Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tony learned from very young that others didn’t hear the music. The music that underlaid a person, their own symphony that exposed the truth of what they were behind the fake smiles and the pleasant expressions.

It was constantly there, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, sometimes heartbreakingly sorrowful.  He loved the times it was bright and joyful, inviting you to rock your knees to the melody. And when he was young and innocent, Tony danced to the music playing in his mind with uninhibited freedom, letting his childish laughter intertwine with it and create new harmony.

That didn’t last long. Howard lost the charm in Tony’s tales of the music quickly, shouting to grow the hell up and stop telling lies. Tony didn’t understand how his father could say he was lying when the music was so obvious. It was there all the time when there were people around. Tony only heard silence when he was with himself, so surely his father would hear the music he himself was producing.

It was Jarvis who told him the truth. His father wasn’t the one who was deaf to his music. Tony was the one with the problem. He was the one hearing music no one else could hear.

The sent him to doctors to “fix” him. ENT specialists, neurologists, psychologists, anyone who might be able to figure where the delusions of sound were coming from. Test after test after inconclusive test, being poked and prodded and questioned and given that same pitying look. That’s the boy who was born Stark mad. His poor parents, they have so much to deal with. Insert sad head shake here. But I guess genius comes with a price.

Maria became more and more distant as time passed. Being married to Howard was its own difficulty, but having a son who could hear things that no one else could? No. It wasn’t getting any better and eventually, she stopped wanting to know anything at all.

~~

By the time Tony was six, he informed everyone that things had changed. One day he woke up and the music was gone, he told his doctors, his parents. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. He was better.

He lied. It was hard in the beginning, to stop reacting to the music outwardly. But he knew that it wasn’t safe anymore for him to mention it, that being broken had punishments attached to it. Only Jarvis knew.

Even with everything, he was sometimes grateful for the music, for the warning it granted him. He knew his mother was fragmented and melancholy inside before she even started taking her sleeping pills during the day. Knew from the sound of the banging drums that his father was in a vindictive mood before he even heard the footsteps. The music warned him, and he always ran to Jarvis in that time because Jarvis was calm classical music that played over his frayed nerves like rocks skipping gently over a placid lake. Soothing him while he rocked in place, hands clamped to his ears and tears streaming down his face, everything around him loud and disjointed and breaking over him like waves trying to drown. In those ways, Jarvis saved him.

~~

The silence after his parents died was worse than any of the music he had heard over the years. It ate at him incessantly like rats nibbling at his toes, sharp reminders that he was alone, that they were dead and never coming back. In those moments, he prayed for loud banging drums to force his eardrums to bleed, melancholy music to pull at his bones and make tears fall from his eyes. But there was nothing. Only emptiness.

He broke into Howard’s drinking cabinets on one of those nights, laughing hysterically at the realization that this was now his study. Howard was never coming back. Everything was his now, though he didn’t want it.

The alcohol blurred his awareness enough that he could fool himself that the sounds of the record player were people. That he wasn’t alone. He fell asleep there, sprawled on the couch and liquor bottle in his hand, clutched like the only lifeline he had.

Jarvis found him the next morning, the disapproving look on his face a clear enough message. Tony may be a prodigy and wealthy beyond imagination, but he was still underage and drinking alcohol was illegal.

Tony became very good at hiding it.

~~

MIT Tony didn’t waste time hiding his drinking or trying to make friends. He could walk into a party and have 10 people hanging off his arm in 2 minutes or less. Sycophants who wanted to be friends with the Stark heir to millions, trying to use sex or charm or alcohol to win over him.

It became a game to him, to see who he could mess with by using their music against them. He sunk his teeth into the secret inner parts of people they didn’t know were exposed to him, prying open their carefully crafted shells to the soft white underbelly of their insecurities.

He turned the game around, mastered it, playing with the hearts and minds of the people who offered their bodies to him, expecting that he would fall into the honeyed trap and get stuck. He had no compunctions, his own heart locked away with the dead. Even Jarvis was gone now.

But then came Rhodey and his jazz music, a beat so tantalizing that for the first time in ages, Tony was tempted to dance again. And when Rhodey was happy, oh that was when the trumpets came out and everything was 1000 times better. Tony fell for Rhodey’s music before he even spoke to him. And when he told Rhodey he heard things that no one else did—openers like that were sure to push sane people like James Rhodes away—Rhodey just shrugged and said: “Well, if that means you won’t complain about my snoring then that’s great.”

Tony did complain about his snoring because Rhodey was worse than the heaviest train car, but it all faded into the music of who Rhodey was. And once Tony tasted that unequivocal acceptance, he attached himself like a limpet and never let go.

Even crazier, Rhodey never asked him to, always holding on just as hard.

~~

Yinsen had gentle music that reminded Tony of Jarvis, the same kind of person to be a shelter in a storm. His music was lullabies, nursery rhymes that were dark and cheerful all at once, an incongruous soundtrack to the sound of his hammering their desperate attempt at salvation together.

Listening to the bare moments when he would talk about his family, Tony saw how Yinsen’s music fit him. He was a father, through and through. The kind of father unfamiliar to Tony, the one that loved his kids with all his heart and all he wanted was to get back to them, reunited again.

He wove hope to the sounds of Yinsen’s soft music, praying to some entity he didn’t know if he truly even believed in for a chance. Just one chance.

Hovering over Yinsen’s broken body riddled with bullet holes, he listened to the music grow softer and softer until it disappeared altogether. Hating himself that he had been selfish enough only to pray for the one chance.

~~

Merchant of Death.

Returning from Afghanistan confronted him with the reality of his moniker, the tens of thousands of souls that rested on his conscience because of the weapons that were his legacy and the gift he had given the world.

No wonder he had no music. With a death toll like that under his feet, Tony doubted he had a soul at all for music to stem from.

~~

He should have known about Obie. The man’s organ music had always been unnecessarily dramatic, but Obie’s music hadn’t changed in all the years Tony had known him—even before Howard had kicked the bucket. Tony had assumed that all the political and economic manoeuvring the man did on a regular basis that affected his personal music, that the fact that he was prepared all the time to deal with damage control became who he was.

Turns out that Tony still had the capacity to be naïve to the worst extent because Stane wasn’t prepared so he could save the company, he was just prepared to be an outright backstabbing son of a bitch.

Lying there in that dreaded silence only interrupted by his own gasping breath, Tony wondered if this was how he was going to die. Surviving loss and torture only to be betrayed by the music he had come to rely on. Given hope and then having it seized away.

Tony didn’t know if he felt relieved to hear the violins that preceded Pepper’s rescue. He didn’t want to hear the music anymore.

~~

Don’t waste it…Don’t waste your life…St…ark….

Yinsen saved him again.

“I am Iron Man.”

Steve Rogers was silent. In a world populated with people who had their own music, Tony had never met anyone alive who was silent the way Steve Rogers was. It wasn’t soft music, it wasn’t something with long pauses interspersed, it wasn’t anything at all. His very existence should be impossible. And yet.

Tony went on the defensive immediately, reminded of all the instances of loss that preceded quiet. Maria, Howard, Jarvis, Yinsen, even Stane.

He no longer wanted to hear the music if he could help it, not after Obadiah. These days he was good about separating himself and blasting music that didn’t have feelings or secrets intertwined with them, the living people that entered his life for more than a few hours’ time few and far between.

He was fine with silence when it meant there was no one there, but no music with a living human being disconcerted him. As far as he had known, he was the only one in the world who had no music, but Tony had developed hypotheses to explain that, all of which based on the fact that he was broken in some way.

But Steve Rogers wasn’t broken, he was the perfect specimen of a man and a hero. Steve Rogers was honourable and good-hearted and had a beautiful smile and Tony knew all of that without needing to be able to hear his music.

But no music meant he couldn’t read Steve, couldn’t protect himself against the mystery of his thoughts and emotions, couldn’t prepare himself for the inevitable fallout.

He was Tony Stark, there was always going to be an inevitable fallout.

