"I've Suffered Shipwrecks" [3/4], Avengers, Clint/Loki

[paperclipbitch]

It’s somewhere around two-thirty a.m. when Tony Stark turns up in yoga pants and holding pizza that Clint feels someone should possibly do some explaining.

“I came to join your pity party,” Tony says, handing Clint the stack of boxes. “The invitation didn’t specify a dress code, but I figured it was gonna be pretty casual. I’ve got a tux in the car though, you know, Pep likes me to turn up to places appropriately dressed.”

Clint steps back and allows Tony into his apartment, and then turns to glare at the sprawl of people lying about on his couch and floor.

“I sent one cryptic text to Nat,” he says. “Why are you all here?”

“I’m always here,” Phil points out, while Darcy makes grabby hands for the pizza beside him. Clint sighs and starts handing out boxes. Tony goes to sit on the floor next to Pepper, taking her coffee out of her hands and sipping it. “Remember that time you and Nat were having a go at regular-people dating?”

Nat’s smirk speaks of a hundred nights of abandoning each other in motel sheets, of missed phonecalls and bitten shoulders and screaming obscenities in the middle of the sidewalk.

“You do have a type,” Bruce agrees, because Bruce is a terrible person who Clint has never liked. “I mean, you must have noticed that you’re attracted to emotionally distant people with a handful of undiagnosed personality disorders.”

“Nat’s were diagnosed!” Clint protests.

“Eventually,” Phil mutters into his coffee.

Clint is not going to win this, he can just feel it.

“Tony’s the expert on one night stands,” Pepper points out; Tony’s grimace is almost too fast for Clint to catch, streaking across his mouth before he bites into a slice of pizza to hide it.

“I’m here because I love being around for all your emotional car-crashes,” Darcy cuts in cheerfully. “I’m thinking of making a scrapbook.”

“Fine,” Clint sighs, sinking to sit on his coffee table because there’s nowhere else to sit; Peggy’s even gone and gotten the step-stool out of his bathroom. “Of course. Why don’t we call Thor and see if he and Pru want to come over? At least then Steve might get laid tonight too.”

“Hey,” Peggy cuts in defensively, while Steve turns his sad, wide I’m trying to be supportive during your time of emotional crisis eyes on Clint.

Clint doesn’t want to apologise; it’s his pity party and he’ll be an asshole if he wants to.

“Have some pizza,” Bruce suggests serenely, passing Clint a box.

There aren’t a whole lot of options; Clint acquiesces with the last shreds of his dignity.

=

Pepper brought a flipchart and marker pens in a variety of colours. Clint is watching between his fingers while his friends make horrific suggestions.

“Why do you even have these things to hand?” he interrupts.

“Pep gives most of my business presentations when I’m indisposed,” Tony says. Pepper’s fingers tighten around the marker she’s holding, but it’s momentary and a second later it’s like it never happened.

“Exhibit A: hickey,” Peggy suggests. She’s gravitated to mostly sitting on top of Phil, but Clint isn’t asking because he kind of doesn’t want to know the answer. “That suggests a level of commitment.”

Pepper nods and adds hickey to the spider diagram she’s drawing.

“Do I have a hickey?” Clint asks quietly. Nat nods, and pats his knee in a fashion that Clint isn’t stupid enough to think is sympathetic.

“Was the sex any good?” Pepper asks the room at large.

“Yes!” Clint says much too loudly.

Everyone turns to look at Natasha. It’s kind of horrific.

She rolls her eyes and looks put-upon before allowing: “yes, Clint is much better at sex than at making coffee.”

Tony’s expression turns thoughtful and maybe a little predatory. It’s not that Tony isn’t hot and he admittedly has so much charisma that it’s actually alarming, but he’s still a mistake Clint would really rather not make, especially if Tony’s trying to turn his life around.

“Queen of compliments,” Clint mumbles, sliding down in his seat. It’s nearly four a.m. and Darcy’s fallen asleep with her head in Steve’s lap, while Steve is dozing on Bruce’s shoulder. It would be sweet, if not for the fact they all invaded Clint’s house in the middle of the night to ask really awkward questions about sex with Loki and so he isn’t feeling exactly affectionate towards any of them right now.

“Was anyone drunk?” Tony asks. “Because that leads to all kinds of fun. Also, what kind of pity party doesn’t come with strippers?”

“Steve looks the best naked out of everyone in here,” Natasha provides.

She still has a photo of Steve naked and asleep in Clint’s bathtub, so Clint kind of can’t help but agree. Darcy has that picture as her iPhone background, but what Steve doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

“Well,” Tony says after everyone’s spent a while looking thoughtfully at Steve’s slumbering form, “that would be like forcing a very sad household pet to undress.”

Clint can’t figure out if he’s relieved or depressed that his friends can’t even focus on his problems for more than five minutes at a time, and then wonders if he’s ever going to be allowed to sleep tonight.

=

This month, Natasha’s book club is supposedly reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. She’s sitting at the counter sipping a green tea and frowning a little at the page, while Clint and Bruce deal with the actual customers. Clint kind of wishes they had fewer regulars who kind of know them by now, because the number of people still staring at his goddamn hickey - it’s been nearly a week so it’s kind of a hideous fading green now - and asking awkward questions is kind of ridiculous.

