Work Text:
People always said dating where you work was difficult and generally a bad idea. Well, Clint was ignoring that second part because he’d never met a bad idea he hadn’t tried to marry but the first part? The first part was whooping his ass.
No matter how cheerful (Thor) or welcoming (Steve) or just generally fun and outgoing (Tony) the Avengers seemed, each and every one of them had been through more pain and heartache than most people would experience in two or even three lifetimes. They had been betrayed, used, and left for dead more times than any of them cared to count.
In fact, Clint had lost count somewhere around nine or ten times and that was just for himself. They had all gone through unimaginable hardships and had d ones ripped away from them in ways that should have pushed them right into the arms of villainy, not heroism.
Some of them had lost their agency; some, their right to a personal life. Some of them had lost vital parts of their physical selves—limbs, hearing, an eye—and all had come out of their various trials and tribulations having lost chunks of their figurative selves each time.
So no matter how bright the smiles they put on for the public were, no matter how many times they got up to fight the good fight for the sake of everyday citizens, Clint knew that deep down the Avengers kept barbed wire and laser grids and every other defense known to man over the last things they had left to guard—their hearts.
Clint knew that for himself, his heart was in a locked box at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by spikes. Clint got along with people easily, finding it a breeze to make them laugh and smile, to strike up conversations, but that didn’t mean he liked those people. Nor that any of them had managed to make a friend out of him.
Clint was as deeply distrusting as the rest of them, he just had his own way of faking it and keeping his heart protected.
And as far as the man Clint was in love with went, well, he thought the best comparison for how guarded his heart was might have been a heavily fortified labyrinth. Booby traps at every wrong turn like an Indiana Jones movie, misleading clues being handed out, and a smorgasbord of dead ends.
A labyrinth to put the Goblin King’s to shame.
Though it wasn’t as if any of that had been enough to deter Clint because, as he had said, bad ideas and Clint Barton were basically relatives. He had tried time and time again only to run into one of those dead ends, traps or misleading clues, which always ended up more embarrassing than anything else.
It wasn’t like they were strangers either. They had both managed to make it past each other’s first levels of protection and enter into the coveted position of close friends, it was just going that extra two hundred miles to get to the romantic finish line.
Clint knew Bruce had been hurt time and time again in ways none of them could even imagine. His experience with pain was a common thing among the Avengers but how that pain was dealt out was uniquely his. So Clint understood his apprehension.
Hell, it had taken Clint months to convince himself that falling for Bruce wouldn’t be the thing to finally break him. That it wasn’t something he had to fight against. The moment he had first felt inklings of romantic attraction towards the man, he had begun to distance himself from him.
He didn’t go down to the lab as often, he didn’t joke around with Hulk post-battle as much. He even did his best not to get injured so he wouldn’t have to let Bruce look over him in the medbay.
But that only made him miss him.
He missed the way Bruce would tuck his glasses into his hair and then spend the next few minutes wondering what he had done with them. He missed listening to Bruce mutter to himself as he shuffled around his lab working. He missed the soft, grateful smiles he would get when he brought Bruce food and something to drink.
And though his feelings for Hulk were completely platonic, Clint missed him too. He saw the way Hulk would pout when Clint got onto the quinjet instead of climbing onto Hulk’s shoulders to go back home. He missed the way Hulk would try his best to delicately hug Clint when he got excited.
So he stopped keeping his distance and just accepted that this was happening. He had feelings for Bruce.
He thought that was going to be the difficult part. He hadn’t imagined that Bruce’s romantic defenses were twice as impenetrable as his own. Although, he sensed not that Bruce didn’t return his feelings but that he was just as scared as Clint had been about admitting it.
Even if Clint’s spy-honed intuition hadn’t helped him discern how Bruce really felt, the way Hulk responded to him compared to everyone else would have been proof enough.
“Hulk got Hawk,” Hulk said when he caught Clint as he fell from the building. He had leapt without a solid plan, hoping to shoot a grappling hook arrow into a nearby office window when Hulk had roared and extended his arms.
Clint had let himself fall freely into the sure catch of Hulk and was now being held bridal style in his arms while Hulk grinned proudly down at him.
“You sure do, buddy. Thanks.” Clint patted his arm and was lowered to the ground carefully. Clint turned before he ran off back into the fight. “Gotta go. See you later, Hulk.”
