AN: And here it is, folks. The last chapter! Thank you all for reading, and I hope you find it in yourselves to leave a last review and let me know what you thought before this story is lost to the archives!

This is a very, VERY lengthy chapter, so don't say I didn't warn you! Got some angst like whoa close to the end...

Happy reading!

The storm had taken them all by surprise, really.

Rain lashed at the windows mercilessly, and between the weather reports from the news and Thor's near constant grumbling at the lack of Midgardian sunlight to revel in, it was hard to tell if the thunder that rolled through every few minutes was natural or not. Floods of gushing water had been rushing through the streets since the start of the freak storm a little more than twenty four hours prior, and Bucky could practically feel the boredom rolling off of the remaining inhabitants of the tower as he sat on the edge of a recliner beside the enormous couch in the main floor.

Thor was sitting on the ground, his back against the couch and his legs stretched in front of him as he glared balefully at the screen mounted high on the opposite wall. There was a remote of sorts in his hands, and he was clicking away at the buttons with a ferocity that was undoubtedly only going to end in something breaking. Bright flashes of light and a repetitive, incredibly fake punching noise was streaming from the screen, and Bucky had found his eye had begun twitching only minutes into his horrible decision to sit and watch just whatever video game it was that the god was playing.

His opponent wasn't helping the atmosphere much.

"And that's twenty seven for twenty seven, big guy," Clint crooned from what Bucky really could only describe as his perch on the back of the couch, his feet kicking slightly off of the cushions in a tiny twitch of victory as the screen erupted in an outrageously realistic explosion. Thor all but roared, and a humongous flash of lightning streaked across the skies as the scoreboards zipped across the screen. Bucky couldn't quite keep the look of utter disbelief off of his face when the god flung the object nearest to him at the screen with a vehement curse. Luckily for them, it was only a magazine, and it hit the blinking screen with a pathetic thwap before sliding down to flop haphazardly on the floor.

"Clint, stop pissing him off. This storm's bad enough already.

The three occupants of the living room turned as one to regard Steve, who had spoken from where he was leaning lightly against the bar. His eyebrow was raised sardonically, and he dug around distractedly through a bag of pretzels that was laying out beside a plate with a toasted sandwich of some sort. Clint stretched his arms high over his head, the controller clasped tightly in his hand as he groaned.

"Aw, c'mon Cap, don't be like that. You're blaming me for his horrible fighting skills?"

Thor spun in his seat to glare venomously at Clint, who simply waggled his eyebrows in return.

"Your simulated war is no standard for my skills in battle! You have no right to claim such, Eye of the Hawk!"

Clint just blinked at him, his grin downright predatory.

"So how's about another round to prove that?"

Bucky almost groaned.

Almost.

He turned his focus away from the trash talking that had ensued from the archer and the god as another bout of noise and flashing light powered up on the screen, and he found his eyes training on the rivets of water rushing down the floor to ceiling window that stretched across the wall. If he was entirely honest with himself, he could have sworn he felt the beginnings of boredom stirring inside of him as well.

That was a feeling he definitely was not used to.

"You want another one?"

The voice startled him slightly, and he tilted his head back to look up at Steve, who had wandered further into the room. His friend was pointing to the plate balanced on Bucky's knee, and he found himself glancing down despite himself. The tan crumbs of what had been a Pop-Tart were scattered around the thin plate. Thor had offered to make him a pack when he had wandered down to the kitchen that morning, and he had been unwillingly introduced to the cinnamon sugar variety of the pastry.

He had been surprised to find it had actually been pretty good.

He shook his head and shifted the plate on his knee to keep it from tilting it's contents all over the floor. "I think two's enough for me." At Steve's hesitant look, he hastily tacked on an awkward addition. "For now. He'll probably want to make the whole cabinet of them before the rain stops."

Steve grinned slightly at that as they both ignored Thor's indignant "I would do no such thing!", and Bucky felt a rush of relief at the distinct lack of the searching look in Steve's eyes.

He'd gone to find him shortly after meeting Clint.

Steve had definitely been confused about why he'd been avoiding him at first, but at the sight of his busted hand, his expression had cleared considerably. He'd snagged an icepack before Bucky could so much as say a word, and before he had known it, he had been sitting on Steve's couch with a frozen package of peas pressed over his knuckles. In retrospect, it had felt incredible.

He'd haltingly begun to speak in earnest then, and Steve had listened with that same neutral look on his face he'd worn in the hospital, and it had only spurred Bucky on to spill his guts and be done with it. He'd talked about missions. About times he thought he knew he was trapped somehow. About the war. About memories he wasn't sure were real or not. About meeting the others and their surprisingly gracious reception of him(and he sorely hoped Jarvis had been listening). About their conversations.

About the gym.

And about Steve.

Through it all, he hadn't batted an eye. He'd just sat patiently and listened, nodding now and then in encouragement as Bucky dug deep to put every insecurity, every emotion he couldn't handle on his own out there. Bruce had said he'd had help pulling himself out of his ocean. The only reason Clint was back to the way he was was because of Natasha.

Bucky could do with a little help.

When he had finished, it had been silent for barely a minute before Steve had stood from his chair and stepped forward to plant his hands on Bucky's shoulders. He'd been smiling, but Bucky knew him too well.

Steve Rogers had a horrible habit of smiling when he was sad.