With Steve Rogers, Tony was what he always wanted to be, like everyone else but he hated it. Being like everyone else meant doubt and insecurity and never truly knowing the right thing to say. It meant vulnerability. He wanted nothing to do with Steve Rogers and his impossible silence.

Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you? 

Thankfully, Steve didn’t want anything to do with him either.

~~

The fought the Chitauri. They won.

Tony was plagued for endless nights about the complete, soul-sucking silence of space. In his dreams, he never returned. He continued to float unto eternity, the silence unbreakable by any kind of life. Tony was alone. Always alone.

He woke up gasping those nights, leaping from the bed and the room and going into the common areas of the Tower where his new occupants were taking up space with their stuff strewn all over. It took time to adjust to their presence in the Tower, but after the emptiness of space, he wrapped their music around him like a security blanket and tried to find peace.

~~

Sighing when he heard no one around, Tony made his way to the coffee machine, already planning to head to his lab and blast music there until the chill in his bones was forgotten. Tonight was a bad night and his hands were still trembling slightly, cold and anxiety twisted in his gut in a toxic mixture.

Hearing a shuffling behind him, Tony whirled around and came face to face with Steve who was coming in from one of the side balconies. God, he did not want to be near Steve now, couldn’t stand to try and wrap his mind around the mental gymnastics that came with their every interaction.

“Hey Tony,” Steve greeted softly, his body swathed in a giant fluffy blanket.

“Cap,” Tony returned, nodding before turning back to grab his coffee. He didn’t know if he should linger and make awkward midnight small talk or if he should just make a break for it.

They had reached a place of congeniality, but Tony didn’t know if that was because Steve didn’t care one way or another, or if he hated Tony’s guts and just wanted to keep things professional for the sake of the team. That was the problem with Steve, Tony never knew what was going on in his mind and he was still struggling to figure out how to deal with that.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Steve asked, pulling out a chair at the table and settling in. Apparently, they were doing small talk.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Tony quipped, grabbing another mug. If Steve didn’t drink the coffee, it would just mean more for Tony and even at two in the morning, there was no such thing as too much coffee for Tony.

“The serum means I don’t need as much sleep. More often than not, I’m lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and talking to JARVIS.” He accepted the coffee, wrapping his large hands around the cup.

Tony snorted. “You talk to JARVIS? About what?”

Steve was silent for a moment, his finger idly tapping his cup and his eyes focused on the ripples the movement made. “There’s a lot that I don’t know about the future. It’s like being transported to a whole other world, something familiar and alien all at once. I’ve been doing research, trying to catch up with the last 70 years, but there’s a lot to cover.”

His voice was matter of fact, but Tony knew how difficult it was to feel like you didn’t belong in the space you were in, like you could no longer find solid footing in a world that had been your own.

In the months after his kidnapping, he walked around feeling as if he was looking at a distorted reality of what he knew. Everything was the same except for little things here and there, but it no longer felt like home, like a reality he could trust.

Instead of saying any of that, he remained silent and the two of them sat lost in their own thoughts, the quiet surprisingly not as awkward as Tony had suspected it would be.

“What’s your excuse?” Steve eventually said.

“For?” Tony finished his cup and got up to get a fresh batch, lifting the carafe in wordless offering.

Steve shook his head and Tony returned to his place across from him. “Not sleeping.”

“Genius burns at all hours of the day, gumdrop,” Tony said, winking cheekily, “and sleep can’t hold a candle to the miracles that go on in my lab.” He grinned at the tiny quirk of Steve’s lips, feeling like he had won something by making Steve smile even that little bit.

“What do you do down there anyway? I know you work on projects, but you’re in there so much we never see you.”

“I’m a busy man.” Tony shifted uncomfortably, knowing that Steve is hinting at the fact that Tony had kept himself at a distance from the rest of the team. They’ve made moves to include him, inviting him out for drinks or for team movie nights but Tony always declined. With his gift, he knew more about the various members of the team more than they would ever want him to know—then he wanted to know.

Steve hums noncommittally and Tony’s guard immediately goes up, wondering what Steve’s thinking, if he’s silently judging Tony for not having time to spend with the team. It’s not like he could explain what he’s really thinking. If he did, at best they’d think it was another practical joke or one of those billionaire eccentricities that Tony does because “he wants attention.” At worst, they’d force him to get a psych consult and bench him from the team. No, it wasn’t worth it.

Knowing it was time to end whatever this little moment was, Tony rose and got another cup for the road. “Well, this was fun, Cap but speaking of my lab, I probably should head there now.”

“Wait.” Steve rose too. “Can I come with you?”

“You want to see my lab?” Steve nodded and Tony thought about having the other man in his sacred space. It wasn't entirely comfortable, but this interaction was the most civil they had been, and Tony liked the glimpse of Steve he had seen. And though he didn’t want to admit it, he wanted to see more.

It was almost like a challenge: How to Decipher the Enigma that is Steve Rogers. And Tony could never resist a challenge or a mystery.

“Okay, follow closely, young padawan. I’m going to blow your fucking mind.”

~~

Tony gets used to the presence of Steve in his life, his silence that had been so initially unnerving becoming an unexpected gift to him. Steve plants himself in the couch in the corner in his lab, leaving and coming as if he owned the place and as antisocial Tony could get sometimes, he never felt the need to push him out.

It was nice, having company. It spoiled him. He wasn’t used to having anyone (except JARVIS) listen to him when he spoke, let alone listened enough to ask pertinent questions.

But though Steve wasn’t an engineer, he was an artist and a strategist. He had a keen ability to extrapolate how multiple moving pieces could come together as a cohesive unit and his insights were—surprisingly enough for Tony who rarely had someone who could make him fall into spirals of thought and genius that weren’t his own—inspiring.

They got closer and the team got better with their friendship. Tony allowed Steve to convince him to bond with the team, agreeing to a couple movie nights at first and then team bonding outings to play laser tag of all things.

Even after all this, Tony still hadn’t figured out why Steve was silent, but he did discover three things almost as alarming.

1. He had fallen in love with Steve Rogers.

2. Steve Rogers had not fallen in love with him.

3. When Steve Rogers touched him, he could hear the music too.

~~

It started small.

They’d been working together on one of Tony’s vintage cars, Tony on his back with his hands buried in the elegant machine and Steve passing him the tools he needed. They’d been talking through what they were going to do so the background music had been low when Natasha had walked in to ask them what they were feeling to eat.

A brush of hands when Steve passed Tony a tool he’d been looking for and the blond paused what he was saying and tilted his head.

“Did you hear that?”

Natasha rose a brow in question. “What?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like something guttural…?” Tony froze from his position, ignoring the drip of oil down his arms. Natasha’s music today was low, guttural voices, like the meditative chanting music she used to calm her down when she was having a bad day. That it was playing with her emotions instead of her having to listen to it revealed that it was a good day for her, but no one but Tony knew that because he was supposed to be the only one to hear it.

“I guess I imagined it,” Steve continued, shrugging unconcernedly. They spoke a little longer and Tony let her know what he wanted automatically, wondering if it was just a one-off.

The next time was one morning in the kitchen with Clint. He looked to be half-asleep and utterly unconcerned with Steve behind him who was humming while making pancakes, but he had the soundtrack of The Lion King playing in his head.

Lion King always meant that Clint was thinking of his brother and that was never a good day.

Grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl, Tony whipped up a banana and peanut butter sandwich and put it in front of Clint. He huffed out a surprised laugh when arms wrapped around his waist in a fond embrace.

Rolling his eyes, he patted Clint on the back while reaching out with the other to grab the cup Steve was handing over to him. Their hands brushed again and this time Steve jerked in surprise, letting go too soon. The hot cup jostled in their hold and tumbled to the floor, shattering and sending ceramic shards and hot liquid careening every which direction.

“Damn,” Steve swore. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

Tony shot a quick mournful look at the coffee before he called out to Steve to don’t worry about it. “It’s fine, really. The cleaning bots will take care of it. Actually,” Tony looked around, “they should have been deployed already. JARVIS?”

