Chapter Text
PART ONE: 2017 - 2018
The World Was Magic
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!”
- First Fig., Edna St. Vincent Millay
Tony likes to think he would have taken more notice of the birthday gift, if Bruce hadn’t shoved a bouquet of flowers and the blueprints to a collapsible helicopter into his hands.
“I’m having trouble convincing Lucius of it.” Bruce says, helping his ward out of his coat as Dick juggles the brightly wrapped package and his phone, already trying to show something to Peter. “Is Sergeant Barnes here? I have a small gift for him.”
“Probably watching cat videos in the red lounge.” Tony says distractedly, squinting at the schematics for the blades. Is he imagining it, or are those darts shooting out of the ends? “Pete can show you.”
“Come find me once you’ve dropped it off.” Bruce says to Dick, and if Tony had been listening (if he hadn’t been so distracted) he might have noticed the sharpness of a command in Bruce’s voice. He might have noticed the slight frown on Dick’s face, he might even have noticed the way Peter freezes, if only for a second, eyes flicking in confusion from Bruce to Dick to the package.
As it is, he’s still a little stuck on torpedo and amphibious and the size of a suitcase; he’s still a little stuck on the overwhelming smell of lilacs.
“So what are you imagining for this?” Tony asks, leading Bruce into a kitchen.
“Something portable.” Bruce says, reaching for a clementine. Natasha chooses that moment to enter from the east lounge, pausing when she sees Bruce leaning against the counter, and Tony bent over the blueprints.
“Mr. Wayne,” she says politely, and Tony looks up briefly as Bruce gives a bland smile in return. “I didn’t know we were having guests.”
“Ms. Romanov. Tony was kind enough to invite me up for the weekend.” Bruce says, completely on script, and Tony almost lets out a sigh because really. Are they really both going to do this whole song and dance, the let’s both pretend we don’t know that you know my secret identity one that fools absolutely no one? Apparently. That doesn’t mean he has to stand for it.
“It wasn’t a kindness, buddy,” Tony mutters, taking a sip of his too hot coffee. “You owe me.”
“Do you have any plans while you’re up here?” Natasha asks casually, moving to make her own cup. “I’ve heard you live quite the reclusive lifestyle.”
“Personal matters.” Bruce says noncommittally, and if Tony hadn’t been listening a second ago, he’s listening now. “You know how it is. Duty calls.”
Tony isn’t stupid. He is, in fact, rather well known for his particular brand of genius, and he’s been living with the Avengers on and off now for the past seven years. So when Natasha starts asking questions, Tony starts to pay attention. And when he sees Natasha’s eyes snap to his (Tony, what have you done) , and the cool unconcern evident in every line of Bruce’s body, it suddenly occurs to him that maybe he should have been paying more attention, when he invited Bruce Wayne through his front door.
It seems that in the last few months - keeping Bruce’s disappearance and subsequent death in mind - Tony has fallen a little out of touch with the social practices of his best friend.
“Bruce,” he says, slowly setting down his mug as Natasha sends him a distinctly unimpressed look. “What did you do?”
Bruce picks a thread of pith from his clementine, and doesn’t say a word.
Which leaves Tony to frantically run back the last fifteen minutes, rewinding and replaying everything that happened: Bruce knocking at the door, the flowers and the blueprints, the birthday gift, Peter showing Dick to the lounge -
The birthday gift. Because it was addressed to Bucky Barnes, who Bruce has never once met, whose birthday isn’t for another five months.
“Shit.” Tony swears, hand going instantly to his wrist. “FRIDAY, where’s -”
The floor shakes with the percussive force of an explosion. Tony meets Bruce’s gaze from across the island. Natasha sets down her mug.
It takes them one minute and twenty seconds to make it from the third floor kitchen to the red lounge.
The door is closed (fire safety protocol) and for a brief moment, Tony considers blasting it down. But in the moment it takes for his hand to move from his side to his wrist, Bruce is past him and pushing the door open, bursting into Barnes’ favorite sitting room.
The first thing Tony sees is the crater. There’s a crater in his sitting room. The crater itself isn’t very big (the building is made of sturdy stuff) but little cracks spiderweb their way out from the table-sized hole blasted in the floor. Several of the pictures framed on the wall are cracked, and a thin coating of dust and debris covers everything, little chunks of plaster and tile littering the entire room.
The second thing Tony sees is Bucky Barnes, knelt next to the crater with a wide-eyed look of shock on his face. His face is lightly scratched and his hair and clothes colored gray with dust, and his vibranium arm is cradled close to his chest and is nearly black with soot.
