A/N: Fuck, this chapter was something else. Just, heads up, some dubious consent, some violence, underage drinking, and adhere to the tags. That is all.

P.S. Just so you guys know, I love you all and I hope this delivers some much needed pay out. Believe me, this was something I've never written before and it got under my skin. Pay attention to any possible triggers and don't let anything worry you too much.

P.P.S The chapters get longer every time! I DON'T KNOW WHY.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain.

Chapter 5: Giving with No Regrets

Winter, 2010

The night was freezing, the wind merciless and the only light to be had was from the sickly streetlamps outside and the half moon above hidden by spotty clouds. A winter storm was coming, and the bets in the old bars with the faulty heating and the greasy smells were saying that it would be the greatest storm to have been seen in decades. That was the perfect atmosphere for a soul taking. He had personal experience to make it a fact.

Buchanan was ready. He was as ready as he was ever going to be and he knew it. One year and a half was as much as he could push before he finally gave his soul away and goddamn it all he would not throw away his only chance on a punk kid with puppy dog eyes.

It just wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't let it happen. He couldn't let it happen.

That's what brought him to his charge's apartment, the same and completely different all at once. By the looks of things it hadn't changed overly much, just the tell-tale signs of someone living alone like a carpet that hadn't been vacuumed in a supremely long time, one set of dishes in the sink, half the bookshelves scarce compared to what they had been. Honestly, for someone whose mother had moved out to live with her husband, the man clearly didn't have being a bachelor down yet.

That just left Buchanan sitting in the darkness of the apartment and a holey armchair stiffly, legs thrown over the side in a form of nonchalance that he didn't feel as he listened to living creatures outside scurry away to find shelter and warmth. His new body was more malleable than the others had been, this one a kind faced science student with glasses and annoying curly hair. But he also had the one thing that Buchanan needed to tap into as much as possible with this soul reaping – rage. The body (he refused to look up the name purely out on principle, didn't matter what that kid thought) had a vast array of wrath, the likes he'd never seen before. There was the simmering rage that lay beneath his skin, the bubbling bitterness at the world that was shoved to the back of the mind, the burning fury of the misunderstood and even an explosive violence so deeply locked away and buried that it could only come forth when in peril. But that peril was what he needed if his charge wouldn't cooperate.

Clink clink! Ah, finally. He was there, he was ready, he would take the soul and forget about it.

With the jingle in the lock came the creaking groan of the ancient door on its worn hinges, the light from the hallway invading the blackness in one long fan. But the figure in the doorway blocked the light, just stood there with slumped shoulders and a downcast head and the shadows shivered where the figure's edges trembled and shook. Then, as soon as Buchanan had noticed the shakes the figure became still. The back straightened up, the broad shoulders squared and the figure finally spoke with a voice soft and rough.

"Hi, Buchanan. Long time no see." Steve closed the door behind him, enveloping the entire apartment once again in darkness before flicking on the lights beside the doorway. Buchanan hadn't even looked away from his charge when the lights were on or off but in that time Steve flicked the switch he had turned away from him and was walking into the kitchen. "Do you want something before we go? I have s'mores!"

Steve's voice was casual but he didn't bother to take off his jacket or his shoes. Buchanan could feel alarm bells go off in his head and stood up from the armchair to walk slowly, nonthreateningly, towards the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. "Oh, you know, I think that'd be swell," he watched his charge go through the cupboards and get a candle out, some bottled water and other things with his face hidden each time. The first thoughts to cross Buchanan's mind were séance and exorcism. "But I think I'd much rather see that pretty face of yours before it's chewed up by a hellhound. So if you don't mind, turn around and face me."

Steve stilled with a kettle in his hands. "I don't think that's a…a bad idea," Steve's hands, large and callused, fiddled with the kettle in his hands. He worried at the surface with a rag like he was trying to buffer it and make it shine like new but the rage was already dirty and just made a bigger mess. "It's just that, my acne came back and it's terrible and I don't want you to see any of it. It's really bad, bad pus and redness and a whole lot of black heads and really it's just bad so why don't we just go and you don't have to look at me the whole time."

Buchanan's alarm bells had morphed into sirens by that point and they weren't for him any longer. "Steve?" The blond stopped messing with kettle. He very carefully placed it on the surface far away from him and gripped the counter with white knuckles. Buchanan stepped closer and into the kitchen, "Turn around and look at me. Come on now, it's been a year and a half you can't have changed that much." He really shouldn't have. Buchanan may not have seen him at all since their last meeting but that wasn't the point at all.

