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At first, it’s a lick of warmth up his spine: gentle, soothing, calmly heating each vertebrae and the nerves within to a working temperature. The rest of his body awakens slowly, in this pattern: shoulders and arms and fingers gradually coming to life as his hips, knees, ankles do. It’s a slow dance through his body, as his blood thaws and his bones awaken and his nerves flicker on like candles. It’s familiar but not; his mind, still mostly-asleep, recognizes this process, but not this comfort.
It’s warm, it’s soft, and it only lasts a few moments before Bucky remembers his name, which then triggers the rush of memories bringing him back into himself. He gasps, and his eyes fly open on their own.
He’s propped up in what appears to be the nicest medical bed he’s ever seen, covered in approximately forty-two blankets. Stevie’s face he knows instantly; it takes a bit of time before he recalls Sam’s name, and even longer to remember Shuri, who is leaning over him with a curiously excited look on her face.
“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, in what might be the most beautiful accent Bucky’s ever heard, “How are you feeling?”
“Warm,” Bucky says instantly, which makes her laugh. Steve rolls his eyes fondly and Sam shakes his head. Bucky finally notices - the - the king guy - shit - T’challa standing behind them, leaning against the doorframe. He gives Bucky a nod.
Bucky takes stock. As this is the gentlest he’s ever been brought out of cryo, his body feels better than normal. The framing in his left shoulder aches absently. His mind feels a little bit sluggish, but it seems like all of the pieces are there. And there’s something bothering him, somewhere around his wrist.
Bucky lifts his right hand - huh, no needles, no IV, no bracelet? - and glances at the inside of his wrist. His soulmark is exactly as he remembers it, visually, a dark smear across his veins, the silhouette of a bird of prey — and it’s tingling.
That’s new.
“I think I’m alright,” he tells Shuri, cause he sure as shit isn’t getting into a soulmate thing at the moment.
“Good,” she says with a smile. “Because we think we have gotten far enough in your head to have made progress.” Bucky’s surprise must appear on his face, because she laughs delightedly at him. “But not right now. You need to take your time coming back to life.”
“Never got any before,” Bucky points out grumpily, because now that he’s awake he would really like to be off the bed.
Shuri gives him a look so similar to Stevie’s glare that Bucky raises his hands in defense and says hastily, “What I mean is, thank you.”
“What he means is that Steve’s gonna sit on him until he’s cleared to get up,” Sam interjects.
“Good,” Shuri says. “Captain Rogers, he is your problem now.”
“Always has been,” Steve says, rolling his eyes and grinning at Bucky. Bucky grins back. Maybe he does feel a little different in the brain-space; his memories are still dark, but somehow, they don’t feel as heavy as before. Or maybe it’s just that he’s so goddamn happy to be awake and have some kind of chance at not hurting the people around him that everything else is less important in comparison.
And his soulmark is still buzzing, buzzing, something like excitement against his skin. It isn’t the rush of euphoria he and Steve had always been told they’d find some day; hell, it’s probably just feedback from waking up. Maybe rerouting his brain convinced his soulmate mark that his true love is his left toe, or something. It can wait.
“How long?” Bucky asks Steve.
“Three weeks,” Steve confirms, knowing immediately what Bucky’s asking. “To the day.”
“They figured it out in three weeks?” Of course it feels like no time is passing when he’s under, but it’s a little hard for Bucky to understand how they overcame years of HYDRA programming - years of agony - in almost no time. When they’d first woken him from his original cryo sleep - three weeks ago, apparently - to get his consent for the work they were proposing, Bucky had tried to understand the science and tech behind it, but it was all way over his head. Seems like Wakanda is decades ahead of whatever HYDRA had used.
“I’ll go get you some food,” Sam says, jerking his head towards the hallway where Shuri and T’Challa are waiting. “Steve, remember, sit on his dumb ass if you need to.”
“Piss off, Wilson,” Bucky says happily, and Steve groans.
———
A few days later, Bucky’s in a much more dour mood.
“No,” he repeats, for what might be the hundredth time. “You are not gonna be in there with me, Stevie. You’re all gonna lock me in a cell, and if I still react to those damn words, just throw away the key.”
