#just being downright hateful AND incorrect like pick a struggle you know

[thelioncourts]

+

[justavengeit]

burn the whole house down - brokemachineverse, futurefic, fighting depression by deliberately provoking your teammates

"Boss," FRIDAY says, "your favorite soldier of mass destruction is testing the integrity of the couch again."

"Again?" Tony says automatically, glancing up. It's a bit weird, being back home and having FRIDAY use the exact same screen she always has to show him live footage of Bucky's actions in the base.  It used to be about feeling safe. If he always knew where Bucky was at and what he was doing, then Tony felt like he could come up out of the rooms he normally kept on lockdown and at least show his face around, for what good it would do. It's not really Bucky he's hiding from anymore.

To Romanova's credit, she hasn't tried hacking pass his security the way she might have a few years ago because it makes super spies nervous not to have total control of their environment. He's aware that it's considered a concession.

Tony just thinks she's not going to be able to hack pass his systems anymore. Not employing the tightest security and the most complication encryption has always been a gesture of trust coming from him.

But well, Tony's an old dog that can learn endless new tricks.

It's weird, though, after everything, to look up and be in the same situation as he was months ago. Back when tension was his constant companion, given - well. Everything. An unstable super soldier wandering the halls, moping on his own between therapy sessions and having severe breaks from reality. If Tony fell back into his old habits of locking himself into the basement of the Compound this easily, he shouldn't be surprised that Bucky is back to ghosting his old halls and rooms and -

Yes, laying face down on the couch the way he used to only when Rogers and Romanova tried to get him to come socialize with the rest of the rogues. Tony hasn't ever properly asked why Bucky doesn't seem to trust Rogers anymore. He just knows that the two of them arrived into his hands that way and ruined all his plans to tie Bucky up with a bow and toss him at Rogers to keep the jackass pacified.

Tony hated the sight of this before he cared about what went through Bucky's head beyond what it meant for his own safety. Now he pretty much knows and downright despises what it means.

Sighing with irritation, he gets up from the stool, flipping his tools off but leaving everything where it is. It's not very likely he'll come back and pick everything back up, but he doesn't want to take the time to put everything away, either. He's not like Howard, he doesn't particularly care about keeping his work space orderly. Maybe exactly because Howard was like that.

Tony had designed the Compound to house much more than just the teams that currently inhabited it. It had been like a secondary SHIELD base - less creepily like an anthill or an iceberg, but... always meant to have a large staff. Now it mostly goes unused. It's a bit like housing himself and four or five friends in the entirety of Stark Tower. It's honestly a waste of space.

A younger Tony would have found a way to glory in the sheer indulgence. Now Tony just feels tired and irritable about it, about the lack of efficiency - it's a monument to his stupidity. Naivety.

On the other hand, it gives Bucky plenty of room to roam around without getting claustrophobic about it, and unless someone puts out the effort to find him, they're unlikely to accidentally stumble across him, no matter what lobby or lounge area he claims at the time. It's hard to be completely disgusted with it when it serves a good cause.

"Alright, scooch up, buttercup," Tony says as he comes in the door. Bucky gives a little jolt, peeling his face off the cushions to twist around and blink at Tony.

The kind of lost, not-all-there cast to his face makes Tony's stomach twist unpleasantly. "What," he says blankly.

It's not like it's unreasonable for Bucky to be struggling with depression and anxiety, given everything he's been through ever. Not for even a second did Tony expect that the shift in their relationship would change that - he's been through it himself, he knows better. He knows that Bucky will use him as a reason to continue battling his symptoms as best as he can, but just having Tony isn't going to fix them.

Tony snatches one of the throw pillows off the end of the couch as Bucky shifts up onto his knees. He drops himself into the end that Bucky's vacated and takes a second to arrange himself while Bucky rubs the numbness out of his face with the heel of his hand.

Once Tony is satisfied with how he's settled in and will be able to easily do work on his Stark Pad, he puts the pillow in his lap and then says, "Okay, come here."

