ambersnake replied to your post âHi, I saw your "this week in writing" post and got a short question. I...â
Does this mean you may one day finish Threetooâs story? ïżœïżœ
Of all the things I could possibly come back to the MCU to write, that is probably the likeliest?Â
I mean, that or like, 200K angst-filled Falcon and Winter Soldier fic, because. Who knows. That is what I tend to do with fun buddy-cop hijinks source material. :D
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Dira do you think that in light of the one year anniversary, we could get a little snnipet of the next All the Burning Hearts in Hell installment? You know.... to carry us over the long drought :))
Sure! Iâd been thinking I should do this anyway, and Iâm 30k into writing the next story, so⊠A chapter is a snippet, right?
Slavefic #6 picks up exactly where The Sacrifice Play left off, so you may want to reread at least Chapter 9 of The Sacrifice Play if itâs been, say, a year since you read it.
When Steve had been lying still and quiet for a little while, he found his ears attuned to Buckyâs breathing. He winced when he recognized the sound of it: carefully even and shallow, without the slightest accompanying sound of movement. That was Bucky in pain, or lying awake in the night trying not to give himself away.
Steve had always figured, when he lay in camp listening to Bucky breathing like that, that he was remembering the factory at Kreischbergâhis imprisonment, and that table Steve had found him on. Now that Steve knew what Bucky had survived, he couldnât help wondering if it was more than that keeping Bucky awake at nightâhad he felt himself changing in slow motion the way Steve had changed inside Howardâs Vita-Ray chamber? Had he known what Zola did to him, or had he been left to wonder?
Would he ever remember enough of those nights to tell Steve what his nightmares had been, or had other nightmares long since blotted them out?
After an agonizing three-quarters of an hour, the sound of Buckyâs breathing changed to something even more familiar. The softness of sleep, real sleep, which Steve had heard in his ear and felt against the back of his neck more times than he could count. He fell into something like a doze himself, lulled by the sweetness of it and the sudden release of tension.
When Steve had been lying stilland quiet for a little while, he found his ears attuned to Buckyâs breathing.He winced when he recognized the sound of it: carefully even and shallow,without the slightest accompanying sound of movement. That was Bucky in pain,or lying awake in the night trying not to give himself away.
Steve had always figured, when helay in camp listening to Bucky breathing like that, that he was remembering thefactory at Kreischbergâhis imprisonment, and that table Steve had found himon. Now that Steve knew what Bucky had survived, he couldnât help wondering ifit was more than that keeping Bucky awake at nightâhad he felt himselfchanging in slow motion the way Steve had changed inside Howardâs Vita-Raychamber? Had he known what Zola did to him, or had he been left to wonder?
Would he ever remember enough ofthose nights to tell Steve what his nightmares had been, or had othernightmares long since blotted them out?
After an agonizing three-quartersof an hour, the sound of Buckyâs breathing changed to something even morefamiliar. The softness of sleep, real sleep, which Steve had heard in his earand felt against the back of his neck more times than he could count. He fellinto something like a doze himself, lulled by the sweetness of it and thesudden release of tension.Â
When a distant sound woke him,there was a second when he didnât know where he was, only that Bucky was near.Was it their day off, precious hours wasted drowsing in the park? Were theynapping in camp ahead of a night raid?
He opened his eyes and saw thepotted plant and the skylight, and recognized the soft pad of approachingfootsteps. StarkâStark the younger. Tony.Â
Steve got silently to his feetand strode out of the bedslavesâ quarters, shutting the door noiselessly behindhim. He reached the doorway of Starkâs bedroom when Stark was only a couple ofsteps away.
