This is a commission for ishipallthings, who wanted ‘5 times Bucky
thought Tony was good for Steve and 1 time he told him.’ This rolls in at 6k.
-
(1)
To say Bucky is unimpressed by Stark would be an understatement.
It isn’t that he dislikes him. It’s more that he’s a brand of
indifferent that curdles with distain on the rare occasion that Bucky catches
him on the TV: Stark is glib and crass in a way his father never was, and he
wears suits like he’d slipped out of the womb clad in Armani.
So it’s a surprise when Bucky moves into the Tower and finds that Steve
actually gets along with the guy.
Clint brings it up first when the team is out in the lounge eating
takeout that Bucky is more than a little bewildered by. Who the hell eats
octopus and why were they able to get it delivered to their doorstep? What
other crazy crap did modern people eat? Bugs? Dogs?
“You’re staring,” Clint points out, muffled around the straw of his
slushie.
Bucky switches his gaze to Clint. Then Clint’s slushie, which according
to Clint is ‘blue-flavoured.’ Bucky doubts blue is a flavour, but he’s
encountered weirder things in this century. “Didn’t expect them to get along,”
he says, not bothering to gesture behind him where Steve is kicking Tony’s ass
at pool and looking pretty happy about it.
Still, Clint cranes his neck over Bucky’s head to see them before
settling back in is seat. He slurps at his slushie. “Yeah, it took them a
while. You should’ve seen them six months ago.”
“What were they like six months ago?”
Clint continues slurping obnoxiously until Bucky jerks the plastic cup
out of his hand.
“Hey!”
Bucky stretches his arm far enough that Clint can’t reach it without
getting up. “What were they like six months ago?”
Clint eyes his slushie, but relents. “You know. Yelling at each other
every chance they got. Everything they said turned into an argument even if it
started out well-intentioned. Thanks,” he adds to Natasha as she swipes the
slushie out of Bucky’s hands upon passing and hands it back to Clint.
Bucky lowers his hand, clenching it around nothing. He hadn’t even heard
her approach, and by the look of her smirk, she knew how much it weirded him
out. “What changed?”
“They got their heads out of their collective asses and realized that
they weren’t actively trying to be offensive to each other,” Clint says. He
chews on the end of his straw, grinning around it when Bucky makes a face.
“Just in time, too. Everyone was getting fed up with them working together
great on the field and then having a screaming argument on the way back home.”
On the other side of the room, Steve laughs in a way that Bucky hasn’t
heard since he fell off that freight train. Did Stark coax it out of him? How
the hell did he manage that?
“Just didn’t expect Steve to go for Stark’s,” Bucky starts, and then
pauses to search for the words. “Glitz and glamour crap,” he decides on
finally.
Clint shrugs. He’s down to blue dregs and half of what he’s slurping is
air. “Ah, Tony’s okay once you get past all the surface shit. Good luck with
that, by the way. Steve’s gonna want you two to get along and it takes a while
to get used to… how he is.”
Bucky’s face twists. He’s eerily reminded of the situation with Sam,
which continues to be a source of irritation. He’s still not sure whether his
dislike of Sam is genuine or not. “What, he’s that fond of him?”
“If he’s not, he’s getting there.”
It sets unease off in Bucky’s gut. What if Stark is trailing Steve
along, ready to dump his ass when Steve stops being shiny and interesting? He
seemed like the kind of guy to bore of his toys quickly.
He turns on his couch cushion to watch the two of them again. Steve is
bending to make his shot, and he’s smiling, and just as he slides the pool cue
towards the ball, Tony’s mouth moves around words that Bucky can’t hear.
Whatever they are, they’re effective: Steve jerks enough for the pool
cue to hit the ball at the wrong angle, and the ball bounces off the wall an
inch away from the hole it was directed at.
Tony starts laughing, but it looks different than his laughter on TV. On
screen it’s practiced, rehearsed to a tee and repeated when necessary. But Tony
standing next to Steve at the pool table looks nothing like he does on TV: his
sleeves are rolled up and his face is creased in the laugh, his eyes bright as
Steve straightens up to shove his shoulder good-naturedly.
