Chapter Text
It had been a long time since Tony stepped foot in his father’s office. It had to have been when he was no older than six when Howard finally put a passcode lock on the door. Well, until Tony figured out how to bypass it at seven and then it became fingerprint sensitive. It felt like a game to Tony, but his father wouldn’t have it. It was after he cracked the eye reading software that Howard moved his office out of the house entirely.
Tony stood in front of what used to be the old office. It brought a bittersweet feeling that he hadn’t expected. He was going to be able to enter it again after all these years and without the scrutiny of his father. The bitterness came from knowing that the only reason this was possible was because his father recently passed away.
The funeral was today. Howard was being buried next to Tony’s mother. Tony thought it would be better to pay his respect in a place where they were almost equals.
When he reached for the door, he expected it to be locked, but the doorknob turned easily. Inside, the office looked how Tony remembered it; plus a film of dust over everything. It smelled like his father and old books.
Tony stepped through, taking a deep breath. After he passed the threshold, something unfamiliar caught his eye in the corner of the room. Standing in the corner was the beginnings of a humanoid robot. Tony could make out the basic wiring of legs and a support frame for the upper half. It was nowhere near finished. When he moved closer for a better look, it seemed that the dust had only just started to settle.
“Why was Dad working on a robot?” Tony whispered to himself.
A quick pivot away from the skeleton towards the desk brought Tony’s attention to fully laid out plans for a functional robot capable of moving independently. Some of the ideas were based on early ideas of Artificial Intelligence, but Howard had created a blueprint for a decent robot, despite the information he had to work with.
The longer Tony looked over the plans, the stronger he felt the pull to take the skeleton home and inspect it before taking it apart.
After an hour of debating with himself, and taking more and more glances at the robot, Tony rolled up the blueprints and carried the robot frame out of his father’s old office.
On the drive back to New York, he felt chills run up his spine and tingling in his left arm. He shook it off as nerves and continued his drive, forgetting the feeling by the time he was home.
~*~
Tony started working on the robot immediately, scanning in his father’s plans and projecting them in the air. He stood in the middle of them. He started erasing equations and formulating his own.
“Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Save this to my personal drive.”
“Of course, sir. And what should this project be called?”
Tony stopped moving for a moment. What could he even call this half-finished robot he stole from his father’s office? Then it hit him.
“Bionic Universally-Computerized Kinesthetic Youth. Or B.U.C.K.Y. for short.”
“Very well, sir.”
With a small sense of pride, Tony got to work on finishing up the inner workings of B.U.C.K.Y. He updated the wiring then strengthened the skeleton holding up the body. A robot this size would need serious structure in order to hold it up.
A few hours later, Tony was elbow deep in the central wiring when JARVIS called overhead, “Sir, Rogers and Wilson are here to see you. They do not seem to be in good spirits.”
Tony waved his free hand in the air to dismiss the AI. He knew Steve and Sam were coming back from his dad’s funeral, trying to find him. He was sure they would understand that Tony hadn’t wanted to go. But he didn’t want to talk to them yet.
He didn’t want to think about the death of his father either. It wasn’t something Tony was expecting. Howard was in his mid-sixties, but he was healthy in every way possible. He died in his sleep without warning, without cause, leaving Tony in charge of Stark Industries at the age of 27.
He wasn’t alone, though. Tony was reminded of this as JARVIS chimed in again about Sam and Steve asking to come into his workshop.
“Not right now, J. Tell them to come back later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tony rolled his eyes at the judgement in JARVIS’s voice.
The day turned into the evening and there was another attempt from Steve and Sam to enter the workshop.
“Sir, they’ve brought you food.”
“Have them leave it at the door,” Tony responded from behind the robot.
“But Sir-”
“Do it, J.”
There was no response, so Tony took it as a yes. He waited a few minutes to make sure they were both gone, before opening his door and finding a sandwich with a glass of water. He stepped back in quickly, bringing the plate and glass back to his work station.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to see his best friends. They meant a lot to him, but Tony didn’t think he could handle the two soulmates right now.
Growing up, Tony was excited to get his own soulmark. He admired his mom’s and Jarvis’s. However, on the morning of his 16th birthday, Tony didn’t experience any euphoria or a burning sensation like branding to his skin. He held out hope that maybe he was a late bloomer, that maybe he’d get it at 17. But there was nothing.
Steve stood by his side through the crushing disappointment. They had met right before Tony turned 16, Steve already 17 with a red falcon across his back.
“Did that hurt?” Tony remembered asking.
“Like hell,” Steve returned with a small laugh.
When Tony came up blank, without his own soulmark, Steve was the one who let him cry for hours; held him up when he drank himself into a stupor.
