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It started out innocently enough.
Tony had been in one of those moods again. You know, the ‘dangerously sleep deprived and incredibly erratic/insane’ kind of state, where he was switching between practically vibrating on a caffeine-fuelled high and blacking out for short periods of time only to wake up again a few minutes later with a sick feeling in his stomach.
At that moment in time, he’d been in the ‘vibrating on the caffeine-fuelled high’ bracket, jumping around on the balls of his feet as he scurried through the kitchen, around and around the table much to Bucky and Steve’s amusement.
“- and it’s really fucking incredible, really, how the nanoparticles we found on the remains of that ship could’ve been used to fucking…to fucking create, stuff. But then Big Bad Fury has to come and stomp all over my parade, and he takes my little robotic wonders away, cruel bastard. I don’t- I don’t- it was very mean, but if I could just, just find some way to replicate or-“
Tony continued to ramble to them, hands flailing wildly as his words drifted off into nonsense, until he was simply making noises and hoping they would follow along.
They didn’t.
Bucky had glanced at Steve with a raised eyebrow, and his friend simply shook his head in a mixture of amusement and genuine worry, which tony seemed to miss as he danced around and around and around the damn kitchen table- Bucky was getting dizzy just watching the man.
“Hey, hey, babe, chill out. Stop,” Bucky said, jerking his hand out as Tony passed near him and grabbing a moving hand.
Tony was pulled back, stumbling a little and ending up with Bucky having to support him more obviously, his hand moving up to the other man’s arm in order to prevent him from falling on his ass.
Steve just watched on, his eyebrows raised in surprise at Bucky’s unexpected choice of language. To be honest, Bucky himself was a little shocked. It had been a long time since he’d ever called anyone something like that; he usually saved that sort of thing for… other stuff.
But Tony just blinked a few times as he processed the words, then grinned manically and fluttered his eyelashes theatrically, making a swooning notion that ended up being completely real as Tony’s knees suddenly gave out.
Instantly, both Steve and Bucky had their hands out, steadying their friend and communicating silently between them as they debated how to handle the situation. Sleep-deprived tony was a difficult one to manouvre, and they had to tread carefully.
“Buckyyyy… did you just call me by a pet name?”
“No.”
“Aww, come on babydoll, don’t be like that.” Tony mumbled into his shoulder, patting at the metal arm gently and crooning a little as if he were stroking a gentle animal rather than the deadliest prosthetic in the world.
Bucky just rolled his eyes and tried to fight off the blush. It was at times like this, when Tony was most open and tired and touchy-feely, that Bucky found it difficult to control the tidal wave of emotions that would sweep over him whenever Tony spoke, or whenever Tony smiled, or whenever tony existed in front of him.
“You need to go to bed. Idiot.” Bucky said, frowning down at Tony’s face and pulling him up into standing, gesturing for Steve to make room so he could drag Tony toward his room instead of the workshop, where the engineer would undoubtedly scuttle off to if given half a chance.
It took the combined efforts of Bucky’s shoving and Steve’s herding skills in order to trap Tony in his room, where they both watched as Tony looked at the bed suspiciously for a few seconds, before his body seemed to literally shut down as he stood, tumbling on to the bed with a small sigh of relief.
Bucky saw the movement as Steve turned his head slightly, away from Tony and on to him instead, but he didn’t fancy turning away from the peacefully resting body in front of him, so he simply raised his eyebrows in silent question and waited for Steve to start.
“You called him babe.”
“Yes. I did.”
Steve was silent for a moment, waiting to see if Bucky wanted to elaborate.
He did not.
“Okay. Want me to start calling him babe too?” Steve asked, his face completely straight except for the twinkle in his eyes that gave it away every time.
God, Bucky had missed him.
It didn’t stop him from giving him a scowl and shoving him against the frame of the door though, much to Steve’s amusement.
“Fuck off, pal,”
“Oh, only you are allowed to give him pet names then? I see how it is,” Steve shrugged, then yelped quietly when Bucky smacked him over the back of his head and made a grab for him, which Steve neatly sidestepped, running out of the room and into the corridor.
Bucky glanced back at Tony, curled up happily on the mattress and looking more relaxed than he ever did when he was awake.
