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"Did you kill my parents?"
Okay, not the thing you want to ask your….what do you even call the guy you’re buddy-fucking because your actual boyfriend is in love with him and you figure that sharing is caring and the more the merrier and if you sleep with him too your boyfriend might stick around a little longer than he might have otherwise and all that other cliches. Anyway, not a thing you want to ask after some mindblowing sex, but the question had been bouncing around Tony’s head for days. Ever since he took the time to sit down and read through all the HYDRA documents, looking for data on Bucky’s arm.
Bucky stiffens—heh, a juvenile part of Tony thinks—and Steve, on the other side of the room, putting on his stupid khaki pants goes very, very still.
Tony keeps his eyes on his fingers, focusing on doing up Bucky’s button while the silence continues, to the point of oppressiveness. Contrary to popular belief, Tony knows when to shut up. It’s just that most situations are better resolved with words and the faster he talks, the less likely people are to notice him actually doing something. Point is, he can shut up.
"No."
It’s like a vice around his chest being released, and Tony takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says.
Bucky touches Tony’s chin with the metal hand because Tony’s easy for it and Bucky knows that, the manipulative little shit. He pushes a little, trying to get Tony to look up. After a brief moment of resistance, Tony obeys. They’re still in the bedroom, the one area of the tower where Tony will let Bucky have total control because it’s not like Bucky’s had a lot of that recently.
Bucky looks like a man facing the firing squad. “They sent me but I—I went rogue. Broke conditioning. It was the second time they used me against someone I used to know.” His eyes briefly flicks to Steve, still in his corner, watching them carefully. “The first time was Peggy.”
Steve makes this noise that cuts off abruptly when he bites his lip. It might have been an attempt at Peggy’s name or a question.
"Yeah," Bucky says with a lopsided grin. "It ended badly both times, so they, uh, factory defaulted me each time."
Tony almost wants to grin at Bucky’s attempt at tech jargon despite the seriousness of the matter. Bucky took to technology even quicker than Steve but he likes to leave the geek-talk to Tony.
"So hold up," Tony says, more to give Bucky a break and not because he has anything significant to say. "They knew about this and still thought making you fight Captain America was a good idea?"
"I guess they thought the conditioning would hold, and it wasn’t like they had anyone else on their payroll who could go head to head with Captain America," Bucky says, shrugging.
Tony has met Pierce a few times, as a kid and as an adult, and he’s pretty sure it’s more likely that the guy found it amusing to pit Bucky Barnes against Steve Rogers. Pierce had been the one to give Tony his first Bucky Bear, after all.
"All righty, then," Tony says loudly, clapping once. Bucky and Steve both start at the sudden noise. "I am all out of my emotional moment quota for the year. You didn’t kill my parents and you didn’t kill Steve’s girlfriend aka my godmother, so let’s celebrate with pizza."
"Can you stop reminding me of that?" Steve says, his hands hiding his face but sounding extremely pained. It can’t have been easy for Steve to hear Bucky talk about almost killing his friends or about the mindwipes, but it’s good of him to play along.
"Never," Tony declares. "It’s punishment for the fondue story."
"Fondue story?" Bucky asks, perking up.
"I’ll tell you later," Tony says over Steve’s groans of dismay.
They’re pretending everything is just fine, and they’ll keep pretending all through tonight but at some point it’ll start becoming the truth.