Chapter Text
It was supposed to be a simple in and out job.
This is how it was supposed to go:
They wait until their mark is sitting at his computer in his home-office in the evening, and then Clint fires a tethered arrow through the perpetually open bathroom window of the apartment above, piercing the water pipe. He taps the trigger on his bow which activates a very small explosion (more of a small burst, really), and then Clint retracts the arrow as water pours out onto the floor. A few minutes later, when water begins to drip into the apartment below, the man gets up and rushes to investigate. As soon as he leaves, Bucky slips into the apartment, slides a USB into the abandoned computer, and starts the file transfer. One minute and fifty seconds later, while the man and his upstairs adjacent neighbor are trying to trouble shoot the growing flood, Bucky pulls the USB from the drive, salutes toward where he knows Clint is watching, and casually exits the apartment. Clint packs his gear into his backpack, hops from the roof of the apartment building he’s on, across to the next one. He takes the stairs to the lobby, and leaves via the side exit. From there he takes a wildly circuitous route – variously walking and taking trains and taxis - back to their safehouse. Bucky, having taken a completely different route, is there when he arrives. A couple hours later, they’re on a plane and back in New York in time for breakfast. Easy peasy.
That is not how it goes.
This is how it actually goes:
Clint shoots the pipe, the water floods the apartment below. The mark leaves and Bucky enters. He downloads the files, salutes to Clint, who packs up his gear and makes his way across to the building next door. He takes the stairs to the lobby, and leaves via the side exit.
This is where everything goes balls up.
The instant Clint walks out of the building, he feels a sudden, sharp pain in his side. His hand instinctively finds the spot under his jacket, and when he pulls it back, there’s blood. He’s just formulating the thought that he’s been shot when the brick next to his head explodes from another bullet, sending shattered pieces of it stinging across his face and neck. A woman who was walking past yelps and Clint grabs her and shoves her into a recessed doorway.
”Stay down!” he yells, and then bolts down the block in the opposite direction, hoping to draw any more fire away from her or anyone else that might be on the street. He’s just about to round the corner when he’s tagged again – this time, a bullet bites into his forearm. He stumbles and almost falls as he careens around the corner, bouncing off a car and leaving behind a bloody smear of a handprint. The pain in his arm is blinding and blood is dripping freely, but he ignores it as he rights himself to be off and running again.
There are footsteps and yelling behind him. He ducks into another apartment building, runs through the lobby and out the back door into an alley. At the end of it he turns left, runs a half-block and turns left again. He crosses the street and slips into a crowded nightclub. The music is loud and thrumming and he can feel every beat of the vibration in his arm; he’d almost believe that his blood was pouring out of him in time to the music. Someone bumps him, and he nearly screams, barely makes it stumbling through the back hall, past the bathrooms, and out a rear exit.
The alley is empty so he lets himself stop for a second. When the flare of fire in his arm quells a little, he shoulders off his pack. He digs out the two guns, the knife, papers and cash. The rest he throws in the dumpster, sparing a second of regret to lose the collapsible bow, but it's not like he could use it with his armed fucked the way it is. He has just finished very carefully lifting his left arm with his right to slide his hand into his pocket so he will hopefully not leave a trail of blood behind for someone to follow, when the door slams open. Clint has his Glock out and pointed without conscious thought.
A woman teeters out of the nightclub on high heels. She’s got a cigarette in her mouth already and she’s repeatedly flicking a stubbornly uncooperative lighter. When she finally lifts her eyes and sees Clint, she squeaks and drops the lighter. The cigarette falls from her mouth and her hands go up. Her eyes are filled with terror.
“Esta bem,” Clint says quickly, shifting the pistol so it’s pointing toward the sky. “Eu nau vou te machucar.” He shoves the gun in his jacket pocket, and holds out a placating hand. She doesn’t look reassured, but when he lifts his finger to his lips, she gives him a jerky nod in return. “Volte para dentro,” he tells her, gesturing toward the door with his head.
