Steve | Tony | Bucky Bingo

He rolls his eyes again, and Sam finally flicks the paper football across the table, dead center through Bucky's finger goalposts. His celebration is over the top, almost tripping over his own feet as he pushes back from the counter, and he takes off on a lap between the tables like he’s scored a real touchdown in an actual game.

“Sore winners are just as bad as sore losers, you know,” Bucky calls out, and Sam pretends not to hear him.

It’s karma, Bucky thinks, for when he nearly slams straight into Natasha on his way back. She raises a single eyebrow at him, and Bucky has to stifle a laugh behind his hand so she doesn’t turn it on him next.

“Working hard, I see,” she says, and Sam gives her an easy grin.

“Aren’t we always?”

The corner of her mouth turns up into a barely discernible smile, and she shakes her head as she holds up an order slip. “Delivery just got called in. One large pepperoni and mushroom to –”

Bucky pops up to snatch the slip from her hand before she can even finish the sentence. He skims the address, just to make sure, and he looks up to find twin smirks directed his way.

His cheeks heat, but he tries to sound casual as he says, “I’ve, um, I can take this one. Nat delivered the last one, and Sam, you’ve been here longer today than both of us. I’m sure you could use a break.”

“I’m good, actually,” Sam says, reaching out for the slip, and Bucky steps back while protectively cradling it to his chest.

“You know, technically, it's my turn on this one,” Natasha says. “Rotate on the regular big tippers. That's what we all agreed on.”

“What? No, I mean, he’s not that big of a tipper. It’s fifty percent, sure, but it’s only on one pizza. I’m not all that sure he really even counts for the agreement.”

Sam ignores him once again. “And even if Nat skips her turn, I’m pretty sure it falls to me next. You took that big order on Saturday, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, he raked in pretty good that day on that bachelorette party. Came back with that suspiciously large stack of singles.”

“It was what they had on them,” Bucky defends, just like he did two days ago. “And Sam got that twenty dollar tip like an hour after that. Mine was twenty three. That’s basically the same thing.”

Natasha laughs and touches his shoulder placatingly, “Alright, relax. No one’s stealing your delivery. We all know Tony’s yours.”

Bucky’s face turns even redder. “He’s not, like, mine mine. He’s just – he’s nice, and he’s funny sometimes.”

“And sometimes he answers the door without a shirt on.”

“That was just one time,” Bucky blurts, and now Sam is laughing at him, too.

“You’re kind of pathetic, man. You know that, right?”

Bucky sighs, “Yeah, it’s well-established.”

Natasha’s smile softens, and the hand on his shoulder lightly squeezes once before dropping back to her side. “Scott’s already got the order in the oven. Should be ready in a few minutes for you.”

Bucky nods as she disappears back into the kitchen, and he leans back against the counter to wait. Anticipation builds in his chest, and he doesn’t even care about Sam’s continual lighthearted teasing as he watches the seconds ticking away on the clock.

It’s always a good night if he gets to see Tony, even if the moments never last more than a minute or two at a time. Tony always answers the door with a smile already on his face. It’s sleepy, sometimes, and accompanied by too long flannel pajama pants hanging over Tony’s feet and the smell of brewing coffee. Other times it’s brighter and more energetic, and he talks in tangents and run-on sentences that never seem to reach an end as much as they drift away. His hair is consistently messy on every occurrence, and Bucky never stood much of a chance against those golden brown eyes from the very first time he saw them.

He’s still thinking about them the entire drive to Tony’s apartment building, with a pizza balanced carefully in his passenger seat and the radio playing low.

It’s three flights up the stairs when he gets there, then four doors down the hall on the left – a path he knows well after so many weeks. He knocks twice on the dark wood, and his heart climbs up into his throat during the few seconds it takes for the door to swing open.

Tony’s smile is somewhere in between tonight, soft around the edges and leaving Bucky feeling a little breathless like always. The logo on his t-shirt is faded, and he’s barefoot beneath a pair of well worn jeans.

“I was hoping it’d be you,” he says with that teasing, almost flirty touch that’s practically his signature. He doesn’t mean anything by it, Bucky knows, but it still makes him smile.

“Nothing else I’d rather be doing on a Monday night,” Bucky replies, disguising the honesty with a wry tone. He passes over the pizza, and Tony takes it in one hand to reach for his wallet with the other. He pats down his front and back pockets, then cycles through them both twice more with nothing to show for it.

His grin when he looks back up is perfectly devilish.

