fossilised | military mistletoe

military mistletoe

As much as Tony loved to travel, he preferred to do it in a private charter jet or, at least, in first class. The Army didn’t seem to understand the importance of his comfort, however, nor did they stop to think that a civilian might not want to be shoved into a jumpseat with fifteen of their finest unwashed masses. He appreciated the escort, considering where they were going for the demonstration of a new smart shell he’d developed in hopes of gaining a better foothold on defense contracts with the Defense Department, but he wasn’t sure that these men had showered much in the last few days.

Despite his general brilliance, Tony was more showman than he was R&D expert. That wasn’t because he lacked engineering genius, but because he couldn’t do everything. Hiring the best and the brightest to work for him only actually worked for him if he could be the face of the company and sell their products.

Sure. He dabbled. But dabbling didn’t keep a few hundred people employed and a technology business afloat. Just ask Zuckerberg. Or those idiots that sold Instagram to Zuckerberg. Or Google.

The plane rumbled beneath him as the pilots started take off sequences and Tony tugged on his restraints with a mix of mild dread. It didn’t get any better when one of the buckles popped loose either.

The man could create stuff out of 50s science fiction but he couldn’t get the belts to work? He cursed under his breath and fumbled with the straps.

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"Actually, I was thinking that if you saved his life then I should say thank you, but if he saved your life and he was just being dumb and pretending like he's not a hero, then you might owe us something."

She shrugs, and shows no signs of leaving, because she's not that easily bullied. She's emotionally wrung out over the last few months, but that sort of tragedy and hardship has just matured her earlier and made her more determined to grab opportunities wherever she saw them.

And this could be an opportunity.

"Soooo... do you owe us something?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you fly your own private jet charter here? And rent your own cars? And put yourself up in a super nice hotel?" Tony didn't want to admit that he kind of liked this kid. She was cheeky, smart mouthed, and reminded him a little of himself when he was younger.

It was a bad combination to be sure.

"If I did owe you something, what would you even want? A pony with pink hair? A Mary Poppins type Nanny? Gum?" What do kids like these days?

Okay, so perhaps he had already done a lot for them, but she hadn't really considered that part because the hotel and flights and things had all been handled by Steve and Becca, so she hadn't realised that he was behind it. Oh well, she was in now, she might as well keep going.

"I want an internship when I'm old enough in the engineering department."

She folded her arms and tried to look both confident and severe.

"Not the weapons bit."

Hm. Tony wasn't displeased by her answer, which, honestly, seemed odd. He was often displeased by the way everyone operated, acted, talked, thought-- But this kid really had her head on straight. "Selfish. I like it." There was no way he couldn't get a dig in, all right? "But deal. If your math and science grades don't suck."

He even offered a hand, though she was probably just filled with germs and covered in a sticky mess, his luck. Still, one shook hands on business dealings. And then washed them furiously after.

He didn't bother to mention how short lived the 'weapons bit' would be though.

Lizzie shook hands with Tony with an entirely self satisfied smile, though it didn't entirely reach her eyes which were still red rimmed and slightly worried around the edges about the big brother in the other room.

"I'm not selfish, I just know that all the best money is in technology, and it's an industry that's going to keep growing because of the way the world is moving. I want that money. Bucky hasn't got an arm now, and someone has to make the money around here. Besides, Kyle Peterson in my class said that girls can't build robots, so I'm gonna build one that can kick his ass one day."

A pause, and then:

"Don't tell Becca I said ass."

“You’re more worried about saying ass than you are about threatening to kick the crap out of some kid at school? Okay sure, I can relate.” Tony didn’t like children but this kid didn’t act like a child. She was shrewd and she was smart and as far as he was concerned, she was probably he best that the Barnes family had to offer their gene pool.

He was still going to wash his hands though. Children were vessels for disease and sticky things without names or known scientific properties.

“You could tell her want to build a robot to protect people without mentioning the ass kicking. It’s better for PR, kid.” Just a little advice.

