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I saw this: "PARENTS ARE HEADS OF RIVALING MOB FAMILIES AU" and thought of you. <3

(The first (lost - stupid comp) draft of this focused less on the parents part, though they did play roles that were important for plot furtherment. Also there was more violence. And some graphic sex between Bucky and Steve that I’m still kind of pissed is gone. *huffs* Anyway.

Each time I wrote this, I had to be aware and careful of how easily it could turn into Romeo and Juliet but with MOB FAMILIES which actually it kind of already was but whatever… It was an interesting possibility to write, but wasn’t what I wanted to do with this.)

This is ridiculously long, with lots of implied violence and sex and me blustering my way through anything I don’t really know about.

—-

The first memory Steve has of the Starks was when he was eight. At the time, he didn’t understand all the politics behind it. He hadn’t understood why his grandparents insisted the old TV be turned to this news station, why they and several others sat around muttering rather distastefully.

he remembered wishing Bucky was around to cause mischief with him. He remembered sitting on the rug in the middle of the floor with his toys playing quietly and only looking up when his grandfather said something that made his grandmother scold him since it wasn’t appropriate for young ears. He remembered Howard Stark, slick and haughty, his wife Maria standing close with perfect hair and make-up and a shark smile.

Mostly Steve remembered the little boy, eyes wide and uneasy as everyone focused on him and asked more questions than could be answered. Howard Stark dropped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing and jostling him a bit. The boy turned those wide eyes back for a moment before looking out, scanning the reporters.

He focused on the camera.

Tony Stark, four years old and already a known genius, offered a bright, almost mocking smile as his chin lifted challengingly.

~*~*~

Steve kicked a rock down the path, resentful still that his ma had shipping him to his great-grandparents’ all the way in Ireland for the summer. At least they’d let him drag Bucky with him, but there wasn’t much to be done way out where his great-grandparents lived, so they’d taken to wandering around to the small town still a good ways away.

"Ha!" Bucky laughed, bumping Steve’s side and tilting the gossip magazine he’d nicked from the shop they’d left twenty minutes ago. "Lookit this, Stevie!"

In glossy pictures, Howard Stark had eight year old Tony by the arm. Tony looked infinitely pleased with himself, mocking smile and tilted chin making it look like he was laughing at the world.

He’d been kicked out of his boarding school.

Bucky was still laughing. “That is one ballsy principle!” Everyone knew what the Starks were, even if there was no way to pin evidence to them and put them away.

Steve shook his head but said nothing. Because he and Bucky both knew the likely outcome of pissing off the head of the Stark Family.

He wondered if they’d even find the body.

~*~*~

"They shipped the boy to Italy," a low male voice said. Steve paused in his homework and considered. He decided it was probably Donald Masen.

"Drop it," his ma said, voice light and clam. Steve stilled, head coming up.

"But, Sarah, away from his father, the spotlight, we could-"

"He’s still a boy, and I’m not condoning murdering a child. Are we clear?" Her tone didn’t change. Steve waited, holding his breath.

"Yes." Masen sounded strangled.

"Good. You may go."

Steve dropped his head, resumed quietly taking notes (or at least, seeming to), but from the corner of his eye saw Masen leave, bottom of his shirt clenched over a bloody hand.

~*~*~

In contrast to how high-profile the Starks made themselves, the Rogers - while known of - were mostly invisible in a crowd.

Which as how Steve found himself in his current situation.

Bucky was out on a job. It was Steve’s twenty-first birthday and the Fourth of July and he’d decided to put his first real effort into getting drunk off his ass.

Apparently Tony Stark had a similar idea.

Seventeen, recently graduated, supremely intoxicated Tony Stark. Standing in front of him, mocking smile and tilted chin, waiting for Steve to answer.

"I don’t know how to dance." A lie. Sort of - Bucky said Steve had no rhythm.

"Bet you’ve never danced drunk." His eyes were laughing, cheerful and sly. "Makes it easier. I’ll show you."

Steve let him drag them to the middle of the crowd of bodies, all the time thinking. It’d be easy. Things had been increasingly vicious between their families lately. All Steve would have to do is call, let the family know that Tony was here, and seemingly alone, and vulnerable.

