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The Avengers happen, and suddenly Clint’s not going to die alone.
That’s obviously not the most important thing about the team; the Avengers happen, and people can sleep a little safer at night - the Avengers happen, and SHIELD gains a public face - whatever.
But it hits him about two weeks in, and he can’t let it go.
He’s known what his asexuality means for ages. It’s incredibly rare to have a life partner that you’re not in a sexual relationship with. Add to that that he’s also aromantic, and not even able to feel anything more than BFF for anybody, and his chances of finding somebody to spend his whole life with are about zip.
But with the Avengers, saving the world is more important than having one person that you enjoy sticking bits of anatomy into. Clint’s got the two smartest men on the planet, the Black Widow, Captain America and an honest-to-god god watching his back. They’re witty, hilarious, comforting - they’re sheer fun, and Clint hasn’t felt this good about his life in forever.
It’s like he’s been given everything he’s ever wanted. There’s always somebody in the kitchen when he goes in for breakfast. Somebody’s hogging the chocolate but still generously passing the popcorn every single movie night. Somebody’s buying the weirdest shampoo and Clint can steal it when he feels like something different, somebody stocks the pantry with teas and biscuits and food he’s never seen before, much less considered eating.
He’s got not just one life partner, but five, and it’s amazing.
Just because he can’t fall in love, it doesn’t mean he’ll be alone all his life.
Then, because it’s Clint, it starts falling apart.
~
It starts small.
It starts with dropping down to Tony’s private garage to see if he can fix Clint’s tablet. Granted, it’s broken because he was using it for target practice, but Tony’s always said he likes challenges, and Clint really wants to see the look on his face when he realizes his tech isn’t Clint-proof.
When he opens the door to the garage, he sees Steve and Tony bent over a motorcycle, Tony elbow-deep in its guts, Steve juggling about eight tools. Clint pauses in the doorway, grinning at the sight, as Steve manages to fish out the right tool every time. Clint’s never been one for engines, and everything Steve’s holding looks the same as everything else, but he recognizes something nice when he sees it. Because after the start on the helicarrier he’d heard about, they could have been at each other’s throats and just never stopped, and now, six months later, one of them could probably be dead.
But they’re not. They’re a team. It’s amazing how that word won’t go away.
It goes away, though – in fact all his words go away, when Tony revs the bike’s engine, he and Steve grin fit to crack their faces open, and then they kiss.
They kiss.
Because apparently kissing is the appropriate thing to do when a motorbike has been repaired. Apparently sucking up someone else’s saliva is celebratory. Apparently feeling something wet and slimy is just great.
Clint doesn’t get the appeal. He never has. It’s like a sixth sense that everybody else doesn’t even notice they’ve got, and then there’s Clint who can think of few things more disgusting than exposure to bodily fluids. But that’s okay. He’s used to that.
He’s just built wrong, and he can work around it.
He ducks back around the corner and listens carefully for an appropriate time to enter officially.
So, Steve and Tony. Steve and Tony are a thing. This little subset of the team - there’s Clint, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, and Steve and Tony. It’s stupid, but Clint’s gut clenches in fear. He’s going to lose everything. Because Stark Tower is technically still Tony’s house, and if he and Steve are a thing they’re going to want some privacy. A home of their own. No nosy friends knocking on the door all the time.
The whole team’s going to fall apart.
And that’s stupid because Steve’s the captain, he can’t just kick the team apart because he wants something stuffed up his ass, and Tony’s the most generous person Clint’s ever met. If they want privacy they can have a floor of their own. They’ll still show up to the communal areas. They’re a team first.
But now Clint’s thought about the alternatives, and he’s scared. Because he’s finally found something he really, really wants, and it’s all too possible that he can’t keep it.
~
Then Thor doesn’t show up for their weekly practice together.
Because he’s off in New Mexico visiting Jane Foster.
And when Tony says, “Visiting, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!” it’s just another crack in Clint’s idyll.
Because it’s plain stupid that Tony might chuck them back out of the Tower to be alone with Steve, but it’s completely reasonable that Thor would move in with the woman he actually loves.
Because nobody with a love would place their mere friends first.
And Thor isn’t part of SHIELD, doesn’t take Fury’s orders, is saving Earth on his own time and just happens to like the Avengers, so there’s nothing forcing him to stay in the Tower like the others.
And Clint likes Thor, he really likes him. Thor is funny and noble and strong and he can fly, which is just great, and after dealing with Loki he makes an effort to recognize somebody going through shit. He’s called Bruce up on his constant flight-or-fight response and he periodically carries Tony from the lab when he spends too long down there.