Tony rocks with the motion, still laughing. It makes him look younger,
Bucky thinks.
He bites back a sigh and settles back down into the couch. If Tony can
make Steve relax like that and produce the kind of laughter from Steve he had
heard before, he guesses he can make an effort to get along with the guy.
Beside Bucky, Clint continues to slurp noisily.
Bucky watches the last of the blue slush slide up the straw. “Hey.”
Clint eyeballs him.
“No one eats dogs now, right? Or bugs?”
The straw is pushed from Clint’s mouth with his tongue. “Uh. Yeah, they
do, man. In China or whatever. Did way back when, too. And you gotta try a huhu
grub. Tastes like peanut butter.”
Bucky groans. Then he gets his phone out and googles ‘huhu grub.’
When he turns to stare at Clint, the bastard is grinning.
“You’re fucking with me,” Bucky decides.
Clint shakes his head.
Bucky turns the screen towards him. “It looks like an overgrown maggot.”
“Peanut butter,” Clint says, and leans back to lace his hands behind his
head.
(2)
When Tony walks into the kitchen with Steve, Bucky curses silently. He’s
already had to be civil with Sam while they watched a movie with Steve today,
he doesn’t want to put up with Tony, too.
Still, he returns Tony’s greeting nod and pretends not to notice when
Tony keeps glancing over at Bucky’s metal arm while he brews his coffee.
Bucky even flexes it for him so he can see the metal plates shift.
Fucking scientists.
“Offer’s still open, you know,” Tony says when he has a hot mug in his
hands. He sips at it and continues, “There’s a lag. In your arm.”
“You’ve mentioned it,” Bucky agrees. His metal fingers twitch against
his cereal spoon. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you open up my arm and play
around.”
Tony leans his hip against the counter. “I’d go with ‘fix.’ Or
‘improve.’”
“Doesn’t matter what you call it, you ain’t getting near it.”
Steve fixes Bucky with a look as he slots bread into the toaster.
Bucky ignores it. “Is everyone having breakfast for dinner?”
He’s looking at his bowl as he says it, nudging his cereal through the
milk so it goes brown. When no-one answers him for several seconds, he looks
up.
Steve and Tony are exchanging looks that seem too close to a silent
conversation.
“What,” Bucky snaps.
He’s your friend, Tony’s eyes seem to say.
Steve looks over to Bucky. “Buck. We don’t speak Russian.”
Bucky’s tongue grows thick in his mouth. Shit. He hasn’t slipped into
Russian without meaning to in- weeks, almost. Not since his last panic attack,
and that was before he moved into the Tower.
A cracking noise brings his attention back to his bowl. He looks down to
see his spoon split in half in his hand. He opens his palm and the two pieces
shine dully, metal on metal.
Bucky says, “Well, shit,” making sure to feel each letter curl around
his tongue as he says them.
There’s a shifting sound to his right, and he looks up to find Tony
holding out a spoon towards him. His expression is carefully casual and he
doesn’t react when Bucky takes the spoon, only goes back to leaning against the
counter with his hands in his pockets.
“Happens to everyone,” Tony says, and turns around to refill
his mug. “Steve, you want one? Wait, I forgot, you like your coffee 90% sugar.”
Steve still has that face he only gets when Bucky is being a basket
case, all worry and concealed guilt, but it starts to slough away
when he turns to address Tony. “Sorry I prefer a drink that tastes nice
over that sludge you call coffee.”
“How dare you,” Tony says mildly. He punctuates this with a long sip,
smacking his lips. “Ahhh. Sweet nectar.”
“Nothing sweet about that,” Steve says, eyeing Tony’s cup with
over-the-top disgust.
Tony waves him away. “Whatever, Captain Cappuccino.”
“Mochachino.”
“Right, can’t forget to add chocolate.”
Bucky watches the exchange in vague disbelief. Even Sam- who’s trained
in this shit- has only ever been able to get Steve to pull up a brave front and
force a laugh when it comes to this, and yet here’s Stark getting him grinning with
some half-assed banter about coffee. What the hell?
