Next thing Tony knew, him and Steve were lying on the grass, still holding hands, flat on their faces, ears ringing, back aching, heart racing. Then a man was standing over them. He kicked at Steve, got him to roll over. Tony could only lift his head to stare. His body felt numb. The man was dressed in black fighting gear, his left arm was covered in metal, a red star on his shoulder. His face was hidden by a kind of jaw mask with dark glasses, framed by long, dark hair. He held a gun in his hand, pointed at Steve. A large automatic was strapped to his back. He seemed to think. Then he took off his goggles, as if to take a closer look. His eyes were smudged with black paint. To distract him, Tony yelled: "Hey princess, panda eyes aren't exactly the rage anymore!“ The man didn't even seem to hear him.

After he was satisfied with staring at Steve, he turned to Tony instead, kicking him in the side. Steve shouted: "No, leave him alone!“ The man kicked him again and Tony had to roll over, covering his front, huffing in pain. The man lowered his gun, aiming at his heart. "NO!“, Steve screamed. Tony threw up his hands, the man fired, the bullet hit the reactor, shattering the safety glass, but bounced off, to dig into Tony's left lower arm instead. Tony roared in agony, then he heard another shot. At first he thought he must have been hit again, due to the metallic clunk, but when he looked up the man was covering his chest with his metal arm. Another shot and he was hit in the leg, but the man didn't even flinch. Instead, he aimed his gun away from Tony and fired three times in quick succession, while Steve seemed to helplessly crawl away.

Tony heard a woman scream like an injured animal, and a thud. The man looked back down at him, but was surprise attacked by Steve, suddenly running up to him, to kick him in the back. He dropped his gun, but pulled out a knife in a flash, lashing out at Steve, as he started to wrestle with him on the ground. Tony knew his suit should be there any second, yet he grabbed the dropped gun to help defend his lover. He aimed at the two people rolling in the grass, and when the other man was on top again, he had a clear shot at his back, so he took it. But the gun jammed. No matter how he pressed and turned it, it didn't fire. "Shit!“, Tony yelled, getting up. Then he finally felt his suit arranging itself around him.

"Don't worry dear, I'll save you!“, he shouted over to Rogers, and as soon as he had a repulsor in his hand, he growled: "My turn!“, and shot at the man's steel arm. But it wasn't steel. The man was thrown a couple of feet from the impact, losing the automatic, but his arm remained in tact. "Hmm, guess I need to up the ante if I wanna get you. Where did you get a vibranium arm?“, Tony mused to himself, walking over to his boyfriend, hissing as the armor extracted the bullet from his own arm to close the wound. He quickly pulled up Rogers to get him behind him, when the man ran towards them again. Then he stopped. Seemed to think. And turned, to run away. Tony was going to let him go. Steve was hurt. Sharon and another woman lay on the ground, bleeding. He felt beat. But then his suit dropped the bullet into his hand. Armor-piercing. Custom-made. Engraved.

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Tony didn't even hear what Cap said to him. Just took off. Flew towards the Winter Soldier. The assassin that had slain hundreds. The killer that had taken out Fury. The bastard who had murdered his parents. Snapped his mother's neck. He landed right in front of him. The man tried to evade him, but Iron Man just fired another non-lethal blast. Not out of mercy. It threw the soldier back and made him land on his side. But just like that, he got up and ran again. 'Like a terminator', Tony thought. He still didn't hear Rogers screaming. He cut off his path, and punched the man hard with his right, yelling: "Not so tough now, are you?!“, sending him flying again. He chased after him, slapped him, mocking: "You heartless creature. Don't even feel pain, do you? Are you even human, or a machine? Show your face!“ And with another blow, he ripped away his mask.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He was going to keep batting at him, like a cat playing with a mouse, but there was something about the man's face, that set him off. It was quite human, sweat glistering on his forehead, blue eyes staring at him with cold hate, the nostrils opening up to inhale more air, lips pulled back to expose straight, healthy teeth, clenched together, like a dogs jaw, covered in stubble. If he hadn't looked so lifeless, he could even have been called attractive. And he seemed very young. But it wasn't his dead look, his underlying beauty, or the man's age that caught Tony's eye: he knew that face. Had seen it before. 'But where?', he wondered. Steve had managed to catch up to them, yelling: "Please Tony, don't just take your anger out on him, we need him alive! Don't cross that line, love, please!“ He was standing right behind the soldier, holding the useless gun that he had lost.

Faster than they could comprehend, the Winter Soldier managed to slip from Tony's grip, punched Steve in the ribs, took back his gun, yanked him upward by the collar, twisted his arm behind his back, shielding himself with Steve's body, and was pointing the spout at his face, pressing it against an eye. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!“, Tony cried out, while Steve yelped in new discomfort, getting kicked in the back for it. Then the man spoke for the first time, ordering: "Remove the suit!“ Armor-piercing though his bullets might be, the Iron Man suit was no typical armor. He must have known he had no chance, so he tried to run, but now he was using Steve to get to him. 'Dammit, I should have known!', Tony cursed at himself. Meanwhile Cap's eyes grew big, unspoken questions dancing in them, darting to the side as if to look at his captor. Tony held up both his hands, running calculations on how to attack without hurting his love, but the assassin was having none of it. In one swift move, he pointed the gun down, shot Steve in the leg and held it against his cheek again, before he even started screaming.

"Alright, alright, I'll take it off, I'll take it off, just don't hurt him anymore!“, Tony pleaded in a panic, opening his helmet. "Whhooo, ahhrrrr, yhooouuu?“, Steve gasped harried, making the soldier stop for a second, a glimpse of confusion in his eyes. Well... what did we say about Tony becoming angry when Steve got hurt? It was his chance and he took it. Jerking up his repulsor, he fired at the man's vibranium shoulder, throwing both to the ground, but even before they hit it, he was already on top of the monster, punching hard at him. Nearly ripping off his hand, when he wrenched the gun away from him, to throw it like a baseball aiming for a home run. Slapped his face left and right, beat his chest, where the metal seemed to join the body, making the machine scream in pain for the first time. An evil smile found it's way into Tony's face, as he hit him again. Again. Again. A...

"Tony stop it, stop it, STOP!“, he heard Rogers shout into his ear. So he just held the soldier down, his bashed-in face bloody, but the eyes still cold. "Bucky?“, Steve spoke. In a low tone voice. A confused, but a friendly one nonetheless. 'Bucky? Who is he talking to?', Tony thought and turned to his friend, to find out he was looking at the man beneath him, eyes getting bigger, mouth open, staring, fingers of the right hand grabbing the lawn, the left compressing his gun shot wound. "Bucky? Bucky, is that you, is it really you???“, Steve was crying. Crying, really crying. Not from the trauma in his body. More like a different kind of trauma. Tony couldn't understand. This was the enemy, he thought, this was the Winter Soldier, the man who had killed his mom and dad, and who did not deserve to die a quick death, and yet Steve was looking at him like... he was happy? To see him? Bucky? His Bucky? Could this really be? "Who the hell is Bucky?!“, the man snapped.

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