fossilised | it's a new plot!

“Nope. Let’s not break into anywhere.” Tony jogged up the stairs and paused there at the top. The crash of whispers was almost too much and he grabbed the railing, closed his eyes and willed them away. Rogers will die, chanted over and over... if these things hadn’t been happening to him since he was a boy, Tony would blame the Scarlet Witch for everything. Especially that nasty little thought. He needed a drink so badly... he needed Bruce so badly right now.

But all he had was himself. And Bucky.

Tony pulled himself together and wandered towards the door, feeling ill, and lightly knocked on it.

“Let me in. Cap’s gone.” Bucky had two minutes and if he decided not to answer, Tony was going downstairs to hit the god damn mother fucking bottle.

It took almost a whole minute, but eventually the door slid open to reveal a penitent looking James. He was ashamed about running, but also still ashamed about the perverse nature of his desire for more than one person - and both men to add insult to injury.

"I really screwed this up, didn't I?"

With both of them.

"Just-- I guess you better come in, sit down, we should talk." He owed Tony that much, at least, a proper explanation to go with the heartache.

Wow. He thought he might have a few months here of hand holding and video games. But no. ‘We should talk’ was the universally accepted way you start a breakup. Tony might have outwardly grimaced, but he entered Bucky’s room with its strange mismatch of styles and sat where he was directed.

He tried to bet himself something to pass the horrible time as he did so. Was Bucky breaking up with him to be alone and then eventually go to Steve or was he going to go immediately?

Tony was guessing the former.

He knew it was fatalist to do these things but his romantic life was shit, he constantly had memories of other romances with friends (or just fucking them, that happened too). The difference was that Tony knew that the whispers and the hallucinations weren’t real. He didn’t love Steve or Bruce or (yuck) Loki. He just had weird thoughts about them.

“Whatever it is, I’m going to understand.”

"At least that'll make one of us, because I'm not sure I even understand."

Bucky was no longer freaking out quite as badly as he had been, no longer spiralling out of control, but that panic had been replaced with a void of energy, as if he had given up completely. He waited until Tony had sat down in one of the chairs he had scattered around, before taking a seat on the table just across from him.

"I think there's something wrong with me, I mean really wrong, because I really did want to kiss Steve then. But I don't want to leave what we have, you're something different to me to what Steve is, and I can't explain it. I know it makes me a monster to feel that way about two people, and I'm sorry."

He had to make a choice, assuming either one of them would want to be with someone so like a deviant with his apparently insatiable desires.

"I don't understand what to do, and I don't know how you could forgive me, but I guess that's what I'm asking you to do. I swear I won't act on this."

“Why are you sorry? You haven’t done anything to forgive. You’re a human being, James and I hate to break this to you, but sometimes human beings want stuff that they probably shouldn’t. Remember when I asked you about what to do when you want a whole lot of people?” Tony wasn’t blameless in this. He would never act on feelings he felt disconnected from, of course…well. Not anymore. In his twenties, he used to follow every hallucinated memory, every possibility. He couldn’t filter them out from what was real and what wasn’t.

It had gotten him into so much trouble.

“What you and I have… It’s emotional. If you want something physical with someone else, I’m not going to stand in your way.” He wondered how adult he was being if he hated saying this. “It doesn’t mean that you don’t love me. And who isn’t attracted to Steve Rogers?”

Tony was a better man than a lot of people gave him credit for. Even though it was obvious how much the idea hurt him, James actually believed that he would let the man he was supposedly stepping out with go to someone else and not actually kick him to the curb for it.

"You're attracted to Steve?"

Perhaps that's not what he should be taking from that, but it just took him by enough surprise to pull him out of the other nonsense he was feeling.

“I’m not blind, Barnes,” Tony said, letting the conversation turn lighter and easier than it had been. Bucky didn’t deserve to dwell on how evil he was feeling, especially when it was very, very normal to be feeling the way he was. He’d never had a college period to experiment. Tony wasn’t about to expect him to suddenly decide to want to settle down and after his last relationship, he was pretty sure that wasn’t in the cards for him either. He was too old. Too broken. No one wanted him for who he was and no one could understand his particular brand of mania. “We’ve spent five years being sort of friends and at each other’s throats. The night you first broke into the Tower, I was trying to get up the nerve to call him. Our relationship is tense and complicated, the tension is likely all on my end and yeah. Yeah, I find him stupidly attractive and, to be honest, if I could get him out of my system, I would.”

There. Surely Bucky would understand that he wasn’t totally evil now for thinking about straying. Or maybe he just assumed it was something in Tony’s wheelhouse to want that.

