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“Shitty.”
“Yeah.”
It was the first thing either of them had said since the explosion. Also since the letters. Mostly they'd just shrugged at each other and in Bucky’s case, scowled occasionally. That had been fine, a level of interaction Bucky expected and was comfortable with. Speaking was more troubling.
For one thing, Bucky was going to have to work out what to tell Clint something, anything that wasn't an outright lie.
He'd found Clint, predictably, at the grossest greasy spoon the town had to offer, working on probably his fourth coffee and pretending to be really choosy about his pancakes.
“Yeah, Janice,” he said finally, reading the waitress’ name tag. “It’s a complicated menu.” He grinned broadly at her before ordering an obscene number of items off of it. Bucky remained silent, glaring at Clint. Idiot.
Of course he sat down.
“You taking of again— hey!” Clint protested as Bucky claimed Clint’s coffee cup for his own, taking a long sip. “Janice was just here! You could have had your own!”
Bucky gave an awkward, lopsided shrug.
“That’s not a ringing endorsement. You thinking of…”
Clint’s voice turned abruptly into a hiss of pain when Bucky bent his hand backward at the wrist in response to Clint’s attempts to reclaim his coffee cup.
“Okay, okay, geez,” Clint continued talking, speculating wildly about where Bucky might be going next. Mostly, Bucky just shifted in his seat, trying to disguise his awkwardness as embarrassment when Janice returned, trying desperately to arrange Clint’s many breakfast orders around the severed robotic arm currently occupying most of the tabletop. To her credit, she took it in stride, setting up a jug of syrup in the palm and balancing a plate of toast at the elbow bend.
“It’s all bullshit,” Clint was still talking, picking food off the various plates and trying to coax Bucky into eating some of it. Any of it. “No way it’s over. Not like this…” Clint trailed off, wagging a fork full of pancakes in Bucky's direction.
Bucky continued to stare impassively as Clint let syrup drip all over the arm decorating the table. Clint grinned wider.
“Suppose I took off for a while, you know?” Clint’s smile indicated it was unlikely he was talking about going to Fiji to drown his sorrows. “You coming?”
Bucky continued to stare, trying not to think of what was being done to the delicate circuitry in his arm. He couldn't afford this kind of nonsense. This kind of distracting nonsense. He stood up, reaching for it so that he could go.
Clint didn't notice what was happening until the syrup started dripping off the table onto his lap. Bucky was halfway gone.
Clint sprang from the table, catching Bucky halfway to the door. He reached out his hand, catching Bucky’s side and lurching forward in a way that suggested he was reaching for the arm that wasn't there anymore.
“Wait,” he said finally, trying to get Bucky to turn around. The voice quavered and there wasn’t enough voice in it and it made him look.
Looking was a mistake. Aside from the grease and syrup stains all over his pants, the grin was gone and all he could see was a worried, desperate frown. Bucky went through running away, and walking away, and breaking Clint’s arm for his trouble. None of those choices were good, and all of them were better than sliding his remaining arm around Clint’s shoulders and walking him back to the breakfast table.
Which was what he did. There was no way this was going to be anything but a terrible idea.
He slid back into the booth where he’d been sitting a moment before and picked up a piece of bacon from the mess of plates in front of him. He took a bite and wagged the remaining piece in Clint’s direction.
“I have this plan,” he said finally, something almost like a smile creeping across his face. “It’ll probably work better with help.”