names to call people by
"there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to wrie volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas."
- fyodor dostoyevsky, the idiot
19.
Tony can't sleep, and he can't sleep because he's busy thinking of his mother. Maria Carbonell, not "née" anything because she decided to keep her maiden name, even if everyone calls her Mrs. Stark. And to Tony, she isn't Maria at all. She's just Mom. Mama.
He rolls over underneath the bed sheet so that he's facing the ceiling, and sighs. It must be one am, two even, by now. There's an odd lump beneath his pillow that he can feel through the stuffing - it's the gifts he bought impulsively for Barnes earlier, the hair ties and that old movie, the ones he'll probably never give the other boy. Huh, maybe Pep can use the ties. And Rhodey, Rhodey loves cheesy happy endings, and It's A Wonderful Life certainly sounds happy enough.
Why did he buy Barnes gifts? The question's been haunting him for hours, and yet he still doesn't have any answers. Okay, so maybe he has a bad case of impulsivity, but…
He doesn't know why it's bothering him so much.
Actually, he does, but he doesn't want to think about it.
Tony grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes and wills himself to go to sleep, even though it feels like ages since he first laid down on the bedroom floor. He misses his mom so much it curdles inside him, which is strange because usually he feels glad to be out of that pristine, empty house. But no - tonight it's bad, the kind of bad he hasn't felt since he first went off to boarding school at the age of eight. He misses her delicate piano, her lilting voice, the way she seems to speak more affectionately when she switches out of English and into Italian. Italian, he thinks, makes everything softer. Perhaps if Howard had grown up speaking his wife's language, his insults wouldn't have seemed so cold.
Tony stifles a scoff to himself as he imagines what his dad would say about the gifts under his pillow. The thing about being told something so many times is that it becomes second nature - you believe it, you parrot it, you can't help but remember it. Howard, he knows, would've told him you can't buy friends. That some second-rate gifts might make Barnes happy, but it wouldn't make the guy like him.
Tony swallows. The ceiling is so dark now, has been dark for such a long time. Maybe he's not even awake anymore, and he's just dreaming.
The thing is - the thing is - is he doing this to be liked? After everything he's done, he can no longer read the intent behind his own actions. Everything's confusing all the time - maybe he did mean to break Barnes's prosthetic. Maybe Company was just a heap of junk. Maybe everything thus far has happened because he started it, but didn't know, because his social awareness is shit.
Suddenly, there's a low murmur, and Tony snaps to awareness - but it's only Thor, mumbling in his sleep as he rolls over to face Tony. Sighing again, he sits up and allows the thin blanket to fall from his shoulders as he runs a hand through his hair. He can't do this - can't do this sleeping with strangers and pretending like he's okay and besides, he doesn't even remember the last time his sleep schedule wasn't fucked anyway. Maybe he should go outside again. Out on the porch, where Barnes came out and told him about losing his arm.
He glances to the side, and a dark shape is propped up on their elbow, watching him.
"Can't sleep either?" Barnes's voice is twined with roughness, as if his voice is adjusting after being silent for hours in the dark.
Tony shakes his head, studies the outline of the other boy from across the room. "I don't sleep much."
"Nightmares?"
And there's the question. "Yeah," Tony says finally. "I mean - I don't sleep much in general, since I lose track when I'm building something sometimes. But. Yeah."
The shape of Barnes's frown is barely discernible in the dim room when he cocks his head. "We could go downstairs. It's too cold outside right now, and I don't wanna wake anybody up."
"Downstairs?" Tony has to stifle the surprise. "To - I mean - "
"Look," Barnes sighs, "it's not like either of us are gonna get to sleep anytime soon. Might as well do somethin' to pass the time." He throws his blanket off his lap. "You comin'?"
The house is dark as they make their way downstairs, and it's almost fascinating at how easily Barnes navigates the rickety stairwell and narrow hallways while Tony trips along in the shadows. If he didn't know better, he'd think that Barnes lived here, or grew up here, or something. But he's probably just familiar because he's bound to have spent a lot of time with his boyfriend anyway.
Barnes stops in the kitchen and grabs a Coke from the fridge. He offers a Sprite to Tony, who accepts it tentatively. "So," Barnes says finally, sitting down at the table. The moonlight casts his face in shadow, illuminating his outline like a hazy aura.
