Avengers - Coke Break
Title: Coke Break
Genre: Slash, Clint Barton/Tony Stark
Rating: Honestly? Wasn't sure if this should be a high R or a low NC-17
Length: ~10,000 words
Spoilers: Iron Man 3 and Captain America 2 compliant
Warnings: Language, Mild Torture, Masturbation, Forced Voyeurism (of a sort), Soulbonding without Consent
Synopsis: Clint hated magic. His current circumstances were not exactly helping to change that fact, at least not that he'd ever admit.
Author's Notes: For the "magical trouble" square at
hc_bingo. Also written because I saw a whole display of the things at Target and just couldn't let the joke go.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this product, and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
Clint hated magic. Hated it. Not the “pull a rabbit out of a hat” kind because he had known too many people who relied on that to make a living, but more along the lines of “Doctor Strange is an asshat and so is all of his ilk” type of thing. Despised. No one had the right to mess with stuff like that. No one had the right to mess with him like that.
Which led him to where he was now.
Multiple magic users making multiple messes and not a one of them thought of a defense against multiple arrows to multiple knees. Reassuring, really, that they could break the laws of science but fall prey to something that was really not more than some sticks and a string.
Well, not completely fall. Not really. There was apparently some sort of magic mojo still floating around, left uncontrolled and drifty and whatever. He didn’t really listen to the specifics aside from that they were to sit and wait to see if it created an inevitable fiasco, or just petered out on its own.
It was hot though, even in the relative shade of the massive brick building he leaned up against. There was a kiosk selling soda across the street and overheated Avengers next to him and he had enough in his pocket to fix at least part of that equation. He came back with a bunch of plastic bottles of Coke because caffeine was a good thing, really it was. Bruce declined and so he had downed one and started on the other when Tony came over to claim a seat on the little flowerbed bench thingy he was using, suit disassembled but waiting for him at his side.
“Thanks, by the way,” Tony said, which was a rare enough thing in and of itself. He sipped at his and set it off to the side to watch the bluish cloud drift like a Ping-Pong ball around a thankfully semi-confined area bracketed by buildings made of something it didn't like. Wilson and Rhodes were still up top watching it from that angle, but Thor had gotten bored and joined the others soon enough.
“Not a problem,” Clint assured him. He pointedly did not mock the words scrawled across Stark’s bottle, but it was a close and temping thing. Catchy campaign, yes. “Share a Coke with...” Amusing when Thor went looking for a Karen and Natasha readily offered a sip to Steve, but over the top when Tony’s said “Soulmate” and Steve’s own said “BFF” and led to a conversation on the meaning and prevalence of abbreviations in text-speak. His first one had said “Star,” and he had claimed that meant himself. He hadn’t even bothered to look at his second, more thirsty than amused at that point - he had been on a rooftop sans shade or the breeze of flight for far longer than the rest and was just beginning to cool down.
He reached for his bottle again and downed a fair share before he noticed the “Soulm” under his thumb. “Crap, was this yours?” he asked Tony.
Stark looked down at the one in his hand with the visible “lmate” on it and shrugged. “I thought there was more left in this one... Does this mean I have Barton Cooties?”
Clint flipped him off as was right and proper, and figured it totally wasn’t his fault because he grabbed the one that was left and both had the same label and, hey, what was the chance of that? He took another sip of his newly acquired one and then damn near spit it out as he noticed the Blue Floaty Cloud of Doom had disappeared. The spit turned into a choke though, as his chest erupted into a bright and blinding pain. He clawed at his vest, tried to see what was wrong, what he had been hit with, unzipped it enough to see what he thought was a faint hint of blue before he saw his own tan and scars beneath his protective undershirt again, but the pain was still there, dissipated slightly, but so totally there.
Stark was calling for a medic but was looking like he was having the exact same sort of almost panic attack Clint himself was. “Did it hurt you?” Clint managed to get out, breath shallow against an increasingly phantom pain.
“No, I’m fine, wait, what?” Tony asked less than intelligently. “Did what hurt me? Crap, the magic thingy is gone.” There was profanity and there was a call for scans and a shout of the cloud finding its target in yet another archer-based nickname but, most importantly, Stark shifted his hands, his bare hands, from Clint’s protected shoulders to his arms, flesh against flesh for one startling moment before he removed them as if burned and Clint physically checked his own skin for scarring.
“What did it do?” a voice demanded. Natasha. She was at his side now. She reached out a tentative hand, not much more than two fingers really, and stroked down his arm. It did nothing but tickle.
Tony knocked her hand away though, harsh and fast and not exactly gentle. It didn't even come across as a protective measure for her, not even as a “What were you thinking?” sort of thing, but something baser and far more possessive. He had angled himself between the two of them, not the brightest of moves when the Black Widow was involved, and glared as he asked, “Are you okay?”
Clint pushed himself up, wondered when he had flopped backwards to quite that extreme and how he managed not to hit his head in the process. “I... think I’m fine?” It was a question solely because he didn’t know if he could trust his own perceptions. The pressure against his chest was still there to some extent, but his heart beat on and he could draw breaths deep and true, so he had no idea as to the source.
Tony looked at him doubtingly, which was fair because he so wouldn’t believe that crap if anyone had pulled it on him. Stark took a hesitant step away, paused, cocked his head to the side, and stepped forward again. He reached out his hand again, this time with only one finger to poke him in the bicep. The surge was there again, not quite pleasure and not quite pain. The feeling deepened when he grabbed on outright, and disappeared almost completely when he let go to shake out his hand.
“Okay, so, yeah,” the supposed genius said. “Let’s go with A) we are so screwed, and B) next time tell us when you get winged in the thigh so that I’m not tempted to pants myself in public to see if I’ve been stabbed.”
“The fuck, Stark?” he asked. He did reach for the tiny nick without thinking though, which totally proved the validity of the accusation and even Nat made a face at that.
Tony backed away again, then further, then further still. At Steve’s question and Natasha's demand, he just said, “Trust me on this, it’s a theory born of mass stupidity, so kinda like Barton himself.”
The further away he got, the more, well, less Clint felt. Not anything extreme, but more like he forgot his wallet or belt or something. Something was missing. Tony was patting himself down so he must have felt it too. He stepped closer now, and the feeling lessened. “This is about to suck, isn’t it?” Clint sighed.
As if in confirmation to his words, Thor finally approached, Bruce in tow. “You have bonded?” he asked, almost a concerned note to his tone. “I did not know you wished to or I could have assisted in the rituals.” A pause. A raised eyebrow. A matching eyebrow when he saw the lack of Magic Glowy Cloud. “You were bonded without your consent. This is troubling indeed. I know of no way to undo such a thing in this realm. The rituals in my own are intense, to say the least. I do not know how the human form would cope with them.”
“Bonded?” Clint asked. There was an odd echo and he realized Tony had sputtered the same thing. “That so isn’t what I think it means, right? And, also? No. We fix this. Now would be good. Reversing time so that this never happened would be better. I am not going to be Stark’s bitch because that’s what it means, right? I’ve seen the SyFy movie of the week. Plus the alternate version that you can only get on video. Plus some highly inappropriate commentary about it on the internet.”
“That your mind went there,” Tony rolled his eyes.
“That you think you’d be his, why not the other way around?” Natasha offered amiably enough.
Thor looked between the three of them, confused. “A bond can be either sexual or platonic in nature. It is up to the bondmates to decide that,” he explained, confused. “It is always mutual though, there is no dominance, only equals.”
“Can we decide now that this is not happening?” Clint asked at the same time Tony asked, “How can you be sure of this whole bond-thing anyway?” Clint noticed they had their arms crossed in identical positions. He lowered his quickly, only to find Stark had done the same, and resisted the urge to sigh. Or possibly bang his head against something.
“It is visible to me,” Thor said, as if that explained everything. Seeing the blank looks on his teammates’ faces, he expanded, “There is a subtle vibration that is visible on spectrums my body perceives. For some, there is a faint hum, as if the two are in harmony with each other, but that is not always so.” Tony nodded as if that made sense, which technically did because, oh yeah, Thor was an alien and they tended to forget that. Of course, then said alien proved just how non-alien he was when he added, “Also, you both shared bottles marked ‘soulmate’ beneath a hovering cloud of magic. That was, perhaps, not the wisest of actions.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow and shrugged as though that were as good of an explanation as any and Clint once again thought unkind thoughts about magic in general and the users he had already shot in specific. Bruce and Tony began to argue the scientific aspects of such a thing and Cap shook his head in the way he did when he didn’t understand something but figured it was simply an “out of time” experience, which this one so totally was not. He kind of feared the responses from Sam and Rhodey when they found out the most though, knowing one would be mocking and the other would be protective and honestly not certain which would be which this time through.
Given that the Magic Glowy Cloud of Doom was well and truly gone, there wasn’t much reason for the Avengers to hang around. They headed back to the Tower where Bruce poked and prodded and hemmed and hawed and then both Stark and himself snuck away by mutual and unspoken agreement.
“Booze?” Tony suggested as they made their escape down the hallway.
“Hell yes,” Clint agreed.
“Go patch up that leg of yours and I’ll unlock the good stuff,” Tony said with false innocence.
Clint was tempted to flip him off again but he was offering the good stuff which was never something to turn down. That, and a hot shower and maybe a bandaid or two couldn’t make things any worse than they already were. He glowered because he could, but headed off to his rooms anyway to do just that, stopping only three times to try to figure out what he was forgetting only to mentally smack himself each time when he realized the “what” was Tony and he wasn’t forgotten, only behind him by more than a hundred feet or whatever the mystical magical crap determined to be too far.
He scrubbed himself clean and reached for one of the multitude of bandages in his well-stocked bathroom, but found himself stopped by a less than pleased looking Natasha. She slapped his hand away and reached for the disinfectant instead. It stung, both the hand and the wound, but she put a row of tiny little butterfly bandages on it that would do a lot more good than the single massive one he was going to use, so he called it a draw.
Eventually, she sat back and asked, “How are you, really?”
“Fine,” he insisted. He ran a hand through his hair and ignored the brush she tossed him. He debated pretending she was talking about the scrapes and bruises, but knew she wouldn’t tolerate the fake stupidity for long, so he cut to the chase instead and said, “There’s this weird feeling of leaving something behind, but not really, but I think I’m already getting used to it? I don’t know if the initial chest pain thing was from shock or what, but it’s mostly gone so it doesn’t really matter. Bruce couldn't find any actual damage and called it phantom something-or-another, so it can't be that bad, right?”
She nodded and did her little head tilt that usually meant she was contemplating something, and he waited for her explanation because if something as weird as this had sense to it, she better damn well share it. “Stark felt your wound, so maybe you’re feeling his,” she eventually offered. He had a moment of panic that Tony had been hit and was avoiding medical attention before he remembered he usually didn’t care because he was usually just as guilty of the same thing and the two of them would cover for each other as often as not unless it was something that couldn’t be reasonably hidden. Natasha waited it out before she explained, “The arc reactor created reduced lung and heart function from a spatial standpoint alone, let alone the initial injury. Even without it, there is a massive amount of scar tissue in that location and you may be feeling part of that.”
