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The heat of battle was always filled with a certain level of chaos. No matter how much a team planned and trained, there would always be things that happened in the heat of the moment that couldn’t be predicted or accounted for and everyone just had to roll with the punches. Being forced to abandon his suit when Loki’s magic rendered it a very expensive paperweight was something that Tony was having to deal with in this moment.
Without his suit there wasn’t much that Tony could do out on the battlefield. As much as he hated it, right now he was more of a liability to his teammates than an asset. Without the suit he was far too squishy and Loki always seemed to take a particular pleasure in targeting him and there was nothing that he would be able to do to defend himself against a magical attack as he was right now.
Ducking between parked cars, Tony tried to keep himself out of the line of fire and find his way back to the Quinjet. He had made sure that his armor was as secured as it could be but there was no way that he’d be able to drag it back with him in the middle of a fight. It was too heavy and he would move too slow with it making himself a bigger target for the Trickster’s attacks. Tony was just going to have to hope that no one tried to steal his suit before he could get back to it. If they did it still had multiple layers of protection so that no one could break into it and more than enough redundant trackers that he would be able to find it no matter where anyone took it.
Just because he didn’t have his suit didn’t mean that Tony was completely defenseless however. Hearing someone running up from behind him, Tony whirled around on the spot, his watch gauntlet forming around his hand and charging as he prepared to blast away whatever threat had decided that he was now an easy target.
“Tony!” Bucky’s voice yelled out causing Tony to sigh in relief and retract the watch as his boyfriend came running at him.
“I thought you were up on the roof,” Tony yelled as he ran and met Bucky halfway between the two of them. “What happened to that? The rest of the team still needs you.”
Bucky shook his head, his face a serious mask. Moving into Tony’s side Bucky wrapped an arm around the genius’s shoulder and pulled him in close behind a parked car so that the soldier could defend him more easily.
“The team can look after themselves until I’ve gotten you somewhere safe,” Bucky insisted. When Tony opened his mouth to argue Bucky cut him off. “This ain’t a discussion Tony. You are too vulnerable without your suit right now and I’d never be able to live with myself if you got hurt when I could have protected you. Please don’t make me do that.”
The heartbreak at just the thought of not being there to protect the man he loved was clear on Bucky’s face and Tony couldn’t bring himself to argue with it. He would feel the exact same way if their roles were reversed and Tony knew that he would do more than leave his position in a fight to get Bucky somewhere safe if he needed help in a fight.
“All right then,” Tony agreed looking around to check on the situation around them. “Get me back to the jet so I can at least communicate with the rest of the team again and coordinate with JARVIS to help where I can. Then you get back to your roof and watch out for the rest of the team. I don’t want Steve yelling at me for pulling you away from doing your job.”
Bucky gave a sharp nod and ushered Tony out of their hiding spot and through the city. Off in the distance Tony could see Steve through his shield at Loki while Clint shot an arrow in the mage’s direction. Neither projectiles made contact and Loki spent a bolt of green magic in Clint’s direction and a dagger at Steve.
While the mage was distracted Bucky used the moment to hurry Tony further away from the fight and everyone that was participating in it. The sounds of the battle grew fainter the further they got from it until it was hard to it at all. The two of them had been hurrying through the street for a few minutes when Tony’s eyes scrunched up in confusion and he twisted his head around to try and get his bearings.
Flying around in the sky, it was easy for Tony to lose track of the specifics of where he was located in relation to other points with his focus more on the enemy. JARVIS kept track of that for him so that Tony could keep his mind on the fight which left him at a disadvantage right now. It didn’t feel like they were headed in the right direction for the Quinjet though.
“Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?” Tony asked, turning his head as he tried to get his bearings. Maybe Bruce had been forced to move the jet during the fight after Clint had landed it and Bucky from his position on the roof had seen it while Tony had missed it. That didn’t feel like the right answer but he also couldn’t see why Bucky would have made such a serious mistake.
