Therapy

Tony didn’t think he needed to be here and not just because he didn’t think he needed therapy, let alone group therapy. No, he didn’t want to be stuffed into some sub support group because he wasn’t a sub, nothing against them. But that wasn’t him, he had zero inclination to submit to anyone, thanks, and he didn’t much appreciate people telling him that he should. What harm did it do to let him do his own thing? None was the answer but no, ever since presentation at puberty and his distinct lack of natural sub instincts he’s been poked and prodded at by assholes wondering why he wasn’t quite right. The doctors didn’t much like it when he told them that he wasn’t wrong, their narrow ideas of biology were.

Needless to say this was bound to be a horrible experience that ended in everyone hating him for being annoying an uncooperative just like it always did. How this was supposed to help he had no clue but his therapist insisted he try it at least once. If it wasn’t for the call to Pepper to make sure he went he wouldn’t have even bothered but apparently patient-doctor confidentiality was fine to ignore if your patient was uncooperative. And the guy wondered why Tony didn’t talk. Gee, it was a real fucking wonder. He throws himself into a chair that was as close to the fringe of the group as he could get when they were all sitting in a circle. Christ, he could hear them all singing kumbaya already.

The guy next to him shifts slightly, giving him an odd look and yeah, Tony too bud, no need to stare. But it’s the woman on his other side that says something, “you shouldn’t be here,” she says with a slight edge to her voice. He sighs and pulls a paper out of his pocket and hands it to her without even bothering to look at her. “This can’t be right,” she says after reading the results.

“I don’t much think so but hey, the tests all say I’m a sub. So uh, sorry about this,” he mumbles, taking his paper back. Everyone looks just a bit uncomfortable and yeah, throwing a Dom into a group of abused subs will do that to them. Granted it was entirely possible that another sub or a switch abused them but statistically speaking that wasn’t the most likely situation. He told the therapist that but no, Tony didn’t know what he was talking about. It stood to reason that he knew his body and his urges best but life has informed him that if you don’t fit what everyone thinks you are you must be wrong. Whatever. When the therapy leady guy walks in he questions Tony’s presence too so Tony hands off his test results to him too.

“Are you sure this is right? Maybe they messed up the paperwork or something,” the guy says.

“Oh trust me, the results are right, scientists have been experimenting on me since puberty,” he says bluntly. The guy next to him flinches and Tony ignores that because he didn’t want to know what fucking sob story led to that reaction.

“I… that sounds horrible,” the guy says.

Tony shrugs, “ehh, sometimes I got good drugs.” And he spent a lot of time away from home, which was a fucking blessing. Then he was shipped off to boarding school, which he hated, and then his parents died- his father’s fault. Then he was stuck with a company and a bunch of other responsibilities he never wanted. He guess he’s made the best of it given the circumstances, Stark Industries was starting to take off like never before, doing better than it ever had under his father’s control. But according to Obi people trusted married business people better and Tony fucking refused to do any of that. Publicly no one knew what his orientation was and he was going to keep it that way, regardless of what Obi thought of that decision. Personally Tony thought the whole think was stupid considering most of the married guys he did business with cheated on their partners anyways. That fostered trust how, exactly? It didn’t help that Obi didn’t know his orientation either and he seemed damn intent on finding out.

Therapist Guy, Sam, was a genuinely nice person so Tony felt a little bad for being largely uncooperative but he wasn’t playing this game. Also why should he feel bad for telling these subs they should have drop kicked their Doms out a window, they were absolute assholes, they should be drop kicked. The guy beside him quietly snickers every time Tony makes a disgusted noise and makes a new violent suggestion. The one guy thought ripping off his exes eyebrows and sewing them to her ass was hilarious so clearly he was doing the world some good.

Eventually Sam sighs, “I’m legally obligated to tell you not to take revenge, especially if it’s violent,” he says, giving Tony a look.

