#i havent packed MY violin yet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thegoldenavenger · 5 years

Text

guess who watched given and immediately had to shove tony waist-deep into this fucking thing because [they forgot they already ”wrote” this au]

it’s me

unedited as always, light spoilers for given if you havent seen that and wanted to.

anyways, tony stark is the high profile son of a business mogul based in LA because the mcu loves giving tony centric plot points to howard stark industries is capitalizing on the silicone valley fever. after a major manic episode tony uproots his life and goes to school in new york, as far as he can physically move away from his stifling family and the pressure.

tony’s done with building robots for his father’s business, he’s done being manipulated by the adults in his life and he abandons everything from the stark life. he picks up a guitar, learns how to play it, and never looks back.

tony finds he likes the life of a garage band. he glides through classes and focuses on his fingering (not that kind) and absent-mindedly writing down notes for songs he doesn’t really think he’ll write. He really likes being that guy, bringing out a guitar and everyone groans but people request songs anyways. besides, he’s never really been a fan of wonderwall.

of course he plays piano, it was that or violin and his dad thought strings were for girls. he’s used to playing in front of a crowd, stiff collared and sweating under the calculating gazes of his parents’ party guests. just another new trick to show off.

there’s something so indescribably different about playing guitar under cheap lights in a garage, the casually gathered crowd gaining interest and beer and his fingers feel like splitting over the strings of his instrument. The noise, the whine as he coaxes his guitar to sing, amplified through speakers that thump with his bassist’s steady beat and he can feel the sweat slick down his back making his shirt sticky.

tony’s lucky to have met the bandmates he had. Pepper’s a riot on the drums and Rhodey is tony’s constant, reliable bassist and both of them have deigned to take him under their wing even if he’s less experienced and more annoying then they should have to deal with. Being able to play with them, it’s more than tony could’ve asked for.

he’s happy with his life, which is why he’s a little less than pleased when he runs into a short, scrawny blond holding a guitar with white knuckled fingers. tony runs into him, and the boy jolts violently, the guitar slipping the grip like he’d tossed it. it’s a nice guitar, so tony instinctively reaches out for it.

“why are you keeping the snapped strings on like this?” he asks, taking the chance to inspect the guitar.

“Give it back.” The boy says. well, demands. Tony does nothing of the sort. Instead he straightens it out and sights down the fret board.

“it’s a nice guitar, but leaving your strings like this is a bit--”

“I said: give it back!”

The boy’s grip is surprisingly strong for someone so small, tony thinks distantly.

“Okay! No need to bite my head off about it,” He lets go of the guitar, but doesn’t leave quite yet. “Look, these will work to replace those...” Tony digs in his bag for a second, taking out an unopened pack of his own replacement strings. Maybe not the exact match, but they’d do well enough. “Get them done as soon as you can, it’s a shame to see something that nice look like that.”

He gives the packet of strings away and leaves.

Tony doesn’t think much of this incident. But he guesses he made more of an impact than he thought because now he’s been ambushed by the same blond boy.

“Look, I can’t figure out how to change the string. Just show me!”

“Can’t you, I don’t know? Youtube it or something?” Tony asks.

“Don’t be an ass! I just--” Tony notices how startlingly blue the boy’s eyes are as he glares to the side. “I can’t undue the pins.”

It feels like pulling teeth, the way the words force their way past the kid’s lips. Like he’s spitting out something bad, admitting that he can’t do something.

“I don’t have the right tools and I--I don’t want to break it more.”

His fingers grip the guitar awkwardly, and Tony knows that kid hasn’t played even one chord before. Probably hasn’t played even a guitar themed rhythm game with how unbalanced he’s holding the body.

Tony rubs the back of his neck.

“God, I don’t know why I tried!”

“It’s fine--” Tony blinks as he cut into the kid’s frustrated venom.

“It’s fine,” he starts again, “I’ll help. Here.” He holds his hand out and is handed the guitar very reluctantly.

He remembers his first snapped string. The shock, the sharp sting as it flicked against his hand. But learning to play guitar was painful. From the blisters to the muscle aches, the endurance. He finds himself smiling.

He narrates what he does, his hands gliding over the sleek body of the guitar. “See, you need to keep track of the pins. it’s easier with tools, I can lend you these ones I have an extra set. My name is Tony.” He shifts the guitar so he’s holding it properly, plucking a string and adjusting the peg.

