Work Text:
// SYSTEM LOG: ENVIRONMENT INITIALIZED
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “HOTEL PENTHOUSE SUITE, CLEVELAND, OH, USA.”
#define TIME “01-23-2017 16:17:03 UTC”
int main() {
std::cout << “STARK: I gotta say, you really oversold me on this spy shit, Barnes.\n”;
return 0;
}
It’s at the third meeting that Stark huffs and says, “I gotta say, you really oversold me on this spy shit, Barnes. I thought we’d be having clandestine meetings in dark alleys, code words. Instead, I’m in a chain hotel. In Cleveland.”
“Okay.”
“You know how hard it was for me to come up with a reason to come here?” Stark throws an arm over the back of the couch. He’s somehow making his bespoke suit seem like pajamas. “Had to fund a whole new grant at the Cleveland Clinic just to get the ribbon-cutting on the itinerary.”
“Sure.”
“So as much as I like you, you’ve got to step up your game.”
Bucky blinks. “But you don’t like me.”
“Yeah; ergo.” Stark gestures at the hotel room.
Set of rooms. They’re in a suite. Modern; deep blues, blond wood, some clean, soulless graphic design on the walls. The whole thing is a loop except for the bathroom, where there’s a free-standing tub in blue enamel that matches the paint, hemmed in with glass panels.
The windows are huge.
Stark had shut the blinds but white sunlight is still pinstriping the carpet. Bucky makes himself look away.
“So. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Bucky would withhold whatever reaction he’s looking for, if only he knew what it was. He isn’t sure Stark even knows, only that he wants one.
He pulls his list and his sketch out of his pocket and hands them over.
“Analog, nice.” Sometimes it seems like Stark talks only because he needs something to do. But he’s frowning down at the paper, focused. “These are the addresses you already checked.”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you start?”
Bucky shrugs. “At the beginning.”
“No, I mean—did you use any specs at all to narrow it down—?”
Bucky shrugs again.
“Oh, good. You were just planning to work your way through the entire list of known HYDRA locations. That’s just great.” Stark blows out a hard breath. “You’ll never make it through all of them. You’d die first.”
Bucky shrugs. “Tried it. Didn’t take.”
Stark looks like he wants to laugh. “You know, I filed my first patent when I was eight.”
“What was it?”
“How familiar are you with keyboard switch stem wobble?”
“I dabble.”
“It was—there was this keyboard, the Alps. It had 13 parts per switch, most mechanical keyboards have five or six—and it was great, but sometimes there can be a trade-off with switch tactility and…wobble.” Stark’s mouth twitches. “And I—okay, this is deep in the weeds. Basically I fucked around with a soldering iron and moved one tiny piece of plastic.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“My point is that wherever the book is, it’s not—I mean, we could just trawl through all the raw data. But there’s a failure point in every system. Do you have the paperwork? I wonder…”
Stark aims his phone at the papers, taking a photo. Then he holds the papers out for Bucky to take them back. He’s sitting on Bucky’s left. Bucky sits and waits for him to notice. “Take ‘em, I’m done.”
Stark looks up, just a glance, and then his gaze stutters.
Bucky waits a beat and then leans across and takes the papers back with his hand. It probably isn’t his kindest impulse, but he makes a point to wear short sleeves when they meet.
Stark types furiously on his phone for a while before he surfaces for air. “I have some ideas, but I have to figure out the search parameters first.”
“Sure,” Bucky says. He has, suddenly, the impulse to fidget, and it feels like a memory he absorbed from someone else’s body. But he didn’t have powers like that. It just felt that way, sometimes, like he couldn’t stop eating what he killed.
“All right,” Stark says, easy as anything, and uses his phone to project a 3D model of the globe in the room. Several locations are labeled in red and crossed off, mostly the big standalone HYDRA facilities and bunkers scattered across the globe. “So what we need to do is pull up the paperwork and see if we can find a pattern. LLCs registered in Delaware, shell companies, law firms, things like that. In the end, HYDRA was just like—the mob but with delusions of grandeur.”