He'd forgiven him, and when Bucky hadn't believed it, he'd told him again. He was still telling him, and slowly, Bucky was starting to think there just might be a chance he could believe it. Divulging all of the toxic thoughts that had been building pressure in his brain had felt incredible, anyhow, and if he had tears running down his face when Steve had pulled him in for a crushing hug, well.

He'd deny it.

So he'd made it a point of trying to get back into the flow of things over the next few days.

And here he found himself, leaning back in a reclining chair with the remains of a Pop-Tart on his lap in the company of a super soldier as old as he was, a norse god with some serious competitive issues, and a deaf archer recovering from a mind invasion not too far from his own.

He found himself questioning how this had become the most normal part of any of his days in the tower quite often.

A fresh crack of thunder caused him to jump slightly, and he scrubbed his healing hand lightly over the back of his neck at the prickling feeling of the hairs standing on end. "Thor, not for nothing here, but could you take it easy on the thunder? It's, ah, a little loud."

Thor's eyes were still glued to the screen, and he didn't look away as he addressed Bucky. "That was not me, friend Bucky. That was your own natural Midgardian weather just now."

Bucky exchanged a short glance with Steve, who shrugged half heartedly, his eyebrows raised in an over exaggerated expression of what Bucky could only translate to "you don't say." He snorted slightly, and Steve clapped his shoulder before snagging the empty plate and making his way back to the kitchen to leave Bucky alone to watch the chaos erupting on the screen.

It looked like Clint was winning by a landslide.

Surprise, surprise.

An incredibly short minute passed before he made an executive decision and stood from the recliner, his muscles protesting the movement as he stretched. He winced as an audible crack ran up his spine.

Yeesh, how long had he been sitting in the same position?

"Are you not entertained?"

Bucky's gaze slid to Clint, who had shot the quip to him without unpeeling his eyes from the screen. When Bucky didn't readily reply, however, the archer turned his focus away to stare at him incredulously. He glanced between Bucky and Steve, a thoroughly disappointed look on his face.

"'Gladiator'? Anyone? No one?" He shook his head, ignoring Thor's victorious bellow as the tiny character on screen resembling Clint was knocked out of frame. "I mean, him I understand," he gestured to Bucky, who raised an eyebrow sarcastically in return. "But, Steve, man. That's just painful."

Steve watched the archer toss his arms in the air and quirked a hint of an amused smile. "Not all of us have had time to sit back and have weekly movie night's these last few years, Clint. You've had all the time in the world."

Clint rocked back in mock offense, his expression devastated. "Woah, woah, woah, what was that? All the time in the world? That seems a little drastic, don't you think?"

"Ah, leave me alone and go back to wiping the floor with Thor, joker."

Suddenly, Barton stiffened with a violent abruptness, and Bucky noted the change with concerned curiosity. He shot a glance to Steve, and his curiosity only deepened when he saw the expression of confusion morphing to a dawning look of horrific realization on his friend's face. He looked like he wanted to kick himself, and Bucky could already see the wheels turning in his head as he mentally backpedaled in the conversation.

Before Steve could so much as say a word, however, the wave of rigid stillness that had swept over Clint was gone, and that easy smirk was back in place.

"Excuse you, Cap, but I happen to know for a fact you know I haven't had a frickin' second to myself. You're the one who gave me my 'warm welcome' home from Canada." He layered on the sarcasm on the "warm welcome," and Bucky felt his curiosity peak when Steve's grinned sadly, an apologetic glimmer in his eye.

"Yeah, well. Someone had to do it."

He cut off the conversation rapidly then, turning to Bucky so fast he almost didn't appear to have moved his head. "Barton did have a valid question, though. You going somewhere?"

Bucky took half a second to glance between the two before he shoved the odd conversation into the back of his mind to investigate at a later time. Clint had already gone back to the game, and while he was still sitting with that mischievous smile and had slipped easily back into trash talking Thor, his movements were off somehow, his eyes slightly unfocused. Bucky turned away reluctantly to face Steve.

"Figured I'd grab a book or something. Might as well have something to do."

Steve paused, a pretzel halfway to his mouth as he considered his words. "You could pay Bruce a visit. He's down in his lab doing some research. He'd probably like having someone to bounce ideas off of."

Bucky stared blankly at his friend. "Do I look like I want anything bounced off of me right now, Steve?"

Clint's voice rose over Thor's vehement shouts of "to victory!"

"Hand me a few of those pretzels and we can test that question, Barnes."

Barely a second passed before a pretzel went soaring through the air and smacked Clint solidly in the nose. He froze and turned to stare balefully at Bucky, who gave him a blank look in return. Steve was shaking his head with a mutter that sounded very much so like "now, children", the bag of pretzels having shifted out of his reach and settled suspiciously close to Bucky's hand on the counter. Clint shook his own head as he turned his focus back to the game with a snort.

"Fine, then. You could always call Nat. Or Sam. I'm sure either of them would love to kick your ass in the gym."

Steve snorted before Bucky could answer. "I don't know about Natasha, but I get the feeling Sam would probably not enjoy that as much as you think he would."

"Ah, you lie."

Steve shook his head good naturedly as he reached back over the counter to snag his sandwich. He tilted his head back as he seemingly thought for a moment before addressing Bucky again.

"Try the library. There's a stack of classics in the back left corner that I sort of…" He paused, and, at loss for a better word, finished with a sheepish cough. "…uh, hoarded."

