Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Heh, I really do have to go, Barnes.” He’s trying to pull a shirt on while Bucky keeps trying to pull it off again.

“C’mon, nothin’ going on out there in the real world.” Bucky’s laughing and trying to be as intrusive as possible, and he can hear Clint give a huffy little laugh but still pulls his shirt down with absolute resolve. “Just stay the night.”

“I can’t.” He’s got to locate his pants now, wherever the hell they went. (Clint has learned that Bucky is awful about leaving their clothes in a centralized pile when he throws them places.) “I’ve gotta get home.”

This is exhausting. Bucky keeps fighting this same battle day after day, trying to get Clint to stay at the tower, even just for the night. He’s already got an apartment here but refuses to use it, and his excuses are absolute shit when they range from “I don’t want people staring at me while I sleep” when there are perfectly good locks on the doors and “I hate Stark too much to be near him for too long” when Tony isn’t even always in the building at the time.

“What the fuck is it with you and goin’ home all the time?” Bucky slumps back against the wall, pouting just a little bit, watching Clint swipe his pants off the ground and tug them on one leg at a time. He’s kind of taking personal offense by it at this point because maybe it’s him. They lay around the tower together, it’s not like they’re discreet about anything at this point, and Clint genuinely seems to like him, not that they’ve talked about like making anything official, but fuck buddies isn’t exactly an idea that Barnes is comfortable with when he’s actually really into Clint. “Stay here. With me.”

God, he sounds pathetic, and Clint looks at him over his shoulder with this almost broken expression. “I can’t.”

He can’t meet the archer’s eyes now. This argument is tiring after the tenth time. Is it because he’s not boyfriend material? Is he just too damaged to actually date? Shit, he’s barely even human at this point, it feels like, why the hell would Clint even be interested. Bucky suddenly feels damn ridiculous about thinking that maybe he and Clint could work out. “Y’know, I thought this was goin’ great. I really like you, you asshole.”

“I really like you, too. But I’ve got to get back. I’m already late.”

Late for what? As if there’s anything going on in his life. He has a bow and arrow and like half a personality and the snark of a dick, like he’s got anything going on in life. Except. Unless.

“Fuck, do you have someone else?”

It only takes a heartbeat, but Clint’s expression flashes in horror. And that’s enough for Bucky. He’s frustrated, mostly pissed, a little crushed, and just plain sad. Not even because he thought that he was the most important person or whatever, but more along the lines of he thought Clint was a guy with better intentions than that. The one time he decides to place some faith in a person. “You’ve got someone at home, don’t you? Like a husband or a wife or whatever. And I’m just your fucking mistress-“

There’s this half second of contemplation on his face (and Bucky knows why because he’s got a fist clenched up in reflex and this asshole probably knows he could be killed if he’s not careful) before Clint crosses the room and just kisses him because that’s the only solution right now.

His chest is tight and the wound is still fresh, but he feels himself relax. Unwillingly, but he does. He can’t hurt him. He can’t.

“Stay with me,” Bucky pleads for a moment after they’ve broken apart, but Clint just laughs like an idiot, the sound a little breathy from the kiss.

“How about you come stay with me?”

“That’s… That’s not exactly how you explain to someone that you’re cheatin’ on them. You don’t bring the person you’re having an affair with home to your spouse. That’s bad etiquette.” As much as he believes Clint is just this weirdly inherently good person (yeah, a bit like Steve) with the best intentions in the world (also like Steve), he isn’t sure whether or not cheating would fall along that line. Worst case scenario, maybe he’ll take it as a joke? Because he’s really hoping that maybe there was a misunderstanding, something lost in translation that Bucky may have missed.

He rubs the back of his neck and when his eyes meet Bucky’s, they’re a little nervous. There’s some tension in his jawline suddenly. “I’ve got someone at home, but it’s not like that.”

--

When a woman opens the door, Bucky is just about ready to punch Clint. Really hard.

But he doesn’t. Not yet.

“You’re late again, Clint,” she says with a little bit of knowing sass, but when the door opens more and the light shines on the man with the metal arm, she bites her lip. Bucky can see something flash behind her eyes: fear? hope? He’s not so great at reading people, but whatever it is, she’s apprehensive. “And who’s your friend?”

He’s fishing around in his wallet, doing everything he can to not look at Bucky right now. “My boyfriend. Sort of.” (Bucky swallows hard. Maybe he did jump the gun on this.) He hands her a fifty, and his hand might be shaking just a tiny bit. Just a lil’ bit. “Thanks for staying late, Simone, I appreciate it.”

“If you show up on time, this won’t be a problem. You’re just lucky my boys had a sleepover tonight.” And she pushes past Clint and tries very hard to keep a decent distance from Bucky before adding, “I couldn’t get him to sleep, by the way. He wanted to stay up ‘til you got home.”

And Bucky can damn well tell that Clint is just getting more and more worried; those stupid stress lines are on his forehead, the ones that Bucky hates seeing because that means Clint is pretty freaked out. “Go figure,” breathes Clint, walking in and dropping his keys on the table by the door before kicking his shoes off. (How domestic.) “Hey, at least it’s easier this way. So you can meet him.”

He’s just trying to follow suit, but he feels out of place in this nice little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Even though he closes the door behind him, he can hear the woman’s damn car roll away, so she’s not a problem by any means. “Meet who?” he asks just as Clint rounds a corner.

“Peter.”

There’s this kid. This kid with this goofy smile who’s eyes light up when he looks at Clint, and he gets to his feet and rushes over. This kid who is in spider pajamas and runs across the floor on tiny feet. This kid who then actually physically latches himself onto Clint’s leg and beams up at him. This kid who just says in this high pitched little voice, “Hi, Daddy!”

A kid. Shit.

Better than a spouse, at least.

Those sharp archer eyes are watching Bucky, analyzing him, trying to figure out how he’s reacting. Now Clint’s words are shaking: “This is Peter. He’s my, uh, son.”

That… would be a very good reason to come home every night. And Bucky is definitely feeling like an asshole.

But he also has no idea how to react to a kid.

He certainly didn’t sign up for this. He thought Clint was a guy with some weird habits that could be broken, maybe. Like the one where he never slept at the tower. Bucky can see now that there’s no shot at that. And he’s a dad. Shit, that means there may have been a wife or something, and Bucky feels like he’s almost encroaching on something he shouldn’t. Stepping on sacred ground or whatever.

“Hey, Pete, say hi to Bucky.” Because obviously Clint can see the uncertainty and possibly terror on his face.

This munchkin of a creature removes one hand ever so delicately, almost slowly, from Clint’s leg and waves at Bucky with tubby little fingers while wearing a huge, toothy smile. “Hi, Bucky!”

Doesn’t respond. He’s just rigid. Like a statue, maybe his metal arm is making that effect worse. His eyes are going between the kid and Clint, trying to figure out what to do.

Because he hasn’t had to handle a kid in… at least seventy years. And even then he wasn’t good at it. He just didn’t bother with these things before because there was a war. He had time for women because that was a one night thing and the whole gay scene wasn’t acceptable. He’d resigned to the idea that he was going to die in the war and that was why he never needed to prepare for any of this. He didn’t expect to come out on the other side. And he certainly didn’t think about kids.

Now he wishes he had considered it because he doesn’t know what to do or say. There’s this tiny person that he doesn’t know how to interact with whatsoever and clearly Clint’s got this hope that this can work out because why else would he have introduced him to Peter? Bucky feels more pathetic now than he did when he had to fall on the Avengers for help just to recover and survive. And he just stays quiet, not sure how to tell Barton that he isn’t interested in kids.

Thank God for the kid’s natural inquisitiveness because he’s the one to break this awkward silence by asking, “Who’s Bucky?”

The archer ruffles the kid’s hair, and there’s a weird tentativeness to Clint’s words that Bucky’s not used to hearing when he says softly, “Bucky is a boy I really, really like.”

The weight of it all is just getting heavier.

Little nose scrunching up as he angled his head to look straight up at Clint- at his dad, he asks, “Do you love Bucky?”

And his heart just stops as Clint slowly turns to look at him, blinking a little bit more than usual. Bucky can entirely tell that he’s out of his element right now, like there are split personalities here trying to take control at once; he can read it- the dad trying to handle his son appropriately but also the professional hero who doesn’t want to let down all his walls yet. But he must be in it up to his ears because he says, “Yeah, I love Bucky.”

He can kill a person in at least a thousand different ways, but Barnes isn’t sure what to do with all of this, it’s a lot in one night, he feels reassured but also like he can’t breathe. Because Clint loves him, and he loves Clint too, but he’s not ready for a kid, he’s definitely not ready for a kid.

“So he’s not gonna go away?” Peter asks, innocently looking at Bucky before pushing his face into Clint’s leg some more.

This leaves Hawkeye gaping for words. Because for once, he doesn’t have an answer.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He doesn’t exactly know how to handle a kid, but he might be able to figure it out eventually. And he doesn’t want to lose Clint over something that he can figure out with enough time. As weird as this may be, and he’s going to need a hell of an explanation, he wants to stay with Clint. Even if it means spending nights here instead of at the tower.

And Bucky swears he can see the concern melt off of Clint. And his… boyfriend pats Peter on the head and it’s a little bit like a switch flipping and dad mode activating. “Alright, so let’s go get you in bed, yeah? Since you didn’t behave for Simone.”

He pries himself from Clint’s leg and protests softly, “Because you were late.”

“Yeah, I know.” Clint scoops his kid up, and Bucky is still trying to figure out what this dynamic is between them. “Blame Bucky for that. He kept me busy at work.”

He unconsciously smirks at the word “busy”. Bucky only feels a little bit guilty about making him late. He feels a lot guiltier about blowing up in Clint’s face earlier. This is why he doesn’t deserve him. Because he’s this stupidly great guy who has good intentions and is weirdly optimistic and decides to fight evil with a damn bow and arrow, which Bucky thinks is pretty much useless. And he’s decided to pick an amnesiac sniper with a fucked up arm. Talk about contrast.

And when he looks to Clint, the archer’s kind of got his kid on his hip and just says, “I’ll be back as soon as I get him to go to sleep. Sit and do whatever. TV works. Mostly.” He kind of shrugs, like he’s not sure what to do. “Just… please stay.”

“Don’t worry.” He looks around for a second and sees the mess that Peter must’ve created and knows that this whole… thing is something that he wants a good explanation for, but right now, he knows Clint’s got to do his dad thing. “I’ll be here.”

--

“We’ll have to be quiet, he’s not a super heavy sleeper.”

And that basically wakes Bucky up because it’s been an hour and the whole house is quiet and it’s pretty late, so he was almost asleep himself, but Clint crashes on the couch next to him, looking even more exhausted, his hair even kind of messed up. “You look like shit.”

He blinks slowly and leans into the couch more, slightly towards Bucky. Clint’s smirk is infectious. “Thanks, you’re so sweet.”

“Well, I do happen to be your boyfriend. And you love me.”

Suddenly, it’s like the events of the past two or so hours finally kicks Barton in the face. “Shit, Buck, I’m sorry about this. And about that, I know we haven’t said anything, but I didn’t know what to-“

Barnes snorts a laugh. “It’s fine.” He feels Clint’s forehead just hit his shoulder, and he reaches out to put his arm, the flesh and blood one, across the back of the couch and around his boyfriend. Yeah, he did like the way that sounded. Even if he’s a mostly human trainwreck on his own and he’s making the conscious decision to be with another human trainwreck. He can only see this getting messier, especially with the many issues that he battled on his own time when Clint wasn’t watching, let alone throwing their problems together. “I love you too, by the way. I just didn’t know if we were serious enough to say that.”

“I’d say we are,” he reaches up to play with a strand of Bucky’s hair that has escaped the bun. “I mean, I brought you home to meet Pete.”

He kind of gets it now, why he wasn’t told sooner. The two of them had only been doing this whole thing for a few months, and it’s not like Bucky is someone who looks very kid-friendly.

There’s this long bit of quiet that lingers between them, silent enough that the rain hitting the roof is all he can hear. He gently pulls Clint closer to him, knowing he’s practically dead right now. And maybe the guilt is hitting harder now because he put his boyfriend under way more stress than should’ve ever been necessary. He should’ve trusted him. Then again, he doesn’t trust anyone much. Clint is only an exception to that because… because he’s easy to talk to and he’s just a good dude. He understands the PTSD and the mind control and the way the sniper brain works. Clint gets him.

A long sigh is drawn from Barton and he leans back a little bit, which causes Bucky to tilt his head and watch him with a careful eye. “I should probably explain him.” Bucky’s pursed lips and raised brow are enough to indicate a “yeah, probably”, and Clint just tries to settle himself in. “He’s not actually mine, if that makes you feel any better.” (It did.) “His parents were killed when he was maybe two, I think. Fury was trying to handle it because Pete’s parents were some of SHIELD’s, and by the end of it all, he kind of ended up redirected to me.”

Bucky just blinks slowly and smirks. Clint… he looks proud.

“He’s a good kid. He’s cute, he’s smart, I can put him through school, it’s like I get to be a dad.” He rubs the back of his neck, and those tired eyes watch Bucky. “I’m not even sure why Fury gave him to me. Maria could’ve taken him, probably, but he’s… he’s legally mine now. He’s been with me for three years.” He looked in the direction of the stairs, up at where he’d taken Peter. “I should’ve told you sooner, I know, but just this… this is the one thing I keep for me. Only Natasha knows about him. It’s so he stays safe. Away from the dangerous stuff that we do.”

It makes sense. He can’t even argue with it, he understands why this kid, this place, is hidden away from the Avengers, from him. Hell, maybe Peter’s safer far away from him. In case that Winter Soldier programming kicks in…

“Are you okay with all this?” And those stress lines across his forehead are back.

He feels it kicking in, this little bit of worry that he could ruin a lot of things here. Bucky has to even pull himself further away from Clint, and his eyes are downcast, watching their interlocked fingers. (When did that happen?)

He’s really a walking disaster. Bucky is actually dangerous, not in the terrible uncle kind of way, but in the actually lethal way. He’s a terrible influence, which falls more along the lines of terrible uncle. There are like two hundred reasons why he has kind of decided that being a parent was never in his future. It may have been about seventy years ago, but not today. Not after all the HYDRA programming. Not with the thought that he could snap Peter’s neck with one hand.

“Clint…”

His head tilts back so he’s staring at the ceiling. He just looks resigned. “Yeah, I knew this was a bad idea.”

“I could kill him.” As if he doesn’t think that about everyone. As if he hasn’t thought about what he could do to Clint if he wasn’t careful. He knows he could kill just about anyone, and he feels powerless to stop himself. There’s so much going on inside his head he doesn’t even know about and it’s terrifying.

And then Barton’s eyes are back on his with absolute severity. “So could I. What’s your damn point?”

He’s right. But the difference is that one of them has it under control. He can just imagine there being blood and… Peter… “Would you really risk him?”

Clint’s lips pursed. “I trust you.”

“And if something happens?”

“We’ll deal with it then.”

His brow furrowed. “After I’ve killed you and your son?” Bucky wants to just walk out right there because Clint is clearly not thinking with his head right now. He’s probably not thinking with his dick either, but he’s definitely not using his brain. “You make terrible decisions, Barton.”

“I did decide to love you, so.”

And there’s this quiet again, like a blanket over everything, even covering both their mouths so they can’t say anything else. Bucky wants to say something else, but he’s not sure what. Because his heart is fucking with him because he wants to be around Clint more, but not hurt him or Peter. Clint can hold his own, that’s not even a problem, but Peter is a kid who could be caught at the wrong place at the wrong time and get himself hurt; he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

Barton is still pressed up against him. He wants to let go, but he can’t.

The realization hits that he also makes bad decisions.

“If even one thing goes wrong, you need to get rid of me.”

Clint Barton is too tired to even carry on at that point, and Bucky sees him crash because suddenly his face his buried in his chest and the assassin can feel his boyfriend smiling into his shirt. “I can do that.” And then he laughs; it’s real short and cute. “Now carry me up to bed please.”

Chapter Text

He’s carrying the groceries inside, the metal arm acting like a hanging rack that he’s got ten bags hanging off of, and he pauses right outside the front door.

THUNK.

THUNK.

Bucky’s familiar with the sound—it’s Clint shooting arrows at the side of the house that they’ve reinforced with steel so nothing goes through the wall and actually into the house. (It happened once and that was when they decided to be concerned about safety. Bucky got shot in the arm. He was just glad it was the metal one and not Peter’s face or something.) But there’s this weird pause between shots. Usually it’s more rapid fire and a little louder.

He opens the door with his free hand and pushes himself and the groceries through the doorway, which feels too small, and heads to the kitchen to drop it all off on the counter. The sound is quieter inside the house; thank God for soundproofing, otherwise they’d go mad. “Hey, Pete,” he says with a nod to the kid, who looks up for like half a second to say “hi” before going back to his homework. And as Bucky’s pushing all the bags off his arm, he hears Peter pipe up again, “Dad brought a girl home.”

…he’s going to try not to re-explain the sexuality thing to Peter because as much as Clint is into whatever walks, the kid should know by this point that his dad kind of has a live-in boyfriend. It’s been three years. They kiss in front of him. So instead he just raises a questioning eyebrow in Peter’s direction.

“Not like that,” the kid verifies with a laugh before ducking back into his work, still wearing a big grin.

It’s not that he had to be reassured, but for some reason, he still likes hearing it, mostly because he still gets a little shiver at the idea of being Clint’s boyfriend. But really, he doesn’t know why the fuck Clint would bring a girl home. Still, he’s going to give himself some time to think through this, so he puts away the cold shit in the grocery bags to make sure the ice cream doesn’t melt (Clint would kill him) and checks over Pete’s shoulder to see what all he’s working on in class-

-but Bucky’s not the one to help with homework, especially not science, which is what it looks like. He still hasn’t quite gotten a grasp on the parenting thing, but he does love Peter and he tries his best to help the kid. He’s not great at it, but Clint appreciates it. So Bucky tries. He tries really hard.

For now, he walks past Peter, musses up the kid’s hair, and says, “I’m gonna go check on ‘im.”

“Good idea.”

So when he steps out the back door, rounds the side of the house, and sees a girl holding Clint’s bow, he’s definitely a little bit more than confused. Peter isn’t even allowed to touch the bow. Bucky is, but only on missions and in case of emergency (and to throw it far away from Clint when he wakes up from a nightmare). So he stands there for a minute and watches, knowing his boyfriend isn’t paying attention whatsoever because he’s intent on watching this girl shoot arrows at the wall. And every few shots, Bucky observes, Clint is just slightly adjusting something in her stance or in her positioning. And then they go through the cycle again. She shoots. He adjusts. Repeat.

“Who’s this?” he asks, which causes Clint’s head to swivel like a hawk’s. He loves catching him off guard.

He clears his throat and pushes the bow down because the girl’s reaction was to point it at Bucky, and that clearly causes an issue because his fist is clenched. He hates having weapons pointed at him. Clint speaks softly, feeling the tension between them, “This is Kate.” He gestures to the girl. And then he holds a hand out towards Barnes. “And that’s Bucky.”

As much as he doesn’t like being call at “that”, he sees Kate relax. For a second, only a second, he doesn’t mind that Clint didn’t give him a heads up about bringing someone home until she opens her big mouth and asks, “Does he live here too?”

All Bucky can think is Oh God, Clint what’ve you brought home… Because clearly he hasn’t explained the situation to her.

“Yeah, yeah, he lives here,” Clint covers quickly, and Bucky’s pretending like he’s not taking this personally, but this little brat keeps talking-

“Is he your roommate?”

Clint, what the fuck have you done-

“Technically, yeah, but we’re together. So we share a room.” Clint’s rubbing the back of his neck, and Bucky can see that Clint is just now realizing that maybe he’s in over his head. “But he’s pretty friendly. Doesn’t talk much, but you’ll get used to him.”

