Today's Story

Notes: Started as me going on about how the twins actually are adults, and not children. Spiraled from there.

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It's ridiculous.

The twins are grown ass adults. Older than they should be long before they could even be called legal by any country. Their past and their actions aging them even before they'd left their teens. Clint doubts he'd ever think of them as children even if he had met them back then.

Clint's life has taken him many places. Led him down too many dark roads filled with kids who weren't the ages they were supposed to be. He's dealt with men in teenage bodies, and women too young to be going through puberty. He knows better than to take age as anything but a number anymore. He leaves mourning that loss of innocence up to the people who don't have blood caked up to their elbows and a dozen more names to cross of their lists to make the world a better place. People who don't have to look at adults in smaller bodies and see them as anything other than another enemy trying to kill him.

Age is just another number to Clint that lets him know how much experience he can count on the other person having. A factor to be taken in and then discarded. It's never meant much to him besides that. Even when the jokes around his birthday had grown more predictable.

"What's wrong?" Pietro sneers over the ruins of what used to be a wall at him. Palms flat on the ground as they both take cover for whatever's causing the current light show that's destroying the buildings around them slowly. "You throw out your back, old man?"

"Fuck off, kid!" Clint gets a grip on the sliver of something, feels like rock, that got through a weak joint in his armor and yanks it out. There's more pain, but the bit of shrapnel didn't get very far and the wound doesn't do much more than hurt dully when he rolls backwards. Getting further behind the bit of wall that's still left. "Didn't no one ever teach you to respect your elders?"

If anyone did it was long enough ago that Pietro's forgotten it, and they both know it. That's not the point of their words though. It never is, the insults and sniping slide out almost automatically now. A veil of banter as they both focus on the important matter of the people or thing trying to kill them. The light show stops and Clint's looking at the end of a blue blur even before he's up and firing at anything that doesn't look friendly. Business as usual for them and the rest of the team.

They're insults that are easy and roll right of the tongue without thought. Clint throws brat and kid around almost as much as Pietro busts out old man and geezer. They're words that don't really mean anything. Like Tony with his dozen and one nicknames for everyone. Clint doesn't give them a single thought until the press picks up on it.

It's subtle at first, and Clint wouldn't have even realized it was happening if Nat didn't ferret it out and rub his nose in it.

"I'm 38," Clint grouses as he pushes away the offending articles. Each one seemingly trying to outdo the other in calling Clint old in increasingly colorful and spiteful ways. "Tony's older than I am. What'd I do to piss the papers off anyway?"

"You're happy," Nat points negligently to one of the few photos they've managed to scrounge up of him. It's over a year old and was taken not long after the stop of the invasion. Clint can tell because he's sporting the hollow eyed look that had dogged him for a good while after it. Not the best of looks for him and it only adds fuel to the frankly ridiculous musings about his age. "That's reason enough for them most days."

"And Pietro?" Clint asks because the pictures of the other man chosen to accompany the articles don't look the least bit happy. It's a sulky looking picture chosen to emphasize the fact that they're pretty much calling him jailbait.

"He's pretty," Nat says dismissively, and that one actually makes sense to Clint. Pretty equals sales in the media. "And this is considered shocking."

This is several pages of speculation into their private life. Their romantic life. Together. One that doesn't exist except in the media's warped mind. Just so they can write falsely scandalized outrage over the supposedly severe age difference between them.

"It's a slow media week, isn't it?" Clint asks and then tries to put it out of his mind.

It's not the first time any one of them has been rumored to be romantically linked to another teammate. In the time the Avengers have been active they've hit just about every possible combination twice over. It's not surprising that all the new members have been getting the same treatment. The insinuations about the age difference -which sure as fuck isn't as severe as they're portraying it- smart a bit, but Clint's been getting the better end of the deal when it comes to the media lately.

Hell, Sam had been bitching not even a week ago about the rumors he was dating Iron Man. Not Tony, but the somewhat autonomous versions Tony can't help creating every few months. Getting thrown together with their smartass speedster isn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

The headlines don't quit though. They keep going and keep getting more lurid each time.

