Work Text:
“Sergeant Barnes.”
Accompanying the pleasant voice was a soft chime. The sound never failed to make Bucky grimace.
“Your appointment with Boss is in fifteen minutes.”
FRIDAY was having one of her good days, Bucky noted automatically. He tucked the information in with the rest of the useless crap he observed in his daily life. If she had been annoyed with one of them, she would have referred to her creator as ‘Mr. Stark.’
Both the court-mandated therapists and Steve told him that he shouldn’t assign emotions and motivations to an AI. That FRIDAY was an exceptionally clever program that could only mimic human sentiment. Maybe that was true, Bucky allowed. Maybe FRIDAY was merely programmed to treat him as awkwardly as every other sentient being on site and maybe it was just a bunch of ones and zeros that tried so hard to be kind to him even as she made no effort to hide her disdain at his very presence.
Bucky didn’t really think so. FRIDAY’s own creator treated her like a beloved daughter in private, and if Stark thought she had emotions, Bucky was going to follow the man’s lead. Vision had been the result of Stark’s previous AI, and no one thought Vision was merely an ‘exceptionally clever program.’
“Shall I inform Boss you won’t be making it today?”
Opening his eyes, Bucky rubbed his hand over his face. The other hand was kept as still as possible. “I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” he muttered, his voice rusty. He hadn’t been asleep, but hadn’t been doing much else for the past few hours, either.
Since only FRIDAY could hear him, he didn’t hide his groan as he sat up from the couch that was so comfortable, it conversely made him uncomfortable.
“As this is merely a maintenance appointment, it can be postponed. Boss has projects he can work on at this time.”
That was an example of FRIDAY trying to be kind, Bucky knew. Someone else– Steve, for example– Might have mistaken her words as an insult. Implying that he wasn’t worth Stark’s time. It had taken Bucky himself a couple of times to realize that she was trying to assuage any guilt he might have felt at keeping Stark waiting.
There were a lot of things Bucky felt guilt over, but he didn’t think that was one of them. The man could use someone making him wait a little. On the other hand, the damned therapists kept telling him that he was intentionally ignoring his emotions and didn’t know what he was feeling at any given moment, so what did he know?
It wasn’t like most of his life had been spent hyperaware of the motivations and emotions of the people in charge of him.
“I’m going, FRIDAY,” Bucky said, coming to his feet. The pain in his shoulder and chest flared, but it was manageable. It was always manageable, but at least today wasn’t a day where he had to shut down just to function and carry out orders.
He could hear Steve’s concerned voice, reprimanding him for acting like he still had orders to follow, but he thought Steve was being willfully blind out of optimism. Optimism for his sake, he assumed, since Steve was perfectly aware that both of them were still ordered around. ‘Take it easy,’ and, ‘You need to eat more,’ were still commands, even if they were ostensibly for his own good.
The idea of a shower hadn’t been appealing for a couple of days, so Stark was just going to have to accept deodorant and a fresh shirt. He grit his teeth while pulling on the sleeveless undershirt, the motion of putting his arm through the hole sending a wave of agony across his entire torso.
It would get better. It always did.
No one ambushed Bucky on the way to Stark’s workshop, which was a minor relief. Putting on a brave, hopeful face for Steve or Wanda or one of the plethora of countless therapists, psychologists, scientists, and military that haunted these halls would have been more effort than he wanted to extend. Nat’s easy silence or Sam’s performative antagonism would have been easy enough to tolerate, though. Maybe, Bucky grudgingly admitted to himself, Parker’s enthusiasm would have been welcome. But Nat and Sam were doing something for the media in DC and Parker only showed up on days when Stark could come up with an excuse to need his ‘intern’.
Bucky wasn’t sure why they were continuing the farce that Parker wasn’t Spider-Man, but he wasn’t going to betray the kid. And he thought a handful of people did truly think Peter Parker was just an intern, and he would take whatever amusement he could get. Trying to convince Sam that Parker was Stark’s illegitimate son had been fun. Nearly got him, too.
The doors to Stark’s workshop opened with a familiar woosh of air, immediately bombarding Bucky with a wave of sound; Stark’s music blasting far too loud for a man so close to fifty. It was a surprise he had any hearing left. The volume lowered to something that wouldn’t burst out the eardrums of anyone with enhanced hearing and Bucky took that as his cue to walk inside.