Steve’s at his finest and most stubborn, feet planted and arms crossed. “I’m going to be with you every step of the way,” he says. “Every goddamn word. And I’ll stop you from doing anything you’ll regret.”
“Steve,” Bucky says, and he’s mostly yelling but there’s some pleading in there as well. “I’ll hurt you. You were my last mission. I’m not taking that chance.”
“I’m not taking any chances either,” Steve says, and his gaze flickers upwards for a second.
“I’m good to go, Steve,” a voice calls.
Bucky turns on his heel, glancing up. The ceiling of the gym is unfinished, bare metal rafters and beams, and sitting comfortably up on one of those beams is a guy. Bucky remembers him vaguely from the airport fight, from Steve’s crew, but it takes a few long seconds to remember the guy’s name. Hawkeye?
He rounds back on Steve, who hasn’t moved an inch. “The fuck are you bringing somebody else in here for?” Somebody else I could hurt, his tone implies.
“I knew you wouldn’t want to let me stay, so Clint’s the backup plan,” Steve says, his face blank but his eyes twinkling like the little shit that he is. “If anything goes wrong, he’s going to hit you with a medical tranquilizer that’ll put you out for a bit - an hour, max, tops. That way we can prove to you that your last mission isn’t still active in your head without you having to worry that you’ll hurt me, Buck.”
Bucky glances back up over his shoulder at the man in the rafters, absently rubbing at his soulmark with his metal hand cause it still won’t fucking shut up. “You think he’s good enough to take out the Winter Soldier?” He asks Steve, his voice pitched low.
Above him, Hawkeye laughs. Steve nods, and says, “Barton never misses.”
Bucky hates this but he can tell Steve’s not budging on any of it, and he’s somewhat appeased that Steve has at least considered the bad scenarios. He simply grumbles some words in Stevie’s direction and lets himself be led to one of the folding chairs currently set up on some sparring mats.
Steve sits down in the one facing him, saying, “Ready?”
Bucky nods, and then jolts in surprise as Steve opens his mouth and says, “Желание.”
Of course Steve learned the trigger words. Of course Steve himself is going to try to trigger him.
Bucky closes his eyes.
He feels nothing but anxiety and the annoying tingling of his soulmark as Steve methodically moves through the trigger phrase. Once Steve’s finished, there’s a long pause, and then he says tentatively, “Bucky?”
Bucky opens his eyes. He’s nervous as shit, sure, but his head feels fine and there are no echoes of the words bounding around in his brain, drowning out all of his other thoughts — he jerks, dispelling the memory. “Nothing yet.”
“No wonder,” calls a voice from the ceiling. “Rogers, your Russian is shit.”
Bucky glances upwards. Barton is now swinging gently, upside down, hanging from his knees. He’s got some complicated kind of crossbow in one hand, the other one hanging freely. Bucky’s wrist buzzes as Steve says, defensively, “I only had three weeks, Barton.”
“Tell Nat that,” Barton says, and then to Bucky’s surprise, he starts reciting the words while hanging upside down on a rafter like he doesn’t know he’d die from the fall. “Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать.” They roll out of Barton’s mouth naturally, and Bucky can hear the way the intonation perfectly matches his memories. This time he locks eyes with Barton - upside-down - and stares the man down as he precisely dictates the entire list. Barton’s eyes are dark and more than a little amused, and not scared at all to be potentially triggering the Winter Soldier. Bucky’s nerves are even more on edge, now, and his soulmark’s even louder than before, but Barton makes it all the way to the end of the list without incident.
“Huh,” he says, three seconds after finishing, “I guess I don’t get to shoot you after all.”
“As if you could,” Bucky shoots back, cause he’s being swamped with relief and the nervous energy is out of bounds and his fucking soulmark won’t shut up. He’s gonna have to ask Shuri if the procedure could have messed anything up, or if he really has to consider that anyone who talks to him is possibly his soulmate. He glances up at Barton, still swinging, and then immediately dismisses the possibility.
“You wouldn’t even feel a thing,” Hawkeye boasts, and Bucky grins at Steve.