Clint's never been more glad he's been deemed too much of a PR risk to let reporters at him without ironclad contracts first. That his only speaking appearances tend to be with the team, and most of the vultures have better prizes to go after in those events. He's still turning down interview requests from a ridiculous number of people though. Most without even bothering to hear what they're asking after they start getting more and more hostile.

"Jesus fuck, they all think I'm fucking an actual kid," Clint grumbles to Nat in passing one day after a particularly annoying shithead got a hold of his cell number somehow. He's tense because who wouldn't be? "Doesn't anyone fact check anymore?"

They don't, everyone knows that the news outlets run with assumptions first and then shrug facts off later. It's not long after that grumbled complaint that both of the twins start talking about their actual age. Several times in different places, and that's enough to give Clint a little bit of a break. Nat's blunt insistence at work, or Tony's downright diabolical magician's touch when it comes to all things media related.

He doesn't know which and he doesn't care really as the number of people trying to reach him to talk/insult him drops by half. Not quite back down to the levels it was at before, but any break is welcomed.

"We're 26," Wanda huffs one morning after Clint yanks the power cord on some gossip show that's been playing. Mindless background noise that hadn't been so mindless once Clint heard their code names and the sly turn to the voices of the talking heads. "They act as if we should be in diapers."

"We are not the ones who need them," the smirk Pietro sends across the kitchen makes it very clear who he's talking about.

Clint snatches an apple up from the closest counter and throws it hard. Right into the wall where the man just was. A walnut pings off the wall to right half a second behind it, but the one Clint threw -underhanded and with his weak hand to boot- to the left nails Pietro solidly. "This whole mess is your fault, asshole. If you'd quit with the old man comments for five seconds the whole world wouldn't be thinking I'm some kind of a predator."

Ok, maybe the thing's been getting to him just a bit more than he liked to admit, and maybe he's lashing out a little more than he should at Pietro because of it. It's as much Clint's own damn fault for letting himself get caught on camera throwing a few of his own age related insults at Pietro. Yeah, Clint's projecting, but it feels nice letting some steam out.

Also, it's worth it later when he gets the closest thing to an apology he'll ever get out of Pietro. An entire pecan pie in his rooms. Freshly baked and only available at a little diner in New Mexico. Something that's only possible when you can run as fast as Pietro.

Clint's not sure how the man can transport the pie without damaging it. Tony had figured it out and explained to the team once with way too many formulas that only Bruce would have been able to follow. He also doesn't know how the man figured out Clint's like of the pies from that one particular diner though he strongly suspects Nat's meddling.

Tony does something stupid not long after that. Something business related so Clint doesn't pay attention as the media shifts its collective eye for the moment. The age based insults slide out of use though by unanimous decision anyway.

"Aren't you supposed to see everything?" Pietro snaps. Angry because he's the one bleeding this time and pulling splinters of metal out of his arm. An especially irritating thing for him because the skin has already closed up around most of them, and he has to cut them open again to get out the big pieces. "How could you miss that!?"

That is a huge ass monster that may or may not be involved with the original call out they'd gotten. The initial call had been for a couple of enhanced people trying to tear out a bank in the city. Something on the new side for the Avengers, because up till now the cops have always relied on themselves for that. It's Maria's doing, and Clint's not all that sure he likes it.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but there's these things called skyscrapers all around," Clint drawls out as he cycles through the arrows he has left. Fingers cataloging them by touch just to reconfirm his mental count is still right. Tony and Sam are spinning the monster between them up in the air with Wanda taking a few pot shots at it. It's distracted for the moment, and that's good enough while Steve and Nat run the would be bank robbers down to ground just to be sure they've got nothing to do with this. "Big as Mothra out there is, he's still smaller than them."

Clint's down to a lot of regular arrows, and just two explosives. Not a good number when dealing with something that can fly. He'll have to get a lift up to a roof somewhere if he wants to do any good at all in this fight. He turns back to the ruined bank and walks over to the backroom they'd ushered all the former hostages into when things began to shake more than they should. "Everybody alright here? Is anyone injured?"

