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“You don’t have to do this,” Tony says, picking up a knickknack as he glances at Steve out of the corner of his eye. Steve looks absolutely devastating in the gorgeous tux that Tony had paid for because he couldn’t let Steve do this looking anything less than his best, no matter how much he disapproves of the whole thing. His blond hair is slicked back, his trim waist and broad shoulders looking downright lickable under the black fabric stretched out. The only thing missing is a twinkle in his blue eyes, but it makes sense that that’s not there, considering what they’re doing today.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says again, reluctantly passing Steve his cufflinks when he holds his hand out for them.
“I know, Tony,” Steve sighs, his refrain as old as Tony’s by this point. “You’ve said that before.”
“And I mean it! It’s not too late to turn around and run away. I’ll meet you at the back of the church; we can take the limo, leave Bucky that ridiculous convertible. You don’t have to do this.” He’s pleading now, and he probably sounds pathetic by now, but he just wishes desperately that he could get it through Steve’s head how ridiculous this whole thing is.
“I do,” Steve says firmly, the same thing he’s told Tony every time he’s tried to speak up about this mess. “I have to do it. I—I’m thirty, Tony. Every relationship I’ve ever had has gone down in flames, and I’m tired of trying. I want this. I want to be married and the two-point-five kids and the white picket fence. And since it’s seeming more and more likely that I’m not gonna get that unless I go through with this, then I’m gonna marry Bucky.”
“But you don’t love him.” And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Steve doesn’t love Bucky, neither of them loves each other, everyone in their friend group knows it. But Steve’s got this whole life planned out where he hits all the big milestones, using this marriage as a stepping stone to securing the future he’s always wanted. The problem is, he didn’t bother to leave any room for love in the equation. And Steve is so convinced that he doesn’t need it anyway that he won’t listen to anyone else.
Tony, though, he knows how important love is to a marriage. His parents were friends before they did the whole arranged marriage thing, and now they can barely stand to look at each other without screaming obscenities. He doesn’t want that for anyone, but especially not for Steve. Not Steve, who has so much love to give and so much to receive in return if he’d just open his eyes.
“I don’t have to love him,” Steve is saying, and Tony shakes himself from a daydream of strangling Bucky with a curtain cord just so this sham of a wedding doesn’t go through.
“You should though,” Tony replies. “You deserve all the love in the world.”
Steve snorts cynically. “Yeah, well, I don’t exactly see people lining the block to marry me.”
I would, Tony doesn’t say. I would do it in a heartbeat.
And maybe he should say something, but he’s had plenty of opportunities in the past. The same thing that stopped him then is what stops him now—he doesn’t know how Steve would react. He doesn’t think Steve would laugh, but he also doesn’t think that Steve would react in any way favorably. He and Steve had their chance years ago—the night they first met when Natasha dragged Steve out of his studio and Pepper dragged Tony out of his lab, when they met on the dancefloor of some club that Tony no longer remembers the name of, when sparks flew instantly from their very first words. But they woke up the next morning and laughed it off and exchanged phone numbers, and that was the end of their great love story. The next time they saw each other was at Rhodey’s birthday, and Steve had brought a date—one of his many ill-fated relationships—and Tony had figured Steve wasn’t interested in anything else.
At the time, he hadn’t been too bothered, only a little disappointed that they hadn’t taken the chance to see if anything could grow between them. But over the years, Tony had fallen hard, and Steve had… kept dating other people.
He’d almost said something eight months ago. He still remembers the night perfectly, the champagne he’d bought just for the occasion, the texts he’d sent to all their friends to tell them not to drop by his apartment that night as they were wont to do, the nice dinner he’d actually cooked instead of ordering takeout.
And then Steve had shown up sporting a brand new engagement ring he’d gotten from his best friend that he’d formed a marriage pact with.
“I just want to see you happy,” he says quietly. “And I don’t think—”
“You’re wrong,” Steve says shortly, turning away from him to fuss over his hair in the mirror. “This is making me happy. You don’t get to have an opinion about this anymore, not when you turned down being a groomsman.”
“I—”
“You shouldn’t even be in this room right now. Why don’t you go track down Natasha and send her in? She can help me finish up.”
Tony deflates, shoulders slumping. For a moment, he entertains the fleeting notion of confessing now. But—Steve doesn’t want to listen to reason anymore. He wants a yes man who’ll tell him exactly what he wants to hear.
