“It’s fine, Buck. We’ll figure it out.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. His time on the Avengers has been peppered with ridiculously weird shit, there’s no question about it; aliens and monsters and sentient furniture ain’t even the half of it. But this broad, with her wild dark hair and her pendants and her herbs, this ain’t exactly scary.
“What was it she said to you, exactly,” Tony asked, arms folded across his metal chest. “And not ‘vague gist’ exactly, Barnes, gimme at least a decent paraphrase, here.”
“She said I’d forget what was most important to me,” he said, and shrugged, then made an expansive gesture in Steve’s direction. “He’s right here.”
“Aaw,” Steve said, and clutched at his heart, his smile genuine and warm even if he was bein’ a punk. “Aaw, Buck, I love you too.” Bucky considers, for a moment, putting him in a headlock, but he gets distracted when Barton ducks under the police tape and runs over to him, looking weirdly concerned for how vertical and uninjured Bucky obviously is.
“Barnes,” he says, moving in all close, “you okay?”
Bucky kind of startles, ‘cos on the other side of Bucky from Steve and the others, Barton’s grabbed hold of his shirt, got it all rucked up by his hip.
“Woah,” he says, backing off, knocking Barton’s hand away. “Getting a little friendly there, Barton?”
The archer sends a quick look at Steve and the others, then back at Bucky, his face going through all kinds of expressions before he finally settles on confused.
“Sorry,” he says, “sorry. Just wanted to make sure the team was all fine.”
“Sure,” Bucky said, dismissive – it wasn’t like he even knew the guy that well. “Nothing happened.”
my hand slipped. xD
It was all Clint could do to get back to his room in one piece, despite his entire world falling apart around him.
Sure, they’d been on the down-low, feeling out this relationship of theirs, seeing if it was a thing, before making it a thing-thing. It had made sense, yesterday.
Today? Today, it was gone.
Clint felt the air in his lungs rush out, in staggered, gasping breaths, unable to stop them. He shouldn’t be surprised; how could he expect to hold onto a relationship when he couldn’t even manage to breathe properly?
Getting a little friendly there, Barton?
The word, they were the worst kind of hurt. No, Clint corrected, they were the second worst kind of hurt; the honour of top spot rested solely with the look in Bucky’s eyes. That look, devoid of any expression beyond what the hell, that look that said Bucky had no wish to be that close to Clint, that hurt deeper than the words. Hurt deeper than the knife last week, or the bullet last year.
Bucky looked at Clint like he had way back when, when he didn’t know anyone, didn’t want to know anyone.
Clint didn’t want to admit it, but he had worked hard to get past that look, to think of himself as worth something again. To show Bucky that he was worth something. That together, they made something that was worth everything.
But now Clint was on his knees in his room, the bed still unmade from this morning, when he’d woken up in Bucky’s arms. He blinked at the sheets, before getting to his feet. He stormed to the bed, and pulled everything off of it. the pillows, the sheets, all of them fell to the floor. He then picked them up, ripping them apart, all the time screaming a wordless scream, from the depths of his soul.
He didn’t know what had happened to Bucky, but he wouldn’t stop until he found out.
Eeeehehehehe thank you you made it hurt worse 💜💜💜
Goooooorgeous!
OK so I’ve never written either of these characters before so this may be very OOC but I wanted to continue this so I tried anyway
* * *
“What happened.”
Bucky jolted, a little. It wasn’t often he got startled, but the Black Widow somehow always managed sneak up on him. She was perched on the counter, and Bucky had no idea how he’d missed her. He gave her a look, one that said, don’t do that and I don’t know what you’re talking about.
“Something’s changed,” she said, disapproving in that subtle way of hers. “The past few days, you and Clint… what happened?”
Bucky scowled. “Nothing,” he said.
“It started when you came back from your last mission,” she said, insistent.
Bucky thought back. “When that fake witch pretended to curse me?” he said at last.
If he wasn’t looking for it, he would have missed the shift in her expression. “What did the witch say?” Black Widow asked, the room suddenly charged with a dangerous energy.
“I… That I’d forget what’s most important to me,” Bucky said, and she grimaced.
“So that’s it.”
“But I didn’t, I still remember-“
“You think you didn’t,” Nat said, cutting him off, “because you did, and you don’t know any better.”
Bucky scowled at her again. “What’d I forget,” he said, not so much mad at her as with the realization that someone had been in his brain again, been deleting pieces of him and he hadn’t even known it this time.
