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Tony found it.
One of those afternoons digging through the embarrassing amount of stuff (because he’d promised Pepper that he would make a serious and concerted effort to deal with the stuff) and there was this one box that he’d been ignoring for a while because it had his father’s handwriting on the outside and he just… yeah it could wait for another day.
There was always a box of stuff belonging to the late great Howard Stark littered somewhere about the building, on the basis that it wouldn’t do to have them all in one place like a large cardboard shadow looming over them all. Better to split it down, split it up, and then Tony could deal with it a little bit at a time. But as much as he kept putting it off, there had been a lot to sort out after the big “oh hey SHIELD is actually Hydra” debacle, and all the fantastic shitty fallout in the aftermath. Sorting through their crap was even less fun than filtering through Howard’s stuff, so today was non-descript box number 843’s lucky day.
“MICROSONIC TRANSCEIVER” the box proclaimed proudly, and Tony rolled his eyes because there was a set of words that meant precisely nothing but would have sounded all flashy and wow to the uneducated masses that hung on his father’s every word. The papers on the top looked thoroughly boring, scattered with Howard’s short hand. It looked as though Howard had been in the middle of developing something, some sort of primitive miniature bug. Bugs had been around back in the war – even the man on the street could quip about their use in certain houses of ill repute in Berlin. Hell only knew what Howard had been thinking when trying to take covert recording devices to the next step, and to be quite honest Tony didn’t rightly care.
All Tony had to do was establish that the contents were unlikely to explode, be a massive breach of national security if they (accidentally) ended up on the proverbial kerb, or be of any kind of interest to certain museums who were always sniffing around for a fresh titbit for some display or other, and then he could get rid of the whole… hello.
Underneath the papers, and the mass of wires and crumbling items of Christ-knew-what, there were a couple of reels of tape right at the bottom of the box.
CAPTSRSGTJB TEST 05/23/44
“Jarvis, do we have a reel-to-reel in the building?” Curiosity may well have killed that cat, but Tony had a few lives left, surely. And sue him, he wanted to know what Howard would have thought worth keeping. Eyeing the first six letters of the fascinating scrawl, he had a rough idea, and much to Tony’s surprise that only made him more curious. Funny how these things worked.
Of course there was a reel-to-reel; he was Tony Stark, and soon DUM-E and U were wheeling it in. He set everything up, before hopping up onto his workbench, preparing to be wowed. There were a few seconds of silent hissing, and then he almost choked on a blueberry as his father’s voice filtered through the room as though he was standing right there.
“…ts really quite simple,” the ghost of Howard Stark broke through the silence of the lab, mid-sentence. “I’m just looking for levels so just say something, anything.” It wasn’t the voice Tony remembered, though it took him a moment to work out what was different. It was a more youthful tone, a tighter accent. This was Howard before the end of the war, the marriage and the alcoholism. Tony hadn’t even been a glint in his father’s eye at this point.
“I don’t know,” and that was Cap, Tony clapped and crowed because he knew it, he fucking knew it. “You just want me to talk?” He sounded doubtful, like good ol’ Howard was leading him up the garden path and taking him for a ride.
“Oh, come on now, Steve,” a third voice Tony didn’t recognise suddenly broke it. “Test the nice man’s machine.”
There was a snort on the tape and huh. Go figure. Capsicle actually knew how to laugh! Well wasn’t that a turn up for the books.
“You know, all I can think about is that slogan,” Cap cleared his throat. “Each bond you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun!” Oh it was Christmas come early! Tony was going to have that as his ringtone. He was going to set that up to go off in meetings, in the supermarket, at every available opportunity.
“Oh boy!” the other guy was laughing, a bark that was deep and warm. “Well you sure convinced me. I’m gonna go out and buy a hundred of those bonds now, you just see if I don’t!”
There was some background noises, some scuffling and then, distantly, Howard telling them to keep going.
“How do radio people do this on a daily basis?!” Cap’s voice was quieter, like he was talking more to himself.
“Hey, Steve,” Tony found himself leaning forward, caught up in the almost conspiratorial tone of Mystery Man Number Three. “Do you inhale?”
For a moment Tony was completely mystified, and he almost missed Steve’s muttered “Buck…” in response.
“Of course you do!” the voice crowed, all smooth like a pathé voice over. “Lucky Strike has dared to raise this vital question because certain impurities concealed in even the finest, mildest tobacco leaves are removed by Luckies' famous purifying process."
Oh right, so this was the 1944 version of someone in 2000 shouting “wazzuuuuup” down the phone; a little nugget of popular culture that meant precisely nothing to Tony, and wow he had not expected those tables to have been turned!
There was clicking on the tape, the sound of fingers snapping to a rhythm.
“Oh, no… no way,” Cap’s voice was light, his protests about as convincing as those newsreels of him punching Hitler.