"So," Tony parrots, sitting down slowly. Oh, God, this is awkward. What was he even thinking, agreeing to coming down here with Barnes like this? This week has honestly been filled with the most difficult social interactions he's ever encountered, and that includes his experiences with those asshole businessmen Howard likes to affiliate himself with and people like Hammer and Stone.
Barnes cracks his can open and it hisses, too loud in the stilted silence. "This is a crappy thing to bring up, but I can't...just, you don't have to answer this, but how'd you…" He motions to his chest. "Stark?"
Tony stiffens. Is this why Barnes invited him down here? To get more fuel for gossip?
Barnes must notice the tenseness in his expression, because he sags a little in the chair, fingers clenching around his soda. "Sorry," he says, shaking his head. "Shit, that was real dumb of me to ask. I guess I just can't forget about - about when I walked into the bathroom like an idiot. I haven't properly apologized for that, either. I want to, though."
"It was an accident. In the past." Tony looks away. "I thought we were done with this."
"Yeah," Barnes says, and it comes out as an exhale. "Yeah, we were. Are. I just - I kinda like to think I get it, sorta. If you need to - hell, if you need to rant, I don't mind. Believe me when I say I did plenty of that to Steve when I first woke up with one arm."
Tony smiles, and it's more bitter than he means it to be. "This," he says, motioning to the area where the scars hide underneath his shirt, "this is in the past too."
"We're both kind of messed up, aren't we," Barnes says, and that startles a surprised laugh out of Tony.
"That's one way of putting it."
"I'm kinda sick of all these apologies," Barnes says slowly after a while. "I know tellin' you I'm sorry won't make anything better. And you tellin' me sorry doesn't make me feel any better about what I did too. I think maybe we could try to be friends, or at least acquaintances, or somethin'. You're stayin' here at least till Christmas, anyway." He shrugs, but Tony can see this bleak sort of anxiety lining his shoulders and mouth. "I'm James Buchanan Barnes, but you can call me Bucky." He sticks a hand out across the table. "I'm gonna try to treat you right, because I'm not proud enough to argue that I wasn't wrong about a few things. I'll admit that I don't know much about you. I know your family from the news, and - well" - he laughs wryly - "because we both tried to beat each other up. But I guess I don't really know you, Stark, and I'd like t' change that."
Throughout his whole proposal, Tony's been sinking into a perilous sort of emotion - not quite happiness, not quite hopefulness, not quite anxiety, but perhaps a bit of all three. He takes the proffered hand after a second, and Barnes's palm is warm and rough in his. "I'm Anthony Edward Stark," he says, and falters. It's okay, he tells himself. He can sense no dishonesty or false kindness in Barnes's words. "Uh, if you want you can call me Tony."
"Tony it is," Barnes - Bucky - says, and offers him a brilliant smile. "If you're still feelin' awake like I am, we could watch TV on low volume if you want. Steve doesn't have Hulu or anything and I dunno what's on, but we can look."
"...Okay," Tony agrees slowly as he trails after the other boy and into the living room. "Maybe a rerun is on. Of SNL, or something."
Bucky flashes him a grin. "SNL sounds good. I'll try to find it."
They each settle down on opposite ends of the couch. Tony curls up against the thick armrest, tucking his feet in close to his body while Barnes sprawls out on the adjoining cushion. "Okay," the other boy says finally as he picks up the remote and starts clicking through channels. "Let's see what we got here."
Tony tongues the back of his teeth as he averts his eyes, trying not to get caught watching like a creeper. He knots his hands in his lap as the screen flashes in a myriad of colors.
"Sorry, can't find it," Barnes says finally. "But we could watch a movie, 'f you want. There's this - I dunno - rom com playin' right now? Called 'Message In A Bottle.' Dunno what it is, but it just started, I think."
Tony glances up to see the head of a pretty blonde woman filling the whole television screen. "Uh - sure. Yeah. That's, um, never heard of it either, but okay."
"You a romance fan by any chance?" Barnes asks as he settles back more comfortably against the back of the couch. It's a casual enough question that Tony risks looking over, and he's greeted with the sight of light glinting off metal and a sharp jawline framed by locks of long, wavy hair.
"I don't watch movies much," Tony says honestly. "I like - documentaries, I guess. It's kind of weird, but anything about marine life, animals...it calms me down."
Bucky smiles a little. They're not really paying attention to what's happening onscreen, Tony thinks. "Yeah, there's somethin' nice about wildlife in general, huh?"