Stark stopped short. He wascarrying a tray of food in assorted bite-sized pieces, including a little bowlof some kind of rainbow-colored bon bons, and for the barest instant he lookedsurprised to see Steve there. Steve held up a hand and stepped out into thehall, pulling the door shut after him.Â
âHe just fell asleep, maybeten minutes ago,â Steve said softly. âThe worst of the headachemustâve passed, but I donât think heâll be ready to eat until he wakes up onhis own."Â
Stark looked past Steve, as ifThreetoo might materialize behind him, and said, "The worst ofwhat headache.â
âOh,â Steve said.Right, heâd only recognized it himself from seeing how dark Bucky had made hissleeping area, and the plant, and what heâd heard. âYeah, he⊠he made itpitch black where his bed is, and I could hear him being real careful drinkingthat juice, like he felt sick, so I figured⊠sick headache. I had a bunch ofâem when I was a kid, for weeks after I got my bell rung real hard in a fight.He hit his head yesterday, didnât he?â
Steve felt a little sick himselfas his memory answered his own question with the sick sound of Buckyâs headhitting the floor of Starkâs lab.Â
âSick headache,â Starkrepeated, shoving the tray in Steveâs direction as he rubbed his eyes with hisfree hand. âMigraine. But it didnât start yesterday, did it? JARVIS, howdid we miss this? The other day, he asked for darkââ
âHe felt sick first,sir,â JARVIS pointed out. âThe headache appeared to follow after. Hehas made his sleeping area artificially dark twice before, but there was noreason to conclude that he was experiencing migraine symptoms."Â
"But now there is, so is he?Was he?â Stark demanded. âDid weââ Stark focused sharply onSteve again. âYouâre sure heâs sleeping? Heâs not lying there in pain?â
âI mean, I canât guaranteehe hasnât woken up in the last two minutes,â Steve said, gesturing to theclosed door. âBut I know he fell asleep maybe ten minutes ago. Hisbreathing changed. Relaxed."Â
Stark stared at him for a coupleof seconds, utterly still, and then shook his head and turned away, muttering,"Right. You know the sound of his breathing. Of course. Okay. JARVIS, checkwith Cho about migraine options and what we can do without her physicallyexamining him. And tell me the second he pushes the curtain back.â
âOf course, sir,âJARVIS assured him.Â
Stark didnât seem at allreassured. He took a couple of abortive steps, one direction and then theother, obviously worried about Threetoo and not knowing what to do with himselfwhen he couldnât help.
Steve was familiar with thefeeling. He raised the tray of food into Starkâs eye line and said, âIâmguessing this was your lunch as well as his?"Â
Tony stopped, narrowing his eyes,and said, "I know for a fact that he did not have a chance to tell youitâs your job to make sure I eat. And itâs not your job. Or his.â
âOkay,â Steve saidagreeably. âBut thereâs this food thatâs gonna go to waste, sinceâ"Â
Steve stopped short, experiencinga weird retrospective recognition as the words I know youâre notgoing to feed this to him if itâs not fresh occurred to him. Theblueberries DUM-E had brought to him, a carton discarded half-full. All theones left had been crushed or oddly shaped or otherwise imperfect. And Steveknew that Bucky liked blueberries. He was willing to bet that Tony knew it,too, and only gave him the best.
Stark ran a hand through his hairand then nodded, gesturing toward the stairs to the lower level. "Yeah,okay. I want the actual story on you and himâand, hey, medical history. Youknow his?"Â
"Uh,â Steve said.âWell, up to 1945, I guess. Roughly.â
Stark raised his eyebrows, butdidnât ask any more questions until they were down in the kitchen, the tray onthe island between them. Tony waved Steve toward a stool, so he perched therewhile Tony paced around, fetching drinks and napkins and setting the dish ofbrightly-colored bon bons pointedly to one side before he picked up a crackerfrom the tray and popped it into his mouth, waving at Steve to follow suit.Â
âSo,â Tony said.âFrom the beginning.â
âWell,â Steve said,building a tiny cracker-and-chicken-and-cheese sandwich from the tray. âMyfolks were enslaved in exchange for passage from Ireland in 1916âŠ"Â
He expected Tony to get impatientand tell him to talk about Bucky, or the war, but Tony just nodded, watchinghim intently and continuing to eat, so Steve kept talking between bites,explaining that his mother had been pregnant with him when his father waskilled in the Great War and was emancipated as his death benefit. He told himhow Buckyâs family had been better off, how he and Bucky had lived only a fewblocks apart but in subtly different worlds, since the Barnesesâ flat had beenquite a different place from the tenement apartment Steve shared with his ma.
"I always knew where I washeaded,â Steve said. âMa didnât like it, didnât want that for me,but⊠times were hard, and me being sick a lot didnât make it any easier. Butwhen Bucky was sixteen, he suddenly just started talking about doing the same,and thatâhe didnât have to do that. But I⊠I was already crazy about him,and he made it sound like an adventure, like weâdâŠ"Â
Steve shook his head. "So Ididnât argue. And I didnât realize until after weâd done it that he⊠he wascoming with me because he felt the same way I did. Then it was too late for ustoâ"Â
Steve glanced at Stark, who wasfrowning into midair and rubbing a piece of cheese into fragments between histhumb and finger, and did not explain about the cock-lock.
