Characters Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes Fandoms: MCU Summary: AU of Civil War. Tony's tasked with fixing the Winter Soldier and keeping custody of him at the same time.
Do all snipers crouch like they're birds perching on a branch? Tony errantly thinks, before his brain snaps back to the present, and Soldier's question. The caffeine also helps to keep him from being (as) scattered, as it slowly absorbs into his system.
(Dawning awareness of what he just did also horrifies Tony, but Soldier isn't talking about it, so he can just pretend it never happened. Yep. Yes.)
With a snort, Tony replies, "dust probably sleeps in my bed more than I do," into his mug. It's not really an answer, though, so Soldier keeps staring at him. The feeling of eyes on him makes Tony squirm, (well, no, not exactly. Tony is good at ignoring people staring at him, it's just that he knows Soldier won't eventually give up that unnerves him), and he cracks pretty quickly. "This time? I worked until I couldn't anymore and it's the nearest soft surface. FRIDAY gets grouchy when I pass out at my workbench."
A shrug, another sip of coffee, then turning the mug around and around in his palms so Tony has something to do with his hands. He speaks about it all so flippantly, like it's no big deal. "Insomnia. Fun perks of C-PTSD: nightmares. I dunno; I spent three months captive in a cave in Afghanistan-- beds haven't really felt the same, since."
Unfortunately, Soldier does have a point: a bed would definitely have been better for the leg. The more awake Tony is, the more he feels it. Plus, every other pain and ache, be it chronic or 'I sleep on a couch, and I'm not as young as I used to be' related. Some neck and shoulder and everywhere rolling results in some pretty sickening cracks, but it's the thigh that Tony ultimately rubs at with a slight grimace.
"I'm gonna need to call my physical therapist, aren't I?" The pinched 'I just swallowed a lemon' face says all it needs to about how he feels about that. "Whatevs. Fri, put it on my to-do for later."
Tony stands (on wobbly legs). "Okie-dokie. That's enough vulnerability for a lifetime, I think. C'mon, hot stuff, lemme show you what I cooked up for that arm of yours. I've got some questions for you."
The workshop has much more expansive hologram technology, so the interactive blueprint Tony pulls up is huge. More than life sized. He pulls it apart into multiple components, so Soldier can see more clearly what Tony plans to do externally and internally.
"It's your arm, so you can veto whatever you'd like. Would you be cool for some more in depth scans? I did the best I could with what I have, but I'd do better if I knew exactly what I was working with. Oh, and how do you feel about the star? Can we buff it out? Leave it blank, put something different there...? It, and the whole," vague hand gestures to the arm's whole shiny chrome, "make this thing kind of... anti inconspicuous. I get the whole point used to be that it wasn't, but I figured you might want differently. You're a pretty lowkey guy, and all."
Stark tells him a little bit more about himself and now the insomnia makes sense. It explains the dark bruises around his eyes, the exhaustion that seeps into the man’s body language even as he chatters away about anything. And just like he suspected, his leg is giving him trouble, confirming what the Winter Soldier’s already guessed: no enhanced healing.
If it wasn’t for the Iron Man suit, he’d be almost painfully easy to kill as soon as he took it off.
…so why does he continue to put it on? It must make him a target and yet…
The Soldier quietly turns that over in his head as he obeys, following Tony’s limping figure deeper into the workshop as they wind their way around half-finished projects, slabs of metal and seemingly endless coils of wire in various sizes that Tony steps over without having to look down. He comes to a stop when Tony does; flick of his hand, an easy twist of his wrist and suddenly the air fills with ghostly images of holo schematics slowly turning in space.
Gazing up at it, his face awash with blue light that seems to erase the exhaustion lines etched in it, the Soldier supposes that looks…surprisingly accurate. He thinks. He knows basic repairs on the arm if it needs to be dealt with in the field, but anything more in-depth has always been left to the mechanics. For awhile he doesn’t say anything, just looks at the image of the cybernetic arm pulled apart while distantly aware that it’s still hanging at his side at the same time, heavy, humming quietly into the socket where it meets his shoulder.
Tony’s questions drag him back. His head tilts down, eyes searching out the other man as he levels a cool, flinty stare at him.
“Scans are fine,” the Asset says after thinking about it. “Make it lighter. All that matters is you increase its efficiency and remove any obsolete tech that could be slowing me down. Leave the star.”
He says it as if it’s his idea and maybe he even believes it because he’s been made to believe it. But that star marks the arm - and by extension, him - as HYDRA’s property and he instinctively balks at the idea of changing it when it’s always been there and always will. Suddenly aware he’s still cupping the coffee, the Winter Soldier lifts it as he gazes at Tony. For a second surprise - maybe even pleasure - flits across his face as he inhales the scent of roasted coffee beans. It smells…fresh. Not the stale stuff they used to have when he was quivering in the chair and there was something wrong with the halo and they were arguing about it over his head, pissed they had to work late into the night.
