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One
There were a lot of strange repercussions that came from Peter teaching the team about memes: a group chat specifically for sending whatever the meme of the moment was that Tony had fucking permanently muted (he’d tried to leave it but they kept adding him back), FRIDAY getting called ‘Alexa’ and asked to play Despacito so often that she took to blaring Justin Bieber songs every time someone did it (which killed that particular joke pretty goddamn quickly), and Steve running into Tony and Bucky’s room at four in the morning begging Tony to pretty please take this horrifying app off my phone, there are some things that should never be seen after Peter had told him Tumblr was the best place to see memes in their rawest form. But perhaps the weirdest one to Tony’s mind was the strange fascination the team seemed to have with the Most Interesting Man in the World meme. He wasn’t sure how it had gotten started or who had been the first to use it, but the team appeared fascinated with it – which amused Peter to no end, grumbling about how he’d worked so hard to make them sophisticated, modern meme minions and they had to go disrespect his teachings by seizing on that meme fossil.But Tony felt like it had really started to get out of hand when it nearly caused the death of his coffee maker.He’d been innocently minding his own business at the breakfast table, trying to pump as much Miracle Wakey-Wakey Juice into his body as quickly as he could, his teammates in various states of alertness after they’d been called out at four in the morning to handle a situation in Harlem. The crusty old man of the group aka Steve wasn’t used to holding such gosh-darn-forsaken hours, Bruce looked like he was in serious need of a nap, Clint was glaring at anyone who dared make eye contact, Peter was dead on his feet, and, well, Tony had never actually gone to bed so he wasn’t at his highest level of functionality either. The only ones who seemed unaffected were the gods and the super spy/assassins. Or maybe it was a Russian thing instead of a spy thing, to be so utterly unfazed by your sleep schedule, Tony mused. Probably both.He was amusing himself swiping pieces of Bruce’s bacon, crumbling it to tiny pieces, and periodically throwing them at Peter when Peter wasn’t paying attention when Clint stood up.“I’m about to take the most epic nap of all time, and if any of you disturb me, you will face the wrath of my glitter arrows. Which no longer have adhesive, so they work a lot more effectively,” he threatened, making to walk away.“Hey, put away your dishes, Clint,” Steve reprimanded, and Clint sighed as though he was being asked to do something reprehensible.Then, in a movement too quick for Tony’s sleep-deprivation-leaden brain to follow, he whipped out an arrow and a coffee mug was suddenly hanging off the shaft of an arrow embedded into the wall above the sink, missing his precious coffee maker by a hair’s breadth. The momentum caused the coffee maker to teeter, and Tony suddenly felt much more awake, prepared to jump up and attempt some Herculean move to prevent his giver-of-life from hitting the ground; thankfully, the machine settled.Clint smirked at them. “I may not always put away my dishes, but when I do, I do it with style,” he announced.“No. No, when you do, you almost murder my coffee machine,” Tony screeched at him, eyes narrowed. He took several deep, calming breaths, then met Clint’s eyes, voice dangerous and low. “And just so you know, if you do hurt my baby, I will fucking end you. There’s no place on this planet that you can hide from me – between FRIDAY and my own hacking abilities, I see everything. Don’t. Fuck. With. My. Coffee.”Clint blinked at him, mouth agape. The others around the table were looking at him with similar expressions of shock.“That. That might be the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me,” Clint said faintly.“I did not expect such ire from you, Man of Iron,” Thor said, sounding impressed. Bucky snorted.“You obviously don’t know him well enough, then,” he said, snickering. “Never mess with Tony’s coffee.”“No one touches my coffee or my Peter,” Tony affirmed, giving the room a steely-eyed look. “Abide by those rules and we’re good.”