“What? What are you doing?”

“Listen,” He says, as he twists a peg. The blond gets that look on his face again, the squinty one with angry eyebrows. Tony laughs, and strums the guitar.

The chord comes out sharp and clear.

“There you go, it’s all fixed.”

Tony thinks it should be the last he sees of him. Tony’s pretty sharp, so he noticed the graphite smudges on his fingers and the large portfolio on his hip. An art student. There’s no reason to cross paths again when Tony’s classes are all music based and he should probably start paying rent for how often he’s fallen asleep in the computer labs.

But apparently that kid isn’t finished with Tony.

“Teach me to play this.”

Tony blinks.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“If I tell you, will you teach me to play?”

Tony shrugs.

“It’s Steve.”

Tony tries walking away. It’s not very effective.

He can’t really dodge Steve, and finds himself followed all the time now. Honestly, tony would be a little flattered if Steve didn’t look like he was swallowing a lemon every time Tony catches a glance at his face.

To be fair, Tony is kind of relishing the attention. He complains to Rhodey and Pepper and they both roll their eyes at him before they start jamming. It’s after one of these jams that he runs into Steve again.

He’s standing outside the door, his face with angry looking eyebrows but his eyes watery. His face is red, he doesn’t have a jacket and Tony is getting reacquainted with the cold himself now that he’s let himself out of the steaming jam room.

“Teach me how to play like that!”

Tony tries ignoring him, but Steve is determined to follow him, even through the cold, dry night. Even when his breath hitches and his voice turns reedy.

“Teach me! Teach-- Te--” Steve starts gasping every other breath and Tony spins around. Steve’s flushed cheeks from the cold have drained away and now he’s pale, pale, pale.

“Steve!” Tony stops, right there, his hands hovering over Steve like concerned birds, unsure where to touch. Steve looks, if possible, angrier than ever, still trying to speak even while gasping.

“Please, Steve shut up!” Tony puts his hands over Steve’s mouth, he doesn’t know what to do. “I’ll teach you, or whatever, just! Do you have an inhaler or something?”

Steve points to his bag, and after Tony is done rifling through it and hands Steve his uncovered rescue inhaler, he’s grinning the smarmiest grin someone having an asthma attack can possibly muster.

Tony finds himself feeling distinctly played. He doesn’t mind it as much as he should.

Steve is an incredibly stubborn student and Tony is perhaps not the most patient teacher. He grabs Steve’s hands more than once to force them into the right position and demands he try again, and again, and again. It almost gives him flash backs, but Steve almost dares him to be less than serious about the lessons. Like it would kill Steve if Tony treated him the least bit kindly.

Tony brings him to his and Rhodey’s and Pepper’s jam sessions. He grins and points and says “this is how a real rock star does it,” and plays with a loose fluidity he hasn’t felt in a while. He sees Steve’s foot tapping and grins widely, like he’s won something. He feels like he won something.

Steve learns the chords and how to read tabs and even how to restring his own guitar, though Tony finds himself doing it more often then not. There’s something really endearing about the ferocious way Steve devotes himself to learning guitar.

They sit next to each other, out of class but on campus. Tony is demonstrating a fingerstyle more suited to an acoustic guitar even though Steve is learning on an electric. It sounds like shit, but they’re both grinning anyways.

“Then what kind of music do you like?” Tony asks, shaking out his hand.

“Just, you know. Stuff.”

“Come on, you have a favorite song, everyone does!” Tony says, blustering. “You already know what I like.”

“I wonder...” Steve says, trailing off. He stares into the middle distance for long enough that Tony is about to laugh to break the sudden tension and switch topics but Steve interrupts him.

“It’s like...” and he humms something, his hand doing half-aborted conductions as he feels his way through a tune. He trails off and looks into Tony’s startled face.

“Did you, did you write that?”

“Not, I mean, not really. That’s just what came to mind.”

“Freestyle, just now?!”

Tony can’t tear out his notebook fast enough, transposing the notes steve had hummed onto the page. Steve finally looks something other than stubbornly angry or determined as Tony pries him for another verse, to repeat this melody, to hum that again.

