it.

At his words, the Asset’s eyes go round, his stomach dropping in his gut as his shoulders hunch defensively. His breath catches, and his hands tighten on the mattress, his ears ringing. The world spins and his mouth feels dry, his vision blurring. He knows on some vague level that he shouldn’t be reacting so viscerally in front of Handler-Rogers but he— but he had said the words and— and—

And he flinches. He isn’t exactly sure if anyone had actually moved closer to him, but his skin crawls on high alert and he gasps for air as he remembers exactly how bad those words are. He is not supposed to— those words are bad. Why had JARVIS spoken them? Had he angered his handler somehow? Is he using the computer as a punishment? Why had he said the words?

“Bucky—”

This time there really is someone coming towards him, and the Asset scrambles away without thinking, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated as he tries to figure out how to mitigate the situation.

Handler-Rogers had never hurt him before. His handler had always been so good to him. Why is he angry now? He had said to let the Helicarriers be destroyed. He had told the Asset to ignore Hydra’s orders. He had been compliant! He had obeyed. He hadn’t— He hadn’t—

“Простите,” he mumbles, his head ducking as he crouches down, his arms coming up instinctively to shield himself as his voice gains a note of desperate pleading. “Простите. Простите.”

Of course, apologising doesn’t help. It never does, and— and he doesn’t know why the words are so bad but—

                —he bites down a whimper, because that always seems to make it worse, but he can’t stop the way his breath catches and how he flinches when the door to his cell opens. He tries to get up to stand at attention, but his head spins at the movement and he ends up collapsing back against the wall. The cuffs and chains around his wrists clatter as he slumps over, and his jaw clenches as fire-like pain rips through the open wounds on his back.

He dares to glance up at the handler entering the room, and his heart tumbles into an anxious rhythm at the sight of the whip coiled loosely in his hand. Pleading words rise up in his throat, and his breath turns ragged, his chains beginning to clatter. A low whine builds in his chest and he swallows it back, fighting to stay silent.

He doesn’t know why the words are so bad, but his handler hates them and—

“Nat— what is he saying–?”

The voice of his handler reaches him again and— and he can’t decide if it sounds worried or angry. He sucks in a frantic breath, his stomach somersaulting as he cringes away from the sound. Words continue to tumble out of his mouth, but he doesn’t actually know what they are anymore. His hands are shaking, and he shouldn’t be acting like this but— but the words—

“Soldat.”

The frantic spinning of his mind freezes at the word, and his spiel cuts off. The only sound is his loud panting, his breath ragged and halting. His vision is blurred, but his head darts up instinctively, his eyes wide as he searches for his handler.

He finds him crouched a few feet in front of him, his gaze steady and intense. He registers for the first time that he has wedged himself in the corner between the med-bay bed and the wall, effectively boxing himself in. His shoulders sit hunched over his knees, his muscles tense as he cowers and breathes in stuttered gasps.

His handler doesn’t look mad though. He stares at him, and he doesn’t look mad. He has a look of intense concentration on his face, but he doesn’t look mad.

“Are you listening, soldat?” he asks, and the Asset sucks in a breath, nodding, too stunned by his lack of fury to remember to respond with a verbal ‘confirmed’. His handler doesn't seem to mind though, he just nods back. “Okay,” he says, his voice deep with controlled calm. “Breathe in.”

The Asset doesn’t know why his handler is ordering him to breathe, but that is an order he is currently very willing to follow. He sucks in another breath, noting how his handler breathes along with him. “Good,” he says, and the Asset feels a sort of painful hope rise in his chest at the praise. “Breathe out,” his handler orders, and he does.

His handler continues like that, sitting quietly as he orders the Asset to breathe in and out. By the end of it, the Asset finds his chest doesn’t feel as tight as it used to, even though a new anxiety rises as he begins to think of the inevitable aftermath of his breakdown.

He swallows and breathes in again at his handler’s instruction, his eyes darting over him in trepidation. His stomach squirms as he tries not to think too hard about the watching Avengers that he is now aware of, standing just beyond the curtain of his bed.

He can’t see much of them, but he doesn’t need to in order to imagine the looks of disgust on their faces. They had been promised a working asset, and he had just malfunctioned massively, and his handler had said that wiping and cryofreeze protocols are suspended—

He doesn’t know what kind of conditioning they will be using, but he doesn’t want to find out. His eyes jump up to his handler, his heart twisting in his chest as he opens his mouth. “Sorry,” he blurts, the word rising instinctively in his throat.

Apologising is usually pointless, but he had been apologising before, and his handler isn’t mad now, so maybe—

Something he can’t quite read flashes over his handler’s face. He breathes and eases himself down so that he is now sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, his movements slow and seemingly choreographed.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says quietly.

The Asset blinks, and stares at him, completely frozen in his corner. “The Asset malfunctioned,” he bursts out, before cringing backwards, his heart beginning to race anew at the fact that he had just contradicted his handler.

He isn't supposed to contradict his handler, his handler knows best— but he isn’t making sense—

In front of him, his handler watches him with a deep somber look, his eyes quiet and pained. “The Asset is allowed to malfunction,” he says, catching his gaze and holding it.

The Asset’s mouth drops open without his permission, and he stares, his mind spinning. He has absolutely no idea what to do with his handler’s statement. He— It— What—?

He sucks in a breath, his shoulders drawing back into the wall behind him. His eyes flick over his handler in bewilderment. “Clarification required,” he manages, his chest tightening as he tries to figure out what is going on. “The Asset cannot malfunction,” he continues, his voice thin and strained. “The Asset must complete his missions. The Asset cannot malfunction.”

He isn’t trying to contradict his handler, he really isn’t, but he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand anything, and when he misunderstands his handlers, then he fails them, and then they get mad, and he gets punished.

Handler-Rogers doesn’t get mad though, even though he had sort of contradicted him in front of all of the Avengers. “What is your mission here?” he asks softly, and the Asset wonders if this is all some sort of test, to see if he will be compliant with his new mission and new team.

“Live in Avengers Tower,” he replies promptly. He knows the mission, even if he doesn’t know what it means, or how to complete it.

His handler nods, his hands moving to sit loosely in his lap. “This mission…is different than your previous missions,” he explains slowly, his eyes flicking over him. “On this mission, malfunctioning will not prevent the Asset from being successful.”

The Asset stares, his eyes scanning his handler as he lets his words settle over him. He can hardly comprehend what kind of mission wouldn’t be affected negatively by his malfunctioning…but…if it really doesn’t matter if he malfunctions on this mission…then that would explain why his handler had suspended his cryofreeze and wiping protocols. Those protocols help manage his malfunctions, but he won’t need them if he is allowed to malfunction for this mission.

“You will not be punished for malfunctioning here, Bucky,” his handler continues, and the Asset’s eyes jump up to his, something sparking in his chest at the sound of the new title, the one only this handler uses.

He still finds it difficult to imagine a mission on which he will not be punished for malfunctioning, but he nods slowly, his eyes darting over his handler. No matter how strange it may seem to him, this incident alone practically proves the truth of his handler’s words. His gaze sweeps back up to his handler’s face, and the man is still not angry with him.

He swallows and licks his lips. “Confirmed,” he says, for lack of anything better to say.

Again something flickers over his handler’s face, but it is gone too fast for him to read. He ducks his chin for a second, his fingers fiddling with the fabric of his pants before he raises his head again and meets the Asset’s gaze.

“Okay,” he breathes in, setting his shoulders. His hands pause on his legs as he looks over at the Asset. “Can you tell me something now?” he asks, and the Asset is careful to stay very still as his handler watches him. “Can you tell me what upset you so much?” he says, his eyes scanning him. “What— what caused the malfunction?”

The Asset’s breath catches, and he drops his gaze, his shoulders hunching. He knows that his handler had said that he won’t get in trouble for his malfunction, but he still feels uncomfortable talking about it, and he very much does not want to talk about the words.

But he will, if his handler asks.

“It—” he tries to start, but he really doesn’t know how to explain why he had been so upset. He knows that Hydra’s conditioning had been important and necessary, and he shouldn’t be upset about it, and anyways, his handler and JARVIS hadn’t even done anything. All JARVIS had said were the words.

“The words,” he manages, his arms drawing into his chest as he speaks. “JARVIS said the words. The words are bad.”

His handler stares at him for a second, before he flicks his eyes to the ceiling, his brow drawing together. The Asset isn’t sure if he knows the words, or knows that they are bad, but he can’t keep his hands from shaking at the thought of them.

Through his haze of growing fear, he hears one of the Avengers shift, their face out of view, but their words still within earshot. “What words?” he hears the man mumble to someone else, and he recognises his voice as Avenger Tony Stark, the man who he had let destroy the Helicarriers. “All JARVIS said was ‘Hello Sergeant—”

His words cut off as the Asset tenses, his breath catching as his heart begins to pound painfully in his chest. In front of him, his handler’s eyes dart over to the other Avengers, and he seems to hold a silent conversation with them for a moment, before bringing his gaze back to the Asset.

“It’s alright, Buck,” he says softly, and the Asset finds his words inexplicably calming, the tension in his shoulders easing as his handler remains calm and reassuring. His handler flicks his eyes over him, probably in order to make sure he isn’t actively malfunctioning, before he swallows. “I just want to make sure, ‘hello’ is not the problem?”

He glances at him, and the Asset shakes his head. For reasons unknown, his handler doesn’t look reassured. “Is it both words?” he asks roughly, raising a hand to show two fingers. “Or just one?”

He drops one finger and the Asset swallows. He hadn’t exactly thought about that, but probably both the individual words are fine, it’s just the combination of them that is a problem. “The title,” he blurts, flinching as he thinks of it.

His handler nods slowly, dropping his hand. “Can…can you tell me why?”

The Asset swallows uncomfortably. “Unknown,” he gets out. They hadn’t told him why it was so bad. He doesn’t know, they hadn’t said, they were just so angry and— “I don’t know why he said it,” he bursts out.

His handler blinks at him, and the Asset realises that he probably thinks he is referring to JARVIS. But he isn’t. Somebody else had said the title first, he can’t remember who anymore, but his handlers had learned of it and they had been so mad—

“That’s okay,” his handler says after a moment. “He doesn’t have to say that anymore, if it upsets you.” And then he glances up at the ceiling, and asks JARVIS to simply call him Bucky, as if accommodating for, and working around the Asset’s malfunctions is completely normal and natural.

As if it really is okay for him to malfunction here.

His mind is still reeling as his handler looks back at him. He offers him a gentle smile and places his hands on his knees. “Okay,” he breathes out. “That was probably pretty stressful, but, do you want to sit back on the bed?” his eyes look completely earnest as he speaks. “I just want JARVIS to scan you, to make sure you’re healthy.”

The Asset isn’t exactly sure if he is giving an order or not, but he stands up anyways. His legs feel shaky, and he has to steady himself against the wall as he is hit with a wave of lightheaded exhaustion. He has a spike of habitual fear at the display of weakness, but his handler doesn’t say anything as he recovers. Even so, his hands tremble, and he tries to cover for it as he moves cautiously back to the bed, conscious of the eyes following him. None of the other Avengers seem to be mad at him either, and they begin to disperse and move away as he goes back to sit down and wait for JARVIS to scan him.

His handler gets up as well and takes in a breath, as if calming himself. There are no traces of anger on his face as he turns to him, his mouth pulling into something that looks like it is supposed to be reassuring. The Asset swallows and watches him quietly, wondering at how he can possibly be so different from what he is used to.

Later, after JARVIS scans him, and his handler is told to rest by Agent Wilson, his handler takes him with him to his room, not a cell. “You can stay here for now,” he tells him, and the Asset should probably feel more surprised than he is at that, but… but he is beginning to get the feeling that a lot of things will be different here on this mission and in this base.

He might still be unsure how he is actually going to complete his mission… But he gets the feeling that his handler will be willing to help him with that. And…he won’t be punished for malfunctioning here so…so if it takes him a few tries to figure out the mission then— then that will probably be okay too, right?

Looking at his handler’s face, he thinks his conclusions are correct.

Chapter Text

Steve contacts Hannah through JARVIS, and makes plans to go upstate to see her. He has to wait until after Halloween to do it though. “I didn’t really do much with Halloween last year,” he tells Bucky on the night of the holiday. “But apparently Stark Industries always does something.”

‘Something’ turns out to be a kid friendly trick-or-treating spot in the lobby of the Tower, and Steve and Stark, and the rest of the Avengers volunteer to help hand out candy for the night.

“You can come too, Bucky,” Stark tells him as the Avengers get ready in the common room. “Although I don’t know what costume you would wear.”

All the other Avengers are suiting up in their usual uniforms, but Bucky finds his mind less preoccupied by their costumes and Stark’s offer, and more concerned by the fact that the man had actually called him by his name.

When had— when had that started?

His shock delays his response for a long moment, but he manages to shake his head before anyone gets too concerned. “No thanks.” He can still remember well enough one of his last Avengers parties. It had been when Thor had come to help them with the Convergence, and he had ended up having to leave early because it had gotten overwhelming. The trick-or-treating thing isn’t exactly a party, but it will have a lot of different people, especially children…and he would rather not risk an incident with them around.

“Have it your way,” Stark shrugs. And…and Bucky realises abruptly that he might…be able to, to actually start calling Stark— Tony, by his name too. He had mostly been waiting for Stark…Tony…to make the first move, and now it seems he has. “You should come down for some candy at some point though,” he continues, as though this is all perfectly normal. “SI gets the good kinds.”

He nods, still slightly stunned, and watches as the Avengers—minus Clint due to his own mysterious plans—file unto the elevator and head down to the lobby.

He stays in the common room for most of the night, but he does eventually make his way down to the lobby. He keeps mostly off to the side, his back to the wall, as he watches the Avengers interact with the various costumed children coming through the doors. He hasn’t been around a large group of children in...in a long time, and it feels…nice, to be able to see them here.

A smile grows on his face as he watches Steve salute a mini–Captain America, the child’s own grin splitting her face as she waves her plastic shield at him. There are older children coming in too, now that the hour is a little later, and he watches as two boys, probably nearly too old for trick-or-treating, walk past him and chat excitedly to each other.

“See Ned,” he hears one of them say, the boy seemingly dressed in a plastic version of the Iron Man suit. It isn’t as good as the real deal, but from what Bucky can see, the boy has rigged it so that the arc reactor in the center actually glows, unlike some of the other versions he had seen around. “I told you they have the best candy here.”

His partner, Ned, is dressed in some kind of brown cape and holding a green plastic rod in his hand. He nods, before stopping suddenly and letting out a gasp as he nudges his friend with his shoulder. He points his stick out in front of him, the plastic lighting up in green as he waves it, his voice high-pitched in awe.

“Peter, look!” he breathes, his voice hushed as he points over to where Sta— Tony and Bruce are busy handing out candy to some children. “Some of the greatest minds of their generation. Right there.”

Peter seems just as excited as his friend at the sight of the two scientists, and Bucky’s smile grows in amusement as he watches them rush off to stand in line by the other children. He decides to wait to watch them, and the two kids beam as they accept colourful candy and cheerful smiles from both Tony and Bruce.

His attention is pulled away from the two as, by the door, an overtired child shrieks in frustrated, sugary exhaustion. The parents are thankfully quick to scoop the child up, but the piercing sound brings everything else into sharp focus too. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end as the sound of excited children chatting, crinkling candy wrappers, and shifting costumes blurs together.

He closes his eyes and deliberately breathes out, rolling his shoulders. He can remember vaguely, this sort of thing happening to Steve too, during the war. And he can remember, even as the Asset, knowing to be cautious about Steve’s ears. His hearing isn’t quite as intense, but he isn’t really used to large crowds yet, and the bustle is a little overwhelming. It isn’t too bad right now, thankfully, but he should probably turn in before it gets too much.

He turns to head back to the common room and Natasha catches his eye. He has no doubt that she can guess the reason he is turning in, but she also notices that he hadn't yet managed to snag any of the candy Sta— Tony had promised him.

She slips through the crowd easily, and he soon finds his hands and pockets suddenly filled with chocolate bars, courtesy of her candy bucket. The two boys—Ned and Peter—notice him, thanks to her intervention, and he can feel their eyes follow him as he leaves.

For half-a-second he worries he is too conspicuous or something, but as he heads towards the elevator, he overhears them quietly debating whether or not his arm is for a really good cosplay—whatever that is—and if it is, what character he would be playing.

The elevator doors close, cutting off their conversation, as well as the rest of the noise from the lobby. His shoulders relax the rest of the way, and he fingers the candy bars in his pocket, leaning back against the wall. Surprisingly, he still has the ghost of a smile on his face. Despite how foreign it had been, it had been fun to observe the crowd for a while. 

He thinks, overall, his venture had been pretty successful. And, who knows? He might even ask JARVIS what this ‘cosplay’ thing is, and…and maybe next year…it might be fun to find a costume that actually matches his arm.

Chapter Text

When Steve comes to them asking if they can help rehabilitate Bucky by spending time with him, Bruce volunteers to take him to the library. In all honesty, he hadn’t really known exactly what he was getting into, but he did have some idea. Through working with Bucky while trying to develop a sedative for him, it had become abundantly clear that he had been deeply traumatized by his time with Hydra.

Steve had given them the barebones of what Hydra had done, and watching Bucky… Well, he and the Other Guy have gotten a lot of practice working on their breathing exercises lately, because looking at the tense, carefully blank, almost robotic state Bucky spends most of his time in—and knowing that that is a learned response thanks to years of torture from Hydra—is upsetting on a good day.

Bucky’s time in the Tower and with Steve seems to be helping him though, and he thinks Steve is right in suggesting that the others spend time with him as well. He may not be a trauma expert, but it isn’t that hard to see that the more ways Bucky can learn that the world is a safe place, the better.

Of course, it is slow going.

The first time he takes Bucky to the library Steve comes along to help smooth out the process. Ideally Bucky will eventually graduate to a point where he is comfortable spending time away from Steve, but for now it is probably better to introduce him to new environments slowly.

“The library is a public building,” Steve tells Bucky as they walk up the stone steps inside. “That means that there will be civilians of all ages in here, but they won’t bother you.”

Bucky’s face remains attentive as he follows Steve, his eyes fixed on him as he sucks in his words like he is receiving a mission debriefing. He remains completely silent as he scans the front entrance, his eyes glancing off the cheery reception desk and the muted carpet that leads further into the building. His silence isn’t unusual though. For the most part he seems to speak primarily when spoken to.

Bruce has noticed recently though, that he has started to refer to himself more often with first-person pronouns, rather than as ‘the Asset’, which is somewhat of a relief.

He keeps an eye on Bucky as they head further into the library. This is probably one of the first times Bucky has been anywhere public, so he isn’t quite sure how he will react. He appears to be handling it—or, he is at least able to make it look like he is handling it—but he sticks close to Steve, his eyes darting around as he takes it all in.

For his part, Steve is willing to simply let Bucky shadow him for now. “You’ll be coming here with Bruce more often now,” he tells him quietly. “But we can just show you around today.”

Bruce follows too as Steve begins to give Bucky a tour of the different sections in the library. His presence here today is mostly just so that Bucky can get used to having him around, but he watches both him and Steve with interest as they travers the building.

Before Steve had asked them all to start helping with Bucky’s rehabilitation, he hadn't spent a lot of time around the two of them together. He had treated Bucky in the lab a few times, and he’d crossed them in the common room once or twice, but those snapshots hadn't really given him a lot of insight to what it is really like for Steve to be, well, handling his friend this way.

Steve appears to be doing an admiral job at least. He can see him checking his body language as he talks to Bucky, keeping it open and calm as he shows him around. His language too is carefully thought out. Bucky seems to be comfortable with, and responds well to orders, but because of that, he notices that Steve is careful to explain things rather thoroughly, lest he accidentally give Bucky an exclusive order that he hadn't been meaning to.

Steve’s method works well with Bucky, but… Bruce’s lips press together, and he swallows heavily at the thought of what it must have been like for Steve to try to cope with being Bucky's handler for several months under Hydra. The Other Guy rumbles unhappily in the back of his mind, and he thinks that this is all probably harder on Steve than he lets on.

It is probably a good thing then that Steve had come to them for help. As much as he is good for Bucky, he needs time to recuperate too, and it isn’t feasible for him to be responsible for the entirety of Bucky’s recovery.

He pulls in a breath and quickens his pace to follow as Steve shows Bucky the public washrooms. He listens as he explains in broad terms the general social expectations around them—the speech reminding him once again the sheer amount of basic stuff Bucky simply has no knowledge of because Hydra had burned it out of his head.

In the end, Bucky doesn’t do much besides follow Steve around for their trip. They don’t borrow anything, and Bucky doesn’t say much… But he doesn’t freak out either, which Bruce is counting as a positive sign and the first of many steps in the right direction.

Steve comes with them for a few additional trips to the library, but once Bucky appears to be relaxed enough with the process, he stops joining them. Now it is Bruce’s turn to take over chatting calmly about things and trying to read Bucky’s minute expressions.

For the most part, Bucky seems amiable to nearly everything. The only time he ever looks upset by something is if he has reason to think that he has done something wrong. Other than that, he seems to be willing to let Bruce guide their experience at the library.

In time it would be nice to see Bucky show some more independence, but for now Bruce simply does his best to help him expand his wings a little and begin to explore the library on his own.

Bucky is wary of strangers. Bruce isn’t sure if that is because he is afraid of them, if he is afraid for them, or if he simply has no idea how to interact with regular people anymore. It is probably a combination of all of these things, but Bucky doesn’t really have to worry about being bothered by anyone. He may be cautious to a fault, but he gives off a ‘don’t mess with me’ aura that those unpracticed with seeing the nervous man underneath pick up on easily.

The librarians see him often enough though that they aren’t put off by him. Bruce isn’t sure what exactly they think Bucky’s story is, but the library has always been a haven for disadvantaged and struggling people. Though Bucky doesn’t say much, the librarians are always gentle and courteous with him, which Bruce appreciates.

Bucky never borrows anything though.

As time goes on, he becomes confident enough to start browsing the shelves, and Bruce begins to stretch out their visits longer so that he can have time to look through anything that he is interested in—but he never borrows anything.

Once, when he ambles back to find Bucky so that he can take them home, he finds him standing in the history section of the non-fiction selection. The World War Two history section to be exact. He slows as he approaches, and he sees Bucky standing silent, his eyes fixed on a book that had been turned out for display on the shelf.

Bruce flicks his eyes over the cover, and he understands. Captain America, the book title reads in bold blue letters. The World’s First Super Soldier. On the cover is a shot of Steve from the waist up. He is wearing his World War Two uniform, his body angled off to the side and an intense look in his eyes as he looks at something out of frame. The photo is grey toned, like most pictures from back then, but the blues of Steve’s suit and helmet have been recoloured, making them pop out.

Bruce looks at Bucky, and he wonders how much of his friend he remembers. Steve had told him once that he thinks Bucky believes that he had always been the Asset, and he wonders how that perception must mix with Bucky’s past life with Steve.

He takes a step closer and Bucky’s head twitches to look at him, his shoulders drawing up ever so slightly as he braces himself. Bruce, meanwhile, does his best to look as relaxed and non-threatening as possible. “Do you want to borrow it?” he asks quietly, trying to portray the fact that Bucky is allowed to do that if he wants to.

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders eases at his calm response, and he turns back to eye the book on the shelf. Bruce stays standing patiently beside him, but he isn’t surprised when Bucky ultimately shakes his head, his hair falling around his face.

“Alright,” he says gently. “You can always look at it later if you want to. We should be heading out soon.”

Bucky nods and turns to follow him. He is as quiet as usual, but Bruce notes that he steps up to walk side by side with him, instead of staying a foot behind him, like he usually would. The Other Guy shifts in the back of his mind, a distinctly happy feel to his presence, and Bruce can’t help the smile that grows on his face as he and Bucky step out of the building.

As the months roll on, Bucky continues to show signs of progress as he works to undo what Hydra had done to him. An accidental triggering by Clint has Tony volunteering what he calls ‘BARF tech’ to try to rewrite Bucky’s conditioned response to Hydra’s trigger words.

Bruce isn’t very involved with that process, but things appear to go more or less smoothly from the outside. At one point he is aware that something shown during the sessions had deeply upset both Tony and Bucky, but he doesn’t ask for a lot of details as he and the other Avengers carefully try to help the two of them deal with it.

He continues his library trips with Bucky, and he works with Tony in the labs on whatever takes the man’s fancy. It takes a while, but with time the two of them process whatever it was that had happened to them, and the sessions start up again.

Of course, by that point, Tony gets put on active duty again, and so he starts to shift most of the BARF tech session duties onto his employee, Quintin Beck. That turns out to be an absolutely terrible idea because as soon as they are alone, Beck reveals a previously unknown dark side and tries to trigger Bucky into being the Winter Soldier. For real.

Tony manages to stop it in time, and Bucky manages to resist the trigger words themselves, but after everything is over Bruce has to go and meditate for an hour or so. The Other Guy has opinions about Beck. Like how he would look much better getting hurled through the Tower windows towards the ground.

A bright side to all this though is the fact that Bucky had managed to resist the trigger words, and once Beck is dealt with, they all gather around to reassure him that people aren’t supposed to treat him like a thing.

(The Other Guy has opinions about that too.)

After the Beck incident they are all careful to try to help Bucky cope with what had happened. Bruce knows for a fact that Tony had put a hold on any BARF sessions until further notice, and the team spends their time rotating through the various training and activities they usually do with Bucky.

About a week after the attempted triggering, he takes Bucky to the library again. By now Bucky doesn’t seem quite as shaken up as he had first been when Beck had tried to trigger him. Bruce suspects that their outraged response on his behalf, and his own ability to fight off the trigger words had probably done a lot to help his recovery.

The librarians at the front desk smile at them when they come in, and Bruce offers them a wave. They are recognisable by sight now to most of them, and he feels a little flare of pride when he sees Bucky give them a brief nod of acknowledgement as they walk past. It is a little thing, but something he definitely wouldn’t have done a few months ago.

Bucky peels off from him pretty quickly—which is another thing he wouldn’t have done a few months ago—and Bruce makes himself busy looking through the display of new releases. Since he comes so regularly, there isn’t much there that he hasn’t already seen, and he soon makes his way over to the newspaper section.

He doesn’t read the newspaper often enough to want to subscribe to it—especially living in the Avengers Tower—but it is interesting to flip through, and he has found it a good way to pass the time while he waits for Bucky. The library has several local newspapers, as well as a few national and international ones, and once he is done with those, he moves on to the magazine section.

