fossilised | it's a new plot!

Steve snorted, a little of the snarky little scrapper that he had been before the serum poking through. That guy was still there, but he usually didn't show it these days, there were too many people who only saw the title and what that represented and he didn't want to tarnish it by being sarcastic when they expected purity.

"Sure thing, Tony, and what home would that be? I'm a fugitive, remember? Didn't sign those Accords and tried to look out for my friend and now what? Now I'm not even welcome in my own country."

Tony had done that.

Sure, the governments had been worried about the superheroes, but they probably never would have acted on it if Tony hadn't had a fit of moral guilt and decided that he needed to be controlled and punished. Now look, everything was broken and he had no way to fix it.

"Can't work on clearing his name if mine is mud."

“So sign them. Work with me on a better deal for everyone. Campaign. Run for president. No one is actually going to arrest you. C’mon, you know how that played out when HYDRA was trying to take control of DC. You’ve bounced back from it before. But hey…if you’re cool with this new life of running and being a fugitive, cool. That’s not the Steve Rogers I’ve come to know, though.”

It was technically better for Steve to be out of the country for James’ sake, but at the same time, Tony thought it would do everyone a world of good if James could access his best friend when the time came. He had no delusions that he’d be chosen over Steve Rogers. When James decides he was okay enough to be Bucky again, there would be a new set of loving arms to fall into.

It’s fate.

They belong together.

Tony knew. He didn’t need some childish whispers in the back of his mind to come across that typical sort of emotion.

There was some silence before Tony shifted the phone to the other ear. “You’re better than this, Rogers. This is the shit I pull, but not you. So get your stuff together and come home.” Tony hung up the phone, feeling exhausted, and shoved it into the desk drawer he’d taken it from. “I really hate him,” Tony said out loud to no one but FRIDAY…and to convince himself that it was the truth.

Tony didn't get it. He had broken his team when he demanded the Accords, and Steve couldn't sign them because they put restrictions on him that meant he might have to work by what a government thought was right and legal, rather than what he knew was right. The Accords could stop them helping people who really needed it, or make them wade in during a situation that wasn't right.

As long as they were backed by at least some of the Avengers, they would be able to be enforced. And that meant Captain America had to be gone, and Steve Rogers had to be a fugitive. Tony was smart, he had to know that.

He was left alone, though, only FRIDAY to listen to him try and convince himself of things that even she knew was a lie. In fact, nobody would disturb him and the cacophony of voices in his head that told him what an idiot he'd been for hours.

Tony was used to being told and feeling like he was an idiot. He was never good enough, not for anyone, and his character traits were almost always seen as character flaws. He didn’t hate most people, his increasing isolation and loneliness refused to allow it, but he shied away from them. Once burned, it stayed with him, a memory of pain that could be transmitted to anyone. He didn’t trust…save for a few people that invariably drove it home that he should never, never trust anyone again.

He didn’t always learn his lesson.

A drunk Tony passed out in his lab. A drunk Tony sketched a few designs that would be seen as fantastical to most other people but, should they survive to a sober moment, might change the lives of some people for the better. A drunk Tony eventually drunk dialed Steve Rogers, getting through all the numbers this time straight through to the ringing.

A drunk Tony waited for the sound of a polite, potentially sad, potentially angry, potentially drunk himself Steve Rogers to start the conversation. “Nothing is right without you. I hate that I don’t hate you. Be the leader. Tell me what to do.” It was a good thing that James was getting in the sleep he so needed because this conversation needed to happen in the vacuum created by sheer, desperate loneliness. “I need it to be your voice making sense of it for me because this is getting really out of hand, Rogers.”

"I don't know what you need to do, Tony."

Steve's stupid metabolism had burned out the alcohol in him a long time since, but he still sounded tired and depressed. He couldn't see a way out of this, because the Accords were out there now.

"I can't sign the Accords, they give too much power over us to the US government, like we're a private militia. I just can't put my trust in someone else to always know what's right, and to have the power to tell me that I can't act when I see someone in need. That's not what I fight for, and it can't ever be. I'm not the leader any more, you told me I don't deserve the shield and the UN sees me as a war criminal. There is no way out of this with the Accords in existence."

