#I've also never had this dream WHILE housesitting

[jedusaur]

Recs: Clint/Bucky fics with 200-500 kudos

after going through the entire Clint/Bucky pairing tag on AO3, I did a recs post for my favorite fics with under 200 kudos (a range covering more than half of the works in the tag) and now I've decided to do one for fics with 200-500 kudos (another ~quarter of the tag). there are 36 pages of fic with more than 500 kudos, so I figure most people won't get to these on a casual binge.

What Spring Does With the Cherry Trees, by @bittercape (32k) Bucky moves into Clint's apartment building and starts working on figuring out what he likes. this one has that lovely chill vibe where they both kinda know where their relationship is heading and neither of them is in too much of a rush to get there, which is my absolute favorite kind of slow burn, and there's a lot of focus on reflection and healing and self-care and just hangin out being comfortable with each other <3

You Can Never Go Home Again, by @flawedamythyst (49k) Clint and Bucky get sent back in time to 1939, and Bucky slowly unlearns his internalized homophobia and realizes that the "just two straight buddies helping each other out" handjobs they've been exchanging are not actually straight. I did a literal double-take when I saw how few kudos this had, it is one of my favorite fics in this pairing and it has the single hottest first kiss I have ever read in my entire life

Delicate Tension, by @feedmecookiesnow (53k) beautiful, quiet, sweet, sexy road trip fic, with lots of pleasant imagery in Bucky's photography and a satisfying slow-ish burn that resolves about halfway through so there's some nice early relationship navigation too. the tags are accurate but don't really convey the vibe of it, the trauma stuff is fairly low-key and the general feel is uplifting. also, the choice of tattoo on Clint's ass is INSPIRED, just an absolute *chef's kiss* bit of characterization there

Days That Used To Last A Lifetime, by @there-must-be-a-lock (10k) in which Clint is a dog walker and Bucky is a shameless flirt and both of them are a hot mess and do a lot of recreational drugs and end up murmuring secrets to strangers at ass o'clock in the morning in someone else's apartment

Sequestered, by @lizabethl (38k) in which Clint and Bucky are separately sent off to the same beach house for a much-needed vacation, then hop back on duty just long enough to temporarily acquire a child. deals with some tough stuff but it's mostly about healing and connection and growth

Hydra's Bite, by @flawedamythyst (118k) Buffy AU with a long piney slow burn and great found-family vibes. Clint is the Xander who rescues Bucky from a nest of hydras, Natasha is the Slayer, Coulson is kind of the Giles except undead, Jarvis is the ghost butler, Bruce has a demon living in him, and Tony inherited leadership of the Watchers' Council from his dad. also there's a running joke about all the demons Clint has fucked XD

quickly dream away the time; and then the moon, by @cloud--atlas (16k) Clint is housesitting Tony Stark's mansion in the Hamptons when Lucky gets through a hole in the hedge and makes friends with the hot rich neighbor

Gonna Be My Girl?, by @mightymightygnomepriest (46k) Clint and Bucky hook up while Clint is dressed up as a schoolgirl for Halloween, then they both make some assumptions they shouldn't be making and Clint keeps fucking Bucky in girl mode only. I'm not generally a fan of this kind of miscommunication-based plot, but this one really worked for me

The Middle of the Story, by @lissadiane (13k) look. I know you're gonna read the tag "Clint is literally a unicorn" and immediately want to roll your eyes and close the tab. I know. just... *takes you by the shoulders and looks intensely into your eyes* just trust me, okay

Personal Security (Let's Go Steal Ourselves a Remix), by @supervillainny (8k) Clint develops an inconvenient crush on the head of security at the art gallery he and Nat are about to rob

Boris the Soviet Love Hammer, by @bittercape (11k) the title/tags/summary make this one sound way crackier than it is, it's just a fun get-together fic with a few shenanigans. the part where they're fighting bad guys and Steve goes "Hawkeye, NO" and Clint is just like :D "Hawkeye yes" :D made me laugh very very hard

Universal Constant, by @mariana-oconnor (16k) Clint gets knocked into another dimension where Bucky is a stripper, bangs him, then finds that dimension's Clint and bangs both of them together. A+ no notes

how do you want me, by @feathers-and-cigarettes and @sevdrag (6k) deliciously twisted hookup-turned-attempted-murder-turned-back-to-hookup

All Bark, All Bite, by @hawksonfire (6k) he was a werewolf, he was a vampire, can I make it any more obvious