Fic: Know My Own Bed
Jun. 4th, 2012 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabinetzinTitle: Know My Own Bed
Summary: It's about trust. Nothing more, nothing less.
Fandom: Avengers
Word Count: 6487
Rating/Contents: NC-17, post-movie (but fuck a bunch of canon), misunderstandings, trust issues, paranoia, humor, intercrural sex
Pairing: Clint/Natasha?, Clint/Coulson, lots of friendship
Policies: Read my archiving, feedback, and warnings policies here.
A/N: This was supposed to be sad and meditative, but as previously discussed, I cannot be serious for five minutes. Thanks todizmo for fixing the place up.
Stark Tower has a lot of floors, and they're slow to fill; this is mostly because Tony has no interest in filling them. The first two floors are small businesses, kind of a Stark Mall only without tacky kiosks or chain stores and with really good food. Then there are a bunch of empty spaces, then the interesting parts. The training areas are first, guns and arrows and hand-to-hand and whatever else you can think of. Then there's the floor of conference rooms, for press and otherwise.
It's a long way up, past all that, until you reach residential and R&D. Tony has basically allotted everyone important an unnecessary amount of space, and it's telling how that works out. Steve and Colonel Rhodes have empty floors that neither of them use, while Hogan's is more or less a giant man cave. Bruce has a floor right below R&D with unusually high ceilings and very thick, attractively disguised reinforcements around the load-bearing walls; Thor's is actually strengthened in just the same way, but he's proud of it. It goes without saying that Tony and Pepper have the floors right over the sign; it's equally obvious that Clint and Natasha live together, on a floor with an enormous balcony.
Phil refuses to move in until he is outright ordered to. His emotional and professional distance from the Avengers is essentially nil, so he tries to keep the physical distance as great as possible for as long as possible; but in the end, Fury orders him in. Tony opens up a floor for him- it does not escape his notice that the floor had already been set aside- and he packs his bags and goes.
Before he moves Phil in, Tony decorates the den with Captain America stuff; Phil rolls his eyes until he goes to take it down, thinking Tony is, once again, fucking with him. That's when he realizes that it's mostly real, in good enough shape or restored carefully enough that it looks too good to be true. Phil looks around and realizes he has a half-a-million dollar den, and once he gets ahold of himself he doesn't move a single thing.
It's not so bad, living in the tower, if only because it's big enough that everybody's not on top of everybody else, not any more than they are just by virtue of being who they are. Phil doesn't actually leave all that much unless Fury needs him, and more and more Fury is assigning him to stay right the hell where he is, stick close and make sure nobody blows up New York more than they have to. In any other circumstance, he would be completely offended, being stuck on a babysitting job, but this is no ordinary babysitting. This is serving as the liaison for the most powerful heroes on the planet, a job during which there is absolutely no dull moment, no matter how much he sometimes wants one.
He's learning how to snatch a few for himself, times when no one can get in touch with him but JARVIS- and JARVIS is pretty good about respecting his privacy. There's a lounge on the floor with the conference rooms that almost no one uses, a sort of utilitarian place, comfortable but not inviting, the kind of place Tony uses to keep people waiting. When he doesn't feel like leaving the Tower, Phil likes to vanish there, right into Tony's blindspot.
One afternoon he's sitting there, drinking his coffee and reading Popular Mechanics, when he realizes someone is coming; the person's footfalls are almost silent- Clint or Natasha, then, probably Clint, because almost silent for anyone else is like angry stomping for Natasha.
Soon enough, Clint knocks on the wall before stepping out of the semi-darkness of the hallway, presumably so Phil won't shoot.
"Evening," Phil says, dog-earring his page and setting it aside. It really is getting on towards evening, the sunset coming in through the giant windows that characterize pretty much every room in the tower; it's a good red and gold one, broken up a little by the haze of the city but still gorgeous.
"Hey," Clint says, perching on the other arm of the couch. He's dressed a little less casually than usual; he's actually wearing a shirt with long sleeves- he's got them rolled up past his elbows, but it's the thought that counts. "Come to dinner with me."
Phil looks down at himself; he's not dressed to match, just wearing an old, beat-up shirt with some Latverian crest on it, something he's not even sure why he owns- he almost certainly didn't buy it himself. "Let me change."
For a moment, Clint looks kind of shocked, and Phil can't figure that one out at all. "Don't you dare put on a suit."
"I do own other clothes," Phil tells him; it is not the first time he's had to tell one of them that, even when he's sitting here wearing a shirt that says "Triumfărik quel regierte Latverium - Thankks for visit Latveria" on it in faded black letters.
"Well put them on and let's go," Clint orders.
Phil rolls his eyes, but he goes and does it, pulling on a blue sweater and pair of gray slacks. They end up at Richard's, one of the restaurants downstairs. The name of the place is a subject of great debate; nobody seems to know how to pronounce it, except that your food is served cold if you pronounce it like the man's name.
Clint's got reservations, which is a little weird; then again, getting "reservations" for anyone who lives in the Tower essentially means calling up and saying, "Hold Tony's table, I'll be there in thirty minutes." They barely wait any time before they're being ushered towards Tony's private table- which is, of course, the most public private table there could possibly be, because Tony is Tony.
After they're seated, Clint seems nervous, and Phil has no idea why. Clint's not nervous often; it's a bit of a liability, in their line of work. Then again, not everything is work- which might be worse, the fact that Clint is more nervous in a casual setting. He's eating all the bread while trying to hide the fact that he's eating all the bread, and Phil wants to tell him to calm down, but he doesn't quite know how.
"Should we get a bottle of wine?" Clint asks, putting down his bread and looking at the wine list, obviously lost.
"You don't drink," Phil points out.
Clint shrugs, looking a little sheepish, and puts the wine list down. "Just seems like the thing to do."
Phil snorts. "At these prices, in this company, the thing to do is whatever you want."
Clint takes a deep breath and lets it out, the tension going out of his shoulders, like he was just waiting to hear something like that.
Phil has spent years studying Clint, and Clint is still a mystery sometimes.
It's better, after that, the conversation easy, the food amazing; Phil protests when Clint pays, but not as much as he could- surely Avengers make more than he does. They walk back to the elevator, the private one with the biometric scanners, and Clint holds the door open for him.
Phil hits the button for his floor, since it's lower than Clint and Natasha's. He's getting ready to say something about how this was good and how it's been too long since they've actually spent time together when they weren't trying to die, but then Clint reaches over and hits the blue button next to the emergency stop. It stops the elevator without triggering the alarm and dims the lights a little- though it does not turn off the security cameras, a fact Tony did not inform anyone of at first.
Clint moves closer, and that's the point where it hits him- this was a date, he just went on a date with Clint, is it possible he's gone on other dates with Clint before and not been informed? There are many, many things that it is critical for Phil to know at all times, but whether or not he is presently dating Clint Barton is one that he thought he was pretty clear on. It isn't hard to be sure about, especially when Clint and Natasha are very clearly and very deeply involved with each other.
Unfortunately, if you drew an artist's rendering of Phil's type it would pass for a pretty good portrait of Clint, and Phil has thought about this. Phil has thought about it a lot; Phil eventually had to make a rule with himself that he would not think about it, one that he followed for so long that it actually started to work. He's a professional above all things, things that include his personal wants and desires, whatever they are; underneath that, he and Natasha- Natasha doesn't have friends, it's not her style, but he and Natasha respect and care about one another, enough so that Phil's not going to do this to her.
