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doesn't matter if i bleed, 3/3
It’s pretty fucking scary how easily they fall into a routine, so Clint does his best to not analyze things, just go with what’s working. It’s been a little more than a week since he got to the point where he could do more than move between couch and bed; it’s already second nature to be leaning against the kitchen island, two mugs of coffee on the counter, a skillet of bacon hissing and popping on the stove next to the one where the onions and peppers and potatoes wait for the eggs.
Phil’s kitchen is--like the rest of his life--neat and precise, organized down to the last detail. The pantry, with its shelves of sauces and spices, condiments and snacks, is like a catalog of all the places he’s been. Clint knows the stories behind most of the bottles and jars and bags and is slowly learning the non-classified details of the ones he doesn’t know. Privately, he’s pretty smug that nothing he’s heard so far is anywhere near as entertaining as the stuff he’s been in on.
Phil arrives with his customary foul morning mood. Clint shoves his coffee toward him and doesn’t bother with pleasantries, because he’s not in the mood to talk to himself, but when Phil starts to wave off actual food, Clint says, “Seriously, we’re going to do this again?”
They’ve had the same non-discussion every morning, ever since Clint got back on his feet and really noticed how thin Phil still is. It’s been more than a year, and maybe this is as good as he’s going to get, but Clint’s seen what Phil eats and Clint figures actual food might help some.
It generally surprises people that Clint knows his way around a kitchen, but for a while when he was a kid the only thing that kept him fed was knowing what to do with a bag of rice and whatever scraps he could scrounge. Later, when he was still obviously too young to tend bar, the cash--and the odd burger--he picked up as a short-order cook meant he didn’t have to pick between eating or having a place to crash. That’s generally all it is, though: one more line item in his skill set, something he can make use of when he needs to but otherwise fades into the background with the rest of his un-talked-about life before SHIELD.
“Seriously?” Clint repeats. “Say the word and I can go through the whole food-is-good-and-Stark’s-seaweed-shakes-don’t-count-and-if-you-don’t-stop-trying-to-convince-me-otherwise-I’m-telling-Nat riff again, but you know how that makes you late.”
Phil mutters, but he sits at the table and waits while Clint scrambles the eggs into the potatoes and peppers and onions and throws on a handful of cheese for good measure. Clint figures he’s ahead of the game not to be wearing the contents of the plate he drops on the table in front of Phil, so he doesn’t try for conversation.
Phil manages about three-quarters of what Clint piled onto his plate. That’s a hell of a lot better than coffee and maybe stopping halfway through the morning for one of the protein sludges that seems to be his default, so Clint doesn’t press. A second round of coffee is never a bad idea, either; once it’s down, life is almost back to normal.
Or not.
Usually, once they get through breakfast Phil is off to deal with his everyday life: meetings, classes, lectures… Clint isn't exactly sure, because asking would involve dealing with all the issues that Phil not being Agent Coulson is going to dredge up. Clint gives himself a pass for the first week or so--he'd forgotten what a fucking drag cracked ribs are, and how just breathing is an exercise in pain management--but after that, there's not a lot he can say for himself. So, when Phil gets them both a third refill rather than leaving, Clint doesn't know if that's because Phil doesn't have anything else going on or what. From how Phil settles back at the table, stretching his legs out in front of him and watching Clint thoughtfully, Clint thinks maybe he should have paid more attention: enough that this wouldn't have been a surprise; enough that he could have had a plan in place for dealing with no-event mornings.
Worse, Clint knows that look: it's Phil’s I-am-nearly-finished-processing-data-and-am-about-to-start-taking-action look. Sometimes--like when there's a gun pressing up under Clint's jaw and a crazy Bulgarian with a hair-trigger temper on the other end--it's a very good look to see. At other times--ones that may or may not have included an entire year’s worth of unfiled paperwork or the occasional enthusiastic application of explosive arrows in a situation that did not strictly warrant the same--it signals Clint's impending re-assignment to points north of the Arctic Circle. Right now, it’s probably nothing but the start of a conversation about how Clint should be thinking about getting back to the Tower or seeing what non-active assignments Hill or Fury have for him, but that doesn’t mean Clint is in any mood to hear it.
Clint sits under the thoughtful gaze as long as he can, and then he finds himself on his feet gathering the plates and forks and heading for the sink. Phil doesn’t say anything, just lets him go, and after a few seconds Clint hears him stand: the scrape of his chair across the old oak floor; the soft, measured steps out of the room and down the hall as he goes to collect everything he needs for the day.
"Have a good day, dear," Clint calls without turning around. He's mostly decided that not talking about this domestic thing they've got going on is the way to go. That’s easier some days than others, but this morning he's got the right attitude, the right tone, exactly like any of a thousand randomly inappropriate things he's said over open comms, nothing more than another quip in a long line of wisecracks and asides that had defined the two of them during an op.
