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Bucky couldn’t draw his eyes away from the frenetic genius. Tony was dancing around the workshop, running three different scenarios in the 3D light projections, the music cranked up so loud that Bucky could feel the bass in his metal arm, throbbing like a second heartbeat. Tony also had a grape popsicle in his mouth that he was doing unintentionally obscene things with as he talked nonsense with Friday and occasionally directed commentary at his bots.
Bucky had come down to the ‘shop to have Tony do some scans of the arm, but they’d been waiting almost an hour for Tony to notice them. Friday had cautioned the Winter Soldier a few times not to interrupt sir when he was working… At least Tash had come with him. Bucky had a hard time with coherency whenever Tony Stark was around and Tash helped translate his gibberish into actual English.
It wasn’t, as most of the team thought, that the Winter Soldier was coming out whenever Tony was around, but that Bucky had a real problem with a massive -- and annoying -- crush. He was pretty sure Tash knew that.
“<If I lick him, does that make him mine?>” Somehow, Bucky managed to talk just as the music died down and Tony stared at him for a long moment. Bucky squirmed, but Natasha’s dossier on the genius had been very clear about what languages Tony spoke, and Russian wasn’t on the list.
“<I’ll give you three grand to do it,>” Tash said. “<Get this nonsense over with.>”
“<Rubles, or American dollars?”>
“<We are speaking Russian.”>
<”Fifty dollars won’t buy me a decent meal out,”> Bucky said. “<No deal.>”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Keep talking about me like I’m not here, I’ll just wait."
“No, that’s okay,” Tash said, hopping down from the counter where she’d been sitting. “You asked to see Yasha about his arm, so, let’s get to it.” She dragged Bucky over to Tony’s workstation. “Oh, and Tony?”
“Hmmm?” Tony was already setting up the hard-light spectral analyser.
“You have something, on your mouth, just, there.” And Tash poked her finger in the direction of Tony’s lower lip. Tony’s tongue flicked out to taste the smut of grape popsicle and something in Bucky’s stomach turned over and clenched. Great. Now he was going to spend the whole time Tony was poking at his arm watching the genius’s mouth.
“<Six grand,>” Tash said, patting Bucky’s shoulder.
“<No, Tash.>”
“What are you to talking about?” Tony asked, prodding the wire-frame into place, making a schematic copy.
“Cheeseburgers,” Bucky said.
“My favorite,” Tony said, easily, exploding the schematic to look at all the little pieces and servos and wires.
***
“Boss, you should stop there,” Friday said, just before Tony walked into the common room.
“What?” Tony stared at the room. “What the hell happened? Did I suddenly invest in a bicycle company?”
The entire common area was covered in… card houses. The furniture had been pushed to the far sides of the room and an enormous castle dominated the room. Diamonds and squares, layer upon layer of them, nearly eight feet high.
“<He’s going to knock it down,>” Clint said in perfectly fluent French. The archer was perched on Barnes’s shoulder, like the Winter Soldier was a goddamn shooting perch. Barnes handed Clint two cards from the pack in his hand and spread his feet just a little, to give Clint a better angle.
“<Are your hands shaking?>” Barnes’s deep, rumbling voice was even worse, when he was speaking French, all dark seductive tones and soft, provocative sounds. Tony leaned in the doorframe, casually tucking his hands in his pockets to conceal the fact that his knees had gone a little weak.
“<My hands are steady as a rock, soldier boy,”> Clint said. He set the next layer of the house up, taking cards as fast as Barnes could hand them to him. Barnes stepped, moving as if Clint weighed nothing at all, so they could keep building.
“<What are you doing?>” Tony asked. His French was a little rusty, but perfectly understandable, even if his accent was a little tainted from Peggy Carter having been his tutor, so he spoke French as if he was from England.
“<Stealth practice,>” Barnes answered and the sound, God. Tony slumped harder against the door. He wasn’t sure what it was, Barnes spoke English, and when he did, it was with a sweet, Brooklyn drawl that could get a man hard with a few well-chosen words, but he didn’t seem to want to.
“<It’s like the post-modern version of the seven bells,>” Clint added, like this meant anything to Tony.
Tony shook his head. He could watch this all day; the soft, easy way Barnes moved without stirring the air around him, Clint’s graceful, sure fingers, listening to the lilt of French on both sets of lips. They looked so damn good together. After a while, Tony felt he was watching something private, like he was an intruder. He faded back into the hall and hit the button for the elevator.
“Penthouse, Friday.”