“Quit bein’ a creep!” Steve yelled from down the corridor, chuckling in delight as Bucky rolled his eyes and swiveled around, running out of the door to chase his idiot friend around the tower.
__________
If only he’d have been aware of what he’d started that night.
__________
“Morning, babe,” Tony drawled, as he sauntered into the kitchen later that morning.
Bucky froze for a second, briefly caught up in the fluttering feeling in his stomach at Tony’s specific choice of wording, before snapping himself out of it and turning around to grin up at Tony.
“Good night’s sleep… honey?”
Hey, if Tony wanted to play that game, then he damn well could too.
Tony raised his eyebrows, a silent question of challenge. Did Bucky dare go up against Tony Stark- the man who flirted like he flew in the Iron Man suit, graceful and easy and as fluid as breathing?
Yes, was the answer.
Bucky just stared back silently, one eyebrow slowly going up his forehead as he bit out of a piece of his bagel and held his gaze on Tony unwaveringly.
Tony gave him three seconds to back out, before he shrugged and backed away, heading toward the coffee machine.
“Your funeral.”
Bucky laughed, and ripped off a piece of bagel to throw at the back of Tony’s head in reply.
And so it begun.
__________
“Bucky, sweetie, budge up. The couch is made for like, eight people, not one.”
“Sure thing, babe.”
When Clint heard them speaking, he dropped his cereal all over his lap and screamed.
__________
“Sweetheart?”
“light of my life?”
“Baby?”
“Honeybun?”
“Darling Dearest?”
“Sugarpl-“
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you two doing?” Bruce yelled from the kitchen.
__________
“I swear Nat, I didn’t cheat!” Bucky cried from underneath where Natasha was straddling his neck with her thighs.
“Liar!” She hissed in Russian.
“Tony, back me up here, I didn’t even touch her cards, did I?”
Tony sauntered over, casually holding a cup of coffee in his hands and rubbing his eyes, still half-asleep. It was 4am, after all, and the only reason they were all down here was because of their joint inability to sleep like normal people.
Tony looked straight at Bucky, sending an appreciative gaze down at his hitched up shirt and low-hanging sweatpants, before coming back up and grinning playfully in a way that made Bucky’s heart speed up a few beats.
He hoped Natasha didn’t pick up on that.
“Sorry honeybunny, I saw you with my own two eyes.”
“You traitor!”
Tony shrugged, wandering off again in the direction of the kitchen, probably to refill his mug for the fifth time.
“I can’t lie to Nat. She’s omniscient, it wouldn’t work.”
Natasha strangled him for a few more seconds as he yelled indignantly, before finally letting up and releasing him, huffing out a little breath of air and forming a crease between her brows as she did so.
“The weird names you two are giving each other are getting progressively worse.”
Bucky glanced at the slumped form of Tony in the kitchen, and felt the usual tug of wistfulness in his stomach.
“We’re seeing who caves first and stops it due to sheer embarrassment.” He explained, unable to keep his eyes away from the man as he pretty much fell asleep stood up, his head lolling forward and then jerking up again when it went too far.
“It doesn’t seem as if it’s bothering you guys all too much,” Natasha said, and Bucky really didn’t have anything to say to that.
__________
“I swear, you two have got to cut it out. I can’t stand the vomit-inducing embarrassment every time you to try and out-name one another. Just call it quits; neither of you have any shame at all, and you’re both just as great as one another at making up ridiculous names. Move on with your fucking lives. Jesus, I’d think you two were being serious if I didn’t know otherwise,” Clint called out one day, after Bucky had greeted Tony at the table with a raised eyebrow and a silky ‘baby cakes’, and Tony had answered with a leer and responding ‘angel-face’.
Surprisingly, Tony didn’t seem to have an answer. Rather, instead he appeared to stutter over his words, a little pink flush appearing on the apples of his cheeks as he glanced over at Clint sourly and then stammered a few more incomprehensible insults. It seemed that Clint had somehow hit a nerve.
Bucky was half-way to hoping that it meant what he thought it did before he managed to clamp down on those particular feelings. No use getting eager for something that was never going to happen.
