Chapter Text
“Ten bucks says he kills him.”
Pepper sighs. “Tony . . . ”
“Fifteen,” Maria says without looking up from her cell phone.
Clint wonders what it looks like from the outside, the entire district attorney’s office standing in the hallway outside the elevator bay, milling around like they’re waiting for the doors to open at a concert hall. Seriously, they’re all there—Maria with her Blackberry, Natasha skimming a case file, Steve looking nervous while Bucky smirks, you name it—and they’re all waiting. The elevator repair guys’d pried the doors open ten minutes earlier, which means all the mechanisms on top the elevator car are on pretty glorious display.
The car itself is caught between the fifth and sixth floors. Stuck due to some kinda impossible malfunction that gummed up the whole works.
“Coulson is a reasonable man,” Thor says. His arms are crossed over his enormous chest, but his face makes pretty clear how little he believes the reasonable man thing. “I am sure he and my brother—”
“The guy who kicked his ass six ways from Sunday at that motion hearing last week?” Darcy asks. She’s trying to sneakily press file label stickers to Jane’s enormous belly. Jane smacks her hand again. “Because, I mean, I think Coulson wanted to fricassee the guy.”
“And don’t forget the appeal,” Tony chimes in. He’s got an arm thrown around Bruce, who’s busily typing something into his phone and ignoring the extra attention. “Because that appeal is crazy to me, and when I say an appeal is crazy—”
“Then it’s probably certifiable,” Bruce finishes. His lips tip up into a little smile while Tony looks momentarily betrayed.
“And there were two new motions filed in that robbery case,” Peggy notes.
“And—”
“He is a reasonable man,” Thor repeats, cutting Maria off. His jaw is tight with worry. “He and my brother will find common ground.”
There’s a suspiciously long beat of silence before Natasha decides, “Twenty bucks on Phil.”
“Thirty,” Maria challenges, and Natasha tips her head in grudging respect.
“Forty,” Bucky chimes in. Clint thinks for a minute he’s serious, too, but then Steve sends him one of his scolding looks and Bucky shrugs a little. It turns into a staring contest and elbowing-match, the two of them knocking together like kids on the playground, and Clint honestly wonders whether that’s what marriage is like.
Seems, well, weird.
Then again, neither of them have a boyfriend who’s spent the last twenty-five minutes trapped in an elevator with Loki Laufeyson. What’s worse, Clint’s got both his phone and Phil’s, meaning that Phil’s pretty much without any distractions.
Phil, who spent seriously half an hour the night before ranting about the futility of Loki’s motions. Phil, who’d really only calmed down after Clint’d grabbed him by the hips, wrestled him onto the couch, and—
Okay, point is, he’s half expecting the blood bath.
“You’re being quiet,” Tony says suddenly, and Clint looks up from where he’s staring at the elevator mechanisms to see the guy’s full, intense attention tuned in on him. He swallows, and Tony’s mouth kicks up in a grin. “Actually, you’re being uncharacteristically quiet. You wanna put money down on Laufeyson instead of your boy? Because, I mean, we can go either way on the betting pool, if you’re interested.”
“He’s probably worried,” Bruce puts in. He slides his cell phone into his pocket and sends Clint a sympathetic smile. Clint tries to smile back, but twenty-five minutes is a long damn time. “I’d probably be worried.”
Tony scowls at him. “Only probably?”
“You’re pretty good at entertaining yourself,” Pepper notes. When Tony grins and opens his mouth to offer something that’s probably filthy as fuck, she rolls her eyes and Bruce—sympathetic, decent Bruce who’s great except for his weird taste in men—puts his fingers over Tony’s lips.
What happens next is disgusting and Clint refuses to discuss it.
Besides, the other thing that happens next is this weird buzz-and-whir sound before the elevator finally, slowly, starts to rise. It’s surreal to see it come up with the doors still standing open, inch by painful inch until both Phil and Laufeyson appear in their full glory. They’re standing in opposite corners of the car, Laufeyson with his jacket off and over his arm, Phil with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up, and Clint—
He’s not proud of it, but Clint is momentarily tempted to wrap arms around his guy and not let go.
Instead, he stands there, hands in his pockets, while Laufeyson strides out of the elevator with his nose in the air. “I believe we have a meeting,” he informs Maria curtly.
“Good to see you are unharmed by your experiences, brother,” Thor says. He clasps Laufeyson on the shoulder and is immediately rewarded with a nasty scowl. “I was afraid for you.”
“It was an elevator, not a fight with a bear,” Laufeyson returns, and then shifts away from Thor’s big hand. “Miss Hill?”
“Sure,” Maria replies, and at least waits until he’s stepped past her to roll her eyes.
The group sorta starts breaking up after that, muttering about who owes whom what kinda cash, when Clint feels Phil at his elbow. Not physically feels, but senses him, his closeness and familiarity. When he glances over his shoulder, Phil smiles, and it encourages Clint enough to bump their arms together.
They’re not like Tony and Bruce, you know? They’re a little more private, a little more subtle when it comes to touch.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” Phil echoes. His fingers slide along Clint’s back for a minute, and Clint tries not to shiver. “Worry about me?”
Clint shrugs. “More about Laufeyson, really.” Phil frowns at him, and he fights back a stupid little grin. “They were taking bets on whether you were gonna murder the guy in there. Bucky stood to win forty dollars.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they got that far.”
Phil hums a little in appreciation, nodding to himself, before he says, “He should try to collect.”
Clint frowns at him. He feels his face bunching before he even realizes it, and by then, it’s too late to stop. “You murdered Laufeyson?” he asks. “The guy who just walked out of there unscathed and shitty as ever?”
“Only at cell phone Scrabble,” Phil returns placidly, and man, Clint’s laughter echoes in that damn tile hallway of theirs.