Chapter One

The Lost Against the Found

Tony got the tip from an unknown informant. He didn't seek out the person behind the shades nor the news that the person brought. He never did feel like the accident was really an accident, that things like that couldn't just happen without a real reason behind it. Nevertheless, he never did research into it. Of course he wanted to know what really happened to his parents, but he would rather have blood for their deaths.

But now he knew. He knew that the car wreck was only made to seem like it wasn't intended to happen. Given that detail from the unknown informant and the fact that it matched his original assumption that his parents were murdered, he believed it. He knew he was right on another thing: he wanted blood for it.

"Tony, this really isn't a good idea," Natasha told him as the billionaire prepped one of his new suits to go and look for the murdering bastard.

"You really think I'm an expert on good, well-planned ideas?" he turned to her, his words slowing for emphasis, "And do you really think that I care?"

"I know you're an expert on a lot of things, especially bad ideas, and that you rarely care about the consequences," Tony huffed and was fully suited, all but his face covered by metal. "Pepper will be back in a few hours. Just wait for her and-"

"I never asked for your input." The ferocity in his voice was enough to shut her up. She knew that Steve was out looking for Bucky as they spoke, seeing that it was all he did in his spare time. Natasha also knew that Tony couldn't get a hold of Bucky. She could imagine how that would end, with Tony standing over a motionless Bucky, a light smoke coming from the palm of Tony's suit.

Before she could convince him otherwise, Tony left.

That in itself was concerning.

Natasha knew how efficient she was at convincing people to do what she wanted.

She tried to call Steve to give him at least a vague heads-up on the situation, but as usual he didn't respond to his phone. She wondered why he even had a phone if he couldn't even answer one call. Steve found the devices distracting and sparsely used his, much to the inconvenience of everyone that knew and wanted to get a hold of him.

"Damn it."

Tony made JARVIS search anyone in the area for significant amounts of metal on them. No one paid attention to Iron Man flying over them, as the citizens of New York grew accustom to him and the other Avengers. A few would snap a few photos, but no one was jumping up and down at seeing him.

Tony was getting impatient, more so than normal. "Find anything yet, JARVIS?"

"Nothing to your specifications, Sir."

He would find the bastard. He would find him and make him feel pain beyond belief, if the monster could even feel pain at all.

Tony doubted it.

It wasn't fair. All the questions that Tony still wanted to ask his father, questions about everything from the arc reactors to Pepper, all his questions about himself and his parents would go unanswered. All the things he wanted to tell them, they couldn't hear. All the things they should have had, they would never get. They were supposed to die peacefully in a bed, as old as could be, with Tony holding their hands. It should have been expected, a death from old age. Wrinkled and peaceful, happy with the man their son became. It shouldn't have been when he was only a kid, his parents bloody and mangled in the jagged twists of a car.

Three lives screeched to a halt that day by an assassin who stole the lives of two parents and destroyed the life of their son.

Those brown eyes were set on finding the man who took his parents away, set on seeing him exposed to a pain proportionate to what Tony felt from their absence in his life and the new pain he felt at knowing their deaths were intentional.

"Sir, I may have found something," JARVIS reported.

"Show me."

There. It came up on the display inside the suit's helmet. Two people in the woods, both showing high amounts of metal.

"Sir, you may want to approach them on foot."

"Why?"

"One of them is Steve Rogers. I suspect he wouldn't want you to barge in on his conversation." Ah, yes. A simple man and his hate for technology. Even if technology did send him into the Atlantic to prevent millions of people from dying, and even if technology almost killed him and millions of people a few months ago, it's still done a lot of good for the world.

Tony took the advice and lowered himself to the ground, walking close enough to be able to hear them and far enough away to not be heard. The two were standing in between a few trees, both of them in baseball caps and hoodies despite the heat of the day.

Tony picked up on the middle of their conversation. "They won't hurt you, Bucky-" Steve continued on, undeterred by the assassin yelling for being called that name. Tony had a feeling that Steve did most of the talking. The other guy probably couldn't put more than four words together in a sentence. "I won't let them do anything to you. Please, just come with me. They can't take you away from me-"

"I'm not your property,' the assassin spat. So far, Tony had been right.

Steve held up his hands, "I didn't mean it that way."

Even under the cap Tony could see that the bastard was unkempt, with overgrown, unwashed hair and a beard that hadn't been shaved in who knows how long. He looked afraid though Steve didn't pose as a threat to him. Perhaps he always looked afraid.

Steve took a step toward the assassin, backpedaling before being met with a body slamming into his. He blew the shoulder to his chest off like it was nothing, though he was out of breath, and let the man punching him continue on. On his last punch, instead of pulling his fist back to continue the battering, the assassin unwrapped his tightly closed fists and locked them around the front of Steve's dark blue sweatshirt.

