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“Clint!” Bucy’s voice hissed out where he had stopped walking towards Clint, and Clint froze even before hearing the command that followed, “Dont. Move.”
Clint had never heard that tone in Bucky’s voice, and it set his heart rabbiting in his chest. Only his eyes were moving, darting around the view directly in front of him, his chest barely rose and fell as he tried to keep his breaths shallow and silent.
Bucky’s eyes were intensely focused on a point behind his shoulder so he strained his ears, mentally cursing his aids for not being better, to catch some indication of what had spooked Bucky. A moment later he caught a low rumbling growl — more, he felt it resonating in his bones and ice trickled through his veins. Clint licked his lips and started to whisper a question to Bucky.
“Be quiet!” Bucky hissed as soon as Clint’s mouth fell open.
Clint wanted to complain that Bucky wasn’t following his own advice, but his voice refused to work. The growling ticked up a notch and he imagined he could feel the eyes boring into his back.
Clint knew they weren’t near any woods, and that the closest ones didn’t even host a werewolf pack. For one to be so far away from their preferred territory meant something was wrong, something had driven it out into the open, to attack. He briefly wondered if werewolves could get rabies — an unprovoked attack was unheard of and Clint didn’t think he had been doing anything to provoke anyone for a change.
“Clint. I want you to move to me, slow, okay? Real slow.” Bucky stretched one hand towards Clint, as if ready to snag him when he got close enough. His other hand held a gun; Clint hadn’t even seen him draw it. Clint shifted forward, barely lifting his foot enough to clear the ground and swing it forward. A snarl tore through the air before he’d made it a full step and he immediately resumed his best impression of a statue.
Bucky’s eyes were wide with fresh panic, still locked on the ‘wolf behind Clint. The growl had quieted back to its previous intensity but Clint didn’t feel any better for it. Clint watched Bucky clamp his lower lip between his teeth and dread flooded his body — Bucky never lost his cool or displayed nerves like that.
Unable to help himself, Clint’s head swiveled to see the figure behind him. He barely got a glimpse of the half-shifted werewolf crouched, poised to leap, before movement exploded around him.
“Run!” Bucky yelled at the same time he pelted forward. He couldn’t fire his gun with Clint directly in the way and rushed to close the distance so he could get into a position where he could shoot the thing. The beast lunged towards Clint, who did his best to get out of the way but there was no helping it. The preternatural creature was already on top of him.
Clint let the were’s weight carry him down into a fetal position on the sidewalk in a futile attempt to protect his belly. He tucked his chin and pulled his shoulders up to his ears, pain ripping through his body as claw-tipped hands scored his flesh and teeth buried into the meat of his shoulder.
Now that Clint wasn’t blocking the ‘wolf Bucky unloaded his gun into the beast while still running towards him. Clint knew Bucky didn’t have silver bullets, but that wasn’t actually required if you did enough damage. The body collapsed on him, claws still twisted in Clint’s sides. Bucky skidded into them and wrenched the form off of Clint, tossing it across the street.
Clint couldn’t suppress a yell as the claws were torn from him.
“Clint! Clint! God, Clint, are you okay?” Bucky’s hands were everywhere, trying to figure out where to press to stop the bleed, but the bleeds were all over.
Clint tried to answer but his vision tunneled, and he was out.