Chapter 7: suspicions
Clint had fallen asleep, and Pietro was so content he might as well have been. He was curled up against Clint's side, listening to his breathing and the rhythmic beating of his heart, lured into a sort of trance. He had no idea how long they had lain there when Clint woke up and squinted groggily at the clock.
"Oh shit!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. "It's five, the sun's gonna come up soon, we've gotta get you home!"
Pietro groaned.
"Can't we just stay here all day?"
"Only if you want the others to form a search party," said Clint.
He got up and started collecting his clothes from the floor. Pietro didn't budge.
"Come on, get up," Clint said, throwing Pietro's pants at him.
Pietro scowled, rolled off the bed, and got dressed. They gathered their things and went out to the car. Clint wasn't nearly awake enough to drive, so Pietro took the wheel again and drove them back to the tower. They pulled into the garage just as the sun began to peek over the horizon.
"I hope you don't mind if I go back to bed," said Clint, yawning.
"Not at all," Pietro said.
When they got upstairs, Clint went to their room and Pietro went out into the living room, where he was surprised to see Tony tinkering with a control panel on the wall.
"You're up early," he said.
"I never actually went to bed," Tony said. "I've been working all night."
"What were you working on?" Pietro asked.
"A little upgrade to the tower," said Tony. "Check this out."
He flicked a switch on the control panel and the windows became tinted, filtering the sunlight but still letting you see out.
"Ta-da! Now you can go anywhere in the tower you like during the day without getting a killer sunburn."
Pietro smiled at him gratefully.
"Thanks, Stark. I mean it, I really appreciate this."
"It was nothing," Tony said with a shrug. He picked up his mug from the coffee table and sat down on the sofa. "So, you and Barton were out late last night. I heard you come in."
"Yeah, we, uh... went to a bar," said Pietro.
"Can you still get drunk or are you like the super soldier boyfriends now?"
"Naw, I can't, but Clint kinda did, so he's in bed."
"That must suck," said Tony.
"It's not too bad. It was hard for me to get drunk anyway with my powers."
"And now it's just impossible."
Just then, they were joined by Natasha.
"Surprised to see you boys up," she commented, pouring herself some coffee and sitting down amidst the towering stacks of books.
"Never went to bed," said Tony.
"Me neither," said Pietro. "I don't sleep, remember."
"Oh yeah," said Natasha.
She picked up one of the books and opened it to a place she'd marked, then picked up a notebook and pencil.
"How's the translating coming?" Pietro asked.
"Hellish," said Natasha. "This is only the second book."
Pietro grimaced.
"Sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"Yeah, it is," said Pietro.
"Okay, yeah it is," said Natasha. "But you don't have to apologize for it. You didn't ask to get bit."
"I most certainly didn't," Pietro sighed.
"How are you coping, by the way?" Natasha asked.
"Surprisingly well, actually," Pietro replied. "Clint and I have talked out the things that had me most worried, so now it's really just getting used to the whole thing."
Natasha smiled.
"Good," she said. "I'm glad you have him to help you through this. I can't even imagine how hard it would be for you otherwise."
Pietro chuckled to himself. She didn't even know the half of it.
Time went on. Two months passed with very little luck finding a cure, but they just kept searching. Autumn arrived, the sun began to set earlier and rise later, and the weather became gloomy, the threat of storms always lingering in the air. The longer nights and near constant cloud cover meant that Pietro could go out more, even during the day, which he was definitely happy about. Even with his and Clint's almost nightly outings, he still got restless.
They continued sneaking off to Roz's motel so Pietro could feed and they could have sex, though after the near disaster of the first time, they made a rule of leaving no more than an hour after they were finished. The others still thought they were going into the woods outside the city so Pietro could hunt, though with Pietro so clearly in control of his thirst, they didn't quite understand why Clint continued to go with him. Clint just kept insisting that they couldn't be too careful, but secretly he could tell they thought something was up.
His suspicions were confirmed one day when Wanda came up to him while he was in the kitchen getting lunch with a look on her face that clearly said 'we need to talk'.
"I think Pietro's hiding something from me," she said without so much as a greeting.
Clint froze in the middle of closing a cabinet and forced himself not to seem as panicked as he felt.
"Oh really?" he said.
"I can tell there's something," Wanda said. "You spend more time with him than anyone, even me. Do you know what it could be?"
Clint didn't answer right away. He didn't want to lie to Wanda. She could always tell when people were lying to her. But he knew he couldn't tell her the truth. Or at least not all of it. He sighed heavily and turned to her.
"Okay, you got me," he said. "He is hiding something. We both are."
"What is it?"
"We're sleeping together," Clint said.
Wanda looked thoroughly underwhelmed.
"That's not a secret, Clint," she said.
"No, I mean, we're still sleeping together," Clint corrected. "Even though he's a vampire. We didn't really want to say anything, we thought people might get weirded out... y'know, and think he could lose control and kill me..."
Wanda raised an eyebrow.
"So that's all? That's the big thing Pietro's hiding? That you two are having sex?"
"Yeah... I guess it's not that big a deal, is it..." said Clint.
"No, it's really not," said Wanda. "Still, I'm glad you were honest with me."
Five minutes later, Clint hurried back into his room with his sandwich and closed the door behind him. Pietro was lying on his back on the bed, throwing darts at the ceiling rather than the dartboard.
"Tony's gonna kill you if he finds out about that," Clint said.
"Ha, as if," said Pietro. "You took a while getting that sandwich. Forget where the peanut butter is again?"
"No, I uh... well, I had a little conversation with your sister," said Clint, sitting on the bed.
"You don't sound very happy about it."
"Well, that's because it was a kind of... awkward conversation."
Pietro sat up and frowned at him.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"She knows we're hiding something," Clint said.
"Damn..." Pietro muttered. "What did you say to her?"
"I just told her we're still sleeping together," said Clint. "She doesn't know there's more to it."
"It's Wanda, she'll know that wasn't all the truth," said Pietro.
"I know. We've gotta be more careful. If any of the others finds out... they won't get it. They won't understand."
"How can we be any more careful than we already are?" Pietro said.
"I don't know," said Clint. "It's really hard sneaking around when one of our teammates is psychic."
