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[endsinafight]

Bucky'd been fidgety throughout the debriefing with Fury, even if he hadn't moved a muscle as he listened to the mission -- another HYDRA target, smaller, on a remote island in the Pacific. Not the usual setup, which made him uneasy from the get-go. But there was something else, something nagging at him, something in Fury's tone that told him there was more to this mission than he was willing to divulge. It wasn't a surprise. Fury might not be HYDRA, but in some ways his methods were so similar that it felt like being back there anyway. He definitely believed in the need to know principle, and obviously he didn't feel like they needed to know whatever it was he was holding back. His gaze darted to Steve, wondering if he'd picked up on it, too.

But if Steve had, his expression didn't betray his thoughts.

He pressed his lips together as they were dismissed, Fury addressing him as the others agents involved in the mission filtered out of the room. "Barnes. Hang back a minute."

And there it was, he thought, meeting Steve's eyes only briefly before lingering as Fury requested. One the door was shut again, the other man turned to study him.

"You have a different mission while they're disabling all of HYDRA's operating systems and containing the operatives."

Bucky studied him just as intently, his voice flat when he responded. "Who'm I eliminating?"

If Fury was surprised by his response, he gave nothing away. "Your target is Katya Belyakov."

"Who is she?" His voice was wary.

"You sure you wanna know the details, Barnes?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"If you're asking me to murder someone, yes," Bucky said, jaw tightening.

Fury regarded him for a long moment. "Essentially, she's the of the most dangerous people in the galaxy. Mind control abilities that she's utilized to force others to commit her dirty work. She's likely being accompanied by a former SHIELD operative who turned out to be moonlighting for HYDRA, Grant Ward. I'd prefer him to remain alive. He's got a lot to answer for."

Every muscle in Bucky's body tensed at the information about Belyakov, but also the name Grant Ward, his stomach turning in recognition.

"Ah. See you're familiar with him then."

"Unfortunately," Bucky responded stiffly, struggling to maintain his composure. "I'm assuming this isn't an optional mission." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"You knew when you signed the dotted line that there's no such thing here, Barnes. Is there a problem? Or do I need to go over the fine print of your contract to refresh your memory?"

Fuck you, he thought. "No, Sir. Am I free to go?"

"You're dismissed."

--

An hour later, he was suited up in his tac gear, breathing steady and even despite the wild pounding of his heart as he boarded the quinjet with a team he didn't know or trust, and the only person on the earth he truly did.

Comments

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve went a little tense. "Not a fake one, Tony."

[endsinafight]

Tony blinked. "I can't say I saw that coming." He stared at Steve intently. "But that certainly explains a lot." He perched on the windowsill, fitting all the pieces together in his mind. He was surprised he hadn't picked up on that before.

"What exactly happened to you?" He nodded at his bandaged hand.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve smiled at him. "Aren’t you supposed to be a genius, or something? Sam sent me an academic article about some lady theorizing about it. It was called something about queering American nationalism."

He looked away and too casually was like, "Bucky saved my life, but in the process I got hurt."

[endsinafight]

"A genius in science and engineering, yes. In the romantic lives of my friends or colleagues? No." He gave Steve a look. "Honestly, I 100% thought you were asexual, Rogers." There was no hint of kidding in his voice.

"I see." He folded his arms across his chest, knowing full well there was a lot more to that particular story.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

"I was mourning the love of my life," Steve said, seriously. "We weren’t together—but. I was a goner, from a very early age, and it was hard to deal with a world that he wasn’t in. Nobody else seemed worth it."

Steve ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He didn’t want to alienate Tony this quickly. "I was being mind controlled. I held a gun to my own head. Bucky shot my hand to prevent me from blowing my own brains out."

[endsinafight]

He swallowed at that, shaking his head a little. "Just when I think I've got you all figured out."

Tony watched the uneasy way Steve raked his good hand through his hair, and at his explanation, he understood why. "HYDRA, I'm assuming?"

