Chapter 1: Tear the wrapping

Clint sometimes wondered how he ever managed to hold down a job.

Because sure, he was hardworking, punctual, loved to be part of a team and excelled at taking instruction (even if he did say so himself) but there was a certain moment – somewhere between seeing your boyfriend's black convertible pull up ominously by the table you're in the middle of waiting on, and being dragged away, mid-specials, to be stuffed into the trunk of said shiny convertible without so much as a 'by your leave' – where one had to wonder: how had he not been fired yet?

More importantly, how were they not being pursued by police?

Why was there so little screaming?

Was everyone so used to Clint being abducted that the diners hadn't even looked up from the menu?

A short drive later, not long enough yet for Clint's heart to have stopped pounding, eyes wide and sightless in the darkness, the trunk popped open. He let out a pathetic whine when the light hit his eyes, shielding himself with a hand. From the amused snort above him, it was not an entirely convincing performance.

Lowering his hand, Clint was greeted by the startling green eyes and wicked grin of his captor. He had dressed in his usual style of understated Wall Street: a pale blue dress shirt, no tie, but silver cufflinks threaded at the sleeve, and grey slacks with a delicate pinstripe. Reaching down, Loki fondly stroked the line of Clint's jaw. His skin was cool and soft and Clint had to remind himself he was annoyed at the whole abduction scenario before he started purring into it.

And really, Clint didn't think he was asking for too much. A courtesy call. A note on the fridge. 'Out for duct tape and zip ties. Pick you up at three.' Anything.

"Comfortable?"

He almost did whine for real. How Loki managed to drive him insane with nothing but his voice, he would never know. One word (and a kidnapping) was all it took for Clint to start sinking into the back of his own mind. He wrenched himself out again. Fucker wasn't going to get it this easy.

"I'm in the back of your car, what do you think?" he complained, and made a show of squirming in the cramped space. Which was true enough; Jags were not built for their storage capacity and he was curled in the foetal position, knees hitting his chest on every speed bump. "I mean, try an SUV or something, seriously, haven't you seen Take-mmmhm!"

He was rudely interrupted by the introduction of a wadded up towel between his teeth. Before he could get his hands up, the demigod produced a length of rope and, pulling his arms behind him, swiftly bound him wrist to elbow. The ends were then wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms against his back. After Loki took off his shoes and socks, more rope went around his ankles, laced in a neat crisscross over his jeans all the way up to his knees. Next, a piece of duct tape that Loki tore with his teeth – and Clint would definitely have to break some home appliances to see him do that again – was slapped over the boy's mouth, ensuring that he wouldn't be able to spit out the towel. Loki finished the ensemble with a length of black cloth over Clint's eyes that he tied behind his head.

When he was done, all Clint could do was wriggle about like a fish. His breathing had grown deep and heavy through his nose, chest rising and falling heavily, straining against the ropes on every inhale. His limbs were useless. He couldn't see what was coming. He couldn't cry for help.

Squeezing the muscles in Clint's twisted shoulder, Loki asked, "You know how to make this stop, don't you?"

Clint nodded. Behind his back, he snapped his fingers loudly three times. The way the car was built, it would be audible from the driver's seat.

"Good boy," Loki crooned.

He trailed his fingers down under Clint's chin to scratch him like a cat – but cats weren't nearly as ticklish as Loki knew he was, and Clint twitched with a high pitched moan, stomach clenching and bashing his feet into the side of the trunk.

Loki giggled. Actually giggled, the bastard.

"Comfortable?" he repeated, and oh would you listen to that sarcasm.

Clint grunted something that may or may not have been fuck you – because no witness, no crime; you will never be able to prove he said that. But then Loki pressed a thumb over his windpipe and squeezed.

"Come again, pet?"

Clint whimpered, forced his head back as far as it would go to relieve the pressure, but Loki just followed, slowly closing his fingers until Clint's pulse was hammering in his neck. His hands opened and clenched fruitlessly behind him – but he didn't snap his fingers.

