fossilised | Jotunheimr

Jotunheimr

Thor Odinson was not ready to be King.

That much had become suddenly and sharply clear to Odin All-Father, a sharp pain that he would rather not have had. He had been blinded too long by love for his only heir, seeing only his affable way of gaining friends and his strength on the battlefield, but ignoring how he had become spoiled and arrogant. He had glossed over the reports from Thor's tutors that his son had not studied the other realms or the duties of a King as he should, and had instead spent much of his youth carousing with his favoured companions, hunting or getting into trouble together.

But this... this was beyond a childish scrape.

Egged on by his friends, or so it had come out since the act, Thor had decided to go to Jotunheim - a forbidden act - for the sole purpose of finding one of its inhabitants and slaying it. A proof of his mettle as a warrior, to kill one of the fearsome giants, the monsters of the icy realm. He felt ashamed, sick at heart that his only son could be so ignorant as to think that any race were just monsters. He might have hoped these were just rantings, but he saw preparations begin to take place and he knew that they meant to commit treason by disobeying his orders of no contact with Jotunheim and perhaps start another war.

Arrangements were hastily made, pushed through Frigga who had more goodwill remaining to her among the Giants, and when Thor arrived at the Bifrost, he would find Odin standing by the great sword rather than Heimdall, his one eye forbidding.

"Why are you so eager to seek out war, my son?"

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“It’s funny that you think money can’t buy everything,” Tony returned the quip, smirking. “If I used my real name for every time I blew myself up, stocks would plummet.” Giving away a secret that probably wasn’t a secret didn’t do anything to Tony’s ego. He was pretty sure that the whole world knew about his lax safety record by now anyway but people tended to look the other way for most of the stuff he did, except when writing conspiracy theory blogs.

The amount of blood in his car was getting utterly ridiculous at this point. Tony called ahead to his favorite surgeon (okay, no, he had JARVIS set the whole thing up) and when they arrived, there was a team waiting for them.

Did they happen to be at the same hospital Tony had taken Steve to? Of course. Did he probably not think about the danger Bucky might prove to be? Obviously.

Tony and ‘not think’ went together like peanut butter and jelly. Most of the time, it was a delicious lunch food.

But sometimes there was a kid with an allergy and disaster struck.

Tony really did need to start thinking things through, and the blood in the hospital might be said to be entirely on his hands if and when it got spilled. Because he had created a perfect storm putting someone that fragile in the hands of others, with someone that set his fuse going nearby.

The first sign something was going wrong was when the surgeon working on Barnes came flying out of the OR at top speed with a scalpel embedded in his chest. Thankfully not deep enough to have hit the heart, but he was still bleeding badly and looked terrified.

Bucky was the next to emerge. He shouldn't even be able to stand, the mechanics of what was left of his arm half pulled apart, and blood everywhere, not to mention the anaesthetic they had given him. It didn't stop him, it barely even slowed him down. He didn't look or move like Bucky Barnes any more, he moved like a pure predator, expression hard and blank.

At this point, Tony just gave up. There was only so much compassion to be had and to be fair, he had almost none of it left. Luckily, this time he came prepared.

He’d have to pay some medical bills. He’d have to donate a lot of money to the hospital. And that was fine, generally, and he’d have to deal with that—. But later.

First, he needed to scoop Bucky up, easily done in his armor, and take him through a window that would cost a few thousand in repairs. And after that, he could drop him off somewhere quiet. And unpopulated.

“Enough!” Tony bellowed once he had landed too, scuffing up dirt into the air. “Steve will never forgive me if I kill you but you’re being unreasonable here!”

It wasn't about reason or logic, it wasn't about choice. It had just been too much all in one go to let him hold onto the tenuous grasp of humanity that he had cultivated - being captured, being taken to a medical institution, and then a stranger with tools stood over him trying to sedate him. It had been when the anaesthetic flooded his system, not enough to fell someone with serum because they hadn't known to adjust for that, that everything had flipped.

He hadn't meant to kill anyone, but he was running on autopilot.

He had protocols for situations like this and those had taken first place, and maybe it wasn't anyone's fault but he was like any other sufferer of PTSD that couldn't always control what they did. It was just that he happened to be significantly deadlier.

There was no response for Stark, he just attempted to wriggle free of his grip, throwing an elbow at his head to try and get him to let go.