Lizzie rolled her eyes, but she took that as her cue to leave. She had a business arrangement set up and she wanted to get back to the rest of her family before they realised where she was, and also just because she wanted to see her big brother's face again. It was hard, thinking someone you loved was dead and gone, to have that person back was a miracle.

Tony would be left with only the nurses and Happy for company for the next two whole days, slowly improving, but with no visits from any of the Barnes clan. Maybe he had been forgotten after all...

But at least the machines were being reduced, and the nurses said he could get up that day and start moving around again, build up the muscles that had got weakened during his time imprisoned and in the hospital.

Tony was too proud to crack jokes about what ended up being a long and hard first step to physical therapy. He had his chest cracked open, muscles sliced through, and all of that after the trauma of having shrapnel in his chest and being forced to carry around a car battery for short. At least he’d had Bucky before, to lean on physically and mentally.

These two days alone with Ms. Potts and with Happy hadn’t been unpleasant but still left him with his skin crawling. The drugs kept away most of the nightmares but Tony didn’t have Bucky there to reach out to when the pain medication wore off or when a shadow spooked him. He couldn’t even look at the man he’d gotten to know every physical feature of over the course of those months.

Depression was a terrible thing. Tony tried to cover it up by working hard at getting fit again, but each time he was alone, all he felt was a terrible, lonely sadness. He didn’t understand it. He’d always been a lonely man. He’d just never known it before. Having the scales fall from his eyes, in the biblical sense, was truly telling.

It was probably no wonder when Tony was ordered to start walking that his legs took him to where he’d left Bucky. He was expecting an empty room. The guy had his family and future security and Tony Stark was public enemy number one with his bestie, after all.

He wouldn't find an empty room, Bucky would be inside hooked up to machines and seemingly asleep. He didn't look too good, pale and his hair was clumped in greasy sections as if it hadn't been washed in a little while.

But even if Bucky was asleep, Tony would find his number one enemy sitting in a chair beside the bed awake and ready to rumble. He had been sketching, a pad loosely resting on his knees and a pencil still in his hand, but he'd stopped when the door opened and his expression shifted into a scowl.

...and then out of a scowl into a rictus polite smile, because he'd promised Bucky to at least try and be civil for a little while.

"Mr. Stark, something I can help you with?"

Oh. Him. Tony didn’t want to focus on anyone else but himself (and Bucky, maybe) right now and so Steve Rogers was not at all a welcome sight.

The blond was nothing to him, just some social warrior who thought he could change the world by talking and bashing his tiny body against it. That’s not how change happened. Tony could school him on that but he wouldn’t. He’d promised Bucky.

Besides, he didn’t hate the kid. He didn’t know him enough to feel anything towards him.

The anxiety racing through his blood was geared only towards Bucky and why he looked like that. “What happened?”

Steve followed Tony's gaze and his expression fell for a moment before hardening back up, he wasn't about to show too much worry or weakness in front of this asshole. Why Bucky even wanted to give him the time of day was beyond him, when it seemed like it was Stark's stupid weapons that had got him captured in the first place.

"He got an infection. They said it shouldn't be too serious, but they think they might have to go back in and remove some more tissue."

And just saying that made his hands clench into fists. None of this was right or fair, he shouldn't be here talking with a weapons manufacturer about doctors slicing into his best friend.

Tony found himself feeling too much and he blamed the drugs. It was easier to do that than it was to remember the hardship that forced him to cling so desperately to the other man. Two days apart should have cured that anyway. Everyday that passed would make their distance greater.

Tony told himself all of that as he pulled the IV and the heart monitor with him into the room, free hand pressing beneath the incision as if holding his heart in. Every step hurt, but it was a familiar pain. They’d kept him alive for months attached to a car battery after all.

If Steve let him, he’d go right on up to Bucky’s bedside, mostly just to scowl down at him for being a moron and getting a secondary infection. And also to just look at him. It was calming.

Steve couldn't exactly stop Stark from coming further into the room, even wobbly and with a heart monitor, he still overtopped Steve's weight by probably almost double and trying to strongarm him out would just be embarrassing.

