Chapter 13 - Confessions

It wasn't until that night before Clint and Bucky discovered a new downside to the soldier controlling the archer. When everyone headed off to sleep, no matter how tired Clint felt, he couldn't fall asleep. He tried for nearly three hours before giving up. Slowly, he padded into his main room and tried to turn on the TV but hesitated. And it wasn't his indecision that made him hesitate. In a situation like there, alone in a somewhat hostile place, Clint would be totally on guard. Meaning, no sleeping, no loud noises. Just being still and alert, waiting for something to happen. Groaning as best he could, Clint left his room and headed right to Bucky's.

"Clint?" Bucky questioned when he heard a knock on his door and it opened to show the archer guiltily standing there. Clint nodded, looking utterly defeated. "What's wrong?"

"I... I can't sleep," Clint admitted. Bucky frowned. "I tried. I'm exhausted but... In this situation, unless I have someone guarding my back... I'd be staying alert."

"So, you can't relax in your room," Bucky summarized. Clint nodded. Groaning, Bucky shifted his body to open up the door some more and waved the archer toward the bedroom. Pausing for half a second, Clint obeyed and headed there. Bucky was only a second behind. "Go to sleep. I'll watch."

Clint felt his shoulder sag out of the tension it had been in. With Bucky on watch duty, he should be okay to sleep. Nodding, Clint headed to the bed and got himself under the covers. He heard as Bucky pulled a chair out from behind the desk nearby. Feeling safer, Clint relaxed a bit more and started to do his routine of falling asleep as if he was on a mission. Half an hour later, Clint noticed it wasn't going to work. Moaning, he sat up and looked to Bucky. The soldier jerked his head up at the sound, watching Clint with wary eyes. "Still can't."

"You... You want me to order you?" Bucky wondered. Clint frowned, looking to the bed sheets. Did he? After how most of the orders he had gotten from Bucky, he could think of some horrible downsides. Like, him never waking up because his mind never fully focused on Bucky's order to wake. Slowly, he shook his head. Bucky sighed, shifting in his seat. "What do you think would help?"

"I thought the guard..." Clint muttered but didn't finish. It was clear they both saw how that went.

"Has... Has anyone cuddled you outside of the war?" Bucky questioned. Clint's head snapped up to stare at Bucky. He had never thought about that. Natasha or Coulson would typically either lay beside him or in a nearby bed. Could the distance be an issue?

"No," Clint whispered before shifting slightly in the bed and patting the other side. Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Try it. Just... Just lay next to me."

Nodding, Bucky got up and settled himself under the sheets beside the archer. Giving him a soft smile, Clint laid back down, curling himself so his back was to Bucky. Having typically been the little spoon in every shared sleeping arrangement, it was clear that the archer was giving Bucky permission. Bucky shifted to lay on his back, his right arm gently touching the archer. Clint sighed and closed his eyes, determined to fall asleep this time. An hour later, Clint was asleep but he wasn't the only one. Bucky had drifted off as well.

Both men jerked into awareness when they heard a loud banging on the door to Bucky's rooms. Bucky tried to get up but found he was caught. Looking down, Bucky could see that Clint had turned himself around to face the soldier, curling himself to having their legs and arms tangled together underneath the sheets. Surprised, Clint tried to unravel himself from Bucky. But as they moved, they just made it worse. The sheets twisting with them almost like a Chinese finger trap.

"Bucky! You awake? It's like noon!" Sam's voice cried. That made both men scramble a bit faster to unlatch themselves. "We were hoping you might know where Clint is as well. He wasn't in his room."

"Clint's fine," Bucky called back, grunting when Clint accidentally kneed him in the stomach.

"You okay?" Sam worriedly asked.

"Fine!" Bucky answered only to make Clint grunt when he whacked Clint with his metal arm.

"I'm coming in," Sam alerted. Before Bucky could cry out a no, Sam was already inside and staring through the open door to see both snipers trapped together in bed. Clint and Bucky stilled, staring back at the air-man. After a moment, Clint turned sheepish while Bucky and Sam went bright red.

"This isn't what it looks like?" Clint half joked and half questioned. Sam opened his mouth to say something before simply shaking his head and turned leaving the room. There was a long pause before Clint and Bucky turned to look at each other. After maybe five seconds, they burst into utter and complete laughter as the stress and panic faded. "Oh my god! Did you see his face?"

"That was hilarious!" Bucky agreed moments before they finally sobered and looked down at the mess of sheets and limbs. "Okay, we should really get out of this."

"Yeah."

