Chapter Text
The pizza dough is fun. Winter makes the dough and shapes the dough a dozen times, before he finally gives up on using the latex glove. It impedes his ability to shape the dough, tearing it where the latex comes in contact with the dough. He tries dusting his fingers in flower but it only works so long as the flour stays on the latex, which it doesn’t for very long.
“I need skin.” Winter tells Tony in his lab one day while they’re eating Winter’s most recently perfect creation, a Pad Thai that Tony is very fond of. It satisfies Winter in a primal way to be taking care of Tony, giving him the things he needs, making him happy with his creations.
“Crush.” Bucky mocks him in their head again, and Winter wants to scowl, but Tony is watching him, so he can’t.
Tony stops mid chew to look at him. “When you say that, you don’t mean in a weird, ‘it puts the lotion on it’s skin’ way, do you? Because I can support a lot of weird stuff, but I draw the line at supporting a cannibal fetish.”
Winter tilts his head, furrows his brow, squints his eyes at Tony. “Do you think I’m a cannibal?” Winter thought that Tony was different, that he understood. Was he just afraid of him this whole time? Was Tony eating his food thinking that Bucky was serving him humans? He would never do something so atrocious!
“Whoa, whoa, hey, you got a murder face on buddy. That’s not what I meant. It’s just a weird request, and that was a movie reference, alright? I wasn’t implying anything. It was a joke in bad taste. I’m sorry.” Tony has his hands up like he’s afraid of Winter, and it makes Winter cringe back in his chair.
“I would never hurt you. In any way.” Winter’s voice cracks and Bucky is trying to be soothing inside their head but Winter is barely coherent of it. He’s spiraling into a dark place of remembering all the terrible things he’s done and the people he’s hurt, including Tony. Tony. Tony who is afraid of him enough to stick his hands in the air like Winter might hurt him. Like Winter has already hurt him once before.
“I know that, hey, hey, I know you wouldn’t. James. James. You gotta stay with me buddy.”
“Winter, either talk to Tony or call the therapist. Winter. Winter!”
Tony. Tony. Tony. “Tony.” Winter finally whispers, maybe whimpers. “Tony, I’d never hurt you.”
“I know you wouldn’t. You make me all this great food, and you keep Steve away from my lab, which is really great of you by the way because he’s a pain in my ass. I know you wouldn’t. I know, James.”
Tony is standing so close, and he’s looking right into Winter’s eyes, right into the eyes that had watched so many people die. His hands are on Winter’s face, right there, and he’s not afraid. Winter can see in his eyes that there’s not any fear. Winter blinks and unconsciously mimics Tony’s breathing pattern, a six count and then a four count out and in. Bucky gives him an easy out to change the subject, reminds him of the skin. “I needs skin, for my metal hand. You make synthetic ones, don’t you?”
Tony takes a deep breath and then laughs. “Of course that’s all it is. Yeah, Jamie-poo, I can get you a synthetic cover for this,” he taps Winter’s metal arm. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t ask earlier. It might bulk you up a little bit, since the skin is a good millimeter thick, but with the right adjustments it would fit better than a glove, because most gloves actually fit terribly, impeding motion, removing sensation…” Tony trails off like he’s thinking. “Let me see what I’ve got.” Tony takes his other hand away from Winter’s face and sits back down in his chair to roll his way to the other side of the lab. “We’ll have to get a good scan of the arm at a few angles. Do you need the whole arm covered up the shoulder, or are we talking elbow, past the elbow, just to the wrist, trigger finger…” He starts pulling out synthetic samples from his desk near the fabrication units. “I’ve got lots of different textures, if you want to come and feel them out. Feel. Okay, that could have been a joke,” Tony looks back over his shoulder at Winter, already nearly absorbed in this new project the same we he gets absorbed in all his other projects. It should make Winter feel bad, like an object, but it doesn’t. He feels amazing. Because why wouldn’t he feel amazing with Tony Stark focusing all his time and attention on him?