He has already read most of this month’s issues, but there are a few that he hasn’t looked through yet, and he settles down at the desks by the windows to browse for a while. Every once and a while he will glance up and check to see if Bucky is nearby. Sometimes if the library is too busy, or if something spooks him, Bucky will seek him out so they can leave. It had taken him a while to figure that out though, because Bucky tends to simply stand silently nearby and wait to be noticed, so now he tries to keep an eye out.

Bucky doesn’t seem to be having any issues today though, and Bruce soon sets aside his magazines (he doesn’t put them back on the shelf, since he knows that the librarians prefer when patrons leave used material out, rather than put it away again.) He glances at his watch as he stands up and notices that it has been a while. Usually after the first hour he will go seek out Bucky and check on him. More often than not, that is when they will head home, but sometimes Bucky will have found a book that he wants to look at still, so they will stay longer.

He has yet to borrow anything, but he does seem to enjoy reading books at least.

He still has a little time before he needs to go find Bucky, so he makes his way to the gardening section in the non-fiction. There isn’t really a lot of space in the Tower currently for a garden, but he does enjoy taking care of the plants he has in his room, and he has half-a-mind to talk to Tony about making some kind of rooftop garden space. It is only a vague idea for now, but he searches through the gardening books for a while before pulling out one that looks interesting.

Home Gardens and You, it reads, the cover split into six sections, each frame filled with a different garden plant, be it a sunflower or a clump of purple carrots. He is busy flipping through the book when he hears a soft step beside him, and he looks up to see Kladi, one of the library desk staff.

“Hi Bruce,” she says, offering him a small smile, her long black hair falling over her shoulders in braids. He smiles back, a little confused as to why she is approaching him, and she continues. “You come here with your friend, Bucky, right?”

He nods and closes his book, his mind racing as he tucks it under his arm. “Is something wrong?” he flicks his eyes over and behind her. He hadn't heard anything, and usually Bucky comes to him before anything escalates too badly, but he can’t rule out the possibility that Bucky had been triggered by something—especially so soon after what Beck had done to him.

Kladi shakes her head. “No,” she says, tucking one of her braids behind her ear. “One of our shelvers came across him in the shelves though, and they’re just a little worried for him, so I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind checking on him?”

“Of course,” he says instantly, moving to follow her as she leads him out of the shelves. “Thank you for telling me.”  

Kladi nods back, an edge of seriousness to her face. She doesn’t look too concerned, but Bruce gets the feeling that she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Bucky. Thankfully, Bucky isn’t too far away. He is in the non-fiction section too actually, and Kladi stops as she motions him towards the last set of shelves in the section. “He’s just in there,” she says, and he thanks her again as he steps forward.

His eyes catch on the section label at the end of the shelves, and he isn’t surprised to find Bucky here again. Section 940.5, the label reads. World War Two history.

He steps into the shelves, and he stops as he sees Bucky. He can see why the librarians may have had some concerns. For one thing, Bucky is sitting cross-legged on the floor. He is blocking nearly the whole aisle, and his shoulders are hunched up, his hair shielding his face as he crouches over a book resting in his lap.

Bruce takes a step towards him, and Bucky’s head snaps up, his face pale and his eyes wide as he clutches at the book. Bruce pauses, because he hasn’t seen that tense, fearful look in a long time. Bucky looks like a skittish animal, and in response, Bruce does his best to keep a calm expression on his face as he scans him. Something about that book had definitely sparked something in Bucky, and judging from the section he is sitting in, he can imagine what it is.

And now Bucky is looking at him and clinging to the book like he expects it to vanish in to thin air. Or—more likely—like he expects him to take it away.

De-escalation, he thinks as he carefully sinks down so that he is crouched in front of Bucky. Bucky’s eyes follow him the whole way down, and Bruce isn’t sure if he is actually breathing as he sits frozen, pressing the book into his lap as if to hide it.

He doesn’t know exactly how to put Bucky at ease, but he will do his best. “Do you want to borrow that?” he asks quietly, looking down at the book before meeting his gaze again. “I brought my library card.” He does his best to make everything about his stance and his words portray the fact that Bucky can borrow the book. This is not a trick, he will not get in trouble, and the book will not get taken away.

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, his face gaunt and his eyes searching. Bruce settles and lets himself sit patiently. Despite the tension of the situation, this is honestly the most emotional response Bucky has had to a book yet, and he has all the time in the world for him to make his decision.

At last, Bucky pulls in a breath. His throat flexes and the plastic of the book cover crinkles as he nods.

Bruce doesn’t want to scare him with an overenthusiastic response, but inside, the Other Guy lets out a triumphant rumble. He lets a sliver of a smile fly across his face, pride burning in his chest as he looks at Bucky. “Okay,” he says softly, hoping he can manage not to spook him for the rest of this interaction. “We can do that now, if you want.”

He watches as Bucky swallows uneasily, tension lining his shoulders as he flips the book closed and pulls it into his chest. The movement is quick and smooth, and Bruce notes that Bucky keeps the face of the book pressed into his chest, preventing him from seeing the title.

That’s okay, he doesn’t need to know what the book is, not if it makes Bucky uncomfortable.

He pulls back a little as Bucky shifts to push himself up, and he follows suit, his knees cracking in protest after having knelt on the floor for so long. Bucky’s eyes don’t leave him as they stand, and his other arm comes up to wrap protectively around his book, his breathing so shallow it is almost invisible.

It doesn’t look like Bucky is about to take any initiative here, so Bruce turns to lead him back to the front desk. He is glad now that he had happened to pick up a book for himself, because he thinks that Bucky will be more comfortable if he starts off the interaction for them.

To that end, he steps up to the desk and sets down his book. Kladi is back in her spot by the computer, and she smiles at him as she takes his book and his library card to be scanned. He is sure she is just as aware of Bucky standing behind him like a silent shadow as he is, but she remains unbothered as she chats easily with him about his book’s due date.

She hands back his card and the book, and then he turns back to Bucky, stepping away from the desk a little in an effort to be as inviting as possible. Bucky still looks like he has half a mind to bolt, but he steps forward, his arms still wrapped possessively around his book.

Kladi smiles as he comes closer, but Bucky doesn’t look reassured. He stands in front of the desk, and he remains motionless, only his eyes moving as he flicks his gaze between the checkout desk and his book. His shoulders practically ooze distress, and his arms tighten around his book, the plastic crinkling in his grip.

Okay, if Bucky’s first time borrowing a book is going to end well, then they may need to try something else.

“Maybe…we’ll try self-check out,” he tells Kladi, and she doesn’t even blink as she moves to close out his account. Bucky follows him woodenly as he leads him over to the checkout machines by the door, and he is careful not to touch him. Currently, he is pretty sure this library trip is teetering on the edge between ‘good’ and ‘disastrously bad’ and he is pretty sure crowding Bucky right now would not be a good move.

The Other Guy huffs in agreement, and Bruce is careful to stop a safe distance away from the checkout machines before he holds out his library card. “Here,” he says, hoping that this option will go over better. “Just hold it under the red laser.”

Bucky eyes him warily, before he slowly peels one arm away from his book and accepts the card. Bruce keeps his distance as Bucky very carefully scans the card and then puts the book facedown under the scanner. He still seems overly cautious about him actually seeing what the book is, so he tries to keep his gaze elsewhere while Bucky checks it out. The second the barcode registers, the book is hidden back in Bucky’s protective hold.

He returns the card without meeting his gaze and Bruce tries not to appear off-put or concerned by his behaviour, since he has the feeling that that might just stress Bucky out even more. The transaction is over, at least, and he turns to lead them both out of the library again. Bucky follows him, but he doesn’t step up to walk beside him like he usually does. He blinks a little, but tries not to let it bother him. It is clear that Bucky is slipping back into a few of his older habits right now, and Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if he were clinging to them in an effort to stabilise himself through whatever upset this book has brought.

He can deal with that, he just hopes that once they get to the Tower, Steve can help Bucky with whatever is bothering him so much.

The trip back to the Tower is quiet. Bucky remains a constant step behind him, and Bruce does his best to lead them through the pedestrians without incident. They get to the Tower, and he holds the door open for Bucky as they go in. To be honest, Bucky doesn’t look much better than he did before, His face is still tight with anxiety, and his hold on the book makes it look like he’d much rather swallow it into his own body than have it be visible to the world.

He feels a little uneasy leaving Bucky to head up to his rooms alone, but JARVIS tells him that Steve is already there. He leaves Bucky to ride up in the elevator, and he hopes that things go well once he gets to Steve.

He doesn’t hear much of what happens between Steve and Bucky afterwards. A day or so after the library trip he is aware of both Clint and Natasha throwing Steve concerned glances as he cleans up the common room kitchen. Bruce glances over as well, and he can feel the Other Guy narrow his eyes as they watch Steve. Nothing looks exactly wrong, but there is a certain careful deliberateness to his every move that raises a few red flags.

He sees Clint and Natasha glance at each other as Steve leaves, and Clint raises an eyebrow. “He’s quiet again,” he announces, and Natasha nods.

“I’ll look into it,” she says. And that is that.

A few days after that, Bruce is busy reading his gardening book in the common room. Steve is behind him in the kitchen again, busy wiping down the counters as he cleans up from lunch. The sound of the elevator opening breaks through the calm silence, and he looks up as Natasha comes in. Her gaze drifts over Steve, and he catches a look of satisfaction flash over her face before she comes over to sit next to him on the couch.

He wonders about that. His gardening book fails to hold his attention now that the question is in his brain, and he gives up after a moment, shifting a little so that he can pull out his phone. He can’t ask anything out loud with Steve still there in the background, but he isn’t above sending a text to satisfy his curiosity.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him when her phone buzzes, and he watches as she pulls it out to read his message.

Did you find out what was bothering Steve?

Her mouth twitches at him and her hair swings down as she types back.

Bucky told me he is starting to remember being himself, and not the Asset, she says. I got them to talk to each other. I think they’ll be fine now.

She looks immensely pleased with herself, and Bruce’s mouth quirks up as he reads the message. It is good to hear that Bucky is making progress in remembering himself, and it is definitely a good thing that he and Steve are on the same page about it.

Before he can reply to Natasha’s message, he gets distracted by a sound coming from the kitchen. He glances back as the sound of a gentle humming fills the air, and it takes him a second to realise that Steve is humming quietly to himself as he finishes wiping down the counters.

His gaze meets Natasha’s, their eyes wide as they take in what is happening, and he grins. He has a feeling that, in the end, the book that Bucky had brought home had gone over well.

Chapter Text

Steve stands with Natasha, in a bunker Hydra hadn't told him about, and listens as Zola—another thing Hydra hadn't told him about—outlines their horrible plan to weaponize the Helicarriers against the world.

“You should be grateful, Natalia,” Zola claims, the sounds of his computer brain whirling around them with a sickening buzz. “Hydra can bring peace to six billion people, by sacrificing three million.” His face flickers on screen in glitchy green light. “It is pointless to resist,” he drones. “Your Captain has already seen fit to join us. Soon, you will see reason as well.”

Steve’s stomach drops down to his toes. He fights against tensing, and he hopes that Zola doesn’t notice how quickly the blood drains from his face. A rushing fills his ears, and panic claws at his throat, but he feels strangely detached as he watches Natasha stiffen, her face going blank at the computer’s implications. Her eyes flick briefly to his, before she looks back at the screen.

Not good, he thinks frantically, fighting to keep a neutral expression on his face. He can’t react badly right now. He cannot react. Because he doesn’t know if Zola is connected directly to Hydra. If he tries to deny what he said, or reacts negatively, then Zola could report him to Pierce, and ruin everything he has been working for for the past year.

But, he also realises with despairing clarity that, by staying silent, and fighting not to react…he had just more or less confirmed Zola’s words. If it were a lie, then he would have reacted. He would have jerked in surprise, or shouted, or something. But he hadn't. And Natasha is bound to notice that.

Not good at all.

He can feel Natasha watching him, even as she keeps her face blank and directed away from him. Her movements are slow and controlled as she reaches down to reclaim the USB drive and shut down the computer, Zola’s laughter echoing around them. The green light from the screen dies, but the whirling of Zola’s brain continues, the sound sharp and biting in the sudden oppressive silence. Steve’s pounding heart fills his ears, and his mouth is dry as Natasha turns away with near robotic precision, her eyes clouded as she analyses the bombshell Zola had dropped.

She doesn’t look at him as she marches back towards the elevator, and Steve stumbles over himself to follow. His movements are clumsier than usual—which probably makes him look even guiltier—and his mind races as he tries to get a read on her face.

Natasha isn’t one to fly off the handle before she has assessed the situation, but he knows that as soon as she recalls every suspicious thing he has ever done over the past year—every time he had acted just a little strange because of his undercover work, and also the fact that he had admitted that SHIELD/Hydra had sent him to watch over her—she is going to realise that Zola is technically telling the truth.

He had outright told her he had been sent by SHIELD to watch over her. She knows now that SHIELD is a host for Hydra. She knows who sent him. And this is all less then a day since Fury had been killed in his apartment. And he had been the only witness for that.

Not only that, but Natasha knows the Winter Soldier killed Fury. She already knows the shadiness around Fury’s death. With Zola’s statement, and his reactions…things aren’t looking good for him.

She probably won’t want to believe it. He doubts it will make sense to her—not with his history and not with some of the things he has done (he did give her the USB after all). She probably won’t understand it, and she might even be a little suspicious of Zola’s words…but he is certain his reaction isn’t helping anything. And, after everything they have been through…after Fury’s death…and after he tracked her to the mall… Thanks to Zola, Natasha is going to be suspicious of him. She will have to be. With her history, she can’t risk not being suspicious of him.

And she doesn’t know he is undercover.

He swallows, a headache settling behind his eyes as they get into the elevator. Natasha presses the button, and the doors close with a foreboding finality. His hands are sweaty as he adjusts his shield on his arm, trying to come up with the words to explain himself. After being silent for so long, anything he says now might just seem like some kind of desperate cover story. In Natasha’s eyes, he has had long enough to think up some convincing lie. He has no guarantee she will believe anything he says now.

Of course, she wouldn’t want to believe he is Hydra either. The idea is probably completely baffling to her. But…if it wasn’t true, then he would have denied it by now.

If he could only know what she is thinking than maybe he might have a chance. But she stares ahead at the doors of the elevator, completely silent, her face about as readable as a brick wall.

He breathes in and his thoughts spin as he tries to think of how to defend himself. Before he can say anything, the elevator doors open, and Natasha doesn’t move before he does. He winces, because that single gesture says it all. She doesn’t want him behind her. She doesn’t trust him enough to have her back to him, and even though he knows why, it still hurts.

He squares his shoulders and steps forward without protest, letting Natasha follow him as he marches through the dead, dusty base. Natasha still hasn’t said anything, and the silence presses down on him like a strangling noose. Every second that ticks by feels like another nail in his coffin, but he doesn’t know how to break the silence. His thoughts swarm as he tries to think of something, but his tongue remains dead and lifeless in his mouth.

He is so focused on mentally trying to dig his way out of the pit that Zola has thrown him into, that he is barely paying Natasha any attention anymore. They get outside the bunker, and night has well and truly fallen, the dim light and the dead grass crunching under his feet matching perfectly with his morose mood.

He heads towards the van, Natasha remaining deathly silent behind him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she is still analysing everything she knows about him from the past few months. Zola’s words throw it all into question, and with what they know about the Helicarriers, she can’t afford to take any chances.

He needs to say something. Anything. It doesn’t matter what at this point, he just needs to say something. Anxiety twists into nausea in his stomach, and he swallows dryly as he tries to drag some kind of explanation out into the open.

He doesn’t even get a chance to open his mouth, because behind him, he hears the distinctive click of a safety being flicked off.

He freezes mid-step, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. His breath stalls and his eyes go wide, his blood running cold as his hands come up in an instinctive gesture of surrender.

Terror digs its icy fingers into his spine, and his mind tries to tumble back into memories from the war. Times when he had been held at gunpoint, and he had thought he was going to die. His heart stutters, and he doesn’t think as he half turns to look at Natasha, needing to remind himself that it is her, and not a Nazi soldier.

Her eyes are hard as she stands behind him, the barrel of a handgun pointed square at his back. Her stance is steady, and her hands are tight on the gun, but she doesn’t shoot at the small movement, and he has to believe that she won’t shoot him on the spot.

She is his friend, not the enemy. And he may have ruined that now, but he doesn’t think she will shoot. At least, not this very second. Not without giving him a chance to explain.

Natasha’s jaw clenches. “You have ten seconds,” she bites out, anger swirling in her eyes. “Explain. Now.”

Panic and relief shoot through him in equal measure. He had been right. Natasha is giving him a chance to explain. But if he doesn’t come up with something convincing right now, then he could very well die on the doorstep of his so-called rebirth. His breath catches, and whatever tactical explanation he could have come up with to calmly explain this gets buried under the desperate desire to get one thing straight.

“I’m not Hydra!” he blurts frantically, mentally cursing Zola and remaining ever conscious of the gun aimed at his back. It feels like a living presence on his skin, and a corner of his mind remains active in trying to decide if he can manage to dodge fast enough, should Natasha decide to fire. “I’m undercover in Hydra!”

Natasha’s eyes narrow and she scowls. “Undercover?” she spits, her gaze skeptical.

“Yes,” he insists, his heart pounding painfully against his ribcage, the sound of rushing blood loud in his ears. “I swear I am. Ask Tony— If you have a phone without bugs.” His ramble cuts off as he is forced to swallow, his throat bone-dry. He sucks in a breath. “You can call him and ask, he knows about Hydra too—he’s been helping me infiltrate them.”

Natasha’s gun lowers a fraction of an inch, but she doesn’t relax as she continues to stare at him, and he knows he isn’t quite out of the woods yet. “Explain,” she demands again.

He breathes out shakily and looks down at the yellow grass by his feet. “It…” he licks his lips, trying to figure out where to start. “Back during the Battle of New York,” he decides. “Tony and I saw some footage from JARVIS that revealed that Hydra was part of SHIELD.” He looks back at Natasha. “We didn’t know who wasn’t Hydra at first, so we didn’t tell anyone.”

Natasha’s face goes blank, and he knows she understood the words he hadn't exactly said. We didn’t know if we could trust you.

 He winces internally. This is definitely not how he wanted to have this conversation. “We managed to convince Hydra that I was one of them,” he continues, and a flicker of surprise slides over Natasha’s face. He lets out a breath and does not explain about the time-travelers who had helped with that little mission.

“I’ve been undercover since then,” he says instead, his throat flexing before he continues in a rush. “I’ve been trying to figure out what their plan is. I knew about the Helicarriers, but not what they were going to do with them. Not until Zola revealed it now.”

He stops and darts his eyes over Natasha. “Tony and I were going to tell the rest of the Avengers and Fury about the Helicarriers and Hydra,” he says softly. “We were, but we didn’t have time before— well...” He shrugs and looks away.

Before Bucky killed Fury.

Natasha’s brow pulls together, and her gun doesn’t lower. Her lips thin doubtfully as she looks at him and her grip tightens on her gun. “How did they think you were Hydra?”

He grimaces. Yeah, now is definitely not the time to bring up time-travellers from the future. Instead he goes with the excuse he had given Pierce when he had asked that same question. “I had just woken up to a new century,” he says quietly, meeting Natasha’s eyes. “And everything was still horrible, and I was pretty bitter. I told Hydra that I thought we needed a new approach.”

Natasha’s eyes flick over him before something uncertain shifts in her stance. He sees her bite the inside of her cheek, and her gaze darts away as she glares off to the side. After a few seconds, she looks back, her eyes hard and vulnerable at the same time.

“Fury wasn’t Hydra?” she asks, and Steve realises that she is probably having to reconcile the fact that she had been essentially working for a terrorist organisation this whole time. Of course she would want to know if her boss had been one of them.

“No,” he says softly. “But Hydra was the one who killed him…” He swallows and looks down. “And I couldn’t stop it.”

Behind him, Natasha stands in silence, and he waits, hoping that he hasn’t managed to permanently ruin their friendship over this. He has said what he could. There is still more he will need to explain, but it is up to Natasha now what happens next.

At last, the sharp sound of a safety being flicked back on fills the air, and he turns back to see Natasha stowing her gun back on her person.

Her eyes meet his, a complicated swirl of emotions in their depths. “I still have questions,” she says, short and quiet. “But right now, we can stop Hydra’s Helicarriers.” Her jaw clenches, and she looks him over. “Do you have a plan for that?”

He lets out a relieved breath and lowers his hands. “I have an idea.”    

Chapter Text

At first, Tony doesn’t know what to make of Steve Rogers. They had clashed badly on the Helicarrier. He had said some not-so-great things that maybe-he-regrets-saying-now, but Steve had also had some cutting remarks to make, and it is something of a miracle that they had managed to coalesce and actually fight Loki in the end.

Working together to fight egomaniacs aside, Tony hadn't really been expecting much more other than the same cold stiffness Steve had been exuding (when he wasn’t boiling with loosely tethered anger) after the battle. But…but that hadn't quite been what had happened.

He doesn’t exactly know when it had all first started but…it had probably begun when he had woken up after almost dying in space. There Steve had been, sitting next to him, his face and suit covered in ash, a look of relief on his face.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” he had said as he had reached down to help pull him up, and Tony...had believed him.

And now, looking back, he thinks that is the very first glimpse he had ever gotten of Steve, just Steve, and nothing else. That Steve had folded away quickly enough while they had all tramped back to his Tower to go collect Loki. Tony might have even forgotten about the moment between them…except then his arc reactor had given out, and he had nearly had a heart-attack, and he had found himself in med-bay, right next to the one and only Steve Rogers.

Apparently, Steve had had his own strange encounter with Loki and the scepter, which is why he is in med-bay. Tony doesn’t even have time to process that before JARVIS is speaking up and claiming he has important surveillance footage for them to see—in private.

After that he had mostly forgotten about the flicker of Steve Rogers he had seen, because he and the Captain had been rather busy confronting the possibility of time-travelers, and a Hydra conspiracy nestled inside of SHIELD.

And that is when the flickers of Steve Rogers come back full force. The instant JARVIS plays the other-Steve’s fateful Hail Hydra on the monitor, Steve lets out a cry of alarm and spins away, his face pale.

At this point, Tony doesn’t really know what to do. He is shocked too by the reveal, and his mind remains frozen for a few seconds as he watches Steve stumble against one of the workbenches. His hand slams down to brace himself against the table, and Tony can see that his eyes are wide and distant, staring at something far away while his shoulders heave.

And then Tony remembers the look on Steve’s face when he had stormed into the lab on the Helicarrier, a Hydra weapon in hand.

His mind kicks into gear and he scrambles to try to bring Steve around. Back in the Helicarrier he hadn't been able to see much beyond the fury in the man’s face, but that is all gone now. Steve looks pale and shaken, and—well, young.

He doesn’t really know what to do with this Steve. He could handle the furious Captain from before. He is good at dealing with angry people who look down on him. This is different though, and he has absolutely no idea how to deal with it.

“I’m just as lost as you are right now, alright?” he cajoles desperately, his hands out as he scans Steve. He is present now, at least, but there is a look in his eyes as he stares at the frozen screen that makes Tony uncomfortable. “You gonna be okay?”

In front of him, Steve huffs out a dry, humourless laugh and gives his head a brisk shake. “I’ll have to be,” he says grimly, and Tony doesn’t like the wording of that at all. Steve Rogers is already slipping away from him though, and he watches as Captain Rogers straightens his shoulders. His eyes harden as he fixates on the screens. “Is there still more footage?”

And that, he realises, is going to be that. He had seen another glimmer of Steve, (and he is beginning to realise now that Steve and Rogers are definitely two different things), but it had faded away just as quickly. It is just as well, because they need to watch the footage and see what on earth is happening, but…it is a tad…disconcerting.

He keeps seeing bits of the more vulnerable Steve, now that he is looking for it. The shortness of Steve’s reply when the other-Steve had brought up Bucky Barnes, his caginess over his compass, his panicked outburst when Tony had first suggested he pretend to be Hydra… All of it feels like little road markers on the map of Steve Rogers that he is suddenly building in his head, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He isn’t good at this sort of thing, He really isn’t. He hadn't even been able to tell Pepper when he had been dying a few years ago. He really, really isn’t the person cut out to deal with whatever Steve has got going on.

Except…except, well, there isn’t anyone else who can do it either. Right now, Hydra is very much a thing within SHIELD. They can’t trust SHIELD, and they can’t trust the other Avengers either.

The only people he and Steve can trust right now, are each other.

The irony of this situation is not lost on him.

Not even twenty-four hours ago he had been bitter and edgy around a Captain America that seemed to hate him just as much. And now…now he is planning a top-secret undercover mission with him and wondering about his mental health.

And Steve just keeps giving him fuel to feed that fire of worry.

A few days after the battle, Steve comes to live in his Tower, and he has the gall to bring only a single small box, and a duffle bag of stuff. Next to him, in the elevator, Tony stares and frowns, his hands frozen on his tablet. “Where’s your stuff?”

Steve lifts the box as he shrugs. “It’s here.” The elevator doors ding open onto the floor with Steve’s room, and Tony follows him out, trying to calculate how much stuff he could have managed to fit in there. Not much.

“Yeah, where’s the rest of it?” he asks. He isn’t surprised that Steve hadn't dragged everything up here just yet, but he had come here on a motorcycle, and he has a sneaking suspicion that—

“Probably in a museum somewhere,” Steve replies in a dry tone, a neutral expression on his face as he confirms his suspicions. His fingers go white as his hands tighten on the box, and he shrugs with deceptive ease. “This is all I’ve got.”

Haha.

Tony doesn’t laugh, because it isn’t funny, but his brain tosses out the sound as he tries to process what Steve is telling him. Everything he owns right now fits in a single box and bag because he had been dead for seventy years and his stuff had been turned into museum pieces.

He is starting over from square one, basically, and it looks like he hasn’t had long to start collecting possessions again.

Actually…how long has it been since he got resurrected? His brow furls as he thinks over the question and follows Steve into his new room. The file SHIELD had given him hadn't actually said. They had mentioned finding him in the ice…but they hadn't said when. His mind travels back to the bugs he had planted on the Helicarrier. They hadn't been able to find much on Hydra, but he imagines they should lend some insight in this situation.

Before that though, he takes Steve back down to his lab so that he can look through his phone and laptop and see if SHIELD/Hydra are spying on him. It turns out that they are, and while that shouldn’t really be a surprise, Tony finds himself grinding his teeth about it anyways.

