As a rule, Phil slept soundly.
Call it a side effect of marrying the world's soundest sleeper (deaf or otherwise, because Clint'd once snored through the worst airplane turbulence of Phil's long life), but Phil tended to be the guy who jerked awake at random sounds in the dead of night and wee hours of the morning: the car alarm blaring half a block away, the family of cicadas screaming in their front tree, the really industrious summer paperboy who started his rounds at four-thirty in the morning. Usually, he rolled over, shoved his face into Clint's shoulder, and fell back asleep pretty quickly. On the nights he didn't, Clint usually sensed his sudden alertness and pinned him to the mattress.
No, not like that, just in a you are warm and familiar, don't you dare leave this bed sort of way.
Needless to say, when a car door slammed somewhere at one a.m. on a Saturday and woke Phil, he blinked blearily, grumbled, and rolled closer to his husband.
Or at least, he tried to.
The sweltering summer heat'd cooled to a low simmer for the night, and Phil closed his eyes not to the hiss of the air conditioner but the lazy hum of their ceiling fan. He almost drifted back to sleep, too, when he heard it:
Footsteps. Uneven footsteps, crunching in gravel or mulch. Footsteps that made absolutely no sense, since the only mulch anywhere near their house was in the flower beds under the front windows, and—
Phil jerked totally awake at the sound of a voice just outside the bedroom.
Clint grunted and squeezed him tighter, trapping Phil in the bed while his pounding heart leapt into his throat. He hadn't heard words as much as he'd just heard the cadence of a voice—the rise and fall of a murmur that didn't belong. As he laid stock-still in bed, Clint halfway to nuzzling against his upper arm, he tried to convince himself it was all a dream, some groggy trick of his imagination.
It almost worked.
He heard the sound of wood scraping slightly against wood, and the quiet thump that followed— That came from within the house. Within Barney's room next to their own, a room that stood empty because Barney'd left to spend the night with friends and promised to be back in the morning.
"Fuck," somebody muttered, and there was officially no mistaking it: that voice came from the other side of the wall.
His heart racing, Phil shook at Clint's shoulder, desperate to loosen his death grip. "'S not morning," Clint grumbled, and Phil almost growled when he weaseled closer. "Break. Vacation. Breakca—"
Phil shoved him hard—harder than possibly in their entire relationship, except for that one incident involving too much soap in a slippery shower—and at that, Clint jerked violently awake. "What the—" he started to swear, but Phil reached forward and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Another thump in the next room, this one louder than before, rattled against the wall. Clint's eyes widened in surprise—not at the sound, Phil knew, but at the way Phil's whole body jerked toward the wall when he heard it—and Phil quickly shook his head. When he released Clint's mouth, Clint kept staring, but with worry instead of flat-out shock.
Noises, Phil signed, and Clint frowned at him. In the house. Barney's room.
Barney's out, Clint signed back hastily. Every motion was short and choppy, clearly frustrated.
Exactly, Phil replied. When he flinched at a third thump, this with the sound of something scraping against the floor, realization bloomed on Clint's face. Realization followed quickly by anger, because Phil needed to grab his arm before he jumped out of bed and stormed down the can't just go in there, he signed, and Clint actually rolled his eyes as he shook him off. He kept Phil in his line of sight as he found his boxers on the bedroom floor. If they're dangerous, we need to—
Where's the dog? Clint immediately started signing, and Phil blinked at him in surprise as his own hands stilled. You notice that? Noises in the house and no sign of the damn dog.
Phil's mouth dried out, and all at once, he was out of bed and fumbling for his underwear, too.
By the time Phil stepped out into the hallway, Clint had shoved his hearing aids in and pressed himself almost to Phil's back in the dark. They crept through the newfound silence of the house, listening again for any sign of an intruder: footsteps, a second scraping sound, a conversation. Phil's heart hammered at every pulse point as, slowly, he pressed his shoulder against the wall next to Barney's—
"Ow," a voice gruff voice grumbled from inside the room. The door was cracked about a third of the way open, and light from the front windows cast funny shadows on the hallway floor. "I know you think— Yeah. Yeah, okay. That's— Hey."
Something about that last word—the way it lifted, maybe, or the almost-playful edge to it—released all the tension from Phil's belly.
Clint, on the other hand, groaned. "You fucker," he announced to no one in particular, and before Phil could grab for his shoulder, he stormed into Barney's bedroom and threw on the light.
