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A part of Tony cringes when he sees the blankness slide over Bucky’s face. Bucky doesn’t handle crowds well even now, a good eight months since he finally let Steve lure him home, and this situation has already gone to hell in a hand-basket. The reporters are out for blood since the fiasco that was last Monday’s battle; it’s cost Tony hundreds of thousands of dollars already and that’s not even taking into account all of the damage that’s been done to the team’s reputation and all they work they'll have to do to fix it.
Not for the first time, he wishes he was wearing the armor. It would be an extra layer of protection. Instead, clad only in a well-tailored suit (which is kind of like a different armor, really), he clears his throat. “You’ve already received the team’s official statement surrounding that, I believe,” he says, keeping a smile on his face and an iciness in his voice. “Thank you for your questions. I’m afraid we have a previous appointment that we need to keep.”
The world explodes around them, lights and voices smearing together, but Tony ignores them. A member of Stark Industries’ P.R. team steps forward to address the crowd as Natasha helps him hustle the rest of the team off the stage. Bucky isn’t responding at all now, staring straight overhead into the bright stagelights. Steve puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and leans in close, speaking to him in low tones. The worried look on Steve’s face tugs at Tony’s heart.
In another world, or maybe if Tony were a better man, he would slip between them and let his shields drop so that he could draw Bucky in. With Steve's presence, warm and supportive, at his back, he’d center Bucky with more ease than any unbonded guide should be capable of. Because Tony’s had lots of practice. Too much practice, if you ask Rhodey, which is why Tony is always careful not to ask.
But he’s not in the armor right now, he’s Tony Stark and not Iron Man, so he forces himself to keep his distance no matter how much it aches. These are his sentinels in everything but name. Too bad Steve and Bucky think that Iron Man, and not Tony Stark, is the helpful guide that can draw them out of a zone with no more than a fleeting touch of bared skin – and sometimes, depending on how paranoid Tony is feeling and how desperate his sentinels are, not even that.
“Iron Man, please, can you do something?” Steve asks, and Tony snaps to attention automatically. But Steve isn’t addressing him, he’s speaking to the armor. Iron Man turns his head, acknowledging the request, but Tony knows what’s coming and he hates himself for it.
“I apologize, Captain, but I can’t.”
Steve’s expression twists; he doesn’t ask again. “Buck, c’mon,” he says, turning his head back.
Pepper always told him that his lies would circle around to bite him in the ass. Tony hates it when she’s right.
“Let’s give them some privacy,” Natasha says quietly, elbowing Tony in the side. He follows her, Bruce and Iron Man, but he can’t help glancing over his shoulder as Clint steps forward, ready to offer what little help he can. The supersoldiers infamously don’t respond well to guides (which is why it’s such a shock that they both respond marvelously to him), and Clint is bonded on top of that. But that’s never stopped Clint from trying his damndest, and for a moment Tony hates him too.
He briefly considers slipping away, donning the suit, and coming back so that he can help. But Steve would wonder at Iron Man’s sudden acquiesce to a request that he refused only minutes before, and the last thing he wants to do is draw even more attention to himself. He can’t just stand here, though, when Bucky’s awareness is buzzing against his shields.
“I have a meeting to get to,” he says, pretending that he’s not bothered by the frankly judgmental look Natasha gives him. “Iron Man?”
“We’ll see you back at the tower,” Bruce says, folding his arms across his chest. “I’ll text you guys an update.”
“Thanks.” Tony has to steel himself in order to get his legs moving in the right (wrong) direction; he wants to run back to Bucky, throw himself on his knees before his sentinels, and ground them all. Instead, Iron Man steps up behind him and herds Tony along, practically forcing him out the door. There’s no winning against the armor’s unyielding hands and shortly Tony finds himself seated in the limo, Iron Man beside him and Happy at the wheel.
“Okay?” Happy asks into the silence.
“I hate you so damn much,” Iron Man says before Tony can respond. The face of the helmet slides up to reveal Rhodey’s glaring face. “So much.”
“I didn’t know that was going to happen!”
“Captain America looked at me like I set his puppy on fire. Except instead of his puppy, it’s his best friend and lover of over seventy years who only recently came back from the dead!”
Tony winces a little. “He wasn’t that angry.”
“On. Fire,” Rhodey repeats flatly, clearly not buying it.
And okay, maybe Tony can see where he’s coming from. Bucky usually doesn’t say a word, but Steve’s commented before on how Iron Man blows hot and cold. He’s not the only one; Natasha and Jan have both mentioned it as well. It depends, of course, on whether Tony is in the armor, or whether Rhodey or JARVIS (or, on a few memorable occasions, Pepper) are covering for him. Rhodey is a null and Pepper’s a sentinel, but even if they were guides they couldn’t connect with Bucky or Steve without it being blatantly obvious something wasn’t right.