He says, “I’m happy for you, even if you don’t believe me,” and slinks out, going to find Natasha, Steve’s best man, now that she’d fought Clint for the position. He runs into Steve’s mom first. Sarah is ecstatic about the marriage, as is, apparently, Bucky’s mom. They’d both been convinced since they first met when they were pregnant with Bucky and Steve that their kids were meant to be together.
He listens to her gush about how happy she is that this is finally happening and wonders why Steve never told her it’s a sham of a marriage. Maybe, to Steve, it is real, even though he hasn’t told any of their friends, but he’s still pretending it’s fake because Bucky is the one who doesn’t have any feelings for him. The thought hurts, and he rubs his chest absently, even though his heart problems were resolved years ago. It's Clint who gets him out of the conversation, wandering over with his bowtie helplessly knotted. Sarah clucks over him, and Tony slips away as she starts pulling it apart.
He finds Natasha only a few minutes later, talking to a tall black man with a silver-tipped cane. “Steve’s looking for you,” he says, smiling wanly at the man she’s with. He can’t muster up any enthusiasm for the day, but it would be rude not to at least smile.
“Steve kick you out?” Natasha asks knowingly, a sharp gleam in her eyes. Tony glares at her. “You can keep Sam here company. He’s ex-military, knows all about Stark weapons.”
Tony flinches as she walks away, her heels clicking loudly on the wooden floors. He’s done his best to get Stark weapons out of enemy hands after discovering Obadiah’s betrayal, including taking apart the company itself, but it’ll be a long time before all of his weapons are destroyed. In the meantime, Stark Resilient is thriving in clean energy, and he hopes that it’ll make up for at least the smallest of his crimes.
“Uh, was that our fault?” he asks, nodding at Sam’s cane, not sure of what else to say. This is why he isn’t allowed to talk to people when Pepper isn’t around.
Fortunately, Sam just grins and says, “Nah. If it had been one of yours, I wouldn’t have made it out.” Tony winces again at the casual reminder of the destructive power of Stark Industries’ weapons. “This was a lucky gunshot. Pararescue, 58th Rescue Squadron.”
“EXO-7 program,” Tony realizes. “What did you think of the wings?”
“Always flew perfectly.”
“Thanks. I worked on those personally.”
“Oh, nice. Yeah, we were sent into an area in Afghanistan, were told there weren’t any more hostiles. You know how it goes. Spent about six months at a hospital in Germany.”
Tony nods. He does. “So you just get back then?”
“Yep, just in time for Natasha to call me up and invite me to this thing.” There’s something in his voice that makes Tony wonder if he’s a fellow sympathizer, baffled and upset by this marriage pact.
“Which groom are you here for?” he asks.
“Bucky. We knew each other back in college. You?”
“Steve.” He realizes something and asks, “You must know the mysterious boyfriend then, huh?”
Sam frowns, brows knitting together. “Mysterious boyfriend?”
Tony nods. “Yeah, you know Bucky went to college away from all his other friends. He fell in with a bad frat—Eta Psi Delta, you know it?—lost touch with Steve and the rest of them, well, you probably know all that if you know him from college. Anyway, his junior year, he apparently met this guy—none of us know his name, Bucky refuses to share—in the year above him. He says this guy saved his life, got him out of Eta Psi Delta, and helped him get his life back together. They dated most of that year, but then the guy graduated and joined the military, and Bucky hasn’t heard from him since. I hear he’s still hung up on him.”
“Really?” Sam asks, an odd note in his voice. “But he’s marrying Steve?”
Tony laughs harshly. “No one told you it’s a marriage pact?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Him and Steve, they’re both so convinced no one wants them and they’re going to die alone that they agreed to marry each other at thirty.”
“Damn,” Sam swears.
“Yeah, you got that right, buddy.”
Sam looks like he wants to ask another question, but before he can, one of the ushers comes around to tell them the ceremony will be starting soon. Tony grimaces, not looking forward to this at all. He’s here to support Steve, but if he had his druthers, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be in Malta or Monte Carlo or somewhere else that starts with M where he can ignore that the love of his life is getting married to someone else.
“Sit with me?” he asks Sam.
