AN: Whoa, I am pretty sure it's been...over a year since I posted here? Wow. That went by fast. Yikes. But I'm alive, and back, continuing my trend of crack/fluff sort of stories.

There is a brief and not-too detailed description of splinter removal at the end of the story, just fyi. In case that sort of thing squicks you out.

Main pairing is Clint/Pietro because that is one of my faves at the moment, with past Clint/Laura. Although pairings aren't the main focus. Also, big spoiler warning for Age of Ultron, and this is basically one big canon divergence from that one thing that happened at the end. You know the one. Because I want everyone happy and alive, damn it.

Cross-posted to ao3 under penname emubop, same story title.

The problem with shoes, Pietro thinks, is that they're so fragile.

See, at the speeds he moves, everything tends to be fragile. His body is built to handle it, of course, and he's lucky he doesn't have to worry about the effects of wind resistance. But it's surprisingly hard to find shoes that can hold up to the strain he puts on them.

The first few pairs actually ended up burning off his feet - which, yes, that did hurt. A lot. And that's to say nothing of when his clothes burned off, which was embarrassing as well as painful. He's just glad he heals quickly.

Afterwards, he found some better shoes, along with better shirts and pants, but the shoes never last more than three missions, maximum. (Stark says he's trying to make ones that can actually last as long as most runners, but no way in hell does Pietro want to wear anything that that man makes. They may be "teammates," but childhood trauma still stands.)

Currently, Pietro is out of shoes. The pair he's holding in his hands are coming apart at the seams after not lasting through a final warmup. Oh well, no matter. He puts them aside, peels off his socks, and stretches his toes out against the pavement.

There's something to barefoot running, he thinks. He still prefers the arch support that a good running shoe gives him, but the feeling of the earth flying directly against the skin of his feet is...grounding. And good practice, at least, if he ever needs to run without shoes for whatever reason.

So he crouches down, legs practically vibrating with energy ready to be released, before dashing off and beginning his workout in earnest.

The ground flies under him, as usual, everything and everyone else in slow motion. He does a lap around the Avengers facility, watching some of the personnel do training of their own, before shooting off towards the city. Wind caresses his skin, a firm but familiar touch that he greets like an old friend. Everything melts away when he runs like this - the freeway next to him, the cars, the people, the worries that come with being an Avenger. It's all gone, replaced with pure exertion and thrill.

Until something stabs him in the foot, and he trips and falls flat on his face with the force of his sudden stop.

This. This is just one reason why he prefers shoes. Cursing to himself in Sokovian, he sits up, and turns his foot over to examine it. For a second, he can't even tell where the splinter is. Maybe it fell out?

No, he's not that lucky. He spots something dark barely poking out of the skin on the ball of his right foot. Leaning closer, he sees what looks like part of a twig going much farther in than it does out. Which he can tell because the damn thing is in at an angle, resting flat just under his skin. It's got to be at least two centimeters. Probably three.

Well, so much for his run. He knows he's not going to get far, not with the inevitable pain in every step. Unfortunate. He hadn't even gotten to the big city yet, he's still along the highway.

The run back to HQ feels like repeated stabbing in the same spot, over and over, and he's incredibly relieved when he gets inside, to the closest living room, and can flop down on the sofa. Most everyone on the team is out somewhere; Stark is in California for business, Cap and Falcon are on some secretive mission that they dragged Natasha along for, Rhodes is at a conference in DC, Vision is paying a visit to Asgard with Thor, and Wanda just got called away that morning by the Cap-Falcon-Widow brigade. Apparently they found a guy with memory problems, and they think Wanda can help him. Pietro wasn't allowed to go along, because apparently this guy needs space, and the fewer people the better. As for Clint, he's still out running a mission, some kind of favor to Fury. Which means that, aside from the SHIELD (or whatever they're calling themselves now) agents running drills, he has the compound to himself. It's odd. Quiet. He likes it.

And, more importantly, it means he's got more than enough time to get that damn splinter out of his foot before anyone comes back and sees. Wincing, he stands back up and goes for the nearest first aid kit, in one of the bottom drawers in the kitchen. It should have - yes, tweezers. Scowling in determination, he settles on one of the kitchen chairs, twists his foot around so he can see the bottom, and tries to grab the splinter.

The first attempt hurts the second that the tweezers touch the damn thing, and he has to pause and wince before going back in. Second attempt, can't get a good enough grip. And the third. And the fourth. On the fifth, he somehow manages to drive it further in, and throws the tweezers to the floor in frustration.

