Chapter Text
Tony, mercifully, kept the tour brief. He showed Bucky where the bedrooms were, then took him to see the gym, the training area, the outdoor training area, the workshops, and then they circled back around to the common rooms. Bucky didn’t see anyone else as they went, and he suspected that word had been sent out to avoid the two of them. He appreciated the consideration; it gave him the chance to actually absorb everything.
Which is probably why he only noticed the jar in the living room for the first time then. It was sitting on a stand against the far wall. Made of clear glass, the jar looked exactly like a pickle jar except that it was as long as Bucky’s arm and five times as wide around. It was also about half-full of coins and one and ten dollar bills. The sign above it, printed out on a computer and taped to the wall, proclaimed it to be ‘THE SELF DEPRECIATION JAR’.
Bucky stared at it for a long moment. “You… you do realize I was joking.”
“Yeah, unfortunately Peter got a hold of my phone and thought your joke was the greatest thing ever,” Tony said dryly. “He and Stephen implemented that damn jar. Now everyy time I say something bad about myself, I have to drop ten dollars in.”
“Ten dollars?” Bucky said, turning to look at him.
“Peter tells me it’s adjusted for inflation.”
“But there are quarters and dollar bills too?”
Tony smirked. “If I have to do it, so does everyone else.” He moved closer to the jar, touching the glass in a way that almost seemed fond. “I have to be honest. I wasn’t in a very good place when you sent me that first email. It’s why it took me so long to answer you.”
Bucky stiffened. “You didn’t have to answer me. I never expected you to.”
“I know. That’s part of why I did,” Tony said.
“Tony… I really am –”
“Don’t,” Tony said, cutting him off. “I don’t need to hear any more apologies from you, Bucky. I know you’re sorry. I know that if you had the power to change things, you would in a heartbeat. That’s why you’re here. And frankly… your apologies have helped, but you were never the person that I really needed to hear it from. You were a prisoner of Hydra, forced to be their puppet. No one has ever forced Steve Rogers to do anything.”
“No one except his ma,” Bucky said quietly. “What do you want from me?”
Tony was quiet for a moment before he sighed. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Rogers and the others didn’t read their pardons very closely.”
“I don’t know,” Bucky said, a little confused at the sudden change in subject.
“Oh, I know they didn’t. You would’ve heard all about it if they had,” Tony said with a bitter smile. “Their pardons had very specific rules attached to it. For example, if they don’t want to be Avengers anymore, they’ll be monitored as civilians for the next two years to insure that they’re following the rules and aren’t resorting to vigilantism.”
“I doubt that’ll be a problem. They all seemed pretty keen.”
Tony nodded slowly. “I figured as much. Things work differently here now, though. We’ve put a lot work into changing things to suit everyone, not just a few people. The Avengers aren’t just one team now; there are multiple teams. Mostly it’s to prevent burn-out. It gets to be a lot if we have more than one battle within the course of a week, especially since some of the Avengers have day jobs. But we also have specialist team, like the magic users, who may be called out for something specific.”
“Okay,” Bucky said. “That… makes sense to me. Why would they be mad about that?”
“Because we already have these teams and systems in place,” Tony replied, crossing his arms. “And Rogers will not be given control over a team. I don’t know for sure, since these kinds of decisions are made by the team leaders and I’m not one, but in my opinion it’s unlikely that Barton, Romanov, Maximoff, Wilson, Lang and Rogers will even be assigned to the same teams.”
Bucky winced. “Okay, yeah, now I see what you mean.” Steve was going to hit the roof when he found out that he wouldn’t have control over his team anymore.
“Frankly,” Tony went on, “none of them will even be seeing a battle for at least a month. There are a whole bunch of tests that new Avengers have to undergo to prove that they’re battle ready. Since none of us ever took them when the Avengers were first formed, they’ll have to do so now. I don’t even know if all of them will pass. Psychological testing is part of it, and I have my doubts about… about some of them.”
“By some of them, you mean Steve.”
“Not just him. Maximoff is so full of hatred towards me that I don’t think she can function in a battle situation even if she wanted to, but I also think they’re going to find a lot of fault with her lack of control. Then there’s Romanov. She has no loyalty towards anyone and has already shown that she’s willing to switch sides at the drop of the hat if she feels like it benefits her. She’s not as good of an actress as she thinks, and our psychologists are the best in the world. They’ll catch that. I even wonder about Barton, since I know for a fact that Laura is planning to serve him with divorce papers now that he’s back on U.S. soil.” Tony’s voice was very matter-of-fact.
Bucky considered that, matching Tony’s rundown against what he knew of Steve’s team, and found that it rang true. Tony couldn’t have known that being in Wakanda had made Maximoff’s and Barton’s mental states deteoriate even further. It was good to know that the two of them would need to be approved by psychologists before they’d be allowed back on the field; Bucky was positive that Maximoff, at least, would never pass muster. He didn’t know enough about Romanov to accurately say.
Then there was Steve. Bucky wanted to shake his head when he thought about his oldest friend. Time had not been kind to Steve, leaving him with an artificial, inflated sense of self-importance. If Bucky had to hear one more rant about how ‘the safest hands are our own’, he was going to throw up. That was exactly how Hydra looked at the world, though he wasn’t about to point that out to Steve.
Steve just had no understanding of how the world worked, or why it worked the way it did. He hadn’t made any effort to learn about things that mattered, preferring instead to rely on people like Romanov to fill in on the fly. He clung to the past, spending hours filling Bucky’s ear about how things used to be and about how things would be in the future. To hear Steve tell it, he and Bucky were the exact same boys who’d been shipped off to war over eighty years ago.
