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Chapter Text

Phil was finishing lunch with Bruce in the common kitchen when Clint and Tony came in, discussing the new archery equipment that Tony had made for Clint. "So now that you've gotten a chance to shoot for a few hours, what do you think?" Tony asked.

"I love the EMP arrowheads and the armor-piercing ones. Not as sure about the harness, but the selection feature on the quiver is definitely more user-friendly," Clint said, rolling his shoulders under the straps.

"You happy with the grab function on the EMPs now?" Tony said.

"Yeah, I like the magnetic tip in addition to the spring-claws," Clint said. "It's definitely worth the slight increase in weight, because almost anything I need EMPs for will attract a magnet."

"That should help a lot, Tony," said Phil. "Thank you for taking the time to improve Hawkeye's gear." Last week a rampaging robot spider had nearly crushed Captain America because the team had counted on an EMP arrow frying its circuitry. The arrow had struck true but the grip function had failed.

"I live to make the cool toys," Tony said with a grin.

"You make the coolest toys ever," Clint said. He linked his fingers together behind his head and stretched to the right, then further to the left. "Stark tech outperforms SHIELD almost every time."

"Almost?" Tony said, clutching his arc reactor. "Cut me to the quick, Legolas!"

"You're too sensitive, cupcake," Clint said as he flexed his shoulders.

"Are you all right, Clint?" asked Bruce, pushing away his empty salad bowl.

Phil swept an appraising gaze over Clint. He didn't see any sign of injury, but he trusted Bruce's observational skills. "Talk to me, Clint," he said.

Clint shrugged, paused, and rubbed a hand over his left shoulderblade. "Ah, it's nothing, I'm a little stiff from practice is all."

"From a measly three hours  of practice?" Tony said with a frown. "I've seen you go twice that without flinching. Something must be wrong."

"Your movements after shooting usually look more fluid," Bruce said. "This isn't like you."

"It'll wear off," Clint insisted. "I just need to stretch out a little more."

"Tony's right, Clint, a three-hour session shouldn't faze you," Phil said. He'd seen Hawkeye shoot for considerably longer, or climb down from a bird's nest perfectly supple after remaining in position all day.

"Turn around so I can see the rigging," Tony said, pulling Clint into place to look at his equipment from behind. "I need feedback, Robin Hood. Without input about what specifically works or does not work, I can't deliver the best goods in the world. Most you'll get is quasi-terrific." Sensitive engineer's fingers traced meticulously along the straps and down the line of the quiver where it rested against Clint's shirt. "In fact, take this off, it's trash, I'll figure out what's wrong and fix it."

"I could give you --" Bruce began.

"Thanks but no thanks, doc. I hate muscle relaxants, they mess up my reflexes. If I'm not screaming, I don't need 'em," Clint said. He started to unfasten the straps.

"-- a backrub, is what I meant. I could actually fix this by hand," Bruce said. "It's probably just knotted muscles and lactic acid buildup. At least let me take a look." He got up to examine Clint's back. Just as Bruce put a hand on Clint's shoulder to push him into a better position, Tony peeled back one of the velcro tabs with a loud ripping sound.

Clint jerked away, spinning to press his back against the nearest wall, one hand automatically reaching for the fletch of an arrow even though he didn't have his bow. "Don't do that," he said tightly. "I don't like having anyone right behind me, especially more than one person."

"It's okay," Bruce said, spreading his hands.

"Take it easy," Tony said at the same time. He flattened his hands over his thighs, because palms-forward was actually an attack position for him.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, it's just -- bad memories, yeah?" Clint said. He gave Phil a pleading look.

"A sniper's hyperfocus on target can leave him vulnerable to attack from other directions," Phil explained quietly. "One time in Tuzla, three men dropped on top of Hawkeye from a higher balcony and dragged him away from his post. It took us two hours to extract him, and by then he wasn't in very good shape."

Tony held out a hand and snapped his fingers. "Give me the gear, Cupid," he said. "I'll go work the problem from that end." Slowly Clint shrugged out of his harness and held out the quiver for Tony to take. It took a few extra seconds for Clint to make his fingers uncurl. Tony waited. Only when Clint pulled his hand back did Tony sling the straps over his shoulder and head for his lab.

Clint sidled over to the table and sat down next to Phil, leaning against his shoulder. "This could turn into a problem, working with a team," he muttered, guilt thickening his voice.

"It could," Phil said. "Hasn't yet, though. Don't beat up on yourself."

"How can I not? It's stupid," Clint said. "I know nobody on the team means me any kind of harm. It's just -- Tony was pulling on me, and Bruce was pushing, and velcro sounds like cloth tearing, and -- well. My head went to a bad place. I need that not to happen if I'm going to be around this many people on a regular basis."

"Maybe I can help with that too. The Other Guy hates people flanking him, for rather similar reasons," Bruce said. "Clint? If I sit beside you instead of standing behind you, would that be okay? I'd still like to check your back."

"It's fine, I'm fine," Clint said. He slumped forward, elbows on the table, then rested his face in his hands.

"We need you to be honest with us, Clint," said Phil, because Clint obviously was not fine.

"Okay, so, my back's a bit sore and I'm twitchy," Clint admitted. "Sitting beside me won't make it any worse."