“Spar with me, Stevie,” he says. “I wanna see this fucker in action.” He also wants to get the jitters all out of his system, and sparring sounds great for that too. Two birds with one stone, and all. The relief spreading through him is making him uncomfortable; he’s not used to anything that feels like happiness.
Steve raises an eyebrow, but he’s starting to grin himself. “You’re willingly volunteering to get tranqued, Buck?”
“Ten bucks he hits you instead,” Bucky says, loudly.
“Just for that,” Barton calls, “You’re getting this dart in your ass.”
Bucky stands, shaking his rear in Hawkeye’s general direction before bowling Steve over in a one-armed tackle. Steve howls, and flips him, and the fight’s on.
———
Bucky wakes up back in medical, but it isn’t until he gets back to the room he’s been given that he notices the bright purple bandaid on his left ass cheek.
He laughs the whole way through his shower.
———
Bucky’s roaming the - Palace? Science center? Guest house? He has no idea where the hell they are other than the very obvious and generic “Wakanda” - a few days later when he hears Barton’s voice, and his feet take him in that direction.
It’s a small public office, or workroom, or library, and Barton’s sitting in front of a projected hologram screen. His body language is completely different: he’s leaning forwards in the chair, elbows on his knees and hands dangling between his legs. His head’s hanging, just slightly. Bucky stops in the doorway when he sees the screen: two kids, dance-fighting around each other, and a pretty woman holding a baby.
Bucky didn’t know Barton was married. Then again, he knows nothing about the guy except his name and that he’s a smartass.
“Clint, it’s okay. We’re alright.” The woman on the screen shoos the kids away and leans in. “Look at me, you idiot.” It’s tinged with affection.
“I could’ve said no,” Barton says, but he looks up at her.
“You could have,” she says, “but you wouldn’t, and you didn’t.” She stops, tilting her head like she’s reading him, and then says softly: “You don’t owe us anything, Clint.”
Barton shakes his head. “I owe you everything.”
“You’ve done enough,” she replies. “We’re safe and he’s nowhere on the radar. And you’re out of jail, now, that’s an improvement, right?”
Bucky can’t help but sigh at that, cause he vaguely knows that all the guys that came to help Stevie out ended up in some kind of terrible jail and that it was at least partially Bucky’s fault. At the sound, Barton turns, and the woman on the screen looks his way as well. Bucky rubs absently at the Wrist That Won’t Stop and ducks his head, embarrassed.
“Thank god,” she says, “I was worrying you didn’t have any friends, Clint.”
Clint looks self-conscious, like he’s been caught out at something - although the door’s wide open, if he wanted privacy - and almost chagrined, so Bucky grins and says instantly, “Oh, I’m not his friend, ma’am. He shot me in the ass. Uh, bottom,” he corrects hastily, remembering the kids. This makes Barton snort despite himself, and the woman on the screen laughs. She’s really pretty, with this sense of gentleness and peace around her that Bucky can sense even through the holo. His soulmark pulses at him.
“That’s how he tries to make most of his friends,” she says, teasing, and Barton throws his hands up in the air in exasperation and rolls his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky offers then, “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just heard voices.”
“No, it’s okay,” she says, “this one here has been beating himself up long enough.” Her eyes twinkle at him, almost like she’s flirting. “Why don’t you take him out to shoot something that isn’t your ass?”
He gives her a slow grin cause she’s probably having fun and says innocently, “It’s a pretty nice target, ma’am.”
She giggles. “We’ll talk to you later, Clint,” she says, then blows them both a kiss and makes a shooing motion at Barton. The screen goes dead a second later.
Bucky immediately apologizes. “I’m really sorry, man, I was just wandering around.”
Barton shrugs. He’s rubbing at his left shoulder, idly, and Bucky notices ink underneath - soulmark or tattoo? Barton’s happily married - maybe Bucky can ask him some questions without looking like a dumbass.
“Your kids are cute,” he offers, and then adds on, “Is she your —?” He flashes his own wrist at Barton, whose eyes narrow at the silhouette. “Don’t know much about soulmates these days.”
Barton’s still staring at the bird on Bucky’s wrist and it takes him more than a couple seconds to register what Bucky said. Then he shakes his head as if to clear out a thought and says, “Who, Laura? No, she’s not my— No.”