He doesn’t give Clint any trouble about using a bow, because bows are the epitome of hand-held long-range weaponry on Asgard. Clint finds that comforting.
Thor’s great, and Clint doesn’t want to lose him to somebody else.
Only that’s incredibly selfish of him, because Clint has no right to want Thor to be unhappy, stuck with his friends when he could be banging Dr. Foster, and Clint’s still got Natasha and Bruce and Steve and Tony (most of the time) and four roommates is more than enough for anyone.
Roommates. He hates that word, hates using it to describe what he wants, how he feels, because it’s so inadequate. The Avengers don’t just live together, as in ‘happen to occupy the same location’, they live together – they have a black market for trading chores around and they pull pranks on each other and they have movie night on Thursdays.
But roommates is the best he can do because companions sounds like something only Thor would say, friends is too casual and teammates too official.
Maybe there’s no word for what he wants precisely because it doesn’t exist.
Maybe that’s why Clint will never, never, ever, get what he wants.
~
When Clint drops to the couch, eyes shut, fingers aching, he should be alone. It’s three in the morning, after all, and everybody’s got to be asleep at this hour. Clint was, until one of his mind-control nightmares (he killed Fury this time) woke him up, and he went down to the range to shoot it out.
It took two hours.
But he feels better now, feels calm, knows that he’s clean, knows that Loki’s gone. Clint can’t shoot like that without knowing everything about himself, one hundred percent, and he can feel that there’s no-one in his head but him.
He can also feel the burn of slightly-overused muscles, the tingling in his fingertips from the string, but it feels good. Feels normal. Safe.
Feels so safe that he doesn’t bother to open his eyes when two people come into the room. Just listens, inhales, smells the faint edge of lavender and green tea and says, “Hey Nat, Bruce.”
“You still up?”
“No, I’m unconscious in bed as we speak.”
“Ah. So are we, obviously.”
The cushions dip as they sit either side of him, Nat to his left and Bruce to his right. Nat leans into his shoulder, tucking herself into a comfortable arrangement, and then just curls her whole body up against his. She has dreams, too, dreams worse than his because she has no excuse, there’s nothing in her but her and she betrays them all anyway.
But she trusts him enough to hold her in the aftermath and keep her safe while she sleeps again.
Clint turns away and speaks softly to Bruce. “So what’s disturbing you?”
Bruce laughs softly and ducks his head. “Who says anything’s disturbing me?”
“It’s three AM and you’re not Tony. Only reason you’d be awake at this hour is that you’re disturbed.”
“Tony’s actually sleeping for once. I think Steve’s good for him.”
Clint’s stomach twists and he says, “Yeah.” Yeah, Steve’s very good for Tony, and Clint has no right to feel like that’s bad for the rest of them. He trusts Steve and he trusts Tony, and he has to trust that they’re less greedy than Clint is. Has to trust that lovers can put up with friends hanging around.
He lets the ‘disturbed’ subject drop, after Bruce’s subtle deflection of it, but he’s right that Bruce is disturbed because there is no other reason that he should mirror Nat and cuddle into Clint’s side. Clint raises his arm to give him room, and lays it over Bruce’s shoulders to hold him close.
When he catches sight of their reflection in the window, he wonders how anyone could consider this sexual. They would - sex seems to be the first conclusion people leap to when any physical contact is involved - but it seems blindingly obvious to Clint that he’s comforting two of his best friends who can’t sleep. How could there be anything sexual in the curve of Nat’s spine as she tucks her head further into Clint’s chest, about the way Bruce’s mouth is dropping open, about the way Clint’s arms hold them both safe? Clint doesn’t get it. Clint doesn’t want to get it.
~
It’s just after that morning when things really start falling apart.
~
In the end, it was a miracle they survived.
Even Clint’s not sure when the fight started to turn around, but at some point there had been a change between the utter clusterfuck that was Thor pinned down, Clint out of ammo, Tony’s comm broken, Natasha bleeding everywhere, Hulk distracted somewhere miles away, and Steve disarmed, and the complete success that was the bad guys captured or dead, Natasha’s wound bandaged up, Hulk coming back, and the whole team dropping to the carpet in the communal living room.
Clint looks around, grinning like the rest of them, because odds are that at least one of them should be dead, but they’re not. Odds are they shouldn’t have been able to pull this off, but they did. Times like this, it’s really possible to believe this team is invincible. The team is forever.
And then Tony leans over and kisses Steve, hard. Clint still doesn’t understand that jump, but they’ve been making it more and more often and it’s really not that hard to look in another direction and ignore them.
Except Tony really draws attention when he stands up, pulls Steve to his feet, and says, “Anybody coming with?”