“I’m afraid Captain Rogers has disabled the cleaner bots for the common areas, Sir.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I found Clint feeding them food like they were pets,” Steve replied, returning and aiming a sardonic look at Clint.

“They looked hungry!” Clint protested. “It was a humanitarian service—”

“They’re robots—”

“—but they also have a grand purpose that needs to be fulfilled! And they get sad and listless if they can’t fulfil their duty. How would you feel if you couldn’t be Captain America anymore? Wouldn’t you want to fulfil your life’s purpose securing justice and freedom and whatever and whatever?”

“I want you to shut up now about the pet robots and help me clean.”

“But it was your fault!” Clint paused, brows scrunching together in confusion. “What happened anyway?”

Tony looked at Steve intently, not sure what answer he was hoping for.

“I thought—” Steve smiled sheepishly. “I thought I heard someone singing Hakuna Matata.”

Clint burst out laughing.

“Wow, Cap, must be your old age getting to you. Maybe you should go get your hearing checked out.”

Steve ended up giving as good as he got and they ended up bickering in the kitchen good-naturedly as they cleaned up. Through it all, Tony wondered if he should grab Steve’s hand, press skin to skin and see if he could hear everything Tony heard. Every beat of a person’s true heart, every note of their inner emotions.

Did he truly want to test if he was no longer the only Listener in the world? Tony imagined what it would be like to no longer be alone as Can You Feel the Love Tonight? played softly in the background.

~~

Tony never has a chance to test his theory.

The next week, Steve found out that Bucky Barnes was alive.

Barnes took a hell of a long time to find, leading Steve in a merry chase around the world as he thoroughly waged war on any Hydra bases he had ever been housed in or heard whispers of.

Steve was gone more often than not, coming back for a few days every few months when he lost the trail, back to Tony so he could aim him in the right direction.

Tony didn’t blink at Steve’s increasing favours. He provided all the funds, created new algorithms for the search, researched the background of Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier program, kept the team together and safe during battle. He did not think about the fact that Steve had dropped everything at the mere mention of Bucky Barnes, that there were no more moments between the two of them.

He did not feel abandoned or used or any of those ridiculous dramatic emotions that would indicate that he was stupid enough to have expectations of a man he never truly had anything with. Even if he did, he was smart enough not to say anything that might reveal him. Horribly cheesy things like I need you or Don’t go.

Please don’t leave me.

~~

Sifting through 70 years of torture and brainwashing protocol brought back his own nightmares. They blended together, making him remember the waterboarding, the yelling in his ears, the shock that lit him with painful intensity as car battery met with water and became electrocution.

Electrocution would turn into Barnes’ electroshock therapy and the hands holding down his arms would be bound to a chair. He would scream and scream, but there would be no sound. Gagged with the mouth guard, there would only be heartacheing, back-breaking, soul-shattering pain and that black hole of silence.

Once again, sleeping wasn’t the most successful experiment so far, but at least when he pushed himself far enough his body took over and knocked him out. He would catch a precious few hours before the nightmares came to say hi and then he would wake up with the trapped screams in his throat and get back to work.

It was like an alarm clock.

Even as he adjusted to his new normal, life decided to be the everlasting gift that it was and exposed a buried video from December 16^th, 1991.

He threw up the first time he saw it, the image of Bucky Barnes killing Howard playing in his head over and over against the soundtrack of his mother having the life choked out of her.

Then he watched it obsessively, disturbed by finally seeing his parents after so many years with none of the accompanying music that made it feel like them. If he didn’t recognize their faces and voices, he could almost fool himself that it was strangers, people he didn’t know that wouldn’t make him feel grief and anger and sadness and every other negative emotion under the sun.

The one bare comfort he got out of it was that the main thing that Howard thought of as he was dying was helping Maria. Maybe he wasn’t such a heartless bastard after all.

He was still dead though.

~~

He decided he wasn’t going to tell Steve, continuing to update him on the Winter Soldier’s movements and seeing him off to places unknown as scheduled.

He was so wrapped in the process of finding the man that he forgot what was supposed to happen when they found him. Until Steve landed the Quinjet on the Tower’s pad and out walked him and James Buchanan Barnes following like a dark, solemn shadow.

Tony locked down the lab immediately, bending over his knees as he struggled to breathe and remember what he’d been trying to convince himself of: Barnes was separate from the person responsible for the murder of his parents, that that sin lay at the Winter Soldier’s feet and the man had been tortured and had his memory and his very self wiped away like condensation on glass.

He didn’t come out of the lab for three days.

~~

Tony was being an absolute creep and watching James Barnes through the safety of JARVIS’ many, many eyes in the sky. Barnes was subdued most of the time, always scanning the room as if he expected to be attacked at any moment and stiffening any time anyone touched him, even Steve.

But even as Steve’s face fell every time Barnes pulled away, Barnes’ face was impassive, set in a blank mask that said nothing of how he was feeling. It was as if he had no emotion at all. He watched everyone, and from where he was sequestered away, Tony watched him.

He decided to attempt his escape in the middle of the night when no one would see him. His stomach had started to cannibalize itself and all he had left was a moldy piece of bread. Tony wasn’t desperate enough to sink to that yet.

Peeking down from the elevator and seeing the lights off in the kitchen, he crept forward as carefully as he could while listening for any sounds of music or movement. When he heard nothing, he gave up on his Mission Impossible moment and strode into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee pot.

The magic mix successfully brewing, he opened the fridge and started rummaging through the leftovers. Clint would be pissed that he’s taking the last of the Thai food, but Tony wasn’t worried. Thor was the only one you looked out for when stealing food—Tony didn’t even dare look in the direction of his PopTarts.

Popping the food in the microwave to reheat, he took the time when he was waiting to scrub some of the grease caked on his hands. He didn’t even remember how those got there.

“So you’re Tony Stark.”

Yelping, Tony whipped around to be confronted with one James Buchanan Barnes, shock and disbelief radiating through his core.

Holy shit, this motherfucker is Silent too.

~~

Tony and Barnes stared at each other a long moment. Tony because he was trying to wrap his mind around two impossibly Silent people and Barnes because he just didn’t care to end it.

Packaging up his shock to deal with later, Tony plastered a welcoming grin on his face. “Sergeant Barnes, well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

Barnes' forehead creased at Tony’s flirtatious tone, not responding even as he watched him. Tony was unnerved by the intensity of his attention, but he covered that with babble.

“I hope you’ve been having a wonderful stay here at Chez Stark, has Steve given you the grand tour yet?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me here, seeing as you’ve been avoiding me.” Barnes folded his arms across his chest, gaze still pinned on Tony.

“No, you misunderstand,” Tony waved off the accusations, mind grasping for an explanation for his absence. “I’ve just been busy with a few very important projects—of which I would tell you about but then I’d have to kill you.”

Barnes gave him a once over sceptically. “I am absolutely sure I can take you.”

“Is that a diss?” Tony responded, astonished. “Do you actually have a sense of humour buried under all those scowly eyebrows, Robocop?”

Barnes shrugged succinctly.

“Ah, I see, a man of few words. Okay, Snowflake I’ll have you know that if I had the suit on, your ass would be kicked three ways to Sunday.”

“Maybe I’m too old for this generation, but when people said that when I came from, you actually needed the ability to back up those words, Shortstuff.”

Tony let out an insulted squawk. “I am not short.”

Barnes raised a brow and Tony could almost hear the “Really?” Reaching behind him for Tony’s coffee cup, he offered it for Tony to take, only to pull it back and hoist it above his head the moment Tony reached out. Lunging for it, Tony came up short and ended up banging his knee on the bottom counter door on the way down.

“What are you, five?” Tony retorted scathingly, glaring when he caught the sound of Barnes’ snort. In response, the man handed Tony his coffee without fuss, before pushing him into a chair at the table. Grabbing the food from the microwave, he put it on a plate in front of Tony with a quiet order, “Eat.”

