Archive of Our Own

Clint blinked at his computer blearily, the screen blurring for a second before he looked away and scrubbed his face roughly. It was enough to refocus him on the task at hand, namely finishing his report so he could finally get some proper sleep. The three meagre hours he had gotten on the transport back had helped him through the mandatory medical and debriefing with Sitwell and Hill, but now that he was in his quarters he could feel himself fading fast.

The op had been a complete clusterfuck. Sitwell had done what he could, but then no one could have predicted that a car would lose control and crash into the parked SHIELD van where the strike team had been awaiting Clint’s green light, or that a carefully planned extraction would turn into a free-for-all between rival gangs. In the chaos that had followed, Clint and the two agents Sitwell had saddled him with – his so-called back-up – had been cut off from the ground team and left to fend for themselves until they could make it to the rendezvous point.

It had taken them close to thirty-five hours, and during that time Clint had caught himself thinking more than once that things would have been a lot easier had he been on his own instead of responsible for keeping two agents on their first field assignment alive. To be fair, past the initial freak-out – which Clint hadn’t hold against them – Abrahams and Jin had handled themselves reasonably well, doing what he told them when he told them without asking stupid questions. Still Clint had never been happier to see Sitwell and the rest of the – slightly banged-up – team than when they had met up at the extraction point, and he had handed his charges over with much relief.

He was writing a side-note on the two rookies’ field work when someone knocked. Clint groaned – he just wanted to finish this and go to sleep already –, but before he could tell them to go away whoever it was had already pushed the door open. Clint tensed reflexively and then relaxed almost immediately – just Natasha.

“Hey,” he said with a tired smile. “Thought you were out.”

The two of them had something of a system in place: when they weren’t in the field together they stopped by the other’s quarters to let them know they had made it back okay. A text message would have been easier, but they both tended to downplay injuries and so a visual confirmation had been put in place. It had used to include Phil too, but it was a moot point more often than not these days – he usually went in the field with one if not both of them. And when he didn’t, well, Phil always did know everything.

It wasn’t a flawless system by far, and when Natasha hadn’t answered his knock earlier Clint had assumed she was busy elsewhere or out on assignment. He would have found out eventually – she obviously had.

“I was at the gym,” she told him, sitting sideways at the head of the bed with her back against the wall. Clint yawned. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I’ve got to finish this,” he said, nodding at his half-completed report, and she rolled her eyes at him.

“You know Sitwell won’t care if you send it tomorrow. He’s probably asleep already.”

Clint gave her a one-shoulder shrug. She was probably right. But if there was one thing Clint took pride in it was being good at his job. Filing a mission report with his supervisory agent within twelve hours of being back on base was part of his job – not one he particularly enjoyed, granted, and maybe only junior agents actively tried to meet that deadline, but it helped Clint put the mission behind him. Natasha knew that.

“Suit yourself,” she said, picking up a book from his bedside table and flipping through the first pages. Apparently satisfied with her selection she settled down more comfortably and started reading while Clint went back to his report.

Thirty minutes later his eyes were hurting when he finally hit send. He turned the computer off and dragged himself across the few feet that separated the desk from the bed, flopping down gratefully. His feet dangled off the far end, and he scowled half-heartedly at the ceiling. That wouldn’t do.

He poked Natasha until she deigned to move, sitting against the headboard instead. With a satisfied sigh Clint moved up the bed, his feet firmly back over mattress. He was still missing his pillow – Nat must have stolen it – but he could live with that.

“Dinner?” he asked through a yawn, and Natasha snorted.

“Sleep,” she said firmly and he hummed in response, his eyes already closing.

He startled awake a few hours later, his heart pounding with the remnants of an old nightmare. Natasha was still there, her fingers tracing idle circles in his hair. It was nice – soothing – and Clint thought he mumbled something to that effect unintelligibly.

“Go back to sleep,” she told him but she didn’t stop, and so he did.

The next time Clint woke up, it was a little after 6 am and Natasha was gone. It was easy to swallow the disappointment – he had had a lot of practice.

For a brief moment, he considered getting a few more hours of sleep – he didn’t have anywhere to be until mid-afternoon, and who knew when he would next get to sleep in –, but then his stomach growled at him, making the decision for him.

The shower finished waking him up properly, and once he was ready Clint looked at the clock again and nodded to himself. Phil should be around. Nat could join them when she woke up.

The door to Phil’s office was open, and Clint leaned against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, surveying the scene. From the looks of it Phil had slept on base. Again. Sometimes Clint wondered why he bothered keeping an apartment given how little time he actually spent there, but he wasn’t about to complain – he liked Phil’s apartment. Liked knowing there was a place he could go to on his rare days off when he was bored out of his mind and the walls of his room started closing in on him.

“Morning,” he said, and Phil stopped stashing his clothes from the day before into a bag long enough to give him a smile.

“Good morning, Clint.”

“Wanna grab breakfast?”

Phil looked from him to the forlorn cup of coffee waiting for him on his desk, and Clint raised an unimpressed eyebrow. They had had that conversation before. Coffee did not qualify as breakfast.

“Sure,” Phil said, giving in with a wry smile.

He still took his coffee with him, surrendering it to Clint long enough to shove his blanket back under the couch, and Clint absently took a sip from it while Phil finished putting his office back to its original order. He winced – he had never been a huge fan of coffee, but somehow it was always worse when Phil brewed it. Because that? Was just disgusting.

Phil rolled his eyes at him and closed the door behind them before rescuing his mug.

“You always do that,” he commented, amusement lacing the words, and Clint shrugged.

“I was hoping someone had been to the break room before you this morning.”

Clearly he should have known better.

They walked to the cafeteria in companionable silence, their arms brushing together every now and then, and Clint found himself smiling at nothing in particular before he caught himself and managed to school his expression to something a little less revealing. He was slipping.

It was still early and they found seats easily after loading their tray. It had been way too long since Clint had had a full meal – MREs really didn’t count –, and Phil was nice enough to let him inhale half the content of his plate before he said:

“I hear you have new fans.”

Clint looked at him uncomprehendingly – fans? What fans? –, and Phil inclined his head slightly to the right, Clint following the movement with his eyes.

Oh.

Abrahams waved at him enthusiastically from his seat, looking a little worse for wear, and Jin elbowed him none too gently, trying to look dignified as she nodded at Clint. She wasn’t entirely successful.

He nodded back at them and quickly turned his attention back to Phil, trying to ignore the whispers coming from the other table. It would probably have been easier if Phil hadn’t been finding the situation so entertaining, laughter dancing in his eyes.

Clint glared helplessly at his plate, feeling his face heat up. God, it was embarrassing.

“Hey,” Phil said, leaning forward to grasp his wrist and startling him into looking up. The laughter had been replaced by concern. “You okay?”

Clint nodded again, annoyed at himself. It was just… he didn’t like being in the spotlight. It made him uncomfortable when people were grateful or tried to thank him for something he didn’t feel deserved thanks.

“I was just doing my job,” he mumbled, poking at his food, and Phil squeezed his wrist once before letting go.

“I know you were. So do they. It’ll die down.”

“Can I hide in your office until it does?” Clint joked in an attempt to lighten the mood – of course it would probably have had a better chance of working if that hadn’t been how he had dealt with the situation the last time around. But Phil smiled obligingly, and when Natasha sat down next to them a few minutes later, bumping her shoulder against Clint’s in a silent show of support and smiling at Phil, Clint was feeling much better.

He still hid in Phil’s office though.

---

The gossip died down eventually, and a month later the three of them found themselves in St Petersburg, holed up in a small apartment and waiting for their mark to make his move. Their building was old, and the heating system rather subpar, which kinda sucked because it may be April but it was freaking cold. It was worse at night, but they had long grown used to piling up in bed together to keep warm, and Clint was thankful they didn’t need to keep watch.

They had been there a – very boring – week when Natasha finally got word from one of her contacts that their mark would be hosting a party on the following Saturday. It was what they had been waiting for: she and Phil would infiltrate it and gain access to the man’s laptop while Clint covered them from the opposite building – far from ideal, but it would have to do. They needed the intel, and no one could know it had been compromised.

“I’m going to do one last recon,” Clint told Phil on the evening before the op. He wanted to double-check his position one last time. They knew it wasn’t necessary – they were all set for the op – but Clint liked to make sure, especially when Nat’s and Phil’s safety was on the line.

Phil waved his assent without looking up from his computer, and Clint was putting on his coat when Natasha emerged from the bedroom.

