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1.
Tony liked to think of himself as the kind of guy who could work with any situation, no matter how outlandish. After all, he figured, he was a literal superhero. Who worked with a god, a frozen supersoldier from the 40s, a very scary spy, a dude with delusions of being Robin Hood, and a gigantic green rage monster. So he was used to weird. He could roll with any sort of situation, from alien invaders to Captain America getting arrested for refusing police orders to disperse at a protest to walking into his kitchen and finding Barton throwing Tony’s (very expensive) kitchen knives at a smirking Natasha, who didn’t flinch even as one landed right next to her cheek.
He was used to insanity, is what he was trying to say. But this, this was a whole new level.
Tony stood frozen in the doorway of the living room, blinking slowly as he surveyed the scene in front of him.
Sitting on his couch was the Winter Soldier.
But hey, like he said, he hung out with superheros all the time and Roger’s friend turned enemy turned friend had been running with their band of misfits for a while now (and finding Barnes hanging around the Tower sure as shit wasn’t as startling as when Clint would drop from the rafters with no warning). No, what was currently causing his brain to short circuit was the fact that the Winter Soldier, most deadly assassin in history, frozen and brainwashed pride of Hydra, fucking insanely terrifying guy that had once crushed Tony’s toaster in his metal hand because it had popped out toast and startled him, the Winter Soldier, was wearing a crop top with Captain America’s shield on it. Tony shook his head but the image in front of him didn’t change. There was Bucky “I shot Nick Fury through a wall” Barnes, hair pulled up in a bun, sweatpants barely clinging to his hips (and leaving Tony with the unwelcome knowledge that the Winter Soldier did not wear underwear), wearing a loose, short white crop top that revealed his scarred and muscular stomach and hung off one shoulder, and was completed by a large stylized design of the Captain’s shield.
“Hey Stark,” Barnes spoke, noticing Tony who was still doing his best impression of a statue in the doorway, raising an eyebrow when Tony managed to move a couple of steps forward into the room, but couldn’t get out much more than a few incoherent sputters as he gestured towards the Soldier. “What, did I spill something?” Barnes frowned, looking down at himself. And Tony could feel himself losing what was left of his cool.
“Hey Tony,” and oh great, here was the living embodiment of the American flag, fluffy kittens, and good grammar himself, Steve Rogers. Tony watched, incredulously, as Rogers greeted Barnes without so much as a blink, settling himself on the couch and handing Barnes a bucket of popcorn, picking up the remote from the coffee table before pausing and looking back at Tony. “Stark?” he asked, voice concerned, “are you okay?”
“What the fuck is Barnes wearing?” Rogers looked over at his friend with a frown, before looking back at Tony with a raised brow.
“Um, clothes?” He replied, and Tony just couldn’t anymore. Throwing his arms up, he turned and left the room, muttering to himself about insane supersoldiers and their even crazier returned-from-the-dead best friends.
Bucky and Steve waited until Tony was well out of earshot before bursting out laughing.
“Oh fuck did you see his face?” Bucky laughed, leaning into Steve.
“I thought he was going to have an aneurysm,” Steve giggled in return.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” Bucky asked thoughtfully, stretching out his shirt in front of him and looking down at it, “I think it’s rather flattering.” Steve grinned at his friend.
“You look cute as a button pal.”
“Aw, shut up asshole,” Bucky responded fondly, nudging up against Steve’s shoulder as he grabbed the remote and pressed play, watching as Rapunzel began once again dancing and singing about having a dream.
2.
“Suck my star spangled dick motherfuckers!” Steve shouted as he took the lead. Clint looked over in alarm to where Steve was now turning an interesting shade of red on the other side of the couch, then over to Natasha on his other side, who seemed utterly unphased by Steve’s outburst. He couldn’t see much of Bucky from where he was sprawled on the other side of Steve, but he hadn’t so much at twitched at the shouting. Clint turned his attention back to the screen just in time to watch his kart go spinning off into the mineshaft. Sighing, he waited for the little cloud to put him back on the track, glancing at the other player’s screens just in time to see-
“DID YOU JUST FUCKING BLUE-SHELL ME?”
“Yup,” was Natasha’s stoic reply, and Clint was beginning to feel uncomfortable being sat between the two players, along with the knowledge that Captain America apparently swore like a sailor, which, who knew? He kind of wished Tony was there to share incredulous glances with, but he was stuck alone in a room full of crazy people.
