Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Those hands of yours, Barton,” Phil whines, voice stuttering as Clint’s fingers wrap around the older man’s straining cock. He teases the tip, thumbs the sensitive underside of the head, and Phil is so, so gone. It’s not just the pressure, not just the contact - it’s the rough calluses and the skin softer than he would’ve believed; it’s the scarred knuckles he sees when he looks down, white against the flushed red of his own skin.

Then Clint’s lips brush the back of his neck.

It’s barely anything, just the gentlest brush against his nape, but Phil’s wanted this - needed this, craved this, fucking dreamed of this - and he closes his eyes and pretends it was more than an accident, and then he’s coming. Endless, blinding, achingly hollow. It shouldn’t be possible to feel the stir of air behind him as Clint turns to leave, but Phil swears he does.

He keeps his eyes closed, his face turned away.

If his legs are shaking and his hands are gripping the desk tightly enough to leave indents, it’s no one’s business but his own. And if there’s wetness pushing at the back of his eyelids, it’s completely unrelated to the still-burning skin on the back of his neck.

He reaches out for the box of tissues, the brush of his suit pants against his legs making shame crawl prickly across his skin. He cleans himself off roughly before yanking his trousers back up and tightening his belt so it pinches his stomach.

The pinch grounds him. He opens his eyes, blinks twice, then moves to sit in the chair behind his desk.

He has paperwork to do.

In the vents above Phil’s office, Clint curls himself up into a ball. The blanket he keeps up there is his favorite, dark purple and washed-soft, and he lets it cover him like armor. Inside this little cocoon, he is safe. When he falls asleep barely a minute later, the rhythmic clacking of a keyboard lulling him into unconsciousness, it’s with the thought of Phil’s arms wrapped around him instead.

Chapter Text

Like all of the worst things in Clint’s life, it started because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

He and Coulson had shared smaller rooms and that one at least had a bed. Their mission had been screwed from the get-go, and it was only the way Clint fired arrows quicker than he breathed that meant either of them were alive. Coulson had bruised ribs and multiple cuts from a window exploding all over him, so when he tried to insist on sleeping on the floor, Clint didn’t bother answering. Coulson refused to give in. When Clint told him that he’d slept on nothing more than bare ground before then, something flinty flashed in his superior’s eyes and the crinkles around them looked just a little deeper.

“I’m taking the floor, Barton. End of discussion.” It was the same tone he used when ordering Clint to stay quiet over comms or that his position had been compromised.

Still, Coulson couldn’t hide his wince as he twisted to drop his pillow onto the cheap carpet floor.

“We could just share,” Clint blurted, his chest spasming at the sight of Coulson in pain.

Coulson eyed him.

Clint twitched.

“Okay,” Coulson said mildly, like he hadn’t just argued about not sleeping in the bed for the past five minutes.

They took turns in the shower, both too tired to do much more than rinse the sweat, blood and grime off before slumping into the bed.

Clint and Coulson had worked together long enough to be past any body-shyness around one another, but there was still a sense of something forbidden about being within touching distance with the false comfort of darkness all around.

He could hear the other man’s measured breathing, feel the body heat emanating from him and curling across Clint’s body like an embrace. It felt intimate, close.

Maybe that’s what made Clint reach his hand out.

It brushed Coulson’s thigh.

Neither of them moved for a second.

Then Coulson shifted his leg outwards a little, further into Clint’s hand. He let himself feel the other man’s warm skin and coarse hair, tracing small scars as he trailed his hand slowly upward.

Clint wondered if Coulson could hear how his heart raced.

“Keep going,” Coulson whispered when Clint’s hand faltered at the edge of his underwear, and suddenly Clint realized this was really actually happening.

He’d wanted Coulson for years, so long he could barely remember when it began. He just knew Coulson was his soft spot, the attraction always there, tucked away deep inside where no one could snatch it away. Clint had wanted him for so long that he’d grown used to it, knowing nothing could ever come from childish wants like affection or love. Not for him.

Clint had trained himself not to want those things long ago. He was bad and callous and ruined, and Coulson was… perfect. Coulson was educated, intelligent, an honorable veteran hero. He was quiet and kind and so fucking competent it made Clint’s head spin, and wasn’t it just like him to develop an attachment that’d never be returned to someone who’d once shot him in the thigh?

