#csquared225

It was the Red Room.

They were finally coming for him and Natalia.

He’d always known that it was a possibility; no, it had been a certainty. That he could have his little white-picket fence life living in the phallic structure that was Tony’s ode to his penis with good friends and his lover and having great sex on a regular basis, clothed and well-fed with eight hours of sleep a night? It had to end sometime.

Natasha had thankfully been away on a mission in Brazil, far away from Russia, and Fury had ordered her to stay in country without saying exactly why. She was a good enough agent to listen, especially when Clint spoke to her.

Bucky packed his things slowly, methodically. Sorted things into piles for the people he’d leave them for: his favorite rifles to Clint, an old lighter to Steve, a blade he’d gotten in Japan for Thor, his favorite dagger to Natasha...

“Sir, do you really believe that will be necessary?”

He didn’t jump when JARVIS spoke to him anymore. Not even now, in this solemn silence. He knew that the AI would be watching him, especially now. After all, going all kamikaze would affect Tony, and JARVIS’s prime objective was making sure that the man was okay, in every way that mattered.

“I do, JARVIS,” he said calmly, zipping up his suit one last time. “You don’t even have half the data there is on the Red Room. I don’t even have to check to know. They’ll do anything to get what they want, and I can’t let Tony get caught in the crossfire. Losing me would hurt him, but the Red Room won’t just kill him, they’ll tear him apart and build him back up again just to destroy him all over again. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

“....Sir, please. There are other avenues I could calculate--”

“JARVIS, mute.”

A protocol that was rarely invoked for respect for the AI’s freedom, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He was acting in Tony’s well-being. He didn’t think that JARVIS wouldn’t tell Tony, but he knew he had a head start. He set out the gifts he’d picked out in front of each of his team mate’s doors, hesitating at Steve’s. Out of everyone except Tony, he deserved an explanation. Losing him again would kill him, too.

‘I’m doing this for him, too.’

The others were holed up in their rooms getting ready for the mission Tony and Steve had put together, a coordinated strike when the agents of the Red Room arrived. He said a silent goodbye to all of them and headed out.

---------

He’d sent out a coded message into the cyber-sphere, in a data stream he knew Tony didn’t pay much attention to but the Red Room did. Longitude and latitude just near the edge of New York City. He made his way there on one of the bikes Tony had bought him, making sure to gut any tracking devices he could find or remember from talking with his lover. The thought of Tony made his chest hurt, so he wiped his mind clean just like he had back when he was still an operative, and pulled off to the side of the road behind the warehouse dock. It was the “bad side” of town, and he didn’t expect to be disturbed while he made his final stand.

Sure enough, when he stepped out into the open, he was met with a loud barrage of Russian and bullets pelting the walls and ground. He ducked back behind the loads of crates and concrete barricade lining the warehouse. He hadn’t expected even this many to come, but he was the Winter Soldier. If they couldn’t have the Black Widow, too, they were going to put in every effort to get him.

“Well, they can’t have me,” he growled to himself, standing up and returning fire as he made a run to better cover, ducking and swerving to avoid taking fire. He re-loaded his guns and contemplated bringing out the knives, for whatever worth they’d do.

“Hell no, they can’t. You’re mine.”

How had he missed the fire of repulsors behind him? He whirled around and glared at the hovering Iron Man, whose face mask slid up to reveal a livid Tony.

“Didn’t think you’d make it here so quickly,” he grunted, plastering his back against the concrete, peeking back out only to dart back into cover, narrowly missing a barrage of bullets aimed his way.

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Tony practically snarled, running out to send a barrage of missiles at the attackers, rushing back just as fast. “What the fuck were you thinking, Barnes? We’re a team, and we are boyfriends or some shit, at least I thought we were? What was all of that crap that JARVIS told me about this being better for both of us, you not hurting me? You leaving and going off in a suicide mission sure as fuck hurt me!”

“You’ll get over it and live!” Bucky insisted, reloading and cursing when he realized that a) his bullets weren’t doing much, and b) he was running out of rounds faster than he’d anticipated. “If these guys get a hold of you, they’ll utterly destroy you, Tony!”

“You did that all on your own, asshole!” Tony shot back, repulsors firing into the air and leaving the familiar smell of singeing. “Seems to me that the only one doing any real damage to me here is you!”

Bucky groaned and shot off his last rounds, tucking his guns into his belt and onto his back. They’d work as blunt instruments for now.

“They came for me, Tony. Get out of here, they don’t care about you. GO, STARK!”

He growled, waving him off. A big mistake on his part, as if that had ever been enough to deter the genius from doing something he wanted to do. He peered back out. From the shouts and the hand gestures, what he got was that they only had one last good shot of the giant gun they’d hoisted out that looked suspiciously like the ones HYDRA tended to carry around, experimental Tesseract energy that would dematerialize them with one fell swoop.