Loki's grip tightened, ever so slowly, and that made it worse – or better, really – to know that he could take all the time he wanted. Soon, however, Clint gave in, howling muffled apologies through the gag as his bound legs kicked.

There was no way Loki could have understood a word, but the death grip relaxed. Clint gasped and coughed through his nose, chest heaving for oxygen. Smoothing his back his hair, Loki pressed his lips chastely over the blindfold and then against the tape over his mouth.

Clint had time to let out a series of truly pitiful noises, shaking his head and writhing against the ropes, before the lid was slammed heartlessly shut. His pulse hammered in response. Loki could well have bound him hand and foot in the back seat, or even magicked the ropes invisible and let him ride shotgun. But no, he'd taken Clint's voice, his sight, and his freedom, left him completely at his mercy, and then just shut him in the trunk to be forgotten. It was enough to flush Clint red with humiliation. It was also doing amazing things to his cock.

When he heard the driver's door slam a moment later, Clint forced himself to take several long, deep breaths. He didn't know where Loki was taking him, but he hoped to high heaven that they weren't pulled over by the cops, because – one, he would probably self-combust with embarrassment if they asked Loki to pop the trunk and the son of a bitch just casually sauntered over and did it, just to see the looks on their faces, and – dos, the situation in his jeans had been uncomfortable since Loki shoved the gag in his mouth and insistent after the brief strangulation; he really didn't think he could bear to wait through that kind of bureaucratic delay.

In the end, they weren't pulled over. But – or probably because – they stopped, six times for the lights and twice at intersections. It was driving Clint crazy. The Asgardian prince of Traffic Laws Are For Commoners had never in his life stopped at an intersection before, why the hell was he doing it now? He had apparently also discovered speed limits, as Clint could hear other cars whizzing past them while their engine hummed ploddingly along. It felt tragically slow, which was just insulting when you were writhing urgently and uncomfortably in the back of a Jag. But then Clint remembered the old adage and tried to appreciate that, being the literal and proverbial body in the trunk, it was probably best that His Royal Highness stayed under the limit.

After what felt like hours, but could only have been less than half, they drove over a particularly lumpy stretch of ground that made Clint bite down on the towel as he was sent him pinballing off the sides. They slowed down to a crawl. Clint could hear every piece of gravel crunching under the back tyres.

Then, at long fucking last, they came to a complete stop.

The engine wound down and the lid popped. Footsteps made their way round to the back of the car and Clint felt the adrenaline wash over him in a giddy wave.

He heard the lid being opened and turned his face blindly towards the sound. For a fleeting, terrifying moment of silence, Clint was afraid he'd fallen asleep and missed the part of the narrative that would lead to someone other than Loki standing there, staring down at him, sweaty and desperate and defenceless. But then there was the familiar touch on his skin, and that wonderful voice letting out a low, satisfied hum.

"I should keep you like this all the time," Loki mused.

He stroked one long line down from Clint's flushed cheek to his neck and shoulders, down his back and over the curve of his ass. The boy shivered, drinking in the sliver of sensation as it was heightened to electric by his blindness and incapacity.

"Would you like that, pet? Leave you bound and blind and helpless… waiting on my pleasure. Perhaps I would never even let you out. Just have you here, against the car, and then put you right back in again when I was done."

The words sent blood rushing dizzyingly down to Clint's groin. Loki gave his ass a squeeze, then worked his hand in between his folded legs. Clint jerked violently, arching back with a wanton groan. He tried to wriggle back into the pressure and pressed his legs together around Loki's hand. The demigod obliged, pressing harder, letting Clint rut frantically against him until he was panting and moaning through the gag, getting closer and closer on nothing more than Loki's palm through his jeans and the fantasy painted by his silver tongue, closer, closer –

Loki pulled his hand away.

Clint wailed like his pet rabbit had died. His skin glistened with sweat and every muscle was trembling. Loki chuckled. Clint tossed his head and kicked his feet in a bona fide tantrum.

"Relax, pet. That's not what we're here for."

"Mmmf?!"

