Work Text:
“The sky really is so much better out here,” Clint sighed. "I love the city, but there's something about the big open sky that's, well, magical.”
Bucky privately thought that Clint was magical, though it wasn't exactly something he tended to say out loud. There was a lot he didn't say out loud: things that got caught in his throat, for all that he had been charming in his youth. But then again, that had been a long time ago.
“Aha, you see that!” Clint gasped. “It's a shooting star, Buck. Make a wish!”
Bucky couldn't help but stare at Clint rather than at the star, an overwhelming surge of love that he knew couldn't possibly be hidden on his face. He was thankful that Clint was looking away because if his own eyes were to meet Clint's beautiful blues, he might do something stupid…like kiss him.
This wasn’t a new feeling, wanting to kiss Clint. If Bucky were to be honest, it had been a long time coming. He hadn’t noticed it at first. It had been so long since he had loved anyone in that way that he sometimes wondered if he still could. But when he had been alone and scared and unsure of who or what he was, Clint had been the one to find him, to help him rediscover what it meant to be a person.
Steve had done his best, but he still expected him to be the old Bucky, the one he remembered from the ‘40s. That Bucky had died when he had fallen from the train, and the Bucky he was now was a different man—would never be that person again. Clint was easier. There was no history there: no memories of shared youth, no memories of Red Room training, no guilt over the deaths of his parents and the unbearable pain of being forgiven. With Clint, there was nothing that needed forgiveness, nothing that needed to be forgotten. He was an entirely fresh start.
Bucky was not really supposed to be roaming the world alone, not after all he had done. But being in the city…it was suffocating sometimes. Too many threats, too much to try and account for. Nevertheless, any time that he wished to leave the safety of this tower—safety for whom, he sometimes wondered—he needed a chaperone. Part of him felt chafed by it; but he also understood the need for it, and so he accepted it with what little grace he had left.
He also did not find himself minding as much when Clint was the person chosen to go with him. It had been Clint’s idea to drive until they could find somewhere where they could see the stars, until there was no one but the two of them lying in the bed of the truck and watching the sky together.
As they watched the star streak across the sky, Clint reached out to take his hand; and Bucky’s only thought was that he wished he could stay in this moment forever.