Work Text:
The Soulbond
When two people love each other unconditionally and choose each other wholeheartedly, a soulbond is formed. The bond is visible to others in the form of a thin ring of gold encircling the irises of the bonded. The bond is unbreakable, even in death, but cannot be formed unless both partners are unequivocally and mutually devoted.
The Asset follows the mission — the target — the Captain — Steve Rogers — the man — home from the hospital.
The flying man drives him very carefully, stopping at every yellow light, easy to follow even through the nightmare of traffic circles and one-way streets in downtown D.C.
The Asset parks the stolen motorcycle a block away, watching as the flying man helps the target from the vehicle.
The target moves slowly, hunched over and frail-looking despite his bulk.
Didja lose your asthma cigarettes again, Stevie ?, the Asset thinks, the words failing to make sense as soon as he thinks them.
Frustration spikes through him, there and then gone as the blank numbness envelops him once again.
“Thanks, Sam,” the target says as the car door thuds closed behind him, and they enter the building.
It’s a brick townhouse, about four stories, mature trees on all sides giving it a privacy that is rare in this city.
Swank, the Asset thinks, and feels his brow furrow at the unfamiliar word.
His head is pounding. He feels like he’s dreaming and waking up at the same time. Everything seems uncertain, unreal. All he knows is that this man — the target — has something to do with it. Wherever the target is, that’s where the Asset needs to be.
The target — no, Steve, Stevie — has returned from his morning jog. He follows the same route every day — Careless, always so careless with your own safety, Stevie — and the Asset stopped following him on it after the first three days.
Now he waits here, comfortably ensconced in a tree with a clear line of sight into the apartment’s living room, for the next part of the day. This is his favorite part, before Sam comes over and they start to pore over maps and information, Steve getting more and more upset and agitated.
It makes the Asset feel bad, knowing that it’s him they are looking for. Well not him, but the other one — Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. The one Steve had called Bucky.
Steve is desperate to find Bucky, anxious to charge off if only he had a direction. But the Asset has left no trail for him to follow, and every day the frustration mounts.
But now, in this part of the day, Steve is calmer. He eats his oatmeal, and flips through the news, his big hands awkward on the touchscreen of the tablet. Sometimes he’ll even turn the television on, although he hardly seems to care what he watches.
Today is one of those days. Steve peers down at his tablet as the television plays in the background. The show appears to be somewhat puzzlingly about dogs who are also police officers, and the Asset finds himself drawn into the plot against his will. He frowns at the screen as one of them is injured stopping a bank robbery.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a flesh wound,” a voice says, startlingly close.
The Asset has his gun drawn and pointed before he even processes what he is seeing.
Several feet above him is a man, perched casually on a branch, boots swinging. He’s holding his hands up, palms facing the Asset. His eyes are a vivid blue, unbonded. He has a bandage plastered across the bridge of his nose, and a leaf stuck in his chaotic blond hair.
Full tac gear, one knife in the boot, another strapped to his forearm, the Asset notes. A quiver strapped to his back, but the bow is resting on the branch next to him. It’s the bow that triggers the recognition. Top SHIELD agents were part of every briefing, regardless of how much other mission-specific intel had been wiped. Clinton Francis Barton, aka Hawkeye.
“No, seriously, Detective Fluffernutter is fine in the next episode. She gets a cast, and the whole K-9 precinct signs it with pawprints. It’s kinda great,” the man says. He doesn’t seem to be at all concerned by the gun the Asset is pointing at him, his posture still relaxed, his eyes crinkled at the corners with good humor.
The Asset’s mind is racing. He can’t have been there the whole time, can he? With the Asset’s enhanced hearing he should have known, but...he’s not performing at optimal levels these days. His body is shaky, unreliable as it withdraws from whatever chemical cocktail his handlers had him on. His mind is scattered and distractible as the programming unravels a little more every day, letting through more and more memories of who he used to be.
He’s compromised.
In a quick, fluid motion he reverses the gun — barrel in his mouth, thumb on the trigger.
“Whoa.” The man has gone very still and tense, his eyebrows furrowing. Some distant part of the Asset notes that the man seems to be showing concern for the Asset that he didn’t seem to show for himself.
“There’s no need for that,” the man — Hawkeye — says, his voice low and calm. “I’m just sayin’ hi.”