Now Bucky’s got this urge to play Twenty Questions with Clint about why she has all her questions and why he’s explaining his answers that way. “Barton, can I steal you for a minute?” he asks, his head tilted to one side as his eyebrows say “you’re in trouble”.

And so once his boyfriend has crossed the yard, he pulls Clint around the corner of the house, and in a fierce, hushed tone, he asks, “What the fuck? I thought you said you were on mission!”

He puts up his hands defensively. “I was, I was, but my mission got a little messy.” He looks around the corner at Kate before turning back to Bucky. “I was going in to protect her business mogul dad but turned out he had practically a whole mob after him because he invested some stuff in their enemy without realizing it. And so I had to call in back-up, but they tried to take Kate. I kept her safe, but I knew they’d come after her again.”

“So you brought her here? This isn’t a safehouse, Clint, this is our house.” Bucky tries his hardest not to get too angry, but he literally left for the store an hour ago and suddenly he comes back and his boyfriend’s back and he brought home a person as a souvenir.

“I staged a kidnapping of my own so that she’s out of the line of fire; there are other people dealing with Bishop’s situation there now. Except… when I tried to get her, I caught her off-guard and she shot me with-” He points a thumb over his shoulder towards her. “-one of those. Which is impressive.” Bucky can see on his face that Clint is actually a little excited about it. (Bucky tenses up because who dares shoot at his boyfriend.) “The point is, we’re just watching her until all the loose ends are tied up.”

“Did she hurt you?” His eyes scan up and down Clint while he grits his teeth.

“She skimmed me.” He pulls up his shirt to show a bandage taped across his ribcage. And when Bucky tenses up, he says, “It’s just a scratch, I got it patched up, I’m not an idiot.” Bucky’s got that look in his eyes that says “really?”, but Clint doesn’t address it and instead takes his boyfriend’s hands and says, “I’m fine, Buck, I promise.”

Bucky can’t get too angry. It’s part of his mission. It’s for the girl’s safety. He’s not all that happy about it, but it is what it is at this point and she needs to be kept safe. He’s mostly not happy about Clint being hurt right now because it makes his stomach twist up because he feels bad for not protecting him. “So she’s staying with us,” he states, just trying to get a grip on all this information.

“Yeah.” Clint, whose head is bowed a little bit, looks up at Bucky with these sheepish eyes. He rubs the pads of his thumbs across the back of Bucky’s hands. The metal arm glints in the sunlight. “Is that okay with you?”

If there’s one thing Bucky can never argue with, it’s mission objectives. Kate needs to be kept safe, he will do everything in his power to keep her safe. Even if she doesn’t really understand what’s going on. What Bucky does understand is that Clint knows what he’s doing and that he loves him. That’s all he needs. He shakes his head softly and sighs. “What all do I need to know?”

--

He’s been informed that Kate Bishop is thirteen, has no food allergies, and really likes coffee. So when she emerges from one of their spare rooms, comes downstairs, and steals his mug of coffee, he’s not surprised. But he’s also not sure how to react because he kind of wants to punch her, but Peter, who notices the look on his face, gives him the “simmer down” gesture, and he calms himself with a few steeling breaths before going to pour himself another mug.

Bucky is still not good at parenting. Peter is… easy enough. He’s mostly self-managing. Make him food, ask him about his day, address his interests regularly, wash his clothes, put him to bed at a decent time— it’s like taking care of a tiny adult. Bucky finds that he has no problems handling Pete whenever Clint is gone on missions. The two co-exist comfortably.

Kate, on the other hand, is already a problem. She was loud last night, just talking a lot, a lot louder than Bucky is used to. And his hand held Clint’s, but he was squeezing the archer’s hand because he just wanted to relax for the night and she was getting on his nerves. And meanwhile, Clint was practically asleep on him, so there was that. Also, with Kate, she’s always there. Peter, when he’s quiet for too long, just kind of like vanishes to Bucky. Meanwhile, this new girl made her presence known whenever she is anywhere nearby by commenting loudly on everything, and Barnes wishes he was Clint because he actually saw his asshole boyfriend do the discreet thing where he stretches his arms behind his head and turns down his hearing aids before returning to his normal sitting position. What a lucky son of a bitch…

It’s not that she’s terrible or anything. (It’s mostly that he doesn’t like people and yet Clint has just delivered him a person.) But she’s just a huge slap in the face compared to quiet little Peter, who babbles on whenever he wants to and only needs little sounds of approval and acknowledgement to know that he’s being heard. Bucky’s very good at that.

As for right now, Kate has single-handedly ruined Bucky’s morning because after taking his cup of coffee, she then goes to sit in his seat at the kitchen table. So he’s standing on the other side of the kitchen, leaning on the counter, watching her over the edge of his new mug as he takes a drink. So far, he’s not really feeling it.

Then again, he wasn’t really feeling it with Peter either, but here they are, silently communicating back and forth.

And it’s occurred to Bucky before that he and Peter talk differently than Peter does with Clint. When Clint’s around, Peter is chatty as hell, talking about his day, telling these long, involved stories. He tries to get Clint’s attention more, and Clint doesn’t hesitate to go into dad mode. When he’s with Bucky, it’s shorter sentences and mostly body language. Pete has mastered this. He’ll tell Bucky stories, but they’re usually shorter and for a laugh, which, for Bucky, is usually just a snort accompanied by a smile. And he’ll show Bucky his work before slapping it up on the fridge to show Clint in more detail later.

He doesn’t see himself as Peter’s dad, he probably never will, but he tries really hard to be a good parental figure for him.

As for Kate, he’s really not sure how long she’s going to stay. He’s already hoping her situation at home is handled soon.

But as soon as Clint comes into the kitchen, it’s like she mutates. (It’s either his arrival or the fact that she’s downed the whole mug in less than five minutes, but Bucky’ll blame it on Clint any day of the week.) Because now she’s a little perkier. And she’s smiling. And she appears to be more open to conversation, and it’s not like Peter or Bucky will provide much of that. But she must think Clint will. “Morning,” she chirps when he walks in the room.

And Bucky and Peter just share this look.

Clint doesn’t acknowledge her right away, and instead is brushing past Bucky and giving him a lazy kiss on the cheek with a mumble of “morning, babe”. (Bucky smirks into his coffee mug. He really loves Clint when he’s sleepy.) But after he’s got his own mug poured and is leaning against the counter right next to Bucky, those hawk eyes sweep across the room. “Morning,” he says to his collective brood and then sips from his mug.

Peter doesn’t say anything and just smiles.

They have learned not to mess with Clint before coffee.

“Take your hair down, you’ll look pretty,” Clint says softly to his boyfriend, pulling the ponytail out of Bucky’s bun so that his hair falls into his face. The assassin smirks a little more. (There is no way Clint is even half awake right now, maybe a tenth awake, but that’d be it.)

“I haven’t showered yet. Don’t do that.” He tries not to get frustrated because he knows there isn’t enough caffeine in his boyfriend’s system for him to function as a human being. He takes his ponytail back from Clint and hands him his coffee mug so that he can use both his hands to get his hair back up and out of his eyes. And in the process, he gets another kiss on the cheek because Clint is apparently in one of those moods this morning.

“How long have you two been together?”

Bucky looks up at Kate, who’s watching them with curious eyes. He takes his mug back as Clint takes a drink from his own, clearly unaware of anything. “Three years, I think.” He calculates it by Peter’s age nowadays. That’s the easiest way to keep track. And it helps him keep track of how old Pete is.

Peter nods to let Bucky know that he’s right. (Thank God for that kid.)

“You’re cute together.”

Bucky snorts a laugh, and Peter snickers before turning around to look at Kate and says, “That’s only because Dad hasn’t had enough coffee. Usually they call each other mean names.”

“I’m so glad I can’t hear anything,” Clint mutters into his mug before taking another drink. And Bucky rolls his eyes and slips his hand around his boyfriend’s waist, pressing it into the small of his back. Because Clint is way too tired for this kind of battle this morning.

“He’s awful without his coffee. Forgets to put his hearing aids in. Fucks with my hair all the time.”

“Language,” Peter and Clint chime simultaneously. (Because of course Clint can hear that only because he’s so damn close to Bucky.)

Bucky apologizes in a mumble, almost hoping Clint can’t hear it. Just because.

--

He doesn’t know what to do with Kate Bishop yet.

Whenever he leaves the windows open, he can hear the arrows hitting the wall. That’s where Kate usually is. (The sound only bothers Bucky because he thinks it means Clint is home, but it isn’t Clint, and he just wants his boyfriend to come home.) She’s even drawn a target on the wall to judge her accuracy better. She drifts around the house like a ghost, unsure of what to do unless she’s roped into whatever Peter calls her for. And Bucky just keeps an eye on them both, not super worried about anything, really. The farm isn’t a place where kids can find a lot of trouble.

So after he’s stacked some sandwiches for lunch, and he yells in the house for them and they don’t respond, he gets a little worried. Just a little. Maybe he feels little too much like a housewife sometimes.

And Bucky goes to the backdoor and stares out against the sun. Then looks both ways. “Kate! Pete!” Waits a few seconds. Assumes the worst: kids are missing, kidnapped, dead. Bucky shakes his head. “Goddammit.”

“Language,” says Peter from the roof as he’s climbing down the gutter, Kate following right behind (above?) him.

He’s not happy. Because he’s in charge of Clint’s kid and the Bishop kid, and if they get hurt on his watch, Clint will not be happy. Therefore, Bucky is not happy. It’s a vicious cycle. “What were you two doin’ on the roof?”

Peter lands on the ground first and wipes his hands on his shirt before looking up at Bucky. “Katie let me play with the bow and arrow and I shot one onto the roof.” He shrugs. “We just went to get it.”

“Don’t call me Katie,” she snaps at him before tossing the arrow towards the side of the house. And then she pushes past Bucky to head inside.

Again, Peter shrugs, and he holds up his arm towards Bucky. “I think I got bit by a bug up there.”

He sees a little red bump that looks like it might be swelling. Might as well put something on it, even if it’s nothing. “C’mon,” he sighs. “Let’s just hope it wasn’t somethin’ bad like a black widow.”

The kid laughs. “Aunt Nat would love that.”

“Aunt Nat would be rushing you to a hospital. And yellin’ at me for not keeping an eye on you.”

As Bucky ushers him inside and towards the kitchen, Peter’s quiet, but after a second, he says, “Yeah, you’re probably right, Bucky.”

“That happens sometimes, y’know.” And he’s heading in the opposite direction of Peter because he’s gotta find the first aid kit and pray to God that there aren’t actually poisonous bugs around here and that Pete’s not allergic to bug bites or whatever. He’s only been living here full-time a year and a half-ish, so he doesn’t know everything about the kid yet.

As he’s fishing around in the cabinet under the stairs, he can hear Kate ask, “Why do you call him Bucky? Isn’t he your dad?”

Where’s the goddamn first aid kit?

“I don’t know. He’s just always been Bucky to me.” And when Peter continues after a second or two, Bucky can hear him say, “I mean, he’s my dad, but I just don’t call him that.”

He pauses. Breathes. Bucky runs a hand through his hair. And finds the first aid kit.

He heads back into the kitchen to patch up Clint’s son.

--

He’s gonna put his best foot forward this morning. So he pours her a cup of coffee before she even comes downstairs and puts it where she seems to enjoy sitting. (Which is exactly where he also enjoys sitting, but he’s being nice today, remember?)

When she drifts down from her room, she plops down in that seat and the coffee is there. She looks up at Bucky, who is leaning against the counter again, metal hand wrapped around a mug. “Thanks,” she says.

He nods.

Giving her a few minutes to wake up with the caffeine, he’s going to try and be civil today. Not that he hasn’t been in the week and a half that she’s been here, but he hasn’t exactly put a ton of effort into being nice. Or social. Or friendly.

Maybe he’s too used to Peter at this point. Peter’s just so easy.

“How’re you settling in?” he asks, watching her with analytical eyes. “Holding up okay?”

She looks up from her coffee with suspicion. But that fades away. The hostility she was using has died off by this point, like she’s too tired to keep fighting back against the situation. Which is understandable because Clint said it could be a few more months before the whole ordeal is cleaned up because they’re trying to backlog the mob’s activities through HYRDA and there might be some kind of AIM interference… If anyone asks Bucky, it’s a huge clusterfuck.

“I’m alright. I’m just used to being around a lot more people.” She shifts uncomfortably, and Bucky tries not to stare so much, instead focusing on his coffee. “It’s weird that it’s so quiet around here.”

He nods before shrugging. “Sorry it’s not all that entertaining around here. We have to kind of keep it low-key to minimize stress.” It keeps the Winter Soldier at bay. But he’s not gonna tell her that. He’s also not gonna tell her that they have to keep it quiet so that neither his nor Clint’s PTSD problems flare up. (That’s why they had to put the soundproofing in after putting in the metal wall for the “archery range”. The sound of the metal tips against the metal wall sounded like bullets and caused Bucky to have a breakdown inside while Clint was entirely unaware until Peter started screaming.) They don’t have people over because crowds can cause Bucky to have panic attacks. Half of their lifestyle in this stupid little farm is just to try and keep their disabilities from consuming them.

“But I’m glad I’m here.” Her words are tentative. “I mean, no one at school likes me all that much. And I don’t like my stepmom. My dad’s hardly around.” Kate shrugs. “I like having you around all day, even if you don’t say much. And Peter’s fun.” Then her face just kind of lights up. “And Clint says I’m getting really good at archery.”

“I believe it.” Bucky folds one arm across his chest while the other lifts his mug to his lips. “You’re out there practicing enough.”

Apparently, flattery works very well on her because she’s really smiling now. “Maybe I could be like his partner or something someday.”

Bucky almost chokes. And what that means is that he does choke. On coffee. He’s coughing for a second before he finally manages to get out, “I’m sorry, but I’m already his partner.”

“Not like that,” she says, rolling her eyes. (And Bucky’s not really sure why she thought he meant it like that?) “I mean like his superhero partner. Because there’s no way I’d be his sidekick.” She shudders as the word rolls of her tongue, like it’s poisonous. How dare she deign to be anything less than Hawkeye.

“Yeah, that position is also filled by me,” he confirms once again, giving her a severe look.

Kate’s lips twist up. Her brow furrows. “Then why aren’t you out there with him right now?”

Because…

Bucky isn’t even sure how to start that one. But he does know that the feeling of his chest dropping out from under him is all too familiar. He hates being reminded that he can’t go out in the field with Clint right now. He doesn’t like the thought that he’s not the one watching his boyfriend’s back, that Clint’s out there protecting the world and Bucky can’t be there beside him. To feel dangerous, to feel like a threat… Bucky hates that. He knows he could kill so many people if anything went wrong, he knows he could kill these kids if the right trigger kicked in, but he tries to forget about it, and Clint promises him every day that he’ll be fine, that nothing’s going to happen, that he trusts him, but that doesn’t make the fear go away. It only buries it. Temporarily.

“I’m out of commission right now.” He’s been out of commission for almost six months. “Had some complications on a mission.” He killed twenty people. “I’m supposed to get reinstated next month.” With intense supervision on every op if he does get cleared. “I mostly do sniper missions-” But no one knows how he got ahold of a machine gun. “-and Clint’s my partner.” SHIELD is convinced Clint is the only one who can talk him out of his Winter Soldier state. The only other option would be to kill him.

The whole thing is a goddamn mess, and he hates it. He hates what he’s trained to be. He hates the blood on his hands. He hates that he pretends to be a regular person here when he is a lethal killer out in the real world.

It’s times like these that he remembers why he didn’t want to be wrapped up in this domestic shit in the first place.

Kate’s quiet (shocking) and drinks her coffee without comment for a few minutes. This gives Bucky enough time to regulate his heartrate back to normal and get his mind back into the right headspace so that he’ll be alright. Making a mental to-do list is settling.

Until Kate pipes up, “So you won’t be around as much when you get reinstated?”

He half-shrugs. “Depends on how often they need me. Clint’s a little more flexible and-” He almost says “stable”, but he doesn’t want to alarm her. So he covers it by continuing with, “So they call him in a lot more. And he has a few team projects that keep him busy.” AKA Avengers business.

She’s contemplative for a second. He’s glad her face is expressive because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to tell what’s going on with her; to be honest, this is the longest conversation he’s ever held with the girl. After a few minutes, she says, “I hope you get reinstated so you get to spend more time with Clint.”

His smile is appreciative but sad. Because Clint is sometimes gone for days at time, and it’s during those days when Bucky gets restless. He gets stressed, and sometimes it feels like it’s gonna bury him. He’s more likely to be locked up in their room most of the time except for meals and to get Pete off the bus. Sometimes he’ll even wander through the house in Clint’s too-tight clothing. Bucky just doesn’t know what to do without the one person who calms him down. He doesn’t have Clint to settle him down after his nightmares. Clint isn’t there to protect the kids if…

“I hope so too.”

It’s a way to spend time with Clint. It’s a way to keep him away from the kids.

It’s the best way to keep him stable.

But for now, in the meantime, he’ll manage like he does every other day, and he’ll drink coffee with Kate Bishop.

Chapter Text

“Don’t push him into the freezer.”

“It’d be the equivalent to him hitting the iceberg.”

Bucky… doesn’t have a smart enough remark to follow that one up so he just watches indifferently as Kate pushes the shopping cart, with Peter hanging off the front like he’s Rose from The Titanic, straight at the clear freezer door, his face smushing up against it.

“Hey, make sure he’s Rose and not Jack.” Bucky checks his list. “And grab the frozen pizza from in there, Pete.”

Kate backs up the cart just a little bit so that Peter isn’t smushed up against the freezer and can open the door and snag a pizza from inside. Bucky has found that those two make a fantastic tag team when they aren’t trying to kill each other. They take directions well, which is thrilling for Barnes because he doesn’t have to deal with two little pricks defying him every step of the way.

“And get some egg rolls, Clint hates it when I eat those.” He smirks to himself only to see Kate flash him a little grin on her own because maybe they all have this habit of trying to secretly piss off Clint. If not all of them, at least Kate and Bucky do because it almost a game between them now, to see who can subtly get on Clint’s nerves the fastest. So far, Kate has gotten him by switching his coffee with decaf and by suddenly sitting in his seat at breakfast instead of Bucky’s, which Barnes can’t complain about by any means. Meanwhile, Bucky had opportunities to be a little more sophisticated, which meant hiding his hearing aids while he slept. What he’d really taken to was eating things that he loved and Clint hated because then Clint wouldn’t kiss him. It was just funny to see his stupid face drop whenever he or Kate managed to get the drop on him…

Then his phone is ringing, and it’s playing that stupid Captain America song Steve used to sing back when he was doing his performer bullshit, which means Clint got to his phone when he wasn’t paying attention. Payback. Fair enough. The caller ID flashes this stupid picture of him kissing Clint, and he can’t help but smile. “Speak of the Devil,” he says before eyeing the kids, making sure Kate doesn’t kill Peter. “This is Barnes,” he answers softly, letting himself relax.

“Hey, babe.” He sounds a little out of breath. “What’re you up to?”

He’s on high alert, instincts kicking in. Bucky looks over at the kids again and takes a few steps in the other direction, even turning away from them. If this is something bad, if this is a last goodbye or something, he doesn’t want to scare the kids, not until he knows for sure. “I’m at the store with Kate and Peter.” He has to let Clint know that if he needs to talk to them, they’re here. Bucky pauses, and when Clint doesn’t speak up immediately, he lowers his voice a little bit and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“I got into some trouble, Buck.”

He’s not even surprised, but he’s definitely worried, and he’s trying to keep his voice low so that the kids can’t hear him. He knows he probably sounds a little freaked out, it’s not like Clint is reassuring right now by any means. Naturally, he’s thinking the worst, because last he checked, Clint was heading down to Murdock’s side of town to sort out some problems while Matt himself was healing up from a particularly nasty showdown. It shouldn’t have been bad, not by any means, just a little routine watch, which was the only reason Bucky didn’t go with him. “Clint.”

