for geek pride - avengers

565 words by gdocs

"Barnes."

Bucky doesn't remember falling asleep on the couch, but he's being woken up by someone who is unmistakingly Tony Stark. Whatever Stark has to say can't be that important, though, so Bucky keeps his eyes shut and rolls over.

"Barnes," Tony repeats, insistent. Bucky should probably get up anyway — the couch isn't nearly as comfortable as his bed and he wants to have a good, proper sleep before starting his day.

"Barnes," Tony says for a third time, as Bucky shuffles onto his back, eyes still squeezed shut. "You've been made into a meme."

"What?" Bucky says, slowly opening one of his eyes. He's heard that word before, he's sure of it, but his brain can't remember the meaning.

"On Twitter," Tony elaborates, which explains everything. When Bucky opens both of his eyes and finally focuses on Tony, he can see Tony hovering above him, his phone in his hand. There's a semblance of a smile on his face as he glances down at his screen.

"Okay," Bucky says, because he knows what Twitter is, at least. He pulls himself up into a sitting position and fixes Tony with a hard stare. "What's a meme?"

Tony bites his lip, and he looks like he wants to laugh. Instead he shrugs.

"You know that picture of you Steve posted?" Tony asks, still looking down at his phone with a slight smile. "The one where you're all alone?"

"Yeah," Bucky says, but he's failing to see why he's a "meme" because of that. He thought it was a good picture if he was being honest. If he thought any otherwise, the picture wouldn't have been posted.

"Well," Tony says, sitting on the edge of the couch, right where Bucky's body isn't, "you're in a huge room, all by yourself, and people decided that it was a little bit too empty."

"Empty," Bucky repeats. "What's a meme?" he tries again, because he's still failing to connect the dots.

"It's sort of a joke? Something that becomes big on the internet?" Tony explains, but Bucky's not sure how much he trusts him — he doesn't even sound confident in his own answer. "You've become one."

Bucky holds out a hand, and after a second, Tony complies and puts his phone into Bucky's hand. It's open to Tony's Twitter, onto the "Worldwide Trends" page. There, at number three, is the hashtag #DuplicateBuckyBarnesParty. Frowning, Bucky taps on it. He scrolls through the screen slowly, and it's full of pictures of him — a lot of pictures of him, in fact. People have taken the picture of him sitting by himself, smiling while sitting on a chair in an empty room, and filled the room. Most of the edits, as far as he can tell, are just taking him from the original picture and copying his body to fill up the rest of the picture. Some others, though, have taken other photos of Bucky and put them into the room, or pictures of the other Avengers, or random objects.

Bucky doesn't really quite get it, but it's funny. He appreciates the work.

"So," Tony says. "You're a meme."

Bucky hands the phone back to Tony, and an idea forms into his brain. Why shouldn't he join in on a joke about him?

"Hey, Tony?" he asks. Tony looks up at him, an eyebrow raised. "How do I edit a picture?"