649.
“It’s not like I wasn’t gonna do it anyway, sooner or later.”
Clint’s voice is low, the way people get in too-large rooms, the way people get when everyone else is asleep. Not everyone, of course; him and Natalia had been all curled up together on the couch there, and Bucky can just about see the movement as she reaches up to comb through his chaotic hair.
“That’s not the point,” she says, and her voice is a careful disguise under which the anger can barely be heard at all. “You should be able to choose.”
“And I am,” Clint answers her, sounding sheepish, sounding sad. “I’m choosing to do what I can to get that recording back, ‘cos it’s better than choosing the humiliation of having people listen to it; it was bad enough when I thought I was only telling you.”
Bucky eases a little further back into the shadows of the kitchen, wishes there were an easy way to ease past them, wishes it were possible to sneak past the pair of goddamn superspies on the couch. Clint’s been a little skittish around him, and this – overhearing his secrets – there’s no way this can make it anything but worse. He might have to speak to Natalia, though, once Clint has gone to bed. He might have to find whoever or whatever has put that note in Clint’s voice and very thoroughly set it on fire.
“Still -”
“Look at it as a good thing,” Clint says, and he wants agreement here, Bucky can tell. “They get the world exclusive they’re after, and little queer kids all over the country get their first confirmed not straight Avenger. Maybe I’ll move up the rankings, huh? America’s Second Least Favourite Avenger.”
“Clint.”
“I can have a float in the Pride parade next year, right? Tony can bankroll the acres of purple tulle. Shit, Tasha, if I’da had five minutes to myself to think, these last couple years, I’d’ve come out myself a hell of a lot sooner.”
Natalia sighed and shifted herself a little more upright, poking and prodding until she had them in a position she was comfortable with. It was most likely with Clint sprawled out, his head in her lap – it was when he was at his most boneless. It was when Bucky always had to leave the room, hands flexing against nothing.
“If you want to come out we can arrange that,” she said softly. “As soon as we have castrated this man and retrieved the recording -”
“It’s fine,” Clint said, “I promise, Tasha, I’m fine with it. I’m mostly worried about Bucky.”
He shifted, startled. Natalia’s eyes flicked to the movement, but she didn’t otherwise react. He didn’t for a moment allow himself to believe that he was safe.
“I mean,” Clint continued, oblivious, “finding out your teammate is kind of in love with you – can you imagine the media pressure? I don’t want people bellowing shit in his face about it. He doesn’t deserve that.”
Bucky’s heart was doing something uncomfortable in his chest. His stomach was hollow. It wasn’t easy to translate those sensations into words.
“And what about what you deserve?” Natalia asked, subdued.
“Let’s not go there,” Clint said, “’cos I’ve sure as hell got better than whatever it is.”
theproblemwithstardust 