It’s his first cup of coffee since…he doesn’t know. But the Soldier sips it, pauses, and now he’s staring at the mug with a frown, his eyes glistening almost as if there’s the start of involuntary tears brimming.
With the okay for scans, Tony has FRIDAY get to work. While it's a little vague, Soldier's instructions give Tony the perfect frame of reference for what areas he should focus on. Otherwise, he'd keep going until he'd tinkered with every inch of the damn thing.
(Keeping the star makes Tony frown in this scrunchy, pouty way of his-- not dissimilar to a child when they don't get what they want-- but he doesn't verbally object. You can't exactly expect Soldier to shake off the effects of the programming within a day, but Tony can still be grumbly about it.)
Since he has to wait for the scans to finish before he can do anything, Tony's attention span starts to itch for something else to keep it occupied. So of course his eyes skip around the room, and land back on Solider contemplating his coffee mug. And then Tony sees the tears, and-- fuck, what does he do?
Calling attention to it seems like a recipe for disaster. A gentle breeze would probably have Soldier retreating and pulling away, so like hell is Tony going to shine a spotlight directly onto him. The gut reaction he has is to just ignore it, but that's not what Tony really wants to do-- he's self aware enough to know that it's just a fear response, being anxious avoidant as usual.
The vow to avoid being vulnerable and honest was still hot off the press, was Tony seriously considering doing it again? But what else could he do?
(Begrudgingly, it was nice. Tony was the type of guy to dump and run, and talking with Soldier was sort of like talking to a brick wall. Well-- okay, that sounds meaner than he meant it. There's none of the pity eyes or sympathy frowns, is what he means-- which just makes Tony's skin prickle and make the urge to escape worse.)
"Good, isn't it?" Tony doesn't make eye contact, and it's only partly for Soldier's sake. It's easier to fake a casualness he doesn't feel, this way. "Admittedly I've always been a coffee snob, but I figure: 'hey, you only live once, why skimp on the good stuff?' It's the little things in life."
Touch is undoubtedly still risky, but Tony's stupid little touch starved hindbrain is in overdrive after earlier, so he can't help himself. He steps up next to Soldier (with his own mug in hand) and leans against the guy-- still not making eye contact. While taking some of the weight off his leg is nice, and Tony will absolutely use it as an excuse if asked, that's exactly what it feels like: an excuse. Taking weight off your leg doesn't mean you need to lay your head on someone's shoulder, but here he is.
God, age is making him soft. Stark men are made of iron-- all of them except Tony, that is.
(But being made of iron would mean he wouldn't get to feel the press of another against him, or their body heat, or the warmth of coffee through a ceramic mug, so maybe being flesh and blood isn't so bad.)
The Winter Soldier wouldn’t know what good coffee tastes like. If Stark says it’s good, it probably is.
It smells different, better, somehow, than what he’d picked up in HYDRA. Those stolen snatches of scent he wasn’t supposed to register and file away because they’re irrelevant to assignments or maintenance. Even so, the taste feels familiar as it floods across his tongue, the mug warm against his hand. Even the steam curling up feels…
It’s enough that when Tony comes up to him - close, maybe too close considering how poorly yesterday started out - the Soldier doesn’t step back, shoot a flat-eyed stare or shove him so he’ll have more clearance. There’s a moment where he stiffens at the sudden touch…but it’s slow, not too bad, a brush of the shoulders that almost feels as familiar as the taste of coffee warming his body. A difference in body size: the man he’d leaned up again was bigger than Stark, broader.
The Soldier doesn’t jerk away.
In fact, he stands right where he is, seemingly allowing (or, at least, tolerating), Tony’s presence. Maybe it’s because he’s not chattering up a storm, overwhelming him with new ideas about the arm improvements or going on about this man he’s supposed to be, this “Bucky Barnes”. He isn’t even making him struggle his way through a simple decision like what body wash to use of a choice from several. They’re just existing in close proximity.
In this crowded, messy workroom without guards or handlers or even the cries of prisoners echoing down concrete halls and the Soldier’s startled to realize this isn’t…bad.
He doesn’t bump back, exactly. But as he steals another sip of coffee, a part of him still surprised he’s allowed a cup of his own, he’ll let Stark lean against him all he wants. He’ll even let the other man rest his head against his shoulder.
They’ll stand there for awhile, silent, and the Soldier’s almost done with his coffee, glancing down at its reduced levels with dull alarm.
“...can I have more?” he surprises himself by daring to ask. An asset shouldn’t ask for anything, he knows that’s standard protocol. His voice still creaks out, his head tilting a little so he can glance down at Stark’s dark head resting against his shoulder.
"Mmmhm. As much as you want," he says, mostly into Soldier's shoulder. At face value, those words could sound dismissive, but in reality, his tone makes the sentence much more gentle. Contented, a little sleepy. Tony takes one last sip, then, "Was just about to top up myself."
