Conversation 4: Discussion

Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark

Loud music caused the glass windows which separated the workshop from the elevator hallway to vibrate now and again; Bucky was impressed that anything could cause those to vibrate. He figured that the windows were made of some sort of special glass given the way that Stark could black them out when he saw fit, not allowing anyone to see inside his work space. It made sense, really, because besides playing around with new specs for the Avengers' gear, Stark sometimes worked on R&D for Stark Industries down here. He wouldn't want anyone to be able to steal his designs simply by looking, after all. Not that the Avenger's gear wasn't as sensitive as what he worked on for Stark Industries, but most people in the tower could be trusted with seeing that work. Well, most people who had access to this level.

The glass was transparent at the moment allowing Bucky to see Stark hunched over one of the computers in the back; not really a computer, per se, but a hologram of some sort that the man was moving his fingers over. From here he could see parts and pieces being pulled off of it and tossed in to a virtual trash can before the model was spun about. The movement was repeated several times before Stark leaned back to look at the work as a whole. His lips were moving, obviously talking to Friday over the music, giving some direction or another. It was odd to watch, to stand back and see the man in his natural element; Bucky felt like he was at some twisted version of the zoo.

There were eyes upon him and it made his skin crawl slightly; someone was watching him. His head lifted enough to meet Tony's gaze and he caught the flicker of uncertainty before it was shuttered behind the mask that the man always wore. One greasy hand lifted, fingertips turned toward him as Tony gave a half wave, and then twisted his wrist to beckon the man inside. He could hear the faint sound of pressure releasing before the door slid open and the music poured in to the hall before stopping abruptly. For the moment, Bucky lingered uncertainly in the doorway, watching Tony as the engineer watched him in return. In the end, it was Tony who broke the silence between them.

"Hey there, Bucky-bear, what can I do for you?"

There was a smile on Tony's lips but it was all teeth; Bucky hated that smile. He termed it the 'press smile' whenever anyone else mentioned it. It was fake and utterly convincing in its fakeness. At least, he was fairly sure that Tony thought it was utterly convincing. He could no longer count on one, or even both, hand how often he had seen Tony use that smile on a member of the team. Most often, it was either unnoticed or brushed off as Tony being Tony; Clint's harsh words about the engineer rang through Bucky's head and he frowned at them. Tony had been expecting a response, apparently, because now he had a puzzled look on his face. No, not puzzled, it was an uncertain look. When Bucky's attention refocused, he noticed that Stark had leaned forward in anticipation of something.

"Oh. Um…" Graceful, so articulate; Bucky berated himself a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. "Stevie said that I should…we should…"

The engineer's head tilted slightly giving him an almost an owl like appearance as he waited for Bucky to get his words together. He wanted something though Tony wasn't entirely certain what. His shoulders tensed slightly when the soldier mentioned Steve and that Steve thought they should do something; talk, Steve thought they should talk. He wanted to reply with some venomous rejoinder but those didn't seem to work much on the resident ex-assassin 3.0. The man was still struggling to pull his thoughts together but Tony wasn't feeling particularly generous so didn't offer suggestions to help; he exercised his patience though. Pepper would be so proud.

"I call you Tony in my head and Stark out loud." Bucky finally blurted out, as though that made any kind of sense to the bad beginning of this talk. Steve was an idiot; there was no way he could do this. Oh, god, the man was looking at him like he was a moron now. "That is…I don't know what to call you. What's okay to call you?"

Hands were now gripping the edge of Tony's stool as he tried to sort through whatever had just burst out of Barnes' mouth. He had come down here because Steve had suggested it, because Bucky called Tony by his last name out loud and his name in his own head? The engineer's eyes darted back and forth a moment, his mouth opening slightly to respond but then it shut with a click, teeth hitting one another. It was rare for him to be speechless but in truth, Tony wasn't sure what to do with this conversation. Maybe, just maybe, he could turn the music back on, spin to face his holograms, and forget that this was happening. If he ignored Bucky, the man might just go away and stop being so confusing.

"So," Tony hedged a bit, "Capsicle sent you down here…to ask me what I prefer to be called?"

