Archive of Our Own

Getting back on their feet after the Raft is hard.

Natasha gives them one of her safehouses to stay in, a place by the woods in an Eastern European country of some description. Clint should know what country it is - Steve told him what country it is, but he’s lost most of what Steve said between his episode in the Quinjet’s bathroom and trying to carefully herd Wanda into the nearest bed.

“We’re okay,” he says when Steve gives him that Look.

He’s just spent three hours convincing Wanda that they’re not going to put her in a straitjacket again. She’s traumatized, scared and missing her brother worse than ever now that her cage has reminded her of Hydra. Clint knows he’s not much of a replacement for Pietro, but he sits with her until she falls asleep anyway.

She doesn’t let go of his hand until three in the morning.

Clint has to get some air, then - practically runs out of the cramped cabin into the too-long grass and sits down on his ass in the middle of the field. He can barely see his hands in front of his face but it’s fine, as long as he knows he isn’t in that cell anymore. It smells like smoke and cow shit and the blood still on his nose and anything is better than the blank emptiness of the Raft, and he tips his face back and takes a deep breath.

He’s still wearing the blue shirt and pants they’d forced him into. He hates it. They took all of his suits and destroyed them while he watched from behind those goddamn bars. He can’t bring himself to find any other clothes.

He stays sitting in the dirt until the sun starts peeking over the horizon, and that’s when he notices a figure in his peripherals. Clint doesn’t turn his head to look and they don’t come any closer, and then he loses time until Natasha sits down next to him.

She doesn’t stay for long, just presses a cellphone into his hands. She’s already dialed Laura and set it to video.

Clint feels sick all of a sudden, thinks briefly about hanging up but it’s too late. His brother’s wife appears and she’s in a soft floral shirt, kid on her hip, and Clint wishes it worked like that for the rest of them too.

She’s seen the news about the fight at the airport and she’s worried about him, about Steve and Nat and everyone else she’s met. She asks about Wanda, most of all, and Clint doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the kid’s messed up. He forgets that Wanda’s so much younger than him, sometimes, and being locked in a cell next to her made him remember with a violent sort of suddenness.

He tells her that it’ll be fine.

Laura doesn’t believe him.

She asks how she’s supposed to take care of the kids without him. If he’s going to skip town like Barney did, leave her with three kids and a mortgage. That stings a little, because he’s already paid off the farmhouse with his SHIELD savings and he’d been planning on retiring to help her even more. There’s a part-time nanny but apparently she’s been a jerk and Laura fired her.

Clint tries to reassure Laura that even if he is a fugitive, she’ll be taken care of. He’s not sure if she believes him this time, either, and he regrets.

Steve and Natasha work some kind of magic, and they’re heading out to Wakanda soon to strike up a deal with King T’Challa. There’s a lot of phone calls and Clint tries to focus on other things, on pacing around the cabin during the day and keeping watch during the night because god knows Nat and Steve are busy, Wanda’s not capable and Sam's not capable and Sam and Bucky are-

He doesn’t know what Sam and Bucky are. There’s something going on there, something in their fragile smirks and subtle digs at one another. They edge as close as possible when they think no one’s noticing and Clint’s not sure that anyone else does notice.

He notices. He notices because he’s aching and tired and something about watching people fall in love with one another has always fascinated him because he’s so fucking awful at it.

Clint’s not jealous of them. It’s nice, actually, that something good has come out of the chaos and betrayal. He’s happy for them. They’re both people he likes so much, even if he’s only known them for a little while, and it’s just.

It’s just nice.

Sam falls asleep on the couch next to him. Clint’s working on a beaten-up cellphone, trying to find an offshore account that hasn’t been frozen yet to send extra funds to Laura. He only notices Sam’s asleep when he ends up with his face pressed against Clint’s shoulder, breathing out warm against his shirt.

Sam’s warmer than he's expecting, and when Clint hesitantly returns to tapping at the phone Sam makes a grumbling noise at him and shifts closer. Clint freezes. Bucky’s sitting on Sam’s other side and they’ve got their fingers linked loosely, but Bucky doesn’t say anything about the accidental snuggling going on next to him.

His nerves are fucking shot and this isn’t helping. Is Sam mistaking him for Bucky while unconscious? Is Sam just seeking out the closest warm thing? He doesn’t know what it’s about. His heart is going a million miles an hour and when he looks to the side, Bucky’s watching him carefully, a hint of a smile on his face like he's amused. Sam is snoring. It shouldn't be endearing. 

Clint’s thinking about escaping, except he doesn’t really want to escape.

Steve walks into the room, then, and Clint jumps about half a mile in the air. He accidentally knocks Sam awake and feels briefly guilty before he scrambles to his feet and Steve gestures for him to follow. Clint doesn’t look back at Sam and Bucky because he’s- he doesn’t know. Maybe his face will give something away that he doesn’t want it to.

Steve looks out across the field at where Natasha’s standing by the Quinjet. The expression on his face says a lot, and Clint’s surprised when that ache in his chest doesn’t appear. Weird.

“We struck a deal with the government,” Steve says. “They’re letting Scott go home under house arrest, and you’ve got the same offer. You can go to Laura, stay on your farm and retire like you wanted to.”

Clint nearly laughs out loud. Retiring is a joke. A far-off dream, maybe, of another Clint Barton, one who knows how to stop. He hadn’t been able to stop at the airport and he probably won’t stop now, even though the thought of holding his bow right now makes him a little nauseous.

“Is it optional?”

“What? You have a choice, Clint, I just thought-”

“I’d be more useful here,” Clint says. “You and Nat are leaving again, right? I can hold the fort.”