So Stark had ongoing issues, that shouldn’t be a surprise. So Stark had ongoing issues that directly affected his day-to-day life and health and yet he was still out there fighting with the rest of them, side by side as though he didn’t have a care in the world and not mentioning a damn thing to anyone else. That Natasha knew meant that she hacked his file. That she didn’t share with the rest of the class meant that she respected his choice, or possibly just him at this point though Clint wasn’t dumb enough to mention that out loud. Instead, he asked, “How much is that suit compensating for him?”
He knew that she would understand the true question, which was how much the rest of the team should be looking out for him and/or trying to talk him down from doing what he apparently felt the need to do. It was hypocritical considering what he knew of the others and himself, but that didn’t change the fact it was also the truth. She didn’t pretend not to understand and replied, “From what I was able to find, it’s a mixture of increased oxygen intake and a fairly effective filtration system that should filter out a lot more than just dust. It protects him, in every sense of the word, and explains why he rarely goes anywhere without a link to at least one of the versions.”
“I’m not going to ask him to stop,” Clint defended himself, though there was an overwhelming urge to do just that. “I just...”
“Need to know he’s safe?” Nat finished for him. She stood and patted him on the shoulder before she headed for the door. “Ask yourself if you would have cared before, if you would have thought about it at all. Then ask yourself just how much this bond Thor speaks of is going to screw with your life.”
She was at the door before Clint could come up with an adequate response. He would have cared, he knew he would have. He just had never thought to ask before, never thought there could be anything that would warrant asking in the first place. He cared about each and every member of his team, and no one could claim otherwise. He knew bits and pieces about them all: the way Steve still flinched if someone sneezed and used hand sanitizer judiciously despite his superior healing, the way Bruce went through more ibuprofen than most realized post-transformation, the way Thor was starving after a big battle, the way Sam wanted a moment to himself any time he saw anyone go down - bad guy or good, the way Rhodes typed up two different reports - one for his superiors and one for himself, and the way Natasha needed a quiet moment save for the times she needed an obnoxious distraction that would earn him a punch followed by some little treat secreted away in his gear. He always thought Tony just needed his time in his shop to beat out the dings in his suit and beat out any demons he might have that no one dared to think about. He never thought there was an actual health issue at play.
He was drawn out of his thoughts with the realization that Nat hadn’t actually left yet. This realization was sourced by something small and plastic bouncing off of his forehead. He looked down to find a tiny tube of lube. “For real, Nat?” he asked with a roll of his eyes.
“Hey, you’re the one who talked about being his bitch,” she said glibly, and then slipped through the door before he could catch her or seek retribution.
He grabbed his phone and texted, “I hate you,” out of principle. He was in no way surprised to receive a response only seconds later that said, “No you don’t. Now go get drunk with your soulmate.”
He pulled on some workout gear because it was comfortable and more passable in polite company than actual pajamas. They lived in a building relatively open to the public - private floors of a building relatively open to the public, but still - there was no telling who would be wandering where when, and he had quickly learned safer was better than sorrier around the same time he learned Steve did not approve of boxers-only attire in the shared kitchen. There was also the very real chance they'd get called out to fight again, and he'd rather be wearing something resembling gear versus Ninja Turtles when it came down to it.
He knew exactly where Stark was before he entered the room. He also knew that Tony had already started without him by the wave of almost disorientation he felt pass over him when he stepped across the threshold. Sure enough, he found him already slouched across a good portion of the couch, tumbler in hand and bottle open before him. Given that there was a second tumbler next to his, Clint didn't mention it. Given that one of the bad movies he had referenced earlier was playing on a big screen across the room, he felt entitled to call Tony an ass before he sat down next to him.
"What? It's research! We need to know what we're dealing with, right?" Tony defended himself.
Clint's snort was lost in Tony's own, and echoed by another behind him. Rhodes stood there and simply shook his head at the antics. "So it's true then?" he asked as he stepped further into the room.
"If this odd feeling of codependency is anything to go by, yes," Tony said with a very precise nod.
Rhodes frowned and went so far as to mock pout. "And here I thought I was your only Baby Bear..."
Clint held up a hand, thankfully not the one with a full measure of amber in it, and promised, "I would never dare to step between a love affair with a history like yours. It's what, second only to his love for his suits?"
"Third," Rhodes corrected with a laugh. "You're forgetting his unholy love of getting himself in trouble." He plopped down on a nearby chair with a beer of his own in hand. "You okay with me serving as chaperone to this newfound bond of yours, or do you need some alone time? I swear I'm only here to stop him from making dumb decisions while drunk. Well, dumber than usual, that is."
Clint caught a glimpse of Steve pacing in the hallway, a very Bruce-like shadow cast against the wall behind him. The team was circling around, either in support or to make sure the two of them didn't do anything they'd regret in the morning. It wasn't exactly surprising, but he could feel Stark's exasperation rolling off of him in waves, and that was without the connection. "The more the merrier," he said because he could. He gestured to the beer with his tumbler and added, "Just make sure you have enough of that to share with the rest of the class waiting for their turn at detention because this one is so totally ours."
Three bad movies, some utter and complete unconsciousness, and a hangover later, he woke up on the same couch from the night before. There was a heavy yet comfortable weight atop him, and an equally heavy snore tickling his ear. He wrinkled his nose at the overwhelming stench of stale alcohol, and tried to figure out if it was from his own breath or that of whoever the hell was using him as a pillow.
He shifted slightly and his pant leg caught on the couch cushion, the cool air of the room versus the warmth of the body on top of him causing him to shiver slightly. His living blanket responded in kind and suddenly there was the electric shock of skin on skin that his brain took a moment to recognize as the same sensation as from the day before. It was enough to rouse what he now knew was Tony, who pushed up slightly to meet his eyes before he flailed less than elegantly and damn near fell off the couch entirely.
Clint caught him, but his hands caught bare skin again, which resulted in another shock, which resulted in another flail, and now he was well and truly awake, certain parts of him more so than others but there was no way he was mentioning that to Stark. It was clearly an after effect of whatever was done to them. Or possibly just the fact it was morning. He was in no way remotely responding to Stark himself, by himself. No way, no how. That'd just be sad, not to mention provide far too much fodder for Nat if he ever dreamed of hinting at such a thing to her.
So he did the intelligent thing and shoved at Stark instead, unfortunately at the same time that Tony decided to push upwards again and so his friend and teammate and in no way actual soulmate pretty much got launched backward across the room, only to be caught by a clearly amused Steve Rogers before he could knock himself out on the furniture.
Steve steadied Tony, who set to putting his disheveled appearance mostly to rights, and Clint took the opportunity to twist and plant his feet on the floor and pretty much prepare to run back to the privacy of his room instead of the being held under the gaze of a way too astute Super Soldier. He was stopped when Steve made no mention of anything aside from, "Breakfast is ready. Bruce thinks he has something for your hangovers as well."
So they sat in the kitchen and ate a large meal after the consumption of a large amount of nondescript gelatin tablets that were possibly straight from the lab. If they happened to sit as far away from each other as possible and made certain all accidental touches were avoided, no one said a thing.
Clint eventually escaped to the sanctity of his own room, where he joyfully faceplanted into the covers to sleep off the rest of lingering ache. He knew that Natasha would remind him if he had any important meetings or debriefings or the like, just as he knew Sam would take great joy in waking his ass up if there was an actual mission.
He awoke a good four hours later feeling quite rested, and quite uncomfortable. Said uncomfortability was of a very specific nature. He shifted, he flipped, he flopped, but no, it remained. He frowned, likely externally as well as internally because he knew he wasn't up to the levels of concentration needed to separate the actions.
There was no way he was still aroused just from the tiny bit of touch earlier. No way. He had eaten, he had slept, he had pushed it aside and should be good to go.
So why was he picturing Tony's wide, wide eyes when he first realized where he was? Why was he remembering just how blown his pupils were or just why Stark had needed to adjust his clothing quite so much?
It was a fluke, and nothing that his extensive training could not handle. He knew how to calm and center himself in the worst of situations, and this was far from that. He was laying in a comfy bed in a comfy apartment after eating a good meal and getting a solid several hours' worth of rest. If he could pull this crap while balanced on a wavering branch in the depths of a jungle with snipers in all directions, he damned well be able to pull it here. So he emptied his mind and focused on each and every technique, felt his mind come at rest, felt the tension drain from his body. Everywhere but where he needed it to be.
Something was off. He tried his usual tricks again to no avail, and then one more time because he was a glutton for punishment. He then paused and really thought about it, about what was off and what was wrong and why nothing was working. He did not like the conclusion his mind leapt to. His instincts were scarily accurate at the worst of times, no matter now insane the conclusion, and so it was with a fair deal of resignation he prepared to discover just how off they were this time.
He cleared his throat and gathered his courage and addressed the ceiling, "Hey, JARVIS, where's Tony?"
"Mister Stark is in his private suites," came the expected response.
"Is he doing anything... important right about now?"
"Mister Stark has requested that he not be disturbed at this time."
Clint tried not to roll his eyes. "Is he busy?"
"He is indisposed at the moment," JARVIS said, and sounded pained when doing so. Or at least as pained as really elaborate computer system could.
"Awesome," Clint sighed, picture painted bright and painfully clear. Stark was having a bit of alone time of the hands-on sort, and Clint was just lucky enough to feel the results through their new and less than wanted connection. He was tempted to ask JARVIS to pass on a message to hurry up already, but he understood that different people had different tastes and that, apparently, Stark's tastes leaned towards the aggravating even when they involved himself.
"Was there anything else you needed, sir?" JARVIS asked, startling out of thoughts he really shouldn't be having in the first place but were kind of forced upon him so it's not like they were actually his fault except for the part where they got really detailed and possibly imaginative.
"Nah, J, I'm good," he said glibly. He then flipped over and buried his face in his pillow to ride out what hopefully would not be the remainder of the morning.
He didn't bring the matter up to Tony because he understood the whole "body has needs" thing. He also didn't give in to his own body and his own needs because that was just far too strange to think about. He did, however, wait until Tony had left for some meeting that required his actual presence, felt their little bond stretch thin and the sensation of being out of sorts grow until it reached a maximum level that was actually quite tolerable really, to jump into the shower and have a little alone time of his own. Given what they had learned so far, distance made the connection bitch but individual sensations lessen, and he planned on abusing that knowledge to the fullest.
He knew he needed to work out a plan for future happenstances because he wasn't stupid enough to think it was a one-time thing. He also knew that they would fix this thing, sooner rather than later, with or without Thor's lack of knowhow on the matter, so he could deal with a little uncomfortableness off and on until then.
