He and Barnes glare at each other over their coffee cups, somehow having ended up trapped in the kitchen at the same time. Neither of them was really trapped but neither of them was willing to move either because they had to establish dominance. They did this with eye contact and black coffee, which Tony was handling well because he drank his coffee black all the time, unlike Barnes, who usually drank sugar with a dash of coffee because he’s a fucking barbarian. The plus side was that there was an island separating them and Tony was by the fridge, so clearly he was the real winner here.
Natasha had wandered in too at some point but she seems content to watch the two of them duke it out with their eyes while she drinks her own coffee, also black. He’s pretty sure that Barnes, like him, is secretly glad that Natasha decided to stay out of their shit because she’d win. As far as stats go she was on par with Steve almost across the board, each of them pulling ahead in their respective mastered areas. She’d be just as viable a team leader as Steve was and Tony and Barnes knew it. Stats put them at the bottom of the pile if for no other reason than mental health issues and a lack of ‘team player’ skills, pretty much the only two things they had in common. That, and Steve, but Tony got to undress him with more than his eyes so ha, take that, Barnes.
“I don’t get your sex thing,” Barnes finally says, showing weakness by speaking first. Tony watches Nat shift slightly in his peripheral vision, probably excited that something was finally fucking happening.
“I don’t get your sex thing,” he says back defensively, irritated that they were back on this discussion.
“My sex thing makes sense, yours is stupid,” Barnes says angrily.
“You’re stupid,” Tony snaps, “I’ve asked every fucking person in this tower what sexual attraction is and all of you gave different answers. Fucking Clint thinks sexual attraction is the feeling he gets when he looks at tacos and that’s what I’m supposed to base my feelings off of? Yeah, okay. And, and, all of you described like seven different kinds of attraction, not one singular form of attraction, therefore proving that sexual attraction is fake and I’m right so suck on that, Binky,” he snaps, throwing his hands up in the air. Natasha snorts softly but doesn’t say anything as she watches the two bicker.
“It’s Bucky, and sexual attraction does so exist! There’s just something wrong with you,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“Oh fuck you Buckley, I can give you a list of things that are wrong with me, none of which have anything to do with feeling or not feeling sexual attraction you ignorant thundercunt,” he snaps. He casts a brief glace Natasha’s way at that because he didn’t want murder tights around his neck for using her junk as an insult but she seems amused, thank god.
“Well if you ask me I’d put that near the top of the list,” Bucky mumbles and oh hell no.
“Well no one asked you now did they, you thorny cocknugget,” Tony says, throwing the remains of his coffee at Bucky, fully preparing on walking out after that, dominance be damned but no Bucky has other plans.
“Fuck you, Stark,” he snaps, climbing over the fucking island and snatching the collar of Tony’s shirt before he managed to escape to safety. Tony reaches behind him to grab whatever was there, coming up with a knife and brandishing it boldly. It wasn’t like he’d use the thing, he just wanted to be released, it wasn’t even like that coffee was hot, it was lukewarm! “You wouldn’t dare,” Bucky says, being an asshole and calling his bluff.
“Test me, fuck trumpet,” he says, waving the knife slightly but safely away from Bucky’s left eyeball. He figured Steve wouldn’t be happy if he gave Bucky a Nick Fury inspired makeover.
He doesn’t expect Bucky to start pulling him closer and without any actual desire to use the knife he resorts to trying to pull himself back and shrieking, earning an outright laugh from Natasha.
“What is going on here?” a familiar voice asks from the door way and they both turn to see Steve looking adorably sleep rumpled, hair sticking up everywhere. Unfortunately he also looked pretty pissed off.
“He started it!” he and Bucky yell in sync.
“I don’t give a damn who started it, I am finishing it!” Steve yells, “Bucky, let Tony go, and Tony, is that a knife?” he asks.
“I wasn’t going to use it,” Tony says in his own defense, “unless Blinky here really does want to rock the Fury look,” he says, eyeballing Bucky, who goes to reach for him again but fuck that noise. Tony maneuvers himself the hell out of dodge, tossing the knife back onto the counter and booking it across the room to go hide behind Steve and appreciate his ass while he was back there.
And damn did Steve have a fabulous ass. It was perfect enough that Tony made a few equations for the curve of it once, taking notes from the Supernatural fandom. Twitter went nuts. People have modeled homes after Steve’s ass and he, for one, was proud that he had touched the real thing. “Tony,” Steve says, drawing his attention, sadly, away from Steve’s ass.
“Sorry, I was distracted by your ass,” he says, making sure to shoot Bucky a look because yeah, he got to stare at Steve’s ass all he wanted. Eat shit, Barnes.
“You don’t even have a proper appreciation for his ass,” Bucky mumbles and oh no he did not. Tony goes to march his ass around Steve to give Bucky a proper appreciation for his fist but Steve scoops him up and throws him over his shoulder, ignoring Tony’s undignified squawk of disapproval.
“Okay first of all let me down so I can give this flaming shit monkey a piece of my mind,” Tony says, wiggling around. Nat snorts into her coffee cup quietly, managing to not draw Steve’s attention in doing so.
“Stop wiggling Tony, and Bucky. What did I tell you the last time this happened?” he asks. Tony does not stop wiggling because he wanted to see this and his head was currently planted in the middle of Steve’s back. Normally he wouldn’t mind that, Steve had a great body, but at the moment he had other priorities.
“But-” Bucky starts but Steve cuts him off.
“No buts,” he starts but Tony interrupts whatever tirade Steve was about to start by smacking his ass.