Things changed when they made it to college. Steve went to an art school and Tony continued on his path at MIT. One weekend, it was just him and Steve and the next, Steve was introducing his soulmate to Tony.
“This is Sam. Sam, this is Tony.”
Tony would have had a breakdown about this adjustment, but they worked too well as a group. Sam was hilarious and could match his quips with even better rebuttals. They became inseparable for the last 11 years. But there were still moments where it hurt Tony to know that they bore the same soulmark while he remained blank.
Now was one of those moments. Despite his two closest friends being in the same building as him, he felt alone.
The next day felt the same. Except Tony didn’t leave his workshop at all. Steve and Sam kept bringing him food for every meal and attempting to get into the room.
“Sir, they are very concerned about you. Mr. Rogers has your dinner.”
“Tell them to set it down and I’ll grab it later.”
“Sir, I cannot allow you to-”
“Mute, J.”
The silence was immediate. Tony couldn’t worry about food and company right now. He was doing precise work of connecting small wires to the mainframe. Without complete concentration he could short circuit the entire thing and have to start over.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Tony realized that he had the full frame and structural wiring staring him in the face. He smiled to himself before pulling up the next set of blueprints for the connection points and additional wiring that was needed to make B.U.C.K.Y. an independent robot.
Somewhere between measuring the length of the arms and designing the hands, Tony found himself falling asleep at his desk.
A little shuteye won’t hurt , Tony thought to himself as he laid his head down.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up with a blanket over his shoulders and sandwich in front of his face.
“I’m surprised you two are still hanging around,” Tony mumbled as he tried to force himself awake.
“We couldn’t go anywhere until we knew you were okay,” he heard Steve respond behind him.
“I’m fine.”
Tony grabbed the sandwich and took a bite before spinning in his chair to see Sam and Steve staring back at him.
“Are you?” Sam prodded. “You didn’t go to your dad’s funeral and then you shut us out for almost three days! What the fuck, man?”
He took a step towards Tony, but Steve grabbed his arm to hold him back.
“We were worried,” Steve interjected. “We understand why you wouldn’t have wanted to go, but we would have been with you the whole time.
Tony set his sandwich down with a sigh and walked over to Sam, wrapping him up in a hug.
“I’m sorry I worried you. I’m fine, I promise.”
He felt his back crack at the tightness of the hug returned by Sam. They didn’t let go for a while as Tony took in the sturdiness and familiarity of someone he’s known for so long. Soon, he felt another set of arms wrap around him as Steve joined.
It was at that moment that he felt himself shatter. Silent sobs wracked his body as strong arms held him up. He hadn’t known how pent up he was feeling until he was in the safety of his friends. They were the only people he felt comfortable enough to show this much vulnerability to and it felt so good to finally let his guard down.
In the moments that followed, Sam and Steve moved him to a bench in the workshop where they could all sit down together.
“So what have you been up to in here?” Steve asked.
“We know you couldn’t have been sitting in here doing nothing .” Sam added.
Tony gestured over to the wires and a barely-there hand that was sitting on the table. “I found this guy in my dad’s old office and something was telling me I needed to build it. Maybe it was my scientific curiosity, but I took it and the blueprints. Been working on it ever since.”
The two men took in the now obvious silhouette of a person standing by Tony’s workstation.
“Oh, so that’s what that is.”
Tony nudged Steve in the side with a slight chuckle.
“What’s its name?” Sam asked.
“Bionic Universally-Computerized Kinesthetic Youth.”
“That’s just a bunch of words squished together.”
“Sure, but it spells Bucky! I thought that was a cool name.”
The group laughed as they continued to take in the makings of the robot.
“If you’re going to keep working on this,” Steve started, “I think it would be a good idea if Sam and I stick around for a while.”
Tony saw Sam nod in agreement on his other side.
“I don’t know about that, Steve. I still have so much to do. I can’t keep you two away from your home for an indefinite amount of time.”
“Do you still have that floor you set up for us?”
“Well, yeah-”
“Then I think we’ll be fine,” Sam interjected. “We just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Tony tried to find any other argument that his two friends wouldn’t see through. For once, he couldn’t think of anything. He fumbled with his words before he relented.
“Okay, okay, fine. J, go ahead and get Steve and Sam’s room ready for extended stay.”
“Very well, Sir.”
~*~
Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks while the three friends formed some semblance of a routine. Steve and Sam took turns bringing meals to Tony. They kept him company for a few hours before switching out.
After a few days of Tony sleeping in his workshop, Sam and Steve would collectively usher him out of the workshop to sleep in his actual bed. They continued to spend their days this way. Steve would sketch or chat quietly with Tony about menial things to not really take him out of the zone.