“I’m sure Tony,” Bucky assured his boyfriend as he took Tony by the hand and kept urging him forward. “Benefit of being a super soldier, superior direction skills.”
Tony crooked a smile at that. He couldn’t quite argue with the fact that the serum had indeed elevated many senses for both Steve and Bucky, something that Tony enjoyed exploring quite frequently with his boyfriend. Having no reason to doubt Bucky’s sense of direction Tony held tight to the soldier’s hand as they made their way further from where the rest of the team was still fighting.
Just when Bucky was about to lead them down a sidestreet to a parking lot where Bucky said the jet was waiting for them, a shot rang through the air making both of them duck down instinctively. Bucky whirled around, putting himself in front of Tony and between his boyfriend and the new threat. Tony ducked down so that he would be out of the way and turned around just in time to see the person that had fired off the shot step out from behind the corner of a building the pair had just passed.
Tony’s eyes widened in surprise and confusion when the person that stepped out was Bucky Barnes. Tony froze in place as he looked between the two men both wearing his boyfriend’s face trying to understand what was going on.
“Bucky?” Tony asked though not sure who exactly he was directing the question towards.
“Stay behind me Tony,” the Bucky closest to him ordered, eyes only on the man that had just appeared. We don’t know what kind of trick this is and I’m not taking any chances.”
Tony frowned at the order but stayed right where he was. For the moment he wasn’t sure what was going on and until he did his best bet was to hang back and gather information to make the best possible choice with. Steve would be very proud of his ability to not just jump into action without a plan in place for once.
“You get the fuck away from him,” the new Bucky growled, raising his gun in a threatening manner but with the first Bucky standing so close to Tony he couldn’t shoot without risking hitting the genius. “Tony you need to get away from him. He’s not me. He’s some trick made up by Loki to try and get you away from the rest of the group.”
“Don’t listen to him,” the Bucky closer to him insisted. “He’s probably the real Loki just trying to mess with your head.”
Tony’s eyes flickered between the two men wearing his boyfriend’s face not completely sure which one to believe. This would be just the kind of trick that Loki would try to pull. Disable his suit to make him more vulnerable and then take advantage of that vulnerability to kidnap him. Tony wasn’t about to fall for it though. As much as he hoped that the Bucky closest to him was the real one he had to be prepared for the possibility that he had almost been fooled into running off with the villain under his own power.
There was also the nerve wracking chance that neither of the Buckys were real and that it was all an elaborate hoax and he was truly on his own to get himself out of this mess. Tony shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. Even if both of the Buckys were Loki and his clone he still had the team. They wouldn’t let some mind controlling trickster waltz off with him without doing something about it.
Taking a step backwards and to the side, Tony put some space between himself and the Bucky that had been leading him away from the fight. Until he knew which one of them, if either, was actually his boyfriend and teammate than it was in his best interest for Tony not to be within grabbing distance of either. The space also meant that he could more easily utilize his watch gauntlet to defend himself with.
“I’m going to have to bow out of this party a bit early,” Tony snarked, his eyes shifted back and forth to keep both of the other men in his sight. He activated his watch gauntlet and held it out in front of him. “Can’t take too many chances after all. Been kidnapped enough times in my life and I can’t really say I’m looking forward to trying it again so; nice try, I’d say I’d wish you better luck next time but I really don’t mean it.”
Taking a few more steps back Tony put more distance between himself and the other men, both of whom were very clearly unhappy about that. The Bucky closest to him reached out a hand as though he were going to try and hold on in order to keep Tony where he could protect him but the sound of the gun coming up from the other Bucky halted the closer one in place.
“Doll wait,” the Bucky further away called out. His gun remained trained on the man closer to Tony and it never wavered so much as an inch even as he gave Tony more of his attention. “I know you can’t trust me right now and I don’t blame you for it but you can’t run off right now either. You don’t know what else Loki has out there waiting for you and I can’t let you go off into danger on your own.”
