Scott Lang, at least, understood why Tony hated this stupid job so damn much. He had a Masters degree in engineering but Tony was working on a PhD. Unfortunately for him even with his previous experience and schooling- good schooling- he was stuck working in a knockoff version of McDonald’s meets Subway. Sometimes there was pizza too, Tony didn’t get it, he just served the food.
“Better than Baskin Robbins,” Scott mumbles, glaring at today’s Inexplicable Muffin Display. They never had muffins but today, apparently, they did. The lack of consistency with the food pissed the customers right off but Tony wasn’t in charge of inventory, he had no choice but to deal with this crap just like the stupid goddamn customers.
“I guess. I just can’t believe that I’m doing a PhD and despite all my experiences and references I’m working in this shithole,” he says back. Scott nods in understanding and their other coworkers look a mix of annoyed, sympathetic given that they also had degrees, or indifferent. The bell on the door rings and a couple of guys walk in and Lang beats feet to the back so Tony gets to deal with it. Everyone else seems to shy away from them too, which was weird, but Tony makes his way to the front counter with an easy smile on his face.
“You have muffins,” the one with long, dark hair says. It looked good up in a bun with a few strands escaping from it. Apparently women were not the only ones who could pull that off.
“Yeah, don’t expect those tomorrow. We’ll probably be serving disappointment if you do,” he says and the blonde laughs. Damn, Tony would kill a man to have his biceps. It was the frame his father always wanted him to have, which made no sense given how wiry Howard was, but whatever.
“Still got BTLs or are you serving us disappointment now?” the blonde asks. There’s something to his voice that goes over Tony’s head, something he feels like he should be picking up on but he figures it isn’t that important if he didn’t know what it was immediately.
“Luck’s on your side, Blondie, we have bacon and I’m pretty sure its even real instead of that weird mystery meat we have most of the time,” he quips. This time the brunette snorts and starts laughing, which seems to annoy the blonde even if Tony can tell it isn’t true annoyance. More like minor irritation.
“Great, I’ll take that,” the blonde says as the brunette keeps snickering. The brunette orders and Tony keeps up the flow of conversation in a way that he’s perfected after working here for the last month of so. The guys take their sandwiches and take off, back to a couple of really nice bikes and Tony stops paying attention after that.
“You have no idea who you just served do you?” Natasha asks, twirling a piece of red hair around her finger.
Tony shrugs, “does it matter?” Honestly after awhile the customers kind of blended together anyways. He probably wouldn’t remember them in two hours and that’s making them more memorable than they probably are.
“Uh yeah. You just served Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes,” she says. She rolls her eyes at him when he stares at her blankly, “god, the Howling Commandos. Did you just squint at me? god Stark, you are helpless,” she mumbles at him and leaves him to it.
If it wasn’t for her making a big deal out of the whole thing coupled with every person he was currently working with asking if he was going to get murdered now he never would have remembered the encounter. But he does so when he’s on break next he looks up ‘Howling Commandos’ and finds out that they’re apparently a very prominent and considerably scary gang and apparently he just called their rumored leader ‘blondie’ and joked about serving them disappointment. No wonder his coworkers thought he was going to get murdered now.
*
The first time they run into Tony he obviously has no clue who they are and it shows. Generally people act more like his coworkers and avoid them on the off change they’ll piss one or both of them off. What they didn’t know is that Steve was pretty difficult to piss off and Bucky was easily swayed by Steve’s opinions so the chances of them getting punched was low. Still, it was kind of fun to terrorize the general public at least until they figured out nothing would come of their razzing.
Tony though, when they met him, was completely immune to it. Steve had even used his Scary Voice and it went straight over the guy’s head. The second time they meet though someone has informed him because Bucky can see just a flicker of apprehension on his face before he walks up to the cash register and asks what they want. They order without incident and Steve goes off to find a table in the front area of the store while Bucky decides to mess with the new guy.
“You haven’t been working here long,” he says. He knows because they frequent the place and this is the second time he’s seen Tony, if his nametag had the right name on it. Sometimes, if the staff was paranoid, they’d do what Natasha did and give out some bullshit name like ‘sunshine’. Natasha absolutely was not a ‘sunshine’ kind of woman.
