"I've Suffered Shipwrecks" [4/4], Avengers, Clint/Loki
“You’re not shouting at me until I’ve had some coffee,” is the first thing Loki says when he walks in.
“You don’t drink coffee,” Clint points out.
“I haven’t slept in three days,” Loki responds. “So I’m going to need a lot of coffee if you want a decent argument.”
“I don’t want an argument,” Clint says. “I want to yell at you while you look appropriately penitent.”
“Well, that isn’t going to happen,” Loki points out, sliding onto one of their stools while Peggy makes him a latte.
Clint sighs, because he knows. It was a nice fantasy that lasted most of the time it took Loki to get over here, though.
“You are so fucking maladjusted,” he mutters, sitting on the stool next to Loki’s and gesturing to Peggy to make him a coffee too.
Loki turns to look at him and arches a bitchy eyebrow.
“Hey,” Clint protests, “my life is nothing but an open book. You’ve met my ex and pretty much all of my friends and I’m sure if I didn’t have dead parents you’d have somehow met them too. I know both your brother and your niece that you never mentioned and you didn’t tell me that or even hint at it. I mean, your brother is dating our cook, for God’s sake.”
Loki merely accepts his coffee from Peggy and looks like he’s on the point of rolling his eyes. “Are you done?” he asks.
“No,” Clint snaps, and only really succeeds in sounding sulky. “No, I am not done, because you are a ridiculous excuse for a person.”
Loki cocks his head to one side. “Well, yes,” he says slowly, “my brother is Thor.”
It explains a lot about Loki, really, because having Thor for your brother has got to sting and possibly drive you more than a little crazy. Clint thinks that he’d probably build up a defensive armour made of something nasty if his brother was capable of making anyone fall in love with him just by smiling.
“It’s annoying that I could learn more about you from your Wikipedia article than from you,” Clint can’t help pointing out.
“I edit my own Wikipedia article,” Loki sniffs.
“Of course you do,” Clint rolls his eyes. “But hypothetically a quick google search would teach me more about you than you have.”
Something annoyed passes across Loki’s face, and he puts down his coffee mug. “Why does it matter?” he demands. Clint tries to find an answer and when he doesn’t reply immediately, Loki sneers a little and adds: “it doesn’t, does it? Why do you care?”
It’s not as simple as it could or maybe should be, and before Clint can put something together Loki slides off his stool and walks out.
“Well,” Peggy says, “that was smooth, darling.”
“Don’t,” Clint replies, and goes to hide in the kitchen.
=
“I brought Ben and Jerry’s because you are a high school girl having problems with her first crush,” Phil announces later that afternoon, hanging over a plastic bag full of tubs to Natasha.
“You also brought your terrifying co-worker Maria,” Clint observes.
“Hi, Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria,” Peggy calls across the cafe on her way to the coffee machine.
Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria gets herself comfortable at one of the tables. “Sometimes I just come here to eat brownies and laugh at your life,” she shrugs.
“Don’t say I don’t bring the best presents,” Phil says, and sits down opposite her.
Clint’s about to protest that all of this is grossly unfair when Darcy bursts through the door, sending the windchimes jangling fiercely. “Who saw the Thor-being-Loki’s-Brother thing coming?”
Clint tips his head to one side. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Darcy waves a hand. “I told them my aunt is dying again, like I was going to miss this twist.”
He could try telling people that his life doesn’t exist solely to entertain them, but he’s done that already and nobody listened then either.
“Well,” he says, “I’m still at work. So.”
“There are like three customers here who don’t know you,” Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria says, shifting over to make room for Darcy.
Clint turns to see if Nat will offer any support, but she’s reading Oryx and Crake and looking determinedly innocent, which means that she’s texted everyone they know. He wishes he could be like Steve, who is staying in the kitchen making stuff and refusing to talk about any of it, either because he doesn’t want to gossip about his boyfriend, or because he’s awesome and loves Clint. It’s sadly probably the former, but Clint can dream.
“Thor and Loki are related?” Tony demands, banging open the door with Pepper a step behind. “I brought booze.”
“Tony brought alcohol, Phil brought ice cream, Bruce brought Pretty In Pink,” Natasha observes from the counter. “Phil’s right, this is basically a high school sleepover.”
“Can we cast Loki as a bitchy cheerleader?” Tony asks cheerfully, sitting down on the other side of Darcy. “Oh, hi, Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria.”
“None of you are helping,” Clint informs them, going to get the bill for one of their actual proper customers.