Privately, Bucky thinks having the former Secretary of State as its boss elevated HYDRA a notch, but he takes Stark’s point.
“And how did they get Al Capone in the end? Tax evasion.”
“Follow the money,” Bucky says.
“Obviously,” Stark continues, “I’ll also keep looking for the book when I can, so keep giving me locations.”
“I thought that’s why we were here,” Bucky says.
Stark blinks at him. “It’s a priority,” he says. “But—I mean. Do you want it to be the priority?”
Bucky would rather run straight through plate glass than answer that question. “As a tactical matter?” he asks.
“No,” Stark says, and now he looks a little more like Howard; concerned. “As a, you know. As a you matter.”
Straight through the nearest window, do not pass go. “Yes,” Bucky says through his teeth.
“All right,” Stark says. “So. Got anything new for me?”
“Heard some rumours about Havana.”
“Havana,” Stark says to himself. “Well, now that they’ve opened diplomatic relations back up, maybe I can take a look.”
Bucky grunts. “I think you’d count as an invasion.”
“I’ll go in a personal capacity,” Stark says. “Rum and cigars, what’s not to like?”
Bucky grunts again.
Stark shoots him a look and closes the map. “You know how hard it is to find an analog book? Havana. Cleveland.”
“It’s a nice hotel,” Bucky says.
“You need to get out more.”
“It’s been a little difficult,” Bucky says. “Seeing as I’m an international fugitive and all.”
“Doesn’t have to be that way.”
“You’re right. I could be an international prisoner instead.”
“Hah. You’re funny. Did that come pre-installed with the hardware, or—what did they run you on, some crappy Soviet UNIX knock-off?”
“Mostly seizures, I think.”
“Oh, dark.” Stark sounds delighted. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering you killed for a living.”
“Sort of,” Bucky says. “They didn’t pay me.”
“See,” Stark says. “This is why America is the greatest country on Earth.” His teeth flash in a grin; half charm, half threat display. “I got rich.”
/SYSTEM LOG: EXECUTING MEMORY RECALL/
#include <stdio.h>
#define LOCATION “Красноярск, Россия.”
#define TIME “UNKNOWN”
void recall_memory() {
printf(“командир: \n”
“Тоска\n”
“Ржавый\n”
“Семнадцать\n”
“Рассвет\n”
“Печь\n”
“Девять\n”
“Доброкачественный\n”
“Возвращение домой\n”
“Один\n”
“Грузовой автомобиль.\n”);
}
int main() {
recall_memory();
return 0;
}
Of all his handlers, Pierce was the worst.
When he met Pierce it was startling; Bucky realized he hadn’t made real eye contact for about sixty years. He looked at people. They didn’t look back. The rest of them had shot and cleaned him like a gun.
But Pierce had seen the emptiness; commanded that howling void, and sat Bucky down and looked him in the eye and told him about order and chaos, about peace and war. About people who did what needed to be done in the hard moments; got their hands dirty, blood and grime, so they could build the hill upon which there would be a city. Every lighthouse started with somebody digging the foundations, knee-deep in the dirt.
By that point, Steve had long since been blitzkrieged from Bucky’s brain, even if Captain America was still in the library, filed under Disruptions. Bucky didn’t need a manifesto. He didn’t need belief. All he needed were instructions.
Maybe that was why it took so long for him to come back to himself. The story in the Smithsonian, the person he’d become in memory, was alien to him.
Also, the electrocutions. That was probably part of it.
// SYSTEM LOG: ENVIRONMENT INITIALIZED
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “OLD CITY HALL STATION, NEW YORK, NY, USA”
#define TIME “3-10-2017 21:12:17 UTC”
int main() {
std::cout << “STARK: See, this is nice. This is clandestine.\n”;
return 0;
}
“See,” Stark says, voice strange and flat under the helmet. “This is nice. This is clandestine.”
He hits the glowing blue button in the center of his chest and the armor just—disappears, skittering away like an insect colony. Bucky holds very still.
Stark taps the button. “Oh, this? Yeah. Made some adjustments after last time.”