“I think it’s sweet,” Bruce tells him when Clint complains. “I like that people look out for you when I’m away and Phil is too busy doing whatever it is he does all day.”

“You should get a job with Phil,” Clint decides. “And then tell us what you do for a living.”

Bruce considers this, pushing his glasses up his nose with the back of his wrist. “What if I then have to have you killed for knowing?”

Clint shrugs. “If Nat hasn’t killed me by now then no one’s going to.”

Bruce rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I will remind you of that, you know.”

They have a calendar peeling its way off the kitchen wall with important things like birthdays and excuses for novelty menu items and Peggy’s Two Weeks In England That No One Is To Move, Okay Natasha, written in bright marker pen. It’s also half-covered in post-its demanding days off, swapped shifts and DON’T MAKE ME WORK THAT SATURDAY I WILL BE HUNGOVER. Clint runs a finger down the next couple of weeks to make sure that there’s nothing unexpected coming up and, oh, hey, Thanksgiving has snuck up on them again.

Natasha’s Russian and Clint doesn’t have a family to be emotionally blackmailed into visiting, so Thanksgiving for them generally involves eating Chinese takeout with Peggy while watching the Macy’s parade and playing a very complex drinking game it’s taken years for them to hammer out the rules out for. They’d include Steve in this, except that Steve gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner by anyone with a family, because Steve is the kind of guy who needs to have Thanksgiving done properly right down to the candied yams.

“Are we doing Thanksgiving cupcakes?” he asks Steve, who’s making pancakes and singing along with the rock n’roll on the radio.

“Natasha’s already put in a request for turkey ones,” Steve responds, sounding disapproving.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Just tell her we’re not on Cupcake Wars and make, like, cranberry ones or something. You can make cranberry cupcakes, right?”

Steve’s a much better person than the rest of them, so he just huffs almost silently instead of demanding get out of my kitchen. Clint obediently trails back into the cafe.

“So, like, Thanksgiving is a thing that is happening,” he tells Bruce.

“Natasha’s made a list of possible cupcake flavours to torment Steve with,” Bruce agrees.

“Nobody tells me anything around here anymore,” Clint mourns, and doesn’t look toward the booth where Loki really, really isn’t.

-

Thor is reading a book to Pru, who is mostly grabbing for the cardboard pages with her tiny fingers and probably not registering anything her dad’s saying at all. It’s kind of sweet watching Thor grapple with a book that only has about six lines in it; he keeps adding asides about how irresponsible the calf is for misplacing its mother in the first place, and Clint swears he hears the word hamburger at one point.

“Is that a lunch order?” he asks, putting a coke in front of Thor.

He gets one of Thor’s ridiculously handsome sheepish smiles in reply, and goes to tell Steve only to find that Steve is standing hidden in the kitchen doorway looking wistful. It’s actually the saddest thing Clint’s seen in a while; somehow when Steve crushes on people it’s all done with a lot more earnestness and innocence than when anyone else Clint knows does it, and Steve doesn’t deserve to look as miserable as this.

“You could... I don’t know, but you could do something,” he says, because he kind of has to, and his pep talks at least beat Nat’s (“put on your big girl panties and get the fuck on with it”).

Steve just takes the order paper from Clint and goes back into the kitchen, where today’s playlist is apparently Any Time Andrew Lloyd Webber Has Ever Written Anything Sad. If it hasn’t stopped by the time Natasha comes in this afternoon Clint is going to insist that they hold an intervention. Steve might have to provide the refreshments, but, still, it’s the thought that counts.

When he gets back into the cafe Peggy is back from sneaking the cigarettes she thinks they don’t know about, leaning on the counter watching Thor let Pru grab at his hair, both of them giggling.

“We should put a poster of them in the window as an advertising campaign,” she tells Clint. “They’re cuter than puppies.”

“Some kind of segue involving sad puppies so we can talk about Steve,” Clint replies flatly, getting himself some chai tea.

Peggy groans and covers her face with her hands. “Can we ask Tony to kidnap them both and lock them in a sushi bar or something? Because Tony looks like he has friendly non-murdery kidnappers on speed dial.”

The number of shady agencies Tony probably has on speed dial should possibly worry Clint, but then he doesn’t hang out with anyone who isn’t vaguely sociopathic apart from, you know, Steve.

It’s around this time Tony wanders out of the kitchen, yawning and wearing a pair of obnoxious expensive sunglasses. Thor’s scowl is, um, kind of lethal.

“How did he even get in?” Clint demands, as Tony drops into a chair and waves vaguely at them in a way Clint has learned means coffee, please. All the coffee. I know you think that at some point I’m going to fatally overdose on caffeine, but I’m not. “Does he live in our walk-in freezer now? Because I feel like that’s one of those things I should know about.”

Thor’s attention is back on his daughter again, but there’s something low and annoyed radiating off him, and Clint feels someone who is preferably not him is going to have to step in sooner or later.

-

When Clint comes in on Thursday afternoon he finds Peggy and Nat sneaking curious looks at a terrifying-looking woman sitting at one of their tables with a blackberry, iPhone, kindle and six thick paper manuscripts on the table in front of her. Her black hair is pulled back severely behind her head and she’s better dressed than anyone who comes in here except maybe Pru. She gives Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria some competition.