“It’s going to rain,” she said with a slight frown, and Clint shrugged.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He set out at a brisk pace in the vain hope that it would keep him warm – his training may have taught him to ignore physical discomfort but that didn’t mean he had to like it. So he focused on the task at hand and checked his watch, nodding to himself approvingly: it was almost nine in the evening, roughly the time Nat and Phil would go in the next day. Checking regularly for a tail, Clint quickly neared his position and took a right turn into an alley, climbing to the roof to get to his perch. So far so good.

He had been in place for less than ten minutes, checking angles and lines of sight and worrying about lights when it started to rain. It was only a mild annoyance at first, and Clint ignored it – and kept on ignoring it, until the rain turned into a torrent and he got soaked through within seconds. He would have gritted his teeth and pushed through it except the rain was so thick he could barely see the tip of his arrow, never mind the target’s windows. So he gave up with a frustrated curse, grateful that at least the weather forecast for the next day was clear, and packed up his things.

He made his way back to the safe house in record time, slipping inside silently. The abrupt change in temperatures made him shiver as he shrugged off his coat, and then he stepped into the living room and went abruptly still.

It was empty.

Phil’s computer was still running in a corner, an untouched cup of coffee next to it, and Clint took out his sidearm, ignoring the small voice at the back of his mind telling him he was probably overreacting. In their line of work a little paranoia didn’t hurt – it was the opposite that usually got someone killed.

Scanning the room carefully, Clint found no signs of a struggle, and he was about to move on to the rest of the apartment when a moan coming from the bedroom stopped him in his tracks.

That sounded a lot like Natasha.

A muffled voice – Phil’s? – said something Clint couldn’t make out and then there was laughter – Natasha’s, definitely – that transformed into another moan.

Oh.

Oh.

Clint felt himself go very hot and very cold in quick successions, standing frozen in the hallway.

What was he supposed to do?

It was obvious they had done this before, but they hadn’t told him and so it stood to reason that they must not want him to know – something Clint didn’t want to think about too closely.

He could turn around and leave, come back in an hour or so and pretend he had never been there, never heard a thing. But Clint was no good at undercover work for a reason, and they both knew him too well not to figure out something was up the second he would come through the door. Besides it was still raining and Clint was dripping cold water all over the floor. He could really use a shower.

Decision made and mind carefully blank, he headed for the bathroom, thankful for the first time that the bedroom was too small to house both the bed and their bags and still allow them to circulate. As a result they had stored their things in a corner of the living room, and that enabled Clint to grab dry clothes from his bag without worrying about interrupting.

The pipes whined loudly as he turned the water on as hot as it’d go. They’d know he was back now – there was no way they hadn’t heard that – and the thought sent an irrational spike of panic through Clint. He forced himself to go through the motions, hanging his wet clothes to dry and stepping into the shower. The water was only lukewarm, and he knew from past experience it wasn’t going to get any warmer, but it was still a relief after the freezing rain, and the shivers slowly subsided.

All the while he desperately tried not to think about anything at all.

He failed miserably.

It made perfect sense, in a way. Natasha had a million issues with intimacy – up to and including sex – and Clint did what he could to help when she let him, but Phil… Phil was safe and trustworthy and normal in a way neither of them was. He’d had three semi long-term relationships since Clint had known him, something of a record at SHIELD where most relationships with outsiders burned to the ground as soon as the foundations came up. It was the nature of the job, but Phil somehow managed to make it work, and Clint thought maybe Natasha needed that kind of stability.

When the water went from lukewarm to almost cold, Clint reluctantly turned it off. The dry clothes were a relief, and if he spent longer than usual straightening things out, well… Eventually he just couldn’t stall anymore and so he steeled himself and left the bathroom, but his delaying tactics turned out to have been for nothing: the living room was still empty, and the door to the bedroom still closed.

He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, not bothering trying to be quiet – the cat was out of the bag, but if they wanted to ignore it that was fine by him. Indeed the sounds of the water boiling and mugs clinking together didn’t draw them out of the bedroom, and by the time Clint went into the living room the apartment was back to being eerily silent. He sat down on the couch, drawing his knees up against his chest with his mug tucked precariously in-between, and let its warmth seep through his clothes, almost too hot, making him shiver.

He was happy for them. Really, he was. They both deserved to have someone. And Clint, well, Clint had never learned to be selfish, having spent too many of his formative years without anything that was his alone. He was used to sharing.

Clint didn’t have a lot in his life that truly mattered: he had his aim and his mind and SHIELD, and he had Phil and Natasha. It would be easy to misconstrue the latter two as being just part of SHIELD – they were, and they weren’t –, but while the job gave him purpose, Nat and Phil kept him human. He loved them for that, more than he had ever thought possible, and he was so fucking grateful to have them in his life that as long as he had that, nothing else mattered.

Still, he couldn’t shake the half-terrified thought that they were leaving him behind. Because they hadn’t said anything, hadn’t bothered to tell him, and he couldn’t figure out why. Did they think he would mind? That he would be upset? If he was perfectly honest with himself, maybe he was, a little, but Clint had a long history of wanting things he couldn’t have. He was used to it, and he would have gotten used to that too. No, if he was upset it was because they had lied to him, by omission if nothing else – that was what made his chest hurt with something like betrayal.

He closed his eyes and tried to find sleep – at least then he would stop thinking about it –, eventually managing a light doze, and when Natasha came to get him he startled so badly that only their combined reflexes saved the still half-full mug from ending on the floor.

“Come to bed,” she said and Clint refused to meet her eyes.

“I can sleep on the couch,” he mumbled, staring at the content of the mug as if it held the meaning of the universe.

“You’re freezing. Come to bed.”

So he did.

It was like any other night, the three of them sandwiched on the bed with Clint in the middle because Natasha didn’t like to feel boxed in and Phil usually worked late and went to bed after they did. It was also nothing like any other night, and it took Clint a long time to fall asleep.

They didn’t talk about it the next day. It was neither the time nor the place – they had a job to do – but it hung over them in every look Phil and Natasha shared and in every clipped update Clint gave.

Regardless of everything else they still worked seamlessly together and the mission went without a hitch. By the time they got back to HQ some fifteen hours later, Clint had cycled from hurt to angry and back again so many times that he just wanted to go to his quarters and try to make some sense of it all. But there was still the debriefing to go through and he knew Phil would want to talk afterwards – he was pretty sure it would be Phil. Tackling things head-on wasn’t really Nat’s style.

Clint, it turned out, was right on target: on his way out of the meeting room, the man stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Clint, my office, please?”

“I have to write my mission report,” he said, which was entirely accurate.

“It’ll keep.”

“Fine.”

He walked with Phil to his office, keeping a step behind rather than walking side and side. Silence followed them inside and Clint stared stubbornly at his hands, waiting for Phil to start.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you,” Phil finally said and Clint couldn’t quite hide the flinch. Phil rarely missed either.

“How long has it been?” he asked tonelessly.

“Three months.”

Clint nodded to himself, thinking back to three months ago and coming up empty. It made sense, he supposed. Post-mission sex happened; they all knew the desperate urge to forget everything that went wrong, or the high when everything went right. But it was never more than a one-time thing – Clint knew that better than anyone –, and what they had… That wasn’t it. Besides, he highly doubted Phil would have taken Natasha to bed after a bad mission even if she had asked. He’d have been too concerned with her state of mind for that.

“Why didn’t you – tell me, I mean.”

“Natasha wasn’t ready to tell anyone,” Phil said and winced at his choice of words, looking like he wanted to take it back.

Clint… Well, Clint understood. Of course he understood. That right there was the one reason that made it impossible for him to stay mad at either of them. Telling someone made it real, which Natasha must find terrifying, no matter how much she liked to pretend she wasn’t scared of anything. Still…

Clint wasn’t supposed to be anyone.

He swallowed past the hurt and briefly looked up from his hands to focus on a spot by Phil’s head.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Phil sounded almost surprised, and Clint shrugged. What else was he supposed to say?

“It won’t affect our work,” Phil pressed and Clint almost rolled his eyes.

“I know.”

He did. But it wasn’t the work part he was worried about, it was everything else. It was all the times he had gone looking for company in the past three months and hadn’t found either of them. He hadn’t thought anything of it then – they were all busy –, but looking back now he couldn’t help but draw a few unwelcomed conclusions. It was like that one time when Phil had had a steady girlfriend before Natasha had joined SHIELD, except in worse. Clint had had more time to grow used to not being alone since then.

Maybe he had learned how to be selfish after all.

He couldn’t tell Phil. The last thing he wanted was to become a burden – or worse, an obligation – to either of them. He wanted them to spend time with him because they wanted to, not because they had to.

