Chapter Text
When asked to describe a ‘haunted dwelling’, most people would go for the classic, dilapidated mansion, something with age and mystery - cobwebs for spirits to brush with a breeze; long, dusty corridors for poltergeists’ laughter to echo down; perhaps even some cracked mirrors for ghouls to stare out of at unsuspecting mortals. Some might think of a desolate shack in the middle of a forest, surrounded by bare-branch trees, rot-stench mud and a disorienting fog, all elements perfect for trapping victims in one spot for an untimely demise. Graveyards were common thoughts, too, as were abandoned, overgrown stations, cliff-side castles and underground mines lost to time. Rarely would someone describe a modern, glass-and-marble penthouse suite with built-in sound systems in each room, voice-controlled appliances and units, and a view of the bustling, sprawling city several stories below on each side.
Even spirits had to move with the times, apparently.
Or the aged artwork to which they were bound.
Staring up at the penthouse’s second floor, Bucky felt a small shiver run down his spine. The party guests around him remained blissfully unaware of the little patch of evil just one floor above them, chatting loudly and laughing obnoxiously, waving their champagne flutes around in varying degrees of merriment. When Peggy had announced she’d secured them invites he’d had half a mind to plead for a break-in plan instead, though he’d have stood no chance against Steve’s insistence on doing things ‘the right way’ as often as possible - even with Clint’s, and possibly Natasha’s, backing. Bucky loved his best friend, but there were times when that bond felt like it was being tested.
Said best friend chose that moment to join in with the obnoxious laughter. “We know exactly what you mean,” he cried, turning a million-watt grin to Bucky. “Don’t we, George?”
Snapping back to the present, Bucky blinked, and tried to compose an appropriately brilliant grin in response. “Absolutely, Joe.”
“But it’s just terrible, isn’t it?” a woman was saying, her jewellery sparkling enough to dazzle anyone who looked at it too long. “The idea that you could substitute a Château Haut-Brion with a Château Certan and think that no-one will notice?” Several other guests gathered around her shook their heads in sympathy. “It’s a miracle we were having beef, that’s all I can say.”
“I’m so glad you told us,” another woman said, her half-full glass held at a skewed angle to the side of her head. “Trent and I were going to use that same caterer for our Charmaine’s twenty-first birthday next month, but now I think we’d be better off finding someone else.”
“Oh, you should,” the first woman said. “Save yourselves the embarrassment.”
That was the point Bucky decided to save himself and Steve, saying pointedly, “Joe, our glasses are empty - why don’t we go for a refill?”
“Why not?” Steve agreed, but just as Bucky took that oh-so-wonderful step away from the Karen Committee, he turned to the group and said, “Would anyone else like a top-up?”
“You know,” Bucky grumbled as he, Steve, and ten champagne flutes made their way to the drinks bar, “I wasn’t intending on going back to conversations of wine scandals and elitist snobbery.”
Steve just raised an eyebrow at him. “You know where we are, don’t you? Wine scandals and elitist snobbery are part of the atmosphere here.”
“For a charity gala, it’s incredibly self-absorbed.”
“Well, at least a lot of money’s been raised.”
“Yeah,” he said, carefully presenting the bartender with six empty glasses, “by everyone in attendance except us. Which, by the way, is making me feel even better about being here.” An uncomfortable prickle travelled down his back again, and he rubbed the back of his neck. It was then that he noticed Steve was surreptitiously busying himself with making sure his line of empty glasses was very neat and orderly. “You made a donation.”
His friend coughed. “It’s a good cause.”
“How much?”
“… Quite a bit.”
“Does Peggy know?”
He sighed ruefully. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“What does Peggy know that you’d rather she didn’t?” a voice said, and Natasha materialised at Steve’s elbow. Bucky had to smother a grin at the way Steve jumped.
“Nothing that concerns you,” he told her.
Natasha swapped her empty glass for one of Steve’s now-full ones. “You made a large donation to this event, didn’t you?”