Two
The aftermath of their most recent battle was particularly nasty this time; the team was huddled in the med bay licking their collective wounds. Steve was patching up a laceration in his shoulder, Natasha was wrapping a wound on her thigh, and Tony was taking care of Peter. And, by “taking care of”, he definitely meant that he was fussing over a cross Peter who was trying to fend him off, while Bucky was simultaneously trying to tug Tony away so he could look over the stubborn genius. “Tony, go sit down before Bucky injures either you or himself trying to fix you,” Bruce said exasperatedly, waltzing into the room with some extra first aid supplies since Lord knew they had to re-stock after pretty much every battle. “I’ll take care of your kid.”Tony stuck his tongue out at his science bro, then pursed his lips and shrugged. “Square deal. But he better come out of this looking even better than he was before, Green Bean,” Tony ordered, pointing a finger at Bruce, who rolled his eyes.“Sure, Tony,” he acquiesced fondly. “Are you saying I’m not attractive enough, Mr. Stark?” Peter questioned innocently, and Tony narrowed his eyes at him.“You’re a menace, kid.” But Tony allowed himself to be reluctantly led away by his boyfriend, who mouthed a ‘thanks’ over his shoulder.Bucky poked and prodded at him when he got Tony situated on one of the other examination tables. “Anything hurt, doll?” he murmured.“I’m fine, Mom, stop fussing,” Tony said petulantly, and Bucky pinned him with a pointed look.“That’s rich, comin’ from the guy who ignored Petey sayin’ the same thing just a second ago,” he said, lips quirking. Tony frowned at him.“Don’t use logic on me, Frostbite – ow!” Whoops, apparently something was maybe a little more injured than he’d realized. Bucky looked concernedly at the spot he’d pressed on the engineer’s wrist, turning it over carefully. He palpated the area gently, searching Tony’s face for signs of pain, which came in the form of a couple of winces.“I think it’s just a deep bruise, but we should probably have Bruce take a look,” Bucky concluded.“Did I hear my name?” Bruce asked, coming up beside Bucky. He looked at Tony. “Your kid’s all fixed up, Tony, though I know you’re going to want to look him over again yourself.”“Thought you weren’t that kind of doctor, Brucie Bear,” Tony said with a grin. “I don’t always foray into the medical field, but when I do I protect my idiot teammates from themselves,” Bruce declared, and Tony groaned.“Et tu, Brute?” he lamented.
Three
The world couldn’t seem to stay saved for more than a few minutes, it seemed sometimes. Tony would swear they’d just fucking fixed it last night – because, oh that’s right, they had. He needed a fucking break. And a fucking drink. Possibly not in that order.This particular enemy appeared to be using tech as their weapon of choice – which, cool, Tony might actually want to sit in on the interrogation of this one after he took apart some of the stuff to see if it was anything new or interesting.Or honestly just to see how much of a bag-of-cats this guy might be, because tech was great, but building a whole bunch of animal-related tech? Tony had considered building a dog one time (and yes, he absolutely would have called that dog K-9), so maybe he had no room to criticize, but one measly dog seemed much less weird than the arsenal of random animal-themed robots coming after them now. And the animals weren’t even anthropomorphically sound! They were at least, like, twice the size of the actual animals they were based on.Villains needed to stop using giant animal-related means of trying to take over the goddamn world, it was getting old. They’d already dispatched a storm of giant bird-robots, fended off a shit storm of giant panther-robots (Tony was hoping at least one of them was still intact so he could send it to a certain kitty cat in Wakanda), and, nightmarishly, a swarm of giant spider-robots. That wasn’t exactly the part of Harry Potter that he’d dreamed of experiencing firsthand. Now, there was a bit of a lull as they waited on whatever the evil robots’ creator sent next, the fliers keeping eyes out for any signs of movement.“Uh, looks like we’ve got incoming guys,” Tony called, eyes catching on something finally.“What is it, Iron Man?” Steve asked in his Captain voice. “Looks like a bunch of giant metal…cats? I guess? Best term I can think of to describe ‘em at least. There’s six of them headed your way at your 4 o’clock, Cap. But hey at least there are no giant boob-nipple guns shooting at us,” Tony said glibly. He heard Peter laugh over the coms.“Really? A Star Wars reference right now?” Steve sounded unimpressed, but Tony was now very impressed.“You caught that one! I’m surprised, old man, maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks after all,” Tony announced.There was a heavy sigh. “I don’t always understand your references, but when I do I’m amazed they’re so inappropriate,” Steve said tiredly. There was a chorus of elated cheers over the coms that drowned out Tony’s put-upon groan.“Are you fucking kidding me? What is the deal with you people and the Most Interesting Man meme? It’s so lame, and oh my god, Cap’s wasn’t even that good,” Tony complained.“You’re just jealous you haven’t come up with one better,” Clint said smugly, and Tony sniffed.“Excuse you, I am the most interesting man in the world, I win just by existing,” he asserted haughtily.“I thought you just said the meme was lame, Mr. Stark. So you’re the winner of being lame?” Peter asked over the coms, voice so confused Tony couldn’t tell if Peter was genuinely clarifying or actively fucking with him. Of course, it didn’t matter to the rest of the team, collectively laughing their asses off. “Yeah, Stark, congrats on your new title of the lamest man in the world,” Clint taunted.“I hate all of you,” Tony decided.