“Pepsi Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces that’s a lot,” it wasn’t Cap singing and it certainly wasn’t Howard. The clicking continued, and to Tony’s surprise, Cap joined in for the third line. “Twice as much for a nickel too; Pepsi Cola is the drink for you!”
Oh… this was gold, absolute gold. They were behaving like kids, placed in front of a microphone and reciting old radio adverts, and dammit Cap was laughing. Steve was laughing, the actual Steve Rogers, a breathy huff of laughter as Mystery Man moved on from adverts and launched straight into a Daffy Duck impression.
“I’ve met a lot of wise quackers... but you are dethpicable!”
Oh shit. Something at the back of Tony’s mind just clicked because of course he knew who that was. Fucking hell, some genius he was if he couldn’t put one and one together and come up with James Barnes.
Well, well, well.
But before he could berate his slowness too much, Tony almost fell off the workbench because unless he was very much mistaken Steve Rogers, Captain Stick-Up-His-Ass, who never so much as pretended to crack a smile at any of Tony’s thoroughly hilarious jokes; Steve Rogers was pulling off a perfect Mickey Mouse voice.
“Aw, gee, Bucky, that’s not very nice.”
Tony changed his mind; that was what he wanted as a ringtone.
The recording just descended from there into Cap and his faithful Sergeant pulling voices; Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and even Donald Duck. The Winter freaking Soldier doing an actual Donal Duck impression, Tony could hardly breathe.
And dammit Tony wanted more. But the tape ran out, right in the middle of Steve laughing. Tony couldn’t help it, he sprung off the bench towards the player as if he could somehow force it to continue.
This was… wow. This was huge. Howard couldn’t possibly have known when he’d discarded this little box of dust and nonsense just what it would mean seventy-odd years later. What had happened in the interim, especially to the guy trying to get his best friend and CO to crack up on the tape… Shit.
After everything that had happened, with SHIELD and Hydra and the helicarriers; all of that was to come, while these echoes on a couple of yards of tape laughed, even in the middle of war.
Tony ended up playing it three more times before calling Pepper. Initially she wasn’t very impressed at being pulled away from whatever, no-doubt devastatingly important, task she had been wrapped up in just to come down to the lab to hear this amazing thing that Tony had found. And no, Tony couldn’t explain it over the phone it had to be heard.
And bless Pepper, she laughed in all the right places even while crying, and this was why Tony needed Pepper. His first instinct had been to call Rogers and have him come listen to this snapshot of a moment from his past. Pepper had never met Howard Stark, had only known the man from what history could tell and everything that Tony kept to himself. She’d met Cap a few times and he’d always been unfailingly polite, calling her ma’am in that way of his that somehow managed to be charming rather than patronising.
She was clearly moved, biting her lip as the recording came to an end, and doing that thing with her fingers that kept her mascara absolutely flawless despite the tears. Silence returned to the lab and Pepper gave Tony a pointed look.
“Do not,” she said slowly, even as Tony held up his hands in a display of innocence. “Do NOT throw that away. Or give it away. Or make it into a ringtone.”
Tony pouted because wasn’t he allowed to have any fun at all.
“And,” she sighed, reaching forward to take Tony’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Give him a copy, tell him what it is, and let him make the choice.”
Tony really would be lost without her.
+
“So, Jarvis was sifting through a few things, and we found this and…” Steve was looking at Tony with a wary half-smile, and for a moment Tony wondered how it could possibly be the same man who laughed so freely on the tape.
Rogers looked like crap, but that was hardly a surprise. A month ago he’d been forced to do battle against his brainwashed best buddy – a best buddy who was still in the wind, despite Cap’s best efforts. The physical injuries may have healed, but Steve carried the full weight of what had been done to his friend while he’d been sleeping in the ice, and it showed in how he held himself, braced and tight as though daring himself to fall apart.
“Anyway,” Tony handed over the USB stick. “You can listen to it, if you like. It’s just some nonsense recording you did for good old Dad back in the war and we thought you might like it.”
“We?” Rogers was looking right at him with those piercing blue eyes that seemed to strip you of everything, and Tony shifted, uncomfortable.
“Pepper,” and Rogers nodded. “She’s the only other person who’s heard it. And I’m not going to, like, broadcast it on YouTube or anything.”
Rogers accepted the USB stick, promptly pocketing it, and conversation moved on.
+
Steve poured himself a generous glass of whisky before settling down in his arm chair and rubbing his eyes.
It had been five days since Tony had passed him the USB stick and, admittedly, at first Steve hadn’t been sure what it was. He had forgotten, as much as he could forget, about that afternoon in May ’44. After all, not even super soldiers remembered every waking moment of their lives, and there had been so many afternoons, and mornings, and days treated carelessly because there would always be another one tomorrow.
