A Gift From: gsparkle
Title: make my wish come true
A Gift For: franztastisch
Rating: T
Warnings/Choose Not To Warn: none!
Summary/Prompt Used: A gets B a present for Christmas. The present is C. /// As a legendary assassin, Bucky has spent more than his fair share of time lurking in hallways. He knows where to walk so his steps are silent, where to stand to hear whispered voices filter under the door. He does not, however, know how exactly one is meant to present oneself in situations such as these, where he’s somehow a guest and a present and a surprise all at once.
Author's Note: happy secret santa!!!


make my wish come true

“Here’s the thing,” Clint blurts out two frames into their game of bowling. “I still don’t have a Christmas present for Natasha.”

“It’s December 23rd,” Bucky says in that flat dry way of his, executing a precise strike. “Seems like you’re leaving it until the last minute.” He has the grace, at least, to not mention that they’ve had a nearly identical conversation on December 23rd for about as long as they’ve known each other (discounting the first year, when they didn’t so much “know each other” as “occupy the same room without inciting a riot”). They bowl another frame before Bucky at last asks, “So what’s your plan, then?”

Although nothing about his inflection or delivery implies that he cares about the answer to his question, Clint knows better. In the years since they’ve met, Clint has learned that Bucky knits hats for the Brooklyn Hospital preemies, plays a monthly poker game with the Tower cleaning staff, and maintains an urban beehive down on the 12th floor. He bakes classic pies with Steve and sometimes reads a well-thumbed book of W.H. Auden poems next to Stark’s fireplace late into the night, his hair falling so delicately out of his ponytail that something in Clint’s throat always curls up tight.

And, lest this recitation get too maudlin, he’s also incredibly hot. Sweaty and shirtless in the gym? Hot. The tortoiseshell glasses that are almost definitely just for show? Hot. Effortlessly throwing Natasha in a battle move taken straight from ballet? Dangerously hot. Some people would be intimidated that their bombshell of a girlfriend spends a lot of time up close and personal with her brick shithouse of an ex. Some people would be territorial.

Clint isn’t one of those people, which is why he tells Bucky, “Well, this year, I’m hoping to give her a threesome.”

There is a crash, which isn’t inherently out of place in a bowling alley, except that said crash is the result of Bucky’s bowling ball veering across their lane, through the next two, and into a pinsetter. Bucky pins Clint with a forbidding glare before stalking off to retrieve his ball and apologize to the bowling attendant. “You can’t just drop that kind of bomb on me,” he says upon his return.

Clint laughs. “Oh, so there’s a better time I should have asked you to come over tomorrow night to have sex with Natasha, your very attractive ex-girlfriend, and me, your very attractive friend?” He thinks he times this comment right (not even this conversation could stop him from following bowling etiquette) but Bucky still bowls a measly 7 for the frame and comes back frowning.

“I thought you two were happy together,” he says.

“We are,” Clint confirms, nailing another perfect strike.

Bucky watches the hypnotic whir of the bowling ball return between them, his eyes brightly unfocused. “Won’t you be jealous?”

Clint makes a show of lounging on the bench and throwing Bucky a ridiculous smolder. “Do I seem like the jealous type?” he drawls, waggling his eyebrows; but Bucky still looks perturbed, and perturbed people do not accept invitations to threesomes, so Clint draws himself upright and looks him in the eye. “Yes, we’re dating,” he says, as honestly as he knows how, “but I don’t own her. Natasha thinks you’re hot, I think you’re hot, you think I’m hot.” He pauses, realizing a critical flaw in the plan. “Right? You do find me objectively attractive, yes?” A reluctant smile crests Bucky’s sincere expression, allowing Clint to preen and relax back into his exaggeratedly seductive lounge (because, come on, he hasn’t been voted “People’s Sexiest Avenger” five years in a row for nothing).