Their routine was familiar now. Unless he was in a hurry, Stark would pretend to ignore Bucky by tinkering on some project or other, giving him a chance to wander around and get settled. Bucky hated the gesture as much as he appreciated it. The opportunity to check sightlines and make sure it was only the two of them within the room did more to relax him than anything else could have. He was never going to be thrilled about maintenance to his arm, but Stark went out of his way to accommodate him as much as possible without being condescending about it.
Had Stark read one of those ‘Soldiers with PTSD’ brochures that kept being flung his way, or was he more observant of humanity than anyone gave him credit for? Bucky figured it was a fifty/fifty shot either way. Stark was blisteringly observant, but he would never shake that background of growing up and living so rich that he didn’t realize most of his meals came from a personal chef. Or that no, bananas weren’t the same cost as steak.
That was one of Bucky’s favorite recent memories. Clint had referenced a joke from a TV show about the price of bananas, and Tony had laughed along with the rest of them because he clearly realized it was a joke. His expression, however, had told Bucky easily that he didn’t quite get it. That one, simple interaction had somehow done more to endear Bucky to Stark than any gesture of maintenance or understanding could have.
He liked that Stark was flawed and human. That he was both a rich kid who had suffered far more than any single man should, that he was endlessly compassionate to those who gave him a chance, but played the part of an asshole so flawlessly that he believed his own act. Stark knew what it was like to have a murderous, monstrous legacy and keep trying to be human in spite of it.
That Stark accepted his culpability was a gift that–
Well. What those thoughts said about Bucky was best left to psychologists to pick at.
Nothing was new about the workshop, other than a string of festive lights that had been wrapped around Dum-E’s arm. They weren’t plugged into anything, but they still gave off a soft, muted glow. Bucky wouldn’t have been surprised if Stark had put a damn miniature Arc Reactor in the lights just to keep the ‘bots and Parker happy.
The area where Stark worked on his arm was painfully normal. Bucky knew that Stark routinely worked on his own cars, including a handful that were older than him. No stranger to the realities of grease and oil, Stark looked as comfortable in stained coveralls and a ripped t-shirt as he did in suits that cost more than some companies. It didn’t surprise him that Stark would have a rickety shop-stool that moved smoothly on its wheels but creaked when Stark sat on it, nor that the couch shoved against the far wall looked like it had come from a dorm room. But Bucky could never entirely shake the feeling that it was, at least partly, staged for his benefit. It was as far from the gray, cold, sterile environments of Hydra labs as one could get.
One day, perhaps, Bucky would tell Stark that he didn’t have to try so hard. Until then, he tried not to examine too closely why he so guiltily enjoyed the quiet shows of being taken care of, in ways that weren’t about wealth.
Couch sagging under his weight as he sat on it, Bucky said, “Thought we had an appointment, Stark.”
Stark made a show for all the world of looking up, as if he had only now noticed Bucky’s presence. It was a fun little dance that Bucky found himself enjoying more often than not. There was no pressure to follow the steps if he didn’t want to. “Oh, Thing Two finally showed up. Get lost?”
“Yes,” Bucky said blandly. “Had to find the map.”
Snorting, Stark waved his hand, dismissing the glowing lines of the schematic he had been working on. Something for Nat, if Bucky had to hazard a guess off the brief glimpse he’d seen. “Think I’ll install one of those mall directories right at the front doors. Keep all the geriatrics around here happy.”
“You’ve been to a mall?”
Stark’s small smile was surprisingly sincere. He did seem to genuinely appreciate banter. “Once or twice, though I might have been drunk, and just like you, lost.” He slid his stool across the intervening space between them in a practiced move that spoke to countless hours switching from table to table. His next gesture was impatient, but Bucky knew from experience that Stark wouldn’t have been offended if Bucky didn’t follow the unspoken command to lift his metal arm.
Fire rolled through Bucky’s shoulder and down his spine as he offered the metal hand to Stark, palm up. Keeping the pain off his face was so ingrained in Bucky that he didn’t think he could have expressed the agony if he had wanted to.
