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Tony can’t meet Bucky’s gaze. That’s Bucky’s first clue.Bucky had been standing, waiting, staring at Tony-from-the-future, their eyes locked. There had been a flash of green light, the Asgardian symbols glowing where Thor had inscribed them on the time machine (future-Tony had sworn up and down that it was not a time machine, but it acted like one to Bucky so that’s what he’s calling it), and then their Tony, Tony-from-the-present, was there instead.And present-Tony looks away from Bucky, eyes darting to the side.Bucky stays standing, doesn’t reel back from what feels like a blow. It shouldn’t be a surprise - it’s not, he firmly tells himself - but Bucky still had hoped, somehow. Stupidly, he had hoped that he could find a smidgeon of the warmth in future-Tony’s gaze inside of present-Tony’s too.But Tony looks away, turns away, finds Steve and cracks a joke about portals being better than ice baths for time travelings and then runs away.That’s Bucky’s second clue.Wherever Bucky is, suddenly Tony’s isn’t. Tony doesn’t run, wouldn’t be seen running, but he’s sneaky and practiced enough so that whenever Bucky enters a room, Tony is out of it three steps later with an excuse, an emergency, or simply sly footwork. Bucky is impressed, most definitely, but the not-chase still makes his chest ache.Bucky misses Tony’s teasing glance from across the room, letting Bucky in an inside joke. He misses the warmth in Tony’s voice when Bucky joins the conversation. He misses Tony’s occasional slip of ‘James,’ the way it rolled off Tony’s tongue. He misses the lack of space, when stepped close, would touch Bucky’s arm or his shoulder or his waist. That was all future-Tony though, giving Bucky glimpses of what could be.Not that present-Tony had been rude before. Present-Tony had, up until the swap, been civil to Bucky. A friend, to the degree that Bucky had friends other than Steve, because Bucky still kept mostly to himself.But Bucky finds himself wanting that extra bit of attention, that extra warmth, and he’s not ready to let it go completely. Not yet. Tracking Tony down isn’t hard, not really. Bucky strolls through the common spaces, slowly enough so that Tony has plenty of time to depart ahead of him, and then steps into the elevator and presses the floor to the workshop.The workshop - most likely the place Tony would run to, and a place Bucky has never been. Any arm maintenance happened in the gym to help prevent flashbacks, and then Steve could hang around nearby without obviously hovering over them. The workshop is Tony’s safe space, and Bucky is intruding.Tony’s avoidance should tell Bucky that Tony isn’t interested in having a relationship with Bucky. Tony doesn’t seem interested in exploring anything like what future-Tony and James have, with the clues he has laid out for Bucky.Except future-Tony had given Bucky some advice before they had swapped back.
“I’m a genius,” future-Tony had said. His lips had quirked. “But, uh, you call me your idiot genius sometimes when I’m being a bit thick. And trust me to know myself - I’m going to be a massive idiot genius when I get back. Got issues, you know? Might have to track me down and make me see sense.”
“I’m good at trackin’,” Bucky had replied, trying not let his mind stick on the phrase ‘my idiot genius’ and how easily he thinks that would roll off his tongue.
Tony had smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Bucky had felt warm at being the cause of that. Bucky wanted to put that look on all of Tony’s faces, of all the time periods, but especially his own.
“Yeah, you are,” Tony had agreed softly. His hands twitched, an abortive move to reach out to Bucky. “Put those skills to good use, snowflake.”