“So, they know the stuff you’ve been looking at online,” he says, pushing away from the laptop and trying to calm himself. He knew SHIELD was shady, now he just knows it is so much more than that. He pulls off his safety glasses and looks over to where Steve is waiting. “Anything we should worry about?”

He kind of doubts Steve could have searched anything problematic yet, but if he had happened to search something blatant like I hate Hydra and also Nazis, right before they try to convince Hydra that he is one of them…they might have some problems.

Across the table, Steve shrugs. “I’ve just been using it to look up the history I missed,” he says. “SHIELD gave me a file. I’ve been trying to catch up.”

Haha.

Tony’s brain hiccups over the words, and he can’t help staring at Steve. He repeats the words over in his head, and they line up again to imply the same thing.

“By yourself?” he asks, his mind distant as he tries to even fathom that. He had sort of just assumed that SHIELD had given Steve a full six-week rundown of modern history or something. But, of course, now he is remembering all the times on the Helicarrier where Steve hadn't understood a reference, or when he had understood something and had seemed particularly jubilant about it.

He can’t have… SHIELD must have done more than give him a few files, right? He can’t have been doing this all by himself.

Oblivious to his inner monologue, Steve seems to take his words the wrong way, his shoulders stiffening. “I know how to use a computer,” he answers tightly, and Tony can practically feel him pulling away from him.

He fights to keep from wincing. “No that’s not…” He swallows. He doesn’t know how to explain to Steve the tangled wrongness of what he had just said. Instead, he tries to move on. “Okay, anyways, they know your internet history…” he picks up the phone and waves it at Steve. “You ever called or texted anyone on this thing that we should be worried about?”

Steve huffs, the tension easing a little from his shoulders. “Who would I call?” he asks ruefully.

“…Right.” He puts the phone down, his brain helpfully reminding him that probably, nearly everyone Steve had ever known is dead now. Before all this, he hadn't thought a lot about what waking up in this century must have been like for Steve. Now he can’t stop thinking about it.

Looking at Steve’s carefully shuttered expression, he gets the feeling he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Well,” he says finally, opting to move on again. “If we take out the bugs, SHIELD/Hydra would notice, so it’s best to just leave them in. Don’t call or do anything suspiciously not-Hydra on them, kay?”

Steve cracks a dry smile, and Tony decides that is good enough for now.

He turns away to start working on Steve’s new suit designs (because SHIELD’s suit doesn’t have much going for it to be honest.) He had already made up several mock-ups (because sleeping last night had been interrupted by a panic-inducing dream of falling through space, and after that he had decided he had spent enough time in bed for the night.)

Steve seems to like the stealth-suit one he had designed best, and Tony smiles proudly. “Its colours are more muted,” he explains as he shows off the holographic projections. “So it’s less of a screaming target.”

And then Steve goes off and talks about the war, and how his suit had made him an easy target, and how everyone wanted to target him—which Tony had not thought about, and Howard had neglected to mention—and Tony is left trying not to think about what it must have been like being the first target choice on the battlefield.

“Must have been tough,” he manages, because he can’t think of anything else to say. His dad’s stories about Captain America had mostly talked about his successful missions, and how much of an asset he was in the field. Tony has a sudden feeling that Howard either hadn’t known, or hadn't shared some of the grittier details of the war.

He had talked about Steve defying all odds and racing through bullet storms, but Tony hadn't really thought about how that would be something he would have to do all the time, and not for a heroic mission every once and a while.

Steve seems just as uncomfortable as him with their foray into emotional territory, and he shrugs away. “I wore my jacket sometimes if I wanted to blend in a bit,” he says, and Tony watches as his hands twitch up to tug at sleeves that aren’t there.

His mind’s eye flashes back to a familiar dusty old box from his childhood, and his mind spins as he turns away. He thinks back to the single bag and box Steve had come with, and an idea quietly takes root in his brain.

Later, he has JARVIS see if he can hack SHIELD and find out how long ago they had found him in the ice.

The date MAY 17, 2012, stares back at him, and he glares at it with folded arms.

That is the day Steve had woken up from being frozen in the ice. Barely more than two weeks before he had helped them fight off an alien army from space. He hasn’t even been out of the ice for a month yet. He thinks back to Steve’s admission and the files SHIELD had given him, and his glare grows as anger churns in his gut.

The box and the bag make more sense now. Of course Steve has nothing. Of course he—

He breathes in, his eyes glinting as he waves away the holographic display. “JARVIS,” he orders sharply, the idea from earlier rising again. “I need you to look for something.”

oOo

It takes him a while to find the box. It isn’t like he had cared a lot about it for most of his life. His dad had been obsessed with Steve Rogers, and after a while Tony had wanted to simply forget the man existed at all. He hadn't really been big on keeping track of his dad’s memorabilia.

He actually worries that he might have thrown it away at some point, in a fit of anger at his dad or Steve. JARVIS eventually manages to locate it though, back in his Malibu mansion. He arranges for it to be sent over—along with DUM-E and U, since it looks like he is going to be staying in the Tower for a while now—and when he opens it, he is gratified to find exactly what he is looking for.

He doesn’t give it to Steve right away though. For one thing, the days had crept by so that his birthday is actually nearing, and for two…Hydra finally raises its scaly head and contacts Steve.

Tony spends several nerve-wracking hours in his lab while Steve goes into the viper’s nest to meet with the head snake. He finds it hard to focus while he waits, his brain sluggish and tired. He hadn't slept well again last night—hadn't slept well for most of the last few weeks actually—and he had woken up Pepper again with his tossing and turning. He knows she is worried about him. She and JARVIS had both been laying down subtle and not-so-subtle hints about trauma and therapy, but he remains stubborn about it.

This isn’t the first traumatic event he has lived through. He had survived Afghanistan and everything that had entailed. Really, flying a missile up into space isn’t that big of a deal in comparison. Sure, he had thought he was going to die, but he hadn't, and, anyway, that hadn't even been the first time he had feared for his life. He had survived being tortured. He can handle a few nightmares.

His circular thoughts get cut off as JARVIS announces Steve’s return, and he feels a wave of relief. Steve had made it back—which is a good sign—and now maybe he can have something else to focus on besides his own messed up brain.

Steve looks drained as he comes in—and probably the fact that Tony can see that is a further testament to his exhaustion—but he had been successful. Hydra believes his change of heart—or is at least willing to test him out a little.

Yay for them.

They can’t do much about Hydra yet though. Steve still needs to finish up on his SHIELD training (which, from what Tony can tell, seems to consist of more files and educational videos, as well as actual emergency response and physical training.) Once that is ready, he will be assigned to a team (which they know, thanks to Pierce, will be full of Hydra agents), and after that…well, after that they start digging, and hope Hydra doesn’t get too suspicious of Steve in the meantime.

It is a somewhat risky plan, but it seems to be working so far, and Tony distracts himself from his stress by focusing on planning Steve’s birthday party. Pepper insists on something laid back and classy, which is probably for the best. Despite working with Steve for about a month now, he still doesn’t really know a lot about him, so he just hopes the party goes over well.

It is simpler and quieter than any of his own parties have been, but Steve seems to appreciate it. The Avengers chat over take-out, introduce Steve to Uno, and fail miserably at singing happy birthday in a recognisable tune (but that is fine because Steve laughs louder and fuller than Tony has ever heard him do before, and he himself feels like his face will split from grinning.)

After cake, it is finally time for presents. A few communal gifts from the group had felt like the best route to take, and Tony waits nervously while Steve unwraps a sketchbook, and then some drawing pencils. Steve takes forever about carefully peeling the wrapping paper, and Tony fights against tapping his foot anxiously.

At last, it is finally his turn, and he gets up from his seat next to Pepper to go and fetch the box. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, just a plain cardboard box, but he knows exactly how much stuff Steve currently has, and he really hopes this will help make up for some of that.

That doesn’t stop the swoop of apprehension that flips through his stomach as he finally hands the thing over. He sits back next to Pepper, his mouth dry. “My dad…” He swallows, trying to give some sort of explanation. “My dad kept some of your stuff after the war, and it was just gathering dust on my shelf so I figured…”

Steve’s eyes are wide, and he doesn’t say anything as he reaches to pull open the box. His lips part as he stares down into his lap, and Tony watches with bated breath as he pulls out the first item. It is his jacket, the one he had talked about, and he holds it almost reverently, his eyes glassy in the evening light.

The room is dead quiet as he pulls the jacket close to him, keeping it on his lap as he reaches into the box to see what else is inside. The jacket had taken up most of the space, but Tony knows that his dad had also kept some files on the serum, a folder of pictures from the war, and what looked like a journal and sketchbook.

He doesn’t exactly know how he feels about his dad having kept all this stuff. Obviously it is good that he has it now, so that he can give it back… But what right did Howard have to it in the first place? He doesn’t really know what else they could have done with the stuff though. Steve didn’t have any living family when he had died, and Bucky Barnes was dead too, so Tony isn’t sure what claim the Barneses family had—if any—on his stuff so…

He can see why a lot of Steve’s stuff had slipped away into collectors’ items while he had been dead. Besides Howard, Peggy, and maybe the Barneses, who else was supposed to hang on to any of it?

In front of him, the line between Steve and Captain Rogers looks as thin as glass. Steve’s eyes shine and his hands tremble just slightly as he begins to set the things back in his box. “Thank you,” he says, his voice rough as he looks at him and wraps a hand around his jacket. “This—thank you.”

Tony’s throat swells with mixed emotion and he manages to smile at Steve. He is relieved that the present had gone over well. Looking at Steve, he knows it has touched him—but he doesn’t think that either he or Steve want to dwell on the heavy emotions that have permeated the room as a result.

Instead, he pushes himself up from his seat. “Okay well,” he reaches a hand down to help Pepper up from the couch and the other Avengers begin stirring as they wake up from the heavy atmosphere. “I think it’s time to get some champagne going, the fireworks are about to start.”

Steve seems surprised but amiable, and he sets aside his presents as they cluster around, and Pepper begins handing out champagne. The common room exits out onto a high balcony, and Tony leads them out into the night air, chatting easily about the view as they wait for the show to begin.

Thor needs a crash course on what fireworks are—apparently they have something similar on Asgard, but magic-based—and he finds himself explaining the various pyrotechnics to the god with Clint. Most of them are situated near the front of the balcony, where they can get a better view, but Steve stays near the back, a relaxed look on his face as he nurses his glass and regards them all.

The start of the fireworks show keeps Tony’s mind off Steve. The lights are brilliant and bright, and he sneaks his hand into Pepper’s as he watches the display, pausing every once and a while to mention the name of one of the fireworks to Thor. Red, white, and blue are, of course, the theme for the night, but there is enough variety to make things interesting.

“I always forget how loud these are!” Pepper shouts over the booming thunderclaps, and Tony nods emphatically. As Iron Man, he is no stranger to loud noises, but some of these fireworks practically make his teeth rattle.

The show begins to wind down after about half an hour, before lighting up for the end finale. After the final cacophony of exploding lights, he and the other Avengers turns to head in. Thor is busy chatting loudly to Clint about how this show compares to some he had seen on Asgard, and Tony shivers a little, tugging at the long sleeves of his shirt as they head in. The night air is chilly, but he is distracted from that as he steps inside and glances around.

“Where’s Steve?” he comments, his eyes flicking over the group. Steve isn’t among them, which is a little weird. His eyes glance over to the couches, and his eyebrows raise in confusion when he sees that Steve’s presents are still there. He hadn't grabbed them, so why had he left? Did he need a bathroom break or something?

“Uh,” he looks over as Bruce speaks up, the man shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “I saw him leave. I think he broke his champagne glass or something? He said he needed to change.” Tony blinks in surprise and he watches Natasha head out to the balcony for a moment before coming back in.

“Yeah, there’s glass out there,” she says, heading towards the kitchen for a broom. “Was he okay?”

Tony looks back at Bruce and he shrugs uncertainly. “I don’t think it cut him or anything,” he says. His eyes dart up, looking worried. “I sort of expected him to come back…but he’s been gone for a while.”

Tony chews on his bottom lip, his eyes drifting over to the presents again. “I’ll go check on him,” he announces, nearly surprising himself with the offer. “We need to bring him his stuff anyways.” He goes over to start collecting Steve’s things, a tendril of worry trying to make itself a home in his head. “JARVIS,” he calls, trying to keep calm and rational about this. “Where’s Steve now?”

“Captain Rogers is currently in his room,” JARVIS replies, and Tony nods, hefting the box of presents in his arms.

“Right,” he mutters under his breath. “Here goes nothing.”

He makes it to Steve’s suite without too much difficulty. JARVIS lets him in without protest, which is appreciated (although that also makes him worry, because usually JARVIS only does that if something is…well…wrong.) The lights are dim in the apartment as he enters, and he notices immediately that the windows are blacked out, making it harder to see anything.

“Did Steve ask for a lockdown?” he asks with concern as he navigates his way through the living room, searching for any sign of Steve. So far, the rooms are empty of any super soldiers, and…also empty of pretty much anything else that hadn't come with the rooms already. He had known that this would probably be the case, but it still feels wrong to see it.

JARVIS replies in a quieter tone than usual. “He did not,” he says, a half-pause lingering in the air before he continues. “I felt it advisable, given the circumstances.”

Hmm. That doesn’t really bode well.

“Steve?” he calls, hoping for a response. JARVIS had said that he was here. But so far, he hasn’t seen or heard anything from him. His call gets no response, and he has no choice but to shuffle towards the bedroom.

JARVIS would tell me if he died or something, he reminds himself as he eases the door open with one hand. That is part of his privacy protocols. He is allowed to break them if someone’s life is in danger.

There is no answer to his call, and Steve’s room is just as dark as the living room. He pauses for a second, wondering if he could possibly be in the bathroom—because he can’t think of anywhere else he could be—when his ears pick up the quiet sounds of someone breathing.

A shiver runs through him and his mouth goes dry as he steps into the room. “Steve?” he calls again. His eyes glance over the dim interior. There isn’t much inside. On the far wall is a closet, the door currently closed. The bed sits in the middle of the room, and there is a desk under the window. The window is blacked out too, and the darkness of the room makes his arc reactor seem bright, even through his shirt.

The breathing is coming from past the bed, and he moves uneasily towards it, his heart pounding. The bed—unlike the strict neatness of the rest of the room—has a rumpled look to it, and he notes as he comes around that the comforter is missing.

He glances up towards the corner of the room and finds it immediately.

There, crouched defensively in the corner, like a dog trapped in a back alley, is Steve. Tony’s breath stutters as he lays eyes on him, and Steve doesn’t even blink. His eyes are blank as he stares out in front of himself, his hands clenched in tight fists on the blanket around his shoulders. His breaths are steady, and the only sound that fills the silent room. Tony takes a hesitant half-step forward, and Steve doesn’t even twitch.

Oh…kay.

It is immediately obvious to him that something is very wrong. Steve is almost terrifying in his stillness, and Tony has absolutely no idea what to do about it.

“JARVIS,” he whispers hoarsely, his eyes trained on Steve. “How long has he been like this?”

JARVIS’ voice is just as quiet as before. “Captain Rogers has been here for most of the fireworks display.”

Tony’s lips press together. A little less than half-an-hour then. Not great. And, fireworks. Of course. He resists the urge to smack his hand to his forehead in realisation. That would be why JARVIS had blacked out the windows and probably soundproofed the room. If Steve was reacting badly to them then…He sighs. He supposes this sort of thing wouldn’t be enough to force JARVIS to call someone, but he wishes they had been able to find Steve earlier.

He…also wishes he had thought about this problem beforehand. Fireworks are such an automatic part of Fourth of July celebrations that he hadn't even paused to think—

He shakes his head and pulls in a determined breath. He can’t be all self-deprecating now. He needs to focus. Blaming himself in the dark isn’t helping Steve at all. He swallows and carefully sets Steve’s presents down on his bed, his eyes still fixed on the hunched figure in the corner.

“Alright,” he says, licking his lips and trying to steady his pulse. The dark makes it hard to read Steve’s face, but he doesn’t think his presence has been noted yet. “Any suggestions JARVIS?”

There is an irony in asking his AI for help for Steve, when he has yet to do it for himself, but he ignores it for now, paying close attention to JARVIS’ reply.

“I would refrain from touching him, Sir,” JARVIS says. “And try to appear as non-threatening as possible.”

Tony takes that to heart. He takes care not to get too close to Steve, but he kneels down in front of him, his heart pounding as he flicks his eyes over his empty expression. There is not a shred of Captain Rogers visible right now. All of it is the vulnerable Steve Rogers he has been catching glimpses of, and it is hard to stomach.

“Steve?” he calls, his voice feeling too loud in the heavy silence. “Steve, you there?”

Steve blinks, and he isn’t sure if that is a sign of life or not. He swallows and tries again. It takes a few more rounds of calling Steve’s name and chatting lightly about nothing before his blinks begin to draw out an actual person.

He feels almost weak with relief as Steve’s head twitches and his breath quickens, his blinks heavy and slow.

“Steve,” he gets out, resisting the urge to reach out and steady him. “Steve, hey.”

A look of confusion makes its way across Steve’s face as he stares up at him. “Tony?” he slurs, his voice sounding tired, as though his tongue isn’t quite working yet. “What’s going on?”

Tony regards him, wondering how to approach this. “Bruce said you left,” he starts, deciding to begin with the basics, since Steve still seems kind of out of it. “But then you didn’t come back, and we got a little worried.” He swallows and flicks his eyes over Steve and his blanket. “JARVIS said you were in your room, so I came to check on you and bring your stuff.”

His hand waves vaguely towards the pile of presents on the bed, and Steve follows the movement with a slow gaze. “Oh,” he says after a moment. “Thanks.” He gives another slow blink and shifts a little in his corner. “I’m okay. You didn’t have to do that.”

Tony stares at him and raises a single eyebrow in disbelief. The effect is probably completely lost thanks to the dark, but it makes him feel better. Does Steve really expect him to believe him? Is he just supposed to walk out the door now and leave Steve to sit in the corner in the dark?

Not likely, he thinks pointedly. He may not be good at this sort of thing, but he definitely is not about to just walk out.

Which means the only other option is sitting down and actually dealing with this. He lets out a breath and shifts to lean against the wall next to Steve. If Steve had his legs out, their legs would form a nice L shape in the dark. As it is, Steve remains crouched with his knees hunched up to his chest, and Tony is left to awkwardly start a conversation he is pretty sure neither of them want to have.

“Okay,” he starts. “So, this isn’t really my forte here, but…” He shrugs and fiddles with his fingers trying to think of what to say. “Generally people who are fine don’t make a habit of crouching defensively in the corner of their room.”

Steve tenses, and Tony grasps desperately at whatever threads he can find to keep this going. “Pepper keeps saying talking helps,” he says, thinking back to her insistence in that area. “So… so…” Ugh. He is not good at this. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

His cheeks heat with embarrassment, and he watches as Steve ducks his head, his hands tugging the blanket tighter around his shoulders. His back presses into the wall behind him, and he doesn’t look up from his knees as he speaks.

“I’m fine,” he says, and Tony bites his tongue to keep from repudiating that fact. “The party was really good, I enjoyed it, it’s just…” his fingers knead the blanket around his shoulders, “the fireworks…I wasn’t really expecting it. I used to love fireworks as a kid, but now…”

He looks away, and given what he had already worked out, Tony hazards a guess. “They’re triggering.” Yes. That is a term he knows well. Pepper and JARVIS had mentioned it often enough, even if he never wanted to admit if it could ever apply to him.

Beside him, Steve shrugs uneasily, his eyes lifting. “I…I don’t know,” he admits slowly. “But I kind of freaked out.” His eyes drop back down, and Tony tries to find something vaguely encouraging to say.

“I’m pretty sure that’s okay—” he starts off, only to get cut off by Steve’s glare.

“No it’s not,” he insists, a sudden sharpness to his voice as he darts his head up. “You can’t tell… you can’t tell anyone okay?” His hands spasm on the blanket, and even in the dark Tony can make out the desperate gleam in his eyes. “I promise I’ll be better but if Natasha and Clint tell SHIELD about this then they’ll take me off the team and we’ll lose our chance to beat Hydra so—”

Wait what? Who had said anything about—

“Woah, woah. Cap slow down,” he waves a hand as he tries to follow the leaps of logic Steve is scaling. “Okay. Just…just wait a second, okay?”

Steve complies, looking unhappy about it, and Tony rubs the bridge of his nose. He probably shouldn’t be surprised that Steve has opinions about telling people about this sort of thing, but he really, really isn't the person to sort this out.

He says just as much, but finds himself trailing off in the end, the light from his arc reactor shining dimly in the dark as he thinks. He isn’t good at this but…but even if Steve decides to make the same choice as him, someone should at least talk to him about this, right? He has JARVIS and Pepper to make suggestive comments, and now he has a feeling that Steve needs to hear those very same things.

He squeezes his eyes shut and fiddles with his jeans. Might as well, he thinks, opening his eyes. He is already here, dipping his toes in the water. He might as well jump in.

“I don’t know how much anyone’s talked to you about this sort of thing,” he says slowly, his eyes on his knees as he feels his way around the vulnerable sentence. “And I’m not entirely sure how this sort of thing was dealt with back in your time…”

Steve shifts next to him. “What thing?” he asks, his voice rough in the dark.

He gestures vaguely, still not quite looking at Steve. “This whole thing. Soldiers not doing too hot after coming home from the war.”

Inexplicably, that puts Steve more on edge than before, and Tony looks over as he stiffens, practically vibrating with tension. “I’m not… I’m not fatigued,” he snaps, a defensive hunch to his shoulders. The anger in his voice is unexpected, and Tony stares at him. “I can still fight,” he continues in an apparent non sequitur. “I can still lead the Avengers, you don’t hafta report it—”

Okay, wait a minute.

“No one’s saying you can’t fight okay?” he cuts in, because Steve seems to be taking his words the wrong way. “You’re not broken or anything Rogers, from what I know it’s a perfectly normal reaction to a traumatic event—” His mouth snaps shut as Pepper’s words echo back to him and he runs a hand through his hair. Dark amusement bubbles up in his chest. “Geez,” he mumbles under his breath. “I’m making more progress now then I have since this whole thing started.”

“What?” Steve asks, and he jerks.

He looks down and mutters a quiet curse. He had forgotten about the enhanced-senses part of the serum. Well. No avoiding it now.

He tilts his head and gives Steve a wry smile. “You think you’re the only one who freaks out Rogers?” Steve’s eyes remain fixed on him as he talks. “I don’t know what your whole deal is, but I could probably match you one for one.”

Not that he had really admitted that much before now, but here we are.

Steve stares at him. “You…” his eyes scan him. “You don’t like fireworks?”

He shifts. Okay, he will admit that fireworks aren’t that big of a deal for him. It is mostly... He ducks his head, his hands tightening on his legs. “Uh,” he manages, his teeth clenching as he tries to talk. This is not what he expected to be doing tonight, but, in for the penny in for the pound, right? “I um…can’t sleep.”

There. The admission is out there. He sucks in a breath, feeling lightheaded as he continues. “Turns out flying through a portal and almost dying in space is pretty traumatic so, I mostly spend my nights in my workshop.”

“Oh.” Steve pauses, as if unsure how to respond. “Does…does Fury know?”

Tony’s brow pulls together at the odd question. It isn’t exactly what he had been expecting after his admission, but Steve does seem pretty preoccupied with SHIELD finding out about any of this.

“Don’t see how it’s much of his business,” he says, his fingers massaging the thread of his jeans as he talks. “But…I haven’t told him if that’s what you’re asking.” His lips quirk up in dry amusement. “Haven’t told anyone really,” he continues. “Pepper knows of course, we share the same bed…”

He shrugs uncomfortably, that has been hard for them recently. “She wants me to go see someone about it,” he says, the light from his arc reactor flickering as he rubs at his chest. “But…I’m not really good with the whole, talking-about-stuff before-I-self-destruct-shtick.”

Steve looks like he is about to respond, but he then gets distracted by the word ‘shtick’, because apparently he has never heard it before. Tony keeps forgetting how little time he has actually spent in this century. It is little things like this that really stick out and jump up and down at him.

JARVIS defines the word, (and informs them it was coined in the 60s), and Steve settles back again before turning to him.

“So…” he starts off slowly, his eyes glancing over him, a small line between his brows. “There’s people… Pepper wants you to talk to someone?”

Right, okay. They are back to talking about this.

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging in what he hopes is a nonchalant manner, and not an I-barely-know-what-I’m-talking-about-because-I-have-been-avoiding-this-topic-studiously manner. “There’s doctors now that you can talk to,” he continues. “There’s different kinds of therapies I guess, and Pepper says they are supposed to help. I haven’t really tried any yet but—”

And then he looks up and notices that Steve’s face is pale and frozen again, his eyes wide and empty. His stomach drops, because this is exactly the kind of thing he had been trying to avoid, and he flounders for a moment, completely at a loss for what could have set Steve off.

He forgets about keeping his distance, and he reaches for him instinctively. “Hey, Cap. You still with me?”

Steve comes back faster this time, his breath stuttering sharply as he flinches away from his hand. “Don’t—” He starts, a frantic edge to his voice. Tony draws back in alarm, his eyes wide as his mind scrambles. Steve’s hand follows him though, snagging his sleeve in his grip.

He freezes, and Steve’s eyes are wild and intent when he looks at him. “Don’t,” he says again, his gaze imploring. “If the doc thinks you’re crazy then they’ll send you away, an’ once you get into one of those places you never come out.”

Tony’s mouth falls open.

What?

What is he talking about?

Tony doesn’t know how they’ve gotten to wherever Steve has jumped to, but wherever he is, it isn’t a good place. Steve’s eyes are round and distant, his breathing speeding up as he clings to his sleeve and stares blankly past his ear.

“Okay…” he says slowly, reaching up carefully and putting his hand over Steve’s on his arm, hoping to pull him back. “Okay, so we’re just going to breathe for a second ‘cuz I think we’re talking about two different things.” He knows that some people are reluctant to try therapy—there is a reason he hasn’t taken Pepper up on her suggestions after all—but the abject terror Steve exudes at the mention of treatment leads him to believe something else is going on.

He watches as Steve breathes in, his breath shuddering as he focuses down on the spot of light from his arc reactor. Tony breathes too, trying to gage Steve’s mental state as they calm down.

“Okay,” he says, once it looks like Steve is not about to shake apart. “So, I think we’re not on the same wavelength here. What’s got you so worried?”

Steve swallows reluctantly, and Tony can feel his grip tighten on the fabric of his sleeve. It doesn’t hurt, so he leaves his arm there, figuring it isn’t hard to let Steve hang onto it. Steve’s eyes remain lowered, and his shoulders pull in defensively as he speaks.

