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“This is gonna be a piece of cake if the guards’re all that distracted by your ass.”
There’s no outward reaction - the button camera Natasha’s wearing doesn’t jolt even a bit, and none of the CCTV feeds that Clint has access to show anything but her politely bland face - but Clint still grins in his supply closet, imagining the silent curses that’re going through her head.
He stretches as much as he can in the tiny room where he’s watching the CCTV feeds for the gallery Natasha’s currently infiltrating, shifts his own butt a little so he doesn’t become entirely one with the mop bucket he’s sitting on, and ignores the grumbling of his stomach. He’d been willing to agree that his van wouldn’t exactly have been subtle, since the gallery attracts more the Porsche crowd, but he’s sure she could’ve found somewhere a little more comfortable than the disused supply closet of a Wendy’s, where the scent of burgers and fries have soaked into the fabric of the building and tantalise Clint’s every breath. It’s probably punishment for something, in fact he’s fairly certain it’s punishment for something, but if he kept track of all the revenge he’s owed he’d never have time to steal anything.
The Rogers Gallery, from what he can see of the inside, is actually pretty nice. It’s not ostentatious the way that a lot of galleries are; some of the architecture Clint’s seen practically swallowed the pieces until he was almost surprised anyone noticed they were gone. The pretty little St Sebastian in oils that hangs above his bed fits way more with the scale of the room than it had in that vaulted hangar in the Vatican.
In contrast, this gallery is all about subtlety and space, the pieces placed to best advantage. It’s a bright room, recessed lighting and cool UV-filtering windows that still leave space for shadow where the aesthetic of the art demands it. Natasha lingers for a moment in front of an expressionless mask, carved out of dark wood with the vicious red slash of a mouth lined with serrated teeth; the corner it’s nestled into somehow emphasises the air of menace in the thing. Clint knows a lot about art, but he also knows what he likes, and that thing gives him the goddamned willies.
It’s odd. This place is small and still building its reputation, none of the big-name tickets that usually attract them to galleries - or attract buyers to hire them to do a job. It’s pretty far from the things they usually handle, and Clint isn’t sure he likes it. Usually the only people whose lives they affect are trust-fund babies and the occasional insurance company; he doesn’t want to think about one of their jobs putting someone out of business. Especially a place that looks like someone’s put it together with so much love.
“We gonna get to the security setup sometime today?” he asks abruptly, and there’s an almost noiseless hiss in response before she moves on.
She trails around the edges of the room, her steps precisely measured to mark exact scale, and Clint jots down his impressions of what he sees. One of Tasha’s dodgy friends had sold them a piece of software that’ll do this for them, easily braiding together all the footage they capture with publicly available plans, but Clint likes to note down his first thoughts before they get the computer-generated outline in place. He figures thieving is as much an art form as anything they’ve got in that building, and he’s gotta make time for his preliminary sketch.
Technically it’s supposed to be his turn to do the initial recce; Tasha had done that place in Budapest, with the mini salmon quiches and the unexpected assault rifles. Clint will maintain to his dying day that what happened there wasn’t his fault, but - yeah, okay, he knows why he’s in the closet. Besides, this place doesn’t seem like it’s involved in any money laundering, forgery, or more than the occasional minor tax dodge, so it makes more sense to go with Natasha’s refined elegance rather than his own slightly rough-edged charm.
Speaking of charm, though - there’s a guy just at the edge of camera-shot, dressed in a suit that’s a subtle nod to the bland uniform of the other security guards Clint’s noted so far, but his face is about as far from bland as it’s possible to be. He’s got long dark hair tied half out of his face, and his cheeks and chin are shadowed with sculpted stubble that makes the most of his beautiful bone structure. He’s half-turned away from Tasha, which means Clint can’t get more than a glancing view of his face, but on the upside he’s got an excellent vantage point on a truly spectacular ass.
“Tasha,” Clint says, “Tasha, light of my life, if you have ever loved me you’ve gotta go check out that guy at your ten o’clock. I need screencaps, okay, I need -”
He’s cut off by abrupt swearing, low and vicious and Russian, quiet enough that the only reason he picks it up is because his mics are the fuckin’ best. He’d had a hell of a time working with wire fine enough to weave seamlessly into the delicate necklace she’s wearing, but the smile on her face when he’d presented her with wearable tech that actually suited her had made all of the tiny solder burns decorating his fingers worth it.
“Tash?”
The view swings around abruptly, almost fast enough to make Clint a little seasick. He takes a quick look at the CCTV but from the perspective of their cameras she looks perfectly composed, maybe like someone who’s lost track of time and is about to miss an appointment. She hurries a little to the door, must toss a smile in the direction of the door guy judging by the way he flushes, and then she’s striding across the parking lot, muttering a litany of Russian filth that Clint’s only heard outta mobsters and that one really angry nun.