For the next forty minutes, they sit without talking, content to watch the movie (it's a Nicholas Sparks novel, apparently, and the kind of outrageously cheesy that Rhodey would probably enjoy) in silence. Tony finally feels his eyelids drooping as he struggles to keep watching the blonde lady and the old guy kiss onscreen.
"Isn't he like, twenty years older than her?" Bucky says, wrinkling his nose. "Not that there's anythin' wrong with fallin' in love with an older man, but 's it just me or is she kinda...rushin' things?"
"Not just you," Tony says, frowning thoughtfully. "Pep's always telling me about how unfair it is that pretty young women are paired with old guys in movies."
"Pep?" Bucky asks with interest, even as his eyes stay glued to the screen. "Friend of yours?"
"Yeah, the best." Tony allows himself to smile at the thought of his friend, fierce with her red hair and ability to take no bullshit. Barnes - Bucky - would definitely like her if she were here, everyone would, and he can't stop the sudden wave of loneliness that comes from being here without the women in his life present.
Bucky looks up suddenly, and his next words come out of left field. "I never said sorry for callin' that blonde a slut. I know I said we could drop it, an' all that, but she probably didn't deserve it and you were tryin' to defend her. So that part is on me."
"Her name is Becky," Tony says quietly. "I can't - won't - deny that she, slept around. That I slept with her. That our crowd doesn't have the best reputation. But Becky's different. She's kind and cares, genuinely, and she - she understood me. More than most people, maybe, and we were - supposed to only be like friends with benefits."
"Well, when we go back t' SHIELD, I'd like to apologize." Barnes runs a hand along his metal arm; it looks like an unconscious action that's more habitual than gestural. He must see something in Tony's face, because an unusually vulnerable expression flits across him for a second before it disappears. "Unless that's not - St - Tony - are you okay?"
"She left," Tony chokes out. So much for watching 'Message in a Bottle,'" he thinks to himself, and wants to both laugh and cry. "Um. She's enrolled at HYDRA Academy now. So. I can pass along a message, maybe, but she won't be at SHIELD ever again."
There's a beat of silence. "I'm sorry," Bucky says quietly. "That she left. I think that the message apology thing sounds good, and I'd like to say a proper one later."
"Thank you," Tony whispers, and he's not sure if he's thanking him for apologizing, or everything at once.
"The Ferris Wheel ride," Barnes murmurs, almost as an afterthought, quiet like he's talking to himself rather than to Tony. "Was nice."
The movie's reaching its climax now, and Tony makes a halfhearted sound of agreement as he tips his head back against the sofa. He notices that Barnes - Bucky - is slouching down now too, but his vision's blurring and looping. 'M jus' gonna close my eyes for one sec, he thinks through the fog, and blinks sluggishly. He'll get up in another twenty minutes, give or take a few, and then he'll wake Bucky or whatever and they'll head back upstairs to sleep properly in their bags.
Just one sec. He closes his eyes, and within a minute - to the low hum of people talking onscreen and snow falling on the rooftop - he's asleep.
-
Tony wakes to the sound of a bunch of people talking near him.
His first instinct is to pry open his eyes, which still sag tiredly, but he keeps them closed and waits.
"...were you doing?" someone says, and oh, that's Barton's voice. "We came down and, bam. We're hit with this."
"Toldja already, nothing," someone else replies - Bucky. His voice is irritable, like he's repeated himself too many times.
"You guys were literally sleeping on the same couch with the TV playing," Barton says skeptically. "No harm, no foul, obviously, we just want to know what's going on."
"What does it look like we did?" Bucky snaps. "He couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep, I invited him downstairs to watch a movie because there's no point in lyin' around in the dark till the sun comes up."
"Okay, sorry," Barton says, and his tone's turned placating. There's the sound of someone moving. "I'm being an asshole. I'll drop it."
"Thank you," Bucky says gruffly, but Tony can tell just by the tone of his voice that the archer's already been forgiven. "Now can we go get breakfast? Don't even pretend you aren't hungry, Stevie, 'cause I can hear your stomach growlin' from here."
"Should we wake him?" That's Thor, sounding curious.
"No," Bucky replies, and there's the sound of people moving again. "Let him sleep. C'mon." The noise fades as everyone walks away.