"Well. We saw each other asmuch as we could, but service didnât leave us much free time. And then thewar⊠Buck got put down for the slave draft right away, although they didnâttake him for training until the middle of '42. Me, I kept trying to get myselfon the list, but no dice. I was 4F, unfit.â
That got Stark to look at him,his gaze raking meaningfully up and down as he chewed another cracker. Stevedid not blush.Â
âBefore Dr. Erskine andHoward got involved, I was five foot four, maybe a hundred pounds dripping wet.Asthma, family history of diabetes, TB exposure, touch of heart arrhythmia eversince I had scarlet fever as a kid. But they had this experimental program, andDr. Erskine decided that I was the perfect test subject, soâŠâ Steve madea little ta-da! gesture at himself.
âSo thatâs how you got intothe war,â Stark said. âBut Barnes was already in the 107th by then,straight infantry. Â Already deployed?â
Steve nodded. âI, uhâŠErskine was killed by a Nazi agentâHYDRA, their deep science divisionâand noone could replicate what heâd done. They sent me to a lab for a while to studyme, what the serum actually changed and all, see if they could find  a way to reverse engineer it. No luck, and Iwas stuck there until Howard pulled me out and started bringing me around tolook good in uniform for whoever he was doing deals with. He brought me alongto Europe, into Italy when he went to meet up with the SSR brass there, andthatâs how I found out most of the 107th had been captured by HYDRAâs own shocktroops. The ones taken were mostly slaves. No one was planning on rescuingthem, and Bucky was⊠unaccounted for. So I, uh⊠I convinced Howard to dropme into Austria to go find them."Â
Stark stared at him. "DropyouâŠâ
âFrom a plane,â Stevesupplied, although he had a feeling that that wasnât really what Stark washaving difficulties with. âI mean, with a parachute, and some prototypegear. That was part of why he brought me along, to model and test some stuff hewas developing for the Army."Â
Including the ridiculouscombination thermal underwear and partial body armor which Howard had insistedon getting up in a gaudy American flag design, but Steve wasnât going todescribe that to Stark if he could possibly avoid it.Â
Well. There was the silver liningto Buckyâs amnesia, because God knew otherwise he would probably remember everyinch of that outfit in loving detail and would feel no compunction indescribing it. Heâd had a funny fascination with it, even after Howardredesigned it into something Steve didnât have to cover with fatigue pants anda leather jacket to be halfway decent in public. Heâd bitched from time to timeabout the hazards of Steveâs anti-camouflage, but he never actually lobbied forSteve to change to something more practical.
Stark had his head in his hands,and Steve dragged himself back to the point. "Thatâs whereâI think thathas to be when heâhe got⊠changed. So he survived what happenedafterward.â
Starkâs head jerked up at that.âHe wasnâtâŠ"Â
Steve shook his head. "Asfar as I know, the US never tried again after me. Howard sure hadnât draggedalong his Vita-Ray machine to Europe. But Bucky had been taken away from theother prisonersâthey said the ones who got taken away never came back, but Ifound him. Strapped down on a table. I think⊠Zola. Arnim Zola, one of thetop HYDRA scientists, heâdâI think heâd done something to him.â
Steve had known the least part ofit: that Bucky was cock-locked, after that. He hadnât pressed to know what Zolahad done beyond that, and it was obvious now that that had been by far theleast of it.Â
âEven at the time, I had anidea there was something, but I never⊠we didnât talk about it, and he saidhe wanted to stay in, wanted to come with me and keep fighting HYDRA. The SSRput us on that directly, a strike force that just went after HYDRA bases anddestroyed them however we could. Behind enemy lines like that, it was better tosend slavesâat least if we got captured by regular army, we had someprotections under the Geneva Convention, more than free soldiers. ObviouslyHYDRA didnât care about that, but still better us than anybody else. We weretrying to capture Zola himself when Buckâwhen he fell. But he survived, whichmeansâŠâ
Stark looked away. âYousaid⊠as a sniper, you saidâŠ"Â
"Yeah,â Steve said,swallowing hard. âYeah, I think⊠I never fought beside him before Zolagot him, and I didnât really know what a normal sharpshooter was like. But Ithink he⊠he was really something special. So maybe that was⊠a sign, and Ijust didnât get it.â
There was a little silence. Steveforced himself to eat another few tidbits off the tray, thinking of rations andBuckyâs lean and hungry look during the war, smoking all of Steveâs cigaretterations as well as his own. Had he been starving then, the way Steve would onnormal rations? Had Steve been letting Bucky go hungry while he wolfed downtriple rations in front of him?Â
âBone density,â Starksaid. âWhat aboutâbone density? Dr. Cho noticed something about his bonedensity that made her realize he needed the same stuff as you to beanesthetized. What was that about?â
Steve frowned, thinking about theway Bucky had held his rifle. Recoil couldnât have done what the shield did,could it? But then⊠sheâd been working on what was left of his left arm.Whatever impacts that had been taking must have been after.