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"Good enough," Bruce said as he sat down. He lifted a hand to Clint's back, slowly and carefully, letting the other man track the motion. "Hmm ... you were drawing the bowstring with your left hand today?" Clint nodded. "I can feel it. There's a diagonal line pulling through your back muscles. Something about the harness must have twisted you out of alignment. That can't be good for your aim either."

Clint held still while the fingers crept back and forth. "Okay, ow," he said, flinching away when Bruce's hand reached his left shoulderblade.

"Between the edge of the bone and your spine?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah, there's a knot there or something," Clint admitted.

"Thought that might happen, the way the straps laid," said Bruce. He moved his thumb very precisely, tracing something that he could apparently feel but Phil could not see. "Wow, this tendon is not happy with whatever you did on the range. I could pluck it like a guitar string."

"I'm not happy either," Clint said. Bruce touched a different spot, closer to the shoulderblade, and Clint flinched even harder. "Ow! Take your complaints to Tony. He's the one wanting feedback on the gear."

"We will," Phil said. He'd make sure Tony got the notes whether Clint and Bruce remembered or not. He had complete confidence in Tony's ability to fix whatever crimp or imbalance had caused the problem. Phil also took extra care with Clint's safety because, unlike some of the other team members, Clint didn't have any resistance to injury or quick healing.

"I've got a massage table in my quarters if you want to come up," Bruce said. He flattened his hand against Clint's back.

"Uh, that's a no," Clint said, his cheeks pinking. "I don't really mix well with massage tables. Unpleasant associations. Came up during a mission but it's not job-related at the heart of it."

"Geisha-ninjas working out of a massage parlor," Phil clarified, "and doing nobody's professional reputation any good whatsoever."

"I like the skin contact, a lot, but I need it to be ... safe," Clint said. "I don't like sex. I don't get attracted to people that way. I don't want anyone touching my junk."

"That's all right, Clint," said Bruce. "I get that you're asexual. I don't have a really strong sex drive myself, and the Hulk just makes everything ... kind of weird. Betty and I have fooled around some, but we discovered that we actually, um, get more bang for our buck with Tantra. You don't have anything to worry about from me."

Clint twisted around to look at Bruce. "Don't get me wrong, you're okay, I totally trust you not to manhandle me. If you think you can fix my back, go for it. Just, not on a table, because that was not fun."

"No problem," Bruce said smoothly. "I can work anywhere. Floor okay for you, if we throw down some cushions?" Phil wasn't surprised that Bruce had focused so much on portable techniques he could use without a need for specialized tools or supplies.

"Yeah, sure," said Clint.

"Phil, would you spot for us? Just in case we step on another land mine walking down memory lane?" Bruce asked. "Edgy as Clint feels right now, I think he'll have an easier time relaxing with you there."

"Of course," Phil said at once, "whatever you need." He'd tried getting Clint to work this out with one of the physical therapists at SHIELD who also did massage therapy and had, by all reports, quite good hands. That turned into an argument over the importance of a massage table in professional treatment. Clint came out tenser than he went in. Phil silently concluded that he should have vetted the therapist's head as well as hands, and that it wasn't worth pushing for something that would probably never recur in Clint's line of work. If Clint was willing to try again with Bruce, that was a definite improvement. Phil would do whatever he could to encourage them.

Bruce appropriated a few floor cushions from the common room and towels from the bath, then led everyone to a spare room. "This should do. We can lock the door and not tie up the really public space," he said.

"JARVIS, if anyone comes looking for us, let them know we're busy unless it's an emergency," Phil said as he closed the door behind them. The lock clicked and flashed amber.

Bruce expertly flipped the cushions into position and draped a towel over them. "Okay, this will work better with your clothes off, but you don't have to --"

Clint's clothes hit the floor before Bruce even finished speaking. He stretched belly-down on the cushions, pillowing his head on his forearms. "I'm good with it," he said.

"Spies can't afford to be too body-conscious," Phil said to Bruce. He settled onto the floor cross-legged near Clint's head, resting a hand on the closest forearm to help him stay present in the here-and-now. The muscles remained firm underhand, even though he could tell that Clint was trying to go along with this project.

Bruce knelt gracefully beside Clint, placing one hand over the nape of his neck and the other at the base of his spine. Clint shivered. "Relax," Bruce said, his voice low and coaxing.

"I'm trying," Clint said. "I just really don't like people right behind me. It's not like a switch I can flip off and on."

"We'll get there," Bruce said. "Look, you're not afraid of me in combat, are you? Even when I'm big and green?"

"Of course not," Clint said instantly.

"Okay, so hold onto that awareness. Let me have your back. I promise I'll take good care of it," Bruce said.

"I'll try," Clint said.

"Imagine a place you find safe and peaceful," Bruce said. "Let yourself drift a little. We can take all the time we need for this." A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows, as if he wasn't satisfied with what he felt under his hands.

"Clint, think about sitting watch in a forest, not for a target, just establishing a baseline for the local sound environment," Phil murmured. With no more hint than that, JARVIS brought up an ambient recording with a barely audible whisper of leaves and birdsong. Clint sighed and settled a little deeper into the cushions. Phil pressed an attentive thumb into Clint's forearm and felt the muscles soften slightly.

"Ah," Bruce said on a happier note. "That worked." He tugged a bottle of oil from his pants pocket.

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Clint propped himself up on his elbows. "That better not leave me smelling like perfume," he said, eyeing the oil in Bruce's hand.

