Bad Habit
Clints POV
Clint found Natasha talking to some tall blonde guy, who was leaning against the wall, holding one of the plastic red cups that were now scattered all around the house. Clint quickly walked over to Natasha, the smile on her face brightening as she sees him, unfolding her arm to welcome him into the conversation. She wraps her arm around his shoulder squeezing slightly, “Clint!! This is Thor, we were just talking-”
“Yeah, yeah hey.”, he said in the direction of the much taller man, glancing up to him for a moment sparing him a half assesed smile and wave.
Turning back to Natasha, “We got to go. Bucky is acting so strange, I promised we would meet him outside near the gates in five minutes ' - Clint checks his phone - ”... which was six minutes ago, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.” he finishes before pulling Nat from her spot in front of the tall, long haired man. Clint heard Nat quickly say her goodbyes before being dragged through the crowds of people.
They make it outside, Clint still holding Natashas hand, like hes scared the second he lets go she’ll walk off. As they are walking down the stone driveway, lit only by small lights poking out the ground illuminating very little of their surroundings. He sees Bucky, hands in pockets, shoulders scrunched trying to hold in as much body heat as possible, shivering from the fall air… Clint notes that Bucky came with a jacket, which he clearly seems to be lacking now.
Once they reach him, Clint finally lets go of Natashas arm. She stays solid at Clints side, contradicting his earlier worries completely. The air between all three off them is awkward and uncomfortable, he looks between his two friends trying to figure out what happened that he missed. As he opens his mouth to ask, Bucky starts walking off in the direction of their flat, plucking out a cigarette before placing it to his mouth to light. Nat follows suit a few steps behind Bucky, arms wrapped around her body, gaze stuck to the floor.
Clint watches them as they walk off without him, not saying a word, hes can feel the rise of anger in his chest- frustrated with his friends that they aren’t communicating with him and frustrated with himself for not having one single fucking clue whats going off. Once he breaks from his confused and slightly dazed thoughts he realised Nat and Bucky are now several feet in front of him, so he jogs to catch up to them.
They continue to walk down the isolated, hedge lined street, the only light coming from the soft glow of the moon and Buckys cigarette, one behind the other in a line. Not a single word has been uttered for the past ten minutes, leaving Clint to stew in his frustrated and angered thoughts only causing his chest to become tighter with emotions, until they finally busted.
He stops in the middle of the street, dragging his feet across the gravel causing Bucky to turn around at the sound and Natasha to look up from her feet, he looks between his two friends, eyebrows furrowed and eyes dark with rage, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”
No reply. So he asks again, this time softer.
“Guys, for the love of God someone tell me what the fuck is wrong!”
“I told you. I’m just tired.” Bucky finally spoke, just above a whisper. Kicking a loose stone next to his foot. Clint can tell that he's bull shitting him, but at least he got Bucky to say something so he lets it slide.
He turns his gaze to Natasha, who just shrugs at him. The tightness in his chest returns after Nat continues to deny him. He takes a deep breath, to calm himself, “Great, if my two best friends aren’t talking I want McNuggets. Will you deny your high, slightly drunk, upset friend chicken nuggets?”
Neither of them protest this idea.
The next morning, Clint wakes first. Which never happens. Where the fuck was everyone? He wanders into the kitchen, flicking the coffee machine on. It’s definitely a caffeine sort of morning.
While he’s waiting for his coffee, the door to Natasha’s room creaks open and a sluggish looking corpse of Natasha shuffles out.
He gives her a warm smile, “Hey, making coffee want the first batch?”
She looks up, she has rings of black around her eyes from where she clearly fell asleep with her makeup on, making her look like a panda. Other than that, and her mannerisms, there’s no other proof of the treacherous party from the night before. She nods her head slowly, walking over to the kitchen to join him.
There’s a minute of silence between the two, just the sound from the coffee machine filtering through the air. Clint pours the black liquid into the head of Hello Kitty, a cup Bucky bought -god knows why- every time you try drinking out of it the ears nearly poke your eyes out, and slides it over to the sleepy Natasha.
“So… you going to tell me what went off between you two last night?” Clint asked, narrowing his eyes on her.
“I kissed Bucky.” Natasha says deadpan before bringing the cup to her lips, careful to not blind herself from the ears.
Clint looks at her wide eyed, massive smile on his face. He’s known for years how in love Nat is with Bucky, she admitted it to him on a night out after throwing her guts up. He’s been waiting for something to finally happen between the two of them, even though Bucky is very quiet during the whole ordeal, Clint can tell there's been something going on between them.
“That’s great!” Clint exclames, throwing his hands in the air. Followed by a groan from Natasha, rubbing the palms of her hands into her eyes.
Clint deflated, looked at her more intently, “Not great?”
Natasha looks up between her hands, still on her face, “No not great Clint. Not great at all. I shouted at him and said that he was like any other straight white man, and then kissed him??”
“You Mr Darcyed him.” Clint added.
Natasha looked up, eyebrows furrowed.
“You know like that book they made us read in 9th grade? With the guy and the girl?”
Natasha just kept her blank stare.
“Alright… Carry on. What happened next?”
“I don’t know. Then he shoved me off him and I didn’t see him for the rest of the night.”
Before Clint could answer a bang from the bathroom came rushing through the air, breaking the serious moment they were just having. They both turned towards the noise, Natasha still not taking her hands fully away from her face, and were welcomed to a soggy haired, half naked Bucky. He kind of looked like a lost puppy, standing outside in the rain, looking through the window into a nice warm house.
Without saying a word Clint raised a cup of coffee in his direction, trying to lore the puppy in with treats, while Nat just stood up with her coffee and walked to the couch. Bucky took the offering of caffeine, shook his wet hair a little, splashing Clint in the process and sat down opposite him.
