Archive of Our Own

Steve hums when he’s enjoying himself.

Bucky had almost forgotten that. Lost it for a while in the same busted cabinet as ration cards, alley fights, the smell of Brooklyn rain on hot pavement, and the stubborn tilt of Steve’s jaw right before he decided to get his bones rearranged by a man twice his size out of principle.

But here it is again.

That low, absent and very familiar hum, slipping under the louder buzz of the tattoo gun.

About a week ago, Tony had taken a different gun to Bucky’s fixed-up arm, changed the star from red to gray, and then suggested this. As a joke. But… why not, right?

Bucky’s choice, just as it was to sit in Tony’s workshop while that other gun was buzzing, and now the tray next to Bucky’s elbow that’s glinting under the overhead kitchen lights is filled with tools all smelling faintly of isopropyl.

It’s not so bad.

Any of it.

Doesn’t look half bad either.

Bucky trusts Steve, trusts his hand, always has, even when Steve was too-few pounds of asthma and belligerence, collapsing from a simple cold, so he didn’t need the proof in progress. Still, Steve did put a mirror on the table so Bucky can see the work as it happens, and what Bucky sees now is a circuit-board pattern that’s covering most of his chest on the left and aiming toward his collarbone.

That’s Tony’s design, clearly, though he didn’t have to, just can’t do anything halfway, and has to make a project even out of a paint job. Everything’s overkill with him, almost fussing with Bucky in that genius-level, socially incompetent prick way of his, which Bucky’ll never get used to.

Tony embedded initials in the design, per Bucky’s request after he insisted on helping. Tiny letters, tucked into the false-random architecture of straight lines and nearly invisible unless someone’s close enough to be getting real personal with Bucky.

(Don’t get him wrong, if Tony’s overcompensating by getting involved, Bucky lets it. And if Bucky’s overcompensating with those initials and all the others they could track down, that's Bucky’s business. Guilt’s a hard thing to receive, but harder to spend. Bucky just wishes he could pay back for all this good will and effort, but that’s a tomorrow problem.)

Today, things are going fine.

Miles away from how they were when Steve punched some sense into him.

A year ago, Bucky might’ve responded if somebody called his name. If the weather was right. If his head felt right and wasn’t full of Russian and the wet hollow. Now he’s sitting here thinking about a full sleeve on the right arm, not just to erase and cover up, but claim some space instead. That’s a lot of progress, if you ask him.

The rhythm of the needle digs in, Steve hums and keeps at it over a line of inky blood, and Bucky lifts his coffee with his good hand, taking a satisfying sip while the metal arm twists at a slightly awkward angle to give Steve room.

Bucky’s newfound ‘why not?’ philosophy is not dismissive as the needle shivers along, tracing reclamation.

Hydra did quick-and-dirty barcodes where Steve’s extra steady hands are taking time. There was no barcode on Bucky, only on his pod, but those fuckers never took time the way Steve does it unless they were enjoying themselves. And there was no ‘why not?’ with Hydra. There was ‘yes’, being ready to comply. There was ‘no’, rarer, and that came with hurt.

This hurts. But better. The doors you open yourself are always better.

Still hurts like a bitch, though.

Hurts more than the first time they tried it, right after Tony finished the design.

Bucky had barely felt that first pass, but bled out the ink overnight and woke up with nothing except a stain that washed off with some scrubbing. Took Bruce doing what he did in his lab a few floors below, and now the ink stings, infused with something to slow healing and stop rejection.

“Looks good,” Clint says as he walks past, presumably to grab whatever he pretends is sustaining breakfast, and Bucky nods in both agreement and greeting, using social skills like a real boy. That’s also progress.

Though Bucky can’t say that he’s doing it for looks where old Bucky might’ve, or even that the process is cathartic. Nothing’s that simple. It's a morbid marker, with those initials making up the design, he won’t argue with that, but what happened happened, there’s no hiding that or hiding away from it, so Bucky doesn’t intend to.

Either way, weird to think about being grateful for pain.

“I dig it.” Clint plants his ass across from Bucky, only coffee of his own in hand.

Bucky would shrug back, but with Steve drilling his skin like it’s a panel, he keeps still.

“I’ve shown you mine, show me yours.” Very old habits to run his mouth, but new nerve. “Let me see your ink?” He only tips his chin at Clint in case Clint doesn’t think he’s serious.

Clint doesn’t disappoint. Gets up, walking around the table, already yanking his t-shirt up and over.

The arms, sure. Tattoos running bicep to wrist, wrapped around muscle and tendon, and often disappearing under gear and sleeves to look at properly, but Bucky saw these before. He didn’t see those on his back for longer than a split second it takes to change in the gym, though, and Clint turns, letting Bucky inspect without having to crane his neck for it.

Some of it’s ancient as Bucky, huh, faded nearly blue or green-gray. There’s a hawk feather, a busted arrow, and a lot more shapes that mean nothing to Bucky but must mean something to Clint. Name of a city, Budapest, what else, some coordinates, a date cut in crooked block letters. There’s no way one person did all this, there are too many styles, too many hands, and as Bucky looks, Clint stretches, arms out to the side like he’s presenting.

Bucky traces along the inside of a scar with his eyes, not the worst by a long shot, and the ink’s interrupted, patched around it. That’s how his own healed sections are starting to look, perhaps a touch better, but neither Bucky or Clint are flat canvas.

“If you weren’t mildly useful in the field, I’d say you are in the wrong line of work, man,” Bucky doesn’t mean the tattoos.

He means those scars, the scuffs, the bruises, and all elbowing each other for space on Clint’s skin.

Don’t start him on the odd pattern of redness that Bucky can’t place between Clint’s shoulder blades. Bucky knows a lot of ways to cause damage, but couldn’t tell where this could come from.

Also don’t get him wrong here, Bucky knows Clint’s tough.

He’d seen him shoot out three streetlights in a row during a mission with a dislocated shoulder and it’s much harder than it sounds, but it’s a lot of damage, purposeful or accidental, if you add up everything Bucky had witnessed him break or bruise, and it’s a wonder Clint isn’t just tape and whatever loose pills he finds in jacket pockets that don’t belong to him.

“Fuck off with that.” Clint doesn’t sound annoyed, but Bucky does as asked, moving on.

He can guess which ink is a field tattoo. Which ones are prison, though he doesn’t know how he knows it. Maybe not art, but also looks good. Everything looks good on Clint, even the silly shit, but that’s another problem Bucky’s been postponing dealing with, and can’t be thinking about now. Besides, hard not to be thinking that survival’s supposed to get easier as one gets seasoned and more experienced in not landing on one’s ass, in the face of all this.

It’s not like Bucky doesn’t get hurt. But he’s got the serum; Steve’s got it too. Bruce is, well, Bruce. Runs on some gamma radiation, not that Bucky ever saw in person what that entails in all the time he’s been here, but even the Parker kid bounces on some kind of radioactive nonsense, and Nat’s Nat, just as Tony is Tony, but with tech.

Clint’s, however, a baseliner with too much stubborn and not enough self-preservation, and not military in the same way Sam is, either. Makes no fucking sense how he does half the things he does. Makes even less sense that he keeps doing them, and that alone earns respect from Bucky.

Clint gives him time for another few blinks and one automatic lick of lips, but then twists on his feet and leans over to pay back in kind, now studying Bucky’s skin, leaving Bucky’s eyes on his naked chest.

That’s a development Bucky can’t bring himself to complain about.

He’s fit, Clint. Not serum fit, but sinew and a lot of that muscle and… a piece of silver in his right nipple that makes Bucky pause for a second.

Maybe longer than a second.

Bucky almost comments on that piercing when Steve distracts Bucky’s idiot mouth from it.

“We could do more,” he says, tapping Bucky’s arm, the gun still buzzing as Bucky winces when it passes over a sensitive ridge. “When we’re done with this. If you want.”

“Sure,” Bucky does want. “Was thinkin’ the same.”

The hum of the machine picks up, just as Steve’s hum drops down, needle still hungry, and Bucky winces deeper, gritting his teeth.

Steve mutters, “Sorry,” as if Bucky couldn’t outtank a tank, this being nothing, just some poison or whatever it was that Bruce whipped up for the ink, all while Clint… zones out.

His face has gone so slack when Bucky was staring at piercing that you could paint feelings on him with a roller, lines smoothing out. The bleach-light pointed at Bucky and Clint by extension now makes Clint’s tan sallow with that expression. Bucky can’t begin to decide on that expression regardless of how close Clint is.

Which. Close enough that Bucky could whisper some glorious filth into that ear, right next to the hearing aid in it.

That.

Bucky’s brain had been useless for blocking out everything Hydra forced into him until therapy helped, but real damn good at dredging up the wrong thoughts at the worst times. Tragically, that same therapy failed to install a working filter between his head and his dick that dredges up wrong shit at a very wrong time. Bucky’s confident it wasn’t on the list of things to work through, but he’d graciously accept that filter as a side effect of pouring his insides out on a couch the same way he’s accepted that becoming a part of this team meant seeing his own mug plastered all over.

So. Clint.

It’s not just Steve’s humming habits Bucky’s been recalling. Didn’t even take that long to remember what his right hand is good for and, yeah, sure, most nights it’s nothing but muscle memory and some pent-up ache, but sometimes it’s this guy, the less indestructible blond, what do you know.

Inconvenient and then some, but no use torpedoing a functional team, they work well together, and no point fucking it up with Bucky’s discovery that jerking off still feels pretty damn fine even when you are over a hundred.

Plus, what are the odds of Clint being into getting bent here? Whatever radar is responsible for that, Bucky ain’t got a working one where dumbasses wasting perfect aim on bows are concerned.

It takes a bit too long for Clint to snap out of it. Bucky tosses a side-glance into the mirror, just to see what he’s looking at with that vacant stare of his. Nothing special. Tracking the needle, maybe.

“You alright?” Bucky checks in on him, half-laughing, just in case, if Clint’s mug here needs saving.

That does it. Clint blinks hard, shakes it off like he’s dumping water from his hair, steps back, and runs his hand through that mop as if embarrassed.

“Ah, yeah,” he says. “Didn’t sleep well.”

It’s not a good lie, but Clint tries to sell it with a wink. Bucky lets him. Sure. Not his business, not unless Clint wants it to be. Bucky zones out too, sometimes.

“What do we have here?” Tony saunters in, yawning. That’s what sleepless looks like, if an example’s needed for this database of their collective issues or another.

“I think Barton’s afraid of a little blood,” Bucky tosses that out, but doesn’t mean it, of course. If anyone in this crowd could get squirrelly over a spot of blood at the end of that needle, it wouldn’t be Clint. He once asked for a sandwich while bleeding out, and lectured a befuddled EMT on mayo ratios before passing out mid-sentence. (Call it what it was, but Bucky laughed himself into stitches about it after Clint woke up. That same night he also jacked himself into ribbons thinking of what Clint did before the mission threw them a curveball, but why go there.)

“Right.” Tony slides in to have a look at Steve’s work as Clint fades, tugging his shirt back on. “Nice job, Cap,” Tony goes as far as to poke at Bucky’s shoulder. “Remind me to ask you to detail my car after.”

Bucky resents the word recovery, but what else are you supposed to call crawling your way out of a ditch besides recovery?

There are things he’s still not that good at, though. It’s not the big things. The big things are easy. Put him in a firefight and point him at the target, give him an order, a rifle, a building to clear, he’s got it, and he’s got it right.

It's the small stuff that trips him. Ordinary, obvious to most people, and all boiling down to basic ways not to be a jackass.

Before, Bucky would’ve known what to say. He would’ve known when to shake a hand, when to clap a guy on the shoulder, when to shut the hell up, stop muttering sorry, and take him up on his offer to get wasted and then, alright, cry about it, and all without being prompted.

Bucky used to be great at people. With people. Could talk his way out of a fight if he didn’t feel like fighting, and into a good time in the same afternoon. The former he didn’t practice that often, a hothead is a hothead even when the tongue knows what to say, but the latter was always… yeah, a good time.

Now the simplest shit can slip past him. He doesn’t forget it, exactly; just doesn’t think of it the way he would’ve in the past. It usually takes Steve finding some way to nudge, “Hey pal, don’t you think you oughta…”

If Steve says Bucky oughta, then Bucky oughta.

Not ‘cause Steve’s special, but, okay, maybe because he’s Steve, but don’t let him hear that or he’ll get all earnest at Bucky, and there’s only so much too-understanding eye contact a man can stand sober per fortnight.

Bucky had thanked Tony for his help with the design already, and without being prompted this time around.

In fairness, he might’ve thanked Tony three times, with varying sincerity, but performative gratitude floats around both their heads ever since they got so wasted while finally talking and, sure, crying about it, that even Bucky was in danger of blacking out most of his apologies.

Jokes aside, Bucky pays attention there. They are getting there. Wherever there is. Bucky’s keeping his fingers crossed on it being a bit less of either of them trying too hard, but don’t quote him on it. Bucky also suspects Steve will burst a blood vessel if things between Bucky and Tony don’t get less awkward, and would also rather not be quoted on that.

But Bruce Bucky didn’t think about at all.

It’s not that he’s ungrateful. It’s just Bucky wasn’t there when Steve went to him about the ink, and Bucky wasn’t there for the handoff.

Bruce keeps to himself. Bucky couldn’t keep to himself even if his request for that was his next tattoo, it is what it is, but they’ve spoken only a handful of times. Mostly in the kitchen. (“You done with that?” “Need the milk?” “Is this yours?”) Deep emotional intimacy. So, no, it wasn’t Bucky’s instinct to head over to his lab.

Bucky’s got a takeaway cup in his left hand when he does make his way to where Bruce spends most of his time. Steve hadn’t gotten all bright-eyed when he mentioned “a casual token of appreciation”, but it was Steve’s idea too, sure as shit wasn’t Bucky’s.

Bucky was under the impression this isn’t some college sorority but Avengers Tower, and he was not, under any circumstances, regardless of being an almost real boy here, walking into Bruce Banner’s lab with a not-casual three-page letter and a fruit basket handmade out of a melon, c’mon, but he figures green tea is acceptable. Keeps it easy, looks like he tried, and made a point to go down to the street and get it personally, braving the oddballs with posters downstairs, and if Bruce really does chug it by the barrel like everyone goes on about as if it’s the only interesting factoid about him, he’ll put it to use.

If not, he can pour it into a plant or a machine or whatever future science people do when confronted with an organic beverage they don’t feel like drinking once it cools.

It probably would’ve been more thoughtful to make this fucking tea himself, since the dude behind the cart just stuffed a bag into the cup, poured hot water into it, and passed it to Bucky after robbing him blind, ignoring his questionable celebrity status, but Bucky’s here for a short thank you, manners and all. A priceless bag of tea that had been blessed by monks and smuggled through enemy lines to be this precious has to be good for that.

The ink is growing on Bucky. For the past few mornings, ever since Steve finished, though he didn’t start on Bucky’s other side yet, Bucky’s been feeling something different as he looked at it after the shower. Something new. And for someone like Bucky, this type of new is good.

That’s why he doesn’t mind walking down here, tea-gift and all. What he’s grateful for isn’t tangled up with guilt, or not in the way that it normally is. That feels good, too.

And maybe that warrants more than a paper cup. A book. Something quantum. Quantum people like quantum shit, right? Quantum something-or-other. Quantum for nerds with credentials to back it up.

Tea’s fine.

The rest is… not.

He should’ve knocked.

One rap of the knuckle. Two. He’s got enough knuckles, original and aftermarket, to manage it.

Should’ve announced himself with something normal, like, “Thought you might need fuel, Doc,” or “Hey, Banner, brought you hot leaf water stuffed in paper like a well-adjusted citizen, wanna show me around while I pretend to understand what it is that you do here but, hell, likely to enjoy your blinkin’ lights anyway, they make us uneducated folk feel smarter just by lookin’ at?”

The problem is, Bucky’s gotten in the habit of walking into Tony’s lab without knocking. Friday always knows he’s coming anyway, and Tony’s got glass walls and too little paranoia when it comes to architecture.

Bruce’s lab is different.

No glass walls. No snarky AI. No billionaire neurotically peacocking behind a bench full of a whole lot of blinking lights for Bucky to look at and try not to ask questions about, or else Tony will get excited, will actually start explaining, and the fuck will Bucky do then? Take up Tony on his sure-to-follow offer on translating the machines for the poor old man from the forties, who didn’t have any specific reason to have a need for a working knowledge of timers, triggers, transmitters, and all the other shit that lights up right before it ruins your day?