Buchanan placed a hand on Steve's elbow to try and turn him around but the demon felt a rock drop in his stomach when the young man jerked away from his touch like it was a hot brand. The blond took the half step away to huddle into the other side of the kitchen counter and this time Buchanan caught sight of the discolored skin around his wrist from where the jacket rode up just the slightest. Buchanan could only feel a distant sense of horror and rage rise up from his gut at the sight.

For a short moment they were both still as mannequins. "Take off your jacket, Steve." Buchanan's voice held no room for argument but when Steve didn't comply he said again with some demonic addition, "Take off your jacket, Steve."

Steve didn't say a word, just curled up into the counter like it could protect him. After a few seconds of tension, Steve let go of the counter and slowly, achingly slowly, he removed the jacket.

Underneath was only a plain white short sleeved shirt, the back soaked in what smelled like sweat that made it see-through. Buchanan couldn't stop the sharp breath if he tried (he could smell the panic, taste the remorse, had his senses overloaded with the sensations of empathy and pain but not regret).

"I know what it looks like and it isn't –"

"Who the hell did this to you?" Buchanan didn't mean for the demon voice to come out just then but it did in the face of Steve's back. The angels and the saints couldn't help whoever it was that did it to Steve. Whoever dug scratches so deep they were still bleeding in some places, the hand shaped bruises so dark they were almost purple, and the bite marks so red they could have been the marks of a starving dog – they were going to die. Buchanan didn't care if he had to come back to the surface early, someone was going to pay dearly for whatever happened.

Buchanan could just imagine the way that Steve's face buckled when his shoulders fell forward and his sigh was tired and gravely. "It's fine, Buchanan, I'm not really hurt-"

"The hell you're not," the demon could feel the anger from the body beginning to bubble up but he ignored it, "You look like you've just been five rounds with Atlas in the ring without gloves. I mean look at you. It looks like you just go attacked by a rabid raccoon."

Buchanan could hear the small smile in Steve's voice, "There's no raccoons in Brooklyn, silly."

"Doesn't matter," the demon continued with his passion not alleviating in the slightest, "You're hurt and it's more than just the outside that got a beatin'."

Steve's form frowned (and Buchanan was spending far too much time with this soul if he could tell an emotion by just body language from behind). "What do you mean?"

"I mean that someone hurt the substance." Buchanan quietly tip-toed towards Steve's side and reached out a steady hand, "You've told me that you've been beaten up before, protecting people. You woulda been proud of that and tried to show it off. This is somethin' different. Somethin' you don't want other people to see." If Buchanan let some of his old accent linger in vowels and round out words then Steve didn't notice it. The demon placed his hand, gentle like and comforting as he could make it, on Steve's elbow. "Show me what happened, Stevie."

There went the nickname that wasn't Sold Soul Steve's to claim, but it didn't matter in the face of –

"Mother of Hell!"Buchanan couldn't stop the expletive when Steve had finally turned. His chest and arms were hosts of all the things that his back had, but that his face was what made the demon see red. It was only marked by a large fist shaped bruise on his right cheek just below his eye, staining his cheekbone an ugly blotched violet. That mark was given with full force, without a thought for safety and simply to hurt something.

Someone had hurt Steve to hurt him, not some game that ended badly.

Steve's eyes widened at the look of pure blood lust on Buchanan's face and gripped his shoulders placatingly. He looked the demon straight in the eye as he said, "This was all just an accident. I'm fine, Buchanan. I'm so good that we don't even need to eat, come on let's just go –"

"You're doing it again."

"What?"

The demon's black eyes glared with all the force of his inner fire. "Last time you tried to run away to Hell to avoid your problems it was because the closest thing you had to a father died on you and you were questioned for his murder. This time you're not even trying to be subtle about it."

Steve pulled his hands away to cross his arms over his injured chest (Buchanan immediately missed the warmth but Steve didn't need to know that) with a wince and another frown, this one guarded. "Maybe I'm just tired of always guessing when it's my time."

"Bullshit!" Buchanan spat. "You love making a difference with the time you have left and making sure that the people you love are going to be okay and then dying on your own damned terms! I know that until the day you die that the only thing you're going to worry about is whether you've been 'good' enough to make up for whatever sins you think you've committed when you're the purest thing –"

"I'm not pure!"

