Warnings: Kidnapping, minor character death (not very angsty)
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"Your Acadian isn't coming to save you," Killian whispered, and Tony had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes.
Sure, he was technically the vulnerable one here, and he shouldn't be feeling anything other than fear. He was, after all, rather helpless. Arms tied above his head and fastened to a thick pole, and his fingers had long since gone numb, so he didn't stand a chance of freeing himself. There was another rope around his hips to keep him from really struggling.
"You should've known better than to trust a mercenary to warm your bed," he continued, and this time, Tony did roll his eyes.
First of all: why did people always try to kidnap him? Second of all: why did the people that kidnapped him always think that that was his weak point? They always tried to get in his head and tell him that Bucky wouldn't come save him because Acadians were assassins that didn't care for anyone but themselves and what remained of their tribe. Tony was convinced that none of these people had ever actually met an Acadian. Really, it was the only logical explanation he could think of for why each and every one of them relied so heavily on the reputation. Also there weren’t very many Acadian’s left, so it was rather unlikely that any of them had even seen an Acadian before.
Third of all: why did these kidnappers call Bucky 'your Acadian' to Tony's face and then genuinely think that he wouldn't come save him? They'd just ascribed ownership, a sense of belonging to each other, and they tried to say that it meant... Bucky wouldn't save him? It didn't make a single shred of sense. Reasoning this out with people had never worked. They thought it was bluster or fast talking or some shit. It wasn't.
He was Bucky's, and Bucky's was his. And Bucky didn't like it when people touched his things.
"Go ahead and scream for him though," Killian said, his voice soft but his hold on Tony's jaw bruising. "I've always wanted to hear a Stark man beg."
"I must've missed a message from the gods that it's my duty to please you." The smarter thing would've been not to say anything at all. If he stalled long enough, then Bucky would save him before he ever got hurt. Unfortunately, Tony didn't do the smart thing when his mouth was running. He expected that he'd get a punch in the gut for that, but an arrow went straight through Killian's head before he had a chance to do anything other than finish breathing out.
There were no other guards in the tent. They were all outside. Or at least, they had been. If Killian was now dead and his blood was slowly staining the canopy of his tent-- which it was-- then all the guards were dead too.
The flap to the tent opened and fluttered closed again without a noise, and Bucky stepped inside. His hair was pulled back, and his eyes, when they met Tony's, were unimpressed. "I don't know if I'm more annoyed with you getting yourself kidnapped again, or with yet another person thinking you were an easy target."
"I know which way my vote goes," Tony said with a bright smile.
"Blaming you?" Bucky said flatly, raising an eyebrow. He got out a knife as he stalked closer, carelessly kicking at Killian's legs, which were in his way. He slipped the knife under the rope and jerked his wrist. A second later, the rope around Tony's hips fell to the ground. He didn't immediately move to cut the other one.
"Hands, please? Because you love me?"
"What I would love," Bucky said in a low voice, moving in so Tony had to tilt his head up to look at him and they were breathing the same air, "is if you stopped letting yourself get kidnapped."
"But you look so good when you rescue me."
"I'll make it worth your while to stay at my side," he promised, eyes dark.
"I could never say no to that,” Tony replied with a smirk.
"You really need to stop telling Natasha what to do," Bucky said, arms folded over his chest.
Tony looked over at him with an internal sigh. He didn't feel like having this conversation, in large part because there was no good way to have it. Everything Natasha told him had been in confidence. He couldn't blab about it to Bucky-- or anyone else-- just because he wanted to. He understood that Bucky was concerned about his friend, but Bucky had no idea he was infringing on an understanding that Natasha had asked him for; he thought he was doing a good thing here.
He couldn't say 'hey, by the way, Natasha asked me to not give her options when we're doing something' because she'd specifically asked for him to keep it between the two of them. He couldn't say 'fuck off' because he didn't want for Bucky to be mad at him and think that there was a deeper problem in their relationship.
"Don't you think that if she had a problem with it, she'd tell me to stop?" Tony ended up saying.
"No," Bucky said bluntly. "She cares about you, and she's afraid she'll lose you if she doesn't act perfect."
"An interesting theory, but it's not true. I can assure you that when she has an issue with me, she says it. Afraid of losing me or not. And shouldn't you have talked to her about this first, to make sure that it bothered her?"
Bucky hesitated.
"You already talked to her," Tony stated, and he nodded. "And she said?"
"To keep my nose out of her business."
"Do I get to know why you ignored that?"