“Wow, that was cheesy, even for your middle schooler brain.”
“Shut. Up.”
“James? Do you want to come and choose a type of synthetic skin?”
Winter doesn’t know what possesses him to say it from across the room, still staring at Tony, rooted to the spot where he left him, but he says it anyway, “Thank you.”
Winter didn’t know what he had expected when he asked Tony for skin, perhaps reluctant acceptance, a promise to put it on the list of a dozen other tasks Tony handles on a daily basis, but not this. Immediate help, absolute enthusiasm, no judgement or questions. Tony was just helping him, without asking himself what Winter could do to help him back, or telling Winter he’ll owe him now, or making a point of reminding him that Winter is at his mercy for his help. Tony is just helping him without asking for anything in return, and Winter knows that this is possible, that this is something people do, but he’s having a hard time accepting the kindness for something so large.
“He likes you too. I’m telling you.” Bucky says inside, but Winter ignores him.
“Hey, it’s no problem. Anything that I can do to help.” Tony weighs the two skin samples in his hands. “I’d recommend this one for the arm. It’s got a lot more tensile strength and won’t rip as easily while you’re going about your day to day. It’s a little heavier, a little taunter, but with the strength in the arm I don’t think you’ll notice much.” He looks back up at Winter, who’s staring. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
“You’re under no obligation to help me.” Winter says it like a statement, but Tony senses a question behind it, like he can’t quite understand and he wants an explanation. Well then.
“I’m not under any obligation to help any one. I have enough money to live off of it for the rest of my life and never do another unit of work in my life, but I don’t. Because I want to help people.” He rolls back over with the samples and stops in front of where Winter is still sitting. “I want to help you. Helping people makes me happy. I’m glad that you’re asking for help. You almost never do.” He holds the samples out to him. “Feel this. Think it will work?”
Winter reaches out and touches the fake skin with his flesh hand. The texture is almost scarily like skin, and Winter nods. “This will work.” Tony has successfully distracted him, as Tony often does. He would have burned himself in the kitchen several times if his metal arm could burn.
“Great. Now how much do you want?”
“Just to the forearm, I should be able to manage with that.”
“Should be? Do you have plans for your new flesh hands?” Tony sets the sample on his desk and brings up his most recent scan of the arm. He’s typing so fast and Winter is entranced. He loves to watch Tony work, nearly as much as Bucky does. Bucky likes to watch because he cares about the technology, but Winter likes to watch because of Tony. Winter can’t remember ever being as passionate about anything as Tony is about his technology and programing and engineering. Even Bucky has his stupid books, “Hey, I can feel you degrading me in there,” but Winter has never really had passion. He finds something like joy in cooking, but it feels more like an occupation than a passion. He doesn’t hate doing it. He would probably miss doing it if it was taken away from him. But along those same lines, he misses cleaning his guns and sharpening his knives, and he never had any passion for using them. Cooking is procedural, and that’s why he likes it. Giving food to Tony is not procedural. Winter still likes it.
“Tossing pizza dough.” Winter answers, still watching Tony. He’s engrossed, and he can feel that Bucky is as well, though obviously for an entirely different reason.
“I think we’re going to have to talk about this one day bud.”
“ Shut up.” Winter tells him absently while Tony fits a digital skin to a digital rendering of Winter’s metal arm.
Winter doesn’t even notice that Tony has looked up at him, and has stopped working, because the computer is still working and Winter’s eyes are focused on that, rather than Tony watching him.
“So you’re just running through all the classic Italian food, aren’t you? I thought you were moving on from Italian.” Tony’s eyes are bright with curiosity that Winter doesn’t even notice. Bucky notices, but he chooses not to say anything. It won’t do Winter any good to be dragged out of his reverie.