Never mind that.

Anyway, here it’s just a door.

A door Bucky walks through like a slow bastard who did, in fact, leave his manners and sense of tact in the forties.

And then doesn’t walk right back out like he would if he wasn’t a jackass. In general. Past, present. Because there are private moments, and then there are private moments. The kind where a decent man backs out and doesn’t get punished for his bad timing for every dirty thought he ever had about his unsuspecting dumbass, hot-as-balls and twice-as-funny teammate.

Which, fine, there have been several. Thoughts. More than several. A number. Nobody needs a fucking census. The point is, Bucky would’ve backed out. Would’ve left as soon as, most likely. He’s not that awful at these things, it’s some, not all. If it was anyone else and not Clint sucking off the good doctor here, which—

Bucky freezes in the doorway at the sight of Clint on his knees, back to him.

He’s fully clothed, nothing unusual but for the position, if you ignore the sucking that the distance in this roomy lab does exactly jack to mute. If anything, the cavernous space turns up the volume. Everything in this building is too big, too echoey, so naturally every sticky, disgusting sound Clint’s making, all slurping and that lush, wet suck, just barrels across the lab and hits Bucky’s ears raw.

Bruce stands, and Bucky can see his face, though he’s more aware of one big hand tangled tight in Clint’s hair as Clint’s head eagerly moves. Bruce’s other hand is braced behind him, holding on the workbench, forearm cords standing out.

Doesn’t take a genius to fill in the blanks. Bucky might not see dick out here, but Clint’s for sure got Bruce’s cock wedged in his throat on each pass, or at the bare minimum sucking Bruce so deep his nose has to occasionally be mashing into skin.

Bucky’s too gobsmacked to move. He’d bet money Clint’s jaw is scraping on Bruce’s zipper, drool and spit stringing.

Clint pulls off, gasping, a thick moan rumbling up from his throat. Bucky would also pay good money, if he had good money and if it was for sale, to see the flex of his neck from where he stands, the mouth, and the pink of his tongue as Clint pants.

It takes Bucky a few seconds to realize Clint’s jerking himself off under the fall of his t-shirt, elbow flicking in that unmistakable rhythm, stripping himself stupid while servicing someone… well, not Bucky.

Clint stills when he bobs his head in again, now holding himself there, shivering, and Bruce’s fingers tighten on his hair, then shift grip. He doesn’t let Clint off when Clint might’ve pulled away for breath, and instead Bruce urges him to stay by readjusting his hand on his head.

Rather than squirming when he’s clearly too uncomfortable, Clint groans. His elbow moves faster. That’s useful information Bucky’s already set to bury in a shallow grave and refuse to examine for the next six to eight years, but Bucky would have to be made of stone, straight as an arrow, and twice as dead inside to not feel something twitching under his fly right now.

The manners kick in when Bucky's hand twitches too, squeezing the paper cup.

It's just that jerking off to Clint now and then (fine, maybe more than Bucky owns up to) is one thing. Contained. Healthy, at a push. Abstract.

But there’s fuck all abstract about seeing the first soul you’ve got it up for in seventy years swallowing someone else’s cock like he’s possessed.

Time to go. To be disappointed elsewhere.

Bucky’s about to do just that when he full-on crashes eye to eye with Bruce.

Son of a bitch.

To add insult to injury, Bucky can feel his expression improvise, as if he hasn’t got enough problems. Some mangled grimace that probably reads as ‘my bad’ if you’re generous and ‘fuck no’ if you’re honest. He lifts one shoulder. Shrugs. Steve’s right, y’know. If Bucky’s first instinct here is street-corner nonchalance—

He points at the cup, as if that explains why he’s still hovering and didn’t bail quickly, which Bruce, thankfully, might not know.

Bruce flicks his gaze to Clint, probably about to say something, tell him that they’ve got an audience, but Bucky’s already shaking his head. As in, don’t. Don’t make this weirder for everyone. There is no version of this where Clint turning around improves this.

Bruce obliges him. Doesn’t say a word. Just stares back at him with a lot of expectation as Clint keeps going. Good man.

Bucky glances at the cup, second-guessing, decides nope, last thing he wants is Clint seeing it and getting clued in on Bucky or anyone else catching the show.

He backs up, taking the evidence with him, careful to remain as quiet as he can be. He can be very quiet when he wants to be.

Nothing changes. Nothing important.

Alright, Bucky beats off into a goddamn frenzy that night, and a few nights after. Still, he’s never been that much of a masochist. Not willingly or recreationally.

He’d fuck Clint if Clint asked, Bucky would even let him finish the sentence before getting to it, that’s just polite, but he’s not about to pine for what’s not on offer.

He lets it go.

Maybe there’s some tension the next time he runs into Bruce, but Bruce doesn’t mention it, and Bucky appreciates that. No sarcasm there.

Bruce might not’ve told Clint, far as Bucky can tell. Clint remains as he is, around Bucky, around others. Big and loud and too-Clint one minute, then flipping to weaponized competence in the field. Gives Bucky plenty of new ideas whether he wants them or not. Turns out, watching a man put arrows through six trained mercs in under a minute is its own kind of foreplay.

It should not be attractive if you are normal. It is extremely attractive.

But Bucky doesn’t make it a problem.

He hasn’t refocused on anyone else, not that he’s in a rush. He’s rediscovering what his dick is for, not shopping for a mortgage, and there are joys to living in an age where anything you want is a click away. Porn is high-def, bodies come in every flavor, and Bucky’s not short on inspiration. No need to get sentimental about it, not when there’s so much to be had from one search.

Once or twice, sure, the memory creeps in, after the rush is over and after it dulls a smidgen. A flash of Clint on his knees, whatever Bucky had time to see and hear. The angle of his back. The fact that Bucky had wanted too close to home, which was bad enough, but had also wanted to be wanted back, in that abstract.

But you leave some things where they fall, and the world’s full of pretty faces. No shortage of bad ideas. Whatever that afternoon in the lab was, Bucky, if he doesn’t forget it, makes it his goal not to keep stirring it in his mind.

He doesn’t think it’ll ever become—

Whatever it becomes.

Doesn’t think it can, truth be told.

He’s protective at first.

But ‘at first’ doesn’t come until Bucky sees it. And no, he doesn’t mean what happened in that lab.

Before Bucky signed the new Accords, before anyone handed him a comm and told him not to shoot the coffee maker, he and the shrink did a thing.

Standard, he was told, if there was anything standard about him: hours that made Bucky feel more like a guinea pig on a wheel as he welcomed it. Wanted to know what was left and what he was good for now. He argued with half the questions in his head, sure. But he answered and filled out test after test.

And through all of it, one word kept coming up.

Protective instincts. Protective behavior. Protective attachments. Protective response under stress.

Ironic, if he lets himself think it. After all these years, after everything, he fits this Avenging gig too well. But Clint might be a magnet for trouble, all limbs and mouth, legs everywhere but under him, always three seconds from taking a pipe wrench to the face, and Bucky is protective, but—

Bucky doesn’t feel that protective of him; Clint’s capable. Clint can handle himself. Bucky’s seen him fight hurt, fight tired, fight outnumbered, fight when he should’ve stopped fighting, all good there.

Doesn’t feel that protective of him until he sees. Emphasis on sees.

It’s months after Bucky walked in on those two. By then, Bucky and Steve have already started the second sleeve. Started and kept going. It’s not any specific design, which is why it’s taking a while, but Steve throws out suggestions, Bucky throws some of his own, they work it out, and keep adding.

It’s been long enough for the right arm to get covered with more ink down to the elbow. After they get to the wrist, Bucky has more skin left, so—

It’s also been months of not looking too long when Clint stretched, bent, laughed, bled, breathed, existed, but it’s not about that.

Bucky’s seen quite a few things in his lifetime. A good few of those few were, arguably, fucked.

He can’t be sure, but he’d swear almost nothing comes close to the cold crawl down his back when he sees Bruce lose it in person.

It’s not the same as seeing it on video or listening to the general comedic banter of ‘don’t make Banner angry, you won’t like him when he’s angry’ when someone makes a smartass comment about ‘the Big Guy’ as if Doc turns into a temperamental forklift instead of a walking extinction event in torn pants.

Bucky couldn’t describe it. What it’s like. To see Bruce changing up close. That body ballooning up, the green wave rolling over the man you’d theoretically trust to stitch a wound one-handed. And see what that body does.

Bucky’s not the type to rattle easy, but he’s shitting bricks when that happens.

So what the fuck is Clint thinking getting anywhere near that?

Way to be too spun up and too distracted by the repercussions of walking in on Clint’s lips wrapped around Doc’s dick to think of the rest of it.

Bucky can’t decide if he’s being paranoid, or not paranoid enough. Clint’s always a prime target for shrapnel, just his luck, but this isn’t a risk that’s part of what they do. Not what they all sign up for when they step into the bright stupid costume parade and let local assholes, aliens, robots, and assorted motherfuckers take their best shot.

This is risk for—

Fuck if Bucky knows. Some private arrangement Bucky has no right sticking his nose into and still can’t stop smelling smoke around?

What he does know is that Clint gets hurt a lot.

Sure, everyone does. That’s the job. You get punched through drywall, you ice it. You get shot at, you complain about paperwork. You get stabbed, someone tells you to stop being dramatic. It’s all fun and jokes until it’s not, that’s their way, and it ain’t up to Bucky to judge what helps who cope.

But there can be weeks between missions and new hurts still pop up.

“Don’t worry about it,” Clint brushes off when Bucky sees him icing his back during downtime and Bucky was the only one to fly through drywall on a job eleven days before that.

Could be a million routine explanations, but if Bucky were to ask for real he’d probably hear some lame lie about Clint getting it climbing for snacks above the fridge. So is it or not? The aftermath of a too-rough grip, or just the aftermath of Clint not being up to his ass in trouble here and Bucky’s looking for it where there’s nothing to look for, now that something in him’s been tripped.

It’s just once you see, you see.

That roiling worry takes up residence, that’s for damn sure. Bucky tries to convince himself this is just Barton being Barton, human crash test dummy, professional limper, but there’s also the memory of that grip, Bruce’s hand twisted in his hair, that extra second where breathing stopped and Doc didn’t loosen up, not until Clint was struggling, and not after.

Bucky’s seen that clinical edge before, just not during a blowjob.

Who Clint is into is up to Clint to decide, but the question Bucky’s asking himself… does Bruce ever lose it during? Not all the way (Jesus, if Hulk came out to play, there wouldn’t be anything left of Clint but stains and a biohazard warning), but maybe enough for hands to leave marks on skin in a necklace of panic dots before Bruce blinks and resets.

What then? What does Bucky do with that?

He can’t ask directly. Wouldn’t know where to begin. And it’s still not up to Bucky to put a stop to it. It’s not abusive, he doesn’t think. Just—

Ain’t safe anyway. Can’t be.

Steve is probably home and showered by now; neither Bucky nor Clint stood a chance in outrunning him. They did give it a shot, and fair’s fair, Bucky’s shot had been better, but he’s also half-stumbling, shirt wet as a dishrag, and all while trying to ignore Clint making out with a water bottle as they slowly walk back.

Steve, as has been established, is not around to save Bucky from saying something dumb this time. Which means Bucky is unsupervised. Historically, that’s where the trouble starts.

“I’ve met Jennifer,” he says, dangling the bait. Should’ve just kept this to himself, but there it is. Words in the wild.

Clint stops sucking on water, lips around the bottle still shiny, and gives Bucky a look that’s about five milliseconds short of a grimace.

He doesn’t insult Bucky and doesn’t go for the ‘oh, she’s cool’ line. Just looks at first, not happy about it, and doesn’t bother asking if Bucky knows about him and Bruce. What other reason would Bucky have for bringing up Bruce’s cousin? Everyone’s either met Jennifer at this point or knows her story. The family Hulk expansion pack, as Tony had put it, though Jennifer had laughed at it.

“If you’re about to lecture me on safety here, Nat beat you to it.” Clint doesn’t brush it off, but doesn’t give Bucky much of a chance. Been through this particular wringer already, allegedly. Which… seriously? Bucky’s not even first, and Clint’s still at it.

Bucky tries on a lecture in his head for a weak moment, since Nat’s didn’t stick, seeing as Barton’s still getting involved with nerds with possibly contagious gamma mutations who turn into too many feet of potential catastrophe if their blood pressure gets ambitious. But what’s Bucky gonna add? That?

His tongue knots up.

“Ain’t my place, sorry.” Bucky drops it.

They walk, Clint keeps the bottle in hand but doesn’t drink again, and Bucky regrets bringing it up, no doubt. Clint’s not actually stupid, and Bucky’s a lot of things, but he’s not the asshole who thinks Clint needs saving if Clint himself doesn’t think he needs saving.

“Just—” Bucky starts again, wants to say ‘be careful’ or ‘don’t get smashed into Barton jam’, but the words die on approach. “No, sorry. I mean that.”

Not like Clint needs his permission to get fucked up, not like Bucky could stop it anyway. Safety tips are for people who want to be safe. Clint is, evidently, not that person, and Bucky also doubts Bruce would ever perform a transfusion with his own blood again, given what happened with his cousin.

Clint’s also not the type of person to sulk or play cold after a rough conversation. Doesn’t hold a grudge, or doesn’t show it, which amounts to the same thing if you’re not writing a philosophy paper about it. Refreshing to be around someone who’s got the memory of a goldfish when it comes to drama. Bucky, if he’d been in Clint’s shoes, would’ve ghosted himself for at least a week, let things rot in the dark, but not Clint. There’s no skirting, no avoiding, and regular range time.

That same day, they’re there, sweeping up brass after emptying too much. Spent casings everywhere, the floor glittering with them. Bucky’s crouched, holding the collection tray (hell if he knows the right name for it, just a battered bucket thing with sharp corners) while Clint brooms the cartridge cases in.

“We are,” Clint says, out of nowhere, and Bucky glances up, not immediately getting what he’s on about. Clint’s face slips, frustrated, but only just, then smooths again. “Safe.” He tosses that word out with another micro-wince, and Bucky registers it all the same before it vanishes.

“Alright,” Bucky says, matching the tone. If the man says safe, he’s safe. Or Bucky’s going to act like he believes that, because Clint deserves the dignity of being believed at least once before Bucky starts digging trenches in his skull over it again. “How long have you guys been—” A stub of a question, and probably riding the edge of being too personal, but if Clint’s bothered by it, he hides it well.

“Since before you got here,” he says, cartridges continuing to patter into the tray.

Bucky scoops up the tray, empties it into the bucket in a spray of brass, and sets it down for Clint to do another round. Clint’s the one who cracks the segue, pausing mid-broom to eye Bucky up. There’s a blink, almost unsure, which is a new look on him.

“And just so we don’t make it all about me, not that I’m not flattered, how are you doing with the—” Clint flaps his hand at Bucky, doesn’t finish either, but it’s clear enough.

“Oh, I’m bein’ very safe,” Bucky actually laughs, shoulders shaking. “But it’s not like I’ve got a lot of options, what with this.” He lifts his left arm, metal claw flexing. Makes a ‘what can you do?’ face in return.

“You kidding, right?” Clint sounds baffled, completely stops what he’s doing, leaning on the broom, then widens his eyes at Bucky and… laughs too. “Nah, you just fucking with me.”

Bucky wasn’t. Wishes he was. Not fucking with him, not fucking anyone, and last he checked there wasn’t a line forming at his door. There’s a lot of weird in this city, maybe even more than in this Tower, and, okay, there’s probably a freak or two out there who wouldn’t mind it, might be into it, but would Bucky want them if they were horny for the metal arm instead of him?

“Sure,” Bucky says, now grinning broader, and he can’t tell if Clint buys his lie.

There aren’t any awkward pauses clogging the halls, no sidelong bullshit glances, and no change in Clint’s signature move of parking his ass at the kitchen counter and double-fisting breakfast three mornings a week and ignoring it the other four while shooting the breeze with anyone who's willing to engage. But Bucky’s well past the part where genuine worry is still genuine, and the whole non-problem business is a little more of a problem these days. Clint’s still officially unavailable as fuck, and it’s not recent either, Bucky’s aware. He just can’t seem to let it go now.

So, all good. All is status quo until Bruce goes and makes it something else.

Unlike Bucky, he does knock, catching Bucky just before he was about to head out.