“They’ll send you to an institution if they think you’re crazy,” he says softly, and Tony’s stomach lurches, his eyes widening. He has a sudden, horrible theory for where Steve is going with this. “And the therapies there…” Steve’s eyes flick up and his mouth twists. “They’re supposed to help you but… My Ma told me about some of ‘em and I don’t think they’ll help you.”

Ahaha.

Tony lets out an abrupt curse as it becomes clear what Steve is talking about. Fear of institutions hadn't occurred to him. He can remember learning about those places briefly in school, but their usage had gone way down by the time he was growing up. It hadn't even occurred to him that Steve would be worried about that.

Why hasn’t someone addressed this already?! he thinks frustratedly. The modern advances in psychology suddenly seem like a glaringly obvious section to cover in any ‘Welcome to the 21st century’ packet.

He darts his eyes over Steve, and he runs an agitated hand through his hair. “Geez, they didn’t even tell you about—?” He cuts off the beginnings of an angry rant before it can get started, grinding his teeth. He had figured SHIELD would cover this sort of thing. They had sent enough files over, they couldn’t be bothered to have one to say, ‘By the way, nobody is going to lock you up for being crazy, at least not right away’?

He sucks in a breath and tilts his head up. “Okay, I’m not an expert or anything, but we don’t do that anymore, at least, not in America anyways.” He glances away and mutters a few well placed insults towards SHIELD and their rehabilitation strategies, before nodding towards the ceiling. “J? Can you give us a quick sum up about why I won’t be getting locked up any time soon?”

Even JARVIS sounds a little put out by SHIELD’s oversight, and Tony sits back and listens as the AI explains the growth of antipsychotic drugs and the resulting push for deinstitutionalization in the 50s and 60s.

Steve, for his part, looks absolutely stunned. “So, people aren’t institutionalized anymore?” he asks, his mouth open in shock.

“Not necessarily,” JARVIS replies. “Patients are sometimes still institutionalized in hospitals, and a growing number of mentally ill end up in nursing homes or jails, however, institutionalization is generally a last resort and is not intended to be a long-term solution, thus various out-patient and preventative measures are common.”

Yeah, that is probably a conversation for another time. The important bit though, is Steve shouldn’t have anything to fear. “It’s not perfect,” he cuts in, feeling exhausted. “But nobody’s going to torture you or lock you up because you’re having a little difficulty, okay?”

The tension in Steve’s shoulders eases up as he draws in a breath and lets it out again. (Tony can’t help noticing that he doesn’t let go of his sleeve though.) His eyes dart around as he tries to process what he is hearing and realign his train of thought. His gaze lands on him. “JARVIS said they have drugs now?” he asks, an uncertain edge to his voice.

Tony nods. “Yup.” He shrugs, trying not to jostle Steve’s arm. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with psychological drugs, but he knows the basics well enough by now. “There’s pros and cons to the meds,” he says, figuring he might as well continue giving Steve the run down, since apparently SHIELD hadn't done that at all. “But they can help, and there’s other stuff too, apparently talking through your issues with a therapist can be helpful.”

Steve pulls back into the corner, his chin raising. “Medication doesn’t work on me,” he says bluntly. “I metabolise it too quickly.”

Haha. Ha.

Tony’s head jerks as he turns to him, his mind reeling as he tries to take in this sudden bombshell. “Wait, all of it?” he sputters. “What if you need to be sedated?”

Steve shrugs almost self-consciously at his incredulousness, and he draws his knees in closer to his chest, Tony’s arm getting tugged along for the ride. “I don’t know if they have anything that can really knock me out for long,” he admits quietly, and Tony has to blink pointedly to shut out sudden memories of emergency surgery in Afghanistan. “When I got shot during the war…” Steve’s voice brings him back. “They were worried I’d heal over it…”

He glances up and Tony’s mouth is dry as he stares at him, his mind absolutely bowled over by the painful implications of what he is hearing. “Wouldn’t your body push it out as you healed?” he asks. Before now, he hadn't really thought a lot about Steve’s healing factor. He hadn't had a reason to wonder how it worked. But now, all of the sudden he is aware of a whole host of problems it presents.

Such as making pain medication useless apparently.

“We weren’t sure if it would or not, so they had to take it out right away,” Steve tells him, his throat flexing as he swallows and drops his eyes down to his knees. “We already knew morphine wouldn’t do jack, and we didn’t want to waste the resources so…” His fingers tighten on his sleeve again. “Bucky gave me his belt to bite down on and I tried not to break his fingers.”

Unease hits his stomach with a solid punch, and Tony breathes in shakily, trying to blink away the images Steve’s story had painted. “Geez,” he mutters, leaning his head back against the wall. His eyes focus onto the darkened ceiling, and his thoughts spin as he tries to find some kind of solution to this.

Thanks to the arc reactor, he knows exactly how important pain meds are. The body can’t heal as efficiently while being in pain. Somebody should have addressed this problem before.

Obviously Howard either hadn't tried, or hadn't been able to, but there is no reason he can’t do something now. His arc reactor twinges with remembered pain, and he grits his teeth. Yeah, super soldier pain meds are going to become a top priority.

He breathes in. “You know,” he says, looking over at Steve. “Bruce is a biochemist. If there’s anyone who could develop a drug that’d work on you, it’d be him.”

Yes. He is going to have to get Bruce onto this. He might not have much experience with developing and testing drugs, but he is pretty sure Bruce has done that sort of thing for the Hulk before. Between the two of them they should be able to come up with something for Steve.

His arm jostles and he narrows his eyes in confusion as Steve ducks his chin. “It’s not that bad,” he protests, and Tony’s eyes widen in disbelief. “We don’t have to go to all that trouble—”

Indignation rises up in his chest, and he cuts him off before they can get any further down that rabbit hole. “Uh uh. Nope,” he says, waving his free arm. He sets his jaw and stares Steve down. “I’ll tell him tomorrow. Nobody should have to be awake during surgery.”

He resists the urge to rub at his arc reactor, but only just.

For his part, Steve looks stunned into silence at his vehemence. “I…guess it couldn’t hurt,” he agrees finally, and Tony huffs out a breath.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he grumbles, bitterness sparking again now that he has talked Steve into reason. “I can’t believe SHIELD isn’t already working on this. What would have happened if you’d gotten hurt in the field?”

He suppresses a shiver, suddenly glad to have found out about this little quirk of the serum now, instead of on some battlefield somewhere. He doesn’t even want to imagine what that would have been like.

Steve doesn’t say anything, and Tony blows out a breath as he looks at him. Steve looks a bit more stable and present than he had at the beginning of all this, and Tony gets the impression that he needs to sit with what they had talked about a bit longer before they can get anywhere with it. As much as he is glad that he had somehow managed to talk Steve out of his tree, he is tired now, and they have been sitting on the floor for a while. So, he thinks it is time to start wrapping things up.

“Okay, well…” he starts. “This has all been super enlightening, but I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to lose feeling in my legs…” he shifts and winces as his body protests. “So I suggest that we maybe get off the floor and turn some lights on, what do you think?”

“Oh,” Steve blinks at him, startled. “Right. Of course.” He lets go of his sleeve, and Tony moves away as they both begin to push themselves off the floor. Steve doesn’t look too much worse for wear (although he looks more exhausted than Tony can ever remember seeing before). Tony, on the other hand, is greeted by the sound of cracking joints as he stands up, and he rubs at his back, rolling his shoulders as he groans.

“Nice, okay, JARVIS, can we have a little light in here?”

JARVIS raises the light in the room, and Tony is left to figure out how one exits gracefully after having an unexpected heart-to-heart in the dark. He would be more anxious about it, except Steve is looking awkward too, and he gets the impression that as long as he gets himself out of the room with minimal trouble, they should be good.

“I’ll talk to Bruce about the meds tomorrow,” he tells him definitively, before glancing away and risking dredging up something close to a sensitive topic. “Let me know if… if you need anything, okay?”

Steve’s hands tug a little on his blanket as he responds, and the image of him standing there with a blanket around his shoulders just drives home the intensity of what he had stumbled onto tonight. “Okay,” he says.

Alright. Tony highly doubts Steve will actually do that, but he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on in that area. “Okay,” he says back, shifting on his feet. “Well, I’ll let you sleep…” He glances up, and Steve nods at him, leaving him nothing else to do besides head back to Steve’s front door.

Steve follows him silently and speaks up just as he opens the door to leave. “Ah, Tony.” He cuts off, and Tony turns back to scan him worriedly, hoping that another problem isn’t about to rear up. Steve fiddles with his blanket and focuses his gaze somewhere next to his ear. “Could you… I…know that I could be a liability but, I was hoping you wouldn’t tell anyone about this.”

Right. He thinks he understands more why Steve had been so concerned about SHIELD finding out about this. If he is worried about being decommissioned, and/or hospitalised, he can see why he had worked so hard to keep this hidden.

And—judging from the fact that Tony himself has yet to take up any of the therapies he had mentioned to Steve—it is going to take more than one night’s conversation to change anything. So, the least he can do now is reassure Steve that he isn’t about to go blabbing what he had seen all over the place.

He lifts his chin and looks straight at him. “Unless you’re about to hurt yourself or someone else…” he begins slowly, thinking of JARVIS’ privacy protocols. “I don’t see why I’d need to tell anyone about this. It’s your business Rogers, just don’t—” His hand clenches on the doorknob and he breathes in, bracing himself. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says finally. “Look into the stuff I talked about at least…you don’t have to do this by yourself.”

Steve swallows, and his chin jerks away as his lips press together. After a second of silence, he blinks a few times and looks back at him. “Yeah, okay,” he says roughly. “See you tomorrow.”

It is clear that that is all that he is going to get tonight, and Tony takes in one last glance of Steve standing there—bags under his eyes, and a blanket over his shoulders—before he manages to pull off a faint smile of farewell. “Goodnight, Cap,” he says softly, before turning away.

Steve stays silent as he closes the door behind him.

oOo

After that, he makes a brief stop at the common room floor to make excuses for Steve, before slouching off to his room. He feels exhausted. He has never had to deal with such a volatile situation before, and he will admit that Steve had shocked him tonight.

He is relieved beyond measure that he had somehow managed to keep from messing things up too badly. But, it is clear to him that Steve is going to need help.

Ordinarily, he would say that he is the last person on Earth who should be trying to help people with stuff like this, but… Well, he doubts Steve will go to anybody else for this.

Hydra, plus SHIELD’s general incompetence with how they have been handling this will probably keep Steve from reaching out to them. And it is clear he doesn’t want any of the Avengers to know, for fear of alerting Fury.

So, Tony is left with a pile of red flags, and the knowledge that he is probably the only person on Earth right now that Steve will trust to even try to approach this.

He flops down in his bed and runs a hand over his face. I’m going to have to look into the stuff Pepper’s been talking about, he realises. I’m actually going to have to look into it. I can’t just keep on ignoring it, because that’s what Steve will do.

He huffs out a breath of put-upon amusement at the irony and rolls onto his side. Fine, he thinks, staring out into the dark, and knowing full well that he is unlikely to sleep much on the bed tonight, no matter how tired he is. I will.

He finds that the idea doesn’t seem as daunting when he frames it around searching for help for Steve. Someone has to do it, and obviously SHIELD isn’t. So fine. He will do it.

Take that SHIELD, he thinks blearily as his eyes slip closed.

Chapter Text

There is one flaw in the Have-Steve-infiltrate-Hydra-and-see-what-they-are-doing-and-hopefully-not-die-in-the-process plan. And that flaw is, Tony is very much on the outside of the operation. Sure, he had helped Steve plan their cover story, and sure, he helps Steve figure out what kinds of things he can report back to Hydra about the Avengers, but he really doesn’t see a lot of what Steve actually does in Hydra.

Steve is…well, as he spends more time with him, at least, but he doesn’t talk a lot about his work with Hydra, unless it had revealed new collaborators they need to keep a record of. Both of them had been relieved to learn definitively that none of the other Avengers are Hydra agents, but they avoid letting them in on the secret just yet. What they are doing is dangerous, and it is a lot less likely for them to get caught if less people know what they are doing.

Which means that basically, Steve doesn’t have anyone to talk to about Hydra, except him. And he doesn’t talk about it. Tony shouldn’t be surprised. He has heard enough stories of veterans and how they ‘never talked about the war’ to see the same thing happening in Steve. But it leaves him antsy.

If he asks, Steve will talk a little. He tells him about cover ups he has to do, and false orders he had been told to give, and he always tells him whenever he has a Hydra mission—so they can keep a record of it—but Tony is all too aware that what he sees isn’t the bigger picture.

He knows some of what Steve does, but he knows almost nothing of what it is like. He can’t imagine having to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Hydra agents all the time. Steve had been actively trying to fight these guys during the war, and now he is doing his utmost to try to convince them that he agrees with their cause and supports it.

Tony imagines that Frat Boy Locker-Room Talk hardly compares to the kinds of things Steve has to hear while on missions.

He doesn’t talk about it though. His coping mechanisms of choice seem to be working, and working out. Tony has read enough of the articles Pepper and JARVIS have been recommending to see the signs, but there isn’t a lot he can do about it.

He doesn’t know how long this Hydra undercover mission will last. They know something big is coming, but they just don’t know what. He has a feeling they are going to need to find that out before they can extract Steve and expose Hydra.

It is slow going, and the months just keep creeping by. It had been mid-summer when Steve had first been recruited, and they make it all the way until December without being caught, and without finding what they need.

Well, not exactly. As fall begins to set in, SHIELD comes to him for help building their new Helicarriers, and then, after he refuses, Steve comes to him because Hydra wants those Helicarriers too. That doesn’t bode well, but they can’t stop Hydra if they don’t know what their plan is, and Steve needs credibility in their eyes if they are going to learn anything, so Tony agrees to build them. Not without some trepidation of course, but at least this way, he can add a few surprises into his design, and hopefully they can figure out what they are for.

Of course, having Steve ask around about the Helicarriers would look rather suspicious. Instead, he keeps his head down, and keeps his ears open, hoping for a careless comment, or an actual debriefing that will give them some clues.

They still have some time before the Helicarriers will be finished, but Tony can see the stress eating away at Steve. He knows the other Avengers notice some of it too (although Steve does seem to try to put on a heavier front for them.) It is still noticeable though, and as the days get colder, Tony overhears Clint and Natasha theorising in low tones about Steve, ice, and the coming winter.

Tony—who had seen Steve’s too pale face a few weeks earlier when he had requested some heavier gloves—thinks that they are not too far off from the truth, even if they can’t begin to guess the rest of it.

Winter keeps coming, and soon Christmas, and then New Years roll around. The Tower isn’t full, because Clint and Natasha have some mysterious plans elsewhere for most of it, but the Christmas celebrations seem to go well. Thor goes off to see Doctor Foster, but Bruce and Pepper and Rhodey are there for Christmas. Natasha reappears for New Years, and is pointedly unhelpful when it comes to revealing the reasons behind Clint’s continued absence.

Tony ignores the mystery and very carefully plans their New Year's eve around watching the entire Lord of the Rings film collection. He knows Steve had been excited to learn Tolkien had written more while he was under the ice. He had actually bought all the books, and had started to fill the shelves in his room with things that are actually his, so Tony had thought the movie night would go over well. (And, also, he had determined that, if they watch right up until midnight, they have no reason whatsoever to watch fireworks. He has JARVIS keep the windows blacked out and soundproofed, because they are taking no chances this time.)

It isn’t long after New Years that things start to change. First, Thor gets conjured back up to Asgard (after getting alerted by a giant black raven on the kitchen counter, which is not what Tony was prepared to deal with so early in the morning.) It feels strange in the Tower without Thor, but he and Steve have other things to worry about.

The construction of the Helicarriers is chugging along nicely. SHIELD/Hydra is putting a lot of money and resources into it to speed up the process, and at the rate they are going, it will only be a few more months before everything is completed. That is a problem, because the Helicarriers are basically giant floating battleships in the sky. And Hydra wants them.

“Fury knows about them though,” Steve says in one of their late-night discussion sessions. “How is Hydra going to use them without tipping him off that something is wrong?”

Tony blows out a breath and rubs tiredly at his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says. “But we do have back ups in place. We have JARVIS, and the shutdown keys if necessary. If they try something, we should be able to stop them.”

“Whatever it is, it has to be big,” Steve says, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. “They’ve gone this long without the Helicarriers. I find it hard to believe that they plan on using it for undercover assassinations or something.”

Right, Tony thinks, biting his lip. The only thing those things are really good for would be all-out war.

Steve stares at the table, a scowl on his face. “What gets me,” he says quietly. “Is that this is SHIELD approved too. SHIELD really thinks that those Helicarriers will be a good thing.” He looks up, his eyes flashing. “Wherever this goes, they need to be destroyed. I don’t care if I have to fight all of Hydra and SHIELD to do it, but the Helicarriers cannot stay.”

Tony nods, noting the intense expression of determination on Steve’s face. Seeing that look, he doesn’t really think the Helicarriers stand much of a chance.

The Helicarriers stay on his mind. Steve goes off a few days later to work another STRIKE mission, and Tony is left to wait in the Tower and hope to hear back from him. With the pace Hydra is going, he feels anxious every time Steve goes into the field. All it will take is one slip up, one reason for Hydra to suspect him more than they probably already do, and this will all come burning down around them.

Part of him wishes they could just come out with it and tell Fury about the dangers of the Helicarrier already. But Fury had approved the Helicarriers too. Tony gets the feeling that even if he believed them about Hydra, and even if they managed to work with him to dig them out of SHIELD…Fury will still be in favour of keeping the Helicarriers around.

Tony has always been in favour of making sure their side had the bigger stick, as it were… But with how deeply rooted Hydra is in SHIELD… He shakes his head. He and Steve don’t have a list of every Hydra agent. They won’t be able to guarantee flushing out every member. And, since they don’t know what Hydra’s plan with the Helicarriers is yet, they can’t guarantee that any lingering moles might not still be able to set that plan in motion.

Which is why they need to not only destroy the Helicarriers, but know why they are doing it first.

If Hydra is planning to use the Helicarriers, then that will probably be a pretty big reveal moment, he thinks to himself a few days later as he sits in his lab and flips aimlessly through his computer files. Steve should be coming home soon, and he can’t seem to focus on anything besides Hydra. Hopefully we will get a more accurate view of how big Hydra is once they start revving up for their big plan.

His anxious thoughts are derailed as JARVIS speaks up. “Sir,” he announces, “Captain Rogers has just returned to the Tower.”

Oh good. His shoulders relax. That means he and Steve will probably debrief in a few hours. Steve usually takes some time to unwind after coming back (sometimes that involves a shower and a meal, and sometimes that involves trying to beat his way through a punching bag.) He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, glancing around the lab. DUM-E chirps happily in the corner next to U, and Tony smiles, knowing the two bots are probably expecting Steve too.

“Just a bit longer—” he starts, and then JARVIS cuts him off.

“Sir,” he says without preamble. “Captain Rogers appears to be in some distress.”

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and his mouth opens. “What—?”

And then he hears the sound of the elevator arriving. His head jerks over as the doors open and his mouth goes dry. Either JARVIS wants him to go upstairs right now, or— He hears the sounds of ragged breathing cutting through the stillness in the lab, and his legs start moving by themselves.

DUM-E beeps worriedly as he weaves his way through the tables, and Tony stops up short as he sees the elevator. Steve is inside, but he is hunched up in the corner again, his back pressed up against the wall, his head ducked into his knees. His duffle bag is thrown off to the side and his fingers dig into his hair as he breathes in short gasps, his shoulders shaking.

Panic attack, Tony thinks, because he knows the signs now. He has had enough himself, and he has read enough papers about it. He knows what is happening, but for a full four seconds, he just stands frozen in indecision. He has never had to deal with this on the outside before. It has always been him getting talked through a panic attack, and now Steve—

His mind kicks into gear, and he moves forward. JARVIS keeps the elevator doors open for him, and he crouches down. Steve’s breaths are fast and painful, and Tony licks his lips uneasily.

“Steve?” he calls.

Steve’s head jerks up, and his hand slips down from his hair to rest on his chest, his fingers digging into his shirt. “Ton—” he gasps, unable to even make a full syllable. His eyes are panicked as he drags in another breath. “Cn’t—”

He hunches over his knees again, his other hand white in his hair as he struggles for air. Tony sucks in his own slightly frantic breath and tries to think. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. He knows how to deal with these. Pepper and JARVIS have helped him through enough, and he has read enough about coping mechanisms. He can deal with this.

He draws in closer, trying to get Steve’s attention on him, and not his desperate breathing. “Hey,” he says, his voice thin with uncertainty and worry. He knows JARVIS had warned against touching previously, but he remembers how Steve had clung to his sleeve a few months ago and after a second of hesitation, he reaches for Steve’s shoe, hoping to ground him. “You’re gonna be okay, Steve, just breathe with me, okay?”

He pulls in a breath, trying to remember the rhythms Pepper and JARVIS would set for him. “Like that, see?” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t let on how nervous he is right now. His heart pounds and he squeezes Steve’s foot, part of him trying to gain his own comfort as he works through this. “Try with me, okay?”

Steve sits up a little, his shoulders heaving as he tries to copy him. “Can’t—” His hand claws harder at his chest. “Can’t breathe—”

“I know, Steve,” he says, resisting the urge to lean in further. He knows that feeling well. He knows the desperation and fear, and he hates having to see it on Steve right now. “I know it’s scary, you’re doing good, let’s try again.”

He sucks in a model breath, and Steve tries to follow him. Tony doesn’t try to breathe too slowly right now, because he knows that Steve can’t currently manage that, but he does try to keep a steady rhythm. “That’s good, Steve,” he says as calmly as possible as he counts the breaths and eyes Steve’s shaking hands. “Keep going, you’re okay.”

He doesn’t know what he says. He doesn’t know what did it, but the instant those words leave his mouth, Steve’s breaths cut off altogether. His eyes widen and he stares blankly out at nothing, his face pale in the terrifying silence. And then, like a kite jerking in the wind, his breath catches, and he sucks in a gasp. His next breath comes out as a sob, and Tony is left to sit and stare in sky-rocketing concern as Steve breaks down.

He is pretty sure this is actively worse than before, and his mind scrambles as he tries to figure out what went wrong. “Hey, hey Steve,” he says worriedly as he comes around to crouch by his side. Tears are slipping down Steve’s face and he is back to breathing in ragged pants again, the sound mingled with gut-wrenching muffled sobs. “It’s okay –”

Steve shakes his head, and a new sob wracks through him, leaving Tony at a loss. He has no idea what to do. Something really bad must have happened with SHIELD and/or Hydra, but this is the first time he has seen Steve so utterly wrecked before. Even with that time in his room after the fireworks, Steve had still been clinging to some semblance of dignity.

Now, he looks like his whole world has fallen apart, and Tony has no idea what to do about it. Steve gasps and wipes his face with a shaking hand. His cheeks are red and splotchy, and his eyes are distant. That seems to be something he does a lot, slipping back a bit mentally. The look is not comforting, and Tony casts around desperately for something to do.

He glances back towards the lab behind them, and he decides that sitting in the corner of an elevator probably isn’t helping anything. So, he convinces Steve to get up. It is a process, because Steve isn’t exactly all there, but he manages to get him mobile. His heart pounds a staccato rhythm as he guides him into the lab and over to the ancient couch in the corner.

Steve continues to gasp for breath as tears trail down his face, and he stumbles as he collapses onto the couch. It is instinct to tug at the throw blanket and drape it over him, but Steve’s tears don’t slow. He stays curled up on the couch as Tony steps back, and DUM-E whistles in concern at the display. Tony glances over, fidgeting aimlessly with his shirt as he tries to figure out what to do next.

Obviously something bad had happened to set Steve off like this, and he has the feeling that this breakdown has probably been a long time coming.

That doesn’t really clue him in on how to deal with it though. His own breakdowns have generally swirled down into the bottom of a bottle, so he doesn’t have a lot of experience on either end of coping with the tragedy Steve is obviously going through.

DUM-E whirls as he rolls closer, and Tony presses his lips together as he looks over Steve. The all-consuming nature of his tears makes it look like ‘calming down’ won’t be achieved until this storm has blown through.

He can remember as a child, the few times he had had fits like these. It hadn't happened often, because that sort of thing wasn’t a survival trait for a Stark, but he can remember a few miserable times when Jarvis had sat with him as he had cried through his utter disappointment over something or other that Howard had done. He knows, when crying gets like this, it isn’t really a matter of stopping it, but more, riding the wave to the other side.

He lets out a tense breath and goes over to pull up a rolling chair. He sits down next to where Steve is curled up and shaking on the couch. The sight is uncomfortable, because even with the vulnerability he had seen in Steve previously, he never expected to see him like this at all.

But, probably Steve never expected this either. Tony subtly sets his shoulders as he prepares to sit this through. He may not be able to do much, but he can at least be there.

He doesn’t know how long it takes, but gradually, Steve’s tears begin to ease. His breath remains ragged and irregular as he recovers, his eyes red and puffy. He sucks in a shuddery gasp as he sits up, the sound reminding Tony of the hyperventilating tears his younger self had cried years and years ago. The sound makes his stomach clench, and he is more than a little relieved when clarity begins to seep back into Steve’s eyes.

Of course, getting through the crying spell is only the first thing they need to do. Now, they are in the aftermath, and that is just as terrifying as everything else. It is clear to him that they are going to need to talk about whatever had happened to Steve…but he isn’t exactly sure how to get that started.

Steve still looks shaken and paper thin, his face splotchy as he sits up slowly, wiping his eyes. Tony swallows and bites the inside of his cheek, his eyes darting around the lab as he tries to think of something that will help keep this next part from getting too awkward. He doesn’t really have a lot of practice navigating the conversations one has after witnessing this kind of thing, and he imagines that Steve is the same.

His gaze catches on the kettle Bruce had installed at the back counter, and inspiration dawns. Drinking warm things is good for this sort of thing, right? He can distinctly remember Jarvis producing warm milk for him as a child. He leaps at the idea and heads over to the kettle, rifling through the collection of powdered beverages that had snuck in through his work sessions with Bruce as they had collaborated on Steve’s pain meds. He doesn’t have milk, but he does have a tea bag that has the word ‘Calm’ written on it in purple letters, and he decides that is good enough.

It doesn’t take long for the kettle to boil. He makes a mug for each of them—because he needs something to do with his hands—and by the time he heads back over to Steve, he is at least present enough to focus on him. He is still far from alright though. He remains silent as he accepts the tea, and his hands tremble around the mug. He sits hunched on the couch, the blanket around his shoulders adding to the disconcerting picture of vulnerability he makes.

