#starkspangledwinterhawk2018

Except everything about the summoning circle is perfect--every rune in its place and every sigil tight like a steel trap. Bucky is immediately pissed off but also intrigued by the skill that was necessary to complete the summoning circle like this. He looks around, frowning. It looks like a regular apartment, perhaps a bit on the shabbier side, but clean. Bucky turns his attention on the two humans instead, both of them looking at him, stunned. He examines them quickly, humming thoughtfully as he takes them in. They’ve both got a darkness clinging to them, though the blond’s has definitely faded. The brunet’s has faded, too, but not as much.

“What do you want?” Bucky asks when it’s clear they aren’t going to say anything. The circle’s clad tight enough that he can’t leave until he’s heard them out, and it’s quite possible he might even have to make a deal with them to leave--he’s not quite sure yet, some of the sigils he needs to examine a little more.

The blond jumps, and then he straightens his shoulders and asks, “Can you heal people?”

Bucky sneers at him, offended. “I can do anything. The question is will I? To be clear, the answer is no.”

The blond looks dismayed, but the brunet straightens his shoulders and scowls at him. “Everyone has a price. You’ll do it if we offer you what you want.”

“And what do you think I want, precious?” Bucky asks, amused in spite of himself. Humans were so adorably stupid these days.

The brunet opens his mouth, then closes it again, frowning unhappily with the knowledge that he has no idea what Bucky would want. The blond frowns. “What do you want, then?”

“Nothing,” Bucky answers immediately, because it’s true. As bored as he is, he’s also pretty content. He can easily find whatever he wants on his own. He looks the two humans up and down slowly. Perhaps later he’ll find someone to sleep with. Hell, maybe he’ll change form and seduce one of them.

“There’s got to be something,” the blond insists helplessly. “After all he’s done for us, we should be able to help him too. I can’t let him die like this. I’ve only just gotten him...”

Bucky watches as the brunet turns to look at the blond, trying to be reassuring even though he also looks a little heartbroken. Oh. How interesting. It’s so obvious the brunet is in love with the other human, is perhaps also in love with other person they’re speaking of, as the darkness clinging to him intensifies just a little.

Love me, his aura begs so softly, so pleadingly. I’m here. Love me too. Please, I’m here, please love me back. It’s sad, for all that it’s delicious, and Bucky licks his lips at the agony that the blond can’t see.

The brunet notices, eyes sharp and calculating. “What about me?” he asks, and starts to reach into the circle.

Bucky raises his eyebrows in surprise, but anything he’d say is covered up by the blond grabbing his hand before it can break through, angrily snapping, “He’s not going to take you, Tony.” The brunet, Tony, looks hurt by the words. The blond immediately backtracks, changing his grip on Tony’s hand to something gentler. “Tony, you agreed to stop putting yourself in destructive situations. Come on. Look at him, obviously he’d take you, but you can’t just--we’ve been working on this, Tony...”

Bucky watches, enthralled, as the darkness clinging to Tony grows inkier with shame and jealousy. From what he’d seen, humans had melted down or harmed themselves with less darkness, and here this man stood, not crying or moving, just drowning in his shame and anger. Bucky wonders how he tastes, wants to put his mouth on him and sate himself with it.

“Clint,” a voice croaks out from behind a closed door, and Bucky stares at it, because that’s the croak of a dying man. Whoever is behind the door has weeks at most, a day or two at the least. No wonder they’d called on him for help.

The blond, Clint, gives Tony a long look. “Don’t do--anything you would do if you were alone,” he says, before disappearing behind the door as well.

Tony watches him go, and the darkness clinging to him deepens with longing.

“I could give you that,” Bucky purrs, and watches the human jump. “I could love you like you want to be loved.”

Tony brightens a little, then frowns. “No. You’re not capable of love.”

“I am,” Bucky says gently, letting his gaze soften. “I can love. I can love you, Tony. Don’t you want to be loved like Clint is?” Tony bites his bottom lip, and Bucky moves closer, pressing his hands to the edge of the circle. “Don’t you want to have your feelings returned, Tony? I can love you so deeply, sweetheart. I can give you what you want.”

Tony squirms, looking at the door before turning back at Bucky. “Demons--they’re not capable of love,” he tries to insist, but his voice shakes.

“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Bucky coos, honey dripping from his voice. “That’s the problem. We’re too capable of love. We love so deeply, over centuries. I could love you, dear, if you’d just let me. I could help you forget all the times you’ve been looked over, ignored, forgotten. I can give you all the things you’ve ever desired--love, affection, kindness. Everything that the world has cruelly withheld from you, Tony, I can give you that.”

“...I can’t have your word on that,” Tony whispers.

Bucky leans as close as he can, cooing, “Oh, honey, you can. I’ll promise you anything you want. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll cut out my heart and put it in your hands, if that’s what you want. Just please treat it tenderly. It’s more sensitive without the protection of my chest.”

Tony looks back at the door again, but his body has turned away from it unconsciously. He looks back at Bucky and is obviously trying not to sound as hopeful as he feels. “Would you promise to heal Steve? To make sure that he and Clint have long, happy lives together?”

“Of course,” Bucky answers.

“Would you promise that I’d be the only one?” he asks. “That you wouldn’t take more humans? So I wouldn’t have to share you?”

“I wouldn’t want to share you either,” Bucky agrees. “Of course.”

“Would you promise not to hit me? Would you promise that you’d never hurt me?” Tony whispers, trembling--with fear, with excitement, with desire and desperation.

“Do love-bites count as hurting, dear? Couldn’t I leave the occasional nip to show everyone that you belong to me?” Bucky coos. “So that no one could take you from me? So that you’d be mine, and mine alone?”

That seems to strike a chord in the human, eyes wide and aching, as he reaches out toward him again, fingers skimming the edge of the circle.

“TONY,” a voice bellows, and the door bursts open, and a man, small and skinny and sickly stands there, looking furious.

Bucky shrinks back, hisses angrily when Tony’s hand jerks away from the circle.

“Steve,” Tony whispers, voice shaking with fright.

