Chapter Text
"… please leave a message, and I will call you right back," Phil's voice called out of the tinny little speakers. Clint grimaced at the thing and hung up. He didn't like phones on the best of days, because it was hard to hear voices clearly through the background noise all the time, and his spelling sucked tit, so texting wasn't always in his favour, either.
He threw a look up at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was half past nine in the evening, and the wintery darkness laid heavy against the large, dark windows. Well, as dark as New York ever really got, which was still fairly dark when it came down to it and you were a million feet off the ground.
The tomato sauce he'd set to thaw in a pot earlier in the evening burbled happily on the stove when he lifted the lid, sending tiny droplets of red all around. The hob was already covered, and so was the side of the pot of water he'd put next to it. He'd figured he'd set it to boil when Phil was on his way home, but he'd waited a really long time already. He'd left the gym at five, like he usually did when there were no missions and no emergencies to take care of, and had expected Phil to come home around seven. Like usual, even though he was supposed to leave headquarters around five or else Fury would box his ears, or hang him up by his eyelids and force him to blink, or something equally cruel.
Point was, Phil was usually home by now. Distracted and a little tired, but home.
Clint set the water to boil, and grabbed his phone again. It was pretty big and cumbersome, but the screen was large - and whatever Tony said - pretty much made to play Candy Crush. Which, aside from being colourful and addictive, had the added benefit of letting him watch the goddamned phone like a hawk in case Phil decided to text him.
He failed the level five times in a row - fucking chocolates - and finally had to admit that the steam rolling out of the pot, all over the stove and causing little droplets to run down the window - he'd better wipe those off before Phil saw them in sunlight - meant he could set the spaghetti to boil.
Eating alone was different from eating with Phil. No one insisted he eat at the table like a civilised person, so he grabbed his plate of spaghetti and tomato sauce and way, way too much cheese - of the sort that melted, thanks, not that weird, powdery Italian shit Phil always said was "authentic" -, and brought it into the living room. Their couch was covered in light grey fabric, and Phil would have his hide if he spilled spaghetti all over it, but Clint happened to know Phil'd made sure they had two extra sets of cushion covers for occasions just like this one. And besides, Clint was pretty certain his puppy dog eyes would make Phil forgive him anyway, depending on Phil actually being in the same room with him, obviously.
It also meant that he could have his goddamned apple juice out of a regular glass - which just happened to be an empty Nutella jar, covered in little drawings of Tom and Jerry that he'd insisted Phil rinse out a few weeks earlier because that was how you got those ridiculous cartoon glasses, Phil - that didn't even have a lid. Life on the edge.
He hadn't thought to bring a napkin, and he hadn't changed his socks after coming home out of the sleet on the streets with leaky, ancient boots, so the couch probably would need a wash after Phil came home and put his neat-freak eyes on it, but whatever.
They were totally married, Clint supposed he was due to piss him off or at least punish his guy for disappearing on him in the most passive-aggressive way he could think of. Sweaty, stinky footprints and red spaghetti stains on the couch seemed mild in comparison to other things he'd done, like the time he'd almost sunk the helicarrier don't you fucking go there, Clint.
The novelty of doing everything Phil normally asked him not to do wore off once his belly was full of extremely hot spaghetti - tomato stays hot the longest, Phil usually said - and his Netflix queue gave him nothing but choices and nothing he particularly felt like watching. First world problem, sure, but still one that meant he was still awfully aware that it was almost a quarter past ten, and Phil hadn't contacted him.
He knew Phil was fine. The office would've called him, otherwise, because it was SHIELD, and they did that, so husbands and wives and family would know if there was something wrong or nothing wrong and nothing to worry about even though the news said differently.
Only Clint didn't watch the news, so half the time those calls just meant SHIELD called him up to let him know the nothing he didn't know about was nothing.
He snapped Phil his empty plate, left it on the living room table for himself to clean off and curse about resistant tomato stains the next morning, and grumbled his way to the bathroom to clean up before bed. He'd crossed from "fresh sweat and recent exercise" to "grown ass man who forgot to bring a towel to the gym, didn't want the clerk to know so didn't ask to borrow one, and skipped the shower altogether after four hours of working out and practicing," about an hour ago, and his muscles were letting him know they didn't appreciate him skipping a pretty vital step in his warming-down routine.
