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It had been a long night at the bar, rain was pouring down, and Bucky was at least eighty eight percent sure he’d heard a couple stones of hail coming down.
He wanted to go home. He wanted to walk right past whoever was groaning in that alleyway and go the fuck home.
But right about the time he was going to take a step past the entrance to the alley, right about the time he was thinking of all the ways he was going to make peace with how disappointed Steve would be in him right about now, a tiny piece of hail came down and punched right through his umbrella. Bucky stared up through the hole, thought about what kinda mark it would leave on a human skull, and sighed, turning around.
The groaning turned out to be a man, dark-haired, formerly well-dressed, and clutching a bottle of what looked like whiskey. Homeless, Bucky would have figured, if not for the quality of the suit and scarf he was wearing. “Hey,” he said gruffly, kicking at the man’s outstretched foot. “You okay?”
Dumb question. People in clothes like that didn’t generally tend to get themselves wasted in alleyways. Clearly the man had the same thought; he rolled his head up against the wall to stare at Bucky incredulously with eyes that were amazingly sharp for how much liquid in that bottle was gone.
The man looked vaguely familiar, and not in that ‘Oh it’s That Guy’ ways, because most guys didn’t come close to the level of ridiculousness this man’s facial hair was sitting at. At the moment, though, Bucky couldn’t place him.
“Can you walk?” he asked, and the man shrugged. “Only, I got an apartment ‘bout a block away and you’re gonna lose some brain cells if some of this hail finds you. At best.”
For some reason, the man started laughing; at least that’s what Bucky thought it was, the noises come out of that mouth weirdly choked. “Not really a joke,” he said flatly. He remembered Steve accusing him of not even being able to hear other people’s happiness and wondered, not for the first time, if Stevie wasn’t right about him. Who even gets irritated at a drunk guy’s hysterical laughter? “Look, you wanna come or you just a really big fan of brain damage and hypothermia?”
The man sobered - ha! - and looked up at him again, nodding and looking slightly expectant. Bucky sighed.
“Can you pick yourself up? See, I tend to run out of hands faster than most and I’m pretty attached to this umbrella right now.” He stepped forward, a little more in to the light, and saw the moment when the man saw his missing left arm.
For a long moment the man just stared at it, bringing a hand up to where the scarf was wrapped around his throat and rubbing, before he nodded again and began pushing himself up the wall, clumsily. “Leave the bottle,” Bucky said firmly, and the man just dropped it. “Alright, now c’mere.”
The man swayed into his left side, fitting neatly where his arm wasn’t. He was surprisingly warm, considering how soaked through his clothes were, but he was shaking.
“It’ll be alright,” Bucky found himself saying. Over and over. Like he did himself every night, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, praying this time he wouldn’t dream. “It’ll be alright.”
The man, who had been dubbed Mr. Jack Daniels in Bucky’s mind, was quiet all the way up the three flights of stairs to Bucky’s apartment, being led into Bucky’s apartment, and being left on a stool while Bucky went and retrieved him some dry clothes.
Bucky came back to find him shivering and drowsy on his kitchen countertop and sighed again, turning the man around and beginning to take off his coat. Mr. Jack allowed this without protest, but when Bucky reached for his scarf he came alive again, jerking hard and falling onto his ass and back. When his eyes opened again, they roved wildly until they found Bucky, and there was fear in them.
“Okay,” Bucky said, raising his hands. “I get it. Can you - can you do this yourself, then?” He gestured forward with the clothes, then laid them down and extended his hand. Mr. Jack took it, and together they levered him up to his feet. For a long moment the man didn’t let go, and Bucky didn’t either. He might have been a little touch-starved, but most days that was better than being touched.
This wasn’t so bad, though.
The moment passed, their hands dropped, and Mr. Jack picked up the clothes. Bucky pointed him towards the bathroom, although it wasn’t hard to find anything in an apartment the size of a shoebox, and the man disappeared.
When he reappeared the scarf was gone, but a towel was hung around his neck. The man was short and small enough that Bucky’s clothes practically swallowed him and it was almost cute. He almost wanted to smile. Almost.
“I put some linens down on the couch, you can bunk there tonight. Trashcan’s just there, please don’t hurl on the carpet.”
The man mouthed something, a brief flicker of grief crossing his face when nothing came out but a horrible grating noise. Probably coming down with a flu, with their collective luck.