So much for the tweezer route. God, if only Wanda was here.

Wanda doesn't like taking the private planes that the Avengers own, because they reek of wealth and excess. But she does what she has to. And she has to admit, the in-flight refreshments are unusually excellent for an airplane.

She's just starting in on her second omelette, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, when her phone buzzes on the table. Caller ID says it's Pietro, so of course she immediately answers. "Hello, brother," she says.

"Wanda, are you done with that mission yet?" he replies, sounding even more put out than usual for him.

She frowns, cutting off a small piece of omelette and nibbling at it. Even better than the first. "I just left an hour ago, so I haven't even gotten there."

"There's this -" He sighs angrily, but she gets the feeling it's not directed at her, and lets it slide. "I need you to move something for me."

"Pietro, I'm on an airplane," she says. "Whatever it is, it'll have to wait. Or make one of the agents running around the compound do it." She pauses. "Unless you're out - you were planning on going for a run, yes?"

"I was, but my plan changed," he grumbles. "And the agents can't move it, it has to be you."

"Then I'm sorry, but it'll have to wait." She takes another bite of omelette, and washes it down with her water before continuing. "What is it, anyways?"

There's an unusually long pause before Pietro says, "You're going to bother me until I explain, aren't you?"

"No. But I'll find out anyways when I come home and look in your head, you may as well tell me now." Now she's curious; what is it that he doesn't want to tell her? Those things are few and far between.

He sighs, pauses, sighs again. She imagines he's pacing, he does that a lot. "It's a splinter," he finally mutters.

Wanda just about chokes on the piece of omelette she was about to put in her mouth. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"It's a splinter," Pietro says, louder and sounding very, very embarrassed. "It's in my foot and I can't -"

She doesn't hear the rest of his sentence because she's laughing so hard.

Well, the Wanda plan is a bust. Pietro's still glowering over her laughter; his pain is not that funny, damn it!

Time for Plan C: consult the Internet and pray.

According to an oddly detailed WikiHow article, a foot soak is supposed to help loosen the splinter. Well, fine, he can do that. He's done foot soaks before. (He's a runner, he takes care of his feet. They need to stay in good shape.)

With renewed energy for his quest to get that damn thing out, he heads for his bathroom. And if he's still limping, no one's around to prove anything.

He doesn't like being surrounded by Stark's wealth, but he'd be a fool to not accept what he's given when what's he's given is a private suite - with not only the most comfortable bed he's ever slept in and a bigger shower than he'll ever need, but a bath that has so many controls he barely knows how to use it. Usually he's not a bath person, but hey, there's plenty of room now for him to sit down on the edge of the tub, extend his feet, and give them a good soak. On an impulse, thinking it might as well smell nice, he dumps in some of the bath salts that came with the suite. (An entire drawer. Do they really think he's going to use that much? Really?)

It's relaxing, if incredibly difficult, to sit still for the whole twenty minutes that the Internet told him to. But it's worth it when he gets his tweezers and finally gets that son-of-a-bitch splinter out of his -

Oh no. No no no. He still can't get a good grip? What the hell?!

He lets out a long string of very loud Sokovian curses, throwing in a few other languages just for good measure. This is getting ridiculous. Does he need to soak it longer? What is he possibly doing wrong?

Tossing the tweezers aside, he steps out of the tub, wipes his feet off, and grabs his phone from the counter before getting back in. If he's going to have to stay here, at least he's going to be entertained while doing it.

"The kids keep asking about them, you know," Laura says. "They want to know when they're coming back."

"Well, soon, I hope," Clint replies. "I think the twins miss the farm too. But who really knows, with our schedule -"

"I know, it's unpredictable." She smiles. "Just, when you get the chance...come take a break. You all need it, what with all the world-saving you do."

"Yeah, I know. I'll see about this weekend, how's that sound?"

"Sounds great."

"Arrival in less than two minutes," the AI that's driving the plane informs Clint. (He's not sure what this one's named, Tony's been toying around with a bunch of different ones lately.)

"I gotta go," he says to Laura, on the computer screen in front of him. "See you soon?"

"I'd like that," she replies. "Be safe."

"I'll do my best."

He reflects, as he signs off, how glad he is that they managed to stay friendly after the divorce. Laura's always been great at giving him advice and being his voice of rationality. One of the many reasons why they married in the first place was because she grounded him; in a world of superheroes and gods that he gets a personal backstage pass to, it can be hard to remember how ordinary people work sometimes. How he works. Laura managed to both support him and remind him of his roots, of who he is, and he'll always be grateful for that.