They eye each other for a long moment. Traffic whirs softly past them, leaves rustling as a warm breeze blows through the branches.
Finally, the Asset pulls the barrel of the gun back enough to speak.
“I will not surrender to SHIELD.”
Surprisingly, Hawkeye seems to relax a little at the ultimatum.
“Yeah, man, I don’t blame you,” he says. “Seein’ as it turns out half of SHIELD is Hydra these days. I mean, the mop-up is gonna take months, so I wouldn’t be too worried about them gettin’ on your case. They’re too busy cleanin’ house to follow up on you.”
“Them,” the Asset repeats.
“Yeah. Them,” the man emphasizes. “Hang on, I’m comin’ down,” he says.
He leans back and the Asset thinks he’s falling for a moment, but no — he’s grabbed the branch below him in a backflip, swinging his giant body around until he’s landed right next to the Asset on his own branch.
He’s even brought the bow with him somehow, and none of the arrows fell from his quiver in the process. The Asset thinks for a moment that he might in fact be going insane and hallucinating this whole interaction, but the branch beneath them is still swaying from the man’s weight.
“I mean, if I were tryin’ to take you out for SHIELD,” the man continues, as if their conversation had never been interrupted, “I coulda got you with a ketamine arrow a coupla days ago. I got one dosed for the Hulk, I’m pretty sure it can handle a super-soldier.”
And….that’s probably true. Fuck, the Asset hadn’t noticed the man lying in wait in the very same tree, how long had he been observing him without the Asset even realizing?
The guy seems to read the question on his face. “I was a coupla trees over at first,” he says as if trying to reassure, gesturing vaguely. “Got bored, though, just watchin’ you watch Steve, so I figured I’d come on over and pass the time.”
It’s so absurd that the Asset believes it unequivocally. His mind latches on to one thing.
“You know Steve?”
“Yeah. Good guy. Glad you’re not lookin’ to put a bullet in his head anymore.”
The Asset eases the gun back, but still keeps it in his hand, safety off and his finger next to the trigger.
“How do you know I’m not?”
The guy shrugs. “Like I said, been watchin’ for a few days now. If you were planning on doin’ anythin’ you woulda done it by now, and I woulda had to have taken you out first, and then Steve woulda been mad at me, so...y’know. Glad all around that that’s not the way it all shook out.”
The pounding in the Asset’s head is getting worse, but nothing the man has said is untrue, convoluted as it was. The Asset could have harmed the target a million times by now if he wanted to. And as compromised as it seems he is, he has no doubt that Barton could have taken him out before he did so.
“I’m Clint, by the way. Skipped that part,” the man says, holding out a hand slow and easy.
Almost against his will the Asset finds himself transferring the Luger to the other hand so that he can shake it. The man’s — Clint’s — hands are big. His long fingers are scarred at the knuckles and callused on the fingertips.
“What’re you callin’ yourself these days?” Clint prompts.
The Asset grimaces as the question sends a sharp spike of pain through his head.
“I am the Asset,” he finally says, although his voice sounds less certain than he intended it to.
“Nah,” Clint says easily. “Not anymore you’re not. What else are you called?”
The Asset’s head is spinning. He hadn’t really thought of it before, but it’s true. He’s left Hydra, and he’d rather die than go back. He is not their Asset anymore, no longer the Fist of Hydra. He feels a strange lightness at the realization.
“Soldat?” he asks more than says, finally.
Clint wrinkles his nose, making the bandaid shift. “If that’s what you prefer, but I don’t think you’re anyone’s soldier anymore either, unless you wanna be. But you got time. You can pick somethin’ that fits. Or somethin’ brand new if you want to.”
Once again, the idea is startling. Nothing fits. The Asset — the Soldier — the man has no identity. But something is breaking through, a little more every day. Not Bucky, but maybe something.
“Well, you let me know,” Clint says. “Now, on to more important things.”
The Asset tenses. He’s not ready to speak to Steve yet. If Clint tries to force him...
“So, in order to really understand what’s goin’ on in this episode of Dog Cops, you gotta know what happened in Season 3. Y’see, Sergeant Whiskers had a little bit of a drinking problem, an’ Detective Fluffernutter was tryin’ ta get him to quit, but...”
