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Clint’s just queued up the next episode of Dog Cops when Natasha pops her head out from her room to glare at him. She starts talking at him, but his hearing aids are way over in his room and that’s a really long fucking way to go. He’s got the volume turned all the way up and the subtitles on, and it’s not like he’s completely deaf.
She rolls her eyes and starts signing instead.
Turn the volume down. We’re going to get complaints.
From who? He signs back. Mrs Perkins upstairs is as deaf as I am.
Next door. They moved in today. Nat signs at him, gesturing at the wall that separates their apartment from number 7b. Huh. Clint had been sure that was going to sit empty for ages.
They haven’t showed up yet, he points out. And it’s still before 10. That’s in their contract, he knows it is. If they show up, I’ll turn it down.
Or you could put your hearing aids in and watch it at a normal volume, Nat suggests. Clint considers it for about two seconds. His bedroom is a very long way away.
You could get them for me, he suggests instead. She rolls her eyes and shuts her door.
It’s about ten minutes later that the knock comes on the door. Well, it’s about ten minutes later that Natasha pulls herself out of the room to answer the knocking on the door. It could have been going on for ages and he wouldn’t have noticed. Officer Paws and Sergeant Whiskers just lost the suspect, it’s getting good.
He looks up when Nat comes in, but assumes that she’s just getting tea or something until he feels the draft from the door.
Clint turns to look, and finds himself staring at a very angry looking guy he’s definitely never seen before. He would remember that jawline. The movement of his mouth is jerky and angry – not optimal lip-reading conditions, and, when Clint pauses Officer Paws in mid howl, he can hear a tone that is definitely agitated.
Aw… This is the new neighbour then. Of course he’s super hot. And of course Clint has managed to piss him off before they’ve even met.
He pulls himself over the back of the sofa and slinks up behind Natasha. Closer to them he can just about make out what hot and angry is saying.
“Why the fuck do you need it so loud?” he’s asking.
Natasha, wonderful, amazing Natasha, chooses that moment to start signing his words at Clint and, though it takes a second, hot and angry stutters to a halt, blinking at Clint, looking at him for the first time.
“Oh shit,” hot and angry says. Those words are familiar enough that Clint could lip read them in a blizzard.
Usually watching people realise that he’s deaf like this is a beautiful thing, but the guy looks so floored, and he’s just too pretty to be mad at. Clint feels sorry for him. It’s not like he expected his asshole neighbour to be a deaf asshole neighbour.
Nat taps Clint on the arm and starts signing again.
I told you we’d have complaints.
“Sorry,” Clint says, by Nat’s wince he guesses that was a bit loud. “I’ll keep it down.”
“No,” the guy says. He’s talking normally, which is a first, and to Clint rather than Nat, which makes Clint’s heart squeeze a bit. Though Clint has to look at Nat’s hands to catch the words, which is a shame, because it’s great to have an excuse to stare at the guy’s mouth. It’s a thing of beauty, watching it form words. “If you need it that loud, I guess we can…”
“He doesn’t,” Natasha says.
“Yeah, sorry,” Clint agrees. “I’ll put my aids in. I didn’t realise anyone had moved in. I’m Clint, by the way,” he drapes an arm round Nat’s shoulders when she goes to poke him, pinning her arms to her side. “This is Natasha.”
Clint sees hot neighbour’s eyes drift to his arm around Nat’s shoulder and a flicker cross his face as he looks back between the pair of them. Disappointment maybe? Aww… hot neighbour likes Nat. Not that that’s a surprise.
“Mucky,” hot neighbour says. Clint blinks. That wasn’t… what? He turns to Natasha, who fingerspells out B-U-C-K-Y. That doesn’t clue him in any. Is that even a word? What? Natasha notices his confusion and signs ‘name’ at him.
Oh… oh… his name’s Bucky.
No, that doesn’t make much more sense.
