Chapter Text
The beard’s getting itchy.
Of all the things on his mind, clouding his thoughts, that’s the one that stands out as he watches the wind pull at thin branches, as he waits, waits, waits for one to snap.
It never comes.
“Stop.”
The arms around his waist, though: the only arms, the only hands, the only presence that doesn’t spike his pulse, that feels right and warm and safe—the arms around his waist.
Those do come.
And Bucky’s voice in his ear—Bucky, and it’s still a marvel, still a warm palm wrapped around the beat of his blood, tight and heavy and cherished and real; it’s still an impossible thing, a swooping in his chest even now, after weeks of learning, of seeing, of feeling whole for the first time, and knowing it; not overlooking, not taking for granted what it means when all the holes in you are filled.
Bucky’s voice in his ear: Stop—it knows him. It knows the thoughts in Steve’s head, and it relates. It sympathizes. It finds common ground and anchors. It holds his fears, his worry, and it doesn’t dismiss them; it meets them with the same. That voice: it gives permission.
Steve relaxes into the body pressed against his back.
“Perimeter's secure,” Bucky breathes against Steve’s neck, presses lips to the pulse behind his ear.
“Good,” Steve exhales low; brings his own hands to settle, to clasp around Bucky’s and feel the heat seep into the creases of his palms. “That’s,” and Steve sighs, and Bucky’s hold around him tightens ever so slightly, ever so gentle: a comfort. “That’s good.”
“We need to relocate, though.”
Steve nods, and Bucky bows his head at the nape of Steve’s neck, and Steve relishes the shiver, the quiet thrill that dances down his spine to the rhythm of Bucky’s breath against his skin. “I know.”
Steve lets his eyes slip closed, lets the wind, the threat of a storm fade as he breathes, as he lets himself feel the length of Bucky’s body against his body, the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest against his back: slow. Deep. Steady. A heartbeat in itself that Steve lets calm him, lets fill him to spilling, lets overflow and overwhelm until it sings in his bones.
The corners of Steve’s mouth lift, unbidden; he’s square with what it means to be like this, to be in the midst of all that’s caving in around them, to run and save just two where he’d once have stayed, do or die in the fray. He’s accepted what it means to find soul-splitting joy in the way their lungs fill in tandem, the way their bodies move for the breaths as one entity, one being under the open sky, held still against damnation: together.
Steve has accepted what it means to be happy—here, like this—in spite of everything. Steve has welcomed it with open fucking arms.
He’d thought, for so long, that he’d never be happy. That on a train in the Alps, he’d forever forgotten how.
Bucky kisses open-mouthed, slow: lazy and leisurely, like time’s on their side. Bucky kisses the line of Steve’s jaw like he hears those thoughts, and knows the way to make them hush.
“I like this,” Bucky noses at the rough hair that’s grown past the point of stubble, and Steve can’t help the swell of warmth in his chest when he feels the smile on Bucky’s lips press up against the curve of his chin. “I like this a whole lot.”
Steve chuckles, bright and low. “Think I’ll get across the border without raising any eyebrows, yet?”
“Hmm,” Bucky hums, close enough that Steve feels it resonate in his marrow, through his veins. “Hair needs a bit more time,” and Bucky’s fingers—left hand, cooler, and he knows by now what it does to Steve, how it drives him goddamn mad; those fingers tangle in the slowly-lengthening strands. “You’ve still got too much sunshine in it.”
And there’s something funny that catches in Steve’s chest, that he feels echo sharp in the shift of Bucky’s inhale: takes him back to Brooklyn and tight-wrung lungs, not with emotion like they are just now, but with the pollen in the air and the smog of city life, of any life, and Bucky’d play with his straw-hair, limp strands he touched like silk, like gold, like something precious was in them, was attached and he’s whisper, soft and close as he rubbed Steve’s chest with a devotion that spoke of blasphemy, spoke of too much heart: Gotta get some sunshine to show in this mop of yours, Rogers.
The world’s different. They’re both different.
They’ve come a long fucking way.