“Are you stupid,” Steve snarls, and Tony flinches, takes a step backward, away from Steve and toward the circle.

Bucky looks down at the human’s feet, then looks back up, hissing at the blond threateningly, because he’s always been skilled at the fiddle. “He’s not stupid. He’s so clever. Look how well he did the circle. Only a clever human could do this.”

“Only an idiot would summon a demon!” Steve insists angrily, and Tony takes another step backward, shaking.

“Don’t say that, Stevie,” Bucky simpers, pressing to the edge of the circle again. “Every summoning I’ve answered has always had a desperate human on the other side of it. Foolish? Perhaps, but always without anywhere else to turn. Where would you have them go, when everything else has forsaken them?”

“They’re not. Forsaken. Tony, come here,” Steve orders.

Tony hesitates, hugging himself.

“Why do that, Tony?” Bucky whispers so only he can hear it. “What do they have to offer you? He’s only out here because he’s angry. I’d take care of you, sweetheart. I’d love you. Don’t you want to be loved?”

“Tony,” Clint says, voice trembling. “Please come away from the circle. We’ll talk about this. Come back.”

Tony’s silent for a moment before his shoulders slump.

Bucky nearly pounds on the circle in rage, bearing his teeth. No. No. He was so close. Tony was almost his. He glares at Clint over Steve’s shoulder, then smirks, smug. “Back to what? A dying man? Stevie has days at most.”

Clint looks crushed, and Tony makes a tiny, pained gasping sound. Steve lets out a roar that’s all inhuman anger and righteousness, darting toward them on legs that shouldn’t have the strength to even be able to stumble to their knees, and Tony lets out a terrified yelp as he steps backward.

His heel breaks the circle, and Bucky grabs him, snarling victoriously and dragging him back further into the circle. His delighted cackling covers Tony’s scream of terror as he drags him back through the portal with him.

.-.-.-.

They hadn’t made a deal. But Bucky’s powers can’t touch an angel unless they allow it, so he wouldn’t have been able to heal Steve anyway.

“Steve was an angel?” Tony whispers into Bucky’s chest, tears still clinging to his lashes.

“Looked like a guardian angel,” Bucky confirms.

“Oh,” Tony says sadly. “He must have been Clint’s.”

Bucky doesn’t tell him that Steve was probably his guardian angel, too. Steve was run ragged, so much that he couldn’t take time to rest and heal, and it’s clear from the pale spots still dotting the darkness over Tony that he’d spent a lot of time and effort on him alone. There’s darker spots, too, true despair that should have killed him but he’d been dragged back out of. Steve looked like that because of Tony, not because of Clint.

“I loved them,” Tony whispers, like it’s a shameful secret, like Bucky didn’t know that just by looking at him. “And no matter what I did, they’d look at me like I made them tired, or sad. I couldn’t make them happy no matter how hard I tried. I was always their disaster friend that they had to take time out of their days taking care of.”

“I’m sure you weren’t that much of a disaster,” Bucky offers.

“No, I was,” Tony says miserably. “Maybe this really is better for everyone. At least when you get tired of me, you can eat me or something.”

Bucky nearly chokes. “I don’t eat people!”

“You can find someone to eat me, then,” Tony suggests. “Then I won’t make anyone tired or annoyed ever again.”

The darkness that covers Tony starts to taste sour, but Bucky doesn’t tell him that.

Tony expects torture, expects to be hurt, especially since Bucky didn’t actually make any promises, only said that he would. “I’m a hedonist, doll, not a monster,” Bucky explains patiently. “Most demons my age don’t care for eating humans. Just the really old ones that you can outrun and the really young ones that you can basically kick off of you when you feel them gnawing.” Tony giggles wetly, reluctantly amused, and wipes his eyes.

“Of course, if you want me to hurt you, I can be persuaded,” Bucky adds with a lecherous smile, and the human laughs again. It’s a good look on him.

Bucky shows him how to kick the younger demons to get them to leave him alone and it’s only then that Bucky really considers that Tony’s humanity might be a problem--he doesn’t kick hard enough.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” Tony says sadly.

“Tony, most of them are going to be eaten before they hit puberty,” Bucky tries to explain.

Tony looks up at him with wide, watery eyes. “But they’re so little and cute, like a lizard and a chicken had a baby.”

One of the little demons squawks, offended.

“Clearly you have never met a chicken,” Tony tells it imperiously.

“I think it’s upset you called it small,” Bucky offers.

Tony squats down to pat the ugly little thing on the head. “You’re really ugly,” he tells the demon. “But it’s kind of cute.”

The little demon puffs its chest out. Bucky thinks it’s gearing up for a really angry shriek (those take effort in the younger demons), but all it does is strut around proudly. He can’t tell if the thing is smug because it was called ugly or cute and he honestly doesn’t want to know.

“Come on,” Bucky says gruffly, because seeing Tony be kind and gentle with the younger demons is doing weird things to his feelings.

Tony never gets the hang of kicking them, but that’s okay, because most of them like him somehow. And hell, the ones that didn’t were always ganged up on by the ones that did.

Bucky figures he’ll just keep Tony close so that he can protect him because his heart’s softer than a beanbag.

.-.-.-.

Tony is a dream, so hot and slick and tight. He whines just right, whimpers in a way that makes Bucky want to surround him, keep him safe from everything. So many of the other demons are jealous, and Bucky thrives on it, whispers endearments and affection into Tony’s ear until he revels in being wanted, feeling powerful and desirable. He clings to Bucky’s horns, the bases of his wings, leaves long scratches down his back and bloody bite marks on Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky loves it.

Bucky loves him.

So when he’s forcibly dragged back to the human plane by two familiar faces, he’s livid.

“You had your chance!” he thunders. “He’s mine now! Mine! You can’t have him! He’s mine!”

Steve, big and broad and buff now, snarls and leaps for the summoning circle in a flash of shiny feathers. Bucky surges to meet him. There’s a dazzling flash as he’s thrown backward with great force, slamming into the opposite wall. Bucky would laugh except he’d ricocheted around the summoning circle like a goddamn pinball.

