The guest suite at the top of Stark Tower has the most decadent shower on the planet, Bucky decides, as he scrubs what feels like a year's worth of grime out of his hair and off his skin. Water pounds at him from every conceivable angle; he barely has to turn at all to get the scalding spray hammering at the knots between his shoulders.
He leans against the wall with his elbows, resting his forehead on the tile, and watches suds and water swirl down the drain at his feet. For the first time in weeks, there isn't a single stain of ink on his arms or chest. He scrubbed himself raw and pink, figures Tony and Steve did the same. Everything's gone. Even the Sharpie he used on his hand hours ago is so faint, it's practically invisible.
It's harder to believe it happened with his skin clean and unmarked. He shuts the water off and steps out, wrapping a towel around his hips and wiping the mirror clear of steam with his palm.
The gulag has taken its toll, despite his relatively short stay there. He looks shocky and pale, eyes a bit too big, face thin from shitty gulag food, hair too long and shaggy. He makes a face at himself and pulls another towel over his head, scruffing the water out of his hair with the thick terrycloth. Even if he dreamed the whole soulmate thing, he's back in the States in a luxurious bathroom and Jesus Christ, what's the thread count on these towels anyway? It feels like being dried by a cloud.
He finds a brush in the medicine cabinet — in a box, of all things, marked 100% Boar Bristle. Is this an actual lived-in home, or did he accidentally wander into a ritzy hotel? — and starts making himself presentable. He's not sure when it happened, but someone's been in to take his filthy, stained rags off the floor, leaving only a few lines of dirt to mark where he dropped them. His fine-tip Sharpie, the only thing he had in his pockets, sits on top of a stack of clean clothing, still in plastic packaging. Black track pants, and a blue tee-shirt with Captain America's iconic shield on the front, all still in its packaging. Bucky pulls the bright yellow post-it off the shirt's plastic wrap, and can't help but smirk a little.
Steve appreciates soulmates wearing his mark, Tony's handwriting declares. But if you don't want to wear it, I appreciate soulmates wearing nothing at all. Either way. We win. -T
Soulmates. The word bounces around in his head again, rattles through his skull. Reflexively, he looks at his hands again, inspects the entirety of his body for anything that can confirm what he's still half-convinced was a hallucination brought on by maddening thirst back in that cell. He sees nothing except his own barely-visible printing.
It's uncharacteristic, but intense. In a sudden burst of uncertainty, he picks up the pen, uncaps it and, on the inside of his arm down by his elbow, he writes this is real, right? before he loses his nerve. Almost immediately, he feels writing crawling across the hollow of his hip, skittering down the crease of his leg. Property of T. Starkangles over his hip and curves gently down towards his groin. Trespassers will be toad, the words continue, across his thigh. I know a witch.
Real enough for you? appears under his question on his arm.
TONY, scrolls across his inner wrist soon after, in Steve's handwriting. STOP IT. I'M MEETING FURY.
It's driving him insane because he can't check, writes Tony on the top of his thigh. Fury'll keep him for hours. Wanna come draw on me in places that'll put a blush on Captain Puritanical's cheeks?
Bucky taps the pen against his teeth as he considers. This hasn't gotten anything but more surreal, and for a brief moment, he wonders if it's worth his time to run now, before he's in too deep to get out.
Or not. You know, whatever.
He stares at the words, hastily appearing in a scrawl down his arm, jagged and rushed. And Bucky winces. Tony is terrified of rejection, Steve said on the quinjet, and here's more proof of that, if he needs it.
SHIELD's files on Tony don't paint him in any sort of flattering light. Reckless, they say. Self-centered. Narcissistic. Self-destructive. Those are just the highlights from the heavily redacted file Hill handed him weeks ago before he went off on his Benny Hill mission to Siberia to save Natasha, part of the standard information package every agent is expected to read when dealing with missions involving any of the Avengers.
None of what he's read gels with any of the albeit brief interactions he's had with Tony. It's easy to think that it had been Steve pulling his Captain America strings that mounted the rescue mission, but Bucky's got the sneaking suspicion solidifying into knowledge that Tony, once convinced of a second soulmate, had raised hell and torn down mountains to get SHIELD moving on the op.
He isn't sure how he knows, but he knows it.
You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything.
Bucky sighs, drags the cap off the pen with his teeth again. Even as the tip of the pen touches his flesh, Tony's other words fade and run, smear and vanish. "Goddammit, Tony," Bucky grumbles, and carefully prints:
I was promised a cheeseburger.