Tony eases himself down onto his chair, his mind racing as he slowly takes a sip of his tea. He doesn’t know what to say, but he is saved from speaking for a moment as DUM-E beeps and calls Steve’s attention. Tony looks up and his face softens as DUM-E inches forward, a dented tissue box clasped in his claw.

He holds them out, and Steve’s voice sounds rather congested as he grabs a few. “Thanks.”

He manages to look a little more put together as he wipes his face and blows his nose, but, for the first time since Tony had met him, it doesn’t look like he is trying to put up any walls. He looks exhausted, and he stays looking exhausted as he burrows into the couch, his mug clutched carefully in his hands.

Tony takes another sip of his tea, and he sees Steve glance up. Tony darts his eyes over him and swallows as he decides to open the conversation. “Bad day at the office I take it?” he starts, hoping that the casual opening will help keep Steve’s walls down.

On the couch, Steve lets out a sharp noise that isn’t quite a laugh. “You have no idea,” he rasps, his eyes staring down into his mug as his shoulders pull up to his ears.

Tony swallows and decides to wait for a moment. He doesn’t really know what kind of landmine conversation he is getting into, and he has a feeling it will be better to let Steve lead the way. That seems to be a good choice, because Steve speaks up again soon, his eyes staring into the bottom of his mug.

“I know where a new Hydra base is.” His voice is empty and flat, his expression blank. Tony swallows and licks his lips.

“Oh?” he says, hoping Steve will continue to shed light on the situation. He had known Hydra had something to do with this, but to hear it confirmed makes him uneasy. What could they have done to set him off like this?

Steve shivers and pulls the blanket around him tighter. “Yesterday, Pierce called me in after my mission,” his lips press together. “He said…he wanted me to meet one of their ‘allies’.”

His voice goes dry and sarcastic and brittle on the last word, and Tony scans him carefully. “What happened?”

Steve’s chin dips as he swallows. “We…” he breathes in. “We went to the…the Ideal Federal Savings Bank, in D.C.? You know the..?” He looks up, and Tony recognises the subtle stalling tactic. He nods, even though he actually has next to no knowledge of the specific locations of banks in D.C. He will look it up later, right now he just needs to facilitate Steve’s talking.

Steve lets out a breath, his tone going wry. “Well that’s a front for a Hydra base so, don’t keep your retirement savings there.”

Tony’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt Steve now that he has started. Steve’s face still has traces of redness from crying, and his shaking has gotten more pronounced. He breathes in and tenses unexpectedly, his eyes darting around. “Where’s my bag?”

Tony is a little thrown by the non sequitur, but he doesn’t question it. He has a feeling that Steve’s brain is jumping around trying to distract itself from whatever he has to say, and if getting him his bag will make him more comfortable, then he has no problem with that.

The duffle bag is back in the elevator, and he goes to collect it, taking a second to breathe and try to steady himself before he returns. He still feels on edge though, and his heart pounds as he returns, dreadful anticipation at whatever had happened to Steve mixing in his stomach.

Steve doesn’t take the bag when he comes back. Instead he practically cringes away from it. His shoulders hunch and his knees pull up to his chest as he clutches his mug towards himself and bites his lip. “In there, there’s a…a file. At the bottom. Can you grab it?”

The sight of Steve looking so small and defensive on the couch is not comforting, and Tony throws him a look of concern before fishing around in the bag. There, under Steve’s day clothes, stuffed at the very bottom, is an inch thick beige folder.

“This?” He pulls it out and eyes it dubiously. He has a feeling this file is not SHIELD related.

His eyes dart up to Steve as his breath hitches, and he watches him breathe in determinedly. “Yeah, it’s…it’s from Hydra. It’s their file on…” He swallows. “On their ‘ally’.”

The last words practically drip with acid, and Tony’s sets Steve’s bag down cautiously, keeping his eyes on Steve as he sits down. Steve doesn’t seem inclined to take the folder, so he sets it on his lap with the same caution as he would handling a live bomb.

Steve nods at the file, his throat flexing. “I haven’t…read it yet. I couldn’t—” His face is pale and waxy, his lips thinning as he gestures at him to look at the file. “You’ll see,” he finishes miserably, his mouth twisting into a grimace as he drains the rest of his tea.

Tony’s stomach flips in trepidation as he looks down at the folder. His tongue presses against his teeth as he flips it open, half-expecting the thing to bite him or something. Instead, he stares at a black and white photograph of a man. His eyes are closed, his face slack as though asleep. His hair is long, and his face is framed by some kind of frosted window, as though he is looking through a capsule at someone.

His eyes drop down to the smaller, wallet-sized photo paperclipped to the first picture, and his blood goes cold. Anyone could recognise that photo. It is Sergeant James Barnes, dressed in his army uniform, a smile on his face as he poses for the photographer. His eyes dart between the two photographs, not wanting to accept the implications.

His gaze jumps to the title page across from the photos, and bold black letters stare back at him. The Winter Soldier Project, it announces, the all-too familiar bloodred Hydra stamp sitting underneath. His throat is dry as he swallows, and he flips to the next page. The next few pages are a blur of horror. He sees the schematics for some kind of metal arm, but the way it is attached…the details of the surgery— his arc reactor complains sharply in his chest, and he shuffles through the pages, flipping past a diagram of some kind of capsule/chamber thing, and then an ominous chair.

His mind reels as he skims the pages, taken in a sentence here and there. The file doesn’t mention any names, it is always ‘the Sergeant’ this, and then ‘the Soldier’ that, but— He looks up, his face pale. “Is this…”

Steve flinches, his head twitching to the side. “It’s Bucky,” he bursts out, tension lining every bone of his body. His fingers whiten around his mug. “Other-Steve was right. Bucky’s alive and he’s…” He cuts off as his breath shudders, and a shiver runs through Tony’s spine as he tries to even imagine what Steve is saying.

He flips the file closed, his mind spinning in shock and confusion. He can remember when he and Steve had watched the clip of Other-Steve claiming that Bucky was alive. Steve had rightfully been shaken by that, and Tony had had JARVIS keep an eye out for anything that could support Other-Steve’s claim…but he hadn't been expecting to find anything.

He doubts Steve had been expecting to find anything either. And— he remembers suddenly that Steve had said that Pierce had brought him to meet this ‘ally’. His stomach drops as he realises that Steve hadn't just been told about whatever Hydra had done to Bucky, he had probably met him.

Never in a million years could Tony have predicted this. “How is that even…how is he even alive?” He is sure the file could tell him, but the images from the arm replacement are still too fresh in his mind. He can’t risk opening it again right now.

A look of exhaustion passes over Steve’s face. “He was experimented on by Hydra during the war,” he explains tiredly, and Tony’s mouth goes dry as he remembers that Bucky had indeed been captured once before. Steve’s lips press together. “Hydra found him after he fell and they…”

He stiffens, and his jaw clenches as he swallows. Tony looks up as DUM-E whirls sadly and rolls closer, his claw swinging down to clasp Steve’s foot, much like Tony had done in the elevator. Steve offers him a smile bordered with tears and he breathes in.

His gaze jumps back to him. “They have a machine that wipes his memories,” he explains, his voice strained. Tony’s eyes widen. “He doesn’t remember me.” Steve’s voice breaks and he grits his teeth. “He doesn’t remember anything except for working for Hydra and…and he’s hardly their ally.”

He spits the word out like it is poisonous, and his face pulls into a scowl of fury. “They keep him in cryofreeze whenever he isn’t ‘active’,” his voice is sharp, his glare intensifying the longer he talks about Hydra’s horrifying dehumanization of his friend. “And they shove him back in whenever his mission’s over, like some kind of demented toy—”

He chokes off abruptly, his chin ducking. His hands shake on his mug, and Tony can see now why he had completely fallen apart in the elevator. “No wonder you’re a wreck,” he mutters softly.

Steve barks out a sharp laugh.

“Yeah, well…” he shrugs. “Couldn’t fall apart back in D.C. The apartment’s bugged to high heaven.” Tony’s eyes go round in alarm. He hadn't even thought of that. No wonder Steve had broken down. He had had to bottle it up the whole time he was in D.C., and the moment he had gotten somewhere safe he had collapsed.

On the couch, Steve looks down and fiddles anxiously with his empty mug. “Hydra wants me to…” He twitches. “Bucky needs a…handler, out in the field and Hydra wants me to…”

Tony's eyes nearly bug out of his head. “They’re going to make you order around your best-friend-turned-attack-dog?” That is mindboggling to him. Did Hydra really expect that Steve would just be willing to— His train of thought cuts off as he comes to an uncomfortable realisation. Something big is coming. Hydra’s Helicarriers are almost finished, and whatever their big plan is, it must be approaching soon.

Steve is probably still under some suspicion from them, and they probably can’t afford to have him mess up their plans last minute. What better way to test his resolve than to throw him into this with no warning and see what he does? What better way of keeping him in line than to show him exactly what they can do. If you step out of line, we can hurt your friend. If you step out of line, we can hurt you.

Steve shivers and nods. “He follows the orders he’s given,” he says emotionlessly, his eyes dull. “But they think he’ll follow me even better and—” He ducks his head and pulls his elbows into himself, his face scrunching up as he closes his eyes in pain. “I should have looked for him.” Tony’s heart freezes. “Bucky’s been their prisoner for 70 years and I didn’t even look–”

No way. He can’t have Steve blaming himself for this. “Hey now,” he cuts in, leaning forward and shaking his knee, trying to get him to look up. “This is not your fault, okay? This is Hydra and Nazis and sadistic bastards alright?”

He knows why Steve is blaming himself. He can’t even imagine finding out that his friend survived this way, especially since he knows that Steve had been there when Bucky had ‘died’ originally. But he knows with absolute certainty that tumbling off the edge into self-blame will not end well for them.

Steve doesn’t look up though. His jaw clenches. “Bucky’s alive but he’s not— he doesn’t even know me.”

Tony tries to imagine what that would be like. If he found Rhodey or something, after he thought he died, and then found out he didn’t remember him at all, and had been trained to fight for Nazis. He can’t imagine it. The horror of it is too much to comprehend, and he casts about desperately for something to say to comfort Steve.

Bucky doesn’t remember him but— inspiration dawns, and his hand tightens on Steve’s knee. “Maybe now,” he says, his mind alight with his realisation. “But maybe not forever.”

Steve’s head darts up, a painful hope in his eyes.

“You said they have a machine, right?” The words pour out of him as he holds Steve’s gaze. “Something there that wipes his memories?” Steve nods slowly and Tony lets out a breath, sitting back. “Well,” he sweeps his hands out. “It’s been seventy years, right? Why bother having the thing now if they’re not worried about him remembering stuff?”

If Bucky couldn’t remember, if it were impossible for his memories to return, then Hydra wouldn’t need the machine anymore. It would have fallen out of use after seventy years. But Hydra still has it. If they still have it, then there must be a chance of Bucky remembering again.

At least he hopes so. For Steve’s sake.

Steve’s mouth falls open, the vulnerable hope on his face growing. “I…Pierce did say they have to wipe him after every mission, just in case.”

Just in case. The words are a relief. If Hydra is still worried to that degree, then there must be a chance. He nods, trying to portray confidence as he looks at Steve. “I don’t know if your friend will ever be who he used to be,” he says, because he doesn’t want to get Steve’s hopes up too far. No matter what happens, Bucky will not be the person he remembers him as. “But I wouldn’t give up on him just yet.”

He watches Steve’s eyes flash, and he raises his chin, determination wrapping around him like a shroud. “Of course not,” he says, his voice sharp and his gaze hard. ““I think Hydra will live to regret ever having met Bucky Barnes.”

The words are dark and foreboding, and Tony wouldn’t have expected anything less. He licks his lips as he regards Steve’s ominous expression. “Yeah, I think so too,” he agrees quietly.

Hydra may have introduced Steve to Bucky to try to manipulate him, but they have no idea what they are starting. If Steve weren’t already planning to take down Hydra, Tony would say that they had just signed their death warrant.

Chapter Text

Returning the stones goes well, until it doesn’t.

It starts off smoothly. Loki’s spell works, and he manages to convince Asgard and Odin to help him. He returns the Aether and the hammer (much to the subtle shock of the king), and it doesn’t take long before the palace crafters equip him with a new scepter, protective orb, and glass case for the Tesseract. The new objects are a bit unwieldy to carry, but he shrinks them down with Scott’s chips to make them more manageable.

After that he sets about returning the remaining stones. He goes to the 2012 timeline first, since that is the most familiar, and because he can drop off three stones at once. He unshrinks the carrying case holding the Tesseract and weaves through the crowd of SHIELD agents, returning the case seconds after Tony had whisked it away. As he slides it back across the floor, he can’t help wondering how this timeline will change, since Loki stays prisoner this time. Their Loki had spent the next six years on the run with the Tesseract. He has to wonder what this one will do.

He can only speculate. For now, he returns the scepter, (and salutes JARVIS) and hands off the Time Stone before slipping away. Before he heads off to other planets, he decides to take care of commissioning Sam’s shield right away. He still needs to talk to Sam about that, but he at least has a plan for how to get the shield.

2016 Shuri is surprised and fascinated when he shows up in her lab, and he knows for sure that he has influenced this timeline somewhat. He thinks it will probably be fine, since she accepts that he can’t really tell her any details about the future (besides the same vague warning Tony had given the 2012 timeline), and she agrees to make him the shield. It doesn’t take long to finish, but he has to wait for it the old-fashioned way, which basically entails him hiding out from his alternative-self and refilling his pockets with as many protein bars as he can fit.

Once the shield is finished (and once Shuri has gotten a chance to at least look at his suit—even though she swears she won’t build a time machine just yet), he shrinks the shield too, and sets off to return the last two stones.

He uses the Asgardian escape pod ship to fly to Vormir first. He smiles as he lands next to the Guardian’s ship. It doesn’t take long to shrink and collect it before turning towards the towering mountain Clint and Natasha had mentioned. Wind whistles emptily through the spires as he climbs up, and although he strains his eyes in case the Red Skull had managed to return somehow, he doesn’t see anything.

This part of the mission had been a little vague. They hadn't been sure what exactly was needed to return the Soul Stone. With Red Skull gone, it isn’t like there is someone to guard the area anymore… But the whole place feels like it has a sentience of its own, so Steve can only hope that Vormir will accept the return.

He reaches the top of the mountain, and he can see the ledge where Clint and Natasha must have forced Red Skull to his ultimate end. He steps closer, the wind tugging at his clothes as he hefts his suitcase and unclasps the latches. Inside, the second to last stone glints orange back at him.

He licks his lips and reaches gingerly for the Soul Stone. A spark surges through his hand as he touches it, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. The wind blows stronger, the whistling louder as he glances up and scans his surroundings.

A tingling grows in his hand, a pins and needles feeling that spreads up his arm the longer he holds the stone. “Alright,” he whispers, unable to shake the feeling that something here is listening to him. The tingling sparks again and the wind shrieks louder as he withdraws his hand from the case.

“Alright, take it!” The wind rips the words from his mouth, and he rears back and flings the stone, the same way he would his shield.

The stone arcs high over the edge of the cliff, and he sees it sparkling orange against the grey sky. It hangs there for a short infinity, arching up and up…and then, just as it begins to angle down again, the wind behind him blasts with a ferocity that almost pushes him to the edge, and the stone disappears.

The wind dies, the sudden stillness deafening. He stumbles back, his own breath gasping loudly in the silence. He sucks in a breath and shakes his head, trying to clear it, feeling tired and elated all at once. It takes a moment longer to get his bearings, but once he is recovered, he sets off to return the last stone.

Returning the Power Stone should not have been a problem. All he needs to do is put it back in the protective barrier. He purposely times everything so that he arrives not long after Rhodey and Nebula do.

He has to wait—his hands clenched and his teeth biting into his cheeks to hold himself back—until after Thanos comes and kidnaps their Nebula. Stopping this Thanos won’t change what already happened in his timeline, and if he tries to help Nebula and inadvertently gets captured himself or otherwise gives up the Power Stone to Thanos…

His mission is to return the stones, he cannot risk handing one over to this timeline’s Thanos—especially since he knows where he is going—no matter how much he hates standing by. It doesn’t take long for Thanos’ ships to depart, and once he deems it safe enough, he creeps out to the ancient temple Rhodey had told him about.

He sees Quill as he sneaks in, the man looking groggy and confused as he wakes up amid the craggy stalagmites. He doesn’t look like he is going anywhere fast, but Steve still does his best to hurry. If he can return the stone before Quill sees him, that would be best.

He gets to the temple, and inside is a single pedestal. A field of energy sparks with energy, continuing its vigil, guarding something that has already been stolen. He considers it for a moment, thinking back to the bare metal struts Nebula’s arm had been reduced to after taking the stone. He can’t afford that sort of thing, which means he has to come up with a different solution for getting the stone into the forcefield.

He has no choice but to pull out the shield. He would rather leave it for Sam to use first, but he doesn’t have anything else that can withstand the power of the electric field. He hefts the shield in one hand and resizes the orb in the other. The field sparks unhappily as he holds the orb up to it, but he manages to wedge the shield against it. He pushes, and the forcefield slowly begins to give way. An angry humming fills the air, and he grunts as he gives one last shove before the orb finally rockets into the center of the forcefield where it is supposed to be.

He huffs out a breath and pauses to inspect the shield. Some of the paint had gotten scorched, and he frowns. He will have to go back to Shuri to go get it fixed. The GPS has that timeline saved, so he should be able to make a quick trip before he returns home. Shuri will probably scold him for wrecking the shield so quickly, but she will be able to fix it up good as new—

The sound of footfalls catches his attention, and his head snaps up to see a group of men holding blaster rifles standing in the doorway of the temple. At the front of the group, a bald Black man with white eyes and some kind of cyborg tech in his head, levels his gun at him.

“Get away from the orb,” he orders.

Steve’s stomach drops, and his eyes dart frantically between the men. He can’t remember if Quill had mentioned these people coming, but he probably shouldn’t be surprised. Rocket had said Quill had stolen the stone, so it would make sense for people to be chasing him.

Except he isn’t here right now. Steve is.

He curses internally as the cyborg’s gun charges, a yellow glow filling the barrel. “Get away from the orb!”

Steve raises his right arm, keeping his shield in front of him as he shuffles to the side, trying to figure out what to do. He can set the time-space GPS to get him out of here if he can get a few seconds to input the coordinates. It would mean leaving the Asgardian ship behind, but he is fine with that if it means getting out without getting shot.

The men advance on him, and Steve darts back a few steps, trying to keep from being surrounded as he frantically types coordinates into his GPS. He has to do it mostly by feel, because he doesn’t want to risk taking his eyes off the approaching mercenaries. It shouldn’t be hard though, all he needs to do is scroll back through his previous jumps, and then choose any of them, and then he can get out of here—

He hears a groan, and he looks up. Behind the guards blocking the door, he can see Quill, looking concussed and confused as he stumbles into the entryway. The cyborg glances back at the sound, and he lets out a cry of alarm at being snuck up on from behind.

Quill’s eyes clear at the shout, and as Cyborg aims at him, he whips out his own blaster. He probably doesn’t know what is going on, but he shows no hesitation in the face of the mercenaries’ guns. His weapon charges, and that is all the warning Steve gets before he starts firing.

And then the world descends into pandemonium.

The guard next to him snarls something and shoots. Steve barely has time to bring his shield around to block the shot, a new scorch mark blackening the metal. He grits his teeth and ducks another shot from behind, glancing up to see Quill taking down four of the guards with some kind of magnetic device.

He watches as Quill sprints past them and heads for the forcefield. The back of his head is still bloody, but his eyes are mischievous as he tosses down another triangle magnet. His eyes meet his with cocky defiance. “Sorry,” he says unapologetically as the orb begins to push through the field towards the magnet. “First come first serve.”

Steve wouldn’t have it any other way, but the guards react with anger. The one next to him raises his gun again, and he has no choice but to swing at him. He manages to block him with his shield, but he doesn’t want to do much else. He needs to get out of here before he disrupts this timeline even more. His eyes go to his GPS, and he shoves the guard away, reaching for it.

In that very moment, Cyborg rears up and tries to level off a shot at Quill. Quill dives for the orb and rolls away, and the shot goes wide. Steve watches in slow motion as it bounces off the dying forcefield and ricochets towards him. His hand hits the GPS the same time the laser does, and he has just enough time to see the device spark and go haywire before he gets jerked down into the Quantum Realm.

As trips go, this is one of his worst.

Once he had gotten used to it, traveling through the Quantum Realm hadn't been too bad. It had been dizzying and colourful, but still rather controlled. This is nothing like that. Lights and colours spin nauseatingly in front of his eyes as he gets jerked to and fro. The ventricular force keeps him immobile as he rockets through tunnel after tunnel, and he can only hope that he will eventually come out again.

With the damage to the GPS he has no idea where this trip will end, and he has no idea if it can end. Scott had gotten trapped in the Quantum Realm, if he gets stuck too, there is no way he can get out again—

Before he can complete that terrifying thought, the warping tunnels around him begin to shift in colour. While before, everything had been a glowing blue, streaks of bright red begin to sneak in. He stares at the darkening strands, and with one final jerk, he gets blasted into a tunnel pulsing solely with red light.

And then three seconds later, the world whites out in the familiar indicator of a trip coming to an end, and he gets flung out into the open.

He lands shakily, crashing to his knees and gasping for breath as the GPS on his arm sparks pitifully. His shield is still on his arm, and he leans on it as he tries to catch his breath. It takes him a few seconds to get his bearings. This trip had taken a lot more out of him than the others had, and he stares mournfully at his broken GPS. The screen is cracked and black, and nothing comes up on the display when he taps it.

He sweeps his eyes in a perimeter scan, trying to figure out where he landed. He doubts he had made it back home, and he needs to fix the GPS before he can do anything about that. It would be convenient if he had landed in Wakanda again, because he is certain Shuri would love to take a look at the GPS, but the familiar brick walls of a back alley situate him somewhere else.

Did I really go all the way back to New York? he thinks as he pushes himself to his feet, glancing around the garbage collecting in the corners. He hadn't really been paying attention when he had set the coordinates, and the laser blast could have done anything to the GPS, so he is probably lucky he had landed somewhere familiar at all.

He looks down at the broken GPS and sighs. It looks like he is going to be interfering even more in this timeline than he first thought. He is lucky he had landed somewhere with someone who can fix this, but he imagines alternate-Steve and Tony are going to be in for the shock of their lives right about now.

It can’t be helped, and he rolls his shoulders, folding away the Quantum suit and slinging the shield onto his back before setting off. He scans the skyline for the Avengers Tower as he steps out of the alley, and he sees it a few blocks away. His presence garners a few stares from the civilians out on the street, but he ignores them as he begins to jog towards the Tower. Hopefully anyone who sees him will just think his is their timeline’s Captain America.

As he jogs, he notes that the city doesn’t seem to be still recovering from the effects of the Chitauri attack. He had assumed he had landed near the battle again, but he can see no signs of it. The streets are relatively clear of rubble, and the skies are clear of smoke.

He frowns and wonders if the GPS had sent him to a different year when it glitched. That isn’t really a problem, but it does mean that he doesn’t know what to expect—

His thoughts cut off and he stumbles to a halt as he passes some kind of memorial against a shop wall. Red and gold bouquets of flowers spill out onto the sidewalk, along with tea lights and heartfelt cards and signs. That isn’t what trips him up though. What catches his attention is the graffiti tribute spray-painted on the wall. It is Tony’s helmet, the lines done in bold red and yellow. Underneath it, written in stylized black characters are the words: Rest in Peace.

His mouth falls open. He stares, trying to make sense of what he is seeing.

This can’t be— this can’t be implying what he thinks it is implying. No matter what year he had jumped to, he should still be following the events of his own timeline right? This had never happened, so why—?

He gives his head a shake and sets off with renewed vigour towards the Tower. Maybe he had somehow jumped further ahead in the alternate-timeline. Maybe, somehow, what they had done had… had unexpected consequences. He can’t imagine why, because the only difference had been the Tesseract. Surely that couldn't have killed Tony, surely he can’t be—

He gets no reassurance the closer he gets to the Tower. The steps leading up to the Tower are laden with flowers and wreaths, and there are notes and signs taped to the glass doors. His heart pounds as his eyes flick over the tokens of grief. What could have happened here? What had gone wrong?

He marches towards the glass doors, intent on getting inside and finding out what is going on. Tony can’t be dead. He can’t be. Someone inside the Tower will know what is going on. Someone will explain this to him.

Except security won’t let him pass.

He hadn't expected it to be a problem. He figured they would let up Captain America, and then he could ask JARVIS what is happening, but he gets blocked almost as soon as he enters. “No visitors,” the guard on his right states flatly, her eyes narrowed as she scans him.

He pauses to stare at her, trying to pull up her name from his time living here. “Cindy,” he says, and he sees her eyebrows arch in surprise. “What are you talking about? I’m not a visitor.”

That is a lie, but the guards shouldn’t know that. Instead, his words only raise their suspicion. “Look,” the guard on his left says sharply, a scowl on his face. “I don’t know if you think you’re funny, or what, but you need to push off.”

He glances between them in bewilderment. “Guys, it’s me,” he tries, gesturing at the star on his chest. “I’m just trying to—”

“You should know better than to wear that,” Cindy cuts in, her eyes hard as she glares at him. “Captain America is gone. The fact that you think you can waltz in here wearing that is just plain disrespectful.”

He gapes at her. “Gone?” he echoes.

His bewilderment does not endear him to the guards. “Look, you need to leave,” Cindy tells him firmly. She glances over him and his suit, and her eyes soften just a little. “Is there someone we can call for you, or—?”

He realises abruptly that she has mentally recategorized him from ‘thoughtless’ to ‘unstable’, and he pulls back. “No,” he says quickly, hunching his shoulders defensively. “No, I just—” his eyes jump to the elevator behind them. A part of him had been subconsciously hoping that everything he had been seeing was a mistake. Tony would be still alive somewhere, and once he got to the Tower, he could work things out.

But if Tony is really dead, then coming to the Tower is pointless. Especially since people seem to think Captain America is gone too. He pulls in a breath and nods briskly to each guard, suppressing a shiver. “Sorry to bother you,” he manages, before exiting as gracefully as possible.