“Tony!” Clint exclaims, running for the circle and reaching out for him, but Steve lunges to yank him back with a hiss. “Steve!” he snaps, struggling in his grip.

“DO NOT. Go into the circle,” Steve hisses, then looks back at it, gently saying, “Tony, honey, come here. Come out of the circle.”

Tony peeks out from behind Bucky, frowning. “But…”

“Come out of the circle,” Steve repeats softly. “Come on, Tony. You don’t have to stay with him anymore. We can help you.”

“You can’t help him, you never could,” Bucky snarls, wings swinging out to hide the human from view. “He’s mine now. I’ve had him every which way you can have a human. It’s not my fault you’re poor losers.”

Clint looks stricken. “Tony.”

“He didn’t force me,” Tony explains helplessly. “I wanted--I just wanted--”

Bucky curls his tail around Tony and tugs him close, smug. “He wanted to be wanted, and I gave that to him. You didn’t and now you’re jealous.”

“Tony, come on,” Clint says, smiling shakily. “You don’t really want to be with him, do you? Let’s talk about this, okay? I’ll make those pancakes you like so much.”

Tony looks torn, huddling up against Bucky’s side as he whispers, “But he loves me.”

“Demons are not capable of love!” Steve snarls immediately.

“I’m more capable than you!” Bucky snarls back.

Tony at least has the sense to duck this time when they both leap at each other and collide with the edge of the summoning circle.

“CUT IT OUT,” Clint bellows, and Steve mulishly doesn’t leap at the circle again. Bucky hisses and bares his teeth before curling around Tony again. “...Let’s talk this out like rational adults,” Clint says after a deep breath breath. “We can figure this out. Okay?”

Steve makes an incredibly horrifying hissing sound at Bucky before curling his wings around Clint protectively. “Okay,” he answers begrudgingly.

“No,” Bucky answers loudly, angry. “I was just about to eat and I’m hungry.”

“What do you eat?” Clint asks, sighing.

“Tony’s ass, usually,” Bucky says, and it’s worth Tony screeching at him to see Clint and Steve flush.

.-.-.-.

Clint cries when he finds out that Tony was in love with him. The ugly kind, with heaving sobs and splotchy cheeks and snot everywhere. Tony looks miserable and tugs at Bucky’s arm and asks to leave.

“We can’t, sweetheart,” Bucky informs him gently. “I have to make a deal or hear them out.”

“But I didn’t tell Clint on purpose,” Tony sniffs. “He was so happy with Steve. If I’d said anything I would have just ruined it, and then they both would have hated me.”

“Tony,” Steve chokes out, dismayed, and Bucky actually feels a little bad for how distraught the angel looks. He’d clearly poured so much time and energy and power into Tony in an attempt to heal him, to the point where he nearly drove himself out of existence, and it hadn’t worked.

He’s still pretty smug, though, that he’s clearly done more for Tony than the angel had.

Steve must see it too, because his jaw clenches and the look he gives Bucky is of pure hatred. Bucky preens a little.

“But I love you too,” Clint sobs, and Tony goes still at the demon’s side. “Why do you think we tried so hard to help you, Tony? I wanted you to stay close, even if it was just as a friend. Every time you went back to the bottle or drugs to try and make yourself numb and we pulled you back out wasn’t because we felt sorry for you. It was because I loved you.”

This… this might be a problem, Bucky thinks after a moment.

.-.-.-.

Clint tries to make a deal but every time he opens his mouth to make one, Steve makes an inhuman sound to cover his words so that even Bucky can’t hear it, like glass breaking and nails on a chalkboard and every animal roar all rolled into one.

“Give him back,” Steve snarls when Clint falls silent. “You stole him. Give him back.”

“First of all, he came into the circle, I didn’t step out, so you can’t say I stole him if he stepped in. I took an offering. Also! Tony’s a person who can make his own choices,” Bucky says imperiously, even though he’s taking the world’s biggest gamble, because he’s giving Tony a choice now and it’s possible that Tony won’t choose him. “That’s what free will was all about, right?”

Steve makes a frustrated sound and glares at him but grinds out, “Yes, it was.”

Tony gives Clint a look, longing and mournful and disappointed, but he also feels more content now than he’s ever felt in his life (except maybe that one time, when Clint had crawled into a hospital bed with him, and promised to be there for him when he needed, when the wounds on Tony’s arms were still raw and tender, and Clint’s promise had felt a lot like love he’d never gotten before). Bucky lets him do whatever he wants back in Hell, even if it’s cooing over the baby demons, and patiently listens when Tony babbles on and on, trying to understand but mostly failing but not caring that he feels stupid at all.

“Are you happy, Tony?” Clint asks, elbowing Steve when he tries to squawk a negative in outrage. “Does he make you happy?”

Tony, looking down at his feet under the angel’s incredulous gaze, whispers, “Yes.”

Clint reaches out, and Tony shyly extends his hand over the edge of the circle, letting him hold it without stepping inside himself. “You look happier,” Clint admits softly. “And if you’re happy, I’m happy for you. But I don’t want to never see you again. Can’t I see you again?”

Tony looks up at Bucky pleadingly, all big, wet eyes and trembling lip because even with how short their time together has been, the demon is a sucker for him.

Bucky sighs, gritting his teeth as he glares at Steve, before finally saying, “I’m… sure that something could be arranged.” The way Tony perks up at the admission is worth it, even if the angel opposite him looks incredibly smug about it.

It feels a lot like a custody arrangement, but Tony and Clint are happy with it, so Bucky and Steve keep their mouths shut.

.-.-.-.

If Tony had thrived under Bucky’s attention, he absolutely blooms under Clint’s additional care. He smiles more, is more animated even when he and Bucky are alone, smiling and happy. Steve says nothing, but he relaxes the more they all hang out together, and Bucky gets the feeling that Clint might be smiling for Steve more, too.

Still, neither Bucky nor Steve are prepared to see Clint turn from chopping some carrots to cup Tony’s cheeks and draw him into a kiss. Tony makes a startled little keening noise before leaning into the kiss, tipping his head accommodatingly, until they’re both panting and moaning quietly into each other’s mouths.

