Tilt Chapter 04
Title: Tilt
Rating: R
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Bucky/Toro, Natasha/Maria, Clint/Bobbi
Warnings: Language, violence, implied non-con, post-brain-delete!Tony
Word count: 602
Chapter Four
There was someone lurking outside.
That was what Wolverine had said.
Someone had been sitting outside the secret entrance to Steve’s building, waiting.
When asked who, the man just kept sniffing and muttering to himself, saying it was ‘too far to be sure of anything’.
James adjusted his grip on the shield, ready for anything. He could just make out the shape of a large man crouched in the alley. Luke and Iron Fist were circling around back, but James wasn’t going to wait. Not for this. This was Steve’s place, and he needed to protect it.
The man made to move towards the entrance.
James leapt.
The man dodged.
Who was it?
“What the-”
He swung the shield.
The intruder ducked.
No.
He swung again.
The man blocked.
It couldn’t be.
“Who the- That’s my- Bucky!”
It couldn’t be.
“Steve…?”
It was.
It was Steve. He was thin, pale, unshaven, and wearing clothes that didn’t fit, but it was definitely Steve.
“Bucky? Is it really you?”
James pulled back his cowl. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Steve sighed and sagged against the wall.
“God, for a moment I thought-”
“Holy shit!”
Steve jumped ever so slightly when he heard Luke’s shout. It wasn’t a very noticeable one, James himself might have overlooked it if he hadn’t known Steve so well.
“Holy shit! Cap? It can’t be.”
“Luke!” Steve laughed, that short, relieved kind of laugh he let out when someone wasn‘t as dead as he thought they were, “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”
Luke and Iron Fist stood gaping.
James shook his head at them. “We can’t stand here forever. C’mon, inside.”
“Wait,” said Iron Fist, “How do we know this isn’t a trap to like, find out where we’ve been hiding?”
“I’ve been sitting out here for almost half an hour,” Steve replied, “I think the trap would have been sprung by now.”
“Yeah, but you could have been luring us into a false sense of security.”
Luke sighed and put a hand over his face.
“I believe I can be of service here.”
Everyone jumped at the unexpected voice.
“Christ! Strange! Are you trying to give us all heart attacks?!” Luke hollered.
James glared at Strange, both annoyed and unnerved at the man’s ability to sneak up on him, then turned his attention back to Steve.
Strange muttered one of his chants, and waved his hands in the air for a moment before confirming what James already knew:
“I do not know how, or why, but he is exactly who he appears to be.”
Iron Fist and Luke relaxed visibly, but Strange wasn’t done yet.
“They both are.”
Both?
Steve sighed, an exhausted, world weary sort of sigh that James, and probably the world hadn’t heard in more than half a century. He pushed himself off the wall and walked over to the end of the alley, where James could just make out a pair of sneakered feet sticking out from behind the dumpster.
“Both?” asked Iron Fist, “Who else is back from the dead?”
Steve knelt down before whoever it was, reached out to them, and pulled them upright. The other person, a man, clung to Steve’s arm, shuffling slowly along beside him.
In all honesty, he should have seen it coming, but when they came into the light, he couldn’t help but be a bit shocked.
The man leaning on Steve’s arm had changed drastically since James had last seen him. He was thinner, unkempt, and his face covered in fading bruises, but he was still clearly identifiable.
“Stark.”
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A/N: Oh well, a week late is pretty good for me. The hardest part of this chapter was reminding myself that I've been having Bucky refer to himself as 'James'. Also, for some reason my Iron Fist sounds a little like how I write Spiderman.