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There was a house on a hill with a faded blue door, somewhat crumbled steps, and a lopsided porch swing.
It was the type of place that caused people to slow down as they drove through the country - not because it was fancy or had bells and whistles, but because it looked lived in. Warm. Like a home, with its too-tall grass and rusty windchimes and dirt driveway. Someone loved that place, they would think as they passed, and the blue door would get stuck in their minds as they kept going wherever they needed.
Bucky had had it for around a year now, fixing up the nuances and putting in place some things which made it feel owned. It used to belong to an older man with a wiry beard and warm eyes hidden behind scruffy eyebrows who’d lined the walls with shelves of dusty paperbacks and left desks drawers littered with bottle caps. Clint had swung by the day right after Bucky started in on the house and helped him haul it all it. The junk was tossed, the old shelves broken down and placed in the back of his truck, the books all boxed up to deal with later. He’d laughed as they kept finding more hidden staches of bottle caps, saying, “I reckon we could auction these all out to somebody - someone’s gotta care about old caps, right?” Bucky had scowled, lightly smacked him on the head, and told him to dump them in the trash, but he smiled to himself as he soon as he turned. Clint’s snicker from behind him was the only thing he’d needed to turn back and flick an old cap right into his face. Clint had just laughed again and then aimed this bright grin at him. He’d thought it would be a one-time deal - helping out a friend he wouldn’t see for a while - but the next day Clint had showed up again. And then again. And he wouldn’t stop bringing that rattling old truck up his dirt driveway, rapping on the door, and asking, “Did ya miss me?” with the widest smile he’d ever seen in his life.
It wasn’t always to help out, and Bucky never actively tried to rope him into it, but Clint would dramatically sigh sometimes and come over and see what he was doing. The archer brought lunch, or tools, or an unassembled new bookshelf he’d drug out of the Ikea from two hours away.
Sometimes it was with nothing but a six-pack and the infectious curl to his mouth that was beginning to send something warm into Bucky’s heart.
They weren’t living together. They were most definitely not living together, since Clint still owned that apartment in Bed-Stuy, from the implications he’d picked up. They weren’t living together, no matter the shot of happiness that went through him in the mornings he stumbled into the living room to see Clint on the couch, or the times when he’d already be up and making coffees for the both of them. They were not living together, even though most nights were ending much like this current one; sitting on the recently balanced porch swing, boots haphazardly a few feet away from shucking them off. It was getting close to the time for fireflies. A few were already blinking in and out through the bushes at the edge of the yard as they watched the sky shift into dusty purple, warm gray, and dark blue as the last moments of sunset completely faded. That warm thing was securely curled into Bucky’s heart even with the slightly cool breeze which passed across them, and he was glad for the chance to sit so close as they watched the stars begin to gleam, because he was too much of a coward to grab the chance any other time.
“You think you’ll paint it?”
He flicked his eyes up to Clint’s and then followed them to the door. He’d been planning on it at the start, but for some reason it had felt like the final detail, so he left it alone. After a year of staring at it and going through it every day, he felt weirdly attached to the color. If Clint didn’t like it, though, he had a feeling that he’d be too willing to go out and buy a can of paint. “You not like it or somethin’?”
“Nah, not that. I figured it you were starting fresh, you were gonna with something more...I dunno, dramatic?” That smile went onto his face. “Blood red. Toxic orange.”
Bucky groaned a little, dropping his head and shaking it. “You want me to live in a Halloween decoration.” He’d already suggested to douse the house in black not long ago. Bucky wasn’t so crush-silly that he followed through with that one.
“What? It suits you! Doom and gloom.” Bucky lifted his head and scrunched his face up, and Clint laughed. He always looked so bright when he laughed.
They sat on the porch swing for a long, comfortable silence after that. The sky dipped past dusk into true nighttime and the fireflies flickered out, but the stars were just as beautiful. They would have hardly seen each other in the darkness if not for the gentle splash of light coming through the curtained windows inside. The breeze grew colder for a moment, encouraged by the loss of temperature from the lack of sunlight, pushing against the rusted, out-of-tune windchimes. Bucky didn’t know that windchimes could go out of tune, or that they had one in the first place. He quickly stopped thinking about it when Clint shifted closer, his shoulder bumping against Bucky’s, like he could protect him against the cold. His warmed heart sent out pulses contentment through his body. Well, maybe he could.
“I’m not going back to the city,” Clint suddenly stated.
Live with me then, he thought on instinct, and shoved it down. Clint probably had a place set up nearby, or wanted to find his own spot in a different piece of country, or a million other ors which were far more likely. He kept his eyes glued to the dark sky and carefully traced the constellations to put his mind back in check. “Yeah?”
Beside him, Clint nodded. “Too crowded up there. Too loud. Too many people trying to be louder than everyone else ‘cause of that. ‘Sides...” He trailed off, the end of the word full of nervous hesitation, and Bucky couldn’t imagine what for. “‘Sides, I like it here.”
Oh. The warm thing was victorious at that. He shushed it, because “here” could still mean the general area, thirty minutes out at the next closest house. But...but if it wasn’t...
