Steve is showering the training run grit off his skin when he Natasha and Clint get back from their latest covert operation, and he doesn't realize they've come home until he's stepped into the main room of their suite, toweling roughly at the drops of water behind his ears and dripping down the back of his shirt. Clint's bow case is tossed onto the sofa, Natasha's boots are lying in a pile against the wall.
Steve grins, slings the towel around his neck and pads through the galley kitchen, into a small opening where they've set up a table. Natasha is sitting on it, feet swinging slightly and blood dripping down the length of her face and off the edge of her jaw. Steve's heart beats out of sync for a fraction of a second, and then he recovers-her face is barely twisted up in pain and she looks more bored than anything. There's a rattling from the hall closet and Clint wanders in, barechested with long red scratches made grey with dirt and dust.
"Jesus Christ," Steve says, blowing out a sigh, and turns to take the first aid kit from his hands. Natasha catches his hips with her legs and pulls him back to kiss him hello. She tastes like blood-copper and twist-sour alcohol. Clint steps up around Steve and wraps an arm around Steve's waist, shoving his hands up Steve's shirt.
"Cold," Steve says, glaring, and takes the kit from Clint. "Sit," he orders, and Clint hops up to settle next to Natasha, lean their shoulders against each other. She tosses him a grin and he presses a kiss to the space under her jaw, against her throat. He licks a clean line through the rivulets of blood on her throat and she laughs.
"You two," Steve murmurs, and shoves at Clint's shoulders. "Lie back." Clint sprawls across the table, his legs dangling off the edge.
"Her first," he says, and then leers a little. "save that face of hers." Natasha rolls her eyes, but doesn't argue, so Steve digs a few antibacterial cleansing wipes from the kit and tosses them at Clint before tilting Natasha's face into the light and starting to clean away the blood.
"Shallow," Steve says, tracing a finger up the slash to where it's deepest on the temple. "Two stitches, three at the most."
"I told him," Natasha says triumphantly, and Clint grumbles from the table. Steve stitches her, carefully, neatly, and tapes a clean white strip of gauze across the rest. He turns her head with his fingers on her jaw, one way, the other, and then slips the weight of his palm on her cheek to kiss her again, longer. Clint makes a sad, lonely noise, and Natasha and Steve roll their eyes in unison.
"Come here," Natasha demands, yanking him upright, and Steve pulls them both in to rest their foreheads together. Clint brushes his fingers across the top of Steve's spine and Steve takes a deep breath, inhale, hold, exhale. When he breathes out all the tension and strain leaves his body. He breathes again, and Natasha yanks them all a little closer together, tucks her hair under Clint's chin, twines her fingers in Steve's.