Which is weird, because from their body language they’d been sexually interested, so why would Tony be inviting the others to go with them somewhere else?
But then Clint sees Natasha’s leer and Thor’s intense gaze and Bruce’s blush, and, oh. Steve and Tony aren’t going somewhere else at all.
They just want to have sex with all of them.
Clint’s heart races. Is this a team thing? Is this something they’re meant to share together? The jump still doesn’t make sense, there is no logical reason that being glad they’re alive should lead to shoving bits of body into other people’s bodies, but the jump’s been made all the same.
And Thor and Natasha and Bruce are all standing up and Natasha’s actually taken Tony’s outstretched hand. Tony looks over her shoulder at Clint, and gives him a wink and a smile, flashing teeth. “Coming?”
Oh god, no. “Uh - no. Thanks. But I don’t think my ribs should be doing what they’re doing. I might actually be sensible and get someone from Medical to check them out.”
“Come on, Clint, it was your shot that saved my ass!”
“And I think I busted two more ribs taking it,” Clint lies. Anything to make him sound so injured he’s physically incapable of taking part. “I’m going to go be smart. Somewhere else.” He bites back don’t wait up, because they’re not going to be sleeping together in that way.
He’d love that, he’d absolutely adore it, he’d felt so fantastic that night when Nat and Bruce had both fallen asleep on him. He’d wrapped himself up in that trust and loyalty and the simple warmth of their bodies had been wonderful on its own. He’d like nothing more for them to all drop to the floor right here and sleep together, bickering over who gets the comfiest spots, death threats directed at anyone who snores, Tony complaining when Natasha tries to hide a knife under the pillow they’re sharing, Clint accidentally kicking Thor in the ribs and getting an immobilizing hug for his trouble, Steve telling people to go to sleep now, Bruce telling people to go to sleep now and them actually listening.
But that’s not what’s going to happen here, and they’d think he was crazy if he asked.
So he smiles, and limps carefully to the elevator. He’s totally not being left out of the team. No chance.
And even if he is, he doesn’t feel like it.
Clint’s never been good at lying to himself.
~
He ends up in Coulson’s office, because Coulson knows about his asexuality and he’s the only person Clint’s come out to who hasn’t said ‘what’s that?’ He’s also dealt with more of Clint’s shit than he cares to remember, and Clint has never felt judged or in any way less because of it.
Also, it’s Coulson. It’s just Coulson.
Which is why when Coulson looks up and asks what’s wrong, Clint says, “They’re all fucking each other,” and doesn’t even try to hide how broken his voice is.
Coulson puts down his pen, which tells Clint that they’re not Agents Coulson and Barton right now, they’re Phil and Clint. It means it’s okay for Clint to drop to the floor and lean his head back against the door. Phil sits down beside him and holds him close, the kind of hold that says I’m listening, that says it’s okay, that says I’m here for you and not the kind that says I want to shove something in your orifices.
“I thought we were just happy to be alive. We were all grinning at each other, and then Tony and Steve kissed, and then Tony asked if anybody wanted to come with them. And it was completely obvious what he meant. And the whole team went with them, and I had to lie about being too hurt to join in.”
“Why lie?”
“Come on, look at them! I can still tell that aesthetically, Thor and Steve and Nat are gorgeous and Tony and Bruce aren’t classically handsome but they’re still pretty attractive, and they’re all smart and brave and loyal, and in most people, that would add up to a pretty fair amount of attraction. How are these people going to take it as anything but an insult if I say ‘no, I don’t want to have sex with you’? Thor’s a prince, he’s probably used to having whoever he wants fall at his feet, and Tony’s just Tony, and Nat uses it as a weapon, and she never uses a weapon that’s not a hundred percent reliable unless she has no other choice. I just can’t see any of them taking rejection well.”
“And the fact that they’re your team doesn’t make a difference?”
“It makes it worse. Because Thor’s got Jane and Bruce has Betty and they still joined in anyway, and Tony and Steve are a thing but they invited the others to join them. It’s the team, and that’s overriding normal concerns like monogamy.”
But it’s not overriding asexuality, because that’s not normal. Clint’s got eyes, and he’s read the fanmail and watched the news and seen people staring at them. It’s like everybody wants to have sex with them, and how is Clint meant to say ‘not for me, thanks’?
“Have you talked to Bruce at all about this?”
“It was right before I left, I didn’t have time, and why would I talk to Bruce specifically?”
“Because the Hulk is partly triggered by a rise in heart rate and blood pressure.”
“So?”
“Sexual arousal increases both heart rate and blood pressure.”
Phil’s voice is perfectly level and not judgmental at all, but Clint still feels like he’s too stupid to get something that everybody knows. And he does know, most forms of physical activity do the same thing, it’s just that in Clint’s head, sex is never the answer no matter what the question is. “Okay.”