He doesn’t admit out loud that he can’t go back to the farm. His niece and nephews are there, and Laura’s a civilian, and Clint’s still seeing the white walls of the Raft when he closes his eyes. He’s dangerous and he shouldn’t be around kids at all. He shouldn’t be around anyone.

He can’t quite bring himself to ask Steve to drop him off somewhere remote, though - he’s selfish, when it comes down to it, and sometimes looking at Sam and Bucky together makes him feel like a drooping plant that’s finally seen the sunlight. And then there’s Wanda, which is an entirely different thing.

Steve accepts his decision, luckily. Seems relieved by it, even, and Clint knows he’s worrying about Bucky.

He shouldn’t be.

By all rights, Bucky should be the most fucked up of all of them.

He’s got trauma going back before the rest of them were even alive. Their combined ages don’t measure up to the one hundred and ten years of crap that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes has lived. It’s not a competition, but god, that’s something else entirely. Clint doesn’t know how Bucky can even act like a person at all - Clint has trouble with it now.

Instead Bucky’s the one picking them all up when Natasha and Steve leave.

They run out of something, Bucky finds it. There’s something that needs fixing, Bucky puts it back together. On the really bad days when Wanda and Sam are just sitting on the couch looking blank, he’ll pick through the Netflix until he comes up with the perfect movie to pull them back to the present.

Sam’s better at hiding the trauma, but neither he or Wanda have been locked up like that before. (Clint has, but this was something else entirely. He shoves the static in his brain down deep and focuses on trying to be helpful.)

Bucky’s somehow perfected making breakfast one-handed without even practicing, and he makes enough for all of them too, keeps a plate warm in the microwave for Wanda because she doesn’t get up until midday. He’s weirdly well-adjusted, soft and funny even though there’s still shadows lingering in his eyes.

Clint helps when he can, revels in the smile he earns for it.

Somehow Bucky also acquires a purple sweater that’s slightly too big for him, one with strangely familiar burn marks on the right sleeve. Clint lets him keep it, doesn’t even question it, and somehow Sam ends up wearing it as well. It’s one oddly funny thing in the ocean of bad things he’s currently wading through.

“The purple looks nice on you,” Wanda says to Sam one day, when she’s feeling more present.

“It’s okay,” Sam replies blandly. “I like red better.”

“Hm. I like it the best too,” she answers. Then she turns her attention to Bucky, who’s selecting fruits to put in a smoothie. “Are you a fan of red too?”

Bucky pauses with a peeled banana in his hand, looks distant for a few seconds as he mulls the question over. It takes him a few minutes, and he ends up picking out some strawberries and Greek yogurt before he answers the question.

“Blue,” Bucky says finally. “Blue’s good.”

Clint is- he’s still wearing the faded scrubs they forced him into at the Raft, and changing doesn’t even occur to him until he passes out on the porch one night and wakes up about twenty minutes later with a red and blue striped sweater draped over him.

It’s still warm.

He tucks his nose into the worn cotton and it smells like home.

In theory, Sam and Bucky share a room, and Clint and Wanda share the other bedroom.

Clint wonders if they sleep properly or whether Sam and Bucky are just as upside-down and messed up as they are. Probably the latter, but it’s comforting to think they might be recovering from this. It gives him hope that maybe Wanda will, too.

Clint doesn’t sleep well. Hell, he doesn’t really sleep at all. He just wanders the house when he’s itchy, ends up sitting on the back of the couch or outside in the grass or in the cramped rafters. He still ends up in his so-called bedroom at night most of the time, but it’s only for Wanda’s benefit.

There’s a lot of nightmares.

Sometimes all he has to do is sit at the foot of the bed - Wanda seems to sense when he’s close, and Clint hopes she’s not picking up on the mess inside his skull but that’s probably what’s going on, for her to recognize him. Sometimes she’ll reach out a hand and he’ll hold onto it automatically, wait for the shaking to stop. He’s settled into a routine with those nights.

Sometimes it’s worse, though.

The lock on the bathroom is a little messed up. Bucky hasn’t noticed it yet and Clint forgot to say something - he’d been meaning to fix it himself and then he’d zoned out for the better part of a day, so it didn’t get fixed. This wouldn’t be a problem, except Wanda had gone in there for a shower and had accidentally gotten locked in.

It’s too close to being shut in at the Raft and they all panic.

She’s barely locked in there for five minutes - Sam breaks down the rickety door the minute they realize what’s happened. (Clint freezes, horrifyingly.) he doesn’t snap or anything worrying, just offers them a frail-looking smile and goes to make a cup of tea.

Clint keeps an eye on her, but she stays calm all through the rest of the day. He’s kind of proud of her, beyond the lurch in his stomach when he thinks about the way the Raft treated her.

It’s not until she falls asleep that the worst of it comes out, and Clint’s doing his best but he’s just one man.

“Wh- Clint? Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” he reassures her once he’s sure she’s listening to him. “You’re fine. Go back to sleep.”

He stays long enough to make sure she’s asleep again, this time without the red miasma surrounding the walls. Then he stands up on shaky, bruised legs and makes it just outside the bedroom door before he sits down in a heap in the hallway. It’s more like collapsing, really.

Clint’s just thankful it was too dark for Wanda to see the damage. He doesn’t know how the fuck he’s going to hide the bruising or the cut he can feel on his face. He swipes at it with one hand and his fingers come away wet with blood. He feels sick. God, he’s so fucking tired. Everything hurts and he wants to just sleep for a year but he can’t.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, but he blinks and then Bucky’s kneeling in front of him, the moonlight catching strands of his hair and turning it silver.

“Hell,” Bucky mutters, reaches out hesitantly and touches Clint’s face. It stings and Clint sucks in a breath too sharp, too pained, and Bucky’s touch disappears. He nearly begs for it to come back.