But that was Clint’s M.O., people he’d cared for hurting him. So he was stuck, half in love (because he wouldn’t admit the other half even to himself, not yet) with a man that was so far out of his league, not even Hawkeye could see across the distance between them.

Clint was nothing more than trash, his father’s soiled blood running deep in his veins, and Coulson… he was a male Aurora, bringing the dawn and all that came with it, and Clint had lived in the dark too long not to be awed by that.

If Coulson was the dawn, Clint was the dusk.

Clint had just accepted that Coulson, like any good thing, wasn’t meant for him.

Clint had a lifetime of not being enough, he’d grown used to its barbed sting, but the hurt of it never really went away.

But now, with Coulson making quiet, encouraging noises as Clint traced the hard outline of him, Clint let himself forget all that. Just for a second, just for a minute, he let himself pretend.

He let Coulson’s desperate noises wash over him like a baptism, cleansing him of his past. In that bed, in that moment, he was just a man, using his body to show the beautiful person before him just how much he cared. When Coulson came with Clint’s name on his lips, it was almost enough to make Clint forget how so many others had spat that same name out like it tasted foul.

Almost.

Almost.

He moved back, wiping his hand on the sheets below him.

Coulson called out his name, but it didn’t sound like absolution anymore. It felt like a reminder of a past Clint could never escape, not unless he one day managed to run fast enough to leave himself behind.

So Clint turned his back as Coulson got up and walked to the bathroom.

As the click of the door echoed in his ears, Clint tried to ignore how the bed felt empty without Coulson in it.

Chapter Text

Phil hadn’t slept that night. His heart was sick and sore and breaking, and it took all the years he’d spent building his control for him to lay next to Clint. He wanted to ask what the fuck had just happened, but the way his limbs still felt boneless was reminder enough. The best encounter he’d had in years - probably in his whole goddamn life - was over and finished, and it was clear Barton didn’t have anything to say to him. It had probably just been leftover adrenaline coursing through that lithe, beautiful body, clouding his mind until Phil looked like someone desirable.

It had been so long since Phil had felt wanted that he gave in as soon as Clint’s hand grazed his leg. The touch had been hesitant; it had taken a minute for Phil to register it’d actually happened. So many years of fantasizing about pushing Barton into a wall and quieting his smart mouth with Phil’s tongue, of unzipping Hawkeye’s field suit until he found Clint underneath and loving him with his mouth and hands and all the devotion gathered inside the left half of his chest.

And for a little while, a little pocket of time that Phil simultaneously never wanted to remember or forget, he’d had that. Clint touching him like Phil was more than just a boring, middle-aged, balding loner. Like there was more to Phil than just a suit or tales of taking down drug lords, like maybe Clint didn’t saw boring, stickler-for-rules Coulson, but that he saw Phil.

Then Phil had to ruin it by calling Clint’s name when he came; like they were lovers, like Phil had the right.

Like every dream he’d ever had.

It must have made Barton realize Phil wasn’t just using him to get off, a willing body in the black of night. No, Phil had been obviously arching is spine for Clint, shifting his hips for Clint, coming all over both of them for Clint.

Judging by the way Barton had gone sniper-still and immediately moved back, Phil knew he’d ruined it. He wasn’t sure what it was, but the cold settling all around told him it was gone now. So Phil pressed his lips together and made his way to the bathroom, cursing his tender heart and its inability to stay inside his chest rather than bleed out into his words and actions. He washed himself off and caught sight of his frame in the mirror.

Bland, plain features. Wrinkled, pale, pasty skin. The softness of his stomach, the droop of his jawline.

Of course Clint - beautiful, talented, whip-smart Clint - wouldn’t want a washed-up old agent.

Phil averted his gaze from his reflection, turning off the light when that wasn’t enough.

He told himself that he’d had more with Barton that he’d ever expected, and that he should be grateful, and that would have to be the end of it.

Except for three weeks later, when it happened again.

Chapter Text

There was Marrakech, then there was Jakarta, then Chongqing. Secret nights in dimly-lit safe houses when the mission was done, shared groans and whimpers building in the air around them like a cocoon, Clint’s hands on Phil’s skin and his voice in Phil’s ear and Phil was lost. He meant to stop it, meant to tell Clint he wanted more than just this, but he was too scared. He was too insecure, too scared of the rejection he knew would come when Clint told him Phil had been nothing more than a warm body in the night, and Phil - stupid, needy, lonely Phil - had misunderstood.