"About that," Phil says quietly, and Clint turns around to see him just inside the door, no jacket or briefcase, nothing that says he's on his way out for the day. There's a look in his eyes, one that’s equal parts the openness from the first day Clint elbowed his way into the house and the determination Clint's known for years, and it sends Clint's brain into a wild, crazy spiral. When Clint doesn't say anything, Phil takes one step back into the room, and then another; moving slowly, deliberately, giving Clint plenty of time and space to move away or tell him to stop. Given where they both are in their lives, Clint appreciates the consideration and tries to return it, but he's halfway across the room before he stops to think about it, and then Phil is there with him, a hand on Clint’s good hip and his mouth slanting hard against Clint's.
Clint is very good at not letting himself want what he can’t have--a lesson learned hard and young--but there’s been a night or two over the years when he’s let himself go, let his brain spin out whatever it wanted, no matter how impossible. He’s let himself wonder how Phil might taste, what he might like, how he might like Clint; and at the end of each night, every time, Clint has taken all that and shoved it as far down as he can so he could wander back into Phil’s office and lean against the wall and make as many wiseass comments as he normally did.
This, Clint thinks--when he can think again, when Phil’s let him up for air and moved on to finding the places under his jaw and down his neck that make Clint half jump out of his skin--This doesn’t have to go away. He smiles at that, absolutely can’t help grinning at the thought, and when Phil looks up at him, arching one eyebrow in that familiar way, Clint just shrugs and shakes his head. Phil lets one corner of his mouth quirk up into a smile before he leans back in and kisses Clint again. It’s not quite as hard this time, but it’s more certain: a long, careful kiss where Phil’s tongue slides into Clint’s mouth changing to quick, sharp bites at Clint’s lower lip and back to another one that goes on forever, as though Phil can’t decide but doesn’t care because he has time for everything.
Clint can absolutely get behind that idea.
He lets Phil steer him step by step out of the kitchen, knowing without having to look that Phil will take care of it, every turn and corner and door navigated perfectly, smoothly, nothing to jar his ribs or interfere with the slow heat building low in his belly. They stop for a time in the hall and Clint gets Phil’s shirt untucked and unbuttoned, slides his hand under layers of crisp cotton and soft wool and sighs out a long, shaky breath at the feel of Phil’s skin against his. Phil gets them moving again, the final few steps and the last corner into his bedroom accomplished with the intense focus Clint knows from the field. It’s always been kind of a turn-on when it’s directed at him there, but that is nothing on what it feels like now.
“Do you know,” Phil murmurs against Clint’s mouth, his jaw, “how difficult it’s been, knowing you’re here in my bed?”
“Yeah, fuck that; I’m actually the one who was in the damn bed,” Clint answers, and he’d like to sound like he isn’t about to start shaking apart from how much he wants, but Phil’s stroking lightly over the curve of his hip and every touch is taking away that much more of Clint’s control. “Every night, thinking about where I was,” he says, as the backs of his legs hit the mattress. Phil steadies him, one last check to make sure Clint’s okay, and then his hands are moving quick and sure to unbutton Clint’s shirt, his jeans, stripping him with a deliberate care that comes close to undoing Clint completely.
“Good?” Phil asks, as though Clint isn’t arching into his slightest touch. Clint hasn’t been a monk in the last year, but it’s been nothing more than the most casual of hook-ups and this, the way Phil’s touching him, is worlds away from that.
Clint nods blindly and reaches for Phil, stupid and clumsy in his eagerness, but it doesn’t matter when Clint finally gets his shirt pushed off his shoulders and runs his palms down over Phil’s biceps and forearms and Phil shudders against him. It’s a race then, Clint wrestling himself the rest of his way out of his jeans, Phil stepping out of his pants, both of them stopping to touch and taste in uncoordinated bursts until they’re down to boxers and Phil’s T-shirt. It’s real, Clint’s thinking, all of it’s real--and then Phil stops him, catches Clint’s wrists as he’s sliding his hands up under that shirt, and it’s suddenly real in a very different way.
“It’s not pretty,” Phil says quietly, and Clint nods. Phil starts to say something more, but then shakes his head and lets go. Clint keeps his hands steady as he finishes the job, but when it’s done, the shirt off and dropped on the floor, it’s like ice water shot through his veins. The scar slashes across Phil’s chest and Clint knows there’s a matching one on Phil’s back, and his hands are shaking again, but for all the wrong reasons.
After a long few seconds, Phil says, “I’m fine with leaving the shirt on,” and Clint jerks his eyes away from the ridge of scar tissue.
“You think I’m freaked because of how it looks?” Clint grits out. “That’s not--Jesus, Phil. I just--tell me how this is going to work, how you’re going to let me near you when I planned it out, all of it--”
“Clint.”
“Every fucking detail, Phil,” Clint says, and he’s tired, so tired, and so incredibly stupid to have forgotten how this has to go.
“You didn’t do this,” Phil says, fierce and almost desperate.
“I might as well have,” Clint says. There’s more he could say, but he shuts his mouth because he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Phil sound like that and Clint’s already done enough here; he doesn’t need to make this harder than it’s already going to be. He lets himself drop down to sit on the edge of the bed, almost not feeling the jolt that slams through his ribs, and welcoming what does penetrate. He braces his forearms on his thighs and and stares at the floor as he tries to figure out what to do next.
