Therapy

“Since when did you start working with Agent?” Tony asks, deeply offended that Rhodey would betray him this way.

“What? His information was good,” Rhodey says, looking unrepentant about his treasonous ways.

Tony feels around on his desk and grabs the first thing he knows isn’t a tool and tosses it at Rhodey, “you treacherous snake, Agent is the enemy! I thought you knew that but no, I find out that you’ve off and betrayed me,” Tony says, waving his hands around dramatically.

Rhodey smacks the object away before it hits him and frowns as he spies what clattered to the ground. “Did you just throw a dildo at me?” he asks, sounding as offended as Tony feels.

He looks at the ground and finds that yes, he did just throw a dildo at Rhodey. “If you’re going to act like a dick, I’ll throw one at you,” Tony chirps, nose stuck in the air. This gets a laugh from Rhodey but he otherwise ignores the comment in favor if telling him what Agent knew. The general consensus was that this was something coming from the inside of his company out, not the other way around, and that whomever was behind this knew him and the company well. Whoever was also very good at covering their tracks but Agent suspected that Tony could track down where Agent’s breadcrumbs were coming from. Agent himself was not that talented and Tony agreed. He had no idea what Agent’s skill set was but he knew it wasn’t as good as his own.

“Oh, and by the way, if I find out that dildo is anything but you fucking around with prototypes and business ideas I will end this friendship full stop. Friends don’t throw dildos at friends,” Rhodey tells him with a note of finality.

“It’s mostly clean,” Tony tells him even though he had guessed right when he assumed it was a prototype. Rhodey picks up the dildo gingerly and throws it back at him, looking victorious when Tony yelps and bats the dildo away. It goes flying and hits poor Dummy right in the claw, causing the bot to spin it in confusion. “Oh look what you’ve done, you upset Dummy. It’s okay, daddy didn’t mean to hit you with a dildo, it was Rhodey’s fault,” he tells the bot, wheeling over to pat the poor thing affectionately.

“There are a lot of things in my life that I thought I would never hear, that statement was one of them,” Rhodey says, “now come on. We have things to do, like figure out who the hell is selling your fake weapons.” Tony sighs and wheels away from Dummy because Rhodey was right; he had breadcrumbs to track and people to arrest.

*

“Best song quote go,” Weasel says, dropping his hand from above his head to indicate a start to something. Wade looks like someone just asked him to figure out how many cats could fit between the earth and the moon but Bucky came prepared.

“‘Tell your boyfriend if he says he’s got beef that I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him’,” he says quickly, trying to beat Wade to the punch even though he was clearly stumped.

Weasel’s jaw hits the ground and he sits down, contemplating his life. “Holy shit everyone quit life because Bucky just fucking won it. Where did you hear that lyric?” he asks.

“3OH!3, songs called ‘Don’t Trust Me’,” Bucky says, “overheard some teens listening to it forever ago and caught that line and decided they had the greatest music taste ever.” They didn’t, most of the band’s music was trash but it was lovable trash, even if Steve disagreed. But then he might have hated the music because Bucky insisted on singing along to it at three a.m in the shower. It wasn’t his fault that he worked late though, he had to shower sometime and what kind of loser showered with no music? Steve did but that’s because he was bland, he also liked Rice Krispies with nothing on them, just the Krispies and the milk. Total savage. Everyone knew that you had to add a little sugar or honey or something to give those cardboard flavored nuggets any flavor at all but no, Steve had no taste buds apparently.

“That’s fucking amazing, have two hundred dollars,” Weasel says, holding out a wad of cash. Bucky snatches it and stuffs it in his pocket before Wade got any ideas and before Weasel could change his mind.

“You know what, fuck you, I’m putting you on the deadpool this week,” Wade tells him, sulking because he was a poor loser.

“Fine, I only work twice so that’s not a problem,” Bucky says with a grin. It did mean he had to flirt his ass off for tips but hey, he was cute, he’d be fine. And Weasel just handed him two hundred bucks because someone else wrote an iconic line and he reiterated it. And this was why he loved his job so much, it was hardly work and yeah, maybe people got stabbed here semi-frequently and okay, so it was a but of a dive bar. But the people were great, the money was good, the entertainment was constant. There wasn’t much not to love despite what Steve thought about the place. It wasn’t like he was Bucky’s mother; he had no right to go about telling Bucky what to do. Not that Bucky’s mother would ever know he worked here on account of her being dead, but he wouldn’t have told her about his occupation if she was alive either.

