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Spindly Beads
Bucky groaned as he felt someone grab his ankle and jiggle his leg. “Let me die.”
“You’re such a drama queen. Tony could take lessons from you,” Steve sighed, grabbing his other ankle and yanking.
Bucky squawked just before he hit the ground and had the air knocked out of him. “Oof!”
Steve gave him a tap in the ribs with his toes. “Listen, I got up, went for a run, took a shower, and made breakfast. The least you can do is get your lazy ass out of bed and come eat.”
“You’re always so grumpy when Tony has to actually work,” the brunet mumbled as he got to his feet. “I miss him too, you know.”
Steve tried to keep his face serious, but there was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as the brunet followed him to the elevator. “Yeah, but I’m awake longer so I suffer more. I’m sure if I slept as long as you, I wouldn’t get as grumpy.”
“Your logic is flawed and fuck you.” Bucky yawned as he stretched his arms over his head. “MMMMMmmmyeah that’s good.” He gave the blond a glare out of the corner of his eye. “At least when Tony wakes me up, I get to have sex.”
“Maybe if you woke up earlier, you could convince me to have sex instead of go for a run,” the blond teased, striding out of the elevator. “Hopefully the waffles aren’t burned. Waking you up is like trying to wake up a hibernating bear. Every fucking day.”
Bucky stuck his tongue out at him and followed at a more relaxed pace. Something glittered on the wall that normally didn’t. He turned toward it, confused.
There was a spider made out of purple gemstones and gold wire. Its legs were decorated with round lavender beads and long, thin gold ones. It was tucked up onto a piece of holly that was decorating the frame of a portrait. He couldn’t help a gasp.
“What?” Natasha asked as she stepped out of the elevator.
He pointed and, unable to form the words he wanted, made some noises that were definitely excited and happy.
Natasha turned to look at the spider and squeaked. “Spider!” She pointed at it as well, agape. “Spider!”
“Really?” Clint groaned. He began to take off his shoe. “You’re the world’s best assassins and you’re afraid of a—oh, wow!” He stared up at the spider in surprise, clutching his shoe to his chest. “Man, that’s… that’s beautiful.”
“What?” Steve leaned out of the kitchen and saw what he was looking at. “Oh, yeah, Tony put those up. I helped him put a really high one up last night before bed.”
“There’s more?!” Bucky blurted out, excited.
Bruce got off the elevator and made a couple of frustrated noises when he found everyone standing in front of him. “Could you at least make a path—”
“Spider!” Natasha said to him, pointing at the purple one again.
The scientist squinted at the spider. “Is that real amethyst?”
Natasha made a happy noise and clasped her hands together, whispering a reverent, “Beautiful.”
“Why are you both so happy?” Bruce complained. “I hope there’s coffee made.”
“The Christmas Spiders!” Bucky exclaimed. “To decorate the trees!” He pointed at the spider again as well. “And it’s pretty!”
“Another one!” Natasha pointed over toward the door to the kitchen, where a sprig of mistletoe was hanging, along with a green-and-red spider. “Look!”
“There are more,” Steve said, voice just on the edge of teasing. “But come eat first, okay?”
Bucky and Natasha looked at each other, weighing whether or not they wanted to skip breakfast, but then the blond gave them a stern look, so they trudged into the kitchen to eat.
“So what’s this about Christmas Spiders?” Bruce asked, buttering a piece of toast.
“The legend goes that a pinecone fell down in this poor family’s house and grew into a beautiful tree,” Bucky explained. “The children were excited to have such a beautiful tree, but they had no money for decorations. They talked about not having decorations and being disappointed before they went to bed, but when they woke up the next morning, the tree was decorated with beautiful dew-dropped webs. The spiders had heard them and wanted them to have a decorated tree. It’s a story from the Old Country.”
Natasha nodded. “Yes. It’s good luck to see a spider on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.” She turned to peek at the green-and-red spider again, looking pleased.
Bucky scarfed down his food as fast as he could, but Natasha still beat him by virtue of the fact that he had to eat so damn much because of his metabolism. She was out of the kitchen and looking around for more spiders before Bucky could even get his plate in the sink.