“Hey,” Tony shrugs, “if you play your cards right, you could end up as Steve’s brother in law.”
The idea of all the different circumstances that would lead to that happening is, frankly, horrifying, and Clint finally breaks.
“Okay,” he says, and holds out a hand until Tony hands over the whiskey.
=
This morning, Pru is wearing a tiny dress decorated with what appear to be glittery fairies, and Thor looks just a little tired.
“Tough night with her?” Clint asks, going over to put another jug of filter coffee on.
“Not with her, no,” Thor says, softly significant, as he sits down and gets Pru comfortable on his lap.
“Has Loki slept yet?” Clint manages, eternally glad that Nat isn’t here to laugh at his pitiful attempt at casual.
“I might perhaps have dosed his tea with sleeping pills in the early hours of this morning,” Thor replies carefully, “but I am admitting to nothing, of course.”
“Of course,” Clint agrees, and concentrates on watching the coffee drip into the jug, while Thor murmurs softly to Pru behind him and Peggy hums to herself in the kitchen while she flips pancakes. Finally, he pours Thor a mug of fresh coffee, thinks fuck it, and pours himself one too.
“So,” he says, handing it over, “I have a really bad hangover and some kind of romantic feelings for your brother. In amongst the feelings about murdering him, of course.”
Thor studies him for a long moment, and then offers: “I think I would like pancakes for this conversation.”
“You and me both,” Clint sighs, and goes to see if Peggy can make that happen.
Somewhere after Clint handing over seven cups of minutely different coffee for one of the local businesses to a frazzled-looking secretary and Thor demolishing half a plate of pancakes, Clint decides to broach the subject again. He’s not exactly sure what he’s trying to broach, since last night was mostly spent watching unhelpful high school movies in a haze of sugar and alcohol, but Nat did point out that while this is still really entertaining at the moment, it will rapidly just get stupid.
“Does Loki date people?” Clint asks, sitting down and taking Pru into his lap, where she squirms for a moment before settling down to go back to sleep.
“I really don’t want to discuss what you and my brother have been doing,” Thor replies, getting a pinched look around his eyes.
“I’ll sum it up for you as: ‘not dating’,” Clint says. “But, you know, would he?”
Thor takes a long draught of coffee before he says: “you are aware that Loki doesn’t like people, aren’t you?”
“It’s come up... daily,” Clint agrees.
After a moment, Thor twists his mouth and says: “I think my only advice is: ‘on your own head be it’.”
It’s probably the best advice Clint’s gotten so far, and he’ll probably ignore it anyway.
Pru shifts in her sleep and Clint looks down at her. “So,” he says, abruptly switching the subject, “you’re trusting Loki to babysit?”
Thor’s smile is a little rueful. “I may have called Sif to babysit him at the same time.”
“Wise move,” Clint agrees, and reaches for his coffee.
=
What with one thing and another, Christmas has been creeping closer without Clint actually noticing until Peggy starts talking about flying home, Steve starts talking about decorations, Pepper starts talking about contingency plans, and Natasha abruptly realises that they haven’t gotten any shopping done.
Despite being broken up, they still give joint gifts because it’s easier and because they’re both pretty lazy when it comes to this sort of thing. Luckily, everyone lets them get away with it, probably because one present is better than nothing.
This is how they’ve found themselves in line outside Barnes and Noble before they’re even open, clutching venti takeaway cups from Starbucks - Darcy hooked them up for free so it doesn’t count as stabbing their own business in the back or anything - and being generally freezing cold.
“Next year, we’re online shopping in August,” Clint informs Natasha, stamping his feet to try and keep some feeling in them. “Or everyone’s getting soap or something.”
“Next year you can send everyone free copies of Loki’s back catalogue,” Natasha retorts unhelpfully, and Clint shoves her in response.
They actually have a list of who they have to buy shit for - made late last night over takeaway curry, while Bruce laughed at them both because he’s a dick who has a pile of perfectly-wrapped gifts in his closet - and have both decided that over the course of the next year they need to ditch most of the people they know because this is getting stupidly expensive; it’s just as well they don’t have actual families. It’s nearly like being organised, except that it’s a little under a week before Christmas and they’re going to have to fight against thousands of other New Yorkers who’ve also left gift shopping until now. Luckily, Clint and Nat are good with crowds, and have never been above elbowing someone in the face to get their hands on the last thing on the shelf. It’s not a proper shopping trip if there hasn’t been bloodshed, after all.