“Oh, we’re going for non-violent? Fine. Stick shrimp in their curtain rods, glue all their small change together, put bugs in their shoes, buy a chicken and set it loose in their home, hide eggs somewhere in their car and wait, change the Netflix password right as they get to the season finale of whatever they’re watching. I could go on but you all get the point, these people are a bunch of jackasses and I, for one, think petty revenge is necessary,” Tony tells them confidently. The guy beside him snorts, hand covering his mouth as he glances over at Tony almost shyly.

Tony gives the guy a once-over and grins back because why not, guy was hot. He was only human after all; why not give the eye-candy a little something to work with? If Sam didn’t derail his very important revenge discussion with some therapy shit he might have remembered to get that guy’s number. Picking up subs from his therapy group, not his finest moment but certainly not his worst. That probably had to do to the DUI he got a few years ago and Pepper’s yelling at him ensured he wasn’t to do that again. Eventually Sam releases them from their prison and he all but flees to the snacks. He had to listen to people’s horrifying sob stories for the last hour; he needed some cookies or something to make up for it.

Of course his plan to throw the cookie up and catch it in his mouth goes a bit awry and it ends up hitting his face and nearly falling to the floor before he hastily catches it but still. Semantics. “You’re a fun one,” someone says from behind him and he turns to find the guy who was sitting beside him. He was, mercifully, one of the people who didn’t share their sad and depressing story and for that Tony was grateful. He was also grateful that people didn’t mistake his brashness and jokes for insensitivity. Truthfully a lot of these people’s stories hit home and he didn’t like to think about home too often.

“So I’ve been told,” he says, grinning. Falling back into his normal patterns of flirting was easy, natural. It was never this part he had trouble with.

The guy raises an eyebrow, “by who, there’s no fucking way you’ve ever submitted to anyone, so unless you’ve been faking your orientation you’re probably pretty inexperienced,” he says, just a ghost of a smile gracing his features.

Oh, Tony liked this guy. “As it would have it I’ve done a little bit of everything, enough to leave people confused or they assume I’m a switch. Though the submission thing never really did it for me, is your first reaction supposed to be to do the opposite of what your Dom tells you to piss them off?” he asks, head tilted to the side. They both knew the answer to that, no, you were not supposed to want to do the opposite of what your Dom asked you. Apparently there was this warm, fuzzy feeling you’d get when you follow your Dom’s orders but Tony has never gotten that. And it wasn’t like the doctors didn’t try; Howard was dead set on having a proper son but no. His orientation refused to cooperate with the rest of him.

“No, not that I hear anyways. Bucky,” the guy says, smirking. He holds out his hand for Tony to shake and he does, somewhat surprised that he had a rather firm grip. It wasn’t that subs didn’t have firm grips, but typically they didn’t shake hands with people enough to develop the habit. That was left to their Doms. Tony half wished the sub thing had worked out just so he didn’t have to shake hands with so many skeezy business types but sadly that was not the case.

“Tony, in case you didn’t pick that up before,” he says. He’s known for being pretty vocal, which drove any Doms he attempted any scene with nuts because he had a natural inclination to do what he wanted very loudly. It drove Howard nuts for sure and no matter what punishment he tried it didn’t take, and Howard tried everything.

Funnily enough when his mother had asked nicely instead of trying to order him around he had no problem complying. All it took was some basic decency and respect and he found people rarely had an interest in that. It certainly wasn’t the case for most subs; it was deeply frowned upon to abuse subs because it subverted the very nature of a Dom/sub relationship. But if you knew where to look people didn’t care, Tony’s lived a whole life of that to know.

“Oh I did, pretty sure everyone knows who you are after telling Shelly to drop kick her ex out a window,” Bucky says, snickering.

He shrugs, “well if he had been a good Dom I wouldn’t have suggested it but no, he was a fucking piece of shit and anyone who treats their subs badly should be drop kicked out a window,” he says with confidence, curling his lip in disgust.

“I wish I had’ve met you a couple years ago, might’ve done me some good,” Bucky says.

“Nah, two years ago I was in jail. DUI. Pepper lost her shit on me, rightfully so, and I got my shit together,” sort of. But Bucky didn’t need to know about all his problems and shit, no one did. They were his problems to have, thanks, and if he felt like sharing he talked to Rhodey.