"I don't want her to be hurt. Not that I think you're hurting her," Bucky added. "But- for fuck's sake, Tony, would it kill you to ask her where she wants to eat dinner instead of deciding for her every fuckin' time? Or let her pick what she wants to wear to an event?"
"Again, I'm going to come back to: if she wanted me to stop, she would've said something."
For a minute, it looked like Bucky was going to keep pushing. "I don't want to think you're being controlling," he said slowly, "but I don't see how this is good."
"Good is highly variable," was Tony's immediate response. What had been good for Pepper wasn't good for Natasha, and vice versa.
"If you say so," he muttered, then left.
Tony sighed and reached for his phone and texted Natasha.
From Tony: Bucky doesn't like that I make decisions for you.
From Natasha: Ugh he doesn't know how to let things go. I'll tell him to leave it. Again. If he keeps talking about it, I'll get Clint involved.
That sounded entertaining. Tony was tempted to tell her that Clint should get involved now, but he kept it to himself.
From Tony: Dinner tonight at seven. Italian, because there's a horrible lack of garlic in Steve's cooking. We need to double up on it tonight if we want to survive.
Bucky was in his animal shift, rolling happily around on the floor.
He looked like a real dog in that moment, Tony noted from his perch on the table-- safely out of the way of flailing limbs. His nose twitched, only for him to still in worry a second later.
Bucky had turned onto his side and was rubbing his head against the rug. Not just his head, but his ear, specifically. Like it itched.
Tony hopped off the table and transformed back into human form. "Honey, what are you doing?"
Bucky tilted his head to Tony for a moment, panting happily, then went back to rubbing his ear against the rug.
"Okay, you need to not be doing that," Tony said, mostly to himself.
He knelt down and put his hands on Bucky's stomach. At his touch, Bucky stilled. Tony nudged his head to the side so he could get at the ear that was bothering him. He hesitated for a second, then dug his fingers in, giving the ear a good, hard scratch. Bucky let out a sigh of relief. Now, he was no canine expert, but it seemed to him that his boyfriend might have ear mites. "You might need to go to a real doctor." He let go of Bucky's ear and sat back.
Bucky whined.
"I know you don't like it, but you have to. There's something wrong."
Bucky huffed and pointedly turned onto his other side.
"You realize I'm bigger than you right now, right?" Tony said. He didn't even have to stand up to walk around to Bucky's other side, he could just lean forward.
Bucky pretended not to hear him.
Tony wasn't above playing dirty, so he texted Steve for help. Playing really dirty would be picking up Bucky, but the two of them had rules about that sort of thing; if Bucky wasn't allowed to pick Tony up-- which he wasn't, even though he was aware that he made a very adorable bunny-- then Tony wasn't allowed to pick him up.
Bucky turned back as Tony was putting his phone away, and it was only to peer at Tony suspiciously. "What were you doing?"
"Nothing," Tony said, eyes wide and tone far too innocent-sounding to be real; it was the only way he lied to Bucky-- when he knew for a fact that Tony was lying.
He narrowed his eyes, then transformed back and crawled into Tony's lap.
Tony pet his head, but he was very careful to avoid touching his ear again. He was going to let someone else handle this, someone who was actually qualified to deal with it. In this case, Steve. Not that he was ever going to call Steve 'more qualified' to his face. They didn't have that kind of friendship.
Warnings: Post Civil War movie, Not Team Cap Friendly
Read below or on AO3
"The Rogues are coming back," Carol told him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she leaned against the door frame, trying to pose this as a casual topic of conversation.
"I heard," Tony said. He'd heard when the talks about it had started, and he'd decided that he was going to let them do whatever the hell they wanted to. It wasn't his problem anymore. Even if they all received full pardons for any past crime or indiscretion, and then they were reinstated as superheroes, it wasn't his problem. They had a new team-- Sword, to work hand in hand with the new Shield-- and only existing members could add new members.
He was trying rather desperately to convince himself that this wasn't his problem.
"Has anyone been talking about bringing them into our team?" he asked, because if the answer to that was yes, then it was his problem. Maybe not his problem to solve, but it was a problem in his life that he would then be forced to deal with.
She smiled slightly.
"What?"
"Everyone on the team so far has asked me that. Everyone's worried that someone else might be too blinded by Captain America worship to be logical about this. I am very happy to inform you that not a single person has talked to me about admitting them. In fact, as far as I can tell, everyone's trying to make sure I know that they don't think they'd be able to work with any of the Rogues."