Five minutes later, they finally finished untangling themselves. Thinking back on their panic, Bucky was half surprised that the sheets never ripped. What the heck were they made of that two super soldiers couldn't do any damage? Especially with one of them having a metal arm. Either way, they were free. Clint quickly scampered off to his room to get dressed while Bucky headed to his shower and then dressed. Once he was done, Clint met him just before the expansive dining room which seemed mostly clear of people but still had some food and drinks out and ready for those who wanted to slip by and grab something. Clint quickly headed to the coffee.

"Liquid life!" he cried. Bucky snorted. Even during the war, Clint had been obsessed with coffee. He drank it at every opportunity possible even though he complained at the taste. It wasn't until Bucky first started staying with Clint (ironically before the time travel bit) that he realized how deep his coffee habit was. He drank as much coffee a day as Steve, Laura, and himself combined on other drinks.

"You and that coffee," Bucky chuckled. Clint stilled for half a second and glanced back warily at Bucky. The soldier frowned wondering what was wrong before understanding dawned on him. "Shit, did I just-"

"No. You didn't. Just... You saying that suddenly had me imagine that you did order me not to have any anymore," Clint replied, sheepishly holding a hand to the back of his head. "I know you won't. Wouldn't... But, it..."

"Just occurred to you how much I could make your life a living hell?" Bucky guessed. Clint snorted. That was one way of putting it. Bucky's shoulder dropped in sadness. "This is why I didn't want to do this."

"Hey, hey!" Clint cried, holding his hands up to stop Bucky from getting himself worked up. "It's okay. You won't do that. I know you won't. Just... My stupid paranoia getting to me."

"Won't be paranoia if I accidentally do it," Bucky grumbled. Clint sighed. There was just no way to prove to Bucky that he was trustworthy with this massive amount of power over Clint's life. The archer's shoulders sagged in defeat again as he looked to the ground. His eyes began stinging but he certainly wasn't going to let Bucky know that.

"Do... Do you want me to leave you alone from now on? Just stay away?" Clint softly asked. Bucky winced.

"No!" he nearly screamed. Clint jerked up to look at the soldier. The sight made Bucky wince. "No, it's... It's not that."

"What-"

"I feel like I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make you do something bad," Bucky moaned. Clint frowned and walked forward.

"Unless you call that damn code name, you shouldn't be able to order me to do anything," Clint mentioned. Bucky looked away from the archer and it made Clint frown. "Is there something I'm missing?"

"Sometimes they didn't always call me Soldat or Asset. They just told me what to do," Bucky admitted. Clint raised an eyebrow. That would have been nice to know. "I didn't think about that till last night when I got a... Nightmare or memory of someone doing it and me obeying."

"Well, only way we know for certain is if you order me to do something stupid," Clint retorted. Bucky looked back to Clint and raised an eyebrow.

"Like what? Tell you to jump up and down?"

"Maybe. Whatever you feel comfortable with." Bucky shook his head. He really, really, really didn't want to do this but Clint was right. They had to know. Damn, Clint was getting a lot right lately. Since when did the 'human disaster' have more common sense than the rest of them? Sighing, he looked around, trying to find something to have Clint do that wouldn't make the archer mad at him. After finding nothing around, he looked back at Clint. A flash of memory from the war, when Clint flipped over Steve and him in an effort to get away from Dugan.

"I order you to flip over," Bucky demanded. For a moment nothing happened but as Bucky watched, Clint's smile was slowly beginning to vanish. His face began to look pained. "Forget that order."

"Well... Damn," Clint grunted, looking toward the ground. Bucky could order him around without the code name Hydra had given him. That wasn't good.

"I told you. I'm going to mess up sooner or later," Bucky pressed. Clint shook his head.

"We'll figure something out. I promise. Maybe you can order me to give you a sign when you give me an order that I don't or can't follow?" Clint wondered. Bucky shook his head.

"No. We're already too deep into upsetting territory for both of us. Let... Let's just leave it for now," the soldier mumbled before heading over to the table. But as he passed, Clint grabbed hold of Bucky's arm. Surprised, Bucky looked over to him. Crap, had he given Clint an order? What did he say? What could the order have been?

"We will talk about it sooner than later," Clint informed. Bucky nodded, getting Clint to release him a moment later. Then Clint spun on his heel and headed directly over to the coffee still waiting. Bucky sighed deeply. He was in so much trouble.

Bucky and Clint ended up having the rest of the day to themselves. Any time Clint looked to be about to talk about the damn control thing, Bucky just leveled him with a glare. It wasn't an order but it was enough for Clint to smartly not bring the topic up. By dinner time, both men were a little surprise that after the greeting they had gotten from Sam when they first woke up that no one had come to find them. But when they entered the dinning room and saw all their friends standing just past the door with their arms crossed over their chests, the snipers knew. They had been waiting to gang up on them.

