Work Text:
Bucky was zoned out in front of his television. He was more than half tempted to go to bed, but knew he wouldn’t be able to settle with the quinjet inbound. It hadn’t been a full team call out, but it had been a couple of days they’d been gone and Bucky had gotten the itch that meant he needed to see Steve whole and safe once they’d sent word that they were enroute.
Not that Steve was usually the one who came back hurt, no that honor firmly belonged to Hawkeye. But Steve’s text had said no significant injuries, so he didn’t feel bad that his brain wasn’t spinning with anxiety to see any of the rest of them.
Or at least, it wasn’t until he got a new text message. This time from Clint.
set the cheese and eggs on the counter will ya?
y u think i have any he sent back, hoping it sounded like their usual snarky banter. Not that they interacted a whole whole lot.
Clint ignored the question. four packs four eggs. And sour cream.
With an annoyed huff Bucky hauled himself upright and went to set out the requested items. Then he pulled up the recipe he’d googled months ago and made sure he had he rest of what Clint would need on hand.
Bucky had been stocking cream cheese in his fridge for almost four months, ever since Clint had left the note instructing him to. He’d already had to restock when he realized the stuff in his fridge was due to expire and there had been no sign that Clint was going to make another midnight visit.
He’d gotten tired of including cream cheese in his breakfast real quick.
He sent a photo of his counter to Clint and went back to the show he’d already lost interested in and ended up hassling Steve via text for the next thirty minutes, since Clint wasn’t responding.
Bucky headed up to the landing pad when the jet was a few minutes out and greeted Steve with their typical backslapping hug and tried not to be too obvious that he was trying to watch everyone else come off the plane.
Unfortunately the next idiot off was Sam, who started talking shit and it would have been too obvious if Bucky stayed behind, so he trailed after Steve and Sam back into the building without a glimpse of Natasha or Clint.
Bucky abandoned Steve when he made noise about needing to do some prep work for the mission debrief the next morning. He hadn’t gone so he had no intention of getting suckered into assisting with the paperwork.
is this like satan claus i have to be in bed 4 u to come? he sent to Clint about an hour after the plane had landed when there had still be no sign of him. He didn’t get a response before he dozed off on his couch.
Bucky was a little disoriented when he jolted awake who knew how much longer. He lay frozen on the couch for a few seconds, trying to get his thoughts in order and realized it was noises in the kitchen that had woken him.
“Hey sleeping beauty,” Clint greeted when Bucky raised his head to peer over the couch back.
Bucky blinked owlishly and responded, somewhat nonsensically, “could say the same too you,” after a long pause.
Clint was still in his uniform and filthy. He had scrubbed his hands up to the elbows, but Bucky could see mud caked on his uniform up to the knee — and strongly suspected there would be dried clods all over his floor — and a smear of mud and blood over one cheek, like he had scrubbed the back of his hand under a bloody nose. There were two butterfly bandages on his left bicep and his upper lip looked a little puffy, but otherwise Bucky didn’t note any injuries.
He looked exhausted though.
“Time’s it?” Bucky asked.
“Closing in on midnight.”
“You look like you oughta be in bed, not in here baking.”
Clint shrugged before turning to pull something from the oven. Bucky hadn’t heard a timer, but once the item came into view he could smell the toasted graham crackers. Clint must have brought those over himself, because it clearly wasn’t the premade shell from his pantry.
“And miss my prime baking time?” Clint asked. “Besides, I already know my brain isn’t gonna settle for a while. Not worth the effort.”
“How often do you do your midnight baking?” Bucky asked. Clint ignored the question. “You never responded to my text message.”
“Sure I did. Nat doesn’t like me on my phone if she thinks I have a concussion, though apparently it’s still fine for me to fly the plane, so go figure. But she stole my phone until medical cleared me. You were probably already sleeping.”
Bucky pulled a face and checked his phone, and sure enough there was a sassy message from Clint about how he’d failed to open the foil packages and a joke about coal in addition to the standard jibe about Bucky’s texting.
Bucky tossed his phone on the cushion next to him before looping his elbows over the back of the couch and resting his chin atop his crossed wrists. “Do you want any help?”
