3K VOTES MY LOVELIES AHHHH. (OVER 3.4K AS OF RN I AM SO HAPPY AND 1.6K COMMENTS) I AM SO EXCITED AND SO OVERJOYED BECAUSE THIS FIC IS MY BABY AND ITS REACHED A POTENTIAL I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD! THANK YOU EVERYONE, MAWH!

I'm so sorry that it's been a while since I updated. I was on such a streak and then boom! Christmas was over, January exams fucked me over, February was a blur, March is over? and depression hit me like a truck- ya know the drill. But look at me, with an ANGSTY AS FUCK chapter because is it really my book if I don't have some angst?

This will possibly be my last chapter published until JUNE. I have VERY important exams in May and June so updates will either be so very scarce or none at all. BUT I AM NOT GONE, JUST ABSENT.

0.5 seconds into the new Endgame trailer and I cried?

The uncomfortable blue chair is empty

He'd gone to the bathroom, James had told Tony when the Doctor had reentered the hospital cubical that was currently housing James Barnes, neither of them acknowledging the massive elephant in the room, that 'gone to the bathroom' was code for too many words and a much bigger situation. Barnes was not exactly looking at the familiar young doctor but not ignoring him either as he shifted every moment or so on the bed, it's paper crinkly with every shift of his body and without words, it remained an awkward reminder of words neither shared with one another all those years ago but has outrightly said aloud to other people.

On his own, James had looked far more smaller than Tony had ever remembered him to be and maybe it's in the face, how his cheeks have sunken and his eyes have darkened or how his shoulders have slumped under a jacket that looks far too heavy and large for his frame to hold. Or how his skin has gotten that waxy sort of texture that only ill or victims of trauma seem to develop, after a war or a car accident or a mistake.

And Tony knows that type of look, and he's frightened of that look, because he had just seen his reflection just moments ago in the hospital bathroom look exactly like that, waxy and ill. As if he had just seen a ghost of a man he had imagined to be dead because to be dead was less of a heartache than for them to have just gotten up and left because being dead was not a choice. In a way, Steve had been a ghost, a ghost of a past that Tony had no interest in reliving and one he had been working years to forget with alcohol and pills and new heartaches to numb the one that left a gaping hole in his heart.

He wasn't dead and it was a rather horrible solution for Tony to conjure in the first place, a mirage to make his heartache feel a lot less real and a lot more accidental, as if Tony didn't take part in the blame. He wasn't dead and Tony kids himself into thinking he had thought that because he hadn't, despite the amount of times he surely wished for it to be true in order to feel a lot less human, because as paranoid as Tony is, he is always keeping tabs on the people of his past and Steve was one of them.

And it's not creepy, because Tony has spent many a night convincing himself that it's nothing more than being concerned and aware because god knows that Tony is paranoid enough in this disastrous setting of a world to be paranoid about where people are and who people are with. It's not creepy, it's being knowledgeable, Tony would tell Rhodey who would look at him in underlining concern when tony would pull up stat sheets and files about an ex boyfriend, or when Pepper would question his remarkable knowledge on a Japanese pro-atomic testing company that had bought Stark Industry shares back in 2009 and was now inching their way up the market ladder.

"You're paranoid."Pepper had told him when he had dumped a stack of files onto her desk, filled with information about every single person who had glanced at the Stark Industries data frame that one time Obie decided to modernise the system, exposing the S.I's date frame for literal seconds before Tony had swooped in and saved the day. The list stretched to multiple pages, however, and Tony's one glance at the names had told him exactly what he needed to know and have things dealt with before Pepper could even read the first 10 names.

"I'm cautious."Is how he had replied, meeting her stare with one of his smiles, the sort of smile he resells for when he knows that he's being annoying and showing off. His eyes masked with the shaded glass of his sunglasses, nursing a hangover from the night before and still on the road to recovery from awaking early to gather the mountain of files. He knew Pepper preferred her notes on paper, old fashioned like Obie, who would still prefer to be told directly the information rather than a sticky note stuck to the door of his office.

And so, really, Tony had been very much aware that Steve was still alive, that he had returned to Brooklyn just months before Bucky had, discharged from his barracks with a Sargent Captain ranking, the youngest of his age to ever be granted as such, with 3 tours in Afghanistan under his belt. Anti-social behaviour from what Tony had been able to gather but had been labelled as medical grounds in order for him to receive his full payment post-discharge and retirement.

But regardless to this knowledge, the odds of Steve and Tony finding themselves in the same setting, the same company and circle were outrageously afar because Tony was no longer stupid enough to land himself in hospital for tampering with things that didn't belong to him (or well, he wasn't stupid enough to take himself to hospital, that was) and Steve, while remaining bullheaded, did not get into scraps in back alleyways anymore.

