fossilised | For Steve

"I am not now and will never lie to you," Grant said with certainty as he picked up the nail and foot brush from the soap dish to help clean Bucky's arm off. "So I need you to understand and believe me when I say that I will never let you kill yourself. You're not an animal to put down, Buck. You're a man who is loved and who will be so completely missed if you were to leave us." Grant couldn't keep the tears from his eyes. He was not overly emotional, tempered by poverty and the depression and illness after illness. But when anything came to Bucky, oh, it did hurt him to see him so low.

Only two minutes later, the door opened and a familiar voice called Grant's name. Blue eyes brightened under the spray and he stepped back to open the glass shower door.

"In here, Steve!"

They were all supposed to be together, the three of them, and so the timing couldn't have been better. Steve pushed open the partially closed bathroom door and immediately pulled his shirt off as he stepped out of his sneakers. Grant handed over the scrub brush.

They could wash Bucky clean between them, soft hands and strong forcing Bucky to remember that he was better than he thought himself to be. And that, as Tony Stark kept saying, he was one of the luckiest people alive to have love like he did.

They were good people, two of the best that the world had ever produced, and Bucky was a lucky bastard that even one of them loved him. He let them both hold him and clean him and dry him off, he let them dress him in soft loose clothes, he let them pack up a bag for him, he let them make him eat, and then he let them load him into a discreet black car with tinted windows and drive him to the compound.

Where Bruce had been working with Tony to get this up and running again, and where the other Avengers had been preparing for time without two of their main members. There were instructions on how to reach them on the other side, a huge suitcase full of old money that would be enough to set them up like billionaires for a year or two.

But Bruce was a bit distracted, and he kept glancing up at Tony every so often as if he wanted to say something. But Tony was already worried enough about Barnes - an odd friendship, that, but good for him - and so he kept his mouth shut.

"So I'm thinking-- one week there and two back. I can't just disappear. I have a company to run and I've seen my dad's early work. Oh shit. My dad's work. Maybe I'll find him and punch him. Like Cap punched Hilter. You know, people might pay to see that. Stark-Off. Two Stark's enter. Only the most dashing and heroic leaves. I'm the most dashing and heroic by the way, Banner. In case you got confused there by the glamor and intrigue and you're not listening to me again."

Tony exhaled slowly and then grabbed for the tablet that Bruce was holding, looking over the calculations. They were all perfect. Not a single one forgetting to have itself carried over.

"Are you going to miss me?" He'd gotten more aggressive with his friendships since he'd met Barnes and had the super solider pretty much force his friendship on him too. It was comforting and also a little bit frightening to see Tony really try to force himself to be more human and likable. "I'll bring you some disgusting forties chocolate. Okay?"

"If the way you show you miss me is by bringing me forties chocolate, then maybe you can try not to miss me, okay?"

He offered a small smile, but it didn't quite reach his big, soulful eyes. His fingers, too, continued to fidget in the way he always did when he was slightly stressed about something. Not enough to code green, not by a long shot, but still worrying over something that he wasn't about to tell Tony.

It just wasn't fair to burden Tony with this.

"You know you're going to have to keep a low profile, right? No shouting about how you're Tony Stark, that's just asking for trouble in the timeline of their reality."

"I wasn't even born. No one would know me and Jesus, Banner. I'm not going to go and ruin Grant's whole timeline even more. Honestly. I'm just going to make sure everyone gets settled and Barnes is all right and then I'll be back to be all over TV spreading the good news about how we should give people second chances." He gave Bruce a big, significant look.

Tony might have gotten better lately but this was no miracle cure and he had no idea what was making Bruce so twitchy because he wasn't paying attention to Bruce that way. They were friends but not best of friends. He wanted to change that, though. When he came back. Bruce was probably the second smartest guy on the planet and they really needed to unite together!

Tony set the tablet down and wandered off to the far corner of the room, humming a little and shaking his hips a little. The man liked to dance when he was happy. Or about to make a break through. And sure. Today had been stressful, but they were ending it on a positive note with a little Doctod Who or Star Trek transdimensional vacationing.

That would make anyone happy.

"Oh. Hey! We should test our communication. I want to make sure you can talk to me whenever you get too lonely here."

"You know, I don't see that happening."

Bruce offered a small and slightly taut smile at Tony, but he took the little hand held communication device that was connected through the portal and should ring into the landline phone of wherever Tony got them established. They currently had the modified 1940s phone plugged into the lab sockets.

