ooooo, could you do #24: "You’re my ex but I think I still have feelings for you" for winteriron? 👀💖
ooh this one sounds like fun! here’s a no-powers office au for you!
24. You’re my ex but I think I still have feelings for you.
Bucky prides himself on being in touch with his emotions. Unlike Steve, who is nothing but a tiny ball of rage, and Natasha, who keeps all her emotions locked away in a tiny box, Bucky knows and proudly admits to what he’s feeling.
Which is why he’s absolutely baffled at the tight knot of jealousy in his chest when he sees Tony making out with Hammer at the office Christmas party.
It doesn’t make any sense. He and Tony broke up six months ago. It was an amiable split. They both decided this was for the best. There’s no reason for him to be upset about Tony kissing someone else under the mistletoe. So it can’t possibly be jealousy. No...he’s just - just angry about Tony ruining the sanctity of the Christmas party with his gross and disgusting display of public affection.
Yeah.
That sounds good.
“If you squeeze that cup any tighter, it’s going to crack,” Natasha observes dryly.
Across the room, Hammer’s hand slides into Tony’s hair and yanks.
“Tony doesn’t like that,” Bucky grits out through clenched teeth, hand tightening still further on his plastic cup.
“Huh?” Natasha follows his gaze and makes an interested noise. “Well, what do you know. Didn’t see that one coming,” she drawls. Steve gives her an odd look. “What? I only act like I know everything.”
Hammer’s other hand is slowly making its way down Tony’s back and Bucky makes a strangled noise.
“Why does it matter to you? You two broke up,” Natasha points out.
“They shouldn’t be doing that here. It’s a party. They should show...decorum,” he mutters.
“Right,” Steve says slowly. “And it’s got nothing to do with your breakup?”
“Why should it?”
“Because you’re looking at Hammer like you want to rip his face off. Don’t get me wrong, he inspires that feeling in everyone,” Steve says, “but then you said he wasn’t kissing Tony right so that sounds a little more suspicious, you know?”
“What’s so suspicious about it? Tony deserves to be kissed right.”
He freezes. Natasha and Steve freeze. No one else is in earshot or he bets they would freeze too.
“Bucky,” Natasha says hesitantly. “It was a mutual breakup, wasn’t it?”
“Course it was,” he says shortly and strides away, out of the office, and into the darkened stairwell. He leans over, placing his hands on his knees as he takes several deep breaths.
He’d forgotten how Tony could make him feel. They work in different departments so it’s been easy to avoid each other in the months since the breakup. It’s easy to avoid the fact that he still has feelings for Tony even though they’d both agreed their breakup was for the best. It hadn’t been out of a lack of love that they’d broken up but more that they came from two very different worlds and they couldn’t figure out how to bridge that gap.
But sometimes, like now, he remembers how beautiful Tony had looked lying in his bed, how much Bucky had loved holding him, how Tony had loved being treated like something precious.
The stairwell door opens behind him. He immediately straightens up, not wanting anyone to see how upset he is.
“I’m fine, Nat,” he says.
“Not Nat,” a voice that Bucky’s been hearing in his dreams for six month replies quietly.
He breathes out slowly. “Tony.”
“Yeah.”
“What’re you doing here?”
Tony is a warm line against his side. He always ran warm. Bucky used to say that he didn’t mind Tony stealing all the blankets cause why would he ever need those when he had Tony himself wrapped around him.
“We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?” Tony asks instead of replying.
“Having second thoughts, Stark?”
“Don’t,” Tony says. “Don’t call me that. Please.”
“Sorry,” he murmurs. He knows how much Tony hates being called by his last name, hates any reminder that he’s related to the owner of the company. “Having second thoughts, Tony?”
“Aren’t you?” Tony counters. He turns around, leaning on his elbows against the railing so he can see Bucky’s face. Bucky glances at him and then away again, unable to stand the worry in Tony’s brown eyes. “I mean, really, are either of us actually happy like this?”
“I’m not...unhappy.”
“Liar,” Tony says softly. “I know you still. And you know me.”
“Yeah, Tony, I know you,” he replies roughly. “I know that it takes you fifteen tries to make an omelet right. I know you like to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the window, whether that’s right or left side doesn’t matter. I know you think amusement parks are overrated but you’d go to an escape room every weekend if your friends would let you. I know you hate it when people yell and that that drink you were holding earlier was apple juice and sprite.”
He moves suddenly, pushing Tony back and into the wall. Tony’s breath catches but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t fight back. Bucky gentles his hands as they come up to cradle Tony’s face and then slide back to cup his neck, thumbs softly rubbing over the skin behind his ears.
“I know you like to be held when you’re kissed,” he whispers, feathering the words across Tony’s lips. Tony closes as his eyes as he leans into Bucky’s touch. “I know you like long, slow kisses over hard, fast ones but that’s not what you tell people. I know when I press right here, you make this sweet little noise - yeah, that one, sweet thing. I know you.”
“Bucky, why did we let this go?” Tony asks him. He looks tired and a little bit sad, the shadows deep under his eyes like he hasn’t been sleeping much the last few months, something that Bucky can understand.
“We thought it was for the best.” But right now, with Tony in his arms, he’s finding it almost impossible to remind himself of that fact.
“Yeah but for who? Howard? The company? We made each other happy, didn’t we? Isn’t that enough?”
He wants to tell him no, wants to say they’ll never escape the press hounding them if they do this, but he was willing to take that chance once. What had changed? When had he started listening to Howard’s insidious words about what Tony deserved? When had he let someone else decide what was best for them?
“Yeah, sweet thing,” he whispers. “It’s enough.”
Tony’s smile is brilliant when he pulls him down for a kiss.