I don't do art on an empty stomach.
Feed me first.
He dresses while he waits, hauling pants and shirt on rapidly. He doesn't have to wait long. With almost frightening speed, Tony's handwriting appears again.
Meet me downstairs.
Best cheeseburger in the world.
Bucky shakes his head slowly and fingercombs his hair out of his face, using the mirror as a guide. Goddammit, it's already too late to get out. It's barely been a day, and he's too deep to run away.
"Buck up, Barnes," he tells his reflection with a wry grin. "Could be worse. Coulda been Natasha who wrote on you."
There's a terrifying thought.
oOoOoOo
Tony takes him to Brooklyn, of all places, to a hole-in-the-wall diner called McLeary's that looks like it's a bad week away from going out of business. The street is empty with hardly a car parked on it, a rare enough sight in New York as it is, but there isn't any foot traffic near the diner either. The window is grimy with dust, so he can't see in properly, but if it's anything like this neighbourhood, no one's moving anywhere. Even the building is almost falling apart, and Bucky eyes it dubiously as he and Tony approach, wondering if it's going to collapse in on itself if the door closes too hard.
"This place sells the best burgers in the continental US?" he says.
"Hell yes it does," Tony replies, holding the door open with an outstretched arm and sweeping his free hand, palm up, to indicate Bucky should go first. "This place has been here since the 20s," he continues conversationally, shoving his hands into his pockets and following behind once Bucky's through. "Steve introduced me to it. I thought he was delusional at first, you know. A burger joint from the Roaring Twenties still in operation and they also happened to make the best burgers anywhere? I didn't even sort of believe him."
In contrast to the mess of their building and property outside, the interior of McLeary's is clean, spacious and modern. He's worked a few food service jobs before, would rather stab his eyes out before taking another one. His experience has been resoundingly negative all across the board. But the staff here aren't counting the minutes left in their shift. They're actively enjoying their work, chatting amicably with the tables of patrons and giving their coworkers genuine smiles.
That might say reams more than any Yelp review.
A waitress breaks away from the pack across the room and walks towards them, pausing only to grab a pair of menus from the stack on the counter. "Hi Tony," she says happily, surprising Bucky with both the familiarity and the obvious pleasure to see them. "Do you want a table? Or is it takeout again?"
"Hi, Laura," Tony says, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head and returning her smile with an easy grin of his own. "We're going to be lazy and sit today, I think. Unless—" He half-turns to Bucky, an eyebrow up. "Unless you want to eat outside? Is that a thing you like doing? That seems like something I should know."
It's such a minor thing to be so worried about, but there's real concern in Tony's expression. "Table's fine," Bucky says. Tony's terrified of rejection, echoes Steve's voice in his head, and Bucky's starting to think that it's happened often enough that Tony's going to have small panic attacks over just about everything. "Lazy sitting's good."
"Table it is, then, please, Laura." Tony beams at him before following the waitress. Bucky trails behind, shaking his head. "How's Benny doing, by the way? Did he get his science project done in time?"
Bucky can do nothing but trail behind the waitress, happily chattering about her son's school triumphs, shaking his head at the incongruity of what Tony's SHIELD file says versus what is actually observable behaviour. Self-centered, narcissistic and dismissive isn't gelling with how Tony keeps asking Laura about her son, her life, her job, her elderly father with Parkinson's for chrissake, and gently but firmly turning away any questions about himself.
It could be that he's just putting on a show for Bucky, but somehow, Bucky doesn't think that's the case at all.
"…so hopefully a space will open in the retirement community," Laura says to Tony, "because otherwise, I don't know how we'll manage. His symptoms are getting worse, and I worry about leaving him alone."
Tony's nothing but sympathetic, and reaches out to pat her hand. "I'm sure things will work out," he says gently. "It's always rough to watch someone change in front of you."
"Yeah," Laura says with a tremulous smile, then swipes at her eyes, busies her hands smoothing out her apron. "But listen to me, rambling on while you two are probably starving. Let me get you a menu, gentlemen."
"Just the usual, Laura," Tony says, then slides his gaze to Bucky, and is suddenly uncertain.
"I've been told this place has the best cheeseburgers in the country," Bucky says, tipping a lopsided smile up to Laura. "One'a those'd be just fine." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tony's shoulders loosen, relax, and resists the urge to shake his head. "Stack it with everything. I'm not picky when I'm hungry."
"You got it, sweetie," Laura says, and treats him to genuine smile. "One IronShield special, coming right up."