Phil stays quiet for awhile, long enough that Clint has worked out a somewhat reasonable plan. Even if he can’t get a flight right away, there are a couple of hotels not more than a mile or so away. That close, he won’t even have to call a cab. One of them will probably have a room for the night and he can figure out flights and everything and be gone by the next morning. He just needs to make himself move, get dressed again--
“Nicaragua,” Phil says very quietly, and Clint jumps at the light touch tracing over the jagged seam on the back of his shoulder, the one that marks the exit wound from where he hadn’t quite ducked quick enough when the AK-47s came out. Phil slides the tip of his finger up behind Clint’s ear, unerringly finding the small ridge where it had taken six stitches to close the gash he’d gotten when he’d mouthed off to a dirty cop. “Kyiv,” Phil murmurs. Unthinkingly, Clint looks up at him and Phil touches his thumb to the bridge of Clint’s nose, the break that never healed cleanly. “Belfast,” he says as Clint realizes what he’s implying and flinches away.
“Stop.” It’s been a long time since words have come so close to choking Clint. “Stop it. That’s--it’s not the same.”
“No,” Phil says, still in that quiet, quiet voice. “It’s not. I hadn’t been subjected to any sort of coercion before I sent you into those clusterfucks, much less had a power-mad demi-god playing games with--” He stops and breathes slowly, in and out and in again, before he finishes, “You’re right--it’s not the same at all.”
The first time Clint had been out on an op with Phil, they weren’t working together. Phil had been babysitting one of SHIELD’s more borderline assets, one whose cryptography skillset only barely made up for his psycho behavior, while Clint was on a short leash with the most uptight jackass he’d ever had the misfortune to work with (and that was counting at least three different Company handlers and a butter-bar lieutenant who used Full Metal Jacket as his mantra for life). Somewhere in the middle of Clint repeatedly having the shot but not getting the authorization to take it, an idiotic order had been given that exposed Clint’s position and the jackass decided that Clint didn’t need to know.
A quiet voice in his ear had filled him in and then told him, “If you can still make the shot, Specialist, I will personally cover your back.” Clint watched the mark step into range and, in the split-second he had, somehow decided to trust that voice enough to step out of his cover and put two arrows dead-center. Three days and four countries later he finally saw the person behind the voice, and then it was another two days to the point on the opposite side of the world where they actually met. Clint spent the rest of his hitch TDY to SHIELD, and nobody was surprised when he signed on with them permanently after his discharge.
They don’t ever talk about it, but Clint knows him making the shot saved what was gunning to be a career-ending op even though no fault could be laid on Phil. He also knows Phil took down at least three bodyguards who had him targeted. The trust has always run both ways--always--and that’s the only thing that keeps Clint from leaving now. It takes everything he’s got just to stay, though; thinking isn’t really an option, so when Phil hands him his clothes he dresses mechanically and then finds himself out in the living room with a couple of ibuprofen packets and a bottle of water.
The clouds are making good on their threat and dumping rain, but Phil’s on some kind of a roll and already has a small fire going in the fireplace, so it’s easy to persuade himself to find a spot on the couch that doesn’t kill his ribs and zone out to the rain beating on the windows and the crackle of the fire. Phil, his reading glasses hooked into the open collar of his shirt, drops a stack of books and notebooks on the floor next to his favorite chair and sorts through his collection of honest-to-God vinyl. He decides on something low and classical and then settles into the chair and starts reading.
Clint watches him for a while, and then, when Phil reaches for a second book, says, “Don’t you have to be... somewhere?”
“No,” Phil says, taking his glasses off. “No classes, no office hours, no consults, nothing.” He marks his place in the book and sets it back on the stack. “I’d thought we could talk, but that obviously didn’t happen.” He rubs one hand over his eyes; for a second, he looks tired and worn down. Clint hates the idea that he’s the cause of that.
“Is that what this is supposed to be? Talking?”
“No,” Phil says. “This is--I’m not sure what, exactly. Just... being, maybe? Me, making sure you know I don’t want you to disappear. You....”
“Not disappearing,” Clint offers, and is rewarded with that rarest of sights: a full-on smile. Clint never actually forgets what a high it is to have one of those directed at him, but it still half-kills him every time. “I can do that.”
“That would make me very happy,” Phil says simply, like he doesn’t know how his words have re-centered Clint’s world. Or maybe he does know; his smile lingers even after he goes back to his books, and maybe no one else would notice, but Clint can see Phil’s shoulders aren’t nearly as tense as they had been.
The morning moves along. Phil reads and makes notes and reads more; Clint watches Phil and keeps the fire going and, for the first time in more than a year, doesn’t find the quiet threatening. The turntable is set to replay the album when it hits the end; on the third time through, Clint gives up and goes to at least turn the damn record over. He’s okay with silence; he’s fine with the low music Phil likes to have on as white noise, but once his brain knows the pattern of the music, it starts being a distraction and he has better things to think about.