But then Clint kisses him, and everything falls out of Phil's head. His mouth tastes like butter and garlic, and Phil does not give the slightest hint of a damn about that. His kisses are insistent, hard in an almost desperate way, like he's got something to prove, something to say that can't be said another way. Phil gives it right back to him; he's got plenty to add to this conversation, things he wanted to let out a long, long time ago.
And then the alarm bells in his head kick back in, and Phil realizes what he's doing. He lets it go on for too long, even after that; he wants it to go on for a whole lot longer, but there's a point where there's no excuse anymore, not for what he's doing. He puts his hands on Clint's chest, and it takes him a second to get up the drive to push him away.
"I'm not doing this," Phil manages to say.
Clint's hard to read, but Phil knows all his tells; he's hurt, confused. "If you don't want to-"
"It doesn't matter if I want to," Phil says, hitting the STOP button again, and the lights come up instantly. "I'm not going to let you make a mistake."
"Nothing about this is a mistake," Clint says fiercely.
"Cheating is always a mistake," he says, and he hits the button for the next floor without even paying attention to the number. "I need to go."
Clint catches him around the arm as the elevator door opens. "Phil, it's not like that-"
"Good night, Barton," he says, pulling his arm out of Clint's grip, and he steps out and doesn't look back.
It's not until the elevator door closes that he actually looks up. He thought he'd hit one of the empty floors or the gym, but apparently he overshot it, which is exactly what he needs right now.
Happy is sitting in his boxers on the couch with a bowl of cereal and a Budweiser, and he looks up at Phil, spoon half-way to his mouth. "Do you need something?" he asks. He spots the look on Phil's face. "You want a beer?"
Phil sighs, ready to make excuses and go back to his apartment. "Please," is what comes out of his mouth instead.
--
When Natasha's around, she's pretty easy to find.
That's actually not true at all. If Natasha wants you to be able to find her, she's pretty easy to find. If Natasha doesn't want to be found, you just won't find her, except maybe with Barton's help. Phil knows this; he just hasn't let on that he knows it, just in case.
When Natasha cares for it to be known that she's around, she's pretty easy to find. There's the lounge, she's sometimes in there; occasionally she's up at Bruce's, a friendship he doesn't understand very well but seems to be blossoming; usually, though, you'll find her on the training floors, doing something dangerous with guns or knives or beating the hell out of someone.
That's where she is when Phil goes looking for her the next day. It is not exactly the ideal forum for what Phil needs to do, but he needs neutral ground; above all, he needs people around to act as witnesses.
She's at the edge of the big wrestling mat they have, the one that must be twenty feet wide; she's stretching, getting ready to wipe the floor with Maria, and she gives Phil a nod when she sees him coming.
"We need to talk," he says when he reaches her, and her face goes into shutdown.
"Work or no?" she asks, and he realizes his tone must have been darker than he thought.
"No," he tells her, and she sighs, relaxing visibly.
"Hit me with it, then," she says, picking up her water bottle and taking a swig.
"I don't want to talk to you about this, but I'm going to," he says. He's particularly reluctant to do it right this second, because more than once she's made him spar with her in retaliation for pissing her off.
He really doesn't like to get kicked in the face any more than he has to.
Natasha looks at him warily. "Go ahead."
He sighs. "Barton came on to me."
"That's rough," she says, giving him a sympathetic look as she goes back to stretching her arms. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him no," he says, shocked she'd even ask. He waits a moment for the inevitable blow-up, but it doesn't come. "You're very calm about this."
She shakes her head. "It's not fun, but Clint's not the first guy to fall in love with his handler."
He frowns. "You're not concerned about yourself?"
She snorts. "I like you, Coulson, but not like that."
"I don't understand," he insists. "You and Clint-"
She looks at him in confusion. "What are you-" She suddenly realizes what he's going for, sighing in annoyance. "Oh, not this. I thought you, of all people, knew better."
"I don't know anything," he says, crossing his arms, "except that you live together, you spend your time together, you barely let him out of your sight." Now he's getting annoyed. "Natasha, you share a bed."
Natasha looks him hard in the face; the last time he saw that look was in Momostenango, which was not exactly the most pleasant three days they ever spent together. "Because there's always a threat," she says fiercely. "The Tower's far from impenetrable, even with the security upgrades." That's a pretty serious statement, even though it's true; the security system gets overhauled more or less every two weeks, but there will never not be holes. "If we have to sleep, we're not leaving it to chance. I don't trust anyone else to watch me. I don't trust anyone else to watch him. Clint agrees, so here we are."
Phil frowns. It's combat logic; if that's how they feel about it, then they're doing good not to be sleeping in watches. He doesn't say anything to try and talk her down from it, to belittle her concerns, even though it's some impressive paranoia- and this is coming from someone who has two pistols and a shotgun within arm's reach of his bed. He respects her too much to do that, to pretend she doesn't have anything to worry about or that she hasn't lived through enough to understand what danger is.
Still, he's not quite sure about what he's hearing, needs to recheck everything to make sure he's actually caught up. "So you and Barton-"
"Phil." Natasha closes her eyes, exasperated with him. "Even if I wanted to, Clint is gay."
"Good to know," he says, and it's only a little flippant.
"Now you're getting it," she says approvingly. She waves a hand at him. "Go and fuck him with my blessing."
Phil snorts a laugh. "I'm not very surprised that you'd bless fucking."
She gives him a smug smile. "If it needed temple priestesses, I'd be on the short list." She glances up, and Phil follows her line of sight; Maria is standing on the other side of the mat, and she holds up her wrist, tapping it with her finger. "That's my cue," Natasha says. "Oh yeah, and take Clint out to dinner. He was pretty sad when you fucked up the last time."
"Will do," Phil says, wincing; if it was bad enough that Natasha felt sorry for him, Clint must have been devastated. She gives him a nod and then turns around, facing Maria and walking out across the mat towards her; neither of them get to the center before they're launching flying attacks at each other.
This is exactly why Phil didn't want Natasha pissed off at him. He only flies mid-fight on very, very rare occasions.
--
After a week, Phil gives up on trying to find Clint. Clint will talk to him by radio, Clint will answer emails, Clint will send messages through other people, but other than that, Clint's off- Phil knows he's not off nursing his wounds, because he's not like that. What he's doing is being really pissed at himself and generally angry at the world.
Phil does have certain tricks, however; the most useful of which is that he has full access to Clint's calendar; he just programs in MISSION BRIEFING - S CONF RM for six-thirty on Thursday and sets it to Need To Know. He turns on the hour reminder, and the thirty minute reminder, and the five minute reminder, and he locks the whole thing so that Clint can't change it or hide it.
Reading the manual has its benefits.
Clint is a lot of bad things and Clint has made a lot of mistakes, but one thing he'll always do is come when SHIELD- when Phil really needs him. He turns up at six-thirty on the dot; he takes one look around the empty conference room and puts his hand to his forehead. "You're a dick, Coulson."
"Come to dinner with me," Phil says, and Clint looks at him.
"I'm busy," Clint says.
"You better not be," Phil warns. "Your calendar is booked for this meeting until ten."
"I dressed for a mission briefing," Clint tells him.
"Then change and meet me downstairs," he says.
Clint sighs. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"
Phil gives him a serious look. "Do you want out of this?"
"No," Clint admits.
"Then get dressed," Phil says. "I'm hungry."
Clint sighs and walks out on him, but in twenty minutes they're standing in front of Richard's again.
Phil would like to say that it's a line-by-line repeat of what happened last time, because last time was pretty good, as dates that he had no idea were dates go. Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case. Clint knows this is an apology, clearly, and he isn't acting like he's particularly eager to be apologized to. Phil thought this was going to be pleasant, but instead it's kind of interminable- though the food is maybe even better than last time, and even Clint can't be upset when presented with chocolate cake like that.
