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imaginetonyandbucky · 4 years

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The Gift of Jab

For the prompt: Hi! I'm always up for some sparring hotness, so how about Tony being present for physical training sessions (working/watching), but says no everytime Nat/Clint/Steve/etc invites him to do it. Rhodey laughing every time the team says that it's bc Tony doesn't want to embarass himself. Bucky suspects his BF is actually well-versed in hand-to-hand/martial arts/self-defense; so he gives himself the challenge of getting Tony onto the mat. When he does he ends up a)on the floor & b)really aroused.

A/N: This ended up more meet-cute than PWP, hope you enjoy!

By @dracusfyre

Click here for AO3

Natasha’s thighs tightened around Bucky’s neck warningly, threatening his air supply and reminding him that anyone else’s neck would already been broken. Bucky smacked the mat with an open palm and the pressure disappeared; he lay there for a minute, getting the air back in his lungs from where he had hit the mat so hard, then he took Nat’s hand and climbed back to his feet. “Who taught you to be so fast?” he complained as he traded places with Steve, who had been waiting on the sidelines for his turn to spar.

“You did,” Nat said with a grin. She grabbed her bottle of water while Steve bounced a little on his toes and jabbed the air, not so much warming up as getting in the right mindset. The sparring mat was in the middle of the room, and on one wall Sam was tearing up the treadmill and bobbing his head to whatever music he was listening to and Tony was doing his own thing in the corner. Clint was sitting in the corner watching, having already reached his fill of getting thrown around the room.

Steve must have noticed Bucky staring goofily at Tony because he followed Bucky’s gaze and watched Tony for a while, frowning in confusion at the strange pattern of movements Tony was making in the air with his arms and legs. “What’s he doing?” he finally asked, tilting his head towards Tony when Nat looked at him questioningly.

“Wing chun,” Tony called out, apparently able to hear them even over the sound of Sam’s treadmill and the music on the loudspeakers.

“Like Bruce Lee,” Clint added helpfully. Bucky and Steve just looked at him blankly.

“You’d like it,” Nat said, elbowing Steve in the side. “It’s really popular with old Chinese grandmothers.”

“I heard that!” Tony said, raising his voice but never pausing his movements. “Also, what you’re thinking of is Tai Chi.”

“But what is it? Is it like yoga or something?” Steve kept watching as Natasha took a moment to put her hair back up in a tighter ponytail.

“It’s a martial art,” she mumbled around the hair band in her mouth as she raked the hair back from her face. “Like karate or jiu jitsu. Ready?”

Steve tore his eyes away and let Bucky do the admiring from afar while Steve concentrated on his match. He lasted longer than Bucky did, which was understandable given he’d been sparring with Nat longer, but she suckered him in with a feint and hooked his legs out from under him, hitting the mat hard. She stood over him, made finger guns at him and said, “Pew pew,” and Steve obediently flopped back against the mat and played dead. This time, Natasha traded out with Bucky and Steve did a kip up to his feet as Bucky stepped out onto the mat.

“Does he ever spar or is it just to stay in shape?” Steve asked. “I mean, it’s not like he…I mean, when he’s in the suit he doesn’t…” He realized what he was saying as he was in the middle of saying it, especially when he noticed Natasha giving him an unimpressed look. “Of course, he doesn’t always wear his suit,” he muttered, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, cheeks turning pink. “Right.”

“I can hear you,” Tony said in a high sing-song voice.

“You should join us,” Natasha called back, smirking when Bucky’s eyes jerked to hers in alarm. “I think the boys want a closer look.”

Tony was silent for so long that Bucky thought he was back to ignoring them, but right as he was turning back to his mat Tony stopped what he was doing and said, “You know what, sure. I haven’t sparred with anyone but Happy for a while.”

He caught Sam’s eye as he came by the treadmill, and Sam took out his headphones. “You going to spar?” he said with interest. Tony never sparred hand-to-hand, he always demurred with a joke or an excuse. When Tony nodded, Sam turned off the treadmill to watch.

“I didn’t realize this was going to be a spectator sport,” Tony complained even though he was smiling. “Who am I sparring?”

Bucky felt the back of his neck burn as everyone but Tony turned to look at him. “I’ll go first,” Bucky said when the silence stretched for long enough that Tony was starting to look confused.

