Mission X
“I feel like a field of screaming cabbages. No rhyme. No reason. No explanation,” Tony says, walking into the kitchen looking casual and nonchalant instead of acknowledging that incredibly odd declaration.
“Do you have an explanation for that statement?” Steve asks and Tony wrinkles his nose instead of answering, which Steve takes as a no. He sighs and decides to switch gears, “so. You ready to steal back your world destroying tech?” he asks and he doesn’t mean for it to come out as snippy as it did but he couldn’t take it back now and Tony already looked pissed off about it.
“It’s not like I can help that Obadiah sold my tech to fucking Nazis, I’m trying to get it back so people don’t get hurt so it would be nice if I got a little credit for trying to clean up my own mess,” he snaps and stomps off empty handed.
He sighs again and wonders how the hell Bucky managed to get through to someone so stubborn and volatile, not to mention irresponsible. There must be something there, Steve thought, because Tony had been willing to risk his own life in New York to save others but frankly he didn’t see it, at least not most of the time. There were times when he could see Tony as more than a volatile cocktail of human emotions that was bound to end in disaster for everyone who was there when Tony finally blew but the moments were few and far in between. Most of the time Tony was with Bucky when that happened and he was unsure if he was seeing the good in Bucky reflected in Tony or Tony’s own good traits.
“You two are terrible together,” Bucky says, appearing out of know where in silence. It had taken some time getting used to Bucky being so quite all the time, before HYDRA he had been so full of life and love and now… now he was suspicious, jumpy, afraid. He had thought that loosing Bucky had been the worst thing that had ever happened to him but bringing Bucky back had been far harder because Bucky didn’t come back, not really.
“I try but he’s just so… so… easily offended,” he says, frowning.
Bucky doesn’t look like he believes that argument and frankly Steve didn’t really believe it either, but Tony just couldn’t be reasoned with. He thought he was right and he wasn’t willing to assume maybe he wasn’t so he could give Steve a chance. “Neither of you are willing to talk to one another, if you would both just stop being assholes to each other you’d probably get along fine. You don’t fight as much when I’m around,” he points out.
“That’s because you both ignore each other and talk to me, that doesn’t count. Just… talk to him, he’s not that bad, you’ll see,” Bucky says and yeah, right. As if Tony would allow that without dissolving into a fit of anger and rage in less than four seconds. People seemed to be fond of making jokes about Bruce’s temper but as far as Steve could tell he was a rather laid back person who didn’t seem very easy to annoy. Tony, on the other hand, was always pissed off about something and the man was simply unwilling to let anything go. He was just so… so stubborn.
“Are you going to go tell him that all we have to do is talk about our feelings?” he says sarcastically and Bucky gives him a look. This one in particular was new because when Bucky glared before it was out of fondness and familiarity with Steve’s thought process, now he just looked annoyed.
“Yes, yes I am because I’m tired of watching you two fight about everything and I’m not fond of being stuck in another pissing contest between the two of you when the only reason you don’t get along is because you’re too much alike,” Bucky says in a matter-of-fact tone.
Steve snorts, “we are nothing alike,” he says, somewhat offended that Bucky would even make the comparison.
“Really?’ Bucky says, full well not believing a word Steve said.
“He’s so god damn stubborn, and angry, and he’s so set in his opinions he refuses to see anything else but what he believes is right,” he snaps, frustrated with the damn omega. He’s proven over and over and over again that he wasn’t what Tony thought he was and Tony refused to see it ninety percent of the time. As if Steve would poison his pasta for gods sakes. He had better things to do.
Bucky rolls his eyes, “sounds exactly like someone else I know,” he mumbles.
“I am nothing like that!” Steve protests.