“It’s okay,” Clint says. “She didn’t know. I should’ve-” done something different, except he doesn’t know what.

“You should be worrying about yourself,” Bucky replies in a voice that doesn’t allow for argument. “C’mon, I’m not leaving you on the floor.

Clint ends up getting bundled into the room further down the hallway, only offers a token protest because there’s something comforting about Bucky’s no-nonsense attitude. He’s never been in the bedroom Sam and Bucky share, and it’s remarkably normal - the bedcovers are patterned with little grey trees, and there’s a reading lamp on the right side of the bed that’s accompanied by a stack of books from god knows where.

The lamp is switched on and Sam’s awake, sitting propped up by the pillows. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Clint, even shifts sideways so there’s room when Bucky nudges Clint onto the mattress.

“What-” he starts, confused.

“Stay there,” Bucky instructs, and Sam snorts at the order, shuffles around so he can throw half of his covers over Clint.

Clint’s so bewildered by this turn of events that he just ends up rubbing his fingers along the edge of a blanket, turning his stare back on Bucky, who’s rattling around in a drawer. A few things get pulled out and Sam laughs quietly, takes the objects that Bucky hands to him. They’re medical supplies, Clint notices a second later.

“I’m getting water,” Bucky says, and his footsteps recede to the hallway.

“He started mother-henning you too?” Sam asks and he doesn’t look jealous, just a little amused by the situation. His smirk makes Clint’s stomach twist in a way that’s not altogether bad, but he’s not sure that it’s strictly good either, especially when he thinks about the fact that they're supposed to be together instead of paying attention to him.

“Is that what this is?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Sam answers, uses gentle fingers to tip Clint’s face to the side.

Sam starts wiping at the blood carefully. Clint’s not sure what to do or how to react, and like the time Sam had fallen asleep on him, he just… stays put.

Unlike that time, Sam definitely knows he isn’t Bucky and he’s still touching. One hand’s getting rid of the blood but the other is on his neck, and Clint’s not sure if Sam knows he’s petting him, soft stroking motions over the skin of his throat. The movements build so much tension under his skin that Clint feels like he should be vibrating.

He manages to keep it under control while Sam carefully applies butterfly strips to the cut. It feels like they sit there forever, Clint’s hands clenching and unclenching sporadically as Sam inspects the marks where Wanda had accidentally thrown him against the bookshelf.

“I’m sorry,” he says when Sam leans back. “I didn’t- I should go.”

“Stay,” Sam orders, and Clint blinks at him blankly. “You’re sleeping here tonight, we already discussed it.”

“I shouldn’t,” Clint says, and somehow he’s ended up lying down instead of sitting on the bed. When did they discuss it? This isn’t his place. He has a brief flicker of panic and then Sam’s throwing a leg over his thighs in some lazy attempt at keeping him there. The worst part is that it works - pinning a dangerous, traumatized sort-of superhero who can kill you with a few fingers is a terrible idea and Sam’s an idiot, but he’s warm and comforting and it works.

Clint remembers all of a sudden that Sam probably has practice with that, though.

“Get some sleep,” Sam says. “Don’t think we don’t know you stay up watching Wanda.”

“But,” he says. “I can’t- Bucky?”

There’s a soft clink from behind him and huh, look at that timing. Looks like Bucky found the water at exactly the right time. It’s suspicious, and Sam’s fond smile tells Clint everything he needs to know. Then Clint’s being looked at again, and the evaluating look in Sam’s dark eyes makes him feel weird down to his bones.

“What about Bucky?”

“I’m not- it’s not fair,” he says uselessly. Bucky shouldn’t have to deal with Clint taking up his space. They’re in a relationship, Clint’s just… Clint. Words aren’t his strong suit right now. The whole human contact thing already has him winding down, feeling slow and warm down to his toes. Blinking feels like it takes an hour.

Then the bed dips and Clint’s got warmth pressing up against his back as well. Something brushes his hip and he looks down to see they’re holding hands, their joined fingers resting on the strip of skin between Clint’s pants and where his shirt’s ridden up. It’s- his heart does an embarrassing thing in his chest. He swallows hard.

“There,” Sam says. “Bucky’s resting too. Now go to sleep.”

He scrambles for another excuse. “I have to- Wanda, she’s alone and I-”

“Super hearing,” Bucky mutters. “If anything happens, I’ll wake you up and you can go and check on her.”

Well. He’s run out of ideas now, and the bubbling nerves that have plagued him since the Raft seem far away. Which is stupid, really, because it’s not like Sam and Bucky have magical trauma-erasing powers. Somehow between one breath and the next Clint falls asleep anyway, sandwiched between the two of them in a too-small bed and more comfortable than he’s been in months.

They’ve both already gotten up when Clint awakens, ears aching from leaving his aids in and somehow feeling much better beyond that. The bed’s still warm and it smells like Sam and Bucky, and one of them has moved the pillows so they’re pressing in around him.

He’s tempted to just stay where he is for the rest of the day, but that’s not helpful.

It does take him a few minutes to roll out from under the sheets. He manages it anyway, stands up and stretches. The sun’s up and the light is streaming in from the open window to the left. Clint glances out at it and realizes he’s never looked at this side of the yard, because there’s an archery range out there.

Huh. How about that.

Clint decides to inspect it later. He scratches at his hair and wonders vaguely if it’s getting too long, wanders out into the hallway and down to the kitchen. Sam’s sitting at the table in the purple sweater, pushed up to his elbows as he watches Bucky mess around in the kitchen. The smell in the air reminds Clint of his grandma, the few times he’d seen her as a kid before she’d passed away.

“Cookies?”

Sam taps the chair next to him and Clint sinks down into it automatically. He’s kicked his feet up onto the chair opposite before he realizes how easily he just gives in to Sam’s demands. And Bucky’s, come to think of it. Why is he like this?