They only break apart at the sound of shattering glass, startled, and Tony shrinks when he sees the glass shards sunk into Steve’s palm, looking guiltily between him and Bucky.

“Look what you did,” Bucky hisses at Steve angrily, and he’d be lying if he said it was entirely because of how sad Tony looked.

“Hng,” Steve replies dumbly.

Tony and Clint eye Steve for a moment, nervous and contemplative in turn, before Clint carefully curls his hands over Tony’s hips and leans in to press a few nibbling kisses to his throat that make Tony whimper and press back against him.

“Steve!” Tony cries, distraught, as the angel collapses. “I’m sorry!”

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Bucky says, leaning over him and seriously considering just destroying him while he’s down, then has to do a double take. “Hell’s bells,” he says gleefully. “He came so hard he passed out.”

Bucky tries to convince Tony and Clint to keep going, but Tony is a fretter, and Clint is a follower, so he sighs and helps get Steve laid out on the couch. He does have to admit that it’s pretty adorable when Tony insists on putting a cool cloth over Steve’s forehead, and Clint gamely wets one for him.

Steve comes to a few minutes later with a breathless ‘oh lord I came so hard I went blind.’

This is the best day of his life, Bucky decides gleefully, and informs Steve that he has a washcloth over his eyes.

Steve gets his revenge when they come back from buying cake to find Clint bouncing on Tony’s cock and Bucky trips over nothing and lands face-first into the cake he was holding with a splat.

“My cake!” Tony whines.

Clint draws his attention back to him with a kiss and murmurs, “Guess you’ll just hafta lick it off of him. What a shame.” Tony seems very on-board with this and lets himself be drawn into the kiss.

Steve wonders if he could get away with smearing Clint’s cake all over himself, too, but Bucky looks incredibly uncomfortable with how sticky he is, and honestly, getting the frosting out of his feathers is probably a chore anyway. Steve can just feed Clint his cake with a fork. He likes doing that anyway.

.-.-.-.

Steve and Bucky never really “get along,” but they manage to tolerate each other for their humans’ sakes. It helps that they’re rewarded with kisses and… other favors.

“Still, you guys could at least show off for us once in a while,” Clint mutters petulantly.

Tony lifts his head and makes an interested noise.

“Ugh,” Bucky begins, but cuts himself off with a keening noise when Steve buries his hands in his black feathers and tugs just the right way that Bucky drops to his knees and whines helplessly, at his mercy.

“Wings can be a huge erogenous zone if you know where and how to touch,” Steve explains when he notices Clint and Tony gaping at him.

Bucky gets his revenge by making Steve hump against his thigh uselessly as he fondles his wings in return.

And, well, Steve’s not so bad. Rigid, maybe, because of his beliefs, but open to discussion if you approach him the right way. It helps that Steve admits he was jealous in the beginning, still is a little, because he’d spent so much time and effort and energy and even himself on Tony, and Bucky had so easily and quickly helped Tony when Steve had nearly died trying to do the same thing. Bucky supposes he can respect that. Even now, sometimes Tony’s mood just drops, and Bucky can’t do anything about it. He can’t imagine the struggle of having to choose between charges and then watching as your powers do little to nothing to improve the one you chose.

He doesn’t tell Steve that he just lets Tony be sad, and angry, and despairing, until Tony decides he’s tired of being depressed and shoves the feelings down again. It is, unfortunately, an angel’s nature to try and fix things. Bucky decides to give him just a little more leeway, because he can’t imagine how it feels to fail someone like Steve failed Tony.

It sure is something to be protected by Steve when hunters come after him, though.

“You make Tony happy, is all, and if Tony’s happy, then Clint’s happy,” Steve mutters, blushing a little when Bucky gapes up at him. “They’d be sad if you were destroyed, so I had to protect you. That’s all. Don’t put so much stock in this.”

“I’m telling Tony and Clint you like me,” Bucky answers immediately, and dodges Steve’s outraged swipe gleefully. “I’m telling them. You like me! Just for this, I’ll let you watch me fuck Tony with my tail. One time he rode me so hard I was chafed for days, the greedy little thing.”

Steve mutters to himself petulantly, but, well. He’s noticed Bucky’s tail, too. Maybe he does want to see it in action.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort, but, one by one, he tracks down and kills everyone in the troupe of bandits that had ambushed them and cost him Steve. While he’d searched for the leader of the bandits, a man named Schmidt, he learned that it was actually an assassination plot against Steve. He wonders what they had against Steve, exactly, but decides it doesn’t matter. They both have to die for killing his husband. He knows he’s not good enough to kill Strucker or Baron Zemo, though, so he starts down the path that leads him into becoming the Merchant of Death—he hires another assassin with more skill to take Strucker and the Baron out for him.

The average person doesn’t know what happened to make him as powerful as he is, but they all secretly think that Tony made a deal with the devil for it. How else could he amass an army of ruthless assassins and command such loyalty from them? But the real story is this: He takes in those who have nowhere else to go, feeds and clothes them, gives them shelter, and they remain loyal to him in response. It’s not his fault that those so often cast aside by society, those who need help the most, are often criminals.

But Tony has rules, and his people know they must obey them to continue having his protection, first and foremost being: There must never be an innocent life shed. Even if it extends the assassination, no collateral damage is allowed. Everyone must pay a tithe, which goes to fund medicine and food for all of them. If someone finds the assignment they’ve been given kills an innocent, they must give up the job, and Tony will pay the difference out of his own purse. (And somehow, the person trying to have the innocent person assassinated always has the bad luck of dying soon after.) Tony takes care of his people, so his people are loyal to him.

Tony thinks about giving it up, once. He sees a familiar face in a crowd, and he nearly drops the loaf of bread he’d just bought when he hears the man laugh—it’s a laugh he’s missed as if it was cut out of him. The only reason he doesn’t approach the man is because he’s so afraid to be wrong (and, though he won’t admit it, he’s equally afraid to be right). He has one of his people approach the man instead, and she flirts and she smiles and then manages to mention the Merchant of Death without it being strange or pushy. The man closes off immediately, easy smile hardening into a scowl, and he tries to question her, but she bolts when she realizes the mood has changed.