The gentle care that Stark used to move his arm into his lap went a long way toward distracting Bucky from the pain. At the end of the day, Bucky’s arm was a weapon of destruction. One that had killed countless people. Including people incredibly close to Stark. And yet, here Stark was, cradling that same machinery as if it was his own creation.
Bucky couldn’t feel Stark’s touch on the metal arm the same way he could have if it was flesh, but the pressure he was sensing was never cruel. No matter how distracted Stark occasionally became with various mechanics within the depths of the arm.
They were slowly but surely replacing parts, both in a bid to remove anything nasty that Hydra might have left, and to update something that was older than Stark himself.
Stark had been talking about some meeting he was intentionally skipping– he seemed to work better when he could keep up a running patter, and the distraction often proved helpful for Bucky to keep his vitals calm– when he interrupted himself to say, “Flex your arm for me.”
Bucky didn’t think twice about following the order. But while he was adept at keeping his face still, he was less practiced at controlling the near-involuntary twitches that came from the pain of abrupt movement. His entire shoulder jerked before he could stop it. The ensuing growl that came out of his mouth was more from frustration than pain, but Stark immediately backed away, both hands up.
“What was that?” he asked, peering at Bucky’s shoulder with sudden, intense focus.
“Muscle spasm,” Bucky said, clipping off the words. The last thing he needed was Stark getting concerned for the flesh attached to the metal. He wasn’t equipped to deal with that direct level of worry from someone that he–
That he liked. Admired. Nothing more.
“That happen a lot?”
“Once or twice,” Bucky drawled, trying to make a call back to Stark’s previous joke, to distract the man. It didn’t seem to work, because Stark frowned at him instead of smiling.
“FRIDAY,” Stark said, now eyeing where Bucky’s sleeve hid the join between flesh and metal. “What’re Barnes’ numbers at?”
“Within baseline, Boss.”
“That’s less reassuring than I’d like,” Stark muttered. “Pretty sure you’re always in pain and don’t even realize it.”
The simple truth of that statement hit Bucky harder than literal bullets had. He bit his tongue to stop from saying something he’d regret, turning his head away to stare at the far wall.
“What?” Stark said in the face of his silence. “You think I didn’t notice? Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that, I’m sure Steve has been–” He abruptly cut himself off.
Bucky continued his silence. Steve was busy. When he did have time for Bucky, he was smothering. And the peace between Steve and Stark was delicate. Here was not the time or place to make complaints about his best friend, even if he knew Stark would be thrilled to hear them.
It wasn’t like Steve could have done anything to help Bucky. Not with this. The pain was something he just had to deal with.
“Can I move your sleeve?”
Maintenance on the arm within Hydra was often done with Bucky shirtless. At the time, he had forced himself not to care, but here, with Stark, he appreciated that he had the option to keep his shirt on. Stark had calmly started his ‘renovations’ from the fingertips up, and the required scans he had taken months ago hadn’t needed Bucky to take anything off.
“Trying to get me in a vulnerable position, Stark?” Bucky asked gruffly, turning his head to catch Stark’s eyes, trying to make the man uncomfortable.
Stark opened his mouth, clearly about to retort with something that would have been inappropriate at best. Then he shook his head, clearing his throat. “No, Frosty, I’m not. But if you’re in pain, you should see someone about it.
Because Stark was better than yet another doctor, Bucky abruptly sat up into Stark’s space, staring him down as he pulled his shirt off one-handed. This time the thrill that went up his spine had less to do with more pain and more to do with the fact that he was stripping in front of Stark. If stripping counted when it was a single item.
Unfortunately, Stark wasn’t so easily cowed. He watched with one eyebrow raised until he caught sight of the red irritation around the embedded metal in Bucky’s shoulder. “Damn,” he muttered, whistling quietly. “That’s not great. We’re going to have to take some tests, get a few–”
“It’s infected,” Bucky interrupted, keeping his voice flat. “It will heal. It always does.”
Stark’s eyes darted up toward his. “Wait,” he said, sharp, leaning forward with sudden intensity. “What do you mean, it always does? Are infections common?” His gaze trailed away before Bucky could answer. “Of course they are, it was the 40’s, Hydra probably cared more about a strong metal than one that was bodysafe. We really need to get this thing off of you. If I could just convince T’Challa to give me some–”
“Save it, Stark,” Bucky said. He didn’t feel like being a charity case. Not anymore than he already was.