He was pretty much a documented womanizer.

With men, it was a little more on the downlow.

This is one of the reasons why he loved Tony, he got him in a way that Steve didn't. He knew that if he'd tried to say this to Steve, he'd just keep insisting that Bucky wasn't evil and that he'd step aside, because obviously he wanted someone else more. But to hear that he wasn't the only one who felt that way, it made him feel more normal and less like he might be the scum of the earth.

It was still surprising.

"Did you ever think about asking him out? Now that you know that he's-- like that, would you think about it?"

He didn't want to break it off with Tony, not at all, but he wanted to know how deep these thoughts went. Sharing wasn't a topic he was at all comfortable with, he was far too confused with just one relationship, but this was all theoretical.

“Rogers? I don’t think we’d work. We have a mutual dislike for the other. He’s too... everything I don’t want to know that I’m not,” Tony said truthfully. “But I’d fuck him.” He was more than just a little rude about that, a smirk on his lips, as if to tell Bucky that it was all right to be a little bit awful sometimes. It wouldn’t hurt anyone, really. And Steve wasn’t even there to know what they were talking about. “I think we would probably have a fight for whose on top too.”

And that thought made him out and out laugh, childish, like a school boy.

“And don’t tell him I said this but I think he’s a little dumb for me. Nice to look at though.”

He expected Bucky to stick up for Steve’s intelligence, and if he did, well Tony would just laugh again.

It was exactly what he needed, and Steve allowed himself to move so that he was sat next to Tony instead, arm touching his arm. Perhaps it was okay if they both had issues with wanting Steve, as long as neither of them acted on it. Maybe they really couldn't be blamed, maybe what Tony said was true and nobody could help wanting Steve Rogers.

"He's the dumbest guy I ever met."

He'll not be defending Steve's intelligence. Sure, he's book smart and he's good at tactics, good at a lot of academia things... but he's also dumb as a brick when it comes to self preservation.

"I once saw him face down eight full grown guys when he was thirteen because he saw them steal a nickel's worth of corn from this guy's stand. That is not the action of a smart guy."

“Wow. But a nickel in 1930s money is more like a thousand dollars today right?” Tony teased, knees opening so that his could touch Bucky’s. It was a comfortable thing, the way that they were interacting now, and that Steve Mr. Perfection Rogers was the butt of their jokes just made it all so much better. Tony shrugged at the face he was given. “Some guys don’t know when to stay down. I like tenacity. But again, that’s better for bed than it is for dating. For me, at least. I don’t even think we could play video games together, so that’s a big red X.”

But that didn’t mean that Bucky couldn’t do what he wanted and Tony wanted to make that clear. They were laughing now, but the meat of the moment was something else entirely.

Tony took Bucky’s hand. It was the first time he’d actually ever made the first move to touch the man, but he needed his attention here.

“Let me try to say this in terms an old fogey like you might understand.” He cleared his throat and put on a terrible accent that was half British and half Southern Fried Kentucky instead of Brooklyn. “You hitched your wagon to mine pretty fast, pal. No strings gotta be attached and if you decide you’re not interested in me, we won’t stop being friends.”

Despite the fact that he liked to be the one that took the initiative in things like this, Bucky didn't mind when Tony took his hand and curled his fingers to trap his hand inside his own. He shook his head, tiny smile falling away from his face now that they were back in the serious territory again... even with that stupid accent.

"Tony-- the reason this is tearing me apart so much, is because I want to attach those strings to you. I don't just want to kiss Steve, I want to kiss you. You balance me and make me feel human in a way that nobody else can, not even Steve. I don't know how to explain it to you properly, but I love you both in different ways. It's like you fit together to make everything I need."

That sounded incredibly selfish, didn't it? Like neither one of them were enough alone. He didn't mean it that way, he was just trying to explain.

"You're not my second choice or my safety choice, you're first choice. But-- so's he, and that's where the mess comes."

“You probably need to work on defining what you mean by ‘different way.’ It sounds like the same way to me,” Tony said. “Do you love me romantically? Do you love me as a friend? You said you want to kiss me, hold my hand, stay with me. Do you want to have sex with him? I’m talking objectively. I can understand if you never want to have sex again. I just want to understand.”

And once they hashed that out, all without Steve having a say, of course, they could figure out where to go from there.

It would be difficult.

It would be an adjustment. But there was such a thing as polyamory. Some couples had open marriages, some had girlfriends or boyfriends that they didn’t share, or ones that they did. The modern human relationship was an interesting one.

But Bucky needed to be eased into that concept little by little.

