Work Text:
Clint woke up with a leaden weight over his stomach and hot air rushing against his ear. He was in a room that was not his own; he knew this because the sheets draped around him were slippery and soft instead of the standard issue sandpaper cotton.
"I'm not going to enjoy this," he sighed as he crunched up to get a look at the arm pinning him down. "You're kidding me. You sleep in those?" Thor's gauntlets caught the light coming in from between thick draperies and threw it back at Clint in merry little twinkles.
"The sun is not yet high enough to be out of bed." Thor's voice was scratchy and dry.
Asking the god of thunder to explain why they were in bed together would be diplomatically unsound. Instead, Clint dropped his head back down before asking, "Where's the bathroom?"
The arm over Clint's midsection lifted and a finger pointed to one of two doors against the far wall. As with his own room, one was the toilet and one was a gateway to freedom…provided Clint could locate his pants.
"Do not run from me, little hawk," Thor laughed. "I will always find you again."
Clint froze as a warm hand ran down his back. He sat on the edge of the bed until the hand was gone and he heard Thor's deep, rumbling snore begin. In the dim light, he sought out his pants and made a break for freedom.
*****
"So, how was it?" Natasha was in Clint's room when he arrived. He was breathing hard and shaking slightly.
"I…don't know. What happened?" He stumbled toward his dresser and pulled out a clean set of clothes. "Last thing I remember, we were eating at that shawarma place, then I'm waking up naked next to a god."
"You're bragging." Natasha's smile was the same one she had right before she gutted people. "I'm sure you'll figure things out. Fury sent me to tell you that you're on mandatory leave through the end of the month. We all are."
"Some leave. That's only three days." Still, three days was more consecutive time off than he'd had in the last four years. "And don't change the subject. What happened?" Clint still owed Natasha many favors for times she'd saved his ass in the past. He knew she didn't see things that way, though, and this was one time he didn't feel bad about exploiting that fact. "You know I'd tell you if our situations were reversed."
She paused and looked like she was thinking it over. "No," she said. "You would give me little hints, but you would never just tell me."
Damn, she was right. "A hint?"
Natasha moved toward the door. "One hint?"
"Yeah."
"It wasn't in the shawarma." With that she left, allowing Clint privacy to punch his pillows and howl his frustration at the walls. And shower. He definitely needed a shower.
*****
After a shower and a meal, Clint was in a better mood. He refused to admit that the better mood might have stemmed from a possible orgasm in his recent past. Orgasms that he couldn't confirm through his own powers of observation never happened. His slightly sore ass and the bruise in the shape of a hand thereupon were enough evidence to suggest he might have had a good time (the mess he had to chip off the area confirmed that Thor certainly had), but Clint hadn't survived as long as he had on hunches and guesses. He needed facts.
"Hot night?" Tony Stark was repulsive and an asshole, but Clint needed him and would tolerate the inevitable jokes at his expense.
"What do you know about my night?" He wasn't going to just ask, though. That would be demeaning.
Tony chuckled and went back to tinkering with a large metal…something. "More than you, apparently." The machine let out a low buzz then started to smoke. "Does that annoy you, how much smarter than you I am?"
"Does it annoy you that, without your suit, I could kill you before you have time to finish blinking?"
"Ooh, I like a tough guy." Tony eyed Clint's uniform. "Not in leather, though. I don't do leather. It chafes." The machine's buzzing grew louder until Tony smacked it. "I'm making a better toaster for the break room. It still needs work."
Clint made a mental note to stay away from the Helicarrier's break room for the foreseeable future. "I'm busy—"
"No, you're not." Tony had the audacity to tweak Clint's nose. "But, in the spirit of teamwork and future blackmail, I'll inform you that there was an energy surge throughout the ship at approximately…" Tony squinted at one of his screens. "…one twenty-four last night."
"Residual enemy attack?"
Tony's mouth dropped open. "Seriously? I hand you the answer on a platter and you still don't get it?" He threw his hands in the air. "The world's finest, they said."
Clint turned on his heel and left while Tony grumbled on about Nick Fury's ability to exaggerate the competence of his team.
*****
Power surge. Not the shawarma.
Clint thought over his two hints while crouched on a beam above one of the research bays. High above the scientists, he felt safe. Most people feared the danger of the rafters, not even daring them to retrieve him for emergency situations. Fury was the only one who ever joined him in his perch, and Clint swore that the director's good eye twitched every time he looked down.
"Here you are, little hawk."
It figured that the god of thunder wouldn't have a problem with heights. "Need something?" Clint didn't look up, just watched the scientists below as they welded parts on an aircraft.
"I have no needs but many wants."
Clint felt the heat radiating from Thor's body as the man neared. It churned something in his stomach that wasn't the steak and eggs he'd had for breakfast. "I'm working."
"Lies do not do justice to the sweetness of your lips." Thor reached out and trailed his thumb over the lips in question. "What is wrong, little hawk? Was I not satisfactory?"
