Archive of Our Own

Work Text

Tony’s had a mask since he was four years old.His mother taught him how to put it on, the first time Howard yelled at him for something he knows wasn’t his fault, hours before a dinner he was hosting with an investor.“You can’t let people see your emotions,” Maria had said when he walked, sniffling, into her bathroom. She shooed her makeup artist away from her half done face and started splashing cold water on Tony’s to reduce the puffiness of his skin. “Not when you live in this world, where the way you look, the way you act, is everything you’ll ever be.”Maria stuck her hand underneath his chin and pulled his face up to observe him. She searched his face, then sighed.“Lucille,” she said. “Fix under his eyes, please.”Tony tried not to flinch as his mom’s makeup artist began applying concealer to his face. Months later, Maria would get him his own, and teach him how to apply it over every imperfection he didn’t realize he had. Years later he would learn those imperfections by heart, and pay thousands to have them removed.Maria nods in approval when Lucille pulls back. Tony feels a sort of emptiness wash over him.“This is your first dinner as a Stark. Don’t tuck your chin, and smile when an adult looks at you. If you have to cry, excuse yourself before it happens, and apologize for your absence afterwards. Other than that, the only words you say tonight are please and thank you. You are to be seen, but not heard. Do you understand?”“But….” Tony protested, bright eyes looking into his mother’s. “Who do I talk to?”His mom’s eyes betrayed nothing about herself. “When you’re a Stark? No one.”  For the next thirty years, BDSM exploded across the country rapidly. Throughout this time, people were taking tests to see if they were Doms or subs, and later judging each other for it. Kinks were ‘discovered’, then kink-shaming movements began, then anti-kink-shaming movements followed.New protections had to be put in place for kids, and the age of consent was upped because kids were hurting themselves; because adults were hurting them too. Abuse laws had to be changed as well. Safe words became legal terms, kink contracts became legally binding. Because more people began hurting each other, domestic abuse cases became immensely more complicated: a Dom going too far, a sub unsure of what they consented too, a lawyer arguing one person’s word over the other.Religious groups went in either one way or the other. Some called it the worst kind of sin, some said Doms were only men and subs were only woman, because men owned their wives. A few embraced it, and those churches began looking less like churches and more like brothels.Private BDSM clubs became overrun and overused, and dungeons gained business but lost credibility. Group classes turned from people who were actually interested in expanding their skills into wives that wanted a way to make their husband take out the trash and husbands that were more interested in training their wives so that they didn’t have to get them off.Tony was born in a time when the beauty of Dominance and submission was just starting to be sold out to the masses.  He remembered the first time he walked into a restaurant and saw people kneeling at pillows next to the chairs. Remembered submissive men and Dominant woman being mistaken for gay and trans when they weren’t, and getting killed for it. Remembered some people expecting people with collars not to look them in the eyes.Going through such a huge cultural shift was a complete mess, and Howard and Maria were dead set on not being involved, so Tony kept his submission to himself, and became one of the people that was supposedly vanilla.  His first experience with BDSM was when he was 18 years old and the lifestyle was whipping into a frenzy. He fell deeply in love with a Dom named Sunset Bain, a curvy brunette with a sharp tongue and a sharper whip. They met at school, and Tony lost himself in her immediately, her intelligence and her confidence drawing him in like a moth to a wildfire.She was obsessed with hurting him, as all the Doms seemed to be at that age. She never did anything more than he wanted, at least, but the only thing she could think about when planning their scenes was the next tool she’d use to cause him pain, the next way she could truss him up.He liked it, the pain, but the problem was he’d be done after one strike, and all that effort she spent trussing him up and prepping him and going through the motions of foreplay ended much too quickly, with Tony desiring comfort and her sighing and leaving him on his bed, alone.She left in the night, and Tony felt cold for months afterwards, a voice in the back of his head that sounded like her telling him that he wasn’t good enough, despite all the evidence to the contrary.His mother may have seemed dramatic at the time, but she was right, and Tony vowed to never love again.  The second time he fell in love was when he was in his twenties, and BDSM had hit its social peak. He had met a woman named Rumiko who was beautiful and sweet and loved the high life. She was vanilla but only due to ignorance, and when he had broached the subject of BDSM with her, she did an hour of research and took a quiz in Cosmo before she came to the decision that Dominance meant that she’d never have to get him off again, and locked him in a cage and wore the key on a chain around her neck.She loved it how easily he went into subspace because he’d literally do anything she wanted, and she tried to get him to that state by any means possible. Tony thought she was amazing because she’d leave him up there for hours, sometimes days, every now and then allowing him to push his tongue between her legs when she felt like it. But he didn’t know what to do the days she’d left him like that, dropped like a coin a child had thrown in a fountain, cold and forgotten seconds after release.Dark thoughts filled his head and demons tormented his mind, and he nearly lost his mind with days wasted in self-hatred, wondering where this new part of himself had come from.He had wasted years on her because he’d thought he’d loved her, up until he woke up one morning with a series of angry red bumps on his lips and tongue, given to him, inadvertently, by the man she was cheating on him with.Syphilis. Not herpes. Thank God for small miracles.Tony cured himself then left her in the dust. Angry and petty, she told anyone who would listen that Tony Stark was the most submissive man she’d ever fucked, and the nation valiantly attempted to vilify him for it.Overall, it made his work easier. Most of the companies that had issue with it cancelled their contracts without Tony having to do it himself, and he was able to focus on better, greener contracts with more ethical companies. He was still the most powerful CEO on the planet, and owned his submission like a badge of honor. He knew who to hire based on how they treated him, and never once kneeled when he was presented with a pillow, because he still believed that what you did in the bedroom had no hold over how you behaved out of it.He did a culling of his own company to rid himself of the haters, despite Obie’s protests, and found out that there were more subs who had to leave Stark Industries than Doms. They didn’t see him as an authority because of what he liked to do in the bedroom, and Tony knew they weren’t worth his time. He still gets emails from subs telling him that he needs to give up his position because it would make him happier.He had a new mask now, a mask of submission and promiscuity and generally untrained subbiness, which got him an extremely high amount of attention from Doms competing to tame him. These ‘tamers’ had farms where they would take a specific, small amount of subs who signed their life away eagerly to be turned into the perfect toy.Tony started receiving threats from some, telling him they would turn him into the person he was meant to be, and Tony hired himself a submissive bodyguard.  The third time Tony dropped his mask was with Pepper Potts, a beautiful, powerful, redheaded woman who was the best assistant Stark Industries had ever seen. They were never romantic, they were deeper than that, friends with the ability to connect physically as well, and though Tony wanted more, he realized that distance was what he needed. Care without expectation.She was the first to teach him how to control himself while in subspace, how to focus on sinking in slowly and emerging calmly, using techniques to teach him how to handle it on his own. She taught him what subdrop was, and methods for preventing it, his favorite being her feeding him small pieces of dark chocolate while she stroked his hair.She was also the first to give him real aftercare. Tony told her that when he had his first morning ever after a scene where he didn’t feel like he was sinking into a pit in the mattress. She never quite looked at him the same way again after that. Her face grew a little softer, a little more understanding. She took more time with him after that, stroked his hair when he flew too high too quickly, and never told him he wasn’t good enough.She tailored some of her actions to suit his need, like cuddling after sex and using ropes instead of tape. No one had ever taken Tony’s wants into account before, and Tony confused that common courtesy with love, forcing her to have to give him a soft, stinging rejection.It hurt, but Tony learned that there were multiple kinds of love, especially as he watched her fall in love with his bodyguard. She broke it off, and it hurt the most out of all of them, and Tony had to remind himself they were never together.He tried to give her the CEO position, but she declined. She said it was important that he was there, even if just as a figurehead, because it gave subs hope.Tony keeps the title, and the mask returned.   Tony goes to Afghanistan and comes back Iron Man, and owns that like a badge of honor too. He tries to stop Stark Industries from making weapons, but didn’t truly realize how deeply dominance and submission seemed to have permeated daily life until Obie files an injunction, stating his designation instead of the kidnapping as the reason he’s unstable and unable to make decisions for his company.He discovers Obie’s dirty dealings and rips him to pieces in the arc reactor, and he has to do another culling of Stark Industries after, with a much more careful eye this time.People still call for him to lose the suit, so he decides to put on the Stark Expo again to prove how he’s still got it. It works, to a degree, up until Hammer starts fucking things up, but at least it becomes obvious that that fuck up was the Dom’s fault, not the sub’s. It gets him marginally more respect, and he ends up giving a suit to Rhodey anyway, because the US government is slightly too large to keep on his back.Tony’s called into SHIELD by Nick Fury, who is vanilla despite the amount of leather he wears. Tony’s eye twitches when he’s asked for his designation by the US government when reapplying for his security badge to get in, and when he joins the ragtag group of the Avengers, it become clear he’s the only submissive in the entire room.Tony doesn’t let it get to him. He can’t afford to.  Steve Rogers doesn’t seem to know what BDSM is, the movement being after his time, but he acts like a shitty Dom anyway, up until the world nearly ends and things are put into perspective. They share an understanding, then Steve actually apologizes, and the anger between the two relaxes into a surprisingly steady companionship.Tony’s not a hundred percent sure when he first noticed Steve looking at him with something other than friendship, but when he does, he can’t seem to stop.Little glances at Tony when he’s doing nothing of note, a soft, slightly crooked smile when their eyes meet. Tony finds it hard to look at him, but he finds it even harder to look away, and he ends up staring a little too long before he comes up with a quip to dispel the suddenly heavy air between them, and both of them snap back to reality a little disoriented.After New York, Steve forgoes his cross country trip to stay with Tony in the tower he’d built for six. He’s there when Tony works in his lab, carving out a little corner with a couch and a TV to spend a half hour or so just asking questions, ranging from what toothpaste to buy, to what is was like to watch the Berlin wall crumble.Other times when Tony is working too hard to respond, he draws funny pictures in his notebook with a small set of pencils, the pictures ranging wildly from realistic to silly. Tony’s favorite is of Nick Fury with a pirate hat and a scowl, and he has Steve rip it out so Tony can put a black frame around it and hang it on the wall.Tony finds out Steve is still using a radio, so he spends one night away from work teaching him the delights of the TV. Steve seems to be polite but uninterested in the whole thing until Tony introduces him to documentaries, and Steve discovers the joy of learning about history in 1080p.Tony falls in love with Steve as he falls in love with BBC’s Planet Earth. Often times he pulls Tony from his work to watch as a flock of a thousand of birds migrate north, as a fox takes an antelope, as the whales leap over the sea. He wants to show so many things to Tony that they end up watching every episode together, Tony spending most of it basking in the genuine emotion Steve’s face conveys as he witnesses a world he no doubt would have been unable to see had he stayed in the past. On the last episode, Tony kisses him, and Steve turns pink and kisses him back.For a brief few weeks everything is okay. There's an awkward formal dinner which Tony gives up on halfway through, and they end up at a burger place down the street. There's a trip to a museum, and another to a play, and one fantastic day at the planetarium as well, but none of it feels as real as Steve in the tower, Steve in his lab, Steve on his couch, working on his artistic masterpiece of the agents of SHIELD as Nick Fury’s crew on a pirate ship, sailing on the high seas.“Sailing on the ‘IC,’ actually,” Tony says, and Steve laughs until he cries, and Tony loves him.He only got halfway through his sketch when Fury called and asked for help, which never, ever, ever happens, and on their way to DC everything goes to shit.They arrive early enough to watch Fury die, and they corner Natasha and ask what’s going on, and she tells them a story about a ghost.  Tony hates Bucky.The second Steve hears his name, anything Tony and he had built up is put on the back burner. Tony’s selfish, he knows this; Steve is a man who just had a large piece of his life returned to him, albeit chopped and twisted up, but he can see something in Steve’s eyes when he looks at Bucky, even as Bucky looks away. A longing, a chase, an old easy love.Tony doesn’t know how he can compete with that. The mask slips back on, and Tony turns distant.He houses them anyway, because Tony’s never fallen out of love with anyone in his entire life, and if Steve needs Bucky, then Tony can deal with Bucky. He’s worn his mask through much worse.And then Steve leaves all together, to go hunt down Hydra with Falcon and Widow, and begs Tony to stay with Barnes.So Tony stays.   The first time Bucky talks to him, it’s in the kitchen, and it’s about Steve. Tony doesn’t respond, but Bucky doesn’t care. He just keeps talking about a story from the war until Tony leaves.It happens again the next time they see each other. This time Bucky tells him the story of how Steve lost his front two teeth trying to bite into a nickel, eyes almost desperate.He does it again, then again, until Tony actively uses JARVIS to avoid him, wondering what Bucky’s trying to get from him. Does he guess Tony’s feelings? Does he want to challenge him for Steve? Is this a weird way of reaching out?The answer turns out to be much simpler than that, and when he realizes it a few days later, he feels like a tool.They’re the only two left in the tower, and Bucky’s just had his head turned inside out and ground into dust. He’s probably remembering things, and he’s probably desperate for human interaction, and so he’s been spilling those memories to Tony like an overflow on a dam.And the person he probably used to do this with is across the country and out of range.Bucky is lonely.And fuck. So is Tony.“Hey,” Tony says one day.Bucky looks at him in relief.“Lemme fix your arm.”In the lab, drilling into his arm, Bucky talks to Tony about Steve.   Tony’s not sure when it happens, but stories about Steve, turn into stories about Bucky, turn into stories about the soldier.They are ugly stories, with no good endings, with hints at forced submission, at pain, and starvation, and torture. Tony’s strong enough to take them most days, but sometimes it gets to be too much. On those days, Bucky apologizes.“I can’t talk about any of this with Steve,” Bucky says. “Even if he were here. He’s just so emotive, and he’s just so good and passionate. To give him any of this…” Bucky looks down on himself, sallow and broken, the type of unhealthy that makes a man look strong but feel weak, all muscle and no fat.“Yeah, I get it,” Tony says, leaning back in his chair and regarding Bucky with a critical eye. He got a haircut, and had it tied back in a ponytail. “When you’re around him, you just want to give him good things, because of how much time he spends fighting the bad,” Tony says. “He’s reckless, but he has ideals you can only wish to replicate.” Tony loses himself for a moment. “And all you can do is hope that you’re going to be able to save him from destroying himself.”Bucky looks at Tony for a long, crucial moment. “You love him.”Tony snorts. He must be slipping. He puts down his power tool and rubs his face before drilling his gaze into Bucky’s eyes.“So do you,” Tony says.Bucky shrugs a single shoulder. “Yeah.”   Bucky’s not so bad, then.He starts showing up for no reason, asking how things worked in the lab. He saw Steve’s pirate picture and has a good laugh, and even manages to get Tony to listen to jazz.His personality is infectious and easy on his good days, cracking jokes and flirting without trying, sitting backwards in a chair and asking Tony questions. On his bad ones Tony encourages him to talk, and they sit and drink on the couch together, an inch closer each time.Bucky likes whiskey, and if he drinks enough he can get buzzed, so they stock up and split a bottle (one glass for Tony, the rest for Bucky), and rehash how shit life is.One day, to Tony’s surprise, he tells Bucky about Afghanistan. He never talks about Afghanistan, but he feels the words spill out of him anyway, a side effect of having too much to drink and someone to listen.And the most remarkable thing is that even after everything Bucky had gone through at the hands of Hydra, Bucky genuinely means it when he says he’s sorry.“Because I’m a civilian, right?” Tony snorts, glass in his hand.“In my opinion.” Bucky sways lightly, bottle empty on the table. “Being a civilian is much better than being a soldier. Soldiers lose a little bit of themselves. But you, Tony. You’ve still believe in good things. You still believe the world can work. And that’s beautiful.”“Beautiful’s not how I’d describe it.” Tony swirls the ice around his glass, watching it sweat into the whiskey. “Naïve, maybe.”“Keep that innocence,” Bucky says. “It’s rare.”Tony has a lot to say about himself and innocence, but he can’t bear to argue with him, so he kisses him instead.Bucky kisses back, then traces Tony’s lips with his fingertips, and Tony sucks the thumb into his mouth. Bucky’s eyes widen, and Tony’s darken.Loneliness, Tony realizes, is always a little better when it’s shared with someone else.   Steve just. Shows up one day. Months and months after he left.He’s standing in Tony’s brightly lit workshop, sparing a glance at Bucky who’s back for maintenance (he got a piece of gum stuck between the slats), looking much too real to be real.“When were you going to tell me?” He asks stiffly, and Tony freezes, wondering why it feels like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.“That there’s a Planet Earth part two?” Steve finishes with a smile.Bucky exhales sharply. Tony grins back.   They go back to part one for Bucky, and Bucky’s just as over the moon about it as Steve was, in an entirely different way. He loves the cats, and actively cheers for the predators instead of the prey, and Tony tries not to psychoanalyze why.They each have a cushion of the couch, Bucky in the middle. Tony watches Steve and Bucky chat and catch up, both men pretending they aren’t seconds from being pulled back into the war. It’s okay for him to see this, because he cares about both men now, and seeing them happy, even if it’s going to be with each other, is going to have to be enough.Bucky sees a leopard on the screen and gets distracted, and Steve mouths ‘thank you’ over his shoulder. Tony shrugs.Close to the end, Bucky turns his bright eyes on Tony, telling him how he’d always wanted to see a penguin with the softest smile in the world, and Tony thinks he could love him.Tony looks from Bucky’s eyes to Steve’s, and is startled when he notices the intensity in his gaze as his eyes rake over the both of them.He catches Tony’s eye, turns pink, then looks away.  Tony blinks. That's interesting.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You’re up early,” Pepper says as she strides into the glass room that makes up Tony’s office. Her heels are sharp against the carpet, and her hair is in a tight, red bun.

“Up late, technically,” he responds before wrapping a hand around his thermal mug and downing the rest of his coffee. Behind him, through the glass, the sun was only hinting at rising, the sky not-quite black but not-yet blue, the weaker stars already being blotted from the heavens.

She frowns but doesn’t comment; she lost the right to tell him how to act years ago.

“Here are the financials from last quarter,” she says instead, placing a file in front of him and dropping into a seat at the front of his desk, crossing one, long leg over the other. “We’re up an average of 7%. All sectors, except one, are reporting high numbers.”

“Who’s leaking?” Tony asks, rubbing the tired from his eyes like a bothersome pest.

“You know who,” Pepper says firmly. Tony flips the file open and sighs, already knowing what he’s going to find.

Pepper continues. “No one makes their own microchips anymore Tony. Small parts are purchased over the internet, and kids don’t have workshops in their garage, either.”

“Mine was in the basement, actually,” Tony responds mildly. He stands up, tossing the file down carelessly on his keyboard, avoiding the way the consumer parts retail sector stares back at him, profits down another 12%. He circles his desk to stalk across the room and toys with the idea of pouring himself a drink. Technically, the sun is still down.

“Everything’s online now Tony,” Pepper says firmly. “RadioShack is seconds from Chapter 11. It’s the only sector down quarter after quarter, and this time it’s in the double digits. You know the board’s opinion.” She’s swiveled her chair to follow his progress across the room, and he can feel her eyes boring into his neck as he considers the whiskey on the bar. “Keeping the sector alive no longer makes fiscal sense—”

“That’s 6,000 jobs,” Tony says. He’s not quite argumentative.

“You did everything you could, Tony.”

Tony forgoes the drink in favor of turning back towards Pepper. It’s true, he did. Or he certainly tried, at least. He had hinted at the end of the line long enough towards Sal, the Director of that division. He encouraged him to tell his employees to take advantage of the company’s education program, to update their resume with skills that would allow them to move out of the sector and into somewhere else more up to date.

But while some people moved out of the sector, not everyone did. Some people refused to budge, were comfortable with what they had, didn’t read the signs. Some had just started, or didn’t have the time to or prior education to move anywhere else. Some had families and worked other jobs to get by. Some were disabled, or veterans, stuck in the system.

And Tony was part of that system.

“When’s the hammer coming down?” Tony asks, mask already in place.

“Directors’ meeting is in two hours,” Pepper says.

Tony nods, and decides to go for the drink.
     
Tony steps in the conference room at 6:00 AM to the casual thrum of chatter. Exec meetings were where he had to put on his greatest shows and the strongest mask. He has a specific vision for the company ever since he dropped the weapons line, and with the Dom/sub rhetoric growing more and more polarized, he needs to keep his game face on more than ever; be careful that the people working for him don’t have it out for him.

This batch of the board has been okay so far. They are all Doms, or at least claim to be, because it’s considered social suicide to be anything else this high up in the game (Tony, as always, being the exception). They represent the C-suite executives in his company as well as the Directors of all of the sectors in Stark Industries, and their job is to report on what’s going on within the company.

Tony strides to his spot at the head of the table, making sure to pass by each seat before he gets there. He decides not to sit, instead leaning over and placing two hands flat on the glass. He gazes at each of them through his rose-colored glasses for a moment until they still and go quiet, then drums his fingers lightly on the glass. “What are we looking at, John?” He asks, and looks his COO in the eyes.

“Two factories, about 300 hundred brick and mortars, and a few distribution centers,” John replies smoothly and with respect.

“Distribution can easily be reutilized. How much time is left on the factory leases?” Tony shoots back quickly.

“Six months,” John says.

“Would it make more financial sense to keep it until the lease runs out, or to break out of the contract?” Tony addresses his CFO, Ryan, this time.

“The costs are, essentially, the same…” Ryan says, flipping through the pages in his binder quickly. He’s still a little green, still eager to please, and Tony mentally labels him as a potential keeper.

“Rick.” Tony’s eyes bore into the Director of Emerging Technologies. “Does cloud computing still need server space? Look into the cost of turning it into a data center.”

“Which one?” Rick responds, arms crossed, eyes shrewd. “Upstate or Nevada?”

“Nevada. I’m keeping the one upstate.”

“For what?” He challenges.

“R&D.” Tony says.

Rick snorts. “R&D? Is that what you superheroes are called now?”

“Yeah Rick, R and fucking D.” Tony snaps back, refusing to stand for the attitude. “Ryan, start liquidation procedures on the brick and mortars. What’s happening with the severance, Sal?”

Sal, the soon-to-be-the-previous Director of Consumer Electronics, shifts his papers and addresses Tony with a nod. “Packages are available for junior engineers or higher, as well as HR and support staff. Most of the older ones are taking the deal and moving elsewhere within the company, mostly within the development and design section. But a group of younger employees are refusing to transfer.”

“Why?”

“A show of ‘solidarity,’ I believe.” Sal says, rolling his eyes at the word. “Manufacturing and other blue collar workers didn’t get severance, and not that many got deals to move elsewhere within the company. A lot of the younger crowd doesn’t find that fair.”

“Well, there’s nowhere to put them,” Tony says coolly, refusing to show any sign of emotion. It’s all business in this room.

“What about the retail workers?” He continues.

“Offered jobs in customer relations, with a pay cut. Few are taking that, either,” Sal says.

Tony nods. “So what are we looking at total?”

Sal consults his notes, “3,924 layoffs, 789 transfers out of 1,287 offered, 300 or so retirements. Including me.”

“Here, here,” Rick says, and the room applauds for Sal. Tony claps with them, because it’s expected of him.

Tony thinks quickly of a plan to try and ease the pain. “For those with no severance, offer a one-time option to pull from their 401k. Stark Industries will cover

only

the tax penalty

,

up until the sector’s budget runs dry.”

“We’re not integrating that budget with other sectors?” Rick asks incredulously. “Wouldn’t it make more sense?”

Tony stares right back at him. “How much is left, 50k? 100? Sal?”

“122,” Sal says.

Tony keeps his eyes on Rick. “That’s not that much. Ryan? Can we do that?”

“We’d have to cap the withdrawal at… 310 dollars. Assuming every person takes the deal.” Ryan says.

“Let’s base the cap on interest in the deal. The less people who take the deal, the more we can offer.” Tony finally pulls his eyes away from Rick to look at his Chief Marketing Officer. “Lindsay, draft something that keeps the amount of money we are offering vague so what we can get a tally of who’s interested. We’ll take the rest of the sector’s budget and split it evenly between the people who say yes. Tell them it will be at least three hundred dollars.”

Lindsay nods and begins typing in her tablet immediately. Tony approves of her, too.

“What else?” He says.

“Stock price is rallying just in time for the investor’s meeting…”

Tony continues the meeting with his usual fast paced efficiency. At the end, he holds the crowd from leaving, and pings Pepper.

“So we have a surprise at the end of this meeting,” Tony says to the room. He still hasn’t sat down, and he makes a sweeping motion with his arm as several waiters walk in, wheeling trays of trays of lavish food and expensive drinks behind them. Excited chatter fills the room, and even Rick seems to relax from his incessant need to challenge the words coming from Tony’s mouth. He needs to have a chat with him soon.

Tony walks around the table and pats Sal on the back. “One of our own is celebrating forty years at Stark Industries by doing what we all wish we can do: leave. Let’s hear it for Sal everyone.” The room laughs, then claps.

Tony wonders how they can celebrate the closing of this branch with such fanfare when so many others were going to suffer from the same decision.

Tony feels hollow and cold. Tony smiles and says: “Happy retirement, Sal!”

“Here, here!” The room cheers, and the waiters begin serving.
     
The day starts to go downhill from there. At 8 he holds a press conference so that he can get the information out before market open, and the media room in the tower is filled to the brim with flashing cameras and reporters. His glasses have rose-colored lenses and are still on his face, and his expression reads ‘asshole billionaire.’

Tony swaggers up the steps and takes his position behind the podium. “It’s with great sorrow that I announce, effective today, the hardware manufacturing and retail sectors of Stark Industries will be shut down. All Integrated Circuit chips, software defined radios, and other related small consumer electronics production will be suspended, and the brick and mortar retail stores will be liquidated immediately.”

The cameras flash, and Tony adjusts his glasses needlessly. “I will take… let’s see… eight questions.”

Cameras flash and the audience roars with questions. He randomly points into the crowd to a man in a brown suit, and he speaks immediately. “Will you be moving to online sales?”

“All Stark Industries proprietary products will still be available for support, but no longer for sale.” Tony says. “Next?”

“Where’s this coming from? Was this in the works for a while?”

“Well that’s

two

questions, so we’re down to five after this. We’re not the first people to discontinue our own chip manufacturing. It’s just not economically sensible to keep producing our own hardware, and no one is buying radios anymore. We’re not RadioShack.”

There were a few chuckles.

“Where will you be getting your hardware from?”

“We will be looking for partners for the future, nothing is definite now,” Tony replies smoothly. “Four.”

“What about the thousands of hard working Americans in those jobs, huh? What about

their

future?”

“That’s two again!” Tony points and grins. “You all really should work on being more succinct. Stark Industries will do everything in its power to maintain its own people in our other, growing sectors. By investing in the future, the needs of the company as a whole—”

“So the needs of the company include cutting costs by outsourcing?”

“No Mr. I-like-to-put-words-in-people’s-mouths, continuing to keep this sector alive would suck the life out of the rest of the company. This is for the good of everyone. One more, make it good!”

“Does being an uncollared sub in such a Dom heavy environment make it difficult for you to focus during your job?”

Tony tsks and shakes his head. “What a complete

waste

of a last question. The rest of you are welcome to submit enquiries to the PR department, and we’ll get back to you in 5 to 105 business days.” He steps off the podium and into the back room, and the roar of the vultures follow him out.
     
A small protest starts to form around noon, people bracketing the tower with sign posts and chanting. 4,000 people is a lot of people to lay off, and half were just upstate, so the blowback makes sense.

“Tony, people are throwing eggs at the tower doors.” Pepper says through the intercom.

“Call the police, tell security to escort anyone who needs it to their cars,” Tony says as he starts to draw out a secondary design for Steve’s shield harness. He feels strung out.

“A woman in claiming to have been hit by an egg, and she plans on suing.”

Tony sighs. “Who is she?”

“She’s a senior Computer Network Architect.”

So she has the money to follow through. “Nip it in the bud. Get Maury on the phone, set up a meeting with all of us at two, tell Happy to scan the security cameras to validate her claim.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

Tony, because he’s a masochist, only lasts a few more minutes with his distraction before he flips on the news, retreating to the couch in his office.

His press conference is being picked apart from all angles. The money channels are the most fair, talking about how this move is going to be good for the stability of the company, but the news channels were having a field day. Eager to turn this into a hit piece, they are all on the ground interviewing the protestors outside Tony’s building.

“What do you think about Tony Stark’s decision to layoff thousands of workers today?”

A newscaster asks a heavy duty man holding a sign. The newscaster has a collar around her neck, and Tony knows they used her on purpose, because there’s nothing the media likes more than using subs to report on other subs.

“He sits there on billions of dollars in his ivory tower, looking down on us with his superfriends like he owns the world. What he needs is someone to own

him,

then maybe he’d make better decisions.”

Tony rolls his neck, pulls off his glasses and leans back into the couch cushions, the glass of whiskey from earlier making its way to his hands.

He did everything right. Would it kill someone to see that? Tony takes a sip of his drink, barely tasting it, letting his thoughts run free.

