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Bucky knew that he’d missed a lot over his past few decades as the Winter Soldier, but he never realized just how horrible people could be until he started staying at the Tower.
If the media had been criticizing him, he could understand. He’d been an assassin, after all, unwitting or not, and was responsible for any number of high-profile killings over the years. But after the initial spike of interest in him when he first resurfaced, a significant number of sources soon turned right back to their favorite subject: Tony Stark.
More specifically, speculation on whether or not Tony Stark was Soulless, and if the lack of a daemon made him an asset or a detriment to the Avengers.
(The “asset” argument was, of course, that even if Tony didn’t have a daemon, at least maybe he’d die protecting one of the other Avengers. Bucky had nearly destroyed the gym when Steve had explained it to him.)
Tony had (infuriatingly) laughed the entire thing off. The media had been whining for years, he said, about how they never saw his daemon; it was nothing new. It was only after Afghanistan that they really began to speculate that there was something off about him, because how else could he have survived otherwise? Tony had gone quiet after that, and Bucky had felt like punching himself in the face for putting that far-off look in the other man’s eyes.
(Bucky’s daemon, Astrid, had brushed up against Tony’s legs a moment later; the genius had blinked, and shook himself free of whatever memory held him, but Bucky never forgot that moment.)
There were some people, of course, who argued that there were multiple reasons why Mr. Stark’s daemon remained out of the public eye, including the most obvious one: that the daemon in question might be small enough to be hidden on Tony’s person.
People also seemed to forget that it was Howard Stark who had basically cornered the market on daemon-related technology, including a piece that allowed soldiers to hide their daemons during combat. It made sense that his son might use that same technology in his everyday life, though that logic seemed to be lost on most journalists.
Bucky had tried to laugh the whole thing off as well, except that when he asked around to rest of the Avengers, none of them had seen Tony’s daemon, either. And it wasn’t that Bucky would think less of Tony if he didn’t have a daemon—Lord knows how surprised Bucky had been when Astrid had survived his stint with HYDRA, and his time in Afghanistan had undoubtedly been traumatic for the genius—but Bucky didn’t like the idea of Tony suffering in silence. The others told him not to worry, but it seemed that his tendency to look after Steve had since transferred over to Tony.
(Steve didn’t even pretend to be disappointed about that, the jerk.)
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Even though none of the other Avengers seemed the least bit bothered by Tony’s lack of daemon, Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much—the genius had proven time and again that he was perfectly capable of protecting himself—but it didn’t stop Bucky from asking Bruce if Tony had ever let anything slip during one of their lab sessions, or Thor when it was just the two of them in the air, or Natasha if she’d noticed anything during the times that Tony was so sleep deprived that both his mouth and body seemed to take on lives of their own.
No one had noticed a thing. It was maddening.
Before long, Becky’s nervousness morphed into Steve’s concern, and suddenly all of the Avengers save Tony were meeting in the living room to discuss the possibility that Tony didn’t have a daemon after all, what it might mean, and whether they should bring the topic up with Tony.
Just as everyone was staring to get worked up (the Avengers’ daemons had been conspicuously silent the entire time), JARVIS broke in to assure them that Sir did, in fact, have a daemon, and implied that while said daemon appreciated solitude as much as Tony, she could, likewise, be coaxed out with the proper incentive.
“JARVIS, are you telling us to bribe Tony’s daemon?”
“Of course not, Captain. I’m simply saying that if you and yours wish to meet Nix, a certain amount of creativity wouldn’t be remiss, in much the same way that you endeavor to periodically remove Sir from the workshop.”
In that moment, Bucky could easily read the emotions on his teammates and their corresponding daemons’ faces: Bruce's interest; Clint’s mischief; even Natasha’s thinly-veiled curiosity. Steve and Bucky’s eyes met.
Operation: Ghost Daemon was born.
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Despite all of the Avengers’ opinions about what type of animal Tony’s daemon might be, most of their ideas for luring Nix into the open were more suited to a slapstick Hollywood movie rather than real life. Clint, who was convinced that Nix was small, and easily hidden, decided to go with the ‘flour on the floor trick’ one evening, with added motion activated cameras for good measure. What he got was a 3:00 AM collision between an unsuspecting Steve and some cleaning bots, plus a stern lecture from Bruce about putting slippery substances on the floors at night.
Thor claimed that a warrior such as Anthony would have a predator as a companion. As such, the Asgardian decided to perform a pre-hunting ceremony that cleared out half of the tower for three days because of the smell. Whatever else Thor had planned quickly died in the face of a furious Pepper Potts.
