This is the "happy" version of "Happy Christmas", the previously published one-shot (available on the profile of this account) because rewriting something to be happy is what I do. Never had to do it for one of my own stories before, though! Like with the last one, Kotyonok is innocent: this is all me.
It can be read independently, so the first bit is the same as the last story. Feel free to skip until you don't recognise it any more if you read "Happy Christmas".
-Griffin
Christmas had always been The Worst Time. Tony was used to this; it was the Spirit of the Season or something like that.
It had started when he was two years old and Howard Stark forgot him in the lab, leaving Tony the Toddler crying and alone in the dark for the entire night before Christmas until his mother missed him and they finally found him late in the morning, after two hours of searching. He vaguely recalled the terror of the dark shapes and the high pitched argument between his parents which lasted for all the rest of that year. It was the last time Howard Stark tried to include his son in what he did. Ever.
It continued the next year with a series of meetings which left Howard away and while Maria Stark took the opportunity to play with her son, the snow left her in hospital with phemonia, so Tony was basically left alone for Cristmas again.
The next year was a bit better - Jarvis the butler had decided to stay over the holidays and no one shouted. Howard worked most of the weekend, but Tony was only five, and he had two adults who payed attention to him. It was the only good Christmas he could remember.
When Tony was six he built his first own bot. When Christmas came around he tried to build a waterproof one, and ended up in the hospital with second degree burns on his legs. The scars had faded, but the memories still hurt.
The next Christmas was cancelled. Entirely. Howard even formally declared it. No one really blamed him: might have had something to do with Maria Stark dying on Christmas Eve from accidentally injesting a rare form of shellfish she was acutely allergic to. By the time an ambulance could come - which was quickly - she was already dead.
The next few Christmases were all bleak. Howard did try, in his own way, buying presents and letting Jarvis hang up tinsel, but they were bleak. When Tony was eleven, Jarvis died. He told his father to stop bother, and from then on, all Christmases were cancelled. Permanently. He ran off to MIT the year after, and drank alone in his dorm room when all his older classmates went home to celebrate. He told himself he didn't care.
It got a bit better after Rhodes came into his life, but Christmas remained bleak. Pepper made it better, but only a little, and only for a short while.
Last Christmas, Pepper had just dumped him, kind as she was about it, and Tony got so drunk he couldn't keep the days apart. He didn't grieve that fact much.
This year, this year was going to be better. He and the rest of the Avengers were not living together this time, but this their second effort at being a team was better than the first try anyway. And there was Bucky, too. Bucky had changed everything, switched his whole world around, if you asked Tony.
That was why Tony had decided this Christmas was to be perfect this year. there was going to be no tragedies and no one was going to die. He had prepared plenty of gifts for everyone, but he planned to spend Christmas Eve alone with Bucky in the tower, and if Bucky wanted to, maybe they could invite the rest of them along later. Maybe.
Bucky and Tony had only been dating for six months, but it had been some of the best months of Tony's life. He had loved Pepper, but she still looked at him like he was the person she knew before so many things. Before Nine Rings. Before the Black Hole. When he was dying, somewhere in between those two. There was so much past. It was not her fault in the least.
Just like she lied and said the breakup was none of his fault. But he appreciated her gentleness in saying it. In the end, it just made the breakup harder. At least if she'd been rude, broken his heart and tossed things, it could have distracted him from losing the best thing which had ever happened to him. He did not know how he ended up with a second shot at that: someone who was so good for him, but he'd do anything to keep it. He wasn't alone, now. Not any more.
He thought a lot about what to get Bucky. Splashing out a lot of money which he did not need anyway seemed... well, he just knew Bucky wouldn't like that. It was obvious why, even to Tony nowadays (and wasn't that a change). It is the thought that counts, and just spending money you had to spare anyway doesn't count as thought. Perhaps what was why all those gifts from Howard always seemed so cold.
In the end, he had decided to upgrade Bucky's prostethic limb. He had made adjustments and modifications aplenty - in fact, Bucky sitting down in his workshop getting his arm tinkered had been how they got to like one another in the first place - but now he had decided to rebuild it entirely. A completely new unit, from scratch.
It had taken him tree months to complete, in the last few days in between decking out the living floors of the Tower from top to base with the most extravagant Christmas decorations he could build. Because he did, himself.
