#troll steve

“Your secret admirer strike again?”

Bucky glances up at Steve, biting his bottom lip in an attempt to keep the sappy smile off his face. He’s not very successful, though, going by Steve’s fondly annoyed eye-roll.

Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Steve asks, “You figure out who it is, yet?”

“Nah,” Bucky sighs, looking back down at the the small box sitting in front of him on the breakfast bar, and the roll of expensive medical tape in it. Which might seem like an odd gift at first glance, but is actually incredibly thoughtful; Bucky needs to tape the fingers of his new prosthetic arm—designed and built by T’Challa, Scott, Hope van Dyne, and Tony—during workouts, otherwise the uneven plates of his hand tend to rip the material of the punching bag, which, in turn, then gets stuck in the ridges of Bucky’s hand. But the tape they have in the gym always starts sliding off after a couple of minutes, and the only thing that works is this very expensive alternative that’s only available in Japan. “No idea,” he huffs, frustrated.

It’s been almost three months now, and Bucky still isn’t any closer to figuring it out, is still pretty clueless. He’d suspect Steve or Natasha, the two of them being the people who know him best, and definitely know most of the little things the mystery gifter needs to know about Bucky in order to pick such accurate gifts. But they’d just come out, and give him the whatever it is they want him to have, not leave the stuff lying around for Bucky to find. Not that Bucky doesn’t appreciate the gifts—he absolutely loves them, and the attention—but he can’t help but want to know who the guy—because it has to be a guy, everyone knows Bucky likes men, for one, and there aren’t very many single women living in the Avengers compound besides—is. To thank him in person. Maybe take him out on a date.

Damn it, Bucky’s coming off a seven decade dry spell, he can’t be blamed for getting impatient!

Footsteps draw Bucky’s gaze over to the door, but he quickly lowers his eyes again when he spots Tony shuffling into the kitchen, clearly only just finishing up a night of work. Bucky can feel his cheeks heat up, thankful that an overtired Tony is usually not a very perceptive Tony. Because yes, there might be a reason why Bucky hasn’t spent too much time working out who his secret admirer is, despite his curiosity, and that reason is the massive crush he has on the engineer currently staring at the coffee pot as if coffee is going to magically transfer from it into his empty cup if he keeps that up long enough.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve suddenly pipes up, and Bucky turns to raise his eyebrows at him, because Bucky knows Steve, and that tone of voice promises trouble. “Bucky really likes the tape. Don’t you, Buck?”

“What the fu—” Bucky starts, but is cut off by Tony’s sleepily murmured, “Cool. I can order more whenever.”

For a moment, everyone’s completely silent, Bucky too stunned to do more than uselessly open and close his mouth, and Tony presumably not entirely aware of what he’s just revealed. When he realises what he’s said, though, Tony whirls around, fully awake now, and staring at Bucky in absolute horror. “I—I don’t—I’m not—” he stutters helplessly, then drops his face into his hands with a long, embarrassed groan. “I’m so sorry. I swear I wasn’t trying to be creepy, I just notice things. Well, when I’m not running on very little sleep, and whatever it is that Dummy mixes into those smoothies of his. So, yeah. I noticed things. Little things, about you. And I thought, hey, why not give them to you? I can afford it, it’s no big deal. And—”

“Wait, wait,” Bucky says, holding up both hands, making Tony’s mouth snap shut with an audible plop. “So, wait. It was you?”

Tony ducks his head, shoulders hunching, but manages a quiet, shy, “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you just say something?”

“I shot off your arm,” Tony says, wincing, and awkwardly shrugging one shoulder. “Not that I didn’t have the right to be pissed, back then, but a thing like that isn’t what I’d call a good start to a friendship, never mind something more, so—wait, no. Forget I said that last part, oh my God, please don’t—mmpf!”

Tony’s eyes go wide when Bucky brings their mouths together, before fluttering shut with a contented little sigh. Bucky keeps the kiss chaste, a simple press of lips, only drawing back to glower at Steve when Steve starts cheering, and whistling.