She doesn’t need to be told twice; she disappears as quickly as she appeared. Clint takes a deep breath and starts jogging again. He moves as smoothly as he can but every step is agony as it jostles his arm. Adrenaline keeps him going, though, as does the ripping fear that Bucky may not have gotten as lucky as he did.
He leaves the alley and crosses the street, trots down the block and around the corner, then down a block and around the next corner. He zigzags like that for a kilometer or so before he lets himself start looking for a spot to stop and catch his breath. He’s in a residential neighborhood in an older part of the city, so there’s no classic grid system, but there are myriad alleys and warrens to hide in. He slides silently through the narrow gap between two dark houses into the back garden, where he spots a small shed. It’s locked, but it’s the work of about 15 seconds to pick it, even one handed. As soon as he’s inside and the door is closed, he slides down the wall in the pitch dark, biting his lip to hold back a groan.
He sits, eyes closed as he catches his breath, listening for any sounds that might tell him he was followed. There's only silence. He’s exhausted, shaking in pain, but he knows he can’t stop for very long, so he pulls out his burner phone and presses it to life. The dim green light illuminates the shed and he holds up the phone. The only things there are four bicycles, some empty flower pots, and a set of folding chairs leaned up against the far wall. Not particularly useful. He turns back to his phone and opens the contacts, hitting the only one in it. Bucky answers on the second ring and relief washes over Clint. “We’re made.”
“I know,” Barnes answers. He’s breathing heavily, it sounds like he’s running.
“Are you alright?”
“Mostly. You?"
“Same. Do you remember the story I told you about Widow?”
“What?” Bucky asks, distracted and apparently caught off guard by the question.
“Widow. The story I told you yesterday. Do you remember?”
There’s a beat before, “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”
“Ditch the phone and anything else that could possibly have a tracker in it.” He hangs up before Barnes can reply. They’re burner phones, purchased in Valencia on their roundabout travel to Lisbon, but at this point, they can’t be too careful.
He fumbles with the phone until he manages to hit the flashlight button, and the shed is suddenly awash in light. Clint closes his eyes, takes a steadying breath, then looks down and points the light toward his left arm. He doesn’t have the time or necessary supplies to do anything more than a quick assessment, but he needs to do that, at least. There’s not a lot of blood on his jacket, though he can see the hole the bullet made about an inch below his elbow. He slides his hand out of his pocket as smoothly as he can, but it’s still excruciating and he can’t hold back a small moan. His hand is coated in blood where it’s run down his arm under the leather and pooled in his pocket.
Clint closes his eyes again, swallows and takes another deep breath. When he opens them, he uses a shaky hand to unzip his leather jacket and gently tugs it open to look at the other wound. The left side of his shirt is painted in red and he can’t tell if it’s still actively bleeding. He doesn’t pay it much more attention though because at the moment, it hurts a hell of a lot less than his arm.
He grits his teeth and carefully slips his arm out of his jacket to take a closer look. There’s no fucking exit wound that he can see. He never saw the shooter or where they were, but they must have been fairly close and using a small caliber weapon or his arm would have been blown right off. Or possibly he was hit by a ricochet. Either way, the lack of exit wound is pretty fucking troubling.
When he tries, he finds he can move his fingers – barely - but when he attempts to rotate his hand, the result has his jaw clamping tightly and an animalistic sound working its way out of him, despite his efforts to keep it in. He holds still and tries to slow his breathing, willing away the terrifying spots dancing in his periphery while he tries very hard not to think about how badly he needs two fully-functioning arms and hands to do his job. He knows he should pack the bleed, but he’s got nothing to do that with and even if he did, he’s pretty sure that any direct pressure or trying to tie it off is going to end with a Lisbon housewife finding him unconscious in her garden storage shed. So, nope, not going to be able to do anything more with his arm for now.
When he feels more steady, he gingerly tucks his arm across his belly, pressing his elbow against the wound in his side as hard as he can manage without passing out, then rezips his jacket with one fumbling hand. When his heartrate slows a bit and the pain has deescalated by way of remaining still, he picks up the phone again.
He pulls up the keypad, and it takes him three fumbling tries to punch in the phone number he knows by heart. He struggles to his feet while the systems connect. It picks up after five rings but there’s only silence on the other end of the line.