He stared at the two of them. “Is it stamped on my forehead, or something?”
Chuckling into a (discrete) glass of water, Bucky looked to Natasha, saying, “Please don’t tell me you left Clint unchaperoned?”
“I did not,” she responded, and tipped her head back towards the spoilt masses. “He’s listening to some riveting tales of suspense.” Bucky snorted, and rubbed the back of his neck again.
Steve noticed, narrowing his eyes. “Think it’s time to make a move?”
“I would have liked to have made the move an hour or two ago, but now is as good a time as any.” The look he received was only slightly reproachful. Picking up the many glasses again, Bucky followed Natasha through the crowd, weaving with practised ease so none of the contents spilled. He spotted Clint talking to an old man - or, rather, being talked at by an old man, his face that blank, slightly deer-in-headlights look that he believed was his ‘listening intently’ face, but was actually his confused-and-trying-not-to-show-it face. It took all of Bucky’s effort not to laugh.
“… and then he told us it ‘wasn’t made for mortal men’, which I wasn’t buying for a second. So, I gave him my glass - put it right into his hand - and demanded that he pour -”
“Hey, look,” Clint said brightly, an expression returning to his face (joy, with a pleading undertone), “Aliana’s back! Oh - and George, George is here, too!” He quickly introduced Bucky to Stanley, and in lieu of being able to shake hands, Bucky nodded politely with his best Elitist George Smile.
Catching Clint’s eye, Bucky leaned in close. “We’re going to make a move.”
“Oh thank god,” Clint said, his relief unheard by his elderly companion (“Was he using my full name, or did he just call me Stanley?” the man was asking Natasha, who was doing a much better job of looking like she was listening intently).
Giving Clint an impish grin, Bucky subtly waved the champagne glasses. “Want to make a scene?”
Mischief glinted in Clint’s eye. He turned back towards Natasha and their new friend, allowing Bucky a bit of space to pass behind him; just as Bucky was in the middle of doing so, Clint turned again - more sharply this time, and hard enough to send the contents of six full glasses of champagne onto the floor and Bucky’s clothes. The glasses themselves decided to follow the bubbly liquid onto the floor, where they promptly shattered into varying sizes of nasty-looking shards. “Oh no!” Clint cried. Loudly. And dramatically.
Bucky, for his part, did an excellent job of looking stunned - mostly because he was, indeed, stunned, having somehow misjudged the amount of liquid six full champagne glasses contained and how uncomfortable it would feel when soaking through two layers of clothing. He may also have grossly overestimated Clint’s acting ability.
“I am so sorry!” Still talking unnecessarily loudly, Clint pulled at what he thought was a handkerchief in his jacket’s breast pocket but was actually a sewn-in false pocket square. “I have ruined your nice, expensive shirt!”
“No, no,” Bucky said, acutely aware of just how many people were now staring at them (and how hard Natasha was trying not to hide her face in her palm). “I’m fine, it was just an accid-”
“We should get you to a restroom,” Clint declared, stepping around the glass-and-champagne mess to drag Bucky away by his elbow.
“Alright, thank you -”
“You may borrow my shirt!”
“Okay, now you’re starting to sound like Thor,” Bucky hissed.
“I’m making a scene,” Clint hissed back as they started up the stairs.
“Couldn’t have kept it a bit more casual?”
He blinked. “I thought I was being casual.”
Bucky sighed inwardly. “Well whatever that was,” he said, casting a sideways glance down at the lower floor, “I think it worked.”
“Cool,” Clint said, and released Bucky’s elbow. “So the painting’s in the guest suite, which according to the floor - where are you going?”
Halfway through the restroom door, Bucky raised an eyebrow. “To dry my shirt.”
“… Oh.”
“Unless you were serious about giving me yours?”
“But then what would I wear? Yours is wet, and wouldn’t fit me anyway.”
Bucky’s look grew appreciatively speculative.
