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Clint looked up from his mug of lukewarm coffee that he had forgotten to drink until now and watched the leather-clad figure stalk across his living room offering nothing more than a head nod as he passed and went to what used to be the guest room. It hadn’t been the guest room for at least two months at this point if Clint had to put a timestamp on it and he couldn’t remember ever consenting to that change.
The door closed behind Bucky and Clint sipped his coffee and stared down at the crossword he had been doing from last week’s paper. He still liked to go out and get a paper when he could find one. Too much screen time wasn’t good for his eyes and with his hearing shot and general attitude about life not ever having been the best, his vision and what it did for his aim was really all he had going for him.
And besides, he found it relaxing and it gave him the little bit of mental stimulation he needed on his bad days to keep his brain from atrophying from lack of use.
The door opened again and Bucky came out in black sweatpants and a black t-shirt because, as Clint had slowly realized, he rarely wore any other color. He came into the kitchen, briefly stopping to pet Lucky’s head as he opened a cabinet and began preparing a meal.
“Can I get some of whatever that will be?” Clint asked.
“Yeah. Have you eaten today?”
“Nope.”
Bucky’s movements stilled and he offered up what would have been a withering look if directed at anyone else but Clint had survived a lifetime of disappointing people and also friendship with Natasha, so very little rattled him.
“Clint. It’s 3PM. How many coffees have you had?”
“Just this one. Made it, forgot about it, drinking it now.”
“When did you wake up?” Bucky asked, going back to what he was doing. If Clint had to wager a guess, he’d say that Bucky was making soup but he’d been wrong before. In any case, he was a surprisingly good cook so Clint didn’t care what it ended up being.
“Mm, about an hour ago.”
Another unimpressed look at Clint deflected easily by raising his mug until he couldn’t see anything but it and the ceiling.
Clint functioned. He could do what he needed when people needed him to. He could even on occasion save the world but those days in between the world-saving and the top secret missions were actually the toughest battles he fought nowadays.
Clint shrugged, staring into his empty mug at the few coffee grains that had managed to slip through the filter.
“It’s my day off and Kate took Lucky for a walk. No reason to get up any earlier.”
Bucky just hummed and continued what he was doing, chopping leeks and potatoes while onions and garlic cooked in a pot and filled the apartment with a mouth-watering aroma. Clint’s stomach growled audibly and he kept his focus on his mug instead of subjecting himself to yet another pointed look from his self-appointed roommate.
See, eight months ago, Clint met Bucky Barnes for the first time. He had heard about him plenty of times from Natasha and Steve, even Sam had put in a good word for him. He’d seen him from afar the few times the assassin had assisted the Avengers but he’d never spoken to him.
Since Clint didn’t live at Avengers Tower like the others - he liked his shitty apartment in BedStuy and all the personalities that came with the building - he never really got the chance the others did to interact with him whenever Barnes visited Steve or whoever.
It had been a few years since he’d been discovered and deprogrammed and was a legitimate good guy again and Clint had no issue with him but that didn’t mean it wasn’t surprising going on worrying as hell the first time he came home to find a battered Winter Soldier on his fire escape knocking on the window like something out of a Stephen King novel.
He’d let him in, recognizing a mission gone wrong, stitched him up as well as he could while they exchanged introductions and the like. Then Clint offered him what little he had to eat and drink. It was embarrassing at the time. Natasha was so used to Clint’s inability to take care of himself despite going above and beyond for others and so had stopped commenting or even reacting unless it was truly bad.
Barnes, however, was not accustomed to it and he made that very clear.
“This is all you have?”
“Sorry. Didn’t get the chance to do my shopping this week.”
“This... This isn’t even a meal. This is two end pieces of bread and a yogurt that’s actually three days past expiry. What are you going to eat?”
Clint remembered the burn of the embarrassment on his face and how hard it had been to make eye contact. Bucky was taking all the things that Clint had finally gotten Natasha to stop bringing up and put them in the middle of the room for them to stare at. Clint had nowhere to go and Bucky was waiting for an answer.
At the time, he had felt his stupid, shitty brain begging to shut down. Begging him to crack a joke or play it off like nothing at all and get Bucky out of his home as quickly as possible but Barnes hadn’t let that happen.
Instead, he took out his phone and opened a food delivery app, asking Clint for the exact address and apartment number.
A part of Clint wanted to ask how he had found the place if he didn’t even know that but he later found out that Barnes had trailed him once after he left Avengers Tower. He was surprised to find out that Clint didn’t live there and wanted to know what he was giving it up for.
It turned out that Barnes had also turned down several invitations to stay there. Their reasons differed slightly but for the most part overlapped in one important way: they needed a space where they could feel at ease.
Where they wouldn’t feel watched or expected to keep to a certain standard of behavior. A place where paparazzi wouldn’t be waiting to catch them at their worst and sell it for the highest price. A place where they could be normal people, not superheroes, not spies.
Just Clint. Just Bucky.
After Bucky ordered food for them, they ate in silence on opposite ends of Clint’s couch. When Barnes was done, he told Clint to “go to the fucking grocery store” and left.
