Healing Together (WinterIron)

Chapter 4

"So, what? Did your fancy, court-appointed therapist tell you to befriend me or something?"

Bucky pauses before bending the hell out of some playing cards. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Oh, c'mon, I'm not trying to be a dick. I just don't get it." Tony offers. "What are you doing here?"

Bucky hands the shuffled deck to Tony. "Clint told me I should." Tony throws him a questioning look. "I mean, I wanted to-I don't know. When I thought you were gone, and I was never going to get the chance to apologize." Apologize. Right. So that's what Tony has to look forward to- Bucky apologizing for something he isn't even responsible for and then never coming back, because he'll have gotten what he wanted out of Tony. That seems par for the course. Tony is decidedly not disappointed by this. Not at all. "Steve came to see you, right?"

Tony's getting whiplash over here. "Yes. That's really... something, huh?"

"Right." Bucky starts laying out his cards for Double Solitaire. "Clint told me he was gonna find a way to kick my ass if I didn't quit moping and get around to seeing one of you." The corner of Bucky's mouth picks up a little. It's nice to see.

"And I was the lesser of two evils?"

"Yup."

"So that's what this is? You're working up to some sort of self-fulfilling apology?"

Bucky doesn't look up from his cards. "Yup." The honesty is a breath of fresh air, as it always is with Bucky.

"Alright then."

Fast food sound good?' - Unknown Number

'Yes.'

'But who are you'

'The Fast Food Fairy?'

'Sorry it's Bucky' - Moody Cyborg

Two days after Bucky mysteriously asks for Tony's phone number, he uses it. To text, no less. Though, Tony supposes if Bucky knows how to navigate Amazon, as he proved last week, he'd definitely know how to text. Sometimes he has to chide himself for projecting Steve onto Bucky. Bucky had been cataloged in Tony's brain for a long time as Steve with a tragic past and a murdery alter ego.

'That makes more sense. Peter is here btw'

'That's by the way btw'

'I know what btw means, Tony. Raincheck then?' - Moody Cyborg

'Spider Boy will take a party pack of soft shell tacos. Crunch wrap supreme for me, please'

That's how Tony finds himself watching two enhanced dudes wolf down Mexican-branded American food like animals. "Tsk, tsk, I'm disappointed. Peter, over here, has a dozen tacos to himself, while you've got what? Six?"

"Five, but they're steak chalupas. More substantial." Bucky's nonplussed as he takes another bite.

"Are they any good? I've always just stuck with these." Peter says with a shrug.

"They're amazing. The best Fast Food has to offer. Wanna trade?" Peter passes him two tacos for one chalupa and abandons his current, half-eaten taco for the Americanized, taco-shaped knockoff chalupa.

"Holy cow," Peter speaks, muffled around a bite of ...well, cow. "This is really good."

Tony is grateful for the company; really, he is. And now, in the common room, he doesn't feel cornered. But sometimes, it irks him slightly that it feels like he doesn't have much control over the matter, being strung up to a bed and all. Tony isn't used to being the vulnerable one in social situations. He can get out of bed now, though. Not only can he use the bathroom by himself (getting rid of that damn catheter was an achievement and a half), Bruce urges him to take walks around Medbay. That doesn't help much with the control portion of things, but it certainly feels good to stretch his legs.