Chapter Text
Clint wakes up with morning wood, a headache, and zero idea where the fuck he is, which is… pretty much par for the course, really. It takes him a second to place the surroundings, but there’s a light on in the main part of the basement, which helps. He’s at Coulson’s place.
He’s still not entirely sure how he let this happen.
Coulson’s just got a way of looking at him, all mild-mannered and polite, with the smile that’s entirely in the eyes as he nudges Clint into spilling his guts and/or agreeing to things before his brain catches up with his mouth. It’s sort of how Clint ended up in SHIELD. One minute he was in jail, facing a few years of prison time; the next he was nodding along as the man in the innocuous suit listed out the vague details of his life story. Yes, Clint was a sniper. Yes, he had fucked up. Yes, his talents might be better used elsewhere. Yes, he would rather not go to prison. And then before he knew it, he was walking out with a brand-new job and a whole lot of follow-up questions.
This time around, he was on the tail end of a long, grueling undercover mission in Madripoor and an equally brutal sixty hours of travel time when he discovered via voicemail from a neighbor that the heat in his shitty studio wasn’t working. His landlord (who Clint suspects is actually the mob) was out of town for the holiday and couldn’t be reached.
As of less than two years ago, Clint expected to be living in a cell for awhile, so he was fully prepared to just… cope. He’s lived through worse than a couple days huddled next to a space heater. But then he made the mistake of mentioning it to Coulson, and in the process he accidentally admitted that he didn’t have any Christmas plans.
“You don’t have any friends in the area?” Coulson asked casually. “No family you can stay with?”
As if he didn’t have an exhaustive and invasive personnel file with every detail of Clint’s personal life. They’d talked about this just the other day, when Coulson asked if (hypothetically) Clint would want to move with him if he were transferred to a different field office. Clint had said yes without a second thought; he’d follow Coulson just about anywhere.
Which brought him back to the question of Christmas. If it were anyone else, he’d make an excuse about working through the holiday, but that lie doesn’t really work on his boss. Coulson knows better than anybody that SHIELD won’t be sending him on another mission until the important one in Budapest next week.
“Come stay with us, then,” Coulson said, in a tone like it was already settled. “We don’t do anything fancy, it’s just myself and Jason, but we do have a tradition of volunteering on Christmas morning.” Clint had seen a picture of a skinny teenager with his arm around a dog, but Coulson doesn’t talk about his personal life much; he’d never mentioned Jason by name before. Coulson added, “My partner and his daughter are coming up for dinner, but it’ll be very lowkey.”
Clint didn’t even know Coulson swung that way — kinda pegged Coulson as ace, maybe? — and his brain glitched over the casual “his” like a scratching record.
But Coulson must’ve taken his silence as agreement, because he nodded like everything was settled and said, “We’ll stop by your place so you can pack a bag.”
It was half-past ass o’clock in the morning when they tiptoed inside and Coulson ushered him down to the basement. It’s split into a home gym and a den with a pull-out couch, plus a bathroom that forms a sort of divider between the two. The pull-out might actually be more comfortable than Clint’s ancient mattress at his place, but also, at that point, he was so exhausted that he could barely keep his eyes open long enough to thank Coulson and change into pajama pants.
The basement doesn’t have any windows, and Clint’s phone is dead, which means he has no idea what time it is or how long he’s slept. The phone can wait, though. First stop is the shower so he can deal with both his boner situation and his raging b.o. He struggles to his feet unsteadily. Ain’t no wake-up like a jetlag wake-up.
When he emerges, lumbering out of the den like a bear from winter hibernation, there’s a guy in the gym.
To call him a guy seems like an understatement. This isn’t just, like, your average guy; this is a Grade A hunk of sweaty, muscled, tattooed beef in spectacularly tiny shorts.
Clint’s point of view really frames those shorts, too. He’s closest to the foot of the bench and thus to the guy’s spread knees, with an unimpeded view up the vee of his massive thighs, all the way to the flimsy little scrap of red fabric that is working overtime to contain a frankly intimidating bulge.
