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Clint was about to kill someone. More specifically his husband. And maybe Phil Coulson.
He had just finished watching a crazy blond try to lift an apparently magic hammer in the rain when Coulson told him Tony was in trouble. That was it. He just said he was in trouble, he didn't tell him what kind of trouble or if it was a life or death situation, but the archer's instincts had kicked in the second the words came out of the agent's mouth, and that's why he was now at the StarkExpo.
Seeing Iron Man fly upwards being chased by drones and the entire public running from Hammer's Robots, Clint ran behind the scenes to where he had seen Pepper disappear.
"You tell me who’s behind this. Who’s behind this?" He heard a familiar voice say.
"Ivan. Ivan Vanko."
"Where is he?"
"At my facility."
Clint watched the scene and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "Nat?"
The redhead raised her head from where she had Hammer pinned down and frowned. "Clint? What the hell are you doing here? I didn't ask for backup."
"Backup? Are you telling me they sent you here on a mission? How long ago?" He asked, trying to keep his temper at bay. Pepper looked at the two of them confused but concentrated on calling the NYPD.
"They sent me undercover to be Stark's PA. I've been here for weeks."
Clint tried not to laugh. He was pretty sure he had shown Tony a photo of him and Natasha once, so his husband most likely knew she was undercover from the moment he saw her and played ignorant. When was SHIELD going to stop underestimating Tony? Honestly, they were starting to look like idiots.
"You didn't answer my question," Natasha said. "What are you doing here?"
"I came because Coulson told me Tony was in trouble. End of story," when he saw that she wanted to make another comment, he stopped her. "Now, I think this jerk said he was working with Vanko. Can you go find out if he's where he claims to be? I have a genius to murder."
She looked at him with an expression that said they were gonna have a conversation about this later but she still left to capture Vanko with Happy on her heels.
Clint took the place of his friend and held Justin Hammer against the table until the police showed up. Once that nuisance was taken care of, he looked at Pepper. "So, it seems things went to shit when I left."
"Uh, I'm not quite sure who you are, sir, but if you work with SHIELD you’re going to have to wait and talk to Tony. I don't know much about your organization."
He sighed. Well, here goes nothing . "Hi, I'm Clint Barton-Stark. Tony's husband."
She burst out laughing, "Wow, that was good. Tony's husband. Yeah, that must be the funniest thing I've heard all day. Thank you for that," said Pepper, looking at him as if expecting him to join her in laughing but she only received a look of amusement. "You're not being serious, are you?"
Clint looked for the chain covered by his tactical gear and showed him the ring dangling from it."Oh my god," breathed Pepper. "Oh my god, I'm going to kill him."
Out of the corner of his eye, the archer saw one of the robots approaching and quickly took off into action, firing an arrow where he saw a small opening in the suit, dodging a bullet and finally disabling it with an special arrow that had an EMP attached to it.
"So Tony actually married a super spy. Now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense," the redhead commented from where she was typing on the computer.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to make contact with the Iron Man suit."
Clint perked up, "Leave it to me, Tony showed me how to do it."
“Well that’s a first.”
A few minutes later, the two of them were listening to and watching the conversation between Natasha and Tony.
"Yes, for the moment, I'm not dying. Thank you," was the first thing they heard.
"What do you mean you're not dying? Did you just say you're dying?" screeched Pepper.
"You were dying ?! Are you fucking kidding me?"
Natasha looked at the scene confused while Tony was clearly nervous, " Tesoro , is that you? No, I'm not. Not anymore."
"'Not anymore' he says. Un-fucking-believable," pushing back the chair and adjusting the quiver, Clint said, "If I keep listening to this conversation I'm going to literally shoot the screen."
He went to help with the evacuation and tried to avoid thinking about the fact that his husband had been dying and he hadn't realized. Now that he thought about it, things were starting to make more sense.
When Clint had told Tony that he had a new assignment even though he had just come back from one, his husband had made a fuss, complaining about his choice of work, telling him that he was never home, saying he didn't know if he would be able to bear a relationship like this for much longer and finally locking himself in his workshop and not saying goodbye to him when he left. He had found it strange, but he no longer wanted to fight so he saved the conversation for another time.
There was also the fact that he made Pepper CEO, all the stupid decisions he made in the last few weeks that Clint had to watch on television... yeah, he had thrown red flags and he hadn't caught them. What kind of shitty husband was he?
Lost in his head, Clint didn't realize that the robots that were scattered throughout the expo had turned on a red light that began to blink until he felt metal arms around his waist and Tony's voice saying, "Hold on tight. "
A second later, they were flying hundreds of meters above the ground and watching the different explosions from afar. Clint tried to hold onto the suit's shoulders as tightly as he could and forget how easy it would be to fall to his death.
But just as fast as they started flying, they landed on a roof.
Tony took off his helmet revealing his face and looked at him with big worried eyes but didn't move in his direction. He just stood there.
In a flash, Clint's hand flew to Tony's cheek. "Okay, I deserved that." Another slap. "And that." He was about to give him another one but Tony managed to catch his wrist holding him back. "Can we just- I mean- let's talk about this. My face suffered enough."
He looked at him incredulously, "Do you want to talk about how you hid from me that you were dying for I don't know how long? Do you wanna talk about how you pushed me away to go through all that by yourself? Or do you want to talk about how I had to find out from Coulson that you needed my help? "
Tony winced, "Yeah, I admit it wasn't my best moment."
"You don’t say," he replied, crossing his arms and glaring at him.
"I'm sorry, tesoro . The poisoning didn't let me think clearly and I honestly thought it was better if you didn't see me deteriorate like that," he explained, brushing one of Clint's cheeks with his thumb.
"Poisoning," he repeated in a whisper. "From the reactor?" Tony nodded. "You had no right. Didn't you think that if you were dying I would want to spend your last days by your side? That I wouldn't want to waste that time on stupid missions?"
"I'm sorry."
The thought of going home to a corpse made him shiver and before he could say anything else he found himself wrapped in his husband's arms. The familiarity of Tony's essence made him finally melt into the embrace. "Don't ever, ever, ever do that to me again. Did you hear me, Anthony Edward Stark-Barton? Because if you do, I'm going to cut you into pieces and feed you to the fish in the aquarium."
"Lo prometto, tesoro."
"In sickness and in health, Stark. You can't take that back. You're stuck with me," without wasting another second, Clint kissed him desperately, trying to remind himself over and over that he was okay. He was breathing. He was alive.
"Wow," Tony made their foreheads touch. "You should kiss me like that more often," he said with a smile. "It was hot."
"I think it was weird," said a third voice. Rhodey and Pepper were a few feet away looking at them. "You guys look like two seals fighting over a grape."
Clint laughed and rested his head on Tony's shoulder, feeling the weariness of the day catch up with him. "Good to see you too, Rhodes."
Pepper glared at him, "Did you know about them? Was I the only one who didn't know?"
"Sorry, Pep," said Tony cringing. Her gaze sent a hundred daggers to his head. "Clint, do you remember what you told me about spending my last moments with me?"
He patted his hair down and said, "You're on your own, babe." Clint walked over to Rhodey, "Mind giving me a ride?"
"Not at all, Legolas. Hold on."
Tony looked at them offended, "Is this payback? You guys are leaving me with the Pepper Dragon as payback? That's cruel."
And as he felt the cool air on his face, Clint could breathe easy knowing that when he went to sleep, Tony was going to be right next to him.