“Like the funky fresh rabbit?” Clint asks. Both Bucky and Nat look at him funny. Guess neither of them saw that show. Hot neighbour – Bucky – looks like he’s regretting his decision to knock on their door, which is a shame, because even if he is tragically straight and into Nat and angry at Clint for being too noisy, Clint’s appreciating his presence on a purely aesthetic level.
“Right. I’ll…” Bucky points sideways, towards the door of 7b and then awkwardly shuffles away.
“Huh,” Clint says. Nat shoves him and signs emphatically for him to get his damned hearing aids.
If he’s lucky, he’ll see hot neighbour around.
*
He does, in fact, see hot neighbour around. Bucky is not the only hot neighbour, even. Bucky’s roommate, Steve, is also frequently seen, and the two of them have an obscene amount of muscles between them.
It’s about three days before there’s another knock at the door. Natasha answers it again while Clint feeds Lucky.
When he looks up from petting Lucky, he catches sight of Bucky in the doorway again, his eyes shifting awkwardly while he talks to Nat. His crush is a little bit adorable.
It turns out he wants eggs. Apparently he’s baking something and he ran out of eggs… Clint grabs the eggs he didn’t know they had from the fridge and ambles over to the door to hand them over. As soon as he gets there Bucky seems to shut down, just sort of glaring at him. Great, he didn’t realise the guy actually hated him. That’s hella awkward if he’s going to be coming round with stupid excuses to talk to Nat all the time.
Eggs received, the guy nods tersely and stalks back to his own apartment.
“Friendly, isn’t he?” Clint says. “Wonder what crawled up his ass?”
“Is that why you were staring at it?” Natasha asks, shutting the door. Clint doesn’t even try to look ashamed.
“What? He put on his tightest pants to impress you, Nat. If you’re not going to appreciate the view, someone has to.” Clint shrugs. “I’ll take one for the team.”
“I don’t think he was trying to impress me,” Natasha says, looking at him meaningfully.
“Right,” Clint says. “So he dressed up all nice for the asshole he hates. That makes sense.” Natasha frowns and shakes her head, heading back to the sofa, where Lucky’s sitting, his tail thumping against the floor.
Clint stands there for a minute, thinking about Bucky and just where in the hell those eggs came from. God knows he didn’t buy them.
*
The next knock on the door comes just a couple of hours later. Clint answers it this time. Bucky blinks and stares at him, like he wasn’t expecting Clint to answer his own door. Must have been wanting Nat again. He looks a lot less like he wants to kill someone this time. His hair’s all gathered up in a bun and he’s wearing a red apron covered in flour. There is flour everywhere, for that matter, and what looks like cookie dough in his hair. It’s sort of adorable.
In his hand is a plate full of cookies.
“Uh… to say thanks… for the eggs,” Bucky says. He shoves the plate forwards.
“Right,” Clint says. “Uh…”
They stare at each other for a long moment.
“Did the kitchen explode on you?” Clint asks after another second. Bucky blinks then hunches up a bit. Great. Way to make friends and influence people, Barton.
“There was a flour… incident.” Bucky’s right hand, still floury, brushes awkwardly at the front of his apron, and Clint has to hold back a laugh, because that just makes it worse. He doesn’t think laughing would be the right move here, though, and Bucky already hates him.
“Right,” Clint agrees. And then they’re just staring at each other.
There’s a little bit of cookie dough by the corner of Bucky’s eye, and Clint wants to reach up and pick it off him, but he sticks his hands firmly in his pockets.
Natasha appears by his elbow, as if by magic. She looks between them and shakes her head, reaching out for the cookies and smiling charmingly at Bucky.
“Thank you, these look wonderful,” she says. Clint shakes himself, realising that he just stared at Bucky for what is probably a very long time. “Would you like to come in?” she asks. Bucky shakes his head almost immediately.
“No… I’m… Enjoy the cookies. I’m good.” He hurries away again, leaving a trail of flour in his wake.
Natasha glares at Clint.
“Take your cookies,” she says, pushing them towards him again.