Clint is arguing hotly for his choice of pornographic bodice-ripper for Peggy while Nat waves her choice in his face when someone behind them says: “Natasha?”
Natasha whips around and an interesting expression flickers across her face; she looks caught, but covers it up with a smile.
“Jan,” she says, handing the book to Clint and stepping forward to exchange a hug with a slight, dark-haired woman bundled up in a dark yellow coat. “Hi!”
The unsettling part of all this is that Clint doesn’t know her. He wasn’t aware that Nat knew people that he didn’t; it’s a little weird.
“Clint,” Natasha says, and her eyes are still a little tight, “this is Janet. Janet, this is Clint.”
“Oh, you’re Clint,” Janet says brightly, holding out a hand to shake. “You have a lovely apartment.”
“Thanks,” Clint replies slowly, taking her hand.
“Sorry,” Janet adds, laughing, “that probably sounded weird. I’m in Natasha’s book club.”
“Right,” Clint nods, while Natasha discreetly clenches her fists. “Well, it’s good to meet you.”
Janet smiles at him, and then reaches into her hand as her phone goes off. “That’ll be my boyfriend; Hank can barely pick out a present for himself, let alone anyone else. I’ll see you after the holidays, Natasha.”
“See you,” Nat echoes, and then turns back to Clint with a grimace.
“You’re actually running a book club,” Clint manages.
Natasha shrugs. “You were the one who said I couldn’t possibly be running one,” she points out, “I just played along.”
This is yet another reason they broke up; Natasha’s mind is a steel trap and even everyday things become cases of bluffs, double-bluffs and red herrings. It keeps things exciting, but it’s also exhausting.
“Why are you holding a book club?” he asks, adding his choice of Peggy’s gift to the basket and slipping Nat’s back onto the shelf while she’s distracted.
“Why not?” Natasha shrugs, looking back down at her list. “What are we getting Steve?”
“Pop-up Karma Sutra?” Clint suggests, and trails after her laugh through the crowds of shoppers.
=
Their Christmas party is the day before Peggy returns to England, which is probably going to result in her missing her flight or at least being banned from it by airport security when she turns up still drunk, but that is at least Peggy’s problem and not Clint’s. Thor and Pru have already left for England, leaving behind a moping Steve who has apparently decided to use tinsel to compensate for his feelings.
“Should we have left Steve, Darcy and the eggnog to decorate?” Clint asks Natasha, looking around the cafe. He wishes he’d brought sunglasses; everything is very sparkly.
Steve made the eggnog this afternoon, and when he wasn’t looking Peggy and Darcy added three bottles of rum to it. Clint is not writing off the possibility that it is now lethal, though it tastes pretty good.
“We should definitely not have allowed them mistletoe,” Peggy observes. “Darcy has put the bloody stuff everywhere.”
Nat gives a one-shoulder shrug. “At least all our friends are hot?”
Clint looks around the room full of their friends and acquaintances - Sif is saying something to Steve that’s making him blush, Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria and Bruce are sampling the frankly terrifying mulled wine Peggy and Nat tried making, while Tony is trying to talk Pepper into dancing with him - and frowns slightly.
“Are we shallow?” he asks Natasha.
“Are you just learning this now?” She grins, sudden and brilliant and honest, before she walks over to rescue Steve from Sif.
“I invited Loki, BTW,” Peggy tells Clint, and then swishes away before Clint can say anything.
Clint takes a sip of the eye-wateringly strong eggnog and reflects that at least Loki probably won’t come.
Steve’s made a whole load of really good Christmas cupcakes, and Clint is eating his third and trying not to watch Jane and Darcy making out under the mistletoe to his left when a voice says: “you are absolutely covered in glitter, did you know?”
Clint looks down to learn that Steve’s idea of Christmas decorations involves a fuckload of edible glitter, and then smiles at Loki.
“Hey,” he says, “you’re about four cups of Steve and Darcy’s possibly murderous eggnog down. Get on that and you won’t even notice I’m glittery.”
“I’m not sure that’s a selling point,” Loki sniffs, but he goes to get himself something to drink anyway.
“It’s a peace offering,” Sif tells Clint, stumbling little on her heels, for the first time looking something other than completely composed. She has a smudge of Peggy’s lipstick on her jaw and her eyes are shining. “I don’t know if you’re completely fluent in Loki yet.”
“Is anyone fluent in Loki?” Clint can’t help asking.
Sif rolls her eyes. “Loki isn’t even fluent in Loki,” she responds, and then giggles as a - admirably sober - Tony Stark pulls her onto their makeshift dancefloor.
