fossilised | it's a new plot!

There were many times that the people Tony Stark was with weren’t thinking about him. He was a selfish man that required extensive mental and emotional stimulation and most of the time, the people he kept company with generally wished that they were other places or with other people. Sometimes, Tony was certain that they were just putting together grocery lists or maybe thinking that this could secure them a legacy (especially if he happened across gushing, overly affectionate fans that all wanted a piece of him just to claim ownership to that piece.

His Nanny had never once looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, no matter how annoying Tony was being. And he never looked like he wished he was with anyone else, even when Tony was making him stand in the corner or requiring a piggy back ride up a steep hill. His Nanny, technically, never actually wanted anything, but that was beside the point.

Tony still felt the sting of knowing he was imagining someone else and he bit the inside of his lip until the aching from that overtook everything else.

“You’re not having a malfunction this time. Tell me what’s happening and we can puzzle it out.”

If it took some of the sting away, Tony should take comfort in the fact that Bucky was not at all wishing he was somewhere else. He wasn't hoping to be with Steve, he didn't think that Tony was worse company than Steve. Those blue eyes weren't a comforting memory, they were a terror that tore at his soul and threatened to consume him, they started a pounding pain behind his eyes.

"I don't know."

His heart rate picked up, his breathing quickened, and his hands balled into fists. Even if the Soldier had no words for it, he was obviously entering a panic attack.

"I don't know. What am I malfunctioning?! What's happening?!"

Much too selfish to take comfort in anything, even the fact that Bucky thought his former best friend and Tony’s one-sided nemesis was currently the object of loathing and not never-ending devotion, Tony forced himself to stay seated, hands on his knees. Whatever Bucky was feeling now, Tony had felt it before too. And worse. This was something new to Bucky, though, and he could read the panic plain as day in his face. It was both marvelous and worrisome at the same time. A breakthrough on Bucky’s end could turn to a break off of something Tony would probably need or want in the future.

“It’s not a malfunction,” Tony said again, breathing through his nose as he watched Bucky with wary brown eyes. If he started to pace, if he grew manic, Tony was prepared to back off. He didn’t want to leave Bucky alone, he really didn’t, he remembered the man had always been there for him when the nightmares were the worst, but he couldn’t survive a full blown panic attack if Bucky ended up lashing out. “This is actually normal. You’re starting to remember and it’s all right.”

He’d done his best to do repair work to his brain. He’d removed some of the things that were done to make him docile. But it wasn’t perfect.

And the conditioning he’d probably underwent could outdo anything physical anyway.

“Tell me about it. Tell me about Bucky Barnes.”

It was that name again.

Something about it put hooks into his brain and dug down until it hurt. He had never experienced anything like it, even the trigger words didn't hurt that much, but surely that was what they were. This name was some kind of new trigger phrase, but he had no idea what it was supposed to be doing to him.

He was on his feet abruptly, without even realising why he got up.

"Stop. Stop. Stop."

The one word became a mantra that shifted into a plea, first in English and then into Russian. He was scared, terrified, and it felt like the threat was inside him. He had no idea how to fight it, and so he just started slamming his own head against the wall in desperation.

So this didn’t go as planned.

Tony was on his feet, though he did manage to remember to keep a respectable distance away from the easily murderous and ten times as strong as him man. There was blood, for a super soldier was not immune to being damaged, and there was a whole lot of noise, and in Tony’s book, that was never a good sign.

“Sit down! You did fine, that’s all for now! You’re going to hurt yourself-- Further!” He was really bad at this. He couldn’t just put the Soldier into time out. He couldn’t wait for him to come back to himself. And all he was doing was making things worse. He didn’t like to see Bucky so gung ho to do this much damage, but he had absolutely nothing else up his sleeves unless—

If Bucky didn’t stop, Tony would race towards the HYDRA panel and start to remove wires from behind it. He could at the very least create a stasis field to electro-magnetically pin Bucky to the floor or maybe the wall if it had enough current by his arm. He already knew the proper frequency for vibranium so why not go this method? At least he could keep Bucky from tantruming himself into oblivion.

