Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
Challenges listed at the bottom.
Word Count - 1883
Send (Send All)
Bucky; Tony is driving me insane!
Steve; At least it's in a good way. Sam wants me to talk about my feelings!
Bucky; Ugh, remind me why I thought dating him was a good idea?
Steve; Because you want me to be happy?
Bucky snorted and threw his phone down on the sofa beside him. Steve wasn't wrong, after all, and Sam was good for him. Still, he could understand Steve's reticence to talk about feelings all the time.
At least with Tony, he knew where he stood and it was all fine.
They'd gotten over their emotional incompetence early on and were sailing along quite happily now. You know, except when Tony strolled nearby, wearing very little, but insisting he had to work.
Hense Bucky's complaint to Steve, because Tony knew exactly what he was doing, damn him.
Bucky slouched further onto the couch and closed his eyes. If he couldn't get his hands on his mischievous lover right now, he'd just think up creative ways to drive him crazy right back later, when he was done with his work.
…
"Sir, you have messages from Sgt. Barnes," Jarvis informed Tony, lowering the music in the lab.
Tony grinned. "Show me?"
He figured it would be his boyfriend offering either tantalising treats to pull him from the lab, or threatening interesting action for when he finally did.
He wasn't expecting what he got.
Bucky; Tony is driving me insane!
Bucky; Ugh, remind me why I thought dating him was a good idea?
Tony blinked and reread the texts. Clearly he hadn't been the intended recipient, and if Tony had to guess, Bucky had meant to send them to Steve.
"I, uh. Well then. Close the window, J," he murmured, shaking his head.
If that was how Bucky felt… clearly things hadn't been going as well as Tony thought? Maybe Bucky didn't like Tony's teasing like Tony thought he did? Maybe he wanted someone that would be around more often, or that could pay him more attention or…
Maybe he just didn't want Tony?
"Bring me back the specs for the suit, J," Tony requested quietly. He'd been planning on stopping soon but. Well. There didn't seem much of a point now, did there?
…
Bucky woke up suddenly, alert as he always was when he woke. He sat up, wondering why he was… wet… and then saw Nat standing over him, an empty glass in her hand and a glare in her eyes that would send lesser men running for cover, whimpering in fear.
"Erm… is there a reason you've just wasted perfectly good… cider?"
"I warned you that I'd end you if you hurt him, did I not?" she asked, her voice low and threatening. "So you better have a damn good reason for me getting a message like the one you sent me today."
Bucky blinked. "I haven't texted you today, Nat."
She pulled her phone out, thrusting it at his face so he had to lean back to see the screen. "But… I sent those messages to Stevie. And… the second one was in answer to him complaining about Sam! Not Tony!"
Nat's glare lessened slightly. "Bucky. When you sent the messages, what did you press?"
"Send all," Bucky snapped. "What's even the point of send, and send all by the way? I keep meaning to ask Tony about that. Why wouldn't I want to send the whole message? Why else have I typed it out?"
"Ah fuck."
"What?"
"Tony got the same messages I did. And undoubtedly is going to take them in the same way that I did. Send all means send to everyone in your contacts. Send is to just send it to the one person."
"I… what?"
"When you press send all, the message goes to every single person in your contact list. Which means that Tony basically got a message from you saying 'Tony is driving me insane! Ugh, remind me why I thought dating him was a good idea?'"
"Oh, fuck me. This isn't going to be pretty, is it?"
Natasha shook her head. "Probably not."
…
"Sir, Sgt. Barnes is attempting to enter the lab."
Tony turned and saw Bucky standing outside of the glass doors, a pleading look on his face. Tony sighed. He really didn't want to deal.
"Tell him I'm busy, J."
"He's quite insistent that he speaks with you immediately, Sir. He says there's been a misunderstanding."
Tony shook his head. The only misunderstanding was that Tony found out the way he did. There was no misconstruing the words in those texts. To have to read that and deal with an emotional break up was asking for much more than Tony could give.
Deciding to just get out for a while, Tony had Jarvis open the private exit he had up to the flight deck where his suit awaited him. "Give me ten minutes to get out of the way and then tell him I've left, J."
"Sir, perhaps you should speak with him?" Jarvis offered.
"Not now, J. Just… not right now. I can't."
"Very well, Sir. The suit is prepared."
…
"Have you tried texting him?" Steve asked, rubbing Bucky's arm comfortingly. The whole team minus Tony were congregated in the living room.
Tony had been gone for three days, and Jarvis wouldn't give them any information other than that Tony was safe and alive.
"Of course I had. He's not checking his texts."
Nat nodded. "Bucky's right, I tried texting and calling and he's ignoring me too."
Bruce and Clint both nodded along with her words, having tried the same and received the same treatment.
"Pepper? Or Rhodes?"
"They'll both kill me dead," Bucky muttered. "They warned me not to hurt him when we first got together. They're both going to hate me for this."
"They won't hate you, Buck," Steve consoled. "It's a misunderstanding. You can fix this, you just have to be a little patient."