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve said, "I hope that makes what happened a couple years ago make a little more sense to you. I—Tony. You were a good friend. I missed that. But Buck—"

He couldn’t even begin to explain what Bucky was to him. He wasn’t sure he could even try, not to Tony, not after everything.

"Yeah," he said. "HYDRA. The girl that was controlling me was Bucky’s original target, but I ordered him to give the mission to me when I saw how unhappy he was at being given a kill order. That’s how this whole thing came out. He kept it all secret. He wasn’t even allowed to leave the house without me, apparently, and I didn’t notice that he was being coerced."

[endsinafight]

Tony dragged a hand over his face, drawing in a deep breath. "I get it," he said, cutting him off. If their situations had been reversed and Pepper had been in Bucky's place -- Christ. He didn't want to think about it.

His lips tugged downward involuntarily at that, jaw tensing. "So minus the torture and abuse and brainwashing -- I'm assuming that part anyway -- Fury's been doing the same thing to him that HYDRA did."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

"Yes, precisely," Steve said, grim. "It’s stopping now, though. Bucky is gonna get the peace he deserves."

[endsinafight]

He fell silent, considering. It didn't take him long. "I read his files. All of them that I could get my hands on. Not right at first, after everything. But in the last few months." He exhaled slowly, eyes darker than usual. "No one deserves all the shit they did to him. Pardon my language."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve met Tony’s eyes, his face understanding.

"It’s hard reading," Steve said. "It’s hard to even think about. He has nightmares, almost every night. He’s—he’s gonna get better. But I’m pretty of sure the files leave a lot of the casual, daily horrors out."

He took a shaky breath. "I’m glad to hear you’re feeling a little—uh. More at peace, yourself. About him."

Steve was awkward, but he thought it should be acknowledged.

[endsinafight]

"Is he talking to anyone?" There was casual disinterest in his tone but the fact that he was inquiring at all was a tip-off as to how he truly felt about the situation. "Are you?" There was a beat and he pushed himself away from the windowsill, moving to sit down in the seat beside the bed.

Monet looked at him, tail wagging a couple times, but he didn't reach out and pet her. You weren't supposed to touch other people's service animals, he was pretty sure that was a law.

He didn't respond to Steve's awkwardness.

"You know, the Cradle can fix that right up." He motioned to Steve's injured hand. "Couple hours, good as new."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve watched Tony look at Monet and said, lightly. "You can pet her if you want. We, uh. Aren’t formal about the service dog thing. She does help, a lot—she goes right to him in a panic attack, wakes him up at night. But mostly I’m just calling her that now because the hospital won’t let her keep her here if not."

"He has a therapist," Steve added. "We’ll make sure he can keep talking to someone, even if things changed."

Steve skipped merrily past the question about if he had someone he spoke to.

"Jesus, really?" Steve said, about the Cradle comment. "That would—that would be amazing. You never know with the serum, but apparently the doctors think my odds are pretty bad for getting full function back normally. A sniper rifle round right to the hand is a lot, apparently."

Hurts like a motherfucker, too, still—but Steve wasn’t going to complain.

[endsinafight]

"Hmm." He reached out with more hesitance than he usually gave to anything, and gently stroked a hand down Monet's soft fur. She laid her head back down on Steve's arm. "I'm boring your dog." Tony noted that Steve skipped right over the second question he'd asked. "That's good. Can't imagine it's going to be easy unraveling some of that."

He leaned back in the chair, nodding. "Dr. Cho's spent a great deal of time reconfiguring things since Vision was created."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "They at least giving you good drugs?"

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

"She’s happy," Steve said, softly. "She gets pets from you and gets to cuddle me at the same time."

"They offered the good drugs," he said. "I said no. The doses they have to give me make me feel like garbage and even if that wasn’t the case, this is definitely not the time to be muzzy headed. Too much is at stake."

