For the AU, you had one where Bucky was a demon and Steve was an angel and Steve was sent to take care of Tony and Clint, but he was slowly dying trying to help tony, can we get 5 head canons for that? It’s my favorite!
The post in question can be found here.
Steve sometimes just basks in Clint and Tony’s presence. They don’t even have to be doing things together--one time Bucky came in and Clint was playing video games and Tony was reading a book in another room and Steve was just there on the couch, looking like there could be nothing better than just sitting there.
“What’s your deal?” Bucky asks, feeling oddly unsettled.
Steve blinks his eyes open slowly and tips his head back over the couch to look at him. “They’re happy,” he explains simply. “That’s all I ever wanted for them.”
“Gross,” Bucky says immediately, more reflex than anything, and skitters into the room Tony’s in to curl up with his head on his lap.
Tony lifts his arms so that Bucky can cuddle up against his stomach properly, then rests a hand on his head, scratching lightly around the bases of his horns. “Hey, honey.”
Bucky grunts a greeting, then tips his head up to look at Tony, frowning. “Are you happy, Tony?”
Tony blinks in confusion. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Hng,” Bucky says, and buries his face in Tony’s stomach again.
Steve tells everyone that him rescuing Bucky was a one-time thing, and it was only because he clearly made Tony happy. Still, when more demon hunters show up at their door, he’s also the one that turns and very pleasantly says, “Sweethearts, please go into the bedroom.”
“But,” Tony begins, offended.
Bucky begins ushering them ahead of him. “You heard him, sweethearts. Into the bedroom we go. Wouldn’t want you to go blind from the sheer brightness of Steve’s true being.”
“The sheer what of his what,” Clint asks, before Bucky pulls the door shut behind them.
Once the door is shut, all they can hear is the horrifying noise Steve had made at Bucky that one time to drown out his words.
“I WANNA SEE,” Tony shouts, kicking the bedroom door open after the noise has stopped. He stops. Stares.
“Oh my God this is so many eyes,” Clint says. “Where do I look. Which eyes do I make contact with. ARE YOU A BALL OF FLAMES WITH EYES FLYING AROUND IT?”
Somehow, the ball of flames at the center of Steve’s being heaves an exasperated sigh, and all of his eyes roll at once. It’s a bit more complicated, his voice booms from nowhere. But basically yes. I’m a ball of flames with eyes flying around it. Like Rutherford’s model of an atom.
“Don’t you drag science into this,” Tony barks. “There’s nothing scientific about what we’re seeing!”
“His wings look like antennas,” Clint says, and Steve sighs again.
“I’m gonna touch the flames,” Tony decides, taking a step toward him.
No! Steve snaps. Bucky, stop him!
“You’ll burn your arm clean off, Tony,” Bucky says as he obediently stops him, amused.
Clint looks disappointed. “So we can’t bone like this?”
All of Steve’s eyes turn on him. Excuse me what.
“Yeah, there’s nothing attractive about him like this,” Bucky adds skeptically.
Steve jerks to glare at him. Somehow it’s a lot more intimidating now. Bucky blames it on the fact that there are even more eyes to do it with.
They want to fuck the ball of flames. They are not allowed to fuck the ball of flames.
“This doesn’t seem fair,” Clint complains. “We get to fuck Bucky in his true form! How come we can’t fuck you in yours?”
“Because he’s a fucking ball of flames!” Bucky barks, at the same time Steve raises his eyebrows and says, “That’s not Bucky’s true form.”
Clint and Tony go silent, slack-jawed, before they burst out with questions and please for him to change forms.
“Look what you’ve done,” Bucky hisses, putting his hands on his hips as he turns to glare at Steve.
“You’re right,” Steve agrees miserably. “I shouldn’t have said that. I should have known. In my defense... I’m still not used to humans being monster fuckers.”
Tony’s eyes go all big and hurt. “You guys aren’t monsters!”
Clint turns to give Tony a bewildered glare. “Tony.”
“Not bad ones!” Tony hurries to add, but the damage has been done, from the way everyone’s looking at him.
Anyway eventually they bully him into shifting into his true form and he’s used to people quaking in fear at the view of a giant, flaming hellhound, but Clint literally takes one look at him and coos ‘puppy!’ and Tony just begins hugging his leg, and it’s all very overwhelming, how unafraid they are.
“Oh my God they’re so ugly,” Clint says, delighted, when Tony presents him with a baby demon. “Can I hold it?”
“You have to hold it tight, otherwise it’ll try to bite you,” Tony explains. “It won’t mean to! It’s just... consumed with itself. It reacts to every emotion with ‘eat it.’”
“I mean, who doesn’t?” Clint reasons. He turns. “Hey, Steve, look at--” He trails off, frowning.
