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Bucky looked up at Stark Tower, or Avengers Tower now, he supposed. The place housed a team of superheroes that saved New York, Stark’s little worker bees, and the man himself --Tony Stark, the last publicly known red dragon in the U.S.
Dragons, being naturally secretive, were hard to root out, but Stark’s father blew the lid on that family secret during the war. Bucky’s grandfather had been a Howlie, the only witch in the squadron to serve next to Captain America, and he always had a tale about the elder Stark to tell at the shop while he was alive. Cap, who was somehow alive again, used James Buchanan Sr. and Howard’s combination of dragon scales and magic to defeat Hydra. Howard even gifted James five scales after the war, to start his own shop and to pay for the futures of his coven.
And Bucky had used up the last one.
Thankfully, the family name had gotten him past the first couple rounds of roadblocks and he passed the security background check to get an interview to request to acquire more. Asking a dragon to part with something was a long shot and a gamble, but he’d taken a little of Barnes’ Blessings potion this morning to boost his chances.
The inside of the Tower was artificially cool in a way that tingled Bucky’s magic. It would make sense for a dragon to keep his lair cooler for the humans working and living inside it, but it was unusual to see it done with magic instead of basic air conditioning. The interior was cleanly designed and neutral, perfectly boring and pedestrian and buzzing with people, humans and magic folk alike. He recognized a few technomancers at the elevators, hunched around their coffees with little jolts of magic sparking from their auras, invisible to those without Sight.
He checked in with the reception desk, getting a badge and more than a few curious looks from the staff. Bucky picked a seat to wait for his escort to wherever Stark wanted to have the meeting and pulled out his phone to pass the time. The wait was blessedly short. He sent a silent plea to the powers that be, Please don’t let that be what the potion used it’s luck on.
Steve Rogers reached out his hand, “Hello James. I’ll be taking you to Tony today.”
Bucky did a double take. It wasn’t every day Captain freaking America met you personally at the door for a meeting with a dragon. Maybe he’d taken too much of the potion this morning? Bucky reached out with his magic, just enough to confirm that what Grandpa James had told him was true. The secret behind the Supersoldier Serum-- the potion conjured up by Erskine-- was that it had werewolf venom in it. He had found a way to transfer certain properties to a human without the ill effects of the curse, a permanent transformation with full power, strength, height and healing.
“Hello, please call me Bucky,” he responded, shaking Steve’s hand before matching his stride as they walked. “James was, well you know.”
“You look like him.” Steve sounded wistful.
“Uh, thanks. He told me a lot about you, and the Howlies.”
He smiled at that, small and private. “I hope all the stories were good ones.” Steve said, swiping them into an elevator away from the rest, “JARVIS, workshop please.” The elevator moved down, passing through a magical barrier that made Bucky’s ears pop.
The elevator came to a stop where it was significantly warmer than the lobby of the building. The door opened on a glass walled workshop with wards over every pane and door and a wave of heat more in line with a dragon’s lair. The whole area was densely protected from magic, Bucky’s own shrinking and feeling like ice in his veins at the force of it. He would be able to cross the threshold, but as a magicless human.
“Follow me,” Steve gestured as he walked down the hall. He punched in a code to the door, holding it open as Bucky walked through. “JARVIS will let you back up when you’re done. It was nice to meet you, Bucky.”
“You too,” Bucky replied weakly, his stomach tied in knots and the wards zapping his strength. He wished the elevator ride had been longer, that he could have come up with something interesting to talk to Steve about before it was over.
He walked toward the outline of a man working at a table, anxiety skittering under his skin. The shop was littered with scrap metal and wires and had the burning edge of smoke and brimstone he’d always learned came with a dragon’s territory. Every fiber of his being, his magic was screaming Danger!, but he pushed forward.
“Excuse me, Mr. Stark?” Bucky called out over the sounds of a hammer on metal. And just like that, Bucky was face to face with a dragon.
He was breathtaking. The glamour used for the press was polished and totally human, the Tony Stark the world at large got to see was...not this.
He was still human, his eyes still brown, but they glittered with so much amber. Gold, Bucky realized later. His hair curled like licks of flame and his movements had a serpentine edge to them. Bucky felt pinned under his gaze, like prey being sized up by a predator. It caused him to shiver, not out of fear, but because Tony was beautiful like this, and terrible, like the shiny teeth behind his smile would gobble him up and he’d make sure Bucky would enjoy every second.
“Witch Barnes, welcome” Tony said, dropping the pieces of armor he’d been working on. He walked around the table, coming closer to Bucky. He grabbed a rag to wipe his hands before extending one in greeting.
“Please, call me Bucky.”
Tony was so warm. He was wearing some fancy cologne over the overwhelming scent of campfire. Like sitting out under a night warmed by a fire, wearing something spritzed in Armani left by your lover to keep you cozy.
“Then call me Tony. I hear you’re looking to obtain some scales?”
Right to the point, then. “Yes, sir. Your father had given us some after the war, and they’re all gone now. I need a source to continue to serve my patrons.”
Tony’s face hardened a little, “I’m not in the business of supplying scales any longer. For anyone’s patrons. I know what powerful weapons they can make.” The weight of his past seemed like a physical thing, making him look away from Bucky. But it was obvious he was standing by his promise to fix his mistakes and Bucky had to give him credit.
“But they also make powerful medicines,” Bucky pleaded.
“No one--”
“There is one. She is a doctor down at Mount Sinai, she’s been coming to me for ingredients. We’ve been working together on a brew with scale shavings. There’s a clinical trial they are doing to reverse petrification.”
“That’s impossible. That’s a death sentence.”
“She had a patient last week wiggle his stone fingers.”
“Well, fuck,” Tony responded.
“We’ve tried it without the scale shavings and it does nothing. Nothing else in the shop works. I think the intense heat rejuvenates the nerve endings.”
Tony leaned his hip against the table and crossed his arms. Bucky was full of his own fire now, the potion pumping through his veins, ground that morning with a freshly charged tiger’s eye pushed forward against the ward’s barriers. He could feel it gathering under his fingertips and at his lips. Please let this work.
“We’re so close to proving this as a cure. Doc thinks if we succeed, they can find a supplier through the hospital donations team, but we can’t even apply if we don’t have--”
Tony held up a finger to stop him.
“Two conditions.”
“Okay.”
“Proper documentation from the trial, the hospital, the whole nine yards,” Tony started.
Triumph and the flush of luck thrummed in Bucky’s chest. “Deal. And?”
“You are the only one allowed to handle the scales. Stored in a Stark Industries lock box, bio-metric locks to you and me.”
“Done.” They shook on it.
That was easy. Too easy. “Um, can I ask what this is going to cost? I have some savings from the potion shop, and the trial might have some funds we can access,” Bucky held his breath. The second biggest obstacle other than getting a dragon to actually part with something was what it would cost you, and that didn’t always mean cash.
Tony waved him off, “No need to worry about that. Pepper can run this through the foundations, there’s always a write off for things like this.”
Relief washed over him. Bucky wouldn’t need to dip into the emergency fund, the hospital wouldn’t need to sell candy bars or wrapping paper, and he knew that the magic potential housed in a fresh dragon scale could change the course of the trial entirely.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do, Mr. Stark?”
“Answer this, knowing that the answer won’t change anything we’ve agreed to, and you are free to tell me to fuck off, but --Are you single?” Tony asked with a curious tilt to his voice. His demeanor shifted, from businessman back to flirtatious dragon with a singular focus that made Bucky squirm and his blood heat.
“I am,” Bucky drew in a deep breath, “and I’m free Saturday night?”
Tony smiled, “It’s a date.”