Steve couldn’t help chuckling a little. Clint was sitting opposite him, just about managing to get coffee in his mouth, his hair a mess and a large red bruise just nestled under his jaw.
“Good night, last night?” he asked, and Clint grinned slowly, looking dazed and helplessly happy.
The elevator dinged and Bucky came in looking like the cat that had got the damned cream. He sauntered – there was really no other word for it – over to the coffeemaker, poured himself a mug and placed it in front of Clint, just perfectly timed to replace the empty one he was staring at sadly.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, and under all the smug there was that same impossible happiness, the sound of it in his voice filling a little of the hollow place in Steve’s chest.
Bucky bent down and wrapped his arms across Clint’s chest, pressing two hard kisses against his cheek like he was helpless against them. Clint discarded his coffee and brought his hands up so he could hang on to Bucky’s arms, and Steve’s mouth dropped open when he saw, on Clint’s finger, the glint of gold.
Every inch of him aches, every last bone and muscle and sinew crowding around to register their complaints. Holding himself up like this is making his biceps yell over the mob, his arms trembling a little at the strain.
Clint drags his mouth down Bucky’s flawless chest. Presses kisses here and there against skin that won’t hold marks, no matter what he tries, and then licks back up the centre, along Bucky’s sternum.
Right where the bullet had hit. Knocked him backwards. Right where the body armor hadn’t done enough to hold the back the force of it.
Bucky hadn’t been able to hold back the grunt of pain, and Clint had felt fear like plunging into ice water. Sudden, painful, unable to draw breath.
Oh, he’d thought, like drowning. It’s like that.
It’s like that.
Clint holds himself up on shaking arms and presses his mouth to Bucky’s perfect skin, unmarked, somehow untouchable.
Barnes stalks over to him, shoulders and jaw squared, every line of him drawn heavy and crisp.
“Just go with it,” he snaps out, and Clint nods automatically and then rocks backwards as Barnes grabs onto his face with both hands and presses a kiss to his idiot mouth that’s too goddamn startled to ease up a little, get a taste.
“What?” he asks, and Barnes rests their foreheads together; it probably looks better from a distance, without the angry eyes.
Barnes doesn’t answer, just kisses him again, and Clint lets instinct take over, tilting his head a little and softening his lips, curving his arm around Barnes’ waist.
“I mean,” he says, breath just a little short, “not that I don’t appreciate -”
Barnes has eased a little, a different kind of intensity in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth quirks into something like a smile before he presses a couple quick blunt kisses to Clint’s mouth rather than listening to him babble. It’s probably a wise choice. Many have made it before.
“Might’ve put my foot in it with the press,” Bucky says. “Help a fella out?”
Clint glances over his shoulder at the camera flashes, the endless telescope lenses pointed their way.
“Just in public, right?” he asks, and Bucky snorts.
“Where else?”
“Right,” Clint says, over the sinking sensation. “Sure.”
theproblemwithstardust 