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"Hide me!"
The sudden exclamation made Tony first jump and then immediately swear under his breath when the delicate piece of circuitry he was holding snapped in half. He stared in dismay at the circuit for a moment before sighing, realizing that that was a thousand dollars and half an hour of his time he wouldn't be getting back. He tossed the pieces of the circuit down on his desk and half-turned to see who had interrupted him, but there was no one there. His eyebrows furrowed momentarily with confusion as a brain without sleep or caffeine struggled to make sense of the situation.
"Tony?" That was definitely Steve's voice. A moment later, the man himself appeared in the doorway of the workshop. "Have you seen Bucky?"
"Bucky?" Tony repeated dumbly.
"Yeah, Bucky. I wanted to talk to him, but he took off... I thought he came down here." Steve's eyes swept the workshop. "Have you seen him?"
"No," Tony said, which wasn't technically a lie.
"Okay." Steve started to go and then stopped. He squinted suspiciously at Tony. "When was the last time you slept?"
"That's an excellent question, Cap. File it with JARVIS and you'll have an answer within two to four weeks," Tony said breezily, which had the anticipated result of making Steve roll his eyes and retreat. He must have really wanted to talk to Bucky, because normally Steve wouldn't have taken a response like that without demanding Tony go upstairs and go to bed.
Tony turned back to his desk, listening to the sounds of Steve walking up and down the hallway. There was nothing else down here, of course. So shortly, Steve got back into the elevator and returned upstairs. Despite that, Tony remained quiet for a few minutes. Though they had done some tests to measure just how good Steve's supersoldier hearing ability was, Tony had never been quite sure if Steve had been honest or not. Sometimes he had the feeling that Steve had held out on them just for the sake of being a shit, because that was exactly the sort of thing Steve Rogers would do.
Evidently, they must have waited long enough because Bucky's head popped up from behind the couch. "Thanks Tony."
"Thanks nothing, you owe me a thousand bucks," Tony said, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Bucky with renewed confusion, wondering why on earth Bucky would be hiding from Steve. The two of them usually spent the majority of their day together.
"I'll pay you anything if you keep hiding me," Bucky said. He looked suspiciously at the ceiling. "Clint can't hear us, can he?"
"No," Tony said slowly, confusion deepening. He'd figured that one out pretty much immediately after the Avengers had moved into the tower with him, and he had taken special care to modify the room so that nothing could be heard or seen from the vents. Whether Clint like it or not, there were some confidential things that spies could just not be a part of.
Bucky's shoulders slumped. "Oh thank god."
"Okay, what's going on? What did I miss?" Tony said, giving up on trying to figure things out on his own when he was this tired and this caffeine deprived.
"They won't leave me alone," Bucky said, which cleared up... exactly nothing.
"They? You mean Clint and Steve? About what?" Tony pressed, and Bucky visibly grimaced.
"They're trying to set me up on a date," he admitted.
Tony tried not to laugh. He really did. He pressed his fist to his mouth, but a snort still escaped. Bucky glowered at him, which honestly made the situation a hundred times funnier. Despite that, aware that Bucky would have no qualms with doing something to get revenge later, Tony quickly got himself under control and straightened out his expression. He lowered his hand and looked at Bucky much more calmly.
"Maybe you should start from the beginning. Why are Cap and Legolas trying to set you up on a date, and why are you running away from them?"
Bucky sighed and emerged from behind the couch to take a seat on it. Looking glum, he said, "Somehow Clint got it into his head that I need to start dating. He said it would loosen me up and make me feel better. He convinced Steve that it would be a good idea too. Now I can't go five minutes without the two of them shoving a lady in front of me or trying to give me a phone number."
"And that's bad because... you'd prefer they shoved a guy in front of you?" Tony asked, genuinely curious. Most of the Avengers were straight, with the exception of Tony and Natasha. Tony was pansexual and Natasha was bisexual. But he realized that he wasn't entirely sure about Bucky. It was just something that had never come up.
"No, I don't want them to shove anyone in front of me," Bucky snapped, which made both of Tony's eyebrows raise in surprise.
"Huh. So you're asexual?" he said.
"Aromantic," Bucky corrected him, frowning. "I'm sexually attracted to people but I have no interest in dating. None." The vehemence with which he spoke the last few words made Tony hold his hands up in the classic 'I mean no harm' pose.
"Whoa, hey, I'm not the one trying to set you up," he said quickly.
Bucky took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. "I know that."
"Why don't you just tell them that you don't want to be set up?" Tony said, and Bucky shot him a withering glance.
"I tried that. I mean, I didn't tell them I was aromantic. I'm not ready for that yet."
"But you told me," Tony said with genuine surprise. He and Bucky were teammates, and maybe Tony might have gone a step further to call them tentative friends, but they definitely weren't close enough for Bucky to be confiding things in Tony that he'd never even told Steve...
"I knew you would understand," Bucky said, a bit stiffly. "You're open-minded."
Tony smiled. "Is that a polite way of saying you've heard I'll fuck anything on two legs?"
"Well," Bucky said, a bit ashamedly, and Tony laughed out loud.
"I'll take that as a yes. It's fine. I've heard worse, and technically it's not wrong."
Bucky just nodded. "I don't think Clint or Cap would understand though. They'd probably think something was wrong. They'd say I just hadn't met the right person yet, and that I needed to date more to get myself out there." His scowl darkened with each word.
"Right." Tony fell quiet for a moment, thinking. He could perfectly understand Bucky's reservations. Anyone who fell outside 'the norms' was usually considered either a prude or a slut. Tony himself fell into the latter category, and sometimes it wasn't very pleasant. He'd long since learned to deal with it, but he could appreciate why Bucky was apprehensive about having to do so.