In front of him, the two of them are going at it like Bucky isn’t even
there.
“Hey, we boiled everything back in my day. Having any flavour at all is
a plus in my book.”
“This has flavour.”
“A horrible, bitter flavour, sure.”
“You said any flavour was a plus!”
“Maybe, but I prefer mine sweet.”
“I noticed,” Tony says, his voice dropping slightly and taking on a
teasing tone. It only lasts a moment during which Steve’s eyes widen, eyebrows
drawing inwards in something like confusion, and Tony straightens up from
leaning on the counter, his smile wiped clean away before being replaced by a
facsimile of his TV-smile.
“I, uh. You drink a lot of Starbucks, is all I meant,” Tony continues,
and his fingers start to tap at the rim of his mug as he goes to clutch at it
with both hands. He ducks his head to stare into its contents as he takes a
gulp. “Anyway, I better go, the Board’s waiting on my latest project.”
“The new green energy schematics,” Steve says, and Bucky can practically
see the gears turning in his brain as he attempts to salvage the conversation
and keep it going.
“Got it in one,” Tony says. “See you, Cap. Bucky.” He avoids both their
gazes as casually as he can as he pads out of the kitchen.
Steve lets out a sound too close to a sigh as he moves for the sugar
bowl.
Bucky stares at him until he notices.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Bucky says slowly. He’s still not sure he saw what he thought
he saw- or, he’s unsure if he’s interpreting it correctly. Maybe Stark flirts
like that with everyone as a reflex. Maybe the ensuing nervousness was due to a
latent belief that Steve would punch him out if he ever implied anything
vaguely homosexual.
When Steve narrows his eyes at him, Bucky tries, “He’s different on TV.”
The skin around Steve’s eyes relaxes. “He is,” is all he says, and Bucky
lets him finish making his coffee in silence up until Steve adds four lumps of
sugar, at which point Bucky snorts and Steve jostles his shoulder
automatically.
(3)
“You should try the vents.”
Bucky forces himself to inhale slowly before replying. “Vents?”
Bruce scribbles something down in his notebook. “Clint finds them
relaxing.”
“Yeah? Does Clint have… episodes like this?”
“Not quite like yours,” Bruce says. His voice is oddly calming. Bucky
assumes it’s the mediation he keeps finding Bruce doing in the mornings. “But
we all have our own versions of it.”
Bucky snorts. He leans his forehead against the cool metal wall of
Bruce’s lab. His hair is sweaty over his forehead. “Yours is big and green,
yeah? Smashes shit?”
Bruce makes a humming noise. He’s staying on the other side of the room
as they talk, and Bucky appreciates it. Makes it easier to quell his homicidal
urges every time Bruce makes a minor movement.
Bucky clears his throat. “I looked it up. They call it PTSD now, yeah?”
“They do. I hoped a therapist would have told you, rather than the
internet.”
“Therapist did tell me. I looked it up before I went in. Wanted to know
what I was going in for.”
“That’s fair.”
“Damn right.” Bucky sucks air into his lungs. Holds it. Blows it out
again. “You want me out of here?”
Bruce doesn’t make eye contact with him, either. Just continues working
like Bucky isn’t half-curled up on a stool in his lab. “No. If you need to be
here, I have no problem with it.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t want me out,” Bucky croaks. He clears his
throat. His mouth tastes like sandpaper and blood. “I could go to the vents.”
“If you need to be here, you should be here,” Bruce says. He nudges his
glasses up his nose and continues to scribble.
Bucky expects him to say something else, but the lab stays blissfully
silent apart from the sound of pencil against paper. It’s good: being
in the room with someone with no expectations, who isn’t invested in him, who cares
for his health but won’t push.
Steve always pushes, even when he doesn’t mean to. Especially when he
doesn’t mean to. It doesn’t take much: a twitch of an eyebrow lets Bucky know
what Steve is thinking, and it’s hardly ever good when Bucky gets like-
He pulls in another breath. Forces it through his teeth. “You aren’t
worried I’ll stab you, too?”
“No.” The answer is immediate and calm. It even sounds like he believes
it.
