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Steve Rogers was a dick. He’d been a dick since the day the met and his attitude had hardly changed. Tony hardly enjoyed being around the supersoldier. In fact, Tony made a point to avoid being around Steve. Sometimes it didn’t work. He couldn’t avoid Steve on the battlefield, or during briefing, or during the mandatory movie nights (which Tony would never admit that he actually liked).
Tony was used to being berated, thanks to Howard, but the Steve talked to Tony sometimes was just a little too much for him to handle. Tony didn’t confront him, he was afraid that if he did, Steve would react like Howard used to. He forced himself to suffer through the words of his teammate.
--
“You don’ gotta talk to him like that,” Bucky said quietly.
Steve just sighed, he was staring longingly at the doorway where Tony had disappeared through, like he was wishing the genius would come back.
“He just doesn’t listen! What if he’d gotten hurt? This wouldn’t happen if he would follow orders,” Steve protested.
Bucky didn’t know how to respond to that in a way that wouldn’t piss the Captain off, so he didn’t say anything.
Later that day, however, Bucky ventured down to Tony’s lab to make sure he was doing ok. He found the engineer at his workbench surrounded by different holographic schematics. Bucky loved it when Tony was in his natural habitat, he was beautiful.
“Hey doll,”
Tony swiveled around in his chair and smiled at Bucky. The bots, who were each in their individual corners, beeped at him in way of greeting.
“Hey Buckaroo! What brings you down here?” Tony asked.
“Was bored,” Bucky responded with a slight shrug.
He plopped himself down on the tattered couch, he leaned back and looked over at Tony with a lazy smile on his face.
“What do ya got goin’ on down here?”
Tony smiled a little shyly before he started to tell Bucky about the different projects he was working on. Bucky really loved seeing Tony in his natural habitat.
--
It became something of a routine. At first Bucky would go to Tony’s lab if he knew that Steve had been a dick, then it progressed to him going down there every evening, whether or not Tony had even seen Steve that day.
Bucky just loved being around Tony.
--
“This is a bad idea,” Nat drawled.
Bucky looked from her to Steve and Tony who were in the boxing ring. Nat didn’t look even a little bit concerned.
“Does Tony say no to anything?” Bucky asked, he was successful in keeping the nerves from his voice but that didn’t mean that Natasha didn’t realize how nervous he was.
“You think I’m worried about Tony?” she asked as she raised a single eyebrow.
“What?”
In the boxing ring, Steve was teaching Tony some moves, Bucky could hear Steve’s slightly condescending tone. What a fucking jackass. Bucky looked at Natasha, she was probably as done with Steve’s bullshit as he was. She nudge him gently and gestured to the ring. Bucky looked just in time to see Steve hit the floor. Bucky’s jaw dropped.
“I think I can handle myself just fine Cap,” Tony said easily.
Bucky didn’t even try to stop the smile that spread across his face. Tony was fucking amazing. Tony looked over at them and winked.
--
“Did you teach him that?”
It had been a few hours since Tony showed Steve up in the boxing ring. Bucky still couldn’t believe what he saw.
“I only helped him perfect his techniques,” Natasha responded.
Bucky nodded and took another bite of whatever vegetable it was that Nat was chopping up.
“If you’re not going to help us cook then the get the fuck out of the kitchen,”
She brandished a knife at him and he was quick to leave the kitchen. He went down to Tony’s lab. Dum-E was the first to greet him as he usually did if he wasn’t in time out for making a mess.
“Hey little guy,” Bucky said fondly, bumping his fist to Dum-E’s claw.
“Evenin’ doll,” he drawled by way of greeting to Tony.
Tony was tinkering with one of his suits, he was covered in grease and somehow still looked effortlessly beautiful.
“Where’d you learn how to get the drop on Cap like that?”
Tony pulled away from the suit for a moment to look at Bucky.
“After the arc reactor,” he said.
Bucky nodded. He’d heard the story of how Tony got the arc reactor in his chest.
“Started boxing with Happy- J make a note to remind me to call him. Gotta make sure he’s doing good,” Tony called.