Barney's room was, as it'd been most the time he'd lived with them, fairly neat and organized, with just a couple items of clothes lying haphazardly on the floor and the closet door open a couple inches. Sprawled out in the middle of the bed, half-covered by sheets, was a shocked, red-faced Barney. "Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?" he demanded, and Phil realized a second too late that the parts of Barney notcovered by the sheets were naked as the day he was born. He cast his eyes at the ceiling while Barney fought to sit up the rest of the way. "Can't a guy get ten minutes of privacy without his damn brother barging in here to ruin the mood?"
"Can't a guy use the front door?" Clint shot back. He gestured to the open window and the pile of random papers that Barney'd knocked on the floor when he'd climbed through it all of ten minutes earlier. "Phil woke me up and thought you were a burglar. I thought you hurt the damn dog!"
Birdie lifted her head from where she'd curled up in a pile of Barney's dirty laundry and blinked sleepily at them.
"I left my keys here when I was going out 'cause I thought I'd be back in the morning," Barney retorted. "But the guys I was out with were getting into some stuff I wanted to stay away from, so I came back here."
"And broke in," Clint returned.
"And tried not to wake you and Phil, yeah," Barney snapped. "Sorry if that's a problem for you."
For a half-second, Clint held himself like a prize fighter, his shoulders and jaw both drawn tight. But then, out of the blue, he threw up his hands and stomped out of the bedroom. "Bird!" he called when he was halfway down the hall, and Birdie yawned before she stood up and pattered along after him.
Phil dragged a hand over his face. "Next time, just ring the doorbell," he suggested.
Barney cast his eyes down at the floor near the closet. "Sure."
If Phil heard Barney moving around in the half-hour or so after he and Clint headed back to their bedroom (and locked Birdie in with them, this time), he burned it from his memory as he fell asleep. And if he heard a car door slam another hour or so after that, he just rolled over and hid his face in Clint's arm.
And if in the morning, Clint wordlessly dropped both the morning paper and a bright red bra on their kitchen table—
"Found it in the bushes under Barney's window," he reported, and headed for the coffee pot.
Well, there were some things that not even Phil needed to know about his brother-in-law.
Birdie loved the hot months of the year because it meant her humans were home all day. Sure, she liked having the house to herself, but when they were home, they took her on adventures.
Like the last time the hot months came, they took her to the big building. She could smell lots of people, except in the parts where they were cleaning. There, she couldn't smell anything but strong chemicals. When they walked into the big building, the lady with the hair that smelled like the drink her humans made in the morning was always there to pet her. And when Birdie's humans weren't looking, the nice lady would sneak her a dog treat. Sure, they'd make her stomach hurt later, but it was worth it.
She trotted after her people through hallways, happily panting while her short legs tried to keep up with them. When they reached the stairs, Birdie sat and whimpered. She didn't like stairs; they were too much work. Her humans turned and looked at her with the faces that meant they didn't believe her. She whined again, which caused one of her humans to wave her on with a "c'mon." When she whimpered the third time, her other human—the one who snuck her tasty, non-dog food—picked her up and held her to his chest. It was her favorite place to be.
"Brat," he muttered against her ear. She didn't know what the word meant, but she took it as a compliment since he called her that often, and she licked his face.
The other human left once they got upstairs to go to the big room that smelled like him and the things that were all over the house that Birdie got in trouble for chewing on. Both her humans had big pillows by them where Birdie could nap.
Naps were the best.
She slept until she heard something buzz on her human's desk. He picked up that thing that lit up and made noise, and Birdie could almost taste his temper flare. Concerned, she got up from her pillow and licked at his ankles. He jumped, not realizing she was there, before scooping her up against his chest once more. She lightly licked and nipped at his jaw, the best she could do to ask why he was mad.
"It's okay, Bird," he said as he rubbed between her ears. She nuzzled her head against his chest and listened to his heart rate slow down over the next few minutes. "Let's to see what your other Dad is up to," he said as he sat her back down on the floor.
Birdie happily trailed behind his heels, taking time to look into all the rooms along the way. Sometimes she got distracted staring at the objects inside, and her human had to whistle at her to keep up. She hurried along as best as she could. When she walked into the big room, her tail wagged excitedly at the smell. She loved the smell of the things she wasn't allowed to chew in because they reminded her of her humans. The scent was divine.