"But I think you should stay with them for longer, maybe let us handle it here."

Definitely let them handle it.

Tony did not want to be here for the news that was bound to break soon.

It was Bruce's pushing him to stay that got a strange look from the inventor. That didn't make sense. Leaving wasn't something he ought to be doing but Grant had asked and Grant was a big sack of puppies on two spindly legs. Who could say no to that? Tony paused in what he was doing to glance back over his shoulder at Bruce.

"Are we breaking up? Are you sending me to the 40s to meet someone else so I'll forget all about you? Won't do it, Banner. You need me. You might not think you do, but late at night, when you're all alone, you'll lay in bed thinking that, somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moonlight-- No wait. That's mice." Sometimes he got his old cartoons mixed up in his waxing poetry. He turned fully to cross his arms over his chest and gaze at the scientist. "Why do you want me to take an extended vacay? I have to keep me thumb on the Barnes stuff."

Helping to heal the man on both ends? Yes, that was what a hero did. Cap would give him a gold metal for this.

"You look extra worried. It's not that time of the month is it? Are you also part werewolf or something?"

Okay, so apparently Tony never did the easy thing and for a second Bruce wanted to punch him. Why couldn't the man just agree and say he would stay in the past for a while and let them all handle it? Why did he have to be such a cocky and smart son of a bitch? He folded his arms.

"There are just some files that have come to light, stuff from the bits of SHIELD that probably intersected with HYDRA, and Natasha has received a tip off that the papers have got hold of them and plan to publish them."

He crossed the room to his bag and pulled out an old tablet, slowly drawing up the email he'd received from Natasha with the attachments.

"I want you to remember before you look at this, how many pieces of paper you've probably signed without reading them just because someone put them under your nose."

Bruce held it out. It was a pretty short document on SHIELD headed notepaper, dated 1959, and it authorised the use of "new maintenance and wiping technology research for the Asset". It didn't get any clearer, all oblique language, but it was pretty clearly about Bucky. And it was signed and authorised by 'Howard Stark, Director of SHIELD'.

Tony didn't need a further reason to hate his father and though every new piece of evidence about the man being an asshole did make him feel marginally better, this? Oh, this did something else. Tony felt a sickness well up inside of his stomach and the hand holding the document trembled. He was quick to put it down and quick to turn away from Banner and quick to turn his anger, as always, to the wrong people.

"How long have you had this?" He was tired of people deciding what was the best course of action for him was. He was tired of being one of the leading experts on technology, consultant for governments and universities around the world and he was still the last to know about everything. It was lucky that the old handset from the 40s was resilient because Tony shoved it off of the table with his hand, balled uo the document, and turned to bounce it off of Bruce's chest. "Know what? Don't answer that. Makes sense that dad was probably HYDRA.That's how they infiltrated SHIELD so easily. They were right there when it started. No, do not-- You do not get to say another god damned word to me," he hissed when Bruce turned gentle, placating eyes and hands towards him.

He was done with people hiding everything from him.

"J, I need a full and complete dredging of everything SHIELD has. I don't care if we left it alone out of confidentiality clauses in the past. I want everything. Every last god damned thing. Send it to my garage at the compound." He slammed open the glass down he had watched Bucky make out with both Rogerses a few months prior through and stormed across the lawn.

"Yes, sir." For once, JARVIS had no witty comeback or chiding words, he knew when to obey an order without question and this was definitely one of those times.

Bruce, however, wasn't quite so obedient.

After a second to rescue the balled up document and push it into his pocket, he jogged after Tony through the door and out onto the lawn. It hurt to see a friend like this, even a friend that he didn't know that well yet.

"Tony, you don't know that he was HYDRA," he said, keeping pace with the other man, voice low and soft and soothing. "It makes sense that SHIELD resources were being funnelled away to deal with HYDRA projects and, if Howard was anything like you, he might have been trusted to just sign papers without reading them. Just because his signature was on there, it doesn't mean that he had anything to do with the Winter Soldier project. Besides, if he did, why would they kill him?"

It had to be hard, though, facing up to the possibility that your old man had even inadvertently done something so terrible.

