There were many words that Bucky Barnes could use to describe Tony Stark.

Arrogant was definitely one of them; the way that the billionaire had treated Bucky and Steve when they had come asking him for help finding Erin had been enough to convince them that he thought the world of himself. Excessive would also be a word Bucky would associate with the man, whose entire house had his own name emblazoned on the front of it. Childish, Foolish, Irritating... a Dickhead. All these words and more sprung to the former assassin's mind when he thought of the man behind the iron mask.

However, as he watched Erin look in awe as she stretched out the slender matte black synthetic arm Tony had fashioned for her, only one word came to his lips.

"Genius."

Tony looked over at him, an eyebrow raised. He hadn't been expecting compliments, obviously. He nodded his head once at Bucky and the longer-haired man felt a sudden surge of gratitude. Stark had made this contraption with his own time, his own knowledge, his own materials. He had given Erin back something that she thought she had lost forever, the use of her arm, but he had also given her something slightly less obvious. Bucky could see the confident glint come back to Erin's brown eyes as she tested the arm out, stretching and contracting it. He had given her back her hope. And he wasn't asking for anything in return. It was uncharacteristically philanthropic, even for someone who self-professed themselves as a philanthropist.

"Grab the glass on the table," Stark ordered Erin, placing his whisky tumbler down on the mahogany wood between them and looking at her intently. Erin nodded, a look of complete concentration on her face as she stretched out her bionic hand, the black fingers encircling the glass. She smiled to herself and grasped it tightly, lifting it up off the table. There was a high pitched cracking sound, and the glass shattered into pieces, spilling what was left of Stark's precious whisky. Bucky couldn't help but jump slightly at the sound. Even here, in the security of Stark's mansion, he was still on edge.

"Whoops," Erin muttered, embarrassed, "I guess I didn't know how strong this thing was,"

"That's my fault," Tony replied, trying to keep a straight face as he brushed shards of glass out of his bespoke Italian suit, "Should have had a better look at the compression levers. You need to remember that this hand isn't technically a part of you. It's not limited by the things that you're limited by."

Erin raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"You're strong," Tony said to her, "But only as strong as a human. Your arm is stronger than that. If you can lift a hundred pounds, that arm can lift five hundred."

Bucky sat back in his seat, watching the conversation intently. He remembered the first time he had properly tried to use his metal arm. He had gone to punch someone in the face, aiming to break his nose, and his fist had flown right through the man's skull, crushing it to pieces and coming out the back of his head like a bullet from a gun, killing him instantly. He winced slightly at the unpleasant memory. More and more things were coming back to him, pieces of information and knowledge that he thought he had lost forever. He was remembering more every day, building himself back brick by brick into the man he used to be. Not just memories from HYDRA, either; it wasn't unusual for him to wake up with a new recollection of his time as a boy in Brooklyn. For example, he had learnt the other day that he enjoyed fixing up broken motorbikes and making them run again. A hobby that he had forgotten for almost a century had come back to him in vivid technicolour.

Erin was wearing a black tank top, and Bucky could see the thin line of red on her shoulder where skin met synthetic. He had to admit, it was a much cleaner job than had been done on him. Bruce Banner, the doctor, had agreed to do the surgery on Erin under one condition; Bucky forgave his actions on the helicarrier.

"I was angry, it was stupid of me," He had said during their last conversation, looking Bucky in the eyes. Banner was slightly smaller, which Bucky found ironic given the fact that he could turn into a 10' tall green monster at any second.

"You were right to be pissed at me-" Bucky had begun, but Banner shook him off before he could even finish his sentence.

"When we found you both in that corridor, nearly dead, next to the body of that horrible man-" Bruce shook his head at the memory. Himself and Steve had returned to the base in an attempt to find Erin and Bucky but had arrived only in time to see the aftermath of all that had happened. He shrugged. "I could tell you loved her." He said simply, "Even unconscious, you were holding her like your life depended on it."

Bucky had smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, struck by the Doctor's words.

"I think to some extent it did."

Erin turned around in her seat to look at Bucky, her face lit up with a smile that almost broke his heart. She lifted up the arm enthusiastically, nearly taking out Tony as it whizzed past his face, faster than a human arm ever could.

"I guess we match, now," She said, and Bucky couldn't help a self-deprecating chuckle to escape from his mouth.