The guy racks the barbell, which is loaded with enough weight that Clint’s biceps ache in sympathy, and pauses for a moment, chest heaving as he catches his breath. He grabs the hem of his faded black Gotham Knights tank top and pulls it up to wipe sweat from his face, revealing a surprising number of scars and a glistening six-pack. More like a twelve-pack.
Regardless of the final tally, Clint wants to lick it.
“Wow,” he blurts out, half-delirious with thirst.
The Guy reacts immediately, slithering out from under the barbell (more gracefully than anyone should be able to), grabbing a nearby twenty-pound weight, and tossing it at Clint like a frisbee, all in one smooth movement. Clint squawks and ducks, and the weight misses him by inches, falling to the carpeted floor.
The Guy grabs an empty bar and wields it like a staff as he settles into a solid fight stance. Clint’s self-preservation instinct tells him to put his hands over his head in surrender, and his modesty tells him to cover his stupid dick, but neither of those instincts have ever run very strong in the Barton line. He’s paralyzed somewhere in the middle, arms outstretched like he’s trying to soothe velociraptors.
The Guy squints at Clint, saying something that appears to be, “What the fuck?”
Which is fair, because… yeah, okay, this looks bad.
“Can’t hear you,” Clint announces, probably shouting if the flinch is any indication. “Gettin’ my hearing aids, don’t shoot.” He stumbles backward, reversing his steps until he’s out of sight, and then he glares down at his crotch. This particular quirk of male biology makes a very strong case against the theory of intelligent design. Either that, or God needs to go back to engineering school.
Can’t do fuck-all about that, though. He puts his hearing aids in – although he regrets that decision when he hears the metal the Guy has apparently been listening to.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he half-shouts.
“What?” A beat, and then the music cuts out.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Clint repeats, at a more normal volume. “Um. Hang on.” He roots around for his purple hoodie and sorta just… bunches it up in front of himself. Just, like. Carrying it. Casually. So casual.
The Guy has not gotten any less hot by the time he re-emerges. He also hasn’t dropped his weapon, just moved a few feet to the iPod dock; when he sees Clint he settles into that fight stance again, biceps gleaming with sweat, dark eyebrows drawn as he glares daggers in Clint’s direction.
“No way,” Clint blurts out. “You must be Coulson’s kid. Jason, right?” He rubs his eyes, because holy fucking glow-up, Batman. According to the picture in Phil’s wallet, Jason is a scrawny teenager with knobby scabbed knees and a thunderous scowl.
Well, the scowl is definitely the same. Clint might’ve recognized it sooner if he wasn’t so distracted by… everything else. He needs to stop staring.
That might be easier if Jason wasn’t quite so muscular and flushed and breathless and, like, blatantly fucking hung. Clint’s usually not such a creep, but the combination of “still half asleep” and “guerrilla ambushed by wet dream fodder when least expecting it” is throwing him for a loop.
“Who are you and why are you in my house?” Jason demands.
“Oh, fuck,” Clint says, because it would be bad enough to find your dad’s employee and his morning wood taking an ogle at you on his way to the bathroom, but – finding a complete stranger in your basement, all bricked-up and staring, when you were not expecting him to be there –
Clint’s undercaffeinated brain gets overwhelmed by this new plot twist, and for a moment he can’t get any words out; it’s just a few stammered vowel sounds.
“Seriously, what are you doing here,” Jason demands, taking a slow step closer and tightening his grip, and Clint doesn’t know what kind of training this guy has had, but everything about his stance screams danger.
Unfortunately, Clint’s kinda into that.
“Clint,” he says, gulping nervously. “I mean – my name is Clint.”
“You’re Clint?” Jason says incredulously.
Clint does some feeble spirit fingers. “Ta-da. Phil… said he’d give you a heads up?”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t,” Jason snaps. “He wasn’t here when I woke up, I thought he wouldn’t be back til tonight.”
