winterhawkkisses:

Bucky came home to find Clint about a foot from where he’d been when he left that morning, and the apartment in almost exactly the same state, too. He took a couple deep breaths, felt his teeth grinding together, tried to keep his voice accusation-free. 

“Not what I was hoping for, I admit,” he said, and Clint’s shoulders hunched in just a little. 

“Hey,” he said, and he sounded kinda heavy. Tired. 

“Should we just – not?” Bucky asked, and he honestly didn’t mean to sound so pissed, but out of all the many and varied emotions pissed was the easiest to deal with right now. 

At least Clint’s reaction was something. His head shot up, eyes wide, and he scrambled onto his knees. Supplication, that was the word for it, right? 

“Buck, no, please, I swear I want to do this, I just -” 

“You just got attached to this place, and I’m askin’ you to make these huge changes for me, and I get that -”

“Buck.” 

“- it’s too soon, or too much of a commitment, or -”

“Bucky.” 

“- maybe you’re just not that into the whole living together -”

“Buck, please.” 

Clint looked – genuinely distressed. Stupidly miserable. Beaten down by it, and that was enough to deflate all the pissed that Bucky could muster. 

“Aw, fuck, it’s okay, sweetheart,” he said, and sank down to the floor next to Clint, pulled him into an awkward halfway hug. “It’s okay if you wanna wait, I don’t -” 

“I couldn’t find the lid for the fuckin’ tupperware,” Clint said, which cut Bucky off at the knees. 

“…what?” 

Clint eased back from him, sat back on his heels, rubbed his forearm across his eyes like a little kid. 

“I found the box but I couldn’t find the goddamn lid,” he said, “and it just seemed – important, like that was the thing I needed to do most, and then -” he flailed, vaguely, in the direction of the kitchen island, “and then when I was looking for that I figured we needed some kinda bubblewrap for the mugs, right? So I went to the bodega on the corner, but they didn’t have packing tape, and then I knocked over the box with the silverware and – you’d cleaned them, I didn’t wanna start out with filthy fuckin’ forks so – and then they had to dry -” 

Bucky grabbed for Clint’s hands, which were telling a distressed story all their own. 

“And then it was fuckin’ four, somehow,” Clint said, hopeless, “and I knew you were coming back and -”

“It’s okay.” 

“- and I just started thinking about – this is what you’re signing up for. Fuck.” 

“Hey,” Bucky said. He reached out to cradle the back of Clint’s head, threaded his fingers through the hair there and let his thumb soothe back and forth. “Hey, baby -” 

“I’m sorry,” Clint mumbled, once Bucky had tugged him all the way in, forehead resting in the crook of Bucky’s neck where it fit just exactly right. “I’m a mess.” 

“I love you,” Bucky said, easy as breathing. “I love you, and this is nothing, and we’ll get in professional fuckin’ movers, okay? I don’t give a shit, I just wanna be with you.”