âMy hands,â Steve said,showing Stark his palms, as if it would be visible. âI, uh⊠I hadthis⊠shield. And I used to throw it, catch it on a ricochetââ Stevestruck the palm of his left hand with the side of his right, demonstrating.âIt hurt like hell at first. I got better at the angles, but⊠apparentlymy bone density is a lot higher right there, too. My body adapted."Â
Stark nodded, snagged a couple ofcubes of cheese and slapped them into his mouth. "Okay. And the anestheticthing? Tell me whatever you know about that, in case we need to tinker aroundgetting him a headache remedy.â
âWell, my metabolism isapparently four times faster than normal?â Steve offered. âI, uh⊠Ihad to have minor surgery once, at Alamogordo. Howard figured out how to keep meunderâof course, that was ether gas, I donât think they use thatanymore?"Â
Stark thankfully didnât ask himwhat the surgery had been, just started questioning him about the ether.
Threetoo woke up feeling groggyand halfway between sick and starving. Everything was dark and warm andâŠsoft, and for a moment he thought that he could just snuggle in and go back tosleep, and then the memory slammed into him likeâÂ
Like a fire extinguisher,knocking him flat.
Steve. Hismaster had brought Steve to the penthouse, to be his second bedslave, forThreetoo to train. Instead of doing anything useful, Threetoo had been seizedwith the punishment pain, worse than it had ever been, so bad he could hardlystay upright. He had begged off immediately, and left his master to show Stevearound, to get him settled.
Threetooâs mindâs eye suppliedvisions of Steve kneeling by his masterâs feet, his master gently explainingthat he was safe here while feeding Steve his lunch, running his fingersthrough the dark gold of Steveâs hair and running his hands over Steveâsperfectly smooth skin. For a weak, cowardly moment Threetoo considered hidinguntil he provoked his master into coming to find him, but he rejected thatthought as soon as it formed.Â
This was Threetooâs project, as much as his masterâs. And if his master was pleased to have Steve,pleased to touch and talk to him and teach him, then that was all to the good,because his master would be happy, and Steve would be safe and good.
Threetoo tugged his curtain back,letting in what turned out to be less light than he expected. That wasnât bad,and even if it was, he was going to go and find them and help teach Stevewhatever he needed to learn, no matter how badly it hurt.Â
Before he could even climb out ofthe pillow box, JARVIS said, "Please stay where you are, 32557038. Mr.Stark is on his way to speak to you.â
Threetoo winced, curling down,and the throb in his head that had only just died away started up again.Â
âHey,â his master said,only seconds later. âHey, sweetheart. On a scale of zero to ten, with zerobeing "doesnât hurt at allâ and ten being âI cannot move or signbecause I am in so much pain and I need urgent medical care or I mightdie,â howâs your head right now?â
Threetoo raised his head to lookat his master, mentally assigning ten to the otherwiseindescribable experience of the day before. He raised two fingers.Â
"Mm, two means you onlynotice it when you focus on it. Is that right?â
Threetoo raised a third finger.Â
âOkay,â his mastersaid, smiling a little stiffly and settling a warm hand on the back of hisneck. âThank you for telling me that, Threetoo. Good data. Iâll get you acopy of the scale so you can assign numbers consistently going forward. Before,when you came in here to lie down, what number was that?â
Threetoo winced. His mastersqueezed gently on his neck, rubbing firmly with his thumb and finger.âLetâs say nine is 'can barely move or think because of painâ and eight is'pain is so severe itâs hard to think, talk, or listen, and very hard to moveor do anything else.â Do I need to describe seven?"Â
Threetoo shook his head the tinybit that his masterâs grip allowed and signed, eight.
"Eight is a lot,â hismaster said quietly. âEight is way more than I ever want you to feelwithout telling me about it, because eight means we should be doing everythingwe can to make it better as soon as possible. I mean, Iâd like to be doingsomething about three right now, but Dr. Cho says all she can do reliably atthis point is make you unconscious, so itâs probably overkill for athree."Â
Threetoo stared at him. Hismaster hadnât actually asked him a question, so he technically didnât have toreply. That was a good thing, because he had no idea what to say.
"Have you been havingheadaches that get really intense, that make it painful to see light? Make youfeel sick? Maybe cause other weird effects? Make you feel too cold or hot, orsee lights in your peripheral vision, orâŠ"Â
Threetoo nodded slowly.
