Authors Notes: Firstly apologies for how long this has taken to update (life has been incredibly busy), aannnd for the fact it is now 5 chapters long instead of 3! Whoops!
So a bit more character development, world building, plot development etc... Not much smut (sorry! - Chapter 4 for sure! Which I hasten to add is under construction ;))
Going with the idea that Steve hasn't worked out Bucky killed Tony's parents yet, just in case there was any confusion. Enjoy guys! :)
The moment the door closes behind her Natasha knew she was screwed, the intended stealth mission back to her room went out the window and smashed on the street below when she snuck back in from the fire escape and came face to face with Steve, and shield or no shield the guy cut an intimidating figure when he stretched up to his full height and puffed his chest out so he was as wide as he was tall.
She instinctively shrinks back wondering if he was going to fall for her beguiling, feigning innocents she clutches the phone to her chest and smiles, "Morning Steve, up early?"
"A little breezy to be taking telephone calls out on the fire escape Nat," he points with his eyes, the rest of his face immoveable and screwed up like scrap metal.
How much did you hear?
"What's going on Nat?" He says taking a step forward invading her space, backing her further into the corner. "You know something," He points an accusing finger to the phone, "Tony's nearly had an aneurysm over this." Everything about him screeches 'coiled spring'. From the way he flares his nostrils to the way he's subconsciously balling his hands into fists at his side.
Natasha rolled her eyes and let her shoulders relax, "Come on Steve, stop pulling the raging bull impression." She glances around before continuing, "Look, I had to call in a favor to get you your precious file." Her voice drops to a harsh whisper, her eyes continually darting down the empty corridor and then back to Steve because she was acutely aware that Tony had been, and probably still was, curled on the sofa a few doors down.
"Bucky's file?" Steve deflates like he's been punched in the gut, "That's what was taken?" Natasha nods when he looks up eyes wide in disbelief, "Why couldn't you just have asked Tony for it?"
"If you remember Steve, SHIELD fell along with those Helicarriers, everything pertaining to SHIELD was seized, including, but not limited to-" Natasha paused for effect "-everything that was in that warehouse. It may have been Tony's property, but they were under Government control awaiting an emergency sort and destroy." Steve's face goes grey. "So, no, Steve. I couldn't just have asked Tony for them."
"That's not you in the video." He says for want of anything better.
"No."
"Who is it?" He asks quietly, not looking up from where he's fixed his eyes to his feet. Natasha has no doubt he's processing his Tony guilt at being the latest cause of his distress.
"A friend. Somebody I trust with my life." She looks for a reaction. "I'm going to get the file tomorrow." Steve nods.
"I'll come with you-"
"No. You won't." Steve looks up, hurt and anger twitches in the muscles of his clenched jaw. Natasha plants her hands on her hips with an air of finality.
I'm not budging on this.
"I can't just leave this alone Nat. It's… It's Bucky…"
"That's exactly why you have to leave this alone. There's too much emotion there. I think the whole tower has heard you not sleeping." Steve glances away with a blush coloring his cheeks, confirming her suspicions that something was going on between him and Tony in the wee hours. She chooses her next words carefully, "You don't have to say anything to him you know, technically- you're not involved in this."
Steve sighs, "I've never been much of a liar," he goes to put his hands in his pockets and suddenly remember he's standing in his shorts, "I really should…" He trails off.
Natasha entertains the silence for a while watching Steve shift his weight from foot to foot and ring his hands, "Right, well I'll catch up with you later." She makes her move to leave, Steve's fidgeting creating a gap large enough for her to slip past.
"Nat, take Sam with you?" He stops her with a firm grip on her arm.
"Steve, I can't-"
"Please,"
Steve stands alone in the corridor reeling from the wake of his conversation with Natasha. Clenching his hands to fists out of nervous-frustrated habit, because it came back to Bucky. It always came back to Bucky and now there was someone else involved.
A shadowy-friend-of-Natasha's someone else who'd managed to gouge and claw their way into several highly classified storage cabinets, leaving behind nothing but broken locks and blur on a CCTV camera.