“It was a set-up. They knew my retreat.” Clint’s voice has the slightest quaver to it. Most people wouldn’t notice.
“How bad are you hurt?” Natasha asks, words clipped and to the point.
“Not bad. Fucking hurts like a sonofabitch though.” He lets an uneasy laugh slip out.
“Barnes?”
“Running. We’re separated but have a rendezvous point.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“No, but it’s the best I could come up with given the circumstances. We’ll be going dark for a while.”
“I’ll start working on extraction.”
“Not sure where it will be.”
“I’ll get things in place, ready to go wherever you land.”
“Only you, Nat. They’ve got someone inside.”
“Roger that. Be safe.”
Clint cuts the connection and powers the phone off before slipping it into his pocket. He’d really like to stay where he is and rest some more, but he’s still too close to the op zone and he has a couple kilometers to cover while it’s still dark. He takes a deep breath and cracks the door, peering out into the dark night. When he slinks back out to the street, he drops the phone on the ground, crushes it ruthlessly beneath the heel of his boot, then kicks the pieces into a sewer drain. After taking one more cautious look in both directions, he starts moving again.
When the phone finally rings - what seems like an eternity after the shit hit the fan, but probably isn’t more than about twenty minutes or so - Bucky has a split second of paralyzing fear that it won’t be Clint’s voice on the other end of the line. But it is. Thank god, it is. After the call disconnects, Bucky has to stop and lean against a wall in a dark courtyard, his knees nearly buckling at the crushing relief of knowing that Clint is still alive.
He’s an idiot, he knows it; he’s compromised and he shouldn’t be on missions with Barton. No, that’s not really the issue. He shouldn’t be sleeping with Barton. But knowing that and doing something about it are two completely different things.
They’re too well matched, which makes things great, and which is also the problem. They’re both cocky and irreverent, except when they're working, when they are both consummate professionals who do what’s necessary to get the job done. There’s a comradery to most everything they do. Bucky is a marksman; so is Clint. They horse around on the range a lot, compete good-naturedly, make up more and more ridiculous challenges. Bucky’s good, he knows he’s one of the best ever. He also knows that Clint is better. Normally that would have rankled him, started his competitive juices flowing. But as he got to know Clint better, heard little snatches of his story, his life, Bucky found that he couldn’t really begrudge Clint’s skill. It was hard-earned and Clint never lorded his superior abilities over Bucky, so Bucky never got his back up. They also both love food carts, finding in their own very different pasts, reason to appreciate cheap food in large quantities. And when Clint grows quiet, or disappears for a day or two, Bucky understands. Just like Clint leaves Bucky to stew by himself on bad days.
The sex had happened easily, naturally; one day, they were screwing around on the range, and that turned into screwing around in bed. When they were done, Clint had turned his head and looked a little uneasy. “You’ve uh, you’ve done that before, right? I mean, I’m not the first guy…” his words had trailed off.
He had looked so anxious that Bucky had laughed and rolled his eyes. “No, Barton. You’re not the first guy I’ve ever fucked. Hook-ups during the war were a pretty common thing. I had my fair share.”
Something flickered across Clint’s face. “Hook-ups,” he nodded, “Yeah.” He tucked his hands behind his head, then, and grinned. “So, uh, ya know, if you ever want to hook-up again, I’d be game.”
There were still things Bucky didn’t quite get about the 21st century. Before he was the Winter Soldier, he’d had plenty of one-night stands. But if you wooed a girl, if you went places with them, did things with them, and then you slept with them… well, that was…she was your girlfriend, then. He had been under the impression that it was kind of the same if two guys got together these days, and he’d kind of thought that that’s what had been going on with him and Clint, even though they hadn’t really discussed it. But Clint’s phrasing caught him off guard, and had him wondering. He was still trying to come up with an answer when Clint abruptly sat up and filled the awkward silence.
“Or not. I’m fine if you want this to be a one-off. Doesn't have to change anything. No problem.” The words were light and easy, with no hint that Clint cared either way. He had grabbed his pants off the floor and slipped his legs in, then stood, pulling them up as he went.
