Bucky spent most of his night awake and in pain. Not physical pain. That would've been easy to fix. To blunt, anyway. A tablet, a syringe, and he'd get a break for a few hours at least. But it wasn't physical pain.

I stayed with him. He spent the rest of the day and night in bed with those notebooks right beside him. He refused supper, refused his therapy, refused anything to help him sleep. He didn't refuse me staying. So I stayed with him.

Morning didn't change anything.

"Breakfast for Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers!" the nutrition tech announced as she pushed her cart into Bucky's room. Her name was Ayana. She was young and sweet and always happy, and Bucky always complimented her on the colorful scarves she bound her hair up with. She wore a different one every day and I really kinda think that was for Bucky's sake, so he didn't have to work to find something to talk about.

But this morning, he didn't respond when she came in, he didn't as much as turn his head. That didn't seem to bother Ayana, she didn't lose her smile, she didn't try to cajole him into eating. She set one tray on the table next to the window and the other one on the overbed table, pushed off to the side away from the bed.

"I'll leave this here for whenever you want it."

Then she pushed her cart out and the room was quiet again. Too quiet.

"Not hungry?" I asked Bucky. It was a stupid question, sure, but it seemed like the only thing I had to work with.

It took Bucky a while to answer and when he did it sounded like a lot of answers compressed into one word, "No."

"You wanna talk about it?" I offered him then and he pulled all those notebooks closer to himself.

"No. No, I just need – this."

I got the feeling that I wasn't part of 'this', so I pushed the overbed table close enough that he could reach his food if he wanted, "I'm going to go stretch my legs for a minute. You should try to eat something," and left him to himself with his notebooks and quiet and the freedom to do whatever he wanted, and went out to the hallway for a walk and maybe some 'this' of my own.

And there was Tony down at the corner of the hallway, leaning against the wall, looking like a guy with nothing particular on his mind. Even here, he was wearing a three-piece suit.

"Waiting for a streetcar?" I asked him.

"Wondering where a guy can get a cup of coffee around here."

"Down here, the nurses let me use their machine."

He smirked. Of course. "I bet that's not all they'd let you use."

I chose to ignore the innuendo and led him to the staff lounge.

"So, how's Barnes today?" he asked when we had our coffee.

"He's still reeling a bit, I think."

"From his injury?"

"From somebody other than me caring about him."

"I don't care about him," Tony said, a little too fast. Maybe a lot too fast. "I mean – I don't wish him dead anymore, but I'm doing this – trying to do this – for the greater good of the world, not for Barnes."

"Okay." There was no point arguing with him. "So, why are you stopping by so early? Ready to get started?"

"I wanted to talk to him again."

"He's not going to change his mind," I said.

"You think maybe you could convince him?"

"The greater good of the world being such a pressing matter right now?" I had to ask. "Tony, c'mon – what? What's this really about?"

He stared into his coffee like he was thinking of disappearing into it. Then he drained the cup and tossed it into the trashcan, "You let me know if Barnes will talk to me again, yeah?" Then he spun on his heel and walked out whistling like he had nothing particular on his mind, but his hands were too deep in his pants pockets and his shoulders were too high under his jacket.

to be continued