Chapter Text
Clint and Bucky never had a traditional Christmas. Bucky was either in cryo or on a mission… Even in the 40’s, his family didn’t celebrate Christmas like everyone else. They would go to church and exchange a couple gifts but it was so different from Christmas today.
Clint was either in the circus, where they didn’t celebrate it, or he was on the run, celebrating it in a bar in New York City. Before he was an Avenger he was actually a criminal so it was difficult to celebrate a holiday when you were wanted…
This was the first year that they were both in better places and could actually celebrate this holiday like they wanted… But neither knew how to. Both had never had a proper Christmas that they could replicate. Both had always skipped Christmas. This year, the whole team was pushing them to actually do something. They had been together since the beginning of the year so everyone wanted them to enjoy this together.
Bucky had talked to Steve about it and had received a list from the whole team, apparently, about what to do. Some were date ideas, presumably from Natasha, some were Christmas traditions, and some were things that Clint and Bucky should do. The list was something that Bucky now treasured.
The first thing on the list was to decorate their apartment. Clint was actually very excited about this so he had gone and cleaned the apartment while Bucky slept.
“Clint, what did you do?” The brunet muttered groggily as he walked into their living room. The archer poked his head out of the kitchen, a shit eating grin on his lips. “I cleaned, what does it look like I did?” James scowled. “You never cleaned… What is up?” He asked a little hesitantly as he made his way towards the blond.
Clint turned towards the stove and flipped what looked like a pancake over. James frowned and poked his lover’s back. “What are you doing?” The archer chuckled and turned around to plant a kiss on his lips. “We are decorating today and I wanted everything to be clean! We can’t have a dirty apartment while we are decorating!” Bucky only let out a chuckle before pulling his boyfriend into another kiss. “You are an idiot.”
After a very nice breakfast, they went out and bought as many lights and decorations as they could possibly carry. Clint had complained when their basket had gotten full. He had wanted to get the snowman dog! Bucky just rolled his eyes and kept walking. Eventually, the archer caught up with him.
When they got back, Clint immediately started to pull things out of bags and place them around the apartment. The mistletoe went above their bedroom door, there was tinsel around their couch, and there was a snow globe on their mantle. They hung up rainbow lights around the entire apartment, in the kitchen, their room, the living room, and even the bathroom. It was festive all around!
Once they were done, Bucky ended up crashing on the couch. He fell onto his back and immediately groaned. Okay, he sat on some left over lights. That hurt. He removed them from underneath him and set them on the ground next to him. Bucky stayed like that for a few minutes before he felt someone sitting next to him. Without even opening his eyes, he reached out and grabbed a hand with his real hand. Clint relaxed into the couch and threaded their fingers together, letting out a happy sigh.
“Buck? Are you gonna kill me if I say something is missing?” The soldier finally looked up at his lover, a frown on his lips. “Missing? Clint, we basically bought everything at that damn store… And we are not going back for that damn dog.” The archer chuckled, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s not that! I just feel like there is supposed to be something else here…” Bucky groaned and sat up, making sure to keep his hand in Clint’s. He looked around and surprisingly, Clint was right. “Yeah, something is missing… But what?”
“Go get your list. See if there is something on there.” Clint glanced around the apartment again, trying to figure out what was missing. He had seen so many pictures of pretty decorations and how your home was supposed to look but this just wasn’t complete. They had the tinsel, the lights, the mistletoes, and even stockings! Bucky got up and grabbed the list from the coffee table. “Let’s see… Decorations.” He started listing off the different things that the team had included.
“Mistletoe, with a winky face next to it. Stockings. Lights. A tree. Mistletoe. Cand-” Clint sat straight up. “That’s it! We are missing a tree, Buck.” James looked up and sure enough, there was no tree in sight. Had they really forgotten the most important part? They had even gotten ornaments for the thing! Bucky only laughed and rubbed his face. Of course they had forgotten the tree.
The archer stood up and started pulling on Bucky’s arm. “Come on! We gotta go get a tree, Buck.” Bucky had never seen Clint this energetic on their days off. It was obvious this was important to him so who was Bucky to say no? The soldier stood up with a sigh and started walking towards the door. “Come on, let’s go get a tree.” And back to the store they went.
Or at least, Bucky thought that was where they were going.
Instead, Clint hailed them a taxi and told the driver exactly where to go and it wasn’t the store Bucky thought they were going to. Confused, Bucky looked over at Clint. “Where are we going?” The archer only smirked and planted a kiss to the other’s lips. “To get a tree, idiot.” Bucky couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips. Okay, so they were both idiots… “But we aren’t going to the store.” Clint shook his head. “’Course not. That’s not where you go to buy a tree. Stark told me of a really great place earlier when we were over.”
