Chapter Text
Bucky laid on his bed, wondering if he should try and sneak out before Tony came to see him-- assuming he even did. It was his first day as king, it was likely he’d be too tired and forget about coming to visit him. He wouldn’t notice if Bucky left, and he wouldn’t miss him for more than a week or two. Bucky would be able to go back to his life with Steve and the river near their house and their little Brooklyn Stop town where the highlight of his month was a book Sam managed to pick up. Then he thought about Loki telling him how he had nearly given up and left, and he ended up moping for a while longer.
Inexplicably, he found himself staring at the pile of clothes and necklaces Loki had given, interest stirring. He flushed and rolled over, his back to the table. A minute later, he was getting off the bed and padding towards the table with hesitant steps. Nobody would know if he looked through them or maybe… tried some on?
No, no he couldn’t do that.
But they were in a pile right now, and he’d have to untangle the necklaces and put the lingerie away eventually, it might as well be now before anyone else could see them. First to come out was a choker, black fabric embroidered with fine golden thread, probably to be paired with the sheer robe Loki had given him. It was a nice image, but Bucky didn’t think he could do the clasp of a necklace that tight with one hand. He set it aside and separated the remaining mass of gold, one torturous loop and chain at a time. When he was finished, he moved to the different pieces of lingerie, laying them out so he could look them over.
He chewed on his lip, cheeks heating the longer he stared at them. Nothing bad had happened for him looking at them, and nobody would know if he tried them on for a minute or two.
He slid out of his shirt and draped it over the back of the chair. He brought his foot up to help unbuckle the shoe and slid it off, setting it out of the way and undoing his other one. He undid the buttons on his pants and pulled them down and off with his underclothes, putting them over the chair next to his shirt and turning to the bed where he’d laid everything out.
Bucky didn’t need to try on everything, he reasoned to himself, just one or two that he thought would look good on him. With a furious blush, he snatched the pair of red lace panties off the bed and walked to the large mirror in the corner. He set them on the floor and stepped into them, pulling them up a little awkwardly with his one hand. It took some situating, but he got them to fit right-- or at least how he thought they were supposed to fit. In order for it to cover his dick, he had to pull it up high in the back, leaving half his ass hanging out. As foreign as it felt to him, he was pretty sure this was how it was meant to fit.
He looked down at his body and couldn’t really see the appeal. The panties were fancy, but they didn’t look good on him. He looked slightly better in the mirror, but he was still a big, hairy man wearing something made for people built differently than him. Loki had seemed so sure he’d look good in them that Bucky looked harder, trying to see what Loki saw/imagined, but all he could see was a person crammed into the wrong clothes. He turned around and looked over his shoulder at his reflection to see if it looked any better from behind. The answer was yes, but it wasn’t enough that he’d feel comfortable showing anybody. Maybe Tony, back when he’d thought that Tony had meant ‘I love you’ the way Bucky wanted (not that he knew what Tony meant by it even with his newfound knowledge).
He sighed and slumped over, rubbing at the back of his neck. If he was honest with himself… if he was honest, he liked the way he looked in these delicate little panties, but he felt like he shouldn’t. He was a fisherman who used to be a sailor; he was supposed to like big, loud parties and sensible clothing. He knew he was supposed to like those things because his crew-- the Howlies-- had been like that, and any other sailors they ran into were the same way, with Bucky always being the stick-in-the-mud who didn’t know how to have a good time.
Well fuck them. He was plenty happy now. He turned back to the mirror with a bracing breath, holding his head high and trying to mimic Loki’s posture. He looked silly, so he let it go with a shake of his head and walked over to the pieces again. Even though he thought other people wouldn’t like how he looked, he picked up a heavy necklace and took a minute to clasp it on. It had several loops that all connected at the one point in the back, each loop larger than the last. The first one fell to where most necklaces laid-- high on his breastbone-- and the last one set below his navel. Each loop had small plates of gold cut into designs and strung together, creating a tinkling half-shirt over his pecs.
He swallowed, running his hand down the necklace and over his hip. As nervous as he’d been, he couldn’t deny that he liked how this looked. The red and gold together brought out his flush, making him appear delighted instead of embarrassed. It drew focus away from his missing arm and the scars on that shoulder. He looked… desirable. Maybe not for everybody, but he couldn’t change his body. As long as someone wasn’t expecting the slim, willowy type, he wouldn’t disappoint.
Tony gave a knock of warning before he walked into Bucky’s room, and Bucky froze, a flush returning and rushing throughout his body with a vengeance. He’d completely forgotten to latch the door shut, thinking that no one would visit him. “Hey Bucky, Loki said you were-- oh.” He stopped when he saw what Bucky was wearing, giving him a slow look up and down. He cleared his throat and looked back to make sure the door had closed behind him. “What are you wearing?”
Bucky ducked his head in shamed embarrassment. “Loki thought it would look good on me,” he mumbled, walking away from the mirror and towards the chair where he’d set his clothes, all traces of his confidence gone now that he was faced with someone actually seeing him. “I told him not to bother.”