“Hawk careful!” Hulk called insistently after him and Clint offered him a lazy salute and then whipped around to fire off an arrow into the back of an AIM agent.
After the fight was over and Damage Control as well as First Responders were on the scene, the Avengers gathered up AIM agents and helped load them into the Shield prisoner transports.
Hulk roared at the yellow-clad agents as they passed, keeping them in line until all were loaded up and Steve double slapped the closed doors of one transport and they all drove off.
Clint turned his attention to Hulk now, limping over to him on what was definitely a sprained ankle from one of his more daring flips.
“Hey.”
Hulk knew what was coming and he huffed, stomping a foot that shook that ground and nearly knocked Clint off balance.
“Aw, come on, man,” Clint said, coming over to lean against Hulk and take the weight off his ankle. He looked up at him and Hulk turned away stubbornly. “You know I love ya, big guy, but we all gotta go home in the ‘jet and Banner just fits easier, you know?”
“Hmph,” Hulk said, sitting down and crossing his arms tightly over his chest. Clint dropped down with him, the others talking amongst themselves while Clint went through his usual routine of convincing Hulk to change. The time it took varied from mission to mission.
“How about I make you a promise? Huh?”
Hulk didn’t respond but he did side-eye Clint.
“Give me Banner and tomorrow, you and I will play hide-and-seek in the training room. Deal?” Clint stuck out his fist instead of his hand, waiting for Hulk to tap it back in confirmation.
Hulk considered Clint for a few more seconds and then uncrossed his arms to tap a large, green fist gently to Clint’s.
“Thanks, buddy,” Clint said, patting his arm as Hulk closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, beginning to shrink and change as he exhaled until Bruce was sitting shirtless beside Clint in the stretchy purple pants Tony had designed for him and Hulk.
Bruce sitting half-dressed wearing Clint’s favorite color did nothing to stop the way his heart fluttered at the sight of the disoriented scientist. Bruce rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, looking around until his eyes landed on Clint and he offered a soft smile that Clint returned.
“Afternoon, doc.”
“Afternoon. Why am I on the ground?”
“Right,” Clint said, standing and not offering Bruce his hand because Bruce did not like to be touched unless absolutely necessary and so far only one of them had entered onto the exclusion list for that but even then he always let Bruce initiate it.
Bruce got to his feet and started to follow Clint to the quinjet. They were in the air before either of them had sat down but Natasha was flying so the transition from ground to air had been almost unnoticeable.
“Hulk did not want to make the switch. He pouted and so we sat and chatted.”
“Oh? What about?”
“Had to haggle a little. He’s getting good at getting stuff out of me.”
Bruce chuckled. “He knows you give in.”
“I prefer my phrasing,” Clint told him with a laugh.
“So what does he get?”
“Well, I might have promised him play time with me tomorrow in exchange for you.”
Bruce was quiet for a moment but Clint had come to recognize his various expressions and knew that his quiet now was actually an unheard conversation. One taking place between him and Hulk.
“He’s sad. He wanted to spend more time with you,” Bruce said after a moment, his eyes narrowing and expression becoming unreadable even to Clint.
“Yeah, I thought as much. Hence playtime tomorrow. Hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine.” Bruce’s tone had changed. Clint tried to revive the mood they’d just lost.
“Don’t worry,” Clint teased with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll come spend some time with you in the lab first. No favorites here.”
He turned to Bruce, grinning, to see Bruce’s brief smile dissolve into that same pinched expression, staring blankly at the ground in front of him. As if midway through enjoying himself he had remembered that he wasn’t supposed to. His eyes slid to look at Clint sidelong.
“There’s something I need to work on. Won’t be much fun for you. Come around 4pm and you and Hulk can do whatever you promised him,” Bruce said curtly, standing and half-turning away from Clint but then he turned back, thanked him for his help with Hulk, and walked over to talk to Tony.
Clint sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and staring down at the floor between his combat boots.
This was what he meant. This was the problem. Whenever they got anywhere close to acknowledging their feelings or even just flirting playfully, Bruce would shut him down without hesitation.
