Midnight Rendezvous
An Avengers fanfic
Summary: Stark receives an unexpected late-night visitor that needs his help.
Author's Note: This is set after Winter Soldier, and since I haven't seen Civil War, we're gonna pretend it didn't happen. :)
"What time is it?" Tony thought groggily to himself as he made his way out of the lab and up the stairs to the kitchen of his newly rebuilt Malibu mansion. It had been a while since he did a lab marathon (as Rogers not-so-affectionately called it last time he had to drag Tony into daylight after 53 hours of building in the lab), but with no one here to parent him, he had free reign to do as he pleased. One look into the mirrored glass in the lab at 5 am-ish let him know he might have pushed it a bit far this time and he dragged his feet up the staircase in zombie-like shuffle to get some food into his system before he hibernated for the next 18 hours. As he reached the door to the kitchen, Jarvis's voice echoed through the silence.
"Sir, you have a visitor in the kitchen that asks that you not set off any alarms," Jarvis stated.
"Who the hell..."Tony started to say as he rubbed his eyes in the bright light that flooded the area before zeroing in on the visitor in question, suddenly very much awake.
"What in the holy mother of fuck are you doing here...?" he said after a moment.
With his metal arm banged up and yet gleaming in the florescent light while it was laid across the kitchen island counter, Bucky Barnes stood there next to it attempting to look as non-threatening as possible in a pair of dark jeans, a worn cap and zip up hoodie with an empty left sleeve, canvas bag over one shoulder. He gestured to his arm laying on the counter.
"I don't know how to fix it by myself," Bucky said almost too quietly.
"Jarvis, how long has he been here?" Tony asked his AI, still standing in the same spot in the doorway.
"Almost an hour, Sir."
"And why didn't you let me know right away?" he asked, not knowing if he should take his chances on alerting the rest of the team, who had been searching for Bucky for several months with no success.
"I asked him not to," Bucky answered for Jarvis, still in a quiet voice, "You're the only one I could think of to help me and not want to take advantage of me."
Hearing a sadness in the former Winter Soldier's voice that Tony was all too familiar with, he approached the counter.
"Just so you know Lefty, the moment you make an even vaguely threatening move, the Avengers will be on you faster than you can say 'Thermonuclear Physics''. Understood?"
Bucky just nodded his head, right arm resting very still on the counter. Tony visually inspected the metal left arm that lay detached on the marble counter top, inwardly admiring the fine craftsmanship that went into it.
"Let's get this down to my lab so I can take a proper look at it to see what's going on," Tony said, the initial drowsiness all but completely gone, replacing by the excitement of getting to play with a new piece of tech, "Follow me."
Tony led the way with Bucky trailing behind, left arm over his right shoulder.
"By the way, do you know how to make coffee?" Tony asked as they went down the hall.
"...Yes, Why?"
"Good, cause we're gonna need a lot of it."
Several hours and many pots of coffee later, Bucky flexed his newly fixed left arm as Tony stifled a yawn. A half-dozen trays of takeout littered the floor (Tony ordered online and had one of his bots answer the door, much to the delivery guy's surprise), along with random tools and metal scraps. Tony had to all but completely dismantle the arm to fix it, modifying it a bit to make it easier for Bucky to fix minor issues himself and removing that hideous red star (Tony noticed Bucky flinch a little every time he glanced at it) that apparently wasn't paint.
"Thank you," Bucky said in that quiet voice of his.
"Don't mention it, Lefty," he said, turning back to his desk and placing the tools in a semi-organized pile to be properly put away later, "I take it you're going to be heading out soon?"
When he didn't hear a response, Tony turned around to find himself alone in the room.
"Jarvis, when did he...?"
"He left 5.42 seconds after you turned around, Sir," Jarvis replied matter-of-factly.
Tony shook his head as he turned out the lights and left the lab, heading up the stairs to his room.
"Jarvis, take all the security footage of the last 12 hours along with his arm specs and download it to the removable drive. Erase the footage off the main drive and do the usual editing," Tony said as he closed the door to his room and undressed for bed, "Also, put him on the "allowed to enter" list under "B.B" and have the same procedure done when he visits again."
"You believe he will come again, Sir?"
"I have a gut feeling that this isn't the last time we'll see Steve's old pal," he said, settling on the bed.
"Very well, Sir. Good night, Sir," Jarvis replied.
Tony didn't reply, as he was out cold as soon as his head hit the pillow.
A few days later, Tony was back in New York at the Avengers Tower when Jarvis alerted him to a package being delivered to the front lobby that required his attention. Not expecting any packages that day, curiosity made Tony go down to pick up the package, which was just a nondescript tan bubble mailer with no return address. He brought it to the lab, where he opened it with the first tool he could grab. There wasn't much inside except for a folded note and a printed receipt. Checking the receipt first, his jaw dropped at the items listed. There was a delivery that was going to be made to his Malibu mansion within the next few days for several large amounts of different metal alloys that he had been itching to get his hands on for his suit and that were damn near impossible to get a hold of (legally, at least). He opened the folded note and something fell out of it. As he reached for the dropped item, which turned out to be a silver charm in the shape of the letter 'L', Tony read the only two words written on the paper in a very neat script:
"Thank you."
Smiling at the charm before pocketing it, he put the note and the receipt in a secure drawer before heading upstairs.
"Anytime, Lefty," Tony said under his breath with a smile.
Authors Note: I got the idea from a random writing prompt on pinterest and decided to flesh it out. I hoped you enjoyed, please rate and review!