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It’s the perfect set up.
He’s managed to slump in just the perfect way so that the back of the couch cradles his head just so, his lower back supported by a throw pillow with just the right amount of give in the cushion. He’s got a blanket that’s the perfect weight, keeping him the perfect amount of warm, spread over his legs, and he’s wearing his comfiest, baggiest, ugliest sweats, the ones that hang off his hips just right. His t-shirt is soft, purple, stretched out just enough to hang off one shoulder, his hair is clean-enough but not overly-clean, so it doesn’t itch or stink, just falls perfectly over his forehead without static or grease. His dad and Barney are both out taking advantage of this fine Friday evening, and Clint’s got a tub of tiger stripe ice cream on his lap and Lucky curled up beside him and Dog Cops on the TV.
It’s the perfect way to spend a Friday evening and he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.
Particularly at prom.
His phone lights up and he looks at it. Another text from Natasha.
He’s still waiting by the door.
Clint rolls his eyes. How long is it going to take before Bucky gets a clue and realizes that Clint’s got too much self-worth to show up? That Clint’s on to him? That he knows Bucky only ever asked him to prom on a goddamn dare?
She sends a blurry pic next, all shadows and flashes of light from the disco ball, and there’s a hulking, dark figure slumped by the door. Anyone else probably would have struggled to identify him, but Clint is an expert on the specific slope of Bucky’s shoulders, borne out of three years of a progressively more unfortunate infatuation.
But even with a crush of epic proportions, Clint isn’t stupid enough to actually believe that Bucky actually wanted to go to prom with him.
And Clint has developed incredible skills when it comes to avoiding risky situations. He’s had to, living at home the way he does, with his dad and Barney.
He shovels another mouthful of ice cream into his mouth and rests a hand on Lucky’s back and sinks further into the couch.
It’s a perfect motherfucking Friday night. Who cares if Bucky’s the one being made the butt of this particular joke? Not Clint. No way. Better laughing at Bucky than laughing at him.
Another text.
Steve’s on the prowl. Sam says he’s looking for me.
Quick, hide in the bathroom, let me know if you need back up, Clint replies.
She doesn’t text back for quite some time and Clint doesn’t worry. There’s no way Steve Rogers would commit murder at prom, not even with his temper.
Right?
He starts to worry. And then his phone lights up again.
Lost visual on Barnes.
Clint sits up, cursing. Where’d Bucky have gone have he realized Clint wasn’t falling for his cruel joke? The punch table? The dance floor? The bleachers to find some other poor sap to laugh at?
He wishes Natasha hadn’t talked him out of his first plan, which had involved sneaking into the gym through the back door and hiding in the shadows to watch his fiendish revenge plan in action.
He’s probably just drowning his sorrows in spiked punch, Clint tells himself, tugging his blanket up higher and snuggling under it. At least he knows now that he can’t fuck with Clint, that Clint’s not stupid enough to fall for it.
He’d just expected more closure, somehow. Like Natasha reporting that a bunch of people, waiting for Clint to walk in like the punchline to a stupid joke, turning on Bucky instead, pointing and laughing and making him feel just as shitty as he tried making Clint feel.
But whatever. Clint’s fine. Clint’s having an amazing Friday night with Lucky and Dog Cops and ice cream and --
Twenty minutes later, his doorbell rings, and Clint wonders if it’s the pizza he ordered.
He gets up, ice cream spoon still in his mouth as he grabs his wallet, and he opens the door, and it’s not pizza. Not pizza at all.
It’s Bucky, looking fucking fantastic in a suit that actually fits him like it was made for him, one sleeve carefully pinned up where his arm used to be, his hair slicked back in a low ponytail.
And he stares at Clint like he’s just as shocked to see Clint as Clint is to see him.
“Clint,” Bucky says, after a long, awkward moment in which he looks Clint up and down and probably takes in every detail, from the paint smudges on his knees to the hole in his crotch.
Clint takes the spoon out of his mouth and shakes his hair out of his eyes and says, “What are you doing here?”
“What am I -- It’s. It’s Friday. Prom. Remember?”
“No, yeah, I know, I just.” Clint tugs the door closed, so Bucky can’t see into his shitty house, blocked by Clint’s body. “Why aren’t you, you know. Dancing. Or whatever.”
Bucky looks puzzled. “Because you’re not there? And you were supposed to be? I thought -- when you didn’t show, I thought something must have happened.”
Clint laughs, and it rings a little hollow. “Something like what?”
“Something like, I don’t know. You fell down the stairs. Or had car trouble. Or got lost. Or got locked in your bathroom. Or got abducted. Or your dad found out and got mad and -- and -- if you weren’t here, I was gonna check hospitals.”
Clint blinks at him. “That -- sounds like an overreaction.”