“It is Steve,” Natalia tells him softly, and apologizes for blundering, but Tony waves her off, says it’s the way Steve’s always been. He waits until he’s alone before he allows himself to ache, heart throbbing with the loss of Steve for a second time, and somehow this one feels more permanent for all that Steve’s alive. He still loves Steve, but… Steve would never forgive him for what he’s become. He’d seen the disgust on his face when Natasha had mentioned the Merchant of Death. So he does the right thing, and Tony Stark dies quietly, and the Merchant of Death continues in his stead.

Clint Barton notices the change in his boss—Tony’s more withdrawn, doesn’t spend as much time with the younger people in his citadel as he had, doesn’t talk or joke as much at supper. Clint knows what a broken heart looks like, and he knows how helpful a rebound can be, so, because he’s a disaster anywhere but on a mission, he falls into bed with Tony. He figures it can’t hurt anything. Tony comes to love him, even trusts him to train the younger assassins. Clint takes his trust and holds it close to his heart, thinks maybe he loves Tony, too.

Clint convinces Tony to farm instead of shelling out for all of their food. Once Tony hesitantly agrees, he teaches anyone who wants to learn how to ready a field for planting, how to sow seed, how to tend to growing crops. He insists on a harvest party, and people drink and eat and can and preserve for the coming winter. It helps get some of the hookers off the streets, gives the children chores so they can’t get into mischief that could lead to trouble. Tony loves Clint for this—loves him with his entire being.

So when Clint comes to him with a grim face after having to bury one of their own, a man who was just barely that, baby-fat still on his face, he knows he’s going to ache again.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Clint whispers, and Tony doesn’t blame him at all, because Clint always took the deaths a little harder than most of the people at the citadel. So he presses a small sack of gold into Clint’s hands, a bag of food and clothes, and sends him on one last mission. After he carries it out, he can be free of this life.

Clint never comes back, and Tony sets his jaw and carries on without him.

The Winter Soldier approaches Tony a few years later, hollow-eyed and jaw set and quietly asking for a patron so he can kill all the people who have made him what he is. Tony thinks he looks familiar, and that adds to his hesitance to take him in. He’s heard things about the Winter Soldier, few of them good, and he knows that attaching his name to the Winter Soldier could put him at greater risk. But the Winter Soldier waits patiently, and in the end, that’s what decides it for Tony—he’s willing to be turned away, so he can stay, as long as he’s willing to take on a few other jobs to put toward tithes, and as long as he follows Tony’s rules.

“No one who has wronged me is innocent,” the Winter Soldier promises, and then, “I will remember this kindness.”

(Somehow, the last part seems like a threat, and Tony is terrified for roughly six months.)

Tony stops being scared of the Winter Soldier when he sees some of the younger kids in the citadel playing, and one of them trips and falls, skinning his knee. The Winter Soldier kneels beside the child and patiently soothes him until he stops crying. Tony does some checking up on the assassin and finds the Winter Soldier’s victims really aren’t innocent, ever—are quite the opposite, in fact. He tries to rescind his stipulation that he take on other jobs between his revenge killings.

“This is fine,” the Winter Soldier says, and then is quiet for several minutes before he quietly offers, “You can call me James.”

It takes years, but eventually James finishes what he started. Everyone who had tortured him is dead. He looks lighter, somehow, like the weight of every life he had yet to take had been lifted. He looks like an entirely different person.

“What will you do now?” Tony asks, curious to know what one does when their life’s purpose is fulfilled. He’s pretty sure he’ll never know the feeling himself. Not anymore.

“Ain’t really done anything else but this,” James admits, shoulders hunching with the admission. “Do you want me to leave?”

“You can stay, if you like,” Tony says, surprised he’d want to, and then he notices James’s eyes flickering over his face, unsure. He wonders where James would go, if this life is all he’s ever known, all he remembers. He looks up at James and instead adds a quiet, pleading, “Stay.”

James leans down to kiss him, and it’s soft and hesitant. Tony knew he was doomed the moment the Winter Soldier delicately reached out to wipe the tears from a child’s face.

Eventually, James notices that some of the others in the citadel disappear quietly into the night. At first he thinks they’re running out on Tony, and as angry as it makes him, he understands. Eventually this life can break even the strongest of men. He’d only been so good himself because he’d been fueled by anger and hate. James recognizes one of the other assassins as someone he’d trained, once, what feels like a lifetime ago. He trusts her, so he mentions it to her, just to get her take on it.

“Tony always lets them go when they ask,” Natalia says, and James nearly swallows his tongue in shock. It makes sense, though. Tony genuinely cares about everyone he takes in, and he’s generous to a fault. Of course he’d let people go if they asked.

(There are some people who don’t ask, who try to hurt Tony before they go, thinking that Tony needs to be dead before they can be truly free. Tony’s tears as he buries them are of both anger and anguish, and James doesn’t understand how he can feel anguish for people who betrayed him, but he’s not stupid enough to say anything about it to his face.)

James does not become… unhappy. He knows he’s lucky to have Tony, to have a semblance of a life after what he’s gone through, and Tony shows him easy affection. But he does become weary. His missions become chores. Something in him grows cold when he looks at the children under Tony’s protection and realizes that they’re the children of criminals and bound to become criminals themselves. It’s an endless cycle of violence and crime and something in him dries and withers when he realizes that Tony, for all his best intents, is contributing to it.

James seriously considers if he could make an honest life for himself. Wonders if Tony could come with him. Knows that Tony won’t. Agonizes over what to do.

Tony watches him, eyes sad and soft, and knows that James is going to leave him, too.

It’s Natalia who puts them out of their misery. “You’re not happy here,” she tells James, and he doesn’t disagree. He loves Tony, but love alone cannot make a person happy. “Ask for his blessing to leave,” she orders, and her eyes are sad—the only way she really shows that it hurts for her to say it. “He’ll let you.”

“He loves me,” James says helplessly. He doesn’t know if it’s an argument or if he’s just stating a fact.