Clint hates ops that require him to get caught and then just hang around, waiting for SHIELD to extract him.
Any junior SHIELD agent could have done this one, but for some reason Fury felt that Clint was the one for the job. And okay, maybe Clint was pretty damn good at playing the Dumb American Agent — the one who shows up on the wrong side of town, sticking out like a sore thumb and conspicuously inquiring about the Big Bad, just waiting to be snatched.
He had probably set a record this time. He’d put on his cheap suit and douchey sunglasses and started asking obvious questions to shopkeepers in mangled Romanian — and Jesus, how that had pricked his ego. Thanks to Marusia in the circus he could speak Romanian like a bunică, but no, he had to pretend to have learned it from Duolingo.
In any case, it was only an hour or two before he got shoved into an unmarked SUV, as expected, and brought to the Big Bad’s hideout for questioning. SHIELD should have extracted him within the first day, but thanks to the concussion the Brigada Oarza goons gave him while roughing him up for information his thinking goes a little fuzzy, and it’s probably at least two days before he realizes something has gone wrong.
He waits it out for a few more hours and another unnecessary beating before he decides that for whatever reason SHIELD isn’t coming for him. It’s the work of a moment to slip free of his restraints and pick the lock of the room, but making it out of the compound is a little messier. Forty minutes later, however, the compound is burning merrily in the rearview of his stolen SUV, and he is only a sprained thumb and a couple of flesh wounds to the worse.
He doesn’t stop until he’s across the border. He’ll be damned if he goes to Budapest again but Szeged is good enough to find an internet cafe where he can clean up and check in.
A quick glance at Reuters’ homepage is enough to tell him some crazy shit has gone down. A shootout on a D.C. freeway, with photos of Captain America and Black Widow on the scene. The Triskelion in smoking ruins.
Clint lifts someone’s phone from their pocket on his way out. He gets a few klicks out of the city and then pulls over, peeling off the piece of adhesive silicone on his belly. It looks just like an appendectomy scar, inconspicuous among the many other scars that litter his torso. Underneath is a SIM card that he fits into the stolen phone.
He starts up the phone and sends Nat their codeword, the one that means “all clear.” Message after message pings through in response.
Shit.
Fury was almost killed. Cap’s BFF from World War II is a brainwashed and serum-enhanced agent of Hydra. Nat follows up that tidbit of information with a slew of files and videos about the Winter Soldier that he’s sure will make light reading for the trip home. SHIELD is in ruins, gutted by Hydra from within, and destroyed by Project Insight from above. Nat has exposed all of SHIELD’s files in a data dump of epic proportions — every SHIELD op compromised, every cover blown, every safehouse burned.
Jesus Christ, Nat, I was gone for THREE DAYS, Clint texts.
Shut it. I’ve got too much attention on me. I need you to have eyes on Steve, Nat texts back. I’ve already booked you a flight. You have three hours to get your ass to Ferihegy.
“Aw, Budpest, no,” Clint whines. It’s an indication of just how serious Nat is.
Clint curses vociferously in Romanian, and sets a course for Budapest.
Clint eats a surprisingly good pizza at the airport, but the files Nat has sent him soon has it settling uneasily in his stomach.
There’s news helicopter and traffic camera and Fury’s dashcam footage of the Winter Soldier looking more robot than man — relentless and fearless. There’s a cold deliberation to his movements that sends a chill down Clint’s spine.
He remembers what Nat had told him about the scar across her abdomen, the fear in her voice as she described the ghost assassin and the impossible shot that left her engineer dead and herself close to bleeding out on a rocky beach in Odessa. Soviet slug, no rifling.
And yet, there’s also footage mined from Hydra’s files — the same man but terrified. Desperate pleas that turn to screams as they put him in some grotesque amalgam of an electric chair and torture device. And then later, stumbling disoriented and weak from what Clint learns is a cryotube.
A prisoner of war since World War II. Seventy years of torture and mind control. Clint shudders, and catches himself unconsciously rubbing the spot on his chest where Loki had jabbed his scepter.
