fossilised | For Steve

She really did know him. Tony needed boundaries and Natasha was quick to give him some slack without letting go of the rope. No wonder Pepper liked her. She probably wished she could be a little more assertive to get more of what she wanted out of him. "Yeah."

Tony didn't call his girlfriend once Natasha left. He poured himself a glass of his old mistress and dragged himself down the hall to his living room overlooking the sea of lights surrounding him from the city. If the world ever needed Ultron more, Tony didn't know about it. They just needed a boost. They needed that staff. There was now a second reason to track down HYDRA. They'd looted the building when Stark Tower was laid open by the Chitauri. Who knew what they had at their disposal now?

Tony settled down at his desk and lifted his phone to his ear. He still didn't call Pepper. It was Rhodey on the other end of the line. "I need you to come over and keep me from drinking myself to epic party levels," he sighed. He knew Rhodey wouldn't be long and would keep the judging to sighs and eye rolling.

Sam, however, he didn't judge at all. He was just trying to help. Even if Stece seemed fine with being angry with himself. "D'ya think he's all right? Our ghost. Never seen someone so willing to get himself killed man."

It was a mess.

Rhodey was willing to go over and try and stop Tony killing himself via very expensive alcohol, Natasha made her way back to the compound to talk to Bruce and get him to pack up and get ready to go. Steve didn't dare approach Bucky about all of this and spent his time pacing the main compound with Sam, looking and feeling wretched about what he had done.

Grant, at least, was sleeping.

But Bucky couldn't stay there. They were right, he was all too willing to get himself killed and he couldn't stay here now. Every second more that he sat in the plush surroundings of a house that the son of people he had killed had paid for, it itched under his skin. He rose quietly and wrote Grant a note, leaving it outside his bedroom door, before he slipped out of the building. The exits were monitored, of course, as per the agreement, but JARVIS didn't report it because he had no orders to for now.

Which was why, one stolen Captain America motorcycle and a swift ride through the city later, JARVIS was disturbing Rhodey and Tony from their drinking session. Or rather, Tony's drinking session and Rhodey's attempt to stop it before it went too far.

"Sir, Sergeant Barnes is outside."

Tony had been drinking. A lot. He'd been drinking before Rhodey suited up and got clearance to leave his base. He was still drinking now, but had been miraculously switched to the green kale sludge he had become so fond of while he was trying to slow down his self poisoning from palladium. Rhodey knew the recipe. God help him for that one.

They were having a little heart to heart, where Tony was telling him half truths and mostly frowning and Rhodey was verbally questioning their continued friendship if Tony refused to let him help when JARVIS let them know that Bucky and Steve's bike were in the garage and requesting to use the code to get to the penthouse via elevator.

"Is he armed?" Rhodey asked and then rolled his eyes. "Never mind. Guy's a living weapon."

Tony couldn't manage to even stand, so he leaned against the back of the chair and, as if he himself didn't care about his life, smirked and told JARVIS to let the murderer of his parents up. "Why not? Little reunion right? Finish the job. Wipe out the Starks."

"Oh Tony. This is a bad idea," Rhodes groaned. "Do you have any weapons I should know about? Don't grin at me. Tony--"

But the elevator was already signaling its arrival. Damn it for being so quick. Rhodey pulled the gun out of his holster and leveled it at the door. Just in case.

Bucky was still dressed in faded denim jeans and a red t-shirt, hardly looking the part of trained killer, except for his eyes. Those were blank, merciless, and scarcely even looked human any more as he stood stock still in the elevator and waited for it to get up to the penthouse. Not that he had to wait long, the elevator was damn fast, just another indication of Tony's excellent programming capabilities.

He stepped out as soon as the doors opened, eyes flickering over the gun levelled at him and then ignoring it as if it didn't matter at all. Which it didn't. If he decided to defend himself then he could be over there and disarming him before the stranger could fire off a shot, if he didn't, then what did it matter?

Instead, he focused all his attention on the seated Tony Stark.

"They didn't have a right to interfere," he said, voice low and almost calm. He stopped in front of Tony, within arm's reach, and knelt down so that he wasn't towering over the other man. "I killed a lot of people and I haven't faced justice for any of it. You're the first person-- the first relative I've told, you have the right and I know you want to."

One good point about all that drinking? Tony was much, much less likely to do anything but sit there. Or dance. Then again, Rhodey had been at the end of his fists (and repulsors) before after he'd gotten himself messily drunk. There had been a lot going on then with his refusal to tell anyone about his imminent death. Then again...? "God damn it, stand your ground," Rhodey growled. Not that Bucky listened. He found himself getting closer and closer until Bucky finally knelt and Rhodey paused behind him, feet apart, barrel leveled at the back of his head.

