A Gift From: inkvoices
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Make Like A Ninja
A Gift For: meatball42
Rating: R (for one sentence recalling past sexy times)
Warnings: grief, emotions, trying to make the balance between three people in a relationship work, comics spoilers
Summary/Prompt Used: A Clint/Natasha/Bucky fix-it bridge between Secret Empire and Tales of Suspense (AU of 616 comics). Or: the fic where (like the rest of us) Clint refuses to believe that Natasha is dead, but he must look like he's doing a shit job of keeping himself together because Bucky follows him home.
Author's Note: Happy Holidays meatball42 ! You requested Clint/Natasha/Bucky and hurt/comfort - I tried to deliver. Huge thanks to alphaflyer for beta reading; any remaining mistakes are my own.


Make Like A Ninja

Clint has finally made it back to his apartment building, but he can't make himself go inside. Not just yet. So he stands at the bottom of the front steps, left hand holding his bow far too tight and the other clenched into a fist.

Breathing is hard. It feels like his chest is in a vise and when he does manage to suck in a mouthful of air it tastes of burning. Every muscle is tight with tension, still braced for impact, even though it’s all over and now there’s no point (and, besides, there are some things you can never really prepare yourself for). His ears are weird; everything sounds muffled and distorted, as if he's underwater. He checked his hearing aids on the Quinjet that ferried him and a bunch of other Avengers back to New York, but they're working fine. There's nothing wrong with them. He, on the other hand, feels like he's constantly on the edge of passing out without ever being able to topple over.

It’s been like this since they told him - so sorry, sorry for your loss, if there’s anything - and it's showing no signs of going away.

Neither is Bucky. Behind and to the right, shadowing Clint every step of the way home.

He hovers for a minute after Clint comes to a halt, then steps up alongside him and presses his shoulder against Clint’s. It’s contact - familiar, real. For a sudden, strange moment Clint’s right arm relaxes.

“You alright?” Bucky asks.

The moment is over.

“Shouldn't you be checking on Steve?”

Even when it’s himself speaking it doesn't sound right. Maybe it’s because he has to force the words past the lump in his throat. Maybe it's just that his mouth is dry.

“I spent time and change with Steve,” Bucky says quietly. “I can't spend some with you?”

Least Bucky got to hang out with the non-Hydra Steve, unlike the Steve the rest of them had been stuck with. Although actually it turns out Hydra-Steve isn't Steve, so Clint probably shouldn't call him that.

Bucky reaches for his hand - Clint’s right hand, so Bucky reaches with his left; the metal one, glove-covered. It’s good that he doesn't hesitate to touch Clint anymore, that he accepts Clint doesn't give a shit about what’s flesh and what's not because it’s all Bucky. At the same time it’s frustrating how easily the metal hand allows him to uncurl Clint’s fist. How easily he weaves his fingers through Clint’s.

Fingers that Clint had to ask him to use at first, took into his mouth and traced every plated seam with his tongue to prove that he wanted them, begged Bucky to use more than one, please two, inside him when he was so close and even then he wouldn’t until Nat -

Clint pulls away.

“Hey,” Bucky says, voice quiet still and possibly a little hurt, but Clint can't really tell right now with his screwed up hearing. He keeps his hand palm up and waiting, but when Clint refuses to so much as look at him, he lets it fall. “Don't shut me out just because she's not here.”

“She’s not dead.”

She’s not. She’s Natasha.

She doesn't do half the stupid shit that he does, so why would she be the one to... And from a broken neck? She wouldn't be caught out like that. And with a cosmic cube, two Steves, an evil Steve, the Hulk somehow alive for a minute there… Clint’s not believing it until he sees it with his own eyes.

And that's not gonna happen, obviously, because it’s not true.

What will happen is that he'll get to his apartment and there’ll be a cryptic message on his voicemail, or something subtly out of place, or a coded note stuck to the fridge. Or, y’know, Natasha sitting on his sofa.

Okay, so she might have left Clint hanging in the past when it comes to telling him what’s going on, but since they started this thing it’s been different. Since Nat moved in with him and brought her cat. Now she tells him when she's on her period, exactly how she killed a guy yesterday, and why Dog Cops’ Mr Whiskers dating Colonel Wag couldn't possibly work. And that’s on top of the apartment-sharing things, like ‘we’re out of milk’, ‘I’m going to be throwing knives this afternoon’, or ‘Liho threw up a bit so don't step in it’. (God, he misses Lucky. He’ll never complain about little dog pee accidents again after the stink of cat vomit.)

