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Tony wakes up with a pondering headache. The next moments are a blur of figuring out where the fuck he is. Definitely not in his house (houses): too bright, too uncomfortable a bed. And, oh: there’s someone else sleeping with him. Under him.
Not much of a novelty, but a little surprising. It’s been a while since his sluttiest days. Tony tries to rub his eyes, bracing himself for what he’ll see after turning his head, and yelps as something scratches his forehead. Something on his hand. Something bright yellow, way too big, extremely tacky, and generally unrecognizable.
A wedding ring.
“What the fuck,” Tony says with a commendable amount of calm in his voice and prepares to freak out.
Then turns around.
“Oh thank fuck.”
“I’m never drinking with you again,” Rhodey says from under him and hits him with a pillow.
“So when are we annulling it?” Rhodey asks in between bites of his hangover breakfast.
Tony stops waving to the paparazzi behind the glass wall of the cafe and throws him his best betrayed look.
“Annulling?”
Rhodey’s face slowly turns into the very familiar oh no expression.
“Are you breaking up with me on the first day — nay, morning — of our marriage? Don’t you love me anymore?”
The waitress that was coming to them changes in the face and quickly turns around. Rhodey looks after her mournfully.
“Tones. I love you with all my heart. But why would we do something that’ll make my girlfriend mad, blow up in a media scandal, wouldn’t help your PR, and will fuck things up with my asshole conservative superiors?”
“Because it’d be fun, and you’re an enabler. And Carol loves me. She’ll be fine.”
Rhodey sighs and hides his face in his hands.
They don’t go for the annulment.
(“Well, what about Barnes?” Rhodey says on the way back to the hotel.
“What about him?”
“You’re in love with him. Won’t you being married complicate that?”
Tony stops.
“This has nothing to do with that. And I’m not in love with him.”
“Sure,” Rhodey drawls.)
Bucky watches the news and thinks:
What happened in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas. Actually, what happened in Vegas shouldn’t have happened at all.
Not that any of this is his business. His opinion doesn’t hold weight. On the screen, Tony grins and blows a kiss toward Rho— his husband.
Bucky lies down on the floor like a starfish.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, coming into the room and switching the TV off.
“Turn it back,” Bucky says, because he’s a masochist. “Let me suffer.”
Steve isn’t impressed by his pain. In fact, Steve is an evil, evil parody of a best friend, for instead he hits Bucky’s leg with his own and tells him to stand up.
Life’s being very mean to Bucky. He tells so to Steve.
Fifteen minutes later, both of them are running circles around the park, because there is no problem Steve can’t make worse, and Bucky is a pushover sometimes.
“You want to spar later? Punching stuff usually makes me feel much better.”
“Yes, it’s one of your worst qualities.”
Steve ignores him.
They run some more. They spar. Bucky escapes from Steve to the shower and stands there for what feels like an hour, willing the scorching water to cleanse him from his sorrows.
At the end of the day, Bucky does feel a little better. But he won’t say that to Steve, of course.
Not that it matters, too, for the first thing they see after returning to the common floor is Tony and Rhodes, back home already, cuddling on a coach.
“We’ve actually been dating since 89th. I wanted to come out, but he was afraid of your reactions, you know, since y’all matter so much to him,” Rhodes says, watching his— Tony with a besotted expression, not wavering by the fact that the object of his affections is currently choking on his coffee.
Bucky goes back to his room and pretends he’s a starfish again.
The thing is: Bucky likes Rhodes. The man is the kind of person that anyone can’t help but like — kind, and fun, and extremely fucking capable. If Bucky wasn’t so deep in his feelings for Tony, he’d have a crush on Rhodes himself.
And he’s way better for Tony than Bucky is.
So he’s not angry. Not jealous. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to the newlyweds. He’s heartsick, mostly, so he spends his days being sad and avoiding Tony.
That’s why it’s a surprise when he bumps into the man at 3am in his own kitchen.
“Oh. Hi,” Tony waves in his general direction. “Is that your apartment? I kinda spaced out, not sure— hah!”
He fishes out an ice cream cone from the fridge.
“How are you doing? I feel like I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I’m fine,” Bucky says.
It’s not much convincing. Judging by the glance Tony throws Bucky’s way, he isn’t impressed. Bucky shuffles on his feet, unwilling to get into details, and that, unfortunately, brings Tony’s attention to him in its entirety.
“Is something wrong?” Tony asks, voice now serious. “Nightmares? Arm aching? Did you fight with Steve?”
“What, trauma, the arm, and Steve are the only facets of my life?”
Tony freezes, looking guilty, uncomfortable, no matter Bucky’s sarcastic tone.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound accusatory. It’s— fine, I’m okay. Just a little sad about a thing.”
“Anything I can fix?”
Of course that’s his first question.
“No. But it’s going to be okay.”
Bucky looks away. He still sees Tony in the corner of his eye, feels Tony’s eyes on him like a weighted blanket, and that — that would be a suitable ending for the conversation, one would think, but does Bucky end it? Does he not fuck it up?
