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“So how did you two meet Bucky?”
Such an innocent, common question but so hard to answer. Neither Tony nor Steve really knew how to. Bucky always did -- with honesty.
“Tony summoned me from the depths of hell,” he answered matter of factly. Every. Single. Time.
“You probably met on Grindr and that’s why you don’t want to tell us. But fine, keep your secrets,” Happy told them during dinner one night.
Clint wanted to know how Bucky was summoned. He was the only one of their friends that seemed to take Bucky’s answer at face value. But it was Clint, so none of them knew if he actually believed it or if he was just being Clint.
**********
It all started the previous October when Tony and Steve were planning their first Halloween party together. They had been officially dating for two months after Steve decided they needed to have the DTR talk. They had been going out and having fun for a few months, but never got around to the conversation and Steve was honestly tired of trying to figure it out.
“DTR Steve?” Tony asked that night and Steve calmly explained that they were not having sex until they Defined The Relationship.
“I didn’t think we needed to explain anything,” Tony said and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say based on Steve’s pinched look. “I mean, I thought you were my boyfriend?” he added and made it into a question in case he had misunderstood.
And that was that. A few weeks later, Steve had moved in and they found themselves planning the Halloween party to end all parties.
That’s when Tony found out just how superstitious Steve really was.
“You can NOT bring a ouija board into our home, Tony,” Steve told him. “You don’t know what may come through, especially if you are not taking it seriously. There are horrible things that can be summoned, or evil ghosts and poltergeists or demons!”
“Demons?” Tony asked.
“Demons. Have you not been paying attention when I’m watching my shows?” If Tony was honest, he tended to tune out the ghost hunting shows that Steve loved to watch. They all just seemed so intent on proving there was something, and never really seemed serious about trying to disprove any of the supernatural claims.
And because Tony would not be Tony if he wasn’t using the scientific method any time he could, he decided to try to call up a demon, just to show Steve that things would be fine if they played a little ouija at their Halloween party.
“Think of it like DoorDash for supernatural creatures if it works,” he told Steve.
“I DON’T WANT A DOORDASH FOR DEMONS TONY!” Steve screamed in a high voice that he would deny till his dying day.
So Tony read books, searched online, and even went to a mystic store called Enchanted Chaos that was recommended to him by Natasha, who found the whole thing amusing and told Tony he could sleep on her couch if things went tits up.
She said that it had been owned by the same witch for centuries. Tony was a little skeptical (“Centuries, Nat? Really?”) but off he went anyway.
The book he found there gave step by step instructions on the summoning of demons. He had everything he needed, well, not everything but he could improvise. He was sure that if demons did indeed exist, it would be the intent that would matter.
“Good luck,” the witch said when he paid. “And feel free to come back when you need more help.”
The night of the summoning came and Tony found himself holding a box of graveyard dirt, and a stuffed black cat. “It's the spirit of the intention, Steve, not the letter of the law... I'm not going to hurt a cat just to prove demons don't exist,” he explained.
“Well, I intend to leave you for a younger, richer, and smarter man if a demon actually appears tonight.”
“Good luck finding him,” Tony said, pulling his kitchen ceremonial knife and adding a drop of his blood to the box. He then buried it in the planter he bought specifically for the occasion and waited.
And waited.
And waited for a while longer.
When nothing happened, Steve felt like he could breathe again.
“Say I was right, Steve,” Tony said. “Say it and I won’t rub it in your face later,” he added, ignoring Steve’s disbelieving look.
That’s when shit hit the fan. They both heard a rushing sound, and felt like the air was being sucked out of the room. They closed their eyes when it seemed like things were about to start spinning and when they opened them again, there was a man standing in the middle of their living room.
He was as tall as Steve, brunette, with deep icy blue eyes with a red rim around the irises. He took a deep breath and was about to say something but was interrupted by Tony.
“Holy shit, it worked!”
Steve meanwhile was muttering softly. Tony thought it sounded like the Lord’s Prayer but wasn’t sure.
“Who are you?” Tony asked.
“My name is Bucky and you summoned me,” he answered in a deep, rumbling voice. “I am here to--” he stopped and looked at them when he was once again interrupted by Tony.
