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i. there’s things i wish i knew
Tony expects Natasha Romanoff on his doorstep. He does not expect the dishevelled blonde standing beside her, band aid over his nose and hair falling haphazardly in his face.
“You invited us,” she says when he lets them into the foyer.
Tony stares at them. “I invited you.”
Barton winces. Tony hasn’t seen him since New York; after the battle, he’d held up well enough to eat shawarma and join them in their farewell of Loki, but after that he’s not so sure what exactly happened to the two spies. Romanoff is elusive at the best of times, and Tony doesn’t know nearly enough about Clint to make any kind of judgement.
Except he already has, because he really doesn’t want him in his tower.
“You invited us,” Natasha repeats, glare so sharp Tony’s positive it severs his spine. “You know you won’t have the full collection unless you let us stay.”
“What is this?” Tony grumbles to himself. “Buy one get one assassin?”
Natasha curls her fingers around Clint’s wrist, tugging him along beside her, and Tony scrambles to catch up even though it technically is his house. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Clint, just that before he even knew who he was he was trying to kill them all, and first impressions are a little hard to shake sometimes.
There aren’t many files on Strike Team Delta; Tony knows, because Tony checked, and all he really discovered is that they’ve been partners for ten-ish years, not including the six month break they took in ‘08 for reasons that are still redacted. He likes Natasha, though. He’s liked her ever since she lied to his face, and he thinks her opinion is worth something.
“Where have you been hiding for the last few months?” Tony asks in the elevator. He doesn’t question where their bags are, sure that everything they need is carried on their person. “We could’ve used you in Mumbai.”
“Classified,” Natasha says, lips twitching. “But you knew that.”
“Classified my ass,” Tony mutters. Clint stays quiet. Anything from him would be a blessing at this point. For all that she’s trained for it, small talk isn’t Natasha’s strong suit. “Well, if you’re both staying, I can offer the twenty-third and fortieth floor.”
“Fortieth and thirty-ninth,” Natasha says. The elevator starts taking them up before Tony can protest, but one look from the woman beside him has him pressing his lips into a thin line. “We don’t negotiate.”
Clint takes the fortieth floor, entering the bedroom with Natasha but not coming out with her. She closes the door behind her and hesitates, features briefly pulling down into an expression that looks so utterly exhausted, and Tony feels a part of him ache with her.
What their file didn’t redact is the fact that they’re both too young to have lived the lives they have. He’s acutely aware of it as he watches Natasha recompose herself, fingers subconsciously brushing over her jeans as though there’s even a speck of dirt on her.
“Well, this is fun,” Tony says, to cover the pity he knows he can’t hide on his face. “Wish you had given me a little notice about your boyfriend, though.”
“Clint’s not my boyfriend.” Natasha folds her arms over her chest and leans against the wall, and it feels strangely like she’s about to lecture him. “Have you ever had somebody take out your brain and play with it?”
Tony shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.”
“Then you need to give him a chance,” she murmurs. “He’s trying, and he didn’t mean it. He would never mean it. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Bold statement coming from someone who doesn’t have emotional connections.”
Natasha’s eyes crinkle at the corners, as though she’s trying not to laugh. “You don’t know anything about me, Stark. Let’s keep it that way.”
She’s leaving before he can think of a retort, passing Rogers as he gets off at the wrong floor for the sixth time this week. Tony sighs. He doesn’t know how much easier he can make it.
“Natasha’s here?” Steve asks. “To stay?”
“Yep,” Tony says wryly. “With Barton.”
Steve’s eyes widen. “Oh. Are they… Together?”
“Package deal, apparently,” Tony says, then shakes his head and gestures to the elevator. “Get your ass in there, Capsicle. I’ll show you how to work the buttons.”
ii. there’s no thing i’d keep from you
It doesn’t take long for their ragtag team to fall into some kind of semi-harmonious living arrangement, though Tony regrets inviting any of them after the third day of Jarvis informing him that another boxing bag has been broken in the gym.
(Steve doesn’t mean it. Natasha most definitely does.)
Even Clint—who walked on eggshells for the entire first week that he lived in the Tower—comes around to the idea that they can all be friends, and regularly contributes to the arguments that arise from Friday movie nights. It's comfortable, and Tony, for the first time in a long time, is at peace with his life.
Well, almost. He doesn’t know if he can call his life fulfilling until he finds out whatever the fuck is going on between Romanoff and Barton. His proof is threadbare at best but he feels it in his gut, that there’s something more than bullets and blood between them.
They’re in the kitchen, eating breakfast together in a rare moment of quiet. Tony doesn’t do mornings or breakfast, but Clint had promised greasy bacon and black coffee, so he’s dragged himself to the table to at least make it look like he’s making an effort. Rogers smiles around his third plate of scrambled eggs and it takes everything in him not to gag.