A brief fire of indignation seemed to light up Stark’s eyes before it shuttered as he looked away. Bucky was oddly disappointed. He didn’t want Stark to fuss, but a small, usually-ignored part of him thought it might have been nice if the man had insisted.
After a long moment, Stark shook himself out of his mood. His sudden smile edged into fake, but Bucky didn’t hold that against him. He carefully shut the panel in the arm that he had been work on, the click of it closing somehow loud. “Well, you can be stubborn, but I’m here if you decide you want to get that fixed.”
“Thanks,” Bucky said. So what if it sounded sarcastic? At least he said it.
Stark walked him toward the entrance to his workshop, clearly gearing up to say something. Bucky braced himself for whatever well-meaning nonsense would come out of his mouth, but in the end, Stark kept it to himself. The only thing he said was:
“Take a shower, Barnes. It’s less fun getting up close with a dark and broody centerfold if the sweat I’m smelling isn’t from sex. FRIDAY, delete that last sentence from your servers, we’re trying to keep you innocent.”
“Sure, Boss. Shall I remind you that I have access to the entirety of the internet, or do you want me to delete that as well?”
“The sass on you, I’m so proud–”
The doors closed behind Stark before Bucky could think of an answer. After a moment, he asked, bewildered, “Did Stark just call me a centerfold?”
“I believe he did,” FRIDAY said cheerfully. “Shall I arrange a meeting with a doctor who specializes in infections?”
That snapped Bucky out of his daze. “No.” He grudgingly added, “Thank you. I’ll be fine.”
Anyone who thought FRIDAY was ‘just a program’ had never heard her incredibly sarcastic ‘hmm’, Bucky decided. Any Irish mother would have been proud.
Retreat, he thought. That was the best thing for him to do.
The pain would go away. It always did.
---
Buck had good days.
“I can’t believe you convinced Scott to teach you about Fortnite.”
“I can’t believe Scott knew about Fortnite.”
Stark– Tony shrugged, tossing a pill bottle toward Bucky. “He’s got a teenager, I think he’s trying to be the cool dad. Take one of those the next time you get an infection. Tell me if it works.”
Bucky grimaced at the bottle. “You know pills don’t work on me.”
“These might. It’s worth a shot. Or have you secretly been a masochist this entire time? Because, let me tell you, I could find some easier ways for you to express that.”
Snorting despite himself, Bucky stared up at the ceiling, as if lost in thought. “Think some people would say I deserve the pain.”
“Don’t give me that, I thought you had an entire army of therapists. Am I paying them too much, are they even doing anything?” Stark asked. He was joking, but Bucky thought the man might have been truly willing to fire every mental health professional employed at the Compound if Bucky asked. It was a humbling thought. One he needed to distract himself from.
“You remind me of Wilson.”
Tony opened his mouth, a playfully offended expression on his face, when he paused, brow furrowing. “That might actually be a compliment. Wilson’s the most normal man here.”
Bucky went to reply to that, but Tony shook his head, scoffing as he interrupted him. “I said normal man here. Compared to the rest of us in this glorified kindergarten for ‘heroes’, he’s as boring as a tax accountant, but a guy with actual preservation skills doesn’t routinely throw himself out of a plane with easily breakable paper wings strapped to his back.”
“Didn’t you make those wings? You sayin’ you gave him shoddy equipment?”
“They fold into a backpack, Barnes,” Tony said, pointing a shockingly small wrench at Bucky, voice rising in his enthusiasm. “Do you have any idea the sheer number of pieces required to do that?”
Bucky did, actually. He had studied the EXO wings extensively, impressed by their craftsmanship even as he had immediately noticed a few flaws. The idea of pointing out those flaws to the creator of said suit suddenly sounded incredibly appealing. Nothing got Tony’s brain going faster than someone he respected pointing out ways his schematics could be improved.
Wait.
Did… Did he think Tony respected him? Trusted him?
“- not that– Hey. Hey, Barnes. Bucky. James. Jimmy– No, we’re not going with Jimmy. You in there?”
“Just thinking about the time I threw him off a Helicarrier,” Bucky said absently. “The wings were easy to disable.”
He was surprised when Tony laughed. It was an endearing, human sound. “I’m going to tell Wilson you daydream about throwing him off things.”
