PG13 | swearing, feelings, possibly a bit cracky

A/N: I wasn't going to have time for any fills this year, but then I was stuck on trains for about eight hours today so you get this odd, un-betaed thing. Obviously the whole story would be longer and probably end as a threesome ;)

The Strike Team Delta Method of Brainwashing Recovery

Bucky finds Clint Barton in the kitchen - the one for the quarters in the Wakandan palace that have been assigned to Steve and his team. It’s where he is every morning at this time, sat at the kitchen table pouring cereal into a bowl from a box with a brand Bucky doesn't recognise.

Bucky has been eating whatever Steve lays out as a communal breakfast buffet in a failing attempt at getting them all to eat together. Turns out Steve’s cooking skills haven't improved with time, so mostly breakfast has been a lot of fruit.

A small, black bead tumbles out with the flakes; the kind it seems all the locals wear on their wrists. Clint flicks it away. It lands neatly on the tabletop in front of where Bucky is standing and lights up, projecting a colourful dancing figure in the air above it.

“Guess this is what Wakandan kids get instead of cheap plastic toys,” Clint says, aware of Bucky’s presence before even looking up which is what Bucky has come to expect from Hawkeye. “You want a bowl of this?”

Bucky shakes his head, but takes a seat opposite him. When he taps the bead with a gentle finger it deactivates.

Clint nods in return, adds milk to his bowl, and gets to munching.

Behind him Natalia - no, Natasha here and now, like he’s Bucky - finishes brewing her morning coffee, also at the same time she does every morning. Predictability from the Black Widow had been unnerving at first, until Bucky had realised she was keeping to a routine in order to make it easier for those watching her, maybe even to make them feel more comfortable around her.

Not just the Wakandans. He’s caught Wanda, Scott, Sam, and even Steve all watching Natasha with wary eyes at some point. Not Clint, though, who looks perfectly happy to have his back to her in a room full of knives and other dangerous objects. They may have been on opposite sides at the airport, and years before, but Clint clearly doesn't care. Perhaps he’s learnt the same lesson as Bucky, that you can’t trust that Natasha will always be on your side, but you can trust her to do what she believes is best.

How Clint is with Natasha makes it less difficult than Bucky had thought it’d be to say, “Steve told me to ask about how you… stopped being brainwashed.”

“Nat hit me really hard in the head,” Clint says cheerfully, which is not the tone Bucky expected this conversation to take. He stabs his spoon in Natasha’s direction, sending a few drops of milk flying, and she smirks.

Bucky looks at her, considering.

“Wait, no,” says Clint, with the first hint of alarm Bucky has ever heard from him. “If the two of you decide to spar I absolutely want to watch that, but not in the kitchen, guys, come on.”

It wouldn't be a real fight when Bucky only has one arm, but that wouldn’t be the point. He’ll happily stand still and take any number of hits to the head if it’ll fix him.

“Oh, hush.” Natasha ruffles Clint’s hair with her free hand as she walks past with her coffee in the other. “I think Steve probably meant the part after that.”

“Taking my feelings out on aliens and exploding the fucker out of the sky?”

Natasha arches an eyebrow at him as she joins them at the table.

“Yeah,” Clint says with a sigh, “or everything after New York.” He stares into his half-eaten bowl of cereal. “Fair. But,” he adds, looking up to meet Bucky’s eyes, “it wasn't like you and Nat for me, okay? It was a god using magic to play with my brain, and only for three days.”

“Alien who may or may not be a Norse mythological figure,” Natasha says, cradling her mug in both hands. “Not a god.”

Clint shrugs. “My version is shorter.”

He digs back into his cereal, whilst explaining for Bucky’s benefit, “It was Thor’s brother. He’s a dick. Loki, not Thor.” He shrugs again. “Well, sometimes Thor, but everyone’s a dick at some point or another, right? Why, you interested?”

“In what?” Bucky asks, feeling a little lost. Gods aren't an area he’s spared much thought for that he can remember.

“In the Strike Team Delta method of brainwashing recovery. Y’know,” Clint circles his spoon in the air, “as opposed to the Steve Rogers method of talking at you about ye olden days until your ears fall off, or the Hydra method of human icicle?”

“Which doesn't actually solve the brainwashing problem,” Natasha adds.

Clint turns to her in consternation. “Then what’s the point?”

“To be unable to hurt anyone,” she says, looking at Clint with a fond little smile.

Bucky keeps his expression Winter Soldier blank, afraid of what his face will give away if he doesn't.

He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He also kind of misses the peace and quiet. Not having to pay attention all of the time, make decisions about things, worry. Misses those times when everything just… stopped.

“Yeah,” says Clint, “okay, but cold.”

Bucky stares at him, unable to stop himself from blurting out, “But you don’t wear sleeves.”

“So?” He grins at Bucky. “Everything you wear has sleeves. Maybe we even out the universe.”