Tony’s body was hot, sweaty, pressed too close to Steve’s. Too damn tempting, and Steve didn’t know if that unsettled him because Tony was drunk, or because Tony was still a kid really, or because Tony was a Stark.

"Sleep with me?" Tony breathed against Steve’s lips.

Steve swallowed, shaking his head. Gently, he pried Tony’s hands awa and left, not running only in the physical sense of the word.

~*~*~

They poisoned Sarah Rogers.

A nasty, strange concoction that the doctors were righting to combat, merely managing to slow down really, leaving his ma weak.

Vulnerable.

Steve held her hand, at her bedside, Bucky near teh door probably full of hidden weapons. They watched every single person who came in, eyes meeting after each left to exchange assessment.

"Too clever for Howard," Steve’s grandfather had muttered when Steve called. "I believe we’re finally personally witnessing the work of Tony Stark."

During a quiet moment after all the visitors had come by, when his ma was sleeping restlessly, Bucky came over and leaned against Steve’s chair, body warm and close. Steve wanted to turn into it, but couldn’t drag his eyes off his ma.

"Tony Stark never makes anything he can’t get back into," Bucky said. "That’s the word on the weapons - bet it holds true here. The Starks wouldn’t be stupid enough to make a poison they couldn’t counter."

Steve was cold, chilled with rage and fear. “Then we get the antidote. By any means necessary.” He looked at his best friend (his on-again, off-again lover), and wasn’t surprised to see the chilling, flat look that tended to take over before and after Bucky was on a job. “Call Peggy. She makes sure Ma’s never alone.”

Bucky gave a single nod. “We’ll get them for this, Steve.”

~*~*~

It was, in the end, ridiculously easy to insinuate themselves into Tony Stark’s life.

What was unexpected more than that was that he remembered Steve from that Fourth of July.

They found Tony on his university campus, finishing up a Ph.D. Steve could tell how excited Bucky was to be posing as a student, taking classes that he’d never had a chance to actually take, having sacrificed the whole higher-education thing. It was actually an accident when they bumped into Tony, in line at the coffee shop in the library. They’d been going to find a quiet, obscure corner and go over the details a little more.

Tony eyed Steve oddly. “I know you from somewhere.”

Steve froze for a moment, not expecting him to remember him at all, wondering if the Starks somehow didn’t know his face to go with his name after all.

Snapping his fingers, Tony pointed triumphantly, grinning. “Right! You couldn’t sleep with me!”

Steve - he turned bright red. Bucky stared hard at him. Steve… might have neglected to mention what had happened the night of his twenty-first birthday. (In his defense, he’d planned to, because he trusted Bucky with everything, but Bucky had returned and there’d been some supremely hot sex in the hallway and… Steve really hadn’t thought much of it until later, and it seemed odd to bring it up then.)

Tony eyed Bucky appreciatively, and Steve felt a flare, jealousy and possessiveness and anger. “I can see why.” He grinned brightly when Bucky switched a glare to him. “Don’t worry - like I said, he turned me down.”

~*~*~

For the son of the head of a notorious mob family, Tony Stark was strangely unprotected. There were no guards (except for that friend, the Air Force one that Steve was pretty sure doubled as protection for Tony, but he wasn’t around nearly often enough to be effective as Bucky pointed out). As for Tony himself, he forgot to lock his door most of the time, so Steve was baffled about how he hadn’t been straight-up murdered yet.

Bucky had shrugged when he pointed this out. “Because he’s public. Steve, people would be all over it if someone killed him, society both loves and hates him, whoever did it would be caught, in a fucking heartbeat. Too risky.”

"And what we’re going to do? You don’t think that’s risky?" Steve bit out.

Bucky shrugged, dropping his feet from the table of their little apartment together. “Hell yes it is. But we’re retaliating. It’ll be understood, less of a ‘we need to figure out who did it’ than a ‘well that was probably coming for a long time’ thing.” He sighed suddenly, rubbing his face and looking up at Steve. “I told you this wasn’t going to be easy on you.”

"What do you mean?"

"Steve, you let him in the other night because he ‘looked like a drowned rat’ and had pizza. You’re getting-"

"I am not getting attached. We need to get close to him."