“Who’s Pepper? Your sub?” Bucky asks, probably sounding far smoother in his head than out loud.

“Hell no, I mean I love Pep but nah. Plus her Dom would kill me and I am not in the business of pissing Natasha off. I fully believe that story she told me about killing a man with a pair of fake eyelashes, the woman is terrifying,” he says. They were great friends though; he tagged along on a lot of Pep’s dates for business purposes.

He appreciated how understanding Natasha was of Pepper’s being highly career driven, she had a past of Doms disliking that she was more loyal to her career than them. Tony understood that, really, but Pepper’s career was important to her and they knew that from the beginning so they had no right to bitch. Natasha though, she had her own career that took up a lot of time so she got Pepper. They worked wonderfully together. Tony had been half convinced Pepper wasn’t actually a sub until Nat showed up to prove him wrong. Natasha had been appreciative that Tony didn’t look down on her because she was his assistant, then threatened to castrate him if he ever stepped out of line. Not a woman he’d like to piss off, thanks.

Bucky snaps his fingers, “oh right, I remember reading about her in some article on you. I’ve seen your name around, assuming you’re last name is Stark. Which it might not be, oh god,” Bucky says, looking around for an exit.

“Relax, I am that Tony. Ever seen any of those hilarious Stark Naked puns in the tabloids. Those are my favorite because they’re amusing, and they piss my business partner off,” Tony chirps happily. Obi didn’t much like Tony’s habit of doing things that were bad for business, like stumbling home drunk after one night stands, but he could fuck off. Tony would damn well do whatever he wanted to.

“You really do have a habit of pissing people off for fun,” Bucky says and he shakes his head, “that’s bound to get you into trouble.”

“Ehh. Obi might not like my habit of sleeping around, but he has to admit that my inability to follow the rules is as good for business as it is bad. I mean Stark Industries went from a sort-of-known million-dollar company to a household name billion-dollar company all because I didn’t like the rules. Forbes basically worships me, as they should.” Obi should probably be more appreciative but he insisted on nit picking. Tony told him not to worry so much because he wasn’t paying the hospital bills when the man gave himself an ulcer.

“Tony,” someone calls and he turns, noticing the difference immediately.

“Shit,” he mumbles, “I’m so sorry, usually I have the whole powerful personality thing- you know what, it doesn’t matter. I should have been paying more attention, and I didn’t mean to like… draw you in, sorry,” he says again taking a step back just as Sam gets to him and Bucky. Doms sometimes had that effect on subs, accidentally drawing them in with nothing but words and a dominating presence and Tony should have been paying more attention before this poor guy got hooked. Bucky looks minorly dazed but otherwise okay, thankfully. He should have been paying more fucking attention, the last thing anyone here needed was some dickhead Dom playing games with them.

Besides, the last time something like this happened to him it resulted in Justin Hammer followed him around like a lost puppy under the guise that he hated Tony. Actually he still did that. And all he had done to him was tell him how to not blow everyone in the lab up in a really condescending tone. The guy must be into humiliation because there was no way an imprint could have happened otherwise. Or Hammer was defective, Tony was on board with that assumption too, mostly because they guy was obviously not right.

“Don’t look so upset, you clearly didn’t realize. Also whoever sent you here is incompetent at their job because you shouldn’t be in a sub support group. Here,” Sam says, handing Tony a card, “don’t look at me like that. Trust me, he’ll be more effective than whatever moron sent you here.” Tony sighs and takes the card, some Dr. Riley Jenkins. Huh.

“Well, can’t be worse than the last guy, or the like seventy people who’ve deemed me a lost cause. Thanks man,” he says and he flees the scene before anyone can say anything else.

*

“Natasha, you know I love you. And I love Pepper, but I’d prefer if you keep your love off my desk, or at least the sexual love. Heartfelt ‘I love yous’ are fine,” he says, ignoring that Natasha’s skirt was currently pushed up around her hips and Pepper’s face was between her legs. The fact that he just accepted that this was a normal, everyday thing was probably a problem. “You know Pepper has a desk right?” he asks.

