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“You said it would hold,” Steve accused.
Tony scowled. “How was I supposed to know that Red October over here would use it as a battering ram against the Hulk Buster?”
Bucky, like the little shit he was, prodded anyway, “It worked though, didn’t it?”
“Can it, Freezer burn,” Tony snapped over his shoulder as he continued to square off with the Captain. There was a blood vessel begining to pulse in his neck while he shoved his fist into his pocket, trying to suppress the tremble as he stared down his opponent.
Gritting his teeth, Steve ordered, “You’d better fix this.”
“My ass, I better fix this, who the hell do you think you are that you get to prioritize Barnes? Bruce’s still in the goddamn Hulk Buster!”
Steve’ jaw worked. “Bruce is in the Playroom.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s okay,” Tony shot back, and worryingly that blood vessel in his neck looked like it was going to burst.
“Back off, Stevie,” Bucky interjected when the Captain remained stubborn, “let ‘em get Banner out of that thing, I’ll be fine.”
“But -”
Pointing at him, Tony shouted, “Thank you!” before sauntering off without another word, argument effectively over.
Steve looking at Bukcy with a furrow between his brows, nostrils flared as he spluttered, “He should’ve -”
“Should’ve nothin’, Stevie, the arm’s fine until he gets back.” It was annoying to remind the man of this. You’d think someone labeled one of history’s greatest tacticians would know when to pull a white flag. “Tony’s the only one who can fix this damn thing, it’d be best not to piss him off, dontcha think?”
He could practically hear Steve’s teeth grind. The Captain would never make concessions to Tony, but when it came to his best friend, Bucky Barnes, he swallowed his pride like a harsh shot of vodka. Steve would do anything for Bucky.
Pity that man no longer existed. He knew better than to let Steve in on that, though.
Pretending to be Bucky worked out just fine anyway. Nostalgia was pretty easy to cash in on when you had the man’s face. Getting his hair cut, and wearing that blue coat only aided in the ploy.
It was exhausting, at times, but nothing new – nothing different to any other mission he’d been forced to undertake. And this was like every other mission – a soldier sent to fight a war he knew nothing about, only now he was pretending to be someone else on top of that.
At least he was treated better as Bucky Barnes.
The relative freedom, the lack of punishment when he messed up, no Chair, no torture. The housing was possibly the best he’d had in his whole life, the food was better.
Granted, the routine remained: Train, fight, recover, repeat. Though, even those things were improved, particularly the recovery part.
An hour later he was called into the workshop, and as the elevator descended, he couldn’t help the way his eyes lingered on the Iron Man suits on display, the Legion standing at attention, the restored classic cars, the half-completed projects littered on workbenches and the robots lingering throughout the floor – some focused on a particular task while others played some sort of digital version of fetch. In the midst of it all was Tony.
The man was turned with his back to the doors, changed out of his flight suit and into a black shirt and a pair of jeans. His hair was in disarray, sweat glistening on his neck, white bandage peeking out just below that – probably winding around his chest and down the rest of his back.
Tony had fallen, he recalled, right out of the sky just after the wormhole closed.
He’d been too far away, and Banner wouldn’t have gotten to him in time to catch him so he’d given the angry green monster a little push.
There were consequences, of course, Tony’s obvious injury and Banner’s lockdown in the Playroom – but he couldn’t afford to lose Tony.
“You couldn’t’ve chosen something softer for me to land on, could you?” Tony grumbled in greeting.
“Lesser of two evils; should think about a parachute next time,” he remarked, sliding into the allocated chair nearby the usual workbench.
“Where’s your patriotic shadow?”
He snickered. “Why, miss him already?”
“I’ll throw you out this window, Barnes, don’t tempt me,” Tony threatened with none of the heat, pointing at him with a wrench as he cleaned up the clutter.
“If you do, I’ll have to change all your coffee to decaf, doll.”
“You heathen,” Tony gasped. “And here I am wasting my precious time putting Humpty-Dumpty back together.”
“Hey, you’re the one threatenin’ people,” he retorted. Then, “Told Stevie I was going to see you alone or I wasn’t goin at all. Punk didn’t have much of a choice.”