Clint offers weakly, “Exfil was easier than expected.” If you can call disarming two separate hit squads, eliminating a drug lord, stowing away in a cargo freighter, contacting Coulson via encrypted radio channel, translating his Morse code response, and zig-zagging his way across half of Asia on various forms of transport before meeting Coulson for pickup in Lahore easy.
Jason has a weird, blank look on his face as he gestures to the stairs. “I’m just gonna –”
“Sorry,” Clint says, helpless.
Jason hurries toward the door, and Clint’s stomach twists. He somehow tears his eyes away from those magnificent thighs as Jason takes the stairs two at a time, leaving Clint alone in the basement. He just stands there uselessly for a moment, not really seeing anything in front of him, cheeks burning with embarrassment, before he can shake himself out of it and head to the bathroom.
It’s really tempting to just burrow back under the covers and stay there forever, or at least until Jason gets old and his memory goes and he forgets Clint ever existed.
On the other hand, Clint needs coffee in a bad way, so after he gets dressed, he heads upstairs. Jason is nowhere to be seen, and Clint’s stomach twists with guilt as he busies himself with the (blessedly full) coffee pot. According to the clock over the oven, it’s not quite noon, which means he hasn’t slept nearly long enough, which maybe explains why his brain still feels like soup. He’s not even sure which time zone his internal clock is currently set to.
Clint takes a too-hot sip of coffee, whines when it burns his tongue, and immediately takes another. He plugs his phone in as he sits at the kitchen island, hunched over his mug, and looks around cautiously as he waits for it to juice up.
Clint hadn’t really tried to imagine what Coulson’s place would be like, but — gun to his head? Yeah, Coulson’s predictable as fuck. It’s a very nice townhouse in a very nice development, as they go, with a fenced-in backyard, but it’s all white walls and beige carpets. The only quirky part is the elaborate model train track built around the base of a small Christmas tree: it’s a whole miniature scene, a little village and snowy hills, covering the top of an overstuffed bookshelf. Otherwise, the place is almost as bland as Coulson’s wardrobe.
It is a hell of a lot cozier than Clint’s tiny shithole studio, though, especially at the moment. He hopes against hope for a text from his landlord announcing that the heat has been fixed, but no dice. Clint’s only message is from Coulson, informing him that he had a very important meeting and would be back by early afternoon. Which is suspicious, considering that last night he told Clint he wouldn’t have to go in again until after Christmas, and Christmas is still two days away.
Maybe he should just lie and tell Coulson the heat is back on. This was a terrible idea; Bartons and holidays don’t mix.
“I’m sorry,” comes a deep, gruff voice from behind him. Clint spins around on his stool and almost falls off.
Jason is coming down the stairs with a dog – some sort of pit-lab mix – close on his heels. He’s wearing worn-thin black jeans and a chunky knit sweater in a shade of emerald that makes his eyes look more green than blue. He’s also wearing wire-rim glasses, which is… not an item of clothing that Clint had ever considered sexy until this very minute, but like. Damn.
Get it together, Barton.
“Sorry,” Clint blurts out. “Um. For making you uncomfortable.”
“What?” Jason asks, heavy brows knitting together as he frowns. “No, I’m the one who should be apologizing, I was an asshole. It was my bad, I totally missed Phil’s text. And his note. Um, this is dog.”
Clint is distracted by the dog, who comes over to nose hopefully at his knees. He’s a dark, smooth gray, like a seal, except for his snout, which is a much lighter shade of gray. Clint slides off his stool and crouches down to give the pup better sniffing access, and he’s absolutely fucking delighted when that earns him a few eager licks and a wiggling tail.
“You sure are a dog,” he croons, scritching and petting happily. “The best dog, huh? Are you the best dog?” He glances up at Jason, who’s busying himself with a kettle, and asks, “What’s his name?”
“Dog,” Jason repeats. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand through his damp curls self-consciously.
“Seriously?”
