Chapter Text
“Heh, I really do have to go, Barnes.” He’s trying to pull a shirt on while Bucky keeps trying to pull it off again.
“C’mon, nothin’ going on out there in the real world.” Bucky’s laughing and trying to be as intrusive as possible, and he can hear Clint give a huffy little laugh but still pulls his shirt down with absolute resolve. “Just stay the night.”
“I can’t.” He’s got to locate his pants now, wherever the hell they went. (Clint has learned that Bucky is awful about leaving their clothes in a centralized pile when he throws them places.) “I’ve gotta get home.”
This is exhausting. Bucky keeps fighting this same battle day after day, trying to get Clint to stay at the tower, even just for the night. He’s already got an apartment here but refuses to use it, and his excuses are absolute shit when they range from “I don’t want people staring at me while I sleep” when there are perfectly good locks on the doors and “I hate Stark too much to be near him for too long” when Tony isn’t even always in the building at the time.
“What the fuck is it with you and goin’ home all the time?” Bucky slumps back against the wall, pouting just a little bit, watching Clint swipe his pants off the ground and tug them on one leg at a time. He’s kind of taking personal offense by it at this point because maybe it’s him. They lay around the tower together, it’s not like they’re discreet about anything at this point, and Clint genuinely seems to like him, not that they’ve talked about like making anything official, but fuck buddies isn’t exactly an idea that Barnes is comfortable with when he’s actually really into Clint. “Stay here. With me.”
God, he sounds pathetic, and Clint looks at him over his shoulder with this almost broken expression. “I can’t.”
He can’t meet the archer’s eyes now. This argument is tiring after the tenth time. Is it because he’s not boyfriend material? Is he just too damaged to actually date? Shit, he’s barely even human at this point, it feels like, why the hell would Clint even be interested. Bucky suddenly feels damn ridiculous about thinking that maybe he and Clint could work out. “Y’know, I thought this was goin’ great. I really like you, you asshole.”
“I really like you, too. But I’ve got to get back. I’m already late.”
Late for what? As if there’s anything going on in his life. He has a bow and arrow and like half a personality and the snark of a dick, like he’s got anything going on in life. Except. Unless.
“Fuck, do you have someone else?”
It only takes a heartbeat, but Clint’s expression flashes in horror. And that’s enough for Bucky. He’s frustrated, mostly pissed, a little crushed, and just plain sad. Not even because he thought that he was the most important person or whatever, but more along the lines of he thought Clint was a guy with better intentions than that. The one time he decides to place some faith in a person. “You’ve got someone at home, don’t you? Like a husband or a wife or whatever. And I’m just your fucking mistress-“
There’s this half second of contemplation on his face (and Bucky knows why because he’s got a fist clenched up in reflex and this asshole probably knows he could be killed if he’s not careful) before Clint crosses the room and just kisses him because that’s the only solution right now.
His chest is tight and the wound is still fresh, but he feels himself relax. Unwillingly, but he does. He can’t hurt him. He can’t.
“Stay with me,” Bucky pleads for a moment after they’ve broken apart, but Clint just laughs like an idiot, the sound a little breathy from the kiss.
“How about you come stay with me?”
“That’s… That’s not exactly how you explain to someone that you’re cheatin’ on them. You don’t bring the person you’re having an affair with home to your spouse. That’s bad etiquette.” As much as he believes Clint is just this weirdly inherently good person (yeah, a bit like Steve) with the best intentions in the world (also like Steve), he isn’t sure whether or not cheating would fall along that line. Worst case scenario, maybe he’ll take it as a joke? Because he’s really hoping that maybe there was a misunderstanding, something lost in translation that Bucky may have missed.
He rubs the back of his neck and when his eyes meet Bucky’s, they’re a little nervous. There’s some tension in his jawline suddenly. “I’ve got someone at home, but it’s not like that.”
--
When a woman opens the door, Bucky is just about ready to punch Clint. Really hard.
But he doesn’t. Not yet.
“You’re late again, Clint,” she says with a little bit of knowing sass, but when the door opens more and the light shines on the man with the metal arm, she bites her lip. Bucky can see something flash behind her eyes: fear? hope? He’s not so great at reading people, but whatever it is, she’s apprehensive. “And who’s your friend?”