Steve looks up from where he’s casually strangling Bucky. “That’s nice, sweetheart,” he says, then goes back to shaking Bucky wildly, growling, “I can’t believe you brought one of those here it could fucking rip them to shreds you’re such a fucking dumbass and I don’t know what any of us see in you.”
“It’s cute!” Tony tries to insist, running his finger over the demon’s beak. “Steve, look! Like a chicken and a lizard had a baby!”
The demon coos and lovingly bites his finger hard enough to draw blood.
“...This doesn’t mean anything,” Tony begins.
“TAKE IT BACK,” Steve orders, and Bucky mulishly takes the demon back to Hell.
Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark
Summary
Tony has no idea that he has become the designated cuddler in the relationship for when his boyfriends are having bad days. He doesn't need to know that to enjoy all of the affection though.
With less than two weeks left in August Stark Spangled Winter Hawk Month is just over a month away.
That still gives all of us plenty of time to cobble together our fanworks.
That idea that has been sitting in your head? Write it down. Doesn’t matter if it’s just an idea or a story, write those sentences and post them in October.
Is that idea more of an image than a story? You can write it down as well. Talk about what you want to create, even if you never end up drawing it. Or even just get a sketch down.
Is it a mood board, but you can’t quite decide on the aesthetic/ images you want to use? Or maybe you have an picture, but you can’t quite get it to work the way you want it to. Talk about it/explain your process. You can even do it via video.
This month is less about completion and perfection and more about sharing and bonding over a shared love of this rare ship.
So if you have been struggling or just have been feeling down about your work, it’s okay. Perfection isn’t needed. Just you. ❤️
Inktober Day 2: Barefoot
(based on this prompt list)
Pairing: StarkSpangledWinterHawk - focused on Winteriron
Length: 1300 words
Summary: Bucky is sleepwalking when he has a bad dream. Tony comforts him.
@akira-of-the-twilight
Tony jerked awake because of the absence. He rubbed at the ARC-reactor and briefly thought with dream-foggy brain, wow, I did get used to their presence. He didn't expect that, but here he was, missing his boyfriends even while sleeping. He yawned, and get up to retreat to their room... only to realize he was in their room already. Only the others weren't.
His mind finally kicked in, giving him the necessary information that Steve and Clint were both on a mission, so them being away was completely normal, nothing to worry about. Bucky, on the other hand... he should've been here. They fall asleep wrapped in each others’ arms. Tony's heartbeat skyrocketed. "Friday?", he asked quietly, out of breath in a second. The AI was not as familiar with him as Jarvis were - probably never ever will -, but she responded immediately.
"Mr. Barnes left twenty minutes ago, and is currently located in the swimming pool area."
The answer only made Tony's worry worse, and he basically sprinted out of the room, toward the lower level.
How did Bucky even get down there? The doors should've been locked and sealed. It's not like mere doors could hold back the former Winter Soldier long, but breaking one means alerting Friday, and therefore alerting Tony, and...
Tony stopped as soon as he entered the hall. Bucky was near the open blue of the water. He wore his pajamas: comfortable Hawkeye-purple sweetpants, an Iron Man hoodie and Steve's original dog tags around his neck. (Actually, all of his clothes were Avengers-themed. Since Bucky realized the first floor gift shop could provide any and every clothing item with the team's merchanise, he refused to wear anything else.) He was also barefoot, frozen in his place with one foot in a puddle, and Tony's heart sank as he realized his boyfriend was silently sobbing between muttered words.
"Hey, sweetheart", Tony called, but got no response at all. Bucky's posture was tense and submissive: shoulders hunched, metal arm loose next to him and flesh arm hugging his own torso. His head was so lowered that a vertebra was painfully sticked out on the nape of his neck.
Tony moved closer cautiously. "Baby, whatever it is, it'll be all right." He got around the other man in as big circle as the pool allowed him, and walked closer from the front. Bucky stared at the ground, blind, unblinking. Tony cursed under his breath.
Just as he expected: Bucky was trapped in one of his nightmares. Good dreams never made him sleepwalking.
That's why Tony installed a door-locking protocol to the Tower. To avoid Bucky wandering away until he comes to his senses. "Friday, how did Bucky end up here?"
"I'm afraid Mr. Barnes overrode my protocol, boss."
"In his sleep?"
"In his sleep", Friday confirmed, and damn, that was impressive. Tony wasn't sure that anyone beside Bucky and Natasha would be able to hack into his AI, and they had the advantage of knowing how Tony and Friday worked, but doing it while not really conscious? Damn.