Natasha never gave any outward evidence that she was searching for Nix, but Bucky had noticed an uncharacteristic scowl on the woman’s face one morning that lasted for far longer than it should have, given her love of Steve’s waffles. Whatever she had done (or not done, Bucky was never going to ask), her plan must have failed as well.
Bucky never saw Bruce’s idea in action, either, but the scientist had said that his daemon, Zee, had mentioned seeing an unfamiliar pair of blue-gray eyes watching them once or twice during Bruce’s experiment. Based on what little his daemon had told him of the encounters, the scientist was of the opinion that Tony’s daemon was waiting for something (or someone) specific before she decided to show herself.
Steve, like the good friend he was, didn’t try to find Nix himself, but instead dedicated his time to helping Bucky find a way to lure the creature out into the open. They considered and discarded multiple scenarios before Bucky decided to go with the simplest one.
(Easy for Steve to say; he wasn’t the one who could potentially get thrown out of the Tower if Bucky had read everything wrong. It took nearly all of Bucky’s self-control to not punch Steve in the nose when his friend started laughing at him.)
A few days later, Bucky and Astrid locked themselves in their room, and, with JARVIS’s help, recorded a very specific message for Tony’s daemon.
Then, they waited.
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Bucky tried not to be too disappointed when almost a week went by without a response from either Nix or Tony regarding the video. JARVIS reassured them that Nix had received the message, and had discussed it with Tony, but since Bucky hadn’t seen so much as Tony’s shadow since then, he could only assume that Tony wasn’t interested in what Bucky was offering.
(Forget that he’d failed to coax out Tony’s daemon; potentially losing the man himself was far worse.)
That was why Bucky was skulking around the Tower that evening instead of out to dinner with the rest of the Avengers (sans Tony, who had just returned home after a brief cross-country trip and had been sacked out on the common room sofa when they left).
Bucky meant to go straight to his room to sulk in private, but he couldn’t help but take a detour by the common floor (just to make sure that Tony hadn’t fallen off the sofa and hit his head, or something). He expected silence, but when the elevator doors opened, he was taken aback by the sounds of two voices coming from the other side of the sofa.
“Get off of me, you big lug,” Tony’s drowsy voice complained. There was the sound of shuffling, and a grunt, and then an added, “Have you been stealing Clint’s ice cream again? Just because I can buy more doesn’t give you permission to raid the kitchen in the middle of the night. I swear you get heavier every time we do this.”
“Are you calling me fat?” a distinctly feminine voice asked.
There was another, louder groan from Tony, and Bucky’s feet started moving almost without his permission to find out who was with the engineer…
Until a snow white, feline head popped up to stare the soldier down from where she was obviously perched on top of Tony.
“Oh, look,” the cat said drily. Her eyes never left Bucky’s, even as she idly lifted up one huge paw to lick. “It’s Bucky. He’s found me. Hooray. Maybe we should give him some sort of prize?”
“Well, I can’t date him if you crush me to death,” Tony grumbled.
Bucky barely kept his jaw in place at the sight that greeted him on the other side of the sofa: Tony, still laid out where the other Avengers had left him; and a leopard, stretched out and covering Tony from his chest to his toes. Tony was staring at Bucky like he expected the soldier to rescue him from his predicament, but Bucky was actually enjoying the sight of a mostly-still genius for once.
(Plus, those teeth looked plenty sharp.)
“You do realize that if you hurt him, I’ll be forced to eat you?”
Bucky glanced from Tony to Nix, trying to decide if the cat was serious. Tony smirked at Bucky, but otherwise held his tongue. “You—“
“No one’s ever asked for my permission before,” the cat interrupted, “not even Pepper. I have to say, I’m intrigued.” She moved just enough to let Tony wiggle out from beneath her, ignoring whatever the genius was mumbling at her until the two of them were sitting next to one another, and leaving enough space for Bucky and Astrid to join them. Bucky didn’t dare turn down the opportunity.
(Bucky had to admit, Tony fit very nicely against his side, just like the genius belonged there. It also made up for the fact that the man’s daemon hadn’t stopped staring at him since he entered the room.)
At the moment, Tony was watching him as well, sporting a tiny smile that made Bucky pull the other man even closer. “Nix’s right, you know,” Tony said lowly. “You're first place in the ‘where’s Tony’s daemon?’ contest. Would you like to know what you’ve won?”
(Bucky did, of course. The prize was definitely well worth the effort.)