Chapter Text
As it turned out, there really was a plan on Ross’ drawing board for some kind of hit on Tony. At least, that was the gist of the very catchy tune that a middle management guy in an up-and-coming terrorist organization based in Syria ended up belting out to before the Interpol. That revelation, coupled with a press conference where Tony disclosed that his help had been engaged by new Avenger, Dr. Strange, to deal with supernatural, hush-hush and potentially world-threatening stuff that left him indisposed and otherwise unawares of what had transpired during his absence, all made it somehow reasonable for him to have missed his speaking engagement before the UN and to have made his other teammates and his company’s CEO think the worst. And hey—considering that it would appear like the vanishing act lent to Tony’s evasion of another attempt to abduct and harm him, all in the nick of time and by the skin of his teeth, the world could very well breathe a proverbial sigh of collective relief that one of its superheroes resurfaced relatively unharmed.
Although one or two media outfits made particular mention of Tony’s signature van dyke not having escaped whatever purge it was the man had narrowly survived, in wherever the hell it was he had vanished to for a little over a week—
Of course, there were still the occasional hard-to-please, strategically placed people who voiced out their criticisms and suspicions about Tony Stark’s disappearance and subsequent reemergence—most of which were known political allies and personal friends of Thaddeus Ross—in effort to divert attention away from the exposés about and left-and-right investigations on the general. After all, there was no way to be able to please everyone. But for the most part, any latent questions regarding the circumstances of Tony’s disappearance were easily nudged toward the shadows in favor of Thaddeus Ross in the limelight. And the Avengers and the SI PR team were only too happy about the recent developments.
Steve’s strong-worded lecture complete with a Captain-America-Is-Very-Disappointed-In-You expression actually had nothing on the thorough chewing-out that Tony ended up getting from the combined forces of Jim, Pepper, Peter and Happy Hogan that Bucky absolutely pitied the genius-billionaire by the third hour of the said chewing-out. Who knew that prim-and-proper and otherwise very dignified Jim Rhodes knew so many cuss words and threats of disembowelment—one more colorful than the last?!
Bucky made sure to take Tony out for some ice cream as a pick-me-up after that episode for which the latter didn’t scrimp on his appreciation to the former. Bucky, for his part, was just happy to be spending time with Tony as his boyfriend—
Well—one of Tony’s boyfriends, at least. Bucky was just plain excited for the rest of their lives to begin together: Tony, Steve and him. All three of them.
If Bucky was expecting for a lot of things to change now that they’ve decided to have a three-way relationship, he was kind of surprised to find out that things actually stayed pretty constant and stable between them:
Steve and Tony were still around to give him much needed emotional support for the deprogramming reinforcement sessions, each holding a hand to give comfort to their beloved who was under stress; he and Steve were still pretty much permanent fixtures in Tony’s workshop, individually and together—Bucky still asked his usual curious questions which Tony always patiently answered, and Steve still did his art thing on the battered couch with a relentless and serene smile of fondness emblazoned on his face; the three of them still sat together, pressed against each other, on that damn love seat for the past two movie nights; they ate meals sitting right next to each other around the dining table; they hung out together as often as they could squeeze in between Steve and Tony’s consultancy stints at SHIELD HQ, team training, Bucky’s catch-up with Avengers’ procedures and protocol, minor emergencies that needed the Avengers’ attention, and everything else occupying the day-to-day itineraries of two superheroes and a recovering POW-slash-superhero-in-training, even if it only meant a picnic in the grounds, or a cuddle on the couch, or a board game in Bucky’s bedroom, or a raucous karaoke session in the living area.
In the century since he was born, Bucky could readily say that he’d never been more inspired and happy with his life more than he was right now. It was as if all the bad things that had happened to him were being recompensed at a ratio of a hundred nice things for every bad thing in his past. He felt so damn blessed to have found both Tony and Steve that he would often catch himself with a smile on his face for absolutely no fucking reason but that he was simply happy.
It couldn’t be helped though that there were times when his own happiness scared the shit out of him, thinking that no one deserved to be this happy without a price—and with how his life was just really a series of unfortunate events intermingled with the need to pee, he dreaded to think that there was no way his happiness could last. That sooner or later the other shoe was going to drop.
He sometimes woke up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, thinking that his time together with Steve and Tony was just a dream and that he was back in that dingy and forbidding room in HYDRA’s Siberian facility, getting his precious memories wiped out little by little. But realization would flood through his soul again when, reaching for what he was expecting to be an empty and cold bedside, Steve’s prostrate body would be there, warm and asleep. But there. And Bucky would sink back down on the mattress and snuggle against Steve’s warm presence until their limbs were so tangled with each other’s that it was unclear where one ended and one began. And he would fall back asleep with Steve’s warm lips murmuring sweet nothings against the shell of his ear.
The following morning, Bucky would race to the workshop to find Tony slumped on whatever project he was currently working on, looking so much younger and calmer than when he was awake and sciencing up a storm. Bucky would proceed to wake Tony up with butterfly kisses on the other brunette’s face and a tray of warm food and a thermos of even warmer coffee. Tony would then hum a vaguely familiar tune and proceed to kiss Bucky’s breath and doubts away…
And Bucky knew everything would be all right. He deserved this. He deserved Steve and Tony. After everything he’d been through, he believed that he deserved every bit of the happiness he was currently enjoying. He was perfectly content; there was nothing out there in the world left to covet for one Bucky Barnes—
Except that, there was something…
Bucky was chewing on his lower lip, deep in thought, when he happened upon Steve leaning a hip point against the edge of the granite kitchen counter, engrossed in a paperback book. The blonde was absent-mindedly stirring a mug of some hot concoction with one hand while clutching his book in the other.
“More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory,” Bucky read the title on the cover out loud, intruding into Steve’s focus. Disquiet momentarily forgotten, Bucky playfully knocked his hip against Steve’s and leaned against the counter, beside the blonde before crossing his arms over his chest. “Thought you oughta educate yourself on what we’re trying to achieve here, dintcha?” He smirked at the visible embarrassment on Steve’s face.
“I’m just interested to know how others in the same set up deal with the…negotiations that come with this kind of relationship,” Steve explained, marking his place in the book and gingerly placing it beside his cup on the counter. “I don’t want to cock it up by being a suspicious or needy ass. We are, all of us, supposed to be equal in this relationship after all.”
“But don’t overthink it, though, Stevie—sometimes, we just gotta go with the flow. I mean, Tony’s a damn genius; you’re a World War II strategist; and I’m trained to be a deadly—and paranoid—spy-liquidator by an organization that thrived on covert infiltration. Between the three of us, overthinking is as natural as breathing,” pointed Bucky out. “But we just gotta be open, communicative and proactive ‘bout this and I’ve no doubts that we can make this—this threesome work—“
“—throuple,” Steve interjected, eloquently, sneaking a sip of his hot drink.
“What?” Bucky asked, forehead crumpling questioningly.
“A threesome is a purely sexual encounter involving three individuals while a throuple indicates a close romantic bond shared by three human beings, although a throuple may well be physically intimate together also, the relationship doesn’t only exist in the bedroom,” Steve stated matter-of-factly. “I thought I’d catch up with you on some reading,” he shrugged in reply at Bucky’s raised eyebrow that conveyed both amusement and fascination.