Tony didn't say anything. He watched Bucky, watched his face. He watched that arm and how his jaw was set and how dead and lost his eyes were. He watched Bucky for a long time while Rhodey cursed behind him and then leaned back in his seat. He lifted a hand to call off the dogs and Rhodey did lower the gun, even if he didn't put it away. "This is crazy," his friend grumbled.

"It wasn't you. I saw the tapes of what they did to you. So what happened to my parents? Not you." It felt bitter in his mouth. Like ashes. Chalky and unpleasant. "But I really-- I really need to keep hating you right now. Got it? You have two people that need you. Start making it up to them if you feel guilty, right?"

No... No, no, that wasn't good enough.

Bucky looked up into Tony's eyes and there was just a hint of plea behind them, more than he had even shown Grant and Steve. What had happened to him, the long time that he had been used and broken so far beyond what humans should be able to handle, it was killing him anyway in pieces. He couldn't take his own life because of Steve and Grant, but if someone took justice? That was okay. That was how it should be.

"I don't even know what her name was."

The words came out slightly twisted as though they tasted wrong to him. He didn't want to hurt Tony more, but if goading him was what could make this right, could make this how it should be, then that's what he would do.

"I was never told, she was nothing to me. Just something in the way of my objective. You should hate me, I've killed so many people."

"Maria." Tony set his glass of sludge down and leaned forward. His eyes might be hazy and they might be floating on a cushion of scotch and a spinach-male-yogurt blend, but he could follow along with the conversation. For a lot of his life, he was a fairly functional alcoholic. Just one of his many talents. His liver didn't seem to care anymore about letting him stay nice and foggy through his trauma. "Her name was Maria and I do hate you."

It probably wasn't rational. Hating someone for being put through what they had? It wasn't Bucky's fault. Objectively he knew that. But he hated him anyway. His last four words were filled to the brim with vitriol.

"If you came here looking for someone to kill you for it, all of a sudden, after the big finding each other make out session I watched, then you probably do deserve to die. But not for killing my mom. Or a thousand other potential parents. You deserve it for not manning up and taking care of Rogers after he went back in time to another dimension to save your sorry ass."

Rhodey looked uncomfortable. He did not want details here thank you.

That was a crueller punishment than just killing him, letting him see justice just out of his reach and then refusing it to him because of how much his death would hurt the two Steves. And it would, he knew that. If they knew he was still out there somewhere, alive, they could have hope. If he was dead, that hope was gone.

But it was clear he couldn't stick around.

He couldn't live in a place built, maintained, and paid for by a man who hated him for completely justified reasons. And he definitely couldn't be the reason that a wedge was driven between Steve and any of his friends. Grant... Grant would want to come with him, but he couldn't guarantee security from HYDRA or SHIELD or any of the other countless world governments looking for him without the protection of Tony's technology, so he would be better left there. The others would take care of him, befriend him, and give him a purpose.

Bucky pushed himself back to his feet and took a half step backwards.

"Alright. You won't have to see me again. I won't be a reason that Steve loses his friends, but I won't die either."

Whether it was his fault or not, the blood was still on his hands. Tony needed someone to hate, why not him?

"Steve and I aren't really friends. Sometimes I like to think so but-- I don't know. Doesn't matter." They were too different. Their ideals were too far apart. Tony would never admit that sober. He slumped down in his chair as Bucky stood. He needed more scotch. Less kale. He didn't want to be detoxed. He wanted to enjoy his lack of sobriety, at least until Banner showed up and played his guilt up because his dad was an abusive alcoholic.

Technically Tony's dad was too. He didn't back over his mother in the driveway but-- Tony rubbed a hand over his face.

"All you're gonna do by leaving is make Cap come looking for you. And we need him to track down HYDRA and wherever it is they're keeping those people like you. We need to get back an Asgardian artifact. And we need to stop them messing up timelines," Tony snapped. "Stay at the compound. That way I never have to run into you out in the world. Do that for me. Stay put. Don't be a huge baby and ruin everything."

"Tony--" Rhodey wasn't too pleased by the change of tone. Tony was breaking down.

"I can't stay there."

Tony was breaking and Bucky could see it, but he did nothing to prevent it or head it off. The man deserved to break down and perhaps he still held a tiny hope that the anger would rear its head again instead of this awful broken hurt. This is what he did to people, he destroyed their lives.

"I can't stay somewhere that you've paid for, not any more. I shouldn't have done it to begin with, I should have told you from the start. I promise you won't run into me out in the world."