Of course, it turned out to be a lot more on than off. Stark had routines, and a libido. After the third time of waking up to the same sensations, he was sorely tempted to take matters into his own hands. On the fourth day, he did and really in no way, shape, or form regretted it. It may have been one of the most satisfying mornings he had the pleasure of experiencing in a very long time. Even if it was tempered with the knowledge of what sourced it.
He pushed that out of his mind and focused on everything he needed to do that day, which was plenty to keep his mind and body occupied. He hit the shooting range with Sam, the mats with Nat, and the schematics with Steve. Rogers wanted to go over contingency plans for different types of terrain and city layouts, what he'd be comfortable with versus what the rest of the team would actually allow. Said rest of the team would be involved in future discussions as well, but he liked the one-on-one approach for each team member prior to the peer-pressure approach when analyzing a situation.
They were in the middle a discussion on mountain rescue scenarios when he felt the first hint of purely Not Him feeling pass over him. He tried to pass it off, ignore it and all that, but it was really hard - no pun intended - to concentrate on the recently joined Wilson discussing the weight capacity of his wings versus straight line winds when he was feeling someone else's arousal.
He shifted in his seat and referenced an escape plan he and Natasha had used back in the day and was proud when his voice barely cracked. Nat had joined them around the time Sam had, and she raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction. He shook his head to let her know it wasn't anything for her to be concerned with, and she let it go at that.
However, either Tony was going for a marathon session or was really damn close because he could feel the stretch of the fabric against his skin, the faint flush that rose from chest to throat, the tingling itch of something not quite there. And it wouldn't go away.
"Barton?" Wilson prompted, and it was clear it wasn't for the first time.
He pushed away from the table, back to the others as soon as he was able. "Excuse me," he called over his shoulder as he marched towards the door. "I'm going to go kill Stark."
"Remember he buys us stuff!" Natasha laughed, not even bothering to ask what he did this time.
"We like stuff!" Sam agreed readily enough. As an aside, he added, "Man made backup wings for my backup wings, can't hate on that."
Clint leaned back in so that only his head and the hint of his shoulders were visible through the doorway. "How about I just maim him instead?"
Steve nodded as if that was fair, a smile wide across his face when he reminded him, "Keep the important parts whole - we might still need someone to run the suit."
Clint snorted and stomped off with a parting remark of, "No promises!"
He made it all the way to the elevator and let the doors slide shut behind him. He rested his overheated forehead on the cool metal, his reflection showing him just how far gone he was even if only maybe Natasha understood the tells. He forced himself to stand straight and jabbed the button for his floor and then felt the overwhelming wave of pleasure hit that he had come to associate with Tony finally getting off.
He staggered and caught himself on the railing that lined the car. He reached blindly for the halt button so that he could have a moment to compose himself and took deep breaths to do just that, mind racing with just what caused Stark's change of routine and what sort of defenses he would need against it should it happen again. He didn't think he took that long but the car started to move again, just a little, just half a floor.
The doors opened to Bruce, who took one look at Clint and opened and closed his mouth for a full ten-count. "I was going to go get a snack and the elevator was stuck. I think I pushed the emergency override and... Are you all right?" he asked in a rushed babble.
Clint just shook his head. There was no emergency override unless vocally asked, at least for anyone who didn't turn into a gigantic rage monster because waiting was annoying. It had only happened once, and there were extenuating circumstances to be sure, but Tony had put a safeguard in place that stated Bruce got dibs on any elevator he wanted any time he wanted, and anyone else had to wait. Given that snack-time was usually tea-time was usually Bruce-really-needed-a-break-time, JARVIS must have chosen the elevator closest to him versus directing him to another due to the hastily input command Clint had used.
"It's fine," Clint said, trying not to look or sound post-orgasmic. There were theories that Bruce himself maintained some of The Big Guy's extra-sensitive senses, so he doubted it worked, but he at least made the attempt.
Bruce took an extra step back anyway, and waved him off. "Why don't you go on ahead and I'll take the next one?" he suggested. "You look, um, tired, and could probably use the rest from everything else that's been going on. Just let me know if there is anything I can do to help?"
"Find a way to break a mystical soulbond forged via excessively caffeinated sugary beverages?" Clint offered. Bruce laughed and the doors slid shut again and he slumped against the wall and contemplated which would happen first: the bond would be broken or he would die of embarrassment.
Of course the damn thing had to stop one more time, and of course it had to be Stark himself that stared across the metal threshold at him. He looked bright-eyed and refreshed and maybe a little confused.
Clint resisted the random and likely magically-driven urge to step closer and just glared at him instead. He pushed the button for his floor again, Tony far enough back not to stop the doors from closing when he ground out, "I hate you."
No further delays to be had, he finally made it to his room, stripped, and took as cold of shower as the carefully modulated system allowed.
He did not seek his revenge then, as that would have been far too obvious, but he was petty enough to still seek it. Instead he waited and plotted and planned and rather liked what he came up with. He spent the next several hours "accidentally" nearby wherever it was that Stark needed to be. He could feel the bond ebb and flow and tug gently against him, and assumed it was doing the same to his current nemesis. It became an almost background feeling soon enough, and that was when he knew it was time.
Stark had a video conference call scheduled for 1600. He had been working away on a targeting system improvement near the practice range for a good hour before that, trusting JARVIS to remind him when it was time. He called up a connection right then and there and started some schpeel to a board that might have been of directors.
Clint had stayed in the range up until that point. A little practice never hurt anyone, least of all him, so he took his shots and fiddled with his bow and just generally made sure that the connection was a tangible thing that became kind of like the hum of an engine on a long ride. About ten minutes into the call, he slipped away to the little room off to the side that was far bigger than a locker but served the same purpose to store a good deal of his gear. While the floor itself was soundproofed from the others, the little rooms were not and he could still hear the gentle rise and fall of the continuing conversation even if he couldn't quite make out the words.
What was said was not important anyway; it wasn't like he needed to know the trade secrets of the team's most obvious benefactor, he just needed to know said benefactor was occupied nearby. He unbuttoned his pants and leaned up against the wall as he took himself in hand. He in no way sighed with relief, but it was a close thing. He started slow, with barely there touches that did little other than to make him shiver in anticipation. A light squeeze, a trailing of a finger across the sensitive skin, those were enough of a beginning. He built up to slow, sure strokes, intent to make it last as long as possible, and intent to make it intense enough to be something to be remembered. He tightened his grip and added a twist on the upstroke and felt his hips give an almost involuntary jerk of approval in response. Through the wall, Tony's voice began to falter. He felt his breathing pick up just a little, felt the tense coil begin to wrap tight in the pit of his stomach, and smiled.
It wasn't like he had been abstaining the past few days, but he had been scheduling any sort of recreational activity to be in the wee hours of the morning, Stark safely asleep and hopefully none the wiser beyond the possibility of a very pleasant dream. He had refused to indulge when Tony did, the action being far too close to mutual masturbation for his liking, and definitely something reeking of a lack of fully informed consent that was to be avoided save for petty revenge schemes for which he had the defense that it was done to him first, even if the other party had no idea it had happened.
Plus, he and Tony weren't an item, no matter what cursed bottles of sugar might declare, and it would be far too weird.
He concentrated on each and every sensation, remembered every tremor and every hitched breath, lost himself in the pleasure until it surged and damned near overwhelmed him, catching himself on the edge of one of the shelves when his knees threatened to give way. He stayed there for a moment, breathless and lightheaded, before he forced himself to stand fully upright again and put himself and his clothing to rights.
He turned towards the door just as he finished double-checking his zipper to find Stark standing there, a look of comprehension and maybe horror on his face. "That was...? I felt..." He staggered a little and caught himself on the jamb. "Does that mean...? Fuck! Every time?"
Clint smiled as sweetly as he could and elbowed his way past him. It took an active effort to ignore the tingle and draw of skin on skin as he brushed against him, but he succeeded, or at least he mostly did with nothing save for the barest of lingers to say otherwise. He turned to face Tony as he walked backwards through the hallway and said, "We have a problem. Fix it."
He took the numb nod as a positive sign.
As luck would have it, the team was called out the very next day, early enough that he couldn't tell if Stark had changed his routine or simply had not gotten the chance to follow through with it. His position up top meant very little interference from his so-called bond, and he couldn't tell if he liked it or not after feeling it so intensely for even such a brief period.
He could still tell when the suit took a corner too fast or skimmed too close to something solid, but a mission meant focus meant he could concentrate on what needed to be done and shut out anything extraneous through far too many years of practice. Stark's stunts were like a bruised shin or a torn fingernail: he was conscious that the presence was there, but even that awareness was in no way detrimental to the task at hand. It was actually a breath of relief because he had worried, at least on some level, that the two of them would concentrate on, well, the two of them, versus any actual mission and he knew the rest of the team thought the same even if they hadn't directly voiced it.
The task at hand in this case was actually kind of boring, despite the weirdness factor. Friends of the magical whatsits were making the tangible, building-sized, equivalent of ballistic-resistant balloon animals in the middle of Central Park. They seemed almost childlike in their game, not nearly the threat of their counterparts, and that really should have tipped them off that the much younger wizarding wannabes were just a paid distraction.
Clint personally made the realization when he was surrounded by baddies, jabbed with something potent, and knocked fully unconscious. He woke up somewhere determinedly not Central Park and determinedly not near his team, or at least one teammate in particular if the extremely strong feeling of something extremely important having been ripped away was to be believed. He had also been stripped of his gear and tossed into some sort of plain jumpsuit, which was rather annoying as it meant all the usual tools stashed in random places were well and truly gone. It also seemed like a gross violation of privacy which, again, the situation as a whole was really, but having unknown hands strip and dress him while he was out like a light always gave him the willies.
He took comfort in the fact that these, at least, were professionals. They had trussed him up nice and good with his hands cuffed behind his back and a harness of sorts that wrapped up and around his shoulders as well as across his chest to suspend him above the floor. The fact the metal around his wrists was still cool told him he hadn't been there long, though the fact said metal was chained to his waist told him getting out was going to be a bitch.
He had thought that maybe even he professionals had made a mistake though, when he found he had far more freedom of movement of his legs than he should. He could swing them a good foot apart, even if it made the rest of him sway with the movement, and could almost touch the floor with his thoughtfully provided socks if he pointed his toes as far as they could go. Of course, that hope turned out to be false when they looped a hook through the slack to pin him into place against the floor.
It was kind of boring, really. Large men in black clothing that covered them from head to toe. Not really ninja-like, which would have at least been cool, but more like standard nondescript hired thug. They came complete with the baklavas that covered all but their eyes which revealed at least two Caucasians, a man of Hispanic origin, and one that threw him for a loop but that might have just been the frighteningly bushy eyebrows. He was surprised they hadn't gone for goggles to obscure even those details, but gave them credit for the matching gloves and boots because so few got that right.