“Great,” Bucky mutters.
He heaves himself to his feet, causing Bruce to finally turn his head to
look at him for the first time since Bucky stumbled in and curled in the chair
furthest away from the door.
“I’m gonna,” Bucky says, and nods for the exit. “Find Steve, I guess.
Apologize.”
“He’ll be fine with it,” Bruce tells him, already turning back to his
notebook. The writing resumes. “We’ve all been where you are, James.”
“Uh-huh.” Bucky swallows. It’s true, more or less, but there’s a
difference between knowing something and watching it happen. He hasn’t
witnessed anyone else in the Tower freak out at the sound of a glass breaking
and lurch sideways to stab his best friend in the shoulder.
The door swings shut behind Bucky and he tries not to listen out for
every small noise: the click the door settling into place, the near-silent rasp
of the AC, a fly buzzing up around the lights.
Hyper-vigilant, the therapist had told him.
He doesn’t doubt it.
“JARVIS,” he says. He’s one of the only people in the Tower who doesn’t
look to the ceiling to talk to him. “Where’s Steve?”
Bucky automatically pins where the speakers are embedded invisibly in
the walls as JARVIS says, “The Captain is in the gym, Master Barnes.”
Probably breaking it to bits, Bucky thinks as he heads for the gym. The
trek is free of people, which could be JARVIS’s doing, if Bucky
thinks about it. He doesn’t know if he’s grateful or not.
He goes to push the door open when voices drift in from the gym. He
pauses with his hand pressed against the wood, cocking a head to listen. One of
the voices is Steve, audibly upset, and the other is low and balmy-
“It just takes time,” Tony says in an undertone. It sounds knowing, and
Bucky finds himself wondering just how much crap he has in his past that isn’t
in his file.
God, he can just picture Steve- bruised knuckles from trying to take it all
out on a punching bag, struggling to pin in his emotions as they flash across
his face.
“I know that,” Steve spits, and Bucky edges forwards to open a
crack in the door.
Steve is dragging his hands through his own hair, Tony looking
sympathetic next to him, the both of them hunched over as they sit against a
wall. Steve has been down here for hours, if the state of his knuckles and the
sheen of sweat along his body is anything to go by. His shoulder is bandaged,
but there’s red staining through the material.
Steve presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I know that,” he
repeats, and this time is steadier, wearier. His shoulders sag. “Of all people,
I know that. I’m just- I worry.”
Tony is rubbing circles in Steve’s back, though he looks
unsure about the action, like he isn’t convinced he’s allowed. “His
therapist says he’s been making progress.”
Bucky has a second to get pissed at his therapist for fucking over their
patient-client privilege before Steve lets out a weak laugh and says, “You
hacked into her notes.”
“Maybe. Sorry.”
“No, it’s-” Steve digs the heels of his hands into his eyes again. “It’s
to know you care. Though you gotta stop doing that.”
“What, hacking into people’s private business?”
“Yeah, that.”
“No promises,” Tony says, and Steve laughs weakly.
“Didn’t think so,” Steve says, and then he leans back into the wall.
Tony slips his hand out to stop from being crushed between the wall and
the super-soldier’s back, but Steve catches it before Tony can drop it to his
side.
Tony freezes along with Bucky, but all Steve does is hold his hand
between them until Tony leans against the wall, their shoulders brushing.
Bucky lets the door slip silently closed and then spends a while staring
at the wood of it.
Huh.
Well, then.
(4)
When Bucky clears his throat, Tony spins around with his arm cocking,
ready to brain him with a wrench.
Thankfully, he stops upon seeing who it is. “Oh. Sorry.”
Bucky tries to reign in his Judging Eyebrows. “Hey, no problem.”
Tony drops the wrench back onto the bench and cranes his neck to see
behind Bucky. “How the hell did you get in?”
“I asked JARVIS.”
Tony makes a face. “And he just let you in?”
“I asked very nicely.”
Tony eyes how Bucky is actively trying to smile at him. “…Okay.
Something on your mind?”
