Chapter Text
Winging it
Tony confirmed the last item on the shutdown checklist then sat back took a deep breath and screamed into his hands. “Fuck!”
He had screamed quietly, aware of the passengers in the back, so that outburst only earned him a compassionate look from Clint. His F-O had already started packing his flight bag, but made no motions of actually getting up and leaving. Between the rain streaming down the wind-shield and the less than happy passengers de-boarding after an involuntary tour of the airport but no actual flying Tony couldn’t blame him.
“What now, boss?” Clint asked, calm and matter of fact. He was one of the few people who knew that Antonio Carbonell and Tony Stark were actually the same person and that the man in the left seat was in fact the company CEO. Luckily he never made a big deal out of it, aside from calling Tony ‘boss’. But everyone assumed that was just in deference to the rank and privileges that came with the four stripes on Tony’s sleeve, it was astounding to Tony that no one else had noticed that he never did that with any of the other Captains.
Tony took another deep breath. He had had his breakdown, now was the time for thinking. “I’ll call dispatch, organize transport, hotels, the works. You can help shepherd passengers if you want,” he decided. Clint gave him a grimace and he added: “Unless you want to talk to my assistant instead?”
Clint raised both hands defensively. “Oh no, nope, you’re right, I’ll deal with the passengers,” he decided.
“Good choice,” Ton replied and fished his phone out of his flight bag. “I’ll make sure we’ll get free breakfast.” He knew that his colleague was constantly on the hunt for free food and a breakfast buffet was the least he could do considering the shit-show he was probably walking into. But with the situation as it was the flight attendants and gate agents could probably use all the help they could get. And he knew Barton was always happy to help.
“Thanks boss.” Clint grinned and threw him a sloppy salute before he grabbed his bag, straightened his tie and went to take some of the brunt of the disgruntled passengers.
Tony waited until the cockpit door had closed behind him, then powered up his phone. The screen stayed suspiciously silent, even once it was fully booted, which gave him mixed feelings. That it wasn’t exploding with messages meant that Pepper probably didn’t know what was going on yet, which meant on the up side she wasn’t worrying. On the down side it also meant Tony would have to tell her what was up and that was the kind of conversation he really didn’t like.
But there was no point in delaying it. With a sigh he pressed the dial button, it barely rung twice before it was picked up.
“Tony, where are you?”
Pepper of course knew that he was supposed to be somewhere over the Midwest by now and that he never ever called from the flight deck in flight. “Hello Pep in my step, nice to hear you, too,” he replied drily.
“Tony,” she repeated and there was a warning in her voice. “Where are you?”
“On stand at JFK,” Tony answered quickly. There, the band-aid was off.
“Still?” Peper asked incredulously and a shrill undertone creeping in. Tony couldn’t fault her, their official departure time was two… No almost three hours ago at this point. And even with the usual delays being back at the gate now was never a good sign. Plus Pepper knew he wouldn’t have called her if it was a fixable situation. “What did you do?”
“Again. And by the way this is not my fault in any way, shape or form,” Tony felt necessary to add. After all Pepper tended to try and blame everything on him, up to and including technical faults. And while yes maybe that could be backtracked to his designs it didn’t matter how well you engineered something, sometimes stuff just broke. But as much as she liked to argue that it didn’t make any sense for him to fly for Stark Airways, the airline that had grown out of the aerospace branch of SI, even as a passenger he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere tonight.
“Some lunatics have decided to storm the field, the whole airport is shut down and I don’t think they’ll reopen it before closing time tonight,” he explained. “They had La Guardia and Stansted down, too, at least temporarily and those will be swamped with the backlog and diversions when they open back up. Also our crew is about to run out of hours, so I figure our best course of action is to find some hotels before they’re all booked out and then see how the situation is in the morning.”
“Alright,” Pepper said and he could hear her switch from panic to work mode. “I’ll figure out accommodation and alternative transport and in the meantime you’ll keep me updated if anything moves. Anything else?”