“That’s…good to know,” Bucky admitted, lips twitching into a half-smirk, which he tried to wrestle off his face lest Steve accuse him of making fun of the blonde’s diligence when it came to wanting to understand and do right by what exactly it was they were trying to accomplish between the three of them. “Actually… now that you mention physical intimacy…” Bucky hesitated, falling into seriousness all of a sudden.
There was nothing left for Bucky to want. Save for one:
It bothered him immensely that Tony seemed to find it uncomfortable to go beyond kisses and cuddles with Bucky, by himself, and with Bucky and Steve, together. And Bucky just about burned with curiosity if Steve and Tony, when they were by themselves, had the same…issue. Or maybe, Tony just had an issue with getting overly frisky with him but not with Steve?
Bucky’d really rather not have this insecurity fester in him without voicing it out to his boyfriends somehow, since they swore to try to do better at this communication thing to make their relationship work. So there he was, gritting his teeth to talk to Steve about it. He hoped that Tony’s behavior toward him was all just in his head, but at that moment, he didn’t know what it was he would rather hear: that Tony was not similarly reserved towards Steve, which meant that Tony wasn’t feeling like he was the third wheel in this relationship and that it was only with Bucky that he felt the heebie-jeebies; or that Tony was also aloof towards Steve, which meant he didn’t think he was Steve and Bucky’s equal in this relationship at all, preferring to keep them both at arm’s length in case the two super soldiers suddenly realized they didn’t have need for Tony after all.
Bucky didn’t know which would crush him more.
Breathing a deep sigh and squaring his shoulders like he was steeling himself for the gallows, Bucky asked, “have you noticed that Tony doesn’t seem to want to be more physically intimate than sharing a few kisses here and there and cuddling together? Or… is he just like that when…I’m around?” Bucky dreaded the answer to the point that he actually felt like the back of his neck had just been doused by ice-cold water, but at the same time, he burned to know.
The former Sergeant knew and perfectly understood, really, that because of Tony’s memories courtesy of the other universe, it was with Steve that the genius was more familiar and comfortable with in terms of intimacy.
Steve’s forehead wrinkled and his light brown brows visibly furrowed, his expression a mix of disquieted surprise and concern. “Hmm, I thought I’m the only one who noticed that. And no, Buck—he’s not like that because of you. I thought he was aloof and shifty because of me—because at his very core he hasn’t completely forgotten our complicated history even though he said he’s already forgiven me,” Steve said dejectedly. “Or that he’s still painfully reminded of his husband every time he had to be intimate with me.”
“So, you and he aren’t sweating up the sheets when I ain’t got eyes on you?” Bucky asked, jokingly. He reassessed the wisdom of making that out to be a joke with Steve when all he got in reply was an exasperated smack at the back of the head.
“Not for lack of trying on my part, to be honest, but no. We aren’t. For what it’s worth, though, I really thought you and he were doing the dirty every time it was just the two of you together,” answered Steve with not a small amount of guilt that he really thought that of his two beloved. “Just to be clear, though—Buck, I don’t mind if you and Tony do something intimate—just the two of you. But it was really doing a number on me thinking Tony was comfortable enough to do that with you but not with me.”
Yeah, no—this was bad. This was really bad. Goodness knows what was running in Tony’s mind about what Steve and Bucky got up to when they were alone together; Tony was probably still thinking—no, anticipating—that Steve and Bucky would just one day change their minds about wanting to be a throuple with him so he was sneakily distancing himself from the two super soldiers!
While it was true that Steve and Bucky had no reservations about experimenting to explore and discover each other’s physical and sexual quirks and preferences, they were yet to go beyond the point of no return when it came to sex. They’ve had their hands and mouths on each other, but nothing beyond that. It was because the both of them had talked about it and vowed that if they were going to aim for the pinnacle of physical intimacy, then it ought to be with all three of them together, giving each other pleasure and expressing how much they adored each other—body, heart and soul. Call Steve and Bucky old-fashioned, but they didn’t think it was too much to ask for Tony to be with them when they crossed that line.
And wait for Tony, they would.
“Clearly, we need to learn more about effective communication when the doubts are flying left and right and we’ve only been at this for—what—almost a month?” Bucky clucked his tongue, chastising both himself and Steve for their unvoiced reservations. “Tony still probably has it in him that we’d just wake up one day and change our minds about him—and just… leave ‘im hangin’.
“We gotta talk to him and—and reassure him somehow—“
“—and, what, sweet-talk him into being intimate with us? We can’t force him if it’s something he’s uncomfortable with, Bucky—“
“—I’m not saying that we’re gonna force him, Stevie, Jesus! I’m all about enthusiastic and informed conse—“
“—how is this effective communication when we’re already screaming each other’s heads off and fight—“
“—I can’t believe we’re arguing about this! All I’m saying is that maybe we need to work harder on convincing him his fears are baseless. What’s all that reading for if we’d just end up—“
“—My, my, my—fighting already?” Tony’s amused voice interjected, effectively putting a halt to the burgeoning scream-fest between the resident super soldiers. “Can this still be considered our first fight when I’m not part of whatever it is you got going on right here? Because if you tell me what you two are arguing about, I’m sure I can contribute my two cents in—make it more interesting. I’ve been told I have quite the natural talent to rile people up with just a few choice sarcastic quips,” joked Tony with his usual tongue-in-cheek facial expression, which, with his van dyke back to its former splendor, seemed like some kind of a trademark look.
“Tony—“ Steve began with just a tinge of Captain-America-Is-Very-Disappointed-In-You tone.
“—We’re not fighting,” Bucky supplied, clearing the air. He gave Steve a sidelong glance to check that Steve was not about to contradict him on that. “We were just having a discussion,” he continued, giving Steve the eye to wordlessly convey that they were still going to talk about this later. Preferably when Tony wasn’t around so they could put their heads together and think about how best to address the genius’ latent insecurities about their budding relationship.
Shrugging with a noncommittal hum, Tony made a beeline for the coffee machine to refill his mug with his usual fix with Bucky trailing behind him with every intention of following the genius-billionaire back to the workshop to get a head start in reassuring Tony that he, and Steve for that matter, too, wouldn’t just abandon him like yesterday’s garbage. They love him; they were in love with him. Bucky, for one, was crazy about him and would be completely lost without him.
He silently signaled towards Steve that they weren’t done talking about Tony’s hang-ups about their throuple thing and followed Tony out of the living area. “Hey, ‘s it OK if I hang out with you or are you busy?”
“That depends,” Tony said with a playful quirk of those beautiful lips of his. “Are you going to behave yourself?”
“Are you going to do something that will make me misbehave?” Bucky bantered back, looking at Tony like a meat lover would a piece of choice-cut steak after three weeks of eating goat food.
“Well you know me,” Tony said with a definite mischievous twinkle in his honey-brown eyes. “I enjoy taking leisurely walks on the wild side.”