Sam nods. “Not like I know anyone else here. I’ve spent most of the last ten years in some desert or other. Got my start in covert ops, so I couldn’t even contact most of the people back here. Listen, is Bucky still in love with that guy from college?”
Tony shrugs, taking a seat at the back of the church. Steve won’t miss him if he’s not up front. He’ll be too busy staring at his new husband.
“As far as I know, he does,” he says, fiddling with one of the Bibles in the pew in front of them. When Sam is silent, he glances over at him, only to see a stricken look on his face. Realization strikes Tony as sure as lightning from heaven. “Hey, you’re not—”
The music interrupts him, as Natasha and Clint enter, walking—Natasha gliding and Clint all but tripping—down the aisle. There’s a beat and then everyone stands up for Steve and Bucky’s entrance. They’d chosen to walk down the aisle together, forgoing being given away by either of their absent fathers to give themselves away. Steve looks beautiful, happy and beaming, and Tony bows his head after Steve passes, unable to continue looking at him. He wishes suddenly that he’d decided he couldn’t even attend the ceremony. He’d turned down being a groomsman, unable to actively help Steve get married to someone who wasn’t him, but he wishes that he’d gone even further and told Steve he couldn’t be here at all.
“Dearly beloved,” Pastor Coulson begins, smiling benevolently at Steve and Bucky, “we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this couple in holy matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by His presence and first miracle at the wedding at Cana in Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and His church, and holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.
The union of marriage is intended by God for their mutual joy, for the help and comfort given each other in prosperity and adversity, and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore, marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.”
Next to him, he hears Sam’s breath hitch. “Hey, you okay?” Tony whispers without looking away from Coulson.
“Yeah, of course,” Sam whispers back, but he doesn’t sound okay.
“Into this union, James and Steven now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not be lawfully wed, speak now, or else forever hold your peace.”
This is it, this is his last chance to say something. His heart starts pounding in his chest, nearly leaping into his throat as he thinks about remaining silent. He sees his life stretching in front of him, loveless and alone as Steve dances around the kitchen in the middle of the night with Bucky, as they the dog Steve’s always wanted, as he moves away from New York for a safer environment to raise his kids in. He can’t do it. He can’t stay silent. He has to speak. He has to—
“I do.”
But that isn’t his voice. That’s—
“Sam?” he realizes, turning to the man standing next to him.
“Sam?” Bucky repeats at the altar, sounding devastated. “You—”
“I object to this union,” Sam says, giving Bucky a small smile. “I am in love with one of the grooms, and I have reason to believe he is in love with me also. I—” He falters as he seemingly notices all the people giving him horrified looks and glances down at Tony, who grins back up at him, giving him a little encouraging nod. Sam nods back at him and inhales deeply, fortifying himself. “Look, I’m not the kind of boy whose mama raised him to rudely barge in on a wedding, but Bucky, you’re not the kind of boy who should be marrying the wrong person in the first place. Don’t say yes. I’m sorry I went off and joined the military and never told you where I was.”
Tony hears a muffled squeak from someone he thinks is Clint.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you after I was discharged, but I still love you. Don’t say yes. Don’t wait, don’t say a single vow. Run away with me instead, and I swear, Bucky, I’ll do everything I can to make you the happiest man in the world.”
To Tony, it feels like everyone in the room is on tenterhooks, waiting for Bucky’s reply. Tears are streaming down Bucky’s cheeks, chest heaving as he gasps for breath. Tony’s heard the story of the mysterious college boyfriend a million times, but for the first time, he wonders if Bucky had thought all this time that Sam had died overseas.
Finally, Bucky gathers himself to nod and say through a tear-choked voice, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Sam repeats.
“Okay, yes, I’ll run away with you, I’ll—” He yanks off the engagement ring he’s wearing and thrusts it into Steve’s chest. Despite the stunned look on Steve’s face, he still manages to catch it, but Bucky looks like he wouldn’t have cared even if it had fallen to the ground. He sprints down the steps, down the aisle, and into Sam’s waiting arms, kissing him desperately.
Tony is the only one close enough to hear Bucky whisper, “I always loved you,” and the only one close enough to hear Sam’s equally quiet, “I never stopped.”
Bucky picks Sam up, cane and all, and marches out the door with him. A moment later, Tony hears the front door open and then slam shut a moment later, followed by the sound of the limo.