Clint argues when Phil pays, and Phil starts to wonder if this was a miscalculation. He thought it was pretty obvious that this was their make-up date, but Clint doesn't seem to have caught up to the party yet. Now Phil feels awful; he must have screwed it up really, really badly last time, if Clint thinks there's no going back.
Then they're back in the fateful elevator, and Phil lets the first few floors pass before he reaches past Clint and hits the blue STOP button.
"You used the Date Night Button," Clint says, not moving. "Must be important."
"Is that what it's called?" Phil asks, stepping closer. "I always thought of it as Gibbs Mode."
"That's what Tony says it is," Clint tells him, and he's looking at Phil's lips. "I call it the Blue Light Special."
"I'm sorry," Phil murmurs.
Clint's eyes snap to Phil's. "Coulson," he says warningly. "If you're about to say something about how you can't do this-"
"You didn't let me finish my sentence," Phil chides. "I'm sorry I fucked it up so badly last time. I wish I had it to do over again."
Clint relaxes. "Good thing you do," he says, putting his hands on Phil's waist and pulling him towards him. Now he tastes like coffee and cake, because eating chocolate, making out, and making plans are some of Phil's favorite things in the world. These things have come together for him, and it's just as perfect as he wanted it to be. Clint's kisses are a little less insistent than last time, but that just means they're more relaxed, more hot, more lazy, and all of these things are beautiful.
Clint's hands are starting to venture towards really great areas, but Phil catches his wrists. "Let's take this to somewhere with a bed."
"I didn't know you put out on the first date, Coulson," Clint teases, kissing him again. "I don't know a good reason not to entertain ourselves until we get there."
"Second date," Phil corrects. "And the security cameras are still on."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Clint says, pulling away; he turns off Gibbs Mode and hits one of the floor buttons, flipping off the general direction of the ceiling. Phil laughs, kissing him as the elevator whispers back into motion.
The doors open on Natasha and Clint's floor, not Phil's; Phil glances at him, but Clint's not looking back, maybe deliberately. How the hell this is going to go down is presently a mystery, when he's only just discovered how firm the boundaries are, but he already knows not to push them, if only on instinct. If he does the wrong thing, if he separates them in the wrong way- well, they'll just have to burn that bridge when they get there.
There's a little foyer between the elevator and the rest of the floor, curving out and then out again, a single sliding door in the middle with one-way glass with two steps down right in front of it. Phil's got the same setup, and he knows exactly what it's for- one point of ingress with a tricky step makes a bottleneck, open space on the other side of it gives a place to hide and/or spring from. Phil's and this one are the only floors with them; it says something.
Clint puts his hands against the palm locks on either side of the door- partially security theater, there will be a smaller biometric device closer in case that's not fast enough- and there's a loud, low tone as the door slides open. "Tasha, it's me and Phil," Clint calls; on a hunch, Phil looks up, and yeah, there's a blind just under the ceiling on the other side of the room, dark enough and with low enough lighting that it looks like a vent or something, the ladder or stairs hidden somewhere else, probably in another room.
Everywhere he looks, he can find something else that's for fighting with. Phil can see more defenses in their front room than he has in his whole place, and that doesn't even count any stuff that's not visible- of which there will be more.
He really doesn't know whether they're more paranoid for setting this up, or if he's more paranoid for noticing all of it; what he does know is that when he's not busy getting into Clint's pants, he's having them help him redo his entire floor.
Natasha is looking at them over the back of the couch- sitting sideways, back not facing the door, couch- probably reinforced- for minor cover or to be flipped over and sprung from, and if there's not a gun in or under the coffee table then they're both fired.
Clint walks over to her, and Phil follows him, not saying anything, just taking Clint's lead. She's sitting there with a bowl of ice cream in her hand and her Kindle propped up on her knees; no matter how many times he sees it, Natasha Romanov acting like, well, an average person, will never not be strange.
She doesn't look at all surprised to see them. She gives them both a look, considering them together. "You get three hours, Barton," Natasha tells Clint, through a mouthful of ice cream, settling deeper into the couch. "Then I'm going to bed."
"Fair enough," Clint replies, like it's no big deal at all, and while Phil is still sort of gaping, Clint grabs him by the shoulder and steers him towards the bedroom. The door shuts behind them, and then Clint is on him, pushing him up against the door with more gentleness than Phil really expected, sweet and slow. "Three hours is a long time," he says, like he can hear Phil's thoughts. "We don't have to rush."
Phil likes that logic. He slides his hands down Clint's back and onto his ass; to be perfectly honest, Phil spends a lot of time thinking about Clint's ass, but the only time he's actually gotten to touch it he was while he was boosting Clint up to a busted window in an abandoned warehouse so that he could get a tough shot. It was a pretty impressive piece of shooting, but the quality of Clint's ass was the last thing on his mind at that moment.
Right now, it's pretty much his number one concern; Clint makes a noise into his mouth as Phil drags him closer, pressing their bodies together. It's so good just to get his hands all over Clint, feeling him up shamelessly, even with their clothing intervening. It's not intervening for long, because staying clothed is not in the plan at all. Clint undoes the buttons of Phil's shirt faster than Phil could have done it himself, fingers deft and quick, even remembering his cuffs; Phil lets it fall off his shoulders and pulls off his undershirt, and Clint is already shirtless. He pulls Phil close again, and his skin is overheated, just like Phil's, desperation and excitement literally radiating off them.
His hands find Clint's waistband, and they're tangled up for a second, both of them trying to go for each other's pants at the same time, blocking each other. Phil cuts that short; he reaches down and cups Clint through his pants, and Clint forgets what he's doing for a minute, long enough that Phil can get his pants down and then do it right, stroking his hardening cock through his boxer briefs.
"God, Phil," Clint moans. "Wanted this forever."
"Yeah," Phil says, kissing him, moving his hand faster. "Yeah, trust me, I know." This time Phil doesn't stop Clint as he reaches for his belt, pulling it tight and flicking it open, not bothering to take it out of the loops before undoing his fly and pushing the whole thing down, letting it fall in a heap with his on the floor. Now Clint's rubbing against him, and with just two layers of very thin fabric between the two of them, it's pretty goddamn amazing.
Clint pulls him into the bed; it's off-putting for about thirty seconds, the realization they're about to fuck in Natasha's bed, the fact that Clint's distrustful enough that he'd only do this essentially under guard; but then Clint is kissing him again, his hand around the back of Phil's neck to keep him close, and Phil's pretty sure he'd fuck Clint on the coffee table right this second, just as long as it meant he got to.
"What do you want?" he says, when he remembers how to stop kissing Clint, how to stop running his fingers through his hair, how to stop clutching at his ass so he can grind on him.
Clint pushes him onto his back. "C'mon, let me blow you."
Phil lifts his eyebrows. "Who am I to turn that down?"
"You'd be a fucking idiot to, trust me." He moves down the bed, kneeling beside him; he pulls Phil's underwear down so that he can stroke him properly, skin on skin, and Phil groans, pushing up against his hand. Before Phil can even get used to the idea, Clint leans down and takes his cock into his mouth, sucking lightly, his tongue moving against it. "Good?' Clint says, pulling it out of his mouth with a pop.
"No good," Phil says, and Clint looks at him in annoyed confusion. "Because it's not in your mouth right now."
Clint grins. "So impatient," he says, but he starts licking Phil's cock, long strokes of his tongue up and down his shaft.
It's been a long time, and even if it hadn't, Clint's mouth would still be amazing. He knows precisely what he's doing; he slides his lips down around Phil's cock, taking a truly impressive amount of it before pulling back up again, lapping at the head before going down, and he's probably trying to kill Phil dead, but that's fine.