Tony forced himself to pay attention to the present situation, since drooling over the Soldier's hacking abilities was pointless at the moment. He couldn't understand Bucky's quiet Russian murmuring, since he was barely audible, but he'd recognize that tone anywhere: that was the sound of being in pain and begging for relief.
A Hydra memory, then.
Tony had to decide what to do. Doctors, including Bruce, always warned against waking up the sleepwalking person, especially if that person was an unpredictable supersoldier with a healing brain from past trauma, but letting Bucky stay in some godawful nightmare was on the edge of torture. Tony was always the man of risks, and just standing and watching his boyfriend's suffering while not doing anything was really out of the question.
He clapped his hands three times, almost aggressively loud.
Bucky cried out and staggered backwards.
"Bucky, James, it's okay, it's me!", Tony called at the same time, and was already next to Bucky, hugging him close to his chest, ignoring the fact that he could’ve been killed by a single blow if Bucky would react violently.
"Net, pozhaluysta...", the first two word still came out in Russian, but then Bucky woke up more, and he shut up to finally assess his surroundings. His sobs were cut the moment he was awake, but his face was still wet with tears. "Tony..."
"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty", Tony murmured into his ears, tightening his hold on him. "It was a dream, just a nightmare, it's over now."
Bucky clutched to Tony like his life depended on it, but still he moved both of them backward, floundering away from the light-reflected surface of the water. He shut his eyes close, and took some shaky breaths, trying to ground himself.
"Wasn't just a dream", he argued, and he sounded weak. Tony's heart ached, but at the same time, he felt proud. It took a long time for Bucky to open up to anyone, and Tony was honoured to be among the trusted few. "Memory."
"You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want."
"I don't want", Bucky shrugged. "But Doc says I can't repress everything", he added after a brief pause. "Wet. The water. It... They used...", he stammered with his words, and he had to start again. "Electricity. As a punishment. They locked me up in a cell where there was always water on the floor and if I misbeheaved... it just needed a little spark and... y'know I was already afraid of electricity." He hid his face behind his metal palm. Tony hold him closer and tried to bottle up his anger toward long-dead people, to be as calm and collected and reassuring as his boyfriend needed right now. "Because of the machine. And I'd... I wanted to do anything just to avoid... God, I did so much to..."
That was the point where Tony lost it and couldn't hold back his words. "No, baby, it's not your fault, remember? We're over this, it's not your fault, all the blame is on them, you are innocent in their crime. And it won't happen ever again, I promise, I swear, we'd never let it happen again."
Bucky still didn't lift his head.
"I know it's awful, Bucky, believe me, I know." Tony had his own share of torture and water-related trauma, and after tonight, he was quite sure he won't even bear to shower for a few days. "But you can trust me, you can trust us. Me and Steve and Clint? We'd die before we let anyone harm you again, sweetheart."
Bucky finally let his hand fall to his side, and instead he hid his face in Tony's shirt. "I know", he whispered.
They stand there for a while, hugging each other. Tony enjoyed Bucky's warm presence in the embrace, and felt the slow process as the other's pulse resettled into its normal, steady rhythm. The fact that he was able to offer comfort to Bucky made him felt better too, helped him to calm down as well.
"I'm sorry", Bucky said after a good ten minutes of silence.
"You don't have to", Tony reassured him. "Wanna call Steve or Clint?"
"Nah, I'd rather stay with you", Bucky confessed, and Tony couldn't suppress a happy smile at that. Bucky lifted Tony's hand to his mouth and gave a light kiss on it. "My one and only Mechanic."
"And my one and only tin soldier", Tony teased back immediately. The silly nicknames showed they were over the hardest part of the night. "And Bucky?"
"Hm?"
"From now on, we'll sleep with socks on. These tiles are freezing my feet."
Bucky chuckled back a little laugh. "If you say so..."
My gift for @akira-of-the-twilight for the Winteriron Holiday Exchange 2016!
I hope you like it!
The first picture is supposed to be more of a colour sketch because I didn't have time anymore....
I'm sorry only one of them is finished!You reblogged a post about Dragons glowing on the inside, and I couln't resist! :D
I imagined a huge plot in a fantasy AU, where Tony is a dragon and Bucky gets sacrificed to the dragon. After some misunderstandings, they get to know each other and are very close, and Tony might count Bucky as part of his hoard.Then Steve and Clint show up to slay the dragon and save Bucky. Tony of course thinks he needs to protect Bucky from the people attacking them! (Picture 1)After all the misunderstandings are cleared up, they all end up in a relationship together (and Tony builds Bucky a metal arm). (Picture 2)
On AO3 HERE
Did someone say more StarkSpangledWinterHawk? No? Too bad you’re getting some anyway. Watch out for under the cut!
