Therapy

“You need to like introduce me to Sam Wilson,” Rhodey tells him, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I met the guy once in group therapy, what the hell am I supposed to say to him? ‘Here’s my best friend, thankfully he isn’t as fucked up as I am?’ That’ll go well,” Tony says sarcastically.

“Worst. Wingman. Ever,” Rhodey accuses, “this is worse than all those times you somehow managed to snatch my dates in college when you were a literal child.”

Yeah, Tony was about eighty percent sure every single one of those people were pretty fucked up for being perfectly willing to sleep with a fifteen year old despite an age difference that was anywhere from three to ten years. But hey, if Rhodey wanted to overlook that in favor of jealously, alright. “What if I told you I had a sneaking suspicion he has a military kink?” he asks and he kills Rhodey’s excitement immediately.

“You suck,” Rhodey tells him, glaring at him as he leaves Tony’s lab. He loved Rhodey, really, but sometimes a man just wanted to be left alone with his machines for a little while.

“Oh god Dummy put that down!” he yells as the bot picks up a highly experimental explosive that wasn’t meant to be tipped and shakes it. The bot spooks and drops the damn explosive and Tony flinches, expecting to die at any moment because his idiot bot didn’t stay out of the restricted area. Thankfully he doesn’t die so he tosses a wrench at Dummy’s claw, “you idiot, you see the tape you just ran over? That was the starts or the restricted area, yeah, that’s right, you wheel your ass out of there in shame. Yeah, go sit on your charge pad before you kill me fucking around,” he snaps, half tempted to throw another wrench because the first one missed.

He missed Rhodey already, he would know not to go messing around in the restricted area.

*

Phil is shockingly efficient so he manages to find Bucky a good apartment in a decent neighborhood for cheap, and he manages to get all this stuff from Steve too. The world should be afraid of Phil Coulson. “Damn, how do you even manage to do shit like this?” Clint asks, looking around at an already unpacked apartment.

“I have skills,” Phil tells him, grinning.

Clint shakes his head, “oh man, you’ve let him in, good luck getting him out. I brought him home one whole time and I haven’t managed to kick him out ever since,” Clint warns, teasing Phil lightly.

“Oh please, you wanted me there. And even if you didn’t you need a live in maid to deal with your mess, honestly, you were perfectly fine with your underwear all over the floor and Lucky sleeps on the floor. You were satisfied with dog hair nuts, admit it Clint, you need me,” Phil says.

Clint lets out a dramatic sigh, “seriously, buddy, you’ve been warned. He even managed to kill the cockroaches, those things can survive a nuclear blast but god help them if they come in contact with Phil Coulson,” Clint says, shaking his head.

“That’s great, but where is everything?” Bucky asks, more concerned with where to find his cooking stuff. He had a bad habit of cooking late at night and he didn’t want to stumble home from work to spend three hours trying to find his shit. At that point he’d cook out of spite because he spent so long finding the stuff.

“Right, it took me a few tries to find a system that works efficiently but if you’ll look to your left-” Phil continues while Clint and Bucky share a horrified look. The world really needed to be afraid of Phil Coulson.

Bucky is strewn across his couch sometime after Clint finally managed to remove Phil from his new home when someone knocks on the door. He debates on leaving the person there but they knock again so he heaves a sigh and picks himself up to go answer it. He opens the door to find Steve poised to knock again, “what are you doing here?” he snaps with more force than strictly necessary. It was hardly his fault he was still mad, damnit, Steve totally betrayed his boundaries and he knew it, Bucky felt that his anger was perfectly justified.

Steve’s cheeks color just a bit and somewhere in the back of his mind he was reminded that it should be something he found attractive. All it did for Bucky was remind him of that one time, before Steve got lucky and hit one hell of a growth spurt and good health, when he had a real bad fever. Bucky was sure he was going to die he was so out of it but he didn’t, Steve is one stubborn bastard, but the memory didn’t do much to make current Steve all that appealing as something other than a friend. How Steve managed to get past all the embarrassing memories he had of Bucky he’d never know, Bucky was a really embarrassing child.

“I uh… you left you lease on the counter,” Steve says, handing over the pile of papers Bucky didn’t notice until now. Bucky was prepared to snatch them back and think up an excuse to get rid of Steve when his neighbor steps out of her door and gives Steve an appreciative once-over. ‘Jealous’ she mouths to him, eyes lingering on Steve’s ass.

“Hey Steve, my neighbor thinks your hot, go hang out with her for a bit,” he says, snatching his papers and disappearing back into his apartment. So he had about as much finesse as a cat wearing shoes, he was sure Steve would forgive him for it later when he stopped pinning after a relationship that will never be. Plus he had that lease Phil had been hunting around for and couldn’t find. One day, when he was feeling particularly brave, he was going to ask Clint how the hell he managed to Dom someone who micromanaged his own micromanaging because he was curious.