Alternative transport. That meant she was going to look for any other way to get him over to the west coast. Which was fair, considering it was really important for him to be at the Aerotech expo and represent the company, or at least that’s what the investors said. He almost saw himself on a cross country trip in a greyhound bus already, although that probably wouldn’t get him there any faster either. Plus a lot of the other people who wanted to be at that expo would also be stuck right now for the same reasons, including several of those investors who had been on the passenger list of his own airplane.
“Can you get us breakfast?” he asked remembering the promise he had made to his co-pilot.
“Do I ever not get you breakfast?” Pepper asked and he could hear the clattering of her keyboard in the background.
“You’re the best,” he replied before he hung up. By the time he had packed up his flight bag and put on his coat his phone vibrated with a new message that contained hotel reservations and pickup times for the crew. Relieved, Tony pocketed his phone and went to brave the storm of the remaining passengers somehow still de-boarding his plane.
***
Despite his best efforts it was over an hour later when they finally made it to the hotel. Between ushering the remaining passengers off the plane, who refused to go in any kind of orderly fashion but instead decided to push and shove and handle their baggage in the middle of the aisle which then just delayed everyone further, handing out company contact information to entitled VIP dirtbags complaining about how it was somehow their fault that they wouldn’t fly tonight, never mind that very obviously no one was going anywhere, and the absolute shit-show that was an arrivals hall stuffed with way too many people who had just got back off planes that were supposed to have left hours ago, plus those who had never even made it onto an airplane, it was a miracle that it hadn’t taken them even longer.
It was another miracle in Tony’s mind that no one there had recognized him, but it was always surprising what a pilot’s uniform could do to the way people perceived him. It seemed to be impossible to most people, that a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist like him might be walking around an airport dressed like a regular airline pilot. Then again, he wasn’t very public about the fact that he flew for his own airline on a semi-regular basis for exactly that reason.
Now the last of their passengers were squared away in taxis to their hotel – which thankfully was a different one than the one the crew was booked into – Tony, Clint and their handful of flight attendants made their way across the car park to where their crew bus would be waiting. The rest of the crew were in a rather good mood, despite the situation. Probably because they essentially got the day off without any actual work and would be getting a night in a 4-star hotel and a free breakfast buffet the next morning.
Tony was in a rather more broody mood. He was very much aware of the logistic challenge their delay posed, considering Stark Industries had a big display at the Aerotech expo and a significant portion of their staff and materials would have been on his flight. Plus he was supposed to give part of the opening speech tomorrow evening which he was now going to have to do with significantly less preparation time on site, if any at all.
He was mentally reviewing his main talking points while he followed the others, which was why he probably didn’t notice the taxi approaching behind him until after it had sped through a puddle right beside him and splashed him with a mixture of icy water and dirty, slushy snow. His pants were drenched instantly, water dripping into his shoes, soaking into his socks. “Well, fuck you, too!” He yelled after the taxi, but it had already disappeared around the corner to the taxi stands. With a sigh he squished his way to the crew bus. He couldn’t wait to get to the hotel and have a hot shower, and then ignore all of these problems for tomorrow him to solve.
After the hot shower and room service pizza, Tony sat on his bed, wrapped in a fluffy hotel bathrobe, and surveyed the damage. His uniform pants and socks were completely soaked. He could only hope his shoes would dry out until the morning, he had sat them under the heater which was probably hell for the Italian leather, but he could have them buffed somewhere. His coat had mostly protected the rest of his uniform, but the cuffs of his uniform shirt had peeked out under the sleeves and were now stained brown.
His flight bag, which also served as a trolley suitcase small enough to pass as carry on luggage, had fared almost as badly. The water had managed to soak in and got all over the suit he had planned to wear to the expo. He had more clothes packed in a suitcase, but that was still in baggage handling with the rest of the checked luggage. Tony had kept it checked on purpose, it would either stay on the plane if they continued on with it in the morning or be transferred to whatever plane they ended up flying with tomorrow, so just for the night it he hadn’t wanted to go through the time and hassle of retrieving it.
