fossilised | it's a new plot!

“Wow okay, so you’re a bad example,” Tony said, not quite rolling his eyes. “Lets just say that you’re interested in scholarly pursuits in your free time. So let’s do something you want to do, okay? Who or what do you want to research?”

He had a feeling that it would be Steve, but he was hopeful that James would remember the tone it down when it comes to Rogers rule that Tony had enacted. He himself knew everything about Cap’s childhood. He’d been obsessed with him until he came to hate him, after all.

Maybe the obsession caused the hate? It was hard to say.

“We don’t even have to go anywhere. We can spy on people from right here.”

James hesitated for a moment, the little book that he used to do his research and record the pieces of memory that came back to him was very private. He had so little of who he was before the Soldier that he guarded any fragment as fiercely as a dragon might do with their hoard of gold.

But Tony was trying to help, and he had proven himself trustworthy.

After a moment or two, he rose and silently walked away without explanation. He wouldn't be gone long, just ten minutes or so, before he returned with a worn backpack that Tony likely had never seen before, but had always been hidden in his house. From inside it, he pulled out a book that was about half full of neat handwriting and cut out pictures from papers or magazines. There were pages on Steve, on Tony, on Sam, on Natasha, and on Clint. There were also little pages with snippets of memory written on them, just simple but heartfelt things like: The smell of Ma's split pea soup or My eldest sister was called Rebecca.

He handed it over.

"What do you think should be next?"

Tony took the book without reverence until he really started reading the pages. He skipped everything on Steve just out of general principal and because he didn’t care about Sam, he skipped that too. There was decidedly little on Rhodey, boring. Natasha’s life was an open book already. Clint— three kids. Hm. James was a better spy than most. Tony was impressed.

It was the sections about him that really stuck, though. And sure. That probably sounded conceited, but James remembered a lot of things from his childhood. Just little moments.

And that made Tony, for the first time since he’d been with the Soldier before, feel important. And even well looked after. He’d been cared for as a child. Even if his mother and father was absent and his father was abusive, James had really cared.

Right down to noting his favorite lunches and how he liked his sandwiches.

He skipped a few pages until he found the last few years of his life and grimaced. “Well I think you’re really good on me. Jeez. Some of these newspaper clippings are really unflattering—. What about we start with the things you remember liking... before or during lucid moments. And we can see what’s up with them these days? Like for split pea soup? Still gross. What about your sister? Did she get married?”

James' fingers itched to take the book back as soon as he handed it over, especially with how irreverently Tony treated it, but he kept his hands by his sides. His eyes, though, they stayed focused like laser focused sniper rifles on the pages to make sure that nothing got damaged.

"What?"

He had more meant which Avenger should he be researching next. The pieces of himself were intensely private and, even if he trusted Tony, he didn't know if he wanted to share them with the other man. He wasn't exactly the most respectful, and he didn't know if he could handle having important and tiny moments trampled on like that.

"...I meant-- my research isn't complete, which Avenger is the most important one to research next."

“James Barnes,” Tony said, just trying to gauge what James would do when he brought up the idea that he could and probably should be an Avenger. He deserved it more than Tony, who didn’t even want it. He didn’t want the responsibility and he most certainly didn’t want to have to see Steve Rogers all the time. He kept rounded back to that. It was as if his mind looped when he didn’t have enough filler.

Given how unimpressed James looked, eyes too blue behind strands of dark hair that Tony thought about reminding him to wash in a few days after his scalp had fully healed from the invasive surgery.

“Or okay, jeez, don’t jump down my throat. How about we get some more dirt on Rhodes? He knows way more about me than I know about him.” Poor Rhodey. The guy just tried his best to keep Tony on track.

He settled back into his arm chair.

“How about—. FRIDAY, do we have a social security number on file for James Rhodes?”

There was a pause before FRIDAY said that they did. “But it’s not a good idea to mess with your friends, Boss.”