That sounded completely reasonable and something that his own boyfriend would say but then again it could also be Loki trying to play the part to gain Tony’s trust and make him stay close by while he enacted his evil plan. No matter how he tried to reason it out Tony just couldn’t trust what was in front of him but at the same time he couldn’t not do something about the situation either.
“So we’re at a stalemate then,” Tony said. “I can’t go with either of you without knowing for sure who the real Bucky is and I can’t go off on my own without both of you following me so that you can watch my back. Or at least pretend to.”
“Tony you have to believe me,” the Bucky that had led him here pleaded. “He’s just trying to get in your head. You’ve trusted me this far. We just have a bit further to go and then we’ll be safe.”
“No!” the other Bucky barked, taking slow and measured steps forward so that he was closer to both of them. “You’re not putting another hand on him as long as I have something to say about it. You might be good enough to fool Tony about who you are but you aren’t fooling me Loki.”
The Bucky the had led Tony here growled and shifted into a fighting stance ready to attack if the other man came any closer. Tony’s pulse raced as he tried to work out what to do with the situation. Assuming that one of the other men really was the real Bucky, and why would Loki go to such elaborate lengths if that wasn’t the case, then Tony couldn’t afford to let the two of them fight and lose track of which was one which.
“Stop,” Tony ordered, taking control of the situation. “You both want me to believe you? Then we’re going to do it my way. Here’s how this is going to go. I’m going to figure out which of the two of you is actually Bucky and he’s the one I’m going to leave here with.”
The two Bucky’s glared at one another, both more than ready to go after the other but each held their ground. They knew that attacking the other would just push Tony further away due to the risk of choosing the Bucky that was really Loki in disguise and neither was willing to risk not being the one picked. Tony took a deep breath to calm himself down and to give himself a moment to think. It wasn’t just his life on the line here. He knew that there was no way Bucky would leave if Tony chose wrong and Tony knew Loki wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to attack the real Bucky. If that happened than there was a good chance Tony would be too late to protect the man that he loved and that was just plain unacceptable to the genius.
Quickly enough Tony’s mind landed on a plan that he hoped would work. Loki obviously knew enough about his relationship with Bucky to be able to fool the genius like he had. If Tony’s plan worked he could use that and Loki’s own nature to his advantage.
“All right, here’s what’s going to happen,” Tony declared. “I’m going to ask a question that you’re both going to answer. That will tell me which of you is the real Bucky and which of you is lying.”
The two other men gave Tony nearly identical looks of focus, waiting for what he’d ask so that they could prove themselves.
"It's no secret that I use a lot of nicknames with the people that I care about but I'm not the only one. You've got a number of nicknames you use just for me," Tony started, eyes darting between the two men to carefully watch their expressions. "What was the very first nickname that you ever gave me?"
Both Bucky's reacted to that immediately. The face of the one that had gotten him away from the fighting went completely soft as though the thought of the first nickname he had given Tony was a precious memory. The Bucky that had come after them wasn't as expressive but it was clear when his shoulders relaxed at the memory that the question brought up.
The Bucky that had found Tony after he was shot down was the first to answer. "Kitten. That was my first nickname for you. My little kitten," he said confidently.
At the same time the other Bucky started shaking his head, disagreeing with the other's answer. "It wasn't kitten," he said, eyes catching Tony's and not looking away as he continued. "I called you котенок."
Tony gave a small nod having heard everything that he needed to. He brought his gauntlet hand back up and pointed it clearly at the Bucky he had initially trusted before he knew that something was wrong. At the same time Tony turned himself, step by step, until he could put himself next to the Bucky, the real Bucky, that had come after him in order to keep him safe from the trickster villain.
"Trickster got tricked," Tony taunted as he reached Bucky's side. "Bucky, the real Bucky that is, always calls me that in Russian. I figured that you, Loki, would be like Thor with the whole AllSpeak thing and wouldn't even think about the possibility of using a different language and I was right."
