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"Your Acadian isn't coming to save you," Killian whispered, and Tony had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes.
Sure, he was technically the vulnerable one here, and he shouldn't be feeling anything other than fear. He was, after all, rather helpless. Arms tied above his head and fastened to a thick pole, and his fingers had long since gone numb, so he didn't stand a chance of freeing himself. There was another rope around his hips to keep him from really struggling.
"You should've known better than to trust a mercenary to warm your bed," he continued, and this time, Tony did roll his eyes.
First of all: why did people always try to kidnap him? Second of all: why did the people that kidnapped him always think that that was his weak point? They always tried to get in his head and tell him that Bucky wouldn't come save him because Acadians were assassins that didn't care for anyone but themselves and what remained of their tribe. Tony was convinced that none of these people had ever actually met an Acadian. Really, it was the only logical explanation he could think of for why each and every one of them relied so heavily on the reputation. Also there weren’t very many Acadian’s left, so it was rather unlikely that any of them had even seen an Acadian before.
Third of all: why did these kidnappers call Bucky 'your Acadian' to Tony's face and then genuinely think that he wouldn't come save him? They'd just ascribed ownership, a sense of belonging to each other, and they tried to say that it meant... Bucky wouldn't save him? It didn't make a single shred of sense. Reasoning this out with people had never worked. They thought it was bluster or fast talking or some shit. It wasn't.
He was Bucky's, and Bucky's was his. And Bucky didn't like it when people touched his things.
"Go ahead and scream for him though," Killian said, his voice soft but his hold on Tony's jaw bruising. "I've always wanted to hear a Stark man beg."
"I must've missed a message from the gods that it's my duty to please you." The smarter thing would've been not to say anything at all. If he stalled long enough, then Bucky would save him before he ever got hurt. Unfortunately, Tony didn't do the smart thing when his mouth was running. He expected that he'd get a punch in the gut for that, but an arrow went straight through Killian's head before he had a chance to do anything other than finish breathing out.
There were no other guards in the tent. They were all outside. Or at least, they had been. If Killian was now dead and his blood was slowly staining the canopy of his tent-- which it was-- then all the guards were dead too.
The flap to the tent opened and fluttered closed again without a noise, and Bucky stepped inside. His hair was pulled back, and his eyes, when they met Tony's, were unimpressed. "I don't know if I'm more annoyed with you getting yourself kidnapped again, or with yet another person thinking you were an easy target."
"I know which way my vote goes," Tony said with a bright smile.
"Blaming you?" Bucky said flatly, raising an eyebrow. He got out a knife as he stalked closer, carelessly kicking at Killian's legs, which were in his way. He slipped the knife under the rope and jerked his wrist. A second later, the rope around Tony's hips fell to the ground. He didn't immediately move to cut the other one.
"Hands, please? Because you love me?"
"What I would love," Bucky said in a low voice, moving in so Tony had to tilt his head up to look at him and they were breathing the same air, "is if you stopped letting yourself get kidnapped."
"But you look so good when you rescue me."
"I'll make it worth your while to stay at my side," he promised, eyes dark.
"I could never say no to that,” Tony replied with a smirk.