He had been even busier than he always was, now that Pepper had given him back the reins of CEO, but Bucky had been overseas for two weeks anyway, so it hardly mattered. It had made him miss him a little less, having the preparations to do and Christmas to look forward to for the first time in his life.
Bucky had said he'd arrive on the day before Christmas, so Tony eagerly awaited his return, busying himself in the kitchen. He had made an effort, done lots of research, and actually managed to cook large parts of a Christmas dinner already, and the rest couldn't be made until tomorrow, so he busied himself with making tons of gingerbread, as Bucky was running a bit late.
He told himself not to worry, though - Bucky said he'd come, so he'd come. It was past midnight, when he finally realised that he would not, in fact, turn up. He told himself that it was some minor hickup or something, as he waited for his call to connect. He had not called befoe, because the last thing he wanted was to be clingy.
"Oh, hi Tony!" Bucky smiled as he picked up the phone, glancing at the clock. Midnight. As he thought: Tony was far too busy inventing these days to even remember it was Christmas. He prided himself on having thought of this: Pepper had, well-intending as she'd been, tried occasionally to change Tony, and he would never do that. As a result, he had made plans of a nostalgic Christmas trip with Steve, so that the genius didn't have to stop for him.
Of course, he would much rather want to spend Christmas with Tony, but a relationship always contains compromises, and besides: what would we not do for those we love?"
"So, eh, when are you coming?" Tony sounded a bit nervous, Bucky noted tenderly - it was so sweet that he got guilty for forgetting. He really had a much larger heart than anyone gave him credit for.
"It's okay, Tones," he assured the genius, still smiling. "I won't come and intrude on your lab-time. I know you've got some huge project going on, and I am excited to see it when it is done. I'm going biking around the states with Steve, so don't worry. We can do presents afterwards if you forgot." He added the last bit as an afterthought, because Tony sounded nervous and that was likely why.
"Oh," Tony's voice was strangely smothered, and that made Bucky frown in suspicion. "Tony? You're not doing anything dangerous like holding a blowtorch while talking on the phone again, are you?"
"Eh, I am actually," the engineer's voice came through suddenly rushed. "I should probably hang up, actually. See you after the holidays!" Before he could say anything more, the line went dead. Bucky looked over at Steve, who was packing his bag, where they were in the common room listening to carrols, and sighed. "I really hope he isn't overworking himself again."
"He has survived this far," Steve attempted to soothe him, "I am sure he will be fine. It is less stress knowing he doesn't have to finish to a time limit because you're coming. Did he know what time it was this time?" Bucky shook his head, slowly. "Didn't seem like it. I miss him," the confession came out as a sigh, "but I guess I cannot smother him. Ready to go first thing in the morning?" "You bet! Lets go to bed, now that you've heard from Tony." At Bucky's nod, they both moved to their respective rooms, all ready to go the next day, but it still hurt Bucky a little bit. At least Tony had remembered it - that was great.
Tony stared at the phone. Bucky wasn't coming. Of course he wasn't bloody coming. It was generous and caring of him to accomodate how thoughless Tony knew he could be. It was great. At least that's what he told himself, as he threw all the food and all the six heavy, filled boxes of the gingerbread cookies he had spent fourteen hours making into the trash.
It was a good trip. Had been even better if Tony had been there, of course, but Bucky had enjoyed it. The other Avengers had sounded a bit strange on the phone when they'd checked in to say Merry Christmas on Christmas morning, but he and Steve hadn't payed them much mind. As they entered their shared home, both supersoldiers could get why.
Even with the Christmas gifts for all the rest of them removed, the sheer space taken up by the gifts for the two of them - especially Bucky, who seemed to have gotten at least ten times as many as Steve - took up considerable space in the room.
Even a very brief check of labels revealed most of them to be from Tony. This wasn't all that strange, in itself, but it became decidedly so as they started to open the boxes.
There was the usual flashy gifts they had all been expecting, as well as some new, cool weaponry, but there was much more to it than that, and not just for Bucky.
