Chapter Text
Sometime in the past
Peggy was aware that finding candidates for revenge demons was rare; people didn’t often have the right balance of malevolence and kindness, righteousness and forgiveness, empathy and cruelty rarely found a balance in the same person. Not for what she needed anyways. It was difficult to find someone who could be just as kind and caring as they could be heartless and cruel. Erskine had seen that in her, the ability to do what was needed, even if it was cruel, but also the ability to empathize, to guide people into making better decisions. She now saw that in Steve Rogers. Erskine was unsure of her judgement, rightfully so, but he was willing to make a chance on her opinion and talk to Steve himself.
“I see why you think he is a viable candidate,” Erskine says after coming back from their meeting, “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
She shrugs, “I understand why you did, people so rarely have the personality to do this job without becoming power hungry or cruel. Steve has that,” she says. She had met Steve the night his friend had been conscripted, leaving for war in the morning. He was a sickly little thing but he had a lot of fight in him, she could feel that, and despite being angry he didn’t act angry with her. Nor did he leer at her or talk down to her like the other patrons in the bar had, as if she was a piece of meat instead of a person. She loathed when people didn’t regard her as an equal because of her sex, it was offensive, particularly when she was considerably stronger than all of them. Not that she could show them that, not unless it was self-defence. There were rules. Regardless, she much preferred the more egalitarian cultures.
“Bring him here,” Erskine tells her, “I have tests to preform,” he says.
*
Steve passes Erskine’s tests, readily sacrificing himself for others, but unwilling to let needless cruelty continue. He was also smart, resourceful, and observant. He was the perfect candidate for the job and Erskine prided her on her ability to recognize that. It was a good thing too, because shortly after Erskine preformed the magic that made Steve transform from regular human to revenge demon he was killed, people didn’t often like being cursed. They were difficult to kill, but it wasn’t impossible, and when Erskine was killed his power went to her. As his heir she retained his spot as the Head of the particular part of Europe they were in and though that caused problems she had a relatively smooth transition. Steve had, to her surprise, treaded lightly to test his bounds with her rather than assume authority. It didn’t take long for the two to become close friends and lovers, at least until Bucky returned.
At first she underestimated the connection the two had, Bucky’s life was fleeting compared to Steve’s near immortality, she expected Steve and Bucky to recognize that. They did, but not the way she thought they would, she expected Steve to move on, for Bucky to go away or die. That was not what happened. Instead Bucky found himself granted with immortality as, of all things, a cupid. Cupids and revenge demons were notorious for their inability to get along with each other, cupids were sensitive, extremely empathetic, and they often saw what revenge demons did as cruel, needless. Revenge demons generally thought Cupids were soft, weak, and unable to see past their obsession with love. Neither group was right in her opinion but she had assumed, wrongly, that Steve and Bucky would fall into the norm, eventually hating each other for what they were.
She was wrong, of course, Bucky and Steve worked through their differences and both became rather successful at what they did. She was upset when Steve eventually broke it off with her for Bucky, not that he seemed to realize this, nor did Bucky, and life went on as normal and they remained close friends. There was no sudden relationship between Bucky and Steve, much to her surprise, though their lives revolved completely around each other. She waited for them to start a relationship but six hundred years later she was still waiting.
Present Day
“Look we need to do something about Tony Stark,” Peggy says, rubbing her eyes, tired from the lack of sleep that she had been getting lately. They had all been getting a huge lack of sleep lately thanks to Tony Stark’s sexual transgressions.
“Am I the only one who is wondering how it’s humanly fucking possible to fuck so many people that three, three revenge demons are losing sleep because we are getting that many summons from people who have slept with this guy? Who has that much sex, and why is his dick so fucking special?” Natasha snaps, particularly grumpy due to her lack of sleep. Poor Clint, Steve thought, the poor guy lived with Nat and she was no ray of sunshine when she lost sleep.
“No idea, but why curse the guy for having a really active sex life? That’s none of our business,” he says. Cursing Tony because he didn’t call his lovers back was a little harsh in his opinion; it wasn’t like he wasn’t clear with the people he slept with. He swore half the calls were people who had to listen to his sexual exploits summoning him out of spite.
“Steve, we can’t keep up with this guy, and these calls are coming from all over the damn country, we need to do something,” Peggy says, “this is getting massively out of hand, we haven’t got this many calls since slaves were freed.”