Demon Bucky is bored. Driving others to sin is no fun when so many people don’t need that much convincing. He remembers only a few hundred years ago when it took all of his cunning and skill to get a human to enjoy some premarital sex. Now he just needs to find the right establishment and humans will come onto him. He hates to sound like one of the older demons but he misses the good old days where humans were fun to manipulate.
He’s so bored, in fact, that when he feels the tingle of magic that means a demon is being summoned, he seriously considers letting one of the underlings go up instead. Then he sighs, because summonings powerful enough to make him aware of them are so rare that this is actually interesting again. If it fails to be interesting enough for him, he’s going to smite the human that summoned him. They so rarely get summoning circles right anymore, they’re so easy to break out of, and the sad truth is that a human desperate or dumb enough to summon a demon is rarely missed by friends or family.
Except everything about the summoning circle is perfect--every rune in its place and every sigil tight like a steel trap. Bucky is immediately pissed off but also intrigued by the skill that was necessary to complete the summoning circle like this. He looks around, frowning. It looks like a regular apartment, perhaps a bit on the shabbier side, but clean. Bucky turns his attention on the two humans instead, both of them looking at him, stunned. He examines them quickly, humming thoughtfully as he takes them in. They’ve both got a darkness clinging to them, though the blond’s has definitely faded. The brunet’s has faded, too, but not as much.
“What do you want?” Bucky asks when it’s clear they aren’t going to say anything. The circle’s clad tight enough that he can’t leave until he’s heard them out, and it’s quite possible he might even have to make a deal with them to leave--he’s not quite sure yet, some of the sigils he needs to examine a little more.
The blond jumps, and then he straightens his shoulders and asks, “Can you heal people?”
Bucky sneers at him, offended. “I can do anything. The question is will I? To be clear, the answer is no.”
The blond looks dismayed, but the brunet straightens his shoulders and scowls at him. “Everyone has a price. You’ll do it if we offer you what you want.”
“And what do you think I want, precious?” Bucky asks, amused in spite of himself. Humans were so adorably stupid these days.
The brunet opens his mouth, then closes it again, frowning unhappily with the knowledge that he has no idea what Bucky would want. The blond frowns. “What do you want, then?”
“Nothing,” Bucky answers immediately, because it’s true. As bored as he is, he’s also pretty content. He can easily find whatever he wants on his own. He looks the two humans up and down slowly. Perhaps later he’ll find someone to sleep with. Hell, maybe he’ll change form and seduce one of them.
“There’s got to be something,” the blond insists helplessly. “After all he’s done for us, we should be able to help him too. I can’t let him die like this. I’ve only just gotten him...”
Bucky watches as the brunet turns to look at the blond, trying to be reassuring even though he also looks a little heartbroken. Oh. How interesting. It’s so obvious the brunet is in love with the other human, is perhaps also in love with other person they’re speaking of, as the darkness clinging to him intensifies just a little.
Love me, his aura begs so softly, so pleadingly. I’m here. Love me too. Please, I’m here, please love me back. It’s sad, for all that it’s delicious, and Bucky licks his lips at the agony that the blond can’t see.
The brunet notices, eyes sharp and calculating. “What about me?” he asks, and starts to reach into the circle.
Bucky raises his eyebrows in surprise, but anything he’d say is covered up by the blond grabbing his hand before it can break through, angrily snapping, “He’s not going to take you, Tony.” The brunet, Tony, looks hurt by the words. The blond immediately backtracks, changing his grip on Tony’s hand to something gentler. “Tony, you agreed to stop putting yourself in destructive situations. Come on. Look at him, obviously he’d take you, but you can’t just--we’ve been working on this, Tony...”
Bucky watches, enthralled, as the darkness clinging to Tony grows inkier with shame and jealousy. From what he’d seen, humans had melted down or harmed themselves with less darkness, and here this man stood, not crying or moving, just drowning in his shame and anger. Bucky wonders how he tastes, wants to put his mouth on him and sate himself with it.
“Clint,” a voice croaks out from behind a closed door, and Bucky stares at it, because that’s the croak of a dying man. Whoever is behind the door has weeks at most, a day or two at the least. No wonder they’d called on him for help.
The blond, Clint, gives Tony a long look. “Don’t do--anything you would do if you were alone,” he says, before disappearing behind the door as well.
Tony watches him go, and the darkness clinging to him deepens with longing.
“I could give you that,” Bucky purrs, and watches the human jump. “I could love you like you want to be loved.”
Tony brightens a little, then frowns. “No. You’re not capable of love.”
“I am,” Bucky says gently, letting his gaze soften. “I can love. I can love you, Tony. Don’t you want to be loved like Clint is?” Tony bites his bottom lip, and Bucky moves closer, pressing his hands to the edge of the circle. “Don’t you want to have your feelings returned, Tony? I can love you so deeply, sweetheart. I can give you what you want.”
