#starkspangledwinterhawk

Except everything about the summoning circle is perfect--every rune in its place and every sigil tight like a steel trap. Bucky is immediately pissed off but also intrigued by the skill that was necessary to complete the summoning circle like this. He looks around, frowning. It looks like a regular apartment, perhaps a bit on the shabbier side, but clean. Bucky turns his attention on the two humans instead, both of them looking at him, stunned. He examines them quickly, humming thoughtfully as he takes them in. They’ve both got a darkness clinging to them, though the blond’s has definitely faded. The brunet’s has faded, too, but not as much.

“What do you want?” Bucky asks when it’s clear they aren’t going to say anything. The circle’s clad tight enough that he can’t leave until he’s heard them out, and it’s quite possible he might even have to make a deal with them to leave--he’s not quite sure yet, some of the sigils he needs to examine a little more.

The blond jumps, and then he straightens his shoulders and asks, “Can you heal people?”

Bucky sneers at him, offended. “I can do anything. The question is will I? To be clear, the answer is no.”

The blond looks dismayed, but the brunet straightens his shoulders and scowls at him. “Everyone has a price. You’ll do it if we offer you what you want.”

“And what do you think I want, precious?” Bucky asks, amused in spite of himself. Humans were so adorably stupid these days.

The brunet opens his mouth, then closes it again, frowning unhappily with the knowledge that he has no idea what Bucky would want. The blond frowns. “What do you want, then?”

“Nothing,” Bucky answers immediately, because it’s true. As bored as he is, he’s also pretty content. He can easily find whatever he wants on his own. He looks the two humans up and down slowly. Perhaps later he’ll find someone to sleep with. Hell, maybe he’ll change form and seduce one of them.

“There’s got to be something,” the blond insists helplessly. “After all he’s done for us, we should be able to help him too. I can’t let him die like this. I’ve only just gotten him...”

Bucky watches as the brunet turns to look at the blond, trying to be reassuring even though he also looks a little heartbroken. Oh. How interesting. It’s so obvious the brunet is in love with the other human, is perhaps also in love with other person they’re speaking of, as the darkness clinging to him intensifies just a little.

Love me, his aura begs so softly, so pleadingly. I’m here. Love me too. Please, I’m here, please love me back. It’s sad, for all that it’s delicious, and Bucky licks his lips at the agony that the blond can’t see.

The brunet notices, eyes sharp and calculating. “What about me?” he asks, and starts to reach into the circle.

Bucky raises his eyebrows in surprise, but anything he’d say is covered up by the blond grabbing his hand before it can break through, angrily snapping, “He’s not going to take you, Tony.” The brunet, Tony, looks hurt by the words. The blond immediately backtracks, changing his grip on Tony’s hand to something gentler. “Tony, you agreed to stop putting yourself in destructive situations. Come on. Look at him, obviously he’d take you, but you can’t just--we’ve been working on this, Tony...”

Bucky watches, enthralled, as the darkness clinging to Tony grows inkier with shame and jealousy. From what he’d seen, humans had melted down or harmed themselves with less darkness, and here this man stood, not crying or moving, just drowning in his shame and anger. Bucky wonders how he tastes, wants to put his mouth on him and sate himself with it.

“Clint,” a voice croaks out from behind a closed door, and Bucky stares at it, because that’s the croak of a dying man. Whoever is behind the door has weeks at most, a day or two at the least. No wonder they’d called on him for help.

The blond, Clint, gives Tony a long look. “Don’t do--anything you would do if you were alone,” he says, before disappearing behind the door as well.

Tony watches him go, and the darkness clinging to him deepens with longing.

“I could give you that,” Bucky purrs, and watches the human jump. “I could love you like you want to be loved.”

Tony brightens a little, then frowns. “No. You’re not capable of love.”

“I am,” Bucky says gently, letting his gaze soften. “I can love. I can love you, Tony. Don’t you want to be loved like Clint is?” Tony bites his bottom lip, and Bucky moves closer, pressing his hands to the edge of the circle. “Don’t you want to have your feelings returned, Tony? I can love you so deeply, sweetheart. I can give you what you want.”

Tony squirms, looking at the door before turning back at Bucky. “Demons--they’re not capable of love,” he tries to insist, but his voice shakes.

“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Bucky coos, honey dripping from his voice. “That’s the problem. We’re too capable of love. We love so deeply, over centuries. I could love you, dear, if you’d just let me. I could help you forget all the times you’ve been looked over, ignored, forgotten. I can give you all the things you’ve ever desired--love, affection, kindness. Everything that the world has cruelly withheld from you, Tony, I can give you that.”