The last file has a timestamp from just a few hours earlier, once Clint works out the time difference between here and D.C. It’s a series of stills, obviously taken from a satellite. In the first shot a dark shape is emerging from the Potomac, dragging a body with a familiar silver star on the chest by the strap of his red, white, and blue uniform. A little more red than usual, Clint notes, wincing at the obvious gut shot staining the belly of Cap’s uniform. In the second still, the Winter Soldier has let Cap fall to the ground. The silver arm gleams in the sunlight as he stares down at the man. In the last still the man has turned, disappearing into the vegetation lining the riverbank as if he were never there.
Clint’s phone dings again.
Steve is awake. Says that Barnes knew him. That he broke the programming and recognized him, Nat has texted.
Seeing how the man had fought Cap on the freeway, the deadly intent behind every lightning-fast strike of his knife, Clint would have been tempted to think that it was all wishful thinking on Steve’s part. But he flips through that last series of satellite photos, and there can be no doubt. The Winter Soldier may have tried to kill Cap, but he also saved Cap’s life.
“What a fuckin’ mess.”
Clint was prepared for a deadly Russian assassin. He was even prepared for the cocky, confident Sergeant Barnes from the old film reels.
This man, though — this man is neither of those people. He looks lost, his ragged hair falling across his face, his unbonded slate grey eyes wide and vulnerable. He stares in the window of Steve’s apartment like the only happiness he has ever known is behind that glass, distant and unattainable.
Clint lowers his bow and unnocks the arrow within the first ten minutes. This man is not going to hurt Steve.
He still watches though. It starts because he promised Nat, and owes Cap a larger debt than he’ll ever be able to repay. But he keeps watching because something about the Winter Soldier draws him in.
Three days in, Clint gets tired of watching from afar. The Winter Soldier has shown no sign of making a move one way or another, and dammit, Clint is really starting to feel for the guy. And, yeah, maybe he could have handled that better, but they worked it out. And the Winter Soldier doesn’t seem to mind Clint’s chatter.
There’s only one more tense moment, when Sam arrives and he and Steve bring out the maps and files and computers. The Winter Soldier has fallen still and quiet, watching silently as Steve and Sam hunch over what looks to be a map of Western Canada, side by side.
“You know it’s you they’re looking for, right?” Clint feels compelled to say.
The Winter Soldier flinches, avoiding his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, and Clint lets it drop.
Sam and Steve get take-out, and Clint tries not to be resentful as he chokes down one of the protein bars he’s getting mightily sick of. From a few trees away he’s never quite been able to see what the Winter Soldier eats, and now he’s fairly certain that he doesn’t eat at all while he watches.
Finally Sam leaves, and Steve goes in the other rooms for awhile. He wanders back through the living room once more, morosely brushing his teeth as he turns off the lights.
The Winter Soldier shifts on his branch, and Clint knows by now that this is when he usually leaves for parts unknown. It’s never been worth the risk to tail him — Clint is here to have eyes on Steve, after all, not his brainwashed ex-BFF, but he finds himself suddenly and intensely curious.
“Hey,” he says softly, and the Soldier freezes in place, looking at Clint as his hand strays in the direction of his holstered firearm.
“No, just...you got a place to go to?”
The Soldier nods once, and shifts again.
“See you tomorrow?” Clint asks, suddenly reluctant to end this interaction.
The Soldier gives him a long, steady look, and then drops silently to the ground, disappearing into the shadows as if he were never there.
Clint sighs, stretches out his back, and starts his own, slower, descent to the ground.
The next day, the Soldier is already in position when Clint gets there. Clint scales the tree carefully, waiting for some sign of protest, but the Soldier just regards him steadily until he’s sitting on his branch, and then shifts his attention back to the window.
Clint settles down, watching the Soldier watch Steve.
The Soldier’s awareness seems to fluctuate. Sometimes his eyes are sharp and watchful. At other times he seems lost, dazed. Clint gets the impression that it’s at these times that new memories are emerging. Sometimes the Soldier flinches or cringes, at other times he mutters things under his breath. Clint catches snatches of German, Russian, Mandarin, French — and then the occasional Brooklyn drawl.
It seems worse than the day before, and Clint wonders if the Soldier’s programming is breaking down or if his mind is simply unraveling.