“No way, Bucky. I’m not leaving you here to those bastards,” Tony argued, tugging harder at his annoyingly resistant metal arm. Oh, wait. He’d designed it. Dammit, he was too good at what he did.

The assassin yanked it away and sealed off the pain in his chest when he saw the way it sent Tony reeling backwards with a hurt look in his eyes.

“You and I both knew this was always gonna happen, Stark.” Another flinch at the crude use of his last name, something he hadn’t done since he’d first been de-programmed. “I had an expiration date this entire time. We were kidding ourselves if we ever thought this was gonna last.”

“No, fuck that bullshit!” Bucky’s eyes widened--even Tony was never so vehement. “If you’re going down, I’m going down with you. And you know how much Pepper is gonna cry, and Nat is going to go nuts afterwards. But if you’re okay with that, then let’s go. We’re going to face this thing.”

Fucking Stark. Even the most skilled manipulators had never been so good at hitting him where it hurt like he did. The Red Room didn’t stand a chance. “Tony,” and there was his name; see, he knew how to get through to him, too, “You can’t. Suit or not, they’ll tear you apart. I...I can’t watch that. Don’t make me watch that, they’ll use you to break me down, you don’t want that to happen to me, right?”

“What I don’t want to happen to you is whatever other torture they have in mind!” Tony snapped right back, not swayed in the slightest. “You have a team now, James, let us help you. Let me help you.”

“I can’t!”

He finally burst out with the truth. He laughed helplessly. “I can’t, because you know what? Anything they do to me isn’t gonna compare if you and Steve and the team try to rescue me and fail and fucking die in the process, okay? That will kill me. I’d rather go in and get tortured and die by their hands than that. So move, Tony, or I’ll move you myself.”

Tony’s eyes were wide and he stared dumbstruck at Bucky. The man hadn’t opened up that much to anyone since he’d been recalibrated, not even Natasha or Steve. Pushed to the brink, it had all spilled out to the least deserving recipient, Tony.

“Bucky….” He shook his head, smiling sadly. “Not gonna happen.”

He could see the moment the lights clicked on in his brain, and opened his mouth to shout again. That stubborn bastard, he had some ridiculous, self-sacrificing plan--

“TONY!”

------

Tony felt a strange sense of peace come over him as he stepped forward and in front of his boyfriend and waved his arms wildly.

“Hey, uglies! Give me your best shot!”

The assailants jerked to attention, and the one with the big gun left shot at him. Tony prayed that his plan would work--the shielding he’d installed in his suit after the whole Loki shebang should hit him hard, but deflect feedback onto them, a kind of kamikaze that would rid them of the problem, for now at least. Bucky would be okay.

The bright blue light flashed brilliantly for a moment, and then dimmed as it hit its target. Tony collapsed where he stood, suit dissolving around him as he fell, leaving him in his tattered AC/DC shirt and oil-stained jeans he’d had on before suiting up that afternoon. But miraculously, his body wasn’t dissolved or turned into dust, whatever it was called that usually happened when someone was hit by the blue Tesseract energy.

There was a giant squeal of feedback, and then what should have happened to Tony backfired and happened to the Red Room goons. There were a few choked-off screams as light flared, and all that was left of the operatives were black ash imprints on the street. He wasn’t as grateful as he should have been for small miracles, because Tony still looked like shit, ribs bruised and what looked like bones poking out of his chest and arc reactor cracked.

“TONY!” he screamed, leaping forward to catch his partner as he collapsed to the ground, so naked without the protection of his suit around him. He cradled him carefully, recognizing from experience the broken bones, bruising and obvious internal bleeding. “Fucking--dammit Tony, that was so stupid of you, how could you do that?”

“No, ‘s okay,” Tony slurred, eyelids drooping and he smiled drowsily at his lover. “I did what I wanted to, all ‘cept get you to say the...the l word...but ah love you ‘nough for both of us, uh think.”

“Fuck,” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the sting as the salt of tears stung the wounds on his face. “Tony, you idiot, I never said it, but--I love you too, okay? And we’re both gonna keep loving each other for a long fucking time, so don’t you die on me now! Don’t you dare!” Tony blinked up at him, that damn smile still in place even as the rest of him was slipping away. “Knew you loved me. Knew it. Nat owes me twenty...twenty bucks. ...Collect from ‘er fer me, ‘kay?....”

Those beautiful brown eyes fluttered shut, and Bucky’s chest seized in fear. He felt for a pulse; it was there, but just barely, and Tony wasn’t breathing. His arc reactor was dark. He was even colder than before.

“Tony? Tony, come on, wake up for me. ...TONY!” He looked around desperately. Whatever they’d done to disperse the team, it had been too damn effective. “I NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE! SOMEONE, ANYBODY! PLEASE!”