It seemed like there was nothing but static in the Soldier's head now. This was a little like it had been on the helicarrier, but he had a mission then to focus his agony into, a man in front of him to pound into near death before everything had gone to hell and back. He didn't have that now, and his only viable target was himself. Strange, that he never even considered Stark could be a target, some residual order to protect him remaining behind on a subconscious level.

He didn't stop when he was ordered to, but the cleverly reprogrammed electromagnetic field certainly stopped him.

He suddenly slammed into the wall, looking betrayed for a moment before his eyes went out of focus and he slumped against the arm that was still holding him up. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth, streaked his forehead, he had knocked himself out and Tony was finally left with nothing but silence.

This was the second time that Bucky looked at him as if he had killed his cat and for some very long moments, Tony was pretty sure that he was going to just get up, turn off the magnet, and leave Bucky here. He just didn’t know if Bucky would be himself when he woke up and he certainly didn’t know if the man would be allowed to recover on his own.

Sighing, the older man wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans and stood, turning off the magnet before he reconfigured the area to allow FRIDAY to send for him. He wanted a car and the armor, which he used to scoop Bucky up and fly to a safe house, of sorts, of his own.

He would take the car, calling Steve to say that he had tracked Bucky to a known HYDRA safe house before he disappeared. It would give the Avengers something to do and maybe keep Steve off of his case for awhile.

When Bucky, and hopefully it was Bucky, woke, he would be in bed. It was a nice bed with clean sheets. His head with be bandaged. But that arm of his would still be dead.

When Bucky woke up, he felt raw and vulnerable and abused.

The physical pain was nothing, he knew how to deal with physical pain, but it was knowing that he had been triggered again and had hurt people again. He couldn't be trusted. No matter how far he came, it seemed like he could never get free of the ghost of what he had been made into.

His eyes opened slowly, registering that he was in a bed that wasn't where he had been before, gaze sliding to one side to see if he could see anyone in here with him. He still couldn't move the arm, but that was probably a good thing.

They were in Switzerland of all places, not one of Tony’s favorites but it really wasn’t so bad. The hotels here were nice enough when he came on business but this chalet in the alps made the backdrop just that much more beautiful. The cold was good for him, he decided, since he usually flocked to warmth, and Bucky was far enough in the middle of nowhere that if he was dangerous and escaped upon waking, there would be ample time to track him.

Tony had installed a dead man’s switch, aptly named, under his skin and if his vitals ceased for more than five minutes, his coordinates and a lovely You Win message for Rogers would be sent along the proper channels to spark the man hunt for the most dangerous person alive.

But for now, Tony wasn’t dwelling on that. He was in the kitchen, attempting to make hot chocolate and failing miserable.

“Damn it! I’m going to reprogram you!” He cursed a few minutes before literally sashaying into Bucky’s room with a tray, a cup and some cookies. “And you— Do you know me yet? Only people that know me get cookies.”

Bucky sat up slowly. His muscles felt too tired to tense into the required state for fight or flight, he no longer had the energy for it. For once, there was nothing guarded about his expression, he looked lost and hurt, like a man who had undergone torture and now didn't understand what the world was any more.

"You're Tony Stark, Iron Man."

He remembered.

"I used to look after you when you were a kid, I stopped you getting shot a couple of times. You're one of the Avengers now, and I'm still not entirely sure if you're HYDRA or not. I don't think you are, but I don't know."

“Shot a couple of—. As a kid? Why? Know what, don’t have time. Drink this while it’s hot.” He didn’t want to know the danger his father and mother put him in right now. He was good. He was just fine the way he was. It was bad enough knowing that dad got him a slave for his fifth birthday and then took him away again when Tony got himself too attached.

He set the tray down like a little Susie Homemaker and dragged over s chair by the leg with his foot. He plopped down into it, tilting his head beck and forth. As expected, Bucky’s eyes followed him.

Well that was probably good. No concussion.

“How’re you feeling? Minus the arm. Not ready to turn that back on yet.”

"I don't know."

Bucky's jaw tightened and he looked up at Stark as if he might have the answers. He somehow remembered more of the time he had spent looking after him as a boy, and that made him ache. It made him trust the man more than he would have been inclined to before, and he was too raw to hide things at the moment.

