[AU] even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

[from_the_outside]

As predicted, Steve was concerned when she told him Tony was working on something he refused to tell her about. It's not a conversation they could have while Ross was here, but as soon as she could let him know, she did.

Whatever it is, she doesn't want to worry Bucky about it until they have some idea of what Tony's up to. Even she doesn't think he'd be so stupid as to try to activate Bucky again, but it's Tony Stark. He's not exactly known for making good decisions.

That's why she and Steve had opted to go see him in person, and why Steve's knocking on Tony's door, trying not to look concerned. "It'll be okay," he tells Sharon while they wait. 

She's not so sure, but hoping so is better than the alternative.

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[marvel_npc]

He’s getting closer. He knows he is, he has to be. It’s just that neurobiology is so much messier than computer science, than robotics, than—- well. It doesn’t matter. He’s getting there.

He’s got FRIDAY working on a neurolinguistic analysis of the words, one at a time to make sure they’re not stored together in any file anywhere, along with enough synonyms and antonyms to throw anyone off the scent just in case, and is tracing a neuron map while she works. It’d help a lot if he had any kind of scan of the Wint— of Barnes, at least, an MRI or something, but he hadn’t thought to do that before and it’s not like he’s going to get the chance now—

The knock at the door startles him from his own thoughts and he lets out a frustrated snarl without looking up. “FRIDAY, tell whoever that is to go away.”

A speaker outside the door activates and the AI’s smooth tones announce, “I’m very sorry, but Mr. Stark isn’t accepting visitors at the moment. Would you like to make an appointment?”

[marvel_npc]

He can feel Sharon bristling next to him, and almost wishes she'd let him come alone. She and Tony are like oil and water. Who knows if they'd have gotten along before: Tony blew any chance of that when he went storming into her parent's place in Virginia.

He eyes the speaker and knocks on the door again, this time with the side of his fist. "Tony, open up, it's me."

A glance at Sharon and he adds " – and Agent Carter."

[marvel_npc]

The heavy blow on the door nearly makes him jump out of his skin. Tony whirls to stare as he hears Steve’s voice, even as FRIDAY reports, “Boss, it’s Captain Rogers and Agent Carter and —“

“Hell. Let them in,” he says, quickly looking around for anything suspicious. “Save active project to secure working memory, usual protocol, you know the drill.”

The door unlatches as FRIDAY tells them, “He’s in the living room.”

[marvel_npc]

"Thanks, FRIDAY," Steve says, apparently unconcerned that he's talking to an AI. "Tony?"

He leads the way in, his glance flickering around the apartment as they come further in. It's full of all the signs of one of Tony's occasional episodes of spontaneous genius or invention: half-drunk cups of coffee litter every surface; there's an open box of pizza on the coffee table and snack wrappers dropped everywhere.

And Tony himself, looking exhausted and shifty in a way that makes Steve sigh. "Are we interrupting?" he asks.

Sharon was right. Something is definitely up. "It looks like you're working on something."

[marvel_npc]

“What? No. No, you’re not interrupting,” Tony tells him. He makes himself nod a hello as he adds, “Agent Carter.”

He waves his hand grandly at the room in a half-hearted invitation as he retreats across it toward the window. “Just catching up on some stuff, you know how it is.”

[marvel_npc]

"Mr. Stark," Sharon says, a little coolly, and Steve casts a please work with me here glance at her. She sighs at it but subsides as he watches Tony moving away from them across the room.

"Sure," Steve says. "We've all got a lot to catch up on. But if you were working on something, you'd tell me, right? Because I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of secrets."

[marvel_npc]

It arrows home, just like it's meant to, and even through the wave of guilt that drowns him, the exhaustion and fear and yes, grief too, Tony has to admire Steve's precision strike.

"How do you do that?" Weary frustration permeates his words. "Will it be enough if I tell you that I'm not doing anything that's going to hurt anyone in any way?"

Not this time. It hangs in the room between them all, unspoken.

[marvel_npc]

He still doesn't know how Tony – his friend, Tony – could have kept going with the words while Bucky screamed and struggled to get away; he could barely recognize that man.

This one, though: this one he knows well, from the bags under his eyes to the nervous way his fingers twitch. It's been eating at Tony, what he did, and Steve knows him better than to think throwing money and lawyers at the problem will be enough to salve his conscience, if anything can. "Why don't you tell me what it is," he says, not unkindly, "and I'll make that call."