"It's just apricot," Bruce said. He opened the bottle and held it out to Clint. "Here, smell first. Acceptable?"

Clint sniffed. "It doesn't smell like apricots. Doesn't smell like much of anything, really. It's fine."

"The oil comes from the nut meat, not the fruit, so the scent is very subtle," Bruce explained. "I snagged this from the bathroom. Now lie back down."

Clint returned to his former position. Bruce oiled his hands and slid one slow stroke up the length of Clint's back. "Oh wow," Clint said. "Your hands are so warm."

"Side effect of the gamma," Bruce said quietly.

"Yeah, I know that sucks and all, but from my perspective this is one part that doesn't," Clint said.

"Oh, I'm a big fan of how Hulk saves your life when you fall out of buildings," Phil said.

Bruce ducked his head at that, but Phil could see him smiling, just a little bit. That was good. Phil wanted him to get more comfortable with his condition instead of seeing it exclusively as a liability. In that regard, convincing Clint to trust Bruce at his back would also help convince Bruce that he himself was worthy of trust.

Bruce created a steady rhythm, doing nothing more complex than running both flat hands up Clint's back and then down the sides to start over. He wasn't even leaning into the strokes so there couldn't be much pressure behind them. Just the same dreamy, patient motion over and over again. It let Clint sink down very gradually toward relaxation. It also gave him something easy and predictable to focus on. That helped establish that having Bruce behind him was safe, even pleasant. Bruce was humming, too, a soft simple tune that sounded vaguely familiar.

"Is that -- Bruce, are you humming the frog song?" Clint said.

"Hm? Oh. I suppose I am," Bruce said. "I'm kind of surprised you recognize it."

"Well, there was this mission in Mexico City," Clint said. "We infiltrated a crime ring peddling military-grade explosives. They had a fireworks shop as a front, and I kinda set it on fire ..."

"... while standing on the roof of said facility," Phil finished. "We couldn't get to our pickup point quickly, so I took him to a curandera that I knew."

"And that's where I learned the frog song," Clint said. "She sang it while she wrapped up the burns on my legs. It just stuck in my head, I thought it was cute."

"It is cute," Bruce said. "Works, too -- Hispanic kids usually settle down if I sing it to them. They like it."

"Or maybe they're just shocked that the gringo doctor even knows it," Clint said.

Bruce chuckled. "That too," he said. Then he sang out loud, his gentle voice surprisingly sweet over the old Spanish words:

"Sana que sana,
Colita de rana
Si no sanas hoy
Sanarás mañana."

Phil could see that Bruce matched the movement of his hands to the rhythm of the song, long smooth glides up and over and down.

"S'nice," Clint said. "Sounds pretty."

Bruce sang it twice more, slower and softer each time. It wasn't a lullaby, but it worked much the same way. Phil watched Clint's eyes flutter shut. Under his hand, the powerful muscles had gone lax.

"Clint?" Bruce said softly.

"Mm," Clint replied without moving. Phil smiled.

"Good, now that I've got him nonverbal, I can start working," Bruce said to Phil. He slid his hands down to Clint's hips and pressed his thumbs up along either side of the spine.

"Mm?" said Clint. His eyes blinked open, blue and hazy with peace.

"Shh," Bruce soothed. "You don't need to think about anything, including what I'm doing. Just lie there and let me work."

Clint closed his eyes and sighed, surrendering himself to Bruce's care. Bruce used his thumbs on the long vertical muscles. He moved just his fingertips in tiny circles over the whole surface of the back, mapping out the knots. There seemed to be two main ones, slightly offset, below the shoulderblades; and the one higher up between shoulder and spine that Bruce had first found back in the kitchen. Then Bruce stroked over the sore spots with his palms. Clint huffed under the gentle pressure.

"Easy," Bruce said. "I'm going to push a little harder to work the kinks out. I'll go slowly. Just let it happen."

Slow it was. Phil felt certain they'd spent over an hour at this already, well more than the usual length for a professional session. He wondered where Bruce had garnered such a lavish supply of patience. It was working; Phil could feel Clint melting into the cushions under that relentlessly tender touch.

Clint became more vocal, just breathy little sounds at first. Bruce listened intently, his head cocked, eyes half-lidded with concentration as he interpreted the different notes and navigated his way over Clint's back by feel. It was a lovely thing to see. When Bruce got up onto his knees to put his weight behind the heels of his hands, Clint gave a deeper groan, a peculiar mix of pleasure and pain.

"Is that the right spot?" Bruce asked.

"Huh," Clint said heavily. He sounded almost drugged. Bruce leaned over him and worked the tight muscles until Clint stopped groaning. The feedback turned to sweeter moans of satisfaction.

Endorphins, Phil thought. No wonder Clint seems drugged. Bruce's grasp of biochemistry evidently included manipulating the body's own private pharmacy. That was impressive.

"His toes are curled," Bruce said to Phil. "Is this a good sign for Clint? Because that one varies."

Phil jerked his gaze down there, and yes, the long supple toes were curled right down to the balls of his feet. Phil's jaw dropped. "Very good sign," he said. "I haven't seen that in a while. Clint doesn't get much pure physical pleasure." Both his asexuality and his espionage made it more challenging for Clint to meet that particular need. Sometimes the skin-hunger built up to intense levels. It was a key reason why Clint and Natasha slept together, but Natasha was far less demonstrative than Clint.