“You only work twice? Wanna take my Friday?” Wade asks hopefully.

“I’d rather die,” Bucky says. Friday nights were horrible and he had plans with Tony anyways, he’d take his chances flirting for cash.

“You’ll be dead by Wednesday,” Wade tells him, flipping him off for good measure.

“Not if you want your Saturday night off,” Weasel says and Wade groans, flipping Bucky off again. Saturdays were worse than Fridays but the tips were better and the shift went by faster so Bucky was still winning as far as he was concerned.

“Fine, so you won’t die this week, maybe next week. But on to more interesting topics, did you see the news today? Everyone knows that Tony Stark is a Dom, as if it wasn’t obvious before,” Wade says, rolling his eyes.

“You’re only pissed off because you made a bet with Vanessa that he was secretly a sub and you were wrong,” Weasel says. Technically, biologically, Wade was right but Bucky doesn’t tell them that.

“He’s irritated about the coverage. Guess his asshole business partner thought the information was worth something or something like that,” he says. Bucky hadn’t even met Obadiah Stane and he hated the guy, he sounded like a pushy asshole that didn’t know how to follow basic instructions and prided himself on it. Brock used to be the same way and now Bucky kind of hated anyone who reminded him of the guy.

“Well he has got a lot of publicity out of it, what is this, day three on page one?” Wade asks.

“Shouldn’t be news at all, why does that matter to anyone but Tony or whoever he might be seeing?” Bucky says, irritated. But he had a different perspective than Wade or Weasel would have, neither of them cared about their orientation because theirs was never in question. If anyone found out that Tony, biologically, was a sub no one would take the Dom thing seriously. His orientation wasn’t something Bucky talked about in access either, though most people could guess based on mannerisms, but it was something of a sore spot. He was sure Tony felt the same way, even if he was good at putting on a brave face and snarking at the media shit storm that was now following him around.

“I don’t know, it’s just nice to know,” Weasel says.

“Doesn’t really tell you much about a person though,” Bucky points out, “everyone’s tastes are different so the hang-up on orientation is kind of weird. I mean do people really think that it means something?” He personally didn’t and he found that most people who did care, at least the kind that went beyond a passing interest, were looking to assume you fit a specific role in their head. It required a person to stereotype and stereotypes around Doms and subs have been disrupted and thrown out forever ago.

Like that stupid stereotype that Dommes didn’t exist, or that switches didn’t exist, and that men were never subs. Now everyone knew that switches were the most common orientation and obviously Dommes existed, sexism just made their lives more difficult, and men clearly had the capacity to be subs. So why there was a hang-up on orientation he didn’t know because being one label or another said nothing about what you were or weren’t interested in kink-wise. It didn’t say much about personality either, which was another myth. People used to think that dominating personalities obviously meant Dom but that was only right about ten percent of the time. Interestingly submissive personalities were more likely to be Doms. That didn’t stop people from buying into stereotypes though.

“Guess not,” Wade says, “you make a point about people being hung up on kind of stupid things. Like people caring that I’m pansexual and then making stupid ass jokes about me fucking pans.” Wade rolls his eyes and Bucky got that, really, so many people asked if he was willing to be in a threesome because he was bisexual and he got tired of that fast. Or worse, they assumed he was likely to cheat on them or something. He had no clue when ‘bisexual’ suddenly became ‘lacks morals and basic decency and respect for dating partners’ but okay.

“Okay but there was that one time with the pan handle,” Weasel points out.

“For the irony, not because I want to fuck pans. Besides, no one ever thinks I’m a sub because I’m tall and broad. I’m not sure when ‘sub’ started equaling ‘small woman’ but I really resent whichever asshole spread that rumor. If I have one more jackass say ‘really?’ because I don’t ‘look’ like a sub, whatever that means, I’m gunna break out the pansexual powers and beat the shit out of them with my sexy pans,” Wade says. “Do you get that?” he asks Bucky.