The third thing Tony registers, the thing that fills him simultaneously with relief and alarm, are the two teenagers peering up over the back of the couch. Dick is pale and wide-eyed, hands trembling slightly as he reaches up to rub at his ears. Peter is taut as a bow-string, one hand resting protectively on Dick’s shoulder, but even as Tony watches his face breaks into an incredulous grin.
“What the hell happened?!” Tony asks, and he doesn’t even know who the question is directed at. Maybe it’s aimed at Barnes, or Peter or Dick. They were the ones to witness the explosion, after all. Maybe it’s aimed at Bruce, because -
“That was incredible,” Peter breathes, stepping out from behind the couch and dragging a reluctant Dick with him.
“It was a grenade,” Barnes growls, something dark sliding over his expression.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asks sharply, which - okay. Probably a better question, and Tony is concerned for the well-being of his colleagues - he’s concerned for the well-being of the kids - but there is a hole. In his floor.
Dick decides to take Bruce’s concern personally. “I’m fine, dad, ” he says, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes as he straightens, tugging himself out of Peter’s grip. “It was just a grenade. I know how to handle grenades. Not like it was a bomb or anything. Although, I could have handled that, too.” He gives Barnes a mildly impressed look. “And anyway, Mr. Barnes contained the explosion. With his hand.”
“It was so cool!” Peter jumps in, still drifting closer to where Barnes has slowly risen, his eyes fixed on Bruce. “The grenade was in the package, and then Mr. Barnes opened it and saw the grenade and he was like - Run! - so I grabbed Dick and we got behind the couch but then - Mr. Stark.” Peter tears his eyes from Barnes’ arm long enough to send Tony a look of disbelieving awe. “Mr. Stark. Did you know his arm is made of vibranium?”
Tony is unfortunately rather well acquainted with the fact that Bucky Barnes has a vibranium arm. He’s seen that arm stop a bullet point blank, he’s seen what it can do - he’s seen it in his nightmares. He has also, he realizes with a sinking feeling, told Bruce exactly what that arm has done.
“You knew,” he says, turning to Bruce as ice prickles up his spine, and his brain wavers on the verge of fury and indignation. “It was you who bombed my floor. You told Grayson not to linger!”
“Yes,” Bruce easily admits, letting out an aggrieved sigh as though he is the one being inconvenienced here. “Dick, a simple yes would have sufficed. Mr. Parker!” Peter freezes on the edge of the crater, looking over rather guiltily. “That’s close enough. Sergeant Barnes - a word.”
And then Bruce says something to Barnes, something in Russian that starts pleasantly enough but ends in a growl, something that Tony doesn’t understand but that both Barnes and Natasha must. Something that ends with the words: “... ty ponyal, soldat?”
Barnes goes absolutely still, brows drawing down as his shoulders tense, and Tony knows with a sinking feeling that they are no longer in the presence of Bucky Barnes, ex-brainwashee and baby animal enthusiast extraordinaire. No, across from Bruce stands the Winter Soldier, and Tony realizes, far too late, that this entire situation is a set-up. That Bruce has been planning this from the beginning, vigilantism and secret identities be damned. He’s out for revenge, and nothing so inconvenient as a mask is going to stop him.
Bruce smiles, and what had already been an explosive situation goes nuclear.
“Hey, okay, we’re leaving,” Tony says, reaching out to take Bruce by the arm as Bucky takes a step forward and Bruce slides into an open stance, relaxed and ready for a fight. Natasha walks up to Barnes and says something quietly in his ear, her phone in one hand and a gun in the other. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Bruce since he started talking in Russian, and Tony is smart enough to know exactly who she considers to be the greater threat here.
“Padawans, upstairs.” Tony instructs, and at Dick’s mullish look; “Yes, Grayson, that means you. Bruce, come.”
And then they’re out in the hall again, no sign of the Winter Soldier, no sign of the giant crater in the floor, and Bruce is staring straight at Tony like he’s the one who is owed an explanation.
“That man,” Bruce begins, before Tony can even draw a breath, “killed your parents. And you have him living in your home?”
Tony remembers the day he found out that James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes killed his mom and dad. He remembers the call, he remembers Steve’s half-assed apology and all the excuses, and he remembers the video, repeating over and over on a loop until he could barely remember anything else. He remembers talking with Diana Prince as if it had been a dream, untethered moments swimming in a sea of nausea. He remembers watching Maria Stark be strangled to death, he remembers the trickle of blood at Howard’s brow, and the Winter Soldier’s empty eyes.
What he remembers most of all is being alone.
He remembers dialing Bruce’s number, again and again and again, and he remembers a mechanical beep, and a disinterested voice telling him he would be called back if it was important.
Bruce had never called him back.
