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imaginetonyandbucky · 2 years

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After years of chasing a gang of outlaws, Bucky and Steve decide to kidnap one Anthony "The Iron Man" Stark to force him to help them end the gang's reign of terror. But as captives go, Stark is not what Bucky expected, nor is his reaction to him...

Art by @massivespacewren Story by @dracusfyre

Read the complete story here on AO3! But for now, a preview...

“Are you sure that’s him?” Bucky asked, and instead of answering Steve passed the binoculars over for Bucky to take a look for himself. As he looked through the lenses, he had to say that the guy certainly matched the description they’d been given, based on what he could tell from this far away. He couldn’t see if the man had dark hair and eyes because of his broad-brimmed hat, but he had the dark gold and auburn barred wings and fancy embroidered vest they’d been told to look for as well as the smart little black and white paint that had been described by the witnesses.

“If it’s not, the worst thing we’ll have to do is apologize," Steve said. "He’ll be in position in a few minutes, so get ready.” Handing the binoculars back, Bucky wormed his way away from the cliff edge and made his way carefully to the far end of the butte they were on. The plan was that Steve would take off from the south end of the butte and Bucky from the north, with the intention to trap the man between them, hopefully pinning him down before he had a chance to take flight. It wasn’t a complex plan, but they figured it didn’t have to be; from what they’d heard he was just a slick-winged greenhorn from back east that liked to talk, drink, and gamble, in that order. Steve and Bucky had just spent three years fighting Johnny Reb and two more tracking down outlaws, so this man wasn’t going to be a problem. If he was smart, he’d tell them what they wanted to know about his employers then he could go on his merry way without even dirtying up that expensive vest he was wearing.

Bucky peeked over the edge of the cliff to check the man’s position, and as the man’s horse ambled into the ambush point he launched himself off the cliff, spreading his wings out to glide as silently as possible down to the road below. “Stop right there,” he shouted when he was close enough. “We have you surrounded.”

The man pulled his horse up short and looked behind him, seeing Steve gliding down from the other side. He met Bucky’s eyes for a split second, and the look on his face was surprised and thoughtful but not, oddly enough afraid.

Bucky didn’t like that look. “Don’t try anything stupid,” he warned, banking his wings as he started to land to grab the horse’s reins. But at the last possible second the man shouted a word in a language Bucky didn’t recognize and dug his heels into his horse’s side, and the lazy-looking paint went from a standstill to a full gallop in less than two wingspans, kicking up dust and rocks. Bucky was so close that the man’s wings clipped him, knocking him off balance. He stumbled backwards, wings flapping gracelessly as he tried to keep himself from falling on his ass.

“Son of a bitch, we’ve got a runner!” As Steve beat his wings heavily trying to get height, stirring up even more dust, Bucky sprinted, trying to get some speed before he launched himself into the sky again. After that, he saved his breath for flying, straining to catch up in the dead air of the desert. Keeping his eye on the horse’s plume of dirt, he wondered what the hell the man could be thinking; in a thick forest, he might have been able to lose them, but they were in the edges of Comancheria, where the only ground cover was scrubby shrubs and spindly trees.

As he got closer, he saw that the man had set his heels on the flight pegs of his saddle and before he could shout a warning to Steve the man launched himself into the air. Bucky expected the man to use his horse’s speed to rapidly gain height, but instead he stayed low, skimming close to the ground before disappearing.

“What the hell? Where did he go?” Bucky stretched his wings to catch even more air, squinting at the bright sun to see where Steve was.

“Canyon!” Steve shouted down at him, pointing off to the left.

“There’s a canyon here?!” They had never been this far north and west; they’d only come here following this man and hadn’t had the time to scout the entire area before they set up their ambush. Rookie mistake. Bucky gave up trying to get height and went for speed, aiming for the last place they saw their quarry.

Even though he knew it was coming, the sudden drop off was startling; Bucky wobbled in the air as the ground fell away from him and there was an unexpected updraft. There was a flash of auburn down canyon and Bucky followed. The canyon was aggravatingly twisty, and Bucky could already tell that his sides were going to be sore from the constant banking. Steve was still higher, above the rim of the canyon, keeping a lookout to make sure the man didn’t escape that way while Bucky tried to bring him down.

“Hard right!” Steve shouted from above.

"God damned narrow winged bastard," Bucky cursed as their quarry flicked a wing and took off down a side canyon. He backwinged heavily, losing much of his hard-won speed, and turned to follow him, kicking off a canyon wall for a boost. "When we catch him I'm going to snap every primary on his wings," Bucky growled, chest and lungs burning as he strained to catch up. "You hear that?" He shouted, hoping the guy they were chasing was close enough to hear him. "If you give up now I'll only break a couple, I promise."

“Sounds like you should save your breath and focus on flying,” the man shouted back, his voice echoing crazily off the canyon walls. “I’ve seen fancier flying from a goose.”

Bucky growled deep in his chest at the insult and beat his wings harder. He was going to string this bastard up like a plucked chicken and see how mouthy he was then. None of their flying during the war or since had been like this, navigating narrow channels and having to watch every second that you didn’t veer too close towards a stone wall and go tumbling out of the sky. Bucky would like to see how this falcon-winged little shit liked his flying when they were in the wide open air.

“We just want information,” Steve called out. “The longer this goes on, the more likely someone is to get hurt.” Glancing up, Bucky saw that mesquite trees were starting to grow more thickly as they went downstream in the canyon, even climbing up the canyon walls. If their prey found a discrete side canyon choked with plants, he could hide and sneak away while they were trying to search each gulch and arroyo looking for him.

“And you think that’s going to be me?”

A shot rang out and Bucky twitched at the loud bang, magnified by echoes. He didn’t hear Steve make a noise like he’d been hit, so he said, “You miss-” only for the rumbling and clattering of rocks to give him a moment’s warning before a tree pulled away from the wall of the canyon, bringing boulders and bushes along with it. Bucky barely dived out of the way, feeling the sting of branches hitting his legs and pebbles bouncing off his back and wings. “I’m okay,” he said, mostly for Steve’s benefit, but once again he found himself too low and slow and fighting to catch up. What in the hell was Steve doing, anyway? Was he just up there enjoying the thermals while Bucky was down here about to burst a lung?

He was just about to say something when a shadow passed over him and he saw Steve in a dive. With an intuition born from living and working together for most of their lives, Bucky landed, folding his wings gratefully, and uncoiled his lasso from around his waist. He positioned himself behind the pile of rubble that the man had dislodged from the wall, hiding him from sight from someone flying back up the canyon, and got ready.

Sure enough, a few minutes later their quarry came zipping back down the canyon, flushed out by Steve’s dive. In a flash, Bucky stepped out from his hiding spot and threw the lasso fast and true, catching the man around the ankles. He wrapped the other end of the rope around his waist and dug his feet in as the man flapped and twisted, trying to get free. He'd tire himself out soon enough, and then they'd be able to-

"Shit!" Bucky hit the dirt as the man dove at him instead, barely missing getting kicked in the head. They scrambled for the rope, the man's wings throwing up dust as he tried to keep his balance and leap back into the air. Then there was a loud bang and a spray of rocks as Steve landed and fired his shotgun at their feet.

They both jumped backwards, but with the rope around his feet their quarry tripped and landed on his rear with a grunt. Bucky tried not to smirk.

"Like I said, we just want to talk," Steve said as he chambered the shotgun and put it back up to his shoulder. "So unless you want to be picking buckshot out of your wings for the next 3 days I recommend you settle down."

The man's wings tensed as he thought about it and Bucky waspishly wished he would try as he spat the taste of dirt out of his mouth, but after a moment the man folded his wings and put his hand in the air.

"I hope whatever it is you want for me is worth the bounty that's going to be on your heads for this," The man said. "I'm a valuable man to some important people."

"We know," Bucky said. "That's what we want to talk about."

READ THE REST ON AO3! :D

#tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron #fanart

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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A talented artist named OneSmartChicken has created lovely art to go along with the recently published story Flights of Fancy!

Look at these soft boys! 😍 Find the art here on AO3 and give the artist some love!

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

Text

A talented artist named OneSmartChicken has created lovely art to go along with the recently published story Flights of Fancy!

Look at these soft boys! 😍 Find the art here on AO3 and give the artist some love!

#wingfic #tony stark #bucky barnes #winteriron #tony x bucky #starkbucks #fan art

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Flights of Fancy

Chapter 7 of 7 (On AO3) by @dracusfyre

Now: Tony

As he watched Bucky walk away again, Tony staggered to the bench and sat down.

“Tony, I’m so sorry,” Daniel said, sitting down next to him. “l should have guessed the old biddy was just trying to stir up trouble. If I had known I wouldn’t have-”

“No, it’s...It’s not your fault,” Tony said, head in his hands. “Oh, God, what am I going to do? How can I fix this?” He stared out at the dimly lit garden, wings slumped dejectedly.

“Go after him, of course,” Daniel said. “You want him, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Tony said. “Seeing him again was…” He looked up at Daniel, willing him to understand. “I can’t - I can’t think about wearing anyone else’s paint, or rings, until I know if he doesn’t love me anymore. And even then, even if I find out that he doesn’t want me anymore, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to love like this again. Is that sad?”

“It’s not sad to love strongly,” Daniel said, touching his wing to Tony’s lightly, comfortingly. “It was easy to see from the first time we met that you have a great capacity for feeling. I can’t say that I understand, but I hope that one day I will love like that.”

“But I can’t just fly after him,” Tony said, looking back at the hall where light was shining out of the windows. “Right?”

“Why not? What’s the point of being a Duke if you can’t tell society to go hang once in a while?” Daniel said, shrugging his wings. “If you want, I will send your carriage home and tell everyone that you are feeling poorly.”

Tony’s eyes softened. “I don’t deserve you,” he said, feeling his chest get tight and his eyes burn. “You are truly a kind person. You’ll make someone a lovely spouse. ”

“I know,” Daniel said briskly but with a wry smile, coming to his feet and pulling Tony up with him. “I’ve a couple of prospects that I think deserve a chance to console me after you and I call off the engagement. If it works out with your Bucky, you can thank me by sending me a very expensive wedding gift.”

Tony’s laugh at that came out a little damp. “Of course,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough.” As Daniel started to shoo him away, he shrugged out of his cape, balling it up in his arms and handing it to Daniel. He climbed awkwardly on top of the garden wall and jumped into the air, flapping strongly to get above roof level. Stretching muscles that hadn’t gotten this much of a workout in years, he glided in widening circles, trying to keep an eye out for Bucky’s red coat. He found him a few streets over, heading towards the hotel district where he must have rented rooms. Tucking in his wings, Tony swooped down to land in front of him, backwinging and throwing up leaves and dust as he landed, tripping a little from being out of practice. Bucky was taken aback when Tony appeared in front of him, but as soon as he realized who it was he scowled.

“Bucky, please, just listen,” Tony said as Bucky started to walk around him, stretching out a wing to block the way.

“Does your fiance know you’re here?” Bucky asked cuttingly as he brushed Tony’s wing aside with his own, the bitterness in his voice sharp as a knife.

“He’s the one that sent me. Bucky, please, if you ever loved me, stop and just listen!” Bucky stopped but didn’t turn around, leaving Tony to talk to the unreadable feathers of his back. “After Howard...did what he did, he bound my wings and locked me in the estate. Any time I left the house I had an escort, and I wasn’t even allowed pen or paper unless it was part of my studies. Three years I lived like a prisoner until Howard’s horse broke a leg during a hunt and landed on him, breaking his back. As soon as I could, I looked for you. For over a year, I searched, but no one knew where you were. I didn’t even know if you were alive or dead,” Tony said, hearing his voice wobble. Still Bucky didn’t turn around, so he swallowed thickly and continued. “Howard signed a marriage contract with Daniel’s family before he died and didn’t tell me. I didn’t even know about it until they showed up on my doorstep with the contract, ready to start planning the ceremony. Breaking it off would have been cruel and unfair and likely ruined his reputation, so I agreed to stay engaged until we could end it quietly.” Tony waited for Bucky to say something, anything. He took a step forward and hesitantly reached out to put a hand on Bucky’s wing, growing a little braver when Bucky didn’t move away. “Can you look at me? Please?” When Bucky turned around, Tony stepped into the light under a streetlamp and spread his wings as wide as they could go, feeling naked and exposed with his feathers bared. This was the first time that another person had seen his secondaries in years, much less since he'd started painting them after Howard died, and he felt terrifyingly vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that he was standing in the middle of the street with his wings open.

Bucky’s eyes dropped to the paint on his secondaries. “What is this?” He ground out. “Do Stark men grow crueler as they age? Why would you show me this?”

“What? Bucky, this…” Tony curled his wings in and looked down at the design. “This is our design! I’ve worn this paint, our paint, ever since my father died.”