“I am. This is different.” The premade pizza dough as well as jarred pizza sauce and pre-shredded cheese had arrived and been marked for Winter in the communal kitchen where he usually cooked the day after he asked Friday to give him the ingredients for Tony’s favorite food. He had ignored them all and instead consulted the internet for instructions on how to make his own pizza. He was still stuck trying to get the crust right. It was a hassle with the metal hand. Once Tony gave him the skin covering he would be able to finish his task. Maybe Tony would smile and ask Winter to make it again sometime. Tony never asks Winter for anything. Sometimes he makes suggestions that Winter may not have thought of, but these suggestions are always for Winter’s sake, never for Tony’s. He just wants to do something nice for this man.
“K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“Shut. Up.”
“Why is this different?” Tony’s question takes too long to process because of Winter’s internal conversation with Bucky.
“It just is.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being evasive or if this is just more of you being you.” Tony tells him, clicking his tongue and turning back to his holoscreen. “Well, nevermind. Let me get this into the fabrication unit and we might have a working prototype by tomorrow morning. That soon enough for you? I know you prefer late night cooking, but that’s the best I can do.” He looks almost apologetic as he says it, and again Winter is perplexed by Tony’s sincere wish to help.
“It is sooner than I hoped for. Thank you.” He tries to smile, like Bucky had been telling him he should do, but even though he couldn’t see it he knew that it was forced. He could feel it in the way his muscles protested, despite those same muscles having smiled at Steve just hours before. Traitors.
“No problem, Chef Boyardee. I’m always happy to be of service, especially to the people who feed me.” He smiles at Winter like he isn’t creeped out by his smile, which is a good thing.
“If he’s willing to love you in spite of your flaws, he’s a keeper.”
“That isn’t a flaw.” Winter can’t glare outwardly without glaring at Tony, so he settles for pushing his agitation in Bucky’s direction.
“So, how are you liking that tablet? You haven’t mentioned it since I gave it to you. If it’s not working for you we can try something else.” Tony has learned by now that the distant face that WInter makes means that he’s not really paying attention, and it’s always best to get him back on track at that point. He doesn’t know what Winter is doing when he looks spaced out like that, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he knows how to deal with it. Namely, asking Winter questions that he will inevitably give brief answers to.
“It is very useful. I can get recipes on it.” Winter nods like he’s weighing the pros and cons of the tablet. “The screen does not respond to my metal hand.”
Tony nods and turns back to his screen, recalibrating the fake skin to to conduct electrical currents and therefore work with screen capture. “The synthetic skin should solve that. In the meantime I’ll see if I can’t get you something that’s more pressure sensitive for when you don’t want to be wearing the falsie. It won’t be as accurate as the newer displays, but it’ll work with your left hand and you shouldn’t lose much functionality for what you usually use it for.” Tony makes a note and slips it into fabrication between Natasha’s next set of Window Bites and Steve’s new uniform of the month. “That one will take a little longer, since it needs some R&D.” But in the meantime Tony could fabricate something to test, just to check. “So what’s on your late night menu tonight James? Any big plans?”
“No.” James rarely decided what he was going to cook before he cooked it, usually preferring to look up a recipe, this usually took a half hour, and the make it with the ingredients he had in the kitchen. Most of the time he has everything he needed, but the times he didn’t the extra necessity of improvisation was always a welcome challenge.
Suddenly FRIDAY interrupted, making both men jump a little, albeit Tony a little more than Winter. “Boss, Captain Rogers is asking for Sergeant Barnes. Should I direct him to the lab?”
“I think that’s your call.” Tony said, directing his gaze at Winter.
“Can you switch?” Winter asked Bucky inside and Bucky sent back an affirmative.
“I can meet Steve upstairs. Tell him I’m on my way FRIDAY.”