“Barnes, James Buchanan,” the soldier is muttering. “Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James — no,” the soldier breathes. “Please, no. Please, stop. Please —”
Shit, he’s going to blow their cover, his voice rising steadily. Clint lunges forward, slapping his palm over Barnes’ mouth, and finds the metal hand gripping his throat faster than he can even track. Clint reaches his other hand back, fingers finding the shaft of his EMP arrow, but the grip on his throat is tight but unmoving and something in him hesitates to escalate the situation further.
They are frozen like that for a long moment, Clint unable to do anything but stare into the Soldier’s vacant grey gaze. Finally the Soldier blinks, awareness creeping back into his eyes. The metal arm whirs as the fingers spasm and then release, the Soldier jerking his hand away as if he had been burned.
The Soldier looks away and then back, sneaking glances at what Clint is sure are some impressive bruises blooming on his throat.
“Sorry,” the Soldier mutters eventually, and then a few minutes later, “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Clint’s voice comes out raspy and the Soldier shrinks into himself a little more. It makes something in Clint’s chest hurt to see it.
“Hey, did I tell you I have a dog?” he says, babbling the first thing he can think of to break the tension.
The Soldier is staring through the window again, the back of his head to Clint. A few minutes go by and Clint thinks that he’s probably zoned out again, when the Soldier finally speaks.
“What’s his name?” he asks.
The next day starts out much the same. This time Clint has made it to the tree first, and the Soldier graces him with a nod as he makes his way to his spot.
The Soldier looks even worse today if that’s possible. His face is pale, his skin clammy. He moves slowly, as if every joint aches. When he stretches up to grip the branch his hand trembles.
Clint clicks through a few possibilities in his mind.
“Have you eaten?” he asks once the Soldier gets settled.
The Soldier looks at the window for a long time, but Clint knows enough by now to wait it out.
“I don’t think I can do that anymore,” the Soldier finally says. “Whatever they did to me — I tried, but I can’t keep anything down.”
He finally looks at Clint, his eyes wide and terrified. “Am I — am I still human?”
“Jesus Christ.” Clint has his hand on the Soldier’s shoulder before he even realizes he’s moved. His heart twists as he wonders how long the Soldier has been holding that question tight to his chest, too terrified of what the answer might be to ask it. “Of course you’re human. They — the arm is a prosthesis, but the rest of you — you’re still yourself.”
The Soldier shakes his head and Clint realizes that’s cold comfort right now, when the Soldier doesn’t even seem to know who he is. He searches his mind for something that will help.
“I’ll be right back,” he finally says. He starts down the tree, but stops. “You’ll be here when I get back?” He’d meant for it to sound like a command, but it comes out a little more pleading than he had intended.
The Soldier rolls his eyes, and something in Clint eases a little at that glimpse of personality.
There’s a lady walking her dog around the tree for a solid fifteen minutes, so Clint has to lurk by the trash cans for a long time before he can make his way back up the tree when he returns.
To be honest, it’s a miracle neither of them have been made yet — even though they arrive before dawn and leave after nightfall, all the green camo in the world doesn’t do much to hide all six foot four of him when he’s on the sidewalk.
Fortunately, the green camo doesn’t look completely out of place in a military town, not when Steve is too distracted and SHIELD is in too much disarray to be providing adequate surveillance. If Nat hadn’t gone rogue she would be tearing the junior SHIELD agents a new one for leaving such a tempting target so unprotected, but as long as it’s working to his benefit, he’ll take it.
Finally, the lady and her dog wander off and he makes it up. He pulls one of the cans out of his backpack, holding it out to the Soldier who regards it suspiciously.
“It’s like — it’s called a nutrition drink. They had you on a liquid diet, that’s why you can’t stomach anything. You can work your way up to solids, but this should do for now. Just take small sips, make sure it stays down and you don’t overdo it.”
The Soldier is still just looking at the can, and then back at Clint’s face.
“Seriously, take it. I got a bunch more, all different flavors. If you need anythin’ like the amount of calories Steve does you ain’t gonna make it much longer without havin’ anything. That man can eat ten burgers for lunch and still want ice cream on the way home.”
And maybe it’s that reminder that Clint knows Steve that makes the Soldier finally reach out. His fingers shake, and he clenches his hand into a fist and then takes the can in his metal hand instead. He studies the label for a long minute, but then finally pops the tab and takes a tentative first sip, and then a bigger gulp.