He let Clint’s words hang in the air for a few moments before slowly replying, “I could build another bookshelf. Fit in all those archery manuals you say you don’t have.”
Tension very visibly drained out of Clint’s body next to him, and he only saw it from the corner of his eye. He didn’t stop the feeling of triumph from spreading through him this time. “One day I’ll get you to appreciate them. There’s much you need to learn about quivers besides ‘stick an arrow in them and go’.”
“Oh really?” he replied, trying to partly subdue the zing of excitement that he wanted to live with him, and finally tore his eyes from the sky to look at Clint. He would never get over how beautiful he looked, but the soft lighting made him glow, even with the small strips of medical tape and the nicks from who knew where. “So what’re we doin’, Barton?”
There was a heaviness to his words that spoke of plans beyond the house. Clint looked caught, though, that nervousness pulling down at his mouth, and so Bucky tried to diffuse it by sliding his eyes to the house for a moment and then offering a small smile. It seemed to work. “We’re building something. Finally retiring like we need to.” A tug to his mouth. “Keeping that door.”
“Sure thing.”
“...I wanna stick around. See how it turns out.”
This time, it was Bucky who had the tension drained out of him. His eyes crinkled up when he smiled at the archer beside him, nearly grinning. “Me too.”
Not too long after, Clint fell asleep on the couch, wrapped up in the blanket which Bucky most definitely did not tuck him into. He knew there was something now, and that something was a whole lot better than the uncertain questions he had before, even if nothing could happen yet. He knew. That was good enough for him.
When the sun rose, it was one of those rare days where Clint made it up before him, although Bucky was still leagues ahead in the functioning department. Clint flashed a smile, shoved a mug into Bucky’s hands, and refused to speak for at least 15 minutes. He didn’t mind. He liked talking to him in a low voice as he sipped on his own coffee, saying whatever came to mind, watching as Clint’s eyes focused and his sleepy nods turned into small huffs of amusement. As soon as they were both awake enough to be deemed alive, they started to work on the mailbox he’d gotten to replace the one outside which was one, bent in several places from being knocked over for decades, and two, more rust than metal. Clint was a little too eager to turn it black, but he supposed he could let him go wild with the mailbox if he didn’t get control over the house. He refused the red paint, though, and used white to paint on his initials.
If he pretended, the two Bs could be for Barnes and Barton, not Bucky Barnes.
When the mail started coming in for Mr. Barnes & Mr. Barton, he didn’t say a word about it. Clint didn’t either.
“We should’ve painted it blue,” Clint said one day. Bucky was checking the mail and Clint had just come back home, the truck idling right next to him as Clint spoke through the window. “Could match the door.”
Bucky looked up from shuffling through another letter for Mr. Barnes & Mr. Barton. “Could match your truck, too.”
Clint blinked at that and shifted his gaze to the inside of the cab, even though all the paint was on the outside. Bucky wasn’t wrong; it was an old, faded thing too, and a close to the shade of the door. “Huh,” Clint replied, brows slowly drawing together thoughtfully. “I guess it would.” His eyes flicked back to Bucky and his mouth curled in that familiar mirth. “Hey, matches your shirt, too.”
That one was a bit of a stretch. His shirt was navy, not powder. Bucky eyed it critically. “Close enough?”
Clint snickered at that and nearly instantly stopped. The thoughtful look was back as he stared hard at Bucky. “...stay there.”
“What?”
“Nope, shh. Just stay.”
“But - the mail?”
“Stay!” Clint shouted out the window as he sped up the drive, and, although confused, Bucky stayed by the mailbox. He went to shuffle through their mail again but heard pieces of gravel skidding down the hill and looked up just in time to see Clint nearly trip and fall on his face as he made his way to him, a plume of dust behind him. “Don’t.”
Bucky fought back a smirk. Failed. “Wasn’t gonna.”
“Sure.” Clint came to an awkward stop and they looked at each other for several seconds. “Uh, hi.”
“Hi. Do I get to know why - ”
Oh. Well that was a very good reason for why. Bucky melted into the hands cradling his face and pressed his lips back against Clint’s, his face flushing at the suddenness of it all, but Clint’s hands were still warmer. The letters fell and scattered around them on the grass and shoddy road as he reached for his waist, looping around the wrinkled shirt and pulling him close, one hand wandering up to rest at his middle back. One of Clint’s drifted from his jaw to tangle in his hair and Bucky pushed in harder, needing to kiss him until he couldn’t breathe anymore.
It was soft. Chaste. Something almost terrifyingly close to love was imbued there.
Bucky decided he would let it be love. There wasn’t any other explanation for the fast beat of his heart and the giddiness that rushed through him at having Clint so close, at finally being able to kiss him and hold him close and not worry about whether he’d change his mind or leave.
Clint was the one who pulled back first, and he found himself unable to look at anything aside from those pretty blue eyes. His reverence was echoed there.
“Hi,” Clint said again, and one simple word shouldn’t have such an effect on him.