"Where's your Dad?" her human asked. The motion of her tail overtook her entire body, and she shook with excitement. "Call out for him." Birdie stilled, unsure. Making noise wasn't something she could usually do inside a room. "It's alright," he reassured. "Call out for him." With his permission, Birdie began to bark.
"Back here," her other human shouted. She ran toward the sound of his voice and cozied up to him as soon as she spotted him sitting on the ground. He was surrounded by sheets with little dots on them. She started to sniff the things, but he gently shoved at her hind end. "No, Bird."
"You never thought about having a Dalmation?"
"Not really, no." His smile faded; he, too, must have smelled how her human was upset. "What happened?"
"Barney texted me."
He kept talking, but Birdie didn't recognize most of the words. She knew Barney; that was the new person in the house who smelled a lot like one of her humans. She liked the Barney man. He snuck her food, too, and would rub her belly for hours while watching the glowing thing with people inside.
The voices of her humans started getting louder and it made Birdie uneasy, so she sniffed out her other pillow and laid down. She could easily hear the two of them still arguing, and she burrowed deeper into her pillow because of it. She thought about trying to find the lady who smelled like the morning drink, but she didn't want to get lost. And she didn't want her humans to worry about her; she could smell worry on them a lot lately.
Eventually, the voices calmed down. She listened to them call her name, but her pillow felt safe, so she didn't move. They found her a few minutes later, both of them kneeling down to pet her and talk at her. When she felt it was safe and they weren't mad anymore, she licked at their hands to tell them it was okay.
"Let's go home, pup."
She knew that word. While the big building was a fun and special adventure, home was her most favorite place to be.
"Don't you guys ever go anywhere during the summer?" Barney asked, and Phil watched Clint's whole body tense up.
They were sitting in the kitchen on Saturday morning, Phil reading the paper and Clint cleaning up after breakfast while studiously ignoring the twenty bucks Barney'd shoved under the knife block. The brothers kept stealing glances at the money all through their pancakes and bacon (Clint's I'm sick of half-stale cereal treat), but neither acknowledged it.
Phil spent all of breakfast trying not to roll his eyes.
He glanced up from the paper as Barney put the coffee pot back on the burner, his eyes trained on his brother's back. Phil knew at this point that Barney read Clint's body language like a book and usually mirrored it, an unconscious reaction to years of sibling rivalry. Phil pressed his lips into a tight line as Barney squared his shoulders.
"We usually have my sisters' kids in on a few different weekends," he offered. Barney glanced over, and Phil shrugged as he turned back to the paper. "It didn't really work out this year. Summer camps and school sports."
Clint snorted. "Yeah, 'cause that's the only consideration," he muttered. When he tossed Phil an over-the-shoulder glance, Phil shook his 't, he mouthed, and he knew Clint read his lips when Clint immediately rolled his eyes. "They had stuff to do," he chimed in as he shoved another dish in the dishwasher. "And so did we."
"Like what?" Barney asked. When Clint paused again, just for a beat, his brother cocked an eyebrow. "You work at school, you come home. Your buddy keeps standing you up for your weekly dinners, and as far as I can tell, your friends are either too busy shacking up for the summer or too sober to go out drinking. Do you have other plans? A vacation? Something?"
"You in a hurry to get rid of us for something?"
The razor-sharp edge in Clint's voice sliced right through to the pit of Phil's stomach. "Clint," he said quietly. Clint's shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn away from the dishwasher.
Still standing by the coffee pot, Barney shrugged. "Figured I could live large if you left for a while," he replied, his tone perfectly neutral. "Watch some adult videos on your couch. Invite friends over for a kegger. Do a couple lines off your dog before I—"
"Oh, fuck you," Clint sneered. He threw a couple forks into the sink, the clatter loud enough that Barney flinched. Birdie raced out of the room as Clint whirled around and jabbed a finger in Barney's direction. "You know why we're not going anywhere, so why make this a thing?"
"Thing?" Barney glanced over both his shoulders, down at his feet, and even in his coffee mug. "I don't see any thing around here. But if you're interested, I can tell you what I do see."
Clint rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Barney? And what's that?"
