Work Text:
Bucky left off idly clicking around the paint mixing YouTube hole he’d fallen down when his email pinged with a new message from his bank, but when he opened the message, he frowned at the fact that they seemed to think he’d signed up for something called Google Pay.
“Hey, Stevie?” he asked, still scowling at his bank excitedly thanking him for signing up for Google Pay. Whatever that was.
“Mmm?” Steve hummed, not even bothering to look up from where he lay reading in a nest of throw pillows in the sun like some great overgrown cat.
Bucky grabbed the nearest little nothing thing he could find, in this case, a locking washer from one of Tony’s suits that he’d been working on in their living room a few nights ago. He aimed then threw it at the back of Steve’s head.
“Hey!” Steve rolled over, face indignant, when the washer pinged off the base of his skull and went careening off under a bookcase. “I thought we had a no-sniping-in-the-house rule?”
Bucky shrugged, unrepentant in the face of getting Steve’s attention. “Wasn’t a bullet. Anyway, c’mere,” he motioned Steve over. “Explain something to me.”
Steve disentangled himself from his pillow nest and came to flop down next to Bucky on the couch. Bucky pointed at the email still pulled up on his computer screen. He watched Steve read it then shrug.
“Okay? So?” Steve looked unimpressed. “You signed up for Google Pay. So what?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “That’s a pretty neat trick considering I don’t even know what Google Pay is .”
“It’s...well…” Steve’s mouth quirked to the side as he tried to explain. “It’s...it’s a virtual wallet.”
Bucky’s scowl deepened. “I don’t have one of those.”
“No you don’t, but companies do. For you...well for people. Stores their payment stuff so they don’t have to type it all the time. I think Apple’s got one too.”
“Does Tony do this with his phones?”
Steve shook his head. “He says it’s a ‘consumer privacy liability I don’t want to touch with a ten-and-a-half foot pole.’”
Bucky nodded. Made sense. The smaller a person’s digital footprint, the harder they were to track down. The dawn of the digital era and social media had been a boon to Hydra’s assassination game. “So how’d I get signed up for it?”
“Dunno Buck,” Steve said, a frown of his own clouding his lovely face. “All the bills are autopay through Tony...did you...maybe...buy something online and let Google save your stuff?”
“Tracking,” he said ominously and shook his head.
Steve nodded. “Pull up the bank?”
Bucky opened a new tab and click-type-click-type-clicked through their bank’s multi-tiered login process then opened his credit card statement. “I didn’t do any of this,” he said, pointing at the eight pending charges all from today. “What the hell, Stevie?”
“Did you...I don’t know...is it possible you used your card today and just...forgot?” Steve asked.
Bucky shoved Steve off the couch. “I know you’re not enough of a dumbass to think I just forgot doing something.”
“Well, I don’t know!” Steve cried from where he’d landed on his ass on the floor. “You’ve got the--the…” he gestured at his own forehead like some sort of explanation.
Bucky leaned down into Steve’s space. “Please. Tell me how you think brainwashing is a part of this.”
“I--I can call Sam?” he offered lamely instead.
“Do not call Sam,” Bucky snapped, sitting back. He pecked at his phone then held it to his ear.
“Who’re you calling?” Steve asked.
Bucky shot Steve a look like he’d asked why the sky was blue. “Bank.”
“Credit card,” Bucky snapped into his phone, followed by an equally terse “operator.”
A few moments later an operator picked up with a cheerful “Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes, thank you for calling. How may I help you today?”
“I got an email from you guys thanking me for signing up for some Google Pay thing, which I didn’t do, and when I looked at my card on your website there’s a bunch of activity that isn’t me.”
“I can certainly look into that, Mr. Barnes,” the young lady from the bank chirped. The soft clack of her computer keys indicated action on her end of the phone. “I’m currently on work-from-home, so I do apologize in advance if--oh, here we go.”
“Now you said you haven’t used your card at all today?”
Bucky shook his head. “No ma’am.”