“It’ll be alright,” Bucky said for the millionth time, patting the man on his shoulder as he went by. “I’ve been told by some reliable folk that everything looks better in the morning.” The skepticism in the man’s eyes made him want to grin again. “Yeah, but it never hurts to hope.”
He left to his bedroom, crawling under the covers there, and prayed to God that tonight was one where he didn’t wake up screaming.
Mr. Jack Daniels, of course, got sick.
One hundred and two degrees Farenheit and delirious sick.
Bucky kept him company, plying him with medicine he kept around for Steve, laying cool washclothes on his face and grabbing another one for the man to lay over his neck when Jack Daniels keeps moving them. He stayed in the room with him the three days his fever raged, holding his hand tightly whenever he cried out from the pain or the heat or whatever it was he saw when he dreamed.
He never spoke, not once, just grunted and groaned and mouthed things incessantly. But he always gripped Bucky’s hand tight whenever it found his.
“You’re gonna have to give me your name sometime soon,” he whispered to the man. “All this hand-holding and not even a name. I’m not that kinda guy, Mister.”
The joke felt strange coming out of him, the teasing smile that followed even stranger, but the man laughed that horrible, grating laugh again and released Bucky’s hand, tracing something into his palm, over and over.
After a few rounds of this, Bucky picked up a T, then an O, what felt like an N, and then a Y.
“Tony?” he said, and the man nodded. “I’m Bucky.” Tony wrinkled his nose. “Don’t judge me.”
Tony laughed again, and it descended into a cough. Bucky made to go to the kitchen, but he was held fast. S, Tony traced into his hand. T. A. Y.
Stay.
“I will,” Bucky said, settling down to the floor, his shoulders against the inferno that was Tony’s left side, his right hand holding Tony’s left where it hung over his shoulder. He turned on the TV, the volume on low. “You know its nice. Not to be alone.”
He didn’t know where it came from, but Tony just held on even tighter.
On Day Four, he found Tony sitting up on the couch, blankets drawn up to his lap, staring straight ahead. His color looked normal, finally, not the pale, drawn tone or the flushed red he had vacillated between the last few days. His hair was disgusting and his beard was growing out around the Van Dyke, but he looked healthy for the first time.
Bucky didn’t know why that made his heart sink.
“You wanna take a shower?” he asked. Tony nodded, not lifting his eyes. “It’s no problem.”
Tony nodded again and, after drapping his used towel around his neck again, headed to the bathroom.
When he came out Bucky was making busy making breakfast, the most rudimentary scrambled eggs and toast known to man. When he looked up, Tony was dressed once again in his suit and tie. They were wrinkled and creased, but he wore the look better than most people wore tuxedos.
Bucky turned back around. “So you’re all set then?” he asked to the eggs, determinedly not examining why the thought made him panic a bit.
It was silent.
“If you’ve got laryngitis or something, I’ll point you to the nearest hospital.”
The yolks sizzled in the pan.
He turned again; Tony’s hand was at his neck, massaging it through the scarf. He was looking everywhere but Bucky. “You’re mute,” Bucky said, more harshly than he meant.
Tony’s wide eyes looked at him, and slowly, Tony nodded. There is a split second where Bucky hesistated, and then he turned the burners on low and headed to the beat up secretary left over from his folks’ house, retrieving one of Steve’s old drawing pads and a pen. He dumped it in front of Tony and went back to the eggs, plating them and bringing them over just to see Tony glaring at the pen.
“I know sign language,” Bucky offered. In response Tony sighed and picked up the pen. “You don’t?” Tony shook his head. “How long have you been like this?”
Not long, Tony wrote, in neat block print. Thank you for helping me.
“You’re welcome. What happened?”
Are we going to swap stories here? Tony pointedly stared at Bucky’s stump and Bucky flushed at the idea of having to spit out the sand and the blood and the fear that went with that story.
“Point taken.”
A pause while Tony just stared at the pad, and then: There was an accident.
“You don’t have to tell me.” Tony nodded once more, a hand back at his throat, uncomfortable, and something in him ached to see it. Remembered those months he couldn’t even go outside once he got back stateside. “Likewise.”
Another nod, and they both began in on the food. Tony ate like it hurt him; Bucky had noticed that before during his sickness but pinned it down to a sore throat. Now he wondered what was under that scarf. “You got someplace to go?”