Hundreds of Saturday mornings when Bucky had slept in, sprawled across their tiny bed, sheets twisted around his waist. Afternoons when Steve had tucked himself on the fire escape to try to get some respite from the blazing summer heat, reading a book or sketching or just sitting and watching the kids play stickball. Conversations of no particular consequence that he must have had with his mother, probably about school, which were lost to time. Days and days sprawling through history, and for some reason this one had returned to haunt him.
The Howlies had been back in London for another debrief and re-kit, and he and Bucky had just left one of Colonel Philips’s infamous surly-n-short meetings when Howard had stuck his head out of a door and waved them into his lab.
That was fairly typical; there was always some new invention Howard wanted them to try, something that may prove useful to them in the field. That day it had, apparently, been some sort of recording device.
“Espionage, gentleman!” Howard had proclaimed, motioning them towards what looked like a tiny piece of black string hanging from the ceiling. “Requires subtlety.” Then he’d pulled a face that Steve would see repeated on Tony’s face almost seventy years later. “Not that I expect you to understand that, Rogers.”
Bucky had snorted, elbowing him in the ribs. “Looks like he’s got your number, Cap.”
And so they’d just talked nonsense, testing out “levels” or some other such thing for Howard. He hadn’t even realised it was being recorded, not until Tony pressed the little USB stick into his hands, and wow. He had needed some time to process exactly what it was he was about to hear.
“OK, Jarvis,” he said at last, taking a sip of his drink, enjoying the sharpness of it, and the smell.
“..ts really quite simple”
The recording was crisp and clear, as though it had been recorded yesterday, though he couldn’t help but cringe at the sound of his own voice which sounded tinny and awkward to his ears, and then Steve braced himself for what he knew was coming.
Bucky’s voice.
He was never going to forget Bucky’s voice, but damn it was nice to hear it. It was magic to hear that edge of mocking, just skirting insubordination because they were pretty much in private, and Howard wasn’t going to pick up Bucky on his tone, just so long as they kept talking into this new-fangled invention of his.
If he closed his eyes he could pretend that the last time he’d heard that voice it hadn’t been that guttural, animalistic cry. You’re my mission. The recording cut across the memories, drowning them out.
The Bucky in 1944 laughed, and Steve in 2014 echoed him, a choked up sound clawing its way out of his throat at Bucky hamming it up. James Barnes had always been a charming sweet-talker, throwing his voice and perfecting impersonations of famous film actors to impress the girls. But the cartoon voices had always been for Steve. Bucky had learnt Donald Duck first, back when Steve was still a scrawny and bad-tempered teenager, and Buck would try anything just to get a smile out of him.
Then it had become something of a joke between them, when the power cut out and they were lying in bed together, huddled up and trying to ignore the cold, they had started trying to come up with who did the best cartoon voice. Steve may have won at Mickey, but Bucky’s Daffy Duck always had him in stitches. God, but Steve missed Bucky. He missed Bucky so much his teeth hurt. And there he was laughing and joking through the speakers as though he had left the room only moments before.
Steve sat in silence for a few moments after the recording came to an end, barely aware of the damp clinging to his cheeks and eyelashes.
“Would you like me to play it again, Captain?” Jarvis enquired politely. Steve sniffed, before downing the rest of his drink.
“No thank you, Jarvis.”
It was 2014; Steve was alive and seventy years from home, and going back was impossible in all senses of the word. Bucky was alive and out there somewhere, lost in the world, and neither of them would ever be those guys on the tape. Those stupid guys who thought they were clever and immortal, and while war wasn’t really a game, they would always win anyway because they were the good guys and Steve was Captain America.
They’d been so young, even after the factory. Bucky had fallen less than a year after this recording was made.
All things considered, Steve was glad Tony had given him this small snapshot of the past.
“Tell Tony… thanks.”
“Of course, Captain.” And it might have been Steve’s imagination, but Jarvis sounded slightly softer than usual.
+
The night air was cold, wind whipping around the tower. James sat motionless on Steve’s balcony, regretting having come tonight.
He was fairly sure the AI knew he was there; there had been something silently judgemental in the way the alarms hadn’t gone off as he’d scaled the building to Steve’s floor. He wasn’t going to do anything; he just wanted to check on Steve, check he was ok. Coz if James knew that idiot, he was wallowing in guilt and blaming himself for things that weren’t his fault.
The thing was, James just wasn’t ready for this. He’d only wanted to see how Steve was doing; he’d never bargained for hearing… that.
That voice. His voice.
He should leave. He knew he should leave. James couldn’t give Steve his friend back. He might be James Barnes, but Bucky was long gone, and Steve really needed to accept that.
James Barnes stood up, determined to go, because it had been a bad idea to come here in the first place. He grabbed the railing, with every intention of vaulting over and starting his descent, but like a fool – and he’d always been a fool for Steve Rogers – he looked back to where Steve was sitting in the semi-darkness, staring at his empty glass of whisky.
Damn it.
Bucky stepped forward towards the balcony door.