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“Oh, come on!” Bucky cried, while a female voice sang about someone putting their perfect body on her. His reaction had become so commonplace, the other occupants of the room didn’t even acknowledge it - other than Tony, who snorted coffee up his nose.
Bucky scowled at them all. “Really? Nothing?” he demanded, because for some reason he found them going along with it more upsetting than the teasing.
Natasha shrugged. “It’s better than ‘I’m Too Sexy’,” she pointed out, reminding Bucky of his last ‘grand’ entry. “And that one with the singer wanting to be bad with someone.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Bucky grumbled, looking over at Tony - who was beet red, and still seemed to be spluttering a little - with concern.
“Hey, man, at least you’re getting something new every time.” Clint said, nodding sagely from his perch on the bar. “If I have to hear ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ one more time, I really am going to shoot someone through the heart.”
There were a few nods and several murmurs of agreement from the others.
Bucky groaned and shook his head. “Come on, JARVIS. Can’t you work with me, here?” he pleaded, tilting his head to stare up at the ceiling, even though he knew JARVIS wasn’t actually there.
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, Sergeant Barnes.” was JARVIS’s cheeky reply, which earned a snigger from Clint.
Bucky scowled again and flipped Clint off, who cheerfully returned the gesture.
It wasn’t that Bucky couldn’t appreciate a good prank - he’d been on both the giving and receiving end of enough through his lifetime to have fun with them - it was just that this particular one seemed a bit stilted towards him, despite the fact that it had started as a prank war between Natasha and Steve, of all people.
Now, prank wars in the tower were nothing new, with scarcely a week going by without one team member trying to prank another. Sam often compared it to living in a frat house, saying he hadn’t had to check his shoes this much since college.
What was new, though, was JARVIS’s participation in them. Especially as Tony swore he hadn’t told him to do so.
Bucky believed him, too, if for no other reason than his theme songs being almost as embarrassing as Bucky’s.
The whole thing had started three weeks ago, when Natasha had started playing the national anthem on her phone whenever Steve entered the room. That had led to Steve finding and convincing JARVIS to play ‘Black Widow’ whenever Natasha walked into any room, which in turn led Natasha to do the same to Steve.
Two days later, and JARVIS had assigned themes for everyone. Multiple themes, in most cases, with everything snowballing from there.
For instance, Sam got any and every song that had to do with flying. ‘Fly Away’, ‘Come Fly with Me’, ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ (if he and Steve entered a room at the same time), and ‘I Believe I Can Fly’, to name just a few.
Bruce had such gems as ‘Radioactive’ and ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’, though he seemed genuinely amused by both, and Thor kept getting songs by an artist Sam identified as M.C. Hammer.
Clint got any and all songs that had to do with shooting, primarily ending up with ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ and, to Tony’s irritation, ‘Shoot to Thrill’.
Natasha and Steve’s remained the same, though occasionally JARVIS mixed it up a bit with ‘America the Beautiful’ and ‘Evil Woman’ - the latter of which seemed to delight Natasha.
‘It’s Raining Men’ played whenever Tony, Thor, Sam, or Rhodey touched down on the landing pad outside. ‘We are the Champions’ and/or ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ greeted them all when they came back from a battle.
Hill walked in one day to Darth Vader’s theme, Coulson to ‘Secret Agent Man’, and Fury to ‘Eye of the Tiger’.
Bucky had had high hopes for his theme, at first, hoping for something cool and edgy, or something like the songs he’d heard in Tony’s workshop. (ACDC’s ‘TNT’, in particular, was one of his favorites.)
Instead, he got what he thought must be every sexy song in existence, or pop tarts singing annoyingly sappy (and infuriatingly catchy) songs about their love lives.
‘Sexy and I Know It’. A girl singing about how much she really really liked someone. ‘Sexy Back’. ‘Uh-Oh’.
The list went on and on, and, like Clint said, Bucky never got the same song twice. The only person who really rivaled him for ridiculousness was Tony, who - for reasons Bucky couldn’t even begin to guess - was getting what appeared to be every hit song about pining lovers from the last three decades.
