Steve arrived about half an hour later.
"Bucky's situated in his own area for now but we might move him up to my floor at some point, depending on how he's doing"
"That's great, how was the ride over," I asked.
"Not too bad, he was silent for pretty much the entire time. He got mad at me a couple times but we only had to actually stop once so it could have been much worse." Steve crossed the room and sat down on a couch next to Tony.
"That's good, I think he's probably remembering little things but not really having any context for them so it's going to be very difficult as he starts to remember more. As much as you can help him is great but he's going to have to figure a lot out on his own. That's how it happened originally, he saw the exhibit in the Smithsonian after he ran away. If he starts to put things together on his own terms it will come easier, at least I hope" If there's anything I can do while I'm here it's going to be making Bucky's life better.
"It's interesting the details you know, and the ones you don't. How many of your movies are still to happen in our future," Tony asked.
"Oh that's tricky, one sec I need to think about this for a minute," ok let's see so if we declared that Winter Soldier has happened, we would be… I think ten or eleven movies in, and have… I think thirteen to go. And there's technically twentyfour movies but actually one twenty three because Black Widow hasn't come out yet. So that would mean, "The events of ten movies have passed and we have thirteen more to go"
"Ok, that's a lot." said Tony looking wide eyed.
"I swear it's not as bad as you think, a lot of them take place almost at the same time and don't interfere too much and also a couple of them are origin stories or first times so those aren't too bad. There's really only four of them that I'm super worried about."
"Well you haven't told us what happens in a lot of them, when are you going to, we have to stop these things from happening" Sam spoke up.
"True and the main reason I haven't told you guys is because I want to tell everyone at once. Also I'm not sure if this is possible but I have an idea for how to show you what happens so you really understand. Maybe this is too crazy but there is basically science magic in this universe so who knows. Anyway, is it possible to create something that looks at my thoughts and projects the images and audio I'm thinking about onto a screen or something."
"That sounds pretty advanced but there might be a way if we tap into the brain with nano pads on all parts of the brain, I would have to see how it affects the person but it might be possible." Bruce said.
"Actually if we put the person into a sort of half sleep then other systems wouldn't be given as much activity and there could be a way to tap in and focus images." Tony interrupted.
"Holy crap that would be crazy awesome also there are some legitimately beautiful scenes that I could show you."
After that Bruce and Tony started brainstorming on fun ways to tap into a person's consciousness and thoughts, some lovely ideas like putting me in a temporary coma were brought up but then shut down by Steve who was hesitant to have Bruce and Tony experiment on me for obvious reasons. Like as much as I didn't want them to experiment on me cus like, creepy, I have just about as much self preservation for myself as any other teenager sooo, you know.
Dinner was great, like me and Sam made some pretty good pasta the other night but Tony got this take out from the best mexican restaurant ever. It wasn't super fancy or anything but I could definitely live off of those beans and rice forever.
I decided that after dinner I would talk to Tony. I didn't want to wait any longer than I had to, and it would help when I had to explain Civil War. That was not something I was looking forward to.
"Hey Tony, can I talk to you."
"Sure kid, here or somewhere else,"
"I think somewhere else would be better"
We went to another floor of the tower and ended up on a gorgeous balcony overlooking the city.
"So what did you want to tell me, is it about the future, because I am very interested in the future"
"Actually no, this is about the past. It's about your parents." This automatically changed his whole demeanor, I saw the child Tony Stark come out, the kid who still hadn't coped with his parents death, the guilt over never saying goodbye.
"Ok, I'm ready"
"This isn't going to be easy to take in and that's ok. You can be angry and upset at what I'm going to tell you. However you are not allowed to take it out on other people, that is my only condition, do you promise me that"
"Yes, I'll try"
"Please do, it hasn't been easy for him either. Now I don't know an easy way to say this but your parents didn't die in a car crash. They were killed, by the Winter Soldier." Tony immediately made a move to stand up, "please sit down and hear the rest of it, you need to understand the whole story." Tony made no noise but sat back down and looked at his hands. "I think you might already know this but the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes. However, and this is the part you need to understand. Bucky and the Winter Soldier are not the same, Bucky was tortured and basically brainwashed for years and years after he fell during the war by Hydra. They have tortured him in insane ways and found a way to wipe his memories, before we took him from Hydra, they had wiped his memory so many times, every time he started to remember or did anything out of line. The Bucky that is trying to remember who he is and who he was is not the Bucky that killed your parents. That wasn't him, even though he remembers it all. I know you're going through a lot of emotions right now but what would you feel like if you didn't know who you were and once you start to remember you also remember every horrible thing you did that you had no control over, things that you don't want to remember. They have messed with his mind to the extent where there are these words that anybody could say and he would immediately go back into the Winter Soldier and do whatever the person told him to. You have the right to be mad but not at Bucky, Hydra killed your parents, not him." I'm worried that I might have been a little too intense but I just hope he got the point. I hope that because I told him pretty much as soon as I could he won't be mad at me or whatever for withholding it.
"I never got to say goodbye, I mean my parents were distant when they were alive but I did love them." I could see tears starting to form in his eyes as he tried to blink them away.
