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"Jesus, it's freezing," Kate mumbles. Clint watches the tiny shivers run up and down her spine while she toes off her borrowed shoes and drips on his carpet. It'll be dark soon; the torn hem of her dress is starting to blur into the lines of her knees. He looks away.
"I did warn you," he says, shrugging off his jacket. He winces at the squelching noise it makes when it hits the floor, at the cold air that rushes at him. He should move to the desert. Kate would laugh at that. Kate would—
Kate would not move to the desert with him, because Kate doesn't live with him. If he left, she would stay. That's how this works. Clint blinks.
"—get hypothermia and die," Kate is saying, stooping to scratch Lucky behind the ears.
(Simone had all but thrown him at them when they came up the stairs. "Been whining at the door all day," she'd said. "I think he missed his folks.")
"He's not a cat, you're gonna confuse him," Clint gripes, just to have something to say. He's halfway to the kitchen before he realizes that making coffee requires electricity and he has to let his head thump on the counter with a sigh.
"He likes it," Kate says defensively. Clint hears her stand up, the wet drag of fabric as she tugs on her dress. Next thing he knows there's an elbow digging into his back, and Kate is half-draped over him, right in his face and too close and blue-eyed and smart-mouthed and perfect. "So, do I get first shower?"
"You are the guest," Clint says, waving a hand, which she takes to mean do as you please but he's not actually sure it wasn't a misguided attempt to touch her scraggly damp hair, her shoulders.
"You're a gentleman and a scholar, Hawkeye," she says, pecks him on the forehead before she runs into his room.
He hears the shower start a moment later and he straightens up, bringing a hand to his temple. The only thing there is his own clammy skin, and it holds no trace of her mouth, cold and chapped and sweet.
This. This has the potential to go bad.
-
If he weren't a dumbass, he would have been out of his bedroom by the time Kate got out of the shower. He knows where his dry clothes are, he knows where the pillows and blankets are, he should have just run in and out and been on the couch asleep in ten minutes.
But he stops to think about whether or not Kate has any idea where he keeps his pajamas, and maybe he should lay a shirt or something out for her, and would she like the too-hard pillow or the too-soft one, and she is naked in his shower right now, which is a place she's been before but not while he was in the next room with the door open, and he doesn't hear the water cut off and then she's sitting down on the corner of his bed in a towel and saying, "Hey, boss."
Like it's the simplest thing in the world.
Clint stares at the ceiling and shoves a t-shirt at her. She's probably laughing at him, and her shoulders are probably tense with holding it in, and her eyebrow is arched in that way that means I don't know why I put up with you but also I'm glad you're my partner and Clint doesn't know how he's gonna take that right now.
"Here's a thing," he blurts, holding the shirt out for her blindly. "I'm gonna leave now."
"Or," says Kate, grabbing the shirt but also his wrist, warm, shower-soft fingers light on the inside of his arm. "Or you could not."
"Kate," he says to a crack in the ceiling. He's not—it doesn't sound like begging.
"My eyes are down here, Barton," she says wryly.
"But so is the rest of you," he counters. He looks anyway.
Kate's smile is never sweet, but it can be fond and kind and caring and when she looks at him, little droplets of water still stuck in her eyelashes—when she looks at him Clint forgets why he ever wanted to look away.
"You sure this is a game you wanna play, Katie-Kate?" he murmurs. He twists his hand around in her grip so that he can smooth his fingers down her forearm, rub lightly at the soft juncture of her elbow. Kate's mouth falls open a little, in a gasp or a giggle.
"I'm not playing, Hawkeye," she says, and when she tugs him down by the collar his eyes are already closed.
She smiles into it when she feels him relax, lets her hand creep up on the back of his neck, calloused fingers dipping under his shirt and Clint is kissing her, and he means it, mouth open and trying to lick the laughter out of her. "Katie," he says, he groans, and Kate bites down on his lip in answer, soothes her tongue over it and tugs Clint down on top of her.
When he pulls back, the room has gone dark; he is kneeling over Kate and the moonlight in her eyes, her stringy-wet hair soaking his pillow. "Clint," she says, impatient, wriggling one of her legs in between his.
He sucks in a breath. "This is maybe not such a good idea, Hawkeye."
"Do you really think that?"
Of course he does.
"Because if you think that—I wouldn't ask you to do anything you didn't—"
Of course he doesn't. He kisses her again, quick and hard and when he pulls back she tries to follow him, but Clint sighs into the skin of her neck and tastes the shower-soap of it, noses against her clavicle. She shivers. "Okay?" he says quietly.