It was probably sensible that Tony moved on from calling James a potential Avenger before he commented on it, because he was not happy about the implication. Whatever he might be in the future, an Avenger would never be on that list. The people who protected the world were heroes, and he counted Tony among that, and he was not and could never be a hero. Maybe he had been once, when he had been a Howling Commando, but he had far too much blood on his hands now.

So he allowed the change of topic to Rhodes with only a glare in Tony's direction, before he sat down on the arm of the chair, his shoulder brushing against Tony's cheek without care for the close proximity.

"He's only part time, right? Isn't he in the army?"

“Air Force. He started off as my handler I guess. My liaison for my defense contract with the military. It’s not complicated. I string him around saying I’ll go where his bosses need me to go or do what his bosses need me to do, and then I ignore it. I know he was raised in West Philadelphia. Two sisters, one who died when they were young. She was shot.”

And that really was about the only things he knew about lieutenant colonel Rhodes.

For someone who spent a lot of his free time coming to support him, especially now that Pepper was out of his life, he probably was his primary friend. His only friend, after Happy Hogan, but how much could you call a person a friend if you signed their paychecks to look out for you?

Tony crossed his arms over his chest.

“Let’s not do Rhodes.” He felt like he owed the man more than spy games. “Let’s see what Pepper is up to.”

"She's not an Avenger, my research on her only labels her as your previous girlfriend and the CEO of Stark Industries. She's not relevant to my files."

Not unless Tony was about to tell him about Extremis and how Pepper actually had a whole lot more under her skin than they were letting on, and how she could be dangerous to even someone like the Winter Soldier if she ever really learned how to harness the crap that had happened to her.

"I'm not just spying on people for fun, stay focused."

Either that, or he would take his book back and not share this sort of thing with Tony in the future.

With a huff, Tony turned back to James and arched one eyebrow. He just looked st him for a awhile before his hands folded against his knee and he leaned in towards the other man. “Question. Why are you gathering intelligence on the Avengers?”

On Steve, he understood. On himself, he understood that too. Bucky had had dealings with them both across the span of years. But that did not extend to the rest.

So he tried playing detective here. Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanoff were Steve’s current best friends. Sam and Steve acted like they had known each other for a long time and he suspected that Steve was into Natasha the way that all meat headed body builders were into the cute, ass kicking redhead.

He lifted one arm to set his elbow on the arm rest and set his chin in his palm. There was an amused smirk on his lips as he waited for an answer.

"You're my biggest threat."

James answered without any hint of shame or hesitation. It was all a matter of keeping himself safe and free, with free being the most important point on any list of what he wanted his life to be.

"The world governments don't have the resources that you do, SHIELD and HYDRA are both still scrambling to recover from the Washington D.C. incident, which means that the Avengers are my biggest threat to remaining free."

More so because Steve would pursue him with a single minded determination that literally nobody else would, and he had enough clout over his friends to drag them into the search too.

“You know that none of us want to see you hurt though, right? Even before the data leak? You were my childhood friend. And you were Steve’s friend. And okay, sometimes friends stab you in the back but that doesn’t mean we want to hurt them. The Avengers aren’t your biggest threat any more. You’re your own biggest threat.”

Tony didn’t mince words here. He tapped his own forehead as if to prove it.

“You’re worried about what will happen. You’re afraid of disappointing him. You’re afraid of rejection. And you’re afraid that someone is going to lock you up and experiment on you. Take away your choices. So what do you do? You wait until you’re nearly dead before you get some help. And now you’re denying yourself the people that can help you the most. Rogers is only looking for your because he wants to help. And he’s afraid that someone else might find you first and he’ll let you down again. You did the research. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Of course he's not wrong.

But James is far too scared to let Steve back into his life. The man had been like a brother, closer even, and he only remembered pieces of that. Even the bits that he remembered told him that he wasn't that Bucky any more, the one who always had an easy smile for the dames or a kind word when it was needed. He was quiet, taciturn, and more than a little paranoid.

His brow furrowed and he glared at Tony with annoyance.