Tony’s lips did this funny thing where one half quirked and one half frowned. He picked up his pen and wrote You kicking me o- before he seemed to think better of it and stopped, crossing the old stuff out.
“There’s no rush,” Bucky said, his words tripping over themselves getting out like if he didn’t say it fast enough something terrible would happen. “But it’s a small apartment.”
It’s nice.
“I think your suit could pay for it about three times over.”
Not anymore.
Bucky thought that this guy - he probably used to be really funny. Sarcastic, mouthy even. It was strange, to find yourself mourning something you never even knew about. He wondered what Tony’s voice used to sound like.
Let me stay.
Bucky blinked at the words that had appeared on the pad. Tony looked panicked, clearly debating about crossing them out, but Bucky blurted out “What?” before he could lift the pen again. Tony’s shoulders hunched, then squared, and he met Bucky’s eyes while he wrote blind.
I’ll pay you.
“I don’t have-”
1000 a week.
Bucky choked on nothing. One thousand dollars a week? He was barely getting by right now as it was - while Natasha might find a one-armed bartender to be a nice novelty, most people weren’t willing to hire someone with that kind of disability - four thousand dollars a month could seriously help out.
Tony took his hesitance as a no. He mouthed something, that grating sound coming out again, and picked up the pen. Please. Don’t make me-
He stopped, dropped the pen, pushed away from the counter and stood, going for his coat, but Bucky’s eyes were glued on that last sentence. Messier than the rest, pressed harder into the paper. Don’t make me.
It had been nice. Not being alone anymore.
“Okay,” he said, and Tony froze in the act of putting on his jacket. “You can stay. But if you want your own bed you’ll have to buy a pull-out yourself.”
Tony turned back to him, his big brown eyes gleaming brightly for a moment before it fell behind a practiced smile. He came back to the countertop, reaching over it with his hand outstretched.
Bucky took it, shaking. Missing it a little when Tony let go.
Tony bought himself a futon, instead, and a tiny wardrobe filled with a small amount of clothing. He also handed Bucky two thousand dollars and two bags of groceries.
“Who are you?” Bucky asked him incredulously, and Tony stared at him for a long moment before just shaking his head. He had bought himself a cheap smart phone from whatever store he went to and was currently testing out it’s text-to-speech function.
“No one important,” Tony typed, a flash of pain crossing his face. He mouthed something else, but didn’t type it. Didn’t matter; Bucky had been friends with a semi-deaf guy for years. You learned a thing or two about reading lips. Not anymore, Tony hadn’t said.
Bucky wanted to teach him ASL, but his own skills were woefully out of practice. He fidgeted with his own phone for an entire day before decided to suck it up, dialing a number he hadn’t called in - months, now. Almost a year. Since he had gotten the diagnosis, for sure.
“This is a surprise,” was the first thing Clint said when he picked up, his voice making it quite obvious he was fighting not to sound unfriendly. “How long has it been, Buck?”
“Awhile,” Bucky mumbled.
There is a long pause, and then Clint sighed. “You okay?”
“’M fine, but I…” Bucky thought about Tony and the way his eyes were so red this morning. “I need your help. Well, I know someone who does. Can you come by?”
“Sure,” Clint said immediately, and something in Bucky wanted to cry at the quick response. God he didn’t deserve it. A year of no contact, and here Clint was, ready to help.
“Thank you,” he got out, and hung up.
Clint froze at the sight of Tony, and Tony, upon seeing this, did the same. It would have been a bit funny if not for the wide-eyed panic in Tony’s gaze.
“Clint, this is Tony.”
“I know,” Clint croaked, and Tony laughed. Not the horrible grating laugh that meant he was genuinely amused, but the other laugh, still grating but higher pitched, that meant he was nervous or scared.
“Tony, this is Clint. I thought he could help you. Teach you sign.” Tony whipped his head around to face Bucky, taking several steps back, almost into the corner, hand at his throat. He shook his head rapidly, over and over. “Tony, I know you don’t know it. You need to face this-”
Tony’s face screwed up tightly, and he rapidly mouthed something, forgetting himself and letting a series of grunts escape him. Bucky took a few steps forward, hand outstretched and reaching for Tony’s, needing to anchor him, both of them, when Clint stepped in.
“Tony,” he said, the name coming off his tongue awkwardly. “You think you could do me and Buck a favor here and give us the room.”