Bucky just stared.

"He doesn’t matter - the antidote does."

"Yeah." Bucky nodded, leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees and stared at Steve seriously. "But I don’t think you needed to get so close to him that you had to kiss him like that."

"Like what?" Steve glared at Bucky.

"Like he mattered, Steve." Bucky shook his head. "When you and Peggy were a thing you didn’t even kiss her like that, like she was… was somethin’ special. I know those kisses of yours, Steve, and that was - that was the kind of kiss you give to someone who matters."

"Because I have to be convincing if-"

"Steve."

Abruptly, Steve was furious. “What makes him so special, huh Buck? Nothing’s changed.”

Bucky stared at him. “Steve…”

“Nothing,” Steve spat. “We’re going to leave him once we get what we came for.”

"They expect us to make an example of him, Steve. Can you do that?" Bucky raised his brows.

"Are you saying you can’t?"

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, warning. A cold, harsh look fell over his features. “Yes. I’ve done worse things for the family, Steve.”

Done things that gave him nightmares, question who he was, Steve knew. Things that had changed Bucky from that mischievous, easy-going kid into the man before him that sometimes went cold and flat for days, lost to someplace in his mind where what he’d done and would do couldn’t touch him.

Would what they did to Tony be added to that?

Steve suspected he knew the answer to that - and hated himself for it.

~*~*~

They slipped inside, calling out for Tony. Bucky had a hand hovering near where he probably had a knife hidden, eyes sharp. Tony hadn’t been seen at the (huge, ridiculous) party for his birthday. He hadn’t answered his phone.

Steve wondered if the family had gotten impatient, or if someone else had gone after the most vulnerable Stark.

But no. Tony was sitting on the floor, watching that bot he’d been manically working on the previous week wheel around, grabbing things off the floor only to drop them into piles randomly around the room. He had a bottle of scotch clutched in his hand.

"Why aren’t you at your party?" Bucky asked.

Tony didn’t even startle, didn’t even look at them. He gestured with the hand holding the bottle at the bot as it whizzed by.

"Finished Dum-E," he slurred. The bot paused in the act of picking up a wrench, reversed back to Tony, and butted against the hand. Tony smiled oddly and stroked the backs of his knuckles over the arm strut. The bot made strange (happy?) sounds before rolling off again.

Tony took another drink.

"What’s it doin’?" Bucky asked.

"Sorting." Tony smiled, some bitter version of his usual mocking one, more self-directed than anything. "Dad said I couldn’t make anythin’ of real use, so I made Dum-E. Except he’s fucking stupid, can’t even sort things where they’re supposed to go, just drops them in piles.”

"I thought you said no one else could make something like him last week?" Steve pointed out, feeling strangely irritated.

Tony grinned at him, mocking and smug. “They can’t. I’m the first, because they’re all too stupid to see what they’re doing wrong.”

Tony’s eyes were glassy with alcohol. Steve watched, feeling oddly frozen, as Bucky crouched in front of Tony’s slumped position under the window.

"Sure are modest, aren’t you Stark?" he said, strangely gently, nearly fondly.

"Never saw the point of it," Tony slurred slightly. "Why not be proud of what you do? Own your shit."

"Even the mistakes?" Steve asked, tense. He ignored the look Bucky sent him, intent on Tony’s answer. The bot whizzed around in the background.

Tony grinned, bitter and mocking.

"Especially those."

Steve nodded, stepping forward to sit crouch next to Bucky. He could feel his eyes on him, feel the silent question and warning and Steve ignored it.

He pulled the bottle from Tony’s (unresisting) hand and set it up on the table nearby.

Gently grabbing Tony’s face in his hands, he kissed him, careful, aware of how Tony made a horrible whimpering noise and clutched at his shirt desperately.

Bucky was there, quickly, pulling Tony from Steve and into his own kiss. It was harsher than Steve’s, biting and messy and hot. Steve recognized that kind of kiss. It was the one he always got when Bucky came back from a rough job, like he was trying to remember that things weren’t always painful or dark or like he was trying to wipe it all away with a cleaner, more pleasant memory.