Bucky’s eyes had swept over the long expanse of Clint’s tanned and freckled back, and skated over the scar on his right trapezius - an amorphous, red mess of an exit wound that he knew had a small, corresponding entry-wound on the front. It was just one of the many scars on Clint’s body that Bucky had been obsessed with, wondering how Clint had come by them. He’d seen them a lot, in the gym, in safehouses, when Barton randomly walked around without his shirt on (which was far too often for Bucky’s comfort), and he’d badly wanted to touch them. He kicked himself for forgetting while he’d had Clint naked and pliable under him, but they’d been ignored in the distracted frenzy of their first time. Just the thought of exploring Clint’s body and touching the marks that make him unique, had the blood thrumming through Bucky again. And the thought of not having the chance to do it, made something shift restlessly inside of him.
Clint had grabbed his dirty shirt off the floor, but before he could put it on Bucky had made a decision. He rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand, setting his best charming smile on his face. “We can do it again.” Clint had turned and Bucky slid his fist provocatively up and down his thickening cock. “We can do it again right now, if you want.” He grinned.
There was an almost imperceptible beat before Clint had barked a laugh, his eyes gleaming. “Man, I got too many years on me and no super soldier serum, so I’m cooked. But I can help you out with that.” He had grabbed Bucky’s foot and yanked him so his legs were hanging off the bed. Bucky yelped and Clint grinned, then he dropped to his knees between Bucky’s legs. That had been nearly a year ago.
Since then, they’d fucked like they played and worked: intense, hard, and pushing their limits. And they never talked about it again.
A car turns the corner and shakes Bucky out of his memories, and he pushes himself further into the shadows. He reaches up and slides a finger under his ballcap. It comes away red, but the blood is tacky - not slick and wet - so the bleeding has nearly stopped. He starts moving again and tries to piece together how and why everything had gone to hell.
He and Clint had arrived in Lisbon the night before last, after three days of near constant moving, hopscotching around the Iberian Peninsula before arriving at their safehouse. That first night, they both had some pent-up energy from too many hours on planes and trains, so they’d fucked it out in two rounds of athletic sex. After the second time, Clint crashed almost immediately, and Bucky sat in the next room, reading, and trying not to let his eye’s wander to the where he’d left the door open a crack so he could see Barton. It was idiotic - that way lay madness – but he couldn’t stop his gaze from repeatedly seeking out Clint's messy hair, the freckled bridge of his nose.
The next day, they wandered around their op site without stopping or commenting, both of them casually taking in all the details that they couldn’t get from two-dimensional images on a computer screen. They hadn't hung around, moving on to the city center before making their way east to the Santa Apolonia train station to silently scope their back-up departure point.
They grabbed a couple cups of coffee and walked outside, leaning on a railing and watching as a tall ship with enormous masts pulled into port. It was a beautiful ship, and the signage on the dock advertised it as ‘not your standard cruise, but an ocean adventure’. Bucky didn’t understand why people enjoyed traveling by ship. He hated boats of all kinds, always got seasick.
They walked along the water’s edge and eventually found a quiet spot. Clint stretched out in a patch of sunny grass like a damned cat and fell asleep. It was distracting as hell and Bucky had to force himself not to stare. Bucky sat quietly and watched the water. He knew he should stop - that he should keep the friendship and the comradery and the missions, but take the sex out of the equation, because it was eating a little piece of his soul every day to have Clint, but not in the way he really wanted. He knew it, but he also knew that he'd keep taking it as long as it was on offer.
When the sun started to set, Bucky had sighed and nudged Clint to wake him up. They left the water, and, after stopping at a local market, they had meandered back to their safehouse. Over a dinner of broiled fish, potatoes, and salad, Clint had told Bucky about the only time Strike Team Delta had been in Lisbon, and how they’d ended up spending the better part of an afternoon in a cemetery when their mission had been scrapped at the last minute.