“Abort,” she says, and that’s enough that within seconds he’s packed up and out, clambering down the fire escape with all his tech neatly stowed in the backpack slung over his shoulder. As soon as he hits tarmac she’s at his side, and her composure has fine hairline cracks he’s not sure anyone else would see.
“The hell?” he says, skipping a little to keep up with her, even though his legs are maybe a mile longer and she’s wearing fancy heels.
“Barnes,” is all she says, but she’s scowling fit to turn someone to stone.
*
Natasha leads them right back to Clint’s loft. Clint’s whole building, technically, including the coffee shop on the ground floor, and definitely the place he calls home. It’s a sign of how rattled she is, because usually there’s at least a perfunctory break between their first look at a place and when they meet up to talk about it, a habit from when they were far less sure of each other and their routines.
Clint hangs around downstairs long enough to pick them up a couple of coffees and a dirty look from the barista - it’s got to the point where he’s given Aimee a key to his apartment so she can come collect the empties before they develop sentient life and overthrow him, because he’s terrible at remembering to return the mugs. When he nudges the front door open with his foot Natasha’s curled into his couch, fancy shoes kicked off, and she’s got Lucky’s head resting in her lap without any regard for the hair transfer. None of this, Clint’s pretty sure, is good.
He places the coffee mug on the table in front of her, handle turned considerately towards her hand. He then ruins the civilised scene by planting his ass on the other end of the coffee table and raising an eyebrow at her over his own mug.
Natasha lets out a long breath and makes a face, screwing it up in a way that isn’t even self-consciously adorable.
“Bucky,” she says.
Clint winces.
He’s not sure she’s ever told him Bucky’s last name before, but her reaction suddenly makes a whole hell of a lot more sense. Bucky is a complicated piece of Natasha’s history, and Clint’s still not entirely sure he’s untangled all of the threads. He knows that for a while there Bucky was the most important person in Natasha’s life - her mentor, her best friend, practically her family. He knows that there’s always the sting of jealousy whenever Natasha compares the two of them - frustrated and angry, or half-laughing and helpless, or sympathetic and sad. He knows that even in spite of that, it’s somehow the greatest compliment in the world when Natasha says Bucky would like him.
Bucky was kind of a mentor, he thinks. He looked out for Nat for a while. Clint doesn’t think they worked any jobs together - doesn’t sound like Bucky’d exactly shared Nat’s subtlety of style - but they’d taught each other a lot; enough that there’s no way Bucky’s gonna miss it if she uses her usual tricks.
“You wanna call this one off?” Clint says, and Natasha scowls at him.
“The gallery is Steve’s.”
And yeah, that’s the other part of their complicated history; the part where a friend from Bucky’s childhood had shown up and muscled his way into Bucky’s life and somehow convinced him into cleaning up his act. Tasha’s layers of complicated feelings for Bucky - betrayal, and loss, and while Clint would never accuse her of it, maybe a little envy too - are viciously simple when it comes to Steve.
“We’re still getting paid, right?” Clint says, and Natasha looks up at him sharply, ‘cos those words might be casual but they’ve become almost a code. This isn’t the kind of job that can be about feelings.
She sighs and nods, winding her fingers into Lucky’s pale fur.
Clint gives her a hard look. “Sure you don’t want to call it off?”
“We’re still getting paid,” she says.
“Then I guess it’s back to the drawing board.” Clint grins, finishes his coffee and gets up to put on another pot. “And this time I’m gonna be holding the pen.”
Five hours later Clint’s got marker ink all over the palms of his hands, the rolling whiteboard is a mess of streaks, two styles of handwriting and stick figures a-plenty, and Clint figures they’ve got a decent plan.
His style is, as far as he can work out, somewhere halfway between Natasha’s and Bucky’s. He hasn’t got quite the finesse to persuade people out of their art and have them thank him for it, but neither does he rely on brute force to target warehouses and shipments. He learned his trade in the circus, long before he met Nat, and as a result it’s a mix of fast talking and acrobatic feats that makes heavy use of ventilation systems. Natasha isn’t always so fond of it - it doesn’t have the subtlety of her approach, and relies on them having the time to lie low for longer after - but on the other hand they generally net more with it, giving them a bigger cushion to lie on.
Clint puts the lid on his pen with a satisfied click. He’s confident - provided he can get a closer look at the place - that they can pull this off, and even Natasha looks begrudgingly impressed.
“So I’ll go in for another look in the morning,” he says.
Natasha gives him a long, thoughtful look.
“Another look,” she says flatly, and he tosses the pen into the air, five full revolutions before he snatches it again. He’s not making eye contact, and it’s pretty clear she has registered that he’s not making eye contact, and there’s this whole elephant in here with them that’s destroying his chill.
He breaks first. He always breaks first.
“You know we were looking for different things the first time,” he said. “I need to take a look at the setup, see what’s gonna be able to support my lines, better look at the alarm system -”
“Need to check out the security guard schedules,” she says, and he’s nodding along just in time for her to finish, a little meanly, “and Bucky’s ass…”
Well he hadn’t exactly been subtle about it.