“Which makes it highly unlikely that Bruce is taking part either.”
Clint shakes his head, hard. “It’s not the same! He still wants it, he would if he could. It’s just making a call that it’s not safe.”
“Sounds much the same to me. Both of your bodies just won’t let you take part.”
It’s like the bottom drops out of Clint’s world. No, not quite, that’s too active, too disruptive, for what Clint is feeling. It’s more like the world turns to smoke, blowing away softly, ever so gently, leaving him floating in nothingness, numb and slow.
Because Phil doesn’t get it either.
What Clint feels is not the same as Bruce. Bruce would if he could, he’d probably join in with little things like touching the others. But Clint’s not even interested in that. Bruce wants it, and ‘want but can’t have’ is nothing like ‘doesn’t want at all’. Coulson’s wrong.
Coulson’s actually wrong.
And it just proves beyond a doubt that Clint can never, never, never tell the Avengers about this. Because if even Coulson can’t understand what it’s like, how can they?
“Okay,” Clint says, because protesting will mean that Coulson tries to keep helping, and that’s not going to do anything anymore. “I’ll go see if I can find him.” He stands up and opens the door before Coulson can stop him, and is far enough down the corridor before Coulson calls out that he can pretend not to hear him.
He’s running away and that’s ridiculous, because he’s Hawkeye and he’s meant to be better than this. But he can shoot down monsters and terrorists and, yes, gods, but there’s nothing he can do to shoot down something inside him.
He has that on very good authority.
~
He makes it back to Stark Tower in one piece, which is impressive considering he was driving in New York and doesn’t remember anything about it. Being that switched off should have turned him into a pancake. Maybe the universe figures it owes him a favor.
Unlikely.
He goes straight up to his room and locks the door, and then shoves a chair under the handle as if that will keep something out. There’s nobody even here except his team, and he’s never considered himself a prude, it’s not a symbolic gesture to keep the sex out, it’s just…
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t put the chair back, either.
He goes into the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror, stares at his face like he can find the part that makes him asexual. He’s heard people talking about gaydar, so there must be something in physical appearance or manner that gives sexuality away. Is it that set to his eyes, that professionalism that never turns off because there’s nothing worth turning it off for? Is it the lips, pale and thin? Apparently lips go red and swell when they’re kissed.
He looks, harder, harder, harder, because if he can find the right part then he can change it and go join in with his team like he’s supposed to. He shouldn’t have to leave himself out of team bonding, of any team event, ever, but he simply cannot take part in this one. But the obvious counterpoint doesn’t apply - he can’t expect them to stop just because he doesn’t want to join in. And he doesn’t want them to stop, they should be happy, they should be able to enjoy themselves.
For a second, he thinks that they probably would be happier if he joined in, because they are his friends and his team. Except it’s never going to happen, and goddamn it but the team’s going to break apart.
Sex is bonding, it’s important, and it’s got to be one hell of a glue keeping the team together. And Clint, unsticky, slippery Clint, is going to fall off the edge. He’s not superhuman, he’s just a sniper; would they go so far as to replace him with a sexual sniper? Maybe he’s the best at SHIELD, but SHIELD’s full of the best in the world. Would they settle for second-best if the new guy was a real part of the team?
If this becomes a regular event, if it becomes the normal post-mission debrief, Clint’s going to get noticed if he never goes. He’s got away with the sore ribs this time, and calling injury might work once more, especially if he goes straight to Medical from the site, but the third time, they’ll get suspicious. That’s if Nat doesn’t catch him out for going to Medical two missions in a row, since he’s usually pretty careful and far back from the action. Not to mention that Medical will know he’s not hurt.
And if Clint never attends what is probably the most binding team bonding exercise possible, he’s going to disrupt everything.
They’re a team, and that doesn’t work if someone’s always on the outside. Just doesn’t.
This isn’t about dying alone anymore, it isn’t about missing Bruce because he’s visiting his girlfriend, isn’t about having to talk to Tony later because he’s having private time with Steve right now. Clint can live with that stuff, he has to, but threatening the team is just not something he can be allowed to do.
His hands are cold and wet. He looks down, and he’s bracing himself against the bottom of the half-full sink, with the water still running. There’s an ache in the fingertips of his right hand; he turned the tap on a lot harder than necessary. The water’s already well past his wrists and it keeps rising, crawling up his forearms.
It’s almost overflowing when he finally turns the tap off and pulls his hands out. They’re dripping and white, starting to shake. These hands could be touching Thor or Natasha right now, could be holding Tony or Bruce or Steve, that would be wonderful, but the literal sense of the words is not what they had in mind and he’s so sick of being left out of his own life -
He grips the edge of the sink, leans forward, and shoves his head under as hard as he can.