"Even Clint?" Tony couldn't help but ask. It was a stupid question. If he was going to be questioning anyone, it should be Bucky, but then, Bucky had gotten his memories back, adjusted to his new life, joined Sword, and told them that he wasn't sure he knew Steve at all anymore. Bucky had been easy to forgive, once he actually apologized and started knowing who he was and what he was responsible for -- he'd barely known who he was at the time, and he hadn't known Tony at all. Clint was the one that had proved difficult to completely forgive.
"Clint was the first one."
It felt momentous, though it shouldn't have, not really. Clint had told Tony time and time again that he regretted helping Steve without asking any questions or doing any research into the situation. He kept trying to prove himself. He kept being there for Tony. In the beginning, Tony had thought it was guilt. Maybe it had been, at least a little bit, but by now, they were back to how they'd been the first couple months into their relationship. Comfortable, easy. They were gaining back the trust, bit by bit, and Tony had thought he trusted Clint enough, now, that his inquiry about the Rogues shouldn't have affected him.
"If you want to talk to me, you know you can," Carol said.
"If none of us have requested for them to join Sword, I don't know what we'd have to talk about."
"I meant Clint."
Oh. "Oh," he said out loud, because he didn't really have another response ready. He could've blustered his way through it easy enough, but he was trying not to do that with this team. His teammates didn't need a public performance from him. "Thanks, but I don't think it's necessary. It's just... adjusting, now. That's all."
"Fair enough," she said, inclining her head towards him. "I'll let you get back to what you were doing, I just wanted to make sure you knew."
"Thanks, Cap."
She grinned at him, the way she always did when one of them called her Cap.
*
There was a press conference when the Rogues came back, but it wasn't Sword. Tony didn't have to be there. It was by the Rogues, for the Rogues.
Tony and the rest of Sword got together in the common room to watch it, simply because it would be too dangerous not to know what they were saying. He sat on the couch and put Clint's arm around him; Clint pressed a kiss to the side of his head, and then they got settled in to watch.
It was obvious-- to Tony, at least-- that they had been coached on what to say but weren't happy about the questions the reporters were asking. There was talk of reparations, the future of their superheroing, and what exactly had happened within the Avengers to make them fight and splinter like they had. The Rogues had to give neutral answers on all three. The third would be catastrophic to their image if the details got out. The first two were either still in negotiation, or-- more likely-- it was classified and pending a more delicate roll out to the public.
"And to think," Tony whispered to Clint, "that could've been you."
"Not a chance," Clint grinned.
And it was true. Steve had broken into the Raft and broken all of them out. Clint had stayed right where he was in his cell even though the wall to it had been shattered and was little more than a gaping hole. When Tony had shown up, Clint had waved and stayed sitting; he'd only stood when Tony said that he was still under arrest, but he had to be moved somewhere else. Clint's sentence had been reduced greatly in light of how easy it would've been for him to escape-- that he hadn't known what was really happening for the rest of it had also helped: a crime of stupidity, not malice. And after Vision had declined to press charges in light of Clint’s other behavior, there wasn’t a whole lot against him that they couldn’t take care of.
Tony didn't say anything as the press conference finished up, and the Rogues filed off the stage. The news station immediately turned to four people who started analyzing their answers. "We should move your stuff back into my room."
Clint didn't stiffen or jolt, but Tony knew he was surprised. "Are you sure? I thought you hated me leaving my socks everywhere."
"It is one of your more annoying habits," Tony admitted. "But I miss all the purple in the closet."
"Ha! I knew it."
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'll never admit it to anyone else."
"What're we gonna do with all this time?" Spot asked, face scrunched up in a frown. He scratched at the back of his head with one hand, the other resting on his club.
"There's still bull that needs doin'," Jack responded, but he was enjoying the cloudless sky with as much of a carefree air as he could manage. Legs splayed out in front of him, head tilted to the sun, and eyes closed so he wasn't blinded by it.
"Yeah, but-" he glanced down, then shook his head with a half a smile. "Being lazy suits ya."
"I'm not lazy; you jus' work too hard. Take a breather once in a while, Spot. Pull up a piece of grass and enjoy yourself."
"You ain't sittin' on grass."
"Imagine that it's grass, then," Jack said, not bothered by being wrong in the slightest.
Spot sighed but threw himself down next to Jack. After a moment, he shifted his arm so that he could hold onto Jack’s hand. "You gotta get yourself out here more often."
"You could come to my corner of the city, y'know."