“Look, can you blame me?” he says. “Appreciating the aesthetics is what I do. It’s not like I’m gonna - ”
“I think you’d be good together,” she says, loud and graceless and cutting over the top of him, and Clint’s left gaping as she folds her arms across her chest, a muscle ticking in her jaw.
“...what?”
“You heard me,” she says, and turns to glower at the whiteboard. It’s as much as he’s gonna get out of her, he knows this, and he willingly gets back to business. But later - after pizza, after he’s changed his sheets and insisted she take his bed, curling himself into the couch under a hair-covered blanket that Lucky’s disgruntled to have lost - Natasha brushes her hand over his hair, her expression unreadable in the gloom of his apartment.
“You deserve good things,” she says. “Maybe someone like Bucky could be that for you.”
“I wouldn’t ever do anything that would hurt you,” he says, ‘cos that’s the kind of thing you get to say in the dark.
“I’m done being hurt over Bucky,” she says, scritching her fingernails against his scalp. “If things were different…”
“They’d have to be a hell of a lot different,” Clint says, and her fingers still for a moment that’s heavy with words that aren’t being said. It’s not the first time that he thinks that maybe he isn’t the only one who has second thoughts about the things they do.
“Also there’s the part where we’re stealing his best friend’s shit,” he continues, to break the tension, “which may make him want to murder me a whole bunch.”
“Loving you and having homicidal urges are not mutually exclusive,” she says, leaving him with a brushed kiss to his forehead and that less than entirely comforting thought.
*
Clint dresses with care the next morning.
He’s got a set of drawers in his bedroom which are full of graphic shirts, sweatpants, pairs of fraying jeans. The walk-in closet is reserved for his work wardrobe, the stuff he wears for jobs. There’s all sorts in there - from chef’s whites and boilersuits, to suits with a price tag that made Clint wince and a couple slinky dresses that it’s been way too long since he’s had opportunity to wear. Somewhere in the back there’s even his circus costume, nostalgia in purple spandex, but it ain’t exactly subtle.
He’s aiming for subtle, today. The casual display of wealth, nothing flashy or overt. No diamond tie-pins - no tie at all - but a watch that’d come from a particularly challenging jewelry store in London and a pair of aviators he’d actually paid for in New York. He goes with a pale gray suit and a black shirt, open at the neck, and rubs a little wax through his hair until he has the kind of careless, tousled look that costs a bomb. He’s pretty pleased with the effect, when he’s done; it’s the perfect bland rich-guy outfit, something that’ll let him slip by any security guards without notice. He doesn’t let himself think that that’s kind of a shame.
The inside of the gallery is always the last step; from the couple of days of observation before Natasha’s attempt he’s got the outside down (entrances and exits, fire escapes and windows, a promising skylight and a couple handy grates). He heads for the front door, noting that the security guards are exactly where they’d been during Natasha’s visit, and saunters into the cool interior with his hands in his pockets, hooking his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt. His sharp eyes note all the little details: the low slatted benches to allow the patrons to sit and admire the art; the staff only doors with their keypad entry; the mezzanine that stretches along three sides of the room, with its helpfully solid balustrade. What interests him most is the investment in a solid ventilation system and the possibilities it offers for avoiding the many security cameras’ all-seeing eyes.
He goes to stand by a window where - even with the UV blocking glass - the sun pours in, giving him an excuse to put on his camera sunglasses again, tilting his head back like he’s admiring the size of the place.
“Look at the vents, Nat,” he murmurs, barely loud enough to be picked up, and she sighs in his ear.
After maybe an hour he figures he’s got about enough detailed footage and thorough plans; he’s even managed to stash a spare line and a glass cutter in the gents, just in case things go to shit. Clint’s up on the mezzanine level when he feels a presence behind him, someone standing a little too close while looking at a beautiful piece with intersecting lines and suggestive spaces that reminds him of nothing so much as shibari. They’ve got a list of pieces they’re after with this job and this isn’t on it, but he likes the way this would look above his couch so he’s in a thoughtful state of mind.
“Finding everything you need?”
The voice is low and smooth, made for giving orders, and there’s the barest brush of fingers at the small of Clint’s back; he’s already got half a smile on his face when he turns to find Bucky standing behind him. He hadn’t realised that the guy’s shorter than he is by a good half a foot but he’s also built like a tank, and his strong shoulders and the span of his hands are making Clint think things that ain’t exactly conducive to his calm. Bucky’s even prettier than he’d looked through Natasha’s button-cam, and it’s only her soft voice in his ear - just his name, but with an unmistakable tone - that prevents him from propositioning the guy right there.
“Just admiring the use of negative space,” Clint says. “It’s like Fontana but friendlier.”
“You like your art friendly?”
“Just like I like my security guards.”