Tony didn’t miss the lack of enthusiasm that usually accompanied a Barnes-Rogers meet up. It was just more proof that James and Bucky weren’t the same person. Not that Tony needs or deserves proof. It just makes it all a little more real in his head the more evidence he collects. He hopes one day James will trust him with this information of his own volition, more than just accepting his knowledge of the separation, but he also knows that James may just never be ready to talk about sharing his body with Bucky. He tries to understand that.
“Well, I guess that’s goodbye. Come by tomorrow morning and I should have your pizza throwing hand sythensized.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Winter stands up and then after a beat he says, “Goodbye, Tony.”
Tony smiles at Winter with so much sincerity it hurts, “See ya, James.”
-------
“I hate Rogers.” Winter grumbles as they flip through old pictures from before Winter was “born.”
“He means well.” The remark is as close to silencing as Bucky ever is now, and Winter almost misses when they would argue. At least then he could feel like he was going to get somewhere with their internal battle. Now there was no battle, just acceptance of their new reality, as inconvenient as it may be.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Tony lately. Anything you want to talk about?” Steve is doing the same thing he did days before, keeping his eyes glued to pictures like he’s more invested in them than he is in their answer.
“Not with you. All the tech talk would just go over your old punk head.” Bucky grins and Steve elbows him, nearly dropping the album in his hands.
“Hey, I’m not any older than you!” He elbows Bucky back and Winter just tries not to think about how agitating it is that Rogers is touching them. He’s learned to live with it, even if he hates it with a passion.
“Listen, what me and Tony get up to is our business. I promise, if I wanted to talk about it I would. Remember what the doctor said about my boundaries.” Bucky feels bad bringing up the therapy sessions they had to go to for Steve’s budding codependency, but it’s self-preservation as well as a reminder that Steve may be slipping into old habits.
“Right. Yeah, sorry. I just get worried when I don’t see you, is all. Haven’t talked to you in days.” Steve’s eyes are still focused on the albums in front of them, but they’re sadder now, his head hanging with less purpose and more defeat.
“All you gotta do is pick up the phone pal.”
“You never have yours on you, you jerk.” Steve laughs and Bucky joins in.
“Hey, you managed to get ahold of me in the forties before cell phones, you can get ahold of me now. ‘Sides, you really wouldn’t be all that interested in what me and Tony get up to. It’s mostly shop talk.” When Winter is talking to Tony at all. He’s gotten good at these half-truths and not-lies.
“Yeah, you’re right. I know you’re right.” Steve closes the albums, “These aren’t dredging anything more up than they did the last time, are they?”
“No, pal, sorry.” Bucky slings his arm around Steve. “And the three times we looked at them before that didn’t do much good either.”
Steve sighs. “I know I’m pushing, I just… I want you to be better.” It stings Bucky a bit, but he knows that Steve means well, that was Steve means is he wishes that Bucky wouldn’t have to deal with the nightmares and the blank spots in his memories. He knows Steve doesn’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong with him, that he still needs fixing.
“Doc Koning says the only way to get better is to let time heal. I’m probably never going to remember everything, Stevie.” And that bothered Bucky to no end, but he was learning to live with the possibility that he was always going to be missing huge chunks of their lives before the war.
“I just…” Steve takes a deep breath and sets the album in his lap on the coffee table in front of him. “Buck, there are things you don’t remember, things that-” Steve cuts himself off, and Bucky smiles sadly at him.
“Whatever I’m missing doesn’t change nothing. You’re still my best pal.”
Steve nods, clasping his hands together in his lap, wringing his thumbs. “I know that. I know.”
“You know I love you, right Steve?” Bucky hunches to catch Steve’s eyes where they lay downcast on the plush carpet.
“Yeah, I love you too.” Steve’s smile is sad, and Bucky pulls him in for a hug. Steve tenses for the briefest moment before he relaxes into it, wrapping his arms around Bucky and holding him tightly.
“Til the end of the line, remember?” Bucky murmurs it, like he might to a child he’s soothing, and Steve nods against his shoulder.
“Til the end of the line.”