And now Steve knew. And Tony didn't.
He made his way back to the TV room relieved to see that Tony was still curled on the sofa where he had left him, only he's nestled further into the warm spot that Steve had left behind with his hands tucked under his cheek, he shifts and groans in his sleep. And it shouldn't, oh god it shouldn't. But that noise the rough-gravelly sound pitches straight to the recesses of Steve's brain that was still churning over the event in the kitchen and throws it back into sharp focus, when Tony's rough fingertips had been pressing against the vein that ran along the underside of his cock and he'd been rubbing himself off against Steve's thigh.
Steve can't stop the unexpected rush of air that escapes his lungs and the sudden urge that shoots down his body making him double over and dash to his room.
He ends up in gasping in the shower.
He's so keyed up that all it takes is three firm strokes and he's coming, shuddering and gritting his teeth under the spray, curling his toes against the unyielding floor and throwing a hand out against the wall to steady himself as guilt, confusion and pleasure slip down the tiles in great splotches of white.
He stays there until his skin is flushed pink from the heat and his fingertips have started to crease. The sun is well and truly up by the time he's regained some semblance of control and ventured out into the common areas.
Natasha's long gone and he's relieved, guilty and a little bit empty to find that Tony is nowhere to be seen.
The yellow cab pulls off Hunts Point Avenue and heads East along Garrison. "Anywhere along here is fine," Natasha says smiling at an apprehensive Sam as she addresses the cab driver. He nods and pulls the vehicle to a stop on the corner of Falite Street.
The driver flashes a thumbs up out the window as he departs leaving Natasha and Sam standing outside a garish Mexican grocery store. They're close enough to the railway tracks that when a loaded freight train rattles past it shakes the ground under their feet.
"So, this is the place?" Sam looks up skyward to the dull apartment block sat atop the store in fifty shades of brown.
Natasha follows Sam's gaze. The whole place is oppressive, looming over them and cutting a solid block out of the horizon. Unnecessarily complicated and messy electrical cables span the whole length of the street hanging overhead like mesh wire that's going to fall down on top of them. Natasha sees him shudder and stuff his hands into his pockets. "This is the place."
She leads him to a back entrance through a set of peeling black metal gates and past an enormous mound of trash. She's not surprised to find the back fire escape door hanging off its hinges at an angle.
"No lift," Sam observes as they both politely play the 'let's ignore the smell of piss in the stairwell' game whilst they ascend.
"What did you expect?"
"Honestly? I have no idea. I had Steve telling me you needed a partner to go pick up something from somebody… Ok, that was a lie. Steve said 'chaperone.'" Natasha rolls her eyes, "Then I find myself in the Bronx with you trying not to breathe the air in a stairwell that smells like cat pee, or worse." He huffs. "This is not how I saw my day panning out. I mean, I'm not sure I can hold my breath all the way to the top floor." Natasha looks behind her, Sam was smiling his gap-toothed grin and shaking his head. "You know Cap didn't tell me what we were going to get… I mean it doesn't matter, I'm up for heavy lifting and all that. I just don't know why you need me here?"
"I don't," She hears Sam pause behind her.
"Ouch,"
"Steve needs you here, he gave me the puppy dog eyes," She throws him a glance over her shoulder, "Steve can't leave well enough alone where Bucky is concerned, that's why you're here. Trust me, I would much rather have done this alone."
"Wait… Did you say 'Bucky'?" Sam freezes behind her, "Not that dude, I'm all for heavy lifting, but no way," he says shaking his head and waving his arms in front of him, "I'm out, done…" He turns, about to bolt down the stairs.
"Relax, it's not him. Something to do with him, yes. But not him, come on, we're meeting an old friend." She gives Sam a 'hurry up' gesture and he glances once back at the stairwell below then back up at her.
He catches up with her a flight or two later, albeit reluctantly, "So, this 'old friend'," he says making air quotes, "Are we talking KGB old friend, or.." He trails off hopefully.
