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Clint's dad once told him - sneering and snarling and sloppy with drink - that he was gonna die with his boots on, sad and alone and of no use to anyone.
"Fuck you," Clint had tossed back. "So long as you're dead first I promise you I'm gonna die singing."
Clint's dad had wrapped his car around a tree, taking his mom with him, when Clint was barely ten. So Clint may be alone - serially, 'cos somehow the times he isn't are worse - and he may still have his Stark-designed boots on, but he's bellowing a particularly tuneless rendition of 'Waterloo' as he plummets towards the sidewalk. He may be of no use to anyone much any more, but he'll be damned if he doesn't prove that asshole wrong.
The island of Manhattan is supposed to be as evacuated as is possible on short notice; the residents are mostly resigned to it now, grumbling onto ferries and already on calls with their insurance companies. So Clint is - to put it mildly - startled when he's abruptly hauled to a stop, mid-plummet, and is suddenly dangling face down with cold fingers against his ass and the worst wedgie he has ever experienced.
"Jesus, you're heavy," a low gravelly voice says, accompanied by the soft whirr of machinery.
"Prime Iowa beef," Clint says, his own voice a little strained. "Do you think it's possible to dislocate your asshole?"
"Considering how many people talk outta them," the voice answers, "seems like no one's got them in the right place to begin with." There's a low grunt of effort and then Clint is being pulled up and back, dragged over a balcony's railing and dumped unceremoniously onto the grilled metal floor. Clint flops over onto his back, his quiver an uncomfortable pressure against his spine, and grabs at his crotch, tugging ineffectually at the legs of his boxers in an effort to extract them from basically inside him. After a few moments' frantic fumbling he lets out a long sigh of relief and looks up at his rescuer, who is - who is short and stocky, has long dark hair, and is just about the most beautiful thing Clint has ever seen. Even the thunderous scowl he's wearing doesn't detract from that jaw-line, those heartbreak-gray eyes, and the prosthetic arm he's sporting is a masterpiece in metal.
"You are my fuckin' hero," Clint says, and he's not expecting the flinch backwards, the way the guy folds his arms across his chest and steels his jaw.
"I'm no one's hero," he says. "I'm not like you."
"Hero is as hero does," Clint tells him, 'cos it's something he's had to have drummed into him since he joined the Avengers - doubly so since the whole thing with Loki. He sure as hell doesn't envy SHIELD his therapy bills.
"So go hero," the guy tells him, climbs in through his sash window and slams it shut behind him.
Clint looks at the black metal of the fire escape, weighing the literal pain in his ass against the fact that he left his bow up on the roof and that there are almost guaranteed to still be some robots left to shoot. He lets out a long breath and starts jogging up the stairs, singing under his breath.
*
Eventually the crashes from overhead stopped, and Bucky made himself a coffee and flicked on the news to watch the usual self-congratulatory post-battle interviews with the Avengers. He had kinda made a habit of it, ever since he'd quit bothering to evacuate; he didn't really go outside so much any more. He told himself it was so he knew where the danger zones were, what streets - if he was gonna make it outside - he should make sure to avoid. In reality, though, he liked to know that somewhere out there there were still decent people doing good things - plus watching Iron Man trying to make Captain America blush was always good for a laugh.
Sam Wilson - the Falcon - was talking today, but there was off-key whistling from behind him in which Bucky could just about make out a tune. Wilson had to get the reporter to repeat a couple of questions, and eventually he just rolled his eyes and turned to look to his left.
"You got something to add here, Clint?"
He appeared on camera, looking just as good - and huge - as he had on Bucky's balcony. Bucky rubbed his shoulder a little, trying to ease out the ache of grabbing him out of the air. Hawkeye had a couple of bruises coming up, and his hair was a wreck, and Bucky still wanted - helplessly - to climb him.
"Hey," Clint said to the camera. He was a little awkward with it - he never really got in on these interviews, which Bucky was starting to realise was a damned shame. "I just wanted to thank the guy who saved my life today. I didn't get his name, but he's a true he-" Just turning the TV off with the remote wasn't satisfying enough; Bucky threw the remote across the room and stormed into his bedroom to grab his gear so he could work off some of his anger in the skeevy basement gym.
Didn't matter what the hell that guy said. He didn't know anything about Bucky. It sure as hell didn't make it true.
By the time he returned to his apartment the sun had faded out of the sky, pinprick stars visible through his window. He turned on the light and headed to the shower on sore legs, stripping out of his shirt and sweatpants and leaving them where they fell. The water was a little too hot in a good way, stinging relaxation into his muscles, and the gentle pounding took the place of thoughts he was too tired to think.
