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There's a little bit of spiderweb dangling in one corner of the roof, and one of the windows has a dead wasp on the sill. Earlier, when he thumped a downy pillow against the back of the couch, it left a little cloud of dust to puff out in the air. The blankets they'd folded out on top of the duvet, covering icy cold sheets, smell a little old – a little stale and mouldy from having spent so much time at the back of a closet. He shudders a little, lets his forehead lean carefully against the icy cold window pane, a small circle of condensation spreading out around the spot where his skin thaws it out.
“Clint?”
“Hng?”
His tongue does that thing where it hits his palate to compensate for the cement that's glued his nasal passages together. He sounds stuffed up.
He wonders vaguely what part of Russia they're in, with the tall, dark trees and deep, white snow creeping up around the cottage. Phil's enthusiastic work with the wood stove and generator has left a little melted circle right around the cottage walls. The fireplace is a hot lump of embers even now, hours after they'd originally gone to bed.
“...not asleep?” Natasha asks, and he twists around, still clutching the itchy blanket tight around his shoulders. “Why aren't you asleep?”
He blinks at her, standing in the doorway with her hair braided on top of her head and Phil's t-shirt over her own, scruffy sweats. She's beautiful, he thinks, and coughs into his fist. His chest feels tight, wheezy, like it, too, is filled to the brim with cement. It burns, and he knuckles his chest, clearing his throat loudly and painfully.
“Keeping watch,” he mutters at last, shifting in place. He feels achy – too much time sitting down, waiting to be picked up. “When's pick up?”
She watches him, assessing him, and finally takes the last five steps over to him briskly, wrapping one hand around the back of his neck and one around his forehead. He gazes up at her, blearily because his eyes are a little glassy and fuzzy, and she frowns. “I don't know how to tell a fever with my hand,” she admits eventually, and he hiccups a little laugh, twisting out of her grip. She lets her hand trail through his short, puppy fuzz hair, and rests it on his shoulder. He pulls his knees up under himself, shivering a little. The room is lukewarm, he's not wearing his slippers, and the window behind him is leeching heat he doesn't feel like he has.
“I should go get Phil,” she mumbles, and he blinks. “For pickup?” He asks, but her hand has already left his shoulder, and he leans his forehead wearily back against the cold window. The icy cold feeling stings a trail down his neck into his back, and little hair stand on end all the way down his arms. Heavier footsteps than Natasha's move rapidly over the floorboard, but they're muffled by the sheepskin slippers Phil'd dragged out of the hallway closet and tugged, looking triumphant and a little embarrassed at the same time.
“Clint?” He says, and Clint turns again to watch Phil make his way over to the spindly rocking chair Clint has ensconced himself in. “Hng?” He repeats, blinking, because it all feels very familiar.
“How are you feeling?” Phil asks, one hand wrapping behind his neck and the other across his forehead, and Clint closes his eyes against the concern on Phil's face. “Keeping watch,” he says, because it feels important. “Where in Russia are we again?”
The hands let go, only to settle around the blanket on his chest instead, tugging it closed, and Clint opens his eyes to see Phil crouching on his knees in front of him.
“We're not in Russia, Clint. Can you remember where we are?”
“Uh,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes again, because everything is a little fuzzy and a little spinny, and shakes his head. “Safe house?” He tries again, and Phil makes a little noise of concern.
“Not quite. This is my cabin. Remember? Christmas?”
Clint opens his eyes to watch the little christmas tree, decked out in lights Phil'd turned out in case of fire, right next to the window with the dead wasp and the spiderweb.
“Maybe,” he tries, coughing and knuckling his chest all over again, “'m not feelin' so good, Phil.”
Phil chuffs out a little laugh, squeezing his hands in under Clint's arms, and tugging him up to standing. The blanket drops halfway to the ground, and Clint's t-shirt is tugged up over his hip on one side, but he's mostly concerned about the way the room spins around them the moment he's on his feet. He lets his head tip forward onto Phil's shoulder. It feels too full and sloshy, like there's too much brain in his skull all of a sudden. Like the brain-to-skull ratio is wrong.
“Too much brain,” he tries to explain, blinking blearily and squinting into Phil's soft t-shirt. Phil nods, and Natasha's hand wriggles in around one of the arms he's wrapped around Phil's neck, and he tries not to overbalance and squish her. She's squishable. His nose drains on one side now that he's upright, and he shudders at the feeling of snot draining down his throat. Ew.
“Phil? C'n we go to bed?”
Phil sucks in a breath of air on his right, sounding amused, and Natasha sniggers into his shoulder. “Yeah, Clint, I think that's probably a good idea.” They manoeuvre him across the room, and he tries to pay attention and follow and not think about when pickup is, or where Russia is, or anything important.
“Where's m'bow?”