"You're cold," she says with a hushed laugh, fingernails scratching at his scalp. Clint's gut is all butterflies and killer bees, blood buzzing in his head and in his dick. He leans his forehead against her chest to steady himself.
"Ain't got warmed up yet," he grins, because he can't help it, and this time when she snickers he can feel it rumbling through her sternum.
"Gonna put your money where your mouth—your mouth where—put your mouth on me, is what I'm getting at," she gasps when Clint tugs her towel open, skims a palm over her breast.
"Yes, ma'am." He's freezing and she's so warm, it feels like a fever, even under his tongue. She arches when he grazes her ribs with his teeth, traces old bruises with his tongue. She hums like a radiator, quiet and constant, bucking up a little as his tongue finds her navel, says, "Clint," like it's a warning and squeezes the scruff of his neck. He can hear her swallow.
"Talk to me, Katie," he murmurs into the crease of her hip. She keens, bucks up against his chin.
Clint is not a good person. He ducks his head and doesn't care.
"Jesus fuck," she whines, his tongue flicking against her. She tastes like clean sweat and shower-slick and he makes himself go slow, keeps his touch light. He has some self-control. He can make this good for her. "Thought you were never gonna wise up, wanted you so bad I didn't know what to do—oh," she pants when he presses his tongue hard against her clit, rolls her hips towards him.
Clint backs up a little and smiles, looks up at her and yeah, they're going to have to do this again when the power's on, because he wants to see her; right now there's nothing but the white stretch of her neck, the wet curve of her mouth. "Oh yeah?" he says, sucks a kiss into her thigh. "How bad?"
"I—oh, fuck you," she says when he licks up into her, thumps him on the back with her heel. "You know how bad, you've seen me looking before, your hands, your stupid—your mouth—do that again, oh my god, Clint—" He sucks hard, presses his tongue flat against her, loves the way her hands spasm on his head.
"Come on, Katie-Kate," he says, "come on, just—"
"Not like this," she whimpers, "I want you to—want you in me, god—"
"Got all the time in the world," he promises, and they do, they will, because he is not going to move from this spot ever again, not with Kate's hands holding him down like she's trying to drown him, not with her shivering and bucking under his mouth. He crooks a finger up into her, bites down on her hip and she comes apart around him, thighs tight on his shoulders. Her belly trembles with it and the sound she makes is low and broken, and it makes him have to close his eyes, grind his hips against the mattress.
"Okay." She breathes in hard, still clenched around his finger. "Okay. Come on, let me—"
"Katie, Kate, slow down," he murmurs, pushing himself up to kiss her. But she can't, he can't, and when she snakes a hand down in between them all he can do is let out a ragged moan and jerk against her. "I'm not gonna—"
"Barton," she says against his jaw, "all the time in the world, remember?" She squeezes him and his mouth goes dry. "Now take off your pants."
"Yeah," he breathes," yes, fuck, okay," and he helps her fumble with the button of his jeans, hisses through his teeth when she wraps a small deft hand around him—and that seems wrong, because nothing about Kate is small, Kate is loud and obnoxious and perfect and fills a room when she walks into it, always smirking and laughing—he thinks of her smile, and then he feels it against his mouth, and he comes in her hand, breathing heavy against her cheek.
"I never thought," she says quietly as he comes back to himself.
"Never thought what?" he asks, planting kisses over her forehead, her cheeks.
"You said you didn't—I thought you didn't want this. Me."
Clint feels his gut lurch. "You're amazing, girlie," he says, kisses her on the mouth, soft and full. "Perfect, so perfect—"
"Okay, jeez," Kate says, pushing him off but grinning. "I get it."
"I mean it," he insists, brushes his lips over hers one more time. "I'm kind of a dumbass."
"I know that. Just—come here and get warm, Hawkeye."
-
The sun wakes him up in the morning, graciously warm and hellishly bright on his face. He groans and turns his head away from the window, into a bony shoulder.
"Morning, boss," Kate says lazily, stretching her arms over her head. Clint lifts up on his elbow to watch her, the long, muscled lines of her body, her really awful bedhead. He smiles and pushes her bangs out of her eyes.
"No coffee," she continues seriously. "I don't think I can get out of bed without it."
"Yeah?" Clint grins, fingers on her jaw. "I guess I'll just have to deal with it."