"Okay,â his mastersaid. âI wish you would have told me about that, but to be fair I didnâtthink to ask. Those headaches are called migraines, sweetheart. They happensometimes if youâve had a head injury, which I think you probably had evenbefore yesterday. They also happen sometimes just for no reason. Lots of peopleget them, and I donât know if weâll ever be able to make sure that they donâthappen at all, but we can at least get you some pain relief when they do happen,even if itâs only making sure that we help you go to sleep right away when itgets bad. Being in pain isnât good for you, itâs just like beingpunishedâ"Â
Threetooâs lips parted, his handtwitched, and then he looked sharply away.
His masterâs hand tightened, thenwent back to the slow, rhythmic rubbing.Â
"Threetoo,â his mastersaid quietly. âLook at me, please.â
Threetoo dragged his gaze up tohis masterâs, trying not to tremble, trying not to even breathe. His masterlooked tired again, the way he had yesterday, and nearly as unhappy.Â
âThreetoo, sweetheart,project number one,â he said softly. âDid you think you were beingpunished?â
Threetoo closed his eyes andnodded.Â
What else could it mean? Itwasnât an injuryâhe hadnât known about migraines untilhis master told himâso it had to be a punishment, didnât it? Masters could dothings from far away, through chips and⊠and other things.
âThreetoo,â his mastersaid, his voice very quiet and small now. âDid you think I was punishingyou by making your head hurt like that? And not telling you why, or what youdid wrong, and talking all the time about not wanting to ever punish you, andpunishing you anyway?"Â
Threetoo squeezed his eyes shuttighter, feeling them sting with tears, and shook his head hard. He raised hishand to sign no, and thenâbecause he knew his masterneeded good dataâI thought maybe. At first. But you said. So I knewit wasnât you. Because you wouldnât.
"Okay,â his master saidquietly, and there was a press of lips against his forehead that didnât stopthe throbbing in his head from rising into what was probably a four.âOkay, I⊠Iâm glad. But⊠who did you think was punishing you? Or wasit just⊠cosmic punishment, floating around randomly?"Â
Threetoo swallowed. He hadnât thoughtabout it, really, but⊠he hadthoughtâbelievedâknownâthat the pain was punishment,even while he knew his master wouldnât inflict pain on him. And no one else wasauthorized by his master to do so; no former master held that power over himany longer.
And that only left one personresponsible. One person who had access to him and definitely had no right tointerfere with his masterâs goals by inflicting pain on his masterâsnumber one project.
Me, Threetoosigned, before falling back to the safety of referring to himself bydesignation instead. 3-2. 3-2 punished. 3-2 knew 3-2deserved.
"Ohââ his mastermoved, and then his arms were around Threetoo, drawing him up out of thepillows and into his masterâs lap, cuddling him close against his masterâschest. âOkay, so. On the one handâI really really donât want you to dothat, Threetoo. Even if you know youâve done something wrong, even if it seemsreally bad, I⊠I donât want you to hurt yourself, not in any way, ever. Okay?Because I want you to heal and get better and be safe. Right?"Â
Threetoo hid his face against hismasterâs chest, nodding. He did know that. He did, and his stomach was a stone,his whole spine and skull ablaze with tension and pain because he knew he haddone what his master didnât want.
"And on the other hand, andthis is the really important hand right nowââ His masterâs actual handstroked down his spine and back up to the nape of his neck, then down again.Â
âI need you to remember thatit was never punishment, Threetoo. It was never anyoneâs fault, includingyours. Especially yours. Even if you thought you were punishing yourselfâitwasnât punishment, and it wasnât your fault. It was just a fact about your bodythat we didnât understand yet. But itâs not your fault.â
Threetoo didnât want tocontradict his master, butâŠÂ
He raised his hand, enough sothat JARVIS could see it if not his master, and signed, Occurrencenot random. Correlated to infractions.
âMm,â his master said,still petting up and down his spine. âWell, hey, guess what, correlationdoes not equal causation. Thatâs science, baby. Iâm not gonna ask you to layout for me what infractions you think youâve been committing, but whatever theywere, I bet your migraines also correlate with you being stressed because youthought you did something wrong. Stress, worry, that cando a lot of things to your body. Raises your blood pressure. Brings onmigraines, sometimes, if thatâs what your bodyâs predisposed to."Â
Threetoo leaned against hismaster, and breathed, and felt the pain and tension subsiding under hismasterâs touch. That had happened beforeâhis master had touched him gently,reassured him, and if the painâthe migraineâwas only justbeginning when he did it, then it might stop. Because he stopped being worriedwhen his master touched him. Because it was early enough in whateverphysiological process made up a migraine to short-circuit it. Sometimes hismasterâs touch didnât help: when the pain was already very bad. When theprocess was too far along.
Not a punishment. Just a fact.Just his body.Â
Threetoo signed, Oh.