He turns halfway around, forgetting that they're keeping him upright by the gentle grips on his arms, and nearly throws them all to the ground. Phil grunts, heaving Clint upright again. Clint leans back into his chest. Phil's taller than him, but not by enough that it's entirely comfortable for either of them. Natasha isn't that much taller, but she's a girl, and Clint doesn't want to squish her. He really doesn't.
“Don't wanna squish you,” he explains solemnly, when she grabs his arm again and Phil lets go of his waist, tugging his t-shirt back down. She nods, panting a little.
“Think you can manage the stairs?” Phil asks, and Clint squints up the narrow staircase, and measures his dizzy, spinny head against the uneven wooden steps.
“Uh,” he says. “Dunno?”
Phil's arm is dug deep into his chest, and his t-shirt is riding up again, and the staircase is very, very long and very, very steep. He needs to sit down.
"Need to sit down," he says. Natasha frowns at him. “Phil? Maybe...”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Phil mumbles, and the room goes ass over teacups and Clint has to close his eyes against the vertigo again. Again? He doesn't realise he's being carried until Phil shuffles him around and Natasha pushes him to move his head to Phil's shoulder, and there's the little bump of the first step as Phil navigates them both upstairs. Really, a life where fighting with Iron Man means being carried up to various buildings has left him sort of used to being carried, but this is different. His stomach squirms at the thought of Phil tipping backwards, and he digs his face into Phil's t-shirt so he doesn't have to watch.
He loses a little time after that, maybe, but it doesn't seem to matter much. There's no pickup and Russia doesn't seem to exist, and Phil's chest wound didn't reopen even though he carried Clint up the stairs. Clint twists in the sheets, feeling cold all the way down into his spine, and someone shushes him quietly. There's a little trickle of water somewhere close, and the damp, warm cloth on his forehead is removed and swapped for a cool one. Water makes its way into his short, buzzed hair. He sucks in a deep breath.
“'m sorry,” he mumbles, and someone shushes him again.
“All we have is liquid bubblegum Motrin,” Natasha informs him, and Clint squeezes his eyes shut to force his too-big-brain into informing him of why he needs to know this. “Huh?”
“Two spoonfuls, it'll still hopefully bring his fever down.”
He supposes that with the generally weak grip on reality he's displayed so far tonight, the fact that they're speaking about him over his head isn't all that surprising. He sighs. Phil removes the cloth, and his skin feels too small and tight and hot. He squirms in the damp, white sheets on his bed, and a cool hand rubs circles around his temple. It's not really hard to let time go fluid again, and let it float away as he squirms and whines and breathes too fast.
His mouth tastes of bubblegum, he thinks, and he feels sweaty. Sweaty and too hot. He turns to his side, and the old, grey, flowered army blankets tip around on top of him, but don't come off. Hot.
“'m.. Uhm. I. Phil?” He manages, and squints up at the form with red hair sitting next to him, tugging the blankets down.
“Getting you some dry clothes, Clint. Oh, for.. Clint.”
She tugs his t-shirt up over his shoulders, and he thinks maybe, even though he's trying to help, that his help is more of a hindrance at this point. She digs her hands into the waistband of his boxers, and he sucks in a breath, even tries for a jaunty grin, but she merely twitches her eyebrow at him. It's as good as a belly laugh coming from Natasha. He doesn't know if he should feel insulted or not.
“Hng?” He mumbles, wriggling his knees so Natasha can tug the damp clothes off him entirely.
“I'm not having sex with people who taste of bubblegum children's medicine,” Phil says firmly, and Clint squints blearily up at him, too. His brain still feels too big. “You don't have any clean clothes left. I wrung out some of your underwear so they're clean for tomorrow, but it's these or nothing for tonight.”
He holds out a set of striped, blue pyjamas Clint recognises as Phil's, and shrugs, and Clint tries not to think about Phil cleaning his sweaty underpants. The pyjamas are flannel. And soft. And they have buttons, which is an unexpected difficulty, but Natasha bats his hands away, and Phil shakes out the blankets, and he squirms onto his side just as she slips in in front of him and Phil squirms in behind him, folding his arm tight around Clint's waist. Snot shifts to one side of his nose, and he grunts at the feeling, but Natasha is rubbing little circles into his temple with her thumb, and Phil's fingers are tickling under the elastic waistband of the pyjama pants.
“'m sorry I ruined our vacation,” he mumbles into a mouthful of red hair, coughs a little, then buries his face into the downy pillows again only to wrench it back out when he runs out of air immediately. They don't smell like anything. Just snot and bubblegum and sickness. Phil shushes him again.
Clint thinks of the fireplace with the burning embers and the dead wasp downstairs, and of being carried up tight staircases and the ancient bubblegum Motrin he'd licked off a plastic measuring spoon earlier. Of the unfamiliar feeling of long-sleeved pyjamas.
“You didn't ruin our holiday,” Natasha mumbles. “Yet.”
He snorts into her hair, and finds that he doesn't mind so much after all.