“You’re not going to be happy with me.” He even has the fucking audacity to laugh.

And Bucky wishes he could just punch him. Instead, his jaw tightens, and he lowers his voice: “Clint, are you okay?” And he hates the words, but he has to add on, “Do you need to talk to Peter?” Because he’s not going to be a dick, he’s not going to less this asshole die without talking to his stupid kid first, Bucky isn’t so selfish as to steal what could possibly be his last breaths.

“No, no, god, Barnes, you’re such a pessimist.” He laughs again, and Bucky just feels this relief lift him back up again, not even realizing that he had felt like he’d been knocked to the ground. “I mean, I got shot, that’s not great-” Bucky wants to punch him, but he’s probably already bleeding and that’s not a solution to the given problem. “-but I’m fine.”

A few deep breaths later, he can check over his shoulder to see that Kate has managed to “sneak” five or six ice cream cakes into the cart; meanwhile, Peter has stashed a box of frozen waffles under the vegetables. He has to turn away again and refocus. “What’s goin’ on then?” He’ll chew Clint out for being a misleading asshole later.

“I’m going to need you to pick up dog food. And some pizzas.”

--

“Drop the bags in the kitchen, I’m gonna go check on the resident idiot.” Bucky watches as the kids, their arms stacked full, shuffle their way to the kitchen. He lets all the bags he was carrying slide off his arm just inside the kitchen doorframe so that they can transport them a little quicker. “Unload everything and then you can come see the dog.”

Peter and Kate move visibly quicker.

Taking the steps two at a time, he heads upstairs to their bedroom and pushes the door open quietly. He can hear some growling inside (and it’s not the way that Clint growls sometimes) but lets himself in anyways.

There’s a dog sprawled out on a blanket on the floor, and there’s a lot of blood around him, but there’s also a plate in front of him with some pizza crust on it. He’s wrapped in bandages, just about as much as Clint is right now. For once, Bucky isn’t happy to see that man shirtless because he’s busy wrapping himself with bandages. They both look like a goddamn mess.

Now isn’t the time to get pissy, no matter how badly Bucky wants to ask what the fuck Clint was thinking. So instead, he just shifts so that he’s sitting next to Clint, and they’re both leaning against the footboard of their bed. “How bad is it?”

“He lost an eye and his ribcage is a mess and he’s got a broken leg.” Bucky’s fast to take the bandages and start to wrap Clint up himself, making sure he’ll be taken care of right. And Clint must feel the glare Bucky’s giving him because he suddenly goes, “Oh, you meant me.” Bucky rolls his eyes and tapes off the wrapping, but the archer just goes, “I’m fine, babe. Just a little bit of a scratch.” When Bucky reaches across the injured man to grab for the first aid kit and pull out a few band-aids, Clint keeps talking: “I just got into a fight with some guys while I was trying to smoke out some underground gambling, Matt’s got his hands full in Hell’s Kitchen, I swear. Anyways, I get made and guns are ablazin’ and so these guys start beating me up.”

“It’s a natural reaction to seein’ your face.”

Clint just chuckles and he must be pretending he doesn’t hear it because he just continues on, “And this stupid dog tries to defend me.” He stretches his leg out a little bit so that he can pet his matted, messy fur with his toes; the dog’s tail wags weakly. “Anyways, one of those tracksuit draculas kicks him into the street. And I couldn’t just leave him there, Buck.”

If there is one thing he loves the most about Clint, it’s his stupidly strong sense of good. This asshole, as terrible as he can be, as horrible as his life has been, is just good. He may be a ball of pessimism sometimes, and he’s definitely a total dick, but he has good intentions in everything he does. Bucky fucking respects that. So he can’t even get remotely mad that the man he fell in love with applied that innate sense of righteousness into saving a helpless animal. (Although maybe this dog wasn’t so helpless, he did take on dudes with guns, apparently.)

“He gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky isn’t sure how to explain to Clint that he’s glad he’s alive, he’s glad that he exists. He just wants to make sure he’s okay. And so, as he’s peeling band-aids from their little wrappers and using them to cover up all the little scratches on Clint’s face, he says softly, “I love you.” And he presses another band-aid to Clint’s skin as the archer smiles. And then Bucky adds, softer, “But you are a goddamn idiot.”

His head just turns slowly, and that smile crawls across his face like a snail. Barton reaches up with his uninjured arm and rubs the back of his neck. He laughs, “Thanks, Buck, love you too.”

Bucky Barnes loves Clint Barton more than anything else. And so he takes a deep breath and leans in to kiss that goddamn idiot, his goddamn idiot. He feels Clint’s stupid smile against his own lips, and Bucky feels like he can’t breathe because what if he’d lost this? What if he’d lost Clint? So he just kisses him, feeling that stubble against his own, feeling the bandaids scratching at his skin, feeling Clint’s hand move from his own neck to Bucky’s to pull him in closer. And all Bucky wants is to keep him close. He loves Clint more than he loves himself; everything he isn’t, Clint is, and he doesn’t know who he would be without this man in his life. Because they’ve got a stupidly great kid and this Kate Bishop girl and now a damaged dog…

Bucky Barnes is more in love with Clint Barton than he has ever been.

He leans his forehead against Clint’s and sighs. Relieved. “So what’s the dog’s name?” he asks, words a little breathy.

Clint snorts a laugh. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

--

“Where you at?”

“Budapest. Again.”

Not surprised. “What’s the play?”

“Spotting for Nat.” Clint scoffs. “You could’ve done this, honestly. Gotten out of the house.”

“Nah. I’m your partner, not Nat’s.”

“You’d just be up high watching her. No imminent combat.”

“Yeah,” he breathes into the satellite phone, before scratching at his eyebrow with two fingers. He’s glad to be back in combat, but he knows he’ll only go in with Clint. “But if she said something snarky enough, I might shoot her instead of any target.”

He laughs. Loudly. “Harsh, Buck.”

“If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t shoot you.”

“Thanks.”

He snorts and smiles, which is basically a laugh for him, and he goes, “I didn’t call to just make sure you’re still alive and coming home to me.” Bucky licks his lips. “I can’t find Pete.”

He hasn’t looked all that hard yet, but the fact that he’s called for him a few times with no response and that he’s checked each room in the house and that he isn’t outside anywhere is a strong indicator that something isn’t quite right. And when things aren’t right with the kids and he’s not sure how to solve the problem, he calls Clint. Because God knows he’s a shitty parent, must’ve caught some kind of parenting defect. Call in Clint and suddenly like every problem in the universe can be solved in two seconds.

“You check all his hiding places? He was always good at hide-and-seek.” Barton doesn’t sound all that worried per say, but Bucky can hear that little bit of tension in his voice. Because as much as Clint has this little soft spot for Kate Bishop, Peter is his son, and he loves that kid with all his stupid heart. Bucky has resigned at this point to the fact that Clint will never love anyone in the world more than he loves Peter, and he really expects nothing less. He’s been the one raising the kid for almost, what, seven years now?

He kind of nervously looks up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I’ve checked. Can’t find him.” He looks around and only sees Kate crashed on the couch in the living room, out cold from practice, bow on the ground beside her. But there’s no sign of Peter. “I haven’t seen Lucky lately either, actually.” Where the fuck was the mutt now? God, as if he didn’t already lose one of Clint’s strays, he may have lost the actual stray.

“If you whistle for him, he usually barks.”

“That dog hates me.”

“You have that effect on people, babe.”

Shaking his head, he says, “I’ll call back in an hour if I still can’t find him.” And he’s about to end the call and he hears that faint little bit of “love you, Barnes” before he’s ended the call, and he’ll just tell Clint he loves him when that asshole gets back from Budapest. Again.

But he’s got bigger concerns for now. Like finding Clint’s son. And Lucky. (God, he’s pissed that they named the stupid dog that. It sounds too much like Bucky. And Arrow was a fucking hilarious name considering the circumstances. Why couldn’t they have just kept its original name?) So he tilts his head slightly upwards and lets out a long, low whistle before listening very carefully.

What he hears is Kate shifting on the couch to lift her head before mumbling “Shut up, Barnes” and rolling over. But then he hears this little whine come from upstairs, and he hopes the stupid mutt hasn’t hurt himself because that’s not gonna be on Bucky, no way-

Up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time in huge bounds, he figures he can find Peter afterwards. One little victory at a time here. Dog. Then the kid. Yeah, sure, that’s doable, he convinces himself.

There’s quiet again. So he scans the upstairs and then lets out another sharp, short whistle.

There’s whining again. So he follows the sound into Peter’s bedroom, pushing the door open slightly.

Lucky is splayed out with his paws and his nose pressed to the closet door. The mutt’s attention is diverted only long enough to see that it’s Bucky who has entered the room before he turns his focus back to the door, pressing his nose at the tiniest crack in the door.

Bucky can pick up little noises from inside the closet in the silence of the house. (He’s immensely glad Kate’s asleep so that the house is so quiet.) So there’s either a stranger in the closet or it’s just Clint’s kid. He realizes now that he really should’ve looked a little bit harder for Pete, but usually the kid is just laying out in the open. Where he can be seen. And therefore found. Easily.

Gently, he raps his knuckles on the closet door, trying to be as unintrusive as possible because he feels like this really isn’t his place. “Peter?”

“Bucky?”

And the stupid kid sounds sad. He feels entirely out of his league on this one. This is the shit Clint deals with, not Bucky. But with Clint out of the goddamn country, there isn’t a quick solution for this, and so Barnes stands at the door, his stance now poised over Lucky (stupid dog) with his weight shifted towards the closet. “What’s goin’ on, Pete?” Once the words are out of his mouth, he recognizes that they may sound almost accusatory and fuck this isn’t his job-

“You’re gonna be mad.”

“Right now, I’m just worried, kid.” He raps at the door again a little more gently and forces his voice to soften before saying, “You mind if I open this up?”

There’s no answer for a few long seconds, but he’s not going to get into the kid’s personal space. Maybe when he was younger, but he’s nine now, and Bucky knows he has to watch the line and how far he steps over it. But eventually, Peter’s little voice murmurs, “Go ahead,” and Bucky turns the knob, and the door creaks open, and it takes all of two seconds for Lucky to nose his way inside, claws clicking against the hardwood floor, and curl up at Peter’s side.

And as the light kind of slides its sliver of yellow into the closet, Bucky sees spider webs wrapped across the walls, silver streaked through the air in nets. He can’t help his jaw from falling open because what the fuck. Through the webs and the darkness, he can see the kid curled up into himself, knees tucked into his chest, head pressed into his knees. “You okay?”

“Is this what happens during puberty?” he asks, not looking up at Bucky. The words come out choked and sad, and he visibly shudders.

It’s just heartbreaking.

Bucky kind of looks around with wide eyes. “If it was, I think the human race would be dead.” That was definitely not the right thing to say. So he has to kick himself into gear and try to solve the problem. Complete the mission. So he tries to set himself into his “taking care of business” mode and brushes away the spider webs with his metal arm (no way is he touching that shit with his good arm, no way in hell) and ducks around the rest so he can get into the closet with the kid. “What’s goin’ on?”

There’s quiet for a few long minutes, and one of Peter’s hands comes out of his tiny cocoon to stroke Lucky, who’s laying next to him, calm as could be. And the kid’s voice is shy and slow as he states, “I can shoot spider webs out of my hands.”

That… He didn’t sign up for this. Bucky half wants to throw his hands up in the air and just walk the fuck away because he in no way signed up for any of this. He fell in love with that asshole Clint Barton and suddenly all this other baggage came along and now this, of all times Clint is out of town… Bucky tries not to let the stress show on his face. He loves this stupid kid, but for fuck’s sake, he’s in no way meant to be a parent to Clint’s son. With the utmost forced patience, he breathes, “How’d that happen?”

Peter finally looks up, and his eyes are red and his face is just screaming surrender. He looks defeated, exhausted. It reminds Bucky of when his mission targets would just give up and fall in front of him and- He’s more than glad Peter when speaks up: “I don’t know. I was just practicing how to tell a girl I liked her and I was gonna use sign language because that’s what you and Dad use-“ (Bucky smirks a little bit. His favorite thing is pressing that sign into the small of Clint’s back so the archer can feel it against his skin and so that Bucky can see that smile spread across his stupid face…) “-and then suddenly there were spider webs everywhere, and I didn’t know what to do, so I cleaned it all up and I didn’t tell anyone…”

He runs a hand through his hair and looks at the mess with a sigh. “How long’s this been happenin’?”

“A few months.” Pete’s face doesn’t look quite as shattered now. He just looks lost and tired. Defeated. Maybe even a little relieved, like this secret isn’t a cinderblock dragging him to the bottom of the ocean anymore.

That lines up about right. Fucking spider bite. Fucking Kate letting him up on the roof. Fuck all of this. How is he supposed to explain it to Clint? Not the point. Right now, he has to keep his eye on the mission. “You okay otherwise?”

“Yeah, I guess…” He shrugs slightly, not looking at Bucky anymore, just watching the soldier’s feet. His fingers scratch behind Lucky’s ear.

“Good.” Problem solved. Mostly. He feels relieved. He’s not sure how to handle this, exactly, but he can see Lucky curled up alongside Peter, and he knows the boy tries so hard to be good, and Bucky figures this isn’t the worst case scenario. He could be dealing with Peter during actual puberty. (But he’s going to leave that one to Clint. Because he’s not Peter’s dad, that’s not his business.)

His hand slows from stroking Lucky’s fur, which causes the dog to raise his head and watch the boy for a moment. “You’re not mad?”

Bucky snorts a laugh. Then smiles. “Nah. But your dad might be a little mad that you got superpowers and he didn’t.”

Peter laughs. And even Lucky wags his tail.

Mission accomplished.

Secondary objective: “So, you said you like a girl?”

--

He’s glad to be back to work, really, he is. Couldn’t be more happy, really, knowing that he can keep an eye on Clint, make sure he’s not getting reckless again. Bucky feels like he has more control when he’s got a mission objective that acts like a to-do list that he can just follow, guiding his actions, keeping him in line. He can stick to the to-do list and not have to worry about the future. Just the now.

He loves spending the time with Clint, the two of them hiding out up in a perch, talking lowly to each other, no kids to worry about, a gun in his hands, a bow in Clint’s. When he’s on mission, it’s like someone has pushed a reset button on everything that worries him and it all just goes away. Because, even if it’s just for five minutes, it’s just him and his partner. He knows Clint will settle him if it gets bad, that he’ll be there when it gets dark, that he can help him through anything—

Except when he’s not there—

Because he’s on mission—

And there are bullets flashing through his brain and his heart is thundering in his chest and he can’t fucking breathe—

The darkness is consuming him, suffocating him, and he can feel that snapping piece in his head that’s telling him to lash out, to break free—

But he knows what that means and that can’t happen, no, not now—

Bucky tries to hold his head together because it feels like it’s splitting apart. He can hear the gunfire in his ears, endless and deafening; his ears ache almost as much as his chest does. His stomach is roiling because he knows what’s going to happen if he’s not careful, if he doesn’t hold himself together, and he’s trying to catch his breath, but there’s no one to shake him out of it, no one to hold him down in case he goes too far.

In some hemisphere of his brain, he’s glad that Clint isn’t there because sometimes he gets hurt when Bucky wakes up from nightmares like this. He’ll even walk downstairs with a black eye in the morning and the kids will just know. And it makes Bucky feel sick to his stomach that he could ever hurt his partner…

His lips and throat are dry, and the darkness is overwhelming, he has no sense of where he is or what’s going on aside from the war inside his head, the bombs firing, causing him to try screaming silent screams. Because there’s some part of his self-control still left to know that he doesn’t want to wake the kids. He can’t scare them. Not when Clint isn’t here.

It’s just a panic attack, it’ll subside, and Bucky just has to keep convincing himself of that, that he’ll be fine, just a few more minutes, just try to breathe—

But everything going on behind his eyes is too much—

He feels like he’s dying—

And it feels like there’s a whole war fighting in his head—

It’s just the flashbacks, but the Winter Soldier programming is trying to kick into protection mode as a reaction, on instinct, and he feels absolutely sick—

And the panic only rises when he feels movement, the bed is suddenly shaking and it’s not him because his own body is still as stone as he tries to contain himself to keep from letting his actions lead to deaths-

There’s a tongue. On his face. Warm hot breath splashes his skin.

That stupid mutt.

Bucky hates the dog, he truly does. He can stand the kids and everything, sure, he just makes them food and keeps them healthy (well, he fucked up with Peter on that one, but close enough), but this stupid dog is the bane of his existence because the damn thing is always there. He hates Lucky. He does. And the goddamn name change doesn’t make the situation any easier.

“глупо дурак,” he finds that he can say, which probably isn’t good that he’s slipping into the Winter Soldier’s Russian, and he shivers, feeling like he might be winning the temporary battle but losing the war that’s raging on inside of him, the one that’s fucking him up so badly he isn’t even sure which way is up—

But he knows he fucking hates that dog. And he clings to that. Because he knows that. Bucky hates the dog.

One hand is removed from the side of his head, the flesh and blood one because he doesn’t trust that metal arm, not when he’s such a mess, and it reaches up to scratch Lucky behind his ear. Contact makes it a little easier, remembering what’s tangible. The dog gives him a few more licks. Disgusting. But easier. Like he’s getting a grip on what Bucky’s reality is so that the nightmares of the Soldier can be shoved back into whatever Pandora’s Box they came out of.

He’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually he feels like he can breathe again. Bucky knows he’s got control over himself, that he’s not afraid, that he doesn’t have a mission, that he’s not on a rampage. He’s Clint Barton’s partner, an agent of SHIELD. He’s living in this stupid farmhouse with Clint’s kid and Kate Bishop. And they have this stupid dog that he absolutely loathes.

Maybe he doesn’t hate the dog so much, not right now, anyways. Because the kids are safe. He’s stable. And the dog is curled up right next to him, calm, relaxed. Every few minutes, he’ll give Bucky’s face another lick, as if he’s checking on him to make sure he’s okay.

His fingers scratch at the dog’s fur, and he focuses on his breathing. Slow. Steady. Bucky is in control. He feels safe again. The war in his head is silent, even if it’s only for tonight.

Meanwhile, Lucky has actually fallen asleep on the bed. And Bucky had established a very clear “no, Clint, he’s not sleeping on the bed because this bed is for us, not for animals” within the first few days of them having Lucky.

Tonight, he doesn’t kick Lucky off the bed.

--

“I don’t want to go,” says Kate, who, despite her reluctance and her audible protest, still slings her bag over her shoulder. She brushes her hair behind her ear. “I don’t understand why you need to go on this mission. You usually stay home, anyways.”

“Clint’s my partner.” Bucky doesn’t want to give the real reason he’s itching to get out of the house. He hasn’t been out in almost two weeks, and Clint’s been gone for half a week as is. He hates that feeling of being a world away, but he knows this is manageable. That doesn’t make him any less happy to be called in, away from the kids, away from the domestic thing, back into action. He gets restless at home—his body is meant for way more action than he’s been getting lately. “I’ve got to keep an eye on his sorry behind.” How he caught himself from saying ass is shocking, really…

Peter walks past shaking his head, his own bag in hand. He gives Lucky a pat on the head where the dog is standing like a sentinel by the doorway. And then the kid drifts on out the door and to the car, entirely used to this after years and years of it. Even before Bucky was around, he was used to being shuffled to Simone’s house whenever Clint was on mission, so he’s not phased by it at this point. Better yet, he keeps a bag permanently packed for this, which is great for Bucky because he doesn’t even have to tell him to pack.

As for Kate, this is only like the third or fourth time she’s had to really pack up for a long-term trip, and much to her chagrin, she usually had to end up back at home.