“Nah, I’ve got it.”
“I bet Tony’s got a mixer somewhere.”
“Who needs a mixer when I’ve got guns like these?” Clint quipped before flexing his uninjured arm obnoxiously, making the muscle bulge and dance. Then he spent the next several minutes diligently whisking sugar and cream cheese together.
Bucky watched, the repetitive movement hypnotic, until he realized he was starting to fall asleep again.
“Coffee?” he offered when he stood and earned a weary look.
“Sure. If you want. You don’t have to stay up on my account. This’ll take a while.”
“You think I’m gonna sleep with you out here banging around?”
“You normally do.”
“How often are you baking in my kitchen?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Clint teased.
Bucky started to accuse Clint of pulling a fast one, but then remembered all the times he’d thought he was losing time because there was less flour, sugar or eggs than expected when he went to make pancakes. He decided to keep that to himself, not wanting to make Clint feel guilty.
“Do you invade anyone else’s kitchen like this?“ he asked as he got the coffee pot started.
“Nope.”
“Really? Not even Natasha’s?”
“Oh no. A, Natasha doesn’t cook so her kitchen is barren — nothing but packaged snacks and wine in there. B, no one else has a fully stocked, organized kitchen like you keep. This is like the Rolls Royce when it comes to kitchens in the tower.”
Clint paused his whisking to lift the now cooled weird looking pan he’d prebaked the crust in and waggled it in his direction. “You think Sam has one of these in his rooms?”
“I didn’t think I had one of those in my rooms,” Bucky said as he eyed it dubiously. “What is that?”
“What? Your ma didn’t have a springform pan laying around?”
Bucky noted Clint’s cheeks were lightly pink, and he pushed a little harder. “No, she didn’t. And I’m positive I didn’t either. Where did that come from?”
“I might have stashed it here a few months ago,” Clint finally admitted. Bucky wasn’t sure how to feel about the admission. He hadn’t realized how freely Clint moved in and out of his room. “You’re the one who said you wanted a cheesecake, so I got you a pan.”
“What’s wrong with your kitchen?” When Clint stayed silent Bucky asked, “Oven broken?”
“Are you going to make me stop coming here?” His voice sounded small and Bucky could see how his shoulders had hunched in as if he was trying to make the rest of himself small too. He’d also stopped whisking again.
“No. Maybe I’m just tryna figure out how much you owe me in baked goods for using my space. Like charging rent. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that I’ve only ever gotten one plate of cookies outta you.”
“Whoops.” He visibly brightened and added the sour cream and vanilla to the mix in his bowl. “I’ll start leaving an offering.”
They fell into a comfortable silence and Bucky poured them both a mug of coffee when the pot finished brewing. Clint raised an eyebrow when he noticed the bottle of creamer that Bucky had to pop the seal off of but didn’t say anything.
Bucky sat with his undoctored mug at the opposite end of the counter, giving Clint plenty of room to work and just watched as he competently cracked and added each egg to the mix one at a time.
“What on earth are you doing?” Bucky asked when the mix was set to the side and Clint started to wrap the springform in foil.
“Don’t want water getting in.”
“Don’t want what?”
“Gotta cook it in a water bath,” Clint said, amusement coloring his tone.
“Oh, right. Well, of course. Carry on.”
Clint was still smiling about it when they relocated to the couch, coffee in hand and cake in the oven.
“So spill already.”
“What?”
“You’re here, apparently you can be quiet enough to not wake me when you put in the effort, and you left your aids in. Gotta figure whatever’s bugging you this time is something you wanted to beat your gums over. Something happen on the mission?”
“No, the mission was fine. I uh, heard from my brother while we were on the way back. Had time to catch up with him for a minute.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad?”
‘Yeah, no, its not bad, exactly. I just. Shit with him is weird. Ain’t heard from him in years unless he wanted money offa me, or to get me involved in some scam.”
“That what he want this time?”
Clint heaved a sigh and stared down into his half empty mug. “No. Apparently he’s cleaned up his act. Changed ‘for real’ this time. Found some girl to settle down with, she’s got him on the straight and narrow now.”
“Ain’t that a good thing?”