“Call scheduled,” JARVIS responded after just a moment of silence.
“Then my honey bear forced me to do some other training. Nat helped me clean up my technique. I think it was her way of apologizing,” Tony added.
“I’ve never seen Stevie go down so fast,” Bucky said, a smile growing on his face as he recalled it.
Tony laughed gently, and equally large smile on his face.
“He’s was being a dick, I couldn’t help it,”
“It was fucking amazing doll,”
Bucky could have sworn he saw Tony blush before he ducked back behind the suit.
--
The more time Bucky spent around the Tony, the more he realized how much he genuinely enjoyed being around the engineer.
He couldn’t fathom how Steve could continuously be so goddamn rude to Tony.
--
Tony was an insomniac, Bucky needed maybe four hours of sleep a night, so they would often find themselves in the communal living room, watching movies.
Bucky, who had been a mindless assassin for 70 years, loved watching movies. More specifically he loved watching movies with Tony. He always provided the best commentary.
And, if he was lucky enough, Tony would fall asleep against his side. In Bucky’s not-so-biased opinion, there was nothing quite as beautiful as a sleepy (or asleep) Tony Stark, it was one of the only times he was completely relaxed.
--
“Are you sure J?”
Bucky looked at the sunflower in his hands and then up at JARVIS’s speaker.
“It is the sirs favorite flower,” JARVIS informed him.
Bucky just nodded. The elevator doors opened and Bucky started on his way toward Tony’s lab. He punched in his access code and stepped in.
Dum-E was the first to greet him, Bucky bumped his fist against the bots claw and smiled.
“Hey doll,” he called to Tony.
“What brings you down here Bu- what’s with the sunflower?”
“Well… it’s uh… for you actually,”
Tony looked incredibly stunned. He slowly took the flower from Bucky and beamed.
“No one’s ever gotten me flowers before! How’d you know I liked these?” Tony asked, his eyes bright with excitement.
“JARVIS told me,”
“I was actually wonderin’ doll… if you’d like to go out on a date with me?”
There was a moment of silence between them.
“I… yes… that would be… yes,” Tony said, he sounded completely flustered.
There was a huge grin on Tony’s face, Bucky knew the smile on his own face was just as big.
“So what are you workin’ on today, doll?” Bucky asked as he flopped down on the couch.
--
Bucky was on cloud nine right up until the point where Steve cornered him.
They’d never yelled at each other so much. Steve felt betrayed by Bucky’s actions. Bucky was pissed at how Steve was treating Tony.
Steve stormed off and slammed the door behind him.
“That was long overdue,” JARVIS commented.
Bucky’s lips quirked into a small smile.
--
Tony was acutely aware of the fact that after Bucky asked him out, Steve started being unnaturally nice to him. Tony was a little uncomfortable. He was far too used to Steve being a dick that the sudden 180 made his skin crawl.
It wasn’t long before Tony snapped.
“Look Cap I don’t know what the fuck you’re playing at but it needs to stop,” Tony said.
“What?”
“This whole… you being nice bullshit! Just go back to insulting me,”
Tony left the room without giving Steve a chance to respond.
--
Tony was picking at things in the fridge when Steve walked in. It had been a few days since Tony had seen the super soldier, for that he was a little bit relieved.
“Hey Tony,”
“Cap,”
Tony was weary of Cap’s presence. He really wasn’t in the mood to be berated.
“I’m sorry,”
Tony stared at Steve, he was completely speechless.
“I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you. It was wrong, and I don’t even have a good reason. I know I’ve said some real bad stuff to you, and I know that a simple apology won’t make anything better, but I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me,” Steve said.
When Tony didn’t respond Steve gave a short nod and walked out of the kitchen.
“JARVIS what the fuck,” Tony said.
“Captain Rogers recently reviewed video’s of how he has been acting toward you, sir, and I think- as he should rightfully be- he is ashamed of what he has done,” JARVIS supplied helpfully.
“What the hell,”
--
It took a while for Tony to get comfortable around Steve. Once he did, however, it was nice. Tony and Bucky would go on double dates with Steve and Sam.
Life was good.