“Handle it by the edges,” Phil says without looking up. “No smudges.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Clint murmurs, and knows he’s not imagining the faint snort he hears in answer.
Clint’s willing to coast on Phil’s idea to just be for however long he can get away with it--which he doesn’t think surprises either of them--but it’s unnerving that Phil seems to have the same mindset. Phil always has a plan or an agenda or, at the very least, a to-do list; Clint isn’t sure exactly how they're supposed to work without one. They seem to be, though, so if they don’t wind up pretending this day never happened he makes a mental note to remind Phil that life goes on even without A Plan. This will preferably take place in the middle of one of Phil’s I-am-deeply-unimpressed-by-your-improvisation non-lectures.
Clint can’t just sit and do nothing, of course. He saves that for when he’s on the job and lives depend on it; it’s not what he wants for the rest of his life. Stark’s been sending him ideas for new and exciting arrowheads, things Clint would have thought were impossible before he’d seen the results of a Stark-Banner all-nighter in the lab, so once he's gotten a little equilibrium back, he spends some time prioritizing the designs and throws out an idea or two of his own. He knows an EMP would take Iron Man and all the SHIELD gear offline, but he can think of a couple of times when it’s just been him and Nat, outnumbered and out-teched to hell and back, when taking down every piece of electronic equipment in a five-mile radius would have made their lives a lot easier, so he’s prepared to push a little on that one. Stark goes back and forth with him a little--Clint thinks he’s probably working on two or three other things at the same time, but he likes having little projects in the middle of the crazy ones and Clint is happy to fill that space. Clint's surprised that Tony's main argument is that he wouldn't be able to cover Clint's back if electronics were down, and even pointing out that Cap or Thor or Banner could come get him if necessary doesn't entirely eliminate the objection. They leave it with Tony working on something to shield Iron Man's systems from the pulse, which Clint is fine with.
Once the impromptu design session is done, Clint harasses Phil into eating again using the simple tactic of sitting and staring unblinkingly until he breaks and picks up the sandwich Clint made for him. Clint takes way more satisfaction from that than is probably necessary, but given everything else that’s happened recently he’s not going to beat himself up over it. Plus, after all the years when Phil’s taken care of everything, Clint figures it’s about time somebody else dealt with the mundane shit. He sits and eats, too, and thinks this being-together thing might actually be working; that they might find a way through.
Of course, his timing for anything that isn't connected to taking the long shot being what it is, that is exactly when his phone chimes with an incoming video conference from Deputy Director Hill, who wants to know if he can provide tactical assistance on the bridge during some war-games exercise they’re running with Xavier’s people. She phrases it as a request since Clint’s technically still on medical leave, but Clint knows how dicey his rep is within SHIELD. He’s solid with his team--he finally doesn't doubt that--but there are still a lot of people on the helicarrier who had front-row seats to him blowing through their sections with clear intent to kill anything that got in his way. By asking, Hill is putting her own rep on the line for him; there’s no way he can turn her down.
“We’ll have a helicopter waiting for you at DCA,” Hill says. “Thirty minutes.”
Clint disconnects the call and, without looking up, says, “I’m not disappearing on you, I just--I have to do this.”
“Of course,” Phil says calmly. Clint wants to think Phil believes him, but Phil can keep that same steady tone no matter what. He had it even after Loki had run him through. Clint nods like he doesn't have any doubts, either, and Phil sets his book and notes aside. "I can take you up to the airport if you like. It'll be quicker than waiting for a cab."
Clint can get anything he might need on board the carrier, so there's nothing to do but shove his feet in his boots and snag his credentials and favorite sunglasses and swear silently to himself that he isn’t going to let this thing between them end with him not coming back.
* * *
Clint’s been back on the helicarrier since Loki and the Chitauri invasion, but not for longer than it takes to pick up a jet or brief for a mission. Being there for an extended period is both easier and more difficult than he’d imagined. Easier, because it’s still pretty fucking amazing to be on the bridge when Hill gives the command to engage and the whole ship thrums with the energy it takes to go airborne; to know that this is something he’s part of, something he’s built. Harder, because being there blindsides him with memories, ones that flash across not just his mind but his body as well. They hit him at odd times: he’s gone down ladders at the usual full-tilt slide a dozen times before his brain dredges up how he’d done it while sending an explosive arrow in front of him. It’s not the same ladder or even the same section of the ship, but for a few endless seconds, he’s nothing but Loki’s toy again. He hits the deck, managing to stumble out of the way of the next guy coming down, and by some miracle is back in his own body before anyone notices. It helps to be on the bridge; his brain is fully engaged there--Hill has him liaising with Ororro on the X-side of things, cross-referencing what her team's seeing with what the carrier's systems are picking up, everyone scrambling to figure out what insane shit Fury and Xavier have dreamed up to test the always-volatile inter-team cooperation. They're creative, Clint will give them that. He guesses they have to be, what with the still-unsettling news that the galaxy really does contain beings who are more than happy to stomp all over Earth.
