Chapter Text
“So where’s my kiss?”
Tony scowls at the Winter Soldier, crossing his arms and slouching back against the chair he brought in front of the safety room for this purpose. “You don’t get one.”
Winter pouts. “You kissed them. Multiple times, even.”
“I like them!”
He gasps and clutches his metal hand to his heart. “Ice cold. I thought we really had something, darling.”
Tony makes a face and signs, “You’re the worst.”
“Only for you.” Winter blows a kiss in his direction, then narrows his eyes. “Well, this obviously isn’t a social call.”
“No.”
“Mm. Get to it, then.”
Tony hesitates. “Does Bucky…like me?”
Winter raises an eyebrow. “You brought me out here to ask if your boyfriend has a crush on you?”
“No! Well…yes, but when you put it like that it sounds silly.”
“It does, yes.”
Tony looks away and signs, “Just answer the question.”
Winter tilts his head, peering at Tony calculatingly. “As near as I can tell, Bucky is embarrassingly besotted with you. Why?”
“Just…” Tony starts to sign, then breaks off, frowning. “Never mind.”
“Allow me to guess, then. Despite their repeated verbal declarations to the contrary, you still think Steve and Bucky are, at best, putting up with you. But you think they’ll get tired of you if you keep asking for reassurance, so you came to your soulmate’s alternate personality. That sound about right?”
Tony’s back to scowling. “You’re a douche.”
“Yes,” Winter says matter-of-factly. “I’m also right, aren’t I?”
Tony grits his teeth. “Maybe.”
“I’m not a licensed therapist,” Winter says, examining the nails on his flesh hand. “I’m not qualified to give you advice about why you’re an emotionally insecure wreck.”
“I know that!” Tony signs sharply. “Never mind. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have. You should have talked to them about it like an adult. Because you are lucky enough to have two people who love you, and despite my limited affection for you, I find it irritating that you do not take full advantage of it.”
Tony gets to his feet in an instant, eyes flashing, and signs, “All I do is take advantage of it! All I do is take advantage of their kindness! I knew from the very start I didn’t deserve—”
“Who really deserves anything?” Winter waves his hand dismissively. “You might find it refreshing to disavow yourself of the mistaken notion that there’s some kind of cosmic reinforcement system for your actions. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, and it doesn’t mean anything either way.”
Tony nods, then abruptly signs, “How many people do you think you’ve killed?”
Winter purses his lips. “Somewhere in the hundreds. Why?”
“Thousands. Thousands of people have died because of me. Not only me. I didn’t…I didn’t know the entire time, and I didn’t…want…” Tony runs his hand through his hair, frustrated, then continues, “But there are thousands of people who died who might not have if I weren’t here.”
“So?”
“So if the universe isn’t going to punish me, then I’m going to do it myself!” Tony explodes. “Because I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s what I deserve.”
“And what exactly makes you think that you’re qualified to determine that?” Steve’s voice rings out in the hallway.
Tony pales. “You’re home early.”
“Got a notification the safety room was in use and got home as soon as I could. Tony…” Steve shoots a glance at Winter. “You.”
“Me!” Winter says cheerfully.
“Did you hurt him?”
“Seriously? I’m in a box.”
“It’s not a box. It’s a cylindrical prism,” Tony signs warily. “Steve…sorry.”
Steve pauses. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because…you’re mad?” He peeks at Steve’s face, then hazards a guess, “About Bucky?”
“No, Tony.”
“About me not eating lunch.”
“Tony…”
“Or dinner. Or breakfast.”
“Tony.”
“Or lunch again.”
“That’s a problem, and you can be sure we’re going to get you some food,” Steve says patiently. “But I’m not mad. I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t realize you were still feeling this way.”
Tony blanches. “How much did you see?”
“Enough to know that we need to talk. Look, I knew things wouldn’t just magically get better when you told us, but…I sort of hoped we were past the part where you realized we loved you.”
“We are!” Tony signs hurriedly. “I mean…well. Yes. We are. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Okay, maybe not exactly,” Tony hedges. “Can we bargain down to ‘above grudging tolerance’, because I think I can manage that on a good day—”
“Tony, I love you.”
Tony appears to short-circuit for a second, twitching, then signing, “Give a guy some warning—”
“And he loves you too,” Steve says, gesturing at the safety room.
“I’m aromantic,” says Winter loftily. “But he’s okay.”
