Chapter Text
Truth was, Tony didn’t know what brought him into that room. His doctor said he needed to get therapy, that whatever was wrong with him, that had scrambled his genius brain like a fucking egg, that wasn’t something she could fix. Not with tools and science and numbers and chemistry.
No, Tony had to go to fucking therapy.
He hated therapy.
Or, at least, everyone told him he did.
Jan had clicked her tongue at him in that way she did, shook her head. “Look, Tony, it’s only for a few weeks, and then--”
“Home again, home again, back at ‘em, right?” That was Hank. He wasn’t looming, and so that was good. Tony was a little bit convinced he used Pym particles to make himself look taller. Or, at least, Pepper had told him that he’d told her that he thought that. It was a round-about way of having a memory, he decided.
“You know it,” Tony said, smiling.
He could fake a really good smile. It was the first thing he’d practiced. Looking at pictures of Real Tony, studying videos. He was a really good mimic. And a very good learner.
But he wasn’t sure that therapy was the right idea. He talked to the doctor, like he was supposed to, although he never really knew what to say. He didn’t remember anything to say. That was the whole problem. And the hole problem.
There was a hole in his head. Where his memories used to be.
That’s what people thought. That Iron Man had been hit in the head, and that he’d forgotten everything. But that he was still Iron Man, still Tony Stark. Still-- human.
He looked human, all the way down to the surgical scars on his chest, and the way that one lock of hair always twisted the wrong way. The way four of his teeth on the left side were actually implants because humans could only get hit in the face so many times before their teeth cracked and fell out.
But he didn’t remember any of it.
Except…
“So, Tony--” someone said. “Would you like to share today?”
Group therapy. Even worse than individual therapy. A bunch of idiots all sitting around in a circle, hoping to Christ, God, or Samuel Morse that someone had the answers.
Tony didn’t take off his sunglasses. He had hundreds of pairs of them. They made it easier not to look people in the eye. “I-- no, I’m good.”
The woman a few seats over from him laughed. “Tony Stark’s got nothin’ to say. Ain’t that a first?”
“Angela,” the therapy leader said. “Tony’s here for help, just like the rest of us.”
They weren’t supposed to do last names. Theoretically, no one was supposed to know who anyone else was. But they always knew. Who Tony Stark was. The problem was… Tony didn’t know who Tony Stark was.
He was just pretty damn sure it wasn’t him.
He was a changeling. An imposter. A mimic. A mockery.
Not the Real Tony.
The Real Tony was dead, gone.
There was just this fake one left. And even he didn’t know who he was. Who he really was. The memory loss… that was real. The rest of it was the lie.
“All right,” the leader said. “James, would you like to share today?”
Tony glanced at James; scruffy-looking guy with long hair that hung unkept around his face. Looked like he only had a nodding acquaintance with a comb. Possibly had missed a few appointments with his shower. He wore a brown coat with a green hoodie underneath and a red shirt under that, and another shirt, a white one, at the bottom. It was New York in the summer time and James looked like he was wearing his entire wardrobe in one go. He didn’t raise his head, but he nodded.
“Yeah,” James said. “Yeah, I guess I got somethin’. Been thinkin’ it all week, you know.”
“Tell us a little about your case, James,” the leader encouraged.
“Total memory loss,” James said. “Woke up in the hospital after nearly drowning, apparently. Don’t remember anything. Not who I am, not where I’m from. Not nothing. Got people in my life, they say my name is James Barnes. But it don’t mean nothin’ to me.”
“Should we call you something else? Bucky, perhaps?”
“No, no--- not. No. James is fine.” But he didn’t look up, and he didn’t talk for a long time. Some of the other people -- all of whom had memory issues of some sort of other. Amnesia. Dementia. Delusions -- squirmed in their chairs. One woman pulled out her phone and started tapping at it.
It was a Stark Phone. Tony didn’t want to notice, but he did.