Seeing as Tony looked to be unable to provide help this time, Bucky stepped forward and wound his hands around Tony’s waist, pulling him into his chest so that Tony’s back was pressed tightly against him.
It felt nice, doing that. Normal. He had to give himself a little kick to remind himself that this was just supposed to be a show.
“I’m so sorry you have to go through that Clint. What a hardship it must be, right dollface, babe, honey, sweetheart, beautiful?’ Bucky purred softly, raising his eyebrows at Clint like the smug bastard he was and then ghosting his mouth over Tony’s neck just to make the archer in front of him squirm even more.
He couldn’t have this. He knew it wasn’t real. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t damn well take advantage of the situation.
In front of him, Clint was blatantly gagging over his cereal, and tony remained silent. Bucky glanced up at him, and saw Tony’s mouth moving up and down slowly, his eyes open wide like a deer caught in the headlights. It appeared his entire face had transitioned from a slight pink at the cheeks to an adorable bright redness that covered the majority of his head and crept down his neck and underneath the collar. A half formed notion that popped into Bucky’s head was to lick it, all the way from neck to cheek.
But that would be weird. Friends who joked around with dumb nicknames didn’t tend to do that.
Tony eventually spoke; more like a kind of explosion of “hnnnnngffckm” than anything else, really, and that was when Bucky finally realized he might have just completely overstepped his mark. Tony barely touched anyone as intimately as this; the man didn’t even like being handed things, for God’s sake, and Bucky was pulling him up against him so that there was pretty much no space between their bodies.
Moron.
Bucky quickly let go, which just seemed to confuse tony more, and increase the stammering by at least 20%, all the while as Clint just laughed gleefully in the background and hollered when Tony finally hurried away, cheeks still flaming red.
“You just broke Tony Stark. Well done. Does that mean the names can finally end now?” Clint asked over a mouthful of granola.
“No.”
“Fuck you,”
__________
They were forced to stop using the ridiculous names in front of Natasha, after she heard Tony enter a room and call Bucky ‘my deep-frozen little lovebug’ and finally snapped, threatening them with knives and the various methods of how she would insert them into their bodies.
They both agreed it would be in their best interests to tone it down whenever she was in the room.
The others, however, were still given full treatment.
__________
“Tony, you piece of shit, if you’ve installed another damn Christmas song into my arm that plays fucking carols whenever I bend it I’m going to murder you.”
“Aw, come on sweetie, get in the festive spirit! I’ve been told by Steve that I have to act at least 18% merrier this month or I’m getting suspended, so I thought I’d participate in some fun activities,” Tony answered, not turning away from whatever he was looking at on his tablet and continuing to tap his fingers against the screen, while Steve simply looked up at Bucky’s grim expression and shrugged in a ‘what can you do, it’s just Tony’ kind of way before turning back to the book he was reading.
Bucky sighed, and then snatched the tablet out of Tony’s hands, raising it high above his head and chuckling as Tony leapt for it unsuccessfully, falling right into Bucky’s chest in the process and hissing angrily.
“Oh, now that’s just unfair.”
“Not my fault you’re a pipsqueak.”
“Hey! Uncalled for.” Tony said huffily, eyes darting to the counter briefly, before he leapt like a cat on to the surface and lunged for the object in Bucky’s hand in a surprisingly swift movement that probably would have caught Bucky out had he not seen the movement of Tony’s eyes beforehand.
Luckily he did see it, and he quickly pulled his hand back to his chest, swapping it with his metal arm as he lifted it to catch Tony in the air and winding it around his waist, pulling him in to avoid a collision with the table and everything on top of it.
Tony yelled out in surprise as he tumbled into Bucky’s stomach and his arms flew out wildly, landing on Bucky’s shoulders and clinging to the bare skin there.
“Bucky, just give me back my god damn tablet. I have important business stuff on there.”
“Take the music out of my arm.”
“Never. It would be going against Steve’s orders. And you know how much a law-abiding member of this team I am,”
“Tony, babe, please.” Bucky said, putting as much emphasis into his big sad puppy eyes as he could and staring down at the man pleadingly.
He watched as Tony attempted to avoid his eyes and fail, then sigh irritably, giving a sulky nod of his head and putting himself upright as gracefully as he could.