Cold surges down his nose and it hurts. He blows all his air out because there’s no point in putting this off, and he’s dizzy and sore but he forces himself to think breathe and does -
~
His throat burns and then his head’s spinning and he’s gasping for air and staggering away from the water. It’s running out of his nose and flying out of his hair, and seeping into his shirt and spreading cold down his shoulders and chest and back.
And he just tried to kill himself.
But Clint laughs, spraying water across the room, laughs because at least he has proof that no matter how shit things are right now, there is a part of him somewhere, somewhere, that wants to live.
Besides, it’s laugh or cry right now, and he knows which one he prefers.
~
After he’s toweled off and drained the sink, he asks Jarvis where Bruce is.
He’s not following Coulson’s advice. It’s simply that Bruce is the only human company around right now, and given what Clint just tried to do, he probably shouldn’t be alone no matter how life-affirming it actually turned out to be.
“Doctor Banner is in Mister Stark’s room.”
Clint’s stomach curls up. Even he knows there’s only one reason why, at this time, Bruce would be in Tony’s room. He asks anyway. “And where are the others?”
“Mister Stark’s room.”
Glass cuts Clint’s skin as he slams a fist into the mirror. Coulson was wrong, again, and how did Clint not see this coming? Sex is important, sex breaks all the rules, Clint knows this, but it’s still hard to apply to all these situations. He just doesn’t think in sexual terms, but he lives in a sexual world, and the two don’t line up well.
He needs to know these things. He needs to know that SHIELD’s anti-fraternization regulation is the one broken most often. He needs to know that when a woman does this with her hip and that with her shoulder that she and the guy she’s addressing will go find some privacy. As a sniper, Clint can’t afford to be surprised by anything. He needs to anticipate his targets’ movements, needs to know where they’ll be at any given moment.
But he hates applying the mission headspace to his entire life. He doesn’t want to have to analyze his friends’ actions. He doesn’t want to have to calculate odds and listen carefully outside doors before he goes in. But he does.
He pulls his hand back, and more fragments of mirror fall to the tiles. Blood’s oozing out of the cuts and that’s going to be hard to explain but at least he hasn’t hit a major artery. He can probably get away with saying it’s an injury from the mission.
That reminds him of his original excuse, and he digs through the cabinets for bandages. Going off to Medical with sore ribs is going to look even more suspicious if he turns up with nothing on his ribs at all. He wraps his chest up first, angling a large chunk of mirror so he can see. He goes real slow, lining up the bandages nice and neat, so it looks like someone else did it for him. He cleans out the cuts on his hand and slaps butterfly strips over them. He rubs cream into his bruises and splashes disinfectant on anything breaking the skin.
The rest of the team is probably doing this for each other, right now. That’s the way it should be, really, helping each other out and getting a better job done than one person could manage alone. Except they’re probably kissing while they do it, or even having sex while they do it, or something like that, something Clint cannot be involved in.
He looks at himself in the mirror. How far is this going to go? He’s already lying to their faces about this. He’s already tried to kill himself.
This has to stop.
But he can’t tell them, and he can’t join in. So there’s nothing left but this hovering on the outside, orbiting them, part of the group but kind of not. He hates it.
But being alone would be worse. Having distant friends is better than having no friends at all. It’s not like sex is the only thing they ever do, they have breakfast together and train and watch bad movies. He is their friend, even if he’s not anything more, and that is going to have to be enough.
That’s all he’s ever wanted, to have friends, lifelong friends that he lived with, and that’s still true. It’s just that in his fantasies they were all friends, not five fuckbuddies plus him.
~
The next mission goes fairly easily. It’s a minor homegrown terrorist ring, and SHIELD’s only called in because one of the suspects is a Congressman’s nephew and it needs to be handled delicately.
So even if last time there was celebratory sex, there really shouldn’t be this time.
Except Clint’s life hates him.
When they come back together at the end, meeting outside one of the mobile ops vans, Tony kisses Thor before he even looks at Steve. Steve just spins and grabs Natasha, and Clint steps back before Bruce can even think about trying anything with him, because Bruce is fragile enough already and what will it do if Clint rejects him?
“Barton, I need a minute,” Coulson says from behind him, and dear god but Clint could kiss Coulson’s feet.
“Yes sir,” he says, thinking thank you sir, do you realize how much you just saved my ass? He turns away from the group to follow Coulson back to a different van, and waves jauntily over his shoulder. “You guys go on without me.”
Steve says “Are you sure?” and Natasha says “But you missed out last time, too!”