He didn’t know whether he would be able to tell the difference though.

“That all?” he asked.

“Yes,” Phil said, sounding frustrated, like he did when he was trying to get a point across and his audience just wasn’t getting it – not a tone he had ever had to direct at Clint before, and that stung too.

Clint stood and turned to leave, pausing with his hand on the door handle.

“I’m happy for you,” he offered, a little awkward, and he would have left it at that except Phil’s “Are you?” shocked him enough that he turned back and finally met his eyes. Because Phil, Phil didn’t sound sure, and Jesus, what?

“Of course I am,” Clint said, dimly aware that he sounded horrified that Phil would even think otherwise, and the man had the good grace of looking embarrassed.

“Okay, good.” Phil smiled, more tentative than Clint had ever seen on him. “Thank you.”

Clint nodded abruptly and left without another word. He was halfway between Phil’s office and his quarters when he had something of an epiphany: Phil had thought he would be jealous.

He almost wished it was that simple.

He wasn’t remotely surprised to find Natasha waiting for him in his room, sitting cross-legged on the bed. She had turned his computer on and a blank form was waiting for him on the screen, the message clear enough. So Clint sat down, typed his mission report and sent it to Phil. Through it all Natasha stayed put, watching him quietly. She knew the moment he had logged off, and didn’t let him delay things any further.

“Come to bed,” she said and Clint snorted humourlessly. He could see why Phil may have gotten the wrong idea.

He didn’t know why Natasha touched him as much as she did. Up ‘til now he had thought it was her way of getting some form of physical contact without having to worry about sex if she wasn’t ready for it, but with Phil in the picture he just wasn’t sure anymore. Surely she didn’t need him anymore, did she?

But she had asked, and so Clint got into bed, facing the wall to avoid looking at her. Natasha wrapped an arm around his chest, her hand resting over his heart, and for long minutes nothing happened. In fact Clint was starting to think that maybe they were just going to ignore everything when Nat’s hand began sliding down in an unmistakable gesture. The intent was clear, and yet Clint had a split second of absolute incomprehension before he grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

“Nat, what the hell?” he barked, because he’d take all the exhausting conversations about their feelings over this, whatever it was.

“Isn’t it what you want?” she asked, deadly calm.

Clint laughed, the sound harsh and bitter.

“No, it’s really really not.”

It was, and she knew it – Natasha had made a living of figuring out what people wanted. Which was why Clint had never made a move, because he had figured she would if she ever wanted to. She hadn’t, and Clint had been fine with that. He certainly was not fine with this though. What the hell?

“My apologies,” she said woodenly, tugging sharply, and Clint released her hand.

She shifted behind him to lay stiffly on her other side, her back to Clint’s. He was both relieved and not that she hadn’t left entirely, because this was one big mess and they had to fix it. Natasha hadn’t tried to use sex to get her way since two months after she had joined SHIELD, when it had been made clear to her that it wasn’t acceptable behaviour and anyone trying to tell her otherwise should be reported immediately. What Clint remembered most about that day was how fucking relieved she had looked and how hard she had tried to hide it, and he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions if he ever found out anyone at SHIELD had slept with her during those two months. Nat would be pissed at him but it would be worth it.

Turning around, Clint placed a careful arm around her, watching closely for any sign that it wasn’t welcomed. But she leaned back against him, one hand coming up to grasp his forearm, and Clint sighed. They would be okay.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m happy for you.” He was starting to sound like a broken record but clearly it needed to be said, so he’d keep saying it until Nat and Phil believed it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Silence, then:

“I don’t know what he wants,” she confessed softly.

“Have you tried asking him?” Clint asked, because he knew Phil and the man could be extremely close-mouthed at times. He wouldn’t ask for anything, not if he was unsure of where Natasha’s boundaries were.

She shrugged, but she was listening so Clint went on.

“You could do this –” he tightened his embrace briefly to show her what he meant, “– if you want to, that is. He’d like that.”

“Yeah, okay. You don’t mind?”

“Nah.”

He dropped a kiss to her temple and closed his eyes.

“Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t let me hurt him?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

The last of the tension went out of her, his promise somehow making everything better. Her faith in him was both humbling and terrifying, and he wouldn’t let them down. He never had before.

Later, as he started to drift to sleep, he thought he heard her whisper:

“Don’t let me hurt you either.”

He made a vague noise of assent, but he was asleep before his brain could process the words.

---

It took them a while to find balance. Things almost got weird with Phil, but Clint was stubborn and wouldn’t let them, so they didn’t. It wasn’t the same as before, but it wasn’t necessarily worse either – it was just different.

It didn’t always go smoothly, and there were setbacks every now and then. On one memorable occasion, Natasha forgot to tell Clint she had made it back okay after going missing for four days, going straight to Phil’s apartment after her debriefing. Clint found out the next day, when he showed at Phil’s as agreed to commiserate (read: worry), and the man opened his door looking dishevelled.

It was clear Phil wasn’t expecting him after all.

It was also clear Clint was interrupting, which he had been trying really hard not to do, giving Phil and Nat as much space as he thought they needed. But what could he possibly be interrupting when Natasha was–

He got it half a second before Phil.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean–” He ran out of words, taking a step back and another, and Phil reached out towards him with a complicated expression on his face that Clint couldn’t quite read.

“Clint, wait,” he started to say but Clint shook his head.

“No, it’s fine, don’t worry about it, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Phil may have tried to say something else after that, but Clint had reached the door to the staircase and he pushed himself through it before he could hear it – before he did something he’d regret later, like barge into Phil’s apartment and yell at Natasha for worrying him sick and not rating a damn text message to tell him she was still alive.

Instead he went back to base and spent hours at the range until Sitwell came and told him to stop already. Clint was pretty sure Phil had sent him, and so he didn’t protest too much when the man dragged him away with: “It’s your day off, Barton, you’re supposed to take it easy”. Shooting at stationary targets in an indoor range was taking it easy, Clint refrained from pointing out, but he still went back to his room. He was half expecting to find Natasha there, but it turned out to be just as empty as when he had left it that morning. He stared at the ceiling for a very long time.

He didn’t speak to Natasha for a week.

Granted, over two thirds of that was spent on a last minute assignment when pieces unexpectedly fell into place and Clint found himself on a transport at 4 the next morning, looking blearily at Phil.

“Sorry about yesterday,” he mumbled through a yawn – he didn’t show up at Phil’s when he thought Nat was there, it just didn’t seem right – and Phil got that complicated look again.

“Don’t apologise. Clint, you didn’t have to leave. You’re always welcome.”

“I’m pretty sure staying would have involved a lot of yelling.” Clint rubbed his eyes, trying to wake himself up – not that there was much point to that: they wouldn’t be on scene for at least five more hours, he should probably go back to sleep instead.

“There was plenty of yelling going on even without you there, believe me,” Phil said and Clint shook his head sharply. The last thing he wanted was for them to fight about him.

“Don’t –” he started, but Phil interrupted with a tight voice:

“Clint, how do you think we would feel if you came back from being MIA and we didn’t find out about it until the next day? It wasn’t okay, Natasha knows it wasn’t okay, and I’m sorry. I thought she had told you, you two always –”

“It’s not worth fighting over,” Clint argued over him, and Phil’s face softened.

“We’re fine, Clint. We’re going to argue from time to time, it’s not the end of the world.”

Phil’s phone rang, loud and intrusive, but he waited for some sign of agreement from Clint before glancing at it.

“Try to get some sleep,” he added once Clint had nodded, and then, in his phone: “Coulson.”

Clint tried to follow the one-sided conversation and woke up three hours later, his face smashed against Phil’s shoulder. He allowed himself half a minute to enjoy it before he pushed himself upright.

“Morning,” he said, stretching. “I don’t suppose they serve breakfast on this thing.”

“We’ll grab something when we land,” Phil answered absently and handed him a file.

Clint took it and settled down to read. It looked like it was going to be a fun one.

In the end Natasha apologised stiffly – she was out of practice –, and Clint pretended everything was fine. They both knew he was lying but what was done was done and there was no point in dragging it out. He was always going to forgive her anyway.

All in all, Clint was fine. Maybe he saw less of Nat and Phil on his downtime than he would have liked or was used to, but he had gotten used to that. He had a new routine to keep himself busy, and he thought he was managing fairly well. Really.

