Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

These stories are pieces that never found a place in the main work or were thought up after the fact. While I do have some of these already in mind, if there is anything you as readers would like to see, feel free to make a suggestion in the comments. Like most authors, I appreciate your feedback and am happy to take suggestions on how to improve or what to do next.

For this collection, I will keep an updated list of each one shot here, along with a quick summary and some basic warning tags. Please let me know if there is anything else I should tag.

Stories will be posted in no particular order, though I will try to note when in the general timeline they occur.

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1. Table of Contents

2. Just The Way You Are - Bucky/Steve, coffee shop, meet-cute, fluff, post-Speaking Up, rated G

Natasha knows a guy at work, and Clint thinks maybe Bucky knows him, too. The two hatch a plot to get them to reconnect.

3. Hound Dog - Clint & Bucky & Matt & Foggy & Natasha, friendship, within Speaking Up, rated G

Clint shows off a less-than-useful skill.

4. Some Nights - Bucky, Rebecca, OMCs, PTSD, angst, flashbacks, anxiety attack, pre-Speaking Up, rated T

Bucky tries to recover from his war injury at his sister's home, but things only seem to be getting worse.

5. You'll Be Okay - Clint & Bucky, talking, angst, failure to go to therapy, within Speaking Up, rated G

And because Bucky didn't tell the truth before, he does it now.

Chapter Text

When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change, ‘cause you’re amazing just the way you are.

"Just the Way You Are," Bruno Mars

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Natasha walked into work two minutes early holding a cup of very strong coffee. She wandered past the mailboxes on the way to her desk, passing right next to Steve’s desk. She could practically see the moment he smelled the coffee from the way his back straightened. Ignoring him, she went to her desk, slid into her chair, and started logging in to her computer.

“Three...two...one…” she whispered to herself.

“Hey, Tasha.” Steve leaned across the top of the partition between the cubicles. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” she said. “How have you been?”

“I’m all right. Working on my application for Wonder Comics...I was up late last night trying to get my pages complete.”

“Oh yeah?” You’re not subtle, Steve, she refrained from saying.

“Yeah. I’m pretty pooped today.” He was eyeballing her coffee. She finally decided to take pity on him. Steve could dance around a subject for hours.

“I know this pretty good place for coffee. It’s better than the stuff they have here, anyway. But it’s out in Brooklyn.”

“Really? That’s actually where I live! Where’s it at?”

Natasha smiled, long and slow. “It’s up on Tompkins. That’s actually where I got this from. It’s a nice place. The baristas there are always great. I’ve actually gone there a few times to just sit and do some of my work. It’s a good environment to hang out at after work.”

“That sounds great! I’ll have to check it out. Shoot me the name and I’ll stop by there today. I’m not sure I could make it without having some caffeine in me.”

She sighed again. “Do you want some of my coffee, Steve?” she asked.

“No, that would be, I mean, it’s your coffee--”

She thrust the cup into his hands. She didn’t like coffee, anyway.

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Bucky was already at home when Clint got back from work. He was cooking up dinner for them again, something about Clint’s cooking being too close to college food to be actually edible.

“Hey,” Clint said, super casual. “So how was work today?”

“Fine,” Bucky said with a shrug. “Try this.” He held out a spoon of food.

Clint took it and blew for a moment. “Nothing fun happened today? Come on, you’ve gotta have at least one story for me.”

“Nope. How’s the sauce?”

“It’s good. A little spicy. Woah, never mind, a lot spicy. Good grief, did you add an entire habanero in there?” Clint dove for the fridge. “Dammit, I told you no more skim milk!”

“Oh. Sorry. I guess I forgot.”

Clint drank straight from the jug, glaring at Bucky the whole time. Bucky just continued cooking, but a slight flush was crawling up the back of his neck.

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When Natasha showed up at work the next day, Steve was nursing a large coffee from Starbucks.

“What happened? Didn’t like the place I suggested?”

“It was fine,” Steve said with a shrug.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, well. I got a little flustered. Um.” Steve’s neck flushed red.

“Oh?” Natasha said with a knowing grin. She leaned her chin on her hand. “What happened?”

“Well, um. You know all the people who work there, right? You said you go there a lot?”

“I know just about everyone, yeah.”

“The guy who took my order, I think his nametag said James? He was, um.”

“Insanely hot?”

Steve turned cherry red. “I didn’t say that.”

“It’s okay. You’d have to be blind not to notice.”

“Yeah. Well. Thing was, he kept staring at me, like he was trying to figure out something about me. It was a little weird. Is he always like that?”