After dinner, they'd fucked again. This time, when Clint fell asleep, Bucky disregarded his better judgement and stayed in the bed for most of the night, spending the better part of it watching Clint. Shortly before dawn, he creeped into the other bedroom and flopped onto the bed, starfishing on his back and staring at the ceiling. Eventually he drifted off, catching a few hours of sleep before Clint started rattling around in the kitchen making coffee.
They had eaten breakfast with little conversation, both of them focused on the mission ahead and reading, again, through the briefing for the op. It was all pretty routine: Clint would cause the distraction, allowing Bucky to get the files from the computer. They’d make their way back to the safehouse separately. They’d grab their gear, hop on a train to the airport, and with luck, be back in New York in time for breakfast the next day.
It did not go as planned.
As soon as Bucky had stepped outside with the flash drive, he saw a muzzle flash and dove to his right. A bullet creased along his hairline but he had kept his momentum, rolling and springing up to run as more bullets pinged around him. He managed to duck into the building next door and out of view of the shooter, but not before he’d felt another bullet seer through his thigh. He hadn’t stopped. Limping heavily, he had sprinted through the building, considerable yelling at his back.
He sort of hop-skipped through the dark streets, turning randomly with no destination or plan, and just trying to get as far away from whoever was shooting at him as he could. The entire time, his thoughts were on Clint, wondering if he’d been made, too. If he was even alive. When his phone had vibrated in his pocket, and then he’d heard Clint’s voice on the other end of the call…relief wasn’t nearly a strong enough word.
Moving quickly and quietly through the streets, now, he crushes the phone in his metal hand and drops it into a fountain as he passes. He’d already ditched most everything else he’d been carrying – except the weapons, documents, and cash - even before Clint told him to; he knows his spycraft. He should have ditched the phone much sooner, but as his only connection to Clint, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to. Now that he knows Clint is okay, at least for the moment, Bucky focuses on how to get to him.
He pulls up the mental map he has of Lisbon and takes a few seconds to consider the most direct route to Prazeres Cemetery, with the least chance to encounter a lot of people. The blood on his leg isn’t particularly visible with his dark pants, but there’s a good amount of it that’s run down the side of his face and neck, and his hair is matted with it. He’d yanked his red ball cap onto his head almost immediately, but until he can stop and clean himself up, he needs to stay deep in the shadows, or he’s going to draw a lot of attention.
Unfortunately, he’d been moving in the opposite direction than he needs to, so he reverses course and starts heading southwest. His thigh is throbbing, and his head feels like it’s going to split open, but he moves as quickly as he can, wanting to catch up with Clint as soon as possible. His voice had sounded strained on the phone, and while that could definitely have been the fact that they’re running for their lives, Bucky thought he heard more in the undercurrent.
He's a little surprised when he gets to the cemetery. Clint had talked about it at length the day before, but he hadn't quite captured the scale of the place. From the outside, it seems to go on forever – he can’t see where the wall around the property stops. He guesses it’s at least a mile square. The place is locked down for the night and he's got nothing to pick the locks on the gate, but it’s not a problem; there are large trees all along the sidewalk. Bucky walks the perimeter until he finds a particularly dark spot and climbs one of them, scrambles along a thick limb over to the wall and down into the cemetery proper. He grunts as the landing jars his leg.
He limps down the first ‘lane’, looking for any sign of Clint. There are literally hundreds of mausoleums on dozens of lanes, and the place is like a maze. Clint had only mentioned one mausoleum specifically when he’d told Bucky about his previous visit; it was unusual in its pyramid shape and temple front. He assumes that’s where Clint will be waiting for him, but he has no idea where in this city of the dead it is. With no other option but to wander until he finds it, he starts a slow jog through the cemetery.
It's isn't easy for Clint to get into the cemetery. With only one operable arm, he walks the perimeter until he finds a tree with low enough hand holds that he can hike himself up, rather than have to jump. Ultimately, he has to climbed a smaller tree and hop onto the roof of a bus shelter. From there he makes the leap onto the wall of the property and eases himself over it. He spends the next three minutes leaning heavily against the wall breathing through the resulting roar of pain.