"A jackass brother who won't go on his vacation because he's playing babysitter." Phil's heart dropped down into his stomach, and at his spot in front of the sink, Clint turned stark white. Barney huffed a dark, bitter laugh as he shook his head. "You're loud as fuck when you're on the phone and turning your nieces and nephews away for the summer, and you're even louder when you and your hubby are talking about all the maybe-getaways you can't go on because you've got your jackass brother stuck in your guest room." Clint cringed at the word choice, but Barney's mouth just curled into a sick, almost painful smile. "Yeah, I heard that too. Real good to know your olive branch of hospitality means something."
Clint drew in a breath. "Barney—"
"And it's extra good to know that my kid brother's convinced I'm gonna burn down the house while it's filled with, what? Underaged girls and meth? Hookers and cocaine? Bookies and—"
"Have you done anything to prove I can trust you?" Clint suddenly roared. The outburst rattled the windowpanes, and Phil felt his pulse jump. Barney stepped back in surprise, but Clint threw out his hands. "You show up when you want, you leave when you want, you don't say anything about how your parole stuff's going, and that's just for starters." He threw the dish towel into the sink, shaking his head hard enough that Phil swore he could feel it. "Fuck, Barney, act like a human being who can have a conversation, and maybe we'll treat you like one."
He walked out of the kitchen then, his pace fast enough that the front door slammed before Phil even got out of his chair. "I'm sorry," Phil said, mostly for lack of anything better to say, but Barney waved him off before he walked out the back door. The room fell heavily silent, like after a death, and Phil shoved his shoes on without socks before he took off after Clint.
He found him a block and a half down, walking fast enough that Phil almost had to jog to catch up, and—
"You need to stop doing that."
The words fell out of his mouth without permission, quick and harsher than he meant, and Clint whipped around to stare at him. For a second, Phil wondered how they looked to their neighbors: both of them in their pajamas and untied shoes, Clint red-faced with anger, Phil holding up his hands like white flags of surrender. At least, until Phil dropped his hands and sighed. "You don't have to trust him," he said, and Clint looked away. "Clint, you don't even have to like him right now, but you have to—"
"Act like he's not hiding shit from us?" Clint cut in sharply. "Act like he's not lurking around, sneaking out, throwing cash at us without having a conversation? 'Cause Phil, that's not something you ignore. That's not—"
Something in his expression flickered, like a match dimming before it fizzled out, and Phil watched his husband drag both hand s through his still-messy bedhead. Phil rubbed his palm over his own face before he sighed. "He's trying," he finally said.
"Yeah, on what planet?"
"I don't know, what planet produces maladjusted men who're horrible at emotions?"
Clint snorted, but for the first time in days, it sounded like a laugh. "I'm great at emotions."
"You resorted to ball jokes the day you asked me out."
"And you married me, so I obviously did something right." Phil purposely rolled his eyes, smiling when it successfully coaxed a grin out of Clint. They stood there for a couple seconds, Clint's face warm and finally somewhere close to placid. Then, Clint shook his head. "I'm sick of this," he admitted.
Phil frowned. "Of Barney?"
"No, of being pissed off all the time. At not knowing how the hell to talk to him, to help him, to let him know I want to help him. I—" His voice caught for a split-second, and Phil reached out to skim fingers down his side.
Except fingers weren't enough, and within a few seconds, Phil had both hands on him, holding onto Clint's waist like the tide of his own thoughts might carry him away. Clint tipped toward him, but only by a couple inches.
They lingered in silence for a long time before Phil asked, "Are you mad at Barney, or are you mad at yourself?"
Clint huffed out a breath like an ugly laugh. "Who said I can't be mad at both of us?"
"You have to tell him about your job eventually."
Barney huffed out a harsh breath and Phil bristled for a second, halfway convinced that his brother-in-law might flick his cigarette at him—or worse. Clint'd grabbed Birdie's leash and walked out of the house after another argument, but Barney'd sneered at his back before stomping out into the back yard. Standing in the shade of one of the big trees, his back slouched against the fence, Barney looked a lot like Clint.
Sure, he had darker hair and was rougher around the edges, but he held himself the same way, two parts resigned and one part combative.
Phil wondered when someone last pointed that out to either brother.
He held out one of the beer bottles in his hand to Barney, and Barney stared at it for a moment before accepting it. He twisted off the lid and flicked the bottle cap away (just like Clint) before asking, "You know about that?"
Phil shrugged. "You leave at about the same time every morning, show back up the same time every afternoon. It wasn't hard to guess."