Suddenly remembering that he was ravenous, Tony arrowed in on his (stolen) food, groaning happily when the spices exploded on his tongue. Yea, free food truly was the best.

“You know, you aren’t half bad Barnes,” Tony complimented as he finished up, wiping his face and putting his dishes in the sink.

“Is that something you decided right now?” Barnes paused and Tony felt the air on the back of his neck prickle. “Or is that what you decided after watching me on your cameras for three days?”

Tony debated whether to deny it or not, raising an innocently curious eyebrow when he decided that a silent response was the best response.

“I could hear the whir of the cameras adjusting on me when I came into the room.”

Tony gaped, taken aback. “How the hell did you hear something as soft as that?”

Barnes tapped his ear casually as if being able to hear near soundless noises even in a room full of people was an everyday occurrence. 

“I wondered why you would want to keep an eye on me even when going to such lengths to avoid me. The only reason I can come up with is that you know I killed Howard and Maria Stark.” Tony flinched at the confession and emotion flashed across Barnes’ face too fast for Tony to read, like the bare glimpse of silvery fish in water.

In the face of the confirmation, at the reminder of what he had spent the last three days struggling to reconcile with, Tony struggled to find words to respond. Taking a breath, he reminded himself of the other videos he had seen in his search for Barnes, the ones that revealed the extent that James Buchanan Barnes’ personality had been wiped away to become the Winter Soldier. He had felt connected to this man, and Tony pulled on those memories of connection, trying to let those emotions guide him.

“It wasn’t you, it was the Winter Soldier. You had no choice.” It sounded rehearsed, like Tony was trying to convince himself of his own words and it wasn’t working, not on him and not on Barnes.

“Mr. Stark—”

“—was my father. And your friend.” Tony let out a sigh, giving up on trying to say the right thing and just going for the truth. “He was your friend, someone you knew and someone who knew you. I watched the video, listened to the way he greeted you a million times. He was happy to see you, Sergeant Barnes, recognizing you even after all those years and relieved to see you alive and well. And that more than anything says that the man you were that day was not the man that my father had known, was not a man you chose to be. You were robbed of your choice that day, and many more days before and after that and I can’t blame you for things that were beyond your ability to control.”

Tony extended his hand. “But we both are in control of this situation right now, Sergeant Barnes and I choose to forgive you. But you also have to make the choice to forgive yourself.”

Barnes shook his head in a negative immediately and made no move to take Tony’s hand.

“It won’t be easy—trust me, you’re talking to the Merchant of Death here and I committed my sins fully in control of my decisions, but you have to at least be willing.”

Barnes scrutinized him for a long minute before slowly, hesitantly grasping Tony’s hand with his own and shaking firmly.

“Sergeant Barnes, it’s good to finally meet you. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, Tony. Call me Bucky.”

Bucky told Steve about Howard and Maria and about the fact that Tony had continued to search for him and welcomed him into his home even after discovering the fact that he murdered his parents.

Tony found out when Steve barged into his lab (which was no longer blacked-out thank you very much) and pulled him into a hug. Bewildered, Tony returned the embrace thoroughly confused as to what could cause this influx of emotion until he caught the soft thank yous pressed against his hair.

Uncomfortable, Tony wiggled in Steve’s grasp, managing to get his hands between them and pushing away slightly. After a second of resistance, Steve pulled away, hands still securely holding on to Tony’s elbows as he gazed down at him avidly.

“So he told you.”

“He did.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It means everything.”

“Steve—”

“No, Tony. Please, accept my thanks and my apology. We got off on the wrong foot and I never truly apologized for the things I said on the helicarrier. You’re a better man than I gave you credit for and you’ve proved that every step of the way.” He pulled Tony back into his arms. “Thank you.”

Dazed, Tony nodded when Steve waved goodbye and went back upstairs. Against his will, he felt a warm glow in his chest, as if Steve had planted some of his own happiness there to grow.

~~

With the dreaded confrontation out of the way, Bucky became a regular visitor to the lab, sometimes with Steve and sometimes not but when they did come together, they didn’t interact that much, all of their focus on being with Tony.

If Tony had been spoiled before with Steve’s attention, now he was downright rotten. He got used to Steve reclaiming his spot on the couch to draw or call out questions as Bucky and Tony ran around conducting fun (explosive and dangerous) experiments with the arm.

Sometimes Bucky came alone when Steve was out or when things turned bad. He never begrudged Tony for not always noticing him at first, playing with the robots until Tony was ready. Then they would sit next to each other and they would drink the expensive Turkish coffee Bucky would bring in a thermos and he would talk about all the things he didn’t feel ready to share with Steve. 

Bucky would bring out the broken parts of him he only felt safe enough to entrust to Tony and Tony was listen and sometimes entrust his nightmares to Bucky.

Sitting with the shattered pieces of their selves around them, Tony realized that he had also fallen in love with Bucky Barnes.

~~

Tony was looking forward to team bonding night. He had JARVIS set an alarm so he wouldn’t be late, thinking that maybe he would help Bucky and Steve cook the dinner this week (okay, supervise). 

Miraculously, he was early so he strode confidently into the kitchen where he heard voices. A grin already painting his lips and a quip ready for Bucky, he stumbled to a halt when he caught sight of what was happening inside the room.

Bucky had Steve pressed up against the sink, flesh and metal hands buried in blond strands. One of Steve’s hands was holding a strainer full of rice over the sink while the other clutched at Bucky’s side.

There was a clatter as Steve dropped the rice, turning slightly to fit himself more fully against Bucky and deepen the kiss. As Tony watched, Steve’s hand crept up to cup Bucky’s face, cradle it as if it was something precious and Tony could swear he heard the sounds of a rising crescendo.

Wait, no, there was music playing. Separate, Steve and Bucky had been as Silent as the dead, but pressed skin against skin they made the most beautiful music that Tony had ever heard, sounds that were a tangled mix of loss and anguish and hope and redemption. It was as if they had no music without each other as if they didn’t even fully exist when the other wasn’t present, but together they were whole, they were complete.

And they had no place for Tony.

Backing away carefully, Tony left the room and ignored the way his heart wrenched in his chest as if it wanted to stay behind with them.

~~

Tony did what he did best. He avoided the problem and he called Pepper and Rhodey.

Rhodey called back with an offer to get away, Pepper cleared his schedule and a few days later Tony went on a several months-long tour of army and naval bases. He wasn’t in the weapon manufacturing business any more, but he did invest time and energy in creating protective gear for the troops. This way, he got direct feedback right from the source, instead of trailing through a line of intake forms and interview surveys that would only eventually make its way to him.

Having a worthy cause to keep him busy was doubly blessing. Not only did he truly feel useful, but he was successfully distracted from thoughts of Silent supersoldiers. Inevitably, he was able to convince himself that he hadn’t actually lost anything. There had been nothing between him, Steve and Bucky but friendship and one-sided feelings. And even if he was no longer under the illusion that that friendship could turn into something more, he still had his friends. Even when he was gone, they called to check in on him at least once a week and tried to convince him to let them tour with him on more than one occasion.

He always said no.

~~

He flew back in time for the wedding, congratulating the two long lost lovers for finally taking the next step with a wide smile. He did not let his hand shake when he handed over the wedding rings and did not let his voice break as he gave a rousing, hilarious speech at the reception. He watched them look at each other as if no one else existed in the world and ignored the part of him that crumbled at the sight of it.

And if he shed a few tears as the sounds of their symphony rubbed over his raw nerves as if it was trying to soothe him? Well, everyone cried at weddings.

~~

Natasha was the one who found him after. Steve and Bucky were long gone, shipped off on the Quinjet to one of Tony’s private islands somewhere in the middle of the Pacific where they would have an uninterrupted honeymoon.

