Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter LIX - Held Prisoner

"Fine," he breathed as she pulled away from his lips, "but no interruptions tonight: it's just us."

"Just us," she nodded, getting to her feet and pulling him up with her.

*

Bucky smirked as he met the steely glare of Steve Rogers. There had been very few moments in their lives where Bucky could say Steve had been annoyed with him. Once when they were just boys Bucky had inadvertently asked the girl Steve liked to the school dance and Steve hadn't spoken to him for a week. The look across Steve's face now almost mirrored the look he had then, except this time his rage didn't quite meet his eyes.

"I love you Buck, you know I do," Steve began, "but this plan? It's stupid. I can't leave my damn room!"

"What?" Bucky screwed his face up in confusion as he ran a hand over the stubble of his jaw. "I never said you had to stay in here. I just said it had to."

"Yes Bucky. And he," Steve elongated the word as he got to his feet and jutted his chin towards the door, "won't let me leave."

When Bucky ducked down and ran his fingers through the thick golden fur of the retriever puppy chewing at the door stop, now holding Captain America prisoner, he couldn't help but smile. This smile was one of excitement and nerves and as Steve watched him all annoyance melted away. This was the smile Bucky had had the day he reunited with Lizzie on the base in Italy. This was the smile Bucky had when he sat in the medical tents telling Steve everything he knew about her as she worked across the tent, sneaking glances back at her wounded soldier. This was the smile Steve had only ever seen when Bucky was thinking about her.

"I'll get you some pizza?" Bucky offered, glancing up and shrugging his shoulders.

"And some of that Asgardian liquor." Steve rolled his eyes as he sat on the floor and the puppy bounded over to him. "If my best friend and sorta kid sister are about to get engaged I'm going to need a drink that I can feel."

"If she says no I'll be keeping it for myself." Bucky smirked as he closed the door on his most treasured friend and the ball of fluff now chewing on his sleeve.

Shaking his head, Steve laughed quietly. "There's no version of Lizzie that would say no to you Buck."

His fingers scratched behind the puppies ears as his mind danced over every detail of Lizzie's love for Bucky and he smiled softly. Now all he had to do was wait; wait to get the ring he had stashed away days ago for Bucky and get it to their room. And then she'd say yes.

"Hey Dugan," he grinned as the puppy rolled over and stared up at him with its tongue hanging out. "That's what she's gonna call you, just so you know: Dugan."

*

"What's all this Tony?"

Lizzie leant against the doorframe with her arms crossed and a small smile on her lips as she watched Tony spinning beneath a glow of tiny details suspended in the air in holographic images.

"New suit of course," he grinned over to her and beckoned her into the lab.

"Of course." Lizzie found an empty space on the counter and hopped onto it, picking up some scrap metal from beside her and rolling it over in her hands. "What can I do for you Stark?"

"I just wanted to check in on you TimeBomb. See how you're doing. The usual." He span his chair around to face her and held his hands out beside him, as if gesturing that she should have predicted this was his reason for calling upon her.

Elizabeth chuckled softly as he grinned at her and she focussed back on the metal in her palms.

"I'm good Tony."

"You sure?" Tony wheeled his chair so that he was sitting before her, taking the metal from her grip and placing it beside her before holding her hands. "I know you had to do what you did Elizabeth, but I also know you. So, talk to me."

Elizabeth sighed. It was the little moments that tugged on her heart strings with Tony, pulling her back to comforting whispers in tents with stolen liquor. To tears shed and wisdom shared beneath the stars as she sat with Peggy and Howard. How she had been so blessed to experience the softness of two Stark men she would never know, but she was grateful to the Gods for aligning her path with them both.

"It hurts," she admitted, "to know that I did that. That I'm capable of doing that." Her eyes dropped to their hands as Tony squeezed gently. "But I know that I had to. He was going to hurt Bucky."

"Lizzie honey," Tony spoke in hushed tones, "he was going to kill you. I know you love Bucky and you'd do anything for him. I know he'd do anything for you too, but you have to stop thinking just for him. You did what you had to do to protect you and that's okay."

Elizabeth nodded. She knew he was right, and yet, she also knew that in the moment she held Rumlow on his knees, the moment her power wrapped around him and soaked into his core, she had not thought of herself; only Bucky.

She looked up at the glowing holographic images and took a deep breath. Around her floated small components of a new suit and Tony watched as she inspected the closest one.

"What are you working on anyway?"

"Doctor Halsted. Are you trying to distract me by talking about tech?" He smiled widely at her.

"That depends," she shrugged in a playful manner, "is it working?"

"Yes." He grinned as he reached up and plucked a small design from the air, dragging it over to her and enlarging it with a flick of his fingers. "This is a new thermodynamic regulator system that will be inserted into a small chip right... here." He pulled another design from behind him. "If the wearer displays any signs of thermal distress - temperature destabilisation, hypothermic response, overheating - this regulator is going to register the situation and react with counter measures, while also alerting you or your team back here in the med centre."

"The wearer?" She smiled at the small spider spinning before her.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm secretly a softie and I'm making it for the kid." He rolled his eyes as he got to his feet and began flicking the images back to their screens. "So sue me."

"I might do just that," she laughed, "then I'd be stinking rich too."

In the comfortable silence that washed over them Elizabeth watched as Tony worked. She was fascinated by his focus and the way his mind approached each new twist and turn in his designs and her mind, once again, travelled back to the war and to the friend she never got to say her goodbyes to.

"Tony?" She hesitated as he stopped working to look up at her. "Your dad would have been really proud of you, you know."

He smiled sadly at her as she raised a shoulder in a half shrug and nodded thoughtfully.

"You know, he adored you Lizzie. Growing up he spoke a lot about Steve. Said he was the one thing he had done right. The one thing that put good out into the world." Tony shut down the screens and Lizzie watched as sadness made waves in his eyes. He never did get the version of Howard she knew. "But stories about you were rarer. It hurt him more to talk about you. I think it killed a part of him, losing you."

Lizzie hopped to her feet and moved over to Tony, wrapping her arms around his waist and smiling as he hugged her back.

"He'd be proud of who you are Tony, and he'd be so proud of what you do."