Bruce stands there after Bucky opens, paper coffee cup in hand, and extends it to him instead of explaining.

Cart coffee.

Bucky eyes it, snorts. Funny guy. He accepts it anyway, takes a scalding sip, gambling with his tongue, then eyebrows Bruce’s identical one, but with a sorry-ass tea bag dribbling out the top.

“How’s the tea?” Bucky jabs.

“Burnt.” Bruce smiles. “So.”

“So.” Bucky does the gentlemanly thing, waving him inside, but Bruce doesn’t step over the threshold.

“I’ll be quick,” he says.

Bucky plants his shoulder on the doorframe, waiting him out, now surly on principle.

After that, can’t help it. Is Banner really that different from Bucky except for being allergic to entry?

Strip off the metal arm, pretend away all the grad school, and what’s left? Two brunets, both looking like an ad for shaving cream. Bucky’s taller. Maybe broader. Fitter on certain days, sure, so honestly, if all Clint wanted was a pretty set of stubble and someone with the potential to break him, all things being equal, Bucky could make an argument.

(All things are not equal.)

Bruce hovers longer, then lands, sighing.

“Had to tell him how you know,” he says, and that earns a straight spine from Bucky. Wasn’t expecting that.

A messed-up, conspiratorial ‘shit, are we in trouble’ energy flies across the three feet between them.

Bruce shrugs and seems apologetic.

“He asked,” Bruce adds. Alright, really apologetic.

Bucky huffs and gulps more coffee.

“That was—” He wanted to keep it buttoned up, but might as well.

Truth is, Bruce can’t know how long Bucky was standing there, but it probably looked more telling than Bucky had told himself after. Long enough to get an eyeful and choose to continue, wasn’t mid-motion when Bruce caught him, was he? Not walking in, not running out.

“I shouldn’t have watched,” Bucky admits. Line was there and he crossed it.

“You’ve got a thing for him,” Bruce says, with more understanding than Bucky deserves, not territorial in any way Bucky can properly dislike. Dammit.

“He’s easy to have a thing for.” No point denying and not worth lying about. What, like Bruce doesn’t get it? “But taken’s taken, don’t worry.”

“I’m not.” Bruce nods, almost smiling, as if finding Bucky’s ‘don’t worry’ amusing. “Anyway, that’s all I came here to say.”

Bruce doesn’t hang around. Shuts it down, leaves with his burnt tea, as Bucky forgets what his plans were.

He wastes a good half hour wondering if that was about laying it out that Clint knows Bucky saw. Or was it marking territory, a polite notification that he’d noticed, and to keep Bucky from having ideas? Either way, Bucky gets the message. Doesn’t change anything, but he gets it. Also can’t tell if he’s buying Bruce’s confidence, but Bucky ain’t making this a competition, so.

Bucky says nothing to Clint. Clint doesn’t acknowledge anything’s different.

To quote Clint himself, okay, this looks bad.

But Bucky would stake Steve’s shield on it: nothing happened, scout’s honor. Bucky’s never been a scout, by the way, just a soldier, and if you want to ask who did honor better, then, well, those badges were always for the other guys.

Still, tonight wasn’t some sneaky side mission on Bucky’s part, just Bucky zoning on Clint’s couch, half-watching a movie, half-talking about Steve’s tattoo plans and what they’re grafting onto Bucky’s skin next. That’s all he’s got lately: tattoo appointments, therapy appointments, shooting range appointments, and sometimes letting himself get talked into popcorn and reruns in Clint’s room when Tony is not trying to outforgive Bucky by making him too many arm maintenance appointments just to prove how forgiven Bucky is.

Bucky’s not good at saying no to Tony. That’s a problem. He’s also not good at saying no to Clint, which is a different problem with less tools involved. Additionally, to pile it on, he’s not good at noticing when “harmless” passes right through into “fucked, if anyone’s watching” and would keep to that under oath.

So when Bruce just appears in the doorway, Bucky snaps back like he got burned by that scalding coffee cart brew. Only reason for it is that Clint’s way too fucking close. Maybe his thigh brushed Bucky’s at some point, but his fingers didn’t drift past friendly when they were tracing out where the freshest ink went, so this time around it looks worse than it was.

What Bruce does answers one of Bucky’s outstanding questions about whether Doc’s confidence was put-on or earned. Because Bruce doesn’t flare up, go cold, and doesn’t do the stiff-jawed boyfriend routine. Just swings himself down next to them, and not even between them, though there’s plenty of space now. He goes for the other side of Clint, and flops one arm over the sofa so there’s a Clint-sized gap underneath. Clint goes boneless, fits into that space no problem, and Bucky feels himself sink about three floors.

“What are you watching?” Bruce asks, as if he didn’t just stumble into something that could be a reason to punch someone out and didn’t see Bucky jerk back, though Clint didn’t. Did move away, but relaxed and not panicked.

Clint replies, naming the movie, and Bucky latches his eyes back onto the TV. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Bruce egging it on, low-key, waiting to see if Bucky is about to make it a dick-measuring contest. But Bucky’s already got enough self-worth issues if you dig not that deep and ain’t about to start pissing on the carpet.

He could stay, could set his heels and smirk too, but he’s not sitting here trying to read innuendo off couch cushions and the way arms drape. Fuck it. Clint can slot in, Bruce can play king of the castle. And Bucky… nah.

“I’m gonna head out,” he says, halfway up, ready to make it out the door before anybody tests him with too much eye contact or a weak “you sure?” He’s not sure of anything, except that they are together, just look at them now, and he’s possibly the only jackass in here. Smart enough to know what’s not his, but dumb enough to wish it was. Bit typical, if you ask him.

It’s not Clint’s “C’mon, you don’t gotta” that stops Bucky, but Bruce’s “I’d stay if I were you. If you want, of course.”

That roots Bucky to the spot and throws him back onto the couch he was about to get off. It’s not one of those moments where Bucky finds it hard to say no. Hard not to say yes, and hard to misinterpret it.

Bucky doesn’t have much time for more, even if he was checking on his up-and-leave reflexes. He looks at them both, Clint looks at Bruce for a second, gets a nod that turns out to be a starting gun, then Clint scrambles right over, swinging one leg and then the other until he’s straddling Bucky.

He presses down on him with enough weight to force air out of Bucky’s lungs, and that’s a lot of contact Bucky’s been missing, a lot of Clint, all at once, and enough pressure that Bucky’s hands shoot up, almost grab at Clint’s hips but don’t quite get there, stopping at the last second.

“Okay?” Clint asks.

Good time to ask consent, dickhead, now that you’re violating every boundary already. But. Very okay.

“Can I suck you off while Bruce watches?” Clint seems so eager he doesn’t wait for Bucky to respond to his first question.

That’s also okay. And a large part of Bucky appreciates not being treated like he’s glass here, even with the questions.

That’s also—fuck.

Bucky’s brain gets knocked right out of gear by the directness and the heat of Clint’s thighs through two pairs of jeans, but Bucky doesn’t touch him yet. His fingers hover, then twitch, then find the air instead of flesh. He checks back with Bruce, who is now facing them, elbow on the couch rest, and Bucky doesn’t see a hint of taunt, and not a fiber of jealousy.

Maybe not okay anyway.

“You know you can’t fuck with my head,” he says it plain. “What are you two playin’ at?”

“It’s fine either way.” Bruce’s voice is smooth as ever, calm. “But he wants to. And I want to see it.”

“This true?” Bucky turns back to Clint, still not sure, but Clint’s hands are already sliding up Bucky’s t-shirt. Feels incredible. Bucky hasn’t been touched this way in—he doesn’t remember.

Clint doesn’t say it, but not like he needs to. Bucky might’ve searched for that expression on him before, has been on the lookout for it in his less proud moments, but there it is, no ambiguity Bucky could use to talk himself out of it. A green light and a half, yeah, fuck.

Bucky’s right hand comes up. He crooks two fingers, inviting Clint in. He doesn’t know if that’s against the rules here, he wasn’t given any info aside from being told he’s getting his dick sucked tonight, but it’s Bucky’s own mouth that goes hot and empty just waiting.

There is another quick check-in toward Bruce, from Clint this time, though Bucky doesn’t bother. If there’s a signal being given, it’s happening over Bucky’s head.

Bucky waits for Clint to lean in, and when Clint does, he’s not bashful but dragging every tick of suspense until Bucky wants to yank him in by the throat. Feels odd. Just before. There’s a limbo to it, just the two of them for that stretch, face to face.

When they kiss, Clint’s quiet moan flares inside Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky’s Bucky, he’s had a good reason, but, Jesus, Clint’s kissing back like he hasn’t been kissed in a fucking year.

They settle into it.

Bucky finally grabs hold properly, palms those hips hard, pulls Clint down closer. Clint’s tongue responds to Bucky’s when he opens his mouth to him, and Clint’s fingers fist tight in Bucky’s t-shirt, bunching up cotton. He’s rocking into Bucky already with only mild success, but that ass is grinding down, alright, and hell if it doesn’t make Bucky’s cock ache.

Bucky wants him so bad he’s a bit slow with it. Didn’t think that Clint’d be like this. So pliable under his palms, soft almost, and still the guy you wouldn’t want to cross in a bad mood, but melting down from Bucky’s mouth alone until Bucky feels him go slack and burn up all in the same inhale.

Wild that someone this tall can just fold against you and become so… compact.

While they kiss, Bucky’s got most of his focus shut down to the drag of hair between his fingers and the press of lips. He tries not to let the rest of the world intrude, but Bruce is there, somewhere, still sitting not that far, but perfectly silent, and it takes a few more blissful breaths of this until Bucky switches to being worried that there’s a time limit he doesn’t know about.

After that, Bucky starts clocking out mental seconds, because how long is okay to keep this up before Bruce starts feeling like Bucky’s taking too much, catching him not just watching when he shouldn’t but overdrawing on Bruce’s account?

It’s Bucky who breaks first because of that.

He pulls back, too much on the tip of his tongue, but you don’t go laying pet names on someone who’s spoken for. Clint’s eyes are still pinched shut when Bucky opens his. Bucky almost backs off, but as soon as those lashes flick, he gives in, drawing Clint right back in, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling so tight it gets more than a real sound out of Clint.

Clint whines for it.

It’s a mistake. Bad idea, fucking with his head already, will be difficult to walk away after, not easier, but as soon as Bucky nearly decides to put a stop to it, Clint’s already fumbling between their bodies, breath shuddering all over Bucky’s face. He goes for Bucky's belt as if feverish, and then cursing under his breath like the damn thing’s welded together.

A disaster for Bucky in motion, but there haven’t been any hands this close to him except his own in too long, and his bones are shaking for it. He bats Clint away but goes for the belt buckle himself.

It’s a dogfight with denim as Clint ‘helping’ slows them down, and hardly coordination. Clint’s practically wrestling the fly open, getting in the way, but zipper splits, and Clint is everywhere, mouth on Bucky’s jaw, then back down his neck, darting over his lips again, whispering, “Fuck, can’t wait, come on,” nearly biting.

Bucky half-braces for Bruce to guard-dog this, but instead he hears a dry, low chuckle, and the hum of approval that slips into this whether Bucky wants it to or not.

“Always so impatient.”

Bucky doesn’t need to know what Clint’s always like and could do without Bruce running play-by-play from the cheap seats, but maybe giving commentary is what gets Doc’s rocks off. Either way, not like Bucky’s about to complain about it, he’s not objecting to what’s happening, including the less desired parts.

Not when Clint slides down, all knees and single-mindedness, and drops his mouth on Bucky’s cock without a single pregame speech. Takes a lot out of Bucky not to come on the spot, and that he certainly forgot—the feel of someone’s mouth on him. Hadn’t realized how sharp the lack of it was until right the fuck now.

“That’s it, Clint,” Bruce says from his lazy perch as if Clint’s doing this just for him, and not for Bucky, and that does cool off Bucky a bit and helps keep him from blowing prematurely.

Bucky throws his head back and lets the sensation tear through him. Clint’s mouth is so fucking wet, lips working him over and tongue doing the same. Clint groans around him, too, slobbering all over Bucky’s dick as soon as he gets a rhythm.

“He’s good at that, isn’t he?”

Bucky tilts his head sideways, twisting it toward Bruce. Is that why he had agreed to it? To show off? Open-house cock-sucking, ‘look what my boy can do’?

Doc’s eyes flick back and forth between Clint making a mess of himself on Bucky’s dick and the look on Bucky’s own face. Bucky does his best not to roll his eyes here, but that proves too difficult when Clint starts to slowly crawl his way into pushing his mouth on Bucky further and further. Bucky can’t suppress a moan, and that draws all of the attention from Bruce to him.

Really, man? Is this the time to study Bucky’s reactions while your boyfriend’s got his lips around someone else’s junk? Then again, if Clint was with Bucky instead, he wouldn’t be encouraging him to make a spit puddle on some other lap, so Bucky won’t judge the difference in preference. Being the other lucky lap in question now, that is.

He ducks that eye contact, letting his lids drop as his pulse clatters. His hand hovers over Clint’s head, itching to grab hold, but fuck, he has no clue if that’s allowed or if he’s about to break some other rule. It’s not how he wanted this to happen, that’s for damn sure, but he’s not ready to insult anyone and just barely ready to let himself enjoy it.

“Don’t worry,” Bruce says, and while Bucky can’t see, he can hear the slight change in his voice, and some tension in it that’s easier to pick up on. “Touch him, if you want, it’s all he’s been talking about lately, and say something if anything that happens is not for you.”

“Shit,” Bucky can’t believe it, any of this, but does carefully put his hand on top of Clint’s head. Feels it move. Clint gets noisier when he does it. Gets more eager, too, and Bucky’s not small by any means, but there Clint is, maybe… two-thirds on the way to fully having him in his mouth.

“Don’t you want to see?” There’s more murmuring from Bruce, and Bucky nods, has a quick sneaky peek, or intends to have one, anyway, but then nearly ends at the sight of Clint gagging, pulling back, then diving in again.

“Fuck,” Bucky has to remind himself not to make any movements and not to jerk his hips up. That’s less trying to be polite about it, and more about not wanting to hurt Clint, but before Bucky can get used to that new sensation of the tip of his dick hitting the slippery back of Clint’s throat, Bruce is already telling him otherwise.

“He’ll like it more if you do it.” Bruce’s voice might be growing on Bucky, at least in a sense of providing some clarity, and Bucky’s balls are already drawing up, too soon, he’d rather it lasted longer, when Bruce shifts himself closer to Bucky and informs him: “He likes it rough, can’t get enough of it. Don’t you, baby?”

That last part is addressed to Clint, but it does something for Bucky too.

“Oh, god,” he’s barely holding it together now, and even less so when he hears Bruce ask “Can I touch you?”, immediately replies with “Don’t gotta—fuck—ask,” and then feels Bruce lift his metal hand that’s lying fisted next to Bucky’s hip and move it over Clint’s head.

“Go on,” Bruce encourages Bucky now. “He can take it. And if he can’t, he’ll tell you. Two taps means go easy. Three means he’s done.”

Bucky’s got a handful of brain cells left in service and all of them are too fried to be counting, but he makes an effort to watch for any signals as he’s bucking up into Clint’s mouth soon after, hips hammering the edge of the couch.

Clint’s making more fucking noise than a porn shoot, choking, moaning, so enthusiastic, and it sparks down Bucky’s body, ricocheting all over until everything fades out but the tight heat. The whole thing one greasy blur, and somewhere in the haze Bruce’s voice cracks through, twisting something new, or old, or fuck if Bucky could place it.

“That’s it, Bucky.”

The combination of the oddest praise that comes out of Doc’s mouth gets snared up with the lewd, ugly noises of Clint sucking his cock, and Bucky tries to let up, tries to give Clint a fucking break, but can’t—can’t, not when that moist heat keeps pulling him in, and definitely not when Bruce’s hand lands softly over Bucky’s metal one again, but not to move it away but nudge it down, and makes him hold Clint’s head and fuck in so deep that Clint starts sobbing around it.

The pressure, the grip, the tears streaming down Clint’s cheeks, and Bruce in his ear with “Just like that,” makes Bucky snap that final rubber band holding him together.

Bucky’s not making sense now, words liquefied into panting filth, mumbling “fuck, that’s good, Jesus,” with every punch of his hips. Doc’s hand keeps him locked in, and might be making him too harsh, but Clint still seems to be into it, and Bucky’s coming so hard it makes him shake, everything blaring in a single, scorching rush.