Tony threw his hands up in the air and stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him, and Clint whirled on Bucky. “What the fuck, man?”
“What?” Bucky asked.
“Why is Tony Stark in your house?” Clint hissed.
“What?!” Tony Stark had been all over the news a couple of months ago, having barely survived an ambush in Afghanistan. He had released a statement to the press proclaiming Stark Industries imminent shutdown of their weapons development, but Obadiah Stane, COO, had soon assured the public that Tony was being hasty and recovering from his trauma, and Stark dropped out of the public eye.
And into an alleyway outside Bucky Barnes’ apartment, apparently. “I…didn’t know it was him,” Bucky whispered, sitting down.
“Obviously,” Clint snorted. “Okay. Sure. You’ve just taken in a runaway billionaire. Fine. Still doesn’t excuse you springing me on him like that.”
“I’m trying to help him,” Bucky said fiercely. Clint raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah? And how well do you take it every time Steve or Sam or I tell you to go to a fucking meeting or take your fucking pills, Buck? Because we’re just trying to help you.”
“That’s different,” Bucky growled, pushing back into the futon. It smelled like Tony, even though Tony had been using his body wash for the past week.
“How do you figure that?”
“What happened to me - I’ll get over it. Tony is stuck like this, Clint. He needs this. He’s been writing to me on notebook paper or using his phone. It’s not enough. Tony needs the connection, he needs his words to match the speed of his thoughts. He’s-” Editing himself around me, Bucky almost said, but that would mean admitting how much he wanted Tony to not be so guarded and cautious. Or so sad.
“This wasn’t fair to him, Buck, and you know it,” Clint said, shaking his head. “You - you can’t take care of him, man.” You can’t even take care of yourself, he thankfully didn’t say.
“What do you want me to do, kick him out? I’m not going to do that.”
“He’s a billionaire, Barnes, he can hire a goddamned-”
The bathroom door flew open and both men shut up; from the look on Clint’s face he too was realizing that they had allowed their voices to rise in the last few minutes.
They all three stared at each other for almost a minute before Bucky dropped his head. “Tones, I’m sorry.”
There was another long pause and then he heard Tony rustling around. A beat of silence and then the text-to-speech app jerkily asked “Can I pay you?”
“What?” Bucky startled, looking up, but Tony’s eyes were on Clint. Clint held up a hand, forestalling any other comments Bucky had, and nodded.
Tony jerked his head sharply in agreement and came forward to shake Clint’s hand sharply. Clint pointedly gave Bucky a look that definitely meant he’d be telling all of this to Steve, and then left.
There was an oppressive silence in his tiny living room as Bucky and Tony didn’t look at each other.
“I really am sorry,” Bucky whispered. “I - I wanted to help. But I should know, better than anyone-”
“Can I sit?” The robotic voice asked and Bucky found his eyes tracing the tired lines of Tony’s face before he nodded.
Tony sat, put down the phone, and lifted his hands to his scarf. He unwrapped it once, twice, before Bucky realized what was happening.
“Tony, you don’t have to-”
The scarf fell away, and Bucky lost the rest of his words, the power of speech entirely. Tony’s neck was dotted with deep, knotted scars, some of them looking like puncture wounds while some ran across the skin for several centimeters. His handed lifted before he could stop himself, and he found himself tracing the highest one, under which must lay Tony’s severed vocal cords.
When he looked up Tony’s face was drawn tight, and shame roiled within him, thinking of the kid he almost decked once for daring to touch one of the scars that reached high onto his left shoulder. “’M sorry,” he said, making to move his hand, but Tony caught and held it there. His pulse beat wildly, and Bucky wanted to - move away, to get closer, to help.
He used to be able to help people.
They sat there for a long time, until Tony’s face relaxed, until he was leaning into Bucky’s hand, and then his eyes opened, focused on Buck and not scared or hidden for the first time but bright. Then he reached for the pad on the table and a pen, and began writing. He wrote for a long time.
There was an accident. Well, not so much accident so much as. I don’t know. Vengeance, I’d bet, and I always win bets. The convoy I was riding in got attacked by insurgents using my weapons. I don’t know how they got there, I don’t know if they were stolen or
See I later found out that my company was dealing under the table. But that’s getting a bit ahead of myself sorry.