"Well that's eminently fixable," Bruce said. He looked miffed at this shortcoming in Clint's life. Phil felt vaguely guilty about not having addressed this before, but honestly, their options had been limited. If Bruce was willing to fill the gap for them, he had Phil's enthusiastic support.

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Bruce poured out more oil and slicked Clint's back again. Then he returned to the long, slow, lengthwise strokes. Clint responded happily.

Phil cocked his head. "Is he ... purring?" he said.

"Hm? Oh, yes. Some people do that," Bruce said, looking down at the world's greatest marksman who was rapidly turning to pudding under his hands. "Though in this case it sounds more like chirring. You know, that sound some birds make when they're brooding eggs or chicks? I heard it plenty in the jungle."

"Hawk ... eye," Phil said pointedly.

"Mm?" Clint said.

"Shush, go back down," Bruce said to him. "Phil and I were just admiring your happy sounds."

Clint sighed, clearly letting himself drift away to whatever blissful place Bruce's hands were taking him. Bruce spend a long time just stroking him gently, soothing the muscles back into their usual pattern.

Phil's time sense told him this had gone past the two-hour mark. It was rare to see Clint so carefree and content. "Remarkable," he murmured.

Bruce flicked a glance at him. "I could use your help with this next part," Bruce said. "He may not like it. Just keep him steady for me."

"Tell me what you need and I'll do it," Phil said. Bruce had gotten Clint this far. Phil felt certain that Bruce could finish the job, even if it took a little extra coaxing.

"Hey, Clint," Bruce said softly. "I'm going to fix this tendon that's bugging you." He laid two fingertips lightly over the spot. "First I need to get at it, though, and for that you have to follow my lead. It's not going to be much fun. We'll get back to the fun stuff in a few minutes. Okay?"

"Mm," Clint said.

"Okay, give me your arm," Bruce said. He trailed his hand slowly along Clint's left arm, clasped the wrist, and tugged gently downward. Clint allowed the motion -- until Bruce lifted his hand toward the small of his back.

"Wha...?" Clint protested. His eyes popped open. He tensed as much as he could, which amounted to little more than a ripple under Phil's mindful grasp. Bruce paused, holding the same position.

"It's all right," Phil said, stroking his free hand through Clint's hair. "You're perfectly safe. Relax and let Bruce work." Clint went limp again, eyes closing.

Bruce tucked Clint's wrist just above his hip, holding it in position with a knee braced against the outside of the arm. Then he scooped a hand under the left shoulder. Clint must have done something that Phil could neither see nor feel, because Bruce said, "Let go. Don't try to help. Let me have the weight."

Phil rubbed a thumb over Clint's right forearm, slow soothing circles. He watched Bruce rotate Clint's whole shoulder between his hands, one cupped underneath and the other spread over the shoulderblade. Forward and back. Up and down. Round and round, first clockwise and then counterclockwise. Phil could see Bruce's lips moving slightly, counting something. Counting the rotations, Phil guessed.

Clint heaved a sigh of relief.

Bruce smiled. "Little better, yeah?" he said. "That's good." He settled Clint's shoulder back onto the cushion.

"Mmmm," Clint commented.

Bruce leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "This is the hard part," he warned as he clasped Clint's arm again. "You can trust me." He lifted carefully, one hand on the wrist, one supporting the elbow, angling Clint's fingertips up toward his right shoulder.

"Bruce," Phil said evenly.

"Yeah, I know what it looks like, think about what it does," Bruce said, casting a glance at Phil. "I need to lift the shoulderblade up in order to reach the tendon enough to rub out the tension. It runs underneath the bone, and that's where it tends to knot up, right at the edge on one or the other side."

What it looked like -- what it was -- Phil knew, and Clint knew, was an arm lock. Both of them had torn men's shoulders out of socket with just such a move, done at speed and with force. It could wreak permanent damage on delicate nerves and connective tissue. Clint depended utterly on his arms. Bruce was asking him to put his vocation, his livelihood, very nearly his life into Bruce's hands.

"I trust you at my side in battle, Clint," said Bruce. "I know you'll take care of me when I'm not even really there to take care of myself. I trust you with the arrows you spent half the morning practicing, and I want you in perfect shape to aim them every time. Let me do this for you."

Bruce waited, and Phil watched with a gimlet eye. Bruce wasn't putting any pressure on Clint's arm as long as there was any resistance at all.

Clint breathed out, and must have given some subliminal signal of acceptance, because Bruce shifted again. "Trust me," Bruce coaxed.

Bruce moved slowly, incrementally, easing wrist toward opposite shoulder with sublime care. Clint was limber. He'd worked in the circus, and he'd gotten even better after he left. By the time Bruce stopped, the back of Clint's left hand rested on the bottom edge of his right shoulderblade, fingers in a loose curl, completely vulnerable. The left shoulderblade had lifted away from the ribs underneath, its edge clearly visible even under the dense layer of archery muscle. It looked cool, and a little creepy.

Bruce glanced up at Phil. "If you can hold him like this for me, that will free up both my hands," he said.

"All right," Phil said. "Clint, I'm taking hold of your wrist. Keep steady." Phil wrapped his hand around Clint's wrist, feeling the thick cords of muscle and tendon under his fingers. Something shimmered through his awareness, a quiet awe at the way Clint trusted himself so fully to both of them. Phil could also feel the ... surprisingly slight pull when Bruce let go. Clint's arm rested at the exact limit of its natural extension in this direction. Phil's admiration of Bruce's knowledge of human anatomy, which was already high, ticked up another notch.