Steve snorts, “Except slave owners deserved what they got,” he mumbles, and then some. But there were rules about involving oneself with human politics no matter how shit humans were to each other. He had gotten very good at bending the rules as far as they could go without actually breaking them over the years. He was fairly certain the Counsel hated him but they could kiss his ass, if they did their damn jobs he wouldn’t have to.
“Yes, we all know your views Steve, and yes, slave owners deserved what they got, but we aren’t the only ones losing sleep. We need some sort of solution here that benefits everyone,” she says. She and Nat talk about possible solutions and he pointedly ignores them, he didn’t think Stark needed to be cursed regardless of how much sleep they were losing. It was hardly Tony’s fault that people felt cheated when he didn’t call back, he told them he wouldn’t and they agreed. Personally he thought the idiots who agreed to the terms and then got pissed when Tony adhered to them should be cursed, it was hardly Tony’s fault his lovers felt spurned.
“Steve?” Peggy asks and he raises an eyebrow, his arms crossed in annoyance, “don’t give me that shit, I know you have an opinion,” she says.
“Fine, I think you’re asking the wrong questions and coming up with the wrong solutions. I think we should be trying to figure out why the hell Stark’s lovers are so pissed he didn’t call back, like Nat said, his dick can’t be that special so why such a huge surge in anger?” he asks. It wasn’t like they hadn’t got calls about Tony in the past, but nothing like the influx they have gotten in the last three months.
“What are you thinking?” Peggy asks, sensing he already had a theory.
“I think he’s an incubus,” he says and Nat’s eyebrows shoot up. Peggy clearly didn’t think the theory held any truth but they had been working together long enough for her to wait for his explanation before she made a judgement call.
“That would explain a lot,” Nat says, “but it doesn’t explain why we got a sudden influx of calls three months ago, and it doesn’t explain why Tony didn’t seem to present as an incubus until recently, assuming your right. Incubi can’t be made, they’re either born that way or they aren’t, they’re rare, and they present at puberty, not when they are in their mid-thirties,” she says. Peggy doesn’t say it but she agrees with Nat.
“What if he didn’t know he was an incubus? You can’t use powers you don’t know you have, at least not excessively, obviously something changed in the three months. Like his business partner trying to kill him,” he says. Peggy looks skeptical but she isn’t an idiot, she knew he had information that she and Nat clearly didn’t so she gestures for him to continue. “I talked to the spurned lovers, the experience they described was consistent with a sex high, frankly so were half the other summons but that can’t be right, there is no way he managed to fuck his way through that many people so I’m a little lost there. That doesn’t matter, the point is if Stark had no idea he was an incubus it’s entirely possible that his powers laid dormant until a stressor brought them forward, which would have been his business partner trying to kill him,” he says.
Nat nods along, obviously thinking his theory had merit, but Peggy still looked skeptical. “That’s improbable,” she says.
“Improbably isn’t impossible,” he points out.
“Then how do you explain the control he has over his power?” she asks.
Steve snorts, “He doesn’t have any control, that’s the problem. Hell, depending on his power level all the calls we’ve been getting are because his inability to control his power has given everyone in the immediate vicinity a sex high and they’re all looking for more. You know how addictive incubi can be,” he says, “even if that’s not the case he obviously feeds on a regular basis and he doesn’t know how to temper the reaction he has on people, which results in a lot of pissed lovers.”
“Incubi are rare, and if your theory on Stark’s power is correct there is no way his power remained latent until now,” Peggy says, sipping her tea.
“Sure it has, incubi don’t just feed of sexual energy, they feed off pleasure in general and Stark has always been a party boy and he has a successful chain of clubs. I would suggest that he’s been feeding, subtly, for years with no knowledge of what was happening. It isn’t unheard of, incubi and succubi not knowing that they’ve been feeding of energy at parties, for example, until something more significant happens and their powers explode. Usually that’s sex but obviously that doesn’t apply in this situation. That could be what happened here, I’m not sure why the power explosion came so late but that isn’t unheard of either,” he says.
Peggy sighs, “and what turned you onto this theory?” she asks.
“Bucky,” he says, “last week he said something about Tony’s lovers acting like they’d been abandoned after a sex high. I mean he said it as a joke, but the theory had some merit so I explored the possibility and a lot of stuff lined up, too much to ignore,” he says.