“We had chocolate chips,” Bucky says instead of answering the question directly. He’s peering into the oven and Sam gives Clint an amused look as if to say get a load of this.

Clint is getting a load of this, but he’s not sure it’s entirely safe for Bucky to be operating an oven or the various other dangerous baking tools with just the one hand. He’s also just worried about Bucky doing all the work in general. “Should we be helping?”

“Nah. I think he likes being in charge of the house,” Sam says, raises his voice a little. “Hey Barnes, grab us some hot cocoa while you’re out there. You like cocoa, right?

“Coffee, mostly,” Clint answers. God, he hasn’t had coffee in weeks. It just hadn’t seemed important in the face of everything else that’s been going on. Maybe he’s more affected by the Raft than he’d first thought.

“Nope, you’re having cocoa. Barnes, let’s go.”

Bucky turns away from the oven and goes over to the cupboard. He pulls out a tin of marshmallows from the top shelf before he gives Sam an unimpressed look. Clint notices he’s still making the cocoa, though. “What did your last fuckin’ slave die of, Wilson?”

“Too many smartass remarks,” Sam retorts.

Clint very bravely does not laugh at them. He might be smiling a little, though, and he can only hope it isn’t as obvious as the feelings currently crushing the inside of his chest. He’d been half-expecting something to change this morning, probably in a bad or awkward way, and instead it feels more normal than it had before. When Bucky brings the cocoa around Sam leans up for a kiss, which makes Bucky let out a put-upon sigh as he gives in anyway. They’re both smiling.

“Thanks,” Clint says when Bucky slides his mug over to him. There’s more than a few marshmallows in the liquid and he turns to question it, freezes as Bucky’s lips brush up against his cheek.

“Equal treatment,” Sam explains from where he’s sitting and Clint can feel his face heating up. Bucky just wanders back into the kitchen like it was no big deal, opens the oven door to take his cookies out of the oven.

Sam’s smirking.

Clint drinks his cocoa.

"You're a fucking cheating bastard, Barnes," Sam shouts, and Bucky's soft laughter drifts out the open window. 

Clint’s pretty sure there’s no way to actively cheat when Sam’s the dealer, but oh well. They found a packet of Uno cards in a cupboard earlier, and from the sounds of it, Sam's on a losing streak. Apparently Bucky’s quite good at it once he’s learned how to play. Clint snorts when he hears a crash and a squawk from Bucky. 

They’d invited him to play.

They’d also invited him to bed again and he’d meant to decline that one too, but it turns out that Sam and Bucky are pretty good at getting what they want and Clint’s becoming increasingly bad at saying no to either of them. He’s also got no idea what any of it means, though, and he needs some time to think about it. Sitting here in the mid-afternoon sun doesn’t seem to be yielding any answers.

Are they just being friendly? Neither of them really struck him as the type, but weirder things have happened. (Clint slept with Eddie Brock once. That was an experience.)

Clint sighs.

He's sitting on the porch with Wanda, although neither of them are really bothering with conversation. She has to have noticed the bruising that’s starting to show up, but she’s not saying anything about it and Clint’s not bringing it up. She's got a knitted blanket in truly ugly shades of neon wrapped around her shoulders, but her gaze is calm and a little mischievous when she glances sideways at him. 

"You're pining," she observes. 

"What?" He backpedals automatically. "I'm- I just- it's not like that."

It's just loneliness, just some nonspecific desire for warmth and comfort after the trauma of the Raft. He gets a little off sometimes, a little heartsick and it's not a big deal. It's not specifically connected to the people inside the cabin right now, probably kissing each other over the remains of their Uno game. 

"Of course not," Wanda says in a knowing voice, and she's promised never to look inside his head so she can't know about the times he's slipped and imagined something more. That when Bucky kissed his cheek, Clint’s knee-jerk reaction had been to grab his shirt and yank him down into something more. 

No one has to know. He’s fine, and he’s totally not pining after two of his-

Now he’s thinking about it, he’s got no idea what they are to him.

And he still hasn’t figured out what they’re trying to do.

He falls asleep on the porch again.

It’d be fine, except his brain decides to remind him of every bad thing that’s ever happened in his life. He closes his eyes and suddenly Loki’s controlling him and he’s driving an arrow through Pietro’s chest, and he’s in Budapest and this time Natasha shoots him for real and Barney’s there, calling him a naive idiot as he bleeds out.

Clint sees the faces of a thousand people he’s killed and they’re all watching him with empty eyes as he drowns.

He wakes up soaked in sweat, sprawled out on the old wooden planks of the porch. This would be marginally more okay, except his shirt gets hooked as he jerks into a sitting position and it rips. Clint twists around to try and locate the source of the rip and it just tears the shirt further.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself.

He doesn’t want to deal with this. He’s too itchy now to stay where he is, though, so he gets to his feet and heads inside.

“Where does all this stuff come from?”

“Natasha,” Wanda answers from where she’s lining up the little bottles of nail polish on the coffee table.

There’s more bottles than one person would ever need and he’s still not entirely sure why Natasha has stocked this safehouse with baking ingredients and beauty products and targets sitting outside. He suspects she’s put it all in here because of them, some sort of wordless apology for what’s happened.

Clint still hasn’t picked a bow up yet.

“Sexy,” Sam remarks as he holds his hand up to the light. The silver polish catches on the sunlight and Clint blinks curiously, turns his gaze to Wanda as she picks out a red as well and gestures for Sam to put his hand back down on her knee.

“Huh,” Clint says, can’t offer much beyond that. He flinches when fingers touch his back through the thin cotton of his shirt.