Phil's got a hand on Clint's shoulder, thumbing along the well-defined muscles there, but otherwise he's trying not to push; Clint makes a noise of annoyance, grabbing Phil's other hand and putting it on the back of his head. Phil raises his eyebrows, but then Clint does something good and twisty with his tongue, and Phil grips his hair, hanging on.
Yeah, Clint definitely is trying to kill him, and very quickly; he keeps it up, sucking enthusiastically, letting Phil guide his head, but just as Phil is about to go off, Clint pulls away. He moves up Phil's body again, pulling him over and kissing him wildly. Phil moves his hips in exactly the right-wrong way, pushing them together hard, and he accidentally bites Clint's lip.
"Sorry," Phil murmurs, but Clint just shakes his head, licking the offended lip and putting a little more space between them; they're on the same page in regards to what's going to happen if they start rubbing up against each other now- satisfying, but they could do better.
"I really want to fuck you," Clint says, and that sounds like a great idea as far as Phil's concerned, "and I've got lube, but no condoms."
Now it's Phil's turn to groan; that is, of course, exactly the wrong way around- he's known to improvise, but he's not that good. He flips through his head for Plan B. "Grab the lube," he says, and Clint gives him a curious look. "Trust me."
Clint reaches over and grabs it, holding it out to Phil, who pops it open. It's not exactly the most delicate or sexy procedure, slicking up his inner thighs, but Clint apparently disagrees; he bites his lip, watching Phil do it. "That's a great plan," he says, leaning over to kiss him hungrily. "Everything about this plan is great."
"Then come over here and get in on it," Phil says, grabbing his hip and tugging him forward. Phil puts his legs together, and Clint moans as he slips his cock in between them, nice and slick and tight, moving slowly back and forth. Phil pulls him even closer, close enough that his dick rubs against the flat of Clint's stomach- and yes, this plan was brilliant.
There's absolutely no reason for Clint to hold back, not when Phil is already just about ready to go off; not when Clint doesn't have to worry about hurting him. Phil's grinding his cock against Clint on every stroke, trying to keep his thighs as close together as he can, give him the best friction. Clint's got his hand on Phil's hip, and he's working hard; despite how far gone he is, Phil can't stop looking at Clint's face, the intense concentration on it.
Suddenly Clint is looking at him, eyes dark and feral, and Phil can't look away, locked in with him. It's all he can do to keep staring, keep seeing, keep watching. Clint comes first, body jerking, and Phil gets to watch as he falls apart, his lips open, his eyes shut, loud, meaningless things coming from his mouth. And then Phil, he- he has to, he just has to, he gets his hand between them, but he barely gets his shaking fingers around his cock before he comes, painting Clint's stomach with it, marking him.
They're both breathing heavily, hanging on each other, and it sounds so loud; Clint puts his forehead against Phil's, looking at him for a moment before kissing him, long and satisfied, nothing urgent about it at all.
"How we doing on time?" Phil says, when he remembers how words work.
Clint smiles at him lazily. "We're doing just fine. C'mon, shower time."
Phil shifts, suddenly realizing what a mess he is. "Lead the way."
The bathroom is a little more opulent than Phil expected; he pictured them having some little utilitarian thing, but apparently you don't become superheroes without taking advantage of it just a little. There's a huge tub along one wall, but Clint heads for the shower; it's got a plethora of heads and looks like you could get about four people in it without any of them having to touch.
That is a completely useless feature, seeing as how they're trying to touch each other as much as they can. They're pretending there for a minute, pretending that getting clean is what they're actually there for; that lasts until Phil backs Clint up against the only smooth wall, kissing him as he runs his soap-slick fingers over his skin.
Eventually they do have to part, and they do actually have to clean up, and someday when Phil's got a little more than three hours, he's revisiting this shower and debauching the hell out of it.
Phil dries off, walking back into the bedroom and putting his boxers back on; he should really get dressed and go now, but he doesn't want to leave, not just yet, not when there's still time. "Don't sit down," Clint says, walking to the closet, and Phil looks at him curiously. "Natasha is going to actually kill me if I don't change the sheets," he says, pulling down a new set.
Phil snorts. "After that, I'd kill you too," he says.
Clint looks up, grinning. "You almost did," he tells him. "Here, give me a hand with this."
Between them, they get the bed remade, which is the most domestic thing Phil has ever done post-sex. Clint seems to miss the point of this freshly-made-bed thing, because he proceeds to get in and drag Phil in behind him, to kiss him and talk at him and generally make Phil wonder if he couldn't get another half-hour if he asked really nicely.
Too soon, there's a knock on the door, and Natasha comes in; Phil gets the very distinct sense that the knock was a courtesy just for him, one that he probably won't be offered again- and there will be an again, as long as Phil has anything to say about it. Natasha doesn't say anything, just heads towards the bathroom, but she and Clint share a look that's clearly congratulatory; Phil's a tiny bit too happy right now to do anything but roll his eyes.
Phil realizes time is up; he moves to get out of the bed, but Clint catches him. "You don't have to go if you don't want to," he says, like he's reading Phil's mind- not that Phil's mind must be particularly hard to read at the moment.
Phil skips over all of the parts that seem strange but aren't that important; this won't even be the first time he's been in a bed with Natasha or Clint- though sleeping in watches on a mattress on the floor during a stakeout is really, really different than what this is. He moves on, straight to the part that's the actual issue. "If you don't feel safe with me in here-"
"If I thought it wasn't safe, you'd never have gotten through the door," Clint tells him, and Phil knows he's telling the truth. "There's a pistol in the nightstand drawer and another one taped on the back of it," Clint says. "Bowie knife in a sheath in between the mattress and the box spring. AK-"
Phil sighs. "Do not tell me you have an AK-47 next to your bed."
"Okay, then I won't," Clint says breezily. "But if I was going to put one next to my bed, it'd be between the bed and the wall. We don't have your fingerprint for the scanner on the weapons locker in the closet, but we'll fix that."
He props himself up on his elbow, looking down at Clint. "Why are you letting me stay?"
"If something goes down, you'll protect us, and we'll protect you," Clint says, like it's obvious. "I don't know why you're surprised to hear that now." He catches the look on Phil's face, a little staggered and confused. "Look, me and Natasha, that's until the very end. But the three of us, we don't do so bad."
That statement makes Phil's heart twist, the importance of it, the weight, the trust wrapped up in a couple of words; more than anything else, it makes Phil want to be worthy of it. "Makes sense," Phil says, lying back down, still flipping it over in his head.
"Now go to bed, Coulson," Clint tells him, rolling over and backing up, so that Phil has to spoon him- which is such a giant hardship that Phil doesn't know what he'll do with himself. "You're making pancakes in the morning."
"When did I get volunteered for this?" Phil asks skeptically.
"Just now," Clint tells him.
"You're the only one who knows how to make pancakes, so it's all you," Natasha concurs, coming in from the bathroom and climbing into her side of the bed. "Now both of you, shut the hell up and go to sleep."
Clint grabs Phil's arm, pulling him closer, close enough that his face is pressed into Clint's hair- no complaints about that one. Despite what he expected, Clint drops off quickly, relaxing into Phil's arms, and not for the first time today, Phil feels like he might come apart, twisted in both directions- honored that they've let him in like this, concerned that they feel this way at all.
He'll have to start working it out in the morning, but he can't worry about it right now, too tired and sated to make any good choices. For now it'll do; for now they're safe and sound. No matter how wary or damaged or scarred they are, these are his people, and that makes everything okay.
