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Disclaimer: I don’t own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic. I don’t own Treasure Planet, and am making no money off of the movie.
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Blood and Rust (In the Throat) by luvsanime02
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“You give up a few things, chasing a dream,” Bucky says, and his voice is so soft and so sad, and Clint is utterly transfixed by the mechanical whirr of Bucky’s artificial arm.
“Was it worth it?” he asks, honestly curious.
The quirk of a smile that Bucky gives in reply isn’t a happy look on that beautiful face at all. Clint swallows hard against the feeling of guilt that rises up through him.
Clint’s on a treasure hunt. The once-in-a-lifetime, if that, kind of treasure. The treasure to beat them all, and Clint bets that Bucky could do with some of that money. With the adventure. Clint wants to share that with him, a lot. All of the time.
But Bucky’s a cyborg, and Clint still can’t forget Nicholas Fury’s whispered last words. Beware the cyborg.
Sure, there are probably plenty of cyborgs around. And Bucky’s a ship’s cook. The chances that he’s the exact cyborg who Fury was talking about is slim. Clint trusts Bucky - he does. Trusts him enough to get into bed with him - to be in bed with him right this minute, both of them bared to each other. Clint might even trust Bucky enough to love him - he doesn’t know.
Clint doesn’t trust Bucky enough to mention the treasure, though. Not that. He’s drowning in guilt, but Clint’s not stupid. Sure, there’s such a thing as a coincidence, but his instincts burn. There is something more going on during this trip, something that Clint just can’t quite get a handle on. Something about the smarmy and fake look on Rumlow’s face as he follows orders around the ship.
Clint can’t afford to mess this up. Not after he got Steve’s home burned down after dragging Fury inside. Not after he got Steve shot. Not after he’s been nothing but a fuck-up his whole life, with other people constantly paying the price for his mistakes.
So Clint keeps quiet, but he wants to say something in response to Bucky’s admission. Carefully, Clint grabs Bucky’s wrist - the artificial one - and drags his arm closer, until he can lay a soft kiss on the palm. He can taste metal on his lips, and tells himself that it’s not blood. There won’t be blood. Clint is just being paranoid.
Bucky can’t feel the touch, Clint knows, but his fingers twitch in response to Clint’s gesture anyway, and it’s times like this that Clint thinks maybe it’s not just him. Maybe Bucky feels the same.
Later that night, when the mutiny happens, Clint’s not surprised. He, Steve, and Natasha barely get away with the map and their lives, and echoing in Clint’s head is the conversation that he overheard between Bucky and Rumlow.
Something’s still off. Bucky’s supposed to be in charge, but he’d sounded almost robotic as he’d reported Clint’s movements and suspicions to Rumlow. When the mutiny happened, Bucky didn’t fire on Clint at all, and he purposely missed hitting Steve or destroying their dinghy.
And sure, it could just be because they have the map. It’s clutched tightly in Clint’s fingers even now. It could just be that.
Clint can still taste metal on his tongue, though, and this time there’s just a little bit of blood and rust in the aftertaste, but that’s not all.
It’s not all, and Clint clings to that thought because he has nothing else. Nothing but a map and a hope, and that lingering taste in his throat.