As Bucky shook out his arms and joined Tony on the mat, Clint leaned over to Natasha and said, “I bet Bucky has to tap out because he gets a boner.” Bucky gave him a dirty look over his shoulder, then gave Natasha one too when she shook Clint’s hand.

She just smirked and said, “Keep it clean, boys.”

Bucky brought his hands up in blocking position and closed his hands into loose fists, squaring up while Tony was turned slightly to the side, hands open and in front of his torso instead of protecting his face. Bucky jabbed at him a couple of times experimentally as Tony dodged and then when he swung a little more seriously Tony blocked it easily and jabbed at the inside of arm, making his fingers go numb for a second.

“Whoa, what was that?” Sam said, raising his eyebrows. “Never seen that before.”

“You have,” Clint insisted. “Bruce Lee, remember?”

Bucky shook his hand out and took up his position again. He led with an uppercut this time, a little faster and with more power, and Tony turned to the side, letting it swing past where he used to be, and hit Bucky’s throat, temple, chin, and jaw with a flurry of punches and chops, making Bucky stagger backwards from the unexpected onslaught. Then there was a foot in his chest that shoved him backwards and he almost landed on his ass.

“I want to change my bet,” Clint said. “Tony’s a ringer.”

“Buckaroo here isn’t going full speed or strength,” Tony said with modest shrug, though there was a smile playing on his lips.

“Just warming up,” Bucky said, though the truth was that this was a fighting style he wasn’t familiar with. Until Natasha, he’d mostly been from the “stand and slug it out” school of fighting, something you naturally fell into when you were stronger and more impervious to damage than most. Also, well, Bucky was much more used to having a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.

He eyed Tony and tried to slip on a little of the Winter Soldier, rolling his shoulders and trying to imagine what he would do if he were really trying to bring Tony down. So this time, when they squared up, he charged, trying to bodycheck Tony and get his hands on him, ready for Tony to try to dodge. Instead, Tony stepped into the charge, turning so that his shoulder drove into Bucky’s upper chest, pushing him off balance. At the same time his foot was between Bucky’s and his knee drove into the inside of Bucky’s thigh, making him lose his footing. Bucky rolled into the fall, coming up on his feet. He jabbed a couple of times, making Tony give ground, then followed up with a side kick, expecting Tony to dodge or block. Instead, he ducked by leaning back and kicking the thigh that Bucky was standing on, then catching Bucky’s other leg on his shoulder, forcing him to land on his back. Tony kept a grip on Bucky’s leg and followed him to the ground, pressing his knee to the side of Bucky’s. It was clear that in a real fight Tony’s next move would be to tear the ligaments in Bucky’s knee, and Bucky tapped out. He lay there for a moment after Tony released him, heart pounding with more than just the rush from the fight, before he accepted Tony’s hand to get back on his feet.

“Again?” Tony asked, bouncing a little on his toes, smiling widely. His hair was slightly damp with sweat, tank top clinging to his torso. “Best two out of three?”

Bucky’s mouth went dry and he swallowed, skin feeling tight. He stalled for a moment by grabbing a towel and swiping it over his face, worried that going another round would be a bad idea. But in the end he was helpless against Tony’s enthusiasm. “Sure,” he said after a minute, and the rest of the team cheered.

As they squared up again, Bucky assessed his next move; in a real fight, he would try to take Tony to the ground, but there was no goddamn way he could grapple with Tony without embarrassing himself. Having Tony kneeling between his legs for just a second had already been bad enough.

He started out with a flurry of kicks, keeping them low so Tony couldn’t try the same trick again. Tony didn’t return them, he only deflected them while stepping back, a frown of concentration on his face. The last kick, however, he caught Bucky’s leg and stepped forward, making Bucky hop backwards or fall over. When Tony tried to sweep his leg Bucky did a backflip, curling his legs in tightly to avoid hitting Tony on the chin. He landed gracelessly, but he was on his feet; backflips were not his thing because the arm itself and the supporting metal in his shoulder made him lopsided, which affected him in the air. Tony took advantage of Bucky’s unsteady landing to attack with a flurry of lightning fast jabs. Bucky brought his arms up to protect his face and got sharp jabs to the solar plexus and ribs, threatening to knock the wind out of him; he tried to punch back to get Tony to back off, and got hit in the throat. Finally he tucked his head and barreled into Tony, who turned on his heel like a matador and push kicked him in the small of the back. Bucky stumbled forward and when he finally turned back around to face Tony, Tony look so goddamned pleased with himself that Bucky had to laugh.

