fossilised | it's a new plot!

"You're a doctor."

James wasn't usually one to argue someone's life choices; or, he hadn't been in recent years. Perhaps that was a spark of who he used to be poking through, because he used to be the sort of little shit that would get up in everyone's business and tell them how they should be doing it to be better.

"If your hands heal someone, then you're a doctor. You saved my life twice, you operated on me, that makes you a doctor. Maybe you're a mechanic too, but don't ignore the talents that you have."

There weren't many people who tried to boost Tony's ego, they usually believed it was sizeable enough, but here they were.

It was weird. The words, sure, but the way they made him feel even more so. Tony accepted compliments like anyone else might accept the mail coming on a daily basis or the fact that sometimes there were clouds in the sky. But this was different. James wasn’t just saying what he already knew, praising what he had been praised for s hundred times before, he was boosting up part of Tony’s overinflated ego that had gotten flattened in the journey he took from child to young adult.

It was both amazing and frightening. He stared at James as if he had two heads before propriety caught up with him and he rolled his eyes in response.

“Uh... I don’t have time to argue with you and you probably don’t have the blood pressure to argue with me so fine. Whatever you say,” he shrugged and left James to finish up his meal and maybe get some sleep. Tony wasn’t holding his breath on that one.

But he did resurface about two hours later with another shake. He’d seen Steve eat. He knew what James needed to survive and he could see how malnourished he had become. Besides.

Pushing fluids was a doctory sort of thing!

James slept for that whole two hours, rigid and still as if he had even been taught how to sleep in the most unobtrustive way, and he woke up the second that Tony entered the room again, going from asleep to awake in the blink of an eye. He didn't go for Tony, though, not when he saw that he wasn't a threat, he just accepted the shake and drank it obediently.

It would be after that session of fluids that Tony would get a call he probably wasn't expecting.

Steve had vowed to himself that he would let Tony come to him. He had done a terrible thing by keeping the knowledge of who killed Howard and Maria to himself, that he had been trying to spare both his best friend and his teammate was irrelevant, he had still lied when it had been important not to. But it was late where he was in Marrakesh, he was tired, he was heartsore... and so he called Tony.

“Put it on hol—“ Were the words out of Tony’s mouth at first, just before FRIDAY told him the call was coming in on the burner phone. He didn’t know why he had kept it along with the note, but he left the room immediately only to duck back in and assure James that he was going to get rid of him and he wouldn’t tell on him.

It was weird and childish but incredibly loyal. Many might see that as strange, but James was his Nanny. He looked exactly as he had looked when he was a boy and it was that man that had built trust and loyalty into Tony... and no other. So there was nothing left to do but to follow through. It made sense in Tony’s mind... and most of the other whispers in his brain agreed.

And that, for the first time, was comforting.

He picked up the phone from FRIDAY, who had answered to keep it from going to voice mail and bid the Captain to wait for his intended recipient. Tony paused for a long moment and exhaled his ‘yeah?’ as if this call was a nuisance and he hadn’t been half dialing every single day prior to James coming back into his life.

At least he didn’t follow it up as he might have liked with a ‘what other news have you been hiding from me?’ He just waited. Steve and he had a confusing relationship and this time it was more tense than ever.

Steve might prefer people to be up front about themselves and their feelings, but that didn't mean that he was totally ignorant when it came to dealing with people that weren't. He had started to understand the language of Tony, the one that said that even if he sounded annoyed to hear from Steve, the fact that he had kept the phone and had answered it at all meant that there was some hope for reconciliation.

"Hey."

Steve's voice was rough and he sounded as if he had been drinking. Not that drinking would do anything to him, but he was exhausted. He hadn't slept in about fifty hours, and he had spent a hell of a lot of that time crying. They had found a HYDRA base, abandoned, and it had given him a lot more input on what had been done to his best friend. He'd been feeling sick ever since.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling a little foolish for having called. Not that he would make the comparison himself, but he sounded like that depressed ex that drank too much and then called. "I know I said that in the letter, but my Mom always taught me that a real man apologises face to face. I can't be face to face right now, so this is the next best thing. I know it won't make up for what I did, Tony, but you're my friend. I just didn't want you to have to deal with that."