Buchanan's tirade halted in its tracks. The demon watched thin tears leak their way from where Steve had screwed his eyes shut in pain or anguish or maybe both, he couldn't tell. Steve was shaking again, his crossed arms wrapping around him like a false embrace. He was hunched over himself, like he was trying to make himself seem as small as he used to be, like he was preparing for an attack.

Buchanan forced himself to calm the fires of his body's mind with a deep breath. "What do you mean by that, Steve?"

"I mean… I'm not…" Steve hiccuped with his entire body shivering in tension. He seemed to be struggling with the words, forcing them out as much as he could without his voice quaking as much, "I'm not a… not pure anymore. So, so I should go with you and – and with all the people who aren't untouched like that –"

"You – 'people who aren't untouched like that' … Steve, you're not –" The demon's black eyes widened in horror as he came to a conclusion. "You were raped?"

"NO!" Steve shouted vehemently, "No, I was not raped, don't say it like that, it was just, I helped a friend and he, he was just feeling depressed and needed his mind to be taken to other places and so we went to the boxing ring but he wanted to – to do it and I let him." One long breath was how Steve got his message across, panting like he'd run across the whole city to say it. His blue eyes were wide and pleading to be understood.

Just like Buchanan's Steve.

"Please stop being mad, Bucky!" Steve was looking up at him with more exhaustion than when he'd had pneumonia two winters ago but Bucky would still not be swayed in his righteous fury.

"You got into the goddamn military, Steve!" He had shouted again. They'd had the same looping argument for the third time that day at the outskirts of the camp and they both knew that the rest of the men were avoiding them until they got their act together. Bucky suspected that it wouldn't be for a while at that they were going. "Everything that I did, to getting signed up on my own to working the triple shift at the docks to, to paying off the doctor to help you for as long as you were sick, that was so you could stay in the States!"

"I know!" Steve was so angry at Bucky that he was white faced with his fists shaking. He probably wanted to punch his best friend in the face (a completely mutual feeling). "And I was told that I'd never be healthy again if I didn't stop leaving home to go and find work on my own because I couldn't handle being by myself. The apartment has you every where in it, Buck! I couldn't even go to sleep in my own goddamn bed because I needed to know that you were snoring in the bed over and you weren't. And then I got to reading some of your old books again and you know what I read again and again and again, because you used to read it to me when I was sick?"

Bucky smiled weakly and responded on reflex, "The Canterbury Tales?"

Steve had smiled back, "'Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.'"

Bucky had felt his heart stutter to a stop. Steve didn't mean it like that, he couldn't have. So that just left him smiling his biggest brightest grin that couldn't reach his eyes. "I bet you say that to all the dames you're dating."

Steve huffed out a low chuckle, "It's not a romantic quote, you dumbo. It's meant to be quote that says that home is where the heart is, but in fancy terms."

"It doesn't matter that you said yes, you dumbo," Buchanan said quietly. In the time he had been in his head Steve's eyes were red but for the most part he seemed to have stitched his control back together. Steve seemed taken aback at the sudden flatness of the crossroad demon's entire being, "It's that you did it to make him feel better. You didn't want it, Steve. That's what makes it wrong. Stop being the damn hero and think about yourself for once."

The silence that followed was deafening, the only sounds the wind rattling the windows and the push of the tension on ear drums. Steve was staring at his demon's still form, just standing there. For a second (and only for a second so it must have been a trick of the faded light) the demon's eyes had stopped being a black abyss and looked the color of a stormy sky.

"What," when Steve finally spoke the softness was like the sound of shotgun and the blond winced. "What do you mean? I've always done things for myself. I'm the most selfish person I know."

Buchanan's head practically shot up and he didn't even care that he was gaping like an idiotic fish. "You – you think you're selfish? Are you out of your mind?"

"No, I am!" Steve was just so earnest, his honest blues boring holes into Buchanan's heart, "I'm so stupidly selfish that I'm only happy when other people are happy and I have to always get in the way of things to try and help people even when I know that it's none of my business and when something goes the way that I want it to I always feel so fucking smug that it disgusts me. I need to feel the victory over any situation, I need to feel like I've made a difference, I need to feel like I left my mark. I'm so selfish that I don't – I can't just be happy knowing that I did my duty as a son to help my Mama when I die because I know I did it wrong. I'm going to die before my Mama, and you know what? Parents are supposed to go first! My mother is going to be torn to shreds when she finds out that I died or disappeared or whatever happens because I couldn't live without her."