He listened to the people, he protected them as well as he could. He warned the ones that were in danger of losing their jobs, offered training to those who qualified to get them out of this dead end sector, and gone above and beyond to help the ones he couldn’t move.

“I have two kids,”

an African American woman yells into the microphone, “

a third on the way. How am I supposed to afford to feed them? I worked in retail my whole life, and they’re trying to offer me a job behind a phone with half the pay!? Like my experience was worth nothing!”

But there’s a reason he’s a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He knows that he will make the right decisions for

everyone.

The continued success of Stark Industries is the continued success of the future, and when a piece of it is dragging, it gets cut loose. He did everything

right

. As ethically as he could. So why does he still feel like shit?

Tony rubs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes. He doesn’t need everyone to like him, not even most people. How hard would it be to have one person, just

one

person, tell him that he is good enough? He had had Pepper, but clearly

that

didn’t work out.

“I’ve been in this business for 25 years. To think that all that time is thrown out the drain for, what, a few hundred dollars and a termination of my health insurance coverage? Meanwhile, my boss is getting a year’s worth of pay and a few months of Cobra, probably ‘cuz he got Stark on his knees up in that tower of his.”

And Tony gets it, okay, it’s not attractive to always need to be assured you’re doing well, in and outside the bedroom. He knows how much the world glorifies being bad, and greedy, and unfair. Giving a few thousand dollar bottle of whiskey to Sal when he had to fight to give the people he’s laying off only a few hundred? Albeit, Sal is one of the few that worked his way up to the position he was in, but the principle of the thing still feels unfair.

Just look at the porn, Tony thinks contemptuously. It was always violent and abusive, always unfair. The titles of some of these channels were ridiculous! ‘

Punished Teens.’

What did they ever do? ‘

No Limit Blondes.’

That—Actually that one’s pretty hot. But ‘

Putting Your Boss in Their Place’

? That hits a little too close to home.

And while Tony enjoys a little heat himself, he would give half his fortune for a channel that just specializes in aftercare, that doesn’t end half a minute after an orgasm, where the Dom says, ‘good boy’ and

means

it.

No, Tony doesn’t

get

to be with a Dom like that, and he recognizes the fact he’s thinking himself into a hole, but goddammit it feels like he gives, and

gives

, but doesn’t get. The Doms that Tony attracts want to hurt him and leave him, and the good ones don’t see him as a long term partner. That’s probably why Pepper left, because he probably couldn’t handle what she wanted to give. He’s seen the marks on Happy’s neck, he knows what she really likes. She probably thinks he can’t take it.

“How do we even know Stark is making the best decision for the company? There’s this--this science study they did about the differences between subs and Doms, and how subs have a difficulty maintaining their composure in high stress positions, especially when they’re uncollared. It’s true! I read about it on the internet. What I think we need is a change in power.”

Tony wonders how many of those workers he laid off today entertain the fantasy of walking into his office and beating him until he cums. He wonders how many fantasize about covering him in bruises and making him beg for more. How many were subscribers of the ‘

Putting Your Boss in their Place,’

porno channel, how many of those videos featured men that looked like him.

Pepper steps into his office sometime later, glances at Tony, then the TV, and then sighs.

“You do this to yourself every time, Tony.” Pepper grabs the remote and flips it off. She’s teetering the line between professional and personal again, and Tony doesn’t have the strength to stop her.

“It’s important to see the effects of my decisions,” Tony says defensively. He’s still on the same glass of whiskey from the morning, legs up on the coffee table, his rose-colored glasses on the table in front of him.

“All of them? Or just the bad ones? Because the stock price is up fifteen points, we’ve finally got rid of a toxic asset, and we have more money to put into the rest of the company. Plus, we can fund that philanthropy initiative the Maria Stark Foundation has been pushing for a while, add another scholarship to get kids to school, put more money into our health plans, and give our employees lower copays.”

“I know Pep.” Tony says, but he gestures with his whiskey glass to the dark TV. “But these people are important too.”

“No one says they’re not,” Pepper says, and she relaxes her stance. “And you watching this? Caring about the people? Having a heart?”

Tony snorts.

“That’s important too, Tony.” Pepper says with a soft look. “You think Hammer would’ve beat himself up like this?”

Tony takes a sip of his drink. The whiskey is sour and watery. “Still doesn’t mean this part doesn’t suck.”

Pepper lets out a rare sigh and agrees in a voice just as resigned. “Still doesn’t mean this part doesn’t suck.”. “Your 2 o’clock is here, Mr. Stark.”

Tony dumps the drink the trash. “Bring her in.”
     
The two o’clock meeting takes about fifteen minutes. Egg woman—whose name turns out to be Katie—starts off by threatening him up and down the river, using some pretty impressively colorful language. She’s a Dom, and Tony knows because it’s the first thing out of her mouth as she looks at him like he’s dirt.

Tony lets her speak, legs spread wide in his chair and his mask reading indifference and mild amusement, before he plays the security video Happy queued up of her giving forty dollars to a guy to throw an egg at her as she left the crowd.

“Gonna show that no good sub a lesson,”

Katie says on screen, and Tony quirks his lips and says, “hope that’s no one I know?”

Katie falls back into her chair with a huff, eyes narrowed, but she knows she’s lost.

Tony smiles as he fires her, and Maurice, his lawyer, reads her out.
     
Pepper tells Tony that they can’t order from his favorite Chinese place because they refuse to cross the picket line, so he orders from an Indian place instead and eats slowly in his office. He’s startled by a knock at the door.

“Come in?” Tony says, questioningly. No one ever really knocks.

The door opens, and Tony blinks as  Steve walks into his office, with a small hesitation. He looks out of place here, all shoulders and thighs tucked into a button down and slacks, hopelessly trying to paint himself as a modern man. Tony blinks again, trying to rationalize his two worlds colliding.

“Why are you here?” Tony asks. The words come out a little more abrasive than he intends, but he blames it on his business persona that still hasn’t left his voice.

“I uh…” Steve stutters, and Tony feels like shit. “I just wanted to say hi, I guess.” Steve shrugs, sheepishly. “And I don’t… there’s not much to do upstairs, so.”

“Oh.” Tony says. The silence stretches. “You want Indian?” Tony asks in lieu of anything else.

Steve gives a little half smile. “Sure.” He says, and he walks over to Tony’s desk. Tony passes him a plate and watches him pile the food on top, mixing the curries together like he used to when they went out, all those months ago. It feels borderline inappropriate to be eating food with him here, to be sharing a nice moment with a man he loves in the cold hard place that’s Tony’s office.

“I saw the news,” Steve says carefully as he pours sauce all over his rice.
Tony’s feels emotion flash across his face before he can shut it down. What is this, a lecture? A confrontation? He did everything right, goddammit.
Steve catches his mood, because he’s quick like that. He looks at Tony with intention. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

Tony snorts. “I’m not the one you should be asking. I’m assuming you’ve seen the mob growing outside the front door?”

“I have.” Steve acknowledges. “And, well, the news isn’t helping your case much either. But I

know

you. Know that you wouldn’t have done this if you didn’t have to.”

Tony’s at a loss for words; so prepared he is for another assault on his character, he is left spinning in the face of understanding. He shoves some saag paneer down his throat in lieu of a response.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand a business of your scale.” Steve glances around the office in bemusement. He still looks out of place, all strong, organic muscles swimming through the modern, straight lines of Tony’s office. “But I know you, know that you’re a good man and that’s what matters.”

Tony stifles a sharp intake of breath, his hand coming down to squeeze his thigh hard, his eyes closing briefly.

“You trust me too much,” He finally mutters, pretending like Steve’s words, his

praise

, hasn’t released every line of tension from his body, hasn’t stripped his mask off and bared him naked to the room, hasn’t relieved him of the stress of an entire day and brought a new kind of tension into his body.

Steve’s frowning at him, and shit, Tony’s slipping too much. “Are you alright, Tony?”

Tell me I’m good again.

The words spring unbidden to Tony’s mind. He’s been so

bad

today, and no one has noticed Tony falling into his shitty subspace, but Steve has

helped

, and Tony’s greedy, and wants

more.

“I’m okay.” He lies, because guys like him don’t get more.

“If you’re sure...” Steve says slowly.

“I’m making you a new harness,” Tony says quickly, and he carries the conversation from there.
     
A few hours after Steve leaves, Tony’s still in the office, finishing up on signing and authorizing the closing of the branch, once again watching the news tear him a new one.

Prime time brings analysis of Stark Industries by a particular news station with four woman in bright dresses and matching collars, and one man with a shitty combover and a stare that looked a lot more like a leer.

“All I’m saying,”

balding man says, “

is that there are ways to close sectors of business

without

laying off thousands of hard working Americans!”

“

Are you saying you could do better?”

A blonde woman says on screen. She has her legs crossed, and her heels are relentlessly high. “

He has been CEO for some time now, and some of the moves he’s made—”

“Ah, see, but you don’t see what I see. You don’t understand the game, Kathy.”

Bald man titters. “

If he just put in the hard work required to do the job, then he would have been able to find positions for those other people easily! I own my own company, and when it was time to restructure, we didn’t lose a single person in the process.”

“So it’s a problem of discipline?”

Kathy asks on screen.

“I think we all know that that’s something any sub could use help with.”

The other three subs laugh. One of them, with red hair, says to Kathy, “

I know that having this job is made so much easier with Harold keeping me focused.”

She tugs her purple collar, which has a little tag hanging off the front.

“Plus, not to mention, how much better a sub

I

act when I have a stable partner that knows best for me.

” The other blonde woman says.

“

I mean, just look at this study that came out recently, I’m not sure the source, but the conclusion they drew was that subs were actually much more stable

with

Doms than

without

them. It only goes to show that the integration of Dominance and submission in our society is clearly a benefit to both sides of the equation.”

“Not to mention how much better it is in bed,”

bald man smirks, and the four women laugh heartily.

Tony turns off the TV after that. The silence give Tony full access to his thoughts, and it’s almost worse than the TV.

Exhausted, and a little lost, Tony strips himself from his jacket, and lies down, face up on the couch. He feels like he’s been being flagellated all day with nothing but that little morsel of relief from the late lunch with Steve. He shuts his eyes and tries to calm himself down, but is startled, yet again, by a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Tony sighs, expecting Steve.

The door opens, and it’s Bucky. He swaggers in and leans a hand against the wall, arm straight like he’s holding it up, not the other way around.

Tony lifts his head and looks at Bucky curiously, another man out of place in his office.

“Steve told me you’ve had a bad day,” He says.

“You watch the news?” Tony asks idly. He’s lying on the couch stiff as a board, and he turns his eyes back towards the ceiling, waiting patiently for the cushions to swallow him whole.

“Nah,” He says brightly, and he walks over to Tony’s bar. “I’m avoiding modern society. Need to take your mind off of it?”

“What do you have in mind?” Tony asks, pun only half intended.

“What else?” Bucky quips, and Tony hears the sound of clinking glasses, of more whiskey being poured. He lets himself drift, working on flushing out his negative thoughts.

He comes to when he hears the sound of the glass hitting the table by the couch, and he opens his eyes to see Bucky’s peering down at him, upside down, his hair coming loose and circling his face where it escaped from behind his ears, a surprisingly genuine smile on his face.

“Can ya do me a favor?” He seems a little drunk already, and Tony hopes valiantly he hasn’t been drinking alone. “Help me remember something?”

“Usually.” Tony sits up and gestures towards the drink on the table, finally accepting the fact that he’s still confined to this reality. “This stuff makes me forget.”

Bucky holds the whiskey carafe in one hand and takes several gulps like he’s drinking a bottle of juice from the fridge. He exhales, hot and heavy, then walks around to the front of the couch, sitting on the coffee table in front of Tony.

“Steve and I used to fuck,” he says, and he licks his lips.

Tony turns towards him sharply.

“Got your attention, huh?” He grins and drinks again, and he looks wild and carefree, limbs loose and smile inviting. Tony just wants to absorb that relaxation into his body, take that looseness and lift him up from the hole he’s dug himself into.

“I assumed you did.” Tony finally says, covering his moment of shock by reaching for his glass.

“Well, doll, I’m having some trouble… remembering what we used to do,” Bucky says, then he pounces, spreading his thighs and straddling Tony’s lap, leaning forward so that their noses touch, his arms coming around Tony’s head and resting behind him.

Tony lets Bucky’s weight lean him backwards into the couch, and he starts mentally judging Bucky’s blood alcohol level, to make sure he’s lucid enough to do what he thinks they’re about to do. “And I was wondering…” Bucky leans in closer, and the curtains of his hair shield both their faces from the outside world, so that it feels like they are the only two people on the planet. His breath smells like mint and whiskey. “If you could help me out?” Bucky finishes sweetly.

“What do you need me for, if you already are thinking about Steve?” Tony asks, and maybe a little of his mood is seeping into his voice, because Bucky’s smirk turns soft, and his eyes turn smooth and easy.

“Because it’s always a little better with you around.” Bucky smiles.

Tony latches onto the barest hint of praise like a fish on a line. “Why?” He asks, voice a little cracked, begging for another drop of approval to fall from Bucky’s lips.

Bucky grins, and Tony can see all of his white teeth, can barely stand to be so close to him, can barely stand to be so far away.

“Cause you’re good for me, baby.” Bucky drawls, and Tony actually moans and rises, easy, into Bucky’s arms.

Bucky falls forward and their lips meet, hungry. They don’t bother with finesse, passion leading the way, and Tony savors the moment like he’s been offered the last bite of chocolate cake.

When Bucky moans into his mouth and starts to grind against his thigh, Tony pulls back with a gasp and feels like he has his feet underneath him again.

“What do you need me to remember for you?” Tony asks. His voice is firm and his eyes clear.

Bucky pecks Tony’s cheek, then rolls off of him and onto the cushion to his side, not spilling a drop of his bottle.

He toys with the rim of the carafe in an oddly nervous gesture, and Tony tilts his head. This is going to be interesting.

“Steve and I used to play these… games,” Bucky says.

“Stick ball? Hopscotch? Churning butter with mom in the back room?” Tony asks rapidly. He reaches for his own drink to avoid the temptation to grab Bucky instead. He can barely taste the whiskey this time.

“How old do you think I am?” Bucky snorts. He moves around a lot on the couch, Tony notices, always trying to get into a more comfortable position, never quite there. “No, games more like… sex things.”

“God you’re young. ‘Sex things,’ Christ.” Tony rolls his neck so that he’s facing Bucky, who’s resting a cheek on the couch. “You’d be remiss to find something sexual I haven’t tried. Shoot,” Tony says.

“Sometimes he… I liked it when…” The excitement on his face fades completely, and Bucky’s tone grows nervous. “I’ve got my wires crossed in my head, I guess. Sometimes things that feel bad, feel good.”

Tony stares at him, because the way that sounds…

“Only Steve knew. He—we found out one day. I was fuckin’ ‘im,” Bucky says, and boy, Tony thinks, he’s about to get a treat. “The kinda way where the bottom is really the top, and we were shaking around so much we broke the couch. We had candles up everywhere, ‘cuz it was a blackout, and one of them fell on me, and it gave me a burn, right here.” Bucky points at the top right corner of his chest, now probably perfectly smooth. “And it felt like I was alive for the first time,” he breathes.

Tony continues to stare, disbelief turning into belief, and he shifts again, lifting his head up off the couch cushion.

Very

interesting.

Bucky continues in the way he does when his memories start to return, a ramble with a note of astonishment in his tone, learning something completely new about himself.

“I don’t remember how it all got worked out, just bits an’ pieces of stuff like that. Some nights he’d… hit me, and I’d lose myself all over him. Some nights he’d call me names—things you’d call a loose girl, or one of those hookers, and that’d do it too. Sometimes he’d tell me what to do, and that felt… that was fun, too.”

Bucky falls out of his trance, then looks at Tony in surprise and wariness, like he’d forgotten he was talking to someone. He grows a little sheepish. “Yeah, I know, it’s weird. Somethin’s just wrong with me, I guess.”

Tony gets his act together. “No Bucky,” he says, his voice rough. “There is absolutely

nothing

wrong with you.”

Bucky stares at Tony in silence for a brief moment, then his eyes widen.

“You like this,” Bucky says, astonished.

“Yeah. A whole lot,” Tony breathes. “I used to have lovers that would do that with me, too.”

“I thought I was the only one.” Bucky’s eyes sparkle, and he has a shocked smile on his face.

“Not by a long shot. It’s much, much more common now, I’m surprised you didn’t know,” Tony explains. “Christ. Ok. You and I are what we call a sub, and Steve’s what we call Dom, and there’s much more to it than that, but it basically means we both like it when someone tells us what to do, and Steve likes to tell us what to do.”

Bucky stays still, then smiles, slow and sexy, catching Tony’s slip of the tongue. “So you like the idea of Steve telling you what to do?”

A brief, powerful image slams into Tony’s head, of Steve pounding into Tony, holding the wax of a candle over his chest and pouring it down, down, down…

“Fuck. Yeah,” Tony breathes. “So I can—” Tony swallows hard, and Bucky’s smile grows wider.

Tony collects himself. “I’d be

happy

to help you remember.”

Bucky laughs, and Tony feels like he’s been physically struck with how hot the expression on his face is. Somehow Bucky can go from boyish and sweet to charming and sexy in a blink of an eye, and each shift breaks Tony down a little further.

“I want to remember one of the times we had sex,” Bucky says. “The full thing, not just the images I’ve been getting. Jacking off is hard when you don’t have full memories.”
“Remind me to introduce you to porn, there’s this channel, No Limit Blondes… Anyways. Okay. Let’s start broad. Was he rough or kind?”
“Rough,” Bucky says confidently. “Especially when he was mad, those were the

best

days.”

Tony suppresses a wince, because being angry isn’t really a good way to have a scene. “Extremes are the memories we remember the most,” he continues anyway. “When was he the angriest?”

Bucky frowns, then drinks. “He’d get… jealous, I think.”

“Jealous when you went out with girls?”

“Yeah. But there was this one time… there was something else, too, Tony,” Bucky says. “I don’t remember exactly, but he was so

mad

. Christ, it was amazing.” Bucky breathes.

“You know, anger isn’t really good when it comes to sex,” Tony has to say.

Bucky waves him off. “Angry, but not really. He’s a sweet guy, he’d just… this was just fun. You know what I mean.” Bucky gives him a toothy smile and Tony echoes it, yet still doesn’t agree. Nevertheless, he lets it be.

“So something else,” Tony continues. “Were you late on the rent? Ate the last piece of apple pie? Lost your job?”

“I quit my job,” Bucky says, and then he snaps his fingers. “I signed up for the war.”

“And he didn’t like that?”

“No, not after I first left, after Pearl Harbor happened, he didn’t do anything. But when I came back, just for a little while, and told him I had to leave again—”

Bucky’s eyes light up, and he looks at Tony with awe. He has fire in his gaze, and he’s biting his lip. “I remember something. I remember it

well

.”

Tony lowers his chin slightly. “Tell me a story, Barnes.”

Bucky exhales sharply, bites his lip again, and then starts.

“When I came back home on leave, Steve was over the moon,” Bucky begins. “But when I got my orders to go back, he didn’t like that. Then, I got asked on a date to this science expo thing, and I went, and he

really

didn’t like that.”

Tony leans in, and Bucky’s tone grows bolder. Tony places his glass down on the table and trails a hand up Bucky’s arm.

“You can tell he’s mad when he smokes,” Bucky says, and Tony blinks in surprise. Smoking? “Or that was kinda the cue that I was about to be in for it.” Bucky shivers, and Tony feels the goosebumps press against his fingertips. “I came home that day to a cloud of smoke, and my response was almost… Pavlovian.”

Bucky bites his lip harder, the memory taking him to another world. “He was sitting on our shitty couch, his ankle crossed over his knee, his arms stretched out wide across the top of the couch cushions, like he owned the whole fuckin’ city. He was wearing these long, brown pants and this white dress shirt, unbuttoned cuz it was hot. His blond hair was slicked back, not a hair outta place, and had this cigarette hanging from his lips, suckin’ on it in a way that wasn’t nearly decent. And I can’t believe I ever forgot that look on his face, like I was two feet tall, like I was the worst disappointment he’d ever seen in his life.”

Fucking

hell

, Steve’s been holding back, hasn’t he? He tries and fails to reconcile Bucky’s description with the man he ate lunch with earlier.

“Yeah, seen that look a few times,” Tony says. In all honesty, disappointment is not Tony’s thing, but it’s not his story, and the look on Bucky’s face as he rehashes the memory was enough to cause his pants to stir.

“He told me to strip, right there in the kitchen. I asked him why, and he said because I need to learn a lesson.”

Tony can’t help himself—he adjusts himself in his pants. Bucky takes notice, and his grin widens, but he doesn’t stop speaking, so Tony takes it as permission to let his hand massage between his legs.

“Now, I’mma bold man, so I asked him what the lesson plans were. Asked him if he was gonna slap my knuckles with a ruler, make me stand in the corner, the usual teacher shit,” Bucky says, and Tony can just imagine that cocky smirk on a younger, happier Bucky, playing with the fire that was Steve Roger’s patience.

“‘Nah,’ he said, and he took this long,

long

drag of the cig, and blew the smoke into the air like he’s got all the time in the world, like I was a sure fucking thing, and said, ‘You’re gonna learn to treat me with the respect I deserve. You’re gonna get naked, get on your knees, and you’re gonna crawl to me. Then when you’re sitting pretty by my feet, you’re gonna ask to suck me, and you know what I’m gonna say?’”

Bucky grins, and lowers his voice, and for a moment it’s like Steve is talking down to Tony. Tony leans in, and hangs onto every word.

“‘I’m gonna say no.’”

“Fucking

hell

.” Tony slips his hand in his pants, and he sees Bucky unbutton his own, doing the same.

Bucky shivers, palming himself. “

Christ

that got me. And I said, ‘why the hell would I even ask then?’ And then I realized I had lost. And he knew it too! Because a normal guy would deny that he’d do any of the demeaning shit he’d said I’d do, but I didn’t even

try

to deny it. He

knew

I was gonna crawl to him, gonna strip for him, gonna do anything he goddamn said.

“And he looks at me, and this little smile grows on his face, and he said ‘cuz you’re easy, Bucky’”

“Christ,” Tony moans, cock throbbing in his hand.

“And I didn’t know how I could say no to that, so I swallowed my pride and stripped to nothin’ but my hat and my socks and dropped to my knees. And what made it so much worse, so much

better

...” Bucky leans in, closer to Tony, a few inches between their lips, “is that when I started crawling on that shitty wood floor, he wasn’t even

looking

at me. He just kept smoking that cig and tapping his foot in the air like he was waiting for the paper boy to deliver him his paper; like he was passing the time before he had to do something more important later. Fuck, he was expecting this from me Tony, because he knew that I’d always come when he called, that I’d always do what he said, that I was

easy,

” Bucky says, and he moans and pulls himself from his pants.

Tony pulls his cock out as well and hisses at he makes contact with the skin, turning Bucky’s words into his own fantasy.

“So I got there and I looked up at him, and he was still looking up at the ceiling like I wasn’t even worth his time. I was rock hard, mind you, probably dripping on the floor at that point, but I just sat there and waited for him to notice me, and each second he didn’t react, the harder I got, until I could have pounded nails with the thing, until it was soaking wet.”

Tony strokes along with Bucky, the feeling of his hand against his skin both a relief and a promise, imagining looking up at Steve the same way Bucky was in that memory.

“Finally he looked at me, and his gaze was so intense, I couldn’t look away. He tooks the cigarette from his mouth and put it between his fingers, and tapped the ash onto the ground in front of me. The asshole leaned over me, and exhaled into my face, and said, ‘

I’m waiting

.’” Bucky pulls on his cock harder, and Tony makes a small noise. He can imagine Steve, a smaller version of the one he knows, bending over Tony, who’s on his knees, looking up at him reverently like he’s the only thing in the goddamn world.

“So I asked him. Asked him if I could suck his cock.” Bucky says. “Said please and everything. But he just tuted, like I did something wrong. Said only good boys get his cock.”

“Christ.

Christ

,” Tony gasps, arousal burning under his skin. He can’t imagine going through all of that and still being denied the right at the end.

“Said that boys that act like sluts don’t get to suck him off. You know what he said boys like me get?”

“What?”

Bucky grins, and says, “His shoe.”

Tony makes an uncontrolled noise and kisses him, wet and messy. Bucky gives as good as he gets, and they rub their cocks together on the couch, Tony gasping into his mouth and under his tongue.

Tony’s hand finds Bucky’s cock and he starts to stroke him, and Bucky licks into his mouth, moaning with his strokes. “Fuck Tony,” Bucky gasps into Tony’s mouth, “come on, harder,

harder

.”

Tony starts stroking harder and faster and rougher, and Bucky whines into Tony’s mouth and gives up on kissing, biting down onto Tony’s lower lip instead.

Tony moans and pulls his face away—he can’t take any more pain today—and he doubles down on getting Bucky off. He takes another hands and massages Bucky’s balls and squeezes tight, and Bucky cums with a breathless shout all over himself and Tony’s fist.

Tony leans back, watching as Bucky collects himself. He looks delightful mussed up like this, his hair in disarray, his clothes half off, his cock softening against his clothed thigh.

Bucky catches Tony giving him a slow look and grins lazily, eyes drooping.

“Get on your back, sweetheart,” Bucky says, pulling himself up off the couch.

“If you insist,” Tony snorts, leaning back against the cushions.

Bucky flops across Tony’s legs, and Tony only gets a second warning before Bucky gives his cock a long, flat lick.

“Hell yeah,” Tony exhales.

“Play me a memory, Tony.” Bucky smiles.

Bucky sucks down on Tony’s cock and Tony moans, pleasure rippling through is system. He scrambles for a story from his own past, one that didn’t quite hurt.

“Before she was with someone else, I used to have a Dom named Pepper, my personal assistant,” Tony starts, and he hums at the feeling of Bucky sucking on his head, slow and easy.

“We’d have rules I had to follow, and I loved them. Simple things, like eating food instead of smoothies, sleeping in beds instead of the couch, and then more complex things like when I could come.”

Bucky makes a quiet, muffled noise, and a hand teases Tony’s balls.

“My favorite was when she’d tell me how many times I had to get her off before I could,” Tony murmurs quietly, moaning. “The most was five. I’d have to use my fingers and my tongue only, and after those five, I could fuck her,

Christ

.” Tony swallows hard. Bucky’s moving at the same speed, and Tony realizes that he’s going to have to up the ante. Tony steels himself and thinks about a punishment, because that’s what Bucky likes.

“Once though, I was bad,” Tony says, and Bucky moans, and picks up his pace on Tony’s cock. “I was breaking the rules, forgetting important dates, the works. And Pepper was kind at first, she gave me warnings and reminders, but I just… kept acting out,” Tony says quietly. He wasn’t acting out on purpose to get a reaction, he was just trying to distance himself from her, some old belief that he wasn’t enough for her causing him to start to destroy himself again.

“Finally it came to a head,” Tony says. “And fuck, she was upset.”

Bucky reaches a hand down his own pants, and starts stroking himself back to life, sucking Tony down in longer, surer strokes.

“She’d…” Tony moans at the sensation and the memory. “When I got to the bedroom, she had had these ropes, and she’d tied my wrists to my ankles, so my face was in the mattress and my ass was in the air, and I couldn’t move. She started fingering me and told me that she wasn’t going to let me come until I learned my lesson,

fuck

.” Tony wraps his fingers in Bucky’s hair and starts lifting him up and down on his cock.

“She wouldn’t let me come for one

hour

, Bucky,” Tony gasps. “Do you know? How long? One

hour

is?” Tony moans. Bucky moans back, making a gurgling noise, and he’s stripping his cock vigorously as Tony starts thrusting his hips, arousal curling around his spine and building in his stomach.

“She used a—a—her fingers, and a vibrator, and then she stretched me out and just pressed it into my prostate, that spot that feels good on the inside, and—yeah, oh

fuck

your mouth.” One of Bucky’s hands works its way up Tony’s thighs and trails down his crack. Tony spreads his legs and shifts to give him access, and Bucky presses the finger against his hole.

“Fuck Bucky!” Tony shouts, “I’m going to—

fuck.”

Tony comes in several spurts, Bucky slurping him down like he’s trying to suck it out of his balls.

Bucky pulls off with a pop, and Tony pulls him up towards him and kisses him. “You gonna come again?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, jacking himself rapidly. “Yeah. Fuck.”

Tony talks him through it, murmuring about how good he’s being, how good Steve would think he was, and Bucky cries out at he comes again, spilling all over Tony’s suit this time, and collapses onto Tony’s chest.

Tony puts a hand in Bucky’s hair and lays backwards. Despite his orgasm, and Bucky’s two, he still feels unsatisfied, still feels buzzing in the back of his head, weight in the base of his stomach, tightness around his heart.

