Work Text:
The water’s not really warm enough to do anything other than slough off the surface mud. It’s been a long day or a long week and apparently SHIELD has a finite supply of hot water. It doesn’t matter, though. Steve is pressed against Bucky’s back and his mouth has found a clean patch of skin, just behind Bucky’s ear and he’s sucking gently.
“Could’ve waited for me to get cleaned off,” says Bucky, gasping as the fingers of his right hand scrabble uselessly at the wet tiles on the wall.
“Mmm, no,” says Steve, “Couldn’t wait.” Bucky presses against him and drops his left hand down and back to dig into Steve’s hip and pull him closer. It’s only been a week, which is really very little time on the scale of inseparable to decades on ice, but it’s felt long enough. Bucky twists his neck and murmurs kiss me against Steve’s mouth, or maybe he thinks it, but Steve’s a smart man and he understands and now Bucky’s moaning because it’s been a whole fucking week and he was in a holding pattern in a hole in the ground in the Mid-West and he doesn’t know what he did to deserve that and –
“Oh my god.” Despite it being late and long after office hours, Bucky really shouldn’t be surprised at the interruption. There’s just enough steam to obscure the glass of the shower door but Bucky would recognise that voice anywhere, low and droll and a little bit biting. “Aren’t you worried your arm’s gonna rust? Seriously, Cap, shouldn’t we be concerned here? I can call Stark. Seriously, my thumb’s on the speed dial right now.”
Bucky honest-to-God whimpers when Steve pulls his mouth away, his upper lip a slick drag over Bucky’s lower lip. Steve’s hands drop to Bucky’s hips and he steps back and he never has the lack of grace to look irritated or frustrated. His lips glance over Bucky’s temple and, even though the shape at the door has vanished, Bucky knows that the moment is over.
Sometimes, he really hates Clint Barton.
.
Clint has finished his round of the building; it’s fun to terrorise the interns who think that staying late is going to earn them gold stars and bonus points. It’s fun to tell them that inefficiency is a mortal sin in SHIELD. Most of them don’t think to observe that he’s also in the building after midnight but he has a valid reason: he’s waiting for Phil to finish work so he can drag him home.
He strides along the corridor to Phil’s office, whistling as he goes, and he doesn’t expect to hear laughter emerging from the only occupied office on this floor. Clint frowns as he pushes the door open and motherfucking James Barnes is lounging on the couch – Clint’s couch – chatting (laughing) with Phil, who’s leaning back in his office chair, a pen in his hand and a disconcertingly relaxed expression on his face.
Clint understands, though. Barnes is some kind of military strategy genius. Clint is used to taking his shots once the target is within his range; he doesn’t like to waste time. Barnes contemplates, though, and has mid- to longterm goals and it freaks Clint out.
“Hey,” he says, shooting Barnes an evil glare. “It’s kind of late, huh?”
“Sergeant Barnes offered to debrief now,” says Phil and Clint knows that Barnes is just as bad as he is about submitting reports and sitting still, so of course Phil is going to take this opportunity. “While it’s still fresh in his mind.”
Barnes has perfected this really innocent expression. Clint’s a little impressed, given that the man is a veteran of World War II, icy plunges, Soviet brainwashing and amputation. He’s probably got more blood on his hands than most SHIELD agents but Barnes remains untarnished. And the fucker is smiling. “I promised Steve I’d make more of an effort,” he says, eyes wide. “And who wants to let Captain America down?”
Not Phil Coulson, that’s for sure, and Clint knows it. He clenches one fist and runs his other hand through his hair. Barnes has played the Captain America card before; he’s not above playing dirty.
“I’d say you should go on home,” says Phil, too cheerful for a man who’s already been at work for eighteen hours. “We’re only at day four.”
Barton nods, his smile grim. Sometimes, he really hates James Barnes.
.
It all starts accidentally, of course. Clint walks in on Barnes and Rogers in the kitchen and Barnes is on the counter, his thighs clamped against Steve’s sides and Clint clears his throat and leans against the doorframe, oh so casually.
“You guys know that food is prepared in here, right?”
Steve blushes to a deep and fascinating red and he disentangles his fingers from Barnes’ hair and ducks his head and Barnes glares at Clint, crossing his ankles behind Steve’s legs to stop Captain Fucking America from pulling away from debauchery. This is why James Barnes is a bad man; he is corrupting the incorruptible but this is Captain America and, more than that, this is Steve Rogers so he is successful in retreat, and he is magnanimous and he rests his hand briefly on Barnes’ cheek as he shakes his head.
Two days later, Barnes somehow taps into a private line between Clint and Phil (and Clint suspects that Stark is helping Barnes, which is totally cheating).
“You want to do what to Agent Coulson?” Barnes sounds appalled and a little nauseated but Clint knows that he’s bluffing because James Barnes, who’s fucking Steve Rogers and who’s got an exhibitionist streak as wide as the goddamned ocean, is unlikely to be grossed out by a few colourful phrases (and Clint really wants to do that to Agent Coulson).
Phil, to his credit, sounds entirely unruffled as he immediately disconnects the call. Later, he says that phone sex during work hours should probably be avoided and Clint kind of wants to kill Barnes.
.