Steve always had really hot, intense sex when those kisses happened.

Tony looked dazed when Bucky pulled away, but tightened his grip on Steve’s shirt, like he didn’t want to chance them pulling away.

Bucky looked at Steve, and there was a question, a ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ in the look. Steve nodded.

Bucky grabbed Tony, lifting him up and squeezing his ass, making Tony groan deeply.

"You sure this is what you want, Stark? It won’t -" Bucky paused, looking frustrated.

"Yes," Tony whispered, sucking at Bucky’s jaw, one arm still stretched out to keep tangled with Steve’s shirt as he’d followed them upright. "Please, yes, both of you, please."

"I’m gonna take you apart," Bucky said, voice husky with promise.

"We’re going to take you apart," Steve corrected, licking his lips, imagining all the ways they could have Tony together, wondering what Tony would be like in bed - bossy, demanding, needy, sweet?

Tony’s fingers tightened. “Do it,” he said, all but daring them.

Steve led the way into the bedroom, knowing where it was even though they’d never been allowed near it, and Tony had been surprisingly efficient and effective at keeping them out and away.

When Steve woke up in the morning, sore and still feeling deeply satisfied, Tony curled into his chest, Bucky’s arm over them both, he figured out why.

When he blinked awake, he was staring straight at Tony’s personal computer.

Glancing at the other two in the bed, Steve slipped out. Bucky roused to look at him, stared with an unreadable expression for several moments, then buried his face back against Tony’s neck, tightening his arm.

Steve grabbed the little USB flashdrive out of his wallet and slipped it in. Let it masterfully hack in like he’d been promised it would, searching for what he needed.

It was in a simple file labeled ‘Ideas for Obie.’ It was simply called ‘Priority A poison - Successful.’

Steve downloaded it, and everything else in the file that looked related or important.

He glanced over when he pulled the stick out, making sure Tony hadn’t woken up somehow without Bucky realizing.

But he was still asleep, lips parted slightly, hair everywhere, bruises up and down his neck and shoulders.

Steve pocketed the flashdrive with a twisting feeling in his stomach.

~*~*~

Freezing, Steve cursed inwardly at his stupidity. He’d gotten lax. He’d assured Bucky that he could wait downstairs, that Steve would be quick as all he needed was his iPod that he’d left on Tony’s breakfast table.

Tony smirked at him, and it was wrong somehow, more twisted and bitter than Steve had ever seen it. “So. You forgot to mention a little detail, huh Steve?”

"Tony…" Steve held up his hands, taking a step closer.

Tony removed the safety. (Steve hadn’t even thought he had a gun, had never seen it or a sign of it, and it made him wonder what else he’d missed about Tony.) His hands didn’t shake (Steve’s had, holding that knife). He breathed, steady and even (Steve had almost hyperventilated, bringing it closer to a sleeping Tony’s hands, Bucky in the bathroom getting cleaned up from the night before).

He was silently crying. Steve doubted he noticed.

"Get the hell out, Rogers.”

"It wasn’t… Tony." It had been, was the thing - until it hadn’t, in some ways, and Bucky had tried to warn him but Steve hadn’t listened. "We needed the antidote. For my ma. It… it’s my ma, Tony.”

"Didn’t ask for your sob story, Rogers."

"I didn’t - I didn’t mean to," Steve tried again.

"Shut up!" Tony shouted. "Just shut the fuck up and get gone, before I shoot you!” Before Steve could say or do anything, Tony continued. “Did you at least have a good fuck out of it?”

Steve flinched. “Don’t do that.”

"Oh, come on, you can tell me. Tell me you at least had a good time while working. At least got a good couple fucks out of this damned charade."

"Stop-" Steve started, getting angry.

"Steve. Move."

He glanced over at Bucky, with his gun out and as steady as Tony’s. It was something he’d think about, analyze later.

"I…" He looked between them, Bucky sad and hiding it, Tony wild and pained.

"Better listen, Rogers." Tony smirked.

Steve left.

~*~*~

Sarah Rogers sighed, squeezing Steve’s hand. “Tell me you did not do what your grandfather has been suggesting for years and ruin that boy’s hands.”

