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Bucky heard Clint before he saw him, heard the soft clangs of thick rubber-soled boots on steel steps as he clambered up the fire escape. Bucky squashed that small spark of annoyance that tried to flare to life--the one that was going, how dare Clint disturb him. If he didn't want to be found, he should have made it harder. Skipped cities and countries and planets because that was the only way you could get away from Hawkeye when he was determined.
"No offense, Barnes, but Batman you are not," Clint's voice floated through the air seconds before the man made an appearance. Bucky's night vision had improved significantly thanks to the Red Room, so now, despite the lack of a moon or streetlights, he could easily identify Clint's mop of dirty blond hair and that stupid white shirt with the purple target. Clint stopped on the fire-escape, a level below where Bucky sat and looked at the distance between them.
"Catch," Clint said, and flung a small box in an arc that took it over the balcony and down towards Bucky's head. It clinked when Bucky caught it, and he realised it was a six-pack of beer.
Bucky put the beer down beside him. "I can't get drunk."
"Never said it was for you. Now, shut it, I'm tryin' to concentrate"
It was always interesting to watch Clint in motion. He was no super soldier or super spy, but he had the training and the determination. Plus, he had that hard-won ability to ignore his body's limits for the sake of his goal. Where Bucky, or Steve, would have crossed the distance between the fire escape and the balcony with one leap, Clint jumped at an angle and kicked off the wall, gaining just enough air to grab onto the bottom of the balcony. Bucky did him the favour of not asking if he needed a hand. Their relationship had never been about helping each other.
Clint scrambled over the edge and landed on his back with a soft, "Oomph."
Bucky didn't understand why Clint did shit like that, acting like he wasn't a highly-trained assassin and spy. Playing up the stupid and the klutz for people. That was the difference between them, Bucky supposed. He told lies, Clint lived them.
On second thought, he could do with a beer.
"Thought you couldn't get drunk," Clint said when he heard the tell-tale clinks of the bottles. He was still on his back, staring up at the next balcony.
Bucky shrugged, even though Clint couldn't see, and said, "Never hurts to keep trying."
"Right."
Bucky snapped the top off with his left hand and flicked it at Clint. It hit him in the neck and Clint squawked. Bullseye.
It had always been a source of amusement to Bucky that he and Clint shared a specialty. He liked to tease Nat about it; her taste for men with sharp eyes and clever hands.
Before, any reminder of Nat would have stung, but by now it was a dull ache and Bucky was thankful for it. He picked at the beer label with a fingernail that had been chewed down to blood, in order to avoid looking at Clint as he asked, "How is she?"
What he really wanted to ask was, what did you tell her?
"Better. Hill's been keeping an eye on her, giving her some easy missions but it seems like she's back to normal. Your frozen protege tried his best but he underestimated Nat."
There was no blame in Clint's voice--perhaps there was even a hint of pride at Nat's recovery--but Bucky couldn't help cringing all the same. His fault. All his fault. She deserved better than to become some pawn between him and his enemies. She deserved better than to have her head messed with just to get at him. Bucky repeated that in his head, and it made it easier to ask the next question, "She remembers you?"
The pause is minuscule. "Yeah."
Bucky nodded and somehow managed to scrounge up a quiet, "Good.
"We went out tonight, actually," Clint continued. "Took her to that Egyptian place she likes, you remember it?"
Bucky did and he started smiling before the rest of Clint's words hit him. "You were with her tonight? Then what the hell are you doing here? Shouldn't you be--"
"Yeah, about that," Clint interrupted. He cleared his throat and tucked his hands under his head, wriggling into a more comfortable position. "Kinda had to bail pre-coitus--that's a word, right?--cos uh, it turns out two's not enough of a crowd anymore. For me. If y'know what I mean."
In response to that uniquely Barton way of speech and the idea that Clint might have actually missed his presence in their bed, Bucky's face did a credible imitation of a drowning fish. "You idiot!" Bucky said eventually. "She's....she remembers you and apparently she still--" he can't say the word, not even now and he swallows hard. "She still wants you. So what the fuck are you doing--"
"Damn, never heard you swear before, Barnes. Does Cap know about this?"
"--talking to me when you could be with her? You won, Barton!"
Clint sat up abruptly. "Whoa. Do not ever refer to Tasha like she's a prize. She's not something to be owned."
Bucky knew that. And he respected any choice Nat made but the wound was too fresh and too deep, and he found himself saying, "Easy for you to say. She remembers you."
Even without his new and improved night vision, Bucky would have been hard pressed to miss the sudden tension in Clint's shoulder, telegraphing his clear desire to launch across the balcony and punch the ever living crap out of Bucky.
When Clint spoke, it was in a low, tight-controlled voice that had more impact than if he had yelled. "I came here tonight because surprise, surprise I care about you, Barnes. You're a pain in the ass but you're our pain in the ass. Just cos Nat has no memory of the three of us doesn't erase how she feels about you, and it doesn't erase what we had. You want to sulk or you want to figure out how to fix this?"
