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“What’s your limit in a fight like this?” Bucky asks as he and Clint pull on their suits and the Avenger’s alarm finally stops pinging their phones.
“What do you mean, ‘my limit’?” Clint replies. He leans over to let Bucky fasten the clasps behind his neck. The brush of Bucky’s fingers over his skin is smooth and settling.
Bucky fastens the clasps, and then presses a quick kiss to the back of Clint’s neck as he ties his own hair back in a ponytail. “I mean, I haven’t been in a skirmish with the team fighting something like this – something big and more like a military line battle. Steve said we won’t call in actual troops right away because we don’t know enough of what these aliens can do, but the report said ‘a lot of alien troops’ – what’s your limit? Do you run out of arrows? Do you slow down?”
Clint tries not to bristle at the implication in the question. He knows what Bucky means. He pulls on his bracers and shrugs. “I don’t run out of arrows. Me and Tony have a drone system set up to deliver them when I call for it. As for other limits, well. Let’s just say that I haven’t had to bow out of a fight yet, and I don’t plan on it today.”
Bucky stiffens and then leans in and brushes a kiss across Clint’s lips that feels like feathers, lighter than Clint ever imagined someone like Bucky could manage. “I didn’t mean to –“ he starts after he pulls back from the kiss.
“It’s okay,” Clint interrupts. “I get it. Just don’t worry.”
Bucky leans over for another quick kiss. “Got it, ace. You can handle alien troops.”
He can. He does. For about ten hours.
It’s fierce. The alien troops are actually cyber-organic creatures with four arms of their own to shoot with, and they have lasers. The team is focusing on containing them in the park they’d shown up in so that SHIELD can pull together enough mass weapons to take out an area state park-sized. The Avengers are just trying to hold these crazy things off.
At hour three he taps his comms and says, “I don’t think they’ve ever seen pine trees, guys. I’m headed up,” and he hauls himself up a tree as Tony calls, “Don’t get stuck up there, Hawkeye!”
After hour five he starts switching between his bow and his guns, but he stays in the fight.
At hour six he downs a power bar and a bottle of water in one minute flat, and goes back to ground fighting.
At hour eight he’s standing in a clearing of pine trees and shooting at five aliens, which means twenty arms, and well, that’s a bit much. Steve comes barreling through the brush at a key moment, and the shield deflects four laser beams headed straight for Clint’s head. Clint takes the alien’s surprise and turns it into a leap off of Steve’s shield and puts five arrows through their eyeballs. He lands in a tuck roll, but doesn’t quite make it to his feet at the end.
“You need to bow out for a breather?” Steve asks as he pulls Clint to his feet. “They just keep coming.”
Clint sucks in a sharp breath, testing the ribs that got banged up when he, eventually, got chased out of his tree. “Nope,” he says. “Breathing just fine, Cap.”
At hour nine he’s questioning his life choices. He and Bucky are in the same clearing, and he’s trying real hard to ignore the phantom jeering of Trickshot’s voice in his memory. His arm is shaking so badly that the shots are hitting, but they’re not hitting in the exact spots he’s aiming for. He blinks more sweat out of his eyes and swallows a groan as he ducks to pull another gun.
Bucky’s close enough or his super-soldier hearing picks it up, and he snaps, “Stay down, Clint.”
Clint doesn’t.
At hour ten he’s actually panting, his arm is shaking so badly that he’s using two hands to aim, and SHIELD finally calls the Avengers back out of the way. At the time, he’s at the edge of a debris-filled ravine where he’d found a handful of the cyborg fuckers creeping around and trying to circle the Avengers’ defenses. He can’t leave them here. They’ll be out of SHIELD range and fuck knows what kind of damage even five of them could do if they get to a civilian area.
He fires off four quick shots and takes two of them down with their weak spot in their eyes, but their stray laser beams weaken the ground he’s standing on and he starts to tumble. He doesn’t have the strength to get out of the fall, and every branch and rock he hits on the way down feels like an axe against his battered body. He stops at the bottom and finds himself staring up at the last three creatures and he can’t find his breath.
Who needs breathing anyway?
The creatures are just as surprised as he is that he’s landed at their feet, and he blinks once, hard, and forces himself to ignore the last ten hours. It’s like spending twenty hours in a perch and still hitting the mark. It’s like sparring with Nat for two hours and still staying alert for a surprise training scenario with junior agents. It’s like a three-day mission and still enjoying the hell out of Bucky’s body when he gets home. It’s like two circus performances in one day and still practicing for two hours in an empty big top because Trick is feeling like a bastard after the shows.
He raises his gun and swallows his exhaustion and fires six shots before the creatures can raise their weapons. They crash down around him like he’s shot out the walls of a building he’s standing in the middle of, and he’s got one draped across his legs and the head of another pressing his shoulder into the mud of the ravine. They smell like acrid smoke and burning metal, and when he does finally catch his breath it’s like breathing in a burning factory. He pushes frantically against the hot metal and scrambles up the side of the ravine.
Well, he tries to scramble up the side of the ravine. He’s grabbing handfuls of mud and tree roots, and he makes it most of the way up, but when he gets himself draped over the edge with his feet dangling below him, he runs out of gas. That’s it. He hits empty. Every drop of his energy is pouring into breathing, short gasps into the grass, and to grasping the ground that’s keeping him from slipping back down to the pile of steaming metal below. His legs apparently aren’t connected to his brain anymore, and they’re dangling limp against the muddy wall of the ravine.