“...I can’t have your word on that,” Tony whispers.

Bucky leans as close as he can, cooing, “Oh, honey, you can. I’ll promise you anything you want. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll cut out my heart and put it in your hands, if that’s what you want. Just please treat it tenderly. It’s more sensitive without the protection of my chest.”

Tony looks back at the door again, but his body has turned away from it unconsciously. He looks back at Bucky and is obviously trying not to sound as hopeful as he feels. “Would you promise to heal Steve? To make sure that he and Clint have long, happy lives together?”

“Of course,” Bucky answers.

“Would you promise that I’d be the only one?” he asks. “That you wouldn’t take more humans? So I wouldn’t have to share you?”

“I wouldn’t want to share you either,” Bucky agrees. “Of course.”

“Would you promise not to hit me? Would you promise that you’d never hurt me?” Tony whispers, trembling--with fear, with excitement, with desire and desperation.

“Do love-bites count as hurting, dear? Couldn’t I leave the occasional nip to show everyone that you belong to me?” Bucky coos. “So that no one could take you from me? So that you’d be mine, and mine alone?”

That seems to strike a chord in the human, eyes wide and aching, as he reaches out toward him again, fingers skimming the edge of the circle.

“TONY,” a voice bellows, and the door bursts open, and a man, small and skinny and sickly stands there, looking furious.

Bucky shrinks back, hisses angrily when Tony’s hand jerks away from the circle.

“Steve,” Tony whispers, voice shaking with fright.

“Are you stupid,” Steve snarls, and Tony flinches, takes a step backward, away from Steve and toward the circle.

Bucky looks down at the human’s feet, then looks back up, hissing at the blond threateningly, because he’s always been skilled at the fiddle. “He’s not stupid. He’s so clever. Look how well he did the circle. Only a clever human could do this.”

“Only an idiot would summon a demon!” Steve insists angrily, and Tony takes another step backward, shaking.

“Don’t say that, Stevie,” Bucky simpers, pressing to the edge of the circle again. “Every summoning I’ve answered has always had a desperate human on the other side of it. Foolish? Perhaps, but always without anywhere else to turn. Where would you have them go, when everything else has forsaken them?”

“They’re not. Forsaken. Tony, come here,” Steve orders.

Tony hesitates, hugging himself.

“Why do that, Tony?” Bucky whispers so only he can hear it. “What do they have to offer you? He’s only out here because he’s angry. I’d take care of you, sweetheart. I’d love you. Don’t you want to be loved?”

“Tony,” Clint says, voice trembling. “Please come away from the circle. We’ll talk about this. Come back.”

Tony’s silent for a moment before his shoulders slump.

Bucky nearly pounds on the circle in rage, bearing his teeth. No. No. He was so close. Tony was almost his. He glares at Clint over Steve’s shoulder, then smirks, smug. “Back to what? A dying man? Stevie has days at most.”

Clint looks crushed, and Tony makes a tiny, pained gasping sound. Steve lets out a roar that’s all inhuman anger and righteousness, darting toward them on legs that shouldn’t have the strength to even be able to stumble to their knees, and Tony lets out a terrified yelp as he steps backward.

His heel breaks the circle, and Bucky grabs him, snarling victoriously and dragging him back further into the circle. His delighted cackling covers Tony’s scream of terror as he drags him back through the portal with him.

.-.-.-.

They hadn’t made a deal. But Bucky’s powers can’t touch an angel unless they allow it, so he wouldn’t have been able to heal Steve anyway.

“Steve was an angel?” Tony whispers into Bucky’s chest, tears still clinging to his lashes.

“Looked like a guardian angel,” Bucky confirms.

“Oh,” Tony says sadly. “He must have been Clint’s.”

Bucky doesn’t tell him that Steve was probably his guardian angel, too. Steve was run ragged, so much that he couldn’t take time to rest and heal, and it’s clear from the pale spots still dotting the darkness over Tony that he’d spent a lot of time and effort on him alone. There’s darker spots, too, true despair that should have killed him but he’d been dragged back out of. Steve looked like that because of Tony, not because of Clint.

“I loved them,” Tony whispers, like it’s a shameful secret, like Bucky didn’t know that just by looking at him. “And no matter what I did, they’d look at me like I made them tired, or sad. I couldn’t make them happy no matter how hard I tried. I was always their disaster friend that they had to take time out of their days taking care of.”

“I’m sure you weren’t that much of a disaster,” Bucky offers.