Anyway, the men and woman protecting me died right in front of me, as did most of the convoy. I was supposed to protect them too, you know. In a weird peripheral way, but that was my job. But they got killed with weapons that I built. I nearly died too. Got caught near a Stark 7X54 missile that luckily had a delayed response. I hid behind a rock but I guess not well enough. I still don’t know what happened. My best friend Rhodes brought in back up after that and they got me out of there. I nearly died in surgery about eight times.
I came back and tried to shut it all down but I can’t - I can’t talk. The moment I needed my voice heard the most and I couldn’t even do that. Obie Stane shut me out. Got the board to kick me out, buy me out. He took everything.
And I guess I let him.
I can’t go back.
“So you’re just going to run?” Bucky asked. Tony stared at the words he had written but didn’t add anything more. “Look, you can stay as long as you need. But don’t just give up.”
Tony remained unmoving, except for the hand he intertwined in Bucky’s.
Bucky was dreaming.
He knew, theoretically, that he was dreaming. That he wasn’t back in the sand and blood and gunfire. That the helicopter coming for him had already come, that he wasn’t losing blood out of the torn up hole where his arm used to be because it was all healed over now. But it still felt so real. He screamed and thrashed and cried out. For his mother, for his Steve, he had been such a coward in that moment. So fucking weak.
He wondered sometimes if it was shame that kept him here, even more than the fear.
But this part was new. The soldier with him in the helicopter, stroking his forehead, making soft, off-key crooning noises. The blanket over him wasn’t the stiff coarse shock blanket he remembered but his down comforter from his bedroom. The gurney underneath him was his mattress.
The soldier was Tony, sitting above him, stroking his forehead softly. He eased back and away when he saw Bucky was awake, but kept a point of contact.
A light lit up the small room and Tony began tapping away. “You were screaming,” the robot said. “I wanted to help.”
“Thanks,” Bucky gasped.
“I have bad dreams, too,” Tony confessed. “But I can’t-” He abruptly turned the phone off, ducking his head.
Bucky suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what he was going to type next was ‘scream.’
I can’t scream.
His damaged vocal cords probably didn’t even allow him to reach that kind of volume or pitch. And all Bucky could think about now was how many nights Tony had lain out there, a scream caught in his scarred throat.
Tony must have seen something in his face, because his hands were suddenly back, stroking at Bucky’s face and side.
“There was an accident,” Bucky began. They both stiffened. Bucky had never talked about this before to anyone, but he felt like Tony could understand. “Orders got mixed up. Go this way, and then too late, there’s a trap waiting there, turn back. We walked straight into it. Lost my arm to a grenade. I don’t remember losing the arm. I remember…the helicopter, coming down for me and one other kid, who was already fucking dead, I can’t. The sound of it, though. Coming for me. Like death, closer and closer. Sometimes planes fly overhead and all I can think is that ‘it’s time.’ And sometimes I’m so fucking grateful. But then they’re gone.”
Tony’s hand have tightened minutely on him, and Bucky shuddered. He wasn’t going to cry. It was over, it was done with, and one day he would be done with it too. “I’m sorry.”
The phone lit up. “Don’t be. Don’t ever be sorry. I. I understand. I remember. Things.” A pause, and then, almost nonsensical, the voice added. “Whistling.”
Bucky nodded. Bullets moved so fast through the air they actually made a whistling sound sometimes. “Maybe you should stay in here with me, so I can wake you up.”
Tony stared at him, his hand at Bucky’s cheeks stroking slowly, before he pointed upwards with his phone. Bucky’s brow wrinkled in confusion and Tony began typing. “Maybe you should stay out there. With me. The ceiling fan might be triggering you.”
Bucky looked up at the fan, watching the blades of it spin around and around, the hum of it in the air. He closed his eyes. “Jesus fuck.”
Tony stood, holding out a hand, and led Bucky out to the futon.
Bucky played this game with Tony where he tried to conduct entire conversations through just their eyes. He wasn’t sure Tony fully understood the game, but he always seemed perfectly content to lose half an hour or more staring into Bucky’s eyes.
Tonight, laying on the futon, he wasn’t playing.
“What’s wrong, doll?” Bucky asked sleepily. Tony huffed a little, as he had since Bucky had started using the ‘ridiculous nickname,’ but rolled over to face him and lifted his hands.
Slowly, clumsily, he signed out: “Will you go somewhere with me tomorrow?”