Kate Bishop had never become officially Clint’s kid because her dad didn’t want to give up that custody just for her safety, but he had learned that keeping her away from his business was much safer for her, so leaving her with Clint and Bucky full-time seemed to be a better plan. (Bucky wasn’t thrilled about it.) So she wasn’t theirs. But she was still their responsibility. And as much as it felt like they almost had dual custody or whatever of her, Kate hated going home at this point. A few months away from home had given her this weird taste of power and freedom, and she was fighting with Bucky at every turn whenever he made her go home like this.

So the dynamic is rough because he just needs her to behave for two seconds, but she’s fourteen now and drives him up a wall constantly. He’s just a little glad that they get a check to take care of her every month or so because that helps cover the fact that he doesn’t get out to work much. They aren’t stressed about money by any means, but it also means Clint doesn’t have to leave as much, and that means the kids are safer and Bucky is calmer.

“But can’t I just go with you guys?” she asks, looking past him at Peter. “Or can’t I just stay here? I’m old enough.”

“You’re definitely not old enough,” he iterates smoothly with cool eyes.

“Do you have to ship me out with my dad though?” She’s definitely not happy, but Lucky’s circling at her feet like a shepherd watching his flock, and then perches at her side, the top of his head touching her fingers. “Can’t I just go with Peter?” Kate’s voice is pleading, and desperation is written all over her face. “I don’t like it at home.”

Honestly, he hates driving her home. He hates the idea that she has to be under 24/7 surveillance because they can’t guarantee her safety from the mob or HYDRA or whatever else Bishop is into, and he doesn’t like signing over her freedom into the hands of someone else because she lives with them and they refer to her and Peter collectively as “the kids”, and he doesn’t like seeing her miserable like this. He isn’t her number one fan, but he doesn’t like seeing her upset.

“Simone doesn’t have enough room. And he’s still your dad.” The words taste bitter.

She scratches the top of Lucky’s head, and her chest rises and falls with a tired sigh. Defeat. Kate adjusts the bag at her shoulder and shakes her head. “Can’t you stay?”

His fingers are already curling at the thought of having a gun in hand, he wants so badly to get out there and meet up with Clint—

It may sound selfish, but he really does need this every now and then.

“He needs a cover, and he’s not going to take Aunt Nat.” He pauses at the fact that he just called her Aunt Nat. Because she’s tried to kill him. Several times. And yet she’ll come over like it’s nobody’s business and is considered Peter’s aunt without question. (Of course, she’s his only aunt/uncle figure because Peter and Kate are kept a secret from the rest of the Avengers. The codes for the kids when they’re around the team range from “Do we need plums from the store?” for Kate to “The toaster broke.” for Peter. The best one so far has been “I think the dog is having an existential crisis, you should come home.” which translates into “It’s a goddamn emergency.”)

“Because he’s too flamboyantly gay for a straight cover?”

Bucky… has to pause to take a breath, but after a moment, he goes, “First, Clint is bi. Second, he doesn’t want to kiss someone else just for a cover.” He clenches the car keys in his pocket. Clint isn’t even flamboyant? He knows she’s just taking shots because she’s angry, but now she’s taking shots at Clint, and that’s not what she does. Bucky, sure, she’ll chew him out any day of the week, but Clint is her savior. “We have jobs. Our life together isn’t just this.” He gestures to the house.

“We have to work.” His eyes are severe, and he continues sharply, “And if we didn’t work, you wouldn’t be here. Realistically, you’d probably dead. And hell, Peter would be in an orphanage somewhere. And this stupid dog would also be dead.” Bucky hates being the realist here, but he’s got to put his damn foot down because he’s not having this fight again. “We work to help people, and if you can’t get behind that and suck it up for a couple days with your dad, then this whole family thing isn’t for you.”

She loses a little bit of that determination in her eyes, and she looks to Lucky, whose tail thumps against the ground. Kate adjusts her bag yet again. She shifts uncomfortably, but she just keeps scratching Lucky’s head. And then she gives him one final pat and silently pushes past Bucky to get in the car with Peter.

He runs a hand through his hair, and he just feels incredibly tired. Bucky hates fighting this fight, but at least this time she didn’t ask if she could go with, and he knows she can protect herself while she’s there.

Lucky’s still sitting there, watching. Bucky kneels down, and the dog comes to him on quick paws before sitting down for another round of scratches. And after a moment, the dog’s tongue lolls out the side of his mouth.

Smiling, he shakes his head. “Hold down the fort, Pizza Dog.”

He swears the damn dog winks at him. But he only has one eye, so Bucky really isn’t sure.

Chapter Text

“They can stay here at the tower,” says Stark, picking dirt from his beard while JARVIS is scanning his armor. His eyes are only half on the twins while he tries to watch the results of the scan spring up on the screen. “It’ll be safe here for them. Plenty of toys in the gym. Fridge is stocked. They’ll be fine.”

And Bucky’s surprised to find that he absolutely loathes that idea. His metal hand is already clenching, and he wants to punch the shit out of Stark in that very instant for thinking that that’s how human beings are handled. As if fuel and entertainment are all these two need.

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They threw their lives on the line for the human race, and then, despite everything the world had done to them, they’d helped save this goddamned earth. And now the two are standing there, shuffling, confused. Pietro’s just got his arm across Wanda’s shoulders, and she’s a little bit wrapped in on herself. Both look shellshocked.

Bucky’s twitching to get a chance to talk with Clint, but he’s with Maria Hill trying to handle the media cooldown on all of this as it links up with the Avengers title. He finds that his eyes keep flitting to the door, but the only person who’s passed through there lately has been Steve as he left the press conference as their spokesperson, basically. Maybe he should go talk to Steve, his fingers are twitching, where the fuck is Clint—

There. Finally. The doors slide open, and his partner arrives, running a hand through his hair, pulling off his sunglasses and tossing them at the couch. (That’s how he’s broken the last thirty pairs, Bucky knows, and he’s about to lose another pair because there goes Thor, sitting on them with a crunch. Fucking Barton.)

“I mean, you two would be fine here, right?” asks Tony, barely glancing at the twins, who may be almost legal adults but who have looked like deer in headlights since the minute they stepped onto American soil.

They both nod, and Bucky’s going to flip a table. But it takes all of ten seconds for Clint to show up at his side and slip a hand around his waist. “What’s wrong?” he asks lowly with a flickering glance at the clenched metal hand. The worry is stretched across his face, but he’s trying to keep it cool so they can handle this quietly.

“Stark wants the twins.” His voice is much stiffer than he intended.

One of his eyebrows raises as he chances a look at Stark, who doesn’t even look away from his screen because all the data from their fight with Ultron is finally coming through. Then his gaze is back on Bucky. “Oh, that’s fucked up.”

“Exactly.”

He knows what all he went through after getting out of his Winter Soldier situation, and he can imagine what kind of shit they’re coming out of after being on Ultron’s side for all of this bullshit, not to mention just the guilt of it all, and maybe they need just as much a chance at redemption as he did. Even if they don’t need redemption, they need a place to stay where they can figure out a whole new society.

Stark is definitely not the person to help with that, and this tower is definitely not the place. Really, the scenario sounds like the set up for a bad joke.

“They can stay with us,” says Clint confidently to Stark, without even the slightest hesitation. And then he smirks at Bucky, and Bucky just can’t believe he fucking—

“Barton, I’m gonna kill you,” he snarls under his breath. Because they really can’t handle two more. They’ve got Kate and Peter and now Lucky, and Bucky’s already exhausted with those three, let alone two who need to learn about American culture when Bucky’s trying to figure it out again for himself. Like seriously, fuck the twenty first century, this shit is hard.

Stark scoffs, now actually looking away from his work with a raised brow. “Yeah, right.” He slides his chair away from his desk even. “You and Barnes definitely can’t handle kids. You’re both mentally unstable, not to mention the fact that you’re a pair of assholes.”

Well, he’s not wrong on two out of three points. They aren’t necessarily the best with kids, but together, they’ve managed Peter for five years now and Kate for two, and neither of the kids are dead yet. Peter’s got spider powers, and Kate has insane archery skills, but they’re still alive. Fuck, even Lucky’s doing fine: they bought him a new collar last week. (Kate and Bucky found one with an arrow on it to continue to protest the name change.)

Bucky’s about ready to just tell Clint to shut his goddamn mouth, but he’s already talking smack because he’s still got his paternal pride, so he goes, “I am great with kids, thank you, and Barnes ain’t too shabby himself.” And Bucky half wants to kill the man because those kids are not his. But what’s more important now is that Clint doesn’t fucking say anything about Katie and Peter—

“Shit, we’ve raised two kids already!”

“For fuck’s sake.” Barnes swears his partner just constantly has his foot in his mouth. Literally a foot just lodged in his mouth. And it’s all Clint’s pride talking, that’s what makes it even worse.

“And a dog!”

Bucky might actually kill him this time.

Stark’s giving them a look, his full attention finally on something other than his computers, and then a smirk passes his face. It’s that knowing little shit look because suddenly he’s got the type of blackmail material they didn’t want anyone to ever have. Not necessarily for the same reasons, but still. The less people knew about the kids, the safer they were. But Stark isn’t all that interested in the actual kids apparently because he says, “So that’s where you keep Barnes all the time. I thought it was in a sex dungeon. Instead, he’s your little housewife.”

There have been plenty occasions where Bucky wants to just beat the living shit out of Stark. This is one of those occasions. And he almost does right then, but Clint’s arm, the one around his waist, tightens just so slightly to keep him close, and he says, “He doesn’t need to go on missions as much. And it’s for the same reason I try not to handle the high stress missions.” Bucky can tell he’s even ready to kill Stark, but that’s not allowed because then Steve would have his head. (It’s a very delicate balance.) “It’s not like we fuck with your PTSD, Stark.”

He falls quiet awfully quick.

Bucky’s still very tempted to kill him. He’ll call Steve later and get him to tell his boyfriend not to be such a prick. (Turns out Steve picked up on their codes for the kids about a couple years back, and so Bucky ended up telling him. Swore to keep it a secret from Stark though. And Steve never spoke a word. Praise the Lord for giving him Steve Rogers as a best friend.)

“He’s no housewife, and he’s great with the kids, that’s what matters.” Clint’s getting down to business because he’s not fucking around with this today. They just survived basically the end of the fucking world, and Bucky knows he wants to get home and hug his damn kids. “So we’re taking the twins home with us.”

“If that’s okay with them,” reminds Bucky softly, giving the twins a look because he knows they basically just got caught in the crossfire of all that without having much of a say in the matter. And he knows what that feels like because he was trapped in all of that when he came into the tower.

Steve wanted to try and take care of him, help him remember his old life, get them to be best friends again, meanwhile Stark was mortified at the idea of having Barnes anywhere near the tower. And as much as pretty much no one else had a say in it all because those two basically waged war, he was glad to find that Clint was more concerned about making sure he was stable after walking away from the Winter Soldier.

That’s all he wants to do for these two. Offer them safety. And some semblance of stability.

Because that’s what Clint did for him without even realizing it.

The twins are quiet, and they’re wary, that’s plain enough to see. They’ve been dropped into a foreign place with minimal information with which to base decisions on. It takes a few moments, and after it looks like they basically have a silent conversation somehow, Wanda gives Clint and Bucky a mildly curious look, and says, “You mentioned a dog?”

--

This is the second time he’s had to bring the kids home to one of Clint’s crazy ideas.

Although, they did have a discussion about who would handle which end of the situation and when Clint had phrased it as “Would you rather deal with the two you already know or the new ones?”, he’d opted for Kate and Pete. He isn’t up for a challenge, not after almost dying, not after almost losing Clint. What Bucky is up for is his bed and the quiet and Clint pressed up against him like the clingy little shit he is.

“So you’re saying that Dad did it again?” asks Peter, leaning between the front seats so his head is basically at Bucky’s shoulder.

“You of all people shouldn’t be surprised,” comments Bucky with a shrug as he pulls the car around another corner, knowing they’re getting close. He’s just glad they actually stayed at Simone’s house this time, especially with what all was going on in Sokovia… (Last time they snuck back home and spent half the week taking care of themselves, and they were fine, but still.)

“That’s true. I’ve had to deal with all of you.”

Kate looks up from her phone long enough to raise a sharp eyebrow and cut in, “You make it sound like there’s fifty people intruding on your life.” She goes back to texting.

“You’re loud enough to feel like twenty people sometimes, so.”

Kate looks up from her phone again, and Bucky glances over long enough to see death in her eyes.

“So their names are Pietro and Wanda-“ He’s gotta change the subject because he doesn’t want these two to kill each other. “-and they’re a lil’ shaken up after what happened in Sokovia-“ He’s not going to tell them what happened to him and Clint, that Clint almost died, that he almost lost himself again. “-so you two are gonna need to stop bein’ tiny dicks for like a week.”

“Language,” corrects Peter in a low tone, which causes Bucky to roll his eyes.

“That’ll be tough,” begins Kate in that slow, smooth voice that means that something bad is coming in less than two seconds, “because Peter already has a tiny dick.”

He reaches over and flicks her ear and “Language”, which causes him to catch the death glare, but Bucky isn’t going to start that fight now because he’s pulling into the driveway, and he tries to go fast so that she doesn’t have time to start shit because as much as he and Kate can gang up on the other two, he hates starting fights with her because she’s dangerous nowadays.

“Bucky!” starts Peter in disbelief in the backseat, clearly not liking the fact that he isn’t being defended, but he’s got a little more self-control than Kate and opts to sit back down properly because the car’s rolling to a stop.

He managed to get them all home in one piece. Thank God.

He’s going to kill Clint because adding just Kate wasn’t so bad. Bringing home a dog wasn’t terrible. A pair of sixteen-year-old twins with issues of their own on top of the two pre-existing kids, the dog, and the mentally unstable actual adults is basically a recipe for shit to hit the fan very quickly. So he takes a deep breath and says, “Please be nice.”

With Peter, that’ll be easy enough. He’s been raised right by Clint for three years and then Clint and Bucky together for five more years. Which basically means Clint got to cram good thoughts and manners and nice sugary shit into this little energy bomb for all of three years before Bucky came in to start fucking it up.

Meanwhile, Kate’s snark has actually gotten worse, and Bucky really only blames himself. Still, she’s got good intentions, and he’s pretty sure she picked that shit up from Clint because it sure as hell wasn’t from him.

And the kids climb out of the car, doors slamming behind them. Bucky slides down in the driver’s seat. How the fuck did he get wrapped up in all this…

He gives himself about thirty seconds before he decides to get out and walk into the hell that Clint has created for him. Sometimes he’s not sure why he sticks around with all this crazy shit, but then he thinks about Clint and how he smells like coffee about ninety percent of the time and how he could just kiss that idiot every day for the rest of his life.

And now they have like four kids and a dog and they aren’t his because he didn’t sign up for this.

So when he finally sits up and decides to climb out of the car, he steps out and shuts the door and locks it up, but then he looks up and there’s that asshole standing right in the doorway with a huge smirk on his face. “Pull your hair down, Buck. Makes you look cuter.”

He sighs and heads to the door, and Clint doesn’t attempt to move out of his way, so Bucky stands there in front of him for a minute. “You aren’t supervising your flock of hawklings?”

Clint smiles, and Bucky loves him so much. “Our flock of hawklings is busy huddled around the dog.”

“I can’t believe you did this again.” He’s not going to protest too much because he wants to get through the door at some point, so he just moves closer to Clint so they’re face-to-face. “Better yet, can’t believe you outed us to Stark.”

“You outed us the first time.”

He shrugs (because Clint’s not wrong) and presses a kiss to Clint’s lips for all of a heartbeat before trying to push past him unsuccessfully. Clint isn’t a good human door, but Bucky wouldn’t even think of injuring him. (He usually considers punching Clint on a daily basis, but he never does. It’s only when he wakes up from nightmares. And he regrets it and hates himself for it afterwards, no matter how many times Clint says it’s fine.) “I like your ass. I had to grab it.” He shrugs passively. “Didn’t know Stark was watchin’.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Clint looks far less than impressed and isn’t going to stand there and argue any longer because the flock is getting louder in the kitchen. Bucky sees his partner’s eyes stray for a moment to the commotion and takes that opportunity to just kind of barrel into him—but he really just grabs him by the waist, tosses him over his shoulder, and carries him into the house because they have important business to attend to with all these strays running amok.

Bucky has to be very mission-oriented now that there are four small humans running around his goddamn house.

So, with Clint’s ass in his face basically (he can’t complain, really) and the archer making soft noises of disappointed protest, he walks across the kitchen’s threshold to see Wanda just petting Lucky while his tail wags a mile a minute and then Pietro is telling Peter, who is apparently hanging from the ceiling by his webbing, that he’s met Iron Man and all the Avengers (and fuck, they’re never going to hear the end of the fact that the Maximoffs got to meet them and Peter didn’t, oh God) and Kate is sitting on the kitchen counter, feet kicked up on a barstool as she’s hunched over slightly, watching the entire situation, phone in hand as if she has paused mid-text.

At least the gang’s all here.

He puts Clint down and gets a well-earned glare. (Bucky wants to say something like “That’s what you get for blocking the doorway, asshole” but he knows he’ll get called out for language, and if he can’t curse, it’s really not worth it.) But he presses a kiss to Clint’s stubbly cheek, and he knows he’s forgiven.

So. Down to business.

Clint, after turning to face the flock, claps loud enough to get everyone’s attention, even Lucky’s head swivels and he jumps a little bit. And roll call begins. “Alright, so we all know who I am, you can call me Clint, we all know this is Bucky, we’re a couple, that’s fine and dandy.” The Iowa is showing, and Bucky has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

“That’s Peter. Adopted son.” He points to Pete, still hanging from the ceiling, who salutes in a nonchalant sort of way with a grin smeared across his face. (Since when the fuck did he salute like that? Fuck, did he get that from Bucky?) “He’s got spider powers, we’re still trying to figure that one out, so be careful.”

“That’s Kate, she basically hates everything, will steal your coffee, and is not even adopted, she just kind of lives here.” She looks up from watching Lucky to glance at the room and gives a little three-fingered wave. (Did she pick that up from Bucky? Fuck.)

“That’s Lucky. Yes, he is a dog. Yes, he only has one eye. Yes, he basically only eats pizza. Yes, he’s also adopted.” Lucky basically doesn’t acknowledge that he’s being talked about because he just lays down and his ears only perk up at the word “pizza”.

“Pietro. Wanda.” He points to each twin in turn, and Pietro smiles a little bit, but Wanda just looks down at the dog and plays with the fur behind his ears. “They’re twins. He’s fast, she’s… slightly more complicated.” (Bucky has probably just realized the same thing as Clint has in the fact that do they actually know what she’s capable of? Especially because she’s really the more dangerous of the two?)

In the pause that Clint sort of falls into, Bucky takes over. “Couple rules: please no sharp metallic noises, give us warning before you invite new people over, and do not bring any weapons into the house. Under any circumstances, you are not to walk into our room if you hear screaming.” Those are the important ones because he has to be careful. For his sake, for Clint’s. For the kids, the whole flock of them now. “Don’t steal my coffee. Clint is deaf, so if you can’t get his attention, be patient with him, he forgets his aids a lot.” He can feel the side eye he’s getting right now. “And if either of us-” He gestures between himself and his partner. “-are starin’ off into space for long periods of time, please be careful when you approach.”

He’s got to give them fair warnings at this point. They walked into a household with two men struggling against PTSD. (Kate found out the hard way after maybe a little over half a year with them when she walked in and Bucky was trying to talk Clint down from a panic attack in the middle of the kitchen, bow aimed with a nocked arrow right for his head—) So he needs to make sure that the twins are aware of what’ll keep them safe around here. They’ll figure out the rest of it in time, but that’s the important stuff. Shit, maybe they’ll even pick up some sign language like Katie did.

Clint’s turn to round them off, so he claps again before asking collectively, “Good?”

Neither of the twins seem to want to back out, but then again, Pietro is just smiling half the time and Wanda seems too preoccupied with the dog to say much of anything.