But they were on the edge of town, in a section of the ghetto where after what had just gone down, no one was gonna risk coming out of their hidey holes to help for fear they’d be next. Needless to say, it was the longest minute of his life as he tried to haul Tony the miles it took down the road to help. He wasn’t going to last long enough. He let out another sob and collapsed onto his knees, Tony still clutched tightly in his arms.

A small spark of hope grew as he remembered something that Thor had talked to him about earlier in the month. He’d had trouble acclimating more than usual lately, and the god had told him about his first time on Earth and how out of place he felt, too. He’d said there was another god up in Asgard that watched over the entire Nine Realms, and if he called, he could take them to Asgard. It was his only hope; Tony’s only hope.

“Heimdall!” he shouted up at the sky, tears streaming down his cheeks and wiping away the rest of the blood, dirt and guts there. “Please, open the Bifrost! I can’t…” His eyes blurred with the force of his grief. “He’s dying, and I can’t save him. Please…” He bowed his head, gazing down at the limp body in his hands. Maybe he was already dead. He was too late. If this was any measure of how horrible Steve had felt after he’d been dropped, then he didn’t know how he’d gone on.

Another immeasurably long thirty seconds, and then they were both encased in a startlingly bright ray of rainbow-tinged light. It felt like they were being sucked in through a tiny tube towards the heavens. Like one of those bank transport things that Clint had showed him once.

They appeared in a golden circle of a building, rainbows still surging all around them and a compass thing in the middle, with a dark-skinned man wearing some strange contraption on his head and golden armor pulling some sort of lever.

“Wh-wha?”

Bucky gasped, looking around wildly; his arms would have gone limp, but his mind still realized that he held Tony and he had to keep him safe. He swallowed, heart beating frantically. “A-are you Heimdall?” he stuttered, aware of the tears still streaming down his cheeks. The man nodded, and gestured towards the strange group of warriors gathered at the entrance, a woman, a man with a face that reminded him of Tony or himself, an Asian man (huh), and an enormous man, all dressed in the strange armor that Thor wore.

“These are the Warriors Three, they will escort you to the healing chambers with great haste.”

And he fell silent again. It was a blur as they mounted horses (horses!) and raced down what appeared to be a giant rainbow bridge (Thor really hadn’t been kidding, had he?). There were some stares, but not as many as there would have been on Earth, as they made their way through great halls and down stairs and finally to another golden chamber that smelled like a hospital--some things were universal, it seemed--where figures in blue robes met them in a hurry.

He was shoved aside as the Asgardian healers took over, hoisting him up into what looked like midair, racing him away as if he was on an invisible stretcher. He tried to follow, but what looked like copies of Heimdall’s armor barricaded the doors in front of him. He protested and attempted to get past, but he was worn out and they were ten times stronger than him.

“The healers need room to work, Son of Barnes,” came a familiar voice, and he turned to see Thor striding towards him, cape streaming behind him. He looked more...regal, somehow, but his eyes betrayed how worried he was, too. Tony was his friend as well.

“Thor?”

“We may not have your ‘arc reactor’ technology, but I assure you that my people are fully capable of healing Tony.”

“I just...I have to make sure he’s okay.” Bucky said weakly, knees finally giving in and shaking. A strong hand gripped him and hoisted him upright. He was helped down the lengthy corridor by the Prince of Asgard himself, eyes drooping. They finally reached what looked like the Asgardian version of a guest room, though it was far grander than anything even Tony could come up with. He numbly collapsed onto the bed.

“Sleep now, James Barneson. You have earned it.”

He did. --------- When morning came, or whatever it was here on Asgard, he was out of bed and running back to where he’d come from before he was even fully awake. This time the guards let him in, with the warning to not cause any trouble. The healers eyed him warily, but told him that Tony was alive. And he was going to be okay.

He ignored any protests they made and crawled right into bed with him, tucking himself up against the too still body that was still littered with bruises, but from what he gathered from the nurses or whatever they were called, the internal bleeding and broken bones were all but healed up.

He laid there with him for hours, watching over him, until there was the first twitch of movement, a groan.

“Hey, asshole,” he murmured, grinning faintly at him. He always loved the confused, half-awake look Tony got in the morning before there was any coffee.

“What happened?”

His lover mumbled, wincing. “God, this is a nasty hangover.”

Bucky snorted and rehashed what had happened, tone going flat when he explained what he’d thought had been necessary.

“I couldn’t let you get hurt, and then you go ahead and do it anyway.” He flicked his nose gently. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, ever. Or I’m gonna shove my boot up your ass. I swear.”

“Mmm, you love me. And I love you, even though you were about to be just as much of a self-sacrificing idiot as me.”

A resigned but fond huff.

“Love you, too. Now sleep.”

“Mmmph.”