“We think she’s here to arrest one of us,” Peggy says in an undertone. “Either that or Steve’s in the witness protection programme.”

That would explain many things, Clint muses, and makes a mental note to ask Steve some awkward questions about that later.

Scary Possible Undercover Police Officer looks up from her blackberry and catches sight of Clint. Her eyes narrow just slightly and she stands up, sweeping all her stuff into a large black bag with an easy grace Clint has never seen on anybody before, and clicks over on expensive-looking stilettos.

“Clint Barton?” she asks.

Clint doesn’t miss the way Peggy and Nat both step back slightly, which means they think he’s about to get tased. Hell, Clint thinks he’s about to get tased.

“Yes?” he says carefully.

“Sif,” she provides, offering him a strong handshake. “I’m looking for Loki Laufeyson.”

“Um.” If this is going to turn out to be a homicide enquiry Clint is going to be seriously pissed. “I have to start my shift?”

“I can cover,” Peggy says sweetly, looking much more cheerful now she’s sure she’s not getting randomly deported or anything.

Nat pushes a cup of coffee into Clint’s hand and gestures at the table Sif just vacated. “Off you go.”

Clint sits down with Sif - who is also British, by the way, is this developing into a thing because someone really should’ve given him a heads-up - and tries a smile until she stares it off his face.

“You’re not going to pull out pictures of Loki hacked to pieces in a ditch, are you?” he asks. “Because we only had sex once and his appendages were in all the right places, I swear.”

Sif huffs out a long-suffering sigh, and says: “I’m his literary agent.”

“Oh.” Clint feels his shoulders sag in relief. “Well, that explains a lot about how Loki gets any of his books finished.”

Something that isn’t a smile but that also is kind of a smile flickers across Sif’s mouth. “I’ve been told he spends a lot of time in here,” she says, “and he’s late turning in his second draft. He’s avoiding my phonecalls and his brother is running interference.”

Clint shrugs. “Well, he doesn’t come in here anymore.”

Sif arches a perfectly-plucked eyebrow. “Because you had sex with him.” When Clint makes what he hopes is a facial expression with some kind of dignity in it, she sighs and says: “well, you seem like less of an arsehole than a lot of the other guys Loki has... been drawn to.”

Clint doesn’t ask. Clint doesn’t ask. Clint doesn’t ask.

“How have you stayed Loki’s agent without killing him?” he asks instead.

Sif gets an expression that Clint’s seen a thousand times on Pepper. “Meditation,” she explains. “Krav Maga. And vodka.”

Clint makes a decision. “You should come back on Friday,” he says.

Sif looks thoughtful, and doesn’t immediately refuse.

-

“No,” Bruce says.

“No,” Peggy says.

“No,” Natasha says.

“It’s tacky to hit on the agent of the writer you’re kind of banging,” Tony announces. “And that’s me saying that.”

“When did you even get here?” Clint asks, whirling around. Tony is wearing a suit and a tired expression and whatever he’s doing that isn’t rehab is starting to take its toll on him. “And I’m not ‘kind of banging’ Loki. There was just... sex. Once.”

“That’s not even the point,” Bruce interrupts. “The point is that Clint has a type, and it is for women who can kick his ass, and it never ends well.”

“Hey!” Clint protests.

Nat rolls her eyes. “Two words: Wanda Maximoff.”

Clint folds his arms defensively. “You never even met her!”

“I didn’t have to,” Nat fires back, “I’ve seen the scarring.”

“Haven’t we all,” Bruce murmurs to himself.

“Look,” Clint says, because he can feel this conversation getting away from him and sooner or later either Peggy or Tony are going to ask to see more of Clint than he’s willing to show them, “all I said was that she was hot and relatively sane for someone who has to run around trying to keep Loki in line. That was all.”

Everyone ignores him. “Who was Wanda Maximoff?” Peggy asks Natasha.

Nat is discreetly but hilariously jealous about Wanda, who was a train-wreck of a relationship that not only ended up with a really awkward public break-up and a broken wrist, but also with Clint sleeping with her twin brother for the next two months. He’s still email friends with Pietro, actually, for which he mentally awards himself many points for being adult and well-adjusted. And, okay, their dad had threatened to come after Clint with a shotgun, but, frankly, it wasn’t the first or last time Clint’s heard that.

Natasha mumbles something involving the words youthful indiscretion, but she’s probably just sulking because Wanda was crazier than Natasha can ever even aspire to be.

“So, women who can kick your ass and men with emotional problems,” Tony muses. “Those are some fun oddly specific categories.”

Oh, Clint knows.

“Do you ever do any actual work?” Peggy asks, chin propped on her hands.

Tony shrugs. “I went to a board meeting this morning that didn’t end with yelling, people putting cigars out on each other, or guys sneaking in vodka in water bottles.” When they all look at him he adds: “that was never me, okay, I don’t go in for hiding stuff. Obadiah on the other hand, wow, no open flames near that guy. Never accept Evian from him.”

Bruce is frowning. “How is Stark Industries still in business?”

Tony just grins his predatory smile. “Baby, you’ve met me, right?”