“Really?” Bucky says again, highly skeptical of Steve’s argument. “If I were to sum up what kept you going before you got injected with that serum, which I’ll get to in a second, I’d say ‘spite’. You literally only fought for your life all those times you got sick because everyone kept telling you you were going to die and you didn’t accept that. You’ve always been right pissed off about injustice, which is what led you to accept being injected with a highly experimental serum that could have killed you because you wanted to help people, and because you didn’t accept the limitations your own body had given you. You know what keeps Tony going? Spite. Has Tony accepted the limitations his body made for him? No, he made a fucking super suit just to blow shit up, which is exactly what you did with that damn serum. Tony is just as interested in social justice as you, if in different ways. And don’t act like you aren’t just as set in your opinions as Tony, the both of you are all or nothing in that department and it’s both of your best and worst qualities. Now stop acting like you’re so different from each other and get along, and if you don’t at least leave me out of it,” he says, waving an arm around in frustration before taking off, presumably to go rant at Tony.
“He makes a point,” someone says from the doorway and Steve looks over to find god damn Sam there with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh give up on your ridiculous pipe dream of me and Tony getting together,” he snaps, frustrated with Bucky and Tony but taking it out on Sam. He feels bad for it instantly but he can’t exactly retract the words now.
“That’s right; you best look guilty for being an asshole to me because your best friend put your ass on blast. Even if I wasn’t trying to do you cuties a favor by getting you together I’d still be annoyed with all the fighting you two do, yesterday you two were arguing over how to eat a taco. You wanna know how to eat a taco? You stick it in your mouth and chew, and yet you two were acting like eating tacos had some complicated method and y’all were personally offended that you enjoyed tacos differently. White people,” Sam says, rolling his eyes in a rather impressive manner.
“Tony and I are a horrible match. Frankly if you wanted to match me with anyone we worked nicely,” he says.
Sam sighs, “we’ve talked about this, I am a beautiful black butterfly and I must be free to roam the fields and pollinate the flowers, you have already been pollinated and butterflies to not pollinate one flower for life. It’s not in our nature,” he says gently.
Steve decides to ignore Sam’s terrible logic for now, “maybe you should pollinate Tony, it’d probably make him less bitchy,” he mumbles.
“Tony can handle his own pollination and I’ve been there. Trust me, you two are compatible, throw Bucky in there and we have a field of some very happy flowers,” Sam says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Steve frowns, “if we’re all flowers who’s the butterfly?”
“The fuck are you people talking about?” Bruce asks from just outside the doorway, looking like he was trying very hard to follow that analogy and failing. “And people say asexuals are weird,” he mumbles, shaking his head and walking away.
*
“If I wanted your head in my ass I’d’ve asked,” Tony says in response to Bucky’s very long tirade about how he and Steve had a lot in common, blah, blah.
“Are you serious?” Bucky snaps, looking irritated at Tony’s obvious comic genius.
Tony considers it, “I’m down if you are,” he says flippantly, earning a rather murderous glare. “Look, we still have to get through Nat’s version of a ‘get along’ shirt and I don’t know what it is about her but every time Nat heads some sort of mission it always goes to hell in a hand basket. She’s like… the opposite of good luck,” he says.
Bucky frowns, “bad luck?” he asks, looking confused at Tony’s weird description.
“Yes, that,” Tony says slowly, thinking over the words carefully. He was, once again, in need of sleep but it eluded him for now.
“Just… just give Steve a chance, okay? He’s trying you know and you should give him some credit for that,” Bucky says and Tony whole heartedly disagrees.
“Fine. But I’m not going to guarantee results, I am a delicate flower and Steve likes to stomp on me,” he says, pouting.
Bucky rolls his eyes hard, “you are not a delicate flower, and you do just as much stomping so don’t act like you’re a victim here. The two of you would like each other, really, you just need to stop arguing over dumb things like how to eat tacos,” Bucky says.
“He was wrong, for the record, he eats tacos wrong and I felt compelled to tell him that,” Tony says, protecting the correct way to eat tacos with his life.
“God, why am I friends with you?” Bucky mumbles.
“Because I’m a fun, intelligent, sexy person and who wouldn’t want to be friends with me?” Tony asks because clearly he was the best thing ever. Obviously.
For a second Bucky looks like he’s going to disagree but then he shrugs and nods in agreement with Tony’s statement. “Well,” he says, “you aren’t wrong.”