His master laughed a little."Yeah. Oh. Hey, whatâs your plant doing over there? You want it back onthe shelf before you have your lunch?"Â
Threetoo nodded against hismasterâs shoulder, and his master stayed still for a moment before gentlypushing Threetoo to sit up on his own. His master got the plant and brought itto Threetoo, and Threetoo waded through the pillows and set it back up on theshelf. When he came back to the edge, his master was holding a lunch tray withsomething new on itâlittle irregular balls, something dark studded withrainbow-colored bits like candy.
"Yeah, I see you eyeing thesweets,â his master said, sounding amused. âOne of the cooks madethose up for you special to help you get blueberries and maximum calories atthe same time. And in honor of you having such a rough day yesterday. You wantto try one? Itâs got blueberries in it, but itâs not an actual blueberry."Â
Threetoo nodded, curious andfascinated. A treatâfrom his master, but also from someone other than hismaster. Someone heâd never met, who was supporting his masterâs project, andcared that heâd had a rough day.
It was sweet, and the rainbowsprinkles were a little crunchy, but it was chewy and tart, too, a burst ofintense flavor. Threetoo showed his master his upraised thumb.
"Good, well, the rest ofthem are for after you eat some protein,â his master said firmly, andThreetoo nodded obediently and settled to the work of being fed.Â
Rogers wasnât just outside thebedslaveâs room, where Tony had barely managed to scrape him off after hefollowed Tony upstairs. Heâd told himself, in the fraction of a second he hadto think about it before he was wholly focused on Threetoo, that it was good toknow he would have a chaperone for this.
Clearly that hadnât lasted long;he reran the conversation in his head, trying to work out what Rogers wouldhave heard, as he walked out of his bedroom and looked around. He was nowhereobvious.Â
âJ?â
âYou may want to check theguest room."Â
Tony rubbed his eyes, feelingstupidly exhausted for a moment. Whatever was going on with Rogers, he didnâtwant to deal with itâbut Tony had taken responsibility for him, and Rogers wasa mistreated slave too. He deserved to be looked after, and Tony had separatedhim from everyone else who could do the job. It was necessary, in order tomaintain the illusion that Tony was inflicting some suitable correction uponhis would-be murderer, but it meant that Tony was the only person left to dothis.
So. He would do this, obviously.Â
He tapped at the door of theguest room, and opened it a few inches when there was no answer.
It was nearly as dark inside asThreetooâs bed, but he heard a soft rustling of clothing: Rogers getting to hisfeet. "Mr. Stark? Did you need me for something?"Â
"Uh, not really,â Tonysaid, but he pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the dimroom. Rogers was standing in one of the near corners, where he might not beimmediately seen from the doorway. âWere you⊠hiding?â
Rogers shrugged stiffly, lookingaway. âSeems like I shouldnât let him see me, donât you think?"Â
"No, itâs goodââRogers flinched, turning half away with his head down and shoulders up, andTony stopped short.
Clearly Rogers had heard at leastpart of his conversation with Threetoo, and if he heard any of it at all, heâdhave heard the part where Threetoo was at an eight on the pain scale earlier.When Tony thought he was having some kind of programming-tension-freakout whichwas, in reality, an excruciating migraine. Probably still caused by the stressof pushing at his programming, and therefore by the sight of Rogers.Â
âOkay, maybe we should becareful how much he sees you until he gets used to you, but that doesnât meanyou have to hide in a dark room. Heâs napping again, for one thing, and JARVIScan help you avoid him if you really need to. God knows thereâs enough space inthe penthouse for the two of you not to see each other.â
Rogers shrugged stiffly. âIsthere somewhere else I should be, Mr. Stark?"Â
Tony pressed the heel of his handto his brow, trying to push back his own incipient headache. "Jesus, youlive in my bedroom and I have to use your first name at least to Threetoo. Callme Tony, all right?â
Tony shook his head, turningaway. "Okay, right, stand around in the dark if youââ Heâd made itjust to the threshold when Rogers spoke behind him, his voice expressive nownearly to the point of desperation.
