Bucky isn’t so great at swimming any more. He can swim, it’s not impossible, but it takes a hell of a lot of strength and effort to make progress against the dragging weight of his arm. It’s sure as hell not something he does any more for fun.
Clint, he’s in his goddamn element. A pool is a perfect place for useless acrobatics without having to make an excuse for them; it’s a situation built for a natural show-off, and Clint has been diving off things, flipping off things, encouraging people to stand on his broad fuckin’ shoulders… Bucky ain’t exactly able to keep it subtle, but Clint’s so busy he doesn’t even notice he’s being watched.
“Tell him,” Steve says as he passes, not a subtle bone in his goddamn perfect body, and Bucky hooks his hand around the guy’s ankle and yanks it out from under him. The shriek he lets out as he falls into the pool is just about the best thing Bucky’s ever heard.
“Hey Clint,” Tony yells, and he’s hauling something huge and inflated behind him, shaped like a goddamn pineapple. “I found – “
“That’s for Bucky,” Clint calls back, and looks over to him with a stupid-wide grin. He’s standing chest-deep in the water, the sunlight glinting off droplets of water on his shoulders, in his hair, and he’s beautiful in a way that makes Bucky feel weak.
“Sure,” Tony says, and tosses the pineapple into the water, huge and ungainly and big enough for someone to lie on.
Bucky regards it, eyebrow raised, and Clint rubs at the back of his neck and looks a little sheepish.
“I figured – you kinda looked like you wanted in on this.”
“He sure as hell wanted something.”
“Shut the fuck up, Stevie,” Bucky says, not looking away from the pineapple that Clint’s holding onto, the way he’s contrived for Bucky to be a part of the team.
Bucky gives in and slides into the water, a couple of quick efficient strokes taking him over to where Clint is. He slides his hand down Clint’s leg a little, hooks around his ankle, easiest thing in the world to resist. Clint lets him take him off balance, though, lets him pull him underwater with him, where Bucky doesn’t have to listen to Steve crowing when he ducks in for a kiss.
It makes it even better that that is a great pyr and it’s job is to look after the goats. No one ever said stop them from causing mischief. So he’s being a good boy and doing his job by accompanying the goat in its shenanigans
theproblemwithstardust 