Bucky punched his arm lightly as he strode past towards the elevator. He ignored Steve's sarcastic "ouch" and grinned to himself as the doors to the lift slid open easily.

Funny how it would take a day like today to bring him back some sense of normalcy.

The doors closed around him, and Jarvis' easy voice filtered through the speakers. "Will you be going to the library per Captain Roger's suggestion, sir?"

Bucky leaned back against the wall, his hands closing gingerly around the sleek rail behind him. "I don't see why not. Take me down."

The elevator bobbed before beginning it's slow descent, the floor numbers blinking over the doors as they climbed lower and lower down the building. He watched them lazily, his eyes not quite seeing them as they flashed past the conference levels. When Steve had said he'd been collecting 'classics', Bucky couldn't so much as guess as to what they might have been. He'd read plenty back in his time, but he'd never paid much attention to up and coming authors of any kind, really. He'd been plenty interested in the future, sure, he just didn't keep track of who was going where and who was the next predicted prodigy of the day and age. Howard Stark made it entirely impossible to not be at least somewhat interested in the days to come, though.

Howard Stark.

Howard Stark.

Howard Stark.

A headline, bold and black and obnoxiously enormous, smacked across the front page of every newspaper stand he'd walked past on that nearly deserted street, the blood on his shirt covered ineffectively with his jacket.

Billionaire Innovator and Wife Killed in Fatal Wreck, Son to Inherit Stark Industries.

He'd ignored the flapping papers and the curious glances as he strode back to the rendezvous point, the gun that had put the bullet in the brain of his target tucked neatly in his back pocket under his coat.

He wasn't one to look back and appreciate his past work.

Bucky resurfaced violently from the unbidden memory with a gasp as a thunderous crash rattled through the elevator. The cabin shook ominously, and Bucky threw a hand out to steady himself both physically and mentally. What had he just seen?

He tilted his head back and barked out a clipped demand to the ceiling, his thoughts racing.

"Jarvis, what happened?"

The AI's voice piped into the room before he had even finished speaking, and if Bucky didn't know any better, he would have thought he sounded disgruntled. "Our Asgardian visitor appears to be rather upset over being 0-28 with our Master Barton. He's channeling the lightning straight into the roof of the build-"

He didn't finish.

Another ear shattering cacophony of sound exploded though the carriage, and Bucky scrabbled desperately for the bar as the entire cabin dropped a few heart wrenching yards in an uncontrolled free fall. He lunged for the doors as soon as it slowed back to a stop and shoved his fingers futilely at the crack between the doors. He spoke through gritted teeth as he attempted to pry open the panels with little success.

"What the hell, Jarvis? I thought a building like this would have better security measures than this against something like lightning!"

Jarvis' voice was clipped when he spoke again, and he sounded righteously pissed for a disembodied computer. It gave Bucky pause, and if he hadn't been stuck in a potential plummeting deathtrap, he would have found the tone hilarious.

"I do, Sergeant, however it's slightly more difficult to disperse energy as abundant as what Master Thor has decided to kindly gift us with directly."

Bucky opened his mouth to respond as his fingers fluttered lightly over the door in search for a weakness.

Whatever he had to say never came.

A third crack of thunder exploded through the elevator, and Bucky rammed his hands over his ears as the noise reverberated in his skull. The booming continued for a few impossibly long seconds, and with an abruptness that had Bucky's heart skipping a beat, the lights shut out with a pathetic groan.

He barely had time to lunge for the bar before the entire carriage began to plummet.

His heart hammered painfully in his chest as the elevator sped downwards, it's momentum gaining in speed as it free fell down the length of the building. He could feel his feet trying desperately to lift from the floor, and he gripped the bar with an inhuman strength as an unbidden yell left him. The pitch darkness made it impossible for him to find the exit he so desperately needed, and as the screeching of the falling lift filled his ears, he felt a flash of true panic course through him. He shouted to be heard over the groaning of the plunging lift.

"Jarvis, stop this thing! Slow it down!"

There was no answer.

A chill ran through him as he shouted for the AI again. At the continued silence, he forced himself to shove away from the bar and run his hands frantically over the walls in search for a maintenance hatch. He'd expect it to be on the ceiling, but really, who could know with Tony Stark.

He had no sooner let go of the bar when an enormous kathunk echoed through the chamber and the elevator slowed with a harsh abruptness that knocked Bucky clean off of his feet. He landed in a heap by the door as the elevator stopped entirely with a wheezing groan, and he sat in the dark for a long minute as he strained to listen for any sound of the lift threatening to plummet again.

His ragged breath was the only noise.

A shaky sigh of an exhale burst out of him as he levered himself upright, and he squinted his eyes at the door as he planted his hand firmly on it.

"Jarvis?"

Silence.

Bucky furrowed his brow at the lack of a response. The tower must have had a backup generator of sorts then, if Jarvis hadn't stopped his unexpected detour. Or maybe he had, and part of his circuitry was fried. Bucky couldn't find it in himself to care either way.

He was just giddy it had stopped.

As he leaned further against the door, it creaked slightly, and much to his surprise, a tiny crack formed between the two panels. Bucky leapt at the chance and shoved his metal fingers into the opening between the doors, a grim sense of victory running through him as he wedged them effectively open. With a grunt, he pushed all the effort he had into the hydraulics of his arm.

