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“Morning, Buck,” Tony breezes past on his way out of the kitchen. Bucky would think Tony was avoiding him, if not for the light kiss on his cheek.
He stares at the doorway Tony had departed through, “JARVIS, did he just…?”
“Indubitably.”
“…Why?”
Bucky’s sure JARVIS would shrug if he’d been able to as he replies, “Mister Stark’s motivations are his own.”
That’s where it starts.
Bucky gets a kiss on the cheek every morning. He gets a pat on the arm after every maintenance session. A kiss silently blown to him every time Tony is on the phone when they cross paths. Tony absentmindedly drops a kiss on his forehead whenever he sees Bucky sitting somewhere. He doesn’t even seem to notice what he’s doing!
Bucky tries asking the others but all he gets is that Tony is a very tactile person. Which, no, he isn’t. He won’t even tolerate standing close to most of them anymore for crying out loud! As he pays more attention, he works out that they’re not lying, Tony just doesn’t do any of it around them.
It’s focused on Bucky, then, and Tony also doesn’t trust the rest of the team. Which is… fair. Bucky doesn’t know why Tony feels any safer with him, though.
It starts to drive him nuts as it continues for weeks. Eventually, Bucky can’t take it anymore and he follows Tony to his workshop to get the truth.
“You just always look so sad,” Tony mumbles, flushing embarrassedly, “you look like you need a kiss now and then.”
Bucky just stares, feeling confused. He’d honestly started to wonder if Tony was doing it to mock him or something.
The red hue of Tony’s face deepened. “I see how that could’ve been a mistake…. Sorry.”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to stop.”
“…Yeah?”
“Yeah. You can do that forever, if you like.”
And this time, when Tony kissed him, it wasn’t on the cheek.