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Thing is, Tony likes touch. In fact, scratch that - he loves touch. Casual, cuddles, sexual, all kinds of touch, and he’s game. Which should be easy to get, given the large number of friends who liked to call themselves his “friends”, but these days, it was almost impossible.
The easy comradery he had with his former teammates was not stilted interactions and mistrust. They were all back together, but not together. Tony was too scared to bring himself to touch any of them, and they didn’t put any effort into making him feel welcome like they did before. Not that he blamed them, he doubts he’d act differently if he was in their shoes.
Of course there were always Rhodey and Pepper, but there was something about cuddling with your ex-girlfriend-slash-boss that was just inappropriate, which left his honey bear, who had a life of his own outside of Tony’s. He even had a girlfriend now.
So Tony couldn’t really be blamed for getting it wherever he could.
In his defense, he hadn’t planned on it, and that at least should earn him a gold star for effort. In fact, he had a whole plan of being utterly respectful and well behaved towards Bucky when the sergeant inevitably sought him out to fix his arm, because of course the resident genius engineer would be expected to fix it. Not because he had been the one to blow up the perfectly functioning arm Bucky had - although he did feel guilty about that (for no valid reason but to add another one to his collection), but because he was itching to put his hands on the shiny piece of Wakandan tech attached to Steve’s bestie. Steve knew it, Bucky probably knew it, and anyone who had ever met Tony Stark knew it. He just kept his distance out of respect for the resident cyborg, not because of Cap’s puppy eyes or Natasha’s stinky eye sent his way with the helpful display of knives being sharpened.
That, and because Tony knew he just had to be patient and wait for a malfunction on the arm for those fuckers currently giving him the side eye to come to him for help. And he had no doubts that the arm would malfunction, for reasons other than Tony’s not so secret wish to tinker with it and the burning desire to see Wakandan tech fail ever since T’Challa insulted Starktech.
It just took one year for all that patience to finally pay off - with a dangerous whiplashing from the arm and a black eye for Scott, and another two days where Tony behaved like the human embodiment of smugness before the soldier finally appeared on Tony’s workshop with a suspicious lack of Steve hovering over him. By then, Tony had been subjected to enough variety of eyes from the Bucky Barnes fanclub to get his act together and play nice.
Which lasted about three minutes into the session, because Tony will be Tony and catching the soldier clearly leaning against him with a faint blush on his face when Tony had innocently started to rub circles on his flesh arm was too good an opportunity to let it pass. Emphasis on the innocent part. If push came to shove and his little stunt landed him in trouble, he could always claim Bucky had started it without lying. It was, in fact, an innocent touch, meant to relax Bucky for their appointment, the guy was strung tight.
Which is how he found himself in the current situation. Tony didn’t even mean anything by it. Sure, after he made peace with the past, Tony could admit Barnes was smoking hot and charming. The engineer certainly would love to that for a ride, but he knew better than to get his hopes (and other appendages) up.
He wasn’t trying to molest Bucky, for fuck’s sake! But he noticed the guy was just as touch-starved as he was. Was it so bad of him to offer the dude human touch? He knew how bad it was when one was deprived of that.
“You gotta relax for me, darling” He said softly, gently rubbing Bucky’s flesh hand with his own free hand. He didn’t look up from the delicate work on the forearm of the prosthesis to check on Bucky’s expression, but he felt him leaning more against him.
Tony congratulated himself mentally. On the first appointments, Bucky had been strung tight, unable to relax. The small touches at first had him tensing slightly, before letting go and relaxing under Tony’s ministrations. He liked to think he had that good effect in Bucky.
And over the past few days, Bucky had started to touch him back: A hand on the small of his back when they walked around each other on the kitchen, ruffling his hair after a successful training session, or simply touching the hair on the nape of his neck when they were sitting next to each other on a meeting.
It was all, however, touches that Bucky apparently thought Tony didn’t notice. Like he could pass it as casual, and not deliberate. But Tony knew the signs of someone sneakily trying to touch, and that was what Bucky Barnes was doing.
How could he tell him he didn’t mind it without spooking the man?
Apparently that wouldn’t be a problem, however, when he felt arms wrapping around his torso where he was standing, and looked back to see Bucky nervously looking up at him from where he had his face smushed against his stomach, expecting for a reaction.
Tony just smiled, and ran his fingers over Bucky’s hair, trying to convey to him that it was okay. It was appreciated, even.
It was as if tension left Bucky’s body, and he squeezed his torso once before relaxing.
His arm, however, didn’t leave Tony’s middle.
----
From that point on, not touching Bucky became the new weird. Sure, they had become used to fleeting touches in passing, but once Tony had apparently given him consent to do it, Bucky revealed himself to be a greedy little thing, who used each and every opportunity to be touching Tony.
During meals, Bucky was there by his side, hands too busy with eating, but the length of his thigh was pressed against Tony’s, a warm weight against him leg. If it was a meeting with someone, Bucky would always find a way to sit beside Tony as well, usually on his left side, so he could grab Tony’s hand with his flesh hand under the table.
Training session? Suddenly the Winter Soldier was the one always fighting alongside Iron Man, and the wind down after almost always included lying down side by side on the floor, with Tony way too tired to get up and Bucky pretending that was the case for him as well. They didn’t cuddle then, the fear of their teammates judgment and possible censorship of such behavior hanging heavy between them.
The cuddling was reserved for their alone times, during movie nights that no one else bothered to show up to, when Bucky and Tony would command the communal media room and put on some science flick or even a chick flick for shits and giggles (well, not quite, Bucky seemed to love those), and then they would hide under the heavy layers of blankets and comforters, pressed together, or on each other’s arms.
There were also the arm maintenance sessions. Bucky wasn’t as nervous about them anymore. In fact, he seemed to expect them. Tony took that as a praise to his skills, and a sign that his technique was improving.
And hey, if he himself was getting more touch out of it, that was a win-win situation.
-----
Things just got fucked up, however, when his lizard brain decided that he didn’t want to just cuddle Bucky anymore.
It was during one of their movie nights, where they were laying on the couch side by side, with arms and legs tangled on each other while some romantic comedy played on the TV. The feel of Bucky’s body against him was comforting, and warm, and Tony was suddenly very conscious that, if he just turned his head to the right, he’d be face to face with Bucky, close enough to kiss.
Beside him, he felt Bucky tense up, and started to panic, imagining that he had, somehow, given away what he was thinking.
“Tony?” Bucky called him, and he sounded so uncertain, and so vulnerable, that Tony couldn’t resist turning his head to the right to look at him.
Just as he had imagined, Bucky was close enough to kiss. And he wasn’t turning away in disgust, but rather, leaning in.
“Can I…?” he asked, waiting for Tony’s nod of approval before pressing his lips against Tony’s.
Tony didn’t want to say it was magical, but it was quite close. They were already cozy, tangled on each other. The kiss just came to be the cherry on top of what had been brewing for a long time, really.
That was just yet another touch to add to their list. And, hopefully, by the end of the night, they’d have many more.