“Come on, then,” he said, doing the come here gesture.

Tony shook his head, hands up in the same starting position as before. “Wing chun doesn’t really start fights,” he said. “That’s not why I learned it.”

Clint hooted from the sidelines. “Hear that? Tony doesn’t start fights, he ends them.”

Tony and Bucky rolled their eyes and shared a grin. “Alright,” Bucky said, and swung at Tony again, a jab with his left followed by a hook with his left; as he anticipated, Tony blocked and countered with a chop to his neck like he’d done earlier. This time, though, Bucky dipped and twisted so that the blow hit his shoulder instead and grabbed Tony’s wrist. Tony lunged and hit Bucky in the chest with his elbow, hard enough that it would have knocked the wind out of a normal person. Bucky countered by hitting Tony in the side with his free hand and felt bad when he heard Tony grunt, but without hesitating Tony drove his heel into Bucky’s instep and then his knee into Bucky’s thigh. Bucky felt his leg twist at the impact but stayed on his feet and kept his grip on Tony’s wrist.

Until Tony somehow twisted in his grip, sweat-slick wrist slipping from between his fingers as Tony trapped Bucky’s arm against his body then ducked under it, twisting Bucky’s am behind his back. He kicked the back of Bucky’s knee, making it buckle, then with a knee to the center of Bucky’s back Tony drove him to the floor. Bucky struggled just enough to know that Tony had a solid lock on his arm; Tony was a heavy weight pinning him to the mat and Bucky’s breath caught in his lungs. He felt himself flush hot and then cold, skin tingling, and knew if he struggled too much Clint would win his bet. He tapped the mat with his free hand and Tony released him immediately. Bucky blew out a breath and rolled over, only to find Tony standing over him.

“I’ve known Natasha for longer than you have,” Tony said with a smile as he held out a hand to help Bucky pick himself up off the floor. “You taught her to be fast, and she taught me. Taught me some of her tricks, too.”

“Even the leg thing?” Bucky asked, and wished he hadn’t because then he pictured having his head between Tony’s thighs and he had to force his thoughts to something else. Behind them, Clint was scowling as he handed Natasha money from his wallet.

“No, not the leg thing. No one but Natasha can do the leg thing,” Tony said ruefully. Then he looked at Bucky expectantly and Bucky realized he was still holding Tony’s hand.

Bucky felt his face get hot and let go quickly. “We should do this again sometime,” he offered a little breathlessly. “It was fun.”

“Even if you were taking it easy on me,” Tony said, taking a towel from Sam and running it over his face.

“I went as fast and hard as I would go with anyone but Steve and Thor,” Bucky countered. He pulled his shirt up to wipe off his face and when he lowered it, he caught Tony staring at his stomach before his eyes flew up to met Bucky’s.

“That’s fair,” Tony said, and his grin said he knew he’d been caught looking and didn’t care. Bucky grinned back because all of a sudden it had become the best day ever. “You know, I think I’m done for the day. Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” Clint said, and he was about to climb down off his perch when Natasha grabbed his arm, fingers digging in with warning.

“He wasn’t asking you,” she said, and though she was smiling it was all teeth. “Don’t fuck this up,” she hissed, impressively managing to say it without moving her lips. "They might not try again for weeks." Bucky’s neck burned and he hoped Tony couldn’t hear her, even though Steve’s carefully blank expression said that he definitely could and furthermore, he agreed. Behind Tony’s back, Sam gave him a discreet thumbs up, and Bucky was ready to murder all of them.

“I am, yes,” Bucky said, resolutely ignoring the chuckleheads in the peanut gallery. "I just, uh, need a shower and I'll be ready."

"It will be faster if you shower toge-" Clint started, and Natasha elbowed him off the bench before he could finish.

"You kids have fun," Sam said, and Bucky left before his face could get any redder.

#tony stark #bucky barnes #winteriron #tony x bucky

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