He’s fishing around in his wallet, doing everything he can to not look at Bucky right now. “My boyfriend. Sort of.” (Bucky swallows hard. Maybe he did jump the gun on this.) He hands her a fifty, and his hand might be shaking just a tiny bit. Just a lil’ bit. “Thanks for staying late, Simone, I appreciate it.”
“If you show up on time, this won’t be a problem. You’re just lucky my boys had a sleepover tonight.” And she pushes past Clint and tries very hard to keep a decent distance from Bucky before adding, “I couldn’t get him to sleep, by the way. He wanted to stay up ‘til you got home.”
And Bucky can damn well tell that Clint is just getting more and more worried; those stupid stress lines are on his forehead, the ones that Bucky hates seeing because that means Clint is pretty freaked out. “Go figure,” breathes Clint, walking in and dropping his keys on the table by the door before kicking his shoes off. (How domestic.) “Hey, at least it’s easier this way. So you can meet him.”
He’s just trying to follow suit, but he feels out of place in this nice little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Even though he closes the door behind him, he can hear the woman’s damn car roll away, so she’s not a problem by any means. “Meet who?” he asks just as Clint rounds a corner.
“Peter.”
There’s this kid. This kid with this goofy smile who’s eyes light up when he looks at Clint, and he gets to his feet and rushes over. This kid who is in spider pajamas and runs across the floor on tiny feet. This kid who then actually physically latches himself onto Clint’s leg and beams up at him. This kid who just says in this high pitched little voice, “Hi, Daddy!”
A kid. Shit.
Better than a spouse, at least.
Those sharp archer eyes are watching Bucky, analyzing him, trying to figure out how he’s reacting. Now Clint’s words are shaking: “This is Peter. He’s my, uh, son.”
That… would be a very good reason to come home every night. And Bucky is definitely feeling like an asshole.
But he also has no idea how to react to a kid.
He certainly didn’t sign up for this. He thought Clint was a guy with some weird habits that could be broken, maybe. Like the one where he never slept at the tower. Bucky can see now that there’s no shot at that. And he’s a dad. Shit, that means there may have been a wife or something, and Bucky feels like he’s almost encroaching on something he shouldn’t. Stepping on sacred ground or whatever.
“Hey, Pete, say hi to Bucky.” Because obviously Clint can see the uncertainty and possibly terror on his face.
This munchkin of a creature removes one hand ever so delicately, almost slowly, from Clint’s leg and waves at Bucky with tubby little fingers while wearing a huge, toothy smile. “Hi, Bucky!”
Doesn’t respond. He’s just rigid. Like a statue, maybe his metal arm is making that effect worse. His eyes are going between the kid and Clint, trying to figure out what to do.
Because he hasn’t had to handle a kid in… at least seventy years. And even then he wasn’t good at it. He just didn’t bother with these things before because there was a war. He had time for women because that was a one night thing and the whole gay scene wasn’t acceptable. He’d resigned to the idea that he was going to die in the war and that was why he never needed to prepare for any of this. He didn’t expect to come out on the other side. And he certainly didn’t think about kids.
Now he wishes he had considered it because he doesn’t know what to do or say. There’s this tiny person that he doesn’t know how to interact with whatsoever and clearly Clint’s got this hope that this can work out because why else would he have introduced him to Peter? Bucky feels more pathetic now than he did when he had to fall on the Avengers for help just to recover and survive. And he just stays quiet, not sure how to tell Barton that he isn’t interested in kids.
Thank God for the kid’s natural inquisitiveness because he’s the one to break this awkward silence by asking, “Who’s Bucky?”
The archer ruffles the kid’s hair, and there’s a weird tentativeness to Clint’s words that Bucky’s not used to hearing when he says softly, “Bucky is a boy I really, really like.”
The weight of it all is just getting heavier.
Little nose scrunching up as he angled his head to look straight up at Clint- at his dad, he asks, “Do you love Bucky?”