But it’s Tony who sends chills down Clint’s spine. “One day, Barton!”
No.
Please no.
~
Coulson’s save is way too close for comfort, because he didn’t overhear or really notice what was going on. He actually needs to talk to Clint about something completely unrelated and lets him go in under five minutes. Clint sends up another prayer of thanks that Coulson’s debriefs have a bad reputation, lengthwise, and the others didn’t wait around for him.
But it’s just too damn close to be allowed to happen again.
And he got away with the fake injury once, but Natasha’s got a sharp eye and Bruce is a trained medic, and they’re going to notice if he’s never actually hurt.
And that’s a terrible plan and he knows that, but if he knows that then he can’t be too badly off. It’s got to be worse when you’re doing stupid shit and don’t even know how mad you are, but Clint’s perfectly aware this is dodgy. But all he’s got are bad choices.
Because he doesn’t want to get kicked off the team, doesn’t want to face their disappointment if he tells them no, and definitely doesn’t want to deal with the fallout if he tells them why no.
So he goes with his plan.
~
It works like a charm.
~
Next mission, he picks a lookout, a balcony in a block of flats, that’s slightly lower than he’s used to - still high enough that he can do his job perfectly, of course, he’s just at the limit of his comfort zone.
They finish up and Steve tells him to stand down. Clint radios back acknowledgement, and takes a look for Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man.
They’re all way over at the other end of the street, and none of them are looking in his direction.
Perfect.
Clint goes to the low edge, radio on, scuffs his boot, shouts “Oh shit!” and topples over.
He slows his fall on the lower balconies as he goes past, a handhold here and there, but he can feel the strain in his arms and a sudden hot knife in his ankle when it hits a pot plant the wrong way.
He rolls into the fall and spreads out the impact, but it’s still hell on his back and shoulder. He lies still, finally, breathes slow and deep, in and out, and assesses himself.
His forearms are sore, but nothing extreme. His ankle will probably need ice, but not strapping, his back and shoulder will bruise like anything but he’s landed on grass here, so he might not even be bleeding. His body armor and the slowed fall have even prevented broken bones.
It’s absolutely brilliant. He’s definitely got to go to Medical and nobody’s going to expect him to take part in any kind of debriefing.
Clint’ll be on the team for just a little bit longer.
~
After that, there’s a sprained ankle, a very minor knife wound, and a dislocated finger that he didn’t actually intend. It’s been two months since he came up with the plan and he’s still around, so it’s working.
They’re concerned; of course they are. Clint getting hurt this much is a new thing, and they’re worried. They tell him to be more careful, to keep an eye on his back when they’re off somewhere else, to stop standing so close to the edge, goddammit Clint.
But if he can just keep this up, he’ll be fine.
~
That’s when a fall gets combined with a crunching tackle and he ends up in Medical with fractured ribs, on a morphine drip.
The Avengers are arrayed around his bed like guardian angels, which is sweet of them but completely unnecessary, especially since he’s guarding himself from them. He smiles at them and waves them off.
“C’mon, guys, you don’t have to be here, go have your orgy, it’s fine.”
Tony scowls, looking like one of those scary Chinese opera masks. “It’s the team orgy, Clint, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve never been there.”
“Come on, Tony,” Steve says, bumping Tony in the side. “Nobody’s blaming Clint for his bad luck.”
Thank god for that.
Clint waves his arms at them. “Seriously, don’t hang around for me, I’m fine, I have drugs and TV and I’ll just get some sleep.”
Tony shrugs. “Fine. Don’t exhaust yourself with the nurses.” The team forms up and streaks out the door. Thor lingers for a second, looking back, all serious and concerned, eyeing Clint with weird intensity before he’s gone too.
Huh.
His head’s floating. Yay.
~
He’s got a gash down one arm after the next mission several weeks later, but they drag him back to the tower to take care of it. There’s just no getting away from a determined Natasha with Thor backing her up, but Clint keeps moving his hand, making a fist and relaxing it again, increasing the bloodflow and making it look worse than it is.
They end up back in the communal lounge where Clint escaped the first time, and Bruce brings him a roll of bandages and a few sterile towels to mop up the spillage. The others are mostly fine, apart from Natasha’s busted ankle, but she says as long as they don’t make her stand up, she’ll be great, and they all grin at her.
Even Clint knows that during sex, one partner can be lying flat. It’s a good thing they’ve never called him on this before, because he’s had injuries that wouldn’t have prevented it.
He’ll have to be more selective in future, now that Nat’s not letting a sore ankle stop her.