Bucky grinned smugly. His puppy-eyed stare worked every time.
“Fine. But only because we are going on a stakeout in a few days and I don’t particularly fancy being caught by HYDRA because you started playing ‘jingle bells’.”
A few minutes later, when Tony had wandered off to the workshop and it was just Bucky and Steve once again, he felt his friend’s gaze on the back of his head.
“I’m not sure you even know you’re doing it any more, y’know.”
“Huh?” Bucky asked in confusion, turning to face Steve.
Steve looked back, and his face softened a little as he lowered the book he was reading and opened his mouth.
“Just… don’t get yourself in too deep, Buck.” Steve said gently, and suddenly Bucky was very much aware of what Steve was saying, and the room felt too hot and heavy with the weight of the words, because Bucky knew, fuck- he knew exactly what he was doing to himself, and the end result wasn’t going to be good, whichever way he looked at it, but he couldn’t fucking stop himself from getting further and further wrapped up in at all, it was gonna kill him-
“Noted. Um, I’ve- I’ve got to go,” Bucky mumbled, jerking out of his seat much to Steve’s surprise and storming out of the room, trying to avoid the way his heart felt like it was all twisted up inside his ribcage and his lungs felt as if they were squashed right up against his chest.
Steve was wrong.
Bucky wasn’t getting himself in too deep. He was already drowning in there.
__________
“Hey Bucky-bear, wanna see something awesome?”
About 298 different ‘awesome’ scenarios involving Tony popped into his mind in that single second, but he somehow guessed that that was not what Tony meant.
“When did you last go to bed, honey?” Bucky answered back exasperatedly, sauntering further into the workshop until he was level with Tony’s desk and looking at the man in affectionate despair.
Tony shrugged, then jerkily jumped to his feet and scuttled to the suit that was stood to the left of the desk, signaling for Bucky to follow. He was doing the vibrating thing again, where his whole body shook from sleep deprivation and caffeine, and Bucky shook his head hopelessly, unable to hide the little smile when Tony looked at him with such a childish excitement in his eyes that Bucky just knew how happy the man was at his latest invention.
“Okay, shoot. What’s the deal?” Bucky asked, wandering around the suit and looking for any extra details that hadn’t been there before.
He was very well versed in pretty much every line and detail of the suit; it was one of his favorite things to look at, and he knew a change when he saw one. But there didn’t appear to be anything external that had changed, according to his trained eye.
“Here, say this out loud,” tony said, placing a ripped-off piece of notepad paper into his hand and then stepping back, turning into the suit and then waiting as it surrounded him in the protective metal until he was fully encased in the armor.
With a raised eyebrow and fond smile, Bucky looked at the paper and read out the words printed in front to him.
“James Buchanan Barnes, initiate system override, entry code 4-9-Alpha-6-Bravo-4-4,”
He waited for a second, and then watched in surprise as the suit’s glowing eyes slowly merged from the pale sky-blue color to a bright, florescent green.
“Welcome to the Iron Man suit, Mr. Barnes,” he heard JARVIS say.
“Ask him to let me out of the suit,” Tony said excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet despite the heavy metal suit weighing him down.
“Um…JARVIS, can you- can you let Tony out of the suit?” Bucky asked warily, wondering what the hell Tony was playing it.
Instantly, the suit retracted, and Tony stumbled out once again.
“Cool, huh?” He asked, grinning manically and dancing around Bucky as he stood there in confusion.
“I don’t… what just happened?” He asked, because apparently, it still wasn’t sinking in.
Tony stopped moving to raise his eyebrows condescendingly, then rolled his eyes and grabbed the hand holding the slip of paper and raised it, wiggling it in Bucky’s face.
“It’s a code you’re gonna need to remember, because it gives you automatic autonomy over my suit. Just in case a situation presents itself in which that is needed, y’know,” Tony told him, clapping his hands together in delight.
Bucky stared up at the red and gold armor, his mouth in a confused ‘o’ formation as he tried to process what had just happened.
Tony appeared to be giving him the ability to control his armor. Control his safety net, the thing Tony always fell back on, and the thing that had turned his whole life around.