"Uh, hey guys," Clint greeted them even as Bucky went completely still, staring at them. "Something we're missing?"

"More like something you didn't tell us," Sam countered. Clint furrowed his brow, his gaze shifting to the still frozen Bucky before settling back on Sam.

"If this is about what you saw-"

"Of course it's about that!" Sam nearly cried. Bucky and Clint winced. "Wanda told me about the trigger words being used."

"That's true. I asked for Bucky to use them on me," Clint confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest. Sam gritted his teeth and Clint suddenly knew where the air-man was likely going to take this. "Are you serious right now?" he demanded, looking over Wanda, T'Challa and Sam carefully even as he took a few steps past Bucky to further enhance his anger at them. Wanda twitched slightly, tilting her head slightly away. Clint huffed and tossed his arms up. "It was my god damn choice!"

"Clint, we are merely concerned," T'Challa replied. Clint shook his head, taking a step back.

"No. You guys are kinda looking like fucking assholes. Bucky would never do what you guys are thinking," Clint snarled. Bucky winced, now understanding where the conversation was going. They had been thinking that Bucky ordered Clint to stay in his bed. Maybe even have... A romantic occasion. He blanched. They weren't too off base with that thinking. Bucky could have done it, even though he knew he didn't and Clint knew he didn't. "I can't believe you would even think that!"

"That's why we want to talk," Sam tried to soothe. Clint shook his head.

"Talk? You wanna fucking talk about the fact that I willingly gave up my control to Bucky and the first god damn thing he did was take fucking advantage of me?" Clint asked. Stating it that way, Sam could see how this was a bad idea. Bucky's face turned pained and pale. His worst fears of what he'd be able to do, while hadn't happened, was being assumed. Clint stepped back once again, his hand shifting behind him to grab onto Bucky's flesh arm and squeeze him lightly. "You guys can go fuck yourself. I'm fine. Bucky's never going to do that, and I really don't think it should be your concern at this point."

"Clint-" Wanda whispered. Clint whirled on her.

"Don't you dare. You were there when Bucky first triggered me. You heard him order me to protect you. After all that, and knowing both of us for as long as you have, you think it's possible for Bucky to have ordered me into his bed?" Wanda winced. She knew this was a bad idea. "You wanna know what the fuck happened? It was a small accident in wording over me trying to ignore orders. I couldn't sleep. So I headed to Bucky's room to try and rest. When I couldn't sleep with him sitting nearby, I... I asked him to join me in bed. He had laid flat on his back and I laid on my side, back to him.

"We slept like that in the war. Hell, I was little spoon to Steve for fucks sake! There was nothing like that going on. I have no idea how we got ourselves tangled with each other and when we tried to separate, the sheets tightened on us, making it hard to escape," Clint snapped. A small smile appeared on T'Challa's face as he imagined the two super soldiers trying to desperately pull apart before Sam saw them. Sam stepped forward.

"Look, I'm-"

"You better be sorry," Clint growled at the air-man. Sam winced, eyes looking down to the ground. "You know what. I'm not even fucking hungry anymore." He turned to look at Bucky and saw the Sergeant nod his head. Nodding back, Clint looked to the others. "If you wanna talk to us later, don't. We'll come to you when we're fucking ready."

With that, Clint spun and gently pulled Bucky out of the room. As they passed the doors, Shuri and Ramonda came down the hall and noticed them. Once Clint saw them, he shook his head. He wasn't going to tell them what happened. Now out of sight from T'Challa, Wanda and Sam, Bucky was walking under his own power and so Clint dropped his hand. The duo quickly headed out of sight but had to stop at the next intersection. Turning left would potentially lead them to Bucky's room. Right would lead them to Clint's. Going straight would lead to more parts of the palace. Clint looked to Bucky, waiting for him to make the decision. Bucky chose to go straight. Without question or orders, Clint followed. Ten minutes or so later, Bucky led them to the Royal Gardens.

"You okay?" Clint softly asked. Bucky shook his head no. "You know they were out of fucking line, right?"

"I don't know. Clint, that was what I feared! I... I... Was it really your decision to come see me last night?" Bucky countered. Clint frowned.

"Of course. Why would you think differently?" Clint wondered. Bucky sighed, turning to look at some rare Wakandan plant.

"I," Bucky started before stopping. After a moment he closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm worried that any one of the orders I gave you before influenced your choice in coming to me for help. You could have easily gone to Wanda, or Sam," Bucky mentioned. Clint huffed.

"I could have," he agreed. Bucky winced. "But, honestly. What would I have said to Wanda? Because Bucky told me to act like myself I can't sleep? Or even better, I'm so fucking tense and paranoid that I can hardly close my eyes? And then Sam. Don't you think he would have spent nearly the rest of the night talking to me about what issues I have that make it hard to sleep? He doesn't know any of my history. Anything about the circus, my dad, my brother."