“Look!” she ordered when he slid out of the kitchen on his stocking-covered feet. She was pointing at a beautiful ebony spider with tiny red beads on its legs. There was a red hourglass on the body. “It’s me!”
Bucky laughed quietly. “If you say so.”
“It has to be me.” She waved him off in the direction of the living room. “I found a Captain America spider.”
The brunet ducked into the living room immediately, finding the spider hanging from the corner of the television. It had a red and blue body and a silvery white head. Its legs were decorated with red and white round beads and blue long beads. He covered his mouth. There were Avengers spiders.
He scoured the living room and found two more Avengers spiders among the many others. One had a green head and purple body, with green round and long beads. The other was completely dark brown, almost black, except for its front two left legs, which were silver. He took a moment to feel incredibly humbled.
“You okay, Buck?” Steve asked as he walked into the living room. He picked up his sketchbook from the side table and sat down on the couch.
“I found me,” he blurted out, still staring at his spider.
Steve looked up at him, confused, and got up off the couch to come see what he was talking about. He smiled when he saw the spider. “Aw. That’s so sweet. Tony’s so nice.”
“I found your spider, too, and Hulk’s. I haven’t found Iron Man yet, though.” He looked up at the blond and batted his eyelashes. “Help me find it?”
“No,” the blond answered immediately and turned to return to the couch.
“What the fuck Stevie!” Bucky shouted, and tackled him to the ground. He got the taller man in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles on his scalp. “Help me!”
“Ow, ow! Uncle-!” Steve winced as he was released and lifted his hand to tenderly touch his head. “With your metal hand, too! Fuck!”
“You yank me out of my nice warm bed, and then you won’t help me find the Iron Man spider. You deserve it,” Bucky retorted, getting to his feet.
Steve muttered that he should have left him to sleep the day away just so Tony could get upset with him. Bucky ignored it, instead grabbing him to drag him to his feet. He wanted to find the Iron Man spider as soon as possible.
.-.-.-.-.-.
There was no Iron Man spider. Bucky thought about punching a hole through the wall.
“The last time we punched a hole in the wall, Tony slept on the loveseat,” Steve pointed out, though he looked just as pissed off. “And that time was an accident.”
Most people made their lovers sleep on the couch when they were mad at them. Tony was not most people, though, and it had actually made them feel worse that he would sleep on a couch and let them sleep in his bed without him. Tony was surprisingly spiteful.
“This is an outrage,” Bucky hissed. “He owns the fucking building.”
“Maybe it’s just really well hidden?” Steve suggested, but even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.
The brunet huffed. “Well, it can’t be that hard.”
“What,” Steve said, alarmed, because that had been the preface to many things that were actually that hard.
“Making a spider. They’re wire and beads. I’ve hotwired cars more difficult.”
Steve sincerely doubted that. Bucky was definitely not the artist that he was.
“I’m gonna go get supplies,” Bucky declared. “I’ll be back.”
“I’ll come with you,” Steve said hurriedly.
He’d once asked Bucky to pick up a tube of blue paint on his way home, size, brand, and all—and Bucky had come home with an armload of different paints saying ‘Stevie holy shit look at this selection and aren’t credit cards great?!’ He hadn’t even picked up the paint Steve had needed, and Tony had taken that as a hint that he needed to shower Steve with art supplies.
That had been a really bad few weeks.
.-.-.-.-.-.
“This is officially the worst,” Steve muttered, trying to keep his teeth from chattering as they finally made it back to the tower. “That was hell.”
Bucky grimaced. “Okay, going out on a snowy Saturday when people are Christmas shopping was probably a bad idea. But at least we got the supplies!”
“I’m glad you’re so pumped about this,” the blond drawled. “Even though you almost strangled a middle-aged mother of four.”
The brunet howled, incensed. “She made that cashier cry!”
Steve couldn’t fault him for that, because that poor girl hadn’t deserved to be yelled at like that. People in the service industry got so much shit. Instead, he directed JARVIS to take the elevator up to the penthouse floor, where he spread their booty out on the coffee table. Perhaps they had gone overboard with buying all of the gold and red beads the store had.