They asked questions, he didn't answer. They threatened, he yawned. They wanted to know SHIELD intel even if it was outdated and, even though they danced around it, seemed particularly interested in the goings on of one particular region. Given that he had only three missions to that region pretty much ever, and that two were not long term, he had a feeling what they were after. When they phrased things in ways that were leading enough to damn near have flashing signs with glowing arrows, he wanted to smack his head against something solid. He hadn't shot the kingpin when he had the chance but, to be fair, he hadn't been important enough to be considered the mission back then. Who the guy had been up against and the ties he had to a little group that eventually became known to be AIM was far more pressing than a wannabe with a power complex. Of course that wannabe had survived and his powerbase grew and that led them to where they were now, tucked in a shadowy room of an undoubtedly shadowy complex surrounded by shadowy figures.
He didn't get a wall to bang his head on, but he did get something solid. Fists hurt when used correctly, and he should know. Not that they did much, really. A few punches had never kept him down. The wooden mallet left a mark though, thankfully on his shin and a few ribs and not his teeth. The lack of his boots meant at least two toes gave way on what was either a wild or carefully calculated swing, his body jerking backwards and making the vulnerable tendon of his knee pull tight against the restraints. They didn't take the obvious though, which was worrisome as they really had been the general brute force type up until then. This told him even more than the new wardrobe that they planned on keeping him around for a while and he bit his lip to prevent himself from making a crass remark about declining their invitation.
It was either the third or the fourth thug circling around that gave him pause. It was the jerking of his pinky and ring finger out of joint that gave him the urge to bite his tongue. He hated when they messed with his hands; those things were his livelihood at least as much as his eyes. At least they hadn't gone after those yet, and at least dislocations were quicker to heal than outright breaks. Even if he would be needing downtime for his foot and ribs, he could at least shoot sooner rather than later, so he took some small comfort in that.
He also took comfort in a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach, the niggling at the back of his mind. Yes, the pain was there, but so was something else, circling, edging closer in an ever decreasing radius, almost tangible and yet so very not. Which was why he was in no way surprised when, long minutes later, there was a streak of red that totally demolished one side of the room and was in no way tied to the cut above his eyebrow dripping into his vision and adding to the previously bland color scheme.
Four men went down as fast as the wall had, and then the room echoed with the clang of metal on concrete as the Iron Man suit approached. "Five o'clock," Clint said by way of greeting. Stark didn't even turn around when he launched one of his tiny ballistics to that exact location, the fifth and final thug in at least this corner of the complex well and truly toast.
The suit's mask flipped up to reveal an oddly overtly concerned Tony Stark. "Are you okay?" he demanded, then shook his head. He seemed a little breathless, but that could have just been due to his dramatic entrance. "Of course you're not okay. I can see that you're not okay and feel the damn breaks and... Is there anything they did that I need to know about? Did they rig you to blow if I cut you down? Drug you? Poison you? Hurt you in some way that's totally making you bleed out and die or...?"
"Stark!" Clint shouted. He regretted that his hands weren't free because that meant he couldn't grab the other man by the shoulders and try to ineffectually shake him. It's not like he could move the suit on his own, but the sensors would have flashed and it might have been enough to garner a response. The shout got his attention though, and there was a flicker of reality in the semi-glazed over eyes that had been staring both at and through him. "Where are the others?" he asked slowly, carefully, as if to a child. He didn't doubt the thugs had backup and, as nice as a super-powered suit was, he kinda wanted some coherent help of his own.
Tony looked sheepish when he admitted, "I kind of left them in the dust?" Then, as if to defend his actions, he rushed, "I could find you faster and get here faster and JARVIS kept them in the loop. I think your fellow bird-brained whatever was closest on my tail and I'm picking up an electrical disturbance that can only be Thor."
As if to punctuate his words, there was the echo of gunfire and the rumble of something thunder-like followed by the rock of an explosion felt through concrete and steel. "Good, that's good," Clint said, more to himself than to his teammate. He felt the tension start to leave his body and slouched against his bonds, which reminded him that he still had them and had been holding an entire conversation while swinging in the nonexistent breeze. "Hey, any chance of you cutting me down?" he asked with a fair deal of hope. The odd combination of mesh and metal had long since began to chafe and he saw no reason not to a use the literal knight in shining armor that stood before him to stop that.
Tony reacted as though physically slapped and took a step back to analyze just how to complete the task. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered before he raised a gauntlet and very carefully sliced through the lead between the ceiling and Clint's still swaying body.
Clint braced himself for impact, feet catching on the floor only for the damned socks to slip slightly against the rather smooth surface. He flinched at the contact of his injured toes, but had worse in the past and wasn't ashamed to admit it. He leaned forward to steady himself, then back again when the action made him far dizzier than it had any right to. That, and basic physiology dictated he put more pressure against the balls of his feet when he did so and that meant more pressure against his very broken toes and that just really sucked.
He found hard metal wrapped around him before he could even breathe, Tony's arms strong and steady and holding him soundly in place. It wasn't the world's most comfortable, but he didn't faceplant so he called it a win. He was about to say as much, but found himself half-tugged and half-hugged closer, close enough to rest his sweaty forehead against one of matching grossness. "I've got you," Tony whispered, but the words were mostly lost in the overwhelming rush of the connection, the damn near physical spark that began where their skin just barely brushed and raced through him to his aching feet.
He gasped in a way he was not entirely proud of and could feel the disruption of air against his skin when Tony did the same. He then felt an entirely different sensation against his skin when Tony pressed forward that last minuscule inch and pressed his lips against his own. Clint's lips were chapped from wind and lack of water for the past several hours and Tony's tasted like coffee mixed with some overpriced balm and he knew this because his tongue darted out to trace them and found himself met with more than a fair amount of reciprocation.
If a forehead touch led to chills, an actual kiss led to the edge of embarrassment and he was both terrified and insanely curious to think what anything more would do. His entire body tingled and flushed with what he had to admit was arousal and maybe something more. The admission was made as much due to the fact he was wearing a shapeless jumpsuit that hid nothing as much as simply no longer caring who knew the truth. He felt warmth, he felt comfort, and he felt whole for the first time in days if not longer. He chased after that feeling, held it close, knew it probably wasn't going to last because nothing good ever did, not in this life or any other he had ever known, but it was his for now and like hell was he not going to appreciate it.
It was Tony that pulled away first, mainly because he was the only one fully mobile. Clint was still held in place by chains and cuffs and not a whole lot of incentive to move. He was proud of himself for not making a single mocking comment when Tony summed up the whole little experience with a rather understated, "Whoa." Given that the statement was followed by another kiss, just as awesome by the first, Clint decided he had made a very good decision.
Or maybe not because it took all of about ten seconds before there was a crash and the smell of freshly burnt ozone. He heard the whir of mechanics and then Wilson's snort of, "Fucking finally!"
Tony didn't drop him, but it was a near thing. Clint hadn't realized how much of his weight had been supported the suit until most of it was gone. Stark quickly braced him again with a single alloy-reinforced hand, but turned to face Sam and asked, "Really? Now?"
Their teammate just shrugged. "Not my fault it took you this long to get your heads of out your asses." He adjusted a setting on his comm and then pouted, "Of course she did. Damn, it was stupid to go up against her."
"You took bets?!?" Tony asked incredulously.
Sam gave him a look that was less than kind. "Rogers was out months ago because he apparently thought you two would buy a clue by then. Rhodes had a week from next Tuesday, but is arguing the whole thing is shot because no one could have planned on Barton getting kidnapped again." A pause, then, "Except, of course, Natasha because she's scary like that."
Out of all the randomness that conversation just held, it was the timeline that struck Clint as off. "Months?" he verified. "Because we only got hit with this crap a few days ago."
Now it was his turn to receive a look from Wilson. "You two have been dancing around each other since I met you, and I've been assured by the highest authority that it's been going on longer than that. That it took a magical whammy to get you to move past the stupid stage? Sad, really." He shook his head, but wore a smile that was not much more than a smirk.
Clint had a feeling he knew who the authority Sam mentioned was, and regretted ever agreeing to a night of shots with Nat because she was notorious for getting people to spill their guts and deepest secrets - it was the whole Super Spy thing, really - and she was the only one who ever had succeeded in working that angle with him. He also had a feeling she had made a comment negating the moving past stupid stage based upon Tony's sudden splutter and declarations of denial. He didn't have a comm of his own, so he couldn't be sure, but he was also kind of glad he didn't so that he only had to experience the embarrassment secondhand. For now. There would be time enough to face it head on when they got back to the Tower.
Stark was still holding him though, even if it was now reduced to one-handedly, so things were not all bad. Clint shifted his weight, just a little, so that he leaned up against the suit just that tiny bit more and caught Tony's attention again, though he kind of doubted it had ever fully left. "What do you say about getting me out of these chains and actually home where we can explore this connection thing of ours in a little more detail?" he whispered.
He really needed to learn where the comm was on the suit though, because Wilson just sighed and reported for all those not present, "Yes, yes they did. They just had a heartwarming realization of love while Barton was still handcuffed and chained to the floor." He whipped out a multi-tool that may or may not have been Stark-designed and asked, "Do you need help getting him out of there? Or are you all about rescuing the maiden to win her fair whatever on your own?"
Clint regretted that his hands were still cuffed behind his back because he really would have liked to flip him off for that one, but took comfort in the fact that Stark did so in his stead. He also took comfort in the way he was freed sooner rather than later, and surrounded by good friends, good food, and possibly illegal analgesics shortly after while some other poor schmuck had to deal with the thoroughly decimated building and lack of conscious survivors.
Mostly though, he took comfort in the way Tony curled up beside him that night, as much skin directly on skin as humanly possible, connection shining bright enough that the city as a whole had to see it. Stark had refused to do much more than that, mindful of Clint's injuries, possibly even more so than Clint himself. Apparently the guy had a soft and caring side that he would probably deny with his dying breath publicly, but demonstrated in spades in private. So now he lay, fingertips just barely rested atop bandaged ribs, Clint's own splinted fingers on top of those, and just held him. A spare kiss or a spare sigh escaped every now and then, but he was seemingly content with his self-imposed limitations.
"You okay with this? Not going to freak out or anything?" Tony asked around a yawn.
Clint contemplated that for all of about a second before he admitted, "Oh, there's going to be a freak out, don't worry. Especially when we try to figure out how much of this is actually us and how much is that damned spell."
"All because you tried to be nice to me," Tony mused.
"Yeah, see if I ever do that again," Clint retorted, but gripped what he could of Tony's hand that much tighter to soften the blow.
Tony nodded, chin rough against his shoulder. There was a pause, not uncomfortable, but long enough that Clint thought maybe he had drifted off, before Stark asked, "Hey, Barton? Wanna share a Coke with me?"