***
Playing chess with Steve was hilarious under ideal conditions. The walking American Flag treated each game like a battle (and also like the pawns were actual people who’d be hurt and leave widows behind, which Bucky was not above taking advantage of) and concentrated with a deep furrow in his brow.
It was even better when Bucky was taunting him in German.
“<Is that the best move you got, you pig-dog?>” Bucky rumbled as Steve picked up his knight and promptly forked Bucky’s bishop and rook in the same move. It was a fucking good move, but Bucky wasn’t about to admit it.
“Nice try, Fritz,” Steve said, not bothering with German, even though he spoke it fluently. “You gonna move or what?”
Tony, who was watching the game, brightened suddenly. He gave Bucky a very deliberate look, then said in fucking Romanian -- that certainly wasn’t on the dossier! -- “<Rook to king four. Check in three.>”
Bucky blinked. God damn, he was fucking blind.
“Hey, no hinting, Tony,” Steve said, throwing a pillow off the couch at the chair where Tony was sitting. The pillow took Tony in head with a dull whump and knocked his blue sunglasses right off his face.
“That’s not what I said,” Tony said, reaching for his glasses at the same time Bucky recovered them. Their fingertips brushed lightly as Bucky dropped the shades in his palm. It was like getting an electric jolt as their skin touched.
Bucky drew his hand back, almost reluctantly.
“So what did you say?”
Bucky made the move that Tony suggested, then glanced at Tony over Steve’s shoulder. “<He asked me if I wanted a blowjob in the kitchen.>” Bucky answered in German.
Steve swore, colored a deep, brilliant pink, and choked on air. Tony only looked puzzled, which was good.
“Stark!”
“What? I admit everything, I regret nothing,” Tony responded, spreading his hands.
It wasn’t hard to get Steve into checkmate after that. Three moves, just as Tony predicted.
***
The Winter Soldier was… not good for delicate operations. Tony knew that. Captain America knew it (although Steve made very sure that everyone knew exactly how disappointed Cap was with people for their judging-books-by-their-covers attitudes.) But that was okay, because Tony didn’t really want Barnes along for this one.
After the huge travel ban, too many foreign nationals had ended up stuck in airports, families separated. And then there was the bombing; too many people afraid and no one thinking straight. The entire customs area of the airport had been hit, the injuries were horrific. Tony brought the Avengers out in force, for the face-time. To visit the injured kids in the hospital, to start the repairs, to generally scowl disapprovingly at presidential politics.
The usual. Barnes was good at scowling. Tony put him on talk-to-Fox-news duty, while Tony went to the hospital to visit, chat, make people happy, pay their hospital bills.
And it was good that Barnes wasn’t there, because there were four families there who didn’t speak English, and finding out that Tony spoke Russian and German (and Italian and Chinese, too, but Barnes hadn’t used those yet) was probably going to cost him a lot of fun. A little heartbreak, but mostly fun. He still hadn’t figured out if Barnes was serious, or just being an asshole. Could be both. Steve was often an asshole, and they were best friends, so, anything was possible.
No sense showing his hand, though, if Tony and Barnes were still bluffing each other in lingo-poker.
So Tony went, hobnobbed, signed photos, did the schtick. He was good at it, and a lot of times, even enjoyed it. Talking to real people was a lot better than talking to socialites at high end parties. It was one of the better parts about being an Avenger, and he’d come to expect it.
What he didn’t expect -- although in hindsight, he probably should have -- was that someone was filming him. Cell phone cameras were popular, everyone was doing it for the Vine (or whatever had replaced Vine, because that was so 2016) and posting to their liveblogs.
Which meant when Tony got back to the Tower, Barnes was scowling. At him.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“You speak Russian,” Barnes said, glaring. His cheeks were flushed red, but Tony couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or angry.
“Aaaand, you speak English,” Tony pointed out, backing up a little and finding himself suddenly up against a wall, which… well, okay, so it was hot, and he might have liked the way Barnes’s body was nudging up against his, but at the same time, he wasn’t entirely certain that he wasn’t about to get strangled. So, little bit nerve-wracking.
“You knew what I was saying.”
“<The whole time,>” Tony said, in German, because he might as well be hanged for a chicken as an egg.
“You didn’t say anything,” Barnes said. “Why not?”
“Kinda waiting for you to say it to me.”
Bucky licked his lips, leaned in, and very softly whispered, “Wo xiang zho ai.”
Oh. Well, in that case.
Tony tilted his head just before Barnes’s mouth came down on his. Nice what a polyglot could do with their lips.