Bucky plugged in their new glue gun. “Listen, okay, these need to be great.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed, amused.
“Because Tony deserves great spiders. He’s the best.”
“Uh huh.”
“And maybe if he likes them we can have sex on the couch.”
Steve couldn’t help the laughter that burst out of him at that. Tony had actually surprised them by saying he did not want anyone to have sex on his couch. It was expensive and difficult to clean and quite frankly he was too old to be getting knowing looks from drycleaners. He had eventually conceded to allowing couch sex for special occasions but would prefer it if they kept it to a minimum.
“I love Tony,” Steve said helplessly.
Bucky nodded in agreement. “I know. He’s so weird. He’s the best.” He grabbed the pair of wire cutters they’d bought and clicked them closed a few times. “I’m gonna start with a red body and a gold head.”
“I guess I’ll do a gold body and a red head,” the blond mused. “How hard could this be?”
.-.-.-.-.-.
Very hard, as it turned out.
Steve let his head thunk onto the table. He’d even looked up directions on Pinterest and Google, and they’d still turned out wonky—not nearly as beautiful and sleek as the ones that had been on the common floor.
Bucky frowned as he tried to bend the legs of his last spider to try and minimize the fact that it had one really short leg because he’d run out of wire. It wasn’t working. “So should we destroy these or what?”
Eight spiders were strewn across the coffee table, and all of them had some sort of flaw—too much glue, or not enough beads of the same type. There was the last one with the gimpy leg, of course, and there was another one that they’d accidentally given six legs and they’d had to fix that afterward and you could tell. They were all pretty pathetic, especially considering that the spiders in the common areas had had glass beads or precious gems. It was pretty easy to see that they’d used plastic beads.
“We worked so hard on them,” Steve said helplessly. “It might physically hurt me to throw these away.”
Bucky threw his hands up, giving up on trying to make the gimpy spider look normal. “But then Tony wouldn’t ever have to know about them!”
Steve sighed, disappointed. They’d been trying so hard to do something that would make Tony smile, and all they had to give him were these ugly things. “Yeah, I guess.” He began to stand, grabbing three of the spiders so he could throw them away, but then the elevator arrived and the doors spread open, showing Tony in his impeccable suit and looking tired but happy.
“I’m home!” he crowed happily. “Well, I’ve been home, but I thought you guys would be on the common floor and then I got distracted by Bruce asking about some squishy science and—Well, I’m home, you should be hugging me, why aren’t you hugging me?”
Because they were trying to hide their ugly spiders. Bucky had sprawled in front of the table to hide most of them from view. Steve hid the three spiders he was holding behind his back.
Tony narrowed his eyes at them. “You both continue to disappoint me with your worthless poker faces. Give it up.”
Steve glanced at Bucky, wordlessly asking if they should. The brunet sighed and stood up, because once Tony realized they were hiding something, he wouldn’t give up until he knew why or what it was. He pulled the spiders from behind his back sheepishly and set them on the table.
Tony wandered over to get a better look and smiled when he saw them, even though he also looked a little confused. “Oh! What are these for?”
“We couldn’t find the Iron Man spider, so we thought we’d make you one,” Bucky explained, helpless in the face of the smaller man’s smile.
“That’s so sweet!” Tony exclaimed, gingerly picking up the gimpy spider and holding it in his hands like it was the most precious of things. He smiled down at it, eyes soft, then looked at all of the other spiders. “Wow. They look better than mine!”
“What,” Steve and Bucky blurted out before they could stop themselves.
Tony turned to look up at them, surprised. “Huh? I made all of the spiders.”
Steve wheezed. Holy shit. And they’d made these monstrosities?!
Bucky looked a little faint.
“I started making them with my mom when I was little,” he continued, unaware of their internal freaking out. “So I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I put up some of hers, too, but a couple of them are a little too delicate to put out until I reinforce them. She was a magician when it came to beaded spiders. Even Howard kept one on his desk during the holidays.” He smiled a little with nostalgia. “It was white and pink. He liked it because it was the same colors as Mom’s favorite earrings. He bought them for her on their first anniversary. God, what saps.”