Tony was sitting in the common room contemplating if he wanted a drink, thinking about the instances over the last few years where he almost crossed the point of no return. Natasha made the decision for him, taking the bottle and gifting it away to a young couple who were getting ready to leave. Tony believed they were some of Bucky’s sisters’ grandchildren.

“That was a $500 bottle of scotch, Natasha.”

“You’ve had enough for a lifetime.”

“You don’t get to make that decision.”

“And you don’t get to fall off the wagon right in front of us.” She sat down next to him, pushing her feet into his lap and wiggling her toes. He sighed, but he obliged her unspoken request and dug his thumbs into her heels, making her groan out loud.

They were quiet for a while, Tony focusing his energy on Natasha’s pressure points and Natasha lost in her own thoughts.

“You always know,” she eventually says.

“What do you mean?” he didn’t pause in his moments, dragging his fingers along the veins on the top of her foot and massaging the sides.

“You always know if I’m near you, no matter which direction I’m coming from or how quiet I am.”

“Oh.” He forced a careless smile. “That’s because I’m a Secret Agent: Legacy Edition.”

“That’s not a thing,” she murmurs.

“It is so a thing!”

“Howard wasn’t an agent.”

“Pssh,” he flapped his hand dismissively. “I don’t mean Howard, I mean Peggy. She was like my other parent when I was younger and I would swear on my mother’s grave that Jarvis was under her command, not Howard’s.”

She shrugged. “You may be right about that part.” She pulled her feet off his lap, folding them beneath her as she turned to face him. Seeing her this way, Tony was reminded that Natasha wasn’t that big, she just had a large presence that made her seem tall.

“Clint has been my partner for years and even I get the jump on him sometimes. But you, not only do I never surprise you but you also always know what kind of mood I’m in and what I need to feel better even before I do. How?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe I see more than you give me credit for?”

Natasha rested her chin on her palm, green eyes searching his.  “I think you see more and feel more than you let people know.”

Tony knew he should feel probably feel alarmed. Even after all these years, the memory of all the tests he underwent, the looks he received when he talked about his.."gift" still filled him with fear. He knew the treatment wouldn't be as it was; a child hearing noises could be dismissed as an overactive imagination. A grown man hearing noises would lead to medications and padded cells, supervision for the most mundane of tasks. He had a reason to be defensive.

But he didn’t have the energy to be. There was an overload of emotion that sat heavy in his chest that he didn’t know what to with, something he suspected had been building up for years. Giving in to the pressure to let someone in, he told Natasha, from the beginning, everything that had to do with the mysterious music only he could hear.

It was a relief to say the words, and once he started he couldn't stop, the words flooding out in a deluge with no holds barred. Along the way, the story shifted to Steve and Bucky, how they were unique, how he was fascinated by the complete enigma they were. How their love story was written out in their song.

“It's not just scientific curiosity, is it Tony?”

“No,” he whispered, finally daring to put words to his feelings, share their existence with someone else.

Natasha didn’t say anything to his confession, did not rebuke him for his truth.

But also did not urge him to share it with the Brooklyn Boys. They had just finished celebrating the wedding of Steve Rogers to James Buchanan Barnes in front of everyone who cared for them. If that wasn’t a clear indication of where things stood, nothing would be. All she did was pull him in close, pressing his head against her neck and holding him to her.

Gradually, Tony relaxed into her frame, allowing himself to let go and hurt while her music washed over him without any expectations. He was never going to be able to tell anyone else, but at least he had this one moment of acceptance.

Steve and Bucky didn’t stay gone for long, coming back a week later tanned and golden from the sun, rings shining on their fingers. Natasha did the only thing she knew to keep Tony busy and his mind off of their return. She posed an experiment.

All the things he wanted to learn about the music but couldn’t research before without other’s knowledge was now possible for him to measure. What was the farthest distance that he could hear someone? Did proximity increase volume? How did emotion affect sound intensity? Could someone change their music consciously? Could they send out distress signals?

Tony threw himself into the work, hooked himself to a machine that scanned his brain waves as he listened to Natasha move in and out of the room, try to change her music or increase its volume. They discovered that Tony had a range of 15 feet at rest, but if he focused he could extend his range to 30. Natasha couldn’t alter her music like flipping a radio dial so she wasn’t going to be blasting “Pon de Replay” anytime soon, but she could make her music turn sour and clamouring for attention if she focused on bad memories from her past.

It wasn’t quite the distress signal they were thinking about, the noise sounding like an off-tune, off-sync marching band, but it would do in a pinch.

Steve and Bucky didn’t understand why they weren’t welcome in the lab, but Natasha was the one to put down the order and even if Bucky was tempted to outright ignore it, Steve wasn’t.

Tony told himself it wouldn’t be forever, he just needed time to figure out how to turn his love for the two supersoldiers into just friendship again, that was all.

~~

The Avengers Alarm went off in the Tower and Tony jumped up from where he had passed out the night before to suit up. Soon enough he was soaring off, coding into the comms to the team on the Quinjet.

Tony arrived first, taking in the gelatinous giant that was releasing some kind of slime. Swearing when he realized that the slime was corrosive, he quickly ordered JARVIS to analyse its properties. While the team’s uniforms should hold up to the acidic compound, it would only be for a finite period before it would start eating away at their skin. 

Tony fired repulsor blasts at the jelly-like creature, but it evaded his attacks, simply creating holes that made his blows go straight through and out the other side. Noticing one of the arms aiming a hit to Clint, he dove to catch the archer as he overbalanced when evading the blow and fell off the side of the high-rise.

“You’re supposed to be light on your feet, twinkletoes," Tony mocked, catching the archer in his arms. 

“I was an acrobat in my past life, Stark, not an Airbender,” the archer shot back. "Otherwise, I would have a cute fluffy flying bison to catch me when I fell, not a rusty tin ca—" his words cut off on a grunt as Tony dropped him on another roof, not as gently as he could have been. 

"Dammit, Stark!" Clint yelled, dusting off his rear. Tony grinned unrepentantly under his mask, regretting nothing.  

"Oops, sorry Clint, I guess the rust made my grip slip. Though I gotta say, that landing was pretty clumsy for an acrobat." He lowered his voice in a faux concerned whisper. "Have you been stretching? You know what they say about old joints—"

“Enough,” Steve snapped out. “Pay attention to the real concern here. My blows are rebounding and not causing any harm. What do we see from up top?”

“There’s a slight rough patch on its side,” Bucky broke in. “High up on its left.”

“I see it. Anyone have a good angle?”

“I can get it,” Natasha replied. “I just need a ride.”

Tony changed course and headed for where Natasha was standing on a wrecked car. “Your chariot is on its way, madam.”

He grabbed Natasha and flew her high up the side of the blob, letting her launch herself off of him once they got into position. She slipped at first but she caught herself and started prying away at the giant scab. The skin underneath was more solid than the rest of the thing’s body but still vulnerable and Natasha shoved some of her Widow Bites directly against its flesh.

“Ready when you are, Thor.”

Thor roared, bringing down lightning directly onto the monster the moment that Natasha activated her Widow Bites. The creature started to writhe wildly, it’s insides highlighted by the energy before collapsing in on itself and releasing cloudy gas that mixed noxiously with the scent of ozone.

Temporarily blinded, Tony checked in with everyone through the comms, scanning through the rubble when Natasha didn’t answer.

Finding no sign of her, he retracted his helmet in order to listen better, searching for the sound of her music. After a few minutes of flying over various ruined areas from corrosive slime, he tracked her down to one of the ruined buildings.

She was out cold, looking as if she’d been thrown from the monster when it had bucked. Reaching out, Tony had JARVIS check her vitals, sighing in relief when it showed that she had no major internal injuries, just a broken ankle.

“Sir, it looks like the structural soundness of this building has been deeply compromised. I advise you to leave now.”

“On it, J.” Picking up Natasha carefully, he followed JARVIS’ directions and was almost clear when he heard a little wind chime tinkle. Stopping, he listened again, realizing that it was someone else’s music, someone else who was in danger.