On the comedown, he barely notices he’s making broken noises himself, clutching at Clint and maybe even Bruce while Clint pulls off with a gasp, face red, chin messy with spit and come, and Bucky’s only thought is fuck, he wants to lick him clean.

He can’t stop grabbing for Clint, after that. Gets Clint up, Bruce’s wry snort in the background, but Clint straddles Bucky again, all loose and needy, shirt half-up, dick out already. He starts rutting his cock over Bucky’s thigh, right over the jeans, arms hooked around Bucky’s neck, whispering, “Can I, can I?” as if he needs permission here, please, he can have anything of Bucky’s after this.

Bucky’s got no answers, still floating somewhere, but he holds Clint tight, mouth finding somewhere between his ear and jaw, buries his face in that warmth, lips moving slow and sloppy, and lets Clint use him. It only takes a minute, maybe less, Clint’s body bows tight, and he makes the sweetest sound, coming over Bucky’s jeans.

Everything steadies then, goes quiet. Could be hours of nothing as Bucky listens to Bruce's quiet words telling Clint how well he's done and how proud he is of him, which… don’t get Bucky started, as he somewhat registers that Bruce must be gently rubbing Clint's back while he’s at it. Clint’s nose sounds runny as he keeps it against Bucky’s neck, and when Bucky finally cracks his eyes open and Clint gets off him, Clint’s smiling a bit dopey. The skin on his face is patchy and swollen. Bucky really wants to kiss him again.

If Bucky ever did something like this before, and for all the ‘legendary’ lay count Steve likes to go on about, he’s never come close, he’d say his exit was less awkward than it could’ve been.

The most awkward part was a fat, glistening stain on his jeans, still obvious after Bruce wordlessly grabbed a towel from Clint’s bathroom and did a little grime and shame patrol. That’s a memory Bucky’s not revisiting, felt too out of sorts.

Bucky didn’t stick around after.

He split fast, legs only halfway back under him, and didn’t so much as unpack any of it while walking back to his room, postponing sulking about being the third man out until he got there. He didn’t miss Bruce’s obvious condition as he left, but hey, Bucky also wasn’t asked to stick around for what comes next. And what comes next would be Bruce fucking Clint stupid, dealing with that tent in his slacks.

Once Bucky does get back to his own place, the expected climb out of afterglow and crash into uneasy turns up right on schedule, and there he is, about to begin churning in the pit of “what now.”

How’s he supposed to operate with either of them? Bruce, sure, no close working history, mostly high-level interactions and easy to keep at arm’s length. But Clint’s another story. Clint is range time. Clint is missions. Clint is jokes over comms and covering each other’s six. Clint is a problem Bucky had already failed to keep from becoming a problem before tonight happened and ripped the tarp clean off.

He doesn’t get the luxury of collapsing inward.

Barely gets his sweats on before there’s a knock, and can only hope it’s not Steve while yelling “gimme a sec,” because Bucky’s mouth tends to loosen around him and he’s fairly certain Steve’d rather not hear what Bucky has to say about any of it any more than Bucky wants him to hear it.

It’s not Steve.

Bucky slowly steps back from the door, and Bruce gets himself over the threshold this time, hands in his slacks. That tenting that Bucky didn’t miss just before he left is no longer there, but even Bucky’s not enough of a dick to assume Doc here is this quick. So why is he not fucking Clint stupid right now, again?

“You left fast,” Bruce explains his visit, as if that’s a good enough excuse. “You okay? We should've probably talked about it first.”

Right. Steve, Bucky would expect this from. Steve has the right, much as Bucky hates admitting it. Steve pulled him out of places Bucky thought he was permanently stuck in. Steve gets to show up with worried eyebrows and gutting sincerity and ask if Bucky’s okay until Bucky either answers or doesn’t. But anyone else—no. Bucky got to come into a willing mouth, and, sure, he’s feeling left out here, but fuck if it gives Bruce here entitlement to be handling him as if it wasn’t what it was. Ain’t like Bucky was spilling his heart all over Clint’s stained carpet.

“You don’t gotta check in on me, Doc, I knew what I was gettin’ into,” in retrospect, Bucky assumes wrong, getting frustrated. “Mind games, all that, yeah, better not, but I'm past the stage when I need to be looked after. Don't go there.”

“It's not like that.” Bruce sounds sincere enough, too. Pauses, but then continues. “I did come here to check in on you, can't help myself, but also to ask if you'd like for it to happen again.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says quickly. “Yeah, I would.”

Jesus Christ, Barnes. Make him work for it a little.

“That’s good,” Bruce nods, and Bucky nods right back, now waiting… for guidelines, maybe.

The usual. Don’t be that asshole who gets too attached, don’t mistake this for something else, or, if too lucky, ‘here’s the fine print on sharing a man like Barton’. Not that it would fucking help, because Bucky’s already in deep, just isn’t about to cry over it if he gets more. He was never that smart when it comes to sex, and postponing an inevitable low once they are done with him is extra not smart, but… why not, right? Trust it’s more tempting to participate while he can, rather than drive himself crazy instead just thinking about it. Better time, for sure.

Instead of those guidelines, Bruce pulls out his StarkPhone.

He unlocks it with a swipe, then taps a few times.

“There might be some things you are not comfortable with,” Bruce says, offering Bucky the phone. “So it’s important you are aware before you decide.”

Alright. Now that's weird. But Bucky’ll bite.

He makes a quick yet thorough scan of what’s on that screen and forces his expression to flatten out, handing the phone back.

“Can I think about it?” Bucky asks.

“Sure,” Bruce’s eyes are too narrowed not to be watching Bucky’s reaction too closely. Bucky’s having several reactions, but, fortunately for Bruce, none of them are fit for public use.

Bucky does think about it.

About how he is not, despite recent improvements and occasional proof of higher reasoning, immune to getting in over his head.

He’s up so late and then early that the birds give him dirty looks through the window.

First thing he does when he runs out of patience, which happens around the time those birds start their second round of airborne bitching, is ask Friday where Banner is.

When Friday chirps that confirmation, Bucky means to speak to him about it, but then pivots, boots it down to Clint’s, bangs on the idiot’s door, ignores sleepy eyes crusted half-shut, Clint's hair sticking out in every direction, and checks:

“Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”

“Something eating at you, pal?” Steve takes a stab at dragging Bucky out of his misery loop with a question that only he could make sound caring while switching between actively trying to cave Bucky’s ribs in and ripping him a new one in training.

Bucky shrugs it off with a grunt and a sucker punch, because if he opens his mouth about the mess happening in his head, they’ll both end up in therapy until the next apocalypse.

Since that night—the night Clint literally climbed all over Bucky to make it one of the best in his recent memories, only for Bucky to follow it up by losing his shit the very next morning—Clint's been dodging Bucky, and yeah, Bucky would prefer it wasn’t the case.

The invite to ‘join’ them hasn’t been formally withdrawn, but Bucky figures he’d have better luck growing a new arm to replace the metal one than getting so much as a smile out of Clint, let alone anything worth hoping for on that front now unless he makes some amends.

Bucky’s lost count of how many times he’s come up with new ways he could’ve handled that. He can't throw the blame back at Clint for making it go the way it did. Clint tried to talk (“No, come on, don’t you think we—”), but Bucky bailed mid-sentence, calling Clint too stubborn to listen if he was defending any of this. You'd think a hundred years of learning the hard way would get Bucky somewhere other than head-first up his own ass, but here he is. Remains a hothead.

Regretting not doing this better doesn’t flip a switch on his opinion. That’d be too easy, and Bucky’s life has never once chosen easy when it could pick “fuck you” with garnish. He still thinks Clint’s playing with dynamite. Christ, maybe Bucky is too, the way his mood and focus have deadlined. He’s missing steps, dropping the ball on hand-to-hand drills, and right when he’s already kicking himself, Steve’s about to—

Ugh.

“You okay?” Steve’s concern, unlike Bucky’s, looks more blurry than pushy as he leans over Bucky, who he just dropped on the mat.

“Just distracted, sorry,” Bucky takes Steve’s offered forearm and lets himself get hauled upright.

“Anything I can help with?” Steve’s hand lands on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Nah, but I gotta take care of somethin’,” Bucky squeezes out a smile, pats him on the back, but starts stalking off before he slips and says something that he’ll regret sharing.

Bucky blinks out the afterimages from the pencil light while Bruce clicks it off and tucks it into his shirt chest pocket. Should’ve known Doc would go full lighthouse up his sinuses just to make Bucky more comfortable when he came here, lying his ass off.

Bruce's blue gloves make a crisp snap as he peels them off and tosses them into the trash can before leaning back on the edge of his workstation.

"If Cap knocked something loose, you healed it on the way here," Bruce tells him instead of telling Bucky that using that near-knockout as an excuse wasn’t needed. No judgment in his voice, at all; Tony could drag his liver into this lab still holding a martini glass and Bruce’d likely just check it for signs of life, say it how it is, and not lecture. "Why are you really here?"

Now there’s a question.

Bucky sits with his boot hooked up on the stool, the other foot flat on the ground, resisting the urge to pop off with some sarcastic remark because a lot of things have changed since he was just a soldier, but a knee-jerk reaction to being cornered didn’t go away. The instinct to mouth off never did serve him well, though, so he chooses to study Bruce instead.

Those shirtsleeves rolled, top button open, broad shoulders soft in the light.

He has a way about him, Bucky’ll give Clint that.

Bucky has no clue how Bruce manages to radiate so much settled when the rumor is Doc’s never that calm. Bucky’d kill for that kind of inner lockbox, most days. Whatever rage monster’s coiled inside, Bruce keeps it caged, and that’s something easy to envy. Bucky occasionally still feels like a grenade with a leaky pin, and hasn’t got the foggiest if he hides it as well.

"I dunno," Bucky finally says.

He’d walked down here planning to hash this out, fix the frostbite left by Clint shutting him out, apologize maybe. And now, sitting here with his skull already knitting together from Steve’s left hook—

Bucky really doesn’t know. Can’t stop thinking about it. What happened. What else could happen. Just like he’d used that hook as a reason to come down here, he’s now looking for a reason to get back in and cash in on the offer that was made. But he has concerns. Boy, does he have concerns.

“Perhaps you are here for some assurance?” Bruce asks without a drop of condescension. “I’m just guessing.”

"Maybe," Bucky scrubs his face. "Didn't take it well, as you probably know. Still don’t think what you guys are doin’ is—didn’t take it well. But I shouldn’t’ve gone at Clint like that."

He stops. Bruce gives him time to get it out.

“Explain?” Bucky asks eventually. “You don’t seem like a man who’d risk it if you hadn’t sweated every angle, so… explain.” He leans forward, elbows near his knees, metal fingers flexing once before he stills them. “Because I gotta be missin’ somethin’, nobody’s that reckless, and whatever Clint’ll tell me here, I ain’t gonna believe. ‘Safe,’ he said.” Bucky’s mouth twists. “Doesn’t look that safe to me.”

“Alright,” Bruce rotates, flicking on a holo interface over the workbench.

“Mmph.”

That’s the most eloquent response that could be expected out of Bucky after this, and, uh, he really needs to put a hand on his crotch right now but couldn’t sell it as tactical repositioning. He palms his thigh instead.

Bruce Banner. What the hell?

Bucky never would’ve considered him before. Not in any real way. Not if Bruce hadn’t shown up in Bucky’s field of vision prepackaged with Clint Barton and all the trouble that comes standard with Barton, as Bucky is now learning. If you came to him last year after they shook on it and proceeded to co-exist without much interaction and said Bucky’d be more than half-chubbed watching Banner’s hands turn off that video, he’d have said you were out of your fucking mind. (Then he would’ve checked if you were Hydra, because that kind of psychic bullshit sounds government-funded.)

Bruce has stopped talking a few minutes ago, but that confident semi-smile on his face is now doing it for Bucky, and that’s news to Bucky as much as it was news that forking out seven bucks for a coffee is considered cheap these days. Bonus points for Doc for not batting an eye at Bucky’s ongoing situation, though there’s no chance he hasn’t noticed.

All of Bucky’s concerns in regards to safety fell away somewhere in the middle of Bruce laying the facts out in triplicate, and, credit where credit’s due, Bucky’s got exactly what he asked for. He didn’t ask for graphs, readings, sample logs, monitoring data, projections, contingencies, and enough medical language to club a horse to death, but Doc’s got it. Took it too far with how much he’s got it, and this is Bucky saying that, but he’s got it.

Bruce went over every possible risk: gamma this, cellular mutation that, something about viral contamination, radiation poisoning and the side-effects of minimal exposure, possible Hulk-itis, god knows. A lot of big words there, some so big Bucky had suspected they were underhandedly tossed in to annoy him initially, but Bucky’s gotta admit now, nothing gets past Banner—not even his own libido, apparently. Bucky’s in the clear, thanks to all that serum, but what sounded sciencey as hell was easy to understand in general while Bruce was explaining dangers to someone baseline like Clint, and the way he broke it down blew Bucky’s worries to bits as he was about to blow something idiotic out of his jeans.

Safe. Safer than safe. If Bruce played it any safer, he’d wrap Clint in shrink-wrap and only touch him with salad tongs.

A few minutes in, and Bucky was ready to say that was enough, so the extra mile wasn’t strictly necessary. Or the extra ten miles. Convinced. Very convinced that while most men think with their dick, Bucky included, Doc here has one that’s smarter than Bucky’s actual brain.

“Easier if I show you,” Bruce had said, and before Bucky could tell him not to, his eyes were already glued to a video and his jaw’s in his lap. Not exactly an amateur reel here, and with too much detail to get Bucky ready to drill back to the forties as Clint was moaning himself inside out.

“We were gonna get you to have a look first, didn’t want to trigger anything unpleasant,” Bruce assured him, and maybe Bucky should be insulted by this consideration, but it is… consideration.

That wasn’t a long shot assumption to make. Bucky’s been poked, prodded, cut open, wired up, frozen, thawed, scrambled, and put back wrong enough times that medical-adjacent anything would’ve been a bit of a no way not that long ago. He’s worked through a lot of it. Shaken off most of the worst reactions. Most. Not all.

Still. Bucky didn't think he'd find it as… intriguing as he did, let's go with that. And all Bucky’s got to justify his reaction to what he saw in the video is that he's been on a streak lately, taking what Hydra twisted up and stomping it into a shape he can live with. But does that explain developing a kink in a span of an afternoon and a very pressing desire to—

Bucky’s had enough pain for a few lifetimes, and getting inked by Steve did nothing for him from that perspective. But, fuck, he wants to be more than a fly on the wall when that happens next time.

“What do you think?” Bruce has been patiently waiting for Bucky to say something for a while now.

What does Bucky think?

That he got harder watching this and listening to a safety protocol than he ever did from real porn. Not that he says out loud that he’s one risk assessment away from painting the inside of his boxers.

He’d feel used because this sounds like he’s about to be, but he ain’t exactly feeling like a black market fix here, shoved in to patch up Bruce’s self-imposed boundaries, does he? There is a voice in his head that does whisper: you’re invited to plug holes Doc isn’t allowed to fill or simply refuses, but another voice whispers right back: would that be so bad? That second voice is louder.

“Do you even want me?” Bucky needs to know that.

If all he’s here for is to hand Clint what Bruce can’t, he’ll grind that gear and keep his expectations zeroed when it comes to Doc. But if he’s not, Bucky can be practical about it.

“Clint’s not the only one who can’t get everything he wants,” Bruce replies fast enough, though it doesn’t solve the new throb Bucky’s dealing with and doesn’t tell him whether he should stick around or get the hell out before he ends up with two Avengers haunting his overworked right hand instead of one.

“Think he’ll get over me bein’ an asshole about it?” Bucky hates talking about Clint without him here, but what are you gonna do.

“He spent the last few days moping,” Bruce presses his thumb in the meat of his own palm, and this might be the first time Bucky sees more than calm slip past. “It’s Clint. He gets over things quickly.”

That does sound like an insult if you just read it straight, but Bucky huffs a laugh out. That’s, arguably, one of Clint’s best features: quick to bounce back, slow to fester, and Bucky’s winding himself up to say, “fuck it, let’s go”, but there’s just one thing left to figure out, ‘less he keeps repeating the same questions.

“Who are you to each other?” He asks it too blunt, but if they are gonna jump into this, can’t hurt to be aware.

“You know what our life is like,” Bruce says.

Bucky does.

