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The first time it happened, Clint hadn‘t really thought something of it. He‘d helped Pietro wash his hair as the boy still wasn‘t fully healed yet when it happened.
“Thanks, papa”, the younger man murmured and really, Clint wouldn’t have really thought anything about it if it hadn‘t been for the way Pietro almost leaped out of the tub.
“Woah, careful there, don’t want you to fall.”, Clint said and reached for the young man. “Or to pull any stitches. Wanda would have my ass if you’re going to bleed out in the tub and… everything okay?”
Pietro just looked at him, eyes wide with fear in them.
“I am sorry, it’s just… my father always did that for me. When I was young.”, Pietro answered. Clint just nodded and waited for the young man to sit down again. And if he played along with the lie, there was no one who could’ve proven it.
~*~
The second time it happened had been on a movie night with the rest of the team. Pietro sat on the floor, head leaning on Clint’s knees and drinking some kind of hot chocolate Wanda made for them. And when he began to stroke Pietro’s hair just like he did when he was when watching movies with Cooper. And if he ignored the the whispered “Feels nice, papa” in Russian, well, he could always pretend he didn’t hear it.
Which wouldn’t mean that Wanda and Natasha couldn’t hear it, too.
~*~
“What is it with you and Pietro?”
Clint couldn’t say that Natasha’s question surprised him. Neither did it surprise Natasha that he didn’t answer, even if it was just for the lack of an answer.
~*~
It happened quiet often, sometimes when Pietro thought no one was nearby, sometimes when he thought no one else could understand him, sometimes when Clint was just… nice. The kid looked at him like he’d hung the moon one day when he bought him crayons because Clint saw that the kid always drawing with pencil. But still, he always choose to ignore it and maybe that had been exactly the wrong thing to do because when Pietro stood in his bedroom one night, shaking from a nightmare, Clint knew that he couldn’t just ask the young man why exactly he did what he did. Not anymore.
“Had a nightmare, kid?”, Clint asked, even though he knew better. Pietro nodded, not looking at him, shuffling his feet. Clint hold the covers up.
“Well, come here.”, he said, waiting a few minutes until Pietro really got in and got comfortable, his head tucked under Clint’s chin, one arm around him.
“Thanks, papa. Feel safe with you.”, the kid whispered before falling asleep quickly. Clint on the other hand was wide awake. It wasn’t anything sexual, Clint was sure of it. Pietro just seemed so… small when he was like this. And it wasn’t like he hurt anyone, right?
At least that he told himself when he fell asleep. But when he woke up, arms empty and the bed to himself Clint wondered, if the strange feeling inside his chest meant something else. At least until he realized that he was being watched. Slowly, he opened his eyes just to see Pietro sitting on the floor, doodling in a notebook which maybe had been or hadn’t been purchased by Clint. But Pietro seemed to be in his own world, not caring for anything else besides his doodlings, so it couldn’t…
“Good morning.”
Clint sat upright fast enough to get a bit dizzy. Sure enough, on the desk sat Wanda, looking coldly at him, obviously not caring that he wasn’t dressed or that she was in his bedroom at… half past eight in the morning.
“Uhm… hi?”
“You’re good with him. Good when he is like this and when he’s like himself.”, Wanda said, still sounding unaffected by the whole situation while she nodded at her brother, who was still sitting on the ground, still not really listening to anything around him. “You want to fuck him?”, she added, and only now a strange emotion showed in her eyes. Fury.
“Wha.. no. I don’t know. What? He came to me, I swear, he just seemed to have a nightmare.”, Clint tried to explain, refusing to acknowledge that he broke out in cold sweat. He would never touch someone like that just they asked for comfort. But if Wanda thought that of him, he would do everything to convince her about the opposite.
Wanda nodded, still looking at him, now calculating.
“He sometimes gets like that. I don’t know why. Since our parents died. As if he… how do you say? Wanted to repeat his childhood? Or experience it like it should have been?”, she asked, looking unsure. Clint just nodded. He understood. It wasn’t something he never heard of.
“Listen, I don’t know what you think of me, and I probably really really don’t want to know, but I swear to you, I would never touch him when he’s like that.”
Wanda just looked at him, before she looked back at Pietro.
“He’s been like this for a few hours. This is the reason why I woke up and why I’m here. I don’t know if he needs more of it, but if not, don’t be surprised if he runs away.”, she said, hopping from the table and went to the door.
“It should be a sunny day today.”, she said over her shoulder. “He likes ice cream when he’s like this. And if not, tell him if you’re okay with this. Do not lie.”
Clint nodded dumbly, hearing the explicit threat in her voice.
As it turned out it wasn’t something he had to think through today because after he got out of the bathroom, Pietro wasn’t there anymore.
~*~
Clint didn’t got the chance to talk to the younger man until almost two weeks after his talk with Wanda and Pietro wandered in the kitchen, just to stop dead in his tracks when he saw Clint sitting at the kitchen bar, eating ice cream straight out of the pot. It had been a shitty week for him, and if anyone wanted to judge, he didn’t care. But Pietro just looked at him, then to the ice pot, then to side, deciding if he should bolt. Pietro looked as if he couldn’t decide which headspace would be okay with Clint.
“Want some, kid?”, Clint asked instead, trying for nonchalant when he pointed at the pot. Pietro hesitated and nodded.
“Then sit, I’ll fetch a bowl and a spoon.”, Clint explained and stood up, rummaging through the cabinets until he found the bowls. When he turned around, Pietro sat on a bar stool, still not really looking at him.
“Everything okay?”
Pietro shrugged before he looked at Clint, watching him putting ice cream in the bowl.
“I do not know. Wanda told me what you talked about.”, he began. Clint nodded, shoved the bowl over the kitchen bar to Pietro and handed him a spoon. Best to let the kid do the talking.
“She said you were okay with it when I am like… that sometimes. I am still sorry for harassing you with it.”, Pietro continued, sounding smaller than he should.
“If you’d been harassing me, I would have told you.”, Clint answered, surprising himself with the statement.
“It is not sexual. And not like Wanda said since our parents died. Maybe in the beginning. I just like the feeling in my head when I am like this. I like it when someone takes care of me, I think. I do not know why I am like this. Or why I am like this with you, you just feel safe.”, Pietro explained further, almost as if he hadn’t heard Clint. “And I understand if it is maybe only sexual good for you, I would like to have sex, too, maybe. But I do not know I like it when I am like this and...”
“God, kid, stop it!”, Clint almost shouted. Finally, Pietro’s mouth closed. “I like to take care of you, okay? And to be honest, it would probably creep me out like hell if you’re like this during sex because I don’t know if you can even consent to something like that, get it? If sex ever happens, then not while you’re in your little space, understood?”
Pietro looked, well, relieved. Carefully, he nodded.
“So, you don’t mind? When I am drawing or when I just want to cuddle or maybe go to the park or something like that?”
Clint shook his head and pointed to the forgotten bowl in front of Pietro, where the ice was almost melted just like in his pot. Well, it hadn’t been that full, anyway. But still, throwing food away had never been high on his list.
“Throw that away, first. Then we can go and get ice cones and if you’re up to it to the park. And if not, how about a movie?”
The smile on Pietro’s face made up completely for the disgusted feeling he had when he had to throw away the ice cream.