“Still gettin’ a little bit of that urge to buy war bonds when you look me over, huh?” Steve tries to raise the mood, threads his fingers into Bucky’s right hand and leads it up to trace the same idle circles Bucky’d used to ease his breathing, to urge him to stay: thinks about too-yellow ink on a poster, in a pub. Thinks of haunted eyes at the bar, reflected in a glass; reflected in the mirror, later: in another century. Another life.
“Naw,” Bucky takes the bait, and pulls them both from that ledge with a nip at the point of Steve’s jaw, with a drag of tongue at the first stretch of his neck. “That ain’t the urge I’m gettin’ at all when I look you over.”
Steve huffs a laugh that dies in a moan, as Bucky moves his hips just so; a tease, and they won’t take it further, not just now, but it speaks to just how far this goes, between them; just how deep they run.
“S’just you, now,” Bucky exhales, hot at Steve’s ear, hand still against the beat of his heart. “Just my Stevie.”
And that’s all Steve’s ever wanted. In the world, after everything—after false starts and impossible dreams and the breaking of his being at the core on cliff faces; after red on snow he never saw with his eyes but that burned behind the lids whenever he’d sleep—after everything, this is all Steve’s ever wanted.
This is all Steve needs.
Bucky exhales slow, wraps up close around Steve from behind until Steve can close his eyes, can parse out the beat of Bucky’s heart through muscle, through skin.
“Bet you never thought we’d see the country like this, didya?” Bucky breathes against Steve’s shoulder blade, warms it with his words before he rests his cheek there, the first hints of stubble grazing, sending shivers down Steve’s spine.
“Only thing I wanted out of that was to see you against the backdrop of every state in the Union,” Steve confesses, mouth quirked at the soft-focused memories, long-buried musings, fantasies of where they’d be, how’d they’d move, hitching rides and pawning what little they owned to see the country, to breathe the world.
It’s not like that, here; now. But it’s still everything Steve thought it would be; it still feels just the way Steve imagined it would, tucked tight inside his chest.
“Sap,” Bucky accuses, and Steve presses tighter against his body, just breathes—doesn’t bother with denial.
“Where we headed?” Steve asks instead, because that’s all the matters now: where they’re going. What’s to come.
That they faced whatever came together.
“Somewhere new,” Bucky breathes out, and the life in it—more than the warmth—is what makes Steve tremble, what catches in his pulse. “Somewhere safe.”
“Alright.” And Steve can feel Bucky’s heart pump harder, pressed against his back like the rhythm of the world, and Steve just inhales; exhales; squeezes fingers around the hand he holds to his chest and anchors in the moment, lets it move around them both until Steve finds words inside the wonder in his throat—above the swell of what it means to fear.
“It’s gonna be okay, you know.”
But Bucky doesn’t, though—he doesn’t know. And neither does Steve. And Steve says it for them both, to convince the pair of them that they’ll see this thing through, from this side of the grave.
“Whatever happens, I’m not letting you go again. Not ever again, do you understand?” And that’s the crux of it, that’s the real truth: okay, or otherwise, it’ll be side by side. Right or wrong, heads or tails, they’ll see it through, but before anything else, anyone else: they’ll see each other.
“So whatever happens, it’ll be me and you against the world. Whatever happens, we’re gonna be together. And it’ll be okay.”
Steve turns his head, and Bucky’s waiting—cheek mostly smooth, just the day’s shadow; hair cropped neat, not long enough to nose at; it’s okay, though.
They will be okay.
“To the end of the line?” Bucky mouths, and they move slowly, slightly, breath by breath, tonguing a trail before pressing lips, and Steve speaks into Bucky’s waiting mouth, into the heart and soul there that he can feel; that he can taste:
“And whatever comes after.” He vows it. He swears it. “I’m with you.”
And Steve doesn’t know how long they’ve been running, how long they’ll keep running. But frankly: Steve doesn’t care.
“Okay, Stevie,” Bucky barely breathes it; but he does. He does. “Okay.”
And Steve doesn’t care how long, how much. He doesn’t care. He’d run until his heart gave out for this.
For them.
______________________________________________
“Fifty-seven days, sir. Five hours, sixteen minutes and approximately—”
“Details I don’t need, J.”