“Yeah.” Bucky clicks the fingers of his metal hand together
unconsciously and stops once he realizes he’s doing it. He used to wear sleeves
and gloves over it, but it’s summer now and he’s made ‘progress.’ Nowadays, he
wears sleeveless shirts around the house and barely even flinches when people
touch his metal arm.
Tony looks down at the arm Bucky holds out to him, uncomprehending.
“You’ve been bitching about taking a look at it for months,” Bucky
supplies.
“Oh,” says Tony. Then: “Oh! Really?”
“Really have you been bitching about it? I’d say so.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Really, can I have a look at it?”
“You can look,” Bucky says, going to sit down on a stool next to him.
“But don’t try tweaking anything.”
“Deal,” Tony says immediately, and sits down as Bucky lays his metal arm
on the workshop bench.
Bucky expects him to dive right in, so he holds his breath and twists
his face away. When nothing happens, Bucky cracks an eye open.
Tony isn’t even touching his arm. Instead he’s giving Bucky this look
like he knows him. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t
want to.”
“I know,” Bucky says instantly. Agency has been one of his Big Things in
therapy- having it, exercising it to the point of what Bucky considers to be
excessive. Why should he give a shit what kind of shampoo he uses? They all get
the job done fine.
“The lag’s been pissing me off,” Bucky tries.
Tony doesn’t look like he totally believes that’s the reason, but he
shrugs. “Fair enough,” he says, and reaches for a screwdriver. “You want me to
tell you what I’m doing while I’m doing it?”
“…Sure?”
“I don’t have to.”
“No, that’d be-” Bucky tries to imagine it. “That’d help. I think.”
“Tell me to stop if you need it,” Tony says.
Bucky makes an affirmative noise and closes his eyes. Tony begins to
talk, and Bucky concentrates on his voice instead of the metallic sounds that
come after it.
“Expected you to come here with Steve, if you ever did this,” Tony says
at one point.
Bucky opens his eyes, training them on Stark instead of his open arm.
“Yeah? I don’t need him to hold my hand.”
“There’s an image,” Tony mutters. He pulls gently on something inside
Bucky’s arm, his fingers sure and deft in a way that makes the itch to shove
him away lessen. If someone’s mucking around with his arm, at least it’s
someone who knows what he’s doing.
“Checking the reaction times. Might be a twinge,” Tony continues.
Bucky nods tightly. The twinge, when it comes, is hardly even a blip on
Bucky’s radar. “He would, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“Hold my hand through it,” Bucky says. His throat clicks as something
pulls in his arm again. “Don’t now what the hell happened in guy’s heads since
we got iced, but fellas nowadays tend to think that any kind of touching makes
you queer. Anyone might be able to get married now, but everyone’s so-”
Bucky struggles to remember the term. “Everyone’s all ‘no homo’ about
it,” he says finally. “Never needed to clarify that, back in the day.”
It jolts a laugh from Tony, and Bucky looks to check, but Tony’s hands
are steady as ever.
“Fellas don’t touch anymore,” Bucky continues. “Even casual stuff. I
think Steve misses it.”
“You saying we should all hold his hand more?” Tony’s voice is oddly
flat.
Bucky eyes him. “Don’t think he’d object to it. You, especially.”
The pull on his arm lessens and stops as Tony’s fingers still
momentarily before picking back up where they left off. “Me especially.”
“Uh-huh,” Bucky confirms.
Tony’s gaze flickers up to his before returning to his arm. There are
gears exposed, tiny things Tony is tapping at with even tinier metal sticks.
“What makes you say that?”
“What do you think, genius?”
He hears it when Tony’s throat clicks.
“Just making sure I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing.”
“You’re hearing it.” When Tony doesn’t respond, Bucky raises an eyebrow.
“You seem less than enthused.”
“I’m- enthused,” Tony says, as if it pains him. His fingers are working
faster now. “I’m just dubious on whether you have the right idea.”
“I’ve known Steve since we were nine.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t be wrong about him.”
Bucky snorts. “Trust me, pal. I ain’t wrong about this.”
“Mm,” Tony says. His adam’s apple bobs for a second time and Bucky can
imagine his mind racing behind his carefully-constructed calm.