Bucky shrugs, “I don’t really mention my orientation much. People guess but they usually go for switch, probably because of the tall broad guy thing. Sometimes people think I’m a Dom.” How they came to that conclusion he had no clue, how people came to any conclusion he had no clue. Sometimes you could tell immediately but most of the time it was a mystery until someone referred to any significant others or play partners and then the term they used would give them away, or at least tell you which part they played in the partnership. Obviously they were the sub if they referred to their significant other as ‘Sir’ or ‘Master’ or something along those lines. ‘Pet’ was the most popular give away for Doms.

Weasel squints at him, “who the fuck could possibly come to the conclusion that you’re a Dom? That person needs their eyes checked or something,” he says. To be fair to Steve he knew what Bucky’s biological orientation was, it had never occurred to him that sometimes orientation and biology didn’t match up quite right. Or even remotely at all in Bucky’s case. The thought of being someone’s Dom made him panicky and back when he was still playing Dom it flat out gave him panic attacks. He doesn’t say anything and Wade picks up on the conversation, going back to annoying pansexual stereotypes, which also included the pesky ‘more likely to cheat’ thing that Bucky related to.

*

Tony had had to go on some emergency business trip so Bucky ended up home alone on Friday night bored out of his mind, at least until Tony put him out of his misery with a phone call. Not that he knew Bucky was dead bored but still, it was the theoretical thought that counted. “Hey gorgeous,” Tony says in a voice that was honestly sinful.

“You should be one of those phone Doms with a voice like that,” Bucky says, grinning even though Tony couldn’t see it.

“Mmm, I like that idea. I’m gunna hang onto that, I travel a lot and ideally I’d just bring you with me, but you have a life so I can’t exactly expect you to just drop everything for me,” Tony says. Bucky was tempted to but he sets the idea aside, he did that once and it went horribly. It was best that he had his own life separate from Tony’s; he already knew what happened when you got overinvested in a relationship and it wasn’t pretty.

“Ideally I’d have money to travel but here I am, mostly poor and watching Netflix originals,” he says, sparing his T.V a glance. To be fair Netflix had some pretty sweet shows but still.

Tony remains silent for a moment too long, “are the shows any good at least?” he asks in place of whatever he was going to say.

“They’re alright. What were you going to say though? And don’t lie, you were totally going to say something else before,” Bucky says. He was curious and besides, Tony didn’t usually care about holding back.

“I well… if this works out I’d prefer to pay for things, it’s easier that way,” Tony says and Bucky makes a face at he phone, somewhat thankful that Tony couldn’t see his face.

“So… it’s a control thing?” he asks, frowning.

“What? No, that’s creepy, I wasn’t very clear. It isn’t that I have any interest in controlling you via money, it’s that I would want you to have a certain living standard and you probably can’t afford my standards, so it’d be easier for me to pay for things. Honestly I can’t control my own life, why the hell would I try and control yours? Plus that’s a little fucked up unless heavily negotiated and I have no interest in that,” Tony says bluntly. Bucky could appreciate Tony’s lack of sugar coating things, it was useful. He got the distinct impression that Tony would make a terrible liar anyways.

“Well that’s way less creepy than my initial conclusions,” he says, “would I get those grapes?” He’d straight up kill a man for those grapes, provided that man was Brock. Then he knew he wasn’t killing off someone that was a good person or something.

Tony snorts, “they’re just grapes, what is with your obsession?”

“I’ll feed you poor people grapes and then you can feel my pain,” Bucky tells him. He even went and got some just to see if maybe he was mistaken or something and sadly no, he was not, regular grapes sucked. They were too sour.

“There’s no difference,” Tony says, laughing.

“There is so a difference and I will show you the next time I see you. But on a different note, how’s business? It sounds boring as fuck, no offense,” he says. Sitting in a boardroom trying to convince a bunch of rich assholes to agree with you, another rich asshole, sounded like Bucky’s personal hell. All that talking and math and publicity and all the other crap Tony had to deal with sounded horrifying. He was already going out of his way to ensure that Bucky wasn’t found and harassed by the media, god knew what he went through trying to have a somewhat normal life in any other aspect of life.

“I don’t know who I want to kill more, myself or the idiots I work with. Honestly no one knows anything about anything and I’m getting real tired of Agent knowing more about my company than I do. Agent needs to fuck off,” Tony says with a surprising about of passion.