“Of course, sir.”
“That’s official and unofficial channels accounted for?”
“Every digital backdoor and every hint of gossip has been collated,” JARVIS confirms. “Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes remain at-large, with no credible leads.”
Good, Tony thinks; stops his attempt to bite through his bottom lip. Good, good, good.
At least there’s the one thing that’s, you know. Good.
For now.
He turns back to the screens that surround him, convex as they wrap, as they scroll through the data for the twentieth, the thirtieth, the however-many-th time until it makes sense.
It has to make sense.
“Sir, might I suggest a brief reprieve—”
“I don’t pay you to mother me,” Tony responds idly, squinting at the code because fuck bifocals, seriously. Fuck them.
“I could point out the inaccuracy of that statement,” JARVIS’s tone is airy, something of a huff that registers just at Tony’s periphery, just outside the realm where he can choose to care. “Of course, I have no use for monetary compensation, and require only your sparkling personality to reward my tireless efforts.”
Tony pauses. Column fifty two, line 234.543.65743b.
“Sarcasm is not a good look on you,” he informs the AI, which is true, but Tony won’t hold it against him. He won’t say it out loud, but Tony had missed him. Had damn well started to mourn the son of a bitch for a hot second, there. And yeah, sure: maybe Tony’d wanted to shout from mountaintops toward heavens he didn’t care much for when he’d been able to relaunch the system, least worse for the wear out of all of them.
Not that he’d tell JARVIS this shit. But JARVIS probably already knows, anyway, so. Sweet deal, on both sides.
Win-win.
“Nor is exhaustion a good look on you, sir,” JARVIS chides, none too gently; Tony knows it’s not the first comment of its type today. “Considering you are approaching thirty-nine hours without sleep.”
Or, well. Across the last day and into this one, it’s not the first comment of its type.
Whatever.
“Just thirty-nine?” Tony quips, sucking down another cup of coffee and gesturing toward Dum-E to start a fresh brew. “Child’s play, JARVIS. This is big leagues.”
And yeah, that’s one way to put it. One way to put how the world had been crumbling slowly and finally hit fever pitch. One way to put the fact that there was no more order, and Tony’s not a leader, or a follower, or anything other than the go-to guy to get shit done. The way that Tony’d tried to do good and yes, had learned his lesson about how he’s better fucking off looking out for numero uno because his attempt at widespread altruism had blown up more than one city, and lost more than a handful of good lives, and had—
Yeah. So. This is what comes after. The mad scramble. Friends on the run; in the wind. Sleepless nights. Unbridled vitriol. The leaked intel. The corrupted data. The what-the-fuck moment that never ends. Protocols that never should have been implemented, bread crumbs that were never enough to fit a slice. Destruction that should never have been wrought. Peace in our goddamned time.
The big fucking leagues, man. Apt, maybe. Sure.
Tony sighs, long and low; runs a hand across his eyes, draws fingers down his chin.
Nose to the grindstone, then. Batter up.
“Where are we on Lieutenant General Thunderbolt Asshat?”
“Continuing to reroute his attempts to contact you,” JARVIS answers promptly. “Digital correspondence is rejected by the server, all calls are forwarded at random to the approved contacts from the mainframe.”
Tony allows a half-smirk to assuage the way that his coffee cup is empty, and will continue to be empty for —he listens to the progress of the espresso machine at his back—another thirty seconds, at least.
His life is a mournful thing.
“Where have the last, say, five calls ended up? I could use a laugh.”
“Hungry Honchos.”
“Fucking Fiji?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“That’s fantastic.” Tony glances at the robots. He’s got another fifteen seconds or so to stay wallowing in caffeineless-ness.
Woe.
“Keep going.”
“Badd Kitty Lingerie in Charleston. Lipstixx Gentlemen’s Club, New Orleans. Grindr Customer Service, and...”
The pause is perfectly timed to the arrival of Tony’s refill.
“In-N-Out Burger, Redondo Beach.”
Tony snorts, and given that it’s while he’s taking the first sip of his drink, it’s not a comfortable thing.