Clint gets a few frightened looks, several of the particular mix of annoyance and hostility that's unique to New York, and a shit ton of fascinated looks in return. No one speaks up in the positive, and Clint lets them all trickle back out into the wider area of the lobby. Eyes picking them apart but not spotting any sign of injury as the people are smart enough to clump together away from the windows. Mostly.

"Back off kids," Clint takes up his position by the window again, and waves a couple of teenagers trying to edge up on it away. The monster is still flying in circles and Tony's laughter is clear over the comms. Nothing much has changed outside. "You can see it all on the news later."

Pietro snorts, and the sound does more to startle the kids backwards than Clint. The man quickly becomes a new source of fascination because they're teenagers, and watching anyone digging things out of their own skin with a knife pretty much trumps anything. "Later?"

"Well I haven't seen any helicopters out there just yet," sure, reporters are suicidal enough to charge headfirst into an ongoing battle just to get the best shot, but the helicopter pilots tend to be saner than that. There's always a few exceptions, but considering this battle is taking place up in the air Clint doesn't think there're going to be too many unnecessary birds in the sky for a while.

"Just like you didn't see the huge monster," Pietro says disdainfully and holds his hand up. Fingers snapping imperiously and Clint pulls out a spray bottle of specially concocted disinfectant to throw at his face hard. Pietro sprays a short blast in each of the bloody gouges before they can shut. Any fever of an infection will be over in an hour for him, but it's clear the man doesn't enjoy them regardless. "Why is my sister laughing?"

Clint ducks his head to look up to the roof he knows Wanda is on. He can't hear anything from her. Either in the air or through the comms, which means he's hearing his sister through their freaky little twin connection. He can see the flicker of a cape though along the edge of the roofline that makes him smirk as he realizes why the woman isn't broadcasting. "Looks like she's not letting the emergency cheat her out of her date."

"They are not dating!" Pietro growls stubbornly and only the fact that he's digging for more bits of metal in his arm saves something from being destroyed by his flare of temper. One that's been going intermittently since Wanda had informed the whole team -but mostly her brother- that, yes, she was in fact going to be taking Vision out on a date, and, no, she didn't want to hear one word of teasing from anyone about it.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Clint says with a grin. Sparing a moment to glance at him even as he keeps an eye on the fight that looks like it's winding down as the creature slows. "At least he can't knock her up."

Clint bats the bottle out of the air only because he expects it to be thrown and moves before he's finished talking. The impact stings up through his hand, but it's worth it for the pissy look on Pietro's face. Clint laughs, and doesn't notice the sneaky camera's until much later.

It's a small blip in the shitstorm of the destruction caused, but it sticks around long after the event has been mostly forgotten. The picture of Pietro and Clint bantering back and forth pops up every once in a while. Clint standing next to the window, body and weapon angled out even though he's smirking down. Pietro sitting on the floor with his bleeding arm shielded by one upraised knee and scowling right back up at him. They're not touching, there's a good few inches between them in fact, but there's an intimacy to the image that sends people wild regardless. The speculation almost overshadows Wanda deciding that Vision needs the full experience of dating, and taking the man -robot, android, no one's come up with a precise word for him yet- out in public.

"You've got chemistry," Tony says with a grin. His opinion trotted out without asking as usual. "People love seeing snarky assholes get together."

"Is that why so many people follow your love life?" Clint asks even though he knows he should be shutting down this conversation and not continuing it.

"No, they follow me around because people love watching train wrecks," Tony says without a trace of shame or bitterness. Just a statement of fact he's long accepted. He turns in his chair and laces his hands behind his head. "What're you complaining about anyway? At least they've given up on the age angle. If having the press talk about you really bothers you, maybe you need to get the speed junky to stop eye fucking you in public. Blind men can't help commenting when you guys make it obvious."

What. Clint narrows his eyes and glares until Tony rolls away again. Attention caught by his tablet once more. He's got enough of a sense of self-preservation not to push further with Tony, and goes to find Nat instead.

"Everybody thinks you're dating," Nat lays it out in plain terms when he describes the conversation with Tony.

"Since when?" Clint asks because he can't figure that out. There's been no real change that he can point to, and he was sure that Tony would have laid into him with some merciless teasing before now for it. "The first round of rumors?"