“Slow,” Clint reminds him, and he can see the effort it takes for the Soldier to stop. Jesus, how many days has it been? Clint is scared to count.
“Have a couple more sips an’ if that stays down for half an hour you can have more.”
The Soldier takes another sip and then looks down, his ragged hair falling across his eyes.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“No problem, dude.”
The Soldier says something Clint doesn’t catch.
“What was that?” Clint taps the small in-ear aid he’s wearing. “These aids help out, but I’m still not 100%.”
The Soldier looks surprised, and Clint is comforted to know that his hearing impairment apparently didn’t make it to Hydra’s briefing files.
“I said,” the Soldier says, slow and deliberate, facing Clint so he can see his lips. His voice is steady but his eyes betray his nerves, flickering to Clint’s face and then away. “You can call me James.”
“Oh.” Clint feels the smile spread across his face. “James. Cool. Good to know.”
The Soldier smiles too, small and tentative and utterly endearing, and Clint feels the first nail thunk into his coffin.
The next day the Soldier — James — looks a million times healthier, and it’s Clint who’s dragging. He had a nightmare only an hour or two after he fell asleep — Loki was putting him in that abomination of a chair, while Barney watched and laughed — and he couldn’t bring himself to try to sleep after that.
He’s a little short on conversation today, and he sees James sneak a few concerned glances his way.
The morning passes in silence, Clint just trying to keep himself awake while James watches Steve with more alertness than he’s shown so far. Clint wonders if the nutrition is helping the super-serum heal his mind as well as his body.
Steve is making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, when it’s James who surprisingly breaks the silence.
“He used ta be allergic to peanuts,” he says. “We went to the circus once and couldn’t stay more ‘n a coupla minutes. Just from the peanut shells on the floor, he couldn’t even breathe. Seemed like the whole damn world was tryin’ to kill him back then.”
“So you’re sayin’ he’s always been this much trouble?” Clint jokes.
It backfires, though, the look on James’ face so tender it makes Clint’s heart lurch. “Always had a knack for gettin’ himself into trouble, but somethin’ about him — somehow you don’t mind bein’ the one pullin’ him out of it,” James says, a smile curling the corner of his lips.
Aw, damn. Clint had wondered, but…
He has to look away from that expression. “Yeah, I kinda know what you mean.”
Clint owes Cap everything. There’s probably not another person in the world good-hearted enough to have given Clint a second chance after what he did under Loki’s control, but Cap did it without a second thought. He’s a stand-up guy, and he deserves everything he wants. And James — shit, he’s been through literal hell for seventy years. He deserves the same. They deserve each other , and Clint is just some schmuck with a hopeless talent for crushing on the wrong people.
It’s late afternoon, and Clint is thinking longingly of coffee and then before he knows it he’s dreaming of coffee, and then he’s falling —
He doesn’t even have time to curse, just makes his body go limp from long practice taking a fall, but there’s a sudden jerk and he looks up to see that James has him, dangling from the strong grip of his metal hand around the strap of Clint’s quiver.
James looks as startled as Clint does, but then Clint gets with the program and finds a grip on the tree trunk, and Jesus that was careless as fuck. He woulda broken a few bones at least, if not his back or his neck, and his cover woulda been blown for sure.
He makes it up to their branch, and throws what he’s sure is a pretty sheepish smile in James’ direction. “Thanks.”
“Yeah,” James says. “No problem.” But he scoots closer on the branch, so that he’s within arm’s reach in case it happens again.
They talk more over the next few days.
Clint is not sure if James is just trying to keep him awake, or process his own emerging memories, or if they are actually becoming friends, but James talks a lot about Steve, and some about the Howlies, and growing up in Brooklyn.
Clint talks about what Brooklyn is like now, and Katie-Kate, and Lucky, and eventually Nat and Phil and what it was like to work for SHIELD. James doesn’t talk about his time as the Winter Soldier and Clint doesn’t talk about his childhood or the circus, and neither of them point out those notable omissions.
A cold front comes through, making the weather tip into fall, and Clint becomes grateful for how James throws off heat like a furnace. He has to stop himself from pressing up against James’ side once night falls. The sun is going down earlier but Sam is staying later and later, spending some nights on the couch, and there’s a lot of nights where Clint is so cold that his fingers have trouble gripping the bark. He wonders sometimes what they’ll do when the leaves start to fall.
