I live outside the box.

His feet shuffled to follow Phil’s, pleased by the turn of events. It was nothing to stretch, putting himself in range to kiss the corner of the amused little smile Coulson kept. Clint was aware he was being baited — and didn’t care even a little.

"So… that’s a no to Chinese?"

His reply was flat, but the way his features warmed in response to the smile he got said enough. After being wound up that tight and then finally given what he desperately needed, his whole system was ready for a hard reboot and about twelve hours of dead sleep.

He didn't need sex like Clint did. Aside from having a ridiculously high sex drive and the apparent inability (or lack of want) to temper it, Clint found catharsis through physical contact. Contact was as necessary to him as oxygen, and when he reached out for it shutting him down usually did a lot of damage. For Phil, it was just nice to feel wanted. No one else in the world had ever looked at him with that much adoration.

"Yes," she agreed a bit uneasily. It was a thought she’d had several times in relation to Tony’s achingly short lifespan. He was brilliant for a human; he would be incandescent as a vampire. But she knew he was driven at least in part by his own mortality… there seemed to be no answer to heir conundrum. "I suppose we have that in common."

He would let her, she thought. He would have no idea what he was agreeing to, but he would let her. Sometimes her thoughts turned to the question of if she could live with herself afterward, knowing all she’d lost to become who she was now.

"Talk to him," she underlined after a moment, quieter this time. She made the silent decision to do the same.

"I'm spending a lot more time in-state," he noted as he laid the card on his knee and pulled out his phone. He snapped a quick picture of it and handed the card back over, his own tucked under it as he slipped the device back into his coat pocket. "Let me know if you'd like company over lunch or something."

But this was all she’d wanted when she brought the subject up, so she let it go gently.

"We are," she agreed simply, her glance lingering over the patrons who surrounded Tony this time. As much as Tony loved pressing the rules, they all kept a respectful distance; they knew what it would mean to raise Pepper’s suspicions tonight, here in her home.

"He… keeps me a little more human than I was before." Her words were chosen carefully now. Tony was responsible for a lot of things, some of which she never told even him about. Exasperating as he was, he was good for her, and she’d thought several times about turning him — a thought she didn’t voice now.

"I'd say I'm still a couple of centuries away from understanding where I am now in the world," he remarked back, a subtle jab at his own "youth" and the fact that being under a century old put you in the "Basically A Squishy-Skulled Baby" category. "But it's nice to feel relevant now. What's the point of being here for so damn long if we don't enjoy what's happening?"

He'd accidentally exposed a thin root of his own internal anxiety, but there wasn't a thing to be done for it. Pepper had been honest with him, anyway. He owed her the respect of being honest in return. "We'll both see Darcy put in the ground. Eventually, I'll have to see Clint put in the ground as well." His grip increased marginally on his glass at that thought. It was decades beyond them, but it still hurt to think about.

”I remember how it felt the last time. Half expected it to be Tasha who showed up, though. Damn tease…" But he still had it in his mind to spread wide hands over the angles of Phil’s hips to hold him down while he gave him the best blowjob of this century, so he just shook his head.

”Leave them for now. Unless…?" His hands stilled in the air, questioning. Maybe Coulson wasn’t in the mood? Maybe this feeding hadn’t been enough?

”I mean, I’ll live without your dick in my mouth.” Clint’s grin was sharp. Back when Phil had just begun to learn to sign, Clint had insisted on teaching him all the dirty words first.

"If you want me to leave them, I'll get them before we both go to sleep," he said back with extra enunciation, his hands settling for now around Clint's clamped fingers. When an opportunity to reinforce personal choice came along, it was important to take it. Clint needed all the positive examples he could get.

"The no-strings approach," she nodded. Tit for tat is only fair, she supposed. “That’s how Tony began, too.”

Her smile was even as she sipped from a sparkling flute of champagne. She wouldn’t feel the alcohol.

"As far as humans go, he has power of his own. Influence. His conduction of media affairs is quite canny." That wasn’t her bragging on her consort; those were proven facts. "He was just supposed to be a safe bet, someone who had enough to lose that — if he proved to be trouble — would be easy enough to control."

Her smile was fond. How wrong she’d been.