“Huh,” Clint says to no one under the cover of Last Christmas, “it’s a Christmas miracle.”
It’s probably not, but it’s pretty awesome anyway.
=
Peggy left about three a.m. in the vague hope she could mainline some espresso and make her eight a.m. flight in a vaguely respectable state, and after that they started losing people as the lateness of the hour and the realisation there’s hardly any time until Christmas started kicking in. Clint shoves his friends into cabs with the understanding they’re responsible for anything that happens in there, be it puking or public indecency charges.
Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria is asleep in one of their booths, but she looks pretty comfortable so Clint leaves her to it, writing his phone number shakily onto her arm so she can call him to let her out, and turns off the lights. The cafe is warm and smells like cinnamon and rum and frosting, and in the faint light of the streetlamps leaking through the blinds it all does look kind of glittery and magical and less like the Grinch threw up everywhere.
When he steps outside to lock up, he finds Loki is sitting on his doorstep, huddled into his coat and scarf.
“It’s fucking freezing,” Clint can’t help saying, and: “were you waiting for me?”
“I don’t know,” Loki admits. “I just... there’s no one at home, I have nowhere to be.”
Clint sits down next to him; the cold instantly seeps through his jeans. “You could have gone home with Thor and Pru.”
Loki shakes his head; his expression is unreadable in the mostly-dark, body language loose from the alcohol. “I can’t,” he says, and his voice breaks a little on the words. “I just... I just can’t.”
Clint leans back against his front door, sighing out a breath that’s visible in the icy air of the very early morning.
“I hope you have a good therapist,” he says at last.
“I’ve had several,” Loki tells him, tipping his head back, and then he laughs, the sound startled.
Clint follows his eyeline to find that either Darcy or Steve stuck a huge sprig of goddamn mistletoe onto his front door.
“Oh, fuck it,” he says, and leans in to kiss Loki.
Loki’s lips are cold but his mouth is warm when it opens against Clint’s. It’s relaxed, messy; both of them are drunk, that much doesn’t even need disclaiming, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling good as Clint bites down on Loki’s lower lip, sucks until Loki makes a broken noise into his mouth.
He pulls away and can’t help grinning. “You thought it was great that I was covered in edible glitter, right?”
“You’re a dick,” Loki says, something almost fond in it, as he swipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
Clint laughs until Loki kisses him again, and he might be losing the feeling in his ass from the cold doorstep but it’s kind of worth it anyway.
=
He doesn’t bother to turn any lights on as he and Loki stumble through his apartment, shedding clothes as they go. Streetlights filter through the blinds, which means they can see just well enough not to get concussion anywhere - which is good, because if sex hasn’t landed Clint in the hospital so far, he’s damned if he’s starting now - although not a whole lot more. Loki’s hands are freezing cold from sitting outside and he spends far too much time streaking them across Clint’s bared skin just to make him jump.
“You’re kind of a horrible person,” Clint tells him, catching Loki’s wrist before he can shove his icy fingers down the front of Clint’s jeans.
“Well, the role of not disappointing son was already taken,” Loki snips, and then looks a little startled, like that was more than he meant to say.
That eggnog is dangerous.
“I’m not talking about this during sex,” Loki adds swiftly, when Clint opens his mouth, and then adds: “or ever, actually.”
Clint isn’t sure that bottling up all his feelings is helping Loki any, but he’s not quite stupid enough to point that out right now, so he just nods and leans in to kiss Loki again, deep and messy and distracting, while he also unbuttons his pants. Clint is pretty awesome at multitasking, even if he does say so himself.
He could point out that the only person Loki seems to be disappointing these days is himself, but he’s pretty sure Loki would punch him, and anyway, parents are a tricky area. Parents are complicated, and they take time to fix. The little voice in the back of his head that sounds mostly like Nat points out that he’s in way over his head here, and he listens to it for once; there’s nothing he can say or do right now that Loki would believe, and however Loki fucks up what they’re doing right now, at least he isn’t wandering the streets cold and drunk and alone.
“Come on,” he says when he finally has to draw breath, “bedroom. I’m too old for carpet burn.”
“Classy,” Loki muses, apparently mostly to himself, before he adds: “most people manage to have drunken sex without conversation.”
“Then you’re bang out of luck, sweetheart,” Clint warns him, “because being drunk just makes me talkative.”