“Well I think you’re grasping at straws,” Peggy says bluntly.
“So were you when Nat made the natural transformation from human to revenge demon. Everyone thought you were nuts because making a natural transition from human to any creature without the aid of magic is so rare it was thought to be a legend until Nat. I backed you up there,” he points out.
Peggy sits back in her seat, “you are that confident in your little theory that you’d actually use that against me?” she asks, surprised.
He grins, “Yup.”
*
Pepper Potts was a smart woman, she quickly figured out what Tony was, before him even. But then to be an incubus, especially one of his power, both of his parents couldn’t have been human, and they were probably and incubus and succubus themselves. Tony’s parents, as far as he knew, were totally human. Pepper figured out that he was adopted with Rhodey’s help, Tony had been some pissed about that, but he had come to the conclusion that they weren’t blowing smoke out their asses. Pepper suspected that if Obi hadn’t tried to kill him he probably wouldn’t have recognized it until his youth became unnatural or some other stressor set him off. She wasn’t clear on why exactly it took so long for Tony’s power to present, she didn’t have access to the kind of information she needed because supernatural creatures were generally very secretive, understandably so given how many humans wanted to wipe them out.
Now, of course, it was causing a lot of issues for him and for the revenge demons receiving summons. She spent a lot of time on the phone with people who either found Tony’s number or revenge demons calling to complain. So far she had only found one that had been smart enough to figure out what was going on and his track record was great. So she stood outside Steve Roger’s apartment poised to knock and ask him for a little help with her plan.
“And who might you be? Please don’t tell me you’re here for Bucky, I don’t think I can handle his sexcapades this week,” someone says from behind her. She turns around to find Steve Rogers himself headed to his door.
She smiles, “perfect, just the guy I was looking for, which I suppose you’ll be happy about considering I am not here for your cupid friend.” Steve looks a bit pinched, “and before you send me off, telling me to summon you like everyone else does, I have a solution to Tony. Stark,” she throws in when she realizes how common a name that was. For all she knew he had complaints about several Tony’s. She steps aside so he can access his door freely.
“I figured, you must be Pepper Potts,” he says, unlocking the door, “come in. hopefully whatever solution you have is viable.” The door swings open and she steps inside, automatically scanning her surroundings. For two single men living together they sure were clean, the only things out of place were a few dishes stacked neatly by the sink and a couple of books on the living room table.
“Cupids and revenge demons are both very clean species, and both species tend to have anxiety issues and cleaning helps. Also we both have sensitive noses so an excess of dirty things lying around grosses us both out. On the plus side Bucky always does the laundry, I hate laundry,” he says, wrinkling his nose.
“Lovely,” she says, “this is a nice switch up from whatever condition I find Tony in in the morning,” she says. Usually some degree of naked with at least one other person in his bed, usually more. She had no idea how he managed to keep up with it all, at a certain point she assumed he would get bored but no, god forbid her job get easier.
Steve laughs, “I’ll bet,” he says, “the guy gets around. Like a lot,” he says, making a face.
“Yes well I hope to provide a solution to that,” she says, “I’ve done my research, I know that you’ve managed to figure out Tony is an incubus, and a very powerful one at that. I’m sure you’ve noticed his… tenuous control, he tries, he does, but he’s not used to the influx of power just yet and his sex drive is off the damn charts. Anyways I propose you curse Tony with the inability to have sex until he falls in love, romantic love to be specific, I know how these things work,” she says primly.
Steve raises an eyebrow, “you want me to curse an incubus with the inability to have sex? Six hundred years and I still haven’t heard it all. I’m guessing sex is the only thing you want to prohibit, if you banned all sex acts that could be… detrimental,” he says.
“Yes, I do, and obviously I’m only banning sex. He might not figure that out right away but he’s smart when he wants to be, I’m sure he’ll pull his head out of his ass eventually. I know he’s capable of love but he’s… he’s damaged though, and people don’t often look past his money and his looks to see what’s underneath. It doesn’t help that he has a habit of driving people away when they do, afraid of getting hurt. Again,” she says. One serious relationship gone wrong and that was it for Tony, he had never tried that again.
“And what encouraged you to think this was a good idea?” he asks.