“He does,” Natalia agrees quietly. “But he knows you’ll be happier away from here. Away from him. So he’ll let you go. Tony has only ever wanted people to be happy.” Like he isn’t, she doesn’t say, but James knows that that’s what she means.

He goes to Tony, enjoys dinner and some tender love making. He thinks he can live like this, but now that Natalia has planted the seed, he wonders if that’s really true, if this wouldn’t end up killing him in its own way, seeping slowly through his heart and soul like poison. He pulls Tony close, clutches at him, and shamefully whispers, “I can’t stay here anymore, sweetheart.”

Tony heaves a sigh against his lips, whispers back, “I know.” He’s already gotten a small bag of gold coins together, a bag of food and clothes. He’s only surprised it took James so long to admit that he could no longer stay, now that he could bring himself to make a choice. He’s proud that James is willing to put his own wants and needs first, now, even if it hurts that his wants and needs require him to leave.

James presses delicate kisses to each of Tony’s knuckles, then lifts one hand so he can lean his cheek into Tony’s palm as he begs, “Please don’t think I love you any less.”

“I never do,” Tony says, and he aches, and he wonders how he will ever survive this.

It makes James ache too, because he realizes what Natalia meant, how Tony has let the people he loves go. Clearly he’s not the first. He takes in how weary Tony looks now, and he thinks that he might, at least, be the last. The selfish part of him hopes that he is, but he quashes that part of himself with the part that hopes he will find someone to love him as he deserves.

Tony looks up t him with sad eyes and whispers, “You have one more mission, James. If you can’t see it through, don’t bother ever trying to come back.”

James nods solemnly. “I understand.” He figures he at least owes Tony this. He can do one last thing for the man he loves.

Tony’s lower lip trembles. The words haven’t gotten any easier for as many times as he’s said them. “I need you to kill Steve Rogers,” he says once he’s swallowed down a sob.

James feels as if the air’s been punched out of him. He can’t believe Tony would ask this of him. Then again, maybe he can—maybe Tony is trying to hurt him in response to being hurt. He supposes he can understand that. So he presses a kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth, shoulders his pack, and leaves to track down Steve Rogers.

James does find Steve Rogers, and he understands why Tony had told him to finish the job or don’t come back. Steve Rogers is god-touched. He will not die. (He perhaps has tried to.) Even the most skilled assassins could not slay him, because the gods had not yet deemed it the right time for him. James remembers Steve Rogers always being more lucky than skilled in a fight. He can hold his own now, though, strong and steady and measured. The years have been kind to him. (They haven’t been in other ways. He looks tired even as he accepts a kiss from another blond man, as he teaches someone who James recognizes as the Red Witch how to weave. He spends hours watching the night sky before the other blond—Clint, James learns—gently bullies him inside.)

James remembers loving Steve, and being loved by Steve, until a charming boy named Anthony came to the village, along with the promise of the Starks’ protection if only their town would offer someone to hand-fast with him. They were the only two of age at the time, and Steve still was the only one with enough sense of duty to the village to take the offer. He remembers feeling angry and jealous until he overheard Anthony whispering to Steve that he understood what his parents were asking for was unfair, and if Steve wanted to find his pleasures with someone he actually cared for after their consummation, that would be alright. James hadn’t had the heart to hate him after that, and Steve, who had enough love for the world, had only needed a little push before he was falling head-over-heels for Anthony.

And then Steve had been “killed” by the Red Skull and his bandits, and Tony had thrown himself after him in despair, and the Starks couldn’t get weapons or guards to the village in time to deflect the legion of Hydra soldiers that came to take it in the wake of the Stark heir’s demise.

James wonders if Steve knows that Tony is alive. Doubts it. Wonders why Clint never told him. Hears Steve raging to the heavens over the people the Merchant of Death has sent after him to their own demise and promising retribution.

(Clint clenches his jaw. The Red Witch turns her head away, silent. A few other faces James recognizes look at Steve, emotionless, and when he asks them why they continue to protect the Merchant of Death after he sent them to die, they also turn away without a word.)

((Tony knew that Steve would take in anyone with a sob story, and what could possibly cause more tears than an assassin dropping to their knees in front of the man they’ve been sent to kill, knowing it’s impossible, and sobbing out, “I can’t.” They look like the victim, and Steve’s always had a hero complex. It makes Tony look like an even bigger villain, but Tony had been resigned to that ever since he first saw Steve’s disgust for him.))

Steve cries when he opens the door to James. “I thought I’d lost you forever,” he whispers, clutching at him. Like Tony, he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t need to. “When I finally got back to the village, you were—I couldn’t—” He leans back, patting James to see if he’s injured. “How did you find me?”

James looks at him for a very long time, thoughtful, before he finally says, “I was sent by the Merchant of Death to kill you.”

Steve is silent for several long seconds before he lets out a noise of rage and helplessness and endless agony. “You must tell me where he is,” he insists immediately. “Please, Bucky, you must tell me. If I’m to stop him—”

“I must tell you nothing,” James whispers harshly, and Steve’s mouth closes with a click in surprise. “If the people he’s sent here to kill you have died, that’s no one’s fault but their own. He gave them the chance to leave. It’s not his fault they decided to try and kill someone god-touched instead.”

The Red Witch tilts her head, silently agreeing. Clint sets another plate at the table for him. James intends to only stay a few days, but then a nanny goat rejects her kid, and he takes care of it, and by the time he remembers he was going to leave, he’s settled.

“Was he okay?” Clint asks one night after Steve has fallen asleep.

James doesn’t look up from the little dog he’s carving out of wood as he softly answers, “No. But I think he’s been used to not being okay for a long time now.” He lifts his head just long enough to give Steve a long, contemplative look before returning his attention to his knife, the block of wood in his other hand. He knows that Tony hasn’t truly been okay since he threw himself off a bridge after Steve.

Then one day Natalia arrives, but instead of going after Steve, she goes directly to Wanda. “Something is wrong.”

Wanda considers this for a moment before tilting her head. “He’s asking me back?”

Natalia is quiet, perhaps maybe hoping that if she stalls long enough, Wanda will ignore the question. Finally, though, she admits, “He doesn’t know I’ve come.”