As soon as his ass hits the couch someone knocks on the door and he internally sets himself aflame. This happened every time he sat down, some introduction that meant he had to get up and do things. He sighs deeply and picks himself up, going back to his door to deal with Steve, only he finds his neighbor there instead. “Give it to me straight, why is he single? Is he like a serial killer or something? Because that’s the only reason I see for someone that hot to be single,” she says bluntly.

“Hey, my name is Bucky, nice to meet you,” he says, “and Steve went and fell in love with his best friend like an idiot. Pretty sure he isn’t a serial killer but he does need to pull his head out of his ass.”

“Sharon, and nice to meet you too. So to be clear are you the best friend here, or the significant other of the best friend? I need to know which romcom trope I just fell into,” she says and Bucky grins, deciding that he liked Sharon.

After spending a half an hour with Sharon on his couch recounting hilarious stories about their respective family and friends he’s decided Steve has been replaced in the best friend department, at least for now. “Wow, your aunt Peggy does not sound like a woman I’d cross. Steve dated a Peggy for awhile, actually, honestly I think she’d get along famously with your aunt. They’d probably take over the world,” he says.

Sharon laughs, “oh my aunt could do it on her own, she’s just too busy training her sub at the moment,” she says.

“I don’t doubt that, the woman sounds downright terrifying. In a nice way, of course, or I guess as nice as that can get. To be fair Steve’s ex probably wouldn’t need help either, she was also pretty terrifying but I haven’t spoken to her in years. I assume she’s doing well because she is not the type of person to be doing badly, even if she was in a crappy situation. If you want Steve though, please, I’ll stick a bow on him for you,” he tells her.

“How sweet of you. I can forgo the bow, though, no need to cover any of that delicious goodness. Did you just wrinkle your nose? Oh my god, you are so unappreciative,” Sharon says

“I saw him shit his pants in third grade, that does not inspire romantic feelings. Or sexual feelings. Hell, in that moment it didn’t even inspire platonic feelings because I was nice and helped him clean up the mess. You can’t go back from that,” he says, shuddering. He blames Steve for his complete lack of interest in toilet play. Actually toilet play was more than enough to throw him off, Steve didn’t do much to encourage that was not a kink for him.

“No, you can’t go back from that, thanks for ruining a perfectly hot guy for me with that image. So, on to more normal subjects, what kind of work are you into? We have a lot of artists here, and scientists too, you happen to do either of those things? Please say yes, I have bets going with the guy down the hall,” she says.

“Neither, I’m a bartender. Does that win you your bet?” he asks and Sharon swears so he guesses no.

“Guess Erik gets the ten bucks this time. I thought that the guy in the suit was moving in and I had him pinned down for law enforcement for sure, but then you walked up and I figured with the metal arm you were an artist. Bartender though, that’s got to be interesting work,” she says. Buck glances at his arm, only just realizing that it wasn’t covered like it usually was. He was surprised that Sharon hadn’t spent the entire time she was sitting across from him staring at it.

He decides to just ignore the arm thing and move on to the rest of that statement. “Yeah, my boss regularly tries to kill me,” he says, deadpan.

Sharon almost drops her drink, eyes wide, “oh my god,” she says and Bucky bursts out laughing.

“Nah, it fine, its fine. If you knew Weasel you’d get it, and to be fair he sucks ass at trying to kill people. It’s Wade you gotta watch out for, he can throw the whole damn bar into pandemonium with a single shot. Ever heard of Sister Margaret’s School for Wayward Children?” he asks.

He watches the light go off in Sharon’s mind and she nods, “ahh, makes sense now. Anyone actually die there?” she asks curiously.

“Nah, but Wade needs to stop handing out blowjobs to everyone, they start too many fights,” he says and watches Sharon give him a weird look before she realizes he meant the shot, not the sex act. “So what do you do?” he asks more to be polite than anything.

“I’m a spy,” she says, grinning.

“No shit, the guy in the suit, he used to be a spy,” Bucky says.

Sharon’s eyebrows shoot up, “really? Who’d he work for?” she asks.

“No clue, he claims that if he tells us he’d have to kill us. Like literally, apparently that isn’t just a T.V trope,” he says.

“Huh, I wonder if I know him then,” Sharon says, squinting like she was trying to remember who Phil might have been back in his spy days.

*

Bucky bites his lip somewhat nervously, eyeing the table, “spit it out, Bucky,” Tony tells him. He uses a firm enough tone that it draws Bucky’s attention away from whatever fascinating images were on the table top. Tony would prefer not to push him but in the interest of being thorough it was sort of necessary, this conversation was intended to cover both of their asses.

