Let's pretend that everything's normal [closed]

[tookthewheel]

Who| Bucky and Tony
What| Tony acquisitions a watchmakers tools so he can give Bucky's arm a pre-arena tune up
Where| Out in the city
When| Backdated to a couple days before the arena
Warnings/Notes| probable sads

Bucky isn't exactly expecting a visit from Tony Stark, though maybe he should after the steady parade of friends and acquaintances who've come to his door. It feels rather like they've come to babysit him at times and he suspects that's not far from the truth. With everything that's happened it'd be easy to regress backwards and let all the progress he's made fall away with the strength of all the negative emotions Steve's capture has brought forwards.

Guilt and anger are the strongest, warring for supremacy, dragging with them the aftershocks of despair and helplessness. He fucked up and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to make peace with himself over it. Certainly not until the hammer finally falls in regards to Steve's fate in the Capitol's hands.

Alive or dead, no one knows and the Capitol doesn't seem inclined to make a statement, even after they already inflicted their punishments on every other conspirator they knew about. Bucky doesn't know what would be worse, to know Steve is dead or see him broken like Initiate, silenced for daring to try and do the right thing.

He lurches up to answer the door after the second round of knocking, running his fingers through his unbrushed hair as he opens the door. "Tony?"

Comments

[arrogantalloy]

Tony wants to deny that he came here out of concern. Which on at least some level is true. He knows Bucky doesn't need to be looked in on, and is a grown ass man, no matter how wonky his brain is at the moment. However everyone else in the capitol that Tony had known has already made an appearance to him since Steve disappeared. Bucky had been the only one left to see him, and Tony had no doubts that Bucky hadn't shown up to him for the same reasons Tony hadn't shown up to him.

They had gotten used to being loners, licking their own wounds when in pain. As far as Tony was concerned, with the newest arena on the horizon, he had to at least check in with who, as far as he was concerned, was his team. With Steve missing, someone had to.

So when Bucky opens the door and is unsurprisingly confused as to Tony's being there, Tony just sweeps in past him. "Uh, Hey." is all he says before picking up some random thing in Bucky's room looking at it curiously before putting it back down.

Okay so he had no idea what to do now that he's gotten this far.

"I think. This is the part where I act like your a miserable wreck and ask how you are?"

[tookthewheel]

Bucky doesn't try to stop him entering, just shuts the door and turns slowly to watch Tony look about his room. He doesn't try to stop him picking anything up either.

On the bed his tribble warbles questioningly for him, picking up on the new arrival with whatever senses it possesses (he's never quite sure how that works since they don't seem to have anything like eyes or ears that he can see).

"Hey." Bucky shrugs, then a moment later shakes his head. "We can skip that part." because all in all it's getting tiring. The truth isn't going to change anytime soon and those concerned questions don't really help in the long run. "Unless that's why you're here."

[arrogantalloy]

There's a glance at the tribble, Tony raising an eyebrow at it. Despite having a real interest in Star Trek, he's never really gone out of his way to find out how or why people seem to have tribbles here.

Probably because he knows that he couldn't even take care of something as low maintenance as a vibrating dust bunny.

He shrugs at Bucky's words.

"Solidarity." He starts with. "I think." He shrugs again, putting down the last thing he picked up and slips his hands in his pockets, thumbs catching the sides and holding his hands from going any deeper.

"You're the only one who hasn't checked up on me. So..." Something, he's not sure if it's his own unwillingness to bring up Steve or some actual compassion about bringing him up to Bucky. Either way he leaves the sentence open and makes no attempt to close it.

[tookthewheel]

"I..." he's not sure if that's meant to be an admonishment or not. Should he have been to see Tony? Had Tony expected him after everything? "I'm not good company right now." Or ever, if he was being brutally honest with himself, which is something he's been given over to a lot since Steve's disappearance. Could haves and should haves fill his mind at every turn.

Definitely not a good state of mind to be in to offer solidarity as Tony puts it.

Bucky turns, trailing towards the bed to sit down on it. It's still too soft for him and there's many nights where he'll give up trying to sleep on the cushioned mattress in favour of the floor under a pile of blankets and cushions.

He scoops up his tribble and runs his metal thumb across its side.

[arrogantalloy]

He shrugs at Bucky's moment of honesty, looking pretty dismissive of it.

"Who is right now?"

He watches Bucky move and then play with the tribble. Quiet for a moment. He has no idea what to say, and really not too much of an idea as to why he came here short of the fact Bucky was the only one of the group still in the capitol he hadn't seen yet. But he watches him stroke the tribble with his metal thumb then nods towards it.

"How's it moving?"

Obviously talking about the arm and not the tribble.

[tookthewheel]

"Good point." Bucky concedes.

It takes a moment, complete with puzzled expression, for him to realise exactly what Tony's talking about. The arm, of course. Tony's a mechanic and Bucky had let him take a look at the prosthetic before, back when it'd been damaged in the mall arena.