Sometimes actions had consequences that couldn't be undone, Tony. Not unless he could think of a way to undo the Accords himself, clear the names of the Avengers who had fled, and make the public accept that too.

“We need the Accords. People keep dying because of us. We aren’t held responsible for anything. We have people on our team that cause the world to suffer more than anything we do to save it. I know you like her, Steve, but Wanda is a threat. We’ve seen Nat’s alliances change. Even Banner goes rogue. We can’t even find him and if he Code Greens on us, we’re sunk. Nothing I’ve built has been able to contain him. So what do we do? Do we just send Relief after we ruin someone’s city or kill their families?”

Tony didn’t get it because he had yet to see that almost every single problem that caused devastation on a mass level was his own doing. He needed the policing.

“You’re not even here anymore. You ran away. I’m retired. We have a bunch of vigilantes in Hell’s Kitchen and don’t get me started on all of that Chitauri tech floating around on the black market! Come home and help me fix this!”

He was in a bad way.

“I never ask for help because I don’t need it. I never have needed it until now. If you don’t … Well then I’m out. Completely. You stay in exile. I’ll move to France or Moldova or… The moon. I’ll move to the damned moon, Rogers, and then you’ll never see me again.” It was getting silly in word only. Tony was incredibly upset and it was all just spilling over into his voice.

"Tony, you're not listening to me. I'm not telling you that I don't want to come back, I can't come back. If I come back and I'm not arrested, then everyone knows that the Accords are a sham because they're not being upheld. If I come back and get arrested, then how does that help anyone either?"

He didn't run away, he was forced out.

Tony was the one who needed policing and, in an act of desperation, he had been the one to cause all of these problems that couldn't be fixed while they were being effectively policed.

"The Avengers were always supposed to exist outside of central government control. I know that scares you, and we cost lives as well as save them, but I still think that we know what's right or wrong. If you ask most people in one of the places we've fought in, they'd still thank us for saving them from a worse fate. I want to come back, Tony, I miss you and I miss the team, but you've created a place where I can't come."

Tony needed to grow up and find a way to do this without the Accords. Get them repealed, and maybe promise to be under the jurisdiction of the other Avengers if he did something atrocious. Like another Ultron.

"You tell me how I can come back without being arrested, or proving your Accords as a sham, and I'll do it."

Making childish threats and pretending like Steve was forcing himself into exile for no reason wasn't helping anything.

He felt so small. He felt so insignificant. It wasn’t Steve’s fault. This was how Tony dealt with embarrassment or with facing his own demons. And oh, there were just so many demons to face, even when the voices weren’t being a bitch. Guilt was and had always been such a powerful motivator for him. He just couldn’t dwell on that now.

The rising crescendo of whispers, despite how drunk he was, were reaching a head. Was it because he couldn’t stand being told no, or because someone wasn’t helping him clean up his own mess? He knew he was childish but that didn’t seem to effect the whispers or the images that sometimes filled his mind.

He pressed the heel of his palm against his left eye socket, willing the chanting to stop. They had been tormenting him so much.

“I come and get you. Put you up somewhere. Stark’s boarding house for wayward soldiers. We’ll move Rhodey in too.” He didn’t know how else to fix this. People didn’t look to him for reason. He wasn’t a good mouthpiece. He wasn’t a mouthpiece at all. He invented. He repaired. He financed. He did not make all of this better. “It’s not as bad as you think. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just... you just can’t practice super heroing. That’s all. We can work together on an amendment. You can convince the UN— Jesus you’re so frustrating. I don’t understand how or why I can’t help but love you so much. You’re horrible. Shit. Maybe I just have a thing for blonds. But that doesn’t make sense. Sometimes it’s green eyes and black hair. Or blue eyes and dark brown and... can you attempt to work with me here? I’m going off the deep end and it’s getting worse.”

And this coming from a man who had never told anyone about the palladium poisoning. It had to be really bad for him to run off like this.

For all that Tony might think that Steve liked being a jerk on purpose, nothing could be further from the truth. Which was probably why Tony hated him sometimes, because Steve really did stand for truth and kindness and justice. He didn't like to hear Tony upset or obviously panicked, but he couldn't come back and solve things as if Tony were a kid who had spilled cookies on the carpet.