Midweek, Clint comes off a shift almost jittering from suddenly not having to focus on multiple streams of input and finds Natasha curled up in his rack with one of Stark’s latest tablets. She arches an eyebrow at him, one that says Yes, I’m here checking up on you; please do not pretend you wouldn’t be doing the same in my place; don’t even bother, Barton.
“I thought I heard your voice on comms,” Clint says, poking at her hip until she moves enough that he can fit himself in behind her, the wall at his back. Substantial evidence to the contrary, he is not a complete idiot; if she wants to see how he’s doing, taking over his bed is the least of the actions she could be initiating. There’s no sense forcing her hand.
“Sometimes flying’s more fun than spying,” Natasha answers, angling the tablet so he can see, too. She’s watching Independence Day and he can’t help laughing. “I’m assessing tactics,” she says with a very credible deadpan.
“You just like watching aliens get punched,” Clint says as Will Smith does exactly that.
“It’s important to reward yourself,” Nat says, relaxing back into Clint. Clint’s seen the stupid movie so many times he can recite the dialogue in his sleep, but he watches along with her, the tension bleeding from his body at the steady in-and-out of her breathing. He's almost asleep when she murmurs, "You're doing good, you know."
For all that she's been there the whole time--kicking his ass and picking him up out of the gutter (metaphorical and not)--they've had exactly one conversation about this: the one that happened right after he woke up with a head full of nightmares that turned out to be real. It's how they roll, how they've always rolled: words taking a back seat to actions right from the start when she turned and faced him head-on, letting him see everything in her eyes, and he put an arrow through her shoulder rather than her heart. Neither of them trusts easily or well, so it's pretty goddamn ridiculous that it feels like her words take a hundred-pound weight off his shoulders, but it's not like the rest of his life isn't equally ridiculous.
"Some days are better than others," he finally manages to say, and she shrugs, a tiny movement and a little tilt of her head that he knows better than his own face sometimes. "I wasn't doing so great the day Hill called me up here," he adds. "With Phil."
"Did you say anything stupid?"
"Define stupid," Clint says, mostly to buy himself some time.
"Telling him you couldn't trust him," Natasha answers sharply.
"No, but--"
"Doesn't matter." Natasha pauses the movie and lays the tablet flat on the mattress. "That's the big one. If you managed not to screw that up, everything else is fine."
"Nat," Clint sighs, but she's shaking her head before he can say anything else.
"You two," she says, with a laugh that sounds entirely too indulgent for someone who could take Clint out in the next heartbeat without breaking a sweat. "Do you know I almost didn't come in with you after I saw you with him?" She laughs again. "You were taking the arrow out of my shoulder and arguing with him about why not killing me was the right call and… It was so clear to me that you were fucking each other and I had no intention of putting myself into a situation where that was accepted behavior. Not again," she finishes, no trace of laughter at all at the end.
That whole week is a blur of no sleep and tensions so high it'd taken Clint almost a month to come down from the focus he'd maintained to first track her and then bring her in, but he remembers the conversation she's talking about. Phil had been thrown enough by Clint showing up with a bleeding but still-alive mark that he'd actually lost his legendary calm and started snapping back at Clint's stubborn arguments. It's still the only time Clint can remember that happening.
"I told him that, after he made you sleep," Natasha says slowly. That was another argument, one that Clint had lost. He remembers waking up with her next to him on the bed, Phil in a straight-backed chair keeping watch, the air heavy with unnamed tension. Clint had chalked it up to him throwing the whole mission out the window, but apparently he'd missed a little something. "I was so tired," Nat continues, in that matter-of-fact voice she uses on the few occasions when she talks about her life. "So over it all, I didn't care; I told him he could go ahead and put a bullet in my head, but I wasn't coming in only to have to deal with that same scenario." She gets quiet again; Clint lets her work through the memories. "He was amused, mostly," she says. "Maybe vaguely insulted that I thought he'd allow sex to complicate your relationship. It took me years to realize he never actually denied what I told him I saw and how I interpreted it."
Clint lets that settle into his brain; it's nothing he doesn't already know, not really, but hearing it from the outside is something he can hold onto when the problems rear their heads.
There's no room for Natasha to roll over so she can face him--there's not really even room for the two of them to lie on the narrow bed--but she twists her head enough that if he leans up on his elbow she can look him in the eye. "You're not in the same place now. There are… options that couldn't exist before."
"We're working on it," Clint tells her. She holds his eyes for another few seconds, then nods and settles herself back down against him, picking up the tablet and re-starting the movie.
“Good,” she says. She’s asleep before he can ask how the rest of her life is going, but he guesses it’s not too bad if she can go out like that. The movie keeps playing but he doesn’t really watch, just lets her steady breathing ease him down, too.
He comes awake when she crawls out from under his arm.
“Sorry,” Natasha murmurs. “You should sleep more; I’m just going to go see if I can blackmail Logan into letting me fly the Blackbird.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Clint mumbles. “Hey, that’s--uh, when we’re done here, fly me back down to DC?”