The others come together, and Clint goes back to his used towel, picking it up and very carefully smearing the blood back onto his skin. He wants to be disgusting, nothing that they’d want near them. It’s not suspicious if he’s oozing all over the place.
He pushes aside the congealing blood in the wound, and starts flexing his hand again. The red rivulets get thicker.
He waves that arm when Tony and Bruce break a kiss and look at him, eyebrows raised. “Don’t think this is going to do me any good.”
Tony stabs a finger at him. “One day, Barton. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
Clint shrugs. “Sure,” he lies, feeling sick. Because one day it is going to come out, and it’s going to be awful.
He’ll be off the team, they’ll all hate him, they’ll replace him and he’ll be back at SHIELD and die alone in some tiny bed with nobody there who cares.
“I fear I shall be missing out on this occasion, too.”
Clint looks at Thor. Everyone looks at Thor. Thor’s always been really into this stuff, so why’s he pulling out now?
Thor blinks, and offers a weary smile. “It was a mighty battle, friends, and even your charms cannot keep me from my rest.”
They nod, understanding, because Thor’s cemented into the team, and the four of them move off.
Thor drops next to Clint, making the cushions bounce. Clint stops wiping the blood on himself now that Thor’s close enough to see what he’s doing, cleans it up properly and then reaches for the bandages.
Thor stares, something on his mind, his hands clenched together in his lap and his lips constantly parting like he’s about to speak. Clint just loops the bandage around his thumb to anchor it and starts winding it up his arm.
“This has to stop.”
“Huh?”
Thor’s hand comes down over his, pinning it and the roll of bandage to his arm. “I know what you are doing. It has to stop.”
But it can’t stop, it can’t, it’s the only way they haven’t found him out yet.
“Found out what?” Thor asks.
Oh, hell. Clint’s done a Tony.
He clears his throat. “Nothing. It’s stupid. I took some painkillers before. Ignore me.”
“You did not. Clint.”
Clint looks up and Thor’s face is right there, grave and stern. “I beg you, this once, be honest with me. Tell me why you cause harm to yourself.”
Clint laughs. “What are you talking about?”
Thor runs his finger parallel to the gash down Clint’s arm. “Tony disabled our robotic opponents and we assembled at the meeting point ten minutes later. This wound was but five minutes old when we did so.”
“Seriously?” What? All that Clint’s done and he’s going down to this? Because he picked up a robot arm and ripped himself up with it a couple minutes too late? How the hell can Thor date wounds to within a minute anyway?
It’s just not fair.
It’s not fucking fair.
And goddammit, none of this is, he’s lying to their faces about this and beating himself up and Thor doesn’t even know the half of it. “I tried to kill myself too, what do you think about that? How fucked up am I now?”
Thor shakes his big blond head. “That matters not.”
“What? Just, what? I stuck my head into my sink, okay, I tried to drown myself!”
“We live in a fortress,” Thor says, sternly, eyes sad where they’re fixed on Clint’s like guided missiles. “There is an armory not two minutes’ journey from here. You yourself are never without weapon to hand. If you wanted yourself dead, you would have succeeded.”
Wow.
Yeah.
“What you are succeeding at is this.” Thor runs his finger through Clint’s blood again. “And I want to know why.”
He could lie. He could say…
What? His mind’s like a black hole suddenly. There’s nothing there. He could say…
Or try…
The truth.
For once in his life, he could try the fucking truth. “Because I don’t want to sleep with you guys.”
Thor’s eyes widen and in any other place it would have been funny. “What?”
“Because it’s the only way I can avoid ruining the team. You guys all have the post-mission orgy, and you’re all really close and coordinated and in touch, and then there’s me. Way off at the edges. On my own. All the time. You’re not meant to know. I’m just too injured to take part, see? Like how you’re too tired.”
Except Thor’s been speaking pretty clearly for somebody too tired for minor physical activity.
Which means he’s lied to them too, just so he can speak to Clint.
“You think you will not be a part of this team if you do not have intercourse with us?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I do. Team bonding is so important that Fury faked Coulson’s death for it, okay, just to get us to play ball with each other. I’m skipping the biggest team bonding exercise ever invented and you’re going to replace me with somebody who can actually take part.”
Thor grabs his shoulders and leans over him. And then he blinks, his eyes go wet, and he lets Clint go and sinks back to the other end of the couch, breathing heavily. “I am shamed,” he says, voice rough. “I am shamed that my brother in arms would think that of me. That I would think sex so important that I will not accept him if he does not offer it.”
“Hey, big guy, it’s not your fault-”
“But it is. I allowed you to believe this. I caused this harm to you.”
“I-”
“This was self-defense, was it not? Against me, and what you believe I think of you.”