-----
The next morning When Winter and Bucky wake up, Winter is fronting, which is unusual. Usually Bucky is the one with control of the body first thing in the morning.
“Eager to get to your fella?” Bucky’s internal tone is lighthearted and teasing, but Winter reads it as hostile.
“He doesn’t belong to me.”
“Course not. It’s just an expression. Means like… your partner.”
Winter considers this as he gets them out of bed and dresses the body. “Tony and I would be very good partners.” With Tony’s understanding of weapons technology and Winter’s prowess in arms, they would be an unstoppable team.
“ Not quite what I meant, but you’re not wrong." Bucky takes a moment to consider that as Winter goes about their morning routine. Winter and Tony would probably make as good a team as he and Steve did. It made Bucky happy that Winter was getting so close to Tony, though the logistics of that were starting to scare him. How were they going to do… anything with Tony while Bucky and Winter shared a body? Bucky liked Tony, but he didn’t actually want a front row seat to… whatever Winter and Tony eventually get up to, and Bucky knows they’re going to get up to something. He may be old, but they still had sex in the forties, as he constantly has to remind Sam. Speaking of, they hadn’t talked to that asshole in a while, maybe it was time to go for a run.
“We’re going to see Tony now. Where are you?” Bucky can feel Winter prodding around in their head for Bucky, who has completely missed them getting into the elevator, completely dressed, and going to Tony’s lab.
“Just thinking. How’s the hair, you never do the hair?”
Winter looks at his reflection in the near mirrored elevator door, giving Bucky a full view of their hair. It… actually looks nice. Styled even. Wow. “Looks good. Good job.”
Winter doesn’t respond to the compliment. He usually doesn’t.
The elevator opens on Tony’s lab and the man himself is in full view, his back to the elevator as he focuses on his screens.
“James, that you?” He spins around, pushing the hologram away from his work area. “Course it is. I’ve got the prototype ready for you. Come here.” He rolls his chair to another workstation, and pulls out a flesh hand and forearm from a desk drawer. “It’s kind of got the composition of a silicone, so it’ll hold it’s shape when not on a mold, but I’d recommend putting it on a mold while you’re not wearing it, to make sure it maintains its shape.” Tony smiles up at Winter and pats and empty seat with the disembodied hand for Winter to sit in. “It should come on and off pretty easy. It’s not going to stick like rubber or anything, so it should slide on over the arm no problem.” Tony slides the synthetic off the mold like it’s a sheet of paper across a smooth table, and Bucky is amazed at it. “Here, let me.” He reaches for Winter’s metal arm, pulling it towards him and setting his elbow on the table, bending his forearm perpendicular to the table.
Winter feels his breath catch at the touch of Tony’s hands, even if he can only really feel the pressure of the against the metal. They’re gentle, gentler than any hands that have ever touched the arm before and the fact that it’s Tony just makes it that much more important. Tony is careful with him, but not because he’s scared, because he cares.
Tony takes the prosthetic cover and carefully pulls it down over Winter’s hand and then down his forearm. It fits like a second skin, or a first in this case, and when Tony moves his hands away Winter flexes and curls his fingers, watching the fake skin move like the real thing. It even has fingernails, and a faint dusting of hair to match the flesh arm. He smiles at it, maybe his first voluntary smile, and then turns that smile on Tony.
It nearly blinds Tony, in a figurative way. James’ teeth aren’t gleaming white in the fluorescent lights or anything cheesy like that, but there’s this subtle glow about his face with that closed lipped smile that just hits Tony in the gut. He wants to kiss him.
“How does it feel?” He asks, breaking his own stare and returning his attention to his projections. “All the feedback I’m getting is good, no overly tense areas or obvious stress points.”
“It feels... amazing.” Winter continues to flex the hand, touches the lab table, his other hand, he can feel them just like he would if he were touching it with the arm, there’s no loss of sensation.