“He’s a therapy dog, for my anxiety and PTSD, and when I got him, I didn’t really – want him? Or, like. Didn’t want to need him. So I was a little shit about naming him.” He stands there for a moment, watching bemusedly as Dog wriggles into Clint’s lap. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, though.” His body language softens, and he adds, “He likes you.”
Clint coos at the dog for a few more seconds, but then he remembers that he owes Jason an apology, and he clears his throat, settling on the stool again.
“I don’t always do well with surprises,” Jason says, before Clint can get there. He still seems stiff and awkward, but his voice is very husky and quiet when he admits, “Especially… people in my space unexpectedly. I didn’t mean to freak out on you.”
“You didn’t freak out on me, it’s cool,” Clint dismisses.
Jason gives him an incredulous look as he pours steaming water into a mug. “I threw a weight at you like I was chuckin’ a goddamn discus.”
“It was a good throw,” Clint shrugs. “Seriously, though, I’m sorry for fuckin’... ogling you.”
“What?”
“You know. The whole, like, Looney Tunes-style panting and heart-pupil stare? Sorry. In my defense, you’re gorgeous, and I was not expecting… all that. First thing in the morning.”
“Oh,” Jason says, turning a surprising shade of pink. He focuses very intently on dunking an old-fashioned tea-ball in and out of the water.
“God, sorry, I’m making you uncomfortable again, aren’t I?” Clint says, burying his face in his palms for a moment. “I’m stupid when I haven’t had enough coffee.” Clint takes a big gulp and amends, “Stupider.”
“Funny, Phil told me you’re one of the smartest people he knows.” He looks at Clint through his lashes, mouth curling up at the corners.
The smirk all but takes Clint out at the kneecaps, and he stutters, “Bullshit.”
“No bullshit.” Jason smiles wryly at him. He has both hands curled around his mug, and it looks conspicuously small in his long, thick fingers – get! it! together! Barton! – as he taps one of his silver rings against the ceramic. “So, wanna try that again?”
“Huh?”
Jason extends one of those big hands. “Jason Todd. Grad student, hockey enthusiast, amateur baker. Nice to meet you.”
“Clint Barton.” Clint swallows hard, mouth dry at the strength in Jason’s warm, callused grip. “Dog person, absolute trainwreck, accidental Looney Tunes impersonator. Pleasure’s all mine.”
Jason laughs at that, low and resonant, ducking his head shyly, and Clint thinks that he might be entirely fucked.
Over the course of the next hour, they exchange the usual getting-to-know-you questions; Jason puts together a lasagne and a batch of cookie dough, and Clint works his way through two mugs of coffee. He learns that Jason is a Gotham native, and only moved to D.C. to live with Coulson when he was adopted at the age of fifteen – which raises a whole bunch of questions, but Jason doesn’t seem inclined to go into details, so Clint keeps his mouth shut. Jason stayed in D.C. for undergrad, a dual major in social work and urban planning, before moving to Gotham for grad school.
“I’m glad I got out for a while,” Jason says, slow and pensive, like he’s choosing each word carefully. “I think – if I’d stayed, I think there would always be a part of me that would feel trapped. I was a kid, it’s not like I had any choice at the time. Back then, Gotham was a thing that happened to me. You know?”
Clint thinks of the circus, and he nods. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”
“But now that I’m old enough to choose it for myself – yeah, I want to go back. I want to make it better. Kids there deserve better.” Jason shrugs ruefully, and Clint fights the urge to kiss him. “Gotham is home. But so’s Phil, and that kinda sucks, not gonna lie. When him and Gordon finally got their shit together and admitted they were crazy about each other, I hoped Phil would end up moving there, but… he’s too attached to SHIELD, and SHIELD doesn’t have an office in Gotham. Maybe someday, though.”
“Two homes doesn’t sound too bad,” Clint says, and then blushes, wondering how much of his envy came through in his voice.