But, Tony thinks as he looks down at Bucky’s relaxed, tired, smiling face, at least he got to be good to Bucky.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Steve uncovers the metal tray and places it down on the small table in Bucky’s room.“Breakfast!” he says, much too brightly. “Today we have… strawberries,” Steve starts, “thank goodness rations aren’t a thing anymore, right?”Bucky makes a noncommittal noise, sitting at the edge of his bed with his hands folded in his lap.“We also have… soy … bacon…” Steve makes a face. Tony and his health kicks. “And lastly, those frozen waffles that you can stick in the toaster,” Steve says. “They have these new ones Buck, that are really tiny and in packs of four, and you can break them apart. They taste like cinnamon.”Bucky doesn’t respond, and Steve deflates and marks today as a Bad day.“I’m making dinner tonight at seven, if you remember. Nothing special, going to take a crack at pasta, I think,” Steve rambles on. His never sure what to do when Bucky tenses up like this, but he likes to think that talking and trying to retain normalcy helps him out.Steve stares at the back of Bucky’s head. “I’ll make enough for you. Tony might be there too. It would be good, for, uh…” Steve trails off, not wanting to presume that he knows best for Bucky.“I’ll think about it,” Bucky says. His voice is stiff and distant, and Steve drops his chin and nods to himself, turning to exit the room.“Steve?” Bucky asks, voice suddenly small, and Steve stops and turns back to him hopefully.“Yes?” He tries not to sound too earnest.“I’ve been remembering some things.”Steve swallows and worries that he’s going to say the wrong thing. “Are they good memories?” He asks carefully.“I remember… way, way back, when we were... together,” Bucky says.Steve feels his throat go dry.“Specifically how we… How I used to let you do all sorts of things to me. Hurt me, spit on me, call me names.”Steve feels his heart pound in his ears. Bucky hadn’t had an introduction to the modern century like Steve had, and hadn’t seemed to want anything to do with it, so he probably doesn’t know how things have changed…“And I couldn’t get it straight in my head, still can’t. How I could let you do that; how it was something that I liked .” Emotion was leaking into his voice, and Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth shut so that he can work through it himself.Steve walks to Bucky where he sits like a marble statue and sits down next to him on the bed, unsure whether he should reach out and touch—Bucky used to be so tactile. Bucky meets his gaze, and Steve startles to find Bucky mostly there behind his expression. It’s not a bad bad day then, if Bucky’s still himself.“Tony says it’s normal now,” Bucky says.“He’s right,” Steve says, wondering how on earth Tony and Bucky got on this topic.Bucky’s mouth twists downwards, he eyes turning away from Steve’s. He looks gray in the dull lighting. “I wasn’t the only soldier they tried,” he continues. “But I was the only one they got to work.” He’s silent for a moment, and Steve feels sorrow come over him, thick like ink that won’t wash out.“Do you think…it’s because I’m like this? Because I like to be beat up? I like to listen to orders? Do you think that’s what made me the soldier?” Bucky turns back to Steve, his fears spelled out on the lines of his face. “Do you think if I was like you, if I gave orders instead of taking them, I wouldn’t’ve…” Bucky trails off, and Steve’s heart breaks.“No,” Steve says, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Listen, okay? I care about you, Bucky, that’s never going to change. And what we did was an extension of that. Do you understand? It was nothing like what Hydra did to you. We would play those games, but only because you trusted me to say and do the right thing. Hydra took that from you, while you gave yourself to me. That’s the difference.”Bucky’s shaking his head. “Doesn’t change the fact that being like that made it easier for them to make me into a machine. It already felt so dirty, but now, to know my perversion—”“It’s not a perversion,” Steve says, and he tries to fight the steel from entering his voice. “And it’s also not who you are. It’s something you enjoy. Enjoyed. We enjoyed. Just like being two men, together. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, because it’s based on… trust.” It was based on love, too, but Bucky doesn’t remember that part.Bucky’s face twists more, and Steve takes a risk, placing a hand on Bucky’s arm which is stretched along his thigh, fingers resting in his lap. Bucky turns to look at Steve’s hand, but makes no move otherwise. “I know you, Bucky, even if you don’t. I know that you would have fought every step of the way, as hard as you could.”Bucky takes the arm Steve’s not current grasping, and lays his metal fingers on top of Steve’s.“I want to believe you,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t finish his thought. He doesn’t have to.“It’s okay Bucky.” Steve’s not sure who he’s consoling anymore. “It’s going to be okay.”    Steve runs his thirty mile route with a bit more effort after that chat, trying to push his frustrations into the concrete, into each breath of his perfect lungs, trying to shake that feeling of being helpless.After his run, he ducks into the back door of the tower, the front still under siege. The run clears his head, but doesn’t change his mood, perhaps making him even more aware of the source of his stress, and he finds himself dialing ten familiar numbers into his phone. It rings eleven and a half times, then cuts to a generic voicemail.“Hey Nat,” Steve says as he steps in the elevator. “Still don’t know if you’ve been getting these, but wanted to let you know things are alright here. Tony’s been getting some heat, but it’s nothing more than usual. Bucky is…”Steve closes his eyes and tries to look at the positive. “He’s still here, so I suppose that’s something. I’m good too. Trying to learn how to cook. Apparently there’s things other than salt you can put in your food. I’m getting pretty good; you’ll have to stop by and try some one of these days.”No one responds from the other side, and Steve feels lost.“Anyways.” Steve swallows. “Talk to you soon. Bye Nat.”    Dinner’s been prepared. There’s enough food to feed six people (or two and a half super-soldiers) sitting on the counter.Steve’s eyes dart over to the elevator yet again, but the doors remain carefully closed.Tony’s phone is squeezed between a shoulder and his cheek as he wrestles the cork off a bottle of wine. “…Compile the list of offers and put it on my desk. I want to be there for the interviews.” Tony pops the cork off and tosses it to Steve, and Steve puts them in the little bowl on the bar with all the others.“Yeah, I don’t care what’s typical, this is what’s happening. Now I’ve got to go, because it’s 7 PM on a Friday and some of us have lives.” Tony shuts off his phone and mutters, “Though certainly not me.”Steve starts serving as Tony pours two glasses of red, setting them at the wooden table at the center of the room. All that Tony had for furniture was a sleek, low to the ground couch and high backed bar stools. However, since they ate quite a few meals in the penthouse, they had run into the issue of needing a dining room table. Somewhere along the line the not-very-comfortable couches were pushed to the side for the sake of a simple wooden table and chairs. They radiate a homey atmosphere that is completely off theme but feel more cozy  than the rest of the furniture.“Alright, what have we got, Boyardee. Surprise me,” Tony says, descending into his seat.“Well, we have spaghetti with meatballs,” Steve says. “And salad, with, uh. Vegetables.”“Points for a thorough description. Looks good Cap,” Tony says. “And I actually mean it this time, you didn’t try to cook the meat well done again, right?” Tony pokes at a meatball with his fork.Steve’s defensive as he sits down to dig in. “It’s very hard to break out of the habit of cooking things all the way through.”“Fair enough. You’re turning into quite the chef,” Tony comments.“Can’t take all the credit. The sauce was from a can, and the meatballs were frozen and stuck in the microwave. I did chop the vegetables though; knife skills seem to translate.”“The—”Tony’s phone rings, cutting his response short, and Tony glares at it with vitriol.“You can answer,” Steve says.“No, it’s just Rick being a dick,” Tony says. “You buy one warehouse from yourself and suddenly everyone wants to know what you’re doing with it.”The ringtone cuts out, and starts up again, and Tony rubs his face with his hands. “Assholes, this is on my calendar. J, block my phone.”The ringtone cuts out as he reaches for his wine glass.“You put this dinner on your calendar?” Steve asks, oddly touched.Tony shrugs. “It’s either that or I forget about it.” Tony’s eyes drift back to his phone, and Steve feels Tony’s leg start to bounce up and down under the table. He’s clearly distracted, and it has something to do with what happened yesterday.“What happened yesterday?” Steve asks, because he doesn’t know what subtle is. “You look terrible.”“A man of tactics, and yet no tact,” Tony deflects.“Want to talk about it?”Tony shrugs and smiles. “When you are the CEO of a company like this, plus my level of celebrity, plus a superhero—which, wow it’s been a minute—plus a Stark, there’s a lot of responsibilities I have to carry.”“That’s not what I asked. Are you okay?”Tony’s smile turns bitter, and he eyes slide from Steve’s face to an unknown object over his shoulder. He suddenly looks every ounce of tired that any man would exude under the weight of the world.“Steve I think this is killing me,” Tony says, the smile running away from his face.“What is?”Tony gestures wide with his arm, and he slumps in his chair, uncharacteristically without poise. “Everything. Don’t you ever think about… being someone else? Going somewhere else?”“You want to get out?” Steve asks, the military term slipping from his mouth before he can stop it.“No, though--” Tony huffs a laugh “--I really don’t remember getting in. I just… I need... Christ Steve. Never mind.”“No, what, what do you need?”Tony looks at Steve in the eye, and his expression goes from exhausted to inquisitive in a heartbeat. “Where’s Bucky?”“Bad day.” Steve says.“Have you noticed.” Tony drums his fingers on the table. “How the social dynamics today are a little different than the ones you grew up with?”“I’ve noticed a bit of a cultural shift,” Steve says awkwardly, not quite sure where this was going. “A lot of people wearing chokers. Some people don’t look me in the eye, either, which I guess is their prerogative, but sometimes makes ordering coffee a bit impersonal.”“You should take a look at reality TV when you get the chance,” Tony says. “The news is starting to adopt some of that rhetoric too.”Steve remembers a report that he watched the other day. “I think a channel was discussing a challenge to… Walker vs. Johnson?” He tries to remember the names.“Mmm,” Tony says behind a bite of food. “The famous case that made ‘safeword’ a legal term. It’s still being contested?”Steve’s not sure he understands most of what’s going on in the case, but tries to explain what he heard. “I guess a woman is claiming she, uh, safeworded, and he didn’t stop. The man is claiming he’s innocent because they never established a safeword in the first place.”“Well that’s just poor communication,” Tony says. “It won’t go anywhere. But the reason I bring this up is that some of the news stations are starting to run with stereotypes about designations, which is probably just a marketing ploy, but it has the side effect of bringing my capability of running my company into question, because people think how I am in bed means I can’t make a decision. And it’s kinda taking more of a toll on me then it should be.”Steve feels his face heat at the frankness of Tony’s words, but tries to fight his embarrassment.“People are wrong,” Steve says honestly. “While what you enjoy may reflect who you are, it’s never that cut and dry.”Tony snorts derisively. “You should have seen the things Rumiko said about me.”“Rumiko?”Tony leans back. “We dated, years and years ago. Ended poorly, and she decided to do an exposé on everything that Anthony Edward Stark liked to do in the sack. Completely ruined the public’s image of me, not even because it turned out I was submissive during sex, but because of the things I’d let her do.”“That’s a massive breach of privacy, Tony,” Steve says, eyes wide.“Tell me about it.”“That’s not…” Steve shakes his head and takes a sip of wine. “And now people think you can’t run your company?”“Don’t think I should be Iron Man, either.”“That’s bullshit,” Steve says.“That’s a big boy word, Steve.”“It figures,” Steve says with force, “that the world has to find another way to divide us.”Tony swivels over his hips and leans in, resting a chin in one hand as he twirls his noodles aimlessly in his other. His mood changes frighteningly fast, Steve’s noticed, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up.“Bucky told me you guys knew a bit about the lifestyle before everyone else.” Tony drops that bomb, and Steve feels his skin prickle. He bows his head slightly and frowns a little to himself, taking a bite of his salad. So Bucky and Tony had been talking.“It… we did. A bit.”Tony lets out a low, short laugh, then turns his head to the side, chin rotating in his hand. “What was it like back then? If I can ask. This is probably too candid, but well, I’ll blame the wine.”Steve shrugs. “It was much, much more private back then, what two people did with each other,” Steve says, not necessarily uncomfortable with the conversation, but not encouraging it either.Tony though, never seems to need encouragement. “Probably because people were so judgmental. You could get thrown in jail, just for being gay. Sodomy laws are bullshit, some states still have some sort of legislation in fine print.” Tony turns the noodles around his plate again, and Steve notes that he doesn’t seem to be eating them, just trying to make it seem like he is. He tries not to take offense.“If you were lucky,” Steve says, bitterness seeping in. “A lot of times they’d just beat you up, cops looking in the other direction.”“They did that when I grew up too. It wasn’t the same as you, of course, but it was something. Now God forbid you’re male and a sub,” Tony continues. “Now they assume you like it.”Steve sighs. “It’s always been hard.” He picks up his wine glass and spins the deep red liquid around, hesitating before speaking again. “The man I lost my virginity to was killed the next day.”Steve can see Tony shift to be more alert in his peripherals, but he keeps his gaze on his glass for a moment longer.“Tell me about him?” Tony’s tone is suddenly soft, and Steve looks up to see his face.Steve swallows. “He was the son of the butcher. I’d see him once a week, when I would stop in and ask for any leftover bones and fat. He would usually be mopping up in the back, but he started coming up front when he knew I’d be there.” Steve feels himself go a little distant. “He’d smile, and it… he’d make me feel the same way most boys said girls made them feel.” Steve chest tightens at the memory of the boyish face. They were maybe sixteen or seventeen, and Steve was just learning that he didn’t quite work the same way as everyone else, just learning that there was another reason he kept trying to get into fistfights with the boys around the orphanage.“I don’t know if I was being obvious, but I was young, and stupid, and so was he, and we just…” Steve takes a deep, steadying breath. “He slipped me a note with the meat one day, told me to meet him outside near the trash bins. It reeked to high hell, but I guess he thought no one would come back there because of it. It was dark, and quick, and dirty, just using our hands, but it was the first time… things made sense to me.” Steve trails off, the memory of the dark haired boy with freckles and a chipped tooth panting heavily into his neck, both their eyes screwed shut, trying to block out the scent of raw meat, trying to feel something real .“What happened?” Tony’s voice is careful.Steve’s mouth goes thin. “Someone saw us, when they were dumping out the trash in the store next door. They got some people together, and the next day he was found with a knife in his chest in that same alley, surrounded by rotting meat,” Steve says quietly. “I wouldn’t’ve even have known until my next trip to the shop, but the person who caught us tracked me down. She was a woman, and she told me she’d been assaulted by a man once too. That she understood, in a way. That the community had my back.”Realization dawns, and Tony’s face collapses. “So the only reason you weren’t killed too—”Steve nods. “Is because they thought I had been assaulted by him. And there was nothing I could do to refute the claim, or else I’d probably be jailed, or killed too,” Steve says quietly, and he shakes his head and twists his mouth, like he was trying to rid himself of the moment. “He was just a boy. We were just boys .”“Steve.” Tony’s tone is different, and Steve meets his eyes, startling at the sincerity there. “I’m so sorry.”Steve shakes his head. “I never even tried again, not ‘til Bucky. If it wasn’t for his ability to be with girls too, I would have never been with him, let alone moved in with him. All I’m saying is that what’s important is the content of the character of the individual above all else. Society isn’t the judge of that, people are.”“Yeah, but here I am, going on about a couple of shitty newscasters, when people are out there dying because of who they love.” Tony stabs his salad, irritated. “I’m the epitome of privilege.”“Pain is relative,” Steve says simply. “You run a company that provides revolutionary, life-saving technology to millions of people, and you manage to keep up a smooth persona while you moonlight as a superhero. I’d take lifting a truck any day over trying to play the game of business.”Tony deflects the compliments like a master. “And in your off time you don’t mind staying home and playing housewife, waiting for hubby to get home from work every day?”Steve shudders. “This scenario sounds like Bucky’s our child, and considering our past, I can’t even begin to talk about how fucked up that would be.”Tony roars with laughter, and Steve feels his sorrow lightening for a bit, a smile pulling at his lips.“Why is you swearing the funniest thing to me?” Tony asks. He’s smiling now, a small, private smile Steve rarely sees, where the lines around his eyes crinkle and he looks ten years younger.“Probably all those childhood PSA’s, skewing your perception of me.” Steve grins.“You’re too good to be true Steve,” Tony says. His tone is slightly wondrous, and Steve basks in it for a moment.“Most of me came from a bottle, so.” Steve shrugs, then immediately regrets his choice of words.Tony notices too, giving Steve a flat look. “It’s an enhancement of what’s already there,” Tony corrects firmly, and Steve gets the feeling he’s trying to apologize.Steve ducks his head again. It’s quiet for a moment, teetering on awkward.Tony breaks the silence. “Do you want something to do?”Steve looks at Tony, considering. “Depends on what it is I’d be doing.”“Let’s set up a foundation. We have—or are going to have—an influx of cash from the fact that consumer electronics is being shut down, let’s set something up in his honor. Your butcher friend. A donation to an LGBT shelter? How about something reoccurring? A scholarship? Actually, you decide. Do some research, and I can set it up, and you can run it.”Steve’s stunned to silence for a brief moment, and has to wet his lips before he can respond. “You’d do this?”“Of course. I got the money, the manpower.”“Which you could put towards anything else.”“Yeah, well. Philanthropist is one of my four titles.” Tony brushes off the compliment easily. It took Steve a little while to pick up on Tony’s odd balance of ego and insecurity, but now that he has, he feels like he understands Tony a bit more.“So was playboy, but you seem to be running a little dry lately,” Steve teases.“I can not believe you would just come for me like that, in my own home, after all I’ve done for you?”Steve laughs now, finding that the melancholy from earlier has been partially abated, mixing with his affection for Tony like bitter coffee and sweet cream. It has Steve feeling complex and energized, deep and fond of the man in front of him.Tony qualifies himself. “I’m trying not to be an asshole. Social responsibility. Occasionally I care, just don’t tell anyone.”“I care about you too, Tony,” Steve responds, managing to isolate that complex feeling that Tony’s given to him, managing to put a name to it, feeling the impulsive urge to act on it.Tony smiles.“And, on that note, I…” Steve swallows hard. “I was wondering if maybe we could try again?”Tony’s face turns carefully neutral, and Steve feels nervousness spark through his spine.“I know it’s been a while, and a lot had changed, but…those few weeks? When it was just me and you? That was… good.” Steve swallows again. “I think we’d be good if we started again.”Tony’s expression remains unreadable. Steve feels like he’s looking into a man made of plaster.“What about Bucky?” Tony asks.Steve blinks. “What we had was a long, long time ago. It’s—it’s not the same…”“But it was still enough to stop what we had,” Tony says, still careful, still neutral.“Stop.” Steve’s jaw tightens. “That’s not fair.”“I know, I know, it’s just…” Tony stands up suddenly, leaving his partially eaten plate behind him, and starts to walk across the room, sitting on the top of the back of the couch.Steve follows suit at a slower pace, standing in front of him.“You were gone a long time Steve,” Tony says quietly. “And when you left…things changed.” Tony’s voice is hinting at vulnerability.“I know. And I shouldn’t have been. I should have been here, with you, and Bucky, but what’s important is that I’m here now, right?”It doesn’t seem to be the right thing to say, as Tony shuts down further.Steve feels the mood slipping through his fingers. “Listen, I just… Let me make it up to you. I’m not going anywhere anymore, I promise, and I know that we can be good for each other.”Tony shakes his head. “But Bucky—”“God, what do you want me to say?” Steve’s voice blooms with frustration. “Yes, I care about him, but I also care about you. I want you. I pick you. Relationships are about commitment as much as they are about emotion.”Tony meets Steve’s eye. “Things are complicated right now,” he says slowly. “But not for the reason you might think.”Steve frowns. “What does that mean?”“It means I can’t say yes,” Tony says. “Not tonight.”“But you will?” Steve asks with hope.“I have to work something else out first,” Tony says, and Steve lets his eyes fall shut, taking a deep breath. When he opens them, Tony is right there, looking up at him.“I promise, I just want to do things right,” Tony says. He’s suddenly there, brown eyes boring into blue, and Steve feels that feeling crackle underneath his skin, feels the urge to take Tony’s face in his hands and…“Can I kiss you?” Steve asks.“Absolutely no tact,” Tony breathes, and he leans in.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Steve kisses like a promise: firm, and unshakable, and deep. It’s a short kiss, Steve probably trying to respect Tony’s desire for space, but just one kiss and Tony’s dizzy with desire for more.So Tony kisses him again, turning his head so their lips slot against each other, his hands framing Steve’s jaw, sliding against the slight stubble that had accumulated throughout the day.Steve breaks the kiss this time, and Tony is left with the realization that he’s leaned his whole body into Steve’s, his body searching for that comfort he continuously denies himself. Something akin to warmth seeps through Steve’s skin and into Tony’s veins, and he feels like he’s been given a sip of coffee on a cold night, a small, energizing taste, of what he could have if he let himself.Tony can’t help but compare Steve’s lips to Bucky’s, who kisses like a thunderstorm, wet and electric, like that first Iron Man flight, like he’s doing something wrong and right all at once.Tony’s been standing still too long, staring into Steve’s eyes, and the mask must fall because Steve’s eyes are staring right through him, his arms squeezing tightly around Tony’s body, constricting, stabilizing in a way he hadn’t been since—“I’ve gotta go,” Tony says, parting from Steve with a gasp. “We have to do this right.”Steve still probably has no idea what he means, but he lets him go anyways, and Tony dashes to the staircase, feeling the sudden urge to move.    The moonlight filters in the glass stairwell, the brushed glass steps making light noises underneath his feet as he heads downstairs. He’s been spun up into thought like a fan in a server room, wound up by Steve’s simple kiss. And isn’t that pathetic, that Tony’s so eager for human contact that he collapses into Steve after a peck on the lips? That he’s so touch starved he falls into Bucky most nights, bonding over the fact they are both desperate for the same thing?And speaking of Steve and Bucky.Steve! Smoking? Dominating Bucky at four feet and change? Tony can’t possibly reconcile that with the image he saw at dinner, the man excited about warming up frozen meatballs and calling it a meal.Tony’s mind spins with thoughts of them playing together. How did they start? What were they like? What did Bucky like, what did Steve like? Did Bucky want to be punished all the time, was Steve happy to do it? Sadist and masochist? Steve didn’t seem too much like a sadist, yet Bucky seems eager to be humiliated and hurt.True, it’s the ‘standard’ kind of domination, the kind Tony would expect to see at the sex dungeons that seems to be around every corner, the kind that litters Instagram with posts captioned"my Dom’s marks from last night <3” , and the kind he usually strays from.But something about the idea of Bucky and Steve growing their relationship organically, not at all affected by outside opinions or incorrect presumptions, awakens a new interest in Tony. They didn’t listen to ‘scientific’ studies, they didn’t take classes or read magazines, they weren’t out to prove something to everyone else. They did it because they needed it, or wanted it, and because they loved each other.As Tony strides through the stairwell door on Bucky’s floor, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can guide them back to each other and push his own feelings aside. A relationship that was capable of breaking through decades of Hydra brainwashing garbage? That kind of relationship was real, and it had legs to stand on that were much stronger than the beginnings of whatever he and Steve could have.And Tony, Tony hadn’t had anything real in a long time. He’s not capable of real. Nobody wants his version of real, nobody wants what he’s willing to give, and he’s sure Steve would get sick of it too.Yet, as he stops in front of Bucky’s door, hand toying with the knob, he can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be a part of their relationship. Even if it just meant listening to their stories, or playing along with their desires, or even gritting his teeth through a scene or two, maybe that would mean  he could finally get what he’s been craving so bad, that touch of comfort, that elusive ‘good.’He wouldn’t be too intrusive, he thinks. He requires so little, just a stern tone and a firm hand. Maybe he can teach them a few things, about safety, and aftercare, things that are so often pushed to the wayside in relationships.And when Steve and Bucky eventually find what they lost, Tony can at least fade out with the knowledge that real, true love relationships at least exist, even if they weren’t possible for  him. All he has to do is make sure he doesn’t fall too hard into subspace. How hard can that be?    Tony throws open Bucky’s door and strides into the dark room with intention, telling JARVIS to turn on the lights.“Hey, ‘Bad-day Barnes,’ get your ass up, I want to talk to you.”“The fuck Tony,” Bucky grouses from the bed. He’s lying on his stomach on the bed, his head tilted up sharply to face Tony, his murderous stare slightly mollified by his messy hair and his red, puffy eyes, rapidly blinking at the light change.“Have you been crying?” Tony asks bluntly, coming around to sit on the far side of the bed.“Fuck you,” Bucky says, rolling onto his side away from Tony.“I mean, we still haven’t done that yet, but I could be convinced,” he continues, crossing his ankles and leaning back against the bedspread.“You’re shit at comforting people.” Bucky’s voice is muffled by the blanket.“Yes,” Tony says. “Get up, let’s talk.”Bucky groans but rolls to his feet and glares at Tony, before walking to the bathroom. The glare slides off Tony like water—he’s had much worse—and he takes in Bucky’s generally rumpled state. He definitely has been crying, he’s still wearing the same clothes from yesterday, and he has a series of tangles in his longish hair, where it’s thinned at the bottom. He’s clearly been in a bad way for a while now, and Tony feels a pang of guilt at not really taking notice before.“You’ve been having a bad few weeks, huh?” Tony asks, following him to the bathroom. He winces as he remembers Bucky showing up, likely already drunk, to his office the night before.“Yeah,” Bucky says, his low tone full of grit. “I keep remembering things I don’t want to remember.”Bucky catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror. “Yikes,” he mutters.“Missions?” Tony questions carefully.Bucky shakes his head. “Steve.”Tony’s quiet for a moment as he watches Bucky take in his appearance. Bucky’s fingers try and comb through his hair, but get caught in a fingerful of tangles instead, and suddenly, Tony’s painfully stung with the memory of standing behind Pepper’s chair, working through the knots in her shiny strawberry locks with precise, methodical movements.Bucky goes to reach for a brush, and Tony makes an aborted movement forward.“If you brush your hair like that you’re just going to rip out all the strands,” Tony says before he can stop himself. “You have to take your time, start with your fingers from the bottom.”“Tell it to someone who gives a shit,” Bucky says, and he drags the brush through his hair, snapping off several strands as he goes.Tony bites his lip so hard it hurts, but leaves it be. “What’s this about Steve, then? Your memories of the relationship not all too sweet?”“Aren’t bathrooms supposed to be private?” Bucky not so subtly hints, pulling at his hair with more force than necessary.“Let me take a guess–you’re remembering him Domming you, and it’s making you feel like shit?” Tony ganders.Bucky gives up on his hair and walks to the shower instead. “Yeah.”“We have a name for that now, you know. Subdrop.” Tony says the word casually, like he hasn’t been wading through his own shitty headspace ever since Pepper.“Sounds kinky.”“Oh, it certainly is not.”Bucky starts the shower. “What do you want, Tony.” Bucky says more than asks, and then he starts to strip.“Well, I did want something, but now I can’t seem to remember,” Tony says, eyes glued to Bucky’s chest.Bucky doesn’t take the bait, balling his clothes up and throwing them to the side, stepping into the shower with a pointed look towards Tony, and the bathroom doorTony sees the hint, then promptly ignores it. “Listen. What do you know about polyamory?”Bucky frowns, but stops moving. “The thing where a guy has a buncha wives? Sounds expensive.”“No that’s polygamy. Polyamory is a lot more broad, but encompasses, for example, three people having a relationship with each other.”Bucky’s eyes go wide. “Are you… are you suggesting what I think you are?”“You and Steve, Steve and me, me and you,” Tony says, then spreads his arms out wide.“It would never work. Steve and I were so long ago, and you and I are…” Bucky lets that the end of the sentence linger in the air like the steam from the shower.“Steve kissed me after dinner today,” Tony says bluntly.Bucky stares at Tony for a long moment. “I need to shower. We can talk about this after.”“You want company?” Tony asks after a beat of silence, because it’s expected of him.Bucky snorts, but there’s a flicker of a smile there. “I’m sure you can figure out something else to do while you wait.”    Tony doesn’t really figure out something else to do, other than schedule a Monday meeting with a series of companies looking to be Stark Industries’ primary source of small hardware. He was immediately hounded with offers after his press conference, and it made sense. Stark Industries was one of the biggest tech companies in existence right now, and a deal with him is worth billions.He’s also, for some reason, been getting a lot of shit for buying the closing factory up north, and though he might be paranoid, he needs to start sending out feelers in case this is indicative of another coup for his position. He’s pretty sure he has more people vying for his position than the average company CEO, and in reality it probably has more to do with the fact that he’s a disaster than that he’s a sub. Nevertheless, there’s no way he’s letting anyone take it from him.He also wishes, not for the first time, that he was a better man, that he was capable of being a good CEO and a stable person, proving the mainstream media’s perceptions of what a sub is wrong, but, well. He’s not.The shower stops, and Tony is gratefully drawn from his introspection.“Contrary to popular belief, what you do in the bedroom has nothing to do with who you are as a person,” Tony says as Bucky leaves the bathroom in a fresh pair of pants. It’s a hard won rule Tony has had to repeat to himself time and time again, and it only feels slightly hypocritical repeating it to Bucky.“Coulda fooled me,” Bucky responds, toweling his wet hair roughly. “Alright, let’s chat. I can tell you all the reasons why this isn’t going to work.”“It can, and actually, I think it would be great for all of us,” Tony says. “I mean, we love the guy, so why not just… love the guy? We already know we have compatibility on some level, and you don’t really seem like the jealous type.”“Steve’s that type though, plus I think he’s more of a traditional guy.”“Really? The same, ‘traditional’ guy who used make you rub off against his foot? Probably burn the end of cigarette into your skin?”Tony’s extrapolating, but he’s not ready for Bucky’s shudder of lust, not ready to see his eyes dilate. “How’d you know he did that?”“Fuck.” Tony feels his eyes go wide. “Of course he did.”Bucky shakes his head, like he’s physically wiping out the memory. “It won’t work, okay. I’m not… I’ve got a lotta issues. Lotta things I’ve done, and that’s not… Steve deserves more than that. He actually deserves you. If he’s kissing you, then he wants you.”“I’m not much better. I’m responsible for a lot of deaths too. I’m not—I’m trying to be a good person, but I’m not actually one.”“It’s not the same.”“Explain, then.”“You—” Bucky tosses the towel to the side in frustration, then reaches for a shirt from his closet. “You’re you. You’ve got everything in the world yet you still try to be a superhero, you know? You’ve got this innocence about you…”“Oh I’m hardly—”“You are compared to me,” Bucky says, hard.“Do you know what I did before I became Iron Man?” Tony asks. “I was a mess, and innocent people got hurt for it.”“And I didn’t hurt innocent people?”“You weren’t in control of your actions like I was.”“But I remember it! Piece by bloody piece, I remember,” Bucky says sharply, adjusting his shirt. “How do you deal with something like that, huh?”Tony’s not qualified to answer that question. Sighing, he stands up and gets back on track. “So we agree, we’re both messes. Stop blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault in an effort to punish yourself for the sins that, once again, were not your fault. I get it, shit sucked, but if anyone’s innocent in this, it’s you.”“I don’t—”“I know you want him,” Tony says with finality. “You know I want him. Let’s just—” Tony waves with his hand, “you know?”Bucky stares at him for a moment, then drops, deflated, to a seat on the bed. “I’ll admit. It’s… tempting.”“It’s worth a shot, right?” Tony prods, walking toward him. He puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky doesn’t look at him.“I don’t know Tony…” Bucky says, and then he rubs his eye with his natural hand, and, boy, if he starts crying Tony’s going to do a one eighty straight out of there.“What your asking is nothin’ I’ve ever even heard of, let alone seen done,” he continues warily.“We make it ours then, we’ll take it slow.” Feeling like going in for the kill, Tony impulsively straddles Bucky’s thighs, causing Bucky to startle and reach out to steady him. “Think about it, Buck.”“I’m not worth it.” Bucky shrugs, looking up at Tony mildly. Tony can see him caving. “I’m not worth him.”Tony feels the bones of his pelvis rub against the muscles of Bucky’s thighs, flexing minutely as Bucky shifts, restless, as always.“Neither am I,” Tony says. Bucky’s looking up at him, eyes guarded but lips slightly parted. Tony buries a hand in Bucky’s hair, running his fingers through the damp strands.“Help me remember again?” Bucky’s voice is just a whisper, but he drives his point home by grabbing Tony’s hips in his strong hands and grinding upwards.Tony makes a surprised noise, feeling Bucky’s hard length press against his ass.“Always so quick to rise,” Tony gasps.“Serum,” Bucky sighs, eyes fluttering shut.“As fun as this is…” Tony says after a moment, “aren’t we talking about how much you’re upset about what you did with Steve? Yet you want me to help you remember?”Bucky stills his hips, then drops his forehead onto Tony’s shoulder. “Yes. No. I don’t know,” Bucky’s mutters.Textbook masochist, Tony thinks. He climbs from his lap and drops to his knees instead, trying to seem less domineering and more submissive.He grips Bucky’s knees and waits for him to meet his gaze. “I know it feels uncertain sometimes. I know it feels like you don’t deserve what you’ve been given. Hell, I still wake up some mornings and wonder whether I’ll ever be able to atone for all I’ve done.“But at the end of the day, all I can do? Is to try and do the right thing. And that’s the same for you,” Tony finishes.Bucky looks up, eyes still wary beneath the shroud of his hair. Tony tries on a smile, and watches as Bucky visibly swallows.“Do this with me, Buck. Let yourself have this,” Tony says.Bucky pauses for a moment, then exhales, and says, “Alright.”Tony grins, leans forward, and kisses him. Bucky’s slow to respond at first, but a few moments with Tony on his knees and against his lips and he’s melting. It’s not like their other, fiery kisses, electric with potential, but it’s slow and comforting and warm, like a promise.“Stay here tonight?” Bucky asks.“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Tony says firmly. He has to do this right.“Just to sleep .” Bucky says, vulnerable. “I promise.”Tony takes one look at his raw, exhausted form, and says, “okay.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bucky doesn’t really go outside.On good days he eats three square meals a day and goes to the TV room to watch documentaries and play board games. He hangs out with Tony and Steve in the workshop or the art studio, and lets his mind drift.On bad days, he haunts the bedroom that Tony says is his. Brimming with adrenaline and breathing shallowly, he sees things that aren’t really there out of the corner of his eye and searches for weaponsOn good days, he teases Steve, laughs with Tony, and pulls his hair out of his face with a rubber band. He reads old books he thinks he’s already read in a previous life on the floor by the window in the common room.On bad days he traces the perimeter of every floor in the tower, and can only sleep underneath his bed, watching the door and waiting for a nonexistent enemy to strike. “So you’re a cat,” Tony said one day when they were drinking on his couch, both of them sticky and post-coital.“I… guess so,” Bucky responded. “Huh.” Night didn’t seem to care what kind of day Bucky had. Night always brings the dreams.At first, they are just nightmares. He’s able to wake up from them without screaming, a technique he might have learned during the war to keep quiet in the bunks, or that might have been trained into him by Hydra, to keep him quiet or teach him discipline.Either way, the nightmares are terrifying, mostly because they are where his memories decide to assert themselves, twisted and muddled into confusing dissonant scenes, where the background jumps between years, where Tony’s face meets Morita’s grin meets the dark smile of Rumlow, and he wakes up, shaken to the core, unable to determine what was real for a brief, terrifying moment.But lately, they’ve been different, and he can pinpoint the night it changed as right after he traded blowjobs with Tony for the first time. Bucky isn’t sure if it’s worse or better than before.Lately they’ve been of Steve. Of gorgeous, mean, five foot Steve, of cuts, and bruises, and tears through orgasms, of Steve stroking his hair and calling him beautiful, of a hand on his throat, of a cigarette between his lips, of a shoe digging into the space between Bucky’s naked shoulder blades.More often than not, Bucky wakes up on his way to orgasm, usually with a foot on the ground and another leg on the bed, fucking into the edge of the mattress where the top meets the side so that it hurts , his pillow ripping beneath his teeth.But not tonight.Tonight is nice, Bucky thinks, with Tony lying on his back, tucked against Bucky’s side, snoring at the ceiling. He’s always out like a light after he drinks. Bucky’s not usually a cuddler, since he runs hot, but nothing can stop Tony from finding and latching on to Bucky’s body like a heat seeking missile, his feet digging into the back of Bucky’s knees, his facial hair tickling Bucky’s skin.Bucky watches Tony’s chest rise and fall. He is unenhanced, weaker in every physical aspect, yet still lies next to him, sleeping soundly, trusting Bucky not to, well, murder him. It’s stupid of him, but Bucky seems to be attracted to reckless human beings, and can only hope that he can protect him better than the blonde boy who kept getting the shit kicked out of him in alleys.Bucky carefully adjusts Tony’s head so he’s pillowed on his arm instead of smashed into his shoulder, partially for his comfort, and partially to let Tony’s head fall to the side so he could quick snoring like a freight train. He lets himself be cuddled, and waits as long as he can before he drifts off, hoping that, for once, he falls into a dreamless sleep. “So how do you wanna do this, Jimmy?”Bucky can hear Tony crack his joints as he climbs out of bed. He makes a face around his toothbrush. “Don’ call me Jimmy,” he says, before spitting in the sink.“We could, I don’t know, go to his room and starting making out. Or, ooh, let’s double team him in the kitchen. I’ll take the front; you take the back?”“Your plans are terrible,” Bucky snorts, reaching for the shaving cream. Super serum means super facial hair growth, apparently.“Fine, I’ll take the back, just wanted to be nice and let you press up against America’s greatest asset.”“We can’t just start kissing the guy,” Bucky says, using a brush to smear his chin and neck with cream.“Why not? It worked for us.” Tony strides into the bathroom, and Bucky can see him leaning against the door frame in a pair of Bucky’s pants and a mildly distracting tank top.Bucky gives him a once over, and Tony winks. Bucky rolls his eyes and grabs the straight razor, because he likes to live on the edge.“It’s so sexy that you use that thing,” Tony says.“We have to talk to him, approach him calmly,” Bucky says, then he stops talking as he starts to peel the hair off his chin.“Boo. Can’t we just jump straight into bed? Worry about everything else later?”“Has that ever worked out for anyone?” Bucky asks between passes.“In porn, usually.”Bucky snorts, and nearly nicks himself. “Stop making me laugh. Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway, he’s never here during the morning on Sunday.”“He still does that pen pal thing?”“A pen pal is someone you write letters to that is in a different location than here,” Bucky says. “He does a buddy program, where he talks to a vet once a week about how shitty war is, and how shitty coming back home is.”“How very… Patriotic?”Bucky rubs a hand over his chin and nods in satisfaction.“Anyways get dressed, I need you in my garage. I’m changing the garbage engine in my Audi with one of my own, and my crane snapped.”“Yes, sir,” Bucky says sarcastically, heading to his closet.Tony makes a face. Tony gestures with a wrench. “I’m going to replace the engine in this guy here—” he points towards a vehicle that looks so sleek it’s nearly flat, with an inky black paint job, “—and install J into the computer. I need you to take this engine out, and put mine in. After that, you can take off your shirt and lie on hood. Sound good?”Bucky looks at the sports car with a critical eye. “You don’t think I’m too heavy?”“Already reinforced the frame. I can only smash so many suits into my own cars before I take action.”“I’ll try not to scratch the paint,” Bucky deadpans.Tony grins, then pops the hood and gets to work. While he waits, Bucky alternates between watching him gut the vehicle, admiring all the other vehicles in the private concrete garage, and staring at Tony’s ass as he bends over the car.“Alright,” Tony says, wiping his hands on a towel. “I need you to take it out. Ready?”Bucky nods and gets in position. With a grunt, Bucky lifts the engine block from the stripped down car and places it on the rack to the side. At Tony’s direction, he helps him install the larger engine, listening carefully to Tony’s curt directions.After all the heavy lifting is done, Bucky is relegated to the role of eye candy. He doesn’t lean on a car, but he does take off his shirt, and Tony demonstrates his multitasking skills, switching between installing JARVIS into the car’s computer and shooting looks to Bucky’s chest from across the room.Tony eventually reaches a stopping point (“Do you know how long it takes JARVIS to compile?”), and they splits beers from Tony’s mini fridge.Bucky picks at the label on the bottle, and brings up the topic that’s been on his mind since last night. “So. This threesome.”“I prefer the term homosexual polyamorous relationship, but continue.”“Tony, I don’t know if this is the best idea,” Bucky says.“Why not? We all like each other.”“That’s the thing, I know Steve likes you, and you like me, and I like you and Steve, but Steve and I… we haven’t really interacted like that. I don’t think he likes me the same way he likes you,” Bucky says ineloquently.Tony snorts. “What are we, passing notes in fifth grade?”“I don’t know what you mean by that.”“Stop over thinking. I’m the only one who can overthink well. Everyone else fucks it up.” Tony declares. “I know he’s into you, I promise.”Bucky shakes his head. “I’m not so sure... It’s just that Steve has barely even touched me since he’s been here. In some ways, I’m closer to you than I am to him, and all we do is suck each other off.”“Ouch, okay,” Tony says lightly.“I didn’t mean it like that. Steve and I … I don’t know what I am to him, or what he is to me. There’s what we used to be, and now…” Now it’s nebulous.  Even on the good days Bucky is unsure on how to act with the man. One moment he’s Steve from Brooklyn, and Bucky melts into the mindset of young Bucky Barnes, a man he doesn’t quite remember, and feel like he’s a stranger to himself. The next moment he’ll see exhaustion in Steve’s eyes that he feels the urge to comfort, but he still can't quite work up the nerve to do it.On the bad days... on the bad days, Bucky can't even take care of himself properly.Bucky looks at Tony, who is taking a pull of his bottle, his face not displaying much emotion.Bucky swallows dryly. “I’ve only been here six months, and we’ve really only been talking for about three. But you and he have had years, Tony.”Tony shoots at glare at Bucky from behind the safety glasses he’s still wearing. Bucky looks at him and shrugs a shoulder, self-deprecating.“You had years, too,” Tony points out.“But he’s different now than he was then. You got to know each other, fall for each other. I mean, are you sure I should even be a part of this?”Tony takes a long sip, then places the bottle on the desk behind him.“You should have seen Steve when you first got back Buck,” Tony says slowly. “He only had eyes for you. All he could talk about what you. No amount of anything me and him had could compare to what he had with you.”“Well, if we had something like that, it’s certainly doesn’t exist now. He hasn’t even expressed any sort of interest in me,” Bucky says, and he feels something twist in his chest.“Really? The guy brings you breakfast in the morning, and he doesn’t even know how to cook! I wouldn’t cook for either of you.”“No, you’d buy us food--which you already do, by the way--because if you cooked something you’d probably poison us.”“Whatever. Clearly there’s something there, he’s just afraid to bring it up. Afraid about what it could mean, given that he just got you back. He’s trying to give you space, because that’s what you keep asking for.”“Yet he kissed you.”“Because he doesn’t think he’s allowed to have you,” Tony gestures, pointing with his hand. “And I learned the hard way that denial is a really good way to get everything to blow up in your own face. Someone needs to take the first step, and it’s not gonna be Steve, because he’s still set on this crazy idea that monogamy is the only way to have a relationship.”“I feel like polygamy isn’t everyone’s first thought,” Bucky points out.“Poly amory . And I know he still cares about you. And you know what? I care about you too. So shut up and believe in this thing. Tell him how you feel, and you’ll see what I see. Let’s make this ménage a good ol’ fashioned trois okay?”Bucky bites the inside of his lip. Truth is, Tony is right. He wants Steve, has wanted Steve, but has been treating Steve like the sun and acting like the moon, remaining carefully distant as they chase each other around the world, never sharing the same sky.“That is terrible French,” Bucky says in French, and blinks, because since when did he know French?“You love something I do that’s French,” Tony says cheekily, then he jumps up and heads back to the car. “Captain Rogers has returned,” JARVIS says over the speakers, sometime in the early afternoon.Bucky jumps up from his seat. “You comin’?” He asks Tony, who is currently working on installing the small computer back into the vehicle.“Nah, you go up without me, I’ll follow after I finish this.”Bucky hangs around Tony for a little longer, still enjoying Tony bent over the car. He’s covered in oil and grease and his arms are glistening as he sweats through his tank top. But eventually, remembering Tony’s insistence on no sex, he drags himself upstairs and finds Steve in the kitchen. He’s leaning his back against the cabinets and has his hands on either side of his body, fingers clenched into the countertop.“Hey,” Bucky says, leaning on the fridge.Steve looks up in surprise. “Bucky!” Steve turns to him and smiles, but Bucky is horrified to see his expression wobble.“Steve?” Bucky straightens up, worried.Steve gives up on the smiles and drops his head again. And old, protective instinct draws Bucky forward until he’s standing within reaching distance of the man. “What happened, Steve?”Steve close his eyes. “Tough day today.”“Oh. Is it vet stuff?” Bucky probes, eyebrows pinched.“Yeah.”Bucky crosses his arms across his chest in an almost defensive gesture. “Do you, uh. Want to talk about it?” Bucky asks, a million miles from his comfort zone.“I should,” Steve says, but he offers nothing further, his eyes blinking open and staring into the floor below.Bucky knows in a second Steve’s going to push it all down, smile, and pretend things are okay, perhaps making a vague, unsatisfactory comment about how things will get better eventually, but Bucky remembers Tony words about first steps, and denial, and its eventual terrifying fallout, and realizes someone’s got to give.Bucky uncrosses his arms and straightens up. “Do you want a hug?” He asks. Immediately after saying it, Bucky wants to take it back. Steve’s eyes widen slightly, and he’s looking at Bucky with disbelief. Bucky feels like he’s stepped out of line, like he’s crossed the trench into no man’s land, and has opened himself up for the enemy.Feeling stupid, Bucky begins to retract his offer, but before he can get the words out, Steve says, in a very odd tone, “yeah, actually.”Bucky exhales and steps forward, and suddenly he has an armful of Steve, stimulating his senses and squeezing his chest. Steve’s breath is light on the back of Bucky’s neck, and Bucky’s arms are carefully wrapped around Steve’s back. Bucky feels warm all over, like he’s stepped into a hot bath after a rainstorm, his skin prickling where their skin touches.After a long, long moment, Bucky feels Steve relax into his arms with an exhale, then squeeze even tighter.Quietly, into Bucky’s shoulder, Steve’s voice is vulnerable.“Do you ever realize that you’re different now than the you were before you went to war? That you are a soldier, and you probably will be for life? And that you’re never quite going to go back to that, no matter what you do?”Bucky thinks about a few weeks ago, when he held his straight razor in his hand like a weapon and slept in the closet because there was less space for him to cover.“Yeah,” Bucky says, and he wonders what the hell happened at the VA today.Steve nods, and says nothing for a moment, then steps back, putting an infuriating amount of space between them.Bucky looks into Steve’s eyes, and sees a brief flash of… longing? pass through his expression, before he closes off.“That was nice,” Steve says. “Even though you smell like motor oil.”“No problem, ass,” Bucky says. “Helping Tony out in the garage.”“That’s good that you guys are getting along so well,” Steve says. “Hey, you want leftovers?”They eat lunch together on the couch, and it’s nice. Bucky turns on the television just to have something on in the background, and let’s himself drift off a bit as he eats.“Did you like the food?” Steve asks when they finish. Bucky is aware of the fact that they are a cushion away from each other. If he stretches his hands across the cushions, he could touch Steve’s shoulder.“Yeah,” Bucky says, dropping his gaze. “‘ts good. I mean, I ate shit for most of my life, so who am I to judge right?”“Tony didn’t seem to like it, that’s all,” Steve says, stretching his legs out on the coffee table.Bucky feels a pang in his chest. Of course he’d be worried about what Tony thought of his food. “I think he doesn’t eat very much in general. We worked the whole morning, and all we’ve had today is beer.”“He needs to take better care of himself,” Steve says decidedly. “I’m glad you came up to eat at least.”Bucky agrees. He feels the desire to bring up the kiss between the two of them, but pushes it down. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.“‘sides,” Bucky deflects, “this food is good, promise. I’m especially a fan of your breakfast.”Steve so sunnily at Bucky he feels like he’s going to go blind. “I’m glad you like it. The fact you can make a whole meal in a microwave is amazing isn’t it? I mean, it costs an arm and a leg, but I can’t get over the novelty.”Bucky looks at Steve’s self-congratulatory grin, and feels a tightness in his chest from how endearing he looks, marveling over the act of cooking.“Yeah, it sure it,” he says.“You want more?” Steve asks easily.“Sure,” Bucky says, and he watches as he gathers their plates and head back to the kitchen area. This would be his chance, Bucky thinks. When Steve gets back, there would be a lull in the conversation, and he could bring up Tony, or talk about they way he feels, or asks Steve about how he feels. Hell, he could ask him what he felt about relationships between more than two people, that would be enough to get the ball rolling.But when Steve gets back, he doesn’t ask any of this, because he can’t bear to put a stain on today, not after they day had started so well. His skin is still singing from that hug, and he feels warm on the inside, and he doesn’t want to let that feeling go.So Bucky takes his plate from Steve, warm from the microwave, and smiles at him, and enjoys the smile that he gets back.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Bucky finds his way back to Tony, who’s still working on the car in the garage. Tony slides out from under the vehicle and greets him with a “you’re back early.”