Pulling away is hard, because Tony knows once he does, he won't be able to cozy back up again. And, lo and behold, stepping away breaks the little safety bubble that had formed around them.
(But better sooner rather than later, ripping off the bandaid and all that. It's not like he could stay there forever.)
Tony takes the mug from Soldier with a smile (which, unbeknownst to him, comes off much more gentle than intended-- he'd wanted to break any potential awkwardness by being his usual lighthearted I-don't-take-things-too-seriously self). Now that he can see Soldier again, the guy seems... a little less tense, maybe? It's difficult for Tony to pinpoint exactly, but there is definitely a small improvement from yesterday.
If this whole situation had a progress bar, they'd maybe ticked up to 1%. Which doesn't sound encouraging, but even the slowest of processes eventually got there in the end.
By the time the second round of coffee is ready, FRIDAY is done with the scans. (She probably finished them a while ago, but Tony's glad she had the tact not to interrupt the... moment? Was it a moment? That they were having. ((Plus, his AI learning what tact is!)) Tony hands Soldier his mug before re-situating back at the workbench.
"M'kay, let's see what we've got here--"
Any ease and/or good mood Tony has evaporates the second he sets his eyes on Soldier's scans.
It's... bad. Bad doesn't even begin to describe it. So monumentally bad that even Tony has to take at least ten minutes cataloging each and every problem.
"I..." Tony wipes a tired and disbelieving hand over his mouth. (What has his face even been doing this whole time? Hopefully nothing that makes Soldier pull away again. They'd only just started making progress.) "I'm shocked this thing even works at all."
If FRIDAY weren't there to assist him, who knows how long it would've taken him to decipher the tangled maze of the wiring. Sorting through all of it is going to be a nightmare. But it has to be done. He can't leave wiring that looks like this in-- frayed and split and rusting, there's so much rust in this arm that Tony could swim in it. Some of the wiring is knotted and tied around other wires, too. There's no way any of it can be salvaged. If only it could be as easy as ripping it all out, but that's the downside when it comes to prosthetics with a neural link-- you have to tread carefully.
Designing better functioning parts was going to be the easiest part, honestly. And seeing some of the, frankly, painful looking mechanisms that make up this arm? Yeah, uh... Pretty much anything else would be an improvement (both for function and comfort).
"Do you, uh-- do you want me to tell you everything that's wrong, or should I just... go ahead and fix it?"
The Soldier will still be puzzling over what “as much as you want” actually means - naturally, an asset doesn’t (shouldn’t) want anything - even when Stark hands him his second cup of coffee and they’ve migrated back to the workbench.
A silence falls over the lab. The Soldier settles down where there’s just enough space in the junk and half-finished projects that he can wedge himself down and sit. For a while he retreats into the heady smell of the coffee cupped in his hands, a part of him feeling like he’s somehow stealing these snatches of scent and taste to file away in a secret place in his mind, just in case, in the event they’re taken from him. Maybe not by Stark, given how he’s acted so far, but there’s always the possibility a HYDRA retrieval squad comes.
Stark could still get caught by surprise if he’s out of the Iron Man suit, after all. The robots like DUM-E hardly seem combat capable. The only question would be how effective FRIDAY is at fortification.
The Soldier’s almost finished with his second cup, resorting to rationing out those last sips out of habit, when Stark speaks up again.
“Fix it,” the Soldier says, simply, still gazing into his dwindling coffee cup, more concerned with that than the metal arm bolted to his shoulder, the pain he’s grown used to as a kind of constant. “I’m not involved in maintenance, so it would be a waste of both our time to go into additional detail.”
There’s basic field repairs and then there’s the real maintenance, the kind that would take several teams multiple shifts over multiple days. Then again, none of them were Tony Stark.
Productive results matter and the Winter Soldier’s been trained to be primarily goal-oriented. In short, Stark going onto the nitty gritty details of what, exactly, is wrong with HYDRA’s titanium prosthesis - both a marvel of engineering and held together with duct tape and Soviet prayers from the 1970s - will just fall on deaf ears. The Soldier wouldn’t understand what he’s talking about, anyway.
Maybe Tony is a bad man after all, because Soldier's refusal to hear the details only fills him with relief. The world has let this man down time and time again (be it as Bucky Barnes, The Soldier, or whomever he'll be in the aftermath of all of this), and to Tony, delivering that news again, in this way, is just... it feels unbearable, and he hasn't even done it.
Engineering and robotics and inventing and everything in between is Tony's... is there even a word for it? The fact that you can't think of any of those things without thinking of him (or the Stark name in general), says a lot more than a word probably could. Anyway, it's Tony's life and livelihood, it's his hobby and special interest-- you could even go as far as saying it's his everything. So of course, as irrational as it may be, he can't help but feel like this is somehow his fault. Like he's somehow letting Soldier down. Tony wasn't even alive when Bucky Barnes was presumed dead, for fuck's sake! It's ridiculous! But just saying so doesn't automatically make the feeling go poof!
