I promised the next thing I posted would be the young justice/pre-boot comic verse crossover. This is not that fic, sorry! (I am working on that one too, really I am. And the next Deja Vu-verse story, and the next Halloween-verse.) This has been floating around almost done *forever* and I'm procrastinating other things, so...here.
Warnings: Unbetaed. References to Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier, so not all fluffy goodness and light.
Post Winter Soldier, ignoring Age of Ultron.
The first time Bucky - The Asset - met Tony Stark was just outside the elevator into the main common area of Stark Tower. The man stalked towards him in a perfect suit — like his handlers normally wore, was he supposed to be a handler? — every motion sharp and agitated, eyes piercing. He looked so much like Howard had when they blew up stuff he had wanted back —He was angry, angry handlers were a bad thing, they meant pain— like Howard might have looked if he'd had a chance to know what Bucky had done.
"You! Barnes! Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Bucky had a moment where he fought against several conflicting impulses- Bucky's brash charm he's used to get himself out of any situation, the Winter's Soldier's automatic threat! Assess, defend, attack! Bucky's guilt over everything he's done — because yes, yes he knows what he did, Jesus Christ he'd killed this man's parents! Howard, his friend, and others, so many others over so many years, would he ever even know the tally of his sins? — and the Winter Soldier's automatic need to tilt his head back and open his mouth for the bite plate, because he'd displeased one of the scientist-handlers and the Master wasn't interfering and that meant he was going to be wiped — fear and anger, but he couldn't lash out, wasn't allowed to hurt the handlers, didn't want to hurt Steve's friends. So he ended up in a half-crouch, part way huddled behind Steve, who had brought him here, promised this was a safe place, why would he lie? —the Master always lies, but it hurt less to pretend to believe — hand on the knife he'd had at the small of his back. Not directly threatening anyone with it, — not allowed, not allowed— he wasn't that person anymore, he wasn't, he was just…holding it. Comfort. Did he deserve even that comfort?
Stark didn't stop, not even in the face of Bucky's defensive crouching or Steve's attempt to step between them. He just brushed aside Steve's angry, pleading words ("Tony, stop, it wasn't his fault, you said it was okay to bring him here!") — the Winter Soldier ratcheted up his threat assessment several levels, if he could so easily dismiss one of the only men to ever successfully fight him. Stark ignored everything, and stopped right in front of him with his hands on his hips, glaring hotly.
"Well?" He demanded.
Bucky looked at him for a moment, and shoved down the Winter Soldier who was whispering escape routes (few, so few, why had they allowed themselves to be led to this meeting, this trap in enemy territory?) and incapacitation plans (so many, it would be so easy to take down this squawking man, no, scientist, no, attacking the scientists always hurt worse in the end) in the back of his head. He had done terrible things.
Maybe this, facing this man, Howard's son, was the first step towards something like penance.
He slowly straightened from his crouch, but kept his body language open, submissive, head tilted back, eyes down — as he'd been trained, beaten, electrocuted into submission until he always, always — to prove he wasn't a threat.
There was no denying, no beating around the bush. He took a deep breath to confess his sins to this man, who he had wronged. One, of so very many.
"Ahht!" Stark, unbelievably, cut him off, with a little twitch. Bucky's eyes flew to meet Stark's almost involuntarily. He had his arms crossed against his chest, now — defensively, the Winter Soldier noted, defending a weakness — "Yeah, yeah, murder, mayhem, brainwashing, torture. I got the memo — the whole world got the memo, actually, Rogers, remind me to give Natasha my compliments; not the most elegant hacking job I've ever seen, but it did the job — and we are absolutely not discussing this in depth without a whole lot of scotch — maybe some vodka, do you like vodka, you spent quite a bit of time with the Russians — blah, blah, impaired decision making skills due to, oh, being electrocuted into a mindless puppet." Bucky flinched back at that, memories of the Chair, and pain and cold swamping him for a second in panic and fear.
Stark reached out fearlessly, and poked him in the forehead.
The movement was so startling, Stark's hand so warm, as warm as his eyes, despite the bluster and the frown on his face, warmer than anything Bucky had felt —ever: what was this? — in years. It broke Bucky out of his spiral of fear and remembrance, and settled him a little more in the here and now.
"Own the guilt if you have to, but no one here is gonna blame you for shit you couldn't control, we've all got enough of that in our pasts. It happened, now you just have to figure out how to live with it."
Bucky…Bucky stared. This was…not what he had been expecting. Maybe, just maybe, if Howard's son could see beyond his crimes, maybe Bucky could start to as well.
" — no no, this is much worse." Or not.
Bucky tensed up, jerking back. Oh God, something worse, something more, something he didn't remember? Stark followed him that step, and Bucky forced himself to stop retreating, to face whatever was coming as just retribution. His eyes dropped again, head bowing along with his shoulders.
Stark poked him on the top of the head.
Again.
And didn't stop until Bucky looked up, strangling down the Winter Soldier parts of him that wanted to react to the assault! Threat!
"You, my friend," — friend? — "have ruined all of my best Assassin-twin jokes."
There was a moment of blank incomprehension as Bucky tried to parse that, and the Winter Soldier tried to decide if 'ruining jokes' was considered breaking the rules and thus was a punishable offense. What is a joke? Will we be put in the Chair for ruining it?
"I - What?" Bucky stuttered, the first words he says to Tony Stark, the first words he'd managed in months, voice rusty and broken, cracking along the edges, like his will, like his sanity that he was only slowly regaining. Stark didn't even stop talking. Just went on gesticulating wildly.
"Now there are three of you! Assassin-trio works too, I guess, but it's ruined most of the innuendo — unless you're into that kind of thing? They might be, I still can't figure out what they've got going with Agent Agent — and you're probably not going to be joined at the hip with those two, so "Assassin-twins and 'fray-adjacent brainwashed kinda-Assassin POW'" is a bit of a mouthful. It just isn't going to work, is it?"
Bucky couldn't have formulated a response even if it had looked like Tony was waiting for one. Fray Adjacent?
"So. Because you have officially ruined all my jokes, and Clint is fast approaching me in unofficial 'of-course-we-stopped-the-prank-war-Steve' points, you are duty bound to help me catch up. Fair?"
Bucky glances behind Stark at Steve - the master- Steve to see his face in his hands, but — a look the Soldier could not identify — the same fondly exasperated smile he always used to get when Bucky was being completely ridiculous was peaking out from behind his hands as Stark, Tony, Howard's son stood in front of him, now grinning manically and waving his hands around as he tried to convince him to team up with him to prank Hawkeye and the Black Widow. The Soldier was curled in the back of his head, torn between whispering caution about going after Widow in their current state, and tentative interest in the challenge. Bucky looks at this man, this hero, who stares back, expression open, and…wants. He wants this acceptance that comes not from denying what he did, who he is, but in spite of it, accepting it and moving forward.
He…
"Fair."
It is barely a whisper, but it is enough. A start.