Bucky looks slightly distant, but doesn’t respond.

“So,” Tony prods. “Did you tell him? Are we on our way to the best sex of our lives yet?”

“I uh… didn’t actually.”

Really? Tony thinks. After his amazing pep talk? “Are you serious?”

“It didn’t feel right.”

“It didn’t

feel

right?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

Tony looks at the ceiling and takes a deep, calming breath. “Why not?” he asks on the exhale.

“He was having a bad day.”

“Jesus. Bad day this, bad day that, does anyone know how to handle their shit anymore? There is no way I am the most mentally stable person in this house. Bucky, you

have

to tell him how you feel.”

Bucky sighs. “I don’t want to ruin things.”

“Except,” Tony says with a clipped tone, “you just told me things between you two are weird! Fix it!”

“Why does it mean so much to you that we’re together?” Bucky snaps, annoyed.

“Several reasons. One, I have no idea how to do anything in halves. Two, we all want to bang each other, and nothing is stopping us except social etiquette and lack of communication. And lastly, and most importantly, I took a vow of celibacy in order to be a good, honest person for once, and I am so. Fucking.

Horny.”

Bucky laughs, but the sound is layered with stress. “So, just to be clear, I’m breaking out of my comfort zone and sacrificing my friendship with Steve just because you’re a slut?”

The last word hits Tony like a slap.

Bucky stands with his eyebrow quirked and a hint of a smile, and Tony realizes his words are meant to be joke.

A smile slides smoothly across Tony’s face. He barely feels it.

“Yes,” Tony says.

Bucky grins and shakes his head.

“Yep. Yes. For the sex.” Classic Tony Stark. Looking for the kinkiest sex, all the time. That’s the slut! That’s him.

“Let’s go upstairs. I want dinner. Take out,” Tony declares, pulling off his goggles.

“We just ate, so how about in an hour or two?” Bucky asks. “You wanna watch a movie?”

“Sure, pick whatever,” Tony says, barely paying attention anymore.

Bucky walks with him around the garage as he picks up his mess.

“Ya know, Steve thinks you don’t like his food ‘cause he said you kept pushing it around your plate,” Bucky says.

“That’s…” not true, because in reality Tony’s the opposite of a stress eater, and often found food to be a nuisance growing up, which is probably why he’s so short. “Wrong,” Tony finishes, putting his toolkit back on the shelf.

“Tell that to Steve,” Bucky says.

Of course Tony forgets that the offering of food has other connotations, like fulfilling the hindbrain need to provide for another, and of course Tony not eating Steve’s food probably symbolizes some sort of rejection in Steve’s mind.

Unless he’s reading too much into it, and Steve’s really just offended he doesn’t like his food, which, okay, warmed up food in the microwave compared to a nine course tasting menu from Italy? There’s no question which tastes better. Maybe he can take the boys to Italy. Or have the nine courses delivered here. That seems extreme; he’ll just see about Pepper hiring the chef for the weekend.

Albeit, he can’t remember the last time he had a home cooked meal before Steve came along, and eating dinner with him semi-regularly is probably the best thing Tony’s got going on, especially since he’s decided to stop having sex with Bucky.

Which is one of the harder decisions Tony has made, given that he’s easy as sin. Hell, even Bucky noticed, and he’s not even a Dominant. What’s wrong with him, that he wears his sluttiness on his skin so clearly—

“Hey, you hear me?” Bucky asks. He’s looking at Tony with an expression of mild worry.

Tony tries to recall the words Bucky was saying while he was lost in his own thoughts.

Bucky frowns. “Are you o—”

“Burgers. But I’ll take the black bean burger, lettuce wrap instead of a bun, and… salad? No, mashed potatoes, just make sure they are not slopped with gravy.”

Bucky looks at him strangely.

Tony continues. “That’s what you asked, right? What do I want to eat? There’s this burger place, you’ll love it, JARVIS, text Bucky and Steve the menus. I’m going to shower.” Tony juts his thumb towards the elevator. “Order whatever, have it delivered whenever. Card’s saved.”

Bucky nods slowly. He still doesn’t look convinced, but Tony doesn’t care. He really wants to get upstairs and into his room for a minute and figure out how to stop feeling like garbage.
   
Tony’s probably not the

most

sensitive sub in the entire world, but he’s gotta be pretty damn close.

Who else can drive themselves into a shitty-as-fuck subspace based on the words of complete strangers’? Who else falls in love with the guy that just hangs around so that they can suck each other off? And then falls in love with the guy

he’s

in love with? What kind of life is that?

Tony is currently sitting in his bathtub with several drops of lavender essential oil because masculinity is a social construct, and he’s trying to bring himself into a more positive mindset.

But it’s hard to stop himself from thinking about how selfish he is, trying to lean in on Steve and Bucky’s relationship. The whole thing’s probably going to end up in a dumpster fire when they kick him out. He’s probably not going to survive the break-up. He can already see the look in their eyes when they have to sit him down and tell him they’ve found more in each other than they ever had with him. Or maybe they’ll just push him away slowly, stop inviting him to things, and Tony will suddenly find himself on the outside of it all, forgotten.

If he didn’t have a self-destructive streak the size of Alaska, he’d back out now while he still has his sanity left. He’s clearly dealing with something way over his head, and he’s on his way to crashing and burning in a spectacular manner.

At least there’s an upside to this. Steve and Bucky will finally get to have their days together, what they couldn’t have back in 1930-whatever. And once Steve stops projecting his need for a relationship onto Tony, and once Bucky stops having free access to sex with Tony, they’ll figure out what they’re truly missing, which is just each other.

Slut.

Bucky’s voice echoes through Tony’s head, and Tony squeezes his eyes tightly, the word still spiking through his chest. That word was a favorite of Sunset’s, and had quickly become one of Tony’s least favorites. It still brought back memories of being cold and alone in an empty room after intense, incomplete scenes.

Tony pinches his nose with his fingers and submerges himself, and wills himself to become grounded with the water. The water fills his ears and shuts out the sounds from the outside, and, in a way, cuts out  the sounds his head too.

It’s only him here. Nothing but Tony and the far off sounds of the tower’s HVAC, nothing but him and the sight of the warm lights blurring with the drifting water above his head. His feet float to the surface, and his hand sculls the water at his side to keep him down.

It’s the closest he can get to sensory deprivation, the closest his brain can get to true silence. He stays under until he feels a burn begin in his lungs, then he sits up, the water roaring in his ears, sloshing on the ground and dripping from the ends of his hair.

He takes his time before he goes down again—too quick and he starts to trigger the waterboarding flashbacks—and continues until his brain finally slows from a sprint to a brisk walk.

It’s not perfect, but it will do for now, especially since he has meetings all next week. Exhausted and still half drunk on the smell of lavender, Tony towels himself off and crawls into bed, and hopes things will be a little easier tomorrow.

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark regrets to inform you that he won’t be able to make it to the movie, or to dinner this afternoon.”

JARVIS chimes in from above.

“Hmm,” Bucky says. “Is he feeling okay?”

“

Yes. Sergeant. It seems that returning to his room has reminded him that he is a human being that requires sleep, and he has turned in for the night.”

“That’s good that he’s getting rest. We’ll put his food in the fridge. Thanks JARVIS,” Steve says.

Bucky squirms a little on the couch. Tony’s usually very good at keeping it together, but Bucky has noticed a change in his demeanor after he teasingly called him a slut. Perhaps he went too far?

“Maybe I should check on him,” Bucky says.

“

While sir appreciates it, he’s currently not up for company.”

Now Bucky feels like he really did something wrong. He was going to ask Tony if they could sleep together again—it was actually one of the best nights of sleep Bucky’s had in a while, even if Tony ended up drooling on his shoulder.

He also seemed really upset Bucky didn’t make his move on Steve. Looking over at Steve, where he’s eating popcorn from a bowl, none the wiser, he decides to make a more active effort to make his feelings known. If Tony believes in this, then so should he.
   Tony’s probably not having the worst day of his life, but it’s certainly far from the best.
It starts with a meeting with his Chief Marketing Officer. She updates him about PR’s efforts to paint the job cuts in a good light, with relatively good success. She’s a diligent worker, and Tony can’t fault her for not nipping all of the bad publicity in the bud, especially given Tony’s PR nightmare of a past.

It’s when Tony dismisses her that things start to go sideways. She stands up to leave, smoothing her skirt, and says, “I just want to say, you are handling all of this very well, Mr. Stark.”

Tony blames exhaustion for the fact that, normally, a statement like that from a Dom he doesn’t know would have warning bells going off in his head.

“It’s my job,” he says non committedly.

“Still, it’s an awful lot to balance,” she continues.