“No, it’s not,” Bucky said, and he reached inside the pocket of his coat, pulling out a piece of paper that had been handled so many times that it had holes in the creases where it had been folded. He unfolded it and held it out for Tony to look at, and Tony was speechless when he realized that it was their original sketch - Howard hadn’t gotten his hands on it after all. As he looked at it, he choked back a sob. Bucky was right, the paint on his feathers was different; as much as he had tried to hold it in his memory, he had forgotten much of it and now the design on his wings had only a passing resemblance to the one on the paper.

“I didn’t…” Tony struggled to control his voice around the tightness in his chest. When he heard the paper rattle he realized his hands were shaking, and he thrust it into Bucky’s hands, humiliated. “I thought…Christ, I’m so stupid,” he said, folding his wings up against his back, vision blurry and throat burning with the effort of holding back tears. “I’m sorry, I need to-”

“Tony,” Bucky said, and his voice was so soft, so unlike the hard edge it had before, that Tony had to choke back another sob. “Come here, sweetheart.” Hands were on his arms, pulling him close, and then Bucky’s arms and wings were wrapped around him in a soft, warm cocoon smelling of vanilla wing oil. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Tony heard, and felt the press of lips against his temple. “Your wings are lovely, thank you so much. I can’t believe you did that for all these years.”

Another sob broke in his chest at the reminder. “But it’s not even the right- ”

“Shh,” Bucky said, arms tightening around him. “That doesn’t matter. I know it was for me. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I should have trusted you. I should have listened instead of storming off.”

Tony buried his face in Bucky’s shoulder, aware that he was getting Bucky’s fancy dress uniform wet. “I wanted to find you first, so I could tell you about the engagement myself. This was...not ideal,” he said, wrapping his arms tentatively around Bucky.

“I’ll say,” Bucky said. They stood there for a few minutes until Tony felt steadier and pulled away, wiping his cheeks on his sleeves, heedless of the expensive fabric. Bucky’s wings pulled back from their close embrace but still circled him, blocking out the view of the quiet street. “The design is lovely. I’d be honored for a chance to wear it one day,” he started, but Tony shook his head.

“No. Now that I’ve found you again, we should have a fresh start.” He looked down at the design with rueful sadness and folded his wings. “By the time I’ve shed these secondaries, I will be free of my burdensome betrothal and you and I can pick a new design. One that fits the people we are now, not the people we were then.”

Bucky smiled softly and cupped Tony’s cheek. “I think that’s a brilliant idea,” he said. “I want to court you properly this time, without having to hide.”

“I can’t wait,” Tony said, smile blinding.

******

One Year Later

"Look at that lovesick bastard, he isn't even listening to us."

When someone nudged his shoulder, Bucky pulled his eyes away from where he'd been watching Tony talk animatedly with one of his high society friends, wings and hands moving as he explained the mechanical principle that had captured his imagination this week, and turned his attention to his friends. After the first few hours of dancing and making conversation, they had claimed a table in the corner of the room and were steadily making their way through the stores of wine set aside for the wedding celebration. "When you say something worth listening to, maybe I will," he said loftily, taking another sip of the champagne that had been growing warm as he watched Tony.

"Dernier was just commending you on your wingspan, to fly so high in such a short time," Falsworth said, gesturing around them at the elaborately decorated hall that Tony had rented out to have their reception. Flowers spread their sweet scent from every table, with fine white linen and bone china place settings. Ladies and gentlemen in their colorful clothes looked like brightly colored birds as they tittered in conversation and spun around the dance floor.

Bucky scowled at the implication. "I would have loved Tony if all he had was the shirt on his back," he said, straightening, and Dernier held up his hands in preemptive surrender.

"Or perhaps better, with no shirt on his back," Dernier said with a wink. "But I meant no disrespect. You have flown through many storms to reach ton grand amour. But it is also good to finish your journey at a well-feathered nest, n'est-ce pas?"

"I think we all have done well feathering our nests," Rogers put in, hoping to head off an argument. They all had to nod at that, and toasted each other; raiding Napoleon's supply lines, including a particularly daring attack on an armored wagon carrying gold to pay the army's debts, had left them with a respectable nest egg which they had in turn invested well on Tony's advice.

"So what are you two planning to do next?" Dum-Dum asked, waiving down a server to get another plate of the hors d'oeuvres, adding to the stack of plates that were already on the table in front of him. "I can't see you doing this forever," he said as he gestured out to the crowd.

"Most definitely not," Bucky said, making a face. "We're planning to travel, actually. There has been some interesting developments in the field of electric energy in Paris and America that we are excited to investigate. Tony thinks that one day they will revolutionize manufacturing. Can you imagine using the power of lightning to run a loom or turn a mill?"

There was a moment of hesitation as his commandos stared at him blankly, then Gabe said, "I'm starting to see why these two fell in love. They're both barking mad," and Bucky crossed his arms over his chest huffily as everyone laughed.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he started, but Dum-Dum started speaking over him.

"Remember that time he tried to argue that if you got a big enough cannon, you could shoot a man out of it?"

"Oh I remember you volunteering to build the cannon if Bucky volunteered to climb inside," Morita said. "I haven't spent much time with Lord Stark, but he strikes me as a man who would definitely climb inside. You're right, they're definitely a perfect match."

"I thought it was a fine idea myself," Rogers said with an admirable poker face. "Much more efficient than flapping your wings, to be shot through the air like a cannonball."

"I wasn't necessarily saying we should do it, just that we could!" Bucky protested, but they all just kept laughing. "Fine," Bucky said with an exaggerated huff, draining his champagne. "Keep laughing. I'm going over to my husband who actually appreciates me." But as he turned away from the table, he was smiling; it was good to be around his friends after so much time going on obligatory visits and meetings with people obsessed with rank and social climbing and who said what to who.

When he reached Tony he ran a hand down his wings, still secretly thrilled that this was a thing he could do now, without fear of reproach or reprisal. An even greater thrill was how Tony turned to him with his brilliant smile like a flower turning towards the sun, and Bucky bent down for a kiss, remembering at the last minute to land it demurely on his cheek instead of on that smile.

"So this is him," one of the ladies standing with Tony said, studying him with one hand on her hip, looking amused. "The infamous James Barnes."

"Infamous?" Bucky repeated, baffled.

"Bucky, meet Ms. Jessica Jones. Jessica, you clearly need no introduction. Jessica was the detective that I had looking for you," Tony explained.

"I was running in circles all over Europe trying to pick up your trail," Jessica said testily, sounding more put out that she hadn't caught him than that she'd been put through the hassle. "Every now and then I would find someone who had met a mysterious group of Englishmen with one of them matching your description, but then you were off again."

"For years I had all sorts of gruesome nightmares that you had been shipped off to the West Indies, or put out in the wilderness to starve, or some other dire fate," Tony said. "Finding out that you were in the army was some small relief that at least Howard hadn't killed you outright."

Bucky bowed deeply to Jessica with a broad sweep of his wings. "Then though I must apologize for putting you through so much trouble, I can only be grateful for the role you played in bringing Tony and I back together," he said.

"Oh, there is no debt," she assured him with a mischievous glint in her eye. "I made sure that Lord Stark paid me well for my trouble. In that sense, I must thank you for helping provide the money I needed to get my own company started."

"I'm sure I made many people rich looking for word of Bucky," Tony said dryly. "But I'd rather not speak of it now. You've had all the money you'll get out of me, because I don't plan to lose him again." At that, Tony spread out his wing and laid it atop Bucky's possessively, and Bucky was suddenly finished socializing.

"Don't you think it's getting pretty late, dear?" Bucky said, and with a frown Tony looked towards a window and saw that the sun was still up, if low in the sky. He turned to Bucky to protest but must have seen the turn of Bucky's thoughts written on his face because he closed his mouth and nodded.

"I am getting rather tired," he said unconvincingly, and dipped his head in farewell to Jessica. Bucky followed him as they went around the room and made their farewells, concealing his impatience, but when they were finally alone Bucky pulled him close and kissed him thoroughly as he'd been wanting to do all day. "I have a surprise for you," Tony murmured against his mouth, and wiggled out of Bucky's arms. "Close your eyes."

Bucky did and felt Tony's hands in his own, pulling him along. Bucky stumbled a little on uneven ground as he followed, then heard the creak of a door opening and felt the air and ground change as they stepped inside a building. Tony guided him through and put his hands on what felt like a ladder and told him to climb. Intensely curious, he did, feeling his way to his feet as he got to the top of the ladder and waited for Tony to join him. "Wait here," Tony instructed, and Bucky heard him walk to the other side of whatever room they were in before coming back. "Alright, open," Tony said.

Bucky opened his eyes and his face went slack with surprise. He knew this room well; it was the hayloft where he and Tony would sneak away to meet, where they'd spent their last golden hours together before Howard had ripped them apart. But instead of being full of hay covered only by a purloined blanket, smelling of horses and grass, the room had a bed in the corner, curtains on the windows and a thick carpet on the floor. On the wall, framed, was the copy of their old wing paint design that Bucky had carried with him for so long as well as the new design they'd chosen, beautifully sketched out by Rogers as a wedding gift. Tony himself was standing in front of him, wings and chest bare with a pair of paint pots in his hand, eyes shining. "This time, my love, it will be perfect," he said, handing Bucky one of the pots.

"Maybe," Bucky said, setting the pot to the side to frame Tony's face in his hands. "Maybe not. But we'll be together, and that's whats important," he added, leaning in for a kiss. He took the pot from Tony's hand and set it aside as well, then started walking him backwards towards the bed.

They didn't end up painting their secondaries until the morning, but neither minded; Bucky thought it was better anyway, because instead of painting their wings in darkness and the flickering light of a lantern, they did it in the bright light of morning and let the sun dry the paint as they tumbled through the sky together.

#tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron #starkbucks

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Flights of Fancy

Chapter 6 (on AO3) by @dracusfyre

Now: Bucky

Walking into the ballroom felt like the moment when a battle starts, when the still and quiet of a day suddenly erupts into noise and chaos. The room was a hot, stuffy mass of loud talking and brightly colored clothing, the roar of conversation almost drowning out the musicians playing dutifully in the corner of the room. It was overwhelming and headache-inducing and if it wasn’t for the possibility of seeing Tony here, he would have turned around and walked back out into the dark, quiet street. After the majordomo announced them, Bucky pushed to the front of their group, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was looking through the crowd for a familiar face even as he heard his team teasing him for it. As they first entered, there had been an empty space around them as people instinctively moved away to give them room, but after a minute or two the space filled up with people flocking towards them, cooing and fawning over their red coats. He ignored any attempt to speak to him and went up on his toes, craning his neck to see around all the people. He had taken a few steps forward to start searching the crowd on foot when he saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. All he saw was the back of a head and a pair of reddish brown wings draped in purple, but his heart knew that hair and those wings anywhere.

“Tony!” He called out before he could stop himself, and he saw the wings flinch.

Behind him, he heard Falsworth say, “Tony? You found him?" Then as Falsworth realized who Bucky was looking at he said, "Wait, your Tony is a duke?” just as Fury said “Who the hell is Tony?” But he didn't bother answering as he made his way through the crowd. His heart was in his throat as he drew closer, nerves making his knees weak. When Tony turned around and their eyes met, Bucky’s breath caught in his lungs and the rest of the world faded away, the noisy conversation of the ballroom turning into a dull murmur barely audible over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. After so many years of waiting, it hardly seemed real that Tony was standing there right in front of him.

But, he realized, this was a Tony he’d never seen before. His Tony wore loose, linen clothes and had tousled hair and wings, face and hands often smudged with ink or grease from his many projects. This Tony was groomed and gleaming, wearing expensive silks and satins with nary a feather out of place. Bucky had spent hours making sure his uniform was spotless and that his wings were well groomed and oiled, but in the face of this finery Bucky felt grubby and underdressed. “Tony, I-”

“Lieutenant Barnes, was it?” Tony asked. His blank, polite smile almost a grimace on his face, eyes unreadable, and he was holding his hands and wings tightly behind his back with all signs of being acutely discomfited. “It’s a pleasure. Thank you for your bravery in the fight against Napoleon, your service is greatly appreciated, I'm sure.”

At the bland, empty words, Bucky felt his face fall and his heart sink. Did Tony really not remember him? Had it been that long, had he changed that much? He had opened his mouth to remind Tony who he was when he saw Tony’s eyes dart to the crowd around them. His back stiffened as he realized that it wasn’t that Tony didn’t remember him, but rather that he was worried Bucky would embarrass him. His jaw went tight and he raised his chin. He may not be polished but he knew enough etiquette not to embarrass himself or others. “Lord Stark,” he said, bowing his head and wings with sharp military precision. “I apologize if I startled you. I was surprised to see you after these many years and I’m afraid I spoke out of turn.”

“No apology necessary,” Tony said, still looking horribly awkward. “It’s always a pleasure to run across a childhood friend,” he added.

Friend. Bucky’s wings wanted to slump from dismay; this wasn’t going at all like Bucky had hoped, and if his team wasn’t watching him avidly he might have left this excruciating exchange. It didn’t help that he suddenly realized that the people around them were doing a poor job of pretending not to be watching them. “Would you like to dance?” he asked, desperate to get away from all the staring eyes.