Bucky assumed it was some kind of in-joke between JARVIS and his creator, with Tony’s over-the-top reactions to his theme-of-the-day providing plenty of entertainment for everyone else.
In any case, the songs continued, and while it had been funny, now it was starting to get annoying.
JARVIS wasn’t giving any inclination that he was going to stop any time soon, either.
“JARVIS, I’m begging you - can I at least have something I recognize?” Bucky sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
There was a telling pause - which either meant JARVIS was ignoring him or plotting how to embarrass him further - and a song Bucky thought he’d heard down in Tony’s workshop started playing.
“I can’t wait for the nights with you, I imagine the things we’ll do. I just want to be loved by you…”
Bucky shrugged, because, yes, that was a pretty good improvement, then jumped in surprise when Tony slammed his mug down on the counter and stomped off towards his workshop.
Startled, Bucky looked over at Clint, who looked just as mystified as Bucky felt.
“What? Does he not like The Scorpions?” Clint asked, frowning and leaning over to inspect Tony’s coffee cup, then taking a sip when he found it still half-full.
Bucky grunted at him, then headed after Tony to get to the bottom of things.
Bucky was surprised but pleased to find the door to the workshop open when he got there, even though the glass was in blackout mode. He figured it was as good an invitation as any and walked on in, but was stopped from getting far by one of Tony’s bots, who beeped quietly and poked him in the chest.
Bucky patted it’s claw and tried to walk around, but the bot snagged his shirt and beeped again, then swiveled his camera towards the middle of the room, where Tony was sitting.
“Look, J, I know what you’re doing - or what you think you’re trying to do - and I appreciate it, I really do, but it has to stop.” Tony was saying, rubbing his hands over his face and glaring at what must have been one of JARVIS’s cameras.
“I’m not sure I follow, Sir,” JARVIS replied primly, making Tony scowl.
“Don’t pull that crap with me, JARVIS. Bucky’s still clueless, but if you keep it up the others are going to figure it out! I know Natasha probably has, and I…”
Tony slumped, looking so defeated that Bucky wanted to run over and wrap his arms around him.
“With all due respect, Sir, I don’t think it would be the end of the world if Sergeant Barnes knew of your affections.”
Bucky’s breath caught in his throat, his heart rate picking up as the implications of those words hit him, making him clamp a hand over his mouth to smother the giddy laughter that wanted to escape.
Tony barked out a harsh laugh. “Easy for you to say, J. It isn’t your heart on the line.” he said bitterly, swiveling around in his chair and frowning in Bucky’s direction. “Butterfingers, what are you lurking over there for? Aren’t you supposed to be helping U? I swear, you are…”
Tony’s voice trailed off, his eyes widening in mortification when Bucky stepped around Butterfingers and smiled sheepishly at him.
“Uh, hey,” Bucky said, while Tony glared at the nearest camera in utter betrayal.
“Oh, sure, now you don’t play a song to announce him?” Tony hissed shrilly, standing up and holding his hands out placatingly to Bucky as he came closer. “Look, Bucky, I don’t know what you heard, but -”
“Tony -”
“- it’s not what you think, I swear -”
“Tony -”
“ - and I promise, I won’t let it ruin our friendship, I won’t -”
“Tony !” Bucky finally shouted, putting his hands on Tony’s shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze, because Tony looked ready to work himself into a panic attack.
Tony shut up immediately, eyes wide and terrified as he stared into Bucky’s and didn’t move a muscle.
“Me, too.” Bucky said softly, lifting one hand to cup the side of Tony’s face.
Tony blinked. “Oh.” he said, then deflated and melted into Bucky’s touch. “Oh,” he breathed, eyes fluttering shut and arms reaching up to grab on to Bucky’s shirt. “That’s… okay. Yeah.”
Bucky chuckled and brought his other hand up so he could cradle Tony’s face. “Yep,” he agreed, planting a light peck on Tony’s nose and eliciting a laugh from the genius, then pulling him in for a proper kiss.
They broke apart when Etta James started to sing ‘At Last’ over the speakers, Tony glaring indignantly at the nearest one while Bucky started to laugh.
“JARVIS!”