“Yeah, haven’t been Iron Man for a while. Once this partnership gets put into place, I’ll have more time for the other side of things,” Tony says. It’s important that his C-suite knows, at least generally, how he balances his time. Therefore, he continues to think nothing of the conversation until Lindsay opens her mouth and says:

“Well, running your own company, plus having the public eye on you so closely, and having to put on such a show every day, it must be exhausting.”

Put on a… Tony looks up for his tablet and meets her eyes.

She smiles, consoling. “It must have been a while since you’ve been put down, Mr. Stark.”

“Put…

down?”

Is he a

dog?

She looks at him sympathetically, and Tony’s gaze sharpens.

“If you don’t mind me speaking freely, my partner is a male submissive, so I understand the… intricacies of the designation. It’s a difficult contradiction. Men always want to be in charge, but when they tend towards submission, it can make the achievement of that submission much harder, because it’s much less socially acceptable.”

Tony’s struck speechless for a moment, partially at the audacity of her words, and partially because of the connotations of her comparison of submissive leaning men towards animals.

“You and I both know the negative effects of toxic masculinity,” she continues. “After the public’s reaction towards the words of Ms. Fujikawa—”

Nope.

Tony keeps his cool, but let’s some of his anger bleed into his voice as he cuts her off. “You have become much too familiar with me, Ms. Brooks.” Tony says, his tone short and icy. “Simply put, if you value your position within this company, you will do well to never assume anything about me and my designation again. Do you understand me?”

Lindsay is immediately affronted. “I was only trying to empathize, Mr. Stark. I never said you couldn’t do your job, just that things must be difficult, not having a partner at home to allow you to be your true self.”

Tony should dismiss her. Tony shouldn’t engage her further. Tony shouldn’t—

“My true

self

?” Tony says in a dangerous, cool tone. “My true self is the man who took the reins of one of the largest tech companies in the world, and grew it into

the

largest tech company in the world. My true self saved the fucking city, and the goddamn world,

multiple times,

with a suit I built with my own hands and ‘submissive’ brain. My true self is the man you see in front of you, three seconds from firing a subordinate for a completely inappropriate conversation where you attempt to label me based on preconceived notions about who and what a submissive is.”

“I am not devaluing your achievements, Mr. Stark,” Lindsay clarifies, and she seems to be choosing her next words carefully. “But isn’t it true that in the first two situations, you were, at least partially, under the guidance of a Dom? Yet right here and now, you aren’t. Even you have to admit, with the guiding hand of someone like Ms. Potts, you were in your best years.”

Tony bristles at the accusation that his treatment of her is based on the fact he doesn’t have a partner. There are way too many Doms like her, running around, presuming they know how to “help” submissives based on shitty research and bad sex. In reality, they can’t see anything past their own ego that grows from the power rush they get from being able to tell someone what to do.

“I was only trying to help,” she says with a gentle smile, like she’s trying to soothe a small animal. Tony knows that she probably thinks she is helping, but Tony does not have room in his life for people that try to tell him what to do without his permission.

He doesn’t soften his tone. “What

will

help both of us, is your six-week, unpaid suspension, where you will attend a month long course on diversity and harassment in the workplace,

including

the section on sexual identity, sexual designation, and the rules that govern workplace interactions so you can learn the proper way to act and speak in a professional environment,” Tony says coolly.

Her smile drops and her tone changes immediately. “Six

weeks?

Are you kidding me? I can’t afford six weeks without pay! I have a partner that depends on me, and a child! Plus, how will I be able to keep up with what’s going on within the company if I’m suspended?”

She won’t, but if she wants this job enough, she’ll figure out a way to catch up. Moneywise, Tony’s not worried; he knows what he pays her, and she will have enough to get by. Maybe she’ll learn something in her class that will help her treat her own submissive better. He doesn’t want to make a judgement, but anyone that calls subspace being ‘put down’ has to be lacking some education in the BDSM department.

“You’ll figure it out. Suspension starts Monday,” Tony says by way of dismissal, and he turns his gaze towards his tablet, quickly sending an email to HR. They know the routine; it’s far from the first time he’s had to do this.

Tony actually thinks she’s going to say something more, but after a moment she collects herself, grabs her briefcase, and leaves the room silently.

When she leaves, he drops the tablet on his desk with a thud, then leans back and stares at the ceiling. Tony wonders, not for the first time, why female Doms around him seem to be worse at presumptions than the male ones, Pepper being the glowing exception. Maybe his perception is skewed because he’s only had female Doms as long term partners.

All the bad male Doms he’s interacted with have been very straightforward in their disdain for Tony. Their entitled attitude asserts itself with bold commands and the expectation that they will not be disobeyed. Yet, with people like Lindsay, it’s almost worse, because he’s looked upon with sympathy; like the way she decided he’s a victim of his

gender

instead of his designation, and therefore assumed he’s unhappy in a position of leadership. It seems he attracts the “mother-knows-best” type of Dom. The kind that sees him as an unruly child who needs to be punished or have his behavior corrected.

What made Pepper different was that she actually

did

know best. She listened to him when he wanted to change something, or wanted to learn something. She knew what to do with him because she trusted him to know what he wanted. In a way, he had all the power in the relationship, which was the opposite of everything he’d ever been brought up to learn about BDSM. It was probably the healthiest relationship he’s ever had.

Too bad he wasn’t enough for her.

Thinking about Pepper hurts in a different way, so he stops his thought process short and prepares for his first meeting. He glances at the calendar and can’t quite suppress the annoyed huff he that escapes, because speaking of shitty, female Doms, his next appointment is with Justine Hammer, the daughter of the man he put in jail, and who is eagerly looking for a way to prove herself as the new CEO of Hammer Industries. She’s vying to be the new producer of hardware for SI, just like everyone else, and her company is meeting with him to discuss today.

Her demeanor hasn’t changed much since the last time they networked. She’s wearing a frightening amount of red, from her hair to her lips to her monochrome pantsuit, and she carries herself like she owns the world, despite the fact that her company’s technology has a history of being garbage and it nearly halved in size after the whole Stark Expo fiasco.

She’s smarter than her father, Tony will give her that. During the meeting with her top executives and his top executives, she brings up how much their company has grown in the past few years, and how many new contracts they’ve landed, and how, under her leadership, the company has a new, more sustainable, direction. She also is more sly in her degrading remarks than her father was.

“You say you are an equal opportunity employer, yet I noticed a lack of accessibility items for submissives,” she says, tilting her head to the side so her short hair falls lightly onto her face.

“Such as?” Tony asks, his tone carefully bored. They’ve been talking for about a half an hour, and all Tony’s been listening to is Hammer and her team talking about how great they are.

“Well, for example, Hammer Industries provides cushions for submissives to kneel, in case they feel overwhelmed with their work and need a place to focus,” she says.

“If anyone at Stark Industries, no matter their designation, feels overwhelmed with their work, they are welcome to take advantage of the state of the art break room and its amenities, or take a paid mental health day,” Tony counters easily.

“Do you find yourself taking advantage of your break room often, Mr. Stark?” she asks inquisitively.

Tony feigns ignorance. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean the CEO position can be very… overwhelming.”

Tony smiles. “If you are feeling the pressure, perhaps you should think about instituting mental health days as well, Ms. Hammer.”

Justine laughs. “You are very funny, Mr. Stark.”

They eventually get down to business. The offer her company has is surprisingly fair for a first contract. It’s a seven year commitment to produce all of Stark Industries chips and small hardware devices, as well as a discount if the contract is exclusive, and, most notably, a money back guarantee on products that are not up to quality specifications. With further negotiation, it will likely end up giving SI more of an advantage, which Tony finds highly suspicious.

They exchange professional goodbyes, and Tony sends the contract to his legal team. Overall, the board seems satisfied with the contract, but Tony’s still worried there’s something he’s missing in the fine print.

He puts it out of his mind and has Pepper bring him a coffee. He has several more companies’ offers to consider before he makes a final decision, and Tony resigns himself to a, long day.
   
The next three days, Bucky tries subtlety. Smiling more when he’s around Steve, touching his skin more often, even going as far as to hug him, even briefly. Steve’s reactions vary from bemused to pleased with the change in behavior, though he never initiates anything, or reciprocates in kind. Bucky tries not to take it to heart.

In the mornings, when Steve comes up to deliver breakfast, Bucky asks to eat it with him. He tries to join him at the gym, though he quickly realizes he’s grossly out of shape by supersoldier standards, to Steve’s never ending amusement. He eats every meal with him, jokes with him, and even asks him to get coffee outside the tower on the weekend.

He tries everything he can think of to open up to Steve, and though it does seem to bring him into a better mood after what happened to him at the VA, he still seems to remain at arms’ distance, like he’s happy treating Bucky like a friend he’s getting to know all over again.

And then Bucky, sitting on the couch late Wednesday night, slams his book shut and slaps himself in the forehead.

When has subtlety ever worked with Steve?

He puts the book on the ground next to him – Pride and Prejudice today – and goes searching for Steve.

He finds him in the art studio. He’s sitting with his legs spread on the ground, painting thick black lines onto a large piece of thick white paper with a brush. He looks up when Bucky enters and gives him another one of his sunny smiles, before placing the brush down carefully and standing up.

The usual awkwardness washes over him, the confusion at where he stands with Steve combined with the last few days of trying to initiate contact and getting mixed signals on whether it’s well received. It’s the look in his eyes that finally springs Bucky into action, because Steve Rogers is a man that is decisive, but every time he looks at Bucky, his gaze and body language scream hesitation, and the concept of Steve Rogers stopping to

think

is so foreign to Bucky that he has to say something.

“Why don’t you touch me?” Bucky asks, the words bursting from his chest.

Steve straightens, and his smile falls, and then he actually looks guilty.

“Even when we weren’t… even before we… you’d touch me. Hug me, let me wrap an arm around your shoulder, hang off my back when we were kids. I miss that!” Bucky says forcefully. “You used to be this… this spitfire of a man. Act first and think second, trust yourself to know what’s right. So what’s with the hesitation, huh? You were the typa guy to do things for people, even if it almost killed you. What was it they used to say? You’d take over half the load—”

“Even though I was under half the size,” Steve finishes quietly.

“Right! And I remember you making decisions, and now you’re not? No one has better judgement than you, but you can’t see what’s right in front of you?” Bucky feels his voice start to rise, and he fights it, trying to keep calm.

“Bucky, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how I was affecting you,” Steve says carefully. His expression is much too open for Bucky to handle. “I was just giving you space. I didn’t think you’d… you’d want to…”

“To what? To hug you? Hold your hand? Kiss you?”

Steve’s eyes go wide with surprise, and his mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

“Some nights, you are all I think about,” Bucky says quietly. “The way you…

dominated

me.” Bucky tries the word out on his tongue.

Steve closes his mouth and swallows. “And you know that has nothing to do with your time as the soldier,” Steve says, and Bucky shakes his head because of course Steve would try to comfort him, even now.

“I remember how scared you were too, us being together.”

Steve takes a careful step towards Bucky, but still leaves an infuriating amount of space between the two of them. “I couldn’t risk you getting hurt, Buck. Not after what happened to…”

“After what happened to…?”

Steve’s face goes tight. “What else do you remember?” hee deflects quickly.

“I remember us, being together,” Bucky says quietly. “But not quite

together.

You know? You kept insisting that it would never go anywhere, and I always, I kinda wondered, for a little while, if it’s because you didn’t… feel the way I did.”

Steve’s face draws tight with sadness. “You were everything Bucky.”

Bucky feels an empty smile form on his face. “I

was

everything. Back then. But now we’re not—"

“You still are!” Steve says. “I mean, dammit Bucky.” Steve runs a hand through his hair, and sighs. “It’s all different now. The last thing I want to do is force you to do something or be something you’re not. What I am to you is something that you have to realize yourself.”

It’s quiet for a moment, then Bucky snorts. “When the hell did you get so smart?”

Steve smiles, but it’s a little sad. “Sam, uh, Falcon, the guy whose wings you tried to rip off, he’s also a therapist, and a friend. He’s been helping me talk about things. We met when I was spending a few days in DC, going to see some people at SHIELD. He was on my jogging route.” Steve smiles at the memory. “And then I saw him again when everything went to shit. Showed up at his house with a dead Iron Man suit and a charred Black Widow. He fixed us up and made up breakfast, then asked to join the fight.”

“Sounds like your kinda guy,” Bucky says.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, and then it’s quiet for an awkward moment, and Bucky figures he’s already in for a penny.

“Tony and I have been having sex,” Bucky says.

There’s a pregnant pause as Steve digests this information. His expression filters through wide eyed surprise, intense guilt, then a combination of confusion and hurt.

“I heard you kissed ‘em,” Bucky continues.

Steve straightens and his face tightens. “I swear, I didn’t know you two were together. Jesus Bucky, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s… more complicated than that,” Bucky says. “We’re not together, in that sense of the word. We just, kinda…” Bucky tries to find a way to describe that tugging in his gut he gets when he’s near Tony, the draw to his personality…

“Kinda just fell into each other,” Bucky says, looking down. Here goes nothing. “And I think it was because we were both missing the same thing. Both missing you.”

“I don’t understand,” Steve says.

“Each time Tony and I got together, all we seemed to talk about is you,” Bucky says. “Not really a good basis for a relationship, thinking about another man.”

“Buck?” Steve breathes, confusion marring his face.

“All we can think about…” Bucky swallows dryly, and his hands come out of his pocket and twist into his shirt, his eyes still down, and suddenly pretending everything is okay is much too difficult for Bucky to handle, and emotion bleeds into his voice like a wound that’s been prodded too many times.

“All I can think about is the way you

taste.

” He shudders out the last word, then looks up at Steve whose expression is melting. “Like sweat, and steel, and salt. All of my dreams have been of you standing over me, underneath me,

behind

me, and I keep having these flashes, just brief moments, of things we used to do, and they are—and I feel

alive,

Steve, for the first time, in a long time, I feel alive when I wake up from those dreams, when I remember the things we used to do,” Bucky breathes.

Steve’s eyes are wide.

“Do you remember?”

Bucky feels suddenly desperate, because he just put much too much on the table, and he can’t bear to think that Steve doesn’t feel the same, that he doesn’t remember, that everything he’s been dreaming about is another lie.

“Do you? You were—you were too scared to go outside and hold my hand, back then, and you used to insist that we wouldn’t last forever, that I’d eventually find some dame so I’d be safe, but,

God,

the way you looked at me!” Bucky feels his hands shake where they grip his shirt, feels them start to rip the fabric.

“When you talked down to me, when you hurt me, it was like you were staring into my soul, Stevie, like everything I tried to be was stripped away so that you’d bare me to the world and make me feel like I was flying! Do you remember? Tell me,

tell me,

you remember, because it’s all I can think about, and I can’t tell what’s real and not real anymore, but this has to be, Stevie, tell me you remember,

tell me

—”

“I remember!” Steve nearly shouts, and he sounds like he’s been wrung dry, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “Of course I remember, how could I forget you? The way you used to give yourself to me. I couldn’t believe you’d let me,

me,

even touch you, even kiss you, let alone bring you to such a state where you were begging.” Steve’s words seem to pour from his soul. “I’d never seen something so beautiful as that, as you giving yourself to me, over, and over, and over….”

Bucky gasps and stumbles into the empty space between them just as Steve’s arms spread wide and they crush each other in a tight hug, grasping desperately to that memory of forever they had nearly let die.

“I

miss

you Stevie,” Bucky feels himself start to cry. “And you’re the only thing that’s been cutting through the bullshit I’m fighting through, and I need you to know that.”

“Of course Bucky, I understand completely. I just didn’t want to push.” Steve pulls back slightly, to look at him. “I just wanted you to know that you have no obligations with me here. But I guess I wasn’t pushing enough.”

“But what if that’s what I want? I know I’m not the same, but what if I want what we had again, and more?” Bucky says desperately.

Steve looks at him for a long moment, then his expression collapses into a sad, yet warm, smile.

“Then you can have it,” Steve says quietly.

Bucky closes his eyes and tries to kiss him. He ends up missing, but Steve’s lips find his and they are kissing. It’s wet and messy and slow. Bucky feels something right slot into place in the sea of wrongness that’s been floating around his head, and he presses his whole body forward, wrapping his hands around Steve’s neck.

Steve pulls back, so he can rest his forehead against Bucky’s, chest heaving like he’s on his way to an asthma attack. He’s smiling, and Bucky realizes he’s smiling back, a sort of face splitting smile that hurts his cheeks and shows off too much of his teeth, but he doesn’t care because Steve’s finally looking like the Steve he’s recognizes from so long ago.

They remain that way for a moment, smiling like dopes, forehead against forehead, before a thought strikes Bucky, and he pulls back suddenly just as Steve does the same.

“What about you and Tony?” Bucky and Steve ask each other at the exact same time.

There’s a pause, and Steve closes his eyes and huffs a laugh from under his breath

“Actually…” Bucky starts carefully, and suddenly, Tony’s idea doesn’t seem to be as crazy as it was before. “Tony said he had an idea for all of us.” Bucky swallows carefully and looks into Steve’s curious gaze. “He said we could all three date each other. Together.”

Steve blinks, then frowns slightly.

Bucky continues. “It wouldn’t be normal, but we never were, were we?” Bucky lets out a small laugh. “It could be me and you, you and him, him and me. It could be all of us. Why not?”

“I don’t… three people? In a relationship?” Steve doesn’t seem disgusted, which Bucky takes as a good sign.

Bucky strokes his fingers through the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck. “It’s called polyamory.”

Steve furrows his brow. “The thing with multiple wives?”

“No, it’s different than that, according to Tony,” Bucky says. “Because we are all with all of each other, I think.”

“I guess…” Steve has his thinking face on, like he’s trying to tactically figure out how that would work.

“We can take it slow. Make it ours, Stevie,” Bucky says. He still has trepidations, but he’s perhaps starting to see what Tony sees. Or, rather, he’s starting to think that his life without one of these men would be just as incomplete as life without both of them.

“I suppose we’d need a bigger bed,” Steve says, then goes slightly pink.

Bucky laughs at Steve’s embarrassment. “It makes sense though, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re all a bit more fucked up than the rest of the world, so maybe we need a little bit more support to get along.”

“That makes sense,” Steve says. “Though I don’t think you’re fucked up, by the way.”

Bucky snorts. “Let’s not have that discussion.”

“Let me… this is a lot. Let me think about it. And we should all three talk about it, and really be open about what we want. But I… I actually think this isn’t a bad idea,” Steve says. “Let’s talk to Tony when he gets back, see what he has to say.”