"I leave before you guys get up."
"I'm a light sleeper." Barney snorted at that for some reason. Phil leaned back against the fence. "And even if I wasn't," he continued, "you keep leaving money around the house. Places you think Clint'll notice. And places you stare at a lot when you think Clint doesn't notice."
Barney knocked the ash off the end of his cigarette. "He used to notice that kind of thing," he said, something distant in the back of his voice. He stared at his beer instead of meeting Phil's eyes. "You messed with his stuff, you snatched five dollars out of his pocket, whatever, he noticed. I leave sixty bucks under a DVD case, it sits there till the dog knocks it on the floor."
"Trust me: he's noticed." Barney finally flicked his gaze in Phil's direction, just one quick, sideways glance, and Phil shook his head. "He doesn't want your money, Barney."
"He think I'm dealing?" Barney immediately asked. "He think it's drug money, so he can't—"
"He doesn't want your money because you're his brother." Barney snapped his mouth shut, and Phil ran a hand over his head. Even after months of the in-fighting and silent treatment—never mind months of him rehearsing this conversation—the words felt like lead weights, all of them falling out of his mouth at the wrong time and in the wrong order. "When we first started dating, Clint— He didn't want to tell me everything about his life. I think he worried that I'd look at him differently or that I'd leave him for someone else. Someone with less baggage, I guess." He glanced over at Barney. "But he never talked badly about you. About some of your decisions, maybe, but not about his big brother."
Barney swigged from his bottle, silent for a long moment. The soft light of the setting sun highlighted his wrinkles and days of stubble, but it also found the flecks of gold in his hair that branded him a Barton. Finally, he snorted again. "Not talking shit and not giving a damn are pretty far apart on the spectrum."
"And Clint's a million years from either of them," Phil pressed. Barney dipped his head again, and Phil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "He kept every one of your letters, Barney. He searched for you when you stopped writing. He brought you in here, knowing that you were violating your parole, that you might be dealing or worse, all of it. He evaluated the worst-case scenario and he still wanted you here, with us, rather than out on the streets."
"Yeah, so he can turn those fucking sad puppy eyes on me every time I walk in the damn door!" Barney snapped. Phil rolled his lips together and watched as he angrily stubbed his cigarette out on the fence post. "He gets his life together, and that's great. I'm glad he got you, and the dog, and the house. Everything you could ever want, except your picket fence isn't white. But because I'm still trying to figure out what that's supposed to look like for me, he's disappointed."
"He's disappointed in both of you," Phil shot back. His voice echoed, louder than he expected. For the first time, he felt his frustration at bothbrothers boiling over. He tightened his jaw to keep from truly shouting. "He's disappointed that you ended up in prison and he couldn't stop it," Phil informed him tensely. "He's disappointed that neither of you trusts the other as far as you can throw him. He's disappointed that he's not a better brother, that you're a million years distant from one another, and that he can't help you."
Barney dropped his eyes back to the ground, and Phil shook his head. "You listen to him talking about the Barney he knew as a kid," he continued, "and you'd find out that his big brother's his hero. His protector. The person who taught him how to keep hitting until the other person stopped. How to endure." Barney pressed his lips into a tight line, his thumbnail picking at the label on the beer bottle. Phil watched him for a few seconds before he sighed quietly. "The Clint who exists now wouldn't be here without you," he said. "And as much as he wants to be the same person for you, he doesn't totally know how."
The corner of Barney's mouth kicked up into a wry smile. "Guy's kinda shit at the important stuff, sometimes."
"Only when he loves you," Phil reminded him, and he reached over to squeeze Barney's shoulder before he continued drinking his beer.
Clint sulked. He knew he was doing it, and yeah, on some level it should've been embarrassing since he was a grown-ass man, but he didn't care at the moment. His utterly transparent husband had faked a headache to get out of their traditional Wednesday night trip to the coffee shop. It was a weekly meeting with other deaf people in the community, and Clint and Phil were regulars. Clint appreciated having people around who understood his life, and Phil enjoyed the opportunity to practice his sign language.
But this week, Phil said he had a headache. Clint knew it was a lie; Phil never had headaches in the summer. Clint theorized it was because he wasn't working with Tony Stark five days a week. Besides, Clint knew what Phil was like when his head was killing him: no sound, light, or food allowed.