"You'll see." Then, with the ease of – well, an alien god, Loki plucked him out of the car and tossed him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.

Clint's head was still swimming with vertigo when Loki stopped. From the sound of his footsteps, he'd been walking on grass. There were no traffic noises around them, and Clint couldn't smell gas or car exhaust, just freshly mowed lawn and dirt. Maybe a hint of pine trees.

"Hmm… this should serve," Loki declared. He swung Clint smoothly around into a bridal hold, brushed the sweaty hair from his brow – and then just let go.

A half second of panic in freefall, Clint yelped, and then was dumped on his back, arms crushed underneath him. On the upside, it had scared the boner right out of him. He groaned loudly. But now there was moisture seeping into his back and a chunk of particularly angular dirt digging into his palm. He let out an injured noise and squirmed. A totally unsympathetic, Italian leather covered toe nudged him in the ribs.

"Up. On your knees."

Blind and dizzy, Clint had to take a minute just to work out which way was up. Then, grunting with effort, he strained hard against the ropes around his chest, feeling the coarse hemp chafe the skin of his arms. He managed to raise himself about an inch off the ground before falling back heavily, panting. Loki tutted, and then Clint was crying out, twisting away as the hard tip of a shoe kicked him in the shoulder.

"Any century now, pet. I'm only practically immortal, you know."

Clint whined in his throat, flopping ineffectually like a beached whale. He couldn't spread his legs and his arms were trapped behind him, bound specifically to force his shoulders back and his spine to arch in a way that stole all leverage from his upper torso – unless he hoped to push himself up by the fingertips. It wouldn't be impossible, not with his circus-trained core strength, but Clint still wriggled and moaned like he'd given up. Loki was a sucker for helpless and needy.

"Brat," he eventually muttered, resigned, but definitely smirking, as he obligingly hauled the boy up by his bound arms to let him kneel.

Once he was righted, Clint pressed forward until he found Loki's legs and nuzzled him enthusiastically through his expensive cotton slacks. On contact, he hummed in relief, rubbing his cheek back and forth like a touch-starved cat. Not being able to see made him crave every other sensation more intensely and the feeling of warm skin, even through cloth, lit him up from the inside.

Loki lifted his face, running hands through his hair, thumbs over his jaw, then under his chin, down his neck, sending shivers rippling over his skin. Then he ripped off the tape in one. Even though Clint was clean shaven, it stung like a slap in the face. But the sweet relief of Loki pressing cool hands to his burning skin was more than worth the pain. Next, Loki slid a finger into Clint's mouth around the gag, stretching his jaw painfully wide, and then carefully worked the towel out. As soon as it was clear, Clint hauled air down his throat, groaning with relief. He sucked on his tongue to coax the spit back in and then licked the red, overstretched corners of his mouth. Loki's knuckles brushed his lips and Clint kissed them reverently, then found the thumb and sucked it into his mouth.

"I have something for you," Loki said, at length.

Clint almost rolled his eyes. Clearly, somebody had been watching too much Midgardian porn. Still, he smiled and moaned enthusiastically around Loki's thumb, pursing his lips to let go with a wet pop.

Something rustled in front of him. Loki wasn't wearing particularly noisy clothes, but Clint shrugged it off. He probably had something fancy planned if they'd driven all the way out to the middle of nowhere – or so Clint hoped. He wouldn't put it entirely past the demigod to make him give head on a football field at half time or something. Cutting through his train of thought just as Clint was wondering which teams played within a half hour radius of his work, Loki put a hand on the back of his head, pulling him forward and down. Clint wetted his lips –

"Mmm?"

– and met something cold, hard and entirely not what he was expecting. For one thing, it was being presented horizontally, and was very irregularly shaped, angular in parts and curved in others. Loki was still holding him down, so he gave the thing an experimental kiss, then a lick. It felt smooth, tasted like lacquer and smelt like wood. Clint opened his mouth to bite, test what it was made of, but Loki pulled it back.

"No. No teeth."

