fossilised | it's a new plot!

“You don’t owe me anything,” Tony said immediately. “I think this is one of those things that comes with the territory. I get into trouble and you save me. You get into trouble and I save you. And sometimes Steve can come over and hang out.” Tony wasn’t the only one that had done the saving after all! He didn’t want to give Rogers too much credit but he might as well give him a little!

Tony tightened his grip ever so slightly before he glanced in James’ direction.

“So I have a confession...” He didn’t know about the forced blowjob. And yeah. James would have to go for a whole detox if that was the case. What was it with Nazis and rape anyway? “Don’t get mad but I eh... I didn’t save anything for you to get revenge on. I’m only a little sorry about that.”

Tony had issues looking at himself in the mirror sometimes because of all the death he had caused. But in this case? He looked damned good.

He honestly didn't care, he didn't need revenge, there were far too many people for him to get revenged on if he actually went down that route. He was tired of fighting, tired of being a harbinger of death, even if it was to people like HYDRA. So he just shrugged slightly.

He pushed upwards so that he could use his free hand, the metal one, to cup against the stubble growing back on Tony's face, bits of salt and pepper mixed in with the brown bristles now.

"No, you don't understand, you helped me remember. I don't have it all, but I have more than I had before. I remember standing at your shoulder as a kid, I remember skinny dipping in the Hudson while Steve stole my clothes, I remember the smell of my Ma's split pea soup. Steve helped, but I don't think he could've done it alone. He's my brother, but-- you said it to me in Siberia, and I remembered it."

Remember that I love you.

The hand against his cheek, the slight weight to it, and how easy it was for Tony to take his own hand off of the controller so that he could wind his arm around James’ waist brought Tony to one conclusion about the man looking at him with eyes the color of the ocean outside. He hadn’t been lying about loving James. Tony didn’t love easily but he knew in his heart that anyone he named a friend he automatically loved. But there were other sorts of love, deeper and less platonic ones. He’d loved his Nanny. He loved the guy that broke into his Tower needing help. But he was in Love now. Capital L and all.

And why was that? James wasn’t his type. He was nothing at all like Pepper... except that he knew everything about him and had come along for the ride for many years of his life until Tony could feel comfortable enough to know he was in love.

That probably was a terrible thing to say and to think, however.

“I saved you because you remembered that I love you,” Tony said, not because he had to string it out but because he really wanted to. His hand slid up James’ back. “Good. Now remember that I’m in love with you too and we’ll call it even that you ruined my game against those ten year olds from China I still can’t manage to beat.”

There was no way now that James was getting out of this one unscathed. Tony was going to kiss him unless he moved. Quickly.

James still didn't know if he felt comfortable with the idea of two men properly being together in an 'in love' sort of situation, but he didn't move. He was tired of second guessing himself and, even if it was a sin and wrong, then it felt good and he had so little of what felt good for so long that he was done denying himself. A kiss wouldn't panic him, not when it came from Tony.

He tasted exactly like he imagined Tony would taste, his lips soft, but the bristle of his growing beard making it impossible to ever mistake that he was kissing another man and not some dame.

"I think I might be with you too." In love. "And-- And I think I'm ready to be Bucky, it feels right, but... but I want you to keep James. Something for you."

He could be Steve's Bucky, and the world's Bucky, but he could be Tony's James and that felt intimate, hopefully like it would keep Tony from freaking out and being jealous when he spoke to and grew closer to Steve again.

The guy had stolen his clothes after he went skinny dipping in the Hudson. There was no way that Tony could think that Bucky could love a guy like that when he had another, richer, wiser, old man to love who gave him access to the internet’s worth of clothing. Even so, Tony liked having something that was just his. You would think that a man with literally everything wouldn’t need something exclusively, but you’d be completely and utterly wrong. It was those special things that kept Tony from sinking fully into despair sometimes, because for everything he had, he still didn’t think he was good enough to be allowed to have them.

The marks at the edges of his eyes turned into deeper creases as he gazed up at Bucky, tucking some hair behind his ear.

“You still can’t call me Anthony,” he quipped, hand lingering for his thumb to trace Bucky’s dimpled chin. “But I like that you’ll be my James.”

Tony kept things light here. He watched Bucky watching him and felt a little more grounded for it.

It had been over a week now without the voices, without the hallucinations. Tony thought he had it pretty good. But of course, that was not going to last.

Of course it wasn't, because they weren't allowed to have anything good for themselves. Not when things were looming on the horizon, or even just when the world seemed to not want to give them a break. Perhaps it was what Vision had thought, that just the creation of people like them invited challenge.

Bucky's lips twitched ever so slightly upwards, barely a change in expression and yet for him it was practically a lovestruck grin.

"You think Steve's gonna faint when I tell him that I remember being his dumb best friend?"