Four
“Hey Tash, how come you haven’t gotten Clint back for hitting you with the glitter pellet yet?” Clint stared at Tony, betrayed, and Tony stuck his tongue out. They’d just finished movie night, and Tony was sitting practically in Bucky’s lap (to Peter’s loudly vocalized objections that he ‘should not be subjected to the torment of watching my parental figure be all flirty’ and ‘pretty sure this is a human rights violation, you’re damaging my eyes and wounding my soul.’ Kid sure got his flair for the dramatic from him, lack of biological contribution be damned.) languidly running his fingers over the metal plates of Bucky’s arm while Bucky ran his fingers through Tony’s hair. This week’s movie had been Titanic, chosen because the Captain had gotten confused when Bucky came to hug Tony from behind earlier and Tony immediately stuck out his arms and declared, “Jack, I’m flying!” And that was a pop culture reference Tony was happy to update the Capsicle on, so they’d settled in for some manful Leonardo DiCaprio-related tears.And there had definitely been tears. Thor cried in pretty much every sad or semi-sad movie, loudly proclaiming that he didn’t understand why mortals would purposely make themselves weep so for entertainment; Steve and Clint, for all their protests of stoicism, were also easy criers; Pete was, no surprise, prone to sniffling through the sad scenes, and Tony would admit that he may have shed one or two manful tears every now and again. Tony was pretty sure he’d even seen Natasha’s eyes mist up at one point, though that might’ve been a trick of the light. What had surprised Tony was that Bucky didn’t cry; the guy was a giant fucking marshmallow, but he could watch the most heart-wrenching of scenes with the same neutral expression. It was weird. But after the movie had ended, they’d taken to discussing all the various dumb plot holes and such in the movie to make themselves feel better, and someone had finally asked why the fuck Rose hadn’t just moved over a little on the raft, someone else had talked about all the various forms of revenge they’d have committed if they ever drowned because some bitch liked her leg room (which didn’t make logical sense, but discussions in the Avengers tower rarely did), and Tony had been reminded of a very key fact.“What the fuck, man, what did I ever do to you?” Clint bleated, looking back and forth between Tony and Natasha with a terrified expression.“You nearly murdered my coffee machine,” Tony said simply. “I haven’t forgotten, Bird Brain.”“Yeah, emphasis on nearly killed! You’re gonna get me actually killed,” Clint wailed. Tony shrugged. “And my coffee maker will be safer for it.” Clint let out an outraged cry as Peter snickered. Tony glanced at Natasha. “So how ‘bout it, Itsy Bitsy. How come Big Bird over here gets a pass?”Natasha smirked languidly, eyeing them almost lazily, looking like a cat whose prey was within reach but didn’t know it yet. “I don’t always give my victims a reprieve, but when I do it’s because I have a much better revenge planned,” she said, eyes glittering.“I’m gonna die. You’re gonna wake up one morning and find my cold, dead corpse,” Clint moaned, burying his face in his hands and looking like a man on death row.“Oh please – like Natasha would leave your corpse somewhere it could be found,” Bucky scoffed.
