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Here’s the thing:
Clint’s got a competence kink, which makes being on the Avengers really fucking difficult, because literally every single person he tends to meet and/or hang out with is really fucking competent. Like, competent isn’t even a good descriptor, because the entire team is the best of the best.
Which means Clint basically lives in a state of perpetual horniness. When Bruce says that his secret is always being angry?
Yeah. Clint gets it. All too well.
Here’s the other thing:
Clint’s a professional. He might have a competency kink. He might be on a team with the most competent people on the planet. He might be living in a state of perpetual horniness.
Clint is never. Ever. Ever going to let it actually affect anything. Because Clint is a professional.
Enter Bucky Barnes.
Clint doesn’t know Bucky Barnes from a hole in the ground when he first answers Steve’s call, but he knows what it’s like to have someone else controlling your thoughts and actions and he’s not going to stand for that shit. Plus he owes Steve for trusting him after his own brush with brainwashing, so even if he’s facing off with Natasha, he’s pretty sure he’s on the right side of wrong here.
Besides, he hates airports. Damn liminal spaces, the air traffic controllers are always hazing him with runways and waiting and paperwork bullshit. Trashing an entire airport is seriously therapeutic.
Which is probably why all it takes is watching Barnes take down an entire jetway with a single punch of that metal arm that sends Clint’s libido racing straight into overdrive.
Unfortunately, it happens right in the middle of the fight with Natasha, and of course she takes advantage of his momentary distraction, flipping him over onto his back and pinning him.
“Really?” says Nat. “An international fugitive, Barton?”
“In my defense, did you see that hit?” says Clint helplessly.
Nat’s about to answer when there’s the snap of electricity, and she falls over, freeing Clint.
Wanda looks down at him dismissively. “You were pulling your punches,” she tells him.
Anyway, Clint’s a professional. Also he ends up on the Raft and Barnes is in cryofreeze in Wakanda and it’s two months before Steve and Tony pull their heads out of their respective asses and kiss and make up. It’s a year before Barnes joins them at the Tower, and maybe Clint imagined that spectacular punch at the airport.
First mission out with Barnes, and turns out, he didn’t imagine it. Barnes takes out ten Doombots in the first five minutes and doesn’t even break a sweat.
Clint is doomed. No pun intended.
(Pun totally intended.)
But hey. Clint’s a professional. He’s got years of experience in owning his competency kink. He can handle this. None of the rest of the team have figured it out, anyway. (Natasha being the lone exception, but then, when isn’t she?)
So he goes on missions and flies the jet and makes the coffee and sets the records in the range, and when Barnes takes the jet’s controls while Clint’s nursing his wounds and makes the coffee when Clint oversleeps and when it’s Barnes’s name on the leaderboard in the range… Clint just takes a minute to relish the omg-I-am-so-turned-on-right-now feeling in his groin even if it looks to everyone else like he’s grinding his teeth.
Because he’s a professional.
Nobody has a clue. (Natasha is an outlier and does not count.) It’s fine.
Until Mumbai, and Clint will swear on a stack of The Fletcher’s Guide to Arrow Maintenance that he thought that door was an exit and not a broom closet, but whatever, he and Barnes are stuck in there now.
(Clint has a competency kink. This is why he would never fuck his clone.)
“Hold,” growls Barnes, his hands wrapped around Clint’s biceps.
They’re standing close together, chest to chest, because the broom closet is fucking tiny, and Clint’s still not entirely sure how they managed to close the door. But sure enough, a moment after Barnes growls at him (which is another form of torture altogether; even the guy’s growls are competent), there’s a stomping sound out in the hallway that sounds like an entire platoon of AIM lackeys racing by.
Well. Almost racing by; they stop right outside the broom closet, and for a horrifying moment, Clint’s sure they’re about to be made. Especially if the lackeys decide to go on a cleaning binge.
Instead, they start having a loud, annoying conversation in a language Clint doesn’t speak.
But given how intently Barnes is listening, he’s pretty sure Barnes does.
“They’re looking for us,” Barnes mouths at him.
Yup. The guy understands Hindi. Clint is so gone.
It’s several long, agonizing minutes. Clint owns his competency kink as hard as he can, in order to keep other things from being as hard as they can. It’s difficult, but hey, Clint’s a professional. He can handle it.
Just like Barnes is handling him. Those hands on Clint’s biceps. The thumbs rubbing the soft skin on the underside of his arms. It’s nice. It’s soothing. It’s… really, really sexy, especially the way Barnes is breathing.
Barnes is really, really competent at breathing.
(Look, Clint’s aware that’s a stupid thing to be competent about. But part of owning the kink is owning all of the kink.)
“You okay?” mouths Barnes at him.
Clint nods. He’s great. He’s dandy. He’s one thin door between his competency kink going awry and being found by AIM lackeys. Everything’s coming up Barton.
And oh shit, everything really is coming up, Barton.
Barnes is still looking at him. It occurs to Clint that Barnes hasn’t really looked away. Even his smolder is competent; Clint’s pretty sure that Barnes can see every thought he’s ever thought in his entire life.
Come to think of it, Barnes is always looking at him. Clint can count on one hand the times he’s looked at Barnes and the guy’s looking at someone else.
Barnes says something – but Clint misses half of it. He’s too busy looking at Barnes’s eyes.
“—read on you.”
“Huh?” says Clint.
“Nat says you’re into me.”
Clint blinks. “What?”
Barnes doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Forget I said anything.”
“No,” says Clint, pushing closer. “I mean, she’s right. Don’t tell her I said that, though.”
“Hell no,” agrees Barnes, whose eyes have definitely gotten wider. He doesn’t shy away from him, though. “So. You are. Into me.”
“I mean, yeah,” says Clint. “But to be fair, that’s the competency kink talking.”
“Competency kink,” says Barnes slowly. “Is this because I’m a better shot than you?”
“Outrageous lies. But yeah.”
“Huh.” Barnes frowns for a moment, licking his lips. Which he does competently. “So you think I’m competent?”
“No,” says Clint, honestly. “I think you’re amazing.”
“Huh,” says Barnes again, and this time, he’s leaning closer. “You know what kink I’ve got?”
“What?” breathes Clint. Their mouths are so, so close. It’s almost impossible to read them anymore.
There’s another noise from the other side of the door; the platoon’s discussion is getting rowdy, now.
“Getting caught,” whispers Bucky.
Oh.
Oh.
“Barnes,” says Clint. “Is that your way of saying you want to kiss me?”
“Nope,” says Bucky Barnes, right before he does exactly that.
Clint has a competency kink.
Luckily, Bucky Barnes lives up to his reputation as being a really, really competent kisser. They’re still kissing when the door is thrown open, and if the fight that occurs afterwards is just more fuel for Clint’s brand of fire… well, it’s probably fuel for Bucky’s as well, because once every AIM lackey has been rendered either unconscious or at least incapacitated, Bucky kisses him again, this time surrounded by the groaning bodies of their adversaries.
“Oh, jeez,” grumbles one of the lackeys. “Get a room.”
“Uh, yeah, we had one, you interrupted,” Clint tells him.
“Who needs a room?” says Bucky, and shoves Clint up against the wall to kiss him again.
Clint has a competency kink. Bucky Barnes, as it turns out, is okay with that.