“No I haven’t. Barely a month,” he confirms. Bucky raises an eyebrow and wonders how he managed to miss the guy for so long if that was true.
“What shift do you usually work?” he asks.
Tony squints at him suspiciously as he makes the food but answers easily enough. “I had midnights for awhile but school started so I’m on afternoons,” he says.
“That explains why I haven’t seen you around. What’re you going to school for?” he asks in a conversational tone. The coworker that’s behind Tony pales and scurries away, walking faster when Bucky grins at him but Tony doesn’t react like that at all.
“Engineering. PhD program,” he says.
That gets Bucky’s attention and he looks the guy over. There was no way he was older than twenty-three and that was really pushing it. “You’re lime twelve, there is no way you’re in a PhD program,” he tells the kid. No way.
Tony rolls his eyes, which, ballsy. “First of all I’m twenty-one not twelve and I don’t see why I’d lie about that to some random guy I’m making a sandwich for. Also I’m a genius. I graduated from MIT at fourteen so the fact that it’s taken me this long to get a PhD is actually saying something,” he says. He hands off the sandwiches and walks away without another word but Bucky is curious so when he goes back to the table Steve has snagged he looks up fourteen year olds that have graduated from MIT. There couldn’t have been many of them and it takes five minutes to confirm he was right about that.
Tony Stark, if the news articles about his genius and general astounding achievements for his age were right. Then when he was seventeen, just after receiving his second Masters degree, his parents had been killed in a hit and run. Tony seemed to fall of the news radar until last fall when he won some robotic competition with something he claimed he made when he was a kid. Huh.
*
The next time Tony runs into the Commandos it’s Steve and some Asian guy who was absolutely hilarious. Morita, Steve called him, and Tony decides that regardless of what everyone else thought the Commandos were excellent. “Do you have any insider knowledge on what foods come and go in here? Because those muffins were good and the little bastards are gone again,” Morita says and tony shakes his head.
“Nah. I’m as clueless as you. I haven’t even seen the guy that owns this place but there are rumors that he’s a vampire for some reason,” he says.
Steve laughs and shakes his head, “he is not. But Old Man Stan must be going senile if he can’t remember what food to order half the time.”
“Probably,” Tony agrees. He sticks extra bacon on Steve’s BLT because he likes the guy and also because he hates his job and if the only way he can rebel is by giving customers extra bacon he will. He probably makes up for it when he skimps out on bacon for customers he doesn’t like anyways.
“So how’s school?” Steve asks and he looks genuinely interested. Tony gives him a run down of his classes and he nods along and asks more questions. Tony tells him that one of his classmates dared him to built a semi-autonomous AI because he thought Tony would fail only to be shocked when his already built semi-autonomous AI protested at the possibility of replacement. Steve seems to find this amusing and he shakes his head as Tony hands off his food.
“Stay in school, kid,” he says and leaves. Tony protests at being called a kid, especially because Steve only had to be a couple years older than him, but Steve only laughs as he walks out.
*
Some sorry sap that was shaking like a leaf was behind the counter so Bucky and Steve exchange a look. “Is Tony working? You know, short guy about ye high,” Steve holds out his hand at roughly Tony’s height, “with tousled hair? Can’t help but make a bunch of absurd jokes?” Bucky shakes his head as the kid scurries off to get Tony.
The kid squeaks out an affirmative and runs off to presumably get him. Tony appears a few minutes later wiping his hands off on his shirt, “hey guys, how’s the gang?” he asks casually.
“Fine. Falsworth misses you,” Steve tells him.
Tony snorts, “he misses my sandwiches,” Tony corrects. “The usual order?” he asks them and they nod. He punches in the order and makes his way over to the sandwich station.
“How’s that class going, the one with the prof you hate?” Steve asks.
Tony groans and rolls his eyes hard. “I had to correct his text book. You know, the one he wrote and made us buy like it wasn’t at all douchy to make students buy your own books. Well the math was wrong and Hammer refused to admit it so I sent off a note to the editor and now he hates me even more because the editor looked into it and yeah, the math is wrong. So I’m pretty sure he’s going to try to fail me but that’s not going to work given my school record so I’m not too worried. How goes your attempts to take over HYDRA?” he asks, grinning at them easily.