-

The phone starts ringing on Wednesday afternoon. Natasha is delivering stacks of waffles to a group of students who look like they’ve just rolled out of bed, while Steve is sitting in an empty booth lost in his sketchbook, an array of pencils spread across the table.

Proper people would probably have a professional-sounding greeting for their business, but Natasha and Clint have never managed to get anything beyond: “hey.”

“Loki is here!” Darcy hisses into his ear.

Clint has an array of emotions at those three words, several of which are kind of embarrassing, and he quickly turns his back just in case any of them have leaked onto his face.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” he asks.

“Dude, this is totally more important,” Darcy responds dismissively. “Loki is here! Drinking our green tea!”

It’s... good to know Loki isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Clint decides to stick with that thought because it’s the only one he can make sense of right now.

“Do you want to come over?” Darcy asks. “Like, he’s got his laptop and looks all distressed so he’s probably here for the rest of the day.”

“I... am not going to stalk him,” Clint decides. “Because I’m not actually that desperate and the sex was not actually that great.”

“The sex was awesome,” Darcy corrects him. “You were bruised everywhere for ages and also? Peter talks.”

Clint really needs to not sleep with Darcy’s colleagues. He’ll have to leave himself a memo.

“I’m not coming over to see Loki drinking Starbucks tea,” Clint tells her firmly. “Just text me a photo and go back to... whatever it is you do all day.”

“We’re building a suspension bridge out of coffee stirrers and sugar packets,” Darcy informs him. “It’s epic. Are you sure you don’t want me to set Peter on Loki? I know he looks all weedy but he’s got a mean right hook.”

“No,” Clint says firmly. “And tell Peter to maybe get some therapy.”

“I could spit in his next cup of tea?” Darcy offers.

Clint is tempted, but also not as emotionally immature as everyone apparently seems to think he is. “No,” he says. “Just leave him alone. He doesn’t know you know who he is.”

“Boo,” Darcy complains, and hangs up on him.

For a moment, Clint just stands and breathes and thinks. And then he gets out his phone and texts Sif to tell her where Loki will be for the rest of the afternoon, because he’s not that good a person.

-

Periodically, Clint worries about Steve. Despite the fact Steve is an adult with his own apartment and a steady job and a decent credit rating there’s kind of a lot of stuff to worry about when it comes to him; Peggy, Clint, Nat and Pepper divided it all into categories so nobody would go mad. Originally, Clint picked the Steve is a lonely orphan with no family slip out of the hat, but Peggy made him swap because that was kind of a bit too close to home. Instead, he gets to worry about Steve’s career for him.

Steve is a really good cook, and he does things with cupcakes that should probably be illegal, and if he wants a career in cookery then he could probably do a lot better than their slightly weird little cafe. But the thing is that Steve is an artist, a good one, and he’s probably giving up a lot of chances to burn bacon and flip pancakes and put up with them staggering around hungover on Saturdays.

In the lull between breakfast and brunch Clint goes to sit on top of their dishwasher and watch Steve getting the hollandaise ready for Eggs Benedict.

“Are you... happy here?” he asks, because he and Natasha totally watched a handful of youtube videos on being supportive management or something.

Steve looks confused. “I am,” he says, carefully, like he knows there are going to be follow-up questions and he won’t like them.

“Because, you know, we love you and you’re amazing, but... I mean, you’re an artist, Steve, not a cook.”

Something rueful twists Steve’s mouth. “Being an artist doesn’t pay the bills,” he points out.

“I’m sure Tony would give you an art grant if you drew him like one of your French girls,” Clint offers.

He gets a blank look in return. Steve’s not always that good at pop culture references, but Clint has no idea how Steve got away without being forcibly shown Titantic by Phil; nobody else did.

“Well,” he says, “looks like we’ll be reinstating Movie Night.”

Steve is the nicest, most easy-going guy Clint has ever met - which admittedly isn’t saying much since most of the people Clint knows are assholes, but really, Steve is basically a saint - but even he can’t keep a pained look off his face.

“You showed me Star Wars every other day for a month,” Steve reminds him.

Clint had actually forgotten that; when they first met Steve he was even worse at pop culture references than he is now, and communicating with him was therefore kind of difficult because he has the most heart-wrenching confused puppy face in the world. What was meant to be a well-thought-out plan to expose Steve to famous movies mostly degenerated into a lot of re-watching Star Wars and then a drunken night where they were all supposed to watch Lord of the Rings but which actually ended in them passing out and waking up hours later to find Steve crying at The Return of the King.

“Maybe we’ll do John Hughes movies this time,” Clint muses. “I think you’d like The Breakfast Club.”

Steve doesn’t look reassured, but then he is kind of surrounded by crazy people most of the time.

“Seriously,” Clint adds, because this conversation has kind of gotten away from him, “I’m not saying you’d be easily replaceable or anything, but... your art is important, and we haven’t forgotten that. I just kind of hope you haven’t.”

Steve’s expression slides into something touched, but before he can reply Nat sticks her head around the door and says: “get in here and make mimosas already” and Clint has to leave him to the radio and brunch foods and whatever it is Steve thinks about when he’s alone.

-

Pepper looks even more tired than Tony does these days, though her clothes, hair and make-up are perfect. It’s kind of weird; Clint isn’t sure he’s ever seen Pepper exhausted before, not like this, not like she might sit down and not want to get back up again.

