Work Text:
October, 2018
QueenCarter: Help my best friend is such a Sad Gay
Tashasaurus: Omg twinsies
QueenCarter: I just loled in the library I hate you
Tashasaurus: No you don't, winky emoji
QueenCarter: You're weird.
QueenCarter: You could just use the actual emojis.
Tashasaurus: I prefer it this way. Smiley face.
QueenCarter: Right. Anyway.
QueenCarter: Help, he won't stop whining about some guy he's into who barely acknowledges his existence.
QueenCarter: How do I make him stop
Tashasaurus: Is he on campus?
Tashasaurus: Set him up with my friend
QueenCarter: … wait really
Tashasaurus: Yeah really, my best friend is The Saddest Gay and I'm tired of it
QueenCarter: Are we setting them up on a blind date from Italy
Tashasaurus: We absolutely are
Tashasaurus: My friend's Deaf, he wears hearing aids, think yours can handle it, because if not I'll kick his ass
QueenCarter: MINE'S STUDYING ASL
QueenCarter: MEANT TO BE
QueenCarter: Yours is a good lad, right? Because mine's the best lad and I won't have him hurt.
Tashasaurus: He's the best of lads.
Tashasaurus: Absolute unit of a friend.
Tashasaurus: And again… I will beat your friend's ass. Make that clear. If he's an asshole to my friend in any way, he will pay. I already have a whole shit list of people I need to go after when I get back to campus.
Tashasaurus: It's too long, it's messing up the formatting in my bullet journal.
Tashasaurus: I get annoyed when I have to add to it.
QueenCarter: I know you do, love
QueenCarter: Speaking of which, did you actually break that cat-caller's nose
Tashasaurus: Yeah probably
QueenCarter: You're the best
Tashasaurus: I know
Tashasaurus: Meet me for coffee at 4? We've got a blind date to plan
QueenCarter: Yeah sounds good. What do you think? Will they have a sexy sexy hookup? Or be in love forever and make us their best women at their wedding?
Tashasaurus sent an image: Whynotboth.gif
August, 2018
Clint's junior year hadn't even started yet, but it was not going well.
First, his best (and if he was being honest, only) friend had gone abroad for the fall semester. He couldn't really begrudge her that, but between his major's requirements and being totally broke at all times, he couldn't go too, so he was stuck on his own on campus.
Then, his plan for housing had fallen through. He'd found a place off campus that was super cheap - a bit of a slum, probably dangerous, but super cheap. But then the owners had sold the place out from under the tenants, and he'd lost the apartment before he'd even been able to move in. He'd had to go crawling back to the student residential life office to ask for a place to live, and sure he'd been lucky that they'd been able to find him something, but it wasn't ideal. One room in a suite, with three guys he'd never met - their fourth roommate had bailed on them, or something. He wasn't clear on what the situation was. Only that he had a place to live, but it was going to be super awkward.
He couldn't wait until Natasha got back. They could probably get a place together in the spring semester, and then everything would be back to normal - hard, and exhausting, but normal, and at least somewhat comfortable.
He moved in the evening before classes started. He always did that, because every day he could work over the summer meant a bit more money in his sad little bank account. Barney dropped him off with little fanfare, and he found himself loitering outside his new suite, alone, feeling as much like he wanted to run - to drop all this and just give up - as he had on his first day freshman year.
But he hadn't given up then, and three and a half months of an awkward roommate situation weren't going to make him give up now.
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When Steve and Tony and Sam had moved in over the weekend, they hadn't known what to expect. They'd all gotten an email from the residential life office saying they had found someone to fill the space Bucky had given up when he decided to take the semester off, but the office hadn't even given them the guy's name. It was written on the name plate of the fourth bedroom door in the suite, but 'Clinton Barton' didn't mean anything to any of them, which was kind of weird in a college as small as theirs. They traded hypothesis all weekend. Maybe he was a transfer. Maybe he had taken time off and was a returning student, like Bucky hopefully would be.
