Chapter Text
Tony replayed the footage of his parents’ death.
It was etched into his mind – he didn’t need to restart the clip to see it all over again, and yet, he couldn’t stop watching it.
He had already known his parents had died.
Later, he’d known it hadn’t just been the faulty car that had caused the crash.
And now he knew the name of the faceless murderer.
The Winter Soldier. A dead man and a ghost; someone Tony couldn’t get away from fast enough.
When you were living like he was, in the shadows, you needed to be fast and smart, and you couldn't get too attached to anything or anyone. Even the people he trusted weren't to be trusted for long.
And when you lived in the shadows, finding others who were also hidden there was inevitable.
It was obvious to him that he was next on the list. Tony was too busy making sure this mysterious assassin wouldn’t find him to worry about revenge.
He’d already had a fistful of revenge that had bit him in the ass. And he’d already had too many people hungry for his blood.
Hydra was printed all over it, was Tony's conclusion, after he allowed himself a night to mourn. He may have run away from his family long ago, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love them still. Or at least, his mother.
He couldn’t have stayed though. Thus, he ran and spent the remaining years as a teenager making sure he wouldn’t be unearthed, like the missing family heirloom.
A life in hiding was no life, Rhodey had told him. But it was better than no life at all. And he hadn’t tried to stop Tony from leaving.
His life in luxury seemed so long ago. But it had only been a few years since his parents had died, and the world had turned against them. The Starks’. And he was the last one left.
Clearly, society’s love for the Starks’ was two-sided. And that coin had been flipped.
Now, Tony Stark, proper heir to the Stark throne, was missing or dead, whilst the two-faced Obadiah Bane sat in his place, ordering everyone against him, if he so showed his face.
Tony had thought of him as family. But Bane’s façade had died with his parents. It wouldn’t surprise him if Obadiah had ordered the hit against his them.
In any case, he had turned against Tony, even though he was long gone by the time it’d happened. Bane knew he was alive, and he wasn’t happy about it. Tony found traces of him everywhere, people sent to trail him on and off over the past few years.
He was just glad that he had something to fall back on – his armour.
Nobody knew publicly of it. He only used it when strictly necessary. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad for his status, but it did help keep him safe…most of the time. Other times he just found his way back into trouble.
But the people that had known about the armour and had a problem with it were either locked away for a long time or long dead.
Tony had concluded that Obadiah would get himself killed, so he forgot about hunting him down on a vengeful whim. The only thing he was really worried about was watching his own back and staying out of the worlds way. The less influence he had, the less he’d be seen.
He was missing in action. And Tony planned to stay that way, if he could help it.
-*-
As it turned out, he couldn’thelp it.
Perhaps they knew he was alive or perhaps they didn't, but he wasn't stupid or willing enough to wait around and find out. He moved along to the next safe house, and the next one, only to drop his things and create a new one, because he knew he couldn't be too paranoid. Yearsof being constantly on the move.
And in the end, despite all his efforts to remain hidden, he was proved right.
-*-
He had found a large barn on an abandoned farm, deep in the French country side, and had decided to finally reside there, at least for a little while. Unwillingly, he’d become quite comfortable. Created his own electricity by creating a crappy miniaturised version of the arc reactor from memory (he hadn’t kept the blue prints because who could in his position?), there was fresh water nearby, and he was stocked up on food.
He was just snooping through some files that were red-coded, (which probably wasn’t wise of him, but he couldn’t sate his curiosity), when he noticed the sound of bird-song, usually so loud, had dulled to silence. And then, there was an alarmed screech from them.
His paranoia had him throwing himself to the ground and rolling under a workbench, which would gain him some sizable bruises.
He gave a hand signal, which his artificial intelligence would interpret as assemble armour, since artificial intelligence was helpful and he needed all the help he could get.
He heard the soft whirring of the preparations for the armour, and then there was a creak, not unlike someone standing on the wooden floorboards.
From where Tony was, he caught the silhouette of someone’s legs stepping further inside the barn. The rest of the silhouette was hidden by the table.
Tony could see the distinct shape of a rifle in the intruder’s shadow.
So, either an assassin or a SHIELD agent. Tony was hoping for a SHIELD agent. They were slightly friendlier, by a small margin. He’d take it whatever he could get.
The intruder didn’t seem to have murderous purpose as he walked forward. If anything, he was curious, the way he was walking around, not concealing the sound of his steps.
But then Tony heard a faint purr…unlike the characteristics of anything he made.
What the hell…?
The legs went out of view, and Tony heard the tell-tale click of his armour.
Great timing.
“Your efforts to remain hidden are futile,” a droll voice said, making him freeze.
To hell with it, Tony thought, slowly getting to his feet. The armour had already crawled up his torso and around his shoulders.
Blank, slate-coloured eyes stared at him.