Bucky arches an eyebrow at Tony as Laura bustles away. "IronShield?"
Surprisingly, Tony looks embarrassed and scratches at the back of his head, toying with the phone on the table in front of him with his other hand. "It's a thing," he says uncomfortably. "Some kid online apparently started it for her fanfiction, and the media caught it. It's kind of everywhere." He looks up with a consternated grimace. "I'm surprised you haven't heard it before. We're like the world's most visible power couple."
Bucky shrugs, murmurs a thank you as Laura returns long enough to drop off a pitcher of water, and pours himself a glass. "SHIELD keeps me pretty busy," he says, crunching ice between his teeth. "Don't really have a lot of time to check Twitter from the ass end of the world."
"That must be nice. I mean that." Tony stops fiddling with his phone and scoops it up, tucking it away again. He pauses, then makes a face. "Well, maybe not the ass-end of the world. I'm a creature of comfort. If it doesn't have running water, doors that lock and room service, I have no interest in visiting." He takes a deep breath, looks like he's gearing up for an unpleasant topic, and squares his shoulders. "Which is something we definitely need to talk about, I think."
Bucky sucks another ice cube into his mouth and chews it thoughtfully. "I don't see how we need to talk about Twitter or the ass end of the world," he says. "Unless this is normally how you run things on dates, that is."
Tony blinks, a man abruptly derailed from his train of thought. "Date?"
Bucky grins, pops more ice into his mouth and crunches through it noisily. "Is there another word soulmates are supposed to use? You invited me draw dirty things on you, I said feed me first, and here we are in Brooklyn getting burgers. Sounds like a date to me."
Bucky doubts Tony's ever caught without a snappy comeback, but all he does is gape at Bucky for a moment that just keeps stretching on. "I don't understand," Tony said finally, faint and bewildered. "You came here for a date."
"You didn't? I should feel insulted." The smell of burgers and dill and bacon and fresh fries hits Bucky's nose and his stomach yawns open. He glances over, following the scent with his twitching nose, and sees Laura returning with their plates.
"Here you go, gentlemen," she says cheerfully. "One bacon cheeseburger, hold the sauce, Monterey pepper jack, on a toasted sesame seed bun with sweet potato fries and ketchup on the side," as the plate goes in front of Tony, and Bucky's mouth is watering as his own plate is lowered. "And one All-American, double cheeseburger, extra everything, hand cut wedges, regular fries, and a side of gravy. Anything else I can getcha right now? Soda, tea?"
"Naw," Bucky says, all eyes for his burger and impatient for her to leave so he doesn't embarrass his mother and the manners she taught by falling on his plate like a starving wolf in front of the waitress. "I'm fine with water, thanks."
"Fine here too, Laura. You're a peach." Tony still sounds like someone just walloped him over the head, but he reaches out and tugs his plate towards him.
"Enjoy, then. Change your mind, just flag me down."
Bucky's first bite is heaven, and the second is bliss. The third convinces him of Tony's claim — this really is the best cheeseburger on the continental US. He makes embarrassingly short work of the burger, licking his fingers one by one before starting on the wedges and fries. On the fringe of his vision, he can see Tony watching him in frank amazement, not even touching his own food, just staring at Bucky.
For a moment, Bucky wants to be self-conscious, but something tells him Tony doesn't really care. He straightens up, stuffs a handful of fries in his mouth and chews for a bit. He points with another fry at Tony's plate, an off-handed gesture. "You gonna eat that?" he says, after swallowing enough to be understandable.
Tony starts, then hunches protectively over his plate, circling it with his arms. "Yes," he says indignantly. "I am."
Bucky grins and bites into the last wedge with a semi-polite snap of his teeth. "Better get to it, then," he says with a smirk. "I'm starvin'. And it looks good. Eat it, or I will."
Tony sulks, but picks up his burger and takes a bite. "What is it about the universe," he mutters, "that it has to send nothing but nags and food thieves into my life?"
"Just luck, I guess." Bucky drains his water glass, and then sits back with a pleased, sated feeling. He really wants another burger, dammit. Best to let the first one settle, though. "So let's hear it."
Tony pauses mid-chew, and a brief, hunted look flashes across his face. He swallows and says cautiously, "Hear what?"
Bucky drums his fingers on the table. "What this was supposed to be, if it isn't a date. I'm sure you have reasons, all neat and bullet-point in your head."
Tony looks faintly indignant. "No one uses bullet points anymore!"