“Aw,” Steve cooed, because Tony rarely ever talked about Howard in a positive light, but had always admitted that his father and mother had loved each other.
“Wait,” Bucky said, frowning. “What do you mean that these look better than yours? You made an Iron Man spider?!”
Tony blinked up at him, a little hesitant, as if he’d done something wrong. “Yeah? I made it last, though, because I wanted you all to see your spiders first. I didn’t have time to put mine up.”
Bucky looked like he was considering screaming in frustration. Steve could sympathize.
The brunet smiled shyly. “I can show you, if you want,” he offered, as if he somehow believed that they wouldn’t like his spider better than theirs.
Impossible. Their spiders were terrible.
Steve grinned and leaned down to press a kiss to the tip of his nose, which made the smaller man giggle quietly and try to dodge him. “Of course we want to see the one you made, Tony!”
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, grabbing the brunet by the shoulders so he couldn’t escape and pressing kisses to the part of his neck that he knew was ticklish. “Bet it looks amazing.”
“Get off me, you brute!” Tony exclaimed, wiggling helplessly. He yelped when the brunet gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek and finally ducked away, wiping his cheek. “Ugh, slobbery! You’re the worst, you know that?!”
Bucky grinned at him and said nothing.
“The worst,” he repeated, more to himself, but walked over to some boxes of Christmas decorations by the door that he hadn’t put up yet. He carefully set aside the gimpy spider before he reached in and drew out a small, beautiful spider made with gold wire and glass beads.
Bucky and Steve crowded him to see it, awed. The gold wire was the same shade as the beads, and the red contrasted with it beautifully. Upon closer inspection, they saw that he’d also put tiny, light blue beads the same color as the arc reactor between the red and gold beads on the legs. They hadn’t even thought about the reactor when they made theirs.
“Tony, it’s beautiful,” Steve breathed, reaching out to touch one of its spindly legs. It didn’t give much, like theirs had.
Bucky curled his arm around the brunet’s waist to pull him back against his body, nodding slightly in agreement. “I’ve never seen something so amazing, doll.”
Tony blushed a little and rolled his eyes with a huff, trying to hide how pleased he was. “It’s not that big a deal. And since you guys got so distressed about it—thank you, by the way—maybe I should go put this downstairs so that no one else makes me any spiders.”
“Aw,” Steve cooed again. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t love it if they did.”
“You shut your whore mouth,” Tony snapped at him.
.-.-.-.-.-.
They forgot all about the spiders they’d made until the next morning.
“Should we throw them away?” Steve asked, scratching at his chin.
Bucky frowned into his side. “I dunno. Tony seemed to like ‘em.”
“I think if we presented him with dog shit and said we worked hard on the arrangement, he would love it,” the blond deadpanned.
Bucky grimaced, because it was probably true. “Maybe we should.”
“Yeah.” Steve sighed, frowning at the ceiling. They’d spent so long working on the spiders. He was a little sad that they were just going to throw them away.
“Did Tony have a meeting this morning?” Bucky asked after a moment.
“No.” Steve’s brows furrowed together in confusion. “Maybe he went to the lab? I know he hasn’t gotten to really work in it for a while because of all the meetings and Christmas and stuff.” He sat up, groaning quietly. Sex with Tony was athletic and exhausting. Even he got tired afterwards.
“Help,” Bucky whined, holding his hands out.
Steve was too tired to even bitch at him, instead grabbing his hands and pulling him onto his feet. He couldn’t understand how sex made both he and Bucky tired but seemed to energize Tony. “Maybe he’s an incubus,” he mumbled thoughtfully.
Bucky shrugged, not even needing to ask for details as they began out of the room. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“What wouldn’t surprise you?”
“AH!” Steve instinctively leapt in front of Bucky.
Bucky judged him silently, but the silence spoke volumes, because for Pete’s sake it was just Tony.
Tony gave Steve a confused look before he returned his attention to the project in front of him. “You’re so weird, Steve.”