"A SHIELD old friend," she says thinking of the best way to give the least information about her ex-colleague, "There is, something you need to know." Natasha pauses in the middle of a flight of stairs four floors to go before the top. "She's not… that's to say… She's," Natasha always struggled with the right words on how to describe Ilona, "She's not like you and me. If anything, weird happens, just go with it… Ok?"
Sam looks up at her quizzically and laughs, "Ok."
Apart from the occasional snort of laughter from Sam at the juvenile graffiti that covers the walls, they walk the rest of the stairwell in silence. When they arrive, the top floor's no better than the rest, no windows, a singular fluorescent strip light hanging awkwardly off the ceiling and insistently blinking on and off. It wouldn't have provided enough light for the whole corridor even if it had been functional.
"Did your friend say which number it was?" Sam hovers behind her looking from one end of the corridor to the other.
There are three front doors lined up like ignition coils to choose from each one looking about as derelict as the next, "That part she left out…" Natasha reaches for the flip phone in her pocket. Her hand freezes and Sam's eyes go wide when the air shifts and goes heavy, vibrations rumble through the floor beneath their feet, like a distant engine firing up and a voice echoes around seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
"You're late, and you're not alone," it says, "Do we trust?" Natasha presses her hand to her chest where the sound reverberates through her ribcage.
"We trust," her response is met by silence, but the tremors beneath her feet tell she's been heard.
There a sigh, a rumble of bass notes like ripples through the air. "Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. You had best come in then…" The furthest door opens cautiously and the vibrations abruptly cut off. Sam looks like he's ready to sprint back down the stairs and keep it up all the way back to Manhattan. He'd been training with Steve, Natasha wouldn't put it passed him.
He hisses in her ear, "I'm guessing the 'weird' thing about your friend isn't that she's British?"
She flashes him the 'just roll with it' look beckoning him to keep close as they step over the threshold.
They enter a hallway-come-foyer, it's clean enough. A few ominous stains mark the cream threadbare carpet and the wallpaper is peeling in places. There's a welcome rush of fresh air that comes in through the open door at the end of the hall where Ilona stands peering at them.
It's the first time in a long time that Natasha has seen her in anything other than loose clothes, she stands in shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt the pale skin on her long limbs making her look almost wraithlike. "Hi Nat," she makes a show of draping her arms across herself looking around Natasha to address Sam, "Hello,"
She waves for them to both come into the room she's in. It's light and airy with the same carpet as the hall and the same peeling wallpaper, but the large windows are all thrown open on their hinges and at this height, the air is clear from the pollution of the streets.
She saunters over to a desk positioned in front of one of the windows. Natasha glances over at Sam whose busy giving one of the largest dog beds that she has ever seen a cautious appraisal.
"This is what you wanted," Ilona says dropping a weathered manilla file onto the desk, a few stray photos spread out and slide along the worn leather surface of the desk.
Natasha leans over to look.
"So," Ilona asks expectantly, "what do you think of the place?" She gestures wide with her arms and splays her hands.
"It's… Something," Sam responds; Natasha sees him out the corner of her eye giving the dog bed and Ilona a wide berth. Natasha was used to it, Ilona's presence always had a way of making people uneasy, like the air fidgeted around her, even more so when her emotions were heightened.
Bringing Sam may have been a bad idea.
"You have a dog?" Natasha asks glancing nervously at Ilona as she picks up a black and white print from the table. It was a diffusion tactic, distraction.
It works, the air crackles like disbursing static before it settles, "No. Skippy's not a dog," she sounds almost offended. "He's an Apocryphal Metatheria I busted out of a Foundation facility when I took the…." Natasha looks at her and she trails off, smiling sheepishly. "You know what? It's not important. You came for this anyway." She gestures to the file that Natasha has spread out on the desk.
"What do you make of this?" Natasha passes a print to Sam, it's high quality taken within the last ten years at least, "there are chains on the floor," she says. The picture, the one currently making Natasha's stomach knot, is of the cells at the Hydra facility documented when the base was found empty and destroyed.