“That sounds lovely,” Tony said, and when Bucky saw the relief in his eyes he realized that Tony had been feeling the weight of the eyes as well. People may still watch them on the dance floor, but at least they could speak without someone overhearing every word.

As they squared up for the dance, Bucky belatedly put two and two together, eyes dropping to the purple cape draped over Tony’s wings. “You’re the duke now,” he said, feeling stupid. “When did-”

“Two years ago,” Tony said, looking down at the purple like he still wasn’t used to seeing it. "It was a riding accident."

“Two years? And you didn’t-” Bucky bit off those words as the music started and they started to move. “I mean, I didn’t know. I’m sorry for your loss.” There was a twist to Tony’s mouth that Bucky remembered well, and he knew what Tony was thinking as clear as if he’d said it aloud - no great loss. He searched around for something to say and ended up with, “I trust that you have been doing well?”

“As well as could be expected, I suppose,” Tony said in a tone that spoke volumes. Bucky’s eyebrows drew together and he studied Tony, looking past the finery to see the lines of strain around his mouth and the smudges of tiredness under his eyes. "The years have been somewhat trying, I must confess."

“You look good,” Bucky said softly, and Tony’s gaze flew up to his.

“So do you. The red suits you,” he said, eyes skimming down Bucky’s body as they stepped into a turn. Bucky was relieved that his feet remembered the steps, practiced around the campfire when they had the rare evenings off. He’d endured the teasing of his team so that he could have this moment right now, Tony in his arms as they moved gracefully around the dance floor. “Have you been...well? Happy?” Tony asked after a moment. His eyes were over Bucky’s shoulder, but he saw Tony swallow thickly and felt how tight his hand was gripping Bucky’s.

Bucky took a deep breath and felt hope kindle in his chest again. “The best I can say is that I haven’t always been unhappy,” Bucky said, keeping his eyes on the side of Tony's face, heedless of the fact that he might steer them into another couple. “Purgatory might be a step up from hell, but it seems hellish when you’re there because you’ve been cast out of heaven." He moved his hand in a brief, illicit caress on Tony's back, hiding the movement by spinning them in a quick circle.

Tony’s eyes darted to the side to meet his again, and Bucky’s heart twisted at the anguish he saw there before Tony looked away again. “Bucky,” Tony said, voice shaky. “I have missed you so much. I looked for you, for years. When I couldn't find you, I thought...”

The need to wrap Tony in his arms and wings and kiss him was physically painful. Bucky’s throat tightened and it took another full circle around the floor before he could speak again. “I missed you so much, but I couldn’t come back to you,” Bucky finally managed with difficulty. “The army...”

“I know,” Tony said. “I know what Howard did, and I’m sorry. It was all my fault.”

“No. Tony, no, don’t say that,” Bucky said, almost missing a step in the dance as he tried to get Tony to look at him. “None of it was your fault, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.” His hand tightened on Tony's as he willed him to believe him. "Howard tried to tell me that you changed your mind, but I didn't believe him, not for a second."

“You-” Tony started, but the music ended before he could finish. Bucky released him reluctantly, and everyone bowed to their partners before they left the dance floor to make room for the quadrille that was starting next. He offered Tony his hand and was searching for a quiet place for them to talk when a female voice spoke up beside them.

“Lord Stark, what a splendid dance,” the lady said. “I was just telling my friend that you two make such a lovely - oh!” When the lady looked up at Bucky her eyes grew round. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were dancing with your fiance.”

Bucky didn’t have to ask if it was true - the way Tony’s face went white said it all. Bucky felt himself go cold all over, and time seemed to slow as he stared at Tony's stricken expression. As if from a distance he heard himself say, “I didn’t realize I owed you some congratulations, Lord Stark. Thank you for the dance, but I shan’t keep you from your fiance any longer. Please excuse me.”

As he tried to extricate himself from Tony's grip, Tony’s hand tightened on his as if to keep him from leaving, and his eyes were pleading. But Bucky just stared back stonily, and Tony’s hand dropped away instead of making a scene. He bowed perfunctorily and turned away, heading for the nearest exit before he lost control. It turned out the closest door led out onto a colonnade that circled a central garden, making a fine walking path for people needing peace and quiet. There were lamps hung around the garden for people to walk and take the air, but just Bucky made his way to a bench far from the door and sat down, putting his head in his hands and staring down at the gravel. His black boots, polished until they shone, reflected in the light of a nearby lamp and reminded Bucky of how stupid he had been, to hope and dream and wait all this time. He’d been so proud to get his commission, to know that an officer rank would open doors that could one day lead him back to Tony. The future that had seemed so bright and shining just a few minutes ago had turned to dust, and suddenly Bucky needed to move, to get as far away from the shattered remnants of the stupid dream as he could.

As he got to his feet again, he heard footsteps behind him and knew who it was without looking. “So you looked for me but didn’t wait for me,” Bucky said before he could stop himself. "Why bother? Curiosity? To assuage your unnecessary feelings of guilt?"

“Bucky, please, let me explain,” Tony said, and Bucky closed his eyes against the pleading tone in his voice.

“Are you, or are you not, engaged?” He asked coldly.

“I am, but-”

“There’s no but! ” Bucky managed to keep his voice down with a force of effort, aware that they weren’t the only ones outside. All that this situation needed to make it worse was an audience; having Tony witness his heart breaking was painful enough. He turned around but couldn’t bring himself to look at Tony, staring over his shoulder at the light streaming out from the windows. “What else is there to say? All these years I thought we were promised to one another, but clearly I was wrong because now I see that you are promised to someone else.”

“It wasn’t my doing!” Tony took a step closer, hands outstretched, but Bucky took a step back out of his reach. “The engagement was Howard’s work,” Tony said, wrapping his arms around himself instead. “He-”

“Howard’s work?” Bucky echoed with disbelief. “The man’s been dead for two years!”

“You’re not letting me explain!” Tony shouted, wings half opening with frustration. Bucky opened his mouth to respond but saw someone approach from over Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony?” The new person said. As he came closer, Bucky could see that it was a younger man, dressed in the latest fashion with his hair sculpted to look artfully tousled. “Lady Sherrington said you were out here. Is everything alright?”

Tony’s face shuttered and his arms fell down to his sides, wings shifting with poorly concealed dismay. He turned to greet the newcomer. “Lord Sturmont,” he said, forcing a smile. “This is Lieutenant James Barnes. Lieutenant Barnes, this is Daniel, Viscount of Sturmont...my fiance.”

Bucky stared at Tony, then at the young, handsome viscount who was studying Bucky with interest. “A pleasure,” he forced out. Howard’s work indeed, he thought savagely, and when he met Tony’s eyes again he knew Tony could tell what he was thinking. Howard had died well before this man would have been old enough to get engaged, which meant that Tony had lied to him. Tony had the pleading look in his eyes again, but Bucky only felt his lip curl.

“Lieutenant Barnes,” Sturmont said slowly, as if trying to remember something. “Barnes.” He turned to Tony and said, “This is him, isn’t it? The one you’ve told me about. This is Bucky.”

Bucky didn’t think he could be surprised again, but the realization that Tony had talked about him to his fiance was like a slap to his face. Why? Had they been reminiscing about the past? Had Tony been hinting that he wasn’t quite as pure as a proper young noble should be? Or, it suddenly occurred to him, had it been pity? Had Tony told this proper young viscount about the foolish laborer who had thought he might marry a duke’s son? His Tony wouldn’t have done that, but Bucky was starting to wonder if perhaps his Tony didn’t exist anymore, that he had only been kept alive by Bucky's wishful thinking. “I must go,” he said abruptly, and turned on his heel and started walking.

“Bucky!” He heard Tony cry out from behind him, but he didn’t stop, didn't turn around, didn't slow down. With a flap of his wings he vaulted over the garden wall and fled.

#tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron #starkbucks

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

Text

Flights of Fancy

Chapter 5 (on AO3) by @dracusfyre

1 Year Ago: Tony

“Howard did what?” Tony shouted, and Jarvis winced.

“I am as surprised as you, sir,” Jarvis said. “But please, keep your voice down. Ana is bringing the young gentleman and his parents refreshments as we speak, and it wouldn’t do for him to hear you.”

Tony took the marriage contract from Jarvis’s hands and skimmed it quickly, flipping to the signature page. “I didn’t sign this,” he said. “This isn’t legally enforceable, Howard forged my signature. Why would he do that?”

“I’m sure he wasn’t planning to die before this particular plan came to fruition,” Jarvis said wryly. “I imagine he had some sort of leverage in mind to force you into agreeing to this betrothal when the young gentleman came of age and this contract would go into effect.”

Tony sat down heavily, barely restraining himself from banging his head on the desk with frustration. “Leaving me to have this excruciating conversation with a debutante who thinks that we are engaged,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “God damn that man.” An arranged marriage is just something Howard would do; he had already kept Tony wingbound and all but imprisoned for three years, and taking Tony to London to have a season would only give Tony a chance to run away, which was exactly what Tony had been planning to do at the first opportunity. Much better, in Howard’s eyes, to make sure that Tony went from one prison to another by binding him in marriage to someone of Howard’s choosing.

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

Text

Flights of Fancy

Chapter 5 (on AO3) by @dracusfyre

1 Year Ago: Tony

“Howard did what?” Tony shouted, and Jarvis winced.

Howard’s choosing. For some reason this young man had been Howard’s choice, but why? Tony would have thought that Howard would marry him off to some old codger in return for money or land or influence. With that thought in mind, Tony picked up the marriage contract again and reread the name of his “betrothed” - “The Viscount of Sturmont,” Tony read. “Who-”

“His father is the Earl of Mansfield,” Jarvis supplied. Tony’s resistance to learning the peerage was one of his small victories over his father. “His holdings, I understand, have a great deal of coal and are known for their breweries.”

So not an old codger, an old codger’s son. Sure enough, when Tony read the marriage contract more thoroughly, there were a number of clauses about buying Mansfield’s coal for the Stark family factories and using Stark ships to send Mansfield’s ale overseas, along with some language about votes in the House of Lords. “Well that explains that,” Tony muttered. He refolded the papers, took a deep breath to brace himself, and stood. “Let’s get this over with, I suppose.”

Tony’s determination lasted him until he got to the door and saw his betrothed. The chairs had been artfully rearranged so that the first thing Tony saw when he walked in was the young man’s wings, feathers gleaming and neatly groomed and almost the exact shade of dark brown as Bucky’s. His heart skipped a beat and he almost stumbled at the sight, until the young man turned to smile at Tony over his shoulder in a move that would have been coquettish if his smile hadn’t faltered at the look on Tony’s face. Tony registered his look of confusion and made his face smooth out into an expression of polite welcome. The gentleman was handsome enough, and Tony wondered if Howard had met the boy before signing the contract and had thought his pretty face would reconcile Tony to the arranged marriage. Tony had the morbid thought that he could end this interview immediately just by spreading his wings and displaying his still painted secondaries; this young gentleman’s proper-looking parents would leave in an offended huff and would give him the cut direct in public forever after. But that would also cause gossip and require him to reveal his most cherished secret to strangers, so Tony just greeted them with a bow and dip of his wings. He made polite small talk while the young man - “Please, call me Daniel,” the young man said with a modest downcast to his eyes - poured the tea with impeccable grace and manners.

“We are thrilled to finally be able to meet you,” Lady Mansfield said. “It is unfortunate that your illness kept you out of society for so long.”

Tony smiled thinly at that, well acquainted with the lies Howard had told to explain why Tony never left their country estate. “Yes, I’m glad that my affliction is gone,” Tony agreed. “Unfortunately, since my father died I have been occupied with the estate and haven’t had much time to go about in society. How have you been enjoying the season, Daniel?”

They made polite small talk while they had tea, but after JARVIS took the cart away, Tony sat up straighter on his chair and resettled his wings. “I apologize for having to bring up business during a social call,” Tony said, pulling out the marriage contract, “but I believe we should discuss this before the hour gets too late.”

“Of course,” Lord Mansfield said, a slightly overweight man with silver at his temples. He had mostly been silent, almost dozing, while Lady Mansfield and Daniel shared gossip about their season, but now his wings straightened up and his eyes sharpened. “I only bring it up since it has been some time since it was written, and I want to make sure we don’t want to make any changes before we hold the ceremony.”

“Daniel and I have been doing a great deal of the planning already,” Lady Mansfield put in. She put a wing around her son and patted him on the hand, smiling at him approvingly. “You won’t need to worry about a thing!”

Tony cursed Howard another dozen times for putting him into this situation. “Well, you see,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly as he flipped through the contract to the signature page. “We have a problem. This, ah, marriage contract isn’t...valid. This isn’t my signature.” Tony pointed to the scribble that was above his printed name. “I’m sure the late Duke had a good reason for this,” he lied, “but unfortunately, today was the first day I’ve learned about this betrothal.”