Also, he thought bitterly, if he had dragged along his suitcase, too, chances were that would have been soaked just as well. On the plus side the remaining contents of the bag, including his flight pad, his laptop and the spare underwear and toiletries he kept stuffed into a side bag for emergencies were largely unscathed, so at least he would have dry socks for tomorrow. Still, it didn’t solve his problem.
It was way too late tonight to buy another suit, also he couldn’t go out in just the bathrobe. Pepper already had enough to do, organizing around the delay, so he really didn’t want to bother her with it. Plus as soon as they arrived tomorrow he would have access to his checked luggage, so he really only needed to get through the airport tomorrow. He only really needed to get through the airport tomorrow, but all his clothes were already showing muddy stains, so just drying them out wouldn’t do.
With a sigh he gathered up all his clothing in one of the garment bags provided by the hotel and stuffed his feet into the flimsy slippers they had provided. He’d have to go with the hotel’s laundry service and hope for the best.
***
At least it was late enough there weren’t a lot of people around, Tony thought as he made his way through the hotel lobby in a hotel bathrobe and uni-size slippers. The front desk agent smiled at him warily, but she probably had seen a lot weirder things in her time. Hell, he had caused a lot weirder scenes in hotel lobbies in his younger days, and still sometimes did although usually by accident. “Hi,” he said and tried to smile back, but it probably looked mostly tired. “I know it’s really late, but is there any chance I could get this dry cleaned by tomorrow morning?”
“Ah, yes, but there will be an extra charge for the overnight service,” the lady at the front desk said tiredly in the kind of voice that indicated she had already recited that phrase a few times today.
“No problem,” Tony assured her hurriedly. “Just, I know it’s late, but I’ll need this to be ready by 6am. I’ve got a flight at 8 and everyone will be pissed if I don’t show up, because well, it’s not leaving without me.” He didn’t actually know that yet, but Pepper would make sure they’d get out of there as early as possible. 8 am was the earliest he would legally be allowed to fly again and after a quick peek onto the crew roster he had realized that this would still be the best way to get them to the west coast as quickly as possible.
“Yes, that should be possible,” the front desk agent replied blankly. “I’ll just need your room number. And you’ll also be needing dry cleaning, sir?” She handed Tony a paper form that asked for his room number and any special treatment he might want for his garments, while turning to the person behind him.
Tony set down his garment bag on the counter to fill out his form, only glancing at the other arrival, but then he did a double take. Behind him stood a man, somewhat taller than himself, but that wasn’t very hard. He was clothed, it seemed, only in a bath towel that was wrapped around his hips which left his glorious abs on display, and a pair of truly magnificent shoulders. One of which was metal, Tony realized, and although the prosthetic was mostly hidden by the garment bag draped over it, he was pretty sure he recognized the general design.
Up until then he hadn’t thought it was that hot when someone wore something he had made, but that guy wore it really well. Especially with the delicious blush that was currently creeping down from his face to the edge of the towel.
“Uhm, yes,” the man stammered, tucking a strand of dark wavy hair behind his ear where it stayed for all of two seconds. “I’ll also have to check out early.”
“Of course, but there will be an extra charge for the overnight service,” the front desk agent repeated her spiel and also handed him a form.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” towel-kilt replied and put down his garment bag to fill in the data. Now uncovered the prosthetic arm glimmered in the light of the reception hall that was not at all dimmed to reflect the late hour, and Tony tried very hard not to stare at the piece of art. Or the arm.
“You also got stuck at the airport?” he asked instead while completing his form. There was no better way to bond then commiserating about the troubles of travelling.
“Yeah,” the man replied, ducking his head shyly behind the curtain of dark hair which of course had not stayed behind his ear. It was cute. “Must be something big going on if they closed all the airports.”