“I don’t know,” James said, at last. His voice was beautiful, somehow. Rich and entrancing. The sort of voice that Tony could easily imagine saying something dirty and suggestive and fun in his ear. A bedroom voice. “I feel-- I feel like I’m grievin’. Like I lost someone close to me. Which is stupid, right, because-- because I’m the one that’s lost. I got people all around me who say they’re my friends, my loved ones. And I don’t know them. I don’t feel anything for ‘em. And they-- they all want me to be… to be Bucky again. But I’m not. An’ I can’t. Because the person I’m grievin’ for, he’s right there in the mirror, every day. And I don’t know who he is.”
And then James looked up, and Tony saw him for the first time.
He was the most beautiful man Tony had ever seen, even somewhat greasy, like he’d been sleeping in alleyways and cardboard boxes. Like he was cold. Always cold, even though it was summer. He had gloves on, black ones. They were nice. Expensive. Not like the rest of his clothes. Dirty jeans and worn out boots. The layers of tees and sweatshirts.
James grinned, and there was no joy in it at all. “Stupid, right? I’m sad for a man who’s dead, and I never met him. And he’s me. That’s all. That’s all I have to say. I don’t expect no one to care, or anyone to have any fuckin’ advice. I’m just...”
“Lost,” Tony said. “You’re lost. I-- I know how that feels. You look around a room, and there it is. Your things, and you don’t remember them. Your shoes fit perfect on your feet, but you don’t remember picking them out. You have… your fingerprint works for your phone. You have to be who they say you are. But you’re not. And you don’t know who is.”
James nodded. “Yeah, just like that. And you don’t wanna disappoint your friends, they say they’re your friends, but-- you--”
“Don’t really care.”
The whole group was talking now, like James had opened some flood gate and it just sounded so damn familiar. Everyone-- everyone who wasn’t where they were supposed to be, who didn’t know themselves. Their friends, their children, their lovers.
Tony didn’t know if the session had helped him, or made his paranoia worse, or what.
He took his name tag off. You know who I am. Folded the sticky parts of itself and threw it away. No one knew who he was. Not even him.
“Hey--” He caught up with James about a block down from the YMCA where the group meetings were held. “You… don’t happen to want to have a drink with someone I’m sure you’re not supposed to know.”
James swallowed hard. “Yeah, yeah, I think I want that. I’m-- my ride. He’s supposed to meet me.”
“Fuck him,” Tony said. “You need a new friend. I’ll make sure you get home okay.”
They found a bar. It wasn’t hard to find one, there were bars practically on every street. And it didn’t matter that it was a seedy bar. Everyone recognized him, watched him as he walked back to the very back of the room and paid the tab for the people at the back table to get their beers and cheese fries and go.
Standard Stark behavior. Or so he’d been told when someone commented on him standing in line like any halfway decent person would. Guess Tony wasn’t a decent person. At least he paid well to be able to act like an asshole.
“Well, that’s one way to make an impression,” James said.
“Give them a minute,” Tony said, under his breath. “Or three. And then everyone will stop looking.”
Which was pretty much what happened. Tony put his black Visa Infinite card on the table and waited. “Bottle of whatever’s your most expensive,” he said, “--and, what you look like a--”
“Vodka,” James said.
“That, too. And bring us a variety of apps, whatever’s greasy and cheesy.” It was an advantage to being Tony Stark. He could literally buy anything he wanted, just because he wanted it. A watch, a new car, a small South American country. The novelty hadn’t quite worn off, but since Tony Stark had everything since before-- well, it was hard to care much. Stuff stopped meaning anything.
Tony didn’t even ask what the booze was. He just drank it. He assumed there’d be an outrageous credit card bill later that, as Tony Stark, he would never even see. He had so much money that other people were paid to pay his bills. It was ridiculous. And he couldn’t tell the difference between cheap scotch and expensive scotch.
James rolled the glass of vodka between his palms as if warming it up before knocking it back, the whole thing, three fingers worth, in a single swallow, then hissed air through his teeth. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “My-- Nat, my ex, apparently, says I drink vodka. I didn’t want to drink around her, because I didn’t know-- I don’t know. I don’t know what I like, or… Sam, that’s her current boyfriend, and… he told me I like to go run with him in the morning, a couple miles. But I tried it, and man, I hate running. It seems pointless. And I don’t know if he’s lyin’ to me, or if the old me was lying to him. Or what.”