“He knows.”
Tony’s laugh was going to become addicting.
—
Bucky had bad days.
Bad weeks.
Weeks were liquids immediately became sweat and no matter how much he ate, the calories were burned away by a constant fever.
After awhile, it became too much effort to eat anything at all.
“Jesus, Barnes. I like six-pack abs as much as the next guy, but this is disturbing. Who put you on the Hollywood dehydration diet? I dated supermodels in the 90’s that had a higher fat percentage than you.”
Bucky clenched his jaw; a tell that he couldn’t repress. “Just get it over with, Stark.” It took too much effort to keep his tone mildly impolite instead of an actual growl. The awkward pressure sensation of multiple panels across his upper arm being wedged open was adding to his headache.
Stark raised an eyebrow, his hand stilling. The tool he was holding drooped until it hit another with a musical clink.
If he had still been with Hydra, if Stark was one more in a long line of scientists more interested in creating the perfect soldier for the perfect world order, Bucky would have grabbed him with his flesh hand and broken his neck right there. It would have been easy. They always forgot that he was as nearly as strong with that arm as the metal one.
Bucky didn’t want to kill Stark.
He just wanted to be left alone.
Stark’s sudden touch against the side of his neck made him shiver, when it should have made him jump to attack.
Bucky’s eyes closed without him thinking about it. Tony’s fingers were ice on his skin, but it felt like heaven.
Maybe going back into chryo would have been a blessing.
“You don’t get enough sun for you to be red this far up your neck, Bucky,” Tony said softly. How odd it was to hear his real name. He hadn’t hated James out of Tony’s mouth, either, he mused in the middle of his pained annoyance. Maybe if Tony was the only one to call him that…
“Have you tried those pills?”
Bucky lifted the corner of his lip in a frustrated snarl, opening his eyes. “Didn’t work.”
Tony’s swear was quiet. “I’ll figure this out–”
“Stop trying to help” Bucky snapped, “Just fix the arm.”
Tony’s answer was to frown at him. And then carefully, gently, snap each opened panel closed.
But it didn’t matter. The pain would go away eventually.
—-
Sometimes…
Sometimes Bucky didn’t know what day it was. Or where he was.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bucky, it’s me, it’s Tony–”
“What the fuck are you doing in my rooms?” Bucky shouted, trying to back away before realizing that he was attempting to scramble over a couch. He stared down at the furniture, perplexed. What– “This isn’t my bedroom.” Why was he in the communal area?
“FRIDAY?” Tony muttered quietly. What followed was the gentle murmur of FRIDAY’s voice in Tony’s ear, translating his words into English.
Bucky knew he had been speaking in Russian, but he couldn’t quite get his mind to make the switch– He felt lost in the moment, confused and unable to wrench himself into clarity. A headache was pounding throughout his skull, the thrum of it echoing across his shoulder and back. For a desperate moment, he longed for the simple pain of orders he could not escape. He stared helplessly at Tony.
Who took a single, cautious step closer. “You with me, Bucky?”
“Да– Yes,” Bucky growled. It might have been more impressive if the rasp of a hoarse whine wasn’t tacked onto the end of the word.
Tony nodded and perched on the end of a nearby coffee table. He was trying to look more calm than he truly was. “Russian more comfortable for you right now?”
“Please don’t try,” Bucky said without thought. His voice scraped his throat. “I’ve been tortured enough.” Tony understood the language well enough, even without FRIDAY, but his accent was atrocious.
The shocked laughter that burst out of Tony was nearly hysteric, but watching a full-grown man dissolve into giggles over Bucky’s inappropriate joke did more to put him back into the right frame of mind than any suggestion given to him by a therapist ever had. “I’ve been practicing,” Tony protested.
“Why?”
Tony shrugged, his gaze skittering toward the kitchen. “Two of my team speak it, seemed like the appropriate thing to do.”
Not many team leaders would have thought so, Bucky didn’t point out. With the adrenaline from his abrupt waking up draining out of his body, the energy to analyze Tony was lacking. “Most people think it’s bad for me to default to it. They’d probably think you were wrong to encourage me.”
With a roll of his eyes that would have made any teenager proud, Tony easily dismissed that. “I’ve caught you and Nat arguing about TV from the Motherland too many times for me to think you’re traumatized by it.”