Or maybe he wasn't going to show up at all. Move-in weekend came and went with no new suitemate. They'd given up with shrugs and a general consensus of 'maybe there was a mistake' when they heard a key in the lock after dinner time on Sunday night. They were all gathered around the kitchen island, picking at the last of their pizza and drinking beers Tony'd bought with his fake ID, and they must have made quite a picture when their new suitemate swung open the door. He certainly looked shocked to see them all standing there staring at him. His cheeks flushed pink, and he rubbed at the back of his neck in an obvious nervous gesture, scrubbing at the skin so hard that Steve winced.
"Hi. Uh." He looked down at his hands, at the key dangling from his fingers, then back up at them. "I'm Clint." He looked down again, then nudged two cardboard boxes into the suite with his foot and stepped in, closing the door behind him. "I guess I'm your new roommate. I know this is, um, super awkward. So I'm just gonna… go in there." He pointed at the one room with its door closed; the others were open, showing the chaos left by college boys who had only bothered to half move in before moving on to other, more interesting things like pizza and beer. "You won't see a lot of me, I work a lot."
"We all work a lot, man," Tony said. It was the first any of them said - not a great start. Steve elbowed him, and Clint looked over at them.
"Uh…" He rubbed his neck again, and heaved a huge sigh. "Sorry. I know this is weird. I'm sorry your friend bailed on you or whatever. My friend's coming back in the spring so I'll be out of your hair. And now I'm gonna, just - go to bed." He picked up one of the boxes, carried it into the room, and dropped it and his duffle bag and what looked like a gym bag in there before coming back for the other box and then disappearing, door clicking shut behind him.
Tony leaned close over the island, hissing a stage-whisper as he turned to look at the closed door. "Is that all he has? Who the hell is this guy?"
"Tony…" Steve's tone had a warning in it, and Tony frowned at him. "Let him be. This is more awkward for him than for us. And - fuck, we didn't even introduce ourselves. He probably thinks we're assholes."
"Nah," Sam put in, leaning back on his stool, "He probably just thinks we're drunk. It'll be cool."
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It was not cool. Clint had been right - several weeks went by and they barely saw him. He was out of the suite early, and he usually came back in that awkward time between dinner and social time in the evening and disappeared into his room. If they were out in the common areas when he went through, he'd raise a hand in greeting, then just disappear.
He was inoffensive, though, as far suitemates went. He didn't leave any mess in the kitchen because he didn't use it. He didn't even have anything in the fridge. And he didn't invite friends over, or do anything else to disturb them. Tony, whose room was next to his, complained sometimes about him being too loud bumping around getting ready in the morning, but that was very like Tony, and the rest of them ignored it. And it wasn't bad enough for Tony to bother getting up early to wait around the apartment and catch him to talk to him about it - and none of them even had his contact information, and he wasn't on social media, as far as they could tell.
Sam took to calling him The Phantom, and everyone else they knew picked up on it. Steve didn't like it much, but even he did it. It covered up his discomfort about everything. He didn't like that Clint seemed uncomfortable with them, and that they'd all gotten off on the wrong foot. He noticed how Clint would flush pink when their eyes met, and he wasn't sure if that was awkwardness or dislike or what, but it made him feel bad. And he didn't really know what to do about it. The second week, he tried to say something to Clint as he rushed through the suite, but Clint didn't even turn around - just disappeared into his room. Did he just full-on hate them? Had they done something to him in the past, had he been in the crossfire of one of their prankwars or something? Had Tony been a dick to him? And what even was his deal, what was his major, why did he wear so much purple, where did he get the bruises he sometimes had on his arms, and was he cute or was Steve just way too intrigued? He didn't ask the other guys that last part, but the answer was both. Definitely both.