“Good.”

Bucky watches as the flock seems to fall back into a calm lull. He watches as Kate goes back to texting, but it only lasts for about two seconds because apparently Clint has more to say.

“Also, Wanda, you’ll be rooming with Kate. Pietro, you’ll be staying with Peter.”

The sounds of immediate protest rise up from the two preexisting children.

--

He hears the front door click open and turns his head ever so slightly to watch for a shadow in the doorway. With a mental headcount, he can determine it’s probably Clint. Or a murderer. (Pietro’s upstairs in the shower, Wanda’s here, Kate’s here, Lucky’s here, Peter’s here. So that only leaves his favorite asshole.)

“Honey, I’m home!”

The gag has gotten old after five years (coming up on six, actually), but Bucky still smirks because he doesn’t know what else to do. It’s not like he can move much right now without upsetting Wanda and Lucky. “Good to see you’re not dead yet.”

Clint’s footsteps pause. And then there’s a little laugh. (Bucky loves the sound.) “Good to see you’re finally getting a makeover.”

“They’re braidin’ it,” he scoffs, “it’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

He’s sitting on the floor with his back pressed to the couch. Wanda is above him, actually sitting on the couch, and she’s been braiding and then unbraiding his hair for the better part of two hours now. Behind her is Katie Kate, perched on the back of the couch with her feet planted wide on the cushions, her fingers flying through Wanda’s hair as she twists it up into something she insists is a fishtail, whatever that means. Peter’s standing behind Kate, braiding her hair to the best of his ability, knowing she’ll probably pull it out and do it herself whenever she damn well pleases. And Lucky’s right there between Bucky’s legs, his tail giving little fwips as Clint walks closer to sit next to Bucky.

And then, being the dick he is, Clint leans over and takes Bucky’s hair between his fingers and starts a tiny little braid of just a few strands at the side of his face. “So how did this happen?” he asks with a knowing look.

“They started it,” Bucky insists and is more than grateful when Kate picks up by saying, “Wanda and I were watching those how-to videos on, like, how to do hair, and since a lot of them you need to have someone else do it for you, we just decided to start trying stuff. And then Bucky walked in.”

“I should’ve stayed upstairs today,” he says with the nonchalant kind of shrug before taking a swig of his beer. Then he hands it to Clint, who pulls a hand away from braiding to take a drink himself. “They practically ambushed me.” But he can’t be too angry. He’s glad Wanda and Katie are getting along so well. Especially after Kate was really hostile about giving up half her room. But apparently they’ve fallen into a happy morning routine together, which is weird to watch, in Bucky’s opinion, because they can basically read each other’s minds. (He does wonder if Wanda hasn’t somehow linked them up, but…)

But really, he had planned on staying in bed all day. He’d woken up to another nightmare that morning and was glad to have Clint there to pull him back before he got called to handle more Avengers press bullshit after the Sokovia incident. Peter had brought him coffee. And Bucky had basically planned to stay in bed all day to try and recover. Until Pietro had come in saying he couldn’t find the grocery list when Clint asked him to run to the store. And so Bucky had to haul his ass out of bed and then tramp down into the kitchen and pull the list off the fridge (because he can’t be mad that Pietro doesn’t know everything yet) and that’s when Kate and Wanda caught him and he’s been stuck here ever since. He’s just glad he could ask Lucky to fetch him a beer every now and then. What a damn good dog.

“How’d you get roped into this, Pete?” Clint asks after handing the beer back to Bucky.

He can’t turn his head to see Clint’s son, but he assumes the kid shrugs by the tone of his voice because he says, “I dunno. They offered to teach me to braid and said it’d be the most valuable life lesson I ever learned. I don’t know when I’ll ever use this, but why not?” The last bit is kind of coming off half-heartedly.

“You and learning.” Clint laughs. “Trust me, it’s useful.” And he goes back to braiding Bucky’s hair with those deft yet calloused archer fingers…

And Bucky can’t help but think that Clint raised such a damn good kid. That the tiny kid he’d met basically forever ago, that stupid little kid who definitely isn’t his. Now he’s Peter and he’s this whole person that Bucky has, weirdly enough, half-raised, and more than once he’s accidentally called Bucky “Dad”, but each time, Bucky has pretended to definitely not hear him. (He doesn’t want to think like that. These aren’t his children, he doesn’t want the opportunity to fuck them up, he’d be a shit dad, a total shit dad.)

“See?” And Clint has taken a miniscule rubberband off the table and has tied up the little braid he’s put into Bucky’s hair. “Now Bucky is cuter than usual.” And Clint takes all of a second to lean over and kiss Bucky’s cheek before stealing the beer and walking off.

If the kids weren’t around, he’d call Clint an asshole and let him leave with nothing more than that. But Buck wants to get his damn beer back. But since he can just barely watch Clint out of the corner of his eye, it takes him a little longer than usual to realize: “Is that my shirt?”

Clint doesn’t respond but instead holds up the beer almost like a trophy and heads upstairs, vanishing out of sight.

“Your hair does look beautiful, Bucky.”

“Thank you, Wanda.”

He wishes he had his beer back.

--

Clint let him oversleep. And Bucky’s not really happy about it because that’s gonna fuck up his sleep schedule, but he was pleasantly surprised that the kids had kind of teamed up to get all the work done so he didn’t have as much to do around the house. He can’t complain too much. The kids are great.

But he can’t help but think that it’s probably because he woke up screaming last night. It took Clint almost two hours to settle him down so he could get back to sleep. Peter and Kate were always good about being careful the next day, but maybe they just teamed up with the twins to step up their game.

Damn good kids.

So he’s sitting at the kitchen table with his coffee and his hair in a bun, trying to keep his mental checklist in order. And he’s got his seat because Kate’s in the other room playing Mario Kart with the rest of them. Or at least most of them. He’s really not sure who all has controllers at this point because Pietro and Wanda look confused while Clint is basically screaming “SUCK IT!” at Katie.

How the fuck did this man ever get ahold of this many children to begin with. He’s a total and utter asshole.

Bucky takes a draught of his coffee, and when he puts the mug down, he’s surprised to see that Wanda has somehow ghosted her way over to him and is perched in the seat that’s usually Peter’s. She hasn’t surprised him, necessarily, but she may be the only person in the house that’s quieter than he is.

Considering all the shit she’s been through, he’s not surprised that she’s got this whole tentative about the world thing going on, but he is surprised by the fact that she’s more than willing to reach out on her own terms. He did try to get her to talk to him about everything that happened with Ultron, but she usually stays quiet, and since he tries to keep the twins together for their own emotional support system, Pietro was fast enough to step in and say, “We’d rather not talk about it.” He really is her first defense against the world.

But now, she’s putting herself forward, and Bucky can commend that because Pietro is plenty distracted in the other room, as he can see, because the speedster is desperately shaking at this controller and yelling at the thing in what sounds like a variation of Russian because he can pick up on certain words. (He’s impressed to hear that none of them are cusses.)

Wanda shifts in her chair after a moment. “Can I ask what happened last night?” she says in her usual soft voice while her eyes are searching his face. “I understand if you do not want to talk about it, Clint said we should leave you alone for the day.” The reservation is back on her face, and Bucky doesn’t like the way that looks, he wants to see her open up, like the way she does sometimes with Katie.

“No, it’s fine,” he says, trying his hardest to smile. Because he really doesn’t want to talk about it, but he also owes her some information because he feels like he and Clint are so cryptic about their issues sometimes, and that’s not the way it should be, especially not with the two that have similar life experiences.

He can see her settle down into her seat a little bit more, and maybe the smile isn’t so forced. He trains his eyes on his coffee, but his ears are finely tuned into the sounds in the other room. His mind, as much as he wants it to be here, is a little bit scattered. “I just have nightmares sometimes,” Bucky confesses quietly. “And when I wake up, my body tries to react with… instincts that I don’t like.” He’s not going to give her the whole story. He doesn’t want the kids to know they’re living with an assassin because that’s far too much.

“And you accidentally hurt Clint last night?”

His heart hitches in his chest, and it’s as if he stomach falls out because he hasn’t actually seen Clint yet this morning and it was dark last night and he can’t remember most of it, just that there was a mess going on in his head, and he couldn’t contain himself as well as he normally could. Bucky finds that his eyes go right to the living room and look at Clint with a little more scrutiny and he’s wearing a black eye and there’s a big patch of gauze at his neck. “Fuck,” he mutters, sucking in a breath of air because he keeps doing this, this keeps happening, he’s not even sure why Clint lets him stay after all this shit, he keeps getting hurt, he’s basically out of control, what if the kids—

Wanda must see this because she promises, “He is alright.” He looks up to her eyes, and they’re soft, about as soft as she is. “I made sure of that this morning. He is terrible with bandages.”

His chest still aches with the guilt, especially because his neck, that means he must’ve gotten a knife or something— Bucky feels sick to his stomach still, but he whispers, “Thank you.” The words sound choked.

There’s a silence that hangs the air, and Bucky grips his mug a little tighter before taking a sip. Maybe he should switch the coffee for a beer at this point. It’s past noon, after all.

He figures he has to say something because now they know he’s violent, and he doesn’t want them to think that he’s out of control even if sometimes he feels that way. “I was… trained, a long time ago, to be a weapon. And I was used that way for many years, and the instincts from that are sometimes still pretty strong.” (Like the way he keeps a headcount in his own house. Like the fact that his seat at the kitchen table means he can see the doorway so he can watch everyone’s movements. Like how he has to circle the house one time at night and check every single window and door before he can go to bed.) “So when I wake up from a nightmare, my reflexes tell me to fight.” He shakes his head a little bit. “And Clint’s the one who ends up gettin’ hurt every time.”

She’s very quiet, but she doesn’t close herself off again, not like she normally does once she’s done talking. But Wanda does settle back in her seat a little bit more, and Bucky knows she isn’t going anywhere. Not yet.

Still, he’s not going to press her to talk, so instead he just listens in the other room, and he can hear Clint telling Lucky to attack Kate, which basically means licking her to death because that dog is practically Kate’s at this point. (Although he has taken a very strong liking to Wanda.) Peter is shouting, “Dad, get off!” which means Clint is playing dirty again and is sitting on Peter to block his view. They’re really lucky that the spider powers made the kid durable. Pietro’s still mumbling in whatever that Russian mix is and pointing the controller at the tv, which is definitely not how to play Mario Kart…

“Can I tell you something?”

Really, he doesn’t expect to be a parent to this one. Pietro either. Maybe someone could make the argument that he’s Peter’s dad, but he’s not. Kate either. These two, he definitely isn’t because they’re basically adults as is, and they don’t need parents at this point.

So what he will offer them is friendship. And whatever else he can.

“Of course.”

That hesitancy is back when he looks at her out of the corner of his eye, but he won’t push by any means. So he takes another drink of his coffee and lets his gaze fall to the table between them, letting her know that she has his attention but without the pressure of direct eye contact. Bucky has found that this is the best way to handle things, especially when he and Clint have to talk about shit. (He really hates those conversations though. There are plenty of times where he’s tried to back out and leave, and this is how he’s had to sit for those to hear Clint out.)

Wanda takes a few moments to compose herself, and he can see that she’s trying to keep her breathing even, but her hands are fidgeting in her lap.

“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” he assures calmly, eyes even as he looks back to his coffee and then at her for a fleeting moment. “Only if you’re ready.”

She shifts for a few more moments before saying softly, “I also have nightmares. About Sokovia. The people. Ultron.” There’s even a little shiver passing through her as she says the last one.

He gives himself all of half a second to process this because he knows she’s basically more dangerous than he is; she may be the only person he’s ever met who is more dangerous than most of the Avengers. Bucky tries not to let his tiny bit of inner panic show. Because if he hurts Clint at night, imagine what Wanda could do to all of them.

“Guilt?” he asks, now watching her face. Because he understands. He understands entirely.

“Yes.” She isn’t shifting any less, but he can tell that she feels a little weight off her chest. “And fear. I worry that I can be easily… convinced.”

“Coerced.” Bucky lifts his mug to his lips. The word is all too familiar.

She nods. “I do not want to be turned against the people I care about. I was turned against my own people.” Her brow furrows, and now she’s the one staring at the table between them. “I am afraid that I could be turned against anyone. Even my own brother.”

“Nah.” He almost laughs. “Your brother would probably join you before he’d let you fight him.” But it probably wasn’t the time to laugh, and maybe he shouldn’t have said that because her gaze meets his with this deep concern. Because as much as Pietro is this free-spirited spitfire, he’s very flexible, maybe even more so than Wanda.

So Bucky has to backtrack and say, “It’s ‘cause he loves you. You never wanna fight with a sibling, especially not with the kind of bond you two have.”

Her lips are pursed, and she watches into the other room where Katie is actually sitting on the back of Pietro’s chair, perched, and showing him all the controls with a patience that Bucky hasn’t seen in her in a long time. Then Wanda refocuses, and Bucky has to refocus on her. “I know that we agreed to so much for the scientists because we wanted so badly to hurt Tony Stark. But I do not want to be that person anymore.”

He swallows and nods. Because he knows. God, does he know that feeling. Trapped between a rock and hard place and not knowing how to stand for yourself. He got out of the Soldier and wandered because he didn’t know what free will was anymore. And now he knows. It means living. And his version of living had just wound him up here.

“I can help you with that.” He offers a half-smile again. “Remind you not to be such a pushover. You and Pietro both.” He makes a half-assed gesture with his metal hand to the other room. “Which basically means you both need to stop doing everything Kate and Pete say ‘cause those two are the worst.”

She just smiles.

--

He pushes the door open. “Pete. Downstairs.”

The kid’s head snaps up, and he goes, “One sec,” before his head bows back down to look at his homework.

“Now.” He doesn’t mean to sound so terse, but Bucky doesn’t want to deal with this stress right now.

The pencil is put down because Peter knows not to fuck around, especially not when it’s Bucky, and so he shoves his chair away from the desk and leaves his work there before heading to the door, and Bucky holds the door open so that the kid heads down the stairs first.

After all, this isn’t really his show.

When they get downstairs, Clint has the twins at the kitchen table already, and so after pointing Peter towards the one empty chair at the table, Bucky reclaims his spot at the barstool, a safe distance away but still involved.

He and Clint have talked this over, not very much because they’ve both been exhausted between missions and dealing with the four kids and the mutt. They don’t want to say that their house has become a mess, but it kind of has because they weren’t exactly prepared to handle the twins to begin with. Maybe they should’ve talked this over more. And they should’ve talked about it when they weren’t half-asleep.

Really, Bucky’s just glad that Kate’s not here right now. This isn’t her show either.

“Buck and I were talking,” Clint says as he kind of lazes back in his chair, one hand rubbing across the stubble at his chin. (Bucky thinks his partner definitely needs to shave.) “And we were thinking that maybe you two should actually be adopted. Like Pete.”

Needless to say, Pete’s face just fucking lights up because this is probably the best excuse to be pulled away from homework. His smile is pure joy.

The twins’ backs are to Bucky, so he can’t read them as well, but they’re both very still.

Clint has more to say after a deep breath. “I mean, it’s just for legal purposes. Making sure no one can take you away. Giving you more opportunities for the future.” He’s rubbing the back of his neck, and it’s clear his nerves are a little frayed with this, but Bucky doesn’t understand why, all these damn kids love him; the only real concern over the twins is that they could technically become independents themselves if they wanted to, and Clint won’t take that option away from them. “The intention is not necessarily to be a new parent to you guys or anything because that’s- that’s really not what you need at this point.”

He wants to help Clint, but this isn’t his show. They’ve done their research, they already had a little duel with Bishop over legal guardianship with Katie, but she’s not going back to him any time soon with the exception of long missions and certain holidays. Clint knows what he’s doing, despite how anxious he is.

“The goal would just be to basically give you a better support system by legal means,” Clint continues. There’s a slight pause. “I know you’ve only got, like, what, two years before you’re legal adults, but I want to make sure you’re safe until then. I just don’t want you two to end up lost somewhere if anything should happen.” (Peter is going to Steve. Kate, too. Natasha, if that doesn’t work out. Clint sorted this out a long time ago. The hierarchy is very clear.)

Bucky’s shifting a little restlessly, and he doesn’t know why. He’s home, Clint’s here, the kids are all safe. Hell, even Lucky’s okay.

But he is worried about the damn Maximoffs. These two are wrapped up in a lot of shit at the tower right now, and the fact that they’re a little sheltered right now at the farm is what’s keeping them away from the hellish media blitz that’s been ravaging the tower since Sokovia. He doesn’t want anyone else to get ahold of them, he doesn’t want them to be used the way Ultron used them.

Fuck. He’s protective of these two.

Pietro is the first one to say something. “We would not have to change our names?”

Peter’s face means he’s internally screaming, and Bucky tries to keep from smiling because he knows Clint is massively relieved in that moment. “Not if you don’t want to,” affirms Clint gently because he knows that, as much as the twins operate as a cohesive unit, they don’t think alike, and Wanda is still silent.

Still, her brother is the one to speak up. “And we would be citizens here?”

“Yep, that would happen.”

Clint and Bucky had talked about it, the fact that the twins aren’t even here legally, there’s a whole mess going on, but they know they can ask Stark and SHIELD to collectively pull strings. Anything to keep the twins here and safe. It’d be a bigger ordeal than what they went through with Bishop and much more difficult than Bucky’s basic understanding of how Clint kind of just ended up with Peter, but they’ve both determined that it’s worth it after all these two have been through.

Wanda does finally shift, no longer a statue in her chair. She looks over her shoulder at Bucky for a moment, and he watches the floor because this isn’t his business— But she says after a moment, “I think we would like that.”

Peter does a fucking victory dance. What a little shit.

--

“Alright, sure, Sokovia was nuts, but that mission in Budapest—”

He’s cut off by Bucky’s laughter because fucking Budapest—

But Pietro’s eyes are flickering between them, and he’s got that kind of face on that means he’s got something to say. It’s one that Bucky’s familiar with because this kid isn’t as quiet as Wanda, but it’s like he’s got this ingrained sense of knowing not to speak up unless spoken to, and that’s one of the things he’s gonna need to get over in the real world so, Bucky tries to get quiet, but Clint is still laughing because fucking Budapest—

“What’s on your mind, Maximoff?” Bucky asks with a half-smile still stuck on his face, using his beer to gesture at Pietro before taking a swig of it. Might not be such a good idea to let him hang around while they’re drinking like this, probably not the best influence on him, but Clint’s usually good about not drinking too much too fast, and Bucky’s got this nice little blessing of not being able to get wasted because of the Winter Soldier. (At least it doesn’t all suck. He can drink a lot more nowadays.)

“How do you two get to go on all these missions?” He leans forward on the counter, elbows on the granite, and his forehead is a little scrunched up as he squints at the counter before looking between them. “How did you get into this hero job?”

“I got good at killin’ people.” Bucky shrugs. Alright, so he’s not hammered, but maybe he’s not the best at choosing his words either. He’s not exactly immune to alcohol.

“I got beat by my dad as a kid.” The difference between him and Clint is that Clint laughs about it.

There are a lot of days where Bucky wonders where the sick, masochistic side of Clint hides when he’s not paying attention because when it shows up, it’s not friendly and the timing is never good. And so the diversion Bucky takes is swift. “SHIELD picked him up after he ruined a robbery for his circus friends.” His eyes check Clint over, and he’s over his beer again, like he’s trying to kind of recover from what just came out of his mouth. “And I was brainwashed as an assassin until I broke Sleeping Beauty’s spell or whatever and here I am.” He shrugs. At least he’s not laughing.

Pietro’s watching Clint a little more carefully now, but he’s good at social cues, at least, so he’s not going to ask. (Bucky is oh so grateful because Clint doesn’t need that right now, not when he’s shipping out on mission tomorrow morning, and it’s already almost midnight, they don’t need to open up that can of worms.) Instead, his fingers fidget a little more before he asks, “How could I do that?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Do shit with SHIELD?”