“You look worse than when Stark’s being photographed falling out of clubs,” Natasha observes, while Clint goes to make six cups of coffee.

“At least then I’ve got a vague idea of what’s going on in his head,” Pepper sighs.

Clint frowns. “I thought you wanted Tony to...” he waves a hand, because he’s not exactly sure how many of Tony’s problems require actual treatment.

“In a controlled environment with a programme picked out by people who know what they’re doing, yes,” Pepper responds, and lets her expression tell them just how she feels about Tony trying to go this alone.

“He should get a therapist,” Natasha announces. “Clint and I did actually therapy.”

Pepper’s smile finally flickers to something real. “Couple’s therapy?”

“Even we’re not that sadistic,” Clint says. “Although my therapist did spend most of the time telling me to break up with Nat because she was responsible for about a third of the things he was supposedly treating me for.”

“I didn’t kill your family,” Natasha says neutrally, putting bagels into a bag.

There are an assortment of ways Clint could reply to that, but he settles for shrugging and saying: “you did push me through a closed window once.”

“It says a lot that you haven’t burned this place down,” Pepper tells them. “Maybe I should get you a gold star chart like Tony has for days when he hasn’t exploded his workshop.”

“Your job is the most fun,” Clint remarks.

Pepper’s smile is a little twisted at the edges. “It has its moments.”

-

This year, Steve has gone with Darcy and Jane for thanksgiving, Bruce is visiting his aunt and uncle (who did some masterful but we haven’t seen you for years and also you moved to India emotional manipulation) and Tony is apparently doing something that isn’t going to be self-destructive because Pepper’s supervising, which means it’s just Clint, Nat and Peggy hanging around the cafe. They’ve opened up for a few hours mostly to give people who aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving somewhere to go, or people who are celebrating Thanksgiving somewhere that isn’t filled with crazy people trying to cook a turkey that hasn’t defrosted properly.

Thanksgiving usually involves a lot of vodka cranberries, since they’re the most palatable drinks you can make out of thanksgiving flavours (Tony offered to design them something, but Clint has learned his lesson about Stark-invented cocktails, and they’d kind of like their customers not to die of alcohol poisoning until they’re at least a mile away from the premises). Clint’s maybe a little tipsy, but it’s not like he can get fired, and his hands remain steady for a really long time after the rest of him’s gone offline so nobody’s going to get scalded or anything.

My mom has made pie for everybody, Phil informs him via text. And I mean everybody. I don’t even know how I’m going to fit all these boxes in my car.

This is why I’m going to marry your mom, Clint replies.

Over my dead body, Phil says.

Dude, your mom loves me, you can’t fight fate, Clint tells him. Did she make me pumpkin pecan again?

Peggy delivers him another vodka cranberry and then goes to deal with a college student in the corner who apparently couldn’t afford flights home and is now basically sitting here and crying. He’s almost definitely underage, but Nat has been discreetly plying him with alcohol anyway, because that’s what Nat calls sympathy.

She did, Phil allows. But that doesn’t mean I won’t eat it on the drive back.

I will tell your mom you ate my pie, Clint says, and then she won’t knit you a mom sweater for Christmas.

My mom can’t knit, you’re the one who makes the Christmas mom sweaters, Phil replies.

This is sadly true, although not something Clint publicises. Knitting keeps your fingers nimble and provides you with warm shit to wear in the winter when your heating gets cut off again, but for some reason people mostly laugh when they find out it’s one of Clint’s hobbies.

Well, you’re not getting a mom sweater this year unless my pie makes it back intact, Clint assures him.

“Just so you know,” Nat says, “Loki is pretending he’s not hanging around opposite working out whether or not to come in. Because, well, that’s still a thing.”

“It is not still a thing,” Clint protests, but downs the vodka cranberry anyway. It’s mostly vodka by this point, because Natasha is his girl for a reason, and he manfully manages not to choke.

“It’s still a thing,” Nat says flatly.

A couple of their regulars are in today and they’re nodding, because apparently everyone hates Clint now.

“You can’t have sex with him in your apartment,” Peggy says quickly, looking up from where she’s got an arm around the hysterical student whose name Clint can’t remember, “we’ve got pie and gin up there and I’m coming in to get it whether you’re shagging on the kitchen sideboard or not.”

“His cupboards are in the wrong place for that,” Nat shrugs, and goes to get some green tea.

Clint mostly feels outnumbered.

-

Loki has his netbook and his hair is still stupid and he looks ridiculously tired and Clint still wants to bite a lot of him.

“I guess you found out Starbucks is shut on Thanksgiving,” Clint shrugs, trying not to sound as bitchy as he wants to because he is not a child and he is totally not as pissed off about the being-used-for-sex thing as everyone seems to think he is.

Loki blinks. “Are you stalking me?” he asks.

“Yes,” Clint deadpans, “because I have literally nothing better to do than wander coffee shops looking for you.”

“Well, you never seem to get much work done around here,” Loki sniffs, and Clint is suddenly aware that Peggy is filming this entire thing on her camera phone for everyone else’s benefit and there is nothing he can do about it.

“I’ll get your green tea,” he grits out.

Nat is sitting at the counter reading The Girl Who Played With Fire and pretending not to watch. The teapot, a clean cup and a vodka cranberry are sitting on a tray beside her.