Bucky’s eyes narrow a little. “Not many people make that assumption straight off,” he says, and Clint grins against Nat’s cursing in his ear. He runs one finger down Bucky’s thin silver tie, the exact colour of the sign outside and the accents in here.
“Shouldn’t wear the company colours if you don’t want to be recognised,” he says, and flips up the end of the tie. Bucky’s eyes darken in response, something in them that makes Clint’s stomach flutter, and he moves along to the next piece, acutely aware when Bucky follows along too.
“You’re a big collector of art, Mr -?”
“Fletcher,” Clint says after a hesitation that wanted to take the shape of his real name. “I dabble, I guess. I know what I like.”
“And do you see anything you like?” Bucky asks, and the question is cliché enough that Clint feels the blatant once-over is basically his duty. Bucky smirks and spreads his hands a little, showing himself off, and Clint’d wolf-whistle if it wouldn’t echo around the whole damned place.
“Let’s just say I see a lot of potential,” he says, and moves on again, because with the piece that’s in front of him right now there’s really no way he’s talking about the art. There’s also the fact that… yeah, there’s something there, but it would be suicide to try and follow where it leads. It’s a stupid sting of regret that this job - the one he doesn’t even need so much any more, not with the amount of money and art he’s got stashed away - makes any kind of relationship impossible. “I guess I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it,” he says after a moment.
“Yeah,” Bucky says, and it’s low, and he hasn’t followed, and Clint can’t work out if he’s supposed to hear. “Likewise.”
It’s about twenty minutes later when Clint’s heading for the door, after picking up a couple of leaflets about future exhibitions and getting a look at the screens behind the front desk. He almost trips over himself when Bucky appears soundlessly at his side, and he’s not sure if the width of his automatic grin is entirely in character.
“Do all the patrons get this personalised attention?” Clint asks. “Or do you think I’ve got something smuggled under my coat?”
“You angling for a strip search?”
Clint snorts out an unexpected laugh, helpless, and god help the guy’s taste but Bucky kinda looks charmed.
“Have dinner with me,” he says abruptly, somewhere between a demand and a request, and Clint’s brain goes offline. He knows he should say no, every last instinct and vaguely moral principle he has is screaming he should say no; not to mention that there’s no way that he can act natural actually talking to the guy. He only ends up only agreeing because of Nat’s voice in his ear, so used to taking her orders when the chips are down that he nods almost out of reflex. Before he can work out what the hell is happening he’s standing outside the gallery’s front door, cardstock with silver accenting and Bucky’s scrawled number gripped tight in his hand, and a date for later that evening.
“Well, shit,” he says.
*
Clint slams the door shut behind him, the crash echoing off the high ceiling. “What the hell was that?”
Natasha got back before him this time and her composure is completely restored; she’s sitting at one of the barstools by the kitchen counter, the steel and pleather ones that only ever look elegant when she’s sitting on them, and she’s cradling his only unchipped mug. Clint is furious, and he’s pretty sure that came out in his tone, but she’s calm and unapologetic when she responds.
“I told you he’d like you,” she says.
“I don’t - we can’t -” Clint shrugs off his jacket, flinging it onto the couch and startling Lucky out of a half-doze, and then scrubs his hands through his hair. “What the hell are you doing, Nat?”
He’s used to her machinations, to the role he sometimes has to play, but this has got him off-balance in a way he’s not used to. The thin spidery sensation that’s webbing knots around his stomach comes with the faint flavour of guilt, and it’s unfamiliar enough that he’s forgotten how to defend against it.
“Think of it as reconnaissance if it makes it easier,” she says, as he’s pulling off his shoes, and he throws them hard at the wall.
“I didn’t agree to this,” he says. “This doesn’t feel like we’re getting paid - or sure as hell not enough. I don’t like the way this makes me feel.”
She softens a little, slides off the stool and pads towards him, and he doesn’t like the way he’s not sure he can trust her gentle remorse right now.
“I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” he says, and that cuts her off mid-step. She stops, hip cocked, and crosses her arms across her chest.
“You say that after nearly every job, these days,” she says, and she’s watching him carefully but he doesn’t know what he’s giving away.
“Yeah, well maybe you should start listening.”
“I am not making you do anything against your will,” she snaps, and he shakes his head and raises his hands in instant denial, because he knows enough about her past to know that the insinuation would hurt her in ways even they might not recover from.
“All of this is my choice, I know that,” he says. “I do. I just think - maybe I wanna make some different choices.” Maybe he should’ve made those different choices a lot earlier, back when it was Barney he was working with instead of Natasha. Maybe if he’d turned away from all of this back when he’d had the first flickers of conscience, he would’ve been in a very different place now.
“Am I being deserted for Bucky again?” she asks, and her tone is blandly amused, and anyone else might take that at face value.
“I barely know him!”
“You want to, though.”
Clint doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s more invested than he should be at this point, there’s no denying that, but that’s partly Natasha’s fault anyway. Her stories about Bucky had been about someone brave and uncompromising and loyal and wickedly funny, and he’d been halfway in love with the legend before he’d even met the guy. He sighs.