What he’s saying here is you don't move in with someone and then not tell them things like, ‘oh hey, I won't be contributing to the rent for a while because everyone thinks I’m dead’. Not that there’s rent, since Clint owns the building.

Okay, he means: you don't move in with someone as their significant other and then not tell them that you’re not actually dead. Communication is important!

Like when they sat down and had the talk about how she still had a Bucky-and-Natasha thing as well as their Clint-and-Natasha thing. The talk that led to Clint pointing out that Bucky is hot and damn he’d watch that, and Nat doing the raised eyebrow thing and encouraging Bucky to spend time with Clint, and his and Bucky’s orbits around Natasha gradually spiralling inwards to become a Bucky-and-Natasha-and-Clint thing. So far they’ve only gotten as far as the occasional steamy threesome, but Bucky is not only hot as hell, he’ll also shoot with Clint for hours just for fun, is handy with the first aid kit, and he can cook (huge bonus).

Clint had been looking forward to seeing where that was going. Before Bruce… Before everything.

Hey, if Bucky wanted to move in too, Clint would be more than fine with that. Maybe that’s what the following him home thing is about; maybe he has nowhere else to go. But they’ll have to talk about it, make sure everyone’s on the same page and all, because Clint’s learnt that lesson. About not communicating. Because Kate moved to LA. Because the last time he saw Nat, got to hold Nat, was in a maintenance closet and somehow he messed up, and then she left, and now she’s -

“Breathe,” Bucky orders, cutting off Clint’s hurtling thoughts and yeah, okay, he might have been hyperventilating there a little.

The building door slams open and Clint jerks back, choking on the lungful of air he was fighting to drag in. Bucky assesses the newcomers - Aimee and two guys Clint doesn’t recognise - as harmless before returning his attention to Clint, clapping him on the back a few times and frowning until Clint waves him off.

“Oh, hey Clint,” Aimee says. She staggers down the steps lugging a bucket full of soapy water that slops out over the sides. “And Bucky, hi!”

The two guys follow. The one with dreadlocks carrying another bucket is actually vaguely familiar, but the other, Asian with several studs in one ear and his arms full of solvents and cleaning stuff, definitely isn’t. The three of them set up shop to the right of the steps and the guys start attacking the spray paint that covers the wall and one boarded up window - hail Hydra, for the Captain, the Hydra logo - laughing and flicking water at each other.

“So,” Aimee says, rubbing her palms dry on her jeans, “the wandering landlord returns.”

Clint flinches. He’d left to try and do some good, right some wrongs, get his head straight, and he hadn’t thought of neglected responsibilities here until Hydra happened. Then there had been too many things to think about and only so much he could do.

“We had some trouble with the water tank,” she tells him, “so I called Simone and asked if she could get that brother of yours to shell out to fix it, since he stole your landlord cash fund. We didn’t see a cent, but he sent some people ‘round to sort it who said they’d paid for the job.” She tucks her hands in her back pockets and grins. “I might hit him up for a new dryer next. How’s saving the world going, Hawkguy?”

“Um.”

Clint looks at the Hydra graffiti and then back to Aimee. Even with the lingering evidence of what happened literally written on the wall, he still doesn’t know if he should talk about Steve, the cube, or any of it. Someone said that everything had been put back and fixed, but obviously everything isn’t the same as it was. Best to keep quiet. Instead he gestures towards the guys hard at work with their wire brushes and says, “You don’t have to do that.”

“Nah, man,” the guy with dreadlocks says, tossing a smile over his shoulder. “We put it here in the first place, so it’s only fair.”

“Good camouflage,” his friend agrees.

“Maybe don’t say that to the landlord,” Aimee points out, rolling her eyes.

“Really?” He drops his brush in the nearest bucket and turns around properly. “Hey, thanks for letting us stay here while all that Hydra shit was going on, man. Least we can do is clean up after ourselves.”

“Maybe don’t say that either!”

Aimee darts over, shoves the dripping brush back into his hand, and urges him back to work. In Clint’s peripheral vision he sees Bucky rub a hand over his mouth to hide his amusement. He doesn’t know how Bucky can find anything funny right now. Sure, Clint’s cracked jokes and sassed with the best of them when shit has hit the fan, but now is different.

“A few of us doubled up and there were empty apartments,” she tells Clint, apologetic for not getting permission beforehand but not sorry for having done it. He can tell. “We didn’t think you’d mind, if people needed help.”

“Yeah,” Clint manages to reply, “okay.”

She’s right; he doesn’t care. A few extra people hiding out in his building rent-free during a crisis without asking first, or doubling up with their friends, or whatever? Really not the end of the world and if they’d asked of course he would have said yes.