“JARVIS,” Bucky questions as he rides the elevator down. “Is Tony working on anything time-sensitive? Like, he can’t or shouldn’t be interrupted?”“Sir’s current project can be paused if needed without any harm,” JARVIS answers.Bucky takes that as tacit permission to proceed with his mission objective.The elevator door opens and Bucky strides into the workshop. Tony does a double-take, but then schools his face into a polite expression and his body language into something less tense.“Hey, thanks for stopping by but I’m in the middle of something here. Mind coming back later? JARVIS can let you know when I’m free,” Tony says, his tone regretful and apologetic. He waves a hand with a wrench though, and then tap, tap, taps it against his other palm.“JARVIS already said you can pause,” Bucky says, then pulls back a step. “If you want…” Bucky turns his shoulder though, displaying his willingness to leave if Tony really wants without outright giving Tony the option.“JARVIS did, huh?” Tony says with a twist to his mouth. He knuckles the wrench for a moment, but then drops his shoulders with a sigh. “Sure, whatever, take a seat. Give me a second to get this thought down - because you can’t pause the brain like I can your hard drive, JARVIS! - and then we’ll get to you, yeah? There works, or there, or -”Bucky takes a seat on the couch, a ragged thing that sags in the middle cushion. By the time that Bucky looks back to Tony, he’s already lost Tony’s attention.Tony gets absorbed in the holographic screen, tossing aside the wrench he’d been fiddling with to set both hands at the keyboard and type. A bot wheels by Bucky to come over and pick the wrench up, taking it to another corner of the workshop.“Don’t lose that, I need that!” Tony calls after the bot. The bot beeps at Tony, and Tony snorts. “I’ll have to use you to unscrew bolts, and you won’t like what it does to your joints.”Bucky sits back and watches.Tony gets reabsorbed back into his project, completely forgetting about Bucky. Bucky hears Tony muttering obscenities and curses - mostly at himself, specifically his future self. The bot wheels by, beeping what might be a semblance of a hello at Bucky, before taking another tool to a different corner of the workshop.Bucky sinks further down into the couch and watches.Tony’s fingers fly over the keys, or sometimes pause and Tony says a string of nonsense words to JARVIS and watches the code continue to scroll. Tony flips from one thing to the next, to the next, occasionally calling out a flippant comment to the bot that keeps whirling around the workshop.Bucky watches Tony be loose and free and bright in a way that Bucky hasn’t seen before, and all of a sudden Bucky gets it. He gets how and why he fell in love with Tony.Bucky relaxes, warm and content to sit there for hours, until he jerks to his feet.“Is that my arm?” Bucky asks, staring.Tony startles, whipping around to blink at Bucky with wide, brown eyes. Tony glances back over at the image which is a metal arm - undoubtedly Bucky’s, but also not his current version.“Yeah,” Tony admits. “Or, well, not yours, not yet. Alt-universe you. My time traveling counterpart left some surprises for me,” Tony admits. “JARVIS and I have been running decryption codes since I’ve got back because of course I left all the good stuff locked away, because of course I’m an asshole.”“Seemed a good enough guy to me,” Bucky says, swallowing. He takes a few steps forward, keeping his eyes trained on the image of the metal arm rather than Tony.Tony snorts. “Uh huh. Sure, if you want to believe that.”Bucky opens his mouth to defend, but Tony cuts him off with a wave.“Did he mess with you too?” Tony asks, voice snide. “Tell you things about ‘the future?’”Bucky looks at Tony, and Tony’s dark gaze meets his. Bucky feels a thrill, a dark curl of pleasure in his stomach at those brown eyes, but keeps it hidden behind a frown. “Kept most things to himself,” Bucky says.“But implied,” Tony snorts. “Insinuated. Right on point. Hate to break it to you, Barnes, but whatever he might’ve got you thinking, that’s not our future. Not any of our future, the whole team’s . We would’ve remembered this happening, and then I might’ve avoided getting caught in that warp portal in the future, and then loopholes and paradoxes and time and space shenanigans,” Tony says, waving his arms. “They’re a separate world, one that I’ll admit it set in the future, but alternate universe to ours. Not us, not exactly.”“Seemed similar,” Bucky voices.“Ugh. Judging by alt-me’s level of assholery in messing with my stuff… maybe,” Tony admits with a smile.The smile reaches Tony’s eyes, puts a slight crinkle in the corner. That one, Bucky recognizes. The one Bucky wants to see more.“That mean you’ll let me take you out?” Bucky forces out his mouth, trying to keep his heart rate steady.Tony loses his smile. “You don’t - look, let’s just not go there.”Bucky blinks, surprised. “Why?”