Apartment Above Stark Industries

[heroic_jawline]

Steve was back from his normal run and enjoying the air conditioning of their apartment (which he'd turned up a little bit to make himself feel less guilty about being engaged to an engineering genius while everyone else was melting in the heat) and had showered and changed and was now sprawled out on the sofa with his Stark tablet, going through more of the exposed SHIELD files that Natasha had flagged for him in an email titled "Tugging on that Thread."

It was probably a bad idea to be reading the information, but Steve couldn't help himself. He'd been chasing Bucky for years and had gotten exactly nowhere. Maybe what SHIELD, well, Hydra, had on his past would give him some more leads to follow.

[OOC: For that guy! Let's detonate MCU canon today, shall we?]

Comments

[imafuturist]

"You do the same, okay?" Tony said, glancing up to meet Steve's eyes.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve smiled softly. "I'm not sure Pepper's gonna give me advice."

[imafuturist]

"You've got Natasha and Sam to make up for it."

[heroic_jawline]

"I'm not sure I'd ever take Natasha's advice," Steve admitted softly. "She holds stuff back, and I get it, I do, but it's tough."

[imafuturist]

"She sent you this," Tony said, touching the discarded tablet.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve nodded. "She warned me about pulling on this thread," he said, "but I can't not look for him, even if it's completely obvious by now that Bucky's avoiding me."

[imafuturist]

"So there's something in there she's worried about you knowing?" Tony asked, frowning as he thought it over.

[heroic_jawline]

"Well, it's not a picnic reading about your best friend, the murderer so efficient they tell ghost stories about him in the intelligence community," Steve said, "but I'm guessing there's something more."

[imafuturist]

"Let's keep looking," Tony said, curling an arm around Steve. "I'll be here for you if it's too much."

[heroic_jawline]

"Thank you," Steve said, turning the tablet back on and taking a deep breath. "So let me read about this defense contractor in '91--"

[imafuturist]

Tony settled in against his side, reading a little over his shoulder. "Wait, that says Stark Industries."

[heroic_jawline]

"It does," Steve said. "Makes an awful sense that Hydra would have eyes in there."

[imafuturist]

Tony frowned, not comfortable with HYDRA anywhere near his company. Even it that one wasn't actually his.

"Let's see."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve had been speedreading ahead, and his eyes went wide. "Tony, no, don't. It's awful."

[imafuturist]

"What is it?" Tony asked, tearing his eyes away to look at him.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve closed his eyes. "Shit," he said, vehemently.

[imafuturist]

"Steve," Tony said more firmly, grabbing the tablet to read off of. And turning very pale despite knowing on an intellectual level these weren't his parents.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Yeah."

[imafuturist]

Tony took a deep breath, wondering if maybe this was the case for him too. The level of cover up wouldn't be that hard for back then. "You need to show this to your Tony."

[heroic_jawline]

"It'll break his heart," Steve said softly.

[imafuturist]

"Yes," Tony agreed. "But I'd--I'd want to know. If this was me."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve reached for Tony's hand. "He's going to hate me. He's definitely going to hate Bucky."

[imafuturist]

"Maybe he will, but you can't just--that's not your choice to make for him," Tony replied quietly, clutching Steve's hand tightly.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve sighed heavily. "Why would you want to know?" he asked softly.

[imafuturist]

"Because they're my parents. For good or bad, they were the only family I had at one point," Tony replied. "Wouldn't you want to know if the situations were reversed?"