In the ensuing stunned silence, everyone hears Winifred Barnes ask, “Does that mean the wedding is off?”
In the chaos that follows as Sarah and Winifred try to figure out what’s going on with their sons, as Pastor Coulson tries to calm down the scandalized aunties, as Natasha shouts down the irate pianist who’s worried about getting his paycheck, Tony loses track of Steve. But after—after Wanda has taken Sarah and Winifred out for tea and the aunties have left, huffing about the scandal of Bucky leaving his groom at the altar, and Natasha has paid the pianist out of her own pocket (Tony makes a note to pay her back when he can)—after, Tony wanders through the empty church, wondering if Steve left and is nursing his wounds back at home. That’s when he spots a light through the crack under the door of the dressing room Steve had been using before the ceremony.
“Steve?” he asks, knocking gently on the solid wood. “Steve, it’s Tony. I just wanted to check on you. Can I come in?”
There’s a beat where he’s worried Steve is going to turn him away again. Then—“Yeah, Tony, come on in.”
When he enters, he’s almost expecting to see Steve broken down and weeping. It’s got to be rough on him, having yet another relationship—not even a relationship, but still the closest Steve ever got to the altar—crash in on him like that. He wouldn’t be surprised to find out Steve had found himself a quiet place to break down. But to his surprise, Steve, despite standing at the window and looking in the direction Bucky’s car had driven off in as he twists the wedding band around his fingers, is looking shockingly dry-eyed.
“Are you okay?” Tony asks carefully, not sure if the question is what will set Steve off.
“You know,” Steve says slowly, “I think I am? It’s weird. I should be broken up about this. I should be furious at Sam, devastated that once again, I’m not getting the happy ending. But I just keep thinking—” He tosses the ring up in the air and catches it—“I don’t even know whether Bucky likes rubies. He didn’t want to help me pick out the rings. He said I knew what he would like, so he trusted me. And I almost had a panic attack in the store because I didn’t know what he’d want.”
This weird, calm, almost ginger, version of Steve isn’t giving Tony much reassurance that he’s okay. He crosses the room and carefully puts a hand on Steve’s arm. “Are you sure you’re okay? It’s alright not to be. Sam pretty much stole your husband.”
“But he didn’t, did he?” Steve remarks. “Bucky was never really mine. I just looked at him and Sam when Bucky realized Sam had come back to him, and all I felt was this overwhelming relief. It should be weird, right?”
“Sure, if you say so.”
“So back to the rings—I picked out this one because I thought hey, everyone likes rubies, right? And it wasn’t until I was standing there, watching Bucky carry Sam off, that I realized why I thought people like rubies. It’s because you like rubies.”
“What?” Tony asks, startled. He can’t remember ever saying that his favorite gemstones are rubies.
“Yeah. Every time we go to a jewelry store for Pepper’s birthday, you always look at the rubies even though you get her sapphires. And I thought why do I know that about you? Why do I know how you take your coffee or that you hate bluebonnets because your mom used to fly your family down to Texas when they bloomed for family pictures and you hated the hassle or that your favorite Christmas present was a kitten when you were eight? I don’t know any of that about Bucky. I didn’t know any of that about any of the people I dated. But I know that about you. And I couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason you didn’t want to be my groomsman, the reason you kept trying to talk me out of this, the reason you didn’t want to be here at all is because… you know all of that about me too?”
He looks so hopeful as he finishes, so beautiful with the light from the setting sun coming in through the window framing him, so—so perfect that Tony can’t help but take that last step forward, cup Steve’s cheek with his hand, and kiss him as softly as he knows how. It’s everything that he’s ever wanted and even better because Steve’s lips are moving against his, kissing him back gentler than Tony remembers any of their previous kisses from their one night together being.
“Oh,” Steve breathes when they finally separate.
“Good?” Tony asks anxiously, hand still cupping Steve’s cheek. There’s a small amount of stubble starting to appear like he’d taken the time to shave in the morning but not before the ceremony. It’s a small imperfection that Tony can’t help but love.
“Better,” Steve admits. Tony tilts his head to the side curiously. “I thought about doing this over the years, but I guess I just thought you’d never be interested.”
Tony’s heart breaks a little for all the time they’ve wasted, but—they’ve got years ahead of them now, all the time in the world really to get it right this time around. “I’m interested,” he whispers and pulls Steve’s face back down to his.