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January - Adelaide International 1
Clint Barton first decided he hated Bucky Barnes in Adelaide. He didn’t hate many people, but he’d been really looking forward to playing Barnes. (He’d been a little nervous about actually meeting Barnes, but he figured that was normal; who wouldn’t be anxious about meeting the youngest Grand Slam champion since Chang, who had that back hand and those thighs?) But neither his excitement nor his anxiety prepared him for the miserable reality of meeting his hero.
It was an unseasonably hot day, and Clint was already jet lagged and annoyed at the tournament organizers for scheduling his match for first thing on a Monday morning, when he’d landed less than 24 hours previously; after he lost his first match of the season in a seriously humiliating defeat, it was all Clint could do to make it off the court and into the showers before he allowed himself to shed a few tears of frustration.
The shower helped Clint pull himself together long enough to get back to his hotel room without sobbing, and his phone pinged cheerfully as he dumped his bags in the corner.
NAR: tough luck today, call me if you need to talk
“Hey, if I murdered Barnes, you’d help me hide the body, right?” Clint said instead of hello.
“And give you an alibi,” Nat replied instantly. Talking to her, Clint felt the tight knot of directionless rage in his chest start to uncurl for the first time since he’d landed in this godforsaken country.
“That’s why you’re the real GOAT,” Clint told her.
“Oh, I know,” Nat assured him. “Ok, so how are you doing really? Actually, more to the point, what the fuck happened in that third set?”
“Jesus, Nat, I have no fucking idea,” Clint whined, flopping back on the bed. “Fucking servebot. I was so out of my depth, it’s unreal. He was supposed to be an easy win, you know? He’s practically geriatric -”
“He’s thirty-two, Clint.”
“Yeah, exactly. And he’s coming back off surgery and rehab, and his game was for shit for at least a year before the injury anyway. I dunno, whatever his surgeon did to him really fucking worked, he’s got serious power now. He just outhit me today,” Clint grumbled.
“Ok, but you have -”
“Hey, can we not?” Clint asked suddenly. “Phil’s gonna do the whole debrief thing with me later, and you know Kate’s gonna want to do her post mortem too.”
“Sure, we can talk about whatever you want,” Nat said, so they chatted about Lego until Clint felt closer to normal than he had all day.
“Thanks for this,” Clint said as they wound up the call. “Can’t wait to see you in Melbourne.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get soppy. Call me if you need me? I’m not playing until Wednesday, I’ll answer any time before then.”
Clint said his goodbyes and hung up, then switched his phone to silent. He reached out and fiddled with the corner of the weirdly stiff hotel sheet, unwilling to remember how helpless he’d felt on court that morning. Barnes had been hitting so hard that he’d barely been able to return his shots. Clint’s accuracy had ended up taking all his ability to focus, and in the end, Barnes had simply fired serve after deadly serve at Clint while he couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch them whip past. The whole third set had felt uncomfortably like showing up for an exam for which he had not studied and had to take in the nude.
To add insult to (thankfully only metaphorical) injury, Barnes - after 2 and half hours on court, during which he had noticeably failed to display one single human emotion - had practically skipped to the net for the handshake. He’d actually looked like he was considering smiling for a moment there, but then it had turned into more of a snarl. Barnes had practically growled at Clint and ripped his hand away like Clint was infected or something, and dashed off like he couldn’t wait to get to his press conference.
Clint groaned and rolled over, burying his head in the pillows. It wasn’t like him to take a defeat this badly, but Barnes hadn’t just beaten him, he’d absolutely slaughtered him, and then he’d acted like a jerk. “What kind of asshole is a sore winner?” he muttered into his pillow, but it had no answers for him today.
April - Estoril Open
It took Clint until day four of Estoril to realize that he loved Portugal, and then it was immediately whisked away from him. He’d arrived feeling better than he had in months, having miraculously managed to remain injury-free for the entire year to date. Even better, he’d gotten his best ever results in the Sunshine Double, getting to the semis in both tournaments. Now he was in Estoril to start his clay season; it was his best surface, he was in great shape, and he’d flown through the opening rounds. Not even the prospect of facing Bucky Barnes in the quarterfinals the next day could put a dent in his mood.
Clint made his way to the practice courts, Kate’s GET PUMPED TENNIS BOY! playlist blasting in his headphones and his head full of Phil’s pre-practice breathing exercises and mantras. The sun was high in the cloudless blue sky, but a cool breeze sweeping in over the Atlantic kept the temperature down; all in all, it was the kind of day that could trick you into thinking life was pretty perfect, actually.
