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Bucky wouldn’t have been able to explain how it started. It was sudden and unpredictable. He had gone to some charity gala at Steve’s request–he had owed him one, hell, he owed him more than one but that was neither here nor there. He had been standing against the wall of the venue, nursing a cocktail that Natalia had shoved in his hand with the order to have fun. In that regard, he had failed, but the cocktail tasted good nonetheless.
Unable to get lost in thought, Bucky fell into an old habit and surveyed the room, keeping his guard up. His eyes just happened to meet a certain archer’s eyes across the room. Before Bucky could look away, Barton made his way towards him. As he grew closer, Bucky noticed the difference in the way Barton held himself compared to the last time they saw each other.
Before, Barton had been self-assured and prideful–standing with his chest out and a smile stretching across his face. Now though? Now Barton’s shoulders were hunched in on himself, making the six-foot man appear small. His eyes had bags underneath him and his smile was hollow. Whatever was going on though, Bucky knew the feeling. And he knew better to press.
Instead what had happened was probably a mistake–but neither of them would regret it.
“You wanna get out of here?” Barton asked, his eyebrow raised.
“Your place or mine?”
At that response, Barton’s smile grew more genuine, if only for a moment. “I know a spot,” he honest-to-God winked, eliciting an eye roll from Bucky.
Grabbing Bucky’s hand, Barton dragged him away from the venue, not stopping to tell anyone they were leaving.
Barton led them to a motel a few blocks away, confirming what Bucky thought would happen next.
The two fell into bed like they had been starved their whole lives. Furious hands grasped and groped. Teeth sank into tender flesh, just short of drawing blood. It was as if they were a car crash–drawn into one another all at once only to end in destruction. They were using each other and they knew it too. All that mattered was that there was a warm body to fend off the aches of loneliness. They took and took and took, leaving nothing left except unraveled hearts and messy sheets.