Bucky can't sleep.

That's nothing new, of course. He frequently can't sleep, and having just moved into the compound, stuck on a much-too-soft bed surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and sights, certainly isn't helping.

But this time, it's not the compound that's keeping him awake. It's his past that's keeping him up, and it feels different than it usually does. It's not just the guilt of knowing what he's done, or the grief of losing so many years of his life to the horrors HYDRA put him through.

It's the knowledge that they had the antidote.

Somebody had the antidote the whole time.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. He's not even surprised by it, really. He probably could have guessed that if he'd thought about it. But to have seen it, with his own eyes...

It's been there, the entire time. The key to ending all this misery, all this madness, has been here for years – decades, probably; since before Natasha escaped the Red Room, whenever that was – and he'd never known it; never seen it before. And now it's here, right within his grasp, and it comes too late. It comes after he's already fought his way free from HYDRA's grasp; after he's already begun to move past it and made a home for himself here.

It's just his luck, isn't it? The one thing that could have saved him decades of pain, both pain inflicted on himself and that he's inflicted on others, and he only stumbles upon it once it's no longer of use to him. He can only imagine all the ways his life would have changed if he'd found this long ago.

He's been haunted by what-ifs since the moment he'd begun to remember who he is, and this has only put his mind into overdrive as he thinks of all the ways his life could have changed if only he'd known about this sooner. It's hard to sleep when his mind just can't stop thinking.

And so, eventually, he gives up.

He'll take a walk around the compound instead, he decides. He hasn't been here very long. He's still getting used to the place. He could use a chance to get better acquainted with the building while everyone else is asleep – and maybe clear his mind in the process, if he's lucky.

So he wanders.

He walks all through the compound. He goes to the rooms he knows; he goes to rooms he's never seen before. He walks the same hallways multiple times, no real goal in mind. And it does help, a little bit. He's focusing enough on where he's going that he doesn't have to think so much about what's been stuck on his mind. It will all come flooding back to him the moment he tries to sleep, he's sure, but for now, at least, he's doing better.

He finds himself in a part of the compound he's never been in before, though that doesn't mean much; he hasn't been in most of the compound. He doesn't overthink it. If he gets too lost, he'll just ask FRIDAY for directions back to his room. Until then, he's just going to keep wandering.

Until finally, he stumbles upon a room with a bar.

Now that is the type of 'help' he's really looking for.

But it's not until he steps into the room that he realizes the bar is already occupied. Tony sits at the end of it, various bottles sitting in front of him as he rests his head on the bar. Is he asleep? Is he moping? It's hard to tell.

Bucky freezes where he stands. He should go. Whether the guy's awake or not, he obviously doesn't want to talk – and Bucky definitely doesn't want to talk to him, either. He doesn't even want to be in the same building as him. Knowing what he did – knowing that Tony doesn't know what he did – already leaves him dreading every interaction with the guy.

And yet, he's frozen. He knows he should go, he wants to go, but he's frozen. And it's stupid, but he can't help it. He's escaped nearly everything. He's escaped HYDRA. He's escaped the mind control. He's free. But there's still one nagging reminder of the trauma he's endured, the horrors he's inflicted on people, and it comes in the form of a half-conscious billionaire getting black-out drunk at the bar.

... Or maybe not half-conscious, because, as though he could sense Bucky's presence, he lifts his head and looks back at him.

There goes his chance to escape.

Tony gives him a weird look, his face scrunching in confusion. "Is it morning already?"

"Uh... no," Bucky says awkwardly. (Technically, it probably is morning? He's assuming it's past midnight by now. Is that what he was asking? He's guessing that's not what he was asking.)

"Just another insomniac, then?" Tony surmises.

Bucky shrugs uncomfortably. He's not wrong, but it's not exactly something he'd planned to share with the class.

"No wonder you and Loki get along," Tony remarks.

Bucky just blinks at that. (Did he know that Loki was also an insomniac? He feels like he knew that. Or maybe it's just that Loki comes off as equally as much of a mess as he is, so he just assumed they're fucked up in a lot of the same ways.)

"Looking for a drink?" Tony asks, and his hand finds his empty glass, raising it a few inches off the counter.

"Just... looking around," Bucky says.

Tony props his head up on his fist, and though he's looking in Bucky's direction, it's almost as though he's looking through him. Somebody once said to him the phrase "the lights are on, but nobody's home," and though he didn't quite understand it at the time, it's starting to make a lot of sense right now.

"Looking for anything specific?" Tony asks.

Bucky shakes his head. "Just looking."

Tony nods slowly. "Well, you want a drink anyway?" he asks. He jerks his head towards the shelves behind him. "As you can see, I've got plenty."

Bucky does not, in fact, want a drink. As enticing as it sounds to get drunk off his ass and forget all his problems for a few hours, that's not an option for him. That hasn't been an option for him for decades, ever since HYDRA filled him with this supersoldier shit. Hell, this would just make it worse. He doesn't want to sit here and share a drink alone with Tony Stark. Not after Howard and Maria...