He didn't bother feeding himself, just collapsed straight onto his bed, hoping like hell he'd be too tired to dream.
*
The problem with buildings, Clint's found, is that they all kinda look the same from a bird's eye view. He gets dropped off by the quinjet, or Sam, or occasionally Wanda or Vision; he shoots until he's got nothing left to shoot; he waits around for someone to make their way back. He doesn't ever really look out for distinguishing landmarks, so while he's narrowed it down to three similar brownstones in a one block radius he's got no clue where the hot grouchy guy actually lives.
That's why he's running off copies at Park Slope Copy Center, leaning his ass against the warm copier and whistling between his teeth.
Clint has... very little in the way of shame, all told. Once you've embraced purple spandex as a lifestyle choice there's not all that much left that can make you feel pink, so he'd crafted some flyers with the help of one of Tony's laptops and intends to stuff the mailboxes of all the buildings that might be the one. If it gets him a date it will all have been worth it; if it ends with him in the tabloids that'll just be a regular Thursday.
The old lady who's been working behind the counter wanders over and jabs his side with a bony finger until he stands upright, telling him he's not allowed to lean on the appliances. Then she grabs one of the flyers out of the copy tray and whistles, looking between it and him before folding it in half and sticking it down the neck of her polo shirt.
"I'm keeping this one, handsome," she says.
They're printed on all different colours but the image on all of them is the same: Clint winking from behind lowered sunglasses with 'I NEED A HERO' scrawled across his naked chest. Tony'd been the only one willing to take the photo and had claimed that they couldn't rush art, shooting Clint from all angles until he'd declared this the one. The time put in was worth it - even Clint can admit it's a good photo, and he's hoping that it, and the number underneath it, is gonna do the trick.
He shuffles the flyers together, gathering up the last few the copier spits out, and shoves them into his purple messenger bag, tipping a wink at the woman behind the counter just as his phone buzzes against his ass. He pulls it out and checks the message, and laughs out loud.
"That, ma'am, is sexual harassment," he says, in his best Captain America voice, and blows her a kiss as he walks out the door.
It's a beautiful day, bright sunshine even with the chill of spring, and he buys himself a coffee at a place with a witty chalkboard before heading for the addresses he's staked out. He has to wait a while at the first until someone's willing to open the door for him, but he eventually helps a young mother in with her groceries, making faces at her kid over her shoulder, which gains him the access he needs. He shoves flyers into every mailbox and sings a cheerful chorus as he jumps down the stairs and heads on to the next.
By the time he gets there his phone is already buzzing against his ass, but he doesn't bother checking it yet 'cos the door's propped open with half a brick and he's got mailboxes to stuff.
By the third building his ass is actually going a little numb from the constant vibration. He pulls out his phone and shoves it into his messenger bag before he starts putting paper in boxes, and the couple of messages he sees on his screen kinda make him hope that his guy hasn't found a flyer yet.
When he's done he goes to sit on the steps outside, basking in the sunlight and scrolling through the messages, finally stopping on one that says, curtly, seriously, you need to stop.
*
ok sorry
That's it. That's all Bucky gets.
He checks back on his phone a couple times, but the lone message stays that way, and that's... actually kinda nice. From the message on the TV, and the confidence in Clint's smile in his picture, he'd kind of expected to have to stand his ground a little firmer, had expected persistence to be the guy's middle name. Instead he finds himself tapping his phone against his teeth, thoughtful, and then picking out another slow message of his own.
I don't envy you your inbox right now.
Hawkeye sends back an emoji of a screaming face, far sooner than Bucky would've expected, and there's a little warmth there that he's saved his number even with no intention to use it; that Hawkeye evidently considers him a priority.
sum r nice he sends after another minute, and then stays quiet until Bucky eventually texts him back.
It evolves into a conversation. Slow and sporadic, but never allowed to quite drop. After a few days Clint texts him from a new number, telling him that he had to get Tony to blow up his old phone, and Bucky saves it carefully into his phone.
Eventually the texts progress further into the occasional phonecall, mid-morning nothings with Bucky yawning over coffee, or Clint explaining the plot of some dumb dog show when day is easing over into night. One time, after a miserable misspelled text, Bucky calls Clint when the sun is just starting to struggle over the horizon, and when they finally hang up Clint's voice is warm in his ear.
"I know you don't like to hear it," he says, "but you're my hero, Bucky Barnes," and Bucky doesn't resent it even slightly 'cos Clint doesn't mean it like the guys with clean hands who thank him for his service. Clint's got his hands dirty, too.
Maybe sometime soon, Bucky's gonna let it evolve a little further. Maybe he'll invite Clint back to his apartment, let him come inside this time; maybe he'll show him the flyer that's still stuck to his fridge.