Halloween
“This is ridiculous, Tony.” Pepper tossed down the stack of papers and relocated her hands to her hips. “You can’t just...” She shrugged in place of saying what, exactly, Tony couldn’t ‘just’ and why it was ridiculous. Sure, he’d watched Pacific Rim maybe a few hundred times since it came out. For the sake of the argument he’ll go out on a limb and say that hanging upside down from the rafters of his workshop while humming the theme from the movie and tinkering with a moderately sized arc reactor that was going to power the mini-Jager he was trying to build in the wee hours of the morning while he was still jacked up on coffee and something he’d found in his cabinet while searching for said coffee was probably a bad course of action. And yeah, allocating certain funds that were earmarked for restoring Long Island’s beachfront after he and Thor went a few rounds with Abomination last week was probably an even worse one. He flipped the welding helmet visor up (or down, depending on your angle) and gave Pepper his best ‘you are ruining my vibe’ look. Judging by her blank stare, that look wasn’t as effective while he was upside down.
He kicked off one of the support beams and flipped himself upright in the rigging, then lowered himself down to the ground. “Pep. Come on. It’s Halloween! You gotta get into the spirit of the holiday. Candy, costumes, playing tricks on old folks, creepy old people handing out stale candy from last year...Costumes, Pepper! One day out of the year I get to dress up!” Pepper didn’t throw the heavy paperweight her hand curled around, but it was a near thing. Tony knew these things. He raised his hands, a torch still clamped in one fist. “In something other than monkey suits or the armor.”
“Tony!”
“Pepper, please. Please. It’s one day, I promise I’ll donate it to the Smithsonian afterwards. I’ll even double the donation I normally make.”
“Tony, you have a meeting in three hours. You haven’t slept since you shot out of the living room shouting something along the lines of ‘Eureka!’ after rewatching that damned movie for the eleventh time with Clint.” Pepper had her ‘executive Mom’ voice going, and it scared him because he knew he’d cave. But he couldn’t, not this time. He tried his patented - stolen from Cap - hang-dog look.
“That’s it. I’m calling Rhodey.” She pulled her phone out and stabbed the speed-dial.
“Y’know, you could just say his name, and Jarvis would call him for you.” Tony tossed the welder onto a table and shook his gloves off his hands before wrapping his hands around Pepper’s hips. “Love the skirt. New?”
She smirked, but didn’t put the phone down. “You bought it for my birthday.”
Tony nodded. “I have great taste. I know what you like.”
Just as Pepper’s face lit up - which meant she got a hold of Rhodey and god damn Tony was in so much trouble since it was Friday and he got the idea for the arc reactor augmentation on Wednesday whoops), the workshop door banged open. Pepper’s face fell. Tony whirled around, expecting something he’d have to beat up or sue. He didn’t expect Captain America. Certainly didn’t expect an out-of-breath Cap. And Tony sure as hell didn’t expect to see Bucky Barnes right behind him, just as wheezy and red-faced. But there they were, panting with their hands on their knees and identical expressions of regret on their faces. It was gross but also gratifying. At least, Tony felt gratified. He took a quick photo of the tableau with his phone for blackmail purposes.
Pepper was a bundle of nerves, babbling at both men as Rhodey tried to get her attention through the phone and Cap and Freezerburn’s lungs caught up with them. Bucky was trying to wave her away, but he was incapable of speech. Tony grabbed the phone from her hand and put it on speaker. “Rhodey, my man. You are on.”
“What’s happening, Tones? Pepper called me, she’s freaking out about something. You sound alright, I guess.”
Tony shrugged as he watched Rogers and Barnes finally collapse on the concrete floor. “I don’t know, but Cap and his buddy look like they took a couple laps around the world at Mach 5.”
Rhodey laughed. “Pretty sure the State Patrol would have pulled them over -”
“On foot.”
Rhodey paused. “Oh.”
Bucky groaned from where he’d gone spreadeagle. “We’ve got a week until Brooklyn goes batshit for Halloween, and Stevie here -” He slapped Steve on the shoulder, and Steve tipped over onto his side with a whimper, “decided that switching identities for a day would be the perfect costume. Problem is, he came up with this idea not one hour ago and took off like a shot when he got it. I chased him here.”
Tony grinned and pointed at Pepper. “I’m not the only nutjob around here, yay!” Then he frowned. “Where did you get this idea?”