“He’s a little strange. You talk to him at all?”

“Not much. He just kind of took my order and that was it.”

Natasha nodded. “Well, if you want to talk to him more, you’ve got plenty of opportunity. You know where he works.”

“Yeah. Well. Thanks.” Steve went back to his seat. He took a sip of the Starbucks coffee, grimaced, and threw the whole thing out.

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It had been a month of Clint asking how things went at work. A month of being told “it’s fine” and getting no hint of anything else other than a slight flush along Bucky’s neck. He decided to try something a little different.

He took Bucky to a bar.

Here was the thing about Bucky Barnes. When he was sober, he was as tight-lipped as an oyster. But once he had about three drinks in him, he started opening up, feeling a little more talkative. And after five drinks--exactly five, every time--he started talking about Steve.

Little Stevie Rogers from Brooklyn, Bucky’s old friend and very obviously his first crush, a skinny little kid with asthma and a heart murmur and a sick mom who just kept getting sicker until she couldn’t take care of her son anymore and he ended up in foster care, and Bucky always regretted not keeping in touch with the little punk. That kid was always getting into trouble, what would he do without someone to look out for him…

But on this particular night at the bar, they hit five drinks and Bucky remained completely tight-lipped about a particular blond-haired blue-eyed mischief maker from the city. Clint tried another drink, but there was still nothing, except for him starting to sing a Bruno Mars song. Which could only mean one thing.

Bucky knew. And was doing nothing.

That night, while walking Bucky home, Clint decided it might be time for more drastic measures.

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“You ever end up talking to James?” Natasha asked Steve.

Steve turned red as a tomato. “Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “The barista at the coffee shop. The totally hot one that you have been crushing on for over a month now without actually doing anything about it.”

“That’s not,” Steve spluttered, while still blushing at full steam. “I don’t…”

“You should just ask him out.”

“Well, maybe I will,” Steve said.

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “I bet you a buck you won’t.”

And true to form, Steve wouldn’t back down from a challenge. “You’re on. I’ll do it after work today.” He went back to his desk, humming a bit under his breath.

Natasha smiled and turned back to her computer. Under the desk, she pulled out her phone and started to text.

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Clint timed his arrival carefully. He left the house at exactly seven minutes to three, walking in the doors to the coffee place at exactly three nineteen. He’d even prepared his order.

Bucky looked up when the door opened and groaned. “What do you want?” he asked brusquely.

“Is that any way to treat a friend and a customer?” Clint asked.

“When it’s you? Yes.”

“Well I’m actually here for a coffee. So ha. I’d like a tall salted caramel macchiato frappuccino.”

“That’s not even a thing, especially not here,” Bucky said. Then the song on the radio changed, and the blood drained from Bucky’s face. He looked past Clint’s shoulder to the door, which had just opened. Bucky quickly wiped the terror off his face and turned back to Clint. His face was perfectly neutral.

“Did I ask for your sass? Just make me my drink!” Clint stood there, arms crossed against his chest, tapping his foot impatiently.

Bucky frowned and typed something into the computer. “All right, that’ll be four twenty-nine.”

Clint held out a hand full of loose change. “That should all be there,” he said, stepping away.

Bucky was forced to take the handful of change in his right hand and set it on the table to count it out. He pulled out all the quarters ($2.25), all the dimes ($0.60), all the nickels ($0.85), and finally the pennies ($0.34).

“Come on, it’s all there. Don’t you just trust me?”

Bucky glared up at Clint and continued counting.

“This is taking forever. Can’t you hurry it up?” Clint groused again. He heard a small grunt from behind him. Clint felt his mouth twitch, but he forced himself to keep from grinning.

“You’re twenty cents short,” Bucky announced.

“What? That’s impossible!”

“Would you like me to count it again?” Bucky growled.

The person behind Clint in line coughed lightly. Clint sighed and dug around in his pocket for the two remaining dimes. “Here,” he said. He shuffled to the side and finally permitted himself a chance to look at the person who’d come in behind him.

The guy was tall (not quite as tall as Clint), blond (even blonder than Clint), and muscular (mostly more so than Clint, except in the arms). Clint could tell with a glance that he was angry, and he leaned in close to whisper something to Bucky as he ordered. Bucky, in his turn, flushed bright red up the back of his neck and onto the tips of his ears, but otherwise didn’t respond except to shake his head and say something quietly in response.

Jackpot.

Clint waited for his drink to arrive. “Tall salted caramel macchiato!” the other barista on duty called out. Clint took the drink, frowned at it, and marched back up to Bucky.