Phil was waiting for him on Practice Court 2, where he was deep in conversation with Bucky Barnes, which meant that Clint’s perfect day had only lasted the length of the walk from his hotel. Clint dumped his stuff on the empty bench and headed over to his coach, hoping his face was adequately conveying the full strength of the ‘what the fuck’ he was feeling, so that he didn’t have to say the words out loud. He’d faced Barnes twice more since Adelaide, in Montpellier and Marseilles. He’d lost both times; although neither time had been as crushing an emotional blow as their first match, Clint was still last in line to become Barnes’ number-one fan.
“Hey, Clint,” Phil greeted him cheerfully, his familiar unflappable disposition not giving away whether or not he knew how annoyed Clint was right now. “Change of plans, Lang’s abdominal tear is playing up, so Barnes has agreed to be your practice partner today.”
“Uh, ok, sure,” Clint said slowly. “Quick question, though, what the hell? Are you out of your damn mind?” Barnes snickered at that, oblivious to the glare Clint shot him. “And what about you, actually?” Clint added, turning to Barnes. “We have a match tomorrow, why would you practice with me today? No one does that, it’s ridiculous.”
Barnes dragged his eyes up and down Clint’s body before shrugging nonchalantly. “Just doing you a favor, buddy. I couldn’t help noticing you seem to have a bit of a problem beating me, figured it’d be a lot more interesting playing you tomorrow if you had half a chance of winning.”
“Wow, ok,” Clint said disbelievingly. “Hey, do you have to practice being that much of an asshole, or does that just come naturally?”
Annoyingly, Barnes just laughed at that. “Tell you what, you get a decent return on a single serve of mine today and you can call me an asshole as much as you like.”
“Bring it on, old man,” Clint said, resisting the urge to spit at Barnes’ feet. He turned on his heels and jogged to the far end of the court.
***
After half an hour or so of practicing with him, Clint was seriously considering revising the entire scale he’d been using to describe how much he hated Barnes.
“Stop trying to hit my aces!” Barnes yelled at him. “You can’t -'' With a sigh, Barnes cut himself off and jogged up to the net, waving for Clint to join him. Setting his jaw, Clint strolled over, making no effort whatsoever to hustle. “The fuck is your problem?”
“C’mon man, this is supposed to be a practice session, not a match!” Clint pointed out, strolling over as slowly as he could. “I’m sure non-stop aces is amazing practice for you, but it’s a waste of my time. We’ve been here thirty minutes and I’m barely warmed up.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted me to go easy on you. You want me to play with one arm tied behind my back tomorrow, too?”
“Yeah, if you could, that would be very helpful, actually,” Clint snipped back without thinking about it, and then nearly choked on his own spit when a huge grin broke out on Barnes’ face. He looked like a different person when he smiled, like the stone-faced asshole Clint was used to seeing on court had just needed one good joke to melt away entirely.
“Look, you can’t return most of my serves - don’t look like that, it’s not a personal failing or whatever, just a statement of fact,” Barnes said. “But that just means you gotta make the ones you can get back into play count for something, you know? You got the skills to beat me, but you gotta make sure you don’t think yourself out of it before you get the chance.”
Clint would rather have his internet search history made public than admit that what Barnes was saying made sense, so he just sighed dramatically and went back to the baseline. “Come on then, old man!” Clint called down the court, “show me that embarrassment that you call a serve again, if you can.”
There was absolutely no reason for Barnes’ answering laughter to feel as good as ice on a sprain, but Clint found himself tucking the sound away for further consideration at a later date.
***
Barnes beat him 6-4 7-5 in the quarterfinals, and had the audacity to pull him into a one-armed hug at the net instead of just shaking his hand.
“That was much better,” he murmured into Clint’s ear, low enough to avoid being picked up by the mics all around them, like he was whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a lover instead of bland commiserations to a colleague. “Next time, you’re gonna get me, I can feel it.”
Clint pulled away wordlessly and went to shake the umpire’s hand. He thought he saw something like disappointment flicker over Barnes’ features as he let go of him, but he must have been imagining it; either way, it was gone when Clint glanced back at him before striding off the court.
***
“Maybe it’s just one of those things,” Clint said morosely. He was Facetiming Nat, which in practice meant showing her three inches of his forehead while he lay very still in an ice bath and complained about as many things as he could fit into his mandated fifteen-minute whinging window. “Like the Djokovic-Vesely situation, you know. Maybe I’ll never be able to beat him, but that doesn’t mean I suck completely.”