Jason just beams, though – a soft, genuine expression that does funny things to Clint’s stomach. “True. I’m pretty fuckin’ lucky, all things considered.”
When Coulson gets back, they’re finishing up a late lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup.
“Yours is staying warm in the oven,” Jason tells him, before he can ask, and Coulson gives him a fond, eye-crinkling smile.
“You two are getting along, then?” he asks mildly.
Clint blanches, thinking about his first impression, but when he sneaks a glance at Jason, Jason’s pink-cheeked and nodding.
At first, Clint feels awkward, because he can’t forget that this is his boss. And yeah, he and Coulson have an unusual working relationship; Clint trusts him more than he’s trusted any sort of authority figure in his life. He has to trust him, with the work they do. Has to trust Coulson to make the right calls, and to be at rendezvous points when he says he’ll be. Coulson’s the only reason Clint’s gotten all those commendations in his SHIELD file. Clint has what most people would call “a near-pathological problem with authority, an over-developed sense of morality (hypocritical, for an ex-carnie ex-felon high-school-dropout), and a stubborn streak a mile wide.” Coulson just calls him “a singularly talented agent with a distinct preference for a specific leadership style.”
– which is a very polite, Coulson-ish way of saying that Clint has been a goddamn nightmare on the rare occasions they’ve tried to pair him with any other CO.
Regardless of that rock-solid professional trust, or maybe because of it, Clint is worried about spending time with him outside of SHIELD. He’s pretty sure he’ll say the wrong thing and fuck this up. Clint’s sorta like a feral cat; he can keep it together and act civilized in small doses, long enough to con his way into food and attention, but anybody who tries to take him home is going to get a nasty surprise when he unknowingly uses their couch as a scratching post, or something.
He starts to relax over the course of the afternoon, though. Coulson definitely seems relaxed, which helps; after lunch, he changes into a blue-gray flannel shirt, which is more color than Clint’s ever seen him wear, and he repeatedly tells Clint to call him Phil. He even lets a few yawns escape, which – Clint’s not sure if he’s seen Phil display any sort of normal human behavior like yawning before? And granted, Phil did spend a solid day traveling halfway across the world to pick him up, but he’s definitely done worse while they’ve worked together, and he never lets his body betray any physical sign of exhaustion. Clint has occasionally wondered whether Phil is secretly a Terminator type cyborg.
Clint plays some Tony Hawk on the X-Box while Jason reads and Coulson – Phil – does the crossword. He tosses a frisbee around for Dog in the backyard for a while, and ends up dozing off while Jason and Phil play chess.
He wakes up with a fleece blanket over his feet and a cool dog nose snuffling against his hand; Dog is curled up in the curve of his body, snoozing away. Jason and Phil’s voices filter in from the kitchen. It’s really fucking nice.
Dinner is the best lasagna Clint’s ever had, and then they watch the hockey game, or at least Jason does; he even changes into an over-sized Gotham Blades hoodie for the occasion. Phil seems to be dozing off in his armchair with his eyes still open. Clint curls up on one side of the sectional, Dog a comforting weight on his legs, and doesn’t pay much attention, but Jason gets all sorts of fired up. He keeps jumping to his feet when they score and shouting at the ref’s calls, lit-up and animated, and Clint ends up watching him for most of the game. Can barely take his eyes off Jason, if he’s being honest.
After the first period, Jason disappears upstairs for a moment and comes back with –
“Is that a joint?” Clint asks, startled, as Jason waves it at him in a silent question.
“A fucking beautiful joint, if I do say so myself,” Jason drawls.
Clint glances instinctively at Phil, who smiles serenely and shrugs, pointing out, “It’s legal.”
And SHIELD doesn’t make a habit of drug testing agents, either, but even if they did – Clint was just undercover for a month in what amounted to an opium den, and he totally smoked on a couple occasions, when it would’ve been conspicuous if he didn’t. All of which will be in Phil’s report, so.
“I’ve got a medical license.” Jason smiles like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “For the trauma, and all.”