“You call this a tall?” he asked. “This is only tall the way you are. Not at all.” Clint nearly winced at his own bad joke but covered by taking a sip of the drink and gagging on it dramatically. “What the hell kind of a drink is this?”

“That would be a tall salted caramel macchiato frappuccino,” Bucky said slowly.

“This is disgusting. Do you honestly think I ordered this?”

“Hey.” Finally! Big and tall and blonder-than-Clint came over from where he’d been standing in the corner and glaring. “You wanna shut up?” he said.

“Who the hell are you?” Clint stood up to his full height and oh thank god he still had an inch on the man. He stepped forward and turned to face Bucky, letting blonde-and-buff fall in between Clint and the counter.

“I’m just a customer here, like you. And I think you should apologize.”

Clint spotted Bucky past the new guy’s shoulder. Bucky was glaring, and his entire face was flushing red.

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“He’s just trying to help you, and you’re being kind of an asshole. I think maybe you should leave.” Then came the glare, and when it was only a couple inches away and accompanied by all that muscle (and those startlingly cold blue eyes), it was much more intimidating.

Clint held the staring contest as long as he could before leaning away to look at Bucky. “Sheesh, Bucky,” he said loudly, “you didn’t tell me how protective this guy was.”

Bucky froze. Clint watched the expressions flit across his face, from embarrassed to furious to terrified and right back to gonna-kill-a-man-specifically-one-named-Clinton-Francis-Barton.

Meanwhile, blonde and bodacious was slowly turning to look at the red and fuming one-armed barista behind the counter.

“…Bucky?” he said slowly.

Clint stepped forward to stand next to him. He took a sip of his coffee, instantly regretted the decision (who puts all that sugar in their coffee? It’s just not natural), and said “Jeez, Buck. You spend all this time talking about the man but you never told him your name?”

“I don’t—you—I—“ Bucky spluttered.

“You talk about me?” blondie said quietly.

“Well not about you, per se, or at least not the you who comes in to get coffee every afternoon, but little Stevie Rogers from Brooklyn? Hoo boy have I heard stories about him.” Then Clint went the step too far and leaned over, resting his elbow on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve’s head flew around to look at Clint. That glare was still in full effect. Clint put his hands up in surrender.

“You know what?” he said, backing out the door, “I can see that you two have a lot to catch up on. I’ll just be the next county over. I’m sorry, did I say county? I meant country. See you in Portugal.” And with that he was out the door.

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Steve walked in to work the next morning, smiling like the cat that got the cream.

“Did you talk to him?” Natasha asked.

“I did,” Steve said. “And actually, he’s an old friend of mine. I didn’t recognize him at first, but then someone who knew him showed up and called him by his old nickname, and we got to talking, and now I’ve got a date for Friday night.” His smile was extremely smug, and he held out a hand.

“What?” she said, looking down at his hand.

“You bet me a dollar I wouldn’t ask him out,” Steve said.

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did!”

“I bet you a Buck. And you got him.”

Steve looked confused for a second, then it cleared and his eyes widened in surprise and narrowed in anger. It was the quickest succession of expressions Natasha had seen on his face.

“You knew!” he said. “All this time!”

She grinned back at him, her turn to be smug. “And to be perfectly fair, I believe it was him who asked you out, anyway.”

Chapter Text

They said you was high class. Well that was just a lie.
-"Hound Dog," Elvis Presley

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Matt and Foggy trail in late to Josie’s Bar. Natasha, Clint, and Bucky are already squeezed into the corner booth and scoot over to make room for their friends.

“Hey,” Natasha says. “How was work?”

Foggy sighs. “Ask Matt. I don’t even know.”

“What?”

“The client’s first language was Spanish,” Matt explains, “and her English wasn’t very good.”

“So I didn’t understand a thing.” Foggy takes a long drink and slumps against the booth.

“You speak Spanish?” Bucky asks Matt.

“Yeah. Figured I’d need some sort of skill when I left college,” Matt says with a grin.

Foggy raises his head to say “If you need some Punjabi, I’m your man,” before slumping back again.

“I speak Urdu,” Clint pipes in with. “I actually speak twelve languages.”

“You do not,” Natasha says.

Clint rattles off a line in what could potentially be Urdu.

“What the hell?” Matt says.

“Wǒ kě yǐ mō nǐ de gǒu ma,” Clint continues. “Watashiwa anata no inu o petto o surukotoga dekimasuka.”

“What was that?” Bucky asks.

“Mandarin. Japanese. And Irish! Is féidir liom a peataí do mhadra.”