Sam and Tony kept trying to make Steve stop talking about it. They weren't fond of Clint, and they weren't fond of how concerned Steve was about him. They didn't like that they felt like they needed to control themselves in their own suite - keep the TV noise down, clean up after themselves, not throw parties. Clint never complained or even seemed to notice what they were doing, but it was weird having someone else in their space.
Finally, at some Friday night frat party Steve hadn't even wanted to go to, but had gone along with because he wanted to be out of the awkward suite situation, Tony got up in his face.
"What is your deal, man? Have you got a crush on Phantom or what? You won't stop talking about like… where he is and when he blushes and shit and he's just an aloof asshole who hates us! You need to stop getting hung up on guys who don't even acknowledge you, fuck, grow some balls."
Steve ended up shoving him, and they didn't talk for two days. It wasn't unusual for them, it happened at least once a semester, but it but still no fun.
After that Steve only talked to Peggy about it. At least she was nice and let him vent before calling him out on his terrible crushes, and he couldn't occupy too much of her time because of the time difference between campus and where she was studying abroad in Italy. And besides, he put in a lot of time listening to her vent about falling totally in love with some beautiful woman in her program who she was sure was straight, so they were even.
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Clint said yes when Tasha texted him and asked if he wanted to go on a blind date with some friend of the probably-straight girl she was in love with in Italy. His fall was already shitty enough, what could one bad date add to his misery? And besides, he always owed his best friend about twenty favors, and if he didn't say yes to them immediately she got aggressive about it.
And best case scenario, maybe he'd get some fun out of it, and relieve his blueballs for a while, too. It had been ages since he'd gotten laid.
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Natasha and Peggy set everything up, giggling over Natasha's laptop as they made plans and chose an ideal place - a coffee shop near campus that it ended up they both liked, and that Natasha knew Clint liked, too.
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And so Clint showed up as he was told, with only the vaguest knowledge about his date - "he's tall and has light hair", and "he'll be cool about your ears". He was a little late, because his roommates had been hanging out in the kitchen and he'd been too nervous to deal with walking out while they were all there. They cleared out just in time for him to sneak out a few minutes later and head over, while still being in the range of 'acceptably late' without having to run.
He just had to walk super fast.
The coffee shop was on a corner, and he came around it at speed, pulling off his beanie as he went and running a hand through his hair - and then he stopped dead, only a few feet from the door. Because right there, leaning on the brick wall, pretending to look at his phone in that way people so when they're waiting for someone, was -
"Shit," Clint said, and the other guy looked up, and actually started, blinking rapidly.
Steve. His roommate. Tall and broad and blond and gorgeous and very much the guy he lived with. 'Shit' barely began to cover the mess of thoughts swirling in Clint's brain. One of his feet scuffed the ground, one part of his brain yelled to run - but no, he couldn't do that, because he would have to go back to his suite eventually and Steve would be there. Fuck.
"I - uh - I'm gonna go," Clint said, and did take a step back, because Steve was still just staring at him and it was outrageously uncomfortable.
"No!" Steve pushed off the wall and shoved his phone in his pocket, then laughed - a soft chuckle that Clint couldn't hear but that looked as uncomfortable as he felt. "This is awkward, huh? And you look like you ran here. At least let me buy you a coffee."
Clint rubbed the back of his neck. He still wanted to run, but this place had really good coffee and Steve was offering to pay, and also Steve had met his eyes and somehow he hadn't been able to break eye contact. "Um… yeah. Okay?"
Steve nodded decisively and turned away. Maybe he couldn't tell Clint was on the verge of taking off, or maybe he just trusted him when he said he'd come in. He did go in, trailing a fair bit behind Steve, but stepping closer when Steve turned back to look at him. "What do you want?"
"Just a large black coffee is good - uh - thanks?"
"No problem." Steve ordered for both of them and once they had their drinks, he somehow steered them to a table. Clint had thought they were just going to get their coffees then go on about their separate lives.
"So…" Steve said, once they were seated. "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot this fall, maybe? It was so awkward, and then you sort of disappeared… honestly i've been wanting to talk to you about it but the guys keep insisting you wouldn't want to."