They recede immediately, and Clint turns his head to see Bucky standing behind him. He looks faintly concerned and Clint’s aware he probably looks like shit right now. Even beyond the rips in the back of his shirt, it’s stuck to his skin with sweat and aching from where he’s scratched it. Wanda and Sam are still chattering in the background, but Bucky seems more interested in the bundle of white and purple he picks up from the counter.

“Can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” he says, more to himself than at Clint. “C’mon, shower.”

“Right,” Clint says. He thinks about the Raft. He thinks about the blood on his hands that never really goes away.

He doesn’t remember walking to the bathroom, but he ends up in there anywhere, staring vaguely at the tiles. The nightmares - the memories - are clinging to him like tar and he can’t quite shake them off enough to knock himself into action. He stares at the mess of the shirt he’s wearing, wonders what the fuck he’s doing.

“Hey. You mind?”

“You’ve never asked before,” Clint answers Sam, not looking at them.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky says. “Would you have known what to say?”

Clint doesn’t know what to say now. Bucky’s got the clothes again and he sets them on the side of the sink, unfolds a familiar shirt emblazoned with a purple target. One of Clint’s shirts, from his old apartment. He’d had to sell it to keep the farm for Laura, and he’d thought all the stuff from it had gone. Clearly Natasha had decided otherwise.

“Your wardrobe is pretty boring,” Sam says, picking at the back of his shirt. “It’s an improvement from prison garb, though.”

Bucky slides in between Clint and the mirror like he’s trying to physically get in the way of bad thoughts. Sam’s hands are on his back feeling out the rips in the shirt and Bucky’s eyes are a bridge between grey and blue. They’re sandwiching him between them again, he realizes.

“You don’t have to keep wearing this because you feel guilty,” Sam says. “No one’s blaming you for anything, least of all Wanda. She doesn’t like seeing you suffer any more than the rest of us do.”

Clint doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing. It’s too close to the truth. It is his fault. He could’ve left Wanda in the safe confines of the compound, with the guy she was in love with, and instead he’d dragged her out and brought her into this mayhem instead. Wanda had fought Vision because he’d shown up.

“Stop that,” Bucky says, and his voice is soft but there’s steel behind it. “Clint.”

Clint’s not sure he can stop.

“Can we take this off?”

He manages a nod and Sam’s hands slip down his side, find the hem of the shirt. His fingers are on Clint’s bare skin now, just barely, and Clint keeps staring at Bucky’s face so he doesn’t do something embarrassing. He might still be embarrassing himself, because fucking hell Bucky is pretty to look at. Sam is as well, but he’s not in view, at least.

Sam is, however, taking his shirt off. Clint feels a brief flicker of panic and then lets it die. They’re not going to let anything bad happen to him. He raises his arms so it’s easier for Sam to get rid of the shirt and makes eye contact with Bucky until it’s in the way and then gone.

“I’d better get the water running,” Sam says and his hands disappear from Clint’s skin. The worst part is that Clint misses it. He wants Sam to keep touching him.

“Pants alright?”

Bucky doesn’t take the straight-forward approach that Sam did - he just hooks his fingertips in the waistband of Clint’s pants and then waits for Clint to take them off himself. Might be harder with just the one hand, Clint guesses. It’d take some getting used to, for sure.

He looks at the remains of the Raft-issue shirt. It’s done for.

Clint’s not sure how he feels about that.

“Think you’re going to have to go back to Clint Barton clothes like the rest of us,” Bucky says.

“Wait, so the sweater actually is mine?”

“Yep,” Sam says. “Real comfy, too. Thanks for that.”

“I’m-” Clint starts. “Okay.”

“Damn right it is,” Sam replies, pushing him in the direction of the shower. “C’mon, Wanda wants to do your nails as well once you’re done. If you don’t hurry up we’ll be forced to get in the shower with you.”

Clint nearly stops in his tracks so they have to.

Oh god, yeah, he might have feelings for Sam and Bucky.

Wearing other clothes feels better than he expects it to. Most of the clothes are his old stuff, but he keeps the red and blue sweater as well, ignores the little proud look on Sam and Bucky's faces. He feels like a person again, and he’s only realizing just how much he didn’t feel like one in those scrubs. Bucky had somehow managed to pick one of his favourite shirts and he’d also located some Hulk socks that Clint unabashedly loves.

They’re ridiculous. (Bucky and the socks. Sam is slightly less ridiculous, but Clint thinks it might be an act.)

“Today was fun,” Wanda tells him, and Clint looks down at the blue nails on his left hand, thinks about the coffee that Sam had passed over to him while he’d been getting them done.

“Yeah,” is all he’s got to offer.

“You going to sleep?”

“Yes,” Wanda affirms, pulls the blankets a little tighter around herself. “And you’re going to sleep as well.”

Why is everyone in his life so bossy? He must be some kind of magnet for it. Clint sighs to himself and goes to join her. She doesn’t even move the blankets for him, just pushes him away with her bare toes in clear rejection. They’re painted bright sunshine yellow and there’s little birds drawn on them. Clint stares at them for a second and then turns his gaze up to Wanda’s tiny smirk.

“Not here,” she says. “Off you go.”

He doesn’t understand what she’s implying, and then- what? “But- you-”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says with a smile, and maybe she let him stay as long as she did because she thought he needed the comfort more. Clint feels like he’s been caught out, all of a sudden. He’s been convinced that he was acting like a functioning, fairly normal member of the household, but maybe he’s not as good at acting as he’d thought. “It’s been a good day. I’ll be fine.”

Clint feels like he’s been dropped in a maze that he can’t possibly hope to solve. “What if they don’t want me there?”

Wanda’s expression softens and she stops poking him with her feet, adjusts herself and reaches over to hug him. Clint’s arms go around her automatically, hands splaying out against her shirt. He might be holding on a little tighter than necessary, too. She doesn’t complain.