Of course he doesn’t.
Tony’s eyes are still on him, the stare inscrutable, worried, undivided, and Bucky feels lonely, and sad, and tired, and Bucky opens his idiotic mouth and says:
“The, uh, the person I’m in love with just got married.”
Immediately winces. Risks a look at Tony, who watches him with the same compassion.
“I’m sorry,” Tony says. “That must suck.”
Which, yeah, true, but: didn’t he get it? Bucky is confused.
They talk a bit more. Tony still looks the same, with no new caution, no potential guilt, no visible discomfort. After that, he leaves. Bucky watches him go and thinks: what the fuck did just happen?
He couldn’t just. Not get it. Could he?
“…and then he said he’s in love with someone married, that’s why the gloom-and-doom. See?”
Rhodey doesn’t look like he sees. He looks like he hardly restrains from calling Tony dumb. It’s an unfairly common expression of his, which is offending, truly — Tony’s a certified genius, for fuck’s sake. He’s not an idiot.
He may have issues with the whole building relationships with people, or recognizing emotions, or noticing good things happening to him until he fucked it up, but that doesn’t apply here. Right?
“You should’ve told him that marriage’s poly.”
“What? Why would I say that? I have no fucking idea who he’s into.” Tony flops on Rhodey’s bed, shoes and all — husband privilege — and sighs. “I’m kinda sad that he hasn’t told me about his feelings before. I think. I thought we were friends! Friends are supposed to tell each other shit like that, right?”
Rhodey kicks Tony’s leg until his shoes aren’t touching the bed.
“Have you told him you’re in love with him then?”
Tony harrumphs. The audacity!
“I’m going to talk to Pepper. She’s way kinder to my struggles.”
“She’s not, and you know it.”
“So mean,” Tony mutters but doesn’t get up.
“Well, you do come to me, your husband, and talk about another guy you’re in love with. What about my struggle? I’m literally being cheated on!”
“I’m not even sleeping with him!”
“Emotionally cheated on!”
Tony lifts his head to give him a stare.
“And people believe I’m the asshole one.”
Rhodey pats him on the head with his best condescending look.
In the end, it all resolves similarly to how it started — in a mix of misunderstandings, idiocy and paparazzi photos.
Tony sits in the common kitchen, minding his business, being on his best self, when it happens. The TV is on — it always is, kind of annoying — and Steve, Bucky and Sam hang out near the counter, watching it. Tony doesn’t pay attention — until he’s forced to. Until a shrill voiceover starts screaming his name several times a sentence.
(Not that it’s a rarity. But Tony’s head hurts a little, and— annoying. He’s annoyed at the voice, at the day, and definitely not at the fact that Bucky barely said hello to him and now keeps talking to Steve. Probably spilling secrets about his married girlfriend.)
Tony tries to ignore it. Many channels profit from yelling about his life, failings, problems — he trained himself to tune it out years ago. Worried murmurs from the wonder trio are harder to avoid, however.
“What, did somebody blow up my company or something?”
They all turn to him, their faces guilty. Silent. Extremely awkward. Tony sighs, rubs his forehead, and transforms his attention to the screen. And almost chokes on a snort, for the reason of big news? His husband is cheating on him.
“Hey, J, make a screenshot and send it to Honeybear. Did he see it? Oh, and throw a caption there, is that your revenge or something, you know me.”
“Of course, sir,” JARVIS says in that long-suffering tone of his and complies. Good baby.
Tony continues to chuckle as the not-so-annoying-now voice keeps unraveling the story. It’s hilarious.
What’s not so amusing are the faces of the cap squad. The three of them glance at each other and then keep staring, staring and staring. Which is mildly creepy.
“What?” Tony turns to them, a bit affronted. “It’s so dumb, come on.”
“Right,” Sam drawls. “But, eh, it does look pretty convincing.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Rhodes? Your husband? Doing that?” he waves at the screen, where Rhodey and Carol stay all besotted and disgusting in each other’s arms.
It’s cute.
But.
Wait.
“You don’t really think we’re actually together, right?” Tony asks very, very carefully and is met with blank stares from all of them.
No fucking way.
How the hell did they manage to think it was— what, that he’s married and— wait.
Oh, Rhodey was right, he is dumb as fuck.
“Two things,” Tony says to nobody in particular as he stands up. “First, we got married by accident, while absolutely wasted, and then went with it because we thought it would be funny. And it was. Second—”
And here goes the hardest part. Building an actual relationship. Recognizing feelings.
Believing that good things can happen to him.
Tony turns to Bucky and points at his face.
“I have all kinds of mushy feelings for you. Do you want to do anything about that?”
The way that Bucky’s eyes widen, how he starts nodding his head extremely quickly, is a little ridiculous. Tony finds that adorable. It’s a problem. He doesn’t really care.
All in all, this marriage turned out pretty great for his love life.