Chapter Text
One week.
Clint Barton, the Amazing Hawkeye, marksman extraordinaire, had kept his best work up on the ceiling for one week. It had become something of a game in the tower to see who would take the trophy each day. With Natasha sufficiently distracted with their guests - or rather, one guest in particular - Clint had held the record. Seven whole days of glory, of his teammates trying (and failing!) to knock his work down. His #2 pencil had survived longer than Natasha’s bobby pin the month before.
When Clint walked into the common lab space to work on his arrows, he expected to see his pencil still reigned supreme. What he didn’t expect was to see a red feather in its place. He froze in place, chair rolled out and body bent awkwardly. There was only one person that could have done this. One person, that had been unfairly informed of what was going on.
“Oh, fuck you!” Clint snapped.
His tone was level despite his upset. He threw himself into his office chair and grabbed the edge of his table to keep close to it. From across the room, the answer was immediate.
“Fuck me yourself, coward!”
He looked up from the pencil on his desk so quickly that he felt a muscle in his neck pull. Keigo stared back at him in equal shock. His husband clearly hadn’t meant to say that, then. They looked at each other in silence until Tony walked in and dropped a tablet on Clint’s table.
“Close your mouth, Barton.”
Keigo looked away at last, and Clint closed his mouth quickly. With a quick pointed (and quite betrayed, if he did say so himself) glare at Tony, he turned his attention to the tablet. Tweaked schematics glowed up at him in forgiveness. He schooled his expression and scrolled through the options, careful to hide any reactions from the eccentric man beside him.
“Eh, potential,” he said at last.
Clint set the tablet back on the table and looked up at Tony.
“You’re still a meddling asshole,” he continued, voice lower, “so like father, like son.”
Every muscle in Tony’s face twitched at once. He must have known that one was coming. Peter was bad enough to deal with, nevermind his friends from school, and now Tony had gotten in on it. Still, he didn’t look offended.
“The wedding photos turned out lovely,” Tony offered. “Pepper is hiring him for ours.”
Clint snorted.
“As you should! Imagine not hiring your own talented son for your wedding!”
A soft swear drew their attention over to Keigo, and Clint’s neutral facade nearly cracked when he saw what his husband had struggled with. JARVIS’s soft-spoken instructions didn’t carry well into his hearing aids, but he could guess well enough what the suggestions were. Tony’s technology was advanced, even for their guests, and the worst of it happened to be the very interactive holograms that Keigo had surrounded himself with.
“Kei!”
He caved when Keigo’s wings began to fluff out, and made a point of ignoring Tony’s smug expression at the endearment. Asshole. His husband looked over at him in surprise, though he looked no less frustrated than he had been when his voice had initially carried over to the pair. Clint nodded slightly, picked up his pencil, and threw it with the precision he was known for.
The feather fell.
“You-!” The winged hero spluttered.
“Okay, I’m out of here, birdbrains.” Tony announced loudly, tablet in hand. “Remember, we’re an OSHA compliant workplace-”
“Tony-” Clint warned.
“-and Peter’s bringing his friends over today. So no weird mating dances, either.”
“I’m not an actual bird, Stark.” Keigo protested with an offended flare of his wings.
“Just don’t do anything in here that I wouldn’t do!”
With those final words, Tony disappeared into the elevator.
“Like he’d do anything, anyway,” Keigo muttered under his breath.
Clint couldn’t hear him, but he could sure as hell read his lips. He sat straighter in his chair, and readied a nearby pen for launch. If Keigo was going to get in on the tower’s games, he’d have to hold multiple locations. There was too much on the line now.
“I’m not sure if that was a demand or a challenge, sweetheart.” Clint told him, rather than call out what he’d caught.
The archer threw the pen with a grimace. As it left his hand, he knew it would lodge itself in the panel at too much of an angle to qualify. Couldn’t he have stood closer to Clint? He’d chosen a station too far for him to manage an impressive throw and successful takeover of the panel over his head. At the very least, Clint had managed to get Keigo’s undivided attention. He stood to leave, heart pounding in his chest, and willed a more confident look to remain on his face.
With a wink, he decided to go for the kill. There was no way he would be able to focus on his schematics now. He’d just have to burn time in the gym until he could think clearly again. If he had to suffer, so did his husband.
“But I’m a performer, not an exhibitionist. No one out performs me.”