“We don’t label it,” Bruce answers, and Bucky’s nodding, nodding, like one of those little toy dogs on Sam’s dashboard, all bobblehead, all scratched paint but still rocking along.

“Alright then.”

“Certain?” Bruce’s smile tips wider, not so relaxed now. Flattering, if that appraising look and a glint in Doc’s eyes is anything to go by.

“Why not, right?” Bucky rolls the dice, and before anything in him can flicker with doubt, because, shit, he can’t imagine at this stage how this is going to play out, he pulls out his phone and dials.

It rings.

Bruce’s eyebrow lifts at half-mast, and Bucky figures he’s being watched for more than just medical anomalies here, and that doesn’t make Bucky any less stiff in his jeans. If Bruce is gonna watch, let him watch. Bucky doesn’t mind it. His dick might be downright pulsing against the zipper with more blood being rerouted to it, that’s how much he doesn’t mind it, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

It would serve Bucky right after all the grandstanding for Clint to red button him, but the call picks up.

“You calling to be a cunt about it again or what?” Clearly, Clint wasn’t sitting by the phone waiting for Bucky to finish chewing through his neurosis.

“Where are you right now?”

“My room, but if you’re planning on marching up here with the same bullshit, I'd rather not if it's all the same to you.”

Bucky snorts. That’s fair, but, what do you know, Bucky’s fresh outta that brand of bullshit. He does, however, have a bullshit idea.

“You’ve got about thirty seconds to get your ass downstairs before I’m puttin’ my mouth where you aren’t.” He flicks his eyes to Bruce, maybe a bit unsure if he’s being presumptuous as fuck, but Doc shifts on his feet, tilts his head, and doesn’t mask the interest.

Clint’s quiet. Bucky taps his boot on the floor. Gives it another shot, in case Clint’s being uncharacteristically slow to catch on to the fact that Bucky’s both quick to misjudge and quick to see reason when he’s been spoonfed that reason with charts.

“Unconscionable, by the way, that you motherfuckers don’t even kiss, what the actual—"

There’s a clatter on the other side and muffled “What?”

Then the disconnect beeps.

“Sounds like he’s over it,” Bucky lowers the phone and slides it back into his hoodie pocket.

Bucky scratches the back of his neck while they wait.

It’s not like he expected Clint to swan-dive out his window, catch a cable with his teeth, and swing down here dick-first out of pure enthusiasm. The Tower’s got more than one floor. Elevators exist. Hallways exist. Physics, unfortunately, still exists no matter how often Barton tries to prove otherwise.

The longer Bucky waits, the more he’s aware he’s just fidgeting, rubbing hands against his thighs, glancing at Bruce, then at the door, then at his own feet like a dog told to sit and stay with a steak in its face.

Feels counterproductive, all this waiting. A lot of it feels counterproductive now. Which tracks, considering how the whole mess started as far as Bucky's involvement is concerned.

“Was that alright with you?” He’s asking Bruce too late, yeah, but it’s more habit than confidence. Doesn’t matter how much damn talking they’ve done—excessive is the word—Bucky feels like he’s trespassing in someone else’s sandbox until he knows otherwise.

“Stand up,” Bruce says before Clint gets here.

Bucky could potentially get behind that. Or in front. Either sounds good. The latter may even sound better, though that tone alone doesn't get him there.

Bucky doesn’t stand up but his tongue flicks out, slow drag across his bottom lip. Bruce’s eyes track the motion.

“What would you say to me wantin’ to see you put those gloves back on?” Bucky throws it out to test.

“Depends on the context.”

“Context.” Bucky licks his lips again. What’s Bucky got for context here? A disturbing urge to get a prostate exam with a happy fucking ending, Christ. He shakes his head to himself, but Bruce smirks at it. Looks away. Then back. Shrugs at Bucky, as if he can read his twisted mind. But fuck you, Doc, you’re the one who twisted it.

All fun and games. But kissing. So elementary, so fucking basic.

Call Bucky a sap, but kissing matters.

He’s rolled around with dames, with fellas, and you don’t need it to get your dick wet (okay, with dames, maybe, to seal the deal), but for Bucky kissing’s always been more than means to get to the end. Bucky had missed it. Didn’t realize how much until Clint put his mouth on him. Granted, he didn’t miss it as much as that other thing when Clint put his mouth on him, but knowing Bruce swears it off with Clint, always the rubber, always toys, and that other thing that they do, after which Bruce doesn’t fuck him... must be hard. With or without the labels.

“Do you miss it?” Bucky’s not taunting him, but he doesn’t resist palming himself under Doc’s rapidly darkening eyes, since his personal growth has limits and every one of them have been located south of his belt for too long for it to remain merely inconvenient.

“Don’t do that.”

Bucky hears ‘without permission’ in those words, and lifts both of his hands, guilty as charged, and still trying to find his footing, suss out what the field conditions are.

“Good,” Bruce acknowledges him trying.

“You’re in charge,” Bucky concedes, dropping his arms down with a lazy compliance. He doesn’t mind that either. Can play along, he can be flexible, that’s no problem, and he’s had worse men tell him what to do for worse reasons. This doesn’t feel like that.

“Always. And I said stand up once already.” Bruce says in that same tone again, and Bucky’s slowly getting up on his feet, fine, just as the lab door slams open and Clint barrels in like a shot-out rocket.

Bucky doesn’t wait for Clint anymore.

“Come here.” Neither does Bruce.

Bucky turns to him fully, takes the two steps forward just as Clint’s boots scrape the floor behind him, words echoing out, “Fuck, no way.”

Bucky leads, always did, right from Brooklyn. Before Steve grew five sizes: if it’s fight or fuck, Bucky’s out front, first through the door, first with a hand on a jaw or a gun. Just doesn’t think he’ll be welcomed to lead with Bruce.

He’s right.

Bucky’s not pushed, not prodded, yanked forward and not drawn up gently by the scruff. He’s repositioned, somehow, by Bruce stepping around him.

Bucky’s ass ends up on the edge of the workbench where Bruce was standing before, with those hands on either side of him and the lab lights from the nearby screens painting Doc’s knuckles in surgical blue. Bucky angles his face in the oldest invitation in the book, but he’s not the one closing this gap. He could. Chooses not to, though talking might’ve not been the hard part, with Clint here, now that Bucky’s doing this.

Bruce leans in.

Bucky does the same, that’s how it works, but Bruce pulls back a hair, tongue tsking.

“You’re a bit of a tease, aren’t you?” Bucky’s definitely teasing.

“That’s not the best idea, Bucky, he—” Clint tries to warn Bucky, but Bruce is leaning further out of reach for at least a kiss, and Bucky kind of wants to chase.

“That’s not going to work for me,” Bruce informs him, and maybe Bucky would believe him if Bruce’s hands didn’t move an inch and his knee still wasn’t pressed into Bucky’s inner thigh.

“No?” Bucky smirks, tossing a look Clint’s way just to needle them both, and alright, he’s putting it on for Clint’s benefit; him Bucky does want to be in charge of, and it’s not that easy to drop.

“No,” Bruce sighs, his fingers now tapping on the workbench. “But Clint needed some training too. I’ll make do.”

“If you say so,” Bucky murmurs, because his mouth has never met a hole it didn’t want to dig deeper.

“Bucky, I mean it, that’s a bad idea.” Clint groans, sounds both equally disappointed and excited, and Bucky nearly laughs.

“Turn around,” Bruce’s tone changes. This one’s… new. Different from what Bucky had heard before when Bruce told him to stand up, and different from the tone he’d used with Clint in the video.

The thing is, Bucky really wants to do as told now, and that’s not just playing along.

Wild.

Bucky’s not an ‘ugh’ kind of man. Usually. But ugh.

He might be making a face of sorts, periodically, all through the mop-up of the rather mediocre fight, twitchy with what he could honestly call as close to self-cringe as he gets.

Hard to hide this, even with hands full, and Bucky throws extra force into an elbow as if extra effort makes up for his head not being in the game.

Clint’s crackling, “Saved by the bell, huh?” as they legged it out of the lab after being called in isn’t helping matters.

Bucky was. Saved by the bell, just as he was about to be—what? Put in his place?

Another ten seconds in that lab and Bucky would’ve been serving as Doc’s science project.

Bucky’s also not the type to beg for that kind of handling. Hell, the day Bucky begs for anything other than his next cup of coffee or forgiveness from Tony, not that it already wasn’t given, is the day the planet rotates the other way, but somebody oughta tell that to the part of him currently picturing Bruce snapping nitrile over his fingers while Bucky bends over that workbench. On record, somebody oughta take that part of him out back and shoot it. Off the record—

Didn’t happen, didn’t have the time to happen, but the mental image is so sharp, Bucky’s got to blink to clear it, so the real saving grace here is that the call to assemble that interrupted them wasn’t Code Green, and Bucky’s just-sucked-on-a-lemon face is nowhere near Bruce’s.

Bucky punches, avoiding looking at Clint, who is busy dealing with his own low-level nuisance, but it’s all block and jab to the thought of Doc using more than his pocket light and a tongue depressor to check on Bucky’s vitals.

Shouldn’t be hot, kinda is, but with Clint in there who Bucky's been dying to manhandle proper, it's ugh, that's where Bucky's at.

Fight’s over before he can work any of it out, and that knowing look on Clint’s face across from him on the jet gets Bucky sufficiently thick-headed about it.

Call it his pride being bruised as he corners Clint the second everyone leaves the locker room, and call it his manhood slightly singed because Bucky can smell the whiff of it burning.

Clint doesn’t go for an evasion maneuver when Bucky crowds him, and it’s Bucky himself who doesn’t kiss him after all when he could’ve.

God, could’ve.

He hovers. There’s that.

He also wants to know if Clint would make one of those noises he was making for Bruce if it was Bucky to twist the piercing over his nipple.

Bucky asks it.

“Don’t be a dick,” Clint mutters, and Bucky reckons that’s a yes. He presses in, adds some weight to keep Clint boxed in, and yeah, alright, rubbing a palm over Clint’s ass. He also lets his nose land against the side of Clint’s head, and breathes some leftover fight dust from him.

“Sorry,” Bucky murmurs, getting serious. “I was. A dick. Sorry. Can’t blame a guy for tryin’ to make sense of it.”

Clint doesn’t reply, and Bucky keeps going, but changing whatever was about to fall out of him midway. Also ain’t right to be saying things like that to a man he’s positive enough is still as taken as he was when Bucky woke up this morning. Taken, occupied, claimed, complicated, unlabeled. Whatever modern bullshit word people use when “mine” is too primitive. For all Bucky knows, Clint won’t even put his hands on himself without Doc signing off on it. Which… also kinda hot, if you ask Bucky.

“You’ve got a sweet mouth, Clint,” Bucky lowers his voice a nudge, and rubs a thumb in a slow, filthy circle over Clint’s tac pants. “And I’ve severely underestimated how good you can be when you stop blabbin’, and what happened that evening was after I was already runnin’ this place out of lotion and tissues ‘cause of you. But I ain’t gonna try anythin’ Doc is not okay with, you don’t gotta worry. Just want what I want. And askin’ for a fuckin’ second here to figure out how I can get it without bein’ a dick to either of you.”

“Don’t gotta try that hard,” Clint sounds pained. “I’ve been—y’know. And he’s getting there too.”

That’s… also flattering.

Bucky falls away, tacking on a grin.

“Jerk,” Clint laughs.

“C’mon. Briefing.” Bucky tries taking a few steps to the exit, but Clint remains fused to the locker, looking like something’s been torn out root and all. Bucky wants to kiss him so bad he’s getting dumber by the second.

“Maybe just once, he won’t mind?” Clint’s voice is scratchy. Bucky’s pulse spikes, and he’s pinning him with eyes first, then with his body—God, he’s really not helping himself—but no, he’s not going to.

“You sure about that, sugar?” Bucky checks and Clint lets out a groan, fully pushing him off. Bucky allows the momentum to push him back further and laughs himself now.

“God, you are a dick,” Clint doesn’t seem that mad at it. Even less so when he barrels on. “You want him too, don't you?”

Bucky shrugs, avoiding a straight answer. Doesn’t say no, though, and that’s its own confession, but Clint looks unimpressed that Bucky's not owning up to it.

“He’s growin’ on me.”

“Yeah, right,” Clint sets off, brushing past. “Saw something else grow while—”

“Ah, shut up ‘bout it,” Bucky bumps him on the bicep, still grinning despite himself. Clint cackles in return.

Pride, whatever. Pride can take a number and sit the fuck down. Clint’s too easy to be around when he’s not making Bucky want to chew through his arm with worry. And after Bucky had seen what Doc does to him, it’s not as if Clint can say a word in his defense.

“Legendary Winter Soldier, was ready to—” Clint gets another shoulder check for this one as Bucky might be feeling a blush forming. A novelty. Medium-rare and blackened, that pride.

“Don’t start,” Bucky says, kneecapping the topic before Clint can get his boots under him and run with it.

“Nah, I get it,” Clint runs with it anyway, but sobers up a bit as they hit the intersection in the hallway. “I was in the same boat as you. Bruce Banner. What the fuck, right?”

What the fuck, indeed. Though, okay, Bucky doesn’t want Bruce the same way Clint seems to, but Bucky can work around that. Thinks he can, anyway.

Bucky’s never been so close to climbing the walls with blue balls in his post-Hydra existence.

Four days and change of nothing, and all because Doc decided Bucky got away with mouthing off last time. Wasn't another untimely mission or a crisis, just Bucky getting slow-cooked and seeing right through it, but, in a very unlikely turn of events, shadowboxing his own right hand like it’s contaminated.

He definitely wasn't asked to do that.

Bucky was asked to make a list, though. What he wants, what’s negotiable, and what he genuinely thinks might trigger him. Putting some things on that list was mortifying. He ended up with multiple versions.

He gave it up, the most honest one, to Bruce at dawn, all cool on the surface, he hopes, but inside a pit of nerves. Bruce barely looked up while reading it. Once, to be more specific, and Bucky didn’t have to guess which point got him that look.

“We’ll see,” Bruce said, and maybe then he sounded a bit affected, but it didn’t result in him copping a feel. Bucky had tried stepping closer himself, why not, he wanted to, and Bruce hit him with “You have to earn it first.”

Please.

He fumes about it all day and flexes himself raw on the pull-up bar, but when Bucky finally gets his jittery bones down the corridor at the hour Bruce told him, he—

Was the intention of making him wait to get Bucky just about ready to crawl to Doc to get some? If so, Bucky could, in theory, see the appeal, believe it or not.

“Lose the clothes,” Bruce says as soon as the door is closed behind Bucky and they make it through another set, stepping into Bruce’s neat bedroom with blackout curtains. The door makes that soft shhht, and Bucky’ll bet anything it’s soundproofed for reasons that aren’t just sleep hygiene. He doesn’t have the time to take it all in.

“Wait there,” Bruce points at a spot by that door. “Don’t approach until told.”

So, off with that, huh? But Bucky’s done time under harsher, grimmer command, and none of those guys had this little glint in their eye or the indecency to do it in a very decent set of slacks.

And, fuck, Bucky can’t wait to be told after he sees.

He fumbles out of his shirt, jeans, socks as he stares, caught dry-mouthed.

For all the ugly industrial shit that goes on in the Tower when it comes to furniture, nothing’s ever looked this good.

A medical table with a crisp white sheet over it a few feet away from the bed, but to hell with that prop, the real attraction is Clint spread out like a decadent buffet right on top of it. He’s lying face down, turned away from Bucky, hands not trussed but held behind his back, knees floored wide, ass up and hiding nothing, all while every muscle Bucky can see from here is flexing with each breath he takes.

He’s breathing fast, too, so that’s a lot of breaths for Bucky to die over. Clint’s bare skin shines in the soft light, and, yeah, gorgeous. Come and get it, if you can, and as morbid as that is, the Winter Soldier was always a good boy for the right trigger word. Bucky intends to get to that point, to come and get it, and he can be an obedient soldier for this, he reckons.

Bruce ignores Bucky almost entirely once Bucky’s where he’s told to be, puttering with tools and things Bucky half-wants and half-dreads. And it's not like he wants to be ignored, but it takes Bucky a few minutes to notice he’s got his hands locked behind his own back too, even though Bruce didn’t say it. Sure, he’s burning holes in Clint’s ass so hard he’s going cross-eyed, that spot was picked for a reason, and that reason was to taunt him, but—

Not bad.

He’s over his head, he is.

But not bad.