Tony finally allows himself to crack open his eyes and scrubs the sore grit from them. He's sprawled out on the couch, somehow having slumped down onto the arm rest in his sleep, and there's a thin blue blanket covering him. Someone must've put it there, he realizes, and feels equal parts warm and anxious at the revelation. Who, though? is the real question.
He lies there for awhile, listening to the sound of plates clinking and voices murmuring. He hears his name threaded throughout the faint conversation once or twice, but he can't discern who's talking or what they might be saying. It's so strange, actually, how lazy he's gotten since he came to Rogers's place. Now he's sleeping all the time, sleeping in, getting up late, going to sleep when he's tired rather than when he should be. He can't even remember a time when he gave in so completely to the exhaustion.
Finally, he decides to get up and eat some breakfast before it's all gone and he has to eat alone. In the kitchen, everyone hushes as he comes in, but surprisingly enough, it's Romanoff - with her hair pulled up into a messy red bun - who kicks Barton out of his seat and motions to the now-empty chair, green eyes intent.
"Stark." She pats the seat of the chair. "Sit."
Tony is wise enough not to say anything as he obeys her command. He's either passed or failed her test spectacularly, and he really can't tell which one yet. No doubt that girl eats boys for dinner.
"Do you know how to braid hair?" Natasha says archly, turning to him as everyone slowly returns to their conversations.
"Sort of." His mother taught him to braid hair when he was still small enough to sit on her lap. They'd do it in front of the mirror, and Tony had always been good at it - his fingers had been made for delicacy, for crisp, detailed work. He sneaks a look at the redhead, as if he'd be able to read that scarily impassive face.
"Okay," Natasha says, and scoots closer to him.
"Uh," Tony says intelligently.
The girl sighs. "Braids, Stark. I hate doing them myself and I like it when people do my hair."
"Okay…," Tony says, because it's like every time he talks to Natasha Romanoff, he gets freaked out. Does she do this to him on purpose? "What do you want?"
"Do what you think will look good," Romanoff says, and hands him a comb she got from - he has no idea.
Tony scoots forward after some hesitation and gently parts her hair evenly on either side of her head. He takes the first bundle of hair, careful to avoid touching her face, and begins braiding. He's thinking a layered five strand waterfall because done right, it'll look like a crown.
He quickly loses himself in the task - the overlapping of each section, the ridges of each braid. Natasha sits still and poised the entire time, her eyes on his fingers as he works - brushing her hair behind her ear, gently finger-combing through each strand.
He's halfway done with her head when Natasha puts a hand on his wrist. "You really know what you're doing, don't you, Stark."
"Well - yeah," Tony says, fumbling to hold his place after he's done being startled. "My, uh, my mother taught me how to braid when I was younger. Used to joke that whomever I eventually ended up with would appreciate it. And I wouldn't have agreed to do your hair if I didn't."
Romanoff merely hums in response. What does she think, that he'd just - act like he knew what he was doing to show off, or something? "Did you ever braid hers?" Her voice is unusual, gentle. Completely free of any acts, any ploys to make herself sound genuine or soft. One thing Tony's learned from just the way Natasha moves, all silent and fluid and deadly, is that whatever she is, she is not soft. But she is more real now, for some reason, even though Tony couldn't possibly know how Romanoff acts when she's being wholly herself.
Tony shrugs. "Sometimes. She likes it when people touch her hair. It's not like my dad or the maids were ever going to do that instead anyway." Natasha has this look again, and he fidgets a little. "Um - do you want me to - do you like it? I mean, you can't really see what I've done, but does it feel good? Do you want me to stop?"
"Keep going." Natasha's eyes soften, and although it looks like she's making a physical effort to warm up her expression, he doesn't think it's meant to be manipulative or malicious. "Do you know how hard it is to find a boy who's gentle with his hands? Clint can make a horse love him with his hands alone, but as soon as I ask him to help me with my hair, he's literally ripping all my roots out of my scalp." She rolls her eyes. "I've even tried Steve before, you know. He's an artist, so you'd think he'd be better at it, but apparently the sports side of him comes out when he's faced with a girl."
Tony smiles a little. "'Oh, that gentleness. How far more potent it is than force.'"
Romanoff looks over at him sharply, new interest glittering in her eyes. "What was that, Stark?"
Jane Eyre is one of his mother's favorite books; it is one of the only novels she refuses to read in anything but Italian. "'I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered - and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.'"
"Jane Eyre," Natasha says like it's a revelation. "You've read that?"
