#catzy

And then they watched Wall-E. Clint joked that he had wooed Natasha much the way Wall-E had wooed EVE. Natasha rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything to contradict him. So, of course, Tony had to make a Wall-E bot and an EVE bot, which he gave to Clint and Natasha respectively.

Clint about crushed Tony to death while he squealed in happiness about the dinky little bot trundling around them in circles. Natasha watched EVE fly about with an undecipherable expression. When she closed in on Tony, he froze in fear, but then she gave him a chaste peck on the cheek and he blushed bright red. Steve made cracks about the great Tony Stark blushing while Tony cursed at him. Steve’s bot tried making friends with the two new ones.

Tony couldn’t help but smile at his new family loving the bots he made as much as he did.

Of course, Tony couldn’t forget about his Science Bro TM. They marathoned Doctor Who together, so naturally, Tony just had to make Brucie his very own K9. Bruce was shocked by the gift, which made Tony’s heart break, but then he gave Tony a shy little smile of pleasure, and Tony about melted.

Thor didn’t spend a lot of time with the rest of the team. He was either performing princely duties up in Asgard or hanging with his astrophysicist girlfriend out in the middle of nowhere. But when he was staying at Avengers Tower, he enjoyed the team movie night with even more enthusiasm than all the rest of them put together.

Not wanting Thor to feel left out, Tony made him a toaster with an AI named Toasty (okay, so Tony wasn’t the best with naming things) so that he could toast his pop tarts wherever he went. Thor almost broke Tony’s ribs with a giant bear hug. He actually even composed an epic poem about his new toaster companion.

That video got even more likes on YouTube. And this time Tony was the one who got to post it. Ha, take that, Barton.

When Steve brought his new bird friend around the Tower after the whole SHIELD/Hydra debacle, Tony tore Steve a new one for not asking for his help. Oh no, let’s not ask the guy who designed the Tricarriers for help in taking them down. And let’s just ignore the computer genius a phone call away and just release all the SHIELD/Hydra files online willy-nilly. Steve took the tongue lashing, all shame-faced but with a stubborn little pout on his lips.

To mollify Tony, Steve offered up information about the Winter Soldier, who apparently was actually Steve’s BFF from the dark ages, and asked Tony to help find him. Well mollified, Tony politely greeted the rather shell-shocked Sam and then went down to his workshop to start the search for the elusive Bucky Barnes.

In between running search algorithms and sending Sam and Steve out to likely locations, Tony found the time for some hobbyist tinkering. The next time Sam stopped by the Tower, Tony presented him with a BB8 bot.

Sam looked puzzled as he watched the cute little bot roll around. “What’s this for?”

Tony said, “Well, I figure you’re pretty much part of the team at this point and everyone else has got one.”

Sam smiled up at Tony from where he was crouched on the ground petting BB8. “Oh, well then, thank you very much for the gift. But I gotta ask, why BB8 specifically?”

“You’re basically like Cap 2.0, and everyone knows BB8 is like R2D2 2.0.”

Sam laughed. “Thanks, man. No, really, you’re the best.”

“Um, you’re welcome,” Tony awkwardly accepted the praise. He quickly hurried back to his workshop.

When they finally found Bucky, Tony couldn’t help but think that the man was a mess. Bucky was going to need a lot of headshrinkers and a bunch of other help that Tony wasn’t sure how to provide except offering money to help pay for it all. Steve wouldn’t take his money and after much arguing back and forth, Tony had conceded the battle to the red, white, and blue Stubborn Pillar of Stubbornness.

Well. That just meant Tony had to figure out another way to help. He was a helper. A fixer. He could totally do this.

He couldn’t do this. Or, at least he didn’t know how until the whole team (including Bucky) watched Big Hero 6 for one of their movie nights. Baymax was perfect. He could be a constant companion to Bucky without being as intrusive as another human being. He could hug Bucky. And wake him up from nightmares. And best of all, if Bucky went into one of his fugue states where he attacked everything in sight, Baymax could be easily fixed.

It took some doing to figure out how to make what basically amounted to a blowup snowman move. But of course Tony wasn’t a genius engineer for nothing. After a week of sleepless nights, he was finally done.

Tony went looking for Bucky on the floor he shared with Steve. When the elevator door opened, Steve was there to greet him. R2D2 beeped at him from nearby.

“Hey, Cap. Hello, R2.” Tony greeted absently while he looked for the guy he was actually here to visit.

Tony found Bucky lurking in the shadows of the living room doorway.“Ah-ha! Frosty, there you are!”

Bucky froze in alarm at the sight of Tony coming towards his carrying a small red case (it had been easy peasy to make Baymax’s case smaller than it had been in the movie; after all, he was the master of miniaturization, between his arc reactor and his suitcase suits).

Tony thrust the case out at him. “Here you go. Present for you.”

Bucky glanced helplessly at Steve before accepting the case. He asked, soft and bewildered. “What is this?”

Tony said, “Set it down on the ground, go on. You’ll have to plug it in later. The case is a charging station. It’s Baymax. Or well, my version. I figured you could use one. Here, you just press the button in the center and he pops out.”

Bucky looked overwhelmed. “Um, thanks.”

Tony shook his head. “No, no, you’re not supposed to say thanks until you’ve actually seen the gift. Come on, try it out.”

Bucky set the case down and pressed the large button in the center. The case started unfolding and the bot started inflating. Less than a minute later, Baymax stood round and tall in front of Bucky.

Baymax raised a hand for a wave. “Hello, my name is Baymax. I am a Healthcare Companion. Are you in distress? How may I help you?”

Bucky’s eyes looked wet as he stared at the bot. He coughed and said roughly, “Thanks, I’m fine. For now. Oh, um, my name’s Bucky.”