“Language,” corrects Clint before drinking more beer.

It seems that Pietro doesn’t really notice Clint’s comment because he nods in his naturally quick fashion. “Yes. How would I work with the Avengers?”

There… isn’t really an easy answer to that one. Bucky’s really not even exactly sure what happened that earned him a place on the team, although he really doesn’t go do much unless it’s an emergency and even then, he’s got Clint and/or Steve with him. (Steve has, in the past year or so, become like a back-up plan when Bucky’s actually needed in action. He enjoys the slight freedom SHIELD has been giving him, so he can’t complain.) But lately, he just gets to show up at the tower and no one questions him. It’s nice to be part of the team, really.

How to get on that team? Well, considering he found his way to Steve, and Steve handled the rest, he doesn’t know how he got on the team. As for Clint, he doesn’t seem to be one for talking much right now, but he knows there was some kind of SHIELD thing that got him on the team, but he doesn’t talk about it much. Bucky’s not one to push.

“I could talk with Steve and Stark, see what their thoughts are.” He takes a sip of beer. “I don’t know that they’d want you now since you aren’t an adult, and that’s dangerous on so many levels.” Bucky doesn’t like the thought of him or Wanda going into battle; shit, he doesn’t even like the thought that they were involved in the Sokovia incident, but he knows that then times are tough, it’s all hands on deck. “But we could put some time into training you for now. Have you work with Katie when she plays around on the range.”

“She doesn’t like being called that.” Clint’s voice is firm as he returns from the fridge with a fresh beer. “And she doesn’t play around on the range. She shoots on the range.”

Alright, so something’s got him suddenly testy tonight, so Bucky knows he’ll have to tread a little more carefully. As much as he doesn’t want to, he looks at that beer Clint’s brought over and wonders if one more is too many.

“But you think that I could be an Avenger some day?” Pietro has figured out that his attention should be on Bucky, and maybe his eyes have a little bit too much eagerness in them because he’s still fidgeting a little bit.

“Probably, I don’t see why not. You’ve already got some experience.” He brushes a few strands of hair that have fallen out of his bun away from his eyes before resigning to pull the bun out entirely. Still, he’s watching Pietro. “You’d be pretty good out there. You and Wanda both.”

That causes him to pause, and it’s noticeable enough mostly because he’s constantly moving, whether it’s his fingers tapping or his eyes flitting or his legs jittering. He goes still for a moment. “I think Wanda would be happier like this.”

“Like what?” Clint asks, and that voice is enough that Bucky knows he needs to get that beer away from him.

It’s like he’s searching for the word. Really, the language barrier isn’t all that much, they know a lot of English, but sometimes it’s finding the right word that catches the twins in a conversational lull. Pietro finally comes out with, “Calm. Secure. Home. Like what you two have.”

Bucky’s eyes kind of search the room. The partner. The house. The kids. The façade of stability.

“Domestic.” Clint’s eyes are on Bucky, and he knows there’ something going on inside his head that he won’t talk about, not today, maybe not tomorrow. But there’s something going on in there that’s suddenly not quite right.

It causes Barnes to worry.

But for now, Pietro’s nodding in perfect understanding. He repeats back, “Domestic.”

“And you don’t want this?” Bucky asks Pietro curiously, gaze flickering only momentarily to Clint.

“This is very nice, but it is quiet.” His body is jittering again, like he’s been shocked back to life. “I know that our intentions were originally to join HYDRA to kill Tony Stark, but it gave us an opportunity.” Pietro bites his lip for a second before looking down at his hands. “I can do more with this yet. I may not be as strong as Wanda, but I have a lot to offer still.”

There’s a quiet that hangs in the air. Because he knows that train of thought all too well, that he’s stronger now and that he can be used. The good news is that Pietro seems to have walked away from Sokovia unscathed. Whatever optimistic outlook this kid has, Bucky wants to see him stay like this forever. Stay happy. Stay good.

“I’ll talk with Stevie tomorrow, see if I can’t line you up some training with the big guns.”

It looks like excitement that spread across Pietro’s face but maybe it’s something more like anticipation. He can’t entirely tell, but he hears a quick, clipped “thank you” from the speedster before he heads off at a jog (why did Bucky expect anything less?) to presumably go tell Wanda.

Bucky smiles for all of half a second before he looks back across the island at his partner, who’s face has only gotten darker. He has to step carefully. “Barton?”

Clint is eerily quiet and incredibly still. His fingers are tapping rhythmically, naturally, along the browned glass of the beer bottle, and his eyes are fixated on the counter. He’s lost in himself, misplaced somewhere in time and space that Bucky won’t ever be able to understand. But at least his breathing is even, so he’s not about to snap. He’s safe. He’s stable. He’s absent.

“Clint.”

As if out of a dream, he wakes up with one sharp breath, eyes immediately going to Bucky, and there’s some kind of reassurance that flashes across his face. (Maybe because he’s not alone. Maybe because he’s not the most messed up one in the house. Bucky can’t read his mind, but he damn well wishes he could.) Clint pushes away the open beer, barely touched. He gets out of his hunched position and blinks once for a long moment. “I’m gonna head to bed.”

“Hey.”

Seemingly detached, Clint turns himself just slightly to look at his partner.

“C’mere.”

Bucky will damn well start shit if he doesn’t, and it’s like Clint knows that because he’s obedient in that sad way that reminds Barnes of absolute defeat. So the archer just moves to Bucky’s open arms where the soldier is perched on a bar stool, and he slumps a little bit more when his partner holds him.

“You okay?”

Still silent, he wraps his arms around Bucky in return, pressing his face into his long brown hair. Clint’s breathing stays even.

“You wanna talk?”

“No.”

He purses his lips and just keeps Clint tight against him. The difference between them is that while Bucky’s wars are waged at night, Clint’s can start at any given moment. Tonight’s just one of those moments.

“Love you, Clint.”

“Love you too, Buck.”

--

Maybe he’s enjoying the sun too much now.

Katie was out here sitting with him, tanning, maybe twenty minutes ago until Pietro and Peter came out. So she wrapped a big piece of fabric (he’s pretty sure she called it a sarong or something) around her waist and picked up her bow for some training, which at this point basically entailed her and Peter shooting at Pietro and trying to keep him in tiptop shape, making sure he knows how to keep out of the line of fire.

So now Bucky’s in a lawn chair, shirtless, and alone. And he’s out of coffee. This moment has turned strangely less fun by the second.

Meanwhile, Wanda is inside, working on her homework, focusing on her studies. Bucky can see that Pietro was right, that she seems to be more inclined towards the regular world, away from the experiments and the robots and the madness.

Clint has been gone for almost five days now, didn’t even wake Bucky up before he left the next morning. (Bucky attributed it to him not wanting to be questioned about the night before, and Barnes can’t blame him. He’s done the same thing. Back before he could go on missions without his partner.) He called all of once to say that he’d be home soon and to check in on the kids and to tell Bucky he loved him.

At home, it’s a lonely day. Especially now that he’s been robbed of Kate Bishop. Now he’s just got Lucky, who is laying on his back in the grass beside Bucky’s chair. Stupid dog. Stupidly good dog.

The sun is hot and his arm feels like it’s on fire, but it’s not that bad, he kind of likes the heat, especially when it’s warm for a while. Behind his sunglasses, he’s watching the kids train. Katie’s using her soft tip arrows, thank God. (One time, she forgot to switch out her quiver and clipped Pietro’s leg. Wanda didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day.)

Peter’s really got a handle on the webbing thing now, Bucky’s impressed to see. He doesn’t normally keep an eye on Pete because his training is usually with Katie for reactionary testing, which means shooting her arrows out of the air. The few times he has watched, it’s always impressive. Even today, he’s almost hit Pietro a few times, but that boy is fast.

Those three get along like peas in a pod. All the kids do, really. Bucky’s eternally grateful because the fact that Katie is only a year younger than Pietro and Wanda had him concerned that there would be more conflict between them, but her standoffishness towards them faded within the first week, basically. She and Wanda even went out together sometimes, hanging out with Katie’s school friends.

What made it better with the two girls was that Wanda went with Kate to her dad’s house when they had missions. As much as Bucky and Clint trusted them to stay home on their own, they didn’t want to leave them alone for the longer trips in case something did happen. (Meaning: they were worried Kate would try to throw a party.) So Pietro would stay at the tower (it was okay because it was temporary), Peter would go to Simone as usual, and the girls would head to the Bishop residence. Apparently, it made it easier on Kate to go home.

The best part of it all is that the adoption papers came back yesterday, so he’s just gotta wait for Clint to come home so he can wrap up all the details with the twins; Bucky hasn’t told them that it’s all really going through yet because he’s waiting for his favorite asshole to get home, but he knows they’ll be thrilled.

Pete’s even more excited, really. He practically idolizes Pietro, and Bucky doesn’t quite understand why. But those two get into trouble all the time. And it’s nice because sometimes they’ll keep each other occupied, which is a chore for Bucky because Pietro gets bored so easily and Peter isn’t always the most relatable kid. But somehow they get each other.

The best part of having all the kids get along is that there’s a bit of a prank war running between the four of them. Girls versus boys. So far, Bucky’s pretty sure Wanda and Kate are winning. (But he does miss having Kate as his partner in crime when pranking Clint.)

Lucky snores loudly beside him, and Bucky allows himself a sigh. As much as life sometimes sucks, for now, life is good.

But he really does wish he had more coffee.

Chapter Text

“You’re up late,” comments Bucky, swatting at Clint’s ass with the dish towel he’s using to finish washing the dishes. (With Pietro’s help, of course.) “Coffee should still be hot, just made a second pot.”

“Cheers to a second pot,” breathes Kate Bishop over her own still-steaming mug. She’s like a crack addict, except with coffee, Bucky’s found, and he isn’t sure who is worse: her or Clint.

He finishes wiping off a dish and slides it into its place in the cabinet before tossing the towel over his shoulder. He has a couple minutes before Pietro will have more dishes for him to dry, he knows, so he leans against the counter for a few seconds and watches Clint ghost around the kitchen, not quite at the top of his game, still drowsy.

After Clint has his coffee in hand, he pauses, blinking a couple of times. And Bucky’s smart enough to get his attention with a little wave. (At least he’s got his aids in, but he seems relatively unresponsive this morning.) Clint moves over into Bucky’s now outstretched arms, burying his face in his chest, taking a few deep breaths.

“You good?” asks Bucky lowly, the words right in the archer’s ear.

He finds that Clint’s free hand is on his back. Two letters are pressed into his skin. O.K.

Bucky tries so very hard not to worry about him. He can put away his concern, compartmentalize it, when it’s a mission because Clint is plenty capable of handling himself physically. He’ll come back dinged and bruised and whining about some ache or scrape or other, but it’s when Clint isn’t 100% on his game mentally is when Bucky gets concerned.

Lately, he feels like he’s always concerned.

The hand on his back shifts, and he feels Clint press a sign harder against his skin. I love you.

“Love you too,” he breathes, ghosting a kiss across Clint’s cheek before letting him go. Bucky’s eyes follow his partner to the kitchen table where the archer settles in lazily. And he has to turn his attention back to drying dishes because Pietro has finished washing them all. (Thank God for that kid’s speed.)

“What all have I missed?” asks Clint, taking a drink of his coffee, eyes skirting around the room, taking inventory.

Kate slides a box of donuts across the table to him, a box that the rest of them have already picked through. (Lucky managed to snag one too, somehow?) “Breakfast. Peter and Wanda doing homework last minute.” She shrugs. “And Bucky was really rude to me earlier.”

“What happened?” he asks, as he flicks the box open and begins a careful selection process over the two donuts that are left.

“He called me high maintenance.” (Bucky’s trying not to laugh.) “He said that’s why I can’t find a boyfriend.” (It’s not going so well.) “But I’m pretty sure it’s just because I’m not really looking at dating right now. I have my archery to focus on. And school.” (He does snort a laugh, but Kate doesn’t notice.)

Clint does a faux gasp, and Bucky is all too familiar with that sound. “Barnes, how dare you?”

He shrugs, wiping down the last dish before picking up his coffee to take a sip. “I’m a terrible person.”

“You are a terrible person.”

Yet they’re in love.

She’s practically tsking at Bucky. Really, that girl had always adored Clint infinitely more than his counterpart. The others could be swayed depending on the hour, depending on the day, but Katie would be forever loyal to Clint above Bucky. “I really don’t get why you married him, Clint,” says Kate after a few seconds, shaking her head.

And Barnes is choking on his coffee.

“Well, uh, we aren’t married,” says Clint with only a mildly alarmed look towards his asphyxiated partner.

Her eyes are horrified, mouth gaping slightly. “What do you mean you aren’t married?”

Bucky has recovered slightly, enough that he’s breathing, mostly. How long has Kate been living here? Three years? Roughly? How the fuck did she not know this? (Okay, in her defense, they called each other their partners, they never wore jewelry aside from dog tags so rings weren’t a thing, and had been together for long enough to justify her thought process, but still.) He’s just stunned that she didn’t know this already.

Wanda, who is seated next to Pete on a barstool, even looks up; her eyes shift from Bucky to Clint very slowly as her head has to rotate to look between them. “I thought you were married?”

“Me too,” says Pietro, who has paused long enough to wonder what the hell is going on. And that boy doesn’t slow down for much.

Peter is sitting silently, eyes flickering between Clint and Bucky. (Bucky freezes suddenly. Fuck, did Pete not know? Like, how the fuck would he not know? He would’ve remembered something like that, right?)

“Well, we aren’t?” And Clint’s eyes are practically begging for some kind of back up, but nope, no way, this isn’t Bucky’s battle, he just showed up here one day and kept showing up and eventually moved in, he’s even tried to leave a few times, this really isn’t his place to talk. No way in hell is Bucky walking himself into this shitstorm.

Kate’s eyes are throwing daggers at Bucky. (Oh shit, now he’s in it.) “How have you not put a ring on him yet?” She gestures, almost violently, at Clint. “He is absolutely husband material for you!”

Shit, he wishes he could just duck out and not deal with it.

Clint’s ever so kind, despite his still semi-drowsy state, to draw the attention back on himself. “It’s not a really big deal for us? I mean, c’mon, this isn’t exactly an average lifestyle to have. I mean, a flock of adopted kids, a one-eyed dog, and a couple of mentally unstable adults? Getting married doesn’t exactly fit into all that.” He shrugs, trying to brush it off. “It just hasn’t been important. I know he’s coming home to me, he knows I’m coming home to him. That’s what matters to us.”

That’s the only thing that’s ever been important. They know what it means to be partners. Bucky knows that Clint wouldn’t do anything to stray, and he’s certain Clint knows he would never go anywhere either. It’s a simple situation of coming home to each other, saying “I love you” every day, and meaning it with every fiber of their beings. It’s not hard for Bucky when he’s been enamored with Clint since they first started all this shit.

“How long have you two been together?” It’s Wanda who asks this time, surprisingly. Like she wants to get in on this. If Wanda’s playing good cop here, Katie is great at playing bad cop.

Bucky looks at Peter with a little bit of scrutiny, using his age to calculate it out. It’s still the easiest way. “About seven years.”

Now it’s Clint’s turn to kind of look a little shocked. “Seriously?” After Bucky nods, Clint runs a hand through his hair. “Wow. It just kind of feels like you’ve been around forever, Buck.”

He knows the feeling. He remembers them being at the tower and fucking around (literally), but anything before that just felt nonexistent, like a dream. It’s like he hasn’t known a life without Clint Barton. (And it’s not just because all his other memories are a clusterfuck.) “Like you forget that there was a time without me?” he asks, smirking a little bit.

“Yeah, actually.” He laughs.

They won’t bring up the times that Bucky tried to leave.

“You two need to get married,” insists Kate, leaning back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. She isn’t fucking around. “You’re seriously overdue. You love each other. And it’s legal now.” Her eyes flicker between the two of them.

“What?” Clint scoffs. “I don’t love him, I hate him.”

“Feelin’s mutual.” Bucky isn’t ready to deal with all of this, it’s too early in the morning. Clint hasn’t had enough coffee, he knows that for sure.

“You’re like teenagers,” groans Kate, hunching over her coffee again. She shakes her head and takes a long drink, still glaring between the two of them.

“You are a teenager,” Bucky comments. “You don’t really get what all comes with the marriage thing. It’s a ton of work. Lots of papers.” Plus, he'd actually be their stepdad, and that thought is just too much, he doesn't want to be given the chance to fuck them all up.

“And if we actually had a wedding, that would be out of control,” Clint sighs. He knows what Clint is thinking. That many heroes in the same room? Not to mention the fact that neither of them had any actual family to celebrate it with. And then there was the problem that any little thing going wrong could set off a panic attack—

“What if we planned it?”

Now it’s Clint’s turn to choke on coffee because Peter’s the one who speaks up, and he hasn’t said a goddamn word all morning that didn’t refer to homework, so for him to say something is unbelievable. And Bucky isn’t saying anything on that point because… because he feels like, of all of them, Peter wants this the most.

The kid hasn’t said it. The kid doesn’t talk about it. But Bucky knows. He knows that Peter thinks he’s his dad. He knows that Peter loves him. Bucky feels sick. Like he’s betrayed him somehow. And as much as he denies he loves all these kids, he does. He loves them. Loves them so much it hurts because he never thought he could have this shit.

And he doesn’t want to deny Peter actually having his dads together.

But he doesn’t speak up. Because Clint is still choking on a bite of his donut and maybe he’ll have a different reaction, maybe he won’t want them to get married, won’t want to deal with a divorce if Bucky tries to leave again, there are so many complications—

Barton manages to catch his breath again, and Bucky’s not sure if that’s panic in his eyes or what it is, but it’s definitely not calm. “Are you serious?” he asks, looking between the kids. It’s shock, Bucky has determined.

And none of them are fucking around. Kate’s eyes are on Peter, and he’s serious as the grave, and so she nods confidently, with a thrilled smirk on her face. Wanda is just grinning ear-to-ear, and Pietro’s shrug is “why not?” because he is the most nonchalant of the whole bunch. And so Peter says slowly, “Yeah. We could plan a wedding.”

Bucky’s pretty sure this is just the biggest joke ever.

Meanwhile, he’s really not exactly sure what’s going on with himself, whether he wants this or not. He knows he loves Clint. That’s not even what he’s worried about. He’s not sure if he wants the actual, honest to God responsibilities of being married when he and Clint are content just the way they are. He likes this state where he’s at. He can leave if he needs to, if he thinks he’s too dangerous, if he thinks he’s a bad influence on the kids. He can walk out at any point comfortably and deal with his own shit without risking all these kids.

But he recognizes that he’s already their dad, as much as he tries to deny it. He loves them. They love him. And he can’t imagine ever leaving Clint Barton.

His eyes meet Clint’s. The conversation is silent between them, and as apprehensive as they both look, it’s not like they didn’t talk about this at one point. But that was before the twins, before Lucky, before Kate. And it was just a joke.

But this is here, this is now. It’s probably not a joke.

“Hey, Buck.” He’s smirking.

“Yeah?” And Bucky can’t stop from smirking back.

“Marry me?” He matches his words in lazily gestured sign language.

He pauses, even taking a sip of his coffee before replying: “Sure, I guess.”

Kate groans. “You two are the worst, that may have been the least romantic proposal ever.” And she’s already rolling her eyes and drinking her coffee.

But Clint’s hands are still going. He has a lot more to say. He’s going to say a lot more. Stuff about undying love and all that bullshit. How he’s actually wanted to talk about getting married. How he can’t imagine coming home to anyone else. How he loves the sex. How Bucky may have been his greatest mistake. How he wants to be with him for the rest of their lives.

The kids (all but Peter) are oblivious, only knowing that something’s going on but not understanding what exactly. Meanwhile, Peter’s watching every word and keeping his mouth shut.