"I hardly know any of it," Bucky whispered. Clint sighed.

"Look, out of every choice I had, you were the best one. You know what it's like to be controlled. You know what it's like to be a spy on guard. And you know how I tend to sleep. Of everyone here, you are kinda the closest person I got to a real friend. Wanda's great and all but she's more like an adopted daughter. Sam, I hardly spoke with him outside of the Raft and building of New Asgard. And T'Challa was mainly after the first attack from Hydra," Clint listed. Bucky turned to stare at Clint. "I didn't want to go to anyone else."

"But-" Bucky began to say but paused when Clint shook his head.

"Bucky, I-" Clint tried to interrupt before realizing what he was going to say. He swallowed deeply and closed his eyes in slight fear. When he opened them he saw Bucky's extremely curious gaze. Sighing, Clint decided to give in. "Laura had noticed this before Tony called about New Asgard."

"Noticed? Wait, when Stevie and I were traveling with you in the RV?" Bucky questioned. Clint nodded. "She noticed what?"

"Well... Guess I should probably put it this way. I'm bisexual," Clint answered. Bucky frowned, wondering what that had to do with what Laura noticed. How was being bisexual the best way to...

"You like me?" Bucky inquired, his voice cracking in surprise. Clint blushed but nodded.

"A bit more than that. Only got worse after... Well, during the war," Clint muttered. "Never said anything back then cause I was afraid of it messing too much with history and shit. But when I returned, there wasn't seriously a good time to try and bring it up."

"And then Thanos and the SNAP," Bucky added. Clint nodded.

"It was hard enough losing Laura, Cooper, Lila, Nate and Pietro. But to have Nat tell me that you were gone too," Clint explained. "I couldn't take it."

"That's why you turned into Ronin?" Clint snorted but nodded.

"I couldn't understand why the SNAP took away so many good people and left so many bad people. I couldn't handle that either. So, I tried to some degree to fix it. Too many innocents were getting screwed over property, jobs, relationships. They didn't need to deal with a mafia or drug runners or any of that shit. I needed to keep them safe. Especially considering I couldn't do it for those I cared for," Clint grumbled. Bucky tried to keep his face blank but still could feel himself giving Clint a pained and guilty look. Thankfully for him, Clint wasn't looking at him. "And then the Return. I don't know what's worse. Having you guys disappear or having you all return to find a completely different man than you knew."

"You weren't completely different," Bucky tried to argue. Clint barked out a harsh laugh.

"I wasn't me. I was hardly a shadow of me," Clint snapped. Bucky could feel guilt flowing into him. While he hadn't spent much time with Clint after defeating Thanos, when he first saw Clint after finding out about the fake Hydra information, the archer that had been before him then- No, the swordsman he had seen before didn't seem anything like the 'drunkard' that Sam and him found. "It was that man that had gotten Nat killed, Bruce to lose an arm and Tony..."

"No. They made their choices," Bucky sharply pointed out. "Just like Stevie did."

"Natasha... I was supposed to be the one who died," Clint mumbled. Bucky paled. He could have heard what he just heard. "The Soul Stone needed someone sacrificed. I was going to do it. Natasha... We fought. And..."

"She won," Bucky exhaled. Clint snorted.

"Yeah, she won," he hissed out. "Not much of a win when it killed her."

"Clint, she saved you and half the universe." Clint, feeling tears forming and already starting to slip out, looked to the sky with an indignant laugh.

"She shouldn't have worried about saving me. She had so much more she could have done."

"Clint, I'm sure she had a good... No a great reason as to her decision."

"Yeah. Me getting back to Laura and the kids. Returning to normal life. Wanna know what didn't happen? Returning to them. I'm still not allowed to be around her or the kids. So, I've still lost everything." Bucky quickly moved to grab Clint's shoulders in a near mirror move to what Clint had done while begging for Bucky to control him. Clint snapped to attention, his gaze catching Bucky's.

"You haven't lost everything. I'm here. I should have been here for you before. I shouldn't have left you to wallow for nine months. Clint, you mean so much to me," Bucky informed. Clint felt his breathe hitch in surprise. "I... I think I might love you too."

On time again!

Darius is well. No one sick. Everyone doing good. I've personally been having attitude issues this week. Mostly due to my meds getting messed up so my body chemistry is all messed up. Hardly wrote anything this week but got a decent amount of cleaning done, so, yay me. Too bad Darius comes in right after and messes it all back up. Being a parent is endless cleaning and considering I never used to do it much before... Well... You can image the mess of my house. Lol. Also doesn't help that we've been here for two years and I still haven't finished unpacking.