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Tony can tell Steve is afraid of them after they rescue him from Hydra. That probably shouldn’t be a surprise. When Bucky came to him, half-frantic and only partially healed from bullet holes and knife wounds, rambling about Captain America and Hydra and Steve, he didn’t know what to expect.
Turns out that while Steve had broken past some of his programming enough to rescue Bucky instead of kill him as the Helicarriers rained down around them, he is still very firmly entrenched in the subservient sentry Hydra worked so hard to turn him into.
He can see it wearing on Bucky, who wants so desperately to help him. There’s guilt there, no matter which way he tries to spin it. Bucky took up the mantel of Captain America after Steve seemingly died—no matter how reluctantly—and Steve was captured by their enemy and tortured until he was almost unrecognisable.
Bucky has been looking out for Steve since they were kids. It’s killing him seeing Steve like this.
But Steve clearly isn’t ready to approach who he was before. His fear is palatable, regardless of how hard he clearly tries to hide it. He’s on edge constantly, watching them all as if he expects to be beaten for every slight—however imaginary. He calls Bucky ‘Captain Barnes’, and he calls Tony ‘Commander’. He still thinks he’s with people who own him, people who will use and abuse him however they see fit.
Tony didn’t realise how deep that abuse went until several weeks in.
It starts with JARVIS telling him that Steve is waiting for him in his room. That is unexpected, since Steve rarely does anything without being told.
Tony is on his way back from a speech at a city event, which is maybe why he doesn’t ask any more questions. He’s tired, and ready to collapse on the couch for the evening. Steve has been spending a lot more time around him since Bucky has taken a step back from trying to convince him he’s a person. Perhaps that’s why Steve is in his rooms, under the assumption that he’s supposed to wait for ‘his commander’ when he doesn’t have anything else to do.
The suite is dark when Tony comes in though. The lights are off, and he raises an eyebrow in confusion as he kicks his shoes off in the entry. Maybe Steve already left? JARVIS didn’t say how long he was waiting.
He heads towards the living room, pulling off his tie and tossing it across his shoulders. There’s no sign of Steve in the soft evening light coming through the windows, and he’s about to ask JARVIS for a clarification when he steps around the couch and spots him.
Tony freezes, his mind going blank with alarm.
Steve his kneeling next to his couch. It’s clearly meant to be a seductive pose. He’s shirtless, to start, and his knees are spread wide, while his arms are clasped behind him. The pose pulls his chest out, taunt lines of tension travelling up his thighs to his bent neck.
Tony feels sick. A breathless, hollow nausea punching him right in the gut.
“Steve?” He can barely recognise the sound of his own voice, choked and strained as it is. His whole body breaks out into a sweat. He wasn’t prepared for this. He never expected this, and now he doesn’t know what to do.
Steve’s eyes flicker up from the floor and he seems to blanch at the sight of Tony. His eyes take up his whole face, his chest visibly shuddering as he begins to breathe through his mouth. He doesn’t move out of the position, his arms clenched so tight behind him that they’re shaking.
If Tony had any doubt that Steve didn’t want this, it would be gone now. This is some horrible Hydra torture that Steve is trapped in. He’s terrified to get up, but terrified of what Tony will do. There’s a siren going off in Tony’s brain, wailing and shrieking in fury and he has to fight to keep it from drowning out his thoughts.
He needs to fix this.
He instinctively takes a step forward, wanting to pull Steve up or reassure him or something, but Steve’s whole body tenses. His breaths hitch before he seems to clamp down even harder, his lips white and bloodless.
Tony drops to his knees. He wants so badly to pull Steve out of that position. To tell him he doesn’t have to do this, that he’s safe. He needs to talk to him, to figure out where his head is at, what he expects to happen now.
“Steve.” The word is heartbroken now, and Tony has to swallow several times before he can continue. “What are you doing?”
Steve makes a horrible, choking sound that drags through Tony’s chest with unseen claws. He’s looking at Tony, but not really, his head still lowered in deference, his chest still shaking as he tries to breathe and hold himself still at the same time.
His voice is soft and broken as it comes out. “Whatever the commander wants, sir.”
Tony’s stomach lurches, threatening the return of the refreshments he’d eaten earlier. He curses. No. No. Absolutely not. No.
His mouth moves on instinct, words tumbling out as he desperately tries to wipe the shattered expression off of Steve’s face. “Okay, okay. Alright. That’s not— That’s not happening. We’re not doing that. Let’s just, take a breath.” The breath is mostly for himself because he doesn’t feel like he’s breathing. It’s like an iron band has wrapped itself around his chest.
“Where’s your shirt?” He can’t see it anywhere. He needs Steve to stop being half-naked in front of him. He needs Steve to stop kneeling, expecting him to leap on him like a leopard about to tear apart a gazelle. “Never mind. Come up. You don’t have to kneel. Come sit on the couch.”