“Of course,” Natasha says, like it’s no big thing, but Clint’s known her a long time and he doesn’t miss the glint in her eye that says he’s so cute in his fumbling attempts at communication. It’s true, but he flips her off regardless and pulls the pillow over his head to muffle her laughter.
* * *
They wrap the active portion of the exercise after six days and move into the first stages of debriefing almost immediately after. Clint runs down a list of carrier-specific items with Hill and then manages to talk his way onto an early helicopter leaving for Manhattan so he can get through a second round at the Tower as quickly as possible. Once they work through the initial interviews, it’ll take a couple of days for the analysts to crunch the data from the system logs; he’s planning on making a break for Phil’s then. It’s not perfect--he’ll have to come back fairly soon after he gets there--but waiting around until the “right” time feels like a cop-out, especially since he’s almost due to come off medical leave. Once that happens, there’s no telling where he’ll end up or for how long.
It’s quiet as Clint comes in from the helipad, but JARVIS tells him the whole team is around somewhere. That’s good, Clint finds himself thinking. It’s been a couple of weeks since he’s been around; he’s looking forward to seeing people. He’s still chasing that thought around in his head--even once he fell into partnership with Phil and Natasha he never expected that circle of trust to expand--when he keys open his door and stops dead.
“You’re back early,” Phil says, looking up from another of his ever-present books. Clint knows he’s staring like an idiot, but he honestly can’t quite get his brain working again. Phil lets the silence draw out for a couple of seconds, but then says, “Excuse the intrusion; I didn’t want to be in some obscure lounge and miss you if you were only here for a short time.” Clint regains enough brainpower to step into the room and let the door close behind him, but that’s about all he can manage. Phil stands up and holds out a key. “You left this in Virginia.”
Clint reaches out automatically and takes the key. “I was coming back,” he says, and it’s too quick, too defensive. “I--” He shuts his mouth before he says too much, makes it worse.
“I know,” Phil says, one side of his mouth curling up into the start of a smile. “It just suddenly occurred to me that you were the one making the effort, again, and that it didn’t have to be only that way now. So. Here I am.” There’s the smallest of hesitations in that last part, so tiny almost no one would notice. Clint, though--he’s spent the better part of a decade with Phil’s voice his one link to the world outside the shot he’s lined up to take; he knows every shade of that voice and Phil knows he does, which means Phil wanted him to hear it. “If you’d rather I lea--”
“No,” Clint says, words falling out of his mouth in a rush again, but this time it doesn’t matter because he can’t say this too quickly. “You can--I’m--” He stops and takes a breath and says, “Stay. Please.”
“Thank you,” Phil says. He doesn’t smile, but his face is open and unguarded and that’s a thousand times better, Clint thinks.
* * *
They could go find the rest of the team and see what the consensus is for food, but there’s no fucking way Clint is sharing Phil with anyone just yet, so he makes do with the basics JARVIS keeps stocked in all the suite kitchens. He’s gone a lot longer on far less than a dozen free-range, organic eggs and some seriously good bread and chicken-apple sausage--JARVIS’s idea of the basics differs from any reality Clint’s known, but that’s nothing new. And there’s never going to be any need to go search out something in place of the high-end coffee Tony has flown in as a baseline requirement of life, which is all Phil really needs, so they’re set.
It’s easier to talk when he’s doing something else, so in the middle of food getting cooked, Clint’s not surprised to hear himself say, “We should probably talk this time.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Phil says. “Do you want me to start?”
“No,” Clint says. “No, let me--I need to just get this out there, okay?” He doesn’t look up from where he’s slicing through the loaf of bread, hard crust and soft interior falling away from the sharpened edge of his knife. “I remember everything. I don’t know if you know that, if Fury told you or anything, but I do. I don’t remember feeling anything--it’s anybody’s guess whether that’s just my brain disassociating now or if that was the staff, but I remember everything I thought and planned and did.” He makes himself look up for the last part, because Phil deserves to have this conversation face to face. “I meant what I said earlier--I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”
Phil looks back at him, easy and steady. “However we want it to,” he says. “Emphasis on the ‘we’.”
“Just like that,” Clint says, the words sharper and more bitter than he intends, and if he’s being honest, it’s from things that go back way beyond Loki.
“Yes.” Phil comes right back at him, no hesitation, no doubt, no uncertainty. “Flashbacks and guilt and hypervigilance and anger and every other fucking thing that will undoubtedly rear its head aside, yes, just like that, because that’s how it’s always been.”
Clint looks at him for a long minute, each word sinking into him, becoming a part of him, and then carefully puts the knife down next to the round loaf, laying his hands flat on the counter. They’re not shaking; he’s not shaking, but it feels like he should be. Phil watches him, steady and sure.
“Yeah, okay,” Clint says, leaning a little harder on the counter. “Yeah,” he repeats, and lets himself think it’s not going to be a disaster if he believes it, because Phil said it and more than anything, Clint knows just how far Phil goes to keep his word.