"My mother used to read it to me," Tony says, shrugging. "You tend to pick up some quotes after awhile. I, uh, you recognized it." He phrases his last sentence like a question.
"Nat's a fan of classics, especially the ones with cool women." Barnes - Bucky - has suddenly appeared next to them with a smirk on his face. "Don't worry, Tony, the more you get to know her, the more obvious it is."
Romanoff chooses to ignore the rest of the sentence and instead tilts her head as she hones down on a single part of Bucky's spiel: "Tony?"
"We've both apologized and forgiven each other," Bucky says without missing a beat, his gaze unwavering as he locks eyes with the redhead. "He's gonna call me Bucky now, and I get t' call him Tony." They seem to have a quick, silent exchange before Bucky's smirk returns. " Jealous?"
"Not really," the girl replies, deadpan, and turns to Tony. "You can call me Natasha now, you know, Stark."
The brunette swallows, caught off-guard by the sudden turn of conversation. "Um, you can call me whatever you want."
"That's not fair," Bucky interjects as Natasha waves for Tony to continue her hair. "You can't just be all intimidatin' to get what you want."
"I wasn't being intimidating. Was I being intimidating, Tony?"
"I don't know if I can answer that," Tony says carefully, looking between the two of them. Bucky is staring at Natasha incredulously, and Natasha has this small smile on her lips like she knows something that they don't.
"That means 'yes', just sayin'."
The pair starts bickering for the next few minutes, and at one point, they switch into what is probably Russian. It's a language Tony can't speak, and he's, like, multilingual or pentalingual or a polyglot or whatever you'd like to call it. So instead, he listens to their voices. It's strange, because he thought Russian was a little guttural in a way, like how the Russian businessmen Howard's affiliated with talk in their accented English. But Natasha and Bucky speak like they are soft, as if their tongues are thick and their language is shaped around it. It's pretty sounding, and he would say so if he weren't so uncharacteristically awkward and shy around them.
Finally, he's finished, and he gently checks each braid by skimming a light knuckle over them to make sure each hair is neatly tucked in and there's no unevenness. Natasha notices and pulls out of her conversation with Bucky. "Is it finished?"
Tony nods. He has no words to speak, because suddenly he's afraid - so very afraid that she's going to hate what he's done. Maybe she doesn't like waterfalls? But she told him to do whatever he thought would look good, right? Does it even look good? He wouldn't, doesn't, know.
"Damn," Bucky says gruffly, one eyebrow raised. "You should do my hair next."
Natasha is examining her hair now with the phone she's got in her hand, turning her head side to side where the braids are thickest. Finally, she sets the phone down, and gives Tony an approving smile. For some reason, he feels like that was her real test - even though why it would be through hair-braiding, he has no clue. "Thanks, Tony. It's beautiful."
"It wasn't hard or anything," Tony responds automatically. "Fundamentally you can't make someone who isn't already beautiful look beautiful. Wait, fuck - "
Bucky laughs. "Did you just call Natasha beautiful?"
"Sorry," Tony says hastily. Why can't he just… people like a normal person? "I mean, Romanoff - Natasha - she is. I mean - braids aren't a big deal. Like I said, it wasn't hard."
Bucky sucks on his bottom lip, and for some reason, Tony has to fight to keep himself from focusing on the action. "That's what you said when you fixed Sarah's car, too. Stop playin' down the things you do, even if they are as simple as braidin' someone's hair. Don't fight the compliments when you deserve 'em."
"Well," Tony says, feeling like the ground's no longer beneath his feet. "Well, I - "
"You're welcome, Natasha," Natasha says emphatically. "Because everyone is useless except for me, I will be doing your hair in the future from now on."
"Exactly," Bucky says, then pauses. "Hold on a second, Nat."
"Sure, I can do your hair in the future, if you want," Tony says after a moment. "It's really no big deal."
Natasha sighs, even though he really doesn't know what he's done wrong now. "We'll work on this," she says mysteriously. "You'll get it eventually." She straightens up in her chair all of a sudden. "So, what were you two doing last night?" she asks, turning to Tony.
Tony glances at Bucky, who's already looking at him with inscrutable dark eyes. "We...watched a cheesy romance movie. That's about it."
"Hmm," Natasha says. "At two o'clock in the morning?"
"We couldn't sleep," Bucky says exasperatedly, and makes an aborted motion toward Tony's arm like he was making to grab the other boy's hand and then stopped. "If you can't figure out that we're tellin' the truth, then you'd make a terrible spy."
