Chapter Text
It’s Bucky’s favorite local pub, so this time he takes the initiative and orders for Clint. Funny, ordering for a vampire: things he never expected to do. But he gets Clint the mushroom and swiss burger because it comes with an onion ring and it’s super messy, and it’ll be funny to watch it fall apart as Clint tries to eat it with his usual gusto. Bucky, of course, is having a dozen barbecue wings and the bone-in ribeye, which will be 18 ounces of raw deliciousness. Bucky realizes in retrospect he’s extra hungry around Clint. Well, it makes sense now.
Their date has been …nice. Which is a funny word to use for a vampire who sucks at it and a werewolf who never wanted to be one, but it is. This place isn’t nearly as fancy as The Osprey, but it’s classy enough; they’re both drinking local microbrews, and Clint’s enamored by the wall decorations, which are all old circus posters.
“How’s Steve doing?” Clint asks once Bucky’s done ordering.
“Christ.” Bucky rubs his hands over his face. “Still a smug little fuck about it, man.” Steve’s enhanced metabolism combined with Bucky’s own power had ripped through the tranquilizer in record time and Steve had managed his very first partial transformation - jaw elongated, teeth showing, claws out - and hadn’t shut up about it since. Which is great - most weres can’t manage a partial for a few years - but Bucky’s a bit tired of Steve reaching out with a furry paw and smacking him in the arm. “I almost wish he’d been more traumatized, just to put it in perspective.”
Clint snorts. “I’m glad he’s okay, though.”
“Should have left him unconscious longer,” Bucky grumbles, but he can’t really be that mad about it. Steve’s still so fuckin’ chuffed to be alive and breathing, and what can he really say to that? “Anything new from your new… friends?”
They’d managed to capture two of the individuals behind it: both of them part-fae humans, and other than some generalized hissing about creating new and glorious soldiers (and a bit of really bad glamour) they hadn’t talked too much. Natalia had graciously invited them to stay with her seethe while she negotiated for reparations with the Winter Court. The dungeons in the basement of her home are sleek, comfortable, and absolutely terrifying.
“Nothing yet,” Clint says. “I’d like to read them, but Nat says I have to wait. Politics and all.” Bucky isn’t quite sure how a vampire might read someone, but having felt just a bit of Clint’s power in action, it seems plausible.
Once their food arrives they’re both a bit distracted; Clint goes into raptures over the sloppy burger, even when it falls apart all over his nice shirt, and Bucky very calmly puts away his pounds of meat while they talk. Should it be this comfortable? Does it matter? He keeps catching Clint’s eye across the table, and Clint keeps blushing, which makes no sense. Vampires shouldn’t be able to blush. Then again, Clint is a pretty terrible vampire, isn’t he.
At some point Bucky catches his eye and holds it, and Clint ends up chuckling kind of self-deprecatingly. “Sorry, Buck, this is still a little bit surreal to me, that you’re …that we’re here.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Clint, you’re a vampire,” he points out, probably for the four hundred and twenty-seventh time in their relationship. “You have to have known I was interested.”
“That isn’t,” Clint starts, and his hands make some kind of aborted gesture. “I’ll show you, someday. That isn’t exactly what it’s like. I was afraid I was—” Here he makes some kind of gesture from his forehead to Bucky, and repeats it. “It’s hard to tell with wolves, okay?”
Bucky’s wolf starts a low growl of anticipation inside him, and Bucky lets himself grin slowly. “Well,” he says, letting just a bit of that hunger out in his voice. “Let me make it clear, then. I’m interested.”
Clint’s eyes go dark in a flash, and Bucky feels a faint wave of what he now recognizes as Clint’s - whammy? Mojo? He’s going to have to ask the proper term, if he’s going to be dating a vampire - that trickles down his spine like heat. “Is this where we get really cliche and ask for the check?”
“Or even more cliche and go fuck in the bathroom,” Bucky suggests, and wow that wasn’t supposed to actually come out of his mouth, but it sure did.
Clint closes his eyes and Bucky can smell the way he’s trying to restrain himself. “You can’t just say that,” he says, whining the same way he did into Bucky’s neck. “I don’t want to - accidentally - do the thing.”
“Hey,” Bucky says, moving to reach across the table for Clint’s hand. “Clint. Guess what.”