This time, Bucky was the one to shrug. He had been ordered to do horrible things in every major language on the planet. It didn’t matter what he heard or spoke in. What he thought in was a different matter. When half of his thoughts were a mishmash of various languages, it was hard to get a feeling for who the hell he was.
Bucky had once calculated, to the best of his abilities with the information that he could remember, that he had spent more of his waking, adult life in Russia than any other country. That his earliest memories were undeniably American; Brooklyn accents and baseball on the radio as he walked to the docks.
More recent memories were from everywhere, but he didn’t think he could ever forget sipping contraband soda with a target in a small house in Mtsensk, complaining about the weather. Or that he knew more Russian TV than American, despite the worldwide presence of Hollywood. Somehow, without trying, he had seen dozens of episodes of Yeralash. And more often than not, when he was eating certain things, he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a thick pancake or a sirniki. Thin pancake or a blini or a crepe.
He knew his past. That didn’t mean he knew who he was.
“What happened?” Bucky finally asked into the silence. That was the more pressing matter at hand. The last thing he remembered was thinking that he needed to get water, thirsty after his fever had finally broken.
“I found you passed out on the couch,” Tony said, nodding toward the couch Bucky had tried to climb over earlier. His expression hardened. “I’d like to know if passing out was exactly what you did, or if you just happened to fall asleep there.”
Bucky scoffed. “I don’t pass out, Stark.”
“Uh huh. How’s the arm?”
“Still there.”
“God, you’re a stubborn ass.”
It was impossible not to laugh at that, no matter how tired he was. “Takes one to know one.”
Tony shook his head, but he seemed fond as he did it. “You got your phone on you?”
Bucky nodded. He wasn’t Steve. He liked having so much information and technology at his fingertips.
“FRIDAY, send those files to Bucky’s phone,” Tony said as he stood up and made his way to the kitchen. Too casual, he added, “They’ll delete themselves after an hour, so read fast.” Judging from the waver in his voice, he was uncomfortable and trying to hide it.
The files popped up as soon as Bucky fished out his phone and turned it on. He immediately recognized them as medical notes, but it took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that the subject matter was Tony.
Only one person in the world had ever had an Arc Reactor placed directly in their chest. It had been an open secret in certain sects. But Bucky didn’t think anyone in Hydra had ever known how close to death Tony had come.
Some of the jargon was beyond him, but Bucky understood the pictures well enough. Veins that black only came from infection. Heavy infection.
“Metal poisoning,” Tony called from the kitchen. “That’s technically proprietary information, so try not to blab that to any tabloids. The old Arc Reactor was leeching into my bloodstream.” Clanking noises and the sounds of the fridge being opened more than once punctuated his words. “I should be dead.”
Bucky didn’t have words. He could only stare at pictures of the snaking lines of poison stretching across Tony’s chest and up his neck. He abruptly sat down, brain working to understand the implications of what Tony was telling him.
A smoothie was set on his knee, making him look up. Tony gave him an impatient glare until Bucky took it from his hand.
“Drink all of that. Its got Steve’s protein powder, which should help. You need it.” Tony settled on the couch next to him. After a moment, he put his arm on the back of the couch behind Bucky’s head. If he moved his hand just right, it would end up on the seam between metal and skin. “I know what this shit is like, Frosty. You don’t have to tough it out. You can ask for help.”
“The pain always goes away,” Bucky said. It was his mantra.
Tony leaned closer, ducking his head to catch Bucky’s eyes. “Does it?” he asked simply.
Bucky swallowed.
Tony was very close. And he was very tired.
Slowly, Bucky shook his head.
No. It didn’t. The pain never went away.
His next breath caught in his throat.
“Oh, honey,” Tony breathed. “Come here. If you want.”
He let himself list against Tony’s side. Tony was warm, but he wasn’t so hot that he scalded. Tony felt… Human.
Bucky’s breath hitched again.
After a moment, a kiss was pressed into Bucky’s hair. “I know,” Tony said. “I know. I’ve got you.”
“It hurts,” Bucky whispered. “It always hurts.” It wasn’t just the arm. It was… Everything.
Tony leaned harder into him.
“Will you–” Bucky inhaled. Exhaled. “Will you help me?”
“Of course. Of course, I will.”