Flying out as fast as he could, he arrowed in towards Bucky, dropping Natasha in his hands before doubling back, ignoring the shouts in his wake and focusing on getting back in the building and tracking down the person before it collapsed. Because this music was soft, indistinct in a way that was only common in children.

“J, I need you to scan for any signs of life.”

Tony wove around abandoned corridors, the countdown in his data giving him a bare 3 minutes to track down the source of his wind chime. Luckily, after a few winding turns, Tony flew into a decrepit room to find a small infant wrapped in a tight bundle.

Tony picked her up oh so gently, careful of her head and uncomfortably aware of how kid-friendly the armour was not. Opening the chest plate, he tucked her into his shirt before directing JARVIS to make sure she was getting enough air supply and wasn’t squished, but he was out of time to do more.

Hearing the crash of an area caving in close by, Tony blasted through walls to make his own door out of there, getting hit by a stray sheet of concrete that sent him spinning. Curving to protect his middle and his precious burden, Tony grit his teeth and forced himself to stop spiralling enough to collapse on his back a safe distance away.

~~

Voices and music surrounded him before he saw them and suddenly arms were pulling him up into a sitting position and knocking at his helmet. Retracting it, he came face to face with a pair of worried blue eyes.

“Stop staring like you’ve seen a ghost, Rogers, I’m not dead yet,” Tony coughed out.

“God, you’re an asshole just like him,” Steve said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Bucky who was holding up an awake Natasha. “I don’t know why I put up with you two.”

“Nice to see you awake, Sleeping Beauty,” Tony called out to Natasha.

“No one could sleep through the racket these two made when they saw you fly back into a collapsing building,” Natasha retorted, reminding Tony of his stowaway.

“Oh god, J, is she okay?” Retracting the top half of the suit, Tony moved frantic hands to his chest to check on the infant resting there. She seemed no worse for wear, but she had woken up over the course of their bumpy ride and blinked chocolatey brown eyes curiously up at Tony. When JARVIS declared that she was okay, Tony sighed in relief though he knew he was going to get her fully checked out when they went back to the Tower.

“You gave me a hell of a scare, you know that?” he whispered to her, listening to the cheerful sounds of her wind chimes. She blew a spit bubble at him. “Yea, I know you weren’t worried, fearless heroine you are, yes you are,” he cooed, completely oblivious to his surroundings until a snicker broke through his haze.

Looking up, he saw Clint stifling a laugh as Natasha reached up to whack him on the back of the head but his eyes were caught by the soft expression on Steve’s face as he gazed down on them.

It’s the baby, idiot. He just thinks the baby is cute, don’t get caught up in this again, he reprimanded himself. Looking down at the child, he couldn’t help but smile, helplessly charmed.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?”

“Yea,” Steve reached out to touch where she had a hand firmly gripping Tony’s finger, “Beautiful.”  His fingers pressed against Tony’s and Tony looked up at the sound of Steve’s choked breath.

He had swung his head around, staring at the others uncomprehendingly. Lifting his hand away from Tony, he looked back and forth between them.

“Stevie?” Bucky asked worriedly, stepping forth to cup his face with his metal hand. “You okay?”

Steve nodded at Bucky’s question, taking his hand in his own, but reaching out another to Tony where he was touching him before. Connecting the three of them in a chain. 

They both gasped at the skin contact, Steve’s eyes widening with wonder as he heard the music of the others around him, swirling around in an orchestra of triumph and victorious weariness. He was looking at Tony as if he had never seen him before as if he was the answer to a question he had given up hope in solving.

Tony on the other hand was trembling because Steve’s touch made a current run under his skin in a low vibration. Bucky quickly reached out a hand to steady him as he swayed under the feeling, grabbing him by the flesh of his arm exposed by his light t-shirt. 

The chain became a closed circuit and the feeling multiplied tenfold as if instead of hearing Bucky and Steve’s symphony, Tony was feeling it played underneath his skin. It coursed through him in brilliant waves, an intense combination of pleasure/pain that lit a fire through his veins like he was the burning, collapsing heart of a star.

He heard Steve and Bucky cry out but he couldn’t summon the strength to even open his eyes—when had he closed them?—and see what was happening.

Overwhelmed, he gave in to the feeling and everything went black.

~~

Things came to him slowly, as if he was floating in a pleasurable haze that made everything warm and happy.

Drugs? He wondered idly, gradually becoming aware of the fact that he was in a hospital bed and that someone—no, someones—were holding his hands.

“Steve, he’s awake.”

Two heads appeared above him, faces painted in relief.

“Tony,” Steve breathed out. “Welcome back.”

“You had us worried there, dollface.” Bucky brushed over the arch of his cheekbone tenderly and instinctively Tony leaned into the light contact, nuzzling into the warm palm.

He’s not yours to have, a voice reminded him and Tony abruptly became aware of what he was doing, pulling away from the both of them quickly and sitting up.

“What happened?” he asked, too busy wrenching his emotions under control to notice the hurt that flashed across their faces.

“Well, after Bucky touched you, you passed out. Luckily, he caught you before you or the baby could get hurt and then we brought you both back here to Medical to get you checked out.”

“How is the little butternut squash? Have we found her parents yet?”

“No sign of them,” Bucky reported. “So far, it looks like she might have been abandoned.”

“Poor kid,” Tony sighed. “Where’s she now?”

“Thor’s walking around with her. She started crying when we took her away from you so we’ve all been taking turns.” Steve smiled. “I think she’s rubbing off on all of us already. Do you want to see her?”

“Please,” Tony nodded.

Steve stepped out, leaving Tony alone with Bucky.

~~

“You knew, didn’t you? That Stevie had been hearing sounds when he touched you?” Bucky turned his intense attention to Tony, which probably should have made him feel uncomfortable but instead had the opposite effect.

“I did,” Tony shrugged. “But it only happened a couple of times so I didn’t think he even really noticed it.”

Bucky scoffed. “It’s been driving him crazy for months. He once told me that it felt like he couldn’t ignore it, like every time he wanted to dismiss it, it would pull at him like an achey tooth.”

“Sounds about right, it’s impossible to completely ignore.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Then what?”

“It’s more like, he couldn’t ignore it. It became an obsession for him, like something was calling to him that he didn’t understand," Bucky rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously, a light blush on his cheeks. "We’ve been doing research on sound theory for months now, even delving into Greek myths and sirens.” Tony stifled a laugh at the thought of himself as a murdering mermaid, instead focusing on the secret studying the supersoldiers had apparently been doing without him knowing. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” Bucky challenged.

They stared each other down for a tense moment before breaking into laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“So, essentially, we’re all crazy,” Tony concluded.

“Yea, sounds about right. We're all hearing sounds coming from people like they're in their very own musical.” Bucky gestured to his ear. “How do you deal with it? Constantly hearing sounds that others can’t?”

Tony shifted on the bed, wrinkling his nose when the metal frame creaked with his movement. “You learn to tune it out to a certain extent, like the noises of the city. Like the sounds of the trains going by or the blaring of a police siren, you’ll notice them but it doesn’t overwhelm you." He smiled as the faint sounds of a firetruck making its way through city traffic filtered up to his window, resulting in a symphony of cabbie honks as it grew louder and then fading as it moved away. "That’s why I like living in the city. If I was living somewhere isolated, I would get used to the quiet and the sounds would overwhelm me the moment I get back to anywhere that’s populated.”

“Sounds tough.”

“It is what it is.” Tony turned slightly to adjust his pillows so he was a little more supported, Bucky reaching out to help him.

“I heard it too,” Bucky admitted.

“When?”

“When I touched you after the battle. There were sounds that were coming in from all around but from within us as well.”

Tony shook his head. “Yea, that’s not how it always is. Usually, you two are Silent.”

“What does that mean?” Finished with his pillows, Bucky sat back down, this time on Tony's bed. Tony ignored the line of heat he felt from the supersoldiers thigh against his leg and reached out. 