Tony stiffened as he recognised him, which the Soldier must have seen through the armour.
"I hadn't realised that brainless weapons could hold personal vendettas." Tony clenched his fists, trying to calm down his rabbit-speed beating heart.
Throughout the years, little things had taught Tony what people's purposes were. This was to distinguish whether someone was friend or foe, and it was pragmatic for someone like him.
He saw no malice in the assassin's eyes or demeanour. From what little he did know about the infamous Winter Soldier, from contacts across the globe that clued him the rumours they heard, he was an animal. A dog that listened and obeyed commands from their owner.
Tony lived in the darkness, where things were difficult, and you couldn't afford to be ignorant. There was no happily ever after or sweet dreams at night to help him sleep. There was only the truth.
And the truth was, a dog’s loyalty could be broken, however difficult it may be. If Tony could play things right, he had the chance of gaining the world’s deadliest blood-hound.
He had nothing to lose but his life, which was hanging precariously in the balance.
Tony squashed the urge to swallow.
Tony wasn’t in a very good position – the Winter Soldier had found him, and witnessed his powered armour assembling around him. If anything, Tony was the one walking the plank.
But he was damned if he admitted it.
But the Soldier hadn’t raised his gun. There was no malice in his eyes – no blankness like there had been in the video. Instead, his eyes were wide and staring directly into Tony’s eyes.
Shit, the helmet hadn’t come down.
He jumped up just as he heard the repulsors spur to life. The eyes of the intruder latched on to him, and he could have easily raised the gun and fired in the time the repulsor attached itself to Tony’s raised arm, but he didn’t.
Instead he gazed warily at Tony’s form, with red and silver armour crawling its way across his form, giving Tony plenty of time to recognise the metal arm attached to, apparently, his parents’ killer.
“Why are you here?” Tony demanded, his voice strained. His body was coiled, the fight-or-flight instincts kicking in.
The Soldier hesitated.
Tony lifted his chin up, certain the Soldier could hear his heart for how loud it was beating.
“I’m here to protect you,” the Soldier told him, his voice low, lowering his head submissively but not taking his eyes off Tony.
Tony inhaled shakily, his eyes burning. “What does Hydra want from me?”
“As far as I’m concerned, Hydra wants you dead,” the Soldier answered bluntly, “I’m not with them anymore.”
“You defected?” Tony asked disbelievingly, stepping away so that the work-bench was in between them. As far as he knew, anyone who tried to escape from Hydra died.
“My programming expired,” the Soldier answered.
“And so, you’re here to…what? Apologise?” Tony spat, clenching his jaw tight. His hands started shaking.
The Soldier stared him down. “No.”
Tony breathed out slowly.
“I’m here to protect you,” the Soldier repeated, holding his free hand up in a placating manner as he placed his weapon down on the table. Tony followed the movement with his eyes before flicking them back up to the soldier’s face. “There are people after you, and the world needs you alive.”
“You expect me to believe you?” Tony asked softly. The world had turned against him.
The Soldier shrugged. “It’d make things easier.”
“You don’t deserve ease,” Tony snarled. He strode his way back around the table, in reaching distance of the assassin. There were warning bells sounding in his mind, but he needed to be closer to the killer, had to know for what reason, whyhe was there. “You don’t deserve anything but to suffer, years on end, and then finally die knowing what you’ve done.”
Tony was breathing hot air into the Soldier’s space, and if there was chance he was going to end Tony’s life, it would be now.
But he was tired of running. Had been for a while. There was a certain carelessness in him now.
The Soldier gazed back at him, expression level. “I already have.”
Tony’s eyes skittered over the Soldier’s face, studying him closely.
“I thought you would be my fate,” Tony said quietly, anger giving way to weariness.
“Not if I can help it,” the Soldier responded firmly.
“Can you?” Tony asked.
The Soldier blinked. “Yes.”
Tony shut his eyes for a split-second, in which he allowed himself to analyse the situation. There were many things he was uncertain about.
He never knew what he was getting into, anyway. What was this situation to others?
“What do youwant?” Tony asked, afraid that if he spoke too loud the truce would break, along with his neck.
In the engulfing silence, Tony could hear someone swallow. Was there a third person in the barn? He hadn’t swallowed, and surely the Soldier wouldn’t have.
“I…I guess I want to wantthings.”
Tony glanced at the Soldier over his shoulder, a frown marring his face. “Care to elaborate?”
The Soldier dropped his head. “I wasn’t human, when Hydra had me,” he confessed, voice secretive, “I know I needed things to survive, but there was an absence inside me. Later on, that’s what influenced my decision to escape.”
Tony’s face cleared in understanding. He had never been good at people skills.
“An absence of desires.” Tony filled in the blank.
The Soldier met his gaze steadily. He wasn’t shy when it came to eye contact, which Tony found surprising.