“I’m sorry,” Tony mutters, deflating. There must be a dead giveaway in his voice, because Rhodey sighs.
“Tones, I don’t mean to yell at you when your sentinels –”
“They’re not mine!”
“ – are in there zoning, and don’t tell me that.” Rhodey looks deeply unimpressed.
“They’re not.”
“Because of your refusal to tell them the truth about Iron Man.”
“I can’t tell them.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not! Rhodey, my reputation is an absolute mess, and you were there for the shit-show today. You think the media needs another excuse to hate the team?” Tony says, much sharper than he intended, but this is an old argument by now and he’s sick of having it.
“You’ve done a lot of work to change your reputation,” Rhodey points out. “And Tony, the team would be okay with it. They like you.”
Tony swallows, not looking at him or Happy, staring out the window and trying not to think about the multitude of nightmares he’s had where the team finds out about his identity and are horrified. The nightmares where Bucky and Steve are revolted to find out that they’ve been letting Tony Stark ground them all along are the best ones – by which he means, he wants to drink himself stupid every time he wakes up from one.
“I just can’t,” he mutters, throat tight. Maybe they’ll never be able to bond this way. But they’ll also never be able to reject him flat-out.
He knows without looking that Rhodey and Happy are exchanging looks, but he also knows that they won’t push anymore. More importantly, they won’t out him without permission. There are still a lot of days when Tony has no idea what he did to get friends like these, but he's grateful for them.
Happy delivers them safely to the tower, where Rhodey climbs out of the suit. He hangs around for a little while, mostly forcing Tony to eat rather than letting him delve straight back into the workshop, but slips before the rest of the team returns. Tony gets into the armor and makes his way up to the common floor, stomach churning. It takes a lot more self-control than he's known for to pull his emotions back in, sweeping them under the tide of his shields, when the elevator doors open to show a sickly looking Bucky on the couch.
"Hey," Tony says, the voice modulator thankfully hiding the fact that he sounds less than steady. "You doing okay?"
Bucky shrugs. "Fine." But the pallor of his skin, the puffiness around his eyes, belies that.
"You want -"
"You said no, before," Bucky points out. There's a thick quilt over his legs, but the supersoliders tend to run hot so it's only a matter of time before he kicks it off. Tony wishes, with a desperation that aches, that he could be over there curled up beside Bucky right now.
"Mr. Stark had a meeting to get to," Tony replies, knowing even as he speaks that it's a pitiful excuse. "It was important that I go with him. He's been receiving some unfriendly threats lately."
Bucky looks up, eyes suddenly sharp. "What?"
"I, uh - " Tony blinks behind the helmet, a little confused, not sure why that would make Bucky snap to attention. "It's not that big of a deal. Comes with the territory when you're rich and important." He clanks across the room, taking a careful seat on the couch, even though it's been heavily reinforced to support both the armor and the Hulk. "Mr. Stark has been kidnapped lots of times."
"That's not comforting."
"He's used to it?" Tony offers, because that's really the only thing he can say. He is used to it. It happened at least twice before his seventh birthday, and increased with frequency up until he went to MIT and met Rhodey and Carol. Carol showed him how to kick butt to the point where it got a lot of potential kidnappers to think twice before making another attempt. Now, the only people who kidnap him are the ones prepared to shut him up permanently if it comes to that. It hasn't yet, though Afghanistan was pretty damn close.
"Still not comforting." Bucky's frowning, a tug at the corner of his mouth, even as he scoots closer to the armor. Tony swallows hard and issues the command for the gauntlet to retract, letting his right hand free. He dares to set it down on Bucky's bare arm.
The connection is instantaneous, though not without problems. It takes a hell of a lot out of Tony to ground someone while keeping all of the important shit away from them. It's why he never does it for anyone but Bucky and Steve. All he can really do at this point, since Bucky's not zoning right now, is wrap Bucky in a weak shield, dulling the external world for a while and giving Bucky's senses the chance to recalibrate. Bucky sighs, eyes slipping shut, and slides sideways to rest his head on the armor's shoulder. It can't possibly be comfortable, but Tony's certainly not going to knock him away.
They sit like that for at least an hour, until the weight against the armor tells Tony that Bucky's passed out, and Steve pokes his head into the room. He crosses his arms and leans his head against the doorway, just watching them until Tony wants to squirm. It almost feels like he's doing something inappropriate, something he has no right to be doing, with someone else's partner.
Steve's more than welcome to join them, of course, but Tony doesn't think that'll fix the issue.
"How's he doing?" Steve asks quietly.