He heard Loki crouch down, placing the mystery object on the ground. Then he was being pushed down, bent double over his knees until the pressure forced his calves and ankles painfully against their bonds. Then a hand guided his head until he found the object again with his lips. Loki straightened and tapped his cheek lightly with the toe of his shoe.

"Go on. Tell me what it is."

So Clint tried again, tracing it all the way left and right with his nose and mouth. It was much longer than he'd realised, extending about thirty inches or so left and right. The arms curved slowly away from him, tapering at the ends…

The penny finally dropped when he found the string.

His hands jerked with the impulse to tear off the blindfold, or at least reach out and touch. He raised his head slowly, nervously. His pulse quickened.

"Loki?" He didn't want to say it, in case he was wrong and the spell broke.

Loki hooked his toe under Clint's chin to tilt his head all the way up. "Well? Do you know what it is, yet?"

Clint swallowed dryly.

"A bow," he murmured, at last. "It's… it's a bow."

It had been six months since the circus. Six months during which he hadn't so much as laid eyes, let alone hands, on a bow and arrow since the Swordsman had snapped his over a knee and used the broken limbs to beat him senseless. He hadn't dared go near an archery club or even stare longingly through the window of a storefront for fear that someone would be waiting for him. Suddenly to have the one thing he had ever done right ripped from his hands… It felt like losing a limb.

Loki's lips against his drew him from his trance. There were fingers in his hair, pulling him close. A warm tongue darting out to find his. Soft, so soft, and gentle after everything else. Within seconds, Clint felt his anxiety abate and just let himself be swept along by the scent of winter over a clear blue sea.

"Good boy," Loki purred. A shiver went up his spine and then right back down again to the backs of his knees – how convenient that he was already kneeling. Clint felt Loki reach behind him, and then the cloth fell from his eyes.

This time, the light really was too bright. He blinked impatiently while his pupils shrank. They were, in fact, in the middle of an open field, empty but for themselves, with a line of trees in the distance and a dirt road to the rear. Then he looked down – and the air simply vanished from his lungs.

It was beautiful. Sleek and deadly in its simplicity, entirely black, polished to a soft finish. The wood grain was just visible as the slightest, silky glint, giving it the impression of having been threaded with silver. Seamless joins connected the composite sections, engineered for strength and flexibility. Clint wanted to take it out to the movies, maybe fool around in the back row.

It explained their setting, at least. With any luck, Loki wanted him to show off. After all, he'd yet to see Clint fire a single arrow. Maybe he wanted to get dinner the old fashioned way. Or maybe he'd thought up some elaborate medieval role play. Maybe he just wanted to dangle it in front of Clint to see him beg. Whatever. As long as Loki let him use it, he would crawl over broken glass. Clint stared up, eyes round and bright with hope.

"It used to be mine," Loki explained.

"You were an archer?" Now, there was a surprise.

The prince wrinkled his nose. "I wasn't an archer. I practiced archery," he scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. "Unfortunately, it was quite the fashion when I was your age."

Clint couldn't help himself. "What, eighteen? Isn't that practically foetal for an old man like y-uaarrgh!"

Four long, cold fingers were shoved brutally into Clint's mouth, pressing down hard against the back of his tongue.

"As I was saying," Loki continued breezily, as if he wasn't forcing Clint to swallow half his hand. When he tried to protest, Loki slid further down his throat and curled his fingertips cruelly, drawing out a high-pitched, gurgling moan. "Father won some boring war using Ichaival and all of a sudden, the entire court was covered in fletching. I tried it all of three times before I accidentally shot our instructor in the ear. He suggested I pursue other interests after that."

Laughing with your mouth full is a bad idea. Doing it while a sadistic Norse god was apparently trying to reach his stomach through his mouth made Clint choke horribly, then swallow by reflex around Loki's fingers, which only made him choke again. Tears streamed onto his cheeks as he arched back as far as he could go, but Loki just gripped his hair with his other hand and held him still. Clint wailed, panting frantically. Behind him, his arms bulged and twisted under the ropes.

