To save himself the trouble of any further argument, Tony decides not to sleep in his and Steve's bedroom. Steve isn't happy about it, but he decides that it could be worse; Tony could be spending the night out of the tower altogether. Even if they're not in the same bed, at least they're under the same roof.

The first few days are awkward, but by the fourth day of Tony being home Tony has established that the kitchen and living room are neutral areas. Steve mainly hovers around the bedroom and upper floors, and Tony lives in the lab. They don't go out of their perspective boundaries unless it's to venture into one of the neutral areas. That is, until Steve is tired of Tony's ridiculousness and insists on going down to the lab to bring him dinner.

Tony is actually awake, which is surprising, because Steve's not sure the last time he's slept. He bites his tongue and is determined not to start an argument over Tony's whacked sleeping schedule. Instead, he sets the plate of spaghetti in front of him. "Tony?"

"Hm?"

"I've been looking online at some of those marriage counselor testimonials. I think I found someone who could really help."

"Where is it and what time do I have to be there?" Tony almost sighs, but looks up in time to lock eyes with his husband and decides against it.

"I'll leave the address and time on your bedside table."

"But I'm banned from the bedroom."

"You what?"

"Isn't that—? That's the arrangement, isn't it?"

Steve's eyebrows furrow and he looks utterly confused. "You're being ridiculous. You're not banned from anywhere. This is your tower, after all."

Tony hums and clears his throat, shrugging. "I figured you'd kicked me out for good."

Steve rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "Just be there on time. Please?"

"Yeah, yeah. Close the door on your way out," Tony says with a waving motion. When Steve is gone, Tony collapses back into his office chair and scrubs his hands over his face. He realizes that trying to mend his relationship with Steve is going to be tough, but it'll be ten times easier if Tony can convince himself that he actually wants to fix things.

Steve fidgets with his checkered shirt, adjusting the collar as he sits in the small sitting room of the therapist's office. He really shouldn't be surprised that Tony is late. He really shouldn't. And he shouldn't be surprised when Tony does arrive and he's wearing the goddamn Iron Man suit.

"Oh," Steve chuckles, and it's one of those frightening chuckles that he tends to do.

Tony knows he's in trouble. Tony's decision to wear the suit to the counselor's office it to set Steve off in front of the therapist so he can prove that Steve upsets himself over these things and Tony is completely innocent in all of it.

"I left late. Sue me," Tony quips.

Steve mumbles something under his breath about Tony being childish as they're called back to the counselor's office. Tony manages to behave himself for the most part, aside from refusing to get out of the suit and Dr. Williams—Miranda—does her best not to show her amusement.

The first twenty minutes or so pass by fairly quickly, and Steve does most of the talking until Miranda directly asks Tony how he feels about things.

"I don't know," Tony shrugs.

Steve, who has been teary-eyed almost the entire time, gives his husband an incredulous look. "That's all you have to say? You don't know? See, Dr. Williams—"

"I can speak for myself," Tony interjects, sighing. "I don't know how I feel about things. I don't want to give up but I know that both of us need a hell of a lot of work if we're going to stay married."

Miranda nods, and crosses her legs as she leans back in her chair. "Well, since this is the first session we're just going to go over the basics: what your biggest problems are and what you hope to solve with your sessions in therapy."

Steve clears his throat and obviously has something to say, but he and Tony haven't discussed talking about Bucky with the therapist. But Steve takes the liberty of speaking up.

"We—for my birthday—well, it started on my birthday, but an old friend of mine—" Steve groans at his fractured speech. His palms are slightly tacky and he wouldn't be surprised if his cheeks are pink.

"We brought someone else into the relationship," Tony supplies for him, quietly, because just thinking about Bucky hurts like hell. And Tony's kind of shocked, because the fact that he's cheating on Steve doesn't hurt; the fact that he can't be with Bucky hurts.

"Oh," Miranda nods, but she doesn't sound surprised. "And how did that come about?"