“Here,” Tony grabbed Bucky’s hand, holding it up and pressing their palms together, fingers entangled.

Bucky cocked his head to the side as if listening. “I don’t hear anything.”

Tony nodded. “Exactly, unlike the rest of the planet, you and Steve are the only ones I can’t hear all the time.”

“Why? Is it because of the serum?”

“Uh, well—I don’t know.” Tony scratched at the back of his neck, thinking about how he'd initially intended to find out that exact answer when he started to hang out with Steve, only for his dumbass to get side-tracked falling in love with the man who was already head-over-heels with the unfairly attractive brunette currently in front of him. 

Blissfully unaware of the direction of Tony's thoughts, Bucky snorted. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say you don’t know something.”

Tony's eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Yea, well, it’s not as of it’s an exact science.” He moved to pull away, but Bucky just shifted the hold so he could rest their entwined hands on the sheet more comfortably.

“Is it weird for you?” he asked softly, blue-grey eyes searching Tony’s in a way that was completely distracting.

“Huh?” he answered eloquently.

“Not hearing anything when you touch me?”

God, what a way to phrase it.

To his horror, Tony felt heat wash across his cheekbones and he resisted the urge to press his hands against his face to hide the blush.

“Ah, well,” Tony stumbled over his tongue before managing to pull himself together. “No, actually.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. “You said we were the only ones in the world though. Wasn’t that even a little alarming?”

Tony chewed on his lip, thinking back to those first initial days of when he met Steve and then that fateful night in the kitchen with Bucky. “Initially, yes but then I got used to it. Or maybe I should say, it was an unexpected comfort.” Tony squeezed Bucky’s hand in his. “It’s peaceful, as if the way I share the music with you, you’re sharing your silence with me. It’s like the reprieve I need sometimes, surrounded as I am constantly.” He smiled shyly, unused to having such an open, frank discussion about his gift, but also on uneven footing since this was the first time someone could relate to him. 

Bucky grinned back. “I’m glad we can actually provide something for you for once.”

“Do you feel anything?” Tony asked, curious. “I don’t remember feeling anything specific when Steve heard the music through me, but maybe that's because it happened so fast.”

“Oh, I definitely feel things holding onto you, doll,” Bucky replied promptly.

Tony laughed at the joke, but before he could ask for clarification, but Bucky shushed him, tilting his head to listen.

“Wait, I think I hear something.” At that moment, Steve walked through the door, baby Jane Doe in his hands and the air was filled with the sounds of her happy gurgling mixed with the dainty tinkles of glass chimes.

“That’s amazing.” A grin broke out on Bucky’s face as he watched the baby ensconced in Steve’s large arms and he let out a low laugh as he heard the music through his connection with Tony.

Tony smiled back at him, “Yea, sometimes it really is.”

Tony picked up the baby from the crib, rocking her in his arms. After months of not being able to locate tiny Jane Doe’s parents, Tony had decided to adopt her and give her a home with him. He knew that he didn’t live the most safe or stable life, but he couldn’t turn his back on the tiny infant, her wind chimes having set up a place in his heart.

He named her Aria, in honour of his mother who had loved him to the best of her ability, as well as the music that has always been a part of his life, whether he wanted it or no.

The team knew about his grand secret now, the whole revealing process disappointingly anticlimactic. Thor had responded that hearing things others couldn't sounded like one of the gifts of the magic users of his world, which prompted Clint to declare that Tony's was like the lamest of Asgardian superpowers. And Bruce, well, Bruce was living with the Hulk as his "gift" so he just took it in stride and wanted Tony to repeat the tests that he had done with Natasha with the rest of the team.  They even pulled in Pepper when she came to check in on him and have him sign papers.

The tests confirmed that Steve and Bucky were the only ones who could hear the music when they touched him, and location or pressure did not affect the ability. They could hear just as clearly if they touched him the slightest bit as they would when they held him in a full-bodied hug.

He no longer avoided them, at first because he was unable to with the way they and everyone else had become immediately attached to Aria, but then because he found he was more at ease when he was in their presence than he was when they were apart. Even with his hidden feelings.

“Is she ready?”

He turned to face Pepper and Natasha who had claimed Aria for a girls’ day out. He knew his daughter would be safe with the CEO and the secret agent, but a part of him panicked at the idea of letting her out of his sight. She was still so delicate, with tiny little fingers and toes and the willingness to pick up and put in her mouth the exact thing that could choke her.

God, raising a child was terrifying.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this?”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “She’ll be fine, Tony. We’re just taking her out for a walk.”

“Yes, but what if she’s allergic to pollen? Spring is prime time for allergies.”

“You had her tested and the only thing she’s allergic to is pineapples.”

“Which just means she won’t be ruining pizza with fruit.” Natasha beckoned. “Now, hand her over.”

Tony cuddled Aria to his chest for another moment before reluctantly handing her over to Natasha, following them out with the baby bag as they headed for the elevator.

Before they reached it, Bucky stepped out, face lighting up when he caught sight of Aria decked out in her yellow ducky dress.

“Hello, darling,” he cooed, stealing her away from Natasha to press kisses on the breathy wisps that passed for hair. “Where are you going?”

Aria giggled happily in Bucky’s arms, kicking her legs and blowing enthusiastic spit bubbles. She had inherited her father’s taste in men.

“They’re kidnapping my baby,” Tony complained, pouting in the face of a possible ally.

“No, we’re just making sure that Tony doesn’t become a dictator daddy,” Pepper retorted, giving Bucky a few more minutes with Aria before snatching her away decisively.

“We’ll be back in a few hours and we will call if there are any issues at all, okay?”

With that, all three of the women in his life disappeared and Tony sighed mournfully.

“Hey, doll,” Bucky greeted him, wrapping him up in a comforting hug. “Are you free now?”

“Seeing as I’m without my child, the light of my life, yea I guess so.”

“Will you come with me then? There’s something I wanna show you.”

Curiosity piqued, Tony nodded. “Lead the way, Terminator.”

~~

Bucky led him up to the roof where a picnic had been laid out on the grass Tony had installed there. There was champagne and Tony could spot mini quiches and stuffed panini sandwiches amongst the variety of other dishes.

“Wow, this looks great, what’s the special occasion?”

Hearing the sound of the elevator, Tony turned around to see Steve approaching them with a heavy bouquet in his hands, an extravagant mixture of purples and blues and reds and bright oranges.

“Okay, flowers, champagne, picnic on the roof…this is giving me date vibes you guys. Am I interrupting an anniversary or something because I can go…?” he trailed off when Steve handed him the bouquet, confused but unable to help burying his face in the blossoms, inhaling their fresh sweet scent.

“This way.” Tony let Bucky pull him forward by the hand, toeing off his shoes and sitting on the blanket obediently with each other the supersoldiers creating the other parts of their little triangle.

“Tony, we have something to ask you,” Steve began. 

“Sounds ominous.”

Steve smiled, but his eyes were serious. “The truth is, I’ve been in love with you for years now.”

Tony was struck dumb for a solid two minutes, unable to process what Steve was saying. 

“You’re lying,” Tony denied weakly, tongue dry in his mouth. “Look, if this is some pity thing, you really don’t need—”

“Tony, no, I would never lie to you about this,” Steve interrupted gently. “Please understand, it was difficult coming to terms with my feelings—not because of anything you did but because I felt too guilty about loving someone other than Bucky. Like I was...betraying his memory when I was the one who failed him all those years ago.”

“Steve,” unable to ignore the pain he heard in Steve’s voice, Tony grabbed his hand. Steve squeezed back tight.

“And then, when he came back…well, I was so happy that I was given a second chance with him, I was scared of what would happen if I told him about my feelings for you.”

“The punk felt he was being unfaithful to me for loving you even when he was with me and didn’t want to tell me,” Bucky broke in to add his piece. “Only to realize when he finally did tell me that I feel the same way.”

 It probably said a lot about Tony that the first reaction to hearing two confessions of love was doubt. “Why tell me now? If you’ve loved me for months, why not tell me earlier?”