Bucky frowns, cause that seems unusual. “But you’re married with kids, I figured it was…” He trails off.
Barton stands up and stretches, abruptly bringing Bucky’s attention to the long muscles of his arms and shoulders, the shirt pulling across his chest. His mouth feels a little dry and his fucking soulmark feels the need to point it out to him with a quick lash of heat across his wrist. Barton walks over and tugs up the sleeve of his t-shirt so that Bucky can see.
It’s the outline of a really big dog - maybe a wolf? - and almost the exact opposite of Bucky’s: his is a thick dark smear of ink, but Barton’s is lightly shaded all around the curve of his bicep, like someone had drawn on his skin in pencil. It’s oddly beautiful and Bucky wants to touch it but even back in the 30s that was a huge faux pas and he’s already been dumb enough today. His mark is ringing, softly, as if greeting Clint’s; it feels kind of nice for once.
“Laura’s not my soulmate,” Barton says, with a crooked angle to his grin. “Not my wife, either.”
Bucky glances up from the mark to Barton’s face, which is closer than expected. He’s smiling wryly at Bucky, who’s suddenly taking all sorts of mental notes about Barton’s jawline and stubble and how green his eyes look in this light. Barton’s gaze, for his part, seems equally intrigued, tracing over Bucky’s face with that smirk still hanging off his lips. Bucky’s wrist is fucking throbbing and why won’t it stop.
“The kids,” Bucky says, dumbly. “Yours?”
Barton shrugs, and it breaks the tension of the moment. “Yes, and no.” He tugs his sleeve back down, partially covering up the dog-wolf. “They’re my family, they’re my blood, and I treat ‘em like my kids. But I’m not their dad.”
Bucky opens his mouth to ask something but realizes it’s probably super nosy, and closes it again.
“I have an asshole brother,” Barton offers, saying it like it’s all the explanation Bucky’s gonna get.
“They seem great,” Bucky says honestly, and then decides to change the subject completely to see whether it will stop his stupid wrist from itching. “So is there really somewhere we can go to shoot things?”
Barton’s entire face lights up.
———
Bucky’s awake and screaming, tumbling off of the bed onto the floor, catching himself with his metal hand and screaming again, and it’s that - the noise, the fact that he’s allowed to make noise, that he’s rolling around on the floor and no one’s shooting him with a taser - that calms his head enough to realize it was a dream, a flashback, a panic attack, and he isn’t still there, isn’t still under their control. He’s in fucking Wakanda. The carpet is patterned with leaves. His soulmark is going off like a goddamn alarm. He’s okay.
Steve bursts in the door - that’s right, Stevie’s next door, he must have heard - and drops to a crouch in front of Bucky. “Hey,” he murmurs, soft and urgent, “Buck, you’re okay, you’re safe, you’re…”
Bucky hauls in a gasping breath through a throat that suddenly feels raw. “Yeah,” he says, “Stevie, yeah, I know.”
Steve reaches out to touch back of Bucky’s hand; it’s grounding, which is nice, because his soulmark is still throbbing. “Was it —?”
“I don’t even fucking remember,” Bucky says, working himself into a sitting position and rubbing his hands over his face. “It was just. Bad.”
“It’s alright,” Steve tells him. “You’ve been doing really well. It’s okay.”
There’s a soft knock on the door and Steve gets up to answer it. Bucky hears murmuring voices, but doesn’t move from the floor. The panic is subsiding and his soulmark is quieting, as if it’s trying to soothe him now. Bucky decides he’s going to be extra cheerful tomorrow just to spite the fucking flashback. Spite’s a great motivator.
Steve comes back, extends a hand to help Bucky up. “Clint was just checking on you,” he says.
“Must have heard me fucking screaming,” Bucky replies with distaste, because he’s starting to like Barton and would prefer the guy not know how crazy his head actually is.
“Or something,” Steve says, and there’s something odd about his voice. Steve raises a hand and presses it to the middle of his chest for a second, right at the place where his own soulmark - the sun - sits. Bucky wonders whether everybody’s soulmarks have all gone crazy, or if it’s just his.
