They tell him to suit up.
He needs-hours, maybe, maybe days. It feels like years. He needs-he stares at the suit in red, white and blue and feels ghosts crawl over his skin, clawing their way into his heart. He doesn't know how long he sits there and stares at the suit in red, white and blue, cursing his name and cursing this country, and cursing the war, every war.
War never stops. War needs Captain America, so he suits up.
It feels like a betrayal the first time. It also does the second time. At some point he stops mulling it over.
/
Tony feels numb when he carries the coffin to the grave. The grave is pompous, hilariously patriotic, exaggerating. It's the grave of Captain America. It's what people expect, what people deem worthy for a hero.
Here lies a man, Tony thinks and feels the smooth wood underneath his fingertips as he carries on. Here lies a man and he was the best of us. He was a hero, but not like this.
After the funeral, he goes back to work, trying to put things together again as always, trying to succeed in making things better instead of making them worse for once.
/
The first time Tony sees him in the suit in red, white and blue, he punches him.
Tony doesn't even hesitate for one second, just punches him and stares at him with dark, dark eyes. Bucky doesn't think there was a moment he liked him better because he would have done the same. Everything is raw and bleeding inside out and he hates staring at his own reflection when he wears the suit in red, white and blue because it doesn't belong to him, it seems so wrong.
"How dare you," Tony says flatly.
"How could you," Bucky answers and Tony stares at him for a long, lost moment before he turns on his heels and walks away with the slow movements of a man who has seen too much.
/
Tony holes up in the workshop. He finds solace and comfort in metal bending under his hands and creates. He doesn't know what he creates.
When he looks at the mirror, his face stares back at him with exhausted eyes and blue sorrow underneath them, silver streaks glinting in his hair. Age is gentle to him, he thinks and wonders if he deserves it.
Ghosts linger everywhere, the memory of a stern lecture finally ushering him into bed where he sinks into deep sleep. He doesn't dream a single thing.
/
Bucky starts to take care of Tony because someone needs to and because ghosts linger everywhere. He tries to forget, but he can't, and he knows it's the same with Tony. He knows because of the way Tony looks when nobody watches, as if he could see the lingering ghosts too, strikingly blue and strikingly golden, moving from room to room and coating everything with memories.
Lingering ghosts are everywhere. They fill the air with silent laughter and Bucky knows Tony can hear it too. They fill the rooms with echoes of heavy footsteps and a strong voice all blue and golden and Bucky knows Tony can hear them too.
Bucky starts to take care of Tony because lingering ghosts love both of them and because someone needs to.
/
It's easier than he imagined. Skin and bones is all there is left of them, just two damaged fools with ghosts lingering around them, lingering between them. Tony searches for the forgiveness of his ghosts in Bucky's scarred skin, at the place where his shoulder gracefully becomes metal, twisting his fist into long, black strands of hair. Bucky's body is hard and unyielding and far from granting Tony forgiveness. He moves with him, losing himself in red and black touches and imagining golden blue instead.
Sadness leaks from every corner of their hearts and both of them know. It's just a way of dealing with it without breaking down when there are ghosts lingering everywhere, no chance of getting rid of them.
Here lies a man, Tony thinks and stares blankly at the ceiling while Bucky silently curls up around him, softly touching his chin with two metallic fingers. Here lies a man and he did many things wrong, but he loved, once, and isn't that the strangest thing, that love is killing him because it's everything.
Beside him, Bucky closes his eyes with a deep sigh and says, "It wasn't worth it."
Tony looks at the ghosts lingering underneath his bed, smiling their blue, golden smile at him because they know everything, and howls with laughter until he cries.