brandingproblem | open post

"I don't think there's anything I can to stop Stark commenting on my sex life." Phil is resigned to this. There's no way they can really hide a relationship from the Avengers. Stark's going to have a field day.

"Oh, that was flirting?" Phil squeezes his hand. "It's okay. We'll get there."

"Ow, now I know I must be rusty. Just you wait until I take you out to dinner and get all romantic on you. Then you'll be in trouble."

"I can write a performance review," he offers in mock seriousness. "Give you the points you need to work on."

The idea of going out to dinner again alone is enough to get Phil excited. They might look like two friends out to dinner given everything going on but that's fine. They'll be together which is really all Phil needs.

"I'll learn how to seduce you all over again. Don't give me too many pointers, or I'll never learn." He closes his eyes just to feel Phil's hand, trying not to feel anything awful about it. Feeling the difference in touch.

"Thank you. For waiting for me."

"I am really looking forward to that." That Clint is willing to close his eyes around Phil says a lot on top of everything he's explained and said tonight. He's glad Clint can try that, can give that.

"I've waited for you before. I'll wait again."

"Do you still want me to stay the night?" His eyes flutter back open. "Or we can get wine drunk and see how we feel about it later."

"Let's see how you feel. If you're really worried you can sleep on the couch." But Phil would love for Clint to stay the night. With the air clear it's a lot easier for him to feel relaxed and at peace.

"I'm not against finishing this bottle of wine together." He picks up his mostly full glass and takes a sip. "It's good."

"I'm not opposed to sleeping on the couch if I feel like I have to. But it might be nice to try in bed first." He lifts his glass. "Wine first. Make it a sloppy awkward romantic night. Maybe it'll loosen me up. Or keep our nightmares at bay."

"Like our first date?" Phil brings up the memory because once again he had tried too hard and it had taken some time to untangle that mess he almost made. "Because I remember that as very awkward."

They had figured it out. They had figured this out. They were here after all this time.

"Hopefully not that awkward. You're lucky my standards are all kinds of skewed, or you might not have gotten a second date," he jokes.

"I'm lucky you're patient with me too." Phil laughs softly at himself. His romantic streak can be fairly ridiculous sometimes. "I think by now we can have a decent date without making fools of ourselves."

And when Phil is a dork, he's lucky that Clint finds it attractive. Or endearing.

"What can I say, you still managed to sweep me off my feet. Or pound me into submission to make the rest of it worthwhile." He waggles his glass in lieu of his hand. "One of those. Hard to say."

Phil ducks his head and chuckles softly. "You're usually better with actions instead of words."

He might be able to sweep Clint off his feet maybe once. Maybe not anymore after the surgery and physical therapy. "I'm secure enough in my masculinity to let you sweep me if you ever get in the mood."

"I can still promise I liked you for your personality first before your way with fucking did me in." Phil's always been terribly sweet and tender when he sets Handler Mode aside. Which was a blast to start to navigate as someone not used to sweet and tender in partners.

"But if you want physically swept off your feet, I might want a good reason. A timely rescue to swoop in. Kiss passionately while things explode in the distance."

Well, he likes being tender and sweet. He blames his romantic streak and Clint's rather adorable when he gets awkward about it. "It was my personality? Huh. For me it was your arms." He smiles slyly because he's teasing. The arms help but Phil's never dated anyone long for purely physical reasons.

"Avengers fieldwork might give you that chance. There's a lot of explosions involved."

"Being able to stand you holding my leash has its perks, who knew?"

He pulls his hand back, not for any discomfort but simply having enough of leaning across the table for the touch at the moment. "When, and it's definitely when, we start getting back into the sexy kind of intimacy, we'll probably have some new rules there, too, at least temporarily."

"That's understandable."

Clint's trust and autonomy were violated by what Loki had done. The sort of sex they had engaged in before required a lot of trust. It would take time to build that up again.

"I'll be satisfied just to have you in bed again."

"I'll probably have to--" He runs a hand through his hair, considering the path of that sentence and then ditching it to start again. "I'm kind of nervous to see your scars. Is that weird?"

"I don't always like looking at them either." Because they're new and fresh and not part of his body like the other ones he has. Phil deliberately looks at them to get comfortable with them.

"When you feel ready to look at them and touch them we'll start there."

"I don't know if it's a matter of being ready at that point. I felt a little bit, earlier." A shrug. "Maybe I'll just have to strip off your shirt myself and take a look."

"When you reach for my shirt I'll know what you're after." Phil expects Clint's reaction won't be good. The scar is not nice to look at and worse it'll make the guilt he carries a lot heavier. Even though Phil doesn't blame him at all.

"Do you ever think..." And maybe it's too heavy, these what if's. "He did it like that on purpose? So that you'd suffer for a bit before you croaked. Or to show me his good work if I showed up. He could've done plenty of other things to you instead."

"No," Phil says with a firm shake of his head. "He wanted me dead. His aim was to go right through my chest and kill me."

There was no intention of suffering or dragging it out or making Clint watch. Whatever thoughts have circled around Clint's head Phil's confident it wasn't that complicated for Loki.

"I was in his way and he was going to remove me." That was that.

"He could've slit your throat. Guy keeps blades on himself. Using the staff sends a message. Bigger impact, messier." He lets out a huff of air. "I'm thinking too hard about it, aren't I?"

"You know his mind better than I do. It's possible." He shrugs. "But to me it felt like he just wanted to stab me in the back."

Phil did have a big gun on Loki and was threatening him. Removing the threat had to be on the God's mind at the time. "I imagine a Midgardian challenging him was also not fun for him."

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