SHIELD didn’t care though: two of their best snipers were out of commission due to broken limbs, and Clint found himself in high demand and assigned back-to-back missions. He barely saw the insides of his own quarters for what felt like months, never mind Phil and Natasha, and how well he was doing hardly mattered anymore. It was exhausting work, and Clint wasn’t all that surprised to wake up in Medical one day with no idea of how he had gotten there. His throat hurt – a feeling he unfortunately recognized as a sign he had been intubated until recently – and so did his chest, a dull throb that made him wince even with the painkillers running through his veins.

Natasha was sitting next to him and glaring at the wall, and her attention snapped to him when he shifted on the bed with a low groan.

“What happened?” he rasped, setting off a coughing fit. Last thing he remembered he had been on a rooftop in Mexico City, backing Perry’s team as they took down an arms dealer. Wait, no, that wasn’t entirely true. He remembered waking up in Medical once or twice before this, though he hadn’t been entirely coherent at the time.

“You got shot,” Natasha said succinctly, shoving a glass of water in his face. He took careful sips from it and leaned back against his pillow, already tired from the small effort.

“That would do it, I suppose.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “How did the mission go?”

“Fine.”

He cracked an eye open to look at her quizzically.

“You okay?” he asked with a slight frown.

“You should have had backup.”

“Nat…”

“I have a briefing to go to.” She stood up abruptly and left without another word, Clint staring after her in bewilderment.

Natasha must have mentioned to the nurse on duty that Clint was awake on her way out, because what seemed like half of the medical staff soon descended on him to reassure themselves that Clint remembered the name of the president and had all his reflexes – among other things. By the time they left him alone he was exhausted.

The next time he woke up Phil was sitting in Natasha’s spot.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when he saw Clint was awake.

“Not much,” Clint admitted. “I think Natasha’s pissed at me though. Sorry.”

Phil smiled wryly.

“You did get shot. Besides she’s more pissed at Perry, believe me.”

“Perry’s a good guy.”

“Clint, no one noticed you had gone off comm. You almost bled out on the roof with a SHIELD team less than fifty feet away.”

Clint winced. Okay, that sounded bad. Come to think of it, Phil was looking a little angry too, and Clint suddenly became engrossed in the bed sheets.

“Hey,” Phil said, forcing Clint’s attention back on him with a hand on his arm. “You did your job. No one is blaming you.”

Clint raised a dubious eyebrow at him.

“Okay, no one except Natasha is blaming you,” Phil amended.

“You got shot.” Natasha’s voice drifted in from the next cubicle, and Clint rolled his eyes at her when she appeared behind Phil, leaning against his side for a few seconds before hopping on the bed by Clint’s feet.

“You got stabbed three months ago,” he pointed out. “And Phil got shot last year.” It was just one of the perks of the job.

“And you got pissed at us.”

“I didn’t get pissed at you, I got pissed at Phil,” he corrected, “because Phil changed position without telling me and I almost blew him up. And then he got shot.”

“Let’s not get into that again,” Phil interjected before the argument could get out of hand. It was an old and familiar one.

Natasha poked at Clint’s legs and he gave in with a grumble, making more room for her.

“You should have seen Phil,” she said with relish. “First he yelled at Perry, and then he read Hill the riot act for not giving you the mandatory downtime between missions.”

Clint glanced at Phil, who seemed to be finding his tablet very interesting all of a sudden.

“Do tell me more,” he said with a yawn.

“Maybe we should let Clint rest,” Phil countered, but Clint won this one.

When he eventually fell back to sleep, it was to the sound of Natasha’s voice telling the epic tale of Phil’s showdown with Maria, complete with frequent interruptions from Phil trying to keep things in proportion. Clint wasn’t sure, but he thought he may be smiling.

Then – because he just couldn’t catch a break – Phil decided to play matchmaker.

Clint was sitting in Phil’s office with carefully organised piles around him – there was a system, hands off, Phil. The man had a gut feeling that there was a link between the files, but so far their analysts hadn’t found anything. Since Clint was still side-lined from the gunshot wound, Phil had asked him to take a look on the off-chance he would find a connection.

So far Clint had discarded a few files, but he thought Phil may be on to something for the rest of them. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it yet but it was slowly coming together. He looked at his notes, gnawing on his pencil as he thought, and then hunted through the files for something he had read earlier.

“Clint, can I ask you a question?” Phil said suddenly – or maybe not so suddenly. Clint was never not attuned to his surroundings, even when it was Phil, and he had been peripherally aware that Phil had stopped typing a couple of minutes ago.

“Uh-uh.” He jotted down a few things, more focused on the pattern that was emerging than the conversation.

“Why don’t you date?”

“Date who?” he asked distractedly.

“Well, anyone, as far as I can tell.”

Clint forced his attention away from the files and onto Phil with a frown.

“What are you talking about?”

“Amy, my neighbour –” at Clint’s blank look he elaborated: “Apartment 41.” Clint cycled through his files on Phil’s neighbours to get to 41 – Amy Winters, 31, taught physics at a local high school, background check had come back clean, watered Phil’s plants when he was out of town. Or used to. Maybe Natasha did that now when she was around.

He was pondering the possible implications – were Phil’s plants all dead, for one – and almost missed the rest of Phil’s sentence, catching the end of: “– would like to get coffee some time.”

Clint stared at him blankly.

“What?”

“Amy wanted me to ask you if you would like to have coffee with her some time,” Phil repeated patiently.

Clint opened his mouth to dismiss the idea out of hand – and paused.

The thing was, Clint was a relationship kind of guy. He had been with the same girl for the better part of his late teens, the daughter of two of the circus’ trapeze artists, and then in the army there had been a guy in another unit. But the other thing was, Clint hadn’t actually been on dates with either of them. He would have taken Alisha out if he had had any money to spend and if they hadn’t been on the road all the time; he’d always meant to, in fact, but somehow had never got around to it. And with Matt, well… Outside of quiet evenings at his place, dating had never been an option, not unless they had wanted to drive a hundred miles to make sure they wouldn’t stumble across anyone they knew.

Since joining SHIELD, he somehow had never gotten around to dating. Oh, he hadn’t been a monk for the past ten years, but casual hook-ups had seemed easier when he wanted to get laid. Besides, he managed just fine on his own, and he didn’t really have time for more, which he was aware was a total cop-out considering Phil worked just as much and managed well enough. But it had never seemed fair, not when he had been so hung up on Phil, and then on Phil and Nat. What did that leave him to offer to anyone else? They could never be the most important person in Clint’s life, and wasn’t that how relationships were supposed to work?

But Phil was looking so hopeful, and asking him to drop it would lead to questions Clint didn’t want to answer. Besides, there was no hurt in trying. He had fallen in love with Phil, and then he had fallen in love with Nat; surely it wasn’t out of the realms of possibilities that he would fall in love with another person. And Amy had seemed nice enough the few times they had crossed paths in Phil’s hallway.

Plus, Clint’s apparent willingness to date should reassure Phil that he wasn’t pining over Natasha – or over Phil for that matter. Clint never had figured out which of them Phil thought he was jealous of. And because Phil was a good guy and one of Clint’s best friends, of course he would be concerned about his wellbeing – would want him to be happy. Clint was fine though. It wasn’t like he had ever expected anything in the first place: he had known long before Phil and Nat had gotten together that he didn’t have a shot with either of them.

Or maybe Phil’s neighbour had just asked him out and Clint was overthinking the whole thing.

So he said: “Sure, why not.” and ended up with a coffee date on the following Saturday.

By the Saturday morning Clint found himself wishing Natasha were around instead of undercover at Stark Industries on the other side of the country. She would laugh at him but she would be able to tell him what the hell he was supposed to do on a first date – Phil was definitely a date kind of guy. And Clint wasn’t going to ask him.

They were meeting at 2 at a coffee shop near Phil’s – Amy’s – building, and Clint got there early because he didn’t want to be late. It gave him the opportunity to case the place – only one exit, large windows at the front that made him twitchy. To make things worse, it was crowded. In short, Clint hated it.

Crowds made Clint uncomfortable. Put him in the middle of SHIELD’s cafeteria during lunch rush or drop him among a battalion of Marines, and he was perfectly fine. But surround him with civilians and he started looking for exit strategies and longing for heights. Their reactions were unpredictable and often made no sense, and it was too easy to hide in plain sight in their midst. Rationally he knew that could be a good thing – it had saved Natasha’s life often enough –, but there was a reason why she was the one in the limelight and Clint was up high providing backup.

When Amy arrived it only got worse. Clint was terrible at small talk, worse at answering questions about himself – work hazard –, and when he tried to return the favour he was pretty sure it sounded more like an interrogation than a friendly conversation. He tried though, he really did, because Amy seemed like a very nice woman and she deserved better than an hour of awkward silence. Still it was – in Clint’s opinion – an unmitigated disaster, even if Amy was kind enough to pretend not to notice that Clint was growing more and more anxious to be anywhere but there.