"Pretty sure that's not true. All my mission briefs have bullet points in 'em." Bucky decides he's got enough room for another burger after all, and signals Laura with a series of hand gestures that involve pointing hopefully at his empty plate and giving her puppy dog eyes. When she gives him a thumbs up and goes towards the kitchen, he grins and turns his full attention back to Tony, who's got his phone out, frowning down at the screen as he taps with his thumb. "I get the impression this is a conversation you don't want to have," he says wryly.
"Is that the impression I'm sending?" Tony's raised eyebrows are entirely too innocent, and he tucks his phone away again. "I'm kind of a busy guy. I run companies. Well, a company. The only company that matters, in some circles. It occupies a lot of my time. Attention. Life. Especially if I end up in the workshop."
"I dunno about all that," Bucky says, smiling gratefully at the second plate Laura brings him, "but dodging questions sure as shit occupies a lot of your time. Kinda like you to answer it, Tony."
Tony frowns, taps a knuckle on the table. "I thought I did," he says.
"Not even a little," Bucky mumbles around his burger, and proceeds to devour this one too, with speed and efficiency. And he waits for Tony to get that hesitant look off his face and say something.
"Steve's a lot better at this bullshit than I am," Tony says, so bluntly Bucky chokes a little in surprise. "He's going to remember the birthdays and anniversaries and other important dates. He's the one who's good at comfort. He's the nice guy. I'm the asshole who forgets everything and disappears for days and doesn't remember to sleep and can't function like a human being half the time. I'm sure you've seen the SHIELD report by now. I know they hand that thing out as part of their Welcome to Secret Agent Fury Force orientation kit."
Bucky finishes his burger, slides the plate to the side and slouches back in his chair, one elbow hooked around the post at the top. He stretches a leg, hooks an empty chair with his toes, and tugs it so he can cross his ankles over the seat. There are any number of places he could leap in and interrupt, make counterpoints even just based on their very brief acquaintance, but he's full and exhausted, and it's probably easier to just let a no-doubt-equally-exhausted Tony ramble himself quiet.
"Not a word is false, you know. Every single bit is true. So I fully endorse Steve. The man oozes honor and apple pie and has to be a unicorn because God, no one is that perfect. Except he manages it. So yeah. Steve. Go for it. But you really might want to think twice about taking the package deal."
When Tony finally trails off into silence and gives him a thin, hollow, armor-shell grin, Bucky gives Tony his very best unimpressed stare, the one that Natasha calledadequate. "You done? Got it out of your system?"
Confusion furrows Tony's forehead, and doubt creeps into his eyes, wary doubt.
"Good. I assume all that—" He twirls his fingers at Tony. "—was your way of telling me that you're godawful and piss-poor at relationships. Then you should be pitying Steve, cos I'm not much better. I'm an asshole, and I got no problem letting people know what I think of them. Including superior officers. Especially superior officers. My last evaluation suggested I take great joy in tearing into whatever asshole thinks he can handle me. That's verbatim, by the way, and if you know Coulson—" Tony's involuntary, amused snort suggests he does. "—then you understand exactly how frustrated he has to be to swear, let alone in an official report."
He drops his feet off the chair and leans forward on his elbows on the top of the table. "I might have been off in the ass-end of the world, Tony, but I know who you are, and what you do. Don't think a fuckin' soul on Earth missed your happy ass flying a warhead through a dimensional rift and dropping out of the sky like a goddamn rock. Yeah, I read your file. Well. Parts of your file. Not recommended for the Avengers Initiative, right? Well, they sure as shit came running quick when they needed you, didn't they?"
"I actually kinda forced my way in on that operation," Tony says. "Hijacked top secret communications channels so I could play entrance music and everything. Steve was not amused. Course, we didn't know we were, you know." Tony fiddles with the cuff of his shirt. "Pen pals. Not that it would have changed anything, I don't think."
Bucky rolls his eyes and raises his voice a few notches, cutting in swiftly as Tony takes a breath. "The point is, they had any number'a ways they could have gotten rid of you, but they didn't. So what does that tell you?"
"Terrible judgement on behalf of the hiring committee director?" Tony deflates at the second unimpressed look Bucky gives him. "I don't know, Barnes. That I'll be forever alone and end up building a robot army to help me take over the world?"
Bucky grins, props one foot against the edge of the empty seat he'd been using as a foot rest. "Sounds awesome to me. Resistance is futile." He laughs out loud at Tony's flabbergasted look. "The ass-end of the world still has Star Trek, Stark," he says with a smirk. "And Star Trek is on basic cable nowadays."