He'd told Clint about his predicament while sitting in the living room (blinds all open), cleaning Top Chef episodes off of the DVR (loudly) , and munching on a Twinkie.
Bastard.
"You should take Barney with you instead," Phil'd suggested.
Double bastard.
Clint'd reluctantly followed his husband's advice, and Barney had agreed with an equal lack of enthusiasm. When they'd left, Clint gently kissed Phil's forehead and whispered that there would not, under no uncertain terms, be sex tonight. Phil smirked, probably because he'd heard the threat before and knew how empty it was.
"I mean it this time," Clint said.
Phil grinned. "Have fun."
The brothers climbed into Clint's sedan and left the house, Birdie watching from the window. Clint's memory flashed back to the time when he was five, Barney was nine, and their mother'd had enough of their fighting. She took one of their dad's undershirts and stuffed them both in it. "No taking it off until you can get along," she'd warned.
Clint still hated undershirts to this day.
"You know that most of the communication is going to be signing, right?" Clint asked.
Barney pulled a face of mock surprise. "A gathering of deaf people and they aren't just going to talk like everyone else? You're kidding."
Clint ground his jaw and kept quiet for the rest of the ten minute drive. As they walked in, Barney swore to play nice. "I won't ruin any of your friendships. Promise."
Clint barely had the kindness to offer to buy his brother a cup of coffee; thankfully, Barney refused. Maddie—the high school barista who'd been in Clint's class five years ago—smiled and called out his usual order before he could open his mouth. He corrected her by dropping the request for Phil's usual coffee.
"Where's Mister Coulson?" she asked.
Clint shook his head. "You know you're allowed to call us by our first names, right?"
She shook her head. "No, that's too weird. Can't do that."
Clint paid her and made sure to slip a five dollar bill into the tip jar. He moved to the side while waiting for his cappuccino and watched the people around him. The knot of his deaf friends congregated in the back corner of the room. Barney had slowly made his way there and was already caught up in a conversation with Hannah, which didn't surprise Clint at all.
If there was a matriarch to the group, it was Hannah. She was in her seventies, deafened as a young child from some illness Clint couldn't remember the name of. She was the definition of mother hen and she had some kind of sixth sense of whenever someone in the group was sick. Hannah was on your doorstep with a pot of homemade soup before you could even finish your first sneeze.
Her fingers flew through the air quickly—she wasn't one to slow down for newbies; you had to rise to her level. Clint felt his lips roll together for fear that Barney's ASL would be too rusty to keep up. He couldn't have been more wrong. His brother flawlessly signed his half of the conversation, even throwing in a word or two that Clint had to stop to remember the meaning of. His cappuccino almost went cold on the counter as he stared at the pair.
Clint's mind flashed back to another memory from childhood, when he was fourteen, recently deprived of his hearing, and walking home from school. Before his accident with the fireworks, Clint had a habit of walking with his head down, shoulders slumped, and looking as small as possible. He figured it made him look too small and pathetic for someone to waste their time with a beating—or it could at least hide his strength if someone actually picked a fight with him. After the accident, he still walked that way, but it was more because he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. His parents were dead, and he was living with Barney in a shitty apartment. They relied on government aid for Clint to see a doctor about his ears, and the funding wasn't coming as quickly as either one would like.
He'd walked home from school since a fight on the bus had banned him from school transportation for the year. He kept his eyes on his beat up shoes, counting the cracks in the sidewalk until he was at his poor excuse of a home. The next thing he knew, Barney was lunging at him, laying flat out in the air like he was making a tackle in the Super Bowl. Clint wondered what they hell he'd done to make his brother attack him, and he'd tried to duck out of the way as much as he could, but Clint wasn't the target.
Three kids, all seniors who'd repeated at least one grade in their lives and had the bigger and more mature bodies to show it, were stalking behind Clint. He recognized their faces—they'd been in Barney's classes and in the circle he ran around with before he'd had to drop out of school, get his GED, and work full-time to support himself and Clint.
Barney tore into them with a fury Clint'd never seen before. They ran away bruised and bloodied, and Barney stared them down as they fled. Once they were out of sight, he turned to Clint. He opened his mouth to say something, but then remembered it would be a wasted his breath. Instead, he shook his head, gently shoved Clint in the direction of their apartment, and never brought it up again.
On the drive back home a couple of hours later, Clint felt he had to say something. "You can still sign?"
