£3
£3
Tony’s feeling a little bit…spin-cycled, he might say.
Staring at his own confused face in one of the bathroom mirrors is starting to bug him.
So, he hops down from the counter, a small smile plucking at the corner of his mouth at Bucky looking up at him from there.
Tony knows he’s on the short side and whilst sometimes he wishes he were taller- he’s generally pretty comfortable with his height.
The way he and Bucky fit together doesn’t hurt and his smile is almost embarrassingly sappy now.
He knows the soldier props him up on things and looks up at him because he likes to, but also does it to make him feel bigger, and it’s sweet.
Although he doesn’t really need to, Tony’s ok with his height these days.
…Except…
Lately he’s been feeling bigger in a different way, and not necessarily a good one.
His smile is clouded over by a scowl.
He’d lain in bed early this morning, watching the grey light of dawn slowly warm their bed, awake only because of how hungry he felt.
Which had needled him because he never really woke up hungry, he was an evening eater mainly.
It was this gruelling diet.
So, he’d woken up already grumpy, not that he didn’t feel on edge most of the time now.
Then, when he’d huffed and thought about just getting up to distract himself seeing as sleep wasn’t happening again, he’d realised the date.
A cloud of apprehension had landed at that.
Today was the day.
Today was the intended goal.
Today was either going to be very satisfying or pretty depressing.
His eyes closed again before he steeled himself (ironed himself?) and got out of bed.
Somehow, ridiculously, he felt hungrier when he stood up and, to his great annoyance, he felt the insane urge to cry.
He just wanted something other than shreds of food clinically and sparsely measured during the day like fucking confetti.
These high intensity diets were so much easier when he was younger, he muttered to himself as he entered the bathroom, although he knew that those days it was because of the alcohol and various other…substitutes for the simple act of existing.
Mania…definitely in those days too…
Then, he cut off all of those trains of thought before they all collided and crashed in a depressing summary of his issues and made him even more annoyed.
Instead, he tried to feel positive…sometimes just lying about some positivity can make things happen so he got ready to weigh himself and tentatively hope that he could have a cheat night tonight.
He wanted so badly to have a proper date with Bucky.
So badly to just enjoy the conversation without hyper-focusing so he didn’t mindlessly eat the things Bucky passed to him or grab an extra plate.
So badly to go to that new restaurant that he couldn’t even think about without his mouth watering and feeling ravenous.
The hope crashed and burned and shrunk into a bitter black pebble at the bottom of his empty stomach after he had weighed himself.
His stupid starving stomach that was demanding food yet was refusing to get its act together and banish the extra rolls of fat accumulating on his hips and… and…everywhere else.
It was bullshit he wanted to scream, and it was even more bullshit that he was definitely closer to crying now than before.
Resolutely and snappishly, he picked up his razor and decided to shave because then he would have to concentrate on not moving his face and therefore crying would be out of the question.
He felt ridiculous, he never cried.
Updating Jarvis, he resigned himself to another day of discomfort and frustration and began tidying up the edges of his goatee.
Which was when Bucky wandered in, sleep-soft and stunning and probably Tony’s favourite person in the whole world.
Even though everything felt wrong and miserable, it was magic how he felt even marginally better with Bucky near him.
Until he mentioned dinner and a date and the most tempting offer of that new restaurant’s food that everyone was raving about and Tony couldn’t have.
Torture.
Unadulterated torture.
He couldn’t disappoint Bucky, he did want a date, he did want dinner, God help him he did want it so much.
Bucky had already unwittingly derailed his contingency plan of “spontaneously craving salad”.
And he was just going to have to be unmoveable in the face of all his weaknesses and favourite foods.
Be Iron Man.
He scoffed at himself, leaving the bathroom with a last look at his figure in the cursed full-length mirror.
Iron Man.
Yeah.
Right.
The softness everywhere and the give of his sides and the swelling love-handles were decidedly un-iron like, and Tony knew that these days he’d rather die than have anyone from the team see his torso, or anything really.
He knew he was a vain man.
Bucky was the one who saw him the most, and Tony had even scaled that right back until he was back to a better weight, because as kind as Bucky had been by not mentioning anything and letting Tony sort it out on his own, he had to be getting impatient.
Tony had taken to getting Bucky off when they fooled around and then conveniently falling asleep or remembering something important about work that he had to sort out when Bucky started to return the favour.
There had been no proper sex in a little while because he didn’t want Bucky having to tolerate the extra weight whilst fucking him.
He was saving it up, it would be great, and he would be in perfect shape.
There, the goal was there, to be hit and hit soon.
He would intensify the regime maybe.
Get there quicker, because Bucky touching him this morning had set temptation on fire inside him.
He knows he has a terrible habit of mumbling to Jarvis whilst he thinks and he spares a second to be grateful that Bucky has already started his day and isn’t around to hear any of it, lest he starts getting on to Tony about how
“Goals are good sweet thing, but you can’t run yourself down like this”
Like he did whenever Tony got a little hyper-focused or determined about a new project.
Whatever.
He decides to hop in the shower, turns on the water and sets it up to almost scalding to distract the sensation of hunger.