The fake Bucky’s face twisted up in rage as Tony and the real Bucky targeted their weapons directly at him with no hesitation. The fake rippled and morphed until it was Loki standing there in his battle armor, daggers out, and ready to attack the two of them. Bucky and Tony drew together until they were standing shoulder to shoulder, no chance for Loki to come between them and threaten Tony again as he had been trying to do.
“So pathetic,” Loki spat. “Soldier, are you sure you wish to align yourself with one that would so easily trust in your enemy over yourself. You witnessed for yourself how your paramour couldn’t even determine from the onset that he was with an imposter and not his true lover. How could you possibly choose to continue on with such an ally?”
“Considering he only ended up in that position because he trusted me to keep him safe without hesitation, I really don’t see how that’s too much of a bad thing,” Bucky snapped back. “Just means we’ve got to come up with a code word or something for the future.”
The sound of fighting got closer to where the three of them were standing. Loki glanced up the street in the direction of the rest of the Avengers and back to the two standing in front of him trying to calculate his odds of still being able to pull off his ploy of kidnapping the genius and finding that he didn’t like his odds anymore. The sound of thunder cracking through the air decided it for Loki and the God gave them one final glare before vanishing without a trace before either Tony or Bucky could do anything to stop him.
When Loki vanished Tony let out a sigh of relief and sagged into Bucky’s side. The immediate danger was over
“I wonder how the others knew we were over here?” Tony thought out loud as he and Bucky started making their way back to the rest of the team.”
“I gave them my location over the comms when I saw you heading off away from the fight with someone wearing my face,” Bucky explained, looking over his shoulder when Tony stopped short.
Tony shot an incredulous look in Bucky’s direction. “You had your working comms the whole time and didn’t think to use that to prove you were the real Bucky?”
Bucky just shrugged before urging Tony on to keep walking. “Loki’s a trickster. Figured he’d just fake that too that same way he faked the clone everyone else was fighting and the way he looked to you. Figured you’d need something better than that for proof.”
Tony opened his mouth, wanting to argue the point but knowing that he really couldn’t. It would have been so easy for Loki to fake a comm unit just as he had been able to fake everything else in his attempt to kidnap the genius. Groaning to himself Tony shook his head and continued walking next to Bucky as they made their way back to meet up with the rest of the team that was on their way to them. With Loki’s plan having been discovered and stopped, the fight was over and Tony didn’t have to worry so much about being squished while outside of his suit.
“Thank you,” Tony said, looking Bucky in the eye so that the other man would understand just how much he meant what he was about to say. “Thank you for coming after me and not giving up on me even when I didn’t know who to trust.”
“Oh Tony. Sweetheart, you don’t have to thank me for that. I love you and there is nothing I wouldn’t do and no one I wouldn’t fight to keep you safe,” Bucky swore. “I don’t blame you for being cautious. You had no reason to doubt that it was me when Loki came after you and once you realized that there was a trick going on you did what you had to do to keep yourself safe. Ain’t no way I’d ever be mad at you for that.”
Tony turned so that he could wrap his arms around Bucky’s waist while the soldier encircled his shoulders, holding him tight to his strong body. For a moment the two of them just stood there, soaking in the feeling of being together and unharmed; doing their best to forget what could have happened if Bucky had been just a little bit slower in stopping Loki.
Eventually Tony pulled back, his eyes a bit misty though Bucky didn’t comment on them.
“Let’s go get the others and head home,” said Tony. “While we’re at it, I think you were onto something with having a code word. We should discuss that as a team and come up with something. Even though Loki lost this time, he almost didn’t and I wouldn’t put it past him to try something like this again in the future. It’s better if we’re prepared for stuff like that.”
Bucky nodded as they started walking again, the rest of the team coming into view at the end of the street. Tony matched his steps, walking hand in hand. He might have been fooled by Loki’s trick but he had his boyfriend and the rest of the team looking out for him and as long as they all worked together there was no threat that was too big for them to overcome.