Clint didn’t see him again for three weeks.
And he didn’t think much of it until Bucky showed up again but this time at the door instead of the fire escape. And he came with takeout. Burritos to be precise.
Clint had just come back from a two week-long mission in Cambodia and been home for all of two days when Barnes showed up with bags of food that smelled so good to Clint’s exhausted, starving self that he almost reached out and snatched the bags from him.
He invited him in without hesitation and again they ate on the couch but this time with a movie playing in the background, whatever Clint had been tiredly staring at prior to Bucky’s arrival.
When they were done, Bucky cleaned up and then went to the fridge and checked it. At the time, Clint didn’t really think that was what was happening but now he knew it was. Bucky opened it and looked inside, checked the expiration dates on things - some ended up being tossed out - and also checked all of the fresh produce for rotting or mold and then closed it again.
“Gonna leave this here.”
“Why? Don’t you want it? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Bucky said, talking about the bag of groceries he had pulled from his backpack.
He never gave Clint a reason why he didn’t want it and once Clint had finally given in and accepted the bag of food, Bucky grabbed his backpack and left.
Things continued like that for the next two months. Bucky would show up more and more often and always with food and drinks - bottles of water and maybe a beer or two - and he’d spend longer and longer with Clint.
They finally started talking while they ate. Bucky met Lucky who spent a lot of time with Kate, Clint’s neighbor and protégé from two floors down. They found out they had things in common besides the obvious ones like crime-fighting and such.
They both loved baseball, pizza from Lombardi’s, shitty sci-fi movies, and a handful of other things. When Clint wasn’t in his worst slumps, he even often made Bucky laugh. And as much as Clint questioned and even resented Bucky’s visits in the beginning—viewing them as patronizing and pitying—he found that he thoroughly enjoyed Bucky’s company.
Bucky was mean and sarcastic and tolerated no bullshit, which was everything Clint loved about Natasha too but also what he needed in a friend. Not to mention Bucky had a pretty quick sense of humor that had elicited more snorts from Clint than he cared to count.
Around the four month mark, Bucky would come every Friday without fail unless he was away on a mission and stay until Sunday night using the guest room. He had spare items at Clint’s place and he had started cooking for them instead of always ordering out.
Month five was longer stints. He even managed to get Clint out for jogs in the early morning some days and they grocery shopped together. Bucky was given a key because Clint couldn’t “be bothered to always get up and let your ass in.” Bucky had just smiled knowingly and accepted it while Clint rolled his eyes and tried not to think about how worried he had been that Bucky would say no.
Towards the end of the first week of month six was when Clint finally clocked that Bucky only left to do things, not to go back home. The guest room had been filled with the few possessions Bucky owned and they had even already fallen into an easy daily routine.
“That’s got to simmer for forty minutes. Find us a movie. I’m gonna shower.” Bucky turned to leave the kitchen and then paused, looked at Clint and then seemed to change his mind and keep going to his room.
“Okay,” Clint called, getting up and grabbing the remote to start searching.
Clint wasn’t sure if it was because it had happened so gradually or because they just worked so well together but waking up one morning to realize that he and Bucky now lived together hadn’t even phased him. It just felt right. Like there wasn’t ever another way this could go.
Clint hadn’t yet asked Bucky exactly why he moved in but he also wasn’t sure he would. The answer wouldn’t change anything and he was fairly sure he knew why. He had talked to Natasha about it after she commented on Clint’s healthier-looking appearance after weeks of homecooked meals from Bucky.
“He… lives with you. Since when?” Natasha asked.
Clint shrugged. “Dunno. Couple weeks or so, maybe more.”
Natasha frowned, obviously not understanding that answer but deciding not to dwell on it. “Hm, okay. Why?”
“Also dunno.”
“You didn’t ask him to?”
Clint shook his head.
“Did he ask you?”
Another head shake.
“Alright,” Natasha said, shaking her own head, “I’m confused.”
“You know exactly how much I know. I can’t help you, I'm afraid.”
She thought about it for a second, her ever-analytical gaze sweeping over Clint and when she reached his face again, Clint waved and her smile and eyes softened.
“Suppose it makes sense.”
“What does?”
“The blond he used to care for doesn’t need him anymore, so he found another who does.”
Clint had considered being offended by that at the time. He didn’t need anyone taking care of him. He was a grown ass man who had saved the planet a handful of times. He didn’t need his hand held.
But then he thought about the flip side of it. The way Bucky hadn’t even hesitated to do what he was doing now. The way he seemed to cheer up once Clint finally stopped fighting against his attempts to look after Clint. That was when Bucky started hanging around more and for longer periods. That was when they started talking. When Bucky relaxed.
So maybe just maybe Bucky needed to feel helpful just as much as Clint needed to be helped.
“‘Mega Moth vs Antzilla’?” Clint asked when Bucky came out of the shower, having stopped on the first terrible movie he found that they hadn’t watched yet.
Bucky was pulling his damp hair into a bun and glanced over at the tv and smiled softly, “You know it.”