It’s about one in the morning when Tony emerges from his workshop to replenish his coffee supply. He has a coffee maker in his workshop but it’s out of beans, and he thinks JARVIS might have had something to do with that. The aforementioned AI has been trying to coax Tony out of his workshop for about two days now. Something about eating and sleeping, which to be fair, he does kinda need to do both, there’s just so many things he needs to build, projects he needs to finish before he forgets what he was planning! He only acquiesced because his math has been getting sloppy, to his standards at least.
Hence, Tony walks into the kitchen and immediately brings his coffee machine to the sink in order to refill it with water. That probably wasn’t the best idea, but it had been a while since his last cup (give the man a break). Tony lives in a super large penthouse suite of a condo, that’s super expensive so he can’t be blamed for not expecting what happens next. When he turns on the tap, at first nothing comes out, and then the spout comes flying right off into his forehead and is followed by a high pressure stream of water. This sends Tony sprawling across his kitchen floor and sputtering against the water in his face. Which promptly sends him in to a flashback of Afghanistan, and the waterboarding that took place while he was hooked up to a car battery.
Tony comes back to JARVIS reminding him of the date, and the weather outside. Jarvis has already turned the water off, but unfortunately there’s not much else he can do without a body. Tony could probably fix it, but that’s if he wasn’t about to pass out any second.
“I hate that sink!” curses Tony before regaining his composure, “Hey, Jarvis can you call the buildings handymen to fix this for me?”
“I already have, sir”, a pause then Jarvis continues “May I suggest you make yourself more presentable, there are reports that these handymen are quite attractive"
“How dare you say that, I’m always presentable” Tony exclaims in mock offense. He breathes a moment then says “You meant dry off, and get some clothes on, didn’t you.”
“I did, sir. I doubt they’d appreciate it if you answered the door soaking wet wearing only your Deadpool boxers”
“I mean, they might?”
“I wouldn’t risk it sir.”
“You aren’t me” Tony says, as he moves to get dressed anyways.
“Thank god for small mercies” mutters Jarvis.
******************************
Elsewhere in the building, Steve wakes up to the phone ringing at one in the morning. The guy on the phone sounds british, and he says the sink exploded in apartment 221D. That one’s one of the most expensive condos in the building, which means the owner is probably fuming about how ‘these things shouldn’t happen in places that charge this much’. Usually Steve and Bucky’s appearances are more than enough to stop those comments, but it doesn’t mean he’s anymore excited to fix a sink at one in the morning. As much as he loves his job, people are just too enthusiastic sometimes. Steve sighs and gets out of bed to get dressed. On the other side of the bed Bucky groans.
“What’s that you said?” asks Steve.
“Is this going to be an easy fix ya think?”
“No, a kitchen sink exploded in one of the penthouses”
“What sort of person uses the kitchen sink at one in the morning?”
“You do, Sweetheart”
“Not all the time”
“I can do this one on my own if you’d like. I know how much you need your sleep” offers Steve.
“Naw, I’m comin’ I’m comin’, besides you need your sleep too. We’re in this together, til the end of the line, right Stevie?”
“Of course”, Steve responds, smiling, while Bucky gets up and gets dressed. They give each other a sweet kiss, and then head out to face the exploding sink.
Now the apartment Steve and Bucky shared was nice, but the penthouse suites were practically mansions, and 221D was the biggest. No one knows who lives there for sure, because it has its own elevator from the lobby, but there are rumours that it is Tony Stark himself. They’re not sure if they believe those rumours so they don’t expect to find anything but some old, rich hermit.
They knock on the door, and the man who answers is beautiful, he’s wearing sweats and a hoodie, but you can tell they’re expensive. His hair is curly and wet, and he’s wearing a towel around his neck as if he’s just come out of the shower. That’s not even mentioning those beautiful brown eyes, and the plush lips outlined by a perfectly trimmed goatee. They stand there speechless for a few moments, because it is in fact Tony Stark, and he’s handsome as hell.