“That’s four,” Foggy says. “You said twelve.”

“We’ll give him five, including English,” Natasha said, raising an eyebrow.

“Main apanee kuttee koo paalatuu kar sakatee hain. Naneun dangsin-ui gaeleul aewan dongmul su. Kan ik huisdier uw hond.” Clint holds up three more fingers.

“Eight,” Matt says.

Bucky holds up his right hand, middle finger held down by his thumb.

“Oh yeah!” Clint says, signing and waggling his eyebrows. “Also, posso accarezzare il tuo cane.”

“Wait,” Matt says. “What was that?”

“Italian.”

“That was...you said…” Matt’s brow was furrowed.

“Puedo acariciar a tu perro.”

“I knew it! Clint--”

“Monza ya poglazy twoy sobaky.“ Clint finishes. “Russian.”

Bucky frowns. “That was--”

Natasha bursts out laughing. “Clint, it doesn’t count as knowing the language if all you can say is ‘can I pet your dog’.”

“Why not?” Clint protests. “It’s the only thing that matters!”

Chapter Text

Some nights I wish that this song would end, ‘cause I could use some friends for a change.
-"Some Nights," Fun

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When he heard sounds coming from the kitchen, Bucky threw back the covers and got out of bed. He padded, barefoot and bare-chested, down the hall.

Michael was cooking breakfast. He looked up at Bucky and grinned. “Hey there, James,” he boomed. “How many eggs do you want?”

Bucky shrugged. He walked over to the cabinets and pulled down a glass.

“You want something?” Michael offered. “Milk, water, OJ? I can get you whatever you want.”

Bucky shook his head. He set the glass on the counter, turned on the sink, and grabbed the cup to fill it. He set the full glass on the counter before turning off the water.

“We’ve got a pitcher of filtered stuff in the fridge.”

Bucky took his glass and went to sit at the table.

Rebecca walked in holding Thomas, who was already squirming to get down. “Hey, Jimmy,” she said, leaning over to kiss Bucky on the top of the head. “How’d you sleep?”

Bucky shrugged and sipped his water.

“You mind holding Tom for a minute?”

Bucky looked up at Rebecca, wide-eyed, but she was already dropping the one-year-old down onto his lap. He nearly dropped his water in his rush to put down the glass and wrap his arm around his nephew.

Rebecca walked over to Michael and leaned up to kiss his cheek. He grinned and wrapped a hand around her waist. “Hey, baby,” he said.

Bucky stared at the child in his lap, who had stopped wiggling and was reaching for the cuff on the stump of Bucky’s left arm. Bucky shifted Tom away from that side. Tom’s lower lip stuck out, and he tried to reach over again. Bucky grinned and started tickling his nephew, who abandoned his quest for the cuff and started giggling and squealing.

“Aw,” Michael said, startling Bucky. “it’s great to see you two playing together. What do you think, Tommy? You like playing with Uncle James?”

Tom wriggled down from Bucky’s lap and stood, one hand braced on Bucky’s knee.

Bucky kept his eyes on Tom while Rebecca and Michael talked.

“I’ve got to work late today,” Michael said.

“Again? What is it this time?”

“I’m covering for Andre. His girlfriend wants to go out for their anniversary.”

“And I don’t ever want to go out anymore?”

“Baby, you know I’d love to. It’s just…”

In the silence, Bucky’s jaw tensed. He kept his hand firmly in his lap. At his knee, Tommy practiced standing on his own, wobbling a little but pulling away to stand without help before reaching back to hold on again.

“Oh, look!” Rebecca said. “He’s standing! Good job, Tommy!”

Tom, startled, sat down with a whoomp. Bucky reached down and held his hand out for Tom to grab. Tom looked at the hand, then up to Bucky’s face. Bucky held his hand out until Tom grabbed on and pulled himself up.

“I gotta get going,” Mike said. “I’ll see you tonight.” He left to finish getting ready.

Rebecca pulled out a chair from the table. “Jimmy,” she said quietly, “Please talk to me?” She waited, then sighed. “Look, I know you’re probably hurting, but I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. Please?”

Bucky frowned. He focused on keeping his arm completely still as Tom clung to it.

They sat together at the table for a few minutes without speaking. Michael swung through the kitchen to say goodbye one more time before leaving. He swept Tommy up into a hug, leaving Bucky to stare at the linoleum. Rebecca stood for another kiss and to take Thomas. She carried him out into the living room.

Bucky sat at the kitchen table, nursing his glass of water. He stared out the window. A couple of kids wearing backpacks walked by on the sidewalk, laughing with each other. A red car drove by and a train whistled at a nearby crossing. A cat wandered down the driveway.