“The calls I’ve been getting from irritated revenge demons,” she says, “and that Tony gets attached easily, it won’t take very long for him to fall for someone, the problem is them reciprocating. I figure if worse comes to worst the love isn’t reciprocated, Rhodey, Bruce and I deal with the fall out, and the curse is broken and Tony can go back to trying to screw his pain away. It’ll at least get him off your backs for a while.” She had spent a lot of time thinking about this and she assumed that Tony would quickly try to attach himself to someone, and he wouldn’t date anyone Pepper and Rhodey didn’t approve of so that would help weed out the more… unpleasant candidates.
Steve considers this for a few minutes, “I assume you’ll support him?” he asks.
Pepper tilts her head to the side, “of course, but I don’t see why that would concern you,” she says. Steve, from her research, had a very strong moral compass and did his best to avoid people getting hurt or suffering but supporting Tony didn’t seem like something that would prompt that moral compass.
“Incubi are a sensitive species, they tend to be emotionally fragile, which is probably why Tony is unwilling to try another relationship,” he says, “this isn’t going to be an easy process for him and he will need a lot of emotional support, are you prepared to deal with that?” he asks, genuinely concerned, which throws her for a loop.
“I… well yes of course, both Rhodey and I nearly died saving him from Obadiah and we’d both do it again without any hesitation,” she says with conviction. Slimy bastard, if she ever saw him again she’d probably run him over out of spite. Both she and Rhodey had cursed him via revenge demon and they purposefully chose two separate demons that were happy to break the rules, she doubted they were still operating but Obadiah was suffering and that was all that mattered to her.
Steve examines her face, “I believe that, though I have no idea why a personal assistant would be so attached,” he says, “I’ll go deal with Tony later, I guarantee there is going to be a nasty fall out so be prepared,” he tells her.
“I’ve known Tony for a long time,” she says, “he hired me when I was going through a rough time and I happened to enjoy working for him so I stayed. I’ve been more than just a personal assistant to him since the beginning.” It helped that she was one of the few people that had made it past his defences over the years, she loved Tony, she did, and she wanted to see him achieve the happiness he deserved.
“Great,” he says, “I assume you’re quite used to dealing with Tony’s moods so hopefully this won’t take too much of a toll of you.”
*
When Pepper leaves Bucky comes out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes with his blanket, and grumbling sleepily. He always looked adorable sleep rumpled and upset, Bucky loved his naps, “wha was that?” he grumbles, flopping onto the couch, curling up with his blanket, head in Steve’s lap.
He automatically pets Bucky’s long hair, he looked better with it grown out, “Pepper Potts,” he tell him, “she has a solution for the Tony problem,” he says. Bucky makes a noise to confirm that he heard Steve but pretty much falls back asleep right away. Steve didn’t mind, cupids were quite clingy to the people they were close with and Bucky had very few friends, which left mostly Steve to deal with his need for physical affection. It was kind too nice to be that close to Bucky, people often though they were dating and though they weren’t Bucky wasn’t just Steve’s friend; their bond has always run deeper than that. He had no idea what to label their relationship so he just let it be as it was.
Steve continues petting Bucky’s hair and texts Peggy that he was right, and that Pepper Potts had commissioned him to curse Tony, outlining her plan. He texts Nat too so she knows what is going on, and so that she didn’t decide to go off script and curse Tony for no real reason at all. Nat texts him back telling him to hurry the hell up so she could have an uninterrupted night of sleep. He wastes the rest of his day watching documentaries and judging how accurate they were considering how was alive during the time most of them were talking about. Bucky wakes up some time later, probably unaware of what year it was because his immediate response was to ask Steve what time it was in French. “Almost three,” he says, he was supposed to curse Tony at three thirty, according to Pepper he was free then, so he would have had to wake Bucky up soon anyways.
“Mmmeugh,” he mumbles, stretching himself out and placing his head back in Steve’s lap, probably prepared to fall back asleep when he shoots straight up, “damnit, I’m supposed to train Thor!” he says and vaults himself over the back of the couch, this time speaking English.
“Thor?” Steve asks over the noise of Bucky finding clean clothing and trying to make himself look presentable.