"Could you talk to her?" Steve asked. "I’d really appreciate it.

[endsinafight]

The moment was getting too dangerously close to making him feel something, so he coughed, clearing his throat. "Of course. I should be getting back anyway. I imagine Barnes is getting nervous right about now." Tony rose to his feet again. "Let me know if we need to pull the trigger on a quinjet. I'll have one on standby just in case."

He couldn't resist the urge to stroke behind the pup's ears before turning and heading for the door. "Cap." He paused. "Steve. I'm glad you called."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve looked right at Tony and smiled, crooked but genuine. "Me too. I’m glad you proved me right. Want to try to be friends again? Nothing weird, nothing immediate, just, you know. Seeing each other every so often."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve choked, squeezing down hard on Bucky’s shoulder.

It took him a long moment to get ahold of himself. “Bucky,” he said. “We haven’t even kissed!”

His voice was a little high, a little scandalized—but it still had a breathy edge that revealed just how much Steve was now thinking about it.

[endsinafight]

Pain flickered through his shoulder at the tight squeeze, but it was the way that Steve choked on his own tongue that was exquisite. He eased the boxers up til the elastic was around Steve's waist and he let his breath ghost over his stomach before slowly rising to his feet, resisting the urge to squeeze Steve's ass on the way up.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I was just passing along useful information," he responded without a hint of kidding in his voice.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve shivered at the warm breath on his stomach, closing his eyes and swaying a moment.

He had the sense that Bucky was teasing him, even though his voice was utterly deadpan and serious, but he couldn’t tell. He swallowed again and spoke, his voice a little rough. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume."

[endsinafight]

Bucky couldn't quite repress the smirk that tugged his lips upward. "Why? Interested?" he murmured against his ear before turning to grab the sweatpants from the duffel bag.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Bucky,” Steve said, voice low in his register. “I mean—yeah. If that’s okay? I mean, I’m not asking for it right now! I have no expectations. But it is something I might one day want? I don’t know. What do you want from me here?”

He was almost babbling, unaccountably nervous. They’d admitted their love, done a lot of touching—but it had stayed resolutely PG. Maybe even more family friendly than that—they hadn’t even kissed. He didn’t know what boundaries Bucky had, only that he had the very strong sense that Bucky had them.

[endsinafight]

He felt something in his gut tighten at that low register of Steve's voice and his gaze flickered to his face once more, wondering if he'd crossed a line that he shouldn't have. A line that neither of them was ready for, because Steve was right. They hadn't even kissed yet. "I think I used to be better at this," he said after a moment, reaching out and resting a hand on Steve's hip.

"Most of it's still kinda...foggy, at best. This part of things. I feel like I used to be better at it." Truthfully he was pretty sure he used to be better at a lot of things than he was these days. He drew in a breath. "It was a shitty attempt at flirting, I guess."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Steve huffed a laugh and slowly moved into Bucky’s space, resting his good hand on Bucky’s hip. He was still just in his boxers, but it was easier now that he could tell Bucky needed a little reassurance.

“It was a fantastic attempt at flirting,” Steve said, his voice still low and a little rough. He leaned in just a little to kiss the top of Bucky’s head. “You got me really worked up. If this is you shitty at it, I’m not sure I could survive you excellent at it. I was just a little confused because I’ve been following your lead on what we do and that was a big jump.”

[endsinafight]

Bucky closed his eyes when Steve pressed a kiss to his head, dragging his teeth over his lower lip. It wasn't like Steve was wrong. The most they'd really done was hold hands occasionally, and cuddle together, mostly at night when they went to bed. "Yeah," he agreed, his own voice still deeper than usual, his heart beating quickly in his chest.

Truth be told, he didn't have an explanation for Steve about his sudden behavior. It had just felt right in the moment, to tease him and flirt. He was pretty sure teasing Steve had been a staple in their relationship from Before.

"I guess it was."