"He made me a weapon again in less than a minute, I thought-- I've been fighting so hard, and I'm still a threat. I don't know if I can keep doing this."

There weren't many reasons that he hadn't just eaten a bullet since he found his way back to himself, and those reasons were being chipped away at one at a time.

“But you’re going to because now you have me. You came to me asking for help and somehow you keep coming back like a stray. So now that I know you’ve saved my life a bunch of times, I still have some debt to worry about.” He sounded like Romanoff but he needed to right now. He felt the weight and the guilt of his past self constantly pressing down on him and there was always relief when he did some good. Even if that good was rarely fully good. He was constantly punished. Damned if he did. Damned if he didn’t. “He cut the sound. Whatever he said to you.... I don’t know the words. And I’m not going to ask you for them. But it’s a mix of conditioning and hardwiring. I can help with that part. Hate to say this but Rogers can probably help with the first—. Woah. Not saying he knows you’re here. He doesn’t know that I know you’re here either. And this time, I made sure that Wakandan jerk off doesn’t know either.”

He picked up a cookie from the plate, smelled it, and then pushed half into his mouth. The Swiss knew their chocolate. Even if it was just packaged cookies dipped in the stuff.

“I’m not trying to pat my own back but you’re probably safer here than you are anywhere else. So try to relax a little.” He shrugged and finished off the treat before he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back, arms lightly crossed. “For uh... listen, you didn’t have to stay. You didn’t have to try to protect me. You could have escaped.”

That was true, he could have slipped away without either of them noticing and probably have been long gone before the authorities arrived. He would never have been triggered, he never would have hurt innocent people, but Tony would probably have died or at least been severely injured falling to the ground before the armour could catch him.

Was Tony's life worth the other lives lost today?

"Why are you trying so hard to help me? I'm dangerous, you've seen it, and you don't owe me anything. If Steve finds out that you've been hiding me then he'll never talk to you again, if the authorities find out then you'll be arrested. I'm not worth that."

He doesn't understand, why would Tony Stark stick out his neck for Bucky?

“They’re not going to arrest me and if Rogers stops talking to me, that would be a big plus,” Tony quipped. “Some people might try to kill me, but people have been trying to kill me somewhat consistently for the last few years. I’ve gotten very used to it,” he pointed out, but didn’t elaborate on why losing Steve as a friend wasn’t a big deal. The truth was, losing Steve as a friend might end up being s big deal and he didn’t want to acknowledge that. They rarely saw eye to eye and Rogers didn’t really hang around much anymore since he lived in DC and Tony was a jet setter... but he had so few friends. And though he only wanted to see those friends on his own terms, he relished the idea of them. He loved it when Rhodey said that they mentioned him. Tony was eccentric and a loner but he was still that lonely little boy who wanted so desperately to be well liked and to have a lot of friends that appreciated him.

But Bucky was his first friend. He might have been an emotionless drone who did almost everything Tony commanded, he probably taught him exactly how not to treat friends, but he was the most constant and present person in Tony’s life for a decade.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, especially because I only just learned that you’re besties with Rogers and I’m still feeling some sort of way about that, but you used to be important to me.” He rolled his eyes, almost foppish in his round-worsted gesture. “Not you-you, sure, but that’s semantics. You took care of me. Against your will. And I guess that I appreciate that enough to risk being a fugitive.”

It was pointless trying to explain that he wasn't best friends with Steve Rogers, a dead man was best friends with Steve Rogers. It was like Stark didn't have any sort of comprehension on how Bucky and the Soldier and whoever the hell he was now were separate people, like he could just interchange between all of them and it wasn't a mess inside his head that even the most qualified psychiatrist would have issues sorting out.

"I remember more about you."

Maybe it had been the fact that Stark had been there when he knocked himself out, or maybe it was just random chance, but there was something more that had come back. It was no longer a blank nothingness.

"I remember trying to take you to Brooklyn. You got cold and cried and asked me to take you home, so I took you to an apartment building you didn't recognise. They found us. They wiped me six times in the next four weeks because I kept trying to take you again."