Loki sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that,” he admits, before adding: “if you call me sweetheart again I will-”
“You like it,” Clint cuts him off, graceless and grinning, dropping down onto his mattress and dragging at Loki until he obediently joins him, all long pale limbs and an interesting jumble of tension and alcohol-induced looseness. “Now stop bitching so we can make out some more.”
Loki huffs but kisses him anyway; Clint considers pulling out the it’s a Christmas miracle line again, but, well, his mouth is kind of busy.
=
“You’re squirming,” Loki complains as he drags Clint’s jeans down over his hips, the last vestiges of cold still clinging to his fingers.
“Are you going to spend the whole time bitching again?” Clint asks him. “Because you’d think sex would help you unwind like it does for normal people, but, no.”
Loki bites his hipbone in response.
“Are you just cranky because I’m not wearing panties today?” Clint frowns. “You liked the panties, right?”
Loki gives him a murderous glare, fingers tangled in the waistband of Clint’s underwear. “They were your ex-girlfriend’s,” he points out.
Clint waits until he’s finished tugging the shorts off before adding: “It’s okay, Loki, I’ll wear panties for you next time.”
Loki huffs in an annoyed sort of way and arches an eyebrow. “Are you done?” he asks.
“For now,” Clint replies, but his smirk cracks a little when Loki wraps a hand around the base of his cock and drags, slow and dirty. Loki’s expression is something like satisfaction before he leans in and teasingly breathes over the head of Clint’s cock, lips pursed and shadows tumbling across his face. Clint curls a hand into the sheets, fighting not to thrust upwards.
“I’m really drunk here,” he points out, “I might fall asleep if nothing happens soon.”
“You are absolutely insufferable,” Loki snips before he leans in and swipes his tongue up the length of Clint’s cock.
“I am,” Clint agrees cheerfully, while Loki explores his cock with lips and tongue and little sucking kisses that make his head spin from something other than the alcohol.
Clint threads his fingers through Loki’s hair, cupping his skull and stroking at the nape of his neck. Loki makes a softly purring sound as he slides his damp lips back up Clint’s cock and takes the head into his mouth. He swirls his tongue around the head, and without even thinking about it Clint’s fingers curl.
Loki backs up immediately. “You just pulled my hair.”
It’s pretty dark in here, but Clint can still see that Loki’s cock is hard against his belly, his cheeks just slightly flushed.
“And you liked it. Who’s the deviant now?”
He gets a twisting slide of Loki’s hand in response, one that leaves him shuddering against the sheets. “It’s almost like you don’t want me to blow you,” Loki muses.
“No, I do,” Clint replies. “I’m mostly impressed; I can’t blow anyone when I’m drunk, I think my mouth goes numb.”
“It’s a pity that doesn’t stop you talking,” Loki muses before leaning back down, and Clint waits until Loki’s mouth is too full to bitch before he tugs his hair again, just slightly. Loki makes the slightest of sounds, but he doesn’t sound entirely unwilling, his free hand gravitating to Clint’s hip.
“See?” Clint begins, and Loki responds by opening his mouth a little wider and leaning down, taking Clint deeper and deeper until his nose is pressed to Clint’s pubic hair and, well, fuck.
“God,” he groans, fighting not to arch upwards in case he chokes Loki, “fuck, okay, you win.”
Loki hums in the back of his throat; it’s hard to tell, but Clint’s pretty sure there’s an edge of smugness in it.
=
“No,” Clint says later, rolling over and sticking on the lamp beside his bed. “No, we just had a lot of drunken sex, you are not running out on me again.”
Loki is flushed, his hair is a mess and sooner or later he’s going to notice that his neck is covered in hickeys, and he looks kind of startled in the sudden burst of light.
“Also, I have no idea where my pants are right now, which means the same pretty much goes for you,” Clint adds, because it’s a valid point.
Loki eases himself back against the pillows, expression kind of apprehensive. “I dread to think what you’re suggesting.”
“I’ve got most of a pan of Nat and Peggy’s attempt at mulled wine in the kitchen, and a DVD of Serendipity,” Clint tells him.
“No,” Loki says.
“It’s Christmas!” Clint replies forcefully. “Therefore we should drink questionable alcohol and watch terrible mushy movies, and maybe make out some more.”
Loki looks doubtful but also less like he’s going to make a break for it; Clint leans over the side of the bed and scrabbles for a pair of pants or something. He’s pretty sure the pair he finds are Nat’s, but they’ll do for now, and he drags them over hips sore from bites and finger marks.
“Do you want popcorn?” he asks.
