There's a look in Bucky's eyes that Tony can't quite pin down.
He knows it has changed over time. Has gone from mistrusting and impenetrable to tentatively hopeful, to open and honest, to fond amusement and exasperation, to utter affection. He knows they both have changed.
But still.
It's hard to believe, sometimes, that Tony gets to wake up slowly. That he gets to feel the warmth of another body pressed against his own, that it’s one that he could map out blind; that he gets the choice to keep his eyes closed and doze for a few minutes more, safe in the knowledge that none of this will change. Or that he could open them to soft morning light, to stubble on sun-darkened skin, to messy hair and clear blue blue eyes. That he gets to wake up in peace.
It's hard to believe, sometimes, that the crinkles at the edges of these eyes, the dimples at the corners of this mouth, the wrinkle of this nose (because ew, babe, put your morning breath away) – they all belong to him, they're directed at him and him alone, and not some persona he puts on for the night and morning after.
It's hard to believe but undeniably true, and a fact that Tony wouldn't change for anything in the world.
"Hey babe," he says, and his voice is croaky, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth after a night that he's probably spent drooling onto his pillow or Bucky's chest, but his boyfriend doesn't seem to mind.
He smiles instead, and reaches out to tug him closer. Tony goes happily, because of course he does. Enjoys the steady weight of Bucky's arm draped across his back, the gentle pressure of his fingers that draw circles on his skin where his sleeping shirt has ridden up, and he lets out a content little sigh when his face comes to rest on Bucky's chest, and Bucky leans down to press a kiss against his hair.
The relaxation goes bone-deep, although Tony knows that it hasn't always been this easy. He knows it, but just as he can't believe how he got this lucky, sometimes, it's just as hard to imagine a time where he didn't have this. Where he had to fight every step of the way, against the current, and always, always so alone.
And then Steve brought him back, the Winter Soldier, James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes, his best friend and the murderer of Tony's parents.
And, suddenly, he wasn't all that alone anymore. Because he recognized the look in the Soldier's eyes, knew it intimately, mirrored. Haunted and hunted and desperate for something to hold on to.
And, somehow, Tony became that thing. Bucky became that thing. They became each other's safe haven, that small place of peace that was so hard to come by in a world that was so cruel to them. The anchor in the storm.
Somehow meaning – harsh truths and unforgiving silences, paths to navigate with no maps to guide them, learning and loving and belonging to each other, wholly and irreparably. And there, on the other side waiting, that light at the end of the tunnel – this.
It wasn't easy. Never.
Wouldn't have made sense if it was.
But.
They're here, and they're alive, and the nightmares stay nightmares, usually don't carry over into the waking hours.
No. It's like a too-good-to-be-true fever dream, except for all the ways where it's not.
"Marry me," Tony says, and his face is still buried in Bucky's shirt, surrounded by the smell of him, the warmth, the familiarity. And then his brain, usually so fast and already ten times around the block, finally catches up with his mouth and he pushes himself up to his elbows in a mad scramble for balance, because this was impulsive, wasn't at all like it was supposed to go, he hadn't planned it like this, had wanted to go all out, to try and give Bucky just a hint of what he deserves. This — this is pathetic, makes it seem like a spur-of-the-moment thing when it really, really isn't, but then Bucky—
Bucky smiles, slow and big and so happy he seems to outshine the sun, sluggish almost in this weird non-reaction. Tony holds his breath, but Bucky doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even blink. He just reaches out with his metal hand, holds Tony's eyes, steady and searching, as he rummages around in the drawer of his nightstand, as he keeps smiling with all his being, effectively trapping Tony in place, who couldn't move a muscle if he tried, and then—
Then Bucky's gaze slides away and over to his hand, and there a shine between his fingertips, golden against the silver of his not-quite skin, and when he turns his wrist just right Tony thinks he can see two blue blue gemstones nestled against each other, buried in the metal, and then he thinks his heart might just stop beating altogether.
(But it never does, not anymore.)
"Yes," Bucky says, simply, and Tony can't say anything at all. There's an embarrassing sound trapped in the back of his throat, a burn in his eyes, prickling at the corners of them, and his arms shake where he's still holding himself up.
There's a quiver to his lips, a stutter in his breath, and his chest feels tight and full, as though it might burst.
"You... really?" Tony asks, and there is that noise, a whimper and a plea all in one, but he can't really care right now.
"I really," Bucky answers as though that never even was a question, and it probably wasn't. He reaches up with his other hand, cups Tony's cheek, brushes his thumb along the edge of his jaw. Tony shivers, full-body, ducks his head down to press a kiss to Bucky's lips, another one to the tip of his nose.
"I love you," he whispers. A kiss to the forehead, one to each of the lids of his eyes.
It's shaky, the next breath Bucky releases. Slowly, he wriggles out from under the trap of Tony's elbows, rests his back against the headboard in a slightly more upright position, drags Tony up and into his lap without breaking a sweat, and there's a softly clinking sound when he closes his fist around the ring, lets his nose bump against Tony's and kisses him there, too.
"C'mon," Bucky mumbles against his lips. "Gimme that."
"Give you what?" Tony's dizzy with it all – past and present and a future that looks so, so bright now, and you really can't expect him to think clearly.
"Your hand, you dummy." Bucky doesn't even finish speaking before he makes a grab at Tony's left hand, and that's why he knows that he only said that to make use of the silly nickname slash insult that he's somehow, inexplicably, grown so fond of. Never mind that Tony's a literal, certified genius, of course. Never mind that.
He has to admit, though, that that may be a fact that's debatable, sometimes, like right now when he's unable to do anything but watch on stupidly as Bucky opens his fist, plucks the ring from his palm, and gently slides it on Tony's finger; a concentrated frown on his face, his tongue poking out at the corner of his mouth, as though he isn't a trained sniper that could blast someone's brains out from an incredible distance — and that's really not a thought that should make the butterflies go crazy in his stomach.
"I love you," Tony says, again, helpless against it. He's long since surrendered to it, after all. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He chokes up a little. "Please don't ever leave me."
Bucky's gaze snaps up to his face immediately, although he doesn't stop caressing Tony's hand for even a heartbeat. The look in his blue blue eyes is so soft, so adoring Tony can't—
"Oh, baby, I know. I know, and I won't, and I love you too, so, so much, Tony, you mean the world to me." He stops, takes a breath, and his smile curves up at the corner, grows silly. He lifts Tony's hand up to his lips, presses a kiss against the shiny ring. "You mean the world to me and now we get to show the whole world that you belong to me, too."
The tears come to Tony's eyes entirely unbidden, the stupid traitors. "You are my world, Snowflake. There's no one we've got to prove it to."
They laugh and they cry and they kiss, and then there's a voice that says "Sir, I really must insist. I was not made to suffer through this much cheese," and they laugh some more until the tears stop altogether. Drier than the Sahara, really, the little shit.
Tony gasps, eventually, mock offended, clutches a hand to his chest. "Blackout mode, JARVIS, immediately. And don't you dare go tattle-telling."
JARVIS doesn't answer, and then Tony notices just which hand it is that he's got there, pressed against his heart. He clutches it even closer, swallows against that lump in his throat, says, "The world won't stop for us, Buck. But as long as we're in it together, I really, really don't care."