“You wouldn’t happen to accept alternative forms of payment would you?”

Bucky's brain short circuits. “Uh, what?”

Tony laughs, head falling back with it, and Bucky’s eyes automatically follow the long line of his throat. “I'm joking, don't worry. Just hang on a second while I find my wallet. It's probably in yesterday’s pants or something.”

He leaves Bucky in the doorway, setting the pizza down on the edge of the kitchen counter, and over his shoulder he calls out, “You can come in, if you want. Take a seat, steal a slice, anything but change the channel. I’m way too deep into this Lifetime movie now to miss the ending. I’m, like, ninety five percent positive the principal’s the killer.”

Tony disappears through a door on the far side of the room, and Bucky wanders a little further in.

His small apartment is sparsely decorated, yet cluttered at the same time. Bare walls are made up for by overflowing shelves and stacks of books on the floor. A spool of wire sits on his coffee table, next to a neatly organized tool set and trays of hardware.

“Thesis isn’t going well, is it?” Bucky asks when Tony comes back, gesturing to the creation on the table. He can’t tell what it is beyond a jumble of metal and wire, but he knows what it means when Tony absentmindedly tinkers and watches bad TV movies.

Tony smiles, “Not at all. Complete disaster verging on a total meltdown, actually.”

He holds out his hand, a few bills folded into his palm, and Bucky has to force himself not to linger as he takes them to slip into his back pocket.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon. You always do.”

Tony bites his lip, and he ducks his head so Bucky can’t see the look on his face. “Well, maybe when you’re here again next week I’ll have something new to show you.”

“Can’t wait,” Bucky grins.

Tony moves back towards the kitchen, and Bucky knows that it’s time for him to go, even if he wishes he could draw it out somehow. He’s halfway to the front door when Tony laughs and says, “Really? You know, most people would just ask me out directly, but I guess if it works, it works.”

Bucky turns back around in confusion that only grows when Tony flips the pizza box so he can see it. His number is written on the inside, across the top in bold, black letters, and it takes him a moment to recognize Nat’s handwriting in the letters of his name below it.

It takes less time for him to start to panic.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t – that’s not really from me.”

Tony’s eyebrows knit together. “It’s not?”

“No, um, my friend must have done that. I’m sorry, you can just ignore it.”

“Right,” Tony says, voice quiet. He looks at the number again, then back at Bucky with a tight smile. “Right, yeah, that – that makes sense, I guess. Weird prank or something, right?”

Bucky forces a laugh, “Suppose so, yeah. Probably put my number on every order today just to see what would happen.”

“A lot of interesting texts, I’d bet.”

The silence that settles between them is so awkward that Bucky thinks he could die on the spot from it. At least he saved it before the rejection could come to worsen it. It’s the only saving grace he has.

He backs up another step, swallowing hard, and he knows Tony is avoiding gaze even while he’s avoiding Tony’s.

“So, uh, have a good night,” he says, and then he all but bolts for the door without waiting for a response. It couldn’t have possibly made things better.

He goes for the elevator this time, pressing the button four times in rapid succession as the moment keeps replaying in his head.

It’s Tony’s smile he gets stuck on, as he so often does. He rewinds to the glimpse he caught of it just before the panic set in, compares it to the one after, and tries to add it together. When he combines it with the words, it's even more muddled, until suddenly it's not.

He runs back down the hall and knocks harder than before, not hesitating even a fraction of a second after Tony opens the door to say, “If it works, it works.”

Tony frowns, “What?”

“That’s what you said. If it works, it works. And you laughed. You laughed when you saw it, and it would have worked if I hadn’t ruined it, right? If you’d seen it after I’d left, you would have texted or called, and I’d probably still tell you that it wasn't me, but this time I could’ve also told you that Nat only did it because she knows I like you. Everyone there does. That’s why it’s me that comes here every time. But I would’ve waited until the end of our first date to tell you that, or maybe even all the way to the second, because we would’ve gotten that far. I would’ve been smooth. So much smoother than this, and I –”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence, but he doesn’t mind at all. Not with Tony’s lips crashing into his.

The kiss is soft despite the collision of a start. Tony’s hands come up to touch his face, delicate but unhesitant, and Bucky circles an arm around his waist to pull him in closer. Every thought leaves his mind, taking any lingering worry or fear with them.

It breaks with a content sigh, and Bucky couldn’t even say which of them it came from. Tony’s eyes are bright as he looks up through his lashes, and his smile is crooked.