It's fine. He'll fix this. Soldier will be as good as new. Tony will give him an arm so good that it'll never let him down again.
"Fix it, it is," Tony says. Like usual, and especially right now, he shoves that world weary feeling down as far as it'll go. At the very least, sinking his teeth in deep into a new project feels like coming home.
First tackling everything that can be done before he needs to drag Soldier in for the hands on treatment seems like the smartest idea, so that's where Tony starts. It's the usual blur of time, orders to FRIDAY, back and forth discussions and calculations with her, holograph blueprints and tinkering, soldering irons and clanging metal. Oh, and of course, Tony's usual taste in music. He's not blaring it quite as loud as he usually does (and it's definitely not for Soldier's sake, pfft, that would be ridiculous), but it's enough, and it all helps him sink into that headspace where hours feel like seconds.
Tony isn't worried about Soldier's wellbeing-- he already made sure FRIDAY would supply him with enough food and/or takeout suited for his metabolism, and DUM-E should certainly adore having a patron he can supply bottomless coffee to. (Tony would be jealous of the all you can drink coffee buffet, but he sort of enjoys things like being alive and his heart not jackrabbiting out of his ribcage, so.) He's plenty free to dive deep.
An indeterminable amount of time later, Tony snaps back into present awareness. Like a bubble that's been blown into the air, and it finally makes contact with the asphalt, a large and jarring, but silent, pop. All Tony can do is stare and blink owlishly for a beat, then two. It's sort of like watching a movie where the visuals and audio are out of sync-- it's hard for his brain to process the rushing back of all physical (and emotional) sensation, like hunger and exhaustion and pain (oh, right, stab wound in the thigh).
Usually FRIDAY is the one who snaps him out of an engineering binge, but Tony doesn't hear her telling him things like the date and time or how many emails he needs to respond to.
Oh. To his right is... another mug. A warm mug. And food. Tony swallows thickly, and it's not because of a sixth sense awareness pinging him about a certain new resident assassin looming directly behind him.
(There was a time, when this tower was what you would call a home. Tony would come up from his binges to meals and leftovers waiting for him, or sometimes to the people who came to deliver them. Bruce's shy and rueful smiles, Clint's endless supply of pizza boxes and, dare Tony say, mother henning. Natasha cared too, in her own way, and so did Thor when he was around to. Steve... Tony tries especially not to think about Steve, but at least the food offerings from him were easy to stomach. It's hard to feel like you're being pitied when it's from a man who grew up during the Depression.)
And here, now, Soldier is unintentionally following in their footsteps. Or maybe FRIDAY told him to do it, but even then-- scraps are better than nothing.
Thunking his head backwards against Soldier's sturdy torso, Tony sighs. He rubs at his face and just hides in his hands for a long few moments. It's absolutely necessary, or else he'd be liable to lashing out or, God forbid, crying.
For a guy called the 'Winter' Soldier, he's shockingly warm, Tony's traitorous brain supplies. Thankfully he does not say that out loud.
"If FRI is making you do nanny duty, I must've been out of it for a while." He stifles a yawn into his fist. "You've got the time, Soldier? If it's even still the same day."
The tower would take a few days to map out manually.
Under normal circumstances it would, except FRIDAY provides him with a map shortly after Stark settles down to work on the prosthetic arm. Or, more precisely, the AI sends one of Stark’s low-tech drones to roll up with a tablet clenched in its manipulator claw, beeping, and then settling for bodily poking the Winter Soldier in the hip until he takes it. The uploaded map’s probably edited knowing he’ll be looking at it. Flicking through it, learning how to use the tablet, and it confirms what he already knows: the tower is a maze and there’s no feasible escape without FRIDAY knowing about it.
Aside from that, no new orders.
Unsure what to do without those, the Soldier wanders. A few times he makes it back to Stark’s workshop and while the…mess is still there, all the trip hazards that are probably more dangerous to the man than his scalpel ever was, the music volume blaring through the speakers is noticeably lower than before, just loud instead of bone-shaking, head-pounding loud. Even at a lower, more reasonable volume the music’s still somehow grating, the Soldier slipping out after a few minutes, unaware that he might just be missing something more sedate like the Andrew Sisters or the Ink Spots instead of another round of A/C’s guitar riffs.
But Stark holes up in his workshop long enough that the Soldier returns, back music or no music, because standing orders were to assist him and he can’t assist him if the man worked himself into a coma because he forgot about eating and drinking. He isn’t sure where the food comes from - delivery again, maybe - but FRIDAY’s voice had filtered through the walls, through everywhere, seemingly without a source, and the AI had requested that he make sure Stark ate. Not exactly an order.