All three Mansfields went pale, and Lady Mansfield’s jaw actually dropped. Even though it wasn’t his fault, Tony’s heart twisted at the look of stunned dismay on Daniel’s face. The poor young fellow had probably been thrilled to learn that he would be marrying a man close to his own age, and a Duke at that. Tony didn’t wasn’t flattering himself to say that he wasn’t unattractive, and to be fair, Daniel was a good looking fellow as well, and seemed very good humored and easy to get along with. It would have been a good match if Tony had been able to pick it for himself, if his heart hadn’t already been taken years ago.

While the silence stretched, Tony's conviction wavered. He swallowed thickly and and dropped his eyes from Daniel's pleading gaze to look down at the contract in his hands. It had been four years since he last saw Bucky; four years without knowing where he was or what he was doing, or who he was with. How long should he wait for someone he might never see again? Five years? Ten? This was a good match, as good as it gets without being a love match. Maybe he was stupid to throw it away based on a childhood love affair; his father had always told him that marrying for love was for fools and people with nothing to lose. He’d always dismissed his father as a bitter old man, but being forced to take over the estate and all of its business holdings had been something of a rude awakening. He could see now how a marriage was the best way to win allies in the cutthroat world of business and politics, and allying the Stark estate with Mansfield's made good sense.

Lord Mansfield was the first to recover. “Now see here, young man-” he started, face growing red with rage. Lady Mansfield put a hand on his arm, digging her fingers in, and when Lord Mansfield met her eyes she shook her head sharply. Probably reminding him that this “young man” outranked him, Tony thought with a twist to his mouth.

“I understand this must be very surprising,” Tony said. “But as you know, even though parents can arrange marriage contracts on behalf of their children, the child must be at least sixteen and able to sign for themselves, even if the contract doesn’t go into effect until all parties are eighteen. I didn’t sign this, which means that I am not bound by it, no matter what promises my father made.”

“But-”

Tony held up a hand. “Please, let me speak,” he said, and Lord Mansfield subsided, though he didn’t look happy about it. “I think that the business arrangements outlined in this contract are extremely favorable to us both, and I am more than happy to sit down with you and put those terms into a new contract. However, and I hope you don’t take this as any sort of slight to yourself, Daniel, for you are a most charming and handsome young man, but I have no interest in being married just yet.”

“But - you can’t break off an engagement after the first meeting!” Now it was Lady Mansfield’s turn to bluster. “Think of what people will say! My son’s reputation will be ruined.”

“Given that the betrothal only really came into effect upon Daniel’s eighteenth birthday two weeks ago, surely not that many people know about it,” Tony said, and as soon as the words left his mouth he knew he was wrong. The Mansfields had bagged a duke, they would have told people before the ink was dry on the contract.

And sure enough, Lady Mansfield’s face went suspiciously blank even as her wing feathers fluffed where her wings were pressed tightly against her back. “Well, of course, we may have mentioned our good fortune to our family, and of course we have to say something when other people make inquiries,” she said, smoothing invisible wrinkles out of her skirt.

Tony fought the urge to put his head in his hands, or to get up and go for a glass of scotch. “I’m sorry, but-”

“If I may,” Daniel said, fanning his wings slightly to get everyone’s attention. “Perhaps the solution is to have a long engagement? If you have no desire to marry soon, then it shouldn’t be a problem for us to stay betrothed for a year or two, and then quietly break it off.”

They all stared at him for a moment, then Lady Mansfield quickly turned to face Tony. “I think that’s a lovely idea,” she said, and Tony mentally rolled his eyes. Of course she did, she got to trade on the social cachet of having her son be engaged to a duke for another whole year. She shared a glance with her son and Tony realized that she was probably also hoping that after a year Tony would decide he wouldn't mind being be married to Daniel after all.

Tony sighed, resigning himself to at least a year of being forced to socialize and pretend to court Daniel. But that would be better than them making a stink about it and creating unwelcome gossip. “That does seem like an elegant solution to this problem,” Tony admitted. “But I believe this has been a surprising day for us all, so perhaps we should retire the topic for today and meet again another day to discuss it?”

“I hope it’s not an imposition, but I was hoping to take a turn around your gardens,” Daniel jumped in as Lord and Lady Mansfield started to stand. Judging from their expressions, this was not a hope he had communicated to them beforehand. Tony opened his mouth to demur, but Daniel was giving him a significant look so he found himself agreeing.

Once they were outside, Lord and Lady Mansfield fell back a few paces, pretending to examine this flower or another, letting Tony and Daniel walk ahead and talk privately while still being within eyesight. Tony kept his hands clasped behind his back and his wings tightly closed, acutely uncomfortable.

“Thank you for your kindness,” Daniel said as soon as they had some privacy. “This was a cruel trick for your father to play on you.”

Tony’s throat got unexpectedly tight. “It’s not the first,” Tony said, trying and probably failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I am sorry you and your family got pulled into one of his little games.”

They walked in silence for a few moments, pretending to admire the roses which were spreading their sweet smell in the slightly humid summer air. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Daniel asked, glancing to make sure his parents weren’t in eyesight. “That’s why you don’t want to marry me.”

“I- I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” Tony stammered, coming to a halt in the middle of the path.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that,” Daniel said quickly, holding a hand out as if to stop Tony’s words. His wings came around to hug his shoulders before they settled against his back again, and Tony realized that Daniel was feeling just as anxious as he was. “It’s just that...you know, my parents have an understanding,” he said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. “They have some affection for each other, and I’ve never heard an unkind word between them, but I know they both take lovers on the side. You needn’t give up yours if we got married.”

Tony blinked at Daniel’s earnest, understanding expression. “You don’t want to marry for love?”

“It’s more that I never equated marriage with love,” he said with a shrug. Daniel started walking again so Tony fell in step next to him. “You can love many people, but only marry one, after all. Right?” They walked in silence for a while because Tony was too stunned to respond. “Just think about it,” Daniel said when they had finished the short walk around the gardens. As they said their goodbyes, he swept low in an elegant, courtly bow, wings dipping almost low enough to touch the ground. Despite himself, Tony’s eyes couldn’t help but follow the graceful movement, and when he came up, he gave Tony a private smile as Lord and Lady Mansfield scolded him for showing off.

As he watched their carriage drive away, the housekeeper, Ana, came up next to him and put a gentle wing atop Tony's. "Edwin told me what Howard had done," she said. "How did it go?"

Tony ran a hand over his face. "Not how I expected," he said with a sigh. "I think I'm going to have to pretend to be engaged until we can break it off without damaging anyone's reputations."

"If you're sure that's wise," Ana said after a moment, sounding uncertain.

"I'm not," Tony confessed, shoulders and wings sagging with dismay. "I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just trying to make sure that no one else gets hurt because of me."

"Oh, Tony," Ana said, and pulled Tony into a hug. He had to lean over to rest his head on her shoulder as she wrapped her wings around him, just like she'd been doing since he was a child.

"Am I being silly?" Tony asked after a long moment, hating the uncertainty in his voice. "Waiting for Bucky?"

"No, honey." Ana drew back and framed his face in her hands, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye. "You need to follow your heart. Otherwise the doubt and regret would eat at you, like stone wears away at the rock. You're young yet," she murmured, brushing his hair away from his face. "It's going to be okay, you'll see."

#Tony Stark #Bucky Barnes #winteriron #tony x bucky

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

Text

Flights of Fancy

Chapter 4 (on AO3) by @dracusfyre

Tony stood to one side as the pall-bearers placed Howard’s dead body on the family’s elaborately carved granite bier for his sky burial. The gathered crowd - enormous, as one would imagine for a Duke, though Tony would bet that only a fraction had ever met Howard in person - paid their respects, throwing flowers and other items on the bier to celebrate the dead Duke, almost obscuring his body with their offerings. As he watched them, Tony ran his fingers over the calluses on his wings from years of wingbinding, face carefully blank. When the last of the crowd left Tony turned away as well, leaving nothing behind and not looking back as he mounted his horse and rode away.

******

“Sir, Ms. Jones is here to see you again,” Jarvis said, and Tony looked up from the blueprints to see the lady come in, strides long and impatient. To the eye, Ms. Jones looked like a demure lady in her twenties, wearing a subdued dark blue dress, gloves, and a cape that covered her wings to the elbow joint, covering her secondaries even should she accidentally unfold her wings in public. A hat was perched on her dark hair and a half-veil hung over her eyes,with a reticule on her wrist and a fan at her waist; all were chosen by someone with exquisite taste to follow the latest fashion. But as soon as they were alone she batted the veil away from her face with a huffed breath and shrugged out of the cape, flapping her wings once with irritation before she folded them more comfortably along her back.

“I finally tracked your man to an army recruitment center near Leicester,” she said without preamble, pulling some papers out of her reticule. She smoothed them out on Tony’s desk and slid them over. “I found a man who remembered a man who was brought in with all his feathers clipped, and he identified him from your sketch. That matches the information you got from your late father’s guardsman, so we know he wasn’t lying.”

“Good work,” Tony said, gathering up the papers and flipping through them, noting the signed affidavit that Ms. Jones had provided. “What happened then?”

“He got sent with the other recruits to the training ground in Scotland, and that’s all the man knew. I wanted to get your permission and payment before I got on the train to Scotland.” She sat down on the backless chair and rested her elbows on the armrests, folding her hands in her lap as she raised her eyebrows at him. “Unless you have a better idea? I must confess, I don’t know how to go about discovering which unit he was assigned to out of training.“

“I’ll write some letters,” Tony said after a few long minutes of thought. “I might be able to get some information from the army.”

Ms. Jones nodded. “Might as well use that rank to do something useful,” she said. “My payment?”

Tony pulled out her wallet and handed her a couple of bills. As she counted it and realized that he had overpaid her, he said, “You work fast, you earned it.”

She gave a pragmatic shrug and tucked the money away in her reticule. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said, tugging her veil back over her face and putting her cape back on. Once it settled over her wings, Tony stood and escorted her out of his office, letting Jarvis show her the rest of the way out of the house.

Sitting back down at his desk, Tony pulled out his father’s address book and searched it, finding the names of an admiral, two generals, and a former war secretary, then sat down and started writing letters.

Six months and scores of letters later, Tony was still no closer to finding Bucky. “How does a soldier just disappear?” Ms. Jones said, brow furrowed as she flipped through all of the letters that Tony had received as part of his search for Bucky. Tony had managed to trace him to a unit, the 107th Company of the Coldstream Guards, then there was record of a promotion, a meritorious commendation at the Battle of Nivelle, and then...nothing.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out. He’s not in the lists of the dead, the injured, or even the missing in action. He stops being listed in the ranks of the 107th after that battle, but he never shows up anywhere else.” Tony rubbed his eyes, fighting the despair that made his throat tight and eyes burn. “I’m at my wits end, I don’t know what else to do.”

“What about the other men in his unit?” Ms. Jones said, handing the letters back. “Have you tried contacting them?”

“There’s about five or six other men who seem to disappear just like Bu- like Barnes does,” Tony said. “His commanding officer, a Leftenant Rogers, is mentioned a handful of times, later, then he disappears too.”

When he looked up he saw Ms. Jones looking at him with what was probably as close to sympathy as she got. “Give me the unit rosters and I’ll interview them, see if they remember anything else,” she suggested.

Tony started to hand them over then hesitated and frowned. “Now I’m not exactly one for propriety, obviously, but even I’m going to put my foot down on having a young lady like you interview a bunch of rough soldiers.”

Ms. Jones raised an eyebrow, giving him an unimpressed look. “You must not think very much of my detective skills to think that I would be interviewing them dressed as a young lady,” she said as she stood, then plucked the papers out of Tony’s hands with a flip of her wings.

When he was alone again, Tony stood and stretched, trying to relax the tension in his neck. He knew was spending too much time and resources on looking for Bucky, considering the state of the duchy’s finances and the work he was undertaking with his newly acquired factories. In all the years since they’d been separated, he’d not received a single letter from Bucky, not even after his father died; meanwhile, Tony had written dozens, but had no place to send them. He opened his wings and stared at the pattern on them, painstakingly reapplied every time he shed a secondary, and sighed. He couldn’t even remember if the pattern was right, since his father had burned their carefully drawn out design along with Bucky’s feathers.

Bucky should be the one applying the paint, anyway; he didn’t know if it made him pathetic or devoted that he kept doing it himself. He ran a finger over the red and silver bars and dots, then folded his wings and got back to work.

********

Bucky shook his head and tried not to smile as he listened to Dum Dum tell a much exaggerated version of their most recent mission to a table full of enthralled Spaniards, eager to toast the soldiers who had recently run Napoleon out of their town. He took another long drink of wine and wished for beer, though he knew better than to complain considering that the Spaniards were proud of the wine that they’d managed to hide from the French during the occupation.

“Someone has their eye on you,” Falsworth said, nudging Bucky’s wing with his own. Bucky looked up and followed the man’s gaze to one of the waitresses, catching her eye as she looked over at him. She flipped her wings at him and gave him a flirtatious smile. She was pretty, with dark hair and eyes and dove-gray wings, but Bucky’s wings tightened against his back and he looked away, missing her moue of disappointment as she realized he wasn’t interested.