Sam twists it this way and that, scratches his head, looks at the lettering on the manilla file and asks, "How did you get this?"
"I was part of a covert mission to obtain certain sensitive goods before they could be made available to the public," Ilona smirks in Natasha's direction, the lilt of her accent almost made theft sound honorable.
"You stole it?"
"On Nat's orders," she holds up three fingers like a scout salute, "once a Shadow Agent, always a Shadow Agent," she says to the ceiling before looking back at Sam and shrugging, "besides, if we all existed within the realms of legality, it would be a very dull existence indeed."
Sam flashes Natasha an: 'I can't believe this' look, raising his eyebrows and going back to study the photo in his hands, "they kept him in chains… That's barbaric"
"Not all the time," they both turn to look back at Ilona. She makes a 'gimmie' gesture for the photograph, "That's not where they kept him, he was here," she points to the cell disappearing out of shot. "This one-" she says tapping where the chains meet the floor, Natasha already knew what she was going to say, "-This one was mine."
"What do you think Skip?" Ilona turns to the enormous creature that walks up next to her and noses his armored head under her free hand. She scratches the smooth leather-like plates of skin with her fingertips and he shivers and arches his back.
"He's out there again…. The one I told you about, shall we find him before they do?" Ilona watches Natasha and Sam disappear into a yellow cab, then crouches to be at eye level with her creature. He rumbles and she reaches for the pendant she keeps around her neck, pulling it out from where it rested in the dip of her chest warmed by her skin. It's a titanium surgical pin, about two inches in length and tapered to a blunt point, its surface polished and machine perfect as it reflects the light coming in from the open window.
"Besides, I have something that belongs to him," she strikes the pin on the edge of the desk closing one eye and tilting her head to the side to catch the frequency it resonates at. Skippy twitches his large elongated ears and does the same.
"He always did make a very unique sound,"
Tony was lost in his thoughts over-tightening a screw on the chest plate of the mark 46, his heart's not really in it. He wasn't sure what was more embarrassing, what he was coming to refer to as 'the kitchen incident' or waking up alone in the TV room with a stinking hangover having been ditched after said incident. His memory of it was, a little hazy and this horrible niggling thought kept creeping back in his head.
Steve had kind of been into it…
"Stop thinking like that," he says, chastising himself aloud, jumping when Pepper responds.
"Like what?" She clicks across the workshop floor in a pair of dangerous looking heels giving him a quizzical look, "You're not answering your phone, I thought I would bring you the good news. Firstly you never removed my override access to your workshop door, secondly," she waves a manilla file back and forth before dropping it onto the desk in front of him, "We've found out what was taken." She flips the file open.
Tony looks on dumbstruck still clutching the screwdriver in his hand as she continues, "An old SHIELD case file for 'The Winter Soldier' aka James Barnes," she hesitates before continuing, not meeting Tony's eyes, "and an old SHIELD personnel file belonging to one 'Miss Ilona Warner',"
"The Winter Soldier? James Barnes… The one Cap's looking for?"
Pepper looks at him little uncertain, "I think so-"
"No weapon blue-prints missing, no trade secrets snatched?"
"No, Howard's filing system was a little antiquated and manual compared to what I'm used to, but everything else was accounted for-"
"You think it might be Hydra?"
"What? Tony, listen there's something important I need to tell you. The team that was cataloging the files found something… something important… Are you listening to me?" Tony startles at the hand Pepper waves in front of his glazed eyes. Snapping to attention.
"Pepper, what would I do without you?" He says, jumping up from his desk and kissing her on the cheek as he skids out the workshop. "I have to find Steve."
Tony's out of breath by the time he hammers on Steve bedroom door, half exerted half nervously-excited.
"Steve," he wheezes growing impatient for an answer he rattles the handle not really thinking it through, the door unexpectedly gives and he stumbles into Steve room.