Also how much of a shit he used to be, because imagining making Steve faint was just funny to him.

“I’m going to record it,” Tony grinned. They had the same childish mentality, which was not going to bode well at all for poor Steve. This version of Bucky was someone that Tony found himself really drawn to. The easy grin, the flash in his eyes— He might not ever be Happy go lucky Bucky Barnes again, but this was probably closer than he’d come for a long time and Tony actually felt pride for someone else that wasn’t just Banner.

It was a pretty big thing.

Tony slung an arm around the other man and pulled him back down to his chest. “Tomorrow. He’s due over anyway. Most punctual and predictable hero in the world. Until then, we are going to kick these little Chinese kids’ asses.”

Bucky tensed when he was pulled down to the other man's chest, but the tension leaked out of him pretty quickly because he actually trusted Tony. He used to be a really tactile person, back before the war, always slinging an arm around Steve's neck or touching his arm, he wondered if he'd ever really get that back.

"Sure, tomorrow. And if you want then I'll kick their asses, you can teabag them after I'm done."

Maybe it was evil to use his reflexes and serum enhanced gifts to decimate a bunch of children on a video game, but he had sort of come to the realisation that he'd never be a hero anyway, not truly.

"And in return, you can tell me what the hell is up with your bananas."

“It’s like you know me,” Tony grinned, releasing Bucky after only a moment to hand over his controller before he went to get the other one resting on top of the gaming system. He knew what he could and couldn’t get away with. A minute or so of touching was about as much as the Bucky from before could stand and Tony didn’t want to jump to conclusions that the return of his memory had signaled the return of any sort of normalcy between them.

Beside that, he was all right with the minimal affection. His mind tended to be too crowded for anything too prolonged. Pepper could attest to that. Tony wasn’t like a normal person, he didn’t like to cuddle or lay around. He had things to do, even if those things were just getting back at pre-teens who had been crushing him at a two-year outdated game.

“Ban... what?? Do we have bananas?”

Edited 2017-12-04 17:35 (UTC)

"FRIDAY had the kitchen equipment mash some into a smoothie for me, she said it would help be easy on my stomach, but there's something wrong with your bananas. They all taste weird."

Bucky sounded almost offended about this as he took the controller and picked out his starting gear for the match. He was more focused on the banana issue than the game, but he was a natural sniper with excellent reflexes, so he wasn't worried about making Tony's gamertag a sudden legend.

"You can tell me, are they weird Stark experimental bananas?"

“You’ve got me. We’re calling them WES Bananas.” Weird Experimental Stark, of course. From now on, everything would be WES whenever Bucky decided to be sassy. “I can’t remember the last time I tried an actual banana that wasn’t just flavored rum,” he mused, “so I can’t help you out there.”

Tony tried to use gear that would cimpliment Bucky’s, but the guy could probably win this game blindfolded so there was no real reason for him to do anything but maybe act as a look out around corners or be a bodyguard. One would think that Tony would be annoyed at hos good Bucky was, but he in fact enjoyed being on a winning team. He didn’t care about the size of his role.

“Maybe 1930s bananas tasted weird. Didn’t they have to arrive on the backs of dinosaurs?” Could this just be Bucky’s memory really coming back, full force? “Sorry our bananas aren’t so dinosaur-y.”

"No, pretty sure bananas back then were the normal ones, not this weird and freaky crap that you're trying to feed to me."

"Sir," that was FRIDAY. "If I may interrupt, I could shed some light on this issue. Before the early 1950s, the strain of banana eaten in the US and much of the world was a different one to the one eaten today. It was all but wiped out with a banana plague at the start of fifties, and then replaced with the modern strain. The only remnant of the old banana strain is the synthetic banana flavouring to candy and drinks, which is derived from the old bananas."

Which might explain why banana flavoured products tasted nothing like real bananas.

Bucky looked half amused and half outraged, taking out his frustrations by sniping one of the Chinese kids from half a map away. "You're kidding me? People actually think the bananas you fed me are the real thing?"

“Wow, you actually liked that old crap? Banana candy is literally the worst,” Tony said, wrinkling his nose as if Bucky himself stank. “Our bananas are real. Didn’t you listen? They’re just a different family. Are you banana racist, James? FRIDAY, take a note, James is banana racist.” Tony lightly shook his head, as if he was utterly and completely hopeless and Tony was just embarrassed to know him. “And add cultivating old, awful bananas to the list of stuff to do when the world isn’t on the verge of ending.”

“All right Boss, I’ve recorded down both,” FRIDAY said good naturedly. She was pretty good for a laugh most of the time, making Tony shake his head again at Barnes for effect. He never did break character, not even after they started the game.

‘Banana Racist was going to be James’ unfortunate new pet name for the forseeable future, but at least they won a few rounds of Call of Duty that night. It was, by far, the best one he’d spent with James yet. He was so vibrant, so irreverant. And Tony just loved him.

