A Barton/Rogers Slash

Steve Rogers/ Clint Barton pairing. The furthest distance you could cross might be right next to you. Please read and review, everyone appreciates comments/criticism. Once again, M/M pairing, so if you are not into that, please walk away right now.

Steve woke up. Dark and calm, the air was cool enough to be pleasant on the skin. He had taken off his shirt before he tumbled into the bed hours ago. Steve racked his brain on the exact time he fell asleep, but the answer was not forthcoming. Not for the next few minutes, anyway.

Coffee, his brain ordered, and Steve blindly groped for his shirt that he remembered fell somewhere close to where he had slept. His eyes had yet to acclimatise to the darkness, and sudden light right now would be –

"You're up?"

Fry his retinas. The words barely registered in Steve's newly scrambled brains as bright lights flooded his sight. I should break his nose, but I'm too blind right now. Shielding the light that filled the doorway, he peered from between his splayed fingers. At first the light was overwhelming, but slowly a silhouette of a man formed before him, bringing a bit of comfort.

"You're up?" The head tilted to one side.

"Coffee," Steve finally croaked as his eyesight took in the light and adjusted itself. "And please tell me that there is coffee."

"Yeah. Natasha brewed some." Steve felt a slight tremor. Apparently the man felt it too because he let out a sigh. "I hope the coffee maker is okay."

"What do you mean?" Steve took a step forward and stopped. His head was still spinning, or it might be the tremor again he was feeling. "This is the worst hangover or Thor is doing his exercises."

"No, Thor has gone away. Tony left a coffee maker. Nobody seems to know how to use it. Apparently it has a nuclear reactor or something that would explode if the beans are not of correct size."

His eyesight finally returning to normal, Steve could see the man before him now. Actually Steve was looking at the man's back. They were walking, so Steve was trailing behind the man. The tremor was not a tremor, he was actually walking. And Clint was in front of him. He never realised how compact this man was built.

Steve realised he was not making sense.

God, he really needed that coffee now.

-SCSCSC-

"Get the eggs. They're in the fridge."

Steve found himself following orders fairly well. Coffee mellowed his nerves and the smell of bacon frying made his stomach rumble. The last time he slept, it was for decades before he woke up. Today felt no different, and for Steve, hunger meant being human and alive.

Which reminded him about DVR.

"Cap. Eggs?"

"Oh. Sorry. Here you go."

"Crack them into that bowl and then whip them together with salt and pepper."

"Can't you do it?"

"I'm frying bacon. You might not like pure carbon for breakfast."

No, he might not, Steve agreed. So he padded to the fridge where he noted a small Post-It stuck to its shiny metal surface. Capital letters marched across its yellow space:

SHALL RETURN AFTER WORK.

If Steve heard it right from Coulson, the word Work for Natasha usually involves broken noses and bones in some derelict buildings not too far from the nearest shithole of an otherwise nondescript suburban. The period taken also varies from an hour to three months. But then, the definition of work varies for each of them.

Steve grabbed his mug and took a gulp of the warm dark liquid. He let it course down his throat, warm his chest and settle in the pit of his stomach. Patting his flat, tight belly, he gave a contented grin to nobody in particular. Then he cracked the eggs one by one into the bowl, relishing in the mood-altering abilities of good coffee.

Ah, gods from other dimensions even loved this beverage, he mused as he whipped the golden liquid. He was glad it was readily available anywhere. As if aliens needed more excuses to invade Earth. Salt and pepper in, and this should be ready. He pushed the bowl gently toward Clint.

"Finally." Clint's lips barely moved; there was no indication of emotion on his face.

Steve found himself looking at Clint's hands busy handling the pan and rubber spatula. Dutch onions, sliced thinly, appeared out of nowhere and went into the pan. The whipped egg took its final plunge and the kitchen was filled with a refreshing aroma of onions and eggs.

"Dammit," Clint cursed.

"What? What's the problem?"

"I – Nothing." He waited for a few minutes, turned it over and waited for a few minutes more and as the omelette turned to golden brown, Clint turned off the stove and poured the omelette onto a plate.

"There. Breakfast."

Steve looked at the omelette, then at Clint who stood in silence wiping his fingers and hands with a kitchen towel. Those fingers, confident and unerringly precise, now cooked for him breakfast. "Do you iron, too?"

"Steam irons."

Steve looked down at his breakfast to hide his grin as he turned and grabbed a fork and knife, took another plate from the plate pile, and cut the omelette into two. He placed one half into the empty plate and pushed it toward Clint.

Clint eyed him with a suspicious eye. "Why?"

Steve shrugged. "I need company and there are no newspapers around."

Clint's eyes flashed for a moment. He dropped the towel and walked past Steve. "I'll call Natasha."

"Don't bother," Steve said as he reached and touched Clint's arm. Clint stopped dead in his tracks.

Steve had debated briefly whether to grab or touch, and, with an assassin, he decided against sudden moves. Those eyes flashed again, but now they were trained on him.