“No, I was,” Tony says miserably. “Maybe this really is better for everyone. At least when you get tired of me, you can eat me or something.”

Bucky nearly chokes. “I don’t eat people!”

“You can find someone to eat me, then,” Tony suggests. “Then I won’t make anyone tired or annoyed ever again.”

The darkness that covers Tony starts to taste sour, but Bucky doesn’t tell him that.

Tony expects torture, expects to be hurt, especially since Bucky didn’t actually make any promises, only said that he would. “I’m a hedonist, doll, not a monster,” Bucky explains patiently. “Most demons my age don’t care for eating humans. Just the really old ones that you can outrun and the really young ones that you can basically kick off of you when you feel them gnawing.” Tony giggles wetly, reluctantly amused, and wipes his eyes.

“Of course, if you want me to hurt you, I can be persuaded,” Bucky adds with a lecherous smile, and the human laughs again. It’s a good look on him.

Bucky shows him how to kick the younger demons to get them to leave him alone and it’s only then that Bucky really considers that Tony’s humanity might be a problem--he doesn’t kick hard enough.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” Tony says sadly.

“Tony, most of them are going to be eaten before they hit puberty,” Bucky tries to explain.

Tony looks up at him with wide, watery eyes. “But they’re so little and cute, like a lizard and a chicken had a baby.”

One of the little demons squawks, offended.

“Clearly you have never met a chicken,” Tony tells it imperiously.

“I think it’s upset you called it small,” Bucky offers.

Tony squats down to pat the ugly little thing on the head. “You’re really ugly,” he tells the demon. “But it’s kind of cute.”

The little demon puffs its chest out. Bucky thinks it’s gearing up for a really angry shriek (those take effort in the younger demons), but all it does is strut around proudly. He can’t tell if the thing is smug because it was called ugly or cute and he honestly doesn’t want to know.

“Come on,” Bucky says gruffly, because seeing Tony be kind and gentle with the younger demons is doing weird things to his feelings.

Tony never gets the hang of kicking them, but that’s okay, because most of them like him somehow. And hell, the ones that didn’t were always ganged up on by the ones that did.

Bucky figures he’ll just keep Tony close so that he can protect him because his heart’s softer than a beanbag.

.-.-.-.

Tony is a dream, so hot and slick and tight. He whines just right, whimpers in a way that makes Bucky want to surround him, keep him safe from everything. So many of the other demons are jealous, and Bucky thrives on it, whispers endearments and affection into Tony’s ear until he revels in being wanted, feeling powerful and desirable. He clings to Bucky’s horns, the bases of his wings, leaves long scratches down his back and bloody bite marks on Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky loves it.

Bucky loves him.

So when he’s forcibly dragged back to the human plane by two familiar faces, he’s livid.

“You had your chance!” he thunders. “He’s mine now! Mine! You can’t have him! He’s mine!”

Steve, big and broad and buff now, snarls and leaps for the summoning circle in a flash of shiny feathers. Bucky surges to meet him. There’s a dazzling flash as he’s thrown backward with great force, slamming into the opposite wall. Bucky would laugh except he’d ricocheted around the summoning circle like a goddamn pinball.

“Tony!” Clint exclaims, running for the circle and reaching out for him, but Steve lunges to yank him back with a hiss. “Steve!” he snaps, struggling in his grip.

“DO NOT. Go into the circle,” Steve hisses, then looks back at it, gently saying, “Tony, honey, come here. Come out of the circle.”

Tony peeks out from behind Bucky, frowning. “But…”

“Come out of the circle,” Steve repeats softly. “Come on, Tony. You don’t have to stay with him anymore. We can help you.”

“You can’t help him, you never could,” Bucky snarls, wings swinging out to hide the human from view. “He’s mine now. I’ve had him every which way you can have a human. It’s not my fault you’re poor losers.”

Clint looks stricken. “Tony.”

“He didn’t force me,” Tony explains helplessly. “I wanted--I just wanted--”

Bucky curls his tail around Tony and tugs him close, smug. “He wanted to be wanted, and I gave that to him. You didn’t and now you’re jealous.”

“Tony, come on,” Clint says, smiling shakily. “You don’t really want to be with him, do you? Let’s talk about this, okay? I’ll make those pancakes you like so much.”

Tony looks torn, huddling up against Bucky’s side as he whispers, “But he loves me.”

“Demons are not capable of love!” Steve snarls immediately.

“I’m more capable than you!” Bucky snarls back.

Tony at least has the sense to duck this time when they both leap at each other and collide with the edge of the summoning circle.