“That’s a lot of work just to kill me,” Bucky says.
“Oh, don’t worry, sugar, I’d do so much more work for that.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. So,” Stark says. ”I checked out Havana.”
“Didn’t see anything in the papers,” Bucky says.
“The papers,” Stark huffs. “No, I decided not to cause an international incident. I sent a drone.”
“Okay.”
“Want to hear what I found?”
“Sure.”
Stark looks at him. “Why are you here?”
“To get the intel.”
“No, like why are you here, Barnes.”
Bucky wants to laugh. “I could ask you the same question.”
“You could. But it’s my turn right now.”
Bucky looks up at the glass arches. They’re in art deco style, grimy with the ambient soot of New York City, and he finds it a strange comfort; something about pristine relics makes him think of church. His arm, his flesh, an unholy mess. It’s a gray afternoon, the cool, ambient haze like the moon was in charge of light for a day.
Why was he here?
If it were Steve asking, he’d know what to say, because he knows how Steve would read it. Plus, for somebody who absolutely sucks ass at lying, Steve is pretty good at detecting bullshit. Then he’d look at Bucky all disappointed/compassionate/guilty and then he’d wipe it off his face, determined to keep up the appearance that he wants Bucky here, that it was all worth it.
Bucky wishes he’d stop.
He knows Steve wants him here, that’s not it. He knows Steve even wants him here, in the 21st century, not just as a monument.
If all Steve had wanted to do was wax nostalgic about the good old days, Bucky would have hauled them both back into the Potomac himself. As it stands, Steve’s doing better than he ought to be, considering he thinks the thing that happened to him is that he woke up, not that he died.
But Bucky—the only thing he knew for a long time was waking up, over and over and over again. It’s odd, realising it in retrospect. They say you spend a third of your life asleep; if only you knew which third it was. The only way to notice is if you wake up.
“Because—I need to know.”
He finds himself looking Stark in the eye, hoping to be read correctly. He’d hate for Stark to look into Bucky’s face and see Steve’s convictions, his strength of will, when really, what Bucky meant was logistics. Hard to get noble about that.
But Stark only sighs and looks down the track. The station is part of a turning loop now for the southbound 6 train; just one station out from the bustle of Brooklyn Bridge. Sometimes people stayed on the train after the terminal stop to catch a glimpse of the old station, turning into the ghosts of the future as the past flitted by.
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Stark says. “Dealing with—it. Him. I ran the BARF simulation, did my therapy and everything. I thought I was done.”
Bucky frowns. “You shouldn’t have called it BARF if you didn’t want it to come back up.”
“See, that—that has to be hardware.” Stark comes closer, peering at him. “For one thing, I’m pretty sure the Soviets didn’t have a sense of humor.”
“They did,” Bucky says. “They just had to share it.”
“So it was a distribution error.”
“It’s—” Bucky is cut off by a sharp flare of pain in his left shoulder, hot and then sore and cold. He’d call it nerve pain except he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have any at the site anymore.
Stark catches his flinch, eyes sharp. “Phantom limb for your phantom limb?”
“No,” Bucky says. “Or if it is, it’s for my first arm. The—meat one.”
“The meat one. Jesus Christ.” But Stark is still looking at the hollow of Bucky’s shoulder, the cup of his non-arm.
“Can I take a look?”
Bucky raises his eyebrows. It was a bold request, considering he’d been the one to blast it off. Stark doesn’t look abashed in the least but they’re both thinking it.
“Sure.”
Stark bends low, squinting. “Move into the—yeah,” he says, reaching out to adjust the angle of Bucky’s shoulder, tilting into the light.
“I could build you a new arm,” he says.
Bucky looks straight ahead. “I think the others might have a couple questions if I came back with a Stark arm.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t slap a logo on it. No offense, but you’re not exactly a great billboard.”
“I didn’t say Stark industries. I’ve seen the things you’ve designed. They all smell like you.”
“…smell.”