âTony, Iâm sorry.â
Tony froze.Â
âIâI donât think I saidthat, before,â Rogers went on. âBut I tried to killyou and Iâm so sorry. I would haveâit was wrong. I know I was wrongabout you. I knew that already, but listening to you talking to himâyouâre sogood with him. Not just kind; you know how to help him. I couldnât do this forhim like you do, IâŠâ
The rush of hideous sinceritytrailed off, and a second later Tony managed to snap out of his horrifiedparalysis.Â
âWell, hey, not everyone canbe a billionaire playboy genius with a heart of gold,â Tony said in hismost careless style. âDonât beat yourself up just because youâre not asgood as me, no one is. JARVIS, lights.â
The lights came up, and Tonywalked out without looking back to see the results of his words, or the refugeheâd deprived Rogers of. He was too desperate to get back to his lab and findsomething, anything, to scour away the sound of Rogers being every bit aswrongly grateful to him as Threetoo wasâand without the excuse of whatevercombination of brainwashing and brain damage had madeThreetoo who he was.Â
It had been barely more than aday, and heâd already managed to break Rogers from a berserker bent on freedomor death to⊠this. Apologizing to the man who made the StarkChip.
This was why he didnât meet theslaves he was involved in rescuing. This was why he definitely didnât move them into the penthouse. And this was why he neededto get Threetoo more attached to Steve than to his master as fast as humanlypossibleâso he could get both of them the hell away from him. So he could stopcorroding them just by being who and what he was anywhere near them.
âJ, see if you can get athousand liquid calories into Threetoo in the next four hours? Things to do.Places to be."Â
Anywhere but here.
1. The pain scale Tony is teaching Threetoo is this one. I figured Threetoo would have an easier time processing something that focused on how pain affected his functioning than a subjective measurement of his own suffering.
2. The blueberry bonbons are 100% the ones @rubynye sent me last summer around the time I was writing this chapter, so if you are jealous of Threetooâs dessert, ask her for the recipe! <3Â
Hey, I was wondering why is bucky called âthreetooâ in All these burning hearts in hell? I donât know if you mention that in the fic, I havenât read it yet, but Iâm really curious
Bucky doesnât know his name, and at the beginning of the series no one around him knows it either--heâs identified only by his serial number, 32557038. Tony immediately nicknames him Threetoo, in the style of R2-D2 being nicknamed Artoo (because, as we all know, if Tony is comparing you to a robot that is his highest and most sincere expression of affection). Threetoo quickly internalizes Tonyâs nickname for him and adopts it as his preferred name, so thatâs how heâs referred to the vast majority of the time in the series so far.Â
Hi hello I am very much enjoying TINSOB but I was just wondering how Threetoo is doing? No pressure, just wanted to send my love to Threetoo and his plant.
Threetoo is having a pretty rough day--I just finished Chapter 3 of the next thing and it is LESS ROUGH than the LAST Chapter 3 for Threetoo, but, uh, still not his best day ever.Â
(But a pretty good day for me in terms of writing-progress, so I am hopeful that I will finish this story before, like, the end of time!)
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Threetoo woke up feeling groggyand halfway between sick and starving. Everything was dark and warm and...soft, and for a moment he thought that he could just snuggle in and go back tosleep, and then the memory slammed into him like--
Happy belated birthday!! So what kind of comment counts as a frustrating one for you?
Thanks!
Obviously thereâs a more or less infinite variety of ways comments can be frustrating; this one was of the âequating Threetooâs mental state with that of an infant and insisting that other people should make more choices for him about what does and doesnât happen to his bodyâ variety, with the frustration-amplifying frame of âscolding fic author for contributing to rape culture by writing a story that grapples explicitly with complicated questions of consent in a universe where none of the central characters have the opportunity to make any choices that are entirely or even mostly free.â
um excuse me but how dare you write something as perfect as "All These Burning Hearts in Hell" and have me stay up until the crack of dawn for 4 days straight doing nothing but reading it? How dare you take over my life like that? I didn't ask for this! but now I am fucking addicted! I'm begging you please give me more! I need the drugs please!
Awwww, thank you! And since I seem to be on a roll with this âresponding to asks with wip snippetsâ thing, thereâs a little something under the cut that I think a lot of people have been wanting to see...
Before he could even climb out ofthe pillow box, JARVIS said, "Please stay where you are, 32557038. Mr.Stark is on his way to speak to you."
Threetoo winced, curling down,and the throb in his head that had only just died away started up again.
"Hey," his master said,only seconds later. "Hey, sweetheart. On a scale of zero to ten, with zerobeing "doesn't hurt at all" and ten being "I cannot move or signbecause I am in so much pain and I need urgent medical care or I mightdie," how's your head right now?"
Threetoo raised his head to lookat his master, mentally assigning ten to the otherwiseindescribable experience of the day before. He raised two fingers.
"Mm, two means you onlynotice it when you focus on it. Is that right?"
Threetoo raised a third finger.
"Okay," his mastersaid, smiling a little stiffly and settling a warm hand on the back of hisneck. "Thank you for telling me that, Threetoo. Good data. I'll get you acopy of the scale so you can assign numbers consistently going forward. Before,when you came in here to lie down, what number was that?"