Bucky looks at him dubiously, still blinking heavily. "Tony," he says, "what are you doing?"

"What does it look like, princess?" Tony demands. "Look, come on. You're making FRIDAY sad. I can't just let you demoralize my AI. I'm trying get some work done and I can't do that if FRIDAY is distracted."

The slightly skeptical look that's settled in on his face suggests that he's not fooled at all, which good. It's not like it's one of Tony's good excuses. It's barely an excuse at all. "You sure you're okay with that?" he  asks.

Tony levels the most fake scathing look in his repertoire at Bucky, as if he hadn't already considered all possible outcomes for this. It's a break in their holding pattern, sure - ever since getting back to the present, the two of them haven't exactly gone out of their way to make their change in relationship known. FRIDAY knows, but FRIDAY has eyes and ears everywhere and neither of them are exactly shy when they're alone, but - well. A public longue is hardly either of their bedrooms or Tony's lab.

When the look doesn't garner him what he wants immediately - Bucky just raises a skeptical eyebrow - Tony sighs noisily.

"I'm not exactly in any hurry to start any fights over it," he admits, because he knows that what he and Bucky have built between them will only intensify the tensions between them and Rogers and therefore the entire team, "but there are some things which are more important than keeping the peace."

"You like having secrets," Bucky points out shrewdly.

"Yeah, okay, I do," he admits, because true. True. He likes having things just to himself. So little of himself actually gets to belong to him, and who he loves isn't anyone else's business. But. "People tend to object to being secrets."

Some of the weary exhaustion seems to let up a little bit, around the corners of Bucky's eyes and mouth. A little bit of tension goes out of his shoulders. "I'm not asking you for that," he says.

Tony shifts uncomfortably, glancing away. "No," he allows, because Bucky's made absolutely no hints that direction. "Which is probably a good thing, or I'd probably be an asshole about it. Still."

"You'd try to be an asshole about it," Bucky says, watching him. Tony would do more than try, but he understands that Bucky means that it wouldn't take much for him to renege on it. It's kind of fucked up that Bucky of all people believes in him that much.

Stirring, Bucky edges forward onto his knees. He still looks worn and exhausted, but his eyes are sharp enough. "Does this mean I get to touch you in public now?" he asks, ignoring the reflexive arched brow Tony gives him. "Kiss you in front of Rhodes and everyone else?"

"Well, if you wanted to start the next superhero skirmish, sure," Tony says flatly. The heat in his ears and neck suggests that he's flushing like a dumbass. "God knows it's getting boring around here without someone trying to kill me."

Bucky studies him narrowly, but it doesn't take him half as long as it did once to read him. "None of 'em are that good," he says confidently, unfolding and settling in along the couch to drop his head onto the pillow on Tony's lap. Instead of laying on his stomach like earlier, he curls on his side toward the back of the couch, looking up at Tony with sharp pale eyes. "I wouldn't let 'em get that close anyway."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony says, stomach swooping pleasantly, like turning a particularly difficult but beautiful turn in the armor; as much as he likes playing hero, having someone play hero at him is. Nice. "You're the biggest, meanest son of a bitch on the team, William Sugar." After only a moment's hesitation, he reaches out and tucks the loose hair in Bucky's face behind his ear.

Bucky's eyes flutter shut beneath his fingers. It would almost be sweet if it weren't Bucky, sprawled along the couch and on his lap like an oversized, slightly murderous feral cat, only a little less threatening than usual because he's exhausted from fighting his demons and apparently spoiling for a physical outlet.

At least he hadn't determined that Tony was an appropriate target. Tony isn't sure how he would have reacted if he'd been greeted with an argument. He smooths his thumb over the sharp edge of Bucky's cheekbone, still on display and gaunt even a month after returning. But then, super soldiers seemed to struggle to put on any body fat at all.

Tony sighs. "Yeah, alright," he agrees, reaching further back to stroke his hand over Bucky's crazy, mixed up head. "Obviously my inclination is not to invite comment on my personal decisions, but keeping secrets has a way of complicating matters, so whenever you feel like it is fine."

