Chapter Text
Clint stared at the picture Matt had texted him, and willed himself to dissolve through the floor and die.
He felt the pain in his head, worse than anything he'd ever felt, as William Cross exploded the kill-switch Trick Shot had given him, buried in one of Clint's hearing aids.
There's no way this was happening, this wasn't possible.
He had killed Crossfire, shot him center mass, six times. But Trick Shot...
Clint wasn't sure how long he stood there, seeing nothing, doing nothing, as he tried to make it all make sense.
Clint had seen the photos. Seen the body. His brother...
His phone buzzed in his hands but Clint was too busy trying not to remember blood in his mouth and his hands cuffed above him, knee-deep in icy cold mud.
Had he been tricked? Matt wouldn't lie about this, wouldn't have faked those pictures... Fuck...
Lights flashed, but Clint's eyes were unfocused, thinking about Barney. Had Barney tricked him? It wouldn't be the first time, since Clint became an Avenger, that Barney had an angle.
Clint shook off that line of thinking. Barney looked out for him, always had. He'd been a damn good CIA agent and had worked the angles and info he had, but he'd never trick Clint about something this big.
What if Barney had been tricked, too? What if Barney hadn't fought Trick Shot at all, and he hadn't known what Clint knew about Trick Shot, so thought it all was on the up and up?
What if Clint had seen what he'd wanted to see, looking at that burnt corpse on the slab?
The Berretta was in his hands and indexed, his finger on the trigger, his target sighted when his apartment window opened.
It was a familiar shape, tall, dark hair, masculine.
It was not wearing a burgundy executioner's mask, and that's all Clint processed as he continued to churn through his thoughts, trying to work out what must have happened.
Barney thought he fought and killed Trick Shot, but it was just some schmuck with his eye out.
Maybe even one of Trick Shot's guys, a cronie, a fall guy.
There were words being spoken, but Clint heard them as though through water. Muffled, non-specific. Clint's hearing aids had been blown out, he'd been left with a monster, and this monster was back, was in New York.
Barney had killed then lit the fall guy on fire. Trick Shot had laid low, and now he was back.
Clint's stomach rolled, and he was glad he'd seen the message right when he got up, hadn't eaten anything. It'd be thrown up by now, if he had.
The shape moved and Clint flinched as hands touched his arms, but blinked as the touches conveyed meaning to some part of his brain that wasn't submerged underwater or left behind with a monster.
"You're in your apartment. Natasha is safe. Coulson is alive. Bucky is safe."
Clint tried to latch on to that meaning, but he couldn't.
Oh god, Natasha -- I'll kill everyone you love .
Clint loved Natasha, there were no two ways about it, they loved each other, even though Tasha would kill him just for thinking that about her, they were the mirror image of the same person, reflected and turned, in ways he'd never known could be possible.
Trick Shot would lay a trap to catch a spider, and -- oh god what was he going to do?
He'd pulled Natasha back from the brink in Rome and in Volgograd and he wouldn't, she wouldn't--
"--Bucky is safe" the meaning came through again with pressure and taps on his arms, this time jerking Clint further forward in time.
Oh god, Bucky. He'd worked so hard, come so far since Clint had first met him, they'd talked about nightmares and been on missions and had their first kiss and --
Trick Shot would undo everything Bucky had worked so hard for and I'll kill everyone you love.
Oh god it was Trick Shot's MO, how he dealt with anyone who bothered him, and Clint knew because he had been that weapon had killed and killed and --
"If you don't respond I'm going to call Natasha." These touches were more firm, and then something cold and metal gripped both his wrists and held firm.
Cuffs?
Had Trick Shot found him already? How had he gotten through Matt? Oh god, was Matt--
Clint tried to get his hands free and then inhaled the scents of leather, gun oil, and honey -- "Bucky?" He gasped, his eyes focusing on the figure in front of him. Bucky held both his wrists in his metal hand and stood right in front of him and Clint was so relieved he leaned forward and pressed his lips against those familiar, warm --
Clint was being pulled away, and then Bucky's hands were cupped around his cheeks, one cold, one warm. His expression was searching and stern and Clint knew he was in for it now. Better to try to get ahead of it.
"I can explain-" he began, raising his hands -- where was his phone? Shit...
"Save it," Bucky ordered. "Murdock already told me. I'm doing this with you. And we're calling someone else. Should I call Steve or Natasha?"
Clint felt his stomach try to drop out of his body. He didn't know he tried to get away until Bucky's grip on his face tightened, and his frown deepened. "Decide or I'm going to."
Fuck. When Bucky got that look on his face, amused and serious all at once, it meant Clint only had one chance here, and fuck...
It wasn't that he was jealous of Steve Rogers, honest -- Bucky had picked him, after all, right? And Steve was a good guy. It was that Cap -- Steve -- was the best guy, as far as Clint could tell, and he had no fuckin idea why Bucky had picked him over Captain "best person on Earth, Boy Scout savior of Democracy" America.
Besides, Bucky couldn't call Natasha. He wouldn't let Tasha walk right into Trick Shot's hands, he couldn't, he wouldn't .
"Sam," Clint said firmly, speaking before he really thought it through. Sam was the only person Clint had ever seen get Bucky to do anything and so it was the only chance he had to knock some sense into Bucky so he could take care of this... "Cap and Tasha are on vacation."
Bucky narrowed his eyes, and Clint knew he'd won. 'On Vacation' was the Avengers euphemism for 'on a mission' and since there were no robot squids raining from the sky above Manhattan or a giant skybeam threatening London, it wasn't the kind of mission they all needed to be on. It also wasn't the kind of mission anybody could interrupt.
Bucky held up his metal index finger and wagged it in Clint's face. "I stick to you like glue. One step out of line and I call Stark and Banner."
Clint blanched. He actually liked Banner -- he was okay, for a scientist, and for a guy who turned into an infinite rage monster, and Stark he actually enjoyed the company of - guy took shit as well as he gave it -- but there was no way he was involving any more people in his shit soup than strictly necessary. He nodded.
Bucky held the finger up for a moment more, then kissed Clint, gently and carefully.
Clint was so surprised that he barely had enough time to kiss back before Bucky was looking at him again. "Now, take me over the pictures. Murdock wasn't happy to see me at his apartment and didn't explain much."
Clint sighed, and dutifully retrieved his phone. At least Matt hadn't burned him that much.
He could still manage this. He could keep Bucky at arm's length, and Bucky would keep Sam safe. (I'll kill everyone you love .")
Clint could find a way to keep Bucky safe, and keep Trick Shot from hurting anyone he loved. (Clint had never before realized how many people he cared about, before today.)
He had to.