Stark sat on a piece of concrete, pillowing his chin like Rodin's "Thinker" and stared hard at the unconscious former assassin impaled on the rebar. He listened to the labored breathing of one functioning lung running low on blood. It sounded like a wet towel being pressed against his face and trying to draw breath; wet and sucking.
"The amazing Sargent Barnes." His father's ghost resurfaced when he was quiet and that was part of the reason Tony liked to keep busy because it kept the voices silent.
"I know, dad."
"Did I ever tell you-"
"You probably did."
"Indulge me, son."
"Didn't I always?"
"Mostly." A chuckle. An imagined clink of ice in a highball glass and the pouring of some good Kentucky bourbon. "But I don't think I told you this one."
"If it's in my head, you already have." The ghost didn't pay attention to that and continued.
"I want you to know, it's not his fault. Zola and his minions were very good at what they did."
"Doesn't change history."
"That may be true, but it should help you be more compassionate."
Tony gritted his teeth, "The same compassion he showed you and mom."
Stark heard a sigh, or maybe it was Bucky's ragged breathing, "When Barnes came back from Italy, before the Commandos were created, Col. Philips wanted me to have a look over him. So I did. I knew Barnes before and he was … a lot like you."
Tony startled. He kept listening to the voice, "He was whip smart. Cocky. Great with the ladies. Really could have been something after the war, even my assistant in my lab. He was protective of Steve, even after he 'got big'. Just like you are protective over Pepper, the Avengers, Rhody. There were a lot of parallels. But then Zola got him. He was a changed man, Tony. Gone was the enthusiasm. The life in his eyes had been dimmed. James was forever changed."
Tony knew that feeling that Christmas morning when the word came from his elderly butler, Jarvis, that his parents were dead. He was forever changed.
The voice paused as if sipping that imaginary bourbon, "He swore to me he was fine. Only wanted to get back on the field to keep Steve outta trouble. That was the trouble; he wasn't fine, and I didn't have a fix for it. Nothing in my powers of invention could have fixed what happened to that fine young man. I had to interrogate him, ask him terrible questions about what they did to him. What drugs did they use? Did they electrocute him, burn him, drown him, do surgeries on him? It was horrible.
No wonder he killed us. I deserved it. I was trying to make more of him."
"That isn't true!" Tony fumed, his voice echoing off the riprap.
"But it is Tony. Once Steve was presumed dead, the Cold War ramped up. The assassinations began and the CIA got in their head we could 'create' someone or something like that too for our own covert killings. It was the real purpose behind the Super Soldier serum I was trying to duplicate from Erskine's work. I was trying to pervert the purpose of what Erskine pioneered. I was a monster for trying."
Tony sat in stunned silence. His dad was part of a secrete CIA program to make Winter Soldiers for the United States in retaliation?
"I am making this up." He stated plainly, waiving a dismissive hand in the gloom.
"No, Boss. You're not." Friday interjected.
"Are you reading my mind now?" he snorted.
"No. You just said all that out loud just now. I was fact checking. It's true." Opening his gloved hand to make a projected touch screen float in front of him, Friday displayed several documents that were labeled TOP SECRET and SHIELD floating just inches from his face.
"The data dump from Natasha." Tony whispered as he swiped through the stack of files. He saw his dad's name more than once. He kept swiping until he reached the World War 2 virtual file that the SSR had on Bucky. Not quite as detailed as the Russian one Natasha had given Steve years before, it held torturous secrets guarded by an innocent grainy black and white photo of a young James Buchannan Barnes in his pristine army uniform. Tony paused and cautiously pulled that thread. What he found was nothing short of inhumane.
After his eyes glazed from exhaustion, he looked around the blasted space with his tiny LED lights Tony felt utterly adrift. He couldn't even glance at Barnes. A war raged in his soul between the rage he felt at the loss of his parents versus the fresh new perspective he had just gained from the files. Who was he to complain about a bad childhood and subsequent life?
"I am so selfish."
"Not really Boss. You just have some PTSD."
"Just PTSD."
"And the oxygen levels in this chamber have dropped very low. You are also probably hallucinating. I'd put the helmet back on."
Tony looked at the gold and red helmet as it gazed back at him, his face partially distorted by the burnished metal. Did you really do it, Dad? Looking back at Bucky, he suddenly felt small and insignificant. Slipping the helmet back on, he noticed a clarity of thought as the oxygen levels rose in his suit.
"Boss, if we don't get him some medical help soon, he's a gonner."
"I know." There was a hint of remorse in his voice. The radio circuitry in the suit had been bashed to bits on his fall or they were too deep under reinforced concrete to get a signal out. What was he going to do?
Bucky drifted. He felt a warm weight in his chest and the sensation of water or something buoying him until it covered his feet, hands, legs and arms slowly creeping towards his head A numbness followed by cold began to envelop him.
A subtle panic rose in him as this feeling increased with intensity; it was the same way the cooling fluid felt when they put him back in cryo. Suddenly he realized that he was drowning in this cold fluid, whatever it was. A stronger panic grabbed his guts as he tried to move but was too weak to twitch.
"Easy, Bucky." He heard a voice above him. Not Steve.
Feeling a pressure around his face, he barely cracked an eyelid. The Mark suit face with its glowing blue eyes looked down at him and was putting a clear mask over his mouth and nose. It sealed to his cheeks like a suction cup.
"In the event of a loss of cabin pressure," Tony joked acerbically, "An oxygen mask will drop from the compartment above. Pull the mask towards you and place the mask over to cover your mouth and nose."
"Getting a little toxic in here. That mask should keep you in the right gas for maybe another hour. Let's hope our … friends get here in time or we're both gone."
The pressure subsided in his chest and the chill in his limbs and gut receded slightly. The Stark tech was working, purifying the air for at least a few moments. Bucky relaxed and realized that maybe Tony wasn't going to kill him after all. With that criteria met, he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Tony rocked back on his heels and regarded the wounded man. Thoughts clashed in his head. "Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict." He heard Mark Hamill's voice.
"I'm quoting Star Wars. Yep. I have lost my mind."
Friday stayed silent.