"Well he is like me. No. I'm like him. That's my curse. Got all of his worst qualities. Can't find time for family, push everyone away for some stupid grail quest that I'll never manage to obtain, drink too much, sign documents that resign people to horrible fates--". Yeah, Banner. That attempt to make him feel better did not make him feel better. How many contracts did he sign for his IP that let people kill other people? Or torture them? Shit, he literally had no idea. None.

He had had ousted HYDRA in the ranks of Stark Industry, all of whom fled when Widow posted the databases about how far they had infiltrated. One had still been hanging out inside some art school-- There could be numerous woman or child abuse, drugs or weapons dealing rackets out there before he just signed something without reading it.

He stopped to let Bruce catch up so that he wasn't yelling at him as he stalked across the grass.

"From what I've learned about HYDRA, they off each other just as soon as one doesn't do what everyone else wants. Maybe he was holding that serum over their heads. For fun and profit. You never met my dad. This sounds just like him. You can't trust anyone in this world, Banner."

At least Tony let Bruce catch up rather than kept going at full tilt into a proper strop, that was a good sign. Barnes really had had a good influence on him as a friend, strange to think of. That probably wouldn't make Tony feel any better, Bruce realised, he was the sort of man to shoulder guilt for the legacy of his family, even if he couldn't have prevented some of it.

"Alright, so say he was HYDRA, what then? Would it do you any good to know all the gritty details, or would you just be hurting yourself with it?"

Bruce reached out to put a hand on Tony's shoulder, not a usual gesture as he tended to keep his personal space completely his own.

"But you can see why we didn't want you to have to be here to deal with when it goes public, right?"

"So I'd have to deal with it when I came back? Bullshit Banner. That's-- that is the stupidest-- No. There are lots of kids of the Nazis still alive today and they have to own up their family's issues. If dad was one of them-- I have to know. But keep this from the Rogers twins and from Barnes."

He pulled back from Bruce's touch. Now was not a good time. Now was the worst time. He was probably less skittish than Barnes, but more than Banner and as much as he wanted to get a hug right now (he was only human), he could not let anyone touch him.

He felt dirty by proxy. Was that even a thing?

"I have to damage control. And I have to get my own records ready for the public. Shit. I just wanted to wear a bowler hat and see girls in poodle skirts."

"You're still going to get to see that, Barnes and the others need you to go with them. From what Steve told me over the phone, Barnes is in a really bad spot and he'll need you there too."

Maybe that was a little ham fisted, but Bruce knew that he always felt better with his guilt if he had concrete proof that he had helped someone. It's why he had begun treating people medically when he ran, it gave him solid evidence that his hands could heal as well as destroy. It's probably why Barnes was so good for Tony, he was walking talking evidence that the man did help people.

"Don't go in there and read those files, you'll regret it."

Bruce stayed in the doorway, and he wouldn't stop Tony if he did go in, but he really hoped that he wouldn't. Whether or not those files proved that Howard had been HYDRA or not, it wouldn't be something that would comfort him.

"I employ twenty five thousand people. This could cause me to lose the business. I'll already be losing contracts left and right. I'm not worried about myself, Banner. I can't risk having to cut whole teams here." Tony didn't usually think outside of himself. "Barnes is in good hands. The communicator works. They can call if they need me but right now... I need you to leave me alone until they get here. I need to get this to legal and I need.... I need to release these things before the media does."

Twenty-five thousand people trumped one any day. And yeah. He kind of owed Bucky for being indirectly involved. And he owed Steve for... For giving him shit with all of this mess. But he couldn't face either right now.

He wet his lips with his tongue but didn't look back around as he sat behind his desk and picked up the phone.

"Shut the door please? I have a lot of work to do."

Bucky was sat between Grant and Steve through the winding hills and roads of upstate New York. Grant had missed the greenness, as much as he loved the city. He was almost excited to be back up here. Even if it was for just a day.

"We should just buy a nice car and ride around for awhile," he said, making idle conversation as Steve held Bucky's hand.

Bruce didn't exactly like leaving Tony alone to deal with this, but he had to respect his choice. Besides, it showed some real growth that the man had thought about the hundreds of other people who would be affected by this rather than just himself, that was a far cry from the Tony Stark that used to be in all the magazines for being an arrogant and selfish playboy.

Tony wouldn't like what JARVIS managed to dig up.