“You once missed second period because you got locked in the equipment room after gym,” Bucky says. “It seemed a logical assumption. And you said I couldn’t pick you up because if your dad saw you were going with a guy, he’d kill you. So. It seemed… likely.” His cheeks are starting to burn a miserable shade of pink.
“Wow,” Clint says, but he’s feeling wrong-footed and uncertain. “You musta really wanted to humiliate me if you’re this determined to follow through.”
“Humiliate you?” Bucky echoes, frowning. “Listen, if you didn’t want to go with me, that’s fine, but I kinda thought you’d be decent enough to say something, not just… not show up. I mean, if it’s because of…” he looks incredibly uncomfortable and shrugs his shoulders. “Because of my arm, I get it. I’m not gonna be a dick about it. Or whatever.”
Clint doesn’t know how to balance the sinking sensation he’s got in his chest, the one that’s got him halfway convinced that he might actually be the dick in this situation.
“What do you mean, your arm?” Clint asks, and now he’s frowning too, staring at Bucky’s arm, because he’s got gym with Bucky, he knows that it’s a really excellent arm -- he’s had many, many fantasies about that specific arm. And then he blinks. And realized Bucky probably means the other arm -- the one he lost in the accident last year.
Aw, fuck.
“You only asked me as a joke,” he says quickly, desperately. “Right? You wanted all your friends to point and laugh at the idea that someone as hot as you could ask a white trash piece of shit like me to go to prom with you. Right?”
Bucky’s starting to look pissed, which is at least better than he’d looked before, awkward and thinking that Clint hadn’t wanted to be with him because of his arm.
“I only have one friend,” Bucky tells him. “Steve. And he’s not the pointing and laughing type. Listen, I only came by to make sure you were alright and, well. You are. So. I’m gonna go.”
Clint shoves the door open and stumbles out onto the front step, hitching his sweats up with one hand and reaching for Bucky with the other.
“No, wait,” he says. “It was never your arm, I never cared about that.”
Bucky pulls away. “No,” he says. “You just thought I was the kind of asshole who’d ask a guy to prom as a joke.”
“Not a joke,” Clint says weakly. “But probably a dare?”
Bucky rolls his eyes like that isn’t any better and turns to go.
“It’s just, I’ve liked you since junior year,” Clint confesses in a rush. “And pretty much everyone knows it. And they also know that you’d never -- I’m a mess. And hopeless. And someone like you, with your -- with your everything, you’d never actually want to take someone like me anywhere, much less prom, so I thought the only possible reason would have to be --”
“I bought you a motherfucking corsage,” Bucky snaps.
“Oh.” Clint clutches his ice cream spoon a little more tightly and swallows hard. “And you -- and you paid enough attention to me to know that I was probably locked in the bathroom or whatever, when I didn’t show up. Because you were worried.”
Bucky shrugs, staring down at his feet and scowling a little, his cheeks pink. “Well, yeah,” he says. “We have gym together. And you get sent to the nurse at least once a week for bandaids or ice packs or whatever else. So.”
“So… you actually wanted to go with me.”
Bucky shoots him a quick glare. “Clearly.”
“Oh god,” Clint says, closing his eyes. “Oh fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.” He’s the worst. He blew it. For some unknown reason, Bucky had actually wanted to go with him, and Clint had stood him up. And then basically called him an asshole, when the truth is, Clint’s the only asshole here. The biggest asshole. And there was no way --
“Clint,” Bucky says, and Clint forces himself to open his eyes and meet Bucky’s and brace himself. “Do you want to go to the fucking prom with me.”
It’s not quite the brutal reaction Clint was bracing himself for, and his eyes start to sting. “Why?” he asks, with just the slightest tremor.
“Because I want to dance with you,” Bucky says slowly, carefully enunciating every word. “Because for some fucking reason, I think you’re charming as fuck. Because I want to listen to shitty pop music with you and drink shitty punch with you and, if I play my cards right, I’d like to feel you up in the car when I drive you home.”
“Feel me up?” Clint echoes, eyes wide.
Bucky huffs. “After I kiss you. If you want.”
He’s nodding wildly before Bucky even finishes, laughing with a dizzy sort of relief, even as he says, “But I don’t have a suit.”
“You look fine, you look great, I don’t care, I just want to dance with you,” Bucky tells him, before hesitating. “Maybe change into pants without a hole in the crotch.”
“Do I still get the corsage?” Clint asks, and he feels like he’s glowing, beaming with a giant, crooked smile on his stupid face because maybe he actually gets to have this.
“If you hurry your ass up,” Bucky tells him, but then he makes them even later when he can’t seem to resist leaning closer and kissing the laughter off Clint’s lips.
Clint doesn’t mind. It’s already, in his opinion, the perfect evening, and somehow it stands to get even better before it’s done.
The end.