"Anyhow…" She refolded her napkin on the table. "You see how that worked out.” She watched Tony across the room for a few moments, appreciating the crisp lines of the suit that he’d insisted on tonight.

The fact that she'd targeted someone for possible blackmail was a little disconcerting, but that was the way the older generations acted. Once you hit a few centuries old, you apparently stop giving as much of a shit about modern morality.

"It's not my place to speak for him," he replied gently. "But I don't foresee a conversation like that going very well." But it was an idea. An idea that, unfortunately for him, was taking a tiny root in the back of his head. They wouldn't have to be concerned over Clint's lifetime being drastically shorter (something they'd talked about to great length and accepted as an unchangeable fact), or the risk their jobs posed in the field, or his hearing-

...Would that fix his hearing?

He shoved the thought away as quickly as it had flashed up. He didn't need Pepper prodding around in his head (like he knew she probably was; he knew that little smile from when Melinda watched him) and finding something like that. That was Clint's secret to share, not his, even if it happened on accident.

"Dizzy, hmm?" He couldn’t pick out the sound of his own voice over the very faint murmur of the rushing shower water, and (as always) felt that little pang of self-consciousness at how loud or soft he actually was.

…But he knew Phil didn’t mind. They’d been over this enough times for it to sink into even his thick skull.

Still, it was a blessing when Phil crowded him back. He hissed at the cold tile before it warmed against his skin, and he wound bow-muscled arms around Phil’s frame. The man was strangely cuddly after sessions like this, and Clint couldn’t say he hated it. His lips found the curve of Coulson’s ear as he nuzzled close, and he made himself available to cling to, groaning inaudibly (to him) at the way their bodies slid against each other.

He didn't argue the point. There wasn't any reason to. He had all he needed for confirmation in the callouses tracing the length of his spine. Clint was in that comfy, squishy spot he seemed to love. After another minute or so under the stream Phil reached to shut it off, carefully disentangling himself from the lanky frame he'd momentarily pinned against the wall so he could reach for towels.

"Okay, confession time." He kept his head angled far enough to keep his lips in sight range as he opened the shower door. "Natasha wanted revenge for you putting flea powder in her field suit. There's half a dozen catnip bombs hidden around your apartment right now, along with a tiny one in my coat pocket."

"Are you thinking of turning him?" It was an invasive question for anyone else, but she had a way of making people want to confide in her. It was a natural talent, present far before she’d been made. She’d already had a background check done on the man - it was sparse, but she liked what she saw. They didn’t need people who had a tendency to make waves; like it or not, secrets were their life.

"It could solve a lot of problems for you," she explained, small hands spreading in illustration across her lap. "And you could keep the girl between you."

But then again, did he want to be quiet? She seemed genuinely interested on some level, and that in itself was sort of rare. "Clint was born into his abilities," he explained solemnly, propping his elbows on his knees with his fingers interlaced in front of him. "The community he was raised in see his kind as demons. He grew up thinking he was some sort of monster and joined a circus troupe because it was the first place he could think to run where he wouldn't be rejected."

“Completely worth it.” Phil’s retaliation was to stand and set them to rights, and Clint held onto the arm of the couch while he tested how well his legs worked.

So far, so good.

"You’re older. You need the headstart," he answered fondly. He stretched experimentally as he heard the water start up, feeling the way the burn from his hours at the range melded with the loose-limbed feeling Phil always left him with. It was more than enough to get the endorphins flowing, and he moved carefully to the fridge to grab them each a bottle of water before walking into the bathroom suite.

Setting the bottles on the counter, he ducked into the spray under Phil’s arm, rinsing quickly.

By the time someone slipped in behind him, he'd already grabbed a wash cloth and was working a streak of soap across the wide, jagged scar in the center of his chest. He shook his head and let Clint enter his space without comment, still idly cleaning himself off without a hint that he was going to reach out anytime soon. "Might tell you to wait a minute," he mused back. "Still kinda dizzy."

That much was true. He was still re-calibrating the extra blood flowing through his system. It was going to be a minute before everything came back into proper focus. In the meantime he closed into the space between them and steered Clint toward a wall, studiously scrubbing at every inch of skin he could reach with his nose fitted where a hearing aid usually rested.

It was as soft a correction as it could be — but when she spoke, people listened, so her words tended to carry weight.

