𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑏𝑦𝑒, 𝑠𝑛𝑖𝑝𝑒𝑟

💋💋💋 @sovietstrings

bucky's not usually this warm. it's really all he can think about as he's caught in the other man's grasp, gaze locked up and onto bucky's. they've been this close before. plenty of times, in fact, and clint knows for a fact that bucky runs cold, like a block of ice to clint's furnace. today was different, though, and bucky's grip on his arms was almost bruising tight. something wasn't right here. clint's about to voice it, about to question bucky's reaction, but once more, he's stunned into silence when bucky moves. a warm palm cups clint's cheek for a moment before slipping to the back of his neck, and bringing him forward with a forceful push.

clint doesn't fight him when their lips collide; all the warmth that had been radiating from bucky was now filling him up until he could burn from the inside out. he doesn't pull away. he doesn't resist. instead, he meets those chapped lips with fervor, tongue darting out, and teasing bucky's lips until they open for him, giving clint a full taste of everything bucky.

there's no excuse, nor answer for it. how his belly had gone tight and one too many glances across the room made his chest ache. partially in anger, that was a given. clint had shown up where he shouldn't, wandered through gunfire not meant for him, and come out the other side luckily only slightly worse for wear. but the blood was still on him. it'd run between his fingers and seated in the beds of his nails. made sure that james wouldn't soon forget how he'd had to help him to his feet.. carry him from the smoke. a second time had become a third and he'd stopped counting after that.

but this time was different. his palm was sweating. the soles of his boots couldn't settle. clint's mouth opened to ask a question and he used that lapse as the opportunity sought. to nudge their noses. to kiss with teeth and tongue and all the frustration he hoped would clarify that look on his face.

he'd been scared.

dove wants to laugh. would, if it weren't for the way her throat mirrors the gun she's holding, some internal mechanism pulled back, locked into a position which can hold only one very slight and fatal thing: remorse. but if she lets that out, the shot may ricochet. sharing her guilt only opens opportunity to be hurt.

it is the most personal thing dove could imagine, but it shares only the barest outline with the point he's making. if you took the meanings directly out of their mouths and laid them flat on the table, they would overlap, bare the same molar-bitten shape, but under the light ⸺ they are two different images entirely.

he wants to know if it's retribution. it isn't. but she's never killed a person before. after she pulls the trigger — when that fact changes — that will make him the face she sees most for the rest of her life. the memory she turns over until it is worn pale, the ink of it embedded in her thumb. no longer a separate entity but part of her. there is nothing more personal than this.

"is that worse than poor manners ⸺ false ones?"

her hand doesn't shake, but her voice does. he hasn't turned around. she wishes he would. she doesn't think she can do it if he doesn't turn around; she thinks she will collapse if he does.

"settled is a better word for it. i can't imagine the options they've already exhausted," the things that you've done to put them all to bed, "to be left with me."

and still, she's the one behind him, isn't she? in her pretty dinner dress, perfume a mothy collar around her neck — a scent that will make her sick for days — with the warmth of his touch still cooling against her knee. the ghost of a hand.

the signs had all been there. he'd seen them, filed them away, and pretended to enjoy the rest of his night. ate food that was suddenly soured. smiled wry, restrained. bucky watched the minutes tick by and wondered in the quiet way allotted, just when this had begun. if it was this night. if it was the night prior. not so long an affair he had learned more than the name given and the details surrounding it. but betrayal was a flavor he recognized. pushed it around with his tongue til it could be tucked back, against molars no longer grit.

" i could give you an idea of them, " a rotation of bodies come before her. few were as soft and certainly none as sweet. they dropped easy. one wore signs of a garotte.. another lay in a growing pool of blood, a blade in his throats and a star carved into his neck. old habit made warning.

bucky doesn't turn for her asking him to. fleshy pads of his fingers test one another in the dark of his pocket, their metallic counterparts a flicker of unspoken threat, passed over the edge of a borrowed nightstand. her choice, this room. somewhere warm that smelt of fresh linens and crisp champagne. the culmination of her grazing nails and painted lips ghosted over his pulse. a reminder why spontaneity was for less burdened men and no delicate explanation would convince him away from the conclusions he's drawn.

" the others would've already pulled the trigger. " a few of them had. left marks that healed over, quick enough. learned the hard way that bullets couldn't touch him. save for a well aimed shot between the eyes, his body didn't know when to lie. hadn't remembered a pulse slower than this. " or slipped something into my drink. " cyanide might not kill him, but it'd make this easier.

she'd regret it.. him looking at her.

but he does. after a beat and a breath, bucky's planted a well-shined shoe and pivoted. looks past the shiny barrel of a gun poised and lands on the pretty face he feels no different for than he had at the start of their evening. she wouldn't be the first one to seal a kiss with gunpowder.

───── ❛ so i got a little cranky! ❜

˚ ( @sovietstrings )

" a little cranky.. right. " he's seen cranky. he's seen the way tony handles his feelings and how many bottles the guy could empty when he was wound up by them. but this.. " —there's a hole in the ceiling. "

if he sits long enough in it, lets it swell up around his shoulders, bucky can submit to the quiet without flinching. he can face the backs of distant soldiers, moving around the mess hall, and not wonder too long how many of them had taken notice. how many of them could see the change. if he was imagining the twitch of his fingers or if, not for the first time, he'd caught fists straining under the table.

" —huh ? " dull, the question wobbles and falls out from under itself. turns the glassy eyed stare he'd had pinned to the opposing wall in steve's direction, two blinks and he can pick out his face from dim lighting. " ..oh. "

the smile isn't forced, but it's wary. it's thin and short-lived, failing to reach his eyes once they've turned back to a half-emptied glass of now warm booze. it's barely three-pm.. his grandma would clutch her pearls at the sight of him. thankfully steve wasn't his grandma.

totally not serious edit of your chara // @sovietstrings

"i stopped being me such a long time ago, 

        i can’t even remember who that was."