“He tried to protect me when he was tiny, too,” Bucky informed him, shoving the blond aside so he could walk past him. “It was like throwing a wet tissue at someone. Surprising, but in the end ineffective.”
Steve glared at him, sour-faced. “The next time you get cornered in battle, I’m going to let Natasha save you so she can gloat.”
The brunet bit his lip worriedly. The way Natasha gloated was not nice.
“What are you doing, anyway?” the blond asked, circling the couch to sit beside him.
“Just finishing up one last spider,” Tony replied, using pliers to, indeed, close the last beaded leg. “It would have been too narcissistic even for me to only have Iron Man spiders on our floor.”
Steve and Bucky both choked when they saw that the Winter Soldier spider he was holding was just as terrible as theirs had been. Upon further inspection, they could see that he had decorated the living room with several spiders, all of which looked ugly. Steve would bet that he’d find some in the kitchen and bathroom as well.
“Aw, man, you didn’t need to do that, Tony,” Bucky said after a moment, rubbing the back of his head. “We know they’re not as pretty as yours.”
“You just need practice,” the brunet insisted, setting the pliers aside and twisting the spider’s legs into a position where it could stand straighter when he set it down. “I’ll teach you. And for what the beads are, you guys did a pretty good job. They look like the first spiders I made with my mom—kind of terrible, but you can see the love there.”
Steve whimpered and clutched at his chest. “Holy shit, Tony.”
“You’re gonna make Steve melt if you say more things like that to him,” Bucky teased, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head.
“You guys are such saps,” Tony replied, still focused on his spider. “By the way, next time just come down to the lab and borrow my tools. They’re better than what you bought. These pliers stuck a little. Mine don’t do that.”
Steve laughed quietly as he put an arm around the brunet’s shoulders and tugged him up against his side, gently enough that he didn’t jostle the spider in his hands. “I bet you fixed them so they don’t stick now, though.”
“Well, yeah, I don’t work with sub-standard tools.”
Bucky snorted as he grabbed two mugs and the coffee pot, walking over to refill the smaller man’s empty cup. “You don’t really work with standard tools, either.”
“I’ll have you know that my wrenches and hammers are perfectly standard,” Tony told him huffily, setting the spider aside to grab his cup.
“We wanted it to be a surprise, too,” Steve added, before Tony could go on a rant about his tools.
Tony frowned down at his cup thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I mean, I’d be curious, but I’m actually really good at leaving that kind of thing alone? I like the way I feel when I surprise people, and I don’t want to take that feeling away from anyone else, so just have JARVIS tell you where the tools are next time and—ah!” He gasped quietly as the blond leaned in to nip the shell of his ear. “Steve, you’re going to make me spill!”
“That would be a shame,” Steve mumbled, nipping his ear again, but allowed the brunet to push his face away. The last thing he wanted to do was stain the couch with coffee, of all things.
Bucky sat down on Tony’s other side and leaned down to kiss his cheek. “You’re really sweet, doll. You know that?”
Tony blushed a little, but he took another sip of his coffee resolutely. “Of course I am. I’m also adorable and clever. Anyone would be lucky to have me. I am a wonderful—”
“You are,” Steve agreed, making him stop with a squeak and flush further. “You’re adorable and clever and sweet and wonderful—”
“—Beautiful, charming, generous,” Bucky continued, smiling.
“You stop this immediately!” Tony shrieked, bright red and afraid he might get heat stroke.
Steve plucked the mug from his hands and set it on the table with his own. “You take that side, I take this side?”
“Sounds good to me,” Bucky agreed, setting his coffee aside as well. He wrapped an arm around the smaller man’s waist to hold him in place and began kissing his neck, biting at the skin and pulling gently.
Steve wrapped an arm around him too and began nibbling his shoulder. “I do have good ideas sometimes.”
Tony squawked, trying to squirm, but he was helpless as they continued to kiss him.
.-.-.-.-.-.
“Spider!” Natasha gasped, pointing, because that one was new.
Clint smiled a little as he looked toward Bruce. “I’m pretty sure Tony has a new one put up every night while she’s sleeping just because he likes to watch her get excited over them.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Bruce agreed, shrugging. “But then again, she deserves something to get excited over.”