Once outside the building, he edges over to stand in the shadow of a wall, trying to stay out of sight. His suit must stick out like a sore thumb, and he has no idea what to do now. He needs someone to help fix his GPS. If he can figure out how to get to Wakanda, then he might be able to ask Shuri, if…if she is alive. But first he is going to need civilian clothes, and maybe stop carrying around his shield like a beacon on his back.

His hand moves to his pocket to grab a shrinking chip—and then his feet fall out from under him. Gold sparks swirl up from the sidewalk, and he has just enough time to recognise a magic portal from Stephen before he falls through with an aborted yell.

He lands on his feet on the other end, before stumbling and almost pitching forward. He manages to catch his balance and he pulls back into a defensive stance. His eyes jump up from the wooden floor to the familiar sweeping staircase that makes up the front room of the Sanctum. He recognises this place because he and the Avengers had stayed here for a few days while Tony had been recovering, but he doesn’t relax.

Stephen stands in front of him, his red cloak floating around him as he pins him with an incredulous stare. “What,” he lowers his hands now that the spell is over, “are you doing here?”

It takes some explaining on Stephen’s part. “This is not your timeline,” he starts, raising his hand to cut off Steve’s claim that he already knew that. “No, you misunderstand,” he levels him with a look. “You shouldn’t be able to come here at all. This timeline is not a branch off from your timeline. Your timeline branched off from this one.”

It takes a moment to sink in. “Wait,” Steve stares at him, his arms slack by his side. “Are you saying this is the— the original timeline? The one the time-travelers first came from?”

Stephen nods, looking exhausted and annoyed. “You shouldn’t be here,” he states, throwing him a look, as though this is somehow all his fault. “If you time travel, you should only be able to travel along your own timeline. You need to go back. Now.”

Steve huffs. “I’d love to,” he says dryly, activating his suit to show Stephen the broken GPS. “But my GPS got fried while I was trying to warp out. I’m guessing that’s why it glitched and sent me here.” He licks his lips and drops his hand. “I was hoping to find Tony to fix it but…”

A wince chases its way across Stephen's face, and he looks away. Steve’s stomach drops. He hadn't wanted to accept that Tony could be dead in this timeline, but with Stephen’s reaction, he has no choice but to believe.

What had happened here?

Stephen’s gaze is steady when he looks back at him. “I can’t send you back myself,” he says, looking irritated. “But I can find someone to fix that thing. Hang on a moment.”

Before Steve can respond, Stephen opens a portal and steps through, leaving him alone in the large entry room. He glances around, feeling antsy. The longer he stays here, the more he wants to go home now.

He gives a start when the portal opens again. Stephen doesn’t step through, but he can hear his voice. “You guys jumped around the timelines, and now one of them has shown up here. So come and fix it.”

Despite the situation, Steve has to bite back a grin. He remembers his own Stephen Strange grumbling a little about all the work he had woken up to, once they had undone the Dusting. Obviously creating a bunch of timelines to fight a villain is not generally recommended.

Through the portal, he hears the low rumble of someone responding, and soon, Stephen exits again. Behind him comes a blessedly familiar face. “Bruce!” he gasps, and he sees similar surprise flash over Bruce’s face.

He looks similar to his own Bruce, both of them having found a balance between the Hulk and Doctor Banner. He can’t help noticing the heavy sling on his right arm though—meaning he must have undone the Dusting like his Bruce and Thor had. It could be his imagination, but it looks to him as though the damage on that arm is more severe than what his Bruce had suffered.

“Steve,” Bruce responds, a note of shock in his voice. He glances at Stephen and breathes in, setting his shoulders. “Strange explained. You need your GPS fixed?”

Steve nods mutely, holding out the cracked screen on his arm. Bruce flicks his eyes over him—something strange in his gaze—before he nods brisk and business-like. He turns to Stephen. “You got somewhere I can work?”

Stephen leads them to some kind of work lab that he had neglected to show Steve back in his timeline. He leaves him and Bruce to get to work, and Bruce sits him down at one of the metal tables. Steve lays out his arm so that Bruce can have easy access to it, and Bruce turns to start gathering some of the tools he will need. “What happened to it?”

Steve fills the silence by explaining what had led up to his unexpected arrival here. Bruce remains quiet and focused as he scans the GPS. He doesn’t look up at him as he analyses the readout on his tablet, and Steve licks his lips uncomfortably.

“This…” Bruce’s eyes jump up to his, and he continues determinedly. “This is really the original timeline?” he confirms, eyeing him. “You didn’t have time-travelers show up for you?”

Bruce’s mouth pulls up just briefly, and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, setting aside his tablet and turning his attention to the face of the GPS. “We came up with that idea ourselves.” His eyes meet his, and he looks thoughtful. “It’s curious thinking the other timelines might still be in place,” he says, working with one hand to start detaching the GPS from Steve’s suit. “I thought they would’ve disappeared when Steve returned the stones.”

Steve hadn't really thought of that. “I guess…our timeline was different enough that that wouldn’t really make a difference,” he hazards. “Loki did get away with the Tesseract, and other-Steve and other-Tony talked about Hydra so…”

He trails off as Bruce shoots him a look of surprise. “I didn’t realise they did that.”

“Oh.” Steve tries not to sound too surprised that the others had never told Bruce about everything that had gone on during their trips. The meetings in his own timeline had been rather thorough, and he knows almost everything about every trip they had taken. “Well. They did. Other-Steve actually mentioned Hydra to some of the STRIKE agents, so they thought I was Hydra like them.”

That gets an even stronger look of surprise from Bruce, and as he waits for him to finish detaching the GPS, Steve lets himself ramble about how he and Tony had slowly detangled the web of SHIELD and Hydra.

“’Course, we hoped JARVIS would be able to take down the Helicarriers, but Zola blocked him, so we had to blow up the Helicarriers. That was a good thing anyway, since I don’t think anyone should have those things. And then I was finally able to take Bucky away from Hydra.”

Bruce remains thoughtful and silent as he works. The GPS is flipped over, so that he can access the back, and he works methodically with one hand as he listens. Steve tries not to fidget in the silence. It feels strange thinking about what had happened in his timeline due to this one’s interference.

“So…” he shifts a little in his seat. “I’m guessing you guys didn’t find out about Hydra the same way we did.” He leans forward. “But you found them, right?”

Bruce nods absentmindedly, his eyes on his work. “Yeah, oh…back in 2014, I think.” Steve’s mouth drops open at the year difference between their two timelines. Bruce shrugs one shoulder. “I was in Guatemala at the time though,” he says. “I only saw the aftermath on the news.” His eyes meet his for a moment, his face unreadable. “Steve didn’t tell me much, but I know that Bucky disappeared afterwards. Apparently he broke through his programming but…”

He shrugs again, and Steve can only stare. So much of the statement feels wrong to him, he doesn’t even know where to begin. “I guess…it would have been harder if your Steve wasn’t Bucky’s handler,” he starts slowly, trying and failing to imagine what it must have been like for other-Steve to stumble across a brainwashed Bucky while he had been fighting Hydra—and then to have him disappear afterwards.

His own experience finding Bucky had not been pleasant, but he had at least never had to fight him, and he’d been able to take Bucky back to the Tower with him when it was all over— He blinks, the thought of the Tower reminds him of something else Bruce had said.

“Guatemala?” he repeats, watching as Bruce pulls out a fried bundle of wires from the GPS. “You weren’t in the Tower?”

Bruce shakes his head, not looking up. “We didn’t live in the Tower together like you seem to have,” he says, without elaborating.

Steve sits back. “Oh.” He can’t really imagine that. He had been living with the Avengers in one place or another for so long, he can’t imagine…not doing that. He straightens his shoulders. “What about the compound?” he questions, trying not to sound desperate. “Did you still— did Tony build—?”

He cuts himself off at the mention of Tony, but Bruce gets the gist. “Yeah,” he nods. “That was just before Ultron though.”

Steve’s brows pull together. “Ultron?”

Bruce’s head darts up, and he stares at him, his hand motionless over the GPS. “Yeah,” he says, a note of disbelief in his voice. “Tony and I, we built Ultron—a robot AI. With the scepter. It attacked Sokovia, in 2015.”

Steve is almost speechless. “We…” he swallows. “We gave the scepter to Thor,” he manages, feeling dizzy at what he had just heard. “We knew where it was, because of my undercover work with Hydra. We raided the base in 2013.”

Bruce’s hand lowers to rest on the table. “Wow,” he says quietly, almost wistfully. He gives his head a shake and breathes in. “That changes a lot then.” He focuses back on his work. “Did you even have Wanda? Or Vision?”

Steve’s mouth opens, and he shakes his head soundlessly. “Who—?”

“Vision’s dead,” Bruce says without looking up, his voice flat. “I don’t know where Wanda went.” He breathes in, and his shoulders relax an inch or so. He looks suddenly very tired. “I guess you wouldn’t have the Sokovia Accords either then.”

Steve tries to get a grip on the conversation. “No— well, it was the Avengers Accords for us.” Bruce looks up in surprise, and Steve finds himself explaining how those events had unfolded. “…so, after that we went with the others for solidarity, but then Rumlow blew the building—”

“Rumlow?” Bruce interrupts, looking shocked.

Steve pauses, feeling off-balance. “It wasn’t Rumlow for you?”

Bruce blinks a few times and shrugs. “Well, I actually wasn’t there for any of that for us,” he says, tugging out another charred wire. “So I only know this all second-hand.” His mouth twists up, and he shakes his head. “Sounds like your Bruce never got zapped up into space.”

Steve’s mouth falls open. “Uh. No.” He is so stunned he can’t think of what to say, and Bruce doesn’t clarify.

He only sighs. “Yeah, well, I came back when Thanos was attacking, and that's when I learned about the Accords, and how the Avengers broke up after it.” Steve’s eyes bug out, and he almost doesn’t hear Bruce muttering how it would make sense that ‘Zemo’ didn’t blow the UN since they’d never had an Ultron.

He is still stuck on his last sentence. “Broke up?” he echoes, his stomach feeling hollow. “What— what do you mean?”

Bruce eyes him for a moment. “You said not everybody signed, right?” he says, his eyes narrowed. “Did you sign?”

Steve pulls back. “No, I didn’t.”

Bruce frowns. “Well then, did Tony not sign?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, Tony decided to sign, because he wanted to try to keep an eye on the Accords. But I didn’t want to risk getting trapped in them, so I didn’t.”

Bruce stares, before he huffs and goes back to his work. “Well, that’s what happened here,” he says, glaring at a cracked sensor that stubbornly avoids his tweezers. “But from what I’ve heard…you and Tony fought about it.” He looks up. “Like, really fought about it. Physically.”

It is Steve’s turn to stare. “I— what— no. I would never— Tony wouldn’t—” He can’t even form full sentences. His shock is too much. “Why?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I’ve only heard this story in bits and pieces,” he says, and Steve can’t help noting how, the more he talks, the more it becomes clear how separated these Avengers are. They hadn't even lived together. They hardly seem to even talk to each other. They had fought each other.

“I think Steve broke the Accords to go after…after Hydra’s Winter Soldiers, or something,” Bruce says, pulling Steve back into the conversation. He is no less shocked than before. The Winter Soldiers? They had dealt with those ages before the Accords, because— because Bucky had told them about them, because they had taken Hydra down early, because of the time-travelers.

He can remember in his own timeline, Ross had criticized him for killing the Winter Soldiers without permission. It sounds like his other-self had done so in this timeline too, but at a much greater risk.

“Tony was sent after him,” Bruce continues. He bites his lip. “I think he was going to help him but…” his eyes flick up to him, looking concerned. “Uh, I’m kind of vague on this point. But something happened there. I think something to do with Bucky’s missions, and Tony’s parents.”

Steve’s blood goes cold, and he sits frozen as Bruce continues. “I think Tony started to attack Bucky,” he says, the words practically incomprehensible with how wrong they are. “So Steve and Tony fought, and, well…afterwards, Steve and the other non-signers had to go on the run.”

Tony would never— Tony would never attack Bucky. He swallows. His Tony would never. He had needed time and distance as he had come to terms with the death of his parents, but he had never taken it out on Bucky. Even just thinking about that makes him feel sick. And then, to learn that his other-self had apparently become a fugitive— He swallows again, his throat dry. His hands feel far away on the table, and his head feels like it is floating. The things Bruce is saying sound so wrong. He can’t even imagine— He can’t even imagine living through this timeline.

Bruce sees the look on his face, and he looks back down at the GPS. “I’m guessing that didn’t happen for you.”

“No,” he gets out, the word thick in his throat. He can’t even explain how differently things had ended up. The Accords had been a stressful time. The signing, and Peggy’s death, and the explosion…it had nearly pushed him to his wit’s end, but Tony had been at his side for all of it. Even if they were making different decisions in the face of the Accords.

His heart pounds as he watches Bruce pull a bin of new wires towards himself and begin to meticulously thread them into his GPS. All this talk about him and Tony reminds him of the gut-wrenching memorial he had seen, and he can’t keep the burning question of what had happened down anymore.

“What about—” he breathes in as Bruce glances up. “What about Tony? In this timeline.” He darts his gaze over him desperately, his hands curling into fists. “He can’t really— he can’t really be dead.”

Bruce freezes, his green skin paling. “Your Tony survived!?” he barks, the sudden sharpness in his voice startling. He sits up, leaning forward. “Did someone else do the snap? Who was it?”

Steve pulls back at the intensity of his gaze. “No. No, Tony did it,” he defends. “We all grabbed onto him—” his eyes drop to Bruce’s arm. The one that is more damaged than his Bruce’s arm. “You didn’t…you didn’t,” his eyes go up to meet his. “You didn’t share the power, when you snapped?”

Bruce deflates, the lines on his face getting deeper. “No,” he says quietly. His eyes fall despondently onto the gutted GPS. “We didn’t think of that.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. In his timeline, it had been Tony who had made the original suggestion, because he had heard it from the Guardians. He can only assume that this Tony had never been told that trick, maybe because it had taken them so much longer to reverse things. That can be the only reason. His eyes settle on Bruce, taking in the slump of his shoulders, and he feels a sting of pity for him. He can’t imagine what it must be like to learn there was a solution they could have done, but didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and Bruce’s expression softens into something recognisable as he looks up.

“I’m…glad it worked out differently for you guys, at least,” he says sadly. He draws away, his eyes dropping as he moves to realign some more wires.

Steve breathes in, trying to think of something more upbeat to talk about. Anything to shift the oppressive atmosphere of the room. “So, what have you and the other Avengers been doing?” he asks, hoping not to step on any hidden landmines. “Now that you undid the Dusting?”

Bruce squints at him inexplicably, before shaking his head and going back to his work. “Mostly trying to rebuild, I think,” he says. “I heard Clint put up a little memorial for Natasha at his farm though, just like how she wanted it, which is nice. I haven’t gotten a chance to visit yet though.”

Steve’s insides freeze and his breath chokes off in his throat. “Natasha…?” The word is choked and strangled, and he knows he must be sheet white when Bruce looks up.

A look of sympathy passes over his face. “Was it Clint for you guys?”

All at once Steve realises what he is talking about. He must be talking about the Soul Stone exchange. This timeline must not have— Their Natasha had died for the Soul Stone. They hadn't figured out a way out of it. Their Natasha is dead.

And Bruce is looking at him because he assumes that their Clint had sacrificed himself instead of Natasha, because he can’t even imagine a world where neither of them would have to die. Steve knows suddenly that he cannot dissuade him of that belief. He cannot be the one to tell him that none of his friends had to die.

“Yeah,” he lies instead, his voice strained and his mind reeling as he tries to get a grip on the revelations he had been given. His shock helps sell the lie, and Bruce nods sadly.

“I tried to bring Nat back,” he shrugs his injured shoulder. “But I couldn’t.”

Steve nods dazedly, and he doesn’t ask if he had happened to bring Loki back in this timeline. If Bruce had snapped alone, without Thor’s help, then he has a feeling that he probably hadn't. Also…if Loki had remained prisoner in this timeline, and hadn't spent six years on the run from Thanos, then it is probable that this timeline had never learned that Thanos was behind Loki’s attack in the first place. Bruce would have no reason to bring Loki back.

He thinks about how devastated his Thor had been at the loss of his brother and his people, and he knows that this Thor must have been even worse.

Steve swallows down a wave of nausea, and wipes his hands on his pants. He watches as Bruce begins to carefully solder the wires he had set, using a helping-hand device to make up for his damaged one. He hopes Bruce is almost done. He wants to go home now. Everything is so, so different here, and it leaves him feeling cold and empty inside.

A thought strikes him as Bruce begins fiddling with the sensor board. “Hey, did it really take this timeline four years to undo the Dusting?”

Bruce looks up at him, his expression confused. “Five years,” he corrects. Steve opens his mouth and then closes it.

“Oh.” His lips press together. They had known that this timeline had taken longer, but they hadn't been sure exactly how long. To hear in concrete terms how long this timeline had lived with the Dusting…

“I take it that the Blip didn’t last so long for you?” Bruce comments wryly.

Steve mouths the word ‘ Blip’ in bewilderment, his nose wrinkling, before answering. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “We…we were able to find Scott earlier.” He decides not to say how much earlier. He doesn’t think that that would be fair to Bruce.

He breathes in shakily, his anxious energy growing as he waits for Bruce to calibrate his GPS. He wants to go home. He wants to go home now.

The silence as Bruce works sits on him heavily, and he finds himself breaking it with another question that had been plaguing him. “Before Stephen found me,” he starts, watching Bruce nod to show he is listening. “I… someone told me that Captain America is…gone, in this timeline.”

Bruce pauses and looks up at him, something unreadable in his eyes. After a second of silence, he goes back to his work, his shoulders hunched. “He might as well be,” he says, tiny sparks jumping up as he solders another wire. “I think he found somewhere quiet to live out whatever time he has left.”

Steve’s brow knits together in complete confusion, and Bruce glances up at him. He sighs. “When you went to return the stones, you stayed away,” he says. “You lived out your life in the past. You came back an old man.”

Steve’s mouth falls open in disbelief, and Bruce eyes him. “You’re not planning to do that?”

“No!” he bursts out, his mind spinning in bewilderment. “Why would I— why would he do that?”

It is Bruce’s turn to draw back a little. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “I didn’t ask.”

Of course he didn’t. Because the Avengers here are not as close as the Avengers back home. Steve slumps and runs a restless hand through his hair, trying to process what he had heard. Bruce lets him sit in silence, his quiet work with the GPS filling the air as he thinks.

He can remember wondering about the other-Steve when he had been preparing for the time heist. He and Tony had wondered about why the other-Steve would still have his compass on him. Had he really been so lost in this timeline that he had felt he couldn’t even live here?

Steve swallows and thinks about all he has observed of this timeline. The Avengers are not close in this timeline. That is clear. His other-self and Tony hardly even appear to be friends. They had fought each other, and his other-self had taken a lot longer to find Bucky too.

It had been Tony who had first told him about PTSD and pushed him to see a therapist. It had been the Avengers and Bucky who had helped him to start breaking his bad coping habits. If this Steve had had none of that…

He had used to think that he would have no idea where he would be if he hadn't allowed Tony to rope him into therapy…but now he thinks he has a pretty good idea.

And this Steve had had to deal with the Dusting for five years, plus the deaths of both Tony and Natasha.

“What about Bucky?” he manages, pressing his hands against the table. “What about Bucky and Sam? Are they still here?” This Steve had had to live with their deaths for five years.

Bruce nods as though he isn’t sure why he is asking the question, and Steve’s lips part as he tries to comprehend that. He cannot even fathom what his other-self must have been going through to need to leave so badly that he had left both Sam and Bucky.

“Are…they okay?” he gets out, and Bruce shrugs, a sympathetic look on his face.

“I…don’t really talk to them much,” he says. “I hardly even met them really.”

That…that is so hard to imagine. His Bruce had been especially close to Bucky in his timeline. The two of them would spend hours together, and he knows that Sam and Bruce’s personalities had meshed well whenever they had been together. To think that this Bruce barely even knew these people…

He breathes in and rubs a hand over his face, feeling drained. He looks down at the GPS and swallows. “Are you almost done?” his voice comes out rough and jagged, but Bruce doesn’t comment on it.

“Yeah,” he says softly, and they sit in mutually agreed upon silence for the rest of the repairs.

oOo

Bruce’s eyes are clouded as he hands him the repaired GPS, and now that Steve knows more about his other-self’s actions in this timeline, he understands better the strange looks he has been getting from him. The face of the GPS is still cracked, but the screen lights up when he taps it.

He breathes out in relief as familiar coordinates stare back at him. It’s fixed. He can go home again. He can get out of here.

Stephen accompanies him back to the entry of the Sanctum. “You should be able to travel back to your own timeline now that that is fixed,” he says, eyeing him critically. “You don’t belong here; the timeline will try to fix itself.”

Steve nods automatically, his hands trembling imperceptibly as he types in the coordinates. He casts one last glance at Bruce standing silently behind Stephen. “Thank you,” he says, wishing he had something better to say to him after seeing this timeline. He presses his lips together. “Good luck.”

Bruce nods, his eyes solemn. “You too,” he says quietly.

Steve breathes in and presses his finger to the GPS. Please take me home, he thinks as the world pulls away and he is once again hurtled through the eerily red tunnels of the Quantum Realm.

The trip is just as bumpy as last time. His heart pounds in his mouth as he rockets through the rollercoaster of tunnels. If this doesn’t work, he could stay trapped away from his timeline. He will be just like the other-Steve, except they will never know what happened to him.

Overwhelming relief surges through his veins as the tunnels begin to bleed into blue. The GPS tugs him along the pathways, and hope drives the air from his lungs as the world whites out and he plunges to the other side of the jump.

He lands with a cry and tumbles to his knees. His hands fly out as he catches himself and his breath bursts out of him in pants, his whole body shaking.

“Steve?”

His head snaps up at the sound of Bucky’s voice. Bucky is coming towards him, worry etched on his face, and Sam is behind him and— and Tony is there with Bruce. Even Loki is still there at the back of the room, his arms folded as he watches them uncertainly.

Bucky reaches him, and Steve sucks in a gasp, his hands scrambling to grab onto Bucky’s shirt. It is loose, because Bucky is still missing his left arm, and Bucky’s right hand comes up to clasp his shoulder, trying to stabilise him.

“This is home?” Steve blurts before Bucky can say anything. His eyes jump up to the control console. Tony has edged around it, watching him, his brows pulled together in concern. He hangs back, probably to give him some space, but that is the last thing Steve needs right now.

He staggers to his feet, Bucky following his movements worriedly. “Tony,” he mumbles, stumbling towards him. His breaths are still uneven and ragged, and Tony’s eyes widen as he approaches. His good arm reaches out to steady him, and Steve doesn’t pause as he drags him into a frantic hug.

Tony starts in surprise, his hand jerking, before he relaxes and reaches around him. He is hampered by his shield, and Steve realises absentmindedly that he had completely forgotten to go and get the thing repaired. That hardly seems to matter right now. What matters now is that Tony is here and that—

“Steve, you’re shaking,” Tony says, his voice muffled as his nose presses into his shoulder. “What happened?”

Steve pulls away a little, but doesn’t answer, his mind suddenly remembering someone else he needs to check on. “Natasha,” he gasps, his hand still on Tony’s shoulder. “Is she— Is she okay?” He looks away from Tony’s lost expression, craning his head towards the ceiling. “JARVIS,” a frantic edge pulls at his voice, “is Natasha okay?”

“Indeed, Captain,” JARVIS responds, his voice cool and calming. “Agent Romanoff is with Agent Barton and his family in the common room.”

All the air leaves him at once, his shaking growing stronger as he begins to come down from his adrenaline spike. “Okay,” he manages, exhaustion sweeping through him. His eyes close. “Alright, okay.”

He sways, and he feels Tony’s grip shift as he tries to keep him steady. He opens his eyes, and Sam is coming up on his other side. “You look like you could sit down,” he says firmly, the words not a suggestion. Steve nods, and lets Sam help him over to the dilapidated couch that had managed to stick around in Tony’s lab, even after all this time.

The others follow as Steve slumps tiredly onto the cushions. He manages to pull the shield from his back, and he sets it aside for now. He will talk to Sam about that later. That is a conversation that needs to be had outside of the shock he has just received.

Bucky settles on the couch next to him, and the others pull up various chairs to sit around him, varying degrees of worry lining their face. He smiles a little at their concern. It is so real, and important, given what he had just witnessed. He runs a shaky hand through his hair and notes that Loki has slipped out of the room at some point, leaving them in private.

“What happened?” Bucky asks softly.

Steve breathes in, and he tells them.

He starts with the shot to the GPS, and how that had rocketed him to the wrong timeline. His voice wavers as he recounts the memorial he had seen, and a horrified silence grows thick around him the more he tells them of the other timeline. Tony’s face is grey as he tells him about the alleged fight between their other-selves, and Bruce goes deadly still as he explains how Natasha had died in the other timeline. Both Sam and Bucky shift uneasily as he lists off what his own other-self had done, and his throat is dry, his voice cracking by the time he finishes up.

Tony pushes away to get him some water. As he returns, a sad trill alerts them to DUM-E and U both sitting forlornly at the edge of the circle, grieving along with them.

Despite everything, Steve almost laughs. This is so… this is so familiar. This is not the first time he has had a breakdown on Tony’s couch. He had collapsed here when he had first learned what Hydra had done to Bucky. Tony had been there for it too, and now, this time, he has a much larger support group.

He accepts the water with trembling hands while, next to him, Bucky lets out a breath. “That sounds horrible,” he announces, and the others nod along with him emphatically.

“Yeah,” Steve croaks, breathing in shakily. “I’m— I’m glad I could make it back.”

Bucky leans into his side, and Steve can feel himself begin to settle as he takes another sip of water. “I’m glad you’re back,” Bucky says, and the sentiment is reflected in all the faces around him.

He lets out a breath and presses against Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m glad I had here to come back to,” he says, his eyes drifting over the faces of his friends. “I— it wasn’t easy, but…but I think we did okay here. You know, considering.” The memorial flashes in front of his eyes, and his hands tighten around his cup. “I’m glad we’re all here to see it.”

His eyes fall on Tony, and he sees him nod. “Yeah,” he says softly. “We did good.”

Thank goodness, Steve thinks.

Chapter Text

Clint’s alarm blares, and he grumbles incoherently as he rolls over. His nose scrunches and he presses his face to his pillow, resisting the call to wake up. His alarm is a ‘gift’ from Laura, specifically designed to get louder the longer it goes on. The noise climbs, and he thinks thoughts about Laura’s smug insistence that he wouldn’t get up otherwise.