“Why not,” Loki sighs, looking resigned, and slides off the bed to at least look for his underwear.
Clint chucks a bag of popcorn into the microwave and turns the stove on underneath the mulled wine; it’s slightly better warm, though that’s not really saying much. Still, what the hell, right now his mouth mostly tastes like sex and Loki, so he’s willing to try something else.
He snags Serendipity off the couch on the way past, and returns to the bedroom to find Loki sprawled on the bed looking wonderfully debauched; Clint wants to reach for a camera for a moment, wants to be able to say I did that. He shakes off the emotion before Loki’s expression can turn questioning, handing him the popcorn before he sticks the DVD in the small TV Bruce brought in here at some point. He leaves the previews babbling away while he goes back to the kitchen to fetch two mugs and a pitcher of the warmed-through mulled wine; at least it smells good.
“This is vile,” Loki observes after taking a sip.
“Yep,” Clint agrees, getting under the covers beside him. “I’ve still got a shitload left, so drink up.”
Loki huffs but tries another mouthful before he grabs a handful of popcorn to compensate.
“I have no idea what we’re doing right now,” Loki says about fifteen minutes later. “I mean, this is-”
“Not everything is about punishing you, Loki,” Clint tells him quietly, leaning in to bite his earlobe and then press a kiss to the mark as he digs his hand into the popcorn.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Loki smile.
=
“Wake up,” Natasha orders, ripping the covers away from him and letting in a rush of cold air.
Clint doesn’t have to turn and look to tell that Loki’s gone; of course he’s gone, but at least he waited until Clint fell asleep this time.
“What have I ever done to you, Nat?” he complains into his pillow.
“That is not a list that you would enjoy,” Natasha points out. “Did you drink the rest of that mulled wine?”
“Most of it,” Clint admits. The blinds are open and the room is flooded with winter sunlight; he cracks open an eye, closes it again, and groans. It’s definitely a groan and not a whimper, no matter what Natasha may claim later.
“Why?” Natasha asks, and when Clint risks another look she’s holding out a pair of sunglasses. He fumbles them onto his face and then attempts an upright position.
“It was there?” he suggests. “Jesus. Fuck. I think I want to die. And maybe puke up a cinnamon stick.”
Nat sighs in an unsympathetic fashion and chucks a sweater at his head. “We need to return the cafe into something other than the place all tinsel ever went to die. Man up.”
Clint struggles into the sweater, which is an unpleasant experience, and then remembers: “Is Phil’s Terrifying Co-Worker Maria still in there?”
“I just put her in a cab,” Natasha replies. “And yes, Peggy made her plane. I have no idea how.”
Clint nods, and attempts to stand up. He’s inwardly quite impressed when he manages it, but Natasha doesn’t look like she’s going to cover him in the gold stars he clearly deserves.
“Can’t you just kill me and get it over with?” he asks.
“Maybe if you’re really, really good,” Nat replies, something sardonic in her expression. “Come on, I think there’s a bottle of champagne, we can make mimosas for brunch.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Clint points out, but follows her anyway.
=
Christmas happens, and it sucks kind of less than Clint expected it to, even if Loki point-blank refuses to come over; he and Nat spend most of the day watching Bruce and Steve meticulously cooking things and singing along to Sinatra, and most of the night sprawled on the couch eating roast potatoes. It’s quiet, but it’s awesome, and then before they even really register it it’s over.
The space after Christmas is made up of the weather trying to snow, tetchy sales-shopping customers coming into the cafe laden down with bags, and Loki bringing in a hardcopy of his third draft to check for inconsistencies.
“Have Scoone and Arcola banged yet?” Tony asks, tipping his chair back on two legs and tapping away on his tablet; who knows what Stark Industries gets up to in the post-Christmas lull.
“That’s not what it’s about,” Loki snips, but he’s got a smudge of yellow highlighter on his chin that he hasn’t noticed so no one is going to take him seriously right now.
“No,” Tony agrees, “it’s all about your literary vision and your adverbs and the way you’re using meta within the story to figure out if you’re ripping off Kafka or not, but I want Scoone and Arcola to bang.”
“Me too,” Bruce puts in from where he’s making espresso in Peggy’s absence.
Loki looks expectantly at Clint, who just shrugs. “Don’t ask me, they all bought their own copies. Oh, hey, maybe you should go visit Nat’s book club.”
Pepper chokes her laugh into her chamomile tea.
“I’d prefer not to,” Loki responds with dignity, looking back down at his manuscript.