Tony was morbidly curious about everything that Bucky remembered about him, though the actuality of it was horrifying. The details made him pause mid-chew of a second cookie, saliva dampening the sweet as it crumbled on his tongue. He inhaled and breathed in the crumbs, leading to a coughing fit that caused him to stand. And then pace.

“I remember that. We always got pizza on the way.” And it had become his favorite pizza. He used to fly it in when he was living in California. Tony pressed his forefinger and thumb to the top of his lip, stroking the neatly groomed mustache that rested there. “Not the wiping. You would go away for a day and then you’d come back different. It pissed me off... it really did. It was like I had to start all over with you. You forgot all about the projects we were working on—. I used to think you were messing with me. Like I did something wrong.” He smirked. “But they were torturing you.”

That was the worst part of all of this. He’d held so much emotion, bad with the good, for his Nanny and it wasn’t his fault.

Tony would find it heartbreaking that it was easier for Bucky to think of himself as the Soldier, easier to remember him because he was a zombie in his presence, than his old life. Not because Bucky deserved better, but because it was just another stain on his already fucked up childhood.

He hadn’t remembered yet why Bucky had come into his life in the first place, his own trigger moment, but at this rate it was bound to come out and shatter him as easily as Bucky himself was shattered.

“Guess I started being a bad guy from the start. Doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?”

Bucky had no idea why he had been called in to protect a child, when usually the Soldier wasn't used for anything so mundane as personal protection detail, it hadn't been his job to ask questions or demand explanations. He had only done what he was told, and so he had no idea what the trigger for needing such protection had been.

He shifted so that he was sitting on the bed with his legs crossed and his useless left arm hung across his lap to keep the weight from being too uncomfortable to bear. It always seemed heavier when he couldn't move it, somehow, the drag on his spine one that ached even with the serum.

"I don't understand."

He frowned in confusion. He wasn't trying to be comforting, he didn't have enough of himself left yet for that sort of kind lie, so Tony should take comfort in the fact that everything he said was the truth. Hurtful or kind.

"You didn't know, and you didn't do it yourself, why would that make you a bad guy?"

“Do you know what I’ve learned?” He watched the way Bucky handled that arm. He’d lessened the weight a little but he didn’t want to go too far in a rehaul without the subject being awake. He did have a few new, lighter and more durable parts that would help Bucky in the long run... if he chose that route. He’d been murmuring in his sleep. Tony hadn’t liked even half of what he heard. “I learned that it doesn’t matter if you are aware of what’s wrong. If you do nothing, it’s still your fault.”

The newspapers had labeled him all sorts of foul things but that didn’t bother him as much as the truth did.

He knew they were right. Complacency was as bad as pulling the trigger.

“Do you not like chocolate or something?”

Tony stood in front of a window, crumbs in his beard, eyes too large for a man his age, and the white, snowy alps behind him. There was frost on the windows and snow on the sill. It was warm inside the chalet though. It was warm in here but so very cold out there. And how surreal this was, to be with a man he knew only as a boy and who looked far too much like one of the men that hurt him so much along the way.

"You're wrong."

Bucky couldn't accept that line of reasoning because, if he did, then he would have to give up the last shreds of believing that he could have some innocence in what the Soldier had done.

"If you knew it was wrong and you did nothing, then you're to blame. If you don't know, how are you supposed to act?"

It was different from what Stark felt about his own business. He had known, objectively, that building weapons meant that he was killing people, he had just chosen never to look too closely at it. That wasn't inaction, that was wilful ignorance. But he hadn't known that his Nanny had been helpless, he wasn't to blame there. Bucky looked down into the mug of hot chocolate and then put it off to one side.

"You drink it."

Tony ignored the hot chocolate. He didn’t usually want such rich things. He didn’t know how it would taste with the scotch he’d been dosing himself with for the last day and a half anyway. Probably not great.

“I can’t believe we’re having a discussion about blame and guilt and I can’t believe you’re winning,” he said, gripping the back of the chair to tug it around to the other side of the bed where he could sit near that arm. He had to do something with himself or he’d just go nuts. Tony had more emotions than he knew what to do with in all honesty and as crazy (and perverse) as it sounded, he just wanted to touch Bucky, to be reassured that he was real. No one, not even Tony himself, would believe that a guy so generally against being touched, could want to be so tactile too.