[marvel_npc]

"I don't want to." The admission spills out of him without him meaning for it to, and he chases it with a waterfall of words. "Not yet, I mean, it's just, it's not ready yet, and I don't know how long it's gonna take, and if for some reason it doesn't - I don't want to disappoint anyone, and, and, I just-- don't want to yet."

He's too proud to ask beyond that, to admit that he's afraid, deeply afraid, of two things: how Steve might react, and what happens if it doesn't work. If he can't make it work.

It'll work. It has to. He can't face what it'll mean if it doesn't.

[marvel_npc]

"Tony, please."

Sharon's not pushing; she's not saying anything at all, and for that he's grateful; she's letting him handle Tony, though he can see her eyes narrowing. He can only think of one topic Tony wouldn't want to talk about right now, and he hopes he's wrong even as he says, "If it's something to do with Bucky, Tony – you've gotta let me in on it."

Tony's not just reluctant, he's afraid. And Steve can count the number of times he's seen that on his fingers. "Whatever it is, just talk to me."

[marvel_npc]

He wilts, shoving both hands into his pockets and yanking them out again in almost the same instant in a flurry of nervous motion. He picks up one of the empty cups of coffee, sets it aside, and grabs for a decorative coaster instead, turning it over and over in his fingers.

"Okay. Okay. Just -- just hear me out, let me finish before you start yelling at me or giving that disappointed look or whatever." He doesn't wait for an answer, and starts pacing the floor as he talks.

"The problem's - we all know the problem, right? One of the problems. The trigger switch, the words, the fact that I know them and can't not know them. Just like Zemo does. Others too, maybe, who knows. It was something she said that got me thinking about it," he informs them, jerking a thumb at Sharon. "Although I'd have gotten there eventually."

He stops pacing for a second and looks at Steve. "It's programming, right? Brainwashing's like formatting the drive, programming's writing new code. Instructions. Subroutines." His glance flicks to Sharon again and away.

"And programming, I know. So I thought... I could figure out a way. To undo it."

[from_the_outside]

Her lips part as whatever dam Tony had been building up just goes and with it comes a rush of words she's not sure she's hearing correctly. He glances at her and away again, and she hears it in her own voice: make sure nobody else can ever do what you did.

"You're trying to figure out how to deprogram him?" she half says, half asks. She knows he'll mock her for it, like she's slow, but somebody has to just say it, to make it real.

Steve just stares at Tony. "Is that something you can do?"

[marvel_npc]

"Well, yeah," he says, to Sharon. "Basically. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist."

His gaze swings back to Steve like a compass needle to the north. "Just because no one's ever done it before doesn't mean it's impossible. I'll figure it out. It -- I'm getting closer. It'd be easier if Bruce... but he's not, and that's that." Quieter, he says, "I'll find a way, Steve. I won't stop until I do. It won't -- it's not going to make it right, what I did, I know that, but -- he'll be safe. You won't have to worry about it happening again. With anyone."

[marvel_npc]

"Tony," Steve says, but he's too flabbergasted to think of what he might say after.

Sharon's a little quicker on the uptake; she studies Tony for once without any malice, just with intent curiosity. "How far are you?" she asks. "I know it's only been a couple of days, but if you need anything I can get from the Task Force..."

"Or Vision might be able to help," Steve supplies, looking at Tony. "He's not JARVIS anymore and he's not Bruce, but I'd be willing to bet anything he doesn't already know about brains he could learn."

[marvel_npc]

He's appalled to find that he's trembling, and blows out a shuddering breath to try to ignore it. "FRIDAY," he orders. "Load current project back to active workspace, all screens."

A series of digital displays explodes into being round them, layers of light and shape making it clear just how much work Tony's done in the last few days.

"How much do you understand of what you're seeing?" he asks, and for all that it's a rude question, there's no sign that he's trying to show superiority. "I need to know where to start explaining."

[from_the_outside]

Steve's familiar with Tony's digital displays, but she isn't. She looks from one to another, trying to parse what she's seeing: here a running analysis of a series of Russian words, there a detailed digital rendering of neurons.

"Almost none," she says, honestly. "It looks like you're trying to work out what the words mean and what switches they flip."