"He’s not a kid anymore, Ma," Steve sighed.

"He was never allowed to be." Sarah raised her chin. "I may not be the best mother - no, Steve, I’m not. If I was, I would have given you up, let you grow up safe with a normal family instead of selfishly keeping you. But at least I can say I kept you out of things as much as possible. At least I never made you into a little child soldier, a weapon to be used against my enemies.

"You grew up loved, Steve. I made sure of that, and that you knew that. Howard and Maria… to them, Tony is just another tool to be used. They know it. I know it. The sad thing is, Tony knows it too."

"How do you know that?" Steve whispered.

Sarah smiled gently. “I do have someone on the inside there, Steve. They’re very bright, and close enough to Tony and his family to know these things. I refuse to punish that poor boy for what his parents have done to him.”

"I didn’t," Steve admitted in a whisper. "I… I tried. I had the opportunity to, he was there and vulnerable, but…"

Sarah stared, looking shocked. “Oh, Steve, sweetie…”

Steve didn’t think the hug had anything to do with what he’d almost done. He wasn’t sure what his ma had seen that prompted her to pull him in so tightly, but it comforted him nonetheless.

~*~*~

Bucky shoved into Steve’s office, wild and panicked.

"Bucky, what-"

"Tony is missing. His apartment was blown to shit, and he’s missing."

Steve went cold. It felt like time skipped, because Bucky was in his lap, chest pressed firmly against Steve’s, hands on Steve’s face.

"…ack to me, that’s it, come on punk, no time to check out. Come back to me Steve, please."

Steve curled his hands around Bucky’s wrists. “Word on who?” His voice was hoarse.

Bucky scowled. “Ten Rings, except… I’ve heard whispers, Steve. Talk is Hydra’s got their fingers in this.”

Rage blazed to cold life in Steve’s gut. “Let’s get him.”

"The family won’t sanction this, Steve, we’ll be going off grid, AWOL, we’ll be punished for it."

"Do you care?"

"No. I’m just warning you what’s going to happen."

"I can’t…" Steve looked at him helplessly.

Bucky leaned forward, kissing him reassuringly. It was the first kiss between them, since the months ago with Tony. “I know. Let’s go, before someone thinks to keep an eye on us.”

~*~*~

Steve had to grab Bucky’s arm - both to hold him back and to ground himself. He didn’t breathe until they yanked Tony back up, choking and gasping. There was very real terror on his face until he blinked and hid it away.

The mask came out - chin up and mocking smirk, all bravado and arrogance.

"Still not telling. Or making. Or-"

Bucky went deathly still under Steve’s grip.

"Does a man really need his pinky for such work as yours, young Stark?"

Tony swallowed. His expression went cold, challenging. “Wanna chance it?”

The man sneered, pulling Tony’s finger back until he gasped in pain.

"Leave it," one said in French. "Stane said not to permanently damage him."

The name rang a bell, so Steve chased after the echo of memory, trying to remember. As he did, Tony went still. It was obvious they hadn’t expected Tony to understand them but clearly he did.

Stane. Stane.

Tony, for that one, still moment, looked lose and childlike.

Stane, Stane. Stane…

Then he hardened, and it was a lot like seeing bucky right after a job, all steel and emotionless, except Tony was clearly raging.

Stane.

It hit Steve, who Stane was - to the Starks, to Tony.

He was a walking dead man now.

~*~*~

"Shhh, shhh," Steve soothed, rubbing a hand over Tony’s hair over and over, unable to help clutching him close and curling around him as much as he could. "We have you, we have you. God Tony, we’ve got you now, you’re safe, I promise.”

Tony was shuddering, every once in a while twitching sharply almost like he was going to pull away, and each time Bucky was there to squeeze the back of his neck and murmur soothingly in his ear.

Eventually Tony spoke.

"Why’re you here?"

"Because we couldn’t not come after you."

Tony looked… dull-eyed, resigned and defeated and it scared Steve more than the news that he’d been taken had.

"I don’t understand what you get out of - oh." He blinked. "Are you going to ransom me or-"

“No," Steve said harshly.

Bucky whacked the back of his head, making him utter a complaint. He scowled for a moment before watching, confused and curious as Bucky crouched in front of Tony again.