“Okay, well, I am seeing pending charges from locations in Dallas, Atlanta, and several online sources all within the last three hours, so I’m going to go ahead and flag this card as stolen, and we’ll get these cancelled.” More quick typing and a soft thump and mrow? underpinned her reassuring tone.
Bucky frowned as this lady’s cat reminded him that he needed to get Alpine more food. “What about if I need to use my card?”
She laughed, but not...not at him. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Barnes. Of course we’re sending you a new card with a new number. It should take...my system says because we’re restoring a compromised card, I can waive expediting costs…” She typed a bit more. “I have this set to ship with our evening mail tonight, so once you get a tracking number, which will hopefully be early tomorrow, you’ll get it in one to two business days. Now, is there anything else we can do for you this afternoon, Mr. Barnes?”
Bucky shook his head. “No, ma’am. Thank you.”
Bucky ended the call then threw his phone down on the coffee table with a sigh. “Well that was both disturbing and helpful.”
“How’s that?” Steve huffed from the floor where Alpine had jumped on his stomach and started making biscuits.
Bucky watched her paws knead Steve’s lack-of-fat abs for a moment before he spoke. “Lady said my card’s stolen and she’d send me a new one.” He sighed. “Don’t know how that happened though. I hardly ever use it.”
Steve shrugged. “Happened to me a couple years ago. Before--before we got you home. Someone tried to spend three hundred bucks on cough medicine and condoms at a Rite-Aid in Kansas in my name.”
“Meth,” Bucky muttered.
Steve laughed, jiggling Alpine where she still sat on him, kneading away contentedly. “How do you even make meth with cough medicine and condoms?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “I see you’ve still got all the stupid. Cough medicine to make it. Condoms to transport it.” He mimed swallowing a large pill. “Don’t have to worry about drug dogs.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Steve asked.
Bucky shook his head. “Don’t ask questions you don’t wanna know the answer to, punk.”
Steve stuck his tongue out upside down at Bucky. “That mean you don’t need to use my card to get Alpine more of that raw food you insist on feeding her?”
“No. Just means…”
Steve sat up and put Alpine in Bucky’s lap then slid his arms around Bucky’s legs. “I know, Buck…” he sighed then butted his head gently against Bucky’s knees. “I know.”
“Please tell me…” Tony’s voice, loud and indignant, coming from the vestibule made both of them smile. Tony came around the corner, took one look at Steve and Bucky then threw himself down on the couch next to Bucky and wormed under his arm. “Please tell me why JARVIS just alerted me to potentially fraudulent use of your card?”
Bucky squeezed Tony tighter into his side. “Nothin’ potential about it. Someone skimmed my card.”
“How does he know what skimming is but he can’t operate the Netflix?” Tony asked Steve, running his fingers through blonde hair just starting to get shaggy again.
Steve shrugged. “Brain holes?”
Bucky kicked Steve gently in the ribs, dislodging him from his spot. “I’ll show you brain holes.”
“So what happened?” Steve asked. “He called the bank and they said they’d get him sorted.”
Tony dragged a holographic monitor out of the surface of their coffee table with a lift of his arm, and displayed on the screen was an itemized charge for nearly $600 to a website called spicylingerie.com.
“What the actual hell is that?” Bucky asked, leaning closer to the monitor like that would shed light on the situation.
“Spicy Lingerie,” Tony said proudly.
“Dot com,” Steve muttered.
“I mean, Bucky Bear, if this is your kink, please tell us. I know I’ve said yes to a little lace under my suit before. No kink shaming in this penthouse. But, I really think you’d look better in something from La Perla.”
“It’s not,” Steve and Bucky said together.
“Bucky’s more into--”
“Stevie, if you ever want to see my dick again, you will not finish that sentence,” Bucky snapped.
“Steven, if you ever want to see my dick again, you most certainly will finish that sentence,” Tony countered.
Steve looked at Alpine who just stared lazily back from her spot cradled in Bucky’s arms. “So whose’ll it be, Alpine?”
