Tony clenches his jaw, leaning against the wall stubbornly and jutting his chin up at anyone who makes eye contact, though few are brave enough to even try. Even if people don’t know who he’s attached to, they do know the kid that’s huddled behind his thigh, sucking on her thumb with a cast on her arm. Tony only has to make the right expression to the right person for someone to run off and get who he’s looking for, and that’s a kind of power he never expected to have. He doesn’t even particularly want it, but it’s fine. Everything is fucking fine, after all.

Except the kid. She’s not fine, and if he doesn’t get his ass in front of Tony, begging for her forgiveness on his knees right the fuck now, Tony is going to kill James Buchanan Barnes. A few people offer him a cigarette when he has to wait more than a minute for Steve to run and go get James, but Tony declines. He doesn’t smoke, least of all in front of kids, and maybe Tony will read James that riot act after he’s done reading this one, which he just might read in front of all of his little friends.

Some might say that calling the entire mob “James’s little friends” wasn’t very good for Tony’s self preservation, but see if he gives a flying fuck. James likes him too much to have him killed, and everyone else is too afraid to even piss Tony off, let alone the man himself.

He feels like a fucking mob wife in the ‘30s and nothing pisses him off quite like that.

“Tony! Baby, what are you doin’ here? Becca? What happened to your arm, sweetheart? Are you okay?” James asks, hitting his knees in front of the pair just as he fucking should. Becca tells him the story of her sprained wrist when she lost her balance on the monkey bars, how an attendant had attempted to catch her but she had fallen too fast, how Tony had tried to call him three times before the ambulance even got there, but he never answered. James looks up at Tony with wide eyes and Tony gives him a flat look, the clench of his jaw accented by raised eyebrows. He revels in how James winces.

“Princess, how about we get you layin’ down for a nap at Aunt Peggy’s? I’ll read you a sleepy story after me and Tony have a bit of a talk,” James promises her, grinning awkwardly, but Tony shakes his head, calling Steve over with just a finger.

“How about Uncle Steve reads you a story? Me and Bucky need to talk for a bit longer than you might be able to stay awake, sugar plum, and I don’t want you to miss your whole story,” Tony advises, to which Becca nods.

“Yeah, okay. Uncle Steve, can you pick me up? My feet hurt,” Becca requests, making the gesture for up to her older brother’s best friend. Steve picks her up with a nod and doesn’t even get a confirmation from James before walking her up the stairs, out of the basement and presumably over to the house he shares with his fiance, a fierce brunette woman who holds an even higher rank than Steve himself. Tony turns his sharp eyes on James once he sees her go in the building, drumming his fingertips on his opposite bicep. James grimaces, knowing where things are going.

“Guys? Clear out. Me and Tony need the floor,” James says, to which grumbling begins as various mobsters put down their cards. Dum Dum brushes his knuckles across Tony’s shoulder as he goes out, obviously sorry for something that he couldn’t have controlled, but Tony brushes him off. He doesn’t need apologies from anyone but James, and James hasn’t even begun saying his piece. At this rate, he may never finish. Dernier is the last one to leave, bowing his head at Tony.

“Go soft on ze boss, eh? He has been doing better lately,” Dernier says, to which Tony gives a straight jawed nod. He’s not going to go easy on James, not even close, but it’s fun to think that someone wants him to. Tony sits in a seat across the table from James, one of the most direct ways to call an opponent in James’s world, but he’s okay with that. He’s not exactly looking to reassure James at the moment.

“Tones, I know you’re mad, doll -” James starts, but he knows to stop when Tony tilts his head, already madder than a fucking snake. Anything that starts with I know you’re mad is only gonna make things worse, and James knows it.

“You wanna tell me why you don’t know how to answer a fuckin’ phone, James? You been down here all afternoon? Actually, don’t fucking answer that second one, asshat. I don’t care if you’ve been down here for seventy fucking years, you still get service in this hole. So, back to the first question. How, in all of your infinite knowledge and wisdom, in the fuck did you forget how to answer a phone?” Tony asks, voice sharp as he leans his chin on his hand, carefully keeping his expression cool.

