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Clint opened the door to find a very bedraggled and miserable looking Bucky standing there with his arms wrapped around himself, dripping onto the doormat Kate had gifted him. It read, “HOLD ON I’m probably not wearing pants” and Clint absolutely loved it.
“What the hell happened to you?” The question burst out of Clint as he boggled at his boyfriend. He was not used to Bucky looking anything short of perfect. Mind you, Bucky himself might not agree that he looked perfect after he spent the night at Clint’s but Clint did — he found the mussed bedhead look adorable. Bucky, who was unfortunately (in Clint’s book) a morning person, usually made himself ‘presentable’ before Clint was awake, so Clint didn’t get to see it as often as he would have preferred. However, since Bucky was already out of bed he’d bring Clint coffee, which mostly made up for it.
‘C-can I c-come in?” Bucky forced out through chattering teeth.
“Oh shit! Yeah, yes, of course. Dude, get in here and warm up!” Clint exclaimed as if he hadn’t been the one blocking the door. Clint snagged Bucky’s elbow and herded him into the apartment.
Bucky let himself be dragged forward. As soon as Clint quit tugging he came to a standstill, eyes dazed as violent shivers wracked his body. Clint stared at him, taking in the soaked clothing and vacant look in Bucky’s eyes.
“How did you get so wet? Is it raining? Can it even rain right now? It’s like freezing out there.”
“N-not r-raining. W-went for a s-swim at the d-d-docks.” Bucky clacked his teeth shut when he finished speaking, as if worried he was going to bite his tongue.
“What the shit, Bucky? Christ, you gotta get outta those clothes, I think your lips are turning blue.” Clint finally surged back into motion, dragging Bucky with him to the bathroom. He left Bucky standing there with firm orders to strip. Clint ran down to the front door where he had left the laundry basket full of the only the towels he owned, glad he had remembered to bring it up from the basement laundry room.
“Bucky, come on, you gotta get outta those clothes,” Clint repeated, startled to see that Bucky hadn’t moved from where he had left him standing. Bucky hunched further into himself, eyes swimming in and out of focus; it dawned on Clint that Bucky was fighting off a dissociation episode — he did not handle being cold very well. Not that Clint blamed him after all that bullshit he went through with the cryochambers, but he needed Bucky to keep it together long enough to get situated. He could go to pieces once he was on the way to being warm.
Clint dropped the armful of towels onto the floor and began tugging at the wet fabric of Bucky’s shirt himself. It was only as he was pulling the shirt over Bucky’s head that he realized Bucky’s jacket was missing. Had he lost it during his swim? Clint knew there had to be a story there; Bucky hated being cold, but further questions would have to wait until he warmed his boyfriend up.
Once the long sleeved Henley had finally released its hold on Bucky’s upper body and been thrown into the shower, Clint started rubbing vigorously with one of the towels over his torso to get the rest of the moisture off. He briefly debated getting Bucky into the shower, use warm water to help bring him back up to temp but a glance at the listless expression on Bucky’s face convinced him that that wasn’t a safe choice.
Clint discarded the first towel on the floor and wrapped a fresh one around Bucky’s shoulders, then began to undo the fly of Bucky’s jeans. It was a struggle to get the wet fabric down over Bucky’s thick thighs and, for the first time, Clint cursed Bucky’s propensity for skinny jeans. He finally got them past Bucky’s knees, only to realize he’d forgotten Bucky’s footwear.
Clint pulled Bucky’s boots off as fast as he could; each shiver that wracked Bucky’s body while he worked felt like a failure on Clint’s part. He finally managed to strip the remaining wet garments from Bucky’s body and slung all of them to join the shirt in the shower. He would worry about cleaning up the sopping material later.
Clint rubbed a third towel roughly over Bucky’s lower body; not lingering over Bucky’s legs the way he usually would. Now that Bucky was mostly dry Clint shuffled him out of the bathroom to his bedroom.
“Let’s get some dry clothes on you,” Clint murmured, digging in through his drawers until he found some clean sweatpants, then grabbed a hooded sweatshirt from the top of the dresser where he had thrown it earlier that day. Bucky didn’t help much, still half out of it, as Clint essentially dressed him like a doll.
Clint grabbed a few items from his room and then guided Bucky down to the couch. He wrapped the large knobbly purple afghan he had fallen in love with at a thrift store around Bucky’s shoulders. He tenderly lifted Bucky’s feet one by one and pulled the thick fuzzy socks (a gag gift from Nat, patterned with Cupids) onto them. When Bucky’s feet were back on the floor, he tucked the bottom of the blanket around Bucky’s shins.
Clint moved to perch on the back of the couch, jostling Bucky forward slightly so he could use his last clean towel to dry Bucky’s hair. He gathered the long locks into the towel and squeezed gently to wring it out, then rubbed at Bucky’s scalp with a different, dry, section of the towel.
Once Bucky’s hair was as dry as Clint was going to get it without a blow-dryer — and he was pretty confident there wasn’t one in his apartment unless Katie-Kate had left one behind again — Clint dropped the towel to the floor and lowered himself onto the couch beside Bucky.
Clint unraveled the blanket, noting that while Bucky’s teeth had stopped chattering, fine tremors were still running through his body. He pulled Bucky into his lap and resituated the afghan over both of them. Clint loved the height difference between them, and used it to his full advantage to tuck Bucky’s head underneath his chin, rocking gently.
Bucky still wasn’t talking; Clint started babbling reassurances and promises to Bucky that probably only helped Clint’s anxiety — Bucky didn’t seem to be registering the words. Slowly the shaking stopped, as Bucky’s body warmed up in Clint’s embrace.
Clint kept talking, turning to inane subjects, letting Bucky’s mind come back to the present, the same way Bucky did for Clint after any particularly rough nightmare. When Clint felt new wetness on his collarbone he simply cradled Bucky tighter; he pressed a kiss into Bucky’s hair and continued murmuring nonsense.
Eventually Bucky drew in a shuddering breath and pulled away from Clint’s chest.
“I hate the cold,” he said, tiny flush on his cheekbones. Clint didn’t think Bucky had suddenly become overheated, and chalked it up to discomfort over his dissociative episode.
“You gonna tell me what happened?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Hey now, that’s my line,” Clint teased, pulling Bucky’s head back onto his chest. Bucky didn’t normally let Clint cuddle him like this, and he wasn’t ready to let go yet.
“Some teenager threw a dog into the water at the docks, so I jumped in to pull it out.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“Ran off before I could climb out. Same as the kid, which is lucky, otherwise I mighta thrown his punk ass in the water my damn self.”
“Wait, did you walk here from there? Bucky, that’s over two miles and it’s freezing out! What were you even doing over there?” Bucky mumbled something Clint wasn’t able to make out, and Clint suspected it wasn’t because of his aids. He poked Bucky none too gently in the ribs.
“I wanted to check out this store I heard about,” Bucky muttered louder. “Looking for a Christmas present for you, by the way. So really, this is your fault.”
“My fault,” Clint squawked with a laugh. “Sure, whatever makes you feel better.”
“I didn’t even make it to the damn store,” Bucky grumbled, but clearly he wasn’t too put out as he snuggled further into Clint’s embrace.
“My hero,” Clint laughed.