“I swear to fucking God Romanoff, I will crush you so hard you’ll wish you never left Russia.”
“Mhmmm.”
“Um,” Clint said, “I think I’m just gonna… yeah.” Dropping his controller, he jumped out and headed out of the room, pausing to look back in time to see Barnes leaning up and whisper something to Steve that made the supersoldier grin.
“You’re right Buck, Yoshi is a useless little asshole,” Natasha finally reacted to that, sitting up and glaring at Rogers.
“You take that back right now motherfucker, supersoldier or not, I can kill you twenty different ways with this remote.” Rogers laughed as he used Natasha’s distraction to red shell her, and Natasha launched herself across the couch at him. Clint decided to leave before actual bloodshed commenced.
3.
Steve was perched on the kitchen counter, watching as Barnes carefully chopped vegetables by the stove. Banner was sitting next to Steve, mainly reading a scientific journal, but occasionally shooting glances at the Soldier. Clint, from his perch atop of the fridge was showing no such restraint, openly staring as Barnes’ metal arm flashed as it swiftly diced carrots. The kitchen was silent other than the soft chink of the knife hitting the cutting board, and the occasional flipping of Bruce’s pages.
“Hey gang,” Natasha said as she entered, breaking the silence, “what are we up to?” She hopped up onto the stool next to Steve as Tony wandered in as well.
“Bucky’s making dinner,” Steve replied absently, and Tony did a double take.
“The Winter Soldier is cooking us dinner?” Barnes shot him a disparaging look from under the hair that had slipped free of his pony tail.
“Not you,” he said, voice gravelly, “just Steve.”
“Wow,” pipped Clint from his perch above everyone. Tony shot him an annoyed look – “Get the fuck off my appliances Barton.” – and was ignored. “That hurts Barnes.” Bucky shrugged returning to his chopping, sliding the carrots into the large pot bubbling on the stove.
“Don’t give a fuck,” he replied, and Clint laughed. There was a moment of silence, before Bucky spoke again, “Hey Steve,” he said, looking over at Steve, who was smiling fondly with his chin resting in his hand, “do you remember when I stole a chicken from the deli for our dinner?” Steve laughed, looking delighted.
“Yeah, I was so angry at you.” Bucky pointed his knife at Rogers, and Bruce eyed it warily.
“You made me return it, you bastard, and apologize to the old Mr. Thompson.”
“He had five little girls!” Steve replied, voice defensive, “he couldn’t afford to be robbed of a chicken.”
“True,” Barnes grinned, returning to his chopping, and Clint privately thought he hadn’t seen anything as scary as Barnes smiling with a knife in hand since the last time Natasha had caught him stealing her cookies.
“Besides,” Steve continued, “I helped you get a new one.”
“And veggies,” Barnes added, smiling.
“Wait,” Tony interrupted, “you bought the chicken you stole after returning it?”
“No,” Steve replied, giving him a strange look, “we stole a new one.” Clint choked on air. “There was a shop down the way that was fronting for the Russians, we robbed them instead,” he continued, apparently oblivious to the looks the rest of the Avengers were giving them. “They could afford to lose the money.”
“You. Stole.” Tony finally got out, “Captain America stole.” It was Barnes’ turn to give him a weird look.
“Sure,” he shrugged expansively, “it sure as shit beat starving to death.”
“Don’t mind Stark, Buck,” Steve replied, “Tony thinks I’m a saint or something.”
“Yeah, well you try growing up with stories about how amazing and perfect Captain America is and see what kind of impression you have of him.” Tony grumbled in response.
“Wait, what?”
“The historical records have Steve Rogers as a model citizen and prime example of patriotism,” Natasha offered and Bucky put down his knife as he laughed.
“Are you fucking kidding me? This little shit,” he pointed at Rogers, “has been mythologized as some kind of sainted asshole?”
“Pretty much,” Clint shrugged.
“Oh my god,” Bucky said, eyes wide, “how. How did they even… how.” Steve laughed as his friend.
“Well what was he like then?” Tony interrupted. Barnes grinned.
“He was an argumentative trouble making little shit. Honestly, he hasn’t changed much.”