Tony exhaled a laugh, and he noted the way the man’s shoulders relaxed only marginally at the lack of Steve in antagonizing him. Not that he could blame the technician. Comfortable banter between the two of them or not. He realized early on that the techs that handled his arm tended to be twitchy. Though he had to admit, it was probably the reputation he built for himself over the past seventy-odd years since his conception.
It wasn’t entirely unwarranted, in their defense.
Maintenance on the arm was rarely done while he was out conscious, in fact, it was usually completed after a mission report, right before the Chair. An inopportune timing if there ever was any.
Memory wipes or not, he remembered the Chair with clarity – knew he didn’t like it – knew the pain that would follow.
Maintenance was the only time security on him was lax. The technicians needed space to work, needed to test the integrity of the arm, and compile data and write reports on whether the arm was in adequate condition or required a patch-up that would pass for an upgrade. Wrongly, they would assume that he would be too taxed from his mission to put too much of a struggle, sometimes they’d pump him with drugs, just enough to keep him pliant.
But the serum worked it out too quickly.
So, he struggled. There were casualties.
It was an occupational hazard. Basically, in the contract, written in fine print: expect to be maimed or killed, life insurance recommended. No benefits.
It explained all the twitchiness. Not that his handlers ever cared enough to offer much assistance or attempt to restrain him any more than usual.
There was a running joke that the Winter Soldier had to work out his remaining aggression somehow, like a cool-down at the end of a particularly vigorous workout. The lab monkeys would suffice. After all, technicians, unlike handlers, were frighteningly expendable. Which said a lot about the quality of them, to be honest. Not that he was surprised about that. His feelings and pain thresholds were irrelevant to the arm’s integrity, anyway.
So, when he finally got a tech like Tony who wasn’t an idiot that didn’t make the arm worse, it annoyed him that Tony kept asking how it was feeling. It wasn’t like it mattered. “It’s operational,” he said certain, but not.
Tony hadn’t pulled up in front of him to get to work as he usually did, and there was something like permission being asked in the question that he didn’t know what to do with. He’d gotten used to Steve providing that buffer between him and everyone else.
Perhaps it hadn’t been wise to force the separation, but he recalled that pulsating vein on Tony’s neck, the tremble in his left hand, and remembered the offhand remark, of “I have a heart ondition”, and deciding, sacrifices had to be made.
Tony visibly paused, meeting his eye and warily informing, “That wasn’t what I asked, Tasty-Freeze.”
He had to remember that Tony Stark, like his predecessors, was twitchy.
Granted, Tony wasn’t the first technician he had that was coerced into ensuring his arm was sufficiently maintained after having his loved ones killed by the very same arm. But that didn’t change the fact that everything good so far: the sanctuary of the Compound, diplomatic immunity, the arm – were all a result of Tony’s own good graces.
The power imbalance reminded him too vividly of his handlers. They had all the cards and all the chips, and he was simply there to fill the role of the chump they cleaned out.
The Winter Soldier wasn’t meant to have thoughts and opinions of his own, things simply happened to him and he had to accept and adapt without question.
Though that didn’t stop some of his more difficult handlers from testing his boundaries, wanting to push him to see for themselves where the monster in the Winter Soldier legend came from, and this-this was not a game he wanted to play with Tony Stark.
Watching him with calculating eyes, Tony tapped on the workbench with his fingertips and then, almost delayed for the advancement of his tech, a hologram appeared displaying the blueprints of the prosthetic.
Heavily, he swallowed, vaguely aware of how his eyes were flickering, taking in possible exits and items that can be used to contain and restrain him. Two exits, four counting the windows; nearly everything on the table next to us can be used -
“It looks like I’m going to have to replace a few of the plates in your hand,” Tony interjected, voice almost too quiet as he recalled, “there’s a circuit squished against the articulation at the elbow joint too, and it’s affecting the mainframe connections to the shoulder mooring.”
A silence passed. One breath. Two.
“So, here’s how it’s going to work: I’m going to open the paneling and a hologram screen is going to pop up in front of you to show you what I’m doing.”
Sweat continued to gather at the base of his spine. Tony hadn’t done that before when Steve was with them, what was he playing at? “What for?”
Tony shrugged. “For whatever.”
Another silence.
Voice still soft, he murmured, “I’m going to start, alright?”
Again, permission. He exhaled, fingers of his flesh hand clenching tight as he mentally recalled that he had several knives on him – he may not be strapped down, and he wasn’t being pumped with drugs, but Tony could still hurt him, somehow – some way.