“I’m fine, Steve,” he says, making his voice gentle. “Back to bed with you.”
———
He means to ask Steve, but instead it all comes out in the lab, while Shuri is scanning his brain for any changes after the flashback.
“My soulmark has been tingling ever since I woke up,” Bucky blurts out, and Shuri turns away from the screen to face him with a gleeful smile growing on her face.
“Shut up,” he grumbles. He’s really come to appreciate Shuri’s sense of wit and sarcastic demeanor, but right now he wants information, not someone else teasing him. Bucky’s in a bad mood anyway: he trusts everyone here but he’s so fucking tired of having his brain scanned like he’s just some machine. He can’t wait until he’s confident enough that he can end all of this crap.
“You’ve found true love in Wakanda,” she says, giggling. “Who is the lucky lady? Or man? Or person?”
“That’s the thing,” Bucky gets out between gritted teeth. “It ain’t doing anything like that. It’s just buzzing.”
“Hmm.” Shuri turns back to the screen, tapping at a section of the colorful image of his brain. “And has it done this before, Sergeant Barnes?”
“It’s Bucky,” he tells her for the dozenth time, “and no. Is it possible something you did woke it up?”
“No,” Shuri replies, absently moving the scan around to look at a blue lump from all different directions. “It is probably something you did that woke it up.”
She glances up, and must see the confusion on Bucky’s face, because she gets it in a second. “Ah. We know a lot more about soulmarks now than we did when you were born.”
“Why won’t it shut up?” Bucky asks, plaintively, and she gives him a fond look.
“For the first time in your life, you are noticing your mark.” Shuri flips the picture off of the screen and dives into another scan. “It is probably trying to get your attention so that it can guide you.”
“That guide shit is real?” Bucky nearly shouts, and Shuri stifles a laugh before looking up at him.
“It’s fascinating, really,” she starts. “We can see activity in the soulmark, and we can see physical responses in the brain, the release of chemicals or the processing of thoughts, but nothing travels along the normal nervous system pathways. We can see it happening, but we do not know yet how it works. There is so much left to learn about it, but I can tell you a few things that might help.”
Shuri swings the screen away and comes to stand next to where he’s seated up on a table. She tugs at the collar of her shirt to reveal a long, sinewy shape - a snake or a fish of some sort - and then presses her hand on it. “First, touch it. See what it is saying to you.”
Bucky looks down at the inside of his wrist, and briefly presses his metal hand to it. “I’ve been touching it, a lot,” he says. “Nothing.”
“Oh,” Shuri says. “Touch it to your skin. Collarbone, stomach, whatever works best.”
Bucky hesitantly raises his hand and presses the mark on his wrist into his chest above the tank top. There’s a faint sizzle against his skin, and then a rush of something, buzzing even more sharply, like an electrical current.
“What is that,” he says, nastily, because he doesn’t like this surprise.
“Hush up and listen,” Shuri tells him.
Bucky closes his eyes and tries to focus on the sensation.
“When your soulmark speaks to you, it is trying to tell you something you need to know. Usually this is how you find your soulmate, but sometimes it directs you onto a better path, or through a tough situation. Your soulmark is probably overreacting because it finally can talk to you, which means you are coming close to meeting your soulmate.”
A hum is building in Bucky’s ears, as if he can finally hear the noise the tingling is trying to make. It’s a strange combination of relief, excitement, and a sense of potential. “Huh,” he says aloud.
“Your totem is a bird of prey?” Shuri asks, and he opens his eyes and nods. “You are in luck, then, having Hawkeye and the Falcon here with you. They are both incredibly attractive men. And the woman who flies, Wanda, she is also very lovely.”
Bucky chokes.
Shuri starts laughing at him again. “And if they do not fit, you are lucky that Wakanda is home to the most beautiful people in the world.” She bats her eyes at him.
“Shut up,” Bucky grumbles, but he’s smiling against his will.
Shuri returns to her scans, humming happily, and Bucky looks down at the dark shape on the inside of his wrist. He’s never really processed the concept of having a soulmate. Bucky wonders whether he even wants one. The tingling of his wrist seems kind of lonely, and he thinks, maybe he does, once all this shit with his head is finished.