“What kind of name is Bucky?” He asked, and received an elbow to the ribs from Steve and a flat look from Bucky.
“Don’t anger the demon,” Steve whispered. Louder, he said, “What do we do now?”
“If I’m honest here, I’ve actually never been called up?” The handsome demon told them. “They train us for this, but I never paid much attention. I mean, they can’t expect us to, right? We’re in hell for god’s sake — shit, sorry, for satan’s sake. This was the first call I received and I wanted to see why I was chosen.”
“I told you not to mess about with this stuff, Tony!” Steve yelled. He was a good Catholic boy, and his mama (may she rest in peace) would have his hide if she knew what they had just done. “We have a DEMON IN OUR HOUSE!”
“Excuse me, the correct term would be Cambion for now. Demons are usually fallen angels and I was never an angel,” Bucky said. “I won’t actually be a demon like you’d see in the Bible when I graduate. My momma was human and my father an incubus.”
“I don’t know what to do with that information,” Tony said honestly while trying hard not to get lost in the demon’s eyes. The man demon cambion was just so pretty, and Tony had always been a sucker for a pretty face.
He was finding the whole thing exciting though. He meant to prove that there were no such things as demons and yet, here was proof that there was something else. He wondered what kind of powers these creatures had and if they were humanoid or shape-shifters.
Steve was nervous but he was also curious and if they were already going to hell, he might as well find out what else this demon-thing knew. He had questions to ask.
“Where do you come from?” He asked Bucky.
It took a moment for Bucky to answer, “I don’t remember everything clearly. I know that I was a mostly human man once, back during,” he paused trying to remember his life. “I think it was World War 2. I can’t recall exactly, we’re not meant to remember everything once we go home, but I think my plane crashed or I fell, or both? I don’t remember. I know I was a soldier though.”
“Do you remember what side?” Tony asked, “Because you may be handsome and all, but I will not have a nazi demon in our tower.”
“Really Tony? You’re ok with a demon here but you draw the—“
“Fuck nazis, Steve,” Tony shrugged.
“Not a demon,” Bucky reminded them. ‘But to answer your question I was born in Brooklyn, My mom fell in love with an incubus and here I am,” Buck explained. “Although, to be fair, I have been a demon-in-training for a long time now.”
That’s how Steve and Tony found out about the demon classes, and the demon tests, and the demon professors,and the demon finals that Bucky had failed three times already (which was NOT how they pictured hell).
“What I still don’t understand is why you used a stuffed toy if you wanted a fully-trained demon.”
******
Tony, Bucky and Steve went back to Enchanted Chaos to find a book that would tell them how to return Bucky to hell. Bucky told them he could just die again, but Steve flat out refused to kill or let die anything that lived and breathed.
“I could stop breathing, if that would help,” Bucky told him helpfully.
“Can you do that?” Tony asked excitedly, only to receive a flat look from both Steve and Bucky.
Unluckily for them, the store had closed. None of the businesses around it could tell them anything about the owner or where she had gone. They actually acted like they didn’t even know what store Tony was asking about.
Tony threw himself into the research with everything he had. Even his trustworthy AI J.A.R.V.I.S. was tasked with searching the internet for anything that might help them.
Steve and Bucky spent evenings cooking and prying Tony away from work and his research to spend some time together. And since they didn’t know how long their Cambion friend would stay, they also took him around New York - to touristy places, and to his old neighborhood to find if he could remember more of his human life.
There were movie nights, brunches, afternoon walks in the park, and slowly the research became less and less important until one day Steve asked Bucky, “Do you even want to go back?”
The answer was a resounding no. So they kept going as they were, dinners, movies, whole days spent doing nothing but basking in each other’s presence.
“We need to talk,” Tony said one day, Steve next to him turning different shades of red. “Bucky, we care, maybe even more than care, about you and we feel like there’s more to this friendship. We’d like to date you.”
Bucky looked at them like they had suddenly sprouted second heads. “I thought we already were?” he said.
***********
The next year, during their, now, annual Halloween party, Clint showed up with graveyard dirt, a stuffed cat plush, and a kitchen knife. “I’m ready,” he told Steve as soon as he opened the door. “I want my very own demon.”