"Listen to me, Tony," he said, voice a bit gentler, but no less firm. His 'Captain giving orders to a traumatised civilian' voice. "You are the one that helped write the Accords, and helped bring them into fruition, you're the one that has to raise any amendments if you want them to be made."

He wasn't even going to touch on Tony's preferences.

"But you can't have it both ways. Either you're for the Accords and you need to uphold them, which means not running behind their back to create wayward homes for soldiers. Or you need to refute them, amend them, and make them something that you can believe in. Otherwise you've made a set of rules and signed them, but don't intend to keep them, and I know you're a better man than that. It's why I can't sign them, because I can't guarantee I won't try and help if I believe it's right, or refuse to fight if I believe it's wrong."

“I will then,” Tony said, gripping the phone as if he might just break it apart. But he didn’t. He was just a regular old human doing regular old things with regular old strength, even if he did try to work out and build his upper body strength. None of that honestly mattered now, though, he wasn’t flying around saving the day anymore. Not unless it was James’ day.

But that was probably where he needed to be now. He needed to save the day outside of the armor. It was what Pepper had been trying to teach him for so long now. He wasn’t the machine. It was part of him, sure, but not all of him.

“Hey listen. I have some people to talk to. To call. And…fix things. I’ve got to mechanic the hell out of this. Standby, Cap.” He hung up on Steve for the second time in the last twenty-four hours andtossed the phone across the room. His legs, bent at the knee with feet flat on the floor, stretched out and his shoulders rested against the back wall as he glanced up at the man in the doorway that was supposed to be in bed.

Then again, it had been about a day. Tony didn’t expect James to actually follow the two day rule he’d instituted.

“If you fall over, I’m leaving you there. I don’t got it in me right now, Jim.”

James had waited for as long as he had been physically able to, but he hated being in one spot too long, it felt too much like inviting a sniper to take a shot. It didn't matter that he was behind multiple layers of security system and bulletproof glass, it still itched under his skin in the wrong way.

He remained barefoot, just dressed in the t-shirt and sweat pants that FRIDAY had ordered DUM-E to bring to the room. Old ones of Steve's that had been left behind, too long in the leg but otherwise a fairly good fit.

"You called Steve?"

It wasn't quite betrayal in his voice, more confusion and a slight vulnerability.

Trying to replicate the rub of his temples that so often quieted the voices down, Tony shrugged. “Technically, he called me. And then I hung up on him and called him back.” The self-massaging wasn’t working and so Tony let his hand drop into his lap so he could more fully view James. He knew those sweats. He knew where DUM-E must have gotten them. He said nothing about it. There was no reason why Bucky couldn’t have Steve’s left overs.

No reason at all. His jealousy was ridiculous in that regard and he wanted to push it and everything else he was having heartburn over thanks to the voices away from him.

“I did something stupid, trying to protect the world from myself. And I think I ruined his life,” Tony said, face more stoic than before, as if the emotional capability of it had faded out. “I gotta fix it.”

James didn't know if he believed that everything could be fixed. He had seen and done a lot that had broken not only him, but had broken other people and even whole countries before. Not all of it could be put back together. But maybe the fight to try was what kept them going, maybe this could be fixed.

"How?"

He didn't say that Tony couldn't, nor did he offer his own help. Whatever this was, it was obviously for Tony to fix. Besides which, James was still uncomfortable enough at the idea of having a friend, let alone wading in to help fix his problems.

“I think I have to embrace the ultimate evil,” Tony said, the edges of his eyes rimmed in red from drunken and emotional exhaustion. He took a moment to steady himself in his core before he pulled himself up. He teetered ever so slightly and had to press both hands against the wall. “I think it’s time that I go into politics. FRIDAY, what offices have open seats In New York or California?”

“There is a city council and a comptroller position open in next year’s election cycle for New York City,” FRIDAY chimed in. “There are also several mayoral positions open, but you aren’t able to run for those, Boss. Haven’t put in the time. There is also the office of President of the United States—”

Tony’s head tilted up slowly and his eyebrows seemed to dance back and forth against his forehead.