He was good at hiding before, he'll be good at hiding again.

"Tell Steve not to come for me."

He turned to head back towards the elevator, final words so soft they were almost inaudible.

"I'm sorry. I know it doesn't make up for it, but I see their faces every night. I see all of their faces. I don't forget that."

"You're a god damned selfish asshole. I'm not telling Steve anything. He won't listen to me anyway." Tony watched Bucky go, not with regret, nor sorrow, nor anything really. His heart wasn't into feeling much about the man. He'd feel bad for Steve and for that kid who had decided it would be all right to share Bucky with himself. What was Grant going to do now?

If Tony had known that Bucky promised never to leave him, he might have thrown that back in his face. But he didn't know that. He didn't have anything else to say at all. "You're just letting him leave?" Rhodes asked as Bucky stepped into the elevator.

Tony picked up his drink and swallowed a thick mouthful. "Yep. I am."

Banner would arrive half an hour later. Steve would stay up all right brooding on how to make it all better and Grant would be asleep until the morning, shades left open so that the first golden rays of the sun splashed across his face no matter what way he turned. "Mmmm... Buck...?"

It would take him some time to find the note because he hadn't been looking for it, rubbing sleep from his eyes to wander into Bucky's room instead.

Rhodey was really worried about Tony, because he knew this could tip either way and turn out really well, or really badly. Option one was that Tony continued down this path of drinking and depression, growing more and more bitter about what had happened, until nobody could persuade him not to self destruct and take himself out of the team. Option two, he would push it all down and return, but end up fighting more with Rogers because he held a lingering resentment and hatred for Bucky, something that could tear them apart. Or option three, he took a few days to calm down and let guilt set in for blaming Barnes for something that he hadn't really got culpability for, then he'd be the one to hunt him down and sort things out.

That was the best of the three options, but Rhodey genuinely didn't know if Tony had that in him. In the end, he had to leave it to Banner, who would be a constant presence at Tony's side. Quiet, but firm, and definitely not about to let him drink himself into oblivion.

The note that Grant found would be written in familiar handwriting, the sort of neat cursive that kids these days weren't taught with such strictness, still Bucky's handwriting despite the years and the Soldier.

"Grant,

I'm sorry, I can't stay in a house paid for by the son of people I murdered, it's not right. I've gone to him so that he can take justice. I'm sorry to both you and Steve, and thank you for helping me feel human even for a short time.

Yours,

James Buchanan Barnes.

"Steve!" Grant ran across the lawn in bare feet and sleep pants, white t-shirt stuck to his back from sweat by the time he got to the main house. He pounded on the door, before JARVIS opened it for him, and Sam, who had been lounging on the couch after putting Steve to bed (his bed) less than ten minutes ago got to his feet.

Grant was in full attack by that point, bent over and clutching the paper as he tried to breathe. Sam was momentarily lost for what to do. He'd see Grant once, unconscious. He'd heard that they decided to go with his middle name (but it escaped him on what that was right now). To be honest, Sam was just momentarily in shock to see him.

"Need--" wheeze. "Steve--"

"Hang on, man," Sam said, dashing to the door. He picked Grant up and carried him to the couch, asking JARVIS to get Cap for them. Of course the doctor was gone, back an hour or so away in Manhattan. Not good. "Hey. Calm down. Just breathe for me. Let's do it together. Follow my lead."

Steve knew he should really be sleeping. He had been awake too long and even his body needed rest, but he was just staring at the ceiling in Sam's room when JARVIS called for him to get up. Grant was in the front room having an asthma attack. Fearing immediately something wrong with Bucky, Steve sprinted to the lounge and dropped to his knees beside Sam who was doing the right thing.

"Sam. Inhaler, he was given one, if it's not on him then go to building seven and find it. Make sure to call out before you get in there or you might startle Bucky, we don't need a fight."

Sam, grateful for the orders, patted Grant down briefly before he ran off to find the needed inhaler, leaving Steve and Grant alone.

"Alright, Grant, you and I both know that you can get through this. Breathe deep as you can and don't try to talk 'til you can breathe properly again."

Grant didn't need to speak. He just pushed the paper at Steve despite his inability to get a good breath in. He'd be fine. Probably. His chest wasn't easing up but Sam would be back with the inhaler soon. Never mind that he was getting a little blue around the lips as he struggled to both get some air and make Steve read the paper.

Bucky was more important right now and he could be lying dead wherever it was Tony Stark was at. All Grant knew was that Bucky told Tony he killed his parents when he wasn't himself and that Tony had tried to hurt him.