He wrung his hands in his lap, safely, instead, one hand fisted over the thumb of another.

“Listen, I don’t have the answers here. You made it pretty clear that you’re not the guy Rogers grew up with and you’re not the guy I grew up with. I’m not trying to rekindle my childhood with you. I just want to fix you up and send you off. You can be whoever you want to be with all the baggage you need. But come on, I made that drink for you. And it’s not mud or motor oil. If you want to be a rude guest, that’s on you.”

He didn’t know why he was so fixated on that drink, but maybe it was like Bucky accepting his help?

For once Tony had said the right thing. He might be able to tell from the subtle changes in Bucky's posture when he reassured him that he knew he wasn't Sergeant Barnes and he wasn't the man who had bodyguarded him. Just the most minor relaxing of the muscles. He still didn't know who he was, but at least he wasn't being pressured into being someone else while he figured it out.

"I don't remember if I like it."

It was a low sort of admission. He was sort of scared to try it because he remembered eating chocolate as a soldier, it got sent to the front lines a lot to boost morale, but he honestly couldn't remember the taste of if he had enjoyed it.

"...but thank you."

For the offer of help, for the safe place even if it was temporary, if not for anything else.

Tony snorted, draping his arm over the back of the chair. “Isn’t that sort of the point of being someone knew? How are you going to know if you, this new guy, like hot chocolate or spaghetti or pizza or caviar unless you, uh, yanno, try it?” He’d eaten most of the cookies, but the Soldier could try that too. Tony had a very well stocked kitchen and freezer because the chances of being snowed in were more than a possibility. He had no intention of starving and the owners of this particular chalet, old and Swiss and about as authentically cute as possible, didn’t really want to have a dead American on their hands either.

He didn’t know what to do with the thanks, so he just shrugged it off. It was easier to ignore whatever made him uncomfortable. Being rich allowed him to do that for years and his own personality, cultivated out of loneliness and genius, just carried it through to adulthood. It didn’t matter that he was technically a superhero. He could still be an asshole.

“Well anyway, I have some new schematics for you to look at. I have redesigned some new, lighter parts for that arm. You’ve got a lot of redundancies and a whole lot of ionized steel in there. I can fabricate better. A whole lot better. I just need a few days.”

Bucky stared at Tony for a moment as if he were speaking a foreign language, before all of a sudden his lips tweaked upwards into a surprise and rare smile. Not for long, it was gone in another second, but it had been there all the same. Because he was right. It didn't matter if he remembered it, he was making new memories, and that did mean not being scared to try things.

So he picked up the hot chocolate again, cradling the mug carefully in his only working hand, and lifted it to his lips. The taste was... incredible. Thick and sticky on his tongue, nearly scalding the back of his throat, with just a hint of bitterness at the end from the rich Swiss chocolate.

"I don't want you to touch my arm," he said, between further mouthfuls of the hot chocolate. He'd see if Tony actually paid attention to his wishes this time. "I don't want to be worked on again."

That smile, warm and bright, was like a punch to the gut. Tony felt his eyes widening and his palms start to sweat. It was nothing he’d not seen before. People smiled at him constantly…but never that genuinely. His heart felt like it was in a vice grip and he pushed the chair back with his legs, feet flat on the floor and now unbent, as if it was safer to be at a full leg’s length distance from the guy that made him feel something like that.

When you’re used to being given into or schmoozed, you just don’t know how to react to something beautiful like that. Tony pressed his index finger under his nose and made a show of trying to comb the cookie crumbs from his beard so that he didn’t stare at Bucky’s joy at tasting hot chocolate. Tony had been proud of that, sure, but he didn’t need to go into an overload of feelings over a smile and a pleasured look of delight.

Was he fourteen again? No he was not. He was a grown adult. This shouldn’t get to him so much.

“So… I’ll just make the parts and you can upgrade them yourself.” Tony wanted to work on that arm. He wanted to make it better, lighter, more comfortable. He wanted to take out the HYDRA and replace it with… Well. Stark. It was selfish and it was weird but Tony always embraced eccentricities. “Or figure out how to regrow a limb. Huh. That could be useful actually.”

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