Chapter Text
As an outsider, Bucky has to admit that it looks like Clint is physically dragging the Panthers through the playoffs.
His teammates are scoring, obviously - he’s got Verhaege and Barkov and Reinhart and, hell, even his fellow ex-flame and pest, Bennett.
But Barton seems singularly focused on not going home .
Somehow, the Panthers pull off a three-win streak to send Boston home and propel them into their series against Toronto.
Meanwhile, Bucky and the Oilers are facing down the Golden Knights.
Bucky wishes he didn’t care who the Oilers were playing. He wishes he didn’t hate the Golden Knights as much as he does. But-
Aside from the Flames, the Knights are the team Bucky hates the most.
It’s not really rational. Part of it, of course, is whatever antagonism that has festered between Jack Eichel and Steve gets to Bucky almost as much as it gets to Steve, and Bucky hates Eichel even more because of that. Part of it is how big and fast and fucking good the Vegas defensive core is. It makes it frustrating as hell to play against them.
And Bucky doesn’t want easy , but he’d like… not this.
So when the Oilers land in Vegas the morning of their first game, Bucky is in a pissy mood.
The night before, Clint had had a three-assist night to help the Panthers win their first game in the series against Toronto. Bucky had sent him a video of Bucky fingering himself, and Clint had responded in kind - finally, after all this time, figuring how to take a decent video of him fucking himself.
It hadn’t put Bucky at ease the way that exchange of pornography usually did.
He still felt unsettled.
And seeing Steve unsettled beside him just made him angry.
Not at Steve, of course, but at everyone else .
Matters were not helped by Bucky getting pulled for media right after the team finished their light practice.
He wanted nothing more than to go back to the hotel and nap. But instead…
Instead, he was sat in the Knights media room and faced with a host of reporters.
“Last year, the Oilers made it to the conference finals,” one reporter started. “Do you think the team can do that again?”
It was a dumb question, but it wasn’t invasive.
Bucky shrugged.
“Sure. We’re healthier than we were last year. We can do it.”
“How much of a distraction has everything been, for you? This year?”
There it was.
Bucky stared at the reporter.
The reporter stared back.
Alex, stood to one side of the room, sent an unspoken but very clear pleading look in Bucky’s direction.
Bucky made himself shrug again.
“There’s always distractions. I’m just trying to play my best every night.”
“It’s kind of a big deal, though. A player like you in the second round of the Cup finals.”
Alex hung his head.
Bucky took that as permission or whatever.
“Well. I made it to the Cup finals last year.”
“But you weren’t, you know, out .”
“Didn’t the Kraken play the Stars last night? Didn’t they win ?” Bucky’s patience was, officially, gone.
There was a bit of confusion among the reporters.
“Or did I hallucinate watching that game?”
“They did,” one reporter allowed.
“Great. So you’ve got two out queer players who’ve already won a game in the second round.”
Bucky folded his arms across his chest and glared.
Mercifully, Alex called an end to the press conference.
Bucky escaped.
He went back to his hotel and shut the curtains and stripped down and put on his eye mask and tossed his phone into a pile with his clothes and climbed into bed.
For the next two hours, he didn’t owe anyone anything.
-o-
Clint had, of course, texted him.
CB: hot bitch is BACK BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
CB: score for me
Bucky did.
Bucky scored four goals that night.
And the Oilers still lost.
-o-
The next night, the Panthers win again, of course.
Bucky sends Clint the obligatory series of photos and a video. Clint sends some back.
Neither of them call, neither of them try to make conversation.
Bucky is unspeakably grateful.
He doesn’t know what he would say to Clint - to anyone who wasn’t Steve, really - about the shitshow of a game they had just played.
The Oilers don’t play again until the sixth, but it is a win. A decisive 5-1 victory with Bucky and Steve each scoring two goals.
The team flies back to Edmonton right after, so Bucky, even though he’s finally in the mood to talk to Clint, doesn’t call him.
But he does text him, demands some really good quality jerk off material to enjoy on his day off.
The next morning, Bucky wakes up to a video of Clint fucking himself with a prostate massager and watches him cum all over his belly and thighs untouched. Bucky watches the video three times before he even starts to jerk himself off, it’s that hot.