"Your boys can look after themself. Mine take a little more watchin'."
"Your boys ain't the problem."
Spot made a vague noise of agreement. "Pigs aren't goin' nowhere."
"Antoine," he said, after a little deliberation and more thinking than was strictly necessary for just saying his name.
Tony noticed a bottle on the table. It was alcohol though he didn't know what kind since it was unfamiliar to him. "Having a good time?"
Jacques made a face, clearly saying that even though he was on the drunker side of tipsy, he wasn't really. "Malaria preventative. You should have some, keep you from getting sick."
Tony hadn't gotten around to telling him that he was immortal yet. He'd probably have time, but it was such a hassle when he didn't remember it on his own. He was always up for a new experience though, so he joined Jacques at the table. They didn't have the luxury of glasses, so Tony took a swig from the bottle. Then promptly gagged and shoved the bottle into Jacques's chest. "What the fuck? How much have you had, this tastes like poison."
He rolled his eyes. "It's not poison, it's absinthe. All the men have to have a drink a day or risk dying from that stupid virus. You lose drinking privileges if you refuse," he added, which explained why he'd agreed to it. Tony had learned a long time ago that when you're in a country's military, you had two options when you were off duty. 1. Drink. 2. Play games. Right now it was poker, sometimes it was dice or other card games. "And I promised I'd get you to drink your share." He picked up the bottle and jiggled it in Tony's direction temptingly. Or what he thought was temptingly. For something that tasted that horrible, no amount of Jacques trying to sell it was going to make it look good. Well, maybe if Jacques was naked and all he had for coverage was the bottle; that'd be pretty good. It seemed like he was thinking in the same direction as Tony, because he leaned forward a moment later, familiar smirk on his face. "I'll make it worth your time."
Tony sighed, pulling Jacques easily onto his lap. "You'd better."
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*
Tony met Bucky, and he recognized him. Bucky met Tony, and the only flash of recognition was as Howard's son and Iron Man. That wasn't really an issue since they'd done this a hundred times before. Sometimes Tony would tell him as soon as they met, other times he'd wait to jog his memory until they'd been together a while and Bucky wouldn't think he was crazy-- a mistake he'd made once or twice, but Bucky always remembered before things got too bad. Every now and then Bucky would remember all by himself, and that was the nicest. Tony could have-- and wanted to-- told Bucky the truth now, even before they got together, but he was having so many problems with his memory that Tony didn't want to add to it.
So he kept their connection to himself and waited for Bucky to settle. He'd fully expected that this time, he'd have to tell Bucky. He wasn't going to remember on his own and save them both a lot of grief.
Tony was sitting at the kitchen table, a boring contract for SI stretched in front of him. He had glasses on right now, not that they were entirely necessary. He could've fixed his eyes in an instant, but glasses were pretty new, and he liked the extra weight on his face. He looked up when something hard and glass clicked on the table in front of him. Absinthe. Frowning, he looked up, catching straight in Bucky's gaze. He knew.
"Want a glass?"
"I didn't then, and I definitely don't now."
Bucky grinned, sitting near him and pulling the bottle closer since Tony wasn't going to need it. "Y'know what's confusing?" he said, popping the top off and taking a swig.
"The fact that you're drinking that?"
He shrugged. "It doesn't taste as bad to me right now."
"How lucky for you." Tony's tastes rarely changed, which meant that he occasionally found himself craving food from millennia ago, whereas Bucky got a new body and could experience food in a new way every few decades. Although, in this body it was going to be more like a few centuries.
He gave Tony a smirk, took another drink, then said, "I thought you'd look younger."
"Why, exactly?"
"Don't you normally age with me? I'm not exactly in my mid-forties," he said, gesturing to his body that was probably thirty years old.
"Normally I choose to age with you, and that's why we look the same."
"You can choose to age?"
More like he could control every part of his body like he was a kid going apeshit on a makeover game. He tended to go for dark hair and dark eyes because it felt like him in a way the lighter versions didn't, but he'd been an animal before, not to mention every way, shape, and form of a human. "Something like that. Fyi mister frosty, I'm not kissing you if you taste like that."
"Aw c'mon, it's good!"
"It tastes like piss. And there was a time when you didn't like it either," he pointed out. "I'm rich right now, like mega rich, I could get you alcohol that actually tastes good and costs a thousand dollars a glass."
Bucky wrinkled his nose. "Tell me that's not what you're spendin' your money on doll."
"Not most of the time, no."