Tony was terrible at comfort and he was even worse at this. Steve Rogers wasn’t a guy that sounded like he got emotional. He was the man with the plan, he was the Hilter Puncher, the sensitive but strong type. Tony had idolized him for about as long as he had been saddled with a Nanny. That all of this had happened, that he had fought alongside of his hero and that his Nanny now called him friend, these were issues that Tony couldn’t wrap his head around. Give him numbers, give him equations and problems to solve or fix and he was happy. But this? Good God, he couldn’t deal with it.

“Your mom taught you a lot more than mine taught me,” Tony said, though the dig wasn’t there. He knew Steve’s history. He knew that their lost their mothers at about the same age, that they were orphaned at about the same age, but times had been different and their circumstances were even more so. Tony wanted for nothing save for affection. Steve had all the affection in the world but was poor as sin.

Their spectrums diverged so much that they came back together again.

It was awful. It was perfection.

Tony leaned against the wall and then sat down on the floor, his weight pulled by gravity as if he no longer had strength in his legs.

“What happened to you, Cap? You sound terrible.”

He really shouldn't be doing this with Tony, of all people. Sam, perhaps, or Natasha would be a better bet to talk to when his feelings pertained to the man that killed Tony's parents. But maybe he needed it to be Tony, he needed his friend... former friend?... to understand just how it hadn't been Bucky that had killed his folks and why Steve would try and protect him.

"I found a HYDRA lab, abandoned a long time ago, it was specifically for training the Soldier. The things they did to him, Tony-- I don't even know if I'd still be breathing if it was me. You know-- Buck was always there for me. When I was sick he'd find a way to afford the medicine, I bet he swiped more than some of it. He took extra shifts so we'd have money for heating when it got so cold we could see our breath indoors. He always tried to find me a dancing partner too, and he never-- God, Tony, when I had nothing else, he was there. He never let me down, and I can't stop letting him down."

His breath hitched. Maybe he was just a little drunk, having found some 100% proof vodka that would likely be lethal for anyone else.

"He's out there somewhere, probably scared and alone, and it's killing me. Maybe he's even ashamed of what he did, or what they did to him, men-- men in my day were taught to be ashamed if that sorta thing happened to them. I just want to look him in the eye and tell him that he'll always be my brother no matter what, Tony-- I don't want to lose you too. M'sorry."

“You’re drinking without me,” Tony said as if this was the whole problem. He couldn’t commiserate with Steve about any of this. He couldn’t say that he already knew what happened to Bucky. He’d seen some videos and found some files describing the best way to break a man. He couldn’t even say that the techniques used on Bucky had been originally developed to use on Steve either or that the pain Bucky suffered was out of frustration to have a super Soldier since the Allies did.

A perverse part of Tony wanted, more than anything, to tell Steve that. He could hear the grief in his voice and he wanted it to expand.

You loved him once—

Twice.

Many, many times.

Tony closed his eyes, took a breath that was audible over the line, and told the whispers to go away. He found Steve Rogers stupidly attractive, but that was not the same thing as love. People like Tony couldn’t love. He thought he was in love with Pepper but she pointed out all of the ways in which that was not and could not possibly be true.

And he trusted her because she did not display psychopathic tendencies, was not a megalomaniac, and actually proved that she was capable of caring about people outside of herself.

“Where are you?”

"Marrakesh."

Maybe it was stupid to give Tony his location. He was, after all, supposedly still working with the authorities on the side of the Accords that he had helped get into place, which meant that Steve was a fugitive. Telling Tony his location could lead to him getting arrested and detained.

But he didn't care right then. He was drunk and heartsore; where Tony might not think himself capable of love, Steve knew that he was. He loved deeply and completely, and often ended up hurt because of it.

"Got a lead someone saw him out here, but it wasn't him. S'never him."

“Got an idea, Cap.” Steve had left the shield behind, mostly at Tony’s childish demand, but he had given up being Captain America in that moment. It din’t mean that nicknames couldn’t die hard. “How about you come home. You stop looking and just stay put so he can find you when he’s ready. How about you work on making sure that his name gets cleared when he is ready?”

He didn’t think Steve would read into any of that. Tony didn’t believe that a drunk Steve Rogers, heart hurt and impaired, would put two and two together that Tony might know something.

Not after that fight they had. No one would ever think that Tony would house the person that killed his parents, but that was only because no one knew the truth about Tony’s parents. And no one ever would. Tony had scrubbed as much as he could from the world.

“If it’s as bad as you’re eluding, maybe he’s just not ready to be found. And you know he has the skills to stay hidden if neither of us have run across him yet.” He didn’t mind lying to Rogers. Tony was so good at it.

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.

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