Bucky says, “Hrk,” turns scarlet, and goes off to bowl himself a respectable spare. He’s more settled when he comes back and sits on the bench across from Clint, his blue eyes bold and sharp. “I do think you’re hot,” he says, firmly. “And, more importantly, I love Natalia.”

He says this second part carefully, like it’s a grenade whose pin is halfway pulled; but Clint has never seen the point in being threatened by such a precious commodity as love. “Another thing we have in common,” he agrees, carefully taking Bucky’s hand in his. He’d always imagined the metal would be cold, even rigid, but Bucky’s palm is pliant and pleasantly warm against his own. “So you’re in?”

“I’m in,” Bucky nods, offering Clint a tentative smile that lasts the rest of the afternoon, even when Clint bowls a turkey in the final three frames and wins the game.



“James,” Natasha says between rallies, “I need your help with Clint’s Christmas present.” Waiting until the morning of Christmas Eve to make plans is bad form, but in her defense, the request is delicate, and she’s spent most of December working up her nerve.

“Oh?” he replies, his arm moving in one graceful metal swoop as he serves. “For what?”

Natasha lets the question hang over a few volleys, grateful that squash is a sport where she doesn’t have to face her opponent. “It’s… an experiential gift,” she finally hedges, hoping the effort of her swing hides the nervous tremor of her voice. It’s embarrassing, really: she’s a trained assassin, an international superhero, and yet—and yet— “You know, like, doing something fun or new—”

She misses an easy rebound and James squints at her. “You’re being substantially weirder than usual,” he observes, reaching up to tighten his bun before serving again. “Just spit it out.”

And, look, James looks good in his squash uniform, better than anyone in tiny white shorts really should, and Natasha doesn’t make a habit of just ignoring things like that. “I think we should kiss,” she announces on her next serve, the last word whooshing out with the force of her swing.

It’s a great serve, and the ball ricochets hard off the wall before slamming directly into James’ stunned stomach. “What,” he wheezes, leaning hard on his racquet.

Natasha clears her throat and studies her own racquet with extreme prejudice. “Kissing,” she repeats. “Other stuff. I think we should do it.” For a long, wavering moment, James simply stares at her, nonplussed. “With, er—” Has she ever been this awkward in her entire life? “With Clint, I mean. For Christmas.” She bounces the squash ball on her racquet a few times. “He has the biggest crush on you.”

There’s an extended pause here before James, stilted and formal, turns and serves again as if nothing has happened. He’s processing, she understands, and this is good, because it gives her raging flush of adrenaline something else to focus on. They pass four rallies with exceptional fixation (her technique and form have never been better) before James says, as if discussing the weather, “So you want me to kiss Clint.”

Natasha slams the ball over the service line. “To start.”

James smashes it back. “And you.”

Her laugh almost costs her the rally. “Ideally.”

His eyes slant to hers across the court. “Hm.”

Now that the cards are all on the table, Natasha fully commits herself to the game, content to wait until James is ready. They play on and talk about other things—Tony’s latest terrifying invention, Bruce’s new girlfriend, Steve’s inability to carry a tune while caroling—until the match is done and James scowls at the digital scoreboard floating above the out line.

“I would’ve won,” he complains. “You threw me off my game.”

Natasha shifts her weight and makes a show of ogling him: thighs, arms, the sweat glistening on his collarbone. “I could make it up to you,” she offers, flashing a transparently saucy smile.

James rolls his eyes. “You’re a hazard to my health,” he says, planting a kiss on her sweaty ponytail as he holds the court door open and she exits under his arm. “Always have been.”

It’s a real smile she offers him this time. “So it’s a yes?”

His face is in his palm; she thinks she hears you two and crazy amid a helpless laugh. “I’ll be there,” he says. “It’s a yes.”



As a legendary assassin, Bucky has spent more than his fair share of time lurking in hallways. He knows where to walk so his steps are silent, where to stand to hear whispered voices filter under the door.