It isn’t long before Tony sucks in a breath and says, “Okay, my
curiosity is sated. You want me to close you back up?”
Bucky starts to nod, but it stops in mid-motion. “What’d you find?”
“Nothing I didn’t expect.”
“So…”
Tony tries for a smile. “Found out why it lagged.”
Bucky nods slowly. He wets his lips. “Could you fix it?”
“I could,” Tony says after a moment. “Would you like me to?”
Bucky glances down at the mess of his arm. It’s not as bad as he thought
it would be, but it’s not nice, either. Still-
He lets his head drop back. “Well, you are already in
there.”
“Is that a yes?”
To both their surprise, Bucky kicks his stool. “Get on with it, Tony.”
There’s a second of shock, but then an odd smile twitches up Tony’s
face. “You got it,” he says, and he reaches for his ridiculously miniscule
screwdriver.
(5)
“I can’t do this.”
“Jesus Christ, Steve, it’s not a big deal.”
Steve fixes him with a betrayed look. “Buck.”
Bucky sighs. He’d almost forgotten how much the punk could get on his
nerves. He finds it’s a fond kind of frustration, even as it tempts Bucky
further towards picking the guy up and shaking him.
“They’re only offering because I’m Captain America.”
Bucky sighs louder. “No, they ain’t. And if you make me say they
ain’t one more time, I’m gonna smack you.”
Steve pauses to stare into the distance for a second before nodding
decidedly. “Sparring would help,” he admits.
Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fuck’s sake. It’s just the Met,
Steve.”
“Oh, right, JUST THE MET,” Steve says, tipping his head back to the
ceiling to gain better acoustics so it really bounces around Bucky’s eardrums.
“Thank you for reminding me that it’s JUST the goddamn MET who wants to showcase
my CRAP.”
“It’s not crap,” Bucky tries, throwing up his hands. “And it’s only a
two-week long special event, it’s not like they’re gonna hang it up forever,
it’s just publicity shit-”
He cuts off when Tony emerges from the hall. “Thank fuck, come over here
and talk some sense into Steve.”
Tony blinks, hovering in mid-step. “I was going to ask if he was still
freaking out, but I guess that answers my question.”
“’M not freaking out,” Steve mutters, and then ruins the statement by
sitting down on the couch and hunching as much as a guy as big as him can
reasonably hunch without spraining something.
“’Course you’re not,” Tony says, coming to sit next to him. He meets
Bucky’s eyes and raises his brows.
Bucky raises his hands again and drops them. I don’t know,
he mouths.
“Great,” Tony says. Then: “Okay. Steven? Look at me.”
Bucky bites back a smile at the full name even as Steve turns his
helpless gaze on Tony.
“Are you a chicken?”
Steve’s face twists in a confused scowl. “Excuse me?”
“Are you,” Tony says seriously, “a chicken? Because only a chicken would
turn this down, this used to be your dream.”
“Damn right it did,” Steve says. His hands tighten into fists on his
knees. “And I’m not about to get it just because I’m a national icon. I should
get it because my paintings are good, not because-”
“Your paintings are fantastic,” Tony says, and swats Steve on the
shoulder when he makes a derisive noise. “No, shut up, listen. As Pepper would
tell you, I know fuck-all about art, and even I can tell your art is awesome.
But if you don’t want to put your art in a museum, then don’t.”
Bucky sends Tony his best what the fuck are you doing, asshole face
that he perfected during his time with the Howling Commandos.
Tony ignores it and continues, “You could put together a bunch of art
you think should go in a museum. Call it the Steve Rogers collection or
whatever you want to name it and use it to boost some artists who wouldn’t get
a second glance from the place otherwise because they’re gay or black or- a
woman, or whatever.”
Steve stares at him. Tony stares back.
Bucky stares at the both of them.
Steve inhales sharply. “I- why didn’t I think of that?”
Tony pats him hard on the back. “There we go. Hey, you can throw a few
of your own pieces in there if you want. Win-win.”