Having had let him go, let him fall (albeit from a safe height), the fact that Bucky was still struggling and growling like an animal caused him to tackle the guy again. That was surprisingly hard to do in his armor. It was meant for ranged fighting, blasters and repulsed and rockets at the go, not wrestling. Luckily, Tony was capable of locking in his joints. And it would do just fine until he could get JARVIS to unleash something he had been working on for the last few years.

Veronica.

Technically, the satellite was mainly just to track Bruce Banner and deploy a Hulkproof (untested) cage should it be needed. But hey. It would give Bucky a chance to calm down and talk.

Or for Steve to wake up. And if Bucky managed to punch through vibranium alloy— Well there was always act two. Killing him.

Tony managed to get out of the way of the falling cage just in time, rolling to the side as JARVIS gave him the go sign in his HUD.

The sound of a vibranium alloy arm hitting a vibranium alloy cage reverberated through the whole area with a deep boom that could be felt down to the bones. But as much as the Soldier raged against his cage, and he raged so hard that he drew blood multiple times from himself, he couldn't bust out.

Bucky was safely contained.

But Tony would be surrounded by a group of paparazzi who had got wind of the fight and managed to get there fast, cameras flashing to get the money shot of Tony Stark aka Iron Man in front of this new cage.

"Iron Man! Mr. Stark! Can you tell us what happened here?"

At least they were pretty remote. Tony had done his best to get Bucky out of the city before he dropped him but the falling cage from the satellite had been enough to draw the media. Tony didn’t mind talking to them, though he deflected as best he could. There was no reason to explain all of this to them when it would put HYDRA before SHIELD could infiltrate them.

Thankfully, the one armed man inside the cage quieted after a moment.

“This is an experimental prototype. As you can see, our volunteer can’t get out. We’re looking to continue testing— I’ll take questions?”

He even stepped out of the armor to do it.

Natasha and SHIELD arrived before too long, cordoning off the area and leading the gathered media away. It would take time, time enough for Tony to be pretty sure that Bucky had more or less bled out in there.

Honestly, Steve should really thank him for that.

Time that would also allow Bucky to try and take control of his mind back. It was hard, really hard, due to where he was and the precarious nature of his situation. He was terrified of being trapped again, especially since he could hear from the outside that SHIELD were involved and that meant HYDRA were involved.

He needed to get out of here, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.

"Sir," that was JARVIS trying to subtly interject while his master finished ushering the press away now that they had all of the answers and photographs they wanted, successfully hoodwinked by his charming lies. "My sensors inside Veronica detect that Mr. Barnes wants to speak with you alone."

The tone of the AI's voice probably spoke louder than any words about what a dumb idea he thought that was, but Tony made his own decisions, he always had.

“So pipe me in,” Tony said, not really willing to get back in there. Bucky was a lot more trouble than he was worth. Now that SHIELD was even more involved, and there was still no word at all about Steve, Tony really just wanted to go back to the hospital and pay for that surgeon’s new sports car or vacation with his family and be done with it. But no.

No, he still had to deal with the guy’s old BFF.

How, exactly, was this fair?

Tony stepped back into the armor so that JARVIS could initiate the conversation. Tony didn’t have a way to project how unimpressed he was visually but the tone of his voice could give it away.

“Still alive? Oh well.”

Poor Tony, life just wasn't fair, was it?

Bucky jumped when he heard the voice come through to him, but thankfully he couldn't be seen and so he didn't have to be embarrassed at how hard he startled. He paced back and forth as he spoke, voice husky and low even through JARVIS' excellent speakers.

"I'm sorry," that was the most important thing. "Is he-- is the doctor alive? I don't remember much."

He just remembered the scalpel coming for him and then everything fading into panic and terror. "Listen, I'll talk to you. I'll tell you what you want to know, just please... please let me out, please let me go."

“You’re sort of a menace to society right now,” Tony snorted. “And I can’t trust you to let you out. I can’t even trust you to get the stump of the arm you cut off looked at.” You know he makes a valid point, Buck! “The surgeon is fine. Startled and probably too mad to ever be my standby guy again but you know what works wonders? Throwing some cash at problems. Tends to clear them up right away.”

He knew how it sounded. He didn’t care.

“What’s going to happen is that you’re going to stay in there until your bestie recovers. He’ll probably let you go because he’s a good guy and I’m not. But what would be really helpful is if you told us where you escaped from so we can shut whatever branch of HYDRA is up and running down.”

