7. Chapter 7

Phil fell face first onto his bed before he got his shirt off, and woke up six hours later confused and uncomfortable. Sighing, he got up, undressed properly and took a shower.

He didn’t bother with a suit. He considered it, if only to keep up an appearance of professionalism in regards to his behavior towards Barton, but he figured it was too late for that. The looks he had gotten in the hospital room from everyone pretty clearly let him know that he was fooling exactly no one in regards to his concern. Phil was okay with that, as long as everyone kept it off the table; he was used to managing unspoken, unacknowledged open secrets in a variety of circumstances, and this was not particularly different.

He dressed in jeans, a comfortable tee shirt and a pullover sweater. It was nearly 20:00 anyway, so he was hardly on the clock. He grabbed a protein bar out of his small kitchen and bottle of water, then set out for Barton’s room. He knocked but did not bother for an answer, opening the door to let himself in and then throwing himself to one side as Natasha made a bee line for the open door.

“You deal with him!” Natasha growled as she marched out, her face set in a scowl that promised pain for anyone unfortunate enough to get in the way of her retreat.

And yes, Phil was willing to call it for what it was: a full retreat from the battlefield.

He knew Barton was a difficult patient even in the best of times, easily bored by bed rest and far too willing to jump the gun on recovery times. Barton never lied about his physical condition, but that honesty had very little bearing on what he actually did.

Natasha slammed the door, a totally premeditated and calculated move, probably to let Barton know her opinion.

“Good riddance!” Barton called from the bedroom, his voice strained by the pain he was in.

Phil made sure to make noise as he walked into the bedroom, which went against all of his training. “Barton. Are you causing Agent Romanoff to go on a bender again?”

“No?” Barton looked like an invalid from a classic movie, sitting in his bed in old fashioned pajamas (probably Natasha’s idea, Phil decided) and his face lightly bandaged. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, though. “Maybe. Maybe she deserves it.” In total, Barton looked all of five years old, pouting about having to stay inside on the weekend because he was sick. Phil reprimanded himself for finding it adorable.

“Maybe you tried her patience with your continual, repeated complaining about being bored.”

Barton’s mouth was a straight line. “You don’t know that.”

“I know you, when you’re on bed rest. So, since we can’t watch television, what do you suggest?” He sat down in the small upholstered chair that was set near the bed. He took a moment to really look around, because aside from his barely-remembered visit that afternoon, he had never been in Barton’s quarters before. It was as Spartan and utilitarian as he suspected it would be, except for an old, framed circus poster on one wall and a small bookcase full of paperbacks. “What were you and Romanov doing?”

“Nothing. I can’t watch TV, listening to it annoys me, and we couldn’t agree on a book for her to read aloud. So mostly we argued.”

“Argued?” Phil stretched out his legs and clasped his hands on his stomach.

“It’s a thing.”

“Right.” Phil got that answer a lot from them about a wide variety of topics, and had learned not to ask for details. He glanced over at Barton, who was still vibrating with tension on the bed. Phil sighed. “Agent, report.”

“Fucking eleven out of ten, sir.”

Phil sat up. “Did you take the pain meds?”

“Nat gave me my dose two hours ago. But it’s just fucking Tylenol, and my eyes feel like they are on goddamn fire, sir.”

Phil reassessed the clinched fists. Barton was not just stressed, he was holding himself back from trying rub at his eyes. In a matter of mind over matter, Barton would win every time, but the battle itself would take a toll. Recovery required actual rest, whether Barton liked the idea or not, and at the moment Barton was a human trip wire set to blow.

“What can I do to help?”

“I asked Nat for a blowjob, but she turned me down,” Barton said, his smile fixed and tight.

Phil normally didn’t blush easily, he had seen too much of the world to pretend to be innocent or surprised, but something about sitting in Barton’s bedroom talking about blowjobs did the trick. He managed to keep his voice level, despite himself. “I’ll keep that in mind. How about I read to you?”