They need some kind of referee. Tony Stark agrees far too quickly. He tells Banner who’s sort of fascinated to see what happens to the human body when faced with continuous frustrations of this sort. There’s a scoreboard in Bruce’s lab, disguised as science.
The stakes have been raised.
.
Bucky is a genius. Oh, he’s not like Stark (junior or senior) and he’s not like Pepper Potts whose superpower is multitasking and Bucky’s learning that women in the twenty-first century are not just dames. He suspected it when he first encountered Natalia, when she was young and full of potential and his thoughts were dark clouds, and he knows it when he meets her again, in the twenty-first century, and they have tumbled out on the same side and the intimacies of their shared history are their shared secret.
He’s still a genius, though, even if he can’t match up to the women of this world for which he fights or avenges or whatever he’s expected to do.
.
Clint doesn’t believe his ears. He believes his eyes, though, because without them he’s not much of a marksman. Phil is packing a dufflebag with supplies for a mission and Clint doesn’t understand.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”
“Woo called in sick at the last minute and Sitwell’s refused to work with Sergeant Barnes since the incident in Anchorage.”
“Hill?”
“She’s in DC. Anyway, Barnes has requested me as an alternate handler whenever Woo is - indisposed.”
And, just like that, Clint gets it. “How long’s the mission?” he asks. Why don’t you request an alternate sniper? he doesn’t ask.
“A week, maybe two-” Phil offers him a tired smile and it’s all Clint can do to hook his arm around Phil’s neck and draw him in for a slow kiss. Phil’s phone rings.
.
Reunion sex is unparalleled but goodbye-and-come-home-safe sex comes a close second. It’s an unwritten law of sex and a tacit rule in SHIELD; if two operatives are engaged in a relationship and take some time before a mission, no one says anything. And if, after leaving Phil to run through the mission specs, Clint strolls down the corridor that leads towards Steve’s room and happens to notice that the door is rattling rhythmically on its hinges, to the tune of yes and more, he cannot be blamed if he bangs on the door with the flat of his palm and shouts, put your back into it, Cap!
(Later, Tony will tell him that it lacked finesse but was certainly very effective and Tony does love the direct approach.)
.
It’s a long two weeks. When Phil and Barnes come home, both on stretchers, Clint offers a ceasefire. Barnes’ smile is bloody and he shakes his head and asks for Steve in the same breath.
.
When both Bucky and Phil have recovered, they’re dragged to the nearest pub. Neither of them have a head for alcohol today, not with the lingering effects of magic and painkillers idling through their veins.
Tony calls it a draw when Steve carries Bucky home, slung over a shoulder like he’s no weight at all. Clint laughs and Bucky flips him the bird before noting, smugly and upside down, that Phil’s half-asleep in the corner of the room and Steve’s ass is right there, next to Bucky’s face. He’s only (mostly) human.
Steve rubs his back. “No groping in public, Bucky, remember? Remember the part where we have rules?”
Bucky sulks and embarks on a treatise on how Steve’s ass is lonely without him and it’s all Clint’s fault.
Bucky thinks he might have said too much.
.
Clint knows that underestimating Phil Coulson is a fool’s game and that Captain America isn’t a stupid man, for all that he is deliberate and principled.
“This is punishment, isn’t it?” Barnes asks, while Clint is staring at the mission specs in his hand. He looks at Barnes, whose expression is less baffled and more calculating. Barnes looks between Phil and Steve.
“You’re only hurting yourselves, you know,” says Barnes, rolling up his file folder and gesticulating towards the door. “Sending us away like this.”
Phil raises an eyebrow. “Think of it as a time out,” he says. He folds his arms. He’s bracing for impact.
Steve’s jaw is clenched and there’s the faintest flush in his cheeks, like he’s really hoping no one’s actually going to make him say the words. “If you think about it, it’s the natural progression.” He gestures, a little jerkily. “You can get this stupidity out of your system and - “ He trails off.
“- perhaps learn to appreciate what you have?” finishes Phil, who’s actually smiling a little now. Clint would hate him except that he sort of has to admire his cunning (and except that he loves him).
“This is punishment,” Clint says. “Barnes is right. You’re punishing us-”
“Don’t worry,” says Phil. “We’re not sending you out without a handler.”
“Handle me, sir, please, handle me.”
“Sorry, Barton,” says Steve. SHIELD moves in mysterious and upsetting ways. “Agent Hill has to clock up some field-time.”
Clint yelps as Barnes punches him in the arm. He doesn’t even have the decency to use his non-cyborg arm. “This is all your fault.”
Clint has no idea where to begin refuting this outrageous accusation when he is hustled towards the door by Phil and by Steve. “You can argue about it on the flight,” says Phil.
“As long as you’ve kissed and made up by the time you get back,” says Steve in that stern way that he has. He looks disappointed. Fuck, Clint hates disappointing Captain America.
The door is closed behind them. Clint looks at Barnes and Barnes looks back at him.
“I call shotgun!”
.
And when Bruce sadly wipes the whiteboard clean, with no clear winner, and when Tony denies all knowledge of any cockblocking competition, and when Phil and Steve start up a nightly chess game, James Barnes and Clint Barton learn that maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder and that abstinence is just cruel and that, yes, they have no one to blame but themselves.