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Bucky can admit that he’s paranoid. Years of torture and a secret identity will do that to you, after all. That’s why when he first notices the guy with the sunglasses, he assumes that he’s being paranoid.
The third time he notices him, he knows that something’s up. He hooks his phone out of his pocket and holds it to his ear with his shoulder, even as he’s ducking into an alley and pulling out his favourite knife. Clint picks up on the second ring.
“Hey sweetheart,” he says, keeping his tone as light as possible, but not too light because he’s still got to be believable. “I’m running a bit late. Grab us a table and I’ll get there as soon as possible.”
It’s their third anniversary, they’re supposed to be having dinner at one of the few posh places in town they can both stand. There will be burgers, the kind that you have to pick up, even though you know the juice and sauce will run right down your arms. It’s fine though, he was planning on licking Clint clean anyway.
“Sure,” Clint says. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine, just got caught up at work,” Bucky says. It’s true, sort of. He doubts anyone following him is doing that because of the robotics course he’s taking for fun. No, it’s almost definitely because of the thing where he’s part of a black ops squad who pretends to be an accountant.
“Well don’t be too long, or I’m eating without you,” Clint says. “I’m starving.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Bucky promises. “See you soon, doll.”
“Yeah, yeah, the sooner you stop talking to me the sooner we can eat,” Clint says back and hangs up.
“Love you, too,” Bucky says to the dead line. It’s okay, he knows Clint knows, but he never lets Bucky say it if he can help it.
Sunglasses guy rounds the end of the alley just as Bucky drops his phone back into his pocket.
The fight is brief, and Bucky’s glad he doesn’t get blood on him, although he’s going to need to check his appearance in a mirror before he shows up at the restaurant. Sunglasses guy, minus sunglasses, is on his knees on the asphalt, Bucky behind him, knife at his neck.
“Who sent you?” he asks.
“Who are you?” the man gasps back, which is not what Bucky was expecting. He frowns down.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “If you don’t know who I am, why were you following me?”
“Why would I know who you are?” sunglasses guy asks. Bucky presses the knife slightly closer to him, so he can feel the cold of the steel, but not the edge, not yet.
“I’m asking the questions. Who sent you and why were you following me?”
“I can’t tell you… he’d kill me,” the guy says, and Bucky lets himself chuckle darkly.
“Yeah, you think I won’t?” he asks. The guy looks up at him, and Bucky doesn’t know what’s going on with his expression exactly, but whatever it is must make it clear that he’s a cold-blooded killer when he needs to be.
“C…Crossfire,” the man blurts quickly. “Crossfire sent me. Said we needed to send Hawkeye a message, told me to find out where to hit him. Didn’t even know he was married, he’s buried it so far, but I found out. Found the marriage certificate, found you…”
Bucky’s brain processes several things very fast. First, Crossfire is a name he’s come across more than once, though he’s never crossed paths with William Cross personally. Arms dealer and scum of the earth, basically. Second, Hawkeye, an operative with SHIELD, identity unknown. Thirdly, he only has one husband, and that’s Clint, who trips over his own feet and feeds the dog pizza.
“Think you found the wrong marriage certificate,” Bucky says. The guy goes to shake his head, but can’t because… well, knife.
“No, no, I found it… but… oh shit. I can unfind it? I never saw you? Hawkeye who? Clint Barton who? I wasn’t here.”
Those are, unfortunately the words that seal his death warrant, because he knows Clint’s name and, well, Bucky might be a bit slow on figuring certain things out, but he can get with the programme really fast when he needs to, and no one working for Crossfire who knows his husband’s real name is going to walk away from him.
“You tell anyone about this yet?” Bucky asks.
“No… no one.”
“Good,” Bucky says, slicing the guy’s neck cleanly and swiftly. “Fewer people I need to kill.”
The next phone call he makes is to Tony, because if anyone can make a dead body disappear in New York City it’s him, and he asks for a clean suit while he’s at it. He doesn’t mention Clint, though, except the fact that his husband is expecting him for dinner five minutes ago.
The suit and the clean up are there within ten minutes, which feels like about three hours, the way his mind is going over everything.
That conference Clint had last year, when he was supposed to be in Hong Kong, it lines up perfectly with when Hawkeye was in Sokovia. The high-tech hearing aids Clint claims are part of his company’s awesome insurance package, make a lot more sense now. Hell, even the way Clint always fucking beats him at pool.