Five
“I hope you know how much I must love you to squeeze myself into this ridiculous monkey suit,” Bucky hollered from their bathroom. Tony smirked, adjusting his tie in the mirror over their dresser. “Light of my life, dearest darlingest Bucky-kinz, I’m so lucky to have you as my arm candy tonight,” Tony called back sweetly. He’d never wrangled Bucky into coming with him to galas or other events where there was going to be a huge crowd that would be showering them with attention, knowing Bucky wasn’t particularly comfortable in that environment, but this was a gala for a veterans’ charity that Tony was working with to provide BARF technology. Knowing that, Bucky had requested to come with this time, citing his reasoning as wanting to give a more first-hand account of BARF and be the poster boy for how well it worked. It was sweet and seemed to mean a lot to him, so Tony’d cautioned him that it would probably be a long, boring affair that included lots of ass-kissing but that he was of course welcome to come. Bucky had nodded his agreement – then seemed to regret it later when Pepper had called to inform him in no uncertain words that he was to be in a suit for the event and, since she didn’t trust Tony to resist Bucky’s puppy eyes and actually enforce this dress requirement, that there would be consequences if he wasn’t properly attired.Man, that woman was terrifying. Tony hadn’t even been the one on the phone with her and he got chills at The Tone.Tugging his tie just slightly to the right, he studied his reflection, noting the under-eye circles, residual scratches from their most recent fight, and hastily-covered bruise on his chin, then sighed and nodded. This was as good as it was going to get tonight. Satisfied with his appearance, he turned, making his way towards the restroom so he could see if his boyfriend needed help. Bucky emerged from the bathroom at the same time, and Tony stopped dead. Because wow. Really, just wow. Tony was pretty sure his brain short-circuited at the sight of his boyfriend in a suit that fit him just perfectly.Tony wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there staring at his unfairly-attractive boyfriend, but apparently it had been long enough that Bucky noticed, a slow smirk spreading over his lips.“See somethin’ you like, doll?” he asked, and yeah, that was pretty fucking hot.“Yep, yeah, pretty sure you just shut down my brain, babe. Can I just say wow? Because I’ve said it in my head like way too many times now so it feels like it should be said aloud,” Tony babbled, and Bucky chuckled lowly.“I don’t always wear suits, but when I do I look so damn good that I make people question their sexuality,” Bucky said, eyes twinkling mischievously. “Not gonna argue with you about the ‘looking damn good’ part, but might have to correct ya on the second part, because I can say I am most definitely not questioning my sexuality right now, my sexuality feels pretty goddamn confirmed, it’s Bucky-sexual and I am very okay with that,” Tony chattered, still vaguely concussed from the shock of how damn good his boyfriend looked in a suit. Bucky raised an eyebrow, crossing the room to crowd into Tony’s space. Tony may or may not have let out a surprised ‘Meep!’ when Bucky pressed him against the wall – but okay he looked kind of like a very, very sexy Winter Soldier stalking towards him all predatorily like that, and Tony was a weak man for his scary wonderful boyfriend.“Really, doll? Did you have some doubts before?” he asked, voice low and teasing and dangerous all at once and face very, very close to Tony’s.“Okay a) that’s so cheating, and b) of course not…but, ya know, incidentally, if you wanted to wear those a little more often, just to make sure, probably couldn’t hurt, right? Just for…the sake of thoroughness,” Tony said, a bit breathless. Bucky smirked at him, the expression all possessive smoldering, and Tony feels a little weak-kneed. “For the sake of thoroughness,” he agreed.