———
The shooting range has quickly become Bucky’s favorite place to spend time when he’s not with Stevie. It’s all Wakandan technology, adjustable distances and scenarios made possible by their holographic wonders, infinite options available. Bucky has started with the standard rifles and handguns, working his way through recognizable weaponry. Lately he’s been playing with all the crazy shit he’s never seen before: there’s a gun that shoots unlimited lasers and never needs reloading, a pair of brass knuckles that create holographic gloves that also shoot lasers, these sticks that use electricity somehow in a way he totally doesn’t get. He can’t hit shit with them and it makes him laugh every time.
He runs into Barton - Clint - a lot down there; sometimes he finds Barton already in a lane, and other times Bucky’s barely warmed up when Clint slips in to quietly join him. The companionship is nice, even when they don’t talk. While Bucky loves playing with the new technology, Clint’s the same every time: a complex bow, a quiver of arrows, and increasingly difficult distances and scenarios until Bucky’s stopped to watch him hit the eye of a needle through a fucking blizzard.
Clint shooting is a thing of grace, Bucky has found. He slips into this zone before he even pulls the first arrow, and the rest is a display of muscle memory and strength and accuracy that apparently doesn’t require conscious thought on Barton’s part. Bucky’s watched him shoot directly into synthesized roaring wind while falling and upside down, and Clint hits the target with the same level of zen as when he sets his last arrow free. Bucky’s impressed at the strength it takes to be so accurate: guns require training, but Clint’s archery shows in the tendons of his arms and the lines of his biceps and Bucky hears Shuri’s teasing voice saying, they are both incredibly attractive men and turns back to his own target in a huff.
Today, though, Bucky walks in on Clint standing next to the young woman - Wanda - and gesturing down the lane emphatically.
“Hey Buck,” Barton calls, and Wanda gives him a tentative nod. Bucky had expected to be afraid of her - he’s had enough messing with his mind - but honestly, she just makes him sort of sad, like she’s been through too much already. He’s seen her with Clint before, but having her here in the range is new.
“Are you two causing trouble?” Bucky asks, grinning, as he checks into the lane next to them.
“Maybe,” Clint replies, his smirk nearing inappropriate levels. This is a good look on him, Bucky thinks, and he feels a buzz from his soulmark. Trying to be casual, he lifts his hand and presses his wrist to his neck. There’s a clear sense of pride, like his soulmark is happy that he’s here. It seems weird, but the whole thing is fucking weird in Bucky’s opinion. Clint rubs his own hand against his left shoulder, where his wolf is, and Bucky wonders again whether it’s just fucking Wakanda being weird with soulmarks or what.
“Clint is helping me,” Wanda says, squaring her shoulders, but it’s like she’s trying to convince herself rather than Bucky. “He wants me to train.”
“Wanda’s gonna try to make me miss,” Clint says, and the smirk turns into pleasantly arrogant pride. “Wanna watch?”
“Hell yeah,” Bucky says. He pulls a chair from the table in the back and swings it around to sit in it backwards, resting his crossed arms on the backrest. “I’m rooting for Wanda. Can’t wait to see this smug asshole miss the whole target.”
Wanda smiles, but Clint turns back to him and gives him a look: it’s something challenging and hot and an invitation to watch, along the lines of just try me. Bucky swallows and his fucking soulmark starts itching again. He tilts his head at Barton and smirks at him, saying back, show me what you’ve got.
Clint chuckles, and turns to nock an arrow. First he has Wanda following them with her power - some swirly red glowing shit that Bucky’s equal parts scared of and really impressed by - and then he has her trying to nudge the arrows out of midair. It’s a challenge, initially, as Wanda experiments with the precision of her control, but after a few tries she makes a grasping gesture in the air and the arrow freezes, like she caught it in a magical hand.
Clint whoops and high-fives her.
It turns into a silly competition: Clint drawing and shooting as fast as he can, Wanda’s arms gracefully windmilling around as she tries to catch or shove each arrow off of its path. Bucky ends up adding ridiculous commentary, using his best impression of a radio announcer, and all three of them are laughing by the time Clint shoots his last arrow and Wanda turns it around, elegantly, and boops Clint on the nose with it.