Shit, half the Commandos wouldn’t be ballsy enough to ask that and the look on Steve’s face says he knows it too. It wasn’t that people were scared of them per se, but they knew where they fell in the rank and they’ve seen Steve and Bucky at work. He thinks they just don’t want to test them or the rest of the inner circle. Morita took some pleasure in it because apparently people were scared of cubby Asian men often and he thought terrorizing the children was hilarious even though they all knew he’d never hurt them. That was something that Steve absolutely did not tolerate, not from anyone. He’s never been real fond of bullies.
“Good enough I guess. Little bastards keep crawling out of the woodwork though,” Steve says in a casual tone. Tony is clearly surprised he got an answer in regards to that but he nods.
“So I hear. What is it they say about themselves? Cut off one head and two more grow back or some shit like that? I don’t know but that thing they use as their symbol is a fucking octopus not a hydra and it pisses me off,” Tony says, dead serious about his annoyance.
Steve bursts out laughing and Bucky starts laughing too, “oh my god it is an octopus. That makes it so much less threatening knowing that,” Steve says.
“Yeah, hydras have multiple heads, not multiple legs. Get educated,” he mumbles more to himself than them.
“They’re Nazis, what do you expect?” Bucky asks, shaking his head. HYDRA members probably weren’t too smart, he thinks, if they genuinely believe the shit they say.
“I expect them to know the difference between a god damn octopus and a freaking mythical creature. What the hell do they think lives in the ocean?” he asks, waving a hand around.
“I don’t know,” Bucky says, “I’ve seen some weird stuff in there that should stay there.” Like those weird things with lights in front of their face and very big teeth. That was the kind of shit that kept him awake at night if he thought about it too hard.
“True. But I mean hydras are fake and octopi are real things. If you’re going to name your gang after a mythical creature I expect you to know what the damn thing looks like otherwise you look like an idiot,” Tony says, shaking his head.
“Again, Nazis. You already know they’re idiots,” Steve points out.
“Idiots Nazis that don’t know the difference between a fucking octopus and a mythical creature. Throw them in the ocean with a few octopi, freak ‘em out,” Tony mumbles. He continues muttering under his breath and Steve laughs, shaking his head at Tony’s antics. He hands off their food and they go to leave, laughing at Tony’s annoyance over the HYDRA symbol but he stops them.
“I found some of these in the back and remembered Morita had a thing for them so I saved the muffins for him,” he says, sliding a bag of muffins over to them. “Don’t worry about paying for them, I’ve got it,” he tells them with a grin.
Steve and Bucky exchange a look, not needing to actually speak to know what the other was saying. “Thanks,” Steve tells Tony, a slow smile spreading across his face. As they leave he hears the new kid- and he was a kid- ask Tony if he just did something that would get himself killed and Tony snorts, telling the kid he needed to grow basic observation skills if he didn’t know what just happened. He was one to talk given how oblivious he was to near everything.
*
Bucky leans against a metal table with a knife in his hand. The blood on it doesn’t much bother him or Steve, who is leaning against a wall across the room regarding the HYDRA member in front of them. There’s a small streak of blood on one of his cheekbones and Bucky can’t help but find it attractive. Fucked up he knew, but attractive nonetheless. But then Steve really couldn’t make anything look unattractive, not even when he was skinny. No one ever saw the potential but then he hit that growth spurt and people saw him as a leader instead of a skinny little runt.
“Out of curiosity do you know that the HYDRA gang symbol is an octopus not a hydra?” he asks.
Bucky throws back his head and laughs as the HYDRA member spits in Steve’s general direction. “I’ll take that as a no,” he says and smiles just a little.
“Fuck off,” the HYDRA agent snarls and Bucky snorts.
“God these people are stupid. Should we tell Tony they don’t know?” he asks.