+1
Tony was working on refining Clint’s bow in the lab when the sirens went off, indicating a breach.“FRIDAY?” Tony prompted, not concerned quite yet – the kids set off the alarms on accident probably once a week.“The breach is coming from this level, Boss,” FRIDAY reported, sounding worried – which immediately made Tony raised Tony’s hackles.“Friendlies or unfriendlies?” Tony pressed.“I – I’m not sure, my cameras appear to be out in the hallways,” FRIDAY said, sounding increasingly distressed.“Unfriendlies, then,” Tony decided. The kids knew better than to fuck with FRIDAY. “Stay calm, baby girl, the door is reinforced – not even a super soldier can get in here,” Tony reassured her – which, in retrospect, he should have realized was just asking for trouble.The force of the explosion was enough to knock Tony off his feet, sending him sprawling with the bow and arrow across the floor of the lab until he crashed into the wall. Which, ow, that was going to hurt. “FRIDAY, dispatch the suit,” Tony yelled, scrambling to his feet.“My connection to the servers appears to be jammed, Boss,” FRIDAY called back frantically. Which – what the fuck? How was that even a thing, to block his AI out of her own servers? A puzzle for another time, though.A shining black sphere was hovering and floating its way into the lab, spinning until a silver metal circle that Tony was assuming was the thing’s “eye” landed on Tony. Again, Tony had to say, what the fuck? This puzzle was a little more easily solved though – he’d guess some sort of bot sent by an enemy for reconnaissance. Or – considering the explodey aspect of the bot’s job – reconnaissance plus a little bit of added destruction. Which meant Tony was proooobably not in the best position right now, unarmed as he was. Actually – Tony glanced down at the bow in his hand – maybe not unarmed so much as just desperately wishing he’d taken Clint up on those archery lessons but technically half-armed. Considering his limited options, he opted to look for anything that could serve as the other half of arming himself, eyes seizing on a screwdriver lying within easy reach.Thank god his brain processed things so quickly, so all of these thoughts raced through his mind before the sphere took its first shot. Tony dove out of the way towards the screwdriver, seizing it and nocking the arrow like he’d seen Clint do so many times. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered to himself, praying to whatever Norse god was the god of archery and releasing the arrow – er, screwdriver. Miraculously (seriously, it was an actual fucking miracle – well, that and the fact that the sphere was horrifyingly close to him by now), the screwdriver went straight through the sphere’s eye and it went down with a crash, puttering around before going still. Tony took a moment to catch his breath.“FRIDAY, are you there?” he called, worried, memories of JARVIS’s broken interface flitting through his mind.“Here and fully functional once again, Boss,” she replied, and Tony let out a long sigh of relief, slumping to the floor and letting the wall at his back support him. “Tony! Tony, ohmygod, are you okay?” Peter’s voice rang out, and the full Avengers’ team rushed in through the giant hole in the wall, immediately surrounding him.“You’re late,” Tony said drily, and Bucky dropped in front of him, looking over every square inch, as if trying to reassure himself that Tony was indeed in one piece, then pulling Tony into a tight hug.“Touching as this is, what the fuck happened here?” Clint asked, eyeing the sphere with the screwdriver through the eye. Bruce had also turned his attention to the sphere, tentatively poking it, and Thor was standing over Bruce’s shoulder, looking like he was ready to step in if the sphere decided to wake back up.“Decided to test out your new bow, Big Bird,” Tony said breezily, and Clint’s eyes shot to his incredulously.“You shot it?” he asked incredulously. Tony pushed himself up, drawing himself to his full height (which, yes, he was aware was not really that impressive, but he would defend his honor dammit).“I don’t always take up archery, but when I do I use screwdrivers for arrows like a real badass,” Tony sniffed. A pause, and then – “Yessssss, I knew you’d break!” Peter crowed, grinning gleefully, even as the others all groaned and shook their heads in the background.“You may regret that, kid, it’s possible you’ve unleashed a monster,” Bucky warned him, an amused smile on his face as he regarded Tony. “He doesn’t do ‘casual’ when it comes to picking up new catch-phrases. Remember when he picked ‘yasss queen’? Or ‘true dat’? ”Peter paled. “Oh god, what have I done?”