Wanda knows, just from this admission, that something dire has happened. Tony would never be selfish enough to call her back, especially not since her brother was killed while under his protection. She’d blamed Tony for Pietro’s death, and she’d left without speaking to him, but now, years later, she understands it wasn’t really Tony’s fault, even if Tony himself doesn’t. She knows that something must be terribly wrong if Natalia is here to ask for her help against Tony’s wishes. “I must finish my chores,” she finally answers.

Natalia nods once, sharply. “Understood,” she says, and then turns on her heel and walks away. She doesn’t wait. Wanda knows the way to the citadel.

Clint and James know the way, too, and wait until after Steve has fallen asleep before creeping out and rushing back to Tony’s side. They realize something is very wrong when they get back to Tony’s citadel and there’s no one there. No old men comparing scars from the war, or women gossiping, or children playing. There are no people tending to the fields, which have gone barren, plants dry and withered. There’s a figure skulking in the shadows every once in a while, but for the most part, the citadel is empty.

They rush to Tony’s home, to his room, and then come to an abrupt stop when they find Wanda’s red hands hovering over Tony’s chest, the only thing truly warm in the room. Tony’s lips are pale, and his breath is coming out in little cloudy puffs as if it’s as cold as deep winter, even though it’s sweltering with the summer heat.

“What’s wrong?” Clint whispers, terrified, but Wanda doesn’t turn.

It’s Natalia, hunched on herself and shivering in the corner, who says, “He’s lost his heart.”

They don’t understand what it means, that Tony’s “lost his heart.” Tony’s always had enough heart for everyone, providing food during famine and blankets during winter and even rocking babies so tired mothers could catch a few winks. Tony’s got more heart than anyone in the world.

“Magic comes in threes,” Wanda says, eyes glowing. “And the Old Magic doesn’t care that he made his deal after one thing has already happened. Old Magic doesn’t care that one of his losses happened before he made his deal, sold himself.”

They learn that the rumors are true, in a way. Tony didn’t sell his soul to the devil, but he did go to one of the few practitioners of Old Magic still alive and promised his heart to become the Merchant of Death. She’d promised him that the spell would be broken after falling in love three times, and he would most certainly die if none of those loves stayed with him. And even knowing that, having those terms hanging over his head, Tony had loved them and let them leave him anyway.

“What do we do?” Clint asks helplessly. “Wanda, what do we do?”

Wanda frowns. “Magic comes in threes,” she repeats unhappily.

No one says what they all know is true—they need Steve, but Steve would never lift a finger to help the Merchant of Death. Clint and James clutch at Tony’s hands, helpless, angry. Even if Steve would deign to help them, they don’t have time to go get him and bring him back. They understand, but that doesn’t make it any easier. They just hope that Tony wakes up long enough for them to apologize for leaving him and tell him they love him one last time.

Tony is just beginning to stir, and everyone is holding their breaths waiting for him to wake, and they choose to let that be their excuse as to why they were all caught unawares when the door to the room is kicked in. Everyone throws themselves in front of Tony’s bed protectively, and Clint and James flinch when they realize it’s Steve standing in the doorway, looking hurt and betrayed but, most of all, livid.

“MOVE,” he snarls, lifting his shield, and Natalia and Wanda hesitate before moving aside, because there’s no helping Tony, not anymore, and he’d hate if they died on his account. Clint and James don’t, and it just makes Steve angrier. “Move, or I’ll move you,” he says sternly.

Clint and James look at each other, wordlessly agreeing to be moved, and then look back at Steve. Steve looks stricken for a moment, but then he swallows it down, instead readying himself for a fight. Clint and James don’t arm themselves, but they prepare to put up a struggle anyway. They know they won’t win against Steve in all of his god-touched glory, but they’re already grieving Tony, and they will fight to have those last few precious minutes with him. They will never forgive Steve if he takes away their chance to say goodbye.

Then they hear a soft, mournful ‘no’ and Tony is suddenly in front of them, struggling to stay on his feet, blue magic snapping and crackling weakly over his hands, because of course he would try to protect them with his dying breath. He looks at Steve and makes another mournful sound, knees giving out beneath him as he throws a few small sparks at him. He crumples to the floor. He doesn’t have the strength to fight. He would never have had the strength to fight Steve anyway, though.

Steve lunges at him, brushing the magic off easily, and Clint and James leap forward as well, but they’re not fast enough, watching in horror as Steve raises his shield over Tony’s head, brings it down. It stops, just a hair’s width away from Tony’s head. Steve makes a desperate, aggravated sound before dropping to his knees with a sob, shield clattering across the floor as he pulls Tony to his chest, clutching him hard enough to bruise. “Why,” he sobs helplessly. “Tony, Tony, why?”

“I wasn’t what you wanted anymore,” Tony whispers into his throat.

“You had no right to decide that for me. That was my decision and you took that from me. You took yourself from me,” Steve whispers, voice shaking.

“I’m not worth keeping,” Tony promises him. “Not anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Clint says angrily, but Tony only makes a soft disagreeing noise, falling limp against Steve’s chest with a sigh that feels like ice against his skin.

“Tony, no,” James croaks, and he and Clint kneel on either side of them, reaching out to clutch wherever they can reach.

Wanda seizes the moment and weaves her magic, smoothing broken edges and fitting them together again. Magic comes in threes, and Tony has always feared her powers, but he’s also always trusted her to use them properly. She owes him this, for saving her and her brother as children. She owes him this, because he was not greedy. And for once, she’d like to use her magic to help someone live instead of sending them to their graves. She just hopes that she’s not too late.

She isn’t, but barely.

Steve gently hefts Tony into his arms, presses a kiss to his clammy brow. “I’ve got you, beloved,” he murmurs, and Tony lets out a whimper so quiet it almost doesn’t exist. “It’s time to come home.”

Tony can’t even manage the strength to sob, but they all see the twin tears roll down his cheek when he finally allows his eyes to drift closed, still looking up at Steve, as if afraid he’ll be gone when he opens them again.

Clint and Bucky reach out at the same time, brushing the tears away gently, and Clint tenderly cups Tony’s cheek and whispers, “This isn’t the life for you anymore either, Tony.”