There wasn't a lot of it. Four text files and two very old video recordings in black and white. One of the text files was what he had already seen, the second and third ones were in response to deployment questions, and the fourth one was schematics for a very familiar metal arm. Designed by a Stark, no wonder it had been such good craftsmanship. The first video file showed Howard sat in front of Bucky, the man filthy and chained up. But the audio wasn't working, so it was just a three minute clip of nothing, no way of knowing what one was saying to the other. The second video clip was years later, clearly the Soldier now, stood at Howard's side before the older Stark ordered a reset.

Unaware of what his friend was going through, unaware of anything except the anchoring presence of Steve's hand in his and Grant's body by his side, Bucky glanced out of the window at the green space.

"I'll take you," it was a low promise. "If you make me human, I'll take you driving wherever you want to go."

"You're already human," Steve said, and Grant smiled back over his shoulder. "You just have to remember it."

Of course, remembering it would mean remembering everything. Remembering Howard Stark too. Remembering how he had helped make Bucky the person he was today. And how easily his son had stepped into that role without even realizing the shoes he was filling when Bucky let him poke around with his prosthetic.

Grant leaned back against Bucky with his head tipped to his shoulder, and closed his eyes. "We'll go everywhere. I've seen some of Europe with Steve but I want to see all of America. Coast to coast. I want to draw it all."

Steve grinned. "Actually, pal, I've always wanted to do that too. Gee. Wonder why, huh?"

The car made an effortless turn through the gate leading into the compound and the trees gave way to the large main building where the majority of the Avengers stayed. It was Natasha that met their car, smirk a constant on her painted red lips. "All right, boys? Cap, I'll let you they the bags."

"Yes ma'am," Steve agreed as if he hadn't just spent time today in a police office making preliminary statements on Bucky's behalf.

Bucky stepped out of the car and immediately pulled the hood of his sweater up as if it might shield him from any cameras or surveillance. He might have decided to trust Grant and Steve with literally everything right now, but his other instincts had been dialled up to eleven and he wasn't happy with being so exposed. What if there were snipers? What if they hit Grant or Steve?

"Tony?"

The question came before he even realised he had asked it. But it didn't take him more than a second after that for the longing to set it. Tony represented autonomy, his choices, the first friend he had made himself since the Soldier and the first one who hadn't known him before to still like him.

"He's coming too, right? Where is he?"

Romanoff was a spy, Russian, she could have turned again. This could be a trap. He could take her down if he needed to, he'd beaten her before in a fight. No-- No, he had to stop thinking that way.

"Probably not today. He's working on a few things. But you know we'll be able to track Steve," Natasha said, walking ahead of them with her hands distinctly visible. She understood that she wasn't really a trustworthy person and so she made it s point when dealing with variables to make herself the least amount of threatening as she could possibly manage. Her hips swayed and Grant watched her as he had watched Peggy, though he'd feel more than a little silly if he was caught. Looking wasn't a crime but he was still so young. He was almost a decade younger than Steve and it was difficult to gauge Bucky's actual age. "Tell you what. I'll tell him you're looking for him and he can tell you himself that he'll be with you as soon as you're settled over there."

She caught Grant watching her ass and he blushed up a storm and flailed right into Bucky. It was cute. She couldn't help but grin as she led them across the lawn to Building 7 where Banner was all set up and ready to go, cash in a variety of bills lining backpacks for them all.

Steve set down their items and went over to doubt check with Bruce what was happening.

"So why isn't Tony here...? I know it's like him to flake out but--"

"But I have more things to put together first." Tony smiled from the projection. He could only do that by acting right now. His smile was no where near real. "Sorry kids. Give me a few days and I'll come by? Make sure you pick s nice house. I want my own bathroom. No negotiations on that."

If there was one thing that Bucky knew very well, it was a fake smile. He was the master of them, he gave them every so often when he felt Steve and Grant begin to wilt under the endless days of his blank expressions. And so he saw it in Tony, he felt the wrongness like a sniper's itch at his back, and he was immediately on edge.

"Where are you? No projections."

His head snapped around to Banner and Romanoff. A lot of danger, Banner was the most dangerous of them all, even the Soldier couldn't take on the Hulk. Not and survive.

"Where is he? Do you have him trapped? Is he being forced to say that?"