Clint's bark of laughter was short and sharp, but the resulting kiss was anything but.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
This entry was originally posted at http://cat-77.dreamwidth.org/469683.html. Current comments
Genre: Slash, Clint Barton/Tony Stark
Rating: Honestly? Wasn't sure if this should be a high R or a low NC-17
Length: ~10,000 words
Spoilers: Iron Man 3 and Captain America 2 compliant
Warnings: Language, Mild Torture, Masturbation, Forced Voyeurism (of a sort), Soulbonding without Consent
Synopsis: Clint hated magic. His current circumstances were not exactly helping to change that fact, at least not that he'd ever admit.
Author's Notes: For the "magical trouble" square at
hc_bingo. Also written because I saw a whole display of the things at Target and just couldn't let the joke go.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or this product, and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
Clint hated magic. Hated it. Not the “pull a rabbit out of a hat” kind because he had known too many people who relied on that to make a living, but more along the lines of “Doctor Strange is an asshat and so is all of his ilk” type of thing. Despised. No one had the right to mess with stuff like that. No one had the right to mess with him like that.
Which led him to where he was now.
Multiple magic users making multiple messes and not a one of them thought of a defense against multiple arrows to multiple knees. Reassuring, really, that they could break the laws of science but fall prey to something that was really not more than some sticks and a string.
Well, not completely fall. Not really. There was apparently some sort of magic mojo still floating around, left uncontrolled and drifty and whatever. He didn’t really listen to the specifics aside from that they were to sit and wait to see if it created an inevitable fiasco, or just petered out on its own.
It was hot though, even in the relative shade of the massive brick building he leaned up against. There was a kiosk selling soda across the street and overheated Avengers next to him and he had enough in his pocket to fix at least part of that equation. He came back with a bunch of plastic bottles of Coke because caffeine was a good thing, really it was. Bruce declined and so he had downed one and started on the other when Tony came over to claim a seat on the little flowerbed bench thingy he was using, suit disassembled but waiting for him at his side.
“Thanks, by the way,” Tony said, which was a rare enough thing in and of itself. He sipped at his and set it off to the side to watch the bluish cloud drift like a Ping-Pong ball around a thankfully semi-confined area bracketed by buildings made of something it didn't like. Wilson and Rhodes were still up top watching it from that angle, but Thor had gotten bored and joined the others soon enough.
“Not a problem,” Clint assured him. He pointedly did not mock the words scrawled across Stark’s bottle, but it was a close and temping thing. Catchy campaign, yes. “Share a Coke with...” Amusing when Thor went looking for a Karen and Natasha readily offered a sip to Steve, but over the top when Tony’s said “Soulmate” and Steve’s own said “BFF” and led to a conversation on the meaning and prevalence of abbreviations in text-speak. His first one had said “Star,” and he had claimed that meant himself. He hadn’t even bothered to look at his second, more thirsty than amused at that point - he had been on a rooftop sans shade or the breeze of flight for far longer than the rest and was just beginning to cool down.
He reached for his bottle again and downed a fair share before he noticed the “Soulm” under his thumb. “Crap, was this yours?” he asked Tony.
Stark looked down at the one in his hand with the visible “lmate” on it and shrugged. “I thought there was more left in this one... Does this mean I have Barton Cooties?”
Clint flipped him off as was right and proper, and figured it totally wasn’t his fault because he grabbed the one that was left and both had the same label and, hey, what was the chance of that? He took another sip of his newly acquired one and then damn near spit it out as he noticed the Blue Floaty Cloud of Doom had disappeared. The spit turned into a choke though, as his chest erupted into a bright and blinding pain. He clawed at his vest, tried to see what was wrong, what he had been hit with, unzipped it enough to see what he thought was a faint hint of blue before he saw his own tan and scars beneath his protective undershirt again, but the pain was still there, dissipated slightly, but so totally there.
Stark was calling for a medic but was looking like he was having the exact same sort of almost panic attack Clint himself was. “Did it hurt you?” Clint managed to get out, breath shallow against an increasingly phantom pain.
“No, I’m fine, wait, what?” Tony asked less than intelligently. “Did what hurt me? Crap, the magic thingy is gone.” There was profanity and there was a call for scans and a shout of the cloud finding its target in yet another archer-based nickname but, most importantly, Stark shifted his hands, his bare hands, from Clint’s protected shoulders to his arms, flesh against flesh for one startling moment before he removed them as if burned and Clint physically checked his own skin for scarring.
“What did it do?” a voice demanded. Natasha. She was at his side now. She reached out a tentative hand, not much more than two fingers really, and stroked down his arm. It did nothing but tickle.
Tony knocked her hand away though, harsh and fast and not exactly gentle. It didn't even come across as a protective measure for her, not even as a “What were you thinking?” sort of thing, but something baser and far more possessive. He had angled himself between the two of them, not the brightest of moves when the Black Widow was involved, and glared as he asked, “Are you okay?”
Clint pushed himself up, wondered when he had flopped backwards to quite that extreme and how he managed not to hit his head in the process. “I... think I’m fine?” It was a question solely because he didn’t know if he could trust his own perceptions. The pressure against his chest was still there to some extent, but his heart beat on and he could draw breaths deep and true, so he had no idea as to the source.
Tony looked at him doubtingly, which was fair because he so wouldn’t believe that crap if anyone had pulled it on him. Stark took a hesitant step away, paused, cocked his head to the side, and stepped forward again. He reached out his hand again, this time with only one finger to poke him in the bicep. The surge was there again, not quite pleasure and not quite pain. The feeling deepened when he grabbed on outright, and disappeared almost completely when he let go to shake out his hand.
“Okay, so, yeah,” the supposed genius said. “Let’s go with A) we are so screwed, and B) next time tell us when you get winged in the thigh so that I’m not tempted to pants myself in public to see if I’ve been stabbed.”
“The fuck, Stark?” he asked. He did reach for the tiny nick without thinking though, which totally proved the validity of the accusation and even Nat made a face at that.
Tony backed away again, then further, then further still. At Steve’s question and Natasha's demand, he just said, “Trust me on this, it’s a theory born of mass stupidity, so kinda like Barton himself.”
The further away he got, the more, well, less Clint felt. Not anything extreme, but more like he forgot his wallet or belt or something. Something was missing. Tony was patting himself down so he must have felt it too. He stepped closer now, and the feeling lessened. “This is about to suck, isn’t it?” Clint sighed.
As if in confirmation to his words, Thor finally approached, Bruce in tow. “You have bonded?” he asked, almost a concerned note to his tone. “I did not know you wished to or I could have assisted in the rituals.” A pause. A raised eyebrow. A matching eyebrow when he saw the lack of Magic Glowy Cloud. “You were bonded without your consent. This is troubling indeed. I know of no way to undo such a thing in this realm. The rituals in my own are intense, to say the least. I do not know how the human form would cope with them.”
“Bonded?” Clint asked. There was an odd echo and he realized Tony had sputtered the same thing. “That so isn’t what I think it means, right? And, also? No. We fix this. Now would be good. Reversing time so that this never happened would be better. I am not going to be Stark’s bitch because that’s what it means, right? I’ve seen the SyFy movie of the week. Plus the alternate version that you can only get on video. Plus some highly inappropriate commentary about it on the internet.”
“That your mind went there,” Tony rolled his eyes.
“That you think you’d be his, why not the other way around?” Natasha offered amiably enough.
Thor looked between the three of them, confused. “A bond can be either sexual or platonic in nature. It is up to the bondmates to decide that,” he explained, confused. “It is always mutual though, there is no dominance, only equals.”
“Can we decide now that this is not happening?” Clint asked at the same time Tony asked, “How can you be sure of this whole bond-thing anyway?” Clint noticed they had their arms crossed in identical positions. He lowered his quickly, only to find Stark had done the same, and resisted the urge to sigh. Or possibly bang his head against something.
“It is visible to me,” Thor said, as if that explained everything. Seeing the blank looks on his teammates’ faces, he expanded, “There is a subtle vibration that is visible on spectrums my body perceives. For some, there is a faint hum, as if the two are in harmony with each other, but that is not always so.” Tony nodded as if that made sense, which technically did because, oh yeah, Thor was an alien and they tended to forget that. Of course, then said alien proved just how non-alien he was when he added, “Also, you both shared bottles marked ‘soulmate’ beneath a hovering cloud of magic. That was, perhaps, not the wisest of actions.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow and shrugged as though that were as good of an explanation as any and Clint once again thought unkind thoughts about magic in general and the users he had already shot in specific. Bruce and Tony began to argue the scientific aspects of such a thing and Cap shook his head in the way he did when he didn’t understand something but figured it was simply an “out of time” experience, which this one so totally was not. He kind of feared the responses from Sam and Rhodey when they found out the most though, knowing one would be mocking and the other would be protective and honestly not certain which would be which this time through.
Given that the Magic Glowy Cloud of Doom was well and truly gone, there wasn’t much reason for the Avengers to hang around. They headed back to the Tower where Bruce poked and prodded and hemmed and hawed and then both Stark and himself snuck away by mutual and unspoken agreement.
“Booze?” Tony suggested as they made their escape down the hallway.
“Hell yes,” Clint agreed.
“Go patch up that leg of yours and I’ll unlock the good stuff,” Tony said with false innocence.
Clint was tempted to flip him off again but he was offering the good stuff which was never something to turn down. That, and a hot shower and maybe a bandaid or two couldn’t make things any worse than they already were. He glowered because he could, but headed off to his rooms anyway to do just that, stopping only three times to try to figure out what he was forgetting only to mentally smack himself each time when he realized the “what” was Tony and he wasn’t forgotten, only behind him by more than a hundred feet or whatever the mystical magical crap determined to be too far.
He scrubbed himself clean and reached for one of the multitude of bandages in his well-stocked bathroom, but found himself stopped by a less than pleased looking Natasha. She slapped his hand away and reached for the disinfectant instead. It stung, both the hand and the wound, but she put a row of tiny little butterfly bandages on it that would do a lot more good than the single massive one he was going to use, so he called it a draw.
Eventually, she sat back and asked, “How are you, really?”
“Fine,” he insisted. He ran a hand through his hair and ignored the brush she tossed him. He debated pretending she was talking about the scrapes and bruises, but knew she wouldn’t tolerate the fake stupidity for long, so he cut to the chase instead and said, “There’s this weird feeling of leaving something behind, but not really, but I think I’m already getting used to it? I don’t know if the initial chest pain thing was from shock or what, but it’s mostly gone so it doesn’t really matter. Bruce couldn't find any actual damage and called it phantom something-or-another, so it can't be that bad, right?”
She nodded and did her little head tilt that usually meant she was contemplating something, and he waited for her explanation because if something as weird as this had sense to it, she better damn well share it. “Stark felt your wound, so maybe you’re feeling his,” she eventually offered. He had a moment of panic that Tony had been hit and was avoiding medical attention before he remembered he usually didn’t care because he was usually just as guilty of the same thing and the two of them would cover for each other as often as not unless it was something that couldn’t be reasonably hidden. Natasha waited it out before she explained, “The arc reactor created reduced lung and heart function from a spatial standpoint alone, let alone the initial injury. Even without it, there is a massive amount of scar tissue in that location and you may be feeling part of that.”