She isn’t exactly wrong, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

He grinds his face into the pillow again and tries to remember what day it is. It’s a weekday, right? He pries one eye open and squints at the date displayed on the clock face. Wednesday. What was he planning to do today? Does he actually need to get up or—

His eyes widen. Oh, it’s Wednesday.

His early morning mood flips as a grin splits his face and he scrambles out of bed, silencing his alarm. He trips almost instantly over the pair of pants he had left out last night, but he barely pauses as he stoops down to toss them into the laundry. He is still smiling as he stumbles over to his dresser and starts pulling out something acceptable to wear. He needs something comfortable and easy to move in, nothing restrictive today.

Because it’s Wednesday, and today he will be giving Bucky his first archery lesson.

He has to wait several hours before he can actually get down to the teaching part of the day. He has been waiting for this ever since Steve had first come to them all and asked them to try to help him rehabilitate Bucky.

Back home, Cooper has only just started to be old enough to start any serious learning. At first, Clint hadn't been sure how he would feel about teaching Cooper, given the history of how and why he had learned archery. But Cooper had been so excited, and he had been ‘practicing’ for ages with a nerf bow and arrow set.

Finally, Clint had looked into finding a child’s sized bow, and Cooper’s face when he had presented it to him for Christmas last year had been a sight to behold. Clint had made him promise to only use it outside, while he was there for supervision. Cooper had been eager to accept those stipulations, and he had insisted (headless of the snowy weather) on setting up the target board Laura had given him against the barnwall that very day.

The Barton family had spent a cheerful morning bundled up in their winter gear, watching as Clint started to teach the very basics to Cooper. Lila was too young to fire any real arrows, but she amused herself with Cooper’s old nerf set, trying to copy Clint’s demonstrations and directions. Laura had made them all hot chocolate afterwards, and Cooper had insisted they practice every day until Clint had to go back to the Avengers Tower.

And that is how Clint had discovered that he really liked teaching archery.

It isn’t just about teaching a new skill. It is about the connection it brought him and his children. It is about sharing something special and imparting it free from any of the shadows his own training might have had.

He doubts most of the Avengers besides Natasha know much about his history before he joined SHIELD. It had taken him a long time and a lot of work before he had become the Clint Barton he is now. But he had done it, and learning to find a new thrill in archery had been part of that. Before SHIELD, his skills had either been for entertainment, or death. He was good at what he did, but the fulfillment he’d gotten back then is different from what he gets now working with the Avengers.

He imagines Bucky can relate.

Steve had given them a basic outline of what Hydra had done to him. His story is familiar enough, given what he knows Natasha had gone through. And it has some uncomfortable echoes in his own life too.

He had had to learn to see himself beyond his mercenary skills, and he had watched and silently cheered as Natasha had learned to do the same. He can only hope that, in some small way, he can help Bucky along that path too.

oOo

Bucky is tense when he comes into the gym. Clint knew he would be, so he isn’t surprised. This isn’t the first time he has spent one-on-one time with Bucky. Steve had asked if he could keep an eye on him a while ago, and Clint had had the honour of introducing him to movies. Bucky had been tense and stiff then, and Clint can still remember his eerie assertion when he had asked him what he wanted to do.

The Asset doesn’t have wants.

Even Natasha hadn't been quite that far gone. She hadn't seen the point of doing frivolous things if not mission related, but she could do them, and she could even put on a pretty good façade about it if she thought she was supposed to. That had brought with it its own difficulties, but it is a whole other world from Bucky’s apparent divorcement from himself as a person at all.

He breathes out and pushes the memory from his mind. There is no point in getting riled up about that now. He is certain Bucky will pick up on his mood right away, and no doubt become even more nervous.

Bucky follows him over to the firing range, and Clint starts off with the same safety talk he had given both Lila and Cooper a few months ago. Back home he had spray painted a white firing line to mark out the range, but here in the gym, the line is built into the floor itself.

“To shoot we will be putting one foot over this line,” he explains, demonstrating for Bucky to see. “But when the range is open, it is important to never go any further. When I close the range then we can go across and collect our arrows.”

Cooper and Lila had been good about that. No matter how excited they were, they understood that they needed to be careful. From the intense focus on Bucky’s face as he talks about bow safety and etiquette, he imagines he will be the same.

Once that is out of the way, Clint leads them over to a rack lining the side of the range. Tony had provided a variety of styles and strengths of bows. While Clint usually likes to stick to his combat ones, he still enjoys himself trying out the longbows and other such ‘toys’. (He’s tried the crossbow a few times, and man, those things pack a punch.)

Right now they just need a simple bow for Bucky. With his arm strength, he could probably draw any one of these bows, so all Clint needs to know is which hand he wants to start with. He intends to teach him both hands anyways, but he figures asking for their first day won’t hurt anything.

“Do you know which hand you’d like to use first?”

The question feels innocuous, but Bucky opens his mouth to answer, and then just...freezes. Clint isn’t exactly sure what is happening, or why he has suddenly zoned out, and he flicks his eyes over him with growing concern. Bucky’s eyes are glazed and focused elsewhere, his breaths measured and just barely visible as he stands motionless.

Clint swallows, worried that he might have somehow reminded Bucky of a question Hydra used to ask him. He had been hoping to make Bucky’s first session with him as stress free as possible, but they haven’t even started yet, and already they are having problems.

“Bucky?” he calls, easing half-a-step forward.

Bucky flinches, his chin ducking with alarm as he draws his shoulders up and pulls away from him. His eyes sweep up and pin him with a look of fearful anticipation, and Clint pulls back immediately.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says soothingly, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. He takes a step back to try to put Bucky at ease. “Take your time, that’s fine.” He waits for another second before giving him a small smile, hoping his next question will ease the tension. “What hand do you want to use?”

It is a bit of a gamble asking that, since Bucky had reacted strangely to it, but he knows from Steve that little choices like these aren’t something Bucky is used to. If he can show him that it is okay, and that nothing bad will happen, then anything else that happens today will have been a success.

Thankfully the question doesn’t send Bucky into further panic. He glances at the bows, and his hands clench anxiously before he flicks his eyes cautiously at him. “...Left.”

Clint grins, knowing that the answer must be genuinely from Bucky. “Great,” he says. “That just means you’ll string your arrow on the other side from me.” He picks out a bow for Bucky, before grabbing two standing quivers and leading them back to the firing range.

He keeps the purple fletched arrows for himself and proudly sets the blue ones down in front of Bucky. Natasha had recently gone on her own trip with Bucky, and while she had kept private about most of it, she had mentioned that Bucky had admitted to blue being his favourite colour. Whether or not Bucky cares about the colour on his arrows, Clint feels a sense of satisfaction giving him the blue ones.

Bucky seems to have relaxed since the incident by the bows, and he follows along pretty easily as Clint shows him the basic stance and demonstrates how to draw his bow. “Now you try,” he says as he drops out of the stance.

Bucky copies him, putting one foot over the line and drawing his bow, pulling the string back to his cheekbone with two fingers. His eyes are intent and focused on the targets in front of them, but his stance is tense and somewhat awkward. Much like Cooper, when he had first drawn his bow (and excitedly tried to copy Robin Hood and Legolas and other such fantasy archers), his elbow juts out, and his shoulders aren’t pulled back enough, keeping him off balance.

Clint chews on the inside of his cheeks as he thinks. With Cooper, it had been easy to fix these rookie mistakes. He had been right there behind him, guiding his hands. If he could do that with Bucky too, then that would be great.

But he remembers that flinch from earlier, and he knows all too well where that had come from.

Still, he decides to try it. It had taken him a long time to understand that gentle touches were safe and desirable. Steve had asked them to help rehabilitate Bucky, and he knows that this will be part of that. He wants to be able to help with that, even if only in a small way.

“Is it okay if I fix something?” he asks softly, putting down his bow before raising his hands to show his intentions. “It’s often easier to show than to tell.”

He remains completely motionless as he waits for Bucky to respond. Bucky stares at him for a long moment, his breaths nearly invisible as he considers his offer. At last, he nods, slow and cautious, his eyes wary.

Clint has to swallow down the rush of emotions Bucky’s hesitant trust evokes. Considering what has been done to him, the fact Bucky is willing to let him near at all is a staggering show of faith.

He approaches slowly, and Bucky remains frozen, barely breathing as he watches him come closer. “I’m just going to touch your shoulders for a moment,” he warns, wanting to give Bucky as much control over this situation as he can. He keeps his movements open and choreographed as he nudges Bucky’s shoulders into the proper position. His muscles are tight and tense under him, but he straightens quickly, his elbow dropping as his stance becomes more natural.

“There,” Clint breathes, stepping back. The whole interaction had only lasted a few seconds, but he can feel Bucky watching him as he picks up his bow again. He had let him touch him, and he hadn’t flinched, which is more than Clint had been expecting.

They practice drawing the bow a few times until Bucky instinctively falls into the more natural stance. “Nice,” Clint tells him, grinning and rolling his shoulders. “Alright, we can probably grab an arrow now—”

He cuts off and slaps a hand to his forehead, suddenly remembering an important detail he had left out. He had been so excited about the session, and then so focused on keeping Bucky calm, that he hadn’t remembered any of the other gear they needed. That had almost happened with Cooper too, because the two of them had been buzzing with anticipation, and it had only been Laura’s pointed cough and nod towards Cooper’s other present holding a whole host of protective padding that had got him to remember in time.

He grumbles a bit in disbelief at his oversight, before noticing that Bucky is tense and frozen again, most likely completely lost and wary.

Clint resists a wince and offers him a flash of a smile instead. “Okay,” he drops his hand, “guess I got a little carried away. We need to put on some protection before we do anything else.”

He thinks he sees a flicker of confusion on Bucky’s face, but he follows easily enough as Clint gestures for him to set his bow down and head back to the equipment rack. He has a whole bin of various armguards and finger protection, and he shows them to Bucky before beginning to put on his own.

He has years and years of practice when it comes to fastening armguards one-handed, but Bucky has more trouble. Cooper had had the same difficulty with trying to hold the armguard in place while also strapping it on, and Clint reaches forward instinctively.

“Here,” he offers, intending to help.

Bucky flinches at the slight movement, remaining completely silent as his shoulders draw up to his ears and he cringes. Clint freezes instantly, his heart dropping as he regards him, wishing he’d waited a few seconds to ask like last time.

Natasha had never flinched like this. She had been too practiced in hiding her feelings and remaining guarded. She had been cold and silent and watchful, too careful and too afraid to flinch. He had used to flinch though. He had been wary of Coulson for months, always halfway on edge and angry, ready to defend himself if necessary. Natasha had been wary and afraid, he had been angry and afraid, and Bucky is...plain afraid. Lost. Confused and afraid.

“It’s fine,” he says softly, hoping his calm patience will help Bucky relax. “I’m just going to help you, alright?”

Bucky stares at him for a second longer, before giving a shaky nod, his throat flexing. Clint breathes out and lets go of his own memories of recovery. Bucky is still tense and statuesque as he approaches, but he doesn’t pull away as he gently straightens and fastens the armguard.

Bucky relaxes as he steps away and Clint catches him giving him a searching gaze as he leads them back over to the range. Clint is pretty sure he knows exactly what that is about, thanks to his own life experiences, so he keeps the mood light as he starts demonstrating the basics of shooting.

“Make sure not to hold the end of the arrow with your fingers,” he warns, all-too aware of amateur archer mistakes, thanks to bad action movies. He draws his arrow back and aims at the closest target, about 40 feet away. “Just let it rest gently on top of your bottom finger and you should be able to let go easily.”

He hits the bullseye and allows himself a flash of satisfaction, before he turns to Bucky and gestures for him to try. “Your turn.”

Bucky’s face remains stoic and concentrated as he directs his gaze to his own target. He pulls the bowstring back, his eyes sharpening as an intense sniper focus settles over him. Clint breathes out in awe, seeing for the first time the hyperfocus and skill of the Winter Soldier—and also, perhaps, the sniper Bucky Barnes.

Bucky lets the arrow fly. The bowstring slaps against his armguard, and a second later the arrow lands solidly in the upper righthand corner of the target. It sinks several inches into the foam, a testament to just how much force had been behind the strike.

Clint grins and looks up as Bucky looks over. “Good job,” he says, excitement rushing through him. He knew Bucky would be good at this. He thinks he sees a flash of surprise in Bucky’s eyes, and he continues. “Hitting the bag on the first try. Pretty impressive.”

As he speaks, a line of skepticism forms between Bucky’s eyes, and Clint infers that positive reinforcement probably wasn’t the usual method of training with Hydra. That doesn’t surprise him, but he is determined to counteract that.

He gestures back to the range. “Let’s go again.”

Bucky nods, and reaches stiltedly for his next arrow. He looks less relaxed than before as he draws back, and Clint decides to focus on his own target, trying to keep from pressuring him as they shoot.

Bucky’s next arrow misses the target entirely. That in itself is no surprise. It takes more than one shot to get used to the mechanics of archery, but Clint can practically feel the tension cranking up at the miss.

“That’s okay,” he announces, keeping his eyes on his target and hoping his casual response will help calm Bucky down. “Just try again, you’ll get better as you practice.”

Bucky relaxes in slow increments. His eyes retain their intense focus as they keep firing, and he manages to usually hit the target every few arrows. Clint pipes up with a tip or two as they practice, but he mostly keeps quiet. The purpose of this exercise is more to get Bucky comfortable with him, and with a bow. They will work more on his technique as he gets more confident.

He hadn’t grabbed any protection for his fingers, so once they start to complain, he decides it is about time for them to call it quits. “Okay,” he says, flexing his hand before running it through his sweat-spiked hair, a small part of him envying Bucky’s metal, pain-free fingers. “Let’s take a break.”

He hadn’t been expecting the statement to cause waves.

Bucky’s hand tightens on the bow, and his shoulders stiffen, something like fear entering his eyes. He practically looks pleading as he speaks. “I am still operational.”

The words are a punch to the solar plexus. Clint’s skin prickles at the mechanical language, and he freezes. His eyes jump up to Bucky and he can see his throat flex uncertainly as silence descends on them.

Right. Right.

He breathes out.

His ‘trainer’ had had the same attitude, and he had been too young and too desperate for approval to question it. It had taken Coulson ages to get him to slow down.

Natasha had been like that too. Not the same language, but the same intensity. The same mantra repeated over and over again. The same determination to push and prove herself because for too long her entire worth had centered on refusing to treat herself as a human being.

He can still hear her voice. You don’t have to be soft on me. I can keep going.

“I know,” he answers both her and Bucky, his words reflecting something Coulson had told him once, years ago. He looks up and meets Bucky’s eyes. “But, it’s important to take breaks.” He rolls his shoulders, feeling the weight of Bucky’s gaze. “No one expects you to get good at this in one day.”

He finishes with the same argument that had managed to make both him and Natasha back down. “Taking breaks helps your body rest so you can learn next time.”

Bucky nods, slow and careful, his brow furled as he takes in this new information. Clint breathes out and makes a mental note to figure out when his next Hydra mission is. He has some retribution to hand out.

oOo

He has another session with Bucky only a day or so later, and he gets him to start practicing with the other arm. It is good practice for him too. He is pretty much ambidextrous when it comes to shooting, but he usually prefers his right side. Switching it up is a nice challenge.

For this session, he specifically procures some water bottles for them as part of his newfound and ongoing mission to educate Bucky on proper, healthy training techniques. It doesn’t take long for them to get set up with bows and armguards, and soon the gym is filled with the muffled thumps of arrows flying home.

The whistle of bowstrings is soon interrupted by another sound, and Clint looks back in surprise as a tired looking Steve slips into the gym. His hair is unkempt, and his eyes look shadowed as he waves vaguely at them and heads off towards the line of punching bags on the other side of the room.

He and Bucky watch for a moment as he wraps his hands and begins warming up on the bags, ignoring them completely. Clint leaves him to it, turning back to the range, the sound of Steve’s work out echoing around them.

This is not the first time he has come across Steve pounding away at the bags. He is pretty sure every Avenger has stumbled in on him once or twice. It had been more common while Steve had been working undercover (not that Clint had known that at the time), and both he and Natasha had noted the...ferocity of the sessions they had glimpsed.

Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if Steve’s relationship with training is just as toxic as Bucky’s.

Bucky barely seems to notice the heavy thuds coming from Steve’s end of the room, but Clint is distracted. Steve doesn’t seem to be pacing himself, and he had looked out of sorts before he had even started.

None of that bodes well, and Clint gives up shooting after another few frustrating minutes. He rolls his shoulders, trying not to let his unhappiness bleed into his voice as he gestures for Bucky to follow him to the benches by the wall. “Let’s take a break.”

He waves to the water bottles and glances back towards Steve as he grabs his own. Steve’s back is angled towards him, and he can see sweat darkening his shirt. He frowns and taps a finger impatiently on his water bottle. He has seen this before, and he isn’t sure he can do much. Steve is usually blasé when it comes to him, his stamina, and his serum.

His mouth twists and he hands off the other water bottle to Bucky. He accepts easily, and Clint takes a drink as he flicks his eyes over him, a thought forming. He might not have much of a chance at intervening with Steve but…

He has a pretty good idea of someone who might.

Behind them, Steve’s fist hits the bag with a louder than necessary thud, and Clint winces internally for his knuckles. “Oh for Pete’s sake,” he grumbles, not missing the way Bucky’s eyes dart to him. He takes a controlled sip of water and nods his head to where Steve is still pounding away. “I’d step in, but I doubt he’d listen to me.”

Bucky stares at him, his eyes flicking back and forth between his face and the water in his hand. Clint can practically feel the gears turning in his head, and he raises an eyebrow at him in what he hopes is a conspiratory look, and not a what-do-you-think-you’re-doing look. He honestly doesn’t know if Bucky is ready to approach Steve yet, but he can see Bucky thinking it, and he has to hold himself back from nodding encouragingly. This has to be Bucky’s decision.

The beating on the punching bag continues, and Bucky’s eyes dart over. He takes one stilted step forward, before pausing. His eyes flicker ever so briefly to him, gaging his reaction, and Clint fixes his eyes elsewhere, sipping his water and radiating neutrality.

Bucky must take that as a good sign, because he eases forward another step. Clint tracks him out of the corner of his eye, and soon Bucky is standing stiffly beside Steve and his punching bag, his hand clutched tight around his water bottle.

He doesn’t even have to say anything to get Steve to stop. Clint sets down his water and walks over to fiddle aimlessly with his bow, his head bowed as he keeps an unobtrusive eye on the two.

Steve steps back from his latest bout, his breaths laboured and his muscles tense. He startles when he sees Bucky, and that is all it takes to jolt him out of his fixation. His hands drop, his shoulders continuing to heave as he scans Bucky in confusion.

“Do you need something?”

His words drift across the gym, and Bucky looks about as relaxed as a brick wall. He doesn’t back down though. Instead, his arm jerks forward, his joints moving like rusty mechanical hinges as he offers his unopened water bottle to Steve.

To be honest, that simple gesture, and Steve’s acceptance of it, would have been enough for Clint, but Bucky continues.

“It’s important,” he starts, his voice hesitant and strained, “to take breaks.”

Clint’s eyes widen in shock, and his mouth drops open. It takes everything in him not to jerk his head up, and he keeps his eyes on his bow, a grin blooming on his face. He had been hoping Bucky would take his words to heart, but he had never expected to hear them again so soon.

“Yeah,” Steve replies while Clint silently rejoices. His voice is choked with surprise, and one glance shows that he had not been expecting any of this either. “You’re right.”

Clint twirls his bow, his eyes glinting with satisfaction. Looks like archery has a ‘two birds with one stone’ effect when it comes to helping super soldiers. Of course it does. He wouldn’t have expected anything less.

He sets down his bow and makes his way over to the benches again, waiting as Bucky detaches himself and heads back. Clint doesn’t even bother trying to hide his proud grin as he offers his own water as a replacement for the one Bucky had shared.

“Good job,” he says, feeling immensely satisfied, not only by the success of Bucky’s little venture, but also by the sight of Steve’s stunned expression as he sinks down onto a bench on the other side of the room.

Bucky’s eyes search his at the praise, and he ducks his head. His hair swings forward, and the water might act as good camouflage, but Clint swears he sees the beginnings of a pleased smile on his face as he drinks.

Chapter Text

Natasha is trained to handle crises. Black Widow is cool and calm under pressure. She is always in control. Panicking and jumping the gun is liable to get someone shot, and it was not a trait encouraged in her youth.

That being said, her edges are frayed by the time she faces Zola in an underground bunker. She had awoken at midnight to find Fury murdered by the Winter Soldier, and now she is more or less on the run with Steve, trying to figure out what has gone afoul in SHIELD.

Apparently a Hydra infestation is to blame.

“You should be grateful,” Zola drones, the eerie green light of his pixelated face flickering sickeningly. “Hydra can bring peace to six billion people, by sacrificing three million.”

Steve is standing stiff and motionless beside her, and it is she who marches forward and yanks the USB out of its port. The angry set of her shoulders is obvious as she spins around, but she doesn’t care. She is too strung out to keep a grip on her tongue.

“Be grateful I don’t have anything to blow you up with.”

Steve scrambles to follow her back to the elevator, and she gives herself the ride to fume. She can have that long before she has to try to cope or plan. Even so, her exhausted brain tries to fall instinctively into the usual critiquing tones of her Mistress. Emotion blinds. Bonds are a weakness. Love is for children.

Even after years of practice and relearning her habits, those words still rise up.

It isn’t until she is back in the car with Steve that she begins to wonder why she is the only one virtually losing her mind at what they had just learned. Zola had revealed that Hydra was alive in SHIELD all along, and that they are planning to use the Helicarriers to murder millions of people, and Steve...had barely reacted.

She keeps silent in the car ride, plucking away at the mystery.

Steve brings them to the house of an acquaintance to lay low and plan. They don’t really have a lot of options, and Natasha is too tired to do anything but agree.

“Sorry to do this to you,” Steve says to the man at the door—a Sam Wilson, a veteran and V.A. counsellor according to him. “But we need somewhere safe to lay low.”

Natasha’s voice is rough and revealing as she sweeps her eyes in a scan of their host, cataloguing what little she can see of the room behind him. “We can’t trust anybody right now.”

For the first time in a long time, she wonders if that phrase applies to Steve as well.

She keeps her thoughts to herself as Sam offers them a shower and a meal, but the more she thinks of it, the more she is certain something is happening behind the scenes. She is still reeling from the knowledge that SHIELD is a sham, and that Fury had been targeted for his own suspicions in that area. She hasn’t even had time to process that, and her mind won’t leave Steve alone.

That is what she had been trained to do. Spot the web, follow the thread, untangle and pick apart the seams, and then spin it into something she can use.

Except she had been the one caught in the web all along. She hadn’t even realised there were strings, let alone puppeteers controlling them, and Steve… For some reason she can’t shake the feeling that he somehow knew about this before she did.

Her emotions are hard to pin down on a good day, and the turmoil is unidentifiable now. She stands in the shower, staring blankly at the blue tile, unsure how to feel and therefore refusing to try.

Except, of course, she knows that the majority of the storm inside her consists of hurt, confusion, and desperate justifications for what she suspects. And all of it is pointless because she doesn’t even know if she’s right. She could be making something out of nothing, and the uncertainty just fuels the chaos.

Tame it, little spider, a voice hisses in her ear, and she reaches out and switches off the hot water, letting the shocking cold block out the words. She leans her forehead against the wall and breathes in. Her hand goes to her belly, brushing habitually over the scar on her abdomen, and she breathes out.

I am in control, she reminds herself. Control is something she had given herself once she had left the Red Room, and even with the world falling out from under her feet, she still has that.

She stores her emotions in an icy vault when she confronts Steve. Getting upset or throwing a fit will do nothing. She needs information, and she needs to know what Steve knows. She can deal with how she feels about it later.

“You guys in trouble?” Sam asks, his eyes darting between them as they sit in his living room..

Natasha keeps her eyes on Steve, her hands clasped in her lap. “Steve and I work for a government organisation called SHIELD,” she explains bluntly. With what had been revealed today, keeping that confidential is rather pointless. “Today we found out that it’s actually a front for Hydra.” She locks eyes with Steve. “Except… it seems to be more of a shock to me than it is to Steve.”

Steve looks uncomfortable, but he doesn’t deny it. Instead she listens as he admits to knowing about Hydra for almost a year. He had been working undercover with them almost since the alien invasion, and Tony had been in on it too.

And they didn’t tell her because they hadn’t known if they could trust her.

The pain is a glass knife through the sternum, even as the rest of her can see the logic to it. Of course they had to be cautious. She was a member of SHIELD. They knew SHIELD was compromised. They were trying to fool Hydra. They couldn’t risk outing themselves to her. Not with the stakes that high.

And it isn’t as if they singled her out in particular. They didn’t tell anybody. Not Clint, not Fury, not even Bruce.

Knowing all that doesn’t make the hurt go away, but it allows her to put it aside and listen to the rest of what he has to say.

To be honest, from an objective perspective, she is impressed at all he had managed to accomplish. He is vague on how he had convinced Hydra he was one of them, but he had been able to keep up the ruse for almost a year.

When going into lengthy ops like that, she usually has a whole team behind her, plus her own training. She usually has weeks or months to prepare, and an extraction plan should things go south.

Steve had only had his own tactical experience from the war, and Tony’s brainpower to try to keep him alive and out of any suspicion. The fact that he had seemingly managed to gain Hydra’s trust—enough that they had sent him after her today—is no small feat. Especially considering who he is.

And that isn’t even taking into account the kinds of things he must have had to do for Hydra. Natasha’s own comfort zones are hardly ever an issue on missions. They had never been allowed to be. The very reason Fury had sent her to gather SHIELD intel secretly from the Lemurian Star is because she is ‘comfortable with everything’, and he hadn’t wanted to deal with any pushback from Steve.

She hides a twitch of her lips. The idea seems laughable now. Apparently, like her, Fury had been blinded by the Golden Boy image of Captain America. Of course that airbrushed version of him is nothing more than a comic book character. He is as much a soldier as she is. She won’t forget that again.

She is reminded of that fact all over again when Steve begins to explain who the Winter Soldier is. At first the mention of Fury’s death makes her blood run cold, and her thoughts are off spinning even before Steve continues.

She knows now that Hydra had orchestrated Fury’s death. And she knows Steve had been undercover. Oh. Oh. He had known about the assassination. He knew the Winter Soldier. He knew who killed—

“It’s Bucky,” he bursts out, and her racing thoughts freeze in incomprehension. “The Winter Soldier is James Buchanan Barnes. He didn’t die, he was captured by Hydra.”