He leaned his head back against the cool interior of the jet’s walls, his eyes sliding to watch Bruce for a moment while he chatted quietly with Tony. Clint’s pulse raced just at the sight of Bruce and he looked away, annoyed. Though not with Bruce, with himself.
If nothing ever came of these feelings, if Bruce never decided to let him in that far, that would be Clint’s own fault for giving in to them in the first place. He had known all along what kind of walls he’d be trying to get over to get what he wanted, the kind of obstacles he would have to overcome.
And he knew they weren’t there to hurt him but to protect Bruce.
+
Clint knocked on the lab door at 3:55pm. He had thought about waiting until the very last minute so as not to annoy Bruce but then decided he’d rather be a little early and give him a few minutes to finish whatever he was working on.
Bruce never did anything that Clint couldn’t be present for. He’d watched the man draw his own blood, take skin samples, and induce unconsciousness, to name a few of the more ‘private’ types of activities and yet Bruce hadn’t cared. Clint had just lounged on his usual couch doing whatever he had brought down for that day to keep him company. Sometimes, Bruce would even ask Clint to assist.
So all of that to say that Clint knew Bruce telling him not to come until 4pm was Bruce putting space between them. Something said in the conversation with Hulk had triggered that response and Clint was willing to bet all the money in his bank account that the discussion had been about Bruce’s feelings for Clint.
The door was locked but Clint had the access code. Even so, he waited until Bruce waved him in and then went to sit quietly on the couch, immediately taking out his phone to rule out any unnecessary small talk.
What Clint was trying to do toed the thin line between persistence and harassment, so he was careful about when and how he chose to try and pursue a flirtatious course of action.
Some days he even considered giving up. He kept telling himself that he was going too far, he wasn’t taking no for an answer and that was wrong. But the question had yet to be asked or answered and some days Clint would catch Bruce staring at him with as much longing and pain as he watched Bruce. Those days reminded him that he just had to work for what he wanted.
“What were you and Hulk going to do again?” Bruce asked, his head down as he made actual notes in a notebook and with a pencil no less. He’d seen Bruce get teased mercilessly about that by Tony and it never failed to make him smile to see Bruce stick to his guns.
“Hide-and-seek.”
“How?” Bruce wondered, finally looking up and meeting Clint’s eyes.
Clint dropped his gaze, not wanting to make Bruce uncomfortable no matter how badly he wanted eye contact. This was also part of the difficulty that came with dating so close to home—he couldn’t go back to viewing Bruce as just a friend. No matter how hard he had tried, he was always painfully aware of everything he did as he tried not to cross lines or overstep boundaries.
“One of the Framework locations is somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Lots of trees.”
Bruce hummed and nodded. “I think he’ll like that a lot. Thanks again for how much time you spend with him.”
“It’s my pleasure. And he looks out for me a lot, so it’s not like he’s never done nothin’ for me.”
Bruce hummed again. “Even so. Thanks all the same.” He continued making notes and then said, “Just a minute and I’ll be ready.”
And for whatever reason, Clint had somehow forgotten that it would be Bruce who accompanied him to the simulation room and not Hulk.
“Yeah, no rush.”
They walked in surprisingly comfortable silence to the sim room, Bruce still running calculations in his head as they went and Clint planning what he would have for dinner. He was already onto dessert when Bruce spoke.
“How’s your day been?”
“Yeah, not bad. I haven’t done a single thing. Slept in, woke up, came here,” he said with a laugh, his hands in his pockets.
“Nothing?” Bruce asked with a surprised chuckle.
Clint shrugged with a ‘what ya gonna do’ kind of expression on his face. “Just one of those days, I guess,” he lied easily.
He didn’t like using his Arms-Length tactics on Bruce—the same ones he used for strangers and hookups—but he had to. Because the truth was that usually Clint spent Thursday mornings watching random shit on YouTube on Bruce’s couch while Bruce did whatever was experiment of the week.
Having been formally uninvited from the lab this morning, he’d decided to wile away the hours sleeping instead.
“What about you? It’s fine if the experiment is private and you don’t wanna share, of course,” Clint said, tacking on that disclaimer because of their conversation on the quinjet yesterday.
Funny enough, Bruce seemed confused at first and then Clint watched the meaning of his words click in the smaller man’s head.