“Can I ask where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Which was how they found themselves at 890 5th Avenue, the old Stark mansion, Tony leading him down into the basement.
The lights came on the moment Tony led him inside the wide, metal-paned room, and Bucky felt his mouth drop. It looked like a science lab out of the movies, all lab tables and machines and computers.
“Sir?” A voice asked from the ceiling, cool and British and sounding a little frantic. “Mr. Stark. You have been gone for 29 days. Welcome back.”
Bucky turned to Tony, so many questions filling his mouth he was worried he would be unintelligible once he finally got one out, but the look on Tony’s face stopped him. He was staring at the ceiling, his mouth pressed so firmly shut it was just a pale pink slash across his face, his eyes wide and miserable. And Bucky realized why Tony had stayed away so long.
Tony couldn’t be normal, like he was before. He couldn’t talk to that voice. Bucky thought of Steve saying he couldn’t bear anyone’s happiness, Clint’s hidden resentment at being ignored for months, and how he never meant any harm, he just couldn’t be like he was for them.
“Tony had an accident that damaged his vocal cords,” he said out loud, and Tony turned to look at him surprised.
“I was aware Sir had been injured but not to the extent,” the voice said, sounding slightly shocked. “I am JARVIS, Mr. Stark’s personal user interface. And you are.”
“Bucky Barnes. So hey, listen…JARVIS. You know ASL?”
The voice was quiet for a moment and then said. “I shall endeavor to learn, of course.”
Tony dropped his head, his shoulders shaking just once, before bringing out his phone. “Hey J,” the little robotic voice said.
“Hello sir. It is good to see you again.”
Tony nodded to the floor, then turned to Bucky. “That’s actually not why I brought you here,” he signed, and walked into a small adjoining bathroom, reemerging with two small pill bottles after a few moments.
“Tony,” Bucky began, but Tony just shook his head, setting down the pills so he could sign. One was for anxiety, one for depression. Bucky recognized them well. There were two sister bottles sitting on a shelf back home; different brands, same purpose, never opened. Tony’s weren’t either.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Tony signed. “But I’m a damn coward.”
Bucky stepped towards him. “I don’t think that at all,” he said fiercely.
“But you,” Tony continued like Bucky hadn’t said anything. “Make me want to be brave. I didn’t want to leave after that first week because I didn’t want to be alone. And maybe you want the same. Maybe we could do this. Together.”
Part of Bucky wanted to be angry. Part of him wanted to throw the bottles and this lab and that fucking voice in Tony’s face, point out that he had never been alone. That he had always had help and he’d thrown it away and who was he to make Bucky his crutch?
“I'm sorry. I didn’t want to move on because that would mean there was something wrong,” Tony signed, not meeting Bucky’s eyes. “And I didn’t want to move on because if I fixed what was wrong, I wouldn’t have an excuse. But now I’m stuck. You told me not to run, but I don’t want to stay there anymore.” He took a deep breath and looked at Bucky, carefully, hopefully. “I want to stay with you.”
Bucky stared back - thought of everything he was so conscious of everyday: the absent weight of his arm, the absent weight of Steve at his side, ceiling fans and cars backfiring and going outside and being happy. And Tony. Tony at night, in the dark, carrying on conversations with eyes. Tony in the sun, laughing that horrible grating laugh that didn’t grate at all. Tony who wasn’t better either, but would try, if only Bucky would help.
Bucky used to be able to help people.
More importantly, Bucky used to be able to be helped. And he wasn’t-
“I’m not okay,” he said softly, and Tony nodded with a sympathetic twist to his mouth. “You can always stay with me,” he said next, taking one step, and then another. “No charge. God, most people would say this is unhealthy.”
“It’s not for you, narcissist,” Tony signed, trembling, his smirk bleeding into a smile and then back again. “I made a promise to a soldier.” A moment where his hands fluttered at Bucky’s shoulders then pulled away. “We can be not okay together. We’ll cancel each other out.”
“Don’t know if that’s how mental health works,” Bucky said, hands on Tony’s waist. “But let’s give it a shot.”
“Can we go back?” he asked Tony some time later that week. Tony looked at him. “To your workshop.”
Tony grinned. “You liked it, huh?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Bucky shot back. “After every meeting.” It was a little manipulative, but then again, so had Tony’s ploy with the pills been. Tony had looked alive in that workshop like he hadn’t anywhere else.