"They arrived on Christmas eve, in the morning," Bruce told them, leaning against the wall, forwning slightly, "I thought you said Tony had forgotten about Christmas, from what you gathered from his answers." "He cannot have, this must have taken him ages," Steve added in, as he opened a box of what looked like specially made bolts to secure punching bags. These, he had no doubt, would actually hold them in place unlike the generic ones which broke for him so easily.
"I thought so, he was being so elusive, and you know how he is so I just assumed..." Bucky completely lost the ability to speak, as he opened a large box. Inside, was a new metal arm. He was perhaps a decent mechanic, absolutely not an engineer, but even he knew this must have taken months to design, especially without fitting it to... oh. That was why Tony suddenly didn't want to talk about Christmas. Quite an epic surprise.
"Oh my god," Bucky almost tripped, he reached for his phone so quickly. He could almost hear the rest of the team - no wait, correction, he could hear the rest of the team - draw a relieved breath at seeing he intended to talk to Tony about this.
He got up and paced, waiting not so patiently for Tony to pick up, but he didn't. Deciding that something was very wrong, all of them made their way downtown to the Tower after only a very brief discussion, taking the lifts up to Tony and - usually - Bucky's humonguos flat in the Tower, only to stop dead at the stench.
Bucky's stomach clenched, not because of the odor, but because of the implications of why Tony's flat smelled like rotting flesh, especially as the entire place was beautifully decorated for Christmas - a Christmas he had blatantly ignored. He knew Tony had abandonment issues, damn it. How could he ever have been so stupid? "Jarvis," Natasha was of course the one logical enough to ask, "where does that smell come from?"
There was no answer from Jarvis, in fact, no sign that he was even still there in the building's system. Exchanging very worried looks, they searched manually, room to room. It was Steve who found it, in the kitchen. Coming to join him, they were if possible even more horrified than before. It was not hard to deduce where the smell originated; the kitchen bins where filled beyond capacity with what had obviously been lovingly prepared food. Bucky did not need Jarvis to know when it had been thrown out. The rest of the flat was empty.
Well, not empty, not exactly. All his things were still there, and for that matter, basically all of Tony's, too. But there was no sign of Tony, not until, "BUCKY!" Steve's voice could easily be heard over a battlefield, and in this eerily silent tower, and the rest of the Avengers came to him, where he stood by the window seat which was Bucky's favourite makeout spot, within seconds. Silently, he reached out a note. It was short.
"Bucky. You and Pepper were the best things which ever happened to me, but like with Pepper, I realised that even though I am with you, and should never be alone, when it matters I am still as alone as ever. So I should just stick to that. Alone, I mean," he could imagine Tony awkwardly trying to describe feelings, and that thought might have made him smile, if the note had not already sent all of his intestines into the soles of his feet, "so I've gone back home. Bye, Bucky." Added, as if an afterthought, was, "Merry Christmas, Bucky, I hope it fits." There was nothing more.
Naturally, they tried to reach Tony, all of them, but it was no good. SHIELD, or what was left of it, could only report that Mr Stark had quitted all association, no one at SI was willing to divulge any information, and when Natasha, Bruce and Bucky took the Quinyet over to the Malibu mansion, they could not get past the automatic systems to keep out intruders. All they got was the polite voice of Jarvis telling them they were not on the approved visitors list, and that was all. It took months, but eventually even Bucky stopped trying.
They heard of him. Heard of the recordbreaking sales and profits SI was making, heard the rumours of why Tony Stark no longer was seen, but eventually, it was all dismissed as him being busy inventing, and even the press went silent.
It was the next Christmas, when Bucky decided to make one last attempt. He hadn't been over there for months, but he just couldn't stand the thought of Tony being alone yet again. He had to at least try. He loved Tony, and the last year had only driven home that fact like an icy spike through his heart. He was going to try. One last time.
He made his way over to the Malibu Mansion alone, unnanounced, and climbed over the fences at the edge of the property. He made his way all the way to the front door, when he was greeted with the, now unwelcome, voice of Jarvis. "You are not allowed in, Sergeant Barnes," the disembodied, british voice told him.
"Sir has explicitly stated that you are not allowed to go in the house. However," and Bucky felt a slight tug of hope at this, "Sir is not well. I do not believe you could make it much worse. Do help him for me." He thought that the AI sounded sad, and endlessly worried, if an AI could feel such things. The door opened on its own, likely directed by Jarvis, and Bucky made his way in.