When Bruce steps up to him and sets his palm on Bucky’s shoulder, his knees hit the floor from the lightest nudge. He shudders as his dick smacks uncomfortably against his leg, and it’s fucking brutal, that, exhibiting severe loss of his ability not to at the first sign of hands-on attention.

Better than not bad.

“What are you thinking about right now?” Bruce tips his chin up. “Don’t lie.”

Only thing Bucky’s thinking is that he wants less air between that ass, himself, and, alright, the man in charge of it.

“He’s too far away. Want to be closer,” he says it how it is, looking up at Bruce. “Waitin’ for you to tell me what I get to do. Dyin’ to know what it's gonna be.”

“Is that good?” Bruce still holds his chin in his hand. “Really.”

That question and the follow-up sound different. Normal. Not a note of what got Bucky to wait here or ready to lower his pants to his ankles in the lab. Bucky takes a few seconds to decide on that, doesn’t rush it; he’s not a complete idiot no matter what recent evidence suggests.

“Yeah,” he’s not lying. “I don’t need to. Want to.”

“That’s good,” Bruce nods. “Anything else?”

“Don’t—” Bucky stalls. “Don’t ask me again, ruins it. If I wanted out, I’d be gone.”

Bruce doesn’t question it, to his relief.

Whether it’s relief or not when he slings two fingers right into Bucky’s mouth without a warning Bucky can’t answer for sure straight away, wasn’t ready for it. But his mouth stretches, lips sealing around Doc’s knuckles and tongue moving, moan, okay, on the way out, and when he meets Bruce’s eyes on the same level as Doc lowers himself down to crouch, maybe Bucky’s big man’s act crumples a bit.

His heart’s kicking over, so keyed-up already. Breath hiccups in his chest, shallow, ratcheted up every time Bruce’s fingers give his cheek a little press, crooking deeper. He knows Bruce can feel it with every curl of tongue, every swallow, and knows that Bruce here knows that Bucky’d rather be sucking on his dick right now and that’s why his mouth’s so eager. Doc here probably clocked the exact wattage of Bucky’s need back in the lab when he dropped the paranoia and started eye-fucking him, but if you’re gonna be on your knees, you might as well, no?

Fingers slide out without a sound when Bucky starts imagining something thicker in too much detail (‘Shove somethin’ bigger in, for fuck’s sake.’ ), but Bucky’s about to re-arm the sarcasm when Bruce is on him, grabbing him by the neck.

Bucky kisses back, not thinking to hold anything in reserve, and he’s always been shit at lying with his body, it tends to lean toward what it wants. His hands are still locked behind him, spine straight, ass going down to hit his feet.

It’s nothing like kissing Clint. And maybe Bucky’s unspooling too fast into it, but he’s not the only one, because by the time Doc breaks off, he’s jamming into Bucky’s shoulder muscle with blunt nails and his thumb is digging into the hollow by Bucky’s tattooed collarbone. He’s strong. Not Hulk strong, not Bucky strong, and Bucky wonders if he does it to cover up his own reaction, and then wonders if Bruce knows he’s doing it.

“You’re kinda gorgeous too, Doc,” Bucky murmurs. “Hear that a lot?”

Bruce half-smiles, shakes his head, not as unflappable as he lets on, and removes his hand, standing up fully.

Bucky stays where he is, Bruce looks down at him with approval for it, and only then, in this liminal space of nothing happening but too much going on, does Bucky register Clint getting noisier as if dying from neglect where he’s been left to wait.

“What are you punishin’ him for?” Bucky asks, because since he’s got here Clint didn’t move at all, head turned away from both of them, and if Bucky was in his shoes, if the man he was with was kissing for the first time in—what—a decade, he’d damn well be watching, so long as it was alright with him.

It does seem alright with Clint, Bucky wouldn’t be here if it wasn't. But Clint ain’t looking. Clint’s whining about it. Bucky really likes when he does that.

Bruce doesn’t milk the tension and comes up decisive.

“Get up,” he says, and there’s plenty in his voice now to get Bucky off his knees and follow his lead. “Have a look for yourself.”

Bucky lumbers after him, still feeling Bruce all over his tongue. When they round the opposite side of the table Clint’s on, Bucky’s eyes drop where they’re supposed to, and no pointing is required.

There’s a bruise sitting up high on Clint’s outer left thigh, just where the meat of muscle curves.

Poor fucker. It’s nothing. Steve put three times as much color on Bucky’s jaw the other day in sparring; only difference is Bucky burns through damage fast enough the mirror never gets a chance to tattle.

And Bucky’s protective, this is what got him here in the first place, but, that’s—yeah, nothing. Now that he knows all of Clint’s hurts come either from the job or from being graceful but in reverse when he’s not giving Bucky’s competence kink something to work with, even Bucky would call this nothing, and, no, wouldn’t call a trauma team for it.

Bucky may also know where this particular hurt comes from, and it had to be right after that lab interruption. Bucky had seen Clint take a hit himself, body smashing into a car, but Clint bounced back as soon as it happened with that psycho archer energy of his, used his bow as a lever to vault right back into the action, and the asshole who threw him ate pavement before Bucky had so much as lined up a single brain cell to redirect his own fight that way and help.

The bruise is small pickings. That fight was also small pickings.

Bucky angles his head to get a look at Clint’s face for the first time tonight. He eats up the jaw tension, that clamped mouth and the eyelids mashed down tight. No gag, no blindfold, probably hates that they are here talking over him and over this love tap, so that’s a heap of discipline for Clint. Not out there, when the Avenging happens and Clint’s got discipline for days, never leaves a com off or a step uncovered, but in here?

“Is he supposed to tell you any time he stubs a toe?”

As soon as Bucky lets it fly, he knows it’s a mistake.

Not the same as when he worked himself up into thinking low of Bruce, hauling his mother-hen routine up and down the Tower, but still wrong, as if he hadn’t already learned his lesson. And they're all here for a good time, right, so Bucky might like to mouth off at least once in a while. There’s a sick thrill in saying the wrong thing to the right people at the right time (if you’re not pissing off someone in the equivalent of a sex dungeon and misbehaving, are you even trying?), but he wasn’t planning on doing this again so soon.

He’s still looking at Clint when it doesn’t so much slip out as roll out of him, so he’s there to catch that twitch at the corner of Clint’s mouth. If Clint could talk right now, Bucky’s positive he’d be hearing ‘you fucked up, and now watch what happens’, but Bucky’s already aware he was stupid enough to walk into it as if by purpose. It just wasn’t. On purpose.

“He’s supposed to be more careful,” Bruce answers, but also drops his hand to that bruise on Clint’s thigh, thumb running a lazy circle into the black-and-blue, and Bucky’s stomach does a weird see-saw.

Looks familiar. Reminds Bucky of rubbing Clint down with his own thumb in that locker room, and Bucky’d go as far as to say that, aside from the placement, the speed and the circumference of that circle are identical.

Bucky doesn’t know how to feel about that. Does Clint tell him everything? Is the play-by-play a part of the appeal?

Bruce presses right into the hurt until the flesh caves in, but it’s all pad, no nail.

Clint makes a small noise. Not pleased, not quite miserable.

The indentation from Bruce’s thumb widens as he keeps it down, and Clint shifts, just a bit, knees scuffling, canting his hips. Bucky’s seen a lot of pain in his life, but it’s never looked as pornographic as this, and Bucky’d stop it, if he didn’t have it on six fucking authorities that Clint gets off on it. Clint also makes this needy, broken little sigh, and Bucky's blood boils; he almost feels it in his own thigh, and there are goosebumps erupting all over not just Clint’s skin.

Bucky leans around. And there it is: Clint’s hole, clenching, and right below that… a strip of black that marks the band of a ball ring, vanishing under Clint’s body where Bucky can’t see the rest.

"Could he come like this?" He's curious, not aiming for snark, which might be a first, and turns back to Bruce.

“Just as I start to think you are making progress,” Bruce points at the floor again.

Damn.

But, hey, Bucky’s always been a quick learner, just not the most diligent one, so when he walks around Bruce and gets to it, he’s kneeling with no nudging required. Would’ve preferred if he didn’t have to do it directly in Clint’s line of sight, and pride has got nothing to do with it. Bucky can’t see much from here, just the face, which, sure, Bucky enjoys looking at and then some. But he’s still a man, and if Bucky’s not allowed to look elsewhere, there’re likely better parts to be looked at, and Bucky’d still swap Clint’s face here for the view from ten degrees starboard. Then again, is what fieldwork’s about, so be it.

"Eyes on each other," Bruce says, confirming as much, and Bucky’s locked in as soon as told and is already at it when Clint’s eyes shoot open.

Bruce must be digging into him again, because the second they make contact, Clint’s eyelashes flutter and another sweet, strangled sound comes out of him. Bucky’s cock jerks so hard he bites his cheek to stop himself from groaning, which should embarrass him but mostly makes him want to grind right onto the floor and fuck the friction raw.

He can see everything he’s supposed to; a whole wheel of expressions on Clint, no poker mug at all, every shaky exhale giving the secrets up, his own reflection hunched in Clint’s eyes, but what he can’t see gnaws.

That’s its own torture as Clint’s stare snares Bucky in place.

He hears the snap and stretch of nitrile, and it’s like a gun cocked at the back of his head. Bucky tries not to swallow his own tongue. There is the pop of rubber clinging tight to wide knuckles, a faint slide against Bruce’s skin, a squeeze of something viscous. Lube. Can smell it. There’s a squelch, loud and artless, as Bruce works it between his fingers.

Clint shakes as soon as the glove squeaks again.

If Bucky wasn’t committed to his front-row seat, he’d be leaning over and around to look proper. It’s not enough. He wants to watch Bruce’s fingers press in, see how they disappear into Clint’s ass, how deep, wants to visually confirm every fucking thing he’s hearing. He could cheat, a side-glance is possible, but suspects it wouldn’t go unnoticed.

The eye contact is… more nuclear the longer it goes on, bomb under glass. Clint can hardly keep his eyes open, but when he does, fuck: pleading, so desperate it wrings sympathy out of Bucky’s chest and shoots it dead between his legs at the sight of absence of shame swirling around the open-wound blue.

Sometimes Clint’s mouth moves and nothing comes out, not a whimper, not fuck-all, just air. Bucky might even take it back. Can’t disagree with Doc’s methods.

“What do you say now?” Bruce asks, and it takes Bucky a few to realize he’s being addressed over the sound of more squelch and Clint’s choked gasp.

“I won’t speak out of turn,” Bucky comes up with some basic humility. “Please.”

“Get up.”

Bucky does, hauling himself off the floor. Clint’s staring up at him now, pupils huge, glazed and shining. God. He’s so pretty when he’s like this.

“Excellent,” Bruce intones, even though all Bucky did was follow a simple instruction, and Bucky feels it like a stroke down the length of his body. All this for doing what he’s told—never thought he’d enjoy obedience this much, but that’s the problem with letting someone who knows what they are doing run the op.

Bruce steps away from where he was and Bucky’s hyperaware of the movement he can’t see, he’s still maintaining that previous order, and has to wait for Bruce to circle, shoes scuffing quietly over the floor.

Bruce’s hand touches his back, then guides.

“Go on, you’ve been good,” Bruce says, uncaging him with just the glide of his palm. Bucky drags his eyes down and, yeah, yeah. Clint’s ass is gleaming, slicked up from Bruce’s prep. There’s lube shining all around his hole, glistening in the light, rim twitching as Clint flexes it.

Bruce peels his hand away, and Bucky’s skin all but screams in protest. The heat is boiling up so vicious he’s jittering. How the hell did this happen? Please. Seriously.

“How do you want him?”

Bucky doesn’t hesitate, needs to see Clint and wants those eyes wide like a junkie at the end of a binge when Bucky gets his way.

“On his back.”

“Decide on the placement, but think about what happens if he gets called in and if it will affect his movement.”

It takes Bucky another full five seconds to dig his brain out from between his legs, put two and two together and remember there’s more to it than blush on Clint’s cheeks and that slick fuckable mess.

“Where then?” He’s not an expert.

“Your choice. Just this once. Clint?”

Clint starts to move, ungainly, knees trembling under him. Even Clint’s struggle is a turn-on.

“Can I touch him?” Bucky takes this risk, can barely keep the please out of it this time.

“If you want,” Bruce not only allows it, but pushes Bucky further: “Anything else you want to do while he’s still like this? It’s not just me he didn’t tell.”

That’s… a stretch, but Bucky's not against it.

“Right,” he nods, and sinks his left hand into the handful of Clint’s ass, stopping him from scrambling further, palm locked across that perfect, muscled cheek. He lines his right hand up, takes aim, and lets one rip without thinking about it.

Clint jolts. Yelps.

Bucky does it again, a little lower, more over the curve where it matters, and then gives a couple crisp, mean ones to the other cheek. Each slap leaves a burn, and Bucky can already see a handprint forming. Nice.

Bruce chuckles from the sidelines, all doctor-knows-best, but Bucky’s the one getting his hands dirty.

“Not bad,” Bruce throws in, voice velvety, and Bucky really wants to pipe back with ‘Keep the commentary. I know what I’m about’ but settles for another slap, this time directly over the center, right where the cleft runs and Clint's hole flinches.

Bucky doesn’t miss the body language: flat palm this time, harder, makes sure the slap lands with a crack, and Clint fucking breaks for a second, loud and shattered, arching his back to offer up more.

“Fuck-k, Bucky,” Clint pants, voice three-quarters gratitude, one-quarter harder, thighs shaking as he spreads wider, knees digging into the sheet.

Bucky doesn’t reply and is about to give him another right over the target, doesn’t intend to stop at just cheeks—he’ll alternate, get a rhythm going, slap, slap, right to the hole, then a lighter one, barely more than a tap, if only—

Bucky stops even before Bruce tsks at Clint.

Figures Barton would run his mouth when it’s Bucky’s turn to have fun. And Bucky’s a hypocrite, sure.

Bucky helps Clint onto his back fully, hands on his waist, finding the soft divots of muscle, palms skidding over skin.

Clint’s shivering from just that like someone left the fucking window open, legs bumping up against Bucky’s hips, every brush some new memory to get off to.

Bucky’ll never be able to be around him and not obsess over this. The black ring Bucky saw around Clint’s balls extends to being wrapped around the base of Clint’s straining dick, and Bucky idly wonders if it will go red and angry-looking when Clint gets close but won’t be able to do jack shit about it.

Bucky had already figured out where the redness he spotted between Clint’s shoulder blades comes from, and that’s probably a good location for it, safe for any action after, but he already said he wants to fuck Clint on his back, still doesn’t know if it’s just a one-time thing, so nothing else will do, and now he wants—

“Somewhere new?”

Bruce doesn’t say a word, Clint doesn’t either, but points to his own left pec. Yeah, that’s… that’s good. Bucky studies that skin, touches it too, picking up on a fast heartbeat under it, more taken by it now than the thin dust trail of hair leading down to Clint’s groin. His focus drifts to the silver glint of that nipple piercing on the other side. Bucky doesn’t want to hurt Clint, he doesn’t fucking want to hurt anyone, but the urge to twist it, bite it and mark him is riding him so deep his hand twitches without permission.

He’s ready to reach, just can’t, when Bruce ghosts up behind him.

Bruce presses in, solid and hard at Bucky’s back, one arm coming around Bucky’s side to trap him against the end of the medical bed. The other hand runs over him, and fingers still covered in glove take charge of that piercing, twisting it for him. It can’t be enough to do real damage, but enough to make Clint’s head tip back with a moan.

Bruce kisses a strip of skin just under Bucky’s ear, and suddenly, three isn’t a crowd. In fact, three feels exactly, painfully right. He cranes his neck instantly, mouth searching, and catches Bruce’s lips down for a kiss that’s not been allowed yet, none of the backbone not to, but he’s greedy as Bruce’s free hand never stops squeezing the life out of that bit of metal.

Clint starts sobbing with “ah-hah-ahh, y-yes, yes,” and that goes a long way to making Bucky forget all the ways this could be a disaster for him in the long run. He rocks back, grinds his ass right up into Bruce, and feels the thick press of cock through trousers.

“You feel huge,” he mutters into the kiss, and just saying it sets off Clint again as Bucky wants that in him, on him, against him, almost as much as he wants to get himself sheathed somewhere warm and tight.

“Later,” Bruce promises before he steps back, Bucky’s cock gives a traitorous lurch, and he’s left panting from that kiss, now squeezing at Clint’s thighs.