It was a hint of who he used to be, the sort of man who had inspired Steve Rogers to disobey his chain of command and storm the enemy lines single handed to get him out. He had always been funny and snarky and smart, the sort of guy that always got the girl and made most people watch him carefully for signs of mischief.

It was a good night, for Bucky too. He and Tony didn't do much more than snipe at each other and occasionally touch hands, but it felt-- good, better. He was more himself now than he had ever been. Which was why, the next morning, he had Tony set up with a camera out of sight to film it when Steve came in.

He was sat on one of the chairs blank faced as ever, but when Steve walked through the door, he set his feet up on the table cool as you please, Brooklyn accent strong. "Did you hear that the Dodgers turned traitor? Who the hell am I supposed to support now?"

Exhaustion was probably the only word that came to mind when someone asked Steve how he felt that morning before he climbed into the mini-jet Stark gave him on loan for his trek up to New England. He wasn’t in a good place when he landed and when he saw James just sitting there? He was pretty sure that he needed to have a talk with Stark about this. There had to be another way. If Steve could take James back with him to HQ, maybe he’d see something or hear something that struck a chord? He was about to ask where Tony was when Bucky, his Bucky complained about the baseball team’s move from Brooklyn to LA.

Upstairs, Tony watched the feed with a laugh until Steve Rogers broke down. That made him uncomfortable enough to get himself up and tell FRIDAY that they were moving up production of Bucky Bananas to that morning’s great breakthrough.

At least the breakdown lasted only a moment before Steve could pull himself together and grab Bucky by the shirt to force him to his feet and into a hug. “I don’t know. Still struggling myself,” he sniffled. “The Yankees and the Mets turn my stomach.”

There was a tension to Bucky that had never been there in the past when they embraced, but he would never wholly be the man he was before. He still hugged Steve back, tight and secure, and then raised his flesh hand to tousle his hair a bit.

"C'mon, punk, don't embarrass us both by turning on the waterworks. I know it hurts that the Dodgers left, but you don't need to cry over them like they're a dame that broke your heart."

He was a little misty-eyed himself, if he were honest, he knew what a huge step this was for them both. It was like he had found home again after being lost for a lifetime and, though he loved Tony in a different way, Steve would always be that home. He was his best friend, his soulmate in a platonic sense, his brother.

If Bucky was hoping for a manly drying up of tears and a blame on allergies, he wasn’t going to get it. Steve had lived too long in this world and while it wasn’t completely all right for men to cry, he’d seen and lived through enough not to care. Cornflower blue eyes remained soaked, tears collected in his eyelashes, but he didn’t hold onto Bucky the way he wanted to. He’d felt the way Bucky had stiffened up, and he didn’t want, in any way, to hurt the man. He did sort of wish, for a moment, that they were women and could get away with some handholding right now as they caught up on literally decades.

“I’ve been living for so long with no one who understands how awful it is to have a team up and leave… It’s just good to know that someone else is as outraged as I am.”

Tony passed by the upstairs hallway, just briefly, on his way to his lab and caught the tail end of that comment. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Men from the 40s were weird.

“It’s just real good to have you back, pal. Real good. You have so many movies to get caught up on. It’s going to be a long, difficult process. They’ve ruined Godzilla and King Kong.” Steve rubbed at his cheeks and laughed.

"There's a lot I'm still missing, Steve."

Bucky didn't want to put a dampener on this conversation or make Steve upset, but it was important to set those boundaries and make this a relationship that could go forward properly. Without things going horribly wrong. Though perhaps that was just hope speaking and they lived in a world where everything would inevitably one day implode.

"But I remember enough to know that I'm Bucky, and that you're my best friend, and that I'm really mad about bananas and the Dodgers."

His lips quirked up a bit.

"'Til the end of the line, right?"

“Til the end of the line.”

No truer words were ever spoken.

“I was hoping you’d never find out about the bananas,” Steve said, cheering up. Bucky wasn’t a blank, impossible thing. He wasn’t this looking memory of his own guilt. He was and could still get better. “But there’s a support group for that too. Sam used to run a lot of them. You’ll like Sam. He’s less of a punk than you, though.”

Steve, in true men’s affection, gave Bucky a little shove and sniffled back whatever remained of his tears. He did not want Stark happening upon them like this. He’d be called a cry baby for sure.

Steve cleared his throat and squared his shoulders before smiling at Bucky. “You know, I’m always happy to fill in the blank spots. Like where I was always saying your butt when you got in fights? And how I was the star of the boxing club and you used to go to my practices. Always felt sorry for you.” He gave Bucky a little shove again and headed towards the kitchen. “I still box, you know? Just how you showed me. There’s less asthma attacks now.”

"I'm sorry, you were the star of the boxing club? I thought I was supposed to be the one with memory issues, not you."