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Phil looked at Bruce, and Bruce quirked a smile at him. Then Phil realized which side of this equation Bruce had most likely learned such precision, and his stomach sank. Well, at least he's putting the knowledge to good use, however he gained it, Phil decided.

Bruce followed the line of the shoulderblade with his thumbs, feeling for the knot hidden under the skin. Phil could actually see something jump when Bruce found it.

"Nnh," Clint said, not a happy noise.

"I know," Bruce murmured. "This part is uncomfortable. You'll feel a lot better once I'm done, though. I promise." He moved his thumbs along the line of the tendon, not using much pressure, just rolling it softly under his touch. Then he pressed under the raised edge of the shoulderblade.

Clint whimpered.

"Breathe through it," Phil coached. It was one thing to withstand pain under enemy torture, or to ignore it in the field as part of the job; and quite another to hold yourself still while somebody you cared about did necessary but unpleasant things to your body. Clint's threshold for the latter lay a great deal lower than the former. It was also harder to block out pain when you'd already relaxed and opened the barriers that you used to keep the world at bay. Phil gave a gentle, reassuring squeeze to the wrist under his grasp. "You're all right. Just breathe."

Clint dragged in a long breath. Huffed. Inhaled again, striving for control. Phil watched the rise and fall of his ribs.

Bruce worked with steady strokes, and before long the knot yielded to his skillful touch. It couldn't have taken much more than five minutes, certainly less than ten. It just seemed to take forever with Clint making unhappy little noises and very deliberately not pulling against their hands.

Finally Bruce reclaimed Clint's wrist from Phil and gradually, solicitously moved it back down, around, and up to its previous position under Clint's chin. "Here, feel the difference," Bruce said. He placed two fingers over the former knot and pressed just enough to dimple the skin.

"Hm," Clint said, a low thoughtful note.

"See, that's a lot better than the yelping I got in the kitchen when I first touched this," Bruce said. He flattened his hands over Clint's lower back. "Long strokes again, you like these, remember." He pushed upward. This time he leaned into the motion more.

"Mmmm," Clint said, happy again. He relaxed under the rhythmic pressure.

"It's just like unstringing a bow," Bruce said quietly. He warmed another palmful of oil and spread it over the skin.

"What?" Phil said, startled out of his reverie watching Clint dissolve.

"Something I learned from Clint, actually," said Bruce. "You want to take good care of your weapons. For a bow, that means you need to unstring it at times, release the tension. If you keep it strung continually, it will either lose its resilience or break."

Phil's heart twisted at hearing the words. He hadn't done a good enough job of caring for his archer, though he'd tried everything he could think of that came within reach. It was just so hard to convince Clint to let go, to relax, even for a little while. Game night was the first thing they'd tried that really worked. "Point," Phil said bleakly.

"So it's good that we found this now," Bruce went on. His tone didn't sound critical, just satisfied. He'd identified a lack and found a solution. "You know, I don't think this would've worked a few months ago. You've helped us all learn to unwind and rely on each other for what we can't do ourselves."

Phil thought about that. No wonder Clint had come undone today, when he'd resisted it before. Now he had different ways to move back and forth, ease the strain on various parts of himself. He knew enough trustworthy people that somebody could take care of him and somebody else could keep watch at the same time. Phil thought about how he felt, being able to count on people like Steve and Betty and even JARVIS to take over some aspects of guidance. He remembered the way the team had caught him after he fell apart over their presumed deaths, and how gently they'd put him back together again.

So Phil hadn't failed; he'd just taken a while to find all the pieces he needed to get the job done. This intricate, infinitely precious thing they were building between them was stronger than it looked, precisely because it wove together so many different strands. Everyone had a part to play, rather than throwing all the weight on one person until they shattered under the stress. This felt good.

"I think you're absolutely right," Phil said to Bruce.

Bruce took his time with Clint. He must have spent another forty minutes on that same languorous stroke. He kept going until he had a puddle of archer lolling on the cushions. Clint was so blissed out that he couldn't move, even when Bruce tickled the curve of his ear with a fingertip.

"Eh," Clint said, too relaxed to laugh.

Bruce spread another towel over his back and started rubbing away the leftover oil. "Here, you can help me dry him off," Bruce said to Phil.

Phil moved his hands to Clint's back and scuffed them vigorously over the thick terrycloth. It made his skin tingle, and presumably did the same to Clint on the other side of the cloth.

"Look, his toes are curling again," Bruce said with a smile. "Okay, you can move back to where you were."

Phil sat back, returning his touch to Clint's forearm. Though at this point, grounding is redundant. I don't think we could get him off these cushions without a spatula, Phil mused.

Bruce smoothed his hands over Clint's back, long slow sweeps, straightening out the towel. He ended in exactly the same position as he began more than three hours ago, one hand cupping the nape of Clint's neck and the other at the base of his spine. "Come back to us now," Bruce said quietly. "You can take a few minutes if you need to."

Chapter Text

Bruce sat back and stretched very thoroughly. He shook out his hands as if flicking water from them. He stretched his fingers, together and separately. He bent his wrists and elbows. He rolled his shoulders and arched his back. He straightened out his legs, spread them into a line, and then folded flat over them.