"So, what? You think that I should talk to him? I thought you put a Rogers ban on our conversations, Tony."

“I don’t think you should do anything and I did put him on a ban.” Tony leaned back, not quite sullen but certainly trying to act that way. Rogers would immediately seduce James away. That was a given. And James might come back to hang out sometimes, and to get his arm and brain fixed, but most people would never choose him over Rogers.

Except Banner. But Banner chose a stealth mode quintet over him so maybe not even Banner.

“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t hide in the air ducts and threaten to leave when it’s dark enough. It’s never dark enough around the Tower by the way. We are a 24-7 operation. You trusted me once not to turn on you. I know the magazines would never believe it but I’m a loyal guy. I never cheated on Pepper. I never even lied to her. Do your research on her and then decide to stay. Here. With me. Or just by yourself, I won’t bother you. But stop kidding yourself that the Avengers, that I, am a threat to you.”

"I think that I'm scared."

Maybe this was James' way of trying to show Tony that he did trust him. Him, not necessarily the rest of the Avengers, but definitely him. He wouldn't be here if he didn't, but apparently that was too subtle of a clue for Tony Stark.

"The way the internet is looking now-- they're gonna pardon me. I won't be a wanted man, and that takes away a huge reason to stay in hiding. But I don't know if I'm ready to come out of hiding yet, and I sure don't know if I trust myself living with another person in the same space. I'm dangerous, often at times I don't mean to be, and I'm not a good houseguest."

“You are a shitty houseguest,” Tony went ahead and said, one shoulder shrugging before he crossed his arms over his chest. It had been almost two years since he’d had the reactor removed and yet, he could still feel it against his forearm, some remaining memory in his skin and muscle about the way it had felt for so many years to stand this way. Hip jutting out, he tilted his head towards James, looking him square in the eye. “But we’re both safe here. The Tower is, hands down, the safest place to be. If you deciode to have some flashback or think I look too much like my dad, FRIDAY will probably stop you from killing me. And no one is getting in. Except you. Becausee evidently you know all of my tricks. Not cool, by the way. Not cool at all.”

Tony pulled himself back onto the edge of the counter, feet swinging, heels thumping the wood beneath the ultra modern stainless steel, and had every intention of complaining further about how stupid Bucky was when a ship about half the size of Manhattan shadowed over the city, a few hundred feet over where the top of Tony’s tower was.

“Well…shit. Can we table this for a second? Good? Great, FRIDAY, who is that?”

“We are being asked to open a communication line, I’ll display video,” the AI said, and two people (and a half a dozen others) popped over the polarized glass that surrounded the kitchen.

“Th—” Thor didn’t matter. “Hulk! Buddy!”

The second that FRIDAY said that there was about to be video communication, James vanished. It would probably actually be quite impressive, because he did it soundlessly and there would be no indication that there had ever even been someone in the room with Tony only seconds before, but he was close enough to still be eavesdropping.

Hulk rolled his eyes when he saw Tony, having spent so much time in charge of the body had given him a greater control and a greater intelligence than he had before. He huffed down the camera and turned his head to speak to the dark-skinned woman next to him.

"This one likes Hulk best, nobody else likes Hulk best on Earth. Should have gone somewhere else."

Truthfully, James could take care of himself. Tony didn’t need to be that mindful of him (thankfully, because he truly wasn’t mindful of anyone). He was already on his feet again anyway, grinning at the screen almost stupidly, like someone just found his puppy. It took a moment for it to click that the Hulk was talking in full, mostly complete sentences, and that the Hulk was there. On that ship. With retro 80s shaven haired and monocled Thor. Whom, again, Tony cared absolutely nothing about with Hulk there taking up all of his attention.

Wisely, Tony held any questions as to why Hulk was there and not, say, Bruce Banner. He was docile and talking. No one was getting smashed. Things seemed to be all right.