Steve lost control some time during in his speech. He tried to speak between sobs and tears at a stone faced wide-eyed demon but he just couldn't stop. It was what he had been harboring his whole life, his dirty secret. If he stopped at all he thought he would have just collapsed and never gotten back up again.

"Don't you see, Buchanan," the young man sobbed even as his knees finally gave out and he slumped to the floor with his arms around his body for the comfort he didn't deserve, "I'm the worst kind of human being. I'm not even human anymore, I'm just garbage. Trash. Low life scum. I couldn't live without someone to know that I existed, just for a moment, so I'm making my mother live longer than me. I didn't deserve all the extra time that you gave me. I didn't even deserve the wish you granted me. You should have just let me die when I was a kid and get it over with first before I could ruin anything else."

"Stop it! Just stop it!" Buchanan's voice shattered with his shouts, even as he knelt down to grab Steve's heaving shoulders to shake them forcefully, while still being mindful of the blond's injuries. "You are not selfish! You are not a horrible person! You are not a bad person. You are the greatest thing to have seen this world since the big man upstairs sent his son down to the humans and I'm almost certain that you're better. You sacrificed your soul for your mother's happiness and you still tried to make her even happier." Buchanan leaned forward until he wrapped his arms around Steve, his blond head resting on the demon's shoulder. The crossroads contractor held the young man tightly enough that Steve had no choice but to drop his own arms to his sides, limp and almost lifeless but he still tried to control his sobs when he couldn't even get a reign on them.

Buchanan continued and used his left hand to cup the back of his charge's neck to keep him close. He spoke lowly into his Steve's hair.

His Steve. Huh. It seemed right. It fit like a glove actually. This Steve, Sold Soul Steve, would be his new Steve. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense anymore.

"Stevie, I'm not gonna lie to you," the demon said, and he stroked the young man's hair as he did so like that night on the couch when the blond was an even bigger wreck, "The way that you make yourself sound makes me think that you believe you're the next Hitler or something. Now, I've fought against the Fuhrer and I have to say that the leader of the Third Reich did not feel a damn thing when slaughtered thousands." Steve whimpered in his arms and tried to get away, but Buchanan just held on tighter and continued to stroke his hair with a heavy hand, "But I know for a fact that you are one of the kindest, gentlest, most amazing people I've ever met. And when you talk about yourself like you're the Anti-Christ, well, that just makes the rest of us mere mortals feel like we're not ever going to do anything right."

"You're not mortal, Buchanan." The demon smiled at the thick muffled words said into his shoulder.

"Yeah, but you know what I mean," Buchanan said, "I've never met anyone like you before. You are sweet, and kind, and I'm not sure I even want you to go to Hell with me anymore."

Buchanan allowed Steve to pull himself up and out of the embrace to look at the crossroads demon in confusion, his red eyes watery and his breathing thick with mucus but at least he wasn't actively crying anymore.

"What are you –"

"I mean exactly what I mean," Buchanan cut off the question before it could evolve into something he'd rather not talk about, "I don't think you'd do well in Hell. In fact, I think you'd do great in it."

"But… why?"

"Because all of us poor bastards that live there, or I guess exist there is a better word for it, we all think that we belong there. That's what makes a demon powerful. The more they believe that they should be in the fires, then the more energy they have to draw off their left over humanity."

"I don't get it."

Buchanan smiled and used the science student's long sleeves to wipe away the remains of the tear tracks, going especially gently over the purple bruise. "Guilt is what makes us human. It's part of our conscience, that thing that makes us know right from wrong. Without it there wouldn't be any demons and we'd just all be animals in the wild like the rest of the world. And you have so much guilt, I think that you'd… be some real competition."

Steve looked Buchanan straight in the eye. "I get the feeling that the word of the day has become 'what'."

Buchanan chuckled. "Maybe. But, I don't want to have to fight you all the time. So, I'm not going to take you this time either."

"But Buchanan –"

"I don't care what you want," the demon cut in with a stern look, "I care about what I want and I want you to stay out of Hell for a while longer. Don't ask for special favors and say you want to go now, or tomorrow, or the next week or whenever you want. It's whenever I want and I don't feel like taking you whenever you feel like it. I'll take you whenever you don't want me to. So until then, I'm not going to do a damn thing you want, got it punk?"