It’s fucking worth it.
“Sir,” JARVIS cuts in, and the inflection of his voice tells Tony that his temporary sarcasm-and-joe high is going to be short-lived. “You should know the most recent of General Ross’ attempts was made to Miss Potts directly. Via her Stark Industries contact number.”
Tony sighs, turning away from the screen and focusing solely on the dark brew in the mug between his hands. Swirling abyss. Black holes.
His stomach lurches; he stops staring. Drinks deep and tries not to think too much about anything at all until he’s swallowed. Hard.
“Idiot. Took him long enough.” Betty’s brains must come from her mother. “So we’re pretty sure of his angle, then?”
“It certainly does seem to allay any remaining doubt on that particular front, sir,” JARVIS confirms; “But the bigger picture remains vague.”
Tony snorts; that’s putting it fucking mild. Because Thaddeus Ross is kind of an uber-dick, all shoot and point after, and fuck aim altogether, on his worst days, and Tony’s made a point to keep his distance after playing ball with the artists formerly known as S.H.I.E.L.D. to make sure that accurately-termed thing that Blonsky turned into was kept in a cage. Because Tony remembers all too well what people like that were capable of. What people like that always ended up with their hands in.
And what Thunderfuck’s hands are in now isn’t clear, exactly, but like he said, it’s always the same: red. Blood, death, mayhem, power plays, collateral damage and zero accountability.
And what is clear, is that somewhere in that laundry list? There’s Pepper.
Tony’s Pepper.
And Tony’s not stupid. Tony is the absolute antithesis of stupid, in fact. Ross likes “special” people. Ross likes to play god. Ross likes to fuck around where he’s too goddamned moronical to not to bring about the apocalypse, let alone manage to bend the world to his headtrip. Ross’ personal files—the ones Tony’d gotten his hands on one way or another, thus far—look far too much like Strucker’s for comfort. For coincidence.
And he’s powerful, sure, even now—but Ross is just a one-man band. This is bigger. Tony knows it.
He knows it.
The what, though. The how.
Vague is an understatement.
Tony sticks out his hand, and lets Dum-E top him off.
“You’ve run differential analyses?”
“More than once, sir, as per your requests,” and JARVIS only lets a tiny bit of exasperation into his tone. Tony appreciates that, kinda. In some distant, amorphous, not really giving a fuck sort of way, but it’s there.
“The government response to the aftermath of Ultron’s actions, both internationally and domestically, has been largely covert. And even that has been diffuse and inconsistent, in terms of directive and intent.”
“Par for the course,” Tony rolls his eyes, gestures idly at the display before him, scrolling through the same data, willing a new revelation: insanity. The definition of. “Y’know. Governments.”
Also the definition of insanity.
“All known Hydra cells have been wholly inactive.” JARVIS adds, anticipating the angle Tony will take, the angle he’ll always take, the angle that ties this together, that will tie this together, he’s sure of it.
“Shocker.”
“The only clear evaluative conclusion I can provide,” JARVIS begins, sounding almost contrite; “is that the source of the Ultron Program’s catastrophic failure was almost certainly triggered by the Program’s global threat analysis protocols.”
And yes, they’ve been teetering on that inference for the past few days. And yes, that’s precisely why Tony’s asked JARVIS to run the numbers again. And again. And again.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Because it doesn’t fucking make any sense.
“We had failsafes in place,” Tony shakes his head, breathes deep and even, channels Bruce as best he can before he breaks the mug in his hand. “The thing wasn’t even properly active yet, and even if it had been, the level of impending doom needed to trigger that kind of response would have been,” Tony whistles low. “The fucking Chitauri would have run for goddamn cover, they’d have gone full-Jonah with those steel whale things and…”
Breathe. Breathe. He tells the panic to recede, and it nearly listens. The shield; it nearly uncracks.
Breathe.
“It’s just not possible,” Tony mutters, and in staring as hard as he does at the toes of his shoes, it’s obvious that even they can’t quite believe the depths of his denial. “It couldn’t have happened.”
But it did. God help them all, it did.