“It’s…”
Yeah. Yeah, it kind of is. He’s getting himself hurt so he won’t get kicked off the team. Yeah.
“Do you truly think so little of us?”
“Sex matters,” Clint explodes, and it just pours out of him like a burst dam. “Sex is important to people, they want it, it unites them, whatever. And I don’t want it. How dumb is that? It’s what the whole point of existence is, reproduction, and I don’t want it. Everybody wants sex except for me.”
Thor shakes his head. “That is not so.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes. Never once have I seen my brother express desire for anyone. Loki always gets what he wants, however long it takes, and he is not shy about it. He has never been reticent about his focus on his magical studies, despite what all Asgard thinks of him. It is perfectly obvious that Loki does not desire sex. And I think no less of him for that.”
“Bu-”
“Sex is a pleasurable activity like any other. Sparring, or watching a saga-”
“Movie.”
“Movie, with friends. And like any other activity, there are those it does not appeal to. I personally cannot comprehend the attraction of the sport of tennis, but there are those who are passionate about it without limit. Perhaps sex is more pleasurable than other activities, or nearer to universally liked. But there is no more shame in your lack of desire for sex than in mine for tennis.”
But it can’t be that easy. There’s no way it can just be that easy. Clint’s got reasons for all of this, he’s not just being stupid. “But what about your orgy? You can’t just ruin that for me.”
“Team events shall involve the whole team. There are other activities we can partake in, together. With my friends on Asgard, we would tell stories in a sauna room or the baths. You enjoy our team movie nights, do you not?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we shall share those activities after missions, instead. We are a team, Clint. We will not leave you on your own.”
“But - how can you just give up the sex? Nobody ever gives up sex. Sex,” and Clint huffs a laugh, “has been indirectly responsible for eighteen deaths in my time at SHIELD. Agents distracted by each other on missions. Not thinking clearly because their partner’s in danger. Not to mention that people say some guy choked to death on a vibrator while on assignment. People die for sex.”
Thor smirks. “Of course we will not stop. But it will not define the team. We will not allow it to. We will all be together after our battles, as a team, and keep personal business to our personal time.” The smirk fades. “This is our fault, Clint. We should have asked you if this was a thing you wanted. We should have noticed earlier. I should have…”
He’s clearly thinking of Loki, of ignoring all the warning signs until it was too late. Clint reaches out with his good arm and slaps Thor’s knee. “Hey. I’m not taking over planets here.”
“You are hurting and alone. It is little different.”
“It’s different enough, okay? I’m alright. You did notice.”
Thor noticed, despite everything Clint did to hide it. Hide everything. He might as well lay it all down. “It’s called asexual. What I am.”
Thor raises an eyebrow. “Your people have a word for this, and you thought yourself alone? You lack words for things you do not have. But there are others just like you, Clint. You are not unique in your feelings.”
Failings.
But somehow it’s small and stupid and doesn’t belong, because it’s okay. Thor’s right.
Damn, but Thor’s right. They’re a team. They’re still riding that buoyancy Clint had first felt, that the team was everything, could do everything. Team first, and sex second.
Or never.
That’s okay too.
Except there’s not just the team involved here, is there? Clint’s heart plummets again. “What about Jane?”
“What about her?”
“You’re not… love’s more important than friendship, even I know that, aren’t you going to move in with her instead? And Bruce has Betty and Steve and Tony are a thing, you’re all pairing off and you’re going to disappear.”
“You truly fear this.” Thor shakes his head again, sadly. “Clint. Tony is a generous host, and I enjoy all of your company. If I wish to live with Jane, she will be invited here. And if I go to join her instead, I will visit you, just as I visit her now. Love is not more important than friendship. It is different. There are times I would not wish to see my love and would rather be in the arms of my friends instead.” He looks up sharply. “And I do not mean that in sexual terms.”
But it can’t be this easy. “But…”
“Your thoughts are full of fear. You cannot see this clearly. But trust me when I say that you will not be alone. We, your friends, will not allow it. There is room in all hearts for more than one other, and you will always have a place in all of ours.”
Always.
He has a place.
Friends.
Thor’s had a thousand years to work this shit out. He knows what he’s talking about. And Clint’s just an idiot.
He sucks in a breath. He needs to stop being an idiot about this and just take it. Hell, take it with both hands and never let it go.
“Right. Thanks.”
“Shall we speak to the others tomorrow?”
Clint scoffs. “I’m not speaking to them now.”
Thor laughs, and shifts across the couch, grabbing Clint and turning him around and settling again, with Clint’s back pressed to Thor’s chest and Thor hugging him, arms solid around Clint’s waist. He takes the roll of bandage in hand again, and wipes the self-inflicted wound from sight.