"There's nothing to fix!" Bucky said, his voice hoarse with the effort of keep the volume down. "She's never going to remember me. She can't! But she has you and she loves you and I'm going to have to be satisfied with that."
"Yeah, you know what, fuck you," Clint said, scrambling to his feet. "Call me when you get over yourself."
With that, Clint flipped over the railing and swung out of sight. Bucky heard him jump and slide all the way down to the ground, and then he was gone, leaving Bucky alone with his thoughts and a rapidly warming pack of beer.
+ + +
The next three months sucked.
Steve tried to help but he had his own problems to deal with, and sometimes his overwhelming sympathy was more hindrance than help. After Steve, the rest of Bucky's friends were either SHIELD or Fury, and Bucky would rather be dead than accept relationship advice from a bunch of spies and assassins.
He found it easy not to keep tabs on Natasha--she could look after herself and beside Steve kept him updated on all news Black Widow whether he wanted it or not--but Clint was a different matter. Clint didn't have the serum and didn't have Natasha's ability to compartmentalise things. Things always got personal for him. After three days Bucky gave in and got a google alert on 'Hawkeye'. He briefly considered talking to Clint's little clone for more in-depth news but decided her loyalty to Clint would only lead to madness.
It was fine, until it wasn't.
+ + +
The first clue Bucky had that Natasha was no longer Little Miss Selective Amnesia was when she sailed into his apartment without a by your leave and slapped him up the head. Hard.
As Bucky was recovering from a through-and-through bullet wound in the one shoulder and a broken arm, he did not appreciate the sudden jarring action. "The fuck, Nat?" he snapped before remembering that Natasha wasn't supposed to know him from shit.
His answer, to both questions, came in the form of Clint Barton on Nat's tail, saying, "My bad."
"Tea," Nat said, looking at Clint.
Clint pointed to where the cups were and then to where Bucky kept the special brew Nat liked, then sat down at the kitchen counter like it was any other weekend.
"What did you do?" Bucky demanded, grabbing Clint's hair with his uninjured arm. He pulled until Clint's neck was at an awkward angle, looking up at him.
"I got sick of waiting for you," Clint said with a shrug. "Surprise."
There was no help from that quarter, Bucky decided. He turned to Nat, who was measuring out the tea with an intensity she usually reserved for a target. "Nat--"
"Shut up," Nat said calmly. Her eyes stayed on the cup but Bucky had a feeling she wanted to glare at him. "And go sit down. We are not talking until I have tea in my hands, which will hopefully keep me from using them to strangle you."
Bucky sat. Clint grinned at him and mouthed, "Busted."
Screw being mature, Bucky decided and kicked Clint's leg under the table. When Nat looked over her shoulder at them, Bucky shrugged as Clint swore in the background.
"You lied to me," Natasha said, sitting down with a steaming cup of tea that Bucky hoped wasn't going to end up in his lap.
Bucky considered all of his options and discarded most of them as being either stupid or likely to land him in more trouble. "You remember?" he asked, not bothering to hide the hope in his voice. He had never hidden any part of himself from Nat and he didn't intend to start now.
His heart sank when Natasha shook her head. "No. But Clint told me everything."
When Bucky glared at him, Clint rolled his eyes and said, "What?"
"You should have--"
"If you had your way, you'd be pining and angsting forever," Clint said, brutal as a boomerang arrow to the face. "But, hey, maybe you enjoy that."
"That's not what this is about!" Bucky said, gritting his teeth. "I am trying to keep you--keep both of you safe! Why couldn't you understand that?"
"Oh, right," Clint said, drawing out the word. "Because we're so safe now, working for SHIELD and fighting with the Avengers."
"And because we're so helpless we couldn't possibly defend ourselves," Nat added with a twist to her lips that held more hurt than anger. "Thank you, James, for protecting us."
"That's not what I meant," Bucky said, trying for cool logic and landing somewhere in the vicinity of flustered.
His...partners, lovers, boyfriend and girlfriend, whatever, shared an unreadable look.
"Yeah, okay, I'm bored. You still have that ginormous ass bed?" Clint asked, getting up and walking, no, sauntering, off in the direction of Bucky's bedroom.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bucky demanded as Clint started taking off his clothes.
Nat looked from Clint to Bucky and nodded. "Good idea," she said and began to follow suit.
"You can't just--"
Nat's glare stopped him cold. "You do not get to leave me behind--leave me in the dark, like I'm a damsel to be protected, James. You also don't get to break up with people without telling them. You have a choice, I trust you'll make the right one."
He sat in the kitchen for twenty-eight more minutes, looking from front door to bedroom, then finally decided he had enough of being a coward. He got up and made the right choice.