Bucky felt those cold words echoing in the back of his mind, ears already ringing as he recalled the very moment that Stark was mentioning here. It was cut off and distracted with something else, putting blame where it’s needed, and deserved. But the soldier knew. This had his hands tightening into fists, even the one in his pocket was balled up. There was nothing worse than knowing he couldn’t stop himself from doing what he did on that night. To live with that, and to finally be in the presence of their son had him on edge almost all the time.
Nods slowly, and this was where he should have just upped and left the office, turned to go back to his room, anything to get away from the anger he was sensing here. It was a hostile environment, and of course he couldn’t steer himself away from it ever. Stands perfectly still, just waiting for the other to explode on him, but he does what he could only do now; accept it. Shrugs a shoulder, and just stares away with pain in his eyes.Â
  “Oh, right! I’m on the team, okay!… Yeah, a team where the leader is just some scared prince of trinkets, who wraps himself in a machine for safety. If you’re so uncomfortable with me, Stark. That’s all you need to say. Hell, you can even hit me, if it makes you feel any better in that palace of yours.” Steve’s gonna kill me.
| @capaciitor​ |
There it is. Tony almost wondered if--no, he knew that he had wanted this from the start. He was so sick of tiptoeing around Barnes’ feelings, and it didn’t help to dig and dig at him, only to get those lost puppy dog eyes. To feel bad, and still keep digging both of them further into some pit of self-depreciation and unresolved feelings. Now they could say what they wanted to say...okay so it wasn’t the most mature way to get here, but he wasn’t Cap (and that’s part of the problem, isn’t it).
   “Alright, alright fair enough.”Â
His finger tapped at the wood of the desk as if trying to break through it. If this was what he wanted, why was it still so damn hard? He had abandoned most of his ego back in that wormhole (what had been left after Obidiah, anyways). Not all of it, but the chunk of pride that had blinded him from the consequences of his actions. He felt as though he knew his place these days, and if that was the one certainty in a world of aliens and gods, he’d take it. So why was his pride getting in the way now? Because it’s him.
“Yea, I guess I am just scared. We fought Loki and the Chitauri, and then I remember that there are things on Earth just as evil. HYDRA...” He shook his head, changing direction. “What do you want me to do? I just can’t forget it. What I saw that day haunts me every damn night, and I look at you and see it again. I don’t want to think about it, but here it is, on my team, in my ear piece. What do I do with that?”