Natasha stumbles in much later and takes a seat at the table without looking at anyone. “Go away.”
Tony is a pain in the ass, so he says, “no. My kitchen.”
“Tasha doesn’t do mornings,” Clint says easily. He slides a cup of tea over the table to her and she hunches over it, blowing on it delicately. “Give her time to wake up.”
“Tasha,” Steve mutters, testing the name. She promptly punches him in the arm and he winces, rubbing the sore spot even though it probably didn't hurt at all. “Hey! Clint called you that.”
“Because I’m allowed to,” Clint says.
“Because you’re dating,” Tony tacks on.
“No, because I’m her partner and I’ve known her the longest.”
Natasha makes a gesture with her hand and Clint rolls his eyes before responding. It doesn’t take a genius to recognise ASL but Tony is more surprised that they’ve actually used it so blatantly. Secret conversations come with the package, apparently, but it’s been six months and he’s still not used to it.
“We have to go to work,” Clint says eventually. “Few days at least.”
Natasha makes a non-committal noise that Tony takes to mean, fucking thank you Fury for getting me out of this building.
“No worries,” Steve says easily. “Stay safe you guys.”
Tony has the decency to wait until they’re out of the kitchen before he says, “Ten bucks they’re boning.”
Steve rolls his eyes. Bruce lets his head drop into his hands. Tony places a crisp bill in the centre of the table.
iii. it’s a dark and shiny place
The mission was a bust from the start, but no one feels like voicing it whilst they’re waiting on Barton’s CT scan to come back. Rogers paces, because being the leader is what he does best and there’s not much leading he can do when one of his men is busted up in a hospital bed, and Bruce for the most part meditates, hovering nearby in case the medical jargon needs translation.
Natasha does nothing. Tony has never seen her so still in all of the years that he’s known her, but this version of Natasha is new and frightening and he’s not quite sure what to make of her. She sits in the chair beside him, hands still covered in Barton’s blood, and stares straight ahead at the wall in front of her.
“It’ll be okay,” Tony offers weakly. It would be okay if Clint had had a suit, but he’s just human and sometimes it’s easy to forget that. “He has the best care here.”
Natasha doesn’t reply. Steve stops in front of them, crouching down so he can rest his hand over Natasha’s where it rests on her thigh. Tony expects her to jerk away, or at the very least make a quip about Steve being terrible at comforting, but she just does nothing.
“Should we get another doctor?” Steve asks him, sitting heavily in the chair on his other side. “She could be in shock.”
“Think that ship sailed long ago, Rogers,” Tony says tiredly. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do until the scans come back.”
They fall into a tense silence again. It’s taking too long, and Tony considers getting up to ask a nurse what the delay is when he notices that Natasha’s closed her eyes and might even be sleeping. He waits, fingers tapping against his knee, wondering if she’ll break his arm if he tries to wrap it around her shoulders.
“Family of Mr Barton?”
She’s on her feet before any of them, crossing over to the nurse before she’s even finished saying Clint’s name. She stands resolutely, hands clenched into fists by her sides, every inch of her screaming danger even though he knows she doesn’t mean it. Bruce falls into place beside her, squeezing her fingers.
“Your relation?” Tony hears the nurse ask.
“Power of attorney,” Natasha replies. “Can I see him?”
“Come with me,” the nurse says, and Natasha drags Bruce along with her, down the hall and out of sight of the waiting room.
“Is now the wrong time to ask why she would be his power of attorney?” Tony asks.
Steve shrugs. “They’re partners. Sometimes you know your partner better than you know yourself.”
“Or you’re secretly dating. It’s very hard to tell the difference.”
Later, when Clint’s brain scans come back clear and he’s awake in a hospital bed instead of dead in the morgue, Tony will stand back and watch the way Natasha’s eyes don’t leave his face, the way she holds his hand carefully, wary of the wires that protrude from his wrist. He decides then that the bet doesn't really matter anymore, that none of it really matters anymore.
Because Natasha looks at Clint like he is her whole world, and there’s no way he can label that.
iv. but with you my dear
“Is that… Is that Clint’s shirt?”
Tony doesn’t need to look up as Natasha passes them to know that she’s wearing Clint’s shirt. Again. For the fifth time this week. “Yep.”
“Huh,” Bruce says. “And we’re sure they’re not—”
“Nope,” Tony says. “It’s fun, right? Now show the code.”
They hunch back over their notes, missing the way that Clint pulls Natasha into his arms behind them, they way that they kiss, just briefly, as though they have all the time in the world to come back to it.
v. i’m safe
Bruce wanders into the living room quietly, surprised to find a lamp on by the couch. He scrubs his eyes blearily and checks his watch again to confirm that it actually is midnight, then stumbles over to see who else hasn’t been able to sleep.