“They asked you to join them,” she says in his ear. “Why not give it a try?”

He should have a hundred reasons. A thousand, even, maybe millions. “I don’t know,” is all that he manages to say in answer to Wanda’s question.

Wanda laughs quietly and shoves at his shoulder. “Go. I’ll call if I need you.”

“What if I’ve got my aids out,” he says, still hesitant.

She gives him an amused look. “You have two men who can hear just fine. More than fine, considering one of them is a supersoldier.”

“If you’re sure,” he says.

“I am. Stop feeling guilty about all of this and let yourself have something nice for once,” she answers, rubbing her fingers over the sweater he’s wearing. It’s an echo of what Sam and Bucky had said. Her gaze is distant when he looks at her, and Clint thinks that maybe she’s thinking about someone else. He’s going to make Natasha get ahold of Vision after this, he decides. “We all deserve nice things, after everything.”

When he enters Sam and Bucky’s bedroom there’s a Clint-shaped gap on the left side of the mattress.

He gives in and lies down.

Princess Shuri of Wakanda visits in an aircraft that Clint’s never seen before.

He wants to touch it. The guards - the Dora Milaje - give him a look that says he won’t last very long if he tries. Clint doesn’t quite sulk, but it’s a close thing. The Dora seem largely unsympathetic about his plight, and the only person who gets it is Sam, who pats his shoulder and follows Shuri inside.

Clint wonders if Sam misses flying.

He leaves the aircraft alone and goes inside to see what Shuri wants from them. Generally if someone wants a group of traumatized former-Avengers (and the assassin watching over them) it’s for a fight, but Clint’s pretty sure that Wakanda can fight their own battles. That means Shuri’s here for some other reason, and he’s not sure if he trusts her.

“I come bearing gifts,” she announces, folding out a suitcase. Where she was keeping that, Clint’s got no idea. He leans sideways over the table to get a look as she flips it open with a few deft clicks. Sam leans over as well, pressing warm against Clint’s arm.

She’s got a prosthetic arm in there, matte black and shiny gold. It reminds Clint of Wanda’s toenails and he only clicks a second later, when Bucky puts the coffeepot down so hard that it cracks. The look on his face is completely unreadable.

Clint’s worried, for a second - he doesn’t know what that expression means. Bucky’s been doing pretty well with just the one arm, and what kind of memories does a new killer arm bring? It doesn’t look anything like Hydra’s version. Sam doesn’t make a move to do anything and Clint watches Bucky turn his gaze up to Shuri, stares her down.

Shuri just stares back at him.

“It has a laser pointer,” she says, like that’s the most important part of this. “The light is purple.”

Bucky’s expression gets even more complicated. Clint’s not ready to break up a fight between the princess of Wakanda and the former Fist of Hydra. He’s not even sure who’d win in that battle - his money is on Bucky only because he can’t fathom betting against Bucky. He prepares to go and bother the Dora Milaje.

“What the hell am I gonna use a laser pointer for,” Bucky says finally, and Shuri grins at him.

“If T’Challa decides he’s got a problem with you again, it might be handy,” Sam says. “Cats like laser pointers, right? Chase 'em around?”

Clint snorts and whatever tension was there dissolves into nothing. Shuri brings up a hologram with specifications and starts explaining them in excited chatter to Bucky, who just gives her an increasingly blank look. After a few diagrams he starts making coffee again instead of trying to understand her and Clint and Sam intervene, explaining things in layman’s terms.

Bucky seems somewhat amused by the fact they’re both nerds. It’s not like he can judge them, he was binge-watching Star Trek last week. Still, the engineering for this arm is intimidating and Clint can’t blame him for looking a little overwhelmed.

“It still works like a normal arm, right? Does normal hand shit?”

“Yes,” Shuri answers impatiently, “but that’s boring, Sergeant Barnes. Let me tell you about the kill switch.”

“The what?”

“They’re still not going to let you touch it,” Bucky says.

“I know,” Clint answers.

One of the Dora scowls at him. Clint can’t blame her - he’s been sitting here in the grass for a while, looking at their aircraft. It’s just so cool, and Clint misses doing things. Part of him’s hoping there’s going to be a fight of some sort just so he can do something. His fingers are itching for a bow and his brain is itching for some way to burn off all this nervous energy, but he’s got nothing so he’s sitting in a field staring.

It doesn’t feel as unhealthy as it had last week. He’s not zoning out the way he’s been doing since they got here, he’s just watching. Waiting for something, maybe.

“Shuri still inside?”

“Yup,” Bucky says, folding himself onto the grass next to Clint so their knees are touching. “Her and Sam are talking about somethin’, I don’t understand that science bullshit. Here, touch this instead.”

A weight lands on his thigh and he looks down to see the prosthetic - now attached to Bucky, and it’s like it was supposed to be there all along - sitting there. It feels lighter than he expects it to. Clint automatically reaches out to touch the faint ridges on the fingers, feels out the lines of gold in the mid-afternoon sun.

Bucky lets him fidget for a while and then moves so they’re holding hands instead.

Clint lets him. Bucky’s smiling a little bit, and Clint thinks about what Wanda said, about them deserving nice things after everything else. Maybe she’s right. He squeezes Bucky’s fingers briefly. The Dora Milaje are ignoring him now that he’s distracted and Clint’s more interested in this - in Bucky - anyway.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Clint’s still looking down at their joined hands and he would’ve missed Sam sitting down on Bucky’s other side if he hadn’t spoken. He lifts their fingers up to the light, turns them so the gold is shining bright amongst the black metal and Clint’s scarred skin. It’s nice, in a haphazard sort of way.