One night Sam seems to have something else to do. Steve spends some time staring at the maps by himself, making a few phone calls, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it. He puts his head in his hands for awhile, and then goes to bed at a ridiculously early hour.
James gives Clint a nod and starts to head down the tree, but Clint is a little reluctant to end the day so early.
When he has too much time alone to think he ends up zooming in on the old black and white newsreels, trying to figure out if they were painted over frame by frame to hide the fact that Barnes and Cap had been bonded.
He’d never heard of either of them being bonded, but he suspects a lot of government resources would have been happily devoted to covering up something like that. And bonds were supposed to last even after death, but with both of the bonded as good as dead, and Barnes not even Barnes most of that time — it’s anyone’s guess what that would mean for the fact that neither of them bears the bondmark now.
“Hey,” he says softly, and James freezes. “Wanna — I don’t know, get some beers or something?”
James looks up, his hair falling back from his face, grey eyes gleaming in the dim light.
“Why?”
Clint shrugs. It’s not like he can admit that he has nothing to do every night but go back to his cheap hotel and fight off the nightmares.
“Why not?”
There’s a place called Luke’s that Clint knows from his days headquartered in D.C. with STRIKE team. It’s enough off the beaten path to be lowkey, just a quiet dive with good food and a low background hum of soul music.
Clint has never seen James in public before. He shrugs a hoodie on over his tac vest and pulls his hair up into a messy bun, and it’s disconcerting to see how easily he blends in with the crowds of people heading home from work or just starting their night out.
They have the first beer mostly in silence. Given that Clint has been chattering away to James for almost two weeks now it seems ridiculous that he suddenly can’t think of anything to say, but that’s how it is.
He wishes he had the magic words, the ones that could convince Barnes that no one blamed him for the Winter Soldier’s actions, that would convince him to come in from the cold. But words — real words, the ones that count — have never been Clint’s forte.
“Wanna play darts?” he asks instead.
He shows off a little, of course he does, because he’s motherfuckin’ Hawkeye in front of a dart board, and maybe he wants to impress his crush just a little, hopeless as he knows it is.
James is a surprisingly good sport. His aim is almost as good as Clint’s, but when Clint closes his eyes and hits ten bullseyes in a row, James drawls “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” and cuts his losses.
James buys the next round, and they’re sitting back at their table, the silence more comfortable between them.
Clint has reached the point of idly wondering exactly how long he can keep this up before James realizes that Clint is completely gone on him when James says, “So, how long is it gonna take?”
Clint chokes on his swig of beer, sputtering and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What?”
“How long is it gonna take before you’re convinced that I’m not gonna hurt Steve?”
Clint lets the beer dangle from his fingertips, feeling his face scrunch up in confusion. “What’re you talkin’ about? I figured that out in the first ten minutes of day one.”
“Yeah?” James’ jaw is set, his eyes narrowed. “Then how come you’re back every day?”
And... shit. Clint doesn’t have a good answer for that. Because truth is, it stopped being about Steve a couple of days in.
He shrugs, mind racing as he tries to pick his way around the edges of the truth.
“You’re important to Steve. He wouldn’t want you to be alone. So unless you’re ready to go to him —” James opens his mouth to protest and Clint cuts him off “— and I know you’re not, then I guess you’re stuck with me.”
James sits back. Something about Clint’s answer seems to bother him, but Clint can’t figure what.
“You owe that much to Steve, huh?” There’s an edge to James’ voice that makes Clint want to lean away.
“I do.” A shadow passes over James’ face and Clint finds himself talking again. “But it’s not like it’s a hardship. There’s not many people who are willing to listen to me go on for this long without wantin’ to put a bullet in my forehead.”
And, okay, maybe that was revealing a little too much, but it seemed to finally ease whatever was bothering James. He smiles, slow and soft, and then clinks his beer against Clint’s.
“Give it time, maybe I’ll get there.”
A couple of days later everything goes to hell.
Steve is staring down at the map again, frustration in every line of his body. Sam says something to him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. Steve puts his hand over Sam’s, giving it a squeeze. He turns toward him, and —
It’s just shit luck that Steve and Sam are turned perfectly in profile to the window, facing each other, so that it’s clear beyond denying the moment both of their eyes flash gold.