"Yeah, you guys should start a band," Tony replied, rolling his eyes and grabbing Erin's arm again, fiddling at the shoulder joint with a tiny screwdriver.

"Or a two-person Paralympic synchronised swimming team," Erin suggested, and at this, a laugh really did bubble out of Bucky's throat. He got up from his chair and walked towards the pair of them, looking intently at Stark's handiwork. It really was a work of genius, the cogs and bolts fitting into the structure so well that they could barely be seen. He sat down opposite Erin, enthralled.

"May I?" The question was left open-ended as he held his hand out, and Erin silently placed her hand in his, metal on nano-fibre. Bucky turned her slender hand over in his own, mesmerised. It was made of thousands of tiny flat plates, all slotted one on top of the other to make a hand so lifelike that if it wasn't for the colour, Bucky may not have noticed it was fake at all. He turned to Tony, the hand still in his grasp.

"Can she feel anything through it?"

Tony shook his head at the question, "Nope. I implanted a few pressure sensors in there so she doesn't feel completely disconnected with it, but it's impossible to put actual nerves in a synthetic prosthetic." He shrugged, "I may have been able to put a heat sensor in there, but it would have made it bulkier, slower."

Bucky nodded in understanding, then got back to looking at the arm. He traced his finger from the centre of her palm up to the thin line where the matte black appendage joined her shoulder. Erin shivered, so slightly that he hardly noticed it, as his fingers moved onto skin. This part of her had nerves, this part could feel everything.

"They did the same with mine," He told Tony, removing his hand and not failing to notice the way that Erin slumped down slightly in her seat as his fingers left her shoulder, "Picks up pressure but not much else."

The billionaire nodded and looked at Bucky's arm. He was wearing a tight-fitted black V-neck, but the sleeves were short and the gaudy red star peeked out from under the fabric, emblazoned on his arm like a tattoo.

"I can get rid of that if you want," Tony suggested. Bucky looked at him in confusion.

"Get rid of what?"

"That red star on your arm. I can probably file it off, but if I can't it wouldn't be tricky to just replace the panel."

Bucky raised his eyebrows in surprise at Tony's words. Why was he helping him? Before Poland, before Erin, Bucky had been part of the organisation that Tony had been fighting against. The two should be sworn enemies.

"Why?" The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Tony merely smiled.

"Some things are better to forget," was all he said. Bucky nodded.

"If it's possible, that would be incredible," he pulled the hem of his shirt sleeve down to cover the red painted star, a memory of a time he would rather not remember.

"Come in any time this week, I'll see what I can do," Tony said, standing up and holding out his hand. Bucky took it, skin on metal, and shook firmly. This was for more than just the offer to repaint his arm. This was the man who flew him to Poland, and who flew him and Erin back unconscious. This was the man who had taken an impossible situation and made it somehow work out. Bucky smiled at Tony, a smile that reached his eyes finally.

This was a man who had fixed the broken pieces of the woman he loved.

This was for a friend.

"You should be okay from here," Stark said to Erin, shaking her hand as well. He winced slightly as she grasped slightly too hard, still not entirely comfortable with the settings of her new arm, "If you have any problems you know where to find me. It will be a little hard to manoeuvre for the first few weeks but you should grow into it, so to speak."

Erin nodded and smiled, and the sight of it made a breath catch in the back of Bucky's throat. She was beautiful when she smiled.

"I don't know how to thank you, Tony,"

He rolled his eyes and brushed her thanks away with the wave of a hand.

"As soon as you invent an alcohol that won't give me a hangover, let me know. That's all I ask for in repayment."

Erin snorted out a laugh and stood up, slipping her brown leather jacket on over her top, covering up most of Stark's handiwork.

"It's a deal,"

She took Bucky's hand and threaded her fingers through it, skin on skin, and gave Tony one last smile.

"See you around, Stark."

Erin was making weird noises in the bathroom.

Bucky was sat on her bed, metal hand absent-mindedly buried in the thick fur behind Crooskhanks' neck, the post credits of their second Matrix movie on the night rolling down the laptop in front of him. There was a half-eaten pizza on the nightstand, and a shard left of a vase that Erin had broken earlier on in the night by picking it up slightly too hard with her new hand.

"Fuck," there it was again, an irritated grunt coming from the bathroom just next to him. Erin had gone in for a shower over ten minutes ago, and Bucky still hadn't heard the sound of any running water. He didn't know what it was that recently-amputee biochemists did in the restroom and a part of him didn't want to know, so he thought he'd leave her to her own devices.