Natasha huffs at him, “with glass walls. Now get out,” she tells him, lifting one of her hands out of Pepper’s usually pristine hair to wave him off.

“I need the files first, calm down. I need Pepper in ten minutes so you’re going to have to wrap this up quick, and we both know you don’t give a damn about glass walls, Nat. I know that because you don’t seem to care when the walls are glass in my house. Have you seen that red file or are you too busy to notice?” he asks, enjoying Natasha’s irritated glare. Pepper pulls a file seemingly out of nowhere without even pausing in her efforts to get Natasha off. “You’re the best Pep,” he says and grins at Natasha, “you’re a lucky woman. Please stop having sex on my files.” He leaves the office then, leaving them in relative peace and hoping Natasha cleaned up her mess this time. Probably not, he suspected Natasha liked to annoy him as much as possible.

It occurs to him that this is Natasha’s weird way of marking Pepper as hers despite the freakish amount of time she spent with Tony but Pepper had a collar, wasn’t that enough? Granted he wasn’t all that uncomfortable with it, more like resigned to Natasha’s strange sub-marking ways so maybe that’s why she does this so much. It happened far too often for every incident to be accidental. Plus he guessed that Pep might be getting him back for all the times she’s walked in on things she probably didn’t want to see. Negotiated Torture Tony Time. He took his punishment with grace because last week Pepper walked in on some shit that would make Obi blush.

“Tony, good, do you have those files?” Obi asks, sneaking up behind him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got the files- oh, you aren’t going to want to go in there,” Tony says when Obi reaches for the door, jumping in front of it to save Pep’s reputation. Not that Natasha wouldn’t straighten out that wrinkle but she shouldn’t have to.

Obi hesitates but he relents, thankfully, because Tony has never been good at lying on the spot and he would have made up some outrageous story that probably wouldn’t even make sense. “Good, these people are important Tony, so I expect you to be on your best behavior,” Obi tells him, using his Dom voice.

He glares at the man, “I’ll do what I want,” he says in a tight tone and walks off, full well preparing to do just that. Obi did that somewhat frequently, tried to figure out his orientation via different praises, commands, and such. Tony didn’t respond to any of it, but sometimes he’d respond to Natasha when she did the same thing so it left Obi confused. He could stay confused because Tony’s orientation was none of his damn business.

Despite Obi’s warning the meeting goes great and once again Tony makes millions, because he was that good. He wasn’t fond of the business aspect of things, he preferred to invent, but someone had to make sure Obi didn’t take over. He’d leave that to Pepper but she had admitted long ago she wasn’t fond of the man and Tony wasn’t going to put her in a position in which she was uncomfortable. He had the benefit of knowing Obi his whole life and even though he had a habit of pushing boundaries it was only to push Tony out of his comfort zone some. It wasn’t something Tony liked all the time, but sometimes he needed that extra push and he was happy that Obi was there to do it.

“Told ya I’d do what I wanted and it went great,” Tony tells Obi, grinning. Obi looks less than impressed because Tony hadn’t done what they had planned to do, but they got more out of the deal so it shouldn’t matter.

“Well I would have appreciated the heads up on the game change,” Obi says, “you drove a hard bargain.”

Tony shrugs, “I was winging it,” he says even though that was only half true. He had been over the contract a few times and he wanted more out of the deal, the company he was working with had more to lose by not signing than he did, and that gave him leverage. It had all gone well in the end anyways so Obi’s dramatic sigh was largely unnecessary.

“You can’t ‘wing it’ in business, Tony, we’ve been over this,” he says in a tired tone, predicting correctly that he has already lost the argument.

“I just did and I made us millions. Anyways Pep and I have a dinner date with Natasha to go over tomorrow’s shit,” he says, picking himself up. Pepper quickly follows with her head up but she remains quiet, very unlike her normal self. He really should ask what about Obi made her so unwilling to deal with the man as a whole considering it was kind of important to how he ran things. She was integral to his work and he didn’t want Obi scaring her off.

“I can practically read your mind, Tony, Obadiah is not going to scare me off. I am not that easily dissuaded,” Pepper tells him, “I simply dislike the man.”