Tony squirms, looking at the door before turning back at Bucky. “Demons--they’re not capable of love,” he tries to insist, but his voice shakes.
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Bucky coos, honey dripping from his voice. “That’s the problem. We’re too capable of love. We love so deeply, over centuries. I could love you, dear, if you’d just let me. I could help you forget all the times you’ve been looked over, ignored, forgotten. I can give you all the things you’ve ever desired--love, affection, kindness. Everything that the world has cruelly withheld from you, Tony, I can give you that.”
“...I can’t have your word on that,” Tony whispers.
Bucky leans as close as he can, cooing, “Oh, honey, you can. I’ll promise you anything you want. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll cut out my heart and put it in your hands, if that’s what you want. Just please treat it tenderly. It’s more sensitive without the protection of my chest.”
Tony looks back at the door again, but his body has turned away from it unconsciously. He looks back at Bucky and is obviously trying not to sound as hopeful as he feels. “Would you promise to heal Steve? To make sure that he and Clint have long, happy lives together?”
“Of course,” Bucky answers.
“Would you promise that I’d be the only one?” he asks. “That you wouldn’t take more humans? So I wouldn’t have to share you?”
“I wouldn’t want to share you either,” Bucky agrees. “Of course.”
“Would you promise not to hit me? Would you promise that you’d never hurt me?” Tony whispers, trembling--with fear, with excitement, with desire and desperation.
“Do love-bites count as hurting, dear? Couldn’t I leave the occasional nip to show everyone that you belong to me?” Bucky coos. “So that no one could take you from me? So that you’d be mine, and mine alone?”
That seems to strike a chord in the human, eyes wide and aching, as he reaches out toward him again, fingers skimming the edge of the circle.
“TONY,” a voice bellows, and the door bursts open, and a man, small and skinny and sickly stands there, looking furious.
Bucky shrinks back, hisses angrily when Tony’s hand jerks away from the circle.
“Steve,” Tony whispers, voice shaking with fright.
“Are you stupid,” Steve snarls, and Tony flinches, takes a step backward, away from Steve and toward the circle.
Bucky looks down at the human’s feet, then looks back up, hissing at the blond threateningly, because he’s always been skilled at the fiddle. “He’s not stupid. He’s so clever. Look how well he did the circle. Only a clever human could do this.”
“Only an idiot would summon a demon!” Steve insists angrily, and Tony takes another step backward, shaking.
“Don’t say that, Stevie,” Bucky simpers, pressing to the edge of the circle again. “Every summoning I’ve answered has always had a desperate human on the other side of it. Foolish? Perhaps, but always without anywhere else to turn. Where would you have them go, when everything else has forsaken them?”
“They’re not. Forsaken. Tony, come here,” Steve orders.
Tony hesitates, hugging himself.
“Why do that, Tony?” Bucky whispers so only he can hear it. “What do they have to offer you? He’s only out here because he’s angry. I’d take care of you, sweetheart. I’d love you. Don’t you want to be loved?”
“Tony,” Clint says, voice trembling. “Please come away from the circle. We’ll talk about this. Come back.”
Tony’s silent for a moment before his shoulders slump.
Bucky nearly pounds on the circle in rage, bearing his teeth. No. No. He was so close. Tony was almost his. He glares at Clint over Steve’s shoulder, then smirks, smug. “Back to what? A dying man? Stevie has days at most.”
Clint looks crushed, and Tony makes a tiny, pained gasping sound. Steve lets out a roar that’s all inhuman anger and righteousness, darting toward them on legs that shouldn’t have the strength to even be able to stumble to their knees, and Tony lets out a terrified yelp as he steps backward.
His heel breaks the circle, and Bucky grabs him, snarling victoriously and dragging him back further into the circle. His delighted cackling covers Tony’s scream of terror as he drags him back through the portal with him.
.-.-.-.
They hadn’t made a deal. But Bucky’s powers can’t touch an angel unless they allow it, so he wouldn’t have been able to heal Steve anyway.
“Steve was an angel?” Tony whispers into Bucky’s chest, tears still clinging to his lashes.
“Looked like a guardian angel,” Bucky confirms.
“Oh,” Tony says sadly. “He must have been Clint’s.”
Bucky doesn’t tell him that Steve was probably his guardian angel, too. Steve was run ragged, so much that he couldn’t take time to rest and heal, and it’s clear from the pale spots still dotting the darkness over Tony that he’d spent a lot of time and effort on him alone. There’s darker spots, too, true despair that should have killed him but he’d been dragged back out of. Steve looked like that because of Tony, not because of Clint.