“Yeah… just, uh, Helen sent me some things to look over of hers. Confidential government things, you know.”
Yeah, Clint knew alright. He knew a dirty rotten liar when he heard one but that was alright. Obviously Bruce had acted in a way that he needed to act in keep Clint away this morning and Clint decided to respect it.
“Cool. Sounds, uh… sounds interesting. I hope.”
+
Clint was high up in a tree. He was well-acquainted with Hulk’s enhanced sight and hearing by now so he’s worn all his most covert gear for this game. The PNW simulation really was the perfect environment for this game. Hulk could run and leap and destroy trees all he wanted and Clint could use the sounds of the river and wind to hide. Not to mention all of the fantastic hiding places.
Once they had arrived at the sim room, Bruce had taken off his glasses and yanked his t-shirt over his head, resting both on the bench outside the room. He had cracked his neck and told Clint that he would like to be back in his lab in two hours if possible. Then Bruce closed his eyes and in seconds Hulk stood in his place, reading to go.
Hulk wasn’t really the math whiz his alter ego was, so instead of counting, Clint told him to close his eyes and wait for the signal. The signal being Clint firing off an arrow at Hulk’s feet.
Clint shot it straight up into the air and it soared and arced, landing straight up and down at Hulk’s feet so that he would not be able to tell from which direction it had come. He heard Hulk roar excitedly and settled in for what would hopefully take at least ten minutes.
While he waited, his mind, as it so often did, went to Bruce. He hadn’t always felt this way about him. He’d always liked him but these feelings? This started about a year ago.
Clint had been going through a rough patch, his self-worth had nosedived and the tabloids weren’t helping with their ever-critical and callous headlines and articles. He didn’t feel like he needed to be on the team and he left it to fester until he didn’t feel like he needed to be anywhere. Bruce had found him out on the helipad and talked him down calmly. Clint still wondered if Bruce knew that had he gotten there two minutes later, there wouldn’t have been anyone to talk down. He was glad he could destroy the note before Natasha found it.
And then Bruce made him promise to watch the sunrises together, to seek each other out when things got bad and they did. Clint had gone to Bruce a lot of mornings the rest of that month and they had sat out and watched the sunrise together, talking about anything that came to mind. And some days Bruce came and got Clint, needing to refocus his thoughts onto anything but himself and Clint was happy he could finally return the favor and out they’d go again.
They were now at a point where the only other person on the team who knew Clint better than Bruce was Natasha and he was almost convinced that she and him shared a brain.
The romantic aspect didn’t start immediately. Clint was too focused on other things and just happy to deepen his friendship with someone on the team. The romantic aspect didn’t come until after about six months of near daily 4am talks.
It wasn’t as if Clint could pinpoint the exact moment he fell for Bruce. There wasn’t one specific moment. It was all of the moments combined, it was all of the things he learned about Bruce, the things he shared and the things he did while Clint shared. The way he’d listen attentively and ask follow up questions, the soft smiles he’d offer Clint during heavier topics and the way he would, every now and then, rest his hand on top of Clint’s.
Bruce Banner, who hated physical touch more than most people hated crime, would willingly reach out and grab Clint’s hand. He’d put aside his aversion in order to comfort and reassure Clint and that had done screwy, wonderful things to Clint’s heart when it had finally sunk in.
Clint froze when he heard Hulk getting closer, breathing as slowly and quietly as possible and putting his focus back into the game. He knew Hulk wouldn’t enjoy it if he didn’t think Clint was really trying.
Hulk passed by under the tree Clint was hiding in and Clint held his breath. After a few minutes, Hulk returned, sniffing the air and slowly getting closer until he looked up and made eye contact with Clint, breaking out into loud celebration the moment he realized.
“Hulk find Hawk!” he chanted happily and Clint dropped down to the ground beside him, not expecting to be swept off his feet and into Hulk’s arms. “Hulk find Hawk,” he said once more, quieter now as he looked down at Clint.
Clint laughed, once again being held in Hulk’s arms like a damsel in distress.
“You sure did, buddy. Good job. Now you hide and I—oof,” Clint when Hulk pulled him into a hug. He was careful not to squeeze too hard but a Hulk hug was still a slightly suffocating event.
“Hulk love Hawk,” he said and Clint’s discomfort melted away at the sweet admission. That was the first time Hulk had ever said that.