“Why though? Not that you have to have a reason exactly, but you don’t normally avoid people you dislike like the plague,” Tony points out. Normally she stuck around to make a lot of passive aggressive comments and insulted them every chance she got. It was one of Natasha’s favorite things about her.

“He just makes my skin crawl,” Pepper says, wrinkling her nose delicately.

“Who makes your skin crawl?” Natasha asks, appearing out of thin air as usual with a touch of anger in her tone. She glares at Tony because they had a weird unspoken agreement that he was to take care of Pepper when she wasn’t around. More like Pepper took care of him and he sometimes made sure to ask if she was okay or not. Natasha didn’t seem to mind how it worked so long as Pepper was there in one piece when she got back from her business trips.

“Obadiah, and Tony was asking if I was alright,” Pepper says, likely trying to dissuade Natasha from skinning Tony alive before she decided it was necessary. Tony hadn’t exactly asked if she was alright, at least not in those words, but Natasha accepted it regardless.

“I’ll have to keep an eye on him,” Natasha says, pressing a hand to Pepper’s lower back. Pep relaxes a little bit and Tony is happy for it. She hated anything to do with Obadiah and unfortunately he was very involved in the business side of things while Tony usually had more to do with the inventing side of things. Sometimes it meant Pepper going to things in place of him though he tried to avoid it for Pepper’s sake. He might hate business meetings with a passion but he hated making Pepper uncomfortable more. Also Natasha would eat him alive if she thought he mistreated her sub.

*

Steve gently runs his fingers through his hair and Bucky sighs in relief. He hated doing this with anyone else; he never seemed to trust them enough to actually get any comfort out of it. But he trusted Steve, trusted that he wouldn’t take advantage. Steve didn’t mind doing this for him either, even if he didn’t quite understand Bucky’s situation. When Steve was young everyone assumed he’d die off before presentation but Steve had stuck around out of pure spite, Bucky was sure, and he ended up being a Dom. No one was surprised by that, no one who knew Stevie anyways. Everyone else was a little surprised but what the hell did they know? People seemed a lot less surprised when he hit that growth spurt before college, which was stupid but whatever.

And Bucky, he presented as a Dom too. Except that made no sense because anyone who knew him knew he followed Steve around making sure the scrawny little runt didn’t get his ass kicked again. People would have had to be blind to miss that Steve was always in charge, and Bucky had always been happy to follow whatever plan Steve made, even if he thought it was dumb. Like he said, someone had to make sure Steve didn’t accidentally die. When he was young that was actually a very real possibility. But Bucky just wasn’t meant to be the one giving orders, though biology dictated otherwise. He wanted to punch biology in the face.

He tried faking it for years and failed fucking miserably at it. By the time he hit his early twenties he had taken to lying to people and telling them he was a switch with submissive tendencies. It wasn’t an outright lie, he told himself, even though it was. He should have just been honest with himself and everyone else- damn what biology says, he’s a sub. It wasn’t until Brock that he admitted that, sort of. He knew Brock had a temper, everyone warned him, but he had foolishly assumed that Brock wouldn’t hurt him. It didn’t help that he figured out Bucky’s secret pretty damn quickly and used it as leverage. Bucky should have just told someone, it would have made his life easier in the long run but no, he had been ashamed and confused and he paid dearly for that.

Brock did a good job at playing the good guy too, he kept Bucky’s secret, he indulged in Bucky’s delusions, clearly he was a fucking saint or something. In the end it was Phil who figured it out. Steve and Clint had their suspicions but Phil must have had personal experience. It took him awhile but he managed to wheedle the truth out of Bucky, which resulted in Steve flipping shit. However, to Bucky’s intense surprise, it was Phil who nearly killed Rumlow. Turns out the man had some skills he had kept from Clint and the plucky sub decided to unleash some pent up fury on Brock, sending him to the emergency room after Clint finally managed to pull Phil off of him.