“You forgot your boyfriend,” Nat said, scathing. “He’s heartbroken.”
That made Bucky take pause. Boyfriend. Someone actually… he had a boyfriend? “Who…” he started. Then, “Shit. Barton?”
Nat nodded. “Clint,” she told him.
I LOVE THAT THIS IS NOW A CROWDSOURCED FIC
and I adore the idea that Tasha knew, because of COURSE she knew, even if Clint never told her.
(He’s just been sitting silently by her, the past few nights, resting his head on her shoulder and doing pretty terribly at pretending everything is fine)
Thank you thank you for continuing this! 💜
Now that Bucky knew something – someone – was missing, it seemed obvious. There was a Clint Barton shaped hole in his life. His sheets felt cold, and his nights were too quiet. There was an empty space in his dresser and a book he didn’t recognize on the second night table. The final straw was when he spotted a lone purple sock hiding under his bed.
It was strange knowing that only a few days ago Barton, Clint, was the most important person in his life. Now Bucky felt like he barely knew the man. It seemed so unlikely that they’d have anything in common, a brainwashed supersoldier and a human who thought sticks and string made a decent weapon. Yet the more Bucky pushed, the more it felt like his mind was going to unravel.
He swore, curling in on himself, no longer in the mood for completing his morning pushups. No wonder they had seemed more difficult than usual. His morning routine was probably different now that he shared it with someone else.
When did they get together? How?
And Clint. Fuck. Bucky hadn’t seen him in days.
Rolling to his feet, Buck considered searching the tower, finding Clint and explaining everything to him. Or maybe that would make it worse. What if Clint didn’t return his feelings? Though running and hiding made it seem like they had both been on the same page.
Then Bucky had brushed him off and ignored him.
“Fuck.” He tugged at his hair. “Hey, J?”
“How can I help, Sargent Barnes?” the disembodied voice asked.
“Can you give me Barton, Clint’s, location?”
Jarvis was silent for a moment, then said, “It would appear Agent Barton has left the premises.”
Immediately, Bucky was tugging on a shirt and reaching for his tac vest. Hell, he may not have memories of the guy, but his brain was already switching to high alert, like this was a common reaction.
“Where is he?” Bucky grabbed the pistol out of his bedside drawer, then hesitated when he couldn’t locate his rifle beneath the couch.
“J, where’s my rifle?”
“Agent Barton suggested the gun locker in the closet would be a more suitable place for storing a weapon,” Jarvis said.
Bucky froze. The amount of trust he must have placed in Barton was unbelievable. He didn’t even move his guns for Steve.
Once he had his weapons in place (he’d snagged the unfamiliar set of throwing knives out of the gun locker, guessing they were probably Barton’s), Bucky took the stairs to the roof.
He sighed when his palm print was denied, then flicked on the communications. “Stark, I’m gonna need your access codes for the quinjet.”
“Woah Robocop. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Barton’s missing. And my gut is telling me he went after the witch.” Bucky blinked. Right. He had no idea where that came from, but it did seem like the kind of thing Clint would do.
His head throbbed as the fake memories warred with the real ones. He almost missed the harsh curse, followed by Natasha saying, “Stay there. I’m coming with you.”
This is the most amazing thing, I love you guys so much, I am SO EXCITED BY THIS
Hunting the witch down had been easy compared with getting her to undo whatever she’d done to Bucky.
She just laughed as Clint held an arrow steadily pointed at her. “You think you can threaten me?”
“I think I’m the last guy anyone wants as an enemy,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Look, lady, you’ve had your fun. Just give it up now and I’ll let you go.”
The memory of the way Bucky’s eyes had passed over him at breakfast was engraved in his mind, casual and uninterested, as if Clint were little more than the toaster or the coffee pot. Before, he used to linger on his face, sending him a quick wink if the others weren’t looking and sometimes pressing a sneaky foot against Clint’s, under the table.
The witch tipped her head to one side with interest. “And what if I want more from you than that? What will you bargain with?”
Anything. Everything. Clint hadn’t realised just how much this thing with Bucky meant to him until it was abruptly gone. “What do you want?” he asked, and her smile bloomed into a grin.
“If he gets the most important thing to him back, then you should lose the most important thing to you.”
“What would be the point if I just forget him instead?”
She shook her head. “Oh no, not that. I want your foundation. The thing you’ve built your identity on, World’s Greatest Marksman. The man who never misses. And I want you to remember what you’ve lost, every single time you miss a target.”