**********************************
When Tony went to answer the door he’s not sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. His mind shuts down for a few moments. The men in front of him are so handsome, he’s almost sure they’re swimwear models. There’s the classic, tall, blonde, and beautiful, but then there’s also, tall, dark and mysterious. Tall, dark, and mysterious, has brown hair, and stormy grey eyes, he paints quite the striking picture. Tall, blonde, and, beautiful, has blue eyes and a symmetrical face. He’s also pretty sure he could grate cheese on those abs, these men have got to be underwear models. That’s when his brain comes back online, if only to derail that train of thought and avoid an embarrassing reaction to the visuals. He blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Hello handsomes, what can I do you for?, uh. I mean what can I do for you?”
Damn it all, he’s usually a lot smoother than this, you don’t get a promiscuous reputation without being great at insinuating things that aren’t there. Then again, he hasn’t slept in three days, he can be forgiven this small transgression. It doesn’t seem to be a problem though, because tall, dark, mysterious simply says:
“Sweetheart, you can do us anytime”, and winks, straight up winks, and Tony’s still stuck on that distinctly brooklyn accent. Then tall, blonde, and beautiful cuts in.
“Bucky, behave!” and he has a brooklyn accent too. Tony is doomed.
At least he knows one of their names now, Bucky and whatever blondie’s name is.
“Hello I’m Steve, and that’s my partner Bucky, his real name is James but everyone just calls him Bucky, We’re here to fix the sink.”
Ah, so Steve it is then, Steve and Bucky. Steve needs a new nickname, but Tony will find him one, he’s good at that.
“I’m Tony, and I’m also sorry to disturb you at such a late hour. I was just trying to make coffee, I swear.” Tony pauses, and they don’t look angry, so he continues, “Why don’t you boys just come on in?”. Then he starts down the hall, leaving the door open behind him. He thinks he might hear Bucky say something like: “We’ll come for you anytime baby”, but he’s got to be imagining that. The two of them are gorgeous, not to mention partners. Besides this isn’t the first auditory hallucination he’s had after a working binge. That won’t stop him from some harmless flirting though.
When he gets into the kitchen, he makes sure to ask JARVIS extra loud:
“Are you sure you called the handymen, and not a modeling agency?”
“If that was the case, sir, I would have let you answer the door soaking wet, and wearing only your Deadpool boxers”
“JARVIS, you traitor!” Tony exclaims yet again in mock offense and he’s pretty sure he hears one of them say ”I wouldn’t have minded seeing that”, he must be hearing things again... Then Steve who is now right behind him asks:
“Where is JARVIS? Is he your robot butler?”
“I’ll have you know, sir, that I am much more sophisticated than any robot butler could ever hope to be!”
“JARVIS is my AI. He’s hooked up to everything in the house, but he doesn’t have a body so to speak”, it made Tony happy to introduce them to his AI, it felt like welcoming them into his home, and his life.
“That’s awesome, darlin” Bucky responds enthusiastically, and Steve looks sheepish when he apologizes to JARVIS. Then he notices the sink.
“Is that the sink we want us to fix?”
With that, Tony is taken out of his reverie:
“Yes, I think the spout is somewhere on the floor over at the other end of the kitchen. I’ll go get it for you”, he says heading over to find the spout as Steve gets to work. Bucky just seems to be watching for now.
Tony finds the spout at about the same time that Steve seems to find the problem. When Tony walks over, he finds Steve frowning, he’s about to ask what’s wrong when Steve says:
“The spout would have popped off with enough force to hit you in the head, and knock you out. Are you okay?” He looks so genuinely worried, that Tony is stunned speechless.
JARVIS ends up answering for him by saying: “ If I may, sir has not eaten or slept in the past 72 hours. He was in fact knocked across the kitchen by the spout from that sink, and the ensuing water sent sir into a flashback of Afghanistan."
That snaps Tony back into reality: “No JARVIS, you may not. In fact, I think I’ll just head to bed. Thank you Steve, Bucky, my wallet is on the counter you can take all the cash in there as a tip for when you’re done fixing that sink”.
“Oh, Sweetheart, no! You don’t need to hide from us, we fought in the war too!” Bucky protests as Tony gets up. Steve looks like he wants to give him a hug, but Tony just ignores both of them.
“You guys have the wrong idea. I didn’t fight in the war, I made weapons for the war. It was in Afghanistan that I found out my weapons were being sold to terrorists-"<
“Sir, was captured and tortured by said terrorists”, JARVIS cuts in.