“They’d eat him alive,” Tony points out, swiping his finger decisively over the tablet.
Loki doesn’t rise to the bait, possibly because he spends so much of his time bickering with Clint that there isn’t time for anyone else, but more likely because Sif wants this book done, and is not above hounding Loki with phonecalls and threats of castration to ensure this.
“Got your lunch, Clint,” Steve calls, emerging from the kitchen.
“Steve,” Tony says, tipping his chair even further back so he can see him; Pepper takes the tablet out of his lap without even looking, “Scoone and Arcola.”
“I’m kind of hoping they’ll get married in the latest book,” Steve replies, and looks confused when Loki lets out a groan between his teeth.
Clint takes his sandwich and mug of coffee over to Loki’s table, brushing aside a pile of handwritten notes and six different coloured markers.
“I’m working,” Loki tells him.
“I know,” Clint shrugs, and puts his feet up on the chair next to him.
Pepper’s now frowning at Tony’s tablet. “You realise you can’t actually do this, right?”
“Pep, I can do anything. And this is legal for once! You should be looking more excited.”
Her only response is a sigh before she starts sweeping her fingers across whatever Tony was doing, editing it to her own requirements.
Loki reaches absently for Clint’s coffee, and he pushes it slightly closer to his hand before picking up one of the sheets of paper covered in Loki’s cramped, spidery writing.
After a while, Tony observes: “I’m kind of disturbed by how cute this is.”
Clint flips him the bird without looking up, and Loki doesn’t even notice.
=
“You don’t have a New Year party?” Loki asks.
This isn’t a lunch date, though other people might call it one. Mostly, he and Loki are just walking through the slush that wishes it was snow, because Loki needs a break from writing and also from a very unhappy Pru, who has arrived back home and is apparently not nearly as gleeful about returning to New York - and by extension, Steve - as her father is.
“We’re still cleaning up glitter from the Christmas one,” Clint replies, shrugging. “And anyway, this is New York. No one needs to hold a party. Usually we just end up on the roof of Darcy and Jane’s building with as much cheap champagne as everyone can carry.”
“That seems to sum up most of your life,” Loki points out, but he’s smiling a little to soften it.
“Anyway,” Clint continues, ignoring him, “this year we’ve all got invites to Stark’s party, and that one’s got underwear models, so.”
It’s become apparent that Tony Stark can’t do anything without the presence of scantily-clad women, not even getting clean from whatever borderline-alcohol-abuse problem he’s got going on, and the weird part is probably that it isn’t even weird anymore. It’s just... Tony.
“I can see how underwear models would be more enjoyable than a rooftop in December,” Loki agrees.
“You’re coming, right?” Clint adds. “I mean, I can see hanging out with your brother and his baby daughter and possibly his boyfriend at home could be fun, but, well, underwear models.”
Something is stiff in Loki’s shoulders. “I don’t have an invitation.”
“Well, no, Tony said that way you’d have to be my plus one,” Clint explains.
Loki looks a cross between amused and angry. “Where do you find these people?” he asks.
“They find me,” Clint sighs. “I mean, God knows what kind of signals I’m chucking out there if you’re what showed up.”
“I think I should be far more concerned about what on earth makes you even remotely appealing,” Loki replies. “Even you don’t believe your life is actually happening most of the time. You thought your ex-girlfriend wasn’t running a book club in your apartment even when she was, everyone you know is weirdly overinvested in your life to a possibly pathological extent, and the man you actually like is always either in India or on the verge of sleeping with your ex-girlfriend.”
Clint is about to protest most of this - the book club thing is entirely Nat’s fault, okay - when he finishes processing the rest of what Loki’s said.
“Hang on,” he says, “you think I’m banging you because I can’t bang Bruce?”
“I put it far more eloquently than that,” Loki sniffs.
“Well, yes, you’re a writer,” Clint shrugs. “Not the point. Everyone likes Bruce; you’d like Bruce if you liked people.”
Loki is looking somewhat thoughtful. “I’m not entirely sure what to do with this information,” he admits.
“Come to Stark’s New Year party with me,” Clint replies. “There are underwear models and we can fuck in his bathrooms. It’ll be awesome.”
“You really know how to woo a man,” Loki says dryly, but it isn’t a no.
=
The first Irresponsible Friday Cocktails of the year take place a merciful amount of distance from Tony’s party; the fireworks were great and the bathrooms of the Stark Tower are deceptively classy, but the words never again are still being tossed around. Clint is inwardly pretty impressed that Tony is still alive now that he’s actually been to one of his parties. He’s not entirely sure that Peggy isn’t still hungover.