It was Christmas Eve. But Bucky saw no traces of any preparations for the day. The mansion was unnaturally neat and tidy - Tony had always been messier than this - and looked almost unlived in.
"Jarvis," Bucky talked out loud, too used to the AI's presence - even thought it had been a year - to care to look up. "Where is he?"
"In the Workshop," the AI told him, voice soft as if not wishing to be heard, "he never leaves the workshop, these days." "Unless to sleep? Eat?" Bucky's hope for this was slight, but it was there. "No, Sergeant Barnes," came the expected answer.
"He usually sleeps every forth day, more often than not draped on his workbench, and if he eats, he calls for food delivered and eats in the workshop. He does not like to. It reminds him too much of..." the AI did not continue, but Bucky did not need it to. He remembered, too. Remembered team dinners and cooking, how he had used to carry plates down to Tony, making an effort to rub some tension from the genius' shoulders as he ate. It hurt for him to remember it, too.
"Well, we cannot have that. Can you order us some takeout, please? I'll see if I can coax some into him." The AI did not reply with more than an affirmative, but Bucky knew Jarvis was even more intensely worried than he himself was.
Silently, he made his way down to the workshop, stopping in the doorway to watch the love of his life move inside, too taken up in what he was doing to notice his presence.
Tony was clearly in his element here. It was obvious to anyone with eyes. He did not, however, look well. Clearly, his company was doing supremely well, competently run by Pepper and well supplied with a never-ending stream of superiour inventions. But Tony looked... broken. Hoping to startle the man as little as possible, Bucky knocked softly on the doorframe, repeatedly, until Tony noted him. Eventually, he did.
Finally, the genius looked up, only to sigh when he saw his ex-lover there. He did not ask how he managed to enter, just muttered something about how absolutely everyone was a traitor: clearly genius enough to know that Jarvis had a hand in this.
"Look," Bucky held up a placating hand, "I did not come here to make trouble. But I wanted to talk to you. I miss you. A lot. Every day."
"Not that day," Tony's voice was hoarse, but his tone still managed to come off as somewhat dry. "Look, Barnes, you were the best thing that could have happened to me, but in the end, I was not less alone when the day came, and I'd like to just stay alone. No lying to myself, alright? So show yourself out. We've got nothing to talk about." What really struck Bucky was how intensely tired Tony sounded.
"And does it work?" At the engineer's startled look, he elaborated. "Does silence and alone work for you? Does it feel any better? Look, Tones, I get it. You've been hurt a lot and you're not great at this bit. Neither am I, and I messed up. I should have talked to you instead of assuming you didn't want to celebrate Christmas. But I wanted to. I just tried to... forget it. I am bad at this, just... don't," frustrated, Bucky broke off, taking up his line of thought only several moments later. "Look, leave me, but don't section yourself off. We love you, Tones, and not just me. Please, give us a chance. If not us, then the team. Please."
Tony just looked at him for a few moments, then he asked, voice unusually vulnerable. "No, don't stop. What were you going to say?"
Bucky sighed, but he completed the aborted train of thought. "Pepper tried to change you. To help, and she was good for you, I'm sure, but she did, and I hated watching that, I was just trying not to push. To let you be you. And you didn't misss me 'til after midnight, so I just figured, you'd be far less stressed and way more content just left alone."
Swallowing, Tony admitted in responce. "I waited for you all day. I tried to distract myself baking, but it didn't work. I wondered why you didn't come, but I didn't want to be clingty or anything and..." he stopped abruptly as he was caught in a very strong, passionate hug.
Bucky thought his heart would break, again, as he heard the pain in his voice, could almost feel it radiating from Tony in waves as he spoke of his last Chistmas. No wonder that he... unable to stop himself, Bucky strode across the workshop floor and engulfed the smaller man in a hug. As his thoughts caught up to what he had done, he was relieved to feel Tony relax into him within a few moments. Maybe there was still a chance they could work this out.
They ended up staying in the workshop of hours, talking. Mostly it was Bucky talking, prodding Tony to get replies, until he didn't want to any more. The answers he got were heartbreaking. It didn't seem like Tony had done anything all year but work himself to the bone. He was far too thin and there were dark circles under his eyes. His muscles were tense and he looked strained, not only mentally, but his body as well. Bucky wanted nothing more than to take care of him.
