I don't know what I was expecting when I started this little goodwill mission. I mean, I figured Steve wouldn't clock me as soon as he saw me, not after his own mission of goodwill with the phone. Leave it to Capsicle to make the first move toward forgiveness, right?
But I don't know what I was expecting from Barnes. I'd left him kind of a mess in Siberia, what with pieces of him scattered all over the place. I didn't think he'd try to finish me off – if he meant to do that, he wouldn't have agreed to a semi-public meeting with one of the few people in the world who could stop him if necessary as a witness.
But, whatever I'd been expecting, it wasn't what I saw when they walked into the meeting room. Steve came in first, looking – well, looking like Steve, because no matter what, that never changes.
Barnes though – whatever else he was, Winter Soldier, assassin, boogey man, monster – the guy who came into the room behind Steve was just that, a guy. Maybe it was what I'd learned about him since Siberia, maybe it was how he looked turned in on himself - rolled shoulders, bowed head, furtive glances around the room, dressed in hospital PJs and a blue robe over his shoulders - but he looked like a guy. A broken down, bruised but healing, regular, guy.
Steve stepped back and let Barnes pick a chair at the table. He sat not quite opposite me and Steve sat right next to him.
"Cap," I greeted him, equably.
"Tony," he replied in the same tone.
Then I turned and mentally braced myself for this next part. "Sergeant Barnes," wondering what kind of answer I'd get.
He was frowning, staring at the picture of Steve I'd given back to him but he glanced up at me. "Bucky," he offered, like we were two guys who'd only just met and not recent mortal enemies.
"Bucky. Thank you." I nodded. "How – uh – so – how're you doing?"
"You think you can help him?" Steve asked.
"You got something against small talk, Capsicle?"
"You got something against getting to the point?"
I rolled my eyes and addressed Bucky, "Fine. I've been developing a device that I think maybe could help with your trigger words."
Steve asked me, "How?" just as Bucky asked, "Why?"
"How?" I addressed Steve first. "So above your pay grade. Why?" I turned back to Bucky. "Well, why not?"
"Because twenty-five days ago we were trying to kill each other, and doing a damn good job of it."
"Twenty-six, but yeah, I've – uh – had some time to think about things. Aaaand, I'd like to help."
But he shook his head at my offer. "I don't deserve it."
"Bucky –" That was Steve. Of course.
"I don't, Steve. I don't deserve any of this."
Yeah, that was a conversation they'd apparently had quite a few times already.
"Look - I'm not going to discuss whether or not you deserve it," I told them both. "What I am going to discuss is that I want to do it."
"Will it keep me from hurting anyone else?" Bucky asked me even as he put his hand up to make Cap be quiet.
"Ironclad?" I had to tell him, "No. But, long term, probably."
"And what is 'it', exactly?"
"It's called Binarily Augmented Retro Framing." I paused ever so briefly but apparently neither man in my tiny rapt audience put the acronym together. "So, basically, it connects with your brain to find traumatic memories and alter them. Then through an external projection of those altered memories, you work to overcome the traumatic experience."
Barnes listened carefully, then shook his head. "No."
"No? That's it? Just 'no'?"
"If it makes me lose the memories, then no."
"It doesn't make you lose your memories, it allows you to alter your memories."
"I keep the memories exactly the way they are."
I came here meaning to be calm, cool, and ingratiatingly helpful but this was a little too much. "For God's sake, why the hell would you want to keep any of those memories?" I asked him. Demanded of him, I guess. Cap's eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw so hard it was practically audible. But Bucky didn't even blink.
"The people I killed, their families, they're never gonna forget. Are they?" And he looked me in the eye like he was acknowledging that minefield between us. "They don't get to alter their memories, so I don't either. But the trigger words, yeah. Whatever you can do about those, I'd appreciate it."
"All right," I said. If nothing else, I figured I could get Cap to work his will on Barnes after we were done chatting.
"But really – why do you want to help me?" Bucky asked again.
"Did some reading." I gestured to the photo.
"You read my notebooks?" he asked. I expected him to be angry but his tone was hopeful. "You saw them? You saw my notebooks?"
"Notebooks?" Steve asked, putting emphasis on the plural. "More than the one in Bucharest?" I do admit that it gave me a sort of mean thrill that I might know even one thing more about Bucky than Cap did.
But Bucky didn't answer Steve. He kept his eyes on me. "They weren't thrown away?"
"No, they were not thrown away. As a matter of fact…"
I reached down and retrieved the 'Bucharest' notebook from the attaché case I had next to my chair and slid it across the table. Bucky stared at it, then dragged it into his lap.
"Thank you," he said. Then asked, "You read it?"
"I read them," I said.
"Them? Do you have – how many do you have?"
"All the ones that I forgot to return when I asked if I could get a look at them." I grabbed the case off the floor and pushed it across the table. "I'm sorry I couldn't bring your backpack, too. But I had to leave something in lock-up to fool them."
Bucky hesitated, then grabbed the case and pulled it close to himself. Steve was looking at me like he could kiss me, but when Bucky asked, "Why would you get these for me?" I knew Steve's good mood wasn't going to last.
"I'll admit, I started reading them looking for anything that would let me hate you even more than I already did. And part of me – part of me really wants to hate you. Wants to finish what we started in Siberia –"
Yeah, that made Rogers sit up a little straighter and open his mouth to say something, but Barnes put his hand up again and that's all it took to make Captain America stand down.
"I don't blame you," Bucky said to me. "What I did to your parents –"
"Ah – no. Not talking about that. Never going to talk about that, all right? Are we clear? Because – no – not talking about it. Ever."
I expected Rogers to get prickly about me getting prickly with Barnes, and I expected Barnes to get defensive or even go Winter Soldier on me. But Steve looked like he was going to cry and Barnes only nodded.
"Then, why help me?"
"Because – " I looked down but I couldn't find anything on my suit jacket or dress pants to legitimately hold my attention. "I – uh – recently got a letter from a friend who said he'd be there any time I needed him. I figured maybe I could return the favor."
Cap gave me that look like he's genuinely smiling and openly smirking both at the same time. Barnes though, Bucky, he was giving me an intense stare.
"But why?"
I wanted to grind my teeth. "You know, I gave away a few hundred million dollars to some kids at MIT recently and not one of them asked me why, even once."
All that got me was matching frowns from matching super-soldiers.
I tried again. "You know Wanda, right? She can levitate? She's got the red, swirly stuff in her hands that can pull cars out of a parking garage and throw them on top of a guy who's only trying to do the right thing?"
Again, I got no response from my audience other than Bucky nodding, "She was in Germany. Yeah. She seems like a good kid."
I nodded my own agreement to that description. "Did you know that I killed her parents? And her brother?"
"Tony, c'mon –" Maybe not surprisingly, that was Cap coming to my defense.
"Okay, so maybe I didn't drop the bomb on their parents," I said. "But it was my bomb. Had my name on it and everything. Advertising I guess, I don't know. And Pietro, her brother, her twin, died because of Ultron, because of something I created. But she forgave me. Wanda forgave me. At least it seemed like she did. She moved to the compound and didn't try melting my brain or throwing me out any windows. I bet she'll even forgive me for getting her thrown into the floating hoosegow, now that somebody –" I gave a fast shrug to Cap, " – busted her out of it. So, if after all of the bad stuff that I'm responsible for in her life, she can forgive me, I thought maybe it was something I could try. And if that's not a good enough reason for you, I don't know what else to tell you."
To be continued
