nighttime visits || winteriron fic

Chapter 2

'How did I get here?' Tony thought as he sat beside his parents murderer, silently fixing his metal arm.

He didn't blame Bucky, not really. Bucky had been mind controlled by HYDRA, had gone through seventy years of hell and now the government was blaming him for everything HYDRA made him do.
Tony supposed that Bucky must think that he blamed him.
However, if Tony blamed Bucky for what he did as the winter soldier, he'd have to blame Clint for what he did under Loki's control, and he'd have to blame Bruce for what he does when he is the Hulk.

"I don't blame you," tony suddenly said, breaking the somewhat uncomfortable silence, "it wasn't you all those years."
Bucky looked at him, hair shifting as he moved his head.
"Steve said almost exactly the same thing" his voice was gravely and low, as if he hadn't used it in a while, "just before Siberia."
They both knew what he meant by Siberia: when Tony went to help Bucky and Steve stop an army of HYDRA assassins; when he found out that Bucky - No, the winter soldier - had killed his parents, and that Steve and Natasha had known for two years; when Tony had lost it and tried to kill Bucky, only to be stopped by Steve.

"Did he?" Tony asked, it wasn't every day that someone told him that he sounded like Captain America. In fact Tony could only remember it ever happening twice, and both of them by Natasha when she was making fun of him. He wasn't sure whether he should count this as a new experience or not.

"yeah" Bucky said. He sounded sad and Tony knew he had no right to pry, and he truly did try to stay quiet, but found himself asking "where is Steve these days anyway?"
At least it wasn't the exact question he wanted to ask: what the fuck happened after he lost? The last he knew, Bucky had lost his metal arm which raises the question of who gave him this one? And why can't he go to them for help? And oh God this was doing Tony's head in. And he and Steve disappeared! Along with Zemo, who was suddenly captured right after.

Bucky just gave him a look, the message was clear: don't ask those questions.
"ok then... I'm just going to go back to fixing this... Oh look here, so interesting!"
Tony wasn't being completely sarcastic (for once in his damned life), the arm was complex and amazingly interesting.

Eventually Tony made sense of the mechanics of the bionic arm, and got to work, and within 30 minutes he was finished. Every plate was painstakingly replaced, and Bucky's arm looked as if it were new.
"there! Done" Tony exclaimed, grinning at his work.
"Thanks." Bucky said quietly.
"um... Do you want to stay here for the night?" Tony asked. It would have been mean to send him away, Tony thought.
"yeah... Sure" Bucky seemed a little uncertain, but then he smiled faintly.

It wasn't as if the tower was full, in fact with Steve and the others gone it was almost empty. Tony gave Steve's old room to Bucky for the night, he thought it was the best choice considering.

When Tony woke up the next morning (slightly later than usual due to his night being taken up with fixing Bucky's arm) Jarvis was there with a message: "Thank you for fixing my arm and for giving me a bed for the night.
Bucky" along with the news that Bucky had gone.