Also, he felt stinky and grubby, and clean clothes were only clean so long as they touched other clean things, rather than stick to his back as his post-workout sweat kept on going on the subway on his way back to the tower.
He really needed to get new boots, too, because his socks were that awful combination of soaked and sweaty - which was supposed to be difficult, considering his socks were wool and wool was supposed to be all kinds of good for sweaty feet because it was some kind of self-cleaning or whatever - and his boots had been through pretty much literal hell and the leather wasn't so much leather as gaffer tape he'd stuck to the inside to keep them from leaking. That might be why they smell, his brain supplied as he plucked out his hearing aids and left them on the counter where the moisture from the shower would no doubt mean their life span would be halved, provided he didn't lose them first or actually remembered to put them in the dehumidifier tonight.
He probably wouldn't. There was a reason it was on Phil's side of the bed, anyway.
You got used to not being alone anymore, he thought to himself, rubbing body wash into his short hair and sighing internally when he noticed he'd got it mixed up with the shampoo again. Whatever, it's all soap, anyway, he thought, and grabbed the little bottle of watermelon-scented Minion shower gel hid away at the back. For the most part he stayed away from scented things, but watermelon was weird and kinda funny, and he was going to bed, anyway, so who the fuck would know?
No one, that's who.
He stumbled into bed twenty minutes later, having plugged in his phone and ignored the vibrating shit-thing Phil insisted would function as an alarm clock but only served to remind Clint of cheap motel beds that vibrated while you stared at yourself in a mirror on the ceiling, hoping the sheets wouldn't make you catch the clap or something. The elastic on his briefs were loose and washed out, and he'd put on a t-shirt out of habit, because Phil liked a cool bedroom and Clint's shoulders got cold, okay.
A hand on his shoulder shook him awake some indeterminate time later, and he blinked up at Phil, who'd jumped a couple feet back to avoid Clint's attempt at dislocating or breaking his arm.
"Wet," Phil signed at him, and pulled back the duvet to point at the large puddle Clint had been comfortably asleep in up until then. "Clean up, come on."
"Sorry," Clint gestured, and made a few clumsy moves at pulling off the sheets while still trying to keep himself upright and his eyes open. Phil pulled him away, gently, and nudged him in the direction of the bathroom. "Clean up," he signed again, and bent over the bed like Clint had seen him do a million times before, still in his shirt and pants, but without a tie and belt. He tore off the sheets with practiced movements, not looking angry or frustrated. Just tired and soft around the edges, though Clint supposed that was probably the sleep boogers in his eyes.
His t-shirt was damp all the way up to his armpit, almost, and he left it and his briefs on the floor in front of the washing machine Phil had insisted they keep in the bathroom for what Clint suspected was this exact purpose - the tower had a laundry service, duh - and ambled into the shower. It was a blur of steam and soap, but when he got out Phil was shoving most of their dirty laundry of the "boil this with antibacterial detergent"-variety - meaning things covered in pee, towels and kitchen washcloths - into the washing machine. He was prodding the timer to make it start up by itself in the morning when Clint put his towel back on the rack to dry again.
"You're really late tonight," Clint signed, still feeling a little ruffled from the abrupt wake-up.
"Sorry," Phil signed, and kissed him on the cheek while he unbuttoned his shirt. "Security cock-up with some of the new recruits."
It shouldn't feel as nice as it did to curl up with Phil as a long line of warmth against his back in sheets that smelled vaguely of the "clean laundry"-perfume he was pretty sure detergent contained when it said "unscented" on the box. The plastic sheet underneath them - which had been another of Phil's demands when they'd started sharing a bed on a regular basis and which Clint refused to talk about at all - crackled when he moved, even though it was supposed to act like fabric, or whatever - it totally didn't, but at least the mattress wasn't stained and smelly - and the duvet cover was just the right combination of clean and soft and a little starchy from the wash. Phil smelled like he needed a shower and had had too much coffee, but that was right, too, and the little orange nightlight next to his bedside threw a warm, soft glow over the chair in the corner where he'd abandoned his sweats after his last day off.
You don't train recruits anymore, Clint thought briefly before falling asleep again, and by morning he'd forgotten all about it.