“I make terrible life choices,” Clint tells her.

“I’m aware of that,” Nat agrees, turning a page.

Loki narrows his eyes at the vodka cranberry. “All orders come with one of these free today,” Clint explains. “Happy Thanksgiving and shit.”

“And how many of them have you had?” Loki asks suspiciously.

“Many,” Clint responds. “Lots. Probably not enough. Shouldn’t you be at home with your probably weird British family? I know you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and they called you Loki and all, but still, family.”

“I forgot how obnoxious you can be,” Loki responds. He looks angry, but probably not in a way that’s going to end in physical violence.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m the more obnoxious one here.”

Loki huffs. “I’m trying to write.”

“Not particularly hard,” Clint points out. “Or Sif wouldn’t be going all Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego on you every few days.”

Loki does not look particularly pleased at this news. “You know Sif now?”

“Still not stalking you,” Clint tells him. “And yeah, I do. Are all literary agents that crazy hot or are you just lucky?”

This doesn’t seem to improve Loki’s mood any. “I’m still trying to write,” he snaps.

Clint rolls his eyes and goes back to the counter.

“This is so hilariously awful I cannot even,” Peggy says delightedly. “I’m texting Steve. Jane’s family are trying to adopt him.”

It’s possible Peggy’s had even more vodka than Clint has by this point. It’s impossible to tell with Nat because Nat is Russian, and so has lead them all to believe that vodka is what they use instead of water over there.

“Has Steve even learned to text back yet?” Clint asks.

Peggy shrugs. “Possibly we shouldn’t have persuaded him that he’d be good at using an iPhone.”

“If you guys want to have hatesex on a table I can start kicking people out,” Natasha says detachedly, still reading her book. “I mean, we don’t have to leave, but it might affect our yelp.com rating.”

“You don’t care about our yelp.com rating,” Clint reminds her, and reaches for the cranberry juice.

He manages to act like nothing’s super weird until Loki needs a tea top-up; Clint drops into the booth and helps himself to Loki’s untouched drink.

“I didn’t put roofies in this, for the record,” he says, sipping it.

“That’s a relief,” Loki responds drily. He looks thoughtful, and then says: “I can’t tell if you’re angry with me or not.”

“That’s because I’m a great actor,” Clint tells him.

“It’s because you’re drunk,” Loki replies.

Clint snorts. “This isn’t drunk. This is miles from drunk.”

Loki quirks an eyebrow that may or may be judgemental. “I shall remember that.”

Clint sighs, sipping some more vodka cranberry. “Conversations with you need fucking flashcards.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Loki responds, snippy enough to make Clint smile.

“You don’t have to avoid here like a loser,” he tells him. “Like, I’m capable of talking to people I’ve had sex with. Loads of them would be on my Christmas card list if I was a person who did Christmas cards.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “I’m aware of this, although I’m not quite ready for you to start wearing my underwear.”

Clint shrugs. “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

A group of people trail in and he’s forced to go and help take orders; he thinks he hears Loki sigh behind him, but he doesn’t look back just in case.

-

Three days after Thanksgiving, Clint wakes up at three a.m. for no logical reason. He lies and stares at the ceiling and then he hears something - kind of like rattling, kind of like screeching - from downstairs.

No one has ever bothered to break into the cafe before and Clint is quietly confident in the fact he could fuck anyone up who tried, so he just pulls on a sweater and his shoes before going downstairs. The cafe is still locked, which can only mean one thing.

“I thought we were getting better at not doing this,” he says as he walks inside, disabling the alarm system. He still has no idea how Tony gets inside without breaking anything or setting off the alarm, but he also knows better than to ask; he won’t get a straight answer.

Tony responds with a bemused sort-of groan; Clint decides not to put the lights on and instead walks over to join him, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

“I don’t mind, ‘cause you don’t puke anywhere and frankly students posting pictures of you looking wrecked on twitter is kind of like advertising, but I was kind of under the impression you weren’t doing this anymore.”

Clint can’t see Tony properly in the half-light leaking through the blinds from the street outside, but his suit looks a mess and he can barely sit upright, which says everything Clint needs to know.

“Is this at least a Thanksgiving-related relapse?” Clint continues when Tony doesn’t give him anything; it’s weird when Tony is silent. “Because that’s allowed. I mean, I have no one to spend Thanksgiving with either. At least, no one I’m related to. Phil’s mom makes me pie.”

“What kind?” Tony asks.

“Pumpkin pecan,” Clint replies.

“Do you think Phil would rent me his mom?” Tony says. “In a totally legit, non-skeevy way, I mean, Pepper could chaperone and stuff. It would all be very dignified and like Downton but without, like, dead ambassadors and world wars breaking out. Well, without the first part, anyway.”

“Phil will not lend you his mom,” Clint tells him. “But she’ll probably send you pie if you ask nicely.”

“My mom never made pie,” Tony says in a neutral sort of tone, chin propped on his hand.

“I have no idea if mine did,” Clint replies, in the still quiet of the night. Even if Tony remembers this tomorrow, he won’t bring it up.

After a while, Tony says: “you won’t tell Pepper, will you?”

“She’ll know anyway,” Clint replies. “She always does.”