“Our cookies,” he corrects.
She sighs and turns to Lucky with a raised eyebrow, but she does pluck a cookie from the plate before she walks away again.
*
Bucky keeps turning up on their doorstep. And Clint takes to keeping his hearing aids in as much as possible, just in case.
Mostly Bucky brings baked goods, claiming he made too much, and Natasha takes them from him politely. Clint keeps telling her she needs to let the guy down easily. He’s growing on Clint. The brief conversations they have, awkward as they might be, reveal the edge of a sharp sense of humour and a kinda charming sort of a guy. Clint doesn’t want to see him get hurt, and if he keeps going after Natasha, then he’s going to end up disappointed at the least. He doubts she and Sam are going to break up any time soon.
But on the other hand, they get baked goods and Clint gets to ogle Bucky as he wears clothes that cling to his body in an attempt to win Nat round – swings and roundabouts. So what if the guy mostly just glares at him.
*
After a few weeks, Bucky seems to get the message that Nat’s not interested, which sucks. He stops coming round as often, and the only time Clint sees him is when he happens to look out as Bucky and Steve get back from their daily run. It’s like softcore porn. People that attractive should not be allowed to sweat. Their bodies are actually genuinely glistening. Clint didn’t think that was a thing bodies did.
He’s so distracted, he misses his mouth with the coffee pot and pours it down his front instead.
Looking down, Clint stares dismally at the stain. He’d really liked this shirt too.
No Bucky, no baked goods, half the coffee down his front and his shirt’s ruined.
Lucky whines as he rubs himself up against Clint’s leg. Clint definitely knows the feeling.
He’s gotta stop being creepy. Watching people sweat is weird. Watching guys who have a crush on your roommate sweat is just plain sad.
Who says it needs to be New Year to make a resolution?
*
Of course, it’s just Clint’s luck that the place he takes Lucky on his walk the next morning, happens to be exactly where Bucky and Steve like to run, and of course, Lucky decides to run right at the pair of them.
Clint winces, because he was getting out of the apartment to avoid looking at Bucky all sweaty and…
He realises that Bucky’s talking to him, and that he should probably drag his eyes up from the movement of his throat.
Bucky crouches down to pet Lucky, grinning as the dog responds enthusiastically. It doesn’t do anything for Clint’s ridiculous crush.
Steve’s standing to one side, smiling.
“Hi,” he says. “You must be Clint.” Steve sticks out a hand. “Steve. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Steve,” Bucky growls. Ah… that answers whether it was good or bad, then. Apparently Clint has a reputation. Steve ignores Bucky, though, smiling warmly.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Clint agrees, scratching the back of his head, and feeling very out of place. “Sorry about… uh, the noise and… I guess you would have got more cookies if it wasn’t for me an’ Nat.”
Steve’s grin grows even wider.
“Don’t apologise for that. He makes way too much. I’ve had to add an extra mile to my run just to make sure I still fit in my clothes,” Steve shrugs. “Where is Natasha?” he asks.
“At Sam’s,” Clint says. “Her boyfriend?” Bucky’s head jerks up. Too much to hope that he’s over her, then. “She stays there a couple of nights a week. He can’t really come to ours, because it’s too far away from his work,” Clint finishes a little lamely. He feels sorry for breaking the news.
“Her boyfriend?” Steve asks. Bucky punches him in the leg, making him wince. “I thought that the two of you…?”
Clint blinks.
“No,” he says. “I mean, we did. Ages ago, but no. We’re not.” He swears he’s usually better at making whole sentences than this. He takes comfort in the familiar thwack of Lucky’s tail against his legs.
Steve gives Bucky a look. Clint has no idea what it says. It’s the kind of look that he and Nat share, that means nothing to anyone else, whatever it is, it makes Bucky glare back at him.
“I should… leave you to it,” Clint says.
“Right,” Steve says. “It was great to meet you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot more of you soon.”