That makes no sense and this is a waste of Bucky’s time. He pushes his chair back, ready to leave.

“After I joined SHIELD,” Natasha says casually, stirring her coffee, “they wanted to ensure I was entirely free of the Red Room’s influence. Understandably. They tried various methods, then they partnered me with Clint.”

She pauses to sip her drink. Bucky holds himself still and waits, even knowing her methods and that he’s being played. Meanwhile Clint just takes the opportunity to finish off his cereal.

“Clint’s way worked,” she continues eventually, “and after Loki I returned the favour.”

“How do you know?” Bucky bites out. “That it worked?”

She smiles, with teeth. “I only kill people I choose to these days.”

“And I sleep at night,” Clint says. “Unlike you and Steve, if the ass crack of dawn breakfasts you guys have is anything to go by.”

His smile is softer and kinder; it’s his eyes that’re sharp.

Bucky admits to nothing.

“Which is to say, Strike Team Delta are awesome at brainwashing recovery,” Clint says, easing them all back into safer territory, and gets up to deposit his bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, giving him some space. “So. You want in?”

Bucky isn’t sure, but the Wakandan scientists have told him they won’t have everything in place to let him sleep for at least another five days and what can it hurt? Clint and Natasha are at least entertaining - Clint currently wriggling his eyebrows at Bucky and Natasha rolling her eyes, inviting Bucky to share her amusement at his behaviour.

And he’d be able to tell Steve that he tried another way, before the ice.

“Yes,” he decides.

“Okay then.” Clint holds a fist out towards him, which is dumb so Bucky ignores it.

“You’re supposed to bump it,” Clint says after a moment.

“Or he could not be a fist bump person,” says Natasha in a dry tone.

Clint opens his hand, raises it, and says, hopefully, “High five?”

“If you give in he won't stop doing it,” Natasha advises Bucky, who stays quiet, happy to watch their double act without engaging.

“Hey,” Clint complains. “This is important pop culture education.”

“We’re in Wakanda. Do they even high five here?”

“I have no idea.” Clint seems delighted about this and thankfully lowers his hand. “First mission of the day: let’s find out.”

*****

A week later Steve has finally managed to get Sam to join him and Bucky for breakfast, although everyone else still refuses to get up this early, but Sam looks like he’s regretting it in the face of Bucky’s rant.

“...and then we spent a whole day with a herd of goats and Clint Barton does not know anything about goats even though he owns a farm, and I don’t know anything about goats, and Natasha doesn't give a shit about goats. He said they weren't as good as dogs anyway and then a goat started eating his shoelaces, and I don't understand what is it with the goats, Steve.”

Sam, clutching his coffee, mutters, “I don't give a shit about goats either.”

Steve bites back a grin. It’s a shame that when Sam finally shows up it’s the morning of goats, instead of when Bucky was all fired up about the tour of Shuri’s lab and demonstrating his own Wakandan bead bracelet thing, or when he brought back a basket from the market of all different foods that he said were his favourites and Steve needed to try, but this is the most Bucky’s talked in one go since they got here. Steve didn't see the goats coming, but he’ll take it.

“So, you liked the goats?”

Bucky glares at him and says, “I named one of them Steve,” which is probably a yes.

Sam snorts, but when both of them turn to look at him he holds his hands up in surrender and says, “Hey, I’m just here because I was promised breakfast.”

“And because Steve talked you into it,” Bucky says, face innocent even as he stirs up trouble and like he doesn’t let Steve talk him into anything himself. Then, “What the hell is The Strike Team Delta Method of Brainwashing Recovery meant to be anyway?”

“When I asked,” Steve says slowly, “Clint told me that if you treat people like people you get people. Nat said a bunch of stuff about choices and restructuring neurological connections that she can probably explain better than I can. Just. I wanted you to know. That there are other ways. Choices.”

Bucky seems to think about that for a moment and then watches Steve’s face carefully as he says, “You really don't want me to be frozen again, do you?”

Steve takes a deep breath. In his peripheral vision he can see Sam observing them both, but he can't afford to care about having an audience.

“I hate the ice,” he admits, perhaps for the first time outloud. He tries not to think about it, so he doesn't know. “And the idea of you… like that is… It keeps me up at night. But it’s your choice, I know that. You know that, right?”

It’s Bucky that looks away. “Yeah, I know.”

“Because,” Steve continues, refusing to let himself stop, “if you really want to - ”

“I don’t know yet,” Bucky says, cutting him off and narrowing his eyes. “I’m allowed to change my mind, right?”

“Right.” Steve smiles, maybe a bit desperately. “Good. So, goats?”

Bucky sighs, looks at the breakfast fruits Steve has arranged on the table, and looks back up.

“You do know there’s cereal, and eggs, and other breakfast food stuffs, right?”

“Oh thank God,” Sam says. “Sign me up.”