**Potential Warning: Tony's parents' car accident**

"Mr Stark would like to know if the two of you are feeling up to watching a movie with him." JARVIS informed them when Steve wrapped up the latest story about one of Bucky's failed attempts to find Steve a date. "In here, of course."

"What movie is he thinking?" Steve asked skeptically. "And how do you feel about that, Buck?"

Bucky considered it. He didn't want Steve to neglect his friends for him, he didn't deserve that, but he knew Steve was hesitant to leave his side, so he was going to have to face his nerves and meet Steve's friends. "I guess. I mean, if you trust him. It's his house and he's your teammate and you did a good job picking your last team."

"You remember the Commandos?" Steve grinned.

"Only very fuzzily. But my gut feeling is you picked well."

"Gut feeling is something. What movie, JARVIS?"

"I recommended the new Alice In Wonderland. I do not predict that it will trigger anyone."

"What do you think?" Steve asked Bucky.

"Sure. I think I like movies."

"Yes, you always liked movies when we were kids."

Tony almost announced his presence at the bedroom door in his usual loud manner, but stopped to observe instead. Honestly, yes, he was nervous, even after hours of experimenting with every meditation technique that Bruce and JARVIS had suggested to him to clear his mind and process the new information about his parents' accident. He knew it hadn't been Bucky that killed his parents and he was forcing himself to remember that, but the two shared a body and he didn't know how he'd react to seeing that shared body even with the knowledge that the person inhabiting it wasn't the assassin. Not that he looked like a killer at the moment; quite the opposite. Spangles was sitting on the bed next to his old friend, so close they were practically in each other's laps. They were talking about movies they'd seen as kids, or rather Steve was doing most of the talking and Bucky was occasionally asking if that was the one where such-and-such happened. The sleek metal arm had Tony itching to examine it even more up close than it had in the photos he'd seen, but even that wasn't enough to distract him from the visceral horror that he felt seeing the body attached to it. The fearsome assassin, the fist of Hydra, looked awful. Not at all like the menacing figure in the photos, the one he imagined killing his parents. Which did help, but yikes. He was lying flat in bed, flushed with fever, a drip in his remaining hand (which he seemed to be pointedly not looking at; never let it be said that Tony Stark lacked powers of observation, he just usually barreled through his interactions with people because truth be told he didn't really know how to act on those observations most of the time) and the parts of his chest and the top of his remaining arm not covered by bandages were a patchwork of rainbow bruising and angry red swelling. It was rare that Tony felt guilty about imposing himself on people, but the guy really looked like crap, like maybe for him a movie night would qualify as strenuous activity.

Steve noticed him first. "Hi Tony. You were already waiting to be let in by the time JARVIS asked us if we were up for a movie, weren't you?"

Tony swallowed his thoughts and gave them a cheesy grin. "You bet your frozen ass I was. You two old farts ready to experience some Tim Burton weirdness?"

Bucky turned his head to look at him and froze, eyes (an even more striking shade than Steve's; Tony was impressed that that was possible) wide and focused on him but not on him.

That face, the features, the hair. That looked a lot like Howard.

A vaguely familiar face, seen through the windshield of a car coming at him as he coolly aimed the gun.

A look of horror, confusion, somehow different. Familiar how? Different from what? The Soldier didn't know or care. The car was his mission and those thoughts weren't permitted.

The car swerving, hard. Crashes of metal on metal and then metal on rock.

Looking down from a high place at a smoldering wreck of a car below.

"Bucky!" Steve's voice was calling his name, hand cupping his cheek. "Breathe, Buck. You're okay. What's wrong? We don't have to do this if you're not ready for other people. I promise it's okay."

Oh god. Howard.

"Bucky, talk to me, please. I can ask him to go away if..."

"I killed him." He managed to whisper, horrified.

Steve gathered him in his arms, limp and unresisting with shock. "Yeah, Buck, we know. We put it together. But it wasn't really you though. They hijacked your body and mind, stuffed their mindless killer in and tried to crowd you out. And you fought them, for seventy goddamn years, until you broke free. You never gave up."