“When I get out of here I’m going to find this ‘Tony’ and kill him,” the HYDRA agent tells them. That line wasn’t even original, though usually there was some family member’s name in there as a substitute for ‘Tony’.
Steve lets out a low, dangerous laugh. “Oh it’s cute that you think you’re going to leave here. You’ve proven yourself completely useless to me so I really don’t have much of a choice to kill you now. I was hoping to avoid it, it’s messy and I’ve never been fond of murder but I can’t bring myself to feel guilty for killing a Nazi. I’m doing a social service really. So, any last words?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow. He’s still got that pleasant smirk on his face like none of this fazed him at all. That was as far from the truth as it could get, Steve really did hate killing people, but he wasn’t an idiot either. Murder was necessary in this business and he really was doing the word a favor by killing Nazis.
“Hail Hydra,” the guy says and Steve rolls his eyes.
“Kill him,” he tells Bucky and leaves.
Bucky sighs because he didn’t like murder much more than Steve did but he was better at handling it. Besides, he’s always done everything he could to protect Steve and this was no different so he pulls his gun and shoots the guy, wincing at the mess Morita now had to clean up. He was going to be pissed that they didn’t put tarps up again.
*
Tony is on his way out of work when he finds Steve standing there staring at his motorcycle in what could only be described as abject horror. “Something wrong?” he asks as he walks up. He’s quickly realized that Steve and Bucky both have taken a specific liking to him given that they only ever showed up when he was working and asked for him specifically.
“I uh… it won’t start,” Steve says.
“Well if you don’t uh… mind I can take a look at it. I mean I am an engineer,” he points out.
Steve raises an eyebrow at him, “you have tools on you?” he asks, obviously thinking he was going to have Tony stumped there.
“Depends on what’s wrong with it but yeah I always have a few tools in my bag,” he says. People liked to make fun of his backpack but he had everything in it, including a few tools. You never knew.
He sighs, “well I guess you’re getting a PhD in engineering so you probably won’t ruin it,” he mumbles.
“Relax, Rogers, I’ll treat her like a lady,” he tells him and Steve visibly relaxes. From the store he can see Peter watching with his eyes practically bugging out of his head, Lang right behind him with the same stupid look on his face. Their jaws both drop as Tony bends down beside the bike and asks Steve a few questions about it. It doesn’t even take long to locate the problem- a few things were where they shouldn’t have been- and the bike runs fine after that.
Steve grins happily as the bike roars underneath of him and Tony leans forward in part so Steve can hear him and also because as much as people liked to talk them up Steve nor Bucky were particularly scary. Steve doesn’t seem to mind at all, which he knows is something impressive given how anxious he was when Tony was fixing the bike, hovering over him the whole time. “You might want to lock this thing up somewhere safe, all that stuff I just fixed doesn’t get messed up like that from normal use. Pretty sure someone moved a few things and honestly I’m surprised it took so long to pooch out on you,” he says honestly. Personally he would have just cut the fuel like or the break line but whatever.
“Really now?” Steve says, eyes turning cold as some thought occurs to him. “Well, thanks for your help Tony but I have something to do. I’ll see you later.” Tony leans back, taking his cue and Steve takes off like a bat out of hell. Tony stands there for a moment before he shrugs and walks off.
*
He notices someone following him a few weeks after he fixes Steve’s motorcycle but doesn’t think much of it. Well, he does but he doesn’t connect it to Steve and Bucky. Mostly he figured it was someone after his designs because it wouldn’t have been the first time and he just made a huge discovery. Actually two huge discoveries- one, he managed to miniaturize Anton Vankov’s arc reactor, and then he invented an element that made it run about a thousand times better. Bonus points for making the mini so different than the original model that he got to patent that and now it was being used by Stane International. He couldn’t say he felt warm and fuzzy about Obadiah Stane, but he could use the money and he didn’t mind lending the design out.
So he figures some jackass who wanted his designs for their own company was following him around, not some HYDRA twat. It isn’t until Bucky and Steve wander up to the register looking a mix of worried and murderous- Bucky looked worried and Steve looked murderous- that he made any kind of connections to HYDRA. “He been following you?” Bucky asks, eyes flicking to the guy that was currently sitting outside the building.