"You don’t trust us anymore. That’s okay - that’s good. We deserve that. We took advantage of that, knowingly and willfully. You should never forgive or forget that, Tony. Never forget what we did to you."

Steve looked away when Tony glanced at him. He could still too clearly remember pressing the edge of the knife against the fragile skin of Tony’s hand. He woke up from nightmares of it still, months later.

"Tony." Bucky’s voice was firm, and he waited until Tony was looking at him again (allowing Steve to once more look at Tony. He was too skinny. It’d taken them too long to find him.) "Take it."

Bucky held out gun - his best gun, Steve knew it was and that Bucky didn’t let anyone else touch it. After a moment, Tony reached out and wrapped his fingers around it, so comfortable with it, so assured, that Steve wondered at how much danger they’d been in from Tony himself before and not realized it.

"I am going to kill Stane," Tony whispered. "I promised myself I’d never… but he, he was like a - and he, he gave me to them, he-“

"Shh," Steve soothed, helpessly, pressing a kiss into the back of Tony’s head. Tony shuddered in his arms.

"Do you know what he wanted out of it?"

"No," Tony lied.

Neither of them pressed.

~*~*~

Steve didn’t see or hear about Tony until… months later. He was in bed with Bucky, stroking a careful hand over the newest scars on his back and listening as Bucky brokenly explained about how the mission had gone belly-up.

His phone rang.

Steve pressed ignore, turning back to Bucky and dragging fingers through his hair strongly. “Keep going,” he encouraged, feeling Bucky tremble a bit against him before he started haltingly talking again.

The phone rang.

Swearing angrily, Steve rolled over and grabbed it, answering with a sharp jab and a snarled, “What?”

"…Is this Steve Rogers?"

"Yeah. Who the-"

"I’m Pepper Potts."

Steve waited, unimpressed and uninterested, was about to hang up with she said,

"Your mother said last time I reported in to talk to you next time I had inside info about Tony."

Steve stilled, muscles tensing. He was aware of Bucky shifting behind him, pressing close, and hit the speakerphone button.

"Last night Obidiah Stane passed away in his home. Nothing was taken. No forced entry. No one is sure who did it or why, but it looks like a paralytic was used, and a re-engineered poison that you might be familiar with from several months ago."

Steve closed his eyes.

"Of course, Tony’s been missing - is assumed dead - so no one is looking in his direction." She hesitated, then added, "I don’t think he knows I work for your family. He still trusts me, told me about… things."

Steve winced. Bucky pressed his face into Steve’s shoulder.

"I’ll be disappearing with him now. I’m not sure what he’s got planned, but he’s already pulled Rhodes in on it, a few others…. He’s, he’s a bit erratic, you know. It’s… I’m scared for him."

"I don’t…. I don’t know what you, what do tell you," Steve said helplessly.

"I’m just reporting in," Pepper said gently. "I’ll call when I can, and when I have more information."

"Thank you."

She hung up without any pleasantries.

Steve twisted around, into Bucky, and they fell back into the pillows and blankets.

~*~*~

Bucky immediately grabbed his gun and pointed it, before it registered that it wasn’t a threat. Or at least, not one he thought he needed to point a gun at. Yet.

"Tony. What are you-"

"What happened to him."

Bucky glanced over towards the bedroom door, where Steve seemed to still be sleeping. He listened, but didn’t hear any of the sharp wheezing from earlier.

Sighing, Bucky fell into the armchair across from Tony.

"Fight - someone didn’t agree with Steve’s decision in a job and jumped him."

"And where were you?" Tony’s eyes narrowed.

"Getting back from my job. Got there just in time to shoot the sonuvabitch that tried to stab Steve in the back.”

Bucky didn’t mention how he’d had to pop Steve’s shoulder back into place, staunch the bleeding at his side, rush him home and then quickly prepare a treatment on the machine for Steve’s subsequent asthma attack. Then had to do so twice more in the night.

He’d left, to pick up that stupid inhaler perscription refill Steve had put off grabbing. Idiot punk.

Tony was staring at him, knowing he’d left things out and deciding if he was going to push or not. Bucky waited, let him.