Might as well be.
It’s easy to sneak up on Stark, like every other time. The Soldier walks in with the delivery, has time to set it down and retrieve a streaming mug from DUM-E and there's time to set that down too. In fact, he can stand right behind Stark’s chair, easily within arm’s reach that he could’ve snapped his neck or slipped a knife between his ribs, and still Stark doesn’t seem to register he’s there.
The Soldier doesn’t move when Stark’s head shifts and then bumps into the firm planes of his stomach.
“It’s 2:34 pm,” the Soldier says quietly. “Over twenty four hours. You should take a break.”
He doesn’t move away. Not at first. Leaning over and minding Stark’s head, the Soldier reaches for the mug and then maneuvers it into Stark’s hands with surprisingly gentle care, his palms briefly fitting over the back of the other man’s hands.
“Drink. Then eat. You can give a status report while you’re doing that.”
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(Dawning awareness of what he just did also horrifies Tony, but Soldier isn't talking about it, so he can just pretend it never happened. Yep. Yes.)
With a snort, Tony replies, "dust probably sleeps in my bed more than I do," into his mug. It's not really an answer, though, so Soldier keeps staring at him. The feeling of eyes on him makes Tony squirm, (well, no, not exactly. Tony is good at ignoring people staring at him, it's just that he knows Soldier won't eventually give up that unnerves him), and he cracks pretty quickly. "This time? I worked until I couldn't anymore and it's the nearest soft surface. FRIDAY gets grouchy when I pass out at my workbench."
A shrug, another sip of coffee, then turning the mug around and around in his palms so Tony has something to do with his hands. He speaks about it all so flippantly, like it's no big deal. "Insomnia. Fun perks of C-PTSD: nightmares. I dunno; I spent three months captive in a cave in Afghanistan-- beds haven't really felt the same, since."
Unfortunately, Soldier does have a point: a bed would definitely have been better for the leg. The more awake Tony is, the more he feels it. Plus, every other pain and ache, be it chronic or 'I sleep on a couch, and I'm not as young as I used to be' related. Some neck and shoulder and everywhere rolling results in some pretty sickening cracks, but it's the thigh that Tony ultimately rubs at with a slight grimace.
"I'm gonna need to call my physical therapist, aren't I?" The pinched 'I just swallowed a lemon' face says all it needs to about how he feels about that. "Whatevs. Fri, put it on my to-do for later."
Tony stands (on wobbly legs). "Okie-dokie. That's enough vulnerability for a lifetime, I think. C'mon, hot stuff, lemme show you what I cooked up for that arm of yours. I've got some questions for you."
The workshop has much more expansive hologram technology, so the interactive blueprint Tony pulls up is huge. More than life sized. He pulls it apart into multiple components, so Soldier can see more clearly what Tony plans to do externally and internally.
"It's your arm, so you can veto whatever you'd like. Would you be cool for some more in depth scans? I did the best I could with what I have, but I'd do better if I knew exactly what I was working with. Oh, and how do you feel about the star? Can we buff it out? Leave it blank, put something different there...? It, and the whole," vague hand gestures to the arm's whole shiny chrome, "make this thing kind of... anti inconspicuous. I get the whole point used to be that it wasn't, but I figured you might want differently. You're a pretty lowkey guy, and all."
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If it wasn’t for the Iron Man suit, he’d be almost painfully easy to kill as soon as he took it off.
…so why does he continue to put it on? It must make him a target and yet…
The Soldier quietly turns that over in his head as he obeys, following Tony’s limping figure deeper into the workshop as they wind their way around half-finished projects, slabs of metal and seemingly endless coils of wire in various sizes that Tony steps over without having to look down. He comes to a stop when Tony does; flick of his hand, an easy twist of his wrist and suddenly the air fills with ghostly images of holo schematics slowly turning in space.
Gazing up at it, his face awash with blue light that seems to erase the exhaustion lines etched in it, the Soldier supposes that looks…surprisingly accurate. He thinks. He knows basic repairs on the arm if it needs to be dealt with in the field, but anything more in-depth has always been left to the mechanics. For awhile he doesn’t say anything, just looks at the image of the cybernetic arm pulled apart while distantly aware that it’s still hanging at his side at the same time, heavy, humming quietly into the socket where it meets his shoulder.
Tony’s questions drag him back. His head tilts down, eyes searching out the other man as he levels a cool, flinty stare at him.
“Scans are fine,” the Asset says after thinking about it. “Make it lighter. All that matters is you increase its efficiency and remove any obsolete tech that could be slowing me down. Leave the star.”