"He'll be fine," Tony says, meaning it. It's unusual, but Steve's and Bucky's connection is strong enough to yank them both out of zones. They don't really need a guide. Tony is handy to have around, but not really a necessity; a few days of rest and good food would've put Bucky back together just as well.
"Good." Steve runs his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up in little curls. He looks more stressed than usual, but Tony doesn't feel like he can ask why. So he just sits there, paralyzed, until Steve walks back out of the room.
Tony knew it would happen eventually, but he still didn't expect to fuck up this fast.
And he doesn't even get the chance to fix it.
Three hours later, there's a mission. Four hours after that, Tony's waking up in a cell. The armor is gone and his head hurts so much he can barely see straight, but other than that he's not really wounded. His arms are tied behind his back from elbow to wrist, making it difficult to get up, but he manages. The world dips and swims when he's on his feet and he has to stop, leaning heavily against the wall until he stops feeling like he's going to topple over.
"Son of a bitch," a familiar voice says.
"Clint?"
"Natasha?"
Tony listens to their voices and figures out pretty quickly that whoever did this just grabbed the vulnerable, human members of the team that responded to the call to assemble and took off with them, leaving Steve, Thor and Peter behind. Classy.
"This is just like Cambodia," Natasha says wistfully.
"... The fuck, Tasha, now you're just screwing with me. This is nothing like Cambodia!"
"Then maybe you're remembering wrong."
It's comforting to know that they're both okay enough to bitch at each other, but the voices are making Tony's head pound. "I don't think this is conducive to an escape attempt," he croaks.
There's a long pause, then Natasha says, "Iron Man?" in this careful voice.
"Yeah." There's no voice modulator, of course. Tony tries to pitch his voice low to disguise it, but has no idea if that's working. He probably should've denied it and let them think that the kidnappers had taken Tony Stark too, instead of Iron Man, but it's too late now.
"Okay," Clint says, more to himself than to anyone else. "Okay. Whoever this is, they're not very bright. Wait for it -" Something creaks, overwhelmingly loud, and then Clint makes a low, triumphant sound.
"Show off," Natasha says.
"You're just mad I got out first." Clint steps in front of Tony's cell a moment later, looking worse for the wear. There's dried blood on his face, his hands and the front of his uniform, but he's grinning.
He also seems massively unsurprised to see Tony.
"Status?" he asks.
Tony just blinks at him, sort of slowly, and the grin slides off of Clint's face into a deeply concerned look. He makes quick work of picking the lock - well, okay, he starts to work on picking the lock, gets approximately three seconds into it, and then gets shoved aside by Natasha who has it open in less than five seconds. Clint grumbles at her as she smugly opens the door, letting Clint be the one to enter the (rather small) cell and approach Tony.
"Hey, you okay, man?" he asks, putting a careful hand on Tony's bicep. "Here, turn around, I'll untie you."
It's a relief to have his arms free; they feel numb now, and Tony hates the way he has to lean heavily on Clint as they step back into the hallway. "You knew," he says, tries to make it an accusation, because there's no other way that both of them could be so nonchalant.
Natasha cups his cheeks and tips his head up, looking into his eyes. "I figured it out about two months after you moved us all into the tower. You and Iron Man have the exact same way of teasing. It took me longer to figure out who was piloting the suit when you were also around. Hawkass over there took almost a year to catch on. Don't worry, I mocked him endlessly."
"So everyone else..." Tony's having trouble following her rapid speech.
Something vaguely sympathetic and entirely too knowing goes across Natasha's face. "Yeah, they know."
Jesus. All this long, he thought he was so smart. It's Stane all over again, always two steps ahead of Tony. His stomach twists with nausea and his legs give out. Natasha and Clint catch him on either side, not letting him fall. His head swims and he loses time; the next time he opens his eyes, he's being carried piggyback-style. Clint's shoulder bumps against his nose with every step. Natasha's leading the way, a gun in her hand.
"If you're gonna hurl, tell me first," Clint says, hitching Tony a little higher. His hands are warm on Tony's thighs.
"Not gonna hurl," Tony mutters, though he wonders. The nausea hasn't faded, and seems to increase with every step that Clint takes. This is why he loathes concussions. He settles his forehead against the nape of Clint's neck, breathing slowly through his mouth, and doesn't look up when hears gun shots and the inevitable sound of Natasha winning.
They emerge outside, and Tony keeps his face hidden because the sunlight makes him want to stab his eyes out rather than look at it, but Clint tells him they're somewhere in Canada. Natasha says something low and heated in Russian and her footsteps tread lightly away; there's more screaming, shortly.
Natasha returns with a cell phone and a smile on her face.