“Kintsugi,” is what he says finally. Bucky had a book on it on the nightstand. He’d been reading about it in bed while Sam and Clint discussed whether hawks or falcons were the better birds. (They’d eventually settled on a middle ground with pigeons.)

“Broken objects have their own kind of beauty,” Bucky says. “The cracks are part of the art.”

“Hmm,” Sam comments, reaches around so he can press his fingers in the gaps of Clint and Bucky’s.  “Getting philosophical on me, Barnes?”

“Barton started it,” Bucky replies.

They sit there until Shuri and Wanda come out of the cabin, talking amongst themselves. The Dora Milaje stand to attention but Shuri seems more interested in their hand-holding than returning to the aircraft. Wanda’s smiling at them like she’s proud and Shuri just looks plain amused. Clint notices she’s got her nails painted with little white cats.

“Two sad white boys, Sam Wilson?”

“Three if you count Steve. Maybe I’ll start a collection, open a museum,” Sam answers dryly. Clint remembers all of a sudden that Sam's younger than he is. It's weird how trauma ages you. Then a beat later Sam adds, “actually, these two are more than enough. Never mind.”

Shuri laughs.

“I’m going to go with Shuri for a couple of days,” Wanda says to them. “I think - I’d like to spend some time there. Have a holiday.”

“Give you three some privacy,” Shuri finishes.

Oh. So that’s how it is. Clint would be insulted except that Wanda’s looking at Shuri like she’s made a friend, and maybe it’d be good for her to spend some time with people who aren’t jaded older men. It’s not like she’ll be alone - Steve and Natasha should be around somewhere, and Wanda’s capable besides that.

“Have fun,” he says, and Wanda’s smile grows.

Clint doesn’t really think about the fact that they’re alone in the cabin until he’s washing the dishes and he looks up to see Sam and Bucky watching him. He pauses with a soapy mug in his hands, shifts on his feet. They have the same stare - it’s not exactly predatory, but there’s something intent about it that makes his heart beat a little faster.

He looks back down at the dishes.

“Hey, Barton,” Sam says.

“Yeah?”

“Got any plans for the rest of the night?”

“Well,” Clint says, past the nerves humming in every fibre of his body. “We live in the wilderness, so it’s not like there’s a bowling alley or a cinema. I was going to sneak out the coffee because you’re awful at hiding it from me, and then I was going to eat one of those cookies Bucky made.”

“We’re not awful,” Bucky grumbles.

“You hid it on top of the fridge. I’m six foot three, Bucko, I can see the coffeepot just by standing up.”

There’s no verbal reply to his comeback and Clint goes back to washing the dishes. Natasha keeps plain white plates and bowls, plain silver cutlery, nothing that would stand out or have any sort of sentimental value because that’s how she works.

Since they’ve been staying here a few different things have snuck in - most of the clothes they wear are Clint’s, and more knickknacks appear every day. Bucky’s got so many books that they don’t all fit in the bookcase anymore. Sam has less crap, but the recommendations on Netflix are mostly his, and he uses the laptop more than anyone else does.

“So nothing concrete, then,” Sam says, and Clint turns around to realize he’s right there. “You mind if we change your plans? Because I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I figured you weren’t into doing it in front of your kid.”

“Wanda’s not my-” Clint starts and then breaks off because Sam’s very close, close enough that Clint realizes what he’s doing a split second before Sam’s kissing him.

Clint’s not - he’s unprepared for it, doesn’t even have the mental capacity to even comprehend it, but Sam is a brilliant kisser. He doesn’t hesitate, just shifts Clint sideways, pushes him back against something warm and brackets him in. Sam just goes for it like he’s trying to unhurriedly map out every inch of Clint’s mouth, like he’s been waiting to do this for weeks.

Sam can have whatever he wants, as far as Clint’s concerned. Clint hadn’t even been sure that whatever-this-is was like that, that Sam had even wanted to kiss him, but it’s certainly looking like that’s the case now.

“As nice as this is to watch,” Bucky says in Clint’s ear, and his voice has gone lower in a way that lights up nerves that Clint had forgotten about after the Raft. “Do I get to participate, or are you going to keep him to yourself?”

Sam pulls back with an indignant look, which he directs over Clint’s shoulder. That’s when Clint registers that Sam’s pressed him up against Bucky and not just an oddly warm piece of furniture. (He’s pretty sure his brain just fell out onto the floor a few minutes ago, he’s got an excuse.)

“You already got to kiss him,” Sam argues.

“On the cheek,” Bucky retorts.

Clint can’t find the oxygen he needs to breathe properly. They’re still bickering quietly over his shoulder about who gets to kiss him and Clint’s pretty sure this is what a heart attack feels like. He might actually be dying. All the near-death experiences he's had, and this is what does him in.

“-Barton? Clint.”

“We can’t call an ambulance, we’re in the middle of nowhere,” he says, realizes a second later that it’s going to sound ridiculous to anyone who can’t read his train of thoughts.

“Alright,” Bucky says. He must decide it’s not worth asking Clint if he’s gone insane in the last five minutes, because he just gets his fingers on Clint’s jaw and tips him back into a slightly awkward but no less mind-blowing kiss.

They go to bed and Sam falls asleep first, funnily enough, sprawled out on the side of the bed with the window. His pants are nowhere to be found but he’s wearing Clint’s sweater again. It’s cute.

Clint’s still kind of keyed up from the kissing ambush, so he ends up fiddling with the phone Natasha gave him. He’s only got Laura as a contact on there, and she hasn’t sent him any more messages since she freaked out about the water bill on Tuesday. He’d paid it straight-away, anyway, but she’s understandably nervous about how his shenanigans will affect her and the kids.

It’s fine.