He says it as if it’s his idea and maybe he even believes it because he’s been made to believe it. But that star marks the arm - and by extension, him - as HYDRA’s property and he instinctively balks at the idea of changing it when it’s always been there and always will. Suddenly aware he’s still cupping the coffee, the Winter Soldier lifts it as he gazes at Tony. For a second surprise - maybe even pleasure - flits across his face as he inhales the scent of roasted coffee beans. It smells…fresh. Not the stale stuff they used to have when he was quivering in the chair and there was something wrong with the halo and they were arguing about it over his head, pissed they had to work late into the night.
It’s his first cup of coffee since…he doesn’t know. But the Soldier sips it, pauses, and now he’s staring at the mug with a frown, his eyes glistening almost as if there’s the start of involuntary tears brimming.
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(Keeping the star makes Tony frown in this scrunchy, pouty way of his-- not dissimilar to a child when they don't get what they want-- but he doesn't verbally object. You can't exactly expect Soldier to shake off the effects of the programming within a day, but Tony can still be grumbly about it.)
Since he has to wait for the scans to finish before he can do anything, Tony's attention span starts to itch for something else to keep it occupied. So of course his eyes skip around the room, and land back on Solider contemplating his coffee mug. And then Tony sees the tears, and-- fuck, what does he do?
Calling attention to it seems like a recipe for disaster. A gentle breeze would probably have Soldier retreating and pulling away, so like hell is Tony going to shine a spotlight directly onto him. The gut reaction he has is to just ignore it, but that's not what Tony really wants to do-- he's self aware enough to know that it's just a fear response, being anxious avoidant as usual.
The vow to avoid being vulnerable and honest was still hot off the press, was Tony seriously considering doing it again? But what else could he do?
(Begrudgingly, it was nice. Tony was the type of guy to dump and run, and talking with Soldier was sort of like talking to a brick wall. Well-- okay, that sounds meaner than he meant it. There's none of the pity eyes or sympathy frowns, is what he means-- which just makes Tony's skin prickle and make the urge to escape worse.)
"Good, isn't it?" Tony doesn't make eye contact, and it's only partly for Soldier's sake. It's easier to fake a casualness he doesn't feel, this way. "Admittedly I've always been a coffee snob, but I figure: 'hey, you only live once, why skimp on the good stuff?' It's the little things in life."
Touch is undoubtedly still risky, but Tony's stupid little touch starved hindbrain is in overdrive after earlier, so he can't help himself. He steps up next to Soldier (with his own mug in hand) and leans against the guy-- still not making eye contact. While taking some of the weight off his leg is nice, and Tony will absolutely use it as an excuse if asked, that's exactly what it feels like: an excuse. Taking weight off your leg doesn't mean you need to lay your head on someone's shoulder, but here he is.
God, age is making him soft. Stark men are made of iron-- all of them except Tony, that is.
(But being made of iron would mean he wouldn't get to feel the press of another against him, or their body heat, or the warmth of coffee through a ceramic mug, so maybe being flesh and blood isn't so bad.)
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It smells different, better, somehow, than what he’d picked up in HYDRA. Those stolen snatches of scent he wasn’t supposed to register and file away because they’re irrelevant to assignments or maintenance. Even so, the taste feels familiar as it floods across his tongue, the mug warm against his hand. Even the steam curling up feels…
It’s enough that when Tony comes up to him - close, maybe too close considering how poorly yesterday started out - the Soldier doesn’t step back, shoot a flat-eyed stare or shove him so he’ll have more clearance. There’s a moment where he stiffens at the sudden touch…but it’s slow, not too bad, a brush of the shoulders that almost feels as familiar as the taste of coffee warming his body. A difference in body size: the man he’d leaned up again was bigger than Stark, broader.
The Soldier doesn’t jerk away.
In fact, he stands right where he is, seemingly allowing (or, at least, tolerating), Tony’s presence. Maybe it’s because he’s not chattering up a storm, overwhelming him with new ideas about the arm improvements or going on about this man he’s supposed to be, this “Bucky Barnes”. He isn’t even making him struggle his way through a simple decision like what body wash to use of a choice from several. They’re just existing in close proximity.
In this crowded, messy workroom without guards or handlers or even the cries of prisoners echoing down concrete halls and the Soldier’s startled to realize this isn’t…bad.
He doesn’t bump back, exactly. But as he steals another sip of coffee, a part of him still surprised he’s allowed a cup of his own, he’ll let Stark lean against him all he wants. He’ll even let the other man rest his head against his shoulder.
They’ll stand there for awhile, silent, and the Soldier’s almost done with his coffee, glancing down at its reduced levels with dull alarm.
“...can I have more?” he surprises himself by daring to ask. An asset shouldn’t ask for anything, he knows that’s standard protocol. His voice still creaks out, his head tilting a little so he can glance down at Stark’s dark head resting against his shoulder.
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Pulling away is hard, because Tony knows once he does, he won't be able to cozy back up again. And, lo and behold, stepping away breaks the little safety bubble that had formed around them.
(But better sooner rather than later, ripping off the bandaid and all that. It's not like he could stay there forever.)