"Held-- Bucky, jeez, no I'm not being held. I just have to keep this from blowing up. You know that the timelines run concurrent, right? Every day that I'm there means that it's a day I'm not here. If you go missing, and Rogers goes missing, and Rogers' great-great nephew goes missing, that is going to look bad enough." Tony sat back in the leather chair and it squeaked under him in protest at being so wrongly treated. He turned with his knees from right to left and then stood up. "Fine, you want to talk? My office. Just you. Let your Rogers Duo do their own thing."

No one would stop Bucky as he stormed across the lawn and took the stairs two at a time to get to where Tony was sitting. He'd put everything incriminating away, but his eyes still looked so sad and tired and his face was almost too blank for the usual animated grins he tended to put on.

He was no longer wearing a mask and that made him look so old right now.

"We just got a lot of new documents that the guy you killed was evidently record keeper for. The media found it out and I have to put a good spin on it and release it before they do." He let his head fall back against the padded neck rest and watched his friend act like a prowling, caged tiger. "Give me a few days. You and your boyfriends need some time to yourselves, right?"

C'mon Buck. Don't make this hard for him.

"Don't give me that blank look either. We worked too hard on your smile."

Bucky was still on edge when he got into Tony's office and verified for himself that the man wasn't under guard, and that nobody had been threatening him to put on a false smile and stay behind. So why was he looking so haunted? Surely it couldn't be the new files, Tony had sat through a whole night of watching his parents get killed and then Bucky get raped and beaten on film, and he hadn't looked quite so haggard.

Instead of smiling, Bucky's scowl only deepened.

"I want to see them."

He hadn't asked to see any of the files before. No, that was a lie, he had asked once. He asked Steve a while back if he could see the files that they had found, but Steve had looked so stricken and heartbroken that Bucky had taken it back almost at once.

"Show me."

He had already proven to Tony that he could see what they had done and pull through the other side without even cracking his mask.

"Can't you just take a damned step back at let something go?" Tony was trying not to get worked up but he felt miserable looking at Bucky. The person that had made him, that had made Steve, had also had his hand in making Bucky. Everything about this screamed an impossible coincidence but there was no doubt about the evidence.

Tony had run the videos through every program he could think of trying to debunk it. There had been no distortion, no sign of tampering. He'd tried to retrieve the audio to see if Howard had been forced somehow into work with the Russians and the Germans-- But no. No, he had committed war crimes and high treason and it was all on tape. The company that Tony ran was built on HYDRA funds for criminal activities.

Bucky wasn't going to drop it. He could see that Barnes stubbornness right now and so Tony turned away and had JARVIS queue up the video that made the splash. Howard and Bucky together. Recent-- Tony had likely been alive at that point. There was no time stamp but judging by his father's apparent age, Tony would have been ten or eleven, happily ruining the lives of his teachers at boarding school, while Howard enjoyed supplementing his business by reparing and upgrading Bucky's arm.

And now they were done with being friends. That...hurt.

Bucky watched the video from beginning to end in silence. It wasn't a long clip, it didn't even have anything that drastic in it. Just Howard examining the arm while the Soldier sat quietly, and then Howard ordering a wipe. That was it, it didn't even contain the actual wipe.

"Play it again."

"Yes, Sergeant Barnes."

The video played a second time and this time Bucky examined the background, the little details in the corners, anything that could tell him why Tony looked so haggard. Was it seeing Howard with the man who murdered him? Had it reminded him of his hatred for Bucky? That must be it, and that hurt.

"I said I was sorry I killed him. Your Ma too."

Sorry didn't cut it though, did it?

Wow. Tony had been expecting a lot of things. He was sort of prepared to go running for his life, jumping over railings or through glass or something dramatic. But not this! The apology after watching that tape, one that linked them together in a secondary string of uncomfortable pain, left Tony hurting for the sins of his father against his friend. And Bucky was managing to take a high road.

"I'm sorry my dad hurt you," Tony replied. "I'm sorry everyone hurt you but mostly I'm sorry that my family name is stamped into that arm of yours and that I..." Tony wiped his forehead as if he had been sweating, perhaps an unconscious need to pet himself for self comfort had taken over him. He didn't look any better, just a little more fluid, his limbs relaxing as he sat in his chair.

There wasn't much more to say. Nothing that might have made it better for either of them.

"We think... We think he was HYDRA from the start. He might have actually been the one to complete your... Anyway, he definitely designed the machine they used to take your memory. There's part of some plans.. It's his writing. I-- I'm.. If you don't want me to visit you guys at all, I get it, okay? I wouldn't want me either."

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