Chapter Text
No one really expected Barnes to trust them.
It had taken Steve almost three years to find Bucky after the fall of Shield. Steve had never once flagged, following the weak leads and even fainter trails with a dogged determination that would’ve put a pitbull to shame. Again and again people told him it wasn’t worth it. That the Winter Soldier didn’t want to be found. Steve only shook his head and carried on. And the team had helped him whenever they could. Sam did most of the legwork, and they all kicked whatever information they had in Steve’s general direction whenever no one was looking.
But they never once presumed that Barnes would have any amount of trust in a single one of them if Steve ever found him and brought him back to the tower.
When the captain finally did return from a solo mission with his arm wrapped around the shoulders of a dirty and unkempt sergeant, they all allowed him to introduce them, then gave the two their space.
Barnes didn’t come out of Steve’s apartment for almost a month, and no one pressed the issue. They’d all helped support Clint in his recovery after Loki rolled his mind. They couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to recoup from seven decades worth of it.
The presence of the soldier was the hardest on Tony.
He couldn’t help it. After Natasha dumped all of Shield and Hydra's secrets online, Tony had set to comb through all of them, with Jarvis' help. He hadn't liked some of what he'd found. It had hit him like a truck when he had read the Hydra file detailing the death of his parents at the hands of the Winter Soldier. The video he'd eventually unearthed had hurt even more. He had been ready then and there to tell Steve to piss off in his quest to find the icy bastard. But he couldn’t bring himself to hurt his friend like that. Besides, the Winter Soldier didn’t want to be found, so Steve wouldn’t find him.
So it didn’t matter.
He should’ve known better than to underestimate the determination and loyalty of Steve Rogers.
When Steve brought the man into the common area for the first time, the only thought in Tony’s head was: Him. He’s the one who murdered them.
It had taken everything he had to stand still for introductions, and he thanked every lucky star he knew of that he wasn’t required to shake the hand of the man who had remorselessly murdered his parents without a second thought. He had fled the common area immediately afterwards.
When Barnes had eventually started to leave Steve’s apartment and begin exploring the tower, Tony had avoided the man like the proverbial plague. The rest of the team did not.
Not surprisingly, Bucky still spent most of his time with Steve. However, when he wasn’t with Steve he often sat quietly with Sam, reading and just enjoying the other man’s unjudging company.
He started speaking with Natasha in russian, haltingly at first, and then with more confidence when she answered him immediately and treated him as she would any other normal person. Tony still wasn’t sure what they talked about, he didn’t speak russian, and he truly didn’t care enough to have Jarvis try and translate.
Thor seemed to fill a similar role as Sam. Bucky seemed to simply enjoy the stalwart blond’s company. The two could often be found on the roof or balcony enjoying the feel of the sun on their faces, or the onset of a storm. Thor also joined in with Bruce in encouraging the soldier to eat more. He ate less than a bird as it was.
Bruce loaned Bucky books to read. He suggested techniques to try and help him recover more of his memory, or to cope with his PTSD.
And Clint was the one to put weapons back in the soldier’s hands. He was the last person anyone would’ve expected to do that, though if they thought about it, they really shouldn’t have been surprised. Clint often said that shooting his bow was a sort of therapy in and of itself, it made sense that the same might hold true for Bucky and his sniper rifle, or his knives. No one was sure when the unlikely friendship had started, but the soldier could now often be found down in the shooting range with the marksman, each matching the others incredible shot with their own weapon of choice.
In their own unique way, the team had accepted James Buchanan Barnes into their fold.
It was a bitter pill for Tony to swallow.
It took almost another month before someone finally said something about his avoidance. Tony had always thought that it would be Steve who finally came and reamed him out for holing up in his lab or having Jarvis give him heads up so he didn’t run into his unwanted house guest. He was all set for a fight with Steve. He had an argument all prepared.
So it threw him for a loop when the one who came to call him out wasn’t Steve.
“You want to explain why you’re avoiding the ever living fuck out of Barnes?”
Tony looked up in surprise. Clint had planted himself like a tree in front of Tony’s desk, arms crossed over his chest and head tilted in a question that demanded an answer. When Tony just stared blankly back at him, Clint gave an irritated huff and made a ‘come on already’ gesture.
“If you’ve got something to say Tony, now’s the time to spit it out.”
“He murdered my parents.” The words hopped out of his mouth without his consent. And they definitely didn’t have the effect he thought they would.
Clint nodded. “And?”
Anger suffused him. The genius finally shook off the last of his paralysis and set his project aside, hand tightening to a white knuckle grip on whatever tool that was. He didn’t even care. All he knew was that he wanted to throw it at the archer’s head as hard as he could.
“And? What do you mean ‘and’? He murdered my parents Clint! And you, what? Expect me to just forget that, be buddy buddy with the poor little assassin and sing kumbaya around the campfire? Screw you Clint! I let Rogers bring him into my home, I let him use whatever resources he needs to help his friend ‘cause Steve doesn’t know a damn lost cause when he sees one. But damnit! I will not pretend like nothing happened. Like he’s some innocent little thing that should be protected, because he’s not! If the rest of you want to do that you go right ahead and do it, but I’ll be damned if I join you!”