“That’s my girl,” Tony agrees, sounding rueful and proud and bitter all at once.

Clint stands up. “Well, I have a couch upstairs which I think you’ll enjoy a lot more than this booth, so, can you walk?”

“I don’t know if I have legs right now,” Tony admits.

Clint smiles, just slightly. “Come on, Stark, we’ll make better mistakes tomorrow.”

“Amen to that,” Tony murmurs, and lets Clint haul him to his feet.

-

The only noticeable difference to Tony’s life after this is that Pepper starts tailing him; she’s happy to sit in the cafe and make terrifying-sounding phonecalls while Tony hangs out in the kitchen washing dishes and bugging Steve and not being allowed to touch anything that he could make explode. At one point Clint walks into the kitchen to find Steve and Tony sitting side by side on the dishwasher reading Loki’s first novel, which is not okay on a number of levels, only one of which is that nobody’s getting any work done.

“We’re putting in research for your boytoy,” Tony explains.

“I have no idea what’s going on this book,” Steve admits, “but I respect your life choices, Clint.”

“Oh my God,” Clint mutters, and turns to leave.

“I bought copies for everybody!” Tony calls after him.

“Nat is really not running a book club!” Clint responds.

Today, Pepper has managed to distract Tony by shoving a tablet at him, so he’s sitting tapping away frantically at things and drinking his body weight in coffee. It is keeping him still and relatively quiet, though, which is kind of a novelty. It’s not really surprising that Steve’s taken the opportunity to sketch him during his lunch break.

Steve sketches everyone, whether he’s got them as sitting models or not; he’s got books full of their regulars or of Jane asleep on Darcy’s shoulder or of Clint and Natasha bickering while they get the cafe tidied up. He gets very protective of his work, but Clint’s known him long enough to be able to persuade him to hand over his sketchbook from time to time. Clint keeps half an eye on Steve’s progress while he serves their late lunch crowd; Tony captured in spare lines, the frown between his eyebrows, the way his mouth twists when he’s concentrating, eyelashes dark and thick as he squints at something he doesn’t like.

The only person who isn’t enjoying this afternoon is Thor, who is watching this whole thing with an expression bordering on the genuinely distressed. From time to time Steve casts anxious-puppy looks over to where Thor is rocking a sleeping Pru and demolishing a stack of pancakes, but every time he does Thor isn’t looking at him, and it’s all so horribly high school that Clint has given up watching. Peggy keeps making faces at him, but Clint is not going to bang their heads together in the middle of the post lunchtime rush. He is not.

He’s been betting without Nat, of course, who comes sweeping over looking determined and vaguely annoyed, and whips the sketchbook out of Steve’s hands.

“Hey,” Tony says mildly, “I’m being turned into a piece of art here. That’s probably worth millions.”

Steve is luckily shocked enough to not make a grab for the sketchbook until it’s too late and Clint has stepped in between him and Nat.

“Thor,” Natasha says, “I feel that you’ve maybe missed something vital about Steve’s artwork.”

She puts the book on the table in front of Thor.

“No,” Steve chokes hoarsely, pushing at Clint. “No, you can’t-”

Thor turns away from the picture of Tony and rapidly learns what Clint has long-suspected; that the majority of the sketches in this notebook are of Thor. Some of them have both Thor and Pru in them, some of them are Thor laughing or concentrating on his coffee or reading the newspaper or leaning against the counter to pay his bill. There are dozens of them tumbling across the pages, and Steve makes a small, broken noise.

The ball’s in Thor’s court now, of course, and Clint can only hope that Thor isn’t going to be an asshole because he’s never seen Steve embarrassed and heartbroken but he suspects it would be absolutely horrible.

Thor finally looks away from the sketchbook with a stunned and slightly lost expression on his face; Peggy steps in from somewhere and relieves him of Pru.

“Thor,” Steve begins, voice cracking, and Clint gets out of the way, going over to where Tony is watching everything with too much interest. He thinks about it for a moment, and then puts his hand over Tony’s mouth. Just in case.

“I’m not... I’m not a creepy stalker,” Steve is saying earnestly, “I’m really not, I promise, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t-”

“Steve,” Thor says, and Steve’s tall but Thor’s even taller, and Clint is willing to bet that there isn’t anyone in the cafe whose knees don’t go a little weak when he speaks, “Steve, I am going to kiss you now, is that alright?”

Steve’s response is mostly to gape, and Clint can feel Tony struggling not to say anything. What the hell, some people deserve their romance movie moments, and Clint is definitely not grinning in an indulgent way, nope.

“That’s, um, I mean, that’s-” Thor mercifully cuts off Steve’s babbling sooner rather than later, leaning in to press a firm kiss to his mouth. He pulls back a moment later; there’s a blush spreading across Steve’s cheeks but he’s apparently gotten with the programme because he curls a hand in the back of Thor’s hair and pulls him into another kiss, one that’s a lot longer and, considering that it’s Steve, surprisingly dirty.

After a moment, Peggy puts a hand across Pru’s eyes.

-

“What’s Steve like when he’s getting laid?” Clint asks Peggy. Irresponsible Friday Cocktails have migrated upstairs into his apartment since Pepper’s babysitting Tony, Steve is... significantly not here and Darcy’s apparently surviving this week on Red Bull and bubblegum and so needs to be propped against things.