“Yeah, new cupid, apparently he’s a real sweetie so hopefully he isn’t the puppy-that-gets-so-excited-it-wets-itself type,” he says, reappearing wearing pants and a mostly not wrinkled shirt with a brush in hand. Steve snorts, Bucky hated the over enthusiastic types but he was damn good at his job and the higher ups had noticed, so he was promoted to Head Cupid of New York, the state, but he based himself in the city because somewhere over the years Bucky had grown fond of the place. Steve liked it well enough, but he preferred more Mediterranean areas, he liked the heat, or the rainy areas of Europe. But Bucky didn’t do well in the heat and the constant rain in European countries made his moods drop and he often fell into a depression if he was there to long so the U.S it was.
Steve figured he got an okay mix of both the conditions he preferred but he also got stupidly cold winters and Bucky didn’t react well to drastic weather changes, so vacations to warmer areas were mostly out unless he felt like dragging Peggy or Nat somewhere. Bucky loved the snow though, and if Bucky was happy so was he. “Good luck,” Steve tells him as he dashes out the door. Bucky hated training new cupids, but the species hardly ever broke the laws they were supposed to follow so they were generally only replaced when they were killed or if they died, whichever came first. But then they only had to not use their power for their own benefit, and they couldn’t go against nature or influence it in some other way, like purposefully altering a person’s daily routine so they die prematurely for example. Cupid were easy to satisfy and they didn’t often feel the need to break the rules to achieve their own ends or others. Usually that went to a number of other species, usually fae or some variation thereof, technically revenge demons fell into that category.
Eventually he stops stalling and goes off to find Tony’s club, Pepper had said she’d leave the side entrance open for him to get in. It didn’t take long to find, Stark Industries was a very recognizable club, and he ducks into the ally to find the door Pepper mentioned. He walks in and raises an eyebrow, the inside was much nicer than he expected, combining modern and industrial elements with a lot of colour. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised, incubi and succubi usually had an obsession with pretty things and colour, apparently Tony Stark was not an exception. “Pretty isn’t it? Pep said she had a surprise for me and if you’re a stripper you could have worn a lot less clothing,” a pleasant voice says from behind him.
He turns and finds Tony leaning against the bar with a bright green drink in his hand, “I can’t believe Pepper told you that I was a surprise, that’s hilarious. I’m a revenge demon, I’m here to curse you,” he says bluntly, hopefully ruining Tony’s day. Revenge demons instinctively knew how to make people suffer, they also instinctively knew how to make them feel better but only one was particularly useful when cursing people. Usually his cursing people didn’t involve being empathetic though there were always exceptions to the rule.
Tony eyes him up, “how fast can you run?” he asks, setting the drink on the bar. Steve sighs and when Tony bolts for the side door he makes his move, appearing in front of Tony and grabbing his arm, then teleporting them both across the room. Tony blinks, reorienting himself and frowning, “did you just fucking teleport?” he asks.
Steve grins, “Nifty isn’t it?” Tony looks like he ate a sour lemon and Steve outright laughs, cursing people generally gave revenge demons a high, and he didn’t have to feel guilty for cursing Stark because it really was for the best.
“Ugh, I make people horny, you teleport, what the fuck is that?” he asks, throwing his hands up, “I, for one, think this is a grave injustice,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. If he could feel Steve’s power he didn’t say anything, nor did he flinch away from it, that was rare actually. People tended to fear him once they felt the extent of his power and he didn’t blame them, he had enough power to curse a large city simultaneously if he wanted to. He kind of did, but he had yet to come across an occasion where cursing a city full of people was beneficial in any way.
“Please, my lack of sleep thanks to you fucking anything with legs is a grave injustice,” he quips back.
Tony squints, “actually legs aren’t strictly necessary, and my sexual partners must be of the human variety, or humanoid in your case. I’m not too picky,” he says, suggestively looking Steve up and down.
“Aww, you think you can flirt your way out of this, how cute. That isn’t going to work,” he tells Tony. He can visibly see Tony think through his options before he seems to come to a solution of some sort.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, grinning like he had already won the game when it hadn’t even started.
*
Steve won Tony’s little bet and he was so pissed, Steve thought the scandalized look on his face was just priceless and couldn’t resist laughing. “Oh, this is not funny,” Tony snaps but that only makes Steve laugh harder. “You can’t do this to me!” he says frantically.
“Oh I just did,” he says, calming down, “just fall in love Tony, it isn’t that hard,” he tells him.