“They have the same—”
This is the most abstract concept he’s had to describe in English in a long time and he stalls, processes stuttering. For all that Stark is a fast-talker, he’s quiet now. Knowledge is something he’s had to learn to be patient for.
“Душа,” Bucky says, finally.
Stark taps his wrist and it lights up, a control panel. Bucky had thought it was a watch. “FRIDAY?”
“The most literal translation to English is soul,” a woman’s voice says, out of the panel. “But in this context I would say it is closer to your spirit, your selfness. It’s quite a lovely compliment, if I say so myself, boss.”
“Nobody asked for editorial, go away.” He glances askance at Bucky. “All right, cool it, Bourne Identity Crisis.”
He hadn’t realized he’d pulled away; thighs tense, hand pulling out the dagger in his sleeve. They’re both ready for blood.
“Who is she?” he says, not letting go of the hilt.
“FRIDAY. My artificial intelligence,” Stark says. “The real thing, not the glorified calculators they’re pumping out of Silicon Valley.”
“And she’s listening, all the time.”
Stark blinks. “Yes. She can leave, though.”
“You mean, you can tell her to leave.”
“You wound me, Barnes. Would I lie to you?”
“Yes.”
The way Stark rolls his eyes is theatrical, practically an art form. “Fine. You want me to do it anyway? FRIDAY, kick it.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Bucky doesn’t want to let go of the knife, but keeping it out feels like bad manners. He slides it back into the sheath. It’s okay that he’s revealed that weapon, he has another one in his boot. And strapped to his back. And in his other boot.
Stark pokes around the socket hole a little more. Cavity search. “Hey, you’re looking a little green. Don’t puke on me, Barnes, I’ve got a reservation at seven.”
“I’m normal.”
Stark snorts. “Sure. The normallest. How are you feeling?”
“I said, I feel myself normal,” Bucky says, and blinks. “That’s not right.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a little…glitch.” Stark squints at him. “Huh. That’s interesting. You’ve got the data, but not the function call. Maybe it’s a context problem. Let me know if you need to leave.”
“Sure.”
“…right. That’s conditional. Let’s try this: If you were to let me know you wanted to leave, how would you do it?”
“I would leave.”
“Great. That’s super helpful. Keep talking, give me more data.”
Bucky should pull away. There is a strange, cold tingle climbing up his nerves and shrinking his scalp; the soft gray light suddenly feels like the mushy blizzard of white noise on TV. But instead he says, “Why is she Irish?”
“I don’t know, perverse sense of humor? Her predecessor was English.”
“You didn’t make her that way?”
“I guess—I guess I could have.” Stark seems genuinely startled by the idea. “But—no, she chose her voice. Seemed like the way to do it; she’s the one who has to use it after all.”
Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He offers up his shoulder instead. His mind feels like it’s fragmenting, loading like early 90s dial-up.
“It’s only a machine,” he says.
Stark is still peering at the socket. “She’s a system. Like every other machine.”
“You’re a machine,” he says. “And so am I, is that right? Meat, metal, we’re all the same.”
“No,” Stark says, looking up at his face. “Not quite.”
// SYSTEM LOG: EXECUTING MEMORY RECALL
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “JOINT COUNTER TERRORISM CENTRE, BERLIN, GERMANY.”
#define TIME “05-?-2016 --:--:-- UTC”
void recall_memory() {
std::cout << “психиатр: ‘Тоска. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Доброкачественный. Возвращение. Домой. Один. Грузовой автомобиль..’\n”;
}
int main() {
recall_memory();
return 0;
}
// SYSTEM LOG: ENVIRONMENT INITIALIZED
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “LAS VEGAS, NV, USA.”
#define TIME “05-19-2017 12:07:03 UTC”
int main() {
std::cout << “HOSTESS: ‘Enjoy your meal, sir.’\n”;
return 0;
}
The restaurant Stark summons him to in Vegas is in a low-slung building, blazing yellow rodeo neon in what must be America’s most overpriced strip mall. Inside, the hostess leads him through the main dining room, white tablecloths; red leather seats in the booths. Now, looking at the diners in their Macy’s finest, oohing and aahing and selfie-ing over tableside flambé. A kind of uncomplicated delight that makes Bucky embarrassed but he’s not sure for whom. He’s not sure he was capable of it even before the war.