“I don’t like smoothies,” Tony said. “My personal assistant keeps bringing me these… green drinks full of kale or something. Like, penance. Kale tastes like I did something wrong. But I’ve even seen the orders. I drank these fucking horrific zombie body in a blender concoctions for years, apparently. Like, I don’t even know what was wrong with me.”
The appetizers arrived, pretzels with beer cheese, and fried macaroni and cheese balls, and mushrooms stuffed with cheese and crab meat. Lots of cheese. Tony didn’t know why it was a thing, cheese with cheese sauce, but he liked it. “Like, I don’t even know what this is,” Tony said, popping one in his mouth and using the scotch to cool down burning gums. “But it’s better than kale.”
“Kale exists because people like their pet iguanas. That’s it. It’s lizard food.”
“Is that something you knew before,” Tony wondered.
“No,” James said. “I was apparently in an argument online a few years ago about some idiot tryin’ to make their cat eat vegan, and I still get hate mail in my inbox sometimes. Did some research on the issue, and ended up reading about reptiles. I think I might buy a pet snake. Or a lizard.”
“Kittens don’t do it for you?”
“I don’t know,” James said, glum. “I been shown some pictures of me with a cat. But I don’t remember the cat.”
“I don’t think I ever had a pet,” Tony said, slowly. “My PA, she says I can barely take care of myself.” Tony scratched at his chin. As always, the facial hair bothered him a little bit, but everyone said he kept it like that. His hands hadn’t known what to do, the first time he’d tried to shave. He didn’t have a person for that. Not to shave him in the morning, like some ritzy English lord with his valet.
He kept thinking about shaving it off, but-- what if they found out that he wasn’t Tony Stark. He was sure that he wasn’t, but since he didn’t know who he was, would he starve? End up being arrested?
“You should get one,” James said. “Something big and lizardy--”
“Like a tortoise?”
“Sure, you’re Tony fuckin’ Stark, you could probably have a pet beluga whale if you wanted one.”
“Pretty sure I don’t want a whale. But a turtle might be fun.”
“Saw a Youtube video where this girl knits little sweaters for her turtles that make them look like dinosaurs. I’ve been learning how to knit. I’d make him something to wear. Your own personal stegosaurus.”
“I’m going to go back to my penthouse with a pet turtle wearing a sweater,” Tony said, “and my personal assistant is going to track you down and murder you.”
James drank more vodka. Ate cheese fries and licked his fingers without probably any intentions whatsoever to be salacious, and nonetheless, Tony was enraptured.
“So, uh--” there were several empty glasses on the table, and the waitress had brought out a whole row of cakes to try, and Tony was taking a bite of every single one of them-- “if I’m reading this wrong, or out of line or whatever, but-- if I asked you if you wanted to go back to a hotel room with me and break the bed, would you say yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I’m out of line, or reading it--”
“Yeah, I’d like to ruin a mattress with you,” James said. “I haven’t had… any sex in a while. Don’t know who I’m allowed to flirt with anymore, since I don’t really know who anyone is. But-- I don’t know you, and I’m not supposed to know you. I won’t screw anything up in-- the other life. My other life. Whatever it was.”
“Are you even gay? Bi? Have an experimental stage in college?” Tony wondered. He knew that Tony Stark was bi -- ample photographic evidence. And James was beautiful. So, so beautiful. Tony wondered what that mouth would look like, dropped open in pleasure. What those hands would feel like. What he would taste like.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” James said. “I don’t know if I ever have, or this’d be the first, or what. But I know that I can’t stop lookin’ at your fuckin’ mouth, doll, and-- even if I never have, what the hell, right?”
“Fuck therapy,” Tony said. “Let’s screw. Okay, then, are we done here, because I think we’re done here. Settle us up here, Dottie,” he called to the waitress. “Give yourself at least a two hundred percent tip, take the night off. You were excellent. And also, this cake, this one, is wonderful, if you have a to-go box, I will take an entire one of these home.”