So instead, he joined Stark at Bucky's bedside, voice low and firm.

"Is this the first time you've had to actually look at what your weapons making has done to people? Is it difficult to know that he'd still have his arm if you didn't want to make a quick buck in getting other people killed?"

Steve Rogers was pushing it. Tony wasn’t the sort of person to give into heckling but he’d been out of the game for a long time now. He fell out of practice. And the fact that this kid was pushing a guilt he’d always had was getting to be a little more than he could handle.

“Displays of force keep us safe. Keep people like Barnes safe. Our enemies have this technology. They have bombs that can wipe us all out. You’re too naive, kid, if you think that stopping to run in the arms race will make the whole thing stop. It won’t. Now stop being a little shit with a chip on his shoulder. This guy here laid down his safety in service for this country. All you do is spout half baked facts that won’t do a god damned—“ Tony’s heart monitor started to beep furiously, sweat pouring down his face, and he leaned over Bucky, bracing himself on the bed rail.

Steve glared at Stark even as he leaned over the bed and started to sweat, he didn't want to give the guy a heart attack but he figured if the beeping got to a dangerous level then it would alert a nurse with an alarm and someone would come to help him. Besides, he had nothing but contempt for that kind of answer.

"I understand the need for a military and for weapons to keep us safe, but I don't understand people like you. You didn't just match the technology others had, you went out of your way to improve it. You were proud of being the best, and every person you killed just got you an extra few dollars to add to it all. You're not someone forced to take part in the arms race, you are the arms race, and you disgust me."

“Military technology sells. And gets the headlines,” Tony continued, but he knew he really should back off. He felt on the verge of collapse but this little runt had gone so far to provoke him that he couldn’t let it go. Even when he really knew he should. “No one bothers to remember the irrigation systems or the communication technology or the earthquake protection for high rises I’ve developed.”

His smirk was sickly. His skin was growing pale and clammy.

“How about the billions of dollars donated to NASA when the government stopped most of their funding?” He could feel himself getting dizzier but he could be just as tenacious as Steve. “Or the rockets I developed from our weapons R&D department that got us our first good look at Pluto? So. Fucking tired. Of being... of being the bad guy,” he blurted out, very much unlike him. It was a wonder what stress and a failing heart could make a man do.

"Oh, boo hoo, nobody remembers the good stuff you've done with your money because of where that money came from. So you did some good things, you helped a few thousand people who might be able to afford your earthquake protection, but you helped them at the cost of other lives."

Steve crossed over to Tony and started to try and manhandle him back into a chair even as he kept talking, hands gentle even if his words weren't.

"If you're tired of being the bad guy, then don't be the bad guy any more, but you don't get to pretend it's all okay because you did other stuff as well. You killed people, you personally, nothing makes that okay. Not Pluto, not nothing."

You. Personally.

If Tony could, he might have hauled off and hit Steve in the mouth for that. Or maybe just for trying to touch him. He gave the blond a weird push with absolutely no strength behind it before a set of two nurses came jogging into the room, one with a wheelchair, to get him down and out of the room.

There wouldn’t be any more unsupervised walks next door. In fact, at Ms. Potts’ direction, due to stress and obvious post traumatic disorder, Tony would end up being moved to a more secluded section of the hospital. And just as well, he’d think to himself for almost four full hours of further isolation, until that isolation started to creep up on him. He was too weak to do any real work and his mind had a field day with thoughts of all of those people he’d killed.

Including every single one of the men and women who’d been trying to protect him.

Steve felt just slightly bad as Tony was rushed out of there by nurses, but not that bad because he hadn't said anything that wasn't true. Tony made sure to build the best weapons possible, even if it hadn't been his finger on the trigger when they were fired, it was still his personal responsibility for the people killed.

He waited until the following evening and then walked to Tony's new room, having got directions from the nurse, and let himself in without knocking since he was fairly sure that he would be refused if he asked.

"Hey."

Awkward.

"Bucky's gone down to surgery, I thought you'd want to know."