Tony gulps more coffee, in hopes of driving the bile back down his throat. It almost fucking works, too. So yeah.
Good call.
“Based upon the protocols outlined in the code, and specifically given the comparative levels of precaution exhibited on the part of Doctor Banner,” JARVIS continues, and Tony resents the remark, just a little, because if there’s anything he’s learned, it’s care, it’s caution.
It’s that neither of those things will save anyone, in the end.
“By all accounts, the Ultron Program should never have resulted in the destruction that transpired.”
Tony glares with no set location in mind for the expression, because JARVIS is everywhere. JARVIS will see it, regardless.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“The threat evaluation protocols, however,” JARVIS continues, undeterred; typical. “Once the Program was able to cannibalize my systems, new intelligence was exposed.”
“Yes, we know,” Tony rolls his eyes and drinks his dregs: a penance, but don’t expect to ever hear the admission from his mouth. “Please, do slap me on the fucking wrist one more time, JARVIS.”
Breathe. Remember. Breathe.
“I’ve learned my goddamned lesson,” Tony finally says, once the edge of rage, of fear, of all-consuming guilt that threatens to eat him alive; of unbearable and utter failure that waits to pick at the remains—Tony breathes, once it ebbs: just enough. “The road to hell is paved with sentinel AI. Duly fucking noted.”
“While I am heartened to know that the lesson has in fact taken root, sir, I was not in fact referring to that kind of intelligence.”
Tony blinks. Oh.
That’s a nice change, he guesses.
“The Baron was experimenting with the technology that yourself and Doctor Banner used to implement the Ultron program,” JARVIS elaborates, tone grave. “Operating on Hydra frequencies, which, as I noted previously, have gone suspiciously dark.”
“Spare me the suspense,” Tony just barely keeps himself from snapping. “This isn’t news.”
“There were subroutines embedded in the technology,” JARVIS divulges; “with information that I believe may have influenced the rapid evolution of Ultron’s response protocols.”
The displays blink, and start streaming data. So much data.
So much fucking familiar data.
“Jesus fuck on a cracker.”
Because: fuck. Fucking fuckity fuck.
Right. Christ, just. Not a nice change. Not at all a nice change, actually. A terrible change, in fact. The worst change.
Probably would have been better, really, if Ultron rose up and started fucking spawning his specicidal army.
Well, okay, not better. But.
“I am afraid I am unfamiliar with that particularly colorful turn of phrase, sir.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
That’s it, actually. Huh. Ironic.
In the colloquial usage, of course. Not the literary usage that no one gives a rat’s ass about. More the Alanis-kind-of-meaning.
But yeah.
“It means that I need an update on the location of Sergeant Indigo.”
And it’s not like it’s the most clandestine approach, really; though it’s a far fucking sight better than “Mr. Green”, fucking hell, so there’s that.
“Location remains unknown, sir.”
Which means that JARVIS is bringing up Bruce’s coordinates on the private server.
“Son of a bitch.” Tony says, for show—the walls have ears, all the walls have always had ears and it’s about damned time that Tony took that shit seriously: Cambodia.
“Keep looking,” Tony says; of course it’s Cambodia. Getting him a message is going to be hell.
But he’s Tony Stark, and he runs with the Devil; has all his life.
Hell’s where he lives.
“Right away, sir,” JARVIS confirms the sent encryptions to Bruce’s whereabouts, and Tony leans back, cracks his knuckles, and tries to tell his heart not to pound its way into a fucking seizure, because there isn’t any contraption there anymore to keep it in check.
It doesn’t listen, of course. Asshole.
“And the next time Ross calls,” Tony tells the ceiling, the walls—the ears, but the ears he wants to be there, listening—as he forces himself to process the data, the ugly truths on the screen that almost ended the world, that he hadn’t even noticed: the past come back to haunt him, again and again and forever.
Jesus fuck.
“Next time Ross calls, put him through.”
“Will do, sir.”
And Tony knows he’s probably depriving, like, some poor asshole at Burger King in God’s Country their daily dose of painful confusion and verbal abuse from a misconnected General, but, well, it’s for the greater good.
Sacrifices must be made.