Tony takes the mug from Soldier with a smile (which, unbeknownst to him, comes off much more gentle than intended-- he'd wanted to break any potential awkwardness by being his usual lighthearted I-don't-take-things-too-seriously self). Now that he can see Soldier again, the guy seems... a little less tense, maybe? It's difficult for Tony to pinpoint exactly, but there is definitely a small improvement from yesterday.
If this whole situation had a progress bar, they'd maybe ticked up to 1%. Which doesn't sound encouraging, but even the slowest of processes eventually got there in the end.
By the time the second round of coffee is ready, FRIDAY is done with the scans. (She probably finished them a while ago, but Tony's glad she had the tact not to interrupt the... moment? Was it a moment? That they were having. ((Plus, his AI learning what tact is!)) Tony hands Soldier his mug before re-situating back at the workbench.
"M'kay, let's see what we've got here--"
Any ease and/or good mood Tony has evaporates the second he sets his eyes on Soldier's scans.
It's... bad. Bad doesn't even begin to describe it. So monumentally bad that even Tony has to take at least ten minutes cataloging each and every problem.
"I..." Tony wipes a tired and disbelieving hand over his mouth. (What has his face even been doing this whole time? Hopefully nothing that makes Soldier pull away again. They'd only just started making progress.) "I'm shocked this thing even works at all."
If FRIDAY weren't there to assist him, who knows how long it would've taken him to decipher the tangled maze of the wiring. Sorting through all of it is going to be a nightmare. But it has to be done. He can't leave wiring that looks like this in-- frayed and split and rusting, there's so much rust in this arm that Tony could swim in it. Some of the wiring is knotted and tied around other wires, too. There's no way any of it can be salvaged. If only it could be as easy as ripping it all out, but that's the downside when it comes to prosthetics with a neural link-- you have to tread carefully.
Designing better functioning parts was going to be the easiest part, honestly. And seeing some of the, frankly, painful looking mechanisms that make up this arm? Yeah, uh... Pretty much anything else would be an improvement (both for function and comfort).
"Do you, uh-- do you want me to tell you everything that's wrong, or should I just... go ahead and fix it?"
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A silence falls over the lab. The Soldier settles down where there’s just enough space in the junk and half-finished projects that he can wedge himself down and sit. For a while he retreats into the heady smell of the coffee cupped in his hands, a part of him feeling like he’s somehow stealing these snatches of scent and taste to file away in a secret place in his mind, just in case, in the event they’re taken from him. Maybe not by Stark, given how he’s acted so far, but there’s always the possibility a HYDRA retrieval squad comes.
Stark could still get caught by surprise if he’s out of the Iron Man suit, after all. The robots like DUM-E hardly seem combat capable. The only question would be how effective FRIDAY is at fortification.
The Soldier’s almost finished with his second cup, resorting to rationing out those last sips out of habit, when Stark speaks up again.
“Fix it,” the Soldier says, simply, still gazing into his dwindling coffee cup, more concerned with that than the metal arm bolted to his shoulder, the pain he’s grown used to as a kind of constant. “I’m not involved in maintenance, so it would be a waste of both our time to go into additional detail.”
There’s basic field repairs and then there’s the real maintenance, the kind that would take several teams multiple shifts over multiple days. Then again, none of them were Tony Stark.
Productive results matter and the Winter Soldier’s been trained to be primarily goal-oriented. In short, Stark going onto the nitty gritty details of what, exactly, is wrong with HYDRA’s titanium prosthesis - both a marvel of engineering and held together with duct tape and Soviet prayers from the 1970s - will just fall on deaf ears. The Soldier wouldn’t understand what he’s talking about, anyway.
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Engineering and robotics and inventing and everything in between is Tony's... is there even a word for it? The fact that you can't think of any of those things without thinking of him (or the Stark name in general), says a lot more than a word probably could. Anyway, it's Tony's life and livelihood, it's his hobby and special interest-- you could even go as far as saying it's his everything. So of course, as irrational as it may be, he can't help but feel like this is somehow his fault. Like he's somehow letting Soldier down. Tony wasn't even alive when Bucky Barnes was presumed dead, for fuck's sake! It's ridiculous! But just saying so doesn't automatically make the feeling go poof!
It's fine. He'll fix this. Soldier will be as good as new. Tony will give him an arm so good that it'll never let him down again.
"Fix it, it is," Tony says. Like usual, and especially right now, he shoves that world weary feeling down as far as it'll go. At the very least, sinking his teeth in deep into a new project feels like coming home.
First tackling everything that can be done before he needs to drag Soldier in for the hands on treatment seems like the smartest idea, so that's where Tony starts. It's the usual blur of time, orders to FRIDAY, back and forth discussions and calculations with her, holograph blueprints and tinkering, soldering irons and clanging metal. Oh, and of course, Tony's usual taste in music. He's not blaring it quite as loud as he usually does (and it's definitely not for Soldier's sake, pfft, that would be ridiculous), but it's enough, and it all helps him sink into that headspace where hours feel like seconds.