“It’s not bad inside,” she says, plucking at the hem of her t-shirt. “Not like that time with the Russians.”

He must look like he needs the extra reassurance, so Clint forces the sides of his mouth to curve upwards to prove that he really is okay with it all.

And with her watching now, he has to go in.

He still has the time it takes to climb the stairs to think about what he might find. The hundreds of ways Nat might try to let him know what the situation is, without giving it away to anyone who might break in looking for information. With all the espionage skills and experience she has beneath her belt he needs to go in with eyes wide and mind open. He needs to be on top of his game.

It would help if he could find his key.

Bucky waits at Clint’s back patiently as he feels around in the bottom compartment of his quiver for a key that he can’t even remember if he has with him. It must be at least ten minutes of the two of them standing in front of the apartment before Bucky gently pushes him out the way and crouches down with a set a lockpicks in hand, and then mere seconds later the door is open. He stands aside to let Clint go in first.

Clint freezes. He wants to see, he wants to know, and at the same time he wants to hightail it back down the stairs, out into the world, and never look back.

He’s Clint Barton, he’s Hawkeye, he might go on the occasional road trip but he doesn’t run away; the second choice isn’t really an option.

He steps inside.

Of course Natasha is there, wrapped in Clint’s dressing gown and curled up on his sofa.

Clint is very not shocked.

“What took you so long?” she says with a small smile, lowering the book that she’s reading and revealing a mess of bruising on what he can see of her neck that crawls across her jaw, up the side of her face, and under her hair.

“Everyone passing on their condolences for your untimely demise,” Clint fires back on autopilot.

Words are suddenly easy again. The tight band around his chest has been released. Clint can breathe.

That doesn’t mean that he’s fine. The weird muffling of his hearing has gone, but it’s been replaced with a high pitched whine. His muscles feel like they’re suffering in the aftermath of being stung by Nat’s Widow’s Bites and he has to lock his knees to keep himself upright. His insides roll over. He feels like he’s going to throw up, or finally pass out.

Natasha quirks an eyebrow, telling him that she doesn’t really believe his quip, and Clint shakes his head at her, because it’s far from the only reason he took this long to come home but there were definitely condolences. He can’t recall what people said exactly, but he’ll never forget that grief and sadness, the weight of it, being directed at him.

She cuts off the exchange by looking away and saying, “This is a moment for vodka.”

“Cliché,” Bucky comments, still at Clint’s back and shielding the apartment’s occupants from the eyes of anyone passing. He ushers Clint forward, inside the apartment proper, and shuts the door behind them.

Somehow Clint manages the short walk to the breakfast bar and casually leans against it until his body can relearn how to support him. He slides his bow on top and takes his time removing his quiver. The combat boots have to stay on; if he tried to bend down to remove them he’d end up in a heap on the floor.

“Pretty sure there’s no vodka in this apartment.”

“Check the fridge,” Nat tells him.

Clint makes himself move again. It helps having a goal.

“Oh, look,” he says dryly, refusing to sound surprised by anything that’s happening right now, as he opens the fridge to reveal, lo and behold, “vodka. You want ice with that?”

“She could use some ice on that bruising,” Bucky points out, still stood by the door, his arms folded and his face telegraphing nothing.

“I got frozen peas,” Clint offers.

Natasha glares at him and he turns his back on her to get a glass out of the cupboard.

“Do not put frozen peas in my drink.”

Clint waves a hand at the freezer and Bucky fishes out the bag of trusty frozen peas that Clint really needs to remember to replace, with a side eye for the teatowel already wrapped around them to prevent freezer burn. Clint rolls his eyes in response because, come on, like impromptu ice pack isn't the best use of frozen veg.

Bucky also asks if he should get the first aid kit as he passes her the peas, but Nat says that she’s already helped herself and as proof tilts her neck until the edge of a gauze bandage shows above the neckline of the dressing gown. Clint’s glad; if the bruising he can see is that bad, he hates to think what the damage she's covered up looks like. Hates to think of her sitting here waiting for help, all alone, while he dithered about getting his ass here. But of course she was already helping herself.

“You’re gonna let me take a look later,” Bucky says, but they all know if Nat doesn't want to show them her injuries then that's not going to happen, and she really doesn't like anyone checking her first aid work.

Bucky folds his arms again and stares down at her, frown lines creasing his forehead, like that’s going to help.

In the meantime, Clint finishes pouring Nat her drink and takes a swig from the glass before he hands it over. It’s supposed to help with shock, right?