For once, Steve finds himself following along with Tony, watching as his hand rushes to keep up with their conversation, as the notes spill across the page and Tony grabs his guitar half way through to pick his way through half written melodies.

Tony’s dark hair is short, relatively speaking. It curls at his neck. But his dark, dark eyes are the same and his eyelashes sweep against his cheek as he leans over to check his fingering on the fret. He’s sitting cross legged and when he looks up to grin at Steve, Steve is already walking away.

“He’s a genius!” Tony starts as he barrels into the jam room.

“Ohoh?” Rhodey laughs and Pepper dutifully plays the rim shot as Tony slides his carry case off his shoulder.

“I’m not kidding, look, listen!” he demands

tony does his damndest to get steve to write songs for the band. he reaches out and compliments him and buys him lunch, and new pencils, and compliments him some more and well, he’s out of practice with the whole shmoozing thing now. it’s fun though, and tony thinks steve at least enjoys the attention.

at least steve enjoys the attention enough to keep brainstorming with tony as they go through their guitar lessons. steve has a certain way of composing, tony notices. he pulls notes from the air that tony wouldn’t choose, but it compliments the way he and rhodey and pepper play. still, tony can’t help but think the notes are being written for someone else.

tony knows this life can’t go on the way it has been. He’s been expecting a shoe to drop for years now. but he’d been preparing for his father to fly in and tie him back down to the californian mansion, or maybe someone from his past coming in to wreck his life.

he’d been a mess before the move. even after it. he’s always expected it to catch up, or for his touch to ruin the good things in his life now. between being half in love with the three people who care about him, and spending too long hoping three thousand miles was enough distance to outrun his past, tony knew his number would be coming up soon enough.

at least he’d been happy for a while. truly, genuinely happy.

he was the son of a household name, popular in the tabloids for getting in trouble, and the internet was forever he’d been told. so he was prepared for the past to come up.

He had just been expecting it to be his past to come knocking.

bucky barnes is tall, broad, and missing one arm. he’d be impossible to miss and yet somehow tony didn’t notice six feet of pure american beef stalking across the campus. it must be the arm, or lack of arm. maybe how he kind of hunches down to hide it?

He approaches with only the sound of boots to announce his presence and Tony looks up startled, but it’s only Steve this man has eyes for.

“That my guitar, Stevie?”

Steve has kind of locked up, his fingers white against their grip on the guitar. His face is turned away, but Tony can see the tenseness of his thin shoulders. Tony isn’t good for much, but he’s not gonna sit back while Steve faces whatever this is on his own.

“Well, I don’t see you playing it anytime soon.” Tony says.

It’s like shattering a mirror, the moment Tony sees the threads holding Steve snap. He looks at Tony with something like disgust as he jolts to standing. “I’m sorry,” he says, before bolting.

He leaves the guitar behind. Tony knows it wasn’t him that Steve was apologizing to.

“Was it something I said?” Tony asks the air.

Tony doesn’t know his name yet, but Bucky Barnes takes the seat across from him.

“Might’ve been me.” he says, like a confession.

turns out bucky barnes and steve might’ve been a thing. tony finds out through less than reputable means, but bucky says himself steve feels guilty about the accident that led to bucky’s hospitalization and amputation.

he used to play guitar

the one tony’s been thinking of as steve’s.

bucky’s hand is callused the way a working man’s is. If tony tried he could probably find the places strings wore at until they hardened, but tony doesn’t try. he can imagine well enough. like he can imagine the summers spent listening to guitar plucked on windowsills or whatever sickeningly cute domestic childhood things steve and bucky got up to

and, because tony’s never been one to let himself go without a good rubbing in, he’s found a couple ancient recording on the internet of bucky’s old high school recitals. he can hear the strings of bucky’s guitar through the tinny audio and though and suddenly he knows just who’s fingers the notes for steve’s song was meant for.

tony won’t let steve go without a fight. whether the songs were meant for him to play or not, tony wants to play them. he wants the chance. so he drags bucky into the band whether anyone wants that or not.

bucky can’t play the guitar--right now, tony suspects with enough research and bugging of that cute radiophyscist that could change--but he still wants to reconnect with steve and it’s easy enough to use that to tony’s advantage. bucky’s kind of a puppy once you get past the six feet some inches and what seems like solid muscle.

tony takes him aside one day, with his guitar and set him down. “listen,” he says, and plays the skeleton of the song steve had been helping write.

bucky blinks, recognition in his eyes and tony nods as he plays. bucky gets it, tony thinks. steve is supposed to be writing these songs. he’s good at it, in a way that tony thinks he used to be good at things. like he was creating something worthwhile.