But even though he hadn't ever thought it possible, he's away even more now for the Avengers than when he worked for SHIELD. Not only that, but his missions take on a greater sense of gravity now, and a greater spotlight, and greater consequences, and he supposes - no, he knows - that he's not the same person who married her. She's a very smart woman, she figured it out too. Even before he did. And as she put it, while she knows she'll always care very deeply for him, it's not in the same way as before.

"I'm not what you need, Clint," she'd told him with a sad smile as they discussed the idea of divorce, one night at three in the morning shortly after the battle against Ultron, over untouched glasses of wine and worry about the twins under their roof. "Not anymore."

She was right. They need different things now, different people than who they've become. And Clint's just glad that they were able to come to that mutual, peaceful understanding, instead of driving what they had into the ground and ruining any chance of friendship. He tends to do that sometimes. Relationships aren't his forte.

The plane touches down and coasts into the Avengers hangar, and he slings his duffel over his shoulder before making his exit. The only people there are technicians, half of them robotic, swarming the plane to do maintenance. Despite himself, he kind of hopes it's like that for the rest of the compound. He could use some peace and quiet without destruction around every corner. Some time to rest without the other heroes showing off their apparently limitless energy. It's not fair.

"Getting old, Barton," he mutters to himself. The doors to the main compound swoosh open as he approaches, and he heads straight for the showers. God knows he needs one. "Hey, uh, whatever AI is on - any other Avengers home?"

"The only other Avenger currently present is Quicksilver, sir," the AI says.

Clint amends his earlier plan of peace and quiet. Hopefully destruction can still be avoided, but Pietro's probably the only one he's more than happy to spend time with at the moment.

Before the battle of Ultron, he couldn't have imagined ever saying or thinking something like that. But that was before he saw the kid throw himself in front of a barrage of bullets to save Clint and a civilian child, before blood seeped out of several holes in Pietro's chest, before he gasped out a "you didn't see that coming?" before collapsing against pavement and dust. Before Clint thought he was dead.

It turned out that Pietro was close to death, but not quite there - barely breathing when medical crews laid him in a stretcher down on the floor of the boat. They put him on life support the second they got to the helicarrier, but weren't having much luck. By the time Wanda and Vision arrived, the docs were planning on asking her whether or not to take him off of it. That went about as well as anyone would imagine. Clint found several of them sobbing in a heap in one of the walkways. But in her distress over her brother, and the thoughts in the doctors' minds that he wouldn't make it, Wanda accessed another facet of her powers: altering probability. The Avengers found her collapsed outside her brother's room in exhaustion, but inside, Pietro was making a miraculous recovery.

Miracle recoveries or no, the twins both clearly needed some time off. So Clint suggested that they could stay on his farm while they recovered. At some point during their stay, frustration and anger between Clint and Pietro gave way to mutual understanding, and even friendship.

It wasn't until after Clint's divorce was finalized that he noticed Pietro's teasing had become more than friendly, and he noticed that...he didn't really mind. He did feel wary about the whole age thing at first, until Pietro had practically growled, "I'm 26," before pushing Clint against a wall and kissing him senseless.

Life's been taking some very odd turns for Clint lately, to say the least, but he feels good about them. Genuinely good, like he hasn't for a long time. His current arrangement of Avengers work, being friends with Laura, visiting his kids as much as possible, and falling more for the snarky white-haired punk by the day… It's good.

"Can you tell me where Quicksilver is?" he asks the house AI, tossing his duffel to the floor and getting ready to strip for the showers.

"In his suite, sir."

Well, screw the showers, then. Clint has something - or someone - else he'd like to do first.

Unable to keep a grin off his face, he picks his duffel back up and strides confidently out of the locker room, heading to the top floors where their suites are, and not bothering to knock before pushing open the door to Pietro and Wanda's combined little living room. "Honey, I'm home!" he calls out.

No answer. That's...odd. Are his hearing aids on the fritz or something? He doesn't think so, he heard the AI and himself just fine. Unless the AI said something else he didn't catch, which he really hopes isn't the case.

"Pietro?" Clint tests the door to the speedster's bedroom, which falls open easily but reveals no one inside. "Don't I get a hello kiss or something?"

That's when he notices the bathroom door closed, and artificial light streaming out from under it in a tiny line. Pietro must be in the shower, then.