Steve groaned. “My legs hurt so bad.” Bucky slapped his chest and he groaned again. “Ow, Buck.”
“Dumbass, you left your Harley at the diner. Someone’s gonna lift that beauty, and you are gonna be pissed. At least you left money for the bill and a tip.”
“You followed me and left yours too, numbnuts,” Steve muttered.
“I had t’make sure you didn’t get your ass flattened by a car! You could have used the Harley. Instead, you ran from Edison.”
Tony stared. That sounded familiar.
“It’s in Jersey.” Bucky glanced at Tony, then poked Steve in the side. “All for a fuckin’ metal arm, you meatball.”
Tony turned to Pepper and pointed. “At least I don’t do that!”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “So there isn’t an Avengers emergency, Captain Rogers?”
Steve lifted his head and stared at Pepper. “Don’t be silly. That, I would have grabbed the Harley for. Dammit, that bike’s got a repulsor flight system Tony put in, why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
“‘Cuz you weren’t born with the sense God gave horses?”
Steve cracked Bucky in the stomach with an elbow, and Bucky started laughing. Steve rolled away, onto his stomach. “The only emergency was me nearly getting creamed by a FexEx truck on the I-95. Bastards need to use their blinkers. Tony, I need a metal arm, and Bucky needs one of those nano-mirage thingies so that he doesn’t have a metal arm anymore.”
Tony continued to point at them. “And I make sense while I’m doing whatever nutzo thing comes to my mind!”
“Don’t point, it’s rude,” Steve muttered.
He turned back to Steve. “And since you two moved back to Brooklyn, Rogers, you’ve gone native again.”
“I have not.” Steve rolled back over and ended up on his back, arms splayed out, one palm on Bucky’s thigh. “Bucky has. I haven’t.”
“Shaddup, meatball.” Bucky smacked Steve on the chest. “You have and you know it.”
“This is good. I like this.” Rhodey laughed. “I don’t think I see a problem here. Pepper, I gotta get back to work. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Rhodey, Tony hasn’t slept in days and he’s trying to make one of those giant robot things for Halloween!” Pepper ran over and snatched the phone from Tony’s hand, taking it off speaker as she whisked it away. “Do something! He’s going through that ‘I’m not listening to anyone because I’m 5 and I can do whatever I want’ stage again.”
“For the record, I am not 5, and I can do whatever I want because I am not 5, I am an adult. Jarvis, I am an adult and can set my own sleep schedule, right?”
“That is correct, sir.”
“Jarvis, you sound as exasperated as ever. Never change.”
“I will endeavor not to, sir.”
Pepper glared at him. “Rhodey, you know what movie I’m talking about. The one with the giant robots and the reptile creatures and - yes! That’s the one. Tony is building a - what did you call it? Jager. Yes. God, that sounds like an alcohol. Anyway, can’t you talk him out of it?”
“No, he can’t because I’m almost done with it!”
“What do you mean, no way?” Pepper definitely did not scream. “No, you can’t see it! He’s not going to wear it anywhere!”
Tony turned to Steve again. “A little help here?”
“If it includes lifting heavy things, have Bucky do it. He’s the one that skipped arm day at the gym yesterday.”
Bucky stopped mid-stretch. “What? That was yesterday?”
“Don’t give me that, soldier. You have a schedule, I’ve seen you with it.”
“Gid-outta here.” Bucky huffed and pushed to his feet.
Steve stayed right where he was and pointed at him. “See what I mean? True blue Brooklynite, right there.”
“Rogers, I need you to be on your feet, because I’m going to measure you, and then you are going to help me put this reactor into my Halloween costume.” Tony turned on his heel and went back to his planning table.
Three hours later, Tony had his Jager, Steve had the schematics for a metal arm floating in the air around his head, and Bucky was sitting at one of Tony’s workstations with a soldering iron in his fleshy hand. He had the Soviet blueprints for his arm in the air in front of him as he poked and prodded at the open access panel on the back of his hand.
“See, I would have thought the schematics would be in German,” Tony said, twirling a laser pen between his fingers.
“The originals were.” Bucky shrugged. “I went through probably four of them. First two I gouged out with broken glass, metal, my fingers - whathaveya.”
Both Tony and Steve stared. Bucky shrugged again. “What? They hurt, and I wanted the pain to stop. After a while, it gets so numb you don’t even feel it. Made it easy.”
“And this one?” Steve pointed at Bucky’s arm, and Bucky smiled.