Tony's mouth opens and closes another few times, before his shoulders slump and a smile, a real, genuine smile, curves his mouth and goes all the way to his eyes. "You got me," Tony says, spreading his hands. "I actually have nothing to say to that. It's a rarity, but it happens from time to time. Well played, Barnes."
Before Bucky can reply, Tony's phone beeps twice, and he quickly pulls it out of his pocket to check his messages. His smile becomes a lopsided, pleased grin, and he thumb-types rapidly for a moment. Then he puts his phone away again and glances in the direction of the waitstaff. "Let's take this outside, okay? I have a gut feeling people are going to be loud in here soon."
Bucky eyes him. "Gut feeling, huh? If you say so."
Tony fishes his wallet out and absently drops a couple of bills on the table, then twists to get his jacket off the back of his chair. Bucky just goggles for a moment, because Tony hasn't seemed to notice that both bills are fifties, which is about a four hundred percent tip for Laura by his groggy mental math.
He doesn't say anything, because damn, Laura probably deserves the tip. He just can't help but wonder where exactly the customers like Tony were when he was waiting tables back in college.
They make it all the way to the door, almost through it, when a shriek erupts behind them. Instinct has him whirling, crouched and tensed for a threat, but it's just Laura, staring at her phone in wide-eyed disbelief, a hand clapped over her mouth. "A bed freed up!" she chokes out, hand fanning at her face, clutching the thin gold necklace around her throat. "Oh god, a bed freed up."
Bucky straightens, then turns to look at Tony, who has a suspiciously innocent expression. "I suppose you know nothing about that," he says.
"Not a thing," Tony replies, wide-eyed and guileless. "Let's go before someone assumes I do."
oOoOoOo
Tony doesn't seem inclined to talk as they walk the couple blocks back to the underground parking garage where he left the Audi. That's fine; Bucky's not terribly inclined to push him at the moment. He's still trying to puzzle out the mercurial shifts he's seen, still trying to reconcile the man in the SHIELD report to the man he's just spent the last hour with. It isn't so much as to how they're the same man, but how no one saw this.
He doesn't understand how anyone missed the deep insecurity and uncertain self-worth beneath the veneer of brashness and attitude. Hell, he's not even a profiler, and Bucky sees it clear as day. Tony acts like a man who can't believe his luck, but is resigned to preparing for that luck to vanish at any moment without warning.
Actually, it kinda pisses him off, if he's being honest with himself. Less than twenty-four hours, and he's already sick of it. He has no idea how Steve's put up with it for so long.
"You don't like taking credit for shit, do you?" he asks suddenly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Tony keeps going for a couple of paces, then halts and turns quizzically around. "Why?"
Tony's eyes are hard to read, hidden behind his red-tinted sunglasses. Heedless of the minor foot traffic, he obstructs half the sidewalk to stare thoughtfully at Bucky. Then, the corner of Tony's mouth twists up, but there's nothing humorous about the smile. It's pure self-deprecation, arrogant and smirking. "I don't need to see my last name plastered everywhere, and the publicity that comes from doing something like that would require I start slapping the Stark Industries brand on everything in sight. The CEO's a heartless, greedy warmonger, haven't you heard?"
Bucky tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, tilts his head and watches Tony evenly. "I did. But I thought Stane was dead."
Tony flinches as violently as if Bucky had hauled off and smacked him in the face, and the arrogant smirk vanishes like smoke. "I was talking about me," he says quietly.
"I wasn't." Bucky tilts his head, brushes his hair back out of his eyes, and watches Tony. "Jesus, Tony. I haven't slept since Siberia, and you probably haven't slept in longer. Aren't you too tired to keep up the song and dance? Christ knows I am."
Tony's eyes are suddenly weary, heavy, shadowed. "I'm not much without the song and dance, Barnes," he says. "Probably for the best if you figure that out now."
Bucky pulls a hand out of his pocket to press into his temple, rubbing circles with his thumb. It might be time to change tactics. It's manipulative as hell, and he despises the necessity, but he's sleep deprived and losing his patience with this particular brick wall. He can't really say why this is so important right this second, to be acknowledged. It's fast, so very fast. It hasn't even been a full day yet, and it's pushy. But he's one of the best agents SHIELD has, and his soulmates are the most prominent superheroes on the planet. It might be the exhaustion, it might be the shock catching up to his brain, it might be a host of things. But right now, he is hyperaware of the fact that he could have died in Siberia, that Tony or Steve could fall tomorrow. That this might be the only moments any of them get.