Within seconds he had the doors flung open.

He slipped out easily as they rattled into their docks, and as he levered himself up to the floor just at shoulder height above him, he glanced around for any sort of clue of where he had ended up. He was sorely disappointed to find himself in no better position than when he was in the elevator. The room was just as dark as the lift had been, however a picture window running along the wall offered what little light the storm outside had to give. There was a smell of something burning in the air, and Bucky wrinkled his nose against the acrid scent. He wracked his brain for a room where he had smelled something like that in his explorations, but he drew a blank.

A sharp fork of lightning split the sky outside of the window, the flash of light giving Bucky barely a millisecond to see what was in the room. From what he could see, it looked like Banner's living area. Had he ended up in Bruce's apartment? No, that didn't make sense, Bruce had a floor just a few units down from the main room. It wouldn't have been this far down the building.

Bucky stepped further into the room hesitantly as his eyes adjusted much too slow for his liking, and he navigated around the smudged figures of furniture with relative ease. After a couple of minutes of uneasy silence, he called out.

"Hello?"

There was no reply to his steady shout. He was stuck between being relieved and being unnerved at that.

A minute of maneuvering found him the couch, and he sat on the edge with a grunt before tying the strands of hair that had fallen loose from the elastic he had taken to using to keep them back. Natasha had thrown it at him at dinner the other day with some snide comment about how much of a mess he had looked.

The smug look on her face when he had actually taken to using it was still something he was actively trying to forget.

Well.

So much for his most 'normal' day in the tower.

Another bolt of lightning licked at the building, and Bucky squinted against the harsh light. It threw the room into drastic depressions of shadows from the furniture and work counter, and Bucky watched them flicker sightlessly. As the light flickered out abruptly, however, he found himself narrowing his eyes even more as something flashed across his vision just in time to disappear with the lightning.

Were those… stairs?

Bucky was standing before he knew what he was doing, and after another bout of careful maneuvering around the coffee table, he drew to a hesitant stop in the general area where he had thought he'd seen the downwards leading stairway. No sense stepping too close and falling without knowing just what it was.

After a brief minute of waiting, another flash of lightning illuminated the room, and sure enough, there was a large, rectangular gap in the floor, glass looking stairs leading downwards in a long, arcing spiral. Bucky found himself staring in their direction long after the light had disappeared, and he debated heavily with himself as he stood rooted to his spot.

His curiosity won out in the end.

With careful precision and silence, he stepped down into the stairway carefully, his hand brushing lightly over the wall for balance as he worked his way downwards. The curve was surprisingly short despite how grandiose it had looked from above, and he had reached the bottom before he even realized it.

A quick glance revealed an enormous panel of interlocking glass and metal that gleamed even in the darkness rising from the floor to connect with the ceiling. Bucky squinted at the glass curiously, as a faint light tinged with blues and whites was filtering through from several different points in the room beyond the barrier. He edged along the panel slowly, his eyes roving over it in search of an entrance.

He found it a lot sooner than he had expected.

A thick, rectangular cut was carved out of one of the metal panels enveloped in the glass, and he squinted at the long, curving handle before reaching out to nudge at it carefully.

The shock that ran through him when it bumped open almost had him taking a step back.

The door swung open with barely a sound, but Bucky hardly noticed it as an entirely new noise suddenly overtook his senses from the room. A loud voice was ranting from somewhere in the confines of the area, and judging by the tone, its owner was furious.

"-swear to God, I'm turning you all to scrap when I get these things up again. The generator, Dummy, not the microwave. No, not- no, the… no! I programmed you better than this, man. You're a disgrace. Yeah, you heard me right, I said a disgrace. No, don't look at me like that, just go put that thing down and bring me what I asked for, capiche? Jarvis! Talk to me here, why isn't my power back up? C'mon, give me something to go off of, guys, let's go." There was a short, sharp clap that echoed through the pitch black room unnervingly.

Bucky listened to the oddly scratchy voice, his curiosity not quite outweighing a distant feeling of icy dread that was seeping slowly into his veins.

There was only one man left in this building who that voice could belong to.

He had to leave.

Now.

And yet, he found himself frozen in place, his legs refusing to move as he listened to the voice that sounded a bit too much like a man he once knew in a past he'd be better off never knowing.

"Jarvis, that threat about scrap includes you at this point, pal. Always need more circuit boards. Where the hell are you? Butterfingers, put that down. No, just-just leave it, I'll get it. Hand me that plug."

There was an odd rustling, rattling sound from the center of the room and an echoing kathunk reminiscent of the elevator that shook Bucky back into action. He was backing towards the door when the voice spoke again, exhausted sarcasm making the words particularly grating on his ears.

"Annnnnnd let there be light."

The lights in the room powered on in full suddenly, and Bucky's arms leapt instinctively over his face to shield his eyes from the blinding glow. His eyes watered against the stinging feeling the brightness brought, and the room before him swam into view agonizingly slowly. A swell of incredibly loud music powered through the room in time with the lights, the cacophony of wailing guitars and overpowering drums swamping Bucky's senses and setting him on edge as his eyes roved rapidly over the newly lit room.

It was a lab.

He was in one of the lower labs.

Which meant the man standing before him was undoubtedly who he thought it was.