“Get legal to attend a meeting tomorrow. Malibu office. I’m going to run for president,” Tony said before he threw up all over his shoes.

James just stared at Tony as if wondering whether the surgery had nicked something important in his brain and now he was hallucinating. He knew that a lot of money could go wonders for politics, but... no. Surely he was imagining this.

"How would running for president, or being in politics at all, help fix whatever you did to make Steve's life miserable?"

If it was something to do with him, and Steve suspecting that Tony had James hidden away in his building, then it definitely couldn't be fixed with politics.

“He can’t come home until I fix the Accords without making them look like a sham,” Tony said, using the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. He needed to gargle. Badly. He already could see snippets of visions of himself standing behind a podium, of taking the oath of office. He felt like he’d already made it, that this was something he’d done before. He hadn’t, of course, but sometimes things felt like déjà vu. “Only way I can do that is to make some decent changes and… It’s a good idea, isn’t it? I can fix things. I can fix so many things.”

He’d be better than the last person to hold office anyway. He could run a campaign on his own money. And he was not connected to HYDRA at all. (His father didn’t count).

“It’s going to be good. I can pardon you. Steve can come home. I’ll fix this country. And the world. Without robots. That’s always been where I’ve gotten it wrong. Probably.”

"So fix the Accords, why do you have to be the President to do that?"

James took a tentative step further into the room and then had to slide down to sit against the wall, a little light headed. He had to swallow hard to keep sudden bile down, but he was good at dealing with inconveniences like that without letting it distract him too much.

"I remember you as a little kid refusing to go to your school council meeting because you wanted to take apart an engine. I've read articles about how little you attend the board meetings of your own company, I don't think politics is really your area of expertise. You're a guy that fixes things with his hands - a mechanic and a doctor - and that's nothing to be ashamed of."

When he looked up at Tony his eyes, a deep blue, were afraid, though the rest of his expression remained stoic.

"If you want me to help you bring the Accords into question, I can do that."

It was good that James was sitting but oh, it was right next to where Tony had thrown up so the older man stumbled around him and sat on the far side of the other, half leaning against his shoulder. “That’s not fair. You can’t use my childhood against me. I’ve seen myself as president.”

The Soldier used to hear all about these premonitions. They were so varied and changing and didn’t always come true that it was easy to dismiss them. Even if Tony himself did not.

“I don’t use yours against you—“ Bad example. Tony knew almost nothing of James Barnes but he didn’t need to. He knew enough this way. He knew the man from before and he was getting to know this new man with the same face now. “And I can’t save Steve and ruin you. No. No you’re the only guy whose stuck by me. And I haven’t paid. Or been part of a military contract— So no. No. You’re too important to me.”

He needed to stop speaking.

It was a little worrying that Tony hadn't grown out of these voices, or had professional help for them. They were an odd sort of psychosis, nothing damaging by and large other than the mental strain for holding them all inside. Still, James wasn't about to judge when he was hardly the poster boy for healthy minds.

"Then maybe you will be president one day, in the future. When you're older and wiser and care more about the actual politics of the country rather than fixing things for your friends."

A president had to have everyone's welfare in mind, after all, and Tony was doing this just to save Steve and get his little family back together.

"If you let me at it, the Accords will be discredited by the end of the day, and I won't even leave your home."

The moment that the Accords were discredited, Tony would take the fall. He strangely didn’t mind that. If anything, it made sense to him. He had written these to protect the world but the consequences were turning out poorly for everyone. Just like Ultron. “You’re such a dick,” Tony shot back, not even remotely annoyed despite the tone of his voice. “But all right. If you know a way, I’m all ears. Or are you going to embrace some sort of hero pledge and do it all yourself? That sounds like the right sort of dick move,” he carried on, head falling to James’ shoulder.

Steve never called him a dick, but when he was younger and Bucky was just being Bucky, the blond used to tease him about how he would never get a girl to step out with him if she knew the sorts of things he said and did when it was just the guys around. And he would set his head on his shoulder if he was colder than he could withstand on his own (stubborn thing) or if the head and chest congestion was just too bad.

Then again, a young Tony would do this too, head much smaller and hair long and shiny. He needed affection and love and that was his way of getting it.