"It was for my birthday," Steve mutters, and suddenly looking at Dr. Williams is much more difficult than he could have ever imagined. "He stayed the night, and never really left. I mean—since I married Tony, I hadn't seen much of my friend. He lived with us for about five months, but I asked him to leave because he and Tony had grown close."

"Were you feeling jealous that you and Tony weren't spending much time together?"

Steve nods. "I felt left out."

"That's because you never wanted to do anything we wanted to do," Tony inputs. "You could've sat in there with us and played video games or watched TV, but you didn't. You chose to go work out or read. You never wanted to spend time with the both of us. You just wanted to spend time with me."

"Because you're my husband and—" Steve gets ahold of his emotions before they're out of his control. He takes a deep breath and exhales. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'd like to talk about something else."

Miranda looks to Tony. "Is that okay with you?"

"It's fine," Tony mutters, crossing his arms and flipping the suit's faceplate down.

The session is over and Tony is relieved, but Steve is more upset than he's been in a while.

Tony knows he's in deep shit. At least, for the moment, and tries to listen the mood by asking, "What's for dinner?"

"I can't believe you," Steve responds simply. "You're acting like a child!"

"You've always wanted kids," Tony replies smugly.

Steve spins on his heel and Tony knows he's in trouble. He pops the faceplate so Steve can see him. "I'm sorry," Tony snickers. "I couldn't resist."

"Don't even come home. I don't want to see you right now. I was stupid to think that you would act like a mature adult for more than five minutes."

"You're the one who wouldn't talk about Bucky. That was real mature of you."

"There's nothing to talk about! That's over! It's not a big deal!"

Tony blinks furiously. "Steve, it's a huge deal. We invited him into our lives and then you just pushed him out. If our marriage wasn't in serious trouble, would we have let each other fuck another person?"

Steve groans. "It's not about that! Forget about him; it's not about him."

"Yes, okay, you've established that! But if you aren't at least willing to talk to a counselor about that, how the fuck are we ever going to get anywhere?"

For the first time in a while, Tony actually makes sense, and Steve calms down enough to realize that. He inhales deeply and slowly breathes out.

"You're right," he admits quietly. "I'm sorry, but I don't think talking about Bucky is going to fix our relationship."

"I don't either. I was just trying to make a point."

"I think asking Bucky to move in was the worse decision I've ever made," Steve says.

"Besides this morning when you decided to wear that shirt."

Steve frowns and glances down at the white and blue checkered shirt. "You gave me this shirt."

"Oh," Tony mumbles, because he doesn't really know what else to say.

The memories are so fresh that they burn. They hurt like hell, and no amount of whiskey makes them go away. They incinerate every sense of his being until he's numb enough to close his eyes and remember.

"Mm." James wakes and opens his eyes to find Tony snickering beside him with a permanent marker in his hand. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I fixed it," Tony says, deadpanned, when he gestures to James' bionic arm and caps the marker.

"Fixed what?" He rotates his shoulder to get a proper look at it.

"I fixed it," Tony repeats, pointing to the black 'K' written in permanent marker next to the star. "I added a 'K' so now it's like 'star-k' because you're mine," he explains with a shrug.

James pulls Tony close enough to kiss him, chuckling against his lips. "You're so fucking stupid," he whispers with a smile.

"You know you love me." Tony can't stop smiling now, and looking at James isn't helping matters, so Tony kisses him. It's slow and sweet, and Tony's fingers smooth James' hair back from his face. They kiss for what seems like forever and only stop when Tony's hands start to roam below the blankets. James breaks the kiss with a soft wet sound and hums.

"Not right now," he murmurs, and Tony just smiles at him some more, because when James is sleepy he really doesn't look like someone who has ever been an assassin.

"Okay," Tony whispers, kissing his lover's cheek and then his forehead. "I'll be downstairs if you need me. Go back to sleep."

At the time, Tony remembers thinking that he should add an 'I love you' in there somewhere.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for the comments on the last chapter! Let me know how you think things are progressing.