And his heart just stops as Clint slowly turns to look at him, blinking a little bit more than usual. Bucky can entirely tell that he’s out of his element right now, like there are split personalities here trying to take control at once; he can read it- the dad trying to handle his son appropriately but also the professional hero who doesn’t want to let down all his walls yet. But he must be in it up to his ears because he says, “Yeah, I love Bucky.”
He can kill a person in at least a thousand different ways, but Barnes isn’t sure what to do with all of this, it’s a lot in one night, he feels reassured but also like he can’t breathe. Because Clint loves him, and he loves Clint too, but he’s not ready for a kid, he’s definitely not ready for a kid.
“So he’s not gonna go away?” Peter asks, innocently looking at Bucky before pushing his face into Clint’s leg some more.
This leaves Hawkeye gaping for words. Because for once, he doesn’t have an answer.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He doesn’t exactly know how to handle a kid, but he might be able to figure it out eventually. And he doesn’t want to lose Clint over something that he can figure out with enough time. As weird as this may be, and he’s going to need a hell of an explanation, he wants to stay with Clint. Even if it means spending nights here instead of at the tower.
And Bucky swears he can see the concern melt off of Clint. And his… boyfriend pats Peter on the head and it’s a little bit like a switch flipping and dad mode activating. “Alright, so let’s go get you in bed, yeah? Since you didn’t behave for Simone.”
He pries himself from Clint’s leg and protests softly, “Because you were late.”
“Yeah, I know.” Clint scoops his kid up, and Bucky is still trying to figure out what this dynamic is between them. “Blame Bucky for that. He kept me busy at work.”
He unconsciously smirks at the word “busy”. Bucky only feels a little bit guilty about making him late. He feels a lot guiltier about blowing up in Clint’s face earlier. This is why he doesn’t deserve him. Because he’s this stupidly great guy who has good intentions and is weirdly optimistic and decides to fight evil with a damn bow and arrow, which Bucky thinks is pretty much useless. And he’s decided to pick an amnesiac sniper with a fucked up arm. Talk about contrast.
And when he looks to Clint, the archer’s kind of got his kid on his hip and just says, “I’ll be back as soon as I get him to go to sleep. Sit and do whatever. TV works. Mostly.” He kind of shrugs, like he’s not sure what to do. “Just… please stay.”
“Don’t worry.” He looks around for a second and sees the mess that Peter must’ve created and knows that this whole… thing is something that he wants a good explanation for, but right now, he knows Clint’s got to do his dad thing. “I’ll be here.”
--
“We’ll have to be quiet, he’s not a super heavy sleeper.”
And that basically wakes Bucky up because it’s been an hour and the whole house is quiet and it’s pretty late, so he was almost asleep himself, but Clint crashes on the couch next to him, looking even more exhausted, his hair even kind of messed up. “You look like shit.”
He blinks slowly and leans into the couch more, slightly towards Bucky. Clint’s smirk is infectious. “Thanks, you’re so sweet.”
“Well, I do happen to be your boyfriend. And you love me.”
Suddenly, it’s like the events of the past two or so hours finally kicks Barton in the face. “Shit, Buck, I’m sorry about this. And about that, I know we haven’t said anything, but I didn’t know what to-“
Barnes snorts a laugh. “It’s fine.” He feels Clint’s forehead just hit his shoulder, and he reaches out to put his arm, the flesh and blood one, across the back of the couch and around his boyfriend. Yeah, he did like the way that sounded. Even if he’s a mostly human trainwreck on his own and he’s making the conscious decision to be with another human trainwreck. He can only see this getting messier, especially with the many issues that he battled on his own time when Clint wasn’t watching, let alone throwing their problems together. “I love you too, by the way. I just didn’t know if we were serious enough to say that.”
“I’d say we are,” he reaches up to play with a strand of Bucky’s hair that has escaped the bun. “I mean, I brought you home to meet Pete.”
He kind of gets it now, why he wasn’t told sooner. The two of them had only been doing this whole thing for a few months, and it’s not like Bucky is someone who looks very kid-friendly.