Clint watched several expressions flicker over his brother's face in his peripheral vision. He knew Barney wanted to offer another smart-ass comment, but instead he quietly answered, "Just because I haven't seen your sorry mug in ages doesn't mean I didn't keep up on the one way I knew I could talk to my idiot brother no matter what his ears were like."
Phil sighed as he stretched in his bed. He didn't need many things in life to be happy: his family, a good steak every now and then, his dog, and amazing sex with his husband. He hadn't seen much of his family this summer, and that was okay. Clint was prone to stress cooking and grilling, so steaks hadn't been an issue this summer. He was Birdie's third favorite person in the house, but his dog still loved him. But the sex? He and Clint usually had a lot of sex. Not as much as Clint bragged to Tony, that wasn't physically possible for a man of his age, but still a decent amount. But not this summer.
Clint seemed bound and determined to fix that the last three days.
Two weeks ago, May Parker had come over for dinner. She lamented the fact that living on her own was more of a challenge than she thought. "I miss Peter. I've never lived in a house by myself in my entire life. Ben and I married right out of school," she said quietly. Before dessert was served, May had fully concocted the idea of Barney moving into her house, helping her with the home renovations she wasn't physically able to handle, and working for a reduced rent. "You can't do landscaping all year long," she'd pointed out to Barney.
Barney had told Phil and Clint over breakfast the next morning that he was going to take May up on his offer. Clint had gotten up from the table immediately while Phil and Barney exchanged nervous glances. When Clint returned a minute later, it was to drop a stack of twenties in front of Barney. "As your current landlords, we're going to transfer your rent money to new landlord. And if you need help making ends meet, you call us or I'll beat your ass."
Three days ago, they'd moved Barney into May's. They'd made sure to replenish his closet with some new clothes and a good pair of work boots. They'd given him a cell phone on their plan, and they'd let him borrow Clint's car for the time being. "We go everywhere together all the time," Phil'd explained when Barney argued. "We don't need two cars."
"You get my car," Clint'd agreed, "but you don't get my dog."
Phil supposed the upside of spending all summer avoiding family drama by hiding at work was that there really wasn't much left for him to do to get ready for the school year. Hence, sexathon.
He knew it was only a matter of time before guilt settled into Clint's bones. "We doin' the right thing?" Clint asked as he rolled over. He still had yet to put his hearing aides in, and Phil rolled onto his side so Clint could easily read his lips.
"You love your brother, and he loves you, but I'm not sure living under the same roof is the best idea for both of you," Phil reassured him. He rubbed a hand up and down Clint's upper arm. "You're not kicking him out, you're not abandoning him, and you're not passing the buck. Plus, god knows that May will keep him on the straight and narrow."
Clint snorted. "She's used to keeping several hundred students in line and now she's going to focus all that attention on Barney. He has no idea what he signed up for."
Phil smiled and leaned in to kiss Clint. It was lazy and slow, and something he'd missed deeply. They'd never been a couple surrounded by drama and this summer had been a little rough on them, but they'd weathered it—not that Phil ever doubted they wouldn't. He'd cling to Clint with every ounce of strength in his body for as long he could breathe; losing him was never an option.
"What day is it?" Clint asked as he rolled over for his cell phone, giving Phil a reason to not answer him. He swiped at his screen and immediately frowned.
Email from school? Phil signed.
"It's Tuesday, and Nat canceled again." His frown deepened as he unlocked his phone to read the whole text message. "Said she'd see us on the first day of meetings."
Don't, Phil signed. She knows to ask for help.
"Doesn't mean she will." Clint sighed and climbed out of bed. Phil followed him and did his best to distract Clint from feeling guilt. More lazy kisses and using up the hot water heater's reserve were deployed as a means to keep Clint from stressing that his friends and family couldn't have perfect lives.
Once they were dressed and ready for the day, they ran errands: grocery store since they were running low on food, Target because it was there, and Office Max to restock on their personal school supplies. They went to the park with the dog, and once Birdie was exhausted, they all piled back in the car. Phil noticed that Clint was staring out the window, looking in the general direction of May's house. "We can stop by, if you want."
Clint was quiet for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't want him to feel like I'm constantly looking over his shoulder. May will do that enough for both of us."
Phil drove them home, Clint cooked dinner while Phil read on the couch with Birdie snoring at his side. Phil breathed easier at home feeling like home again.