“I am not becoming the Karen Alliance’s latest gossip victim!”
“Spoilsport.” Though, as fun as it would have been to see Clint shirtless for the remainder of the event, there were some things Bucky liked to keep for himself.
When his shirt was dry enough for the job, Clint directed them both to the guest bedroom, where Natasha had heard the haunted painting was being kept. “The Karen Alliance?” Bucky asked as they walked.
“Yeah. What do you call them?”
“The Karen Committee.”
Clint chuckled. “Good one.” He didn’t miss the way Bucky rolled his shoulders, one thumb pressed into a spot on his upper-arm. “You alright?”
Bucky dismissed him easily, but knowing that Clint wouldn’t drop it so readily on that alone, he added, “It’s just itchy this time. Nothing unusual or different, I promise.”
He hummed in reluctant acceptance. “Just don’t go overdoing it, okay? If you can’t manage it yourself –”
“I’ll call, and you’ll come running in to help,” Bucky said, stopping outside the guest room. With a reassuring smile, he quickly squeezed Clint’s forearm and stepped inside. Immediately, he was hit with the odd taste of wet, burnt wood - it lingered in the air, thinner by the door but stronger as he got closer to the painting on the far wall, an apparent ‘lost heirloom’ belonging to the party’s host. It was disappointingly stereotypical: a portrait of an ancestor, maybe from the eighteenth century, gloomy and grey and without an ounce of warmth. The man stood in the portrait’s centre was pale-skinned and austere, looking out blandly at the viewer as if to share a sense of existential boredom. Or maybe, Bucky thought, he was despairing at the antics of his apparent descendants. Either way, the canvas and it’s dreary depiction were in need of a thorough de-haunting.
Their research had suggested the painting was in the grips of a dormant poltergeist, and had been for a couple of centuries, at least. The creature was only dormant thanks to the old ward that bound it to the artwork, a ward that had been growing weaker and weaker and was, by Peggy’s calculations, on the verge of failing. Rather than reinforce the wards, they’d made the decision to banish the poltergeist altogether, thus negating the need for another dormancy ward and having to keep tabs on the painting for another few decades. It was up to Bucky to seal the deal and send the poltergeist somewhere it wouldn’t be a bother.
After he’d released it from the painting first, that is.
He heard a soft whispering that indicated Clint was taking care of the door on the other side. Slipping a penknife out from inside his jacket, Bucky approached the large painting, hoping that the ward was somewhere accessible and not part of the paint itself. Luck was on his side this time - he found the small symbol scratched surreptitiously on the back of the canvas, neatly tucked away in one corner. It was just a case of scouring through the circular design, a rather simple desecration for something powerful enough to keep a poltergeist asleep for centuries, but as soon as it was done Bucky felt the air above him shift. Pocketing the penknife he stepped back, planting his feet in the middle of the room. The strange taste in the air seemed to thicken, and he watched as an indistinct outline - more a blurring of his vision than a definitive edge - drew away from the framed canvas. The poltergeist crawled along the wall for a moment, taking stock of its surroundings, and Bucky felt more than saw the moment it spotted him.
The itch in his arm had spread across his shoulders and up the back of his neck.
Without further ado, lest the poltergeist get any ideas about attacking him, he began the incantation. It was a two-part affair: the first was a quick but effective cantrip that ‘pinned’ anything in one place and position for a minute, just long enough to let him get through the actual banishing rite without being in harm’s way. He spoke quickly, the cantrip affecting the poltergeist as it screeched and leapt off the wall at him; it froze as a blurry patch of air just a few feet away, letting loose frustrated grunts and short shrieks in displeasure. Taking a breath, and sparing a glance at the door, Bucky started speaking the banishment rite. Old words in a practised, all-but-forgotten language rolled easily off his tongue, the sounds and intonations coming to him almost naturally. He could feel the power swelling throughout the room, the thick woody taste on his tongue mingling with a hint of cinnamon, the itch now down his back and running across his skull. The cinnamon flared in his nostrils as he reached the critical point, and again he felt rather than saw what was happening: there was a soft wave of pressure, like a blanket being draped across the room, but where Bucky was allowed to pass through it the poltergeist was not. Slowly, the blanketing force began to pull it downward, making the spirit snarl and screech some more. With his part done, Bucky only had to stand and watch to make sure the job was completed. In all his years dabbling in affairs of the sinister and spiritual, he’d never quite worked out how poltergeists and other such creatures came and went from Purgatory. He also wanted to know why the scent of cinnamon was present so often, but wasn’t sure if it was even a commonly known thing, being the only person he knew who could even see and hear ghosts and their kind, never mind smell them. Natasha had suggested seeking out -
One of the poltergeist’s arms broke free.