Steve stared. Oh, wow, that's a change of pace, Steve is the one that's staring this time and not me. A bad change of pace? The demon thought on it. No, no I don't think so.

"So what happens now?" Steve's voice was just so tiny and vulnerable, Buchanan almost wrapped him back up in his arms.

"Now," Buchanan announced, getting to his feet and holding his hand out to Steve who looked at it like it was a complex puzzle he couldn't decipher, "we are going to sit on that same old couch that has more holes that fabric like we did last time and we are going to sit there until you fall asleep and feel better. Now come on, I don't have all night."

Steve didn't even hesitate when he looked up into Buchanan's gaze. He grabbed the demon's hand and the contractor used his supernatural strength to haul him up without a blink. Before the human could even move the demon was dragging him above the (the bruise was dark still and not hard to avoid) wrist to that very couch that held them and their sorrows.

And just the same as the time before, Buchanan flopped down first, pulling Steve carefully on top of him without a fuss after they both had removed their shoes. The bigger body (for Steve was much larger than the science student, whose rage was quelled to where only a blanket calm was left) settled easily and without a word, his nose into the comforting smell of fires and incense. Steve wrapped his arms up and around Buchanan's sides until his hands were settled onto the demon's shoulders from behind. Buchanan had one arm wrapped around the blond's torso and the other stroking through golden strands. Buchanan's foot nearest the back of the couch hung over the edge while the other trailed on the floor, leaving the rest of Steve to settle between the new opening.

Not a word was spoken when Buchanan shifted the blanket on top of them again, the same soft green that mismatched the terrible orange pillow at Buchanan's back.

Comfortable and calming, Buchanan only held onto his charge while the human's breath evened out and only the occasional sniffle could be heard. Steve let out a final shaky breath into the demon's neck and closed his eyes. The one who held him barely contained the electric feeling underneath his borrowed skin, allowing himself the only reaction of tightening his grip.

They stayed like that for some time, Steve with his eyes closed but awake and Buchanan petting him like the scared child he knew he was. If the demon was being generous with himself, he would probably admit to liking the feeling of closeness, of feeling like he was taking care of something worthwhile again.

The silence did not last. However, the one who broke it was just as surprised as the one who heard it when he spoke.

"Why do you always pet me?"

Buchanan's hand halted with half fingers in Steve's hair already. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No!" Steve squeezed the demon's shoulders tighter and buried his neck further into his neck to hide. Buchanan could feel the heat of a blush anyways and couldn't stop the smile that snuck its way onto his face. "I just… you seem to like my hair a lot."

"I do," the petting resumed with more confidence, "I like the color. It's a very clean and healthy shade of yellow, like corn."

Steve's snort of laughter was totally worth the stupid analogy, "Whatever you say, Buchanan."

A contemplative pause. "Bucky."

"Do I need to say the word of the day again?"

"No, I mean call me Bucky." Another tentative moment where the demon felt like hiding.

"Okay," came the simple reply, and the demon could feel a smile spread onto his shoulder. "Bucky. I like it, it's very… fitting."

Buchanan – no, Bucky, smiled. A real smile that filled into a full blown grin that might have been a little on the giddy side. "I'm glad you approve." He squeezed Steve's back in delight only to immediately loosen his grip and fling his arm above the body on top of him. "Shit, sorry, forgot about the wounds there for a second."

"S'fine," Steve mumbled tightly before shifting back into Bucky's form, "Only hurts a lil'bit."

Bucky frowned at the obvious lie. "Alright then tough guy, it only hurts a little bit. But we still need to fix you up now that your emotional eruption has ended."

Steve let out an unflattering sound of annoyance. He tightened his arms around Bucky's body, "I don't wanna get up, I'm comfortable finally."

"I don't care. You're going to get tentanus and tuberculosis and die and then I wouldn't even get a say. You're getting up now."

Steve grumbled but did as he was told, cringing at the pain as he did so. Bucky said something along the lines of "I told you so," and went to the bathroom under the sink where all Brooklyn born know to stash a first aid kit.

To pass the time between bandaging and trying to not go on a homicidal rampage at seeing the full extent of the damage, Bucky asked questions about Steve. Where did he like to go? What did he do? What was his favorite thing to do when not talking to a nearly one hundred year old demon?