“It’s Thor!” she cried, lifting it off the decorative vase and holding it in her cupped hands. The body was silver, the head gold, and its spindly legs were decorated with brown and dark red beads. “He made a hammer for it.”
Clint peeked into her hands when she showed it to him, grinning helplessly. “That is pretty cute.”
“I’m glad Thor’s spending Christmas with Dr. Foster,” Bruce mused. “I’m pretty sure if he saw these, he’d try to bring an actual spider in. And knowing Thor, it would be big.”
Clint grimaced. “Yeah, probably.”
“Tony, your decorations are wonderful,” Natasha said when she noticed him coming off the elevator. “Thank you.”
“If you want, you can keep a couple in your room year ‘round,” he offered.
Natasha had to fight to keep from clutching the spider to her chest, unable to hide her surprise. “That would be okay?”
“Knock yourself out,” Tony said, smiling at her. “In fact!” He walked over to one of Steve’s landscapes that he’d framed and plucked the spider from it. He turned and put it into her cupped hands. “Take this one.”
She held the spider up, admiring its green body and pearly white head. The legs were made with little white pearls and more green beads. “I can have this?”
Tony continued to smile at her. “Yes. My mother made it. I’m sure she’d be glad that you appreciate it.”
She closed her fingers over it loosely and held it to her chest, looking at him in disbelief as she softly repeated, “I can really have this?”
“Please, I insist.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I know you’ll take care of it.”
Natasha stared at him wordlessly before she held the Thor spider out to him. When he took it, she turned, striding toward the elevator quickly and not turning back until the doors were almost shut.
“…Dude,” Clint said, agape.
“Were those real emeralds?” Bruce asked, squinting at the elevator doors.
Tony shrugged. “What can I say? Mom had expensive tastes sometimes.” He paused, tilting his head in thought. “…Pretty sure they were real pearls, too.” He heard Steve wheeze from the kitchen where he was making breakfast and turned, scowling in his direction. “Why are you surprised? You helped me put up the diamond one!”
Steve wheezed louder. “I’m dying.”
“You have a diamond spider?” Clint asked in disbelief.
Tony pointed at it. “I had Steve place it so that the afternoon sun would filter through it and make rainbows.”
“I’ve seen that,” Bruce said. “It’s very beautiful, Tony. You did a good job having Steve place it.”
Tony preened.
“Hey, does anyone know why Natasha snarled at me when I tried to get onto the elevator?” Bucky asked as he walked in from the stairwell. “Like, she didn’t even use words. Just snarled. I put my hands up and backed out because I thought she might actually stab me.”
“Natasha is wonderful and my favorite,” Tony answered, walking past him into the kitchen.
Bucky blinked after him before looking back at Bruce and Clint, who were waiting on the couch and watching the morning news while Steve finished cooking breakfast. “What the hell was that?”
“Don’t look at me,” Clint replied, turning back to the television. “He’s your boyfriend.”
“He let Natasha keep a spider in her room,” Bruce said over his shoulder before he also turned back to the TV.
Bucky opened his mouth, but he knew they were ignoring him now, so he shrugged and walked into the kitchen. He grabbed Tony’s hips before he could step away from bothering Steve and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You probably made Natasha’s whole year, Tony.”
“Natasha deserves to have her whole year made,” Tony declared. “She let me vent to her when I thought my feelings were unrequited and gave me pep talks when I was trying to figure out how to flirt with you. Now she rubs my feet because you guys won’t. I love her. I know she can kill people with only her pinky but I’m also ninety-seven percent sure that she would do it to protect me.”
“I could kill people with my pinky,” Bucky muttered, scowling. “And you could be one hundred percent sure I would do it to protect you.”
Steve laughed quietly. “Let it go, Buck. He and Natasha have a spa night every two weeks where they drink fruity alcohol and paint each others’ nails and do face masks. She’s always going to have the advantage.”
“I could do face masks!” the brunet exclaimed.
Tony scowled up at him. “No, it’s just me, Natasha, and Pepper when she’s in town. You can’t take away my girls’ night. It’s the only time I get to drink wine from a box.”