“this is steve’s?” bucky asks, softly. tony doesn’t have to answer him. “I remember. it’s familiar like... hmm, how did it go...” bucky’s hand twitches like his fingers want to find a fret board. “like... i never liked the winter / the cold never leaves soon enough / and i’m tired of waiting / for the sun to call your bluff... something like that...”

Tony’s fingers have stopped strumming, and he stares at Bucky with widened eyes.

“what?” Bucky asks and Tony whips his arms out, gripping Bucky’s shoulders as if to stop him from bolting.

“you can sing. no one told me you could sing.”

“well, it’s nothing much.”

“No, shut up. it’s amazing. you have to sing with us.”

It’s almost harder than convincing steve to write with him was. but eventually tony has all his pieces lined up. steve writing songs, bucky singing. him, pepper and rhodey doing all the hard work.

tony can sing, but he’s never been drawn to it the way he had been with playing guitar. RIP to his father’s weird brand of masculinity, but tony just liked strings. Still, he knew enough to help bucky strengthen his voice. to sharpen his consonants and find where his head voice and chest voices lie.

he plays scales on the guitar and leads bucky through vocal exercises. It’s like working on fingerwork with steve, only bucky’s got less of a temper. He’s surprisingly earnest, taking criticism easily and turning around with the proper work. tony almost feels out of depth with the ease he has coaching bucky.

where steve would shove and huff and yell when he didn’t get something right, bucky would nod and clear his throat and ask questions before trying again. steve would roll his eyes and grab tony’s card so he could pay for his half of the lunch. bucky would smile that half smile and thank tony when he picked up the tab.

it was cute.

or, well.

tony makes steve play the scales for bucky and spends a couple weeks jamming with just the band. he’s rusty, he says, too much teaching means not enough practicing. bucky seems understanding if melancholy and steve’s face is stubborn as always.

it’s while all of them are in the jam room that pepper announces they have a gig in two months.

“it’s a good opportunity to debut some of the new songs we’re working on.” she says.

“we should start doing group practices at least twice a week,” rhodey says, narrowing his eyes at tony.

“ah, we don’t actually have lyrics for most of our songs.” tony says, haphazardly.

“we have some, you can teach bucky those. or you can sing them like always,” pepper says, brightly.

Bucky seems to perk up, catching tony’s eye. “you have songs?”

“nothing that special,” tony says.

“I’d like to learn them with you,” bucky replies. tony blinks.

“two months is enough time to write lyrics.” steve asserts. “bucky and i have been working on them anyways.”

“okay.” tony finds himself agreeing with the rest of them.

They spend some times going through their set list. Pepper and rhodey bring up some songs they like that bucky and steve will need to learn. they rearrange the order to accommodate the new song steve and bucky have been working on.

tony bites his lips. it’s perfect. steve writing songs for his band. bucky singing in his band. pepper and rhodey, perfect and constant. tony’s hands on the neck of his guitar. it’s as perfect as it can get.

tony’s glad that the impending deadline is at least forcing steve and bucky to come head to head. he doesn’t know what happened exactly, to drive a wedge between the two in the first place. he doesn’t want to ask. he doesn’t want to know. but being forced to volley lyric timing and melodies back and forth is eating away at the distance between them.

it’s also driving home the fact that tony’s the last thing on either of their minds. he can hear it in the chords he picks out, that steve has written for someone else’s hands. and even though he isn’t going to school for literature he can read symbolism when the lyrics are as plain as what bucky’s been mumbling under his breath for hours now.

