Delicate: Winterhawk’s Version
Summary:
Clint Barton’s life has always been a series of “this might as well happen.” So waking up in bed with Bucky Barnes—and realizing he can’t remember the last time he didn’t—feels less like a surprise and more like fate.
Bucky Barnes is learning how to live again, and the one steady thing in his new world is the archer who makes him laugh and doesn’t flinch from his past.
They’re both too scared to risk what they have by asking for more. But when a spell forces the Avengers to hear each other’s every thought, the delicate life that Clint and Bucky have built with one another shatters, and they’re left to confront the feelings they’ve been too afraid to name.
Notes:
Author’s Note: Many thanks to alstromerias for the quick response and turnaround time when I called into the void seeking a beta for this fic I wrote in a 2-3 hour fever dream. I blame GingerEnvy and the hawkeye-is-a-swiftie cohort from the Winterhawk server for this fic. Y’all know what you did. /aff
Edit 8/31/25: Additional thanks to Reremouse for their d/Deaf check of this fic and providing me context for where I could improve the representation I have here. It is sincerely appreciated!
Delicate: Winterhawk’s Version
This ain’t for the best,
My reputation’s never been worse, so
you must like me for me.
If you asked Clint to trace the exact path of his life to the current moment, he would be baffled on how to do so. The majority of Clint’s life could be summed up in a single phrase: “this might as well happen.”
Which is why, when Clint found himself waking up in bed with Bucky Barnes and realized that he could not remember the last time he woke up without him, he could not bring himself to question it.
No one on the Avengers team had a good sleep schedule, least of all those who lived with the knowledge that they themselves had an active hand in killing their own friends and allies. Were they under the control of others? Absolutely. That did not change the fact that they held the memories of their own hands pulling the trigger and ending the lives of people they knew trusted them with theirs.
Many people, upon waking up from nightmares, can assure themselves that what they experienced was just a dream. That was not the case for those of whom the nightmares were memories.
The first time Clint met Bucky could have been awkward and stilted. It should have been awkward and stilted, given that was the general way that Bucky’s first meetings went as Steve and helped him adapt to life as a free man. Steve was always overeager and protective, and Bucky was always anxious and unsure. But Clint had a way of putting people at ease almost without trying, and within two minutes managed to get a genuine laugh out of Bucky for the first time in seventy years.
It was the start of something beautiful, scary, delicate between them.
They found each other again that night, in a way that could be described as an accident, a coincidence, or maybe just fate. Neither of them were able to sleep, and found one another in the common area. Clint offered Bucky a drink—coffee, not alcohol—and that was when Bucky discovered Clint’s love and loyalty for coffee. He did not much care for the taste on its own, but found that it tasted much better on Clint’s lips.
We can’t make
any promises now, can we, babe?
But you can make me a drink.
It was the beginning of something of a pattern for them. Whenever the Avengers were off mission and at the tower, in the hours of the day that were so late they were early, Clint and Bucky would seek one another out and ultimately end up in one bed or the other. After a few months of that tradition, they began to start the night together, which was an unspoken improvement.
And so when Clint woke up in bed with Bucky that Saturday morning to Bucky carding his hands through Clint’s hair, it was with a smile.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Clint read on Bucky’s lips.
“Hmm, good morning,” Clint hummed, hand running down Bucky’s side, kissing up Bucky’s neck. By agreement they almost never kissed when one or both of them was suffering from morning breath, but kissing anywhere else was fair game. If Bucky said anything, Clint missed it as the two of them moved together slowly. Clint would almost refer to it as lovingly, if the fear of jinxing what they had together was not holding him back.
Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you
Oh damn, never seen that color blue
Just think of the fun things we could do
‘Cause I like you
Bucky was still hesitant when it came to leaving the tower, but Clint was nothing if not persuasive. One might think it was due to a fear of crowds, but the Winter Soldier had been infiltrating different operations for decades, crowds weren’t his issue. Instead it was a latent anxiety of being recognized, of being judged for his actions.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Clint assured him, even as they were getting ready to leave. Clint was buttoning up his dark wash jeans before pulling on a Dog Cops t-shirt. Bucky momentarily lamented the fact that he no longer had direct visual access to Clint’s abs, but at least he could still see Clint’s exquisite biceps.
“No, we can go,” Bucky shook his head. “I want to see more of this modern Brooklyn you keep going on about.”
“Fantastic,” Clint rubbed his hands together in excitement and Bucky made sure that the photostatic veil that hid his arm was secure and they were off.
Bucky had known that Clint favored Brooklyn over Manhattan, and that many of his days that were not spent in the tower or on a mission were spent in Bed-Stuy. But it was still another thing entirely to realize just how engrained Clint was to the community there.
The morning was spent simply wandering around the neighborhood, exploring, Bucky seeing what was still around, Clint showing his own haunts, and everywhere they went there was someone who knew Clint, and clearly knew him well. Eventually they found themselves at Clint’s favorite dive bar. Bucky understood why it was his favorite—it was cozy, the music was at a comfortable level, and as had proven true elsewhere, everyone was familiar with Clint and friendly to Bucky, just because he was clearly with Clint.
“Ah, so this is the boyfriend who has been distracting you so much, hmm?” the bartender asked upon being introduced to Bucky.
Clint turned a bright red, seemingly unsure what to say. Neither was Bucky, truth be told. Neither of them had ever really defined their relationship. They were just each other’s person, and that was enough for them. When their eyes met, Bucky was captivated once again by the soft and gentle blue of Clint’s eyes. It made him brave, and so he turned to the bartender again with a smile and held out his hand.
“I’m James, it’s nice to meet you.” He just barely stopped himself from adding a gendered honorific, noting the they/them pin on the bartender’s lapel.