“Great! Next time we’ll see about giving it a little bit better connection, because I think I might be able to give you temperature sensation if I just-” Tony stops mid sentence as Winter reaches out to touch his arm. He has the urge to keep talking, but he tramps it down, instead watching Winter run the tips of his newly skinned fingers along Tony’s forearm to the back of his hand, and then up again.
“Ugh, what are you doing, pal?”
Winter doesn’t say shut up so much as he feels it, feels it like he feels Tony’s skin beneath his new one, and it’s amazing, more than he ever could have hoped for. The skin gives like real skin, allowing him to touch things more softly, but he can still feel Tony. He reaches up with the other hand to touch Tony’s face, drawing his attention.
Tony gets caught in the soft intensity of James’ eyes, and now he’s really speechless, unable to form a coherent word, speechless, and there’s that smile again. Winter’s thumb draws slowly across his lips and then rests in the center of them, deterring Tony from speaking even if he had anything to say.
“Thank you.” Winter tells him, and Bucky starts thinking about something else, anything else, because he knows what’s coming. Sam is such an asshole for not calling him. Sam was supposed to be at the compound at least once a week and Bucky hasn’t seen him in eight days. What a traitor. Maybe he and Steve can take a trip into the city to pay him a visit. A nice long trip into the city. They’d pass through all of upstate New York, all the trees and fancy houses, through the boroughs. Wow, he hasn’t been in Brooklyn in a long time, like, two weeks. Maybe he can convince Steve to take a trip down memory lane. He loves trying to jog Bucky’s memory. And then there’s central park. He hasn’t been there in a while. With all the people, trees, dogs. Bucky remembers that one time when a dog in central park tried to steal his lunch, what a-
“You tuned out again.” Winter says, and brings Bucky out of the long and looping thoughts he’d tangled himself in.
“Oh, you know, just thinking. Got bored watching you two do whatever that was.”
“We kissed.” Winter tells him , and Bucky can’t miss the giddiness in his thoughts, like a middle schooler gossiping to their friends about their first kiss. It’s endearing, really.
“Well, I’m glad I gave you two some privacy then.” He tries not to focus too much on the sensations of the body, focusing on his thoughts, his consciousness, Winter’s projected thoughts.
“I should have asked you first. I apologize.”
“No need.” Bucky tells him, and it’s true. They share a body, it was kind of inevitable. If Bucky had really had a problem with it he would have said something a lot earlier.
“Tony asked me to apologize for him. Once you came out.”
“Oh, gotcha. Did you tell him?”
“No. He is very intelligent.” The mental tone is so fond that Bucky can’t even be bothered to be bothered by where his lips had just been.
“That he is. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”
Winter is pleased with himself and still smiling when he finally get to the Avengers floor.
“We are going to make pizza.” Winter heads straight for the kitchen and Bucky feels light inside, happy that Winter is so happy.
“ Sure looks like it. I’m sure he’ll love it.”
“Yes.” Winter starts pulling out ingredients to make dough, all thoughts of conversation dying as he set himself on his new task.
Well, what better thing to bring on a first date than homemade pizza? Bucky would have been shaking his head if he had control of the body. What an idiot in love. He wasn’t even ashamed to admit that he was happy for him, though maybe he was ashamed to admit that he was the tiniest bit jealous. Not of Winter having Tony, but of Winter being happy, being able to be with someone who made him happy. Bucky wasn’t sure if he’d ever have that, if he could move on from their time as a weapon.
But he didn’t dwell on it, Winter could always tell when he was thinking about the dark days. Instead he thinks about his trip with Steve and peaks over Winter’s shoulder every once in a while to offer encouragement. He’s happy for Winter. Winter is happier than Bucky has ever seen him. It feels good to know that the friend he shares a body with is so content.
Bucky focuses on that, on Winter’s new humming of AC/DC and his near constant stream of Tony-related positive emotions, and only that.
He smiles inside, and he hopes that Winter can feel it.