And Bucky’s watching it, reading it? And he’s trying not to get sappy, he hates getting sappy. But he does make his way over to Clint once he’s done and lean down to give him a soft kiss. And then he instructs, “Eat your goddamn donut.”

“Language,” comes the chime of the children.

--

Apparently, they do have to actually work on this. It’s not just handing off a baton to the kids and calling it a day.

Bucky is not happy about this fact because suddenly he keeps finding himself flagged down by Wanda (because really, as much as they all said “Yeah, we can do this!”, it turned into handing it off to the one person who was really thrilled about it) to get his opinion on something, and usually he had absolutely no opinion aside from “No” or “Ask Clint”.

Today, he’d been fucking corralled by the kids. And he tried to escape them in the car but then Pietro was in front of it, and damn if he’d hit that one and face Wanda’s wrath. So that led to him, stuck in a chair, next to Clint, at the kitchen table, not very happy about his given situation.

And Clint is a mess, clearly he was dragged out of bed, it looks like he’s on his second mug of coffee. (Bucky can see the pot out of the corner of his eye.) Even though it’s almost ten in the morning and Clint’s usually good to go by about nine when he doesn’t have shit to do. He’s an early bird, and Barnes never fails to make that joke.

“Basically, there needs to be some kind of purple.” Clint’s sort of shuffling his chair closer to Bucky, and once he’s satisfied with its new position, he leans just so that his shoulder is touching Bucky’s metal arm. “That’s my only requirement. You guys are free to do whatever else you want. Or whatever Buck wants.”

Holding one hand up in faux surrender, he shook his head. “No opinions here.”

Everything he’d done in the past seven years had been shit he just rolled with. Getting with Clint. Okay. Finding out about Peter. Fine. Kate showing up. Sure. Half dead dog on the bedroom floor. Yep. A set of twins. Alright.

Getting married? Why not?

So far, rolling with it has been good. He has an asshole partner (fiancé?) and his flock of hawklings to come home to, and he enjoys that. So he likes sticking to that idea of going with the flow, despite how exasperated Wanda looks when they both basically say they don’t give a shit what happens at the wedding.

“Can’t you guys help the poor girl at all?” asks Peter, where he looks up from his homework for all of maybe twenty seconds. “She’s flailing. She hasn’t been here that long, she doesn’t know you guys.”

“Which is why the rest of you should help,” comments Bucky slowly but loudly enough so the other two, wherever the hell they are, should hear; he almost hopes get a small rise out of Kate in the other room, but she’s shuffling into the kitchen silently to perch herself on a barstool next to Pete, not up to the fight.

Basically, Clint and Bucky had been summoned. And then three out of the four kids decided to bail. Like the tiny dicks they are. Bucky loves them too much, otherwise he would get significantly more frustrated than he already does with them. Because he does feel bad for Wanda, that she’s the only one who has to put up with this shit when it wasn’t her idea to begin with.

“What is there to know?” asks Clint, forehead wrinkled as he looks confused. “We basically fight crime and sleep together at night and try not to kill each other?” And he shakes his head at Bucky. “I didn’t realize it was complicated?”

Bucky shrugs. “It’s not.”

Apparently, Wanda isn’t satisfied with this answer and groans a response before muttering a little bit in whatever language blend it is that the two Sokovians use.

“Tell her stuff about you guys.” Pete actually turns around and leans back against the counter, almost mirroring the way Kate’s perched next to him. Clearly his homework is set aside, at least he has the courtesy to try and actively help Wanda. “I mean, I don’t even know how you guys met. All I remember is Bucky showing up one day and then not leaving.”

Well, it was true. Bucky fell into the habit, years and years ago now, of just coming home with Clint because, like a lost dog, he wanted to go where he would be taken care of, and Clint was the one who took care of him. Eventually, he brought his personal effects (basically two bags of stuff) here and just moved in.

Clint shakes his head. Clearly, they’re on the same page that this is ridiculous, but Clint’s putting up with it far better than Bucky is, even playing along nicely because he says, “We met, I think, when Cap brought you around once you got out of the psych ward?” (Bucky flinches because that sounds bad.) “All I really remember was basically waving at you. And wondering how you two managed to survive both a war and seventy years on ice.” (He flinches a little more, and this time Clint is kind enough to take his hand under the table.) “But I don’t remember much about my first impressions of you because I was on mission for a couple weeks right after that, I think.”

“I met you before that.”

Again, Clint’s forehead is all crinkled in confusion, and he almost looks a little disconcerted by this, and his lips are even pursed together. “How?”

All four of the kids are there now. Pietro must’ve shown up at some point because he’s standing behind Wanda, eating straight out of a package of Oreos and watching them both with flickering eyes. (Bucky’s first thought is that Pietro better not eat all those Oreos.)

“You were in the med bay when I got out of the psych ward the first time.” (He hates saying that. Psych ward. The words taste terrible.) “You were comatose, I think, which is why you wouldn’t remember it. But, uh, Steve took me around. And he basically said, ‘That’s Clint. You’ll like him.’” And Bucky snorts a laugh for all of two seconds because now he realizes: “And now I get why he winked when he said that.”

Clint laughs a little bit too now. Louder than Bucky. “Steve knew.”

“He’s good like that.” Bucky will never doubt Steve Rogers. That’s something he does remember from basically a century ago. He fucking trusts Steve Rogers. “But, yeah, I guess we didn’t meet then, exactly.” He won’t say how he stalled in the doorway to look at Barton a few seconds longer than he should’ve that day. “I got sent back to the psych ward for a few months after that ‘cause of an incident. Probably why it took us a little longer to formally meet.”

The kids, for their part, are quiet. Katie even seems enthralled for some reason, which is odd, while next to her, Peter is grinning like a fucking idiot.

Bucky’s just glad he’s got Clint’s hand under the table because it’s weird to have this sort of scrutiny. All eyes on them. He’s used to having all of ten seconds of attention to tell the kids to get their heads out of their asses for whatever given reason it is at that moment before letting them go about their business. It feels weird to be watched, especially in this context, being watched for their relationship. (Fuck, what’s it gonna be like at the actual wedding?)

“Then how did you two actually get together?” asks Peter, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. How he hasn’t heard these stories before, Bucky isn’t sure because he’s the one who should know these things. But it’s never been important, he recognizes. To Pete, they’ve always been together. Right now, it must be like hearing a great love story. Like when elementary school kids always hear about Romeo and Juliet and how great their love was. When in reality it lasted three days and practically everyone died or was a goddamn idiot. (He’s pretty sure his and Clint’s story is just as disappointing as the Shakespearian bullshit turns out to be when people actually read it.)

Clint bites his lip, but he’s trying not to laugh.

Bucky half-shrugs. “I decked him.”

Clint’s definitely laughing now.

“What does that-“

But before Wanda can even get the question out, Kate’s stepping in to help, like she usually does: “That means Bucky punched him.” But Kate’s smirking way too much, clearly enjoying the idea of Bucky punching the shit out of Clint, which is strange considering she admires the archer so much.

“Why?” Pete splutters, trying not to smile (and failing at it) while his eyes flicker between his dad and Bucky.

“He tried to kiss me.” Again, Bucky shrugs. Calmly. “So I punched him in his stupid face.”

Still laughing, Clint manages to comment, “I came on too strong. Scared ya.”

He blinks slowly. Yeah, Clint scared him. But mostly because he wasn’t used to the 21st century idea of “gay is okay”, but he was also alarmed because someone was coming at his face very quickly, so a throwing a punch is natural. He leans over and kisses his… his fiancé’s hair. “Well, we had sex in the closet after-“

Clint cuts him off: “Bucky!”

Pete looks horrified. (There it goes. Romeo and Juliet die at the end.) Kate is cackling. Pietro is already gone, but Wanda’s face is frozen, as if she’s not really sure what to do with this new information.

Clint’s clearly not happy, he’s got his “you fucking asshole, how dare you” face on, but Bucky’s smirking back at him. Because it was worth it.

--

Gun in his hand, sight focused. He keeps his breathing even. Everything that he thought he hated comes back now, clear and easy. The high up position is comfortable as he watches the bait move around. Surveillance. For SHIELD. Supervised by Coulson.

He can’t be entirely mad at HYDRA. They strengthened his skills so that he can do this now, so that he can be an asset. He doesn’t entirely hate the metal arm. He’s glad they kept him alive this long so that he can live in this new century, so that he could see Steve again, so that he could be with Clint. Bucky isn’t as mad as he could be about the situation.

Leaning back, away from the scope, he feels Clint against him, still wrapped around him like an octopus. Really, more like a backpack, his arms curled around his shoulders. Clint tracks his heart rate, keeps him calm. It’s a beautiful system, really, and Bucky won’t ever complain about it because he does love having Clint pressed up so close to him; it settles him more than anyone could ever know.

“Good?” asks Clint as Bucky puts down the gun. They still have to watch and see if the target shows up, but it won’t be tonight. The bait had locked up the room for the night while Bucky watched. Which meant they’d stay another day.

His breathing is even. He’s got Clint with him. Everything is calm. “Good.”

Clint’s lips are on his neck, teeth included. Because the gun is out of the way, they’ve got this empty room to themselves, and it’s a quiet night. Except for the fact that maybe Bucky’s breathing isn’t so even now.

Coulson is ever so polite as to click off his comm without a word.

“Good,” says Clint with a little humor in his voice, practically wrapping himself tighter around Bucky while placing a line of kisses up his jawline.

The best part of being on mission: no damn kids.

“Abandoned building,” breathes Clint between kisses, sounding like he’s run a marathon for some reason. His words feel hot on Bucky’s neck as he continues in a lower voice, “Loud as we want, Buck.”

As if this weren’t already a fantastic situation. As if Bucky needed a better reason to turn his head ever so slightly and take those lips on his own. Then it becomes a game of carefully removing Clint because he’s the worst clinger ever but removing Clint is step one in what Bucky hopes will be a nice long process.

It takes a few seconds before he’s straddling Clint, but he’s paused for all of ten seconds just to put his hair up. (He’s debated cutting it, but Clint threatened to carve a dick into his metal arm, and Bucky doesn’t want to give Stark any more ammo.) And so when he leans back down over Clint, forearms placed on either side of the archer, he’s got a smile a mile wide on his face because the solitude is oh so sweet.

One set of calloused fingers is at the back of his neck to pull him closer while the other tries to work through the straps on the front of his uniform. Their lips brush for all of a heartbeat—

—there goes the phone.

“Shit,” hisses Clint, and Bucky already feels his stomach sinking. He goes to lean back and give his fiancé (God, that’s still such a weird thought) some space, but Clint’s not letting him get too far because he links his fingers through the straps to keep him from going entirely vertical and drops his other hand to flail for the phone. He can’t quite reach it, so Bucky, ever so casually, leans over slightly and shoves it all of two inches closer. (He gets a nice glare, he’s earned it.)

“Yeah, what?” Barton practically growls into the phone. (Bucky is pleasantly surprised to see that he’s frustrated and still breathing hard.)

And then there comes this thing with having a deaf guy as a partner where his phone is loud as hell. Bucky can hear Kate, who definitely isn’t shouting but the volume makes it sound like she’s shouting, despite the fact that Clint is holding the phone to his own ear. “Did Pete go to Simone’s? Also, can we order pizza?”

Somewhere in the background, Lucky woofs at the word “pizza”.

Bucky knows this is one of those moments that’s probably dead. So he wishes Clint would let go of his uniform so he could go clean his gun. But no. Clint has his fingers hooked like talons through the straps, and he doesn’t seem to be letting go any time soon.

“Pete should be there. With you.” His head is tilted to the side, and his eyes are searching the walls. Clearly concerned. “We said we’re leaving the four of you home alone this time, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, but we can’t find him.” There’s this shuffling noise. (Bucky’s partially glad he can hear what’s going on because he’s finding that he’s just about as uneasy as Clint is right now.) “Where do you keep the emergency money?”

Clint’s eyes are getting a little wilder. “How do you just lose your brother?” (Clint doesn’t notice.)

(Bucky notices.)

(Kate doesn’t notice.) “I don’t know. He’s just not here. Can’t find him. Pietro’s searching the perimeter.” And as she continues, her voice gets a little distant, as if she’s holding the phone away from her face, but still, Bucky can hear her loud and clear when she says, “Don’t forget extra cheese.”

“Katherine.” Clint is not fucking around. “Where the fuck is Peter?”

“Language,” she scolds, but now is really not even the time for that shit.

“This isn’t fu-“

He takes the phone. Bucky hates watching this shit. He doesn’t like the way that Clint’s stressing out, that he looks terrified. Being on mission makes them both worry, it’s a well-proven fact, but they don’t like the idea of leaving their flock at home unattended. Vulnerable.

“Kate.”

“Bucky?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezing shut as he mentally goes through a checklist. “Check the hayloft in the barn, the attic, and the roof. He also hides in his closet sometimes, so look there. And he’s got a secret tunnel he’s been diggin’ for years out by the tree line, have Pietro search on the East side.” Bucky doesn’t like being bothered by these things. Peter isn’t exactly a goddamn enigma, this shouldn’t be hard by any means. “If he’s not in any of those places, take the thermal scanner from the bag at the bottom of the closet, and I mean only the thermal scanner, Bishop.” He’s got weapons in there that she shouldn’t even know about. “Use that from the roof and search for heat signatures.”

Beneath him, Clint still looks incredibly uncomfortable. Unsettled.

“If he doesn’t turn up in half an hour, call us. Emergency money’s taped under the kitchen sink. Tip the pizza guy nicely.” And he hangs up. Because he knows Peter. He knows the kids are safe. He has at least four different security measures in place that’ll alert him if anything bigger than a cat crosses onto their property. Bucky’s worried, but now he’s pretty sure it’s just Kate being horrible at supervising. (Which is why they discretely left Wanda in charge without telling Kate.) He tosses the phone well out of Clint’s reach.

“We should call-“

“We have four children, three with superpowers, one with your skills, and a dog that would protect those kids with his life.” Bucky’s eyes are severe. “They’ll find him. They’re fine.” (That doesn’t mean he’s not worried.)

Clint’s eyes search Bucky’s face. He seems less than pleased, maybe even angry, but he doesn’t say anything because they’re both well-aware that their kids can protect themselves.

Alright, so he’s fucked this up. Bucky rolls his eyes and tries to lean back and get back to his gun, he’s got to take it apart, but instead, his body jerks forwards when Clint pulls him down. Managing to catch himself with his forearm, he’s barely inches away from Clint’s face.

Clint doesn’t seem so angry. He’s still got a little of the tension in his face, but he knows. They both know. And maybe they just needed to say it out loud to reassure themselves that the kids were just fine.

“You’re the best,” Barton breathes.

Barnes snorts. “You’re the worst.”

Half an hour later, a half-asleep Bucky feels Clint climbing over him, still naked, to reach for the discarded phone. After checking it, he announces, “They found him.”

“Told you.”

His annoyance gets a response in the form of a kiss on the cheek. “Shut up.”

--

“Happy Father’s Day!”

There are four of them, plus the dog, and Bucky instantly feels surrounded, which means his instincts kick up that tell him to attack; he swallows those. And there’s nothing more awkward because he really wanted to just enjoy maybe twenty minutes of alone time with Clint on the couch. Even though Clint is half-asleep on him.

He’s awake now though, almost even fully alert. (The sniper reflexes are strong, but Clint’s fighting an uphill battle here.) “What?” He looks around at the bunch of them, almost a little startled, but not so much by the suddenness, more by the idea of it. “Is that today?”

Kate rolls her eyes, and the snark is already sitting on her tongue, but before she can actually say anything, Peter cuts in. “Yeah, it’s today.”

Usually, the kids don’t do anything for Father’s Day. Ever since Bucky’s been around, Peter basically hasn’t done anything. He’ll say it in the morning, usually to Clint, and sometimes a little more quietly to Bucky, but that’s about as far as it’s ever gone. This is a little unsettling for Bucky, and from what he can tell, it’s a bit surprising for Clint.

“We have gotten gifts for you two,” says Pietro with a little grin (and he almost looks sheepish about it?) before producing a bag from behind his back.

Bucky’s not going to take up this fight right now. He loves these kids, but he doesn’t quite get where they see him as their dad. He makes them food. He checks on them regularly. He spends most of his time just making sure they don’t die. And as much as he tries to be there for their emotional well-being and whatever other bullshit kids need, that’s kind of more Clint’s department. So he’s not their dad. He’s not.

Instead of fighting that, he just watches as Clint takes the bag. (Because he doesn’t feel entitled to it himself.) His excuse would be that he’s got one arm around Clint, but he’s still got the metal one free, so that excuse is invalid, really.

So Clint pulls out the tissue paper and is ever so kind as to put it on Bucky’s head because that’s hilarious, apparently. (Peter and Wanda are grinning at it, at least.) And then he starts producing ties from this bag.

“We all picked one out,” says Wanda slowly, “because we could not decide on two.” (Suddenly, Kate screaming into her phone last week about how red is the gaudiest color makes more sense.) “And one from Lucky. Even though he could not decide.”

“Because he’s a dog,” adds Pietro.

The twins may have been Clint’s best idea ever. Bucky shouldn’t laugh at them as much as he does, but he thinks they’re funny as hell. They’re a pair of good-intentioned kids with big, albeit separate, dreams, and they’re amusing. Bucky loves observing the two of them as they interact. They never fight necessarily, but they always bicker, and it’s like watching an old married couple.

He’s trying very hard not to laugh at them right now. Because they’re great.

So far, Clint has produced two purple ties (one in pristine silk, one covered in arrows), a Halloween-themed tie covered in spiders (how the hell did Peter even find that, it’s not in season?), a black and gray striped tie (process of elimination determined Pietro), and a sleek red tie with starbursts (Bucky happened to like that one the best).

But when Clint pulled out the one with the arrows on it, Bucky actually high-fived Kate Bishop. The protest lived. Rename the damn dog.

“Looks like we’ll have to find a good excuse to go out and look sharp, Buck,” Clint comments, tilting his head up so he can look up at his fiancé. Because he’s still leaning heavily on Bucky.

Kate produces a card with a flick of the wrist and the deftness that reminds Bucky that she spends almost half her time at the mall. “Here’s your excuse. A huge gift card that’s valid at all the nice restaurants.”

“We’re also pairing this up with at least seven missed unofficial anniversaries, all the Father’s Days we missed, and probably your wedding present,” confesses Peter, scratching the back of his head. (Oh God, he reminds Bucky so much of Clint right there.) “But we’re not very good at this.”

“No worries.” Clint readjusts himself next to Bucky, laying all the ties out across the two of them with slow, deliberate motions. “We’re not necessarily great at the whole parenting thing either.”

These kids start to protest this statement very loudly. Almost exuberantly. There’s a mix of “what, are you kidding?!” and “you’re fantastic” and “we appreciate everything” and “it is perfect here”, and Lucky decides that now is the best time to jump on the couch and curl up on the other side of Bucky. Stupid dog.

But Bucky’s not going to listen to this, it’s overwhelming, it’s too much, Clint is almost cringing, so he whistles loudly, and the four get real quiet real fast because Clint’s not going to be loud enough today.

Now that it’s quiet, Clint’ll be enough. “Hey, really, we appreciate it, you guys.”

Nodding along, Bucky just goes, “Yeah.” But when he gets a little elbow nudge from Clint, he has to add, “Thanks.”

“So you two should go out to dinner tonight,” suggests Kate very confidently, almost smugly, and Bucky’s sure that smirk says something’s up. (But Clint hasn’t eaten today.) “I already set up reservations at-“

“Just give me the coordinates.” Maybe the kids deserve a little freedom. As long as they’re safe. The alcohol is locked up safely and only Wanda is good enough to crack it, but she has the morals of a saint. He’s going to put some faith in Katie to not be a total dumbass here; the others, he’s not so worried about.