"Do you want me to stay or give you some space"
"Alone" was the only answer I got but pretty self explanatory. I had just told him some pretty hard shit and he barely knew me, I got up and went back to the rest of the group.
"Hey, where's Tony" Bruce asked when I got back down to the common area, it looked like Nat was picking out a movie.
"He's upstairs, there were some things I needed to tell him about his parents. He's going to be ok but I don't think we're going to see him for the rest of tonight."
"Ok, I don't want to know what you told him, do I," Nat said from the couch.
"I think you will find out later but for now, no," I said.
"Well, I'm trying to pick out a movie for us to watch but I suggested The Matrix which everyone else refused so i have no more suggestions and you all have bad taste." said Nat.
"Hey Steve have you gotten around to seeing Star Wars?" I asked him.
"Nah, I was going to watch it a couple weeks ago but I looked online to find out which was the first movie and apparently people are arguing about that a lot so I gave up and haven't gotten around to it"
"Nat we have to watch Star Wars, Steve might be the only adult left who will watch it without knowing,.. you know about Vader" I said.
"Oh you are so right, I second that decision" Said Sam from next to me.
"Is there something that I should know?" Steve asked.
"Oh no no no just watch it, and I hope we're all in agreement that we're going to watch A New Hope first," said Bruce.
"Of course" I was not about to watch the Phantom Menace.
"Then that's settled, Steve you are about to live"
The movie started and having Steve not know anything was just about as great as I thought it was going to be. Right when Luke was starting to like Leia he said,
"I like Luke, I'm rooting for him"
I looked over at Sam and Nat who were both trying really hard not to laugh.
"What" Steve looked over at us.
"Nothing, ignore everything" America's golden boy was the perfect person to watch this movie with, he said all the things that a first time watcher thinks. He liked Luke and Leia together but was later horrified at himself when he found out they were siblings, and looked utterly transfixed at the "Luke, I am your father" scene. It was overall a great experience. Ten out of ten would scar Steve for unintentionally supporting incest again.
By the time the movie ended it was around ten and I was again very tired. I'm just not a night person normally and this whole situation has not made it better. I'm not a morning person either though if you were thinking, I'm just not an awake person overall. Sleep is good.
"Hey, Nat where can I sleep tonight, I would ask Tony but yeah."
"That's ok, at the tower since it's now Avengers headquarters, which you already probably know, we all have our own floors. You can stay in the guest bedroom on my floor"
"Thanks, so which floor is your floor, I'm pretty tired right now, I can stay up here if you don't want me down there though it's ok."
"Don't be sorry, I'm tired also. And I've had enough of people for today, I think I'm going to go to sleep anyways. My floor's number 90"
Nat's floor had more of a homey comfortable feel to it, there were little things on top of tables, or shelves, more books and some photos. It felt like someone actually lived here, from what I've seen of the rest of the tower it's so clean and sleek like a hotel or something. Nat showed me to one of the rooms.
"There's a bathroom attached, there should be some towels and stuff if you want to take a shower. I know I will, that bunker place we were in was old and gross. Wait one sec," she left to go to her room and came back a minute later with some clothes in her hands. "I know you don't have any clothes, so here's some of mine. I think they'll fit you ok, we can go shopping later."
"Oh, thank you so much, I'm sorry that I'm being such a bother here, really thank you"
"Hey you've come here without anyone, I know what that's like, you don't have to apologise"
The shower in my room was crazy but also kinda creepy. It was like a normal shower but because it was in the tower Jarvis was there because he's like everywhere so halfway through my shower I was talking to myself, as you do, and I accidently said Jarvis and he replyed asking what I needed and it freaked me the fuck out. Other than that the room was beautiful, it was like a very nice hotel. I however did ask Jarvis if he had an iphone charger and apparently he did, which was very convenient considering my phone was at 21%.
When I woke up I freaked out again, because I wasn't at home in my bed. Changing where I slept nightly did funky things to my brain. I put on some of the clothes that Nat gave me the night before and went to see who else was awake.
I found Nat in the kitchen on the common floor, "Do you drink coffee" she asked.
"Hell yeah I got a caffeine addiction"
"Cool, here's a cup" Nat offered me a cup of coffee which I took gladly. Back at home I would get large iced coffee on the way to school most mornings. I'm from Massachusetts and a highschooler, of course I live off of Dunkin Donuts coffee.
We drank our coffee in silence when Tony came into the kitchen.
"Morning" said Nat.
"Hey Tony" I nodded at him.
"I'm not really good at things like this but, thank you for telling me that last night. I'm glad you did"
"Oh, no problem, I just knew you needed to know" I could see the rings under his eyes and it was clear that he had cried a lot last night and probably gotten little sleep but I think that was regular.
Over the next hour Sam, Steve, and Bruce slowly trickled in until we were all sitting in the living room just chilling. I was on my phone again, Steve reading some book, Bruce and Tony were talking about something that sounded complicated and Nat was arguing with Sam about something. It was nice. Everyone seemed comfortable.