“You want me to pinky swear I’m always gonna love you best?”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s an almost invisible loosening in the tension across her shoulders.
“I will need some time to consider how we will move forward if we are changing our career plans,” she says after a moment, “perhaps a year or so.'' It's like a punch in the gut, how painfully, all-encompassingly grateful he is that she’s not only okay with him not wanting to do this any more, but is also willing to not-do it with him.
“Oh thank fuck,” he says, and drops onto the threadbare couch that he’d rescued off a street corner and spent almost a whole day shampooing, once. Stuff like that is how come he’s got practically a fortune stashed away, so there’s really no hurry for them to decide what they’re doing next, but he knows from past experience that he doesn’t do so great when he’s got nothing to occupy his mind. “Take as long as you need.”
“And you will owe me a thousand favours,” she says, and he knows this is gonna wind up painful for him, but he gives her a thumbs up.
“And we will complete this job.”
Clint winces. He can’t help it.
“Clint -”
“Okay.” He says it on a long breath, but he knows he owes it to her to help her get this done. “Okay, but that means I gotta cancel on Bucky for tonight.”
“I don’t see why.”
Clint gapes at her. “Because we’re stealing from his workplace!” he says, a little shrill. “We’re stealing from his best friend.”
“That didn’t bother you when we stole from Jessica’s father,” she says.
“Yeah, but Jessica’s father is an asshole,” he argues. “He wasn’t -” he cuts himself off before he says it, but there’s no denying that ‘important’ was the word that came to mind. Clint scrubs a hand across his mouth.
“Bucky was a thief,” she says. “He knows the risks that come with the territory. And we will not be caught.” She smirks a little. “Unless you are distracted by his ass.”
Clint makes an outraged noise and she comes over to drop down on the sofa next to him, curling in close to his side. She’s like a cat, physical affection always on her own terms, and a lot of the time as part of some larger con. She looks earnest, though, when she speaks.
“The timing is terrible, but I think standing him up would be a mistake. I think you would regret it.” She pats his thigh. “Besides, you always do a better job when you’ve gotten laid the night before.”
“I hate you,” he says, curling his little finger around hers for just a second.
She nods, solemnly. “I know this.”
He lets out an annoyed huff and folds his arms across his chest. “Fine. Now come tell me what to wear.”
*
It’s like Natasha’s just been waiting for the opportunity. She brings him a suit that sure as hell isn’t from his wardrobe; it looks more him, somehow. Something that isn’t trying to project anything but who he is. It’s a beautiful blue - not the usual navy, but something that makes him think of the way the sky looks in the east when the sun is setting behind you. The shirt is a much subtler shade of blue, and the whole outfit suits his colouring in ways he really doesn’t understand, but the guy in the mirror looks good in ways that Clint’s honestly not used to. He’s used to looking good as Mr Fletcher, or Mr Francis, or Mr Archer; he’s not used to looking in the mirror and seeing someone he could actually be.
He’s feeling unsettled as he makes his way to the place Bucky had picked out, somewhere that’s a little too close to home for comfort. If this job goes wrong Clint’s gonna have to move to another apartment and the thought of that sucks, too.
The restaurant is a little red-brick place, curled around with ivy; there are big shutters all across the front that are flung open in the heat, leaving most of the restaurant open to the gentle breeze that’s softening the summer. Ella Fitzgerald’s voice is winding out of the restaurant and mingling with the buzz of soft conversation, and Clint shifts his weight and tugs awkwardly at his cuffs ‘cos it’s that weird sort of inbetween again, nothing he’s used to. Nothing so fancy as when they’re wooing clients or conning marks; nothing he’d ever think to treat himself to. It’s too nice for something that can only ever be a one night stand, and Clint has to work hard not to start the evening full of regrets.
“Hey, you came.”
Bucky’s dressed in a sharp gray suit, like something out of the Rat Pack, his hair knotted at the back of his neck. His smile makes him look uncomplicatedly happy to see Clint and Clint can’t stop himself from grinning back, even as the knots of guilt around his stomach wind themselves a little tighter.
“That’s a good look,” Clint says, and Bucky’s smile widens and there’s something a little wicked about it.
“You too; I like you better in blue. I’ve got a table booked, if this place is okay?”
“Yeah, it looks like exactly my kind of place,” Clint says helplessly, and Bucky looks delighted.
The conversation is easy and involving, talking about their interests and hobbies and their jobs. Bucky’s clearly been to the restaurant before, and he offers advice on the best things to order that Clint happily takes, enjoying the opportunity to not make decisions for a little while.
Clint’d fudged something about finances when asked about his line of work, quickly and smoothly switched the conversation to be about Steve’s museum and the responsibilities Bucky has there, and if Bucky thinks it’s a little odd that Clint knows more about security systems than the average joe he sure doesn’t make a point of it. He’d deliberately chosen something as vague and as boring as he could, so it’s kind of a surprise when Bucky brings them back to it.