“If Steve doesn’t pass, where does that leave me?” Bucky asked.
“You and Rogers are not a package deal,” Tony said. “You’re individuals and will be treated as such. If you want to be an Avenger, you’ll have to go through the same tests. You have way more freedom in the Compound than they do, even though you’re not officially on the team yet. That’s about the only sway I have in the situation.” He looked up at Bucky.
“Basically, like I said, I wanted to tell you this without their influence. I thought you deserved to know. I’ll answer any question you have, and, if I don’t know, I’ll find out the answer. I want you to be able to make an informed decision that’s your decision, not what the decision someone else wants you to make.”
“Thank you,” Bucky said quietly. He couldn’t put into words what that meant to him; it had been hard for him to re-learn autonomy, but he was getting better at making choices for himself. But for something this huge… it would be too easy to fall back on letting Steve made the decision for him, and Bucky couldn’t afford to do that. This was going to affect how the next several years of his life went.
Tony nodded, looking uncomfortable. “I have a copy of the accords for you to read as they currently are. And I want to introduce you to Rhodey. He’s my team lead, and, if you’re successful with passing your tests, there’s a good chance you could be on our team, since we’re lacking a sharpshooter at the moment.”
“Who else is on your team?” Bucky asked.
“Besides me and Rhodey, there’s Stephen Strange and Hope van Dyne, codename Wasp,” Tony said. “Stephen is a magic user, and Hope’s powers are very similar to Lang’s.”
“Peter’s not on your team?”
“Kid’s not twenty-one yet, so he can’t be an official Avenger. He’s signed an amended version of the Accords, which are meant for people who aren’t of age. They’re usually only called in when shit gets real.”
Bucky glanced again at the jar. There was no way all that money had come from five people. “Seems like everyone gets along well, then.”
Tony followed his gaze. “I did say everyone. There’s fighting and squabbling sometimes, but that’s pretty common. There’s a lot of us and, although we might be divvied up into small groups, we’re all still Avengers at the end of the day. We try to remember that.”
There was a quiet sense of pride radiating off of Tony. It was a good look for him, Bucky thought, remembering all those press conferences not long after Siberia. Bucky had been in cryo when they happened, but he’d seen the videos. Tony had been visibly struggling, small and pale and swaddled in bandages as he tried to convince the world at large that the Avengers could still be trusted. A hell of a lot of work had been done between then and now.
“I’ll read the accords,” Bucky said. “And I’d like to meet… Rhodey, was it?”
“James Rhodes,” Tony said with a nod. “He was a Colonel with the army, but he received an honorable discharged after his accident. Now he’s a full time Avenger.”
“He’s also your best friend,” Bucky said.
“That he is.”
“Maybe he won’t want to meet me,” Bucky said. “I – I did kill –”
“Okay, no, stop,” Tony said, holding a hand up. “You owe the jar a quarter.”
“What?!”
“No self-depreciating comments, remember? That includes dwelling on events in the past that we had no control over, or for which we’ve already apologized,” Tony said evenly. “By the way, I forgive you, Bucky.”
Bucky stared at him. “What?”
“I forgive you. What you did wasn’t your fault, and I know you never would’ve done it if they hadn’t literally forced your hand. What the Winter Soldier did was never going to be held against you; it was always Hydra’s fault. The pardon issued for you was for what happened after you left Hydra’s control and were running around with Rogers. We all know that wasn’t your fault. No one will hold it against you.”
“That’s… I don’t…” Bucky didn’t know what to say. He was too shocked to form a response.
Tony smirked at him. “Now Rogers, on the other hand, is a different story. He may get punched in the face a couple of times.”
“He deserves it,” Bucky said, still stunned. He’d never expected to hear those words from Tony Stark.
“Glad you agree.” Tony paused. “For the record, I’m sorry for what happened in Siberia.”
Bucky recoiled. “What?! No! You don’t have to apologize for that.”
“I hit you. A lot,” Tony pointed out.
“Just… please, don’t,” Bucky said quietly. “I don’t need that.”
Tony frowned for a moment, then acquiesced. “Okay. That’s fair. And since you didn’t know the rules of the jar, we’ll let that one slide.”
Bucky just nodded, slightly overwhelmed.
“I think Rhodey is busy right now,” Tony continued. “So why don’t I take you back to your bedroom and set you up with a copy of the accords? FRIDAY can help you, or she can find me if you run into something you don’t know. I'm just gonna be hanging out with Stephen and Peter.”
“That would be… good,” Bucky said. He followed Tony back to his bedroom – his bedroom! – and was glad to be left alone for a few minutes to gather himself. He sank down onto the bed and looked around. If what Tony said was correct, Bucky had been granted a room within the team floors. Steve and the others would be on the lower floors, where potential recruits stayed. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this was more special consideration given to him by Tony, no matter what Tony said.
He frowned, turning back to the tablet Tony had handed to him. Bucky didn’t know what he wanted yet, but he did know that he wanted to be as informed as possible. The next time Steve, or anyone else, said anything to him about the accords, he wanted to be able to form a response based on his own thoughts and opinions. And that would only come by reading the accords.
“Mr. Barnes, Mr. Rogers would like to speak to you,” FRIDAY announced.
“Tell him I’m busy. I’ve got some reading to do,” Bucky replied, picking up the tablet. Reclining on the bed, he opened up the tablet to find the first page of the accords and started to read.