#and soldier being ex-hydra (voluntarily)

[moondoposting]

just back from rereading moon knight 2021 and i’ve decided if my good friend mr mackay ever leaves the series i will simply delete my blog

[lovelyirony]

"I hate you" "no you dont" for winterhawk if your still doing requests? :-)

To be a private investigator, you generally have to stop having personal connections or disregard them altogether. Because sometimes, people hire you to investigate your friends. 

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to do a great job. Unless you secretly don’t like your friends. Then by all means, go forward and give it a go. 

But Clint Barton is a private investigator. Being an Avenger all the time generally sucked because he was surrounded by people who would be able to fly off buildings without getting lacerations and hurt bones. Natasha said “I’m begging you, just please have common sense” but Clint thinks that sounds like a scam. 

So he occasionally helps out when Thor gets off-world or Tony decides once again lament over his crush on Cap (while also not telling Cap that he likes him, god they’re desperate–). 

But for now, he’s a private investigator. And he just got hired to investigate a new return: the Winter Soldier. Clint strictly does not take jobs from Hydra–that’s just a given. It’s just a concerned group of ex-SHIELD retirees who want to know if he’s okay. Which is sweet. 

This means Clint hanging around the tower more, asking Barnes if he likes summer or fall better (it’s fall), and trying to avoid suspicion. 

Bucky Barnes isn’t a damned fool, even if he can’t remember if he’s tried pizza yet. He knows something is up with that Barton fool, and it’s not just arrows and a suspicious lack of self-regard. 

So he follows him. Natasha isn’t happy about it because “what if you try to kill him” and “Sam called dibs, so you legally can’t.” 

Clint is with a bunch of old people at coffee telling them about Bucky’s experience with pizza. (So he did have it!) 

Bucky orders something called a “spicy cocoa mocha” and waits. Sits across and waits until Clint gets napkins to clean up a slight spill. 

“I hate you,” Bucky says. 

“No you don’t,” Clint says. “And you can’t kill me in a public space! Sam said if I annoyed him more than I currently do, he has dibs.” 

“So Natasha told me. But Winter Soldier doesn’t actually care about dibs. Whatever the hell that is.” 

“It’s a surprise tool that will help me later,” Clint answers solemnly. “Sit down. Tell these people about how you launched Captain America out of a window.” 

Bucky does, and finds out that he…enjoys it. 

He voluntarily comes for coffee with Clint, and sometimes they do stuff after. If Clint needs some help with his job, then Bucky can do it. He’s the picture of silence and improv as he helps Clint with small and big jobs. 

Bucky also knows how to fix things, like Clint’s weird kitchen sink. He gives Lucky the best belly rubs. 

And so Clint falls. Like when he falls off a building and he has no idea if someone will catch him or if he’ll get lucky or perhaps not. And damn, he hopes Bucky feels the same way when they glance at each other over pizza and beer, laughing at the newest episode of Dog Cops or bitch about the Avengers/X-Men/whatever-the-hell-else team they’ve decided to come up with. Ugh. 

Bucky has not asked anyone out in a long time. He’s bad at it. Sharon laughs from her place with Sam on the couch. 

“Just ask him out to a carnival or something! Or maybe to dinner! Do the dinner thing, that sounds better.” 

Bucky consults their coffee group, and they all agree that he should ask Clint to a hot dog. 

So Bucky does. As a date. Clint says yes, asks if he needs to dress fancy 

“Clint we’re going to a damn hot dog cart, I doubt they’re going to doubt you if you have on those fucking Crocs.” 

“Well I don’t know! Natasha won’t speak to me if I wear them.” 

“That means more time for me then, good.” 

Clint wears his bright green Crocs to the hot dog cart date. In his support, Bucky finds a neon orange hat. 

Natasha hates them both.