Let it not be said that Bucky did not try his damn hardest to behave for all of ten minutes while Tony talked his ear off about rewriting a programming language from scratch while he soldered delicate machine parts together with the kind of laser-like focus that Bucky knew he would ceaselessly find sexy when it came to Tony. He yearned to have that attention directed at him, enough to turn Bucky on, that he stalked towards where the other brunette was working, faster than a hungry lion to an oblivious gazelle, and pounced.
He thought about what he and Steve had discovered about Tony’s reservations regarding being intimate with them and was partially thankful that it was something he was confident he could rectify. Bucky was certain that with his and Steve’s combined charms, wiles and sincerity, they could convince Tony that there was nothing in the world they could want more than to build a life with Tony, love him and protect him with everything they had and that they would never, ever hurt him.
Because at the end of the day, Bucky knew that it would have infinitely hurt him more if he found out that Tony only had issues about being intimate with him. When being wrapped in, around and all over Tony was something Bucky dreamed about and craved so much, it fucking hurt.
“Hmmm, you smell good,” Bucky murmured, trailing butterfly kisses on Tony’s neck, starting from where neck met shoulder and ending on the shell of Tony’s left ear. He wasn’t saying that for lack of sexy things to say to get them in the mood, but because it was the God’s honest truth. Tony did smell fucking fantastic. The heady mix of metal, clean sweat and Tony’s woodsy yet spicy cologne made Bucky want to lick the man all over until he was positively squirming in Bucky’s arms.
“What do I smell like?” Tony asked, craning his neck to the side to look at him and steal a peck against the side of Bucky’s face.
“Like something good enough to eat,” Bucky said, almost in a growl.
“I’m sorry but I don’t permit eating in the workshop,” Tony seductively tittered, turning on his heel to face Bucky squarely.
“Since when?” Bucky played along.
“Feeding me is fine,” Tony clarified with a twinkle in his eyes again. “Devouring me is another thing, entirely. I have to stop you right there, B.”
“You and whose army?” Bucky murmured, lowering his head to crush his lips against Tony’s. He was certain, also, that he would never get tired of this—of kissing Tony. Bucky would never get tired of showing his men how much he loved them. Bucky would never get tired of kissing Tony; much the same way that he would never get tired of kissing Steve.
Invading Tony’s personal space further, Bucky pressed his body against Tony’s and angled his head to deepen the kiss. God, he wanted to devour Tony, be consumed in the fire that was Tony’s body—that was Tony—inside, around and all over Bucky. Surely, Tony had to want this as much as Bucky wanted it, too—
Pinning Tony against the edge of the metal table where the genius’ soldering work lay forgotten, Bucky pressed his thigh between Tony’s legs, against his groin, and felt the latter’s unmistakable want. Tony was fucking turned on, too, and there was no way Bucky was going to let him retreat into his baseless insecurities. But, at the same time, he didn’t want to force Tony into something the latter was not wholly comfortable with.
When Tony started dry humping Bucky’s leg, the stockier brunette all but whined his own want. God, he wanted to kneel before the other man, put him in his mouth and blow him to within an inch of orgasm only to pull back and hold it off until it was deliciously painful for both of them. He wanted to taste Tony, to feel those work-calloused hand desperately combing through Bucky’s hair in confusion of whether to pull Bucky closer or push him and his mouth away, to bring Tony to orgasm and then to pull him close, wrap him in the reassuring warmth of Bucky’s presence and whisper sweet nothings in his ear.
Rinse and repeat. Because Tony deserved it. Because Tony was fucking worth it.
And he and Steve would have to be fucking daft if they were to hurt this beautiful and adorable human being. Or leave him in the lurch. No. Not now that they’ve finally found him—that they’ve finally found each other…
Bucky traced a sure finger of his flesh hand down Tony’s abdomen with every intention of shoving his hand down the waist of the genius’ lounge pants and wrap his hand around Tony’s hardness when, just as he was a hair’s breadth away from the waist of Tony’s pants, the latter froze in his own pleasure-seeking ministrations and abruptly pushed Bucky off of him, breaking both the kiss and any plans on Bucky’s part to up the ante in the intimacy department.
“I—I,” Tony stammered, breathless. He was suddenly as restless as a caged tiger. Raking a hand through his dark brown locks, endearingly curling at the ends, Tony murmured, “I can’t, Buck. I… This isn’t a good idea. What would Steve say?” Tony reasoned with a stop-right-there gesture.
“That he doesn’t mind.” Steve just said so, didn’t he? “But if you’re concerned about making Steve feel left out, we can always call him right now,” Bucky offered. The former Sergeant was dead-sure that if he said anything remotely suggestive to Steve about what was happening just five fucking minutes ago, the prim-and-proper Captain would put everything short of an impending world catastrophe on hold just to get his ass down there with Tony and Bucky as fast as what was fucking possible.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Tony repeated with a pained expression on his otherwise gorgeous face. “I—I don’t…I don’t think I’m ready for this right now,” he continued in a defeated voice, pulling away from Bucky entirely.
Bucky was expecting Tony to be a better liar than Steve.
Tony really wasn’t.
-0-0-0-
Bucky had to hand it to Steve and his tactical genius. He also had to give a lot of credit to the other Avengers who decided to pitch in when it came to implementing Steve’s Pretty Damn Brilliant Plan.
When Bucky went back to Steve with the gravest of faces after Tony had given him the subtle-not subtle rejection, the two super soldiers decided to put their heads together to think of something—some plan—to reassure Tony that this wasn’t just some phase, that they were dead-serious about making their throuple work, that this wasn’t just some temporary, knee-jerk thing because it felt like a good idea at the time.
They also tried to recall all the dates they’ve had together and deconstructed them to the very minute if they could manage it—wanting to see if there was any time that they inadvertently talked about growing up together or the now-dead people they once knew, that maybe left Tony floundering in the conversation somehow, but they drew a blank. They always made sure to include Tony in the conversation, in the inside jokes, so they abstained from any form of nostalgia, preferring to focus on the here and now.
Bucky, after worrying his lip to the point of drawing blood, finally said, “I can’t think of what we coulda been doing wrong. So whatever stupid thing it was we accidentally did, we just have to make things right… We need to woo Tony, Stevie. Like…wait on him hand and foot, flowers, dream dates, neck and foot massages, cooking for him—the whole kit and caboodle. We need to get it through to his monster-sized issues and insecurities and fears that we’re here to stay and that we ain’t giving up on being in a throuple with him!”
Bucky was going to damn well utilize every available opportunity to use that fuckin’ word—throuple—until he was red in the face and there was nothin’ nobody could do ‘bout that!
And then Steve had the mother of all bright ideas about taking Tony on a date with them—
To a planetarium that Steve and Bucky would build from scratch themselves, with the three flesh and one bionic-cybernetic hands that they have between the two of them. And hopefully then, Tony would finally understand that he wasn’t going to be able to count Bucky and Steve out just like that.
It was to Bucky that Tony had told about the significance of the planetarium to him as a child, which Bucky then told Steve about. And Bucky really had to hand it to Steve to remember that little tidbit of information. “Didn’t you say before that Tony’s most memorable outing with the most impactful person of his childhood was to a planetarium? Why don’t we build him one in the garage and we could take him there and we could put sleeping bags on the ground and lie underneath the twinkling lights and the projection of the planets and we could eat fruits and cheeses and drink wine and play footsie and point out our favorite constellations and say ‘I love you’ to each other all night long…”
And that was exactly what they set out to do. They engaged the help of the other Avengers and FRIDAY to help them conceptualize and implement their DIY planetarium in the Avengers compound’s garage. They got Pepper and Happy in on the plan by having them whisk Tony off to Midtown for a couple of days to attend to some SI affairs, meetings with R&D and the company’s legal team, and they even got King T’Challa and some of his trusted staff and political advisors in on it somewhat by encouraging them to schedule Accords’ ratification-related meetings and consultations with Tony during those inclusive dates just to keep the genius off the facility for a bit longer and out of the loop about the DIY Planetarium sprouting up in the garage.
Both Steve and Bucky worked on their planetarium project like men possessed. They both knew exactly what they were doing this for. This project was not undertaken simply to get into Tony’s pants and have him relaxed enough for them to advance from innocent kisses and cuddles to a downright serious tumble in the hay, no. They were doing this to make Tony finally realize and understand how much he meant to the super soldiers. And if Bucky and Steve had to recreate the universe in their backyard for Tony to finally see that, then—what the hell—they would do it.
It took the two of them, working with the team on various stages of the project, some eight days to build a fully-functioning, scientifically-accurate but artsy geodesic dome planetarium from triangular PVC panels with an area that just about took up a quarter of the football field-sized garage. It was going to project representations of the constellations drawn by none other than Steve himself. It was also going to show them the hemispheres of stars and the solar system as if from a traveling spaceship. The speakers and the fans they rigged up in the structure were also going to lend to the illusion that they really were in the vastness of space.
Jim broached the possibility that Tony might freak out if he was reminded of the Chitauri wormhole, but both Steve and Bucky were confident that with them beside Tony, every step of the way, the genius-billionaire wouldn’t feel traumatized but assured that he was never going to be that alone, ever again.
Because Steve and Bucky were with him ‘til the end of the line.
While Steve had his art to contribute to the planetarium project, Bucky had his cooking prowess.
The brunette super soldier learned how to bake croissants from scratch, whipped up home-made rolls, cheddar cheese and herbed cream cheese for the occasion. He improved on a cucumber-lemonade juice recipe and engaged the help of Nat and Scott to sample some wines in the city and choose the best-tasting one for their planetarium date. If he could’ve grown his own organic berry garden on a patch of land within the compound within eight days just to have some topnotch fruits to harvest on the night of their date and hand-feed to both Steve and Tony, he would’ve done it. But as they were pressed for time, he had to make do with the produce hand-picked from the nearest market.
On the day of the planned planetarium date, the rest of the team were on high alert in case of any emergency because they were prepared to pick up the slack from Steve, Bucky and Tony who were going to sit out any and all kinds of emergency that might crop up that day. They were careful to keep away from the garage and the residential building as well to give the three love birds as much alone-time as possible, without any chance of interference from them.
When Tony got back to the compound early on date day, it was Steve who cornered the former and levelly invited him to hang out with them later that day. That was good, too, as Bucky was too tongue-tied to supplement the invitation. He didn’t know what got him so nervous; perhaps it was because he wanted to be able to get through to Tony so very much. He supposed that one date would hardly cut it, but he wanted it to be a start anyway.
Getting Tony to agree in that cabana in Hawaii to give the three of them a chance was only a start, it was keeping Tony with them—keeping the three of them together—that was what they have to work on every day, but Bucky, for his part, was ready to make his men fall in love with him every damn day, to fight and endure anything and everything with that precise goal in mind, including building an entire galaxy in the backyard. Anything… if it meant the three of them could be together.
“So, where exactly are we going? Am I too underdressed or—?”
It was twilight and the three of them were meeting at the residential building’s foyer. In point of fact, Steve and Bucky had just come from the garage for their last-minute checks that everything they need was set-up properly. Satisfied that their project was prepped to specification, they walked back to the residential building to fetch Tony and walk with the latter to where their date would be held.
Tony looked like Christmas morning in his classic-cut black denim Levi’s, dark blue loafers, gray Henley and dark hoodie with the sleeves pushed up his forearms. He seemed to have taken advantage of his sojourn in Midtown by getting a haircut to trim the curling ends at the nape of his neck and against the shells of his ears. But there was still quite a tuggable amount of hair at his crown that Bucky couldn’t help but imagine his fingers tangled in as Tony trailed kisses down his abdomen, down, down—
“No, you look perfect,” Steve assured, keeping Bucky’s less-than-wholesome thoughts from escalating, with his signature lop-sided grin that Bucky knew Tony always found distracting and bone-melting. “Let’s walk to the garage,” continued Steve, gesturing for Tony to keep pace with them.
“If you tell me where we’re going, I’m sure I can drive there,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. “We can take the silver Tesla—perfect time to break that baby in.”
“Oh we’re not driving,” Bucky, finally finding his voice despite his nervousness, said. The first fingers of excitement started to get hold of his insides. He hankered to see what Tony would look like once he saw their surprise for him.
“We’re walking to the garage because that’s where we’re set up for date night,” Steve contributed, an excited smile beginning to blossom on his boyishly handsome features.
“Date in the garage—how very…original,” Tony said, a doubtful look on his face, but not without a tinge of curiosity. “But since I missed you, boys, very much while I slaved away in Midtown, I’ll try to keep the judgment to a minimum,” he joked, smirking and reaching both of his hands out, one to Steve and one to Bucky, to thread their fingers together.
They walked the rest of the way to the garage in good spirits, talking about what exactly it was that Tony got up to while he was in Midtown.
Bucky interjected when Tony paused in his story-telling, “well, while you were there, we missed you very much, too, so we decided to use our super soldier stamina—,” and Tony sportingly bit a corner of his bottom lip at Bucky’s unintended innuendo, “—for a project that we wanted to surprise you with.”
As if on cue, the three men found themselves at the garage’s access door meant for people to use. Steve keyed in his personal access code and held the door open for their party. Tony and Bucky both got an eyeful of the dark interior of the space that held no clue whatsoever about what awaited Tony inside. Excitement mounted at the pit of Bucky’s stomach.
“By the way, we have to crawl in,” Steve informed, but before Tony could protest or criticize that it was most unusual to start date night crawling on all fours, the blonde continued, “so—I’ll go in first, and you follow me, Tony—OK? Bucky can go in last. Once you’re inside, just let my voice guide you and stay low, alright?”
“Is it too late to make reservations somewhere else?” Tony asked, more as a joke than something serious, but Bucky tugged at the genius’ earlobe in amused chastisement anyway.
“Not even the highest-reviewed restaurant can top this,” Bucky boasted with a smirk of his own before Tony sank to the ground on all fours right behind Steve with Bucky bringing up the rear.
Soon enough, the dimness of twilight was replaced by total darkness and the bite of hard ground against the skin of their palms and knees was replaced with the silken feel of sleeping bags laid out on the floor. “Lie down on the floor beside me, Tony,” Steve directed, and Bucky could vaguely make out the figures of Steve and Tony in the darkness, shuffling around to lie side by side on the floor.
“Buck—where are you?” Tony called out in the darkness, to which Bucky’s only answer was to envelop his flesh hand around Tony’s in the dark as he, too, crawled to lie shoulder-to-shoulder on Tony’s right side.
When all of them were settled on top of the sleeping bags laid out on the ground, lying shoulder-to-shoulder and facing the inky black ceiling, Steve called out, “hit it, FRIDAY.” And the space that was previously dark erupted into color, golden light and magnificent figures of men, women and animals upon the domed ceiling. But neither Bucky nor Steve was looking at the representations of the constellations swimming around them because they were too enthralled with the wide-eyed but delighted surprise on Tony’s face, so much so that Bucky felt his heart jump to his throat.
If Bucky had not already been in love with Tony before, he would have fallen for Tony right at that moment, seeing that soft smile on the other brunette’s face and the blazing warmth of those honey-gold eyes. Hell, it was as if Bucky fell in love with Tony all over again. And when he found his lovestruck expression mirrored on Steve’s face, Bucky fell in love with Steve all over again, too.
It was all so sappy that Bucky had to groan inwardly at his own thoughts; good Lord—when had he turned so sentimental?! He was supposed to be a bad-ass assassin-turned-superhero-in-training and yet at that very moment, all he wanted to do was cuddle with his men and bawl noisy, saccharine tears.
After a period of silence that none of them were able to keep track of, it was Tony who finally spoke. “Wow,” he said, near breathlessly with eyes still glued to the figures in golden light flying around them. “How did…?” He started to ask but failed to get the entire question out.
“We built it,” answered Bucky as if building a fully-functioning geodesic dome planetarium that was a quarter of a football field in size, for over a week, with the help of a team of superheroes, was just your average everyday feat. “This was something special for you, and you…are someone special to us. So…” Bucky concluded, motioning towards the dome with a proud flourish.
“Who else knows about this—that you were building this?” Tony choked through the question that time.
“Well, we asked for the team’s help because we had to complete it before you got back from Midtown, and they were all quite glad to pitch in when Buck and I said that we wanted to do this for you,” Steve explained, sitting up and pulling the wicker basket of picnic foods closer to them. Bucky got up to help sort the food he had lovingly prepared for the three of them. He was excited to have Tony try the croissant and the home-made cheeses with the wine. Above them, the representations of the constellations made way for the planets and the streaking comets and blazing nebulae.
“Why?” came Tony’s soft question when they were in the middle of inhaling their food. The question was feeble but nevertheless fraught with uncertainty. And fear.
“Why what?” Steve asked, momentarily confused.
“Why would you want to do this for me?” Tony asked with a brittle laugh, roaming his eyes at the humble but thoughtful gesture of building a backyard planetarium for date night. “Did you do something bad that you might need to be forgiven for? Or maybe, it’s something you’re about to do that you want me to look the other way for? Or—or maybe you need something…like—like, I dunno, new tech—”
“Wait…” Bucky interjected with a hang-on-just-one-second gesture, realization slowly dawning on him on what Tony suspected this gesture was for. “You think we did this because we’re buttering you up because we need something from you?!”
“Everyone always needs something from me, Bucky,” Tony said in a matter-of-fact way, angling his head just so to keep his profile in shadow. “No one does grand gestures for me,” said Tony with not a bit of bitterness and steel behind the words. “It’s always me who does the over-the-top shit for a regular date night. So… what is it? What do you boys need?” He injected the last five words with some teasing to make light of the implications of what he was actually saying.
“We don’t need anythi—” Steve, aghast, started to say.
But Bucky cut him off. “—We need you to be with us, Tony. We need you to stop thinking that we’re going to wake up one day and realize that we don’t need you around. We need you to consider yourself as an equal in this relationship and not as an afterthought, not as someone we’re just trying to butter up because we need something. We need you to understand that we are not going anywhere, that no matter how low and small you think of yourself, we don’t think that about you at all. No matter how many times you push us away, we’ll keep coming back. ‘Cause we like it here, beside you. There’s nowhere else we choose to be but here. We need your infinite genius to see that.
“I’m in love with you, Tony Stark. Steve is in love with you. We’re staying with you, whether you choose to let us in completely or not. We will persist for as long as it takes, and we are not going anywhere. We need you to understand that. That’s all we need from you,” Bucky pleaded, his voice breaking at some point because he so wanted Tony to see that. He never felt like killing each and every one who’d made Tony feel so small and inconsequential, more than he did at that moment.
Steve cleared his throat and bit his lips between his teeth, studying both Bucky’s and Tony’s faces. Before Tony could make light of the matter or crawl out of the planetarium in a huff, Steve decided to say his piece, too: “I know you just want to protect yourself from getting hurt again, Tony. And that’s…that’s reasonable. God knows we’ve hurt you in the past and we’re in a position right now to hurt you even more than we already have. And we aren’t perfect and no relationship is, which means there will be times that we will hurt you, though unintentional on our part, we probably will. But one thing we vow not to do is to hurt you by leading you on or playing with your feelings.
“It wasn’t just some whim on our part to ask you to be with us, you know; when we asked for a chance to be with you, we were prepared to take on everything that came with that—the good and the bad. And what we had no way to prepare for, we’ll take on as they come, but we won’t give you up just like that.
“So, yeah—Bucky’s right, you can keep pushing us away, keep thinking that we’re doing these grand gestures because we need something, same as the seven billion other people out there who need something from Tony Stark. When, really, all we need from you…is for you to love us and for you to be there, so we can keep on loving you.”
Ah, Bucky had almost forgotten Steve and his speeches, but the former Sergeant knew he couldn’t have said it better, himself. With the way Tony’s brown eyes were bright and glassy in the golden light of the planetarium’s overhead display, Bucky knew Tony had something to think about, too, after his and Steve’s voiced sentiments. Bucky’s amen to what Steve had said was to reach out and bring Tony’s free hand to his lips to kiss the knuckles.
No more reassurances were spoken after that, that Bucky could’ve sworn Steve had read it in his eyes that the time for words has passed. They focused instead on making Tony feel how loved he really was. Steve and Bucky took turns entwining their fingers with Tony’s and having the latter’s head pillowed on one of their laps. When it was Bucky threading his fingers through Tony’s calloused digits, it was Steve’s lap that cradled Tony’s head. And when it was Steve’s dexterous fingers tracing patterns on Tony’s palm, it was Bucky’s lap that Tony used as a pillow with Bucky’s fingers lightly combing through Tony’s dark brown hair.
They pointed out their favorite constellations and stars, and Tony recited scientific facts about astronomical and astrological phenomena. They made up stories about why star formations looked the way they do. They joked about their teammates and related the other Avengers’ bad habits to their zodiac signs. They hand-fed each other bread, cheeses and fruit, talked and laughed and snuggled into each other’s personal space well into the night.
True to their word, Steve and Bucky didn’t initiate any physical intimacy more than what all three of them had always been comfortable with—kisses, caresses and cuddles. Because they didn’t plan this night to be about that, but about reassuring Tony that they would take whatever it was he cared to give them. Physical intimacy could wait until Tony’s demons about Steve and Bucky’s real intentions were well and truly silenced.
It was already past one in the morning when the three men found themselves crawling back out of the garage to trudge back to the residential building and call it a night. They were still talking and laughing and tugging at each other’s hips as if they would never run out of things to talk about. “You know what—your little project is quite inspired that it just gave me an idea,” Tony announced, his earlier uncertainty and melancholy seemingly forgotten for the time being. “What do you, boys, think about getting our own planetarium-slash-observatory here in the compound?”
“Yeah? And how exactly are we getting one?” Bucky asked with a raised brow.
“I’m going to build one, of course,” Tony answered, rubbing his palms together in excitement. “I mean, we get enough extra-terrestrial visitors paying us unannounced visits, so we might as well construct something to serve as an early warning device of sorts. I’m thinking: star-mapping equipment and a complement of scientists-astronomers with a couple of high-powered telescopes with state-of-the-art filters, photometers and spectrometers,” Tony said, nodding towards Steve and Bucky to elicit their eager concurrences to his idea.
“Absolutely not,” Steve disagreed with a vehement shake of his head but with a fond sweep of his hand across Tony’s forehead to brush the fringe that had fallen over it.
Tony looked at Bucky with an over-the-top pout as if to get Bucky to take his side and see things his way. “I’m with Stevie on this one, T. You already try to do so many things at once as it is, you don’t need another project that will keep you from spending time with us. I mean, if you have to construct an observatory here, how else will you still have time leftover to spend with us, huh?” Bucky challenged and he knew that that was the end of that discussion. He and Steve had won that round.
“Spoilsports,” muttered Tony which sounded louder than it actually was when spoken to an empty and dim living area in the residential building. It seemed that everyone had already retired to their respective rooms, in full acknowledgment of Steve and Bucky’s unvoiced request to give them full rein of the place for date night.
When they got to Tony’s bedroom’s door, the two perfect gentlemen each took Tony’s hands in theirs and squeezed, murmuring their good nights, perfectly content with how their night was ending even when faced with the prospect of not having Tony in the same bed with them yet again. What was important was that they got to tell Tony how they felt and Tony actually listened to them without being dismissive or retreating into himself and avoiding having to deal with the aftermath of their talk.
Maybe they were getting better at this communication thing? Well, Bucky could at least hope that they were…baby steps…
“I had a lot of fun,” Tony said with a shy smile that actually reached his eyes; it was obvious even in the softness of the hallway’s pin light and the sight of it made Bucky’s skin tingle. Tony bashfully bit his lower lip before pulling back his right arm, tugging Bucky closer to him, cradling the side of Bucky’s face and pressing their lips together for a chaste but memorable good night kiss. After kissing Bucky, Tony pulled his left arm back and did the same with Steve. “Thank you for tonight. Thank you for building the planetarium,” he said, his thumbs drawing soft circles on the hands he had in his grasp.
“You’re welcome, and we had a lot of fun, too,” Steve said with a close-mouthed smile of his own. “Get some rest, sweetheart, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We love you, Tony,” Bucky said by way of follow-up, voice gravelly and deep. “Don’t ever forget it, OK? We love you.”
Tony smiled at them again, but this time, another emotion glinted momentarily in his eyes that was too quick for Bucky to appreciate before the slighter-built man was turning his back to them and pushing his bedroom door open.
The two super soldiers lingered by the doorway for a couple of heartbeats before they lumbered off to take their leave of Tony. However, they weren’t off the doorway quick enough and still managed to catch the genius’ quiet inquiry of: “how much?”
“What?”
“How much. Do you. Love me?” Tony asked them, enunciating the words as unambiguously as he could manage while standing on the other side of the doorway with his head cocked thoughtfully to the side. His eyes were both playful and intense. “Think you’re gonna need the whole night to show me?” Tony murmured alluringly before his tongue darted out of his mouth to lick at his lower lip.
“Tonight wasn’t even supposed to be about that,” Bucky replied, staring at Tony just as intensely. And it dawned on Bucky what it was that had flashed in Tony’s eyes earlier:
Tony was thinking about what had happened last week at the workshop, when Bucky had been this close to falling on his knees in front of Tony, tearing at the genius’ lounge pants and giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘eating in the workshop’.
“What if I want tonight to be about that?” Tony asked with a seductive smirk. “Are we still going to turn in early like good little boys or…are you both gonna come in and show me exactly how much you love me?”
Bucky didn’t need enhanced senses to hear Steve gulp at that. He was surprised he even heard that above the thundering beats of his own heart in his ears. “We don’t want you to be pressured into something you’re not entirely comfortable with, Tony,” Steve uttered, practically tweezing the words through his gritted teeth. At least, the punk was still capable of speech! Which was more than Bucky could say for himself.
Tony languidly blinked those huge dark eyes twice and, pursing his lips in amusement and shrugging, said, “well I think you’ve made it pretty clear tonight that you’re not going anywhere, so that’s it. I’ve no more excuses left; I’m done. I’m done denying what I’ve wanted from day one. So, for the last time, are you boys gonna come in here or is our first time together gonna happen in the hallway? Your choice…”
Bucky angled his torso towards Steve to take his cue from the latter. Not that he couldn’t decide for himself where he wanted the rest of the night to go, but if Steve was going to put his foot down and insist that tonight wasn’t about that at all, then Bucky, tough as it may be to follow Steve’s lead, could walk away from temptation, too, no matter how much he wanted to spend the night completely tangled in Tony.
Then again, didn’t they say they were going to let Tony decide their pace and they would be completely content in taking what Tony would deign to give them? Weren’t they duty-bound now (or something) to give Tony what he wanted?
If Bucky had bet on Steve to remain steadfast about the wholesome nature of tonight’s date night, he would’ve lost a considerable amount of betting money because Steve, growling under his breath, strode purposely into the room and practically tackled Tony to the nearest wall to be ravaged. Bucky, snorting, at Steve’s apparent lack of self-control and presence of mind, followed suit and actually remembered to swing the door closed and lock it. The rest of the residential building need not know what was about to go down, and Bucky had every intention of being as vocal as possible so, yeah, good of him to remember to shut the door.
When he turned away from the door and towards his two beloved, the sight of Steve and Tony in a passionate lip lock-slash-fight for dominance nearly made him moan out loud. No one was touching him yet but he could feel blood rushing down south with a force to rival that of a damn tidal wave. If merely watching Steve and Tony could reduce him to this, how else was he going to last the rest of the night? Some super soldier stamina he got, bleh—
“Don’t tell me you’re just going to stand there all night ogling us,” Tony warned, pulling back from kissing Steve long enough to look at Bucky smolderingly.
Not trusting himself to speak, Bucky stepped closer to his men and claimed Tony’s lips for his own first before kissing Steve also over Tony’s shoulder. How many times he’d dreamed of this moment—to have both Steve and Tony pressed against him, lighting his skin on fire—he’d lost count.
Bucky couldn’t tell anymore whose hands were scrabbling for purchase on the waist of his jeans or on the hem of his shirt, whose lips were ghosting over his at any given time, whose touches were electrifying the skin on his forearms or on his neck. All he was aware of was the pleasurable tingling in his groin and the thundering of his heart.
“So…how do we want to do this?” It was Tony who asked. Bucky was surprised that the genius still had his mental faculties intact enough to ask, when all Bucky had attention for right now was sucking on air, waiting for where his next kiss was coming from.
“We should make a rule for this,” Steve answered, breathlessly tearing his lips away from Bucky.
“Really?! Now?” Tony protested, demonstrating that he kinda had his hands full—one was currently kneading at Bucky’s ass while the other was hell-bent on destroying the zipper on Steve’s jeans. “OK—yeah, let’s hear this rule, Cap.”
“We each take turns directing how things will happen when we’re together—in the interest of fairness and equality,” Steve said, nibbling at Tony’s earlobe in between his words.
“Whose turn is it tonight then?” Tony asked with not a bit of urgency. Especially since Bucky’d already figured out how to work the slighter-built man’s belt buckle, pop his jeans’ button open and slide the fly down, all in one fell swoop.
Sharing a meaningful though unspoken conversation with Bucky, Steve voiced the agreement the two super soldiers had quickly arrived at, “how about if it’s your turn tonight, Tony?” Well, they did say that tonight was about getting a headstart on quieting Tony’s insecurities and relationship hang-ups, so it was just proper that it’d be Tony’s turn to direct how he wanted the rest of the night to go, right?
“I’m starting to really like this rule. Is it my birthday? Or has Christmas come early this year?” Tony asked with an eager gasp. “You’re really leaving it to me to decide how we do this?”
“Well yeah, ‘cause we’re in your room and that, there, is your bed that we’re about ten seconds away from crawling into, naked,” Steve tittered, losing patience with Bucky’s button-up shirt and just tearing the whole thing off like it was made of paper.
“Caveman! I happen to like that shirt! That shirt looked good on Bucky!” Tony protested before harrumphing, “that’s your reason for giving me the reins tonight? ‘Cause it’s my damn room—my damn bed—that we’re about to fuck in?! I was half-expecting something sappy—like, ‘cause that’s how much you love me, or something!”
“Oh that too—yeah, definitely,” Bucky finally found the faculties to join the conversational foreplay. “But it’s mainly because we’re in your room and we’d really rather not do this in the hallway,” joked Bucky, scrambling to get his torn top off, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it somewhere in the vicinity of the door. He loved the fit of that shirt, too, but it was kinda the last thing on his mind right now.
“And he speaks!” Tony teased. “For a second there, B, I thought you might be having second thoughts about making our evening more interesting,” Tony said, nuzzling Bucky’s rough jaw with his nose and nipping at the chin.
“I was just trying to get my wits about me that we’re really doing this,” answered Bucky, kissing Steve’s and then Tony’s temple, chastely. “So how about it, gorgeous? You have the reins in your hands tonight. How do you want us?” He asked as seductively as he could manage.
Bucky inwardly chuckled at the elated expression on Tony’s face that seemed as if he was just told that he had sole and full permission to go crazy testing some completely unknown scientific equipment.
Without any reservations whatsoever, Tony invaded Bucky’s personal space and, with eyes completely blown with lust, purred against Bucky’s ear, “I want to make love to you, Bucky, while Steve makes love to me.” Bucky actually shivered in anticipation and a moan inadvertently escaped his lips. Let it not be said that Tony Stark had any compunctions about expressing what exactly it was he wanted...
FOLLOW THE LINK FOR SOME SMUT!
They didn’t know how long they lay there, spent and unmoving, three deep atop Tony’s bed before Steve heaved himself up, detaching himself from Tony’s back, to hobble to the bathroom, presumably to get something to clean themselves with. Ah good ol’ Stevie, always the mother-hen and looking out for his babies…
“Nnnghh,” incoherently groaned Tony, around whom Bucky was still tangled like an extra-clingy octopus. “Just…give me two minutes,” panted the genius, barely twitching on Bucky’s chest.
“What? Two minutes and you can go again?!” Bucky asked with a small amused smile, craning his neck to be able to see Tony’s profile at least, half-hidden on his chest.
“Fuck no! I meant two minutes and I can probably wiggle my big toe at least—get some movement going,” mumbled Tony. “Not all of us in this throuple have super soldier constitutions.”
Bucky gave a start at Tony’s use of the word. “You know about the throuple…”
“’Course I do—I’m in one, aren’t I?” Tony remarked with a voice, even and quiet, though still a bit more breathless.
“You OK?” Bucky asked, craning his neck again to look at Tony’s face pasted on his chest, more closely.
“Yeah—I’ll just—,” he inhaled and exhaled to try to get his breath back. “I think I’ll be sleeping for the next two days, and you can tell the front desk not to bother with a wake-up call.
“Fuck—that was some cardio, right there. My gym trainer will give me some kind of award, for sure,” Tony said, marveling at what they’d just done. “And you actually thought I could go again after two minutes…motherfu—you, boys, will be the death of me…”
“It can’t always be your turn, now, can it?” Bucky remarked, low and seductive. “Now, I can’t wait until it’s my turn.” And with that, Bucky heaved again and crab-crawled nearer to the head board with Tony’s spent body cradled against him. He silenced Tony’s protests that he could move himself in a couple more seconds by brushing sweat-slicked brown-black hair off the genius-billionaire’s forehead. “I’m just making us more comfortable.”
Steve then came toward them, still in his naked glory, armed with two small towels that were wet with warm water. He sat by the edge of the bed and began to clean his lovers’ groins and backsides with a warm towel each, a fond and sated smile pasted on his face.
“Hmmm, aftercare—‘s nice,” purred Tony, mustering what strength he was able to get back and caressing Steve’s bicep. “I could definitely get used to this.”
“It can’t always be your turn, sweetheart,” teased Steve with a flick of a finger against the tip of Tony’s nose.
“Why does that always come up?” Tony said with an unimpressed hum. “I’m starting to hate that rule—”
“—no, you don’t,” Bucky interrupted, kissing Steve’s knuckles and then Tony’s shoulder.
“Yeah, no—I don’t,” admitted Tony. “By the way, I’m just gonna rest my eyes for a while. Night’s not over yet and it’s still my damn turn,” Tony petulantly mumbled, throwing his legs over Bucky’s body as if the latter was a full-body bolster while his right hand was still clutching tightly at Steve’s like he was going to evaporate if Tony loosened his grip.
“Get some sleep, sweetheart,” Steve murmured and kissed the side of Tony’s head.
“You’re staying here with me tonight, right?” Tony asked, feebly, tightening his grip on his super soldiers if that was even possible, even though his eyes were already lazily blinking closed. He reminded Bucky of a child craving for love and attention.
“We’re not going anywhere, remember?” Bucky confirmed, throwing his own arms over Tony’s body and reaching for Steve, who was already settling down on Tony’s other side.
After what felt like a very short nap, Bucky awoke feeling bereft and cold. It was still pretty dark out so he knew he couldn’t have slept more than an hour. He sat up on his elbows and looked to his side to find the space empty; Tony was no longer there. Steve, though, was still fast asleep on his stomach, facing the same Tony-less space with his right arm thrown over the patch of bed where Tony was supposed to be as if he was feeling just as bereft as Bucky in his sleep.
Before he could call out for Tony and wake Steve in the process, the bathroom door opened soundlessly and out came a disheveled but awake Tony, clad only in black boxers riding low on his hips. “Hey…I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” He ruefully asked, raking a hand through his tousled hair that even in its untidiness was undeniably sexy.
“I just wondered where you were.”
“I really had to pee and I didn’t want to wake you with my fidgeting. I’m sorry if I woke you up,” apologized Tony again. “You feeling OK?” Tony asked, motioning for Bucky to scoot over and take the patty position in their little man-sandwich.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Bucky replied with another question, snuggling against Steve while Tony cuddled against him. “Steve can get a bit overexcited; you saw what he did to my shirt?”
“Hmm, I was being gentle; I was holding back,” mumbled Steve, getting his wits about him in time to defend himself. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who shredded the bedsheet into ribbons.”
“Wait,” Tony sat up on his elbow to look at Steve, accusingly, over Bucky’s shoulder. “You were holding back? Not cool, Cap,” protested Tony, latching on to Steve’s admission rather than the state of where they were sleeping. “You were pounding Bucky into the damn mattress through me and you were holding back the entire time?!”
“I didn’t want to be too rough with you, Tony—”
“—just you wait until it’s my turn again—”
“—will surely notice that something’s happened if you have to eat standing up for a week!—”
“—overestimating yourself already—”
“—still not a prude, Tony—”
“—holding back on me like I’m not fucking Iron Man, like I’m made of damn glass!—”
“What is this—our second fight? Or are we still at first?” Bucky interrupted, amused as he observed the two ‘discuss’ as if he watching a bloody tennis match. That got Steve to shut up and Tony to huff like an insulted diva.
“I know you’re not made of glass, Tony, and maybe ‘holding back’ is not the right term. I just wanted it to be good for you, too. I didn’t want to be after just my own pleasure but yours as well,” Steve said quietly, reaching for Tony’s hand that was loosely placed on Bucky’s hip and caressing the back of it with his thumb.
Bucky saw the slight annoyance seep out of Tony to be replaced by amusement and fondness again. “I know that, you big lug. I just don’t like the idea of you putting my pleasure ahead of yours. We’re supposed to be equals in this relationship, remember? You said so, yourself. So you don’t have to do that, OK? You don’t have to put me or Bucky first before yourself. We’re big boys; we can look out for ourselves. And this is not just when we’re in the bedroom.
“We don’t exactly have a 9-5 job out there that the only thing capable of killing us is boredom. We’re superheroes. Injury and near-death experiences are part of the job description. But you have to trust us that we can hold our own and you don’t have to hold back to keep us from being hurt.
“But you know, it is good to know that you’re also thinking about what would feel good for us. Just know that your pleasure is ours, too, Steve,” Tony said, leaning towards Steve to meet the latter halfway for a chaste but heartfelt kiss.
“And you know, since we really seem serious about doing this communication thing, I’d like to say sorry for what happened last week at the workshop, Bucky, and for what happened at the Command Center eleven days ago, Steve,” Tony said with a grounding exhale, threading his fingers with Bucky’s on the latter’s hip.
Well, Bucky was fully aware of what happened at Tony’s workshop last week… “Why—what happened at the Command Center between you two?”
“Same thing that happened between the two of you at the workshop,” Steve sheepishly admitted. “I did tell you that Tony and I weren’t physically intimate but not for lack of trying on my part. ‘Cause yeah that was me trying.”
“And I practically gave him a kick in the nuts to talk him out of it,” Tony revealed. “Like the stunt I pulled with you, Buck.”
Bucky wanted to wolf-whistle because, yeah—Bucky really, really loved Steve’s naughty side, all right! But he never pegged Steve to go for getting frisky in the Command Center where anyone from the team could have just walked in on them, too! He went for an OK-I’m-impressed face. “The Command Center, though, Stevie—you dirty boy! Natasha would’ve castrated you both if she’d walked in right in the middle of that!”
“I had FRIDAY on lookout,” reasoned Steve, like that was the damn solution for everything. “Point is—nothing happened that Nat would’ve castrated us for—”
“—and yeah—my fault. I’m really sorry for that.” Tony was pensive and apologetic at the same time for the time they had wasted because of his self-doubt.
“Not your fault,” assured Bucky, brushing strands of Tony’s hair off his forehead again. “You were reasonably protecting your heart. You just needed time to trust us that we were dead-serious about being with you, Tony. I mean, yeah, the physical stuff is fucking phenomenal, don’t get me wrong. But it ain’t the only thing we’re after. We just wanted to have all of your heart. Like you already hold all of Steve’s. And all of mine.”
Tony’s eyes got fetchingly bright and glassy again and he bit his lower lip to get a hold of his emotions. “Love you, Bucky,” he whispered. No embellishments, no showboating. It was simply Tony’s truth.
“I love you, too.” A kiss to the crown of Tony’s head.
“Love you, Steve.”
“And I love you, Tony.” Butterfly kisses to Tony’s closed eyelids. “I love you, Buck—‘til the end of the line.”
“Love you until the end of the line, Stevie.” Kiss to the corner of Steve’s lips. Bucky pulled Steve’s arms closer around his torso, threading gentle metal fingers through Steve’s own digits, and threw his own flesh arm over Tony’s waist, fighting down the strongest urge to cry, primarily because he didn’t want to have to suffer through Tony teasing him about being a sentimental post-coital wreck.
It was only when Bucky was sure that Steve and Tony’s even breathing were because they had fallen back to sleep that Bucky allowed a tear to slide down the corner of his eye.
Of all his fuck-ups, he must have done something right to deserve to be in the arms of these amazing men. It was true that they were far from perfect.
Tony was probably always going to be stubborn about things meant to make his life longer; he was probably always going to need constant reassurances that Steve and Bucky weren’t going to run off together and leave him behind; he was always probably going to feel insecure and small right at the back of his mind despite Steve and Bucky telling him otherwise; it was also possible that Tony would always have a part of him left over in the other universe, where it would always belong with the people he had grown to love there.
Steve was probably always going to be stubborn, old-fashioned and bossy for his own good; he was probably always going to wonder if Tony was happy with them or if Tony always meant to go back to the other universe, to that other Steve; he was probably always going to measure himself short against another him from another dimension; at the back of his mind, he was probably always going to blame himself for Bucky and the train and HYDRA, and Tony and Ross and Siberia.
As for Bucky, he was probably always going to be dreading the monster lying in wait inside him despite Tony and Steve’s tireless love and support. Maybe he would never be recovered, but—like an alcoholic, just always recovering, always only in the process of healing but never fully healed, his hold on his sanity and what makes him the person he was, challenged at every turn; he was probably always going to dread that Steve and Tony would wake up one day and realize that having him in their lives was too much baggage; he was probably always going to wonder what good it was he had done to deserve Steve and Tony’s love, forever wondering but never quite realizing how much he was worthy of all the happiness he could ever dream of.
Three jagged pieces of a puzzle that surprisingly yet seamlessly fit against each other. They had each other. For better or for worse. After a long road, they had found each other.
And this love? This love of theirs would be their redemption.
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