[marvel_npc]

This time the breath that he blows out is a lot more frustrated - but after a quick glance at Steve, he consciously reins in the sharp edge of his tongue.

"I know what they mean," he tells her, with elaborate patience. "Any dictionary can give you that, right? What I don't know yet is why they have that effect. Why those words, in that specific order."

He calls up the neurological map. "Information is carried through the brain along neurons, okay? Transmitted by a combination of biochemicals and electrical impulses. When you hear something, for instance, it goes from a vibration against a few distinct physical structures to a signal along the auditory nerve, and activates different things in the brain depending on how the meaning is parsed. Neurolinguistics, in a word."

FRIDAY opens a video in another window and sets the image within spinning. "This is what happens when I hear those words," Tony tells them, watching lights move and sections of the digital image light up. "For example."

[from_the_outside]

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, that's what I meant, I'm not an idiot," she says. "I didn't mean the definition."

Steve glances at her and she subsides, still glowering, and crosses her arms as Tony keeps explaining. Annoyingly, it's interesting. "Okay, so the words have to be tied to something in his head," she says, "and then when he hears them, instead of whatever this is – " she waves a hand at the display, "they set off a series of reactions, like tipping dominos?"

[marvel_npc]

"Maybe not dominoes. But something. A specific thing. And it's not like - like, I'm sure he knows what, if you said l--"

Tony stops talking so fast it's almost like he's swallowed his tongue. He looks visibly ill as he starts over.

"It's not like he doesn't know the dictionary definition, I mean. I'm guessing, but I'm pretty sure. But something else happens when he hears them. I don't know what that is yet. More important, I'm working on figuring out how to-- to interrupt the signal, you could say. Stop the code from running. That'd keep it from working. From happening."

[from_the_outside]

"That sounds easier than trying to dig the controls out of his head," Sharon says. "Safer, too."

As long as whatever block Tony comes up with manages to hold. "Would... I don't know, hypnosis seems like nonsense, but maybe the activation words aren't that far from it. Wanda can make you think you're hearing and seeing things, right? Maybe there's a way to convince his brain he's hearing some other words instead. Would they still work if he didn't recognize them?"

[marvel_npc]

"I don't know yet," Tony tells her. He feels sick, his stomach clenching and twisting within him as he looks at Steve. "There's only one way I can think of to know how it works on him. But obviously that's a bad, bad idea, and I'm not suggesting it, I'm not, I swear-- that's why I'm working with the general, other ways, I'll find one, I will."

[from_the_outside]

Steve's saying something she's not listening to, but it sounds encouraging. She struggles with what she wants to say, the only thing she can think of that might help, that might mean Bucky wouldn't have to go through this again just for research, the way he hates, and before she can swallow it, she says:

"Would the program manual help?"

Steve looks at her, and she shakes her head, forestalling his argument. "I'm not saying we hand it right over – obviously we'd need to ask Bucky first. But Tony already knows the trigger words; is there anything else in that manual that could be worse?"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't know," he says, solemn, and looks back at Tony. "It's in Russian, but I'm guessing that wouldn't be much of a stumbling block."

[marvel_npc]

Tony realizes his mouth is hanging open, and shuts it quickly as he stares at Sharon Carter, then at Steve.

"You believe me? That I'm -- that I'm not..."

[marvel_npc]

"I believe that you don't want to cause anymore harm," Steve says, his gaze steady and honest as he looks at Tony.

"And I believe you want to help. If you wanted anything else, you could have thrown a million wrenches into everything we've been doing for the last few days."

This is the most he feels like he's been able to recognize Tony since before they left for Lagos; that's not a small thing.

"Bucky might not," Sharon says, pointblank. She has a habit of stating things like she's delivering a punch to the jaw, and Steve exhales, his expression wry, as she goes on, aiming her words at Tony. "If he opts to give you a shot, and if he lets you see the manual – and those are big ifs – I'd still want someone else around to make sure nothing funny's going on. Maybe Nat: she speaks Russian and she knows you pretty well."

[marvel_npc]

"Sure, sure, whatever," he says, hastily. "Whatever he wants, that's fine."

He swallows, hard. "I'll keep working on it even if he doesn't. I won't -- I'll find a way to help him, Steve. To help you both."