"You…" the hit-man started, his hair that was tucked under his hat falling to cover his cheeks as he lowered his head, "You're wasting your time," he brought his other hand, the metal one, up next to the other to cling to Steve's sweatshirt. "He's gone. Your friend can't come back."

Steve had the same expression on his face the whole time he was being attacked by the man in front of him. "He isn't gone. He's right here." He was unmoved by the punches and the dropped shoulder, looking at the man in front of him with remorse.

Remorse?

For a murderer?

Tony had enough.

He took to the air again, not caring about how much noise he made. He flew to the two men- No, the man and the monster.

The assassin heard Tony first, letting go of Steve and running off into the cover of the woods. Tony changed directions, about to follow him when he was jerked forward by a shield hitting him in the shoulder. "Hey!" a none-too-pleased Steve yelled, claiming his shield when it ricocheted back to him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Tony?" Steve was using his "I'm Captain America, I'm in charge" voice.

Tony turned to Steve. He could catch up with the murderer later. "A public service," he said, hovering 10 feet off the ground.

"I was almost there. I almost had him come back with me. Why did you-"

"He isn't setting one foot in that tower!" Tony yelled. He let Steve glare at him for a few seconds before continuing. "I'm surprised he could keep from killing you right then. I expect him to have troubles with suppressing the urge to kill anyone he sees."

"What?" Steve looked at him, jaw jutting out in anger.

Tony's voice could be heard through his mask, slightly robotic and distorted, "You knew about it, didn't you? You knew he- that monster, killed my parents? That he took the parents of a kid who was too young to live without them?"

"That's not him! That's Hydra." He didn't answer Tony. "They made him that way. The murderer is programmed into him. The murderer isn't him." Steve was getting increasingly angry and distracted. "That's not him. That," Steve pointed in the direction that the man fled, "Isn't Bucky."

Steve left the tower hoping he would come back with Bucky, but instead he came back with a man that was more mad at him than he had been in a long time. Tony had some right to be mad, but he too took the situation out of proportion. Tony started out flying ahead of Steve to get away from the man so they could be mad at each other in peace, but Steve called him on his newfangled cellular device and chided Tony through the speakers of his helmet. He preferred to have the man yell at him through his armor than right into his ear, for that reason he turned around and walked with Steve back to the tower.

Steve continued yelling at Tony as they went up to the residence floors of the tower that Tony added in for any of the passing, going, or staying Avengers. After SHIELD kind of imploded, a lot of people Tony knew were suddenly out of a place to live, notably Natasha and Steve. With the Malibu house leveled by a fake lunatic, Tony and Pepper also found themselves homeless.

Pepper, fresh off a Stark Industry jet from California, was the first to talk to the two marching into the main living area, the steam almost visible coming out of their heads. "Tony. Where have you been? You knew I was coming and off you go to…" she threw her hand into the air, "To do what, exactly?"

There she goes.

"To find some man who may or may not be responsible for your parents' deaths? Really?" Pepper put her hands on her hips. "I'll have you know that while you were gone going God knows what, I wasn't the only one who arrived-"

"Pepper, I just got an earful from the Star Spangled Man with a Fucking Stupid Plan, I don't need you chewing my ass too," Tony said in one breath. Pepper Potts, being the stubborn ginger that she is, stared fiercely back at Tony, thinking about some words she would have with him later.

Natasha walked out from around the corner, a safety razor in her hand and a towel on her shoulder. "Hey guys," she called, "You wanna keep it down? You don't want to scare off the lost puppy that wandered in." Steve and Tony gave her confused look, both with their eyebrows pinched together and Tony with his upper lip raised slightly.

"Why do you have a razor?"

Natasha looked at Pepper like they should already know why.

"Tony wouldn't let me finish."

The confused men followed the women to one of the bathrooms, opposite reactions coming from both of them.

"Bucky," Steve said, astonished and relieved.

"Murderer," Tony voiced his disapproval, angry and ready to fight.

Steve's face softened from its previous expression of being mad at Tony and Tony thought it hilarious that a monster could ever get that sort of reaction. It's a good thing that he had the reactor and shrapnel removed because it would be having a hard time keeping up with the adrenalin going through the furious Tony Stark. Steve watched the man sitting on the toilet lid, who must have come to the tower under his own will. He was in only an undershirt and boxers, most of his scars visible. Steve assumed that Nat made him take off his clothes so they could be washed and he could change into clean ones. "He won't let me shave that poor excuse for a beard," Nat said, setting the razor and towel down next to the sink.

"Because he doesn't trust you."

