A/N - This story has been nagging at me and demanding I work on it, otherwise after my astonishing week of ALL THE STORIES... well, I might have disappeared forever.

But I didn't. Because for some reason Tony and Bucky just won't. get out. of my head.

So, enjoy!

(NOTE: Yeah, I did a five-week timeskip. SUE ME, Bucky had a back wound. Those things don't just disappear, trust me, I know.)

So it went. It did take an utterly absurd amount of money to hire a team of specialists to work with the Winter Soldier (mostly because he needed to bribe them to keep their mouths shut about it), but he was Tony Stark, so that wasn't much of an issue. The real issue was that, by the time Bucky's back was healed and Tony had a lead on Hydra, nobody was sure about the state of the soldier's mind.

"He still responds to the triggers in high-stress situations, Mister Stark, he really isn't stable enough to be in the field yet."

"Yeah, I know, but I said we'd be going when we found something." He glanced at the Soldier and raised his eyebrows. "I don't mean to be insulting - but do you think you can handle-"

"Yes." Bucky was already flexing his (rebuilt, not reattached) metal arm. "What do you have in the way of weapons around here?"

Tony smirked slightly, gesturing at himself. "Hello, billionaire prodigy of the entire weapons industry. Everyone forgets that isn't just limited to bombs." They took his private elevator to one of his no-entry labs (it really was surprising just how many areas of the Tower nobody knew about). "I've been working on some stuff for you. Just take whatever feels good to you."

Honestly? He was flattered when the assassin only spared the barest glance to weapons by other designers before heading straight to the StarkTech section of what Tony dubbed "the Armory" (despite the fact that literally nobody but Bucky had ever needed it).

"This has a button that I don't understand." He was holding up one of Tony's best designs yet, a state-of-the-art sniper rifle with… er, upgrades. "Two buttons."

"Blue one initiates collapsed mode. Feel free to hit it and see how small it gets." Nobody but Tony Stark could invent a sniper rifle that collapses to the size of a rather thick tablet. He allowed himself a proud smile at the look of shock in Bucky's eyes. "The red one, well, that switches to incendiary bullets. And the blue one will then switch back to regular."

"Right. This one, then." He scooped up several handguns, more grenades and bullets than Tony thought were strictly necessary (but he wasn't going to argue), and grabbed a duffel bag from next to the door with no questions asked.

Apparently, the idea of an awesomer-than-usual survival bag needed no explanation.

Absentmindedly, Tony wondered if Steve, Clint, or Nat had ever actually checked their messages. He would never know, of course. He had survived the explosion, but his phone, not so much. It was unfortunate that they wouldn't have backup.

"So, I have a question." Bucky slipped into the pilot's seat of the helicopter, and Tony decided not to argue. If he thought he could pilot it better than Tony, he probably could.

"Shoot, Red October." After receiving only a raised eyebrow, he sighed. "Has anyone started catching you up on pop culture? Anyway, what's your question?"

Quietly settling back in his seat, Bucky waited so long to respond that Tony thought he'd forgotten that they were talking. Finally, though, he asked quietly, "Isn't the whole weapons thing a taboo for you? What's with letting me use them?"

"Okay, not a question I thought about." He hesitated. "Well, first of all, it's not exactly a taboo for me. I told the world I was out of the weapons business, but the Avengers have always been an exception. For instance, the arrows Hawkeye was fighting with were crap, so I upgraded them. And who do you think made those Widow Bites that Natasha uses?"

"All right, that makes sense." A few moments of silence, and then a quiet follow-up. "In that case, why did you let me-"

"I don't know." This time, he had been expecting the question, and he knew how to answer it. "Somewhere along the way, you became an Avenger, but I have no idea when that was."

There was a lot he still didn't know. Hell, a lot of his actions didn't make sense, if he was being totally honest. But there was one thing he knew for sure.

"Anyway, you saved my life." He shrugged. "You didn't know my suit would show up just in time, you thought you were taking a grenade for me. I guess you're just as much of a reckless, heroic idiot as the rest of us, huh?"

Bucky snorted and muttered, "Nuclear space portal," under his breath. Tony just snorted and tried to shove aside the images those words brought with them.

"Yeah, we're all idiots. And now, we're flying a helicopter into what is quite possibly an area infested with Hydra, and neither of us are even questioning it."

They could go find Steve, Bucky probably knew where he was. Alternatively, they could trace his trail backward, try to find Hydra's trail that way. But if they did either of those things, they could be followed easily. No, they wanted to be the predator for once, not the prey.

And besides, nobody had picked up for a full night, and that meant one of two things. Either they had been in trouble, which meant they were tangling with Hydra themselves, or literally nobody wanted to talk to Tony, in which case he was totally going to rub it in their faces when he took down some of Hydra's biggest heads all by himself.

Well. Not all by himself.

The little voice was still there, of course. YOU ARE LITERALLY CHASING A GIANT SECRET EVIL ORGANIZATION WITH THE DEADLY ASSASSIN WHO KILLED YOUR PARENTS! WTF! LISTEN TO ME! THIS IS A BAD PLAN!

For some reason, even though that voice got a little louder as time went on, it also got a lot easier to ignore. Partly, Tony supposed, because it had been almost five weeks since Bucky had shown up at his door, and the guy hadn't even killed him yet.

And partly just because time was passing, and the more time passed, the more Tony was starting to realize he may have been a bit of an idiot.

But just a bit, he decided, and made sure all his guns were loaded and his suit was ready to deploy. Just in case.

A/N - How many weeks would it take you to feel comfortable around a formerly brainwashed assassin who had killed your parents?

And also. If you happen to review, please let me know:

How much Clint (or Nat) whump do you want, considering they went missing 5 weeks ago?