Bucky feels warmth bloom in his chest, and he smiles at Steve. It's not everything he wants, but it will have to suffice for now.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Like usual, Bucky falls asleep part way through the movie Steve picked out. He’s breathing heavily into Steve’s ear, his neck cricked awkwardly into Steve’s shoulder, legs spread slightly, feet resting on the ground below. Steve watches his hair drag along his face as he tilts his head back so it’s cushioned by the couch. He doesn’t wake up.Steve stares at him unabashedly, a furrow in his brow. Tracing the crumpled lines of his body, watching his eyelids twitch in his sleep, he wonders, not for the first time, what the fuck he’s doing.Bucky is his best friend, and he loves him, had loved him from the second he knocked George Carlson’s teeth in for pulling on Sarah Anderson’s hair. But looking at him now, he’s also so very different than the man he grew up with. And Steve expected as much; certain hells leave a different kind of mark, the kind that sits on the soul and applies weight with every step. Steve’s familiar with those weights, knows they don’t tend to go away on their own, that it takes time to build up the strength to carry yourself forward.But Steve had grieved him, dammit. Had sat at the man’s grave at Arlington and cried, cried until he eyes were swollen and his face was red. He spoke to him for hours, day after day. He apologized for not being there to catch him when he fell, the apologized again because Steve knew Bucky would insist it wasn’t his fault. He’d tell him how guilty he felt wishing he were here, even just his body, something tangible for Steve to say goodbye too.Weeks went by, and the grief transformed. He starting telling him stories about the future, starting with small things like how clean the air is and how big the airplanes are and how fast the cars go. He told him how the future protects people like him now, how they have parades and festivals that try to teach him to be proud of who he is, not ashamed. He told him the about the woman who wore shorter skirts and took less shit and how much Bucky would have liked them.He also told Bucky of a man that pissed him off even more than Bucky did when they first met, a man in a metal suit who has decided the entire world is his responsibility to save. Told him about how they hated one another blindly and childishly, until they were all brought to the brink of destruction and forced to cling to each other to survive. Yes, he told that empty casket in the ground about how he’s falling for Tony Stark, falling for him hard.And then Steve wasn’t at Arlington anymore. He moved up to New York, up to something new with Tony, swirling and blending into the man’s personality, fighting and laughing and understanding him a little more each day, until Steve couldn’t imagine what life was like before him.And then Bucky came back.Steve had let him go, but now he was here. And that was—for a while, he couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t watch the man he loved not quite be the man he loved, not quite be the person he was used to, hell, not be a person at all, and Steve, with the heavy advice given from Sam and Nat, realized he needed to give him the space to figure out where he fits now.That’s why he left to fight Hydra. It was selfish and maybe even cruel to Tony, but Steve couldn’t handle it. Steve needed the space to grieve all over again, for a different kind of loss, for a love whose flame grew dim, but still managed to burn Steve anyway.What he didn’t expect was to come back to Bucky and Tony together. Which would have been okay, Steve would have moved on, he’s an adult, but Tony then kissed him, and Bucky had kissed him too and confessed that the whole time he had… they had been waiting for Steve, and now they both want to… to…“Stop movin’” Bucky’s voice, muffled by Steve’s shirt, is low and gritty. He is still close to sleep.Steve realizes that he’d hunched over, jostling Bucky’s head.“Sorry,” Steve says. “Here, put your head in my lap, it’s hurting my neck just looking at you.”Bucky obliges without complaint and is fast asleep moments later, body stretched out on the couch, drooling into Steve’s thigh.Effectively pinned down for the time being, Steve shakes out of his thought process, switches the TV over to the news, and is immediately greeted with an argument between three people sitting at a shiny black table, bright blue TV screens surrounding them all.A balding man in a white shirt and blue jeans was half out of his seat, pointing at a blue haired woman in a black dress with her arms crossed on the other side of the table. “Here’s the problem,” he says, seemingly halfway through an argument, “people think they’re born into these roles, but they’re not! There’s no genetic predisposition, there’s no hormones that produce any Dominant or submissive anything, and, despite what people may want you to think, it’s not tied into testosterone or estrogen. Aggression is not Dominance.”Steve blinks at the TV. Seems he has turned on a program that’s already in progress, and he doesn’t have the faintest idea what started the discussion in the first place, but it’s very heated, and has to do with the part of the world Steve is still very confused about.The blue haired woman, Taylor it says on the bottom of the screen, responds. “That can’t be entirely true. Isn’t is linked to personality? If someone is submissive, they share certain traits with other submissives, right?”Balding man, Jamal, says “It’s dangerous to simplify the matter so much. Submissives are as different from each other as people of the same gender are different. It’s all about context for one. Look at the prime example, the debate of service versus provision. If a Dom cooks for a sub, it’s providing, if a sub cooks for a Dom, it’s service.”“Wait, I thought we were talking about how submissives were different from each other?” Taylor says, confused.“If you’d let me finish,” Jamal says, haughty, “yes, so why don’t all submissives cook? Because some submissives think it’s providing, some think its serving. We can’t say that act is a submissive act, because some people don’t see it that way.”“Wait, wait, wait, doesn’t that prove my point? You just implied that all submissives are service oriented. What about the Dom Mom—”“No,” Jamal rolls his eyes in an exaggerated manner. “That was just the example. Listen, okay, and this is my—this is the last point I’m going to make. We are a society that is obsessed with binaries, and valiantly attempts to generalize mass amounts of the population into two separate boxes. This is true when it comes to anything, man and woman, straight and gay, and it’s happening with Dominance and submission; hell, don’t even get me started on switch erasure. Once we realize that the way some has sex has no bearing on the way they act in public, then we can finally put to rest these labels, and stop trying to vilify people about things that don’t matter.”“I agree with your first point about the binaries, but I disagree about how designation has nothing to do with how someone behaves. Prime example: Tony Stark, arguably the most famous sub in America—a sub that was outed against his will, mind you—that runs one of the most successful companies in the world, is a damn superhero, saved the planet, even, and is submissive. Extremely so!”Steve, eyes wide, leans forward on the couch, watching as an image of Tony Stark appears on screen next two the two arguers. Bucky makes a noise of annoyance in his lap.“Doesn’t that prove my point?” Jamal nearly shouts, “That how he acts in the bedroom doesn’t affect his ability outside of it?”Taylor puts her hands down on the table, and rises to meet his gaze. “No not at all, and with that statement you actually reveal the true flaw of your argument. First, I think the reason Tony Stark is so capable as a man is because in part that he is submissive. I think it gives him leverage, and a perspective we are not used to. And I think without he submissive side, we wouldn’t see the same man. It’s not just sex, it’s part of him! And the fatal flaw of your argument, the almost paradoxical claim your making is that Tony Stark being as successful as he is a Dominant action, when in reality it’s part of his personality and who he is, mixed in with the part of him that’s submissive.”“I never said that—”“But you implied it,” Taylor continues, her voice almost frantic with passion, “when you said, ‘how he acts in the bedroom doesn’t affect his ability outside of it.’ What you’re saying is that even though he’s so submissive, he’s still capable of doing great things, and that in itself is implying that submissives can’t do those things unless they can separate the submission from the rest of their life. You see submission as a brief relief from true self, I see it as part of the true self, I see the whole person. Tony Stark as a submissive who did not succeed despite his designation, but because of it, and because the person he is today would not be as great as if he was someone else.”“I—”The newscaster cuts in sharply, making Steve jump in surprise. “I’m sorry, we’re all out of time…” She starts, and Steve turns off the TV almost immediately afterwards.Switch erasure? Dom Moms? Binaries? What in God’s name has the 21st Century got itself into? Steve’s mind is already swirling with his newly kindled feelings for Bucky and his old ones with Tony, mixing with an intense guilt that he hasn’t quite pinpointed. Add on the confusion of a world of labels he doesn’t understand, and the fact that apparently he and Bucky’s little games are now things that are commonplace, and that the national news decided to use Tony as an example of submission without even asking his permission, and Steve is officially overwhelmed.It’s extremely rare that he feels out of control like this. Complexity typically allows him to become even more focused on the problems at hand. It’s that quality that he attributes his ability to create a battle plan against unknown entities, and adjust them accordingly in battle.And though this isn’t a battle, Steve still feels like he’s losing.Steve stands up abruptly.“Motherfu—mmfh.”Shit. “Sorry! Bucky, I forgot you were there,” Steve says, scrambling down to his knees to help Bucky up, from where Steve’s movement had rolled him face first onto the floor“Clearly! Steve, the hell?” Bucky grouses, shaking off Steve’s helping hand and pushing himself to his feet.“I wanted to go on a run,” Steve says, still apologetic.“Isn’t it super late?”“Yeah. Just need to clear my head about some things,” Steve continues.“Can’t you… run tomorrow?” Something about the tone of Bucky’s voice gives Steve pause. “I just thought we could…” Bucky waves awkwardly at the couch. “Just sleep together.”“Yeah, yeah we can do that, Buck,” Steve says. “How about…” Steve was going to offer to join him in bed after his run—he really needs to clear his head—but as soon as Steve starts to speak, Bucky’s eyes fall slightly, just enough for Steve to notice.“When you get back, then.” Bucky says. He’s nodding to himself, an arm scratching at the back of his neck, resigned, and Steve immediately kicks himself for putting that look on his face.“No.” Steve changes his mind, and he reaches out towards Bucky, putting a hand on his upper arm. “We’ll go to bed, it’s better to run in the morning anyway,” Steve says, like that’s the reason he’s doing this.A hesitant smile starts to form on Bucky’s face. “Are you sure?” He asks, likely as a formality as it’s clear that this is what Bucky really wants..“Yeah,” Steve says, and he, once again, pushes everything aside for Bucky. “Come on Buck, you’re room or mine?”Bucky’s smiles widens. “Yours.”    Bucky tucks into Steve’s bed like he never left. He fits there like he belongs there. He forgoes a shirt, and he is breathing deeply, on leg over the sheet and one leg under, the metal arm staying unnaturally still as the rest of his body pulses with life.Steve’s last image before falling into a fitful sleep is of Bucky’s back, the metal arm staying unnaturally still as the rest of his body pulses with sleep.    The sun is barely rising when Steve starts his run. He decides to make it a long on today. He’s got a lot on his mind.The first thing Steve’s mind goes to is the news from last night; the talk about Dominance and submission. Steve’s shocked that it was so candidly spoken about, on national television none the less, but he supposes this is the way of the future now.Steve knows enough to know he’s a Dom and that Bucky is? Was? A sub. He knows Tony is a sub, knew even from before the argument last night. People were pretty adamant about telling him, for some reason.How would that even work? Steve thinks as he darts around a pile of trash bags. Bucky seemed to imply that they would all be together, yet doesn’t Steve, as a Dom, have some sort of special responsibility? Sure, they can all be together, and sure Bucky and Tony can have sex, and Steve could have sex with both of them… But what about the designation part of it?Would Tony even want that from Steve? He had heard about that famous expose from one of his former lovers, but Steve felt it would be a massive breach of privacy to even seek it out. But assuming Tony does want Steve to hurt him like Bucky—boy if his blood wasn’t busy trying to pump oxygen to his muscles, it would be heading straight to his groin—there’s also a strength issue. If Steve wasn’t careful, he might accidentally hurt him seriously. At least leave behind bruises.Unless of course Tony doesn’t mind bruises, some mark, or reminder, that Steve was there. Maybe on his ass, so he can feel it when he sits down, or on his wrist or neck, so everyone can see that he belonged to St—“Shit—” Steve yelps as the toe of his sneaker catches the edge of a storm drain, and he tumbles face first onto the asphalt, frightening a flock of pigeons into taking flight over the river.He moans and rolls onto his back, and he realizes, vaguely, that his face is bleeding and his dick is at half-mast in his shorts.Steve closes his eyes and leans his head back on the ground.   He ends up making his way back to the tower, given that he’s not gone that far, his face more red with embarrassment than blood. He’s scraped himself up pretty bad, but it’s more surface area then depth, and given his attire of running shorts and a t-shirt, he’s scraped up his hand and knees as well. When he strides into the penthouse, he comes across Tony, who must be having a rare day where he doesn’t have to be at work at six AM.“What happened to you?” Tony says by way of greeting. He’s lying on the couch, reading a book that looked like it had a thousand pages. He drops it on the end table and sits up when Steve walks in, eyes tracing Steve’s beat up face.He makes an ugly picture, half healed wounds on his face and hands, and he’s pretty sure he’s covered in dried blood.“You shoulda seen the other guy,” Steve mutters, heading to the sink to wash off.“You got into a fight? With someone who could actually hurt you?” Tony’s voice is suddenly much more alert, and is growing louder as he gets closer to SteveSteve backtracks quickly. “No, not like that. It’s not that serious.”“Serious? I don’t need to tell you the implications if someone out there is that strong—"“I tripped and fell on my run today, okay?” Steve snaps, and he tucks his head and scrubs his hands with dish soap.Tony’s quiet behind his back. After a moment Steve deflates a bit and turns to look at him.Tony has a shit-eating grin on his face, and he’s relaxed from fight or flight mode into a casual lean against the counter.Steve points a soapy finger at him. “Don’t say a word.” “What’s there to say? Other than you lost a fight with a piece of concrete somewhere? Where did it happen, we need to immortalize it, put it in a museum.”Steve rolls his eyes and goes back to scrubbing his hands, but an insistent smile starts tugging at his lips.“Did you at least leave a crack or two? Or probably a dent, given how hard a head you have.”“You know what? I’m taking that as a compliment,” Steve says. He flips off the water, and reaches for the towel hanging from the oven.“Jesus, no, what are you a Neanderthal? Kitchen towels do not deal with human blood. Come on, macho man, I’ve got a first aid kit under the sink.”“Under the kitchen sink?”“With what we do? Under every sink,” Tony says.A small bit of maneuvering later, Steve is sitting on a barstool as Tony dabs at his face with a soft wet towel. Tony didn’t even give him the option to insist he can do it himself, but he doesn’t mind the closeness of it all, and let’s himself be taken care of.Tony swipes the wipe over the open cut on Steve’s forehead, and it stings.“Ow,” Steve says.“Quiet,” Tony admonishes.Tony goes through three towels before he’s satisfied, not only wiping off the blood from Steve’s face, but his legs and arms too. His legs and arms are already healed, and his face is probably close to done too, but Steve couldn’t find it within himself to stop Tony from cleaning him up, from swiping off the dried blood off his body like he’s cleansing Steve.“I’m not going to waste a bandage on you, but try to avoid head butting anything for a little while, hard-head,” Tony says.Tony’s eyes meet his, and Steve finds he can’t look away. His body tingles from the feeling of the towel against his skin. Tony’s standing just between Steve’s legs, close enough that Steve can feel the warmth radiating off his body. Unbidden, Steve’s eyes fall to Tony’s lips, then to his neck, and Steve thinks about what brought him to this state in the first place.His eyes snap back to Tony’s, and inhales through his teeth. Tony’s eyes are dark and his pupils are wide. One of Tony’s hands comes to rest on Steve’s bare knee, and he rubs his thumb in a slow circle against the skin.“I like the shorts,” Tony says.Steve responds by pressing his legs together, effectively trapping Tony between his legs, encouraging him to move his hips forward just a little more…Tony takes a deep breath in, then blinks and takes a measured step backwards. Steve feels his face flush, feeling a mix of relief and frustration that Tony didn’t make a move.Tony starts gathering the dirty towels, looking away from Steve intentionally.“I heard you talked to Bucky,” he says.Steve feels himself go from pink to red. Tony gives him a considering look, before circling the kitchen to thrown the rags in the trash. “Blush anymore and you’ll start bleeding again. All that blood rushing to your face.”“Then you’d have to clean me up again,” Steve says.Tony’s eyes flash with something, but he doesn’t elaborate, turning on the sink to wash his hands. “What did you think?”Steve sighs and shifts his position in the seat. What does he think? “I think it’s… different, to say the least.”“Yes, but no, not really. Come on talk it out.”Where does he even start? The way his feelings for Bucky that had oh so recently been reignited makes him feel like he’s taking advantage of a healing man? The confusion of what they all expect from one another? The way modern relationships seemed to have changed so much already? The—“I can smell the smoke from how hard you’re thinking right now, but I can’t talk you into this until you actually say the words out loud, Cap.”“How would…three of us. Work?” Steve says. Good place to start as any.“Well, there’s a number of ways to have a relationship with three people,” Tony says, joining Steve back at the bar. “We can do everything together, or do things with one another in equal measure, or have a bit of both. Rules are pretty lax.”Steve tries valiantly to keep his mind off sex. “So it wouldn’t be like one of us was the… husband, and the other two were the wives?” Steve winces at Tony’s expression. That definitely didn’t come out right.“Why are you two so adamant on thinking this is polygamy?”“Well, polyamory wasn’t a word when I was born,” Steve says. “And growing up a Christian—” Tony’s eyes fill with understanding “—it was one man and one woman. And I know that’s not true, obviously, but you’d hear stories about other faiths where a man has several wives, and everyone made it seem like such a… backwards practice. Like it was a man getting bored with one woman and moving on to the another. That’s not what I want.”“And I also bet that Catholic guilt is eating you up, making you feel like you’re being greedy, hm?”“…Kind of. Yeah,” Steve says. “I never saw myself with another man in the long term, let alone two. But I also don’t think I’m opposed to the idea. But it’s a different way of thinking, you know? I was…  ready to move on from Bucky and go after you, and now you’re saying I can eat my cake and then have it too."“Look. I will say it’s clear that, looking like us like a triangle, two of the relationship legs are stronger than the third.”Steve nods. “You and me, and you and Bucky.”“What? No. You and I, and you and Bucky.”“I don’t think so,” Steve frowns. He and Bucky are, for all intents and purposes, starting anew.Tony sighs. “Listen, let’s agree to disagree. For your guilt problem, look at it like this: There’s something I get from you that I don’t get from Bucky. When I’m with him, it feels like something is missing. That’s you. That’s what this is.”“Do you feel that way when you’re with me?” Steve can’t help but feel a little hurt. Is he not enough for Tony?“I mean, do I wish Bucky were here, cracking jokes about the fact you just face planted into a sidewalk? Kinda, yeah. But that has no bearing on you and me, you know?” Tony says. His hand is back on Steve’s knee, but the touch is less sexual and more grounding than anything.“I don’t know,” Steve says, frowning.“I also care about Bucky too, especially when he goes all angsty teen on us. But you can talk to him in a way that I can’t. You have a relationship with him that I don’t, but that doesn’t take away from what I do with him.”Steve tilts his head, then leans back against the counter. “So there’s really four relationships. You and I, you and him, and he and you. But also, all three of us.”“Now you’re getting it!” Tony grins. “You’re a natural.”“That makes sense,” Steve says slowly. It would be equal between the three of them. But what about their designations? Steve doesn’t even know how to start that conversation, but Tony beats him to the punch“And… Do I also wish Bucky was here so that he could sandwich me between his cock and yours?” Tony says in a low voice, eyes dark.Steve’s breath hitches. Tony’s smirking.“No fair talking about sex,” Steve half-heartedly chides. The thought of having two men in the same bed as him at one time...“Mmm.” Tony says. “It’d be so hot though, right?”“Yeah,” Steve sighs, rubbing his hand over his knee.“Yeah it would.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Steve leaves Bucky in the morning to go on his run, Bucky’s unconscious brain takes him promptly to hell. They seemed to have been backed up in his brain like a stubborn piece of shit, but now, they bleed all over each other.Bucky wakes up with black in the corners of his eyes, vision shaking like a poor video connection, heart pounding and chest heaving.He ends up with his back to the wall in the bathroom, the only protection between him and the world being a glass shower door and a straight razor, clutched tightly in a white, trembling hand.        When Tony leaves Steve to head to his office, he still thinks about touching his face. He thinks about cleaning his body, wiping away the blood. About serving. In his office he locks the door and dims the lights and unzips his Armani suit pants. In his hand he twists his cock; in his mind, he twists the memory. He imagines dropping to his knees and looking into Steve’s eyes as he tends to his legs. He imagines watching Steve’s hand dip below his obscene running shorts to fondle himself as Tony worships his legs, imagines watching him pull himself out of them, while Tony kisses reverently at his bent knee. He imagines him stroking himself, cock rock hard, a bead pre-cum breaking over the tip and falling into a rivulet down the side.“Take care of me, Tony,” he would say, and Tony would dive for it.He’d push Steve’s dick in his mouth and down his throat until it burned everywhere it touched; he’d swallow and swallow again to give Steve’s cock a massage. He’d bob up and down, short enough so the head of Steve’s cock never quite left the vice of his throat, and when he deepthroated him, he’d flatten his tongue and reach for his balls too, like he was trying to swallow the whole thing at once.And Steve would be pleased at his eagerness. Maybe he would thrust. Maybe he’d hold Tony by his hair, gently, firmly, keeping him still as he used his hole, and Tony would keep his mouth lax and drool over his chin until he was given permission to swallow, looking up at Steve’s face with wide watery eyes as Steve took what belonged to him.But, just maybe, Steve would relax his thighs and close his eyes and lean back and let Tony work, let him bring the man to release with the wet, pulsating heat of his mouth, allowing Tony to be rewarded by the bitter, salty taste of his release, letting Tony bask in the victory of pulling a long, finishing moan from the man who is normally so stoic.And Tony, (who came into a tissue with a grunt and a jerk), would play with his softening dick with his tongue until he grew sensitive, then play with him more gently until he grew soft, then, using a clean, warm towel, wipe him down until he was clean, tuck him back in his shorts, and finish cleaning Steve up with a ‘thank you, sir,’ on his lips.        As Tony leaves Steve to head to the office, Steve is left in an off, aroused state. He feels his arms and legs tingle when they make contact with the air, heightening his already heightened senses, and, with the thought of Tony between his legs pervading his mind, his cock start to strain, painfully, against his shorts.Steve stalks in long strides towards the elevator, fingertips digging into his thigh, face burning with need and embarrassment. He waits impatiently—it’s still dropping Tony off, it seems—before, unable to suppress it any longer, he digs his hand into his shorts and palms himself, biting his lip to stifle the moan despite being alone. He hasn’t had a guilty jerkoff since he still thought God hated him, but it feels wrong now, picturing the two men specifically in his mind, like it is somehow an invasion of their privacy.He’s usually not the kind of person to masturbate thinking about another person. He likes imagining situations, nameless faceless men of various heights in sizes. He’d use his artist’s mind to his benefit, picturing a lean, muscled body underneath him, body twitching and shaking with every thrust, or imagine dark hair bobbing between his legs, imagine feeling his throat expand and retract underneath his palm.But lately that nameless faceless man had a face and a name, and even more lately had two faces, and two names. Tony, with his snark and his smile and his lean body and tight ass, begging for Steve to lavish with attention, and Bucky with the hair Steve wants to pull, lips he wants to bite until they were pink.And yet, he thinks as the elevator finally arrives, he’s clearly been given the invitation to think whatever he thinks about them, and maybe stopping himself from suppressing it so much would be a good way as any to figure out where he wants this relationship to go.The elevator door opens and adjusts himself again, walking towards his room. He has a frantic thought about Bucky—will he still be there? Will he have left? Does Steve want him there? Would Bucky want too…? Anxious excitement builds as he opens the door.As he tries to open the door. He pulls at the handle, but it’s rigidly locked.“JARVIS?” Steve doesn’t finish the question. “I’m afraid Sergeant Barnes is having an episode, and it would not be safe for you to enter.” JARVIS says in the hallway. He’s tone is somber and quiet.Adrenaline pulls Steve’s head from the gutter. “When did it start? Has he hurt himself?”“ The event began at 7:34 AM upon waking. He attempted to roll under the bed, then went to the shower stall. He’s been sitting there for an hour. He is unharmed.” “Shit,” Steve mutters. Arousal forgotten; he pulls a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”        Pepper strides into Tony’s office at 9:01 AM. Tony can’t see her, he’s looking out the window, but he hears her heels clicking against the floor.“Next week, you’re in California,” she says by way of greeting.“Didn’t know you could see the future.”“You’re meeting with three chip companies—”“Don’t tell me in—”“In Silicon Valley.”“God,” Tony spins in his chair to face her. “Everyone there is either an entitled douchebag or a desperate fanboy.”“The jet is booked from Wednesday to Friday,” Pepper continues. She’s looking down at a tablet, swiping through Tony’s schedule.“Everyone in Silicon Valley smells like BO or cheese,” he whines. “And no one can grow a proper beard, nor should they be trying.”“The best microelectronics deal you have right now is Hammer, and probably the only way you’ll get a better one and get the board off your ass after suspending Lindsay is to leverage deals with these three.”Tony knows, but still. If he has to see Elon Musk’s ‘how come you haven’t figured out space travel yet?’ face one more time…“I’m officially declaring that you are to go in my place. I can do that.” Probably. “I can do that, right?”Pepper’s smile is what Tony likes to call professionally indulgent.“I hereby authorize you.” Tony waves his hand in the air like he’s the Queen of England, issuing a knighthood. “By the power invested in me by the state of New York City…”Pepper’s demeanor cracks, and a small giggle bubbles up.“You’re in a good mood,” she comments.He continues to ramble. “I do ordain, and, uh, establish… this…” Tony trails off.“Are you reciting the preamble to the Constitution, Tony?”Tony clears his throat. “We the people—”“I’m—stop, Tony, I’m begging you— I can’t go because I’m not an executive.”“I haven’t made you an exec yet?”“You’ve tried, countless times,” Pepper says with an exasperated tone. “And though I keep saying no, you certainly pay me like one.”Tony grins. “You deserve it, for dealing with me.”Pepper clicks her pen. “Yes, I do. Now, there was an explosion in one of our overseas labs yesterday…”        Steve’s never considered himself an abstract artist, but that’s certainly what’s coming out of his brush right now. Tumultuous black lines soak into the canvas, crossing and looping and twisting with one another.“How long’s it been, JARV.” Steve says. His next stroke is curved, loping slightly upwards.
“Four hours, sir. He seems to have fallen asleep.”
Steve pauses. “Can I—” “Sergeant Barnes has requested that no one attempt to talk to him in this state until he has given an all clear,” JARVIS replies sharply.Steve nods, and tries very hard not to feel hurt. “Right. Right. Let me know when he wakes up?” “Of course, Captain,” JARVIS saysSteve’s next stroke is a sharp, solid, shaky, black.        “I guess… I just don’t understand… why you would see fit to remove Lindsay from her position at such a trying time for the company.”Blonde haired, green eyed Rick is standing in front of Tony’s desk, using his bulk to come across as more imposing. In some sort of power move, he’d turned the weekly standup report he was supposed to be giving Tony into a way to express his displeasure with everything Tony is doing. Tony will give it to him, he’s doing a very good job of maintaining the farce that this has anything to do with Stark Industries at least, but Tony’s only tolerating it enough to get more info into the size and strength of the mutiny forming underneath him.“Rules apply to everyone, Ricky.” Tony says, signing away at a new contract opportunity with the Department of Defense. “I expect a level of professionalism in my company, and my authority to be respected.”“I would rather you didn’t call me Ricky, Mr. Stark,” Rick says, voice shallowly pleasant.“I know.” Tony crosses the two ‘T’s in his name in the most obnoxious way possible. “Either way, it’s not a trying time for the company. You’ve been reading the numbers; you know our growth rate has never been higher.”“Only because we’re getting back to where we were before the last time the company had a media problem.” Rick says. “I’d be interested to see what Stark Industries would be capable of if it wasn’t so… controversial. We are a technology company, not a Hollywood production company.”“I’m not sure what you’re implying,” Tony says in a way that implies that he knows exactly what Rick’s implying. “That the act of closing down our least profitable branch, a perfectly sound business move, is somehow more or less controversial than anything else we’ve done?”“Somehow, when Stark Industries does it, as opposed to anyone else, it seems to be incredibly controversial. Do you ever think about why?”“Nope. Anything else, Ricky?”Rick shifts to a crossed arm position, eyes sharp. “Emerging tech could really use that warehouse up North,” he says.“It’s been sold to an interested private party,” Tony dismisses instantly.Rick shakes his head and laughs under his breath. “You know, it’s really easy to make those decisions when you are the interested private party.”“Yes, it is.” Tony says.“You don’t think the other members of the company, or the board, would have wanted a say in where that warehouse goes? I don’t think it’s very good—”“Enough.” Tony stands up and leans over the desk and looks at Rick through his shades. “The decisions have been made, by me, the CEO and president of this company. If you have a problem, you are welcome to submit a complaint in writing to the HR department. Otherwise, you will recognize my authority.”Rick doesn’t back down, leaning over the desk to match Tony’s position. He might be taller than Tony, but Tony’s had a foot high ledge installed underneath his desk that puts them more or less at the same height. Call it petty, but there’s a reason many of the world’s leaders are over six feet, and Tony is still waiting for the social change that would allow him to wear heels to work.“I’ve studied this company, and I know that it could be even greater than it is now.”“Hence why you were hired.”“By a different CEO,” Rick adds in an offhand manner that wasn’t offhand at all, and Tony hides a wince, thinking about Obie. “And I know that the reason why it hasn’t been at its best is because it’s leadership has been scattered and distracted by things outside of its control—”“Such as?” Tony challenges. Say the words out loud, he thinks. Say it’s because Tony’s a sub, say it, and Tony will have the lawyers up his ass so fast…“New York.”Tony frowns slightly.“And SHIELD, and the superheroes currently living upstairs in your tower. You are taking out pieces of this company for them, using the companies resources in a personal manner.” It’s the first time Rick’s accused him of doing anything outright, but it’s not what Tony’s expecting.“I’m using my money,” Tony says stiffly. He’s been very, very careful to keep his two ventures separate. He has so much money from other assets that funding this team is like stealing drops from a well.“It’s not just about money. It’s about… Allegiance. Loyalty. And you know the line is hazy between you and the company as entities. If there is somewhere you are cutting corners, I’ll be the first to find it.” Rick says. “And I’m not the only one that thinks this. I just want to be sure that the decisions Stark Industries makes are in its best interests, and under the proper… authority .” The last word is said with a narrowed eyed sneer.There’s a moment of leaden silence, the nuanced layered threat hanging in the air. Tony’s fingers grip the desk tightly, suppressing his anger. Perhaps Rick can see the tense display, because he nods slightly, and the corners of his mouth curl up in a smile.“That’s all for Emerging Technologies Mr. Stark. Anything else?”“You’re dismissed,” Tony says, sitting back down.“Have a good weekend,” Rick says, and he exits Tony’s office with sure, strong steps.        “Hey.”Steve almost jumps at the sound of Bucky’s voice behind him. He looks down at the canvas; it’s ruined, the paint soaking through and wrinkling the fabric, any semblance of the artistic vision Steve may have been chasing wiped out with his uncharacteristic lack of focus and coordination.When did it become like this?Steve stands abruptly and turns to Bucky, who’s leaning against the doorway with nothing to show for his bad morning except for bright, red eyes.“Bucky. Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but what else is Steve going to say?“I don’t get nightmares when I sleep next to someone,” Bucky says bluntly. “If you leave, even just for a little bit, it all comes back. I don’t know why. Maybe an instinct? To keep quiet in close quarters? Maybe Hydra built it inside of me. I don’t know.”Steve stares at him for a moment, a familiar guilt soaking in like paint into a canvas.“I’m sorry—”“You didn’t know. Now you do.” Bucky turns away and shuts the door behind him.“Bucky, wait—” Steve swings it back open and follows him into the hallway. “Bucky don’t leave me in the dark about this. I didn’t know, and now I do, and I won’t do it again. Okay?”Bucky continues walking, and Steve grows annoyed.“You really think walking away from me is going to solve your problems?” Steve shouts.Bucky stops suddenly and whirls around. “Do you know what it’s like to have to rely on someone else for your own sanity? Not just comfort, not like a lover, but to need something to keep you from legitimately going crazy? My brain is fucked, and I’m—” Bucky cuts himself off with a frustrated grunt, then bites his own lip, barely keeping it together.“Bucky,” I know this is hard. And I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” To Steve’s ears the platitudes sound incomplete, like something from a poorly written apology letter in a romantic film. “But know if you need me to be with you 24/7, I’ll be there for you.”“Yeah, but you weren't there, were you.” Bucky shoots back.Steve feels a stab in his heart. “I was—”“I know what you were doing,” Bucky says. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened. That you left, and that it hurt. And I’m glad…” Bucky swallows visibly, then sags on the hallway wall like his strings had been cut. “I’m truly glad you seemed to have found what you needed to find. But it still fucking hurt, Stevie, it hurt, and I needed you, and you—you weren’t there.”“Bucky, I’m sorry.” Steve says. “All I can say is—I’m here now. And I want to help you in whatever way you can. But it would help if you gave me something to go on.” He thinks about the sodding mess of a painting in the room behind him. “Talk to me, help me understand what you’re going through, and we can get through it, okay?”Bucky smiles, barely there, his eyes downcast. “I need a drink,” he mutters, but he turns and walks, slower, towards the elevators.Steve follows.        “J.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to dig up everything you can on Rick Segar.” Tony drums his fingers against his mahogany desktop. “Go back through his background check he did when signing on. More than that—make a pattern of life. Look at social media--I want to know his political beliefs, social groups, his interests outside of work, anything and everything freely available.”Tony watches on screen as JARVIS begins gathering the sources and documents to later compile, screens flipping over one another faster than Tony can keep up.