Clint has never seen anyone soulbond. It takes his breath away even as his heart breaks for James. He swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, preparing himself for what he’ll see on James’ face.
By the time he turns around, however, James is staring down at the branch, his face unreadable. His metal thumb rubs at a knot, stripping the bark away in a long curl.
Clint turns back for just a moment. Sam and Steve are kissing, arms around each other as if they’re never gonna let go. Clint has always had a pretty flexible moral compass, but this seems too private to watch, even for him.
“Wanna get out of here?” he asks.
James nods, dropping silently out of the tree and to the ground.
“Fuck,” Clint says under his breath, before starting down.
They go back to Luke’s. The place is deserted at 2 in the afternoon, which makes it sadly low on distractions.
Still, he gets a whiskey for himself and a vodka for James, and they sit at a small table. Someone has left a bottlecap on the table, and Clint spins it in his fingers, just to have something to do.
“Y’know,” he finally says. His voice comes out a little rough, and he has to swallow and try again. “It’s not common, but I’ve heard — sometimes three people can form the bond.”
James has been staring at a condensation ring on the surface of the wooden table, but he looks up at that. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
“It’s just —” Clint trails off, with an awkward shrug. “Somethin’ I heard.”
James’ brow is scrunched. “Are there — are there a coupla people you wanna bond with?”
“Me?!” Clint is so surprised the bottlecap falls from his fingers. “I’m not talkin’ about me, I’m talkin’ about you.” James still looks confused, and Clint finds his mouth continuing to talk even as he feels more and more foolish. “You ‘n Steve ‘n Sam.”
James sits up a little straighter, leaning in. “You think I wanna bond with Stevie?” he rasps incredulously.
“Uh…” Clint feels like everything he knows has been flipped upside down. “I did?”
James wrinkles his nose. “Steve’s like my brother. I don’t feel that way about him. He’s not the one — I don’t wanna bond with Stevie.”
Clint feels like his face is on fire, flushed red with embarrassment. “Well, forgive me for thinkin’ you might be carryin’ a torch for the guy you spend all day starin’ at,” he grumbles.
He raises the whiskey to his lips before it hits him. “Wait, what?”
James won’t meet his eyes. “What?”
“You started to say — before...you said he’s not the one — is there someone else you wanna bond with?”
James ducks back into his hoodie but it doesn’t hide the slow flush that’s spreading up his neck, coloring his cheeks.
“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbles. “If you felt the same way it woulda happened already.”
“Me?” The world seems to tilt on its axis, before every light in the place flashes incandescently bright, like a silent explosion.
Clint is already snapping his bow out before he realizes what happened. He freezes in the middle of nocking an arrow as his eyes refocus, caught by the beauty of James’ pale eyes encircled by a thin ring of gold.
He lets the bow and arrow fall to the floor and reaches out with a trembling hand, pushing the hood back.
James looks equally stunned. He presses his palm to Clint’s cheek, tilting his head up for a better look as well.
“I thought you loved Steve.” The words rush out of Clint, uncontrollable. “I didn’t let myself —”
“I thought maybe I didn’t have a soul anymore,” James rasps, talking over him. “Or if I did, that you would never — that you couldn’t —”
“You got the most beautiful fuckin’ soul I’ve ever seen,” Clint says, low and fervent. It would be embarrassing, it should be embarrassing, but Clint can’t even start to care. He’s just stunned beyond belief that he gets to have this, that someone so amazing is meant for him. “You —”
And there’s more he wants to say, a whole lot more, but James is pushing forward, stopping him with his lips, soft and chaste at first and then deep and slick and searching. And this is better, this is better than anything Clint could have ever imagined.
When they finally break apart they are both breathless. James is looking at Clint, and there’s something in his eyes that makes Clint’s scarred-up body feel shiny and new.
“I’m in this with you, you know that, right? You know what this means? — whatever happens from here, whatever you wanna do, you got me with you,” Clint says, soft and rushed.
Bucky smiles, and it’s not just the gold encircling his eyes that makes them look brighter and more hopeful than Clint has ever seen.
“Yeah, okay,” he says.