Clint's first attempt at answering came out in a gurgle of moans. He took a deep breath and tried again. "I don't know," he said honestly. He chanced a look at the other man and had to look away quickly to avoid the desire he saw there.
Thor moved his hand, took a step away, then crouched down to mirror Clint. "I understand." There was a long silence, then Thor heaved himself up with a grunt. "Find your answers, little hawk, and then come for me." He cupped Clint's jaw in one hand. "I shall wait for you."
Clint smiled when Thor vaulted off the rafter, scaring the scientists below when he landed with a crack of pavement.
"Guess I'll get to work, then," he sighed. He took the stairs.
*****
Steve did not look happy to have his workout interrupted but, since working out seemed to be the totality of Captain Rogers' life, Clint didn't feel bad about it. "Captain Rogers, a word if I could."
Steve stilled his punching bag and caught his breath. "I heard you're having a little memory issue." The boy next door smile was rather at odds with the vicious light in Steve's eyes. Perhaps the latter was a residual from the training.
"I assume Mr. Stark briefed you on the situation?" Clint enjoyed watching the blush wash out the last feral traces from Steve's features. If he thought he and Tony were being subtle, he was either greatly mistaken or working under a definition of subtlety concocted in Tony's lab.
"Agent Romanoff gave me strict orders."
Clint grit his teeth and tried to remind himself that Natasha was his best friend and, somewhere along the line, he'd probably done something to deserve this. "I'll just bet she did. And what were those orders?"
Steve pointed. Steve laughed. Steve turned back to his punching bag and resumed his training.
Tomorrow, Clint was going to hide all the punching bags on the Helicarrier.
*****
"It's on that table over there." Bruce Banner was a good man. He didn't bother with useless chitchat, just gave Clint the information he needed and resumed mixing tubes of bubbling green stuff and red stuff together.
"Thank you," Clint said. He picked up the tablet and skimmed the information on it. The data indicated that the power surge the previous night came from an internal overload of energy near Thor's living quarters.
"You must've had some night," Dr. Banner laughed. "It takes a lot to cause an overload like that."
Clint's fingers twitched around the tablet.
"Did you know," Bruce continued, "that the human brain also runs on a kind of electricity?" He tipped more red stuff into the green stuff.
"That a fact?"
Bruce frowned at his mixture and added more red to the green. "Might I suggest wearing a helmet next time?"
Clint was getting very tired of being laughed at by freaks and geniuses.
*****
"Excellent. Just the Energizer bunny I've been looking for." Tony grabbed Clint by the arm and redirected him toward his research lab.
"Why are you touching me?"
"Now, now, when you're about to receive a present you're supposed to be polite." Tony's attempt at a stern expression was laughable, but Clint wasn't presently in a laughing mood and pushed the other man away.
"I don't need—"
"Oh, but you do!" Tony pushed Clint into his lab. "I've made you something special. Consider it an early Christmas gift. Or maybe Kwanza. It's catchy, isn't it? Kwanza."
Clint waited through the babble because, despite a certain amount of dread, he was curious to see what the maniac had made.
Tony and silence were not friends. "So I asked myself what's the perfect gift for a guy that's not impervious to his boyfriend's lightning bolts of love?"
"He's not my boyfr—"
"And then it came to me. Jewelry. Tada!" Tony held up a tacky rainbow colored friendship bracelet. "State of the art energy grounding technology in a convenient on the go design. Happy Kwanza!" He grabbed Clint's wrist and slid it on. The bracelet tightened itself to a comfortable length.
"I look like a girl," Clint grumbled. His wrist looked…dainty now.
"Wear a skirt sometime, give the guy a thrill." Tony moved back toward his equipment. "Some guys are into that kind of thing." He turned, touched one of his data screens, and some unidentifiable, loud noise masquerading as music poured into the room. Clint took his exit before his eardrums began to bleed.
*****
"Your bedclothes were not fit to clean excrement from boots," Thor explained when Clint entered his room. "Are you going to shoot me, little hawk?"
Clint put his gun away. "Sorry. Habit." He didn't particularly like guns, but he couldn't carry his bow everywhere and the tiny firearm had saved his life more times than he cared to count. Seeing someone in his room when he walked in triggered five hundred nasty memories of such times.
"Did you find the answers you were seeking?" Thor grinned as though he already knew the answer and patted the bed beside him.
The ridiculous bracelet around his wrist felt suddenly heavy, more solid than even Mjolnir. "Yeah. Sorry about…forgetting."
Thor shrugged, a massive movement that rippled all the muscles visible above where a black satin sheet covered his nakedness. "There are many memories we can make to replace those that were lost…unless your desire has fled with your memory." He pushed the sheet aside. "In which case we best flame it anew."
At approximately 11:23 that afternoon the Helicarrier experienced an energy flux that reduced one of its backup systems to the technological equivalent of a Speak N Spell. Clint recalled each and every moment of the resulting red alert with crystal clarity.