He walked her home afterwards, and she gave him a wry smile when he apologised for being a terrible date.

“I’ve had worse, if it makes you feel better,” she said and Clint mustered a smile from somewhere.

“Thanks for that.”

“I guess you don’t want to do this again?”

“Do you?” he asked dubiously, and she laughed.

“No, not really.”

“Well. It was good meeting you,” he offered and she nodded and said the same, and they parted way amicably enough.

Clint escaped to the roof instead of going to knock on Phil’s door. He sat on the ledge and looked at the city, part of it yet separate. Even without a target in his sight, being high up centred him, and his breathing slowed down in a habit born of years of practice.

Phil knew him well and he let him be, giving him the time he needed. Then he showed up at his side, a silent and comfortable shadow, and Clint smiled helplessly – if only everything was that easy.

He knew Phil wouldn’t ask, although Clint wouldn’t care if he did. It was up to him to bring up the subject, so he did:

“I’m terrible at this, I hope you know.”

“Maybe you just need some practice,” Phil volunteered, and Clint shrugged. It hardly seemed fair to unleash him on poor unsuspecting men and women on the off-chance he would eventually get better at it – would meet someone, would fall in love. Would be loved in return.

That was a lot of hypotheticals.

“Don’t start getting ideas,” he warned because he could almost see Phil running through his list of acquaintances for someone who’d be suitable for Clint. A part of him was curious to know what the person Phil would select for him would be like, but not enough to find out. Clint would stick to what he had instead of trying to reach for something he wasn’t even sure he wanted – at least until he figured it out.

Phil raised his arms in surrender, biting back a smile, and his phone beeped. Phil checked it before putting it back in his pocket, and Clint looked at him interrogatively.

“Fury’s sending me to California,” he said and Clint nodded, not remotely surprised. Stark had been in the news quite a lot recently. “Are you staying here or going back to HQ? There’s a car waiting downstairs.”

Clint hesitated for a split second. “I’ll stay a little while longer. Say hi to Nat for me if you see her.”

“I will.” Phil started walking away, stopping when he reached the door. “And Clint?”

Clint turned his head towards him inquisitively.

“You should give yourself more credit. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Clint looked away, turning back to face the city so he didn’t have to meet Phil’s eyes. It was suddenly much harder to speak, and he nodded instead, a jerky motion that seemed to be good enough because Phil quietly closed the door behind him, leaving Clint alone.

And that, right there, was the reason why Clint couldn’t quite believe him.

---

A month later, Clint and Phil had just come back from New Mexico when Natasha dropped down next to Clint in the mostly empty cafeteria. The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes until she asked idly:

“What are your thoughts on threesomes?”

Clint almost choked on a piece of bread.

“Wouldn’t know. Never had one,” he said as calmly as he could once he had stopped coughing.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. Really?

Clint shrugged. Yes, really.

“Well?” she insisted.

“Well what?”

“How would you feel about it?”

Clint sat back in his chair, crossing his arms on his chest defensively. He didn’t think it was going to protect him from what he feared was about to follow.

“Hypothetically?” He could do obtuse like the best of them, and as long as Natasha didn’t actually verbalise anything he could hold on to his denial and pretend the two people he had been in love with for years weren’t offering sex to him as if it meant nothing.

He didn’t think he could deal with that.

Natasha gave him a pointed look that said she wasn’t buying it.

“Shouldn’t you be talking to Phil about this?” he asked a little desperately.

“Who says we haven’t been talking about it?” she said but she must have sensed how much Clint did not want to be having this conversation because after a softer “Think about it, okay?” she changed the subject.

His assignment to the Pegasus facility the following week was almost a relief.

---

Then Loki happened. Phil died. And after the battle had been won and the dust had settled, Natasha quietly fell apart.

And Clint– Clint wasn’t doing much better, quite frankly. But he shoved everything he was feeling – all the guilt and the grief and the despair – to the back of his mind and ignored it so he could be there for her. He couldn’t afford to fall apart, not now, not until Natasha could stand on her own two feet again. She was the strongest person he knew, and it was both heart-breaking and terrifying to see her so lost. The certainty that he had done this to her, that it was his fault made it even worse, and Clint didn’t know how she could even stand to be around him. She did though, in fact the one time he left her alone for a few hours she held onto his arm so tightly when he came back that he had the bruises to show for it for days. He stayed right where she could see him after that.

When it turned out Phil wasn’t really dead, Natasha spent her days in Medical clutching his hand with a horribly blank expression on her face. Clint was there for her then too, and he was there for her when Phil woke up and all the tension went out of her. He was there for her and Phil through Phil’s recovery, and he was there when Natasha brought Phil home. And then it turned out he didn’t have to be there for anyone anymore because they were all doing fine without him.

So he went back to the room Stark had offered them, where he and Nat had stayed back when she couldn’t stand the thought of going back to what had become her and Phil’s apartment, before they had found out Fury had lied.

And everything Clint had been keeping at bay for the past couple of months simply refused to be ignored any longer.

He broke all over again, curled up in a corner of a room that was as empty as he felt.

He was drowning, with nothing and no one to keep him afloat, and things got foggy for a while. When he surfaced again he had lost a day and he knew he needed help. It was tempting, so tempting to go to Nat and Phil and let their familiarity and forgiveness make everything okay again, but he couldn’t do that to them – couldn’t make them responsible for his mental wellbeing and drag them down with him when things were finally getting good for them again.

So instead he pulled himself together long enough to get to Medical, and he asked to see a shrink. Things got fuzzy again after that – all he’d remember later was talking, a lot of talking, until his voice cracked and his throat felt raw, half-coherent ramblings that made him feel even emptier, and then collapsing into bed in his room.

He slept for thirteen hours and woke up feeling a little more lucid than he had in a while.

“When was the last time you slept?” the doc asked the next time they met, and Clint honestly didn’t have an answer. He hadn’t caught more than an hour here or there in a very long while. His nightmares rarely allowed him more than that.

McAlister wore the same pleasant and non-judgemental look that all SHIELD psychiatrists seemed to have. They agreed to hold off on antidepressants until Clint was back to a regular sleeping pattern, sticking to anti-anxiety meds until he had caught up on sleep and they could reassess his mental state. It was a compromise – Clint didn’t want any pills at all, afraid that they’d blunt his mind and slow him down. It could disqualify him for field work and that was the last thing he wanted. At the same time he was self-aware enough to know that he wasn’t the best placed to make that kind of decision at the moment, so he nodded grudgingly and followed the doc’s instructions.

On the third day Natasha called and asked where he was. There was an edge to her voice, trying too hard to sound normal but falling just off the mark, which just went to show how off-balance she still was.

Clint told her he was at HQ, which had the benefit of being entirely true while suggesting that he was working, and she seemed to be willing to believe that. They talked for a little while before she put Phil on, and they commiserated over Natasha’s non-existent nursing skills.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to know he wasn’t doing as well as they thought – he knew they wouldn’t judge him for that, not after all the shit they had been through together. He just thought Phil was the one they should focus on right now – the man had died, after all. And yes, they would probably be pissed at him for making that decision without consulting them, but it was his decision and he had made it.

They found out anyway.

Clint never did find out how they did – maybe Stark had seen something on his surveillance feeds that first day, or maybe someone had mentioned Psych putting him on medical leave to Phil. Either way, Natasha showed up in his room a couple of nights later, and Clint woke up to find her staring at him from his desk chair.

“Whu?” he said, not exactly at his best. The pills made him sleep much deeper than he usually did – he hadn’t heard her come in, he should have – and left him feeling groggy and disorientated upon waking. He hated it, but the shrink had said the effects would lessen over time.

She slipped into bed with him, and Clint relaxed instinctively.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said.

“Don’t apologise. I’m the one who didn’t tell you,” he mumbled.

“I should have noticed anyway.”

“Nat, it was Phil. You’re allowed to be a little distracted.”

“Exactly,” she countered, as stubborn as ever. “It was Phil. I should have known.”

Clint sighed and ran a comforting hand down her back. “I’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“Come home with me,” she said, and Clint was tempted to say yes, except–

“Give me a few days,” he said because his head still wasn’t where he’d like it to be. “Just… I’ll come over this weekend, okay?”

She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded anyway. In the morning they had breakfast, and she headed home to Phil while Clint went to meet his shrink, already apprehensive about his decision.