“Hi,” he replied, voice hoarse. Clint’s hands had come down to rest on his shoulders, and his own were still circled around his middle. He dug his finger slightly into Clint's shirt before repeating the question he’d asked months before. “What are we doin’, Barton?”
Pure sunshine in that grin. “Pretty sure we’re kissing. Or we were. We should probably keep doing that. Maybe get married. Should we get married? I’ll take your name, don’t need mine anyway. We’d make Nat sick next time she comes by, like some little housewives huddled up in their cottage. Oh, we have to paint the mailbox blue now, that’ll definitely make it a cottage - ”
Bucky cut him off with another kiss before Clint whipped up a tornado with how fast he was talking or before he got too flustered. Marriage. Jesus. This was going to kill him in the best way possible - or maybe he was already dead, because real life surely didn’t have houses with blue doors and archers with slightly chapped lips or a place called home. When they pulled back again, he glanced at the mailbox.
If he pretended, the two Bs could be for Barnes and Barnes, not Barnes and Barton.
Nat did end up dropping by almost a month later, and while she didn’t verbally make fun of them, there was an unmistakable smugness in her narrowed eyes. Clint barreled through it. Bucky flushed faintly and kept his thoughts away from the can of powder blue paint he stuffed into the attic. He wasn’t sure when he was going to bring it out and suggest the idea to Clint, but he hadn’t bought it for no reason, and he thought of it every day as they woke up for coffee, and when they spent the evening watching dusk bloom on the porch swing.
Clint didn’t sleep on the couch anymore. One night, without saying anything at all, they had walked into Bucky’s room together and snuck underneath the sheets, and it brought the easiest sleep either of them had ever had. Bucky often woke up being the big spoon to Clint, which was a little funny with the four inch difference between them, but Clint called him a jetpack one day and he was so offended that he locked him in a loose chokehold the next few nights. Secretly, it was hilarious, but Clint bought him pizza as compensation and humanity was so far away that he pasted a quick scowl on and acted as if he ate it with heavy reserves. His arm draped over Clint’s hips normally that night.
The powder blue paint wasn’t the only thing hiding in the attic, apparently. Clint disappeared for a few hours one morning and came back with a wad of bills, which he shoved into Bucky’s chest. His eyes immediately locked onto the stack and he carefully took off the rubber band as Clint triumphantly said, “I told you!”
“Told me what?” he asked automatically, scanning the rumpled bills with a raised eyebrow. “Did you get this...legally?”
“Yes. I auctioned.” A bag was shaken right next to his face. He looked up and shoved the loud clinking away. “I told you someone would buy it.”
He furrowed his brows, eyes skipping from the bag to Clint’s face as he tried to think about what on earth Clint could be talking about. Clint shook the bag again. The tinny metal clanking sounded familiar. “Clint, are those - you kept the caps? Where?”
“The attic.”
“Uh, no.” Bucky placed the money on the table and weighed the bag. It felt lighter than before. Was this the last one left or was Clint starting some bottle cap auction spree? “I go in the attic. I would’ve noticed your dragon hoard.”
“You’re retired for a reason,” Clint said solemnly. “Now that we have money though, we can get some paint and fix up the mailbox. It’s so sad in black. We look like everyone else.”
“You painted it black,” he reminded him and promptly walked out of the room, ignoring Clint’s spluttering and call to come back. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t study the attic closely enough, it seemed. Clint was lounging on the couch when he got back, so he walked up behind him and dangled the can in front of his face.
He couldn’t gather much from Clint’s reaction until his boyfriend’s head fell back on the sofa, watching him with sparkling eyes. “You bought our paint?”
“How else are we gonna paint our mailbox?”
Clint’s gentle excitement morphed into a cheeky grin. “You suck. Get the box. We’re doing this right now.”
“Yes sir, Agent Barton.” Bucky pressed a kiss to the top of his head as he lowered the paint can onto the other couch cushion and immediately went outside to take the mailbox of its pike. He’d really do anything in a heartbeat for him, wouldn’t he?
They didn’t have a paint scraper for some reason, so they went over with the blue for a few layers until it didn’t peek through anymore. The leftover black paint was pulled out of the attic anyways, since it would show up better against the lighter background. Bucky painted on his B, and then Clint did his own. It was secured back onto the wooden pike and proudly stood there, theirs, their soft powder blue which kept worming into their lives.
When the mail started coming in for Messrs Barnes, he didn’t say a word about it. Clint didn’t either. They did smile at each other, though, soft things with a silent question behind them.
It didn’t take long to get the rings.
Bucky looked out the window the next day, staring at the mailbox at the bottom of the hill. He smiled to himself. He didn’t have to pretend what those Bs meant anymore.
“Coffee?” Clint asked as he wandered into the kitchen. Bucky turned just in time to catch the bottle cap flicked at him, spinning through the air. It clinked faintly against the metal around his finger. He turned it around and his smile grew. Powder blue.
“Yeah,” he said as he curled his hand around the cap, even though the ridges dug into his skin a little. Clint was already at the machine anyway, checking how much water was inside, the jar of their favorite roast beside him. “Please.”