"No, I… yeah, I kind of didn't want to, that's true. It's just weird. You guys were friends and I don't belong there."
"You do too belong there, you're a student, it's student housing. It's just weird, we hadn't met you and don't know you and… I mean… geez, I didn't even know you wore hearing aids, man."
Clint went still for a second, then reached up and ran a hand across the side of his head, skimming his bright purple hearing aid and further messing up his hair. "Fuck, really? I thought I said something, or you'd see… shit." He looked down at the table, heart beating fast. That had been shitty of him. He'd just been so overwhelmed, and he didn't really like leading with it in introductions, and then he hadn't really talked to them much again. But he hadn't realized they didn't know. He looked back up. "Have you guys tried talking to me? You must think I'm so rude."
Steve shook his head. "Not a lot. I mean, Sam thinks you're rude, honestly. I just thought you were uncomfortable. Maybe kind of shy. And you're never around."
"I work a lot."
"Yeah, you said. Campus job?"
"Yeah. I work the maximum hours." And he sometimes picked up odd jobs from Craigslist, but he wasn't going to say that, because he wasn't supposed to do it. "And I have archery practice, and I do some coaching for kids, too, and when I'm not doing any of that, I'm in the library. I have trouble concentrating anywhere else."
"You're an archer?"
"Yeah?"
"Cool. And what's your major?"
"Physics."
"Really? Damn. I'm an art major, you're way smarter than me."
Clint flushed and looked down again, and Steve somehow ended up feeling bad for giving him a compliment. He reached out a hand, setting it near Clint's where it was wrapped around his coffee cup. It had the desired effect - the other man looked back up.
"Is there anything I - we - should know about your hearing?"
Clint shrugged. "I'm pretty deaf, so if you want to get my attention you can't just talk at me. But I'm a good lipreader. As long as I can see faces I'm usually fine."
"Do you sign?"
"Yeah."
"Do you prefer it?"
Another shrug. "It's easier, but I'm kind of… I started learning it late, so I'm not fluent like some people."
"I'm learning. But I only just started, so I'm not going to inflict my practice on you."
"No - what - really? You're learning to sign?"
"Yeah! I'm taking the class."
"Why?"
It was Steve's turn to shrug. "It seemed useful. I think I might do art therapy." That was his usual reason, but there was no real conviction behind it. He didn't know what he wanted to do after school, other than create. "Really, though, I just wanted to know it, it's so visual, and I'm so visual…"
"Cool. That's cool. You can practice on me if you want, like I said I'm not native-signer fluent, but I can maybe give you some tips, or maybe you could give me some, the professor here's probably really good - I'll probably be embarrassed -"
Steve raised a hand and signed a quick No. It was more a nervous gesture than anything - he'd started doing it the semester before, letting little signs creep in while he was talking, sometimes the same thing he was saying, sometimes more like commentary. Tony and Sam and Bucky just ignored it. Peggy said it was cute.
Clint just blinked.
"Don't be embarrassed, fuck," Steve said, and Clint blinked again. Maybe he'd gotten the impression Steve didn't curse. People always thought that, for some reason. "You're cool, Clint. We're cool. I'd love to sign with you."
"Oh - uh - okay."
Steve smiled at him, and Clint gave him a nervous smile back - one that suddenly bloomed into a stunningly bright grin. Steve had never seen him smile like that before, and his stomach flipped over.
"How did Natasha and your friend - Peggy? - fuck up this much?" Clint asked, pushing a hand through his hair, still grinning. "We're roommates."
"Well, I mean, they're two for two on obliviousness now."
"O-M-G. You're saying Peggy's into Tasha, aren't you."
"Are you saying she's into Peggy?"
"EXTREMELY."
"I KNEW IT!"
People had turned to look, and both of them lost it. By the time they were done laughing, Clint was slumped down in his chair, knees pressed against Steve's under the table, and Steve could feel his own cheeks burning red with a mix of the laughter and a thrill at the touch. Their eyes met again, and their fading chuckles went quiet.