“No,” Tony blurted, stumbling over his feet in his hurry to walk around the bed and get to Bucky. “No Bucky god I did not mean it like that. I just meant that I never expected to see you wearing something like this. I am definitely not complaining.” He licked his lips and reached out to trace his fingers around the edge of the necklace, ghosting over Bucky’s skin. “Loki gave you these?”
Bucky nodded.
“I’ll have to thank him.” He reached the bottom of the necklace and moved his hand lower, over Bucky’s abdomen and down to the top of the lace.
He swallowed thickly. His skin tingled where Tony touched him, leaving a trail rippling across his torso, but he couldn’t enjoy it, not when he hadn’t yet come to terms with his place here.
“I don’t know what he was thinking putting you in this room,” he continued, not noticing Bucky’s hesitation to do anything more. “This is for courtesans, we’re just going to have to move you to my room. Mm, we’ll move you tomorrow though. They’ll have to clean this one anyways, might as well use it.”
Bucky felt his mind jolt to a stop. “What?”
“What what?” Tony asked with a confused frown, reluctantly dropping his hand to his side.
“I- your room?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “What about it? You can have your own room if you want, I just thought… well, you know.” He gestured vaguely at Bucky. “You came all the way to the capital for me, so I figured we were serious, but we can take it slower if you want.”
“You sent me to Loki.”
“Yes, and?” Tony asked, not getting the point.
“Loki’s a courtesan.”
“So?”
“So you sent me to a courtesan to show me around, an’ when Pepper met me, she said ‘another one’? An’ Loki told me how he came to be here, doin’ this job.”
“I- Bucky I told you I loved you. What did you think that meant?”
His shoulders started hunching, trying to protect himself while he was so exposed. He felt like a fool even though that wasn’t the way Tony was looking at him. “I dunno. I thought- I- I dunno.”
“Shit.” Bucky snapped his head up to look at him-- because what-- only to see that Tony was covering his face with his hands. “Okay, I can see how this looks.” He dropped his hands from his face and clenched them together tightly. “I asked you here as my partner, but I didn’t tell anyone else that, so they assumed I was doing what I did as a teenager, which- admittedly was picking up random people and bringing them to court. That’s my fault, and I’m sorry, I’ll talk to Pepper and Loki about it. So are we- are we good? I mean, I know we’re not good good because you’ll need time to trust me and adjust to living in the city as well as living in a castle and with me, but will you stay and let me give this another try?”
“Did you… mean what you said? Before? When you asked me to come with you?”
“About loving you?”
Bucky gave a small nod.
“Yeah.” Slowly, so Bucky could stop him if he wanted, Tony raised a hand to cup his cheek. “I love you. I didn’t mean to make you feel like this sweetheart, and I’m so sorry.”
Bucky put his hand on Tony’s arm for comfort and to keep him in place. “I should’ve trusted you more.”
“I wasn’t exactly making the best first impression.”
“This isn’t the first time we met,” Bucky pointed out with a faint smile.
“I know, but I ignored you on the road, and then when we got here I handed you off without explaining anything to you or anyone else. Since you’ve known I was royalty, I haven’t been treating you very well.” Tony shook his head and moved a bit closer into him. “My only excuse is that I was dealing with a lot, and I took you for granted.” He made a face at himself and tried to move away, but Bucky held him fast. “That doesn’t even sound like an excuse.”
“It’s close enough for me.” Bucky leaned forward and gave Tony a light peck, retreating before Tony could kiss him back.
“I’ll do better by you,” Tony said, looking more serious than Bucky had ever seen him. “I swear.”
“Okay.” Bucky felt a little light-headed and was hit again by the fact that he was practically naked. He’d forgotten about it for a minute while they were clearing things up, but now the nervous embarrassment was back full force. “I, uh, should get dressed.”
Tony sighed wistfully, giving Bucky’s body another thorough look. “If you have to,” he said, stepping back.
“Do you… you really like how I look in this?”
“Definitely,” Tony said immediately.
“You don’t wish I was like Loki?”
“If I wanted him, I’d be with him, not you. But I’m with you, so what does that tell you?”
“That you have poor taste?” Bucky suggested, but Tony could tell he was joking.
“If you want to change because you’re uncomfortable, you can. If you’re changing for my sake though, I wouldn’t bother. I’m very happy with you the way you are.”
Tony pushed Bucky onto the bed, straddling him a moment later and rolling their hips together. “Fuck sweetheart. Why are you still wearing these?” he asked, fingering the edge of the panties.
“Because you pushed me down before I could take them off.”
“That makes me sound mean,” Tony pouted, climbing off him and standing between Bucky’s legs at the edge of the mattress. “I pushed you somewhere soft, and I took off the necklace first.”
“Yeah an’ dropped it on the floor. Where’s all your manners now, highness?” Bucky lifted his hips when Tony nudged him to, sliding the panties off and dropping them carelessly to the side.
“In my dick.”
Bucky laughed. “Not sure tha’s possible.”
“I’m your king, don’t argue with me.”
“What happened to partner?”
“That’s for my Bucky that does not make fun of me.”
“Goodbye forever then,” he snickered.