“Yes and no,” Tony replied. To him the whole thing was rather childish, but safety always had top priority when it came to air travel so a big closure like this could seem like a bit of an overreaction to the uninitiated. “It’ll be all over the news soon enough if you want the boring details. I just hope they get it squared away until tomorrow.”
Towel-skirt glanced up. “You work at the airport?”
“Not quite,” Tony answered with a smirk. “I’m the guy who makes things fly.” Both literally and figuratively, he thought, since he not only piloted aircraft but also designed them. He considered adding something flirtatious, but then thought better of it. “And that’s why I’ve got to go sleep now, or a lot of passengers will be very unhappy. Well, more than they already are.
“Thank you very much for the help,” he added in the direction of the front desk agent, who, behind her very professional smile, clearly wished for both of them to just go away so she could continue reading the novel she was no doubt hiding behind the counter. “And to both of you a good night.”
With that he threw a lazy salute at towel-toga-man and made his way to the elevators, cursing his luck all the way up. What was the point of having your own private jet, and being able to fly your own private jet, when you were still bound by schedules and couldn’t take the time to chat up a barely dressed hot guy and maybe have a drink at the bar with him. No, instead he was doing the responsible thing of going to sleep, so he could get his rest hours in, so they could fly out of JFK first thing in the morning. Plus towel man would probably be sleeping soon, too. He had said he would need an early checkout.
The elevator dinged at his floor and with a sigh Tony dragged himself to his room and straight into bed. He was tired enough after all the excitement that at least he would sleep easily. And on the plus side since he didn’t ask, he didn’t have to go through the humiliation of being shot down.
***
It was still dark out when Tony’s alarm rang. Which wasn’t surprising considering the time of year, still it made Tony feel like it was too early. But over the years he had learned to just deal with that, so he struggled out of bed and went through his bathroom routine in a zombie like state, until he was awake enough to remember that he had handed in all his clothing for laundry service.
Still a little brain-fogged he staggered to the door and indeed found a laundry bag hanging on the outside of his door. With a sigh of relief he dragged the bag inside, threw it on his bed, zipped it open… And stared.
The clothes inside were definitely not his. The uniform was missing, for one. And instead of his tailored charcoal suit and wine shirt, the suit that was inside was a standard navy blue, and while of good quality, definitely off the rack. The shirt was black and slightly frayed on the left arm and the tie that came with it was black with silver stripes and red stars, just bordering on garish, something he might have enjoyed under other circumstances, but definitely not conforming to the Stark Airways dress-code.
Plus there was the size issue: Tony picked up the pants and held them to his waist just to check. He might manage to make them not fall down if he cinched his belt very tight, but they were still too long and somewhat baggy. Adding the shirt and jacket he would look like a boy who had raided his dad’s closet.
And so he found himself back in the fluffy bathrobe hammering on the door next to his 20 minutes after waking up and half an hour before pickup, hoping that his co-pilot had not yet disappeared to the breakfast buffet yet. He was in luck when Clint Barton opened the door a moment later, already fully dressed, but with his tie hanging around his neck, his hair dishevelled and a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. He looked at Tony with raised eyebrows which was apparently all he was going to get.
“Do you have a spare uniform?” Tony asked straight out.
“Mhhhmmhmhhhmmmn,” Clint replied, then remembered the toothbrush and vanished into the en-suite bathroom to reappear a moment later without it. “What happened to yours?”
“Laundry mishap,” Tony replied. “So?”
Clint scratched the back of his head. “I got a spare shirt? It’s only got the three stripes though and it’s not going to fit you.” He replied and then hesitantly added: “And it’s short sleeved.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tony decided. A white shirt was still better than a black one and he could keep his coat on until they were on the airplane. He’d have to go with navy pants from the too big suit, but he might just get through with that and once they were in the cockpit, he wouldn’t have to get out until they reached their destination. And there he could pick up the rest of his luggage and probably change in a public bathroom before anyone saw him in this getup.
“Oookay,” Clint replied, raising his hands defensively and disappeared back into his room. A moment later he came back with a neatly ranger-rolled white shirt. Tony grabbed it with a muttered thanks, then headed back to his own room.
