Clint finds Steve on the roof of the bus that night.

They're parked on the side of the road, a spot isolated enough that they don't think anybody will call a tow truck on them as they stay the night.

Steve is lying on his back, fingers curled over his stomach, shirt raised ever so slightly and one knee bent, the other leg straight. When Clint gets closer, he notices that Steve's eyes are wide open, glassy and unfocused, but when they catch sight of Clint, they zero in on him. "Hey," Steve says quietly. The greeting is made from politeness, though Clint isn't sure if it's much more. Steve is silent, thoughtful.

"Looking for company?" Clint asks, crouching down. The bus groans beneath his feet and he fights down a smile. The old beater is well loved, and he knows that's why Tony must have bought it.

"If you're willing to give it," some of an older accent slips onto Steve's tongue, a heavy drawl that feels like molasses on his lips.

Clint is intrigued by it, by how old it is (how old Steve is, though he's not even twenty, he's over fifty, and that messes with Clint's head). "Thinking?"

"Just a bit," Steve smiles a bit, wane and faded, and asks, "Tony?"

"He'll join us, soon," Clint guesses, "Just fixing up the engine. Said that it could use improvement or some shit like that."

Steve laughs, a breath of a thing, light as a feather. "Of course," the edge of his lips twitches up in amusement, "That's just like him. And you? Any reason that you've decided to come up here?"

"It was either stay here or listen to Tony tell me simultaneously tell me how the engine is a beautiful creature and how it's also a product of it's time and the most hideous thing that he's laid eyes on," Clint smirks at Steve, crooked and off center, "Somehow looking at stars with you seems the better option."

Steve hums a bit, sounding thoughtful, and then he says quietly, "I didn't get to look at the stars much back then. When I was younger, I mean," he rolls over a bit so that he's on his side, bending an arm under his head to cushion his ear. His gaze is fixed on the horizon though his body has turned to face Clint, gaze turning glossed over once again. "I was... I was sick a lot as a kid."

Clint knows.

Everyone knows.

It's in the history books, Captain America, a hero from the second world war, the ultimate inspiration story, the first superhero.

Sickly child to... well, Captain America.

He doesn't say this out loud, though, because Steve is talking and maybe this is something that needs to be said.

"Couldn't go outside when you were busy trying not to die," Steve murmurs, "And when, when I wasn't too sick, I had to work," his breath shutters a bit, "Bucky... my best friend... Bucky and I, we worked to get money. He wanted to get me medicine, all I wanted was to give him a good meal," his eyes close, "He always gave me his food. Said some crap about me being sick and needing to get better. Didn't help. I had a weak immune system and it just... sorry," his eyes open and he smiles at Clint a funny, awful little smile, "You don't need to hear about that. Then when I went to the war... well. That's an obvious one, isn't it? Can't look at stars when your camp could get bombed any second. You go to a place where you can see the stars and you're more likely to get spotted and shot than anything else."

Clint wouldn't know. He grew up free, in the wild. The circus lets you see the stars, the circus encouraged bare feet and loud laughter and sleeping in the grass or on top of the trailer because there was never quite enough inside and if you wanted to see the stars, everyone knew at least one story about the constellations.

Living like Steve, all cooped up inside, Clint thinks he wouldn't have lasted long. He'd have just withered away into a husk. Wouldn't have gained Steve's stubbornness or his kind need to help others.

"Doesn't matter," Steve turns onto his back and looks up at the sky, "I can see them now."

Clint waits a moment to see if Steve wants to say any more, and when he doesn't, Clint asks quietly, "How do they look?"

Steve's eyes are wide, fixed on the stars, unblinking, and he says, breathlessly, "They're beautiful."

Clint smiles a that, "I got to grow up with the stars over me, so," he looks up at them, "They're sorta familiar. Me, I grew up in the circus, so," he shrugs a bit, "The sky was our constant, you know?"

"One constant," Steve murmurs. His hands spasm a bit, and he nods, "Yeah. I know. I had a constant."

Clint glances at Steve curiously.

"My friend," Steve closes his eyes, "Bucky." A pained smile, "He's dead now."

Clint looks away. James Buchanan Barnes, died in war. Fell off a train, body was never found. What does he say to that? Clint clears his throat, "We can be your constant."

God, that's lame.

Steve grins a bit at him, sad and still, "People aren't very good constants," he muses, "Aren't you a SHIELD agent? The chances of you living past thirty..."