Clint has no idea what that means, so he just nods dumbly and pulls Lucky off Bucky.
“Bye Clint,” Bucky says, an Clint gives an idiotic little wave, that at least makes Bucky smile, even if it is only at how utterly ridiculous Clint is.
He needs a new hobby.
*
Nat comes back to get changed, and Clint tells her about the park and how she’s broken their neighbour’s heart.
“I haven’t broken anything,” she says. “I told you, he doesn’t have a crush on me.”
“You didn’t see him look up when he heard you had a boyfriend,” Clint says.
“When he heard I had a boyfriend, or when he found out that boyfriend wasn’t you?” Natasha asks. Clint stares at her for a moment.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” She mutters something in Russian that doesn’t sound complimentary, then goes to grab her phone.
“Because I’m feeling generous, I’m going to order you some pizza,” she says. “And then I’m going to go out to see Sam, and you are going to fix this.”
“Fix what?” Clint asks, but Natasha just rolls her eyes and hits the pizza speed dial. “Extra cheese,” he says, which earns him a sigh as well.
*
Natasha’s been gone for about ten minutes when the knock comes on the door. Clint hauls himself off the sofa and heads over to answer it, Lucky knocking at his heels the whole way. Definitely the pizza then.
He’s fishing for his wallet in his pants when he opens the door, so he doesn’t notice at first, but when he looks up, he realises that it isn’t the pizza.
Well… it is the pizza, but it’s not the pizza boy.
Bucky looks like he just came out of the shower, his hair’s wet and clinging to his face, and his t-shirt’s damp in places too, and he’s holding a pizza box.
“This was delivered to the wrong flat,” Bucky says.
“Thanks,” Clint says. “It must have been a new delivery person.” The usual guy knows exactly where Clint lives. “Nat’s not here,” he adds before he can censor himself, and then he winces, because that’s probably not tactful. Bucky frowns.
“I know, I saw her go out.”
“Oh…” Clint says. He’s expecting Bucky to leave then, turn tail and run, but Bucky’s standing a bit straighter. “Uh… sorry about the whole, boyfriend thing.” Bucky sags a bit.
“What?”
“Sam – Nat’s boyfriend. I know it’s gotta suck,” Clint says slowly. Bucky’s looking very confused. “I mean, that’s what all the baking was for, right? To see Nat?”
Bucky freezes, then he blinks a few times in rapid succession, like he’s rebooting or something, then a smile spreads across his face, slow and beautiful, and Clint’s heart squeezes a bit harder.
“I’m not really into red-heads,” Bucky says slowly, and Clint frowns. That makes no sense. “So no, findin’ out about Sam didn’t really suck. Kinda the opposite actually.”
Now Clint’s really confused, because what? Bucky’s been trying to woo Nat with food for the better part of a month, but now apparently he’s claiming that he hasn’t?
“But the cookies…”
“Yeah,” Bucky looks a bit abashed, ducking his head. “I might have gone overboard. Steve’s been laughing himself silly.”
“But you’re not really into red-heads,” Clint says.
“No,” Bucky agrees, grinning. “I prefer blonds.”
“So you and Steve?” Clint asks. “I didn’t…”
“You’re a special kind of oblivious, ain’t you?” Bucky says. His usual awkwardness is all but gone, and he leans against the doorframe. “I didn’t smash all our eggs on the floor so I could go and see Steve.”
“You smashed all your eggs on the floor?” Clint asks. That sounds like a terrible idea.
“He ain’t the only blond around here.” Bucky looks up significantly, and Clint’s hand flies to the mess of hair on top of his head.
Oh.
Oh.
“You…” Clint considers things in a new light. “I thought you hated me. You were glaring at me all the time.”
“Wasn’t glaring… was just looking,” Bucky says, a hint of his previous awkwardness back.
“Want to come and look more closely?” Clint asks. “I’ve got pizza,” he holds it up. “There’s extra cheese.”
“Well, I never say no to extra cheese.”