There was a reason he was staying at HQ and not on the carrier – it was the same reason he hadn’t been to see Phil since he had been released from the hospital. Because while it was getting easier to accept that everything that had happened had been Loki’s fault, not his, Clint also knew that rationale wouldn’t hold when confronted with the evidence of what he – Loki, damn it – had done.

Sure enough he almost changed his mind on Saturday morning, but he had promised Natasha and McAlister thought it was a good idea. Still, knocking on that door seemed almost insurmountable.

Natasha opened the door almost immediately, looking relieved to see him, and drew him inside and into her arms.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” she said almost hesitantly.

“I said I would.”

She pulled away and looked him over critically.

“How are you?” she asked, and Clint shrugged.

“Okay. Getting sick of having to talk about it all the time. How is Phil?”

“Good – better,” she amended at Clint’s unconvinced look. “Go see for yourself. I’ll get lunch started.”

“Wait, you’re cooking? Should I call the fire department?” he joked weakly and she ignored him, giving him a soft push towards the living room instead. Her hand lingered a little on his arm before she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and Clint had no choice but to go in.

Phil was on the couch, looking decidedly better than the last time Clint had seen him, and yet the guilt was almost overwhelming.

“Hi,” he forced out, and the warm smile Phil directed at him made Clint feel both better and worse.

“Clint,” he said, shifting as if to get up, and Clint – who had meant to keep his distance, really – was at his side in a second, gently pressing him back down on the couch.

Phil shook his head. “You’re as bad as Natasha. The doctors say I’m supposed to walk around,” he complained light-heartedly, and it was all so fucking normal that Clint couldn’t deal with it.

He wasn’t ready for this after all.

He made to move away – he needed to go now –, but Phil grabbed his hand before he could flee and wouldn’t let go. Clint could have pulled away easily if he had really wanted to, but he couldn’t risk hurting Phil, not again. So he closed his eyes and let himself be tugged closer instead.

“Come here,” Phil said softly, manhandling Clint until he was sitting next to him on the couch. Only then did Phil let go and Clint tilted forward, balancing his elbows on his thighs as his fists came up to press against his eye sockets. He could feel Phil’s hand against the back of his neck, a reassuring weight that kept him grounded, and he didn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out and Phil gave him a little shake.

“Hey, no, Clint, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have –” Clint started, voice thick with self-recriminations that had become as familiar as breathing, but Phil wouldn’t let him be.

“No. Not your fault. Never that,” he insisted, stubborn and unwavering, and Clint couldn’t not believe him. Phil was never wrong.

His tears were silent and Phil kept him close, whispering absolving nonsense in his ear. They remained there for a long time, Phil to his left and Natasha joining them to guard his right, their way of letting him know they had him – had his back.

There was an awkward moment when Clint pulled himself together and straightened up, unsure of what to do with himself, but as always Natasha knew what to say.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” she asked, holding a zucchini up, and Clint couldn’t help it – he laughed, the sound rough and almost foreign to his ears. He was out of practice.

“How about I cook,” he offered.

“My hero,” Phil said dryly and Nat reached past Clint to swat at his arm lightly.

It was familiar and comforting, and Clint thought maybe this had been a good idea after all.

---

Slowly, steadily, Clint got better. It could be frustratingly slow-going at times, but it got easier once he started sleeping properly and the exhaustion finally gave way.

As he improved, it became harder to talk to his shrink, who had been wanting to discuss his relationship with Nat and Phil – “Agents Romanoff and Coulson” – since what he referred to as Clint’s ‘breakthrough weekend’. Clint didn’t know how he felt about that: it was private – his.

The doc didn’t force it, gleaning what he could before Clint closed off. He backed off then, let Clint go silent for the rest of the session, but he always went back to it eventually.

Clint could understand why. He knew half of SHIELD was convinced he was sleeping with Natasha, and the other half thought he was with Phil – though no one seemed to have called Natasha and Phil, and Clint didn’t know whether to feel insulted on their behalf or worry that he was that transparent. Because McAlister was getting to know him better than most, he knew Clint was sleeping with neither – probably knew Clint wished he was too.

But it wasn’t something Clint felt the need to talk about, nor did he think it should be analysed to death. It just was. It was the one thing he felt no doubt about, no regret or guilt – the one thing that made perfect sense, always had. Maybe it wasn’t what people expected of him, but Clint was long past caring.

“Why do you think you can’t move on?” McAlister asked him one day.

“Because I don’t want to!” Clint snapped, finally fed up, and the silence that followed his outburst was almost as loud.

“Then have you considered telling them how you feel?”

Clint ran a nervous hand through his hair. “What good would that do?”

“They obviously care about you,” the doc said, and Clint snorted. Thanks, doc.

“Not like that.”

“How do you know?” McAlister probed in that non-confrontational way of his.

“They would have said something.”

“You haven’t.”

Clint shrugged. “They’re together.”

“Not all relationships involve only two persons.”

He knew that. He wasn’t naïve. But Nat knew how he felt – she may not know it was love because Natasha could be a little blind when feelings were involved, but she couldn’t not know everything else. That had led to a barely veiled threesome offer, so forgive Clint for thinking that putting his feelings into words wasn’t going to magically make everything better.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked, verging on desperate because he had to go home and see Phil and Nat after this, and it wasn’t helping.

McAlister carefully didn’t sigh and moved on to the subject of lowering the dosage of Clint’s meds.

---

Slowly, slowly, Clint became himself again. They stopped his meds. The interval between his sessions with McAlister grew wider. The guilt was still there – it would probably never go away completely –, but it was manageable, and the nightmares had become ones of many. Clint knew how to deal with that.

He was, strangely, fine.

He had moved in with Phil and Nat at some point, though looking back he wasn’t sure how or when that had happened. He had tried to bring up the subject a few times, not wanting to get in their way or overstay his welcome, but each time they had shaken their head at him with identical looks of fondness and exasperation. Eventually he had stopped trying – he didn’t really want to be anywhere else anyway.

When he got cleared to go back in the field, he had a couple of easy solo missions, and one with Natasha that went to hell within seconds. It was just like old times, except they didn’t have Phil in their ear. The man had been put on light duty, which meant Clint and Natasha had to make sure he didn’t overdo it. Really it was a relief for everyone involved when Phil finally received the all-clear and went back to full active duty – a few more weeks and he would have driven them all crazy.

Sometimes the Avengers were needed and they suited up. They worked well as a team, even if they didn’t know each other very well.

All in all – a couple of notable changes notwithstanding, such as Clint’s new living arrangements and being part of a team of superheroes – everything was remarkably back to normal.

Until that one evening.

They were in the living room, Natasha leaning against Phil on the couch and Clint sprawled in what had become his armchair. He and Phil were bickering about the episode of Supernanny that Phil was currently inflicting on them, Clint insisting they had seen it already and that a second viewing really wasn’t necessary while Phil argued that it was a classic, when Natasha said:

“Should we revisit the threesome idea?”

The laughter died in Clint’s throat.

“Natasha…” Phil said with a hint of warning, but she never could be derailed when she had her mind set on something.

“Well?” she insisted and Clint leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together.

“I need more intel on the parameters,” he said tonelessly, catching a wince on Phil’s face at the use of mission terminology. Clearly he didn’t think it was a good sign. He was completely right.

“You, me and Phil. In bed. No complication.”

Well, at least that had the benefit of being crystal clear.

Clint– Clint couldn’t. He couldn’t go through that again – get handed something he had always wanted on a platter and have it be snatched away the next day. He had known it had been a bad idea the first time around and he had done it anyway. When the inevitable had happened it had hurt – so fucking much – but he had handled it. He couldn’t do it again.

He shook his head.

“No.”

Natasha frowned.

“But you want to,” she protested.

“I can’t.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Phil squeezed her thigh lightly and she subsided, letting him take over.

“Can I ask a question?”

Clint shrugged at him – sure, why not. Get it out of the way, and maybe then the subject would stop coming up.

“Which part is the problem? The three of us, or no complication?”

Clint looked away, and that was answer enough because Phil moved to kneel in front of him, his hands grasping Clint’s forearms, a gentle pressure he couldn’t ignore no matter how much he may want to.

“Clint. Are you in love with Natasha?”

Phil’s voice was kind, with no trace of condemnation, and Clint closed his eyes briefly before meeting Phil’s.

“Not just her,” he admitted just as quietly and Phil’s grip on his arms went slack for a split second before tightening again.

“How long?” he asked, some urgency creeping in, and Clint winced because he knew what Phil was getting at, and he really really didn’t want to go there. But it was too late; he could see it in Phil’s eyes – that terrible moment when comprehension started to dawn.