“He’s aromantic,” Steve mutters, shaking his head. “You know what I meant.”
Tony nods, but doesn’t do anything further, looking away from both Steve and Winter and rubbing his hands together.
“I’m not going to pretend like I know exactly what’s going on in that big brain of yours,” Steve says softly, walking slowly forward and kneeling down in front of Tony’s chair, placing a hand lightly on Tony’s knee. “I only know what’s going on in mine, and what I’m thinking right now is that the man in front of me is beautiful and smart and kind and my soulmate, and I love him and I want him to be happy, and if for some reason he can find that happiness with me I’ll do everything I can to be worthy of that immense privilege.”
Tony turns pink and snappishly signs, “What are you, a Hallmark card?”
“Seriously,” comes Bucky’s tired voice from inside the room. “What’s with you and cheesy monologues?”
“Bucky?” Steve asks uncertainly.
“He decided he’d let me in on this, and I quote, ‘incredibly gagworthy moment’.” Bucky rolls his eyes, stretching. “Not sure I appreciate the switch.”
“I can do a cheesy monologue for you too, if you want,” Steve offers, smirking.
“No. Anyway, Tony, he’s a punk but he’s right. We both love you, okay? I’m not going to say you have to think you deserve that right now, because I know that can be hard. But I want you to trust us enough to believe us when we say that we’re pretty far gone on you.”
“Look,” Tony signs, deep in thought. “It’s…something I’ll work on, okay? It’s just not easy, and I don’t really know what to do, and—”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Bucky interrupts. “Just stay. Okay?”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It can be. Do you love us?”
The pink on Tony’s cheeks deepens, and he signs a small, “Yes.”
“Then stay, and let us love you back, and talk to us, and it’ll work out.” Bucky shrugs. “Simple.”
“That’s three things now,” Tony signs, more on principle than anything. “And there’s nothing simple about any of them.”
Steve cuts in, “Okay, complicated then. But worth it. Don’t you think?”
Tony thinks about it. And he thinks about how he feels without them, and he thinks about how he feels with them, and he thinks that maybe he’s just the right amount of selfish to keep them, in the end.
“Yeah. Worth it.”
Steve beams. “Thought so.” Then he kisses Tony once, twice, three times—
“If you’re going to do that, at least let me out first,” Bucky says, aggrieved. “Rude.”
“You deserve it,” Steve says lightly. “I know you were the one who put cayenne pepper in the pancakes this morning.”
“I’ll have you know that was an accident, an accident which was completely unrelated to the cat magnets you stuck on my arm when I was sleeping.”
“Accident, huh? You accidentally got the cayenne pepper out from where I hid it last time you did this and accidentally poured the entire bottle into only my batch of pancakes—”
“That’s what I’m saying, yes, now please let me out of this box—”
“Cylindrical prism,” Tony corrects.
“I think we’ll leave you in the cylindrical prism for a while, actually,” Steve says haughtily. “Since someone doesn’t know how to just own up to their crimes.”
“Oh, you’re going there? How about that time when we were kids and you broke—”
“That actually was an accident, and it was your fault!”
“My fault?! You threw a baseball at my face—”
“And you ducked! So your fault.”
They continue bickering companionably, and Tony feels himself relax. Maybe he doesn’t deserve this. But maybe—just maybe—he can have it anyway.
-------------------
Okay, so the thing is, Bucky and Steve aren’t a perfect couple. They have their problems, and a lot of them. They fight, and they love each other, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes they need help. Sometimes, they might even need someone like Tony.
The other thing is, Tony has never been able to talk, but he can still communicate. He can say what he means, and he can tell people when he’s feeling bad, and he can have feelings and it can matter. He has friends—Pep, Rhodey, obviously, and Bruce and Natasha and Clint, even if he’s a jerk. And then there’s Steve and Bucky. They don’t have his words, and they’ll never have his words, but his hands will always be wrapped around their souls.
Because here’s the last thing, and that’s that Tony is Bucky and Steve’s soulmate. And, sure, sometimes he still wonders whether they’re really happy with him. It’s messy, and things aren’t always fine at all.
But he loves them. And they love him. They’re just two broken super soldiers and a broken man in a suit of armor, but they manage to take all of the pieces of themselves and build something good—something great, even. They are none of them perfect, but even though it’s a cliché, they’re sort of perfect together.
But if you look at them and think that, don’t say it. You don’t need to. They already know.