I did not know Bruce was that flexible, Phil mused. The file said he did yoga but it didn't say anything about him doing splits!

"You should stretch out too," Bruce said with his face still resting against the floor.

Phil obeyed without a second thought, putting himself through one of the standard routines he used after a long bout of paperwork at his desk. Bruce moved fluidly through what looked like a yoga set of his own. There was a softness in his grace that differed from Clint's acrobatic flair or Natasha's deadly slink, something born out of peace instead of violence. Phil wondered if Bruce had even noticed that about himself. Probably not, Phil thought.

It took a good ten minutes for Clint to stir at all. "Up," Bruce prompted with a gentle pat on the back. Clint didn't budge.

Phil hid a smirk. Good luck with that, he thought. Indolent Clint went all kinds of nowhere once you had somehow gotten him to relax that far in the first place.

"Show's over, Clint, it's time to get up," Bruce said. He delivered a firmer pat to the side of Clint's thigh. Clint grunted in annoyance but still didn't move.

Phil raised an eyebrow at Bruce, curious to see what the man would try next. He felt certain that it would not entail another escalation of force. Bruce gave Phil a sly little smirk.

Then Bruce reached underneath to dig the edge of his thumbnail into the sensitive hollow of Clint's hip. "Hey," Clint whined, rolling onto his side to escape.

"You need to get up now," Bruce said firmly. He proceeded to drive Clint to his feet by tweaking delicate nerve clusters, targets that Phil knew because he used them to incapacitate enemies, and here was Bruce employing them to tease someone into obedience.

"You're mean," Clint grumbled as he got up.

"No, if I were mean I'd leave you to fall asleep here on the floor, which wouldn't be very good for you," Bruce said calmly. "Instead I'm getting you up and giving you some good advice. Drink a glass of water. Eat lightly. Go take a hot bath. Then take a nap. Don't miss game night."

Clint bent down to retrieve the clothes he'd left on the floor. Paused. He twisted around, moving his arms and back, an expression of clear surprise on his face. "Wow," he said. "This is just -- wow. I feel so much better. I can hardly sense the stretch from practice anymore. I never -- I mean, nobody ever -- wow. Thank you so much!"

And then Bruce was covered in grateful, pliable archer as Clint plastered a full-body hug all over him still stark naked.

"Um ... you're welcome?" Bruce said. He held his hands out to the sides as if he suddenly had no idea what to do with them.

Phil got the ugly suspicion that Bruce heard very little thanks from most people for his hard work. Phil didn't even know who they all were, aside from the usual suspects, but he wanted to deck them anyway. "Thank you, Bruce, that was very generous of you," Phil added.

Bruce got all the more flustered. Clint leaned back a little to look at him, curious. Then Clint let him go, clearly picking up Bruce's hesitant response. "See you tonight," Clint said fondly. He got dressed and let himself out of the room.

"JARVIS, please make sure that Clint doesn't fall asleep in the bathtub or nap through game night," Bruce said.

"Of course, Bruce," JARVIS replied.

Phil started picking up the loose towels and cushions. "I'll take care of these for you," he said.

Bruce wasn't paying attention to him, though. "JARVIS, I need a life-sized holographic map of human anatomy showing the muscles of the back, rendered in a cool palette," he said. The image appeared in soft blue tones. "Paint menu, warm palette." Bruce dabbed his hands in the small colored squares and proceeded to fingerpaint swaths of orange, then lines and dots of red across the blue body. He scrawled notes down the margin.

It was fascinating to watch. Phil had no trouble identifying the same trouble spots that he'd just seen Bruce spend three hours repairing. Somehow Bruce had figured out all of that with no equipment other than his eyes and his hands and a little conversation with Clint.

This is what the new archery rig did to Hawkeye's back, Bruce wrote underneath the image. JARVIS transmuted his sloppy handwriting into a tidy line of text. "Send that to Tony, marked as input per his request," Bruce said.

The hologram winked out. "Done," JARVIS said. "Tony is currently in the lab working on the harness design."

"You know, I've seen you do a lot," Phil said quietly. Bruce startled a little even so. "I've seen you track and analyze alien technology. I've seen Hulk snatch a man falling at terminal velocity without crushing him to death." Then Phil tipped his head toward the door where Clint had disappeared, fully restored and as relaxed at Phil had ever seen him. "I think that this ranks among the top five impressive things I have ever seen you do."

Bruce blinked owlishly at him, then tugged his glasses off to clean them on his shirttail. "Uh," he said. "Thanks. I think."

"I'll see you at game night," Phil said. Then he collected the items to be put away, and slipped out of the room.

Chapter Text

Game night found Clint in a languid sprawl on the couch. Bruce sat on the far end, while Uncle Phil leaned against the side of the couch near Clint's head. Natka curled up in a chair. Steve was already rummaging in the toy cabinet. Clint didn't even look up when Tony and Betty came into the common room.

"Any luck fixing Clint's equipment?" Phil asked Tony.

Tony shook his head. "No, I got the note from Bruce and it pretty much means I need to scrap the old design and start from scratch," he said.

"I can wait," Clint said lazily. "Don't feel like moving much today."

Tony took one look at him and said, "Wow, who deboned you?"

Clint lifted a fingertip in Bruce's direction.

"I had help," Bruce said modestly, looking at Phil.