“Five hundred points for Wanda!” Bucky declares, and they high-five.
Wanda steps a bit into the lane and starts trying to pull the arrows out of the target with her magic, laughing at her own failures, and Clint turns around to look down at Bucky. There’s something content on Clint’s face as he tilts his head at Bucky, like he’s wondering what to do, and Bucky sort of blinks and exhales, not really expecting this kind of scrutiny.
Clint’s eyes are still on his and now there’s something else there: a kind of heat, maybe, a spark of interest. Bucky blinks again and shit, it hits him low in the gut with unexpected force, the way he wants to touch Clint. He wants Clint. Bucky hasn’t felt shit like this in decades, long before he fell off a train and into hell, and he’s afraid it must be written on his face: either the want, or the shock of it all.
To his surprise Clint’s face turns fond, and understanding, as if he’s somehow picking up what Bucky’s putting out; Clint winks at him, then turns around to help Wanda, looking through his arrows for damage.
The bird on Bucky’s wrist is putting out so much heat it feels like it’s glowing. For once it isn’t annoying; it’s soothing, like a hot compress, and Bucky just wishes he knew what the fuck it wants him to do.
———
The next flashback hits him in the middle of the night while he’s wandering the hallways, unable to sleep; one minute he’s looking out of an opening, admiring the Wakandan sky, and the next he’s looking out of the small window in the cryo chamber and he can’t scream and he’s tied down and it’s cold cold cold —-
—no, it’s warm, it’s Wakanda, and he’s free to move, he’s okay—
—at least he managed not to scream this time.
Bucky sinks down to his knees. The carpets here are really softer than he’s used to. They shouldn’t be encouraging him to sit on the floor so much. The floor is nice. It’s safe on the floor. He notes from a distance away that his breathing is still harsh and ragged, and his pulse is racing.
There are gentle hands on his back, supporting his weight, and someone murmurs, “Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” It sounds safe and Bucky sinks back into it, letting his head sag. He shifts his weight around until he’s mostly sitting comfortably, and he—
—and it’s the chair, the goddamned chair, and he opens his mouth but nothing is coming out except the last of his air, he can’t breathe, and this round is going to kill him—
—he’s choking, his lungs have shut down, he really can’t breathe—
“Hey, Buck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry to do this, you’re alright, I’ve got you, here,” the voice murmurs, and then suddenly strong calloused fingers are brushing against the soulmark on his inner wrist.
Everything in Bucky’s body just shuts down: the fear, the panic, even the memories are all suddenly muffled underneath a blanket of calm.
Bucky breathes in a shattered breath, and the warmth spreads. It isn’t just calm: there’s affection there, admiration, appreciation, and some low note that hums like safety and home. It isn’t a rush; it’s a slow gentle trickle, pushing the memories back down where they should be and filling Bucky up with something that’s glowing, something he wants to tuck around himself like a blanket at the same time he wants to turn around and devour it.
“Better?” Clint asks, his fingers still tracing light patterns across Bucky’s bird.
And Bucky suddenly gets it, because it’s Clint, of course it’s Clint. Of course it is.
He turns around, realizing he’s partially in Clint’s arms, nearly on Clint’s lap, and looks the other man in the face. Clint’s eyes are surprisingly clear and and his face is set in something like honest resignment, as if he’s given away his last secret to help Bucky, and Bucky shudders as he realizes that all of the affection and warmth are Clint’s own feelings.
“Now you know,” Clint says, nodding decisively, although his expression goes a little bit sad. He gently separates himself from Bucky and stands up. “You’ll know where to find me,” he says. “When you’re ready.”
———
Clint spoke the truth. Bucky can feel him now, like there’s a rope tied between his wrist and Clint; he knows the other man is down at the shooting range. He knows Clint’s feeling guilty. He knows Clint’s worried about him. He knows why his damn soulmark has been pinging at him this whole time.
It isn’t the big swell of ecstatic euphoria he’d once expected, but Bucky thinks, yeah, soulmarks work differently now. They nudge you in the right direction, and then wait until you know your soulmate a little bit, so it isn’t as scary as it might be. Or at least that’s what he thinks his own bird of prey- it’s terribly cheesy to call it a hawk now - is telling him as he makes his way to the range, wrist pressed to his chest through the open vee of his shirt.