He does not, however, know how exactly one is meant to present oneself in situations such as these, where he’s somehow a guest and a present and a surprise all at once. Thus, he hovers just next to the door frame, out of peephole range. The multicolor holiday lights around Clint and Natasha’s door blink merrily, flashing off the bottle of whiskey he’s brought in the (likely) event that this all goes pear-shaped.

It’s second nature to listen at doors collecting intel, and so he does, resting his head carefully against the wall of the apartment. He makes out the general shape of their voices first: Clint’s cheerful enthusiastic cadence, Natasha’s throaty laughter. The ebb and flow of their conversation is loose, comfortable, and it soothes over the twist of anxious anticipation Bucky’s carried with him all afternoon. Without any shame, he leans closer, positions his ear just right, and listens in.

“Your happiness is really important to me,” Clint says on the other side of the wall, the type of earnestness that makes Bucky roll his eyes on principle, regardless of his agreement with the sentiment. Natasha seems to feel the same as Bucky; her laughter rolls into her announcement that she’s planned something special this year. “Me too!” Clint says, like they’re going to high five or something. “It’s like we care about each other, or something.”

“Shut up,” Natasha laughs, and Bucky can practically see her blush, embarrassed at the prospect of ever admitting she has feelings. “Anyway, it’s being delivered soon.” Sooner than you know! Bucky thinks, closing his eyes as he peels himself away from the wall. He can’t tell if it’s panic or adrenaline that’s sparking like so many holiday lights inside of him, but he feels—he feels—

He opens his eyes, turns the expensive whiskey bottle in his hands. He feels, is the thing. He can’t remember the last time anyone, let alone two people, made him feel this many contrasting explosions of emotion; he can’t remember the last time anyone made him feel much of anything outside the ordinary. Listening to Clint and Natasha laugh and banter and care for each other, though; letting them care for him—that’s a feeling he wouldn’t mind hanging onto. That’s a feeling he wouldn’t want to forget.

Mind made up, Bucky slinks down the hall, then approaches the door again at his everyday pace. He sets the whiskey to the side of the door, unneeded, then knocks. Their voices intermingle on the other side, an excited tangle of that’ll be your gift! that neither of them quite notices.

It’s Clint who draws the door open, festooned in reindeer antlers and the tackiest sweater Bucky has ever laid eyes on. Behind him, Natasha begins, “So I know that you’ve had a crush on Bucky for a while—”

Which would be a good introduction, probably, except Clint is absolutely not listening. “So I know how important Bucky is to you,” he begins at the same time. “Which I love! And I think we should explore this angle of our relationship—”

Natasha, meanwhile, has two bright spots of color high on her cheeks, and is mainly looking over Bucky’s left shoulder. “And I of course think you’re both extremely attractive—”

Like a symphony of errors, they say it nearly as one: “So what I’m trying to say is—”

Bucky laughs, feeling the last of his lingering anxiety slipping away as he crosses the threshold and into their space. This feeling, this warm and loving confusion, is everything he’d hoped to find tonight. He slides one arm around Natasha’s thankfully normal sweater and pulls her close, pressing a deep, lush kiss into her softly surprised mouth. “What Clint’s trying to say,” he says, drawing his words lazy and slow, “is that I’m your gift this year.”

Clint beams; Natasha blinks. “But—” she protests.

Bucky kisses her again to cut her off, then slides his other arm around Clint. “And what Natalia’s trying to say,” he says, finding Clint’s mouth equally startled as he stretches up and kisses him in turn, “is that I’m also your gift this year.”

“Wait,” says Clint, after a beat.

“Hang on,” sputters Natasha. Bucky waits, keeping both of them close while they work it out. They look at each other, at him, and then at each other again. “Oh,” says Natasha at last.

Clint grins. “Oh.”

“Merry Christmas, you idiots,” Bucky says, shutting the door with his heel. “Now, do you think I could maybe come in?”