The shirt Clint had given him was indeed quite a bit too large, the three-striped epaulettes hanging half of his shoulders and the shirt itself reaching almost to his knees. But it was a clean shirt and with the short sleeves at least he didn’t have to worry about how to keep the cuffs from constantly slipping over his fingers.
Tony managed to get to breakfast bare minutes before pickup time. By stuffing the shirt into the pants which he had pulled up as high as they would go and then cinched very tight with his belt, he had managed to pull off a somewhat respectable look, although he had had to roll up the legs of the navy suit pants. At least he had rolled them on the inside and pinned them tight with some spare paper-clips, it wasn’t pretty but with a bit of luck it would work. With his jacket already on and his ID lanyard hanging down the front he hoped it looked pilot-y enough no one would take a closer look.
Clint, predictably, was at the buffet, loading up a plate with fruit and breakfast pastries for probably the third or fourth time – Tony had figured out the man pretty much only had the job for the free breakfasts. When he saw Tony approaching he fetched a second mug and poured him a coffee, as well as handing him a second, smaller plate with jam-filled min-croissants.
“You are a godsend,” Tony sighed as he inhaled the heavenly scent and then quickly downed the coffee and the proffered breakfast.
“Can’t have the flight delayed because you’re going hungry, boss,” Clint replied with a grin as he finished off his own food with surprising speed. Then looked at his watch. “Oh, pickup time.”
Tony looked up from his empty plate to notice their flight attendants joining them. Looking past them to the lobby he saw a hotel courtesy driver chatting with the receptionist.
He grimaced. Somehow he knew this day was going to be a shit show, but it wasn’t going to get better by delaying the inevitable. “Alright,” he said with a sigh as he stood up and squared his shoulders, pasting on his customer service smile. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
***
“Stevie, I got a problem.”
Bucky was whispering into his phone, scared that someone might hear him, although he had checked that the bathroom was empty before starting the call. He was sitting on the toilet lid, massaging his temples with one hand but unable to take his eyes off the garment bag he had hung over the stall door. Because the whole situation was so absurd he feared that if he looked away the whole thing might disappear into thin air and he had only imagined it.
His mistake of course had been that he had only grabbed the garment bag the hotel staff had left in front of his door this morning and folded it into his carry on. He knew it would wrinkle the suit, but he hadn’t had time for that then, after getting notice that he would be on the first Stark Airways flight out and that he would only have a few minutes until a minibus would pick up him and a few other Stark Industries staff. It was fine, his travel clothes were still slightly stained from the previous day’s misadventures, but at least they were dry. And surely he would find a place to change into his suit somewhere.
And sure enough he had found a bathroom in the arrivals hall, which was about the last opportunity he had because neither the warmer West Coast weather nor his bosses would be very forgiving if he turned up in a blood-stained black hoodie. Only the suit in the garment bag, which was predictably creased, wasn’t his. For one it was much more expensive than anything he could afford. Also it was very obviously too small for him. He didn’t even have to try to fit into the shirt, it would look worse than Steve wearing one of his ridiculously small t-shirts that he kept insisting still fit him and he was deathly afraid of popping the buttons.
Worse, it wasn’t only the suit. Behind the very tasteful grey three-piece suit and dark red shirt with the gold tie that… had tiny airplanes on it? Behind that hung another suit: Black pants, black jacket, white shirt, and a black tie with silver pin-stripes. Only on closer inspection the jacket had four silver stripes on the cuffs and the shirt had a matching set of epaulettes and a stylised silver pair of wings pinned to the breast pocket.
“Stevie, I think I accidentally stole a pilots uniform,” Bucky whispered urgently.
“I’m sorry, you what?” Steve replied disbelievingly then audibly took a deep breath. “Okay, Buck. Slow down, what happened?”