“I… yeah, how’d you know?” he asks. They ignore him though and leave so Tony shrugs, going back to his daily tasks. Peter got into some stuff and there were crumbs everywhere and they only just got rid of the damn ants that had tried to take over the place a few weeks ago so he was intent on keeping the little bastards gone.
Steve and Bucky don’t come back for a few hours but when they do they look pleased with themselves in the same way cats did when they hunted down a mouse and killed it. “You don’t have to worry about that guy anymore,” Steve tells him in a tone that told Tony that there was no way that guy was coming back.
“Uh. Okay. The usual?” he asks, raising an eyebrow as casually as he could manage. They nod and he gets to their order like any other day, trying to avoid thinking too hard about how they knew that guy wouldn’t be bothering him again. It really was none of his business anyways.
*
Morita knew Steve and Bucky had a thing for that Tony Stark kid and after those muffins he just might like the kid too. The last thing he expected though was an order to go get the kid from work because they needed an engineer. They had others that they could trust but Steve and Bucky insisted and he wasn’t there to question the leaders so he went off to get Tony from work. He looks surprised to see him standing there and hikes his backpack up on his shoulder, “hey Morita, like the muffins?” he asks in an easy tone.
He grins, “‘course I did kid, thanks for that.” Those things were freakishly good and this damn establishment never could decide on what it was selling this week so he didn’t think he’d see them again but Tony had found a few and slipped them out. It was a nice favor that showed he paid attention to detail- something Steve and Bucky appreciated and remembered.
“No problem,” he says and he goes to sidestep him but he steps in front of Tony.
“Actually I need you to come with me,” he says in a friendly enough tone but Tony wasn’t completely oblivious. He didn’t think a nice tone meant nice actions were to follow, not from someone who was close with people as high up in what were essentially mob ranks as Morita.
Tony considers his options for a few seconds and Morita gives him time to process the request that they knew really wasn’t a request. “Can I ask why?” Tony settles on for a response.
“Bosses need an engineer and only want you,” he says. It’s more than vague but it seems to suit Tony just fine because he nods and walks behind Morita to his car. Everyone else preferred bikes but he couldn’t stand them after a nasty incident with some very fast driving and a very large bug in his teeth.
Tony doesn’t say much and that suits Morita just fine. He was here to collect and deliver Tony, making small talk wasn’t on the register and after the day he has had thanks to HYDRA he wasn’t in the mood for it. He can tell Tony isn’t comfortable but he figures he’ll leave that to Steve and Bucky to deal with after he finished delivery duty.
They make it back to the garage on good time and he wonders exactly what Steve and Bucky’s plans were. They didn’t tell him to blindfold Tony, which he would have been more comfortable with, which meant he already knew too much but he figured there was a reason. If not than he would have had explicit orders to blindfold the kid. They get out and Morita gestures for him to follow, which Tony does with minimal response.
“Brooklyn. I guess I should have realized where you guys were operating from sooner, this location makes the most sense given your activity,” Tony says in a low voice. Actually it didn’t, they made sure of it unless Tony was seeing patterns that expert law enforcement didn’t. He doesn’t say anything though because this was no longer his problem, it was Steve and Bucky’s.
“Alright kid, here’s your stop,” he says and gestures to the ‘office’ that populated the garage they were in. It wasn’t exactly glamorous but it did the trick and Steve and Bucky were already waiting so that was his cue to go.
“I am so not a kid,” Tony says and Morita laughs.
“Yeah, you’re like twelve,” he tells the kid and gently pushes him into the room, shutting the door behind Tony as soon as he was far enough in.
*
His unexpected job as a freaking gang’s pet mechanic/ engineer was more than unexpected but he actually liked it. The Commandos were pretty decent people and none of them were even remotely unpleasant to Tony when he was at the garage. Most of his work was looking over their equipment but sometimes, like the first time he was brought in; he was set to look over HYDRA tech. It was the kind of advanced thing that was up his alley but it made him uncomfortable to know that the kind of people HYDRA were had access to the stuff he looked over.