Summary: It's about trust. Nothing more, nothing less.
Fandom: Avengers
Word Count: 6487
Rating/Contents: NC-17, post-movie (but fuck a bunch of canon), misunderstandings, trust issues, paranoia, humor, intercrural sex
Pairing: Clint/Natasha?, Clint/Coulson, lots of friendship
Policies: Read my archiving, feedback, and warnings policies here.
A/N: This was supposed to be sad and meditative, but as previously discussed, I cannot be serious for five minutes. Thanks to
dizmo for fixing the place up.Stark Tower has a lot of floors, and they're slow to fill; this is mostly because Tony has no interest in filling them. The first two floors are small businesses, kind of a Stark Mall only without tacky kiosks or chain stores and with really good food. Then there are a bunch of empty spaces, then the interesting parts. The training areas are first, guns and arrows and hand-to-hand and whatever else you can think of. Then there's the floor of conference rooms, for press and otherwise.
It's a long way up, past all that, until you reach residential and R&D. Tony has basically allotted everyone important an unnecessary amount of space, and it's telling how that works out. Steve and Colonel Rhodes have empty floors that neither of them use, while Hogan's is more or less a giant man cave. Bruce has a floor right below R&D with unusually high ceilings and very thick, attractively disguised reinforcements around the load-bearing walls; Thor's is actually strengthened in just the same way, but he's proud of it. It goes without saying that Tony and Pepper have the floors right over the sign; it's equally obvious that Clint and Natasha live together, on a floor with an enormous balcony.
Phil refuses to move in until he is outright ordered to. His emotional and professional distance from the Avengers is essentially nil, so he tries to keep the physical distance as great as possible for as long as possible; but in the end, Fury orders him in. Tony opens up a floor for him- it does not escape his notice that the floor had already been set aside- and he packs his bags and goes.
Before he moves Phil in, Tony decorates the den with Captain America stuff; Phil rolls his eyes until he goes to take it down, thinking Tony is, once again, fucking with him. That's when he realizes that it's mostly real, in good enough shape or restored carefully enough that it looks too good to be true. Phil looks around and realizes he has a half-a-million dollar den, and once he gets ahold of himself he doesn't move a single thing.
It's not so bad, living in the tower, if only because it's big enough that everybody's not on top of everybody else, not any more than they are just by virtue of being who they are. Phil doesn't actually leave all that much unless Fury needs him, and more and more Fury is assigning him to stay right the hell where he is, stick close and make sure nobody blows up New York more than they have to. In any other circumstance, he would be completely offended, being stuck on a babysitting job, but this is no ordinary babysitting. This is serving as the liaison for the most powerful heroes on the planet, a job during which there is absolutely no dull moment, no matter how much he sometimes wants one.
He's learning how to snatch a few for himself, times when no one can get in touch with him but JARVIS- and JARVIS is pretty good about respecting his privacy. There's a lounge on the floor with the conference rooms that almost no one uses, a sort of utilitarian place, comfortable but not inviting, the kind of place Tony uses to keep people waiting. When he doesn't feel like leaving the Tower, Phil likes to vanish there, right into Tony's blindspot.
One afternoon he's sitting there, drinking his coffee and reading Popular Mechanics, when he realizes someone is coming; the person's footfalls are almost silent- Clint or Natasha, then, probably Clint, because almost silent for anyone else is like angry stomping for Natasha.
Soon enough, Clint knocks on the wall before stepping out of the semi-darkness of the hallway, presumably so Phil won't shoot.
"Evening," Phil says, dog-earring his page and setting it aside. It really is getting on towards evening, the sunset coming in through the giant windows that characterize pretty much every room in the tower; it's a good red and gold one, broken up a little by the haze of the city but still gorgeous.
"Hey," Clint says, perching on the other arm of the couch. He's dressed a little less casually than usual; he's actually wearing a shirt with long sleeves- he's got them rolled up past his elbows, but it's the thought that counts. "Come to dinner with me."
Phil looks down at himself; he's not dressed to match, just wearing an old, beat-up shirt with some Latverian crest on it, something he's not even sure why he owns- he almost certainly didn't buy it himself. "Let me change."
For a moment, Clint looks kind of shocked, and Phil can't figure that one out at all. "Don't you dare put on a suit."
"I do own other clothes," Phil tells him; it is not the first time he's had to tell one of them that, even when he's sitting here wearing a shirt that says "Triumfărik quel regierte Latverium - Thankks for visit Latveria" on it in faded black letters.
"Well put them on and let's go," Clint orders.
Phil rolls his eyes, but he goes and does it, pulling on a blue sweater and pair of gray slacks. They end up at Richard's, one of the restaurants downstairs. The name of the place is a subject of great debate; nobody seems to know how to pronounce it, except that your food is served cold if you pronounce it like the man's name.
Clint's got reservations, which is a little weird; then again, getting "reservations" for anyone who lives in the Tower essentially means calling up and saying, "Hold Tony's table, I'll be there in thirty minutes." They barely wait any time before they're being ushered towards Tony's private table- which is, of course, the most public private table there could possibly be, because Tony is Tony.
After they're seated, Clint seems nervous, and Phil has no idea why. Clint's not nervous often; it's a bit of a liability, in their line of work. Then again, not everything is work- which might be worse, the fact that Clint is more nervous in a casual setting. He's eating all the bread while trying to hide the fact that he's eating all the bread, and Phil wants to tell him to calm down, but he doesn't quite know how.
"Should we get a bottle of wine?" Clint asks, putting down his bread and looking at the wine list, obviously lost.
"You don't drink," Phil points out.
Clint shrugs, looking a little sheepish, and puts the wine list down. "Just seems like the thing to do."
Phil snorts. "At these prices, in this company, the thing to do is whatever you want."
Clint takes a deep breath and lets it out, the tension going out of his shoulders, like he was just waiting to hear something like that.
Phil has spent years studying Clint, and Clint is still a mystery sometimes.
It's better, after that, the conversation easy, the food amazing; Phil protests when Clint pays, but not as much as he could- surely Avengers make more than he does. They walk back to the elevator, the private one with the biometric scanners, and Clint holds the door open for him.
Phil hits the button for his floor, since it's lower than Clint and Natasha's. He's getting ready to say something about how this was good and how it's been too long since they've actually spent time together when they weren't trying to die, but then Clint reaches over and hits the blue button next to the emergency stop. It stops the elevator without triggering the alarm and dims the lights a little- though it does not turn off the security cameras, a fact Tony did not inform anyone of at first.
Clint moves closer, and that's the point where it hits him- this was a date, he just went on a date with Clint, is it possible he's gone on other dates with Clint before and not been informed? There are many, many things that it is critical for Phil to know at all times, but whether or not he is presently dating Clint Barton is one that he thought he was pretty clear on. It isn't hard to be sure about, especially when Clint and Natasha are very clearly and very deeply involved with each other.
Unfortunately, if you drew an artist's rendering of Phil's type it would pass for a pretty good portrait of Clint, and Phil has thought about this. Phil has thought about it a lot; Phil eventually had to make a rule with himself that he would not think about it, one that he followed for so long that it actually started to work. He's a professional above all things, things that include his personal wants and desires, whatever they are; underneath that, he and Natasha- Natasha doesn't have friends, it's not her style, but he and Natasha respect and care about one another, enough so that Phil's not going to do this to her.
But then Clint kisses him, and everything falls out of Phil's head. His mouth tastes like butter and garlic, and Phil does not give the slightest hint of a damn about that. His kisses are insistent, hard in an almost desperate way, like he's got something to prove, something to say that can't be said another way. Phil gives it right back to him; he's got plenty to add to this conversation, things he wanted to let out a long, long time ago.