"I don’t keep him for the convenience factor." She smiled, because life with Tony was anything but convenient. “I don’t keep him at all, really.”

Which was true. As important as she was to the vampire community, he was not like her. It was unlikely he’d ever grasp her real significance — but she was confident she was important to him in a different way.

"Our relationship is more than that, as you may have heard." She shared another secret smile. Oh, she knew there were rumours. She’s started some of them herself, while others were completely true to begin with.

To an extent, walking on eggshells was just par for the course with old blood like Pepper. The respect they demanded was well earned (most of the time). Anyone else would have been immediately eyeballed for taking such a sharp tone with him.

"You and I share that opinion," she confided, raising a significant eyebrow at Tony across the room. His cravat hid her latest marks, but it wasn’t necessary. They were delicate; he just had a penchant for drama.

The sudden appearance of the attendant made him twitch, glancing sideways to watch the retreating back like he expected it to turn around and call him ugly. Being in a den of his own kind should have put him at ease, but the ruddy copper flecks that still clung to the edges of his irises was a dead giveaway for how much younger he was than almost everyone there. If he was a tad self-conscious about it, though, he kept it to himself.

"When are you gonna learn to enjoy the afterglow and stop asking stupid questions?" he murmured, leaning up to kiss the corner of Coulson’s mouth experimentally. At first he’d been terribly hesitant to let Clint near his mouth afterward — but Clint was damned persuasive. Still, he knew when to press his luck.

"You want a shower?" he questioned, thinking about how Phil might like to get cleaned up, yes — but mostly about how the enclosure was perfect to drop to his knees and blow the man to within an inch of his mind. Phil would hang onto his wet hair. It was a habit of his. The only downside was that the sound of the water would cheapen any noise he could get the man to make.

In the morning, when the real ache had set in and he ended up with a pile of grumpy Pallas cat squashing the breath from his lungs, he'd be able to move quicker. For now, he managed a sluggish nudge after one trail up the length of Clint's spine, his groan audible and almost pained as they separated and he got a view of his shirt.

Yep. This one was gonna need a bleach soak before he took it to the dry cleaners. He just couldn't take this sort of disaster to someone else and expect them to handle it without obvious concern.

“Shit,” he shuddered, and the fingers in his ass stole the rest of his words. Phil knew exactly how to angle himself, it was like a super power, and now was no different.

Clint went flying, coming between them before he knew what was happening. He saw coloured spots behind his eyes, and even through it he arched to take more of Phil’s fingers.

When it was finally over, he slumped against the man — only to realise what a mess he’d made. One eye cracked open, stretching the inch or two it took to tuck his nose against Coulson’s collar.

"Don't care." He had a change of clothes in the car, and Clint's shirts fit about the same way they did on the man that owned them. He slipped free with a slow, methodical raise of his wrist, threading a hand into the hair at the back of Clint's scalp to make up for what he assumed had to be a painful withdrawal. Clint liked it on the harder side, but there was no reason to be flat-out aggressive, now that they'd both gotten what they wanted.

Almost.

The fingers at his entrance actually surprised him, as he was so focused on the way Phil was still sizing him up. The slick slide made his hips twitch, mouth opening in silent want — and god fucking bless that man, he didn’t hold back. He was tight around two fingers, a little out of practice lately thanks to whatever had kept Phil busy, but it only took the second flash of teeth to have him pushing to take more.

They hadn’t fucked like this in a while, but it had all been this way at first, frantic need and attraction steamrolling them. They never made it to the bed then, either.

"You don’t have to say anything—" he gasped, "—but please tell me you’re gonna bend me over this couch. A sign, just—" He shuddered, raking blunt nails down Phil’s neck.

They were running short on what Clint's body would be able to handle. Even with the booster, he needed to be able-bodied if a call came through. Phil hadn't ever been the type to take more than the minimum, anyway; being greedy could result in someone dying. That wasn't a risk he was willing to take.

When the man finally let go, his eyes blacking over, he made sure Phil could feel his rumble of pleasure.

…Which was promptly followed by a distinct whimper. He’d been expecting the neck — Phil was a traditionalist, much as he might try to argue that fact — but the skin was thicker over his chest, and he definitely felt it.

It was a damn good feeling. He’d have a hell of a mark, too, which was his favourite bonus.