So Stark had ongoing issues, that shouldn’t be a surprise. So Stark had ongoing issues that directly affected his day-to-day life and health and yet he was still out there fighting with the rest of them, side by side as though he didn’t have a care in the world and not mentioning a damn thing to anyone else. That Natasha knew meant that she hacked his file. That she didn’t share with the rest of the class meant that she respected his choice, or possibly just him at this point though Clint wasn’t dumb enough to mention that out loud. Instead, he asked, “How much is that suit compensating for him?”
He knew that she would understand the true question, which was how much the rest of the team should be looking out for him and/or trying to talk him down from doing what he apparently felt the need to do. It was hypocritical considering what he knew of the others and himself, but that didn’t change the fact it was also the truth. She didn’t pretend not to understand and replied, “From what I was able to find, it’s a mixture of increased oxygen intake and a fairly effective filtration system that should filter out a lot more than just dust. It protects him, in every sense of the word, and explains why he rarely goes anywhere without a link to at least one of the versions.”
“I’m not going to ask him to stop,” Clint defended himself, though there was an overwhelming urge to do just that. “I just...”
“Need to know he’s safe?” Nat finished for him. She stood and patted him on the shoulder before she headed for the door. “Ask yourself if you would have cared before, if you would have thought about it at all. Then ask yourself just how much this bond Thor speaks of is going to screw with your life.”
She was at the door before Clint could come up with an adequate response. He would have cared, he knew he would have. He just had never thought to ask before, never thought there could be anything that would warrant asking in the first place. He cared about each and every member of his team, and no one could claim otherwise. He knew bits and pieces about them all: the way Steve still flinched if someone sneezed and used hand sanitizer judiciously despite his superior healing, the way Bruce went through more ibuprofen than most realized post-transformation, the way Thor was starving after a big battle, the way Sam wanted a moment to himself any time he saw anyone go down - bad guy or good, the way Rhodes typed up two different reports - one for his superiors and one for himself, and the way Natasha needed a quiet moment save for the times she needed an obnoxious distraction that would earn him a punch followed by some little treat secreted away in his gear. He always thought Tony just needed his time in his shop to beat out the dings in his suit and beat out any demons he might have that no one dared to think about. He never thought there was an actual health issue at play.
He was drawn out of his thoughts with the realization that Nat hadn’t actually left yet. This realization was sourced by something small and plastic bouncing off of his forehead. He looked down to find a tiny tube of lube. “For real, Nat?” he asked with a roll of his eyes.
“Hey, you’re the one who talked about being his bitch,” she said glibly, and then slipped through the door before he could catch her or seek retribution.
He grabbed his phone and texted, “I hate you,” out of principle. He was in no way surprised to receive a response only seconds later that said, “No you don’t. Now go get drunk with your soulmate.”
He pulled on some workout gear because it was comfortable and more passable in polite company than actual pajamas. They lived in a building relatively open to the public - private floors of a building relatively open to the public, but still - there was no telling who would be wandering where when, and he had quickly learned safer was better than sorrier around the same time he learned Steve did not approve of boxers-only attire in the shared kitchen. There was also the very real chance they'd get called out to fight again, and he'd rather be wearing something resembling gear versus Ninja Turtles when it came down to it.
He knew exactly where Stark was before he entered the room. He also knew that Tony had already started without him by the wave of almost disorientation he felt pass over him when he stepped across the threshold. Sure enough, he found him already slouched across a good portion of the couch, tumbler in hand and bottle open before him. Given that there was a second tumbler next to his, Clint didn't mention it. Given that one of the bad movies he had referenced earlier was playing on a big screen across the room, he felt entitled to call Tony an ass before he sat down next to him.
"What? It's research! We need to know what we're dealing with, right?" Tony defended himself.
Clint's snort was lost in Tony's own, and echoed by another behind him. Rhodes stood there and simply shook his head at the antics. "So it's true then?" he asked as he stepped further into the room.
"If this odd feeling of codependency is anything to go by, yes," Tony said with a very precise nod.
Rhodes frowned and went so far as to mock pout. "And here I thought I was your only Baby Bear..."
Clint held up a hand, thankfully not the one with a full measure of amber in it, and promised, "I would never dare to step between a love affair with a history like yours. It's what, second only to his love for his suits?"
"Third," Rhodes corrected with a laugh. "You're forgetting his unholy love of getting himself in trouble." He plopped down on a nearby chair with a beer of his own in hand. "You okay with me serving as chaperone to this newfound bond of yours, or do you need some alone time? I swear I'm only here to stop him from making dumb decisions while drunk. Well, dumber than usual, that is."
Clint caught a glimpse of Steve pacing in the hallway, a very Bruce-like shadow cast against the wall behind him. The team was circling around, either in support or to make sure the two of them didn't do anything they'd regret in the morning. It wasn't exactly surprising, but he could feel Stark's exasperation rolling off of him in waves, and that was without the connection. "The more the merrier," he said because he could. He gestured to the beer with his tumbler and added, "Just make sure you have enough of that to share with the rest of the class waiting for their turn at detention because this one is so totally ours."
Three bad movies, some utter and complete unconsciousness, and a hangover later, he woke up on the same couch from the night before. There was a heavy yet comfortable weight atop him, and an equally heavy snore tickling his ear. He wrinkled his nose at the overwhelming stench of stale alcohol, and tried to figure out if it was from his own breath or that of whoever the hell was using him as a pillow.
He shifted slightly and his pant leg caught on the couch cushion, the cool air of the room versus the warmth of the body on top of him causing him to shiver slightly. His living blanket responded in kind and suddenly there was the electric shock of skin on skin that his brain took a moment to recognize as the same sensation as from the day before. It was enough to rouse what he now knew was Tony, who pushed up slightly to meet his eyes before he flailed less than elegantly and damn near fell off the couch entirely.
Clint caught him, but his hands caught bare skin again, which resulted in another shock, which resulted in another flail, and now he was well and truly awake, certain parts of him more so than others but there was no way he was mentioning that to Stark. It was clearly an after effect of whatever was done to them. Or possibly just the fact it was morning. He was in no way remotely responding to Stark himself, by himself. No way, no how. That'd just be sad, not to mention provide far too much fodder for Nat if he ever dreamed of hinting at such a thing to her.
So he did the intelligent thing and shoved at Stark instead, unfortunately at the same time that Tony decided to push upwards again and so his friend and teammate and in no way actual soulmate pretty much got launched backward across the room, only to be caught by a clearly amused Steve Rogers before he could knock himself out on the furniture.
Steve steadied Tony, who set to putting his disheveled appearance mostly to rights, and Clint took the opportunity to twist and plant his feet on the floor and pretty much prepare to run back to the privacy of his room instead of the being held under the gaze of a way too astute Super Soldier. He was stopped when Steve made no mention of anything aside from, "Breakfast is ready. Bruce thinks he has something for your hangovers as well."
So they sat in the kitchen and ate a large meal after the consumption of a large amount of nondescript gelatin tablets that were possibly straight from the lab. If they happened to sit as far away from each other as possible and made certain all accidental touches were avoided, no one said a thing.
Clint eventually escaped to the sanctity of his own room, where he joyfully faceplanted into the covers to sleep off the rest of lingering ache. He knew that Natasha would remind him if he had any important meetings or debriefings or the like, just as he knew Sam would take great joy in waking his ass up if there was an actual mission.
He awoke a good four hours later feeling quite rested, and quite uncomfortable. Said uncomfortability was of a very specific nature. He shifted, he flipped, he flopped, but no, it remained. He frowned, likely externally as well as internally because he knew he wasn't up to the levels of concentration needed to separate the actions.
There was no way he was still aroused just from the tiny bit of touch earlier. No way. He had eaten, he had slept, he had pushed it aside and should be good to go.
So why was he picturing Tony's wide, wide eyes when he first realized where he was? Why was he remembering just how blown his pupils were or just why Stark had needed to adjust his clothing quite so much?
It was a fluke, and nothing that his extensive training could not handle. He knew how to calm and center himself in the worst of situations, and this was far from that. He was laying in a comfy bed in a comfy apartment after eating a good meal and getting a solid several hours' worth of rest. If he could pull this crap while balanced on a wavering branch in the depths of a jungle with snipers in all directions, he damned well be able to pull it here. So he emptied his mind and focused on each and every technique, felt his mind come at rest, felt the tension drain from his body. Everywhere but where he needed it to be.
Something was off. He tried his usual tricks again to no avail, and then one more time because he was a glutton for punishment. He then paused and really thought about it, about what was off and what was wrong and why nothing was working. He did not like the conclusion his mind leapt to. His instincts were scarily accurate at the worst of times, no matter now insane the conclusion, and so it was with a fair deal of resignation he prepared to discover just how off they were this time.
He cleared his throat and gathered his courage and addressed the ceiling, "Hey, JARVIS, where's Tony?"
"Mister Stark is in his private suites," came the expected response.
"Is he doing anything... important right about now?"
"Mister Stark has requested that he not be disturbed at this time."
Clint tried not to roll his eyes. "Is he busy?"
"He is indisposed at the moment," JARVIS said, and sounded pained when doing so. Or at least as pained as really elaborate computer system could.
"Awesome," Clint sighed, picture painted bright and painfully clear. Stark was having a bit of alone time of the hands-on sort, and Clint was just lucky enough to feel the results through their new and less than wanted connection. He was tempted to ask JARVIS to pass on a message to hurry up already, but he understood that different people had different tastes and that, apparently, Stark's tastes leaned towards the aggravating even when they involved himself.
"Was there anything else you needed, sir?" JARVIS asked, startling out of thoughts he really shouldn't be having in the first place but were kind of forced upon him so it's not like they were actually his fault except for the part where they got really detailed and possibly imaginative.
"Nah, J, I'm good," he said glibly. He then flipped over and buried his face in his pillow to ride out what hopefully would not be the remainder of the morning.
He didn't bring the matter up to Tony because he understood the whole "body has needs" thing. He also didn't give in to his own body and his own needs because that was just far too strange to think about. He did, however, wait until Tony had left for some meeting that required his actual presence, felt their little bond stretch thin and the sensation of being out of sorts grow until it reached a maximum level that was actually quite tolerable really, to jump into the shower and have a little alone time of his own. Given what they had learned so far, distance made the connection bitch but individual sensations lessen, and he planned on abusing that knowledge to the fullest.
He knew he needed to work out a plan for future happenstances because he wasn't stupid enough to think it was a one-time thing. He also knew that they would fix this thing, sooner rather than later, with or without Thor's lack of knowhow on the matter, so he could deal with a little uncomfortableness off and on until then.