And Natasha, of course, who was best man at their wedding, and who sleeps in their spare room and keeps hinting that she wants nephews and nieces, she’s the Black Widow. Now her Bucky has met. He shot her once. He doesn’t want to know what she’ll do if she finds out he’s married to her best friend.
He wants to call Steve and talk about this, but he can’t do that without blowing Clint’s cover.
He strolls into the restaurant and looks at Clint with new eyes. The muscles of his arms, the scar on his forehead, the way he has sightlines through the whole restaurant and plays with his knife like he knows how to throw it… Bucky’s an idiot for not seeing it before.
Does Clint know about him? The question thuds into his mouth far too late. It’s not like they’re on the same side all the time, they work for rival organisations. It would make sense if this was some kind of… long term monitoring mission? But then Clint catches sight of him and beams and Bucky can’t quite believe that smile is a lie. He doesn’t want to…
But he’s got to think maybe…
He kisses Clint on the cheek, which makes him blush, like it always does, and he analyses his husband’s every facial tic. The gold band on his finger is as bright as always and he really hopes that this isn’t a lie because… it had been a dumb idea at the time, a wedding with a guy he’d known six weeks, with a terrible sense of humour and amazing blow job technique. Steve had told him it was stupid, but he’d been right there next to him. Sam had provided commentary, and Tony had run a thorough background check, but found nothing.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Bucky says. “Just seems like trouble’s been following me around this week,” he says. He drags his eyes off Clint to look around the room. If one guy found them, more could have done as well.
“Wanna tell me about it?” Clint asks, opening the menu, although they both already know what he’s getting, the double cheeseburger with all the extras.
“Wouldn’t want you to get caught in the crossfire,” Bucky says. The emphasis he puts on the last word is so slight, most people wouldn’t notice it, but there’s a flicker on Clint’s face, and the tiny part of Bucky that hadn’t believed it up until now, sinks down in surrender.
“What’s the point of being married to me if you can’t complain about your job?” Clint asks. “Those numbers weren’t behaving, huh?”
“You make it sound so simple, but it’s a cut-throat industry,” Bucky says, smiling. He knows Clint can see there’s something wrong. They’ve been married for three years and his husband’s oblivious, but he’s good at spotting things that aren’t right.
Fucking Hawkeye.
“There’s this guy… whose accounts I’m doing,” Bucky says. “Happily married, full time job, no kids, but a nice house, and today someone brought me some… new figures.”
“Oh?” Clint asks. “You want the bacon cheeseburger, right?”
“Yeah,” Bucky says with a nod. “You know me so well.” Clint frowns at the tone in his voice. “Well these new figures, the source is… shady as fuck, but they make it seem like the guy isn’t who he seems to be.”
“Are you tracking another embezzler?” Clint asks, grinning again. “You’re so hot when you’re taking down white collar criminals.”
“Not exactly, Hawkeye,” Bucky says, keeping his tone gentle. He sees the moment the name registers with Clint and his eyes fly wide open, darting around to make sure no one’s close enough to hear (of course they aren’t, Bucky’s not an amateur) before back to Bucky, his hand moves under the table and Bucky has the distinct impression that his husband just pulled a gun on him.
“Where did you hear that name?” Clint asks.
“Crossfire sent one of his guys after you,” Bucky says, pouring himself some water from the jug on the table to cover up the way his heart is thudding in his chest. “They found me.”
“What? Oh shit. Oh shit, Bucky are you all right? Did they hurt you? Did they send you in here? Are they watching us right now?” Clint contains his movement, but Bucky can see him looking around.
“No,” Bucky says. The panic in Clint’s face looks real. The way he scans Bucky up and down to see if he’s hurt seems real, too, the way his hand reaches out to him and then stops, that’s genuine.
Unless Bucky’s never known the genuine Clint Barton.
Unless Clint Barton isn’t even his name.
“He’s not a problem anymore,” Bucky says. His heart is going faster than ever, because this is the moment when things get even worse. Because his husband’s about to find out that Bucky is a cold-blooded killer.
Clint blinks at him, takes in his expression and blinks again, then seems to relax a little.
“Oh…” he says, then looks Bucky up and down again, his eyes suddenly going to where Bucky’s prosthetic hand is holding his water glass. Realisation dawns. “Oh shit…”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Bucky says, setting the glass down to wiggle his metal fingers. “I think we need to have a talk.”