So he settled for having that beautiful man with him for now even if it was someone else Clint was imagining, and he told himself the cold sweat that covered his skin after every encounter didn’t smell like regret. They’d fuck, rutting like wild animals, slapping skin and bared teeth, and then they’d sleep, bodies separate like they were in separate beds. And when they woke up, they’d go over the mission, no hint of the night before tainting things between them. Coulson knew he and Hawkeye made a perfect team, and Natasha had only improved their skill. They were SHIELD’s ultimate strike force, sent in to save situations no one else could. They were the best of the best, the silent shadows creeping in the night.

But even a shadow couldn’t stay hidden forever.

Clint was captured in Kiev.

The mission had been a trainwreck right from the start. Not even Phil’s meticulous planning for every eventuality had any effect when the rogue agents revealed their true colors. Phil had known them all for years, could never have predicted that they’d turn on SHIELD.

Black Widow was somewhere outside the compound, keeping eyes out for the insurgents that were supposedly headed their way. Hawkeye was scouting around the building for a vantage point to shoot them from.

Then Phil had heard the crack of a gunshot split the night, through his binoculars seen Hawkeye swinging fists and arrows. He held his own but there were too many, and Phil’s stomach lurched as he watched the agents bundling Clint into the back of a dark van.

Just like that, Hawkeye was gone.

Coulson patched into SHIELD and explained they shouldn’t send backup in case those agents were also compromised. In return, he’d been told it was too risky to go in and find Hawkeye, that they couldn’t risk the lives of both Agent Coulson and the Black Widow even if the alternative was sacrificing Clint.

Coulson had ended the call, taken the tracker out of the back of his cellphone, and crushed it under his heel.

Coulson had been an Army Ranger for years, with SHIELD even longer. He was adept at compartmentalising, beyond skilled at shutting away things he didn’t want to think of. He was renowned in SHIELD for being the ultimate Agent, robot-like in his reactions and work ethic.

Coulson was stone, impenetrable and unbreakable, steadfastly solid.

Phil was not.

Phil was terrified, chest so tight he couldn’t take a full breath, because Hawkeye - Clint - had disappeared and he had no idea where. The rogue agents would want information, had undoubtedly assumed Hawkeye would be easier to extract it from.

They were so, so wrong.

Phil had been the one to bring Clint in, shaking but full of bravado. He’d seen something in the younger man - a bone-deep exhaustion, a weariness borne of living day-to-day wishing you didn’t have to see another morning, and it was what had made Phil give Clint a chance when no one else would. Clint had seen the worst of life, and he’d been through with it. But Phil believed in him, cared for him in a way he knew nobody in Clint’s life had before, and Clint had become fiercely protective of him given that he’d never been shown loyalty before. Phil knew this protection meant Clint would never give up SHIELD information, would withstand any torture to repay the debt he felt he owed Phil for saving him, and it was enough to bring bile to the back of Phil’s throat.

It was also enough to let loose the burning, acidic fury that had been building in his gut.

Clint would walk through hell for him, and Phil was ready to unleash that same hell to get him back.

He and Natasha were ruthless, slick and brutal as they followed a whisper trail of where to find Clint. Endless places, endless guns aimed at their bodies, endless thudding footsteps as they ran down dank alleys and across cracked-tile rooftops.

It took them sixty-four hours to find Clint.

He was incoherent, face swollen, bloodied and bleeding.

He flinched when Natasha touched him, babbled his name and rank and SHIELD number over and over.

It wasn’t until Phil had crouched next to him and calmly, firmly ordered him to “Stand down, Barton,” that Clint had gone silent.

He’d stayed that way as Phil and Natasha half-dragged him outside, taking care not to jostle any of his injuries. They moved through the dark night of the city like a summer storm, edged with deadliness.

When they’d reached the nondescript hotel Natasha had paid for in cash, Clint finally spoke.

His whole body slumped into Phil’s, his head resting on the other man’s shoulder. “Didn’t tell ‘em anything, sir,” he slurred. “Promised.”

By the time Phil had cleared his throat enough to speak, Clint had fallen asleep, but Phil kissed his hair and held him close anyway.

Chapter Text

Natasha was too trained at reading people for Phil to have hidden the sheer desperation he’d felt when he’d watched Clint be taken. She’d seen past the Agent Coulson mask, the one he’d clung to with hands like claws, and she’d let her hand brush his when she promised him they’d get Clint back.