“Our flight was cancelled yesterday, airport shut down,” Bucky began to explain, talking quickly but quietly while listening for anyone entering the airport. “So we got off the plane. Only then there was this lady with a nosebleed and I helped her, and got blood all over me. And I thought it’s fine because I still got the suit. But then on the way to the hotel someone bumped into me and I dropped the backpack into a puddle. So I gave the suit to dry cleaning at the hotel and they even had it back in time this morning. Which is good because they bumped me onto the earlier plane. Only now I’m here and apparently our luggage is still on the other plane. So I thought good thing I packed the suit into the carry on, only now I opened the garment bag and that’s not my suit! It’s some kind of really expensive suit and there’s a pilot’s uniform? I don’t know what to do with that suit and that uniform! And I got nothing to wear. And oh my god I’m already late, I have to be at the expo, like, now? I’m so getting fired…”
“Calm down, Buck,” Steve interjected. “Have you talked to your boss? I mean you can’t be the only person with that problem right now.”
Bucky sighed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t considered that. “My direct supervisor actually got bumped to the second flight, because he doesn’t have a direct role in the presentation and that’s still in the air. So I’m not going to get a hold of him for at least the next two hours,” he explained. “The next person I could contact is like my boss’s boss’s boss and she’s super scary. She usually has like her own staff of secretaries and assistants and I can’t reach any of them either so I’d have to call her directly and…”
He broke off as his phone beeped at him in the way that signalled another call coming through. Bucky looked at the number which was not saved in his contacts and didn’t look familiar, but the first couple of digits told him that it had to be a company number. He swallowed. “Oh my god, I think that’s her. I gotta go.”
“You got this!” Steve managed to tell him before he hung up and accepted the other call.
Bucky cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice from cracking, but he wasn’t entirely sure he succeeded. “Barnes?”
***
“Pepper, I need a suit,” Tony greeted his CEO the moment she was close enough he could talk to her without anyone else overhearing. He knew it was a shitty way to talk to her, but he was at the end of his rope. Plus this was a problem that needed solving quickly, he only had a couple hours until the opening presentation, and before that there were formalities to do and people to greet and a bunch of other things he did not particularly care for but that the shareholders insisted he do and he couldn’t very well do them in his current state of dress.
Only his wonderful plan of sneakily grabbing his luggage and changing in a convenient bathroom hadn’t worked out. Because someone had swapped out their airplane from the previous day for another Stark Airways plane, due to some technical fault. The fault could be easily fixed in a couple hours, so the easiest was to let the fault-free plane take off first with all the people that needed to go more urgently and then send the other plane with the rest of the staff once it was fixed. And since all the people and cargo were headed to the same place anyway someone decided it was more efficient to not unload and re-load both aircraft. Most of the passengers were quite happy with the promise that their luggage would be waiting in their respective hotel rooms in the evening, but it now left Tony literally without a shirt to wear.
Pepper pointedly stabbed at her phone with a well manicured finger while somehow still managing to walk in a straight line as she replied. “Tony, I do not have time for this. You’re late, actually everyone from the New York facilities is late, so is half our display, which therefore we couldn’t even begin setting up yet. Almost all the teams are only half complete, so I have to deal with junior managers and assistant technicians instead of their leads. It’s total chaos. And by the way, your miracle engineer is a no show.”
“My what now?” Tony asked distractedly trying to figure out how to best bring up his clothing situation again.
“Your most recent favourite project? The guy you’re supposed to do the opening with tonight?” Pepper asked just short of actually doing an eye roll. Then she suddenly stopped and it took Tony a few steps until he was mentally caught up and turned around. “Tony… what on god’s green earth are you wearing?”
“Laundry mishap,” Tony replied curtly, but he suddenly was not thinking about his suit any longer, because something had clicked in his mind. “You mean the guy I nabbed from the prosthetics trials?”
The person Pepper was talking about was an Army Vet studying aerotech engineering who had got into the prosthetics trials of the SI medical branch after losing an arm in oversees deployment. Tony did not usually interface with the other departments outside Aerospace much, aside from checking on the technical side of things every now and then to make sure the quality of their work was up to his standards. But since he still was the owner of the company and not just head of Aerospace R&D he apparently was expected to tour random facilities so they could show off their progress in a way that was effective for publicity.