The Panthers win that night, but Clint doesn’t call or text - probably exhausted after the overtime, probably out with his team celebrating.
The next morning, Clint texts Bucky.
CB: score 4 me
Bucky doesn’t know how it feels, aside from kind of stupid and soft, that he and Clint now have this… thing.
Telling each other to score for me .
Bucky doesn’t examine it too closely.
He’s tired, and he’s got a game to play.
A goal to score.
-o-
The Oilers lose, and Bucky does not score a goal.
-o-
“Hey,” Clint answered when Bucky called him in the afternoon the next day. They both have the day off, and they both have home games the next night.
The Panthers are leading their series with two wins and no losses. Two more wins, and they are in the conference finals.
The Oilers, on the other hand, have already lost twice to the Knights and only won once. If the Oilers lose tomorrow, they are only one loss away from elimination.
“Hey,” Bucky sighed into the phone and tried not to think about it.
“You sound like shit,” Clint said. He doesn’t sound any better.
Bucky told him that.
Clint laughed.
“Yeah, well. The travel sucks. And everything fucking hurts.”
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “What hurts?”
“Why? You gonna use it against me?”
That’s a thought - both of their teams advancing to the Cup Finals.
Bucky sits with that for a moment, but only a moment. He doesn’t want to jinx it or anything.
“So, how’s it feel to be the first gay player to face the Golden Knights in the Playoffs?” Clint asked him in a clear attempt to change the subject.
“Fuck off,” Bucky told him, even though he felt himself smiling about it.
“Nah. Not gonna.”
It’s strange, maybe, to just both be sitting there, on the phone, not talking all that much.
But - it’s nice.
Easy, in a way that Bucky only really has with Steve or Jason.
In a thousand years, he never would have predicted this happening.
And-
“You were at the bottom of my list,” Bucky said.
“Yeah, I fucking remember,” Clint all but snarled.
“No. I - you were at the bottom because it seemed impossible. Not because of anything else.”
It took Clint a while to respond to that.
“Is that your shitty ass way of telling me that you like me ?”
“Yeah, well, maybe.”
Clint laughed at him. It was a little sharp, but it was also… just a good sound.
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Clint sighed. He sounded fond.
“So are you,” Bucky said.
Clint hummed.
“Hey, uh, it, um. It sucks, you know?”
Bucky has no idea what Clint is talking about - unless it’s being an asshole. Or Bucky liking him.
“I mean,” Clint explains, “the whole - the shit you get. For being gay.”
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “It sucks.”
“This is probably a stupid question, but do you regret it? I mean - of course you regret it. But, like-” Clint made a frustrated noise. “Nevermind.”
“I regret it.” Bucky was trying to figure out what Clint was really trying to talk about. “I regret the press feeling like my life is just… there for them to pick apart and talk about and throw in my face.”
“Yeah,” Clint sighed. “Yeah. Okay. That - yeah. That sucks.”
Bucky felt kind of stupid, for how long it took him to realize what Clint was getting at.
“You want to come out.”
“I mean, there’s this asshole who said it was criminal that the face of, like, the gay NHL was a closeted rat.”
Bucky had said that.
Back before he realized he was talking to Clint. About Clint.
“You’re doing a lot of good. You and your group.”
“Probably, it would mean more if, you know, I was out.”
Bucky didn’t argue. He thought it probably would mean more.
He also thought it would probably be intolerable. At least, that’s how it was for him .
Clint was different, at least maybe different enough, with his lifetime of media training, being born into American hockey notoriety. He wasn’t as antagonistic with the media as Bucky. Even when the media was questioning him and blaming him for shit, Clint was able to smirk and shrug and deliver the kind of response that was as endearing as it was annoying.
Clint sighed.
“Anyway. Can’t do it right now. Gotta get to the Cup final first.”
Bucky laughed. He had to.
“What?” he asked. “You’re going to - what, come out if you get to the Cup finals?”
“Yeah. I mean, that’s what… I dunno. It’s what I promised I’d do. Promised myself.”