Of course, it turned out to be a lot more on than off. Stark had routines, and a libido. After the third time of waking up to the same sensations, he was sorely tempted to take matters into his own hands. On the fourth day, he did and really in no way, shape, or form regretted it. It may have been one of the most satisfying mornings he had the pleasure of experiencing in a very long time. Even if it was tempered with the knowledge of what sourced it.
He pushed that out of his mind and focused on everything he needed to do that day, which was plenty to keep his mind and body occupied. He hit the shooting range with Sam, the mats with Nat, and the schematics with Steve. Rogers wanted to go over contingency plans for different types of terrain and city layouts, what he'd be comfortable with versus what the rest of the team would actually allow. Said rest of the team would be involved in future discussions as well, but he liked the one-on-one approach for each team member prior to the peer-pressure approach when analyzing a situation.
They were in the middle a discussion on mountain rescue scenarios when he felt the first hint of purely Not Him feeling pass over him. He tried to pass it off, ignore it and all that, but it was really hard - no pun intended - to concentrate on the recently joined Wilson discussing the weight capacity of his wings versus straight line winds when he was feeling someone else's arousal.
He shifted in his seat and referenced an escape plan he and Natasha had used back in the day and was proud when his voice barely cracked. Nat had joined them around the time Sam had, and she raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction. He shook his head to let her know it wasn't anything for her to be concerned with, and she let it go at that.
However, either Tony was going for a marathon session or was really damn close because he could feel the stretch of the fabric against his skin, the faint flush that rose from chest to throat, the tingling itch of something not quite there. And it wouldn't go away.
"Barton?" Wilson prompted, and it was clear it wasn't for the first time.
He pushed away from the table, back to the others as soon as he was able. "Excuse me," he called over his shoulder as he marched towards the door. "I'm going to go kill Stark."
"Remember he buys us stuff!" Natasha laughed, not even bothering to ask what he did this time.
"We like stuff!" Sam agreed readily enough. As an aside, he added, "Man made backup wings for my backup wings, can't hate on that."
Clint leaned back in so that only his head and the hint of his shoulders were visible through the doorway. "How about I just maim him instead?"
Steve nodded as if that was fair, a smile wide across his face when he reminded him, "Keep the important parts whole - we might still need someone to run the suit."
Clint snorted and stomped off with a parting remark of, "No promises!"
He made it all the way to the elevator and let the doors slide shut behind him. He rested his overheated forehead on the cool metal, his reflection showing him just how far gone he was even if only maybe Natasha understood the tells. He forced himself to stand straight and jabbed the button for his floor and then felt the overwhelming wave of pleasure hit that he had come to associate with Tony finally getting off.
He staggered and caught himself on the railing that lined the car. He reached blindly for the halt button so that he could have a moment to compose himself and took deep breaths to do just that, mind racing with just what caused Stark's change of routine and what sort of defenses he would need against it should it happen again. He didn't think he took that long but the car started to move again, just a little, just half a floor.
The doors opened to Bruce, who took one look at Clint and opened and closed his mouth for a full ten-count. "I was going to go get a snack and the elevator was stuck. I think I pushed the emergency override and... Are you all right?" he asked in a rushed babble.
Clint just shook his head. There was no emergency override unless vocally asked, at least for anyone who didn't turn into a gigantic rage monster because waiting was annoying. It had only happened once, and there were extenuating circumstances to be sure, but Tony had put a safeguard in place that stated Bruce got dibs on any elevator he wanted any time he wanted, and anyone else had to wait. Given that snack-time was usually tea-time was usually Bruce-really-needed-a-break-time, JARVIS must have chosen the elevator closest to him versus directing him to another due to the hastily input command Clint had used.
"It's fine," Clint said, trying not to look or sound post-orgasmic. There were theories that Bruce himself maintained some of The Big Guy's extra-sensitive senses, so he doubted it worked, but he at least made the attempt.
Bruce took an extra step back anyway, and waved him off. "Why don't you go on ahead and I'll take the next one?" he suggested. "You look, um, tired, and could probably use the rest from everything else that's been going on. Just let me know if there is anything I can do to help?"
"Find a way to break a mystical soulbond forged via excessively caffeinated sugary beverages?" Clint offered. Bruce laughed and the doors slid shut again and he slumped against the wall and contemplated which would happen first: the bond would be broken or he would die of embarrassment.
Of course the damn thing had to stop one more time, and of course it had to be Stark himself that stared across the metal threshold at him. He looked bright-eyed and refreshed and maybe a little confused.
Clint resisted the random and likely magically-driven urge to step closer and just glared at him instead. He pushed the button for his floor again, Tony far enough back not to stop the doors from closing when he ground out, "I hate you."
No further delays to be had, he finally made it to his room, stripped, and took as cold of shower as the carefully modulated system allowed.
He did not seek his revenge then, as that would have been far too obvious, but he was petty enough to still seek it. Instead he waited and plotted and planned and rather liked what he came up with. He spent the next several hours "accidentally" nearby wherever it was that Stark needed to be. He could feel the bond ebb and flow and tug gently against him, and assumed it was doing the same to his current nemesis. It became an almost background feeling soon enough, and that was when he knew it was time.
Stark had a video conference call scheduled for 1600. He had been working away on a targeting system improvement near the practice range for a good hour before that, trusting JARVIS to remind him when it was time. He called up a connection right then and there and started some schpeel to a board that might have been of directors.
Clint had stayed in the range up until that point. A little practice never hurt anyone, least of all him, so he took his shots and fiddled with his bow and just generally made sure that the connection was a tangible thing that became kind of like the hum of an engine on a long ride. About ten minutes into the call, he slipped away to the little room off to the side that was far bigger than a locker but served the same purpose to store a good deal of his gear. While the floor itself was soundproofed from the others, the little rooms were not and he could still hear the gentle rise and fall of the continuing conversation even if he couldn't quite make out the words.
What was said was not important anyway; it wasn't like he needed to know the trade secrets of the team's most obvious benefactor, he just needed to know said benefactor was occupied nearby. He unbuttoned his pants and leaned up against the wall as he took himself in hand. He in no way sighed with relief, but it was a close thing. He started slow, with barely there touches that did little other than to make him shiver in anticipation. A light squeeze, a trailing of a finger across the sensitive skin, those were enough of a beginning. He built up to slow, sure strokes, intent to make it last as long as possible, and intent to make it intense enough to be something to be remembered. He tightened his grip and added a twist on the upstroke and felt his hips give an almost involuntary jerk of approval in response. Through the wall, Tony's voice began to falter. He felt his breathing pick up just a little, felt the tense coil begin to wrap tight in the pit of his stomach, and smiled.
It wasn't like he had been abstaining the past few days, but he had been scheduling any sort of recreational activity to be in the wee hours of the morning, Stark safely asleep and hopefully none the wiser beyond the possibility of a very pleasant dream. He had refused to indulge when Tony did, the action being far too close to mutual masturbation for his liking, and definitely something reeking of a lack of fully informed consent that was to be avoided save for petty revenge schemes for which he had the defense that it was done to him first, even if the other party had no idea it had happened.
Plus, he and Tony weren't an item, no matter what cursed bottles of sugar might declare, and it would be far too weird.
He concentrated on each and every sensation, remembered every tremor and every hitched breath, lost himself in the pleasure until it surged and damned near overwhelmed him, catching himself on the edge of one of the shelves when his knees threatened to give way. He stayed there for a moment, breathless and lightheaded, before he forced himself to stand fully upright again and put himself and his clothing to rights.
He turned towards the door just as he finished double-checking his zipper to find Stark standing there, a look of comprehension and maybe horror on his face. "That was...? I felt..." He staggered a little and caught himself on the jamb. "Does that mean...? Fuck! Every time?"
Clint smiled as sweetly as he could and elbowed his way past him. It took an active effort to ignore the tingle and draw of skin on skin as he brushed against him, but he succeeded, or at least he mostly did with nothing save for the barest of lingers to say otherwise. He turned to face Tony as he walked backwards through the hallway and said, "We have a problem. Fix it."
He took the numb nod as a positive sign.
As luck would have it, the team was called out the very next day, early enough that he couldn't tell if Stark had changed his routine or simply had not gotten the chance to follow through with it. His position up top meant very little interference from his so-called bond, and he couldn't tell if he liked it or not after feeling it so intensely for even such a brief period.
He could still tell when the suit took a corner too fast or skimmed too close to something solid, but a mission meant focus meant he could concentrate on what needed to be done and shut out anything extraneous through far too many years of practice. Stark's stunts were like a bruised shin or a torn fingernail: he was conscious that the presence was there, but even that awareness was in no way detrimental to the task at hand. It was actually a breath of relief because he had worried, at least on some level, that the two of them would concentrate on, well, the two of them, versus any actual mission and he knew the rest of the team thought the same even if they hadn't directly voiced it.
The task at hand in this case was actually kind of boring, despite the weirdness factor. Friends of the magical whatsits were making the tangible, building-sized, equivalent of ballistic-resistant balloon animals in the middle of Central Park. They seemed almost childlike in their game, not nearly the threat of their counterparts, and that really should have tipped them off that the much younger wizarding wannabes were just a paid distraction.
Clint personally made the realization when he was surrounded by baddies, jabbed with something potent, and knocked fully unconscious. He woke up somewhere determinedly not Central Park and determinedly not near his team, or at least one teammate in particular if the extremely strong feeling of something extremely important having been ripped away was to be believed. He had also been stripped of his gear and tossed into some sort of plain jumpsuit, which was rather annoying as it meant all the usual tools stashed in random places were well and truly gone. It also seemed like a gross violation of privacy which, again, the situation as a whole was really, but having unknown hands strip and dress him while he was out like a light always gave him the willies.
He took comfort in the fact that these, at least, were professionals. They had trussed him up nice and good with his hands cuffed behind his back and a harness of sorts that wrapped up and around his shoulders as well as across his chest to suspend him above the floor. The fact the metal around his wrists was still cool told him he hadn't been there long, though the fact said metal was chained to his waist told him getting out was going to be a bitch.
He had thought that maybe even he professionals had made a mistake though, when he found he had far more freedom of movement of his legs than he should. He could swing them a good foot apart, even if it made the rest of him sway with the movement, and could almost touch the floor with his thoughtfully provided socks if he pointed his toes as far as they could go. Of course, that hope turned out to be false when they looped a hook through the slack to pin him into place against the floor.
It was kind of boring, really. Large men in black clothing that covered them from head to toe. Not really ninja-like, which would have at least been cool, but more like standard nondescript hired thug. They came complete with the baklavas that covered all but their eyes which revealed at least two Caucasians, a man of Hispanic origin, and one that threw him for a loop but that might have just been the frighteningly bushy eyebrows. He was surprised they hadn't gone for goggles to obscure even those details, but gave them credit for the matching gloves and boots because so few got that right.
