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“It’s on the desk he said,” Bucky bitched as he tried to gather the loose papers enough to stack them together. Once he had most of them in a heap he picked them up to tap the bottom edge on the table and line them up. “Bet half of this is classified, just chilling out in the damn open.”
Now organized enough to shuffle through he thumbed through all of the papers, taking the time to turn around any that were backwards. He flipped through them twice, then cursed. He shoved around the rest of the mess on the table to see if it was there and came up empty.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started poking through the drawers in case any of the paperwork had made it inside one. Not that it seemed likely, given the state of the desktop.
“Y’lo,” Clint’s voice drawled from the speaker.
“It ain’t here.”
“What? No, it’s got to be. Did you check the drawer?”
‘Yes. All three of them. It ain’t here. Did you even finish it?”
“Yes. This morning right before I left for that meeting with Hill.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you but it ain’t here.”
“Did you look under the desk?”
Which was a good question actually. Bucky knelt down and checked the floor, and then the gap between the wall and the back of the desk and still came up empty.
“You know, if you just don’t want to go on leave me with you can say so.”
“No, I do. You can even ask Tasha, she saw me finish it.” Nat must have been in the room because Clint’s next words were a little more distant as if he were holding the phone in her direction. “Tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That I finished the leave request this morning before I lost it.”
“You didn’t lose it.”
“I didn’t?”
“I saw it was still on your desk when you took a bathroom break before your meeting and when you didn’t come back for it I turned it in.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Clint demanded.
“I think what you mean to say is, ‘thank you Tasha, you’re the best Tasha, I’m going to bring back your favorite box of pralines, Tasha, even though I hate going to that store.’ And anyway, I texted you.”
“Oh. Thank you Tasha,” Clint said obediently, before asking Bucky, “Did you hear all that?”
“Yes. Tell Nat she’s a queen and I’ll bring her back a whole suitcase of those chocolates.”
“Two boxes is fine,” she called over, and Bucky could hear the amusement in her voice.
“I’m headed home to pack, you make sure your request got officially approved and pick up your suit on the way home.”
“What? Why do I need to bring my suit? You didn’t say anything about needing a suit.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it? How many suitcases do you plan on taking? I hate dealing with luggage at the airport.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky repeated, knowing it would drive Clint crazy, and then hung up. He figured it for payback for having to search Clint’s desk. He shoved the stack of paper into a drawer and locked it, figuring he didn’t want chance Clint getting in trouble last second and having their trip cancelled.
He had plans.