Making a show of it, Bucky put the lid back on the absinthe and pushed it away from them. "Why does everyone think you're Howard's kid? I may not remember everything yet, but I know you don't get reborn like me."
"I met him in World War Two, there was enough resemblance that he thought I was his brother, and I didn't exactly discourage it."
"You little sneak," he smirked. He was leaning forward on the table, head resting in his metal hand-- that was a new development, one Tony couldn't wait to explore when they got the time. Not to mention that it was going to be interesting to see the integration of cyborgs and AI's in the future. Could Bucky potentially be reborn as an AI or comparable entity? So far he'd always had a corporeal body, but times were getting interesting very quickly. Some days it felt like they were sprinting towards advancement, where everything else had been at a leisurely pace. "So you were his brother, then what?"
"Nephew. Howard found out he couldn't have kids, I aged down, Howard's brother was declared dead, and voila."
"You can age yourself down?" he asked, frowning. Then, thinking back on it, of course he could. It's not like he was eternally getting older while Bucky looped.
"Yep."
"So, hypothetically, you could-" he wiggled his fingers vaguely as he searched for an appropriate word "-reverse and be my twink boyfriend."
Tony threw the folder at him, and Bucky-- the ass-- caught it with a shit eating grin.
"Just joshin' ya. I love the silver fox look on you, always have."
"Really? Because I remember-"
Bucky was out of his seat and on Tony's lap in a flash. His grin turned to something softer, that look in his eyes that always meant love. He leaned down and pressed a feather light kiss to Tony's lips.
His glasses were in the way, so he took them off, craning up for another that Bucky readily gave.
"What happened to not kissin' me with absinthe?"
Now that Bucky was talking, it was easy to smell the stink of hard alcohol on his breath. Tony'd had worse. But he wasn't going to admit as much, because then Bucky would just grab the bottle and down some more to prove a point, and Tony missed him too much to actually stop. Instead, Tony gave a shudder, his body changing to how he looked as Tony Stark fifteen years ago. His hair was softer, a little shaggier, the lines on his face smoothed over, and the glasses on the table now unnecessary (though maybe he'd change that back, it all depended). He winked at Bucky just to be a little shit, and Bucky laughed, kissing him again with a smile on his face.
Pairing: Tony Stark/Natasha Romanoff/Wanda Maximoff
Warnings: None
"So let me get this straight," Tony said. His arms were folded over his chest, that particular tilt to his head that meant he perfectly understood but didn't want to do it for what he thought were very good reasons. "You want me to climb up there with only a rope, a ring, and a stranger keeping me from falling."
Natasha wanted to roll her eyes, because rock climbing sounded like a trust exercise when he put it like that. "The rope is just a safety precaution while you're climbing, you only need it when you're coming down."
Tony looked up, saw that there wasn't a way to go over the wall and take stairs down, then looked back at her. "How about you and Clint do this, and I cheer you on while making fun of him. I think this is a good alternative to your original plan."
"What are we talking about?" He jumped when Wanda spoke because he hadn't known she was this close, and she slithered up under his arm, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. Tony tried to glare at her for scaring him, but no one took it seriously.
"Our boyfriend's afraid he'll plunge to his death," Natasha said, actually rolling her eyes this time.
"Why?"
"He's fine with going up-"
"No I'm not," he protested.
"-but he's afraid of putting his trust in someone he doesn't know."
"I'm surprised you're willing to do this," he grumbled. With Natasha in front of him and Wanda at one side, he came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to get out of this when he had promised that he'd try it last week.
"They've been checked, they're fine," Natasha said, not even blinking. "You promised you'd do this."
Tony's mouth twisted, knowing that he couldn't argue. Damn it, this is what happened when he promised anything. In his defense, he hadn't exactly been of sound mind at the time, but bringing that up wasn't going to do him a lick of good today.
Wanda, bless her, saw how nervous he was and pat his chest. "Do not worry, I will catch you if something happens."
He blew out a breath, glaring at the wall. "Thanks." It's not that he hated heights-- far from it-- he just disliked that he wasn't going to be in complete control. If he slipped, the Iron Man suit wasn't there to catch him, it was just a hard wall and the ground and a rope to burn himself on.
"And I'll be right beside you," Natasha added.
"Bucky isn't planning on going up," Wanda said. "I can have him watch as well."
"Great let's bring more people to witness my shame."
"He can probably hear all this, if that helps," Natasha said.
It did help, a little, but he didn't want Bucky to know that, so he shrugged.