Bucky couldn't quite understand how Tony was being so calm about this. This was the same man who freaked out and seemed to assume that people were going to leave him if they even dared to show interest in another friend, and yet he was having a conversation about his potential lover finding someone else sexually attractive like it was no big deal at all.

He was an enigma that Bucky might never crack.

"I don't know how to define it, Tony. I don't even get it myself. Yes, romantically, both of you. Yes, sexually, both of you-- you know, in theory. But it's how you make me feel, different, it's the sides of me your bring out."

But yes, he wanted to love them both in the same way if they were only going by the technical definition.

Tony didn’t know if he was going to be okay with this. But what else did he have right now? From the sound of what Thor and Steve said, they were all good and well fucked anyway. Shit happened. Life was short. Being jealous of Steve Rogers was par for the course. His dad made him feel the same way after all. Maybe it was just fate.

But that said, he didn’t want to always think that there would be sexual tension whenever Bucky went to hang out with Rogers. He didn’t want to stay at home and stew about it. If he knew... if it was on the table for Bucky to explore himself, maybe that would help.

“It’s pretty common, you know? People dating more than one person. Even in a marriage. If everyone knows and is okay with it, it’s not cheating. You just put rules in place. It’s not like a business transaction, it’s a relationship. I’ll have FRIDAY send you some studies. People aren’t meant to be monogamous. Some people can be but it’s not realistic.”

Tony wasn’t a good guy. He was a horrible guy who was trying to do anything he could to make someone else happy. That didn’t make him good. That made him selfish. A happy Bucky would stay.

It was like Tony were telling him that the sky had suddenly turned orange and everyone had found out that they were perfectly capable of breathing water, all of this was so unbelievable and absurd. That the world had changed so much in its values and morals in just a few decades... it was so weird.

"...then... then you do it."

He leaned forwards to look Tony earnestly in the eyes.

"I want you to be fulfilled in every way and I know that I can't do that, not yet, maybe not ever. So you go, find someone else, and still be mine too. If that's really how it works, I'll think about Steve."

It didn't seem fair if only one of them should have multiple partners, this way felt less like cheating.

Shit. That wasn’t what How he wanted it to come out. And he didn’t actually want Bucky to think about Steve either. This whole thing was spiraling out of control too quickly. Trying to give Bucky a choice was going to tear him apart.

He offered his hand to the other man, glancing at him sidelong. “How about this. If I ever decide that I really need to get the beak wet and you just can’t... then I will. Look somewhere else. I just don’t feel like I really need to right now.”

This felt too real. This felt like he’d had this conversation before.

Except James had brown eyes and no dimple in his chin... Tony tried to banish the memory— How could his life converge so much with the memories he’d had of someone else?

Was he supposed to bury James in the sand too?

It probably didn't matter if Bucky thought about Steve that way, because there was no way that Steve would agree to be in a relationship with someone who was seeing someone else, that just wasn't how he was laced. It wasn't how Bucky had been brought up either; but then, his Ma would have had a heart attack at the idea that her son was stepping out with one guy, let alone two.

He slid his hand into Tony's, feeling the callouses rub against his palm. It always seemed odd to him that his own hands weren't calloused with how many weapons he used and how much fighting he did, but the serum kept his skin soft and supple.

"Tony-- I chose you, my first choice, so if this doesn't work out or-- no matter what happens, you're gonna be the one I pick."

“Don’t say that,” Tony said, turning his own dark eyes towards James before it dropped to the way that they held their hands. He liked that. It made him feel centered, just having something tangible, something to hold. James was real to him the way that Banner, in that memory, just wasn’t. Thankfully he was able to overlay the two and then send the ephemeral one away. He brought the man’s hand to his mouth and kissed smooth knuckles, eyelashes long enough to gently tease his skin. “Don’t choose me because I got to you first, or because you decided to kiss me in the kitchen on an impulse. And don’t choose me because I love you. We’re taking this slow for a reason. You need it slow, but I do too. I was with Pepper for a long time and she put up with some really difficult shit. I’m not-- I’m not attentive enough sometimes. I work long hours. I’m selfish. I’m… Well I’m like that kid you sort of remember, James. Except I just look a lot older. So… Let’s not make those kind of deep promises, not yet. We can be together, as much as you’re able to be with me, but I’m not tying you down.”

He actually refrained for the inappropriate comment that was about to follow. That was a big deal for him, even if Bucky could never know it.

“I just don’t want to be an excuse. You stay or you go because that’s what you want, or how you feel. But don’t put this obligation shit on me.” Not when he remembered making rings out of Bucky’s god damned dog tags. Not for himself, but for Steve Rogers. Tony squeezed his eyes shut. “Can we table this for a little bit? My head’s killing me,” he whispered.