“Good to meet you, James.”
Long night, with your hands up in my hair
Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs
Stay here, honey, I don’t wanna share
‘Cause I like you
They spent the night at Clint’s apartment, which became the start of a new tradition, namely that rather than spend every night together at the tower, Bucky would a few times a week return to Bed-Stuy with Clint. It was a startling realization for Bucky when he discovered that previous to Bucky arriving at the tower Clint had spent the majority of his time at the apartment, meaning that the months of living together at the tower was almost entirely for Bucky’s benefit.
He could not help but feel grateful that Clint had spent that time with him, even as he knew that he could not keep Clint as only his forever. The man had a family and community beyond just the Avengers, and Bucky was happy to spend time with Clint wherever he wanted to spend time.
Staying with Clint, it was some of the only time he was able to truly find rest, wrapped up in the other man’s arms. Being together did not completely stop the nightmares, but it did mean that he was able to sleep somewhat through the night, or at least when they woke up from the terrors they were able to comfort one another, tangled up in each other, a comfort, a distraction, a feeling like they were home, wherever the other was.
Sometimes I wonder when you sleep
Are you ever dreaming of me?
Sometimes when I look into your eyes
I pretend you’re mine, all the damn time
‘Cause I like you
Often Bucky would stay awake even after Clint had fallen back to sleep, simply watching as the other man’s breaths evened out. He looked peaceful, his brow smoothed in a way that made it clear that despite the smiles and laughs and his easy going nature, Clint often carried himself with a subtle wariness and tension.
He knew the contents of Clint’s nightmares—there were many nights when Clint or Bucky would wake up from a night terror and Bucky would take out his phone, the two of them using captions to make halting exchanges in the night, providing a space for them to share their fears and traumas with one another—but he often wondered what the contents of Clint’s good dreams might be.He knew that his own were consistently filled with Clint, but despite what was steadily growing between them, part of him still hesitated to share the depth of his own feelings. He suspected that Clint might know already, but neither of them had ever actually said.
Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you’re in my head
‘Cause I know that it’s delicate
Ultimately the choice of how to confess the intensity of what they felt for one another was taken out of Clint and Bucky’s hands.
It had been nearly a year since Bucky had been fully deprogrammed and started living at Avengers Tower, and three months since he had moved almost full time to live with Clint in Bed-Stuy. The transition was for multiple reasons, most notably of which was the fact that Tony Stark still had not quite forgiven Bucky for the death of his parents, and that Loki had been proven to also be under mind control during the invasion. While Clint objectively knew that Loki had also been a victim and Tony objectively knew that Bucky was not in control of himself when he killed Howard and Maria Stark, Clint was still anxious around Loki and Tony was still anxious around Bucky.
Nevertheless, the distance from the tower and the fact that neither of them could fly meant that when the tower was attacked, Bucky and Clint were a little late to the party when the Enchantress decided to ensorcel the team and turn them against one another. This clarity of consciousness meant that Hawkeye was easily able to hit her with a tranquilizing arrow, and once she had lost consciousness the team regained their minds.
Unfortunately for them, she awoke before Loki was able to properly fine-tune her magical restraints, and left one final curse on the Avengers. Rather than an active spell that required her presence and consciousness, this one was more subtle, cursing them all to hear one another’s most private thoughts, in the hopes that they would alienate one another. Once it was cast, she fled.
Thoughts streamed through the minds of all the Avengers, an intense and confused jumble of emotions and feelings.. Tony’s mind was racing, running calculations, analyzing every singular possibility. Loki’s mind was meditative, his thoughts deep as he searched for the solution to the problem from a magical perspective. Steve was worried, but trusting the team to have his back. Natasha’s mind was a steel trap, her thoughts hidden within thoughts. Thor was confused, but similarly to Steve, had placed his trust in Tony and Loki to get things right. The Hulk was tired, overwhelmed at the complex thoughts running through his brain, and decided to take a nap. Through it all what Bucky felt most overwhelmingly was Clint’s stress and panic, his stress at the understanding that his mind was not his own. Clint, for all that he was typically calm and collected, able to face any and every situation, was flush with anxiety. Bucky felt a wave of protectiveness wash over him, and he barely hesitated before sweeping Clint up into his arms and headed down to the garage of the tower where he knew Tony kept a number of cars and bikes.
Bucky huddled Clint into the back of one of the roomier cars and decided that, just this once, he would trust JARVIS to drive. He did not particularly like to relinquish that control, but comforting Clint was more important to him.
The farther away that they got from the tower the less they could feel the pressure and presence of the other Avengers in their minds, until it was just them. In the overwhelming jumble of thoughts there was protectiveness, fear, stress, comfort, and more than anything else, love.
I’m sorry I’m such a mess. Clint thought miserably, torn between wanting to bury himself in Bucky’s arms and flinching away when realizing that he had not spoken aloud, that their minds were twinned together.
“This isn’t on you, doll,” Bucky comforted, making an effort to speak the words aloud even as his thoughts and feelings reinforced the truth he felt in them. “Your mind deserves to be on its own. That’s not an unreasonable thing to want, especially for people with our history.”
“It’s better,” Clint admitted. Now that it’s only you.
Bucky pressed his lips to Clint’s forehead. I love you. The admission felt too soon, like it would break the delicate balance they had created but to his surprise—or maybe not, because in truth this felt more like an inevitability. His own mind supplied the same words in return.
Is it cool that I said all that
Is it too soon to do this yet?
‘Cause I know that it’s delicate
Notes:
Me: Eh, I enjoy listening to Taylor Swift, but I’m not sure I would call myself a Swiftie
Also me: Has published enough fics based on TS and has enough WIPs based on TS that they felt it was warranted to make a series.