“Because I just told you!” Tony exclaims, whirling back to the screen. “We’re not them! Just because that Tony and that James,” Bucky can’t stop it, he flinches, but at least Tony doesn’t see, “are together doesn’t mean we have to be.”“No ‘have to’ about it,” Bucky replies hotly.Tony stills, and then turns back around to face Bucky with a rigid smirk on his face. “Right. I’m sure you were just about to ask me out before all this universe-hopping, time-traveling business happened, huh? What poor timing,” Tony says with mock sympathy.Bucky closes his eyes for a second and breathes. My idiot genius. Bucky can almost taste the words.“Gonna tell me no, then?” Bucky asks quietly. He opens his eyes and meets Tony’s gaze with a challenge. “Turn me down. I can handle it. Or are you just going to try to convince me that I don’t want to date you?”“You don’t,” Tony insists. “Next week we might have more universe-traveling, and then you’ll be with - oh, I don’t know, Sam probably - and you can -”Bucky cuts Tony off with a snort. “Fickle ain’t one of my flaws. Another future isn’t going to change how I feel.”“You don’t -”“Don’t tell me what I want,” Bucky interrupts. He steps toward Tony, but then back because Bucky doesn’t want to intimidate. “Don’t tell me how I feel,” he continues, throat aching. “I do that enough myself.”Tony sighs. “Yeah, ok. But Bucky…”Bucky talks over Tony, confessing before he loses his nerve. “I told myself that I didn’t want it - dating, romance, any of it. I’d rather pretend I didn’t want someone than to spend time pinin’ after somethin’ I wasn’t going to get anyway. But now, after you - alternate universe you,” Bucky corrects when Tony opens his mouth. “Made me realize that I do want it. With you,” Bucky admits with a gulp. “So turn me down, that’s fine if you don’t… want to, but don’t convince me that I don’t want to take you out. Because I do.”Tony’s mouth hangs open, his eyes wide and searching Bucky’s.Bucky fidgets, running a hand through his hair.Still, Tony stares.There’s a crash in the corner of the workshop, and both of them whirl to find the bot beeping sadly over the mess.“DUM-E you bumbling bot, pick that up! You’re supposed to clean up the messes I make, not make them yourself. Have to donate you to a college, see what they make of you,” Tony threatens.Bucky turns back to Tony, who is now unfrozen. Tony looks up at Bucky with his still-wide eyes, but at least Tony’s mouth isn’t frozen open anymore.“Still interested? Package deal. I don’t know what issues alt-me might have had but…”“Yes,” Bucky confirms. “How good is your bot at dancin’?”Tony laughs. “Oh, no, absolutely not. Do not take DUM-E dancing, or U, or Butterfingers - oh, we’ll do some introductions, you haven’t met everyone, have you? But no, hard core no across the board, none of the bots dance.”“Just have to be us, then?” Bucky offers, hope rising in his chest.Tony pauses for a second, but then smiles. “Yes. Okay, take me out. Just us. You hear that JARVIS? No spying.”“It had not even crossed my circuits, Sir,” JARVIS replies. The end of the first date has Bucky feeling giddy. He has his arm thrown around Tony’s shoulders, Tony tucked in tight and laughing over how the both of them had tripped over themselves square dancing with Bucky’s cohort over over-eighty year olds. Neither of them are ready for the night to end, and so they head up to the common floor to set up a movie.Clint is throwing cheese puffs into Sam’s open mouth, with increasingly elaborate tricks on Clint’s part to show that he can’t miss.Bucky snorts. “I would never date you in any universe,” he says as Sam catches a string of five cheese puffs in his mouth.Sam chokes on his puffs, cheeks bulging. “What the hell, man? These are delicious!”Sam flips Bucky off, then both of them when Tony bursts out laughing. Clint throws cheese puffs at their heads in solidarity until Tony tugs Bucky out of the room and into the penthouse.“Alright, Buckaroo. Show me those moves of yours,” Tony purrs as they slide onto the couch together, pressed side to side. “Can’t say I haven’t been dying to kiss you again.”Bucky shifts back, just a little. “What?”Tony blinks at him. “What?”“What do you mean ‘again?’ We haven’t…” Bucky trails off, his mind whirling.“You didn’t kiss me? The alternate universe me?” Tony questions, puzzled.“You did?”“Don’t look at me like that!” Tony defends. “When was I going to get an opportunity like that? It’s not like you showed any interest in me at all, I figured that was my only chance!”“It’s damn well not,” Bucky argues, too many emotions mixing in his chest to identify which is what. Except jealousy, there’s definitely some of that in there. He tugs Tony to him, their breaths mingling. He can’t keep his gaze off Tony’s lips and brushes them with his own. “Going to convince me I don’t want this?”Tony growls. “I didn’t want to pressure you -”Bucky shuts Tony up with a kiss. His idiot genius, indeed.