Alpine flicked her tail at Steve.
“I’ll do that thing you like with the armor,” Tony cajoled.
Steve blushed and dipped his head with a smile. “I mean--”
“Steven Grant,” Bucky grabbed a fistful of his hair and shook it, making Steve blush harder. “Do not.”
Still trapped in Bucky’s grip, Steve looked up through his lashes and caught Tony’s eye and winked. Like he was some kinda subtle.
“It’s fine,” Bucky said, trying to get them back on track. “I called the bank, they killed the card. It’s fine.”
“Well if you say it’s fine,” Tony said.
“It is fine,” Bucky insisted. “Whoever stole it’s an idiot and did somethin’ with my card I’d never do. So I caught it before anything could go through. The girl at the bank took real good care’a me.”
“So now that the Valentine’s Day surprise is ruined,” Tony said, grinning brightly at Bucky who just rolled his eyes back. “What’re you going to do to spoil your two best guys instead?”
“You do realize that wasn’t actually your Valentine’s Day surprise, right?” Bucky asked, wrapping his free arm tighter around Tony’s waist.
Tony shrugged and curled into Bucky’s embrace. “I figured. I don’t have to be anywhere but here on Sunday, and that’s enough for me.”
“Sap,” Steve muttered into Bucky’s knee.
Bucky shook Steve’s head gently by the grip he still had on his hair. “Don’t be mean. And anyway, you’re one to talk. Mr. I-Pined-Silently-for-Two-Men-for-Two-Years.”
Steve shrugged, unrepentant. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Sure are, doll,” Bucky loosened his fingers until they were running gently through Steve’s soft blond hair and Steve was melting against his legs.
Eventually, Alpine stirred in Bucky’s lap and meowed plaintively up at him. “Oh, I’m sure starvin ya, aren’t I?” Bucky asked her before he gave Tony’s waist one final squeeze, gave Steve’s hair one final tug, then stood to go find his best gal some dinner.
Walking away into the kitchen, he could hear Tony slide over on the couch and could picture him taking up playing with Steve’s hair, heard his low voice as he asked, “So what does our sweet Bucky like?” Could imagine Steve turning around and leaning up on his knees and tilting his head towards Tony like they were at a sleepover sharing secrets.
He knew how his Stevie told a secret. Blue eyes bright and mischievous as they would dart after Bucky. The murmur of his voice, too low for Bucky to really hear what Steve was saying, even with the enhancements from Zola’s knockoff serum, followed by Tony’s warm “I can work with that.”
“What d’you think he’s telling Tony, hm?” Bucky asked Alpine as she wound between his feet. “D’you think he’s being even close to good and keeping his trap shut?”
“Nope!” Tony hollered gleefully from the living room.
Bucky rolled his eyes and set Alpine’s dish down, laughing when she nosed his hand out of the way so she could get to her food faster. “Piglet,” he said fondly and stroked a hand down her back.
Back in the living room, Steve had crawled back up on the couch and sprawled over Tony’s lap, and he lay there fiddling idly with the fingers on Tony’s left hand while he talked easily about letting Bucky lead him around by the dick before their lives had changed so much in a hail of bullets and electric blue fire and ice.
Tony patted the cushion next to him. “Come sit with us, baby.”
“I--okay,” Bucky could feel heat creeping up his neck as he settled where Tony had indicated.
“You know,” Tony said, tracing his free hand down the edge of Bucky’s jaw then nipping gently at his lip when Bucky leaned into the touch. “You didn’t need to goad Steve into telling me you’d like to call me Daddy.”
Bucky blushed scarlet, equal parts mortified that Steve had given him up so easily and relieved he didn’t actually have to answer Tony’s questions about his kinks himself. “I--I didn’t think--”
“Damn right you didn’t,” Tony agreed. “But that’s okay because I know you’ve had a bit on your mind with this whole identity theft...thing.” When he smiled at Bucky again, it was all teeth. “Just know, that from now on, I am gonna take such good care of you.”