* * *
When Clint comes back in after debriefing, Phil is still awake, standing in the middle of a holographic projection of what Clint recognizes as the blueprints to his place in Virginia. The lines in the air shift and blur and redraw themselves as he and JARVIS carry on a low-voiced conversation, but Phil steps out of the projection as soon as he notices Clint.
“Castles in the air,” Phil says, with a smile. “Literally.”
“Welcome to Stark Tower,” Clint says. “We get all the cool toys.” Phil leaves the hologram up, which Clint takes as an invitation to look a little more closely. The attic--completely unlivable now, Clint thinks--is where the bulk of the changes are, and there’s a lot of attention being paid to an outbuilding that Clint knows is nothing but a falling-down shed now, all of which results in a nice chunk of new living space without knocking down interior walls and messing with the vibe of the place. It’s still a hell of a lot of work.
“I was offered a more permanent position with the university,” Phil says in response to Clint’s unspoken comment. “I’m seriously considering accepting.” In Phil-speak, Clint knows that means a detailed, cross-referenced list of pros and cons, with a table of contents, footnotes, and an index. “I thought I’d look and see what it might take to make the house more livable long-term. JARVIS is being kind enough to help me prioritize based on cost and complexity.”
“You always did know how to make your own fun, but it used to be a little more, you know, fun back in the day,” Clint says.
“Says the man who would never be caught dead sitting around base post-mission,” Phil says, on point as always.
“Hey, it was a training exercise,” Clint says. “No real need to decompress.” Phil rolls his eyes and tells JARVIS to shut everything down. Once Clint keys in his privacy setting, it’s just the two of them and he adds, “Plus, my real post-mission tradition is sitting around your office with a hangover, listening to you bitch about how four sentences and a schematic of my shot lines isn’t a remotely adequate report, so... I’m just skipping the hangover.”
“And the inadequate report,” Phil says.
“No, I already forwarded that to Hill.” Clint tries for a smirk, but doesn’t think he makes it. “I kept the important part, though.” He’d thought he’d be able to keep this light, but there’s a year-plus of not having been able to do any of that clawing at his chest, and the last part comes out serious. He tries again. “Feel free to skip the bitching.”
“I can do that,” Phil says. It hits Clint, then: the full impact of where they are, what they’re doing. If this blows up, it isn’t something they can brush aside or pretend only happened because of the adrenaline rush of finding themselves alive after all. This is real. He waits for the panic to wash over him, but there’s nothing like that in his mind, only a calm certainty that feels a lot like hearing Phil’s voice in his ear no matter what hell might be raining down on him otherwise.
“Stay with me tonight?” Clint says, not quite believing that it can be this simple, but willing to try.
“I can do that, too,” Phil says with a gorgeous smile that makes Clint’s breath catch hard. There’s no way he’s going to be able to say anything more, so he just steps closer, until he can lean in the final few inches and press his mouth to Phil’s.
It feels good, right, in a way Clint doesn’t have much experience with, but it’d felt that way the last (only) time they’d done it, too, and that hadn’t exactly ended well, and Clint can’t quite let himself relax into the kiss.
“It’s the journey, not the destination,” Phil murmurs against Clint’s mouth. Clint should have known they’d be on the same page; it’s part of the reason they’re so good together in the field. “We don’t get dinged for not getting to an arbitrary point at an arbitrary time.”
“Fancy words,” Clint tells him. “I’d agree, except it’s been too damn long of a journey already. I’m ready to be there.”
“I’m not going to argue,” Phil says, bringing one hand up to cup the back of Clint’s head and hold him steady. The next kiss is easier, and the one after that easier still, and it ends up being no big deal to walk into the bedroom together. Phil sits on the edge of the bed to untie his shoes; Clint’s been running around in half-laced boots since he got down off the carrier, so he can toe out of them at the door. The light from the living area spills in behind him, enough that he can see Phil watching him as he crosses the room, pulling his shirt off and dropping it on the way. Clint knows that look, the simmering intensity Phil can bring to bear on situations and scenarios, but he’s never had it focused on him like this. It calms all the second-guessing Clint’s brain is doing, dismisses all the doomsday predictions, reels him in and sparks an answering need in his blood, so he’s almost shaking by the time Phil reaches out and fits his hands to the curve of Clint’s ribs.
It makes it so Clint’s hands are steady when he unbuttons Phil’s shirt, and it makes it so he doesn’t just feel the tight, smooth scar tissue when he touches Phil’s skin, but also the strong, steady heartbeat under it. It makes it okay; it makes everything okay, because they’re here and Phil wants him and Clint has lost track of how long he’s wanted that.
He finds the words and the breath to tell Phil that, his voice low and hoarse but as steady as he can make it even if Phil is unbuttoning his jeans with quick, sure motions that are leaving Clint half-crazy with want. Phil smiles at him again, another blinding, gorgeous smile and Clint loses a little time, just falls into that smile and the warm hands on his skin and comes out the other side already naked on the bed, Phil stretched out next to him.