Maybe Bruce had been tortured and held a prisoner, unable to answer Tony’s calls. Maybe he had been injured and helpless, an ocean away and barely able to breathe without pain, and maybe he had escaped only to sacrifice himself in a fiery explosion for a city that thought him a criminal. But Bruce hadn’t been there when Tony needed him most, and maybe Tony is petty as hell because he knows that he doesn’t owe Bruce anything, least of all an explanation.
So Tony skips the explanation, and moves straight to the important part.
“You blew a hole in my floor! I’m all for hands-on learning, but you can’t just give someone a bomb, Bruce, someone could have died -”
“No one could have died,” Bruce scoffs, “least of all the Winter Soldier. I did my homework. Now are you going to tell me why I shouldn’t go back in there and settle Sergeant Barnes’ debt for you?”
“Because I don’t want you to!” Tony explodes, throwing his hands in the air. “Jesus, do you think I don’t know what he’s done? But guess what - he didn’t do it. His brain was put in a blender and spat back out, and I guess I have to blame Hydra now, because god forbid Bucky ever do anything worse than frown at a puppy!”
So maybe he’s a little bitter about it. Maybe he would like nothing more than to punch Barnes in the face with his own indestructible arm. That’s not something Bruce needs to know.
Bruce is frowning at him now, arms crossed and that little crease between his eyes that means that he’s thinking about something way too hard. It means that he’s analyzing what’s right in front of him, and right now what’s in front of him is Tony.
“You’re choosing them,” Bruce says finally, fingers tapping against his elbow as his eyes flick to the closed door. “You’re choosing your team over yourself.”
Tony doesn’t know what he’s choosing. He’s choosing to believe that Barnes is a victim instead of a perpetrator. He’s choosing to believe Steve Rogers when he looks at him with those stupid guilty puppy-dog eyes and says that good ol’ Bucky would never. He’s choosing to overlook his parents’ murder because he knows that if he doesn’t, half his team - half his friends - will turn against him and disappear from his life forever. That doesn’t mean he has to admit it to Bruce.
“You know what, just because you can’t fathom the fact that one human might want to forgive another doesn’t mean -”
“Tony,” Bruce interrupts, and he has the audacity to hold up a hand as he says it (it has the audacity to work) “Enough. I’ll respect your wishes. But know this: should you ever change your mind, all you need do is say the word. Do you understand?”
And Tony realizes, all at once, that he does. Bruce is here. Bruce is standing across from him in an empty hall, a dark promise in his eyes and an unspoken vow on his lips: you are not alone.
The last three months have been a living hell. Seeing Bruce now feels a bit like seeing him for the first time, like they’re seven years old again and sitting at a desk in a classroom full of children. It feels like maybe the world isn’t full of drooling idiots and bumbling fools after all; like maybe there’s someone that understands him, and like maybe he isn’t alone. Like maybe he never was.
“Okay,” Tony says, and Bruce’s brow smooths out as he relaxes marginally, frown turning up into something that could almost be considered a smile. “Okay.”
“You’re the Spider-Man,” Ned says, and he feels like his brain might be nearing capacity. Like he has too many windows open on his browser, and if he can just get his cursor to move everything will be fine and start making sense again. “The one from YouTube!”
“I’m not!” Peter blurts, his eyes going wide with panic even as he reaches up to pull off the epically real Spider-Man suit which is now draped around him. “I’m not. Ned! Oh my god, why are you in my room?”
Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Peter Parker is an Avenger. “You were on the ceiling,” Ned’s mouth says dumbly, while at the same time his brain has finally started functioning again and is working overtime to catch up. Because this changes everything. If Peter Parker can be Spider-Man, then anything can be true. Maybe Flash is the Flash. Maybe Betty Brant is Bat Girl. But no, Ned tells himself sternly as Peter frantically denies literally crawling over the ceiling to close the door; that wouldn’t make any sense, Betty doesn’t live in Gotham. The only person he knows from Gotham is Peter’s fellow intern Dick Grayson, the one who -
- the one who was showing off his circus tricks -
“Holy shit,” Ned interrupts, and it’s honestly a wonder his brain hasn’t short-circuited already. “Is Dick Grayson Robin?”
“What?” Peter squeaks, his eyes going, if possible, even wider. “Who, no, Dick? Dick’s not Robin, no way -”
Which is when Mrs. Parker opens the door, wreathed in a halo of smoke and letting out her messy hair into an even messier pile on her shoulders. “Well I’m afraid dinner’s toast,” she announces. “Ned, we’re going out. You like Thai?”
“Ned’s got a thing!” Peter says hastily, and Ned automatically echoes “Yeah, a thing,” and May looks them up and down with a knowing look. “Maybe put on some pants,” she suggests mildly, before closing the door.