"What do you think we would have been doing anyway?" Tony says, frowning. The terms of how he met everyone here are bad enough; he doesn't want to look even worse. God knows what they've all read about him on gossip mags and tabloids, anyway.
They're saved by Natasha's response when Sarah Rogers suddenly pops her head into the kitchen for a quick second, calling, "Steve, they're almost here!"
"Uh, who's almost here?" Bucky says, frowning almost as hard as everyone else is. "Steve?"
Rogers looks uncomfortable under the weight of the abrupt quietness and gazes of everyone else as they all turn to him. "I forgot to tell you guys," he says like he's expecting the death sentence. "Sharon wanted to come see us, so Ma invited her over today...and she's bringing a friend."
The reaction is explosive. "Another kid who might still be in braces?" Bucky says, to which Natasha elbows him.
Barton snickers. "Aw, that's real cute, Steve, honestly."
Bruce pales. "Another...girl?"
Thor booms, "Ah, how refreshing it is to meet new people!"
In the midst of all of it, Steve's face is turning redder and redder, and Tony's just watching the color creep slowly up the blonde's ears and neck. Not for the first time, Tony's glad that while he can still blush like the best of them, he at least managed to escape the extent of Rogers's genes.
"Why not later?" Bucky says. "Why now?"
Rogers sighs heavily. "She wanted to come before Christmas, and I didn't think any of us wanted her to come over during Christmas Eve. It's really not...everything that's happened is in the past. I'm sure she's already forgotten about the huge mess about her thinking I liked her. And remember when we went to the store a few days ago? She was fine, we were both fine, I said hi. Everything was fine. And she's a nice girl. She's just a family friend who's bringing someone over, that's all."
"Who's the 'someone', anyway?" Barton asks.
Rogers shrugs. "I don't know. Someone named...Sunny, I think? She's at least two years older than us, though, not Sharon's age. Actually, I'm pretty sure she used to babysit for Sharon before too."
"Huh," Barton says. "She cute?"
This time, Natasha doesn't even have to smack him. It's everyone else who does it for her.
"Jesus, I was joking!" Barton yelps, jumping out of his chair. "Come on, you know who my heart belongs to, it's pretty obvious." This statement is actually so true that they all stop and settle down again.
Rogers glances over at the clock. "Well, she should be here around now. Maybe we should clear the table up a bit."
"An' he says he doesn't care about her or what she thinks," Bucky comments amusedly, which Tony thinks is kind of strange considering hello, Bucky and Rogers are dating, but maybe it's because Rogers's feelings are so prominent that Bucky doesn't feel the need to worry about there being any truth to the teasing.
Suddenly, there's a loud knock on the door and Sarah rushes into the kitchen, her hair now neatly combed. The knocks continue in some weird pattern, getting progressively louder as they continue, and Tony watches as Bucky just sighs. The only thing he can remember from this Sharon girl is from her job at the store, with her blonde hair and squarish face and the way she perked up when Rogers stepped over to say hi. But from Bucky's reactions, he's not so sure that she's really as mature as Rogers seems to think she's become.
"Come on in!" he hears Sarah say with a smile. "Nice to meet you; I'm Steve's mother, but you can just call me Sarah. You are…?"
A voice that sounds vaguely familiar responds, but Tony can neither see nor hear over the other teens bustling around as they help tidy up the table a little more. He's wrapping one of the leftover plates of spaghetti in Saran wrap when a flash of blonde head enters, and then a dark brown one.
"Hi Sharon," Rogers says warmly, ever the polite guy, and then there's another "nice to meet you" that's drowned out as the fridge door opens and closes. He hears Bucky's voice among the mix, too, and it's cute - even if unique - how Rogers introduces the brunette as "basically my brother." Attached at the hip, Tony thinks wryly.
"You all know Sharon," Sarah calls out as they finish cleaning up the table and piling empty plates into the sink to wash later. Her smile is warm and maternal and calms Tony down immediately. "This is her friend and ex-babysitter, Sunset."
For a second, it doesn't register. Sunset, Tony thinks, and his stomach slowly bottoms out as he makes eye contact with the tall, curvy brunette across the room. She certainly looks the same - just as beautiful as before. And oh, God…
"Hi everyone," Sunset Bain says, and smiles sweetly even as her eyes remain on Tony's. "It's so nice to meet you all."