“Are we staying within the boundaries of the law, sir?”
Tony shoots the rest of his whiskey. “Bend ‘em, don’t break ‘em.”Tony doesn’t like when things start to fall out of line in his own house. He gets enough shit from the outside. That he can handle, but when people try to get him on the inside? That’s when he really gets ruthless.His mask is made of iron.         “Sometimes I have a hard time…separating between my dreams and my reality,” Bucky says quietly. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, across from one another, the sun just beginning to set, casting everything in the penthouse in fiery warmth.These are the first words Bucky has said since they got here. “Is that why sometimes you wake up in panic?” Steve asks.“Yeah. It’s like, after everything, my brain’s forgotten how to keep those two things apart.” Bucky’s metal hand is clutching an empty bottle. Steve’s learning that one bottle of single malt scotch is what Bucky considers one drink. He doesn’t know whether to be worried.“How can I help?” Steve asks.Bucky licks his lips. “I’m not sure.” Steve’s heart sinks, because that’s not what he wants to hear. “I… you’ve probably noticed how I don’t really… do anything. I don’t go outside, I don’t try anything new, and I don’t… it’s just you and Tony in my life right now. And I thought that’s what I needed. To make my world small and just wait for things to, I guess, sort themselves out.”“But they haven’t.”“But they haven’t,” Bucky agrees grimly, then he stares at the empty bottle in his hand.Steve pushes the conversation forward, lest Bucky tries to go for another drink. “Maybe you need to take a more active role then. Make a change.”“I think that too, but it’s hard. I feel like everyday I’m in this kinda… haze. This bubble of… of ‘just fine.’ And I wake up and I’m fine, and I read the same books and it’s fine, and I hang out with you, and Tony, and it’s just fine. But I know things could be—I know enough to know that just fine isn’t really what life is, but I’m afraid if I start to try and…” Bucky waves his free hand in the air and makes a frustrated noise. “If I start to live, everything’s going to come back. You know? The good feelings and the bad. But while the good is fantastic…”“The bad is terrifying.”“Yeah. My nightmares, Steve. Jesus It’s a dose of what I’m avoiding, and each time I have them… I freak out, I freak the fuck out, and I wake up, and I can’t tell if I’m safe or if I’m… Everything twists into everything else. And I’d hurt you, Steve.”At the last sentence, Steve’s hand finds Bucky’s free one, connecting like a magnet.“You couldn’t hurt me, Buck.”“You don’t know that.”“I do. You didn’t hurt me on that helicarrier, you won’t hurt me now.”But Bucky’s shaking his head. “You don’t understand what it’s like.”“Then let me help, next time it happens, I can—““No!” Bucky says sharply. He stands up and walks behind Steve, towards the window. Steve takes a deep breath, then follows him, slower.“Okay, then I’ll stay with you through the night,” Steve says, as always, one step behind him.“Ok. But if it happens again, you have to go,” Bucky says. He turns around to look him in the eye.“Bucky—”“Promise me. Promise you won’t do your stupid, storm-into-battle half-cocked shit,” Bucky says. “Please. I can’t bare to lose you too.”Steve doesn’t promise anything, but he does wrap Bucky up tight in his arms and hold him close to his chest.        When Tony finally manages to drag himself home, somehow still late despite the fact he lives upstairs, he’s greeted with the sight of Steve holding Bucky tightly in his arms, the two men standing by the window as the sun finished its way into the ground.Tony stops by the doorway and just watches the two of them. In his chest, his heart pounds, but lower, his stomach churns. It’s already begun, hasn’t it? Steve and Bucky, realizing what they once had, realizing it had nothing to do with Tony. There hadn’t even been a “three,” and already it’s turning into a two?Or maybe Tony’s just being dramatic. Yet, as he looks at the two men, pressed together in an embrace, he finds it very, very hard to see where he fits between them.He should leave them be.Tony claps his hands together. “So.”He watches, casually, as the two men jump. “Who wants to go to California?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“California?” Steve blinks at the absurdity of the question, bursting the mood like a pin to a bubble.“California!” Tony gestures wildly with both hands. “The west coast! Silicon Goddamn Valley. Gotta be there for business, but I think we’re all overdue for a vacation, don’t you?”Steve retracts his arms, and Bucky leaves his embrace, staring at Tony like he’s never seen him before in his life.“It’s just an idea, of course,” Tony continues, light and easy. He’s picture perfect, in the golden light of the sunset. “San Fran is actually pretty nice this kind of year. I’ll be gone for work during the day, but the pair of you can find something to do, I’m sure.”Bucky says, “Tony, that seems—”“Let me know what you two think, soon as you can. I’ll be in the shop,” Tony waves, and he goes back the way he came.“Tony, wait, dammit,” Steve says frustrated, but as quickly as he appeared, he disappears, leaving Bucky and Steve in slightly bewildered silence.“I should probably see what that’s all about,” Steve says. He’s standing in the same place as before, his feet turned towards the elevator.Bucky shrugs. “Yeah, probably.”Steve gives Bucky a worried glance. “If Tony’s serious… California’s pretty far from here,” he says, trying to be careful.Apparently not being careful enough. Steve watches as Bucky deftly tucks away all of his discomfort into a box in his head, and forces out a smile. “I’ll be fine, Steve. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”Steve doesn’t believe him worth a damn, but doesn’t say anything to the contrary. It was enough to get the confession from Bucky about his nightmares—now, at least, he has a way to help him, and that’s a start.“Can I kiss you?” Steve says softly, eyes tracing the bridge of Bucky’s nose, down to his lips.Bucky responds by stepping forward and kissing him, gently. Steve closes his eyes and exhales like it’s the best kiss he’s ever had in the world.“Go after him, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve nods.     Steve came down to Tony’s shop a few minutes ago, but in lieu of saying anything he took position on the couch, placing an ankle over his knee and stretching an arm across the back of the cushions. He took to doodling in one of the many notebooks Tony keeps in the drawer under the coffee table, drawing simple lines and shapes over the paper, enjoying the feeling of the paper under the pencil.Now though, he’s watching Tony thoughtfully, observing his movements around the workshop with a strategic eye. Tony’s restless, which isn’t all together unusual. What’s unusual is the way his energy is less focused. He’s doing what he usually does: spending time staring at a screen, jabbering with JARVIS, working on a new piece of hardware. But this time he’s doing it without focus, tossing down tools in frustration, running a hand through already messy hair, snapping at JARVIS for no particular reason.Something’s on his mind, taking up his ability to focus. Steve drops his pencil to the notebook, and places them both on the table. “What’s going on, Tony,” he says, frowning. It’s meant to be a question, but it doesn’t end up coming out like one.“Nothing much, what’s up with you?” Tony asks, staring at a screen on the other side of the room.“Something’s on your mind,” Steve counters. “What is it? Maybe I can help.”Tony pauses for a beat, then glances at Steve for the first time since he arrived. Steve can see Tony thinking behind his eyes.“Alright,” Tony says, and he pushes away from the desk. “Something is on my mind.” He walks over to the couch, and Steve shifts slightly to give him room to sit. “Some… weirdness at work.”“What’s going on?” Steve encourages, uncrossing his legs. Tony gives him a look, then smirks slightly and shakes his head.“Now, I’m used to dealing with overly aggressive Dom types challenging my authority, but one of my Directors is making it known his displeasure over all of the decisions I’ve made in the past and is implying that it has something to do with my designation. I can handle constructive criticism, usually by politely ignoring it—”Steve snorts.“—but the way he’s acting is rubbing me the wrong way. Something’s up with him, and I don’t like it, but I also can’t prove it, so JARVIS is looking into it. Legally. Sorta.”“Well,” Steve starts, slowly processing the information. “If this guy is giving you crap over being a sub, why don’t you just fire him? Or suspend him, like that woman?” Personally Steve thinks he should be fired and more, but he doesn’t think that comment would be appreciated right now.“Because he’s very… politically correct about the whole thing,” Tony says, then he rolls his eyes. “People in my sphere are very good at saying one thing and meaning another. All of the complaints he made can theoretically fall under the umbrella of ‘general concern for the company,’ meaning if I were to take action against him, the board could step in and claim that I’m not listening to my subordinate’s legitimate concerns about the state of my company. It could implicate me as a poor CEO.”“But you’re not doing anything wrong,” Steve says plainly. There’s no doubt in his mind that Tony would ever do something to implicate his own company, let alone something that would hurt people. “You wouldn’t.”Tony sighs. “You are very, very kind, Steve. I’m not doing anything wrong, but I did buy a warehouse from Stark Industries without anyone’s approval. It’s not that I needed their approval, of course, one percent-ers like me do this shit all the time, but Rick seems to be using that as the launching point. He wants to go after the Aven—after us.”Steve frowns, wondering why Tony felt the need to correct himself. “Explain that more?”“He says my involvement with a group of superheroes is affecting my ability to make the best decisions for my company. The warehouse I bought, I—it. Heh.” Tony smiles wryly, looking at the ground. “Personally, I figured since Fury’s in the wind and SHIELD is a pile of smoking rubble, that… should we ever decide to rebuild, the Avengers, that is, we might need a place to do it.”Steve looks at Tony, surprise written all over his face. Tony’s still looking away from him; Steve can see his hand twitch like it’s searching for a glass.“I mean,” Tony continues, “the tower was a decent idea, and it should still be here if we need it, but if we—we might need more room. For, I don’t know, training, and maybe getting some of the out of work SHIELD agents because no one want to hire them, thinking they’re still infected with Hydra—”“You bought us a base,” Steve says, and he feels a small smile tug at his lips.“Yeah, I did,” Tony says. He meets his eyes and shrugs, almost bashfully. “Because there’s not really much of an ‘us’ right now. But I’m sure Batwoman and Robin—Widow and Falcon, don’t give me that look—are eventually going to find their way back, and if we keep getting demigods here, they’re gonna need a landing pad that doesn’t crack under their weight. Plus there’s trees for Hulk to do what he does best, and, well, I guess Barton can come too—”“That’s…” sweet, Steve wants to say. “A good idea,” he says instead. He doesn’t miss the way Tony’s lips curl lightly into a smile, just for a second.“Yeah. But now Rick’s calling into question my leadership ability because I like to save the world sometimes, even though I’m pretty sure I have the right to have hobbies. I don’t like it. So I’m digging up shit on him to knock him down a peg or five.”“Anything I can do?” Steve asks.“Keep your ear to the ground, but stay passive. If the press tries to ask you questions, talk me up but play ignorant to SI’s dealings. My public image is hot garbage.”“Talking you up shouldn’t be too hard,” Steve says, trying to get a smile out of Tony again.Tony doesn’t smile though, just snorts in a derisive manner. “Don’t be so sure.”Steve traces his fingertips in circles on the top of the couch cushions. “So, California?”“Oh, yeah.” Tony leans back against Steve’s hand, and Steve tries hard not to react. “I’ve gotta meet with a bunch of chip companies to make a deal before we run out of hardware to build off of, and right now the best deal we’ve got is with freaking Hammer, so I need to run to Silicon Valley and find a better one. Should be fun.”“It should, but… I’m a little worried about Bucky coming with. You know he had another nightmare last night? And one of his episodes, where he doesn’t quite know where he is.”“Shit.” Tony says, just about summing it up. “He’s okay?”“Yeah I talked to him, finally got him to open up. Turns out he doesn’t dream when he sleeps next to someone.”“Interesting,” Tony muses, dragging the word out. “So you’re saying we all need to sleep together? For Bucky’s sake, of course.” Tony gives Steve an overly salacious grin, eyeing him up and down.Steve huffs out a laugh. Tony always knows how to pull him out of a mood. “I’m saying we should watch out for him, day and night. He doesn’t really do much, but I’m not sure how okay he’ll be on this trip.” He lets some of his worry seep in his words, but like always, Tony brushes the concern away.“I think he’s stronger than we think. And if he’s not, well, I don’t think that’s going to be too much of a hardship, watching him day and night,” Tony says slyly.Steve rolls his eyes, but does feel his cheeks heat lightly, less than innocent thoughts he’s been suppressing all day sneaking back into his mind.It’s quiet for a second, but Tony then leans in, mood more serious, voice more… intimate. “You like thinking about it, Captain?” Tony says, grin dropping into something darker. “You, me, and him, all together? ‘Sleeping?’”Steve knows Tony’s trying to get a rise from him, and in a way it’s working, with the way his infernal blush is already dusting his cheeks, but he’s feeling a little bold, a little more centered, and decides it’s about time he’s started to return in kind. He may not quite understand what’s going on with Doms and subs in the world today, but he certainly understands how it used to be.So he digs deep and lets an old smile cross his face, one that hadn’t seen the light of day for most of a century. It’s a smile full of promise, of lust of course, but also tinged slightly with an uncharacteristic cruelty, a smile that belays a certain ruthlessness usually buried deep in Steve’s soul, usually only satisfied by battle.It’s also the smile that used to bring Bucky Barnes scrambling to his knees.Tony’s expression drops slightly into awe, and he swallows visibly. Steve tracks the bob of his Adam’s Apple, then meets his darkened eyes.“Nah,” Steve says, tone just a smooth and easy as it always is. “I’m thinking about the fact that I really like the way you called me Captain.”“Jesus,” Tony mutters, and Steve gives him a once over, before standing from the couch, turning on his heel, and heading from the shop without so much as a look back, felling, just for a moment, like he has everything under control.    Tony jacks off again.How could he not?They’d been sitting on the couch were he and Bucky had spilled stories and semen so many times before. Adding that sinful smirk on Steve’s face that would probably echo in the back of Tony’s head for ages, Tony had no choice but to shove a hand in his slacks and stroke, seconds after Steve steps out of the room.    Bucky hates the kid gloves, but he gets it. Specifically, he hates that Steve feels the need to check if he’s okay with travelling outside of his self-made prison, but he gets it, because Bucky’s pretty sure he’d not. Nevertheless, Bucky was prepared for the worst when it came to the cross country trip, but it was surprisingly painless, and a lot of that was because of Tony.The SUV that picks them up in the dim garage downstairs is tinted so dark Bucky would have barely been able to see outside, had he looked. In fact, Bucky’s only interaction with the outside world was a silent 50 meter walk from the car to Tony’s jet, and when he was seated inside, he was amazed to find that his protective bubble of disassociation had remained mostly intact throughout the trip.He settles himself into one of the white leather recliners and cracks open Pride and Prejudice, picking up where he left off as Tony and Steve talk in low voices on the couch across from him.He’s knee deep in the story when he feels a tap on his shoulder, and sees Tony holding out a glass of something sparkling. Bucky blinks, and takes it with a thank you.“Do you ever get tired of reading the same thing over and over again?” Steve asks. He’s currently eating a piece of steak and plate full of French fries, a beer on the side.“No,” Bucky says, wondering vaguely when they started eating. “Tony, can I have what Steve’s having?”“J, tell the chef,” Tony says.Steve has a look on his face that implies he’s about to pry. “I can’t imagine that doesn’t get dull,” he says diplomatically. “The same words? Everyday?”Bucky puts the book down and stands and stretches, cracking his back from where the chair had tightened him up.“With good stories, each time you read it, it’s a little different. You catch something you miss, or you finally get a joke, whatever. Plus, I think I’ve read this before all the Hydra shit. Nice to remember a good thing, for once.” Bucky joins the two men on the couch, pushing between the two of them.“Don’t you ever want to try something new?”Bucky gives a wry half smile. “This is all the new I can handle right now,” he says, gesturing to the private plane.Steve doesn’t respond, instead taking a contemplative bite of his steak.“So, what do you guys want to do when you get to San Fran?” Tony interjects. He’s eating a salad with some kind of fish on it, and a glass of white wine. “I’ll be working the weekdays, but I’ll be back for dinner.”“We can always find things to do around the hotel, maybe some restaurants? Go for a walk.”“Hotel?” Tony’s says, then he lets out a laugh. “Hotel, he says. No, this is a house. A dear friend’s house, actually, modest little thing. She lets me use it when she’s at her summer home in Italy, in exchange that she gets to use my winter home in Italy over the summer.”“Well that should be nice, actually,” Bucky says. “No busy lobby, no loud neighbors, just the three of us, together in a house for a week.”Steve shifts slightly on the couch, and Bucky watches as his hand starts to shift carelessly on his thigh.“Of course,” Bucky says, lowly, “maybe we’d be the loud neighbors.” Bucky turns to look at Tony and grins sharply when he sees his eyes boring holes into Steve’s. Steve gives as good as he gets, and Bucky swears he can feel the air fizzle around him.“How many beds?” Bucky asks, breaking the silence.“Technically, there’s four bedrooms,” Tony response. His eyes break from Steve’s to look at Bucky’s and though Bucky’s not surprised to find lust there, he also senses and undercurrent of energy that’s different than what he’s used to.“Technically?” Steve’s voice is calm and collected, but Bucky also sense a shift in him as well.Bucky swallows, because he’s pretty sure something happened between the two men, and he doesn’t know what.“Technically,” Tony continues. “Meaning, of course, we could all pick one, and stay there and that could be… that…”“What if we all pick the same one?” Bucky says slowly. He lets his legs fall open wider, just a few inches, just enough to brush his knees against both men’s jeans. It’s still, the air thick with potential, and Bucky has never been more aware of the presence of both men in his entire life.Steve’s hand suddenly stills on his own thigh, then it spiders it’s way over to Bucky’s knees, resting against his jeans firmly.“I guess,” Steve starts, and Bucky watches as his hand starts to sneak up his leg, nails digging into his jeans so that he can feel the dull scrape of them against his thigh, feel the sensation whip up his spine like a spark.Bucky’s breath hitches; beside him, Tony is leaning into his right shoulder. He can’t tell what he’s doing, he only has eyes for Steve right now, Steve, whose hand is big enough to grasp the whole meat of his quad, fingertips dragging against the inner seam of Bucky’s pants, sliding agonizingly further and further up, and Bucky can’t look away, can’t help but spread his legs wider, pushing his knee into Steve’s pressing his hips forward just to get even so much as a brush between his legs.And that’s just it. Bucky could move towards it, could move Steve’s hand, but he’s not moving, and that’s the game.Steve’s hand goes still, and Bucky lets out a tiny noise of pure frustration, squeezed from him without his consent. At that sound, Steve taps a single fingertip on the inside of Bucky’s leg, and says, in a voice nonchalant and smooth, “I guess we’ll just hafta share.”Then Steve stands up, and turns, and walks away. And Bucky feels a rush of sensation, a tide of urgency born from the need to be unbound, and the filthy rush of being denied the pleasure. Something inside of him was trying to be released, and though Steve held the key, he had simply toyed with the strings keeping his arousal at bay, refusing to so much as tug, and Bucky can’t help but lean after him and whisper, hopelessly, “Steve, wait.”Steve turns back the second he hears the word, and all the sound escapes Bucky’s mouth in a rush, because on his face is that smile, that cocky, dirty, brutal smile, and Bucky, even though he doesn’t quite know exactly what for, Bucky wants to get on his knees, apologize, and beg him to rip him apart.But Bucky’s given himself away, he knows this. And Steve knows it, and so he turns and snorts derisively, opting to take a seat across the plane, leaving Bucky half hard and strung out and leaning into nothing.“Well shit,” Tony says.    Tony jacks off in the toilet. I mean, come on.Steve gives Tony a knowing look when he exists the bathroom, and Tony shrugs and smirks, and tells him to get ready for landing.Bucky looks between the two of them with interest.    They land on a single strip of asphalt in the middle of nowhere. When they disembark, there’s another black SUV waiting for them, a sharp dressed woman in a cap in sunglasses standing at near parade rest with the back door open.They climb in and drive for 15 or so minutes, and arrive at a sleek looking house perched on a cliff and surrounded by tall dark trees. The house itself is white with square lines and wooden accents, and a few stretches of the wall facing the sea are covered from head to toe in glass.The effect is a quiet, open building, with warmth from the wood and sound from the waves crashing against the rocks below the cliffs edge.“It’s beautiful,” Steve says as they walk towards the front door.“You like?” Tony smiles at Steve as they enter the house. “Not to modern for you ancient tastes?”“Yeah I bet you’d like a taste of this ancient,” Steve says.Bucky snorts loudly, startling all three of them into laughter.“Yeah, okay, that was pretty bad,” Steve says, but he’s smiling so wide it’s sparkling, so completely different than the way he was before.“Someone’s in a mood, huh,” Tony says.Bucky takes his time looking around the room. The inside is even warmer than the outside, with soft brown wood floors that stepped down to a living room with dark leather furniture to their right, and a white and steel kitchen sprawling to their left. All of the house was awash in pale sunlight, reflecting off the busy sea, shining through a wall of windows overlooking a patio.Steve ignores Tony’s comment in favor of walking towards the view, entranced as he always was by nature.“Looks a lot different from that documentary, huh Steve?” Bucky says, joining him by the window.Steve smiles. “Never thought a Brooklyn boy like me woulda made it to this side of the country,” he admits.Bucky nods, understanding in a way. “I think I’ve been to California before,” Bucky says. He doesn’t elaborate, because if he didn’t go with Steve, then he knows he must have gone there with much worse intentions. Either way, Bucky bets he never spent the time looking out over the ocean like this. He prefers it, he thinks.“So,” Tony says. “Despite all of the fun in the plane, it probably is a good idea to put our stuff down in different rooms, just in case we need the space. That doesn’t mean that we can’t share a bed, in fact, I kinda heard that was the plan from the get-go.”Bucky makes a face. The last few night’s he’d been sharing his bed with Steve, and it though it kept him sane, he still felt guilty for shifting Steve’s schedule to accommodate him, forcing him to wake up later and run in the heat of the day, or stay up in bed when Bucky was ready to sleep.And objectively he knows Tony knows about his problems, so he shouldn’t feel so bad about him bringing it up, but it had been a long flight and a longer day, and something in Bucky is starting to itch about being away from safety.“Yeah, we’ll just pick the biggest bed, then,” Bucky says, voice going toneless. He tries to smile, but his face isn’t working right, so he quietly pushes past the two men and heads towards the stairs.    “Something I said?” Tony asks Steve weakly after Bucky disappears up the minimalist wooden staircase.“No,” Steve says, and then he sighs, shoulders slumping. “Sometimes I don’t understand him,” he admits, turning towards Tony. “On this trip, I thought it would be… triggering for him,” Steve tries the word out in his mouth, “to leave the house, board a plane, cross over to the other side of the country. But he’s handling it well.” Almost too well. “In all honestly, I expected him to escape like that—” Steve points to the staircase “—much earlier.”“He did though, that’s what you’re missing, Cap,” Tony says, hands in his pockets. “He escaped the second I mentioned the word California. Look, why do you think he reads the same books and follows the same routines, slinks around the tower chasing our tails all day? He’s running away from reality, and he doesn’t have to have his own life to live if he can live someone else’s.”Steve furrows his brow, and leans against the window. “What does that mean?”“Reading the same book he did when he was Bucky Barnes? Escape.”Steve winces at the ‘was.’Tony continues. “Sitting in my office or my shop or my lab? Sharing space with you in the gym or the art room?”It dawns on Steve. “Needing to sleep with us,” he says.“Exactly. He is happy—well. He’s safe with us. Without? Not so much.”“How the hell is that a life?” Steve says, getting frustrated. He thought he’d found a way to help him, but apparently he was just volunteering to enable his coping mechanisms.”“His life is nightmares and psychotic episodes, personally, I wouldn’t want to live that either.”“Yeah but he’s not living a life Tony.” Steve crosses his arms, trying to force his point through Tony’s head. “You can’t spend your whole life escaping from the present, you can’t be happy without purpose.”“Okay, and what is his purpose?” Tony shoots back.As Steve struggles to come up with an answer, Tony pushes into his space, and Steve find himself staring down into his sharp brown eyes. “He can’t tell the difference between the real world and the world he’s created for himself. And you expect him to build a purpose out of it?”“I never said I ‘expected’ anything,” Steve corrects. “Just that… we need to help him.”“How, Steve?” And Tony its never been so clear how rarely Tony uses his name as it is now. “Because I’m certainly not that kind of doctor.”Steve backs away from Tony, as if physically distancing himself from the man could help him collect his thoughts better.“So all I can do is be there for him when he needs me,” Tony says, pointing his finger to his chest where his arc reactor used to sit.And Steve gets it, because the alternative is Hydra barreling back through Bucky’s brain much too fast and much too hard.“Let the man disassociate,” Tony says softly. Steve blinks out of his thoughts; Tony’s hand had come to rest on his arm. “And when he’s finally capable of putting his feet on the ground, you’ll be there to catch him.”Steve nods and faces the sea, unhappy but understanding.“We’ll be there to catch him,” Steve corrects, then frowns when he sees Tony’s reflection in the glass. Tony’s face had twisted into a bittersweet smile, his brown eyes dull and fallen in what looked to be… resignation?But by the time Steve turned around, the look had been replaced by a smooth, easy smile.“I think this change will be good for him. There’s really nothing here,” Tony says, turning around to look out the window again.Steve still remembers that look on his face. “Thank you,” he says seriously, but Tony shrugs it off.“I’m just glad I know the daughter of the inventor of toaster strudel,” Tony says. “Do you ever draw landscapes?”Steve allows the conversation change. “A few. They’re tough because they’re always moving, but I like the challenge an ocean might bring,” Steve says, giving a small smile.“Well there’s stuff for you here, in case you feel the urge. No drawing room unfortunately, but you can probably set up here, or outside,” Tony says.“I—thank you,” he stammers again like an idiot. “I’m going to go pick a room, Cap.” Tony turns suddenly, leaving Steve to stare at his back as he retreats. “Take your time.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tony needs to get his head on straight.He’s horny (slut), and he’s alternating between full of confidence and full of shit. Or maybe he’s both of those, at the same time? It’s hard to tell anymore, he’s just flying by the seat of his pants, trying to pick up a scrap or two of love that these two men might drop.It doesn’t help that Bucky and Steve seem content with each other now, happy to explore each other, even playful with each other. Open with each other in the way Tony’s twisted up psyche didn’t know how to be, raveled as it was with both ego and self-hatred, pulling in both directions at once.He drops his stuff on the bed, then collapses in a chair with his head in his hands. What is he even doing here? No, what are they doing here? He’s accomplished his goal of leading both of the men stumbling to each other, and already they proved they were able to fill the cracks in each other’s souls, having already had the practice.Except now Tony’s dragged them here, with him, to this house full of memories of wild parties and wild sex, to, what, inspire them to want him? When the sexual tension between just the two of them was just beginning to build? Hell, had he left them in the tower, they probably would have picked up where they left off.How long can he put on this display, how long will Steve and Bucky be deceived by the idea they actually want him? Until they trip over one of the threads keeping him together and tighten the knot surrounding his heart?“Breathe,” he says out loud, because somebody has to say it, and right now he only has himself.“Calm down.”Anxiety ebbs as he breathes; not all the way, just enough to loosen its hold, to lift his head from the murky water of a bad drop, just enough to hold on for a little while longer.Until when? Well, Tony’s never been one to dally over deadlines.        “We’ve really moved up, huh Stevie?” Bucky says, dropping his small bag of belongings on the large bed.Steve stands stiff in front of the floor to ceiling windows—there’s a lot of those here—hands in the pockets of his dark wash jeans. He looks only slightly less out of place than Bucky does in the background of the sleek white bedroom, which is too big and has a flat screen TV he has no intention of turning on.“You can say that.” Steve’s voice is as stiff as his body. He’s upset about something he thinks he needs to fix, Bucky realizes.“Feeling guilty, huh?” He takes a guess at the source of Steve’s discontent. He’s amazed at his ability to read this man just from four words and the back of his neck.Steve turns to lock eyes with Bucky, and Bucky goes to him.“About a lot of things, actually,” Steve murmurs. Bucky watches Steve watch him for a moment, the rigidity of his jaw contrasting with the openness of his gaze. His eyes are searching for something in Bucky’s face, but Bucky doesn’t know what it is.Steve reaches out with a hand, then hesitates, fingers curling slightly in the air between them for a microsecond, before he visible steels his resolve and reaches for him fully.Bucky goes to him.“Are you okay?” Steve asks him. They’re the same size, but Bucky feels small.“I’ll be alright,” Bucky shrugs. What else is there to say?“I’m worried about Tony.”“What about him?”Steve pulls out of the hug, and Bucky rocks slightly on his feet, like he’s just lost the tether holding him down against the wind. “Have you noticed lately, he seems to be pulling away? From us.”Bucky furrows his brow. “Are you sure? I mean, this whole thing was his idea,” Bucky says. Steve and Bucky are the weakest link in this triangle, after all. “Maybe he’s just giving us some space.”Steve gives Bucky a soft smile, then reaches over to tuck an errant strand of hair behind his ear. “Maybe. I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it,” he says. “That wasn’t too much on the plane, just then? I kinda went with it.”Bucky shivers. It was, but it wasn’t. Steve still featured in his nightmares sometimes, his dirty words and harsh disposition morphing into handlers', but… he hadn’t been having as many of those dreams as before, especially since he’s had Steve and Tony to sleep with. And this Steve and the Steve that haunts him… Bucky can tell the difference, he thinks.Bucky nods. “It was good,” he says, licking his lips.Steve nods, smile still soft. “Good.”“And I think Tony thought so too,” Bucky says. He remembers watching him escape to the plane bathroom, bothered just from watching them. Bucky didn’t follow his lead, and he knows it’s born from an old instinct from when he used to be with Steve, when getting off without permission meant Bucky was itching to get hurt.See, Steve had rules. And Bucky liked to break them.“I noticed you didn’t,” Steve says lowly, as if he could sense Bucky’s thought process.Bucky smirks. “I wasn’t allowed.”Steve’s eyes darken into something else, and Bucky grins wider. It’s nice to rehash the past in a positive light.“Tony doesn’t know that rule though,” Bucky says. He thinks remembers Tony telling him about the punishment he received from Pepper after breaking her rules. Though, the way he described it, it sounded like he didn’t find it much fun. Or, rather, he did, but he found it more fun to follow the rules instead of breaking them, and had more fun at the end than during.Steve chuckles. “I guess not. But we can worry about rules and all they entail later,” he says.Steve looks around the room with an eyebrow raised. The floors are wooden and the bed is a step up on a raised platform. There's a simple couch on the other side of the room facing the TV, which hangs over a fireplace.“This your room?” Steve asks.“Nah,” Bucky says, turning to his bag to start unpacking. “This seems to be the biggest, so I figured we could share this one. And since I don’t plan on sleeping alone,” Bucky waggles his eyebrows. “I figured I just set up shop in here.”Steve smiles, probably enjoying seeing Bucky so teasing. His smile drops though, and Bucky frowns.“What’s on your mind?”“Let’s do something together, all three of us,” Steve says determined. “Before Tony can find a reason to duck out.”“That sounds nice. You think there’s a jacuzzi tub somewhere around here?”Steve rolls his eyes. “Not sex.”“Now who said anything about sex?” Bucky chastises. “Dirty boy.”       