“CUT IT OUT,” Clint bellows, and Steve mulishly doesn’t leap at the circle again. Bucky hisses and bares his teeth before curling around Tony again. “...Let’s talk this out like rational adults,” Clint says after a deep breath breath. “We can figure this out. Okay?”

Steve makes an incredibly horrifying hissing sound at Bucky before curling his wings around Clint protectively. “Okay,” he answers begrudgingly.

“No,” Bucky answers loudly, angry. “I was just about to eat and I’m hungry.”

“What do you eat?” Clint asks, sighing.

“Tony’s ass, usually,” Bucky says, and it’s worth Tony screeching at him to see Clint and Steve flush.

.-.-.-.

Clint cries when he finds out that Tony was in love with him. The ugly kind, with heaving sobs and splotchy cheeks and snot everywhere. Tony looks miserable and tugs at Bucky’s arm and asks to leave.

“We can’t, sweetheart,” Bucky informs him gently. “I have to make a deal or hear them out.”

“But I didn’t tell Clint on purpose,” Tony sniffs. “He was so happy with Steve. If I’d said anything I would have just ruined it, and then they both would have hated me.”

“Tony,” Steve chokes out, dismayed, and Bucky actually feels a little bad for how distraught the angel looks. He’d clearly poured so much time and energy and power into Tony in an attempt to heal him, to the point where he nearly drove himself out of existence, and it hadn’t worked.

He’s still pretty smug, though, that he’s clearly done more for Tony than the angel had.

Steve must see it too, because his jaw clenches and the look he gives Bucky is of pure hatred. Bucky preens a little.

“But I love you too,” Clint sobs, and Tony goes still at the demon’s side. “Why do you think we tried so hard to help you, Tony? I wanted you to stay close, even if it was just as a friend. Every time you went back to the bottle or drugs to try and make yourself numb and we pulled you back out wasn’t because we felt sorry for you. It was because I loved you.”

This… this might be a problem, Bucky thinks after a moment.

.-.-.-.

Clint tries to make a deal but every time he opens his mouth to make one, Steve makes an inhuman sound to cover his words so that even Bucky can’t hear it, like glass breaking and nails on a chalkboard and every animal roar all rolled into one.

“Give him back,” Steve snarls when Clint falls silent. “You stole him. Give him back.”

“First of all, he came into the circle, I didn’t step out, so you can’t say I stole him if he stepped in. I took an offering. Also! Tony’s a person who can make his own choices,” Bucky says imperiously, even though he’s taking the world’s biggest gamble, because he’s giving Tony a choice now and it’s possible that Tony won’t choose him. “That’s what free will was all about, right?”

Steve makes a frustrated sound and glares at him but grinds out, “Yes, it was.”

Tony gives Clint a look, longing and mournful and disappointed, but he also feels more content now than he’s ever felt in his life (except maybe that one time, when Clint had crawled into a hospital bed with him, and promised to be there for him when he needed, when the wounds on Tony’s arms were still raw and tender, and Clint’s promise had felt a lot like love he’d never gotten before). Bucky lets him do whatever he wants back in Hell, even if it’s cooing over the baby demons, and patiently listens when Tony babbles on and on, trying to understand but mostly failing but not caring that he feels stupid at all.

“Are you happy, Tony?” Clint asks, elbowing Steve when he tries to squawk a negative in outrage. “Does he make you happy?”

Tony, looking down at his feet under the angel’s incredulous gaze, whispers, “Yes.”

Clint reaches out, and Tony shyly extends his hand over the edge of the circle, letting him hold it without stepping inside himself. “You look happier,” Clint admits softly. “And if you’re happy, I’m happy for you. But I don’t want to never see you again. Can’t I see you again?”

Tony looks up at Bucky pleadingly, all big, wet eyes and trembling lip because even with how short their time together has been, the demon is a sucker for him.

Bucky sighs, gritting his teeth as he glares at Steve, before finally saying, “I’m… sure that something could be arranged.” The way Tony perks up at the admission is worth it, even if the angel opposite him looks incredibly smug about it.

It feels a lot like a custody arrangement, but Tony and Clint are happy with it, so Bucky and Steve keep their mouths shut.

.-.-.-.

If Tony had thrived under Bucky’s attention, he absolutely blooms under Clint’s additional care. He smiles more, is more animated even when he and Bucky are alone, smiling and happy. Steve says nothing, but he relaxes the more they all hang out together, and Bucky gets the feeling that Clint might be smiling for Steve more, too.