"You did all the hard work, Bruce," said Phil. He didn't worry about Tony's lack of progress. If the usual pattern held, Tony would sleep on it and wake up before dawn with half a dozen new ideas, each more brilliant than the last.

"Do my feet too?" Clint asked, waving them at Bruce.

"Sure," Bruce said. He lifted one foot into his lap.

"Clint, don't be greedy," Phil chided. "Game night is a time to relax, not to work. Bruce already spent half the afternoon on you."

"I don't mind," Bruce said. "I started learning this when I was two. Keeps people ... happy."

Phil considered that. On one hand, he didn't want any kind of work intruding into game night. He also didn't want Bruce to feel obligated to "keep people happy," particularly if that tied into his feelings of safety, sustenance, or self-worth as it probably had during childhood. Then again, here was little-Bruce talking and sitting with people, instead of keeping mostly to himself. That's an improvement worth encouraging, Phil decided. I'll just have to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing gets out of hand.

"All right, go ahead," Phil said aloud.

Bruce looked at Natka. "Watch," he said. He placed his thumb just under Clint's big toe and moved down to where the ball of foot gave way to the arch, then pressed carefully.

Clint's toes curled.

Natka's jaw dropped. "How did you do that?" she exclaimed. "Show me how to do that." She scrambled out of the chair and wedged herself onto the couch.

Phil smiled. He'd take a three-way interaction gladly, whatever form it took. He also made a mental note that teaching seemed to draw Bruce out of his shell. Maybe I can find something else he remembers from this age, and coax him into sharing with the rest of the class, Phil mused.

Bruce showed Natka some of the pressure points on Clint's feet that matched other places in his body where he tended to store tension. She stared intently, mapping them to what she had already memorized for other purposes. Bruce taught her how to make a loop with her hands to run along the whole foot at once. Natka pointed out the one ticklish spot that Clint had, just where the undersides of his toes met the balls of his feet. They worked around that.

Phil let his hand drift down to stroke through Clint's hair. Clint gave him a big sloppy grin, his head lolling against the arm of the couch. "Love you all so much," Clint said lazily. Phil petted him again. Clint's eyes rolled up and then slowly closed. He made the soft chirring sound that Phil remembered from the earlier session.

"I think he's going to fall asleep on us," Natka said. "I heard that Clint hurt his back on the range. What on earth did you give him to make him this loopy?"

"A backrub," Bruce said.

Natka's eyebrows went up. "Oh really?"

"Yes, really," Phil assured her. "I was there. I even helped."

Then Phil glanced around the room to check the rest of his "kids." Tony, Betty, and Steve had arranged themselves on the floor with the set of Concentration cards that featured hand-drawn elements from the periodic table. They were just about an even match for each other, all with a keen eye and reliable memory for what they'd seen. Their hands danced over the cards, turning over pair after pair.

"That game looks awfully easy for you," Phil observed. "Why don't you make it more of a challenge? Draw another set of cards and aim for trios instead of pairs."

"I'll get the paper and crayons," Tony said.

"I want colored pencils. Crayons are too clunky for this," Steve said.

"I can't draw that well. I'll just watch," Betty said.

Tony and Steve spread out their art supplies on the coffee table, tugging it farther away from the couch. "JARVIS, show us diagrams of the elements," Tony said, and a periodic table popped into view in front of him. Moving slowly so that Steve could follow what he did, Tony broke off the column of noble gasses from the right end and passed it to him. "Look, Steve, you can take this apart. Pick the piece you want." Tony separated hydrogen from the elements still in front of him. He caged the little cube loosely in his fingers. "Then you just --" Tony flicked his hand open, and the cube expanded into a diagram of one electron orbiting one proton. "-- and it pops out a picture for you to copy."

Steve gazed dubiously at the little stack of cubes before him. So far, he was willing to look at holograms but hesitated to manipulate them much more than moving a single picture or block of text around as if it were a solid object.

"Steve, give it a try," Phil coaxed. "Then if you still don't feel comfortable with it, you can do something else instead."

"I have books," Bruce said, looking up from Clint's feet. "Paper ones."

"... okay," Steve said. Taking a deep breath, he closed his fingers over the helium cube and tugged on it. Phil watched closely as JARVIS adapted from Tony's gracile motion to Steve's far clumsier version. The cube came free easily, following Steve's hand. He grinned.

"Now blow it up to see the picture," Tony prompted. He balled his hand and flicked it open again. Phil remembered how Tony had invented a whole new element with just such motions, yet here he was playing with someone whose computer knowledge would fit into a bottlecap with room left over.

Steve fumbled the little cube of light into his palm and closed his fist. It was a tighter grip than Tony had used, and if Phil was reading things right, that would normally have dismissed the hologram. But JARVIS already knew what Steve intended, so when Steve slowly opened his hand, the picture sprang into existence just as it was meant to do. Two electrons orbited a nucleus of two protons and two neutrons.

"I did it!" Steve exclaimed.

Phil clapped softly. "Well done," he said. He knew how hard it was for Steve to wrap his mind around the bewildering array of modern technology. Every step forward was deserving of praise.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile Bruce and Natka had finished Clint's feet. Clint lay boneless and ecstatic on the couch. Betty perched herself on the arm of the couch behind Bruce. She reached forward and used her toes to tickle the back of Clint's knees.

"Eh," he protested as he bent his knees to protect the sensitive spots. He opened one eye to glare at her. Phil wondered whether Betty had learned that trick from Bruce, or vice versa.