That presence of mind did cause Tony to glance to the guy who had been sitting next to him and his gaze lingered on the now empty spot. He wouldn’t be getting support from that direction on this, it seemed.

“Where else is better than here? And I actually think you’re wrong. You have fan pages. And there were way more Hulk costumes this year than Iron Man on Halloween,” Tony said, leaning back with both hands on the metal countertop.

Thor narrowed his single eye. “And of Thor, Stark? Were many dressed as the Mighty Thor?”

“As you? No. You’re like the worst. No one likes having to carry a hammer around. Or wearing a cape,” Tony said, good naturedly. “It’s about time you kids have come back, by the way. Things went to hell while you were on your vision quest, Cyclops. Is that why you’ve brought me more creepy alien tech? Peace offering?”

The Hulk didn't look convinced, once again looking down to Valkyrie for her opinion. She had become his closest thing to a friend, someone who respected his strength and liked him better than Banner, that was a rare thing for him. She nodded slightly and the Hulk huffed loudly.

"Okay. Hulk go to Earth and stay in tiny Tower."

Another face appeared in the camera view, pale features twisted up into minor disgust as he looked down at who they were talking to.

"You want us to stay with him? I have half a mind to stab you again and steal the ship, it would be a far less tedious end to this journey."

Jerking up his head, first at the fact that the Hulk had himself a girlfriend and that evidently, he was getting more houseguests, Tony’s expression changed abruptly when that man can into view. His smile dropped immediately. “Didn’t you die? Twice? You and a cockroach have a lot in common, huh? Thor, ever try removing his head? Sometimes that works-- Just how many people are with you? Only the Hulk can stay. The rest of you-- He threw me out of a window and tried to destroy our planet-- Did you enchant him or something?”

It was a little too much talking for Thor to follow completely and he scratched his head a little bit like a hairless orangutan and leaned forward in his chair. “Stark, my people seek asylum. I know my brother and you have had your differences—”

“Diff-- I have scars on my back from when he literally threw me out of-- Well, that window right there! That very window! I mean it’s replaced now with shatter proof glass but ouch? No. I’m sorry, your people-- Let’s go back to how many people you have on that ship?”

Thor glanced at his brother for counsel as he had not actually counted. “Many. Many more perished on Asgard. We also have many others from Sekhar, joined in Resistance against— Stark, your head pains you?” Thor frowned as Tony clasped the bridge of his nose. It was more than just a cacophony of voices this time. There was also some PTSD and some mind exploding new realizations that were coming to mind as he stood there facing them. “Stark?”

“I need a minute, Point Break,” Tony said and had FRIDAY disconnect them so he could sit down and breathe.

This was new.

This was unexpected.

But he knew those eyes and that voice. He’d always had. He’d felt the same as they stood against one another at this Tower years ago. It just bothered him a lot more now and he needed to calm himself down before he talked to any of them again.

Onboard the stolen ship, Thor glanced up at Loki with a smirk before he stood. “You do leave an impression on people.”

Loki was still getting used to this new equilibrium, but it felt good.

The people of Asgard had forgiven him, for the most part, because of his heroic gesture in bringing the rebels to assist in the fight against Hela. Without him, none of them would have got off the realm before it died, and that had given him enough respect to place him back to what he thought of as his rightful place. Thor had even accepted him, finally, as who he was. A troublemaker, chaos, but still loved him.

And he hadn't tricked anyone to get in this position. It was strange.

He smirked right back and waved a hand looking smug. "It is my winning personality, my brother, everyone remembers Loki long after they have forgotten anyone by the name of Thor even exists."

“You know that is not the truth,” Thor said as he and Loki left the ship’s grand hall (as he had come to call it) to head towards the shuttles docked below. He wanted to embrace Stark in person and speak with him thus. Valkyrie would be left in charge in his place and with her, Hulk and Heimdall as well. Perhaps his father’s oldest advisor should be the one to remain in charge, for he saw everything, but Thor was certain he needed a bit of time off from being heroic. He himself needed only Loki with him. “Remember not how we were greeted in London? The mortals there did not know your face nor care to inquire who it was I was with. It is only I that they love. You will need to work quite hard to regain your status among them, but I believe you, if no one else, is up to such a task.”

