The most upsetting part about all this, Clint thought, was the fact that it hadn't been his idea to get Steve Rogers stoned out of his fucking mind.
Dazed and Confused
The most upsetting part about all this, Clint thought, was the fact that it hadn't been his idea to get Steve Rogers stoned out of his fucking mind.
Clint watched the giggly, de-super-soldiered blond press his lips to the Winter Soldiers and breathe in deeply the gray smoke. At first, Clint had thought, Oh sure, that' makes sense. Steve's asthma would kick in and fuck with his lungs if he tried to smoke a joint directly. But then he remembered that this was Captain fuckin' America who was getting high in front of him and he had to go take a walk around the kitchen.
Earlier this morning, Bucky had been kissing down Steve's spine, sheets pooled at his waist, when the smaller man's lungs had suddenly forgotten to keep breathing and they had to stop until Steve could get his bearings again. The blond had been angry like he always was when his recently de-superfied body didn't act like its old superior remodel.
"I just got used to it, Buck. It's not fair." Had Steve Rogers been 240 pounds, Bucky might have taken Steve's complaint a bit more serious. However, as he watched the blond stomp around the kitchen, banging on the coffee maker buttons and yanking open the refrigerator door, he just sat at the island and covered his grin behind his fist.
"I mean, one fucking blaster ray gets me, and it's like I'm a fucking child again," he continued, pulling the milk jug out and slamming the door closed again, goosebumps already raising on his pale Irish skin. "Look at this!" he snapped, tossing the jug onto the counter and pointing to his arm. "Fucking bumps. I'm always cold, and I even a fucking milk jug feels heavy. I can't do anything anymore."
A small part of Bucky was glad that Steve couldn't do anything anymore, because it meant Steve couldn't get hurt by fighting Big Guys with Big Guns™, but he had known Steve Rogers for most of his early life and knew if Steve Rogers wanted to fight Big Guys with Big Guns™, he was going to find a way to do just that.
"Dammit, Buck," Steve shouted, reaching up on his tip-toes for the cereal Bucky had left on the top shelf where they had kept it when Steve was 6'1" instead of on the middle shelf where Steve had been leaving it the last few weeks. Bucky pushed back his chair and stepped up behind Steve, pressing against him as he pulled the box of Cheerios down.
("It's good for your heart, bud," Bucky insisted at the store when he put it in the cart with all the other heart healthy options he had become interested in cooking in the two days since Steve had lost his super-effects.
"Fuck you, bud" Steve had snapped, before blushing profusely and apologizing as a woman with a shopping cart glared heatedly at him and pushed her cart around theirs rather irately. Bucky had wanted to blow Steve in the grocery store bathroom, he was so turned on by the angry firecracker.)
Bucky pushed the Cheerios into Steve's arms and circled his arms around the smaller man's waist, kissing down his neck and sliding his hands down down down and under the waistband of the baggy sweats Steve still insisted fit him perfectly fine thank you very much.
"Buck," Steve groaned, and Jesus, how could his voice still be as deep in a 5'4" body as it was in the Star Spangled Man with a Plan's, Bucky wondered. He bit at Steve's ear and the box of Cheerios hit the floor. Fifteen minutes later, Bucky pushed the pantry door which had somehow closed on them back open and wiped at his mouth, grinning down at the breathless but smirking blond.
"You did just fine that time, bud," Bucky told him picking up the Cheerios. Steve's smirk dropped from his lips and he went back to scowling, ripping the box from Bucky's hands.
"Oh, great. I'm so glad every third time we try to have sex, we can actually finish without me fucking up in some way. Thanks a lot, Buck." Bucky sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair, still cold from the shower last night and smelling of mint leaves and rosemary.
Sometimes Bucky looks around his apartment in Stark Tower (They had relocated after the incident just in case the previously mentioned Big Guys with Big Guns™ decided to blow fucking holes through Steve's apartment again like Bucky had done that one time. "Which was totally not your fault, Bucky," he hears the Steve in his head say although it kinda technically was.) and wonders when he became so domesticated. Sure, it wasn't as homey as their place in Brooklyn, but there was a quilt on their bed, a gift from Natasha that she had picked up at a street market in Yugoslavia. (Croatia—Bucky had to remind himself. It's Croatia now.)
It wasn't just the quilt though. They watched movies about dogs and happy families, and Bucky cried watching a cartoon film about a tiny blue alien finding family on earth. Last week, he had started knitting a scarf for Steve in case the de-superfication lasted three more months and the New York air starts to get chilly. He had even picked out the yarn, because he thought it would bring out Steve's eyes.
This wasn't to say that Bucky was unhappy with how things were. He was very happy. Most days. He just… He used to be the Winter fuckin' Soldier. And now he baked cupcakes for his special little cupcake. For fucks sake, he used to be scary. Now he wears fucking cardigans.