And then the alarm bells in his head kick back in, and Phil realizes what he's doing. He lets it go on for too long, even after that; he wants it to go on for a whole lot longer, but there's a point where there's no excuse anymore, not for what he's doing. He puts his hands on Clint's chest, and it takes him a second to get up the drive to push him away.
"I'm not doing this," Phil manages to say.
Clint's hard to read, but Phil knows all his tells; he's hurt, confused. "If you don't want to-"
"It doesn't matter if I want to," Phil says, hitting the STOP button again, and the lights come up instantly. "I'm not going to let you make a mistake."
"Nothing about this is a mistake," Clint says fiercely.
"Cheating is always a mistake," he says, and he hits the button for the next floor without even paying attention to the number. "I need to go."
Clint catches him around the arm as the elevator door opens. "Phil, it's not like that-"
"Good night, Barton," he says, pulling his arm out of Clint's grip, and he steps out and doesn't look back.
It's not until the elevator door closes that he actually looks up. He thought he'd hit one of the empty floors or the gym, but apparently he overshot it, which is exactly what he needs right now.
Happy is sitting in his boxers on the couch with a bowl of cereal and a Budweiser, and he looks up at Phil, spoon half-way to his mouth. "Do you need something?" he asks. He spots the look on Phil's face. "You want a beer?"
Phil sighs, ready to make excuses and go back to his apartment. "Please," is what comes out of his mouth instead.
--
When Natasha's around, she's pretty easy to find.
That's actually not true at all. If Natasha wants you to be able to find her, she's pretty easy to find. If Natasha doesn't want to be found, you just won't find her, except maybe with Barton's help. Phil knows this; he just hasn't let on that he knows it, just in case.
When Natasha cares for it to be known that she's around, she's pretty easy to find. There's the lounge, she's sometimes in there; occasionally she's up at Bruce's, a friendship he doesn't understand very well but seems to be blossoming; usually, though, you'll find her on the training floors, doing something dangerous with guns or knives or beating the hell out of someone.
That's where she is when Phil goes looking for her the next day. It is not exactly the ideal forum for what Phil needs to do, but he needs neutral ground; above all, he needs people around to act as witnesses.
She's at the edge of the big wrestling mat they have, the one that must be twenty feet wide; she's stretching, getting ready to wipe the floor with Maria, and she gives Phil a nod when she sees him coming.
"We need to talk," he says when he reaches her, and her face goes into shutdown.
"Work or no?" she asks, and he realizes his tone must have been darker than he thought.
"No," he tells her, and she sighs, relaxing visibly.
"Hit me with it, then," she says, picking up her water bottle and taking a swig.
"I don't want to talk to you about this, but I'm going to," he says. He's particularly reluctant to do it right this second, because more than once she's made him spar with her in retaliation for pissing her off.
He really doesn't like to get kicked in the face any more than he has to.
Natasha looks at him warily. "Go ahead."
He sighs. "Barton came on to me."
"That's rough," she says, giving him a sympathetic look as she goes back to stretching her arms. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him no," he says, shocked she'd even ask. He waits a moment for the inevitable blow-up, but it doesn't come. "You're very calm about this."
She shakes her head. "It's not fun, but Clint's not the first guy to fall in love with his handler."
He frowns. "You're not concerned about yourself?"
She snorts. "I like you, Coulson, but not like that."
"I don't understand," he insists. "You and Clint-"
She looks at him in confusion. "What are you-" She suddenly realizes what he's going for, sighing in annoyance. "Oh, not this. I thought you, of all people, knew better."
"I don't know anything," he says, crossing his arms, "except that you live together, you spend your time together, you barely let him out of your sight." Now he's getting annoyed. "Natasha, you share a bed."
Natasha looks him hard in the face; the last time he saw that look was in Momostenango, which was not exactly the most pleasant three days they ever spent together. "Because there's always a threat," she says fiercely. "The Tower's far from impenetrable, even with the security upgrades." That's a pretty serious statement, even though it's true; the security system gets overhauled more or less every two weeks, but there will never not be holes. "If we have to sleep, we're not leaving it to chance. I don't trust anyone else to watch me. I don't trust anyone else to watch him. Clint agrees, so here we are."
Phil frowns. It's combat logic; if that's how they feel about it, then they're doing good not to be sleeping in watches. He doesn't say anything to try and talk her down from it, to belittle her concerns, even though it's some impressive paranoia- and this is coming from someone who has two pistols and a shotgun within arm's reach of his bed. He respects her too much to do that, to pretend she doesn't have anything to worry about or that she hasn't lived through enough to understand what danger is.
Still, he's not quite sure about what he's hearing, needs to recheck everything to make sure he's actually caught up. "So you and Barton-"
"Phil." Natasha closes her eyes, exasperated with him. "Even if I wanted to, Clint is gay."
"Good to know," he says, and it's only a little flippant.
"Now you're getting it," she says approvingly. She waves a hand at him. "Go and fuck him with my blessing."
Phil snorts a laugh. "I'm not very surprised that you'd bless fucking."
She gives him a smug smile. "If it needed temple priestesses, I'd be on the short list." She glances up, and Phil follows her line of sight; Maria is standing on the other side of the mat, and she holds up her wrist, tapping it with her finger. "That's my cue," Natasha says. "Oh yeah, and take Clint out to dinner. He was pretty sad when you fucked up the last time."
"Will do," Phil says, wincing; if it was bad enough that Natasha felt sorry for him, Clint must have been devastated. She gives him a nod and then turns around, facing Maria and walking out across the mat towards her; neither of them get to the center before they're launching flying attacks at each other.
This is exactly why Phil didn't want Natasha pissed off at him. He only flies mid-fight on very, very rare occasions.
--
After a week, Phil gives up on trying to find Clint. Clint will talk to him by radio, Clint will answer emails, Clint will send messages through other people, but other than that, Clint's off- Phil knows he's not off nursing his wounds, because he's not like that. What he's doing is being really pissed at himself and generally angry at the world.
Phil does have certain tricks, however; the most useful of which is that he has full access to Clint's calendar; he just programs in MISSION BRIEFING - S CONF RM for six-thirty on Thursday and sets it to Need To Know. He turns on the hour reminder, and the thirty minute reminder, and the five minute reminder, and he locks the whole thing so that Clint can't change it or hide it.
Reading the manual has its benefits.
Clint is a lot of bad things and Clint has made a lot of mistakes, but one thing he'll always do is come when SHIELD- when Phil really needs him. He turns up at six-thirty on the dot; he takes one look around the empty conference room and puts his hand to his forehead. "You're a dick, Coulson."
"Come to dinner with me," Phil says, and Clint looks at him.
"I'm busy," Clint says.
"You better not be," Phil warns. "Your calendar is booked for this meeting until ten."
"I dressed for a mission briefing," Clint tells him.
"Then change and meet me downstairs," he says.
Clint sighs. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"
Phil gives him a serious look. "Do you want out of this?"
"No," Clint admits.
"Then get dressed," Phil says. "I'm hungry."
Clint sighs and walks out on him, but in twenty minutes they're standing in front of Richard's again.
Phil would like to say that it's a line-by-line repeat of what happened last time, because last time was pretty good, as dates that he had no idea were dates go. Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case. Clint knows this is an apology, clearly, and he isn't acting like he's particularly eager to be apologized to. Phil thought this was going to be pleasant, but instead it's kind of interminable- though the food is maybe even better than last time, and even Clint can't be upset when presented with chocolate cake like that.