“I loved them,” Tony whispers, like it’s a shameful secret, like Bucky didn’t know that just by looking at him. “And no matter what I did, they’d look at me like I made them tired, or sad. I couldn’t make them happy no matter how hard I tried. I was always their disaster friend that they had to take time out of their days taking care of.”
“I’m sure you weren’t that much of a disaster,” Bucky offers.
“No, I was,” Tony says miserably. “Maybe this really is better for everyone. At least when you get tired of me, you can eat me or something.”
Bucky nearly chokes. “I don’t eat people!”
“You can find someone to eat me, then,” Tony suggests. “Then I won’t make anyone tired or annoyed ever again.”
The darkness that covers Tony starts to taste sour, but Bucky doesn’t tell him that.
Tony expects torture, expects to be hurt, especially since Bucky didn’t actually make any promises, only said that he would. “I’m a hedonist, doll, not a monster,” Bucky explains patiently. “Most demons my age don’t care for eating humans. Just the really old ones that you can outrun and the really young ones that you can basically kick off of you when you feel them gnawing.” Tony giggles wetly, reluctantly amused, and wipes his eyes.
“Of course, if you want me to hurt you, I can be persuaded,” Bucky adds with a lecherous smile, and the human laughs again. It’s a good look on him.
Bucky shows him how to kick the younger demons to get them to leave him alone and it’s only then that Bucky really considers that Tony’s humanity might be a problem--he doesn’t kick hard enough.
“I don’t want to hurt them,” Tony says sadly.
“Tony, most of them are going to be eaten before they hit puberty,” Bucky tries to explain.
Tony looks up at him with wide, watery eyes. “But they’re so little and cute, like a lizard and a chicken had a baby.”
One of the little demons squawks, offended.
“Clearly you have never met a chicken,” Tony tells it imperiously.
“I think it’s upset you called it small,” Bucky offers.
Tony squats down to pat the ugly little thing on the head. “You’re really ugly,” he tells the demon. “But it’s kind of cute.”
The little demon puffs its chest out. Bucky thinks it’s gearing up for a really angry shriek (those take effort in the younger demons), but all it does is strut around proudly. He can’t tell if the thing is smug because it was called ugly or cute and he honestly doesn’t want to know.
“Come on,” Bucky says gruffly, because seeing Tony be kind and gentle with the younger demons is doing weird things to his feelings.
Tony never gets the hang of kicking them, but that’s okay, because most of them like him somehow. And hell, the ones that didn’t were always ganged up on by the ones that did.
Bucky figures he’ll just keep Tony close so that he can protect him because his heart’s softer than a beanbag.
.-.-.-.
Tony is a dream, so hot and slick and tight. He whines just right, whimpers in a way that makes Bucky want to surround him, keep him safe from everything. So many of the other demons are jealous, and Bucky thrives on it, whispers endearments and affection into Tony’s ear until he revels in being wanted, feeling powerful and desirable. He clings to Bucky’s horns, the bases of his wings, leaves long scratches down his back and bloody bite marks on Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky loves it.
Bucky loves him.
So when he’s forcibly dragged back to the human plane by two familiar faces, he’s livid.
“You had your chance!” he thunders. “He’s mine now! Mine! You can’t have him! He’s mine!”
Steve, big and broad and buff now, snarls and leaps for the summoning circle in a flash of shiny feathers. Bucky surges to meet him. There’s a dazzling flash as he’s thrown backward with great force, slamming into the opposite wall. Bucky would laugh except he’d ricocheted around the summoning circle like a goddamn pinball.
“Tony!” Clint exclaims, running for the circle and reaching out for him, but Steve lunges to yank him back with a hiss. “Steve!” he snaps, struggling in his grip.
“DO NOT. Go into the circle,” Steve hisses, then looks back at it, gently saying, “Tony, honey, come here. Come out of the circle.”
Tony peeks out from behind Bucky, frowning. “But…”
“Come out of the circle,” Steve repeats softly. “Come on, Tony. You don’t have to stay with him anymore. We can help you.”
“You can’t help him, you never could,” Bucky snarls, wings swinging out to hide the human from view. “He’s mine now. I’ve had him every which way you can have a human. It’s not my fault you’re poor losers.”
Clint looks stricken. “Tony.”
“He didn’t force me,” Tony explains helplessly. “I wanted--I just wanted--”
Bucky curls his tail around Tony and tugs him close, smug. “He wanted to be wanted, and I gave that to him. You didn’t and now you’re jealous.”
“Tony, come on,” Clint says, smiling shakily. “You don’t really want to be with him, do you? Let’s talk about this, okay? I’ll make those pancakes you like so much.”