Sitting in that mold-ridden motel, she’d watched his hands on Clint’s body with careful, tracking eyes. He’d expected a threat, some kind of warning not to let his feelings show and push Clint away from SHIELD. Instead her eyes were wistful for a second or two, fleeting like the scent of bluebells on a breeze.

“He’s been hurt enough,” she said quietly, her voice almost fond. “Be good to him.”

Before Phil could say anything, she was gone.

Clint shifted further into his body, seeking Phil’s warmth like it was hardwired into his brain even in sleep. Phil cradled him in his arms, pressing gentle kisses to each small cut and blooming bruise on Clint’s face.

“Mmmouch,” Clint murmured, drawing away. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused as they rested on Phil.

“Sorry,” Phil whispered back.

“No, don’t… can you… please don’t stop. Feels good.”

Phil swallowed and licked his lips before kissing the biggest gash above Clint’s left eye.

“I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t hurt now.”

“Not for that. For this,” Phil said, kissing the cut again. “For-for letting you down. I should’ve known something wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have let you be taken.”

Clint burrowed closer, his hands fisting around Phil’s ruined dress shirt. “You made me safe.”

“Eventually, yes, but-”

“Before tonight,” Clint interrupted, voice raw.

“I… what?”

“Every day. Every day since I met you, you’ve kept me safe.”

Phil couldn’t breathe. “Clint.”

“Anyone else would have left me in that warehouse. I’m a good shot, Coulson, but there’s not much else to me. Nothing worth coming back for. Nothing worth saving, nothing worth keeping safe. I’ve been left behind my whole life, it feels like. Too worthless to take a risk for.”

He sounded tortured, full of pain and this unshakeable grief, and Phil couldn’t resist dropping his forehead down to rest softly against Clint’s own.

“You came back for me. You saved me.”

“I’ll always come back for you.”

Clint’s sob sounded like half-relief and half-agony. “Don’t say that unless you mean it. Please. I can’t take that, not from you.”

“I mean it. I don’t think you’re worthless, Clint. Never have.” He took a deep breath and knew it was time to be honest, finally. For once in his life, he had to stop hiding. “The opposite, actually” he said quietly, opening his eyes to stare into Clint’s tearful ones. “I think you’re worth everything.”

Clint closed his eyes as Phil rocked him softly. “Why don’t you shower?”

Clint nodded and let Phil help him to the bathroom. Phil took a shaky breath once he was alone in the room, feeling like he’d laid his heart out on a steel slab for someone to poke at. He was bad at this whole thing, talking about his feelings and exposing parts of himself he’d worked for years to conceal. But for Clint, he’d try. He had to try.

It was awkward when Clint came out of the bathroom, face and body clean of blood but still covered in purpled splotches. Phil was already in bed and pulled the covers back for Clint to climb in, lips trembling as he tried to smile. There was no more than a few feet between them, but it may as well have been an island separating two stretches of sea.

Clint’s mind was in overdrive, despite that tiredness that dragged at every part of his body. He was too tense, too aware of his surroundings. He couldn’t get the smell of the warehouse he’d been kept in out of his nose, sharp and acidic every time he breathed in. The feeling of helplessness had overwhelmed his training. It all reminded him of being with Trickshot and the man’s penalties for Clint’s arrows going awry, and it was only Clint’s loyalty to Coulson that had stopped him from spilling all SHIELD’s secrets like blood. He counted to ten slowly, let his fingers scrape across the shitty sheets to remind himself he was in bed with Coulson and everything was fine, but he couldn’t shake off the shackles of fear sitting on his chest. He was on the verge of a panic attack when Phil moved suddenly, rolling onto his side and brushing Clint’s arm with his own.

The sound Clint made was high-pitched and too loud in the darkness.

Maybe Coulson would think he’d just been surprised, maybe he’d miss the thready sound of fear in that noise. Except it was Coulson, so of course he didn’t. He moved back just slightly, so he was out of touching range, and made this shushing noise that was both instantly calming and awful.

Clint bit his cheek so hard he tasted rust, willing his heart to slow the fuck down. Not Trickshot, he told himself, not one of SHIELD’s enemies. Coulson.

Phil.

“Sorry,” Coulson whispered, and Clint was so embarrassed he couldn’t even breathe. Enough that he knew Coulson would have guessed the things in Clint’s past would made his capture even more harrowing, but to lay his fear out for Phil to see...