He waits until Clint’s looking up at him. He can still see that want in Clint’s eyes, and he likes that, knowing that it’s for him. “I’m a werewolf. You’re a terrible vampire. I have no idea how we’re going to …interact, y’know, both of our magics.” He stops, takes a breath. “I don’t mind if you whammy me a bit,” he admits, and Clint’s mouth quirks upwards. “As long as you tell me you’re doing it.”
Clint watches him a moment. Bucky breathes in; Clint smells like burger and fresh bread and the metallic bloodtang of vampire. He smells like laundry detergent and woodsy cologne and salt-sweet with want. “How did you not know I was interested?”
Bucky frowns, not having expected that. “It’s different with vampires,” he says finally. “You all — flirt. You all feed a bit. And…” He shrugs, a bit self-conscious. “The wolf sometimes can’t decide whether vamps are something we need to fight or something we want to, well. Bite.”
“You can bite me,” Clint tells him, all serious except for the giant shit-eating lopsided grin. “If you want.” He follows it up with a very conspicuous wink and an eye-waggle that’s probably supposed to be lascivious and just ends up looking goofy.
“Thanks,” Bucky deadpans.
“Anyway.” Clint glances away, fiddles with his fork a bit, then looks back up. “I know I’m a pretty unusual vampire, but did you really think I kept getting caught in places because I was that forgetful?”
Bucky stares. Clint has got to be kidding. “Are you serious.”
Clint shrugs, actually looking a bit shy. “Okay. Some of it was unintentional. But Nat sent you every time!”
“You risked your fucking undead eternal life,” Bucky says slowly, just to make sure he understands. “So that I would come see you. Instead of just, you know, asking me out on a date?”
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds stupid,” Clint tells him.
“Oh look,” Bucky says, because he sees their server approaching. “There’s the check.”
They don’t end up in the pub bathroom, mainly because Bucky would like to come back here in the future, but he can’t really be blamed for tugging Clint into the alleyway behind it and shoving him up against the brick wall. Clint kisses like he’s desperate to taste, to have, and Bucky finds he can trace his tongue over Clint’s teeth and feel the shadow of the fangs he knows are there. It’s intoxicating. Clint’s hands are all over Bucky’s back, in his hair, cheekily grabbing at his ass to tug him closer; Clint’s body is cool like most vampires but whatever mojo he’s putting out gives the sensation of warmth, such that Bucky presses him even harder into the brick. Good thing neither of them can feel the chill.
Bucky lets his wolf out just a bit more and tugs back Clint’s shirt to breathe in the space where neck meets shoulder. “You shouldn’t even talk, you smell so good,” he says, and Clint’s groan as he sucks at that spot is incredibly satisfying.
Clint’s hands slide down Bucky’s torso to grab at the waist of his jeans, and Clint leaves them there, fingers just down Bucky’s pants and wow, shit, Bucky kind of wants him to slip his hands into his boxers right here, fuck the pub.
“Hey,” Clint murmurs, and then nibbles Bucky’s ear; Bucky shivers. “Wanna see a cool vampire trick?”
“Of course.” Bucky tilts his head so that Clint can get better access to that sensitive tendon. Makes sense that a vampire would be good with their mouth, but wow, Clint’s tongue.
“Hang on,” Clint tells him, and there’s another burst of that dark red bloodtang magic, and then they’re in a space that smells enough like Clint and vampire and comfort that it has to be his own private lair.
“Wait,” Bucky says, and pulls his own mouth away from where it’s been exploring Clint’s collarbone. “You can teleport?”
“Just to my lair,” Clint says, shrugging.
“You can teleport.” Bucky stares at him. “To your lair.”
Clint frowns. “What, like it’s hard?”
“I rescued you from the trunk of a car,” Bucky says. “When you can teleport. To your lair.”
“Oh,” Clint says. “I mean, yeah. I guess.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Bucky says, advancing on Clint, and Clint’s grinning now, grabbing at Bucky again, backing up to what looks like the most ridiculously extravagant bed Bucky’s ever seen in his life. “I’m going to kill you so hard.”
Clint makes some sort of move, too fast for even Bucky’s wolf to follow, and then suddenly Bucky’s on the bed, tugged the whole way on top of Clint’s body, and he can’t help but groan feeling all of Clint against him. Clint wraps a leg around Bucky’s waist, and tugs at his hair so that Bucky’s looking at him. “Go ahead,” Clint says, all low grumble and heat. “Make it good, then.”
So Bucky does.