Justice, that note said. Justice. There was no justice.

It took Sam awhile to get the inhaler because he had no idea where it might be, and because he was wary about Bucky, but sprinted back across the lawn after he found the medicine in the bedside drawer. "Cap!" he called before he threw it over and Steve helped get the nozzle in Grant's mouth. He waited for the younger Steve to lay back, resting a little more easily now that his airways had opened up, before he said: "Building 7 is empty."

Steve was pale as a sheet by the time that Sam had got back with the inhaler and got Grant breathing again, the piece of paper covered in Bucky's handwriting clutched so tightly in his hand that he was in danger of ripping it. Stupid-- stupid, how could he not have seen that this might happen? Bucky was a good man, one of the best, of course he would feel like he needed to face justice.

But if Tony had killed him?

He felt as though he might throw up or cry, neither of which were viable options, as he thrust the note out to Sam to read. "JARVIS, you're connected to both buildings, tell me-- where is Bucky?"

"Sergeant Barnes' current location is unknown. He arrived at Stark Tower at nineteen minutes past one in the morning and left at forty two minutes past one in the morning. He was unharmed."

Grant felt a mixture of relief and a stabbing pain after JARVIS filled in the information no one had asked for. "And Mr. Stark--"

"Asleep. Doctor Banner and Colonel Rhodes saw to it that he get some rest not long after Sargeant Barnes left." No one had been hurt, Bucky hadn't gone back on his promise to stop hurting people, but that did not make him feel better.

He tried hard not to let the tears well up in his eyes, not in front of Steve, who was so strong, and not in front of a stranger either. He just gulped back a little until he could feel an air bubble form in his throat. "He should have been back by now," he whispered. "It can't take that long to come back from Manhattan. Maybe there's traffic?"

He wanted that hope.

"Bucky promised he wouldn't leave again." His pain felt like red hot metal shavings burrowing into his chest. He couldn't stop the single tear that dropped from his eyes to his clenched hands. "He said he wouldn't leave so something had to happen to keep him from coming back for us."

"He's left."

Steve didn't want to say that because it felt like spitting blood through razor blades in his mouth, but it was the truth all the same. He didn't blame Bucky, he found it hard to blame Bucky for anything. Just the fact that he was still alive after all of this was amazing, he could be expected to make a few judgement errors along the way.

"He probably thinks he's doing what's best for you-- us."

Because he was an idiot that way. But then, Steve had never been the only one to put himself on the wire for others to crawl over, and that was clearly what Bucky thought he was doing. Removing himself from the equation so that all of the others could be safe and happy. Idiot. Idiot.

"We'll find him, we'll help him. We won't let anything happen to him."

Bucky kept doing this. He kept promising and then leaving and when he returned, it was just more promises he was going to break. Grant shook his head, pretty sure his skull was coming unhinged from his spine. "No. Let him go. He's not-- he can't be happy here." Maybe it was foolish to think that they could have made him happy too. Bucky knew himself now better than anyone, but it probably wasn't saying very much.

Grant couldn't stop his heart from breaking as he bowed his head and Sam glanced away from the two, hands on his hips, waiting to be told what the plan was. Until then, he'd given them their space. Grant especially looked like he needed it.

"He'll find us when he's ready. Don't you have a job to do? What you said last night about finding HYDRA and the people that hurt him? Can I... Can I help you track them down? I have to be useful. I have to do something while I... While we wait for him to come back."

Grant's shoulders slumped and he leaned forward, rubbing a hand over his wet face. He shouldn't be crying over this. Bucky was safe. He was safe and the rest-- it would just be a waiting game.

Funny, he'd been alone for months since Bucky found him in his tenament. And here, he as surrounded by people. But Grant stil felt so very alone.

Steve hesitated a moment and then stood up to clap Sam on the shoulder, obvious affection beneath the stoic heartbreak that he was just about managing to keep under control. "Could you give us a few moments, pal? I need to talk to Grant on his own." He waited until Sam had nodded and moved off before he sat down beside his younger self and shook his head.

"You've got it wrong, we can't sit and wait for him to come back. Bucky's in trouble, he's hurting, and he needs our help. He was happy here, he said as much in his letter, he's just an idiot who thinks he's protecting us. This isn't about his happiness, him leaving, it's about him thinking it's not safe for him to be with us."

Which was a dumb reason to let him go.

"I'm going to look for him because it's the right thing to do, and because he needs me."

Whether or not Grant could see the right of it, well... Steve thought that he would, he knew himself and he'd never give up on Bucky Barnes.