"Since the first time Wanda threatened to mentally and physically castrate Stark if he so much as breathed a wrong word about Pietro's very obvious puppy dog eyes," Nat says with a small, sweet looking smile. She leans back into Clint's couch and watches him avidly for a reaction. "It's been months now, of course everyone thinks you've gotten past the awkward attraction phase and into actually doing something about it."

Clint stares at her as he processes the information. Lets the weight of his stare pin her though she'll never show any discomfort over it. "And you didn't think this was important enough information to share before now because?"

Nat's nose rises a few centimeters and she looks vindictive enough that Clint knows, without her saying anything, that this is payback. Payback for the shit he gave her when she was hitting on Bruce. Or every remark and joke he cracked at her as Bruce just edged uncomfortably away and back into his own little shell.

"Fuck you, I was trying to help," Clint scowls because he was. They have a delicately balanced arrangement when it comes to giving each other advice about things like that, and Clint had only been trying to tell her to reign it back a bit without getting his head bitten off for interfering.

"And I'm helping now," Nat counters as if she's being a perfectly reasonable human being. She recrosses her legs primly to make a point as she draws herself up to her full sitting height. "You weren't ready to even think about it before now."

Clint's not ready to think about it now, but it's too late for that. Tony's opened his big mouth and Nat had no choice but to explain.

"You've been thinking about it," Nat accuses. "Don't try lying that you haven't. I know what you look like when you're thinking about making a bad decision."

"That's beside the point, everyone's thought about it," with just about everyone, because the media is good at prompting thoughts even when they're getting things wrong. It doesn't help that they're all really attractive, and thinking about it isn't a hardship. It doesn't mean Clint's going to try going after Cap or even Tony. "That's only being human."

"There's a difference between thinking about it and thinking about it," Nat relaxes back down into the couch. Uncrossing her legs so she can sprawl out. "Especially with you. You don't think about these things this long just because. You've got a habit of falling hard and fast, Clint. I know the signs by now."

"That's bullshit, and you know it," Clint protests, and it's probably the worst lie he's told in a while. It sounds weak even to his own ears. They both know Clint gets stupid for someone with a sharp tongue and a mind quick enough to keep up with him. It's a bit more literal in Pietro's case, and Clint's been trying not to follow down that path of thought to its inevitable conclusion. "I am not hooking up with someone because the papers said we were already a thing."

"You were a thing before those articles came out," Nat snatches the remote from his lax grip with her toes before flipping onto her side. Over the conversation, or at least over it for now. "You just didn't want to admit to it."

Clint's been accused of living in his own world a time or two in his life. Of ignoring things blatantly obvious to others just because he doesn't want to deal with it. It's one of the things that have made him so close to Nat. They're both very good at being willfully dense when they feel it's needed. They're also just as good at calling each other out on it when it crosses the line from being a protective measure into being pure bullshit. Clint does see better than anyone, and Pietro's not exactly being subtle.

"That's just luck," Pietro speaks up after Clint lands a shot without looking. Clint doesn't startle because he felt the way the air in the room had stirred when the man came in five minutes earlier. Only to settle in the back of the room, out of Clint's direct line of sight. He would've known Pietro was there even without that though. The weight of his eyes is almost a physical thing. "You have them programed to be where you want."

"You doubting my skills now?" Clint doesn't jump or even pause in his shooting, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking he pulled one over Clint. "You might want to start watching what you say, or I'll start using you as my practice target. And I won't be holding back anymore."

Clint doesn't need to see the grin to know it's there. There's a blue blur through the range before Clint can finish the sequence he's on, and the arrows are all gone from the targets before he turns his head. Pietro's holding them out to him with a challenging little smirk. "Oh, this I have to see. Why don't you give it your best shot?"

There's two fewer than Clint shot when he takes the practice arrows back, and Clint knows there's two broken ones in a trashcan somewhere. Which is actually an improvement. The first time Pietro had tried this little trick he'd snapped every shaft, and then tried to play it off like it was done on purpose. Something Clint had only realized later when he'd found a set of non-Stark made arrows in the range the next day.