“Oh that’s easy for you to say, have you ever been in love?” he snaps, agitated that he hadn’t been able to screw his way out of this. Steve thought it was an admirable attempt, Tony was actually pretty incredible, but he wasn’t good enough to get him out of this mess. Frankly it wouldn’t have mattered how great his sex skills were, Steve made the deal, he had to follow through on it, obviously Tony hadn’t known that. Tony’s lack of revenge demon knowledge was not his problem, and besides, his sleeping with someone with Steve’s power level was actually beneficial, humans only had so much energy Tony could draw from. Steve had much more than any combination of humans Tony could put together so at least he wouldn’t have to feed for roughly a few days, maybe more.
“Sure, several times, I’ve been alive for six hundred years. It would be a little odd if I hadn’t,” he says. He’d been with Peggy off and on for centuries, though roughly two hundred years ago she got sick of that arrangement, understandably. There was also Bucky, of course, but he was never really sure if that was a romantic or platonic connection or some weird combination of both. There had been other people too, but Bucky and Peggy were the two people he always seemed to come back to.
Tony rubs his face, sighing, “Look buddy, I’m not the lovable type, and I don’t do relationships. For all you know I’m aromantic so your curse is useless,” he snaps, irritated that Steve had responded the way he had wanted him to.
“Curses can’t go against nature, if you were aromantic it wouldn’t have worked,” he says, “so there is no reason you can’t fall in love except for your own stubborn resistance to it.” When a person was cursed he had a general connection to them, mostly to make sure they don’t haul off and try to kill themselves or the person who ordered then cursed, but the connection served other purposes too. Like knowing what to say, if he had to, to make the situation better for the person who had been cursed. Tony, he could feel, had been hurt rather badly in the past and had no desire to repeat the incident, “not everyone is your ex,” he says.
Tony’s head snaps up, “excuse you? How the hell do you know about that?” he asks angrily.
Steve sighs, this is why he didn’t play therapist, he sucked at it. “Aside from Pepper telling me you had one serious relationship that ended badly enough that you refused to try again I can feel your reservation via our new bond. Don’t look so horrified, I can’t use it to peep in on your life and even if I could, I hate to break it to you buddy, but you aren’t that important to me,” he tells Tony, “the bond is established to make sure you don’t do something dangerous to yourself or others.”
Tony fidgets, “and what if no one ever loves me?” he asks quietly.
Steve resists the urge to sigh again, “Well, the good news is the curse doesn’t require your love to be reciprocated, just for you to love someone else. That’s all it’ll take for you to break the curse, Pepper thinks it’ll teach you a lesson,” he says. He didn’t normally disclose who cursed people, that generally had a disastrous effect, but in Tony’s case knowing who cursed him had calmed him down a little because he knew Pepper genuinely cared about him and wouldn’t let him get hurt just for the sake of petty revenge.
Tony flops back in his chair, “and what if I die or something? Is my soul cursed so I’ll be screwed, but literally, for the rest of eternity?” he asks, clearly being melodramatic in Steve’s opinion.
“No Tony, your soul is not cursed. I’m tempted to curse you again for asking such a stupid question, I cannot believe you made my ears listen to something that stupid,” he says.
“What? It was perfectly valid, I don’t know what the curse is tied to, I think I have a right to know if I’m cursed forever. Could I find you again, if I had more questions later?” he asks.
Steve decides to give Tony just a shred of credit for at least having a fairly valid reason for his dumb question. “Sure you can track me down to ask questions if you feel like it, most people don’t really want to talk to the guy that cursed them though. And the curse is tied to you as a physical being, so if you happen to die your soul is free to fuck as many other souls as it wants or whatever. Please don’t commit suicide, I assure you that is not a better solution than love,” he throws in just so Tony didn’t get any ideas. He had that happen once, shortly after Erskine turned him, and that was not something he’d ever like to happen again. Well, there were quite a few people he’s cursed that he wouldn’t pity if they died, but he’d rather it wasn’t directly because of his actions.
“Then you’ve never had your heart broken,” Tony tells him.