“Does it matter?”

“You know it does. Before or after Oslo, Clint?”

The answer must have been written all over his face because Phil let go of him abruptly, taking a step back, and Clint stared after him helplessly as he left the room. Once he had disappeared his eyes slanted towards Natasha, who looked back at him contemplatively.

“I should go,” he said, standing up, but before he could take one step Natasha was between him and the door.

“You’re not going anywhere.” In the bathroom the water turned on. “What happened in Oslo?”

Clint shrugged, not even surprised that that was what Natasha wanted to talk about. The first part probably hadn’t been that much of a revelation. He did not want to think about what that meant in association with her offer.

“Bad mission.”

“And?”

“Sex.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Oslo had been bad. Three dead agents – two of them trained by Phil – and an awful dead-eyed look on Phil’s face as he had cleaned their blood off him in the safe house. His hands had been shaking so badly that Clint had taken over, wiping Phil’s face carefully – until Phil had pushed his hand away and kissed him instead, gripping his hips and pressing him back against the wall.

Clint had considered pushing him away for all of two seconds, but he had been just as desperate to forget the others’ screams. The fact that it had been a terrible idea – mixing love with post-mission sex never ended well – had barely registered.

The sex itself hadn’t been particularly good – too rough, over too fast, fingers digging into still forming bruises and teeth biting into bare skin – but then pleasure hadn’t really been the point. Afterwards though, Phil had let Clint put him to bed, and he had fallen asleep wrapped around him. Clint had lain awake for most of the night, keeping watch and hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe…

The next morning Phil’s “thank you” had broken his heart a little, but he had smiled and pretended everything had been fine. They had gone home, and they had never talked about it again.

Five months later the Black Widow had become SHIELD’s new top priority, and there they were now.

“Clint…” Natasha trailed off, one hand coming up to cup his face. The unexpected tenderness made him close his eyes for a brief second and he swallowed hard.

“It’s okay. I know.” He did know. She didn’t need to say it – didn’t need to let him down gently. He would be fine.

“No, I don’t think you do,” she said, looking at him shrewdly. “You never did give yourself enough credit.”

Clint frowned a question at her and she took a step back, looking over her shoulder in the direction of the bathroom.

“Phil’s so in love with you it’s a little ridiculous,” she said, tone a little wry and Clint immediately opened his mouth to deny it, but Natasha ignored him. “At first I thought I should back off and let the two of you sort it out–” Clint made an involuntary movement towards her, and she smiled, “– but I’m selfish.”

“Phil loves you,” he protested. He didn’t believe her – he couldn’t believe her. Phil and Nat were so good together, thinking anything else was madness.

“Phil loves us both. I don’t think either of us is in a position to argue that it’s not possible.” She gave Clint a pointed look, and he shook his head – confirmation or denial, he didn’t know. Before he could figure it out Phil came back into the room. He looked like shit, and he went straight to Clint, pulling him into a rough hug.

“I’m sorry I did that to you,” he said, and that made Clint angry for some reason.

He grabbed Phil’s shoulders and pushed him away, shaking him a little. “You didn’t do anything to me. I’m a grown man, I make my own decisions.” They needed to give him that, at least.

“If I had known –”

“You didn’t,” Clint cut him off, and sighed. “Look, I should go. We can talk about it later. Or, you know – not.”

Maybe they could laugh about the whole thing in ten years time – make that twenty.

“Wait,” Natasha said, exchanging a meaningful glance with Phil. “I need to rephrase our offer.”

“Nat…” Clint raked a hand through his hair, shooting a longing glance at the door.

“You, me, and Phil. As many strings as we want.”

Clint froze.

What?

“Shouldn’t you guys be talking about this together first?” he asked a little desperately. The situation was getting completely out of control.

“We have.”

“Then why –”

“Clint, it was never going to be a one-time deal. We were just trying to introduce the idea without freaking you out – clearly we went about it wrong.”

Oh.

Clint took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was actually happening.

It wasn’t supposed to.

He had had years of resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted and being happy with what he had. That knowledge – that certainty – had been his companion for a very long time. Except the rules had suddenly been changed and he was the last one to know, and it was turning his mind into a complete mess. He should have been ecstatic, grabbed onto them and never let go, but instead he found he needed to regroup – needed to think it through. There was too much at stake here, he couldn’t jump in head first without looking.

“I… need some time to think about it.” He sounded lost – felt it too –, and Phil nodded. Natasha looked mutinous, but then she had never dealt well with delays. Clint knew she would get over it.

“Just… don’t disappear, okay?”

“I won’t,” he promised, reassuring all three of them. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” That came out almost as a question, and Phil nodded again with a reassuring smile.

“Right,” Clint told himself and shuffled towards the door. He was almost there when Nat’s “Wait” stopped him again.

When he turned back she was kissing Phil, and all Clint could do was stare. Neither of them was very demonstrative, and when they had kissed around him in the past it was usually quick and dry and over before Clint could think to look away. This, however, was something else entirely, and it made Clint feel hot all over.

“What was that?” Phil asked breathlessly when she pulled away, and Natasha shot a grin in Clint’s direction.

“Just providing some incentive,” she said, and Clint stumbled into the hallway before he could change his mind.

Natasha was evil.

---

Clint had asked for time and they gave it to him. He moved back into his quarters at HQ and saw them during the day, when he sparred with Natasha or discussed ops in Phil’s office. They didn’t push, didn’t ask him for anything, but they didn’t play fair either.

“I know what you’re doing,” he panted accusingly at Nat when she pinned him to the mat again, keeping him there longer than strictly necessary.

“Do you?” she grinned, entirely unrepentant. She wasn’t even out of breath. “Is it working?”

“Nope,” he lied, and managed to free one arm – not for long though, Natasha anticipating his twist and turning it against him.

“Hm… Guess I’ll have to try harder,” she whispered in his ear before letting him up and starting all over again.

With Phil, it was warm looks and lingering hands that drove Clint just as crazy as the feel of Natasha’s body pressed against him. They were making it hard to concentrate, which sort of defeated the purpose, but at least Clint now knew he could save the world while being driven to distraction by the two of them – it could have been an issue if it had turned out he couldn’t.

Clint knew he was going to say yes, that much was a given. He wanted it too much, had wanted it for too long. He was always going to say yes; he just had to wrap his head around it first. It was actually happening – or it would soon. It had always seemed so out of his reach that he had never dared to imagine what it would be like. Now that he could – had to – he was nervous. Just because he wanted it desperately didn’t mean he couldn’t be a little terrified by the prospect as well. How did he even bring the subject up again?

Thankfully Phil knew him well. When Clint showed up in his office to hand him a report and fidgeted instead of leaving, it was out of character enough that Phil put his pen down.

“Clint?”

“Would you and Nat like to have dinner sometime?” Clint asked and it came out rushed and too fast, but judging by the way Phil’s eyes crinkled when he smiled he had understood every word.

“Tomorrow?” he said, and Clint mentally went over the next few days. Tomorrow was Friday, and none of them were on call this weekend. Barring any catastrophe they would have the weekend off, and the possibilities that went with that made Clint blush. Phil’s smile widened.

“Sounds good,” Clint answered and he couldn’t stop the grin when he left.

Three hours later Nat cornered him at the range. He was putting away his practice gear, and he may or may not have been hiding there since he had seen Phil – and he definitely had not been panicking over possibly ruining his relationship with the two most important people in his life.

“I hear we’re having dinner tomorrow,” she said, and she looked so pleased that any doubt Clint may have been harbouring vanished.

“Yeah.”

“I guess we’ll have to get take-out,” she mused and Clint rolled his eyes.

“I can cook.”

“You’re not cooking, you’re our guest,” she countered.

Clint raised an eyebrow at her. He always cooked when he was at their place – Nat’s and Phil’s skills in the kitchen were somewhat limited.

“Those weren’t official dates. This one is different, and you can’t cook. It’s a date rule, I think,” she said, and it was good to know he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t quite clear on how things were supposed to work. Then again–

“I’m not sure the rules apply to us,” he pointed out, because he had moved in before sex had even been on the table. They weren’t exactly doing things in order.

Nat shrugged. “That’s fine. We can make our own.”

Clint couldn’t argue with that.

They walked out of the range together, and as they parted way, Natasha called after him:

“Clint?” He turned to look at her. “This means yes, right?”

“What do you think?” he called back, biting the inside of his cheek to keep a straight face.

The last thing he saw before he rounded the corner was Nat’s smile.