“So, I assume you aren’t here to protect me because you want to?” Tony asked, forcefully relaxing his posture.
The Soldier rolled his shoulder in what must’ve been a shrug. “Something is telling me I need to.”
Tony grimaced. “Not an evil, secret organisation trying to take over the world, perchance?”
There was a moment of silence, before the Soldier broke it with a hesitant chuckle, the sound of it low and rusty. Grating on Tony’s frayed nerves.
“No.” The Soldier shook his head ruefully. “Guess I’m lucky.”
“I can think of a few who’d disagree,” Tony objected.
The Soldier only shook his head again, as if Tony were the one being unreasonable.
“You were going to be my next mission,” the Soldier said, making Tony’s blood turn to ice. “I escaped before that could happen, but I couldn’t get you or information circulating around you out of my head. I thought I could put that to good use.”
“Good to know.” Tony grimaced again, bile rising in his throat.
The Soldier frowned, frustrated. “It’s not…something is telling me I needto protect you.”
“Why?”Tony repeated, irritated now. An internationally recognised assassin who just happened to kill his parents had showed up where he was hiding, claiming he was there to protect him.
Tony thought he had the right to be a least suspicious.
“I feel responsible for what happens to you, knowing that I-” the Soldier cut himself off harshly, breaking eye contact. Now, he seemed nervous.
“Knowing that I killed your parents” he didn’t say.
Tony was stuck.
It was clear to him that the man had just as many monsters as Tony – maybe even more. If he was claiming to protect Tony than he could be of extremely good use, but Tony could also conjure a few reasons why it’d be a bad idea.
On the non-personal side, there’d be an extra person to cater for and it’d be more difficult staying hidden.
On the personal side…well.
“This is how it’s going to work,” Tony began loudly, not letting his mind run away with itself and over-analyse the situation, “You aren’tgoing to be my body-guard. We will be partners. I’ll watch your back and you’ll watch mine – assuming you aren’t going to stab me as soon as I turn around.”
“Could’ve killed you without stepping inside,” the Soldier responded bluntly.
“I’m comforted by that,” Tony responded drily.
Incredible how the Soldier had come to Tony to kill him and then struck a partnership, instead. What was more incredible was that it hadn’t ended in blood and guts.
Yet.
When Tony didn’t speak up again, the Soldier decided it was his turn. “Hydra – they called you a shadow. They didn’t like that. Best for them to eliminate you.”
“Quite the pair you and I make, then,” Tony mused, when he felt that the silence had stretched on long enough, “The ghost and the shadow.”
Tony met the intensity of the Soldier’s gaze.
Then the Soldier’s lips quirked.
So. There was a sense of humour, beneath all the layers of Hydra brainwashing and conditioning. Tony should keep note of that.
-*-
“So, wait, your mission is to protect me? Who would assign you that kind of mission? Pretty sure SHIELD would just leave me out for the wolves.”
“SHIELD didn’t assign me this mission.”
Tony stopped briefly to consider him, before continuing gathering supplies. A snack, his favourite tools, his AI… “Right, so, did they give you any mission at all regarding me or did you just jump the wagon?”
“I’ve been…monitoring you.”
Tony stopped outright. He turned to face the Soldier. “Come again?”
“There was no evidence of your death, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for you. I noticed strays sniffing your tail too.”
“So…” Tony began, after a moment quiet, “You just dropped everything and ran? All for the son of your victims, huh?”
“Yes,” the Soldier answered uncomfortably, pretending to check over his weapon.
Tony admitted to himself that he may have misjudged the assassin. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be a pain in the ass, though. There weren’t many things that stopped him from being one. And this guy was still a trained assassin who killed his parents, brainwashed or not.
“Are you ready to go yet?” the Soldier asked impatiently.
Tony huffed, rolling his eyes. He made his way to the barn door, slamming a black pack against the Soldier’s chest.
The Soldier grabbed it. “What’s this?” he asked, opening it to inspect the contents.
“Ammo,” Tony supplied, opening the door, and motioning for the assassin to go through it.
The Soldier walked through, and waited for Tony to start walking so he could locate himself beside him.
“So, what do I call you, Killer?”
The Soldier snorted, and Tony thought he saw an eye-roll. “My name is Bucky.”
“What kind of parent names their kid that?” Tony demands, “Aren’t you supposed to be an assassin? I thought you’d have an edgy name like…Blade, or Rambo or something.”
“It’s a nickname,” Bucky retorted, sounding offended.
“That’s even worse!” Tony replied.
“My full name is James Buchanan Barnes. Not like my identity is hidden,” Bucky grumbled.
“James Barnes, as in…” Tony trailed off, slowing down.
“Yep.” Bucky – war hero Bucky– didn’t pause, just kept walking.
Not much shocked Tony anymore. In his thirty-seven years of life, Tony had witnessed a lot. A lot of maiming, mostly, but technological advances and changes to the world too.