But there he had been, defying those odds, in the same hospital, at the same time. But instead, of course, Tony no longer looked beaten and bruised from an explosion but a resident doctor.

"I want to do this."

Tony truly wasn't listening when Barnes spoke those words, his eyes too focused on the vacant uncomfortable, fragile blue chair that a man Tony hadn't thought about in a long time sat, rigid and tense when tony had first ripped open the curtains of the cubical, stumbled to get up and get his attention as Tony had tensed, visibly shook and avoided eye contact. It was terrible how such a person, who Tony had once swooned over, could make Tony's entire body shake.

Or well, how such people could, in Tony's case. Tony sure knew how to pick them.

"You're making the right decision, Mr. Barnes."Tony's smile is still tight, despite the fact  that his body has seemed to relax without the heavy stare of Steve's boring eyes on his shoulders. His cheeks have numbed with that familiar stretch of a smile far too large, a smile he usually reserves for nosey journalists and talk show hosts that put their hand too far up his thigh. He catches himself on, wiping the smile off of his face with a cough into a closed fist."I'll have a colleague of mine, Dr. Stephen Strange, come and outline what is about happen next. Of course, we won't be jumping into things straight away, we will have to run a couple of assessments and hold some very lengthy discussions with your lawyer and our legal team-"

"I don't have a lawyer."

"I would suggest you get yourself one, Mr. Barnes."Tony shifts the Stark Tab, cracked in its left hand corner from the slammed impact it had to endure moments ago in Tony's frustration and anger, onto his left hand so that he can use his other to dig inside a pocket of his coat, pulling out an old fashioned business card. He flicks it over, checks that it's correct before handing it to Bucky."Call them. They're small and quiet but trust me, they do their job."

Bucky takes the card hesitantly and Tony is reminded about that time he had offered a once longing haired teenager a cigarette, shaking the packet until they had complied and taken one, sitting down beside them on the damp wood of Steve's front porch that cold January night in Brooklyn. He flicks the card over, stares at the Two-named law firm inked in black before putting it in his own pocket.

"If this proceeds, you're going to need to quit smoking, along with other things but I'm sure we will have lengthy discussions about that in the future."Tony is suddenly reminded and he hates how hypocritical that he sounds because Tony himself had been giving a lengthy discussion about what he was supposed to do and what he was not when fitted with the Arc Reactor and Tony was not someone you told what to do."We're going to be seeing a lot of each other, so if I were you, I'd reconsider your choice of asset."

"What if he's my only asset?"

"I don't suspect that is true."

"I've made up my mind."

"Then we have nothing further to discuss. Have a good morning, Mr. Barnes."The doctor nods his head at the man on the bed, the StarkTab immediately shutting off once he has taken his glance away from the transparent screen, turning to leave.

"Where'd you go?"Tony pauses in his tracks, a hand ghosting over the fabric of the cubical curtain that he so desperately wants to rip open and disappear behind, throwing responsibility to I'm-not-good-with-people Stephen Strange and go home. Back to the safe comforts of his Warehouse, where he can nurse a whiskey bottle until dawn, or until the following dusk, forget that today had existed, forget that people existed, do what he had done all those years earlier when he was stupid and hurt.

And he still is stupid, and he still is hurt, but he persevered, got over himself. Which he hadn't, not really, because Tony might be intelligent and gifted and unbelievably egotistic with that exact knowledge that he is, but he was also naive, delicate in the sort of way that something unbelievably stupid could resort an incredible emotion out of him, bring him back to a moment in his past that he numbed with alcohol; a smell, a sight, a touch, an action, a person.

Tony still done stupid things like he had when he was 17 and newly thrusted into the party scene in tight jeans and a flimsy fabric top, looking to rebel from his father and embarrass his mother. He still done stupid things, in order to feel nothing at all but that numb buzz you get when you fall into the bliss of alcohol or of your favourite drug, but instead it was to spite Obie because Tony never did learn, and he doesn't expect to start now.

He touches the curtain with the tips of his fingers, feels it's paper fabric that's so close to his grasp, his back turned to the acquaintance, the stranger, the patient, on the bed that had asked him a seemingly so harmless question but Tony was not fooled, no, because he may do stupid things but he was not stupid. And Tony may not have been present for Steve's sudden revelation but he had a fair idea of who was behind it.

"You know exactly where I went, Mr.Barnes. Away."His body is angled to the curtain as he forces himself to look at Bucky, whose heavy jacket remains draped over his shoulders in an attempt to hide the deformity and Tony's fingers seem to have wondered to the Arc Reactor in his chest in that moment, a reminder of his own deformity. "'Just like what everyone wanted."