Steve’s expression has gone from blind panic to the face he wears when
he’s planning battle strategy. “I follow dozens of blogs with artists who
deserve recognition. But no-one puts them up because it’s a niche market, or
they don’t think it would make money, just because-”
“That’s the spirit,” Tony tells him, taking his phone out of his pocket.
Months ago, Bucky would assume he’d gotten bored of the conversation and
stopped paying attention, but now he’s betting Tony’s texting someone in charge
at the Met or some artist about to get the shock of his life.
Steve gets louder, his gestures getting looser as he starts to rant
about the different artists who he follows online, and Bucky watches with a
disbelieving smile creeping up his face.
He catches Tony as he’s heading out of the lounge.
“You played him like a fucking fiddle,” he says, and Tony’s smile ticks
and dims.
“Uh. I suppose I did.”
“Not in a bad way,” Bucky rushes to say. “Nah, it was- you did good. You
get how that brain of his works.”
Tony squints at him, but nods. “Thanks.”
(+1)
The
press conference has been in play for half an hour and Steve is going to go off
any second now.
Bucky’s
been watching him out of the corner of his eye since it started. Press
conferences are an ordeal for all of them, despite what they show outwardly.
Even Natasha hates them, though she’ll never admit it and winds circles around
the press better than any of them apart from maybe Tony.
Tony,
who has been under fire from multiple reporters for the last ten minutes about
whether or not he should be a part of the Avengers at all.
He’s
been holding his ground and deflecting most of the comments, but they keep
pulling out hard-hitters and even Tony is starting to look affecting.
Steve,
though- Steve is winding up tighter with each question, to the point where
Bucky is worried he’s about to break the microphone by gripping it too hard.
He turns
to watch the reporter who hasn’t shut up since Tony picked her in the vain
hopes that she’d be kinder.
“We all
remember when Iron Man first emerged,” the reporter says. “We all thought it
was a joke. A publicity stunt. I remember one headline comparing it to if Paris
Hilton donned a cape and started flying around.”
“I’d be
first in line for a team-up if that happened,” Tony says, all dazzling smile
that’s been dimming with each minute that passed.
“I have
no doubt,” the reporter says flatly. He rearranges his papers in his hands,
glances down at them and then back up to ask, “What do you say to the allegations
saying you were operating the Iron Man suit while under the influence during
the disaster in Turkey?”
“I
would give them my medical reports that clearly state I was massively concussed
after nearly getting crushed to death under a building,” Tony answers. His tone
is bland, but the way his hand is trembling against his pocket under the table
is anything but.
He looks
out over the crowd. “Could we get questions from anyone else,” he asks, and
points at a woman near the back as a dozen hands fly up.
The
woman stands, adjusts her collar. Says, “While we’re on the topic, what would
you say to the people claiming you’re a sex addict?”
Beside Bucky,
Bruce blows out a slow, calming breath and Bucky can almost hear Bruce’s
internal dialogue of meditation chants.
Tony
opens his mouth only for Steve to talk over him.
“I’m
sorry, just who is claiming all of this? The allegations, all these rumours?
Just who is saying this about him?”
The reporter
blinks rapidly at the sharp bite running through his voice, but she recovers
quickly. “Many sources, Captain Rogers.”
“Many
sources,” Steve repeats. A muscle is fluttering in his jaw. “And why do you
feel the need to voice what these people are saying?”
“It’s a
public concern, Captain. We need to know if Iron Man is the right person to
co-lead the Avengers.”
Steve
nods slowly, a breath hissing from between his teeth. His mouth opens again,
and Bucky feels himself wince in preparation, but the only thing that comes out
of Steve’s mouth is air.
Bucky
looks over at him: Steve is no longer glaring at the reporter with a simmering
rage behind his eyes. The anger is still there, but it’s twisted up in knots as
Steve looks at Tony, who is touching Steve’s wrist with his fingers.
Because
they can’t exactly say anything with the microphones and a hundred people in
front of them, all Tony does is squeeze Steve’s wrist and give him a small
smile. It’s nothing like Bucky has seen Tony do in front of a camera before-
this smile belongs purely at home amongst the family he’s built around him.