Putting the pieces together, Tony came over and sat on the bed next to the stricken assassin, his own remaining unease overcome by the clear demonstration of the trauma of the realization. "Yeah, seriously dude. We already figured out that you were probably involved in my parents' car accident. If it makes you feel better, nobody found any signs of ballistics or explosives or anything, not on them, not on the car, nothing, so you didn't, like, blow them up. You at least left us bodies to bury."

Their host's bluntness shocked him somewhat back to rational thought. Bucky furrowed his brow, memory dancing at the edges of his reach. "I...don't think I ever fired my weapon." He said slowly, confusion seeping into his horror. "I don't remember firing it. I was standing in the road. I was ready to fire it, follow orders. He swerved. They always swerve, or brake, or something, when they see me in front of them. Or I think they do. But he swerved hard. More than they usually do. He hit the guardrail. I think it gave way."

"Yes." Tony could see the police report as if it were yesterday. "The car went through the guardrail and rolled down a steep rocky slope. No evidence of foul play was ever found. The police concluded he must have fallen asleep at the wheel."

"You can't blame yourself for it. Not only were you nothing but a puppet, you didn't even actually fire your weapon, and for all we know, when it came down to it you might well have not been able to do it. You were just there." Steve carded his fingers through Bucky's messy hair soothingly. Not like Bucky was going to believe him, but he could try.

"It's really not actually your fault." Tony told him bluntly, surprising himself with how earnestly he actually believed what he was saying. Because he did believe it. Because it made sense in a way that no other explanation had. "Much as I would like to have a person to blame. He swerved and went through a guardrail because while driving late at night-and yes, probably technically too tired to be behind the wheel and mentally checked out-he was startled by seeing a ghost. It probably wasn't even the gun in your hands. He knew you in the army, so the sight of a gun in your hands wouldn't be out of the ordinary at all. He saw a fucking ghost, and he jumped out of his skin and went off the road."

Bucky looked up at him, clearly startled, and it hit Tony for the first time how young the two supersoldiers in front of him were. Yes, they were technically well into in their 90s, but with all the time they both spent on ice...physically, mentally, amount-of-living-wise, they were actually only in their mid-20s, maybe 30. Significantly younger than him. That was an uncomfortable thought.

"Really, kid. Even I can't blame you, and these are my own parents we're talking about. Tell you a secret, a nasty piece of work took remote control of one of my iron man suits while my best friend was inside it and tried to use it to kill me." He took a slightly shaky breath. "Hurts and all, but puppet, puppeteer, you get the picture. Now, if we're done with feelings, you still up to watch a movie?"

"You're very calm." Bucky looked confused and haunted and like he was expecting someone to hurt him. The unsettling thought crossed both of the others' minds that he probably was.

"I have closure now. And honestly, I've spent the past 20-some years imagining some unmarked van coming flying out of nowhere and ramming them off the road. Dad swerving because he saw a ghost is easier to be at peace with than that."

Bucky nodded, a little stiffly. "I'm sorry your parents died, and I'm sorry for my part in it, even if you don't blame me for it. Howard was a good man."

"You remember him?" Despite his rocky relationship with his father, Tony perked up slightly. He wished, deep down, buried under his devil-may-care shell, that he could have known the man that Cap sometimes talked about, the young man who wasn't yet bitter and distant.

"It's fragmented, but some. Especially after seeing you. You look like him. It jogs my memory a bit." Bucky paused. "It's a little weird for me seeing you."

"You're more like him than you know." Steve added. "We got to watch Colonel Phillips ream him out..."

"...for scaring the shit out of everybody by causing an explosion on base playing with some Hydra tech that Steve liberated from the factory where my unit was held captive." Bucky finished for him automatically, smiling slightly at the memory. "Was that what you were going to say?"

"I was going to say unauthorized stunt flying demonstrations using military aircraft, but that's quite applicable too."

Inspiration/background for this chapter has been added to the pinterest board.