And with that, he leaves. Whipping the curtain behind him as he goes.

~~~

"Tony."

"Ms.Potts, it's fantastic that you've made it. You look divine!"Tony throws his arms open in a gesture for Pepper to come forward, welcoming and charming as Pepper steps into the open space of his arms so that Tony can place a hand on her waist and another on her arm, leaning forward to press a kiss to her cheek for show. He can feel the eyes on the back of his head. He's late. He's drunk. Everybody knows it.

He had done a remarkable job of cleaning himself up, despite the fact that from a quarter past 11 that morning, he had found himself sitting at the island of his kitchen with the fail at company of a bottle of his favoured whiskey. By a quarter to 3 it was half gone and by 7, it was gone in its entirety with only but the remains staining the bottom of Tony's favoured crystal tumblr that he continued to twirl from hand to hand, stuck in his own thoughts.

Which is never a good thing, to be so caught up in your own thoughts that you get lost within them, a tourist in your own mind where your thoughts are so jumbled up and scrambled that it all but seems to be in a different language. Tony was always one for being alone, he adored the thought of being left to his own devices, but he loathed the idea of being alone with his own thoughts, a dark territory which when revealed, stained him as if ink that could not be removed.

By the time that Pepper eventually used her emergency override protocols over JARVIS to inform Tony that he was currently one hour and seventeen minutes late Tony had been jostled out of his thoughts and the gears had shifted from one of wallowing to one of action as he rushed and bustled to make himself look charming and alive.

"It's 9:30. You should've been here 2 hours ago, Tony."Her lips ghost his ear as she leans in for Tony to place a gracious, welcoming kiss to her cheek, tasting the Chanel No.5 perfume that she had sprayed hastily before leaving, probably too preoccupied with the fact that Tony had failed to answer any of her calls and JARVIS was uncooperative due to knowledge of his creators absentee.

"Would you believe that I was saving some kittens from a burning tree?"A kiss to the other cheek. Tony swears he hears her take a whiff of his own aroma.

"At a burning liquor factory?"

"Now, Ms.Potts, I cannot control where burning trees occur or the kittens that get stuck up them. I simply save them, that's all."The smile that appears on his lips is handsome but condescending, the type of smile that graces Tony's lips only when he's talking to the team that surround Obie like the plague, or that of informers that shake his hand too tightly and smile with too many teeth and try to drug his drink when they think Tony doesn't notice.

"Don't smile at me like in that way."

"Like what way?"

"You know exactly what way, Tony."Her tone is firm, anger seeping through into words because Tony had once smiled at Pepper the way he had smiled at everyone he didn't trust, where his smile just couldn't reach to his eyes, where instead they look dull and tired. Tony has once smiled at Pepper like that and he had made a promise to never smile at her like that again.

"I know- I know that."He catches her wrist as she goes to leave, mingle with the press, get her perfectly constructed words about the wonderful arrangement of the Gala, about the dreadful earthquake, flood or cancer that they are fundraising for this evening."I'm sorry. It's been- a day."

A day was one way to describe the day that Tony was having, one that has magnificently began at a high but came crashing down just moments later when his eyes landed on a figure that he wished to never see again, and hoped to never do. He must reveal something in the way he looms at Pepper, maybe a lip moment or a cheek twitch, but her anger seems to wash away and instead, it's replaced with a frown. It's her evening off and she looks so beautiful, Tony just wishes she would stop looking so sad.

"You're speaking in 5 minutes, top left pocket."Her hand comes to pat gently at the pocket of Tony's crisp charcoal suit, a designer label stitched into its lining, a piece that has yet to be released for the public. Her eyes cast a glance at the glow of the Arc Reactor, so vividly noticeable through his white shirt before she looks back at him again."Please, for the love of god, don't go off script. Not tonight, or any night if that, but especially not tonight."

"Have a drink waiting for me, Ms.Potts."

And Tony smiles, even if it's small and not real, just so that he can see Pepper smile at him in return.

What up my lovelies, I haven't updated in awhile and I've had the first half of his chapter sitting her for MONTHS but actually putting it all together has seemed to take ages because one minute everything is flowing so perfectly and then suddenly I can't string together a sentence? Ugh!

Anyway! I have the next 10 chapters PLANNED. What. The. Hell. I have them all sitting here in my works, the plot for them all and all that means is I need to actually write them. It's a good start, well done me, pat on the back.

Please tell me your opinions on this chapter?

Your opinion on Bucky and Tony and the MASSIVE tension between them?

How do you think Tony's night is going to go? And what do you think of Tony and Pepper?

Steve or Tony's perspective next chapter?

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Peace✌🏼