Steve
clenches his jaw, but nods minutely. Around them, cameras are flashing.
Tony
releases his wrist.
Steve
turns back to the microphone and takes a bracing breath inwards.
“Any
further questions,” he asks.
They
finally end the press conference ten minutes later when Clint threatens to
climb over the podium and punch a reporter’s teeth into his skull, and the ride
back home is silent as they are each lost in their thoughts.
It’s
the same once they enter the house.
Tony
moves towards the hallway that will take him to the workshop, but Steve stops
him with a hand on his shoulder. “Tony-”
“It’s
fine, Cap.”
“Tony-”
Steve
falls silent when Tony lifts a hand to squeeze the one that Steve has on his
shoulder. “It’s fine,” he repeats, and gives Steve another soft smile before vanishing
into the hallway.
Steve
watches him go, his hands clenching around nothing.
“You
know,” Natasha says, “there’s a time when Tony needs to be left alone.”
“Mm,”
Steve says. He doesn’t look away from the door. “Think this is one of those
times?”
“I
think you should go after him.”
When Steve
continues to stare, Bucky heads over and knocks their shoulders together. “Steve.
Move it.”
Steve
hesitates, but he goes.
Later,
Bucky is gritting his teeth and doing his best to concentrate on anything that
isn’t the splitting fucking pain that’s running in currents up his arm. He’s
been lying in bed for hours, but sleep is far from an option now.
“Fuck,”
he mutters as a particularly nasty wave hits him. “Okay, yeah, no. JARVIS,
where’s Tony.”
“Sir is
in his workshop, Master Barnes.”
“Is he decent?”
He has no desire to catch him or Steve canoodling.
“He is clothed.”
“Shit. Good enough.” Bucky
eases himself to his feet, hissing when it jars his arm, and hoofs it down to
the workshop as fast as he can without moving his arm too much.
He’s stepping
inside before he notices the couch and the extra person on it: Steve is leaning
against Tony, head pillowed on his shoulder as he snores quietly. Tony,
thankfully, seems a little more alert and a lot more nervous.
“Uh,
hi.”
“Hey,”
Bucky says. It isn’t hard to see what Tony is nervous about: Steve’s shirt is
undone and Bucky can spot what looks like a love-bite adorning the side of his
neck. “Don’t want to interrupt, but my arm is making me want to rip it off.”
Tony
sits up, then stills when it jostles Steve. “It’s hurting you?”
Bucky
forces a smile as agony shoots into his shoulder. “Little bit.”
Tony
nods, gestures towards his workbench. “Go sit over there.”
“You
got it,” Bucky says, and pointedly doesn’t watch as Tony tries to extract himself
from Steve’s grasp without waking him. When Tony starts to pad over, Bucky
allows himself a glance- Steve is still snoring quietly, though this time into
the cushions. “Huh. He must be really comfortable with you.”
“I like
to think so,” Tony says.
Bucky
muffles a laugh when he spots a clumsy love-bite the size of Texas on Tony’s
neck. “Jesus, Stevie.”
Tony’s
hand lifts to touch it before changing course and tugging through his hair. “I-
yeah.”
He
starts reaching for tools as Bucky settles on a stool next to him. Bucky
watches nerves play out over his face, nervous twitches making his fingers tap
against the tools as he arranges them.
“You’re
good for him, y’know.”
Tony
startles. His gaze darts up to Bucky, then back down at his bench. “You’re kind
of the last person I expected to tell me that.”
Bucky doesn’t
know what to say to that. He decides on, “Doesn’t change the fact you’re good
for him.”
Tony
still looks like Bucky’s going to pull the rug out from under him, but his
smile is genuine when he says, “Thank you. I hope- thanks,” he finishes with a
mumble, eyes down towards the tools again. “We probably should talk about this
when I’m more coherent.”
“Probably,”
Bucky says easily.
Behind
them, there’s a mumble that fades into a questioning noise.
“Still
here, go back to sleep,” Tony calls.
Steve
mumbles something unintelligible and turns over on the couch, rubbing his cheek
into the warm spot where Tony had been sitting.