"He gonna be okay?"

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got him.” He smiled a bit wryly. “Ain’t the first time I’ve had to do this, Tony.”

Tony nodded, glancing at the bedroom and frowning a bit.

"Why’re you here?" Bucky tried again.

Tony focused back on him, maybe a bit surprised or startled, and then smirking, leaning back and looking masterfully at ease, in control. Bucky was tense, but not panicked or worried for his safety - yet. Tony was obviously here for a reason, and so far it seemed like he wanted to stay on good terms.

"I’ve got a… proposition for you two." He glanced over at the bedroom again, frowning briefly in concern. "I think I want to wait to talk about it until Steve…"

"Okay," Bucky said easily. "Why don’t you tell me instead how you knew to come here?”

Tony’s grin was all self-pleased and sly, the one he’d given when laughing about how clever he’d been. It was oddly… relaxing to see it again.

"I am not unaware that a certain friend of mine works for your family."

"Ah."

Tony nodded, then shrugged. “I figure there’s no harm in letting her continue. She’s not done anything that’s harmed me yet, and if what I’ve got planned works out, it could be useful.”

"You don’t feel manipulated?" Bucky tilted his head, curious.

For a moment, Tony looked… upset, hurt, before tucking it away again. “She never pretended to have feelings for me to get what she wanted.” He offered that grin and tilted chin combo that Steve called the ‘mask’. “I think her favorite way of phrasing it is that I ‘charmed her against her will’.” He laughed quietly.

"It was never pretend."

Both of them looked over, and Steve was leaning against the door frame, circles under his eyes and breathing just a little heavily. Bucky dug in his jacket pocket and tossed the inhaler at him.

Tony sighed, impatient. “It doesn’t matter. I-“

"It does," Steve disagreed obstinately. "How can-"

"Listen, I get it, you’re sorry, I’m willing to look past it and-"

"I’m in love you you, damn it," Steve said hoarsely.

Tony froze.

"Fuck, Tony. You think I wanted to… to care? I went into that, I expected to hate you, to be able to just get what I needed from you and leave and instead… And, to know that I, I fucked up and…"

"Steve," Bucky said sharply. "Use that god damn inhaler and calm down before you trigger another attack."

Steve sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and taking a sharp puff, breathing deeply and holding it. There was relief in the breath he let out slowly after a few seconds.

Tony looked at Bucky, eyes wide and scared and pleading.

Bucky sighed. “What the hell do you want me to say, Tony?” He shrugged, glancing away. “It sure as hell wasn’t in the plan for us to fall for you. We weren’t planning to seduce you, you know. Figured it’d just make things more complicated. Besides, it’d have been better to keep you… interested by being close enough to seem attainable but not quite in reach just yet. We weren’t… That was us, not…”

"We wanted you," Steve said quietly. "We were… we did it because, not because of the job. Just because of you."

Tony let out a shaky breath. “I don’t - how do I know you’re not…”

"You don’t," Bucky said, holding back a sigh and feeling heavy. "Told you - we fucked up."

Tony glanced between them, uncertain and vulnerable only like they’d had seen him the few times during the job. It hurt. Bucky looked instead at Steve, making sure that his asthma hadn’t flared up beyond what the inhaler could handle.

"I’m putting something together. A team, of sorts, a…" Tony swallowed, licked his lips. He’d done that when unsure but about to ask for something, and it plucked a bit of lust in Bucky’s gut but he ignored it. Focused.

"I’m tired of this." Tony gestured expansively. "Of being used by my father, of making weapons to hurt other people, of fighting over power and being a tool. Being manipulated." He looked down. Bucky saw Steve flinch.

"I want out, but there isn’t really an out in this life. Sooner or later someone’s going to realize I’m not dead, but until then… Until then, I can do things. I can… start…” He frowned. “I’m not saying this right.”

Bucky was staring, not sure Tony was saying what he thought.

Steve was wide-eyed. “You want to get in on it all. Take so much power over everyone that they won’t… you want to manipulate them.”

Tony shrugged. “Sounds terribly arrogant and stupid when you put it like that.”

"Dangerous," Bucky accused.