Tony rolled on top of him, catching his eye, and Bucky almost regretted those long nights they spent conversing in flicks of their eyelids and sideways glances. After a moment, Tony kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose and sidled down to his chest to curl up there comfortably, dropping off to sleep.
“That better be a yes,” Bucky warned, and relished in the vibration of Tony’s sleepy chuckle.
In the workshop, designs began appearing on the holographic computer screens. Prosthesis, collars that would measure and interpret the vibration of vocal cords, cochlear implants. Tony said nothing, so Bucky didn’t either, but he hoped Tony didn’t think he didn’t notice him measuring up the stump of his arm late at night. No amount of kisses was covering up that mad scientist gleam in his eyes.
“You know, when Clint told me about this, I thought you lost your mind,” Steve said, then blanched a little. “Uh, sorry.”
“Stop tip-toeing, punk,” Bucky laughed. They watched as Tony and Clint flapped their hands at each other in between rounds of Mario Kart, signed cursed words flying through the air. “’S not like you.”
“Well, then.” Steve took a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Bucky shrugged. “I’m not, you know. Might not ever be.”
Steve opened his mouth, maybe to argue, and then he closed it, contemplative. After a moment, he nodded. “You’re not, you’re right. I’m glad you’re here, Buck. And I’m even glad you found him, even if he keeps calling me Cap.” Bucky barked out a laugh and Steve punched him. “I don’t even look like Captain America!”
“Yes, you do!” Sam called from the couch, and Tony nodded vigorously.
“He’s a comic book character!”
“You’re a comic book character,” Tony signed over his head, and Steve sighed.
Bucky opened the door to find a redheaded woman, beautiful and taller than him in her five-inch heels, fuming on their doorstep. “Where is he?” she snapped, pushing past him.
Tony stood up from where he had been sitting at the coffee table, which was absolutely covered with machine parts, and with the collar prototype he had just finished a week ago said: “Hello Pep.”
Pepper Potts, who Tony had described in great detail and had impossibly done justice to, promptly burst into very angry tears. She walked to Tony, slapped him across the face, and then hugged him tightly, not even caring about the grease she was getting all over her salmon pantsuit.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she nearly wailed. “I had to hear it from Rhodey! Do you know what Stane has been doing over there? I’ve barely been able to keep him in line - you just walked away!”
Tony flinched hard, but a big part of Tony’s therapy had been admitting guilt, accepting guilt, and then letting it go. “I’m sorry. Truly, Pepper. I was an ass.”
“Yes, you were,” she said. And then: “I missed you.”
Tony smiled. “I missed you, too. This is Bucky, by the way. My partner.”
“In crime?” Pepper asked, one eyebrow raising. Tony held out a hand and Bucky took it immediately.
“In everything,” Tony said. Pepper looked between the two of them, gobsmacked for a moment, and then sighed.
“You’ll tell me later. Over tequila. And shoes, Tony.”
Tony laughed and Bucky was afraid Pepper might burst into tears again; it really was a horrible sound if you didn’t know what it was, but it was Bucky’s favorite. “I hate to cut to business, Miss Potts,” Tony said when he calmed down. He had to correct the translation from the collar at one point with sign language and made a note on his little pad filled with code and calculations. “But I need your help.”
“To take Stark Industries back?” Pepper said, eyes flinty.
Tony shook his head, to both their surprises. “No. To give Stark Industries to someone who can handle it. You.”
Pepper was speechless once more, her eyes darting all over Tony’s face like she was waiting for the joke, but when it never came, her eyes narrowed. “And what will you be doing?”
Tony squeezed Bucky’s hand, and smiled.
Tony was out more and more often, working on his surprise like Bucky couldn’t read a newspaper and see all about the renovations happening at the old Stark mansion. Bucky missed him, but tried to trust his therapist.
“This will be good for you,” Dr. Blake had said. “I know you’ve been worried about this relationship being built on co-dependence. Well, here’s your chance to test that out. Tony will try to go his own way for a bit; I suggest you do the same.”
So Bucky had gone out with his friends to take his mind off the several job applications he had sent out to various industries across the city. Before the army, and especially during, he had been sort of a savant in acquiring supplies and negotiating trades. He liked business, even if he didn’t always have a head for the numbers side of it. He’d never gone to school, but if he could find a job that set him on the path while he worked at college, he might be finally on his way to finding a career.