But Tony wants him to. He can tell. Whether it's because he wants to share a drink with Bucky specifically or he just doesn't want to drink alone, it's hard to tell, but he wants Bucky to stay. And after all the hell that Bucky's put him through – hell that he doesn't even know about – how could he refuse?

So he fights back a sigh and says, "I guess I could go for a drink."

The drunken smile that puts on Tony's face is almost enough to make this worth it. Once they start talking – and he assumes that's where this is going: talking – he suspects that will change.

But he walks up to the bar anyway, and he scans the bottles on the wall before him. He hasn't even heard of some of these. Did they create new alcohol while he was under HYDRA's control? Here he was, thinking they'd already invented it all.

"Any beer?" Bucky asks. He could go for some beer.

"Yeah, there's a mini-fridge right..." Tony kicks the counter, then grimaces and mutters a swear under his breath. "There."

Bucky looks on the backside of the bar, and, sure enough, there's a mini-fridge hidden right around where he kicked. He pulls a beer out, and then takes a seat at the bar, leaving a stool in between himself and Tony for his own peace of mind.

Tony makes himself another drink, and he does it so easily, mixing them as though it's second nature to him. How many drinks has this man had tonight? Does he even want to know?

Tony raises his glass, and Bucky taps his beer against it before taking a sip. It tastes expensive. He didn't even know it was possible for beer to taste expensive. That's the exact opposite of what he expects from a beer.

"Where's your cat?" Tony asks, which is an interesting conversation starter, but admittedly a fair question nonetheless.

"Sleeping," Bucky answers. He left the door cracked open for when she realizes he's not coming back for a while and she inevitably decides to try to find him. (He might need FRIDAY's help finding her when he's done here. He has a feeling Alpine has no idea how to get here.)

"Lucky her," Tony remarks, before downing his entire drink in one go.

Bucky just blinks at him.

Should he say something about that? He feels like he should say something about that.

Unfortunately, saying things is not his forte. Maybe he should text Steve. Would Steve even notice? Does he have his ringer on at night? Would it be better to text their fellow insomniac Loki? Although he's been passed out since they got back, so the odds that he'd notice aren't a lot higher than the odds that Steve would. Maybe he could ask FRIDAY to wake one of them up?

This right here is why he prefers to live alone. He doesn't have to do this shit when he's alone.

Finally, he just decides to bite the bullet. "Are you okay?"

Tony blows a raspberry and waves a dismissive hand. "I'm fine," he says. "I'm absolutely, totally fine."

Bucky looks at him, and then the empty cup on the bar, and then back to him again.

"It's a celebratory drink," Tony says. "'Cause we won. And now the Red Room is gone. And that's good. So, cheers." He begins to pour himself another drink.

Bucky sighs. "Tony..."

Tony just looks at him for a few seconds, and then he sighs. "Okay, it's an 'I'm sick of cleaning up everyone's mess, and the only thing stopping me from moving back to Malibu is that I don't trust these fuckers alone together' drink."

Well.

That was easy.

"I thought we did good," Bucky says cautiously. They didn't leave a mess. They came in, killed Dreykov, freed the Widows, and handed everything over to the authorities. It went pretty smoothly, he'd say.

"Have you watched the news lately?" Tony asks. "They left a huge mess in Bucharest, and obviously, that falls back on me, even though I wasn't there and I publicly retired." He rolls his eyes. "I don't know why I've become the new fall guy – I don't know if it's because I was the first one to agree to sign the Accords, or if they think I'm somehow the mastermind behind the whole team or what – but I don't even like taking responsibility for my own actions, so I don't know why I have to take responsibility for everyone else's now, too."

Bucky doesn't say anything at first.

If he'd known he was going to get all of this dumped on him, he would have just sat here and drunk his beer in silence.

Tony picks up another bottle, resting the neck on his glass as he pours it into his cup. It slips off the glass and the tip hits the bar, hard enough that the entire neck of the bottle shatters.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Tony throws the bottle aside, and as it shatters on the floor, he folds his arms on top of the now wet bar and buries his face in them.

Once again, Bucky just looks at him for a few moments.

... He's going to text Steve.

He pulls out his phone and shoots off a brief SOS message, glancing up at Tony after every few letters to make sure that he doesn't notice. Fortunately, he's too busy muttering to himself under his breath to notice Bucky's silent cry for help.

Bucky slips his phone back into his pocket, and now, it's up to him until Steve comes.

... If he comes.

And there's a very good chance that he will not.

He's not looking forward to this.

Bucky clears his throat. "You have any..." He glances around the room in hopes that he can find them before he has to ask. When that doesn't pan out, he finishes, almost reluctantly, "towels?"

"I'll make Dum-E clean it up in the morning," Tony mutters.

Bucky furrows his brows. Is he supposed to know whom Tony has dubbed the dummy of the tower? And how is he expecting to talk them into cleaning up his spill?