The owner of the voice was facing the opposite direction, an odd robotic looking… thing hovering around him uncertainly as he muttered to himself. Something in Bucky's mind screamed at him to backpedal the hell out of there, but he was rooted to the spot, his eyes glued to the back of the man's head. His arm fell to his side, and he stared at the man who had been actively avoiding him the entirety of his stay.

Which, as he now was beginning to figure with an overwhelming feeling of dread, was for good reason.

The man was talking louder again, and before Bucky could register what was happening, he was turning to face his direction.

"Jarvis, you up yet? I need some input on the new modifications to the capacitors here. After, y'know, I cancel all of your recordings of whatever that-"

There was a moment where his eyes skimmed straight over Bucky before they skipped back to him and stared in confusion. Barely a second passed before those same eyes bugged.

"-stuffy showoahohohoholy shit!"

The explosive expletive caught Bucky off guard, and he took a step back as the man stumbled back on his own, his hand flailing for the edge of the table as he tripped over his own feet.

Tony Stark was the spitting image of his father.

Bucky stared in disbelief at the man standing frozen in the middle of the room, his eyes taking in every detail.

Whatever he had been expecting of the elusive Tony Stark, the image before him now was most certainly not it.

His entire figure was unkempt, his hair a disheveled mess and his clothing streaked with grease and grime. There were singes running upwards on the hair on his arms, and just barely scabbing pricks and scratches fairly littered his fingers and hands. His entire form was surprisingly gaunt, and Bucky couldn't help the flash of doubt that ran through his mind about this man possibly being the superhero that Steve had made him out to be.

Bags hung thick and purple under his eyes, and the wild spark in his slightly manic stare reminded him a little too much of his own reflection those few weeks after he had been reborn in that waterlogged cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. Stubble cast shadows across his pasty face, and there was a sunken look to him that had Bucky wondering just when the last time he'd eaten a meal.

He looked like absolute hell warmed over.

He didn't know how long it took him to take in the little details Tony unknowingly gave him, but he resurfaced with a jolt when the man yelled at the top of his lungs, his hand scrabbling for something red and suspiciously gauntlet looking on his workbench.

"JARVIS!"

Bucky winced harshly at the the shout, and his hands flew to his ears on their own accord as the sound echoed.

And echoed.

And echoed.

It kept echoing for far too long, and he stared in mounting confusion as he realized Tony's lips were no longer moving. Yet the scream kept reverberating in his head, and suddenly, he wasn't in the lab any more.

He was standing in the middle of an empty highway.

Well.

Mostly empty.

"Maria!"

The scream rang through the air, the man's voice devastated as the name left his lips in a panicked shout. There was blood running down the side of his face from where his head had slammed against the steering wheel, but the injury didn't appear to be bothering him, nor did the fact that the entire front half of the car he was seated in was missing, torn straight from the body of the vehicle. The truck that had plowed through it was nowhere to be found by now, and the second car that had rammed the little two seater from behind at the same instant had driven off of the edge of the bridge the highway snaked across. It had disappeared under the waves within seconds.

Despite the flawless execution, they had sent him. To ensure nothing went wrong. To clean up afterwards, as it were.

Because the Winter Soldier never left survivors.

As he watched the man wrestle with his seatbelt, that name still wretchedly spilling off of his lips, he understood just why he'd been sent.

They'd warned him the target was resilient.

They hadn't been kidding.

He hefted the gun on his shoulder as he stepped away from the shelter the guardrail had given him and began his slow walk towards the man. He had undone the seatbelt by now and was sprawled across the middle of the car's cabin, his hands grasping at the face of his companion. Her eyes were wide open, and yet they refused to track any of his movements. The red on her face stood in stark contrast to her pale skin, the painted scarlet on her lips blending under the blood that ran down her chin. The desperate calls of "Maria! Oh, God, no, don't do this to me, Maria!" pierced the air relentlessly, and the Winter Soldier narrowed his eyes as he stalked closer.

Shame she had to get involved.

She was pitifully small in death.

The man's sobs were replaced by a haggard gasp for breath as he caught sight of the leather clad assassin striding purposefully across the bridge, his eyes landing on the imposing gun hefted over his shoulder. His expression morphed into one of pure fury, and he let out a hoarse roar as he scrambled to get back in his seat and reach for the door.

The assassin was on him before he could grasp the handle.

He shoved the man back, his hand pushing mercilessly at his shoulder. The target gave a cry of pain, his hand flying to the bones he had felt shift beneath his grip. The Winter Soldier scrutinized him carefully. He'd avoid a bullet as best he could. They'd made it clear.

This had to be staged as an accident.

He'd no sooner decided the fact than the man let out a purely primal shout of outrage, his fist swinging wildly at the assassin's face.

It glanced off of his cheek, the goggles and mask tearing away as he staggered back from the force. He glared down at the man.

That had certainly made his decision of a quick versus long death for him.

But he froze abruptly as the man's eyes blew even wider than they already were, and suddenly the target was speaking, his voice full of horrified disbelief.

"You!"

The Winter Soldier stared into the man's frenzied eyes, his legs rooted to the spot as his brain pulled to a halting stop. He regarded the target carefully, his eyes roving over the middle aged man as he tried to desperately piece together if he had seen him before.

He came up blank.

"You were dead! You… you fell!"

He remained silent as he watched the man's face flicker through a million emotions in a minute as he spoke again. "Steve mourned you! They all did! How… you're the… you're the same!"

