Work Text:
Clint is pretty sure that if he didn't like Natasha so much he would have killed her by now. She had a certain knack for getting him into trouble or into situations that he could have avoided.
Nothing bad happens to him if he stays on his sofa binge watching TV off the Netflix he steals from his neighbour. ("What she doesn't know won't hurt her" he told Tony once when he asked why Clint didn't let him pay for his cable).
Natasha just had a certain skill of getting him into situations that he really wished he avoided.
Such as now. He’s stood alone on a street corner waiting for her to turn up with the ‘work friend’ she wants to introduce him to.
It wouldn’t have been too bad if Clint didn’t immediately recognise the huge arms and striking grey eyes.
Well fuck he thinks, slamming his head into his palms.
Four hours earlier
The bed that Clint wakes up in is huge, it would more or less fill his entire bedroom back at his apartment.
The sheets are incredibly soft too if he spends a few minutes rubbing his face against the cloth nobody has to know. It's soft against his chest and his legs too and he's never appreciated good sheets more now that he's lying in them without any clothes on.
He notices the man in the bed next.
His hand stretches across the bed and grabs his waist, tugging him back into his - enormous, Clint notices idly - arms.
Now Clint’s not one to be ashamed of having a one night stand. It’s the 21st century, everyone does it.
He is, however, ashamed of what he does next.
(If you ask Clint in the future what he did when faced with this sticky situation he would miss out certain details. Such as the high pitch yelp he let out when the man tried to pull him back into his arms.)
"What the fuck" the man says, wide awake when moments before he been drifting back to sleep. He rakes a hand through his shaggy hair, the band that had been holding it back finally falling out.
"Shit, shit, shit" Clint says, dancing around the room and looking for his clothes, the noise he’s making is sure to wake the other man but at that moment all that he needs is to get out.
Clint can handle one night stands, he can’t handle emotions. He’s allergic to them, or that’s what he decided when he opened up his heart too many times and got really hurt.
So when Mr Man-Bun (Clint can’t remember his name- it started with a J? or was it a B?) decides that he wants to cuddle? Clint has to leave. Immediately.
In the end Clint leaves Mr Man-Bun’s house in just his shoes and his boxers.
He sprints down a street that he’s pretty sure is in Brooklyn until he trips over his untied shoelaces and falls into a nearby hedge. He lays there for a minute silently contemplating how this became his life.
Sticking his hand into his boxers (he got some very judgemental looks from passers-by) and pulls out his phone. Swiping his thumb across the screen he hovers his thumb over his contacts.
If I call Kate shell kill me he thinks if I call Nat she’ll kill me too. Cutting his losses he shuts his eyes and clicks on a random number.
“What do you want Clint?” Kate asks drowsily when the phone connects. He can hear a rustling in the background that suggests Kate is still in bed. Lucky her.
“Hey Katie Kate” he calls down the phone, shifting uncomfortable in the hedge he can’t be bothered to climb out of “I don’t suppose you want to do me a favour?”
“No”
“Aww Kate. Don’t be mean” he whines, scratching idly at his bare chest and noticing the hand shaped bruises on his hips. Damn Clint thinks idly waiting for Kate to reply.
“Fine, what do you want?” her tone suggests that she’s annoyed but Clint can hear the faint amusement in her voice, she must think he’s a failure of a human being.
“I need you to pick me up, I’m…” Clint stares around blankly “well. I don’t know where I am. ”
The sigh of frustration that comes down the phone adequately describes the amount of crap Kate is able to take.
“Actually, wait” he pulls himself from the hedge looking around quickly “I’m in Brooklyn, I can see the bridge”
There’s silence down the phone for a good three minutes and Clint stands kicking pebbles across the street towards a group of pigeons gathered around a trash can.
“I’ll track your phone” Kate says finally, she sounds exhausted even though Clint is fairly certain that she’s only just woken up.
“Stay exactly where you are”
Clint nods knowing that she can’t see him but feeling that the gesture was necessary. He throws himself down onto the curb in front of him waiting for more instructions.
“I mean it Barton, don’t even think about moving”
And with that she hangs up.