Bucky could lose control. HYDRA could get back into his head one day and ruin everything, as they inevitably did. Tony could put on that suit to protect himself and Bucky could remove it just as fast and slit his throat before he even got a chance to yell.
“You gotta… No, Tony. You can’t let me have this power,” Bucky whispered, eyes wide as he looked over to the other man.
Tony stumbled, turning to look at Bucky as if he’d just told him the Iron Man suit was garbage, before he took a look at Bucky’s expression; at the barely contained fear and general ‘ I-Am-Overwhelmed’ vibe he was giving off. His hurt look disappeared, and was replaced with something far gentler.
“I trust you. And you won’t use it unless it’s to protect me- I know that. You might not just yet, but I do.” He said matter-of-factly, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow, just daring Bucky to try and argue with him.
It seemed Tony had picked up a few helpful hints from a certain Steve rogers on how to intimidate a certain Bucky Barnes, because he was pulling exactly the same face Steve always did when he was arguing.
Bucky was 96% certain if he tried to argue back now, Tony would just raise his finger and say ‘no’ exactly like Steve always did.
“Does anyone else have this?” He asked instead.
“Steve does, because Team-Leader and all that. And Rhodey, because…well, it’s Rhodey. But they both have different codes, so it doesn’t really matter,” tony replied, shrugging and then flopping back down to his chair and pushing it forward until his knees were pressed up against Bucky’s side.
Bucky was still staring a little dumbly up at the armor, the knowledge that he now had complete control over it, over Tony if he was wearing it, playing over and over on his mind.
Steve hadn’t moved out of the spare room next to Bucky since he’d arrived at the tower, just in case. Natasha’s hands still subconsciously went for her sidearm if Bucky moved too fast. Clint tensed up and went into a fighting stance sometimes, if Bucky got angry.
Tony had just put his life in Bucky’s hands.
“You’re… you’re okay with this, right?” Tony asked worriedly, reaching out to take Bucky’s elbow in his hand.
For the first time in his life, Bucky broke down and cried in front of another person.
__________
“Hey,Tony ?”
“Mm hm?”
Bucky rolled his chair over to the opposite side, making sure he was facing Tony and was able to see his features clearly. That was an important part of the plan.
“It’s been three months. D’ya think it’s time we let go of the whole ‘calling each other pet-names as a joke’, kinda thing? ‘Cause it’s getting kinda old,” Bucky asked as casually as he could.
This had been going on long enough. Bucky couldn’t do this any more; he had to know. He had to know if there was something real here. And this? This was perfect, because it all depended on Tony’s reaction. By Bucky’s logic, it could go one of three ways.
1) Tony is fine with it, shrugs it off and continues about his way like it never happened. Feelings are not reciprocated and Bucky will have to live with that.
2) Tony is most definitely not fine with it, and demands that Bucky kiss him immediately to prove his point (Bucky is really holding out for this one)
3) Tony does his best effort to shrug it off and continue about his way, while inwardly being definitely not fine with it.
Everything depended on the next few seconds.
He watched in anticipation as Tony’s whole frame tensed up, the smile dropping immediately and a look of barely contained hurt passing across his face. Jaw clenched, hands tensed, face dark and closed-off, Tony looked up at him and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could.
“Um, yeah. Cool, whatever Buck- Bucky,” He said.
Ah. Option Number Three then.
Tony made a very obvious move away from Bucky, travelling across the room to the suit in his chair, kicking against the desk pretty excessively as he did so.
Honestly, Bucky just found Sulky Tony cute.
Using the desk to push himself forward on his own chair, he rolled up to Tony, his back bumping against Tony’s shoulder as he leant his head back and rested it on the juncture in the other man’s neck.
Tony stiffened, before shrugging Bucky off and going back to his work on the suit, his eyebrows drawn together in annoyance.
“Bucky, no offence, but I need to work, so you could maybe get ou-“
“I was thinking maybe it shouldn’t have to be a joke anymore, y’know?” Bucky interrupted, trying to ignore the way his heart was beating in his chest and his flesh hand was shaking slightly.
He really hoped he hadn’t got it wrong.