Loki let him suffer for a few more seconds, gagging and drooling, then let go of his hair and slid far enough back out of Clint's poor throat that he was allowed to suck in huge, drowning gasps of air. But then he took the boy's tongue delicately between thumb and forefinger and pulled it taut until Clint whined in urgent staccato –"Ah- ah- ah-!"

"So. Do you like it?"

Clint started to nod, winced when it pulled painfully at the membrane under his tongue, and then settled for a highly articulate, highly dignified, "Ee-ugh." (Yes.) Loki was sharing his toys, it was easily the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen, and it was a bow. He loved it.

"Do you think you could use it?"

He wasn't sure about the draw weight on a weapon meant for Loki, even a teenaged one, but it looked the right size, a little under 70 inches long at rest, perfect for his draw length.

"Oo-ah-waa-wee." (Probably.)

Loki hummed sceptically. Then he dug his thumbnail into the soft flesh on the underside of his tongue and squeezed. Clint jerked back with a cry – nearly tore the membrane – bad idea, stupid –

"Probably?" asked Loki, entirely unimpressed. Clint squealed desperately, shaking with the effort of not flinching or biting his own tongue off for the pain.

"Yes! Yes, I meant yes!" he yelled, though it came out more or less like wordless wailing.

Loki seemed to get the gist, though, and finally let go. Clint immediately sucked his tongue back in, moaning with relief. Loki wiped his fingers daintily on the back of Clint's shirt.

"Good," he drawled, "then it's yours."

Still reacquainting his tongue with the inside of his mouth, Clint started.

His voice was completely wrecked and he had to clear his sore throat several times to get the question out.

"Wh- what?"

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Has the All-Speak suddenly failed? I thought gifts were customary to celebrate birthdays."

Birthday? What was the-

Oh. June eighteenth. Holy shit. It was his birthday.

With a legitimate excuse to accept, Clint's confusion quickly gave way. His hands twitched in their bonds. He was literally bouncing with excitement.

"Can I-," he licked his lips nervously, not wanting to jump the gun on whatever Loki had planned, but entirely too impatient to wait. "Please, Loki, can I- can I touch it?"

A casual flick of the fingers, and the ropes around Clint's arms and legs vanished with a flare of golden light.

For a moment, his hands just hovered over the bow, too overcome with anticipation to finally have it in his hands. But then he grabbed it, cleaned his spit off the wood with his shirt, and groped it hungrily, smiling wider and wider every second. He ran his fingers over every inch of the smooth surface, mapping the ridges on the grip and arrow rest, following the soft arc to the tapered, recurving ends. Even the string was odd, made of some Asgardian thread that felt weirdly soft in his fingers when he gave an experimental twang.

"It's- This is- I mean-" He gripped the bow tight in his hands. "No backsies!"

Loki just stared at him bemusedly. "Excuse me?"

"You are not allowed to ask for this back. You can ne-ver take this back, you hear me? Because that would just be cruel and unusual and I would be sad and probably eat a whole bunch of pizza and then I'd be fat and you'd dump me and- and-" He took a deep breath to stem the tide. "I can keep it? For real?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "It's a child's toy, Clint. I would probably break it, not to mention it's too small for me. I have no use of it. It's yours."

Clint beamed.

"I love it!" he exclaimed. "Dude, if all your toys are like this… When you clear out your attic, call me, 'cos I mean…"

It was only when his words caught on a hiccup that Clint realised he was crying. Real, burning sobs bubbled up from his chest and through his swollen throat, even as he smiled himself into cramps. He wiped his face roughly. God, man the fuck up. It's like you've never gotten a birthday present before.

Except… he hadn't. Not like this. Not anything that hadn't been snuck under his pillow in the middle of the night, wrapped in tissue paper, stolen or scavenged or outright robbed from the hands of some other child. He remembered Barney coming home one afternoon with a split lip and bruised knuckles, but grinning like the devil, treasure cupped carefully in his hands.

Happy birthday, Clint.