Bucky stared. Almost on the floor, the poltergeist was seemingly breaking out of the banishment, hauling itself through some kind of gap in the field. As still nothing but an indistinct blur, he knew it was after him before it got what might have been its legs free, and just as he opened his mouth it sprang.
Use me.
What happened next shocked Bucky. He sidestepped neatly, reaching out and grabbing - physically taking hold of - the poltergeist by what he was certain was its neck. The poltergeist screamed, its visage becoming slightly clearer momentarily: no facial features, just a mouth; thinly-stretched skin over barely-there muscles; an odd bow to its body as if it preferred moving on all-fours. It strained in place, unable to move under his grip, and Bucky spoke again with new words in a new language. This time, he felt the power in himself. Within seconds the poltergeist in his grip began to smoulder, patches of glowing orange rising up through its skin. It yelped, the short sounds panicked and desperate, then in seconds it was gone, nothing but embers blinking away like light imprints on Bucky’s eyes. He stumbled back, dropping to his knees when they gave out and pressing a hand to his groaning head.
Good.
“No,” he growled. “Not ‘good’.”
There came a lip-curling snarl in response, and a pulsing throb high on his arm. He followed his usual methods of retaliation: he thought of one of the many times Clint walked into a lamppost, too focused on what Lucky was sniffing out to pay attention to where he was going; he remembered the moment Steve fumbled his wedding vows to Peggy, saying “waffly leaded” instead of “lawfully wedded”; the afternoon that Sam had an argument with a magpie in the middle of the park because it had stolen a quarter he needed for a hot dog; an evening at Carol and Jess’, when the two women had fallen asleep on one another with mouths open, drooling and snoring in tandem.
The throbbing subsided. Slowly, and entirely of his own volition, Bucky stood up.
Already, the scent of cinnamon had vanished, and the wet wood taste was almost gone with it. Nothing in the air felt off or ethereal, the painting still hung in the same spot he’d come across it, and there was barely a scuff on the floor. At the door, Clint knocked softly. “All good?”
Bucky wiped a finger under his nose, relieve to feel it was dry. “All good.” A faint headache was building already.
The door opened, and Clint poked his head around. “You didn’t call.”
Approaching him, Bucky put on a smirk. “I didn’t need to.”
He mirrored him. “Good.”
“Yeah.” Ish.
“Were you using a new spell in there?” Clint asked as they exited. Bucky looked down to see that he’d already swept away the salt he’d poured out along the door’s bottom.
“Just a backup thing,” he said absently. “Your shoelace is untied.”
With a small “Oh,” Clint knelt down to sort it. Waiting for him, Bucky closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, taking a slow breath in and out quietly. That was when he heard the sound of heels on marble.
Straightening up beside him, Clint said, “Steve or Tasha?”
“Probably not.”
They exchanged a look.
“We’re not supposed to be here, right?”
Bucky swallowed. “Definitely not.” The person was almost upon them. Any second now, they’d round the corner and -
None too carefully, Clint pushed him backwards into the wall, then proceeded to thoroughly kiss him into it.
