Gently

23. Got Your Back

It started out as a joke, as a few upsets often do. As per usual, Tony Stark was the one to set the ball rolling over a late breakfast, where Clint found a few members of the team listening to him rant. "And once we've distracted them with Thor and his hypnotic flowing locks," he said, explaining how best to get rid of an overzealous crowd of fans, "we can just wind up our Tin Soldier and send him in to scare them off."

"Who's our Tin Soldier?" Jan asked.

Everyone followed the direction of Tony's fork, even Bucky – until he realised everyone was looking at him. "Me?"

"Really, Stark?" Natasha asked with an eye roll.

"Hey, it's not like I'm saying he doesn't have a heart. And I know he wasn't a woodcutter before he got all frozen – actually, I bet you used an axe once, didn't you? Please tell me they made you use an axe."

"Aren't axes a bit unsubtle for super-secret-ghost-assassins?" Peter asked from the wall.

"One would think," Tony said, "but then so was destroying pretty much every four-wheeled vehicle in Washington. Someone must've wound you up hard for that."

Bucky blinked. "I –"

"Seriously though, what did you have against those cars?"

"I bet it's 'cause they weren't Russian," Bobbi quipped.

Dropping down from where he was perched, Peter stood ramrod straight as he said, with an awful accent, "In Soviet Russia, cars no hit you – you hit cars!"

Jan giggled before joining in. "In Soviet Russia, you don't wear dresses – dresses wear you!"

"In Soviet Russia, you no watch TV. TV watches you," Bobbi said, smirking.

"In Soviet Russia, you don't lose memories, memories lose you."

Everyone gasped. "Stark, that was low!" Peter said.

He looked smug nonetheless. "Maybe. In Soviet Russia, you don't break the law. The law breaks you."

Natasha glowered at him from the bar. "This is a terrible joke and I may take drastic measures to stop it."

"… In Soviet Russia, you don't kill spiders –"

"Spiders go through every one your protected files, find all your drunken videos, and leak them onto YouTube with an encryption in a fictional language preventing you from taking them down."

"Natasha, no! Please don't do that – I was only gonna say spiders kill you. I thought you'd appreciate!"

Peter waved. "I did."

Clint watched the exchange with a slight smile on his lips. He was happy to just observe until he noticed that Bucky had disappeared from the dining room altogether. Wordlessly, he followed suit, checking the kitchen before finding him sat on a sofa in the lounge, head bowed, brow furrowed unhappily. It was a recognisable expression, and Clint felt a surge of sympathy (and guilt – he should have seen earlier, should have made the others stop). Entering the room slowly, he cleared his throat. "Hey."

Bucky looked up sharply, ducking his head again when he saw who it was. "Hey."

"You alright?" Clint asked, sitting down beside him.

Blowing out a breath, he ran a hand through his hair. "I'm fine," he mumbled, "it's just…"

"Still a bit fresh, huh?" Bucky nodded. "If it helps any, they did the same thing to me when they found out I'm deaf. Well, by 'they' I mean Tony I guess. He'll lay off if you ask him. Or you can just get Pepper to… What?"

Bucky was looking at him oddly. "You're deaf?"

Oh. "Uh, yeah."

"But… you can hear me…"

Unable to help himself, Clint laughed. "Steve said the same thing," he told him, twisting to show Bucky the small device tucked behind his ear. "There're these things called hearing aids now. Can't hear a thing when I take 'em out, but they're S.H.I.E.L.D's best and I can't imagine not having them. Of course, now Stark's gotten it into his head that he can make better ones, so I they might be a bit bigger next time you see me with them in."

Still staring at him, Bucky licked his lips (which Clint tried very hard not to stare at in return), and hesitantly asked, "How'd it happen? If you don't mind saying, I mean."

"Nah, it's no biggie. It was actually my fault anyway – got myself surrounded, knew I was a goner if I didn't do anything, so I let off a sonic arrow and ended up caught in the blast." He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck as flickers of memories played at the back of his mind. "Stupid, really."

"I don't know," Bucky said softly. "Sounds like a do or die situation to me."

Now Clint did stare at him; the first time he told that story, the reactions had been "Why did you use a sonic?" or "How come you didn't get out of the way?", but Bucky's words implied that he… understood. That he might even have done the same. In that moment, Clint felt himself fall a little more for the former assassin.

"Did it hurt?"

He thought about it. "A little."

Bucky laughed. "Now it's you who sounds like Steve."

Feeling a sudden lift in his spirits, an idea sprang to Clint's mind. "JARVIS?" he called, tilting his head back. "Who's on the S.H.I.E.L.D range at the minute?"

"The latest batch of trainee recruits, Agent Barton," the AI answered. "There are seven in total, all being supervised by Agent Hill, but a few lanes are not currently being used."

"Perfect." Grinning, Clint stood up. "Come on," he said to Bucky, "let's go."

"What?" Bucky said with a frown, even as he rose to his feet.

"We're going to the range."

"But the JARVIS said there were already people there."

Clint spun on his heel. "One, it's just JARVIS, no 'the' necessary. Two, there are still some lanes open, which means three, we can go in and really test those new recruits."

A glint appeared faintly in Bucky's eye as they began walking. "How?"

He chuckled. "Trust me, man – if anything's gonna lift your mood after that, then it's the expression on seven trainee agents' faces as you annihilate your target with a near-perfect score before they can even reload a clip." Bucky grinned at the idea, and Clint wondered if they could make range visits a regular thing.

AN: Prompt(s): "Maybe the Avengers are getting more comfortable with Bucky being around, and someone jokes about his time as a brainwashed assassin and Clint sees it really upsets him so he like stands up for Bucky or something?", "Could you write Bucky finding out about Clint's hearing? Or maybe Clint isn't deaf yet and he loses it after he and Bucky are already together and they both have to adjust."

I apologise for this taking so long. My writing mojo took a holiday. (It's now slowly coming back, so keep prompting, by all means!)