"Whatcha doing?"

Bucky looked up from his bowl of cereal. "Eating breakfast? We're clean out of oatmeal upstairs and I have no idea how Steve can choke down his own omelettes, so I came down to see if there were any breakfast foods in the common space. Was this cereal someone's?"

"Nah, it's for everyone." Tony poured himself a cup of coffee, a hilarious idea forming in his head. It wasn't every day he had a convenient amnesiac to mess with a little, and without his ever-present overprotective best friend, too. He looked over at Bucky's nearly-empty bowl of cereal and did a double-take. "Whoa, did you put milk on that?"

"Um. Yes." Bucky gave him a confused look. "Is that not a thing?"

"No. No, people still do it. It's just, I thought you were lactose intolerant."

Bucky frowned. "I don't remember that."

"That is not in my database." Added JARVIS.

"I don't know whether it's on record." Tony leaned up against the counter. "Guess it's not, so you should add that, J. But yeah, Steve said you were. I bet that's why his omelettes make you want to puke; he probably puts a ton of cheese in them or something."

"I guess he'd know." Bucky pushed his cereal bowl away, stomach knotting. "Thanks for the warning."

Steve wondered if he could get Bucky to venture out of the tower with him when he went for groceries. He'd bring up the subject after his post-workout shower, he decided. But shower first. Definitely shower first. That had been a good workout.

The bathroom door was closed. Ok. Having a roommate again meant occasionally having to wait for the bathroom.

But wait. He thought he could hear retching. He pressed his ear to the door. Yup. "Bucky? You okay?"

Bucky groaned. Steve had definitely heard. "Don't worry about me."

"Don't tell me not to worry about you. I'm coming in." He opened the door and knelt beside Bucky, taking a good look at him. "Upset stomach, anything else wrong?"

"No."

Steve felt Bucky's forehead. "You're not feverish."

"I'll be fine."

"Maybe I should get Bruce to check you out."

"No, I'll be fine. Really. I just forgot I was lactose intolerant and nobody reminded me until I'd already had milk."

Steve sat back, face clouding with suspicion. Food intolerances hadn't been that common in their day so he wasn't exactly an expert, but he was pretty sure somebody had talked about this particular one in front of him and this didn't seem quite right and besides... "Since when are you lactose intolerant?"

"I don't know. I thought you told your teammates that I was."

"Who told you that?" Steve handed him a glass of water.

"...Tony."

Steve pursed his lips. "Well, you're not."

"So why am I sick after having milk?"

"You are most likely having a psychosomatic reaction induced by Mr Stark playing a trick on you." JARVIS explained. "I have now corrected your records, and I would recommend that you and Captain Rogers work with Dr Banner to bring your medical records properly up to date so that neither of us fall for such a trick again."

"You sure?" Bucky leaned back against the wall, still queasy.

"Quite." Steve passed him a damp washcloth. "I've been cooking with dairy products this whole time and you've never had a problem. How about you freshen up and go relax with a book for a bit? I have something I need to go do."

"Anthony Edward Stark. Explain yourself."

Tony froze. Pepper raised an eyebrow. "Oh dear. A friend of your father calling you by your full name in a dangerously calm tone. Is this what it takes to reduce you to a repentant schoolboy?"

"Shut up Pepper. This isn't funny." Tony tried to sidle behind her. "I'm not here. God he sounds pissed. In fact, I'm on a business trip in China right now."

"Oh no you don't." Pepper stepped away from him in a hurry. "I am not protecting you from a ticked off Captain America. What did you even do?"

"Would you care to explain why I just found my amnestic best friend suffering a psychosomatic reaction?" Steve crossed his arms. Tony gulped. Pepper stepped even further away from Tony.

"Must've eaten your cooking." Tony quipped.

Steve lifted him off the ground by the front of his shirt. "That's funny. I suppose you're going to deny the story that I just heard from Bucky and JARVIS?"

"JARVIS, you traitor!"

There was one panel of glass, up high and in a corner, that hadn't yet been replaced after the last time it had been shattered by an experiment gone wrong. Bucky eyed it, smirked, tucked the bottle of ipecac in his pocket, braced his back against the cement side of the corner, and began levering himself up by the metal supports between the panes of glass. He was the fucking Winter Soldier, and he did not need to use the (locked and alarmed) door to get into Tony's lab.

He barely squeezed through, but he made it, headfirst, planting his hands on the wall and doing a flip down it to land on his feet. Okay, he was in. The lab was just begging to be explored, but first he needed to find the coffee maker and deliver his little present.

As he paced the room, Bucky heard movement behind him. He shrank into the shadows, looking around for the source. He didn't want a fight or damage. He just wanted to get in and out without a trace so that that asshole Tony would drink his coffee without suspecting that anything might have been messed with.

That robot there. It had moved. It had definitely moved. Aw shit. It knew where he was and was headed straight for him. Bucky stayed very still. It didn't look armed or aggressive and there were no alarms going off. In fact, it looked curious. Perhaps if he made no sudden moves he could make it think he was friendly, like it was a dog. Yeah. Get friendly with the guard dog.

"Hey there buddy." He reached a hand out to pat it. The metal one, just in case it tried to do whatever its equivalent of biting might be. "Hi. I'm a friend, okay? I just moved in."

The robot bumped his hand almost affectionately, as if it really were an animal asking to be petted. Bucky patted it gently. Okay. This was working so far.

Eep! The robot's appendage had grabbed him by the wrist. Okay. Deep breaths. Stay calm. It wasn't gripping him hard, it was just kind of...there. "Hey, what're you doing? I'm a friend."

The robot made a cheerful little trill, let go, rubbed against the length of his arm, and grabbed him again, gently tugging on his wrist for him to follow. Bucky did, trying not to laugh with relief as he realized what was going on. The robot thought that his metal arm was a new lab robot and was trying to make friends. This was...wow. It was actually kind of adorable how excited the robot was to show its new friend around. It was dragging Bucky (or rather his arm; Bucky was pretty sure it had yet to realize there was a person attached) from bench to bench, making happy little noises.

And there was the coffee maker. Now to keep the guard dog distracted. Bucky made a point of messing around with other things on the counter with his metal hand, acting the part of a curious robot, while he worked the top off the bottle with his real hand.

Aha! The robot had decided this was a game and was swatting ball bearings back and forth on the countertop with him like a cat. Excellent. He just had to muster the coordination to keep that game up with one hand while dumping the ipecac into the coffee maker with the other without spilling it.

Okay. Mission accomplished.

Shit. Footsteps on the stairs. Bucky dived under the bench, just in time. Safe for the moment, but he needed to get Tony away from the door with his back turned long enough for Bucky to dart out it and around the corner.

Ooh. Extension cord. I wonder what'll fall if I give this a good hard yank...

So...Tony succeeded in pissing off Steve, Bucky, and JARVIS in one go. Nice move buddy.