Apparently Steve's guilt ran all the way into his choice of work since he became a cop after finishing college early through some night classes. He liked to go to the nursing home and animal shelter between shifts and even the local orphanage when he could spare the time, which only made Bucky roll his eyes in exasperation and mumble something about how it was such a Steve thing to do. The art thing didn't surprise him, as he still kept the sketch page of his original body in a secret place.

When the questions were turned on Bucky though, that's when things got interesting. Where did he like to go? Everywhere of course. What's the use of supernatural teleportation if you're not going to abuse it sometimes (he never said how he avoided France and Brooklyn like the plague). He had been a contractor for decades and had pulled in nearly fifty thousand souls to their doom, but Steve didn't need to know that. Hobbies? Globe trotting, duh.

By the time the last bandage was set they had gone back to their original positions on the couch with the only difference being that Steve was shirtless and smelled like an old pharmacy and that Bucky was gentler when he placed his hand back down on his back. The hand in Steve's hair never stopped moving when they were satisfactorily cozy. It must have been another hour before Steve finally fell asleep, snoring softly and gripping Bucky from under his shoulders like a weird teddy bear, the demon's heat sinking into his tired body gladly.

Bucky didn't move for even another hour after that. It seemed too perfect to be real, too like his life and not enough like the death he had accepted. He savored the feeling of safety and, dare he even think it, intimacy. He knew that Steve shouldn't even look in his direction without hate in his eyes, but there he was holding onto him like he was the only lifeline in the world. And it was nice. Devil, it was dangerous to admit but Bucky was well and truly content to just exist the rest of his days away with the solid lump of humanity on his chest.

It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was the best feeling he could have ever had, the greatest thing to be after his evolution into something ugly and disgusting. Bucky couldn't bring himself to even contemplate the fact that he would never see either of his Steves ever again. It hurt. It physically felt like ripping his chest open to squeeze his heart in a vice that wouldn't let go.

There was only one last thing that Bucky could do for that Steve, and the young man could never know about it. Steve had said it was a mutual coupling and they may have consented but Bucky knew the difference.

Whatever man it was would pay in blood.

Bucky slid out of Steve's hold with only a little trouble. He watched the blond curl up on his side to hold onto the remaining heat Bucky left behind, cuddling into the ugly orange pillow rather than a body. Bucky tucked the blankets around him and by the end he looked like a contented child. Like the child he had been when he came to him with nothing but a huge eyes, a bad cough and a plea.

"I," Steve took a few harsh breaths from the frigid air, the oxygen feeling like knives and daggers in his aching body, "I want my Mama to live and be healthy! No more sickness and she's not tired from her work when she gets home and she lives a long and healthy and happy life."

And it had been the plea that had awoken his old heart. It'd been thirteen years since he first had laid eyes on him but even then is old self had known that Steve, anyone with the name Steve apparently, was worth the world.

"No!" Steve was positively scandalized and Buchanan let his full body laugh escape without a hint of regret. "Never! It's just, sometimes I see things that other people would rather others didn't know about and I keep forgetting that not everyone sees the same things as me. It's caused a lot of fights I'm sorry to say. Jeez Buchanan, you make it sound like I'm the next Godfather or something."

Both Steves were the only ones to ever remember his name. For that they would always have his eternal gratitude. So Bucky did the most selfish thing he could think of.

Leaning down as quickly as he could before his nerve could get the better of him, Bucky placed a gentle kiss upon Steve's temple. Steve didn't even react, just kept on sleeping without a twitch. Bucky didn't know whether he was glad or disappointed by that.

With his final act done, Bucky teleported away.

o~o~O~o~o

On the other side of town in Upper Manhattan, one nineteen year old kid with a stack of regret letters, dozens of white lilies and a messaging machine stuffed with condolences threw back another shot of 90 proof whiskey.

Another glance at a wrinkled newspaper clipping in his hand and he poured himself another drink.

He threw back another shot.

The kid was about to down another bit of hard whiskey when suddenly he was yanked back by the scruff of his neck and thrown backwards into the crystal vases with an explosive shatter.