Before anyone could answer, the assemble alarm blasted.
…
Tony flew through the sky, blasting Doom Bots left and right. He'd considered not answering the call to assemble for all of about three seconds before he'd donned the suit and headed straight into New York.
The team had already started fighting by the time he arrived, but he couldn't help but grin when they all called out greetings to him when he connected to the comms.
"Tony," Bucky murmured, as he flew past. "Tony, we need to talk."
"Not exactly the time, Barnes," Tony snapped, grabbing a quick hold of Clint as the archer fell from a rooftop. "Maybe when we're not fighting off the ineptitude of Victor, eh?"
"Codenames on the comms," Steve reminded. "Iron Man, I could use an extraction?"
"On it, Cap."
…
Tony landed smoothly on the landing pad and let the machines remove his suit, taking it down to the lab to work on. He'd taken a few nasty hits and there were quite a few scratches and dents to work out.
He winced as he stepped into the penthouse, only to find the team entering in through the elevator.
Ignoring them for a moment, Tony stepped around the bar and poured a generous helping of whisky, adding two ice cubes to the tumbler as he did. Sober was not how he wanted to deal with this.
Raising his eyebrow at the team, he realised that he also didn't need an audience for it.
Who wanted to be watched as they got dumped?
Eventually, Tony laid his eyes on bucky. His brown eyes looked dull and Tony frowned. Bucky's eyes always sparkled, it was one of the things that Tony loved about him. He could also see a few scratches in the silver arm and he sighed.
Regardless of their relationship, it was still Tony's responsibility to fix the tech, and Bucky's arm was tech. That was going to be an awkward couple of hours.
Bucky approached him slowly and Tony leant against the bar, waiting.
…
Bucky could see the hurt and resignation written all over Tony and it was painful to know that he'd caused that, no matter how inadvertently.
"Baby, there's been a really big misunderstanding," he murmured, pulling his phone from his pocket. He clicked on the message thread with Steve and slid the phone onto the bar in front of Tony. "Look. I pressed send all on the messages, because… well, because apparently I'm an idiot, but look, this is the actual conversation."
Tony looked down at the phone and Bucky saw his eyes widen before he looked up at Bucky.
"I. You. What?"
"I would never question why I was with you, Doll. Not ever. I want to love you every day and every night forever."
Tony blinked. "Did you just quote Bob Marley at me?"
Bucky stared. "What?"
"I, never mind, I'll play it for you later. I… I'm sorry?" Tony whispered, still looking between the phone and Bucky.
Bucky heard the sound of the elevator and knew the others had left them alone. He reached out for Tony's hand, holding it gently between both of his own.
"You've got nothing to be sorry for. This was my mistake and -"
Tony shook his head. "I should have at least listened to you."
"I was the idiot who -"
"Can we skip the argument and go straight to the make up sex?" Tony interrupted, a smile blossoming on his handsome face. He stepped around the bar and into Bucky's waiting arms.
"Sounds good to me, Doll."
…
Tony felt a shiver run through Bucky, jolting him into being awake.
"Hey, baby, you're safe," he murmured, running a clumsy hand through Bucky's long strands. "Come on, look at me, focus on me."
Bucky gripped him tighter and shook his head, burying his face against Tony's shoulder. "I'm awake, I know where I am."
"You want to talk about it?"
Bucky shook his head again.
"J, TV," Tony murmured softly, feeling Bucky relax slightly when the ice blue welcoming screen of the television broke up the darkness.
On the screen, a woman appeared to be trying to sell a vacuum cleaner. He could barely hear her words, but the low noise seemed to be soothing for Bucky. Tony just kept stroking a hand lazily through his hair until he was boneless against Tony.
"This is my fault, isn't it?" he asked quietly. "Because I left?"
"Tony, no. It was understandable."
"I should have stayed. I should have at least talked to you. I just… I guess I wanted a dignified exit, you know? I just want you to be happy, even if that's not with me, so I thought if I let you go…"
"You're what makes me happy," Bucky mumbled. "You make me ridiculously happy. You eat peaches with pancakes and I think it's cute, even though really, I should think you're a heathen."
Tony huffed. "You eat pancakes and plums, and you call me a heathen?"
"Yes." Bucky looked up enough to press his lips to Tony's. "Go back to sleep, Doll. I'm good."
"Or… you could make me pancakes and peaches, because… I'm hungry?"
"Did you eat at all the last few days?"
"Erm…"
"Jarvis?"
…
Bucky made pancakes.
Tony had peaches.
Bucky still found it cute.
Written for;
Disney; T2. Someone refusing to do something.
Book Club; Momo - Dignified / Peach / Television / Brown
Showtime; 5. Cider
Arcade; Stage 6 - New York
Bex's Basement; 7. I want to love you every day and every night.
Days of the Year; 60. "I just want you to be happy."
Winter Prompt; Shiver
Colour; Ice Blue
Birthstone; Black Onyx - "Can we skip the argument and go straight to the make up sex?"
Element; Ice Cube
Slytherin; Silver
365 - 66. Bedroom