And then Steve utterly falls apart. Tony doesn’t know what it was that he said, but the tiny thread of control Steve has kept on his fear since Tony entered snaps. He tumbles into panic, a tornado of harsh breaths and shaky whimpers. He’s panting, bending over his knees while still holding his arms behind his back with an iron grip.
Tony has no idea what to do. He’s afraid to touch Steve in case he makes it worse. He isn’t even sure if Steve can hear him, as panicked and distraught as he is.
“Okay, okay, no couch. That’s okay. That’s okay. Steve? Steve. Breathe.”
Steve sucks in a gasp and it comes out in a whine. Tony casts his eyes about desperately, trying to think of something that will help. He’s had his fair share of panic attacks, but he doesn’t know how to make Steve feel safe. How to convince him that whatever he’s remembering isn’t going to happen.
He spies the throw blanket Pepper insisted on because it ‘livens up the place’ and goes for it instantly. He doesn’t know if this will help, but it will cover Steve up, make him less exposed. It’s soft, faux taupe fur, silky and warm.
Steve doesn’t react to him moving this time. Doesn’t seem to notice as Tony gets up, grabs it, and kneels down again. With an internal ‘hail Mary’, Tony drapes it over Steve’s shoulders.
It takes a while, but that seems to do the trick. Soon Steve is finally shifting out of that horrible pose. He grabs the blanket with both hands, clinging to it like an anchor.
He looks so young like this. Wrapped up in a blanket and still shaking. That siren in Tony’s head is going off again because he knows what Hydra did to him, and he wishes he could explode them all over again.
Doubly so when Steve starts talking. He starts mumbling about ‘repaying’ Tony, because he doesn’t have any other missions and he’s been given too much. “The Asset must follow protocol.”
“Is that what your previous commanders did?” Tony hates that Steve thought that would happen here. He doesn’t want to think about how long Steve has been waiting for Tony to follow through. He must have been so afraid.
Steve’s face twists into something pained for the briefest of moments before it gets wiped away. Still, his voice is ragged, his form stiff under his blanket.
“Commander Pierce would give— Commander Pierce was kind.”
Tony is actually going to figure out how to resurrect Alexander Pierce so he can murder him again, this time with some particular attention to castration and dismemberment.
Tony doesn’t mention those details. Instead he coaxes Steve to unfold from his kneel and lean back against the couch instead. Tony can breathe a little easier now with Steve less prostrate before him, but guilt and regret tug at him too.
“We keep messing up with you, don’t we?” he says, sighing. Both him and Bucky want Steve to be able to recover from what Hydra did to him, but now it seems Steve has been taking every little thing as something he must pay back. “I’m sorry, Steve.”
He and Bucky have already tried to tell him he is a person and not an Asset, but he tries again. He needs to help Steve understand this, or else he’ll never understand why Tony, his commander, isn’t taking advantage of him like he expects. He’ll just wait on tenterhooks for Tony to come to his senses and rape him if he doesn’t get this across.
To his utter relief, this time, it seems to sink in, even if it comes with another bone-chilling revelation.
He can see Steve’s eyes go distant as he takes in what Tony is saying. Then his hand comes up out of the protective fortress he’s made of his blanket, and rests gently on his hair.
“Commander Pierce said— He said ‘If I’m going to have you on your knees, you might as well look like who you used to be’.”
Tony actually feels bile climb up his throat. That siren is blaring and it takes everything in him not to explode in a flurry of curses. He desperately did not need to know about Alexander Pierce’s twisted power fantasies, but now he does, and his heart aches even more for what Steve must have gone through.
That memory seems to solidify things for Steve though. It’s proof to him that he really did used to be a person, that Pierce knew. He is still hesitant and uncertain, claiming with painful reluctance that he ‘doesn’t know how to be a person’, but he’s more willing to try than he ever was before.
Tony can tell he’s exhausted at this point, he can only imagine the emotional rollercoaster Steve has been on today, he’s feeling the effects of it himself honestly. So he reassures him again that he will never be used like that, and, because Steve seems ready to try some of this personhood business, he suggests something he thinks might help.
He doesn’t want to be Steve’s commander, especially not after what he now knows Steve expects from commanders. So he suggests with some hope a different name for Steve to call him.
“How about Tony?”
It isn’t a magical turnaround point. Steve still struggles. Calling Tony ‘Avenger Tony’ for a while until he gets used to the idea of calling Tony by his first name. But Tony can see he’s trying. He’s trying to learn how to be a person.
It takes a few weeks, but he eventually starts to accept the things he’s allowed now. Like warm showers and beds he can actually sleep on. And, when Tony works up the courage to ask if there was anything he did besides being a commander that made Steve afraid he would hurt him, Steve admits reluctantly that white couches are a major issue for him.
Tony first of all regrets horribly that he went with a modernist interior design concept, but then he spends the next week replacing all the couches in the Tower that are white, cream, beige, or grey.