Tony isn't worried about Soldier's wellbeing-- he already made sure FRIDAY would supply him with enough food and/or takeout suited for his metabolism, and DUM-E should certainly adore having a patron he can supply bottomless coffee to. (Tony would be jealous of the all you can drink coffee buffet, but he sort of enjoys things like being alive and his heart not jackrabbiting out of his ribcage, so.) He's plenty free to dive deep.
An indeterminable amount of time later, Tony snaps back into present awareness. Like a bubble that's been blown into the air, and it finally makes contact with the asphalt, a large and jarring, but silent, pop. All Tony can do is stare and blink owlishly for a beat, then two. It's sort of like watching a movie where the visuals and audio are out of sync-- it's hard for his brain to process the rushing back of all physical (and emotional) sensation, like hunger and exhaustion and pain (oh, right, stab wound in the thigh).
Usually FRIDAY is the one who snaps him out of an engineering binge, but Tony doesn't hear her telling him things like the date and time or how many emails he needs to respond to.
Oh. To his right is... another mug. A warm mug. And food. Tony swallows thickly, and it's not because of a sixth sense awareness pinging him about a certain new resident assassin looming directly behind him.
(There was a time, when this tower was what you would call a home. Tony would come up from his binges to meals and leftovers waiting for him, or sometimes to the people who came to deliver them. Bruce's shy and rueful smiles, Clint's endless supply of pizza boxes and, dare Tony say, mother henning. Natasha cared too, in her own way, and so did Thor when he was around to. Steve... Tony tries especially not to think about Steve, but at least the food offerings from him were easy to stomach. It's hard to feel like you're being pitied when it's from a man who grew up during the Depression.)
And here, now, Soldier is unintentionally following in their footsteps. Or maybe FRIDAY told him to do it, but even then-- scraps are better than nothing.
Thunking his head backwards against Soldier's sturdy torso, Tony sighs. He rubs at his face and just hides in his hands for a long few moments. It's absolutely necessary, or else he'd be liable to lashing out or, God forbid, crying.
For a guy called the 'Winter' Soldier, he's shockingly warm, Tony's traitorous brain supplies. Thankfully he does not say that out loud.
"If FRI is making you do nanny duty, I must've been out of it for a while." He stifles a yawn into his fist. "You've got the time, Soldier? If it's even still the same day."
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Under normal circumstances it would, except FRIDAY provides him with a map shortly after Stark settles down to work on the prosthetic arm. Or, more precisely, the AI sends one of Stark’s low-tech drones to roll up with a tablet clenched in its manipulator claw, beeping, and then settling for bodily poking the Winter Soldier in the hip until he takes it. The uploaded map’s probably edited knowing he’ll be looking at it. Flicking through it, learning how to use the tablet, and it confirms what he already knows: the tower is a maze and there’s no feasible escape without FRIDAY knowing about it.
Aside from that, no new orders.
Unsure what to do without those, the Soldier wanders. A few times he makes it back to Stark’s workshop and while the…mess is still there, all the trip hazards that are probably more dangerous to the man than his scalpel ever was, the music volume blaring through the speakers is noticeably lower than before, just loud instead of bone-shaking, head-pounding loud. Even at a lower, more reasonable volume the music’s still somehow grating, the Soldier slipping out after a few minutes, unaware that he might just be missing something more sedate like the Andrew Sisters or the Ink Spots instead of another round of A/C’s guitar riffs.
But Stark holes up in his workshop long enough that the Soldier returns, back music or no music, because standing orders were to assist him and he can’t assist him if the man worked himself into a coma because he forgot about eating and drinking. He isn’t sure where the food comes from - delivery again, maybe - but FRIDAY’s voice had filtered through the walls, through everywhere, seemingly without a source, and the AI had requested that he make sure Stark ate. Not exactly an order.
Might as well be.
It’s easy to sneak up on Stark, like every other time. The Soldier walks in with the delivery, has time to set it down and retrieve a streaming mug from DUM-E and there's time to set that down too. In fact, he can stand right behind Stark’s chair, easily within arm’s reach that he could’ve snapped his neck or slipped a knife between his ribs, and still Stark doesn’t seem to register he’s there.
The Soldier doesn’t move when Stark’s head shifts and then bumps into the firm planes of his stomach.
“It’s 2:34 pm,” the Soldier says quietly. “Over twenty four hours. You should take a break.”
He doesn’t move away. Not at first. Leaning over and minding Stark’s head, the Soldier reaches for the mug and then maneuvers it into Stark’s hands with surprisingly gentle care, his palms briefly fitting over the back of the other man’s hands.
“Drink. Then eat. You can give a status report while you’re doing that.”