Threetoo winced. His mastersqueezed gently on his neck, rubbing firmly with his thumb and finger."Let's say nine is 'can barely move or think because of pain' and eight is'pain is so severe it's hard to think, talk, or listen, and very hard to moveor do anything else.' Do I need to describe seven?"
Threetoo shook his head the tiny bitthat his master's grip allowed and signed, eight.
"Eight is a lot," hismaster said quietly. "Eight is way more than I ever want you to feelwithout telling me about it, because eight means we should be doing everythingwe can to make it better as soon as possible. I mean, I'd like to be doingsomething about three right now, but Dr. Cho says all she can do reliably atthis point is make you unconscious, so it's probably overkill for athree."
Threetoo stared at him. Hismaster hadn't actually asked him a question, so he technically didn't have toreply. That was a good thing, because he had no idea what to say.
"Have you been havingheadaches that get really intense, that make it painful to see light? Make youfeel sick? Maybe cause other weird effects? Make you feel too cold or hot, orsee lights in your peripheral vision, or..."
Threetoo nodded slowly.
"Okay," his mastersaid. "I wish you would have told me about that, but to be fair I didn'task. Those are called migraines, sweetheart. They happen sometimes if you'vehad a head injury, which I think you probably had even before yesterday. Theyalso happen sometimes just for no reason. Lots of people get them, and I don'tknow if we'll ever be able to make sure that they don't happen at all, but wecan at least get you some pain relief when they do happen, even if it's onlymaking sure that we help you go to sleep right away when it gets bad. Being inpain isn't good for you, it's just like being punished--"
Threetoo's lips parted, his handtwitched, and then he looked sharply away.
His master's hand tightened, thenwent back to the slow, rhythmic rubbing.
"Threetoo," his mastersaid quietly. "Look at me, please."
Threetoo dragged his gaze up tohis master's, trying not to tremble, trying not to even breathe. His masterlooked tired again, the way he had yesterday, and nearly as unhappy.
"Threetoo, baby, projectnumber one," he said softly. "Did you think you were beingpunished?"
Threetoo closed his eyes andnodded.
What else could it mean? Itwasn't an injury--he hadn't known about migraines untilhis master told him--so it had to be a punishment, didn't it? Masters could dothings from far away, through chips and... and other things.
"Threetoo," his mastersaid, his voice very quiet and small now. "Did you think I was punishingyou by making your head hurt like that? And not telling you why, or what youdid wrong, and talking all the time about not wanting to ever punish you, andpunishing you anyway?"
Threetoo squeezed his eyes shuttighter, feeling them sting with tears, and shook his head hard. He raised hishand to sign no, and then--because he knew his masterneeded good data--I thought maybe. At first. But you said. So I knewit wasn't you. Because you wouldn't.
"Okay," his master saidquietly, and there was a press of lips against his forehead that didn't stopthe throbbing in his head from rising into what was probably a four."Okay, I... I'm glad. But... who did you think was punishing you? Or wasit just... cosmic punishment, floating around randomly?"Â
Threetoo swallowed. He hadn'tthought about it, really, but... he hadthought--believed--known--that the pain was punishment,even while he knew his master wouldn't inflict pain on him. And no one else wasauthorized by his master to do so; no former master held that power over himany longer.
And that only left one personresponsible. One person who had access to him and definitely had no right tointerfere with his master's goals by inflicting pain on his master'snumber one project.
Me, Threetoosigned, before falling back to the safety of referring to himself bydesignation instead. 3-2. 3-2 punished. 3-2 knew 3-2deserved.
"Oh--" his mastermoved, and then his arms were around Threetoo, drawing him up out of thepillows and into his master's lap, cuddling him close against his master'schest. "Okay, so. On the one hand--I really really don't want you to dothat, Threetoo. Even if you know you've done something wrong, even if it seemsreally bad, I... I don't want you to hurt yourself, not in any way, ever. Okay?Because I want you to heal and get better and be safe. Right?"
Threetoo hid his face against hismaster's chest, nodding. He did know that. He did, and his stomach was a stone,his whole spine and skull ablaze with tension because he knew he had done whathis master didn't want.
"And on the other hand, andthis is the really important hand right now--" His master's actual handstroked down his spine and back up to the nape of his neck, then down again.
"I need you to remember that it was neverpunishment, Threetoo. It was never anyone's fault, including yours. Especiallyyours. Even if you thought you were punishing yourself--it wasn't punishment,and it wasn't your fault. It was just a fact about your body that we didn'tunderstand yet. But it's not your fault."Â