They skirted around the subject extensively, but eventually they got back to the conversation. Got to the part where Tony asked what he was supposed to have done. "I don't know," Bucky admitted. "I understand why you didn't speak up, but Tony, we should have both communicated better. Hearing you say once that you were excited for Christmas would have been enough. One remark. And on that day... well, anything, Tony. Even just telling me to come would have done it. And Tones, you should have called right away. That's not needy, I promise. I had said I'd come and I was a jerk and stood you up. I didn't mean to be, but I was. You had every right to check up on me. Please, I..." After that, and the resulting two-part awkward staring at their own shoes, the conversation almost died.
Luckily, this like any time, they were saved by Jarvis, and his polite, "Sir, if I may?"
Turns out the AI's solution was simple. Bucky didn't know how he could have possibly convinced Tony on his own of how much he wanted another chance, but Jarvis calm calculaations and observations went a long way. He didn't understand most of them, but clearly Tony did. The maths of it all, anyway.
By the time Jarvis was done, Buky managed to convince a very tense Stark to come upstairs with him for some food. He could see clearly how hard this was on Tony, how painful the memories and the tiny flicker of hope were, but he didn't know any other way. He was sticking aorund, as long as he was wanted, and he had no other way to prove it than proving it.
Tony kept his distance as they ate, hands clenching every time Bucky came close, but he did not relent until he had Stark sobbing against his shirt, finally breaking down, begging him not to leave. That was the first time he realised that in Tony's head, he had not left Bucky, not really. He had just cut and ran from the pain, because Bucky was the one who didn't want him. The knowledge hurt him as deep as any torture session, courtesy of Hydra.
All Bucky could do was hold the genius, his genius, as Tony finally let go and sobbed against him. "Shh, I am not going anywhere. Ever," he promised, cradling Tony to him and gently rubbing the what must be very sore muscles he had under his hands.
"What about the season and all that? Don't you want to celebrate with the team, or something?" Tony finally questioned in return.
"I don't care about any of that. Never did. I'd rather just be with you," Bucky replied, resting his head on Tony's shoulder. "I don't care about turkey or trees or anything about that if you don't want it. That was never the point. I'd rather just curl up in bed for the entire holidays and..." he never got to finish, because in a move so extremely Tony, the genius, billionaire, not-so-much-playboy philantrophist was dragging him off to bed. Which was made, but looked like it had not been used for the entire year Tony had been living in the house. Bucky had a nasty suspicion that it hadn't.
Ignoring his hopefully-soon-again-boyfriend's betrayed look, Bucky let go of him and went to gather pillows, some blankets (Tony had to be cold, he was so thin) and massage oil, because he couldn't help himself but trying to get rid of some of those knots right away.
Tony had gone rigid again, where he sat at the edge of the bed, where Bucky had gently pushed him down, guessing that he was exhausted, but he relaxed a fraction once he noted that Bucky really wasn't planning on going anywhere, quite the opposite. "Jarvis?" Tony addressed his AI as he watched Bucky rearrange the bedroom. "Did you save and close everything?"
There was what could only be described as affection in the AI's tone as he replied. "Of course, Sir."
Dropping a kiss on Tony's head and pulling him into the nest he'd made of the bed, Bucky set to coaxing him to get rid of the faded ACDC shirt he had on. Tony was only too eager to oblige, touch-starved and outright abandoned as anyone would feel after what was essentially a year of solitary confinement.
That was how Bucky found himself on Christmas eve, a year after everything went wrong, in bed with what they soon decided was absolutely his boyfriend, whispering, "Relax," as he spent the considerable time it took for Tony Stark to unwind enough to sleep massaging out every single kink in his back. And it was really just what they'd both wanted in the first place. They vowed to make it a Christmas tradition, to skip all of the trappings and just exchanging one gift each; spending the holidays together in bed or in the pool. They both thought that was a glorious idea.
By the time dawn came, and Jarvis muted the windows to let Sir sleep, Bucky was watching the sleeping engineer with decided fondness. Yes, he'd spend this Christmas making sure Tony was alright. And it'd be the best Christmas he could think of.