“Do you enjoy what you do?”
Clint shrugs and toys with a bit of linguine, carefully choosing his words.
“I used to,” he says, honestly, “but I never intended to be doing the same thing for so long. I’m starting to wonder if I should be looking for another line of work.”
“What kind of thing?” Bucky asks and Clint shrugs, shoving another mouthful of excellent pasta into his face in hopes that Bucky will move on. He just waits though, content in the silence, and with a look of genuine interest on his face that is flattering and therefore dangerous.
“I don’t know,” Clint says eventually. “I don’t know what the hell I’m qualified for.” He fumbles for a moment before adding, “if I want to get out of - finances, you know. My skill set is pretty specific, and I’m not sure how I’m gonna persuade people that it’s transferable.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re more persuasive than you give yourself credit for,” Bucky says, giving Clint an intent look with a little heat to it. “I figure I’d have a hard time denying you something you wanted.” He clears his throat after a second. “Maybe you could diversify within your current line of work,” he says. “Look into management roles or something.”
Clint snorts unattractively into his beer bottle.
“I am definitely built for taking orders, not giving them,” he says, and the expression that crosses Bucky’s face at that is hard to get a precise read on but not difficult to understand. Clint licks his bottom lip, and Bucky’s eyes drop to his mouth, darkening a little.
He’s prepared for Bucky to make a move then - take Clint back to his place, maybe, push Clint down to his knees as soon as they get through the front door and not bother taking his number. He’s not expecting Bucky to order them coffees and return to the easy conversation from before; he’s not expecting Bucky to take care of the bill without consulting him. He tries to resent it, but the feeling of being taken care of is something he had no idea he wanted. Bucky stands when they’re done, holding a hand out to Clint.
“C’mon, beautiful,” he says, and Clint’s eyes snap up to his, a hectic flush burning in his cheeks, and fuck - how is he reacting so much to the slightest praise in that low, husky voice?
When they get outside Ella’s singing about dancing cheek to cheek, and they stop at the corner, just the faintest strains of jazz still reaching them. Clint can’t help wondering what kinda dancer Bucky is; he thinks he’s be good. And he’s so close, and his grey eyes are so beautiful when they’re dark like this, tipped over into exceptional by the bare illumination of the gently lit street. It would take hardly any movement on Clint’s part, the slightest duck of his head -
He takes a step back. Because he owes Natasha more than an evening’s potential, no matter how promising that potential might be. And if he’d made the decision to get out of this business when he should have done - last week, last year, after Budapest, after Barney - then maybe he could have leaned in like he wants to, but it’s too late for that. Instead he gets to go home alone to pore over plans that he doesn’t want to carry out any more.
Bucky crooks a sideways smile. “And I thought it was going so well.”
Clint thinks he does a good job of hiding how much of a kick in the ribs that is.
“It was,” he says. “But you wouldn’t respect me in the morning.”
*
It’s a week later, and Clint is lying in the vents watching Bucky leave the gallery. Natasha had let him in through a window almost too narrow for his shoulders earlier in the day, scrambling the nearest security camera with a device that fits in her handbag for the thirty seconds it took Clint to haul himself into the ventilation system.
That’s most of the thieving business, when it’s Clint’s turn to do the planning. Natasha’s plans involve beautiful dresses and charming conversations; Clint is stuck with vents, patience and the inevitable boredom that trailed along with it. He hadn’t been able to help shuffling along as silently as possible until he had the tight grille of a vent to peer through; hadn’t been able to resist watching Bucky being all efficient and serious as he ordered people around in the gallery below.
It’s been a long damned week of - well Natasha calls it pining, and Clint can only argue with that if he comes up with something that’s a better fit. Whatever you call the emotion he’s been feeling it hasn’t been good. The business card that Bucky gave him has frayed at the edges from how often he’s been worrying it, but in spite of Natasha’s encouragement he still hasn’t called. Whatever his intentions, right now he’s a thief and a liar, and Bucky has worked hard to leave this kind of life behind him. It wouldn’t be fair to make a move right now. Give it a year for Natasha’s plans to come to fruition and maybe he can see if Bucky’s still single, although why the hell he would be Clint cannot fathom.
Truth is, right now Clint doesn’t deserve him, and that’s never been clearer than right now.
He waits another forty minutes just to be on the safe side, then unscrews the vent cover, carefully lowering a rope until it barely brushes the floor. This isn’t some Mission Impossible bullshit, no alarm that’ll go off as soon as he touches the floor, but the artworks themselves are alarmed, rigged to go off if they’re touched. It’s impossible to keep something entirely still, though, and there’s some wiggle room built in to allow for seismic activity, or high winds, or a really goddamn heavy truck going past. Clint pulls out something that he really wishes its inventor wouldn’t call ‘the vibrator’; it’s a small device that attaches to the wall just by an art piece and sets up a fine resonance. It’s enough to fool the alarm sensor that there’s some interruption to its usual function but not enough to set it off; it persuades the sensor that gentle movements are within tolerance. Clint’s still gotta be careful as all hell while easing the art out of the frames, but it allows him just enough leeway to get them out.