“Maybe later,” Clint hedges, and tries not to gape too obviously when Phil takes a long drag.
The game looks like a done deal by the third, with Gotham down by three, and Phil excuses himself to go to bed. He leans over to ruffle Jason’s hair affectionately as he goes, and Jason stands up long enough to give him a quick hug.
“Love you,” Phil tells him, and Clint tries to ignore the weird clench of envy in his gut. But then Phil turns to him and adds, “I’m very glad you’re here, Clint.”
“Me too,” Clint says, and finds that he means it.
Jason snuggles deeper into the opposite side of the couch, mirroring Clint’s pose, with Dog between them. His smile is all hazy and heavy-lidded, and he looks almost unbearably cozy. This time, when he re-lights the joint and offers it to Clint, he accepts.
“Have you ever played?” Jason asks Clint, jerking his chin toward the TV.
“Couple of the kids in the caravan used to play street hockey, but that was like… more an excuse for a brawl than anything else.” He blows an inexpert smoke ring. “Never tried ice skating.”
Jason tilts his head like he wants to ask questions, but he just says, “There’s a pond nearby. I was gonna go mess around and skate tomorrow, if you want to.”
“Sure,” Clint agrees. “How did you – did you start playin’ when you were a kid?”
“Nah, never got a chance,” Jason says. “Always liked watchin’ it, but – no. Didn’t start until I was livin’ with Phil.” He hesitates before confessing, “I had a lot of anger issues, growin’ up. Which – I guess I had some good reasons to be angry, in retrospect. When I lived with – with my first guardian, the only outlet I had was… fighting.” He chose that word very carefully, and Clint wonders what he’s not saying. “I thought it helped, at the time, but now I’m not so sure?”
“You don’t seem…” Clint starts, but lets the words trail off.
“I’ve got my moments,” Jason says ruefully. Their fingers brush when he leans forward to take the joint, and Clint’s stomach does something delicious and fluttery. Jason smirks as he inhales and says, “This helps.”
“Sure,” Clint says, smiling. “But – you know.”
“Had to work at it.” He lets the smoke fall from his parted lips in thick curls like a slow-motion waterfall. Clint has to make a serious effort not to stare at his mouth as he continues, “Phil helped more. He got me… leveled out. Shitload’a therapy, and a dog, and – he made it pretty clear that fighting wouldn’t be an option anymore, so he helped me find a new outlet. Once I could pull it together and participate in shit without having panic attacks every five seconds, at least. Tried a few different sports. Hockey and soccer are my favorites. Hey, what size shoe d’you wear?”
“Uh,” Clint says, startled, and swallows a giggle. “Why do you ask?”
Jason smirks as he lines one of his feet up next to Clint’s, toe to heel, head tilted appraisingly. “Ice skates.”
“Oh.” He takes a too-big lungful of smoke, trying to fight the urge to make a suggestive comment about dick sizes, and promptly chokes.
“I’m breaking in a new pair, you can try my old ones.” Jason grins. “Size fourteen.”
Which is a half-size bigger than Clint’s – which sets him off on a spiral of oh god his dick must be huge – oh god don’t think about his dick – oh god is it obvious I’m thinking about his dick – Barton, you dummy –
Jason chuckles like he’s reading Clint’s mind, which only makes him wheeze harder as Jason leans over to relieve him of the joint. Clint’s fingers tingle where they brush again, and he ducks his head, unable to meet Jason’s eyes. Instead he pets Dog, whose tail thumps against the couch happily.
“He is, y’know,” Jason says, apropos of nothing.
Clint stares blankly at a spot just over Jason’s shoulder, wondering if his blush is visible in the low light. “Hm?”
“Phil. He’s glad you’re here. And... I ain't mad about it either." His teeth flash in Clint's peripherals as he grins.
Clint's glad he's not making direct eye contact; he might burn up from the inside, like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. His chest already feels like it’s glowing from the inside – or maybe that’s just the burn of his poor abused lungs.