“Because even though we love you, but we didn’t know if you wanted us.”

“We were worried that it would be too much to ask of you, doll," Bucky elaborated, "to get involved with us when we were married already. We didn’t want you to feel like you were less a part of us because you weren’t part of the legal ceremony when the truth is that we love you just as much as we love each other.” Bucky stopped, and his hands clenched as he seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. But he met Tony’s wide, disbelieving eyes and something in him seemed to solidify.

“It was hard,” he admitted quietly. “Loving someone new. It was hard to even trust Steve, and I’d known him all my life and had memories—when they started to come back—that reassured me that I could trust him, that he loved me. And when I started to have feelings for you both, well, I didn’t react well,” he and Steve shared a knowing glance and Bucky chuckled ruefully. Tony guessed there was a story there, one he was sure he was going to ask about later. “Especially when you left and wouldn’t come home back to us.”

Bucky’s gaze turned distant, like he was remembering that time, and Tony thought about it too. The desperate running away from his feelings, trying to bury love and hurt under work so he wouldn’t have to think about the men he loved being in love with only each other, being gloriously happy together and not even noticing his absence as he ached for them every day.

From the pained look in Bucky’s eyes, maybe Tony should adjust his perspective of that because that was not a visage of a man who was looking back on fond, happy times.

“But you did get married,” Tony said.

“Because you told us to!” Bucky burst out and Tony reared back.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You made a joke,” Steve intercepted. “It was when you were in Iran. We'd been talking about how you were developing a fondness for lamb and how you were going to bring back a recipe for us all to try when you get back. When we asked if that meant you were coming home soon, you made a joke that we didn't have to worry, you'd make it back in time for the wedding.” He looked at Bucky, who had a mutinous set to his face. “We thought that was your way of letting us down easy, so we gave up hope. We decided that even if we can’t have you, we’d do as you asked and have each other and that would make us happy.” Steve smiled down at his lap, his fingers twisting around each other. Tony had never seen a smile so torn, happy and sad at the same time.

“But it didn’t,” Steve finished simply, raising his eyes back to meet Tony’s. “Because not marrying you wasn’t the same as stop loving you.” Steve shrugged. “So we kept loving you, just gave up the hope that you’d return it.” Tony’s eyes flickered back and forth between both men, whole looked back at him head-on, backs straight, eyes calm. They were serious. This was no joke for them, Steve and Bucky had loved him without him even knowing it.

Tony didn’t know how to absorb that.

“But then there was this.” Bucky reached out to grasp Steve’s with his free hand and Steve reached out to Tony to complete the circuit. Like it had every time before, the symphony rose up between them, passing in waves of sound and feeling. “This song gave us hope again. Though it drove us nearly insane first.”

“Did you know I dreamed about it?” Steve asked, and Tony shook his head no, surprised. He was always taken aback when he found out just how deeply they'd both been affected by the music. So long being the only one to know about it, it was jarring to have someone else speak about their experience with it. “I was obsessed for months, digging through research, listening to soundtracks and records and trying to find where I had heard that beat before. I was driving Bucky insane. At one point he even blamed it on hearing damage from jumping out of too many planes without parachutes.”

Tony laughed, a rough huff after being silent for so long. “He has a point. You really should stop that, you know.”

“You, Mr. Master Engineer who’s blow up his lab 16 times in the last year, have no room to talk,” Bucky deadpanned, and Tony couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. The way it shook through his body caused the melody still thrumming through his skin to twist and swirl in interesting ways, which obviously appealed to the supersoldiers from the way they gasped.

“Right, I was saying something before I got sidetracked,” Steve managed breathlessly. “When you explained it to us, you said that the song was proof of our love for each other, that we didn’t have a song if we weren’t together, right?"

Tony nodded.

"But Tony, if you listen, there are three parts to this melody.”

Curious, Tony tuned into the song, familiar to him as his own heartbeat, and blocked out everything else to try and parse out the notes. With a start, he realized Steve was right. If you separated out the melodies, pulled them away from where they were entangled and joined together, there were three threads of music being wound together, so tightly it was difficult to distinguish who was who. 

“I’ve never had my own song,” Tony breathed, stunned. “Never. I’ve only ever heard Silence when I’m alone.”

Bucky’s hand clenched around his. “Maybe doll, it’s because the same way Stevie and I belong to each other, you belong with us. You just had to hear our song together to guide you to us.”

Tony wanted to deny such wishful thinking, such fairy tale ending belief. But he remembered all those moments that he had sat apart from Steve and Bucky, heart aching with the desire to be with them, to be near them. The way their music would seem to call out to him in those moments, the way that it would surround him and wrap him in comfort and warmth as if welcoming him home to the place where he belonged.

“Tony?”

He looked up at them both, the earnest love shining in Steve’s eyes, the wary hope in Bucky’s. He took a deep breath.

“I love you too.”

Steve broke into delighted laughter and Bucky pulled him so his back pressed against his chest, wrapping flesh and metal arms around him tight. He buried his head in Tony’s neck and let out a deep sigh against the sensitive hairs there. A sweet ache swelled up in Tony at the tremble he felt running through Bucky’s body, the slight wet spot on his neck where eyelashes brushed his skin.

“I hope you know that this is forever, Tony Stark, because we are never letting you or the little munchkin go,” Bucky said roughly, and Tony reached out to the hands holding him tight, overlapping his own and holding them tighter to his body. He felt tears prick his own eyes at the emotion in Bucky’s, understanding how terrified the POW had been to put his heart out there for Tony to stomp on. And yet he did.

“Watch out,” he croaked back. “That sounds like a marriage proposal, Snowflake.”

“It is,” Steve affirmed, looking at the two of them holding each other as if he’d never seen anything more lovely. “You don’t have to answer right now, but the offer’s there, if you want it. This time, we’ll finally do it right.”

“American legal codes don’t allow three people marriages, Steve.”

“Then me and Bucky will break ours, and we’ll all get married in a ceremony that does allow three way marriages.” Bucky nodded in agreement against his neck and while Tony wanted to protest—you couldn’t just break a marriage, there were so many things that they had to think about!—they’d have time for a longer conversation about that later. Maybe they’ll get married, maybe they won’t, he still didn’t know if that’s what he wanted. And they still had Aria to think about, could three people even adopt her?

But between the three of them, they knew some of the most influential people in the world. If they couldn't find the legal codes to accept them, maybe it was time to change the codes. It wasn't like any of them didn't have experience breaking out of the boundaries of what was acceptable in the world. He was a man with a battery for a heart in love with two nearly immortal octogenarians for god's sake. 

Instead of getting caught up in the details, Tony just let himself enjoy this, enjoy this moment. He melted back into Bucky’s arms, pulling Steve to press against his front and kissing him as he had wanted to do from the first moment he saw him. Lost in the taste and sensation of Steve, he chased the sparks that flew between them in bright spirals, higher and higher, only pulling away when his body remembered that he needed to breathe.

Steve’s eyes were hot as he tilted Tony’s head helpfully to face Bucky, who didn’t waste a moment is stealing his own kisses. It was wet and dirty and glorious and Tony wanted to stay between their arms forever. And now, he could.

~~

Eventually, they got to enjoy the food and Natasha and Pepper brought Aria back to join them. Turns out, they had been in on the whole thing, the clever minxes. The rest of the team gradually wandered up and by evening, Tony was firmly ensconced between Bucky’s thick thighs as they watched Steve and Thor be utterly charmed at the way that Aria beat at a toy drum noisily.

“That’s not coming home with us,” Tony informed him. 

“Definitely not.”

“You get to tell Steve.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I’ll trade you kisses.”

“Deal.”

Watching Steve walk back over to him, he accepted his child in his arms again and revelled in the way that Bucky and Steve trailed teasing hands over his skin, playing with their melody as if it was their own personal concert. He listened to the way their song wove together, all three of them melding together in a beautiful cacophony that told him that finally, he had found home.