Bucky just sat back and enjoyed the ride, watching out his window as the city went rolling by. Soon enough, the buildings started to disappear. Fields were appearing and spreading across the horizon. How long had they been driving? Bucky turned back to face Clint who had a big grin on his face. He looked so silly and Bucky loved it.
It only took them a few more minutes before they reached their destination. It was a greenhouse type place. There were quite a few trees lined up beside it, hanging from the structure. It looked pretty cool, if Bucky had to be honest. He saw Clint get out of the car and quickly followed. As soon as he opened the door and stepped out he was greeted with the scent of pine and he fell in love. Bucky shut the door and walked over to the hanging trees.
Clint was already looking around, trying to pick which one would be best in their apartment. Bucky walked up to the first one he saw, his real hand immediately reaching out to grab the small branches. It kinda hurt to touch it but he found he quite enjoyed it. It was comforting in some odd way. He looked the tree up and down. It was full, tall, and pretty wide… It would be perfect in their place.
“This one.” Bucky spoke up. Clint peeked around another tree to glance at the one Bucky had picked out. The archer walked up to the tree, the smile returning to his lips. “Bucky, it is perfect.” He chuckled and pulled at the tag so he could bring it up to the register. Bucky stayed by the tree, almost guarding it from other people. This was their tree and no one could take it away from them now.
It didn’t take long before Clint returned with the ticket in his hand. “It’s ours! Let’s take it home, Buck.” For the first time that day, Bucky actually felt like crying. He had no idea why. He shouldn’t want to cry over a damn tree, but here he was. He grabbed the tree and started dragging it towards the taxi. The driver seemed pretty excited as well. Maybe this was the first time he had taken an actual tree back to New York.
Needless to say, it took them awhile to actually get the tree secured onto the taxi but once it was on, it was on for the whole drive home. The driver actually started talking to them on their way back. Turns out, he had never had a tree on the top of his car and he was pretty damn excited about it. No one gets real trees in New York anymore as they are too expensive and just die at the end of the holiday. Bucky and Clint didn’t care… They had their tree.
Once they got back to the apartment, the driver helped them take it up the stairs and even stayed to help set it up. They cut off a few of the bottom branches and trimmed a little off the trunk so it would sit easily. All three of them put it in the stand together and made sure that it would stay upright. After about 10 minutes, they were all pretty sure it was going to stay in place. The driver left after receiving a generous tip, most of which he left by the door as setting up the tree was a good enough tip, and Bucky and Clint were left alone.
Bucky sat back down on the couch and let out a sigh. Clint was still standing by the tree but when he heard Bucky sit, he snapped his head over to face him. “Nu-uh. Get your ass up, we gotta decorate it now.” Bucky only groaned and closed his eyes. This wasn’t fair. He had been up since who knows when and had done nothing but decorate today.
“Please?”
Bucky opened his eyes but didn’t dare turn them towards Clint. The archer sounded so broken, it actually hurt Bucky to hear him begging like that. “Please, Bucky?” He asked again. The soldier bit his bottom lip before letting out a sigh. “Okay, okay. We can decorate the tree.” He looked up just in time to see Clint’s expression change from completely heartbroken to excited. Bucky never wanted to see that look on his face again.
They spent about an hour putting lights and ornaments on their tree. The whole apartment smelled of pine now and Bucky loved it. Once they were done, they both ended up crashing on the couch. They admired their work. “I love it.” Clint finally said after a moment of silence. It had a bunch of decorations on it but it was obviously their tree. Clint had managed to sneak a couple pizza ornaments into the tree and even one of a bow and arrow. Where he had found that, Bucky had no idea. There were a couple ornaments that Bucky had picked out, like the Captain America shield from back in the day, a couple older things, and finally a sniper rifle ornament. Again, he had no idea but it was there.
“It is perfect Clint.” He said as he wrapped an arm around his lover. Clint immediately snuggled up to him, burying his face in the other’s neck. Bucky smiled, placing a kiss on the top of his head. “Can we do this every year?” Clint mumbled. It was obvious he was tired. “Of course we can.”
They stayed like that for about an hour before Bucky finally moved slightly. Clint had managed to fall asleep on Bucky so he picked him up and took him to the bedroom. He stopped for a moment to press a kiss to his forehead. Mistletoe, he couldn’t ignore it. James placed Clint on the bed before crawling in next to him. He pressed another kiss to his forehead before curling up with his arms around his lover’s waist.
“Merry Christmas. I love you, Clint.”