They reach a discreet wooden door tucked into the back of the place. “Enjoy your meal, sir,” the hostess says, with a flat, pleasant smile, and lets him make his own way inside.
The room is much too big for two people but somehow much too small for anything else. There are only two chairs but the table looks like it could seat at least ten. The damask wallpaper, the bizarre built-in library shelves, the wood paneling, the red velvet chair. It’s doing a bad impression of the kind of luxury he might have imagined as a kid.
Stark is sitting at the far end of the table, fiddling with his phone. The chair at the head of the table is left for him. The table is already loaded with food and an open bottle of wine, but Stark’s glass is empty except for the legs from the presentation pour. When the door shuts, Stark’s head snaps up.
Stark gestures at the table. “I got a little of everything. Well, okay, I got a lot of a few things. Turns out a lot is the only amount available here.”
Bucky sits. “Is that a baked potato?”
“Vegas’s Largest,” Stark informs him.
“Why does it have a lobster tail on it?”
“To make it larger.”
Bucky pulls the potato toward him and tries to find a good angle of attack, but it is, in fact, fucking enormous. In the end he cuts it in half across, its macaroni and cheese entrails spilling out under the dull pressure of the knife. He transfers his half to his plate and starts to eat.
It’s fine. It’s potato and cheese, and that’s never bad. It’s drenched in rich butter, too, almost more sauce than food. There might be bacon bits in there. It’s like eating a museum of stupid food trends. All it’s missing is truffle oil and gold leaf.
He shovels another forkful into his mouth. “Aren’t you gonna have any?”
Stark shrugs. “I’ll have a bite. Not all of us have super metabolisms.”
“So, what. You’re just gonna sit and watch me eat?”
“See, when you put it that way, it sounds creepy.” Stark almost smiles, and nudges the bottle of wine. “If you want. I realize I didn’t ask if you drink—”
“Sure.”
“It’s French.”
Bucky chews, swallows. “Okay.”
“Is that—that’s fine?”
“Well, I don’t think they take returns,” Bucky says. The lobster tail is still taunting him at the edge of his plate, opulently stupid.
“No,” Stark says faintly. “I don’t suppose they do.”
He pours them each a very generous measure.
“If you’re gonna drink, you should have some potato,” Bucky says, and nudges the plate at him.
Stark makes a complicated little face and then scoops some cheesy potato guts and lobster onto his plate.
“Why did you order it if you weren’t gonna eat it?”
“I don’t know, ambience,” Stark says.
Bucky raises his eyebrows, tilts his head at the wallpaper. “You wanted more of this?”
“It’s old school! It’s charming!”
“It’s hideous.” Bucky takes a sip of his wine. “Food’s good though.”
“Happy to hear you approve,” Stark says. “Anyway, the steaks should be getting here soon. Hope you like rib-eye.”
“Sure,” Bucky says. He doesn’t remind Stark that he grew up during the Depression, went to wartime Europe, and then spent most of his adult life as a prisoner in Soviet Russia. It feels unkind.
“What brings you here, anyway?” he asks. Making conversation. It’s the polite thing to do.
“Conference.”
“I thought you were out of the weapons business.”
“Who said anything about weapons? Clean energy.”
Bucky snorts. “So they decided to hold it in a resort in a desert.”
Stark laughs. “These venture capital kids. They think it’s retro.”
There’s a soft knock and then a young woman in a white shirt pokes her head through the door. “Mr. Stark, I hope everything is to your liking?”
“Yes,” Stark says. “Excellent. Truly the most magnificent of potatoes.”
“Great!” she says, with a perky, American smile. “Can I get you anything else? Or for your…friend?”
Stark glances over at Bucky, seemingly amused. “No,” he says. “I think we’re all set. Thank you, Annalise.”
The woman blushes. She’s not wearing a name tag; Stark must have remembered her name. “All right,” she says. “Just let me know!”