“You should know better,” Bucky muttered, staring down at his wine, his good mood evaporating.

“We’re worried about you,” Falsworth said with a sigh. “You don’t drink with us by the fire, you’re taking more and more risks when we go on missions. Most of the time you’re moody and ill-tempered. You need to relax, and we thought maybe a little company would help.”

“Help what?” Dernier said as he sat down with a fresh bottle of wine, pitching his voice low so his accent was less noticeable. “Did I hear you say something about company?”

“No,” Bucky said shortly. “Falsworth was just saying how he’s going to stay the hell out of my love life.”

“What love life?” Gabe said, leaning over to hear the conversation around Dum Dum’s loud boasting. “I haven’t seen him so much as open his wings for anyone since we met.”

Bucky’s scowl grew deeper. “I’m not interested.”

“Why not?” Dernier asked. He had been the last to join their group, a defector who had joined them after they had rescued him from being hanged as a traitor, and so hadn’t heard the story.

“Bucky joined the army after he got caught flapping his wings with the wrong toff’s son,” Falsworth explained. “He swears it's true love and has sworn himself to chastity until he sees him again.”

“Bah, you should never dally with aristos,” Dernier said. He had little loyalty for Napoleon but he was a republican through and through. He pulled out his pocket knife and started prying the cork out of the bottle. “You will have nothing but heartache.”

“I already told him he’s lucky he didn’t get wing-cut for his trouble,” Falsworth said, holding out his glass for more wine. “But apparently he’s a glutton for punishment because he’s determined to go back for more.”

“How can you be sure he waits for you?” Dernier said. “Aristos just take what they want, do what they want, with no regard for others. He’s probably - ow,” he said, frowning reproachfully at Dum Dum, who had finally finished up his story and realized what the rest of the team was talking about. “What was that for?”

Bucky pushed away from the table and stood, grabbing the bottle of wine from Dernier’s hands and ignoring his protests as he walked out of the Spanish tavern. Dernier’s words burned in his ears and stabbed into his heart. Three years ago Tony would have turned 18 and would have had his coming out party to be introduced to society. It usually meant a whole season of parties and balls, and they had spent long hours mocking the pointless rituals of society. But Bucky knew that Howard had probably marched a whole parade of eligible men and women in front of Tony as soon as he was of age, people with manners, money, and manicured hands and wings - as unlike Bucky as they could possibly be with his hands rough from combat and his wings ragged from lack of proper grooming.

Bucky took a long pull of wine as he walked and pulled out a secondary from inside his coat, one of the ones that had been clipped by Tony’s father. He’d kept them all as a reminder, stashed in his bags, but this one he kept on him at all times because it was the only one that had paint on it, bits of red and silver that had escaped Howard’s shears. They were tiny, untidy drips from Tony’s paintbrush, but if he tilted the feather just right they gleamed in the light of the moon like earthbound stars.

“I’m coming, Tony,” Bucky said softly, running the clipped vanes over his lips before tucking it back into his shirt, refusing to consider the idea that Tony wasn’t waiting for him. In his mind, Tony was still sitting above him, wings spread to display his painted feathers and looking down at him with love. “I’m trying to get back to you, I promise.”

#tony stark #Bucky Barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Flights of Fancy

Chapter 3 (on AO3) by @dracusfyre

Five Years Ago: Bucky

“Well, I guess this will save us the effort of clipping him ourselves,” the army recruiter said, pulling out one of Bucky’s wings to examine the chop job the Duke’s goons had done on his feathers. Bucky closed his eyes, unable to look at the savaged mess that had been his secondaries. “What happened?”

“He got ideas above his station.” The man that had kicked him to his knees now cuffed him on the back of his head. “Duke wants him to disappear.”

The army recruiter eyed Bucky critically, like a man examining a horse at auction. Bucky’s torso was a mass of purpling bruises, and he could barely see out of one eye, but he’d been working on the Duke’s estate since he was twelve and was strong and in good health, current injuries aside. The army was too desperate for men to send to the Continent to turn away an able-bodied man like Bucky, even if he was going against his will. Finally, the recruiter jerked his head to a pair of soldiers that had been standing by the door. “Take him by the medic then put him with the others. Training starts in a couple of days, then he’ll be overseas by the end of the month.”

Keep reading

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Flights of Fancy

Chapter 2 (AO3) by @dracusfyre

Content Warning: in this chapter Bucky and Tony are both 17 and engage in consensual, non-penetrative sexual activity.

Five Years Ago: Tony

Tony smiled as he saw Bucky’s eyes drift closed, drowsy and relaxed in the quiet privacy of the stables. A lantern, partially shuttered so that the light wouldn’t go past the hay loft and attract attention in the night, cast a rosy glow over him, and for a moment Tony was so in love his chest ached. Smiling privately, he turned his gaze back to Bucky’s secondaries, smoothing down the vanes on each feather so they lay straight and unbroken, picking out stray down and detritus that gathered in them from Bucky’s work on the estate. Bucky was laying on his back on the blanket that they’d spread out over the hay, wings sprawled at his side, while Tony sat cross-legged at his hip to groom him.

“What do you think about red and gold?” Tony asked softly, now just stroking the tips of his fingers down the rachis of each feather. Bucky’s wing twitched like it tickled, but it settled back down. Red and gold paint would look lovely against Bucky’s dark brown wings.

Bucky made a humming noise, then said, “I like silver. Red and silver?”

Tony tilted his head, picturing it. Then he stretched out his own wing, eyeing it critically. His wings were a lighter color than Bucky’s, a medium brown that turned reddish in the sun. Gold would look better on his own wings, but he said, “That sounds lovely. Bars, I think, not stripes. And maybe dots, as an accent?”

Bucky opened his eyes and met Tony’s gazes. “We could paint my wings rainbow polka dots, as long as they match yours,” he said, gaze warm with affection, and Tony flushed. Without thinking, he raised his wings and Bucky’s eyes zeroed in on them, and the hungry look on his face made heat flash through the rest of Tony’s body. Under his hands Bucky’s wings tensed, and Tony had to fight the urge to bury his hands in the thick feathers and find the skin underneath.

Tony forced his wings to settle against his back and ducked his chin. “I wish we could fly together,” he said, putting his hands in his lap to avoid temptation and staring down at them. “I love you so much, the wait is killing me.”

“Just one more year,” Bucky said. “Then we’ll reach our majority, and your father can go hang.” He sat up and then there was a wing under Tony’s chin, tilting his face up. “We can go see the world, just like you always wanted.” Bucky pressed a soft, lingering kiss on Tony’s lips, and Tony leaned forward to chase Bucky’s mouth as he pulled away.

“I could get us paint,” Tony said against Bucky’s mouth. He pressed Bucky back against the blanket and leaned over him. “We could paint them, and we’d both be 18 by the time we shed our secondaries.”

Bucky’s face went slack with surprise. “Are you serious? We’d be in so much trouble if we were discovered!” His hands came up to frame Tony’s face. “As much as I love you, I don’t want to think about what would happen to you if the Duke found out you’d painted your secondaries with a commoner like me.”

“I could give up flying for a year if it meant wearing your colors,” Tony said stubbornly. “I wouldn’t even open my wings, if that’s what it took.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Bucky pulled Tony down on top of him and wrapped his arms around him, burying his face in Tony’s neck. “My love, are you sure?” he said, his voice so small and uncertain that any fears Tony had vanished.

“Yes,” Tony said, suddenly wanting it more than anything. “The next time we meet, we’ll do it.”

They didn’t get another few hours alone for a week, but when the moon rose that night it found them back in their hayloft, wings spread and two paint pots between them. Now that it was time, Tony found his hands were shaking every time he tried to pick up the paintbrush. There was a piece of paper on the floor with the design on it that they’d drawn out together, having already gone through three pages of paper trying to sketch something out. “It’s not too late to change your mind,” Bucky said when he saw how nervous Tony was. He took Tony’s hands in his own, squeezing them. “I will still love you the same if you want to wait.”

“It’s not that,” Tony managed. The nerves in his chest turned into a lump in his throat, then a hot press of tears in his eyes. “I just want it to be perfect.”

“Whatever you paint, I paint,” Bucky said softly, drying Tony’s cheeks as the tears spilled over, his own eyes suspiciously damp and voice hoarse. “And whatever that looks like, will be perfect.” Seeing that Bucky was also affected made it both better and worse, and after a few moments Tony managed to swallow back his tears.

“I’m ready,” he said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. He picked up the paintbrush and dipped it in the red, smoothing off the excess paint on the edges of the paint pot. Bucky did the same, and as Tony put brush to feather on the outermost secondary feather on the underside of Bucky’s wings, Bucky did the same on Tony’s. The popular novels, the ones that Howard always complained about, said that you could feel the paint going on, damp and cool, but to Tony’s disappointment all he felt was pressure. But the sight of the red on Bucky’s feather more than made up for it, and he couldn’t help but turn his head and compare it to his own. He met Bucky’s eye, who was doing the same thing, and they both smiled and leaned in for a kiss. Doing the rest of the wings took a good hour before they were both satisfied that the design on their secondaries matched, and then they closed up the paint pots and set them aside so they wouldn’t spill.

“Now what do we do?” Tony asked, realizing that he was going to have to hold his wings open for a while to let the paint dry or else the design would be smudged. When Bucky didn’t answer immediately, he looked up to see that Bucky was giving him a wry look, wings also spread rather awkwardly.

“I don’t know, Tony. Given that most people paint their secondaries on their wedding night, what would they possibly do while their wings dried?”

Tony made a face and wished he had something to throw at Bucky, knowing that his face was red again. “Well, I know that, ” he said. “But it just seems like it would be awkward, trying to do it while holding your wings open like this.”

Bucky’s eyes darkened and he lay back against the hay, keeping his wings splayed. Tony swallowed thickly at the display; he’d seen Bucky with his wings splayed open, but this was different because now Bucky was holding his wings open like he was flying, like an invitation. When Bucky gestured for him to come closer, he did, and at Bucky’s urging Tony settled into his lap, pulse quickening when he realized Bucky was already half-hard. “I imagine they could do it like this,” Bucky murmured, dragging his gaze from Tony’s to rove hungrily over Tony’s spread open wings. His hands settled on Tony’s hips, and when he rocked up Tony bit back a moan at the delicious friction. He did it again and again until they were both fully hard and straining at their breeches; when they had settled into a good rhythm, Bucky’s hands slid up Tony’s shirt, skating over his ribs and digging into the muscles of Tony’s back where they were tense from holding his wings still. “You can flap, if you want to,” Bucky said, voice low and dirty, and Tony shuddered.

“We should stop,” he said breathlessly, but despite his words he didn’t stop his rocking; the pressure of Bucky’s hardness against his own felt too good. They’d always stopped before it got this far, but tonight was different. Tony didn’t think either of them felt like stopping. Flapping his wings helped him keep his rhythm, but the real reward was hearing the broken sound Bucky made in his chest at the sight, thrusting up so hard that Tony had to squeeze his hips tight with his thighs like he was riding a restive horse.

But then Bucky stopped, eyes squeezed tightly closed. “We can stop if you want to,” he said, and when he started to release Tony, Tony grabbed his hands and put them back on his skin.

“No,” he said. “I know we should, but I don’t want to. I’m yours,” he said, waving his painted wings to make the point. “I don’t need a piece of paper or society’s approval to know that.” He leaned over Bucky, bracing himself on his shoulders and wings spread over them both, then kissed him, mouth sliding against his and tongue thrusting in hungrily. Bucky groaned and his hands plucked at the laces holding Tony’s shirt together at the sides, then buried his hands in the scapular feathers to grip Tony by his shoulders, pulling him down to meet his hips as Bucky thrust up. Stars burst behind Tony’s eyes at the sensation and he gasped against Bucky’s mouth. The movement of their bodies became desperate then, as they chased their relief; Tony moved his grip from Bucky’s shoulders to his wing shoulders, pinning them down, and Bucky bit back a curse and came, throwing his head back as he spilled hot and wet between them. His hands tightened almost painfully on Tony’s wing shoulders as he shuddered under Tony, and the sight and sensation sent Tony over the edge as well, toes curling and breath punching out of his lungs at the force of his orgasm. He wanted to collapse against Bucky but remembered at the last minute that his wings might still be damp, so instead he just rested his forehead against Bucky’s, both of them damp with sweat.

They breathed there in the silence together, Bucky’s hands gentling on Tony and raking through the scapulars that he’d disarranged at the height of passion, then after a moment Bucky said, “That outta do it for the paint, though,” and Tony couldn’t help laughing. He sat up, grimacing a little at the wet, sticky feeling of his breeches, and examined his wings. Sure enough, all the flapping had made the paint dry, and it was easy to pick off the few bits of hay that had stuck to the paint as it dried.