"Hey Clint, check this out," Betty said. Clint opened his eyes, because it was his nature to watch things. Betty reached forward and settled her hands on either side of Bruce's neck. "There are these two spots just above his shoulderblades, and if you squeeze here --" She demonstrated. Bruce melted instantly. "-- then he goes goosh just like that. He stores tension in his shoulders, you know, the way he curls in on himself while working. So that's how to let it out." Betty tugged Bruce backwards into her lap. He let her arrange him as she wished.

"Cool," Clint said.

Maybe more of the team could feed their skin-hunger this way, if they pick up the same techniques, Phil mused. God knows some of them need it, whether they want to admit it or not.

"Hm." Natka made a thoughtful noise. She shifted her position to scrunch onto the couch at Clint's waist. Then she tugged one of Bruce's feet onto her knee, placing the other one in Clint's lap. "See if you learned enough to return the favor, selfish pig," she said to Clint.

"So not paying attention," Clint said.

"Follow me," Natka said. And Clint did, because he always could and always would, whatever she asked of him. They moved as if one body with four hands, in perfect synchrony born from years of practice, even their breath falling into the same rhythm without thought. Their hands worked smoothly over Bruce's feet. It was beautiful to watch as they applied old skills to a new purpose.

"Be careful with his feet," Betty warned. "He's ticklish, so you need to use firm pressure with your whole hands, not just your fingertips. He'll kick you in the face if you get careless and tickle him." She kneaded Bruce's shoulders, keeping him relaxed enough to buy them time for the extra coaching.

"Is he supposed to be this quiet?" Natka asked, frowning a little. Her hands went still. "Clint made more noise."

"Bruce is very subtle," Betty told them. "You'll need all your observational skills to read him with any accuracy."

Bruce flinched minutely at her words.

Phil straightened his back and said, "Mind that you don't overload him." He knew that being watched comprised one of Bruce's major issues. Phil couldn't blame him for that particular fear, though. For Bruce, observation tended to connect with such unfortunate things as pursuit, imprisonment, and torture. He had very little in the way of counter-examples except for Betty and, now, the Avengers.

"I know his limits," Betty said. Bruce stirred in her grasp. Betty lifted one finger to tap him over the collarbone. "Quit that. Lie still and let us take care of you now. You deserve to get pampered sometimes instead of prioritizing everyone else's needs over your own. So either you give us some vocal feedback for this, or you let us read silently. You pick."

Bruce grumbled, fidgeting against the couch. His hands gripped the cushion beneath him. Phil could see the tension coiling through his body, the twitch of thigh muscles as Bruce contemplated taking his feet back.

"Shh," Clint said. He stroked his thumbs firmly across the tips of Bruce's toes. "Listen to me, Bruce. You trust my eyes in combat. Trust them now. Anything I see, I'll use it only for your benefit. I'll never turn it against you, not of my own free will."

Phil heard that caveat and wondered if it would spook Bruce clean out of contact. The man looked so broken open by Clint's speech that Phil worried they might have gone too far. The raw expression plucked at Phil's sympathy.

There was a quiet strength in Bruce, though, that came out at the most unexpected moments. "Okay," he said, his voice shaky but his consent clear. "Go ahead." Bruce gave Clint the same level of faith that he had requested of the archer earlier. He let go of the couch, turning both palms up. Then he curled each hand into a complicated shape, forefinger tucked tightly under the base of the thumb, tip of the thumb touching the side of the pinky finger, middle two still extended.

Betty made a satisfied noise. From this Phil extrapolated that she knew some kind of hidden meaning behind the gesture, and he hoped to coax it out of her later. As he watched, her hands worked their way up the sides of Bruce's neck until his head rested in her grasp. His eyes closed. He melted into the couch, completely limp and trusting.

Natka resumed her work on Bruce's feet. Clint's hands followed her every motion, but his eyes were all for Bruce, filled with the far look that the archer used for meticulous examination of something close as if it were a vast distant landscape, a way of expanding the inner space of things much the way that Tony expanded holograms. Phil paid close attention, and managed to catch the tiny shift when Clint went from following to leading. Clint worked both thumbs up and down the big toe.

Bruce made a very faint hum of approval.

Betty's head came up, clearly surprised. She grinned and nodded vigorously for Clint to continue. Natka picked up the cue and followed suit on the other foot. The hum grew fractionally louder. Clint and Natka grinned back at Betty.

Phil looked over at Tony and Steve to make sure they weren't getting into any kind of trouble. They were still bent over the Concentration upgrade. Phil could hear the faint scritch-scratch of colored pencil on paper as Steve worked. He raised a hand to poke at the floating illustration, frowning at it for some reason.

Tony reached out without seeming to look, pinched an electron between his fingertips, and used it to rotate the whole image into a more convenient orientation. He paused. Then he put it right back the way it was before, and guided Steve's hand into place.

Steve frowned a little more and tried to mimic Tony's elegant sweep of direction. The diagram spun smoothly in place. "Wow," Steve said softly.

"Knew you could do it," Tony said.

Phil looked back and forth between the two groups, both of them cooperating with a fluency that warmed his heart. With so many different flavors of teamwork, he didn't know which made him the proudest. He just knew that, no matter how much he loved his "kids" and admired their skills, they kept finding whole new ways to impress him.