And he just can't find it in himself to let the chance pass.
"Alright," he says tiredly. "I get it, okay? You got a good thing with Steve, so you're tryin' to let me down easy cos you don't want or need another person fucking it up. S'alright, Tony. Most people have soulmates they never meet. What's that saying, ships passing?" He shrugs, doing his best to ignore how much more stricken Tony's face becomes with every word. "And it's not like we really know each other either, right? I understand. Thanks for pulling me out of that hellhole. I appreciate it. If you ever need me to return the favor, just scribble a note, yeah?"
And he sticks out his hand, like he intends to shake and walk away.
He really hopes to Christ he knows what the fuck he's doing.
Tony stares incredulously between his face and his hand, and Bucky fights to keep his face pleasantly neutral, a nearly impossible task that only grows harder the longer the moments stretch without either of them moving. Just as he's just about ready to drop his hand and actually walk away — and if that doesn't work, he's pretty well backed himself into a corner there, cos he's fucked if he can think of anything else to do — Tony's arm shoots out, cobra quick, and his fingers latch around Bucky's wrist, tight and hot and strong. Warmth blooms, spreads up Bucky's arm, into his shoulders, loosens the tight knots twisting his muscles.
"No," Tony says, eyes haunted, but tone firm. "Stay. Please?"
A breath Bucky didn't even know he was holding lets go in a long, relieved sigh. "I'm not going anywhere," he says, turns his hand under Tony's and yanks him in. He hesitates there, mid-process of sliding his other arm around Tony's waist. Huh. It'd never occurred to him that Tony would be shorter, until Tony was halfway plastered against his front. That's a pleasant surprise
Tony stares up at him, eyes narrowed. "What are you waiting for?"
Bucky blinks, kinda lost in the flecks of hazel, and smiles slowly. "Consent?"
Tony makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat, lunges upward and yanks down on Bucky's head with the hand around the nape of his neck. As first kisses go, it's an ugly one, starting when their teeth click together, and Tony bites his own lip with a muffled yelp. But the first leads to the second, the second to the third. Somewhere around the fifth or ninth or twentieth (he's lost count), with Tony backed up against a wall just inside the mouth of a nearby alley, moaning into his mouth, clothing disarrayed and hands roaming everywhere, Bucky becomes aware that they've drawn something of a small crowd.
Abruptly realizing he's out in public in Brooklyn with an eager engineer's fingers making short work of his belt buckle, he jerks away, hand grasping at his pants desperately to keep them from falling. "Tony," he hisses sharply as Tony tries to get his hands at Bucky's pants again. "Stop, Tony."
"What?" Tony's half hazy, half irritated, but turns his head and blinks several times at the murmuring group. "Oh. Shit." He clears his throat, puts on his best winning smile and opens his mouth, no doubt to start spinning the situation in a more positive light than how it appears. That's when the little old lady hops up to the front of the group and starts hollering at Tony for cheating on a national icon "on the streets where he grew up for chrissake! What the hell is wrong with you, you pervert?"
Tony smiles brightly, clears his throat again, fixes the fit of his clothing as the woman keeps yelling, attracting more attention from more angry faces. "Barnes? Run ."
They barely make it to the private garage unscathed.
oOoOoOo
Later
If Steve had to pick one thing that irks him the most about the 21st century, it's the obnoxious assumption that the public has a right to intrude into every aspect of a public figure's life, no matter how private a matter that aspect might involve. He's barely had time to eat and shower since returning from Siberia with Bucky in tow, let alone unwind and sleep. Most people assume just because he can go without for days, he'll be chipper and smiling the entire time, but he gets as tired as anyone else after awhile. He's just better at ignoring the physical effects.
Stepping out of the Triskelion is a superhuman test of his patience. Not only has he been in closed-door meetings most of the day, engaging in righteous tirades against SHIELD's attempts to censure he and Tony for their rescue operation, there's a pack of vulturous tabloid reporters waiting at the end of the day, each with cameras and smartphones, shoving microphones in his face and demanding to know what his reaction is to the news that Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, is cheating on him with what is no doubt a male prostitute he picked up in Brooklyn. His initial reaction is to stare blankly at the sea of screaming faces for a moment. When the lightbulb clicks on, he starts laughing and pushes his way through the crowd with random, chuckling "No comments" to the reporters.