He passed his reflection on the gilded walls and ignored it. He was not as vain as he had been in his youth, but he did not care for his current appearance. The missing eye was a statement he had not gotten used to yet, a statement that he was not as indestructible as he once thought he was. The scar on his side left by their sister was just further testament, though that which could easily be covered.

It was the cropped hair, the lack of tattooing in its place, that harmed him most to look at himself. It would grow back, and yet it was still a shame he could not seem to remove from his troubled mind when the rest had been banished. He did not dare tell Loki this.

“I want you to watch yourself with Stark. I have been away a great deal longer than I wished to be. Humans tend to be angry when you do not write nor e-mail.”

He did not need to tell Loki this.

Though he was not always the most sympathetic of people, being a master manipulator depended on him being able to read the room and figure out what people's fears and delicate subjects were. Thor's hair was an obvious one, the braids and long mane of a warrior were important to most Asgardians, for Thor to have been shorn it showed him as one defeated.

"I am not afraid of Stark, he is not a threat to one such as me, but I will be on my best of behaviours when we meet again."

Which meant that he was very unlikely to stab more than once, and he would cause the minimal of havoc within his halls.

"The Hulk is more likely to cause damage than I."

“Hulk and I have become fast friends, but he and Stark are better friends still. You would do well not to anger one lest the other come to his aide. I have seen Hulk assist very few the way he has done with Stark for he brought him back from Valhalla with a single call the day we faced one another in battle upon that flying ship.” Thor hit his palm against a red button set into the wall and the small, unseated vessel they had stepped into was closed up and dropped immediately from the bottom of the larger ship, causing it and the pair inside to free fall towards the Tower.

Thor hit his head and his foot at least twice each against his brother, and the former splintered the glass on the porthole, showing only moving images of street and sky and street and sky and street and sky in a cyclical fashion.

Dampeners blasted to life a few moments prior to the vessel striking the Tower and the two Asgardians inside groaned in union as it touched down on the landing pad at the top of the building.

By that point, Tony had told FRIDAY to be on alert, to tell James to ‘mind the shop’ while he was gone, and donned his armor as he stepped out through the door. He was too dazed to move as he was nearly struck by the ship and as it slowed, he took a few steps back, blinking, to greet Thor and the Hulk—

He was less pleased to see Loki beside his brother as the door shot open, the two looking worse for wear.

FRIDAY promised to pass the message along to James as soon as she located him again. For a Tower with her access everywhere and state of the art security systems, it was almost embarrassing how easily the ex-assassin could slip under the radar and find weaknesses to exploit.

Loki straightened his clothes and at least thanked the Norns that he and Thor weren't doing "get help" this time. So humiliating.

"Anthony Stark," he said, which would likely cause the voices to rise in a cacophony at the familiar and usually loved form of address from those lips. "We seek shelter, we are all that is left of Asgard following Ragnarok, and we have no other realm to harbour our people."

True, he had caused Ragnarok, but it had actually been with everyone's blessing, and he might have taken a little trinket or two for himself in the meantime.

“Nobody calls me Anthony,” Tony said, teeth clenched impressively. “Nobody. Stark is good enough for you—. You know what? Don’t call me anything. Why don’t you tumble back up there and send the big guy down.”

He wanted just to talk to Banner again. The guy got him, sort of. And he didn’t just disappear like Bucky. Oh wait—

Shit. He had shit taste in friends.

“Thor— Nice do. Good to see you. Part of you. Are you doing like a Fury thing?”

“No Stark. Let us go inside,” Thor suggested, but Tony stepped out in front of him.

“I don’t think so.”

“I vouch for my brother. He will bring you no harm. Loki? Give Stark your word.”

Tony bawked. “His— I’m sorry. God of lies? Giving me his word? No.”

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