She looks at him sharply, because he usually avoids drinking alcohol, but then gets distracted by juggling book, drink, and peas, and by Liho jumping up onto the back of the sofa to nuzzle against her nape. Clint’s kind of jealous. The thought of touching Bucky or Nat makes him jittery, but he’d love to have Lucky butting his nose against his leg right now, to be able to crouch down and bury his fingers in soft, warm fur, and even have Lucky lick across his face.

He distracts himself by rescuing the book from her and puts it face down on the coffee table, careful not to lose her place. Nat nods in thanks and finishes the generous measure of vodka in seconds.

When she gives the empty glass back to him their fingers brush.

It nearly sends him to his knees. Like Bucky’s shoulder pressed against his earlier, her touch releases tension. Only this is skin-on-skin contact. It’s so much more. It’s like where she’s touched cuts deep to send relief running through his veins, liquefying already unreliable muscles.

He retreats to the breakfast bar before he can embarrass himself. Bucky watches him go, transferring his frown to Clint. Clint shrugs casually, even as he props himself up against a stool that he knows he can’t climb onto, knees still threatening to buckle and the rest of him… Shock. It must be.

He rubs his fingers against his thigh.

“You were stupid, putting yourself in the way like that,” Bucky says, attention back on Natasha. “And for what? To protect a guy who thinks he’s a hero from having to kill?”

“Don’t you think there’s already enough people like us in the world?” Nat shoots back.

She stands up and Liho lets out an annoyed, creaky-door growl at being disturbed. Clint finds himself fixated on her bare feet on the floorboards and the chipped red polish on her toenails.

“How about we don't reduce that number by, oh, say, dying,” he mutters.

He’s pretty sure that the other two are too busy glaring at each other and arguing to hear him. Behind them, Liho, completely unconcerned by the verbal warfare, starts cleaning her butt with her tongue. Nat has pressed the frozen peas to the side of her face and no one is reaching for any weapons, so the cat probably has the right attitude.

Bucky and Nat never shout when they fight. Instead they slip into Russian, which Clint has to admit is a good language for spitting out hostile words, but he feels guilty that he hadn’t realised before now how angry and upset Bucky is, the emotion that Bucky’s been holding back.

He can only understand the odd word or phrase, but it’s okay. They do this sometimes, sharpening their edges on each other, and this part isn’t for him. It gives him time to will strength back into his muscles. To calm the rapid beating of his heart. To taste the vodka on the back of his teeth and be ashamed.

Clint zones back in to Bucky demanding in English, “Where are you going first?”

“Wait, what?”

He stands upright so quickly that the bar stool almost falls over. He catches the edge of the seat and rights it, avoiding looking at either of them.

“Clint,” Natasha says carefully. “I can’t stay. It’s not safe for me and it’s certainly not safe for anyone else in this building.”

He struggles to wrap his head around that. Natasha leaving.

“You could wear a disguise? I still have a ninja outfit in the closet,” he offers. As jokes go, it’s not the best. Probably because he’s at least a little serious. It earns him a brief, small smile from her anyway. “Not that you can’t just dye your hair, change your name, and fool the world.”

“But being here would make it obvious,” she says, voice still gentle. “And besides, I need to track someone down.”

“Where?” Bucky repeats, sounding about as happy about Natasha leaving as Clint.

“Madripoor.”

“Great,” Bucky says flatly, obviously meaning the exact opposite. “Nothing bad ever happens in Madripoor.”

“We’ll come with you,” says Clint.

He automatically reaches for his bow, fingertips already on the grip when he catches Nat shaking her head and aborts.

“Because that wouldn’t look suspicious at all,” she says, expression clearly exasperated even half-hidden behind the towel-wrapped bag of peas.

“We can move under the radar, for futz’ sake.”

“And you don’t think anyone will come looking for you to make sure that you’re alright? That no one will ask questions if Hawkeye goes missing again?”

“Why would they?”

“Clint,” Natasha snaps, “people care.”

“Less about me,” Bucky says into the sudden silence. “And they’re more used to me going off the grid. You know I can help.”

That stings, the thought of Bucky going off with Nat and Clint being left behind, but better that than Nat leaving on her own. She’s the Black Widow, she’s Natasha, she’s perfectly capable, but with Clint’s old dressing gown threatening to slip off one of her shoulders, extensive bruising that can’t be entirely covered by an economy pack of frozen veg, and here, at home, she’s also as vulnerable and as human as the rest of them. Someone needs to have her back.

“So Bucky goes,” Clint says, swallowing hard. “I’ll...distract people. I’ll... Futz, I’ll have to go to your funeral.”