Clint gives the barest of warning knocks before turning the knob and sliding the door open. "If you're showering, I hope you don't mind if I -"

Pietro is sitting on the edge of the tub (which he never uses), looking positively grumpy, pants rolled up to his knees as his feet are submerged in the water.

"- join...you?" Clint finishes. "What are you doing?"

"Soaking my feet," Pietro answers, with a lot more bitterness than Clint thinks is strictly necessary.

"Can I ask why?"

Pietro just narrows his eyes up at him.

"Okay, fine, guess I can't."

Clint tosses his duffel to the floor, and lowers himself to sit next to Pietro. He's not going to ask. Sure, this is really odd behavior, given what he knows about the guy, but he's got to have his reasons. Don't ask, Clint, don't ask -

"You sure I can't ask why?" he can't stop himself from saying, after the silence drags on for far longer than he's used to.

Pietro sighs, and drops his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Ugh," he says. "It's… You can't laugh."

"Scout's honor," Clint promises.

"I was running barefoot, and this happened." Pietro lifts his right foot and gestures in the vague direction of his toes. It doesn't take Clint long to notice the long, dark sliver embedded in the skin just below them. "Just look at that! Awful!"

Well. It's kind of funny. After all, the kid got shot in the chest multiple times and delivered a fucking one-liner, and has suffered other severe wounds with gritted teeth and a shrug. Yet here he is, getting worked up over a splinter. But Clint promised not to laugh. And he knows that splinters do hurt, in their own more annoying way.

Also, that looks really deep in there. Ouch.

Pietro's still ranting, and Clint forces himself to put on a straight face and pay attention. "Apparently soaking is supposed to help it come out, but it is not working, and I've been soaking it for an hour."

"Wow, that's a long time," Clint comments.

"Yes, it is!" Pietro exclaims, putting his foot back down. "And every time I try to pull it out, it just goes further in. I can't even run, this is ridiculous -"

"Hold on," Clint says, an idea from a long-ago mission popping into his head. "I think I might know a way to help you." Pietro looks at him, eyes full of cautious hope. "We'll need numbing cream, a razor blade, and those tweezers. Also, Neosporin and a bandaid."

"Can you feel this?"

Pietro concentrates, and notices a faint sensation on the bottom of his foot, but otherwise nothing. "No," he says. "Not really."

"Good enough," Clint says with a shrug. They're sitting across from each other on Pietro's bed, with his bad foot in Clint's lap and hands. "So now we just make an incision along the side, like this -" There's a slight pressure around the area with the splinter, but otherwise he feels nothing, as Clint moves the razor blade with skilled hands. "- pull back the skin with tweezers…" This takes a bit longer, and Pietro finds his gaze drifting from his injured foot to the frankly adorable look of concentration on Clint's face. "...then when you get it open enough, just grab the splinter with tweezers, and there you go. Neosporin and bandaid to prevent infection, you're done."

He holds up the tweezers with the offending splinter, and Pietro could kiss him. Well, he could always kiss Clint, really, but especially wants to now. And he starts to, leaning forward and reaching out to grab Clint's jaw, but then Clint sets aside the tweezers and splinter and kneads at the ball of Pietro's right foot around the bandaid, and oh. That feels very, very, nice.

"Foot massage isn't usually part of the package, but your feet are tense, kid," Clint says. "I feel like you need this. Honestly, considering what you must put these through, I'm not surprised."

"Hey, I take care of my feet," Pietro manages to say without moaning, although it's a close thing. "It's just been a while since I've had time for a massage."

"Then let me help you out, hm?" Clint's thumb works into a particularly tight knot, and Pietro sighs and feels himself go completely boneless.

"That's nice." He sighs again, no longer caring about hiding how blissed out he is - no one else is even there. "Mm, yes, right there."

Clint laughs, a low and pleasant chuckle. "I take it you like foot massages?"

"Just keep rubbing, old man."

"Hey," Clint says, taking one of his hands off to point mock-sternly at Pietro. "I'm not that old."

"What did I just say about not stopping?" Pietro retorts with a smirk. Clint laughs again before turning back to the massage, and Pietro feels himself melt into the comforter with each knot that is worked through.

It is completely worth getting stabbed by a splinter to get this in return, he thinks.

AN: Thanks for reading! I'll try to be more active this summer, since I definitely have some ideas I'm working on. Finals are almost over, thank goodness. And have an awesome day. You rock.