*
He’s tinkering with the design for Bucky’s arm, toying with colors, while Bucky tries to figure out what a fucking hotkey is. Never in Tony’s life has he ever come across someone so computer dense and after Bucky asked Skye what the hell a hotkey was she gave up on trying to teach him not to open every ad he saw on the fucking screen. So far Tony was semi-successful in teaching Bucky how to use a computer like a normal human, “oh hey, I googled hotkey, I know they are now,” he says and Tony is ashamed to say that he was proud of Bucky in that moment.
“Want a chocolate?” he asks.
“Stop trying to condition me into using computers better,” Bucky says, calling Tony on his shit immediately. It was worth a try to give Bucky some positive reinforcement when he managed to get something right, Tony has heard that it was very effective.
“Suit yourself,” he says and pulls some Lindt chocolates out of his drawer.
“You didn’t tell me they were Lindts! Give me one of those,” Bucky says, sticking his metal hand out for said chocolate.
“Manners, Barnes, were you born in a barn yard?” he jokes, withholding the chocolate.
“Matter of fact I was, now give me the damn chocolate,” Bucky says, pulling Tony’s chair closer to him.
Tony bails out of the chair with the chocolate, “haha, get me now,” he says and he doesn’t expect Bucky to all but leap over the chair for the chocolate so he decides to head for Dummy in a split second yelling at the bot to save his ass. Dummy, as per Dummy usual, runs straight into the wall headed in the opposite direction of Tony, “you fucking dumb sack of scraps, that wasn’t even the right direction!” he yells, narrowly dodging Bucky’s grasp.
“Jeeze, whatever training you and Steve are doing is paying off, you’re fast!” Bucky says, making another move that Tony neatly dodges. Huh. Well, he’ll give Steve credit where it’s due, he wasn’t a horrible teacher.
“Not the usual review, but I’ll take it,” he says, grinning.
“Stop making sex jokes and give me that chocolate,” Bucky tells him, making another grab for Tony’s hand so he could pry the chocolate out of it. Tony goes to dodge again but Dummy seems to have gotten his shit together long enough to wheel his stupid ass over and run directly into Tony, sending him straight into Bucky’s arms.
Bucky catches him before he bounces off his chest and lands flat on the ground, holding him steady while Tony griped Bucky’s right shoulder, trying to gather his bearings. “Ugh,” Tony says, surprised at the sudden amount of contact between the two, surprised at how close they were.
Bucky’s arm holds steady around his waist and he examines Tony’s face, rolling his eyes fondly when Tony opens his mouth to speak, “shut up, Stark,” he says and decides to take Tony’s silence into his own hands and he leans forward, gently pressing his lips to Tony’s, giving him more than enough room to pull away if he wanted.
For a second Tony isn’t sure how to react but then he figures fuck it, Bucky was hot, why the hell not? It wasn’t like he’d question it any other time, the only reason he was now was because he’d have to deal with Bucky afterwards and that was not in his usual M.O. He curls his arm around Bucky’s neck and pushes himself further into Bucky’s space, happy to take the kissing lead considering this was sort of his expertise.
Bucky, however, has other ideas and he nips at Tony’s bottom for his efforts, which, rude. But Tony’s curious though so he lets Bucky slide his hand up his back, his hand curling into the back of his hair and tipping his head back for better access to Tony’s mouth and okay, he could work with this. Bucky holds him steady but his kisses remain gentle, almost chaste, and when Tony tries for more Bucky decides proper punishment is biting at his damn lip. “Do you know how to do anything slow?” Bucky murmurs against Tony’s lips.
“Slow I can do, but you kiss like a fucking virgin,” Tony tells him and Bucky looks well and truly offended.
“I kiss like a what?” Bucky says, looking about ready to prove him wrong and yes, that was the point here.
“What am I, a fucking nun? Put your lips somewhere useful,” Tony tells him and Bucky’s lips are barely back on his when some asshole starts screaming in the doorway.
They looks over to find Sam screaming and jumping around in what looked like a cross between that weird dance people do when they have to pee and a victory dance, smacking Mack’s arm and pointing at him and Bucky. “He dances like he’s white and he’s sorry,” Bucky says in Tony’s ear and he snorts loudly because yeah, Sam’s victory dance was fucking awful.