Steve and Bucky, for a bunch of law breaking criminals, had a pretty strict moral code they stuck to and their goal was pretty much the same as the police’s in regards to HYDRA. Get their shit off the street and get rid of them. Except you know, lawlessly. “How’s it going?” Steve asks softly, dropping his hands to Tony’s shoulders and kneading.
He sighs and leans into the touch, savoring it. “It’s going but this stuff is pretty new as far as tech goes. I genuinely don’t understand how HYDRA is getting ahold of these kinds of designs because most of them are advanced enough that they shouldn’t exist yet,” he says. This stuff was the kind of stuff he would build, not the kind of stuff he’d expect from neo-Nazi scum.
“They’ve always been ahead of the game on weapons but all this other stuff? We can’t figure out where it’s coming from and that’s dangerous,” Steve says. He sounds dangerous too, and determined and Tony has seen what determined for Steve looked like. The man was downright terrifying when he wanted to be.
“I agree. This stuff is all brand new, and I mean brand new. I’d know because I make stuff like this,” he says, gesturing to a surprisingly efficient cell phone jamming device.
Steve’s hands tighten on his shoulders and he shifts uncomfortably, “what was that?” Steve asks in a light, lofty tone that Tony has only heard a few times before and never directed towards him. It meant he was in some serious shit but he had no idea why.
“I uh. Ouch, could you not?” he asks, shifting uncomfortably again. “I said I build stuff like this- ouch- but this stuff is like the crude version of my stuff.” The designs were unstable and hastily put together and that just wasn’t him. He tested his stuff rigorously to make sure it would work as intended.
“I should have put this together sooner,” Steve says, hands still too tight on Tony’s shoulders, “how long exactly have you been working for HYDRA?” he asks.
Tony looks up at him like he just suggested he was actually a blue alien, “how long have I been what?” he asks, shocked and a little pissed off.
His reaction must have been something to look at because confusion hits Steve pretty quick, like he wondered if he made a mistake but that cool determination is back fast enough for Tony to wonder if he saw the surprise at all. “You just all but admitted to building this stuff,” he points out. Which, in a roundabout way, he guessed he kind of did.
“Jesus Steve, got a tight grip on Tony don’t ya? Let the poor guy breath,” Bucky says, choosing then to walk in. He notices something is off right away though, noting the way Steve looks at him because those two never really needed to talk to each other to know what they were saying.
“Do you have an explanation for why HYDRA would have designs that you obviously think are close enough to yours that you pointed it out?” Steve asks, head tilted to the side. Most of that sentence was for Bucky’s benefit, brining him up to speed on the situation. Surprise flits across his features but unlike Steve that confusion stays there.
“No idea,” Tony says honestly. Steve doesn’t look much like he believes him and that kind of makes Tony mad but he didn’t really know what to do about it.
“Why would he admit to building things similar to HYDRA here? That’s pretty stupid and Tony might be reckless but he’s no idiot,” Bucky points out.
“Thanks,” Tony mumbles to him but Steve doesn’t release him just yet. He does loosen his grip though and he’s seen Steve rough people up. He was being more than nice to Tony. Maybe he had doubt about his involvement with HYDRA after all, he was just better than Bucky at hiding it.
“How would HYDRA get crude versions of your designs then?” Steve asks.
“I have no fucking clue,” Tony says honestly. He can hear the note of pleading to it too, but the words were real. He was confused too, that’s why he said the designs were like his. Because they shouldn’t be.
“Didn’t you say you sold some designs recently?” Bucky asks.
“Not exactly, I just gave Stane International the rights to produce my designs, not the rights to the actual designs,” he says. Steve’s grip tightens again and he winces, surprised at the strength in those fingers even if he shouldn’t be.
“Jesus Steve, let the poor guy go, he doesn’t know,” Bucky says and Tony frowns.
“Wait, is this good cop bad cop?” he asks, squinting between the two of them.
Bucky snorts, “fuck no. If I thought you were HYDRA I wouldn’t be nice to you at all, I’d be with Steve here. Seriously Steve, let him go, he actually doesn’t know about Stane.”
“Know what about Stane?” he asks, confused.