There was a quick shake of the soldier's head, his hands, artificial and live, shoved in to his jeans pockets as he looked down at the floor. One boot scuffed lightly at what he thought might be concrete, but it was coated in something. That provided a momentary distraction so that Bucky could gather his thoughts, could figure out what he wanted to say.

"Help me out here, Bucky-bear, I'm…I'm not sure what you want." Tony took a breath, the smile long since gone and now he just looked off-kilter. "Is it a name? Tony's fine, everyone calls me Tony…or Stark if you think Tony's too …ah…casual, I guess? Or asshole, some people call me asshole."

Tony; that would be alright, he could call the engineer (man, billionaire, not playboy though, he didn't like that term because it was too close to home and philanthropist was a mouthful) that. Okay, now that Tony was settled in his brain, Bucky tried to sort his thoughts again. It must have shown on his face because the impatience he'd started to see in the man's, Tony's he reminded himself, movements was easing just a little bit. After another false start, Bucky finally managed to get his words in order.

"I want to talk. I want to talk like we did in the kitchen." He finally blurted out. His flesh hand freed itself from his jeans pocket and rubbed against the back of his neck lightly. "Rogers…that is…Stevie, when …when I say things like that, he doesn't get it, you know? He…he doesn't really want to answer me. I think it makes him uncomfortable."

That was an understatement; it most definitely made Steve uncomfortable when Bucky randomly blurted out his thoughts. He had watched the man's face when he'd done it on purpose and almost every time Steve got this pinched look. More and more Bucky had tried not to blurt out what he was thinking but just like in the kitchen a few days ago, sometimes it just came out. His fingers dug harder in to the flesh at the back of his neck; this was stupid. He shouldn't be saying this to Star -Tony.

"Well, yeah," Tony answered easily, startling Bucky in to looking up at him. "I mean, he's your friend and he's afraid he's going to upset you if he says something you don't like. That's…that's just how Cap is. Wasn't he like that before?"

Bucky's head shook, not in denial exactly, but something else. "I'm not sure. I mean, I remember him; I remember everything, but sometimes it's hard to focus on the little details, ya know?"

There was a sound which might have been Tony sucking in a deep breath, trying to quell some sort of panic or maybe bite back a sharp retort. His fingers had lifted and they were doing that odd drumming against his chest. Bucky had learned, from the internet mostly, about the device that used to be in Stark's chest; the device he'd tried to tear out of the suit. He'd felt nauseous after learning what it used to do and even the relief of finding out that Stark had it removed before Siberia hadn't helped. What if he hadn't? What made Bucky's stomach ache worse was that he wasn't certain he'd have cared at that moment; Stark had been trying to kill him. Now, though, now it haunted him because he knew the man or at least was in close proximity to him.

"Yeah, I know but," Tony paused, considering his words carefully, before deciding fuck it; he was just going to say it. "You remember everything about being the Soldier clear as day, right?" His fingers drummed on his chest a moment before he nodded. "Same for me with Afghanistan. I remember everything before it but the details are sometimes fuzzy, but that...that I remember clear as day, every detail." Whether he wanted to remember it or not, it was there.

Supposedly everyone knew about Afghanistan even though they didn't know all of the details; Tony had never shared all of them not even in his debrief. It had been all over the newspapers a decade or so ago about Tony Stark going missing and then coming back. Bucky had found so many articles about it but so few had a lot of information about what happened. All he knew, maybe all he needed to know, was that it had shaped Tony in to Iron Man which was a good thing in some ways and bad in others. Some of the articles, even now, said it fed his ego but there had been a lot of good too; philanthropy, recovery crews and Stark Industries moving in to a different sector and away from weapons.

Bucky nodded in response, fingers tightening on the back of his neck. "Yeah." He couldn't admit that to Steve; the man would blow a gasket if he thought Bucky remembered every detail. He would fall over himself to make it better. "Can't help it, ya know? I dream about it, I think about it, it flashes through my head at weird times of the day. Sometimes I see something on TV or read something in a book and I'm just there again, can smell it, taste it." He took a deep breath before continuing; looking down at his booted feet, then back up at Tony. Was it awkward that he was standing in the doorway, not approaching the man? Neither seemed uncomfortable with this position and Tony hadn't beckoned him closer, so for now he stayed where he was.