Still, neither Bucky nor Steve are prepared to see Clint turn from chopping some carrots to cup Tony’s cheeks and draw him into a kiss. Tony makes a startled little keening noise before leaning into the kiss, tipping his head accommodatingly, until they’re both panting and moaning quietly into each other’s mouths.

They only break apart at the sound of shattering glass, startled, and Tony shrinks when he sees the glass shards sunk into Steve’s palm, looking guiltily between him and Bucky.

“Look what you did,” Bucky hisses at Steve angrily, and he’d be lying if he said it was entirely because of how sad Tony looked.

“Hng,” Steve replies dumbly.

Tony and Clint eye Steve for a moment, nervous and contemplative in turn, before Clint carefully curls his hands over Tony’s hips and leans in to press a few nibbling kisses to his throat that make Tony whimper and press back against him.

“Steve!” Tony cries, distraught, as the angel collapses. “I’m sorry!”

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Bucky says, leaning over him and seriously considering just destroying him while he’s down, then has to do a double take. “Hell’s bells,” he says gleefully. “He came so hard he passed out.”

Bucky tries to convince Tony and Clint to keep going, but Tony is a fretter, and Clint is a follower, so he sighs and helps get Steve laid out on the couch. He does have to admit that it’s pretty adorable when Tony insists on putting a cool cloth over Steve’s forehead, and Clint gamely wets one for him.

Steve comes to a few minutes later with a breathless ‘oh lord I came so hard I went blind.’

This is the best day of his life, Bucky decides gleefully, and informs Steve that he has a washcloth over his eyes.

Steve gets his revenge when they come back from buying cake to find Clint bouncing on Tony’s cock and Bucky trips over nothing and lands face-first into the cake he was holding with a splat.

“My cake!” Tony whines.

Clint draws his attention back to him with a kiss and murmurs, “Guess you’ll just hafta lick it off of him. What a shame.” Tony seems very on-board with this and lets himself be drawn into the kiss.

Steve wonders if he could get away with smearing Clint’s cake all over himself, too, but Bucky looks incredibly uncomfortable with how sticky he is, and honestly, getting the frosting out of his feathers is probably a chore anyway. Steve can just feed Clint his cake with a fork. He likes doing that anyway.

.-.-.-.

Steve and Bucky never really “get along,” but they manage to tolerate each other for their humans’ sakes. It helps that they’re rewarded with kisses and… other favors.

“Still, you guys could at least show off for us once in a while,” Clint mutters petulantly.

Tony lifts his head and makes an interested noise.

“Ugh,” Bucky begins, but cuts himself off with a keening noise when Steve buries his hands in his black feathers and tugs just the right way that Bucky drops to his knees and whines helplessly, at his mercy.

“Wings can be a huge erogenous zone if you know where and how to touch,” Steve explains when he notices Clint and Tony gaping at him.

Bucky gets his revenge by making Steve hump against his thigh uselessly as he fondles his wings in return.

And, well, Steve’s not so bad. Rigid, maybe, because of his beliefs, but open to discussion if you approach him the right way. It helps that Steve admits he was jealous in the beginning, still is a little, because he’d spent so much time and effort and energy and even himself on Tony, and Bucky had so easily and quickly helped Tony when Steve had nearly died trying to do the same thing. Bucky supposes he can respect that. Even now, sometimes Tony’s mood just drops, and Bucky can’t do anything about it. He can’t imagine the struggle of having to choose between charges and then watching as your powers do little to nothing to improve the one you chose.

He doesn’t tell Steve that he just lets Tony be sad, and angry, and despairing, until Tony decides he’s tired of being depressed and shoves the feelings down again. It is, unfortunately, an angel’s nature to try and fix things. Bucky decides to give him just a little more leeway, because he can’t imagine how it feels to fail someone like Steve failed Tony.

It sure is something to be protected by Steve when hunters come after him, though.

“You make Tony happy, is all, and if Tony’s happy, then Clint’s happy,” Steve mutters, blushing a little when Bucky gapes up at him. “They’d be sad if you were destroyed, so I had to protect you. That’s all. Don’t put so much stock in this.”

“I’m telling Tony and Clint you like me,” Bucky answers immediately, and dodges Steve’s outraged swipe gleefully. “I’m telling them. You like me! Just for this, I’ll let you watch me fuck Tony with my tail. One time he rode me so hard I was chafed for days, the greedy little thing.”

Steve mutters to himself petulantly, but, well. He’s noticed Bucky’s tail, too. Maybe he does want to see it in action.