Clint knew from countless conversations with Bruce about Hulk that romantic love wasn’t something he was capable of, which was fine because Clint didn’t see Hulk that way anyway. Hulk’s love was more like a child who loved a friend or a caretaker, it was familial. It was because Hulk felt safe and that was a feeling Clint could easily return.
“I love you too, Hulk.”
Hulk danced happily and Clint laughed.
“Hulk love Hawk,” he repeated again. “Banner love Hawk!”
“HULK,” came Bruce’s voice out of Hulk’s mouth. Clint didn’t know that could happen and Bruce sounded furious.
“Uh oh,” Hulk said, putting Clint down. Hulk looked worried, tapping his hands together anxiously and then he looked at Clint, frowning. “Hulk go.”
Clint just watched him, a little frozen in place at the confession Hulk had made on behalf of Bruce and definitely, it seemed, without Bruce’s permission. It’s not like he didn’t know Bruce had feelings for him, he just didn’t think they were that strong. Or maybe Hulk was over-selling it. Maybe Bruce loved Clint the same way Hulk did, in a familial, platonic—
Hulk disappeared and in his place Bruce stood there half-dressed and torn between furious and wildly uncomfortable.
“Bruce—”
Bruce shot Clint a look and he fell silent.
“Jarvis, end simulation please.”
“Certainly, Doctor.”
“Bruce,” Clint tried again.
“It’s Hulk. He gets excited and says things he doesn’t—”
“Then why did you react like that?” Clint countered.
Clint could see Bruce going through possible excuses and probably also seeing the ways Clint would refute anything he tried.
“Bruce,” Clint said, keeping his tone soft and low so as not to frighten Bruce. Bruce met his eyes and Clint could see the worry in them. “Look, I like you. A lot. I know you know. If you can look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel that way about me, I’ll leave it and never bring it up again. But if you can’t, then we gotta talk.”
“What if I’m too scared to talk?”
“Can you tell me why?”
Bruce opened and closed his mouth and then shrugged. “I just am.”
“We can do it however you wanna do it. In the lab, you working on your experiments, me on the couch, no eye contact or pressure. But I wanna talk, Bruce. I can’t just keep this in.”
“Why can’t you be like me?” Bruce asked softly and it surprised Clint. “Why can’t you hold it in? We could just keep being friends then.”
“You want that? To pretend there’s nothing here till the day we die?”
Bruce averted his gaze. When he didn’t look up again, Clint continued.
“Bruce, is that what you want?”
Again he wouldn’t meet Clint’s eyes.
“I don’t want that either. Listen, we don’t have to jump into anything. And especially not anything that makes you uncomfortable. I know you don’t like touch. It’s not like I’m gonna be all over you if you say yes. We can figure out what works for us and what doesn’t.”
Bruce huffed softly, shaking his head in mild disbelief and finally looking up again.
“That you would even do that for me is further proof why it’s not you that scares me.”
Clint’s eyebrows raised in surprise and then scrunched in confusion. “Wait, it’s not? I thought you were scared I’d hurt you?”
“I mean, I don’t love thinking about those possibilities but heartache is part of life, it’s bound to happen. But I… Clint, there’s so much about me that would make a normal relationship difficult bordering on impossible. I don’t want that for you.”
“That’s too damn bad because you don’t get to decide that. I do. And I’ve chosen. I want you, Bruce. You and all your peculiarities and limitations and whatever else you wanna call ‘em.”
“Clint, I don’t even know that I can have sex safely with you. Or at all.”
Clint shrugged. “I don’t have much of a libido since the New York Incident, oddly enough. And when it does crop up, I’ve got two hands and a pair of eyes—I can make do.”
Bruce laughed softly at that. “You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Making me laugh so I forget about what’s bothering me.”
“That’s good, ain’t it?” Clint asked, taking a half step closer but not far enough to invade Bruce’s space. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Yeah,” he conceded, “it is. God, Clint, I just don’t know what to do.”
“That’s okay. We don’t have to figure that out right away. We can do it bit by bit together. More important is: do you know what you want ?”
The way Bruce looked at him at hearing that was really all the evidence Clint needed to know what Bruce wanted but he still wanted to hear it from him.
“You.”