An unmarked SHIELD van waits for him at the kerb in front of the door and he slides into the front seat still laughing. He's still laughing as he buckles himself up, as he tells the driver where he'd like to go, and laughs most of the way home.
It's mostly died off by the time he steps into the express elevator, but he's still very amused as JARVIS greets him and activates the elevator. "Is Tony still dishonoring our bond-bed, JARVIS?" he asks, and that nearly sends him off into guffaws again, because it might be a polite way of phrasing it, but hearing it shouted at him from across a dozen other voices yelling cruder things was just downright hilarious.
"I'm afraid not, Captain," JARVIS replies politely. "Agent Barnes and sir restricted their defilements to the couch. The sanctity of your and sir's bed appears to be intact."
"Thank you JARVIS," he says, and struggles to hold it together, because he's as close to an asthma attack from laughing too hard as he's ever been since Project Rebirth. He manages to keep it under control, but it's a very near thing.
"I am ever at your disposal, Captain," JARVIS says as the doors open into the foyer of the penthouse suite Steve shares with Tony.
He drops the contents of his go bag down the laundry chute and puts the duffel itself away in its proper drawer before bending to untie his boots. "I'm home, Tony!" he calls absently, sliding first one boot off and then the other, and nearly groaning in relief when he can wiggle his toes properly.
"We're in the living room, honeybunch!" Tony calls back, oddly softly.
Steve perks up, a wash of contentment flushing through him for the first time since Bucky's writing appeared on his arm. Both soulmates, safe and sound, in his living room. Something tight and uncomfortable eases in his chest at the thought, and he pads barefoot towards the sound of the television.
Bucky and Tony are on the couch, and Steve sees the reason for Tony's subdued response immediately. Tony's sitting up, though sprawled against the backrest, in his red silk robe with his hair still wet from the shower. Bucky is sprawled along the length of the couch, with his head pillowed on Tony's thigh. Steve isn't sure Tony's aware of it, but his hand is petting rhythmically through Bucky's hair. Which also seems to be wet from the shower.
Steve allows himself a brief moment to imagine what that happy scene might have looked like, as he crosses the room and bends to kiss Tony hello. He's slightly disappointed to discover that Tony only tastes like toothpaste, not other, headier flavors.
Tony's got his eyebrow up when Steve pulls back. "Separate showers," he says softly. "Since I know you've got such a filthy mind underneath that facade of apple pie and wholesomeness."
"A man can dream, Tony," Steve says with a smile, and shifts over to his armchair, easing into it with a groan of relief that has nothing to do with aching bones and everything to do with finally being home to relax. "I hear you two had an eventful day."
Tony grimaces. "You got ambushed. Who was it? Enquirer ? TMZ? Cosmopolitan?"
"The whole known world, I think," Steve says honestly. "They wanted to know how Captain America felt about Iron Man, his soulmate and team co-captain, cheating on him with a male prostitute he picked up on the streets of Brooklyn."
Tony whistles, absently pets through Bucky's hair as he murmurs something and shifts in his sleep. "Is that where we are now? Before we turned the TV off, they were still suggesting he was my mistress. There's a lot of wild rumors flying right now. Ironically, not one of them actually postulates he's a second soulmate for us." Tony shakes his head and blows out a sigh. "Not even that lunatic Bible-thumper who claims he has multiple soulmate wives suggested it."
"One would think he'd be all over that as supporting his claim," Steve says, looking around for the TV remote and finding it under an ottoman. He leans back in the chair and shoves the lever forward, bringing the footrest out and giving him somewhere to swing his legs. "Triads are rare, but they're known to happen."
"Might be that we're a gay triad, which is, you know, icky. " Tony rolls his eyes and starts absently braiding a section of Bucky's hair with his fingers. "Which reminds me, that other lunatic Bible-thumper, the one with the Fox morning show, is back to calling me the Antichrist again."
Steve snorts. "Did you sacrifice another oil well in the name of the Devil, by any chance?"
Tony grins. "Nothing so fun. It's the standard accusation. You know. Debauching and perverting an American national icon, which boils down to, I assume, turning you gay and liberal and then enjoying your body."
"If the shoe fits," Steve replies easily.
"I'm more than happy to take credit for regularly debauching the living symbol of patriotism and freedom for all," Tony shoots back, "but I certainly did not turn you gay. You were gay when I found you."
Steve scoffs, shifts to a more comfortable position. "That's not going to help anything. For Christ's sake, Tony. Brooklyn ? Did you go there to fulfil a death wish?"