“Who the hell is Agent?” Bucky asks, “sounds like an asshole.”

“He is. He’s always got this fucking smug smile on his stupid face, it’s so condescending and I hate him. Unfortunately he’s useful so I have to deal with him until I figure out what the hell is going on with SI,” Tony says, sounding resigned to his fate with this Agent person.

“Sounds like a friend of mine Phil, he’s got a weird way of turning a smile into an insult. What’s up with SI though?” he asks. He couldn’t remember seeing anything in the news but then he didn’t really pay attention anyways, much to Steve’s chagrin. It wasn’t his fault he got bored of murder stories, if the news was something other than a crappy fear soup he might watch it. Plus Steve was always on about how the news wasn’t reliable anyways so Bucky was just skipping the ‘see what the news says’ and jumping straight to the social media. It seemed perfectly reasonable to him.

“Phil sounds like a bag of soggy dicks. And I wish I knew what the hell was happening here. We stopped making weapons, why are we selling weapons? And who the hell is making these things? Because they aren’t even made right and that’s dangerous and I know, they’re weapons, obviously they’re dangerous but they’re more dangerous when they aren’t made right. Anyways I have had a very frustrating day trying to figure out who is doing what and I haven’t really gotten anywhere,” Tony says. He sounds tired too but Bucky doesn’t draw attention to it.

“Uh, what?” he asks, a little lost on context.

“Exactly, me too man,” the phone beeps and Tony swears, “shit, that’s Obi, I have to go,” he says. He swears again and Bucky hears rustling around before the call drops and he sighs. Well, that was good while it lasted.

Thankfully luck was on his side and someone knocks at the door, probably Sharon to give back that dish she borrowed the day before. He pulls himself off the couch somewhat reluctantly and goes to the door, surprised to find Wade standing there. “Uh, hi?” Bucky says, frowning because it kind of looked like Wade had been crying but he wasn’t really the crying type.

“I have cancer and I’ve got six months if I’m lucky,” he blurts out in way of an actual greeting.

Bucky opens his mouth to respond and closes it again, having no idea what to say. Instead he steps aside and lets Wade in because what the hell else did you do in a situation like this? Wade goes and throws himself of the couch, burying his face in his hands and Bucky stands there awkwardly for a moment. “Um, does Weasel know about this?” he asks, figuring Wade would be more interested in what his best friend had to say than Bucky.

“Yeah, the fucker put me on the deadpool,” he says and Bucky lets out a little bubble of hysterical laughter at the absurdity.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, feeling like an ass.

“Nah, that’ be fucking hilarious if I wasn’t the one dying. I came here because I figured you’d be less of an ass. I mean I love Weasel and you know I’d put his ass on the deadpool if he was dying but that’s not really what I’m looking for right now,” he says. Yeah, Bucky sort of figured that but Weasel was Weasel.

“What about Vanessa and Peter?” he asks, figuring at the very least Peter would be empathetic. Vanessa was more like Wade in the humor to solve all department but he figured she wouldn’t be Weasel level asshole either, but maybe he was wrong.

“Yeah, I’m not telling them about this. That would fucking destroy them, I’m getting the hell out of town before this gets bad I just need a place to stay while I figure shit out,” he says, running his fingers through his hair nervously.

“Wade, you can’t just leave Vanessa and Peter, what the hell are they supposed to think?” Bucky asks, horrified at Wade’s decision.

“I don’t care what they think of me leaving, I hope they hate me enough to move on, but I am not putting them through watching me die slowly. I will not do that to them, to anyone. You ever seen someone die of cancer? It’s fucking horrible, they get all skinny and green and they kind of look like they died already but they’re still animated. I’m not going to ruin their memories of my pretty face when the chemo inevitably rots the teeth right out of my face,” he says harshly and Bucky got it objectively but it was hard to think Wade was making the right decision when he was one of the people being left behind.

“And if they come here asking questions?” he asks. It wasn’t likely but they were bound to get desperate when Wade was missing for awhile, unlikely or not it was still possible.

“I don’t care what you tell them, just don’t tell them where I’m going. Please,” Wade whispers quietly, looking up at Bucky. He could see the tears now; Wade’s fear, and Bucky can’t help but feel that he’s way out of his depth here.