Tony looks torn, huddling up against Bucky’s side as he whispers, “But he loves me.”
“Demons are not capable of love!” Steve snarls immediately.
“I’m more capable than you!” Bucky snarls back.
Tony at least has the sense to duck this time when they both leap at each other and collide with the edge of the summoning circle.
“CUT IT OUT,” Clint bellows, and Steve mulishly doesn’t leap at the circle again. Bucky hisses and bares his teeth before curling around Tony again. “...Let’s talk this out like rational adults,” Clint says after a deep breath breath. “We can figure this out. Okay?”
Steve makes an incredibly horrifying hissing sound at Bucky before curling his wings around Clint protectively. “Okay,” he answers begrudgingly.
“No,” Bucky answers loudly, angry. “I was just about to eat and I’m hungry.”
“What do you eat?” Clint asks, sighing.
“Tony’s ass, usually,” Bucky says, and it’s worth Tony screeching at him to see Clint and Steve flush.
.-.-.-.
Clint cries when he finds out that Tony was in love with him. The ugly kind, with heaving sobs and splotchy cheeks and snot everywhere. Tony looks miserable and tugs at Bucky’s arm and asks to leave.
“We can’t, sweetheart,” Bucky informs him gently. “I have to make a deal or hear them out.”
“But I didn’t tell Clint on purpose,” Tony sniffs. “He was so happy with Steve. If I’d said anything I would have just ruined it, and then they both would have hated me.”
“Tony,” Steve chokes out, dismayed, and Bucky actually feels a little bad for how distraught the angel looks. He’d clearly poured so much time and energy and power into Tony in an attempt to heal him, to the point where he nearly drove himself out of existence, and it hadn’t worked.
He’s still pretty smug, though, that he’s clearly done more for Tony than the angel had.
Steve must see it too, because his jaw clenches and the look he gives Bucky is of pure hatred. Bucky preens a little.
“But I love you too,” Clint sobs, and Tony goes still at the demon’s side. “Why do you think we tried so hard to help you, Tony? I wanted you to stay close, even if it was just as a friend. Every time you went back to the bottle or drugs to try and make yourself numb and we pulled you back out wasn’t because we felt sorry for you. It was because I loved you.”
This… this might be a problem, Bucky thinks after a moment.
.-.-.-.
Clint tries to make a deal but every time he opens his mouth to make one, Steve makes an inhuman sound to cover his words so that even Bucky can’t hear it, like glass breaking and nails on a chalkboard and every animal roar all rolled into one.
“Give him back,” Steve snarls when Clint falls silent. “You stole him. Give him back.”
“First of all, he came into the circle, I didn’t step out, so you can’t say I stole him if he stepped in. I took an offering. Also! Tony’s a person who can make his own choices,” Bucky says imperiously, even though he’s taking the world’s biggest gamble, because he’s giving Tony a choice now and it’s possible that Tony won’t choose him. “That’s what free will was all about, right?”
Steve makes a frustrated sound and glares at him but grinds out, “Yes, it was.”
Tony gives Clint a look, longing and mournful and disappointed, but he also feels more content now than he’s ever felt in his life (except maybe that one time, when Clint had crawled into a hospital bed with him, and promised to be there for him when he needed, when the wounds on Tony’s arms were still raw and tender, and Clint’s promise had felt a lot like love he’d never gotten before). Bucky lets him do whatever he wants back in Hell, even if it’s cooing over the baby demons, and patiently listens when Tony babbles on and on, trying to understand but mostly failing but not caring that he feels stupid at all.
“Are you happy, Tony?” Clint asks, elbowing Steve when he tries to squawk a negative in outrage. “Does he make you happy?”
Tony, looking down at his feet under the angel’s incredulous gaze, whispers, “Yes.”
Clint reaches out, and Tony shyly extends his hand over the edge of the circle, letting him hold it without stepping inside himself. “You look happier,” Clint admits softly. “And if you’re happy, I’m happy for you. But I don’t want to never see you again. Can’t I see you again?”
Tony looks up at Bucky pleadingly, all big, wet eyes and trembling lip because even with how short their time together has been, the demon is a sucker for him.
Bucky sighs, gritting his teeth as he glares at Steve, before finally saying, “I’m… sure that something could be arranged.” The way Tony perks up at the admission is worth it, even if the angel opposite him looks incredibly smug about it.
It feels a lot like a custody arrangement, but Tony and Clint are happy with it, so Bucky and Steve keep their mouths shut.
.-.-.-.
If Tony had thrived under Bucky’s attention, he absolutely blooms under Clint’s additional care. He smiles more, is more animated even when he and Bucky are alone, smiling and happy. Steve says nothing, but he relaxes the more they all hang out together, and Bucky gets the feeling that Clint might be smiling for Steve more, too.