Bucky had to sit with that for a moment. He never would have come out, he thought, if he hadn’t been forced to.
It was different, for a guy like Dick Grayson - different because he wasn’t the first in the NHL, not even the first on his team, and because, sure, Grayson was good , but he wasn’t… he wasn’t a top ten draft pick. He didn’t fight to lead the league in points or goals. He wasn’t Bucky. Or Clint.
Florida wasn’t Edmonton, in terms of the media or the fans or even the expectations. But-
But Clint Barton was a household name, in hockey households.
As well known as Bucky himself. And hated. Way more than Bucky had been before he was outed. Probably more than Bucky was even now that Bucky was out.
“You don’t have to do it,” Bucky found himself saying.
“I know that. But I want to. Wanted to for fucking years. But my dad-” Clint sighed again. “He and I talked it out, you know? When I was drafted. We came up with this whole fucking strategy. Which, by the way, you fucked up with your summer softcore porn shit.”
“Am I supposed to apologize?”
“Nah,” Clint said, and Bucky could hear the smile in his voice. “I guess I’ll forgive you.”
“Thanks,” Bucky said dryly, and Clint laughed outright.
“Anyway, I - this was the plan, you know? Do something big. Make sure the story wasn’t, oh, Keith Barton’s kid is a fag. But, you know-”
“Stanley Cup Winner Clint Barton is gay,” Bucky guessed.
“Yeah. Yeah. But, you know - I’m not stupid. I know that’s-”
Bucky can understand what Clint isn’t saying. Bucky wouldn’t say it either. Wouldn’t say I’m going to win the Cup or I’m not going to win the Cup . Either way is just tempting fate.
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed anyway. “I get it.”
“So. Cup Finals.” Clint laughed. “Just gotta get through Toronto and - fuck, probably Carolina.”
“Not the Devils?”
Clint snorted.
“Fuck no. Maybe in three years. This isn’t their year.”
Bucky had to agree with that.
He wondered what people were saying about him, about the Oilers - not people as in reporters. He was actively not wondering what they thought. But other players. People like him and Clint.
“Alright. I gotta go meet the boys for dinner,” Clint said eventually.
“Score for me tomorrow night,” Bucky said.
“You score for me,” Clint responded and then hung up.
-o-
Neither of them scored.
But the Oilers won, their season hopes kept alive. The Panthers lost, and it looked like every single one of their top players - Clint included - lost their tempers and got thrown off the ice at the end of the game. Even Barkov, always so even-tempered, was saddled with the same misconduct as Clint and Bennett and a handful of other Panthers.
Clint didn’t text that night, didn’t ask for anything.
Bucky texted him anyway.
BB: [image attached]
BB: [image attached]
BB: [image attached]
BB: [video attached]
-o-
Their schedules are aligned again, so they both have games on the twelfth, both away games.
And this time, it’s the Oilers losing and the Panthers winning.
The Oilers are now facing elimination. And the Panthers have advanced to the Conference Finals.
They don’t text.
They don’t call.
Bucky struggles to sleep.
-o-
Bucky doesn’t know what would be worse, losing to the Knights and ending their season in Vegas or doing it at home in Edmonton.
It happens in Edmonton.
And Bucky can’t find it in himself to be grateful.
The game was a disaster.
Bucky was a disaster.
He went -4 on the night, didn’t put up a single point and just… failed.
And, of course, there was media.
There was always media.
“What do you think you could have done differently?” one reporter asked Bucky.
“We could have won,” Bucky said, and he didn’t care how that sounded, he didn’t even care how he sounded, voice hoarse, tears burning his throat and his eyes.
“You didn’t score in these last four games,” another reporter said. As if Bucky was somehow unaware of that. “What do you think happened?”
Bucky closed his eyes, for just a second, and made himself breathe deep and then let it out.
“I think we played against one of the best teams in the league. They had the most wins in the division this season. They’re a good team. And we - we lost.” Fuck, why did it hurt so much to say that? It was just the truth.
“It’s been said before, but you’re kind of a role model now, for, uh, the gay community. What do you think this loss means to them?”
Bucky very briefly wondered just how bad the fine would be, really, if he got up and just walked away.