He still had that little matchbox car. With the paint scuffed off the sides and someone else's name in Sharpie scratched out with fingernails.

Barney had always tried his best. Done everything he could to stand between Clint and an unjust world, and then Clint had betrayed him, like the ungrateful, self-righteous –

No.

He wasn't thinking about that. He was not thinking about that. He was not going to ruin a perfect day with –

"Clint? Pet, what's wrong?" Loki lowered himself down on one knee, brow furrowed in concern. He tried to lift Clint's face, but the boy looked away, swiping at his eyes.

"Nothing," he mumbled. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just… stupid. It's- there's- the grass, and the pollen…"

Loki watched him carefully. Gently, he traced along the curve of his jaw and down to linger over Clint's neck. A reddish bruise was already blossoming under the tan skin, just below the Adam's apple, in the shape of Loki's thumb. Gold light danced at his fingertips as he pressed them softly over the mark. The colour began to fade before his eyes.

"No, don't." Clint pulled Loki's wrist away before the bruise could heal entirely. "It's not that."

"Clint…"

Without warning, he threw his arms over Loki's shoulders, hugging him tight.

"I'm not hurt," he laughed between sniffles, "I'm happy, you idiot."

He felt Loki relax as he heard the smile in his voice. Reaching under his arms, Loki heaved the two of them up to their feet, then held Clint at arm's length. He swept a calculating gaze over his face, his wet eyes, flushed lips… and pulled him into a kiss. Through hitching breaths, Clint kissed enthusiastically back. When they parted, he buried his face in Loki's chest. The bow was clenched tightly in his right hand.

"Thank you," he mumbled breathlessly into the silk shirt, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

Loki held him, rubbing his back as he pressed light kisses to his hair.

"Would you like to, how do you say it… take it for a test drive?"

Clint immediately peeled himself away and wiped his face on the hem of his shirt. His eyes were bright and wide.

A quiver full of arrows burst into existence and Clint strapped it quickly onto his back. Lifting the bow, he gave it an experimental tug to test the tension – it felt amazing. Then the demigod turned to face the line of trees and swept his arm over the expanse of rippling grass. From nowhere, spheres of swirling, glowing liquid rose from the grass into the air and ballooned to the size of volleyballs. Five, then ten, twenty, thirty, spaced randomly - a field of floating targets stretching to five hundred yards from where they stood. Clint gasped in wonder. Loki looked down at him.

"Well, archer," he murmured, hardening his voice with a military air.

Clint leapt to attention, but couldn't keep the huge, tetanus grin off his face.

"Yessir."

"Ready."

Clint reached back to slide an arrow from the quiver, and just that motion alone was enough to make his racing heart skip a gear. Notch. Draw. He could feel the neglected muscles in his back and shoulder straining deliciously as he brought his thumb to his jaw. Aim. He turned to Loki.

"Sir?"

The demigod's grin slid into a smirk.

"Fire at will."

Exhale.

Clint felt his mind slowing down. Every extraneous thought bleeding out with his breath. His world shrank to the target, a blob of bright yellow, two hundred feet away.

Release.

The bow string snapped from his fingers. The arrow was thrown forward, flexing and spinning as it soared through the air.

The arrow struck the edge of the yellow sphere, tearing through the invisible skin and the thing peeled apart and burst like a water balloon. Paint splattered the grass underneath, then flashed gold and vanished. Behind him, Loki clapped daintily. Clint frowned. Plucking out another arrow, he rolled his shoulders and calmed his breathing.

Notch. Draw. Aim. In. Out. Release.

This time, on a red target two hundred and fifty feet away, he hit dead centre. The ball exploded, sending streaks of paint ten feet outward and upward with a deafening POP.

It was like gaining a sense. Like a lover's embrace. Like flying.

Clint glanced over his shoulder to find Loki. The demigod was smiling, truly smiling, warm and happy and proud.

