Gently

13. Learn and Re-Learn

"JARVIS, you know where Agent Barnes is right now?"

"He is currently in his own quarters, Agent Barton."

"Thanks man."

"I suppose you would like me to engage my privacy mode upon your arrival?"

"Dude, if you weren't a computer I'd owe you one."

"Several, probably."

Ignoring the last comment, Clint quickly made his way up the tower to Bucky's apartment. Having just come back from an assignment on the opposite side of the country, he wanted to catch up on everything that he'd missed, both S.H.I.E.L.D-wise and personal-wise; but when he stopped outside the door to the exclamation of "Motherfucker!" – which had to be loud if even he could hear it through a few centimetres of thick wood – he became a little concerned. He knocked anyway, taking note of the terse "It's open," that followed.

"Someone sounds cranky," he mused with a smile, closing the door behind him. "Miss me, soldier?"

Sat at his dining table, Bucky turned round to look at him, a slow grin spreading over his lips. Clint didn't miss the change in expression from 'pissed' to 'relieved', though. "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Bucky murmured.

Clint's smile grew as he watched him stand. "Who's got sore eyes?" he joked, stepping forward to meet him halfway. The feel of Bucky's lips on his, the smooth-rough touch of his flesh hand on his jaw, was what he'd been waiting for since leaving for Salem all those weeks ago, and was so much better than he remembered. Judging by the way Bucky kissed him back, firm and hungry and just a little bit filthy, he was thinking the same thing. "Reunion sex?"

Bucky stilled, blowing out a frustrated sigh that made Clint's skin tingle where hot breath ghosted over him. "I can't."

"Why not?"

Stepping back he gestured at his metal arm, which looked stiff at his side. "We got a call out to Atlanta a couple of days ago. Hulk got thrown into a building, some of it landed on the arm. Stark finished this one this morning, but it's, uh…" He grimaced. "Slow to warm up."

Clint processed all of that, quickly checking Bucky for any other signs of injury. "Well that explains 'motherfucker', I guess."

"You heard that?"

"I heard it."

Bucky sent a glare back towards the table. "They're making me do these stupid tasks to get it to work," he explained bitterly, "but I can't even do the simplest things. It's bullshit!" Clint raised an eyebrow at him, and he led him over to the scene of a small crime: a mug lay in pieces by one of the kitchen cupboards, which had also been wounded when said mug had impacted against it – quite forcefully, by the looks of things. "I couldn't even get a pencil into fucking cup."

"Who's making you do physical therapy?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D is." He threw his arms up, the metal one moving reluctantly and out of sync with its biological counterpart. "I'm off duty until it's fully functional. Which, at this rate, will be never."

Recognising that Bucky was unnecessarily cross with himself, Clint gestured back towards the table and got him sat down. "Pencil in mug's pointless," he said. "You need to be doing something useful with it."

"Like what?" Bucky asked sullenly.

"Well, it's your motor functions you're working on, right? How about trying some ASL?"

He frowned. "ASL?"

"Sign language."

"Oh." Bucky looked down at his arm, then back at Clint, scepticism plain on his face. "You sure that'll work?"

Clint shrugged. "Worth a try, right? And better than taking out your frustration on a mug and cupboard."

"Stark can replace everything in here ten times over."

"Not the point. Come on, Buck," he soothed, taking his warm hand between his own, rubbing the knuckles encouragingly. "This is a great opportunity. You get to work on using the arm again, and I have someone besides Coulson to talk to when I can't hear what anyone's saying."

"I've seen you communicate with Stark using his phone." Clint gave him a look and he rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine, I'll try it."

"Great," he grinned, giving the hand he held a squeeze. "Only, don't expect things to go smoothly at first."

"Yeah, I know, recovery over time and all that shit." Bucky shot him a wry smirk. "You're starting to sound like the docs."

"I'll take that as a compliment to my worldly wisdom rather than a complaint about my realistic attitude." That earned him a derisive snort, and he chuckled. "Alright. We'll start with the alphabet; this is 'a'." He held his right hand up in a fist, watching as Bucky struggled to copy it with his left. "There you go. Now 'b'."

"You do realise that technically I'm learning this backwards, right?" the soldier grumbled as he opened his fist out jerkily.

Clint shrugged. "So we'll spend some of our quality time sorting that out. Right now, it's not important – just as long as it speeds up your recovery. This is 'c'."

Brow pinching as he forced his fingers to bend, Bucky mumbled, "This feels like re-learning how to use my arm altogether."

"Well how did you do it in Russia?" Clint asked without thinking.

Bucky's eyes dropped to his lap. "I slept, and they… programmed."

Mentally berating himself for bringing up the touchy subject, Clint nudged his knee. "Show me a-b-c."

It took two hours for Bucky to learn and, somewhat roughly, sign the whole alphabet left-handed. There were times he came close to snapping, angry at the way his hand refused to co-operate with his thoughts and disappointed that he couldn't form the shapes and gestures, but Clint was there to reassure and calm him each time he let slip a growl or a cuss. He managed a small smile by the end of his first full run-through, though, and Clint for one was happy with his progress. Tired, Bucky pushed himself up from the table, good hand running over his face and through his hair. "How long did this take you?"

"Learning ASL?" Clint shrugged. "A few months, but I was having crash-courses and practising fluidly every day." He followed Bucky up from the table, taking hold of his wrists and kissing him sweetly. "You're doing well, Buck. Any progress is better than no progress."

Rolling his eyes again, Bucky snorted. "Either you were undercover as a therapist in Salem or you're turning into one at my expense."

"Negativity is a bad –"

"So that reunion sex you mentioned?"

"That's a diversion tactic." Bucky's kiss clearly translated into a promise of dirtier things to come, tongue running along Clint's bottom lip as it was held between sharp but gentle teeth that were slow to release, and he was left breathless when Bucky eventually let him go. "A damn good one… Let's go."

AN: Prompt: "Clint teaches Bucky sign language to help with his physical therapy (either Bucky's bionic arm needed recalibration after a nasty fight or it had to be replaced altogether)." Accidentally first wrote this with Clint teaching British Sign Language - of which I know the alphabet - and had to go research American Sign Language specially. BSL is so much easier, just sayin... ;-)