On one such tour recently he had toured the prosthetics trials which included viewing the works the trial patients had made in occupational therapy. As arts and crafts projects went they had been pretty good, but Tony had left most of the appreciating to Pepper and her more developed sense of art. Until he had seen a set of technical sketches of an airplane. And not just any old plane, but one of the current Stark Jet models.
The therapists were also very happy with those, considering they were very clean and detailed sketches and apparently made by a left-handed guy who was missing his left hand. But what Tony had found more impressive was that they were not entirely accurate. Which meant that whoever had made them had not simply copied down existing blueprints, but probably had figured out the dimensions and layouts from other sources. Also the parts that were different – and Tony would know because he had done a lot of the design work on this thing after all – were well thought through variations with little annotations on how the design changes might affect the performance of the aircraft to adapt it to a variety of use-cases from a short-haul city hopper passenger jet to a long distance freighter.
Tony had taken pictures of all the sketches and after the tour got the contact details of that engineering student through some back channels. And then made sure that he was taken on as an intern in the team that was currently designing the newest variants of that jet. He had checked with the team lead regularly, and lurked in a few of the group chats, and his “pet project” as Pepper had started calling it had developed well. After a bit of a warm-up period the engineering student integrated well into the team and although his contributions were small they were significant enough that some of them would be implemented on the next Stark Jet variants. And the guy offered a pretty good job opportunity straight after graduation.
It had been the idea of some PR person to drag the poor guy to the expo. Tony had to agree that it was a great way to showcase the company’s inclusivity and focus on talent as well as cross-department teamwork and joint development of new technologies. But he also knew what it was like to be paraded around like a dancing monkey, so he had vowed to try and make the experience as endurable as possible for him.
On the other hand he had been looking forward to meeting the guy for weeks now. Because while he had slowly falling in love with his designs, sneakily attending video calls to keep in the loop, he hadn’t actually met the man in person. Reportedly he was rather shy, and between finishing his degree and still regularly attending physical and occupational therapy he only had a part-time intern spot, and did most of his work from home anyway.
Until, Tony now realized, last night. Because how many guys were there wearing a SI prosthetic on their left arm who had been stuck in the same hotel last night and probably now had a very good reason for not showing up because they probably didn’t have anything to wear either? Not that many, Tony decided. And if he was right, he had a pretty good idea of where that guy was now. “What’s his name again?”
“James Barnes,” Pepper replied. “Tony, what are you doing?”
Tony had started turning in a circle, surveying the domestic arrivals hall while he tasked the semi-intelligent assistant software on his phone to look up the cell number of a Mr. James Barnes in the company database. When his request was answered with the cheerful ping of a match he triumphantly tapped the dial button.
“Barnes?” a rough, tired voice came back and Tony’s brain automatically matched it to the gloriously shouldered towel guy of the previous evening, creating an image that was totally not helpful right now.
“Yeah, hi. Stop me if this sounds weird, but I’m the pilot from last night. And I’m pretty sure our laundry got mixed up, which means I got your suit and you got mine, while our respective suitcase with the rest of our clothing are probably somewhere over Iowa right now,” Tony started without introduction. “And since you’re still listening to me I’m willing to bet you’re currently in the same domestic arrivals hall trying to figure out how to solve this conundrum.”
“You do?” Barnes replied and there was a hopeful note in his voice. “Uhm, yeah. I’m in the Northwest bathroom.”
“Alright,” Tony said, pivoting in that direction until he had located the door in question. “Be right there.”
He was already walking there when he hung up, leaving Pepper to trail behind him. “Tony, what is going on?” she asked, catching up.
“I solved the suit problem,” Tony replied. “And found my missing engineer. And I will deal with all the annoying people if you will stand in front of this door for five minutes and glare menacingly at anyone who tries to get in and keep all the questions for later.”