Pietro has a little trouble apologizing verbally, and it's one of the first things Clint had admitted he liked about him.

"Nah," Clint keeps four of the practice arrows in hand after slotting them back into the quiver, and takes out a fifth in an easy motion that shouldn't attract any notice. He keeps his eyes locked on Pietro's own electric blue as he bunches the regular ones around the fifth. "This, you won't see coming."

Pietro's laugh trails oddly around the room. Going slower than he is as he runs. Stopping long enough in some spots so Clint can see the afterimage of him. Then in several so it looks like there's five of him lounging around the whole room. It's a neat little trick that Steve's been trying to get him to use on the field, but the chance to use it hasn't come up yet.

Clint sets his first arrow and keeps the others loose in his hand as he draws and lets his eyes unfocus. For once, the sharp detail he sees is not his friend. He focuses instead on the blur at the corner of his eyes, and the pattern Pietro runs in. A predictable one only because Clint knows him. Knows that the constant movement is necessary not only for Pietro's own peace of mind, but for the floors too because going over the same spot at the speeds he gets to will wear them out in a day if he doesn't vary his trajectory and give the floors time to just be. Something that's not a priority on the field but is very much a concern here in their home.

The first arrow misses, as does the second and third. The fourth and fifth fly too far to the front. A fact that Clint only sees because Pietro slows down between the third and fourth long enough for him to see. A grin stretching across his face as he looks right at Clint and not at the third arrow behind him.

Clint grins right back as it triggers. The slim canister around the head exploding soundlessly and the chemicals reacting with the air to expand into a sticky, goopy mess that tangles up around both of Pietro's feet and sends him crashing to the ground. Skidding slightly with the momentum he still had built up.

Pietro curses fluidly in his native tongue and Clint laughs as he picks up the gist of it. "What's wrong? I said you wouldn't see it coming!"

The chemical is something Bruce came up with. Designed to give even the Hulk a few seconds of pause. It doesn't hold up much longer against superspeed, but Clint's too busy laughing to care when the shove comes. Softer than it can be even though Clint still bangs up against the wall pretty hard.

It's worth it for the scowl Pietro aims at him. Worth it for the flight curve of his lips as he stares pretty obviously through his indignation at Clint still laughing.

It's ridiculous.

Clint stops laughing when Pietro steps back, just so he can get a hand on the slick fabric that's used to make all of his clothes. Something between spandex and silk. A blend that Tony's proud of for its durability and he'd been weirdly fixated on spiders the whole time he was developing it. It's smooth and soft under his fingers, doing nothing to keep in the heat of Pietro's body because it feels the exact same temperature when two of Clint's fingers curl under the collar to get a good grip on it.

It only takes one slight tug to get Pietro back in his space and even closer. The other man taking that tug as permission to push him up against the wall bodily and kiss him hungrily. Like he was only waiting for the slightest bit of permission.

Who's Clint to say that wasn't exactly what he was doing? Because this kiss is too much of a relief, too much like the world sighing 'Finally,' at them both.

Clint doesn't care though, because Pietro feels good and right up against him like this. He's got more than a few pointy things to shoot at anyone who wants to give him a hard time about it.

Pietro laughs, and it breaks the kiss. Clint gets a few deep breaths before Pietro's face is pressing into the crook of his neck. The shoulders under Clint's hands shaking and jerking with barely suppressed laughter that makes Clint smile even as he demands, "What now?"

"Wanda," Pietro manages to get out. His voice gruff with the laughter and the kiss, making his accent thicker as well. "She's singing a celebratory song," his voice swoops up into a higher lilt as he mimics, "'Finally!'"

"Fine, yes, finally. Mind telling her to take a mental hike for a little while though? She can sing all the 'I told you so' songs at us later," ok, so maybe Clint can let the pointy things slide in a few cases, because Wanda has been a huge help and also because he's fairly sure the arrows would only end up right back in him if he were to try. Clint wraps his arms around Pietro to pull him closer. "I've got some other plans for right now."

It's still ridiculous, and Clint's kind of dreading what else the papers are going to say, but it's hard to care when he gets a half smirk that clearly says he's not the only one who has some plans.

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