WinterIron one shots

A christmas clichè

Word count: 5773

Summary: Tony knows Bucky is struggling still, but with the help from the rest of the team, they hope it will be the best Christmas ever.

An: HAPPY DECEMBER 16th!! Hope this puts you in a festive mood-  if you celebrate Christmas. I've finished school now. So maybe more Christmasy themes chapters!

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"Come on, come and get your name out of the hat," Tony called, walking into the compound living room waving a santa hat around.

Clint cheered, hopping over the back of the sofa to go first. He glanced at his name and grinned. "Awesome."

Nat and Steve came next, each looking happy at the names they'd pulled. Steve ruffled Tony's hair happily before he moved away.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Tony squawked, waving the hat at Bruce, Thor and Sam who were sprawled together on the largest sofa. They each chose a name out of the hat, and Tony practically pranced over to the other sofa where Bucky was sitting, watching on with interest.

Tony held the bag out to him. "Go ahead, RoboBuck. Pick a name out of the hat."

Bucky looked from the hat to Tony and raised his eyebrow. "What am I picking a name out for?"

"Secret Santa."

Bucky blinked. "Why is Santa being secret?"

Tony looked confused for a moment. "Right. Years as an ice cube. We had to explain this to Steve too. Secret Santa is a... thing? You chose a name out of the hat and keep it secret and then get your one person something awesome."

Bucky nodded slowly and reached his hand into the hat, pulling out a slip of paper. He glanced at the name, swallowed hard and then stuffed the paper into his pocket. Tony took the last paper out of the hat, grinned at it and followed suit, tucking the paper away for safekeeping.

The others returned to whatever they'd been doing, and Tony remained at Bucky's side, frowning as he saw Bucky getting more and more tense.

"What's the matter, Snowflake?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know how to... Christmas?" Bucky asked, looking at Tony with such a lost expression that it actually hurt Tony's heart. "Everything seems so different than what it was when I was a boy but I don't... I don't want to mess up, you know?"

"You can't really mess Christmas up, Buck," Tony said. "It's... Christmas is literally different for everyone. There's people that go all out and make a massive deal about it, and then there's people who don't even really acknowledge it as a thing, and then there's just about everything in between."

"I tried to google," Bucky admitted. "But I just ended up spiralling into confusion and it hurt my brain."

"Is that was caused the Starkpad's sad and unfortunate death?"

Bucky looked down at his hands and nodded.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Tony assured him. "We can figure this out, Buck, don't worry about it, okay?"

"I just..." Bucky shrugged. "Stevie loves Christmas. I don't want to ruin it for him, you know, the first Christmas we have together for decades."

"Leave it with me," Tony murmured, patting Bucky's thigh. "I'll fix this, just you wait and see."

Bucky's hopeful eyes only made Tony more determined that this would be the best Christmas ever; for all of them.

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