“i thought you were done marching to someone else’s tune.” pepper says to him as steve drags bucky through another practice.

tony shrugs his shoulders. “i think... i think i’m happy we’re all here. together. i think this is happier than i’ve ever been.” he looks down at his hands. he’s got the calluses from guitar blisters like every other wanna be rock star, but his hands are rough for other reasons. his knuckles littered with scars from welding, his thumb and forefinger smooth in the places he’d strip wires. there’s a burn on his palm from touching something that hadn’t quite cooled.

he might’ve loved building once. that could have been his life. but he’s sure he would have missed out on this: real friends, who cared about him. who wanted to play with him. he’s not sure he would have had that, if he’d stayed.

it’s happier than he thinks he deserves, really.

the date of the gig draws closer and while steve has been writing and rewriting the song chords--and tony and rhodey and pepper all drag themselves through rememorizing the new versions--bucky hasn’t submitted any lyrics.

it’s troubling but tony can’t help but feel relieved each time practice comes and goes without bucky’s voice rising in some new chorus or verse.

each time, tony claps his hand against bucky’s shoulder and grins at steve and says, “you can do it!”

“why don’t you help?” rhodey asks one time and tony shrugs. “i think they need it?” he answers.

and, increasingly, tony is sure he doesn’t want to help write someone else’s love story. it’s bad enough seeing steve strike through the tabs tony had just played and know it’s because he wasn’t doing it the way bucky would’ve. steve keeps writing for someone who won’t play again.

tony doesn’t mind standing in that much. a replacement is what he’s been his whole life.

but having to sit next to steve and bucky and help spell out why they’re having such trouble? tony’s never been a saint. he can’t just say “you like each other!” without any thought to himself.

ah.

he thought it.

“it’s fine, we’ll just use the instrumental version and lead with Star Driver.” he says.

“I’m fine with it,” Rhodey agrees.

“Well, Bucky doesn’t have a part in Star Driver.” Pepper points out.

“Ah, then we’ll start with uh, Monaco, Bucky you practiced the lead for that one, right?”

Bucky nods but Steve cuts in.

“why can’t we do it as planned? That’s the way we practiced!”

“because we spent the whole rehearsal playing the same first chords waiting for someone to start. We’re playing tomorrow, there’s no more time!”

steve, angry faced as always, steps forward like his short, skinny body was ready to fight tony right then.

“what happened to ‘you can do it!’ did you not actually believe that?”

“Steve, c’mon...”

“we’re out of time! it doesn’t matter if i believe in you or not if you don’t follow up yourselves!” tony says.

pepper looks to the ceiling like a prayer.

steve scoffs, “it’s not like you ever believed in us in the first place! you just take whatever new shiny thing there is to put in your band so you don’t get bored and have to fly back to california!”

tony’s fist clenches and rhodey pinches his nose.

“we don’t have time for this,” rhodey says under his breath but no one listens.

“whatever.” tony hisses and spins.

the next day is fraught with tension as they prepare for the show. none of them are willing to back out, even if they’re a mess.

“did we decide on a set list.” tony asks rhodey.

“well,” rhodey trails off.

“we’re doing it as planned,” steve interrupts.

tony gives him an unimpressed glare, “well, i’m good enough at improvising, whatever actually happens.” he says.

steve clicks his tongue and turns back to his guitar, tuning it.

tony pulls a face. he glances up at bucky in the middle of it, and feels kind of bad. bucky’s been nothing but nice, it’s steve that has a bee in his bonnet. but tony’s words probably hit just as hard if not harder for bucky.

tony clenches his jaw.

“Ah, Bucky, I...” He trails off as Bucky meets his eyes.

tony can sing. he even writes lyrics. he’s the front man of the band, or was before he drug bucky into it. so of course, after steve and hummed the song to him the first time he’d written some lyrics on the back of a napkin because he couldn’t get it out of his head. and when bucky had started outlining a sketch of verse, tony’d rewritten those lyrics like the impressionable boy he’d tried to grow out of.

he just likes playing guitar more. he’s always like working with his hands more than talking in front of a crowd. but as the hot, heavy lights turn on them, and the crowd in the cafe all face them he remembers the first time he’d ever played. not just guitar but anything at all.

plucking the ivory keys of a piano, the discordant clanging echoing through the big house. his mother had clapped and he frozen up, suddenly frightened at the thought of someone looking at him, of seeing him maybe fail. his mother had slid into the seat next to him, her finger showing him where to hit.

his father had swung in and scoffed, said if he was old enough to fool around he was old enough to actually learn. none of this coddling, maria, get the boy a real tutor.