“Keep him busy while I get ready, will you?”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Bucky can only dutifully dip down. Clint groans, too loud, precome salt-bright on Bucky’s tongue, and Bucky does enjoy teasing, but delayed gratification is for priests. He’s seconds away from stuffing his mouth full of dick when Doc intercepts, palm clamped on the back of Bucky’s head.

“You sure about this?” Doc’s nails scrape Bucky’s scalp, not gentle, but drawing heat up his neck, and Bucky could pop right there from the contact alone. “You think he’s earned that yet?” Bruce asks, grinding respect out of Bucky with a scratch and a question.

Bucky’d reply, but Bruce doesn’t want his lip, wants submission. He gets it. Bucky waits until Doc cranks a fist into his hair, gets him straight off his trajectory, and mashes his face right between Clint’s ass cheeks.

“There, much better.”

Gutsy, and now Bucky knows exactly what it felt like for Clint when Bruce put a hand on Bucky’s metal one.

It drives him nuts, how could it not. And Clint is fucking wild for it, his are legs thrashing, calves locking, hips bucking so much Bucky’s got to hold him down by the ankles. Every flick of Bucky’s tongue gets met with a whine and a full-body writhe.

Bruce let’s go, but not before he confirms:

“Stay, soldier.”

Helluva risk on Doc’s part here, but if Bucky thought that would dampen his mood, he’s got a surprise coming, because it’s the opposite. The only thing not okay with this is Bruce no longer holding him in place, but Bucky wants what comes next too, and if he has to alternate between teasing licks and drilling in as deep as tongue allows, Bucky’s willing to suffer a bit, sure.

Fuck it if it’s all he can do not to purr into Clint’s asshole.

By the time Bruce rumbles, “That’s enough for now,” Bucky’s in a bizarre headspace.

Floaty but sharp, high off taste, nothing left to prove, nothing left to lose. He’s fine. Really fine, if your idea of fine is everything glimmering at the edges, skin buzzing, every muscle run loose like shoelaces in water. The whole room’s gone psychedelic, but he’s not tumbling. He claws his way up, bites down on the side of Clint’s ass just for the fun of it, doesn’t much care where the teeth land so long as he’s leaving something Bucky-shaped behind, and wobbles vertical.

Doc by Clint’s left, setting up shop at a tiny metal table on wheels where God meant bedside whiskey, but has a bottle of antiseptic on it instead.

There’s a tray: stainless steel and a sterile field draped on top. On it sits a row of shiny things, too many for Bucky to take in all at once, but it’s the needles that get his attention. Still plastic-wrapped and lined like tiny soldiers.

“I want to try something,” And Bruce, all quiet hands, is rolling a new set of gloves on. “You can say no.”

It forces the comparison, old habits, dredges up Hydra and the ways those bastards always did the medical when it came to Bucky. He’s got more half-broken memories than nerve endings, and most are best left in a ditch Bucky’s recovered from. If you could ever. Do that.

Funny. Not. Hydra’s instruments weren’t like this. He can’t say what they did before he started bouncing back from everything, but after wasn’t… wasn’t thoughtful, unless thoughtfully cruel counts. Maybe they used gloves. He doesn’t remember that part well. Maybe they bothered, for their own safety, not his, even if they did. But nobody ever paused for consent, and nobody ever said what Bruce just did. They pinned. And stuck. And probably hoped their monster would heal up before shift change.

Bucky doesn’t remember having the opportunity to look, either. To know in advance what’s about to happen.

There’s appeal in that.

“Why do you think I like this?” Bucky tilts his head at Doc’s hands, can’t stop watching.

“I don’t know,” Bruce shrugs. “Why do any of us like anything?”

It’s a non-answer, and that does dampen the mood, if only a smidgen, but then Bruce sighs.

“Clint?” He rubs Clint’s head with the back of his hand. “Come up for air for a sec.”

“Dunno,” Clint’s breathing too heavily, and Bucky hopes he’s not ruining it for all of them. “There’s a difference between trust and power, no?”

He’s right, and Bucky mutters thanks, mostly out of habit—“Thank you. Now, shh.” Truth is, that’s all the vulnerability he’s got. The rest he bundles under dirt and deflection.

“I won’t say no,” Bucky replies to Bruce. “Like I said, don’t gotta ask me. Can I kiss him?”

“You can do anything you want,” Bruce smiles, liar, but Bucky’ll take the illusion, huffs out a laugh and climbs onto the bed, testing the frame. Fingers crossed it can take about four hundred pounds in total, would be awkward as shit otherwise.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bucky hovers over Clint, knee propped between his legs for balance. Clint’s eyes widen at ‘sweetheart.’ “I think you’re great.”

That’s… about as much as Bucky can allow himself to say here. Possibly an understatement.

“Oh,” Clint’s mouth twists in a too-mellow smile. “Oh, fuck,” he… frowns, but gets arms around Bucky’s neck, pulling him down into this kiss so quickly you’d think it was the last one before the gallows. “Yeah,” he softly whispers into Bucky’s mouth, and then he can’t whisper because Bucky takes his time kissing the life out of him, all small nips and slow passes of his tongue until Clint all but mews under him.

Bruce could interrupt before Bucky’s ready, but he doesn’t.

Maybe he sets up, maybe he just watches for a while, but when it’s not Clint but Bucky coming up for air, after however long it’s been, it’s Bruce right there, mouth hungry and unsparing.

Bruce sucks Clint’s flavor off Bucky’s tongue, and Bucky thinks… thinks it’s foolish to be this careful, as he kisses him back. What are the chances some small nick on Clint’s lips would poison him with gamma radiation? He still thinks it’s foolish when Bruce moves him to get the fuck down, though he stops thinking altogether when he’s by the foot of the bed again, and Bruce is behind, slick gloved hand wrapping around his dick, stroking up and down a few times until he’s positioning Bucky between Clint’s legs and lining him up.

“Stop, if I tell you to stop,” he licks Bucky’s ear, and Bucky can’t even reply.

He can watch.

He can feel.

He feels it first, all that slickness of the glove wrapped around him, Bruce’s hand so warm, pointing him at Clint’s ass, just there, tip nudged in, and Bucky’s hot all over, twitching just from the suction of Bruce’s tight grip and the slick heat oozing off Clint’s rim.

Thumb sneaks just under the crown in a cheap shot, and Bucky could honestly sob as everything telescopes to a single nerve ending.

“Fuck, please,” Bucky begs as Bruce takes his time, rocks Bucky’s dick against Clint’s hole, filthy smearing between precome and lube, just teasing entry, holding Bucky back. Bucky’s so strung up he might black out if Bruce squeezes any tighter.

He can feel Clint’s body jumping, see the way his thighs tense, the flex and tremble of muscle, every twitch arcing up and down on that white sheet. Clint’s choking on some breathless moan of his own, hips jerking up for more, more, more, but Bucky’s pinned deliciously fucking still, apart from when Bruce pushes his body and then pulls it back.

Bruce has to move down Bucky’s shaft, timed with the slick roll of his fist. Precome, lube, sensation paints everything, all drag and unbearable pressure. Bucky’s cock throbs for permission. There is a lot of stubborn resistance for all the prep and eating Clint out, the burn even Bucky feels when the head pops in and refuses to leave.

Bucky can’t take his eyes away from where he’s vanishing into Clint, Bruce’s grip making it all linger, impossible to rush, and Bruce fucks Clint open with Bucky’s dick as he can’t decide which feels better: the sensation, the act itself or. Just or.

Then it releases.

Bruce’s grip slackens, glove slipping away, and Bucky falls forward, getting in the rest of the way with an almost easy slide.

“Oh god.” His mouth won’t fucking close, wiped out. “It’s—”

There’s nothing like that, is there?

He’s—

He’s balls-deep in his problem, hips flush, and there is a pulse around his dick. He doesn’t even feel like he’s fighting for his space. He’s—

Fuck.

“Clint?”

Clint opens his eyes. Bucky almost wishes he didn’t.

He doesn’t move. No chance. Bruce didn’t say to move, so he plants himself, hips pressed in. Clint’s locked on him, squeezing in waves, and Bucky wants every spasm. They breathe together. All of them, maybe. Bucky stays where he is, Clint clamped around him, and Bruce is right up against him, his hand running long and up Bucky’s back, palm broad, all patience and touch. Up and down, steady, steady, flattening every shiver that tries to riot out of Bucky.

Bruce is terrifying now. Bucky would break for this man if he snapped his fingers right this second, and doesn’t know where this came from. He hopes that after they are done here, the spell will lift, and listens to the sound of Clint’s chest rising, watches the ripple in his abs every time Bucky twitches. He feels like he’s being corralled, a good animal being trained by calmer hands. In another life, maybe that would have made him rage.

Clint’s lashes are clumping, face so fucking open. He probably sees it all. Bucky’s awe, Bucky’s madness. But that’s part of the deal, right? When it’s good? No place to hide except inside each other.

“Like this, alright?” Bruce says in a low tremor. “For as long as you can.”

“Alright,” Bucky keeps at it.

Bruce circles back to his wheeled table. He strips off the old gloves—snap, snap—roots around, and pulls on a new pair. Black this time. Bucky… approves. Nobody should ever pull out needles wearing dull-bastard hospital blue for a very good time.

It’s… Bucky had been waiting for it.

Bruce gets the antiseptic cap off, catches the cotton square, and douses it good. The smell hits hard—sharp, medicinal, chemical bite rising off Clint’s skin. Bruce wipes large circles on Clint’s left pec. The skin goes shiny, glows a little more under the light.

Then Bruce lifts the first needle, still sheathed in plastic. He flicks the tip out, metal gleaming, and holds it up, squinting at it, then pinches Clint’s skin between those gloved fingers, presses down, and… and sinks that motherfucker straight in.

Bucky wouldn’t hear it if he was baseline. But there is a quick pop and the skin gives way and draws that first gasp from Clint. Not scream-worthy. Clint’s ass chokes Bucky’s dick when the pain goes through him, but after that jolt of pain—release. Clint sinks, melting into himself, breath shaking out.

Bruce continues.

The second needle comes up. Bruce lines it a finger-width away, presses, pushes it in until the end appears on the other side. Clint hisses this time, arc of static over his pec, head tipped back, and there’s the wet sigh just as the pain fizzles into something molasses-sweet. His eyes flutter, mouth lolls open, and what follows is the slurred, fucked-out sigh of a guy who’s found religion at the business end of a needle. He sounds blissed out. He looks blissed out. His large dick is weeping against his stomach.

By needle six, it’s clear Bruce has a pattern in mind. It seems familiar, but Bucky’s mostly just watching the skin accept, tense, then yield. Clint’s hands go for the sheets, then relax, spacing out with each one. For every needle, there’s the sting and the tightening, followed by that slow unclenching. The more Bruce gives, the further Clint falls. Bucky’s not going to lie, it is a bit of a “how did I get here” moment if there ever was one.

There’s a rhythm to it, meditative in a fucked-up way. Bruce pauses, glances at his work, then glances at Bucky, and Bucky’s never been more aware of his own pulse.

“How many more?” Bucky pants out, too husky.

“Thirty-six.”

Clint jerks his hand to his nipple piercing at the number, but Bruce taps his hand away, no dice.

“Hold it,” Bruce orders Bucky, and Bucky diligently grabs it by the wrist. Does nothing else.

Needle after needle. Each one glints in the light. Each one promises more—more pain, more release. Bucky’s mesmerized. He has his dick inside Clint, for crying out loud, and it’s not that difficult to do nothing.

Pressure, pinch, pop of skin, the sharp breath from Clint, then that telltale shudder as the pain fades into something else, and, sure, Clint squeezes down on Bucky like a vice every single time Bruce sends another needle gliding in, but—

Bucky starts playing with Clint’s dick when they get to twenty.

“You have to time it,” Bruce says, and Bucky understands without a problem.

He pulls out an inch, at most, waits for it, and after the next needle goes in and Bruce’s hand leaves Clint’s skin, he’s rutting in, trying to draw out every ounce. When another sharp end approaches, Bucky stops. He holds.

Bruce makes a neat constellation just below Clint’s collarbone, then skips to another section, sticking needles in an offset arc. Each time, Clint groans low, his cock jerking against his belly, a string slicking up his abs. It’s so fucking hot that Bucky wants to bite something, wants to fuck through Clint so hard it messes with Bruce’s pattern. He holds on tighter to those hips instead. He times it well.

By needle thirty, Clint’s eyes are fully glazed over, small sounds every time the pain blooms. Bucky’s been harder on him in the breaks between.

Clint’s “Uh, fuck,” is more pain, but pain looks so good on Clint, and the more he gets from either of them, the more Clint’s cock leaks, jerks, throbs.

Bucky would’ve solved Bruce’s little arts-and-crafts project a lot faster, if he weren’t swimming in endorphins and getting milked breathless by Clint’s overachieving ass. He has to squint when it starts to bug him. Suppose there’s always some squinting where broken things are concerned, and Bucky hasn’t been squinting long enough at his high-tech tattoos yet for it to become second nature.

Takes Clint raising a trembling hand and slapping Bucky’s own pec, then digging at it, before Bucky’s attention snaps down. He watches Clint’s fingers claw against his sweaty skin, pressing in as if he could rub Bucky’s pain deeper, and there, right under Clint's palm, the same pattern Bruce is pinning into Clint’s chest, painted in ink across Bucky’s own. With, sure, some of that squinting.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky grits out just as Bruce’s work halts. There’s no more plastic snap, he’s done, and it’s just the aftermath, naked on Clint’s chest, inked into Bucky’s. And… fuck no, Bucky’s nearly ready to pull out altogether, if it wasn’t for Bruce’s arms banding over his torso now, voice rumbling against Bucky’s neck.

“It’s a compliment, nothing else.”

It doesn't soothe Bucky.

“I told you not to fuck with my head,” Bucky did, didn’t he. “What are you two thinkin’?”

“It’s fine,” Clint slurs, trying to drag Bucky even deeper, thigh sliding filthily up Bucky’s hip.

It’s not fine, but Clint won’t let up, and Bruce won’t let go.

“You’re fine, ah, stop it,” Clint rolls his eyes when Bucky punishing him for it by snapping his hips too hard. “Stop looking for problems where there aren’t any.” That’s rich, coming from a guy who’s one bad jerk away from gutting himself on a needle, but Bucky can’t help the way his heart hammers against his ribs.

“Crazy,” Bucky mutters, but he won’t stop screwing Clint, will he? “Fuckin’ certifiable.”

He pushes Clint back, drags him lower on the bed to get a better grip and starts pounding into him after slapping his metal hand onto Clint’s belly.

“Tell him to stay the fuck down,” Bucky rasps at Bruce, and Clint grins, shaky, but obeys without the follow-up from Doc.

Bucky half-twists, one hand shooting back to Bruce’s slacks, feeling for Bruce’s fly, getting that party started.

“You gonna screw me or what?”

“We’re going to have to have a chat about your insolence later,” Bruce has the balls to talk back after this, and Bucky’d let him have it, but, hell, he’s too busy groaning and muttering “Fuck, c’mon,” because Bruce’s gloved hand is already at his ass, fingers slick.

Never mind the fantasy; reality rips its own damn hole.

Bucky has to all but halt, forehead on Clint’s other pec, mouth around that stupid-ass piercing, and he’s still mad as hell about his tattoo made of needles, about being handled, about Bruce and Clint ganging up on him. But it’s not like Bucky’s in any position to object. Hard to argue when your ass is getting worked and your cock buried in Clint Barton.

Then Bruce reaches for another rubber, always with the damn safeties. Bucky could do without that ritual, the snap of that latex, but he keeps his mouth shut. Doesn’t mention it, doesn’t ask for exceptions, just pushes back, needs it now, and bites Clint’s nipple a little as Clint moans under them both.

Doc's cock finds its mark with a careful grind, big, blunt pressure.

It hurts. Doc rushed, though he didn’t show it. It’s a goddamn process while trying not to wreck Clint into a wheelchair and watch those fucking needles so they don’t dislodge.

They grind it out. Bruce is breathing into Bucky’s ear and Clint isn’t moaning so much but he begins whimpering. Becomes too sweet again for Bucky to stay mad at him, and, sure, he'll take the compliment from psychos.

Monumental, probably, for Bruce, for Clint, to do it this way through Bucky.