“I love you,” Tony said as he folded his wings, hiding the paint. It was going to be hard to hide the paint from his parents, but so worth it, to be able to see the design on his wings whenever he was alone and remember this moment. It would be easy work to fake a sprain and just ride a horse wherever he would normally fly. Bucky probably wouldn’t have to do the same; his work usually kept him busy enough that the only time he was even able to go for a flight was on his half-day, and no one would notice if he wasn’t flying on his time off.

Bucky’s eyes were full of awe and wonder as they roamed over Tony’s face, like he was afraid that Tony was too good to be true. He sat up and kissed Tony again. “I love you too,” he whispered against Tony’s mouth, and even though they were in a hay loft, surrounded by the smell of horses, in that moment Tony felt like he was flying.

“What in the hell is this?” Howard thundered, voice tight with rage. He grabbed Tony’s wring wrist, fingers digging in painfully at the joint, and yanked Tony’s wing open. Tony tried to fight him off, struggling to get away, but Howard’s wing came up and clubbed him by the side of the head, stunning him. Howard held him there for a long moment, one hand on his wing wrist and one on his shoulder, staring down at the painted secondaries.

Tony felt hot and sick with fear and anger, trembling all over. He had no idea how Howard had found out, but he was just as furious as Tony had known he would be, face white and eyes blazing. Finally, he shoved Tony away, sending him almost stumbling to the floor. “Who is it?” Howard demanded. “Who have you been flying with?”

“No one,” Tony mumbled, because it was true, he and Bucky had agreed to only go flying when they were both of age, despite the taste of marriage flight they’d had in the hay loft.

Howard slapped him. Tony gasped at the shock of pain, eyes tearing up from the surprise of it. He forced them back, though, because he’d be damned if he’d show weakness to his father. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been flying when I can see the paint with my own goddamn eyes!” He roared. “Now who is it?”

But Tony shook his head stubbornly, crossing his arms across his chest and closing his wings tightly against his back, one of them aching from Howard’s rough grip. “Fuck you,” he said, lifting his chin. “I’m tired of you clipping my wings. I’ll be an adult in six months and then you can’t touch me anymore.”

“Oh, you haven’t even seen me clipping your wings,” Howard said, curling his lip. “It won’t be difficult to find out who you’ve been cavorting with.” Tony felt a spike of dread at the thought of Howard discovering Bucky, and he made a break for the balcony to try to warn him, but Howard caught him by the wing and threw him back into the room. Tony hit the corner of the desk sharply and fell to the floor. Before he could get to his feet, Howard had him by the back of his neck and was half-pulling, half-dragging him towards the closet. He shoved Tony inside and slammed the door, and Tony heard the lock turn.

“No!” Tony yelled, banging and kicking on the door. “Stop! You can’t do this!” but there was only silence on the other side of the door. Tony fought the door until his hands were bloody and his body ached, but to no avail, so finally he slid down to the floor and buried his head in his hands, praying that Bucky figured out what Howard was doing and could escape.

The thin strip of light under the door had gone dark before the door opened again, and Tony squinted against the bright light of Howard’s lantern as he stood in the doorway. “Get up,” he said, pulling Tony to his feet when he didn’t stand up fast enough. With a tight grip on Tony’s elbow he led him to Howard’s study, closing and locking the door behind them. There was a fire burning merrily in the grate, and a tray of dinner was on Howard’s desk, but that’s not what drew Tony’s eyes.

It was the pile of dark brown feathers on the desk, red and silver paint gleaming in the firelight. Tony’s blood ran cold at the sight and his knees went weak, making him stagger before he caught himself on a chair.

“I told you it wouldn’t be hard to find your lover,” Howard said. He picked one up and ran it through his fingers; Tony could see that the feather had been cut, not pulled out, so at least Bucky wasn’t bleeding out somewhere from his lost secondaries. But Howard had still brutally cut the sign of Tony’s love off of Bucky’s body; Tony felt queasy as he imagined how one or more of Howard’s goons would have had to hold Bucky down while Howard did it, could almost hear the metallic click of the heavy shears as they cut through each rachis. He doubted that Howard had stopped at the secondaries, too, and sure enough, as Howard gathered up the pile he saw the tell-tale tapered ends of primary feathers. Now Bucky would also have to bear the shame of everyone seeing that his wings had been clipped, obvious even with his wings closed; it would be months and months yet before they would start to be replaced and Bucky could even do the most basic flying again.

“I hate you,” Tony said, voice low and full of loathing. Howard shrugged and started feeding the feathers to the fire. Tony’s hands curled into fists and he trembled with rage, throat tight as he watched each red and gold feather, so carefully and lovingly painted, go up in flames; he wanted to throw himself at Howard and save them, but Howard would beat him black and blue for the effort and burn them anyway. “Are you going to clip mine, too?” he sneered. “Show everyone what a harlot your son was for a stableboy?”

“If I thought that would shame you at all, I would consider it,” Howard said mildly. “But you have already demonstrated you have no shame,” he added, waving one of Bucky’s feathers at him before he threw it into the fireplace. “Instead, I’ll be binding your wings until all of your painted secondaries have been replaced. You’ll be confined to the house as well, since I can’t trust you around the estate.”

“You can’t keep me prisoner forever,” Tony said. “The first chance I get, I will find him and you will never see me again.”

“Over my dead body,” Howard said, enunciating each word for effect, then dumped the rest of the feathers in at once, making the fire snap and throw off a greasy, stomach-curling smoke. “Or better yet, his. You either submit to my rules or I’ll have my men finish what we started, your choice. Either way, you will never see him again."

#tony stark #Bucky Barnes #winteriron #tony x bucky

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Flights of Fancy

Tony had imagined what he would say when - if - he ever found Bucky again hundreds of times, but it had always been in private, never like this. What if Bucky didn’t recognize him? Or worse - what if Bucky remembered him, but hated him for what Howard had done all those years ago?

Tony and Bucky fell in love as teenagers and were torn apart by the cruelty of Tony's father. Will the memory of their love be strong enough to survive as years pass before they see each other again?

by @dracusfyre

Chapter 1 (on AO3)

Now

As the young lady standing next to him tittered behind her hand, Tony sighed internally and resettled his wings against his back, mentally calculating how much longer he had to wait until he could leave. Despite his best efforts he was having a hard time focusing on the conversation, his thoughts still on the blueprints for the new machinery for his textile factory that were waiting for him on his desk at home. Tony badly wanted to check his watch, to see if he’d been there long enough to leave without causing too much comment, but didn’t want to hurt the young lady’s feelings. What had sounded like a fun outing had turned into a chore hours ago as he had been quickly reminded why he had a dislike of these events in the first place. He’d hoped that this particular event, held to celebrate the recent victory of England over Napoleon, wouldn’t be quite so dull but so far the inclusion of soldiers into the normally rarefied air of an aristocratic ball hadn’t made the conversation any more interesting.

“Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas J. Fury, of Her Majesty’s Royal Infantry,” the majordomo suddenly announced, and a murmur of excitement went through the ballroom at the new arrivals, resplendent in their crimson uniforms with badges glittering on their chests. The cavalry men had come in earlier, and the horse-mad gentry had quickly cornered them to discuss the merits of various types of horses on the battlefield. Now apparently it was time for the infantry to make their appearance, and from the way the young lady in front of him craned her neck to see the entrance to the ballroom, Tony started to have hope that he might get out of this conversation after all.

“Captain Steven G. Rogers,” the majordomo went on, and the murmur was particularly loud this time. This one must be handsome, Tony thought sardonically, and took advantage of the lady’s momentary distraction to start edging towards the refreshment table.

“Lieutenant James Buchanan Barnes, of Her Majesty’s Royal Infantry,” the majordomo intoned next, and Tony’s head snapped up so fast his neck hurt. His body went hot, then cold, as his heart started racing, making his feathers fluff and the hair on his arms stand up. The majordomo continued, saying other names that Tony didn’t hear because the first one was still circling in his head. Lieutenant James Buchanan Barnes. James Barnes.

Bucky.

“Excuse me,” he said absently to the young lady as he walked away, ignoring her huff of disapproval at his sudden departure. He felt queasy and lightheaded as he made his way through the crowded ballroom, sometimes using his wings to gently nudge people out of his way as he tried to clear a path. People started to protest but always went silent when they saw his cape of rank; dukes, even young dukes, were usually allowed to be as rude as they wanted.

At the entrance to the ballroom, the soldiers were still standing awkwardly as they looked around, looking like debutantes at their first social event. But Tony didn’t see the rest of them, because he only had eyes for Bucky. He looked terrifyingly different but also painfully familiar; his hair was shorter than it had been when Tony had known him, his shoulders broader and face sharper without the rounded edges of youth, softness likely ground out of him on the battlefield. The red military coat looked dashing on him, well tailored with the shiny brass buttons marching down his ribs and white sashes crossing his chest. His wings were just as Tony remembered, though: strong and broad, dark brown like rich earth, feathers straight and gleaming. With them folded, he couldn’t see if his secondaries were painted; only the primaries were visible, bleached and dyed with the colors of his unit. So Tony fought his initial urge to half-open his wings in welcome and kept them folded tightly against his back, making sure his cape of rank was resting tidily at his wing elbow to hide his own secondaries. But before his momentum carried him the rest of the way through the crowd, he suddenly remembered that the middle of a crowded ballroom was hardly the place for a reunion. Tony had imagined what he would say when - if - he ever found Bucky again hundreds of times, but it had always been in private, never like this. What would he say when every word would be overheard by society’s most rapacious gossipy old hens?

The thought made his steps slow, and then the urgency that had driven him through the crowd dried up completely as a sudden fear chilled his heart. What if Bucky didn’t recognize him? Neither of them were the children they were five years ago; what if they had changed too much, and the love Tony had held so close to his heart for so long was gone forever? Or worse - what if Bucky remembered him, but hated him for what Howard had done all those years ago? The thought was like a knife to the chest, and Tony lost all courage, feet rooted to the floor as he watched the man he loved smile and laugh only a wingspan away.

#winteriron #tony stark #Bucky Barnes #bucky x tony #wingfic #starkbucks

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Stocking Creators Revealed

The creators’ names behind who made what have been unveiled!! Did you guess right? Wrong? Discover new creators whose stuffed you loved but hadn’t seen before?? We certainly hope so!

Thank you so much for your love and participation in this event that celebrated Tony and Bucky!! We very much appreciate all the gifts, reblogs, kudos, and comments that were given!!!

Our collection of 85 works unrevealed and de-anoned <3

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Reveals: Feb 1st

(Reminder to creators : update your publication date!)

Sugarcubes for Iithril

A Tug in the Right Direction for feignedsobriquet

Inked Wildflowers for monobuu

It’s easier to tell the truth in the dark for FestiveFerret

Found in the Rain for asphxdels

Good View for Feles

A Quest for True Love for iam93percentstardust

Enjoying the Snow for endrega_Turtlesse

Winteriron Spa Day for Sagana_Rojana_Olt

Winteriron Hates the Winter for flowing_river

Everybody Gets What They Deserve for journeythroughtherain

Tea, Treats, and a Totally Hot Dad for ManyOctopodes

Hit Me for Corsets_and_Cardigans

the mechanics of an ice-cream date for MassiveSpaceWren

When the Bones are Good for sleepoverwork

Yes, Chef for thursdayknight

accidents happen for adoctoraday

Winter Fun for JustSomeoneUnordinary

Time Makes the Heart Grow Fonder for Sagana_Rojana_Olt

timing is everything for sara_wolfe

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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Some great WinterIron content is about to drop! Everyone stay tuned!

REVEAL TIME

The Winteriron Winter Stocking collection is closed!! We have 85 wonderful fills that we’re super excited to share for alllll the stockings because fandom was amazing and filled each one!! Excellent work!

How reveals work : we’re going to reveal around 20 a day (so we don’t flood the tag and drown out everyone’s hard work!) until everything is visible! Works will still be ANON at this point.

CREATORS : when your work is revealed, edit your day of publication so it shows up in the AO3 tags more recently! That way you’re visible to those it participating in this event too!

RECEIVERS : you aren’t guaranteed to get an email that you’ve received something. The best way is to check to stocking in the collection!

Please chat and make your guesses about who wrote what (and be sure to thank your gifters!)

Creator names will be revealed on Sunday Feb 7th

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

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(Give Me A) Reason To Live

Chapter 4

by @dracusfyre

Suddenly Tony felt as if he was 18 again, scared and alone, staring at Stane over kitchen table while his parents were laid out at the local morgue. His fingers went numb and he dropped the suit case at his feet, acutely aware of the pistol in Stane’s hand. It was currently resting on the table but definitely pointed right at Tony. “Come on in,” Stane said when it was clear that Tony couldn’t find anything to say. “You know, you’ve got a lot to answer for you fucking brat.” He gestured with the pistol towards the chair across from him. “Sit. You're a hard man to get alone these days, Tony. I’m going to guess that Barnes and Rogers are long gone, am I right? Probably had a real heartfelt reunion after that shit you pulled in New York. Are they planning to come back here or have they run off together?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said as he came closer, his knees going weak and dropping him into the chair. He was pathetically grateful that his voice was even, though his limbs felt like ice. God, he prayed that they would just disappear together, but they’d made a plan and he knew James would stick to the plan, even if he was walking right into a trap.