"Hey, Steve?" he sat back down at the island while Steve grabbed two bowls from where they had been drying the night before and set them at the table.
"What Buck?" Steve snapped, dividing what was left in the bag between the two bowls.
"I'm still, like, scary, right?" Steve glanced up at him, crease between his brow, and Bucky felt the pressure of memory in the back of his mind, Steve laying on their couch, small, in a dusty ransacked apartment, charcoal on his hands as Bucky leaned against the wall opposite him, legs spread while Steve drew. Bucky had spent his day off staring at that crease between his brows, wanting to kiss Steve's focus gone until all that was left was dazed eyes and breathless whimpers.
Bucky readjusted in his seat, and Steve came over, placing a hand on Bucky's knees. Bucky avoided his gaze, staring down at the spoons lying beside the bowls. The fluorescent light on over the sink glinted off the metal spoon like sunlight reflecting off Bucky's arm. He stared at the white circle of light until Steve's hands pressed to both sides of his jaw, forcing Bucky's attention onto the man between his thighs.
"You really wanna know?" Bucky nodded, and Steve pressed a kiss to his nose. "The scariest."
Bucky frowned and pulled away. "I'm serious."
"So am I. You remember the Hydra base in Montenegro last March. One of the researchers had pissed himself after you stormed in the room." Bucky rolled his eyes. Researchers were nothing, but Steve continued, "And the leader of that Strike team almost started crying and probably would've had you not snapped his neck." Bucky had the decency to look bashful at that. Steve wasn't so on board with Bucky's kill first, ask question later method, but he often held his tongue when it came to Hydra bases. "And when I saw you on that bridge…" Steve said, "I thought, fuck, this guy is gonna hurt." Bucky glared at Steve, but the blond just pushed a finger through his long brown strands. "And when your mask came off, Buck, I swear to God, I've never been so afraid in my life."
Bucky pulled Steve closer in case the blond wanted to hide his face in Bucky's neck or cuddle or something that Bucky would be very much in support of, but Steve had never run from his fears before and he didn't now, forcing his eyes to meet Bucky's.
"Because I knew what you were capable of before Hydra had you, and I knew what Hydra could do, so I knew that someday I might… you might… We would see each other again, and only one of us would be allowed to make it out," Steve finished, throat tight, not really hungry anymore.
"Stevie..." His eyes bore into Bucky's, big and blue and wet. Bucky had a glimpse of his earlier memory, wanted them hazy and dazed and fucked out like his younger self had imagined them. Bucky wanted to try something.
"Stevie…" Bucky knew they were having a serious moment, but Bucky had suddenly had a very serious idea and it couldn't wait. They only had so long as Steve was in that body, and Steve must have seen something in his expression, because the crease was back between his brows.
"What?"
"Let's get high."
"What?"
"Let's get high. Let's get fucking stoned, bud."
"Oh, yeah, okay, bud," Steve responded sarcastically. Naturally. "In case, you hadn't noticed, bud, I can't—Oh."
"Yeah."
"Oh, Buck, that's brilliant." Steve suddenly looked far more interested in Bucky's idea than in eating breakfast, but then he remember his third time's a charm sex curse and deflated. "I can't breathe."
"You need your inhaler," Bucky asked confused, because usually when Steve couldn't breathe, his face was red and he was panting.
"No, I would be choking on the smoke. I'd just waste it all and have to go to the hospital." Bucky thought Steve was being a bit of a drama queen, but he didn't say so, because he preferred not having a black eye.
"I've got an idea," he said instead, grin spreading from his face to Steve's as the smaller man looked up at him.
And that was how Clint had found Bucky shotgunning smoke into Steve's mouth. Steve giggled, and Natasha watched, perched on the window sill, bowl of Lucky Charms in her hands. Clint's Lucky Charms.
"Aw, Nat. That was the last bowl." She put the bowl to her lips and swallowed down the milk, arching an eyebrow as she stepped around him to put the bowl in the dishwasher.
"Clint, keep an eye on the boys for a while, okay? Tony wanted me to check out some new batons, but I don't want them doing anything stupid. Like eating my cookie dough ice cream."
"You have cookie dough ice cream?" Clint asked, suddenly feeling like today was an ice cream for breakfast day. He opened the freezer but couldn't find any in there.
"You won't find it," she said, turned towards the elevators. "And if you do, you won't be alive long enough to enjoy it."
"Aw, Nat." The elevator doors slammed shut behind her—closed, Clint reminded himself. It was totally impossible for elevator doors to slam shut no matter who was in them, no matter how intimidating said person was.
"Hey, Buck," Steve groaned from the floor. He was sprawled out, spread eagle, a bowl of Cheese Puffs beside him. His hand laid in the bowl, fingertips covered in orange dust, and he seemed to have forgotten they were there, judging by the suddenly sad look on his face as he said, "Buck, there's no more Cheese Puffs. Buck, why are they gone." Bucky, still a super-soldier, totally sober, unable to even feel the strongest shit Bucky, dug a handful of Cheese Puffs out and fed one to his totally stupidly stoned boyfriend.