“Oh but I have,” he says, Bucky’s face as he fell from that train flashing unintentionally through his mind, “but once I found happiness again, once I realized it still existed, it made everything worth it.” He was at least a little biased, he knew, because his happiness had always been tied to Bucky and when he thought Bucky had died he took a turn for the worst, suffering for thirty years before he found Bucky again by chance. That had opened up a whole new range of issues but if Bucky died, for real this time, Steve would live for centuries in misery if there was even a chance he’d see Bucky again, even if it was for a second. There wasn’t really a lot he wouldn’t do for his best friend, or that he had done already, Bucky felt the same way. Probably more so actually, Bucky would have jumped off that train after him and they both knew it, Steve spent thirty years agonizing over it. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for that.
“You really believe that?” Tony asks, skeptical.
“Yeah,” he says, “without a doubt.”
*
Bucky had always known it was a possibility, Steve finding another Match, but he didn’t think it would ever actually happen. People rarely met more than one Match in a life time and Steve had been around for several so what were the chances? But no, the world hated Bucky Barnes and was determined to see him suffer for no good reason. When Steve had come home he had a post curse high, which wasn’t anything new, but the lingering aura of gold around him, indicating that he had recently met his Match was. First of all Steve was his Match, and yeah, maybe he hadn’t told Steve that, but that was only because Stevie deserved better than his dead beat ass.
He resisted the urge to ask for an extensive list of people Steve had talked to since he left and his patience paid off almost immediately. Turns out Stark was the only one he had talked to since Bucky had taken off earlier. He grits his teeth and turns back to dinner, tuning out Steve blabbering on and Tony fucking Stark. He was pretty sure he wasn’t even aware of it either and that made it all the worse. This had to end, like preferably before it even began, Tony Stark was absolutely not good enough for Steve.
Screw the universe hating him, why the hell did the universe hate Steve? First the poor guy gets stuck with a damaged cupid, then he gets stuck with an arrogant asshole incubus? The universe obviously hated Steve, if Bucky ever met a personification of whatever force made Matches he was punching them in the fucking face for this bullshit. Steve deserved better than this, so why did he get stuck with damaged goods? And why did that damaged goods have to be Tony Stark? He at least knew he had problems, he wasn’t sure Tony even know people existed outside of himself, who the hell thought he was a good Match for his Stevie? He was mad at the fucking universe for this shit, he’s paired up what he would consider some truly shitty Matches but this had to take the fucking cake.
And what if Steve decided he wanted Tony more than him? Then what would he do? His whole life revolved around Steve and even if he wasn’t with him was still connected to him in a way he would never be connected to anyone else. Well, there was a damn good chance that Tony would also serve as a Match for him, but even he deserved better than Stark. He couldn’t imagine Steve would leave him but then he couldn’t imagine that Steve had spent thirty years depressed after he supposedly died but Peggy assured him it happened.
He loved Steve damnit, he felt at home with him and no one else was allowed to move into his fucking home. He was starting to regret not telling Steve now, now there was a chance he would… bond with Stark or something. The only thing Bucky had going for him was that Steve had cursed Tony and even that seemed to have gone fairly well. This was absolute bullshit, why did this stuff always happen to him? Couldn’t the universe leave a guy happy once in a while?
“Bucky?” Steve asks, “Are you okay?” Of course Steve would notice his near silence, Steve noticed everything, and rearranged his whole life around his concern for Bucky’s well-being no matter how many times Bucky told him that wasn’t necessary.
“Just fine,” he says, sounding a bit to snarky, “turns out Thor is the over excited puppy type.” He wasn’t lying, the guy was six foot something of pure enthusiasm and Bucky found it exhausting. The sooner he was rid of Thor the better, he had better things to do than deal with overly enthusiastic cupids in training, like napping and getting his hair pet by Steve.
“Oh, well you’re good at your job, I’m sure Thor will be out of your hair soon,” Steve says and goes back to talking about Tony. Bucky sighs, this was going to be a very long… however long it took for Tony to fall in love and break his curse, thus breaking his connection to Steve. He hopped, really hopped, that Tony didn’t fall in love with Steve and he hopped even harder that Steve didn’t reciprocate that feeling. He knew that he had sort of brought this on himself, and that his attempts to make Steve jealous were an utter failure, but that didn’t mean some other guy got to steal his happiness out from underneath him.
He wished that Steve didn’t care so much about what was best for him, then maybe his attempts to make Steve jealous would have worked, but no, Steve always set aside his own feelings for him. He never thought he’d see that as a negative personality trait until now.