Tony laughed. "He doesn't trust anyone."

Steve ignored that and continued, "Would you let a stranger do anything to you that involved blades unless they were a barber or a doctor?"

"You're all talking like I'm not even here." There was no emotion to carry his words.

Tony was wrong. The murderer said double the number of words than he originally thought possible. "I really wish you weren't."

"Tony!" Pepper looked at him with wide eyes as though she were about to slap him.

Moving only his eyes, Bucky looked up at Tony. "You aren't the only one."

"Then why're you even here? You know, the front of this thing may only have an "A" left, but that letter is part of my name. What's stopping me from throwing your ratty ass out?"

The assassin pointed his thumb lazily at Steve. "I came here because of him."

Tony squinted at the man, asking "Why?"

Bucky had that look of a helpless puppy that everyone was starting to believe him to be. "I want answers. He's the only one that can give them to me." Bucky got up and looked in the mirror.

Steve leaned over to Tony. "Please let him stay," he whispered, "Who knows, he could offer intel for us."

"I don't care. I won't let the man who killed my parents stay in the building that has their names on it. That's sick and twisted all in itself."

Bucky rubbed at his beard, saying "It's not that sad, is it?" while the two quietly argued over him.

In a three-against-one argument, two of the three being women and the other being Captain America, Tony had to fight hard but eventually lost. Under duress, he agreed to let the assassin stay at the tower. Tony made his position clear by stating that he would rarely be in the same room as the monster, for when he blew up and went on a murdering spree. Steve was the one to blow up, provoked by that comment, and made everyone leave him and Bucky alone. Bucky was the only one to remain calm the entire time, bored by everything and certainly not entertained by some people fighting over him.

Steve looked over at Bucky, who he thought took offense to the comment, "Don't listen to him. He's a dumbass." He had to remind himself not to stare at the many scars that were now visible to him. It was the first time he saw them.

"I already knew that much." The corner of Steve's mouth and his eyebrow rose when he chuckled at the comment.

Bucky looked tired and dirty. His eyes were dull and dark, yellow and baggy underneath, his mouth completely relaxed as though he didn't have the effort to at least try to look slightly more aware. All Steve wanted to do when he examined Bucky was make him shower and send him to bed, possibly sneaking under the covers like they always did and curling up next to-

"I'm not here because you persuaded me to come. I'm here so I can get some answers out of you. That's all." Steve was pulled from his thoughts. His mouth moved before his brain could tell him not to and replied with "Okay." Had he worn his thoughts on his face? Was what he thinking really written on his face, or did Bucky just say that to clarify his intent?

"Uh," he turned away, taking hold of the door, "You can take a shower. We can talk later." Steve didn't want to be a nuisance and bother Bucky to the point of driving him away, but there was so much he wanted to say. Mostly, he wanted to tell Bucky how responsible he felt for letting him fall. If Steve could have saved him, Hydra wouldn't have found him in the snow and taken him to experiment on him, to brainwash him.

Steve and the others waited in the main living area for Bucky to get out of the shower.

"Do you think it rusts?"

"What, the arm?"

"Not all metal rusts easily, Pepper."

"I wonder if he has to make sure water doesn't get in it."

"No, it can be in water." Underwater, too. Steve didn't have the proof, other than he somehow ended up on the shore instead of on the bottom of the river. He was sure of it, though. He had that gut feeling that Bucky was the one who pulled him out of the water.

"You can't know that, Steve. No one knows who it was."

"But no one knows it wasn't him, either." It had to be him. No one else would have known that Steve was in there.

They could hear the bathroom door click open and eventually the assassin appeared in Steve's T-shirt and sweatpants, his being the only clothing big enough to fit the tired man. Four different looks (curiosity, caution, relief, and anger) were aimed at the man with no real emotion on his face. "Glad to know I interest you all so much," he said when they continued looking at him.

"So," Steve said, standing and putting his hands in his pockets, "You up for talking?"

Bucky raised and lowered his shoulders, "I guess." He really didn't care either way.

Steve led the way to the den down the hall, letting Bucky choose his seat before he let himself sit. "So what do you want to know?" Bucky was in the chair closest to the entryway and Steve was on the sofa perpendicular to him.

"Why do you want me to remember?" Bucky had too much pride to try to wear that look he had, broken and lost, eyes sad without realizing they were.

"Why?" Steve had to clarify. He thought Bucky wanted to know things like where he came from and who family and friends were. He didn't think he would have to tell his oldest friend why he wants him to remember his life.

"I already know my history. That was easy to learn, since my history mostly involves you and there's plenty of idiots that practically worship the ground you walk on."