Well-accustomed to his other half’s distraction method of choice, Bucky had the thought to talk to Clint about exploring other options rather than resorting to this one every single time - a thought that lasted only as long as it took him to remember that he actually rather enjoyed this particular choice, and got with the program. He fisted his hands in the lapels of Clint’s suit jacket and tilted his head a little for a better angle, a move Clint softly moaned his appreciation at. Tongues and teeth came into play, the way they always did, bringing his awareness solely to the heat growing between them, the hotness of Clint’s breath in the brief pauses for air. They were pressed together, chest-to-chest, and Clint even had the gall to slip one leg between Bucky’s, so Bucky retaliated by sliding his hands -
A polite cough interrupted the moment. Slightly dazed, Bucky tipped his head to the side, the memory of why they were making out like the teenagers they weren’t against a wall in somebody else’s very expensive penthouse apartment gradually coming back to him.
“Gentlemen,” the man said, pointedly stepping to one side of the hallway, an arm angled back towards the stairs. “I’m afraid this side of the floor is off-limits.” Bucky recognised him from Peggy’s file as the host.
Wordlessly, Clint and Bucky separated themselves, each managing to look at least a little bit chastised as they passed the host. Once they were around the corner, Bucky waited a beat and backtracked silently, poking his head out to see which room the man disappeared into. “Master,” he reassured Clint, and they made their way to the staircase.
At the top, he felt Clint’s hand at his back. “We’re picking up where we left off later, right?” he asked hopefully.
Bucky arched an eyebrow at him, then let one corner of his mouth twitch upwards.
***
‘Later’ turned into an incredibly torturous act of keeping up appearances for the Karen Committee and every other stuck-up socialite in attendance. In all honesty, Bucky had long forgotten why they were all there - something about water bears, maybe, or dung beetles? - but between the near-sickening display of casual wealth and the still-not-as-subtle-as-he-thought glances Clint kept throwing his way, it was growing increasingly difficult not to find another tray of champaign to up-end over himself as an excuse to leave. Steve would never have forgiven him, though, and they were just about even on the I-O-Us, so in the interest of keeping it that way (and, of course, for his best friend’s sake) Bucky stuck it out.
He only glanced at his watch fifty times over the next two hours.
Finally, the thank-you speech was given, the total donation amount announced, appropriately showy photographs were taken and calls were put out to chauffeurs. The four of them had a chauffeur, too, though Bucky was very careful not to say that to Peggy’s face. She did, after all, run a network of hunters and other occult persons with an efficiency he was sure would make Buckingham Palace’s Head of Staff swoon, and it was very kind of her to take a break to come and pick the four of them up without knowing what state they, or the penthouse tower and its guests, would be in. True to form, the woman in question gave them all a quick appraisal as they climbed into the car, sighing at the alcohol coming off Bucky in near-literal waves. “Please don’t tell me you tried to have a drinking contest with the poltergeist before you banished it?”
He snorted, and plucked at the white shirt. “This? Clint’s idea of a get-away excuse.”
“For the record, it worked.”
“For the record, I’m coming up with the next one.”
From the driver’s seat, Peggy said, “Right, so we’re trusting Natasha alone with the next distraction?” She drove away to protests from Clint and Bucky, restrained laughter from Steve, and understated smugness in Natasha’s smile.
Deposited at the door of their brownstone, Clint and Bucky made their way quietly up the levels to their own, decidedly-not-a-penthouse apartment. Bucky’s thoughts were on the lasagne he’d planned on making for dinner that evening, and how he and Clint could turn it into something a little more romantic than just another meal together, but the moment the front door closed behind them Clint was, once again, damn-near kissing him through the wall. It was as he was shucking off his suit jacket that Bucky mentally scrapped their dinner plans.
“Are we getting old?” he asked in bed, when they were both boneless and a little sweaty, Clint comfortably nestled against his side. He had the idle itch for a cigarette, a habit he hadn’t indulged in since an asthma attack nearly killed Steve as a teenager.
Grunting into the pillow, Clint moved a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
“Everyone at that party was over fifty, if not already on the downward slope towards it.”