Maybe he was going about this all wrong? Grant felt so small right now, like he'd just let Bucky down. Like he didn't know him at all. He shouldn't have given up so easily, and now he felt so terrible for it. Like his heart was about to fall out, like he'd forgotten everything he ought to be.

"He does need you." Grant was pretty useless here. Sure, maybe up close, he could keep Bucky being himself. He could say the right things and coax him back, but just running across the lawn gave him an attack. Trying to find a man that didn't want to be found when he hardly understood the world as it was now, seemed so out of his reach.

He really hated that. He hated being useless. He hated sitting down for all of this.

"Can you drive?" Well, howelse were they going to get out of here?

"Yeah," he said, and it was in answer to the question as well as an acknowledgement that Bucky needed him, and despite his worry that actually felt pretty good. He knew now, he had seen, that Bucky needed both of them in order to get back to any semblance of normalcy. "He needs you too, so let's get out there and bring him home."

They could deal with Tony and the possibility that they would have to find someplace else to live after this, and Steve would deal with the very real problems that the team might split over his decision to help Bucky when he had committed such a personal crime against Tony's family. But that was for the future, right now he just had to find his friend before Bucky got too far away and buried himself too effectively.

He pulled himself up to his feet and offered his hand to Grant to help him up, and led him down to the garage. Unfortunately, they wouldn't find Bucky that night. Nor the next one, nor the next, nor the next. Four long days of searching, or strained silence, and with no Tony either. Steve felt like his carefully constructed world was falling down.

Would Tony even come back? Did he hate Steve now? Would he keep wanting to get revenge against Bucky? Would he hate Bucky for good?

Tony had other things to do than let Steve Rogers and pals ruin his life. With Steve and Grant gone, and Sam AWOL attempting to find them, Tony had to step up his game a little. It would have been so much easier if Bucky had just mentioned that he did in fact know where the HYDRA Soldier base was, but Tony would get to that eventually, especially after Thor decided to pay them a visit with some sort of crazy alien magic-tech that would lead them to Loki's scepter.

Having to fetch it without Steve was pretty bad. Tony was more ruthless for it, he didn't lead so much as announced what he was going to do and left the rest up to everyone else. No one blamed him. He wasn't a leader. Luckily, Thor did his best to step up but leading human's wasn't as easy as leading his own men. He did not know their skills the way that Rogers did.

And while they did indeed manage their mission, it was not without great consequence. Barton was left injured. Banner had a harder time than usually recovering from his Code Green. And Tony was acting even funnier than usual. Something had happened to him in that HYDRA base but he wasn't talking about it. It was pretty crazy stuff. He didn't even believe it himself.

In the end, Barton would recover, even as Grant began to show the first signs of pneumonia. His lungs felt heavy and thick. His head ached. And finally, a week into their run, he put a hand on Stevs's arm as the other blond was working off of JARVIS supplied sat images. "I'm slowing you down," he murmured, skin clammy and damp.

Steve had begun to feel guilty. He knew that the mission to get the sceptre hadn't been the most successful thing in the world and it had been his fault that Barton had been injured, he should have been there, he was meant to be the team leader. He didn't want to drive all his other friends away, and now Grant was also sick.

"...I think we should take a break for a few days anyway, clear our heads, come back at it when JARVIS has managed to collate some better images."

He clapped a hand to Grant's shoulder, knowing how much he had hated to be coddled when he had been in a body like that, and so still talking to him normally even if he looked awful. He'd have to get Banner to prescribe some antibiotics, treatment for pneumonia was much better in these days than it ever had been when he was a kid.

"Maybe you can spend a few days sitting and working through the possible sightings on a map, seeing if there's a pattern or journey progression? I have some stuff I need to sort out with the team, anyway."

He needed to finally talk to Tony, he needed to thank Sam and everyone else for stepping in for him, and he needed to pick up the mantle of Captain America again.

There wasn't much to do about it save to listen to Steve's advice and go back. No where was home without Bucky and so Grant never considered calling it that. He was moved into the Tower, too sick to really understand where he was at that point, and though. An error did remind them that they had Helen a ho, a real doctor at their disposal, he still checked on the kid as often as possible.

Steve and Sam coming home coincided with Tony's thought about throwing a massive party in celebration for getting their hands back on the weapon Loki left behind and Tony was in fine form of ignoring that anything was wrong as he leaned against the bar and asked Natasha for another drink, more or less ignoring the shop talk Steve and Sam were having just behind him.

Natasha complied, though his Shiey Temple was more virgin than Rogers probably was and no amount of whining that this was his house and his bar would get her to do anything more than smile at him until he wandered off to leave Banner get himself flirted with despite hardly realizing it.

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