Chapter Text
There was a pretty consistent bedtime ritual in place when Tony was little. After dinner, he’d sit on the couch with Steve and Bucky while they watched TV, and Steve would give Tony his evening bottle. Both the show they would watch and the bottle Tony was drinking were finished at around the same time as each other, as the clock was striking nine. Nine o’clock was a good bedtime for very little boys, so Steve would change Tony into a nice dry diaper and tuck him into bed with a pacifier and his favorite teddy bear cuddled up to his chest.
Bucky spent a lot of time with Steve, and by default that meant he spent a lot of time with Tony. Well, he spent a lot of time with little-Tony. Bucky wasn’t a caretaker per se, but Tony seemed to trust him enough to allow him to watch over him if Steve needed to step out of the room for whatever reason. He could change a diaper if he needed to, but he didn’t do nearly as much for Tony as Steve did. Steve was Tony’s daddy, afterall. Bucky was an uncle at most, or maybe a cousin. But like a third cousin.
Evidently, Tony thought of him as more than a third cousin.
“Alright baby boy,” Steve said in a soft voice as he sat Tony up and put the empty bottle on the coffee table. “Are you ready to go get changed and tucked in?” Tony was chewing on his bottom lip and he looked up at Steve with big eyes. He gestured for Steve to move his head closer, and he whispered something into Steve’s ear. His daddy looked down at him with a smile. “Yeah? You should ask him, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
Tony looked over to Bucky, who was sitting at the other end of the couch. He suddenly felt very, very shy, and he cast his gaze down to his lap. When he began fiddling with the hem of his daddy’s shirt, Steve realized that Tony would fall asleep right where he was before he’d be able to work up the courage to ask for himself.
“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. “Tony wants to know if you’d help me tuck him in tonight.”
Bucky blinked in surprise. That was something he’d never done before, and he was honestly a little shocked. Getting tucked into bed, sometimes reading a story, a goodnight kiss on the forehead- that was always something shared between Tony and Steve, and now Tony wanted him to take part too?
Tony looked up at Bucky cautiously, afraid that his request had upset him. “Please papa?” Tony’s voice was so small that Bucky almost thought that he’d misheard what Tony said. But no, if Steve’s look of awe was anything to go off of, he’d heard exactly right.
Papa.
Bucky’s body went on autopilot, which was good because his mind was drawing a complete blank. His legs had him up off the couch and into the kitchen before he could even think about how he was supposed to respond to being called papa.
As soon as Bucky disappeared into the kitchen, Tony was looking up at Steve with big teary eyes. Immediately, Steve cradled Tony to his chest, shushing him gently, assuring him that he’d done nothing wrong. “Hey, it’s alright honey.” At least, he hoped it was alright? He certainly hadn’t expected Bucky to do... that . But he also hadn’t been expecting Tony to call Bucky papa. “How about we go get you ready for bed, and then I’ll talk to Bucky.” Tony sniffled and nodded, wrapping his arms around his daddy’s neck as Steve stood up. Steve carried his baby to the bedroom and made quick work of getting him changed and into a pair of soft and cozy pajamas. Tony insisted that he didn’t want to be tucked in yet, that he didn’t want to go to sleep until he knew that Bucky wasn’t mad at him, so Steve gave him his pacifier and his bear, and left him sitting in the middle of the bed while he went to talk to Bucky.
Bucky was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, wringing his hands, when Steve appeared in the doorway.
“Bucky, you okay?” Steve asked, his forehead creased with concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bucky rubbed his hands down his face. “Okay no, I’m not fine at all.”
“What’s wrong?”
Bucky stopped pacing and leant back against the counter. “Tony called me papa, Steve. Papa .”
“Tony trusts you-”
“ Steve, ” Bucky clenched his fists until the knuckles of his right hand turned white. “I can’t be Tony’s papa, I can’t be his caretaker.”
“You wouldn’t be his only caretaker though, I’d still be his daddy.”
“I’m not caretaker-material.”
Steve looked at Bucky with a raised eyebrow. “What are you talking about, you used to take care of me all the time.”