Everyone had taken the sub thing pretty well, but in the light of Bucky’s relationship and Phil nearly killing Brock it was hardly the most interesting thing that happened that week. He had moved back in with Steve, who had figured out that his relationship with Peggy just wasn’t going to work out no matter how much they loved each other. Thankfully that left free space for Bucky and he hadn’t looked back. That was three years ago and after much poking and prodding Phil finally managed to convince him to go see a therapist for his issues. He had relented because he couldn’t keep Steve from dating forever. Right now he felt obligated to take care of Bucky and Bucky didn’t want that, didn’t want to disrupt Steve’s life just because he was so fucked up.

That was how he ended up in Riley’s office, which was how he ended up in Sam’s support group. And oddly enough that was how he had met someone like him, kind of. And Tony was so open about it, so blasé. Clearly he wasn’t that way in the media but Bucky got the impression that that wasn’t because he was ashamed, he was certain that Tony just liked to keep people guessing. Whenever Tony’s orientation got out, and it would get out, he got the impression that Tony would roll his eyes, correct the interviewers, and then move on with a flourish that only he could manage. Bucky liked him, was somewhat comfortable around him too and that was rare. And even better, when Tony realized he was accidentally coming on too strong he backed the hell off.

Actually he had looked vaguely sick and ashamed, and he hadn’t made excuses for it either. He had gone to but he didn’t and Bucky was curious about that. Curious about what made Tony Stark tick. He was outspoken, but the only thing he actually said about himself after the beginning of the meeting was to Bucky, otherwise he easily distracted everyone from his own issues swiftly and effectively. Bucky hadn’t shared much of anything at all, not wanting to be judged for it, so he supposed he shouldn’t judge.

Maybe Tony didn’t want to be judged either. That didn’t sound right considering the man was so… forward. It’s been a long time since Bucky has met anyone that blunt, not since Clint. The first thing Clint had done upon meeting Bucky was compliment his ass and condemn his drink. Frappuccinos were fucking good though so Clint could eat his perfect ass. Phil had been hilariously scandalized by the whole thing.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Steve tells him, pausing in his petting Bucky’s hair. Bucky makes a noise of protest and Steve continues running his fingers through Bucky’s long strands.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, “just thinking about that group thing and that time Clint told me I was the reason small children were starving to death because I drink frappuccinos.”

“That’s a bit disjointed,” Steve comments, pausing briefly again but he resumes before Bucky can protest.

“A guy at group was pretty blunt, reminded me of Clint,” Bucky says. Technically they weren’t supposed to talk about group, which felt very Fight Club to him, but he figured as long as no names or details were mentioned it was fine. That meant he rarely said anything at all but it wasn’t like anyone else needed to know anything anyways. But Tony was hilarious. He had to tell someone. “He told one of the people to rip his exes eyebrows off and sew them to her ass,” he says, snickering.

Steve laughs, “okay, that’s actually pretty funny.” Duh, Bucky wouldn’t have said it otherwise.

“He told someone else too drop kick their Dom out a window, super tempted to take that advice.” He couldn’t help but imagining Brock’s stupid face as Bucky sent him flying so he had rather liked that suggestion.

“I’ll help,” Steve offers and Bucky appreciated that, really. “So I take it group went well?” he asks tentatively. Bucky didn’t really talk about his therapy, there was still a lot Steve didn’t know and he didn’t feel like sharing so he kept things to himself and Riley. It stood to reason that if Bucky was willing to talk about what happened it went alright though Steve knew from experience to tread lightly.

“Yeah it went okay,” he says vaguely. He wants to tell Steve that Tony was like him, sort of, but that would breach that whole confidentiality thing so he keeps quiet. He sort of wanted to see Tony again if for no other reason to ask questions about that, like how he knew, how he dealt with things. His public life didn’t really shed any light on that because what reporters have gotten ahold of was a jumble of mixed signals and confusion. Granted Bucky didn’t pay that much attention to the media on any given day so maybe he was wrong. He just happened to catch an article about Tony by chance that had a picture of him, which was how he recognized him in group. It had taken a while to place him but Bucky managed and thankfully Tony didn’t seem put off by it. Bucky imagined he’d be pretty uncomfortable with fame but Tony seemed pretty at east with it. Yet another thing Bucky sort of wanted to know about.