The seething anger overtook his face again with an abruptness that confused the assassin, and suddenly the target was growling. "You goddamned son of a bitch, why did you do it? Why ? You took her from me! Maria!"

And suddenly, he was scrabbling for the door again.

The Soldier let him, and looked on with empty eyes. He knew him.

He knew him.

How did he know him?

Someone called Steve… and others? Mourned for him?

The man had the door open and had his hand grasped solidly around the top of the frame, his other hand planted on the steering wheel as he tried to lever himself out of the car with a hoarse yell of Soldier decided then.

A mission.

He'd make it quick.

One blow from the end of the gun to the back of his head and silence reigned over the highway again as the hand slipped from the door and landed at his side.

He stared down at his work for too long, much too long. He had to leave. Had to meet the rendezvous. Had to report. Had to sleep for years and years and years . Until they needed him again.

But he knew him.

A result.

A result.

Of course.

He'd known him.

He'd murdered Howard Stark.

The pain that lanced through his chest at the realization was almost too much for him to bear, and with a suddenness that left him reeling, he pulled himself back from his dead zone to vaguely notice he was on the floor.

He blinked in overwhelmed confusion as he tilted his head back to look up, and he furrowed his brow as he gasped in haggard breath after haggard breath. It appeared he had backed into the glass and simply slid down into an ungainly, sprawled sort of sitting position. He glanced down sharply as the pain lanced through his chest again, and he uncurled his hand from where it was digging through his shirt to his skin. He forced himself to shut his eyes as another rasping breath rattled through his chest, and he focused intently on evening the flow as best he could as the horrific image of Howard's desperate eyes staring back into his flooded his vision.

He'd be seeing that memory in his dreams for the rest of his life, he was certain of it.

It took a few long minutes, but he managed to even his breathing to a slightly less frantic pattern as he wrangled some control over himself.

It was only then that he remembered what had triggered him.

His eyes flew open, and he lifted his head so quickly he could feel his neck crack. His gaze landed on Tony Stark, who hadn't moved an inch from his position beside the table. The billionaire's hand was still clasped to the table, but the position looked a little less… terrified, somehow.

Bucky stared into his face, his gaze searching as he scanned over the man's features. All surprise had left his face, and now, he simply looked wary as he stared down at the quivering mess of a man pressed against the floor of his doorway. They stayed that way for a long few minutes, neither breaking the intensity of the stare that was passing between them. The only sound in the room was Bucky's wavering breaths, and he dimly noted that Stark must have shut off the music at some point. He faintly wondered how long he had gone under.

The stare suddenly got to be too much for him, and he inhaled one last shuddering breath as he felt the sweat that had broken out across his neck go cold. And suddenly, he was blurting words.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"

Tony's eyebrows flew to his hairline as Bucky stammered useless apologies left and right, and the man slowly let go of the table as the tirade of "I'm sorry"s morphed into actual words.

"It was my fault, I know it was, I just couldn't remember it, they made me forget, oh God, I'm so sorry— they made me… they said I… that he… I couldn't fight it, I couldn't do anything— but I should have, oh, God, I'm sorry, Howard—"

He knew there were tears streaming down his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care as he stared directly into the eyes of the man who's only family had been murdered by his hand.

And those eyes looked incredibly empty for what they were witnessing.

Bucky broke the stare to look down at anything but that face that looked so much like Howard's, his gaze landing on his shaking hands. He stared numbly at the metal glinting under the light, tears dripping to land mockingly on his palms.

"He knew me. He knew me, and I couldn't- I couldn't do anything to stop it from happening, and he had so much to give the future, so damn much, and I took it! I took it from you! Oh, God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"

He broke off as his throat constricted around the words, and suddenly, it was all just too much for him to bear. He had to leave, he had to get out of there, he had to get away, he had to forget, and he had to breathe, he couldn't breathe, dammit, why couldn't he breathe-

"Hey."

His head snapped back up, and he jerked back as Tony's face swam into view. The man was crouching a few feet in front of him, his elbows planted on his knees and his hands clasped tightly together as he regarded him carefully. Bucky stared at him, desperately needing him to understand what had happened. He hadn't meant it, he hadn't planned it, but that was no excuse, he still did it, and he'd completed the mission-

"Stop. Deep breath. Try it."

Bucky shut his mouth as he realized he had been stammering aloud again, and he forced himself to inhale deeply through his nose as Tony watched him with a carefully guarded expression. When he exhaled, Tony nodded.

"Do it again. Keep going."

It took a few long minutes, but Bucky eventually got his breathing back under control under Tony's careful guidance, his eyes never leaving the man's face as he spoke to him lowly. When he thought he could speak without panicking this time, he swallowed heavily and opened his mouth. Tony held up a hand, his expression still as blank as it had been before. The simple motion effectively cut him off, and Bucky felt the words die on his tongue as Tony spoke after a long second of regarding him.

"You feel like you're burning from the inside out sometimes."

Bucky stared at him, confusion battling for dominance over the maelstrom of other emotions raging in his chest. Tony continued before he could say a word.

"The memories. They just hit you upside the head and beat you to the dirt until you feel like you've died all over again sometimes, yeah? You feel like it's not worth it to stick around for round two or three or twenty."

Tony shifted back slightly as Bucky continued to study his face for any form of emotion. He gave the downed soldier a sigh before he stood in full and shoved his hands into his pockets before giving him another long, searching look.