Clint hesitated, and then was distracted as a quinjet descended from the clouds, coming in to land near them. His heart leapt in his chest, because if Bucky had realised he was missing and come after him, then it wasn’t too late. They could get what they’d had back, if there was the slightest kernel still there.
It was Natasha that jumped out of the quinjet before it was fully landed though, shouting Clint’s name in fury.
Clint swallowed back his disappointment, and looked at the witch. He only had a split-second to make this decision before Natasha got close enough to stop him.
He lowered his bow. “Do it.”
OH MY LORD NO WHY THIS IS AMAZING I MAY DIE
“What did you do?”
“Didn’t do anything,” Clint said. He clutched his bow with numb fingers, staring at the arrow he had dropped the moment the witch vanished. “She got away.”
“Clint.” Natasha’s voice held a soft pleading note, and for a moment Clint wondered if there was something wrong with his aids. She placed a hand on his chin, tried to force him to meet her gaze. “We came to stop you from doing something stupid. Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”
“We?” Clint tore his eyes away from the ground to look over Natasha’s shoulder. A knot twisted in his stomach when he saw Bucky emerge from the cockpit. “You had Barnes fly you?”
“It was his idea to come after you,” Natasha said, and God, did that hurt. It hurt like knife to the gut, like a snapped bowstring whipping him across the cheek. Clint didn’t move as Bucky closed the distance between them. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and then Bucky’s hands were on him –
“You fucking idiot,” Bucky whispered, pulling Clint against him and kissing him roughly. “What were you thinking going after the witch by yourself?”
“Was thinking I’d do anything to have this again,” Clint replied, and laughed as Bucky began to kiss along his neck. “You remember?”
“Knew something was missing,” Bucky mumbled, and Clint shuddered because it hurt. It hurt like falling, like his back slamming into concrete after a building crumbled beneath his feet. “I knew something was missing and I had to find you. And just now, the moment I saw you, it all came rushing back. I’m so sorry, Clint.”
“Clint, what did you do to make Bucky remember?” Natasha’s voice broke through the moment, and Bucky took a step back to examine Clint’s expression.
“Please tell me the only stupid thing you did was go after the witch,” Bucky said.
“I didn’t do anything stupid,” he said, fighting to swallow the bile clawing its way up his throat. He rolled his eyes when Bucky raised a skeptical brow. “Well, I didn’t do anything else that was stupid. Cross my heart.”
Bucky’s face broke into a wide grin. He bent over to retrieve the arrow, twirled it between his metal fingers.
“Last thing I remember is promising you a blow job if you could beat my latest record on the range.” He handed the arrow to Clint, who accepted it without a word.
“Lets go home so you can show me how it’s done, Hawkeye.”
This just keeps getting more devastating, and yet better and better as more of my favorite writers add onto it!
*helpless happy noises*
Clint couldn’t sleep. He stood in the range shooting arrow after arrow. Each shot was off by millimeters, probably not enough for the average person to notice, but enough for Clint.
So he had lost the title of Worlds Greatest Marksman. He told himself it was worth it for the look in Bucky’s eyes, the way he had held him tight, his place back in Bucky’s bed. And it wasn’t like he was worthless to the team now, he was still hitting close to the bullseye. What was a few millimeters when you were aiming for the heart anyway?
He still couldn’t convince himself to go back to bed.
It was almost a relief when the call to assemble came. Maybe he could work out some of his frustrations without Bucky knowing anything was wrong. And Clint could prove to himself once and for all that he was still useful. That he hasn’t lost his most important skill.
The Avengers arrived at the scene of Doom trying to take over yet again. Didn’t this guy learn anything? At least taking out his Doombots had become routine by this point.
Clint chose his perch and had Iron Man drop him off after a quick squeeze from Bucky’s hand. He drew back and aimed at the first Doombot, and missed by millimeters.
Uh-oh.
He drew back again, barely missing another.
Clint shot arrow after arrow, he couldn’t hear the noise from his teammates through the panic flowing through him. Every single shot missed.
This looked bad
https://whispering-sumire755.tumblr.com/post/179672126245/614
throwing in the addition by @whispering-sumire755
this is legit the greatest thing
(@winterhawkkisses @enby-phoenix @loonyloopylisa @aw-hawkeye-no @flawedamythyst @jenjo93 @whispering-sumire755 can we put it on AO3?)
theproblemwithstardust 