“ Not like this! Don’t get me wrong, you needed a helluva lot of help, but Tony, he’s a baby . This is something else completely. And things are different now, with me. I’m not the same person I was when I was saving your ass all the time.” Bucky looked so defeated, having to admit that. He wasn’t what HYDRA had made him anymore, but he definitely wasn’t what he’d been back before all of that, not even close. He didn’t think he’d ever be anything close to what he once was.
“Well Tony obviously thinks you’re fit to be a caretaker for him, and that’s not something you should take lightly. He knows who you are, what you’ve been through, and he sees you as someone he can put his trust in. You know he’s had to have put a lot of thought into it, he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it,” Steve said, holding his gaze on Bucky’s eyes.
“That’s what’s weird though, whatever it is that he sees in me that makes him want me to take care of him, I just don’t understand it. I don’t see it. Like you being his daddy, that makes sense. You’re just cut out for taking care of people, and I’m...me, I don’t know.”
Steve stepped forward and placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Look Buck, I’m not trying to force you or guilt you into agreeing to this. If you don’t want to be Tony’s papa, or his caretaker, or anything more than a guy who happens to live in the same building as he does, there’s nothing wrong with that, and he’s going to understand, I promise. But no matter what, you’re going to have to talk to Tony about it, both when he’s little and big. I think that’s something important.”
Bucky nodded, running a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I should go talk to him then, before he falls asleep.”
Together they walked to the bedroom, and Steve had his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. When they got to the bedroom, Tony was still sitting where Steve had left him, though his eyelids were looking heavy and he was trying to keep his head from bobbing forward. Steve lingered in the doorway as Bucky slowly crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Hey there, kid.”
Tony hesitantly pulled his pacifier from his mouth, staring down at his lap. “’M sorry, Bucky.”
“Oh, Tony, you don’t have to be sorry for anything. That was all on me.” Bucky gave an apologetic look. “I just wasn’t sure if I could be a very good ca-, a very good papa for you.”
Tony furrowed his eyebrows, making the most adorable confused face Bucky had ever seen. “How come?”
“Well you see, you’re a really special little boy, who deserves the best caretakers, like your daddy is. And I’ve never been anyone’s caretaker, so I don’t know if I’m any good at it.” Bucky gave Tony a sad smile. As far a little Tony needed to know, that was the only apprehension that Bucky had. He was sure that when Tony aged back up, he’d understand the true reasoning without him having to explain.
“Oh,” Tony said, feeling guilty that he’d even brought the whole thing up in the first place, seeing how obviously uneasy it had made Bucky.
“But,” Bucky said, and Tony’s eyes shined with the slightest tinge of hope, just for a second. “That doesn’t mean I can’t try being the best papa I can be, if you want me to.”
Tony’s voice was filled with awe, like he couldn’t believe it, and that nearly broke Bucky’s heart. “Really?”
“Of course. What do you say?”
Tony said nothing, but nodded, giving Bucky a shy smile as he cuddled his teddy bear close to his chest. Steve walked into the room and stood at the edge of the bed.
“Well baby boy, I think that as his first mission being your papa, he should help me get you tucked in, what do you think?” Tony nodded again, his face scrunching up as he let out a yawn. Bucky picked up the pacifier that laid forgotten on the bed beside Tony, and slipped it into the little’s mouth. Steve gathered Tony into his arms, lifting him off the mattress so that Bucky could pull back the covers to make space for the little boy. Steve plopped Tony down ever so gently, and Tony wiggled and squirmed until he found himself in a nice cozy spot, tucking his bear up under his chin. Steve and Bucky each took one side of the blanket and pulled it up, so Tony was covered all the way up to his shoulders. Tony felt like he had to be the luckiest boy in the whole world as his daddy leaned down and gave him a goodnight kiss on the cheek, and his papa gave him one on the forehead.
The caretakers each gave their ‘good night’s in soft voices, and left the room, turning out the light and leaving the door open just a crack, just how Tony liked it. Steve turned to Bucky and put a hand on his shoulder, and they shared a quiet moment, basking in the shared love they felt for their little boy.
Steve would be sleeping in bed with Tony that night, and Bucky would be going off to the guest room he’d claimed as his own. But maybe one night soon, Tony hoped, he would get to spend the night with his daddy
and
his papa.