The door clicks shut behind her and Stark snickers into his wine. “I don’t think you’re what she expected,” he says.
Bucky raises his eyebrows and has another forkful of potato.
“The world’s least convincing sugar baby,” Stark says.
“Is there something I should be doing?”
“No, you just sit there and look pretty,” Stark says, and laughs again. He’s a little looser now with the wine, a hint of pink over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. “Just fucking housing that potato.”
“You should have some,” Bucky says, nudging his plate.
Stark rolls his eyes and loads up his fork. “Killjoy,” he says.
“I don’t see what’s joyful about a hangover.”
“You don’t even get hangovers,” Stark says.
“Yeah, but everyone else does, and I don’t want to put up with the bitching.”
“You planning on sticking around overnight, then?” Stark says. He is studiously chunking his potato into cubes.
Bucky watches him.
“Some kind of honeypot—ugh.” Stark drops his fork with a clatter. “Fuck.”
“Stark, are you drunk?”
“No. That was just.” Stark presses the heel of his hand to his eye. “Sorry I said anything. You’re not—anyway.”
Bucky looks at him curiously, waiting for him to finish. He knows what Stark was gesturing at, of course. But a part of him would like to hear him say it. The odds are against him. Stark is a shitty operator.
Bucky was well-trained to see the weakest points in a structure. It’s not that Stark didn’t have them; it’s that he wore them so openly; not on his sleeve but his armor. There was probably some psychobabble in that. It’s almost pointless to try and exploit them.
I don’t care. He killed my mom.
He knows Steve wrote Stark a letter. He doesn’t know what it said. Steve always knew what to say. That’s why they’d chosen him. Erskine saw the things he loved in his adopted country. If it had been Steve in the chair, getting all kinds of injections, his arm welded on, he would have died before he let them use him. He would have made them kill him first.
But Bucky lived.
He would have loved for it to be cowardice; courage is a choice. It had comforted him, in some strange way. For the longest time, Bucky had been the because to Steve’s why not; the someday to his stand up.
It had been a mistake to let a scientist choose. Because he didn’t understand that being willing to die for what you believe in makes you a great hero, and that conviction makes you a terrible operator.
Belief; it’s going to get them all killed.
/SYSTEM LOG: EXECUTING MEMORY RECALL/
#include <stdio.h>
#define LOCATION “UNKNOWN.”
#define TIME “12-??-1991 --:--:-- UTC”
void recall_memory() {
printf(“Карпов: ’У меня для тебя миссия. Санкционировать и извлечь. Без свидетелей.’\n”);
}
int main() {
recall_memory();
return 0;
}
/*SYSTEM LOG: EXECUTING MEMORY RECALL*/
#include <stdio.h>
#define LOCATION “LONG ISLAND, NY, USA.”
#define TIME “12-16-1991 23:58:04 UTC”
void recall_memory() {
printf(“PRIMARY TARGET: ’Help my wife. Please. Help—’\n”);
printf(“WITNESS: ’Howard?’\n”)
printf(“PRIMARY TARGET: ’Sergeant Barnes? Please—’\n”);
printf(“WITNESS: ’Howard! Howard—’\n”)
(That's the thing about redemption arcs: what goes up must come down).
// SYSTEM LOG: MEMORY RECALL - TRANSLATION INITIALIZED
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “JOINT COUNTER TERRORISM CENTRE, BERLIN, GERMANY.”
#define TIME “05-?-2016 --:--:-- UTC”
void recall_memory() {
std::cout << “PSYCHIATRIST: ‘Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car.’\n”;
}
int main() {
recall_memory();
return 0;
// SYSTEM LOG: ENVIRONMENT INITIALIZED
#include <iostream>
#define LOCATION “PARIS, FRANCE.”
#define TIME “12-31-2017 23:07:03 UTC”
int main() {
std::cout << “STARK: I got you something.\n”;
return 0;
}
Bucky has already gotten his food by the time Stark arrives. He doesn’t mind eating alone.