"I know," Clint's voice comes out strangled and he fingers the bumps of the chevron bracelet that Tony had proudly presented to him earlier. (Clint had promptly given his to Steve, who in turn had already promised to give his to Tony as soon as he had finished.) "I will, though."

Steve regards him with a raised eyebrow, "How do you know that?"

"I will," Voice firm, eyes clear, Clint's always been a good liar. He doesn't bite his nails, Clint's trained out of those sorts of things, but if he were the type, he'd be biting his nails right now. He doesn't think of Fury's this is your last chance, Coulson's you don't have to even as the board whispers behind his back maybe this will get rid of the upstart as they send him on a suicide mission to assassinate a target that's already taken out countless agents.

Steve smiles a bit, "Okay."

Maybe he believes him.

Maybe he doesn't.

Steve's seen a war, though, and Clint knows he isn't naive enough to let the loss break him if Clint does happen to fail.

"Know any good stories about the constellations?" Steve changes the subject, eyes on the stars.

Clint ho's and hums, thoughts on the fire juggler's scratchy voice as he points out the stars and outlines, on the ringmaster's sharp smile as he says have you heard of the story of Orion? and the circus members' trailer a din of noise as stories are exchanged through whispers and excited exclamations. "A few," he murmurs. "You?"

Steve shakes his head.

There's a slight clattering before Tony hops onto the roof of the car and Clint grins at him, "Hey, Tony, you know any good stories about the stars?"

Tony starts and fiddles with his bracelet, looking thoughtful, "I know a bit of a stupid one," he laughs, "Greek myth. All greek myths are pretty stupid, honestly."

Steve sits up a bit and tilts his head to the side, "Mind telling it to us?" he asks curiously.

"Sure," Tony clears his throat a bit, "It's about Andromeda. If you look up around..." he lays down next to Clint and points up, finger tracing a warped triangle shape. "You see that? That's Andromeda. That triangle that's like, bent in three?"

"I see it," Clint says quietly. He only vaguely remembers Andromeda, a faint tale that sits distantly in the back of his head, a tale that he barely remembers wisps of.

Tony waits for Steve to find it and give his own affirmation before he starts, "So there's this girl. Cassiopeia. Really pretty, not all that smart."

Tony's voice is rough with grease and charcoal, but it's soft, each word sounds like it's been neatly packaged and chosen, his words sort of halting in a way that's unlike him. Everyone has a storytelling voice, Clint thinks to himself, that's a bit different from their normal voice.

"So she goes around, saying she's the most beautiful creature in the universe. Even more beautiful than the gods." The edges of his lips quirk up, "You can guess how this goes."

"They were angry," Steve murmurs, sounding unhappy.

"Yeah," Tony nods, "So Poseidon gets really mad. He made sea nymphs, and he thinks they're way prettier. So instead of punishing Cassiopeia or something, he tells her that she has to offer up her daughter as a sacrifice." His voice gets a bit harsher, grating now, something angry that he tries to bite back, "He makes a great sea monster, Cetus, and Cassiopeia is stubborn, so she refuses. So Cetus is sent to destroy Andromeda, Cassiopeia's daughter, and Cassiopeia's going to get off scot free while her daughter suffers the consequences of her pride."

"That's dumb," Clint huffs.

"That's not the end," Tony laughs a bit, but he sounds like he agrees with Clint, "Coincidentally, Poseidon's son, Perseus, arrives at that moment after slaying Medusa. He sees Cetus attacking Andromeda, who's chained to a rock, and decides to save the beautiful girl. He uses Medusa's head to turn Cetus to stone and carries off Andromeda into the sunset, they marry, and that's it."

"That's it?" Steve squawks, "But what about Cassiopeia? Is Poseidon okay with this? Why did Perseus just randomly appear?"

Tony laughs, "It's a Greek myth. Like I said, it's a pretty dumb story."

Clint keeps his arms folded over his chest, "What's the moral?" He asks.

"The moral?" Tony chews on his lower lip and laughs a bit, "You pay for your parents' mistakes and so long as you've got a pretty face, you can fuck your way out of a bad situation."

"Tony!" Steve says, scandalized.

"What?" Tony demands, "it's true!"

"It's not..."

Clint frowns. "Dumb moral," he mumbles.

"Yeah, well," Tony scowls at Steve, "Doesn't have to sound all pretty for it to be true."

"It's not," Steve says.

Tony locks his jaw but doesn't argue, and Clint thinks that he would if it weren't for the fact that he knows it's a pointless endeavor. "Whatever. You got any stories with pretty morals about how if you're good, life will magically work out?"