It was hard enough trying to make people accept that Tony was willing to date any gender; he couldn’t imagine how hard it would be trying to make people understand that he didn’t want to date at all.
“Okay. What if I talk to them for you?” Tony said, and Bucky looked at him with surprise.
“You’d do that?”
“Sure,” Tony said with a shrug. He had absolutely no qualms about telling Steve Rogers or Clint Barton to back off.
“What would you say?” Bucky asked cautiously.
“The truth. That you’re not interested in dating right now, and that the two of them need to accept it whether they like it or not, and that trying to push you into doing something you don’t want to do is the very opposite of helpful,” Tony replied.
Bucky was quiet for a few seconds before he nodded slowly. “That would be okay. Do you think you could get Natasha to stop setting me up on blind dates too? I’m getting scared to leave the tower.”
Oh boy. Tony shook his head at the behavior of the rest of the team and stood. “You stay down here. I’ll be back.”
As he left the workshop, leaving Bucky to settle down on the couch in peace, Tony asked JARVIS to gather Steve, Clint, and Natasha in the living room. As the elevator rose towards the common room floor, Tony gathered himself. It wasn’t very often that he was in a position to scold the rest of the team about something, but he would have enjoyed the moment more if it weren’t for how stressed-out Bucky was.
“What’s going on?” Natasha asked the instant the elevator doors opened to let Tony out. “I have things to do.”
“They can wait,” Tony said. “We need to talk.”
Clint dramatically clutched his chest. “Are you breaking up with us?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “No, but the temptation only grows every day, I assure you. I wanted to talk to you three about Bucky.”
Steve hadn’t really been paying attention before, but at the mention of Bucky’s name his head snapped around and he stared at Tony with unnerving intensity. “What about Bucky? Did you find him?”
“Yeah, I did. He also told me something very interesting about the three of you harassing him into dating.” Tony folded his arms across his chest. Natasha, at least, seemed to realize where this conversation was going and had the grace to look a bit guilty. Steve and Clint, however, remained oblivious and indignant.
“We’re not harassing him,” Clint objected. “We’re just trying to get him out of the tower. He needs to have fun.”
“It would be good for him to date,” Steve added.
“Oh really? And who told you that it would be good for you to pressure Bucky into something that he doesn’t want to do? When we’ve all literally spent the last two years helping Bucky to realize that it was okay for him to make decisions on his own?” He narrowed his eyes at all three of them.
“Bucky wants to date,” Clint said, albeit weakly.
“Does he? Then please explain why he hasn’t called back any of the women whose numbers you’ve given up,” Tony said to Clint. He turned to Steve. “Or please explain to me why he was literally running away from you this morning when you were trying to set him up on another date.” He turned to Natasha. “Or please explain to me why Bucky is afraid to leave the tower because of all the blind dates you’ve been setting him up on.”
All three of them were quiet. No one said a word. Tony nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Now look. I know you’re trying to help, but you’re not. Bucky is not ready to date. He might not ever be ready to date,” Tony added, because he might as well start laying the groundwork for that now. “You need to let Bucky do these kinds of things at his own pace. Pushing him into it is only going to make things worse.”
“We really were just trying to help,” Steve said finally, his shoulders slumping, and Tony felt sorry for him. He knew how hard it had been on Steve to stand by and watch Bucky slowly recuperate. In that regard, Tony and Steve were too early. They both wanted to fix things. And knowing that there was a problem you couldn’t fix was insanely frustrating.
“You can help by being supportive of what Bucky wants, which means listening to him when he tells you he doesn’t want to do something,” Tony said, gentling his tone. “All of you. And while you can suggest things to him, you can’t pressure him. Okay?”
He received varying murmurs of agreement. He looked at each of them again, trying to figure out if the lesson had really sunk in, before deciding that it had. They all seemed appropriately contrite, and Steve in particular looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor out of pure guilt.
“Good. Now, Bucky is downstairs in the workshop. When JARVIS calls him upstairs, you should all apologize and make sure he knows it won’t happen again.” Tony was certain that Bucky would accept their apologies, and that, more than anything, Bucky would just be relieved that the determination to make him start dating was over.
“Wait. Let’s do something nice for him beyond just apologizing,” Natasha said. “Clint and I can cook his favorite meal. Steve, maybe you could invite some people over. We’ll have a little party, and we can all apologize to Bucky afterwards.”
“No dates,” Tony said, eyeing Steve sternly.
“No dates,” Steve agreed, already reaching for his cell phone with an eager smile. Natasha and Clint hurried into the kitchen. Tony watched them go, smiling to himself. The Avengers really were a good team, even if they could all be a little hard-headed sometimes. He was confident that from now on, all three of them would let Bucky go at his own pace – but just in case someone else needed to intervene again, he resolved to start keeping a closer eye on Bucky.
At the very least, he might need to teach Bucky how to be firm and stand up to people. And there was no one better to do that than Tony, because when you were a man who was only 5’8 on a good day, there were plenty of people who thought they could just walk all over you. Even more so when you had the kind of reputation that Tony did.
But they could start with the party.
“J, let Bucky know that we’re having a little gathering tonight and that it’s going to be 100% safe for him to attend,” Tony said, spinning on his heel and heading for the elevator. He needed to shower first.
JARVIS must have relayed the message, because a moment later he said, “Sergeant Barnes has asked me to express his deepest gratitude to you, Sir.”
Tony smiled to himself as the elevator doors shut and whisked him away. “Tell him it was no problem at all. Anytime.”