"Buck, you got some. You got me more Puffs. Bucky, you did it. I believed you could," Steve looked on the edge of tears, and holy fuck was Clint about to watch Captain fuckin' America cry? He wasn't. Instead, Steve seemed to notice Clint in the room and grinned wildly at him.
"Clint. Come get high with me."
And well, who was Clint to say no to Captain America.
"The thing about Scully is that she deserved so much better," Steve was saying. Clint looked up through the haze at the ceiling. The name sounded familiar. Scully. Scully. Like skulls. Every now and then back in the circus, a psychic would team up with the main troop as a side show, and one of the psychics had a skull. She had let Clint play with the skull. One time walking on the side of the road with Barney in Oklahoma, they'd come across a crow's skeleton. Clint had picked at the skull, watching the flies disperse around his hand.
Clint might have moaned, because a moment later, two big arms, one really hard and shiny, were pulling him up into a sitting position.
"Alright, birdman. I think you've had enough for now." Clint stared at the arm. He didn't want to take his eyes off the arm. Bad shit happened when you looked away.
"Buck," another voice was saying. "Buck, he's completely wasted." There was another giggled. Clint rolled his head sideways and watched the small guy next to him, pull at the tall metal arm guy's belt. The metal arm reached out and pushed the small body back against the couch. Huh, Clint thought. The small guy looked like Steve Rogers.
"When is Sam gonna get here," the not-really-Steve-Rogers asked. Clint tried to remember if he knew a Sam. There had been a Sam who always delivered his pizza one year. Then he'd graduated college, and a new guy picked up his route. Clint didn't like the new guy. He always smelled like tuna and Clint didn't even get anchovies on his pizza. The new guy had a stupid name too. Like Carl. Or Bucky. Or Ronald or something.
"Sam is in DC this weekend, bud," Metallica said. Clint liked Metallica. He liked his arm. It was shiny and gave Clint's eyes something to focus on when they kept wanting to drift off.
"I like when you call me 'bud'," Not-Steve-Rogers said. "I like it a lot, if you know what I mean. I wanna bang you while you call me that, if you know what I mean. I wanna ride you like a horse on a cowboy rides into the sunset at the end of those Hollywood flicks, if you know what I mean."
"Jesus, Rogers," Metallica groaned. "I get what you mean." Huh, so little guy's name is Rogers. That's not a name Clint would choose for a kid, but hey, some parents like to pretend it's still the fifties. Clint was rolling sideways again, and he couldn't see Metallica's arm anymore. Oh well, Clint thought. Time for an afternoon nap anyway.
When he came to, the Imitation Steve and Metallica were still there. Metallica's lips were moving and he was looking at Clint, but his voice had no volume so Clint rolled back over and went to sleep.
There's a kick in his side, and Clint rolled over. Of course. Just his fucking luck to get caught by some Russians again and have to be kicked into consciousness. When Clint rolled over, he was the standard living room carpet of Stark Tower and the only Russian in the room was motioning at his ears. He felt for his hearing aids, but they weren't there. When he looked down, he found them on the ground and put them carefully back in.
"What?" Clint asked.
"I said, 'About fucking time you woke up'," Nat replied nudging his side again.
"What?"
"Jesus, are you still high?"
"Aw, Nat," Clint whined, rolling back over to pull a pillow over his head. There was no pillow there though, and he was forced to his feet by an amused red head who dragged him into the kitchen.
"It's almost dinner time. I was sent to wake you up. We're eating together tonight."
"Where's…" Clint thought back on the two other Avengers who had been with him, but his head was still a fog of smoke and haze. "The others?"
"Steve and Bucky are fucking in your bedroom," Nat said.
"What?!" Clint's head seemed much clearer now.
"Yeah, apparently their floor was too far."
"It's one below mine! All they had to do was hit the button right beside mine on the elevator!" Nat laughed, digging a spoon into the ice cream box in her hand. Clint could've sworn it hadn't been there a moment before. "Oh, you're fucking with me."
"Go find out," Nat replied. "And shower while you're down there. You smell like weed."
Clint did go to find out and found his bed safe from any sex of any kind which momentarily made him sad. Instead, he found Lucky curled up at the top of the bed, digging into the pizza box Clint had left there the night before.
"Lucky, I need to get laid," he declared. The golden retriever eyed him up and now and went back to eating pizza. Clint sighed and fell back on his sheets.
An hour later, when everyone was heading up to Tony's floor which Jarvis had done his best to air out after their afternoon, Tony's screech could be heard coming from the kitchen.
"Not in my pantry, you Horny Old People™!"