“Of course you don’t suck completely,” Nat told him, and Clint knew she had to say that, because she was his best friend and mixed dubs partner, so it was in her best interests to stop him falling completely into the pits of his darkest despair. It was still nice to hear someone say it. “And you’ll beat him one day, you just have to get out of your own head. You start losing, and then you panic, and then you start spiraling. You beat yourself today, Barnes just happened to be on court while you did it.”
“Argghhhh,” Clint said, instead of thanking her for the precision of her insight. “That’s easy for you to say, you weren’t there when he looked at me like he -”
“No, nope, time’s up, thank god. No play-by-play on the minutiae of Barnes’ facial micro-expressions for you today,” Nat said, and despite Clint’s best wheedling, she held firm.
May - Italian Open
Barnes beat Clint 6-4 5-7 7(13)-6 in the second round in Rome, in a match lasting nearly four hours and finishing at 2AM. Clint shook his hand as quickly as he could without inadvertently creating fodder for one of those ‘bad sportsmanship’ compilations on YouTube, and packed his stuff up equally quickly. He waved at the twelve or so fans who’d stuck it out to the end, trying to muster up a weak smile for their efforts, before slouching his way off Pietrangeli.
Clint’s post-match routine tended to stay the same, even if he didn’t have another match sticking an actual deadline on his recovery. Kate was waiting for him by her massage table as usual, foam roller at the ready. She gave him a quick hug, squeezing him tight enough that he knew he hadn’t hidden his disappointment at the loss as well as he’d hoped, before sending him off to the locker room to shower before she pummeled him properly.
The water pressure in the showers was shit, but Clint was too dispirited to care; at this point, all he wanted was to get clean enough that it wouldn’t be gross for Kate to massage him, then get some food inside him before heading to his hotel room for an ice bath. He did not want to be joined in his shower cubicle by Bucky Barnes wearing nothing but a very skimpy white towel and an indecipherable expression on his stupid face.
“What the fuck?” Clint yelped, jumping back in alarm and slipping on the wet floor. Bucky reached out and caught him as he fell, pulling him upright and not-incidentally cradling him tight in his firm, muscular, Grand-Slam-winning arms.
“Careful there, Barton, you don’t wanna slip and break a bone,” Barnes said, sounding more amused than Clint had ever heard him sound before. “Trust me, rehab’s no joke,” he added, letting go of Clint slowly, after checking he wasn’t going to slip again.
“Yeah, I’ve been injured before, I know what - wait, no, we’re not having a goddamn chat about that. Why are you here? What the fuck are you doing?” Clint hissed at him. He didn’t think anyone else was in the locker rooms, but he wasn’t sure enough to risk being overheard.
“I’m here to ask you the same question,” Barnes told him, and the trace of amusement had fled as quickly as one of his serves. “What the fuck was that out there, huh?”
“I don’t - that was me losing. Again! You should be used to it by now, God knows I am.” Clint crossed his arms across his chest, resisting the urge to cover his nipples. “Although this part, where you track me down to gloat about it in the showers? That’s new. So I guess that’s another first for you, but if you wanna fuck off right about now, that’d be swell.”
“I’m not here to gloat, dipshit,” Barnes told him. “I’m - why haven’t you beaten me yet? You have all the tools. You’re fast and smart and you can hit the lines from anywhere on the court. You’re so accurate it’s freaky! Not to mention, you’re creative and you can think on your feet, and you’re not scared of winning. Why can’t you beat me, huh?” Barnes got more and more agitated as he spoke, so that by the end of his little speech he was practically spitting his words out like they tasted bad in his mouth.
Clint stared at him, surprised enough at his outburst to forget what a weird and uncomfortable situation he was in. “I don’t know, man, you’ve got a killer serve and you move a lot faster than you look like you can. Do you - do you want me to beat you?” For the briefest instant, Barnes’ eyes grew wide at that remark, before settling back into their customary glare.
“I don’t want you to - you get into a funk, when I beat you. It’s gonna take you weeks to level out again, and I don’t wanna see you throw away the next however-many tournaments because you lost, especially when you coulda won.”
“Oh my god, this is the weirdest pep talk ever,” Clint said faintly.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly plan it,” Barnes said defensively, his shoulders creeping up a little. “I just saw you coming in here and - I dunno, you frustrate me, Barton.”
