Clint was flat on his back and couldn't reach his bow. It probably wouldn't matter if he could reach his bow, since he was out of arrows now, even the ones that didn't explode. Oh, and he was pinned down by a bunch of gross tentacles that had been cut off of the flying krakens they were fighting.
Ok, it looked bad. But the venn diagram of "tentacles pinning Clint to the concrete floor of the underground bunker" and "tentacles currently on fire" was two discrete circles, so he had that going for him. Not being on fire was nice. On the other hand, the whole lair smelled like Sad Trash Hobo Party Night at a New Jersey Red Lobster.
"Oh, get off the floor," said Natasha. "We won."
"You could at least help me with these things," he replied, kicking ineffectually at a thick tentacle chunk.
"Here, I'll get that." Bucky Barnes, ex-Winter Soldier and now officially Best Boyfriend Evar, started lifting tentacles off of Clint and hucking them to the side of the room. "Natasha, when you came to get us from the nut farm, you indicated that this villain was attempting to bioengineer flying fire-breathing squid."
Clint dragged his eyes away from Bucky's devastatingly dreamy eyes to glare at Natasha. "Yeah, Nat. 'Attempting' means trying, not 'has succeeded and will set attack squids on our heroes forthwith'."
"Well, maybe they still would have been at 'attempting' if we'd gotten here sooner. I tried and tried, but somebody had to say good-bye to each of his chickens individually."
Bucky stopped brushing at the goo on Clint's sleeve. "Forming emotional attachments to pets is good for my healing process."
"Well, there's attachment and then there's unhealthy obsession."
"I am on the correct side of that line, Natasha. But I'll miss the little cluckers."
"There's a whole fleet of sentient toasters at Avengers Tower. You can adopt some of them, if they'll let you."
The krakens were defeated, but the villainous laboratory minions had escaped with all their research. Not much was left for Natasha, Clint, and Bucky to take back to the Tower, and they still didn't know the identity of the mastermind behind these flying cephalopod travesties.
"I just hope the science bros can figure something out with what's in this tank," said Natasha, peering at a little fish-tank sized for a cubicle. It had a sea monkey sticker on the side of it, but floating inside were what appeared to be tiny squids.
"Science bros?" Bucky somehow managed to look even cuter when his mouth quirked to the side questioningly.
"God, Banner found the tag on tumblog or something and now everyone is calling him and Tony 'science bros,' and it really goes to their heads." Clint said.
"It's called tumblr," said Natasha. She had taken down two of the krakens barehanded, why didn't her shirt have any smelly squid-goo on it?
"Fine, but it's still stupid." Clint knew he was being petulant and didn't care.
"Doesn't matter if it's stupid. Pepper thinks the nickname is contributing to a measurable increase in Stark's team-oriented behavior, so until Bruce or Tony get around Jarvis's curation to find the slash, we're using it."
"Oh, well. If Pepper says so, then by all means."
"You can cross Potts if you want to, but be sure I'm in the room when you do. I want to make popcorn."
**************
Clint had his chance to cross Potts almost immediately when the three of them dragged themselves into Avengers Tower, but he remained quiet while she berated Natasha about "causing explosions in Bed-Stuy without even alerting Hill to potential megalomaniacal activity in that quadrant!"
"We didn't cause the explosions," Nat retorted, "we were just there when they happened! I didn't know they'd managed to raise full-grown specimens yet!"
Clint sat on a sofa, pulling Bucky down next to him. Office minions had already fled the pleasant open-office area. A soft jazz rendition of Single Ladies floated from a PA system and Clint noticed Bucky's head bobbing very slightly with the music. He wondered what other sorts of music Bucky liked, and whether he could stand the crowd in a club, and if he'd like dancing. Darcy knew what cool people did. She could take them to clubs, probably.
Pepper Potts, resplendent in a tailored electric blue suit and scolding one of the world's foremost assassins for violating office procedure, could probably buy them a club. She had moved on to "springing the return of Bucky Barnes on everyone when you KNEW there were plans for a soft personnel intro" and "really, just look at the goo-spattered overalls they're wearing, this is a PR nightmare!" Natasha had crossed her arms and was barely arguing anymore.