"It's," Fine almost leaves his lips carelessly, an automatic response, except that isn't quite true. Bucky takes a moment and makes himself be honest, which he finds a little amusing to be honest. Go back a few months and it would never have occurred to him to answer with anything but absolute honesty. "a little stiff."

[arrogantalloy]

Hearing that it's stiff Tony takes a step forward.

"Stiff how?"

he automatically moves to touch it, then stops suddenly as he remembers very acutely what happened last time he just made a move on the arm without asking. So he gestures to the arm while only a few feet away.

"It's alright if I pop the hood?"

[tookthewheel]

Bucky reflects that he should have sought Tony about this himself sooner, but he'd already more or less explained his reasoning on that.

There's the fact that the reason why his arm isn't responding as well it should is probably also his fault, thanks to the extreme workouts he's putting himself and it through in an attempt to work out his feelings over Steve in the training level. When he revives the arm comes back just the same as when he first arrived too; after a punishing fight with Steve, a dip in a river and then two weeks without maintenance. It was inevitable at some point he'd strain it too much.

"The reaction time is slowed." not by much, but enough that Bucky notices it. He looks at Tony and -- there's a moment where gratefulness shows in his expression that the other man asked. Bucky doesn't want to repeat that experience either.

He nods to show his permission and holds it out straight in front of him.

[arrogantalloy]

Like the last time Tony worked on Bucky's arm. The second permission is given, Tony's swarming the arm lifting and making the arm arch fiddling with the fingers and looking under the plating with a practiced eye.

All before leveling Bucky with an unimpressed look.

"What they hell have you been doing to this? I'm going to need actual tools for this." He shakes his head. "Precision tools at that, not improvise with a knife and paper clips."

He looks at Bucky like a computer tech looks at a person who has managed to fill up their browser screen with adware search bars to the point they can't see the screen.

[tookthewheel]

Bucky's expression twists, looking like an unruly child before smoothing out into controlled familiarity, "I haven't been doing anything to it. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Nothing but hitting a lot of heavy objects.

"And where are we going to get those?" He's been around long enough to know that they won't let Tony have access to tools by now, too afraid of what the engineering genius would be capable of.

[arrogantalloy]

Tony just gives him a look.

"If you haven't done something to it, it wouldn't need fixing. This might be soviet era rubbish. But it's being doing fine all this time outside arenas."

You are getting such a 'don't lie to your doctor' face right now, Buck-a-roo. He then pokes around for a couple more seconds before closing the arm up then looking out the window thoughtfully.

"Clock maker. There's bound to be one near buy. I could probably get one to borrow the tools... Or the store."

[tookthewheel]

Bucky still looks petulantly back at him.

"I think they updated it since then."

No, he doesn't know why he's semi-defending the tech of his arm either, except that it's his. Privately he does wonder, if Tony calls the arm (which seems perfectly advanced and cutting edge to him) rubbish, what his friend would be capable of making himself.

He flexes the arm once it's closed up. "So long as we don't get in trouble for it."

[arrogantalloy]

Ton's response could barely be described as a 'pfft' to Bucky saying they've updated the arm. All Tony knows for sure is they've kept the 'skin' more up-to-date than the hardware. Possibly because removing the arm to upgrade it would cause an unhelpful amount of trauma to their 'asset'.

Tony shrugs then gestures for Bucky to follow as he leaves the room.

"I'm the latest victor. As long as I don't look anti-capitol in public, I can probably get away with anything. Besides, breaking into a clock shop to fix my traitor boyfriend's Best friend's arm sounds like I'm cheating on him. They'll eat it up."

Tony knows for certain how much the media of any world loves scandals to make their boring lives titillating.

[tookthewheel]

Bucky blinks, then his lips quirk. He shouldn't be amused all things considered, but he is. Of course it doesn't last and his expression is appropriately sombre all over again in moments, like it never happened.

He quickly falls into step behind Tony, shortening his stride to keep from advancing ahead. This is stark's plan after all. "Think you'll get hate mail?"

Though he usually just tosses his own fan mail without bothering to look at them Bucky's come to know a thing or two about the expression of fan's feelings in the almost year he's been here.

[arrogantalloy]

"You mean more?" Tony smirks over his shoulder at him. After all, he got it for announcing he and Steve were dating, because people in the Capitol thought they could have him, then he got it for 'dating a traitor'.

And that's just in this world.

He doesn't notice that Bucky's keeping a shorter stride, people normally do around him so it's something that doesn't even register.

"Hate mail is nothing, it's the "love" mail that I don't like inviting to parties."

[tookthewheel]

Bucky snorts in amusement. "Do you actually read all of it?"

He doesn't. His escorts had tried to encourage him to throughout his stay, but given how little he cares about the what the vultures in the city think of him it hadn't worked out for them. Bucky takes his daily deliveries straight to the trash, no matter their content.

It's funny how a complete lack of reply doesn't seem to deter his fans at all.

"In that case, keep pissing people off."