Chapter Text
“Bucky, we need a laptop for school,” Steve said. It was an old argument.
“I know, Steve,” Bucky said, tired. “It would be nice to be able to work on my assignments at home too. But we just can’t afford it.”
For the last three years, Steve and Bucky had been doing all their online assignments and essays at libraries, which obviously had its limitations. Now, in their last year of college, they were both tired of staying at libraries until they were politely kicked out by friendly librarians an hour after closing.
“Hey, guess what I saw on tumblr today,” Steve said, and Bucky could see the light bulb go up over Steve’s head. This couldn’t be good.
Bucky silently squinted at him suspiciously.
“Why yes, Steve, my best friend in the whole world, I would love to know what you saw on tumblr today,” Steve said in a terrible caricature of Bucky’s voice. “Well, I will tell you! This says that if you send a wedding invitation to a billionaire, it’s likely that their secretary will just send you something automatically. Worth a shot, right?”
“What are you saying, Steve? You’re going to fake a wedding to get a laptop from a random billionaire?” Bucky asked, incredulous.
“No. We are going to fake a wedding to get a laptop from a billionaire. And not just any billionaire,” Steve started, “we can send an invite to local billionaire Tony Stark himself. The guy is known for being eccentric.”
“Hold on,” Bucky said. “You want to fake marry me for a laptop?”
“Well,” Steve said, “we wouldn’t even have to plan a wedding. It’d just be sending an invite and a thank-you card in a couple weeks.”
It was obvious from the look on Steve’s pretty face that he thought he was a genius. Bucky wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know, Steve,” he said.
“What, you don’t want to fake marry me?” Steve pouted.
No, Bucky did not, in fact, want to fake marry his platonic best friend that he had had a crush on since they were kids. Especially when said crush is unrequited. But with Steve looking at him through those ridiculous lashes, Bucky melted.
“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s just, do you really want to tell a guy like Tony Stark that you’re marrying little old me?”
“Well, who else would I marry?” Steve asked in such a matter-of-fact way that the question destroyed a tiny bit of Bucky’s heart. “Fake marry, that is.”
Huh. There went the rest of Bucky’s heart. It’s fine; he didn’t need it.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Bucky said, hoping he didn’t sound as tired as he felt. “You gonna make the invitation, or…?”
“Wanna help me pick a date?” Steve asked.
“I guess it shouldn’t be too far away, since he’s likely to send a gift close to the actual day,” Bucky said. “Maybe… a month from now?”
“Let’s pick a Saturday,” Steve said. “How about… October 27?”
“Sure, why not,” Bucky said. He supposed it didn’t really matter.
“Great,” Steve said, typing out an invitation in a template he found on his phone.
When he was done, the invitation read
Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes
Formally invite you to their wedding on
Saturday, the twenty-seventh of October, 2018
It will be held at the Green-Wood Cemetery Church
Located at 500 25th Street
At four o’clock in the evening
Please send an R.S.V.P to (718) 123 4567
A registry can be found through Target
“Sounds great,” Bucky said. “Wait, why is your name first? Mine should be first. It’s alphabetical in every way.”
“Buck, please. I wrote the invitations and came up with the idea. My name should be first,” Steve argued.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. It’s not like they were actually getting married, anyway.
Steve sent it to the printer, annoyed to find he could only print on cardstock in batches of twenty-five. Whatever, that works. They could send the others to other billionaires.
***
The next day, Steve took a bus down to the printers to pick up the invitations. They were printed on quality cardstock, a worthy investment for all the wedding gifts they would receive. On the way home, he mailed one to Tony Stark at Stark Tower and took the others home.
Steve and Bucky debated about who to send the others to, but decided to wait and see if they got a response from Tony first.
They spent a few minutes putting a laptop and other random household things into a registry online, since they figured it might look weird if they only put one thing in it. They could use a new toaster, anyway, after their last one was mysteriously set on fire. Hey, toaster grilled cheese sounded like a good idea, okay?
***
“Hey, Bucky?” Steve called. “Can you come here for a sec?”
Bucky, grumbling, got up from his comfortable spot in his room and walked to where Steve was sitting drawing. Steve was looking at his phone in horror, and Bucky felt a sense of dread begin to settle in his stomach.
“What?” he asked.
Wordlessly, Steve held out the phone. Bucky grabbed it from him and read the displayed text.
FROM: Unknown Number (4:37 p.m)
hey, it’s tony. you can count on me being at your wedding. i’ll bring the wine so don’t worry about it
Bucky looked up at Steve with wide eyes. They hadn’t even considered the possibility that actual Tony Stark would actually RSVP to their fake wedding. The universe must hate Bucky.
“So, Buck,” Steve said, “wanna get married? For real?”
How could he say no?