But a war hero who died in 1945, who was apparently still alive and lookingthe same…
He felt lightheaded.
How could the universe treat him so cruelly as to shove his parents’ murderer at him?
It wasn’t like Tony could say “My name is Tony Stark, you killed my father, prepare to die” seeing as the assassin had been brainwashed, as he’d found out recently, but he had to be angry at someone. Hydra, probably, they used his saviour’s hands and skills. Kept him fresh by putting him on ice.
Sometimes life just wasn’t fair. Couldn’t he catch a break?
“You don’t believe me,” Bucky stated flatly.
“How can I?” Tony asked tiredly, “I can’t find solid ground.”
Bucky didn’t answer him. “Why would I lie about that?” Bucky asked, sounding unfazed. Tony stared at the back of his head.
“What was Captain America’s favourite weapon?” Tony asked, smugly. His father had been in the war, and Cap’s supplier.
“Dunno what it was, but I know what it is now,” Bucky answered.
That didn’t make anysense.
Tony was completely lost now. That’s what happened when you detached yourself from the world, you had no idea what was going on anymore. “He…what?”
Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Tony. “We make it back, I’ll introduce you to him. Heard he used to be one of your heroes, right?”
“Used to be,” Tony grumped.
Bucky glanced at him. Tony couldn’t read the expression on his face, and made a face back at him.
Bucky glanced away and didn’t look back at him.
-*-
It turned out that Bucky didn’t have a plan for after he found Tony, since he hadn’t anticipated getting to him so soon, and that got them into a bit of trouble.
“Get in the suit!” Bucky yelled at him as he twisted around to shoot at the people firing at them from the courtyard.
“It’s getting there!” Tony cried, pressing the malfunctioning switch. This was what happened when he got dragged away from a safe house by his parents’ murderer into something akin to a bar fight.
“Get it there faster!” Bucky growled, sending him a frustrated glance before jumping out from behind the woven baskets in the little town he’d led Tony. Whyhad Tony believed him?
“Come on, come on!” Tony urged, then noticed something inching closer to him in his peripheral vision. “Oh, shit- “
“Put your hands up!” the dark-skinned man in black gear called out, his voice faintly accented.
“Yes, sir.”
He lifted his hands, and his armour unfolded around him. The blast shot out of his repulsor and hit the man square in the chest. He managed to fire a bullet through a grunt of pain, but it ricocheted off the titanium.
Unfortunately, the helmet hadn’t come up around his head yet. It must’ve been jammed.
Whatever, he could handle them without it.
Tony jumped up from behind the baskets and started firing. He found he didn’t have as many assailants to deal with as he’d feared – Bucky seemed to be handling them with a fluid and deadly grace.
So, he was of some use, after all.
“Anthony!” Bucky cried out, making Tony lose his focus. A bullet grazed the side of his head and he snarled out in the pain.
Who called him Anthony, anyway? Tony didn’t know what he was angrier at.
“Come get me you son of a bitch,” he said, lifting his arm up and firing a blast at the guy who’d fired the bullet.
Then he rounded on Barnes.
“So, you want me dead after all, huh?” Tony said, his eyes ablaze with accusation.
The assassin just ignored his words and stalked right up to him to inspect the side of his head.
“You’ll live,” he said, emotionless.
“No shit?” Tony said sarcastically, taking a deliberate step away. “Don’t distract me like that again.”
“That a threat, short-stack?”
Tony snorted, deciding not to answer that. Instead, he said “And don’t call me Anthony.”
-*-
“What is this?”
“A motel,” Bucky answered.
Well, it could only be called a motel where they were, which was the middle of nowhere.
“Right.” Tony strode inside.
“We’re bunking together.” Bucky stopped at the second door. Which didn’t say that much, since there were only four doors. When he noticed Tony staring, he shrugged. “They were booked out.”
They filed inside, and Tony tried not to notice the dusty smell. He had just stayed in a barn, he didn’thave standards.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, pressing a catch on the armour which was in the form of a backpack and it released from his back and landed on the bed. Instantly, Tony felt lighter. The armour was a dead weight when it wasn’t powered up. Tony sighed and stretched his arms above his head to yawn.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking the right side of the bed.” Tony walked around, dragging the armour to the nightstand, where there was an outlet.
Bucky was standing idly glancing around the room, likely checking for threats. Tony probably should’ve done that first, but he was happy to let Bucky do it for him.
He wasn’t a threat to Tony just yet – he might as well just take advantage of him while he can.
“That feng shui?” Bucky asked, finally moving to lay his stuff on his side of the bed.
Tony narrowed his eyes, wondering if Bucky was prodding; the right side of the bed was simply the furthest from the window.
“Yeah, sure.”
Bucky smiled at him, and wasn’t that a nice sight. Better than his strange, morose expressions, anyway.