"I - uh -" Steve started, but he couldn't think of anything to say.
"They set us up," Clint said suddenly, words coming out all in a rush. "Our friends. They set us up. I - um."
"Yeah," Steve said, slowly, because he thought he got it. He hoped he got it. "And they're really far away and we miss them, and maybe… um… maybe trying it out… for them… is the least we could do? You think? Since they went through the effort…"
Clint was smiling again, now. "And if we put our heads together maybe we can make them stop being nervous overly platonic lesbians, yeah?"
"Yeah!"
Clint shot him a grin, then laughed - giggled, really. His knees knocked Steve's under the table again. "Is it going to be awkward that we live together?"
Steve shook his head. "No. More like convenient."
That earned him a bark of laughter and another blush, and he leaned forward a little, chest going so tight that a panicky part of his brain demanded to know if he had his inhaler with him, even though he always did. But Clint leaned forward, too, and after meeting his eyes to check in, and getting a little nod in response, Steve kissed him.
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Tashasaurus: SO HOW'D IT GO
Birbzzzz: Tasha
Birbzzzz: Tasha.
Birbzzzz: Tasha.
Tashasaurus: Good?
Birbzzzz: You set me up with my roommate.
Tashasaurus: Sorry wut
QueenCarter: Steve tell me everything
QueenCarter: It's been hours
QueenCarter: Are you even there
SteveRogers01: YOU SET ME UP WITH THE PHANTOM
SteveRogers01: IT'S BEEN ONE MINUTE ARE YOU EVEN THERE
SteveRogers01: Did I murder you with this news please don't be dead
QueenCarter: We set you up… with the guy… you wouldn't stop talking about?
SteveRogers01: Yes.
SteveRogers01: We kissed.
SteveRogers01: He's a good kisser.
QueenCarter: OKAY BYE I HAVE TO GO FIND NATASHA.
Steve and Clint both looked up from their phones at the same moment, and they both burst out laughing. They'd been sitting side-by-side on Steve's bed, updating their friends, but now Clint cuddled against Steve's side, and Steve smiled and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
Birbzzzz: It's good though. Thumbs up, good job.
Tashasaurus: WHAT TELL ME EVERYTHING
Birbzzzz: He's literally reading over my shoulder right now.
Birbzzzz: He says Peggy's coming to find you.
Birbzzz: Go get a drink with Peggy and celebrate.
Birbzzz: He says hi. He says to say hi to Peggy, too.
Tashasaurus: Hi Hot Roommate, I hear you're hot
Birbzzz: I hate you
Birbzzz: PS Peggy's not straight
Tashasaurus: What
Tashasaurus: Clint what
Tashasaurus: OMG she's here
Birbzzz: Bye, love you
When he looked up again, Steve had his face buried in his free hand, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Clint poked him in the side, and Steve showed him his messages to Peggy. Apparently Tasha and Peggy hadn't been the only ones pining after each other.
"You think I'm a good kisser?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Cool."
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Clint was on top of Steve - kissing him hard, one hand on his face, the other pushing up his shirt to feel his warm skin and taut muscles - when Tony burst in a few minutes later, ranting about something to do with AI. It was an awkward way to officially meet his second suitemate, but Clint felt he dealt with it with aplomb.
That's what he said, anyway. Actually he fell off of Steve and off of the bed and hit his head on Steve's desk, and the commotion led to Sam rushing in too, and then Clint had to let Sam use his EMT skills on him to make sure he didn't have a concussion, which was also an awkward way to officially meet his third suitemate.
But then Steve kissed the knot on the side of his head to make it better, and the other two were unexpectedly chill about the whole thing, and they all ordered pizza, so it was okay.
And it was even better when Steve and Clint got perfectly coordinated messages from Italy the next morning that both said, simply, "WE KISSED".