“Hello, Bucky, nice to meet you. You are crying. Would you like a hug?”

Bucky nodded mutely.

Baymax walked forward and wrapped Bucky up in a bear hug. Bucky let his arms encircle the bot and sank into the hug with a sigh. They stayed like that for a solid minute before Bucky pulled back and Baymax let go.

Bucky turned to Tony with red but dry eyes and a genuine smile. “Now can I say thank you?”

That smile about knocked Tony down. It was absolutely gorgeous. Thankfully, he had enough wits about him to reply, “Yeah. No problem.”

“Well, thanks. This is the best gift anyone has ever gotten me.”

Steve had the good grace to save Tony from his emotional constipation by saying teasingly, “What, Bucky, you’re telling me the plums I got you this morning wasn’t the best gift anyone’s ever gotten you?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Shaddup, punk, I’m having a moment here.”

“You’re having a moment alright.”

“Don’t make me come over there and kick your smart ass.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Tony chuckled to himself to see the two of them bicker at each other. “Well, I’ll just let myself out.”

As Tony sidled towards the elevator, Steve paused in his squabbling and turned to give Tony a smile even more brilliant than the one he gave Tony for giving him R2D2.

Tony clutched at his chest in the elevator. Ugh. Super soldier smiles were aggravating his heart condition.

It warmed Tony’s old, scarred heart to see Baymax being put to good use. Bucky used to spend most of his time holed up in his and Steve’s floor. Now, it was common to see his roaming around the Tower with Baymax at his heels.

Tony wanted badly to ask JARVIS to tell him if Bucky was sleeping better, but even he, as socially inept as he could sometimes be, knew that was kind of creepy. At least the shadows under Bucky’s eyes seemed fainter and he smiled more and actually talked to people other than Steve. Tony thought he might be able to just live off of coffee and Bucky’s smiles.

In fact, it wasn’t just Baymax and Bucky that Tony was happy to see. The other Avengers still seemed well pleased with their bots even long after the novelty had worn off. Clint had managed to talk Wall-E into rolling around the vents with him. Natasha and EVE bonded through target practice—EVE was programmed with a bunch of combat flying sequences and Natasha had a repurposed laser tag gun. Steve and Bruce both seemed less depressed with their bots around. BB8 was a big hit with Sam’s nieces. And Toasty had some managed to become temperamental and refused to toast anything except Thor’s pop tarts. Thor beamed proudly and called Toasty a most loyal friend.

Was it possible for a heart to grow ten times bigger and still fit in a man’s chest?

Tony really shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the common room. He’d known tonight wasn’t going to be a good night. He’d known nightmares were coming. He should have hidden in the privacy of his bedroom. But of course, for all that Tony was a genius, he could be really dumb sometimes.

And so, here he was, out where anyone could walk in and see him, shaking apart at the seams and trying to keep the screams behind his teeth. He loved his brain. But sometimes, sometimes he fucking hated it. You’d think one horror would wipe out another, but nope, his brain strung them all together like Christmas lights and played them back to him like the world’s shittiest highlight video. Afghanistan. New York. Malibu.

Tony let out a shriek of surprise when he felt himself being lifted into the air. He instinctively struggled but whoever he was struggling against was too soft to be human. The lights suddenly turned on and he blinked against the brightness to see that he was being cradled by Baymax.

“Tony, are you okay? Do you need a hug?”

“Now you ask?! After you scared the shit out of me swooping in out of nowhere?”

“I am sorry. Would you like me to put you down?”

Tony, feeling ridiculous, grumbled, “No. You’re fine. You can hug me. If you want.”

Baymax shifted Tony until he was vertical and therefore able to be hugged. For some reason, Tony’s feet were dangling in the air. Tony didn’t think Bucky ever had to deal with this. Bucky’s feet were always solidly planted on the ground whenever he was hugging Baymax.

“Baymax, what is—oh, Tony.” Speak of the devil.

Tony snuggled further into Baymax for show. “Sorry, Bucky, I’m Baymax’s new favorite. We’re running away together.”

Baymax’s head swiveled around. “You are both my favorites.”

Tony pretended exasperation. “You’re ruining the joke.”

Bucky walked further into the common room. He must have seen something in Tony’s face because he asked softly, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Tony grinned so widely he could feel it stretching the corners of his mouth. “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”

Bucky shook his head and said gently, “Knock that off. I know your smile doesn’t really look like that. Besides, Baymax responds to distress. He’s with you. Hence, you’re distressed.”

“Hence? Really?” Tony joked.

Bucky just looked calmly back, not taking the bait.

Tony sighed. “Okay, you got me. Hey, Baymax, can you put me down?”

Once Tony was set back down, he patted one inflated arm and said, “Thanks, buddy, I am satisfied with my care.”

Baymax backed off and stood unobtrusively to one side like a puffy friendly ghost.

Tony slumped down into the couch. Bucky came around to sit next to him. “You want to talk about it? Steve tells me it might help.”

“And does it? Talking?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sometimes.”

And so Tony told him everything. Starting with that fateful trip into the desert. Getting blown up by a bomb with his name painted on the side. Waking up with a hole in his chest. Yinsen. God, Yinsen. Coming back and having everyone think he was crazy. Obie’s betrayal. Just…everything.

It felt like a flood was coming now that he’d opened his mouth. It hurt, but it was good. To be able to let it flow. To have Bucky there to hear him. And during one of the hard parts—honestly, they were all hard, but sometimes certain things hit him harder than others—Bucky had held out his hand for Tony to take.

And through it all, Tony realized that his heart wouldn’t get too big for his chest because maybe he’d finally found someone to share it with.