oooh! Winteriron, 72: 'They're going to love you, don't worry!'
“They’re going to love you, don’t worry!” Tony said.
“They’re going to hate me and I’m going to lie in the floor and die.” Bucky said, not giving up his death grip on the car door. “My pie is going to taste horrible and I probably put in salt instead of sugar and I’m never going to be able to show my face in-”
“Rhodey made a bet with Sam that we’d be late.” Tony said and Bucky stopped and blinked at him.
“He what?” Bucky said indignantly and Tony hid a grin. Rhodey and Bucky were at each other’s throats from the moment DUM-E had wandered out once again at MIT and came back with a baffled Bucky who didn’t seem too bothered by a sentient robot that acted like a puppy or the word vomit that came out of Tony’s mouth when he didn’t sleep for over two days. Their ridiculous ‘bets’ had ended up with plenty of blackmail material on both of them so Tony was more amused than anything.
Bucky snatched up the pie and marched towards the door, muttering angrily under his breath. Tony threw a couple hundreds at the startled driver and started after his boyfriend, who realized again where he was and turned to send a panicked look at Tony.
“You going to stand there all day?” Rhodey said, throwing open the door.
“I’ve been here two minutes Rhodes, and I’ll have you know that-Ma’am!” Bucky squeaked the last word as Mama Rhodes hipchecked Rhodey out of the way and gave a full body hug to Bucky. He nearly dropped the pie, but it was rescued by Rhodey who vanished back into the house.
“You must be the Bucky that has our Tony all aflutter!” Mama Rhodes said, releasing Bucky to give Tony the same hug. He melted into her arms with a happy sigh. He was taller than her, pretty much everyone was, but no one gave hugs like Mama Rhodes.
“I’m not aflutter over anything.” Tony grumbled on principle.
“Yes yes, you say that.” Mama Rhodes said, ushering them inside. “Come in! James set the table and the lasagna has just finished, Tony’s favorite of course.”
“You spoil me Mama Rhodes,” Tony said, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“Tony!” a blur cannonballed out of the nearby room and slammed into Tony. He staggered back, but gave the teenager a hug.
“Hey Nettie.” Tony said and the girl huffed.
“It’s Jeanette.” Jeanette informed Bucky before tilting her head at him. “Hey! You’re the boyfriend!”
“Yes, so please don’t break him.” Tony said, sliding his hand into Bucky’s and tugging him along.
“She calls you James?” Are the first words to come out of Bucky’s mouth as he stares at Rhodey and Tony can see how he wants to facepalm when he realizes what he said.
“Hey, only my Mama can call me that.” Rhodey said, stabbing a soup spoon in Bucky’s direction. “You don’t get first name privileges Barnes.”
“James, don’t tease him.” Mama Rhodes said, but there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Tony’s got everyone calling you Rhodey, Jeanette even called him that the other day. Half the students at MIT were calling him that after two months of meeting Tony.”
“He likes to joke he’s collecting all the James’,” Bucky said, relaxing a little bit as Rhodey started to serve dinner. “And none of them actually go by James.”
“It’s true,” Tony said, glad to see that Bucky had started to relax.
“Of course, there was that incident about three weeks back...” Every single happy thought about Bucky vanished. he was going to murder his boyfriend at the dinner table.
“See, he was trying to come up with nicknames and -stop pinching me you menace!”
(Hours later, Bucky was trading hair care product tips with Jeanette and chattering away with Mama Rhodes about the newest wrestler on TV and even managing to get a decent conversation with Rhodey.
The pie, of course, was fantastic.)