He can feel the mud, sweat, and alien machine oil dripping down his face, and his fingertips are on fire as he presses them into the grass to hold himself up. The stench of grass and a cool breeze combined with oil and ten hours of fighting is threatening to make him sick, but he figures he doesn’t have the energy to even puke right now. He’s got his face pressed to the ground in a vain attempt to help keep himself up, but suddenly his hands slip on the grass. He’s going to slip back down and never get out of that ravine. He’s going to die in the SHIELD attack, surrounded by metal and tree roots.
“Fuck!” He hears, and then a metal hand is pulling him up onto the grass fully, and rolling him over onto his back.
He pries his eyes open and Bucky is looming over him, his flesh hand pressed to Clint’s cheek.
“We have to move,” he says, his voice low and filled to the brim with worry. “Can you move?”
Clint tries to slow his breathing, and he manages to pull himself to his elbows, but he doesn’t have the energy to talk. Bucky gets his hands under Clint’s arms and pulls him to his feet. His legs feel like they’re made of lead, and even his clothes feel like they weigh ten pounds. Gravity feels stronger than normal and he would swear he can feel the blood pounding through every inch of his veins, sluggish and thick.
He takes a step.
He doesn’t fall over, so he takes another, and Bucky is leading him back a winding path to where the team is waiting in the jet. Bucky’s got his gun in one hand and has the other tucked under Clint’s armpit, keeping him steady as they walk, slowly, and board the plane. He hears Tony’s ‘fuck, Barton,” but is too busy trying not to trip on the metal grating of the plane’s floor. When he gets to his usual seat, Bucky puts both hands under Clint’s arms and lowers him down. Clint would have been an undignified heap on the floor if he hadn’t, so he’s grateful.
He feels Bucky’s hand grip his tightly as he closes his eyes.
He opens his eyes and they’re on the ground, the jet’s hangar is open, and Clint can see the lights of the Tower beckoning like a lighthouse, and Bucky’s pulling him to his feet.
“Steve wants you in medical, but we did a cursory check and Natasha agreed that our bed was a better choice.” He’s changed clothes, back into jeans and a purple hoodie he stole from Clint’s closet. His hair is still sweaty and there’s dirt on his cheek, but Clint wants to burrow into his arms and stay there anyway.
He leans against Bucky and lets his arm be thrown over Bucky’s shoulder. “Knew I loved you guys best,” he mumbles into the purple hoodie, and he can feel Bucky chuckle.
“Don’t take much, does it?” Bucky answers. “You hungry?”
Clint considers it, but is distracted by the way his head is nestled into Bucky’s shoulder as they walk.
“Clint?” There’s worry this time, sharp and strong.
“Probably choke to death if I try an’ eat,” he manages, and it’s true. There are only a few muscles Clint’s still confident are working right now, and they’re all involved in propelling him towards his bed.
Bucky nods and he can see him shake his head at someone nearby, but he doesn’t waste absent energy on trying to see who it is. Instead he tries not to make Bucky do all the work in getting them back to Clint’s room, and when they finally shut the door behind them and end up standing next to the bed, Clint runs out of gas entirely.
He stays where Bucky parks him, blinks slowly as his uniform gets pulled off, and wonders when Bucky added soft instrumental music to the apartment playlist. Once his clothes are off, Bucky pushes his favorite threadbare t-shirt over Clint’s head and steadies him as he pulls on clean boxers. Clint manages to open his eyes as Bucky moves away from him for a minute – the first loss of contact since Bucky found him next to that ravine.
“Buck?” he manages, and his voice is wrecked.
Bucky turns sharply at the sound. “I’m getting’ a washcloth and some aspirin. You’ll be asleep before I get back if you sit down yet. Stay standing just a second more, Clint. Then you can sleep.”
Clint focuses on his leg muscles and grits his teeth. Bucky has no idea how difficult the command to ‘stay standing’ actually is. He has to clench his eyes shut as he hears water run in the bathroom, and he’s trembling by the time Bucky gets back.
“Shit,” Bucky swears, and he’s there again, holding Clint up and pressing the glass of water he brought to Clint’s lips. “I didn’t want you sittin’ down yet, but –“ he cuts himself off and worry radiates off him in waves. “Take the aspirin, ok? Then we’re done.”
Clint follows the order and Bucky actually leans over and picks him up, bridal style. He carries him around to his side of the bed and lays him out, pulling Clint’s legs down and shifting the pillow the way he knows Clint likes.
“Bucky?” Clint asks, hanging on to wakefulness like it’s keeping him from plummeting to his death.
He feels Bucky’s hand brush down his cheek and then through his hair. Bucky’s pressing down, like he can brush the exhaustion from Clint’s face. He feels the washcloth follow and Bucky wipes Clint’s face and neck and then moves to his hands.
“Yeah?” Bucky asks, like he’s talking to a spooked kid.
“Think I found my limit,” Clint mumbles, and digs deep to dredge up his last bit of energy. He finds the energy because Bucky doesn’t need to worry. Bucky doesn’t have to pamper him. Bucky doesn’t need to see all of this and decide Clint’s too much trouble, too much worry.
He uses the energy to smile and wink at Bucky, and the grin and shake of the head he gets in return, the way Bucky’s green eyes sparkle a little too bright and his bare hand comes back up to cup Clint’s clean cheek, well, they’re worth every second of that fight, every inch of exhaustion, and now Clint can sleep pressed against Bucky’s warm chest, and rest.