That emotionless face made him wonder whatever was going on behind those eyes, but Steve tilted his head toward the two plates of halved omelettes.

"Come on." Steve gestured at the plates. He touched Clint's arm again, just a brush. "Keep me company." Steve gave Clint what he hoped a gentle smile. "Besides, Natasha's gone. She left a message on the fridge."

Turning to the fridge, Clint saw the said message. With barely a nod, Clint turned around, grabbed a chair and sat down. From the way his shoulders tensed up, Steve realised Clint was not comfortable about this, and this made him wonder again.

Steve pushed the other plate to Clint's seat, poured him some coffee and also sat down.

The sun was streaming through the window and although it was almost ten, it was still morning. The kitchen was still except for the occasional clank of utensils.

They ate breakfast in quiet comfort which Steve rarely found nowadays. The silence seemed to have calmed Clint down, judging from the way those shoulders had relaxed. Whenever Steve glanced at Clint, there was a slight smile on that normally tight face. How it softened the rough edges.

Steve put his fork and knife down as gently as he could muster, as if the very clatter would shatter this strange bubble of silence the two were in. He looked at Clint, who was chewing calmly, while his fingers tapped a beat heard only inside that head. Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap tap tap-tap. Tap tap tap-tap.

A tender emotion washed over Steve as he observed the hand. If there was one part of this man's anatomy could tell the whole life story, it was Clint's hands. The back of his square palm, criss-crossed with fine scars, was proof that even with all that talent and ability, practice was paramount. Steve wanted to see his palms, but would Clint allow it?

Clint's tapping was gone. The sound of their respective breathing was all that Steve could hear. Then: "What are you doing?"

It was not Steve's voice. It was Clint's, flat and flinty and his eyes were flashing.

Steve took a look at those eyes, narrowed now, and down at his hands, which were holding Clint's upturned right hand.

What am I doing? Steve felt as if in a trance. Then answers floated like straws during haymaking, he wondered if he could get all of them. But the ones he could were something like this:

I want to see his palm. I want to feel whether his palm is rough or soft, his fingers lean and spare as I imagined it to be, and if there are scars there. I want to feel him.

The answers were so certain, Steve froze, terrified and yet relieved. That nagging feeling behind every word of encouragement he ever said to Clint, each pat on the shoulder and/or back, the times he saved Clint and vice versa…

"I want to feel you."

There it was. In the open, Steve said it out loud and in front of Clint. Steve stared right into Clint's eyes, unwavering, straight at him. Blue depths into blue wide ones.

Steve hoped to whatever that his voice did not waver just now.

Clint blinked at him, but he still let his fingers in Steve's hands. Steve followed his gaze where their hands still lay together, his cradling Clint's. Steve dared not move his hands. He was waiting for – what?

For a man who follows orders for all his life, this could be the most important.

"Before I change my mind," Steve heard Clint say in a tone he never heard before; deep and gravelly.

That was the order, and Steve decided then and there that he would not waste this. He willed his fingers to wrap around Clint's and heard a gasp. Steve looked up at him.

Clint was not meeting his eyes, but Steve could see his tongue snaking in and out nervously. "Did I grab too tight?"

Clint shook his head no. Neither did he pull away, so Steve assumed it was fine to go on.

He ran his own finger on each of Clint's finger, feeling the scars – there were plenty on the finger pads – and traced the veins up and down the back of Clint's hand, imagining the man's blood rush around in blinding speed right now. Clint's fingers were not elegant, but they were not too bad, too. They were what he would call an honest man's fingers. The pads were rough enough to give friction, but some smoothness remained. These contrasts were evident throughout his finger pads and also his palm.

These contrasts drew Steve in, fascinated him, made Steve want to feel more. And Steve was also aware that the cool hand had grown quite warm by now. He looked up again at the man.

Clint's lips were partially open as his breath rushed in and out erratically. His tongue snaked out to wet those normally inexpressive lips. Now those lips were red, flushed and gleamed under the sunlight.

"You could've asked me to stop," Steve said, feeling for Clint's pulse. It was a hectic beat playing under his finger, and Clint took in a sudden breath. The beat hastened.

Clint's reply came after a great difficulty in taking enough breaths to make his words discernible. "I don't want you to."

Clint, often calm in the midst of battle, hits a bull's-eye at a distance of 500 metres without as much as lifting a brow, never misses a target, now was a tangle of nerves. The fascination grew in Steve, as well as the bulge in his long johns. He was also aware now that Clint's fingers were rubbing back at every chance their fingers and hand met.

"Two can play that game, Clint," Steve said in a voice he barely recognised as his own. It was thick with desire and want. "Do you want to play?"

Clint's answer was to open his eyes, stare at Steve with those blue eyes that had darkened, and Steve watched in ever growing fascination as those lips curl in a challenging sneer.

He let Clint's hand go, because he knew, with what they would do afterwards, Steve would always feel those same hands all over him.