Clint is reading on the couch, Natasha lying across his body with her head resting on his chest; he holds the book in one hand and uses the other to gently rub her scalp, fingers carefully moving through her thick hair. She’s asleep, breathing slow, hand curled around the front of Clint’s shirt.
“Don’t wake her,” he says, and Bruce can’t help but jump when he realises he’s been caught. “She’s had a hard day.”
Bruce doesn’t ask, but he can see a deep purple bruise the shape of a fist covering the cheek that’s pressed against Clint’s chest. She’s pale, too, lips chapped and nails caked with dirt. Bruce doesn’t ask, but he feels the words on the tip of his tongue.
“She has a concussion,” Clint continues. He stops playing with her hair to turn the page, then immediately drops his fingers back to her temple. “I’m waking her up every half hour, don’t worry. But she’s just so tired, ya know?”
“Has she been sleeping?” Bruce hears himself asking, as though he has the right to ask. He expects Clint to shut him down.
“Not really. Tasha has some really bad days sometimes.”
Tony’s been trying to access their files for nearly a whole year now, and Bruce knows enough about the thick black lines he found within them to understand that Natasha’s life has been anything but easy. Clint’s hasn’t either; Bruce has heard the rumours about his father and brother, but rumours are just rumours and he takes most things with a grain of salt these days.
“She’s lucky to have you,” Bruce says.
Clint smiles softly. “I think I’m luckier to have her.”
Bruce leaves them alone, continuing into the kitchen to make his tea so that he can go back to his room and try to get a little sleep himself. He peeks around the corner, only feeling a little foolish, and watches as Clint bends to press the gentlest kiss to Natasha’s forehead.
Tony will want to know. Bruce asks Jarvis to erase the security footage and goes to bed knowing more about his two new friends than he did before.
+1. and we’re a million miles away
There’s no mid-battle admission of love, no death-bed eulogy that makes them all subtly wipe their eyes as they pretend not to listen. Tony might have preferred that, if only for the satisfaction of being able to look Rogers in the eyes and tell him that he was right. He can still do that, technically, but it’s simply not as fun.
Natasha waltzes in from girls night drunk out of her mind, shoes hooked around one finger and Clint’s hoodie nearly covering her entire dress. He follows a step behind her, tossing the car keys onto the kitchen counter before he tries to direct her back to the elevator.
“Bed, Natasha,” Tony hears him say, voice bordering on exasperation. “No more star gazing.”
“One more,” Natasha says, more statement than question. “Just one? Please?”
“Nope,” Clint says. “If I take you out onto that balcony and you fall, then what will I be, hmm?”
“A widow,” Natasha says solemnly. “Sad for you.”
“Sad for me,” Clint confirms.
Tony’s not the only one who has overheard their conversation. Steve pauses in drying his dishes, one eyebrow raised as he glances between the two of them and Tony; Bruce hides his smile behind his hand and pretends that he can’t see the pointed looks he’s being shot. There’s a moment of incredibly awkward silence, and then—
“You’re married? ”
“So Stark was right?”
“Oops.”
Clint laughs, pulling Natasha in so he can drape his arm over her shoulders. She grins up at him, teetering on tiptoes, smile so big it lights up the New York skyline behind them, and Tony doesn’t feel as satisfied as he thought he would. Instead, he feels an immense kind of happiness.
“Secret’s out,” Clint says, shrugging. “We’re married, and we won’t be going on the mission in Honduras because it’s our anniversary.”
“Seven,” Natasha sing-songs. “Happy now, Stark?”
“Thrilled,” Tony says, and means it. “I’m happy for you. Happy and terrified.”
“You should be,” Natasha says, vaguely threatening even though she can hardly stand on her own. “I’m a Barton-Romanoff.”
“Bed,” Clint insists. “You don’t even have to sneak to my floor anymore, okay?”
“Okay. Hey Barton?”
Clint’s lips pull up. “Hey what?”
“I love you,” Natasha says.
“Yea, I love you too.”
They make it to the elevator, and the three men watch it leave in thinly veiled shock. Steve dries his mug automatically, unable to tear his gaze away from the blinking button above the lift that lets them know the pair have gotten off safely on Barton’s floor. Bruce hands ten dollars over to Tony, content to keep the secret of that night in the living room for as long as he lives.
Tony knew it, even back then, because there was no Natasha without Clint; he had seen it, even when they were hiding it, in the way they walked beside each other, the way they reached for each other first and the way that they seemed to just know what the other wanted before they even knew themselves.
It’s a special kind of love. He won’t tease them for it. If anything, he won’t say a word on the subject matter ever again. They don’t care what he has to say, anyway.
Up on the fortieth floor, Clint kisses Natasha against the wall, knowing better than anyone just how lucky they are.