“We can argue over the choice of book, that would be distracting.”

“You choose.”

Barton sat quietly a moment. “Really? Yeah, okay, Lord of the Rings. Just don’t tell Stark, I’m tired of the damn Legolas jokes.”

“Not sure he means them as jokes.” Phil got up and inspected the book shelf until he found the first volume. “From the beginning?”

“Yeah.” Barton eased back a little in a parody of relaxing, his fists still held tight against his thighs.

Phil read for an hour, his voice finally giving out about the time Barton started gasping in pain, although he was trying to hide it.

“It’s another hour at least before you get pain meds,” Phil said gently, his voice scratchy. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep at all?”

“No. No! I fucking hate this. I hate it. I’m in a lot of pain and I hate it.” Barton took a deep breath. “Sorry, sir, just…a lot of pain.”

“You can call me Phil.” Phil put the book aside and rubbed his eyes. He looked over to where Barton was sitting tight and confused.

“Phil? Okay. Sure. And I’m Clint, right?”

“Last I checked.”

Clint huffed. “Smart ass.”

“It’s a valid defense technique, as you know.” Phil spoke lightly but studied Clint’s expression and body clinically, seeing a man holding himself in agony. The doctor had made it clear that aside from the eye drops and the mild pain killers, there wasn’t anything she could do about the pain, and Clint was going to simply have to power through it. Phil had seen Clint in pain before, but this made him feel particularly helpless, and he could only imagine how frustrated Clint was on top of the pain. They had not talked about recovery one way or another, since it was something Clint had already brushed off the few times Phil referred to “later.”

Before he could second guess his motives, Phil got up and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Clint, who frowned, his head tilting in Phil’s direction. “Let me help.” Phil reached out and gently took Clint’s right fist into his hands. The muscles were corded tightly, his hand frozen stiff. It had been a long time since Phil had done this particular massage but it was hardly complicated. He held Barton’s arm in both of his hands and pushed his thumbs into the muscles along the inside of his forearm, staggering the pressure as he massaged up from the wrist. He kept his motions fluid, sweeping his fingers over skin and muscle, applying pressure where he felt the muscles bunched up around tendons.

Clint gasped and arched into it, taken off guard. “Shit, shit, oh man!”

“If it’s too much, let me know.”

“Don’t stop,” Clint ground out, his voice deep and gravely and Phil did not think of porn.

Assets like Clint and Natasha and even Phil himself were on regular rotation for massages. They got hassled for it by the desk jockeys but Fury knew that staying in top physical condition was not just about how hard you can hit or far you can run so he made it mandatory. The massages by the SHEILD physical therapists were perfunctory, though; effective, but not intimate. They worked their way through the muscle groups and then dumped their clients into a sauna. The kind of work that Phil was doing on Clint’s arm was nothing of the sort, something he picked up from a girlfriend when he was in the Rangers. She was a new-agey masseuse with a uniform kink, so it worked well for both of them when he was in town. Nearly twenty years later, what he remembered most vividly was the way her hands would work him down during a massage, lighting him up in glorious pain as she just short of pulled muscle from bone.

Phil turned that intensity on Clint, kneading muscles and flexing tendons and pushing blood back and forth through his skin. He kept at it until he heard Clint sigh heavily, genuinely relaxing into the pillows, his head against the headboard and his mouth open, slackjawed from the sensations. There was a glistening trail of sweat along his hairline. His fist had uncurled and his whole arm was resting in Phil’s lap like a dead weight.

Phil gently lifted Clint’s arm and placed it on the bed. Clint groaned, but shut up quickly with a surprised intake of breath when Phil crawled over his legs. He sat down on the other side, cross-legged on the mattress, and picked up Clint’s left arm.

He knew he was crossing a line, but he had nothing else to give Clint to take the pain away, and it hurt Phil too much to see the man he loved in such ongoing agony. He would not let himself get too wrapped up in it, he promised himself as he dug his thumbs into Clint’s forearm and started all over again.