“You won’t find out for a while,” Peggy responds. “Steve is very much about handholding and taking his time and stuff, and Thor is clearly going to have American Idol style auditions for his babysitters before he’ll trust Pru with them.”

“We could just leave Steve unattended in the cafe one night and then shove Thor in his direction,” Natasha murmurs. “That works really well.”

“Be nice to me,” Clint warns her, “or I won’t let you hold your next not-actually-a-book-club in my apartment.”

“What are you doing in here?” Darcy asks. “Are you, like, looking for copies of your sex tape or something?”

“Flash drive in the shoebox under my bed marked Not For Public Consumption,” Clint shrugs. “Come on, we’re more advanced than actual tapes.”

“Jesus,” Bruce murmurs. He’s lying with his head in Nat’s lap and while Nat doesn’t look completely relaxed about this she isn’t pulling away either.

“It was... educational,” Phil pipes up. “And instructional. I had nightmares for weeks.”

“You’ve seen it?” Peggy chokes.

“All movies deserve a premiere,” Nat shrugs.

That actually seems to have killed the conversation, at least until Darcy sleepily muses: “you should email that shit to Loki.”

“Nightmares,” Phil repeats, insistent. “I’m pretty sure at least three of the things they did were illegal.”

“How come I haven’t seen this?” Bruce asks, sounding vaguely hurt. “I thought I’d seen all of your weird stuff.”

“Shouldn’t we all see it?” Peggy suggests, stirring an olive in her dirty martini.

Clint tries to picture how that employee meeting would go; it definitely ends with Steve crying and possibly also joining a monastery.

“The file’s encrypted,” Natasha says. “Just in case any of you were getting ideas.”

Bruce huffs out a sigh that may or may not be serious, and Peggy rolls her eyes. Clint makes a mental note to move the flash drive, just in case.

“So,” Darcy says, “odds of Steve and Thor making a sex tape?”

Now that is a mental image, and one Clint can’t shake immediately. Really, though, damn.

“Depressingly low,” Natasha decides. “Which is annoying because it has the potential to go viral if it ever got leaked.”

“It sometimes amazes me that none of you are in prison yet,” Phil remarks. “Just, you know, throwing that out there.”

“You’d never let us go to prison,” Clint tells him.

“You and your Terrifying Co-worker Maria would totally talk us out of any trouble we were in,” Darcy agrees.

Phil sighs. “Well, I’ll bring you the special prison cookies my mom will undoubtedly bake.”

“Your mom is the greatest,” Clint assures him, and reaches for more olives.

-

Clint is trying - admittedly not very hard - to fill in the remaining clues of Peggy’s crossword and not watch Steve and Thor saying goodbye to each other, which currently involves a lot of murmuring and sparkly smiles and the kind of body language that implies they should really have gotten naked about two months ago.

“I need to get laid,” Peggy sighs, pulling the crossword out of Clint’s hands and pointedly looking away.

“I’m pretty sure Thor is, you know, unique,” Clint responds.

“Bucky refuses to believe he’s actually real,” Peggy says, “no matter what I tell him when he calls home to check on us. I can’t wait ‘til he gets back to find that this isn’t a wind-up.”

Clint swallows a laugh and watches Natasha trample all over the cute by pointedly waving a stack of orders until Steve reluctantly presses a kiss to the corner of Thor’s mouth and goes back to the kitchen. Peggy makes an annoyed noise.

“You can’t watch romcoms with her either,” Clint remarks sadly.

Thor, Pru still tied in her ridiculous baby sling, comes over to pay his bill and say goodbye.

“I could babysit if you want the chance to take Steve out for dinner or... something,” Peggy offers, face all innocence but tone absolutely filthy. Thor, of course, either ignores the implications or doesn’t register them at all.

“I’m sure that my brother can be persuaded, thank you, Peggy,” Thor tells her, smiles at them both, and leaves.

“I hope his brother looks like him and is desperately single,” Peggy remarks, and something in Clint’s head goes click very, very loudly.

He knows two pretty strange British guys with weird names who both have brothers. It’s possible that this is all a coincidence, but, really, it won’t be.

“Back in a few,” he says, and heads upstairs.

It doesn’t take long to figure out how to sign up for Loki’s website message boards, and while Clint has no idea how to get Loki’s attention with them he knows that if Nat managed it then he damn well can.

LOKI WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHY DIDN’T YOU FUCKING MENTION THAT THOR IS YOUR FUCKING BROTHER as a new discussion topic is probably a good start though.

It takes ten minutes before he gets a: If you could refrain from using language like this on my website...

Clint rolls his eyes, slightly startled to realise that he’s actually angry. IF YOU HAD FUCKING GIVEN ME YOUR FUCKING NUMBER WE WOULDN’T HAVE THIS PROBLEM.

I’m going to have to ban you, you’re aware, Loki tells him. These boards are for my fans to communicate with me and with each other, not for you and your friends to harass me.

You don’t even have Facebook, you loser, Clint replies. Also GET THE HELL OVER HERE, I have yelling to do.

That’s marvellous incentive, Loki snips, but Clint knows he’ll come over anyway.

He doesn’t know if that’s reassuring or not.

=

continued here