Clint argues when Phil pays, and Phil starts to wonder if this was a miscalculation. He thought it was pretty obvious that this was their make-up date, but Clint doesn't seem to have caught up to the party yet. Now Phil feels awful; he must have screwed it up really, really badly last time, if Clint thinks there's no going back.
Then they're back in the fateful elevator, and Phil lets the first few floors pass before he reaches past Clint and hits the blue STOP button.
"You used the Date Night Button," Clint says, not moving. "Must be important."
"Is that what it's called?" Phil asks, stepping closer. "I always thought of it as Gibbs Mode."
"That's what Tony says it is," Clint tells him, and he's looking at Phil's lips. "I call it the Blue Light Special."
"I'm sorry," Phil murmurs.
Clint's eyes snap to Phil's. "Coulson," he says warningly. "If you're about to say something about how you can't do this-"
"You didn't let me finish my sentence," Phil chides. "I'm sorry I fucked it up so badly last time. I wish I had it to do over again."
Clint relaxes. "Good thing you do," he says, putting his hands on Phil's waist and pulling him towards him. Now he tastes like coffee and cake, because eating chocolate, making out, and making plans are some of Phil's favorite things in the world. These things have come together for him, and it's just as perfect as he wanted it to be. Clint's kisses are a little less insistent than last time, but that just means they're more relaxed, more hot, more lazy, and all of these things are beautiful.
Clint's hands are starting to venture towards really great areas, but Phil catches his wrists. "Let's take this to somewhere with a bed."
"I didn't know you put out on the first date, Coulson," Clint teases, kissing him again. "I don't know a good reason not to entertain ourselves until we get there."
"Second date," Phil corrects. "And the security cameras are still on."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Clint says, pulling away; he turns off Gibbs Mode and hits one of the floor buttons, flipping off the general direction of the ceiling. Phil laughs, kissing him as the elevator whispers back into motion.
The doors open on Natasha and Clint's floor, not Phil's; Phil glances at him, but Clint's not looking back, maybe deliberately. How the hell this is going to go down is presently a mystery, when he's only just discovered how firm the boundaries are, but he already knows not to push them, if only on instinct. If he does the wrong thing, if he separates them in the wrong way- well, they'll just have to burn that bridge when they get there.
There's a little foyer between the elevator and the rest of the floor, curving out and then out again, a single sliding door in the middle with one-way glass with two steps down right in front of it. Phil's got the same setup, and he knows exactly what it's for- one point of ingress with a tricky step makes a bottleneck, open space on the other side of it gives a place to hide and/or spring from. Phil's and this one are the only floors with them; it says something.
Clint puts his hands against the palm locks on either side of the door- partially security theater, there will be a smaller biometric device closer in case that's not fast enough- and there's a loud, low tone as the door slides open. "Tasha, it's me and Phil," Clint calls; on a hunch, Phil looks up, and yeah, there's a blind just under the ceiling on the other side of the room, dark enough and with low enough lighting that it looks like a vent or something, the ladder or stairs hidden somewhere else, probably in another room.
Everywhere he looks, he can find something else that's for fighting with. Phil can see more defenses in their front room than he has in his whole place, and that doesn't even count any stuff that's not visible- of which there will be more.
He really doesn't know whether they're more paranoid for setting this up, or if he's more paranoid for noticing all of it; what he does know is that when he's not busy getting into Clint's pants, he's having them help him redo his entire floor.
Natasha is looking at them over the back of the couch- sitting sideways, back not facing the door, couch- probably reinforced- for minor cover or to be flipped over and sprung from, and if there's not a gun in or under the coffee table then they're both fired.
Clint walks over to her, and Phil follows him, not saying anything, just taking Clint's lead. She's sitting there with a bowl of ice cream in her hand and her Kindle propped up on her knees; no matter how many times he sees it, Natasha Romanov acting like, well, an average person, will never not be strange.
She doesn't look at all surprised to see them. She gives them both a look, considering them together. "You get three hours, Barton," Natasha tells Clint, through a mouthful of ice cream, settling deeper into the couch. "Then I'm going to bed."
"Fair enough," Clint replies, like it's no big deal at all, and while Phil is still sort of gaping, Clint grabs him by the shoulder and steers him towards the bedroom. The door shuts behind them, and then Clint is on him, pushing him up against the door with more gentleness than Phil really expected, sweet and slow. "Three hours is a long time," he says, like he can hear Phil's thoughts. "We don't have to rush."
Phil likes that logic. He slides his hands down Clint's back and onto his ass; to be perfectly honest, Phil spends a lot of time thinking about Clint's ass, but the only time he's actually gotten to touch it he was while he was boosting Clint up to a busted window in an abandoned warehouse so that he could get a tough shot. It was a pretty impressive piece of shooting, but the quality of Clint's ass was the last thing on his mind at that moment.
Right now, it's pretty much his number one concern; Clint makes a noise into his mouth as Phil drags him closer, pressing their bodies together. It's so good just to get his hands all over Clint, feeling him up shamelessly, even with their clothing intervening. It's not intervening for long, because staying clothed is not in the plan at all. Clint undoes the buttons of Phil's shirt faster than Phil could have done it himself, fingers deft and quick, even remembering his cuffs; Phil lets it fall off his shoulders and pulls off his undershirt, and Clint is already shirtless. He pulls Phil close again, and his skin is overheated, just like Phil's, desperation and excitement literally radiating off them.
His hands find Clint's waistband, and they're tangled up for a second, both of them trying to go for each other's pants at the same time, blocking each other. Phil cuts that short; he reaches down and cups Clint through his pants, and Clint forgets what he's doing for a minute, long enough that Phil can get his pants down and then do it right, stroking his hardening cock through his boxer briefs.
"God, Phil," Clint moans. "Wanted this forever."
"Yeah," Phil says, kissing him, moving his hand faster. "Yeah, trust me, I know." This time Phil doesn't stop Clint as he reaches for his belt, pulling it tight and flicking it open, not bothering to take it out of the loops before undoing his fly and pushing the whole thing down, letting it fall in a heap with his on the floor. Now Clint's rubbing against him, and with just two layers of very thin fabric between the two of them, it's pretty goddamn amazing.
Clint pulls him into the bed; it's off-putting for about thirty seconds, the realization they're about to fuck in Natasha's bed, the fact that Clint's distrustful enough that he'd only do this essentially under guard; but then Clint is kissing him again, his hand around the back of Phil's neck to keep him close, and Phil's pretty sure he'd fuck Clint on the coffee table right this second, just as long as it meant he got to.
"What do you want?" he says, when he remembers how to stop kissing Clint, how to stop running his fingers through his hair, how to stop clutching at his ass so he can grind on him.
Clint pushes him onto his back. "C'mon, let me blow you."
Phil lifts his eyebrows. "Who am I to turn that down?"
"You'd be a fucking idiot to, trust me." He moves down the bed, kneeling beside him; he pulls Phil's underwear down so that he can stroke him properly, skin on skin, and Phil groans, pushing up against his hand. Before Phil can even get used to the idea, Clint leans down and takes his cock into his mouth, sucking lightly, his tongue moving against it. "Good?' Clint says, pulling it out of his mouth with a pop.
"No good," Phil says, and Clint looks at him in annoyed confusion. "Because it's not in your mouth right now."
Clint grins. "So impatient," he says, but he starts licking Phil's cock, long strokes of his tongue up and down his shaft.
It's been a long time, and even if it hadn't, Clint's mouth would still be amazing. He knows precisely what he's doing; he slides his lips down around Phil's cock, taking a truly impressive amount of it before pulling back up again, lapping at the head before going down, and he's probably trying to kill Phil dead, but that's fine.