Without Steve watching and seething, Tony was noticeably more relaxed – whether he wanted the Winter Soldier there or not – but his reticence was different now – almost –
“Barnes?”
He swallowed. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Tony Stark, despite earlier assessments was very much unlike his predecessors.
Tony was unerringly competent for one, and thoughtful enough to disable the nerve receptors when they were still returning from their recent foray (all the while, swearing at him for hurtling at Banner like a wrecking ball) which certainly added to his favor. However, that didn’t change the fact that the man was also far deadlier than his previous techs.
That he had somehow overlooked this with Steve in the way didn’t help matters, and that was dangerous considering his position – he didn’t know if he should trust Tony – goodwill or not, and that didn’t bode well for their current relationship as asset and technician.
Even if his trust towards his previous techs had simply been to do their job, he didn’t have to worry about them suddenly unleashing their pent-up aggression over the Winter Soldier’s missions and Tony Stark – Tony Stark could do that – had every right to – had every means to –
“Stop thinking so hard.” Tony scowled at him, and he startled when he realized he was being asked something. Fortunately, Tony, used to people zoning out when he spoke, repeated, “I just want to know if it hurts: yes or no?”
Curling his fingers experimentally, he decided, “No.”
Tony raised a brow. “As opposed to?” His skepticism was obvious, and Tony sighed. “I’m trying to make this whole thing less painful. I know you don’t trust me as far as you can throw me, but that’s why the holograms are up – so you can see what I’m doing. I’m asking you for feedback because that’s how this should work.”
“You didn’t do that before with Steve," he defended.
Tony rolled his eyes. “That’s because his immediate responses have been ‘make it not hurt, Tony’ which is so helpful when you’re the only one who can feel what I’m doing. I’ve been working basically blind in terms of the level of sensitivity you currently experience as well as the adjustments to any articulations, and that’s hardly efficient. So, I’m going to ask again, does this hurt or not?”
“Your work is adequate.” Tony met his eye, expression blatantly offended. Startled to soothing, he tried, “Technicians aren’t required to be concerned about pain, pain is irrelevant. The arm functions, that is all that matters.”
There was a subtle tremble in Tony’s hand where it froze, and Tony paled a little, mouth hanging slightly ajar.
Shit.
Whether it was the distinct lack of Brooklyn twang, or the flat, Russian drawl he heard in his own head when he was thinking, he couldn’t tell who surprised the other more, but Tony bounced back relatively quickly, “Firstly, I prefer the term mechanic.”
“Mechanic then.”
“Secondly, I don’t do ‘adequate’,” Tony continued, glaring as he got back to work. His brows drawn together in a scowl, pressure firmer in an anger somehow not directed at the Winter Soldier, and then, “Thirdly, the arm is attached to you – not the other way around. I don’t care what kind of slaughterhouse Hydra ran, but you’re in my house now with my tech implanted in you. If it hurts you, you say something.” When he only continued to look at the mechanic warily, Tony almost threw his hands up. “And then I’ll fix it, capisce?"
He blinked slowly. It was just…like that? “Why?”
“Why, what do you mean why?” Tony asked, his voice going noticeably higher. “Jesus Christ, you don’t think I’d…do something to you – do you?”
“No.”
“Barnes.”
“I don’t.” Now, he allowed, visibly relaxing his posture. “I just…wasn’t sure.” There was an uncomfortable silence, before, “Why…why do you keep asking for permission?”
“Because I need it?” Tony answered, though the way he said it sounded like a question. “Listen, I’d be the first to know what it's like being modified against my will -”
“Itwas necessary, I did cut my own arm off.”
It was Tony’s turn to blink slowly, and the Winter Soldier cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed for his interruption. Fortunately, Tony bounced back quickly from that too, “Well I had to have open-heart surgery in a cave or it was me and a car battery until death do us part, so samesies, I guess.”
He huffed out a snort.
“But, back to the point,” Tony announced, “Your arm hurts, you say something, do you capisce?”
“I capisce.”
Tony shook his head, getting back to work, and muttering, “I can’t believe you 127 hours-ed yourself.”
He deadpanned, “I don’t understand that reference”, and this time, it was Tony’s turn to snort.