For Bucky—Jesus, for Bucky, it’s surreal. Amazing. Awful. He's trapped, proper, between Clint’s desperate clutch and Bruce’s push. Clint writhes and Bruce fucks in with these short, quick thrusts.

Bucky’s never done this. Not like this: cock stuffed deep, and another one inside him.

It’s the pressure, the fucking size of it, the grind that makes his knees rattle. He can feel Clint’s heart beating through the clamp of his ass, can hear Bruce’s breath and how unsteady it is, cock pummeling.

“Harder,” Bucky asks, and Bruce’s hand latches around Bucky’s throat.

Bucky groans so low he nearly chokes.

Clint’s got his ankles up by Bucky’s waist, even trying to touch at the damn needles stuck in his chest. Sometimes the pain hits and Bucky feels it too—muscle locks, Clint clamps down, Bucky’s vision stretches even more paper-thin than it already was.

He’s not thinking straight. All he can do is move—hard in, then out, Clint sinking under every punch, Bruce fucking into him from behind, hips slamming. It’s all a humid soup of groans, curses, and the thud of Bucky’s own blood behind his eyes.

The touch is a fever. Clint’s fingers on his biceps, on Bucky’s chest, when not being smacked away from the sharp bits, Bruce pulling Bucky back, nails down his sides, cock squeezing Bucky between body and bed. Bucky’s got both hands busy: one keeps Clint’s masochist mitts away from his new chest hardware, the other digs deep into the inside of Clint’s thigh, pressing marks for tomorrow.

Every time Bruce thrusts in deep, Bucky jolts forward, pushing into Clint, driving him up the bed, forcing another animal moan up Clint’s throat, which in turn gets Bruce huffing under his breath, and, alright, fucking them both harder.

Bucky’s balls clench. He doesn’t want it to stop. Hopes Bruce holds him that little bit tighter, that Clint keeps squeezing down, but.

“Shit, gonna come.”

Should’ve kept that to himself, Bruce doesn’t let him. No big dramatic announcement, just his hand, yanking Bucky right out before it happens. Bucky could curse himself blue, shouldn’t be surprised, it’s Bruce’s fucking MO at this point: reward, then rip the rug straight out.

Bucky’s balls are drawn up so tight it’s almost painful, might as well have been trucking a loaded gun between his legs for the last hour, and Bruce pulls out himself, too, another heat retreating, Bucky’s insides clenching around nothing.

“Lower,” Bruce grunts, and pushes Bucky down over the bed, palm flat on his back. Bucky goes, half-crawling, Clint’s thigh skidding up his chest until Bucky gets with the program and has him scoot up and stick his dick in Bucky’s face, even if Bucky’s own is sobbing in protest.

Bucky latches his mouth onto that bound cock. It’s a messy eat at this stage, Christ, but Bucky licks up every drop, tongue tracing the veins, sucks so hard Clint all but cries.

One sharp thrust from Bruce shortly after, and Bucky’s grateful for the lube, because Bruce is too impatient now, pushing all the way in. He’s a wall at Bucky’s back, fucking him thoroughly, his hips snapping, catching on Bucky’s ass so every thrust rocks him and slams him into sucking Clint deeper. Fuck.

Bucky’s got no shame left, drooling all over Clint’s shaft, precome and spit soaking his chin, catching in the stubble, more moaning through his nose than breathing. Every time Bruce bottoms out, Bucky’s shoved down over Clint’s lap, tongue pressed against the head, swallowing every jerk as Clint fucks into his mouth.

It blurs, as it tends to. Doc pounds him open, splits him wider and wider, dragging groans out of his chest. Bucky’s so hard it’s fucking useless, bobbing in the air, untouched, not a chance in hell of release, but Clint wants to come too, there’s panic in his hips, too much begging from his mouth.

It’s not words.

Sound—god, so much sound. The bed clanks more than a fair amount under Bucky’s bulk adding to it, but Clint’s whimpering is louder. Little gasps, pants, these sobbing half-chokes wedged between them, pattered against the wet slap of flesh and those shocks Bruce sends down the line with every forceful slam.

Trouble’s coming—maybe.

Later.

For doing this.

But who even knows if there is a later, that’s never been discussed, though word’s been dropped, and Clint’s already out of it, would’ve likely been gone when Bruce turned him into a pincushion if only it wasn’t for the ring keeping his cock and balls locked down.

Bucky considers it while Bruce is distracted enough to let anyone here get away with murder. It doesn’t take that much consideration. He wants to see it. He has no idea if he gets to, doesn’t know what the endgame is here, but… just wants to see it.

So he goes hunting, the joint’s easy to find, tongue flicking, then fingers doing the dirty work, popping the ring loose. It bounces, lost as soon as, and Clint’s entire song spikes as he’s freed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, ohhhh my god,” and now he’s writhing more, head whipping and thrashing side to side.

Bucky’s got his mouth at his tip, gentler now, flesh finger pressing under the crown the way Doc did to him as he moves the metal over Clint’s ripped abdomen muscle, just below that chest glistening with needlework.

Clint blinks at Bucky, as if lost. So vulnerable and honest like this that Bucky’s—

Will be more than disappointed if there isn’t a later and that’s all he gets.

Another blink from Clint, and then it breaks. Real tears spill, thick, too many and these are… wreckage. Waterworks. Ugly. Pretty anyway. Bucky almost breaks himself, hand pausing midstroke as Clint’s face cracks open, mouth open, silent scream stuck behind his teeth.

Bucky actually waits for Clint to tap out, even as he still sucks on him, but no tap comes and all he gets is Bruce’s hand sliding down, palm big and unmissable on Bucky’s hip, patting a rhythm that tells him to keep going.

“Good,” Bruce’s voice is a mess, too, as he adds that.

Ride it out, then. Just as Clint is.

They do.

Not long before Bruce’s pace goes off, sloppy, hips hitting Bucky so fucking hard he sees sparks every time. Jesus. Clint is gasping out, “Gonna, fuck, gonna—” and Bucky can’t tell whose shudder is first, Bruce coming inside Bucky himself, face buried in Bucky’s nape, or Clint knotted up, clutching Bucky’s head, pushing him lower on his dick, and blubbering hopeless, nearly cathartic nonsense while Bruce slips out and snatches them closer.

Bucky’s still licking Clint off his lips where the suction failed half a minute later. That seal never holds, and he’s still shaking a little, body jerking with aftershocks as if he’s just finished too.

Clint’s chest is lurching, heartbeat punchy, Bucky will never unhear it, but the rest of him is slack. Fucked-out, no strength left, sweat and tears making pale streaks through his freckles, eyes not even bothering to blink but locked on Bucky.

Bucky soaks it in, metal hand still planted right across his abs, real one shaking. Doesn’t know what to do now, but Bruce is back to handling him again, lining up Bucky’s dick against Clint.

Bucky doesn't protest. If he were an idiot, he’d be sentimental as shit right now. He might be an idiot. Thrusts in anyway.

He finds the angle that works for him and him alone, feeling a bit like he’s being rebuilt from scratch with each pass, which is a lot to put on the act of fucking, Christ.

It’s fast, rough, and Bucky isn’t holding back, just pounding in until his own thighs start to tremble. Clint’s got nothing left, his body just a place for Bucky to hold, to shove into, every rock of Bucky’s hips sliding him up the ruined mess of the bed. The slap of skin is loud, loud, loud, but the moans are gone, and Bucky’s quiet too—replaced with this gritty, breathless gasping cycle.

Everything goes blurry. There’s moisture in his eyes, probably tears too, but Bucky’s not wasted enough to admit it. Clint’s body underneath is nothing but friction, Bruce’s panting a raw rumble right behind his ear, and all Bucky wants is more. He gets it, too. Gets lost, gets found in the wreckage, sensation choking out thought, and everything is stretch, squeeze, burn, and that booming pulse at the root of his dick.

It doesn’t creep, it rips out of him.

Now that Bucky’s more or less back, the room does whiff of a highly sterilized jailhouse orgy, and he smirks a bit as he gets to press the water bottle nozzle to Clint’s lips after grabbing his own swallow on the way.

Clint’s hand is a magnet. Bucky’s fingers get caught and held every time he moves the bottle, like Clint can’t let him go or refuses to. Clint’s mouth is greedy around the cap, gulping like he’s crawled out of the desert. No tension, just relaxed and pliant, and as happy as he’s ever looked.

Bruce is playing field medic. He’s gentle, there is that, but he’s efficient after spritzing numbing spray across Clint’s pec, and now pulling each needle out with two quick fingers. It’s all drop, clink, click into the tray. He doesn’t drag it, just gets it over with. Not even the smallest wince from Clint, but the skin is angry, even if it doesn’t hurt right now.

“Almost done,” Bruce runs his fingers through Clint’s hair.

He did tell Bucky, “You don’t have to, should lie down. First time’s a lot.” And it is. A lot. The thing is, Bucky wants to do this part. If he sits, he’ll be five miles away. Then away. Doesn’t want the space. He’s here because he chose this, right? Doing fine, too. Apprehensive in advance, but sated.

Besides, Clint’s dopey smile and general sluggishness is hard to resist. When Bucky can’t stand anymore, he still can’t walk away, so he crouches. This bed is too tall for that, so Clint half on, half off, tipping off backwards, but still playing those fingers up and down Bucky’s hand.

One by one, Bruce clicks the last needle into the tray, puts a temporary gauze patch on Clint’s chest, and fixes it in place.

“Give it a minute,” he says, and Clint sighs, water bottle empty, dropping it on the floor instead of passing it to Bucky, who catches that hand and presses a kiss right into the wrist, bottle rolling off.

Clint bites his metal knuckle in return. Moron.

“Was it good?” Clint’s voice is too scratchy, and Bucky’s not sure if he’s even talking to Bucky, maybe it’s for Bruce, but Bucky’s got the answer anyway.

“Yeah, you were amazin’,” Bucky murmurs, and Clint… is trying to hide another smile behind Bucky’s own mangled hand.

Everything, all of it—these guys, the sick ache of laying it all out, the way they held him right at the end. A lot, but not too much, just almost, but Bucky’s not sure he belongs in his own bones right now.

This would be the part where he should be stumbling at the door, but when Clint makes his trademark stupid “I’d rather eat shit than be carried” face, Bucky snorts, drags him anyway, half-collapses onto the actual bed with him, letting Clint slobber at his neck, and lets himself get coaxed right into that warm, loose tangle.

Bruce is across the room, cleaning up, slacks buttoned, nothing out of place, and not sparing either of them a look, but he does toss it at Bucky, calmly:

“You could leave. Could stay. We’d rather you stay, if you doubt that.”

Bucky couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t ‘less they kick him out, but it doesn’t look like it, so he goes limp with relief too, nestles into Clint, spilling his contentment out across the pillows. They are a bit hard, those pillows. Flat. He doesn’t say it out loud, sure of it.

“I know, right?” Clint weakly punches the one under him.

A week blows by. Then a month. Bucky’s still staying.

Missions stack up, some cakewalk, some so close they’re scraping by on dumb luck and bruised everything. Bucky runs out of space to ink on his right arm. Four months of spending too many nights not in his own bed, and he starts running out of space on his back.

Nobody told him tattoos are addictive. Nobody told him being so content it skirts the edge of suspiciously so would get addictive either.

Sex is great. All of it. Some things Bucky prefers more than others, but all are good. Good for the muscles, better for the brain, best for the nights when Bucky can feel that dark sneaking up through the back. Sleep’s hit or miss when it happens, but it all shakes out better when he falls in a dogpile.

They keep it between them. Now Bucky gets why Clint hangs out in the vents.

Not much else changes besides that. Not much important, though this—them—is as important to Bucky as it can be. It’s that ache in his jaw from laughing too hard or biting pillows too long. Priority one… priority one is to keep it. It’s not that hard, nothing is with those two.

Steve doesn’t get told. He’s the last man who needs more reasons to stress over Bucky. Not told by Bucky, anyway, but fuck if he knows who opened their giant mouth. Could’ve been Nat. Could’ve been nobody, Steve’s been psychic since Brooklyn; sniffs it out five, six months in, and the important thing there is that no confession from Bucky is necessary.

Steve drops a “Well that’s… modern?” like he’s a grandmother seeing her first Pride, then punches Bucky during the spar—verbally, physically, all the classics—for being an asshole and keeping this good thing to himself.

Which. Huh. That’s modern of Steve, but from where Bucky’s looking, he’s not the only jackass in the room with secrets.

(Bucky calls him a pussy in return, swings for him, misses, and then suggests he go talk to Tony. Maybe if Tony was getting some from the idiot who wants to give it to him so badly he’s turning into a nun, Bucky’d have even more time for his personal life instead of being one Stark upgrade away from being declared a fucking Helicarrier.)

Takes time, of course. All things do. Bucky’s eyeing his thighs for space by then.

But what it becomes—

Clint’s easier than Bruce, not because he gives Bucky anything for free. Just easier to be around, easier to laugh with, easier to shut up and be still beside. Easier to love, too, the asshole can make Bucky want to take a bullet for him at 8:00 and question potential brain damage by 8:01, but there are no favorites. There can’t be when it comes to something like this, but most days Bucky’s more afraid of losing Bruce than him. Most days Bucky also gets it, even if it’s a pain in the ass to explain even to himself.

It’s… it’s been too long since it all began when Clint sprawled out, head jammed somewhere around Bucky’s ribs on Clint’s couch. Bucky keeps brushing at this single stupid strand of hair that’s stuck to Clint’s temple, damp from a five-minute shower, flicked loose in defiance of towel science, and they are talking about it again. They’ve been doing a lot of that lately.

“Why not, right?” Bucky’s the one who finally decides, and just like with everything else, Bucky’s why not is still not dismissive. Hell, “why not” is the closest thing he’s had to a working system this decade.

“You tell him.” Clint plays it cool, and fakes casual better than anyone in the game, but Bucky can see his ankle twitching, sneaker rapping a tune against the couch rest, and this is why his furniture always looks like he’s found it in the dumpster.

“Figures,” Bucky lightly flicks him on the nose out of spite and spaces out at the TV. Clint had over a year before Bucky to float this by Bruce, and the coward got nowhere with it. More insecure than Bucky is, and don’t get Bucky started on that.

“So… will you?” Clint pokes at it again after the commercial break, slides further into Bucky’s lap, pressing on soft parts with his elbow.

“Yeah,” Bucky readjusts his leg to make him fit better, smiling to himself when Clint all but falls into the dip between them, slothing all over him. It’s a nice weight, if anyone asks. Don’t ask Bucky in front of Clint, he’ll lie through his teeth unless they’re being serious about it. Only… if Bucky doesn’t back out, they’re about to be serious about it and it’s—

“Nervous?” Clint’s easy but doesn’t make it easy tonight. “Gonna chicken out?”

Bucky flicks him on his nose again.

“Yeah. And no,” Bucky twists that stubborn strand around his metal finger and pulls. “Quit it, don’t fuckin’ make it wor—”

“Evening,” Bruce wanders in with his sleeves rolled, drops the tablet on the pile of half-eaten snacks on the coffee table, and comes over to drop a quick kiss on Bucky while absently rubbing Clint’s forearm in greeting, as usual.

“What are we watc—” he continues, already starting to lean away, but it’s Doc’s fault for wearing a very tempting tie. He cuts himself off mid-sentence, arching one eyebrow at Bucky when that tie gets trapped.

“What are we to each other?” Bucky asks as Clint freezes. “I love you. Don’t need an ad in the newspaper, but got a bullshit idea of labelin’ it or somethin’ in private."

Bruce freezes too. That’s new. His eyes flick to Clint, who fucking shrugs, and Bucky kind of wants to plant a boot in his ass for that, but maybe later.

“You know what our life is like.” Bruce doesn’t sound so sure now, and Bucky has heard it before, bets Clint did too, but, fuck man, it’s a cop-out.

Bucky shouldn’t have to explain that when they lead the life that they do, they should be doing the opposite of fainting casual, engaging in more than abstract and vague hand-waving, because all three of them know there ain’t shit casual about them.

“Do you?” Bucky tugs on that tie now, bringing him closer. Doesn’t want to say it out loud. That sometimes being too careful is missing out on risks worth taking, while they could lead to things worth keeping.

Bucky could’ve missed out on this.

Bruce makes him sweat it, wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t, but then he smiles down on Bucky, tipping his chin up. Clint sighs in relief, squeezing Bucky’s knee as Bruce doesn’t ask if Bucky’s certain this time and only smirks with:

“Alright then.”