“I hate Paris,” Stark announces as he sits down. “Sorry I’m late. Here, I got you something.” Then he tosses something on the table.
The little red book.
Bucky puts down his utensils. It’s a strange relief; Stark wouldn’t be so bad. The problem with Pierce was that he was an idealist. He would have died in that cave in Afghanistan defying his captors. Stark built himself a heart out of a battery and then got to work welding together a flamethrower. A little pragmatism never hurt anyone.
Then again. Maybe that’s why Stark had so much trouble; he thought you could privatize peace.
Peace requires conflict. It anticipates it. He’d just shifted the burden of fighting to a smaller clique. And Bucky was a good operator. He would be the last one standing; the violent clique of one.
“I guess if anyone should have those words,” Bucky says. “It should be you.”
“All right, relax, Animal Farm.”
“That’s not what that book is about.”
“Allegory, shmallegory.” Stark sits back, arms crossed, almost hunched in on himself. “You really think I would just—turn up, casually. With your fucking brain remote control.”
Bucky shrugs.
“Well, it’s all yours. It’s a gift. Say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“You want to blow it up?” Stark says, nodding at the book. “I’ll let you use one of my gauntlets if you ask very nicely. Not that I’m encouraging book burning. Wouldn’t want to get you back into bad habits.”
Bucky stares at him. Such a shitty operator. It was a miracle he was still alive. To hand Bucky both of those weapons, for what, for—kicks? He feels it in two waves; first the rage, and then the fear. He reminds himself that it’s all right. He hadn’t felt anything when he killed Howard and Maria.
He looks Stark in the eye. “You know I hurt people.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” Stark snaps. “I designed missiles for the U.S. military, dipshit, you’re never gonna beat my body count.”
“Mine were…up close. I watched them die—”
“Do you want to get into this? Is this a thing you want to get into, with me? Shut up and eat your steak. God, I fucking hate Paris.”
Bucky considers it. Stark’s gauntlet on his flesh hand; he would feel it against his skin, all of Stark’s precise engineering.
Metal and the meat. It’s the only way they’ve touched. Bucky still has the sense memory of Steve’s face pulping under his metal hand. He wonders if it had felt the same through the gauntlets; if Stark, too, had to clean out bits of Steve’s skin and blood from between the plates of the armor.
Bucky looks down.
“There was a dog,” he says. “His name was Malchik, and for three years he lived at Mendeleyevskaya Station on the Moscow subway. Moscow is full of stray dogs. Malchik was well-fed by the shopkeepers, who gave him scraps when they took a break from selling flowers and tobacco. He lived this way for three years. A hard life; hardly a good one. But he ate well and was healthy enough.”
Stark is watching him, bright and observant. Bucky continues:
“But one day, a young woman came into the station with her own dog and she set her dog on Malchik. Then she pulled a kitchen knife from her purse and finished Malchik off. One of the shopkeepers tried to stop her, but it was over quickly. An ambulance was called but it was too late. The woman fled the scene and the police did nothing. All the commuters could do was pass by and try not to step on poor, dead Malchik.”
Now Stark looks like he wants to say something. But Bucky continues:
“Many years later, they used public donations and built a statue at Mendeleyevskaya Station in Malchik’s honor. Many famous singers and movie stars donated, even people from overseas. Everybody wanted to help. The statue is cast in bronze. Malchik’s leg is lifted, and he’s scratching himself. One of the artists said it was right that he be scratching himself, because he was a stray, and he had fleas. It was unveiled the last Sunday before Great Lent, which is called Forgiveness Sunday in the Russian Orthodox calendar, and they named it Сочувствие. ‘Compassion.’” Bucky shrugs. “That’s the best translation, anyway. Some meaning is lost.”
Stark’s brow is furrowed. When Bucky puts another bite of steak in his mouth the first thing he can taste is the blood.
“So, what, you’re the dog?” Stark asks.
Bucky shrugs. “Allegory,” he says, and eats his steak, because it is very good, and it would be a waste for it to go cold.
// SYSTEM LOG: PROCESS COMPLETED
return 0;