“Yes butts,” he says, grinning at his own bad joke. He doesn’t expect Steve to smack his ass in response and he lets out another squawk, “well if that’s how you want to play it we take this to the bedroom so you can give me a proper spanking. Unless, of course, Nat and Biscuit are down to watch,” he says, wiggling around some more.
Natasha snorts, “Clint is going to be so pissed he missed this.”
“Fuck my name up one more time, Stark,” Bucky snaps.
“Busty,” he says and Steve lets out an honest to god growl.
“Tony,” he snaps, irritated.
“Yeah, Tony,” Bucky says, totally encouraging Tony’s current behavior all the way.
“Bucky,” Steve snaps.
“Steve,” Tony throws in.
“Natasha!” Nat says enthusiastically, clearly not wanting to be left out.
“Nice,” Tony says, giving her a thumbs up.
“Oh for gods sakes you two, why can’t you get along?” Steve asks, sounding exhausted.
“Probably because Becky thinks something is wrong with me,” Tony says, just as done with Bucky’s shit as Steve was. And he was the one that nearly got shot in the face when they were hunting that shithead down.
“Okay you know what-” Bucky starts but Steve must make a gesture or something because Bucky’s shuffling stops. Tony starts wiggling around to get a proper view again but Steve just readjusts him back to the position he was in pre-wiggle. Asshole.
“Did you actually say that?” Steve asks.
Tony can practically feel Bucky’s shame from here, having been properly cowed by Steve’s Captain America voice. “Well, I mean, I said-” Bucky stutters quietly.
“Yeah he said that,” Natasha says, ever the shit disturber. She didn’t much like drama that involved her, but when it involved other people? Oh, she and Clint were in there like a couple of dirty shirts in a laundry basket, popcorn and all.
“Apologize!” Steve yells and Tony almost feels compelled to say sorry. He doesn’t though, because Bucky didn’t deserve an apology, the crusty ass crotch cricket.
Bucky mumbles something awkwardly, “I didn’t hear that,” Tony says, purposely antagonizing Bucky because he was going to enjoy this, damnit.
“Enough, Tony,” Steve says, reprimanding him, “and Bucky. Actually apologize, that was cruel and uncalled for! You know what it’s like to have people use those arguments against you; you don’t get to go using those arguments against other people!” Steve says, back to his Righteous Captain America tone. Tony felt like tossing in his own agreement but he actually wanted to get laid sometime this century and although hate sex was fun he didn’t get the impression this would lead to that. See, he knew when to keep his mouth shut, thank everyone very much.
“Fine, sorry, I just don’t get it,” Bucky says. That was the most backhanded apology Tony had ever heard and he has handed out some pretty backhanded apologies himself.
“You don’t need to get it, neither Tony’s sexuality nor his sex life is any of your business,” Steve snaps. Yeah, go Steve!
“But what’s the point of sex if you don’t even feel sexual attraction?” Bucky asks sounding like he was at a loss.
“It’s called aesthetics, you soggy bag of broken dildos. And before you go on to tell me some stupid shit about aesthetic attraction being the same as sexual attraction, when you look at a cute ass cat and you decide you want to pet it at no point do you do that because you want to face fuck it. So they’re different and as we all know, Steve has a very pleasing form, which I enjoy touching,” he says, grinning even though no one but Natasha, who was now laughing, could see it.
Steve sighs deeply, “you had to go with that example, didn’t you?” he says.
“I like that one, it gets the point across well,” he says. For Clint he swapped out cat for dog because Clint is a savage and prefers dogs.
“Yeah well like… how’s Steve supposed to know you love him?” Bucky asks and Tony can’t help the disgusted face he makes.
“Are you kidding me? Come on Barnes, you can’t possibly be so fucking stupid to think sexual attraction somehow correlates with love. Use you’re fucking head, if people have one night stands based on sexual attraction and that doesn’t lead to a romantic relationship of any sort then obviously sexual attraction has nothing to do with love. Companionship, Barnes, is what you’re thinking of not ‘I’d fuck that’. How in the flying shit is wanting to have sex with someone going to guarantee the success of a relationship? That means nothing! I have had enough one night stands to know that can’t possibly be what holds a relationship together,” he says confidently. It just wasn’t a thing, sex is sex, relationships are relationships, and sometimes they both happened at the same time but sex didn’t make a relationship. That was stupid.
“That actually is the general consensus yes, that sex is what makes romantic relationships different,” Steve says gently.
Tony snorts, “if people think fucking is what keeps their romantic relationships whole that’s why fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. I mean come on people, one night stands! That immediately proves the sex=romantic relationship holder together thing wrong. Obviously. It’s all that other emotional goo people stick on sex that keeps relationships together not… not… do people actually think that?” he asks, confused.
“They do,” Steve says.
“What a bunch of morons,” Tony says, “I have had a lot, and I mean a lot of meaningless sex. I can confirm that if you have no emotional attachment to the person you’re sleeping with then it’s just that, an emotionless physical connection you get pleasure from. Like eating food that tastes good, I mean you don’t love your food and want to marry it. You just like it. But like… if you go on a really cute date and you eat a certain food and then the food reminds you of that person now you have an emotional connection, but because of the food, it’s because of the person. Am I making sense?” Tony asks.
“You’re making perfect sense,” Steve says.
“I still don’t get it,” Bucky says.
“Your idiocy is not my problem,” Tony chirps, “now Steve, honey, I am horny, to the bedroom!” he says enthusiastically.
Natasha rolls her eyes, “you boys are too much sometimes,” she says, picking herself up and walking off to do whatever it was Natasha did in her spare time. Probably punch all the social ills out of the planet.