“I lost my favourite jacket.” Bucky says blankly.
Clint looks at him bewildered, after everything that happened last night, and from what Nat just told him- all Bucky has to say is ‘I lost my favourite jacket’. Clint could feel the angry in him rising again. Buckys still not going to tell him what happened? Because something CLEARLY happened. And he broke Natashas heart? Fair enough Nat could have definitely gone about it differently, but Bucky had no right to be sat there drinking Clints coffee, acting like nothing happened, brooding over his fucking stupid jacket.
“That sucks man.” he breaths out before walking over to the couch where Nat was slumped watching modern family, not looking back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Steve POV
Steve woke to the feeling of his brain about to explode. He sat up with a groan, rubbing his hands over his face.
“Fuuuucckkkk”, he whispered to himself.
Not only could he feel his heart beat in his head, his mouth was dry and his throat felt like sandpaper, all his limbs ached, and he had a sharp pain ping through his arm as he moved.
“What the fuck happened?”, he questioned to no one but the air.
He flopped back down in his bed, bouncing slightly from the force. Rolled over and grabbed his phone, that he hadn’t charged, ‘just another thing to add to this list’ he thought to himself. As he turned on his phone he winced at the brightness, before reading the hundreds of messages lined up on his home screen.
Peggy <3: How is the party?
Peggy <3: From the silence, I take its going good
Peggy <3: Steve?? it’s like 11:30 American time… are you alive?
Sam: You okay? Where’d you run off too?
Peggy <3: 12:46… if you aren’t back I know your dads going to flip
GBPP: Hey sweetums hope your dad didn’t murder you in your sleep and you’re having a hot detailed dream about me- ik i sure will about that ass
Sam: hope everythings good your dad didn’t seem too impressed
Peggy <3: you better of had the best night of your life for ignoring me for this long young man
Peggy <3: give me updates as soon as you can. I need to know you’re alive.
As Steve takes in these messages his heart begins to race, stress from the state he must have been in when he came home last night… his dad must have witnessed from Sam and Tony’s messages- he can’t even being to fathom how mad he’s going to be.
He noticed the time says 8:30 am, so he gives Peggy a quick message back.
Stevie Boy: I’m alive. Barely. Going back to sleep, shall update you on the antics later, if my dad doesn’t kill me first
Peggy <3: I can SMELL the tea from here
Peggy <3: glad you’re not dead <3
With that Steve rolls back over and falls back to sleep, deciding to deal with the wrath of his dad later when he doesn’t feel like complete shit.
---------------------------------------------------------
Natashas POV
Natasha and Clint spent the whole morning cuddling and watching modern family, warped in blankets. They hadn't seen Bucky since Clint abruptly ended the conversation, and Nat is both happy about this but she also misses her best friend and is worried about him.
Natasha slowly wiggles out from under Clints shoulder, grabbing the blanket to form a cape around her shoulders.
Clint looks up at her with a confused face, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go check on Buck, I’m worried about him.”
“Are you sure that's the best idea Nat? I can go check if you want.”
“I’ll be okay, we have to talk it out at some point.”
“Well I’ll fight him if he hurts you.”
“I know Clint. But you know for a fact I can hold my own.”
“I’ll be right here for you if things go sideways- just as I will Buck”
Natasha softly smiles at him, “Thanks Clint.”
With that she takes a big inhale and turns to face Buckys door, before knocking on it and slipping inside, without waiting for a response. They’ve known each other for so long, privacy hardly exists between the two.
As she stood there, what she found was a shadowed room with just the soft white glow radiating from the lamp breaking through the darkness, highlighting his black hair. Bucky was sat in his bed, hugging his knees with headphones on- looking incredibly depressed- Natasha thought back to when they were 16 and she found him in a similar position after his sister went off to college. Back then she sat down next to him for hours just letting him cry or talk or just exist together so he knew he wasn’t alone, but now…. after last night… she wasn’t sure. Before she could decide her next move Bucky had broken from his cocoon and was looking up at Nat with his big sad blue eyes that always melted away any negative emotion she had towards him.
From this look she could tell something deeper was going off, so she pushed it aside and walked over to the lost puppy sitting on his bed, and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, squeezing gently. He moved his left hand to grab on the arm resting on his chest and she felt his whole body shatter into her touch.
“Hey Buck…whats-” she started.
“I’m so sorry Natalia. I should have been better at communicating. I should have stayed with you. I shouldn’t have walked away. I shouldn’t have ignored you all morning, but I didn’t know where we stood. I thought you hated me. Maybe you do hate me. I just wasn’t ready for the kiss you know. I was hurt by what you said to me. I was angry and confused. I love you. You’re my best friend. You mean so much-”
“Hey, hey, shhhh. It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m sorry for how I dealt with things yesterday. I didn’t mean what I said last night. It didn’t mean anything. We can forget about the kiss completely too. No one needs to know… well I told Clint but hes Clint.”, Natasha cooed into Buckys hair, rubbing small circles on his back to try calming him down.
Natasha could feel Bucky relax after that, but was shortly followed by the sounds of small sobs. Natasha started humming an old Russian lullaby his mum would sing when they were young, they stayed like that for a long while, until Bucky shifted in their cuddling position and looked up at her for the first time since she entered the room.
He looked calm, his eyes a little red, she whipped away a stray tear that was rolling down his check, not breaking eye contact with him once. There was a shift in the air, it felt thinker- no way was he about to ki- all of a sudden Buckys lips were on hers and she froze for a second but then his hands were on her hips moving her onto his lap, like she weighed nothing… and she kissed back.