"Jeez Tony, give me a chance to answer the door," Steve says hastily tidying papers that were strewn all over his desk, "What's the big emergency?" he says flustered his cheeks steadily filling up to pink, Tony suddenly realising that this was the first time since 'the kitchen incident' they had been in the same room longer than ten seconds.
"It was Hydra," he blurts, "the break-in I mean. Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb anything," he rubs at the back of his neck suddenly all too aware of how he must look, he catches Steve's eye then abruptly drops his gaze to his feet realizing he ran here in his socks. "They err… Well, they took The Winter Soldier file,"
Tony sees Steve flinch at the mention, his hands momentarily balling to fists before they relax at his sides again. He grunts by way of response.
They stand in awkward silence, the atmosphere building to something thick with all the things that are going unsaid. Steve looks furious, every muscle in his jaw pulled taut as he glares down at his desk.
"Umm, everything alright Cap?" Tony asks because he thinks he should. His chest starts to go tight when Steve doesn't answer. It's to do with 'the kitchen incident' he knows it.
"Listen, Steve. I should thank you, for the other night…. Wait, I mean, sorry, I should apologize," it was coming out all wrong, but Steve was looking at him now, something close to sadness and hurt in his eyes, "It, err… Well, it went too far-"
"It wasn't Hydra," Steve blurts, throwing Tony for a loop.
"Excuse me?"
Steve rakes a hand through his hair rifling through the papers he had hurriedly stashed in his desk, "This is all wrong, it wasn't Hydra," He tries to push something into Tony direction who puts his hands up and takes a step back.
"What's going on here Steve? I don't… Look, just put it on the desk," Steve obliges and steps back dropping his head as he does so. Tony shoots him a glance confused by the sudden change as he steps forward and it's Steve's turn to look at his feet. He shifts uncomfortably out the corner of Tony's eye, who can't quite believe what's strewn open on the desk.
"Is this… Some kind of a joke?" Tony pushes the words out, resisting the urge to claw at his chest as the realization of what's going on grips him, "What the hell is this?" He smacks a hand down onto the file, "Are you trying to tell me you took it? Steve, what the hell is this? I thought… I thought you were helping me, what the hell was all that the other night?" He feels his blood start to heat up as his voice raises a decibel or two.
What the hell kind of game is Steve playing…
"I'm sorry, I… I didn't mean for this to happen… I asked Natasha to help me find him after the helicarriers and he disappeared, I didn't know what she was going to do." Steve pleads barely able to look at him.
Anger mixed with betrayal churns in Tony's stomach and rushes into the space between them, "You should have come talked to me, instead of… arranging to steal it," he spits.
"Tony, the building was on lockdown, nothing was leaving that facility. It was the only way-"
"Not the only way Steve, I could have worked something out." Tony folds his arms in front of his chest squaring up to Steve, making the considerably taller man shrink back.
"I'm sorry Tony, I would have come to you first if I had of known where the files were being kept-"
"Do you have any idea what I have been going through the last few days?" Tony pauses, not long enough for Steve to respond, "I'll answer for you shall I? I've gone through hell Steven, thinking it was another terrorist group, picturing the fallout." Tony taps a finger vigorously to his temple, "Jesus Christ, I came here to apologize to you." Tony turns away from him sharply and jerks violently away from the hand Steve tries to put on his shoulder, "No, you don't," he hisses and keeps his hands up until Steve's got the message.
"I don't believe you, what was it you said: 'we're a team', some fucking team Cap. Some fucking team." He stalks out the room without looking back.
He ends up back in his workshop, seething and gulping scotch neat from the bottle, it stung that Steve would go to such an extream, he'd watched the recording one more time, just as a sadistic punishment for himself, it definitely wasn't Steve or Natasha that slinked through the cabinets like smoke.
And that horribly-nice-niggly thought of:'Steve had kind of been into it…' From earlier, which made him feel warm inside was now replaced with the crushing realization that:
Steve will bend every moral he has for the sake of James Barnes…
If that wasn't an excuse for another hit of scotch, then Tony didn't know what was.