“Thats true,” Natasha muttered, and Steve nudged her with his elbow, grinning at her.
“I am a perfect upstanding citizen,” he said as dignified as he could, affronted look on his face as he sat up. Tony threw up his hands.
“I give up, everything I know is a lie. I suppose next you’re gonna tell me that grandpa here isn’t as pure as the driven snow?” There was a clatter by the stove, and everyone looked to see Bucky turn around slowly, looking back and forth between Tony and Steve as a bright blush crawled up Steve’s neck.
“They think you’re a virgin?” he said, his grin slowly growing.
“Oh no,” Tony replied, putting his hands over his ears and backing out of the room, “I cannot hear this.” Bucky’s laughter followed him as he beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen.
4.
Sam sighed as he watched the police lead the two supersoldiers out of lockup.
“Really guys?” he said as they drew level with him, matching sheepish looks on their faces.
“Steve started it,” Bucky said instantly, and Steve shot his friend an incredulous look.
“Are you kidding me?” he replied as Sam lead them out of the precinct.
“You always start it,” Bucky replied.
“That guy shouldn’t have said such rude things to those ladies,” Steve said stubbornly.
“You probably still shouldn’t have thrown him through a plate glass window,” Sam said with a raised eyebrow as they climbed into the car.
“Oh, that was me,” Bucky replied cheerfully, and Sam sighed.
“You’re both the worst,” Sam muttered to himself, starting the car. He really needed to stop picking up stray superheros. He didn’t know how he’d gotten into the habit, but it was a terrible one and he clearly needed to stop it as soon as possible.
5.
The first press conference with the Winter Soldier had him alone on a stage with Steve. Khalida had been talking about it with them for several months, and had developed an entire media strategy around the reintroduction of Bucky Barnes to the world.
“We need to be very, very careful about this one,” she had told Steve with a stern glare, “the reveal of the Winter Soldier during the SHIELD dump combined with his frankly insanely visible rampage through DC in the days before has left a lot of people on edge, asking a lot of questions about him. We need to put a very careful spin on this Steve, do you understand?”
“But-”
“No buts, Rogers. We are sticking to the story of Bucky Barnes, traumatized, tortured POW, returned to friendly soil at long last. Unless you want to see your friend stuck in a trial for all of the assassinations he has pulled off?” Steve wilted under her glare, offering a quiet ‘yes ma’am’ while Khalida, nodded, satisfied. She was sure Rogers would find some way to fuck this up for her, but that was why she had an entire binder full of contingency plans. She had been hesitant at first to take on Barnes as a client as well, but with Stark covering her paycheque now, she had gotten a considerable raise and could afford the ulcers that she would probably get from managing a second supersoldier.
At first Khalida had been nervous talking to Barnes, with his blank face and dead gaze, shooting frequent glances over to Steve to make sure everything was actually alright. She began to relax the longer she talked with Barnes, along with the frequent reassuring looks Steve had been tossing her way. Watching the two men climb onto the stage and take their seats in front of their microphones as cameras began to flash, she sighed to herself. They were as prepared as they were going to be, and she could only pray to Allah that Rogers wouldn’t say anything too inflammatory.
The questions started off easy enough, and Barnes answered them concisely, the tension that had been radiating off of him all day easily visible in the way he was holding himself. Rogers on the other hand was replying like a champ, and Khalida was grinning with happiness as he backed up Barnes’ terse answers with anecdotes from their childhood.
“-the medicine. Basically, without Bucky, I would have died as a kid, and would never have become Captain America.”
Nice one Rogers, Khalida thought as the man leaned back from his microphone. This was going so well-
“Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers, what do you have to say to persistent rumours that have followed your stories since WWII that you were involved in an illicit homosexual relationship?” Both Barnes and Rogers froze, and Khalida slapped her hand over her face. This was going to be bad. Peeking through her fingers, she watched the two men exchange looks before Barnes leaned forward to the mike, a smirk sliding across his face, the first real expression she’d ever seen from the soldier.
“Well sure,” he drawled, “I’ve been tapping this ass every chance I’ve had since 1935.” A bright red blush shot up Rogers face and Barnes reached over and grabbed Rogers, pulling him into a messy kiss while the room exploded into shouts and chaos. Khalida closed her eyes again.
Fuck, she thought dejectedly, he’s worse than Rogers.