"No, you don't understand, they'll already be coming for me."

Bucky slammed his fists on the side of his metal cage, though more out of frustration than another genuine attempt at escape. He already knew he couldn't do that, so his only hope lay in getting Stark to understand just what he was risking by keeping him here.

"There is no branch, there is no small unit. SHIELD is HYDRA, they're the same thing, and if you leave me in here then they'll take me back and they'll use what your Mom helped develop to make me kill for them again."

Low blow, but he was desperate.

"I'll talk to you, I'll tell you anything, just please."

This was above Tony’s paygrade and he was pretty sure he had the top global salary at this point. He pinched the bridge of his nose (figuratively, considering his gauntlet couldn’t reach through his faceplate — yet, but that would be cool to work on!) and exhaled.

Bucky was only half as dangerous now as he was with two arms so he did them all a favor by cutting off the vibranium when he had in some sort of move to atone for Steve being gunned down or to keep Tony from tracking him again (ha). For that reason alone, and because Tony could no longer trust SHIELD or any of the government agencies it worked with, he suddenly had JARVIS collapse the Hulk cage dropped by Veronica and grabbed Bucky from inside of it.

Flying outside of the armor wasn’t fun. It was bumpy and Tony pulled some truly fantastic Gs when he wanted to. And this time, he did, banking and soaring as many times as it took for Bucky to go unconscious.

The former operative would wake up in a nice bed, surrounded by all sorts of machines cobbled together by a technical but not really a medical genius. His stump would be bandaged and there was a cup of now-cold tea on the table next to him (same side as the stump because Tony had an awful sense of humor.)

There was no where to go. Not on this island, though it was a few acres of space should Bucky want to try to hide. The armor was the only way off of here. And none but Tony could control that. Not even really good HYDRA hackers.

This really was proof that brains could triumph over brawn and that Stark was a much more formidable opponent than Bucky had given him credit for. Even while he had been tossed around by the sheer force of the armour flying through the air, he had been relieved. Whatever Stark chose to do with him, he had got him away from SHIELD for now, even if that meant he had to spill his guts it was a price worth it.

When he came around he was surprised to find his stump bandaged and that he wasn't in any pain. Low-level drowsy from painkillers; but warm, and rested, and safe. Even if he probably shouldn't get out of bed, he still slipped his feet over the side and used his one remaining hand to check for any weapons. He assumed they'd probably all be taken, but he needed to check.

"Hello?"

Low and wary. He assumed if this was a Stark run place, that AI with eyes everywhere would see and hear.

"Anyone here?"

It would not be Stark nor his British AI butler to answer the call, but a beep, at least at first, and just a hint of static. “Hey pal,” a familiar voice answered, distant and far away despite the technology in use here. Steve decided it would be better not to turn on the video capability of the app that Tony set his phone up with. He wasn’t really looking that great at the moment and Bucky seemed to be really averse to looking at him.

In the hospital a thousand or more miles away, Steve breathed in time with the machines keeping his fluids up. He’d be fine in a day or two but not even super soldiers were immune to a few bullets in the gut.

“Are you doing all right?” Yep. That would be Steve, worried more for his friend than himself, despite the damage that friend caused.

Bucky jerked around and nearly fell flat on his face when he heard the sound of Steve's voice, already half into a wary crouch before his brain caught up with him and he realised that the sound was distant and nobody was actually there. There must be a phone connection hooked up through the AI.

There was a very long pause as he tried to think through what to say. Somehow talking to Steve had pitfalls that didn't exist with anyone else.

"I shot you," was his eventual reply, utterly failing to respond to anything Steve had asked him. "You should've left before that. I warned you."

Steve had no notion of victim blaming in this regard, but he felt a little bit bitter when Bucky reminded him that he had been wrong about his friend. At least to a point. Bucky had ensured he wouldn’t die, that Steve had known before he crumpled and fell. He also knew that it was Bucky that brought him in for help. And yet, the man really had shot him.

Steve paused for a long while before he spoke again, voice tight.

“You didn’t have a reason to shoot me other than to shut me up. Punch to the face would have done the same with less chance of scarring.”

"I'm under orders to kill you."

Steve couldn't have known that, the poor bastard had thought Bucky was dead until a few days ago, but it was true. He couldn't know how often the Winter Soldier had stared down the scope of a sniper rifle at him, watching him, waiting for the perfect shot. He still didn't truly understand why he had never taken it, why something about that one particular order had broken the hold HYDRA had over him.