"Bollocks,"

He rolled his eyes and got up off the bed, before knocking on the door.

"You okay in there, Erin?"

"Son of a bastard pissing button won't bloody undo,"

"It's like you just tried to say a sentence and fit as many profanities as you could in it, I kind of respect that," Bucky deadpanned, fighting the urge to laugh out loud at her language, "No idea what you were trying to say, though,"

"Oh, get in here," she grumbled, and Bucky opened the door, a grin on his face at the annoyance in her voice. She was sat on the rim of the bathtub, struggling to open the button at the front of her washed-out skinny jeans. She looked up at Bucky and raised an eyebrow, daring him to laugh.

"New hand can't quite do the fiddly bits," she explained, pushing her hair back from her face, annoyed. She took a deep breath in, and then out.

"You're gonna have to help."

Help? Bucky felt his mouth go dry at the prospect of getting his fingers that close to her thighs. He felt his heart begin to beat a little faster.

"You want me to help you take your clothes off?" His voice sounded casual, covering up the fact that his palm was beginning to get slightly sweaty.

She snorted out a laugh at his phrasing, but he noticed the small blush that crept up her cheek.

"These jeans have three-day-old Chinese food on them I'd rather not sleep in them," she responded, standing up, "It's just the one button, then you can go back to Crooky,"

Just the one button. Okay, he could do that. She walked up to him and stood half a metre in front of him. She was so close he could feel the warmth radiating from her. She was like the sun.

"Just the one button," he muttered. He took a step forwards until his chest was touching hers, and looked down into her face. He could feel the erratic heartbeat thudding out of her chest, matching his own. With his metal hand, he reached down between them and flicked the button, popping it open easily. His hand stayed there, however, cold metal fingers resting on her navel. How he wished in that moment that his arm could feel more than just pressure, that it could feel her smooth hot skin under his fingers. She took a small intake of breath, so quiet he could hardly hear it and stood up on her tiptoes.

Her mouth came to his without a word spoken between them, in mutual agreement. Bucky's metal hand wandered higher under her black tank top, coming to rest just under her left breast. He was painfully aware of the fact that she didn't have a bra on, and he felt her shiver at the cold touch. Her tongue pressed its way between his lips almost hesitantly, and he was happy to respond, opening his mouth with an urgency that surprised him. It had been a long time since he had done this.

Bucky's other hand, the one made of skin and flesh and bone, wrapped itself around Erin's hair, pulling her closer to him and deepening the kiss, turning her head sideways to give him better access to that smart mouth. Her hand fiddled with the small hairs at the nape of his neck, making him shiver. She broke the kiss, breathing heavily, Bucky's hand still under her shirt, grazing the bottom of her breast.

"You know, I can probably take a rain check on that shower..."

That was all the encouragement he needed to lift her up in his arms and carry her bridal-style to her double bed. Yes, of course he wanted to fuck her in the shower, fuck her on the floor, fuck her up against the freshly painted new wall, but this was their first time. He wanted it to be right.

He continued to kiss her as he lay her down on the bed, his hands on her face now, cupping her jaw as he straddled her torso. He broke the kiss for half a second to remove his shirt, pulling it over his head so quickly he swore he could hear something tear in the fabric. He looked down at Erin, looked down at those big brown eyes that were so full of trust it nearly broke him.

"You okay with this?" He asked, checking. She nodded in affirmative and brought her hands up to his face, pulling him back down. She kissed him again, and he felt her smile underneath it, her plump lips turning up at the sides. Bucky's lips travelled down her neck to her shoulder, where her skin was grafted onto her new synthetic arm. He left a trail of kisses down the thin angry red line and looked up at her, his blue eyes shining. He grabbed the bottom of her thin black vest and with one fluid movement pulled it up over her body. She helped him and threw it to the side of the room, letting it crumple up with the multitude of other clothes that she still needed to wash. He looked down at her, his eyes roaming over her naked torso. Not hungrily, but with something else, a sense of rightness, of belonging. He kissed down her clavicle, his metal hand on the waistband of her jeans and his other cupping her breast as his kisses trailed further down her body. Her breathing was erratic, coming in short bursts and Bucky couldn't help but feel slightly smug at the knowledge that he was doing that to her. He was the one who was making her see stars in the periphery of her eyes. His mouth reached the waistband of her jeans and his hand left her breast to undo the zipper fully, before tugging them off her legs and throwing them to the floor where her shirt had landed.