And then another thought occurs to Ned, one that he instantly realizes he should have figured out a long time ago.
“Dude,” he says, keeping his voice low this time, and for once Peter is silent, eyeing him somewhat apprehensively as he shoots a freaking web out of his wrist to snag a shirt off the floor. “Holy shit, dude. You know the Batman!”
“This is boring.” Dick complains, holding the purring cat grumpily in his arms. “Is this really what you do all day?”
Peter crouches next to a grate, tongue between his teeth as he tries to pry a plastic bottle loose. “If it’s so boring, why are you still here?”
“Bruce owes Tony, and Tony says I need to learn how to dial it back and relax with small-time hero stuff. So here I am,” he sniffs, “doing small time hero stuff. This is way below my pay-grade.”
Peter straightens, his whole body screaming indignation beneath the red and blue suit. “This isn’t small time!” he exclaims, “This is, like, so important! One, we’re saving the planet. Global warming is a big thing, and every little bit helps. And two, a clean room means a clean mind. Or, in this case, a clean neighborhood. Less litter, less crime.”
“There are people whose literal job it is to go out and pick up trash. News flash, it’s not us. We’re supposed to be, you know... kicking ass.” Dick shifts his arm, frowning distractedly as he tries to untangle the cat’s claws from where they’ve become stuck in his cape.
“Well, who would have found Mr. Silvester, then?” Peter drops the rescued bottle into his trash bag, and shoots a bit of webbing at a plastic bag caught in the limbs of a nearby tree.
“I dunno, the animal control?” He manages to gently untangle the claws, and then proceeds to stroke the cat, his eyes a little unfocused. “And anyways, her name is Cercei. You’ve missed a piece there. Obviously you’re no good at this.”
Peter crouches down and picks up the Lays wrapper, and valiantly ignores the jab. Dick isn’t even sure he heard, because the next thing he says, bizarrely, is “Hey, you wanna come hang out once we’re done? Ned is coming over and we’re gonna rebuild his Lego Death Star.”
Dick pauses, his hand halfway along Cersei’s back. “You have a Lego Death Star?”
“Well, technically it’s Ned’s, but it shattered on my floor and we don’t want to lose any of the pieces, so -“
“I’m in. I mean, yes.”
Peter stands up, and Dick can practically hear the grin in his next words.
“Great! As soon as we finish patrol then.”
Dick rolls his eyes (because really. This? Patrol?) but bites his tongue, and starts looking for missing cat posters.
“Oh my,” May says, staring faintly at the pile of opened mail in front of her.
“Huh?” Peter stops halfway from the kitchen, backpack slung over his left elbow as he juggles a lemonade and an afternoon sandwich in his hands. A speechless May Parker is not a common occurrence, and Peter’s already wondering what bill it is this time and if minimum wage is a reasonable salary for a Stark Industries internship (and if he even dares ask), but when he sidles up to stare over her shoulder she doesn’t immediately fold it away, which is enough to tell him this is something else.
“That little friend of yours.” May says, already drawing herself up and pulling herself together, sharp gaze going over the sheet of literal parchment held in her hands. “Dick Grayson. He really is Bruce Wayne’s kid, isn’t he?”
It’s a dinner invite. It’s handwritten, the embellishments set with expensive ink on expensive paper, and it’s inviting them to tea and dinner at Wayne Manor on Saturday.
… I look forward to the opportunity to acquaint myself with the aunt of the esteemed Mr. Parker. Yours sincerely, Bruce Wayne.
Peter can see the minute May decides to frame it. “The esteemed Mr. Parker!” she coos, holding the letter out in front of her with a wicked grin. “Look at my baby, living it up with the rich and wealthy. You’ve done so well for yourself!”
“May!” Peter groans, face flushing, because that is not what’s going on, he’s not intentionally climbing any social ladders here, and if she even knew half of why they actually know each other both he and Dick would be grounded for the rest of their lives.
“Hey Spider-Man! Hey Robin!” a guy yells, waving his arms. “Do a flip!” The girl next to him holds up a phone, no doubt ready to video.
“Heck yeah!” Peter yells back enthusiastically, and then does a series of flips, ending with a one-handed handstand.
“Bet you can’t do this!” Dick shouts, grinning, and proceeds to run and tumble his way into a quadruple somersault.
That afternoon a video is uploaded to YouTube, titled ‘Spider-Man and Boy Wonder do Awesome Tricks.’ That evening, an eight-year-old in an empty house opens the link, has an accidental epiphany, and falls asleep in the linen closet, taser in hand, just in case Batman (Bruce Wayne!) and Robin (Dick Grayson!) remember that dead men tell no tales.