880 words, PG-13. 

For my “Farmer Bucky” square in @winterhawkbingo ! This was originally supposed to just be the drawing, with like a 100-ish word drabble, but. So it goes. 

(Click for better quality, because freckles.) 

Clint never liked tomatoes until he met Bucky. He only knew tomatoes as the grainy, watery things that you might find in iceberg lettuce at fast food restaurants; he never saw the appeal. 

Bucky changes his mind about a lot of things. 

The farm has been in Bucky’s family for generations, and he wants nothing more than to spend his life here. Clint can’t understand it, at first, because he can’t remember the last time he stayed in the same place for longer than six weeks, let alone a lifetime. He feels trapped when he thinks about staying somewhere, committing to a place, committing to gardens and animals and a life that can’t be packed up and moved at a moment’s notice. Sometimes when Clint stays in the same place for too long, it feels like being strangled slowly. 

Then again, sometimes it has nothing to do with the time or the place. Sometimes he feels trapped in his own skin.

The first day the circus is in town, Clint spots Bucky in the field behind Clint’s trailer. He’s weeding a row of cucumber plants. Clint gets a look at his arms, muscled and tanned gold, and his thin t-shirt, which is stuck to his back with sweat, and immediately hops the fence to introduce himself. 

He’s only fucking human. He has vague plans to invite Bucky over for a beer and maybe a blowjob. He’s not expecting Bucky to be like that. 

By the end of their first afternoon together, Clint has a sunburn and a sinking sensation that he’s in over his head. 

They’re watching a distant storm from the porch when Bucky kisses him. The air is so thick and humid with the expectation of rain that it feels like they’re swimming as Bucky pulls him close, leads him up the rickety stairs, tugs him into bed… and then he fucks Clint slow, movements like stretching taffy, deep and sweet until they might as well be drowning with the way they’re gasping for air. A strobe of lightning, like the flash of a camera, illuminates Bucky’s face and captures his expression like a photograph in Clint’s memory: dark-eyed and awed, the most incredible thing Clint’s ever seen. 

Afterward, when they’re lying in a sweat-soaked tangle on the sheets, the rain arrives, and they lie there hand in hand and listen to the way it drums on the roof. Clint feels like he has a sunburn inside, now, too, all warm and raw and tender to the touch. 

They spend the next four weeks together, every second Clint can get away from the circus. Bucky shows Clint the woods, the berry patches and the pastures, the best places to fish, the nest the barn cat makes in the hayloft. 

Bucky’s life seems quiet at first, mundane, compared to the glitter and the lights of the circus. But he draws Clint’s attention to the details, taking his hand and pointing out one tiny everyday miracle after another: the strawberries, flushed deeper every day, until they’re ruby-ripe and bursting with juice; the kittens, with their filmy eyes and wobbly legs; the soft mud between his toes when they wade into the creek. They watch things grow, and it’s beautiful. By the end of the month, Clint feels like he could spend a lifetime observing this one patch of earth and never get bored. 

Clint comes for lunch one day and Bucky’s in the tomato field. His hands are stained a deep, sticky greenish-black — tomato tar, he calls it. It’s worst in the creases of his knuckles and nail beds; it’s sunk into every crack of his calloused fingers, making them look even more gnarled and work-worn than usual. Clint lifts one of Bucky’s hands to inspect it. It smells like tomato. He wrinkles his nose, and Bucky laughs. 

“Tomatoes are my favorite,” he says. “You’ve just never had the right kind.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“They taste like… the way your smile looks. Like sunshine.” 

“Oh,” Clint says dumbly, and kisses him, deep and thorough, until his stomach growls and reminds him where they are. 

The circus is supposed to be leaving in three days, and when Clint imagines saying goodbye, it feels like being strangled.

Bucky insists that Clint try one of his tomatoes. He picks one as they walk toward the house, a huge meaty thing he calls an “heirloom” variety, and when they get into the kitchen he slices it in half and sprinkles it with sea salt. 

Clint looks at it dubiously, but he’s really fucking easy for Bucky’s puppy-dog eyes, so he takes a bite. 

“Oh,” he says again, grinning. “Okay. I get it.” 

“Yeah, that smile right there,” Bucky says softly. “Sunshine.” 

Late that night, when the sweat is starting to cool, drying sticky where their bare skin is pressed together, Clint kisses Bucky’s hands, joint by joint and knuckle by knuckle. They’re still stained patchy green, and they still smell like tomatoes, but Clint doesn’t mind now. 

Bucky lets out a shaky breath and whispers, “I know you don’t like staying in one place for too long, but —” 

“I’m starting to think I just hadn’t found the right place yet,” Clint tells him. 

He stays.