Steve, Sam, and Clint thought that kind of decision was worth celebrating in itself, so they went out. And he had found himself laughing, even if his guard never quite dropped. He had been happy, even without Tony being there.
He had missed Tony. Wanted him. But he didn’t need him there to function. It was honestly a bit of a relief to realize that, but Sam had said it was completely normal when he had confessed.
“Nobody wants to realize they pinned all their chances of getting better on another person, Buck. Not only is it not fair to that person, but no matter how much you love or trust them, you’ll never lose the fear of what happens if they leave.”
Now he let himself into their tiny apartment, breathed in the smell of Tony’s expensive cologne and the shampoo he had finally bought for himself because Bucky’s ‘love affair with eucalyptus was indecent and I need to find my own sidepiece’ and smiled at the suits and ties and shoes strewn all over the place.
They were going to have to move soon.
They were never getting rid of that futon though.
He took deep breaths as he crossed the room, into his bedroom that served as a closet for both of them now. He flicked on the switch for the ceiling fan and slowly lowered himself onto the bed.
Immersion was advised at this stage, but even Dr. Blake would frown upon this. Still, he had to know.
The blades spun. Bucky’s chest tightened. But he counted back and forth, he remained aware of the feel of the blanket underneath him, the noises of the city.
He survived, but that wasn’t good enough for him anymore.
He left the room, just as Tony was getting back for the night. “Sweetheart,” Tony signed, excited, smiling wide, nearly jumping into his arms. He frowned a little at Bucky’s face. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, smiling.
“Good.” Tony signed, then pushed him back onto the futon, fiddling with the side to lay it down flat and then straddling Bucky. “Because Pepper is ninety two percent sure she has enough to nail Stane to the wall and I signed a very nice deal and you are smiling and here and hot and-”
“Too fast, Tones!” Bucky laughed, Tony’s hand nearly blurring.
“I love you,” Tony signed, deliberately and obnoxiously slow.
“I love you too, ass.”
Tony pouted. “No celebratory sex for you.” Bucky laughed again and simply rolled them over.
It was raining when he met Tony on the sidewalk. The other man had no umbrella and was rapidly getting soaked to the bone, but from the smile on his face he didn’t care.
There was no scarf this time, Tony’s scars there to see for all the paparazzi and news reporters lined up around them. No bottle either. Tony hadn’t touched one in months.
“We keep meeting like this,” Tony said through the first edition of the SmartSpeak necklace. Bucky smiled, and smoothly they maneuvered so Tony grabbed the umbrella and Bucky’s free hand at the same time. Anchoring them together, like always.
A bit of sun was beginning to peak through the clouds, creating rainbows everywhere. Bucky snorted inwardly; Tony lived an oddly charmed life like that.
“Ready for the tour?” Tony asked.
“Sure, but make it snappy,” Bucky teased. “My lunch hour’s only an hour long.”
“Abandoned for work,” Tony said, hand over his heart. “I’m losing my touch.”
They opened the gates and the crowd clapped, following after Tony and Bucky as they passed under the sign that read ‘Stark Resilient.’
“Your boss will give you a break,” Tony said, leading them all into the transformed Stark Mansion, now Stark Labs, the bottom floor transformed into a small, homey, but industrious lab space that would fit only about fifty scientists. They were their own branch of Stark Industries, headed by the man himself, to work on medical devices to ease the lives of those with disabilities.
Upstairs, though, things had remained the same for the most part, though Tony had switched out the bed in the master bedroom, adamantly refusing to sex Bucky up in his parents’ old bed. The crappy wardrobe he had bought was there, Bucky’s dinky stools set up in the kitchen they had replaced one of the bedrooms with, their shampoos side by side in the bathroom.
And the futon, in the corner of their room, getting more of a workout than it should for two men who had access to 2000 thread count sheets and the best mattress money could buy.
Next week, they were getting a dog.
“After all, it’s not everyday his employee gets a new arm,” Tony finished, smiling as they headed into one of the labs.
For a second the thrum of the machines pulled him in, and out, and he thought about the sand and blood. He probably would never stop thinking about it. But Tony’s hand was in his, skin against skin, and Bucky wasn’t alone.
“Hey,” he said, pulling Tony around. “I’m proud of you.”
Tony smiled, leaning back a little so he could sign “You, too” before pulling Bucky into a kiss.
Yeah. They could stay here.