Bucky slits his eyes open, which does very little to detract from the whole feral cat thing he has going on. He frowns up at Tony. "It shouldn't be just 'fine,'" he says.

Rolling his eyes, Tony says, "They're not my friends so I don't actually care. FRIDAY knows, and I told Rhodey - although not in so many words, of course, I'm not suicidal. And if FRIDAY knows then she tattled to Pepper because she always tattles -"

"Hey," FRIDAY protests mildly.

He ignores her. He knows what her priorities are, and her opinions on just how his support network works. Mostly that it doesn't unless she makes it. She's not exactly incorrect.

"They're going to find out one way or another," Tony says. He might be a bit sullen about it. "Better for it to be on our terms than by accident."

"Damage control," Bucky identifies. His eyes shut for a long moment, his breaths far too slow, and a pang goes through Tony. He continues to pet Bucky's head for lack of something more helpful to do. It's not like he has control of their circumstances, or the fact that - as Rhodey had told him - they'd both known it was a terrible decision and ended up making it anyway.

Terrible for whom, though? That's the question that Tony has been wondering for a while now. Because it seems to be working just fine for the two of them, and it really shouldn't matter how little anyone else likes it.

"Yeah, well, there are a lot of ways to do damage control," he points out after a moment. Brightening slightly, he says, "I could hire a girl to climb out of a cake and sing a show tune about it if you want. It technically fits the bill."

He pauses, but there's no laugh or smile for that one. Tony hadn't really expected it given that Bucky's pleasures are small and quickly done with and don't tend to be over quips and jokes.

Tony doesn't allow this to stop him, contemplating it further. "Actually, I like it. My vote goes to the girl in the cake. If we're lucky, they'll be too busy being angry about how the message is delivered to really think about the message itself."

"Could," Bucky agrees, "or we could just say it to their faces and if they have something they want to say about it, they're already within arm's reach."

"Well. That's a kind of logic I can't really find fault with, other than, you know, that it also places you in their arm's reach, and besides that: they have more ranged fighters," Tony points out a bit skeptically. Usually starting pointless fights is more Rogers' thing, but Tony can hardly expect there to have been absolutely no bleedover now that he knows just how close those two had been.

The learning murder machine curled up next to him shifts into something like a restless stretch, eyes glittering behind his lashes. "Doesn't matter. I can take them."

Tony has perhaps not adjusted for the addition of himself to the entire equation. To be fair, before this they were in the past where people had very little reason to hate Tony, and Tony had dismissed Bucky's protectiveness as the two of them working as a team to get home.

"Alright," Tony says, threading his fingers into the hair at the nape of Bucky's neck; it's second nature to avoid tugging, testing the tension at the top of his neck. "While I'm… flattered that you want to fight the entire Avengers team on my - our - behalf, I have to wonder where exactly this is coming from."

"Tony," he says dryly, "you know I do better when I got something to do, and you just gave me permission to rub us in their faces."

He adjusts for that. Yeah, the Sergeant had always seemed better off when he was able to run around after his Captain. Yeah, Bucky had seemed to be the most stable when he was able to involve himself in whatever it was Tony was up to at the time. Yeah, since they got back, Tony had holed himself up in his lab and Bucky was left at loose ends, attending therapy that was really only maintaining the status quo instead of actively changing something.

Tony sets the tablet on the couch arm so that he can rub his hand over his face. He can't be expected to predict everything, but sometimes the more obvious things scrape by and it's an aggravation. Of course Bucky does better when he has something to do. Anyone would. Tony had worked obsessively on his armors, when he was doing poorly.

"So," he says, lowering his hand and looking down at Bucky, who looks still looks tired and drawn, but now with the addition of a banked fire in his eyes, content as he seems to be to continue laying on Tony. "We're going to fight the entire Avengers team."

"Only the ones dumb enough to start something," Bucky corrects with a pleased cast to his face.

"So the entire team," Tony says with a sigh, and finally gets his laugh.