It’s not like he hadn’t prepared for something going wrong - with him, something always goes wrong. It’s inevitable, and he’s got a handle on all the bills and the food deliveries. The stress is threatening to squash him down again so he scrolls up higher, to the latest picture of Nate. He’s wearing a Hawkeye-brand bib - the only one of its kind, and it’s adorable.

“You have a son?”

Bucky sounds curious.

“Hmm? Nah, he’s my nephew. Kind of?”

“How is someone kind of related to you?” Bucky’s leaning over so he can get a better view of the photo, though, so he can’t be too bothered by the dilemma.

Clint opens the saved pictures on the phone and then passes it over so Bucky can flick through them. “Laura was with my brother, except he pissed off because he’s a jackass so I’ve been taking care of them. They’re good kids, but they’re a little confused about whether I’m their uncle or their dad.”

“Can’t imagine you raising small children,” Bucky says as he finds a photo of Lila brandishing a crossbow.

“Oh, trust me, it’s a fucking disaster,” Clint answers. “You should’ve seen me when the first one was born. Kept holding him upside-down.”

“How come you’re not with them? I know Steve offered.” Bucky sounds slightly hesitant when he says it, like he’s worried he’s going to overstep a line. It’s a fair question, is the thing. Clint probably should be helping Laura with the kids, especially now the nanny’s gone. She can’t handle the farm and three children on her own.

“Didn’t feel like I was safe,” he admits. “And I just. I don’t know. I love them, but it’s exhausting.”

Bucky puts the phone down on the nightstand and tugs him a little closer. “What if we came with you? Sam likes kids. He puts up with us, after all.”

Clint snorts. He’s about to confess that yeah, that sounds pretty good. A place that feels like home with people that feel like home, and the farm doesn’t seem so daunting with Sam and Bucky there as well, but a noise that’s close to a whimper distracts him. They both turn to look at Sam as he twists in his sleep, muttering something that sounds like Rhodey.

Clint’s about to do - something, he doesn’t know what to do but he’s willing to try, and Sam wakes up anyway. Sam had been so quiet he hadn’t even noticed the nightmare. He’s too used to Wanda, he realizes as Sam jerks into a sitting position, staring into the distance like he’s seeing something beyond the walls of the cabin.

He takes a risk, leans over and cups Sam’s jaw with his hand, pats downwards in a weird mirror of the way Sam had done on the first night he’d joined them. “You’re okay.”

“Rhodey isn’t,” Sam mutters, and that knocks Bucky into action too. Between the two of them they manage to get Sam in the middle instead, and apparently sandwiching him works as well because some of the tension bleeds out once Clint’s situated himself against Sam’s back.

Sam doesn’t talk about whatever he was dreaming about. Clint can guess, anyway. He saw Rhodey fall from the sky the same as the rest of them did. Bucky starts stroking Sam’s arm gently and gives Clint a faintly pleading look, so Clint starts talking.

He talks about Cooper’s first words, spoken to him as he was tossing the kid onto a haybale - Barney had been so pissed off that Clint had won that, and that the word had been bird of all things. He talks about the circus and how he’d torn his costume on the first day of performing because his muscles were too big. He talks about random things, little weird moments in his life, and when he looks up he realizes both Bucky and Sam have fallen asleep.

Bucky’s smiling a little bit, and Sam’s got one hand possessively on Clint’s hip.

It’s then that he realizes the kintsugi isn’t just in the design of Bucky’s arm. It’s in this whole relationship, the way they’re patching up each other’s broken pieces with affection and love and understanding, covering up all the sharp edges with flecks of gold. The scars are still there, sure, but they don’t seem so bad like this.

Jesus, he must be running low on sleep if he’s getting all philosophical.

Clint falls asleep in the middle of ordering himself never to say anything like that out loud, ever.

A bird screams outside, far too loud and grating for him.

He wakes up at some ungodly hour of the morning because of it, and he’s forgotten to take his hearing aids out again. At least StarkTech aids are made for comfort. He's still curled around Sam, Bucky's new arm thrown over them both, and once again he wonders what the hell this all means.

It shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t be feeling insecure, not now, but it always manages to creep in at the most inopportune times. What if he’s just an extra on the Sam and Bucky show? Not that that’d be wrong, but he’s got no idea what started this, whether the kissing is a permanent feature or just something for them to try and then cross off the bucket list.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s caught feelings the size of the moon.

He doesn't realize Sam’s awake until he speaks. ”I can hear your brain from here, Barton, stop it.”

Bucky lifts his head at that, blinks at Clint. "What's wrong?"

"What is this? A one-time thing, or..."

"It's whatever you want it to be," Bucky says, thumb brushing carefully over Clint's skin. "Sam's pretty sweet on you, though, 'n so am I."

Huh. How about that. The blooming hope in his chest is almost painful because it comes with an immediate flood of stress, of panic and memories of all the other times he's failed. What if it goes wrong the minute they acknowledge it’s something more?

"I'm going to fuck it up," Clint says quietly. "I'm fucked up."

"Maybe," Bucky answers agreeably and Clint flinches. Bucky doesn't stop his petting though, stroking across Clint's bare hip and onto Sam's thigh. Clint wonders if he can actually feel the warmth of their skin through the metal. 

"Thing is," Bucky continues, "we're all fucked up, so it don't matter. What do you want?”

Sam makes a displeased noise, pulls Clint's arm a little tighter around him while simultaneously burrowing further into Bucky's chest. Bucky laughs softly, looking fond, and Clint's chest aches with it. 

"I want this," it comes out of his mouth without permission, the longing so thick that he nearly chokes on it.

"You've got it," Sam grumbles. "Now for the love of god, please shut the fuck up. Both of you, go the hell to sleep."

It's quite possibly the best night's sleep he's ever had, and it’s even better when he opens his eyes to see Sam and Bucky kissing in front of him.