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The date had been bad. Really bad. Bucky had seen a lot of bad dates in his bar, but this was up there. Maybe not quite as bad as the time a guy had ralphed in his date’s 300$ handbag, but the was a solid contender for top ten. Bad.
It had started off like any blind date did, with the awkward attempts to suss out who they were supposed to be meeting based on only the vaguest of descriptions. The one guy had worn a leather jacket, a tshirt, and jeans; the other had worn a suit that he had informed everyone was Prada. It wasn’t Prada, although if you weren’t looking too closely, the knock-off label declaring it to be Rnada probably passed muster.
Rnada had been a boor and a bore, talking constantly about his business dealings in this place or that, not bothering to wait for leather jacket to respond to any questions or to listen to anything he might have to say.
It was leather jacket’s third pint into the night that Bucky knew he should intervene, if only from afar. He began replacing the pints with shandies, filling them half with ginger beer before topping them the rest of the way up with the cheap shitty ale the bar had on tap. It wouldn’t save the guy from his terrible date, but it might save him from the hangover in the morning. At least a little.
It was a while later and the date had continued to go terribly when Rnada had insisted on paying for his half of the bill. Bucky had been steadily replacing more and more of the beer in leather jacket’s pints with non-alcoholic soda, but even still, the guy was looking more than a little intoxicated. Rnada was talking animatedly, and seemed insistent that leather jacket come with him. Bucky growled under his breath and slipped out from behind the bar, putting on his most customer-friendly smile.
“Excuse me, sir? There was a problem with your credit card,” he said, smiling down at Rnada.
The man’s face vacillated between that instant sense of terror that somehow his money had disappeared and annoyance that his advances were being rebuffed from a new direction now. “Ugh. Just can’t get good help in this city nowadays.” He grinned and rolled his eyes amicably at leather jacket. The expression was not returned.
Bucky lead Rnada around the bar under the excuse that they would try the other machine. Once he was just out of sight of the booth he and leather jacket had been sitting at, Bucky rounded on the guy, any trace of a smile replaced with a deep scowl.
“You’re going to leave my bar. You’re not going to talk to your date. You’re not going to say a word to anyone. You’re never going to set foot on the premises again, and you’ll never speak to your date again.” It wasn’t a command or an order; it was a simple list of facts. If the man wanted to argue with him, well, that was his mistake. His arm might have been fake, but it made a great club when the need arose.
Rnada looked like he wanted to argue, his mouth opening and closing like a confused trout, but eventually the scowl on Bucky’s face convinced him of the correct course of action. He left, speaking to no one and simply scurrying out like an unwanted pest. Bucky grinned: he was an unwanted pest, now that he thought of it.
When he returned around the bar, he found the blond in the leather jacket sitting forlornly at the bar, his forehead pressed to the cool smooth wood, a pair of purple hearing aids sitting beside him. Bucky rapped on the counter next to leather jacket’s head lightly and the man groaned. He didn’t raise his head, but with one hand he blindly shoved one of the aids back in his ear and turned it on with a faint click.
“Are you the barman?”
Bucky laughed, “The one and only.” He paused for a moment while he chose his words, “Sorry about the date. He was a jerkoff.”
The man nodded into the counter, “Thanks. It was a blind date. Never doing that again.” The man frowned into the counter and then looked up, his gaze only slightly hazy with drink, “Wait a second. You’re the barman. You’re the one who was watering down my drinks.”
Shit. Bucky just nodded. It’s not like he could expect to get away with lying about it, even if the guy was a bit drunk.
The man set his forehead back down on the counter. “Thanks. But for the next one, gimme the good stuff. I want to work on forgetting this night ever happened.”
With a small chuckle, Bucky pulled a proper pint, setting it down in front of the man. Leather jacket took out his aid again and mumbled a quiet “Thanks.”
Bucky’s shift was over an hour or two later, and he knew he would have to find a way to get leather jacket home safely. The man hadn’t been kidding about working on forgetting, although he seemed to have the alcohol tolerance of a veteran, he insisted it was just his size and genes. Who was Bucky to judge? That still left the problem of getting him home.
He eventually settled for offering to lend his couch to the guy, an offer which was accepted with a vaguely woozy thumbs up.
They walked the few blocks to Bucky’s apartment, leather jacket’s arm heavy around his shoulders, his own arm holding up leather jacket’s waist. As Bucky opened the door, leather jacket’s head slumped against his shoulder and he mumbled “Thank the cute bartender for scarin’ ‘way Tarquin f’r me? Worst date ever.” Bucky smiled and nodded as he half led, half carried leather jacket over to his overstuffed sofa. “‘m Clint by the way.”
Bucky sat on the sofa next to Clint and smiled, “Bucky. I’ll make sure I tell the cute bartender for you. For now, just relax and let’s watch tv for a bit?”
Clint nodded, his eyes already slipping closed. Bucky turned to an old movie from the ‘50s and settled down, letting Clint drape over him in his sleep. Truth be told, Bucky didn’t last that long before falling asleep himself, smiling as he did while Clint mumbled quietly in his sleep. It reminded Bucky of a puppy barking quietly at some rabbit in his dream.
***
The next morning, Clint woke up on the couch, a warm fuzzy blanket wrapped around him and two aspirin and a glass of ice water on the coffee table next to his aids and a small note. “I had to go out for some eggs. You’re at Bucky’s place if you don’t remember. You were on a terrible date and got drunk. Nothing bad happened. Make yourself at home. There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
Clint stretched and put in one of his aids. He’d just taken the aspirin with a wince at the cold water when he turned to the front door. It clicked open quietly and Bucky stepped through with a small bag of groceries. Clint smiled, “Oh good, it’s the cute barman. I was hoping it would be.” He thought for a moment then grinned, “Maybe the date wasn’t a disaster after all.”