They asked questions, he didn't answer. They threatened, he yawned. They wanted to know SHIELD intel even if it was outdated and, even though they danced around it, seemed particularly interested in the goings on of one particular region. Given that he had only three missions to that region pretty much ever, and that two were not long term, he had a feeling what they were after. When they phrased things in ways that were leading enough to damn near have flashing signs with glowing arrows, he wanted to smack his head against something solid. He hadn't shot the kingpin when he had the chance but, to be fair, he hadn't been important enough to be considered the mission back then. Who the guy had been up against and the ties he had to a little group that eventually became known to be AIM was far more pressing than a wannabe with a power complex. Of course that wannabe had survived and his powerbase grew and that led them to where they were now, tucked in a shadowy room of an undoubtedly shadowy complex surrounded by shadowy figures.
He didn't get a wall to bang his head on, but he did get something solid. Fists hurt when used correctly, and he should know. Not that they did much, really. A few punches had never kept him down. The wooden mallet left a mark though, thankfully on his shin and a few ribs and not his teeth. The lack of his boots meant at least two toes gave way on what was either a wild or carefully calculated swing, his body jerking backwards and making the vulnerable tendon of his knee pull tight against the restraints. They didn't take the obvious though, which was worrisome as they really had been the general brute force type up until then. This told him even more than the new wardrobe that they planned on keeping him around for a while and he bit his lip to prevent himself from making a crass remark about declining their invitation.
It was either the third or the fourth thug circling around that gave him pause. It was the jerking of his pinky and ring finger out of joint that gave him the urge to bite his tongue. He hated when they messed with his hands; those things were his livelihood at least as much as his eyes. At least they hadn't gone after those yet, and at least dislocations were quicker to heal than outright breaks. Even if he would be needing downtime for his foot and ribs, he could at least shoot sooner rather than later, so he took some small comfort in that.
He also took comfort in a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach, the niggling at the back of his mind. Yes, the pain was there, but so was something else, circling, edging closer in an ever decreasing radius, almost tangible and yet so very not. Which was why he was in no way surprised when, long minutes later, there was a streak of red that totally demolished one side of the room and was in no way tied to the cut above his eyebrow dripping into his vision and adding to the previously bland color scheme.
Four men went down as fast as the wall had, and then the room echoed with the clang of metal on concrete as the Iron Man suit approached. "Five o'clock," Clint said by way of greeting. Stark didn't even turn around when he launched one of his tiny ballistics to that exact location, the fifth and final thug in at least this corner of the complex well and truly toast.
The suit's mask flipped up to reveal an oddly overtly concerned Tony Stark. "Are you okay?" he demanded, then shook his head. He seemed a little breathless, but that could have just been due to his dramatic entrance. "Of course you're not okay. I can see that you're not okay and feel the damn breaks and... Is there anything they did that I need to know about? Did they rig you to blow if I cut you down? Drug you? Poison you? Hurt you in some way that's totally making you bleed out and die or...?"
"Stark!" Clint shouted. He regretted that his hands weren't free because that meant he couldn't grab the other man by the shoulders and try to ineffectually shake him. It's not like he could move the suit on his own, but the sensors would have flashed and it might have been enough to garner a response. The shout got his attention though, and there was a flicker of reality in the semi-glazed over eyes that had been staring both at and through him. "Where are the others?" he asked slowly, carefully, as if to a child. He didn't doubt the thugs had backup and, as nice as a super-powered suit was, he kinda wanted some coherent help of his own.
Tony looked sheepish when he admitted, "I kind of left them in the dust?" Then, as if to defend his actions, he rushed, "I could find you faster and get here faster and JARVIS kept them in the loop. I think your fellow bird-brained whatever was closest on my tail and I'm picking up an electrical disturbance that can only be Thor."
As if to punctuate his words, there was the echo of gunfire and the rumble of something thunder-like followed by the rock of an explosion felt through concrete and steel. "Good, that's good," Clint said, more to himself than to his teammate. He felt the tension start to leave his body and slouched against his bonds, which reminded him that he still had them and had been holding an entire conversation while swinging in the nonexistent breeze. "Hey, any chance of you cutting me down?" he asked with a fair deal of hope. The odd combination of mesh and metal had long since began to chafe and he saw no reason not to a use the literal knight in shining armor that stood before him to stop that.
Tony reacted as though physically slapped and took a step back to analyze just how to complete the task. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered before he raised a gauntlet and very carefully sliced through the lead between the ceiling and Clint's still swaying body.
Clint braced himself for impact, feet catching on the floor only for the damned socks to slip slightly against the rather smooth surface. He flinched at the contact of his injured toes, but had worse in the past and wasn't ashamed to admit it. He leaned forward to steady himself, then back again when the action made him far dizzier than it had any right to. That, and basic physiology dictated he put more pressure against the balls of his feet when he did so and that meant more pressure against his very broken toes and that just really sucked.
He found hard metal wrapped around him before he could even breathe, Tony's arms strong and steady and holding him soundly in place. It wasn't the world's most comfortable, but he didn't faceplant so he called it a win. He was about to say as much, but found himself half-tugged and half-hugged closer, close enough to rest his sweaty forehead against one of matching grossness. "I've got you," Tony whispered, but the words were mostly lost in the overwhelming rush of the connection, the damn near physical spark that began where their skin just barely brushed and raced through him to his aching feet.
He gasped in a way he was not entirely proud of and could feel the disruption of air against his skin when Tony did the same. He then felt an entirely different sensation against his skin when Tony pressed forward that last minuscule inch and pressed his lips against his own. Clint's lips were chapped from wind and lack of water for the past several hours and Tony's tasted like coffee mixed with some overpriced balm and he knew this because his tongue darted out to trace them and found himself met with more than a fair amount of reciprocation.
If a forehead touch led to chills, an actual kiss led to the edge of embarrassment and he was both terrified and insanely curious to think what anything more would do. His entire body tingled and flushed with what he had to admit was arousal and maybe something more. The admission was made as much due to the fact he was wearing a shapeless jumpsuit that hid nothing as much as simply no longer caring who knew the truth. He felt warmth, he felt comfort, and he felt whole for the first time in days if not longer. He chased after that feeling, held it close, knew it probably wasn't going to last because nothing good ever did, not in this life or any other he had ever known, but it was his for now and like hell was he not going to appreciate it.
It was Tony that pulled away first, mainly because he was the only one fully mobile. Clint was still held in place by chains and cuffs and not a whole lot of incentive to move. He was proud of himself for not making a single mocking comment when Tony summed up the whole little experience with a rather understated, "Whoa." Given that the statement was followed by another kiss, just as awesome by the first, Clint decided he had made a very good decision.
Or maybe not because it took all of about ten seconds before there was a crash and the smell of freshly burnt ozone. He heard the whir of mechanics and then Wilson's snort of, "Fucking finally!"
Tony didn't drop him, but it was a near thing. Clint hadn't realized how much of his weight had been supported the suit until most of it was gone. Stark quickly braced him again with a single alloy-reinforced hand, but turned to face Sam and asked, "Really? Now?"
Their teammate just shrugged. "Not my fault it took you this long to get your heads of out your asses." He adjusted a setting on his comm and then pouted, "Of course she did. Damn, it was stupid to go up against her."
"You took bets?!?" Tony asked incredulously.
Sam gave him a look that was less than kind. "Rogers was out months ago because he apparently thought you two would buy a clue by then. Rhodes had a week from next Tuesday, but is arguing the whole thing is shot because no one could have planned on Barton getting kidnapped again." A pause, then, "Except, of course, Natasha because she's scary like that."
Out of all the randomness that conversation just held, it was the timeline that struck Clint as off. "Months?" he verified. "Because we only got hit with this crap a few days ago."
Now it was his turn to receive a look from Wilson. "You two have been dancing around each other since I met you, and I've been assured by the highest authority that it's been going on longer than that. That it took a magical whammy to get you to move past the stupid stage? Sad, really." He shook his head, but wore a smile that was not much more than a smirk.
Clint had a feeling he knew who the authority Sam mentioned was, and regretted ever agreeing to a night of shots with Nat because she was notorious for getting people to spill their guts and deepest secrets - it was the whole Super Spy thing, really - and she was the only one who ever had succeeded in working that angle with him. He also had a feeling she had made a comment negating the moving past stupid stage based upon Tony's sudden splutter and declarations of denial. He didn't have a comm of his own, so he couldn't be sure, but he was also kind of glad he didn't so that he only had to experience the embarrassment secondhand. For now. There would be time enough to face it head on when they got back to the Tower.
Stark was still holding him though, even if it was now reduced to one-handedly, so things were not all bad. Clint shifted his weight, just a little, so that he leaned up against the suit just that tiny bit more and caught Tony's attention again, though he kind of doubted it had ever fully left. "What do you say about getting me out of these chains and actually home where we can explore this connection thing of ours in a little more detail?" he whispered.
He really needed to learn where the comm was on the suit though, because Wilson just sighed and reported for all those not present, "Yes, yes they did. They just had a heartwarming realization of love while Barton was still handcuffed and chained to the floor." He whipped out a multi-tool that may or may not have been Stark-designed and asked, "Do you need help getting him out of there? Or are you all about rescuing the maiden to win her fair whatever on your own?"
Clint regretted that his hands were still cuffed behind his back because he really would have liked to flip him off for that one, but took comfort in the fact that Stark did so in his stead. He also took comfort in the way he was freed sooner rather than later, and surrounded by good friends, good food, and possibly illegal analgesics shortly after while some other poor schmuck had to deal with the thoroughly decimated building and lack of conscious survivors.
Mostly though, he took comfort in the way Tony curled up beside him that night, as much skin directly on skin as humanly possible, connection shining bright enough that the city as a whole had to see it. Stark had refused to do much more than that, mindful of Clint's injuries, possibly even more so than Clint himself. Apparently the guy had a soft and caring side that he would probably deny with his dying breath publicly, but demonstrated in spades in private. So now he lay, fingertips just barely rested atop bandaged ribs, Clint's own splinted fingers on top of those, and just held him. A spare kiss or a spare sigh escaped every now and then, but he was seemingly content with his self-imposed limitations.
"You okay with this? Not going to freak out or anything?" Tony asked around a yawn.
Clint contemplated that for all of about a second before he admitted, "Oh, there's going to be a freak out, don't worry. Especially when we try to figure out how much of this is actually us and how much is that damned spell."
"All because you tried to be nice to me," Tony mused.
"Yeah, see if I ever do that again," Clint retorted, but gripped what he could of Tony's hand that much tighter to soften the blow.
Tony nodded, chin rough against his shoulder. There was a pause, not uncomfortable, but long enough that Clint thought maybe he had drifted off, before Stark asked, "Hey, Barton? Wanna share a Coke with me?"
Clint's bark of laughter was short and sharp, but the resulting kiss was anything but.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
This entry was originally posted at http://cat-77.dreamwidth.org/469683.html. Current comments