Mack looks one hundred percent done, “I have eyes, Sam, stop smacking me,” he says, deadpan.
*
Natasha had that look on her face that suggested some serious shit was about to go down and after everyone’s collective cheer after Sam had gone around the house screaming about Tony kissing Bucky Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He had no idea everyone was so god damn invested, even Loki had rolled his eyes with a muttered, “finally,” before disappearing to sulk in peace. The only one who hadn’t seemed happy, unsurprisingly, was Steve and Tony could live with that no problem. What he couldn’t live with, probably, was whatever Nat had planned for this ‘get along’ mission.
Coulson and Clint had decided that they had wanted in on the action and from the looks on May’s and Bobbi’s faces they had some sort of investment in this too. Fitsimmons was generally upset that they were requested to stop analyzing data they had been collecting from Clint and Coulson’s bond to come watch Tony fail. Well, Nat hadn’t said Tony would fail, he just sort of assumed he would because he was terrible at this shit. Bruce was giving him some pitying looks and that meant he knew that Nat was up to something that Tony was going to be on the receiving end of and he didn’t get a chance to ask what her plans were before he was deployed with Steve to go do things.
Clint and Coulson happily argue like an old married couple while Steve and Tony give each other doubtful looks in the back seat of the car and at least they were on the same page here. Nat had decided that a pair of glasses, camera included, and a baseball hat was a sufficient enough disguise and Tony was wearing a pair of Clint’s purple tinted sunglasses and a hoodie with the hood up. This was a failure of costuming on epic proportions but Natasha insisted that people were incredibly unobservant and wouldn’t notice them whatsoever, even with the unusual tint of Tony’s sun glasses. He had his doubts but Natasha was more than an expert at this sort of thing so he let it go.
“This is going to go horribly,” Steve mumbles to himself.
“Agreed,” Tony mumbles back, “I suck at this stuff.”
“I meant because we suck at getting along, not because I doubt your abilities. Your abilities are just fine, you just need to learn when to apply them,” Steve says and that was sweet, he was being nice because Bucky.
“Thanks but I’m going to get us killed. I’d say it was nice knowing you but ehh,” he says honestly.
Steve surprises him by laughing at that, “fair enough,” he says and Tony decides then that maybe Bucky was right about Steve. Maybe he didn’t totally suck. Dude still had a stick a mile long stuck up his ass though.
Clint and Coulson drop them off outside the mall looking much like a pair of white moms dropping their kids off at the mall, full well knowing they were going to meet a couple of boys they liked. Tony was deeply disturbed and judging from the look on Steve’s face so was he. “Have fun you two!” Clint yells out the window and Steve winces.
Tony decides now was a good time to start walking faster.
“Slow the hell down, Stark,” Natasha says in his ear, “and wait for Steve.” He does as he’s told but only because he felt like it, not because he was afraid Nat would eat him for breakfast if he didn’t listen.
Steve catches up quickly and Natasha starts directing them through the mall, instructing them to stay close to one another. Like. Uncomfortably close to one another. “Why do we have to be standing on top of each other?” Steve eventually asks as they head up the escalator.
“Because people need to think you’re a couple,” Natasha says, dropping that bomb like it was nothing. Which. No. Absolutely not.
Steve seems to have the same idea because he looks borderline outraged by this, “I am not going to pretend I’m dating Tony, what about Bucky-”
“Oh he’s agreed to this whole thing,” Natasha says, amusement tinging her tone.
Tony and Steve exchange a glance and Tony eventually shrugs because Nat’s the expert, what the hell does he know? Maybe the couple cover had some relevance; it wasn’t like he knew the details of her plan. He wasn’t sure Nat knew Nat’s plan. “You’re just going to accept this?” Steve hisses at him, clearly morally outraged that Tony would dare agree to date his kissing buddy’s best friend so no one got shot.
