It's at three AM, over a bowl of overly sweet cereal and too-strong coffee that Clint decides he's in love with Tony Stark. There's no moment of shock, no gasped realization, he simply looks over at the man trying valiantly to wrestle a poptart away from his toaster with a pair of tongs and decides that yes, he loves him. He doesn't say anything, a sweeping declaration would send Tony running for the hills and they're both too wired and too battle-weary to get anything out of it even if he didn't. Clint isn't an idiot, he knows this has been coming for a while, even though he's a little curious why he chose this moment, of all the possible moments, to finally let the pieces click together.
Between one bite of cereal and the next the curiosity is gone and he stops caring about the when or the why. Somewhere between falling into bed together drunk, semi-regular not entirely sober conversations and patching each other up after missions that always go at least a little bad he had come to care for the man currently threatening the toaster with a screwdriver. Around half-meant insults and half-hearted pranks, complaining about each others taste in movies and too much take out, that care had turned into something warm and not entirely welcome that had settled in his chest and made him seek Tony out more often than not. And somewhere around all of that, around the absolutely crazy-amazing mess his life had become since a keycard and an address had shown up in his mailbox one day out of the blue, he had let that warm feeling solidify into something he could call love.
Tony it seemed, while he was taking another bite of cereal and starting to warm up to the idea, had finally won his fight with the appliance and walked over to him if the warm hand on his shoulder was any indication. The half-eaten, mostly-burnt pastry that was shoved in his direction snapped him out of it and he tilted his head back to look up at the man he loved, and when that man just rolled his eyes and stole what was left of Clint's coffee... well... Clint realized that maybe worse things had happened at three AM.
Little fill a day late but it wouldn't leave me alone
Between one bite of cereal and the next the curiosity is gone and he stops caring about the when or the why. Somewhere between falling into bed together drunk, semi-regular not entirely sober conversations and patching each other up after missions that always go at least a little bad he had come to care for the man currently threatening the toaster with a screwdriver. Around half-meant insults and half-hearted pranks, complaining about each others taste in movies and too much take out, that care had turned into something warm and not entirely welcome that had settled in his chest and made him seek Tony out more often than not. And somewhere around all of that, around the absolutely crazy-amazing mess his life had become since a keycard and an address had shown up in his mailbox one day out of the blue, he had let that warm feeling solidify into something he could call love.
Tony it seemed, while he was taking another bite of cereal and starting to warm up to the idea, had finally won his fight with the appliance and walked over to him if the warm hand on his shoulder was any indication. The half-eaten, mostly-burnt pastry that was shoved in his direction snapped him out of it and he tilted his head back to look up at the man he loved, and when that man just rolled his eyes and stole what was left of Clint's coffee... well... Clint realized that maybe worse things had happened at three AM.