“Can’t talk now,” Tony muttered. “Got to build myself a Winchester mansion to keep the ghosts out.” Funny. It was only young activists that liked to blame inventors. But the makers of bullets and the developers of guns... It was only one crazy widow that ever thought her husband’s creation of a weapon was reason for guilt inducing demons to cause her to build a nightmare inducing home.

He didn’t look up at Steve. He had absolutely no intention of engaging. As Pepper Potts said, he needed to get better so he could get home.

And back to work. And back to being in an ivory tower.

“I’ll send a card and one of those little balloons on a plastic stick to make sure your friend feels better.” He wasn’t in a good place.

"Seriously?"

Any sympathy that Steve might have had dropped right away, and he came to scowl down at Stark. Jesus, this guy was behaving like a little kid rather than a man much older than him. Apparently money really did let people stay as immature as they wanted for as long as they wanted.

"Now you're going to act all pathetic because somebody dared to tell you the truth? That's not how you fix anything. You have to decide to be better, if you really want to be better, and earn people's respect. If you want to not be a bad guy, then be better from now on, but sulking isn't going to get you anywhere."

Tony smirked, finally looking over at Steve. He had a lovely view from his window but there was only so much that could teach him.

“I’m staying civil because Barnes asked me to. But I think I understand why he did. He cares about you. But I’m guessing that’s a one off or a fluke. And I bet he has to tell his other friends the same thing when it comes to you. You need to learn from diplomacy. And you need to educate yourself. You’re not the first or the last kid that’s going to tell me that they know best. Stay in school. Take some policy and business classes. If you want to make a difference, do something worth while that doesn’t involve talking to CEOs.”

There was nothing around him to focus on. He’d asked Pepper to put the documents away because he couldn’t concentrate on them.

“I owe Barnes a lot of things. But putting up with you isn’t one of them. You and his family can stay here as long as you want. But— Yo, Happy, come in here and do your job. What do I even pay you for?”

Happy poked his head in the door and raised an eyebrow. "I'm paid to protect you, and I'm pretty sure you're not in any physical danger here. Besides which, Ms. Potts said to let anyone from Mr. Barnes' party in here."

Mainly because Pepper was a very intelligent woman and had already figured out how much Bucky meant to Tony, and she intended to foster that as much as possible. Her boss was way too isolated too much of the time, and surrounded by people who wouldn't call him out when he needed it.

"Sorry, boss, but I'm not going against what Ms. Potts has ordered."

“Okay, then you’re fired and I’ll find someone else.” It didn’t matter if he was isolated. Steve had already pushed him towards a depression he’d had most of his adult life, and combined with what he had been through (and no one here who could ever understand save for the guy currently under the knife), it was going to cause him to do something irrational. He knew his mind well enough to accept and understand that.

After fifteen years of service, Happy wasn’t about to let anyone take his position away from him. Tony looked angry. Agitated. And Steve would be taken out of the room by himself or by hospital security. All parties would probably prefer if he did it, though he would apologize profusely to both Steve and Tony, separately of course.

Tony didn’t want to hear it.

“We’re going home.” It was less than ten miles away, up the coast, to his mansion in Malibu. He couldn’t stomach hospitals anymore.

Tony withdrew. From Pepper. From Happy. From everyone.

And Steve knew he’d probably messed up. People told him to let it go until everyone was at least on their feet again, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he couldn’t understand why Bucky liked such a monster. He might never understand. And it probably was for the best that he send Stark away. His friend needed his family. Not a monster.

Both Pepper and Happy tried to get Tony to come out from his mansion using a variety of techniques, from bullying him about the state of the company to trying to bribe him with a wild party, but nothing worked. Even poor Obi ended up being refused, which... was worrying for him, because he needed to get Tony back on track, or else finish him off properly.

He would be left alone for almost a month.

A full month of silence, just opulent surroundings, a beautiful view, and whatever he chose to do to entertain himself. The only changes were the occasional phone calls and doorbell rings from his concerned employees and friends. But one day, one month and two days since he discharged himself, JARVIS indicated a new person at the door.

"Sir, a Sergeant James Barnes is requesting access."

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