Two very different people who knew James at two very different times acting the same way probably tripped up James, but Tony had no idea and was too selfish to care anyway.

It did trip him up, but it was also oddly comforting. To have Tony take affection from him in the same way that Steve used to, it made him think that maybe he wasn't completely broken and he could find a way to become human again. Find a way to be with Steve again, because his heart ached for his friend even if he ran from him.

Not in the way that Tony's voices whispered, he and Steve had always been brothers, but that didn't make their love and devotion to one another any less strong.

"I just need you to give me full access to FRIDAY, and to work on encrypting anything I send out so that it can't be traced back here. If anything, I want to make sure that the only people who go down with the Accords will be the people who drafted them; not you, not me, not Steve."

“That sounds a lot more my speed,” Tony agreed, breath smelling too sweet from the vomited scotch. “FRIDAY, new protocol. James gets full use. Like. Not to detonate any nuclear warheads or anything—“

“Boss, we do not have control of any nuclear warheads—“

“Joke, FRIDAY. Just give him what he needs. Tomorrow. I think we both need to sleep.” And sleep Tony did. Right there on James.

[Sorry so short on the subway makes it hard to tag]

James didn't mind that Tony slept on his shoulder, it wouldn't stop him doing what he needed to do because FRIDAY could very usefully bring up a screen in the air to help him get going on digging out some old HYDRA files and videos in a secret backdoor that he knew the password to.

One downside to having so many HYDRA operatives in positions of power, meant that there was almost no piece of legislation drafted or created in any country without at least one of them there. The Sokovia Accords had included four different politicians that were HYDRA operatives. James just needed to gather the evidence, videos, and other incriminating documents that would call their entire professional lives into question and post it on the internet.

The internet would do the rest.

Some of these videos included him. One of the members of congress who helped get this through had been an ex-handler. There were videos of tortures, of violations. He almost buried those again, but he pushed them through before he could second guess himself. Then-- then he waited.

By the time Tony woke up again, the internet was ablaze. He just tilted the screen so that he could see.

This was better than coffee. Tony was fully awake in a moment, moving to his feet after a five minute glance through Twitter. The mix of comments were expected, about twenty-five percent claiming the videos to be faked. Reddit was even more on fire, and Tony took his licks there, America siding with Captain America for being one of the few to understand that the Accords were bogus, and the oversight committee was meant to give HYDRA an edge. Stark was probably getting kickbacks. Or just didn’t care.

He was fine with all of that. People could say whatever they wanted about him. Legal was the one that kept his image as clean as possible, no one else…and certainly not Tony himself.

“This is insane,” Tony murmured, the screen following him as he left the study towards the kitchen to make himself and James something to eat. The blenders went crazy. “No, this is brilliant. You’re still a dick but damn, this is good stuff.”

He flicked to news reports as he pushed more spinach into James’ breakfast and leaned against the counter, watching reports about the craziness going on in the home towns of those accused. “This report might not be for everyone,” one anchor was saying as Tony poured the green smoothie into a tall glass. “The footage has been edited but it clearly shows what appears to be Sergeant James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, being abused at the hands of Senator Jessup.”

Tony closed his eyes and then shoved his hand through the screen to send it away.

James had been watching it all unfold with a morbid fascination. It was so strange to see that a movement had begun and was snowballing in his defence. So many people had seen the footage, and then more had found files in the massive dump that Black Widow had put out there before, and it was all being collated together. His image was shifting from terrorist to victim terrifyingly quickly.

He didn't know how he felt about that.

The news channel might have edited footage, but the raw videos were all available online and people were already calling for the Accords to be scrapped. How could they trust anyone to regulate superheroes if they were going to be revealed to be corrupt? They wanted Captain America to regulate them, they wanted Cap back and then they could trust in the team again.

James looked exhausted, but there was a shine of triumph in his eyes as Tony waved the screen away.

"That fixes it, right? Or-- it's a start, and you can build on that."

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sorry for the crappy replies, phone tags are not my friend

I’m so honored to get phone tags!!

Re: I’m so honored to get phone tags!!

Re: I’m so honored to get phone tags!! [ fossi

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