"Dead," Tony countered with a bright grin. "No one is going to be looking for me, or my work. They’ll be busy accusing each other, and I can just… slip into place until they figure it out. By then, I plan to be untouchable."

"You said it was a proposition," Bucky said softly.

Tony nodded. “I… despite our, mm, history. I want you in on it. Both of you, I want with me, not against me.” He stared at Bucky for only a moment, ascertaining he knew what that would mean, before focusing on Steve. “Of course, to do that you’d have to disappear with me. For now.”

"Leave my ma, you mean."

Tony nodded.

Steve stared, breathing unsteady but not with asthma. He closed his eyes. His voice was just a little choked when he said, “If you asked me to run away with you, Tony… I would.”

Tony licked his lips. His voice was quiet, just a little hoarse, as he said, “I want you to run away with me, Steve. You and Bucky.”

Steve swallowed thickly and nodded once.

Bucky ignored the way Tony sucked in a sharp, unsteady breath, swiped once at his eyes. “How soon can you…?”

Bucky glanced at Steve, who still hadn’t opened his eyes but somehow knew Bucky was staring and gave a tilt of his head, almost indifferent.

Bucky looked at Tony. “Fifteen minutes.”

Tony nodded quickly. “Okay. I’ll be in a car outside. Can’t miss it.”

"Isn’t the point of pretending to be dead to blend in?"

"Where’s the fun in that?" Tony grinned and disappeared out the door.

"Sure about this, Steve?"

"No. But… I think Ma would… I think she’ll understand."

~*~*~

When enough people finally seemed to question whether or not Tony was dead - almost two years later - Tony basically waltzed into a press conference Pepper had set up, announced that he’d been taking a very long personal vacation after being kidnapped one too many times, and that he planned on starting a security company.

Steve, watching it on the TV in Tony’s workshop, Dum-E and Butterfingers rolling around cleaning up from the latest inventing spree (no matter how Tony looked on camera, he’d been stressed as hell about this press conference) asked JARVIS to pull up the hacked security footage of Howard Stark.

He couldn’t help the laughter at his furious, confused expression.

When the conference ended, he called Bucky. “He okay?”

"Yeah. We’ll have to be careful for the next few months - everyone’s gonna try getting to him before they realize he’s got all of them by the balls. You heard…"

"No." Steve sighed, rubbing a hand over his head.

"She’ll call you, Steve." Bucky’s voice was soothing, gentle.

"I made sure she’s got the number," Tony’s voice butted in. "I’m sure it won’t take long - your mother has always been a woman of action."

"We’ll be home soon," Bucky added. "With food."

"I’m starving there will be lots of food-"

"If you ate while locked in the lab-" Bucky started lecturing.

Steve laughed, smiling fondly.

~*~*~

Steve blinked halfway awake and pulled the phone to his ear.

"H’lo?" he mumbled, fighting back a yawn.

"Steven Grant Rogers, if you ever disappear on me like that again I will-"

"Ma," he said, surprised that he was crying already and yet not. She was crying too, he could hear it, saying his name over and over, threats and love interspersed equally.

He felt Tony curl against his back, hand rubbing soothingly at his chest, and Bucky gently pried the phone from Steve’s grip when he was crying too much to get words out, talked to his ma while Steve let Tony wipe away his tears and soothe him with words and kisses.

When he got the phone back, he felt calmer, still like he might cry but not like he was going to break down.

"At least you figured out you were in love with that boy," Sarah sniffed. "Is he there? Let me talk to him."

"I don’t think you can give him your usual warning speech, Ma."

"The hell I can’t, watch me."

Tony laughed against Steve’s shoulder, took his phone, and said, “I am so not sorry for stealing your son, Mrs. Rogers.”

"Tony!" Steve said, and Bucky laughed, and faintly Steve could hear his ma laughing as well. She said something - Steve couldn’t make out what - and Tony said,

"Well it’s only fair, he started it after all. Sneaking into my life and stealing mine. …Yes, I promise," he said warmly. "Okay. I’ll make sure." He handed the phone back to Steve, saying, "You’re mom’s coming for Thanksgiving next month."

Then he buried his face against Steve’s back once more, and Steve could feel the smile on his face.

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