Sif comes to their cocktail nights on a regular basis; she seems to have bonded pretty fiercely with Peggy, which probably doesn’t bode well for anything, but Clint thinks he knows more than anyone except perhaps Thor just how necessary a break from dealing with Loki is. The final draft of the book is in now, anyway, which means Sif looks a little less homicidal than usual. Tonight, she’s brought bourbon - according to Pepper, Tony already dated the leftover alcohol from his party to the homeless, which is either sweet or kind of really stupid, depending on how you look at it - and everything has an edge of the new to it.
It’s possibly because Nat is having her first book club of the year next week (Clint is absolutely not allowed to join; he’s considered sulking, but it’s probably for the best, even if neither of them have therapists to judge them anymore), and also possibly because there’s a lack of distance between Nat and Bruce that wasn’t there before; it’s not definitive or even helpful, but something’s shifting, and Clint has no idea what to do with that. The part where Natasha doesn’t know what to do either is probably going to be problematic, but Phil will sort that out when they get down to it. Phil has sorted out pretty much all of their messes over the years, and this one at least contains a mostly-sane person who is capable of functioning like a human more often than Clint and Nat ever are.
“Shouldn’t you be climbing Thor like a tree?” Darcy asks Steve, who doesn’t actually flush at the question; it’s startling progress. “At least I have the excuse that my girlfriend loves her lab more than me and isn’t at home on our Friday night.”
“My boyfriend has a baby,” Steve points out; he’s still drinking water and has deftly managed to avoid Nat and Peggy’s attempts to add vodka to it. “My Friday nights are possibly less glamorous than yours.”
“Watching Jane watch the Weather Channel,” Darcy sighs dreamily. “Why d’you think I hang out with you losers?”
Pepper rolls her eyes. “Nice try,” she tells her, and reaches for more of the apple pie they’re all sharing.
“What about you?” Sif asks, fixing her sharp attention on Clint. He’s been quite happy sitting there laughing at other people’s love lives; the sudden switch of focus is not exactly welcome.
“Hey,” he says, “I already had sex with Loki once this week. If we do it twice the world will probably implode.”
“Or he’ll dedicate his book to you,” Nat points out.
If Clint didn’t love her so much he’d probably hate her.
“I’m going to suggest that to him,” Peggy decides, and ducks the napkin Clint throws at her.
=
Loki is talking to people on his website who apparently want to use the messageboards for what they were designed for and not as an easy way to harass him - which is a pity - and Clint is alternately calling his pretentious replies for what they are and making hazelnut lattes for a group of students who are clearly not looking forward to the new semester.
When he comes out of the kitchen with Steve’s latest stacks of waffles, he find that Thor, Tony, Pepper and a flipchart have arrived.
“I’m not going to like this, am I,” he says, and Nat smiles at him with far too many teeth.
Pepper pulls off the cover to reveal the first posterboard has already been covered in writing; Clint can see his name and Loki’s at the top, and he leans closer to work out what it says underneath.
Clause #3: Just call them lunch dates. THEY ARE LUNCH DATES. YOU EAT LUNCH TOGETHER. Call a spade a spade and admit that you like eating lunch together and bitching at each other.
A little further down is:
Clause #6: Loki, just invite Clint home with you. Your office might be in your bedroom (which is healthy and not at all crazy - T) but it’s a nice house and there’s no point in being mysterious anymore.
“What the fuck,” Clint says.
“This is preposterous,” Loki sputters.
“What he said,” Clint agrees.
“Well, you were doing such a shitty job of dating each other that we just figured we’d sort it out for you,” Natasha explains. “We drew up a contract that you can sign and everything.”
“We’re not dating!” Clint says loudly.
“That was the problem,” Thor nods, where he’s rocking a squirming Pru. “It will not be a problem now.”
“You are impossible,” Loki hisses at his brother, who just smiles and looks satisfied.
“What if we disagree with the contract?” Clint asks.
“We left you some clauses you can negotiate,” Pepper explains.
“Cuddling, for example,” Nat cuts in, a wry smirk twisting her lips. His girl, seriously.
“I don’t like cuddling,” Loki says swiftly.
“You don’t like anything,” Clint reminds him.
The smile he gets in return is soft, with an edge of sweetness at the corners. “Well,” Loki shrugs, “something like that, anyway.”
/end.