He was gasping for breath wondering what the hell had happened and if he was truly drunk enough to be hallucinating because a curly haired man in a baggy comfort sweater was stalking over to him like the devil himself. Half a squeak escaped his mouth before he was seized by the jaw with his mouth clamped shut with one impossibly strong hand. Eyes that looked too round to be anything but gentle were set into a razor sharp viciousness that didn't fit with the face. The man that clutched him seemed like a vengeful demon but he had to be human there was no such thing as the after life –

"You," the voice that issued from the man's throat could only be described as terrible and promise of inferno, "hurt a very dear friend to me you filthy piece of shit!" The kid was suddenly hurled into the bar he had been drinking at and his side exploded in pain at the impact. He flopped back onto the floor coughing and gagging the pain was so bad. "He gave you comfort and you gave him scars!" A sharp kick into his uninjured side and he thought that he damaged something he couldn't fix with a screw driver and a welding iron. "You violated his trust when he only wanted to help you! Why the fuck would you even think about hurting someone like Steve?"

And then it all clicked into place.

He was about to confront his attacker with his strangled words when there was a sudden banging on the locked door to the living room/bar (and that would be the first thing that got fixed, giving her a skeleton key to everything).

"Tony!" the female cry was panicked and rightly so, even if she didn't know what was going on, "Tony what's happening? What are those noises? I heard breaking glass, Tony! Tony, let me in, tell me what's wrong!"

Pepper.

No way could Pepper be in the same country as that man that loomed over him, let alone the same apartment. "She can't help you, shit head," the man growled, hoisting him up by the front of the shirt, "Nothing can help you now."

"Tony!" Pepper was frantically pounding on the door and he could hear the sobbing, "Tony whatever happened, you don't have to follow your mom and dad! It doesn't matter – you can't just leave me! Please! Tony let me in!"

"Are you gonna beg, trash?" The man hissed and brought him closer to his face of pure rage, "Are you gonna let her fight the battles you're in? Do you want me to take her down, too? It'll be cute, such a happy little couple of meat bags for the hellhounds."

"You – " he coughed and gagged again on the blood in his mouth, "you leave her alone!"

Oh god, something must have been hit hard sometime during the beat up because the kid's head was swimming and it couldn't have been just the alcohol because he was feeling pretty damn sober at the moment. "It's me you want right? Leave her out of this!"

"Like you left Steve out of it?" the man spat, all sharp teeth and maniacal eyes at the look of utter horror that made its way onto the kid's face. "That's right you fucker, I know about Steve!"

"But I didn't do –"

"You took advantage of him!" The man rattled him so hard that the kid could feel his insides jolting into a frenzy. "He is pure and you made him feel like he wasn't worth the mud on the bottom of his boot. He should never have to feel that way!"

"I'm sorry!" Pepper's cries had stopped suddenly and he couldn't help but miss her but he kept on going, "I'm sorry I touched him, I'm sorry I treated him roughly –"

The bark that escaped the man's throat was nothing like a laugh. "'Sorry'? You're 'sorry'? I hate to break it to you kid but sorry just ain't gonna cut it this time."

The kid latched onto the hands holding him up by the shirt and tried to pull himself away. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

The man quirked his head with a knife-like smirk. "Hell? Hell doesn't seem like a bad place for you shit face."

All at once the door burst open to reveal Pepper distressed and disheveled and wielding a metal bar stool that had attacked the locked entrance. "Tony!" Her eyes widened in panic when her eyes found the raging abyssal orbs of the man attacking him. "Who the hell are you?! What do you want with Tony?"

"Pepper no!" That damn kid flung his arms out at the man, "Don't you dare touch her!"

More expletives and a stunned red head who was named Pepper didn't hold Buchanan's attention liked the barely legible newspaper clipping he happen to glance at as it floated down from where the brat had let it go.

OBADIAH STANE CONVICTED OF MILLIONAIRE STARK MURDERS

Suddenly, Buchanan felt sick.

"You're Tony Stark?"

The kid stopped trying to squirm out of his grip and looked him dead in the eye to say, "Of course I am you psychopathic lunatic, just who the hell do you think I am?"

It happened at once. Buchanan's rage and hatred were cut in half but his disgust multiplied thrice. He dropped Tony's collar and stepped away to take a good long look at the quivering pile of useless meat that an old friend had bred.

And in his normal human voice because the demon was too good for him he said to the kid,

"Howard would be ashamed to be your father."

He didn't bother sticking around after the look of utter humiliation, horror and despair crossed the young Stark's face. He teleported out.

Bucky had a few things to do before he burned.

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Okay, so, thoughts? Noises of despair? Happy squeals? Kitty cuddles? Anthing?