“Pain’s not so bad.”
“So. Other than designing a completely different arm that won’t hurt, any ideas for making Bucky’s arm disappear.” Tony rubbed the back of his head with a grimy towel. “You are thinking something like Natasha’s mask, right?”
Steve nodded, clearly not trusting his voice after the bomb Bucky dropped in his lap.
Tony really pitied him. He kept on task. “That’s S.H.I.E.L.D tech, but I can rig something together.” He looked over at Bucky. “What are you doing, Barnes?”
Bucky grunted. “There’s something in here that’s supposed to cloak this thing. Somehow. Not sure how it works.” He poked something with the tip of the iron and yelped. “That ain’t it! God damn, that smarts.” He shook his head vigorously. “That was attached to something. The inside of my brain is fizzing.”
“What? You can’t feel your brain! No one can feel their brain.” Tony snatched the iron away. Bucky grinned.
“Sure feels like I can now. Another jolt like that, and I’ll be able to smell blue and do complex theoretical physics.”
Tony stared at Bucky. “Are you sure you are sane?”
Steve held up the strip of metal he’d been toying with. “I like this metal, it bends easy and is lightweight. I think this will work for my arm.”
Tony transferred his stare to Steve. “Despite the clearly aesthetically pleasing bit of art you have created, Rogers, I’d like to state that the metal you have turned into a - giraffe, lovely, Pep would love to have that on her desk - isn’t exactly easy to bend. Or light. You are just ridiculously strong.” He sighed. “How did you two make it to adulthood, honestly?”
“Luck?” Steve shrugged.
“Balls. Steve had a lot of balls.” Bucky leaned forward to pick up a voltmeter. “Tell him about Father MacDonald and the incense thingamajigger.”
Steve blushed, and Tony felt like he might be outnumbered by the crazy in the room. Cray-cray and apparently little rat thieves. “Steve, I am very disappointed in you.” He flicked one display after another over his worktable and studied them.
“Hey, I returned it.”
“After you slipped the cuffs again.”
“I don’t think that is helping your cause, Captain Thief.” Tony found what he was looking for and let his brain go to work, ignoring the banter between the two super-soldiers. If he could get the parts out of the mess of shit in the corner, because he knows he has them, then he could have this thing built in less time than it would take to get a pizza. He dove to the pile of what Pepper called ‘junk’ but he called ‘inspiration’ head-first, a child let loose in Goody Goody Gumdrop with his mother’s credit card. He could hear the muttering such a move created in his guests, but he could not be stopped from his quest to find things in the inspiration pile. After a moment, new voices joined the din, followed by a distinctive ‘What the fuck are you wearing?’ from Bucky. Tony closed his hand around the bit he needed. “Eureka.”
“Is that a real pig?”
Tony tumbled backwards in shock, trying to jerk his head around to see if there was a god damned pig in his workshop. The answer to that question was yes. There was, indeed, a real live pig in his workshop. How it managed to get past security boggled Tony. Another issue was stairs, because he’d bet a few stocks that pigs didn’t actually climb stairs, and the elevator was out of the question because he’s had this conversation with Pepper after the construction worker debacle. Then he saw Clint. “And suddenly, everything makes total sense. Barton, why in the name of everything good in this hateful world is there a food product in my workshop?”
Clint had the audacity to flutter his eyes and wiggle his tongue around the length of honest to God straw hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “She’s my prop. And her name is Miss -”
“You did not name it Miss Piggy!” Steve yelped. “You did not.”
Clint snorted. “Damn right I did.”
Tony stared as the pig started rooting around, snout to ground, coming closer and closer to where he sat, splayed out. “Does it bite?”
“She might, if you keep calling her ‘it’.” Natasha was sitting on one of the tables, one leg crossed over the other. It took Tony a moment, a moment that Bucky didn’t need. Bucky Barnes barked out one loud laugh before he collapsed completely onto the ground, gasping for air. Tony just blinked. His mouth opened. No sound came out. Clint grinned around his straw, decked out in denim overalls and flannel and a god damned trucker hat emblazoned with ‘John Deere’. And Natasha? Was a cow. Udders and all.
“I’m trying.” Steve cackled. “I’m trying to wrap my mind around… oh God.” He couldn’t stop laughing long enough to help Bucky, who was hiccuping now and trapped on his back. Tony shook his head.
“I should be thankful you didn’t try to bring a live cow into the Tower, you freak.”