Steve examines him for a long few moments before he releases him, “you genuinely don’t know. Sorry Tony, but Stane has been working with HYDRA for years, I’m sure you can see why I’d be suspicious,” he says. He looks genuinely apologetic too but Tony was already halfway across the room because the things he made could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands and Stane has already asked him to rework a few designs for more efficiency. Probably to obtain the patent to those designs and shut Tony out of his own inventions so he could use them however he wanted to and Tony would have fallen for it for who knows how long until Tony caught on. He had shit to do.
*
Steve was positive he fucking blew it with Tony and he couldn’t bring himself to deal with it in the way it needed. This was his own fuck up too, if he hadn’t told him too much, or if he hadn’t interrogated Tony like he had he wouldn’t have taken off like he had. They haven’t seen him in over a week, including at work.
“Hey,” Bucky says softly, putting an arm around him and drawing him in. “You couldn’t have anticipated this.”
No, maybe he couldn’t but shit he could have reacted better than automatically accusing Tony of being HYDRA and scaring him off. “I… we had plans,” he says eventually and Bucky sighs.
“It happens, Steve,” is all he says. Sure it did but it wasn’t really often that they both managed to fall in love with the same person because he was snarky and made a mean sandwich only to scare the poor guy off with quick assumptions and accusations.
They sit there in silence for a long time before they turn on the television and raise their eyebrows at what they find.
The news reporter- a pretty blonde whose name was Christine Everhart according to the bottom of the screen- narrates the arrest of Obadiah Stane of all people. “According to police they received an anonymous tip from an unknown source of Obadiah Stane not only admitting to selling weapons and various other things to the infamous gang known as ‘HYDRA’, but also to selling weapons to terrorists worldwide. Police obtained a warrant for Stane’s belongings and business records earlier in the week and gathered what they described as a ‘shocking’ amount of evidence in regards to Stane’s transgressions. Police say they have laid several charges against Stane but haven’t released an official list because, according to them, they have yet to realize the full scope of Stane’s treason.”
She continues on with some other useless details but Steve and Bucky were looking at each other with wide eyes, knowing exactly who was behind this. Especially when they showed a clip of Stane yelling about someone setting him up while stupidly admitting that he’d never leave evidence lying around like that. But they both knew of someone with more than enough tech ability to find the right needle in a pile of needles to take Stane down who also happened to have a good personal connection to him.
It doesn’t take them long to locate Tony’s shitty little apartment in an even shittier area but they’re both still surprised that he answers the door. Tony is obviously surprised to find them there too. “Uh, hey guys?” he says in an uncertain tone.
Steve sighs, “I’m so sorry I thought you were HYDRA, it’s just that I’ve had this happen before with people I trusted and-” Tony cuts him off before he can continue, waving him off.
“Hey, I don’t care. I would have done the same if I were you, I just haven’t gotten around to talking to you guys because I’ve been busy with… well I’m assuming you know what,” he says. He steps back and Steve and Bucky take their cue, walking into Tony’s apartment.
“How?” Bucky asks.
Tony shrugs, “Stane was easier to fool than I thought. I said I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew some HYDRA members and I noticed some designs they shouldn’t have floating around and told him I wanted in. I had no clue the guy was committing treason. I have a friend in the military, no way would I have ever done business with someone who could have put him or anyone else in danger. The kind of shit I can build is straight up terrifying when I want it to be. Anyways, Stane thought he had the perfect lapdog only he didn’t know that one- I’m not a fucking monster, and two- I knew more than he thought I didn’t. So I made sure that the police and the feds would find what they needed and sent off that lovely talk we had in which he laughed at how much smarter he was than the government for selling weapons to terrorists and the military to make double the money to the authorities. Fucking piece of shit,” he snarls, looking appropriately disgusted.
Bucky and Steve exchange a glance and like always they didn’t need to speak to know what the other was saying, only Tony clued in that something else was going on too.
*
Tony lounges on the couch, perched in Steve’s lap with his feet in Bucky’s lap grinning. “I had no idea things would take off so fast,” he says, pleased with himself.