There’s this long bit of quiet that lingers between them, silent enough that the rain hitting the roof is all he can hear. He gently pulls Clint closer to him, knowing he’s practically dead right now. And maybe the guilt is hitting harder now because he put his boyfriend under way more stress than should’ve ever been necessary. He should’ve trusted him. Then again, he doesn’t trust anyone much. Clint is only an exception to that because… because he’s easy to talk to and he’s just a good dude. He understands the PTSD and the mind control and the way the sniper brain works. Clint gets him.
A long sigh is drawn from Barton and he leans back a little bit, which causes Bucky to tilt his head and watch him with a careful eye. “I should probably explain him.” Bucky’s pursed lips and raised brow are enough to indicate a “yeah, probably”, and Clint just tries to settle himself in. “He’s not actually mine, if that makes you feel any better.” (It did.) “His parents were killed when he was maybe two, I think. Fury was trying to handle it because Pete’s parents were some of SHIELD’s, and by the end of it all, he kind of ended up redirected to me.”
Bucky just blinks slowly and smirks. Clint… he looks proud.
“He’s a good kid. He’s cute, he’s smart, I can put him through school, it’s like I get to be a dad.” He rubs the back of his neck, and those tired eyes watch Bucky. “I’m not even sure why Fury gave him to me. Maria could’ve taken him, probably, but he’s… he’s legally mine now. He’s been with me for three years.” He looked in the direction of the stairs, up at where he’d taken Peter. “I should’ve told you sooner, I know, but just this… this is the one thing I keep for me. Only Natasha knows about him. It’s so he stays safe. Away from the dangerous stuff that we do.”
It makes sense. He can’t even argue with it, he understands why this kid, this place, is hidden away from the Avengers, from him. Hell, maybe Peter’s safer far away from him. In case that Winter Soldier programming kicks in…
“Are you okay with all this?” And those stress lines across his forehead are back.
He feels it kicking in, this little bit of worry that he could ruin a lot of things here. Bucky has to even pull himself further away from Clint, and his eyes are downcast, watching their interlocked fingers. (When did that happen?)
He’s really a walking disaster. Bucky is actually dangerous, not in the terrible uncle kind of way, but in the actually lethal way. He’s a terrible influence, which falls more along the lines of terrible uncle. There are like two hundred reasons why he has kind of decided that being a parent was never in his future. It may have been about seventy years ago, but not today. Not after all the HYDRA programming. Not with the thought that he could snap Peter’s neck with one hand.
“Clint…”
His head tilts back so he’s staring at the ceiling. He just looks resigned. “Yeah, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“I could kill him.” As if he doesn’t think that about everyone. As if he hasn’t thought about what he could do to Clint if he wasn’t careful. He knows he could kill just about anyone, and he feels powerless to stop himself. There’s so much going on inside his head he doesn’t even know about and it’s terrifying.
And then Barton’s eyes are back on his with absolute severity. “So could I. What’s your damn point?”
He’s right. But the difference is that one of them has it under control. He can just imagine there being blood and… Peter… “Would you really risk him?”
Clint’s lips pursed. “I trust you.”
“And if something happens?”
“We’ll deal with it then.”
His brow furrowed. “After I’ve killed you and your son?” Bucky wants to just walk out right there because Clint is clearly not thinking with his head right now. He’s probably not thinking with his dick either, but he’s definitely not using his brain. “You make terrible decisions, Barton.”
“I did decide to love you, so.”
And there’s this quiet again, like a blanket over everything, even covering both their mouths so they can’t say anything else. Bucky wants to say something else, but he’s not sure what. Because his heart is fucking with him because he wants to be around Clint more, but not hurt him or Peter. Clint can hold his own, that’s not even a problem, but Peter is a kid who could be caught at the wrong place at the wrong time and get himself hurt; he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.
Barton is still pressed up against him. He wants to let go, but he can’t.
The realization hits that he also makes bad decisions.
“If even one thing goes wrong, you need to get rid of me.”
Clint Barton is too tired to even carry on at that point, and Bucky sees him crash because suddenly his face his buried in his chest and the assassin can feel his boyfriend smiling into his shirt. “I can do that.” And then he laughs; it’s real short and cute. “Now carry me up to bed please.”