“So?”
“So we really passed for their peers?” Last time Bucky had checked, none of them were on the wrong side of forty.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Clint mumbled, and Bucky pushed up onto his elbows to frown at him.
“I said fifty.”
“I heard.”
“Then how is that a good thing?”
Lifting his face from where it had been smushed into his pillow, Clint shrugged again, saying, “Would it be so bad to… settle down?”
He was being unusually serious. Adopting the same attitude, Bucky shifted onto his side to face him. “Are we not already settled?” he asked. “We’ve got a nice apartment, a steady circle of friends, a dog that knows at least one more command other than ‘sit’, and a job that both pays well and keeps us on our toes.” He narrowed his eyes. “If this is your idea of leading into a proposal…”
Snorting, Clint said, “Let’s be real, neither of us are going to see my proposal coming. And yeah, I know we have all those things, and it’s great. I just.” He gave a small sigh, lifting a hand to absently trace the sigil on Bucky’s upper arm.
Repressing his own sigh, Bucky said gently, “That’s not changing, Clint.”
“It got a look-in on today’s banishment, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he admitted slowly, “but it didn’t have control -”
“Putting words in a demonic language into your mouth sounded like control to me.”
Shit. “Clint,” he said, and waited until his partner’s eyes met his. “I wasn’t possessed.”
Clint scowled at him. “You are possessed, Buck. This -” he tapped the sigil - “is only doing so much.”
Bucky dragged a hand down his face. “You really want to argue this again? Right after sex?”
“No, I’m not, I - what if there was a way to get that thing out of you for good?” he said, searching Bucky’s face earnestly. “What if there was a way we could step out of that world? Find honest jobs, go to barbecues and the movies and the grocery store and not worry about whether the cabbages are haunted, or there’s a werewolf in the neighbour’s garden, or that you’re going to suddenly turn on someone with blacked-out -”
“Alright.” He didn’t snap, but it was a close thing. “I get it. But you told me what Bruce said, Clint - if he doesn’t know how to get this demon out of me and gone for good, who else would?”
“There has to be a way,” Clint muttered, gaze dropping unhappily again.
“Hey.” Taking his hand, Bucky moved it from his arm to press the palm against his cheek, feeling the warmth of it soak into his skin, the bumps and ridges of Clint’s calluses and fingers as familiar to him as his own. “I am not going to let this bastard hurt another person,” he said. “Not an innocent bystander, not whatever fiend of the week we’re chasing, and not one of our friends.” Squeezing Clint’s wrist, he added, “And I am never, never, letting it hurt you again. You know that, right?”
“Of course - and I trust you to stick by that, no matter what.” His thumb brushed along Bucky’s cheekbone. “Don’t you wish that was something you didn’t have to worry about, though?”
Every day, Bucky thought; and, if he was being honest with himself, perhaps with more frequency lately. He would happily let Bruce carve a hundred more sigils into his flesh if it meant the monster in his head couldn’t slip into his waking thoughts, couldn’t wrestle with his own consciousness for control of his body and will; but the one currently scarring his upper arm was the only one Bruce had been able - and willing - to guarantee would keep the demon at bay, in lieu of being able to force the thing out of him completely. He hated the headaches and the nightmares. He hated the way it would ache and itch when he was tired or in the presence of anything even remotely paranormal. He hated that he could barely remember anything from those long months he wasn’t himself, that he had to wake up and see the remains of the damage he’d caused. Would he give an arm to not worry about the possibility of going through that again? In a fucking heartbeat. What he said instead was, “We’ve been through this, Clint. It is what it is.”
He felt Clint’s hold tighten a little. “It shouldn’t have to be.”