“…You could drink wine from a box in front of us,” Steve said, turning to look at him in disbelief. “That is actually something you could do.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Tony retorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Steven.”
Bucky couldn’t hold back the snort that escaped him at the look of stunned surprise that came to the blond’s face. “Yeah, Steven.”
“That’s it,” Steve said, turning back to the stove. “You guys aren’t getting pancakes.”
Tony whined immediately. “But Steve, your pancakes are the best. You can’t deprive me of the world’s best pancakes!”
Bucky rolled his eyes. The blond’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. “You’re such a fucking troll, Steve. Don’t worry, sweetheart, he’s gonna give you pancakes.”
“Yay!”
Steve glanced over his shoulder at him and smiled, rolling his eyes. Bucky smiled back.
“You’re doing that thing,” Tony accused immediately. “Where you look at each other and smile. What are you communicating with your secret mind powers? Are you making fun of me?”
Under the joviality, there was the tiniest bit of worry.
Steve turned and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “We were just telling each other how much we loved you, honey.”
Before Tony could catch his breath and accuse him of just saying that because he’d noticed, Bucky turned him around so he could kiss him too. “He’s right, doll. You’re the sweetest guy we know. We’d have to be crazy not to love you.”
Tony frowned up at him, looking unsure. “…I still think you were making fun of me.”
Bucky very carefully swallowed his laughter down. “Well, I did mention that your hair is a mess.”
“What?!” The brunet’s hands flew to his hair, fingers combing through it. “God damn it, I always look like a cow licked my head in the night. Why can’t my hair be nice like yours and Steve’s?”
“I like the little curls you get when it’s too long,” Bucky informed him, catching his hands to pull them from his head.
Steve nodded in agreement, turning to set a platter of pancakes on the table. “Yeah, it’s pretty cute, the way your hair curls around your ears. Just makes me want to nibble ‘em.”
“I like the way it curls at his nape,” Bucky countered as the brunet spluttered. “If I could make a line of hickeys under it, that would be great.” He gave the smaller man a pout. “But I’m not allowed to do hickeys above the collar.”
“You guys are the worst!” Tony exclaimed, turning so they couldn’t see his blush. He hadn’t blushed so much since he was in his early twenties. He hated that his boyfriends could bring it about without even trying that hard.
“That’s because you’re the best,” Steve said.
Tony began yelling so he couldn’t hear anything else they said and blush more.
“You’re going to make him give himself a stroke,” Bruce scolded as he came into the kitchen.
Natasha and Clint came in after him. Clint scowled at them, but he was amused beneath it. “Don’t make Tony have a stroke.”
“Or what?” Steve asked because his self-preservation instincts were somehow even less existent than Tony’s.
The look Natasha gave him in answer was enough to give him chills.
“You’re both going to give me ulcers. Do you want to die? Is that it?” Bucky asked, shoving Tony into his seat before he could try and grab a pancake directly out of the pan. There were perfectly good pancakes on the table. “And why does Natasha like you more than me? We used to work for the same people. That should give me some bonus points or something.”
“Tony gives me thoughtful, heart-felt presents without expecting anything in return,” Natasha informed him icily. “He must be protected.”
“I don’t need protection!” Tony exclaimed, offended.
She turned and gave him a long, long look.
“…I don’t,” he muttered down at his plate mutinously.
Clint leaned his chin on his hand and grinned. “As much as I hate listening to you guys getting all lovey-dovey together, I love watching Tony pout more.”
Tony lifted his head to glare at him. “I am not pouting!”
“Tony,” Bruce said gently, like he was speaking to a frightened animal. “You’re pouting a little.”
“You can all just leave my tower! I want to be a hermit! I don’t need this sass!”
Natasha reached out and patted his hand. “Why would you kick your boyfriends out after all the trouble they went through to make you some Iron Man spiders?”
Tony squeaked, shocked silent.
“…How do you know about that?” Steve asked, eyes wide.
She looked back at him, face blank. “I know everything.”
Bucky curled an arm around Tony’s shoulders protectively. God. It was a good thing Natasha actually liked them.