Tony lets out a shuddering sigh before his head tips back, passed out. Bucky gently eases his head up to lean against Steve’s shoulder.

Steve presses another kiss to Tony’s forehead before turning to leave. “Come on,” he says, sounding endlessly tired. “Let’s go home.”

Clint and Wanda follow immediately, but Bucky begs off under the guise of packing what little Tony still owns; an amulet with his family’s crest that he’d hidden away, a few books. Natalia helps him find the things that Tony had certainly intended to never look at again—a sketch of his parents, a handful of letters between he and Steve that hadn’t been destroyed by the bandits, a single dried flower that Bucky recognizes with a lurch of his heart as the same kind that had made up Tony’s bouquet when they’d hand-fasted in their village.

“You could come, you know,” Bucky says, and Natalia pauses, hands hovering over a lacy handkerchief with the initials M.C.S. on it. “You don’t have to live this life any longer, Natalia.”

Natalia’s hands shake as she wraps the handkerchief around a smooth gemstone. “This is all I’ve ever known,” she says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Bucky’s gaze is kind as he points out, “You’ve known Tony and his tender heart longer than you knew the Red Room.”

Natalia goes silent, and Bucky doesn’t push, instead folding everything safely into the blanket on Tony’s bed. Better to keep it all in one place so he doesn’t lose anything. He’s certain that if he did, Tony would only feel guilty for making him carry it in the first place, though. He doesn’t understand how Tony could believe he wasn’t what Steve wanted anymore; he has the same bleeding heart he’d had when they’d first hand-fasted, and that was what Steve had loved the most about him.

“I suppose,” Natalia says haltingly, and Bucky carefully doesn’t stop moving, because he doesn’t want to spook her. “I… I suppose I should make sure that you idiots don’t hurt Tony.”

“We are pretty stupid, leaving him like that,” Bucky agrees, nodding.

“Well, he’s pretty stupid too, not knowing his husband would take him back regardless of what he’s done,” Natalia offers.

Bucky tilts his head, conceding. “He was always like that, though.”

Natalia turns to frown at him severely. “Were you trying to make me feel better? You failed.”

Bucky shrugs, unconcerned, and turns to finally follow the others. He’s not worried when Natalia doesn’t follow him. She needs time to think and, perhaps, time on her own to figure out what she really wants to do.

“Why?” Steve gasps, clutching the quickly-healing stab wound in stomach.

“Hmm,” Natalia replies. “You really are god-touched.” She stabs him in the shoulder for good measure.  “You deserve this for hurting Tony.”

“Ow! Just because I won’t die doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!” Steve exclaims, and moves to slap her away, but she moves before he can.

“Oh my God stop!” Clint shouts, swatting her with a towel. “Now I’ve got to mend his shirt. If the blood doesn’t come out I’m stabbing you.”

Natalia ignores him, instead stepping around Bucky to approach Tony where he’s propped up on several pillows and smiling sleepily at her. “You’re still weak?”

Tony manages the tiniest of shrugs, and the amount of effort it takes clearly makes him uncomfortable. “When you’re that close to death before you’re snatched back, your recovery is very slow.”

“Hmm,” Natalia acknowledges, reaching out to cup his hollow cheeks to tip his head this way and that. “You need to eat.”

Tony manages to hum an agreement, but even that seems to weigh on him.

Bucky comes up beside her and knocks shoulders with her companionably. “He drinks a lot of broth, but we’re trying to get him back on solid food. Few bites every half hour. Seems to be working.”

“You eat like a bird,” Natalia tells Tony, and he hums again. “You’re frail like one too. Guess I’ll have to protect you until you’re back to normal.”

“Wanda says it could take years for that,” Steve says, and then, “Ow, that really hurt, there’s a lot of muscles in shoulders, you know—”

“Someone can kiss it better for you,” Natalia replies, unsympathetic. She looks back down at Tony and decides that she will wait until Tony is all better as her excuse to stay close to him. “I don’t care who kisses you, just don’t do it in front of me.”

Steve tilts his head, considering this.

“I’m not kissing your bloody shoulder,” Clint says immediately. “Gross.”

Bucky grimaces at the thought. “Ugh, I’ve kissed enough of your cut lips after fights to last a lifetime, thanks.”

“I’ll kiss it better, Steve,” Tony offers, and the other three turn to look at him with the softest eyes.

“Are they always like that?” Natalia asks Wanda later, as the other woman shows her how to carefully break apart and sort wool.

Wanda, having not seen or heard what happened, still answers with a firm and immediate, “Yes.” Because they are always like that.

“Gross,” Natalia says, but she’s smiling a little. She works on the wool silently for a while, then says, “I think I will stop being Natalia.”

“Changing your name can be a kind of magic on its own,” Wanda says when she doesn’t continue. “Some people grow out of their names. It’s a great privilege to be able to rename yourself.”

Natalia thinks about it. She’s always been Natalia. Natalia has always been a killer, though, from the time she’d been shoved into the Red Room as a child. She’d never really gotten to be a child. She thinks she might like to be one for a while—getting to fail and learn from it without the threat of her death hanging over her. Getting to be selfish without getting hurt. Getting to love a parental figure unconditionally. It doesn’t have to be for long; she just wants to have those experiences at least once.

“I will be Natasha,” she declares, and it feels right. It feels as if something inside of her has settled.

Wanda smiles and nods. “Nice to meet you, Natasha.”

Bucky, Clint, and Steve struggle to remember her name, but they’re idiots, so she’s patient with them.

When Tony wakes up from one of his many naps, he doesn’t even need to be told, and calls her Natasha immediately. Natasha keeps an eye on Tony while Steve, Clint, and Bucky have to tend the fields, the animals, the workers. Tony only puts up a little fuss at first, but then he’s too tired to maintain it.

It’s during one of these times, when it’s just the two of them, that Natasha quietly asks, “Are you happy, Tony?”

Tony looks up at her, and he manages a smile so wide that it makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I am loved, Natasha, and I thought I never would be again, not like this. Yes. I am very happy.”