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. His arm wrapped around his ribs. He could hear bullets and people shouting. there was dust and blood and so much pain, and someone was grabbing his face and shouting. A baby was crying. A small hand slipped into his. He clutched it like a lifeline.

“Jimmy, stop! Jim!”

Who was Jim? Who was screaming? There was pain in his arm, his left arm--his right arm? Something was cutting into his right forearm. He opened his hand and the pressure stopped. The same baby was crying, or a different baby? Someone was shaking his shoulder.

“Look at me, hey! Do you know what you just did?”

He died. He just died. The bullet caught him and there was blood and he shook his head remembering the pain. The sights and sounds and smells overwhelmed him, and he curled in on himself and rocked back and forth until the pain started to melt away.

When he could finally breathe again, he blinked to make sure that the ground in front of him was linoleum and not dirt. He rubbed at the stub of his arm. His left arm hurt, and his shoulders were stiff and sore. His eyes were raw. Tears and mucus had dripped and dried on his face. He rubbed at his face and looked up at the clock.

It was almost lunchtime. He’d been stuck in his mind for hours. Stifling a groan, he unfolded and rose to look for his sister and nephew.

Rebecca was gone. Bucky didn’t really blame her. Based on how raw his throat felt, Bucky bet he had been screaming. And as he thought back to his panic attack, he remembered the squeezed hand and Rebecca shouting at him. Had he hurt Thomas? If so, she was absolutely right to get him out of the house.

Bucky went to the bathroom to wash his face. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. His beard was growing in, spotty and scraggly. His hair was getting ridiculously long. He hadn’t even bothered to put on a shirt or change his pants since two nights ago. And when was the last time he’d actually slept?

He gripped the edge of the counter. He was hurting them. Everything he did was just creating more problems.

He stumbled back to the bedroom and began yanking clothes out of the closet, throwing them into his duffle bag. When he’d gotten together all of his things, he went out to the living room to dig up some paper.

In the top of the storage closet, he ran into a row of boxes. They were all addressed to him, all forwarded from the army. All marked with the same address. He’d never had the heart to open them. With a sigh, he took one down, looked at it again, and put it back on the shelf. He didn’t have energy to deal with that.

He ended up tearing a post-it note from the fridge in half and scribbling a small note on the bottom. He left it on the kitchen counter and walked out the door.

Sorry I hurt Thomas. Don’t worry about me. Lots of Love, Jimmy.

Chapter Text

Let it go, fly away, and say goodbye to yesterday.

"You'll Be Okay," A Great Big World

The question comes over dinner. Bucky made stir-fry, sliding in a bunch of vegetables that Clint doesn't normally eat except under protest. They are eating in silence when Clint looks up. Bucky catches his expression and puts down his fork.

"The girl in Afghanistan," Clint says without preamble. He stops.

"Yeah," Bucky says.

"She didn't make it." It's not stated like a question, and even as he says it Clint looks away, staring at the wall behind Bucky's head before dropping his gaze to his plate.

And because Bucky didn't tell the truth before, he does it now. "No."

And because Bucky doesn't know what to do now any more than he did then, when Clint finishes his food and goes to his room, Bucky does the dishes.

When Bucky hears Clint crying, he sits down on the couch and turns the volume up on the television as loud as he can stand it.

Clint shuffles out of the bedroom. He smiles and says, "Asshole. How dare you watch Star Wars without me."

Bucky scoots over on the couch to make room and turns the volume down.

Clint perches next to him, legs folded up to his chest. His mouth is pressed to his legs, and his nose rests on his knees. As Luke Skywalker looks out over the charred remains of his Tatooine home, Clint places his chin on top of his knees and whispers, “I needed to save her.”

Bucky says nothing. He keeps his head turned toward the TV, but lowers the volume slightly. He lets his eyes drift over to watch Clint, who is tightly grasping his own calves.

“I think...I think I knew. That I hadn’t. But I needed to. Because otherwise it...it was for nothing. I’d gone and been stupid and hurt myself and put everyone else in danger…” Clint took a deep, shaky breath. “I had something good, and I screwed it up. Again. For nothing. And I needed it to not be for nothing. So I could keep going.” He moves again to press his lips to his knees.

They sit for another twenty minutes, until Bucky is sure that’s all that’ll be said. Then, almost too quiet to hear, Clint mutters, “So. You know. Thanks.”

And Bucky, because he doesn't know what he did right but is extremely glad he did it, says, "Anytime."