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“It’s a surprise.”
The three least comforting words Steve Rogers had ever heard, and yet he’d gone along with them because what harm could there possibly be? Tony had arranged for them both to visit AvengerCon to hand out some sort of awards, but Steve had complained that he wouldn’t be able to walk around the convention without drawing attention to himself.
Cue Tony lighting up like Times Square on New Years Eve. Delight, effervescent, cascaded across his face, and no effort from Steve could convince him to admit what plan he had in mind to solve this problem.
The boxes that arrived for him and Bucky the morning of the convention simply stated ‘change in separate rooms’ on the gift tag, and Bucky - rarely one to disobey orders, even now - went ahead and carried his box away to the bedroom before Steve could stop him.
It took longer than it ought to have to put the uniform on. Every stitch was perfect, which wasn’t all that surprising considering JARVIS probably had a computer model of their bodies down to the minute. Not to mention Tony’s nanomachines put traditional tailoring out of business. Everything from the shiny buttons and buckles to itchy collar was spot on, and Steve felt even more awkward than usual looking in the mirror.
Bucky shuffling out dressed all in blue? It was the cherry on top of awkwardness.
Okay, no. The cherry on top was the wig Bucky was holding in his right hand.
“He can’t expect us to go looking like this.”
“He can and he does,” Tony announced, stepping out of the elevator as a smirk spread from one sider of his face to the other. “My, but you boys look just spiffing .”
“I’m with Bucky,” Steve said. “How does this make us less identifiable?”
“It’s cosplay , boys. What? Didn’t you read any of the paperwork I sent you? You’re judging the cosplay competition, among other things. People dress up as Avengers? It’s a whole thing.”
“I’ve seen that,” Bucky said. “But with dogs.”
Steve frowned. “Dogs?”
But as usual, Tony wasn’t waiting around for Steve to catch up. He clapped his hands together and ushered them out the door, grinning all too widely.
“Where’s your costume, anyway?”
“Always on hand ,” Tony grinned, giving his wrist a wiggle in Bucky’s direction.
Steve grumbled, trying to put himself into a corner of the elevator that would allow him to keep from brushing Tony’s shoulder with his own. Somehow the man seemed to take up all the middle space, making it impossible to stand as near to Bucky as he would have liked. For reassurance, obviously. “Couldn’t you have designed these so they could fly on and off?”
“And spoil the fun you two will have later tearing each others’ clothes off? Wait, haven’t you…”
Stepping away to put his back to the elevator doors, Tony slapped his hands on his hips and stared at both of them, shaking his head. Like Steve, Bucky had put as much distance between himself and Tony in the elevator as he could, and the result was the two of them seemingly pressed into opposite sides of the elevator, now, as though to get away from each other.
It meant when Tony said “You’re supposed to look at each other” they both got the full effect. An eyeful. Bucky all primly tucked away in his Howling Commandos blue, with wings on his shoulder, and Steve in green that he still filled out just as well as he always had; dashing, handsome and authoritative boy next door; the officer you’d be more than happy to introduce to your parents.
“Oh,” Steve said.
Now he got it.
Tony grinned.