“We were…” James trails off, rubbing the back of his neck, “We were celebratin’ somethin’. Started playin’ about four hours ago. She don’ even get outta school for another hour, Tony, I - I didn’t even think about it, darlin, and I’m sorry.” He sounds almost sincere enough for Tony to want to drop it, but he remembers the fear he’s been holding in the bottom of his stomach for almost three hours, for all of the time that James hadn’t answered the phone, for all of the time that he hadn’t known where James was or what he was doing. He only knew where James was, that James was even okay because Steve answered a text.

“Honey, did you forget what you do for a living? Did you honestly forget?” Tony asks, to which James tilts his head. “You didn’t answer the phone. You didn’t answer a call, didn’t answer texts, satellite GPS on your phone doesn’t work well down here. James, I thought you were fucking dead. You don’t answer the phone, I have to assume the worst don’t I? I take care of Becca during the day. I’m the one who reminds her that it’s okay to have friends at the daycare, that she’s okay, that she’s safe. How am I supposed to tell her that she’s safe when you don’t even answer the phone when she needs you? What if it had been worse?”

He doesn’t mean to go on this rant, on the guilt tripping, awful thing that makes his throat hurt with the fact that he’s about to cry, but it’s easier. He can’t admit that he was terrified that he was about to lose the man he loves before he even got to tell him. He can’t admit to James that he’s caught feelings that feel much more permanent than their relationship. He isn’t proud of how James seems to choke on this argument, how his eyes cloud up with the first bit of tears, but it’s easier.

“Tony,” James says, choking on it, before he closes his eyes, steeling himself to continue. “I’m sorry that I made you deal with that. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there. It will never, never happen again, I promise you that. You’ll never have to deal with us again.” There’s a note of finality there that freezes even the breath in Tony’s lungs, and he feels like he’s dying.

“James, what are you saying?” he asks, freezing in his posture as well as he sits up and stays in some sort of stasis, completely caught off guard. He knows that James has a guilt complex, knows that he can take things to heart better than anyone else, but he doesn’t… he doesn’t know what James is saying.

“The daycare experiment was a bad idea. I’ll get Peggy’s friend to start teachin’ her again, and we’ll keep her within the guard. I’m sorry that I disappointed you, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t better to both you and Becca in this situation,” James says. It sounds just like one of the cuts in one of Tony’s father’s business meetings, just like the way that things end, and Tony can’t have the end, not yet. He stands from his seat and sits down on the table in front of James, just like he always does, just where he belongs. He usually feels safer here, but there is no safety in the way that James does not make eye contact with him, staring straight ahead, nor the way that James keeps his hands firmly on the arms of his chair.

“I don’t want either of you to go. I can’t - I can’t lose her,” Tony says instead of admitting that he can’t lose James, because that’s so much and so new and Tony can’t. He gets flashes of his father in his head, quiet reminders that no one will ever want him when he’s not inventing, no one will ever want him now that he’s a burnout, no one will ever want him now that he’s soft, now that he’s simple. Tony can’t lose either of them.

“Visits can be arranged if you want. I’ll have Steve organise them,” James offers, kinder than he needs to be, but Tony makes a noise that sounds like a wound has been ripped through him. James finally looks at him at about the same time that Tony is sliding into his lap, clinging onto the other man desperately. As confused as he obviously is (stone body structure, just the side of his expression out of the corner of Tony’s eye), he still puts his hands on Tony’s back, holding him with such care that it’s painful.

“I can’t lose you either, dipshit. Half the reason why I’m fucking mad and he misses it,” Tony mutters against the mobster’s throat, but he knows that James hears it for the way that arms tighten around his waist.

“I love you,” James says, just as quiet as Tony’s muttering, but Tony hears it anyway. He feels like he’s about to cry.