In the end who would cook or what they would eat was a moot point because the food-related part of the evening was derailed as soon as they crossed the threshold. It was actually a relief: the tension in the car as they had driven home from HQ had been so thick Nat could have cut it with her knives. The mere thought of sitting through dinner and making conversation with everything else hanging over their heads was daunting.

The second the door was closed behind them Natasha was kissing him, Phil not far behind as they stumbled their way to the bedroom. It was a little awkward at first: they bumped into each other and got in each other’s way as they got rid of their clothes – trying to undress two people at the same time instead of just the one was confusing, and Clint couldn’t figure out where to put his hands. The thought of not touching one of them was suddenly unbearable, but luckily Nat and Phil seemed to have everything figured out.

“I told you,” Nat told him. “We’ve talked about it – extensively.”

They worked scarily well together, and Clint would definitely have to turn the tables on them at some point, but for now he was more than happy to go with whatever they had planned.

It was no surprise that Natasha knew exactly what she wanted in bed and had no problem asking for it. What was more surprising was that Phil was just as assertive, and before it became difficult to form actual thoughts Clint briefly wondered how they had made it work for two years. He on the other hand usually just went with the flow, which was how he found himself with his head between Natasha’s legs, her hand in his short hair keeping him right where she wanted him.

Each of her moans felt like a victory, made even sweeter by how hard it was to keep his focus on her with two of Phil’s fingers working him open. He got side-tracked a few times, forgetting what he was meant to be doing and mouthing Nat’s inner thigh instead when Phil pressed against his prostate – deliberately no doubt, which wasn’t very nice (except it really was). It made Nat laugh, and Clint would bet Phil was looking way too pleased with himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when they were slowly making him lose his mind.

He could tell when Nat was close, her breathing coming out faster and more erratic than it ever did during training. The way Phil’s fingers stopped moving to let Clint concentrate on giving her what she needed to get there was another clue, one that wasn’t necessary but that Clint appreciated all the same.

Nat came with a gasp that turned into a moan half-way through, her fingers tightening almost painfully in Clint’s hair before she came back to herself, loosening her grip and tugging him away. He went, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and Phil chose that moment to add a third finger.

“Fuck,” Clint moaned, forehead pressed against Nat’s hip and panting through it against her skin – it had been a while, and it was a tight fit.

Phil stopped. “Okay?” he asked, his free hand warm and heavy over Clint’s spine, and Clint nodded confirmation against Natasha’s stomach while she petted his hair.

“He’s good,” she said unnecessarily, and Phil pushed his fingers deeper, spreading him wider and making him gasp.

It seemed to go on forever, except it couldn’t have been that long before Phil was pulling his fingers out and Natasha was tugging on his hair again.

“Come here,” she said, a little breathless, and Clint crawled upwards, half-collapsing on top of her when they kissed.

It was all teeth and tongue, and Clint inadvertently bit her lower lip when she reached down between them to roll a condom on him. It just made her grin, bright and dangerous, and he had to grit his teeth to stop himself from thrusting into her hand. Her smile turned sly, which did nothing to help – nor did Phil’s huff of laughter somewhere behind him. But then Nat was positioning him at her entrance, guiding him inside, and Clint did thrust then – he couldn’t not. It made them both groan, and Clint scrambled a little to get his knees under himself for better leverage.

“Wait,” she said before he could take advantage of it, and he froze.

He didn’t have to wait long, muffling his grunt against Nat’s throat when Phil’s cock pressed into him, opening him up in one long, slow motion. Clint welcomed the burn, letting it pull him back from the edge he was tottering on. He tried to push back against it, but there were fingers digging into his skin, keeping him steady. He couldn’t tell whose they were, he had lost track already, but it seemed like they were the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

“You’re ours now,” Nat whispered in his ear when Phil bottomed out, fierce and possessive, and the words made Clint shudder. Of course he was – he had always been. And it was suddenly too much, all it, too overwhelming, and he couldn’t fucking breathe–

“Wait, wait– I can’t –” he managed to gasp and they immediately went very still.

“Do you want to stop?” Nat asked and Clint shook his head sharply. Anything but that. He didn’t think he could bear it if they stopped now. He just needed a second.

“Okay,” she said, and then, to Phil, once Clint’s breathing had slowed to something approaching normal: “Slowly.”

Phil started to move again, slow and careful and almost unbearably gentle, each of his thrusts rocking Clint deeper into Natasha. And that was it, that was everything he had ever wanted, the three of them together where nothing else mattered, and Clint had to hide his face in Nat’s shoulder as he shook with too many feelings.

He relaxed into it, gave himself over, and just as it started not being enough, Phil asked “More?” and Clint found himself nodding frantically.

“Please,” he said and barely had time to brace himself so he wouldn’t collapse on Nat before Phil thrust into him again, hard and fast and deep.

It made the three of them moan, and things got a little blurry after that, Clint’s world reduced to Phil pounding into him and Natasha warm and tight around him, her fingernails digging into his back as she fucked herself back on his cock. Clint tried to move, tried to push deeper into her and back onto Phil, but their combined strength was keeping him pinned between them. And that was fine, that was great, that was fucking perfect, and he never wanted it to stop.

Nat’s orgasm took him by surprise and the feel of her clenching around on his cock brought him right back to the edge. He hadn’t gotten to watch her the first time around and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was beautiful like this, open and unguarded, trusting the two of them with everything she was. Clint was so enraptured he didn’t notice that Phil’s thrusts had slowed, rocking him into Nat gently as she came down from her orgasm.

He did notice when Phil stopped moving entirely, sitting back on his heels and taking Clint with him so Nat could roll out from under them. Clint whimpered as he left Nat’s body – he was close, so close, and he almost sobbed when Phil pulled out too.

“Don’t –” he tried to protest, but Phil was already pushing him back down on the bed.

“Shh, I just want to look at you, let me –” Phil said soothingly, turning Clint around so he was on his back, and Clint blinked up at him, relieved to see that Phil didn’t look nearly as cool and collected as he sounded.

“There you are, fuck, Clint –” Phil groaned as he pushed back inside him, and the noise Clint made at that was dangerously close to a whine. He honestly didn’t care, not when Phil was fucking him again and not stopping.

One of his hands moved to palm Phil’s lower back in an attempt to bring him closer, to keep him right there, while the other flung out in Natasha’s direction. She caught it, lacing their fingers together.

“Don’t let go,” he begged, not sure whom he was addressing, and it was Phil who answered, voice hoarse.

“Never. Natasha…”

He didn’t need to say more. Natasha reached between them to get the condom off Clint, and the simple action made him keen. When she wrapped her hand around him it didn’t take more than a few pulls until it became too much and Clint was right there. His neck arched back as he came, shouting through gritted teeth, and for a second or two all he saw was bright spots of light filling up his vision.

He didn’t have time to catch his breath before Phil’s mouth was on his, the kiss sloppy and desperate. Clint kissed him back, running an almost lazy hand over Phil’s spine and feeling the muscles strain under it as his hips jerked hard against his ass, one, two, three, four times, and then Phil was coming, groaning against Clint’s mouth.

For the next few moments the room was mostly silent, with the exception of harsh breathing and rustling sheets, and then after a quick kiss to both Clint and Natasha Phil pulled back and got rid of the condom

“Okay?” he asked them, and got a smile from Natasha and a yawn from Clint.

They both watched Phil stand and walk to the bathroom – it was a great view –, and then Nat turned back towards Clint, propping herself up on an elbow. She was still holding his hand.

“You look happy,” she said with a smile, and Clint smiled back, feeling warm and relaxed. Yes, he was happy.

“I am. Are you?” he couldn’t help asking, because as much as he hated to admit it, he was going to need to know they wanted this as much as he did until he got used to it – force of habit.

Nat squeezed his hand in answer and it was all the confirmation Clint needed. He looked at Phil who was leaning against the doorway, watching them, and he knew he would read the question on his face.

“Very,” Phil said with a soft smile, before giving in to Clint’s grabby hand motions and coming back to bed. They cleaned themselves up quickly with the wet towel he had carried back with him before throwing it in the direction of the bathroom.

“We didn’t have dinner,” Nat said as they settled back on the bed.

“Nap first?” Phil offered when Clint yawned again, and Natasha snorted.

“Lightweights.”

Clint closed his eyes and let the sound of their teasing wash over him, throwing an arm over Nat and leaning back against Phil.

He still had no idea what they were doing, and he thought maybe Nat and Phil didn’t either. But whatever it was, it was theirs and it was good, and as long as it made them happy the rest didn’t really matter. They would figure it as they went along, improvise. They were good at that. And between the three of them? Nothing would be able to stand in their way.