Sam, on the other hand, kept Tony active. Every hour or so, Sam would tap Tony on the shoulder and they would get up to stretch. He would remind Tony to check his posture, reminding him to sit up straight.
It was when Sam was keeping him company that Tony found himself talking to B.U.C.K.Y., telling the robot things about his friends and himself. He wasn’t sure why he was talking to the robot this way, but it came naturally.
“Hey, Buck. Mind if I call you Buck? I’m almost done with you,” Tony mumbled then sat back in awe.
It had been two weeks and Tony had made significant progress on his robot. To his side he pulled up plans for a type of synthetic skin before he realized he had no idea what he wanted B.U.C.K.Y. to look like.
Shortly after figuring this out, Steve walked into the workshop to bring him his breakfast.
“Steve! Just the man I wanted to see. Mind coming around to take a look at something for me?”
“Good morning to you, too. What’s up?”
Tony waited for Steve to set down the plates he was holding and stood next to him.
“Bucky is almost done. I have this design for a synthetic skin, but I can’t use it without knowing what he’ll look like. Since you’re the artist in this family, do you think you could sketch something up for me?”
Steve wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulders before responding, “Of course I can.”
“Awesome! Just one request.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Can you leave his left arm to me? I have an idea for that.
~*~
Steve came back the following day with a design. He entered the workshop with a smug smile on his face.
He set a sketchbook on Tony’s worktable. Tony gave a questioning look in return.
“Well? Take a look. I can adjust anything you don’t like, but I think I hit the nail on the head.”
Tony shifted his gaze to the sketchbook in front of him.
To put it simply, he was speechless. The design in front of him was gorgeous, of course, but he was having a hard time looking away. There was a full body sketch on one page and on the next a bust of a smiling man with slight gaps for the synthetic skin to stretch over artificial muscles. He was clean shaven and had floppy hair. He hadn’t even thought of hair and Steve had thought of everything.
It was when Tony realized he was caressing the sketch that he realized he had been silent for a little too long.
“Is this your ideal man, Steve?” Tony asked, trying to break the weird tension settling in the room.
“My ideal man already exists,” Steve responded proudly.
Tony could have cried with how relieved he was that Steve didn’t ask about Tony’s reaction to the sketch. It had been quite clear how he felt about it.
“Do you hear how cheesy you sound?”
The two laughed together as Steve set down a plate of breakfast food. Tony had been so distracted by the sketch of B.U.C.K.Y., he didn’t notice the food earlier.
“So, what’s the plan with the left arm? It seemed pretty important since you didn’t want me to mess with it.”
As Tony started to pull up the plans, Sam walked into the workshop with a book in hand.
“Did he like the design?”
Steve and Tony made quick eye contact before Tony said, “It’s perfect. I was just getting ready to show Steve my plans for the left arm. It seems you have impeccable timing.”
“Indeed, I do.”
Tony pulled up the plans for the arm. He turned to his best friends to show off a metal arm with a red star painted just below the shoulder.
“Isn’t that a little too on the nose for a robot, Tony?” Steve postured.
He shrugged. “Maybe, but the aesthetic !”
“I’m with Tony. I think it looks amazing, and with the design Steve made, this will be one gorgeous robot.”
“See, Sam gets it. if you two don’t mind, I need to get back to work. I have a synthetic skin to prepare and a metal arm to build.”
~*~
It took a few more days, but soon Tony was sitting in front of his robot, no longer just wires. Currently Sam was the one in the workshop, so Tony had J call Steve down, catching the attention of Sam as well.
“Is he done, Tones?”
“Not quite. I still need to paint on the red star and upload him with his own AI, but that shouldn’t take too long.”
The door swished open without needing to knock, and Steve came barreling into the room.
“J, said it was urgent. What’s-”
Tony watched Steve take in the dormant robot with a growing smile.
“Can you paint the red star for me, Steve? You make better straight lines.”
They all laughed as Steve nodded and grabbed the supplies already waiting for him. WhileSteve painted, Tony typed in the final lines of code before sending them off to JARVIS to start the upload. Once the initiation was started and the stencil peeled off from the metal arm, all they could do now was wait.
Throughout this, Tony was a nervous wreck. He had been spending weeks with something to do, something to keep his mind occupied. Now, all he was doing was waiting. He couldn’t stop pacing around the workshop, Sam and Steve’s worried expressions following his every move.
“He’s going to work,” Sam reassured.
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
“He will, Tony. He might be the one who likes you most of all, since you made him.”
A few more tense minutes passed before the group heard JARVIS say, “Sir, Bucky is ready for operation.”
All three of them rushed over to the computer and the robot. Tony took one more moment to take in his accomplishment before he hit enter and golden eyes flashed open, staring back at him.