Erin jerked her body into an upright position, surprising Bucky, who moved backwards slightly to giver her some room.

"Fuck,"

"What?"

"The cat,"

Erin looked over to the corner of the room where Crookshanks was sitting with her back turned away from them, absent-mindedly licking her paws. Bucky snorted out a laugh and hopped off the bed, painfully hard, picking up the cat and disposing of her in the front room before closing the door to Erin's bedroom. He turned around, his arms wide. She was sat up on the bed, cross-legged wearing only a pair of simple blue briefs, hair messy and the make-up from today long washed off. Bucky had never seen anything so beautiful.

"Cat gone," he said, returning to the bed and without hesitation getting back into his position. He pushed Erin down gently by the shoulders and kissed a trail across her inner thigh, following the marks of the scars that had been left there months before. He heard Erin let out a small gasp, and mutter something that sounded like his name. At that encouragement, he rubbed his thumb from the top to the bottom of the crotch of her panties, making her squirm slightly at the sensation.

"Fucking hell, Buck," she muttered to herself, and he chuckled low in his throat, attaching his lips right to her inner thigh, centimetres away from where she could now feel something akin to a fire building. Bucky's dark jeans were getting uncomfortably tight, building up a friction in his groin that made goosebumps rise on his skin. He looked up at Erin again, whose chest was rising and falling quickly as she breathed in and out, and slid her panties off, pulling them from her legs until she was completely naked before him. He undid his own belt buckle and quickly shimmied out of his trousers and boxers, throwing them to the side of the room.

"I'm going to have to put a wash on," Erin said breathlessly and laughed. Her laugh was interrupted by Bucky's mouth once more, kissing her passionately. His fingers were still meandering around her upper thigh, teasing her.

He looked up for a second, his eyes suddenly serious.

"You sure you're okay with this?"

She rolled her eyes and whilst he wasn't paying attention, hooked her leg around his and flipped them around so he was on his back and she was straddling him. His eyes opened in surprise, his pupils blown wide.

"Definitely okay with this."

"Fuck, that's hot," he muttered, almost to himself. She bent down and kissed him one more time, deep and slow.

"Where are those super-secret assassin reflexes now, huh?" her breath was hot in his ear, her voice playful but just seductive enough to send a jolt of heat to his groin. He kissed her again, and mid-kiss flipped her back over, thrusting into her without breaking the seal of their lips. A low groan, almost animalistic escaped from the back of his throat at the sensation of tight wet heat.

"Super-secret assassin reflexes engaged," he joked, kissing her again.

"Fucking nerd," she chuckled and moved her hips slightly, eliciting a low groan from Bucky and a high-pitched gasp from herself.

"Fuck," she muttered, threading one of her hands through his hair. the other hand grabbed onto the headboard behind her, fist tight. There was a splintering of wood as the mechanical hand tore through the headboard with ease. Evidently, she didn't care an awful lot about regulating pressure at the moment.

Bucky continued to kiss her, his movements becoming more erratic. She could feel the heat between her thighs increasing to an almost painful friction as he moved, and with a gasp and a breathy cry of 'Bucky', her torso lifted from the bed as she climaxed, pleasure flooding through her veins like blood. Bucky followed soon after, collapsing on top of her in a sweaty panting heap.

He kissed her one more time. Slowly, languidly, before lifting himself up on one elbow and looking down at her. She was flushed, panting, her lips wet and red and her pupils blown wide. Her eyes were so dark it was hard to see them.

"I love you, Erin Jefferson."

She smiled and pulled him down for a second kiss, rubbing her thumb over the spot on his shoulder where metal met skin.

"I love you, James Buchannan Barnes."

Bucky smiled and felt a hole in himself, a small hole that had been there for so long and had recently started to heal, close up entirely. He was home.

"Honest?" He asked her, almost scared for the response. Those three words meant more to him than anything ever had. She smiled at him and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. She rubbed his jaw with her finger. She was so comfortable around him, it had been so long since he had felt as content as he did right now. It was like a warm glow was radiating all around his body. It wasn't just the sex, even though that certainly played a part in it. It was more to do with the sensation of complete and utter belonging.

"Honest."

THE END