Less than an hour later, which Tony spends laying on the (hard) ground with an arm over his eyes, the quinjet lands a couple hundred feet away. Feet trampling the underbrush and a flurry of voices make Tony cringe, rolling onto his side away from it all. Every sound is magnified and suddenly he knows how sentinels feel when they're zoning, because it feels like he can hear everything.
Then a metal hand drops onto the back of his neck, all cool pressure, and he's very abruptly reminded of how he's not wearing the armor anymore.
Bucky doesn't say a word. He just picks Tony up very carefully and carries him back to the quinjet. It's blessedly darker inside, and Bruce is there to fuss over him. Tony submits without complaint, letting Bruce check the sizeable lump on the back of his head. The pain hasn't dulled at all and, when Bruce's fingers hit the wrong spot, his gut tightens and he chokes.
"Here," Bruce says quietly, shoving a bucket into his lap seconds before Tony throws up. His whole body jerks from the force of it, and it makes the pain in his head so much worse. Spots flash in front of his eyes because the worse the pain gets the more he throws up and the more he throws up the worse the pain gets, and he just wants it to stop.
"Hey," Bucky says, dropping into the seat next to him; he takes Tony's hand, the one not clutching the bucket, and nudges at Tony. It's automatic to drop his shields, letting Bucky's awareness seep in, to search out Steve and make sure that he's okay. He wraps his shields around the both of them and it drags him down, shoves the pain back into something slightly more manageable. He shudders hard.
"You're okay." Bruce's fingers smooth across his sweaty forehead. "I have medication to stop you from throwing up, if you can keep it down."
"Please." Tony mouths the word, leaning heavily into Bucky, and lets Bruce place the pills on his tongue. He swallows them down, grimacing, and turns his head into Bucky. "The armor. Don't let them -"
"Steve's on it," Bucky murmurs comfortingly, wrapping an arm around Tony's shoulders. "It's okay, doll, just breathe."
Doll? That's a new one. Tony's too exhausted to ask, though, closing his eyes and focusing on not throwing up the pills. It seems to take forever before they kick in, and at last the nausea eases. He takes slow, deep breaths and lets Bucky guide him down, until he's stretched out along the small bunk with his head and shoulders in Bucky's lap. Bucky puts his cool, metal hand on Tony's forehead and it helps.
Some thirty minutes later, Steve returns. Tony keeps his eyes shut until the door is closed behind him; he takes a quick peek, relieved to see that the armor is standing in a corner of the quinjet. It looks largely untouched, which means that the security features worked. Good. The armor's designed to explode if someone ever figures out how to crack it, but even that's not foolproof in the right hands.
"Tony?" Steve comes right over, dropping a kiss on Bucky's upturned mouth absently, and kneels down beside Tony. Tony turns his head slowly, looking into Steve's face.
"You knew," he rasps, and it's not a question.
Bucky tenses a little and Steve winces. They exchange a look. Bruce tactfully retreats into the front of the quinjet. Outside, the explosions continue.
"Yeah, we knew," Steve admits sheepishly. "Sorry. I figured it out about six months in."
Tony stares at him, mouth hanging open. "Six months?" he squeaks indignantly.
Steve's smile is fond. "Tony, you're my best friend. Of course I knew."
"It only took me like two weeks," Bucky says. "For what it's worth."
"Only because I dropped hints," Steve shoots back.
"Pfft, you wish. You're just unobservant, Rogers."
"Don't you care?" Tony croaks, shocked to his core. He was so sure that the team would hate him. That Bucky and Steve would reject him. And it turns out they've known for months. He has no idea how to handle this.
"Of course we care," Steve says quickly. "You're our guide. We love you."
Tony's brain might do a blue screen of death.
Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve. "What he means is, no it doesn't bother us that you're Iron Man. It doesn't bother anyone on the team. You're a good person, doll. We were just waiting for you to catch up with what the rest of us already knew."
"I -" Tony's speechless. Never, in his wildest dreams, he did he think it would end up this way.
Steve takes his hand. "It's okay. I know it's a shock. We should've said something, but we wanted to wait until you felt comfortable telling us." His expression is open, but a telltale hint of hurt lurks in his eyes. Tony immediately feels like an asshole.
"I'm sorry. I didn't - I thought -"
"It's okay," Bucky murmurs. "It's okay."
"Just relax," Steve adds, leaning in to nuzzle him. The skin contact from both of his sentinels helps immensely; something unsettled in Tony's chest suddenly settles, like a puzzle piece sliding into place. Exhaustion washes over him, inescapably strong.
"Love you," he mutters from far away. "Wanna bond with you."
The last thing he feels before he passes out is Steve's lips on his cheek and Bucky's lips on his forehead.