He hadn't meant it like an obligation, more to assure Tony that he had been his first choice and that meant something, but he had the wrong words clearly and he couldn't seem to find the right ones. Maybe it didn't matter, he'd just have to find a way to pick through this tangled maze of a path and figure out which the right direction was, and then prove himself worthy of this man through action rather than word.

His brow furrowed in concern, though not panic because he knew that Tony was given to headaches and voices.

"Sure-- but seems to me that you should see a doctor about this. You've been keeping it under with alcohol too long, but there's real help for things like this these days. You don't have to hide it or be ashamed of it."

“I know what they’ll say. I know… It’s not something I can explain. It’s not just the whispers. You know that I used to know things before they happened,” he said, taking his hand back. “I don’t want to be that guy with late state mutant powers either. Can we just…keep this to ourselves?” He didn’t really mean to make that big of a deal about it. “They’ll fade. Sleep helps.” They did better with a lot of alcohol but that wasn’t really an option right now.

As much as he wished it would be. But keeping promises to people, especially Bucky, that was the most important thing to him right now.

“Why don’t you come with me? You don’t have to stay for long-- You’ve always helped, though. You make things quiet again. If you want. It’s always your choice.”

Even though it was obvious that Tony wasn't inviting him to his bed for anything other than fully clothed sleep, it was still a bigger step than they had gone to before. But Tony looked so vulnerable, backpedalling and insisting that Bucky needn't come with him, and his eyes were pinched with such discomfort that he found himself nodding.

"If I can help, then I will. Come on, let's take you to your bedroom in my house."

Not that this amused him or anything.

"But if it is a mutant power, then you should definitely still get help. There's organisations out there that help with people born that way; I know, I've infiltrated them a few times to get to targets."

“Pretty sure that I’m too old for Xavier,” Tony said as if he was lamenting it. He wasn’t. School had never been the best place for him, it had never been a place at all for him. Upstairs, in the room he’d picked for himself before he’d signed over the deed to James Barnes, Tony flopped down on the mattress and half across the other man after Bucky made himself comfortable.

He insisted on his hair being stroked, but that insistance would last all of five minutes before he fell asleep. Sleep opened his mind further to the lives he had lived or would live in one massive jumble, all centering around Bucky or around relationships that started out like Bucky’s did with him. There was just too much of someone foreign in them. Too much of Loki. It was no wonder that Tony didn’t get any rest that night.

And neither would Loki himself. He ought to have not dismissed his mother’s words so quickly out of hand, but he could not truthy know the reason behind whatever visions he was given, still high from his days of playing hero on the planet.

Tony did not know if he would wake up alone or with with James, but he grasped for something before his eyes opened, something real, to remind him that this was his life, and he wasn’t some man that built planets for a hobby.

It probably wouldn't be helpful, then, that his hands grasped hold of soft leather rather than any kind of fabric or human being. If he opened his eyes then he would find himself reclining in furs that seemed to be from a bear, if a bear were six times the size of any earth bears and twice as shaggy.

The leathers he had hold of were stained and bloodied. Nobody else was in the tent, fabric walls thin enough to see outlines of silhouettes by a flickering fire, two moons shining overhead, and people shouting to one another in a language that he probably wouldn't recognise.

Far beyond the tent the sound of battle waged, but the nearer sounds were of revelry, of soldiers who could have died that day, and might die on the morrow, but for now were perfectly and gloriously alive.

This was one hundred and ten percent par for the course lately. Tony often found himself with overlays of events that matched his current self in some ways and yet were completely different. He headed towards where the bathroom would be from the bed, mostly to wash his hands (yuck), and found himself still stuck in the moment. Nothing familiar flashed through. No sink. No expensive soap. No sound of the ocean... nothing. It was honestly a little strange to be caught in a fugue for so long.

“Hello...?”

One of the massive warriors turned towards him with a grin and shoved a horn of ale his way. There were cheers, a general drunken sort of behavior that followed when a newcomer was given something to drink. They raised their cups and in confusion, Tony slowly lifted his as well.

“Weird,” he said to himself before he sniffed the contents of the horn and felt his entire body crave it. The alcohol smelled like honey and like rubbing alcohol. That meant it would be sweet and strong. Exactly what he needed.

He did not, however, take a sip. He just carried it back towards the tent, slowly circling it. He should have bumped into a wall by now. Right?

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/makes things mysterious as I have to fuck off to the game

Tony does not thank yku