***
Owing to a combination of grumbling stomachs and the scratching of a lonely dog at the bedroom door, they eventually got up to order Chinese and lounge in front of the TV with Lucky. Clint informed him Barney was in town when his phone lit up, to which Bucky replied he would have to ask about staying over rather than just turning up at the door like last time. Even Lucky looked anxious at the mention of Clint’s brother. Not that Barney was a bad person, he was just… a bit of a harbinger of bad luck, in Bucky’s experience - and for people in their line of ‘business’, bad luck could mean anything from a day of stubbing your toe on every corner and raised edge to a year or more of demonic plagues. Best avoided, overall.
It was because of Barney that Clint had gained some experience in dealing with spirits, demons, witches and everything else most people remained blissfully ignorant of. In that respect, maybe Bucky should be grateful to Barney - without him, Clint would never have been in the position to meet Bucky. Then again, Peggy could easily have decided not to team them up when she did, so perhaps technically, it’s her he should be grateful to. Equally, if neither of them had done either of those things, then Clint wouldn’t have been hurt because of Bucky.
And that was how the talk with Clint ended up circling through Bucky’s mind nearly all night, compounded by the minor but irritating headache that had returned from earlier at the party. Clint had sounded like he was ready to give up the hunter’s life, talking about normal jobs and putting effort into finding a way of banishing Bucky’s demon again. It was very out-of-the-blue; sure, maybe they weren’t as physically adept as they had been five, or even ten, years ago, but they were still worth their salt in the field. They’d weathered their fair share of hard knocks over the years, granted, but nothing that was proving to be a hindrance to their capabilities. Not even Clint’s deafness slowed them down. Bucky couldn’t figure out what had changed to make him want to give up a life of helping people, of making a difference where it mattered: out in the world.
If asked himself, Bucky wouldn’t change a thing.
Somehow, he was able to fall asleep without realising, waking again after sunrise when Lucky jumped up between them to shove a cold nose into their faces (his way of asking for breakfast). Clint, with bed-head worthy of a cubism masterpiece, blearily obliged, returning moments later to sleepily sign ‘Shower?’ at Bucky. Reassured by the invitation, Bucky smiled back, and nodded. Last night’s conversation was seemingly forgotten, as most ‘serious’ things with Clint tended to be.
The morning progressed normally after that, too. After showering and dressing, Bucky made them both a hot breakfast, then they took Lucky for a walk, greeting the same people they usually greeted. Back at home, they checked in with Peggy for any ‘aftershocks’ from yesterday’s banishment - there were none. Did she have any further work for them? She would let them know once she’d gone through her emails, as normal. Clint then insisted on attempting to fix the cupboard door that had come off its hinges the other week, while Bucky sat down to brush up on his knowledge of banshees, of which there had been significantly few sightings since his last encounter with one. Lucky dozed in the kitchen, jumping up every time Clint banged his head and swore.
If this wasn’t settled, Bucky didn’t know what was.
The clock hands had just edged past midday when there was a knock at the door. Lucky’s head swivelled in the direction of the noise, ears forward, but when he didn’t scramble to greet the guest, Bucky deduced it was somebody unknown.
“Bucky?” Clint called from the kitchen. “Could you - I’m kinda - ow, pipes.”
“Pipes?” Bookmarking his page, Bucky went to answer the door, throwing a look towards the kitchen. “What pipes are in that cupboard?”
“I’m under the sink.”
“Why are - know what? Never mind.” His boyfriend worked in mysterious ways, the mystery being that, despite much to suggest otherwise, he always got the job done.
The unexpected visitor turned out to be two girls - college age, Bucky guessed, if not high school seniors. One of them smiled at him. “Hi - Mr. Barnes?”
He frowned, eyeing her and her friend up suspiciously. “Who wants to know?”
She didn’t falter. “My name is Kate, this is America. You were at my father’s charity gala last night.”
Trying not to let his surprise show, Bucky said, “Sorry, kid, I think you’ve got me confused w-”
“So you and your boyfriend didn’t exorcise that old-ass painting in the spare room?”
There was no hiding his surprise at that.
Kate’s smile grew triumphant. She pointed at the gap in the door. “May we come in?”