“What do you want?” Phil asks, and Clint almost laughs, because what doesn’t he want? Phil’s right there with him again, though; he ducks his head down and bites at Clint’s bottom lip. “What do you want first?”
Clint opens his mouth and he knows he means to make as filthy of a wisecrack as possible, but what comes out is, “Touch me--my, my face, touch my face.” There’s a split-second where he’s horrified at his subconscious, but then Phil makes a low, wordless noise that’s just as needy and possessive as Clint feels and his thumb is tracing Clint’s cheekbone, his mouth, so fucking good Clint can’t breathe. He turns his face into Phil’s hand, chases down his mouth as it follows the same path his hands had taken.
“There are so many things I want to do to you,” Phil says when Clint lets him up for air. “Things I have waited for years to be able to do.” Clint is in favor of all of them--he doesn’t have to hear them to know that--but he hopes Phil can do the mind-reading thing again because Clint has no plans to stop kissing long enough to say any of that.
Phil smooths his hands down over Clint’s shoulders, his palms skimming along Clint’s biceps and forearms before reversing the path, trailing the backs of his fingers in a barely-there tease that skims over wrist and elbow and inner arm, not quite a tickle but enough to make Clint want to shiver. Phil smiles into the kiss, but before Clint can get his brain functioning enough to retaliate, Phil’s stopped playing and is tracing patterns down Clint’s side, circling his hip to stroke over his ass, the back of his thigh, and up again to cup his balls.
Clint does shiver at that, one long, helpless tremor; he tears his mouth away from Phil’s to drag in air and Phil takes the opportunity to bite along his jaw, quick, sharp stings that make it harder still to breathe even before Phil starts teasing his balls, closing his hand over them lightly, rolling them, tugging them just hard enough to make Clint whine.
“I’ve thought about this,” Phil says, his words sliding along Clint’s skin, drawing more tremors in their wake. “Took my time, worked out all the details--”
“Control freak,” Clint manages to gasp, the last word fading into a moan as Phil drags his thumbnail up Clint’s dick to tease at the nerves just under the head.
“You have no idea,” Phil murmurs, pressing down a little more firmly. Clint arches into him, getting his leg up and over Phil’s hip and dragging him closer. “I had plans, Barton,” Phil says, and that’s when Clint really starts to believe this is all going to work, because it doesn’t matter that they’re both naked and panting, that Phil’s got his hand wrapped around Clint’s dick, that Clint is digging his own hand into Phil’s hip hard enough to leave marks--none of that matters, because Clint knows that voice. He’s heard it for years, has trusted it all along and now is no time to stop.
“So many plans,” Phil says, shifting his hand so he can start jerking Clint off in slow, easy strokes with a wicked twist over the head. “And now we’re here and you’re so fucking gorgeous all I want to do is watch while I make you come--”
“Doesn’t matter,” Clint says. “‘S all good.” He thinks he should care that it’s more of a whimper than an actual conversational tone--it’s a hand job, nothing exotic; he should have some pride--but him losing it is clearly making Phil crazy and that’s too fucking awesome to worry about minor details, especially not once Phil shifts enough that he can get his own cock lined up next to Clint’s and starts working them both at the same time.
“Tomorrow,” Clint says, pulling Phil closer and ducking his head down to lick into his mouth. “You can fuck me then--” Phil’s hand tightens hard around their cocks; Clint can’t breathe for a couple of seconds. “Or, or, I can suck you--God, Phil, finish it, please, please.”
“Come on,” Phil’s saying through gritted teeth, rubbing his thumb, rough and nasty, over the head of Clint’s dick at the end of every fast, tight stroke. Clint can’t help moving into them, low, raw noises spilling out of his throat. “Come for me, let me see you,” and Clint does, lets go and comes, everything irising down to Phil’s voice in his ear, his mouth and his skin and his cock against Clint’s, nothing in the world but Phil.
* * *
Clint’s still not at a hundred percent from the cracked ribs and he hadn’t slept worth shit on the carrier, but even as tired as he is, it’s been a long time since he’s actually slept with someone and he keeps jerking awake through the night. It’s not a total catastrophe, though: every time he jolts up, he gets to remember that it’s Phil in bed with him. It’s not a bad way to come down off an adrenaline rush.
Phil wakes up every time Clint does, of course. He waits until Clint relaxes and won’t be going for his throat, and then throws an arm or a leg over him and mutters unflattering things about high-maintenance assets and their hair-trigger reflexes. It’s strangely soothing.
The last time, Clint manages to remember before he comes up fighting, so he just kind of twitches awake and doesn’t disturb Phil. He’s kept the reflectives in the floor-to-ceiling windows synced to sunrise; they go clear about an hour beforehand so he can watch the sky lighten and the sun come up over the city. A good number of times over the past year, that’s the only decent thing he can remember about a given day.
This day, with Phil breathing steadily into the curve of his neck, is not going to be like that.
eta: link to Epilogue
Title from It Doesn't Matter, by Allison Krauss.