If he listened close enough, Phil could sometimes hear memory echoes when he first sank in. It depended on the person and their own sense of will, but every now and then he'd catch a whisper or a noise from a thought that wasn't his own. The only time it didn't thoroughly unnerve him was with Clint: for a man so guarded and unwilling to trust strangers, when it was just them he opened like a well-worn book. The noise was loudest with him, more formed (albeit clipped off, usually) words and snaps of conversation with people Phil had never heard in his life.

He was naked before long, and Phil did that thing with his tie, and suddenly he was warming the man’s lap. Coulson was nowhere near approaching gentle, and that was just fucking dandy with Clint; he was practically seeing stars already. His hips rocked against the bulk of Phil’s thigh, the wool a delicious drag against his length — and then there was a hand in his hair.

It was probably a cat thing, or maybe it was his own messy subconcious, who cared, but he went very nearly boneless, the capture and pain and pleasure of it lighting him up so fiercely he had to stop moving to process it. His tongue curled instinctively around the fingers he found there, and he grinned around them at Phil’s words.

He wanted to go for the throat. That was instinct; it was courtesy and awareness of his own jaw strength that drove him to find other spots. The inner thigh had grown on him, thanks to Darcy, but Clint was absolutely boneless in his grip and taking the higher road was becoming more and more difficult now that he'd literally made the man freeze on the spot. And, okay, the way he was tilting his head was clearly inviting. Clint's tolerance for visible marks was much higher than most other people's, and Phil couldn't help the affectionate streak it kicked up to know there was no shame in the way Clint showed off.

Especially Phil, no matter how much he pretended to hate it.

The teeth that nipped his bottom lip weren’t sharp yet, and to his credit Clint actively tried not to ball the fine jacket in his fists as he hauled Phil that quarter inch closer. (He mostly failed, but he did try.)

He was almost shivering with want by the time Coulson spoke. Which wasn’t exactly like him, but it’d been long enough — he’d been sharing the man with Darcy, after all — and he wasn’t about to apologise. Phil would’ve been able to read him even if he weren’t so damned transparent.

"Bossy," he sassed, grabbing his shirt behind his neck and hauling it over his head in one smooth movement. It was tossed away, and before it hit the ground he was already working on his jeans.

"Now who's bossy?" he snapped through a growing smile, obliging despite the backtalk to tug his tie off with a loud snap-pop before it got discarded in an armchair seat. Clint was stumbling over the couch seat when Phil got his coat off and immediately got himself flipped, the wool of Phil's slacks not enough to block out the searing heat rolling off the man straddled across his lap while their tongues briefly fought for higher ground.

When he finally needed air Phil sat back and turned his head into Clint's neck, his teeth more insistent as they plucked at the reddened line he'd made in the kitchen. He wanted to sit there and take in the way Clint squirmed and gasped and just seemed to fit right where he was, but between Clint's plant-induced frenzy and Phil's shrinking ability to control his grip where it was cultivating bruises at Clint's hips, it was time to do something drastic.

…And then the pout was back.

"That was one time.” But he strode over to the fridge anyway, shaking the hateful little bottle at Phil illustratively before breaking the seal and downing the thing without stopping. His imagination was good — Phil also knew that — but it wasn’t quite good enough to pretend the thing was in any way related to a milkshake, so it was best to get it over with quickly.

With a flick of his wrist, the bottle landed in the trash. Clint wanted to jump rooftops, wanted to shoot with his eyes closed and know he’d always hit his targets, always land on his feet… but he also wanted Phil.

And the way the man was looking at him, Coulson wanted him, too. (He’d never say, but that would always be the best part.)

He was eager to regain the heat and pulled Clint back as eagerly as he himself was grabbed, his eyes rolling upward before they shuttered closed. "Can you just not?" he jabbed when he pulled back for a breath, unwilling to spend too long hovering and immediately diving back in for a hard nip to the man's lower lip.

The catnip bombs seemed to be doing a better job than they had last time. Natasha had the hand-drawn map where she'd planted the tea bags, and the small pinch in Phil's coat pocket seemed to be acting as a handy booster. Not that he'd ever complained about Clint's eagerness; the pulse under his lips when he arched into Clint's neck again was already beating in double-time.