Phil's got a hand on Clint's shoulder, thumbing along the well-defined muscles there, but otherwise he's trying not to push; Clint makes a noise of annoyance, grabbing Phil's other hand and putting it on the back of his head. Phil raises his eyebrows, but then Clint does something good and twisty with his tongue, and Phil grips his hair, hanging on.
Yeah, Clint definitely is trying to kill him, and very quickly; he keeps it up, sucking enthusiastically, letting Phil guide his head, but just as Phil is about to go off, Clint pulls away. He moves up Phil's body again, pulling him over and kissing him wildly. Phil moves his hips in exactly the right-wrong way, pushing them together hard, and he accidentally bites Clint's lip.
"Sorry," Phil murmurs, but Clint just shakes his head, licking the offended lip and putting a little more space between them; they're on the same page in regards to what's going to happen if they start rubbing up against each other now- satisfying, but they could do better.
"I really want to fuck you," Clint says, and that sounds like a great idea as far as Phil's concerned, "and I've got lube, but no condoms."
Now it's Phil's turn to groan; that is, of course, exactly the wrong way around- he's known to improvise, but he's not that good. He flips through his head for Plan B. "Grab the lube," he says, and Clint gives him a curious look. "Trust me."
Clint reaches over and grabs it, holding it out to Phil, who pops it open. It's not exactly the most delicate or sexy procedure, slicking up his inner thighs, but Clint apparently disagrees; he bites his lip, watching Phil do it. "That's a great plan," he says, leaning over to kiss him hungrily. "Everything about this plan is great."
"Then come over here and get in on it," Phil says, grabbing his hip and tugging him forward. Phil puts his legs together, and Clint moans as he slips his cock in between them, nice and slick and tight, moving slowly back and forth. Phil pulls him even closer, close enough that his dick rubs against the flat of Clint's stomach- and yes, this plan was brilliant.
There's absolutely no reason for Clint to hold back, not when Phil is already just about ready to go off; not when Clint doesn't have to worry about hurting him. Phil's grinding his cock against Clint on every stroke, trying to keep his thighs as close together as he can, give him the best friction. Clint's got his hand on Phil's hip, and he's working hard; despite how far gone he is, Phil can't stop looking at Clint's face, the intense concentration on it.
Suddenly Clint is looking at him, eyes dark and feral, and Phil can't look away, locked in with him. It's all he can do to keep staring, keep seeing, keep watching. Clint comes first, body jerking, and Phil gets to watch as he falls apart, his lips open, his eyes shut, loud, meaningless things coming from his mouth. And then Phil, he- he has to, he just has to, he gets his hand between them, but he barely gets his shaking fingers around his cock before he comes, painting Clint's stomach with it, marking him.
They're both breathing heavily, hanging on each other, and it sounds so loud; Clint puts his forehead against Phil's, looking at him for a moment before kissing him, long and satisfied, nothing urgent about it at all.
"How we doing on time?" Phil says, when he remembers how words work.
Clint smiles at him lazily. "We're doing just fine. C'mon, shower time."
Phil shifts, suddenly realizing what a mess he is. "Lead the way."
The bathroom is a little more opulent than Phil expected; he pictured them having some little utilitarian thing, but apparently you don't become superheroes without taking advantage of it just a little. There's a huge tub along one wall, but Clint heads for the shower; it's got a plethora of heads and looks like you could get about four people in it without any of them having to touch.
That is a completely useless feature, seeing as how they're trying to touch each other as much as they can. They're pretending there for a minute, pretending that getting clean is what they're actually there for; that lasts until Phil backs Clint up against the only smooth wall, kissing him as he runs his soap-slick fingers over his skin.
Eventually they do have to part, and they do actually have to clean up, and someday when Phil's got a little more than three hours, he's revisiting this shower and debauching the hell out of it.
Phil dries off, walking back into the bedroom and putting his boxers back on; he should really get dressed and go now, but he doesn't want to leave, not just yet, not when there's still time. "Don't sit down," Clint says, walking to the closet, and Phil looks at him curiously. "Natasha is going to actually kill me if I don't change the sheets," he says, pulling down a new set.
Phil snorts. "After that, I'd kill you too," he says.
Clint looks up, grinning. "You almost did," he tells him. "Here, give me a hand with this."
Between them, they get the bed remade, which is the most domestic thing Phil has ever done post-sex. Clint seems to miss the point of this freshly-made-bed thing, because he proceeds to get in and drag Phil in behind him, to kiss him and talk at him and generally make Phil wonder if he couldn't get another half-hour if he asked really nicely.
Too soon, there's a knock on the door, and Natasha comes in; Phil gets the very distinct sense that the knock was a courtesy just for him, one that he probably won't be offered again- and there will be an again, as long as Phil has anything to say about it. Natasha doesn't say anything, just heads towards the bathroom, but she and Clint share a look that's clearly congratulatory; Phil's a tiny bit too happy right now to do anything but roll his eyes.
Phil realizes time is up; he moves to get out of the bed, but Clint catches him. "You don't have to go if you don't want to," he says, like he's reading Phil's mind- not that Phil's mind must be particularly hard to read at the moment.
Phil skips over all of the parts that seem strange but aren't that important; this won't even be the first time he's been in a bed with Natasha or Clint- though sleeping in watches on a mattress on the floor during a stakeout is really, really different than what this is. He moves on, straight to the part that's the actual issue. "If you don't feel safe with me in here-"
"If I thought it wasn't safe, you'd never have gotten through the door," Clint tells him, and Phil knows he's telling the truth. "There's a pistol in the nightstand drawer and another one taped on the back of it," Clint says. "Bowie knife in a sheath in between the mattress and the box spring. AK-"
Phil sighs. "Do not tell me you have an AK-47 next to your bed."
"Okay, then I won't," Clint says breezily. "But if I was going to put one next to my bed, it'd be between the bed and the wall. We don't have your fingerprint for the scanner on the weapons locker in the closet, but we'll fix that."
He props himself up on his elbow, looking down at Clint. "Why are you letting me stay?"
"If something goes down, you'll protect us, and we'll protect you," Clint says, like it's obvious. "I don't know why you're surprised to hear that now." He catches the look on Phil's face, a little staggered and confused. "Look, me and Natasha, that's until the very end. But the three of us, we don't do so bad."
That statement makes Phil's heart twist, the importance of it, the weight, the trust wrapped up in a couple of words; more than anything else, it makes Phil want to be worthy of it. "Makes sense," Phil says, lying back down, still flipping it over in his head.
"Now go to bed, Coulson," Clint tells him, rolling over and backing up, so that Phil has to spoon him- which is such a giant hardship that Phil doesn't know what he'll do with himself. "You're making pancakes in the morning."
"When did I get volunteered for this?" Phil asks skeptically.
"Just now," Clint tells him.
"You're the only one who knows how to make pancakes, so it's all you," Natasha concurs, coming in from the bathroom and climbing into her side of the bed. "Now both of you, shut the hell up and go to sleep."
Clint grabs Phil's arm, pulling him closer, close enough that his face is pressed into Clint's hair- no complaints about that one. Despite what he expected, Clint drops off quickly, relaxing into Phil's arms, and not for the first time today, Phil feels like he might come apart, twisted in both directions- honored that they've let him in like this, concerned that they feel this way at all.
He'll have to start working it out in the morning, but he can't worry about it right now, too tired and sated to make any good choices. For now it'll do; for now they're safe and sound. No matter how wary or damaged or scarred they are, these are his people, and that makes everything okay.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-04 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-06 05:54 pm (UTC)Thanks for a lovely start to my afternoon. :)