Clint doesn’t seem to be protesting. Not too much, anyways. Not enough that convinces Bucky that he for sure wants to stay home.

Bishop is frozen, but it lasts for two seconds before she flashes into another smile. “Alright, I’ll text them to you.”

Oh yes, she definitely has something up her sleeve, but Bucky’s going to put that aside and compartmentalize that concern. “Good.” And then he has to take on the task of moving Clint Barton. “I’ll get him ready.” Which then entails Bucky folding up all the ties with one hand (thank God HYRDA was kind enough to give him ample dexterity because otherwise the laundry around this shithole would never get done) before putting them back in the bag and then trying to get Clint up.

It eventually took Bucky, all four kids, and the dog to harass the archer off the couch. And once he was in a nice suit, he was doing much better.

--

The bed is cold.

He rolled over in hopes of finding warmth, of finding Clint, but when he finds nothing but emptiness and rumpled sheets, he has to lift his head and check what the fuck is going on. His hair’s all in his eyes (he really wants to cut it), and he brushes it aside to see Clint sitting on the side of the bed, holding the sides of his head. No, not just holding, clutching.

“Shit.”

He sits up slowly, knowing that it’s a delicate situation. Sliding closer to Clint’s side of the bed, Bucky is careful not to touch him; instead, he checks the bedside table, and Clint’s aids are there, so whatever’s going on is inside his head.

He’s cautious to climb off the bed and makes sure he’s visible to Clint, knowing which senses will allow him to safely approach. Touching is a no because without sound association or immediate noise reassurance, Bucky would get attacked in a heartbeat. So instead, he moves and kneels down in front of him so that he is in his fiancé’s sight range.

Clint’s eyes flicker to him for all of a heartbeat before his breathing goes sharp again, like his lungs can’t get enough air.

Bucky moves slowly, not wanting to scare him more. He lets his hands follow the natural motion of spelling it out. Clint.

It takes a few moments. To Bucky, it feels like a life time before Clint slowly removes his hands from his head and, with unsteady fingers, signs back. Bucky.

So he’s here, he’s in a decent headspace. He’s shaken up to beat all hell, his eyes are bloodshot, and he looks so small, sitting there, shivering. They’re the same size, both barely over six foot, but Clint seems so tiny when he’s vulnerable like this. Bucky reaches one hand out to take one of Clint’s. But he doesn’t speak because it’d be a fruitless effort. Instead, he offers himself up, moving to sit next to Clint on the bed, still careful so that he can see him so that touching isn’t startling in any way. It’s a delicate process.

Clint has stopped shaking so much, and Bucky does take some time to reach over and grab the aids off the nightstand and offer them to him. He wants to make sure he’s got all his senses together, and he wants to make sure he doesn’t feel vulnerable. So once Clint presses them into his ears, Bucky says slowly, “I’m here. You’re safe.”

He’s settling down, that much is obvious. (And a relief.) He’s giving Bucky’s hand an appreciative squeeze. Those eyes are still searching the room, like there could still be some ghosts lingering, but at least he’s calmed down, the panic isn’t there anymore.

“I’m good,” he says after maybe another silent twenty minutes has gone by. He pulls his hand away from Bucky’s as if he’s trying to remember how to stand on his own. “I’ve got this.”

Bucky’s not so sure, but he smiles nonetheless before going, “You sure? Today’s a pretty big day, Barton.”

Confusion crosses his face like a fog. And then it passes. “Oh fuck.” He buries his face in his hands. “Oh fuck, that’s today.” He groans, long and loud. Then continues quietly, almost sounding embarrassed, “This is probably not what you wanted to wake up to.”

“I’m not in control of what happens to you.” He’s still trying to be soft, knowing that Clint may still be vulnerable despite looking stable; Bucky keeps searching Clint for any signs of cracking again. “I just try to help.” He has no right whatsoever to get angry at Clint for his PTSD, it’s out of anyone’s control. It happens. Bucky’s just glad Clint didn’t shoot him or something. (It happened once.) But what he can do is try and help Clint settle back down, get his head in reality, and reassure him that he’s safe and loved.

“Yeah, but on our wedding day?” Clint groans again. “This better not be some sort of fucking omen.”

Something slams to a halt inside of Bucky and the pit of his stomach is suddenly very heavy. “This isn’t…” He’s not sure how bad it’ll sound once it’s out of his mouth, but he’ll chance it. “This isn’t because of the wedding, is it?”

Those eyes. They’re sad. Heartbroken.

Barnes almost wishes he hadn’t said anything because the guilt is suddenly very heavy on his shoulders.

“God no, Buck.” He reaches out for Bucky’s hair, and his hand is still shaking. (There, that’s what Bucky was worried about. He’s still not at full speed, shit.) “I love you. And I want to marry you. Even though you’re an asshole.” And he’s grinning like a little shit, and Bucky hates his stupid face, hates that he’s such a flawed human being, hates that he’s just so innately good.

“I’m flattered.” And he really does feel like he hit a goddamn jackpot. He recognizes that he wouldn’t have a family without Clint, that he wouldn’t have someone to help him through the nightmares, that he wouldn’t have such a great life. He loves all of this. Most of the time. When the kids aren’t being awful. When Clint is next to him. “Good thing you have such low standards.”

He actually laughs, but there’s some kind of nervousness behind it. “You do realize you’re dating a human crapsack, right?”

“Actually, I’m marrying a human crapsack.”

Even though it must be at an incredibly awkward angle, Clint leans forward off the bed and takes Bucky’s face in his hands and kisses him. Sweet and slow. Somehow desperate. And Bucky knows he’s loved. He knows he’s safe here. He knows they’re bound together by something outside of whatever else happens today. The wedding is a formality, they already know they’re stuck together at this point.

--

He’s mentally tagged everyone in the room to track their movements. Clint’s already gone. (They played rock paper scissors a week ago to see who got to go first, and Barton just happened to win. Fuck him.) The crowd is messing with his head. He trusts all of these people with his life, but he hates being in crowds to begin with and the only thing that makes it worse is not having his fiancé next to him.

So he gets to linger behind the scenes and watch them all go. Clint left him maybe a minute ago or something, already standing up there. The shitty music is playing. He’s flexing his metal hand, can’t help himself, can’t stop it. He’s nervous, really. Too many people, anything can go wrong.

At least he’s got Steve.

“Cold feet?” asks Rogers, brow furrowed.

“Just don’t wanna stand in front of people.” He’s trying not to twitch.

He’s doing okay, really. It could be significantly worse. He knows all the kids are here and safe. There go the twins down the aisle, and now he can’t see them, and he’s slightly more worried. This really is for them. Clint and Bucky could sign a piece of paper and be done with it all. But the kids had fun planning it. Especially Kate and Wanda. (Bucky isn’t sure if that’s just a girl thing or?) He’s not sure how the four of them pulled it off, but they did. The one thing he does know is that they were very insistent on the flowers being cuckoo flowers. (He was instructed specifically to “Google it” on multiple occasions. Still hasn’t. Probably won’t.) They were purple though, so Bucky didn’t care because Clint would be happy.

He’s got one of those flowers pinned to his suit right now. The material feels all tight, and he can’t be battle-ready in this, he hates it.

“Bucky.”

His gaze flickers to the sound, and Steve has his attention. And he’s concerned. It’s all over his face.

“I’m fine,” Bucky insists.

Because it’s not like he’s going to walk away. He’s going through with this. He’s not thrilled about it, but he’s not backing down now. He’s been through a thousand times worse than this. James Buchanan Barnes won’t back down from anything, that’s a damn fact, and he’ll stick by it ‘til his dying day.

There go Kate and Pete.

Bucky feels like he’s fracturing.

He and Clint said that this was one big joke. They kept saying shit like “It’s not a big deal, we’ll just laugh our way through it” and “This is just a silly thing, it’s for the kids, makes them happy”, but that didn’t detract from the fact that it was kind of just a little bit serious and that terrifies him. He’s not afraid of being stuck with Clint forever. He’s afraid of Clint being stuck with him forever and getting hurt somehow.

“Steve.” Natasha comes up behind him. “It’s our turn.” But her words come out hesitant. Until there’s some kind of redirect behind her eyes as her focus shifts onto Bucky. “You better not leave him standing there, Barnes. I’ll kill you.”

“Nat,” Steve scolds lightly. Because he knows Bucky doesn’t need the added stress of verbal threats right now.

But Bucky knows she’s dead serious. She will kill him. Clint is her highest priority in life. And if it isn’t Clint, it’s his kids, so she isn’t fucking around, not when they’re all on the line. “Don’t worry.” He tilts his head towards the door. He’s got this. “Go.”

When Steve is reluctant to leave, Natasha links her arm with his and has to almost pull him away, but they both regain their smiling composure in time to walk down the aisle, both looking entirely poised.

He’s glad no one can see him. Because he’s alone now. And he feels like he’s breaking. Bucky wants it so badly, but he wants it without all the work. He wants Clint. He wants Clint next to him. Right now. Here. Not in front of everyone.

A shift in the music causes his panic to break. Something he recognizes, but it’s not something he’d know the words to.

Here's to us, here's to love, all the times that we fucked up

Bucky finds that… he’s laughing. Because there’s no way the kids would pull this shit.

This is all Clint being a stupid son of a bitch.

Here's to you, fill the glass ‘cause the last few days have kicked my ass

Oh no, this is Clint Barton. This is him trying to be funny, and to Bucky, it’s probably the most beautiful thing ever because he can imagine the kids glaring, but Clint’s just standing there trying not to laugh expectantly watching for Bucky to come down the aisle—

And Bucky’s still standing there, back against the wall, laughing. He can’t bring himself to walk down that aisle because he feels like he’s near crying for some reason.

So let’s give ‘em hell, wish everybody well, here's to us, here's to us

Footsteps. Jogging. And there’s a voice. “Hey.” It’s Clint, and Bucky can hardly even bring himself to look at him. But when he does look up, he sees that Clint is basically peaking around the corner, and he looks nervous, his forehead says that much, but his actual mouth says, “You coming?”

Stuck it out this far together, put our dreams through the shredder. Let’s toast ‘cause things got better

Bucky’s pretty sure this is all just because of a goddamn crowd. He loves Clint. But still, his eyes feel hot, and for some reason, he’s still laughing because he knows this song. And it’s all Clint. This is part of this whole big joke. Some way that they can laugh through it. Because they don’t know how else to handle serious shit.

Barton must understand somehow, even though Bucky’s not exactly sure what’s going on himself, because he pulls himself fully through the door and moves to stand in front of his fiancé. (They won’t be saying that much longer.) “You okay?”

And everything could change like that, and all these years go by so fast, but nothing lasts forever

“It feels like finally.” Bucky knows that isn’t all that articulate or well thought out, but that’s what it is for him. It feels like he gets everything he never knew he wanted. Like he gets a prize for being so fucked up. Seventy years under HYDRA and he ends up meeting a great man who just so happens to keep picking up strays. A goddamn family.

He didn’t think he wanted any of this. But he does. He wants it.

Clint understands somehow. (Barnes will never understand how. Never.) “Then let’s do this.” Clint reaches out and takes Bucky’s hand, the metal one, the one he knows Bucky’s sensitive about. “C’mon, Buck.”

He leans away from the wall, knowing that he’s about to get dragged down the aisle. He’s not necessarily ready, but he’s not sure he’ll ever be. So why keep hesitating?

When all eyes are on them, he’s incredibly uncomfortable, but then again, Clint has his hand, and he knows everything’ll be alright, he just needs to keep ahold of Clint. They’re better together. Partners.

At some point, the song says “fuck” especially loudly, and Clint swings their interlinked hands in the air like this is some kind of victory. When Bucky looks at him, he’s wearing this wild, shit-eating grin. Considering he’s been fighting depression for nearly a year, he’s doing so well.

This whole damn life they’re living is one huge victory.

--

He’s circled the entire house twice, checked each window and door, and after doing a quick peek in on all the kids, he can finally settle down for the night. Bucky is very happy to fall into bed next to Clint Barton, who is still awake with one arm across his face.

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

Bucky doesn’t need much more reassurance than that because Clint’s smiling. He’s calm. He’s had a (relatively) good day aside from this morning. And so, after crashing onto the bed, Bucky curls up next to Clint, curling himself around his husband. (God, that sounds so fucking weird.)

“So, Mr. Barton,” laughs Clint very quietly as he slowly moves that arm from across his eyes to around Bucky, “what’s it like to be married?”

“Doesn’t suck so much.” He can feel himself sinking into the bed. He’s relaxing, and it feels like he’s melting, he hasn’t been this calm since before Kate showed up. “Weird that we’ll both be Agent Barton though,” Bucky adds as his nose crinkles up.

“We didn’t think that one through.” Bucky can feel Clint shrug. “Fury’ll figure it out. Probably. Maybe. It may not have been the best decision.” He sounds so passive and casual about it. Clearly, he does not give a single shit. “We kind of make a lot of bad decisions though, so why stop now?”

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to shrug. He adjusts his face so that instead of pressing his nose into Clint’s side, he’s a little more on top of the archer’s chest. “I dunno.” He places just the slightest kiss against his husband’s (still sounds surreal) bare skin. “I just know I can’t complain. We ended up here, didn’t we?”

Clint gives that one little breath of a laugh. And he takes another breath as if he’s going to say something, but then doesn’t. He’s incredibly quiet, and Bucky doesn’t want to press, he won’t, he’s got to know Clint’s boundaries. But he’s appreciative when Clint does elect to say what’s on his mind: “I never wanted any of this.”

Maybe he’s actually not so appreciative because something in him twists uncomfortably. Most of him tenses up. Bucky isn’t sure how to even start, and for some reason, he feels like he’s being used. That’s never been a feeling he’s comfortable, not since HYRDRA.

There must be some common sense in that thick skull of his because Clint’s trying to cover his tracks with very quick backpedaling, but not in an apologetic way. “I just mean, I didn’t think of any of this in the grand scheme of my life.” He tightens his arm around Bucky, but it’s not all that reassuring. “I didn’t want a husband, I didn’t want kids, I didn’t want a dog. I wanted to just throw myself into stopping bad guys.” He does this almost little laugh thing. (The kind where he sounds masochistic again.) “None of this was in my masterplan, y’know?”

It’s not that he doesn’t understand. He never wanted kids to begin with either. But he knew he wanted someone in his life that would be so significant as to change him for the better. And he found that, at least. The other stuff just came along with it, like bonus content at the end of a movie. Bucky does know that he doesn’t like the feeling that he was never wanted.

“I always figured I’d be just as bad as my dad if I ever tried for the family thing.” Bucky feels his own heart hitch. Because Clint tries not to talk about this stuff unless he has to. “I didn’t want to end up hurting someone if I fell in love, and I didn’t want to end up ruining any kids.” He laughs, and it sounds sick, like he’s slipping again. (Bucky holds onto him tighter, even using one hand to grasp Clint’s free one.)

“But then I saw Peter.” Bucky can feel him sigh. “And I knew I couldn’t let that kid into the goddamn system.”

He’d seen right through that shit story since the first day because as much as this man was a hot mess of a human being, he wouldn’t sign on for something he didn’t secretly want. He wouldn’t take Peter just because the kid was shoved into his hands; Clint has a good habit of saying “no” when he means “no”.

“Now I just regret that I’ve fucked them all over.”

His brow furrows, not quite following. “You helped them.”

He laughs. He sounds exhausted, and not just by today. By everything. “No, Buck, I doomed them. Three out of four want to take up the business. Kate and Pete wouldn’t have even had exposure to it if it hadn’t been for me. They would’ve been safe.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to begin handling this. He wants to slow Clint’s roll at least, stop him from practically spiraling. For some reason he has to do this more and more lately. So he props himself up on his elbow so that he can watch Clint’s face, better to gage him that way. “They are safe,” he insists.

“They’re throwing themselves in the line of fire. One day, one of them is going to take a bullet, and then what? Whose fault is that?” Clint reaches his arm from behind Bucky and starts to play with his hair. “I don’t know what I’d do if any of them got hurt.” He shakes his head, and to anyone but Bucky, it would be almost unperceivable. “I’d be totally lost if anything happened to any of you.”

“Then it’s a good thing you trained them.” He’s got footing. “Trained them to protect themselves. Gave them something that they’ll want to come home to.” Bucky has found his goddamn leverage. “You rescued Peter from the system. You pulled Kate out of her shitty house. You saved that stupid dog’s life. And you spared the twins from having to deal with Tony Stark.” Bucky’s eyes are severe, and his displeasure about Clint’s attitude is obvious, but he’s refraining from full-on scowl mode.

But Clint is laying there, very still. His focus is completely on Bucky. His breathing is slow and even. “Saved you from yourself.”

He did. Clint saved him. Clint pulled him back off of so many ledges. (Literal and figurative.) Clint was the one who would catch him every time he felt himself slipping.

Before they were together, Steve didn’t get it, Tony couldn’t fix it, and Natasha wouldn’t touch it. No one knew what to do with storm that was swirling inside his head. But then there was Clint. And he was careful and gentle, and he helped Bucky keep from unraveling even if he couldn’t repair the damage that was already done. They worked through things together, trying to get their lives back in order.

He just fell in love with Clint along the way. Even if he didn’t realize it then.

Now he can protect himself from those inner demons. Now he has something he wants to come home to.

“You did.” Bucky isn’t even conceding, he’s known this for a long time. If he hadn’t had Clint Barton to nudge him when he needed it, he knows he would be stuck with his messy, fuzzy head somewhere in Stark’s tower. “You saved all of us.”

Fingers still running their way through Bucky’s hair, Clint sighs. “I know. But some days it doesn’t feel like that.”

“Some days, everythin’s a mess.” Bucky has those days, too. That’s the funny thing about being around someone as fucked up as you. It’s not a competition of who has it worse, it’s just a careful game of helping each other cross each obstacle. It’s knowing when you can’t stand on your own, and it’s knowing how to be the other’s crutch. “But we manage alright.”

He takes another minute of quiet, but his fingers are still playing through Bucky’s hair. (He just conditioned that shit this morning, Clint better not fuck it up.) And Clint smiles a little bit. “We manage. Somehow, someway.”

“We’re a couple of goddamn miracle workers.” Bucky knows he’s in the clear. So he maneuvers so he can hover over Clint’s face, his stupid hair like a curtain, the archer’s calloused fingers still running through it. But he lets himself down so he can kiss his husband.

But Clint’s got more to say before Bucky can get that far. “Sucks that we can’t have sex on our wedding night with the kids around.”

Bucky’s still hovering, just above those lips. He can feel Clint’s breath on his face. Fuck that guy. As if he’s not frustrated with this as is. Why they couldn’t hand off the kids to Simone was beyond him… “Just wait a week. We have a month long honeymoon courtesy of someone decidin’ we can take an assload of vacation days.” He pecks at Clint’s lips for a mere heartbeat. “I’m pretty sure we’ll have plenty of time then.”

He can actually feel Clint’s lips curl up into a grin. “Well, yeah, it’s an assload of vacation days.”

Now he’s not hovering, he’s opted just to lay on top of Clint, not even bothering to shift his weight, he’s just trying to crush him basically. This fucker. This fucker right here. He married him. Bucky made the horrible decision to marry this guy.

Clint’s chuckle is enough before he’s leaning up to kiss Bucky, those fingers having moved to the back of his neck to pull him down, to pull him close, their lips pressed together. It’s slow. It’s calm. It feels like every other day, and Bucky’s glad that nothing has changed.

“You’re the worst, Barton.”

“You’re entirely right, Barton.”

Bucky’s nose crinkles up again. “God, that’s too weird.”

Clint laughs, but there’s that little bit of mischief in his eyes. “Yeah, we should probably change that.”

“It was a bad idea.”

“Just one in a long string, Barton.” There it is.

“You’re such an asshole.” But he’s kissing Clint. He’s kissing Clint, and this is how he wants it to be forever.