Still, neither Bucky nor Steve are prepared to see Clint turn from chopping some carrots to cup Tony’s cheeks and draw him into a kiss. Tony makes a startled little keening noise before leaning into the kiss, tipping his head accommodatingly, until they’re both panting and moaning quietly into each other’s mouths.
They only break apart at the sound of shattering glass, startled, and Tony shrinks when he sees the glass shards sunk into Steve’s palm, looking guiltily between him and Bucky.
“Look what you did,” Bucky hisses at Steve angrily, and he’d be lying if he said it was entirely because of how sad Tony looked.
“Hng,” Steve replies dumbly.
Tony and Clint eye Steve for a moment, nervous and contemplative in turn, before Clint carefully curls his hands over Tony’s hips and leans in to press a few nibbling kisses to his throat that make Tony whimper and press back against him.
“Steve!” Tony cries, distraught, as the angel collapses. “I’m sorry!”
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Bucky says, leaning over him and seriously considering just destroying him while he’s down, then has to do a double take. “Hell’s bells,” he says gleefully. “He came so hard he passed out.”
Bucky tries to convince Tony and Clint to keep going, but Tony is a fretter, and Clint is a follower, so he sighs and helps get Steve laid out on the couch. He does have to admit that it’s pretty adorable when Tony insists on putting a cool cloth over Steve’s forehead, and Clint gamely wets one for him.
Steve comes to a few minutes later with a breathless ‘oh lord I came so hard I went blind.’
This is the best day of his life, Bucky decides gleefully, and informs Steve that he has a washcloth over his eyes.
Steve gets his revenge when they come back from buying cake to find Clint bouncing on Tony’s cock and Bucky trips over nothing and lands face-first into the cake he was holding with a splat.
“My cake!” Tony whines.
Clint draws his attention back to him with a kiss and murmurs, “Guess you’ll just hafta lick it off of him. What a shame.” Tony seems very on-board with this and lets himself be drawn into the kiss.
Steve wonders if he could get away with smearing Clint’s cake all over himself, too, but Bucky looks incredibly uncomfortable with how sticky he is, and honestly, getting the frosting out of his feathers is probably a chore anyway. Steve can just feed Clint his cake with a fork. He likes doing that anyway.
.-.-.-.
Steve and Bucky never really “get along,” but they manage to tolerate each other for their humans’ sakes. It helps that they’re rewarded with kisses and… other favors.
“Still, you guys could at least show off for us once in a while,” Clint mutters petulantly.
Tony lifts his head and makes an interested noise.
“Ugh,” Bucky begins, but cuts himself off with a keening noise when Steve buries his hands in his black feathers and tugs just the right way that Bucky drops to his knees and whines helplessly, at his mercy.
“Wings can be a huge erogenous zone if you know where and how to touch,” Steve explains when he notices Clint and Tony gaping at him.
Bucky gets his revenge by making Steve hump against his thigh uselessly as he fondles his wings in return.
And, well, Steve’s not so bad. Rigid, maybe, because of his beliefs, but open to discussion if you approach him the right way. It helps that Steve admits he was jealous in the beginning, still is a little, because he’d spent so much time and effort and energy and even himself on Tony, and Bucky had so easily and quickly helped Tony when Steve had nearly died trying to do the same thing. Bucky supposes he can respect that. Even now, sometimes Tony’s mood just drops, and Bucky can’t do anything about it. He can’t imagine the struggle of having to choose between charges and then watching as your powers do little to nothing to improve the one you chose.
He doesn’t tell Steve that he just lets Tony be sad, and angry, and despairing, until Tony decides he’s tired of being depressed and shoves the feelings down again. It is, unfortunately, an angel’s nature to try and fix things. Bucky decides to give him just a little more leeway, because he can’t imagine how it feels to fail someone like Steve failed Tony.
It sure is something to be protected by Steve when hunters come after him, though.
“You make Tony happy, is all, and if Tony’s happy, then Clint’s happy,” Steve mutters, blushing a little when Bucky gapes up at him. “They’d be sad if you were destroyed, so I had to protect you. That’s all. Don’t put so much stock in this.”
“I’m telling Tony and Clint you like me,” Bucky answers immediately, and dodges Steve’s outraged swipe gleefully. “I’m telling them. You like me! Just for this, I’ll let you watch me fuck Tony with my tail. One time he rode me so hard I was chafed for days, the greedy little thing.”
Steve mutters to himself petulantly, but, well. He’s noticed Bucky’s tail, too. Maybe he does want to see it in action.
It still takes a lot of enthused convincing from both Tony and Clint before he lets Bucky use that tail on him, though.