“We’re in a mall with an unknowable amount of HYDRA agents with who knows what weapons and a whole lot of innocent people in between us and them, I’m not in a position to question someone who knows far more about spy work than I do about a plan she would be able to execute far better than I could. Don’t act like I’m trying to purposely squish Bucky’s feelings of some shit,” he hisses back and Steve seems to accept this answer because he looks less like he was about to explode. Natasha instructs them to look as nonchalant as possible from then forward because people remembered people who made a scene and that was the last thing they needed.
She directs them effortlessly to a storage room with a keypad next to the door. Skye informs them that they keypad has a nine digit code and they only had three tries to get it right. “Oh how the hell are we supposed to do that?” Steve hisses, glaring at the key pad in question.
Tony starts hitting buttons and Steve’s eyes practically bulge out of his head, “you stop that! We only have so many tries and you’re wasting one of them pressing random, oh hey, you got it. How’d you know?” he asks, his tone changing real damn quick and that’s what he thought.
“It’s a prototype of a military alarm system I made years ago, obviously something else Obi thought would do great in fucking Nazi hands but that’s irrelevant, I just overrode the system with a preinstalled password I made,” he says.
“What was the password?” Steve asks,
“TonyStark,” he says, grinning and walking into the room as Steve rolls his eyes, “what? It was easy to remember and obviously no one thought to change it, or they didn’t know that TonyStark was a universal pass code that overrode whatever they chose. Who cares, HYDRA is dumb.”
Tony ruffles through a few things, stealing a few notes here and there, some his, some not, while Steve watches the door. He finds what he’s looking for and a few other pieces of his tech so he decides to liberate that stuff too when Skye swears, “okay, so it turns out they figured out that TonyStark could override their systems because it tripped an alarm that only just popped up. You guys have like five seconds to get the hell out of there, maybe,” she says.
Steve swears loudly and Tony starts looking around, quickly stuffing a few more sheets into his bag. “Are you kidding me?” Steve snaps but Tony doesn’t get a chance to respond before Nat’s telling them to use a half hidden exit and instructing them to swap glasses.
They exchange glasses while they squeeze out the door, barely managing to get out before someone else walks into the room. “Great. Now out the way you came, and quickly. They’re looking,” Natasha says.
“Was it necessary to take all that other stuff?” Steve hisses at him.
“Would you rather I leave it with Nazis?” Tony asks, incredulous.
“Fine. Don’t leave it with the Nazis, it was still irresponsible,” he mumbles.
“Not more irresponsible than leaving it with Nazis,” Tony counters as they get back onto the elevator, going down this time.
“Stop arguing,” Natasha tells them calmly, “there are three HYDRA agents on your tail but they don’t seem to realize you two are the one’s their looking for quite yet.”
“Should we prepare to engage-” Steve starts but Tony cuts him off.
“What?” he asks because no. No. This was not what he signed up for.
“Kiss,” Natasha says.
“What?” he and Steve ask in sync, giving each other disbelieving looks, “this is where I draw the-”
“Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable,” Bucky says over the com, “and they seemed to have picked out Steve’s hat. Now kiss,” he says and Steve and Tony give each other looks.
Fuck it. Tony leans forward and plants one on Steve, “god, what a bunch of homophobes,” Natasha comments, “did you see how fast they all turned away? Congrats guys, crisis averted, homophobia has made the agents think that you two are not the ones they are looking for. Go out the south door, Clint and Coulson are waiting.”
“We are having a discussion about this when we get back, Bucky,” Steve hisses into the earpiece.
Bucky giggles, “you two should have seen your faces.”
“Was this planned?” Tony asks, highly offended.
“It was a possibility,” Natasha says, “though it was far more fun in theory than in practice.”
“But Bucky-” Steve starts and Bucky sighs.
“I have nothing against you, Steve, people don’t like to watch intimate moments, throw in the fact that you’re two men would make people turn away twice as fast. When Natasha came to me with the possibility it made more than enough sense, plus I wanted to see you two panic about kissing each other. Ten out of ten, guys, would watch again,” he tells them.
“Well I’m glad someone thinks so,” Tony mumbles. “Are you wearing chapstic?” he asks Steve, “because you taste like strawberries.”