He didn't think that it would be a good idea for Steve to show him how much he had improved as a boxer now that the asthma had gone, he had a fear that any type of fighting would snap him back into that state that he had been in before, and maybe he would go in for the kill instead of just a harmless bout of punching.

"I think I'll pass on the support groups, pretty sure nobody is qualified to deal with the mess that's my head. I just need some time, some peace."

It was a shame that peace wasn't exactly something that they got much of these days.

"...look, there's something I have to talk to you about before this goes any further, okay? So-- why don't you sit down?"

Steve more or less radiated confusion, and with it, the edge of fear. He was absolutely certain that Bucky was going to come out and say that they couldn’t be friends (though that wasn’t logically accurate given what Bucky had just told him). Maybe he was dying? Stark mentioned there were wires, of all things, in his brain. That scared him too. To regain and then immediately lose the man?

He tried not to let these preconceived notions bore into his brain. Bucky might just want to sort some things out, but he couldn’t shake the dread.

“You can talk to me about anything,” Steve promised, and sat as directed. This was a night and day Bucky and he wanted to cultivate keeping the guy that didn’t look like a wounded animal in his life. “What is it, pal?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, Steve's concerned expression not helping with the nerves riding up inside him now. He wondered, briefly, if Tony was still watching them and whether he'd be mad that Bucky was about to out them both. Maybe he would, but Bucky couldn't go around hugging Steve and joking with him, all while he had this horrible secret buried under his skin.

If he did, he's always be waiting for the hammer to drop and everything to be ruined. If it were going to be ruined, better to have it ruined now.

"Remember Jimmy Folke from down the block, and that rumour that went around that he was seen with some guys who gave favours? I'm pretty sure I'm like Jimmy Folke, if you know what I mean, and I'm pretty sure that I'm stepping out with Tony."

So-- there it was.

Jimmy Folke was not the kind of guy you wanted to be like. Jimmy got the tar beat out of him at almost every turn and he made it really hard for Steve to be Steve, growing up. Not only was Steve slight, unmanly, and sensitive, but he also constantly stood up for Jimmy Folke. Many times, they’d get beaten up together when Bucky wasn’t around to stop it. Or to tell him that what he was doing was way too dangerous a move. He was all for Steve needing to stand up for the little guy, but Jimmy Folke was not the little guy you wanted to be in your circle of friends.

Steve’s eyes widened and then he glanced up towards the ceiling as if Stark would magically descend from it, yelling something about him being on candid camera.

The blond’s whole face flushed and he tried to hide his irritation. “It’s a bad joke, Buck,” he said at once, defensive and feeling his whole chest clog up before he tried to offer a less than delicate smile that all but trembled right off of his face. “Almost had me believing it too until you said you were trying to date Tony.” His laugh was nervous, as though he was trying not to judge, trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings here, but also not liking the direction that this was going. “It’s not… It’s not right to joke about this sort of thing. Did Tony put you up to this?”

This? This was the kind of reaction that Bucky had expected when he first told Tony, this was the sort of thing that made him wonder in filthy whispers if what HYDRA had done to him was just divine punishment for that sort of sin. They had been brought up to think those sort of men were just as bad as rapists or kiddie touchers, people engaging in something really sick and wrong.

"--No."

It was a short answer, expression brittle as he took a half step back.

"It ain't a joke, it's the truth. I had to tell you before we just-- you had to know what I was, it's not fair otherwise. You'd find out one day, so maybe it's better it's now and you can go."

“No.” Steve wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t just go, there was no where to go. What he had to do was find Stark and... What? Threaten him? Steve had never been more embarrassed in his life, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this Bucky, now, was still Tony pushing his buttons. He’d commanded Bucky to behave this way—

That simple thought alone turned Steve’s stomach and he dismissed it. Tony was a lot of things but he wasn’t like that. The blond was up and pacing across the wide window with that beautiful, if violent view.

He put his hand to his face again and then he stood, still, in profile to Bucky.

It would come out eventually.

“It’s not you. You’re not remembering it right,” Steve said, chin dropping to his chest as he put his hands in his pockets. The gesture was non-threatening. “It was me. I didn’t think you knew. You never made out that you knew— I was never interested in those girls. I had to be— Well, I tried to be. And I tried real hard with Peggy too. And I’ve been trying a little with Sharon—“

He wanted to vomit right on his shoes.

“Jimmy hung out with us sometimes around the block because of me, Buck. You? You’re not like us. You shouldn’t have to think— Tony told me you were his bodyguard when he was kid. That’s all. That’s where you’re getting the confusion from. I’m just so sorry that I never told you. I figured you’d hate me forever. Or you’d think I wanted... with you.”

And that was actually true. But that was because everyone wanted Bucky. Even the guys that didn’t lean his way.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject