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It had been an unusually relaxing day for Tony—he’d spent the past six hours in the garage elbow deep in his newest Ferrari’s engine—so of course when he emerged for fresh air and food he’d stumble over something guaranteed to spike his blood pressure. Of course he would. This was his life now.
He’d gotten accustomed to Barton staring at him from some uncomfortable-looking perch in the early mornings. He’d come to grips with Thor’s terrifyingly casual nudity, with Captain America’s distressing tendency to clean things when left unattended for too long, and even with Natasha’s disturbing art, which he suspected she hung at strategic locations with the specific purpose of unnerving people who really weren’t expecting to round a corner and see that fuckery, holy shit, can anyone blame him for shouting?
Even stumbling across random weapon stashes was starting to seem normal. (It was probably some form of Stockholm Syndrome.) Dealing with a slowly thawing Winter Solider should be cake after that.
Then he walked into the living room and found Barnes sitting on the floor surrounded by blankets and pillows, in the process of trying to get a sheet to hang evenly off the couch and coffee table and well. So much for the fantasy that anything ever would be simple.
There were a couple of perfectly reasonable responses to this.
Tony could just leave, secure in the knowledge that whatever was going on in Barnes’ head right now (or at any other point in time really) was way beyond his pay grade. He could make any one of a dozen comments that sprang instantly to mind, only half of them somewhat derogatory. He could just ask what the fuck was up with the alpha attempting to nest smack in the middle of Tony’s territory.
Instead he slouched a bit, making himself smaller and letting his body language broadcast no threat here vibes as he wandered over to closer inspect the pitiful construction. He tried to find something nice to say about it. Failed. It really was very shitty. Both his omega and engineer instincts were appalled.
“So,” he hummed, taking note of how Barnes tensed when he spoke, fiddling with another loose sheet like that was gonna help his sad little den that couldn’t. “Is this a personal project or do you mind if I help out a little?”
That got his attention. Barnes jerked his head up, staring at Tony with wide eyes like maybe he misheard and Tony didn’t offer to engage in a bonding activity usually reserved for family or very close (omega) friends.
Tony raised his eyebrows. “Totally legit offer here, I’m serious. This,” he made an expansive gesture at Barnes’ everything, “saddens me. I am saddened.”
Barnes kept staring so Tony kept talking, rambling about the upgrades he was thinking about making to the Porsche and how Dummy had nearly poisoned him (again) with a toxic smoothie and several of the better Rhodey-Tony adventures from college and Barnes slowly relaxed enough that Tony felt secure in sitting down and then inching slowly forward.
By the time the quite literal cock up story — involving actual chickens and Rhodey’s bitter tears — had Barnes’ resting serial killer face twitching into something that vaguely resembled an expression, Tony was dragging blankets around with expansive gestures and fluffing pillows in strategic locations and deliberately not noticing one of Steve’s sweaters in the mix even as he used it as a weight to hold down a sheet corner.
All of Tony’s nests were architectural masterpieces, thank you very much.
And somehow, when Tony wasn’t paying too much attention to it, Barnes got close enough that their elbows and knees occasionally brushed together when Tony forgot to maintain the personal space bubble that was likely instrumental in not getting him horribly murdered.
“Alright.” Tony clapped his hands together perhaps an hour later when every scrap of fabric in the living room had been arranged to his satisfaction. “That’s a lot better.”
He could have left then, content that Barnes was not about to huddle up and be miserable in a shamefully substandard den while under his roof. He could have gone and finished his initial objective, gotten something to eat and then reburied himself in his lab to enjoy the rest of his day without the constant looming threat of death sitting right next to him.
Instead he kicked back, made himself comfortable, and smiled at every bad little spy’s nightmare, who was staring at Tony’s handiwork with extremely gratifying awe.
“So,” Tony said, “how do you feel about Disney?”
.
.
And then it sort of became A Thing.
Tony was as appalled with Barnes’ lack of strides toward understanding pop culture as he was with his hilariously inept nest building abilities and clearly nobody else was trying to fix this relatively minor issue out of so many other problems so it fell to Tony to have JARVIS track Barnes’ ninja ass down every other day and plant him in front of the television so they could watch movies together give him a better 21st century education.
So that happened.
And somewhere along the line (after Mulan but before the Trek marathon) Barnes told Tony to call him Bucky and (after Resident Evil but before Doom) Tony saw Bucky actually smile and (after the Star Wars marathon but before the Alien marathon) Bucky seemingly lost all interest in maintaining his personal space bubble and just crawled over to lay in Tony’s lap. And what was he going to say to that, no?
Tony liked getting his cuddle on. This wasn’t anything new. Just ask Rhodey.
.
.
Aside from their late night, sometimes early morning, meetings, Tony’s schedule didn’t really allow for much interaction with Bucky or anyone else, so he never saw his favorite cyborg assassin interact with the team (and fuck, how weird was that still?), and probably wouldn’t have noticed anything off if Steve hadn’t walked in on movie night and Bucky proceeded to lose his fucking mind.
Tony only heard Steve’s sharp inhale behind him and then what had been a very comfortable position for him—Bucky’s head tucked against his collarbone, his arms folded across his stomach, and their legs tangled together—swiftly became very uncomfortable as Bucky lunged free and bolted from the room.
Steve stared at him. Tony rubbed a bruise on his side and scowled back.
“What the fuck?” they asked in unison.
So that happened too.
.
.
Steve explained it to him, eyes still wide with shock, sounding like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just witnessed.
Apparently, Bucky was freaking out around other alphas, which was kind of concerning considering the lineup for the Avengers was chock full of them. They had one shining example of an omega, that being Tony himself, which was statistically speaking spot on, and exactly zero-point-five betas if they were counting Bruce and the Hulk as one person. And Bucky had either been flatly avoiding, subtly posturing, or violence prone when dealing with all of them.
Except Tony for some reason. Give a wild guess to nail the differing factor.
So that was also A Thing.
“Huh,” Tony said. “Gimme some time. I’ll come up with something.”
Steve seemed dubious but wisely refrained from comment.
.
.
Movie nights resumed after an odd tense few hours where Bucky looked at Tony like he was expecting some kind of shoe to drop, but all Tony did was ask if he had a genre preference.
(Please. Did he really think he’d be that lazy? That obvious? Did anyone?)
Bucky didn’t care so it came down to Tony’s pick, as usual, which typically meant some flavor of sci-fi.
They were watching the Matrix (fifteen minutes into which Bucky leaned over and just pressed against him, as much contact as he could manage, and Tony thought, hm, maybe a movie where all of humanity is brainwashed by a machine wasn’t my best idea, but at that point he was committed to not changing it unless Bucky asked) and around the time Neo was crushing even more hardcore on Trinity (and Tony was snickering quietly) Bucky tilted his head up and pressed his nose against the scent glands under Tony’s jaw and he went. Still.
Fuck.
Tony squinted at the screen.
Bucky didn’t move. After a second, he asked, softly, “Is this okay?”
There were a couple of perfectly reasonable responses to this.
He could, simply, say no. No, he didn’t really want anyone, much less an alpha, the only secondary gender capable of creating publically recognized bonds, nosing around his scent glands like only actual mates were supposed to do. He could move away and he was sure Bucky wouldn’t push the issue. He could deflect with a smartass crack. He could do nothing at all, which was its own kind of answer.
Tony was a person with a lot of options. He could do pretty much any damn thing he wanted.
“Sure,” he said, reaching to wind a long piece of Bucky’s hair around his fingers. “Keep at it.”
Against his neck, he felt Bucky smile.