Stane just laughed. “You’ve turned into quite a liar, Tony. Once upon a time I thought you were too chicken shit to try to lie to me. But it doesn’t matter, they’re not here right now and that’s what matters. You’re all alone, Tony. Just me and you.”

“What do you want?” He wanted to ask how did you find me? but it felt too much like begging, and he refused to do that again.

“You know what I want,” Stane said. He gestured towards the suit still sitting in the open doorway. “I saw all the ones downstairs, too. Impressive. A lot better than what Hydra has, though you made sure of that, didn’t you?”

Here it was again, Stane’s twisted game of cat and mouse conversation, full of traps for the unwary. Fear was still a rock in his stomach, but anger made his hands ball into fists. “Get to the point, Stane,” Tony snarled. Stane was sitting in James’ chair, in their kitchen, their home, and that felt like an unendurable violation.

The affable grin fell from Stane’s face like the mask it was. “The point is, your little jaunt here is over. You’re coming with me, and when Barnes and Rogers show up, Hydra will be waiting for them. You’ve cost me a lot with your little stunts – the faked death, putting Potts in charge, even trying to set your friend Rhodes against us – but you’re going to help me earn it all back now.” Stane took a syringe out of his pocket and pulled the cap off before setting it on the table between them. “Inject yourself with this.”

“The hell I will,” Tony said.

“Inject yourself with this, or I shoot you,” Stane said, waving the pistol a little as if Tony had forgotten about it.

But living with James had done many things, and one of them was to make Tony a lot less afraid of people waving pistols around. Moving slowly, like a man twice his age, Tony picked up the syringe and dropped it on the floor, crushing it with the leg of his chair. “Then fucking shoot me,” he snarled.

“You little pissant-” Stane growled. As Tony had hoped, he lunged over the table to grab him; Stane had always liked using his hands to punish Tony, and this time was no different. Except that this time, Tony wasn’t just scared: he was mad, and he was ready.

Tony shoved himself out of Stane’s reach by putting his feet on the table and kicking it hard; as he’d hoped, it pushed him backwards and also drove the table into Stane’s stomach, knocking him off balance. As Stane grunted with pain, Tony went for the gun, twisting it out of Stane’s meaty hand just as James had taught him. Stane grabbed his arm with his other hand, but Tony swung at his head with the butt of the pistol. Flinching backward, Stane lost his grip and Tony took two big steps back out of his reach, leveling the pistol at him. Stane had been with Hydra for decades but had never bothered learning how to really defend himself, too confident that he was smarter and stronger than everyone else. Tony, on the other hand, had been living with James for almost a year and had used that time wisely.

Stane took one look at him, both hands steady on the pistol, and laughed. “You know this won’t end here,” he sneered. “Cut off one head and-”

Tony cut him off by shooting him in the chest twice, one-two in quick succession; another lesson from James. Stane’s face went slack and he swayed against the table, sliding it across the floor with a screech as he slowly went to his knees, then slumped to the ground. It wasn’t a slow death, but it wasn’t particularly fast, either, and Tony stood over him and watched until the last breath went out of him.

Once he realized that Stane was dead, really dead, the shock hit, and he barely managed to get to a chair before his legs gave out again. He swallowed thickly against nausea as his empty stomach threatened to rebel and concentrating on breathing, in through his nose and out through his mouth, until he felt like he could stand. He made his way around Stane’s body and got a can of soda from the fridge, chugging it for the caffeine and sugar and holding the cold can against the back of his neck until the shakiness subsided. He gave himself ten minutes more to freak the fuck out, then splashed water on his face and got to work.

“JARVIS, did Stane come alone?” Tony asked as he searched Stane’s pocket, finding another needle, his wallet, and his phone. He hadn’t noticed anyone on his way in, but he had also been too exhausted to remember to scan the area before he landed.

“Stane approached alone and on foot,” JARVIS said. “So far I have detected no unusual activity along the perimeter.”

Tony sat back on his heels and thought about that. Had Stane really thought that he could take Tony, James, and Steve back to Hydra by himself? Impossible. Syringes indicated that he had planned to keep Tony sedated for a while, but not for long enough for Steve and James to get here from New York.

A ping from Stane’s phone pulled him from his thoughts. Tony had to use Stane’s thumb to unlock it, but it was a coded message. Tony sat back on his heels as he puzzled it out, then he slumped against the cabinets as he figured it out. ETA 0900Z 2HAT4STR. “Fuck.” He had – he glanced up at the display on the microwave – 6 hours to get ready before Hydra descended on the cabin. That explained a lot; Stane had likely gambled on Tony getting back here first with the suit and planned to take him in alone, then leave Steve and James to Hydra’s ambush.

“Arrogant fuck,” he muttered. He and James had planned for this, over and over and over, so Tony knew exactly what he needed to do next, but first he was going to get this man’s corpse out of his kitchen.

As Bucky pulled into the driveway of the cabin three days almost to the hour of setting eyes on Steve, he could only sit in the car for a long moment and stare at the scene in front of him.

“This is the guy you’ve been telling me about?” Steve said after a long moment, pointing to Tony in his suit, and James could only nod. “Are there normally this many dead people around your house?”

“No, that’s new,” James said as Tony dropped the body he’d been carrying and waved at them. They both climbed out of the car and looked at the massacre around the cabin. “What the hell, Tony?” James said. “What happened?”

“Well, Hydra happened,” Tony said as if it should be obvious. He took off his helmet, hair adorably mussed, and nudged a body with the toe of his boot. “I got back here and Stane was waiting for me, then these guys showed up.”

“Wait, Stane?” Tony nodded. James scanned Tony's face, relieved that he seemed fine. “Then, what...at least two Hydra Strike teams? And you killed them all?” James scanned the cabin and surrounding forest and noticed a thin trail of smoke in the trees. “What’s that?”

Tony followed his gaze and frowned. “Shit, I thought I had put that fire out. That was a helicopter. There’s another one somewhere over there,” he said, gesturing towards the west. “I wanted to have it all cleaned up by the time you guys got here, but I got tired of digging holes.” Just then Tony must have noticed that Steve was staring at him because he held out a hand, still in the suit. “Hi. I’m Tony Stark.”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said, shaking the gauntleted hand with the barest hesitation. “Bucky has told me a lot about you.”

“Same,” Tony said, flashing a grin. James realized he was staring; something about Tony had changed since they’d last seen each other. He seemed lighter, his smile brighter. James wanted to feel that smile against his mouth and was swaying towards him when Tony turned away. “Come on inside, the inside is clean. Though that took a while, too. ” Tony stepped out of the suit and led the way to the cabin while James gave up counting the bodies after he got to a dozen.

“I like him,” Steve said as they followed him. “I can definitely tell it’s Howard’s kid though.”

Tony told the story as he scraped together some spaghetti and baked some garlic bread from the freezer. The strike teams had assaulted the cabin in the middle of the night and had, fortunately, not been expecting resistance. “We had assumed that they wouldn’t do an air assault because they would get caught on radar, but I guess they had a way around that,” Tony said with a shrug. “But it’s fine. The suits have a sentinel mode where they shoot anything that moves, so they took care of the ground team while I took care of the helicopters.”

“Nice work,” James managed, which was horribly inadequate but he was so turned on right now that he couldn’t think of anything better to say. Seeing in Tony in action had always had that effect on him, and it had only gotten worse with time. Thankfully, Tony didn’t notice, but judging from his smirk, Steve knew James’ predicament and thought it was hilarious. James kicked him under the table.

“Thanks,” Tony said with wry smile, which didn’t do anything to help James’ situation. “But I don’t know if we can stay here, now that Hydra knows where we are.”

“I think we are safe for tonight, at least,” Steve offered. “If they sent two helicopter strike teams and no one came back, they are going to think of a new plan before coming in again.” James nodded helpfully and tried to focus on the spaghetti so he wouldn’t embarrass himself.

Tony was finished eating first, as usual, so he took the first shower while James and Steve polished off the pot of spaghetti.

“Guess I should have known you were sweet on him, since you had so much to say about him,” Steve said with a low voice when they heard the shower start. His mouth was ticked up at the corners in a way that was achingly familiar, and looking at it, James was swamped by how glad he was to have him back. “I haven’t seen you like this with anyone since Dot.”

James shrugged self-consciously, feeling like maybe his face was hot. “Don’t think he’s interested though.”

“What makes you say that?” Steve asked curiously.

James stabbed at his spaghetti. “I’ve been trying to flirt with him for months now, and he hasn’t taken me up on it. I didn’t want to push too hard and make it weird, so I backed off.” Steve made a noise at that, and James narrowed his eyes at him. “What?” Steve just shook his head and shoveled a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth instead of saying anything. “I know that noise. Out with it.”

“Just remembering how much you heckled me about not giving up on Peggy,” Steve said, swallowing as James menaced him with a fork. The mention of Peggy’s name made a shadow flash over Steve’s face and he looked down at his plate. “Don’t waste the time you have if you might be able to get what you want.”

They both went back to their food and then Steve helped James wash and dry the dishes; by the time they were done, Tony was out of the shower, pink-cheeked from the heat. His hair was curling over his forehead and there was still water on his eyelashes, and Steve took one look at James’ face and hastily claimed the shower next.

James poured Tony a cup of coffee – Tony technically liked an espresso after dinner, but James hadn’t mastered the fancy machine in the corner of the kitchen yet – and sat down with him at the table.

Tony took a sip of coffee and looked like he was bracing himself for something. “So I guess this is where talk about we splitting up,” Tony said in a rush, staring down at his mug.

James’ stomach dropped. Whatever he had expected Tony to say, it wasn’t that. “Split up? Why?”

“Well, I mean, you’ve have Steve now, so…” Tony trailed off and James just raised an eyebrow.

“So…” He prompted.

“So you two will want to be together.”

“Since when are two people better than three-oh.“ James barked out a surprised laugh as he realized what Tony was trying to say. “Steve and I aren’t together. I mean, we make a good team, but we’re not…no.”

“Really? I mean, you were telling me all those stories about the stuff you two did together,” Tony started, then trailed off when must have realized he was basically trying to argue with James about whether he and Steve were a couple.

“It wasn’t like that. I’m not interested in him,” James said, looking at Tony meaningfully.

“Okay,” Tony said cautiously. “That’s…good.”

James sighed and went for broke. “Let me say that again. I’m not interested in him.”

“Oh.” Now Tony looked confused, so James waited for that big brain of his to circle around to the obvious. “Wait, you mean me?”

James bit back a curse and the urge to bang his head on the table. Thank God Steve was in the shower or he’d be laughing his ass off. “Yes, you. You sound like that’s hard to believe.”

“But you…really?”

“Really,” James said. “For a few months now, even. Why did you think I would take so many opportunities to be naked in front of you? I wasn’t raised in a barn.”

Tony paused and James could practically see the past few months rearranging themselves in his head. “For few months? Since when?”

James sighed and pressed his fingers to his eyes. “You had just made dinner one night and you were clearly pleased with yourself, but it was horrible. You seemed so disappointed that I made myself eat my whole plate and got seconds so you would stop looking sad. Since then.”

Tony blinked rapidly. “Oh, yeah, that fucking pot roast. But that was months ago!”

“That’s what I just said!”

“Why didn’t you say anything? I’ve been over here -” Tony bit his lip against whatever he was going to say and James saw his face get red.

“Yeah?” James felt a smile bloom on his face and the tension drained from him as a giddy feeling bubbled in his chest. “Been over there, what, Tony?” But Tony just shook his head stubbornly, face still red. “Fine, I’ll go first. I’ve been over here making you breakfast every morning because you stay up too late working and I worry about you.” James leaned forward and kept his eyes on Tony’s face as he took his hand, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. “I’ve been over here taking you out to the woods because you like to look at the stars but for some reason you won’t go outside to look at them by yourself. And I’ve been over here looking for excuses to touch you because I want you so much that sometimes I can’t think straight when you’re around. How's that for saying something.”

Tony’s smile was blinding, brown eyes dancing. “I didn’t take you for a poet, James,” he said teasingly, and James hooked a finger in his shirt and started pulling him closer.

“Just get over here and fucking kiss me already,” James said, and Tony did.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #Bucky Barnes

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imaginetonyandbucky · 3 years

Text

(Give Me A) Reason To Live

Chapter 3

by @dracusfyre

“Are you sure about this?” James asked. He was methodically checking his weapons as he distributed them around his body, putting knives in sheaths and guns in holsters. With his cleanly shaved face and newly cut hair – the better for Steve to recognize him – in that stolen SHIELD tactical gear, he was so goddamn sexy that Tony could barely look at him.

“I’ll be a lot safer than you will,” Tony pointed out. “All I have to do is fly around and blow up stuff until you give me the word.”

