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“No. No. No, no, no, no,” the chant shifted into a moan before the begging resumed. “No, please no. No you can’t. Buck, please. Please, come on.”
Clint knelt atop the insensate lump, tears flowing unheeded down his face while his hands worked frantically at the belt of Bucky’s uniform, knee lodged in his groin. Between the way he was shaking and the slick blood still pumping despite his best effort he was having a hard time keeping his knee in place. He needed those pants off to see. He needed to see, why couldn’t he see!
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, come on, come on. Get it together, Barton,” he scolded himself, fingers still scrabbling ineffectively. Clint finally got the dented metal buckle to give and tried to wrench the front of Bucky’s pants apart but the buttons held.
“No, no, come on,” he gasped out again, blood coated fingers scrabbling at the row of buttons. He’d enjoyed undoing these buttons before, unhooking them one by one, taking his time. Now he was cursing each and every one. “Fuck, fuck!”
“BARTON!” a voice yelled over the comms, finally catching his attention. He’d forgotten he was miked up.
“Medic, I need a medic,” Clint begged. “Bucky’s, Bucky, he.”
“We’re doing the best we can to get you one,” Sam’s voice rode over his. “Right now I need you to calm down. Where’s your knife, Clint?”
“I can’t, I need, his pants are in the way,” Clint panted back, trying to marshal his spiraling thoughts.
“Clint. Take a breath. Get your knife out, I want you to cut the pants open.”
“Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I can do that,” Clint affirmed to himself in heaving gasps as he pulled the dagger from its holster on his right calf. Carefully he got it into position and sawed through Bucky’s waistband. Once he had gotten through the lower seam he dropped the knife to the floor beside them and grabbed the fabric to tear open further. It took several tugs before the tear was big enough for what Clint needed. Each tug jolted the otherwise still body beneath him, and Clint wished desperately that Bucky were making sounds of pain instead of the limp silence that somehow muffled the sounds of the city and fight around them.
Clint moved his knee, ripped the fabric away from the wound so he could finally see. The gash itself didn’t seem overly long, but it was deep. Too deep. The hot red blood pulsed out sluggishly, and oh, god. The artery had been severed. Clint shoved his finger inside of the wound, inside Bucky, until he could grind pressure against the artery, pressing it down towards bone and finally, finally quelling the bleeding.
“Bleed is controlled,” he announced into the comm, voice shaky.
“This isn’t how I wanted to be inside of you tonight,” Clint choked out to his lover, running his free hand over Bucky’s torso, ostensibly checking for additional wounds now that the major bleed had been controlled, but really just needing to feel the shallow rise and fall of Bucky’s chest. There was still no response from Bucky and Clint was past listening to the activity on the comms, trying to reassure him that a medic was in-route.
Unable to move far, Clint couldn't check much, and began stroking the side of Bucky’s face, focusing on smoothing hair away from his temple.
“Why aren’t you waking up?” Clint whispered, eyes locked on Bucky’s face. “All this for a little flesh wound? Afraid of the sight of a little blood? Come on, I’ve seen you walk away from worse,” he tried to tease, ignoring the way his breath kept hitching on the words.
“Come on Bucky, I need you to open your eyes. Please Bucky, please.” The minutes were ticking by, where the hell was that medic? Bucky needed help and Clint probably needed to get back to, oh god, the fight. Clint’s head snapped up and he gazed around desperately, unable to see anything past the ledge just tall enough to obscure everything past the edge of the roof.
“Nat, report,” he demanded, eyes returning to Bucky’s face, still focused on applying pressure.
“Barnes is the only major injury on our side. Still busy over here with things but you worry about Barnes. We’ve almost got this finished,” she reassured him. Clint slumped in relief.
“Okay, hear that baby, almost out of here.” Clint’s fingers cupped Bucky’s head again, but his shaky grasp nudged the earpiece and knocked Bucky’s comm unit out.
“Oh, oh god.” The words came out like a breath, almost unable to be heard.
“What is it? Clint, what do you see,” Sam repeated himself firmly when Clint didn’t respond.
“There’s, uh. There’s something leaking out of his ear. Oh god, Sam. Sam. We need help!”
“I’m on my way.” There was further chatter, dictating who would cover Sam’s position, that Clint couldn’t discern over the ringing in his own ears.
“Not good, not good, not good. Bucky, oh god.” Without losing the pressure he was maintaining on the arterial bleed Clint slumped over Bucky’s body, oblivious to the strain the position put on his wrist. “Bucky, Bucky, please.”
Forehead pressed into Bucky’s chest Clint didn’t notice the flutter of eyelids above him.
“Clint!” Sam bellowed, close enough that there was a weird echo over the comm. “Behind you!”
Clint started to raise up and see what the threat was at the same time Sam fired at the area behind him. The area that held the guy Clint had shot earlier, the guy who had taken Bucky down. The guy that, apparently, was still alive.
Clint didn’t see Sam’s bullets miss, didn’t see the goon’s arm raise his own weapon. Didn’t see the recoil jerk the goon’s hand up after he fired. Didn’t see anything. Didn’t.
Bucky opened his eyes just in time to see Clint’s head explode.