Natasha only looks disappointed when Kate pulls up in front of her building, a mostly-naked Clint in tow.
“What happened?” she directs the question at Kate, clearly expecting her to have a better answer than Clint himself.
“I don’t even know” Kate sighs running a hand down her face, she’s still dressed in purple pyjama bottoms. “He just rang asking me to pick him up saying that he didn’t know where he was”
“Now that’s just unfair. I knew I was in Brooklyn, I could see the bridge” Clint points out indignantly.
“Right” Natasha says sagely.
“You owe me so much for this Barton” Kate says, pointing her finger at him with her eyebrows raised. With a quick turn she climbs back into her car and drives away, waving cheerily from her window as she turns around the corner.
Clint turns to face Natasha sheepishly, fully expecting her to start shouting about how ‘he’s an adult’ and ‘needs to be more responsible’.
He doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse when she turns to him and says: “brunch is on you”.
Which brings the story to now as Clint watches Natasha and her ‘work friend’ approach through the gaps in his fingers.
Overall, things could have been worse. The man (practically a stranger) walking towards him could have been furious, Clint had after all run out of his apartment wearing nothing but his underwear. And he may have accidentally smashed a vase that he caught his hand on during his very hasty retreat.
But no, the man walking towards him looks highly amused. His eyes crinkling in the corners as he takes in Clint’s hands covering his eyes and what is probably an incredibly red face.
“Clint” Natasha calls, striding purposefully towards him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Clint sighs and lowers his hands, he clearly isn’t going to win whatever weird battle he and Natasha are fighting.
“This is James” she says when she finally reaches him. She gestures to the man beside her.
“Bucky” the man corrects her, putting his hand forward to shake.
As if in a daze Clint shakes the man’s hand, informs him of his name, even if the man -Bucky he reminds himself- had been moaning it not twelve hours ago, and follows Bucky and Natasha into the quaint restaurant where they’re having brunch.
He notices idly that he was correct in thinking that the man’s name started with a J or a B.
“So, Clint, what do you do?” Bucky asks him once they’re seated at a table in the back corner of the restaurant. This at least is something they didn’t cover before they fell into bed together the previous night.
“Officially, I work on the security team at Stark Tower” Clint says, “unofficially, I stop tony from killing himself when he steps out of the safety of his lab. For such a smart man he can be a real idiot”
Bucky nods along as Clint talks, he actually appears interested in what Clint does and that’s a bigger surprise than when Clint saw the man walking towards him twenty minutes ago.
“A friend of mine works in the tower” he says when Clint’s finished talking, “down in marketing, he does the artwork and stuff”
“Steve?” Clint asks incredulously. “Beefy blond who looks acts like the boy next-door every mom wishes for their daughter? Goes bright red when tony hits on him all the time?”
The laugh that Bucky lets out shouldn’t make Clint proud. He’s really only just met this man, why should he feel the need to impress him?
Maybe it’s to prove that there’s more to you than your sexual prowess his subconscious suggests and damn if that isn’t right.
It’s surprisingly easy to talk to Bucky, the conversation flows easily from one topic to another and Clint is really enjoying himself.
The only interruption from the conversation is Natasha politely excusing herself to go to the bathroom.
“So Clint” Bucky says once she’s gone.
“Yes?”
“Do you want the rest of your clothes back? Or should I keep them for the next time you’re at mine?”
“Why James, that’s awfully presumptuous” Clint replies cheekily. A grin spreading across his face.
“Perhaps so” Bucky concedes, a similar grin echoed on his face, “of course I’d like to take you to dinner first”
He says the last bit seriously and Clint pauses for a moment thinking about all of his failed relationships, all of his past failures, all of the reasons for his unhappiness.
Fuck it. He decides, screw being lonely, screw being miserable.
I deserve to be happy.
“I think that would be nice” Clint replies sincerely, heart racing and palms sweating.
Bucky grins broadly, reaching under the table and squeezing Clint’s knee.
This could definitely make me happy Clint decides, already glad that he’s agreed to take the risk and ready to face anything thrown at him that tries to prevent his happiness.
I deserve to be happy.
“Sorry about the vase by the way” he adds as an afterthought.