Spinning back round, Clint shot down another three targets in rapid succession, all bull's eyes. Spurred on by his success and a burning need to show off, he pulled two arrows from the quiver, notched them both, and then aimed almost directly up into the sky and released both at once. They flew high in the air before slowing at their peak to carve a delicate arc underneath the clouds, and flew back down to strike the tops of separate targets, green and purple. Amidst Loki's part-ironic, but mostly genuine applause, Clint turned and bowed deep with a flourish.

Then the demigod twirled his fingers and the targets started to move. Just in small circles to begin with, they were soon ducking and weaving between each other. Some stood still, only to dodge at the last moment, others split into smaller bubbles, while still others would suddenly dart directly at Clint's face. The Amazing Hawkeye took them down, one after another. The quiver never emptied and Clint didn't feel the fatigue of six month's idleness wearing in his muscles as this elaborate game of fetch drew on. As the loyal pet, Clint played every trick in his arsenal to impress his master: firing two, three, then four arrows at once; and doing it all again while holding the bow behind his back; skipping the arrow off one target to hit another; and finally, using that one trick he'd learnt from the pretty contortionist – firing the bow with both feet while upside down in a handstand.

The last ball burst directly above Clint, having plummeted out of the sky toward him. Neon green paint rained down to splatter heavily over his head.

"Ugh- fuck!"

He hacked and spat a mouthful of paint, wiped it out of his eyes and shook it from his hair in fat, gloopy blobs.

"Oh, now, it doesn't disappear after. Don't think I can't see what you're doing!"

Loki was killing himself laughing. And it was hard, really, really hard to stay angry with the littlest prince of Asgard when he was bent over, hands on his stomach, struggling to breathe. Soon, Clint was cracking up as well.

Actually, as long as this paint was still sticking around… Clint leapt into Loki's arms, pressing his paint drenched shirt into Loki's chest, burying slime green fingers in Loki's long, black hair and mussing it up, thoroughly smearing his own hair all over Loki's face and neck and shoulders until they both looked like extras from the X-files. And, in for a pound, Clint suckered Loki loudly and messily on the mouth. Loki ducked away immediately, spitting second hand paint.

"Pppfff… For the love of-"

"Nuh-uh, you did this, you wanted the paint-"

"Clint, get off me, or I will burn that damned-"

"Nope, mine now. You promised. Mine. Forever. Get your own."

Finally, Loki grabbed his arms, hooked his ankle and fell backwards onto the ground, pulling Clint with him, then rolled over until the archer was pinned on his back underneath him.

With the destruction of the last glowing target, the darkness of the evening finally made itself known. The sun had long set, and now the yellow moon leered over them in a clear, black sky dotted with stars. The air, too, had chilled. Clint shivered in his thin cotton shirt, wet through and through, as he panted loudly between eruptions of giddy laughter.

Loki propped himself up on his arms and dragged Clint's hands up to cross his wrists over his head the better to hold it with one hand while wiping the paint and slobber off his face with the other. He, too, was breathing heavily, eyes glittering as they stared down at his archer.

"So. Did you like your present?"

Clint didn't think his face could smile any harder. "Do I get cake and candles, too?"

"Getting greedy, aren't we?"

"No… it's customary," Clint explained. "Here, on Midgard, birthdays come with birthday cakes and birthday candles. I mean, c'mon, if you're gonna do something, do it properly."

A golden glow rose around them; the paint vanished. Loki cupped the side of Clint's face and stroked a thumb back and forth over his now clean skin. The boy's eyes fluttered closed, dark lashes brushing his flushed cheeks.

"Well… I shall endeavour to do better next time," Loki promised, watching the rise and fall of Clint's chest as his breathing grew slow and even, excitement giving way to a quiet, glowing calm.

The boy swallowed, tongue flicking slowly out over his lips.

"Yeah… You do that." The words came slowly, thick and faint through the cocoon of his warm serenity.

Smiling, Loki's eyes slid shut and he dipped down to press a soft, lingering kiss against the archer's lips.

"Happy birthday, pet."

His voice was soft and low, drawing Clint in and pulling him close until the world was just the two of them, there on the meadow beneath a blanket of stars.