He knows Clint knows when he arrives, but he stands back a bit and lets Clint work his way through the quiver of arrows. He can feel the calm emanating from the man, and the weird turmoil underneath.
“How long have you known?” Bucky asks when Clint’s finally done, his bow tipping downwards.
“Since you showed me,” Clint says softly. “I - mine - knew right away.”
Bucky remembers the urge he had to touch Clint’s mark and wonders whether he’s an idiot.
“No,” Clint says across his thoughts, as if he knows what Bucky’s thinking. “You’ve been - not you - for so long. Mine’s always - I get vibes from it, sometimes, but it’s never felt like - it never did this, not until you woke up that last time.”
“You shot your soulmate in the ass,” Bucky says at random, a panicked giggle escaping him.
“Hey,” Clint grumbles, “I didn’t know it was you at the time.”
“What do we do now?” Bucky asks softly.
Clint rubs the back of his neck, and then passes the hand over his shoulder. “I dunno,” he offers, and glances up at Bucky with a tentative smile. “Never had a soulmate before.”
“Ain’t gonna be a good one,” Bucky confesses. “Head’s too full of shit.”
Clint laughs at that, one self-deprecating bark. “You have no idea what my head’s even made of,” he says, but he takes a step towards Bucky anyway. “You don’t know much about me, really.”
It’s true, Bucky thinks, but yet — he presses his mark to his neck and listens. He doesn’t know much about Clint’s past, but he knows about Clint. He’s funny, he’s kind, he’s caring; he takes care of the people around him (Steve, Wanda, Laura… and Bucky). He’s here, in Wakanda, far away from anything he must be used to, because he thought Steve was right. Those are all things his mark knows about Clint, on top of the fact that apparently, Clint’s his soulmate.
Right now, he doesn’t need to know more.
Bucky shrugs. Clint’s so close and it’s stupid but he suddenly wants to know, wants this so much that something inside him hurts at it. “This thing seems to like you,” he says, flashing his wrist at Clint, and then asks - softly - “Can I?”
Clint’s eyes stay heavy on him as he turns at a slight angle, offering Bucky his shoulder.
The lines of the wolf are so delicately drawn and Bucky lets himself touch this time, reaching out and gently tracing down its back with one finger. It makes Clint shudder, and Bucky brushes the back of his knuckles against it, watching Clint’s eyes flutter shut as he does. There’s warmth emanating from the mark, spiraling up through Bucky, and he presses his entire palm down over the wolf-dog. A sound catches in Clint’s throat, and in one impulsive move, Bucky slides his hand forwards so that the dark smudge of his mark is pressed up against Clint’s.
It’s overwhelming, thousands of possibilities: seeing Clint high atop a building, like a bird, hunting his mark; seeing himself, the damage he did in the war, the horrible things he did for HYDRA; seeing loyalty in the way Clint’s wolf doesn’t shy away from that, seeing Clint bare his teeth protectively. Clint steps into him, a hand coming up to Bucky’s neck, thumb tracing along Bucky’s jawline, and Bucky pulls Clint closer with his metal hand in the small of Clint’s back.
Clint’s eyes are flicking between Bucky’s with obvious want, and Bucky leaves his wrist against Clint’s shoulder and tries to signal, yes, and then Clint’s bending down to kiss him.
It’s soft, and starts out brief except that Clint sighs as their lips touch and Bucky’s struck with this gentle affection and need at the same time. Clint’s hand shifts to cup Bucky’s face, and Bucky licks into Clint’s mouth and they both make some desperate noise in surprise. Maybe this is the giant fireworks thing after all; Bucky hasn’t been kissed in decades, but this, this is something new and precious and unbelievable.
———
Bucky pounds on the door until Steve opens it, looking tired and cross. “What?” He snaps, after asserting that Bucky’s alright.
“Stevie,” Bucky says, unable to keep the grin off of his face. He can feel Clint’s quiet amusement down his spine. “You’re gonna shit yourself. Guess what happened?”