He doesn’t tell anyone why. As much as part of him would like to warn the other Avengers, this is a deeply personal pain of Steve’s and he isn’t going to share it without permission. As it turns out though, Bucky discovers the reason behind the Great Couch Switch a few months later.
Tony wasn’t there when Bucky figured it out. He finds out what happened when Bucky unceremoniously crashes into his room one night, looking like something that had just been dragged behind a bus and then thrown off a bridge.
“What happened to you?” Tony asks, taking in Bucky’s messy hair, the bags under his eyes, and his rumpled clothes. He clearly hasn’t slept well. He looks a lot like he did when Tony first met him actually.
Bucky grunts at him and makes a beeline for Tony’s bar.
“Oh, so it’s that kind of night.” Tony joins him, because he has a feeling whatever has set Bucky off is going to be easier to take with something strong in his glass. This is not the first time they’ve commiserated over a bottle, and he doubts it will be the last. Bucky can’t exactly get drunk, but he gets looser when he drinks, like muscle memory or something.
Bucky grabs a bottle of whiskey and doesn’t share, unscrewing the top and taking a swig. He takes another, before slumping on one of the bar chairs, dropping his head in his hand.
“I found out why you replaced all the couches today.”
Tony freezes, then grabs his own bottle. He grabs a glass and a mixer because he doesn’t have a death wish—not anymore anyway—and prepares his own drink. “Did Steve tell you?”
“He didn’t have to,” Bucky groans. “I saw it with my own eyes when he collapsed in the common room havin’ a panic attack, and then shut down so completely I thought he was the Winter Soldier again.”
Tony’s stomach churns, and he watches as Bucky takes another draw from his bottle. “It was the show we were watchin’. He told me. Pierce used'ta touch him on the couch during it and I—” He growls and runs a hand sharply through his hair. He curses. “Who uses I Love Lucy as a backing track to something like that? Natasha says it’s quintessentially America. And that piece of rotting piss just—”
He takes another drink and Tony copies him. “Yeah,” he rasps. He didn’t know about the I Love Lucy part, but that tracks. They sit in miserable silence for a few minutes, each taking drinks in turn, before Tony admits his part. “Steve tried— Steve thought I’d do that too. I thought I was gonna be sick that day.”
Bucky nods and lays his head down on the bar, his hand still on the bottle. “Steve told me,” he says, his voice muffled. “The only good thing is he doesn’t think it’s gonna happen anymore. I just—” He curses again. “I wish I could’ve gotten a few shots at Pierce before he died.”
That’s when Tony, in his slightly inebriated state, has a brilliant idea. “Maybe we can.”
It’s experimental technology, nowhere close to being ready to be released to the public yet, but neither of them care at this point. Bucky keeps the bottle as Tony guides him down to one of the R&D floors. All the employees have gone home for the day, the computers and desks silent and empty.
The room is stark white and empty, besides the terminal Bucky waits by while Tony messes with the settings. Soon, cameras and lights are flickering on and Tony is slipping on what looks like a pair of safety glasses.
“It’s binary retro-framing something something,” he says as holograms begin to hum to life. Bucky gets his own glasses, his eyes bright. They may not be able to actually hunt Pierce down and destroy him for what he did to Steve, but oh, they can pretend they can.
They very quickly realise that a reinforced punching bag stolen from the gym completes the set up. Punching Pierce in the face isn’t nearly as satisfying without something to hit after all. Soon the room is filled with whoops and growls as he and Bucky take turns wailing on the holographic image of Pierce projected onto the punching bag.
It’s actually extremely therapeutic. The retro-framing tech is incredibly realistic, twisting Pierce’s face into surprise, shock, and fear as he gets socked in the jaw, or kicked in the family jewels. He crumples to the ground with a satisfying thud. They can’t even see the punching bag with the way the tech projects the image on their glasses, and Pierce always drags himself back up into position so they can punch him again.
“That felt good,” Bucky says, when at last the punching bag explodes and Pierce doesn’t get up again. They’re sitting against the wall, breathing hard and sweating.
Tony nods, borrowing a drink from Bucky’s bottle. “It’s meant to be,” he says. “It’s supposed to help with therapy or something. That’s the goal anyway. Help re-frame traumatic memories, that sort of thing.”
Bucky is quiet for a while, watching the liquid in his bottle slosh as he tilts it side to side. “Could help Steve then, when it’s finished.”
Tony leans his head back against the wall. The sterile white room is looking a lot less so with sand from the punching bag sprayed out everywhere. This doesn’t really fix what happened to Steve, or what he has to live with, but it sure did make Tony feel better for the night, and hopefully, Bucky is right.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” They’re still a long way off from that, both with Steve and with the tech itself. But if he and Bucky can keep replacing couches and blowing off steam together when they need to, he thinks they’ll be alright.
Steve is safe, and they’re going to keep proving that to him every day.
The End