“Unless they scramble jets or attack helicopters on you,” James pointed out, but Tony waved off his words.

“They’re not going to fire on me in the middle of the city, and once I’m out of the city they won’t be able to keep up,” Tony said confidently, 99% sure of the first part and about 80% sure of the second part. For obvious reasons he’d never tested the suit in a one-to-one matchup with a fighter jet, but he knew their specs and felt good about his chances. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” James said.

A funny note in his voice made Tony glance over, only to see that James was looking at him intently, with a look in his eyes that Tony couldn’t interpret. But it made his heart trip and his mouth dry and before his brain could intervene, he said, “Kiss for good luck?” The look in James’ eyes turned to surprise, and when he took a step forward and opened his mouth Tony panicked. “I’m kidding, obviously,” he babbled, backing away. “Probably should get started, don’t want Steve to wake up without us.”

James narrowed his eyes in a way that promised that he wasn’t going to forget about this, but only said, “We’ll do a comms check on my way to the SHIELD facility.”

“Yep,” Tony said brightly, starting to shove his hands in his pocket before realizing that his flight suit didn’t have pockets, then crossing his arms over his chest instead. “Meet you guys back at the cabin, right?”

“Yeah. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” As James turned to leave, Tony started to give him a stupid little wave goodbye; he turned it into just a gesture of running his hand through his hair before James could see it. It felt weird and wrong to split up, knowing that he wasn’t going to see James again for at least a week, maybe longer if they had to shake any pursuit. It would be the longest they’d been apart since he’d rescued him from Hydra, and Tony just now realized how much he was going to miss him.

“Bye,” he said softly as the door closed behind James. “Be safe.”

~~~~

James paused inside the garage, turning to stare at the door he had just closed as he wondered if he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. He wanted to go back inside and say goodbye properly, maybe take Tony up on that kiss he’d offered and then taken back, but Tony had been right – the timing on this mission was unforgiving, and if he went back inside he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave again for a while. So instead he just said, “You, too,” to the door and got in the car, anonymous black SUV bought at a police auction with stolen government tags. He took a deep breath as he cranked it up and opened the garage door, trying to set aside his worry for Tony. As good as his suit was – and it was fucking good, James was impressed and proud of how Tony always seemed to find a new way to make it even better – it didn’t make him invincible. James could think of at least three ways off the top of his head to take down the suit and prayed that the element of surprise would keep them from occurring to anyone else.

“Man in a Can, are you there?” James said when he was almost there. The SHIELD facility was near Times Square, for some reason; maybe they’d thought that since Steve had grown up in New York, it would be a good place to start his reintegration, as if the city hadn’t become unrecognizable in the last sixty years. It would be more unsettling than if Steve had woken up in the middle of nowhere, or even still in fucking Greenland.

“Hearing you loud and clear, Terminator.” James rolled his eyes but let himself smile at the call sign. He found a parking spot on the block behind the SHIELD facility, near an alley that would eventually dump into the building’s loading docks.

“I’m in position,” he said.

“Alright. It’s go time,” Tony said, voice barely betraying a hint of nerves. It suddenly occurred to James that he hadn’t really asked what Tony was planning for his distraction, and he had just enough time to feel like maybe that was a mistake before he heard the distinctive whistle and pop of fireworks. Craning his head to see the sky out of his window, he saw streamers of brightly colored smoke appear and heard Tony say something through the speakers in his suit, the echoes of the city making it hard to understand from where he was sitting. But people were starting to hurry away from the building, and the unmistakable sound of flash-bangs going off were his cue. He pulled on his helmet and got out of the car, rifle in hand.

“Building is under attack!” He shouted at the security guards as he approached. “We need to get this place evacuated!” Between the stolen uniform and the air of command – and probably also due to the sound of explosions – they believed him and ran inside to start getting people outside.

James strode through the chaos inside, directing people towards the exists as he made his way to where Steve was being held. He had to go through metal detectors and jump over turnstiles, but everyone was too busy to challenge him as he wove his way deeper into the labyrinthine building. SHIELD had gone with a ridiculous farce to try to ease Steve into the 21st century, setting up a stage inside a warehouse sized room like Steve hadn’t spent enough time on movie stages to recognize one when he saw it. Guards were posted outside, and word of Tony’s distraction must have reached them because when James approached they were talking to each other in low tones, probably deciding whether they needed to get Steve out of there or stay at their posts.

“Change in plans, guys,” James said as he approached, trying to sound breathless and worried. “The director wants us to move him, building is under attack from an unknown assailant and he’s worried for his safety.”

“Move him? But-” James punched him in the face with his metal arm and elbowed the other in the solar plexus before hitting him in the temple with the butt of his rifle, glad that these poor assholes hadn’t been issued helmets.

Then he opened the door to Steve’s room, and despite the fact he’d known what SHIELD had done, the sensation of stepping into the past made him stumble. The sound of the radio, tuned to a Yankees game, was disorienting, as were the images of an older New York being projected outside the windows.

And then there was Steve, laid out on the bed like a man on a stretcher. James pulled off his helmet and approached slowly; seeing him was the most jarring of all, because he looked exactly the same. James felt suddenly felt old, seeing Steve’s face relaxed in sleep; he felt every single one of the sixty years he’d been with Hydra, even if he’d been frozen through most of them. Christ. Waking him up would eventually mean facing those years, in a way he’d been able to avoid with Tony; Tony had known everything already, so James hadn’t had to talk about it at all, just shove it away and forget about it. No awkward conversations about nightmares and insomnia, since Tony had those too. It wouldn’t be like that with Steve, though. Steve would want to know, wouldn’t take no for an answer, would want to know about the arm and the scars and the nightmares. The blood on his hands. He wouldn’t judge, not Steve, but he wouldn’t get it, either, not like Tony did.

Tony had been right. This was going to change everything.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, James sat down on the edge of the bed. The simple motion was already pulling Steve out of sleep; James saw his breathing change, heard his heart speed up and eyes start moving behind his eyelids.

“Steve,” James said softly. “Time to get up, you lazy fuck.” He hadn’t known what he was going to say until it came out of his mouth, but when it did, James found a new memory; calling Steve a lazy fuck was an inside joke from the war, since Steve had always been up at dawn and bursting with energy.

That made Steve’s eyes fly open. “Bucky?”

James stood as Steve sat up suddenly, eyes glued to his face. “Yeah, it’s me, Steve.”

“What- you-“ he started, before settling on, “How?”

“Long story.” Hell of an understatement. “I’ll tell you when we’re safe.”

“Safe? What do you-” Steve’s eyes flew around the room, and he picked up on all the false elements, the wrong notes and mistakes in the room that James had noticed when he’d walked in. “Where are we?”

“Not a place where we want to stay,” James said. He pulled off the small backpack that had been strapped to his back and pulled out a janitor’s uniform for Steve. “Put this on.”

Even though Steve was still confused, he obeyed, clearly still trusting James. And why wouldn’t he, James thought. He didn’t know what James had been doing the past sixty years. “I’m ready,” Steve said as he zipped it up the front. Standing there, shoulders squared and jaw tight, he didn’t look like a janitor, he looked like goddamned Captain America wearing a janitor’s uniform, but this was they best they were going to get right now. James chucked his helmet and the body armor with the giant SHIELD patch on it and stripped down to a plain burgundy shirt with dark pants to blend in with a crowd.

“Let’s go.” As James led the way out, he turned the mic on to Tony and said, “I got him. We’re heading out now.”

Thankfully, Steve was stubborn but not stupid; as soon as they got out to where there were still streams of people trying to leave the building, he understood immediately what the plan was and his shoulders slumped, making him look shorter and smaller. Explosions outside the large glass windows meant that no one was paying attention to anything but evacuating, so they managed to mingle with an unsuspecting crowd of SHIELD employees to a safe point a few blocks away. They slowly made their way to the edge of the crowd, then just walked away, heading towards an empty NYC cab that James had acquired for their escape. James was just thinking that he was surprised that the mission had gone off without a hitch, when something flashed over his head with a load roar.

“What the hell is that?” Steve said. James looked up in time to see the bright red and gold of Tony’s latest suit disappear down the street, then another loud roar came up from behind them - a quinjet, hot on Tony’s heels. Fast as a jet and as maneuverable as a helicopter, the quinjet was SHIELD’s latest baby, and James cursed because he hadn’t known they were ready to be deployed yet.

“You okay?” James said to Tony on the comms as he herded Steve into the back of the taxi. Not that there was much James could do about it if he wasn’t, since he still had to get Steve out of the city. The thought of Hydra getting their hands on Steve, of getting him into the chair, had been the cause of more than one sleepless night.

“I’m good,” Tony said back. “Still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

James nodded, though Tony obviously couldn’t see him, and got in the driver’s seat of the cab. “One of those guys is with you?” Steve asked from the back, having clearly overheard his conversation.

“Yeah, the one that looked like a robot,” James said as he pulled into traffic. “His name is Tony. You’ll be meeting him back at our safe house.” Thankfully, New York was used to cabs driving aggressively and honking, so he didn’t draw any undue attention as he made his way out of the city. Whenever he looked in the rearview mirror, he could see Steve staring out the window, looking dismayed and baffled by what he was seeing, but he knew better than to distract James by asking questions while they were trying to escape. Soon enough they were out of traffic and into the relative safety of Newark, where James drove the taxi to the airport then hustled Steve into yet another car, this one a beige sedan.

“Are we clear?” Steve asked as James pulled out of the long-term parking lot, pulling the ballcap James had provided him farther down over his face for the parking lot security.

“Clear enough for now,” James said, shoulders finally starting to relax as they got onto the highway heading west. He hadn’t heard from Tony, but that had been part of the plan; the less communication, the better, because SHIELD and the military and Hydra would all be scanning the airwaves trying to get a lock on them. In fact, that reminded him; he pulled the comm device from his ear and crushed it before tossing it out the window. He knew in his head that Tony could take care of himself, but he also knew that he was going to get back to the cabin as fast as possible so he could make sure he was ok.

“Good,” Steve said. “Now are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

~~~~

Tony barrel rolled through the canyons made by New York’s skyscrapers, feeling almost giddy as he fled from the quinjet. The fact that this SHIELD facility had a quinjet was a surprise that he should feel embarrassed about, but to be honest, he was actually having fun. He never really got the chance to push the suit to its limits since they’d mostly been doing stealth operations against Hydra; he’d even been too afraid of being seen to give it a good test run unless they were close to the open ocean.

“JARVIS, turn me on some tunes,” Tony said, and saw his playlist pop up on his HUD before he heard AC/DC blast out of his speakers. The quinjet was able to keep up with him, but obviously they couldn’t fire on him, so for now it was just a fun game of can’t catch me while people gawked from the streets and sidewalk. As big as the quinjet was, that pilot had amazing reflexes and nerves of steel to navigate through the city without damaging any of the buildings. “What’s the word with the Air National Guard?”

“ETA twenty minutes.”

Tony pulled up to hover, and the quinjet, unable to stop so quickly, shot past him. He got a glimpse of the pilots as they flew by and was surprised to see a flash of red hair. He watched as they pulled into a vertical loop to turn around and come back for another pass. “Do you know James’ position?”

“His communicator is going over the George Washington Bridge now.”

“Great. Do we have any more of that smoke?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony made sure that the quinjet was facing him as he flew east, dodging and weaving through the city, the red smoke streaming behind him laying an unmistakable trail. He blasted over Brooklyn, no doubt tangling air traffic over the city as he went past LaGuardia then turned south. He did a loop around the Statue of Liberty, just for fun, before heading east again. When he saw the Atlantic through the maze of buildings, he put on more speed and released the last of the smoke so that for a solid thirty seconds the quinjet didn’t have visibility on him, then dove into the water.

“Did it work, JARVIS?” Tony asked as he let himself sink into the murky water, making his way slowly out towards the open ocean.

“It appears so, sir. They are attempting to find you on radar now.”

Tony turned on the helmet lights for him to navigate the river, wrinkling his nose at the trash and watching the fish dart around him. The pilot of the quinjet must have suspected that he went into the water because they circled for a long time looking for him, making sweeping passes as they tried to pick him up on their sensors. But Tony had prepared for this; the rebreather in his suit was good for twelve hours before it needed to be replaced so he stayed under the water as he headed north until JARVIS couldn’t sense any signals for miles, radar, radio, or otherwise. GPS said he was somewhere off the coast of Maine, so he climbed to a good cruising altitude – high enough to not be seen by a casual observer, but low enough that he wouldn’t ping off of any air traffic control towers – and headed back west by way of the US-Canadian border.

It was a long, tiring flight, especially as he went through an adrenaline crash somewhere over South Dakota, but a few hours later he was landing in front of the safe house. He’d know that he’d be back well before James and Steve, but it was still jarring and lonely to walk into the dark cabin all by himself.

He stepped out of the suit and packed it up as he unlocked the door, then he flipped on the lights and froze when saw Stane. “Hello, Tony,” Stane said. “Welcome home.”

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #Bucky Barnes

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