“Of course it would,” Steve tells him, pressing a kiss to Tony’s cheek.
“We told you this would happen,” Bucky points out. Yeah, they both did but believing his lovers’ words and actually seeing evidence for them was completely different. After his eloquent takedown of Stane he had still received enough money from his reactor that he had been able to start his own business seems how he hardly trusted anyone else to sell his designs. Steve and Bucky both had unshakable faith in him but this was based off his ability to make sandwiches and his admittedly excellent skills in bed. That had nothing to do with business ethic but in the few months since he’s started the company it’s all but exploded and in the last few months more money that he even knew what to do with was pouring in.
The first thing he did was hire an assistant because he’s always wanted one of those and Pepper was very efficient. He didn’t even know how unorganized he was until she arrived to set him straight and damn, he had to give her a raise and a half after her straightening out his act landed him with several multimillion dollar deals. He’d been damn good on his own, but after a few months of Pepper’s help he was even better so the woman deserved the extra credit. She had been surprised but pleased at her new freakishly high salary but Tony felt good incentives brought good work. He was currently working on expanding the company thanks to the growing popularity of his products.
“Couldn’t have done it without you two,” he says to Steve and Bucky. Which was true at least. They were good with the encouragement thing and thanks to his well-founded connections to some outside help he always had protection too. Rhodey had been worried when his stuff first took off that there’d be a target on his back and he hadn’t been wrong but it turned out Morita could throw a hell of a punch and Steve had gifted him with Happy, the driver they never really used. Happy was well… happy to have received the new job and Tony was fond of the guy too, even if he never really drove Tony around. Tony preferred to drive himself but Happy made decent security so he still had lots to do.
“Please,” Bucky says, grinning at Tony. “You’re Tony Stark. You can do some really crazy shit,” he points out. Yeah, he could and sometimes did just because people said he couldn’t. That had been how he built a hover car and an actual hover board, not those bullshit lies on wheels some other jackass thought passed for a hover board. Rhodey immediately asked for ten because he might be the mature one out of the two but he was also a child at heart. And that hover car went for a price that was far more than it was worth given how many problems it had and the idiot who bought it also shelled out huge amounts of money for him to fix it every time it screwed up too. Things were going well for him finally, it only took nearly twenty-two years. Too bad his old man wasn’t around to see all of this given how often he called Tony worthless as a kid but hey, maybe it was for the best that he didn’t know Tony was dating two guys. Something hold him Howard wouldn’t be impressed and Steve outright told him once that if Howard were still alive he probably would have killed the man. That was something Tony would have gladly endorsed so long as his mom was left alone.
“True, but I’ve not exactly had the best of luck,” he points out. Maybe in another life he was born rich but in this one he was born to Howard, who was probably almost as good of an inventor as Tony but with no real financial backing to make his designs they were pretty useless. So Tony had had to work his ass off to get scholarships to good schools and then his parents died in that hit and run and, well his mom’s loss messed him up a little and it took awhile to get back to it. Not that it took long to build his own empire, which was made better now that Steve and Bucky were making real progress with HYDRA now. Probably because they had some pretty impressive weapons now. Tony knew that they were used responsibly, especially because Steve was harsh on that moral code of his. If someone stepped out of line it was dealt with immediately and no one really wanted to be on Steve’s bad side. Or Bucky’s given that that was a surefire way to also end up on Steve’s shit list and neither were very nice when they were pissed.
Rhodey once told Tony he should be scared of them but he’s always been a risk taker and besides, the one time he’d been on Steve’s bad side he was pretty gentle with him bruises from his hands on Tony’s shoulders aside. Better than the norm for him, the man was vicious when provoked. Tony figured Rhodey had a point about them being dangerous but neither of them would ever hurt him and he knew it. Honestly that probably gave him more power given his newfound piles of money and his connections to some pretty powerful mob leaders. He’s always liked living on the edge and this was about as close to the edge as it got without going over, which was where he liked to be.
“Well, that’s because you didn’t have us before,” Steve points out with a grin.
“Yeah,” Bucky adds, “we’re you’re good luck charms.”
Tony laughs and nods because yeah, that was definitely right.