“-that’s why my company switched to clean energy”
“And prosthetics” Bucky says, rolling up his left sleeve to reveal metal, and then he continues, “I lost my arm fighting in the war, and Steve was a captain in the war. When we came back, everything was so different. It was like a whole new world, and this arm, this beautiful arm, is what helped us re-adjust. We got jobs, worked-out, and ate healthy, just so we could get this arm fit perfectly for me. It’s like having my arm back, except it’s movements somehow feel even more precise.”
“I’m glad it helps, but you didn’t need to get jobs to buy it. Stark industries has a special program for veterans to make sure everyone who needs a prosthetic can get one.” Tony stumbles a little bit in his haste to get out of there, and rights himself using the counter as he says it.
“Not if we wanted it made specially by you, which means you gave us this arm, and helped us get our lives back. Please let us take care of you, Tony” Steve says, getting up to help, but not moving any closer so as not to scare him.
“You guys don’t owe me anything, but I will if you take care of me on top of fixing my sink”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, Baby doll. How about this, you let us take care of you now, and tomorrow, or whenever you feel like it, you can take us to your favourite spot to have a picnic. We’ll even bring the food.” offers Bucky.
“How does that benefit you?” aks Tony, legitimately baffled.
“What Bucky is trying to say is, you seem like a cool guy, and we’d like to get to know you better” Steve explains.
And that’s when Tony gets it:
“You know you guys don’t have to butter me up to ask for a threesome. I mean, you have heard the rumours, right?"
“No, Tony that’s not what we want, we’d like to try and date you, and later on, maybe when we’ve settled in to our relationship we could...uh” Steve goes from horrified to blushing within seconds, “..maybe try that threesome? But we’d like to date you first” , Steve finishes determinedly.
“It’s like he said, Sweetheart. Date first, and then you can find out why they used to call me Bronco,” Bucky drawls flirtatiously, “or have Stevie here, tell you all about it” he adds hastily.
Tony actually blushes, when Bucky talks about him finding out why they used to call Bucky, Bronco. He’s not thinking straight, he should just blame it all on that sink giving him a concussion, and head to bed. Instead he says:
“How about we take it one step at a time, starting with nicknames, Bucky, can I call you Bucky-bear?”
“You can call me anytime sweetheart” Bucky smirks.
“That was so forced, I’m actually embarrassed for you” Steve shakes his head, and smiles, looking indulgent, then he looks back at Tony.
“Is it alright if I call you Stevie, too?”
“Absolutely, you can call me anything you want” Steve responds immediately.
“Now who’s trying to hard?”
“Shut-up Bucky, we’re talking about Tony right now”
“Sure, sure.”
“*sigh*, Are you sure you want to deal with this?” Steve asks Tony.
“Absolutely. As long as you guys are prepared to deal with me? I’m told that I am too much for anyone to handle”
”Good thing there’s two of us then. It’s kinda perfect if ya think about it” Bucky drawls, leading Tony to his bedroom with a hand on the small of his back. When did he get so close? Tony tries to remember, but finds he can’t, then he passes out. At least he made it to bed, this time.
****************************
Tony wakes up the next morning feeling well-rested for the first time in years. He hasn’t felt this well rested since, well since Afghanistan really.
“Good morning sir. You’ve been sleeping for approximately 12 hours, 11 hours and 59 minutes to be exact’ JARVIS says approvingly.
Tony smiles, and then remembers what happened that morning.
“JARVIS, did I imagine the handsome handymen who came to fix that sink at one am?”
“No sir, they left you a note on the kitchen counter, as well as breakfast in the fridge, and ‘that sink’ is fixed”.
“Well, what does the note say, JARVIS” Tony asks without getting up.
“It says:
Dear, Tony,
You were really tired this morning, so we don’t know if you remember, but we asked you on a date, and we’d really like it if you called us to discuss a time. We’d love to get to know you better, and not just physically.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Yours truly,
Bucky-bear and Stevie'
Would you like me to read it to you again sir?”
“Yes please”
Tony smiles happily all day, and even more the next day when they go on their picnic. After that, it’s not flawless, there are big fights over small things, bad days, and small problems, but Tony thinks it just might be perfect. All because of “That Sink”, which he totally gives its original spout to Stevie as an anniversary gift, because ‘Stevie loves that sappy shit’.