That was something people were talking about. On the Quinjet.

He can do it. Natasha’s alive. He can do anything.

That doesn’t mean that he wants to.

Bucky and Nat are talking about travel plans and safe houses, but Clint’s brain has gotten stuck on funeral and, “You were dead,” he hears himself say, as if from a distance.

They both turn to look at him and Nat takes a step in his direction.

“I came straight here,” she says.

Like that should make it better. It kind of does, a bit, but, “You died.”

She lowers the peas, squeezing them tight in her hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“Clint.” She comes to stand in front of him. He’s taller than her, in his boots and with her barefoot. Somehow he’d forgotten. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need to know everything all of the time. I know that I won’t. I just… You brought Liho,” he says helplessly, the words pouring out of him and maybe that’s a good thing, a communicating thing. “You moved in and you brought the cat and I thought, if she’s brought the cat she must be serious, or… I don’t know what I thought.”

Liho glances their way from her perch on the back of the sofa and then goes back to casually licking her butt crack. Cats.

“We’re not immortal.” His hands have bunched into fists again and he doesn’t know when that happened. “You could die. I know. I shot Bruce. It’s not impossible. I can tell myself that it is, but it’s not.” He lifts his chin and looks her in the eye. “Stay.”

“Clint,” Nat says softly and he knows that her answer is going to disappoint him.

“Tonight,” he says, before she can refuse entirely. “Stay for tonight.”

She drops the melting peas on the breakfast bar with a damp smack and steps forward into his personal space. She smells clean, like the shampoo she keeps in his shower, and it’s his dressing gown that she’s wearing but it seems like Clint wears it the least out of anyone. And she has clothes in his drawers, and her brand of coffee is in the kitchen cupboard, and the book on the coffee table is hers, and so are the others stacked at one side of the bed. And just for tonight he needs her to be here and use her things, so that when he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with his heart pounding he doesn’t have to think about throwing her stuff out, or donating it to goodwill, or the empty spaces where she isn’t and should be, because she’ll be here and not dead.

Nat places one palm on the back of his neck, cold from the peas, and draws him down to rest his forehead in the crook of her neck and shoulder on her non-injured side. There go his muscles again and he fights not to collapse on her. His arms hang limp until she tugs on his sleeve and encourages him to wrap them around her. He does, carefully, wary of other injuries she might have that he doesn’t know about and also because everywhere they touch feels dangerous.

“It’s alright,” she tells him, running her fingers through his hair, leaching out the tension and worry. “You’re alright.”

Something in Clint cracks. In the end he doesn’t throw up and he doesn’t pass out. Instead his throat closes up again and he squeeze his eyes shut in vain as tears spill out from behind his eyelids. He can’t help it. Sobs break free from his chest and he buries them in the fluffy material of the dressing gown. His chest and gut heaves with the force of them. He digs his fingers into Natasha’s hips and holds on.

“Maybe I should stay behind with him,” he hears Bucky say.

“No.” Clint swallows and raises his head enough that he can see Bucky over Nat’s shoulder without revealing his gross, snotty nose. “You need to watch her back. And then when things… When the timing’s good, I’ll join you.”

He loosens his hold on Nat and reaches out a hand.

Bucky moves closer to take it. He looks a bit sad but also relieved and happy, and Clint realises it’s because Clint has invited him in. That this is the first time since... since he found out that Nat had died that he’s, oh god, that he’s attempted the communication thing with Bucky. Shit.

He tugs on Bucky’s hand, reeling the other man in, and he joins them with a growing smile that spreads across his face. But instead of completing the group hug by plastering himself to Nat’s back - which is how Clint saw this going - he circles around them and hugs Clint from behind, with his arms around both Clint and Nat.

Clint hasn’t been in the middle before. It’s really warm, he can’t move unless he wants to dislodge someone else, and Bucky’s tack gear is uncomfortable against his back, but he likes it. No, he loves it. Here and now, he has both of them. He might not tomorrow and terrible things might happen and he has to go to Natasha’s futzing funeral, but right now everything is okay.

It feels like his whole self finally relaxes. He doesn’t have a choice about it and he’s forgotten why it felt like that would be a problem.

His knees give out for a moment, but Bucky and Nat hold him up.

Communication is important. Clint knows that, he’s learnt, even if he’s still terrible at it, but in the spirit of trying he says, “This is… This is good.”

Above him Nat laughs and whispers, “Typical.”

Bucky rests his chin on top of Clint’s head, and when he speaks his voice rumbles through Clint’s bones, and he says, “Yeah, it is.”