Before she could answer he strode through the door and came face to face with towel guy. Only this time he was wearing jeans and a baggy, oversized Stark Industries hoodie, which was almost better than the towel look.
“Oh, that was quick,” Barnes said, then suddenly froze, turned first very pale, then very red and then a blotchy mixture of both. “Oh my god, you’re Tony Stark,” he whispered.
“Yeah, that’s the name on my driver's license,” Tony replied. “Well technically it’s Anthony Edward, but that’s cumbersome and also besides the point.”
Barnes turned even stiffer than he already had and Tony could see the Army training shining through. If in doubt stand at attention. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry, I…”
“Please call me Tony,” Tony interrupted him, remembering his vow to make the whole ordeal as good as possible for the poor guy. “Also, James? This is not your fault. So please keep breathing and relax a little before you sprain something. Or fall over. Because if you faint on me now this will get a lot more awkward than it already is.”
“I go by Bucky, actually,” Barnes muttered after a moment. He still looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, but at least his shoulders had relaxed a little and his face had returned to a more natural colour. “Middle name’s Buchanan,” he added to Tony’s questioning look.
“All right Bucky, pleasure to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances,” Tony continued, digging the garment bag that wasn’t his out of his carry on. “Also sorry, but you might have a bit of a reputation when we go out there. I promise I’m a nice guy though and the people who’ve properly worked with me before can vouch for that. Mostly. Also sorry, I had to wear your pants. I didn’t have any others. I’d offer to get them dry cleaned first, but I don’t think we got the time for that. Or get you a new suit, actually, because I couldn’t help noticing that the sleeves are a bit frayed. Actually would you let me look at your elbow joint later? Because it should not be snagging like that.”
Tony kept talking while he stripped first out of his jacket, because despite the air conditioning it was quite a bit warmer in here than in New York, then the borrowed pants and finally Clint’s shirt, because he was sweaty as fuck and his fresh clothes were right there, so he figured there was no point in trying to preserve his modesty. He couldn’t help notice though that Barnes’s eyes lingered below the belt line maybe a second longer than strictly necessary, before they got stuck on the scars on his chest for a moment and finally stayed resolutely glued to the ceiling after that.
“It’s kind of always done that?” Bucky mumbled, fumbling with the garment bag. “It’s fine, really.”
“Yeah no, that’s unacceptable. I’ll have to talk to the design team, maybe get a hand on the sketches myself. Aside from ruining your clothes, that just can’t be good on the wear and tear of the mechanics in the long run,” Tony decided, carelessly stuffing the shirt into his flight bag. He slid past Barnes to reach for the garment bag with his suit that was hanging on the open door of the middle stall, startling the still fully dressed man enough that he walked backwards into a stall in the process.
“Feel free to lock if you need the privacy. Not that there’s much I haven’t seen with the towel you walked around in yesterday, and really I think you got the abs to show off.” Tony paused in buttoning his shirt when his brain momentarily caught up with his mouth. “Oh god, did I really just say that? I mean your abs are great, but please don’t write me up for sexual harassment. Anyhow you should get changed, because I bargained us five minutes of alone time and they should almost be up.”
“Oh, uhm, yeah,” Barnes replied and retreated fully into the stall, but without closing the door. Before he did Tony realized he was blushing again, but a much deeper and more even red than the blotchy mess from earlier.
Tony decided to keep his mouth shut after that and they changed in awkward silence. Barnes emerged from his stall just as he figured their five minutes were up, less blushing and somehow making the cheap suit fit like it was designer ware. Tony couldn’t help giving him an appreciative once over, but then quickly turned away as he heard the door opening.
Barnes lagged behind as he confidently strode back out into the arrivals hall, so Tony turned back for an encouraging smile. “Come on, up and at them! And maybe after dinner you can show me your speed-brakes,” he added, which made that wonderful blush return. And got him a dirty look from Pepper who of course had caught that last part. “I really liked your preliminary sketches.”