Working from the tops of the frames has other benefits, too - he can move between the pieces without being in line of sight of the security cameras, so there are just a few frames here and there of his shoulders and the back of his head. Mostly the toughest part is the fact that along with the cameras and the motion sensors, there are sound sensitive alarms, which means he’s gonna have to wait until he gets within actual earshot of Natasha before the bragging can commence.
He’s got a quiver slung across his back, the perfect way to transport rolled paintings, and within ten minutes he’s got all seven of the pieces he’d come here for - plus the shibari piece that he’s definitely gonna keep.
Clint folds himself upwards, hauling himself back into the vent and pulling the rope in after him, coiling it up and stashing it in the bag that’s slung across the quiver. His exit is gonna be through the same window that had got him in here, cameras and alarms scrambled again. If he does trip something on his way out, though, the nearest police precinct is seven minutes away even at their most efficient, and that’s almost enough time to make it the whole way home.
All in all, he’s feeling pretty good, which ends just as soon as he feels the fine trembling under his palms and through the fabric of his pants that suggests that he’s not the only one in the goddamn vents.
A jolt of fear rushes through him, replacing the adrenaline rush of a job with the unproductive fight or flight reflex that has him freezing in indecision for a second before he scrambles backwards the way he came. It’s awkward enough moving through these metal crossroads when he’s going forward; backwards and blind, he almost gets himself tangled going round a corner. He turned off his own low light just as soon as he’d felt the movement, and it’s not nearly as much time as he’d like before he sees the glimmer of a light coming up on him.
Clint pays no attention to the scrapes he’s getting along his arms, shoving himself backwards as quickly as he can, giving up on silence in favour of speed; he’s nowhere near his planned exit but there’s a chance he can get to the gents where he’d stashed himself a line and a glass-cutter, which has the potential for another much clumsier escape route. It’ll be a shitshow, and Natasha will want him dead, but the key thing here is the possibility that he won’t end up arrested, and that’s enough to ignore the minor injuries he’s picking up.
It’s not enough, though. No matter how hard he pushes himself, the light keeps coming on faster, and he’s trapped up against a crossroads when someone rounds the corner up ahead.
There’s an incredulous pause.
“Clint?”
He knows that voice. He’s been wanting to hear that goddamned voice all week, but - shit, fuck, not like this.
“It’s not what it looks like?” he tries, hopeless, spreading his raw-scraped hands, shifting his knees to try and distribute his weight more evenly across the vent cover he’s kneeling on.
“What the hell,” Bucky says softly, “I thought Nat was doing this one.”
“I - what?”
“C’mon,” Bucky says, jerking his head back towards the direction he’s come from, “you and me need to talk.”
“I’m too pretty to end up in jail,” Clint protests, and Bucky rolls his eyes.
“You’re not getting arrested, asshole,” Bucky says. “It’s more like a business-”
Only Clint’s stayed in one place too long, it seems, and this’d be that vent he’d dropped the screw for; the metal gives way beneath him, and the alarm blares out just as he hits the mezzanine floor.
*
Bucky pushes Clint through his office door with an unrelenting hand tight on the back of his neck, and it’s doing something for Clint, he’s not gonna lie. It awakens all the instincts that had stirred at the tempting shibari painting, at Bucky’s take-charge voice, at being called beautiful in that certain tone. He stumbles a little as the quiver is pulled off his back and tucked beside a filing cabinet, and then he’s shoved unceremoniously into the kneehole of Bucky’s fancy desk, which for a guy with as much leg as he has is deeply uncomfortable and likely to end in cramp. Clint cranes his neck to watch Bucky straighten up his tie, tuck his hair neatly behind his ears, project the perfect security manager who’d definitely never muss himself up chasing a carnie through the vents.
Stay, Bucky mouths, no question of his authority even without that tone of command that sounds so good in his voice.
There’s a rap on the door and Clint’s suddenly even more cramped, this time by Bucky’s knees as he sits down in his desk chair and scoots himself a little way in. He lets out a noiseless sigh and wriggles around just enough to get a little more comfortable. He’s not allowed much movement though, ‘cos Bucky’s shiny black shoe comes to rest on his hip, pinning it to the ground, and Clint is gonna have to examine his reaction to that one just as soon as he’s got out of this.
Bucky has been asked a question, ‘cos his low drawl comes from just over Clint’s head, and it’s a hell of a lot colder than it’d been in the restaurant, teasing more out of Clint than he’d ever meant to say.