"I'm not safe to be around you, I can't know that I won't hurt you."

More than just a bullet that hadn't been intended to kill. "Besides, I don't remember you ever shutting up just 'cos you got punched in the face."

The sigh from the other end of the line is muted but amused. “You got me there,” Steve agreed, lifting his shirt to touch the entry wounds in his chest. “But if you’re under orders to kill me, you did a pretty crappy job of it. I’m rethinking making you our sharpshooter now.”

Only they could get a laugh and poke fun out of a botched (purposefully) assassination attempt.

“And the last time I looked, orders came from me. I outrank you, Sergeant.” Steve had been clued in about HYDRA. he’d read everything that Tony allowed him access to about the experiments and the behavioral papers.

It had been a tough read because it left a lot to the imagination. And artists have pretty terrible, nightmare-inducing imaginations.

Every time Steve spoke it was like a red hot knife in his brain prying loose fragments of memories. Like just now, he saw himself in a Sergeant's uniform, but only as Steve called him that. In his mind's eye he looked happy, cocky, not at all like a man who understood the first thing about war.

"I haven't been a Sergeant in a long time, pretty sure Sergeant Barnes is recorded as killed in action back in 1944. You haven't outranked me in a long time."

It was still a rebuttal, but a less fierce one, more weary than angry or aggressive.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, but you make my head spin."

“I went down in ’44 too, and I didn’t die either. You know that the Army gave me almost 90 years of backpay? And I still can’t afford to live in Brooklyn anymore.” He didn’t want to broach other topics right now. Getting Bucky talking, joking, maybe even laughing was mostly selfish. It made him feel better to have someone again.

Nat and Tony had been great sources of support and comfort but neither were Bucky. Natasha understood that…it was impossible to say what Tony did or did not understand, honestly. Steve had stopped trying pretty early on into their friendship.

“Maybe if we pool our money together, we can get a small place.”

Pipe dream. Most of Steve knew that was never going to happen.

“And then we can work on punching over shooting some more when I get on your nerves.”

The worst part of this was that a part of him really wanted that. Some long-buried bit of Bucky could hear how hard Steve was trying to hold himself together and desperately wanted to help, to take away some of that pain and burden. But he couldn't, he couldn't risk it because he didn't know what was in his head that might set off at any moment and make him into something that would do worse than put a misplaced bullet in Steve's gut.

"You don't need me to afford anything."

90 years of backpay, that'd buy something pretty much anywhere, even Brooklyn for all that it had changed since they lived there.

"And I can't stay with you, I have my own missions now, my own life. It doesn't involve you any more." Even if he wanted it to.

“If one of your missions involves me being your target, I’d say that I’m still part of your life.” Steve had carefully avoided saying that Bucky was supposed to kill him. He couldn’t abide by that thought at all and he hoped that it would hurt Bucky less. He knew it was likely part of this dehumanizing programming that made him think on two different levels, made him unable to manage anything without second guessing which side of himself he was using as the actor and which was a whisper from the past. “And even if it does,” he continued, “I want to be part of it.”

Why couldn’t he be? Because Bucky was dangerous? Yeah, he got that. He could adapt pretty well. He could manage it.

Steve was the safest person to be around. If Bucky snapped, he could take care of himself. And wasn’t this the very thing bullet proof vests were made for?

"You still don't know when to back off, do you?"

It was half weary and half fond, or as fond as he could get now. Steve made it sound so simple, like they could just pick back up where they left off and any issues would be easily solved without anyone potentially dying.

"Maybe you can be a part of it someday, but not now and not yet. Please, Steve, for once in your damn life back off and let me go."

Let him have his choice, and maybe he'll come around on his own one day.

For several long moments there was nothing but silence. “I did let you go once,” Steve said, exhaling enough to brush against the receiver in a puff of air. It might scratch against Bucky’s ear the same was that the breath itself would, and maybe the nostalgia of heat would come along with it. The mind could do funny things after all.

“I let you go and it was the worst moment of my life. You can’t ask me do it again.”

It was cruel to do that and though Bucky might not care so much about cruelty (he did shoot him), Steve was betting that the man beneath the layers really didn’t want to hurt him.

“I won’t come and see you. But I want to talk. Maybe not every day – unless you want that. But every few days. Just to talk. Can you give me that?”

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