Pepper taps her drumsticks and lays out, her foot keeping a steady beat. Tony automatically joins in, his fingers following muscle memory. tony’s used to the lights now, he even likes it. the heat and the attention.

he hears steve join in, the dual guitar melody working even though steve isn’t very talented yet. Rhodey jumps in, the bassline smooth and grounding.

They play the intro, then loop it when bucky misses his cue. the second time they loop tony glances away from the crowd to see bucky, sweating by the mic. he catches steve’s worried eyes, sees white knuckled fingers again, and he takes a step forward.

he gets close enough to bucky he can lean into the mic, and bucky jumps at his presence. tony grins at the crowd. this is planned, he says with his grin and waits until the cue comes up again.

“how did it go?,” he says into the mic, “i never liked the winter, i’m tired of the sun. as days go on, i fall apart, and i thought this might be fun.” he steps back from the mic and plays breathing in for the next part.

“I never liked the winter,” bucky’s voice cut in, and if tony hadn’t been expecting it, well. “the rain won’t go away. but it’s fine, you see, because this is just the start.”

tony let his fingers follow the frets as he leaned into the song. it was a mistake not to practice this. it was a mistake letting bucky debut a song no one in the band had actually heard the full version of. but tony hadn’t been lying when he said he was good at improvising.

he followed steve’s lead well enough--hell, he knew enough of steve’s style he could ape a riff or two if need be. and he’d written down enough of bucky’s half thought poems mumbled through jam sessions that he might well have had the whole song compiled in his notebook somewhere.

He leans back in for the chorus as bucky’s voice swelled. “And even if you let go, there’s something holding on to you!”

the concert is a blur, with the stage lights and the crowd. tony backs off as bucky finds his feet, manages to get back to his own mic and sing back up from there. it isn’t like he’d imagined. somehow, there’s room on this stage. hearing bucky sing, for real, for the first time. it’s tugging something inside tony’s chest. and even though the riff he’s playing wasn’t written for him he finds that there’s a flair here and there, a little space for him to improvise.

there’s a place for him here.

he can hardly believe it’s over, just the cheers of the audience that make him aware that his fingers have stopped moving and no one is playing any more. it’s a rush to get back stage where rhodey and pepper clap his back and yell, and bucky and steve both look ready to have some kind of attack.

“that was good, right?” bucky asks

“good?” steve says, incredulously.

“that was amazing!” tony exclaims. he throws his arms over both their shoulders. “that was something else!” he grins back at pepper at rhodey who are hugging as well.

“i want to...” bucky starts, then stops.

“play it again, right?” tony says.

steve is the one who answers yes.

“we will! we have to!” tony shouts. he can barely stop from jumping for literal joy. the sweat under his shirt makes the fabric stick to him when he moves and now that he’s not under the stage lights his skin is chilling fast but hell if he can focus on that.

“i want to write more songs.” bucky says

“i want to, too.” steve says and they both look at tony, like if he tells them yes or no they’ll listen.

like maybe they want him to have a say in this.

“i want to play them,” tony answers. he bites his lips.

“i want to play songs your write for me. and, i want to play songs we write together.”

he closes his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest. he can feel it again, the weight of someone watching him, the potential of failing in front of someone he cared about,

“okay,”

he blinks his eyes open. steve is staring, stubborn and determined, into tony’s face, like tony was a new fingerstyle he had to learn. bucky looked slightly confused.

“i did write the song for you... well, you and steve but--”

tony inhaled sharply, looking at bucky for what felt like the first time in a long while. exhaling, he lowered his face into his hands. “nooooooo.” he whined.

“this is why you can’t have nice things, tony!” rhodey yelled from somewhere behind him.

“you’re always over thinking it!” pepper agreed.

someone’s hands patted him on the shoulder. “i thought you knew, you were there when i came up with the first lyrics,”

tony shook his head.

“it was pretty obvious,” that was steve.

tony stuck a hand out to swat him, but found it caught instead. he looked up. “i guess it’s my fault.” steve said, “i’m not good at explaining things.”

“neither am i.” tony grinned. “but i think i get it now.”

“good”

#kamaeteWRITES #the ot3 #tony stark #james barnes #steve rogers #what the fuck with the ship name for these three #oh #stuckony #i hate it.#stark spangled arms engineering

31 notes · View notes