He tried to drag some kind of meaningful bullshit to the front of his brain, something that wasn’t could you just fuck off .
“You know, this is a team sport,” Bucky settled on. “And, uh, all year - this has been a great team. So, it sucks, to lose, but - I dunno, being part of this team is the most important thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know if that’s helpful or whatever, but I guess - I guess I hope other gay hockey players can have a team as great as this one.”
Honestly, Bucky hopes other gay hockey players have a team better than this one - a team without Kane on it, or the handful of other guys who have, all season long, kept their distance from Bucky and made snide, shitty remarks when Steve wasn’t around or when they thought Bucky wasn’t paying attention.
But, whatever. It got the reporter to move on.
“My place,” Steve said to him once the reporters had abandoned the both of them.
Bucky nodded.
“Wings,” he said.
“Beer,” Steve added.
-o-
Bucky didn’t hear from Clint until the morning of Clint’s first game against Carolina, almost a week later.
Which… was fair.
Bucky hadn’t texted or called Clint in all that time.
Instead, Bucky had nursed his battered pride and his even more battered body. Two days after their final loss, he had sat down in a room with the press again, for the last media day of the season, breakup day .
He had answered their shitty questions and tried to sound positive about next year, had done his level best to talk up Steve - which was easy as hell, of course - and their chances to win next year.
It had sucked, a lot.
Bucky was exhausted every morning when he woke up and every night when he went to sleep, no matter how little he did with himself.
The guys started to leave town - everyone drifting away for the summer - and Steve started making noises about Bucky coming to stay with him in Edmonton for a while.
Usually, Bucky was on a plane and off to Germany or Mallorca as soon as he possibly could leave at the end of a season.
But this year, he felt the urge to linger. Not so much in Edmonton, but…
He took Steve up on the offer to hide out at his cottage in Ontario and followed him home.
So when Clint finally called, Bucky was sitting on the dock, drinking coffee and dangling his feet in the water, and feeling the tiniest bit less awful about everything.
“Hey,” Clint said, and he sounded… cautious.
Bucky didn’t blame him.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Not as banged up as last year,” Bucky said. Physically, that was true - he’d played through an ankle sprain last year, all the way through to the conference finals.
The rest of it-
“That thing you said, about having a good team, that was nice.”
Clint didn’t sound patronizing, and Bucky was too tired to pick a fight.
“Had to say something.”
“Yeah, well, you said something good. So, deal with it.”
Bucky smiled. Clint, of course, was willing to pick a fight.
“You gonna score for me tonight?” he asked Clint.
“You want me to?” Clint asked.
“Yeah,” Bucky was able to say almost immediately. “Yeah, I fucking do.”
“Well, okay then. Better score.”
“You’d better,” Bucky agreed.
-o-
Clint scored one goal that night. The game winning goal, in the fourth overtime.
-o-
He did it again - another overtime game winning goal.
-o-
The Panthers won their third game as well, with an assist from Clint, and Bucky was feeling enough like himself to text Clint shit for it.
BB: no goal? You don’t want to see the new dildo i got?
CB: yur a fucking asshole.
CB: ill get u a goal next game
BB: two goals
CB: two goals
-o-
Clint scored the first goal of the game and then scored the last - the game winning goal. The goal that meant the Panthers swept Carolina. The goal that meant the Panthers were going to the Stanley Cup Finals.
-o-
Bucky had been watching the games - well, Bucky had been watching Clint’s games. He hadn’t watched the Knights play the Stars - with the Kraken knocked out by the Stars, there wasn’t anyone in the Western Conference Bucky wanted to see win.
Steve watched with him, most nights.
They ate a lot of food that they never would have even looked at during the season, and they drank a lot of beer. And they yelled at the television a lot.
When the Panthers won that final game-
Bucky shouted in Steve’s face, and Steve laughed and hauled him into a hug.
“You proud of your boy?” Steve asked.
Your boy .
“Yeah,” Bucky said, acknowledging the title or whatever as much as the sentiment.
They settled in to watch the handshake line, and Bucky was so fucking glad he wouldn’t have to go through that again until next year.
And then there was media.