Once he’s pretty sure he won’t pass out, he pushes himself off the wall and sets out in search of the mausoleum that he hopes Bucky remembers him mentioning. It’s been years since he’s been here but he’s pretty sure of its general location relative to the entrance. It takes about twenty minutes for him to find it, but that’s more a matter of how slowly he’s moving than his poor memory.
He slides down behind one of the Doric columns and sits, the Glock in his good hand, resting on his thigh. He lets his head drop back and he closes his eyes – just for a few seconds. He listens in the dark for a familiar foot tread. It’s quiet, of course, except for the airplanes that fly over every ten minutes or so. Clint had forgotten about how this place was on the flightpath for Humberto Delgado Airport, the planes flying over low and often.
Bucky must be using that to his advantage – or possibly Clint’s more fucked up than he wants to think about - because the next thing he knows, he hears a voice.
“Clint?”
He blinks his eyes open to see Bucky squatting beside him, wearing a disconcertingly worried expression. “Oh, thank god,” Clint mumbles.
“Jesus, Clint. You said you were mostly good.”
Clint huffs and starts to struggle to his feet. Bucky grabs his good arm and helps him up so Clint can lean against the column again. “I am. Mostly. At least three-quarters of me is fine.”
“What’s the damage?”
“Bullet in my side - not sure if it's still in there. The one in my arm definitely is. I’ll be okay.” His eyes slip closed and want to stay there, but he forces them open. “We need to get moving.” He pushes off the column and Bucky grabs his arm again. It’s dark, but now that they’re standing and Bucky is in front of him, he can see the blood on his face and neck. “What the hell, Bucky. What's your damage?”
“I’m fine. Got a headache, but I can feel it healing already. Leg, too.”
“Leg?” Clint looks down.
“Like I said, almost healed. But I need to get a better look at you.” He shifts and looks around down the line of mausoleums.
Clint shakes his head and pulls free of Bucky’s grip. “No time. Gotta keep moving.” He takes a step and wobbles, has to shoot his good hand out to brace himself on the wall of the crypt.
Bucky’s hands are instantly there, helping to steady him. “It’s not going to help the situation any if you pass out from blood loss. Hard to fade into the background if I’m carrying you around,” he says.
Clint scoffs softly as Bucky slings Clint’s good arm around his neck and starts them walking at a slow pace. He’s thinking about how not-fun it’s going to be to get back over the wall, when Bucky stops them and leans Clint against the wall of one of the cemetery’s administrative buildings, grabs the handle of a door, and busts it open with his Hydra arm.
“What…” Clint asks. More words wanted to come out but he doesn’t have the energy for it; maybe he’s lost more blood than he realized.
“Shh. Quiet.” Clint gives him a sour look, because he gets the feeling Bucky’s shushing him so he won’t argue and not because there’s really any living person around who might hear them. Still, he goes willingly when Bucky takes his arm and helps him across the threshold. Bucky leans Clint up against the wall inside the door and helps ease him to sitting. “Stay here and keep quiet. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re being awfully bossy,” Clint observes, his eyes already drifting closed.
Bucky snorts. “You’re losing blood like a stuck pig and in no position to argue.”
It’s true. Clint gives him a disgruntled grunt before Bucky disappears down the dark hall.
He loses some time there, because he blinks and Bucky’s back, hoisting him to his feet again. An undignified sound escapes the back of his throat. "Where’re we going?”
“This way,” Bucky answers. “I found someplace I can take a better look at you.”
“You can look at me anytime you want,” Clint mumbles suggestively and manages to wiggle his eyebrows. Bucky rolls his eyes at him, but then snorts softly.
The building is only illuminated by the dim glow of emergency exit lighting, but it’s enough that they can see where they’re going. They descend a flight of stairs and when they round a corner, Clint can see light falling through an open doorway about twenty feet away.
“Almost there,” Bucky tells him.
Clint nods and keeps his feet moving forward. When they get to the bright room, he stops dead. “Oh, fuck me. Are we in a fucking mortuary?”
Bucky grimaces apologetically. “Sorry,” he says, and tugs Clint into the embalming room.
Esta bem – It’s okay
Eu nau vou te machucar – I’m not going to hurt you
Volte para dentro – go back inside