"I'm not saying..."

"Guys," Clint cuts in, frowning at the two of them, "Fighting's not going to do us any good."

"You're right," Steve huffs.

"Sorry," Tony mumbles, chagrined, "I was wrong. There is no moral. The Greeks just had really stupid and pointless stories."

Steve laughs, "That's one way to put it."

The tension dissolves, and Clint is relieved. He steers the conversation away, "Where'd you learn the story?"

"Oh, that story," Tony hums in the back of his throat, "I, uh," he glances at Steve, "I don't remember."

Something Steve wouldn't approve of? Something like from a girl in a bar, then? Clint hums. It's not important. "Okay. Want to hear one of my stories? I can tell you about Wihtiko."

"Wihtiko?" Steve asks curiously.

"Yeah," Clint grins, sharp smile and white teeth, "Cree legend. One of the temporary clowns told me about it," he clears his throat, remembering nightmares and Barney laughing when Clint insists that he's not scared, despite being obviously so. (He'd give a lot to see Barney again, to have him laugh and say Clint's a scaredy cat!) "It's a monster that someone could turn into if they decided to become a cannibal. Wihtiko's were tall, gaunt, peeling pale skin and bones pushing so far that you could see them, bumping against their skin."

He brushes his fingers over Steve's arm, who shudders. "Didn't think you'd tell a ghost story," Steve says, shivering, "Not a fan of those."

"Tattered, bloody lips, eyes pushed deeply into the back of the skull, it looked like someone had taken a skeleton and tried to cover it with someone's skin, but it had gotten on wrong." Clint revels in the sharp intake that Steve gives, "It smells like death and gore, and any man can become it. It lies in the spirit world, awaiting a foolish man to enter so it can devour it's prey."

"Stop it," Steve mumbles, pushing at Clint, "I'm not good with ghost stories."

Tony laughs, "That's barely a ghost story. There are humans that are scarier than that."

Clint's breath is stuck in his chest, uncertain of how to proceed, "True," he hears his voice laugh, "Honestly, Steve could probably be scarier than the Wihtiko if he wanted to be."

"He could," Tony laughs, teasing, and Clint knows that's not the type of scary that Tony meant, but he's also meant scarier and he knows that Steve has, too, so he doesn't prod. "You should've seen him when we first met. Totally terrifying."

"What about you?" Steve nudges Clint, "You've seen anything scarier than the Wihtiko?"

"Oh yeah," Clint laughs, "My boss when he hasn't had coffee. Scariest thing ever."

Tony laughs, light and loud and Steve laughs, too. "You seen anything that scary, Steve?" Tony asks.

Clint almost expects something like Hitler or Red Skull or for Steve to fall silent, but Steve just laughs, "Peggy Carter, the woman who was in charge of my group for army training? Terrified the heck out of everyone. The most amazing woman I ever knew."

Clint smiles a bit at that, and Tony does, too.

"So," Tony says slowly, "Steve, you don't like ghost stories?"

"Oh, god, Tony, don't you dare try and tell me them," Steve groans, "I punch in my sleep and I am willing to punch you if you are the one who fuels my nightmares."

"What are you, seven?" Tony laughs.

"Oh shut up," Steve punches Tony lightly, reaching and straining across Clint to do so. "You're awful."

"Okay, okay," Tony huffs, "I don't want to get punched in my sleep, so I won't tell you any scary stories."

"Good," Steve is trying to be firm, but he sounds to relieved for that. "Should we be asleep?"

Clint hums in the back of his throat, "Probably. Hey, want to hear about another Cree monster?"

"No," Steve groans. "I hate both of you."

"We love you, too," Tony laughs.

Steve groans, and there's a pause before in unison, like something from a movie, the three of them laugh at the same time.

A while later (minutes or hours, Clint doesn't know, it feels like a moment and eternity), when they are all yawning and tired, Steve rolls off of the bus and just barely catches himself with one hand on the edge.

"Okay," Tony rubs his eyes and sits up, "I'm pretty sure that's our cue to go the fuck to sleep."

"Probably," Clint laughs, pressing a hand to his chest to try and calm his mini heart attack. "Let's get off the roof."

"Good idea," Steve groans from the side of the bus.

They make their way inside, Tony closes and locks the doors, and they fall asleep on rug covered bus seats, legs dangling off the edges and the space barely fitting Steve's broad shoulders, but it is comfortable and good and Clint wouldn't trade it for the world.