Natasha sits mute with shock as she listens to Steve explain the situation, a painstaking expression on his face. His face is drawn, bags heavy under his eyes, his knuckles white in his lap as he speaks.

“They wipe his memories,” he admits hoarsely. “They’ve conditioned him to follow orders and nothing else. He thinks I’m his handler. He doesn’t remember anything else.”

Natasha may not have grown up with Captain America the same way American children had, but even she knows who Bucky Barnes is, and what he meant to the Captain. Steve had been acting as his handler for months, inside Hydra, and she hadn’t picked up the evident distress he is displaying until now.

Or, maybe she had. Everyone in the Tower knew Steve worked out a little too often in the gym. Everyone knew he got edgier and stiffer before and after a mission. The signs had been there. But she had attributed it to regular PTSD, to an adjustment period, to military discipline.

She had so many answers she hadn’t even known what questions to ask, so she had filled in the blanks herself.

She is never going to underestimate Steve Rogers again.

They leave to try to fool Hydra into believing Steve is still loyal to them, only to find themselves rescued by none other than Maria Hill. Natasha is a little worried that Steve’s cover with Hydra will be blown if they escape, but they manage to piece together some semblance of an explanation as Maria drives them to a safe house.

She probably shouldn’t be surprised when Maria reveals that Fury had survived the assassination attempt. She shouldn’t be surprised, and she distracts herself from the shock by watching Steve. She can see the overwhelming relief on his face as he processes the news. She knows what he is thinking—had heard the pain in his voice when he had explained that he hadn’t been able to stop Barnes from killing the Director—and she knows what Fury’s survival means to him.

She had mostly kept her opinions of the Winter Soldier to herself. Her experience with him is very different and less nuanced than Steve’s. Still, she could see the smothered hope in Steve’s eyes when he had spoken of him, and she knows what he wants.

Speaking as a former Black Widow operative, and a former SHIELD agent, she isn’t sure if that is possible.

oOo

Steve pulls her aside specifically to apologise for not telling her earlier about Hydra, and she is reminded of another thing about him. While it is true he is a soldier, and a tactician, and a fighter, he is also a good man.

The icy wall she had built to deal with the situation melts a little. She had known that Steve hadn’t meant to hurt her. She probably would have done the same thing in his shoes. But that doesn’t change how learning about all this had affected her, and Steve knows that. He isn’t trying to justify it, he isn’t assuming she will get over it. Instead, he is apologising sincerely.

“I understand,” she tells him, not quite able to express everything that means to her.

They separate after that to mount their attack against the Helicarriers. Despite how Sam claims his wings were used for pararescueing, Natasha doesn’t much appreciate her flight strapped to his chest. Calling it a rollercoaster would be putting it mildly. Rollercoasters are on a set track. And they aren’t being shot at.

Still, it gets the job done, and Steve is able to get through to the Winter Soldier so they can hack the last Helicarrier. Natasha is a little busy taking care of the STRIKE team (she thinks dropping a building on Rumlow makes them even for how he treated her while trying to arrest her earlier), but it is a relief to hear over the comms.

And then she meets back up with Tony to find the Winter Soldier standing at attention next to him.

She hadn’t expected it to be painful seeing him. The worst part is it has nothing to do with the time he shot her. That incident isn’t even a thought. Instead his blank expression pushes her back into the Red Room. The rock solid stance morphs into a perfect croisé done under a watchful eye.

Always watching, always waiting for her to break. So she had crafted a mask as real as the one that adorns Barnes’ face now.

It had taken her a long, long time to even recognise the full extent of the mask, and it had taken her even longer to learn how to take it off.

Looking at Barnes is like standing at the edge of an abandoned well. She can see how far he has to climb. The idea is exhausting for her to think about, and even if he does manage to drag himself out, she has no idea who he’ll be by the end.

It takes her a moment to label the emotion burning in her stomach, and she is startled to realise that it is anger. She is furious. Seeing Barnes and seeing what has been done to him—seeing what people are still willing to do to other people—ignites a coal of rage that smoulders deep in her core.

Things don’t get much better when Steve gets there.

“Well done Asset,” he says stiffly, before listing off a few restructuring orders to make sure Barnes’ can understand what is going on and won’t attack them. It sounds like he is inputting commands into a computer.

“Confirmed,” Barnes says, and Natasha has to close her eyes and turn away, bile rising in her throat.

Even the Red Room hadn’t erased her so thoroughly. Some days they might as well have, but this is a step beyond that.

The scenario repeats itself when they arrive at the Avengers’ Tower and get taken down to med-bay. Steve sequesters himself off with Barnes, and Natasha can see the moment everyone in the room understands just exactly what position Hydra had forced him into.

“Mission Report.”

Even his voice changes when he is acting as Barnes’ handler. It is only to be expected. There is no way he could have survived this mentally without dissociating from himself a little as he was forced to treat his friend as nothing more than a tool, and stand idly while he was abused.

Barnes’ voice is even more detached when he replies. “Agent Rumlow came to deploy the Asset in defence of the Helicarriers. The Asset waited on the Helicarrier until the arrival of the Avenger designated Iron Man. Contradictory orders to stand down received and followed. Helicarriers destroyed.”

The nausea is back, and in the deadly silence of the med-bay she forces herself to stand. She has to get out of here. She needs to leave.

She gets a nod from Bruce and proceeds to vacate immediately.

Her rooms are calm and dimly lit, but her hands shake on the zipper of her uniform. She peels it off and digs out the loosest pair of sweatpants and the floppiest hoodie she owns. She buries her nose in the neckline of the sweater, and she can feel her heart begin to slow as she slips into the comfort clothes.

Dressing with the Red Room had rarely ever been about comfort. It had always been about how it looked, how easy it was to kill in, and how easy it was to get out of.

She curls up under her blanket—the fullest, comfiest comforter she could find—and reaches a hand up to touch the tiny golden arrow hanging on a chain around her neck. When she had first been brought into SHIELD, Clint had insisted on taking her shopping. She realises now that that had been part of her rehabilitation, but at the time she hadn’t seen it that way. She didn’t think she needed to be rehabilitated. She had been trained with a specific skill set, and she was good at it.

She hadn’t seen the trauma until much, much later.

(On her first shopping trip with Clint, she had only bought professional, or attractive clothes. Things she could wear on a mission or at work. It wasn’t until several months later that she first stole Clint’s hoodie, and it was even longer before she finally bought her own.)

oOo

Things get better once Clint arrives back at the Tower. She knows he understands just by looking at her what is going on in her head, and he pulls her aside after their group meeting to spend a good hour video chatting with Laura and their kids.

Even after that she doesn’t spend a lot of time around Barnes. She sees too much of herself in him not to feel haunted, and the stress of worrying about his recovery forces her to keep her distance.

She keeps her eyes open though, and what she sees gives her comfort. She hadn’t known what to expect from Steve in his position as a handler. She knows without a doubt that he is in a difficult position. He is acting as the commander of his closest friend, and said friend doesn’t even remember him, and had been conditioned to fear his authority.

Anyone would struggle coping with that.

But it quickly becomes clear that Steve is good at his role. He understands implicitly that he can’t simply turn Barnes loose now that they have taken him away from Hydra. He doesn’t try to tear down his programming too quickly. He is willing to be the handler he needs, while patiently showing him it is safe to grow.

She knows he is on the right track the day he comes to them and asks them to help rehabilitate Barnes. Giving up that kind of control, and understanding that he can’t do everything for Barnes, that that isn’t the best for him, is an admirable display of self-awareness.

It is partially that show of faith that allows her to feel comfortable spending her own one-on-one time with Barnes. At first it is just a little thing, a walk every few days in the park. She knows from what Steve has told them and from what she can deduce from Barnes himself that he isn’t accustomed to operating outside of mission parameters. He has almost no experience walking among civilians, or crossing a busy street, or seeing children play in the park.

Once she is certain he is more comfortable with the busy, chaotic motion that is life outside the Tower, she decides to take him on a special trip.

Barnes follows carefully and quietly as she guides him down the sidewalk. He pays no mind to the passing storefronts, but Natasha keeps an eye out. They reach the hole-in-the-wall bookstore that is her goal and she pulls the door open for Barnes.

“Let’s go in here,” she says, aware that this is probably the first time he has been inside a store in any capacity.

Barnes remains as silent as a ghost as he slips inside, scanning the perimeter with soldier-like efficiency. Natasha keeps a close eye on him, but he doesn’t appear overwhelmed yet. She had scoped out the store earlier and chosen it specifically. It has what she wants, but it is small and lacks the crowds and rowdy children other bookstores attract.

The display she wants is in the back, and she guides Barnes along, trying to appear more confident than she is. That guise is an old friend, and she knows it is crucial when handling Barnes. He is already nervous enough, he doesn’t need to feed off of her nerves too.

They reach the display near the back. A collection of journals sit on a wooden table, held between two bookends or sitting on display stands. Some have artistic, handmade styles, while others are plainer, or made with recycled paper. She pauses and hovers her hand over the selection, looking back at Barnes.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

She has no idea how he will respond. She doesn’t even know if he will respond, but she has several distinctive memories of Coulson or Clint asking her various questions such as these. They didn’t even care if she lied, only that she expressed an opinion that had nothing to do with them.

She is careful not to show any preference for any of the journals while she waits for Barnes to respond. She doesn’t know if he will. She doesn’t know if he is there yet, but part of her hopes—

“Blue,” he says finally, and it takes all her control not to smile brightly or otherwise react overenthusiastically. Barnes needs to learn to make his decisions for himself, and have that be its own reward, so rejoicing isn’t in the cards right now.

Instead she rewards him by picking out a blue-covered journal and ducking off to buy it for him. She picks up a basic pen on the way and makes it back to him with everything in a plastic bag on her wrist.

Now comes the hard part.

She can’t shake the feeling of vulnerability as she very briefly gives Barnes a rundown of her background and motivations. “There was a time when I was in your shoes.” She keeps her gaze on him, not breaking eye contact. “I joined SHIELD and I had a lot of things to unlearn.” Her attention is snagged by memories, and she allows herself to look off into the middle-distance as she continues. “It took me a while to learn how to trust my handlers. Even longer to learn that a handler could also be a friend and that friends weren’t weaknesses.”

She knows, just from looking at Barnes, that he will need to do that very same thing.

Which is why she is doing this.

She offers the journal. “Writing in a journal helped,” she says simply, her mind drifting back to a small, black leatherbound notebook that she had kept under her pillow for years. “You can write whatever you want, whenever you want. I found it helped…organise my thoughts a little.”

Her very first journal had been from Coulson. It had taken her weeks to even begin to write in it, and it had taken her even longer to trust that it wasn’t being used to spy on her. It had taken her months to jot down an honest thought, and even that had been in code.

Barnes reaches slowly for the journal, his eyes clouded as he rubs a thumb over the cover. His throat flexes and he looks up at her. “Is… is Handler-Rogers… your handler?”

The question drops like lead in her stomach, and she feels a flash of pain and sadness for him, for how far he still needs to go. “No,” she says softly, wishing she could give the next words to Barnes as easily as she hands him the pen from her bag. “He’s my friend.”

It is a month or so later when Clint accidentally discovers the shutdown protocol Hydra had implanted in Barnes. According to Tony, he goes down like a brick, and Natasha congregates with the others in the med-bay as they wait for him to wake up so they can discover if the triggering had undone the progress of the last few weeks.

She can see the worry eating away at Steve, his shoulders tense and his mouth a straight, pale line on his face.

Thankfully Barnes wakes up without too much delay, and he passes Bruce’s cognitive tests easily. He doesn’t regress to the empty shell he had hidden behind fresh out of Hydra, which is a good sign, and Natasha can feel the tension drain out of the room as it becomes clear he isn’t in danger.

Clint goes up to apologise for accidentally triggering him, and Natasha gets a glimpse of an unexpected development.

“I swear I wouldn’t have said it if I’d known,” Clint reassures.

Barnes looks confused, but nods anyway. “Handler-Steve can instruct you on my trigger words if you need them.”

The world stops for just a moment, and she turns to look at Bucky. Handler-Steve. Those two words set off a chain reaction in her chest. Pride and relief grows in equal measure, and she isn’t able to keep a faint smile off her face.

She thinks... she thinks Bucky is going to be able to come out of this on top.

Chapter Text

Sam takes his time thinking over what he wants to do with Bucky when it’s his turn to spend some time with him. Steve had come to them a little while ago asking for help to rehabilitate his friend who still thinks of himself as an extension of his handler. Sam had spoken already with Steve about getting Bucky professional help, but he understands why he’d been cautious of the idea.

Bucky will do anything he’s told to do, including act human, even if he doesn’t believe he is. His situation is beyond Sam’s expertise, but he can see how that could mix badly with doctors whom Bucky sees primarily as taskmasters.

Either way, Bucky needs help, and Steve can’t do it all. That is immediately clear to anyone. Sam can still remember how tired and on edge Steve had been when he and Natasha had crashed at his house. And he can remember how Steve had nearly passed out from exhaustion after the Helicarrier mission.

He can’t imagine how hard and draining it must be to navigate his situation with Bucky. They were once best friends, and now Steve has to act as his handler because that’s what Bucky sees him as right now. No matter the supports Steve already has, that has got to be gut-wrenching. So Sam’s glad Steve had asked for help.

Most of the other Avengers have their own thing they do with Bucky. Sam knows Clint had mentioned archery and Bruce had said something about going to the library. As a Veteran’s Affairs counsellor, Sam knows all about how little, every day steps can help a struggling veteran learn to cope with, and eventually thrive in life.

So when it’s his turn to be with Bucky, Sam chooses cooking. He knows from first hand experience how food can guide the lost soul back to its place. When he’d come back from Afghanistan, he’d been broken. Reeling from the loss of Riley and his collapsing sense of purpose.

It had been his mom who’d been the first to reach him in his tidal wave of grief. She’d been the one to coax him out of his room and into the kitchen to help her prepare familiar dishes. The ones he’d grown up with that his family had been serving for years. It had been in that kitchen, combining spices and peeling shrimp and breathing in the familiar scents of home that Sam had started to feel alive again.

So that’s what he suggests when Bucky doesn’t have any requests of his own.

“I was thinking,” he says, sitting casually at the common room island. “Since you’re starting to eat solid food now, did you want to learn to cook something?”

As subtle as it is, he can see the way the idea strikes something in Bucky. His eyes widen by a fraction and his perfect stance becomes slightly less severe. He nods his head and Sam grins.

“Great. Did you have anything in mind? If not, then we’ll just start with the basics and go from there.”

He wants to give Bucky the option to suggest something, because while he doesn’t speak much, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot going on in his head. It’s clear to Sam that Hydra had trained Bucky into silence and these sessions are all about teaching Bucky he doesn’t have to be like that anymore.

To his delight, Bucky does have a suggestion. His brow furls a little as he says it, as though the memories he’s pulling from aren’t quite clear, but the request is specific.

“Bacon.” His hands press anxiously into his legs. “Bacon and peanut butter sandwich.”

It’s a weird combination, but not exactly unfamiliar. “No bananas?” Sam asks, because he’s pretty sure that was Elvis Prestley’s favourite sandwich, and the recipe has to have come from somewhere.

Bucky looks even more confused and shakes his head. Sam doesn’t press it. He wants this to be easy and as un-intimidating as possible for Bucky. He doesn’t really care what they make, as long as Bucky is on board.

“Cool,” Sam says, getting up from his stool. “I think there’s bacon in the fridge. We can make it now.”

He’s glad Bucky had happened to choose something simple for their first time. There’s very few ways to mess up a sandwich and there isn’t a lot that actually needs to be cooked. If all goes well, this lesson should give Bucky some confidence and some food he’d made for himself, rather than having it cooked for him.

“Okay, so.” Sam demonstrates how to put on an apron and Bucky copies him, following his movements with careful accuracy. “Peanut butter and bacon sandwiches seems pretty straight forward, but, let me know if we miss anything.”

Bucky nods silently, watching him continually in that careful way of his. The look isn’t new to Sam. It’s a wary type of hypervigilance that he’s seen to varying degrees in many veterans. Sam keeps his body language open as he gets them started on washing their hands and he pulls the bacon out of the fridge.

Having a robot AI ordering all their groceries is amazing.

“Think you can find a frying pan?” he asks Bucky. He hadn’t bothered getting Bucky to tie his hair up—they’re not trying to pass a health code, they’re making sandwiches—and his hair swings down into his face as he crouches to look for the pan. Already, dressed in a forest and camping themed apron, he looks younger, less like the stoic tin-soldier he tries to hold himself as.

“Do you know how to cook bacon?” Sam asks. Bucky just stares at the package, as if it holds some sort of secret.

“Unknown,” he says finally, and Sam doesn’t linger on the robotic word. Bucky has proven he can talk beyond the rote sentences Hydra had demanded of him. If Bucky is more comfortable using them in unfamiliar situations, Sam is not going to get on his case. He has a feeling Bucky’s vocabulary will expand along with his comfort level.

“No big deal,” he reassures. “Cooking bacon is pretty simple and,” he gestures at Bucky’s left hand. “You don’t even have to worry about getting burned, so, that’s a plus.”

Bucky looks a little surprised at the mention of his metal arm, but Sam had done it on purpose. That arm is its own boatload of baggage that he doubts Bucky has even begun to fathom yet. It can’t hurt mentioning something positive about it when he can.

Sam continues his light and easy tone as he teaches Bucky how to turn on the stove and start the bacon cooking. He leaves Bucky with a fork to turn the bacon once he’s shown him how to flip the pieces.

“The fat in the bacon spits a little,” he warns. “You shouldn’t have trouble turning them over with your left hand though.”

Bucky turns his head away but not before Sam sees the corner of his mouth pull up a little at the comment. Sam stifles his own grin in case it spooks him and heads for the pantry.

“I’ll get the bread and stuff ready.”

Bacon always takes longer to cook than Sam thinks it should, but Bucky stands infinitely patient by the stove, keeping a careful eye on it. Sam notes with a private smile that Bucky doesn’t need any prompting from him to know when the bacon is done cooking. He recognises it by himself and grabs a plate to transfer the cooked meat onto.

“Looks good,” Sam says by the counter where he’s set out bread, butter and peanut butter. “Why don’t you bring it over here and we can dig in.”

Bucky moves silently as ever as he turns off the stove and grabs the plate of bacon. Sam grins and lets his mouth run as Bucky comes over, trying to keep things from getting too quiet and awkward.

“Man, I’m starving,” he announces as he grabs a butter knife and reaches for the butter container, ready to prepare his sandwich.

The next moment is a blur. In the blink of an eye Bucky’s metal hand clamps around his wrist, stopping Sam in his tracks. Something subtle shifts in his demeanour, the man going from simply silent to deadly still. Sam freezes, his muscles bunching up in shock before he very carefully forces himself to relax.

De-escalation training begins to play in his head as he scans Bucky and assesses the situation. Bucky’s grip on his wrist isn’t painful, the cold metal hand no tighter than a regular grip. Sam keeps his own grip on the dull butter knife loose, in case that had been what triggered Bucky.

It isn’t a weapon, not to Sam anyway, but he can’t know Bucky sees it that way.

“Hey,” Sam says, his voice completely even. He doesn’t move a muscle as he flicks his eyes over Bucky. The man doesn’t look upset or agitated and Sam mentally lowers his de-escalation threat. Not that Sam has much of a chance at removing Bucky’s hand from him even if he tried.

“Something wrong?” Staying calm and figuring out what’s going on is the way to go.

Bucky’s eyes dart over the condiments on the table and he breathes in, seeming more focused on the food than on Sam. He puts down the plate of bacon and reaches for the butter knife. Sam will admit that his chest tightens a little in panic, but he lets it go.

He doesn’t believe Bucky is naturally a violent person, but PTSD is a heck of a drug. He’s seen more than one veteran go into combat mode over something small. He hasn’t forgotten that this is the most highly trained, most traumatised veteran he’s ever met, and being held by the wrist while Bucky takes what is more-or-less a knife from him gets his blood pumping.

All of Sam’s training hasn’t been for nothing though, and he stays quiet, watching Bucky as calmly as possible.

“Wrong,” Bucky mutters, the first word since he’d grabbed Sam. All he does with the butter knife is scrape the small amount of butter Sam had gotten back into the butter container. The move is so startlingly domestic that Sam can only blink.

“The… the butter’s wrong?” he asks hesitantly, feeling almost dizzy as his perspective flips. He almost laughs when Bucky nods determinedly, letting go of his wrist and putting the butter knife down as though neither matter anymore. He doesn’t pay Sam or the knife any mind at all, his eyes scanning the counter again, looking for something.

Holy cow, Sam thinks, his wrist hovering for a few moments before he lets it drop. Of all the things that could’ve happened the instant he’d been grabbed, he hadn’t quite expected this.

He takes a step back from Bucky, giving both of them a little space and watching as Bucky moves to the pantry.

“What’s it supposed to be?” Sam asks, noting how much more certain about himself Bucky appears right now. He scans the contents inside the pantry like it’s the most important thing in the room. Like he’s on a mission, but for a condiment.

Bucky pauses, his hand on the pantry door. “Something else,” he says, glancing up at the ceiling as if trying to remember something. “White.”

Sam finds himself completely fascinated by this new side of Bucky. He’s always so careful to defer to everyone around him, the fact that he’s so focused on this is significant.

“White?” he confirms as Bucky finishes rifling through the pantry and moves to the fridge. Bucky nods firmly and Sam glances at the condiments again. “But not butter.”

He can’t guess what Bucky could be looking for. Butter is pretty white in colour, and he’s not sure what else you’d put on a sandwich like this. Maybe butter was different back in his day? Or maybe he’s looking for margarine? Sam generally uses the two words interchangeably unless it matters but maybe it was a bigger deal in the forties—

Bucky spots something promising in the fridge and reaches for it. Sam can’t see what it is but he watches with a disbelieving half-smile as Bucky unscrews the lid of a jar and dips his finger in to taste the contents. This is the same guy who had responded like a robot when Sam had asked him if he could cook bacon.

To be honest, this is exactly the kind of thing he’d been hoping cooking might give Bucky, It had just come on a little unexpectedly.

Bucky noticeably relaxes as he tastes whatever he’d found and he turns around, holding out the jar. “This.”

Sam momentarily forgets about his VA training.

“Mayonnaise?” His face screws up in instinctual disgust and he pulls away. He wouldn’t have guessed mayonnaise in a million years. Who puts mayonnaise on a bacon and peanut butter sandwich?

Actually that sounds like exactly the kind of sandwich people would make in the forties, he thinks wryly. White people hadn’t seemed to have gotten tastebuds until the last twenty years or so.

“I’m not putting mayonnaise on a peanut butter sandwich.”

If Sam were thinking more clearly he might have just sucked it up to encourage Bucky’s self-expression or something. But he’s so thrown off by Bucky grabbing him, and then suggesting mayonnaise that he doesn’t think about it until after the words are already out of his mouth.

To his surprise, Bucky remains firm. He sets the jar of mayonnaise down stiffly on the counter, his jaw stiffening and his shoulders squaring a little. He has a cautious light in his eyes but he meets Sam’s gaze steadily.

“Yes,” he insists.

Even as shocked as he is, Sam can recognise how massive of a step this is for Bucky. He’s holding his own on something Sam clearly doesn’t like. He doubts the Bucky from a few weeks ago could have done this at all. Steve hadn’t even been certain he’d ask to go to the bathroom by himself if he needed to.

And now, here he is, insisting on the most baffling assortment of flavours Sam has ever seen.

The corner of Sam’s mouth ticks up and the last remaining tension in his chest eases up. This is exactly what he wanted. This abominable sandwich is important to Bucky, so much so that he’s willing to call him out on it.

“Alright then,” Sam concedes, coming over to sit back down at the island.

Bucky shifts uncertainly as he comes closer and Sam can feel him eyeing him, probably carefully gauging his reaction. It’s sad to think that Bucky has been conditioned to fear expressing himself even this much.

So Sam tries the mayonnaise and bacon peanut butter sandwich.

He tries to keep his thoughts to himself as he spreads mayonnaise over his bread, but he can feel his eyebrows trying to pull up dubiously. Thankfully that doesn’t stop Bucky from serving himself once Sam is finished.

Sam sits back, braces himself, and takes a bite. It’s… not as bad as he thought it would be. The salt of the bacon mixes okay with the mayonnaise, although the sandwich as a whole is still a little out there. Maybe if he toasts the bread next time it will mesh better, a proper hot sandwich to round everything out.

He’s pulled away from his musings as Bucky finishes preparing his sandwich and takes a bite. An indescribable look flickers across his face and—oh, this is what Sam was hoping for him.

Bucky doesn’t do anything so out of character as smile, but his eyes widen and go distant, his jaw slack as he tastes the sandwich he’d tried so hard to make. There’s a glimmer in his eye and a subtle brightening to his whole demeanour. Without a word he takes another, larger bite.

He looks ready to wolf the whole thing down and Sam reminds him quickly to take it slow. Bucky only nods distractedly, a stark change from how he’d followed Sam’s every direction before. A smile tugs at Sam’s lips and he takes another bite of his own sandwich.

He could maybe get used to the flavour. It’s still weird though.

“Well that was stranger than I thought it would be,” he says, once he finishes up and Bucky appears to have eaten his fill. Sam isn’t sure how much solid food he’s used to eating right now. Apparently Hydra had taken even the semblance of normal food away from him during their conditioning.

Sam’s hands clench as he pushes himself up from the counter. That’s part of the reason he wants to do this. Food is such a culturally rooted device. Hydra had tried to remove that entirely.

Sam breathes in, steadying himself. “Hey, don’t worry about the leftovers,” he tells Bucky gently. “We can make more later, or, you know, any other weird recipe you suddenly get a craving for.”

Sam would make a hundred bizarre 1940s dishes if it led to that faint look of recognition and awe in Bucky’s face.

That same look stays on Bucky’s face as Sam teaches him how to dispose of the bacon grease and how to wash the dishes. Every time Sam has to explain something so simple and basic like that he aches a little for what Hydra had done to him. Sam knows he’s barely seen anything, but it gets to him either way. Hydra had tried to remove everything that made Bucky a person. Every reminder is chillingly horrifying.

But it’s also a testament to Bucky’s strength. Here he is, after seventy years of being unmade, slowly finding the pieces of himself again and fitting them together.

Of course it had to start with mayonnaise.

Sam smiles softly as he wipes the frying pan dry. He’s definitely going to be cooking some more weird and wacky dishes with Bucky. Anything he can do to help uncover those lost pieces.

But maybe next time, he’ll introduce Bucky to pancakes too.