"You feel like you'd be better off if you just gave it up."

Bucky couldn't believe it, but he was nodding.

He was nodding.

Tony sniffed then. Actually, full on sniffed.

"Too bad."

Bucky blinked.

Okay.

He certainly hadn't expected that to come next.

Tony looked down at him as he spoke, and Bucky saw a spark of something in his eye he couldn't quite place. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. "You don't get to make that call. You don't get to decide who you are. All you get to decide is how you can aim towards who you want to be." He paused briefly as he gathered his next words, and Bucky looked on in confusion as the man kept talking. "Always gonna be people who try to screw with that. But…" He paused, visibly uncomfortable with the conversation now. "Sometimes you can't screw 'em right back after they've messed with you. But you can frickin' move on. Get on to the good part, you know? Don't get… hung up on the things you can't—couldn't change. Let me just say, it's definitely not worth the anxiety attacks, pal."

Bucky stared at him for a long minute after he had finished, and when he spoke, his voice was barely a confused whisper.

"But I killed—"

Tony snapped his hand back up again to stop him mid sentence.

"Yeah, I'm gonna stop you there. Last I checked, which was, y'know, very much so recently and very much so thoroughly, HYDRA killed them. Tell me, on a scale of none to lying, how much free will did you have in that decision?"

He couldn't keep the disbelief off of his face as he looked up at the man who's life he should have ruined so long ago. The man who should have been after his life. Revenge. Explanations. Something.

Now, he wasn't so sure of himself.

"I didn't-"

"Ah, there it is, you didn't."

Tony gave him a shrug, his shoulders staying at their peak for a long moment before falling back to normal. The billionaire gave Bucky a raised eyebrow then as the crumpled man lowered his head to stare numbly at the floor. Tony's eyes roved over his wrecked form searchingly, apparently finding what they needed to see, as some of the tension he had been holding off releasing dissipated from his shoulders. His eyes landed on the bionic arm, and Bucky shifted it awkwardly when the hard stare became a little too prying.

At the movement, Tony spun tipsily on his heels and strode back to his workbench, leaving Bucky to stare at his retreating back in numb shock.

Had he really just… moved on? So easily?

It made no sense. There had to be an angle.

…Right?

"Get over here."

Bucky's focus snapped back onto Tony, who was in the process of eyeing his desk and the mass of clutter littering it's surface. Barely a second passed before he swept an arm out and simply knocked the entirety of the mess onto the floor with a rattling clang. Bucky winced at the noise as it continued, pieces of metal and carbon fibre and lord knew what else cascading to the ground in a heap. Tony nodded appreciatively at his work before snagging a pair of work goggles that sat atop one of the nervously shifting robots beside the desk. He turned back to Bucky as almost an afterthought, and he raised an eyebrow sardonically when he saw the man had yet to move. He nodded at Bucky's arm, and when he spoke, he sounded entirely genuine.

"That needs work. How the hell have you been even functioning with that much deadweight locked up in the clamps?"

Bucky just stared.

And stared.

And Tony let loose an explosive sigh of exasperation.

"Look, let me put it this way. I… wouldn't be where I'm at today if none of…" He waved his hand distractedly, his eyes giving nothing away. "…it had happened. So shut up and get over here."

Bucky blinked. "I… didn't say anything."

The billionaire spared him a glance. "Yeah, well. You were thinking."

An unnervingly silent moment passed by as Bucky stayed rooted to the spot.

Then, he made the decision he only hoped was right.

He stood.

And he walked up to the man he'd so wronged to sit even with him and accept his help.

Something changed in Tony then, and his full weight seemed to sag in on himself as he let out another loud exhale and began to inspect the arm resting on the table and the shoulder it was connected to. Bucky studied him more critically then, and he was voicing the question before he even realized it.

"When did you last eat?"

Tony gave a distracted "hm?" and really, that was all the answer Bucky honestly needed. The billionaire spared him a glance anyways, and he coughed. "Had to be… five… fifteen… uh, hours, I think—"

Bucky blinked in shock as he stared in disbelief. "Why?"

Tony let out a humorless laugh at the incredulous question. "Ohohoho, my naive child. Fifteen is nothing. Fifteen is the kiddie pool." He paused somewhat guiltily before he snorted. "Just don't ask how long it's been since I've slept," he muttered.

"How long has it been since you've slept?"

Tony dropped the arm, his head tilting back to shake disbelievingly at the ceiling. "What did I— what did I just say? You really are Cap's war buddy, you both have the same level of listening skills."

Bucky ignored the jab and pressed the question, genuine curiosity overtaking his senses. "What… was so important?"

Tony grew quiet, seemingly becoming reabsorbed in inspecting the arm. Bucky had given up on an answer when he spoke up.

"I needed to think. I work. I think. I don't think. I just… do."

Bucky stared at him. "That… made more sense in your head, I hope."

"Nnnnnno, not really, can't say it did."

The silence reentered the room as Tony prodded at the locked joints in dissatisfaction. This time, Bucky broke it.

"You were avoiding me."

Tony shot him a glance before darting his gaze back to the arm with a half hearted shrug. At the lack of an answer, Bucky began to pull his arm away from the table. Tony sighed at the deliberate movement and shoved the goggles up into his hair, tousling the already messy mop as he dug his knuckles into his eyes to rub away some of the tension.