"Stevie doesn't get it. I mean, I am Bucky Barnes, I remember being Bucky Barnes, that's not the problem. I also remember what I did for them. I remember what they forced me to do. I thought I'da forgotten, ya know, because of the wiping and the chair, what they did, but I remember it. It just all kinda came back." He shuddered at the thought of what had come back with his memory. "Stevie still expects me to be that Bucky; I guess 'cause it's the last thing he remembers of me. And I am that Bucky but I'm also this Bucky, who's seen a whole lot more and lived a different life. He doesn't always get that."

He glanced up at Tony to see that the man was nodding slightly. There was a thoughtful expression on his face as though he was trying to decide what to do with the information he was being given. Perhaps Tony wasn't sure if it required a response or not. Did it? Maybe not, maybe Bucky just wanted to get it out and say what he had to say without being judged too much for saying it. He didn't know why he'd thought that the engineer would understand but there it was; he just thought Tony would.

"So, he said ya don't hate me. I'm…I'm glad of that, I don't want ya to hate me. Y'should hate me, but I'm glad you don't hate me. So I thought if you didn't hate me…" He trailed off, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to look Tony in the eyes. "I thought maybe we could talk, sometimes, when those things popped in my head. I liked what you said, gave me something to think about. Not sure I agree, but…gave me something to think about. If it's not too much, if you don't think it'll bother ya, I'd like to talk more, to say stuff like that to you. If that's okay…"

Could Tony sacrifice that much of himself to Bucky? Could he allow the man to, in a way, unburden himself? The engineer frowned lightly at that; his forehead wrinkled and the tiny lines about his eyes became slightly more apparent. The hand hovering over his chest had stopped tapping though he could see the fingers twitching now and again. Maybe Stark would turn him away? Maybe Steve had been wrong and this had all been for nothing. A tired sigh escaped Tony's lips and he lifted that hand to rub through his hair a moment, mussing it before swinging his chair back toward the workbench.

"There's a couch and a TV over in the corner; I guess maybe you could sit there and it'd be out of the way, wouldn't bother me. Even got a mini fridge, though you don't get coffee; coffeemaker's off limits, it's mine." Tony looked up giving Bucky a little glare to make his point though there was no heat behind it. "I mean, if you happen to wander down here and the windows aren't blacked out and happen to blurt things out and I hear them. I get busy and sometimes don't hear what people are saying to me, but if I do hear it, maybe I'll answer."

The beginnings of a smile caused Bucky's lips to tilt upward and his hand dropped from his neck to rub at the hip of his jeans. If that wasn't acceptance, well, he didn't know what it was then. Tony was at least agreeing to allow him in to his space, for the moment, and that was something, wasn't it? Down here there wouldn't be anyone expecting him to be more grounded than he should be; that was something to look forward to. Oh, Bucky loved the team movies and the team dinners, but he never felt like he could say what he was thinking. They all looked at him askance when he did.

"No no no, what is that? Is that a smile? No, we don't smile down here…" Tony's hand was moving a bit frantically, waving at Bucky. "No, this is not the smiling place; this is the sit your ass on the couch place. Go on, over there, out of the door. Or back up to brood in the kitchen. No smiling down here." And if there was a slight smile on Tony's lips, it could be ignored, right?

The faint smile was a full blown chuckle this time and Bucky shook his head at Tony. He moved out of the door and went to find the couch that was being motioned at. It was old and worn, didn't look like it belonged in the billionaire's home, but it was comfortable and he sank in to it. There were magazines nearby and he picked one up, sitting stiffly for a while. That was okay though, because the music started back up, though at a much lower volume and the two of them just existed in the same space. This would do for now; he could make this work. And if now and then he said something out loud, that was okay too.

"So, don't you think they could have done better than a knock off electric chair?"

If Tony gave an exasperated sigh and then launched in to an explanation as to how Hydra could have done better, then that made it better, right? Bucky smiled faintly to himself, flipping the pages of his magazine while he listened. Yeah, this was okay.

-End-