His stomach lurched.

“I shouldn’t have touched you without asking,” Coulson carried on, and how was this guy even real? “It was just a mistake. I won’t touch you again, okay?”

Clint’s pulse was still storming against his neck, but he didn’t think this was from fear. It was from something else, something that loosened that ever-present knot in his stomach.

And it was with that he turned on his side, shuffled across the mattress, and pressed his dry, chapped lips against Coulson’s.

He wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised. Coulson’s body went taut, his mouth unmoving under Clint’s for one agonizing second where Clint thought his heart was about to take another indelible bruise. But then something in Coulson shifted, softened, and his lips were so gentle as they pressed back against Clint’s.

Clint hadn’t ever known anything gentle or soft before. He’d had rough, fierce, and even then he didn’t think he deserved it. So this - Phil, kissing him like he thought there was something about Clint deserving of a light touch, it wrecked him. Then he remembered soft eyes and a gentle voice saying telling him he was worth everything, and he was so overwhelmed that tears pushed against his eyelids. He broke the kiss and buried his face in Phil’s neck.

Safe, safe, safe. You’re safe here.

And for the first time ever, Clint believed it.

Phil’s arms were ridged with muscle, flesh and bone and strength, but they were more comforting than Clint’s blanket. They were warmth and kindness and love.

They were home.

Chapter Text

Clint came awake slowly, like the slow roll of cloud across a bright sky. Everything felt surreal, somehow too good to be true, too perfect to be meant for him. He knew it wouldn’t be many people’s idea of perfect, a motel room with static-ridden sheets and blinds that didn’t at all dampen the blazing morning light, but Clint knew better. He shifted back into arms that still held him carefully, mindful of the various cuts and bruises across his body.

“Good morning,” Phil said softly, like he was caught up in the same hazy spell. Clint was seconds away from tensing, wondering whether Phil still meant those words he’d spoken last night. He’d been afraid for Clint, after all, and relief could do funny things to people’s emotions.

“I can hear you thinking,” Phil told him, wrapping his arms just a little tighter, and it was everything that Clint needed to hear without Coulson even having to say it. I’m here. I’m staying.

“Just wondering how things were going to look this morning.”

“Well, your bruises certainly don’t look any better. This room looks even worse than it did last night, if possible. You still kick in your sleep and your hair looks like it’s assumed a life of its own, but I’m still so in love with you that I can barely breathe, so we’ve got one thing going for us at least.”

A stunned second, and then Clint was laughing hard enough to jostle every bruised inch of his body, and he didn’t even care. Phil words were a balm for scars old and new, a salve for every rough patch and still-open wound that Clint has. And he laughed loudly but then he was crying even louder, in these great heaving sobs that make everything shake.

Phil moved closer and pressed a kiss to the back of his head. He said that Clint was perfect and kind and beautiful and that he’ll tell him every minute if he has to, and that he was sorry he didn’t tell him sooner. He didn’t ask Clint for a reciprocation, not once. He just held him, steady and accepting, like he understood that Clint wanted this so badly that he was convinced he still couldn’t actually have it.

Later, once Clint had wiped the last remnants of tears from his cheeks and Phil had left to scout them some vending machine breakfast, Clint reflected on everything that had happened. Sometime during the night, Natasha had sent him a text that says nothing more than ‘ he’s the only person I’d trust with you’ . That’s as much of an endorsement as he’d ever heard from her, and he knew she’s right. Coulson is the only person besides her who has ever seen anything redeemable within him. He’s the only one who’s ever seen Clint as an actual person, as more than a bow and arrow. It’s what made Clint fall in love with him. For someone who has never had faith in themselves, the unshakable conviction Phil has that Clint is a good person is almost overwhelming. Clint wants to believe that, too. He’s so tired of being scared and angry right to his core, and he thinks maybe it’s time that changed.

So when Phil comes back cradling a smashed pack of donuts and three different types of chocolate, Clint hobbles over to him and kisses his lips until he’s breathless. “No one has ever loved me. My mom said she did, but love isn’t about letting someone be hurt. It isn’t standing by and hiding while they bleed. You taught me that. You taught me that someone caring for me could be a good thing and not just a surefire path to getting hurt. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Phil, but I promise I’ll do everything to keep you with me.” He kisses Phil again. “I love you too. I always have, really. And I know I’m not easy to like sometimes. I know I’m… I’m too much, too loud when everyone else is quiet and I don’t know how to sit still, but you make it better. You make me better. With you, I think I could be the person I’ve always wanted to be. Please, let me try. Please don’t give up on me.”