It’s stupid, how there’s somehow room for a sting of sadness, in amongst all the adrenaline washing through Clint like the tide. He’d known his chances were slim - especially after he’d left Bucky hanging and hadn’t bitten the bullet and reached out - but there had still been a chance. That’d died as soon as Bucky’d seen him in the vents, and now whatever Bucky says it’s likely he’s going to go to prison for years, and -
“Looks like he got away,” Bucky says, sounding rueful, and Clint stills. The shoe at his hip presses down, a warning, and Clint has to work hard to swallow down a noise that comes from somewhere inside him he didn’t even know existed. “Luckily we managed to recover the paintings, so no harm done.”
“Do we have a description?” someone else says.
“No security footage,” Bucky says. Clint’s pretty sure that’s a lie, but he’s also pretty sure it’s not gonna be a lie for long, and he is honestly very confused right now. “Still, we’ve learned some of his tricks. We’ll be better prepared next time.” That’s definitely a warning, even more of one than Bucky’s shiny black shoe.
It’s not one Clint needs, not any more.
There’s some more chatter from above him - arranging a meeting, or whatever it is boring office grunts do - and then there’s the click of a door closing.
Bucky scoots his chair backwards a little and looks down at him thoughtfully.
“What’m I supposed to do with you now?” he asks.
“I have to admit I was expecting more in the way of handcuffs,” he says, and Bucky’s mouth curls up at one corner, something devilish in the curve of his smile.
“Later,” he says, and Clint hopes like hell that’s a promise in his tone. “For now - well, like I said, we need to talk. Mostly about how the hell you got in here, and how this thing will work out a whole lot better if you don’t steal my best friend’s shit.”
They talk long into the night. Clint starts out defensive, but it becomes clear that Bucky’s not kidding about the lack of reprisal, and he enjoys the hell out of the opportunity to talk through his plans. They pore over the gallery’s blueprints together and talk through the gaps in the security system that Clint had been able to exploit. Bucky’s sharp and experienced and quick to suggest improvements, and it’s honestly just as much fun as planning heists with Natasha, although Natasha never made his belly flutter in quite the same way.
“Okay,” Bucky says, when the sun’s starting to peep through the office windows, and he’s wearing a gorgeous grin. “You know what, I think this could actually work.”
“Yeah?” Clint says, and when Bucky turns that grin on him it’s the most natural thing in the world to lean in and taste it, their mouths soft against each other and fitting perfectly in place. The way the second kiss heats things up, the way it ends with Clint backed up against the desk with his wrists pinned behind his back, that just makes it perfect.
“Yeah.” Bucky’s a little breathless when he speaks again. “Yeah, pretty sure this is going to work too.”
Clint is yawning fit to burst when he lets himself into his apartment later that morning, carrying two takeout coffees that he’d gone the long way around to get ‘cos there’s no way he’ll make it through the day on just one. He nearly gets knocked flying by his over-enthusiastic dog, and bends to fuss over him a bit. When he straightens up his mouth drops open and he almost misses the buzzing of a text message arriving on his phone.
Hanging over his couch, tastefully framed and perfectly centered, is the shibari-like painting he’d admired so much. His shoulders ache a little in anticipation of what it could inspire, some day, and the thought of beautifully tied knots and Bucky’s dark eyes sends a shiver down the length of his spine.
This time, call me, the text message says.
This time, Clint does.
*
It’s six fucking glorious months later that Bucky brings up his plan to Natasha. The one about setting up his own security company and taking on people skilled at infiltration to be his consultants, the one he’s been turning over with Clint since that day in Steve’s gallery. Natasha’s reaction is… not optimal, to say the least, and things get a bit hairy in the middle there, ‘cos there’s no way Clint’s gonna take up a new venture if Natasha’s not on board.
“Look, just - just give Steve five minutes in a room with her,” Bucky says eventually, and Clint’s been avoiding that this far into their relationship, ‘cos he doesn’t think Bucky wants a dead best friend. It’s a nerve-wracking meeting, Clint pacing outside like a father outside a delivery room, because he’s kinda scared out of his wits what it’s gonna mean for him and Bucky if the answer is no.
He doesn’t expect Natasha to emerge with the smallest of smiles on her face; certainly doesn’t expect Steve to look flushed and dazed and whisper frantically with Bucky about where the hell he’s gonna take Natasha on a date. Clint lets out a long breath and curls his fingers immediately around the small hand that slips into his. There are bruises around his wrist that her fingers trail across first, and he can’t help the way that he grins.
“Are you happy?” she asks, and he honestly doesn’t have the words to fit around it; he hopes she gets something from the look on his face. Only -
“I thought we were in this to get paid,” he says, “not for -” a gesture will have to do, ‘cos he hasn’t found the words to fit around Bucky either. He thinks there are maybe three of those words, well-worn but with a meaning just for them, only he’s been waiting - maybe for this - to be sure.
“Maybe this way you can get away with both,” Bucky says from behind him, low and fond and easy, and Clint feels his heart stutter happily when Bucky wraps his fingers around Clint’s wrist.