"Oh," was all Steve could say because he didn't expect Bucky to be so specific. Maybe it would be harder to answer his questions than he thought. "You're a good person," he tried, getting a laugh from the other man, "Who a lot of people liked and respected." Not that people don't respect him now too, for his skills in eliminating a target. "They could count on you to bail them out, catch a rogue sniper with a shot of your own."

Bucky started to lose interest. "Look," Steve said, leaning forward, "What I'm trying to say is a lot of people liked you. Everyone missed you when you…" He looked at his knees, not wanting to think about it, "I missed you, Buck."

For once, Steve wasn't yelled at for calling the man that name. It probably just slipped past him.

"So you want me to remember everything because you missed me?" Bucky said instead, slowly, like he didn't understand it.

Steve looked up at those sad, lost eyes. "What other reason is there?"

All of the bedrooms of the tower's residence floors had already been claimed by someone, whether an Avenger or their counterpart, or their counterpart's counterpart. There was an unspoken rule that no one mess with other people's stuff, no matter how infrequent their trips to the tower were. Without any vacant rooms, this meant that Bucky had to sleep in Steve's room. Steve, being the considerate man that he is, wouldn't let Bucky sleep on a sofa and was given that spot by Pepper. She had been the one to suggest it, with a silent protest coming from Steve. He also silently suggested that he sleep next to Bucky, in case he had a nightmare in the middle of the night and needed to be calmed down.

It's not like they had never slept in the same bed before, either. Even when they were too old to be sleeping together anymore, they often found themselves under the same covers because either: one didn't have a place to go, they both couldn't afford anything more, Steve was having a bad streak with his asthma, or they just missed each other. They were hard times. You made so with what you had. They always could make do with the other there.

It was still such a foreign feeling for Steve to be too big for the thing he was failing to sleep on. He was still used to being too small and frail for the bed he failed to sleep in.

In the early hours, when he would normally be having his morning jog, Steve was making up for the sleep he lost in the night before. Sam Wilson noticed that his sprinting-while-he-jogged buddy was slacking off and went up to the residence floors to bust his ass. He went straight to Steve's room, checking his watch to make sure he wasn't wasting too much daylight to wake up the old fart. Sam walked right by the horizontal Steve, not seeing that he wasn't in his room and instead was hidden behind the back of the sofa. He had been on a late job the day before, missing all the excitement and not knowing any better when he threw open Steve's bedroom door, yelling for him to quit wasting time and wake his lazy ass up.

Sam couldn't expect to see a perfectly made bed and a dark figure running in his direction, for the door.

The figure rammed his shoulder into Sam and they both fell out of Steve's room, the figure reaching to his side for a weapon that wasn't there. The only thing that Sam could manage to say in between his scolding of Steve and the moment he had a shoulder in his ribs was "Jesus-"

Everyone was scrambling from their rooms to find out what was going on. Steve, being the closest to the action, was the first to arrive with lines on his face from his pillow and still half asleep. He rubbed his blond head a few times, a clear "What?" pressed into his expression. Sam was still trying to figure out what hit him, sitting sprawled out on the floor with his hands behind him holding him up. Bucky, breathing heavily and obviously trying not to have a mental breakdown, was sitting with his shoulder against a wall and a hand clinging to his erratic chest.

As the others made their way to Steve's room, Steve made his way to Bucky. When he got close enough to be a threat, Bucky threw a fist into the air to ward Steve off. He had the instincts of a scared animal, lashing out at anything that came too close to him. Steve held his hands up when Bucky's flailing fists were about to hit him, letting the cowering man hit his forearm all he wanted.

After Bucky seemed to calm down and stopped hitting him, Steve knelt beside the man and held his hands up, showing that he wasn't a threat. He wanted Bucky to see that Steve had no reason to hurt him.

The others watched Steve with Bucky, some thoughts of wasted energy, some thoughts of a noble, maybe futile effort to turn the animal back into the man. They watched Steve try to put his arms around the animal. They watched the animal lash out again, trying to break anything it could. They watched Steve take every blow of the flailing limbs without so much as a flinch, because he knew he could take it. They watched Steve try again to put his arms around the animal, pulling him close so those arms didn't have the room to gain momentum.

Softly, to not frighten the animal further, Steve spoke as soothingly as he could. "It's okay, Buck. No one's here to hurt you." Through his jittery body and mangled breathing, Steve could feel just how lost and scared the man in his arms was. "We want the opposite of that." He guided that fragile head to rest on his shoulder, the animal losing his scared look. The animal was gone, replaced by the blank half of a man with the unconcerned gaze.

In the room where the animal was unleashed, a bed lay undisturbed, a chair lay overturned, and a book of sketches lay open on a desk.