Tony paused, eyes squinting for a fraction of a second as he tried to work out what Bucky was referring to- before they began to slowly widen, the hand clutching a screwdriver slacking very suddenly, and causing it to clatter to the floor as tony swiveled around to face Bucky.
“I’m sorry, are you suggesting…what I think you’re suggesting?”
“What do you think I’m suggesting, Tony?”
Tony frowned, then cocked an eyebrow up at Bucky and pouted, just a little.
“Um, excuse me; my name is baby, sweetie, honey or darling. Get it right.”
“Make me,”
Tony eyed him daringly, the same way he had done all those months ago when this whole thing had begun- he was waiting for Bucky to back down, or take it back.
He’d be waiting a damn long time.
“Okay. Your funeral,” Tony said, shrugging again before pulling him in by the collar and meeting Bucky in the middle with his mouth.
__________
The TV was switched on; playing some re-runs of the same reality show that Bucky had spent the first 2 months of his rehabilitation into the real world watching (shut up, it had been a difficult time, okay?)- But he wasn’t focusing too much on the screen in front of him. There were other, far better things to be concentrating on.
Like Tony, who was sprawled flat-out along Bucky’s chest, head buried in the crook of his neck and hands tucked up against his chest. The fluffy dark hair was tickly and soft against Bucky’s jaw, and he could feel the sleepy trails of Tony’s fingers as they slid across his chest, drawing absent-minded circles and dots in the material of his shirt. They’d been sat like this for about an hour now, both of them half-asleep and lying down across the couch, occasionally sharing small bites of conversation before moving back into comfortable silence once again.
It was normal. Disturbingly domestic, considering they’d barely stopped making out a few hours ago, heavy and hot and passionate. You’d think they’d have got on to more exciting things by now.
But Bucky had found himself here instead, on the couch in the dark with Tony curled up on top of him and - and he was happier here than he would be anywhere else.
Tony smelt wonderful. Like home. Bucky didn’t want to ever get up again.
He gently bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of all that lovely dark hair for the tenth time that night, then moved his flesh arm to wrap around Tony’s hip. He heard the small, contented sigh Tony let slip from his mouth as the smaller man curled up further into Bucky’s embrace and settled down once more, and Bucky watched in amusement as Tony’s eyelids began to flutter shut, the relaxed atmosphere obviously letting him wind down enough to get some well-deserved rest.
He could stay like this forever.
“Okay, right, this has to stop. Seriously, I don’t know why you two seem to want to make all of us feel as grossed-out and awkward as possible with all the ridiculous pet names, but this? Too far. Too cute. My asshole-soul cannot take it. Get off him, Tony.” Came Clint’s whiny voice from across the room, as he walked into the living room and stared, horrified at the sight of Bucky and Tony sat together.
With a blink, Tony turned his head to look at Clint; a smile forming on his lips that Bucky just knew meant something good was about to happen.
“Oh, I’m sorry Clint. Can’t have you feeling awkward,” he said, shaking his head and beginning to sit up, until he was sat straddling Bucky’s hips with his thighs.
“I mean, how would you feel if we did something even worse? What if we… God forbid- what if we kissed?” He continued, shooting Clint one last look of mock-horror, before turning back to Bucky and leaning down, grabbing his jaw and pressing a hard, open-mouthed kiss on to his lips.
Bucky, getting the idea, quickly contributed his own efforts, groaning theatrically and lifting his hands until they were both pressed down on Tony’s ass.
He heard the genuine gasp that left Tony’s mouth, and then Tony’s hands were moving too, until they were fisted in the fabric of Bucky’s shirt, drawing apart just a little and moving outward toward the shell of his ear, giving it a little bite and then moving on again, trailing kisses down his jaw before landing back on Bucky’s mouth.
“OKAY OKAY, JESUS. IF YOU EVER DO THAT IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN IM GOING TO SHOOT YOU BOTH IN THE DICK. NOT FUCKING JOKING! JESUS CHRIST,” Clint screamed, stumbling back and covering his eyes with an arm, the other one outstretched and feeling for the wall and he ran away and tried not to walk into anything.
Tony and Bucky vaguely heard him crying out for Natasha as he sprinted away from them, but they were a little too preoccupied to listen.