"I'm sorry I dragged you over here," Tony mumbles. He lifts his hand a few inches from the bar to wave him off. "You don't have to stay. You can go... walk around aimlessly, or whatever you were doing."

Bucky is very close to taking him up on that offer. It's what he wanted to do all along. He never wanted to join in Tony's late-night sobfest, and his escape is offering itself up on a silver platter.

But he can't take it. He can't leave Tony alone like this. He wouldn't trust him alone like this. He's going to drink himself to death if he keeps going, and he can't have that.

So when Bucky stands up, he doesn't leave; he starts cleaning up instead. He picks up the bottles on the countertop, carefully storing them back on the shelves behind the bar. He moves Tony's glass to the other end of the bar, and then he grabs the trash can, holding it up to the bartop and using his vibranium arm to move as much glass off the countertop as he can. He's going to need to wash his whole arm after this. He hates when it gets covered in sticky liquids (although he'd prefer alcohol to blood any day).

Tony lifts his head off the counter to look at him. "You don't have to do that," he says monotonously. "Dum-E will clean it up."

Bucky still isn't sure who Dum-E is, and with how this conversation is going, he doesn't want to ask.

"Tony," Bucky says slowly, "I think you should go to bed."

Tony drops his head back onto his arms. "I'm fine."

Bucky sighs and sits back down at the bar.

And then it's quiet.

He's beginning to wish he'd brought a book – or a newspaper or a crossword puzzle or something. He has his phone, he supposes, if he gets really bored. He's not big on using it, but desperate boredom may call for desperate measures.

He's not sure how long it takes – two or three minutes would be his guess – but Tony lifts his head once more. His eyes flicker across Bucky's face, and he squints slightly as though trying to make it out.

"You're still here."

"I am," Bucky replies.

Tony just looks at him for a few moments, then hums and rests his head on his arms again.

And then it's quiet once more.

This kind of nothingness isn't new to Bucky. He had to do a lot of sitting around and waiting under HYDRA's command. That may be what he did the most of while under their command, really, even excluding the time he spent iced up to preserve him for his next mission.

But it's harder this time. It's harder now that his mind is his own. One would assume that the ability to think would make the silence more tolerable. Somehow, it just makes him grow bored much quicker.

Tony turns his head, resting his cheek on his arms as he looks over at him. "You ever wish you were, like, 17 again?"

Bucky blinks at that.

"I guess?" Objectively, his life was better when he was 17. He wouldn't say he actively wishes to be 17 again, especially if it meant reliving everything that's happened since then, but...

"Or maybe, like, 20," Tony muses, "'cause I didn't have to listen to my dad when I was 20."

Bucky tenses.

Tony doesn't seem to notice.

And yet, he still starts talking about the very thing Bucky was hoping to avoid.

"Did you know my dad?" Tony asks. "I know Rogers knew my dad." With the roll of his eyes, he adds, "I feel like everybody knew my dad."

"Um..."

Shit.

"I'd met him," Bucky says uncomfortably. He'd definitely met the man. He and Howard Stark had definitely interacted prior to his untimely demise.

"He probably wasn't as much of a dick back then," Tony muses. "'Cause I wasn't born, so who'd there be for him to be a dick to, anyway?"

Bucky clasps his hands on top of the bar and prays to whatever god might be listening that Steve will wake up and check his phone at any minute.

"Fuck him," Tony mumbles. "I still don't understand why my mom settled for that. She was too good for him."

Bucky grimaces. And now he's talking about both of his parents that Bucky murdered, because that doesn't make him feel uncomfortable at all.

Tony groans loudly and lifts his head. "I need another drink."

"No, you don't," Bucky replies.

Tony groans once more and drops his head back onto his arms. At least he's not putting up a fight about it.

Bucky folds his arms across his chest, watching him with a frown. He doesn't even know what to do right now. Is just sitting here enough? Would it be better to go get Steve? Should he ask FRIDAY for Tony's girlfriend's phone number and have her call him? There has to be a better course of action than just sitting here.

Tony doesn't say anything else after that, which is a blessing and a curse. It's awkward and it's quiet and it's boring, but at least there's no incessant reminders about the people Bucky's hurt – or, even worse, about the secret he's keeping. He knows damn well that if anybody knew what he'd done – that if Tony specifically knew what he'd done – he'd be lucky to have the chance to say goodbye to Steve and Loki before he and Alpine were out on the streets. He doesn't want to think about that any more than he has to.

And then, something amazing happens.

Steve appears.

He looks like a mess. His t-shirt is all wrinkled, and his shorts (he can't remember the last time he saw Steve Rogers wear shorts) are twisted and off-center. He clearly hasn't given his hair any more attention than a quick comb-through with his fingers, and it's obvious in his half-present expression that he's not quite awake.

Steve looks at Bucky and gestures with his head back toward the doorway he'd just walked through. You can go, he mouths. To say it's a relief would be an understatement.

Bucky gives Steve an appreciative nod, and he slips away without a word. He's glad that's over with. Hopefully Steve knows what he's doing from here, because Bucky absolutely does not.