His eyes are blurry with tears but so are Phil’s, and Phil’s lips are back on his and the donuts are getting even more crushed between them but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except every blessing of Phil’s body pressed against his. It is everything Clint has always dreamed of, and he breaks the kiss to bury his face in Phil’s neck. “I love you, I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I know, Clint. You’re safe with me, sweetheart. Always safe with me.”

Clint’s heart is a shipwreck but Phil’s arms are a moor that will bring him back up, and he clings tight to Phil’s body and he breathes.

He breathes, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Chapter Text

They marry on the first day of spring.

Clint’s late, partly because he had to look up on YouTube how to do his bowtie properly, and partly because he’s Clint, but Phil doesn’t panic. The little threads of anxiety that sat in his body like veins have long been unfurled. He has his safe life with his safe routine that never changes, and that’s just how he likes it. He had worried that Clint would find it boring, but routine was all Clint had ever longed for. Phil knows it seems black and white to others - the same commute to the office, the same coffee stop, the same lunch - but Clint brings all the colour to his world that he’ll ever need.

So when ten minutes of him stood at the top of the aisle tick by, he doesn’t feel even a prickle of warmth on the back of his neck. Ten more minutes slide past, and his smile when May rolls her eyes isn’t forced. It’s these little gifts that Clint has given him that mean the most - these moments where he knows even if he falls, there’s a safety net waiting.

Clint shows up forty minutes late. Phil can hear him jogging along the marble floors, footsteps echoing. Even now, even after all these years, it makes his heart flutter. He hopes that never stops.

When Phil turns to look at Clint, it feels as though he’s seeing constellations mapped out before him.

That first moment when Clint, heart-sore and terrified, had reached his trembling hand out to rest against Phil’s leg. The first time Clint had called him Phil, soft, like it was something reverent. The first time he’d made Clint belly laugh - the hoarse sound of it, as though it didn’t happen often. The vacation they took together where Clint swam in the sea for the first time. The day Clint moved into Phil’s little house and made it into a home. The day Phil spent perfecting ‘I love you’ in sign, so he could tell Clint as soon as he woke up. The nights spent sharing takeout on their couch, the days spent with fingers entwined.

Clint walks down the aisle and his eyes are wet but his smile is so, so wide, and Phil’s heart feels fuller than he can ever remember before.

Everyone is smiling, but no-one smiles like Clint does: no-one smiles with their teeth biting in to their bottom lip, like disbelief and joy and nerves all rolled into one. Phil doesn’t think anyone ever has had a smile as beautiful as Clint’s. Maybe that’s why the wait for Clint to walk down the aisle feels eternal, even though it isn’t more than a few feet. Every step Clint takes feels like it’s a promise, and they’re all promises Phil intends to keep.

When Clint finally reaches Phil, their hands find one another and grip on tight. Clint’s is shaking, just a little. Phil squeezes Clint’s hand - this is real, it’s not going anywhere - and the deep breath he feels leave Clint’s body echoes his own.

Clint rubs his index finger over the space where Phil’s wedding ring will soon sit, and Phil feels his own eyes dampen at the corners. Years to get here but so many more ahead. They both float through the vows, exchange rings with clumsy fingers, turn to face their friends with lumps in their throat.

“Kiss him again!” someone shouts, and Clint laughs but pivots his body back to Phil.

Phil looks at him in the dappled sunlight, this boy-turned-man that he’s watched carve out a life from nothing. He sees the freckles on Clint’s nose, the almost-invisible wrinkles feathering out from his mouth. Frown marks, Clint calls them, but Phil likes to think they’re not frown marks now.

He brings his hand up to trace them, and then kisses those lines, dips Clint low and tastes his laugh.

When he pulls back, Clint’s eyes are brighter than he’s ever seen them. The pad of Clint’s thumb is still rough from years of a bowstring against it, but Phil is used to the harsh catch of it on his skin by now.

“Smile lines,” Clint says gently, just between them.

“Yes,” Phil says, seeing his future in Clint’s face. “Smile lines.”

This time, Clint dips him.