“Ok, well, I have no idea what to do with that. Look, I don’t wanna be rude,” Clint said, and was surprised by how true that was, “but I stink, and I ache, and I really just wanna shower. Alone,” he added, and it wasn’t until Barnes had left that it occurred to him that maybe that last part wasn’t quite as true as all the rest of it.
***
Clint thought about trying to talk to Nat about the shower thing, but he had no idea where he’d even start. “Hey Nat, have you been accosted by one of your rivals while buck-naked? Or maybe that should be Bucky-naked.” Just the thought of explaining that made him cringe. And there was the part where he didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about it, let alone how he actually did feel about it.
It was probably some weird psychological trick, Clint decided. It was a pretty strange way of doing it, but he’d heard of older players doing even weirder things to psych each other out. Bucky was probably trying to mess with his head, get under his skin. That’s fine, Clint thought, he can come at me with his confusing pep talks and naked thighs. Doesn’t bother me.
July - Wimbledon Championships
Clint beat Bucky Barnes for the first time on a hot July afternoon on the No. 18 Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. He’d given up all hope of winning as soon as he’d seen the draw; not only was Barnes leading their head-to-head 5-0, grass was Clint’s least favorite surface and he’d struggled to find anything like his best form in Queen’s and Eastbourne, turning in performances so terrible that Nat told him it looked like he’d never played on the green stuff before. A sarcastic ‘good luck’ text from Barnes on the morning of their match didn’t do much to improve his hopes, either.
But despite his assumption that he would crash out of a tournament’s first round for the third time in as many weeks, Clint found himself with match point in less than two hours. Offering up a prayer to whatever god might be hanging around waiting to take pity on chaotic but well-meaning tennis players, he tossed the ball up and looked down the court as it fell. He picked his spot and let his arm glide smoothly through its service motion, just as it had thousands of times before.
Clint knew the shot was good the moment his racquet connected. The ball left his strings with a perfect twang; he watched it arc through the air, the neon yellow almost golden in the late afternoon sunlight, before it kissed the sideline and bounced out. Bucky ran after it, but Clint had found a wicked angle with his slice serve. Bucky had to pull up his run or risk tumbling headfirst over the sidings and into the laps of the first row (most of whom looked very disappointed when he didn’t).
The usual endorphins from a win were made a thousand times more potent by the relief of having finally outsmarted his nemesis; Clint felt that he was soaring higher than he ever had as he punched the air and roared with victory. He managed to calm down enough to jog over to the net for the handshake, but he couldn’t contain his joyous grin as he clasped Bucky’s hand. He looked up to say something, he had no idea what but surely something would occur in time, only to find his smile mirrored on Bucky’s face, wide and sincere.
“Congratulations, you figured it out,” Bucky said, sounding for all the world as if he really meant it. Clint didn’t know how to explain that he hadn’t actually figured anything out, that the win felt like as much of a fluke as everything else in his career, so he just nodded and let Bucky pull him into another hug before breaking away to punch him, encouragingly, on the shoulder.
***
“Well done, little hawk, you cracked the code,” Nat said. Clint groaned and threw a strawberry at her head, ignoring the dirty look that earned him from the staff in the player lounge.
“I cracked nothing. It could easily have gone the other way again,” Clint complained, opening his mouth so Nat could throw the strawberry back at him.
“Oh my god, you’re such a fucking disaster. Why are you my friend? More to the point, why are you my doubles partner?” Nat groused, but she had a smile on her face, so Clint didn’t need to start running away just yet. “But seriously, you haven’t worked it out yet, hmm? Interesting.”
“What? Why? What’s interesting?” Clint mumbled around a mouthful of strawberry, but Nat had started packing up her things.
“Never mind, I’m sure you’ll work it out eventually,” Nat said, with a half smile on her face that meant she was absolutely laughing at him on the inside, but in a fond way. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I have an interview with Mattek-Sands now.”
“Nat? Nat!” But the only answer she gave him was a kiss on the forehead and a promise that she’d see him for practice first thing in the morning.
***
Clint had chosen the speed-run version of his post-match recovery in order to meet Nat for dinner, which meant he had a rare evening to himself. He battled the hideous London traffic to get back to his hotel, only to realize that he had no idea what to do with himself. He was staring out the window wondering if he should text Kate and see if she wanted to do a little sightseeing, when a knock at the door dragged him out of his thoughts.