“Yeah. I’m glad for him, just. He ain’t been there for me in a long time, and now he wants me to stand for him at his wedding and I. I just don’t know how I feel about it.”
“Pretty meaningful thing, being somebody’s best man.”
Clint looked pensive. “Yeah.”
Clint got up to fix himself a new cup of coffee, with zero hesitation at using the creamer he clearly knew Bucky had only gotten with him in mind. He leaned back against the counter, keeping space between himself and Bucky, as if that could make the rest of his problems seem distant.
“Maybe I’ll have Maria send me on that long term op in Bolivia she keeps threatening me with. That’d solve the problem.”
Bucky gave him a flat, unimpressed look and he slumped a little bit. “It’d solve the problem of the wedding at least.”
“Dependin’ on how understanding that brother of yours is it might solve the problem of needing to reconnect ever,” Bucky pointed out. “What if you get nieces and nephews outta this? You gonna risk not being able to meet them?”
He ignored the pang in his own chest that he’d never gotten to meet his own niece and nephew. Becca had passed before he’d gotten to see her again, and it hadn’t felt right to introduce himself. They couldn’t need that kind of disruption in their lives, not when they had kids of their own now.
“You aren’t supposed to make me feel worse about this,” Clint protested.
“Sorry,’” Bucky muttered, though he wasn’t really. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, don’t. But sure seems like a big part of you wants to.”
“I’m tired of getting let down,” Clint admitted. “I’ve given Barn a lot of extra chances. And every time I either end up out a lot of cash, or in jail. So. I’m a little gun shy about it.”
“You want company? I can make sure he don’t shake you down, and that you don’t get roped into any stupider-that-usual schemes and keep you outta jail.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You ain’t asking. I’m offering.”
“It’s. He’s an asshole. Runs in the family,” he added with a sardonic huff. “I don’t want to subject you to that.”
“If I can handle you I’m sure I can handle an afternoon with him. Besides, he’ll be busy doing wedding shit for most of it.
“It’s in Iowa,” Clint warned.
“What do I care. Could be on the moon for all the difference it’d make.”
“Just. I don’t know. I’ve got time before I have to answer. Wedding’s four months away.”
Bucky yawned widely enough his jaw popped and it was Clint’s turn to give him a flat look.
“Go to bed. I think I can handle getting the cake out when it’s done. It’ll have to cool a bit, and then go in the fridge for a coupla hours. Not gonna be able to eat it until tomorrow.”
“Where you’d learn to bake so good anyway?” Bucky asked.
Clint shrugged as Bucky yawned again. “Here and there. Go to bed. I promise to have the place tidy enough the only way you’ll be able to tell I was here is by the cheesecake in your fridge.”
“You prolly owe me dozens of cookies,” Bucky muttered as he begrudgingly accepted the fact that he was going to fall asleep whether or not the stayed on the couch or retreated to his bedroom. He wasn’t willing to examine the matter too closely, but whatever it was about Clint that had him offering to attend weddings half way across the country also had him comfortable enough to fall asleep in his presence.
In a pathetic attempt to save his own dignity he pointed a finger at Clint and intoned, “If you set my kitchen on fire, or otherwise destroy it, I know where you sleep.”
Clint laughter followed him into his bedroom.
The next morning, after Bucky finally drug himself out of bed, true to his word, the only evidence that Clint had been there was in the missing ingredients transformed into a beautiful looking cheesecake sitting in his fridge.
“JARVIS,” he asked. “Is Clint awake?”
“Agent Barton is asleep. Shall I pass on a message when he wakes?”
“Yeah, let him know I ain’t waitin’ to try this, but he can stop by later for his share.”
“Of course, Agent Barnes.”
Bucky didn’t see Clint later that day, or the next. Almost a week passed before he finally asked Natasha what the hell was going on, and she cooly informed him that Clint had requested to go on a mission as soon as his mandatory rest period was up. He’d been gone for days.
The expression on her face was knowing, despite his best effort to keep any response off of his own features. When he got back to his room he tipped the remaining half of the cheesecake he’d been saving into the trash and tried not to feel bitter that Clint hadn’t bothered to tell him he was leaving.