Clint decided to help her out. "Y'know, Pepper, it was actually a pretty good op."
Big mistake. Now she was focused on Clint. "A pretty good op? And how would you know, Barton? Where have you been all summer? I don't even want to hear from you until you've taken care of your considerable administrative backlog. The Avengers can operate out of my domain in the post-Hydra intelligence environment, but you're damned well going to follow my rules."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is there an administrative backlog for me?" Bucky asked. Bless his heart.
"Oh, goodness no, Barnes. You take all the time you need to get up to speed on things, and then we'll ease you into all that. No need to bother you with reports and paperwork until you're ready, mmkay?" Bless Pepper's heart, too.
"So just like that the Avengers will accept me in their stronghold? Are you aware of my background?" Bucky hadn't moved a single muscle since Pepper's gaze had turned, all eye-of-sauron, to rest on him.
"We have been briefed on your background by Steve Rogers and Natasha. Everyone here has skeletons in their closet, Mr. Barnes, but you're lucky enough to wear yours on your sleeve. Even if it's a bit glittery." Pepper's gaze took in the sparkly blue star on Bucky's metal arm, painted with nail polish to match Clint's manicure. He noticed with a half-guilty start that they were holding hands.
Then Pepper was pulling something out of a briefcase that seemingly materialized in front of her. She definitely hadn't been holding a briefcase a minute ago. Definitely. Right? She probably wasn't. "One more thing, Clint. Hang on to this, would you? Just stick it in your pocket and you can set it up later."
Bucky caught the iphone she tossed over. "I'll hang on to this for now. Clint does not have pockets."
"I am certain I'll regret asking this, but: why doesn't he have pockets?"
"They're sewn shut. Natasha can tell you all about it." Clint decided it was a good time to skedaddle. "C'mon, Bucky, there's a bunch of little apartments a few floors up. We'll find you something with a view."
**************
A suitable suite was located, and somehow Pepper got passcards and everything settled and they didn't have to see Steve Rogers yet. Clint was dreading the moment he saw his ex--was he technically an ex, though? Had they even been dating? He'd been so flattered by Steve. Big Damn Hero paying attention to a mere mortal. And the hugs, man, the hugging had been the best Clint ever had. Maybe it had just been sex and he read more into it than was there because he wanted it to be more. It wasn't like he and Steve had ever talked about it being a relationship. And then suddenly there was the thing with Hydra while Clint was busy in Mexico City, and when he got back on the grid, there was Steve with Sam Wilson. Stupid sexy Sam Wilson.
More than anything, Clint wished he could talk to someone about it, but Natasha was so proud of Steve and Sam being together that he was pretty sure she'd set them up. She didn't even know that Clint had been sleeping with Cap, which really, he should be happy that he'd managed to keep something like that secret from her. But it hadn't started out a secret, just there'd never been a good time to mention it, and now it would be weird if he did.
And Bucky. That was a worse option. The thing with Bucky was for sure a relationship. Holding hands in front of Pepper Potts, feh, some secret operatives they were! But he definitely couldn't talk to Bucky about Captain America. Bucky had quite enough baggage about the guy already, from their childhood together through World War II through the thing with Hydra when he had a mission to assassinate Steve but couldn't. So yeah, that was complicated. Maybe they should be talking about *Bucky's* feelings about Steve. Is that what a boyfriend was supposed to do?
Clint didn't really know. Dating was hard and everything was complicated and feelings were stupid.
For now, there was this suite of rooms and it had a really nice bathroom and was furnished with a bed and a coffeemaker and fluffy white bathrobes. Natasha, being the only one of the three of them with no kraken-guts in her hair, was taking the stuff they'd found up to the science bros (it was okay for Clint to call them that in his head even if he refused to say it out loud).
There was a good chance they'd have long enough to fuck before anyone bothered them. Maybe twice. Doing it twice would be cool.
And after that he'd find some pants that weren't overalls and had pockets.