"I took him for a burger, Steven ," Tony says, eyes narrowing. "We went to McLeary's. Was I supposed to hide him away like Harry Potter in the cupboard? He was hungry! I was hungry! We had burgers !"
Sometimes, Steve wonders what his life would be like if he wasn't attached to Tony by the soul. Usually, he ends up concluding it wouldn't actually matter. Tony is Tony, no matter what. "You had your hands down his pants around the corner from my childhood home! Less than a block from the orphanage I grew up in!" Steve hisses. "The Statue of Liberty would have been a less sacred site for the guys in the old neighbourhood!"
"Don't give me ideas!" Tony hisses back. "I have ample access to helicopters and sex toys and carte blanche to the city of New York's airspace! I can have an orgy planned, staffed and populated in under thirty minutes!"
Steve feels the vein behind his left eye start pulsing. "Don't you dare," he says dangerously. "Don't you dare defile Lady Liberty."
"You guys are fuckin' weird," Bucky mumbles, rolling his face into Tony's thigh. "And loud. But mostly weird."
"Aren't you glad you're stuck with us?" Tony says lightly, and laughs softly when Bucky just grumbles and grunts.
"Should have run when he had the chance," Steve agrees. "Too late now, though."
Bucky grunts again, and cracks open a baleful eye that focuses right on Steve. "You'll pay," he says darkly. "But in the meantime, does a guy gotta beg to get a fuckin' kiss hello, or what? Christ. Had enough trouble getting one fella to nut up and keep me around. I thought you'd be the easy one, Stevie."
"Oh, Stevie is definitely the easy one," Tony says breezily, and detangles from Bucky's hair as he sits up. Steve, halfway out of his chair, turns a glare on Tony, who just smirks cheerfully at him. "All you have to do is—"
"Rather find out for myself, thanks."
Steve's never been one for showmanship, never thought a first kiss to be more important than any other. That approach worked on Tony, to just kiss him for the first time like they'd done it a thousand times already. But for some reason, he can't find that equanimity now for Bucky. He's uncommonly nervous as he bends down to meet Bucky, to fit their mouths together.
The first soft, tentative kiss turns into a deeper, groaning one. Two kisses turns into five, turns into Tony's hands sliding into both of their hair, turns into clothing shed and tripping over furniture and hands roaming, caressing, scratching, turns into them spilling into the giant bed in the master bedroom and forgetting the rest of the world exists beyond the confines of the four posters and the satin sheets.
Much later, Steve drifts to sleep wrapped in limbs and hair and blue light and soft snores and blankets, secure in the knowledge that nothing else is going to go wrong.
oOoOoOo
Two Days Later
Thick black ink crawls over Tony's face five minutes before Pepper's press conference is due to begin. They're already on the dais, and there's no time to call makeup in to cover the lines. Steve watches with horror as it very rapidly becomes the shape of a gigantic penis. Reflexively, he slaps a hand to his own face, feeling the skittering in his own skin, and hastily reaches over his shoulder to haul the cowl of his uniform back over his face.
"That little bastard," Tony laughs, examining the ink in a borrowed compact, touching the lines. "Oh, that evil inappropriate shithead."
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see Pepper visibly making an effort to control herself, and Tony's face is lit up with unholy glee as he examines the drawing.
"Maybe put your helmet on," Steve suggests uncomfortably, but Tony just blinks at him.
"Why would I do that?" he asks. "It's a thing of beauty, really."
"It's a dick on your face, Tony!" Pepper hisses. "It's going to make people uncomfortable. Put your goddamn helmet on."
Tony pouts and hands the compact back to the staffer he borrowed it from. "Fine," he grouses, clomping over to the chair where he left it and jams it over his head. "But all bets are off if they want proof of a third soulmate."
Of course they want proof. And of course Tony obliges, breezily and without shame whipping his helmet off, showing off his ink, and answering questions for nearly the rest of the duration of the press conference.
But that's not the worst part. No, the worst part is not when Tony successfully ropes Steve into joining the conversation, as the other third of their partnership. And the worst part is not that it's the trigger point for one of the most terrifying relationships in history to start in Stark Tower, in the Avengers common room, as Bucky and Clint howl in laughter at the screen and throw popcorn, and bond on a shared love of schadenfreude.
The worst part is that Fox News ends up with clips of a very uncomfortable, red-faced Captain America diplomatically talking stylistic interpretation of erotic art on live TV, and they air them for everything for all eternity .
Told ya you'd pay, says Bucky's cheerful writing on his arm.