“Huh. Well, at least you’re fully-dressed this time,” Clint said (he regretted it immediately, but wasn’t that just the story of his life?). Bucky looked good, too, he thought, though maybe not better than he did naked. Then Clint immediately panicked that his thoughts were written all over his face. “Why, uh, why are you…” he asked quickly, trailing off into a vague gesture.
“Why am I dressed?’ Bucky asked, then grinned as Clint panicked even more. “Or why am I here?”
“Yeah, that. Clearly,” Clint added. Bucky shrugged.
“Well, I was supposed to spend the evening in an ice bath, going over my match plan for Batroc, but some jerk put me out of the tournament, so I’m kind of unexpectedly free tonight,” Bucky said. “Wanna go play tourist for a couple of hours?”
There probably wasn’t much Bucky could have said that would have surprised Clint more, short of announcing he was an alien from the planet Zvlorgolax. Clint stared at him awkwardly, then considered the alternative of spending an evening alone, spiraling about his upcoming match against Batroc, and shrugged.
“Sure, why not? I guess one evening won’t kill me.”
***
Clint let Bucky take the lead, partly because it had been his idea, partly because he was still playing catch up trying to figure out what was going on, and partly because Bucky had a way of walking that suggested he had some sort of plan in mind. They walked down the road to look at Big Ben, then crossed over the river and wandered along the South Bank.
Stopping at a food truck, Bucky bought them crêpes; cinnamon sugar for himself, and chocolate hazelnut for Clint. They sat on a bench and ate them overlooking the river. Clint found himself holding his breath when Bucky leaned over to wipe away a stray smear of Nutella, swiping his thumb across Clint’s lip before licking the chocolate off his thumb. Clint’s stomach flip-flopped pleasantly, and he felt his mouth hanging open as he watched Bucky’s tongue dart out.
“Is this a date?” Clint asked slowly. Half of his brain was busy playing back their last few interactions; the other half was still stuck on thoughts of Bucky’s tongue.
“Oh shit, I forgot they call you Hawkeye,” Bucky said, laughing. Clint didn’t mind it, he realized; it felt like the good kind of mocking, like Bucky knew him well enough to know what he could take. “Yeah, it’s a date. Is that ok?”
Clint shoved the end of the crêpe in his mouth and chewed slowly so he didn’t have to answer right away, but even that subtle tactic didn’t buy him enough time to come up with a decent answer. “But you hate me,” Clint said eventually. Bucky shrugged and gathered up their trash, tossing it into a can over his shoulder.
“I wasn’t your biggest fan in Australia, maybe,” Bucky admitted. “But I didn’t really hate you so much as get frustrated by you. There you were, smart and hot and quick, and you let me win so easily. It was like you didn’t care if you won or something.”
“I care plenty - wait, hang on, you thought I was hot?” Bucky snorted quietly.
“Yeah, gorgeous, it’s a big surprise that I think you’re hot,” Bucky said, lips curling up in a half-smile. Clint ducked his head, feeling his cheeks heat up, when something occurred to him.
“Wait. Hang on. Wait, so in Rome, in the shower - I thought you were trying to, I don’t know, psych me out or something.”
“Ah, no, I just saw you looking like you were gonna burst into tears right there in the changing room, and I dunno, I just wanted to make you feel better,” Bucky admitted. Clint hummed thoughtfully and figured anyone who’d do that deserved a little honesty in return.
“Ok, so. You remember Montpellier? When I lost the second set on that double fault?” Clint asked, looking at Bucky out of the corner of his eye. Bucky nodded slowly, brow furrowed in confusion. “I maybe-sorta got distracted by the way your shirt was clinging to your abs. You know, you were all sweaty and your shirt went see-through, and, uh. Well, it was a lot.”
“No kidding?” Bucky said. Clint risked a glance over at him; Bucky looked happier than Clint had seen him since the last time he’d won Roland-Garros, and twice as smug.
“Yeah, well. Just so we both know where we stand on the whole hotness situation,” Clint explained. He could feel Bucky shaking with laughter next to him. “Oh god. I take it back, you’re not even slightly hot and I don’t want to lick anything at all off your abs.”
“Oh damn, that’s such a shame,” Bucky said. “Gimme one more chance to convince you?”
When he kissed Clint, Bucky tasted of cinnamon sugar, sweet and spicy and perfect. Clint could feel the smile on his lips when he cradled Clint’s face and Clint melted into him with a shiver and a soft sigh.
“Oh, wow,” Bucky said when they came up for air. “I shoulda let you win months ago.”