"Not gonna lie. I wasn't sure if you'd kill me if you saw me. Didn't know how deep the…" He waggled a hand near his temple, not unlike how Clint had done only days before. "…programming went." His eyes shifted between Bucky's own right eye and left eye as he seemingly thought.

Bucky huffed a slightly hysterical laugh that sounded more like a sob to him at the explanation. "You still think that?"

Tony rocked back on his heels. "No. I do think you're as screwed up as the rest of our merry band of miscreants here. You'll fit in wonderfully. We'll make you a tee shirt."

Bucky stared at him blankly, the hollow feeling still gaping in his chest as Tony snapped the goggles back in place, his eyes disappearing behind the bug eyed blackness of the lenses. He turned back to scrutinizing the grotesque mechanics displayed out on his table, his face puckering in focus.

"You don't… you didn't… you moved on? Just like that? Why?"

Tony didn't even look up. "That's what I do, compadre. That's what I do." He paused. "If you'd shown up a few yeas ago, though, I probably would've been a bit more… I dunno, bat shit insane? I've had time to process the…" He waved an oddly shaped, angular tool in the air for emphasis. "…insanity effectively."

Bucky pulled his focus back inwards as the distracted response filtered through his brain sluggishly. He couldn't understand it. He doubted he ever would, really, but he just couldn't find a reason for this man to have forgiven him so easily. He was pulled from his musings and caught by surprise when the billionaire muttered under his breath after a few long moments of silent concentration.

"Nearly made me a poster boy for Depends when you just showed up in my doorway, though."

Bucky looked up at him, some dull sense of puzzlement surfacing out of all of the feelings whirling through him. "The door was unlocked," he said dully, his voice unintentionally deadpan.

"The d- the what? Jarvis!" Tony shouted at the ceiling, and Bucky winced at the noise. "I swear to God, Jarvis, I'm selling you for an entire fleet of Teslas, man. Why was the door open?"

They were both surprised when Jarvis' voice actually piped into the room this time. It was low and staticy, but unmistakably Jarvis.

"All due respect, sir, but we are not equipped for storing or dispersing the amount of power surge we have just gone through courtesy of our…. enthusiastic Asgardian. The automatic locks in the building may have taken some damage."

Tony waggled his head in a small circle in mocking disbelief as he raised a complicated looking multitool of some sort he had gripped from the bench into the air. "I'm sorry, you're talking, but all I'm hearing is this… this annoying buzzing. Ah, no, wait. That's your circuit board in about an hour if you keep giving me excuses."

"Is the uncontrolled free fall of the elevator an excuse for not waiting on your beck and call, sir?"

"The what?!"

Bucky listened to the exchange with half an ear as Jarvis snarked right back at the inventor.

He'd been forgiven.

Lord knew how, but he'd been forgiven.

And not just by Tony.

By everyone.

He wasn't sure how they could find it in themselves to give him another chance, but they did. And they meant it. They'd set him aside from the monster he had become these past fifty years, and they meant it.

Steve. Sam. Natasha. Thor. Bruce. Clint.

And Tony.

The man he'd done the most wrong to aside from Steve. He'd forgiven him long before he'd even known the details of who he would be forgiving and why, and if that wasn't a blow to the wall in Bucky's mind, he wasn't sure what was, as the cracks exploded and sunlight poured over his soul, keeping the shadows at bay and filling him with the numb sensation he'd been looking for since the start.

And suddenly, he believed them all more than he ever had. They were right.

If they all had overcome the impossible, then he damn well could too.

He tuned back into the conversation between Jarvis and Tony as Tony tweaked something in his arm, a dull clunk preceding a sudden rush of smooth mobility in an area he was surprised still had the capacity for movement. The inventor was in the middle of speaking, his tone exasperated.

"—then how did it drop? We've gotta get to the bottom of that, that's a no go for business, nuh uh."

Jarvis sounded more irritated than Bucky had ever heard him when he spoke with a sigh in his voice. "The elevator was built with the original components of the building in mind. It is the least up to date feature of the entire tower."

Tony looked up from his ministrations, his mouth gaping as he stared into the mid distance, lost in thought.

Bucky watched him for a long moment before hesitantly breaking the silence, a ghost of his former grin battling its way onto his face.

He could do it.

"You might want to upgrade that."

Tony did a double take, the grin on the former assassin's face throwing him off balance. The billionaire recovered incredibly fast, however, and he shot him a disgruntled frown as he pitched his voice to mock him.

"'You might want to'— ah, shut up."

And Bucky understood.

He would do it.

He would heal.

~FIN~

And there we have it. Thanks for the prompt, Meike, I hope you enjoyed this! This was the first fic I have ever written in the Marvel universe, so I hope I did the characters as much justice as I possibly could!

I wanted to toss in a quick explanation here- Clint's vague references to his "warm welcome home from Canada" and his odd reactions to... certain... words... (which pain me immensely to write after finishing the other fic) are direct references to the story that I have currently running regarding Clint's whereabouts and shenanigans during "The Winter Soldier." Head on over to my profile and check out "Drop and Cover" for the story!

Thank you all again, and I can only hope you enjoyed. If you would please, make this author's day and leave a little review letting me know your thoughts, I would be infinitely grateful. Even if it's one sentence, it's fine, I just adore hearing any and all feedback to help me grow as a writer.

Cheers, lovelies!