He gets a dramatic sigh in response, “I… well I like you and what if we aren’t like… compatible kink-wise?” he asks somewhat sheepishly.

“Than we aren’t compatible kink-wise. That doesn’t mean we can’t go buy some fries to throw at ducks so we can watch a literal hunger games,” Tony says honestly.

“Are fries healthy for ducks?” Bucky asks, frowning.

“Buzzkill. And no, probably not, I mean they aren’t good for people let alone ducks but we can give them a treat. They have short life spans, we have to let them live a little before they shuffle off this mortal coil,” he says.

“Was that a Hamlet reference?” Bucky asks.

“Was it? No clue. But I’m going to rip off the band aid and get to the point here, I prefer pleasure over pain. I like taking care of my subs, feeding them, brushing their hair, bathing them, that kind of thing. Kink-wise I like sensation play mostly, using different kinds of fabrics and materials to draw different reactions. Usually I combine it with some sort of sensory deprivation like using a blindfold, tying your hands behind your back, having you listen to music so you can’t actually hear what I’m doing to anticipate where the next touch will be. Any of this sound appealing?” he asks.

There was more as far as care went but he didn’t want to scare Bucky off just yet. Ideally he’d pay for everything too, it made him feel better to have actual records of what Bucky would be eating, knowing his environment wasn’t shitty for sure because he picked it out, and ideally it would be a building he knew had security. People were assholes and they would absolutely target Bucky to get to him, plus the press, fans, everyone else who gave a damn about his life, being with him wasn’t easy.

“I… actually yeah that sounds… like something I didn’t know I wanted until I heard it actually. But like… no pain?” Bucky asks hesitantly.

“I’d prefer not, is that something you enjoy?” he asks.

“No, not really. I mean some stuff is okay but nothing too… extreme,” Bucky says.

“Subjective term, what does extreme look like to you?” Tony asks. Force of habit, being overly clear, even if he wasn’t an overly blunt person business relied heavily on wording. He’s fucked more than one person over with using subjective terms with the intention of burning them to the ground, he didn’t make a habit of using flimsy language in his personal life for that reason. If things were clear-cut and easy to understand he dealt with less problems later.

Of course there was always the one night stand who thought they could swindle money out of him and if they had a case he’d make an effort to hear them out, but he has yet to have that happen. He was pretty methodical in his record keeping anyways, and JARVIS recorded everything even if it was just audio, which all parties knew about and consented to of course, but it made it difficult to screw him over and it would work equally as well for whomever he slept with if he broke the rules. JARVIS sent off all recordings to the appropriate parties before he could touch them, same with the paperwork, it made covering his partner’s ass more secure that way. And if those videos found their way to the internet, well, it wasn’t his fault whomever he slept with decided to violate his trust only to have their systems fry for it. Lesson learned.

Bucky thinks before he speaks and that was a good sign, Tony has learned his lesson long ago about hastily drawn out rules. They didn’t look good on paper and he was sick of people being assholes and trying to take his money. Personally he thought it would be a whole lot more productive to ask but maybe he was old fashioned or something. “Nothing that leaves permanent marks or scarring, no drawing blood, preferably no biting, nipping is fine but keep actual bite marks off my body, thanks. And I’m not fond of paddles, or whips,” he says and Tony cringes hard against his will.

“I hate whips,” he says with perhaps more force than necessary. Howard used to use them and now the sound alone was enough to make him want to vomit.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, leaning forward in concern.

“I… yeah I’m alright. Your limits are pretty much a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t want to do anyways, so that’s convenient for us both. Anything else you don’t particularly like?” he asks.

“If you ever try and bring anything that belongs in a toilet anywhere near me I will drop your ass like a hot potato. I’ve cleaned public bathrooms, do not do that to me,” Bucky says, wrinkling his nose hard and Tony bursts out laughing.

“Scat isn’t for me either man, and I didn’t need to clean a public bathroom to come to that conclusion,” Tony says, still snickering. All he had to do was almost try it once, safeword out, and never look back. Rhodey teased him for weeks because he prided himself on trying anything twice to make sure he did or didn’t like it the first time for sure. There were some things you just knew though, like your sexuality, Justin Hammer being a total dipshit, and whether or not you were into toilet play. He wasn’t going to mess with his instincts on that, he’d leave the toilet play for those who enjoyed it.

“Thank god. I mean you do you and all that, but that is not for me,” Bucky says, wrinkling his nose. Tony grins and moves on to the next subject, how he liked to work contracts specifically, because trial periods made sense to him at least. Natasha agreed and she was supposed to be sensible so he figured that he was right on this detail, even if Rhodey thought he was weird for it.