Bucky can’t remember the last time they all made it to a meal together. Tony is usually working, whether it be his company or his tech, Bucky doesn’t really operate on any sort of schedule, and Steve spends stretches of time knee deep in painting and charity work.Occasionally though, the stars align, and they end up able to be together, usually around one of Steve’s instant meals at the table in the center of the penthouse, sometimes in Tony’s workshop when he forgets that time exists, and sometimes on the couches around the TV.But it’s always felt different, the three of them together with no one else around, and this is the first time Bucky’s been able to put his finger on why. When the three of them get together, in some ways, it feels like a performance. They’re pretending there’s nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with each other, like they all aren’t slightly less functional than the average human being.Like Tony isn’t keeping his distance, not so much as brushing off his emotions as he is blasting them into next week, leaving them to pile up like dust in a closet. Like Steve hasn’t lost his confidence, hasn’t been slipping and sliding through the 21st century, each year falling further and further behind. Like Bucky himself isn’t gliding over life on borrowed wings, avoiding looking down at the strife and pain he’s caused at leading the entirety of the free world into the hands of the Nazis.None of that exists here, not even the pretense of a problem layering itself over the atmosphere. Three men performing an artless waltz for an audience of none, dodging and weaving, stepping out the way when one of the other two get to close, just nearby enough to touch, not close enough to hold.Who, Bucky wonders, will fall first?But none of that now. Now they’re in this whole new environment, which brought with it a lovely little lapse in responsibility, and getting them all together was as easy as asking what one wanted for dinner.It’s times like these when Bucky feels at most like himself, like Bucky Barnes from nineteen-thirty something: easy and funny and unburdened with war. There are only two people in his life right now, and having both of them around him at once feels like he’s attending a loud, distracting party, even when the event is as simple as making dinner. “Is it supposed to be lumpy like this?” Steve questions, half to himself.Bucky looks over Steve’s shoulder to see him prodding at a metal bowl full of some kind of runny batter, with small chunks drifting around as he stirs.“Didja put the chocolate chips in yet?” Bucky asks. There was a universal agreement between the three of them that they would have breakfast for dinner, perhaps in protest of the hours of time they’ve lost traveling over three time zones. Tony was ready to order out, but Steve found a box of instant pancake mix and a fully stocked fridge, and immediately put his foot down.“No,” Steve replies. He pokes a lump with the spoon, and it breaks open to reveal a pocket of undissolved flour.“Damn,” Steve mutters.“There’s a stand mixer floating around here somewhere,” Tony says absently. He’s contributed to dinner by pouring himself a Bellini and promptly sitting down at the counter to watch them struggle, an amused lilt to his brow. His face is perfect.“I can stand, and I can mix,” Steve says, attacking the batter now with a whisk, and now with the vigor of a man that refused to be defeated by his own food.“So can I, but why would I when a machine can do it better?” Tony comments airily.“I believe in the power of human strength,” Steve says. Bucky watches as the batter evens out, though bits of it have flecked across the countertop, sprayed at the speed of Steve’s whisking arm.“Says the supersoldier,” Tony snips.“Not all of us have your intellect,” Steve says.“What, the intellect to buy a stand mixer?”“Or to build one, or the money to buy one,” Steve responds.“Oh, so now, I should apologize for my money?”“No one said that,” Steve says. Finally satisfied with his stirring, he goes to the stove and flicks it on, heating up a griddle. “Though perhaps you should be grateful your ‘stand mixer’ is making you dinner.”“Now you’re just saying you’re a tool for me to use,” Tony says, smirk on his face.Steve turns to face Tony, grinning right back. “I like to think I’m providing a service.”“Oh so you’re a service top?” Tony twirls the glass stem in his hand. “You know, I can see it.”“So you admit I’m a top,” Steve shoots back.“I can’t tell,” Bucky cuts in, and they both turn to look at him. “Is this foreplay?”Steve and Tony laugh and lean away, Steve a pretty pink and Tony’s eyes sparkling bright, and Bucky thinks he feels really good.        Breakfast for dinner eventually happens, and it’s a cheery affair. The sun has set by the time Steve manages to put together presentable chocolate chip pancakes, and he serves them with fruit and coffee and a face full of so much pride it seeps off of him.It’s so very easy. Tony eats a pancake, makes a happy face, then eats two more. Steve beams even further, and Bucky shakes his head.There’s something about being in a new location that changes the atmosphere, gives a new energy to the household. Maybe the time change, turning morning into evening too fast, had something to do with it. Or the fact the house is so isolated, grounded quite literally to nature, as opposed to a tower in the sky.Or maybe it’s the fact they only have each other in this new world. Steve and Tony’s escapes are gone, Bucky’s escapes (the two men themselves) had been brought together. It means Tony’s being forced to interact with them both, and Steve’s using that to his advantage, trying valiantly to pull whatever he can from the man, trying to signal with his hips and his heart that he’s ready to start whatever three-way equation Tony’s cooked up between them all.They are all three on the couch in this new world of Bucky’s, TV on in the background. Bucky’s inclination towards being overwhelmed is being held at bay by Steve and Tony, who were simply chatting on the couch next to him. Tony’s giggle at having Too Many Drinks is as familiar as Steve’s satiated grin at another satisfying meal, and Bucky decides that this is what home means.Bucky’s memories aren’t clear enough to know this for sure, but he knows that Steve’s cooking bug is new, and has something to do with his continued amazement of instant meals and over the counter medications. He’s finally able to feed both himself and Bucky until they were stuffed, thanks to Tony, something that never happened before 2012, even when that butcher’s boy he swooned over would pack him an extra thigh with his order.Bucky wonders what happened to him.He doesn’t worry about it now, lets it slip from his mind like the News does in the background, focusing instead on the feeling of the Bellini, sparkling his tongue, and the heavy sweetness of pancakes in his stomach. He’s had so little pleasure in his life, or at least, can remember so little of it, that even just being around these two men, men he can tease and laugh with and rest with, was enough right now.They’ve sandwiched Tony in the couch, who seems hardly to mind, too focused on talking to Steve. He’s twisted part of his spine towards Steve, a knee coming up to meet the other as he tuck himself cozy into the couch, knees digging into Steve’s thigh.Bucky’s hand reaches up, and his metal finger traces from the knot on the top of Tony’s spinal cord, up to the tiny hairs on the back of Tony’s neck.Tony’s voice stutters, as Bucky plays delicately with the brown strands, wishing he can feel them.He feels Tony’s head turn in his hand, a curious and questioning look in his eyes, and Bucky swipes it all away by kissing him.Bucky remembers how to do, more that he knows what is. Reality for him is read through contact, because, while the universe can and will change every day, sensation never does. Base instincts never leave. Bucky remembers how to fight well, to fuck well, and how to dig out someone’s soul through a kiss.Tony tastes like orange and chocolate; when Tony opens his lips enough to let him slide a tongue in, he tastes like Bucky too. Despite the invitation to turn things decidedly French, Bucky keeps things light, moves slowly as he presses his hand into Tony’s neck, teasing the tip of his tongue over Tony’s bottom lip and sucking lightly when he goes for more.Sometimes Bucky doesn’t know what he’s doing until he does it. So when he finally pulls away from Tony, and gazes, lidded, into Steve’s wandering eyes, he realizes he’s been putting on show. A show for Steve whose eyes are wicked and lips half parted, and a show for Tony, who’s been shut silent by Bucky’s mouth, hopefully finally realizing they’re ready to get everything started.Tony follows his gaze over to Steve, and Bucky, sick of the three-way dance with no beat and no end, has decided to lead the way for now. He guides Tony by the back of his neck, nudging, once, towards Steve, and Steve catches Tony on the other side, hands going to cradle Tony’s cheeks, pulling him the other way.And Tony goes to him.Bucky’s the one getting the show now, a rare honor of truly seeing the way his lovers kiss. Steve’s technique is raw and simple (has it always been?), perhaps seeing kissing as less an art and more of an expression of emotion he can’t always find words for. He’s pressing as much of it into Tony as he can, giving lips and tongue with his eyes shut tight. And Tony adjusts for him in a way he probably doesn’t for Bucky, taking everything he’s given like he’s had practice (and he has, Bucky remembers), meeting every one of Steve’s emotions with a softness and acceptance. It’s more than a kiss, then, it’s an exchange. There’s a story there, and Bucky wonders how it goes.Bucky leans towards the two men and kisses the back of Tony’s neck, then opens his mouth and sucks, wet and warm. He licks with his tongue, lips on salty skin, scrapes with his teeth, and Tony shivers under him.Steve pulls back with a wet noise—there was much more tongue between the two of them, and his lips are slick. Bucky opens his mouth wide and digs in his teeth, just a little, and exhales through his nose on Tony’s neck.“Bucky and I were thinking of going to the zoo tomorrow,” Steve says, as if Bucky still isn’t working on a marking bruise on Tony’s neck. They’re tag teaming him in the softest way possible, pulling him out with them through touch.“You guys have fun, though you may get upset that the animals are in cages,” Tony says, though his voice is quiet and hitched, likely having to do with Bucky’s warm kisses trailing down his neck.“Apparently they’re pretty ethical here,” Steve says. “You should come see it with us.”“Unfortunately, I’ve got meetings most of the day,” Tony deflects again, but Steve will not give in.“We’ll wait,” Steve says like he’s willing to wait for a year until he goes to the zoo, and Bucky realizes he’s miscalculated, putting the most stubborn man in the world against the most stubborn man in the world, dancers mirroring each other, moving in parallel lines, never touching.Pulling off Tony’s neck is a chore, but he manages for the sake of the dance.“No, it’s okay,” Bucky says, thinking quickly. They have him here, they need to keep him here, but if they push, he’ll run.“Bucky?” Steve’s surprised, of course, but Bucky knows what he’s doing. Steve and Bucky have had their time, and it took Tony pushing Bucky towards him to bring him out of his shell. It’s time to flip the script, to let the other men find their step.So Bucky straightens up and lean backs and says, “San Francisco is a very gay place to be.”The two men stare at him, and Bucky enjoys the confusion far too much.“Yes,” Tony says very, very slowly. “It is.”“You two should go to a bar. That’s too much for me, but Steve? That might be fun for you, to catch up on the, uh, gay stuff?”Steve stares at Bucky, but Bucky’s looking at Tony, who’s looking like he’s considering the proposition. Bucky’s trapped him; say no and he disappoints Steve, say yes and he has to interact with him without Bucky. Bucky doesn’t feel guilty; someone has to lead the way, get this dance back on track, make sure it doesn’t blow up in all their faces, and right now, it’s him.“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Tony finally says, then he grins, perfect all over again. “You ever been to a gay bar, Cap?”“No,” Steve says, and he turns to Tony, like his neck physically hurts for him to move.“Alright, it’s settled,” Tony says, and Bucky feels like he’s won something. “You’ll go see some animals, and then we’ll go see some Bears.”Bucky blinks, then glances at Steve, who looks just as confused.“It’s—you know what? It’s wasted on you two.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There’s a chorus of showering and brushing of teeth and changing into clothes before they congregate together in the shared room. Though it had already been decided that Bucky was going to share a bed with at least one of them -- preferably both of them -- the reality of it slaps them in the face when they meet in the dark room. Stars shining through the window, waves endlessly beating against the shore in the background.They must look hilarious, three grown men staring down the bed in front of them -- like they’d completely forgotten the logistics of sleep entirely, and were waiting for someone to show them how it’s done.“You guys had to bunk with others during world war two, right?” Tony asks bluntly.“Yes,” Bucky sort of remembers.“Not always,” Steve clarifies. “I had my own tent. Bucky shared it sometimes.”Tony grins. “And how did you get away with that?”“Told the guys we needed to go over plans.”“I am dying of curiosity. What kinds of plans were these?”“Well—” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts in as a memory swims to the surface.“I remember I used to make too much noise, so Steve would have to shove my face into the pillow, or smother me with his hand when he fucked me,” Bucky says absently. This bed is freakishly big compared to that flat little bunk. Bucky didn’t even know they could make them like this. “Once, I even got him to wrap a hand around my throat—”“O- kay, it’s time for bed,” Steve cuts him off. He’s obviously beet red, even in the moonlight.“Uh. You sure? You know, I could use a bedtime story. Preferably the one Bucky was about to tell.” Tony braves the bed first, placing himself in the middle. He rolls on his back and puts two hands behind his neck, crossing his legs at the ankle. He looks nice there, Bucky thinks. “Or a demonstration. I’m more of a visual learner. Or, a learn-as-I-go learner. A… hands-on kinda learner, if you will. Lay it on me. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”Bucky overlooks the barrage of Tony’s entendre with the power of straightforwardness. “We’re not having sex,” Bucky says as he crawls into the bed next. There’s enough room between Tony and the bedside that he doesn’t have to be right next to Tony if he doesn’t want to. He likes how soft the blanket is under his body, and works on burying himself under the covers. His toes feel like ice.“We’re not— after all that? In the living room, and the flight here, and then nothing? We’re literally sleeping together.”“We should take it slow,” Bucky says. He’ll admit to himself that maybe slow isn’t the right word, considering two thirds of the triad have already had sex and a different two thirds have had a relatively long history together. But Bucky knows they need to take things slow. Tony’s eager, but runs at any sign of intimacy. Steve is -- has always been -- too all or nothing. Neither of them seem to possess the endurance Bucky has, born from a combination of wooing girls in the 1930s and sitting in sniper’s nests all over war-torn Europe. Hell, the reason they’re in bed right now is because of Hydra, who somehow taught the soldier not to dream when he slept around other people. It feels really, really good to know that the training a homophobic traditionalist group gave him was helping contribute to the successful navigation of an all-male three-way relationship. Take that, assholes.They both look at Steve now, who is blinking at the two of them already in the bed, and the empty space meant for him on Tony’s right.“Do you even have a slow setting, Captain ‘run in headfirst?’ There’s a piece of sidewalk with an American-sized crack in it that dictates otherwise,” Tony snarks. Though he sounds annoyed at the fact that sex seems to be off the table, Bucky doesn’t miss the way his body languages shifts ever so slightly. Like he’s turning himself off, from ‘ready to go at it’ Tony Stark to ‘ready to be himself’ Tony Stark. Bucky never noticed the difference. Not until now.Bucky turns to lie on his side, happily covered in the heavy white duvet, resting his head on a softer-than-air pillow. This mattress feels like it’s going to eat him up and swallow him whole. “Steve, you broke a sidewalk?” He snickers.“With his head,” Tony turns to him, his smile tickling something in Bucky’s chest. “Fell on his run.”“Oh God,” Steve mutters, and finally he starts to crawl into bed with the two of them, whatever internal battle he’s going through suitably appeased.Bucky laughs harder than he’s expecting, feeling the emotion bubble up from his chest and tip out of his mouth. “Of course your head cracked some goddamn concrete. Only guy I know that’s so stubborn, he actually developed a ‘hard head’.”Bucky feels Steve fall into bed next to Tony, and lifts himself on his elbows for a second, just to peer at him over Tony’s side. He’s tucking under the covers too, smiling in the way he does when he’s being teased and is deciding to let it happen.“Should probably wear a helmet when you run,” Tony comments. “I can mock one up for you if you want?”“I don’t know Tony, don’t know if you can fit all that head into a helmet,” Bucky says, settling back down.Steve’s eyes have fallen shut, the smile still playing on his lips. “Ha. Ha.”“Can you imagine a Captain America style Iron Man suit?” Tony speculates.“Wasn’t that Iron Patriot?” Steve asks.Tony shakes his head. “Don’t remind me of that stupid rebranding. Ugh. Gonna kill Rhodey when I see him.”“I can’t believe you still haven’t found Steve a nickname,” Bucky muses. “Isn’t that your forte?”“I’ve been distracted, been failing my duties, I humbly apologize. How about Hardhead?”“Should probably call him Hardass instead,” Bucky says. “Because he expects everyone to follow his rules, even though he follows no one else’s.”“Well that’s just him being a hypocrite. Though, that definitely could fit, and will be used, as his ass is tight as hell. Probably all muscle.”“You telling me you haven’t copped a feel yet?” Bucky grins, eyes closing.“No feels will be copped tonight,” Steve declares.Bucky snickers. “I don’t know, Tony’s a cuddler.”“I resent that implication.”“Maybe we should start calling Tony ‘The Cuddler’,” Steve muses.“…you should leave the nicknames to me.”“And yet, I still don’t seem to have a nickname.”Bucky feels himself drift. He’s with Steve and Tony now, he should be able to sleep in peace. He lets the conversation carry on.“Mmm. What if we called you Shellhead?” Tony offers.“Shellhead?”“Yeah.”“…Huh.” “What?”“Oh! Well… it’s nothing.”“ What?” “It’s just, something feels really, really… off. About you calling me that,” Steve says. “Feels wrong.”Bucky cuddles his pillow, allows his muscles to relax, and wills himself to have another dreamless sleep. “Something feels wrong? What’s wrong with Shellhead?”“…technically nothing? But it still doesn’t seem…I don’t know.”“You don’t kn— okay. It’s too late for this. You’re weird, that’s fine, we’ll just settle for Hardass.”“I thought my nickname was supposed to be head-related?”“Nicknames evolve, Hardass.”“Still not letting you cop a feel.”“I’m not responsible for asleep me’s actions.”Steve snorts, and Bucky falls asleep, the two men still bickering next to him in bed.        “How’d you sleep?” Bucky asks.Tony sips on his coffee. In reality, he slept like he was in Hell. Like actually, physically, in Hell. Don’t get him wrong, sleeping next to the two hottest men on the planet was absolutely fantastic. But therein lies the problem—they were hot. Fire and brimstone. It was Tony’s fault for trapping himself in the middle; though he’d been imagining himself in a supersoldier sandwich for quite some time, his libido had not taken into account the pure thermodynamics of the equation.“Turns out I am a cuddler,” Tony mutters into his coffee. He shouldn’t be this tired — New York is three time zones earlier than this, a 5 AM wake call should be cake. But he’d woken up several times last night, sweating up a storm -- especially after he’d tried to wind himself around the nearest body in his sleep and nearly scalded himself. He has no idea how Steve and Bucky are able to sleep together like this. He felt like he was in the sun; it was absolutely horrible.“You get a feel of his ass?” Bucky asks lowly.Ok, maybe not entirely horrible.“Like an apple,” Tony murmurs.Bucky laughs. He looks the best Tony’s ever seen him, jumping from the bed this morning with an extra sparkle in his eye. His head is down on the ground today, his body straddling a stool as he sips on coffee and picks his way through the plate of fruit Steve left for them before he went on an exploratory run around the property.He finds himself lost enough in this fresh looking Bucky that he doesn’t stop himself from muttering, “C’mere,” and taking Bucky’s mouth with his own. He’s met with enthusiasm, and they blend together slowly. This is familiar: fingers tangled in hair, skilled lips meeting skilled lips, playboy on playboy. It’s hot, and Tony wishes Steve was here to see them. Imagines him entering the house at this exact moment, out of breath from the run and stilling at the sight of them -- of the man he loves kissing… kissing Tony…Tony pulls back, a smirk painting his face quicker than he can blink. “As much as I’d like this to continue, I have to be schmoozed by a bunch of smelly Silicon Valley CEOs,” Tony says haughtily. So distracted as he was by exhaustion, he nearly forgot about the relationship he’s so selfishly getting in the way of.“Yeah, well, you deserved to be schmoozed a time or two.” Bucky winks, lips wet, looking for the world like he’s ready to eat him alive.“Don’t tempt me,” Tony says, almost meaning it -- and maybe that analogy about hell isn’t quite over yet if Bucky’s going to be his own personal devil.Bucky’s head tips to the side and his expression rolls into something indecent and dirty.“Don’t look at me like that.” Tony’s suddenly breathless. “Not when we’re taking it slow.”Bucky winks. “Just cause we’re taking it slow doesn’t mean I can’t tease you to death. I know how much you want it.”Tony shuts down. Silently, like a child that learned not to cry because they didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that they had been hurt, because they knew no one was there to make it better.“You like making me work for it? Might be a little more Dom in you than you think,” Tony says with a raised brow. The words don’t sound like a threat outside his mouth, but they do inside his head. Steve and Bucky don’t know shit about BDSM. For all he knows, Bucky could be a switch. Either way, there has to be a hierarchy here, right? If there is, Tony would plant himself firmly at the bottom, but he’s going to need to do a rapid course-correct if there’s two people’s orders he needs to take instead of one.But Bucky just shakes his head. “I just like being a little shit,” he says. Tony, honestly, is glad he’s able to hide his own issues so well, because Bucky is shining this morning, so different from how he was when he was first dropped on Tony’s doorstep. Yeah maybe he’s more agoraphobic than the average person, but now he’s smiling and eating fruit at the countertop and talking about going to the zoo as he waits for the man he loves to come home. Tony did that.And maybe one day way down the line, Steve will see what he did for Bucky, for both of them, and give him a nod and a genuine thank you. And that, Tony thinks, would be able to hold him afloat for a long, long time.Tony takes a strawberry from the plate, and slaps Bucky’s ass before he turns to go, smiling. “You really do,” he says without turning back. Call him a slut all they want, he’s going to make this happen, he’s going to get that fucking praise from these men if it means dragging his body through the mud just for their amusement.He’d do anything for them.His car is idling outside, waiting to drive him into town, and he slips behind the wheel and pulls on his rose-colored glasses. He’s looking forward to watching the Silicon Valley Doms shit bricks over the tech in his driverless car.        “You look good,” Steve says, descending the stairs in jeans and a button down, ready to take the car Tony’s reserved for their trip to the zoo.“Not too bad yourself, Hardass,” Bucky grins. Steve gives him a look, but Bucky knows he doesn’t mind the name, knows he’ll hold on to whatever Tony gives him like the gift it is.“Nah, it’s more than that,” Steve says, slipping into his shoes. “You’re… glowing. You’re happy. It’s a good look on you.” A look Steve had seen before, a long, long time ago. He knows enough now to realize that he has to be prepared to get to know a whole new Bucky if he wants to treat him with respect. But the old Barnes is bleeding into the new one like freshly steeped tea, and Steve, for once, doesn’t care to find the difference. Today he’s happy, and Steve’s got Tony to thank for that. He’s got Tony to thank for a lot of things, actually.Bucky gets a little bashful at that — that’s the new Bucky, and Steve knows better than to separate the two in his head but sometimes he can’t help himself — because the one back then would be preening at Steve’s compliments, not rolling in them.Bucky is lively today, more than usual, partially quelling Steve’s fears about the oncoming crowds they're going to face. And when they do pull into the lot — Steve choosing to drive himself, there’s no way he’s letting a machine do it for him, no offense to Tony — Bucky does look dismayed at the size of the place and the number of cars and school buses currently funneling people into the park.Steve takes Bucky’s hand, and Bucky looks at them, clasped, expression vacant for a moment. Steve squeezes. They don’t have to do this. They can take all the time in the world. They could sit in this car for hours, and only go in for fifteen minutes. Steve will do whatever Bucky wants. And way back when, Bucky would know that better than the back of his own hand.But this is now, not then,, so Steve repeats his thoughts out loud. And Bucky smiles and shakes his head, which is a relief because it means he does know that Steve would wait forever for him, and that feels good. That feels really, really good.“Let’s go,” Bucky says.           “That’s the gay bar?”“That’s the gay bar.”“That’s it?”“That’s it.”“It just looks like… a bar.” Just a bar, sandwiched between a vape shop and a restaurant. Through the window, they can see TV’s playing sports games, and men sitting at tables chatting, with cocktails and beers.“What did you expect, Hardass? Twinks in fishnets? Shirtless guys in leather harnesses? Men wearing nothing but a full face of makeup and a jockstrap?” Tony grins at him. “Because that’s what happens after midnight. Usually upstairs.”Steve lets out a choking laugh.“First floor is a sports bar, though I don’t think anyone’s gonna mind if you want to take off your shirt,” Tony says. He makes to walk inside, but when he reaches the door, he notices that Steve’s still rooted to the sidewalk, staring with a blank expression at the building in front of him.“You okay, Cap?”“It’s just a bar,” Steve says.“Yes... It is...” Tony says slowly.“Just. Sitting on the street. People go in and out, and walk past it. And no one cares.”Tony makes his way back to the man on the street. “And no one cares if I do this, either,” he says, and he kisses Steve on the cheek.Steve’s head jerks back from the kiss, eyes open wide. He turns and glances around him, but the people on the street pay them no mind. Tony, for once, is patient, standing next to the man, long enough that the sun finishes setting, and the lights on the street flick on.“Come on Steve,” Tony says finally. “Let’s go inside.”The host has black asymmetrical hair and a nose ring, and her voice trails off when she catches a glimpse of Steve and Tony.Steve doesn’t notice, looking around the bar as if he’s the one starstruck. Tony smiles and says, “Two, please.”They’re seated in a booth by the window, where the host smiles and leaves them be.“They’re just… regular people,” Steve says quietly as Tony pursues the menu. “Just like you and me.”“We’re nowhere near regular, but I get what you mean,” Tony says, doing a cursory glance around the room. There’s a couple of guys in suits with glasses of wine in their hands. At one of the long tables, a group of mostly men and some incredibly powerful looking women that seem to be on the same sports team are casually chatting and watching a baseball game. There are a few couples, and a group of two guys and a girl at the bar.Tony turns back towards Steve, and realizes he’s about to rip the menu in half.“Hey, Steve. Why don’t you put that down and take a deep breath, okay?” Tony says in his calmest voice.The waiter chooses that moment to head to their table. “Can I get you guys a drink?” They ask brightly. They have a well-worn blue collar around their neck.Tony glances back at Steve, who looks like he’s forgotten how to breathe, twisting the laminated menu in his hands.“Give us a minute,” Tony orders, waving them away, then he reaches across the table. “Steve, grab my hand.”Steve looks at Tony’s outstretched hand like he’d never seen anything like it before.“Steve, honey, no one cares. ” Tony says. “I’m not sure what’s running though that gorgeous head of yours right now, but you need to know that this is the future, and you are gay, and you have the right to exist in this space and hold my hand.”Steve exhales sharply, and, like it took every iota of strength in his body, he grabs Tony’s hand. It’s clammy with sweat, and it clutches too tight, but Tony doesn’t care.“This really means a lot to you,” Tony says gently.Steve squeezes Tony’s hand so tight, his knuckles crack. “Yeah,” he says.“Come on,” Tony says. “Let’s order something sugary and pink.”Steve eventually loosens up, to the point where they’re able to start a conversation. He laughs when he’s delivered the Cosmo Tony’s ordered for him, and digs through the menu to find something to eat. Tony gets a salad, and Steve gets three different baskets of fried food, and Tony ends up eating more from Steve’s plates than his own.“How was your meeting?” Steve asks, currently destroying a plate of truffle fries.“Didn’t expect much from these guys,” Tony says mildly. “And they rose to my very low expectations.”“More douchebag Doms?” Steve asks.Tony cracks a smile. “You’re learning. Yeah, but a different brand of douche.” Despite Tony’s technical predilection, he’s always hated Silicon Valley. And after he was outed as a sub, most of it was all too happy to hate him back.But any company would be an idiot to turn down a chance to partner with Stark Industries, with Iron Man, the greatest technological innovation of the century. So what he gets when he has to visit the Silicon Valley hellhole is women and men with the worst kind of superiority complex. People that are technically proficient enough to keep up with him but still elitist enough to believe that they’re better than him.There are still fanboys, obviously. Usually amongst the programmers and engineers that work for the big guys or the startup engineers that haven’t quite learned how to pitch. Tony almost prefers the conversation from the younger, newer people that never learned social skills but know how to talk shop. They may not be on his level, but they’re blind enough to the politics of big business to still be interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and Tony can appreciate that.“What do you mean?”“It means they recognize that I’m a genius, but think I could have been a better genius if I didn’t spend my spare time kneeling,” Tony says idly. “Though, how that affects my work, I’m unsure.”“I’ll be the first to tell you that designation shouldn’t count for character” Steve asks, on his second Cosmo of the night. “But -- and maybe I’ve been watching too much news -- but doesn’t it make sense that perhaps wanting to submit has something to do with who you are? And the same with wanting to be dominant? Not that submission makes you less able to make decisions in a business environment, but that perhaps needing to not make decisions every once in a while has something to do with who you are or what you do. There are people doing studies, albeit some of those are very biased.”Tony sighs. He’s been watching Steve absorb more and more of this brave new world, and knew that these questions were going to come up. “The only thing people like more than dividing other people into two groups is calling one group better than the other. Man and woman. White and black. Dom and sub. And when it comes to those binaries, people are going to assume one is better than the other, and that’s going to skew the results of any study put out there. What’s worse, is that people thinking one is better than the other — let’s be honest, we live in reality: that Doms are better than subs --  means that people think they have an excuse to treat submissives like they are no more than what they like in the bedroom. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a Dom or a sub, because suddenly the whole world thinks that subs are less than Doms.”“There’s a lot of things someone can pretend they are to get ahead,” Steve points out. “Plus, many people argue that the sub makes more decisions in a relationship, has more power and control, and therefore is the kind of person that’s capable of handling a lot of stress.”“To assume dominance and submission has anything to do with someone’s character is irresponsible,” Tony says firmly. “Assuming we lived in an ideal world where Doms and subs and switches identified themselves as they actually are, people will still be assholes. Doms could be shy and introverted, subs could be rude and demanding. People are people.”Steve doesn’t look like he believes Tony, but also doesn’t know enough to respond. “What about 24/7 players?” Steve asks.“That... I don’t know,” Tony says truthfully. He doesn’t think he’d ever be able to play a role 24/7. Already he spends so much time playing the role of businessman, battling with people who think they’re better than him based on Rumiko’s fucking exposé, and then having to play guide for getting Steve and Bucky together, and then having to be Iron Man on top of that. After all that, he still needs to take the time to be himself, even if ‘himself’ is a mess of violently depressive thoughts and a hyperinflated ego.They’re quiet for long enough that Steve kills the fries, and starts working on the fried pickles Tony’s been picking at.“How was the zoo?” Tony asks.Steve brightens. “Fantastic! The elephants? Amazing. And they had wolves, which apparently were sent there for a breeding program because they were going extinct. Bucky loved the leopard, and we spent almost an hour just watching the monkeys.”“And Bucky?”“A lot better than expected,” Steve says. His smile is so warm. He’s so happy. Bucky did that. Tony did that for them. “He wore himself out though. I left him reading Pride and Prejudice on the couch, with dinner.”“Good,” Tony says, smiling.They duck out right as the bar starts to get too crowded, and they walk for a while down the brightly-lit street.“I can’t remember the last time I ate like that,” Tony says with a yawn and a stretch.“Weren’t you living on a diet of takeout before I got here?”“Yeah, but I always got at least a vegetable or five in my own personal meal replacement smoothie,” Tony says. “You’ve tried them, you know.”Steve makes a grimacing face. “I have.”“Abs don’t just happen on normal humans,” Tony teases. “It takes a lot of work and a bit of luck that you don’t have a lot of fat around your stomach.”“But it’s nice to indulge every once in a while,” Steve says. “I’d rather see you happy than suffering for a six pack.”Tony doesn’t know what possesses him to say it, but suddenly, it’s coming out of his mouth. “I had liposuction, too. It helped.”Steve furrows his brow. “What’s that?” They stop at a stop sign for a second, his face a dark yellow in the light.“It’s a, uh, procedure. Mostly cosmetic. I used it to… I had a tummy, right? That no amount of planks, or swim classes, or cardio could get off. Even with a diet perfectly tailored to my body, there was this little pouch that genetically decided it needed to be there. And I couldn’t get all my abs.” Tony didn’t see it as a problem, but a magazine got a picture of him shirtless on a Jersey beach, slouching in such a way that the fat of his stomach had rolled over itself. According to them, he’d let himself go.“So liposuction was the perfect solution. Just suck it away. Minimal scarring. I’d be beautiful.” That’s what Sunset said after she read that article. He just wanted to make her happy.“I keep telling myself that it was my choice to get that work done,” Tony says. “But it wasn’t. I told myself I wanted to look a certain way because I wanted it, but I didn’t.” Sunset had loved it, his six pack. The magazine had loved it too.“I got so many things done to my body,” Tony mutters. “Small tiny things I didn’t even realize were there until somebody pointed them out. A crooked nose, weird feet, laser hair removal. All to make people like the way I look. Makes me wonder if there’s anything about me that’s real anymore.” Makes him wonder if there’s anything under the suit other than a pile of personas, stacked on top of each other, waiting for their turn to fall into place.“Tony, what are you saying?” Steve breathes, confusion and trepidation in his voice, and Tony slams back into reality with a flinch and a shudder, locks himself back down with a key made from iron.“Nothing, Steve.” Tony says with a smile. “Just talking. My car’s around the corner, let’s get back.”“Tony?”“Hm?”“You know I love you, right?”Tony blinks at the sidewalk. He didn’t, actually.He swallows, and wishes he could have it.In lieu of response, he stretches out a hand to Steve. Steve takes it.