Bucky was tempted to turn it off, but-
Unsurprisingly, Clint was pulled for interviews.
He was grinning, so bright and big and blindingly happy.
His hair was soaked - probably, he had been attacked with champagne the moment he set foot in the dressing room - and he had changed into a fresh t-shirt, a Stanley Cup Finals t-shirt that somehow, already, had the neck cut out.
Bucky felt disgustingly fond about what a disaster Clint was - his playoff beard was a mess, his hair a riot of curls, his stupid shirt.
“You’re going to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time,” a reporter said. It wasn’t a question.
But Clint grinned all the same.
“Sure am! This team - these guys - it’s incredible what we’ve done here.”
“You’ve had a breakout playoffs,” another reporter made another obvious statement. “Why do you think that is?”
Clint was still grinning, even as he ran a hand through his hair and cut his eyes to the side for a moment before focusing back at the cameras and reporters directly in front of him.
“Well, uh. Couple of things, really. I mean - this team. These guys, it’s all them, you know? You just want to go out there and do your best for them, every night. And I’m really, really lucky to have them, to be playing here, now, with these guys.”
Clint paused and bit his lip.
“And, uh, you know. A lot happened this year that really motivated me.”
Bucky knew what was coming. This - this had to be when Mattew would say it.
He hoped Clint didn’t say it.
He hoped-
“You know, when Bucky - Bucky Barnes, what he and Jason Todd went through at the beginning of this season - that was awful. I mean, Bucky’s been dealing with it this whole year - Todd too. And then Grayson came out and - you know, my family, we wanted to do the YPHC thing, have for a while now. And, uh, I’m making a mess of this.” He laughed, and he looked so young and so alone.
“Bucky?” Steve gave him a look. He was very clearly following along with what Clint was stumbling to say.
Bucky just nodded. He didn’t know what to say.
“I’m gay,” Clint blurted. “Uh, you know, just, um. Yeah. I’m gay, and I think that’s really - everything that’s happened this year - that’s been part of it. My team knows. My family knows. My friends. And their support - it’s meant everything. It got me here. And I just - I want to do everything I can not to let any of them down. So, um, I’m really looking forward to playing against Vegas. That’s all I’m gonna say tonight. Thank you.”
Even though it had to be longer, it felt like only seconds later when Bucky’s phone rang.
It was Clint.
“Hey, that - Clint.” Bucky didn’t know what to say.
Clint laughed.
“Yeah. I, uh. Fuck. I had it all written down, too. All this shit I was supposed to say. Fuck, I fucked it up, didn’t I?”
“No,” Bucky assured him. “No, it was good. You did good.”
“Um, good enough to call in that rain check?”
It took Bucky a moment to remember what Clint could even be talking about.
He laughed.
“Yeah. Good enough for you to fuck me,” he agreed.
Beside him on the couch, Steve made a face.
Bucky shoved a pillow at him.
“So, uh, you, um, would you want to come to Florida?”
“Don’t you have a Stanley Cup Final to prepare for?”
“Well, yeah. Why do you think I’m trying to get the second-best player in the world to come stay with me?”
“I’ll fly out tomorrow,” Bucky decided.
“Fuck. Really? Okay. Yeah. That’s- that’s awesome. Okay. I- I gotta go get drunk with the boys.”
“Go. I’ll text you my flight info.”
“Cool. Great. That’s - okay. I’m going now.”
Clint hung up.
Bucky couldn’t imagine what expression was on his face, but whatever it was had Steve smirking.
“Fuck off,” Bucky muttered.
“No, you’re the one going off to get fucked,” Steve said.
Bucky grabbed another pillow to try to smother him.
Steve laughed and tried to fight him off, but even late season skinny, Bucky was big enough to pin him down.
Steve was smiling about it though.
“You happy?” he asked Bucky.
And that was complicated. Because Bucky wasn’t happy - he had let down his team, had let down himself, had let down Steve.
And this whole year-
But then there was Clint.
This thing between them.
Whatever it was.
And there was Steve, his best friend, always there for him. And Jason, still there for him, after all this time and no matter how different their lives.
“Yeah,” Bucky decided. “I’m happy.”
-o-