He stared up at Clint defiantly, chest heaving after his outburst. It wasn’t Steve, but Clint would do. Tony still got to spew all of the venom and vitriol that had been building up in his soul since he’d found out his parents’ death was murder and not an accident. He waited, almost eagerly for Clint’s next salvo.
It didn’t come.
Clint ducked his head, turning it away from Tony. Submissive. “You’re a genius Tony.”
Tony blinked, floored by the unexpected praise where he’d expected an argument.
“How is it that you can’t see it?” Clint wouldn’t look at him, his crossed arms looking more and more like a defense instead of aggression. He took a deep breath. “Coulson’s dead. And it’s my fault. I should have been able to fight back against Loki. I should’ve been able to throw him out of my head…”
Tony’s anger was snuffed out like a match thrown into an ocean. He didn’t know how or why, but the conversation had taken a complete one-eighty and plowed headfirst into one of his friend’s biggest insecurities. He dropped the tool on the desk and reached for Clint’s arm without a second thought. “Clint, I thought we’d settled all of this. It wasn’t your fault, no one blames you for what happened, and they definitely don’t blame you for Phil. I don’t know what brought this on, but you stop it right this second or I’ll call that scary Russian girlfriend of yours down here to kick your ass. And I’ll let her too, you just see if I won’t. I’ll even have Dum-E make popcorn so I can enjoy the kicking of your tail feathers in style! I…”
Sharp eyes suddenly snapped up to catch his, and Tony came to a screaming halt at the intensity of that look.
Damnit.
Sneaky ass assassin had played him like a fiddle.
“You don’t blame me.” Clint gave a low growl. “Then why the hell do you blame him? Hm? Because he took someone close to you? Took someone from you personally?” Clint shook his his head and spat out the words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be controlled?”
Tony felt his mouth move, but no sound came out.
The archer steamrolled right over his friend’s gasping fish impression. “Do you know what it’s like to have someone pull you out of your own head and stuff something else in? Do you?! Because I do! And the worst part isn’t that you get hurt doing things you don’t want to do. It’s not that you wake up and people have to tell you what the hell you did while you were under. The worst isn’t even the ‘how’ of mind control happening.”
He finally came around the desk, grabbing the seated genius by the front of his shirt to make sure he had his full and undivided attention. Given how wide eyed Tony was, Clint didn’t doubt that he did.
His voice dropped down to a low growl, forcing the billionaire to pay attention to his words. “The worst part Tony, is that you’re still there in the back seat. You see it all happening, as it happens, and you try to stop it. You scream, and cry, and you rail against the chains that hold you back. But they never break. And you have to sit there on your ass while your body hurts people you care about. You have to watch while your body murders someone. And you can’t do a damned thing but sit there and watch. And maybe, maybe your mind blocks the memories to keep you from going insane, but that won’t last forever.”
Clint’s hands were shaking where they clutched at Tony’s shirt, but the billionaire was the only one to notice as Clint plowed on without pause.
“Loki had me under for a matter of days. Days! Of the eighty people he killed during that time, he used me in one way or another to kill the majority of them. When Tasha broke me loose, I had the blood of fifty-six people on my hands. And taking into account the deaths caused by my kills, that body count is now up to sixty-nine. I know that I didn’t do that! That I didn’t make the decision to go out and murder all those people! But you know what Tony? I can’t help but blame myself for them anyway!”
Clint shoved himself away from Tony, stalking a few steps away from the bench.
Tony’s helper bot Butterfingers made a questioning little trill. It poked at the archer’s shaking hands, drawing his attention. Clint gave a pained sounding laugh and patted the robot reassuringly, some of his tension draining away.
But he didn’t look at Tony again.
“Loki had me for a few days. I killed sixty-nine people. And I can’t forget a single solitary one of those poor bastards. A few days Tony. Hydra had James for seventy years. I know it had to take time to turn him into the Winter Soldier, but there was plenty of time for the asset to murder his way through a couple hundred people. And that’s just that we know of. Steve thinks that there might be more. And James, he remembers them all. I can’t imagine having the ghosts of seven decades worth of kills haunting me every day for the rest of my life, let alone the men he killed in the line of duty during the war. The fact that he’s functioning at all is a miracle.”
Clint’s shoulders drooped. “I… I know it’s hard for you to forgive. I mean, they were your parents. But I think you should sit down and actually think about who deserves all that anger you’re stewing. You don’t blame a weapon for a death, you blame the person who fired it. That was all James was to them. And now it’s up to us to help him become a person again… just...just think about it.”
Clint gave Butterfingers one last pat and left the lab, back straight and head held high. He didn’t see Tony’s wide eyes, or pale face. He didn’t see the beginnings of a thought furrow the man’s brow. He had said his piece, and Tony would listen, or he wouldn’t.
It was all on him now.
Clint shrugged and stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall.
If he remembered right, James would probably be waiting for him in the shooting range.